WTF, Cynthia?

My first experience with Cynthia Rowley = Epic fail

I ordered this really adorable Cynthia Rowley dress online. It's short, tie dyed, has a bow tie. What's not to like? All the reviews said her dresses run small so I bought up a size just in case.



I got it in the mail yesterday. It's totally beautiful. One problem though. Its proportions are completely whack. The top fits perfectly but the bottom is apparently sized for a woman whose thighs are smaller than her knees. And that woman also likes it when her dress is pleated to create a giant fabric bubble over her ass.

It's getting sent back and the refund is going into my Ridiculous San Francisco Shopping Spree money jar.

Oh. Dear. Jesus???

I sincerely apologize to everyone in advance for the images you are about to see...

These images give me a serious case of the heeby jeebies. WTF is up with a giant crucified Jesus statue in the dining room? Keep in mind that this is someone's HOME! Can you imagine getting up in the middle of the night for a drink of water and having to walk past that thing???

Don't take it personal, Jesus. I have no problem with someone wanting to display religious art in their home. Knock yourselves out. But this? This is downright freaky. A giant statue of any man, regardless of his level of holiness, hanging on the wall in the dining room is effing weird.





I stole these from Apartment Therapy. Clicky the linky if you wish to see the full house tour.

Tips: Removing Paint From Windows

I spent yesterday afternoon helping my dad fix our basement door. We (or he rather) got the threshold down and changed the lock and bolt set on the door. That only took a measly four hours! Today he's coming back to help install the new storm door.

Also included in the running list of "Why The Hell Would Anyone Do That?" house repairs is scraping the paint off the door's windows. The old owners painted the doors, the door knobs, the stripped screws, the keys to the door... Why? Seriously, why do people paint over windows? I know the obvious answer is "So people can't see inside," but that's not the answer I'm looking for. The answer is, "Because they're lazy." Only lazy people paint over windows.

Curtains or contact paper folks. It's as simple as that.

Obviously, the painted windows have to go. There are three small windows and I've got the paint scraped off one of them so far. It took me maybe 20-30 minutes. It was pretty easy. Obviously, it will scrape off with a razor blade, but the real trick is to spray it with Windex as you scrape. It will soften the latex a little bit and make it peel easier.

Gotta get back to those windows! Up next is scraping the paint off the garage windows... Fun!

My First Circus

As the title might imply, I went to my very first circus this weekend. Is that kind of pathetic? My parents never took my sister and me as kids. Then by the time I got old enough to realize how creepy they really were I lost interest in ever going. A family friend bought us tickets though, so I kind of had to go.

Was the circus creepy? Yes, yes it was. The acrobatics were like watching a low-rent, heartless Cirque De Soleil show.



Some of the performers weren't very good, and they were all a little dead behind the eyes. Can I blame them though? They work in a traveling circus. That's got to be one of the strangest professions in the world. I also really, really hated watching the tigers. I feel so bad for those poor animals. They spend their lives stuck in cages, (alternating between the back of a truck and an arena) being yelled at by some Russian dude. I'm pretty sure that isn't exactly what nature had planned for them.

I also felt bad for the elephants, but I enjoyed watching them. Mostly because they loved taking dumps while they should be acting majestically.



You know who else loved watching the elephants poop? Harry.



It was great seeing my niece and nephew have so much fun (and sugar). Glad I'm not the one who had to take them home... Before the show Harry kept saying he wanted to go to the "kirkus" to see the "elements." He saw those elements alright...

And then here's this last picture because I thought it was cool. I was looking at it and it reminded me of an old school photo of the circus, so I photoshopped it til its last breathe.

Ouch

Ouch That Hurts: Paying $316 for new tags on my husband's car... that we're due last June.

No Really, That Hurts: Paying $316 for new tags on my husband's car and paying $150 to get his car out of impound for having said expired tags.

For Real! That hurts. Knock It OFF: Paying $316 for new tags on my husband's car and paying $150 to get his car out of impound for having said expired tags, then paying another $300 when the tags are due again at the end of the month.

