Things that are yucky...........

Blue cheese. Or bleu cheese if you want to be all french-ass about it. Red Vines. Black licorice, since we're on the topic. Black jellybeans. Which taste like black licorice.

Lamb. Veal. Venison. Parakeet. Kidding.

Canned peas. Asparagus - mostly because I'm allergic, but who wants to eat something that makes your pee smell funny? Gross.

Liver. Olives. Well, a little bit of olives, but a lot of olives is yucky. Feta cheese. The word itself is so close to "feet" which is what feta reminds me of. Stinky feet. Ew.

Gloppy fruit. This includes pie, jam, and even extends to lemon curd, but that's ok if you just get a hint of it. Jam should not include chunks of fruit. Nor should yogurt. Just ICK. Fresh fruit is fine, and wonderful, but any fruit swimming in a glossy gel is just WRONG.

Any gum flavors other than bubblegum, cinnamon and/or some mints. Watermelon-flavored anything. Except watermelon, which is divine! Watermelon Jolly Ranchers are the worst offender.

Anything "gummy". Gummy bears, Swedish Fish, and horror of all horrors, Sour Patch Kids or those sugary-covered gummy worms. Gummy vitamins included.

Stuffed bell peppers. Childhood torture. Actually ANYTHING with bell peppers. The only thing a bell pepper is good for is holding ranch dip for other, more worthy, vegetables.

Kidney beans. My firstborn once threw up whole kidney beans THREE DAYS after eating them. They were whole and unchanged. To this day it remains a mystery and I have not consumed kidney beans since. They are clearly not real food.

Mussels, oysters or any other chewy seafood you slurp down whole. The point?

And now, some non-food yucky things.

Other people's baby's spit up. MY baby's spit up is fine, but other people's baby's spit up is horrific. On the same topic, other people's baby's poopy diapers. Horrible!

Kids who pick their noses and eat the "gold". I would (did) smack my kids if they ever even LOOKED like they were thinking about it. Eye boogers. The dust/grime that collects at the back of the toilet seat. Smelly dishcloths. Smelly towels. Smelly dogs. Smelly is a funny word. Say it over and over. What the...??

Enough already! Tomorrow: things that are wonderful!

I'm so hot.......

It's hot here. It's a Seattle kind of hot - I believe my car's thermometer topped out at 98 degrees today. The highest I've seen my car thermometer go (and mean it) was 110 a few years back and THAT was hot by anyone's standards.

But here in Seattle, when it's hot (about 5-10 days a year, with only one or two REALLY hot days), we complain. We also complain when it's too cold, and when it's too rainy, and when it's windy and the power goes out on Christmas for ten hours. But I digress.......

The point is, we don't have air conditioning. Which, really, is quite an expense considering how little we'd use it, but seems worth every penny on the days we WANT it. Many of our neighbors actually DO have air conditioning, which explains why we seem to be the only family walking around like sweating pigs, with our hair stuck to our faces, our shirts plastered to our backs and feeling the unpleasant effects of boob sweat. Don't even get me started on boob sweat.

But here's the thing. If you really just EMBRACE the heat, let yourself get all sweaty and be o.k. with it, then it's not so bad. For example, this morning, when it was already 73 degrees, I took my dog for a long walk. I was hot and sweaty when I finished, but I was o.k. with that, because it's exercise, right? Then, I picked up my son and noticed the temp had climbed a full ten degrees in just over an hour. By the time I got home with him, it was around 85 and getting hotter by the minute. I decided then and there to clean my car out. And I don't mean just clean it out - I washed every surface, cleaned the carpets, vacuumed every inch, organized the trunk, the glove box and every place anything could be stored. It took me just over two hours, at which time the temperature was in the mid-90's. I was hot. I was sweaty. I used my shirt to wipe my face so much, it felt as wet as if it had just come out of the washer. I used hot, soapy water to clean the interior of the car, which didn't make things any easier. I had to stop and wet a cloth so I could use it every two minutes or so to wipe my face off as sweat trickled into my eyes and threatened to wreak havoc with my contacts. When I was done, I made myself a bit of lunch and checked my email and only after I'd cooled down several degrees did I finally go take a shower. The shower felt amazing, BUT, I was only cool and dry for a few minutes before it started all over again.

