Far too long

Sorry all for how long it's been since I last posted!

A lot has been going on in my life...most all of it depressing. I haven't had a lot (or any really) of happy things to post about recently and, rather than bring y'all down, I've kind of taken a small hiatus from my blog.

But tonight I'm intoxicated which always somehow makes me want to write.

I have a new(ish) job. I pretty much baby sit an 88 year old lady. She has Alzheimer's...and tonight I've decided that if I ever get Alzheimer's, please just put me out of my misery. I don't want to be old and cranky and take my angst out on my caregiver(s).

Two of my more happier moments this summer are below:

I have a new beautiful niece named Momoka Rose.

She was born 8-22-2011 weighing in at 7.2 pounds and was 21&1/2 inches long.

And my sister-in-law Betsy got married on 8-19-2011 to her man Ben:

Later (this week or next) I promise to write about Aug 13, 2011 when Mike and I went camping for our anniversary this year....

3rd Annual Tribe Beach Trip

Dear Readers (especially Dixon),

I haven't forgotten about you. I promise to write a real post soon. Just keep in mind that I'm a crazy slacker. I try, I really do. I disappoint myself. Okay not really but I should be disappointed in myself.

I'm getting off subject. I'm trying to clean my house. I have some new friends that haven't seen it, and I don't really want them to see it like it is now. And they are coming to dinner one day this week. The best part? Dinner night is a surprise. So I need the house clean ASAP. It could even be tonight that they come. So to procrastinate the cleaning, I decided to write a post.

I thought, ooooh, I'll write a post about vacation. But I don't want to upload the pictures. Thinking of the pictures makes me think of what a slacker I was at taking vacation pictures. Pretty much all of them are the second half of the week, and they aren't even very good.

What? You want to see them? Grrrr. Fine. I'm working on uploading them while I write the rest of this post. I just started the loading and remembered that I never uploaded the pictures I took at James and Tiffany's wedding. So the name of the folder is '3rd Annual Tribe Beach Trip plus James and Tiffs Wedding'. *shakesheadatself*

The vast majority of the pictures (about 200 actually) are pictures I took of myself. The most distressing part is that I hadn't even been drinking [yet] that day.

So okay, I'm going to provide y'all with captions to the pictures and that's gonna be the rest of the post.

So the first few pictures can all be lumped together. Remember that 200ish pictures I was talking about? Yeah, these are just a few:

Thank you guys for still loving me.

Drum roll please. I would next like to introduce you to the first OFFICIAL new Tribe member. We finally broke down and made an induction process, and Carolyn is the first to go through it. I don't think she was too horribly scarred by it.

Carolyn is Randy's sister.

Minor side note: see the package on the coffee table? Yes that's baby food (dried apples). I love them and no one would stop making fun of me over it.

She is without a doubt one of the coolest girls I know. Welcome to the Tribe Carolyn :-)

I thought it would be a good idea to try to take a decent picture of Boi and I together. We have almost no pictures of us together. It's like the two of us together makes the world shudder. Seriously. We tried having professional pictures done once; they got exposed to light on the truck on the way to be developed. It's just never meant to be. And I thought I could change fate.

Actually this last one is a pretty decent picture, if I do say so myself. Please note that I only posted a minuscule amount of the pictures I took of the two of us.

On to poker!

They kept making fun of me because (this was our last night in Myrtle Beach) we were out of plastic forks so I was eating my leftovers with a plastic knife. Stab. Stab. Stab!

In the last picture (Game Two), please not my chips vs everyone else's (I'd already taken all of Randy's chips). If I had any patience at all, I could have won all 3 games played last week. As it stands: Game One I came in 2nd to Randy, Game Two I came in 2nd to Carolyn, and Game Three I was the first out (Sorry, can't share that story. Some things are for the Tribe only).

I have more pictures and many more stories, just be patient with me!

My World

You all know my world is....different. I live in my own strange creation. If I could only convey the stories that go on in my head for y'all, but alas there are not always words to describe what I think about.

The following is a dramatization and not any one actual event.

Occasionally Boi comes home to something like this:

Especially this week since my family moved out. Poor Boi.

And then I try to suck him into my world.

It all goes a bit blurry at first....

And then I pull Boi in through a vortex of crazy delusional words and gestures.

Suddenly, he finds himself in a beautiful place. A place full of lovely rainbows, sunshine, random mythical creatures, butterflies, and other happy things.

This is a place of bliss. Where there are fairies and elves and mermaids. There's singing and dancing and laughter.

But then....


Suddenly...


