oh people

I'm absolutely mortified and full of impotent rage at the two con artists who stole ChiChi's purse yesterday. What is WRONG with people? What makes some people think it's ok to just CRAP all over someone else? It's not likely that these two people stole for survival. It's doubtful that they stole because they were starving, or their children were freezing. They stole from an honest person who was only doing her job, and they did it because they could.

How heartless do you have to be to do such a thing? Do they care that the bag was a beloved Christmas gift from her nephew? Or that losing her digital camera is absolutely devastating to her, a scrapbooker & memory keeper? Regardless of the hassle, not even considering the headache of having to cancel accounts, replace a drivers license and social security card, it's just an awful violation of her privacy and her trust.

It's a pretty sad day when you have to feel insecure in your own little business in your own little hometown.

People are mean.

tastes like a mistake!

I'm a huge fan of Dove milk chocolate. HUGE. I'm not a fan of most chocolate. In fact, I'm not a fan of ANY chocolate BUT Dove milk chocolate. So, I'm in Kmart today (because Wal-mart is the debble) and I spot some delicious looking Dove chocolate bars with roasted almonds...heaven! I buy one & save it for later. Then, later (in the parking lot outside the store, but still. It was later.) I opened it and took a big bite and...gah. meh. pfft. DARK chocolate.

You know how it is when your mind is so set on one thing only to have something totally different happen? There's a moment of complete primordial blankness before your consciousness re-boots & you realize what just happened. Like when you expect to take a big drink of milk and it turns out to be 7up? Or when you expect to watch the Super Bowl Half-Time show and instead you see Janet Jackson's pancake boob? Or how it feels to see the quarterback from your high school football team dressed up as a woman at a gay bar in downtown Portland?

Well, these things happen. And when they do...total overload. Brain collapses into a big gooey black hole and X's appear where your eyes used to be. Maybe only for a moment, but a moment is all it takes to leave you dry-mouthed and paranoid for the rest of the day. Double checking your food before you put it in your mouth, peering into your glass before you drink, avoiding gay bars in downtown Portland. You understand.

It's been 9 hours and I'm STILL confused. Dark chocolate?! Bah. BAH!

website for dummies!

Check out our Paper House website!

www.paperhousescrapbooking.com

I did it myself. It's not fancy and it's not high-tech, and it MAY look a leetle bit like a 9th grader's computer class project, but it's my first try! Gimme a break, dudes! :-)

Click on all the "links". That's what they're called. We website designers know the jargon. Don't feel bad if you don't understand all the technical terms. LOL!

What's that smell?

Does entrepeneurialism have an odor? Does it taste like burning? Is it the smell of stretching a dollar til it explodes into a thousand itty bitty pieces? Wait. What does THAT smell like? I think it maybe smells AND taste like worry ? Whatever it is, it's definitely terrifying. I've never been one of those entrepeneurialdoohickies before and I gotta say...it involves a whole lot of tastes and smells that I'm just not accustomed to. Yikes.

Hold my purse, Mabel. I'm goin' in.

Fridaythankgawd

The flu makes the week just craaaawl by. I attempted to work 4 out of the 5 days and was only successful for one of them. I worked a grand total of 20 hours...but I slept a total of, oh, about 72 hours.

I'd show up at the office and my co-workers would literally use the bristly end of a broom to push me back out the door. And, to add insult to bristly injury, I was told countless times how bad I looked. My all time favorite, "Kelly, you look like you could really use some rest", so diplomatic. Also, "Kelly, you've got germs on you so big I can see them crawling around. Go home." Nice.

They know what's good for me, so home I went. But laying in bed and me go together like spaghetti & tuna fish. I could actually HEAR my house getting dirtier. And the laundry was whispering to me from the bathroom. And I think my kids have been eating Hershey's Kisses and potato chips for dinner every day this week.

I'm fairly convinced that my kids would live in utter filth and absolute squalor if I would just be reasonable. They'd be completely at home in the gutters of the London slums circa 1890. Filthy.

So, I've got big plans this weekend, oh yeah. Laundry, sweeping, mopping, vacuuming, dusting...aaah. Heaven! Oooh, ooh, and the walls in the bathroom need washed!

I no longer have the flu...but I may very well have a different kind of sickness. A sickness that can only be cured with the smell of bleach and Pine-Sol. I can't wait for tomorrow!

