Squeaky clean update (let the kids read this one)

A few quick updates:

First things first, Chester underwent emergency surgery!  It was a bit traumatic at the time, but I am so glad we did it.  We were concerned that he was going to actually explode given how full he had gotten the past few months so we called the professionals.

The surgeon removed the following from Chester's abdomen:

• a freezer meal
• four packages of fish
• two frozen pizzas 
• a package of tortilla wraps 
• a loaf of bread
• an unidentified scary looking feather covered item  (I believe my husband actually killed the poor creature at some past date)
• a partridge in a pear tree

And there is plenty more food in there too!  But this recent extraction gives me hope that I may get to the bottom of that freezer yet!

So I broke down and ironed again the other day.  It wasn't pretty and I damaged the kitchen table, again, but I did in fact iron a shirt!  Now in the name of all that is impure and horrible and wrong in this painful and broken, world, ironing, is the worst.  I curse you, Irma the Iron.  Ironing is without a doubt the worst task EVER.

This most recent ironing ambition was done in order to allow my son to have his school pictures in a wrinkle free shirt and to keep my husband happy because he hates wrinkled clothes. I honestly don't mind them, I feel like wrinkled clothes are a way of making a statement to others something to the affect of, "I have better things to do with my time than remove wrinkles from my clothes for your benefit because honestly I don't give a flying "f" if my clothes are wrinkled. The end."  However, I extended grace and compassion to the situation at hand as I knew our son was going to be photographed and the wrinkles captured forever in time via the infamous school picture if I didn't take swift sure action.  I knew I had to iron to avoid an outraged husband in a couple weeks when the pictures come in.  UGH.  What a start to my day.  I ironed.

Oh and then I wanted to quickly share my new housecleaning routine with you because you may find it helpful.  First of all, I have never had a routine pretty much for anything.  I guess I am not really a routine kind of person. I know people say, "kids do best with routine".  And maybe they do, but my kids did just fine without one too.  We are adaptive! My lack of routine goes hand and hand with my lack of order and organization skills. SIGH. However, this is one routine that is working for me despite my lack of ability to do anything remotely structured. So if you find yourself failing miserably as a housekeeper, or feeling like the worst housewife ever, it might be worth a shot.  I mean if you are feeling that way, can things really get any worse?!  And I am actually the worst housekeeper ever so don't worry, that position is FILLED by yours truly.  So here is the secret to mediocre housekeeping....I play 1989 by T Swift every morning as soon as the kids are out the door and I force myself to shake it off and clean until the entire album is done roughly 46 minutes.  So far the results are, in a word, amazing.  I have been vacuuming at least weekly. I dusted the entire house last week (and I don't believe in dusting, but my husband does so it made him happy). I cleaned and organized our closet and the pantry too.  The bathrooms have been cleaned as well and I even scrubbed the toilets!  Seriously, I am becoming a regular old Martha Stewart!  The music makes it fun and I suppose you could substitute in whatever music you wanted for the occasion! However, as for me and my family, we will stick with TayTay.

In conclusion,

Best of luck! I hope my routine works out better for you than it did for this lady.  I pray you don't end up with cooked, dirty socks or bills that get soggy from your dishwasher! Although honestly, other than me ** who actually mails bills nowadays anyways?

**side note: I fear I may be turning into an old lady, as I find myself often annoyed with modern conveniences such as online banking and e-readers.

PS If you hadn't already guessed it, I was the surgeon in this story just call me Vern M.D. from now on!
Vern Out

Eat dessert first

This will be my shortest post ever.

Coincidence?! I think not.  I think God wants us to eat dessert first especially when our stress levels are really high.  That is why a half a batch of no-bake cookies makes me feel better when I have reached my breaking point.  Those cookies toss me into a very angelic food coma unsurpassed to date by any other over indulgence of food.


