backward dog...

Alright, straight up.  This is gonna be my most controversial post yet.  And longest.  Like real long.  I may lose a few of ya as a result.  I may go down from low 20 readership to like, the teens.  We’ll see…

I have tried yoga a couple of times.  It will kick your patootie.  Don’t doubt it.  I heard about it and thought it was going to be all serene and low key and relaxing and it’s not.  Oh, no, it’s not.  It hits you way different than aerobics which is just a bunch of uppy downy movement that makes you huff and puff and sweat and jiggle.  Which is frustrating because you are working really hard to stop the overall jiggle so jiggling feels counter-productive.   And useless.  Not yoga.  Yoga is about stretching.  It’s about pulling at areas deep in your body that are long neglected and forgotten and don’t really appreciate being remembered.  Because you foresaked them and now they are all bitter and resentful and atrophied.  And then there is the added stress on your guts that in the quiet, soothing environment as you are stretching out all kinds of parts of your body, including your intestines, a little air might now have freedom to travel to your exit parts and make some sort of sigh noise on the way through.  Or some sort of snort.  I’m talking about tooting, people.  Yoga may well cause you to toot while doing it.  And its sound will be exponentially embarrassing because of the quiet and the soothing and the low-key and the relaxing and sereness.  I don’t like to toot in public.  I don’t like to talk about tooting.  And I don’t like to exercise whether it’s uppy downy or stretchy.  So what are we talking about again?

Yoga is controversial.  There are some who believe in it purely as exercise and are in it to win it.  Somehow yoga makes people look good.  Probably they have done it more than two times but I’m just speculating here.  And probably they have the kind of diet that eliminates tootage so that they don’t have to feel self-conscious and worry about being all clinched up at the same time as trying to unclench.  Then, there are other people who believe that yoga started as a form of worship for deities other than God and regardless of its mainstream acceptance, its still fruit from a poisonous tree.   I think that it can be either.  I think that it is a really good form of exercise and truly, some that my body would benefit from should I ever take up the idea that the benefits of exercise far outweigh - uhm, anything at all.  I also think that there are still some individuals as well as some belief systems that do use it as a form of worship to googly moogly multi-armed type unforgiving, unhopeful type deities.  I think meditation, which can be a very integral part of yoga can be dangerous.  I think opening your mind to the universe opens your mind up to ALL forces of the universe – and not all things in our universe are all kind and benevolent beings.   Because if there is wet, there is dry.  If there is clean, there is dirty.  If there is sugar, there is salt.  If there is good (God), there is bad (opposing God).  I was doing my research (remember – random online  search which used to be primarily a Google situation but now I  just do all my navigation and searches through swagbucks.com because about every two weeks I earn enough points for an Amazon gift card- curiosity should always pay –off folks.) and found out that there is Christian yoga.  And there are people who scoff at Christian yoga saying that it is an oxymoron.  And you know what I think? I just don’t believe in legalities.  I don’t believe at coming at each thing and figuring out what God’s decision about everything and anything is our job.  There’s too much.  There are nuances and facets and more than one side to every thing.  Only God has the ability to see anything and everything in it’s entirety and make judgments – what with His ability to see things in the context of past, present AND future seeing as how He, you know, invented the beginning and the end and all the stuff therein.  I think that when we concentrate on trying to figure out God’s stance on stuff, we are way out of our element and I think that we are becoming religious.  Or religulous.  Which was a movie that Bill Maher made and I will never see because it is all about being ridiculous to have faith but I’m using his term and saying that it is ridiculous religion which is kind of silly because my whole point is that…I think that religion is a little bit awful.  I think that religion, that the religious, have probably done more to turn people off from God than nearly much else.  Yep.  God has rules.  And you know what?  You have to follow them.  No, for real.  Lots of His rules have somehow or another made into the secular world and are laws.  So, whether you feel called to call God the end all, be all, you still gotta follow lots of His rules.  Or else after like 17 strikes they throw you in jail for like 2 years.  You aren’t allowed to kill people.  You aren’t allowed to have affairs after you crush on someone else’s husband or wife.  You aren’t allowed to take stuff that isn’t yours.  Like a husband or wife.  Or my chocolate.  And also, with regard to the other rules that aren’t in our actual legal systems with all the kinds of penal sub-sections and foot notes, the reality is that if you go against THE rules, even if you don’t believe in them or even maybe don’t know what they are, you get all jammed up.  Heartache and pain comes a lot from going against the grain of how we were made.  Like from the beginning.  Even sweet little Anne Frank believed in the concept that we were inherently made to be good.  So not being good – it’s bad.  It’s bad for all parts of you.   I don’t believe in Baptist or Pentecostal or Lutheran or Presbyterian. I don’t have a thing in the world against the people who flow in those buildings.  There are good people doing good stuff.  I just don’t believe in any necessity in picking one of those (or any of the others not mentioned above – not targeting a few here…) and calling yourself one.  And I just don’t believe in the addendums that religion can feel called to add on to interpret the information that they learned from in the first place (aka the original word o’ God, the Bible).  Wine was wine – not a euphemism for grape juice.  Nobody has to yell at you during a Sunday service to get God through to your thick skull.  Speaking in tongues is actually confusing and perhaps frightening to an 8 or 9 year old little girl who just wanted to spend a little more time with her friend and ended up at their church on a Sunday and got freaked out by the way her 8 or 9 year old friend’s eyes kind of rolled up into her head and made her start talking all funny and weird.  Uhm, moving on… And then there are the Mormons and the Scientologists.  Those people are crazy.  I’m sorry, but if your “faith” incorporates aliens or levels of attainment or auditing and top secret ceremonies and people who don’t let you quit – you should get out now.  That’s now how God called it.   Right about now, you might be thinking about that whole thing about how we aren’t supposed to judge, only God is supposed to judge.  But that’s not the way we down here on Earth operate, now is it?  And I’m certainly not here to tell you about how I’m perfect and sinless and I have it all figured out and am all enlightened and such.  Nope.  I’m a sinner.  I’m someone who is voicing my thoughts and my beliefs.  And you have total freedom to disagree and even be pissed with me.  But really, why would you?  I mean, aside from being a crazy Mormon or Scientologist, what do you care about those rules and what I think of them?  They comfort you.  They give you a sense of belonging and they direct a path.  And that’s totally cool.  But God never mentioned picking a religion.  He said pick Him.  He said pick His Son.  Follow His rules – and not just the 10 big ones that made it to the big screen with Charlton Heston.  All of them.  There are none bigger or smaller than the others.  They all count because He took the time to mention them. 

And here is the thing about faith.  We take it personally.  That’s why this is going to be offensive.  We take up God’s cause and we fight the fight for Him.  We defend Him.  And it’s awesome.  And it’s unnecessary.  We talk about being spiritual.  We call our faith, our beliefs, our religion personal.  We don’t want to get into it.  We don’t want to be challenged in case it’s delicate and shatters at the slightest question.  We don’t want to offend anyone.  It’s not PC to prefer one faith to another.  They should all be honored and they should be privately held.  And you know what?  That’s a crock.  Your faith, your religion, your belief system should never have secrets or necessitate darkness or closed doors.  Your faith should never involve harm to yourself or another.  Or severed chicken heads.  Or goats.  Because that is gross and creepy.  Faith should be shared.  It should be in the light.  It should be celebrated because in the end it is just one thing – the one thing it was always called to be – good news. 

