Blog Post #101 : It's a big deal, ok?!

Aww MAN! I totally didn't even notice that my last post was my 100th blog post! Woohoo! Since I didn't post anything spectacular for my 100th post, because I didn't know about it, I felt like I needed to post something spectacular for this one, my 101st blog post. But I have no idea of what this spectacular thing will be. So I need to Google it or something.


******Post Google search*****

Ok. So it looks like everyone posts about what they have learned or how they have grown . I can do that....

What I've Learned in 101 Blog Posts

By Me

In the last 42 months I have learned a lot, not just about myself but also about my readers. I know I have about 35 or so loyal readers. I can't tell who is reading it but I have a good idea from the likes I get on Facebook when I post. So thank you, dear reader. Because of you, I keep writing this crap, whether people enjoy it or not. And as long as you continue to click on my links, I will continue to write it. We are a team and teamwork makes the dream work!

 I also know which posts have the highest number of hits, excluding my super clicked Pinterest angel wing post. And I would like to share these post with you now.

Church Camp -  About the time I went to church camp and things turned quickly inappropriate.

Transformation Tuesday - That time when I was really overly emotional & felt like people were judging unfairly so I wrote a post about the time it felt like my life was falling apart, I didn't care about anything, gained a bunch of weight and then lost it. Because, you know, it made sense at the time to give people more shit to judge me on.

What I learned at my 10 year high school reunion - When I felt all shitty about it, but then I felt better about it and then I found out pretty much everyone feels the same way! Magic!

Insignificant yet life altering traumas: Life Lessons - Inappropriate talk about body holes. 

Post Electolyptic Post -Politics and that time I was kidnapped by the government

New Year's Eve-hab - When I got drunk and had to go home before midnight and tried blaming it on a fake friend I called Coco.

Kitten Tales - The time I caught a feral kitten that turned out to be Satan incarnate

Yay! My Birthday Week! -  Pretty sure this is the link all those weird Russian IP addresses are hitting. Featuring me in old lady swimwear.

And the post that started it all, House Bunny: Not as Awesome as it Sounds

So there it is, whatever it is. It's been a good time. I've enjoyed it, hope you've enjoyed it. If I die, someone please be sure to read all of my posts out loud, with the cuss words intact and sound effects, at the funeral. I want to be remembered for who I really, truly was. Pure trash.

Ridiculous Christmas Gifts

Every year you see those commercials with the new cars & the big bows on top. I've always thought to myself, "Who the fuck does that? How do you just go out and buy a vehicle for someone?" Not only is it over the top but it seems really irresponsible too, which is why I did it. And here's how!

Now our old Impala, Vlad the Impaler, is an excellent work car. Besides the fact that only one the the window shield wipers worked and it smelled a little like gas, on the inside and the air conditioner had to be fixed a couple times, Vlad was alright.

Now for some backstory: When we went to go get a new vehicle for me, which was going to be a car, I decided it the ones we looked at were a little claustrophobic for me and I wanted more room for my independent critter control bidness activities, so I went with another SUV instead. What I didn't know was Husband had a plan in the back of his mind: I'd get a new car and then we would look at some used trucks for him. He never mentioned this, so of course I was all, "YEAH! NEW SUV! WITH ALL THE STUFF! AMBIENT LIGHTING! I'M A BALLLLLLAAAA. WHOOOPP!"

So what had happened was, we got me the fully loaded SUV with a payment that could easily cover the cost of both a new car and a used truck. Once again, this plan was not expressed to me until a few months later otherwise I would have taken the car and truck combo. Because I'm an asshole but not that big of an asshole.

And as you can tell, he puts my wants before his needs. So even though he had been actually looking for a used truck for a few months, I knew he would have put it off until Vlad started on fire or completely fell apart. He thinks things through, I force things until he gives in get shit done. It's our thing.

Then one Sunday, I'm driving home from the store and I go through a local car lot. Now finding a smallish truck is hard to do around here, they always seem to sell quickly, so I was super pumped when I saw they had a Chevy Colorado sitting out with a pretty low price tag. Being a rational person, I say nothing to Rob, set my alarm, get up early on Monday, walk into the dealership like a boss and say. "I wanna buy that truck for my husband! For Christmas! How do people do that?" The sales guy was like, "Uhh.. I don't know. Let me get my manager." And I'm like "ALRIGHT!" So he goes to get the manager and I start realizing I may have made a horrible mistake.

When the manager came out, we recognized each other as old classmates, we were all "Hey!" Not really essential to this story but it was neat. I felt super fucking grown up and cool.
So I look at the two guys and I say, "So I just thought this through, is this a mistake? Am I being ridiculous?" And they are like, "Yeah. Kind of. You should probably test drive it first..." Then I said, "Ok. Better idea, what if I test drive it to his work and just tell him I already bought it and if he is like, "WHAT THE HELL. WHY?!" I'll be all JK JK!" We all agreed that was the best plan.

