Stumbling Towards Perfect

This weekend my sister and I gathered up some children and headed over to - you guessed it -  THE YOUNG AUDITORIUM  - to see the children's musical Seussical. (Don't worry, they were our children. It's not like we just grabbed at the supermarket.) Alex, age 7, did not especially feel like going. I thought maybe he was going to say he was far too cool to sit around watching a prancing cat, but his honest explanation included the fact that there was no popcorn at the theater. You just had to sit there. And, uh, watch.  I could totally see his point, because one time, I was craving movie theater popcorn so bad I insisted (perhaps also forced by threat of violence) that we please just stop and grab a large bag to go, sans actual movie watching. Turns out you can totally do that in most movie theaters around here, except for the bitty one behind Toys R Us where they force a ticket purchase before you can even enter the building,...

If you've been following my blog you know that I've decided to learn to knit. Except I'm finding out it's way harder than it looks and my scarf that started out with 30 stitches in Row 1 has now grown to 47 stitches. (Somehow I added two more last night when I was "purling.") Suffice it to say, my scarf has grown to epic proportions and no longer looks like a scarf but more like a shawl. So my funny friend Jenny  said I could call it a sharf. Which I thought was completely awesome! And so I've spent that past two days blogging about my sharf. My sharfing skills . My sharfing abilities . My sharfing expertise . My sharfing enjoyment . And how I'm going to give my sharf to my sister . And then I wrote about Crazy Ed the Knitting God and how in response to his pompous self-righteousness and also his (probably) sociopathic tendencies to tie women up in his basement and use their hair to knit sweaters ( thanks a lot for that comment, Tina; I di...

Last night was my second mad skillz knitting class... I proudly showed off what I had worked on throughout the week: I'm in the process of getting a cat so I can blame this mess on it.  I have no explanation. Except that I pulled when I shouldn't have and didn't stop when I should have. After much laughter at my expense (there was no laughing with me) two women decided I needed help. And lots of it.  After 45 minutes.... yes, forty-five minutes... the two amazing souls --- yes, TWO WOMEN worked on this mess for FORTY-FIVE MINUTES --- presented me with this: It's the Holy Grail of Yarn Balls, y'all! It was like suddenly I was a professional and could conquer all things knitting related! But not really because somehow over the course of time I've acquired fifteen extra stitches that weren't there in the first row. But that's why I'm telling everyone I'm making a sharf (Jenny's term for half scarf- half shawl ). I had assumed the ...

Personally, I'm too chicken to have an exciting bucket list. There is no way you'll find me jumping out of airplanes or bungee jumping into raging waters. It's just not for me. I prefer things a little less death-assuring. So, I decided to learn how to knit. Slapped knitting on my bucket list and high-fived myself for finding a free class offered at our local public library. I was on my way! Let me just say that the class is taught by a lady who really likes knitting. A lot. She is very energetic about knitting. She knows a lot about knitting. And she is very energetic about sharing everything she knows about knitting. Within seven minutes it was painfully obvious that only 4 of us had never picked up a pair of knitting needles in their lives. The other 16 students were finishing up details on their Winding Cables Pullover Knit Sweaters. Showoffs . Bound and determined not to fail, I listened, inserted snarky comments loud enough for the lady next to me to snort ...

The note was printed on bright pink paper in bold letters: SCHOOL WILL BE CANCELLED TOMORROW . I mean, I wasn't that surprised. They were scheduled for a half-day anyway - which, by the way, make no sense to me whatsoever. I'm a working mother; do me a favor and make me scrounge for one full day of daycare once as opposed to two separate half-days. And don't tell me they do anything that important on a half day. Half-days are spent watching videos and celebrating some obscure fact with soda and bags of barbecue potato chips. But for whatever reason the half-day was scheduled. Since the Epic Snowstorm of 2012 was fast approaching [also known as the Remember You Live In Wisconsin Snowfall], school was cancelled. But this actually worked out well because Big V had the day off! Yay! But he said he had errands to do so I should probably find someone else to watch Dotter. Boo . And the Nanny was still scheduled to spend the day with Cletus! Yay! But she would probabl...

You know what's awesome? I'm going to go out with my girlfriends tonight. We're going to drink coffee. And laugh. And talk about roughly 487 different topics. And I am going to love every second of it. That is all.