My kids show me a lot about the nature of God.  They show me the depth of good news.  There is the miracle of Scooby who couldn’t talk until he was 3 years old.  God gave him a curious mind and active insides that can’t sit still.  That kid taught me about being a voice for the voiceless.  The way God made Scooby called forth a warrior in me that became an advocate for resources that gave way to a kiddo who came so far that he was complimented on his vocabulary in the first grade.  I love the way his mind works.  It’s different and creative in ways that are foreign to me.  Much like God.  There is the miracle of Princess who came to us in the most devastating of circumstances.  We had lost our perfect 13 month old daughter (a story you and me have not shared yet and a story for another time…) and I just knew that I needed to feel life within me again.  So, along came Princess.  Who had a problem.  Her little umbilical chord was supposed to have 3 vessels and only had 2.  We had to keep a watchful eye to make sure she got enough to eat in there.  And then she had another problem.  There was a problem with her heart beat.  And my friends gathered around and did a day of fasting and prayer the day before I was to go in for a more in depth test about her heart beat.  And that next day, her heart was perfect. Two tests had determined the problem and then two tests revealed that there was no longer a problem.  She showed me that God truly does heal.  When she got here and she didn’t need it anymore, her umbilical cord’s deficiency was a moot point.  And then she just loved me up.  Overwhelming and humbling in her love – like God.  And we thought that was the end of our birthing tales but it was not.  God had a little more in store for us and surprised us with another pregnancy.  I knew that it was going to be a boy.  I knew it.  But there was some spidey-sense stuff happening in my core that told me more.  Like twins more.  I was getting all kinds of signs and signals that there was a two-fer happening.  I was terrified and excited.  And I prayed for them.  I wanted them.  I asked again and again for twins.  And it wasn’t until our first ultra-sound that it was confirmed.  Twins.  A sister for Princess and a brother for Scooby.  Peanut is our youngest.  She is fierce.  She is small and feisty.  She has the best giggle in the world.  I don’t care what kind of mood you are in, that giggle will create a groundswell of joy in you.  And it will become a wave and swallow you up.  When I give in to thinking about God, what He has done for me in my life, that’s the same kind of joy I feel.  And then there is Big Stuff.  I have called him Skunk before.  But he really has always been Big Stuff around here.  He showed up just before his sister with this tiny elfin face and sweet disposition.  I decided to call him tough names like bruiser and big stuff so that he wouldn’t feel so tiny and cute.  But he is adorable.  I love all my children like crazy cakes and I truly don’t have a favorite – it just seems like it to the kids (Just like how we see God having a favorite but really, He doesn’t.  He is incomprehensibly able to love each and every one of the 7 billion of us – I don’t place much stock on the accuracy of census and what-not so I’m accounting for all those that likely weren’t counted last time they did the big to do).  But Big Stuff captured my heart.  From the start I felt gentleness in him and he adores me in a different way than princess.  He delights in me and pretty much just sees the good in me.  There is a pureness and innocence in him that reveals a truth about God that I don’t see much anywhere else.

I don’t like cats.   I believe that there are dog people and there are cat people.  And cat people are wrong.  Cats are arrogant and independent.  It’s a one sided relationship.  You dig the cat and the cat expects you to attend to its every need and whim with no return on that investment.  We are dog people.  Which is good because I have at least 2 children that are probably allergic to cats.  So, even if they were cat people, they are medically called to be dog people.  I have a dog.  I have two dogs but only one is MY dog.  That dog adores me.  He seeks me out all the time.  He waits for me outside the bathroom door.  He wants to sleep on my head.  He always wags his tail when he sees me enter a room 49 seconds after I left it.  He is a little off if he hasn’t checked in regularly.   He is intuitive about my moods.  He wants to lick my tears.  He is confused and hurt when I yell at him and has forgotten my yelling at him about a minute after it happens.  He forgives me every single time that I accidentally step on his toes.  He always has an awareness of where I am in the house and if he can’t be with me, it’s only because I have cut off his access because he is always trying like the dickens to be with me.  He gives me the illusion that he needs me but really, he could survive on his own.  He has apopleptic excitement about me coming back to him.   He is jealous of anything that steals my attention from him.  I belong to him.  And that is why God spelled backward is dog.  Because in this world, not much else will have the ability to teach you more about the nature of God, the nature of His abiding love and grace and enthusiasm of you than a dog.  I have to go now because my children won’t leave my dog alone and he needs rescuing.  You can take that literally or ponder whether it’s a metaphorical loop back to something else I said way back up there.  

juice...

I watched a fascinating documentary on Netflix the other night.  It's called "Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead".  I like documentaries.  I like to fool myself into thinking that they are unbiased reflections of the world at large.  They aren't skewed in any way, I tell you!  I don't know what drew me to this one in particular.  It mentioned steroids and maybe that was it.  Hubs and I watched a doc about wrestling and maybe I thought that the steroids in this movie were going to be the same kind as in that movie.  But they weren't.  The steroid was prednisone.  I have an intimate knowledge of prednisone although my knowledge of it isn't really first hand.  I think I took it for some malady, briefly.  But I can't recall with certainty.  My asthmatic mom had to be on it for years.  Years.  Before they realized that no one should be on prednisone for years.  God love her (and He does), that stuff puffed her out.  But she had to breathe and such so she suffered through.  Hubs just had to finish a round of prednisone because he got exposed to some wicked poison ivy/oak/sumac type situation and it would NOT go away.  We had a dog that had to be on prednisone.  It made him crazy, ravenous and thirsty.  I think it might have affected me the same way.  But I can't recall with certainty.  So, in the movie, this Aussie dude Joe decides that he is going to confront his health.  He was a very successful business man who ate and enjoyed life to excess and ended up with an auto-immune disease that made the histamines in his body go nuts and gave him a frequent, unpredictable, painful rash.  He decided to do a juice fast for 60 days to clear out his system, lose weight, and try to cure his disease (or at least lessen his dependence on the medications for it).  Short of any sort of creative editing or possible behind the scenes aid from medication or surgery, this movie was compelling.  Because not only did Joe lose a boatload of weight, he got off all his medications, stopped getting the crazy rash and found energy and health.  From juice.  On top of that, he met a truck driver who had the exact same auto-immune disease who agreed to do the juice fast for 10 days and wound up doing it for 30 (if not 60 - memory issues, people - old) days.  He lost a boat load of weight, got off all his medications, stopped getting the crazy rash, found energy and health AND started a juicing club at his local health food store.  Now.  I'm not fat.  But I have bumpy parts.  And some bumpy parts sit on top of other bumpy parts.  Especially when I'm sitting.  Or standing.  Not so much really when laying down.  I don't think.  And lots of my bumpy parts aren't supposed to be bumpy.  Now.  I'm not sick.  At least, not terminally or chronically.  But I have stomach issues a little too frequently.  I don't have energy.  I am a sugar addict.  I am a coffee addict.  I'm totally chagrined about the increasing amount of processed and convenience foods that enter my home and my body.  And nearly dead?  Not right now, but who knows what the future has in store for me?  I want to wake-up and not feel like my get up and go has got up and went every morning.  I don't have much in the way of willpower and I don't know that I could just stop eating sugar and caffeine on my own.   But I believe in these 2 things, even prior to this propaganda:  1.  God did an extraordinary job creating the body.  Because that is how He does everything - extraordinarily.  It is built with the desire to restore and perform.  But we rob the body of it's innate abilities regularly - with smoking, drinking, sugar, drugs, no veggies, excess fat, bags and boxes of various foods, etc.  2.  Sugar is, for all intents and purposes, an organism that feeds on itself.  Now, I know that it is not really a living organism.  At least, I don't think it is.  It comes from a plant (or a plant, depending on whether you are buying real or fake) and those are living things but all living things essentially die when cut off from the source (oh, how philosophical I could wax right now about how we, as humans, essentially die when cut off from THE Source... another time...) so, it's not living or an organism at that point, right?  But I still firmly believe that it feeds on itself.  If you have never eaten it, you don't have to worry about it.  If you have a bite, that bite sits there and wants to become more, bigger, and it sets up a yearning, burning desire for not small quantities of Graeter's Buckeye Blitz pints or quarts or uhm, 8-10 packs of candy bars that are selling 10 for $10 at the grocery, or uhm, guzzled Hershey's syrup - in a can because it's so much richer and delicious in a can than that dang plastic bottle.  And the more you eat, the more you want.  I'm using alot of "you" language.  I'm just making assumptions about your experiences.  I have none of my own to point to... at all.

