A few things:

-I learned today that vinegar is good for a sunburn. It takes the heat out, leaving you with a beautiful tan. I learned this from my 92-year-old coworker/friend, who I was driving home from a Rehabilitation Center. So...if he says it, it must be true.

-I went and played this weekend, and now I can't wake up at all. I was hoping to clean today, butttt......

-Neither myself or Aiden's dad played any kind of sport growing up. So explain to me how the kid is already interested in playing catch? Also, he can distinguish baseballs from footballs. Kid's a winner.

-That being said, he's also two. TWO. Do you know of the "terrible two's"? Wanna babysit?

-It seems like a good idea in theory to cook pasta in the leftover broth from potato soup when the potatoes are gone, but it's really not. I am wanting to experiment more with cooking pasta directly in the sauce (the starch in the pasta thickens the sauce), but the result of this experiment was a VERY filling, starchy, goopy, only-kinda-good mess. Take note of that. When I perfect this, I may add it to the food blog.

-I think I forgot about my food blog. What food blog? Hum.

-Oh, that one. Okay. Well, I do have pictures on my phone for that. Le sigh.

-I picked out a very flattering black (floor length, don't worry) dress for C's hitchin' party. I got it on sale. It is the right color. It does not have to be altered (yet...here's hoping...). I was a winner that day.

-Yawn.

Update/List

Oh, an update! Okay.
Well, nothing's going on with me, except intentionally keeping busy.

In the month of January, I discovered that one of my favorite things is doing nothing at all. 
Which is sort of exactly like the entire movie "Office Space".
Anyway.

Also, one of my favorite things to do are things. 
My schedule has been quickly filling up, with hardly any effort on my part.
And I like it.

First there was the color run, which is March 2nd.
Cool.
Then, Oh, Miranda Lambert's coming to town? Sign me up!
Then, my weekends with Aiden got switched around and as it turns out, I'm free for Rednecks with Paychecks. Sweet.
Family camping trip the very next weekend? Of course!

Then there's the fact that my sister is getting married.
Also? Let's go ahead and have her checked out, because she's asked me to be maid of honor.
MOH for short.
I'll answer to Mo.
So add in activities for that, which so far include:
-Wedding Dress Shopping
-BM Dress Shopping
-Theater scoping (Theater wedding! We need ideas)
-BM/B dinner discussing dates for shindigs.

Le sigh.

I like it though.

And that's it for Anna World.

OH. EXCEPT.

I'm forming a list to entertain you with.

You're welcome.

That moment when...

You know how sometimes you move into an apartment, and you decide that internet is more important than cable, so you go ahead and go without cable?"
And then as a result, you can't watch the superbowl, but it's not such a huge horrendous big deal, because HELLO, you've got the internet and social media to let you know how awkward it was that Beyonce stuck her lady junk in stranger's faces.
So you watch monster trucks with your son until he goes to bed, and then you're all, "Wow, it's 60 degrees in February, that's cause for some celebration!"
So you get out the cookies that you've been saving from last week that you baked because you were PMSing, but now you just sort of want to treat yourself for the tiring run you took (it made sense in your head). And then you decide "WHAT THE HELL, I live alone, and it IS 60 degrees out, I'll eat these cookies in my underwear like the single lady I am!"
And you take a sort of strange pride in this, and even tweet it, as sort of a HAHAHAH to those who are stuck watching the superbowl with their husbands or boyfriends or what have you. And you even get a reply to your tweet, a sarcastic "we should probably just get married right now." from your friend Shelby, who you went to high school with.
But then....OH and then...you begin to eat said cookies, careful not to hit the canker sore that has formed on the roof of your mouth. But, the cookie has hardened some, and that cold sore is worse than it has been in days, so you hit it, of course, and want to cry-but instead you just use some rinse stuff your brother's girlfriend gave you. The rinse tastes disgusting and makes you hate not having cookies that much more.
And after the rinse you don't even want cookies anymore, because eff you, cookies!  If not for y'all then I wouldn't have thought to use this stupid rinse again in the first place!
So you just go back to watching Grey's Anatomy, like any normal night.

...That's never happened to you?

Uhm. *cough* Me either.

No title necessary, Bob.

I'm sorry I called you Bob.
Unless that is, in fact, your name. Then...hi Bob! Thanks for visiting Anna-land.

I've learned a few things about myself recently:

-(I think) I process stress physically. For instance, with deadlines approaching and much work to do, instead of crying or exploding on a random citizen, I just get short of breath. And increasingly irritable.

-More than one exclamation point really annoys me. I don't know why. But it's especially not okay when guys do it. I realized this was an issue when texting a friend of mine, "It will never work with so-and-so. He uses more than one exclamation point."

-I tan SUPER fast. Why? I think I'm some percentage Native American. But not enough to go to college for free. Le sigh.

-When I decide to work from home, I get tired faster.

-I may be a bit of a hypochondriac...My wrist hurt earlier this week, so I assumed that I was dying of carpal tunnel. So I went and bought a fancy wrist stabilizer thingy-ma-bob. But, to be fair, since I wore it that one day my wrist hasn't bothered me as much.

-When I'm tired, I'm EVEN MORE easily distracted.

-Yes, I'm aware that you can't die from carpal tunnel. I had a super annoying/painful case of it when I was pregnant with the tiny tornado (Aiden), and the most it ever harmed was my ability to brush my teeth. And type. And write.

-The easily distracted bit doesn't help with the whole "working from home" deal.

-I like to practice my handwriting, and have been pondering the theory that your handwriting can tell a lot about your personality. But...if you change your handwriting, does that change your personality? Hmm...

