Happy Blogoversary, Quirky!

Woo Hoo! I made it to a year. And I still have regular readers. Not many, but they are there. And I greatly thank all four of you. You are so very sweet. Go have a Little Debbie on me.

So I guess you guys think you know me because I got a whopping (brace for it) 2 questions from last week's interview invite. That's ok. I don't find myself very interesting either. But maybe I will by the end of this post.

To the questions first:

My bloggy buddy Staci asked me "How do you stay sane? Because I think I just may be losing it!"

See people! I AM so sane. Staci says so! So stop trying to get me into that mattress room already!

Ok, so honestly? I think you have to lose it a little. I think if you don't go a little crazy, you end up with much bigger issues. I also think that I have managed to hang on to what little I have left simply by being a horrible creature of habit. I have routines that I do in my sleep some mornings/evenings. How else do you make sense of me getting up at 2 AM and making coffee and then going right back to bed? (It was darn good coffee too!) And I wonder why the boy is having some OCD issues...

And Amanda sent me this little query. "You kinda left us hanging on the new neighbor situation. How's that going?"

Funny you should ask. It's very odd being a "young married couple" (both of us are still in our 30's) with 3 children. Our old neighbors were 30's with no children and were off to the lake and football games and concerts and long cruise vacays all the time. Our new neighbors may be a smidge younger but they too are out and about every weekend. We keep trying to get together for dinner (we've managed once) but midweek is really the only time they are home and with the kids back in school, late nights midweek just don't work. So for now we see each other briefly on the weekends and will eventually get to know them. It's just going to take a while.

And since that's all the questions there were, I'm going to inflict some Facts about Me on you.

Three Things that Annoy me:
1. People who repeat themselves repeat themselves repeat themselves. I heard you the first time and chose to ignore you. If I needed to hear you again, I would have asked you to repeat yourself. ONCE. Please note - it's not limited to children who repeat themselves, repeat themselves...well you get it. It's ALL people who do it.

2. Empty things that are just left behind. If it's garbage, pitch it. If it needs to be refilled, fill it. Please do not leave it for me.

3. Perfectly capable people who ask for stupid things that they could do or get for themselves. It's a paper towel and it's 2 feet from you. I have to walk 10 YARDS to get it for you. And before you ask me to get it for you will you at least make an effort to find it/get it for yourself? I am not a member of the sporting group; I do not retrieve.

Three Things that will Tick me off:
1. Being inconsiderate of those around you. Please do not stop in the middle of the grocery aisle with your cart sitting cattywampus so that you can read the labels of 16 Progresso soup cans to see if they contain leeks. Pay attention moron before I V-8 you in front of your family and yo momma!

2. Children who's parents did not take the time to teach them manners and the parents who expect me to tolerate their 9 year old kicking my 2 year old in the head. I will turn the parent over my knee and make sure they stand at attention for a month for that one. And the child? Will become my indentured servant and when they can demonstrate that they will never make the mistake their parent made, I will release them to military school.

3. Finding out that someone not only found my secret Hershey's stash in the back of the freezer, but they disposed of it as well. This is a crime punishable by a week scrubbing the toilet with a toothbrush. Some folks in this house better hope they have practiced some serious dental hygiene.

And finally Three Things that Amuse me:

1. People watching. I hate shopping but I will go sit in the food court for a good laugh every now and then. You can see them. The mall employees who would rather hang themselves by their badge lanyards. The teenie bopper girls who suddenly start to strut when a cute guy hits their radar (usually the employees who probably want to hang themselves BECAUSE of the teenie boppers). The dads who are pushing a stroller containing a screamer and frantically scanning the food court for someone, ANYONE who might resemble their wife. And the wives who are hiding in the little cut outs in the wall that keep peeking their heads out to giggle at their hubbies.

2. Holier than thou attitudes. Nothing amuses me more than people who complain about other people but won't name names because they don't want to smear the offender. Ummm, I think you missed it. These people make my amusement list because they seem to miss the part where they are dropping right to the level of the people they are fussing about. "I don't like whiners so I'm going to stand here and whine about the whiners that I don't like." I think that's funny.

3. Life. Life amuses me because Mrs. Gump was right; you never know what you're going to get. You may think you know what the big story on the news is going to be. You may think you know how a person is going to react to something you have to tell them. You may think you have it all figured out. But then a fly shoots up your nose, causes you to sneeze into your boss's lemonade and the video that tomorrow's blind date catches from the next table ends up being a viral sensation on YouTube.

So I work my way back around to Staci's question and the answer is - Go ahead. Lose it. It will be all right.

Thank you all for hanging out with me for the past year. May the next one be as fun as this one. And may your water always be blue and always go down.

Well, Whaddya Know?! And other Random Ramblings

I was perusing my blogroll this morning to see who was being witty and fun and stuff and that little blue box on the right hand side caught my eye.

Next Wednesday I will have been hanging out here at The Bowl for a year. Unless I can figure out how to write 93 posts in 5 days, I won't hit my 300 goal but I guess that's what I get for taking the summer off, right?

Anyway, before you get your hopes up let me just go ahead and let you know that there isn't going to be any delightful traffic surge inducing party or contest. And I probably won't even write some hysterical, milk out the nose post.

Quite honestly, I have no clue what I'm going to do. How about a Q & A post? You can grill me and I'll come up with witty answers. I mean after all if you've stuck with me this long you deserve to pick my brain, right? Don't fuss at me if the fruit is not so good. Just go ahead and put your interview questions in the comments and I'll get back to you. Or don't. And now I'm just rambling.

Have a fabulous weekend folks! I'll be gorging on the peanut butter cookies I'm about to make and pretending I'm a duck with all this rain.

(So I was looking for an image of a calendar for this post and when I typed "Calendar" into Photobucket, I got this rabbit. How's that for random?)

Random Updates on Random Stuff

Yes, I managed to completely offend my one French reader and scare them away. I think we all saw that coming!

No, I still have not decided how I am going to celebrate the blogoversaries that are coming up. Yes, you may make your suggestions.

Yes, I am still up in arms about the auto makers bailout. The bailout can buy bad debt and throw more and more money after the financial sector without even the first argument from the public. But the idea of passing more money to the automakers is reprehensible. If you are so outraged by it go buy a car from the automakers and let them get their money the "honest" way. What? You don't have the funds to do that? Why don't you go get a loan? Oh yeah! Because the banks aren't loaning money. So what is happening to all the funds that are supposed to be freed up by the buy up of bad loans and the continuing interest cuts? I forgot. It's being used for bonuses. Silly me!

Shove it! Can we please do something to keep people in jobs? Beloved told me this morning that 30% of FedEx's business comes from GM. Still want to let GM go under?

I'm supposed to be updating you aren't I? Sorry. Let's see. Thank you to everyone who commented on my rant Saturday and on my faith tale yesterday. I'm still not sure what the point of my writing yesterday was.

I found Nadya Suleman's vlog yesterday although I can't remember where. Can we talk about selective information? You have to give her credit. She sure knows how to paint a good picture. And now that there is no one objective hanging around I guess that's the picture everyone will see. Good luck.

Oh and if you are needing a great chuckle today you absolutely must pop over to Jiggety Jigg's place and watch her movie. The Lego people are cracking me up!

I think that's about it for now. I'l probably be back in a while for a real news round up. Or not. We'll see.