Caption this photo!

With a little bit of Wild America going on outside my front door, I snapped this photo. I like to call it "Ambition." 

That spider looked so small next to that really big leaf-footed bug. But he took that bad boy out. Very impressive.

Potential caption:

Man, all of his eyes are bigger than his stomach.

Can you think of something better? Leave a comment with your ideas. The best caption-writer wins... well... a  big way-to-go from me (it's hell to be poor). Give it a try anyway!

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The more you know 2, electric boogaloo

Today I had fleaful dogs and no flea shampoo. I generally don't use flea shampoo anyway because I'm not a fan of all the chemicals, but this situation required a powerful solution. I hate fleas.

I have some scented shampoo purchased for Mr. Beagle who, unfortunately, is often malodorous. But from experience I know that, despite the fact that I've heard that all soap will kill fleas, this "fresh smelling" stuff does not.

The Girl wanted to help with the bathing process, and I expected that she'd get in the water, so I decided to just go ahead and use some people shampoo in order to avoid exposing large amounts of her body to doggie soap.* I decided to go with my new bottle of Herbal Essence Color Me Happy (What? Shampoo for colored hair? Why would I need that? It's not like I have lots of gray hair that I need to cover up or anything. No way.).**

Guess what? That stuff kills fleas like nobody's business.

I've got three clean, sparkling dogs and some dead fleas. Am I concerned that the stuff I put on my head on a regular basis is apparently toxic to tiny, hard-shelled insects? I am not. (Well, not very anyway. OK. A little.)

So now you know. In the last two days, I've enlightened you to a handy flea killing product AND to the fact that public restrooms don't actually flush all the urine down on the first try. I've also taught you how to make popcorn using a bag, popcorn, and a microwave. And oh yeah, I've given you lessons on where to park too. You almost can't afford to not read this blog on account of how much valuable information you would miss.

Yeah.

*Please don't inundate me with messages on how human shampoo isn't good for dogs because it has a different pH etcetera, etcetera. I've been grabbing whatever is on the shelf in my shower for years and it's been fine. I'm pretty sure dog shampoo companies started that urban legend. (Shampoo at your own risk. Your mileage may vary.)


**I'm pretty sure it's not grammatically correct to have a period, a close parenthesis, and another period. So sorry. 

The more you know...

Thanks to a medication that turns urine an unhealthy shade of orange/red, I now know that many public restrooms don't come anywhere near to flushing completely on the first, or even second, try.

I don't know what you will do with this information, but now you know.

Ariel's doing some covert superhero work

The Girl is currently playing with The Boy's Batcave which she insists on calling "The Batman Castle." Currently a bunch of princesses have taken over and are, I dunno, either saving people or redecorating.* Actually, knowing The Girl, they are probably doing both, and also grooming some dogs and performing surgery.  Because that's how she rolls.

UPDATE: I tweeted this to Adam West. I'll let you know if he approves.

*I asked what was going on in the Bat Castle at the moment. Apparently Sleeping Beauty is a police officer helping Snow White down from the top of one of the towers. "She's not getting in jail though. Sleeping Beauty is just helping her down." Good to know. 



(This is the Batcave/Batman Castle in question. The Girl and visiting children have played with it more than The Boy has. At least it gets used/the dust knocked off of it every so often.)

No shit, Sherlock

My son, who has medically documented ADHD,  brought home a report card with "Needs Improvement" marked in the areas of "Following Directions" and "Listens Attentively."* I refer you to my recent blog entry titled I FORGOT MY TOWEL as evidence that we knew that already. Also, the part where we go to doctor's appointments as often as once a week to balance medicines to help him reduce his hyperactivity to the point where he doesn't vibrate but attempt to avoid a condition of constant sleepiness and/or trigger his Tourette's is also a clue. And the fact that he has a 504 plan (a school document) that indicates that he's supposed to have some accommodations made for the fact that he can't stay focused (amongst other things) is also a good reminder. But thanks for the note on the report card. I'll get right on that. 

*Fortunately, his teacher warned me ahead of time that he would receive these marks. Otherwise, I might have been a bit annoyed. :) 

April Fools!