That is all,
Enjoy your dessert tonight!
Vern out

I'll cry if I want to

It's my birthday and I'll cry if I want to, cry if I want to, cry if I want to!  But I dont. I want to laugh if I want to and since it is my birthday that is just what I plan to do.  Here is the thing about happiness, unless you have clinical depression, it is a choice.  It is a choice people.  Too many people take life WAY TOO SERIOUSLY and are PISSED off all the time and usually about stupid stuff too.  I am married to one of them.  But today I choose happy.  HAPPY!  Even though I am married to a crabby man, I am thankful for him.  He is a great provider, a wonderful father and in so many ways a down right great person.  He is just not very happy usually and it is annoying, but I am happily married.

So what does my never really happy, always kinda grumpy husband do for my birthday!?  He bought me the most unromantic birthday present ever... a new GPS.  I suspect this was more a gift to himself so that I will stop calling him for assistance when I get lost and I thought about getting grumpy about this, but I decided to be happy.  I especially thought about being grumpy when instead of spending quality time with me (when we ended up with an hour of free time. alone. together) and he decided to mount my new GPS to the dash of our van this morning.  I had another idea involving mounting (something other than a GPS I might add), but even then in that instance I thought to myself, Happy. I am going to be happy. Yes I have committed to happy at least for today so here is my super simple, easy peasy, happiness plan...

Vern's OFFICIAL HAPPINESS PLAN
Step one:
BE HAPPY

Step Two:
Repeat Step One Repeatedly until the end of the day.

Emergency Happiness Plan
And when it gets really tough I am going to rely on my often shoddy memory* and recall good happy times.

I am going to remember the good times like the last time I was in fact lost...

Even lost I chose HAPPY that day!

Or the time when we caught the monster!  Check it out! That was a HAPPY moment!

I am going to choose to be grateful for what I have, not dwell on what I do not and I am going to have a happy f*ing birthday!


*Evidence of my poor memory is a case study from yesterday. Yesterday.   I left my office inquiring as to who was baking what I imagined in my messed up head to be some exquisite and delicious baked good.  My coworker informed me that she had not whipped up a fantastic delicacy, but that she was pretty sure I was in fact baking a sweet potato.  I had completely forgotten placing said sweet potato in the over over two hours prior.  It was a well done sweet potato, but I ate it.  I am nothing if not resourceful and I refused to let my poor memory lead to wasted food.  And now you all think I have lost it, but I just had to share.  I do have a bad memory, but at least I am happy!

That is all
Vern Out

This is not kid friendly, but it will make you laugh!

A quick update on my incredible entourage of appliances.

Chester is still alive and well and stuffed to the gills.  Speaking of gills I am removing a bunch of the bluegills from Chester this weekend for my run club's annual fish fry!  So excited to remove something from Chester; it seems all I do lately is deposit new freezer meals to him!

Brenda the blenda has been retired. She started smoking and I will not stand for that in our house it is a smoke free home, Brenda, get with the program or get out!!

Anyhow, she now hangs out with Victor (retired vacuum cleaner remember!) at our well stocked bar in the basement.  At least it was well stocked when I put her down there last month.  I better go complete an inventory. Once I get out of work, I am heading straight to our bar!  Yes she and Victor hang out often, unless he is gone golfing or fishing and then she is on her own and she drinks dirty martinis.

Irma and I are still not on speaking terms.  She is still a free loading nightmare of an iron and I just can't find it in my heart to forgive her.  Maybe someday. Time heals all wounds.

Ted the Toaster is hard core man. He has been creating wonderful early morning delights for us for nearly ten years now without so much as a complaint, or a missed shift!  The guy is amazing! And when I searched for an acceptable photo to share with you of a toaster of Ted's variety, I turned up a disturbing article about a guy in London who got his penis stuck in a toaster.  Anyhow, here is the closest picture to Ted that I found after picking my jaw up off the floor, saying eww and why??!?! and then laughing hysterically for about five minutes.  If you just must read the gross article here is the link to that recipe  Toasted Penis

As for me and the kids, we are getting back into the swing of things now that we are in the third week of school!  Although we have eaten nothing but leftover camping hotdogs and a batch of baked spaghetti for the past few week so Jeff would probably disagree that we are getting into the swing of things! He is ready for a real meal!



Vern out

Music makes me happy

I was at Taylor's Chicago concert Saturday and she talked about how music can make us feel happier and inspire people and it is so TRUE! She is so wise and humble!  I truly felt like she was talking to me when she shared her insight with the crowd of 50,000+ at Soldier Field!

