The Bright Side ...

It's unfair to post pictures of ugly carpet without sharing a few snapshots of the lovely things around our new residence.

Standby for photobomb in 3, 2, 1 ...

One of the many (really old) outbuildings on the property. They are perfect for photo ops and hiding notorious criminals. Yeehaw.

California poppies in the front yard (and random other places). When I was little I used to pretend the dead ones were fairy wands as I flitted about the yard (did I mention we moved back to the house I lived in from age two to age seven?). 

Fifteen years later, it's a poppy EXPLOSION.

The headlight on a Chevy Luv ... not sure this would qualify as "lovely" unless you're a Luv lover. 

Or a "Luv-er".

Boo ya. Horrific pun.

Wood grain from an old juniper tree.

My favorite - yellow primroses. The smell is divine.

A dugout from pioneer times. SO COOL.

More wood grain.

A mama horse and her baby.

T's reaction to the horses. He thinks they're giant dogs (he repeated "gog" over and over). I think he was a little frightened by their enormousness.

I would be frightened of a "gog" 50 times bigger than me, too.

The little red house. It's so very Little House on the Prairie, don't you think?

And finally, one of several insanely beautiful views. 

There are so many places to take awesome pictures, I may stoop to begging my friends to let me do photo shoots.

Seriously.

First person who asks gets a free photo shoot.

How sad and desperate of me.

Anyhoo, have a nice weekend! Relax, enjoy the weather, and steal a spot in your great grandpa's hammock.

Evidently it is an extremely entertaining thing to do.

:-)

You're stranded on a deserted island ...

The scene:

While scuba diving in the Pacific, your oxygen tank gets snagged on the tail of a rainbow-striped whale. Helpless, you are carried along for hundreds of miles.

Okay, maybe five. But still.

When you finally manage to wrangle yourself free, you surface to find you are completely surrounded by water. You have no idea where you are and the only visible land is a tiny speck to the south (or maybe the north ... ). You swim frantically, hoping to reach it before you are eaten by a giant shark or mutant piranhas.  After several hours, you finally make it to the island. It is completely deserted, but there seems to be plenty of fresh water and food.

Also, TiVo.

What is the first thing you do?

A) Scream, "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!", then throw yourself down on the beach and cry buckets and buckets of tears.
B) Immediately try to remember every detail you can from Man Versus Wild ... realize all you can recall is the guy pronounces crevices "crev-ASSES" and drinks his own pee.
C) Find a volleyball. Name it Wilson.
D) Take off all your clothes and use them to make a fishing net.
E) Try to spear a monkey through the eyeball with a sharpened stick.
F) Find some fresh running water for drinking, make a shelter, and gather driftwood. Use your emergency stash of matches to light a fire before it gets dark.

If you answered ___,  you are:

A) A drama queen. It's not that bad. There's TiVo, remember?
B) Me
C) Tom Hanks
D) Sunburned in places nobody wants to be sunburned in
E) A moron
F) A better question ... just where were those matches?

That's So '70s

I picked up my camera for the first time in a few weeks just to take a picture of this:

If you stare at it longer than 7 seconds, the pattern will permanently damage your retinas. 

Well, probably.

Now that I'm looking at it on screen, "psychedelic" doesn't seem to be the right word.

Maybe "groovy"?

Or "far out".

Or "hideous".

You know what's funny? Somebody used to think this carpet was amazing. And in the next fifty years, it will probably be considered the pinnacle of floor fashion once again. Maybe we should just leave it, pop a disco ball on the ceiling, buy a ton of stock in polyester and wait 50 years.

You thought this was the future?

THINK AGAIN, SUCKA. 

In the words of Solomon, "There is nothing new under the sun."

Or as Justin Timberlake says, "What goes around, goes around, goes around comes all the way back arrrouuunnnddd ... " Slightly less eloquent, but still catchy. Especially since it's repeated five hundred times.

Anyhoo, I don't think I can handle looking at this carpet too much longer, so we're thinking of finding some Faux-go (that would be Pergo for poor people) to lay right over the top of it. Possibly something like this:

ahhhhh

We'll have to get some swatches and see how it looks with the rest of the house colors. Which would be wood, wood, navajo white, wood, orange, puke green, naugahyde, wood, cheetah print (really), beige-ish and wood.

Despite the decor, I must say I am SO HAPPY to finally be moved! I just want to get down and boogie.

It's a disco inferno, peeps.

And not just because I want to burn the carpet.

Bubble Wrap

Jello, peeps!

I have been staring at psychedelic carpet way too long to put a rational blog post together. More on that later. And geez-o-friday, it is hard to spell "psychedelic".

We officially have a toddler. T Dubbs has decided walking is better than crawling. Which means his head looks like an apple someone who doesn't know how to juggle tried to juggle with. Got that?

New parents, invest in three things now:

1) arnica
2) baby ibuprofen
3) bubble wrap

Why bubble wrap, you ask?

To make your child a bubble wrap turban.

You think I'm kidding.

I'm not.

Maybe even a whole bubble wrap suit. It would keep them relatively safe. It would wipe clean. And you would always be able to find them ...

I'm liking this idea. Shark Tank, here I come.

Socially Unacceptable

I bumped into a former classmate at a restaurant the other day. We didn't speak. I'm pretty sure it's because of the nasty note I wrote about her in fifth grade comparing her to a sea creature.

I'm sorry, okay?

Looking back, maybe it wasn't a coincidence Mom started homeschooling me after that.

Hmm.

Anyway, she (and the rest of the peeps my age) are home from college on break. I would describe her as a typical American college student.

So there's her.

And there's me.

Same age ...

Except I am five months pregnant (not yet whale size, but probably up to small orca classification), sweating profusely due to another Hoover Dam hot flash. And I am VERY uncomfortable. Mostly because I unknowingly dropped a gummy bear down my cleavage during second breakfast (it's a thing) and it is starting to melt ...

I am also holding a cracker-covered one-year-old who appears to be having an intense conversation with the window valance.

I feel ... embarrassed. Not just because my lady lumps are getting stuck together with lime green gelatinous goop, but because of the unconventional choices I've made. The BIG choices. Getting married, having a kid, having ANOTHER kid, et cetera. I didn't do the "socially acceptable" thing, and that scared me ... for a minute.

So I thought about it and I came to this conclusion:

The only thing that is going to matter when you reach the end of your life is that you can live with the choices you've made.

I'm happy with my life.

So, be forewarned, next person who says to me, "You're pregnant AGAIN!?! Oh my GAWD."

I won't hesitate to chase you around Wal-Mart with pool noodles whilst screaming "THIS IS SPARTA!"

Really.

If I'm going to be "socially unacceptable", I'm gonna do it right.