But here is the flip side.  Every so often, I get a wild hair - likely a gray one because those are unpredictable and unnerving and make me panic and look for a fountain of youth or some sort of next fulfilling thing.  It is nearly always, as Hubs can tell you, a train wreck.  For instance, I became a member of a pyramid scheme rep for a multi-level marketing company that sold too expensive ways to preserve memories and instill traditions for your family.  I was supposed to form clubs and do home parties to sell their wares.  I thought that I was brighter than the company because I was encouraged to do booths at different craft fairs and what-not so that I could drum up more opportunities to do home parties.  But nobody goes to a craft fair to look for home parties.  People go to craft fairs to buy crap.  But nobody wanted to buy into my crap.  Because it was expensive crap.  And not terribly crafty.  What with being made in China and all.  I spent gobs of money and was left with a BUNCH of products nobody wanted to shell out money for in order to learn that those pyramid schemes home party businesses have really done their homework and have spent the time to come up with a system that works from the top down and not the bottom up..  And Hubs saw me through.  I was doing my purees and have dwindled that off quite a bit.  By the by, my bleeding beet ombre is not going as expected/hoped.  And also, probably when you are using regular dye, bugs aren't attracted to it.  You know.  The way that bugs are attracted to food.  Anywho.    I go all gung-ho ahead about whatever scheme or notion or trend that I latch onto and sink time and money and enthusiasm into it and then get burned out (burnt out?  Doesn't either work?  Doesn't a fizzle dying and extinguishing become a burnt wick of some sort?  Hmmm...).  And the longevity varies quite a bit.  No rhyme or reason or predictability about the success rate - or lack thereof.  So I asked Hubs to watch the documentary to be a voice of rationale in my whirling dervish ways.  Because I'm all about the rationalizing but none too much about the rational.  He hasn't watched it yet.  Ahem.  But I'm anxious for him to because I need to get my fine quality juicer and kale and make the mean green juice and get started.

And, in the quest for trying to move forward responsibly with regard to my interest (possible new obsession) with juicing (a new thing - being responsible in my quests!!), I have realized something fairly monumental about myself.  I don't get excited about much.  It's like there is an apathy disease sitting on my cells.  It's all humdrum.  I don't know what gets me stoked about anything - what gets my juices flowing.  Hubs and I went to a U2 concert 2 weeks ago.  It. Was. Awesome.  The only thing that could have truly made it perfect for me was if the Black Eyed Peas opened instead of Interpol.  Interpol was pretty dang good but I love me some Will.I.Am and Fergie who is fergalicious.  But this concert was not about me or for me.  It was for Hubs.  He turned 40 last year and I told him that we were doing it.  I think 40 is a big deal and should be treated as such.  This was once in a lifetime type stuff.  So we bought the tickets, made the arrangements and even got to spend the night at a hotel.  Alone.  Mad props to the in-laws for coming through.  And it.was.awesome.  Hubs and I were all giddy on the way.  Okay, I was giddy.  Hubs was a more macho, manly version of giddy - probably excited.  On top of that, some sort of cult-like following was watching women's soccer like it was the royal wedding.  Japan vs. U.S..  Women's.  Soccer.  Who knew?  But there everyone was at home and then in the hotel lobby and bar glued to the screen like it was going to transform the world to see the outcome.  Or maybe they were just all waiting for some cute athletic chick to strip her shirt off after making the winning goal.  I don't know much about this cockamamie event but I do know that happened before some years ago.  So, between both these things, an epic concert and an apparently epic soccer event, the hotel and my husband were abuzz.  And not for nothing because I love my country and I am patriotic in my own ambivalent, not excited way, but I was happy for the little country who could.  They have had a tough time of it ladies and gents.  I don't mind them counting small victories where they can.  Anywho.   I was happy to be there.  I was happy to have Hubs to myself.  I was happy to be going to the concert - I dig U2.  I dig lots of their songs but they are no Shawn Colvin, my friends.  Or Black Eyed Peas.  Or Lady Gaga.  For goodness sakes.  I wanted this for Hubs.  And I had a great time.  But I go to things like this - events- big or small- like concerts like the one I go to every 2-10 years) or parties or gatherings or celebrations and I'm not in it.  It's kind of like a whir around me and I feel suspended above or  surrounding it from a petunia like stance against a wall.  I don't know what that is about, exactly.  I think that unexcited and unimpressed might go hand in hand.  Not much is really impressive anymore.  I mean, they closed the flippin' space program!  Are you kidding me?  Because there wasn't much more to see at this point.  It's not impressive anymore that rockets attach to a mega-airplane space craft and blast it into space.  It's not impressive anymore that there is a station IN SPACE that spacecraft take people to to live and repair stuff (all the time. Apparently not alot of shelf-life on products when in space).  Really?  Not much new happening there.  The moon?  Yup.  Been there, done that.  Claimed it.  Own it.  Until a little green dude shows up, we just sit around waiting for the technology to catch up with the next great frontier.  Imagine that being the train of thought a mere 55 years ago.  What if we were as caught up in the frontier we live in right here in our local atmosphere, our local hemisphere?  I dunno.  I'm just speculating.  I'm not trying to be a downer.  I'm just keepin' it real.  This is me.  This is how I'm seeing things.  This is me noticing that my senses are dulled by instant gratification and new and improved and out with the old.  I'm putting this out there - in case you see it too.  But I'm not resigned to staying this course.  I'm looking to flush the apathy off my cells.  Perhaps with some sort of juice product.  I'm determined to fixate and go full tilt into sinking time and energy and enthusiasm into noticing the details around me and not to stop looking because it doesn't jump out at me.  And I'm using my position of influence and power, such that it is since I have your attention and you made it this far.  I'm using my juice to encourage you to do the same. Seriously.  Go look at a giraffe.  No, for real.  I'll wait.  A giraffe's body does not make sense.  All science and logic says that they should drown when drinking.  There is nothing that is supposed to work about their make up.  But they do.  And they are extraordinary.  They are beautiful and impressive.  Go look at a book.  Muggles?  Butterbeer?  How impressive that a human mind came up with a world so rich with detail and fantastical animals and heart-breaking circumstances AND made my then 9 year old son jazzed about reading..  And that is just one book.  There are millions of books.  There are millions of individuals that invite you into their own stories or the ones that they invented.  Listen to a song.  Close your eyes and hear the words.  And consider how often you know those words in your soul because you are a human too and we all have our conflictions.  And we all have our triumphs.  Triumph is exciting. And either we aren't having enough triumph or the bar is too high for what we consider a true triumph to be.  If you woke up today and you are reading this now, That should be exciting.  It is to me, anyway.  I mean, what the heck am I doing here otherwise??  Dammit.  I just fell off my soap box.  I'm gonna have to soothe myself with an ice-pack and some chocolate 'til Hubs watches my documentary and I can fix myself up with all myriad of fruits and veggies... 

