We've Been Pink'd!

First of all, your computer is not playing tricks on you...I am. If you were over here anytime yesterday, you noticed I had gone blue...and um..very, very basic (which is, of course, very unlike me). Neal and I were at Army Dad's yesterday (I volunteered Neal to help Army Dad put rear shocks on Col. Ketchup. I mean, if this whole project manager things falls through, wouldn't it be nice to have a back-up? Mechanics make an obscene amount of money...well, at least they charge an obscene amount of money) and I was working on my laptop on Army Dad's network. Army Dad was a computer programmer in his former life so his network is locked down tighter than Ft. Knox. When I pulled up my blog, I didn't see anything but text boxes. I freaked. I hopped on Blogger and uploaded the first non-vile template I saw and everything appeared. I breathed, but I hated it. Sometime last night, in a Zyrtec-D-induced sleep, I remembered that Army Dad is locked down like San Quentin and that everyone, except my stepmom, can see my blog in its entirety. Sorry about that, Suzy Stepmom. So, I made it all spa-like up in here again and I will totally blame all of this on the bizarre amount of cold medicine I have coursing through my body right now.

Which brings me to...
Dear ManCold version 2.0,
You can suck it.
Love,
My Immune System

And Dear Dayquil/Nyquil,
You haven't done much for me this time around, either. Bah!
Love,
Zyrtec-D User

Anysnot..I'm way past due in posting these, but Tuesday is better than no day...yes? Please enjoy the pictures we snapped from Champagne Friday. And by the way...Shana, Neal has a bone to pick with you. I may never drink "regular" champagne again. I will always think pink!

It kind of always amazes me when people pop corks in the movies and champagne bubbles spill forth all over the carpet. What a waste. Neal has popped many a cork since he's met me (yeah, yeah...that's what she said) and never once spilled champagne on the kitchen floor.

Pretty in pink and in one of the champagne glasses from our wedding (which we always use...goes with the whole "life is too short to not drink champagne, use your wedding glasses, and eat off your china" thing).

Nothing better than seeing the ass-end of a champagne glass!

Hugs and kisses to you, Shana! That was fantastic!! Y'know what else is fantastic? That necklace! Silver Summer is now posted on Etsy. I thought pink cat's eye beads were the perfect addition to Pink Champagne Friday.

And just because it entertains me, here's a breakdown of last weekend's TV watching:

The Red Violin - 5 stars (a good deal of it takes place in Italy so just remember...subtitles are your friend. But this movie ROCKS).
The Proposal - 3 stars (sorry, Sandy. I heart you and I think Jesse James should be exiled to Antarctica for what he did to you...but I saw this movie before...it was called 2 Weeks Notice and While You Were Sleeping).
The Love Boat (would it be rude to say that I am just slightly younger than this show and thus totally missed out? That's OK...Neal and Netflix are making sure I get all caught up).
Miami Vice (We began with season 1, episode 1...how it all started).

AND Hobby Lobby just came out with the cutest picture frame bobby pins.
*Gasp* I know...love at first sight, right? I was so inspired by Kelly @ Dare to be Domestic's lemon fixation that I opted for yellow plaid scrapbook paper to stick in there. Then you throw some sealant on and voila! You've got bobby pins that just scream SUMMER! I bought 4 more packages just so I can play around with pictures and whatnot. If I have to get a job, you can find me at Hobby Lobby. Or Michael's.

It could get a little blue around here tomorrow. Because if you were paying attention last weekend, you know that my boys lost to icky WVU! And I have something to say on the matter, of course.

This Is Not Me Comment-Blocking You

Kiera @ Imperfect Daisies just emailed me to say she can't comment. GAH! OK...fixing it now...

Excuse Me While I Become Bilingual For a Sec

Inspired by reading Boops Does Tulsa's blog, I decided to renovate. I downloaded a nifty little template from a website that boasts loads of free blogger templates. It was a lot like trying to find Myspace backgrounds, actually...back when I did that sort of thing. Like last week. I love the new design. It relaxes me and makes me want to ride a bike with a wicker basket and have picnics in the park. Except my bike is specifically designed for mountains (which we don't have) and our parks are fields of sparse grass and a set of swings. But if I lived in North Carolina, I would totally do both of those. Anyway, not that I'm complaining really, because y'know I love all things Italian, but this specific design comes with labels...in Italian. Because we were in Italy for five minutes, I can read these...and also maybe because they are roughly the same in English. But I cannot figure out how to change it. At least it's better than it was an hour ago...with a life-size picture of our wedding officiant and 3 dots across his forehead.

