So, I've basically decided that blogger irritates the crap out of me. It makes me nuts when I try to post a picture and the alignment of it won't work. It also bugs me that the quality of pictures is so BLAH when I use their upload function. I also hate the lack of addons and plugins and widgets and all that jazz.

Another thing I've decided is, I totally screwed up my other site, Text Imps. My plan & goal was to scour the internet for great posts and blogs to feature each week. Instead of finding something good and moving on, I started subscribing. Then... my subscription list grew and grew. Then... I got hooked on about 70 writers (10 that I'm not sure I could live without). And now... I'm screwed. LOL Instead of jumping from one blog to the next, I feel like I have to stop and read and get to know the writers and... ugh... it's an endless cycle that leaves no time for scouring.

Another big part of my plan was to have people submit their favorites. So far, in 3 months, I've only had 3 submissions. Huge downer.

So now, I'm not exactly sure what I should do.

I'm thinking I may move my personal blog (the one you're reading now) over to Text Imps. I'm not sure if I should combine the 2 sites and just do a once a month feature or what.

I'm also thinking that I may completely scratch the idea of running Text Imps. I mean, I liked the idea. I had fun doing it. But all of a sudden, it turned into work. The whole point was to do something that was fun. Read great stuff & share it with others. Where could I go wrong... ya know??

Tonight will be the 2nd week in a row that I'm not updating with new featured articles. I hate feeling like a failure, but right now, that's the only word that's coming to mind. FAIL!

Anyone have any suggestions? I'm 100% open to any ideas, comments, suggestions, complaints, questions....... whatever.......

You know what I call this? A crying shame!!

Do you see it? Right there? In front of the dog?

Right there!!! The brown thing!! Yes!! That's chocolate!! On the floor!!!

Someone wasted a perfectly good piece of chocolate and I am NOT happy about it.

And if you look closely, you can see that the rest of the chocolate is already gone from the heart-shaped box. *sigh* Such a tragedy.

LOL - Someone was apparently running around half naked during this picture. I just spotted a pair of pants, too.

I can't wait for the dog's molting too be done! The house is covered in hair. If you think the rug looks bad, you oughtta see my black bed spread. It's gray now, from all of the hair.


And this picture? This one is a true testimate to a few of my many skills. That's right. Skills I say.

First, we have the skill of being able to serve meals for days without the need for the dishes that are piled in the sink.

And, if you don't count being able to stack 12 plastic bowls, 3 glass bowls, 3 saucers, 8 glass plates and 1 plastic plate in a single dish drainer as a skill... well... then I suggest you show me what passes for talent 'round these here parts.

And when you're done with that, head over to Text Imps. I finally got the Post of the Week and Site of the Week added a couple of hours ago. Sorry about the delay.

Oh.. AND.... There's a new post up at Christian's Kingdom, too. He had his stuff ready for posting over a week ago and I ... well... I kept forgetting to post it for him. I finally found a program to make his recordings quieter. I thought his last recording was going to make my ears bleed!!!! So I HAD TO find a way to fix that.

Make sure you come back tomorrow. I think I've come up with a new blogging game (or maybe you call it a carnival) that ya'll might like.

Well look at me. I'm just little Ms. Bossy today aren't I? Visit this, visit that, come back tomorrow.

Why are you still here??? Move It Mister!!!!!!!!

Since this is a fairly new blog and most of you know nothing about my personal life, let me give you some details so that this story will make sense to you.

The Ol' Man has 3 very annoying little yipper dogs that annoy the piss out of me. They're constantly under foot and in my bed and the only thing they're good for is waking up the baby. They bark at anything, everything and nothing.

I have a German Shepherd. She is my dog! She's a good dog and only barks & growls when it's actually warranted. (i.e. When a Sherrif shows up at your door at 11pm and you're home alone and he's looking for your husband to make sure he's gonna be at jury duty the next day.... ugh.. idiot)

I'm not a big gun person, so you'll have to bear with me while I explain this. You know that chuck-uh-chuck sound that a shotgun makes when you pull that thingy back so you can shoot it? You know... when you pump it?? Chuck-uh-chuck? You know what I mean right? Well, one particular gun that we own, that chuck-uh-chuck sound is VERY loud!!! The Ol' Man tells me that I never really need to load the gun. Just make that noise and "the bad guys will run away." LOL

aNyWhO... Saturday morning at 5:00 (before the sun comes up and before my brain starts functioning) my dog barked and woke me from a sound sleep. Then she started growling. And then... my front door opened. So I jumped up out of bed half naked... grabbed the gun... reached up and grab 2 shells... slammed them into the gun and CHUCK-UH-CHUCK BEEYOTCH!!!

"CHRIS!! IT'S ME!!!!! DON'T SHOOT!!!! CHRIS!! IT'S THE OL MAN!! PUT THE GUN DOWN!!!" Apparently mama gets a li'l gun happy when it comes to pruh-tectin her babies.