Before he can do anything...


Boi finds himself being dragged....


To the other side of my imaginary world.

My evil side. Which isn't really that scary (again this is a dramatization). Well, maybe y'all would think of it as terrifying beyond all reason. But I keep it all in. I'm not a serial killer. Really.

This is the place no one seems to understand me. The place where I think (key word THINK) how nifty it would be to cut open someones *coughRandycough* veins just to watch them bleed for a bit. Oh don't worry; in my fantasy I also can suture him back up. Or at the very least super glue it closed. I really don't understand why this disturbed someone *coughRandycough* so much. It's not like I'd really do it.

Poor Boi.

Welcome to my Cul-de-sac

This post is dedicated to Tribal Elder Randy.

This is me on my tricycle.

I ride it around in the mental cul-de-sac that my friends keep me in.

They put me there every time I say or do something confusing/illogical/dumb. I stay there A LOT.

A couple of things I did today (already) qualify to put me in the cul-de-sac.

Thing #1:

I despise clothes. They are possibly my arch nemesis (right after spiders). So the past few months with mom living here have forced me to be tactfully clothed all the time. Not my forte.
So yesterday was our first full day without people living with us. Of course I spent the day in my birthday suit. It would have been awesome, except that I've been keeping the house colder for my clothed status. So last night I decided to make the house warmer. In my sleep deprived state, I pushed the temperature gage down.
I woke up this morning freezing.
WIN FOR THE CUL-DE-SAC.

Thing #2:

This weekend a few mosquitoes decided to make camp in my house. Remember how much they love me? If not, please see my post Playing outside is hazardous to my health.
There were 3 mosquitoes killed (there could be more hanging around that I've missed), and I have 11+ bites. I've been scratching them like a woman possessed (I know, I know, don't do that).
This morning I got the bright idea to put Lidocaine Ointment (numbing agent) on the bites when I got out of the shower (the heat had aggravated me to a scratching frenzy). Couple of pictures of just my right foot bites:

My brilliant move came right after I applied the ointment. I started eating my breakfast without washing my hands. Next thing I know Numb Tongue.

WIN 2 FOR THE CUL-DE-SAC.

Toilet Paper

So my mom signed a lease yesterday. YAY :)

I went over to her place yesterday evening to check the place out and take some stuff over there.  While I was helping her unload the car, I came across some toilet paper she had bought.

Pause. We have to back up a little bit here. Growing up, my mom bought the cheapest, thinnest, most worthless toilet paper ever. I hated it. It took 1/3 of the roll just to get it thick enough to....you get the picture.

Photo borrowed from: http://my350z.com/forum/the-lounge-off-topic/414874-cheap-ass-generic-toilet-paper-ftl.html

Edited for bad language.

I resolved that one day, when I was a grown up with money, I would always buy the best toilet paper. No matter how bad things go monetary wise for me, I was (and am) determined to stick to my guns on my toilet paper preference (so far so good).

My favorite toilet paper is Charmin Ultra Soft. I will not use anything else.

Fast forward a little bit to when mom moved in with Boi and I this year. Our home has two full bathrooms. I keep both reasonably stocked with TP. I told mom that I realized more TP was going to go through her bathroom (it's in the best location) so to please just let me know when the toilet paper was running low.

No such luck. I love my mom. I really do. But I sat down one day, and I'm not kidding you, there was a roll of that crap TP I grew up with on my TP-dispenser-rolly-thing. I sat there with my eye twitching until I recovered enough to try to search (from my stranded position) in vain for more of my TP under the sink. No such luck. I had to use her *shudder* roll.

I sat mom down and had a very serious conversation with her. I explained how important my toilet paper is to me (reading this I sound like a complete crazy person). There were no more TP incidents after that.

Fast forward again, this time back to where this post started.

I looked at the TP.

I looked at my mom.

...

And (very seriously) told my mom that I will let her take a few rolls of my good TP so she can titrate herself back to the crap stuff she used to be on. I explained that her regimen was to be as follows:

First week: Alternate each TP brand with each bathroom visit with (keeping both rolls readily available close by).

Second week: Alternate each TP brand as the rolls are finished.

Third week: Only use Charmin every 3rd roll.

Four week and beyond: Use crap TP.

Why hello

This one's for you Annette. Because you asked for, and I quote, "more off the wall Beth stuff".