dealing with the chronic...

I should not be here with you now.  It's not that I don't dig you.  Because I do.  It's just that I have stuff to do.  I pretend I don't.  I do a couple of things and then a couple more to make it look like I did more than what I actually did and then I call it a day.  But I have been watching a lot of "Hoarders" lately.  It is FASCINATING.  With a capital everything.  And some days I find it a comfort - I do not have that kind of problem!!!  And other days I find it a challenge - I have a similar problem.  Here is the catch phrase that got my attention and alerted me to be sure to keep an eye on myself:  Chronic disorganization.  I think this is hoarding as an infant. You feed it and it grows.  I am 1,000 % chronically disorganized.  I don't mind throwing stuff out - so much.  I just do better at it when I have the distance of some years between looking at it last and letting it go.  I just don't know where the hello kitty to put any and all stuff while it's in purgatory waiting for it's eventual fate.  Nothing is in it's place.  Because mostly there's no designated place for anything.  I know.  I have talked about some of this before.  I talked all about how I was gonna change.  Don't we all, my brothers and sisters?  But watching that show, hearing that phrase, chronically disorganized, I'm taking notice.  So, right now, I should be upstairs.  In the "upstairs kitchen".  The "upstairs kitchen" is the area upstairs that was, in fact, a kitchen at one time.  A widower lived in this house prior to us and had turned it into a two-family home for his daughter and her son to share with him.  The daughter essentially had an apartment upstairs with a kitchen of her own.  We couldn't use it as kitchen - nor did we want to- according to the terms of our loan.  I was convinced that kitchen was the reason that this nice large house stayed for sale for so long.  Probably I should have paid more attention to the nefarious goings-on in the section 8 apartments at the bottom of our street and the decline of the other homes to the left and right of us as the true cause of the problem.  But I saw promise in that there upstairs kitchen.  I saw cabinets and counters and a sink and by golly, I was gonna craft it up with my impending children.  Scooby was 6 months old when we bought the house and a boy so I wasn't fully invested in his crafting interests and held out hope for the more to come.  But I forgot that I am lazy.  I don't like to clean messes which means that I don't encourage situations that cause messes.  Which means that  the upstairs kitchen has become a catch-all for all things craft related and  toys that haven't quite made it all the way to either of the rooms inhabited by children.  And my scrapbooking stuff.  Oh.  That's right.  I'm one of those people.  I LOVE scrapbooking.  And I don't understand anyone who doesn't.  I started out with the ginormous Creative Memories tote galore courtesy of my generous mother.  But then I entered my first scrapbook store and all bets were off.  Creative Memories was fine - and to many, it still is.  But I'm all about patterned paper and embellishments and Creative Memories is not.  Creative memories is about stencils and circles and journaling.  It's very minimal.  And, I'm sorry but their style is very distinct and I don't much care for it.  It's formulaic and plain.  I'm about the layout telling the story more than the journaling.  I'm all about the embellishments.  I know.  I said that twice - it's not a typo.  If I am a hoarder, if I am a shopping addict - it's around 2 things: embellishments for scrapbooking and groceries.    I think that I am getting better at the groceries.  I think.  Probably not.  Hubs has to do my budget every month and I keep going over it.  Probably because of groceries.  And clothes.  And scrapbooking stuff.  Look.  Stay on point.  I have a stockpile in my basement of groceries.  I know, I know.  Probably you have seen at least one episode of "Extreme Couponing" on TLC.  Eww.  For real don't compare me (or any of the blogs that I read and support around couponing) with that show or the people therein.  Don't get me wrong.  I believe in the power of couponing AND stockpiling.  And I believe that everyone has a journey to walk through from getting started with both and getting caught up in the thrill and the high of seeing instant gratification at the check-out and tweaking it so that you choose one of two paths:  greedy hoarding or responsible stockpiling.  The people depicted on that show choose the path of the former rather than the latter (since that saying can still confuse me - the former is the first and the latter is the last).  Responsible means that I have 18 bottles of bbq sauce so unless I'm getting it for free (and only then, I would only buy a few more to help see me through to next summer when they are on sale again), there isn't any point in buying more - to do so undermines the whole saving money bit AND it encroaches on hoarding.  Responsible means that if we don't eat spaghetti-os, I don't buy them at any price so that I don't deprive people who go to the store looking to get it super cheap to free because they need it and they need to save money on it.  That stockpile has blessed not just my family but other families who have fallen on tough times.  I can see clearly that God has blessed me to help others with my bargain shopping but it's still my job to be a good steward with the money He provides us.  I'm still fine-tuning my purchasing strategy.  I still make unwise decisions.  Don't we all, my brothers and sisters?  Anywho.  My friend told me that I'm supposed to flee from evil so I really try not to put myself into scrapbooking aisles or stores.  But sometimes it's unavoidable.  Like when I pull into the Archiver's parking lot.  Just kidding!  Sort of.  But I have gotten some truly cute scrapbooking stuff from close-out stores like Big Lots and Tuesday Morning.  Enablers.  hmph. Do you think I needed a new paragraph at any point up there?  Oh well, stick with it.  SO.  About the upstairs kitchen.  I tried to put in a scrapbooking space.  I have tried like heck to organize that space as well as my scrapbooking stuff and it is a nightmare.  It's not pulling together despite the organizers I have to make it do so.  And part of the reason why is that I will never scrapbook in my home.  It's just not going to happen.  I don't know why.  I just know it with certainty.  Which means that my scrapbooking stuff needs to be organized in a way that allows me to take it to crops (which is scrapbookese for scrapbooking event).  That presents with a new problem:  it would appear that I need ALL my scrapbooking supplies with me at any scrapbooking event all the time.  And y'all.  I have alot of scrapbooking supplies.  Alot.  Like hoarding alot.  And since there is no sense of sense when it comes to how I have that stuff put together, I spend most of my time at crops looking for something- anything- everything.  I also spend alot of time walking around because lately, every time I go to a crop my stomach starts getting all bloaty and uncomfortable.  I think it is the sitting.  Which would be weird because I'm all about the sit in my day to day.  Probably a little too much personal info, huh?  Oh well.  Maybe that happens to some of you and you have worked your way through it and have some tips on how to avoid the crop bloat discomfort.  Or maybe that happens to some of you and you had no idea it happens to anyone else.  Or maybe it's just me.  Anywho.  My scrapbooking supplies are - you guessed it - chronically disorganized.   I have tried to go by color but I don't know what to do with dual colored things.  Or patterns.  Or the word red written in blue.  You see what I'm saying.  I have tried to have all ribbons in one place and all stamps and inks in another.  But somehow I start feeling seriously cumbersome.  Maybe.  I can't remember. So long has it been since I have even attempted to get that stuff put together.  Because, remember, I'm a quitter.  If I wasn't successful the first time.  Or even maybe the second or third if I allow it all to go so far, I'm done.  So that is where I should be instead of here, now, with you.  I should be upstairs in the upstairs kitchen disabling my chronic disorganization.  It would make Hubs so happy.  Or laundry.  I should be in the basement doing laundry.  It would make Hubs so happy.