So, yeah thanks, Boops. Any other bright ideas?

Champagne Friday Lives (or The Ways Y'all Amaze Me)

THAT, my darlings....is PINK CHAMPAGNE...chillin' in my fridge!! (I tried really hard to zoom in so you would only see the soy milk and not the 1/2 gallon of heavy whipping cream.) Why does the pink champagne have a bow on it, you ask? Because it was a gift of epic awesomeness from Shana @ Fumbling Towards Normalcy!! Apparently, the death of Champagne Fridays was too much to bear in her tax season-induced frenzy. So, Wednesday afternoon I was on the chest press while Neal was opposite me on the chest fly when my phone rang. It was my most favoritest liquor store in Big Blue Country, Liquor Barn. (Seriously...it's a barn...with liquor....OK, it's not exactly a barn...but it's as big as a barn and that makes me as happy as that milkoholic, Lindsay). I had a gift awaiting me. The best part is it's PINK...wait, did I say that already? I've never had pink champagne. So, thank you, thank you, thank you, Shana. This is so beyond believable that every time I tell this story, the person says, "SERIOUSLY?? That's so freaking cool." Yeah. It pretty much is. My first toast goes to you, girl! AND you earned the #1 slot on Top Five Friday. Cheers!

#5 My Posse Brings Their A Game (and some nasty words...but I like it).
When I posted about the Anonymous Arshole, y'all totally backed me up. I couldn't help but giggle and strut my peacock feathers a little bit whenever I got a new comment. My favorite, though, goes to Krysten @ After I Do who said "that's being called LAMESPICE." And just like that, I've looted this word and added it to own vocabulary. Thank you, Krysten. I'm so excited to add Lamespice to 100, key grip, and bang bang skeet. Sweetmeat.

#4 You Mess With Hello Kitty, You Are Messin' Wit Me
This is Mama Virgo at my cousin's birthday party last Saturday. It was one of those bouncy places where the children fly down inflatable slides and the parents wish there was a bar instead of a soda machine. These are actually truckloads of fun and great toning for the hips and thighs...if they let the adults play. We didn't get to play. We got to watch and discuss why you never eat the top layer of a kid's birthday cake.

#3 You Would Think We Had Just Emerged From 6 Month of Darkness

My cats are whores for the sunshine. Obviously. LuLu actually snored right through the taking of this picture and several more. It's no wonder they have an exponential amount of energy to destroy the house during the night.

#2 I Have Chosen....Team Bill.
I have tried to get into Twilight...really, I have. I read the first one. The second one is serving as a paperweight when I open the windows in the office. The whole high school setting makes me feel like I'm about to get busted by To Catch a Predator. Vampires that go to bars and hit on girls who work in bars? I can totally relate to that. That's hot! So, I know it was slow going, but I've finally chosen a team. I'll be making t-shirts next week. Until then, I'm stringing a Peace, Love, Vampires necklace. I can't believe I've succumbed to the vampmania. Again. I totally blissed out to Anne Rice...y'know, before she found God and decided that God and vampires couldn't co-exist peacefully in her world.

#1 Cheers to My Peeps and Especially Shana!
30 minutes until we pop the cork on this bottle, this week, and the True Blue madness that will ensue tomorrow when we put the smackdown on WVU. Also? Even though the WVU Mountaineer is armed, it's with a musket so in my mascot bracket, UK still wins. Where do you even find musket balls these days? I consider that an unarmed mascot..which means Wildcats win again! C-A-T-S, Cats, Cats, Cats!!

Oh and I apologize for the late post....UK didn't tip off until 10PM and we were at a grand opening sipping candy cotton martinis from 6-10. No the fungus didn't get me, but I almost wish it had. At least my head would still be in one piece instead of shattering every time I stand. Last night's drunken debauchery was brought to me by BFF:
My partner in crime, Sparrow:
And Rayna of Simply Love Studio (with her deceptively strong pink cotton candy martinis). Now THAT was a grand opening!
15 minutes until the weekend. Pop a top...on something.

Tyne Daly Demasculinized Neal

I totally blame last night's theater in my head on Neal's bright idea to watch vintage television.

