Category Archives: random bullshit

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 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

December 8, 2013

Practice Does Not Always Make Perfect.

By Steph

When my boys were little I used to always cut their hair.  We live in the south, they are boys, buzz, buzz, save 1o bucks.  No big deal.

Thing 1 was about 7 or 8 when he sat down in the chair in my kitchen, towel over his shoulders, ready for a haircut.  I had the clippers in one hand and, unfortunately, the phone in the other.  I made one pass over the center of his head and quietly hung up the phone.

A lot like this, but with less happy.

A lot like this, but with less happy.

That was the last time I cut anyone’s hair until my daughter was about 3.  She had never had a haircut.  Her hair was long and golden and so, so soft.  So long that it was getting in the toilet when she went to the bathroom.  So my husband and I decided to cut the wispy baby hair off, just the bottom 4 inches or so.  We talked about it, and for some reason, I have no idea why, decided that I could do it.

Even I can tell that this is not straight.

Even I can tell that this is not straight.

It makes me cringe just to look at the picture.  How in the hell?  Anyway, obviously after we got done freaking out, we took her and got it fixed.   It was a little shorter than we wanted, but it was reasonably straight.

So after that debacle, I had no intention of ever cutting anybody’s hair EVER again.

But my husband is a pain in my ass.  He cuts his own hair, and then badgers me until I trim the back of his neck and around his ears.  Every time I put it off as long as possible.  Every time I tell him I’m going to mess it up, and inevitably, I do.

Friday night I was working and he comes in and sets up a chair in my office.  I knew what was about to happen.  After he gets done and there’s a pile of hair in the floor he asks me if I’m ready.

I keep typing.

He starts playing a tune with the clippers.  Bzzz.Bzz.Bzz.Bz.Bz.Bzzzzzz.Bz.Bz.

Me: *sigh*  OKAY!

So I go over and grab the clippers and as usual, I have no idea what I’m doing and I start to freak out.

Me:  So…I can’t remember…how high up do I go?

Husband:  Okay.  You got this.  Find where you would make fun of me if I cut it up that high and where it still looks messy, and cut right in the middle of that. (Seriously?  Those are fucking terrible instructions.)

Me:  Hmm.  Okay. Buzzzzzzzzzz.

Silence.

Me:  Ahem.  I think I went too high.  It’s kind of…I think I went too high.

Husband:  You made me look like a dork on purpose, didn’t you?

Me:  No I didn’t!  I have told you and told you that I am not good at this!  I don’t know why you keep making me do it!

Husband:  Because I expect anybody, if they do something over and over again, to get better at it each time, not worse!

Trying to trim around his ears, I may have been a little rough.  I was upset, and also laughing.

Husband:  Is there something wrong with my ears?

Me:  No.  Not with your ears.

Husband:  Just what’s between them? (He knows me really well.)

Me:  Exactly.

22 Comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in random bullshit, total chaos

November 26, 2013

Remember what I said about strengths?

By Steph
source: freakingnews.com

source: freakingnews.com

Yeah. Well, it turns out, my strength (if I even have one, which at this point is questionable) is not hair. So just go ahead and ignore any advice I may have given in that regard.

I attempted a routine procedure tonight which I have done probably 500 times since I first turned my hair purple when I was a silly 14-year-old. It appears that now, 20 years later, I’m still pretty fucking silly.

It started out fine. I put on the gloves, mixed the solution, put it on my head. Then I read the instructions (I’ll admit, maybe that should’ve been the first step) and checked the time.

Then…I made coffee, watched the weather, re-watched that hilarious James Franco and Seth Rogan video, switched around two chairs in the living room, decided what to make for dinner, listened to an extensive recap of an X-box game courtesy of Thing 2, answered about a million questions from Thing 3…

And realized I had no freaking idea what time this shit was supposed to come off my head. Was it 5 that I started? But that would make rinse at 5:30 and it’s already 6:00, so maybe I started at 5:30 and rinse at 6:00? But maybe…was I supposed to rinse at 6:15?

I waited until 6:10 just in case. In hindsight, this was probably not the best decision I could’ve made.

I was hoping it wasn’t too bad, but the amount (not to mention color) of the hair that was FALLING OUT OF MY HEAD was a little worrisome.

Then I knew it was terrible when my husband saw me and said just two words. “Oh. God.”

I immediately went on the defensive. “I know what you’re thinking. But it’s not black.”

He said, “Are you being serious?”

I said, “I am trying to be optimistic!”

Between him and this Halloween hair, it’s making it hard to look on the bright side. But not impossible! Tomorrow I am getting a new hat.

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in random bullshit, total chaos