-I wrote this blog instead of working from home.

The Aiden Language, Exposed.

My son’s vocabulary had an explosion.

Before December 14, 2012, I could count the number of words the kid said on both hands. I was honestly worried about it. He wouldn’t say momma. He wouldn’t say daddy. He wouldn’t specify his beverage of choice, other than “juice”, which came out “douche”. That was good for laughs, at first.

On his second birthday, something had happened. He started talking. Maybe not precisely on the second birthday, but definitely around that time. One night, my mother was reading to him, and he randomly started naming off all of the characters in the book (which was, of course, a Cars book).

I’m having so much fun listening to him. I finally understand what people were talking about when they say you understand your own kid more than you would a strange one, because they kind of have their own words for things.

This is especially true in his names for the Cars characters.

But, for your reference, I have provided a full list of the Cars characters, according to Aiden:

“Cup” – Lightning McQueen

“Chow” – Lightning McQueen

“Mars” – Tow Mater

“Do” – Guido

“Sho” – Flo

“Damone” – Ramone

“Bed” – Red

“SaRsh” – Sarge (This is sometimes said in a lower, extremely hilarious voice. R is capital because of the special attention that letter is paid.)

“Kee” – King

“CHICK HICKS!” – Chick Hicks (yep, you guessed it. This is shouted.)

“Doc” – Doc Hudson

“Sah-ee” – Sally

“Eh-more” – Filmore

I’d also like to add that he doesn’t only talk about Cars. But in Aiden’s world, that is a legit list.

Also? “Shit” is Shirt. Just for clarification.

Put this in your juicebox...

First of all, I don't know about you guys, but I can't read the stories about Connecticut for more than about five seconds without tearing up. To think of those twenty (20!) young children...I just can't. It's just unfair. And that's all I can really say about it.

But, since America needs answers, they'll argue until they come to an "agreement". I say "agreement" because in my mind, there's NO ANSWER for preventing what happened to stop happening. Everyone has their point of view.

First shooting I remember is Columbine. Teens shooting their peers. And building crappy bombs.

Then, other shootings pop up.

The movie theater shooting in Colorado. During The Dark Knight Rises no less, a movie which I had high interest in seeing, but still haven't managed to. That shooting is in the back of my mind every time I think about watching it.

Then a mall shooting? Ridiculous.

Then an elementary school. Where are we safe, really?

In my opinion, guns are just the easy way out. Did the masterminds between 9/11 use guns? Nope...box cutters. And planes. And buildings. Guns are just the easy way out. But that's just my opinion.

It's too easy for me to blame guns. That's not the answer. I was raised in Texas, around a step-father who had guns from the time I very first knew him. I've never shot a single living thing. I've never had the desire to. Even in my darkest times, I've never wanted to harm anyone, unless you count throwing a sock at an ex boyfriend. And you know what? Even that was just a scenario in my head. I walked away. I cooled off. I came up with a plan b.

If anything, I'm leaning more toward mental illness, and bringing awareness to everyone.
I've posted earlier about the battle between the good and evil inside everyone.
Doesn't it make sense that these monsters let their evil win? That they fed their evil until it broke them and led to these tragedies?

One of my favorite writers is Jenny Lawson.
She has the ability to cheer me up even on my shittiest of days.
She suffers from mental illness. She has brought so much good to this issue though, and she has brightened more lives than just mine with her honesty about herself. Through her, and because of her, people have sought out to get the help they need.

It's not always enough.
Jenny's latest blog post describes a personal tragedy, a close friend of her family taking his own life. She describes how he attempted to go get help for himself, but it was denied.
She tells about how even when she found a doctor that could help her, the doctor wouldn't take her insurance, so Jenny pays thousands of dollars out of pocket to keep herself sane.

It shouldn't come to thousands of dollars.

20 children lost their life. Babies. That's not okay.

All I'm saying is...be aware.
Be aware of those around you. Be aware of yourself.

And read Jenny. She could brighten your day too.

Sonic Rant FTW.

Dear Person Who Orders Food at the Drive-Thru at Sonic,

Listen. I get it. You just wanted food for your entire extended family, and you wanted it now. Maybe your mother never taught you to cook. Maybe you have a fear of ovens or microwaves...whatever it is that stopped you from *cooking* for you family. Hey, maybe they just dropped in on you! Which...family is pretty much known for.
Maybe it's not even family, maybe it's your night to bring snacks to Little Jimmy's Soccer Team! In which case, we should probably discuss that you need to bring healthy snacks to that kind of thing, but, that is for another day, another letter.

What I'm trying to say is...no one is judging you for ordering that much food.
However, when I'm sitting in the drive-thru behind you, stuck, after ordering only  my Large Diet Dr. Pepper with easy ice and sugar free cherry, I am judging you harshly. 
This is sonic, dude.
There are places to pull in and park for large orders.
It's America's Drive IN not drive THRU.
Maybe I was on my way to work! Maybe I was late picking up my kid! Maybe I was just super thirsty and couldn't even make it up to the window because of your gigantic order.
You can almost expect that this will happen anywhere else but Sonic. You're almost TRICKED into believing that your food will arrive faster at Sonic, because you're not stuck behind people like you at the drive thru.

I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and believe that maybe this was just a one time thing. Maybe you didn't know you needed that much food-maybe you originally just wanted a drink and then, on impulse, decided to feed your entire extended family. Just...next time...remember us behind you.

I'd sure appreciate it.

Lots of Love,

Anna




[This post is at the request of my momma, who felt stabby at this situation. I actually prefer my diet dr. peppers plain and simple, with the normal amount of ice.]