This is the first year that The Girl has been aware of the concept of April Fool's Day (which I hate, by the way). She's been practicing her April Fool's joke since her preschool teacher told the class about the whole idea on Wednesday. Here's the joke:

Girl: Mom! There's a dog behind you!

Me: What?

Girl: HA! April Fools! There's no dog behind you! HAHAHAHAhaahahhahahahahahahahahahhahaha!"

I'm not a fan of pranks, but I can get behind this one.

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I FORGOT MY TOWEL!

My son has a well-documented attention problem. It’s maddening for all of us, but we’re working on both helping him directly as well as modifying our attitudes and expectations. It can be a battle, though, especially when his also-well-documented high IQ and impressive vocabulary lead us to expect more from him than he can deliver.

Sometimes, it’s the little things that are the most annoying. For example, take our recent towel problem. The Boy cannot remember to take his towel with him to the tub at bath time. He has to walk right by it to get to the tub, and yet he somehow doesn’t notice it on the way past (even though we remind him 10 seconds before he goes to take his bath). This leads to the inevitable post-bath bellow: “I FORGOT MY TOWEL!” He expects one of the rest of us to stop whatever we are doing and deliver it to him. If we don’t do it fast enough, he’ll shout about how cold he is. If we don’t do it at all, he’ll espouse on the dangers of wet feet on tile and drip copiously everywhere, possibly on purpose. If it weren’t for our daughter’s unexplainable desire to be nice to her brother (who is rarely nice back), my husband and I may have already gone insane (oh, wait…).

Recently I decided I deserved a long hot bath (after I “deserved” a couple of discounted books at Borders, and also after I “deserved” to take a night off from working after really not getting enough work done during the day ; not sure why I felt so entitled today), and I thoroughly enjoyed a soak and a magazine. As I was getting out, I noticed something disturbing. The Boy’s towel was sitting in a heap on the floor next to the tub. This means that he finally remembered to bring it to the bath with him, which is fantastic. But since I know that he didn’t bring clothes to the bathroom with him to put on after drying off tub-side (he never dresses in the bathroom), I’ve come to the conclusion that he must have forgotten to dry off. Since he usually dries for .2 seconds anyway (why waste time drying off when water eventually evaporates anyway, right?), excessive post-bath dampness was not observed by anyone, so I can’t say this is what happened for sure. But if this is in fact what occurred, I’m not sure if it’s an improvement or a step back.

As it is, I’m just going to ignore it. That works, right?

UPDATE: I picked up the towel to put it away and it was damp, suggesting that he was either too distracted or too lazy to stuff the towel onto the towel rack like he usually does on his way out of the bathroom. I’m not sure which is better, but either way, at least he remembered the fundamental step of using the towel that he actually brought with him to the tub. This is a step forward, I think. A very tiny step…

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The Girl tries to sort out that whole death thing

We recently lost my grandmother, who was 92 years old. My children had a fairly close relationship with her, although they hadn’t seen as much of her in recent months while she’s been hospitalized. Both of my kids have had their questions, but The Girl came up with probably the most basic childhood concern recently as we were getting her ready for bed:

Girl: What happens if you die while we are still kids?

Me: You mean, what would happen to you if I died while you were still little?

Girl: Yeah.

Me: Well, Daddy would take care of you.

Girl: But what if Daddy died too?

Me: Oh, well, then Gram and Pap would take care of you, plus Uncle Brian and Aunt Stacy, and Grandma and Grandpa. You have a lot of people that love you that will help take care of you.

Girl: ?

Girl: OK. Can we read the story about Pocahontas tonight?

Me: Sure!

And so it goes.

Now read about The Boy

A conversation at Dunkin’ Donuts

Girl: There’s a hair on my straw.

Me: It’s probably yours. Let me see.

Boy: Yeah, it’s probably yours. A butt hair. Get it? A BUTT HAIR!

Girl: [With her nose wrinkled in disgust] I don’t have hair on my butt!

Me: OK, let’s stop this conversation right here. People are eating.

Recent posts:

Have a tortilla, they are fun to wear.

Fix the shoes, damn it! 