The Insight guy came yesterday and took our cable box away. It wasn't quite as heartbreaking as I had imagined. Except for the 7 episodes of American Experience and the one episode of Life, it didn't contain anything that I can't live without or find elsewhere. Neal got an HD antenna for his birthday (who needs pearls and diamonds when you've got electronics??) and he had just purchased a Roku, which allows us to download all of our news channels daily and watch on demand. Plus, we've had the ability to stream instant watch Netflix video for some time. All in all, we're pretty set to watch anything that we would want to watch (as opposed to CNN on 24-7 for background noise...which is apparently not child-friendly, anyway).

Last night, as we settled into our butt-carved seats on the couch with dinner, he loaded an instant watch show on Netflix. I thought it was going to be MI-5, which was the British template for 24 and, in my op, an infinitely better show. But no. He had loaded Cagney and Lacey. Yeah...Tyne and Meg together again (let me just say that it was not until the writers of Burn Notice wrote Tyne a part this past season, opposite her old partner, Meg, that I was clued in to their former working relationship. The skies parted, the sun shone through, angels sang the Hallelujah chorus. I got it). I will go more into the phenom of revolving fashion some other time...but for now, let me just say that I'm desperate trying to find way to make these:

They are RUBIX CUBE EARRINGS!! Tyne was sporting a pair as an undercover prostitute. And I feel the need to make and sell immediately.

Any80's, we went to bed, I read like 4 pages of A is for Alibi, my March bookclub book, and passed out asleep. And then it proceeded to all go down like this:

Neal came home from the gym, doubled over in pain and complaining that some guy had accidentally racked him during a basketball game. When he took his gym shorts off, the...er...base was badly bruised. To this, he muttered, "damn...I'm going to have to take it off to let it heal." Then he unvelcroed his penis and set it on the coffee table. Yep...it was just a flat landscape down south with a bean bag left blowin' in the spring wind. And that did not at all seem odd to me. I just knew that it would sit there, next to my stack of unread Real Simple magazines, until the bruise disappeared and he could re-attach it.

If you're thinking what I'm thinking, then you are humming Detachable Penis RIGHT NOW!! I actually woke up with the melody echoing in my head. Need some words? Let me help you out:

I woke up this morning with a bad hangover
And my penis was missing again.
This happens all the time.
It's detachable.
[background singing begins: "detachable penis" over and over]

I really suggest you give iTunes your 99 cents for this little ditty. You won't be sorry, swearsies.

And because I can't leave well enough alone, I went back to sleep. This time, Neal and I were in a mall in London (England, not Kentucky...yes, we have a London, KY...and a Paris, KY...and a Versailles, KY - pronounced Ver-SALES with about 32748 syllables) and someone released a bioterroristic gas in the mall, which killed all of us.

So now I have convinced myself that I have 7 hours to live because when I went to water my ivy this morning, it had a fungus and sticky leaves...and now my throat sort of hurts and I have a little bit of a headache. It's just a matter of time. I promised Queenie Jeannie the Mustang yesterday. Everything else is up for grabs. Except for my husband...who has to now go commit himself to the monastary and marry God. But I really hope it doesn't go down like that. Maybe if I wash my hands and eat a brownie, it will all go away. I'll give that a shot....

Oh and if this fungus doesn't kill me today, come back tomorrow because Champagne Friday LIVES and I have the BEST Top 5 Friday EVAH!

What To Do With a Problem Like Anonymous

via

I was going to let this slide because what should not be rewarded is bad behavior....contrary to the belief of many Girls Behaving Badly producers. But it was so sadly hysterical that I have to share. I want everyone else to feel the love, too....or the serious lack thereof. I got this from an Anonymous Commenter on The Death of Champagne Fridays:

Wow. It takes a really "special" kind of person to twist her husband's job loss into something that's all about her...Why is it YOU got drunk and angry instead of supportive and comforting? Can't you get a job for awhile?
(I put it in poopy brown....hehehehe...yes, I'm 12. Thanks for noticing).

So, I feel like I have just completed the final stage of being a 100 blogger (Thanks, Jessalyn). I've gained followers, lost followers, published guest posts, and now received a ridiculously negative anonymous comment. I will not waste my time or yours on all 48236792 reasons why this comment is absurd. If the reader even bothered to scan back past March 19th, he/she/ChickenLittle would see that I support Neal 150% everyday. And that is evident. Or it should be. If it's not, I seriously doubt it is anyone's responsibility to judge me on that. My day will come, don't you worry.