I have a sneaking suspicion that his 2009 renewal is going to be late. Just a hunch I have... But we learned our lesson about tempting fate for eleven whole months. You may think you're getting away with something but then one day it's going to catch up with you and your car is going to disappear from the street in front of your brother's house, only to turn up the next morning at the city impound lot.

For Real?

You know what's annoying?

I've had two people come to me this month and tell me that they want websites that look like The Office TV show's website. Whatever, it's a fun site. That's not the annoying part.

The annoying part is that Matt and I avoid all things Office and wait until the DVDs come out so we can sit in front of the TV - like a couple of losers - and watch the seasons all in one sitting. It's so much more satisfying that way. During the TV season we avoid it at all costs. We plug our ears and humm through the commercials. We leave the room when our friends talk about it. I fast forwarded through clips during the Emmys. I've stopped reading peoples' blogs who talk about it.

And now, after all that effort, I'm forced to view their site for my job.

Bastards.

Time to hit the Feria.

I went to the store today and a little girl was staring at me. After a few seconds she turned to her mom and said, "Look Mom, that girl's hair is orange!"

Vicki Christina Nebraska

I am so sick of winter. The windchill this morning was -9°. That is outrageous for March. I'm looking at our Florida trip in May as a break from the winter, because it seriously feels like this is never going to end!

We stayed in bed last night and watched Vicki Christina Barcelona. I don't want to say that it was a terrible movie but... it was a terrible movie. The character of Vicki is clearly Woody Allen and they're both clearly in love with Scarlett Johansson. ScarJo on the other hand tops my list of Hollywood's Most Overrated. I swear the only reason she keeps getting work is because she's hot when she pouts.

Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem's scenes carried the movie. I could have watched an entire ninety minutes of them screaming at each other in Spanish. They're both such great performers they make you forget that you're watching another annoyingly neurotic Woody Allen movie. And yes, I understand that "annoyingly neurotic" is his schtick but enough already.

From now on whenever he releases a new movie I'm just going to skip it and watch Annie Hall. Annie Hall is one of my all time top five favorite movies. That's why it makes me so mad that Woody Allen circa everything-after-1977 sucks. It's also why I'm incapable of not watching his movies when they come out.

Blood and Needles = Me Not Okay

I have this funny little story that I've never told. The only people I've told are my hubs, Cat and her hubs, and maybe our parents. Why? Because it's embarrassing. Why am I now sharing it? Because if it hadn't happened to me it would probably be one of the funniest things I've ever heard.

I went to the doctor for a shot in the arm. Simple enough, right? No, shots anything medically related makes me queasy. It was towards the end of the day so had to sit in the doctor's office for probably forty minutes before I could get in for my thirty second appointment, so I was a little worked up by the time the nurse called me back. This poor nurse was a very sweet lady who just graduated from school if I remember correctly. This was the third in a series of arm shots and I told her that the shots hurt. They aren't bad at first but then after a couple of seconds it feels someone punched me in the arm. She said it was probably because my arms are so lean and she would pinch the skin up so the needle would go into more fat and hurt less.

Okay, whatever, she's the professional here.

So that's what she does. But something went a little wrong. I heard her say, "Oops! I think I hit an artery!" And like an idiot I looked down at my arm which is now spurting blood. The room got a little dim and I think I uttered an "Oh no." She asked me if I was alright, which clearly I wasn't, and I told her that blood sort of freaks me out. She had me sit down in a chair and relax for a minute while she tried to stop the bleeding. I'm familiar with the feeling of my medical nausea though and I knew the only way I was going to be okay was if I fled the building and sat in my car with my head between my knees. Really, it works. Sometimes I get a Sprite in the parking garage too.

She reluctantly let me leave and walked me to the billing counter. I was very much not okay by the time we reach that billing counter. I was clutching the counter for dear life and my vision was blurry. I was so desperate to leave that rather than sit down and give myself a minute, I followed her out into the lobby.