Here's what a really creative person does with a tortilla

She specifically asked to have a tortilla for this reason. The Boy said she looked like a clown. "Not the actual clown kind. The 'you look dumb' kind."

And that's dinner at our house. 

A conversation before bed, shouted between neighboring rooms

Husband [After letting the dogs out and before brushing his teeth and getting into bed]: Hey, you better look at these shoes you set out for The Boy to wear to school tomorrow.

Me: [While shutting down computer before letting the dogs in, putting them in their crates, giving the rabbits a snack, putting straggling dishes in the dishwasher and starting it, taking allergy meds, turning off lights, taking contacts out, washing my face, putting PJs on, brushing my teeth, and getting into bed]: What, did I put out two different shoes?

Husband: Yep.

Me: Well $%@*ing fix it for @#!$’s sake! Don’t leave it for me do to! #@%%!

Husband:

Husband:

Husband: Wow. Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?

Me: [Laughing] It took you forever to answer to that. I must have shocked you into silence with my colorful use of words.

Husband: Nah. I was eating a Pringle.

Me: Fix the shoes.

You can feel the love, right?

Here’s what sometimes happens in my head

While I was getting in the shower the other day, my thoughts went something like this:

I would hate to be President of the United States. What an awful job. Although I guess if someone came up to me and was like, “Please, Brenna, we really need you to do this,” and then I would be like, “Well, if there is no one else….” But then I’d be in trouble because I know nothing about politics or anything so I’d just have to use common sense and tell people what I think. I’m sure that would work.

Why the hell am I thinking about this? I’m so crazy.

Better blog about it.

Recent posts:

I love that I...

The boy disses our friends

Need a Kleenex?

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I love that I...

...keep saying, "Almost done.  Allllmosttt donnneeeee," to my rabbits during an unpleasant grooming procedure as if 1.) they have any concept of time and 2.) can understand English.

And the worst part is, most of the time that's a lie. I'm nowhere near "almost done."

I'm horrible.

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A conversation with The Boy, who tells it like it is

Me: OK, kids, we need to get dressed to go to the mall.

Boy: ERRGGG! The mall???

Me: Well, you need sneakers.

Boy: AW! Yeah.

Me: Plus we’re going to meet our friends there for lunch.

Boy: What? We just saw them yesterday!

Me: Yeah, but we like them.

Boy: I know, but not EVERY DAY.

Me: [giggle]

Me: Well, we’re going to the mall.



Check out yesterday's post for a look at some fun on the internet!


Click here for a recent post about The Girl.


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The advantage of having an exceptionally messy car...

...is that you always have a tissue handy. Even though it might say "Dunkin Donuts" on it.



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Great stuff on the Internet

Over the past week, the internet has offered many horrifying images. But it still brings the funny as well. If you need a laugh, click the links below:

Funniest pictures of Basset Hounds running ever


Everything The Bloggess writes is funny but this one is classic


There may not be anything cuter than this. Can I have one?


Damnyouautocorrect.com is just all kinds of funny.


This is the best use of post-it notes ever!

Enjoy! And let me know which ones you liked best.

If you missed it, read yesterday's post about The Girl's new hit song by CLICKING HERE.

The naked song

The Girl unleashed a new song on us tonight while undressing for bath time.

I’m naked.

I’m naked.

I’m naked, naked, naked!

Shake my booty here.

Shake my booty over here.

Shake my booty all around!

As you might imagine, there was choreography that went along with this lovely tune. I figure I might as well send this one off to Britney Spears so that she can make it her next hit. It would fit right in with today’s pop music scene if we auto-tuned it and put in a slammin’ breakdown. And the video designs itself, along with the accompanying dance craze. Plus it’ll be a versatile hit: great for dance floors or strip clubs.

There’s no downside, right?

This book is titled The Truth: I'm a Girl, I'm Smart and I Know Everything. Perfect!

Brenna’s Bitchin’ Beauty Bits

I'm no fashion guru, but recently I've stumbled upon a few beauty tips I'd like to share:

• If your lips are excessively asymmetrical, you should avoid wearing sparkly purple lipstick. It accentuates the flaw, making you look like a freaky piece of art or someone who has had a catastrophic illness. (If you did survive a catastrophic illness, wear whatever color lipstick you damn well please. I’m totally behind that.)