I've written, deleted, re-written, deleted and finally written again the next part because what spilled forth originally was vomit of the ego. My first reaction was to be mad...then hurt...then misunderstood (like Van Gogh). So, I left this to sit in the queue for an hour while I went to run my 4 miles and think about what I really wanted to say. And what I decided is that as I get older, I'm learning an important lesson...you never know where the other person is coming from. Don't judge because you never know the path they've walked. Was I judged too quickly? I think so. Everyone who reads me regularly knows 2 things:
1. I can be a bit of a drama queen
2. I truly believe Karma catches up
Well...3...I am not the only one drinking champagne at Chez Miller on Champagne Fridays.

But what I will not do is fight this firestorm with a blowtorch. I will not put negative back out into a world that is already drowning in it (yes haters, I'm talking to you). And I won't judge Anonymous because maybe it's a guy whose wife left him when he lost his job and now all he has is his dog, his fridge of deer meat and the Internet. Or maybe it's a she who has never been supported by her husband, regardless of her career choices. Maybe it's Neal's former employer. Or maybe it's Neal. All I know is that even if Anonymous had a face and a name and a Facebook profile, I still couldn't judge because not everyone puts their life on the chopping block like I do. I'm bound to get cut from time to time. I do feel some kind of unjustified need to clear the record about how we do things around this house.

1. I will support Neal in whatever he decides to do.

Want to take an active tour of duty in Antarctica?
Let me just put the house on the market real quick.

Weighing the options between Cosmotology and Massage Therapy School?
I've got my pro/con table already drawn out.

Deciding to take an early retirement and see the world through the windshield of an RV?
I'll call the dealership and tell them we're on our way.

I know that he will not choose any of these and he will take the most logical path...and get hired in about 9 seconds because he rocks tech socks. I'm just sayin'...I'll be there for you...always have been, always will be. I mean, you put me through massage school and then watched me pack up all of my massage supplies last weekend. I figure I owe you...

2. We are one of those obnoxious couples who is only completely happy when the other is happy. I've been edgy ever since Neal gave up, mentally, on making a difference at his job. Before I opened the business, Neal was always suggesting things for me to try....anything to make the crying after work and on Sunday nights stop. If he wants to go RV'ing, we'll be poor, but we'll be happy. Likewise, Neal does not want me to give up the business. He knows I'm all stupidglowy when I make and sell stuff. Why would he want me to give that up just to get a steady paycheck? Yeah, he wouldn't. Plus, someday the business will draw a steady paycheck. So, we have an understanding....I will see the continental U.S. from the passenger seat and he will let me keep Daisy & Elm.

3. The wine club membership was his idea, I merely agreed. Although I was not all that hesitant about it. And I lay in the tanning bed for relaxation purposes. I am literally slathered, head-to-toe, in Baby Sunscreen. I'm still pasty white...just like a Kentucky girl should be in March. But as I said before, I will easily give them up and take up something that does not involve cooking from the inside, out.

4. Neal and I have been through much worse than him losing a job and still came out holding hands and telling dirty jokes until we laughed. It will be fine like frog's hair and once I got past the mad (I call it sympathy anger because he was also less than pleased), I realized that he had been unhappy for quite some time and that couldn't last much longer.

And now I've just spent 1000 words justifying a blog post to an Anonymous commenter. LAME. Sorry guys, but the secret is out...I am not Chelsea Handler/Surferwife-tough. I am a hot mess of hormonal hominy that does not appreciate outright judgmental comments. Have something helpful to say? Go for it...even if it makes me squirm on my stability ball, I want to hear it. But please don't come in here and spray your nasty on my walls. I just cleaned them.

The One Where Neal Quits Shaving and Wears His PJ’s All Day

Well, I can finally report that I no longer want to put my rubber cowboy boot up the "exit only" of an agency director and her wingchick. But it took me almost 5 days to get there. I cannot even begin to express how grateful I am for your all's positive thoughts, prayers, and general rock-it-till-it-hurts comments. And y'all are right…God closes doors and open windows…but until He pops the lock on a Pella, it really kind of sucks. I won't go into the whole who/what/where/why/how the Hell could you's of the situation. I will simply say that:

1. Neal is not a sugar-coating individual. If you want rainbows and fairies blown up your ass, you don't ask him for it. You get it from somebody else. But if you want the facts, served up with a side of vision and ambition, he's your guy. And Neal had, up until Thursday, only had 3 jobs his entire life. He just celebrated a 40's birthday. So, obviously this approach worked for the majority of his employers.
   
