Again? Seriously?

Yes. Seriously. Another blog hiatus.

I kept thinking—oh, tomorrow, maybe tomorrow I can work on the post that's been sitting in draft form for the past two weeks, tomorrow I'll be able to read Silly Saturday and Psychiatric Saturday and, and, and—and I finally realized it's not going to happen.

There are a slew of things going on, and I finally had to admit that something has to give. But hopefully I'll emerge again somewhere around the middle of March. Hopefully in one piece.

But what's going on that is more IMPORTANT than bloggin', you want to know. Well, first of all, I wouldn't say it's more important. Just more...unavoidable. As for what's taking me away this time, it's about three parts Enrichment*, two parts computer projects for family**, and one BIG part of "there is something seriously wrong with the septic system*** in this house."

But I don't want you to come here and go away with nothing, so, allow me to present to you some diversions and ways to waste your time:

• First, a dog who can give you BEATBOX lessons! Go ahead and click:

• Have you ever wanted to create a modernist work of art with a flick of your mouse? Then click here! (Click mouse button to change color, SPACE to erase.)

• I don't know what's wrong with me, but I find this so catchy. And it makes me laugh. I don't know why. Click:

• And this one is for those of you who enjoy superhero-y kinds of things now and again. But, please, DON'T WATCH IT WITH YOUR KID. (At least, not unless they're 12+ and have a sick sense of humor.)

• And here's a little justification for bad driving (just in case you ever needed it). Clickety:

That's all, folks†!

*No, not vitamin supplements. Church functions for women. I wrote about it once.
**Every year I compile pictures of extended family and set the slideshows to music...awww. I know, I know. This year I'm doing something extra for grandparents: I'm making them a book for Mother's Day and Father's Day with all their grandkids in it. If you want to see the templates I've made so far, you can click here and here and here and here and here and here. (Just imagine that there are pictures of kids in there, and not cats.) Anyway, it's gonna take some time.
***Until just a few days ago, I didn't even know what a septic system was, let alone that we had one. It's one of those things I could've done without knowing about, and DEFINITELY could have done without smelling and seeing. Eww.
†Well, except for the footnotes, that is. But now that the footnotes are finished, I'll say it again, and this time it will be true: That's all, folks!

What's Love Got to Do with It?

Now, don't get me wrong. It's not that I don't like to feel loved and all that—it's just that this holiday seems to have no meaning other than getting people to spend money, getting plenty of forgetful guys in trouble with their ladies, and making the lonely feel even lonelier. I suppose that, once upon a time, there was cultural significance for this holiday, such as boys dipping slices of goat hide into blood and slapping women and fields with them, all for the sake of fertility. But these days? No bloody goat hide for us, merely a society that equates love with how much junk your honey buys you.

And I don't need to buy some random garbage for my honey to let him know that I love him. Nor do I need him to buy me some crappy singing toy from Hallmark or a stuffed red teddy bear*.

So we've banned Valentine's Day in our house this year.

(Except for the suckers, that is.)

And on that note—that Valentine's is yet another over-marketed holiday that I get annoyed with every time I have to go to the store and see all the TRASH people are trying to sell me—I would like to share with you a poem I wrote for a poetry class in college**. The assignment was to write a Valentine's Day poem. In typical wynne-fashion, the first thing that came to mind wasn't sweet or syrupy. It was perverse and entertained me highly. I snickered to myself, and wrote.

Next time class was in session, the professor asked us to read our love poems to the class. (She was really big on that sort of thing.)

So people did. There were lots of hearts and rainbows and mush, and some people may even have written about their mothers. Eventually my turn came.

Here it is:

Valentine's Day Poem

Someday my prince will come
Someday I'll slam an axe into his
neck and mount his head
above my bedroom door.

If not there, perhaps
in my wallet, folded and pressed
very small, the size of a condom,
Where I can look any time

I need to see him in my
debt, or as one of my assets.
Really, any place dark will do
Where my dream can't slip away again:

In the long dark I will store
him, where he won't turn away when I
swear my devotion or offer
him my face to kiss.

At the time I read this, there may have been a classmate or two that were bugging me for a date†. But for some reason, after I read this, neither of them bothered me again. I wonder why††?

