One Blog, Two Blog, Red Blog, Green Frog

Who came up with the idea of a blog?

Does everyone have a blog?

Do all of these billions of blogs get read?

I hope so.

I think it would be sad if someone took the time to blog, and no one read their blog...

Sometimes I blog-stalk. Oh c'mon, I know you do it too. And then my ever-wandering mind gets to wandering and I wonder why we all blog. Do we really love it? Do we love the act of recording our thoughts and shenanigans, or is it all some mass craving for attention?

(Assuming our blogs are read of course.)

Or is it both?

I must admit that for me it is both. Very narcissistic I know. At least I can admit it. I like (and by like I mean love) people to read my blog. I want to people to read what a write. Not in a look-at-what-I-did-today way or a look-at-how-great-my-baby/life-is way because

A) My life isn't that exciting. I think it's great, but some people might get bored living my life.

B)I do not have a baby. So until I get a real one, I won't blog about how great my imaginary baby is.

(Provided I had one).

...What was I saying?

Oh yes, I write partly because I want people to read what I write (I secretly want to be published someday), and I want people to laugh at the things I laugh at (I secretly think I can be funny sometimes), and I write 98.642% of the time because I love to write.

Another Question:

Does everyone with a blog have professional photographers follow them around taking pictures of their children and crafts and food? Or are all bloggers professional photographers?

I think I'm missing a few key requirements of being a good blogger.

A)I don't have children.

B) I'm not very "craftsy" or "cheffie."

C) My pictures (if there are any) are of poor quality.

So I suppose the solution to my problem is to work hard to become "craftsy" and "cheffie," and score myself an awesome husband to go along with my awesome life. He will be (of course) a doctor and/or lawyer and a part time photographer. He will follow me and our perfect children around taking professional-grade photographs of our crafts, food, and of course our perfection.

Problem solved.

But until then, my blog may be lacking...

Gone, Gone, Gone

I miss my hair.

Now, if you don't want to read about me wallowing in self-pity about my hair, do not by all means continue reading. I've had long hair my whole life--except for that time I had to chop it off after I got gum stuck in it. Now I know why Mama always made us put our bubblegum back in the Halloween bowl after trick-or-treating.--but now it's so short I can barely pile it on top of my head (my lazy hairdo).

Last summer, my hair started to fall out. Gross I know. You're lucky you didn't have to live with it. Handfuls of my beloved hair would come out in the shower and even more would fall while I was fixing it, and more would continue to depart from my scalp throughout the day. I guess I shouldn't complain so much, because I never once looked like I was losing my hair. Good ol' Badger genes. We'll never go bald...well at least the girls won't. But my hair did start looking very very unhealthy, so I decided that cutting it off would be the best thing for it. So I chopped it off. My hair was so short I could barely put it in a ponytail, let alone piled on top of my head. Egad!

The wonderful lady (Hannah DeRusha) who cut my hair did a great job, but she warned me that once I cut it short, cutting it would more than likely become an addiction, and that I might never have long hair again.

"Oh, pshaw," I replied.

Nothing would keep me from growing out my hair again. No matter how much I liked the haircut (and I did) I still missed my long hair. I even cried about it that night like Jo in Little Women.

And since that fateful haircut last July, I have cut my hair short again every few months.

She was right, it is addicting!

I am trying harder to refrain from cutting it other than the occasional trim.

I am on a serious mission to get my long hair back.

I want my hair to have the ability to do this again:

Bahah! That picture makes me laugh so much.

But until it grows out again, I'll have to resort to using pictures of me with long hair on the blog and my facebook profile.

*Sigh*

They Call Me...

Sometimes I get bored at work and I doodle on scraps of paper and I usually end up drawing out my family tree over and over again. It's silly really, but it keeps me entertained and now you can be sure that I will never forget all the people in my family. In November, we'll have 30 persons of value (as opposed to those not of value) in our family when my sister has her baby boy, and I can't wait! (P.S. Sister, I really hope you don't steal one of my baby names because they are all brilliant. But I can't tell you what they are because if I told you, you would definitely use them because they are so brilliant).