2. The directors in this particular agency tend to last about as long as a mild case of poison ivy. Therefore, they spend very little time starting from scratch on personnel, projects, and goals. The last director skipped over the meet-n-greet and asked all of his general managers to complete a personality profile. Neal's was alarmingly spot-on and I wish I had read it before we got married (just to skip over the arguments about money, cleanliness, and deadlines…not because it would have kept me from marrying him). If the agency director and her cohort had bothered to spend 5 minutes reading it, they would have known exactly the kind of person Neal is and not expected him to prance into their office and spray a nice coat of gold over everything. But some people get lost in the forest and end up using the trail map for toilet paper. That's unfortunate, considering it could help you get to your ultimate destination.
   
3. This will end very well for Neal and very badly for them. If you choose to "dismiss" the driving force behind a department for 16 years, especially one that is constantly changing (like, say, technology, for example), you could easily deflate morale to the point that your only choice left is to hire a whole new crew. And this is what leads to the vicious cycle that is state government. It tends to go a little something like this:
   

   Why do I have to go to (insert state capitol) to do this? → Why can't I update this information on a website? → State government is SO inefficient. → An agency director comes in and immediately starts making drastic changes, including firing a very progressive and motivated general manager of technology. →The entire staff of the department begins to fear for their own jobs, thinking "if they fired HIM…." →Staff begins to look for new jobs. → Staff leaves department to take on new, more dependable jobs. →Agency director must begin filling all of those slots with fresh college graduates who are far less experienced than the staff that had been there for 20 years. →New staff starts at Square One which, usually, does not involve progressive and innovative projects. → Why do I have to go to (insert state capitol) to do this?
   

   
    

   And round and round we go with tax payers complaining about their wasted dollars and strong employees like Neal sit at the house and update their resumes. La Cycle of Life.
   

And here's what I know:

1. Neal quit being happy at the agency the day they quit respecting his ideas. When I met him, he nearly skipped into work every morning. He worked on his BlackBerry the entire time we were in St. Lucia and on our honeymoon….ignoring all of my passionate pleas and finally threats to launch his CrackBerry into the damned Caribbean. When he came home at noon on his birthday, I knew it was just a short journey to unemployment or complete madness.
   
2. Neal is very marketable with skills that are in high demand right now. He will probably be employed before I can relax long enough to actually enjoy having him home all day.
   
3. I am not giving up Daisy & Elm. For about 10 minutes when he got home on Thursday, I played the "well I guess I can go get a job at Hobby Lobby or Cracker Barrel" card…but the truth is, I love my business. I am 31 years old and I've had 36 jobs (I know this as fact because I had to go through a security clearance once and list them all. That was a very dark day). I love making beautiful and affordable jewelry. And I would have to say that I'm no worse at it than I was at anything else (including cleaning cars, answering phones, personal training, being a massage therapist, and waitressing at a truck stop). Plus…I work all of the time. I would work in the car or in a bar…near or far or for a Czar…And I owe this little piece of realization to Shana @ Fumbling Towards Normalcy. She just finished The Happiness Project and has been re-evaluating her own happiness. Her thoughts on the matter caused me to evaluate mine and I decided that I would rather sell our house, our cars, our big, expensive furniture, and a kidney before I give up Daisy & Elm. So…that's kind of saying a lot, considering I probably need both kidneys to offset the abuse of my liver. Good-bye tanning bed package, cable TV, wine club membership, Champagne Fridays and perhaps my BlackBerry…but hello doing what I love and loving what I'm doing (and not dreading Monday mornings, for a change). It's so easy, it's hardly a sacrifice.
   
4. Neal now understands what my days are like…which does not include lying on the couch, watching One Life to Live and finding out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop. SCORE!
   

 

While I have not yet started clipping coupons (which is mainly because I forgot to pick up the Sunday paper yesterday), I have given up my clothing budget and pillaged my house looking for crap to sell. And in the process…I found my oil change coupons!!! So, that's like making $60. Maybe I can bring Champagne Friday back for just one encore?