More Things I Don't Get

I think it's official. 

I'm incapable of being successfully trendy. I try, I do, but I just never seem to understand the majority of trends. 

Pinterest never seems to fail in the area of giving me more shit I just don't get. Sometimes when I'm browsing it's pages {for hours} I stumble upon things that make me think "why?"

Things like:

Wine Cork Crafts

Wreathes, coasters, picture frames, cork boards...the ideas are endless. And ridiculous. As the daughter of a hoarder, I sometimes want to comment on these things and remind people: wine corks are trash. They are no better than the lids to your milk cartons. And really, you only get them from finishing a bottle of wine. So having enough to make a HUGE wreath out of them...doesn't that really just scream "Look what an alcoholic I am!" I mean, if you saw someone collect all their cigarette butts and paint them fancy colors, then make shit out of them, you'd be disgusted. Why is this any better? Because wine is classier?

Um, if you've ever seen a housewife on her  4th glass of white after an emotional episode of Sex and the City, you'd find nothing classy about wine.

The Obsessive Need to Improve Things:

Do you know where I got the above picture?

From a pin about how you don't have to peel hard boiled eggs if you cut them in half and then scoop the insides out with a spoon.

Really?

Because it's so fucking hard to peel a damn egg?

And because busting out TWO utensils instead of using your damn hands and a garbage bag actually makes anything any easier?

Don't get me wrong, I am all for improving life in small ways and I have found endless ways to organize my house, exfoliate my face and spend 200 bucks a month on groceries for 3 people.

But some improvements are just stupid.

I want to see a pin that's about using something for it's actual purpose.

Making Fat Foods Skinny Foods:

I don't get this, and not only do I not understand it, it pisses me off. DON'T MAKE MY FAT FOODS SKINNY.

If I am going to break down and eat junk food, I want the satisfaction of eating my self loathing in the form of saturated fat, calories, refined sugars and carbs. Glorious, glorious carbs.

If I want to eat healthy, I want it to taste freaking healthy so I can feel smug and self righteous about myself after eating it.

I don't want to be all "Oooh that cucumber tasted like pizza thanks to this recipe I found involving chili powder and Quinoa" I want to be all "Hey, that cucumber I just ate tasted EXACTLY like a damn cucumber and I ate it anyway. ON PURPOSE. I rule!"

Some awesome "skinny" recipes you can find online:

Skinny cheese fries. What. The. Fuck.

Skinny barbecue

Skinny quesadillas.

Really, just fucking shoot me.

The Friday Diary: Where I Make It Up To You

 Hellooooo Friday.

I would like to take a moment and apologize to the imaginary people that I imagine read this blog, for my sporadic and probably very depressing posting lately.

I've been a bad blog friend. 

BUT LOOK! I make it up to you at the last minute by writing a Friday diary.

Can we be friends again?

I sure hope so.

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Overheard this week:

Jackson: I am too full to finish my dinner. Can I have ice cream now?

Me: If you're too full to finish your food, how do you have room for ice cream in your tummy?

Jackson: I have a different tummy just for ice cream and there's room in there because you haven't given me any ice cream.

Touche.

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Gave in this week:

On Twitter.

Yes, I did it.

{I can literally hear Bill laughing at me right now}

I know, I was ashamed of me too at first.

But it's not so bad! It's just scary and confusing and very lonely at first...Plus I may have openly confessed to stalking a fellow blogger on my Twitter feed for all the world to see. 

I wonder if I can update my blog from prison.

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Relaxed:

On Tuesday instead of going out to eat on my lunch break, I ran an errand, grabbed some Starbucks and hit the library. 

I pillaged their section where they sell used books for obscenely cheap, and grabbed 4 books for $5. Not a bad lunch hour if you ask me.

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Pintastrophy:

I tried making these potato things that I found on Pinterest.

The picture made them look so delicious, and the instructions were easy enough.

As you can see, mine didn't turn out quite the same.

They were tasty and all, but they never really got crispy except around the very outer edge, and no matter long I cooked them they never got really cooked down at the bottom where they were attached to the body of the potato.

Oh well. It was a nice idea and I wasn't going to use those potatoes for anything anyway.

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Gifted:

When Bill came back {finally} from being out town {for like a million years} he was sweet enough to bring me this little guy, who lives on my desk now.

I named him Fergus. He's kind of a naughty bastard.

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Made:

Lainie got her craft on and made my dad {several} very pretty birthday cards with my scrapbook paper while I was cleaning and not paying attention. 

I hope he appreciates all 20 of them.

Note to self: buy more glitter.

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Reminisced:

All this cancer business has made me very aware of the past, and it's been heavily on my mind lately. So on 4th of July before we got down to some hardcore celebrating, I took Jack to the little park in the neighborhood I grew up in where I played when I was younger. It was overcast and cool, and the perfect day to sit on a bench and remember.

P.S. Jackson needs to stop growing up. Like now.

Laughed:

And now for a laugh, something I was introduced to by Motley Mama, and have not been able to stop reading since:

Honest Toddler on Twitter.