Adventures in closed captioning

I'm home with the flu and daytime television still sucks. I find myself watching the 40 Most Softsational Soft-Rock Songs on VH1...yes, I'm that desperate.

So I get a phone call & put the TV on mute. While my caller is droning on and on and on about whatever (ok, it was my husband, but he did drone on and on), I had one eye on the TV. The closed captions automatically come on when the TV's on mute and this is what I saw:

"...Debbie Boone, daughter of 60s coroner, Pat Boone..." 60s coroner? So if I'm deaf, and I don't know any better, I'm going to think Pat Boone was some famous coroner back in the 60s, embalmed all the biggest stars? Soft-rocked 'em to death?

Then.

"...the ultimate 50s soft rock song, Earth Anel..." So if I'm deaf, and I can't spell, I think that in the 50s, everybody was totally into something called Earth Anal?

Closed captioning is AWESOME. I'm gonna watch everything with it turned on FROM NOW ON!

does being rich make you stupid?

Why can't rich people pay their taxes? How many have been felled by that simplest, most unavoidable part of American citizenship? Haven't they ever seen the bumper stickers? DEATH and TAXES. Are they worried that if they pay the $128,000 tax bill, they won't have enough to pay their power bill? Don't they know that McDonalds has a Dollar Menu?

Let's do the math. I'm a millionaire. I own houses in New York, Gstaad, and a little winter place in the Bahamas. I eat $4500 dinners and wear $600 socks. I make seven figures a year and I owe $128,000 in taxes. I don't pay. Not because I can't afford it but because it's only a big deal if you get caught. They'll only find out if I'm nominated for some government position and what are the chances of that? Besides, is the IRS really gonna be crippled without my measly $128k?

Now. Say I'm a regular working-class citizen. I own one 1300 square foot house in a small town. I spend $300 per month on groceries for a family of four and I make five figures a year. I owe $700 in taxes. I can't pay because if I do, I can't pay my mortgage. I've always paid my taxes before and I've never even been late. The IRS tacks on interest fees and late penalties that double what I owe, garnishes my bank account and puts a lien on my house. Because, apparently, my $700 is all that's keeping them afloat.

Something is so wrong with this picture.

Aaaand it's the Pitts

Man, I thought Steven was going to have an absolute stink fit when the Cardinals pulled ahead. Holy cow, he very well may have sprained his vocal chords.

For some reason, he didn't seem to appreciate it when I pointed out to him that the referees at the Super Bowl CAN'T HEAR HIM. Jeez. So grumpy.

Well, after all that drama and blah blah blah the Steelers win and Steven's happy. That's all that matters to me.

P.S. I don't know much about it, but Kurt Warner strikes me as a really big baby. I'm just sayin.

i am so wrong

So. The picture of Michael Phelps smoking a bong hit the interwebs today...it's all over the media and it's all blown out of proportion and I'll bet his school-principal mom is having an absolute COW. But.

I've always been a Phelps fan (not a Phan, cuz I'm not 14 years old) because I've certainly got a thing for tall, lanky, dark haired charmers. But I gotta say, this picture makes me feel particularly tingly in my jingly. Turns out he's a golden BAD boy.

And that makes me say...RAWR.

Super Bowel!

Of course, it's Super Bowl Sunday and Steven's Steelers are the favorite to take home that honkin' shiny bling bling trophy that always gets all smeary and smudged looking with finger and lip prints within moments of the win. You'd think they could, I don't know, Windex it or something.

Ya. The game has taken over the interwebs, the tv, the newspapers. And, as usual, I'm not watching ANY of it. I'm watching "Corpse Tech" on Modern Marvels..

I'll watch the commercials once the game starts, but all that hysterical pre-game build-up is just so much hot air. The analysts and announcers get themselves so worked up, the veins in their foreheads pulsate and threaten to take over the world. It's more than I care to see of them OR their veins.

I'm not ashamed to say I only like Super Bowl Sunday for the commercials. If it didn't mean so much to Steven to have his team win, the amount that I care about the outcome of the actual game would rank far, far into negative.

The cost of airtime for commercials this year are $100,000 per second. That means, that one time, Janet Jackson's boob was worth, like, $2 million. I mean, only in Super Bowl speak, 'cause, da-yum, I wouldn't give you one single dull penny for a repeat of that action. $100,000 per second. Recession? Whaaaaat recession?

Enjoy the game, folks. Let me know when the commercials start.