Stuff I Liked

My friend Steph says I am the ‘Queen of random shit on the internet’. I am always linking her to some of the coolest stuff. Some of its pretty, some of its quirky, most of it screams ‘Kelly’ (meaning its usually a little twisted). A peek into my favorites folder is essentially a peek into the filing cabinets of my brain...and coincidentally looks a lot like my basement too. Its cluttered, funny, messy, pink and glittery, maybe even a little grimy, inspiring and most of all intriguing. You never really know what is going to turn up when you start moving stuff around. So I thought I would start sharing some of that random stuff with all of you once a week. And with random stuff comes random stories. :)

The year of the rat

Speaking of my basement, I was down there last night looking for something and totally scared the bejeezus out of myself. We live in front of a huge field, next to some marshland. We had been lucky to never have mice in the house. (I know, ew, mice. But I bet you have one or two in your house and you just don’t know it. They are sneaky little buggers.) Well last winter we got a turn at vermin control when we had an uninvited house guest. I have been a little skeeved out and paranoid ever since. Anyway, I am down there moving things around and out of the corner of my eye, I see something move past my foot.

WHAT THE EFF WAS THAT!

I look around frantically. Nothing. DAMN IT. I immediately begin to map out a plan to firebomb the basement without destroying the rest of the house.

Ok, deep breath. Get back to work, you can’t solve this right now.

THERE IT IS AGAIN!

HOLY SHIT! ::does freaked out, pee your pants dance around boxes::

THERE IT IS AGA....

Wait a minute....  ::looks closer with fireplace shovel in hand::

It was the biggest dust bunny I have ever seen in my life. Trust me, I stepped on the bastard a little to see if it would squeak. Definitely just a dust bunny. (And what the hell would I have done had it squeaked? probably scream, run up the stairs and burn my shoes in the fire pit in the back yard. That’s what.)

This is all from someone that had a pet rat as well as other rodents at various stages in my life. Want to know why mice freak me out so bad? Oh that is another good ‘How my Mom messed me up’ story.

Once upon a time my parents thought it would be an awesome idea to move all of us to the boonies. When I say boonies, I mean it. Nothing was within walking distance. It was not uncommon to wake to the aroma of cow crap. Wild animals scavenging on the front porch at night? Every day stuff. To make matters worse they decided to build a log house in the middle of a forest. No joke. They had to cut down trees just to create an area to bring building supplies in. Can you say ‘tick-fest’?

So you might be asking where we lived during our pioneer days. That’s where the story gets really fun. Instead of waiting for the house to be finished my parents decided it was a grand idea to pull me out of school right before Christmas and move me to a new school district in the middle of my 6th grade year. (Resentful much? I sure am.) To add insult to injury they moved us into a trailer. Not a double-wide, not a modular home. A trailer. Now I’ve got no issues with trailer homes per say. I actually dig the small space and how you can cram so much into something you can hitch to the back of your car and drive away with. I’ve often fantasized about taking a road trip in one of those little silver campers. I’ve got love for trailers. But this one...it was the trailer that time forgot. My mom often bragged about what a ‘steal’ it was. Um...yeah...that’s because the current year was 1988 and I am pretty sure this trailer was circa ‘68. Oh and for a while, because we didn’t have a septic tank yet, we had a port-o-john just outside the back door. Eek.

Okay so let me paint the picture:

Old trailer.

Winter.

Middle of the woods.

Wild animals everywhere.

I often spent weekends with my Mommom because she lived among the civilized world. No wild animals, entertaining stuff within walking distance, cable (oh man, do I have a story about cable for you), working, indoor toilets. Practically heaven on Earth at that point in my life. I remember coming home after a weekend away and my mom was in her bedroom folding clothes. The bathroom was connected to her bedroom and I remember going right in to say hi and to get a hairbrush out of the top drawer of the vanity in the bathroom. Things in the bathroom were always in the same place. I was on auto pilot and didn’t even need to look in the drawer. In my mind, I can see the incident in slow motion. I reached into the drawer to retrieve the white plastic hairbrush that was always there. Instead, my fingertips brushed something fuzzy, then they were stuck to something sticky. Then I heard ‘SQUEEEEEE! SQUEEEEEE!’. I recall recoiling my hand quickly and letting out a yelp only to see that this did nothing. My hand was stuck to the trap AND the mouse.

W

T

F

!

As any rational person would do, I continued to scream as if being murdered and shaking my hand around like I was having a spasm. My mother finally came in the room at which point she commenced laughing hysterically and did not help me at all. Pretty sure she peed her pants because she was laughing so hard. I can’t really remember what happened next or who removed the glue trap from my hand. What I do remember is my mother delighting in telling this story at every opportunity for the next 20 years.

After things settled down she told me we had a little mouse problem and let me know where all the traps were in the house. Sadly for our long-haired Maine Coon cat, he did not get the memo. A few nights later we are watching TV in the living room and from the kitchen we hear ‘clomp, clomp, clomp, clomp......clomp!’. We rushed into the kitchen to find the cat emerging from a floor cabinet with a glue trap on each foot and one on his long, fluffy tail. No ‘prize’ attached to the traps either. Poor Kitty.

You can file mice under things I dislike.

Now onto the things I like!

1. Empty Nest

I suppose this is where I make a confession. I have a lot of blogs in my reader. I go through my reader and catch up as time allows. But there are probably fewer than a dozen that I seek out regularly to see if there are new posts. I happened upon Empty Nest when looking for blog hops to participate in. Well I mistakenly participated in a 40 year + hop. Oops! Sorry for crashing your party. :) But I am glad I did. I have really enjoyed Momaloft's tales about her life, motherhood and family. Its really interesting to read the stories of a mom who's babies have left the nest. I'd like to say its a long way away or us...but it will be here before we know it. Momaloft's stories are touching, well told and best of all, humorous. So glad I found you!

2. What's for Lunch Honey

I think my friend Kiely sent this to me. I can't eat 99.99999% of the stuff on this site since I am doing Medifast. But no one said I couldn't look! And the photos are really pretty. mmmmmmm food porn. 

3. Pencil vs. Camera

How cool is this!?! I might have to take a crack at this. Such a cool concept.


4. TiMER
C and I watch a lot of movies on Netflix Instant Play. He chose this one a few weeks ago and we thought it was super cute. It had a rough start because the main character - she is hard to like. But she grows on you. And if you ever want to know what its like to hang out with me, the sister in the movie is it. Well, except for the size 0 jeans and the slutty behavior. Otherwise, that's pretty much me in a movie.

5. The Suitcase Chair

My birthday is in August. I will accept gifts from strangers. Maybe y'all can start a collection. :D


Oh, I also liked my new Facebook page! You should too!