See?

• Certain clothing is not appropriate in particular situations. For example, when picking up your child from school, your belly should not be exposed for any reason. This is the case for clothing that intentionally bares your midriff as well as shirts that simply don’t contain your gut. Your children will thank you for covering up, as will the rest of the parents in the pick-up line. This rule applies even if you look smokin’ hot in your half-shirt. Both of you make the rest of us feel bad. 

• Using a blow dryer and a curling iron does not guarantee that your hair will look good. "Windshield" is not a good look. Check the results in a mirror before you leave your home. It’ll cut down on the “what the hell happened to her head” looks you get during the day.

• More isn't always better.

• If there is a noticeable difference between the color of your face and that of your neck, you’re doing it wrong. The “my head has been photoshopped onto someone else’s body” look is not what you are going for. Unless it is; if so, then carry on. 

Have a Bitchin' Beauty Bit to share? Add it in the comments, please! Think of it as a community service announcement. Everyone benefits!


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Someone's lacking class in this picture

In every class picture, there’s one kid, somewhere in the frame, messing it up. Sometimes that kid is crying, or has his eyes shut, or is actively screwing up the photo by making a face or baring a usually-clothed body part. Every year, the parents of all the other children sigh in relief that their kid is not the goofball who wrecked the photo for everybody else. 

With today's technology, a photographer has the ability to immediately know if someone has been an ass when a picture is snapped. That same photographer also has the technology to digitally replace parts of one photo with parts of another. Surely Junior wouldn't blink in all 10 shots that could be fired from a digital camera in the span of a minute. Why we still have to pay in advance for a photo that includes 18 kids but only 17 pairs of open eyes, I just don't know.*

When I got my son’s first grade class picture, I eagerly scanned the photo for his smiling face. When I found it, this is the conversation that followed:

Me: DUDE!

Boy: What?

Me: Your class picture!

Boy: I know.

Me: What were you doing????

Boy: I blinked.

Me: !

Me: With your mouth open? Really?

Boy: I’M TELLING YOU, I BLINKED!

Me: Right.

*I know there's not enough money involved to be worth the time it would take to get the absolute best picture possible with all kinds of photoshopping and whatnot. But surely there could be some attempt made to make sure that each kid looks like an actual child and not an alien. Is that too much to ask?


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The saddest face you ever saw peering out of a window

My four-year-old daughter's face looked like this when I arrived to pick her up from school as she was first in line to walk out the door for recess:

Yes, I left her there, paying for another hour of child care to let her play with her friends for no reason other than the fact that she had the saddest eyes anyone ever saw. No one can ever tell her how cute she really is or we will all be screwed forever.

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I'm sorry, person who has a vomited-on pillow pet.

Someone typed "how to get vomit off a pillow pet" into a search engine and got this post on my blog. He or she* must have been pissed after clicking the link and getting my disgusting vomit story instead of helpful information. So now I'll answer his or her question in case future searches return him/her here:

Wash it in the washing machine.

That's pretty much my answer for getting vomit off of everything that fits in my clothes washer and/or dishwasher. Or bathtub, actually. Bathtubs are handy places to clean vomit off of things, unless it's chunky vomit. Then you have to get the lumps of gunk out of the strainer. No fun.

One time I had to make my dog vomit and I did so in the tub thinking it would be easier to clean up if I could just wash the stolen-brownie vomit down the drain, but I didn't account for the fact that dogs don't chew stolen food AT ALL. The clean-up was ridiculous.

Wait.

Did this informative post just turn into another disgusting vomit story?

Oops.

*SHEESH, when are we getting a gender neutral singular pronoun other than "it," which totally doesn't work for people? What a pain.


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Awesome and Awful

The little bites have a lot more frosting per bite than the regular ones do. And the frosting is the best part. Frrroooossstttiinnnngggggggg. AWESOME!

Our Baby Alive has a short or is running out of batteries or has become possessed by Satan or something. She spouted random phrases last night until I buried her in some laundry in my TV room. Well, she probably continued talking but I couldn't hear it.  If a Baby Alive talks in the laundry and no one is there to hear it, does she really make a sound? I don't give a crap. But if she talks tonight, she goes in the trash. Outside. AWFUL!