So let that be a warning to you!! If you say you'll be here at noon, don't come walking in the house at 5 in the morning. And if you enter my home while I'm sleeping, be sure and call out "CHRIS!! DON'T SHOOT!!" before you come to kill me.

This shotgun of mine is still loaded. I suggest you mosey on over to Text Imps and check out who we picked for Site of the Week and Post of the Week yesterday... before I hassa bus' a cap in yo ass.

... And I mean that in the most loving way. =D

Four score and seven years ago....

Okay, more like 4 months and 7 days ago... I was having a clickfest and checking out one blog after another. I came upon a post that brought me to tears. I immediately copied the link and e-mailed it to a few friends. Twenty minutes later, I sat at my desk, in fits of laughter. Again I copied the link and sent it. An hour passed and three more e-mails were sent out. Are you starting to see a pattern?

The next morning, one of my unlucky e-mail victims jokingly sent me a reply that said she loved all of the posts but maybe next time I should wait until I'm done for the night and I should send all of the links at once. Fine. Point made. Point taken.

A few weeks later, at the end of another trip through the blogosphere, I sent another e-mail. This one contained links to blogs, individual posts and funny profiles. I had stumbled on some of the most fabulous writers and I couldn't stand the thought of keeping such great reading material to myself. It's better than talkin' about the weather, right?

Again, I got a reply from that same friend. "Those writers are awesome! I'm gonna subscribe to most of them. I'm definitely NOT subscribing to 'Blog Name Removed For Fear of Public Beat Down'. I can't believe you thought 'Post Name Removed For Fear of Flogging' was so funny. That guy's a few french fries short of a Happy Meal." Hey, what can I say? We have different opinions about what's funny and what should just be deleted.

Her letter continued "I liked 99% of what I read and forwarded your links to a few people. You know, you're always looking for a new website project. Maybe that should be it. You could put all of those 'good' links on one website and maybe even let other people submit the ones they think are great. There are too many talented writers out there that aren't getting the kudos they deserve. By the way, did you notice that 'good' was in quotes? Feel free to run the links by me before you suggest them to other people. Your taste is... uhm... we'll just say unique."

Shortly after reading her message I wrote her a sweet little letter about where she could stick her moderating skilz. I also sent her all of the gross, distasteful and downright disgusting post links that I'd bookmarked for my own pleasure.

She replied with "OMG!!! That 8th link was hilarious!" Hmm... 8th link huh? I guarantee you that links 1-7 were downright shiver me timbers gross. But she continued reading. She's a smart woman. I know that she figured out after the first 2 reads that I was sending nothing but 'unique' links. But she kept reading. *snickers* She liked it. You know she did. I love that woman. LOL

And now you have it. The story behind how Text Imps got its start.

For those who think some of the posts I link to are disgusting, go ahead and send me a note. I'd be more than happy to send you my friend's address so you can inform her that she's falling behind on her monitoring duties.

Don't forget that it's Monday. How could ya right? Back to work... Yuck! But the good news is, our new featured authors are up at Text Imps.

*Side Note ~ Gross, distasteful & disgusting may have different meanings for you and I. I promise that no links to illegal or pornographic materials were sent. I'm not that crude!

I wanted to do this whole Fun With Google thing that I saw at Scientific Nature of the Whammy. But as I started doing my searches, I realized that my name has been taken over by one article after another about Christina Aguilera. So instead... you get to hear about boobie boogers.

This morning, Frogger woke up totally ticked off. She was screaming non-stop at the top of those powerful little lungs of hers. First, I checked to see if she was pulling her own hair, which she has a tendency to do. Yeah, she gets a handful of her hair, gives it a tug and since it hurts so badly, her arms start flailing and pulling harder and harder and she gets more and more pissed. Poor thing. I hope she figures it out soon!

Anyways, checked that her hair wasn't entangled in her little fist. All was fine. Then I undressed her and changed her diaper & clothes. Usually this calms her down and she'll start giving me those precious newborn smiles, but she didn't calm down at all. So I picked her up and was cradling her in my arms and she started rooting like she hadn't been fed since she was born 2 months ago.

I took her and laid down on the bed next to her and she started giving me hell. This isn't your typical little "I'm hungry" baby cry. No, no. She yells in short little segments like she's saying "Hurry the hell up! You're taking to long. What're you doing? Quit screwing off. Can't you tell I'm hungry?"

I get all set up and comfy and she gives me one last angry "Meh.na.blee.fu" and she latches on. She's going to town and I'm thinking "This is gonna really suck when she gets older and stronger. I won't live through it if she continues trying to suck my heart out through my chest!"

She's sucking so hard that she has pretty much stopped breathing. And then she lets out this huge breath. Along with the air comes this huge, nasty, green, slimy, snotty looking booger. Eww gross!! Now, being the mom of 5, boogers & snot don't really bother me anymore. But this was the first time I'd seen a booger shoot out of a nose and straight onto my boob. Bluck!

So I take my pinky nail and go to fetch this glob of goo off of myself. As I go to pick it up, Frogger inhaled really deep and sucked the damn thing right back up her nose. Bah...