It is at this point that I pass out. On top of the nurse. I was trying to walk to the nearest chair but my feet felt like they were stuck to the floor and the lights went out. I fell forwards on top of her and sort of bounced off and landed backwards on my butt and elbows. Purse and coat went flying. I never lost consciousness, I just lost the ability to see, talk and move. The entire time my brain was saying, "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit." I heard lots of yelling and I opened my eyes to three nurses standing over me with stethoscopes and little flashlights, ready to check my vital signs. I told them I was fine and I was just testing their emergency skills. All I wanted was to run from the building but they wouldn't let me up off the floor in fear of me falling again and hitting my head. Can't blame them. I already tried to leave once and ended up blacked out in the lobby. They brought me a cold towel, water, crackers - all while I was sprawled out on the floor of the waiting room. I've never been so embarrassed in my life. It was like one of those dreams where you realize you're at school naked. All you want to do is flee the premises.

I've come close to passing out in waiting rooms many times, but this was the first time it's actually happened. I once voluntarily laid down on the floor outside of a doctor's dermatologist's office because I started getting tunnel vision and could only hear what sounded like rushing water pounding in my ears. I also had to duck into the mail room at work once and lean against the Coke machine after getting my cholesterol tested. There was also a time where I tore my elbow open falling down the stairs at Cat's house and had to have my mommy bandage it up while I sat on the floor with my arm above my head. I was 22.

This story is also cross referenced under, "Why I Don't Have Any Tattoos."

Sneezy. Dopey. Doc.

It's starting to warm up a little in Omaha and everything is melting. As a result, my nonexistent allergies are acting up and my sinuses are freaking out. I sneezed five times in a row yesterday while standing in the produce section of the grocery store. You have not seen a look of disgust until you have seen the faces of your fellow shoppers staring at you in horror as you sneeze all over the potato and onion table. Yes, I covered my mouth, but is that really a comfort to others when you're sneezing in the vicinity of their groceries? No. Apparently it's not.

I guess the hunt is on again to find allergy meds that won't make me feel all cracktastic.

Winter What!-derland

It snowed. A lot.





And there's plenty more where that came from!

I was thinking about calling in to work, but went in because I'm a good little worker bee and had a deadline today for a website. At about 10:00 it became very clear that I should have stayed home.

Yesterday was sunny and warm with a high of 45°. (Yes, 45° is considered warm here. Yes, we're talking Fahrenheit.) What happened you ask? Nothing, this is just a prime example of the meteorological anomaly known as Nebraska.

It snowed so much even the Snow Beast wasn't happy about it.

Raking Sucks

Matt and I are two people who do not enjoy yard work.

Exhibit A:



I raked leaves this morning. In case you're wondering, the leaves in Nebraska do fall off the trees in October like the leaves everywhere else. We just kept putting off the raking and putting it off some more... Until eventually it snowed and buried the leaves. At that point we went the "Out of Sight, Out of Mind" route and forgot about it. That got us through until this week when the snow melted, revealing a sheet of old leaves covering our front yard.

Our house totally looked like that house on the block. The snow melted and immediately I could feel our retired neighbors glaring at us every time they swept their driveway. (Which is every morning.)

So, I raked. And raked. And then I went to the store for bags because we obviously wouldn't have any at home. We're the assholes who don't rake, remember? (We also don't pull weeds.) Then I bagged and bagged and bagged.



Now, I am tired. But at least there isn't an oak tree's worth of dying vegetation covering our lawn.

I did something very stupid.

I gave away a bunch of the leftover decorations from our wedding to other brides on offbeatbride.com. I boxed up all the Christmas lights and the glass votives and took them to the post office to weigh for postage estimates for the girls. Well, when I put the lights and the glasses into their respective boxes, I wrote the contents on the outside of the box so I could tell them apart. Turns out though that I wrote the wrong things on the boxes.

