Sunday, February 28, 2010

Friday, February 26, 2010

There's an App for that....even though there shouldn't be


I love my iPhone...I love the apps I have on my iPhone. Truth be told, I am probably a little obsessed with my iPhone. Oh sure it's a phone, but much more importantly it is my source for the white pages, the yellow pages, Open Table, my husband's flight information, a Californian earthquake update, The LA Times, Twitter, TMZ, E online, People magazine, multiple weather sources, a sushi guide, The Bible, all 373 of my Barry Manilow songs, a map to every single Disney Park that I may ever go to along with the times of every single parade and what is on the menu at every single restaurant in the park. I could go on and on....I love, love, love my iPhone.

However, while searching through the apps last night I found out that there is an entire population of people who love their iPhones in a totally different way. I swear I am not making any of this up....these are all true, honest to goodness apps that you yourself could (but shouldn't) download to your phone.

Sex Position Game
Nude It
Adult Sex Life
Hooters Calendar
Seduce a Suicide Girl (don't even want to know what that one means)
Playboy
69 Positions
Naughty Facts
Sex IQ

and for the ladies in the house.....
Playgirl
and....drum roll please................
vibrate massager!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The level to which that grosses me out can not even be described!

Please, I beg of you, love your iPhone.....but don't LOOOOOOVE your iPhone

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Shouldn't you have offered me dinner and a movie first?

I should have been prepared for this. I mean, I was warned by a really sweet friend who moved to California from another state that this was going to happen....but I was still shocked. And I don't just mean the shock like, "Oh, wow, that is kind of a surprise.", but the kind of shock that leaves you breathless and speechless.

Let me start by saying that I love my dog and under no circumstance do I want him to be in any pain or discomfort of any type. Which is why I am pretty diligent about taking him in for his yearly checkups and am pretty good about following whatever orders a vet may give me. He has bad teeth so we tend to have to take him in about every two years to be put under anaesthesia and have his teeth really deep cleaned.

Wellllllllllll, I just had my first experience with an Orange County California veterinarian and just let me say that I am still in a state of complete and utter disbelief.

Vet bill for teeth cleaning (including pre surgery lab and using "people grade" anaesthesia) in Texas--------$250

Vet bill for teeth cleaning (including lab work but no guarantee on the anaesthesia) in California-------$1242. Did you hear me correctly???? One Thousand, Two Hundred and Forty Two Dollars!!!!!! Let me say this again...$1242

You have GOT to be kidding me!!!!!!

I tried to explain that I thought they had misunderstood, I wasn't looking to actually purchase a new dog--just to have the teeth cleaned on the one I already have.

I'd love to say "vet bill....$1242; sweet dog breath....priceless", but for the love of God I could buy a plane ticket, fly back to Texas, pay the $100 fee to take my dog with me on the plane and go back to my vet in Texas who would charge me a very reasonable $250 for the procedure and still come in under the $1242 estimate.

I get it....you Californians love your climate. When I complain about the cost of living, you make a grand gesture of pointing to the sky and say, "Yes, but you are paying for this!" But come on people.....

Monday, February 22, 2010

Wow, this IS fun!

All year long my first grader has been bringing home a list of spelling words every Monday that we were supposed to practice all week in preparation for the big spelling test on Friday. We would go over the words every day after school as soon as we struggled through the rest of that night's homework (the sight words, the reading assignment, the reading comprehension page, the math page and the math fact flash cards). Now I don't mean to complain, but this homework takes a while and obviously this teacher doesn't care that I never get to see Ellen or Dr Phil anymore.

Then about a month ago I pulled out the weekly spelling word list only to see a note that looked something like this attached to it. Mind you, I am paraphrasing....