Today while I doodled I wrote down all the nicknames I have ever been called. I came up with thirteen, and I am sure there more than that. Do you have that many nicknames? I thought not. (Sorry to be so snooty).

These are my aliases:

Kelly Marie

Kell

Kello

Kelly Bob

Kellykins

Kelly LaRue

Kelly Olga

Kell Kell (which I hate)

Kid

Gubbie

Kelly Belly (which I also hate)

Kelly Josephina

Smelly Kelly (not a favorite)

I think maybe you could call me anything and get away with it. Except for Kell Kell and Kelly Belly of course.

I Should Have Been Snoozy Woozing

The 24th of July is the one week out of the year that I absolutely cannot wait for (besides Christmas). There is just oodles of stuff to do and I love every minute of it. On Friday, I played in my Alumni soccer game and got bit by dozens of mosquitoes (the game was fun too) and then I went to the family dance. Once I was there I realized that I belong to an awkward age group. Really, we just don't fit in anywhere! Most of the the male species at the dance were either under the age sixteen or already married. Needless to say, the pickings were slim...except for the few pickings who were not slim...My friends and I just pay $5.00 to chit chat with each other and complain about how tired we are and how itchy our legs are from the mosquitoes and how there are no guys to dance with, and if we do get asked to dance we complain about how awkward it was. I don't think we whine much until we go to a dance that we swear we're excited for before we actually get there.

I left the dance a little bit early as all my other single friends were leaving and I was starving from not eating much before my game. I decided to eat some of the pasta salad that no one else likes. So I sat down at the computer to check my email and facebook because I didn't want to eat in the dark. I would have turned on a light, but my nephews were snoring away (they were literally snoring) in the living room, and I didn't want the light from the kitchen to wake them up. Nothing too exciting was going on in facebookland just so you know, a few people found some new cows for their farms and some fishes died, but nothing too exciting.

I was really tired, but I just did not want to go to sleep, so I sat there for a while consuming the pasta salad and wondering if finding cows in facebookland is really that exciting. Then I got a text (all my exciting posts happen because of texts...) from my sister. Turns out she was in the hospital awaiting the news as to when she would have her gall bladder removed. She's so lucky. She had to go to the emergency room once already before I left, and I new that once I did leave, she would get to go again. Like I said, she's so lucky. So in all reality, I must have been prompted to stay up late and eat that pasta salad, just so I could be there for my sister when she needed me. Okay, so maybe not, but I am glad I was awake because I would have wanted her to be awake if I was sitting in the hospital. Probably because I would want to rub it in her face how I get to sit in a bed with plastic bed sheets while wearing a hospital gown and not getting to eat because I have to have my gall bladder out. That is definitely what I would do.

She always did have the best luck.

The Happening

Sometimes, things happen. In fact, things happen almost everyday, but those are everyday happenings. What about those things that happen that don't happen very often?

Are those things meant to happen?

Are things better because they happened?

Because they happened, is something else going to happen?

Is that something else better than what could have happened?

Is what you wanted to happen better for you than what happened?

Or is it the other way around?

What are you supposed to do when they happen?

Did something you do cause them to happen?

Is it complete chance that they happen?

I guess sometimes things just happen.

I Meant to Post This Last Week

Walmart is an interesting place, and I know you agree with me. It is one huge warehouse entirely devoted to mountains of unnecessary items and a few piles of necessary things. It's no wonder it attracts every sort of person you could imagine. We all go to get our few necessities (i.e. food, soap, socks, etc.) and we walk out with carts heavily laden with the "unnecessities" such as $5.00 DVDs, clearance rack t-shirts we're sure won't shrink even though we know perfectly well that they shrink every time, and pints of Ben & Jerry's simply because they're on sale.