*Bears are forbidden. Chocolate, of course, will always be welcome, but hopefully I won't be limited to receiving it on just ONE DAY A YEAR.
**BYU-Idaho, known as "Ricks" in my day.
† This was the pre-Jeff era.
†† Some people just can't take a joke.

Duct Tape Obsession

I have a confession. I'm not so sure how I feel about all of this, and I am sure to horrify SOMEONE out there on the Internet—but, hey, there you are. I can be horrifying. I've been preoccupied with duct tape. Because it works so well. The obsession began when I incorporated it into a parenting strategy without even thinking about it. I had sent the boy to time-out for hitting, and as soon as he was in his corner, he started hitting the walls, the floors, etc. Y'know, just being a mad little turd in general (I should do a sketch of that: "mad lil' turd." Okay: done—see below). And I knew I couldn't allow it. (The hitting, not the sketch.) So I thought for just a second—and maybe I didn't think it through at all—then retrieved the roll of duct tape from the garage, and approached him very calmly. Me: Do you know why I put you on time out? Boy: I hit. Me: That's right. Hitting is not okay. Boy: But I don't stop hitting! I hit and hit if you put me on time out! Me: No, you won't. Because hitting is not okay, and if you can't use your hands wisely and politely, then you won't be allowed to use your hands at all. And then I duct-taped his arms to his body, and reset the timer for more time out. He was furious. He thrashed about, but was unable to free his arms, and unable to squirm out of his shirt (the tape was only attached to his shirt, and if he could have only gotten his arms out, he would've been free!). He was very sad (eventually) and apologized, and hasn't hit a thing since. And since, I can't stop fantasizing about duct tape. Kid too noisy for you? I know something that will fix that. Can't hold still? I know of something that will help! Won't stay in his chair during Sunbeams? Oh, I have the answer! Every time I turn around, I think of another use for the stuff. Why, just today after he pooped in his underwear again, I fantasized about taping him to the toilet seat and letting him stay there all day. It's true that he hasn't hit anyone lately, but I've still managed to create a monster. Me.

Today is Someone's Birthday

...but I don't want to say whose. I mean, some people are really touchy about birthdays. As if being touchy about your age will actually change something? Take the Boy, for example. He made this comment in Sunbeams last week: "I will turn 100 and all my teeth will fall out and I won't know what to do!" Isn't he a little young to be worrying about aging? And, you know, if I was at liberty to say whose birthday it is today, perhaps I would also be able to share with you what this mysterious person's dream cake would look like. A dream cake that I may have made myself. And that doesn't look at all like the amount of work that went into it. No, instead it looks like a big pile of mud. (At least I can say, in my defense, that it was supposed to look like that.) And now, for some reason, I am completely worn out. I can't imagine why, though. Isn't a birthday supposed to be a joyous event, and Fun For All? Maybe. But I would like to say to the makers of the following product: ...may you all rot in hell, you miserable #@!#@!!!! Hope everyone is having a wonderful Sunday. See you in a week when I'm rested again.

Why I Haven't Been to Your* Blog Lately**

(Contest still on, by the way.)

It's all Jeff's fault. See, he got me some books for Christmas. It surprised me, because I remember telling him that even though I enjoyed these particular books, I didn't have any particular desire to own them.

The books are actually a boxed set of three—the first two books I had already read, but I hadn't read the last yet—and I set them in the back bedroom and pretended they weren't there.

My husband noticed. He wanted to know why, after having them for a month, I hadn't read them yet. Did I want him to take them back?

Sigh.

No, see, I was avoiding them for a reason. These particular books are DANGEROUS. Once you pick them up, you can't put them down again. But to appease the poor husband, I started with the third book—the one I hadn't read—devoured it in two days, and then I went back and started with the first book again, then on to the second. Then the third book, again.

Dangerous Books

Then I went into mourning because I had read them all and there was nothing more to read, and I kinda...skimmed through them all again.

Pathetic. Now you know where I've been.

But wait, it gets worse.

