Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Dressing Rooms Are Scary

Today I'm sharing an older post about the time I went clothes shopping on Halloween and had to contend with scary dressing room lighting, getting stuck in a pencil skirt, and forgetting to wear my spanx. 

It was a frightening ordeal, but I learned a few things about feeling good about myself no matter what size I am. Hope you'll read it! 

Linking up with Natasha at Epic Mommy Adventures for Turn It Up Tuesday. Click the link below to read the post. 

What about you? Are you afraid of dressing rooms?



Sunday, October 26, 2014

22 Girl's Trip Do's and Don'ts You Probably Haven't Heard Of

A few weeks ago, my sister and I went to Brianhead, Utah on our second annual Sister's Trip. Instead of a narrative of our shenanigans, I thought a road trip Do's and Don'ts list would be both amusing and helpful. I'm considerate like that.

I learned some important traveling tips when on a road trip with my sister.
©Depositphotos.com/Goodluz

DO offer to drive if you are taking the other traveler's car. We were taking my sister's car so I drove on the way up.

DON'T start bickering about the temperature in the car on the way to the gas station before you've even left town. Unless one of you is menopausal, in which case it's perfectly acceptable for that one to declare it "too stinkin' hot" and turn the temperature setting all the way to the cold side and the blow factor (giggity) to at least 3. The non-menopausal one should just shut up and put on her jacket.

DON'T accuse the menopausal person of being "Evil Twin Car Lori" and state vehemently several times during the course of the trip that you can't wait to get to your destination so that the evil twin will disappear and "Pain-in-the-ass-but-pleasant-enough Lori" returns. This is counter productive when dealing with a hot and irritable menopausal person.

DO remind the non-menopausal person that very soon, she will experience the same hell and when that happens, been-there-done-that menopausal person is going to gloat like a motha'.


DO ignore it when your passenger tells you to slow down because the roads are wet, or to change lanes to pass someone, or that the lane is ending and you have to get over. She is trying to be helpful and doesn't realize she's really annoying the crap out of you. Also ignore it every time she checks her airbag light to make sure it's working just because you stopped short once when a semi cut you off. because you didn't listen to her when she told you the lane was ending.

DO make sure you understand the definition of a "flight" of stairs so that when the owner of the condo you are renting says it's "three flights up," you know what you're in for. When you have stairs, then a landing, then stairs, then a landing...6 times...that's 6 flights of stairs, not 3. 4 trips hauling crap up from the car and back totals 48 flights of stairs. Factor in the higher elevation and you got yourselves 2 of these:


DON'T bring more crap than you need. See above.

DO bring a couple chick flicks and a shitload an appropriate amount of alcohol. You will need a way to spend your evenings. Margaritas and whiskey are good choices. After finishing the margaritas and starting on the whiskey, one of you should declare herself the "Fire Queen" and slur at tell the other to rip up magazines for kindling. When she gets the fire roaring, Fire Queen should shout, "Blog this, bitch!" and high five the other one. Both should laugh uncontrollably.

DO text your husbands (who are at home taking care of the dogs and kids while you are partying) so that they know you are both safe and not getting into any trouble. Something like this is appropriate and will put their minds at ease that you are safe:

Drunk text to husbands.
Note: Tequila does not improve grammar.

DO take selfies of yourselves to remember the fun you're having and the fact you both brought the exact same pajamas. Just know your picture taking skills will be impaired due to the tequila and whiskey.

...Nor does it improve picture taking skills

DON'T mix your liquor ever. ever. again. In retrospect, finishing the tequila and starting on the whiskey was not a good idea.

DO take a picture of your companion with her head over the toilet so you can show her in the morning and laugh at it. If you are the one in the picture, DON'T post it on your blog. No one wants to see that.

If you are not the one with her head over the toilet, DO clip your companion's hair back so she doesn't puke on it. It's the social convention.

DO take in the local scenery and go hiking during the day. You will need to burn off the calories from the alcohol.

Hiking while on a girl's trip in Brianhead Utah
Oh, we were serious, with our hiking sticks and all.

DO get clear directions from the locals to find the hikes. Ask more than one local because you may not get the right directions the first time and end up doubling back a few times. The 2 hour hike might turn into a 4 and a half hour death march hike. Nevertheless, enjoy the scenery along the way.

