Photography/Birphday Phriday!

Today is Chancho's birthday. He turned three. I repeat, DJ is no longer a two-year-old. Let there be rejoicing in the land! He isn't wearing anti-gravity boots here, it's just been one of those days where I forget to rotate pictures and I'm too lazy to delete them and upload a new one. As I write I'm eating a piece of that cake. This is my second piece of fudgie cake today. It's just one of those days where every few hours I have to eat a piece of chocolate cake the size of my head.After we ate the cake we went swimming. It was nine hundred degrees with three hundred percent humidity today. I bet you didn't know that was possible. Well, welcome to Tennessee. It was just one of those days where we had to swim and curse The South.

Now, I'm going to write a poem.

Ahem.

Ode to My DJs

by Elise

One of them is big, one of them is small

One of them is short, one of them is tall

They sleep with their knees hitched up and

their mouths gaping wide--

See how the small one takes up my whole side?

I love their bendy ears and the blue of their eyes,

DJs come in Original and handy Travel Size.

I love my two DJs from bottom to top.

I would never have posted this picture without Photoshop.

Happy birthday my little Chancho!

Man, I'm good at poetry. And photoshop.

Ignoring Reality, As Usual

It seems like only yesterday I was thinking, "Man, I'm sick and tired of feeling like a lazy lump of lard sitting around this apartment not accomplishing anything!" Wait, that was yesterday. I've had many moments of introspection these past few days and it has caused me to delve into the archives of my blog.


Don't worry, I wore goggles.


I found my 14 Ridiculous Resolutions for the New Year. It was an eye-opener. Let's see how I did:

1. Stop hating cats. Check. Sort of. Okay, okay, I still hate them. Cats suck!

2. Stop loving things that aren't good for me. Errrrmmm.....we're not off to a very good start here....

3. Stop allowing people to fill me with rage. Everyone recall the courthouse waiting-in-the-lobby incident? Or most of Minnesota?

4. Stop hiding in the pantry to eat cookies. Check. I no longer have a pantry that I can fit in. Problem solved.

4. Run faster; fast enough to outrun the rapists--like a seven minute mile. I ran a seven and a half minute mile on a treadmill with zero incline, does that count? And once in Minneapolis I was out jogging and I was pretty sure there was a rapist behind me so I ran faster and started to decide what to do if he got me--knee him in the groin? Palm smack his nose? Scream? I got so carried away deciding what to do that he caught up with me, but it's okay because he turned out to be a turkey. And I was like, "I'll see you in November, sucka'!" and ran off. Elise 1, Rapist Turkey 0.

5. Find something to love about everyone. I was doing swimmingly until I got to Nashville and then...ugh...why does everyone here smoke? And charge you for everything, like ketchup packets? And say "y'all"?

6. Use my time wisely. Don't laugh! I think if you'll scroll through the archives you'll find that I have indeed been using my time.

7. Potty train DJ. This week! I'll do it this week, okay?! Get off my back!

8. Stop making Warm Winter Lemon cake because I eat the whole thing. I've stopped making Warm Winter Lemon cake. The same cannot be said for Ghiradelli brownies.

9. Cultivate rock solid abdominals. My abs called, they said they'd prefer to remain buried under a layer of Ghiradelli fat. Besides, they're kind of shy.

10. Stop buying 80/20 ground beef. I can't remember what fat percentage of beef I've been using this year. Failure!

11. Don't get pregnant. Sweet! It feels so good to accomplish a goal.

12. Water my houseplants. My houseplants are living with my sister-in-law right now. We are no longer on speaking terms (the plants and I).

13. ...stop caring that my closets are disorganized until my kids are raised. This is going well since everything we own is in a storage unit 1500 miles away. The storage unit is disorganized, though, and I don't even give a crap.

14. Figure out what's causing that smell in my laundry room. As for my new laundry room, I know exactly what the smell is: trash. A big, smoldering can of it. I had to hang a coconut-scented Christmas tree in there just so that I could throw away more trash without passing out.