{for those of you who are as new to twitter as I am, start at the bottom and read up. I learned that today. You're welcome.}

Happy Friday!

Things I Don't Get

There are so many things exploding with popularity right now, it's insane. 

And sadly, I've jumped on the bandwagon for most of them. 

Pinterest? Absolutely.

Grey's Anatomy? Abso-fucking-lutely.

Becoming a DIY crazed crafty crafter? Well....in my dreams anyway. Not yet in real life.

Using Mason jars for absolutely everything? OHMYGODYES.

Oh, yeah, I also joined the world wide lust for Channing Tatum and Patrick Dempsey. 

I get it now, ladies. 

I get it.

However there are some trends that I just cannot get on board with no matter how bad I try, and secretly really want to. It's Tuesday and I'm bored because Bill is out of town with his kids and I have no one to have lunch with, so I decided the best use of my time would be to list all those things here.

{No, I shouldn't be actually working instead, BILL.}

1. Shades of Grey. Up until the other day I totally thought that this Christian Grey everyone was talking about, was Meredith's brother. Honestly, I love erotic literature. Literotica, as I like to refer to it. It's awesome. You can get your porn on without actually having to watch someone be degraded, abused, and smacked in the face with various genitalia. But after like 29 million of my co-workers started raving about this book, I picked it up and flipped through it in the book section at Target {yes, sometimes I look for good literature at Target, DON'T JUDGE ME THEY HAVE EVERYTHING}. I read all of about 6 paragraphs and had to put it down-nay, throw it down. The writing is awful. Just....awful. If you're going to try to seduce my mind, you need to have better linguistic elegance than "Laters Baby". I'm sorry, I couldn't get over that shit. It just sounded too much like something a 14 year old girl would say in a text, or to your face whilst giving you a new age "i have no idea what peace signs mean" peace sign and flipping her hair.

Moving on.

2. Chevron print...anything. I'm sorry, I really don't get what's so amazing about this print! I try, I do. And I admit, some stuff that features it is cute. I'm not saying it's hideous, I just don't understand why it's all of a sudden everybody's everything, and Pinterest is literally drowning in DIY instructions on how to basically Chevron print your whole house!

I feel like it's the new animal print from the late 90's. It's cute in moderation, but we're all going to take it so far that in 10 years we'll never be able to stand the sight of the stuff every again.

3. Running. Seriously, when the hell did everyone become a fucking runner? The other day a facebook friend was talking about how she really enjoyed her 3 mile run at 5 in the morning. I'm sorry, nobody enjoys getting out of bed at 5 in the morning for anything other than sex or donuts. If you ever see me running, please call the police because I am being chased by someone with a huge knife. 

4. Instagram. Don't get me wrong, I love Instagram. I think it's super cool. BUT, all I see now are people Instagramming pictures of what they had for breakfast, or what they're doing at that exact second, or the drink from the gas station that they really liked. Isn't that the same shit that all my non blogging friends gave me shit for doing FOR YEARS when I was all "hold on I wanna take a picture of this for my blog", and now they're all doing it just because Instagram is cool?!

Pfft. Posers. 

5. Tumblr. Maybe I can't get on board with it because I don't understand it. Someone, please tell me, what the fuck is it?!

I want to stop here and let you all know that I mean no judgment on anyone who does or enjoys or agrees with any of the above mentioned things. They're all things that have all existed in my world previously and bothered me none. This is more me saying "What the fuck when did these things get so huge, and why?!" than me saying that they're stupid or wrong.

Just imagine you woke up tomorrow and all of a sudden everyone was wearing clothes made out of toilet paper, and no one acted like the sudden phenomenon was weird or out of the ordinary. Sure you like toilet paper, but you'd still be all "What in the fuck?"

That's how I feel about poorly written literotica. 

Pinterest Projects: Canvas Quotes

My Pinterest boards are out of control. 

Mainly, my "things I want to make board" is out of control. 

It's my digitized version of hoarding.

I could pin stuff all day long, every single day that I want to make, but unless I actually make any of it, I'm just wasting my time.

So I decided that once a month {minimum, but hopefully more} I will pick something off that board and do it.

Then if it turns out ok, I will give you all instructions on how to do it, or just post pretty pictures of the shit I make so you all feel inferior to my crafty skills.

Just kidding.

mostly.

I digress.

The first project I picked was actually picked by Lainie:

Quotes/song lyrics on canvas. 

The idea is simple: to have pretty letters that seemingly appear to be cut out of beautiful backgrounds on solid painted canvas.

And the instructions are easy. 

You can find the step by step from the original author here.

I liked her idea, and definitely wanted to try it, but I knew ahead of time I would change it quite a bit. 

For instance, I wanted mine to be smoother and less textured than the ones above.

I was going for something clean and classic that would go well with the comfortable but classy decorating scheme I've been dreaming up for the house these days.

Behold, the product of me and Lainie's entire Saturday:

Supplies. We got a two pack of canvas so we could each make one, and 3 packs of vinyl stickers because they were on clearance at Michael's and we wanted to be sure we had enough. 