Because some of you lame parents are not doing your job and going over your spelling words with your kids, we are now going to hold you to an even higher standard of ridiculousness. Get ready to have absolutely no free time because this new method of practicing your spelling words is sure to cause frustration, fights, tears and total mental breakdowns. The word list will be sent home every Monday with your creative spelling project being due back a mere 17 hours later, hardly enough time for the glue to dry. :-) We would like you to be creative and use a different method every Monday so that as teachers we can judge which of you are the better parents. Grab a drink and let's get started with this new FUN spelling adventure.

Here are examples of the fun new ways we would like you to practice your spelling words with your kids:
___glue and glitter
___write with cereal letters
___cut out letters from magazines and glue to paper
___use play dough or clay
___write in shaving cream
___trace in flour or sugar on your kitchen counter
___cut letters into jello or cookies using alphabet cookie cutters
___use the paperwork from the doctor who declares you clinically insane because you are having to try to come up with stupid--oh excuse me--FUN ways to practice the damn spelling words because apparently just writing them in pencil on a piece of paper is just way too main stream


I've done all the easy ones I can think of. We have done rainbow writing, glue and glitter, writing in flour.....I'm thinking this week we will write them in spray paint on the teacher's garage door. That's creative, right?

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

If it's covered in pink is it still a sport?

A few months back, one of the moms in my little one's class pulled me aside and said that we should sign up for softball because her husband was going to be coaching a team. My first thought was that softball probably had way too many moving parts for a 6 year old, but then I remembered that we were still new here and needed to keep working at making friends--so we signed up to play 6 and under softball.

We got the pink glove, the pink helmet, the pink bat, the pink softball and the pink bag to carry all the other pink stuff in. We loaded the pink water jug with water and headed over to the park to try to see if our little cutie was going to embarrass us or make us proud when that first day of practice rolled around.



Look how she is keeping her eye on that ball...............


.......and look at that swing!

Oh Yeah, we are going to rock this softball thing. I think I may go ahead and start spending our college savings because this girl is going to school on a softball scholarship.







Wednesday, February 10, 2010

I do love my Country, really I do!

I hate to admit this, but I have very mixed emotions about the Olympics starting this Friday.

I like the Olympics.....but my husband LOVES them and has taken to calling me some very unflattering and decisively un-American names because he doesn't think that I give 'The Games' the church like reverence that they deserve.

I mean, c'mon, the first year that we watched "curling" together I had to hold in my laughter. Wasn't this 'sport' just cruise ship shuffleboard on ice?? Within seconds my very irritated husband was telling me about "pushing out of the hack" and "delivering stones" and something about a "hog line". WTF????? Seriously, it's shuffleboard! We make fun of people who play that!!

Trust me, I know that these people are incredible athletes who work for YEARS to get to the Olympics and who are capable of a level of athleticism that I would never, ever be able to achieve, but when I see the names of their events here is what goes through my mind....

The Luge........tight clothed people leaning.
The Skeleton....same thing, ickier name.
Bobsled.....a ride that is surely accompanied by hot chocolate.
Speed Skating....guys going really fast with skates that look like they could kill a man.
Short Track Speed Skating....same thing, shorter distance.
Cross Country Skiing....oh my gosh, it's Olympic speed walking.
.
Okay, so I guess I understand why my husband calls me all those nasty unpatriotic names that he hauls out every Olympic year. I will just brace myself for them and count the minutes until we have a final US Olympic team medal count and life in my house can get back to normal.
.....unless he happens to read this blog, in which case he will just divorce me.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

My car would like to know who the dummy is now?

About a month ago I got in my car and saw this--











Now, because I didn't exactly have the kind of Dad who felt it was important for me to know how to fix a car but rather that I know who to call if it broke down, I had to pull out my manual to see what this light meant. I mean seriously, an exclamation point with parenthesis around it could mean anything from "Your car is on fire" to "QUICK, take the next exit..there is a sale at Nordstrom". So after searching through the 100,000 page manual, I finally found this mystery symbol in chapter 82, section W, subparagraph n4. It was simply my car's way of nicely telling me that my tire pressure was low. I was positive that my husband was going to share in the joy that my car was nice enough to give me this gentle little nudge that it might be time to check the tire pressure.