As you can see, we are seven months into 2010 and I've already accomplished seven of my goals. It would be awesome if there were fourteen months in the year so that I could accomplish all of my goals. Since this isn't the reality that we live in, I've decided to ignore reality and make more goals:

1. Quit saying the word "totally" all of the time. As in, "I totally just ate an entire pan of Ghiradelli brownies by myself," or, "This car totally smells like bad breath."

2. Stop judging pregnant women for smoking, particularly that girl who smoked almost the entire time we were at the public water park. I'm not going to judge her anymore because I can't even stop eating brownies once I start.

3. Remember that just because somone has a southern drawl it doesn't mean I'm smarter than they are (even though I totally sound smarter).

Photography Phriday!

Starting today, this blog has a feature. If you hadn't deduced as much from my cleverly alliterated title I'm calling it: Photography Phriday! You guessed it, Photography Phriday will consist of me posting a completely awesome picture on my blog. I might only do this today, so it's While Supplies Last, folks. Let's get this ball rolling, shall we?..........aaaaaaand.....................................

Ta da!

(cymbal crashing)

[crickets chirping]

For those who are interested I took this picture using my el-cheapo Kodak Easy Share 12 megapixel camera, from the rolled down driver's side window of my Chevy Tahoe this afternoon while eating onion rings with my other hand. I believe the technical term for what I've done here is "zooming way in." Note how the lighting is coming in from the side, as though it is a beautiful sunset. I planned that. I made an appointment with the deer. They said, "Sure. We usually eat in the meadow around sunset anyway." They were very accommodating since I promised not to bring DJ.

Looking at this picture has got me thinking. How would you like it if you were at the table eating macaroni and cheese with your family and some stranger walked into your dining room, took a picture of you eating, and then took off? What if that stranger shot at you with a bow and arrow? Hmmm, DJ? Think about that for a while.

Acknowledgments:

Friday--thank you for starting with a "ffffffff" sound. Without you this whole concept would never have made it off the ground.

Long Hunter State Park--thank you for providing sanctuary for a family of deer and nice roads for taking scenic drives.

Deer family--thank you for looking right at me when I yelled at my kids to get back in their seatbelts. It was very photogenic of you.

Burger King--thank you for making dollar menu onion rings of the pureed onion variety so the onion doesn't pull all of the way out when you take a bite, leaving you with an empty fried onion ring shell. That is the worst.

The Universe, Hot Dog Vomit, and Curling Matted Chest Hair

The Universe is conspiring against me. Nothing is going my way this week. The Universe is saying, "Elise, you might as well stay on your couch and watch movies on Netflix whilst stuffing your face with chocolate zucchini cake."

I think The Universe is right. (And how did The Universe know that I have a chocolate zucchini cake on top of my fridge? Weird.)

I've had a bad week and today was the crap frosting on the poop cake of my week. This afternoon I found myself scraping congealed food chunks from the bottom of DJ's car seat with a butter knife. This was necessary in order to clean off the hot dog vomit. I immediately sent a blistering text message to my husband: "I do not get paid enough. I demand a raise." He has yet to respond.

He never takes me seriously.

But I'm serious this time.

One or two good things did happen this week, despite my cantankerous attitude:DJ's major award came in the mail. He dragged it into the house and plopped it right down on the carpet saying, "Fra-GEE-lay! That must be Italian!" DJ is now the proud owner of a completely ridiculous motorized longboard, even though he is an adult.

Another good thing that happened was that my sister Lisa gave me a copy of Return to Red Castle, by Dorothy Keddington, which I haven't read since I was like thirteen. I reread it this week; it was a glorious reunion. The main character's love interest, Jesse, is described thusly:

"Long legs were encased in dark leather breeches with fringe hanging down the outside seams, and a hunting knife dangling from his wide belt. A fawn-colored shirt was rolled up over muscular forearms to the elbow, and open at the throat where a rawhide necklace strung with bear claws circled his neck. He wore a full beard and mustache and thick brown hair brushed against his shirt collar..."

Sexy, right? Wait, there's more:

"I was afraid to meet the clear, penetrating blue of his eyes. My gaze slid down to his throat where the bear claw necklace rested against a curling mat of dark brown hair..."