Such was the case yesterday (which was really last week because I meant to post this then). I went to Walmart because all I needed was a package of lunch meat and some cheese. I grabbed the lunch meat and wasn't surprised to find that they didn't have the cheese I wanted because it's Walmart, they have everything but what you really need. While I was wandering around, I spied that Ben & Jerry's was on sale. How fortunate! I grabbed a couple of pints (Everything But The & Cinnamon Buns) and made my way to the register. I found my place in the back of a line that wound it's way into the women's clothes section. A woman in blue came by to tell us that we could checkout in jewelry or customer service if we didn't have any produce. The nice man in front of me laughed with me about how silly it would be to do that as it would take the same amount of time to get over there as it would to just wait. We both whistled our own little ditties (he had a very nice whistle) while we waited and I started people-watching...my favorite Walmart pastime.

I noticed that the woman in front of the nice-whistling-man had a cart of necessities and a couple pints of Haagan Daz. I wondered if she didn't notice that Ben & Jerry's was on sale. Maybe she prefers Haagan Daz...Then I notice how old the lady in front of the Haagan Daz lady was. Her skin was so ghostly pale I'm sure I could see every vein in her bare forearms. Then I noticed how frugal she was. Not only was she only buying necessities, but she paid the cashier with perfect change. Her change was nicely organized in a ziploc bag. While I waited for the lady to collect the correct amount of change so the line could move on, I started people-watching those who entered the store.

In came the motorcycle-tough-guys, (you know the ones with graying beards and leather vests with tassels), the couple who looked like they were on their post-temple Walmart date, several teenage girls in super-shorty-shorts, a few moms with children piled in their carts and hanging on the sides, and one woman who stood out to me from all the others. It was probably because her shirt said this: "I only appear normal."

I chuckled to myself, "Oh, I'm a sharp one, and you can't pull the wool over my eyes!"

The old woman with the ziploc bag of change carted herself away slowly but surely, the Haagan Daz lady checked out like a regular, as did the nice whistling man, and then myself. I kept watching the people going in and going out as I walked to my little blue car in the crowded, but not so crowded parking lot littered with receipts and Dr. Pepper bottles. Everyone from the "apparently" normal woman and the motorcycle mafia all go to Walmart with the same mission:

To get in and get out as fast as possible with more necessities than unnecessities.

But alas, we all have the same fate and fall victim to the the sale on Ben & Jerry's and the $5.00 DVDs. They get us every time. Wretched Walmart.

Destroy the Relationship

Whenever you get a text late at night or early in the morning, in general, that text is pretty important. As a rule, text messages are not sent out during the times when the recipient may or may not be coherent unless they are very important. If that's not the case with you, apparently we're not friends with the same people. And perhaps you should look into getting new friends.

But I got an important text this morning. Well actually I got an important text last night, but the "texter" fell asleep before he could get to what he was trying to say, so he tried again this morning. The question he asked was one I never expected and I was appalled to hear such a thing coming from him--I didn't actually hear it because it was a text--as he is someone I highly esteem. "What is this question that was so appalling?" you may ask.

The conversation is as follows:

"Should I have a DTR with [name withheld]?"

DTR-n. an acronym for "determine the relationship," generally, a lengthy (usually several hours and/or days) discussion between two persons who feel a particular affection for one another to verify their relationship status

To which I replied, "Absolutely not." I thought that would suffice, but then I added, "You should never have one of those with anyone ever. Ever." I wanted my position on the matter to be quite clear.

"That's not what others say..."

I was sure I knew who it was that was giving him such awful advice and I wanted to point out that said persons are not in any kind of relationship with anyone, and their last relationships ended abruptly after unnecessary DTRs of their own. Luckily I dissuaded him of ever having a DTR with [name withheld] and hopefully with anyone else ever.

And this is why:

DTRs lead to nothing but miscommunication and confusion. And that is the way it always works. I have never met anyone who has had a beneficial DTR.

So I told my friend and he agreed. I reminded him that he likes her and that he knows she likes him, and that things were going fine. I then reminded him that he could just propose to her sometime soon and I'll find someone, somewhere, somehow...to propose to me and we'll have a double wedding in December.

It'll be great.

Spinach Souffle

I believe congratulations are in order. My first attempt at a Julia Child recipe was a success. Well, it was a success in the terms that it was no where near as bad as that manicotti I made that one time. Let's just say that I will never be able to eat ricotta cheese ever again. So, the souffle was nothing like the manicotti. So congratulations to me.