I went online. Did you know that there are HUNDREDS of web sites dedicated to this set of novels? There are forums, chat rooms, fan-art sites, graphics, debates—it's everywhere. I still couldn't get the dumb story out of my head that I (cringe) did something I never thought I would do, ever: I made some (wince) fan art. I really, really can't believe I did that.



See? (Click for the full-size version. Actually, now that I see it uploaded here in the small version, it looks lousy. Please click for the better-looking version. Please?) And oh, there are more!









The worst part about all of this is I soooo don't have the time to be wasting on this sort of thing. But I couldn't help it! It was taking over my life!

I think that I'm finally coming out of it. The haze has lifted from my eyes. And I have decided that something needs to be done for society at large. These books are extremely addictive and cause people to obsess over them to an unhealthy degree. (Seriously. Go google the main character's names and see what you find.) The Surgeon General has been ignoring my phone calls and the petition I sent in to get these books classified as controlled substances (that S.G. is pretty hoity-toity, if you ask me), and so I have decided it was necessary to take the next step by myself. I have established an organization for those who wish to recover from the adverse effects of reading these books. See:


Please check in. No one here will bite you***. Or phase into any sort of beast. Together, we can recover from this debilitating addiction. Remember, only you can prevent forest fires, and in the words of *sigh* Edward Cullen: "Be safe."

*Meaning, quite specifically: the lady with the waistband of elastic, melissa the mejojac, insane kim (but she says it's temporary), carrottiest of all jell-os, NCS!!! ("nifty craft sack"), jean knee-jerk reaction, grateful to be kathleen, the dorkelina formerly known as pandy, the dread pirate...chloe?, and kristine. There. Now you know exactly who I have links to in my nav bar. Whee.

**Actually, if you hadn't noticed by now, I'm rather miserable about blogging consistently. Life constantly gets in the way, and I let it, because I'm like that, and so is life, and blogging is just a hobby, after all. So my attendance on your blog will ALWAYS be sketchy. But it's not because you aren't loved. 'Cause you are loved. So take that and like it.

***Well, if they are really into the books, they might. But I promise that sort of activity will NOT be tolerated, and the bite-ees will promptly be bitten back by yours truly.

Do You Need a Hero?

Every once in awhile, we all need a superhero. But Batman is so hard to get a hold of, Superman's secretary won't return my calls, and Spiderman grosses me out with his snacking habits (insects should NOT be a part of trail mix). For those of you that find themselves in the same bind as I do, I'd like to introduce a new superhero with some very special abilities:

Another Contest

*CONTEST OFFICIALLY OVER*

Have you ever found yourself pestered by insensitive family members, neighbors, or even strangers asking impertinent questions, such as, "So, when are you going to get married?" when you don't even have a prospective spouse on the radar?

Or, once you are married, "So, when are you going to start a family?"

Or, once you have at least one child, "So, when are you going to have another?"

Or, once you have several, "So, are all these kids yours?"

Are you tired of people not being able to mind their own business? Well, I've decided to host another contest here at my blog to help. Proudly presenting:


All you have to do is add your favorite comeback to any of the above situations* to the comments section**. You can enter as many as you like, you can say whatever you want to say—really, there are no rules. Heck, I don't even want to put a deadline on the contest—let's just see how far it goes until it peters out, shall we?

There will be prizes, however. (Can you say "gift certificate" and "chocolate"*** without drooling?) All you have to do is make me laugh hard enough that I wet myself.

And if you want to put a link on your blog for this contest (like the one I have in my sidebar), here is HTML copy-and-paste so you can add it in a snap:

<a href="http://muskadillo-dreaming.blogspot.com/2008/01/another-contest.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t193/muskadillo/snappy_comeback.gif" border="0" /></a>

*Or any other annoying situations you have encountered. I'm not gonna be picky.
**Since this contest was inspired by the comments of Elizabeth W, Jill, and Marie on the Also Not About Flooding post, you three can already consider yourselves entered in this contest. However, feel free to enter again, and again, and again, if it amuses you.
**For those of you with New Year's Resolutions to "be good" as pertaining to food, I promise that a choice of a more...er, healthy reward will be yours, should you win.


CONTEST WINNERS:
Lindy
Mammajam
Elizabeth W

You will be contacted; prizes will be sent.
love,
wynne