I was wrong.

He assured me that my car was just being a 'chick' and that my tire pressure was fine and that the "dummy light" (apparently a guy term for these lights) was just coming on because my car was being way too sensitive to the temperature change.

About 2 weeks went by and my "dummy light" was still on. At this point, I am getting a little irritated that my husband is doubting the concern that my car has for me by showing me this light and all I really want to know is.. if everything is fine with my tire pressure then why is the light still on?

So last week I am looking at my back tire and I swear it looks low to me. Maybe I am just being paranoid, but really...it looks a little low. I told my husband that maybe my car was right and maybe we should heed it's warning and check the tire pressure. He responded by walking around the car, looking at all four tires, kicking one of them and declaring everything just fine.

We all know where this is going right?

Fast forward to 6:50am when I am running out the door to take my daughter to dance practice which starts in a mere 10 minutes....and I am already behind schedule because I have to get back home and get ready to go volunteer in my younger daughter's class and I have not gotten my youngest dressed nor fed yet so we really just need everything to go according to plan so that I can get everyone to school and get to where I need to be because goodness gracious there are 1st graders depending on me to learn their math facts!!!!!! (Well, that and I have a lunch date later with a friend). And lo and behold, what waits for me in my garage??















Yeah, that's right...flat as a pancake.

The funny thing is......my husband swears that this had NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the fact that my tire pressure warning light was on. Isn't that just the most amazing coincidence?

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

I wouldn't exactly call mine a "green" thumb

When we first moved here, a friend of mine who will remain nameless (but seriously Jay you know it's you, right?) told me that the great thing about living in California is that you could plant absolutely anything in the ground and it would grow beautifully. I tried to explain to him that even my silk plants die, but he assured me that now that I was living here everything would be different and everything I touched would be a stunning shade of green.

So, full of excitement over the fact that I was finally going to get to nurture a plant to life, I planted my first lemon tree. I was SO excited!! I even named it 'Larry'! Larry and I had some great times.....we talked on a daily basis, I shared my deepest secrets with Larry and Larry shared his deepest secrets with me.....it was beautiful. We had coffee together in the mornings, we read books together, we laughed as we talked about how good looking Brad and Angelina are... we bonded. Then one day I noticed that Larry was looking a little under the weather. Larry and I prayed together that day. The next day I noticed that Larry's leaves were starting to fall off....I cried a little. Over the course of the next few weeks I stood by helplessly as Larry gave in and lost his battle. I held his little stick dry branches and told him it was okay, he could let go...go into the light...I'd be okay. But I wasn't really okay, I was tremendously sad. How in the world did I kill Larry in a State where just by virtue of the weather and the sunshine no one ever kills a plant without a hired hit man getting involved?? I mourned Larry......I even left his pot sitting empty as a shrine to him.



















RIP Larry the Lemon Tree
I am so sorry that I sucked at keeping you alive.
You deserved better!

Then today I had a moment of thinking that maybe I wasn't so bad after all. I went to take the trash out and saw that the orange tree in our yard was finally ready to be picked. Granted, there were only a few oranges on it, but they looked great! Granted (again), I didn't actually plant the orange tree....it was here when we moved in, but still it could have committed suicide when it saw what I did to poor Larry, but it didn't. It could have been jealous that I never took the time to come up with a name for it and decided that it would show me by just letting it's oranges turn brown and then throwing them at me as I walked by, but it didn't. God bless that little orange tree...it actually gave me a few beautiful oranges! It restored my faith. It made me think that maybe I would forgive my friend for setting me up for failure.



















Oh sure, there were only like 5 oranges, but they were MY oranges from a tree in MY yard that I didn't kill just by being in a 5 mile radius of it! I was SO excited......until I looked next door and saw this......