This was such a monumental and momentous occasion that I asked my sister to document the evidence that I did in fact make a souffle. So naturally, she took a picture of every detail that involved our first souffle.

You should know that I did in fact wash my hands just for the occasion.

I probably spent more time reading the recipe than actually cooking the darn thing. Notice how dedicated I was to the souffle that I did not wash my hair. At least you know my hands were clean...

Note to self: Fresh spinach and cooked spinach do not occupy the same amount of space, and Swiss cheese tastes like rubbish.

The best face of the night.

Note #2: Be generous when buttering your mold (okay, so mine is really just a casserole dish, but it worked) otherwise, the souffle will stick.

I was whisking so furiously (I was using a fork because I forgot to get a plastic whisk) that I broke off part of the fork. We later played a game of "Who can find the fork in the souffle," and guess who won?

It's not but eggs and spinach.

Aren't you glad I left out the pictures of me cracking the eggs and beating the egg whites?

After half an hour of whisking, egg-cracking, beating, and sweating (the kitchen is a hot place in summer!) the souffle was ready to bake.

Voila!

It looked even better in real life, but once I got everyone into the kitchen for dinner, the stupid thing had collapsed. I guess when Julia Child says to serve it immediately, she really means it. So I was the only person the see the souffle in all it's golden, puffy glory.

So as I said, this souffle was basically just eggs and spinach, and that is exactly what it tasted like, except the texture was....quite unexpected. It was like eating an egg-flavored spongecake. So we (my sister, brother-in-law, and I) decided that this would be better as a breakfast dish served with hash browns, and that it needed bacon. Honestly, name something that bacon doesn't fix. Let's tell Julia.

Charming

Charm- n. a power of pleasing or attracting, as through personality or beauty

On a scale from one to charming, I would rate at a two, or perhaps lower. There is no need to go into details, because this post (for once) is not about myself. But I do know seven ladies who go above and beyond the charming scale. They are the epitome of charming. Anyone would be lucky to know them, and I myself am very lucky.

Stephenie

Oh how I love Stephie! Stephenie watches out for others all the time, and I doubt she ever even thinks of herself. Everyone trusts Stephenie and she probably knows everyone's deepest, darkest secrets. It's a huge burden, but she never complains. She probably just got that fern to tell her its life story.

Megan

Megan is easily one of the most likable people I have ever met. Not to mention that she is also one of the most beautiful people I have ever met. Megan is always sincere. She gives sincere compliments and she never laughs half-heartedly. If it's worth laughing about you can bet it will be a genuine Megan laugh. No one could ever doubt where Megan stands on an issue because she will either tell them or she has told them already. She always sticks to her guns. Or do her guns stick to her?

Wendy

As this picture depicts, Wendy is much like Julie Andrews on Sound of Music; spreading joy and music to the metaphorical Von Trapp children of the world. How's that for a metaphor? Wendy makes everyone feel important and she wants everyone to feel happy. I don't think I've witnessed Wendy without a smile on her face.

Caitlyn

Before I knew Caitlyn, I just wanted to be her friend. That sounds creepy, but I noticed how charming Caitlyn was in high school when I started seeing her at various music functions. I didn't meet her until college though, and guess what? We're friends. So not so creepy after all! (Well maybe a little.) Caitlyn is spunky and quirky and dare I say groovy? She listens to the best music, reads the best books, and wears whatever she thinks is cool. (i.e. Her signature bracelet that just so happens to be a fork bent around her wrist). Whatever Caitlyn deems as cool really is cool. She's also incredibly compassionate and a good and true friend.

Anna

I've know Anna for a very long time, and I can't recall a time when I didn't admire her. Her family calls her Princess Anna, and it suits her. I have never heard Anna say a rude word to or about anyone. Ever. Anyone who knows Anna loves her instantly, and they don't just like her, they love her.

Lora

This is Lora, and she is classy. Notice the picture of her in a perfect outfit in Europe. All classy people go to Europe. Well, a lot of not-so-classy people go to Europe...but Lora is classy and she went to Europe. Lora has been one of my greatest friends since we were just wee lasses in kindergarten, and I plan on keeping her around. She's always good for a witty comment, a great suggestion for a book, or a trip to the movies. I think everyone needs a friend like Lora.