The salesman was like, "Yo boss, do I let this crazy bitch just drive off with one of our vehicles with no adult supervision?" and old classmate was like, "Duhyeah! Give her one of those big bows too! CHRISTMAS!" So I drove the truck to his work, put the big bow on it and told him to come out.

"Surprise! I bought you this truck! Merry Christmas!"
"What?! What the hell....you bought it?"
"Well..errr..not all the way but if you want it you can have it! Do you want it?!"  Husband was obviously surprised and a little overwhelmed being forced to make a decision like that on a Monday morning. After a short test drive with an awful lot of muttered, "You're crazy"s and some deliberating he decided to give in to my heart felt plan and take the truck. After a few signatures, BOOM, done, Christmas truck.

So basically for Christmas, I gave my husband a truck payment. The gift that keeps on giving.

Let's be reasonable about this...

Once upon a time I was talking to my sister on the phone about nothing in particular, when I could hear my 7 year old niece scream something in the background to which my sister replied, "No one is sneaking in and cutting your underwear..." My niece had been putting on her pajamas and found a pair of her underwear that the elastic had worn out of and naturally assumed someone had broken into their house and cut her underwear.

She sounded crazy until I really thought about it. It probably didn't happen but it's completely possible. I mean weirder things have happened, right? What I didn't know was apparently when children have major freak outs about little things like this, you should not reply with, "That isn't what happened in this instance but I mean, it could happen. Chances are it's never going to happen to you but it's not outside the realm of possibility that someone could break into your house and cut your underwear." And definitely don't bring up examples like, "I swear one time I read about this guy getting sick and they later discovered someone had been sneaking into his house at night and putting arsenic, it's a type of poison, in his orange juice. It was slowly killing him. I don't think he died though. It might not have even really happened...but it could have."

This is exactly how I managed to piss a lawyer off so bad during jury selection that I was cut in the first round. "If you were shown evidence during a trial of a shoe print, of the exact brand and size of shoe as the suspect, in the victims yard...blah blah blah...would you find the defendant guilty?" "........No?" "Why not?"  "Because anyone could wear that exact shoe and exact size..." "What if the suspect had mud on the bottom of their shoe?" "...no" "What if there was a witness?" "....still no.." "So if all the evidence in the world pointed to the suspect and there was a witness and it was caught on camera and you were also there yourself, you still wouldn't find them guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?!"  To which I slammed my hand down, stood up and yelled, "NO! FOR I AM NOT A REASONABLE PERSON! THIS ENTIRE JUSTICE SYSTEM IS A GOVERNMENT CONSPIRACY TO DISTRACT US FROM THE TRUTH.  REPTILIAN HUMANOIDS ARE RUNNING THE WORLD AND VACCINATING US WITH MIND CONTROL SUBSTANCES."

At which point I was removed from the courtroom and taken to an undisclosed location for reprogramming by the evil lizard overlords. Which totally worked, I swear, I don't remember a thing. I'm especially not suspicious due to my always freezing cold extremities, constant urge to bask under heat lamps and inability to love.

So next time instead of lying to your child and telling them someone's not going to sneak into your house and cut their underwear, tell them the truth and also encourage them, "It doesn't look to me like someone snuck into our house and cut your underwear but that could happen, so always be alert. And with enough training from our reptilian overlords and you work really, really hard, you could be the person who sneaks in and cuts peoples underwear! Or even better, be the head of the reptilian humanoid breeding program! The possibilities are endless little one, I believe in you!"

man...I'm going to be the best fucking parent.

Crapting: Crafts for Regular People

I need more crafts tutorials up on here, which I have always kind of planned on doing, I just never get around to it. Or more truthfully, though my stuff looks good from a distance, when you look up close it's not exactly...well made, I guess? Some things turn out really cool, other things are more of a beauty in the eye of the beholder thing. 

So for my first installment of "Crapting: Crafts for Regular People," we will take a look at some of my paintings!

Acrylic on canvas

I do really like these ones and they were super simple to make. Just take a picture of your critter, print it out to whatever size you'd like the silhouette to be, trace around it, paint the background whatever you want and the silhouette whatever you want. I used acrylic paint because I don't understand how to use watercolor but really any paint would work. You can add patterns to where ever, decoupage flowers or some shit. Go crazy. It's your life. I also attempted to have each dog's paw print on there too. As you can see, the prints are a little sketchy thanks to all their paw fur and also because I was basically fingerprinting dogs. I did not take a picture of the white paint paw prints that were tracked through the house but I assure you, that shit was everywhere.