{{{shudder}}}

He also lives in a tipi. Dream about that tonight, ladies. I'm off to buy a bear claw necklace for DJ to wear atop his mat of curling chest hair.

You'll never believe what they have in Ohio!

This is my sister Lisa. She is a party animal. Here she is, partying with Tess in her in-laws' pool. I invited myself to Lisa's house in Cincinnati last weekend. We partied like it was 1999...again. The girls camped in the living room every night and watched television. Television. It was amazing. I didn't even know they had those in Ohio.

You know what else they have in Ohio? Real, honest to goodness, no holds barred, enlarged to show texture TRACTORS. This is my brother-in-law Jim's dad giving Chancho a ride on his Real Tractor. Chancho spent the rest of the day saying, "I had fun on the tractor!" every five minutes. Thanks to this tractor ride I won't have to buy DJ anything for his birthday or Christmas. For the next ten years.

You know what else they have in Ohio? Swimming pools and underwater cameras. Incredible!

In Ohio there is also a tupperware full of chocolate ganache. One night my sister opened the ganache to find suspicious teeth marks on the ganache serving spoon. Naturally, we conducted tooth imprint tests, using peanut butter on spoons, to track down our perpetrator. Here we are examining the teeth imprints. It was a tough call, but...

I think we have our smoking gun.

Now we're back in Nashville and we miss our cousins and sisters/aunts. Thanks for the party, Lisa! Now it's your turn to come to Nashville.

P.S. Anyone who can find my sneaky Paint touch-up job gets a hundred bucks. Or maybe dollhairs.

What We Were Doing While Everyone Else Was Seeing Eclipse

On the way home from the crazy tractor park today we bought the World's Most Enormous Owinge Soda. Chancho hosed it because Nashville is a hot, sweaty place. But I'm getting ahead of myself.In the suburbs of Nashville there is a park that contains the following crazy tractor:

This is lucky because on one of our many gagillion-mile drives this summer, Chancho woke up from a long nap in his car seat and told us, "I was driving a craaaazy tractor!" All of Chancho's crazy tractor dreams came true in Nashville today. But before that...

To get here we had to drive through St. Louis...during rush hour. Luckily, because we were going 5 MPH, I was able to take this little beauty from my driver's seat. Ansel Adams, eat your heart out.

But before that, I made a wrong turn in Illinois and got to see Carthage Jail on accident.

Before I made the wrong turn that led me to Carthage Jail, I missed the turn onto IL 9/96 toll bridge over the mighty Mississip. This caused us to arrive at Nauvoo thirty minutes later than I planned, which turned out to be a good thing because...

I bumped into my husband's awesome aunt Julie and her two beautiful daughters, Brooke and Carli! Only in Mormondom could a coinkydink of this magnitude occur. I love my adopted aunt Julie--she is a very cheerful person. Seeing them in Nauvoo made my day. By this point Chancho was so grumpy that other kids were throwing candy at him just to get him to chill out.

Before we ran into Julie and her girls, we took a picture of this really neat statue of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. And DJ was just starting to get grumpy.

Isn't the Nauvoo temple pretty? I have a smudge on my camera lens, just like my friend Jenn (hi Jenn!), and I keep forgetting to wipe it off. It makes my kids look angelic, right?

You know better. Look how DJ turns his back to the camera defiantly. Little grump.

I think the reason that DJ was grumpy was because before Nauvoo we slept in a hotel in Cedar Rapids, Iowa where no one actually got to sleep. It was a really nice room with a TV and a Tess, two things that seriously impede our ability to sleep.

Before the Cedar Rapids hotel we drove through field after field of corn.

Before the corn fields we got stuck in rush hour in Minneapolis.

Before that I was stuffing all of our belongings into every available orifice of my Tahoe. It was a tight squeeze, but I didn't have to throw away my Fluff. Whew.

Before I stuffed the Fluff I was sitting in our apartment thinking, "I miss DJ. We should drive to Nashville."

The Beginning.