Beauty is all around when you're hiking
There were hints of fall color in the foliage everywhere.


Hiking in Utah we saw beautiful Aspen trees and fall colors
The aspens were beautiful. All lined up like soldiers.

View from our condo in Brianhead utah
This is the view from our balcony.

DON'T believe the locals (who likely all drive pick-ups with 4-wheel drive) when they tell you "Oh, your car will make it just fine on that road." You may find yourself driving along ATV paths that couldn't possibly have been meant for automobiles, scared shitless to keep driving forward, but even more scared to turn around and go back because it would mean driving back over the treacherous road you were just on.

DO be as comforting as you can when your companion, whose car is not yet a year old, begins to have a mini freak out over the road conditions and the fact that you may be lost. Be understanding when, on top of it all, it begins to hail and she yells, "Are you KIDDING me?!" 


DO appreciate the beauty of where you are. When you're in a place called the Twisted Forest, among Bristlecone Pine trees that are the oldest living organisms on the planet and date back as far as 5000 years, be sure and take a selfie. Oh, and pictures of the trees too.

Bristlecone Pines as old as 5000 years in Twisted Forest
They look old, don't they?

Me and my sis.

DON'T be in such a hurry to drive home, that you forget to stop at the scenic overlooks along the way. You might miss something spectacular.

Scenic Overlook at Cedar Breaks Utah
Cedar Breaks, Utah

Beautiful Cedar Breaks Utah
Another overlook at Cedar Breaks

DON'T point out signs you see when browsing through roadside gift shops, that you think apply to your menopausal companion. Again...counterproductive.

No Whining sign at Cracker Barrel in Utah
My sis got a good laugh over this.

DO take road trips often and to places you haven't seen before.

To travel is to take a journey into yourself

Journeying through Menopause,
Lori

Linking up to Natasha's Wake Up Wednesday Link party over at Epic Mommy Adventures. Go visit her and link up your post too! 

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Friday Fragments that are just really all over the place

If I were a dog, this is what Fridays would feel like:


If I had big ears and jowls, they'd be just a flappin' away. Fortunately, I don't. Yet.

Anyhoo, Friday means it's time to link up to Mrs. 4444's Friday Fragments and post the silly little bits and pieces from the week. I only have a few this week due to the fact I am just dang tired and need to get off the computer and go to bed early on this Thursday night.

Who am I kidding? My Friday nights are really no different.

Frag #1
I'm so excited because my daughter, Sissa, who has been off having naked adventures in Hawaii for the last 9 months, is coming home on Saturday! We've all missed her so much and I can't wait to see her and hear all about her life-changing experiences and live vicariously through her.

Frag #2
My younger daughter, The Girl (that nickname just stuck from way back when we watched The Simpsons), went with her church to a mission in Mexico last week. They preached in a sort of homeless camp called Tent City which is in the desert next to a dump. I suppose it's not really a homeless camp, because for the people that live there, it is their home.

The people there are so poor they live on about $3.00 a week. They give birth there and their kids are raised there and that's the only life the kids know. The missionaries preach to them and give them hope, but they also bring them blankets and other supplies to help them out. It was an eye-opening experience for her and she wants to go back again.

It warmed my heart to watch her speak at her church about the experience. Just a couple years ago, she was in much the same situation as many of those people she preached to - homeless, addicted, lost. It was her found faith that turned her around. Well...jail helped...but she needed something to hang onto to keep her clean after that and fear of jail wasn't enough to do it. But faith was.

I'm just very proud of her for how far she's come.

Frag #3
I wrote a post about Pinterest successes and failures for Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop and made a lovely image to put on Pinterest about some Thanksgiving ornaments I made with The Girl, out of artificial leaves.

Only I spelled it "artifical."

Fical, as in fecal.

As in poo.

Yes, I put on Pinterest that my ornaments were made of poo. Perfect. The post wasn't live too long before I caught my typo and made a new image and fixed it.

Oh, and here's a pic of the Thanksgiving tree The Girl and I made together last weekend. Oddly, and related to my poo debacle (defecal?), she thought the long, narrow, brown pinecone ornaments looked like poo.

This is why my husband calls me and all of his in-laws "The Fecalsons". Somehow, we always manage to talk about poo.