Acrylic on canvas

Ahh yes. My masterpiece. I painted this for my mom for Christmas one year. We went on a local "Yule Walk", basically you go to places around town that are all decorated for Christmas. My inspiration came from two things that evening. #1. The last stop we went to was the art museum and there was a picture of a figure in this shape in one of the paintings and we were like, "Whhhhhaaa." #2. It was super cold and my mom bundled herself up so much she looked strikingly like the guy from the painting while we walked around outside. So bada-bing bada-boom, added a wreath, threw in some familiar details from that night and made it amazing. Ta-da! Perfect gift!

Turns out I can't really think of any other paintings I've done besides random things at work. Pumpkins, windows, cardboard stand-ups. I'm alright but I'm definitely not great. I don't know how to do all the cool shading and texturing and shadowing. I'm sure if I actually tried to learn more or improve my technique I would be alright but like everything else in life, I completely lack the motivation to do that.

I guess if I had to pass along some advice it would be buy yourself some nice paintbrushes or ask someone to buy you nice brushes as a present. Nothing sucks more than trying to paint and having bristles come off onto your painting. And take care of them, don't let them get all shitty. Also if you shop at Hobby Lobby they tend to have some nice sales on canvas and nothing screams artist like painting with nice brushes on a canvas. So canvas, quality paintbrushes and a nice Van Dyke Brown, before you know it, you'll be arting all over the place.

OOOHH Dreeaamweeaver, I believe you can get me through the niii-IIGHT

Dreams are crazy. I don't feel like we can be blamed for what happens in our dreams, technically it's our dreamselves. I'm not just saying that due to the inappropriate dream I had last night or even from my early morning, groggy Facebook search of a featured player from my dream last night to which I thought to myself, "Damn....you are really good looking..." which I then winked at myself and fell back asleep for a couple hours. But I will admit I started to feel a little bit guilty for my dreamactions between the 4th and 5th hit of the snooze button, that's usually about the time I gain some lucidity in the mornings.

On the one hand, dreamRachel should be allowed to do whatever she wants. I don't feel like our dreamselves should be held to any moral standard. We should be fully supportive of our dreamselves because they are basically us, just slightly blurrier. "Get it girl. You look real cute and there are no rules in dreamland."
On the other hand, in this specific instance, dreamRachel had to sit through several minutes of dreamSister yelling at me and calling me a whore. Which seems a little harsh considering I didn't even get past some light groping before we were rudely interrupted. Plus by the time this all happened dude was like, "Uhh....I'm going to go..." Which you can't really stop them at that point because then it's desperate and sad and weird so I was just like, "UGH. Fine. Bye. Maybe I'll see you later back on that beach outside with that angry restaurant owner in the cabana selling seashells. I guess."

So how can I feel bad about almost getting dreamlaid when I barely even got a foot on third base? I mean, my brain sent in my sister to break it up. If I wasn't such a stand up person, I'd almost argue that I should get at least a free pass for a hardcore make-out sesh in real life to make up for the fact that I'm constantly cock-blocking myself in my dreams. But that wouldn't be right...unless my husband would be ok with that...not saying I would but I mean, I guess if he was like, "Yeah, go for it" it would be rude to not do it, probably.

Anyways, my point is, we really can't be held responsible for what we do in our dreams, whether it be flying or heavy petting or street fighting but not being able to do any damage with our punches. So dream on little dreamers, embrace those few moments of pure, unadulterated freedom each night where you can do whatever you want and never have to worry about the repercussions. It's just a dream, unless you are awake, then that is real life and there are consequences.

Littlest Pet Shop of Horrors

Do you ever wondering if people who are really annoying realize just how incredibly annoying they are? We do.

We have this little pet/gardening supplies store in our town that I frequent to buy the house bun bun his pellets. He was about out so when I was off work last week I stopped by to pick some more up. Apparently they had just gotten a shipment of new fish in and they were getting everyone floated in their tanks and what not. I walk in, one of the guys greets me, asks if I need anything, I tell him no, just picking up some food and taking a look around. The other employees are clearly busy trying to put stuff away, the guy that greeted me goes into his office and answers the phone. So of course I start poking all the bunnies and taking to myself, "OOOOO SATINS! I wanna love you. Get in my purse, no one has to know.." "OOOOOO DUMBO RATS! Deeeguuuuuuuu" "OOOOO A GREEN-CHEEKED CONTURE! BIRDS."