I heard my kids say today, "I don't think I've ever been so hot!" I'm certain they have been. Like the time it was 110 degrees and they were at an outdoor day camp and it had to be canceled because so many kids had to leave due to becoming sick from the heat. We're just not used to that around here. I once foolishly agreed to take a 3-hour yoga workshop with two of my best friends. This was taught by a yoga guru and was supposed to be a very special event. I PAID good money to go to this thing. Little did I know it would be Hell on Earth. I figured we'd do a little yoga, maybe sit and meditate a little, break for a snack. Nooooo......we did intense, constant yoga in blistering heat for three solid hours. After a while, I had to just give in to it. Sweat and all. I was so sweaty my mat was slippery and I could barely do a downward dog for all the sliding. My hair was "fresh from the shower" wet. I'm sure I didn't smell fresh from anything. My face was an alarming shade of purplish-red. I was so "warmed up" I could bend in ways I never could before (and never have again!). It was, in a word, HOT.

So, I sit at my computer in my stuffy dining room. One meager fan oscillates the thick air. I've considered resorting to the redneck air conditioner (a bowl of ice water in front of the fan) but I'm pretty sure my dogs would just overturn it, or drink from it. I do have a room air conditioner in my bedroom but I can't just sit on my bed all day. So, I sweat. And I'm hot. And tomorrow it will cool down and pretty soon it will rain and we'll all be saying "It's so rainy! It's so cold!" So, I'll take it. Sweat and all. I'm hot like that.

Cabela's.....

We spent a long time in Cabela's this past weekend and spent a small fortune (most of it on car-top carriers for the kayaks, which we needed, but still....). AFTER we got home, I found a 10% off coupon!! Big bummer, except that Harrison had a cast party in the same town tonight so it was a good excuse to go back up and get the price adjustment (which amounted to no small change and which I promptly pocketed while my husband was away looking at arrows - heh!).

So, our "quick trip" to Cabela's turned into almost two hours of Jeff getting a private lesson in archery from a large, blonde woman while I toured the store (which I had already toured on Saturday) looking for interesting things. Here is but a smattering of what I found:

Camo Bibles in blue and pink for boys and girls!
Genuine Elk In Heat Urine!
A decorative frame with a large moose head emblazoned in one corner!
Pop guns! Lots of pop guns! And one boy in particular who would NOT stop popping the pop guns! (I would have ripped his head off, except that it was MY son who was doing that on Saturday, so I let it go. This time).
Brownie, cookie and pancake mix that came in little fabric bags!
TWO overstuffed camo covered recliners! (With two people sitting in them saying, "these are SO comfortable!" I was uncomfortable just looking at them.)
A book about tanning elk hides - at home!
A rubber duck!
A rubber quail!
A rubber pheasant!
A large, fake deer with a bullseye on it's side! (Bummer of a birthmark, Hal!)
Wild gooseberry jam!
Gun cases!
Gun safes!
GUNS!
A child's toy playset complete with dolls, 4x4 vehicle, tent, jet ski, four-runner, and two kids.
A complete set of "Hunter Dan" toys - dolls, vehicles, little tiny guns, deer blinds. Hunter Dan has it all!

And while I was bored, I picked up a few things myself - a pink multi-tool for my purse (yes! I am so badass!), a pink container of pepper spray for Hayley's keychain (to ward off drunken college coeds), and a pink LED light for Hayley's keychain. I only buy pink stuff from Cabela's. Although I still don't understand pink camo. How are you supposed to hide in the woods in pink? There are no pink trees. There are no pink animals (except for some pigs, but they are not the type to run wild in the woods). I don't get it.

Ah well, another two hours of my life spent in Disneyland for Dads. And I'm so proud of myself for avoiding the "jerky chew" and elk 'n' cheddar dip! Yay, Cabela's!

Cat people..........

I am certain I now know why some people are "cat people". These people were once "dog people" but had an unfortunate experience with a dog, and decided cats were much easier. Let me explain:

Yesterday, after returning home from an afternoon at the beach, we let the dogs outside to go potty and get a drink of water. Shade has no filters, therefore, he has no idea when he's had too much water, and keeps on drinking (he also doesn't know the difference between a cupcake and the wrapper and thinks wood siding is a dog treat, so there you go). After their thirst was quenched, the dogs were let back inside. All was well until IT happened.