Anyway, here's the tree:

Make a Thanksgiving Tree from leaf garland, ribbon, and leaf stems
Our Thanksgiving Tree!

Frag #4
Lastly, I had fun this week participating in Blogtober week with the SITS Girls. It was a social media link up party and they focused on a different social media platform each day. They covered Instagram, Google+, Pinterest, Twitter, and tomorrow is Facebook.

They give tips on how to use all the different platforms then everybody links up their profiles and follows everybody else. It was fun to find new bloggers to read and follow and I learned a lot of great tips for using all of these mediums to promote my writing and my blog.

Speaking of social media parties, there's one on Saturday nights that's fun too. It's hosted by Epic Mommy Adventures and you can link up all your profiles and follow other people and all their profiles. It's a lot of fun and I just realized how it sounds like I have no life if I'm sitting on my computer on Saturday night. But there you have it. That's my life.

That's it for my frags this week. I wish everyone a great weekend!

Pooped,
Lori

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Fall Leaf Ornaments and a Thanksgiving Tree. Blame Pinterest.

Linking up with Mama Kat's Workshop again this week. The prompt I chose is:
1. "Create something inspired by Pinterest - was it a win or a fail?"

Fall leaf ornament to decorate a Thanksgiving tree

I'm a sucker for cute crafts that look easy and for suckers like me, Pinterest is like the conman on the corner with an overcoat full of shiny watches just waiting for a chump to meander by.

I meander daily. And I pin all sorts of crafts and recipes that I'd like to try. Most of them I never get to, but last year my daughter, sister, and I decided to decorate some pumpkins for Halloween using some ideas we found on Pinterest.

I decided to try to make a version of these:

Sequined pumpkin craft

Glitter polka dot pumpkins

It looked easy enough. For the sequined one, you paint the pumpkin white, spread glue all over the top of it and sprinkle on the sequins. For the glitter ones, you buy "glue dots" and stick those on, then sprinkle glitter on them.

I couldn't find "glue dots". I bought the little glue circles that you use to stick pictures in a scrapbook because that was the closest thing I could find. They were small, but I figured it was okay because I was using small craft pumpkins, not the regular size ones shown in the picture.

The problem was, when you peel the perfect circle dot of glue off the paper, it is no longer a circle. It is a blob. I wound up with blobs of glitter all over the pumpkins.

And as for the sequins, well...they just didn't look the same. Maybe the sequins I used were too big. I don't know. But it didn't look like the picture. at. all.

Then I thought I could rescue the whole failed attempt by painting letters on the pumpkins. I thought I would spell out "Give Thanks" and put them on my mantle.

I tried to freestyle the letters. It looked like a 5 year old wrote them. Truly. It was a mess. See for yourself:

Sequined pumpkin project that didn't turn out very well

As you can see, I didn't bother making the "Thanks."

But...this story has a happy ending.

My daughter and I pulled out the remainder of the pumpkins this year and decided to just throw some glitter all over the little bastards and see how that turned out:

glitter pumpkins for Fall

Glitter makes everything better! I'm going to do the rest of them in a variety of colors and call it a day.

The sneaky conman that is Pinterest struck again this year. I saw a couple Thanksgiving trees and decided I had to make one.


But before I could do that, I had to make some Fall-ish ornaments. So I saw these and decided to make my own version of them, with my daughter's help:

Decoupaged leaf ornament
Source
If you look close, they decoupaged the leaf to the outside of a clear ornament. 

Yeah. Too complicated. 

I decided to roll up the leaves lengthwise and slip them inside the ornament. Once inside, they unroll and stick to the sides. We used a pencil to sort of arrange them in there how we wanted them. We put 3 - 4 leaves in each one. 

Make your own ornaments with artificial leaves and cler ornaments
Pinterest Success!

For the tree, I bought some dollar star leaf garland, some leaf stems, ribbon at Wal-mart, and pulled out some sparkly pinecone Christmas ornaments that I already had.