About 5 seconds later, she exhaled and the booger shot out again. So, again, I go in to get it off of me. And again, she sucks it back up her nose. Have you ever had to time booger snatching? Yeah... not fun, is it?

This happened at least 5 more times in the span of a minute. Me, staring intently, waiting for the booger to reappear and Frogger screwing with me for making her wait so long to eat. It was at this time that I realized that my 11+ years of booger retrieval studies were failing me. It was also at this time that I realized that Boogie, my 3 year old, was really becoming independant. She goes after her own boogers now. She doesn't need her mommy anymore. *sigh*

On another note... This morning, after getting a few comments, e-mails and IM messages that my new design on Text Imps was "yay" and not "yuck", I went to look at my counter stats. Zero?? Zero hits?? Really? Were these people just yanking my chain? WTH? That aint nice. But suuuuuuuurely they wouldn't really do that.

Then, it dawned on me that in order to actually have stats tracked, you have to remember to put the tracker code on your site somewhere. Derrrrr

Thank you to those who went and checked out the new layout. And sorry for doubting you. Shame on me!!!

Hooooo-leeeeeeee-Cow!! I am FINALLY finished... I think....

I've been working for the past few days on a new layout/template/theme (whatever you wanna call it) for Text Imps. I think I'm finally finished. Well, until someone informs me that something's broken. *crosses her fingers that it doesn't happen* Or until someone says "Hey I have an idea for something you could add/change/delete"

So to all who blogged and/or commented in the past couple days, I haven't forgotten you, I promise. I'm just sorta lagging. I have 40+ unread things in my reader and that's scary for me. Usually I'm waiting and waiting for someone to pleeeeeeeease post something for me to read. But now, I'm totally behind and am worried I won't catch up soon enough.

Plus I have to find a post & blog to feature next week on Text Imps. Man oh Man... Let's hope there's something good in that reader of mine or that someone submits something worth featuring.

But for now, I'm takin' my ass to bed! It's almost 3am and I have to get up at 7. Yuck!

Sidenote - If you can find a copy of Will Smith on David Letterman around Christmas time, you've GOTTA watch it. I sat here and laughed my ass off to the point of having tears running down my face.

Sidenote2 - Today was a great day. No injuries Hahaha But the night isn't quite over. I still have to stoke the fire and walk to my bed. Who knows what'll happen between now & when I arrive in Sleepy Land.

Last night, I had a little argument with the rocker under the recliner. Let's just say I did not come out victoriously. It hurts all the way up to my knee. The sad thing is, this was not 10 seconds after I managed to slam my elbow into a crib. Sometimes I think I need to live in a padded room.

And just FYI - My foot is not as dirty as it looks. Seriously! LOL After I saw this picture I was like "Holy Hell my foot is filthy!" But I stuck it under a bright light and gave it a good look and I swear it's not dirty. Dumbass camera. Not only does it add 10 pounds, but it adds dirt.

Don't forget it's Monday. We have our new Post of the Week and Site of the Week up over at Text Imps.

I was just over at Text Imps looking around and thinking of doing some design changes. If you haven't been over there, go check it out. It's far more interesting than anything you'll find here.

Anywho.... On the front page, there's a link to a post by Cameron at Get The Stink Off. Check out my ads which are based on his post....



That's class baby!!!

With Christmas only a couple of weeks in the past, I have Ralphie on the brain. Ralphie and his Little Orphan Annie decoder pin & of course the Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle!!

Today begins the "up to 90 days" waiting period for my 8 year old son, Luigi.

First off... 90 days? Seriously?? Luigi was none to thrilled to hear that he'd have to wait so long for his Indiana Jones canteen (courtesy of Pop Tarts) He informed me that it will most likely come by the end of next week. And then informed me that it had better come by the end of next week or he will never eat another Pop Tart in his life.

Around here, ain't nothin' comes free. I'm proud to say that my kids know the value of a dollar. If they want something, they work for it and they save their money until they can afford it. There's no such thing as borrowing and paying me back later. If he's willing to swear off of Pop Tarts for all of eternity just because it takes awhile for his shit to show up, can you imagine what will happen if it never shows? All that hard work to earn $5.99 and nothing in return? Oh man...

FYI, I swell up with pride when they hear the words 'credit card' and begin a long winded speech about why credit cards suck and how it's better to just have a little self-control & discipline. "$1 for a box of candy or $100 for a box of candy. Which would you rather pay?" Okay, so maybe I exaggerated interest rates a tad bit, but... they understand my point.

My little boy is growing up. Sending away for his very first mail-in offer. Oh I'm so proud!! It broke my heart a little when he proudly trotted out to the mailbox, put his envelope inside and then realized he wouldn't be able to lift the ever so important red flag. The damn thing was frozen to the side of the mailbox. I knew this because I saw the look of horror on his face as he began shaking the flag like his life depended on it. Oh how I hate Illinois weather.

Don't forget that today is Monday. That means our new Site of the Week and Post of the Week is up at Text Imps.