Author Archives: Steph

About Steph

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I like words. I suspect I would like sanity, but I really have no way of knowing. I can be reasonable, but not often.
January 14, 2014

5 Reasons It’s Okay To Have Rogue Snakes Loose In Your Home

By Steph

This is me, looking on the bright side.  Don’t blink.

Snakes.  Snakes are lovely.

Snakes eat mice.

Snakes are…snakes.

I’m trying this bullshit thing called cognitive behavioral therapy, because as I’ve been told a hundred fucking times, what you think is how you feel.  So I am going to feel homicidal GREAT about the snake INFESTATION going on in my home IN THE DEAD OF WINTER.

Ahem.

And I'm okay with this. Really.

And I’m okay with this. Really.  Also, I really need to dust.  Don’t judge me.  I have snakes.

Five Reasons This Horror Nightmare Guest Is A-Okay:

1.  You can save money on your heating bill in an effort to make your home less homey for heat-seeking death worms reptiles.

2.  You can break your hip tone your thighs by clomping around your house in steel-toed boots and jumping a lot.

3.  Your kids will get really good at “I Spy” and this is a skill all children should have.

4.  You can finally make use of the ridiculous amount of swords you own.

5.  You can help the local economy by paying someone exorbitant sums of money a worthwhile fee to crawl around in your attic and say, “Ye-ah, where there’s one there’s usually a bunch more.”  This is helpful to know.

6.  You can save money on your water bill when an asshole a well-meaning friend tells you that the snakes are probably getting in through the plumbing so you won’t be using your bathroom.  Ever.  Again.

I know, that was actually six reasons, but I am just so good at this positivity thing that I decided to keep going.  Also, I am still in the market for a mongoose.

16 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in nature hates me, random bullshit, small humans, total chaos

January 5, 2014

I refuse to believe I’m the only one.

By Steph

I sleep with a white noise machine.  I used to use a big box fan,  but my husband would get pissy when I would point it at him because I didn’t want to be fanned, I just wanted to hear it fanning.

“White Noise” is what the machine is set to, because I’m afraid “Rain Forest” would make me wet the bed, and I’m a grown-ass woman.

http://www.blognorway.com

I have to pee now just looking at that.

The noise machine is on a timer and shuts off after an hour.  Sometimes (a lot of times) it takes me longer than that to fall asleep.  After I’ve reset it two or three times, the “white noise” starts sounding different, like a beat, or words, or just sounds being repeated over and over instead of just the shhhhhhhhhh sound it is supposed to be making.

Today my husband and I were lazing in bed ( it was an extremely rare quiet moment in this madhouse) and he asked if I’d ever seen the movie “White Noise.”

bing images

bing images

Me:  Yes!  The one with the TVs.  Creepy!

Him:  I can’t believe that sound helps you sleep.  (Probably thinking about last week when he left REDRUM on the bathroom mirror in steam, and when I got out of the shower I screamed and ran outside and wouldn’t go back in.  This is why we live in the middle of nowhere.  Because he’s an ass, and I often panic before I’m even dressed.)

Me:  I know.  And it’s weird how it changes.  The other night it was saying something over and over.

Him: ?

Me:  I don’t know, just words.  It was something with a “D,” maybe de-code, de-luge, Den-ver.  I don’t remember.

Him:  Jesus.

Me:  What?  It’s like when you are surrounded by chickens and it sounds like they are all saying your name.

Him:  *Snort*  That has only ever happened to you.

Me:  What?  No.

Him:  Yes.

Me:  Really?  That’s just me?

Him:  Falls asleep laughing while I lie there and try to force the crazy voice inside the noise maker to communicate with me again.  It didn’t work.

Note:  My family used to raise chickens.  I seriously wore headphones and carried my Walkman (yes, Walkman) because thousands of chickens all buck-buck-bawk-bawking at the same time would somehow coalesce into “Steph.  Stephanie.  Steph.”  And that is really fucking creepy.

http://www.earthsongfarm.com

I refuse to believe I’m the only one this happens to.  I’m not that crazy.

Right?

29 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in nature hates me, random bullshit, total chaos

January 3, 2014

Half-Assed Holidays

By Steph

I feel like I should write about the holidays, but I don’t really want to.  So I’m going to half-ass it, and tell you a few things that happened, and then move on to the important stuff, like sleeping and chickens.

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1.  I may have inadvertently caused my ferret to have a nervous breakdown.  Ferrets sleep 18 or more hours a day.  I thought my ferret loved red things, because he’s always stealing anything red and hiding it.  So I got him a red toy for Christmas and hung it in his cage.

He didn’t sleep for 24 hours until he killed it.  Could not rest until the evil red intruder was destroyed.  When I finally noticed what was happening, he was hissing and twitching like a ferret on crack.  (Or how I would imagine that.  My ferret does not do crack, so I don’t really know.)

http://static3.wikia.net

Similar to this, only more crazy eyes.

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2.  I drank all my wine on Christmas Eve, which caused me to accidently insult my cousin.

Her:  You liked me when I was a kid.  (Meaning, you liked me, as opposed to my brothers.)

Me:  Whatever!  I like you now!   (Meaning, of course I like you!  Oh shit, that’s not what you meant.)