Here's the result:

Decorate a tree for thanksgiving with leaf garland and Fall ribbon
Thanksgiving Tree!
For the topper, we looped the ribbon a bunch of times and tied it with a twist tie to hold it, then stuck a bunch of leaf stems together and twist tied the whole thing to the top:

Fall Thanksgiving tree topper from ribbon and leaf stems
Not bad for a Pinterest chump
My faith in Pinterest restored, I'm now on the hunt for cute Christmas ornaments to make. I'm such a sucker.

How about you? Any Pinterest fails or successes to confess?

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

It's Okay to Be Real On A Tuesday

Tuesday means I get to name some of the dumb lazy things I do and declare them okay because it's "Hey, It's Okay Tuesday." And this Tuesday I'm adding in a little something I call "getting real on Tuesday."

No, that's not a thing, but it so happens that all the things I'm sharing come with pictures and the pictures ain't pretty but they're real. Except for maybe the one of my dog. She's kind of cute.

Anyhoo, link up with Amber over at Airing My Dirty Laundry and share your "It's Okays" and join the fun. You don't have to get real if you don't want to. That's just me cause that's my mood tonight.

Airing My Dirty Laundry


It's okay to let your office-craft-writing-space-atorium be messy while you blog because if you took the time to clean it up, you wouldn't have time to write. And if you don't write, you go a little crazy. It's a simple matter of priorities.

Now for the "Getting Real" part:


I don't clean so I can blog. My messy office.

I warned you it wasn't pretty.

It's okay to let your clean laundry sit from Sunday to Tuesday Wednesday. My brother's birthday was Sunday, so I stashed all the laundry up in my room in order to enjoy the birthday drinking festivities. Monday was work all day of course, then Monday night I'm writing this post so...the laundry sits. 

Maybe I'll get it put away tomorrow. Or maybe not. 

Sometimes I let my housework go so I can blog

It's okay to put Halloween costumes on your dogs. It might not be okay with the dogs, however.

My chihuahua, Lucy, let me put this hamburger costume on her

And finally, it's okay to share the results of your neurotic eye cream test with the world. At least 3 curious readers asked in the comments whether my eye cream test worked from my last "It's Okay" post, so I thought I'd post the results here.

I could have swore I still had the before and after pics, but I must have deleted them. Bugger. I wanted to show you the difference.

You'll just have to trust me that the end result was that the cream worked!

I looked less like a wrinkled, menopausal, sleep-deprived lush than I did two weeks prior. 

Sounds like a winning ad campaign to me.

Olay eye lifting serum worked on my eye wrinkles
Olay Regenerating Eye Lifting Serum
I liked that I could put this cream on my eyelids as well as under my eyes. At night I put it on my lids and all around my eyes and in the morning I just put it under and on the corner "laugh lines" (dubbed such because if you were told at age 20 that you would eventually get these, you laughed. Oh, the sweet, ignorant bliss of youth.).

Real-ly,
Lori



Thursday, October 16, 2014

Crockpot Chicken Vegetable Chowder

I love my crockpot, especially now that the weather is getting cooler. I just throw stuff in it in the morning, turn it on, and when I get home from work - voila! Dinner! Hot soup, creamy chowder, melt in your mouth roast...it makes coming home all the sweeter.

I especially like it when I can make something healthy in it that everybody in the family likes. And by "family" I mean the hubs because he's a meat and potatoes man who makes a face like this when I say we're having chicken:



So it's a pain in the ass challenge to make something healthy that he'll actually eat...and like.

But this he will eat.


Maybe part of the reason he likes my Crockpot Chicken Vegetable Chowder is because it's delicious with warm, crispy french rolls or breadsticks and he does like his bread. If I pair stuff he doesn't like with stuff he likes, sometimes he'll eat it.

He once told me, "You know how much of the stuff I don't like to put in the stuff I like to make me like it." 

So there you have it.

Back to the recipe. What I like about it is that it's easy. There's no browning or pre-sauteeing. Just dump everything in the crockpot and let it cook. Easy peasy.

Start by cutting up 1 pound of chicken breasts into about 1 inch pieces and throw those in the crockpot.

Then cut up the vegetables. This chowder is loaded with veggies - carrots, broccoli, mushroom, corn - it's another reason I like it. Good and healthy. 



I have to go easy on the mushrooms though because the hubs doesn't like them but I do. So I cut them in large slices and pick them out of his bowl when I serve it. Yeah, I'm nice like that.