But I'm tired.  It seems like I'm always tired.  On the one hand, I take some medicinal aids that may contribute to my sluggishness.  On the other hand, Hubs likes to tell me that I should exercise more.  Because it gives you energy.  So, you have to have energy to get to the machine where you expend energy to gain more energy.  Exercise is stupid.  And contrary.  And stupid.  And on another hand, it's like 900 degrees outside these days.  It drains a girl.  Especially a girl with hot flashes.  And if I'm mentioning hot flashes, I guess I'm not so much a girl anymore.  I mentioned that a few birthdays occurred during my, ahem, hiatus.  One of those was the big one -my fortieth.  It was awful.  And probably it was awful because I kept saying it was going to be awful and there is alot of science and truth about self-fulfilling prophecies.  And maybe that's why I'm so tired.  I'm old now.  Old people are tired.  They go to bed at like 6:30pm.  Like right after watching the local news and catching the weather forecast.  Because old people are also all about weather.  They have to mention the weather where they are, inquire about the weather where you are (segueing into the all encompassing mystery of time zones and what time is it there because it is 5pm my time and you are one hour away so it's 6pm your time etc. etc.) and they have to be prepared for the weather that is to come.  Even though weather forecasting is some sort of combination of divination and tomfoolery and is always subject to change with no sort of justification or apology from the forecasters who never get it right.  I'm pretty sure that there is a chat room somewhere with virtual dice that all of the weather forecasters enter before showtime and they roll the dice and work together conspiring on some sort of systems map for the entire country that shows the results of the dice rolling.  Kind of like dungeons and dragons where the dice predict the results of a battle that never happens.  None of it is real and all of it is based on imagination.  But I'm not all consumed with weather yet.   Aside from complaining of heat.  I'm hot.  And I'm hot flashing in the hot.  And when it gets cold, I'm going to complain about the cold.  But for now, the heat is making me drowsy.  And the inactivity is making me drowsy.  And the meds are making me drowsy.  And my seemingly constant need for sugar now, sugar crash later foods are making me drowsy.  So if you aren't catching on.  I'm drowsy.  Like all the time.  Which looks cool and aloof if you are some sort of teenage boy heart throb from a movie like "My Sister's Werewolf Boyfriend Has a Hot Vampire Slut Sister I Want to Get With".  But I'm not that.  So I don't look so cool and aloof.  I look tired.  And I sound grumpy.  And I nap.  Which makes me stay up later.  Which makes me miss night sleep.  Which sucks when I have to get up to chauffeur little people around.  Which is exhausting because I still have to fight and yell about sitting down and buckling up.  NOW!  And I nap and start the cycle all over again.

OH!  But as long as I am here, let me tell ya something I am going to try (new!) soon.  I'm combining my crafty side with my sneaky cook side ( I don't know if that Missy Chase Lapine has copywritten the term "sneaky chef" but she has more money than me to duke it out in court so I'm just going to be surreptitious about it all...).  Okay, so you know how when you cook beets it stains pretty much everything?  Oh.  Right.  Beets are kind of gross so probably you don't cook too many beets.  But I cook them and put it sneaky like in my food.  And they stain everything.  Now.  I love ombre.  Between ombre and clothes that have contrasting color stitching - like white stitching on black clothes or vice-versa or some other such situation like so, I could fill a closet with such an adoration I have.  Since I don't sew, I can't personally do the contrast color stitching so much.  But I think I have a line on how to do the ombre.  I just take the white item of choice - likely a white t-shirt for this scenario- and hang it over a vat of dye letting the bottom rest in about an inch or two of it and letting it suspend there for an indeterminate amount of time.  The dye bleeds its way up and gets more concentrated towards the bottom where the dye is feeding in.  So are you putting this all together?  I'm using some of my beet puree as the dye. That's right.  If Martha Stewart can use beet juice as a natural dye for Easter eggs, I can do what I want with that stuff too.  I'm not doing this today.  I told ya.  I got stuff I should be doing.  So I hope to do this sometime this week.  And because I do dig ya, I'll tell ya how it turns out.  Heck.  I might even do a picture to go alongside.  I think I'm going to call my method bleeding beet ombre.

For those of you who read the title and jumped in hoping to hear a little about some sort of green herbage, sorry to disappoint.  I hope you got a kick out of what you did read and reconsider what Nancy Reagan always said:  Just Say No.  And as someone else might have said: Nope to Dope.  That might have been in reference to doping in the cyclist arena.  Or some other such beleaguered sporting league.  But the message remains the same... also, Crack is whack.  And Huffing leaves you with Nothing.  I made that last one up.  That's right.  Just now.  Off the top of my head.  And that concludes our public service announcement section for the day.  Also it concludes my post for the day.  I told ya.  I got stuff to do.

Confliction

I think I just made that up.  I think.  For me, it would mean being afflicted with conflict.  Which is probably redundant.  Because to be conflicted or to be in the midst of conflict is really already an affliction.  Anywho.  I am mortified and unapologetic about the amount of time since my last post.  That's right.  Both.  Here's what's been going on: a dog died.  a step-father died.  a new dog was adopted.  a relationship with God has been strained but not broken.  an addiction has been confronted. 4 birthdays have been observed (no- not all of them were mine.  It hasn't been that long!).  Christmas.  anniversary.  new year.  Easter.  stomach bugs have debilitated.  veggie garden has been planted and enjoyed.  weight has been gained.  memory has been lost.  vacations have been had.  I have been cold.  I have been hot.  I have had hot flashes.  healing continues.  new stuff has happened again and again.  And that is about all I have to say about that.

Let me tell ya something.  I'm intrigued with Jack White.  I'm not crushing on him because Hubs is pretty hot and I don't really need to crush on anyone because I'm not wanting in crush material, you know?  But he was interviewed in Relevant magazine (couldn't get a link to the article so it's page 49) and I was kind of fascinated by what he had to say.  And, I was never into White Stripes but he's supposed to be wicked talented.  Like one of the 100 best guitarists of all time.  Although, I gotta say, I can't think of 100 best bands of all time so that there would be a guitarist in each of those that could be a contender.  I can think of Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix and... Prince - think what you will but that little dude knows his way around a guitar and I'm not just saying that because I had a huge crush on him back in the day).  I don't know.  Maybe music isn't my thing.  You know what my thing is?  Story telling.  Which brings me back to my mention of Jack White.  One of his bands (which he is down to 2 and neither of them are White Stripes) is called the Raconteurs.  So I did some research (and by research I mean, I googled them once to find out the name of their "albums".  Are they still called albums when they aren't technically albums?  Aren't albums vinyl?  So what do you call the compilation of songs that a band releases at one time at this point?) and found a definition for the word Raconteur.  It means: a person who is skilled in relating stories and anecdotes interestingly. (Mad props to definition.com because I never did get that footnote business down so consider this appropriate acknowledgement that would unbind me from any sort of plagaristicness.)  And I thought - with all the humility in the world - HEY!  That's all me all the time!  I am a raconteur.  And I had to click on the listen to the word being pronounced button 3 times so that when I told people that I am a raconteur (obviously in a skilled, anecdotal and interesting way) I would know how to pronounce it properly.  However, I think they just have the program read it in a condescending and phonetic matter and I'm not invested that it was pronounced properly so probably I'm going to sound like a total tool when I try to puff myself up with a title of this magnitude.  Other than sounding like a total tool for using such a hoity word at all.  And also, it might set me up to consistently be skilled, anecdotal and interesting in my storytelling and what if I disappoint?  I mean, I don't think that I disappoint now but surely I will if I attach an expectant title to myself like that.  I have stories to tell.  And sometimes the stories are a verbal, verbose conveyance of my life and the random stuff that goes on within it.  And sometimes the stories are poems or written pieces with symbolism and wonderment and what I hope to be flowing, eloquent language.  And sometimes the stories are without much in the way of words at all but have pictures and scraps of paper and various embellishments.  And sometimes the stories are blog posts that I write with no regularity, some disclosure and as much honesty as I can muster.  And sometimes the story truly has no words at all but is a measure of how I maneuver this world in my day to day life as homage to the true story-teller - the original author - God.  He gave me a voice.  He gave me some talent in the way that I use that voice and I am blessed that He saw fit to allow me to do it in so many ways - all of which I value.

Ultimately, I started this blog as a way to tell stories.  Stories about things that I was trying and doing.  Stories that might feel a little familiar to many people so that we could feel connected to one more person.  To laugh knowing that we do the same kind of stinkin' silly stuff.  Or that it is just me doing stinkin' silly stuff - s'okay.  I can take you laughing WITH me.  Not so much AT me - I am not evolved in that degree at all.  To be frustrated knowing that there are wrongs that need to be righted.  To be sad and mourn that we have all had devastating things happen in our own lives.  To be a little more kind to the next person you come upon because we all walk along with our own confliction.

But I didn't know all that when I started.  When I started, I thought that I could end up like those bloggers that get lots of followers and end up making a little cha-ching from advertisers and getting invited to various blogging events and manufacturing panels and what-not and being famous and well-rounded and - successful, I guess.  So I adopted the SavvyCavy name being all clever and self-congratulatory- mostly about my cleverness.  But when all that other stuff didn't happen - you know, immediately, or uhm, at all... - I was mostly still enjoying the hello kitty out of doing this blog.  And it's because I had a new and satisfying way to tell stories.  But I think that something might need to shift in my goals or something in order to do this with some more regularity.  In order to not sit on the computer for hours trying to get a post done while I swat kids away and repeat the phrase "in a minute" like some sort of turretic chant.  In order to meet your needs as well as mine.  Okay, probably you don't have needs around my posting.  Maybe.  But just in case you do - I want to meet those needs.  I'm a giver.  A giving storyteller.  So.  The question at hand is whether or not I continue on with this blog - with this name and the idea behind it of trying something new every day and telling you about it - on a mutually negotiated and agreed upon regularity OR do I begin a new blog.  One with a new name.  One that would have a different focus - which needs to be defined further than a blanket storytelling theme.  But the same design.  Cuz I just changed that background and design and I'm pretty dang fond of it.  It's feminine and scrappy.  Like me.

I'm interested in feedback on this one.  I'm too lazy to go all surveymonkey on it so just post or something and let me know what you think.  Based on the one, maybe two people who share their opinion, I will consider a decision.  Smooch y'all.

this just in... part two...

I don't often start sentences with "the icing.".  So, when I did my thing where I re-read my post the following day, imagine my consternation (that's right) when one paragraph began exactly that way.  You know what that means?  That blogspot site chaps my ... hide.  This happens frequently.  One time would be confusing.  More than once is frustrating.  We are about to go vexing on this little quirk.  And it is super bothersome as, believe it or not, my posts are stream of consciousness situations.  I jump on, not necessarily knowing what I will be chatting up, and let my freak fingers fly.  So when parts of it go missing, they truly go missing.  I don't ever fully recapture that thought or moment again.  All the spontaneity goes kaput.  My solution?  Well, for today, I have edited last night's post to the best of my recollection.  For the long term?  My normal M.O. would be to stomp my feet and quit blogspot.  I'm a quitter.  Which is cool when it comes to smoking and bad boys and other nefarious (that's right) doings.  But it's not so cool when it comes to - just about anything else.  This time, I will try a new approach (something new, if you will).  I will start doing my post in a word document and then pasting that into my blog.  For some reason, I have this idea that something will be lost in that process but I will squelch that fear for now.  But if blogspot continues to make editorial decisions in which it cuts my post, well, I might have to press a word, if you know what I mean.  You know.  Use a WordPress.  Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more, say no more.  So, we will catch up later.  I have begun my new thing for today and I am looking forward to sharing it with you later.  Word.

this just in...

In point of fact, I did not fall off the face of the earth.  Here's what I want to say.  I want to say that I watched the movie Inception and have been so busy puzzling over it that I couldn't even concentrate on writing something for you.  That my brain was so full of enigmata (that's right.) that truly, I couldn't fit another thing in or figure out how to pull anything out.  That's what I'd like to say.  Because that sounds pretty cool.  However, in keeping with my commitment to being honest, I can't say that.  Because I only just watched it two nights ago.  And it doesn't count for last night because we were at Hubs' work Christmas party.  Prior to that, I was kind of just being.  I was just a human, being.  I think.  Looking back, I'm trying to discern what I was doing on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night.  As I said, I watched Inception on Friday night.  Pay attention!  Wait.  Okay on Thursday night, I had a mental health tune-up with my person who does that with me.  She's cool.  We hadn't seen each other since far too long ago and had much catching up, healing and processing to do.  Certainly more than can be contained in 50 minutes.  Plus, I dig her as  a real live person and had some interest in some personal stuff going on in her life so we did some post hourly rate chatting.  Don't be a judger.  Probably the people that feel like judging other people for doing therapeutic talking might maybe be people who could really use some.  I'm just sayin'.  Anywho, she wants me to figure out what relaxes me.  Yeah.  Like that's going to happen.  She's stressing me out by even asking this of me.  So. That explains Thursday.  Oh yeah.  Hubs came home on Tuesday.  From San Diego.  Apparently, he had a lovely view of the bay and some fantastic Thai food.  Not to mention some kid-free peace and quiet.  And Monday night football access as we do not have cable.  Apparently, it was like a little vacation for him, all gift-wrapped up in reimbursement bows and per diem wrapping paper.  If I were to suggest such to him, probably he would bemoan the quick turn around time, the fact that he didn't have time to go to do anything to enjoy the town - like the zoo or Lego World, and that he had to, you know, work.  Whatever.  At this point, I would like to point out that it hit 12 degrees while he was in California.  12 Degrees.  Let me tell you how cold that is.  I have to melt my van door in the morning so that we can get loaded up.  That day, as I was getting all my peeps to their destination in my interior heat blasting van, the residue water, of the hot water, that was on the window froze and crystallized.  And didn't thaw out.  So.  At this point, only Wednesday remains elusive.  I'm cool with that.  We have reached a point in this season that it's all rushing by like a blur.

Let's talk Inception, shall we?  I think if  you took another Nolan film - Memento and put that in a blender with Matrix and frapped, it would look similar to this.  That's not a bad thing.  I thought that Memento was a great movie.  Really innovative.  And I LOVE the Matrix Trilogy.  The whole dang thing - not just the first two.  I like Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.  And John Hardy is one to watch at this point.  Leo DiCaprio.  The best work I have ever seen ol' Leo do was in What's Eating Gilbert Grape.  I thought he was brilliant.  Haven't seen a thing since that I feel shows any depth at all.  That dude needs to do a romantic comedy or something.  He takes himself and his "craft" way too seriously.  And I really do not enjoy much of what he does.  I don't seek him out, he generally just tends to be in a movie I'm interested in.  At this point, I can count on him being a tortured soul of some sort.  Much like the one he played in Inception.

Here's where we are at this point.  I started talking about Inception and my brain scrambled just enough to render this incomplete.  And now it is the next day.  It's cool though because I have lots of new stuff to report on.  We didn't finish Inception.  I am going to give it 7 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.  Anything that makes you think that much has got to have something going for it.

The first new I want to get into is Christmas cookies.  Hubs' mom makes them every year.  Every year he pines for them.  And every year I avoid making them.  This year, I made them.  I made the dough (of course it was a Krusteaz sugar cookie mix!  Don't be silly!) and rolled it out.  I got out my cookie cutters.  I made the kids watch while I cut out reindeer, trees, bells, ornaments, gingerbread men and candy canes.  I have a thing.  I made them watch because I hate mess.  Which is ironic given that I am such a and am surrounded by much mess.  Also, I hate chaos and having four kids hone in and fight over cookie cutters and who's turn it is and such is the very definition of chaos.  I cooked my first batch and the cookies were all squished together.  I wasn't counting on them rising and spreading so much.  Those were the eating cookies.  The next batch was a sparse 6 cookies sitting all alone on a huge cookie sheet for to come out correctly.  Much better results.  4 batches later (as I have just the one cookie sheet...), I was in business.  The next thing I did was get out my grandmother's Joy of Cooking.  Seriously.  Every kitchen should have the Joy of Cooking cookbook - even if you don't cook.  It tells you how to dress a table.  It tells you substitutions.  It walks you through how to cut up a chicken.  It has complicated recipes.  It has simple recipes, much like the kids' cookie icing recipe that I needed just then.  It was very complicated.  It was powdered sugar and water.  And you know what it tasted like?  Watery sugar.  No flavor.  No enhancing qualities.  No good.  Also, it was all runny and kept leaking off the cookies. I was so deflated.  This was not at all the experience that I wanted to have in bringing Suzy Homemaker joy to my family's holiday season.  And you know what?  The kids did not give one lick what the cookies looked like or the quality of the icing or where it ended it up.  It was just me and this ideal I had in my head that I alone was holding myself to and not measuring up to.   I was so busy trying to do the perfect Christmas memory thing that I didn't take the time to be in the memory.  Or let anyone else be in it either.  Boo.  Hiss.  It's gonna get a 1 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.  Look.  I still got to eat cookies.  And all I can do is do it better next time.  And soon.  I threw out that icing and I'm looking for a way better recipe ASAP.  Before the cookies get all stale.  Probably I should put them away.  Like in a bag.

The next new thing is fudge.  I know.  We have talked fudge before.  I decided to experiment a little more.  I crunched up some chocolate mint candy canes and stirred those in at the end.  I also used half semi-sweet chips and half bittersweet.  It didn't turn out just right.  It got all grainy.  The candy canes were not so crunchy and some of them were too big.  It's okay.  It's still fudge.  It's not like I'm going to throw it out.  I have a derriere to support.  I'll give it 4 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.  And that is only on a fudge scale.  Which has a different value system than other stuff.  You know, since it's fudge.

Next up is merely a teaser. An amuse bouche if you will.  My mama sent me a Christmas present.  When I called to thank her, I got her voice mail.  What's a girl to do?  I asked her voice mail if I should open it now or wait.  I did not get a response.  So, I took that as a yes, open it now.  You know what it was?  An ice cream maker.  It's pretty.  It's shiny.  It holds serious promise.  If I had had some cream in my house, I wouldn't be here now with you.  I love you and all but the opportunity to create my own Jenny's splendid ice cream?  Don't worry.  I won't use that name.  I'm not mean.  I wouldn't take jeni's name.  I'll make up my own.  Like...Jenny's Jewels ice cream.  And I will use a gem stone in each of the names.  Like Rubylicious Rum Raisin.  Or Diamondback Decadent Double Chocolate.  I don't know.  That's a mouthful.  Alls I know is that I have some Cuisinart goodness (in sassy red, no less) waiting for inspiration.  And cream.  Lots and lots of cream.

Can you take me higher...