Our Azaleas are blooming! They spend 50 weeks of the year looking like boring bushes and two weeks looking like this. AWESOME!

I love Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta books. Dr. Scarpetta is such an terrific character, the mysteries are great, the scientific details are believable enough, and the plots are fun. I had hoped that this non-Scarpetta book by Cornwell would be good.  It was not. In fact, it was ridiculously horrible. Between the recurring attempts at toilet humor and the animals that grew more unbelievable as the story went on (at one point, the dog typed something; for real), this was just flat-out awful.  There were so many things wrong with this book that I can't begin to describe them here. I wish I could have back the time I spent reading it. AWFUL!

This is my sister-in-law's birthday cake. It's a vanilla cake with fudge icing. We have left overs. AWESOME!

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Hippo crocs and polka dots - a conversation from the back seat

Yesterday, while driving with my four-year-old daughter, I heard some chatter from the back seat. Then, the giggles started.

The Girl: Ahh!

Me: What's going on?

The Girl: Hippo crocs are eating my pants!

Me: What??

The Girl: (laughing) Oh, no they're not. They're just eating my polka dots.

Me: Oh. That's good.

If I could tap into that creativity, think of all the money I'd make awesome things I could do!

P.S. "Hippo crocs" is really fun to say. I recommend it.

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(These crocs are cool, but they still don't bring the awesome like hippo crocs.
Buy them anyway. ----------------------------------------------------->)

I don't understand people who park on sidewalks

Near my son's school, every day a few special people think it's perfectly acceptable to park directly on the sidewalk, forcing the girl child and I to trudge through 20 feet of... well, not sidewalk. It's not the worst thing that ever happened, but it's annoying, particularly because it's really never OK to park on a sidewalk. I suppose if you came wheeling up to an emergency room with someone who was spewing blood or baby and there was nowhere else to park, then, maybe it would be acceptable. MAYBE.

Here's a graphic to help you sort it all out.

If the sidewalk is the only place available for you to park your car, then there is no place to park your car. Park elsewhere.

P.S. If you knew how long it took me to come up with that graphic, you'd feel sorry for me. 


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Microwave popcorn for the healthy, lazy person

Recently, I've been making popcorn the old-fashioned way (that's on the stove, kiddies) in order to avoid daily intake of what I've read is a ridiculous amount of chemicals that will surely give me cancer or rabies or cancerous rabies. Something like that. Anyway, then I read on the internet that you can take regular popcorn kernels and pop them in the microwave in a paper bag. You don't even need to use oil (which doesn't give you cancerous rabies, but does give you fat, which I already have more than enough of). Because I'm lazy and allergic to cleaning pots, I put paper bags on the grocery list. And now you are ready for this conversation:

Husband: Are you coming to bed now?

Me: No. I'm going to try to make popcorn in a paper bag in the microwave.

Husband: WHY?

Me: Because I'm hungry.

Husband: Just come to bed. Then you can wake up really hungry for breakfast.

Me: ?

Me: No, I want to try this popcorn.

Husband: In a paper bag? In the microwave? Really?

Me: Yes!

Husband: You're going to burn the house down.

Me: No I'm not.

Husband: Yes you are. Why would you wait until I got home from work to try this?

Me: Because then you can help me save the children when the house goes up in flames.

Husband: Nah, I'm not saving those kids.

Me: I'm making the popcorn.

Husband: Goodnight.

The popcorn came out wonderful, and there wasn't even a spark. Want to do it too? Here's how:

1/4 cup popcorn kernels
1 paper bag

Put popcorn in the bag. Fold the bag down maybe twice. Put it in the microwave. Set it to two minutes or something like that. Listen. When you get two seconds between pops, stop your microwave. Unfold. Eat. YUM!

(You can put oil in the bag too, or salt it and stuff pre-popping if you want. Let me know if you try it and what modifications you have included in the recipe!)


Disclaimer: If you screw this up and somehow burn your house down, I am not responsible. You, however, are a moron. Because this is not hard.

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Here's another post in which I attempt to make a food item. Sort of.