IT was a very odd, non-human, but not quite dog-like sound. Something akin to a watermelon being dropped on cement, but with more sploosh. I glanced to my right and saw a river of liquid quickly pouring around the corner of the kitchen counter. I jumped up, not quite understanding how a puddle of liquid that size could emanate from the kitchen table and quickly discovered that Shade had spontaneously combusted and disappeared in a puff of smoke! (Sorry, just fantasizing). The dog had "delivered" his several gallons of water onto the kitchen floor and it was not unlike a toilet overflowing - in fact, paper towels alone were not adequate to clean it up. Out came the mop and bucket (me) and the carpet cleaner (Jeff) because he had also left a nice puddle on the family room carpet.

Now, everyone enjoys cleaning up messes like this late in the evening, no? Not only did it take me several passes with the mop to get the puddle cleaned up, but then I discovered just how filthy my kitchen floor was anyway. But I didn't mop the rest of it. Why expend the energy when I live with Shade?

The moral of this story is I, once again, spent the evening secretly (or maybe not so secretly) wishing Shade would just DIE already. Hannah put it best when she said "I mean, I don't want him to necessarily DIE, but I just don't want to deal with him anymore!" Exactly. Ugh. So, this is why I believe I am becoming a cat person. As much as I like Georgette and she can be pretty cute and sweet, I still can't miss the tufts of dog hair constantly rolling across the floor, the potty accidents, the barfing......well, maybe that's just Shade, but cats are just so much easier. SO much. Even though the one cat we have doesn't like me much, I still prefer her over Shade. She hides all day and barely ever comes out. Once in a while she lets me scratch behind her ears. Other than that, we leave each other alone and I am perfectly fine with that.

Bad dog, Shade! Again.

Too many photos?

I'm "that" person. The one who posts SO MANY PHOTOS on Facebook. I laugh when I see someone's "album" of a family event or birthday party and it contains less than ten photos. TEN? I can easily post 200 photos from one day of vacation. Is it overkill? Perhaps, to some. To me, photos are memories. And who can have too many of those? I love photos more than anything. Even as a child, I would mentally prepare a list of what I would grab in case of a fire, and photos were first on my list. You just can't replace them! Sure, you can back them up on an external hard drive, or store them in the "cloud", or print copies and put them in a safe, and thank GOD for that, because it used not be so easy. I still have my treasured prints from my childhood, which I need to scan into my computer and copy onto a DVD and store in my fireproof safe, because if everything goes up in flames, there is NO WAY I could ever replace those.

Before 2005, I had a Nikon camera that used actual FILM. Remember film? I loved that camera and it took such great photos. I was hesitant to "go digital" but received two digital cameras as wedding gifts when Jeff and I got married. Soon, I was hooked - how awesome to take hundreds of photos and only keep the ones you like! Sure, most of our "memories" are locked up in my laptop, but Facebook gives me a way to show them to my friends and family, who often "steal" copies for themselves. I love that I can share my photos this way, and it's a great venue for sharing photos of events like parties, reunions, graduations, etc. with a large group of people.

My kids once told me I had over 200 albums on Facebook, and expressed disbelief. I now have 517 albums. So what? I make a new album for every event. I HATE IT when people don't make new albums and so the comments below are from two years previous. Bleh! Just make a new album already - it's so easy. I could go back and delete some of them - many I've published for the sole purpose of sharing them with people who've attended parties at our house. I don't need to keep them all. But I love that they're all in one place. I almost never look back at them. I sometimes look through old albums on my computer, but there are so many, it seems daunting at times. Usually when I back up my hard drive, I will look through some old albums and sort/organize a bit. I just love looking at photos!

And it's not just my own photos. I love looking at other people's photos - of their vacations, their celebrations, their wedding portraits hanging on the wall. Every picture tells a story and I am interested. I never get bored looking at pictures.

As for my Facebook albums? Yes, I publish a lot of photos. No, I don't care. I know those who want to will look through them and those who don't will skip it. That's the beauty of it!