am I the only person on the planet that didn’t know until today that brooms stand straight up around this time of year because of changes in gravitational pull?  um.  this broom may never get put up. i can’t wait for chris to come home from work and see if he thinks it’s cool.  he probably won’t.  but that’s kind of how he pretends he’s cooler than me.

I realize I’ve been short on content lately.  Honestly I’ve been super swamped.  With this and this.  It’s amazing how much you think you can take on while also working a full time job before you find yourself not arriving home until 9:30 every night and only seeing your husband for about roughly 5 minutes in passing as you serve together on a cleaning team at church.  That’s when you know you’ve probably taken on a bit much.  It’s a crazy season for us…and it’s most assuredly just preparation for what is around the corner.

For example.  Chris will be starting school this January.  Last week I came home very late one night (shocking I know) and reminded him that his FASFA needed to be finished before his appointment with his school admittance counselor the next morning.  So he grabbed the laptop and logged into his already started application (he takes initiative…it’s awesome) and began listing to me all the important documents I would need to unfile in order for him to finish the form.  So as I began retreiving all of the pertinent information I began noticing how different the FASFA form had changed since my days in school (350 days to be approximate).  I brushed it off as a makeover to the website and kept moving.  However, once the form asked me for my credit card information I took it upon myself to do some research only to discover Chris had inadvertantly given all of our important and SECRET information to some scam website pretending to be FASFA.  When I asked him how he had found this website his response was classic.  Monotone and oh so very Chris-like….he simply said

“I googled it”.

Which has become my new mantra in life and the stock response to all questions like “where did you find this bundt cake, it’s delicious”.

OH that?

I googled it.

Slow and methodical.  Just as Chris would have it.

And on that note….a conversation between the two of us on the way to dinner tonight with his family.

Me:  How do I look?  I barely had time to look in the mirror.

Chris:  Uh.  You’ll do better next time.

Me.  (long pause)  You do realize that I will remember that.

Chris:  What?  We were just being nice.

Me:  Can you explain to me what was NICE about that?

Chris:  You say tomAHto.  I say tomato.

Me:  Perfect.

I wonder if they offer any classes in college that could help him with his complimentary skills.

So maybe sometimes when Chris is sleeping I may mess with him.  Mostly only when he is snoring in an effort to make him roll over.  But me biting his nose or licking him….well that’s just me being ornery.  And that I am indeed.

You try and tell me that dog doesn’t have class.  She looks like the freaking cover of a greeting card or something.  Although probably right after this one of those leaves fell on her back and she pooped out of excitement.  She does that ya know?  I wasn’t sure if I had mentioned it here or not.  My dog poops.  A lot.  But right there in that moment she looks pretty dogtastic.

This week was pretty slow.  I was supposed to go out and have an amazing night of love and laughter with Kelli at a Fundamental Elements show on Friday night.  They rarely play shows in St. Louis anymore so this was to be an awesome treat for us.  Unfortunately, the facility in which they were booked unexpectedly ended up being sized up the same as something similar to a bathroom stall and we were warned to stay at home in our sweats.  I reluctantly obliged but in hindsight realized we still could have gone out.  I mean she had a babysitter and Chris relinquished to me the twenty dollar bill he was hoarding in his wallet as a down payment on some video game I could go my whole live without ever seeing.

So after another boring night of nothingness at home while watching movies online (Jesus I’m sorry but I’m broke and I can’t afford to see all the movies I want to see in theaters) and listening to Chris play a new video game he promised would be really fun and interesting to watch (Jesus forgive my husband for lying to me), I just want to say one thing.  The changing colors in the foliage during the autumn season is one of only 3 benefits to living in the arm pit of this country.

It’s just about the prettiest thing ever.

A friend from high school recently decided to begin making and selling jewelry on etsy.com (only the coolest site ever…but veer far away if you are living on a budget).  As you can see below that I have purchased several of her pieces and I love each of them.  I can’t help myself.  I’m starting to really enjoy the action of accessorizing.  I’m kind of in love with scarves and sunglasses…but up until recently that’s pretty much where it ended.  Now look at me.  I’m unstoppable force to be reckoned with.

Other things I have been in love with lately:

1) autumn leaves….they are beginning to crunch under my flat brown canvas sneakers.

2.  PBS.  life without cable can be educational.  for instance, i have no idea what is currently happening in the lives of john and kate but i did just watch an entire documentary on the internet bubble.  i always thought it was an actual bubble where the internet was kept cool and secure.  who knew that wasn’t accurate?

3.  chicken nuggets.  because.  just because.

