Said the Vegetable Man...

I am seriously addicted to Beck right now.

We now have two Beck CDs in our car stereo. I just can't get enough. We got his new CD, Guero, last weekend, and Chris and I both are totally diggin' it! My favorite song on Guero is "Que Onda Guero". How can you not love a song that starts out with the lyrics, "Said the Vegetable Man in the Vegetable Van with a horn honking like a mariachi band." Classic. I decided a few weeks ago that I completely missed out on Beck. I remember the first song of his I heard...."Loser" (better known as "I'm A Loser Baby"). I can picture it like it was yesterday. I was in high school and was the Party Pic girl at a middle school dance held in the rec area of a church. There were chairs lining the walls and these brace-faced little kids acting like they were too cool to dance. And, the DJ played Loser. I'm sure it was just for us "older" folks, but it definitely made the whole night (well, really it was late afternoon). Isn't it amzaing how we relate our memories to music?

Heretofore, My favorite Beck song of all time is "Where It's At" (you probably know it as "Two Turntables and a Microphone"). I love that song. It totally rocks. I've always been a fan, but I've never been very good at buying CDs and really enjoying the music. A few weeks ago, I decided that even though I missed out when the CD (Odelay) came out 8 years ago, what's stopping me from enjoying it now? We were at Target one day, and they had it for $9.99. It's been playing in the car ever since!

We got a couple of other CDs this week. Jack Johnson and a new Dave Matthews Band (at Starbucks, no less!). Wow! I just looked at the DMB CD on Amazon, and it just came out on the 10th. Look at me, I'm on top of things. You could almost call me cool! Oh, and something from Granian. I don't know which CD Chris bought (Amazon), but I love their sound. I'm surprised Chris does, all of these are a little mellow for him. It's okay, I'll take it! Now all I need is an Ipod!

Paper Addict

It's true, I love paper. Love it, love it, love it! I just can't get enough paper. I really must own it all. You never know what I might need, right? Yesterday, Simply Scrapbooks in Claremore had their annual "Paper By The Pound" sale. I missed the first one (didn't even know they'd had a first one), and knew I HAD to go to this year's iteration.

Problem......I thought it was Saturday. So, after the super successful Scrapbook Garage Sale at Scrapbooks Galore, I headed out to Claremore with one of my friends. It was a glorious day, so we took the back roads through the country to Route 66 with the top down and relished the wind in our hair. Fort-five minutes later, we were there. Only they were just setting up. Oops! Guess I read that email wrong!!! We bought nothing with the promise of our return!!

Jump ahead to Sunday. We were the first in line. Somewhat sick, huh? We left my house at 11:30 to be sure we were the first in line at 1:00 when they opened (with the requisite Taco Bueno pit stop). When they opened the doors, we made a bee line for the earth tone cardstock and KI papers. I thought maybe I'd buy a pound or two of paper. HA! I ended up with 16 pounds. That's a lot of paper. Then, I had to come home and tell Chris that I had to write a check because I didn't have enough cash! Thank goodness for the Garage Sale the day before! Now I just have to figure out how to pay for the Iowa trip this week!

Tenika's Challenge

So, I came to this one a little late, but check out my masterpiece!!!

Dear Adidas....

*warning - more graphic pics*

Dear Adidas,

If it ain't broke, don't screw it up. I'm an Adidas loyalist. I wear their Supernova Cushion (size 11) running shoes almost exclusively (let's not discuss that little Nike Shox foray). For some reason, running shoe manufacturers find it necessary to update their shoes year after year. The Supernova Cushion was awesome last year. Just perfect. So, of course, they had to tweak them and "make improvements" on this year's model. Still and awesome shoe, except.......they included a this waffle weave construction on the top of the insole.

Thursday, we were in the OK panhandle and I forgot my socks. So, I went running sockless. I figured it wouldn't feel fabulous, but no big deal. Right? Yeah, right! It completely tore my feet up. It's Sunday now, and I still can barely walk. We're talking serious pain here. I have huge blisters on the bottom of my arches. Not a fab place for blisters.

I've never heard of shoes you can't run sockless in.......ever. It's super common for people to run without socks (we won't even begin to discuss the stink eminating from those shoes). Needless to say, Adidas is going to be getting letters/emails from me! What were they thinking? Maybe this is just another case of people who don't actually use the product designing it?

 

There's a Mouse in my House

**warning--graphic photos ahead**

Anyone who knows me has probably had to endure my stories of the mice in our condo...at least twice. I'm sure everyone is tired of hearing about it, but just in case I haven't mentioned it...I HATE MICE. I'm not afraid of them; I just think they're nasty little bacteria laden vermin. Yuck. And they really like our downstairs bathroom, laundry area, and kitchen.