After the chicken and veggies, you dump in a can of cream of potato soup, some chicken broth, minced garlic, thyme, salt, and fresh ground black pepper, and give it all a good stir.

If you don't like to use processed foods, you can peel and boil a couple potatoes and throw them in your food processor or blender with a little chicken broth and salt. Then pulse it till it's a similar consistency to cream of potato soup and use that instead.


Then put the lid on, turn 'er on, and you're good to go.

It's important to cook this on low because the broccoli can get pretty mushy if it cooks on high or cooks too long. About 5 hours on low is good.

Taste the broth after a few hours and see if it needs more salt, pepper or thyme. It wasn't until after I married my first husband I realized I needed to taste as I cooked. I have to admit, some of my earlier meals were pretty bland. Bland meals + critical husband = unhappy wife.

But I digress.

Once the chicken and veggies are cooked, add some milk or half-and-half and turn on high for about 15 minutes until it's heated through. This is what gives it the creamy chowder consistency. The recipe calls for half-and-half, but I've used low-fat milk and it comes out just fine. 

It's important to add the milk at the end because if you add it at the beginning it will curdle and although it will taste fine, it won't look very good. (See disclaimer at end of post.)

Creamy = appetizing; Curdley = hubby or kids that probably won't eat it.

At this point, you can add some cheese if you like and turn it into Crockpot Cheesy Chicken Vegetable Chowder. Cheese tends to make everything more palatable for picky husbands and kids, doesn't it?

I made this last weekend again and it was delish! My sister-in-law said it was the best soup she's had in a long time.

Here's the full recipe:

1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 can (14 ounces) chicken broth
1 can (10 and 3/4 ounces) condensed cream of potato soup (See above for alternative)
10 ounces fresh or frozen cut up broccoli
1 cup sliced carrots
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup whole kernel corn (fresh or frozen)
4 and 1/2 ounces sliced mushrooms (fresh or canned)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
1/2 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
1/3 cup half-and-half (or milk - 2% works fine too)
1/2 cup cheddar cheese (optional)

Combine all ingredients except half-and-half or milk in slow cooker. Cover and cook on LOW 5 hours or until vegetables are tender and chicken is no longer pink.Stir in milk or half-and-half. Turn to HIGH. Cover and cook 15 minutes or until heated through.

If you try this, let me know how it comes out for you in the comments. Do you have a favorite crockpot recipe?

Linking up to Mama Kat's "What's Cooking in your Slow Cooker" writing prompt this week. Hop over to her site and check out what's cooking!

Mama’s Losin’ It


P.S. I doubt I'll ever make it as a  food blogger because it's probably in poor taste to put a GIF of a guy making a disgusting face in the same post as your recipe. Who does that? Me, apparently.

P.S.S. I have to confess that although I've made this a few times now, this last time I forgot and put the milk in at the beginning. So the result was delicious-but-not-picture-worthy-curdley-chowder. I had to use a different picture and in the interest of full disclosure I should tell you that. The pretty picture of the chowder in the bowl looks just like the recipe chowder does though, really it does. (Pic Source)

Sigh.
Honestly Yours,
Lori

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Wordless Wednesday - Sisters

My younger daughter (on the left) is a recovering addict. We saw very little of her during her 18th year, while she was in the clutches of her disease. This picture was taken about 6 months after she began her recovery journey. Everytime I look at it I'm filled with gratitude and hope.


Linking up with Mrs. Tee for Wordless Wednesday this week. (Well, almost wordless).
Happy Wednesday!

MrsTeeLoveLifeLaughter


Thursday, October 9, 2014

Friday Fragment Time!

Friday, Friday, how I do love thee!

Friday happy dance by Chan and Tucker

Share your weekly fragments in a post on fridays and link up with Mrs. 444 at Half-Past Kissin' Time!

I'm keeping them short and sweet this week because I really want to read something enlightening clean spend quality time with my family go catch up on some shows I DVR'd.

Frag #1
Ebola in the U.S. Did we ever think that would happen? The "experts" are telling us it's spread through direct contact with bodily fluids of an infected person...and through surfaces that have those fluids on them, like sheets, clothing, etc.

So my questions is...how long does the virus live on these surfaces? The Texas deputy who they suspect is sick with it now, had gone into the apartment where the first infected guy had lived. And now he's showing symptoms. The test results are supposed to come back Friday night.