The spray paint was .97 cents at Walmart, the scrapbook paper was 5 dollars for the whole pack of it, and each package of stickers was 1.29. Oh, and the Modge Podge was like 4 bucks. 

I used a page of scrap book paper that looked like an old map of Chicago's train routes, because the quote I was putting on mine was travel related, and I am giving it to my dad and he has a soft spot for Chicago. 

Perfect!

I traced the canvas on the back of the paper, and cut just inside my trace lines so I was sure the paper wouldn't hang over the edges of the canvas anywhere. Your edges don't have to be perfect because they'll be glued down and painted over anyway, so no one will know.

Cover just the outer edge on the under side of the paper with Modge Podge, as sometimes regular paper will wrinkle from the heavy weight of the Modge Podge.

Stick on your letters. 

Mine were a little wonky and crooked, but it was my first time, and I was kind of OK with a more messy, spontaneous look. It fits the travel and live your life theme I was going for.

Spray paint. Outside on the ground, of course. Not on your hardwood floor.

And you're done. 

You may need the paint the sides of the canvas by hand with craft paint if it's windy outside because the spray paint might decide to blow anywhere but the edges of the canvas like you want it to. Not that this happened to me or anything....

Like I said, this one is a present for my dad. Since his diagnoses his mantra of sorts has been that if he survives this {which he will} he's going to eat better, live better, and finally see the world.

So hopefully this reminds him to do just that when he gets home.

Happy Pinteresting!

The Friday Diary pt. 5

Happy Friday everybody!!!! 

As usual, let's have some boozy ice cream and round up the monotony that was my week....so that one day we can all look back and remember fondly that time I went to the dentist.

So this was a short week for me, having Monday off and all thanks to good old MLK. When you were little and you saw MLK Day on your school calendar, did you totally think it meant Milk Day, or was that just me? 

Anyway....

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I've been listening to this:



Do you remember that song? It's the one that Juliet walked down the isle to in the 90's remake of Romeo and Juliet with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. Absolutely beautiful song.

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I've been hanging out at Costco eating free samples and sitting on the new couches they have there. P.S. when did Costco get couches?!
After I move I want this one:

It was drool inducing comfortable.

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I've been reading the book, P.S. I Love You. Considering the fact that I have seen the movie, you'd think I would know better than to read the book. And in case you were wondering, the book will make you cry way harder than the movie, and way sooner too.

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I've been a little more hardcore this week about my diet than I was being before, but then I had a huge attack of ice pick like headaches Wednesday which only went away after eating bread. Turned out I had an inner ear infection. But for the two days that I thought it was from carb withdrawal, I started being a total asshole and eating absolute shit food out of rebellion. Last night I ate an entire box of Perogies by myself.
I fucking love Perogies. 

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Since the New Year I've been super obsessed with getting organized. This is the year, I've decided. I'm gonna do it.  

My first project is going to be the kids room because that room makes me the itchiest. Once we move the kids will have their own rooms, and organization will be easier. Thanks to Pinterest, I have all kinds of neat ideas, starting with this one:

They're Ikea spice racks used as bookshelves. Fancy that.

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I've also been working on two new series that will be emerging this month: the 2012 photo challenge, which you can find details on in the tab above, and another one that will be called "Monday Momisms" or something like that. It won't necessarily be a weekly thing, because I'm not disciplined enough for that, but it will be entirely mom-oriented posts. Don't worry, no giveaways or contests, or obnoxious begging for you to vote for my kid in some stupid photo contest. Just stuff about being a mom. Stuff like the challenges that each of my children come with, getting organized, living on a budget, what being a single mom is like, and the occasional advice when I feel qualified enough to offer it, on how to make minion raising a little easier. The first installment is this Monday, so I hope you like it!

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And last but not least, I leave you with this awesome video, thanks to Tales of Me and the Husband, inspired by Shit Girls Say:

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The Friday Diary pt. 4

I really don't think that this week could have been more uneventful. 

So instead of posting a list of the things I did, which would be more non-existent than short, I decided to go rando this Friday.

Here's a bunch of random shit that you may or may not find interesting, courtesy of me.

Happy Friday!

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I really want to make these chalkboards:

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This is the most expensive dessert in the world:

It's called Frrrozen Haute Chocolate and it costs $25,000.00

Is it bad that I really need to know what 25k dollar ice cream taste like?

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Speaking of ice cream, the drunky AND the fatty inside me want to try this:

Can you say best of both worlds?!

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I really really want to make this too:

I'm feeling crafty lately

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Is it just me, or is a guy instantly 200% hotter when he is wearing aviators? 

I want to get a pair of these for Bill:

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I'm seriously contemplating dying my hair this color this summer when it's a bit longer:

Thoughts?

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I've been feel super nostalgic for this movie lately:

Cool Hand Luke. One of the best movies ever.

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And last but not least, I am loving this cover of "You Really Got a Hold on Me" by She and Him: