I'm Learning A Lot

I have been doing a lot of really important thinking and stuff while I have been hanging around the house lately. Besides thinking about getting a job, I have also been pondering the following...

Tagalongs are the best girl scout cookies. And they are best eaten with the peanut butter side down (facing your tongue). The crappy thing about them is that you think you have a whole box full but really you just have one of those clear trays that pull out containing about 1/4 of the amount of cookies that should be in that box--making one box equivalent to one serving. Maybe you don't think a box equals one serving, but then again you probably don't think one box of macaroni and cheese equals one serving like I do either. Other honorable cookie mentions are the Do-si-dos, thin mints (best frozen) and of course samoas. But frankly, I think samoas have been given too much hype for their quality--and again, enough with the clear plastic tray thing already.

Secondly, I have a love/hate relationship with Oprah. "Hate the person, love the show" are my sentiments actually. While she drives me bonks, she actually has good show topics (sometimes) and has the power to get big name guests. This week was focused a lot on Hurricane Katrina (yawn) so I have been holding on for today which is going to be Part II of "America's Debt Diet"--Oprah's push to get Americans out of debt. I'll be honest and say that the show has done little to inspire me to get out of debt and a lot to make me feel good that I am not as ridiculous as the woman on the show who throws away her bills, owns 5 cars and spends $7,000 a year on her hair. I AM frugal! Other important stuff I have learned from Oprah is that Matthew McConahey, while handsome, is a fool. I was upset by his wardrobe choice, his constant face touching, his love of pickles, his arrogance about how he is so "real" and "earthy," as well as his personal life motto: "Just keep livin'."

I've decided my favorite drawer is my sweater drawer. In the past I have kept my sweaters folded on a shelf in the closet, but now they are in a dresser drawer. There are 3 stacks of sweaters side by side consisting of approximately 4 sweaters per stack. But I have the sweaters slightly terraced so that part of each is showing. It looks just like something you would see in a store, except all the sweaters are ugly and I hate them.

Is purple eye shadow cool or even just acceptable? I have been thinking a lot about this actually. It seems 80's but IT JUST LOOKS SO GOOD! Because I am loving Bobbi Brown's gel eyeliner in Violet Ink, I decided recently to jazz it up with some purple eyeshadow. I know I don't look cool or sleek like the bright-eyed ladies at the MAC counter or anything--I probably look more like I should be hanging out with Molly Ringwald. I wonder if she would approve of my blue's clues shoes.

Once I looked through a book called Are You Smarter Than You Think You Are? But what I need is a book called You are Smarter Than Other People Think You Are. That might have given me the self-confidence I needed when I had to sit between a physicist and a neurosurgeon at a dinner party recently. When talking to Roxy the next day and telling her I had felt a little out of my league, she encouraged me by saying, "You should have told those people, 'You think you're so smart, but do you have The Parent Trap memorized?? I don't think so.'" And that's probably true. So there.

So that's what I've been up to. Just doing a lot of important thinking about a lot of life's important issues. I better get going now though. There are only 30 minutes 'til Oprah and I still have to put on my Jimmie Johnson NASCAR light pink fleece pantsuit and sit around and think about a few more things.

It's Back: Name That Song

The Rules:

1. Please DO NOT guess in the comment section! E-mail me (see my profile page for my e-mail address).
2. Please do not look up the answer...I really send a prize, so be honest and fair.
3. Previous winners may still play.
4. Be the FIRST to e-mail me with the correct song title & artist and win.
Good Luck!

This month's lyric is:

"I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier."

I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself

and by "do with myself," I mean "wear to church." Perhaps I have surprised Neil with the way I start asking "what will I wear to church?" every Saturday and staring in the closet for long periods of time. But he didn't see me the time I skipped class in college because I felt ugly in all of my clothes and sat in a pile of them on the floor all afternoon. Or when my mom and I would ditch school because we needed to "call in fat."

Here's the problem. I haven't come to terms with my new fashion rules yet. I'm not used to the weather/lack of seasons here. If it's warm all day but chilly at night, can I wear wool pants because it's February? Or should I not because it was 70 degrees that day? Is it okay to not wear pantyhose if it is warm? Even though it IS February? And my legs are really white? I tried observing other women at church, but that didn't help me a whole lot. I mean there were girls without nylons, but they were also girls wearing them.

Since I never know what to wear and my hair was starting to look like Bo Duke's, I decided I needed a haircut to make me feel better. I unpacked my Mandy Moore pics and got out the phone book. I found a lot of strangely named salons ("Hotheads" and "Total Concern for the Bride"), so I decided to get out of the house and do some drive-bys of these places. I ended up getting my hair cut in Regis at the mall by a woman named Jesus (she went by Maggie) who told me she had washed my hair twice so I wouldn't have to wash it the next day.

I also have some blue Nike casual tennis shoes that I have taken to wearing daily. They are comfortable and cute and have a small pattern of clusters of three flowers. It turns out though that the clusters of three flowers look like paw prints and peeps think I'm running around in "Blue's Clues" shoes. Not exactly chic, I know. But it hasn't stopped me from wearing them everyday no matter what color or style of top I have on.

I never said "top" until I married Neil who always says it when I ask him what I will wear. "What will I wear today, husband?" "Jeans and a top" is his standard, very helpful reply. I think it's because he doesn't know whether he should say shirt or blouse or better yet, something specific. But it's still cute and I'm going to stick with it. It's the least I can do now that he is trying to sport a southern accent.

I'm Married Now, Suckahs

Evabody told me that married life would be an adjustment. But as I sit here at 1 o'clock in the afternoon in my bathrobe with my orange juice, all I know is, my adjustment just hasn't been that bad. I mean, would you have to adjust to being asleep at 10:30 in the morning when your husband brings you a bowl of homemade cake frosting to eat? or when you are instant messaging in your pajamas at 3 p.m. while downing some little smokies? I don't think so. And what if you had your own bedside table with a drawer containing 4 lbs. of Snickers Minis and a bottle of Tums? I don't think I'd hear you complaining either.

Plus, it's not like we're one of these gag-me cheesey couples with matching hiking pants and water bottles who can never be apart. Neil is perfectly happy to wear his hiking pants while cooking up some supper in the kitchen while I wear mine in the other room to watch Beauty and the Geek 2.

Now that all the wedding stuff is over, this seems like cake. I mean, it wasn't really ideal to be ralphing in front of my fiance on the trip from Tennessee to Utah before our wedding. Or when our sheepherder sealer consistently mispronounced my name. Or when he mispronounced pornography (as phonography) for that matter. But is mentioning pornography during a marriage ceremony really a good idea anyway?

And maybe the officiator at our ring ceremony did use my mother's first name instead of mine. And maybe I did nail my 14-year-old sister in the face when I tossed my bouquet. But these were all just trivial bumps on the road to a fabulous life with a man who is just happy when I address him as "husband" because it's a step in the right direction from "dude."