Scary stuff. I think we have a false sense of security here in the U.S., like the diseases that plague third world countries won't find us. But one certainly has now. Maybe more resources should have been put towards finding an antibody for Ebola.

And what if it mutates and goes airborne? It's the stuff movies are made of, isn't it?

I just hope it doesn't happen on a Friday cause that would totally harsh my weekend.

Frag #2
Shameless plug time. I get really happy when I post 3 or more times in one week because, well, it's hard when you work full time, am I right?

My daughter Sis, the one who is in Hawaii, had her 23rd birthday last week. I posted a quick Happy Birthday post for her which she won't see for another 2 weeks. She's hiked back into the remote beach on Kauai that has come to be her home now. There is no phone or internet service there. She's coming home to me October 29th, finally!

Last Thursday I shared what happens When Good Girls Go to 'N Sync Concerts. It involves cops.

Tuesday I participated in a new (to me anyway) blog meme from Airing My Dirty Laundry called It's Okay Tuesday where you say some goofy things you did and declare them okay.

And yesterday I shared some funny texts between me and the hubby for Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop.

Whew, blogging is tiring! Ok, I'm done shameless plugging.

Frag #3
Ever wonder what it would look like if Spike TV took over the Food Network Channel? Wonder no more:


Frag #4
Lastly, just had to share these fun Halloween treat ideas from Pinterest. Oreo Eyeball pops, which are oreos dipped in white chocolate with life savers as the eyes and Monster Caramel corn with candy googly eyes in them. They'd be cute to hand out at a Halloween party. Sharing them at the end of the post because of my HTML coding ineptness.

Happy Friday, All!

Still Plugging Away,
Lori


My Hat Was Non

Linking up with Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop. The topic this week is to share a recent text exchange that made me laugh.

Mama’s Losin’ It


My husband has a great sense of humor. It's one of the reasons I married him. That and he was willing to take on my three kids, which is quite an undertaking for a guy with a vasectomy.

Marilyn Monroe quote with a funny retort about men

Anyhoo, he can write some texts that just crack me the freak up.

Like this gem from a few weeks ago. My sister, Bon, and I were about to leave town to spend a few days at a condo in Brianhead, Utah. It was our now annual Sister's Trip, where we leave husbands (Fred and John), kids, and jobs behind and just bicker and drink hang out together.

We were gassing up the car before we left town and I told her to answer a text from my hubby while I put gas in the car. An easy task for most people, but my sister thinks she has a supersonic magnetic field which prevents her from using a touchscreen.

I know, right? She still has a Blackberry with actual buttons.

So she's trying to text him back from my iphone and hitting all the wrong keys and then auto-correct kicks in and she sends something that makes no sense at all. Keep in mind it's from my phone so he thinks it's me.

So here's how the conversation went. My sister's words are in green:


That last line is because my sister took a pee can (Yes, it's a can in which one pees) with her on our last sister's camping trip and used it in our tent and once in the car. And God knows where else.

And yet, our annual Sister's Trip continues.

Here's one more text gem between the hubs and me. He can be a helluva bit of a procrastinator at times and I mentioned in a blog post recently that he was loafing. A few days later we had this exchange:


I love it when I can crack him the freak up.

Freakily funny,
Lori

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Hey, It's Okay Tuesday!

Linking up with Amber at Airing My Dirty Laundry today for her "Hey, It's Okay, Tuesday" meme. You know, like they do in Glamour magazine where they list a bunch of stuff and declare that they are all okay to do?

No? That's okay (see how easy that is?). Just list some stuff you did and declare it okay and get on with your life. And link up and share so we can all see how weird you are and feel like we belong.

Airing My Dirty Laundry

It's Okay...

...to buy a new eye cream promising results in 2 weeks and take a close up picture of your eyes with no makeup the day you start using the cream and another one two weeks later to see if it's working. That's perfectly normal and not neurotic or spazztic at all.

...to spend a rainy day off work doing nothing but pinning Fall and Halloween decorating ideas on Pinterest, downloading photo editing apps for your iPhone, catching up on blog reading, and procrastinating running your errands. In my defense, I was waiting for the rain to let up. It was a pretty steady drizzle.

