I just love expensive children's clothing catalogues

If you just paid $288.00 for a dress, wouldn't you just be like, "Hey, get away from the sand in that thing! Do. Not. Touch. Anything. Hey! No! Do not even think about stepping in the water!"

And how about that first picture? "Uh, hello? How many times have I told you not to stand on the arm of a chair! Get down from there! I swear, one of these days you are going to fall and crack your head open! And bleed all over your expensive white dress!"

Stranger than fiction

While I've been off in my fantasy world trying to make up interesting fictional stories, here in the real world (somehow I am now referring to the Internet as the "real world," go figure) there's been plenty of humor piling up on my Google Analytics page. This is where I can look at the actual words people typed into a search engine that caused my blog to land on their results page.

Of course there are the usual searches for Twizzler nutritional information. Look, people, Twizzlers are NOT healthy, all right? No matter how many calories, or grams of sugar they might have, it should be obvious that at most, they should be a "sometimes food."

Then there are always several searches about LEGO bricks, usually something along the lines of "i hate legos". (Incidentally, if you want to see an inane anonymous comment in which the person refers to me as a "moron" for using the word "Legos" you can click here.)

Anyway, here are a few more of my recent favorites. Remember, these are words people actually typed into their search engines (accompanied by my own comments, of course):

"fixing dark gray play dough"
(Uh...good luck with that.)

"i spun around really fast and now my stomach feels sick"
(Don't kids ever go to their parents with questions anymore?)

"what does the mommy lizards feed their baby lizards"
(Does they feeds them Twizzlers?)

"garden hose potty training"
(Wha...?)

"how can i preserve my children's baby teeth in a paperweight"
(Okay, the hand print in plaster thing was cute, but let's not get carried away.)

"how can a mom be useful"
(I can't think of a single way.)

"lethal paperweights"
(Glad to know I've become a go-to source on this topic.)

"should i run for congress"
(If you are looking for the answer on Google, then probably "No.")

How to fix a toaster

The other day I broke my Most Valuable Appliance: the four-slice toaster.

Apparently, this is what I get for cleaning the kitchen. I should have just left well enough alone. After I emptied out the crumb trays, I took the whole thing and turned it upside down, shaking more crumbs out.

When I plugged it back in, one side of the toaster didn't work. That is, when I pressed it down it popped right back up. If I kept holding the handle down, it would still heat up. But to me, it kind of defeats the purpose of having a toaster if I'm standing there there holding the knob down the whole time.

Now I had a four-slice toaster that would only toast two pieces of bread. For a few days it didn't matter, as I never needed to toast four slices at once. But the other morning when I was getting ready to make bagels for everyone, I was finally motivated to investigate the problem.

Not knowing much about toasters, I unplugged it and peered inside, wondering what had gotten jiggled loose. How much of a gamble would it be to open the thing up and try to fix it? Right now I at least had a working two-slice toaster. If I tried to mess with it I might end up with no toaster at all.

In the end it was not fear but laziness that prevailed. I didn't want to go find a screwdriver. But, I thought, I broke the toaster by holding it upside down and shaking it. Maybe I could fix it the same way. So, that is exactly what I did.

Every once in a while you have one of those moments where the illogical thing you do on a whim turns out to be the thing that works. No one could be more surprised than I was when I saw that all four slots of my toaster were back in business.

**My apologies to all the people with broken toasters who thought this might be a helpful tutorial.**

Hey, it's YOUR choice. All we're saying is, we are not gonna be held responsible here.

A towel on the floor means "Frankly I don't give a crap about this Earth or its valuable and limited resources."

Blog? What blog?

So I've been visiting this delightful winter wonderland called Minnesota, but soon I'll be heading back home (forecast: high sixties and sunny all week! Sorry, rest of the country!)

I think I might think of something to write about in the blog this week. Maybe one of those hundred ideas I've come up with lately and never posted...

This novel-writing thing, it takes a little while

Here is something I'd think a normal person might say when they have a day to themselves, as a powdery snow is falling in the mountains: "I really should work on my novel, but I just want to go snowboarding."

On Sunday, though, I honestly had this thought: "I really should go snowboarding, but I just want to work on my novel."

I went snowboarding, because the novel is not going anywhere, whereas the snow will melt, and it seemed like the healthy choice, and it was awesome, and I had tons of fun, and I'm glad I went.

But I'm just wondering, when did recreational activities (along with housework, self-care, and interacting with other human beings) become what I ought to be doing, while writing--working, essentially--is all I really feel like doing?

(Granted, the housework has always been in the category of what I ought to be doing.)

My point is this: it seems my previously dormant workaholic gene has reared its ugly head. It could be that the reason I've never been a workaholic is that I've never had any work I really enjoyed.

Anyway, here is where I am right now in this novel-writing process:


Printing it all off turned out to be a great idea. Mostly I just wanted to feel like I was actually creating something, but I ended up staying off the computer for several days just working with the paper manuscript and a pen. I read through the story a few times, wrote tons of notes, crossed out stupid-sounding dialogue, moved things around, made some connections I had missed earlier, realized I had accidentally given two characters the same name, and eliminated a couple of chapters.

Now I'm back on the computer, stack of paper in hand, going through the thing one slow page at a time. The small upside-down stack is what I have completed so far, and the larger stack is what I have left to do. But I try not to think about that, just taking one page at a time, because if I do that, eventually I will get to the end. I am giving myself a deadline of March 31 to finish this first draft.

Hopefully that will be enough time so that I can keep my newfound workaholic tendencies at bay and work in a little time with family and friends, go play in the snow once in a while, and maybe even do some laundry.

It's good to leave a little space

Every time I write the date now, I do it like this:

2/7/0

Then I catch myself. And I squeeze the one in there before the zero.