You brought an elephant home to dinner?

I'm sure, if you're like me, that you are sick of everyone complaining about the weather the nanosecond it turns a bit chilly. Snuggle up inside with hot chocolate by the fire already! If you don't happen to have a fireplace, google a picture of a fire...and then burn it.

Unfortunately, my house isn't letting me be all warm and cozy inside. We have tile floors that suck the life and warmth right out of my sole, of my feet. The simple solution would be to wear socks. Bad news. I can't keep socks on for crap.

I go to bed with socks on and they rebel, crawl off my toes, and join the gigantic pile at the foot of the bed. Then when Michael gets me up in the morning, I forget to fish them out of the covers. Voila, chilly, chilly, piggies! This just really sets the mood for the day. Nobody wants to wake up early and immediately feel like they've been thrown onto an arctic tundra. Just saying.

Michael also has a cold, which is why I'm cutting this entry short. Terrible way to leave you guys for the weekend, sorry. It's also a long weekend so there may not be a post Monday. I'm just not bloggerific today. Give me a few days to warm up and get relaxed again--then you'll have wonderful things to read.

And because I'm feeling a rather Angelina Jolie caliber of motherly today, your gift is an African baby to adopt.



Today's subject line quote is from Alf of "ALF" (1986).

You read magazines, sip coffee, and every so often, someone tries to kill you.

There is not a coffee mug in the world big enough for the amount of caffeine I need today. I could be chugging it out of 7/11 Big Gulp cup and still be dragging ass.

Michael got up a whopping total of 3 times last night. I prefer it when he gets up 0 times. Actually, I prefer it when he sleeps so damn long that I get worried and have to come poke him awake. I'm assuming it was teething issues--so drugs before bed, it is! There's always a slim chance that nothing was wrong and he just wanted to be a turd in pajamas. So drugs before bed, it is!

Hopefully he'll crash in a couple of hours and I can take a nap. Then I can feel like less of a zombie that craves java instead of brains. I'm still moaning "braaaaiinnnsss" though. Sorry but "caaapppuuccciiinnnooooooooo" just isn't as shiver inducible...no matter how evil hippies think Starbuck's is.

Now for something exciting! In planning our family vacation this year, we invited all of our siblings to chime in with ideas and offers to come along. In doing so, my mother-in-law volunteered to watch Michael while we have a real vacation...as adults.

Do you know how fabulous this is? We can enjoy things like, restaurants. No worries of keeping Michael entertained while we eat. Hell, I can even eat my own plate of food without sharing! Wow, it really is those little things that you start to appreciate. We can also check out the night life and ride rollercoasters! Holy crap...we can sleep in!

Now I just have to convince myself it's okay to leave him behind, much less for more than a day or two. It's looking like Disney World is the winning bid for Vaycay. But is it just cruel to go to the "Happiest Place on Earth" without your kid? He's not old enough to appreciate it or even remember...so as long as we go back when he's older, I'm square right?

So far my vacation is a nice guilt trip.

Onto the presents. Because I can't think of anything more fantastic than this today, you're all getting a lifetime supply of Children's Tylenol, Baby Orajel, and a bucket of coffee.



The subject line quote of the day is Michael Westen, "Burn Notice" (2007) {Pilot (#1.1)}

Clyde, have you been hiding a book of poetry out in those bushes?

I just pinched the holy shizzam out of my inner thigh trying to climb over this mini fence we put up in the office.

I have an expandable baby gate spreading the length of the room to keep Michael from popping back behind the desk to eat a tasty electrical cord and erase valuable blog material with an accidental ctrl-alt-mystery press of a button. Unfortunately, this gargantuan blockage is probably half of my 5'4 stature. Forgive me for not being able to hike my toes up past my earlobes to climb over it all the time. Fabulous! Off to a great start today.

But today's blog isn't about bad happenings and painful morning debacles. It is a fat, jolly, Santa Clause of an entry! Why? Well, I've started painting again!

This is the first time I've held a brush and smeared paint all over a canvas (and a lot of times my face via that itchy spot that always seems to show up when I've got Cadmium Red on my fingers) since 2006. I've doodled and even designed some things on the computer with my drawing tablet (Peacock, anyone?) , but nothing quite as epic as breaking out the easel again.