This picture makes me smile.  It lights up my soul and just makes me feel happy all over! HAPPY!!! I guess maybe, just maybe, I am obsessed.  I really LOVE both of their music so much!   I can be in a piss poor, foul, mood and having the worst day and then "Photograph" or "Shake it off" come on the radio and I am instantly transformed into a happier, lighter, better, version of myself!   My kids know this to be true.  My husband believes in this; in fact, he believes  so deeply we are actually planning a super cool, hard core, 12-hour road trip to see Ed in D.C. for my birthday just so I will be in a good mood for the occasion!  It is the last time I get to turn 30 something so it is kind of a big deal!!!  The only thing that could improve the occasion would be if Taylor showed up to sing, "I just want to know you better" with Ed for my special day!!!!  That would be the absolute BEST!!!

Oh and by the way, I really hope there is never a term Swieran or Taylor"Ed" but seriously these are two of my most favoritest artistist/musicians. And they are both cat people too. And having worked in the animal welfare industry for over a decade this fact is very important.  Cat people never really relate well to us dog people!  I love my cat too though don't get me wrong.  Gus is an amazingly social cat and I love him dearly, but alas I am still a dog person at heart! And they are both so down to earth for famous people. Seriously. Down. To. Earth.

And their music, yes their music, just speaks to my heart and soul. So if they ended up together that would be so cool, but a term should never be created to describe them together because they are both such unique and awesome individuals.  They are both so damn special and becoming TaylorEd or Swieran would be disastrous!

 That is all.

PS Oh and I still hate television and I still believe Chester, my chest freezer, somehow reproduces asexually which continues to challenge me in the realm of emptying his contents.

PPS I invited Ed to sing the national anthem at Brainy Day 5K in August!  I sent him a message on his facebook page so I am pretty sure I will get to meet him then, but otherwise September for sure!

Vern out

Wasteland

This sucks I accidentally published this post when I was really planning to just start a new story about the throw away society in which I reside.  And now I can't figure out how to unpublish it and I am again annoyed with technology...Anyhow, I really hate waste.  Our society is nothing if not wasteful.  So my kids are accustomed to hearing things like "finish your food", "we are having leftovers" and "no we are not going to buy that because we don't need it"

PS SO finish your vegetables people and have a happy Fourth of July weekend!

PPS And for Pete's sake don't take so much of that because you will never finish it.

PPPS take that you silly blog that self published my not yet constructed story.  I finished it in under three minutes and it is still entertaining.

Vern Out

Still alive eh!?

Yes I am still alive and yes I am still trying to empty my pantry. Oh and while I am at it I am also attempting to empty my chest freezer, Chester.  A girl's gotta have goals.  So first of all, I wanted my faithful followers to know I am alive and mostly well.  Secondly I wanted to share a quick story.  And finally I needed to confess my latest shopping binge.  Let's get started!

Happy Canada Day!  So confession first,  I totally shopped last night for the ingredients to make Nanaimo Bars in celebration of Canada Day (for those of you who have no idea what the hell a Nanaimo Bar is (which was me until 9 o'clock last night); they are a traditional Canadian dessert.  I have since learned that in short, they are a taste of heaven.  A buttery, chocolatey coconutty, taste of heaven.  They are Rich in flavor (and probably calories) and very, very, very, very, yummy.  There are many different versions of these treats.  I chose ones with almonds and coconut because I like almonds and coconut!  Did I mention they are very yummy!?  Check em out!

So how exactly did I end up dressed in Mittens in July wearing my red and white with some crazy yummy bars I had never heard of until yesterday!?  Good question.  Well we recently hired a Canadian transplant at work so now that I work with a Canadian I figured I need to be respectful of her so when I learned (yesterday) that today was Canada Day, I decided to go all out for the occasion!  I am wearing red and white and my mittens from the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and I will be eating some of those delicious bars shortly.  Heck I may even run through KFC and request some poutine if I get really ambitious!  Apparently they will prepare it if requested in the US and in Canada it is a menu favorite!

Vern Out