I mailed a package of "Christmas lights" to a girl in Madison, Wisconsin. But what she actually got last night was a giant box of broken glass votives. I hadn't intended to ship the votives, just weigh them, so I didn't package them properly. There wasn't any bubble wrap or peanuts or anything in there. Just glass and newsprint paper. Couple that with the fact that the box wasn't marked "fragile" and you've got a recipe for, well a giant box of broken glass votives.

That poor girl. I asked her how many glasses were left because I would pay to have her send them to the right girl. She told me she wasn't sure because she was trying to be very careful picking through the pile of shards mixed in with the paper.

Lesson learned: Box things up one at a time and mark them accordingly.

Where I've Been...

This is where I have been for the last four days.



I wasn't extremely sick, but I was extremely flu stricken. And it was extremely disgusting.

I have done nothing of interest since Wednesday night. I don't even remember most of Thursday.

I did watch the following movies though:

Amelie
No Reservations
Breakfast Club
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Juno (saw it once, slept through it twice)
You've Got Mail
Monsters, Inc.

(Dear HBO, Please update your On Demand selection. Thank you.)

My sweet, sweet Matty took very good care of me. He brought me lots of juice and water. Went to the store for soup that I couldn't eat. Made me eggs that I yakked back up. Tolerated me when I whined and moaned all night long.

Thanks, babe!

A New Chapter

It's titled: Layoffs

It is not a fun story to tell and I didn't want to tell it until it had a happy ending... Everyone can feel the economy chomp, chomp, chomping away at our lives. It sucks. Hubs came back from South Bend basically unemployed. The restaurant wasn't doing well and his salary was cut from the budget while he was gone. They offered him part-time at an insulting pay if he wanted to stay. Sweeeet...

No one is having any luck it seems in finding a job or even staying employed at the job they have. Between the two of us we have enough money to live off of for a couple of months, but I'm a freak about the budget and my savings account and the thought of spending our savings made my stomach turn. After a week of worrying constantly about it, he is once again employed! The sun is certainly shining out his ass today because he was offered a full-time job at a guitar center this morning.

Call it luck or karma or an answered prayer, but fate was definitely in our corner this time around. There are so many people out there struggling to pay bills and put food on the table. The fact that he was able to find such an incredible job, so fast, just amazes me.

*sigh*

Beware of the Google

So, I was checking my web stats for my blog last night because yes, I reverse e-stalk my readers, and I noticed that someone found my blog by googling my name. I found that very surprising. My stats tracker is free so it's not very informative but more sophisticated trackers can, in one way or another, tell you where you were googled from. For instance, trackers that come along with hosting software. Software that design agencies use. Design agencies like the one I used to work for.

Then I about crapped my pants because I realized something...

I googled (maybe twice) an ex-boyfriend a while back and looked at the site of the company he works for. It may be one of the types of companies I mentioned above. Just maybe. So, if they check their stats they can see that I found their site by googling him. Well, if I'm not mistaken I googled him from work. And my work IP shows up in stats with the company's name. Meaning, if they check their stats not only can they see that someone googled him, but in big plain crazy-ex-girlfriend letters it will tell them that the google search originated within my company. Where I told him I work.

If they don't happen to look at every stat then no one probably noticed. I worked for a place for two years and looked at the stats maybe half a dozen times. But if they did look and saw it, I totally feel a fool right now. Let this be a lesson to everyone. Take caution when googling tech savvy exs. Do it from someone else's computer just to be safe. Maybe the library. Hotel business centers. But not your work computer.

Bad. Idea.

And if he googled me back and is reading this right now, I guess that makes us both losers now, doesn't it?

January 21st - Crisis Call #3

I was a little stressed this morning while leaving the house for work, and I did something really stupid. I was carrying gloves, my lunch, a coffee mug, my purse. I turned the door lock from the inside and just as I shut it, realized that the one thing I was not carrying was my keys. My keys were on the table just inside the door. I locked myself out.

What a way to start the morning. I luckily caught my mom before she left for work and she agreed to bring me my spare keys. I happened to wear a skirt today for the first time in months, so that was a nice little bonus as I stood on the front porch waiting for Mom to come save me. Thank goodness for 20° weather today.

