Another Google Ban for Michelle

Um, so, as I have previously mentioned, I'm pretty terrible about keeping up with the news, and I generally try to shy away from chatting about politics because I don't keep up with the news anymore and nothing is more annoying than someone who passionately talks about something when they have no idea what they're talking about (and I watched 24 hour news shows incessantly in college so that I could have about 487 gazillion political debates while getting my poli-sci minor...tapped out, thank you)

So, I was blissfully ignorant about a pending government shutdown until 1. someone posted something about it on Facebook and 2. I read a someecard about it.  So, I had to consult Google since the words "government shutdown" gave me a moment of pause.  Anyway, I read a news article and immediately remembered why I choose to ignore the news:

If the shutdown lasts more than a week or so, members of the military — deemed essential personnel — may have to go to work without pay. Reports the Post: "If the current funding expires on Friday, in the middle of the military’s two-week pay period, the Defense Department would distribute paychecks for the first week." 
For Congress: A group of 21 Senate Democrats is trying to pass a bill to halt pay for Congress and the President, but that seems unlikely, the Post reports.

(I, obviously, added the highlighting.  It came from Yahoo news, and I don't currently remember or care how to properly cite things - I also have an English degree- doing my college proud right now).

So, now I have one word: unacceptable.  Am I the only person who thinks it's absolutely insane that we are going to tell our military to keep on keeping on without their paychecks?    Certainly when (probably on purpose), the next paragraph says it's "unlikely" that the President and Congress will be missing their paychecks.

I don't care whose fault it is or what is causing it or what side of the aisle you're seated on or what your political beliefs are, screwing over our military cannot sit well with you.

Ignorance is bliss and information incites rage.  So, now there is another self-imposed Google ban for Michelle.  Adios, news.

No one to blame but myself

Some people are not meant to wear shorts.  I am one of those people, and that's cool because I've spent the bulk of my adult life amassing a collection of dresses and skirts.

Last year, my mom bought me several dresses, and I would wash them and hang them up to help them keep their size/shape as they were drying so that all was lovely and well during the scorching Texas summers when just the thought of wearing anything longer than knee-length makes me want to faint on the spot.  

Those dresses were my hands-down favorites, and they had never met a dryer.

Until yesterday.

I so wish I could blame this on Michael or Silas or one of the dogs.  But no.  I did it.  I washed the entire collection of dresses and proceeded to throw them (all of them) into the dryer.  I didn't have an uh oh! moment half way through the drying process or as I pulled them from the dryer or even as I hung them on hangers.  The damage was good and thoroughly done.

I awoke this morning feeling all smug about the fact that I knew exactly what I was going to wear and could skip the rushing-around-panicky-looking-for-clean-clothes portion of the day.  I trotted to my closet, pulled one of the dresses off of its hanger and over my head where it proceeded to stretch and gape and make a dramatic announcement about not fitting me anymore. 

I was astonished.  Um, why do my jeans and shirts still fit if I've gained what must be twenty pounds???

So, still, what I had done did not occur to me.  I found another dress (same size - hung to dry) and went about my morning, dropping Silas off, stopping to get gas, driving to work - all while swearing off cookies - when the realization finally dawned, and I had my uh oh! moment.  I shrunk my favorite dresses...all of them...all by myself. 

Since I was stuck in traffic anyway, I made myself come up with a silver lining.  I found two.

1. I did manage to not shrink every other piece of clothing I own.
2. The cookies weren't the culprit (because I was totally lying to myself about giving them up - especially since Wal-Mart has started stocking Keebler's version of the Samoa - all year round - at much more reasonable prices than my beloved Girl Scouts).

The faith of a child

Kindle ebook link

The fate of our souls is something I think most of us wonder about.  What will happen when I die?  Is there really a Heaven?  If there is, what is it like?

I've been in utter turmoil for a long, long time about the answers to these questions. 

However, as I lay down Friday night, I was blanketed in the kind of peace I haven't felt since I was a child - before I started questioning everything.  That peace was the result of reading the book pictured above.  

If you struggle with your faith, worry about your soul, question whether there is a God or a Heaven, are simply curious, or even if you have a rock solid, unshakable faith in God - read this book. 

To put it very simply, it changed the way I want to approach the rest of my life and solidified the faith that was instilled in me as a child.  The faith that I have been very busy destroying as an adult.

I'm thankful to Claire for recommending this book to me, and I'm thankful to the Burpo family for sharing their story.  (I've put a link to the ebook for the Kindle in the caption above.)

P.S. Also, it's an easy read.  It is very well written.  I read the entire book in one night.  It's not preachy or uncomfortable or hard to understand.  It's very sweet and comforting (although you will cry if you are a crier).

Anabel Lynn

It's Anabel's birthday.  She would have been 4 today. 