Marisa

Marisa is gorgeous inside and out as is apparent from this picture of her and her little sister. I think the best word to describe Marisa is: love. She sincerely loves everyone and everything. Marisa's laugh is infectious. She makes people feel good about themselves and people draw close to her because of it.

"Do you know the difference between a beautiful woman and a charming one? A beauty is a woman you notice, a charmer is one who notices you." -Adlai E. Stevenson

Oh, and these boys are charming too, but that's an entirely different post.

Bon Appetit!

I think I've been obsessed with creating things for most of my life. When I was little I wanted so badly to know how to cook. I practiced and practiced and became the official cookie-baker for the family. I taught myself to crack an egg with one hand after watching Audrey Hepburn do it on Sabrina. Now I can crack an egg with each hand. Did that sentence make sense? I mean that I can crack two eggs simultaneously with both of my hands. Two eggs. Two hands. No shell.

When I was a little older I went through my interior-design phase. I watched Trading Spaces every Saturday night and I was determined to turn our house upside down with my creative skill. My poor mother. She humored me though, and let me change my room countless times. She even let me paint it with pink and blue stripes. It was horrid, but she let me do it anyways. Needless to say, I gave up on the interior design idea after the stripes did permanent damage to the eyes of anyone who entered my room.

In high school I entered the fashion-design phase. My favorite show became What Not to Wear and everyone around me was under my critical eye. My mom put up with that too. As did the rest of my family. Sorry everyone. I started to get a little better at sewing. Well, at least I could sew a basic straight line. My mom helped me sew dresses and skirts and anything I ever wanted to try my hand at. What a wonderful mother I have.

Recently, I became a huge fan of Julie & Julia. I think I've watched it a dozen or so times since I first saw it a few months ago. I absolutely adore it. After I watched it, all I wanted to do was cook. So my sister and I decided to cook our way through Julia Child's cookbook. Or at least the dessert section...But we decided it probably wouldn't be wise because we did want to keep some semblance of our figures and we didn't want that ruined by a summer of butter. But then I had a birthday and my wonderful wonderful sister and brother-in-law gave me Julia's Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Could I have gotten a better birthday present? I think not. Oh, except my angel of a mother gave me a sewing machine for my birthday. I am just the luckiest really. I feel kind of bad though because I think the best thing I gave my mom for her birthday was....Aw heck, I've probably never given her anything that cool. And all I gave my sister for her birthday was Sword in the Stone and a stash of chocolate. I was really excited about that present and thought it was the best until I opened mine and there was this beautiful, hard-bound cookbook. I am terribly behind in points when it comes to gift giving apparently.

So thanks to my mother and sister, I will get to keep trying to cook and sew and I will get to create as many messes as I possibly can. The possibilities are endless really.

Bon Appetit!

Weakling

I file papers for a living. Actually, I go to school so that one day I can maybe make a living, and in the meantime I file papers in my uncle's office so that I can pay my phone bill and buy unnecessary (but necessary!) scraps of fabric from Walmart. When I came into the office this morning, waiting on my desk was an ominous-looking stack of papers. I got straight to work, knowing that this particular stack could take a few hours. Four hours to be exact. The first step in the filing process is to whole-punch all of the papers. We got a new industrial whole-puncher that can punch up to twenty papers at one time which is supposed to be helpful, but due to a recent discovery, whole-punching is not as easy as it seems.

The discovery is thus: I am a weakling.

Well, either that, or this whole-puncher is well...tough. I have to resort to using both hands to punch more than five papers at a time, and since I have to file enormous amounts of paper, I simply can't punch five papers at a time. While getting lost in thought during this monotonous (though strenuous) process, I have often realized that while I'm whole-punching (this is now a verb) I have one eye closed and my lips pursed together and by the end of large stacks of paper I am perspiring slightly. Sometimes I even have to stand up to get the proper amount of leverage to punch through the papers. Oh how grateful I am that no one is watching me while I file papers. Or maybe they do and they just snicker silently to themselves...

Can you say weakling?