It was embarrassing. But, not nearly as embarrassing as the time I locked my keys in the car at work. I called campus security to come help me. They sent a police officer. And the police officer thought I was a high school student!

Weekend Recap - Not a Whole Lot to Tell

How was everyone's weekend? For me, Saturday was punctuated with small moments of domestic accomplishment. Sunday was spent in bed. Not all day, but a good 80% of it.

On Saturday I went downtown and picked up our poor ottoman that we ordered about three months ago. It was supposed to be a set when we bought the orange chair but they were out of stock. I grabbed the ottoman, went to the hardware store, maybe went and bought myself something purdy to wear to the gay bar that night, then went home and started my January to-do list. I fixed a missing piece of down spout (Note to self: Check the pile of junk in the garage next time before going to the hardware store. You probably already have what you're looking for.) and patched a crap ton of nail holes in the living room. Unfortunately, I didn't get around to painting over the patches. The can of paint was frozen from sitting in the garage, so I was going to paint on Sunday. But instead I just sat in bed all day watching movies and reading magazines.

I watched Music and Lyrics and Because I Said So yesterday. Music and Lyrics is an alright movie. It's nothing special but Drew Barrymore is adorable so I will forgive the movie for being predictable. Because I Said So though had no redeeming qualities. None. Not even for a minute. The dialog sucked, the characters didn't make any sense, the boyfriends were tools, that hot old guy from 7th Heaven was boring. Poor, poor Diane Keaton was a complete joke in that movie. What was she thinking? I wanted to turn it off and watch Something's Got to Give to wash my brain of the memory. I couldn't even watch the whole thing. I only made it through 45 minutes. It made it's way onto my "Worst Movies Ever" list. It's in good company with Across the Universe and Norbit.

Leaving on a jet plane.

I feel a little bit out of it today. All the Starbucks in the world couldn't make me alert at this point. My morning has gone something like this:

3:00am - Matt's alarm goes off
4:15am - Matt's ride to the airport is honking in the driveway, dog is barking
5:30am - Matt calls looking for his iPod which is missing
6:45am - My alarm goes off

Obviously, Matt left this morning. He went to South Bend, Indiana. (AKA, home of the Fighting Irish.) He will be there until Monday. Then he'll be home until Thursday, and then he goes back for two more weeks.

His day hasn't started out much better. His iPod got swiped at the airport security checkpoint. His brother knows the pain of having your beloved iPod (along with $20,000 worth of musical equipment) stolen so he offered to replace it when they get to Indiana. Cat pointed out the fact that some punk kid is going to be disappointed when he turns it on and sees that he just scored 60G of Beatles music. I think there might be some jazz on their too if he's lucky. I think there's a way to track a stolen iPod when it's synced to a computer... but you have to install software on it before it's stolen. I think we're a little late for that.

Today is a day of lost sleep, lost iPods, and MIA husbands. Can't it be 5:00 yet?

Ice. Whatever.

So much for date night. We got iced-in tonight. We were planning on eating a nice dinner at home and then going out to a movie. I've been dying to see Benjamin Button and we got a gift card to a movie theater for Christmas... Since this was Matt's first weekend off from shows in the last month, and we had a free pass to the movies, I was making him take me out on a date whether or not he wanted to see the movie. But that bitch, Mother Nature, had other plans for us. We got hit with an ice storm and had to stay home.

So, instead of date night at the movies, we ate a nice dinner of spaghetti and then Matt watched football and I had myself a SATC mini marathon. Eric came over (since he was without power due to the ice) and he hooked us up. Literally. He bought us a Time Capsule for the Mac and some Apple TV thing that turns your TV into a computer though the Time Capsule's wifi. They were wedding/Christmas presents. He works at Apple so we essentially got a professional install. Now not only do we have lotsa wifi action all over the house, but I now officially have a backup system for my computer. My hard drive corrupted about a year ago and I didn't learn my lesson about backing up. I'm in the clear now!