I had a meeting at work today. One of those pretty important meetings where three attorneys and the president of a local agency wore their best suits. I sat down with my 47-pound code book and cold can of Mountain Dew because I know that attorneys tend to be long winded, plus there's that whole " where there is Ego, there is no logic " thing so they tend to resort to lengthy verbal beat downs. [That's my quote by the way. You find that sucker being sold on a mug at some Long Island gift shop and you contact me. I'm suing for copyright infringement. I have contacts, you know.] Anyway, I figured it'd be in my best interest to stay awake, thus the Dew. And I watched as The Suit next to me took out his pad of paper and fancy pen. And he does what everyone does at Very Important Meetings and puts the date in the top left-hand corner. And then he lists everyone at the meeting, starting with the person to his left.  First, he draws a little black bullet point,...

Last night, Big V followed me around complaining that his right nostril was stuffed up but not the left one. This included several "examples" by which he held one finger to the side of his nose, thereby closing off said nose hole, and attempted to SNIFF. Loudly. One side worked; the other didn't. This happened roughly 672 times until I figured out the correct response was, "Oh, no, honey! I pray to the good Lord above that you aren't near death! Let me stop everything I am doing and apply a cold washcloth to your forehead and hold vigil as you ponder your short but fabulous life while lying on the couch, moaning." As we all know, the Man Cold can be fatal. The majority of men who come down with the sniffles will more than likely die; it's a slow, painful death... but with non-stop attention from the Lead Female (tucking in blankets, handing out tissue that has the lotion in it, serving up endless bowls of strawberry ice cream, and agreeing to watch non...

Hello? I snuggled deeper into the overstuffed chaise lounge, pulling my blanket tighter around me. I was at a really good part in my book, but considering Big V had my baby out on a sledding hill I figured I ought to answer this ringing phone, lest the child be broken in a million pieces, requiring me to immediately rush to the nearest trauma center. "Cletus LOVES sledding! We've gone at least twenty times and he keeps wanting to go again. It's hard, though, because there's no rope on this sled; if there was a rope I could just pull him to the top, but there isn't so I have to carry him and the sled." Oh. that's nice.  I nestled in deeper. Could I get lost in here? If I went missing they might want to start with these couch cushions. Is a chaise lounge even considered a couch? I mean, it's not as big as a couch, but it's bigger than a chair, and you can put your feet up on it. Chaise lounge just sounds so hoity-toity. "Yeah. I keep as...

Because I believe in higher education and the idea that there is an infinite amount to learn in the world so wouldn't you want to learn as much as you possibly can? I try to surround myself with people I can learn from. Since I haven't found too many super smart people in real life that don't get creeped out by me following them around gawking, in the hopes some of their intelligence will rub off on me -- [ tip: you don't have to physically rub someone; it's more a figurative concept than a literal one. Trust me. ] -- I am absolutely stoked to have stumbled upon  The Big Bang Theory . I realize the television series has been on since 2007, but that is not the point. The point is, it's a show filled with just the geeky lovable types I yearn to hang out with in real life. A couple nights ago (in a re-run that probably aired years ago), Sheldon mentioned Schrödinger's cat. Schrödinger was a scientist who sealed a cat in a metal ...

I have a sister. Her name is Shannon. She's some sort of counselor/psychologist/social worker type person. I can never remember what her technical title really is because:                (1) I'm totally distracted by the fact she can put a bunch of capital letters after she signs her name - t hat is so freaking cool! and,                (2) I also tend to get totally distracted that someone who once brought the farm goats inside our house to give them spa treatments is allowed to be responsible for the mental health of human beings. They got loose and ran wild throughout the house half-shaved (she was giving them a new look) and scared out of their wits. Do you know that goats drop a lot of turds when they are scared out of their wits? Also, they are incredibly speedy galloping up and down staircases. I'm always like what advice do you actu...

In honor of the current and upcoming political nonsense... (something about Sarah Palin's new hair style?) and also because I work in government  and this is (sadly) pretty dang accurate.... and also because I don't have anything to post about  but this made me laugh out loud. Like, really loud... I've decided to share this video with you  (which was shared with me earlier today by a pretty awesome lady  who happens to live in a house the size of a Subaru,  but that's beside the point).... Green Bay City Council discusses kittens. I'm cool. The hell with kittens.  Also: This blog is dedicated to my  seemingly one (and only) reader: Johi at  Confessions of a Corn Fed Girl Because she actually missed my blog posts. And then posted something on my  facebook . Which made me think:   why does she have all this time to harass me on facebook? Shouldn't she be practicing her guitar for her upcoming video blog? ...