When I closed my eyes to wish Anabel a happy birthday this morning, my mind flooded with an image of my sister tip-toeing into a bedroom where my little angel was asleep.  Anabel was snuggled up under the covers with a mass of curls all around her head, framing her sweet face.  

Kayde, my sister, woke Anabel up by wrapping her in her arms and kissing her cheeks while giggling, "Happy Birthday!" into her curls.  

I then saw flashes of my daughter running around a (beautiful) house in a party dress while my sister was in the kitchen preparing food for a party and Anabel blowing out candles on a homemade cake.

They're happy and they're together.  I know it, and that makes me smile.

Happy Birthday, my dear, sweet daughter.  You are missed greatly and thought of often.  We love you!

The War at Home

Michael and I went on our weekend getaway this past weekend.  It was ah-mazing.  There are pictures on my camera, but I don't have the cord necessary to upload them and show them to you.  So, sorry about your luck.

Anyway, we were all compatible and lovey-dovey and pretty sickening and annoyingly in love.  So, I forgot that sometimes we do not love the same things.  Suffice it to say, my guard was down.

For a bit of background, you should know, our movie neutral ground is comedies and action films.  That's what we can safely watch together without one of us resenting the other one for a week and plotting revenge with a movie the other will hate.  The treacherous, land-mine-covered, non-neutral movie ground is chick flicks (my choice) and anything that will give me nightmares (his choice).  

This is going to make you respect me less, but so be it.  Lifetime-type movies fall in the category of crap that gives me nightmares.  They're always so twisted and horrible and gut-wrenching, and I hate them every, single time.  The trick is that they come packaged as chick flicks, and I sometimes fall for it.  My tip-off last night should have been that the lead character was played by Sally Field. 

After we put Silas to bed, we got on Netflix, and I asked to watch Eat, Pray, Love or some documentary about some lost tapes of George Harrison that turned up.  He innocently suggested I might like An Eye for an Eye instead because it's a vigilante justice movie (also in the vein of crap I like) and a chick flick (and he would rather be punched repeatedly in the face than watch Eat, Pray, Love).  

He had already seen An Eye for an Eye before and failed to mention that I would be crying/horrified within the first 10 minutes of the movie (no, seriously, sobbing-and-checking-on-my-child-50-times horrified).  

He tricked me y'all.  He tricked me into watching the most creepy, twisted movie I've seen in a while by selling it to me as a chick flick (and on the heels of our "I-love-you-so-much-let's-make-the-rest-of-the-world-vomit-at-out-sweetness" weekend).

I had to stay up past my bedtime and watch a Trailer Park Boys movie just so I could sleep.  Now I'm at work chugging coffee and doing Google searches for "girliest movie ever."

This means war.

My buddy and me, revised

I have a confession.  Last week, I started writing a post about my friend who is playfully hateful to me for being such a "boy" (for lack of a better way to express it) all the time.  Since I told him I was going to put him on blast on my blog,  he has asked me every day whether/when I'm going to do it.  He's worked himself up into a frenzy, and now I'm just kind of torturing him.

Without further ado, here is what you've been so worried about, friend:

Do you have a gay male friend who talks bad about your eyebrows and tells you that you're butch and informs you that you need to take a Tide pen to your shoes and constantly "shh's" you because you're so loud?  I do.  I think he even called me frumpy once.

Don't get me wrong, he has his good points.  He's a wealth of information about decorating and dressing myself, but all the information he imparts seems to be bouncing off of me and hitting the floor.  

I think he's monumentally disappointed that I conduct myself in a manner befitting a character from In the Middle rather than one from Will and Grace. He's probably secretly resenting me for being in no way, shape or form "fabulous." 

Frankly, he can take a number and get in line. 

The truth is, that if he was really my Will and I was really his Grace, he'd realize that I'm hopeless when left to my own devices and just stage an intervention already. 

Update: He also plays mind games and makes you think you've hurt his feelings for posting things about him on your blog and causes you to delete your posts and write him hand-written apologies in near tears only to then laugh in your face for believing his feelings were ever really hurt.  Evil genius.

My elevator rant

Wanna know something else I don't like?  (Clearly because this blog is full of things that annoy me.)

Elevators.  

There are so many things to loathe about them.  Like they're gross and claustrophobic and always smell weird and sometimes people talk on their cell phones in them when they're crowded - and worse - sometimes people make awkward elevator small talk with me (I hate all awkward small talk).

One of my biggest pet peeves is being trapped on an elevator with several other people and their perfumes and their take out food and their cell phones and their awkward small talk for any longer than ten seconds. 

I have to take two separate elevators to get from my car to my office when I drive myself to work, so I also take issue with whoever designed this building.  Do better if you design buildings for a living or if you ride elevators ever at all.  Hang up your phone, wear less perfume and quit talking to me about the weather.