4. www.welovestcharles.com

5.  diet cherry pepsi in a foam cup with crushed ice.  first the ice, then the cherry, then the diet pepsi.  in that order, with those elements….can change your day from dull to I’M FEELING SO GOOD TODAY I MAY BE BILINGUAL!  i have no idea how that works.

There are few things that I wouldn’t do for the happiness of my husband.  Unfortunately there are few things that make him happy which don’t require a higher credit limit from Visa.  Most recently he has been asking for a new phone, which I will admit he needs desperately as his has stopped retaining a battery charge for longer than 3 to no minutes.  I have way too many ridiculous things to tell him in the middle of the day that require him to be accessible at all hours.  That being said, under normal circumstances, I would have no problem investing in this particular need of his.  Unfortunately all the phones he just ‘must have’ require that we upgrade our current phone plan to a data package, thus significantly increasing our monthly bill.

As we are approaching a time in which we should really be buckling down on our monthly spending with the prospect of him returning to finish his collegiate degree, I simply could not justify this increase without real reason.  Because I’m cheap, but not a complete dictator, I told my husband that if he could list 5 legitimate reasons for this ‘need’ we would find a way to make it work.  The following was his list of reasons for needing access to the world wide web via his cellular device:

1.  I’m in charge of planning mens fellowship nights in our small group….what if I need to quickly throw together another game board night on a moments notice, but have no immediate access to a computer?

2.  Someday when I get a job that requires I be accessible via email I will need my phone to allow this function….I should be preparing myself for that day to come now.

3.  …….

4.  ………….

5.  ………………….

Convincing argument huh?  It was tough to argue.  So I didn’t.  This morning I added web access to our package, and this evening he will be picking out his new phone.  This means several things….one is that my husband is capable of many things, but debate is not his strong suite.  Second….I’m a huge huge pushover who thinks his idea of debate is nothing short of adorable.

Good for us.

Because my brother in law Scott felt left out…he just sent us a last minute video entry as an anniversary present for us.  Love it!

and because our family is amazing….

thanks guys
Joe
Kelli
Jim
Alisha

p.s.
I hate to admit it but I secretly love this song and even danced around to it before church tonight.  Can’t even help myself.

We’re going skiing over Thanksgiving.  For our first anniversary we thought we’d skip the traditional gift of paper (what the heck?) and went with goggles instead.

We should send this into their marketing department for their next catalog.

This.Is.Epic.

Even Syd got in on the fun.

Ever fall in love with a song and have no idea what it means, only to find out later that basically every word of it stands for the very opposite of what you are?  It’s possibly the most disheartening thing that can happen to a girl like me.  Music is kind of my thing.  I love me some tunes.

Strangely, there are two very different parts of me when it comes to music.  There is the part of me that loves the lyrical value of a song.  There is this moment when I lyrically connect to a song that I legitimately feel as if I know myself a little bit better because of the artists words.  It’s this revelation that at one point or another, this person has felt an emotion or lived through a situation, was given the ability to convey their message in the most natural and raw form, and I feel as if it’s possible I feel exactly what they feel (no I’m not a huge Frampton fan).

Then there is this part of me that LOVES the chorus of that song when it gets all poppy and fast, not because I necessarily agree that you wish your girlfriend was hot like me, but only because it makes me kind of want to move around in a gyrating fashion until the song has played so many times that itunes gets tired and goes home.  This is the part of my brain that forces me to own music by Miley Cyrus and Shakira.  Out of respect for the shuffle button on my iPod, I truly wish I could say that I didn’t own them, but sometimes I just can’t wait for Z1077 to roll that song around again for the 3rd time in one hour.  I need it 16 times in one hour.  And I need it loud.

Unfortunately, it is because of this cheap thrill section of my brain that I often find some of the music I truly love, sometimes does not align itself so well with my value or belief system.  For instance, for the past….oh I don’t know…..5 years or so, I’ve had the song The Seed (2.0) by The Roots on repeat.  Do yourself a favor….even if you don’t think you’ll like it…just listen to it.  I dare you not to bob your head even a little.

Here’s what you shouldn’t do.  Do NOT google for the lyrics.  Why did it take me 5 years or more to do this?  I have no idea.  Why did I not even bother to try to hear what he was saying?  Mainly because I was too busy drumming the dashboard and practicing my robot to even try to listen that closely.  Who needs lyrics when the music just feels so good to my soul?

So here is what I say…sometimes you have to love music that is good for your soul and not your ears.  Sometimes you have to just allow yourself to drum on the dashboard so loudly you miss out on the lawlessness of the lyrics.  Sometimes….you have to enjoy the sound of an artists depravity and just chalk it up to your own genetic disposition to love bad music.  Or is it good music?  That part I’m still not clear on.