I make my way over to the reptile area and I'm looking in all the cages, one of the employees sees me looking at a new snake and says, "We just got that guy in, he is a really cool green color." and I'm like "IS IT A GREEN VINE SNAKE?!" "Umm..not sure. He eats crickets though." "COOL. ARE THERE MORE GECKOS UNDER THAT HIDE?" "Uh yeah." He lifts up the log and I said, "COOL MORPHS! WOW! LOOK AT THAT BIG ONE! BLIZZARD MORPH?! COOL." Then he asks, "Do you want a gecko?" "YEAH. But I'm not allowed one -_-"

So I continued to walk around asking hypothetical questions and pointing out the different reptiles, "OOO ANOLES...OOO BEARDIE...OOO CRESTED!" Then I go back to check on the fish tanks, literally barreling through their boxes because I'm basically an unsupervised child at this point. "YOU GOT IN SOME PUFFERS! FIGURE EIGHT PUFFERS!! SPOTTEDS TOO!!!COOL." Then the very patient employee says, "Oh come here, you'll like these guys.." and walks me over to another tank with some Indian Dwarf puffers in it. "AWWWW. THEY ARE SO CUTE! IS THIS BRACKISH?! IS IT FRESH?! HEY YOU GOT ANOTHER SIDENECK TURTLE! WHAT KIND OF CAT (catfish) IS THIS?! red tail? I LOVE REDTAILS! THEY ARE MY FAVORITE SPECIES OF CATFISH!" Side Note* Red-tailed catfish get huge and should not really be sold as a hobby fish in a pet store.

I knew I was getting super annoying but I didn't care because animals. Finally, I went and checked out and they were happy to see me go. Also for the record, I am usually very against stores selling pets, especially rabbits, but this one is pretty good as far as care goes. I used to go in all the time and yell at them about whoever they bought bunnies from weaning the babies too quickly but I noticed they are doing a lot better about it. Yes, I'm that crazy lady. My husband refuses to go in the store with me anymore because of my behavior.

I'm Just A Teenage Dirtbag, Baby

When I was a teenager, I was an asshole.

"Oh you, everyone is an asshole when they are younger." No, I mean I was a huge, f-ing asshole. For literally no reason except for the fact I could be an asshole. I would get ridiculously mad over little things, like my mom asking me to do something like do the dishes. Sometimes I wouldn't even need a reason, I was just mad..and sad..and every single other emotion all at the same time. It was a hurricane of teen angst. Even now, when I look back on it, I can't think of a single thing I could say to teen me that would have made me calm the shit down. And frankly I can't think of a single thing teen me could say to adult me that would prevent adult me from beating teen me's ass. If I could go back in time, walk up and just sucker punch teenage me, I would do it in a heartbeat. I wouldn't even care if I ended up in jail, which would be bullshit anyways, beating the crap out of your younger self after all the effort time travel takes shouldn't be against the law in any timeline.

I can picture that interaction.
Adult me- "Hey asshole. *sucker punch*"
Teen me- "You f-ing bitch, what the hell?!"
*Struggle, struggle, struggle..fist fight...I sit on teen me*
Adult me- "Listen up you little fucker, I'm you from the future. You need to knock this 'I think I'm a badass' shit off right now or so help me God I will ruin your life."
Teen me- "Well I've got a real smart mouth and act like I have my period 24/7 and I hate everything."
Adult me- "Yeah, and I came all the way back in time to slap you in that smart mouth of yours, you little emo piece of shit. What the hell is wrong with you? Because I try to think back to what was so bad in our life that you felt the need to constantly be a dick and I can't figure it out. Honestly, I don't even care, just knock it off."
Teen me- "Well I'm not EVER going to stop being a smart ass. You can't tell me what to do anyways. You don't even technically exist yet. Plus you look like you have your shit together. I mean you managed to care enough to find a time machine and come back here to teach me a lesson. Do we end up in prison? Why you gotta be all up in my business?"
Adult me- "Uh, well, no.. no we don't end up in prison. I mean, like life is pretty good. We have a good job, a great family, a house, nice car.. there is this thing called Amazon Prime that we order whatever the hell we want and get it in like two days. Our husband doesn't even care that we spent like $30 in juggling paraphernalia last month..."
Teen me- "Then why the hell are you here? If shit worked out so well, why are you sitting on me?........Oh fuck.. are..are we dying? ARE WE FUCKING DYING?! Oh God, what is it? Are you addicted to prescription pills or something? WHAT DID YOU DO, FUTURE ME?!"
Adult me- "Jesus spaz, calm down. We aren't fucking dying. I dunno, I guess I just don't like you that much. I mean, not that I didn't learn anything. You are going to do a lot of stupid shit but we'll learn some valuable life lessons from it. I guess just tone it down a little. At least be nicer to our family. Stop being such a dick to Mom, help out around the house a little. Do some homework once in awhile. Don't take anything for granted and talk to your great grandmother more."
Teen me- "Ok! Whatever! Now leave me alone I'm going to go listen to Blink 182, circle things I want in my Delia*s catalog and then write all over my bedroom wall to express my constant sorrow because NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ME."

 Yep. Sounds accurate.