I don't know if you have noticed, but my views have bumped up over 1,000.  I'd be all impressed with myself if I could discern with any kind of certainty how many of those views were me.  I have this weird habit of revisiting my posts.  We will call it perpetual proof-reading so that I don't look so vain.  And then we will politely ignore the fact that there are still solid typos within any given post.  Although, I left the word as tattle tales rather than tattle tells.  I think they both work equally effectively.

I tried an experiment today.  I would try to improve my posture when it occurred to me.  It was awkward and slightly uncomfortable.  Because despite all their best efforts, let's face it, we all pretty much blew off the plea to stand up straight from our parents.  We are a schlumpy bunch, we the general population.  I am a good 5'3" - 5'4" on my best day.  I have begun to suspect that I am, in fact 5 feet 9 inches tall which is super exciting because then, this weight changes in all kinds of ways!  But over the years I have developed a non-scoliosis type curvature of the spine that has shrunk me up into a delicious bite-size portion.  Isn't it funny how fake it feels to stand up straight?  It was for me.  I felt like I was trying to pretend that my chest was generous and uppity.  And that I was constantly trying to suck in my guts. Which I could stand to do most any time of day but it feels like a lie.  Like padded push-up bras or horrible horrible comb-overs.  And also, it was a strain on my back to walk around like I had a stick up my patoot.  And, finally, as you can see, there is some awful stigma attached to all the time trying to present ourselves at a confident best.  I don't know.  I'm trying to figure out where and how the pros measure up against the cons.  Is it possible that after a certain point it's simply counter-productive to start standing up straight?  4 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.  Those in the medical industry are encouraged to chime in with their thoughts.

I have a friend who I like to call Krazy Mountain Killah.  I came up with that nick-name after she climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro.  That's right.  THAT Mt. Kilimanjaro.  She used to be a flight attendant.  She has taken mission trips to Mamelodi, South Africa and Nicaragua.  How fun is that word?  Especially if you take your time to roll the r and the g around.  I consider myself worldly but she might be otherworldly.   Anywho.  She is tall and blond and beautiful and has awesome teeth and is in great shape.  It would be so easy to, you know, hate her.  But she is an amazing amazing person.  So, you don't get to hate her - me neither.  I noticed that she facebooked about a Mt. Everest trip in the next 2-3 years.  Mt. Everest.  I mean, why not??  It's what all the kids are doing these days.  Crazy kids.  She's pretty in love with God and I'm thinking she's just looking for the uppermost portion of the world so she can high-five him or something.  Might as well take some Sherpas and a yak or two if you are going to roll that way.  I totally wouldn't put it past her.

It's bed-time.  Not for me.  For the kids.  And since I'm flying solo, I get the great joy of taking a break just now and fighting and screaming and drill sargenting the kids into their beds.  Be right to the back.

Hooo boy.  That was SO much fun.  There are those that say it is difficult to detect tone in email and general cyberspace situations.  Should that be your problem right now, not really trusting that you are picking up what I'm putting down, I am being 1,000 percent sarcastic.  But we aren't going to get into all that just right now.  We will simply move on.

I, wait for it... went shopping today.  We needed groceries.  And batteries.  And the new policy at Kroger is - we must have a mega-event every week.    Some of them have been better than others.  This one is decent enough.  I got cookie mix for .29.  Which I will NOT be adding any salt too.  And they paid me to take some tuna fish home.  While I was there, I picked out some lunch.  Healthy Choice and I have been friends off and on for many many years.  And we are BFFs whenever I can get it for 89 cents.  I tried the new Rosemary chicken and sweet potatoes.  It was pretty good.  I give it 6 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.  It was 170 calories!  I was starving and didn't have enough time to savor the flavors, to discern the nuances.   I did follow that up with another new thing.  I love Greek yogurt.  You give me some Greek Gods honey flavored Greek yogurt and you are in like Flynn.  I don't know a Flynn and if I did meet one, I have rigorous tests and trials for he or she to go through to be in.  But  that is all beside the point.  If you gave me raspberries to mix in with said Greek Gods yogurt... Oh My Goodness.  That's just all goodness all the time.  10 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.  The only reason I would have to mark it down is the price.  Which really, it's silly.  Per ounce it's as good if not better than the other brands.  Sometimes it's just hard to shell it all out at one time.  I often try other brands just to try to supplement and to see if there is a viable, more affordable substitute.  So far, no luck.  So today, I happened upon Atheno's Greek yogurt.  I had never seen it before.  It's made by fine people who make a fine hummus.  It was 10/$10.  Also, it had a divided container.  The yogurt was on one side and the honey was all liquidy and at the ready on the other side.  I was intrigued.  And as it had only 160 calories to add to my lunch numbers, it fit in nicely.  Until I tried it.  I realize that it's plain yogurt that you mix the bee spit into.  But I have had other plain Greek yogurts before.  I will say that somehow, once again, Greek Gods does it right.  For all the other national brands, there is this weird chalky aftertaste.  Imagine if Mylanta had no flavor at all - no cherry, no mint.  That's what I imagine this tastes like.  There wasn't enough honey to make up for it.  Not at all.  It's a no for me.  0 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.  Is that a first for me?  Cool!  And you were there for it!  I did supplement those responsible calories with some Tiger Butter.  Take some white chocolate - bar or chip form - whatever, about 11ish oz and put in about 3/4 peanut butter. Nuke that for 2-2 1/2 minutes until it's nice and liquid in form.  Pour that into a waiting pan lined with wax paper.  Spread it around.  Next take 2 cups chocolate chips and nuke those to the same fine liquid form.  Pour that on top of the peanut butter stuff and swirl real pretty with a knife.  Which totally matters when you are mindlessly breaking off one chunk after another because it's serious dang good.  So good that I bumped that 360 calorie lunch up by prolly another 800.  And kind of didn't care.  9 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.

I'm going to leave you with one final new thing.  Which is actually two new things in one.  I came across a little treat that I bought at a fair trade fair.  It's fair trade chocolate.  Specifically Divine 70 percent Dark Chocolate Covered Salted Fudge.  Salted fudge?  Yeah baby!  So with Hubs out of town, (ease up potential stalkers, by the time that you are reading this, he's on the way back home) I tore into them.  Y'all.  I'm so disappointed.  I'm trying so hard to stay the course and buy slave-free, fair trade chocolate but it simply has to be worth the price.  It has to be delicious.  I can't believe that I'm saying this but I'm throwing it out.  I tried so hard to like.  I tried so hard to stay the course and finish it.  I couldn't.  It's going to have to have a 2 out of 10 Jenny's jewels.  This is sincerely a problem because my addiction to chocolate is true and my deepest hopes to end slavery are also true.  I don't mean to make light.  I really don't.  I gotta figure that out.

In the mean time, I will attend to the final episode of the evening of my present all-consuming addiction. Come on.  Do I have to even say it?  How many times has Veronica Mars made my blog at this point?  Whatever.  It makes me happy.  It lifts my spirits at the end of a long day.  You know, when Hubs ain't around.