Last year we had a major infestation. We caught/killed like 16 in a matter of a few months. Mimi the wonder hunter even caught a couple. We always know when they're around because Mimi is on the hunt. Literally. She tries really hard to catch them. It's actually somewhat funny to watch her - she's just so darn cute. But then, you realize just what it is she's hunting, and you're brought back to the disgusting reality. There are mice in my house!!!

Last year we finally got rid of the mice when the exterminator came out. Yep, you read that right, we exterminated them. And I didn't feel one bit of bad about it. We set out bait boxes laden with poison and for awhile, we were mouseless (or at least I didn't see/hear them). But of course, the poison dried up, and the mice retured. And the exterminator did not. During our mouseless months, our exterminator went out of business and another had to be found. Once we had them, getting them out to the house was tough. Finally, last week they came and put out more bait boxes. Mice Be Gone!

Today, I went downstairs to make some lunch. It was already 2:00, and I was starving. And what to my dismay did I see? A dead mouse in the middle of the floor. Yep. Right there. I don't know if it was due to the poison or the Mimi, but there he was. Mimi had to have played with him, he was awfully flat (and Scooby was upstairs with me). I called Chris and promptly informed him that I, of all people, should not have to clean up a dead mouse. He suggested I use a bunch of paper towels. Sorry, ain't gonna happen. If I don't have to, I'm not touching one of those nasty little buggers - in life or death.

As I am wont to do, I took pictures of it and emailed it to him so he'd know just what I was dealing with here. Of course, I called him to make sure he saw the email. He laughed at me. "You took pictures of it?" You thought I wouldn't? You underestimate me, my love!

So, the dogs went into their houses and off I went to my mom's where I made my lunch (we were traveling to the panhandle of OK today, so I had to go over anyway). No cooking just inches away from the dead mouse for me. Hopefully Chris has the corpse all cleaned up and it doesn't stink too bad. And, upon my return there'd better not be any mouse in my house!!! 

I gave in

It's true, I'll admit it. I gave in. Last week (or maybe the week before), Ali Edwards posted a challenge to take self-portraits. She suggested sitting in front of a window and getting some "natural light" shots of yourself. This is somewhat difficult considering we have just about no natural light in our house. I've never seen anything like it before, but the light from the 3 windows we do have (yep, only 3 little ones) just gets eaten up by the crazy architecture of the place. The other day, I went ahead and tried anyway. It would help if I knew my camera better, but I still managed to get a couple I liked. As per usual, though, my faves ended up being of the babies. (notice the dog over my shoulder - I couldn't get them to leave me alone!)

   

I am really glad I partook in this challenge. I have never been one to shy away from pictures, but over the last couple of months, I just didn't want any pictures of myself. I felt so fat and ugly and just didn't want to see myself like that. I had to remind myself that it doesn't matter how I feel, this is me, who I am now. I don't want to miss out on remembering this time of my life because I felt crummy. So, I stopped saying no to pics. And, I started Weight Watchers. That's definitely helped too! I've only lost 5 pounds so far, but man, even that little bit makes a difference!!

Pens. I rejoice in pens!

I have an unnatural love of office supplies. Yep, it's true. I'm dangerous in an Office Depot. Don't let me loose in a Staples. Now, my love of office supplies has been coupled with my love (obssession) of scrapbooking. I'm using lots of things from the office supply store in my SBs. Royal paper clips, cool fasteners (the kind in the doctor has in the file folder to keep all your info together), and now pens.

Pilot now has a pen called the Permaball. It writes like a ball point pen and can write on plastic (hello transparencies). I've been dying to get some, but wouldn't you know, they aren't in stores yet. Why does it seem the things I want are never in stores yet? I made the Office Depot guy earn his money one day. He searched their entire system and finally found them. They could order them through their website for me......but I had to buy 16. Um, hello? 16? What do I need with 16 of them? 2 maybe, but 16?

I finally found a site that sold them individually and of course, ordered them right away. After I purchased, they told me it would take at least 10 business days to get them to me. We're talking over 2 weeks here. After more than 3 weeks, we got a notice that they'd been returned to sender.  Duh! I'd combined my address with my mom's and included some crazy zip code. They finally rehipped them (priority, yay!). They arrived today. I can't tell you how excited I am. Over pens. I'm constantly telling Chris what a dork he is. Maybe I deserve it this time. Nevertheless, I am seriously rejoicing in my pens.