Her:  Wow.

Me:  Err.  Really!  I like you all the time.  Anyone thirsty?

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3.  I drank all my wine on Christmas Eve, which caused me to have no wine on Christmas Day.  To remedy this, I sent my husband to the store to get another three more bottles.  Don’t judge me, Christmas is hard.

When he went up to the register they said, “I’m sorry sir, we don’t sell alcohol on Jesus’ birthday.”  Oops.  My bad.  (Sorry, Jesus and embarrassed husband.)

www.distinctlykelownatours

No, Santa, not today.

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3.  Cracker Barrel poisoned me somehow and I had an allergic reaction in Wal-Mart, which made me really confused, and I told my daughter to either get the microwave or don’t, we gotta go.  She’s 4.  There was no microwave.  I’m pretty sure they thought I had found more wine.

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4.  I ate half a pound cake for breakfast one morning.  As I was on the last bite my daughter wanted some, and in what was not one of my finer moments, I told her it had butter in it.  Because she hates butter, and I didn’t want to share.  That was not a lie, because  I am 95% percent sure pound cake has butter in it.  Mom-Of-The-Fucking-Year.  That’s me.

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5.  New Year’s Eve.  I’m not going into that.  But I do want to quote my husband.  “Feel free to put some pants on and join us.”  Again, he said, “Feel free to put some pants on and join us.”  He’s just lucky I wasn’t feeling well, because that sounds like a challenge if I’ve ever heard one.

http://www.brooksbell.com

 

 

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in nature hates me, parenting, random bullshit, small humans, total chaos

December 28, 2013

Baby Girl

By Steph

She’s got this little round belly and this confidence that just goes on forever.  She sings at the top of her lungs and dances with complete abandon.  Watch me!  Look at this!  I made this song for you!  She is all that is beautiful and if you ask her if she is smart she will yell, “YES!” and then tell you all she knows, and some things she doesn’t.  She knows she is funny and isn’t afraid to tell a joke, and even if no one else gets it, she will be the one laughing the loudest.  If she wants a hug, she will just open her arms and know that arms will enfold her too.  She knows she is loved.  She knows she is precious.

She will always be beautiful to me.  But I want so much, so, so much for her to keep this ability to see the beauty in herself.  When she has lost her chubby baby belly, is that when she will start judging the way her body is shaped?  At what point does the world teach her to lower her voice, her eyes, her head?

I want to wrap her up in her innocent self-love so that it stays with her always, so that she never, ever wonders about her own worth.  I don’t want her to lose her golden-fine little girl hair only to gain her mother’s insecurities.

I can’t stop the world from affecting my child in ways that I will not always like.  But I can show her every day a woman who is not afraid to laugh, to love, to sing loudly, and to dance with abandon.  A woman who loves herself, as she is.

8 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in parenting, small humans, thoughts

December 18, 2013

I Should Probably Come With A Warning Label.

By Steph

This is our first Christmas with a cat.  I was expecting some Christmas tree shenanigans, but was pleasantly surprised at Leeloo’s great restraint.

Then I wrapped her present and put it under the tree.  Her catnip-stuffed present.

Photo credit: Pinterest

I woke up to her circling the tree in a wild-eyed frenzy, batting at ornaments haphazardly, but with no apparent joy.  We adopted Leeloo, so who really knows what sort of shit she was into on the streets.  I’m not judging.  But I’ve seen junkies who didn’t look as desperate as this cat.

You may find it hard to believe, but this is not the first time my Christmas spirit has gotten in the way of good sense.

There was the year when I decided to give my mom hermit crabs and a plant as a gift.  Both of which I bought weeks before Christmas, wrapped, and put under the tree.  You’re welcome, Mom.  Please enjoy these dead things.

I swear, it never even occurred to me that they would die without food or water.  Or oxygen.

Then there was the first Christmas that I fortified myself with antianxiety medication before the family gathering.  It went well.  So well that afterwards I told my little brother, “Wow!  I love those guys.  Everyone was so cool tonight, I probably didn’t even need that Xanax.”

Yeah.

One Christmas when I was a moody teenager (and had yet to be prescribed the calm-the-eff-downs) I got furious with my dad and, in the heat of the moment, decided his Christmas present was going for a swim.  It was a toolbox.  Quite a chore getting it out of the pool once I calmed down.  That’s actually maybe the most effort I’ve ever put into a gift, if you count drying it out and all.  Anytime, Dad, anytime.

There was the Christmas that I made bath products for my extended family and some friends.  They smelled wonderful and were so pretty.  It was sad that I didn’t think to test them out until it was too late.  It was also embarrassing to have to call people and say, “Oh, about the gift, it’s just decorative, okay?  DO NOT LET IT TOUCH YOUR SKIN.”

I’m not even going to go into the Christmas when Santa brought the kids a trampoline.  Yes, I made my husband and my dad put together a 16 foot trampoline in the dark, in the cold, in the snow, on Christmas Eve.  And they did it, because they love me.  Or because I’m scary.  Whatever.

This Christmas I’m going to try use my head for something other than testing to see if the pancake griddle is hot.  Because that freaking hurts.

 

 

20 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in parenting, random bullshit, total chaos