FF: Planning for the Future

~Did you know that I just figured out how to follow a non-Blogger blog? Oh yes I'm quick.

~Do NOT buy the Great Value brand Cranberry Apple drink mix. Just don't do it.

~My Lenten-induced Facebook abstinence is going remarkably slowly. Giving up television would have been so much easier. Shoot, giving up eating would have been easier.

~I continue to read posts where bloggers mention the unexpected joys of forming real friendships via blogging. Truer words have not been spoken.

~That's why I'm making a real effort now to be a more faithful blogger.

~And then someday I'm going to travel all around and meet you IRL.

~I've already publicly threatened to visit Mrs. 4444, our favorite Friday Fragment hostess.

~A bathroom-less pop-up camper is now living in my garage and I am accepting all camping excuses suggestions. Thanks in advance for your help.

~Don't worry, when I come to visit you, I won't put the camper in your FRONT yard, but that no bathroom thing could be a bit of a problem during our visit.

~Last night I reannounced to my family that when I have my next birthday in 102 months, I would like re-gifts. My husband and children are to take something they already own and regift it to me. I suppose it would have been nobler to say, "no gifts," but this IS me talking after all. I realized I may have to do some major rethinking of the regifting when my daughter enthusiastically mentioned a purse she owns and how she hopes I won't be bothered by all the nail polish she's spilled on it.

But My Bed is Already Too Hot!

The Detroit Free Press recently gave this advice:



I'm just not sure how Checkered will react to this.

Ode to the Death of Logic

On Sunday night my daughter went bowling. When her father and I picked her up afterward, she casually mentioned that she was wearing one shoe that wasn't hers. When she turned in her bowling shoes, the clerk couldn't find my daughter's shoe and said there was no other option than for my daughter to take some other person's shoe home.

Oh, no. No. NO!

Her determined father marched back inside and worked a much better deal. The deadline is tonight at 5:30. Find her shoe or write a check. (Honestly? If that shoe was worn home by someone else, I'm done with it anyway. You should have seen the condition of the one left at the bowling center).

I just can't figure out what confounds me more:

The bowling center's admission that they lose shoes all the time or my daughter's willingness to wear mismatched shoes home.

For Once in his Life...

He didn't win. He didn't even place. And he's not overly fond of his participation medal.

And I am surely not going to show this quote to him:

I used to play sports. Then I realized you can buy trophies. Now I'm good at everything.

~Demetri Martin

FF: Fragments and Nothing But

Thanks, once again, to our hostess, Mrs. 4444, who never insists on being the center of attention although she so deserves to be there :)



~My 8 am class always starts with the same student sneezing 4 or 5 times. The first couple of sneezes generate a chorus of "Bless you!" but the last couple of sneezes get one or two straggling blessings. It's so obvious that the blesser just really feels obligated by that point.

~I still can't decide what to give up for Lent. I seriously thought about Facebook since it does take time away from what I SHOULD be doing. Did you give up anything?

~Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief is a very good movie. Pretty, interesting, fun. My son liked it. I liked it. How often does that happen?

~I've become a mall walker. Interpret that how you will.

~For all the safety precautions schools have taken to protect students, things like harassment are very difficult to prove and many times the school's intervention can do more to hurt the victims than to help. There really has to be a better way.

~I keep waking up in the morning with tiny scratches on my face and I fear I've contracted violent sleepitis. It's going to be such a bother if I have to sew those little baby mittens on all my pajamas.

~After five years, my boss recognizes me now when he sees me!!!! At some point soon I'm sure he will call me by the right name, too.

~My youngest child wore 9 shirts to bed the other night because he liked the way the multiple shirts made him look muscular. He ended up liking the comfort of the shirts so much that for the last two days he has been wearing 16 shirts. That he can move and hasn't lost circulation is amazing.

~A little poll: how many times would you allow me someone to mistype their password before you locked me them out of the work computer system for a day? Then again, I don't know anyone would make that many typos. Do you?

The Price I Pay

I have short hair. Very short. My coiffure demands tremendous attention: body-building shampoo, no conditioner, no product. It probably doesn't need a hair dryer, but the rest of me does after a shower.

The drying part is equally as elaborate. I hold my head upside down and hop from one foot to the other for five minutes or until my hair is kinda/sorta dry or I have a heart attack.

Last Friday, just before a committee meeting at work, my hair dryer started to glow and then it imploded necessitating a quick trip to Walmart.

My new hair dryer cost $13 and has many upscale features. I can dry my hair with cool or warm or hot air. I can also call upon a snowflake setting to hold my hair, if so desired.

The air flow can be low or high and that choice determines what sport I pretend to play while my hair is drying. The low setting dictates that I act as though I'm a cross country skier. The high setting (and the hopping from foot to foot) are more attuned to mogul skiing.

There is even a top secret setting which purports to make my short hair softer and glossier.



But what I can't find no matter how hard I look is the setting which would cover my gray.

That was probably on the $18 dryer. Shoot.

He Said; She said

When the gas guage looks like this, both Checkered and I are happy.

But when it gets to half-full, I start to think about nearby gas stations.

When it gets to half-full in Checkered's car, he doesn't even notice.

When it gets to under a quarter of a tank and the light comes on, I panic.

When it gets to under a quarter of a tank and the light comes on for Checkered, he thinks, "I can go several more miles."

When the "lo fuel!" sign comes on, I lose the ability to think reasonably.

When the "lo fuel!" sign comes on for Checkered, he thinks maybe he should stop at the gas station...sometime.

In fairness to Checkered, he has never run out of gas in the years I've known him.

Then again, neither have I.