...to return a lipstick that looked like a good color in the store, but you later realized after wearing it at work all day, was hideous on you. Here's what that looks like when you look in the mirror:


Why don't drugstores have samples for crying out loud??

...to do a half-assed job mopping your floor because, damn it, you just don't feel like it!

...to decide you're going to have a Thanksgiving tree this year because the ones you see on Pinterest are so darn cute and you're pretty certain you can put one together with dollar store stuff and the holidays aren't busy enough without adding one more thing to decorate to the list. Look how friggin' cute this is - now I have to run out and buy pie slice ornaments. (photo is at the end of this post because I haven't figured out how to make the code put the darn thing where I want it).

...to post really short blog posts once in a while because A. - you're hungry and B - you've procrastinated your exercises long enough and even though you don't feel like doing them you know you really need to get your desperately-in-need-of-exercise-butt off the computer and go do them.

Wrinkled, hideous and a Thanksweenie,
Lori

Thursday, October 2, 2014

What Happens When Good Girls Go To 'N Sync Concerts

Linking up with Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop again this week cause I'm lazy and don't have to think up my own topics her topics are always interesting and fun.

The topic I chose this week is to share an old photo of myself and tell you about it.

Mama’s Losin’ It

I have to preface this by saying, I was a "good girl" my entire life. I never rebelled as a teenager. I always wanted to please my parents. The worst thing I did as a teenager was to crank call a guy I had a crush on and ask for "Sophie" when his mom answered the phone. I didn't even disguise my voice, so it was no surprise when I answered the phone a few days later and it was his mom, asking for "Sophie."

I was sooooo busted.

Yeah, I know. Boring.

My point is, I walked the straight and narrow my whole life and after my divorce in 1999, I kind of rebelled a little.

And my cousin was always nearby to help me. My outgoing, effervescent cousin. (And I so had to google "effervescent" to make sure I spelled it right. Nailed it!)

Anyhoo, here's my photo:

And no, I have no idea why I was standing like that or why I choose the shower curtain in my cousin's bathroom as the backdrop.

But let's just address the far bigger question - what the hell was up with my hair?? I may have thought the strategically placed strands around my face looked wind tossed and wild, when in fact it looks like I'm wearing warpaint.

Here's what I do know - my cousin and I were going out that night and my husband (who was my boyfriend at the time) was our designated driver.

Which meant my cousin and I would be bringing flasks.

My cousin had to give her niece a ride to an outdoor 'N Sync concert. Her niece was meeting up with some friends, so we only had to give her a ride there, then a ride home. It was a distance from our homes and we didn't want to drop her off then go back and pick her up, so we decided to stay for the concert. No parental supervision was involved, which was a good thing because we were not the best examples of maturity and composure that night.

Did I mention we brought flasks?

When we got there, my cousin and I found a spot on the bleachers that we thought was away from the crowd for the most part and started girl talking and laughing and sipping on our flasks and having a grand 'ole time.

Then the cops show up.

I kid you not, we look up from our flask merry-making and two cops are looking down at us. This is how the conversation goes:

Cops - Are you ladies ok?
Me - Oh, yeahhh, we're fine, thanks for checking!
Cops - Are you smoking pot?
Cousin - No, you got some?
Cops (smiling because my cousin can be very charming) - Some people are complaining that you're talking very loud and inappropriately.
Me (looking around, embarrassed) - We ARE?
Cousin (indignantly, because that's her style) - WHAT people?
Cops (laughing a little because clearly we were harmless) - Just some people. This is a family crowd you know. Maybe you should move a little further away from everybody.

Apparently, someone sitting a few rows behind us complained that we were loud, obnoxious, and were smoking pot. We weren't smoking pot, and I don't think we were all that loud or obnoxious...although I do remember us laughing and talking about sex...maybe just a little.

So we moved our party away from the civilized people.

I was embarrassed. My cousin was "Whatevs." But a few more sips from the flasks and the merry-making returned to normal.

And that's my story to go with my wild-haired I-think-I'm-hot-stuff picture.

I know. It's like the crank call to my crush all over again. Mildly amusing, but not terribly wild and crazy.

What about you? Were you a "good girl" or a "rebel" for most of your life? Do tell!