That creative little something living inside me finally woke up. I'm doing good to take a half hour nap and this spark gets to lay in a coma for 3 years? I'm so enthralled with my urge to be artsy that I'm even considering starting up a business out of my house to sell my Henna Designs.

It's just a glimmer of hope for a productive life with more "fun money." There's a lot of work to be done like producing an image guide to choose from, promoting a website, determining pricing and childcare costs, etc. But if I'm in a mood to draw anyway, why not just start working on the image guide now? Once it's finished, I'll start thinking about advertising. I can even use Vista Print for cards, flyers, pens, and the like.

My point isn't to go back to work or even about making money; it's about me getting my artistry out there. It's no secret that I need and love a lot of attention. I thrive on dissecting my thoughts and putting them into a visual form--whether in paintings or with words.

This brings me to today's gift. Have a fish!

It's a painting I did, in my sketchbook, for a class. Maybe if you're nice to me, I'll also give you a poem.

Today's subject line quote is from Clara Mason of "The Munsters (1964) {Cyrano De Munster (#2.23)}.

Oh, as usual. Dear.

My, My. Friday night was a blast, as usual. Geraldine started off our evening by shoving a giant piece of sushi in her mouth in time for our waitress at Uni to ask how we were doing. Nothing like trying to talk with jumbo shrimp tempura poking out your lips, eh?

Her reply of "fine" sounded more like "mung." Which in turn, made Kelly nearly spit Diet Coke out of her nose. Me? I didn't manage to embarrass myself until about 2 hours, a strawberry daiquiri, and 2 shots, of what can only be described as a tube of Listerine, later.

Remember those family friendly sitcoms on Friday nights that often ended in a cheesy, heartfelt message of why drinking is bad by showcasing a friend of the family who ended up dancing topless at a frat party or something? That's me. Not the topless part--but the drinking is bad PSA-esque behavior all the same. As I recall, I did molest a straw and yell "victory lap" before spinning my chair around...multiple times.

I should also preface that G did not, in fact, look like Street Walkin' Barbie. Her tube top was much more sophisticated than I had pictured in my head. It went very well with her "Indonesian Emerald" necklace. (It wasn't really...she just kept telling everyone that. Wow, you guys are suckers. Shut up, you are.) Kelly also looked very nice, which might be why we got hit on by E7, Beaufort, and Bobby "the bitch." Kelly also freaked out a table of boys who waved her over, by not only pointing frantically at her wedding ring and screaming "I'm married!" but E felt it necessary to cowboy over and straighten them out.

I never got E's name because when asked it, he gave us his former army rank instead. Beaufort I nicknamed "B" to correspond with Geraldine's "G." And Bobby's just a bitch because B said so. That, and he kept getting into G's bubble. Personal space should still be maintained while drunk. Even if it is your birthday.

By the way, I looked like this
and this and this . Complete with an emo-y self portrait of my makeup. I know the shirt is bright, but I thought tropical rainforest kimono was a good look for me.

You'll be happy to know that I didn't fall down in my sexy heels! You'll also be happy to know that I locked myself in Geraldine's car and had to knock on the window until she and Kelly came to let me out. I suppose I was too busy singing "Just Dance" by Lady Gaga in the backseat to notice them getting out. There was also the knocking over of a drink, the spilling of candle wax trying to reignite the tea light at our table, and I even started a riveting conversation about the word "good" being a subjective term in literature...because I'm a big, fat, smarty pants. I believe it was shortly before or after that point that I gave out this blog address on straw wrappers.

Yes. I pimped out my blog to bar patrons.

So, today's present for reading my blog is the mental image of me swaying back and forth in the backseat to Lady Gaga, repeating the lyrics after they've already been sung line by line. At one point I even shimmied to a laying position on the seat and sprang back up. So here...Just Dance.



Today's subject line quote is from Giles of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997) {Doomed(#4.11)} in honor of Geraldine pointing out 8 deer by the side of the road by very meekly saying "Oh, deer."