So do y'all remember my post Bathroom Art? If not please read it. Keep up with the program people. I think, looking back, that would have been more appropriately named "Bethroom Art" maybe. I digress. So anyways, Boi started a war recently with my hair art. I stepped into the shower blissfully unaware only to find the following words crudely shaped from my dew-dropped leftover locks:

"STOP WRITING WITH UR HAIR"

When I was finally able to pick my laughing form up from the bottom of the shower, I replied simply:

"NO"

To which he replied:

"SPOON"

and I with:

"FORK"
I wished here that I had had enough hair to write "LEADS TO FORKING" but I didn't so I just went with FORK because I knew Boi would understand.

As I'm writing this post, I just asked The Boi if there were any more words of wisdom that he imparted to me on our shower wall. He said no that for some reason after FORK, we haven't had as much hair left in the shower. To which I advised him, "...that's because I got my hair cut[very short]."

I tried taking pictures of each of the above hairarts for you, but the camera had trouble focusing on the leftover pieces of angelocks.

~On a completely separate note/story~

This past Saturday The Boi and I spent part of our Easter weekend with pyrospouse Gabe's family. We went to her brother (we're just going to name him...Doug) Doug's house to party.

We had great food and company. The children frolicked around gathering up Easter eggs full of happiness and joy...while the adults did grown-up things such as drink booze, play cards, and start fires.

As darkness gathered, we huddled near the bonfire; mainly for warmth, since we'd all beat each other down with water balloons...and when we ran out of balloons, resorted to drowning each other with the hose.

The hour got late, and someone (we'll just name her...Beth or as I rather refer to her: me) started seeing something creeping towards the edge of the group. She kept quiet about her find, thinking the small adorable critter would soon race back to the safety of the woods.

To her utter surprise, it came ever closer, and she could not longer contain herself. With childlike wonder she exclaimed, "Oh look you guys! It's a bunny. Look!! It's so close!"

A freak of nature who is never without a flashlight (we'll just name this person...Doug) quickly dashed my hopes to see an Easter bunny. Instead the creature was revealed as that of....

...

...

Doug's dog.

Maybe one day I'll live it down.

A bit of this, a bit of that

Hi readers :-)

No excuses. I've just ignored all of you for a bit. My bad. Thanks for loving me anyway!

I've decided to go on a diet. Yep, you heard me right. I'm keeping a food journal and everything. Y'all would be proud of me. So far I've been doing it for about a month and have lost 7 pounds. Of course, two of those pounds were in the last week. I had a little trouble focusing those first four or so weeks. You know how I am.

I can't wait for the 3rd annual Tribe beach trip! I even made a countdown:
http://www.bored.com/makecountdowns/show.php?id=246665

Lately I've been spending a good bit of time outside with my mom and baby Gabe.

(Isn't he just adorable!? )

That is, until the ticks decided to take over. This last week, all I've had to do is put my pinky toe outside and one appears. Eeeeek! Creepers. So I'm back to my cave until fall.

I'm a horrible blogger

I'm a terrible/horrible blogger and should no longer be allowed to take up your time. Honestly, I apologize profusely for being so...lazy...and not writing more frequently. To give you all an excuse update:

My mother, nephew (20 month old), and nephew-baby-daddy have come to live with Boi and me for a little while. This has been interesting. So we've been adjusting and such...oh and I no longer work for the superstore. I did all the recon work needed for the apocalypse so I figured, why continue wasting my time and theirs?

Also, Boi and I went to Myrtle Beach SC for our annual St Patty's Day weekend (Boi and I have been going for 10 years now). It was, as always, fantastic. Here is a picture of my awesome mother-in-law and myself at the parade/street shops:

We had so much fun. This year The Tribe all got together for it (first time). AmAzInG!

After the parade/shopping, The Tribe decided to go out for dinner. There was a little place next to our hotel named Umberto's. I'm a little fuzzy on how we picked there to eat, but I'd be willing to bet money it was because it was right next door.

Anyways, we popped in there and after we got to looking at the menu, we realized (all at right about the same time) that this was a much nicer restaurant than we expected.

While scrutinizing said menu, I came across something that made me extremely excited:

Menu and me

DO YOU SEE IT!? DO YOU SEE IT!?

I decided to use this really large font to try to convey my excitement level to you. I was so ecstatic! I've never actually seen haddock on a menu before.

And here is the haddock. No I didn't order it; Boi did.

Also, I've gotten a new camera, and I'm taking a ridiculous amount of pictures lately so when you start to see more pictures on here, please forgive my enthusiasm.  Although, looking back through this post, none of the above pictures were taken with my camera. So all pictures in this post from here up were taken by Tribal Elder Tiffany: just makin sure I give credit where it's due ;)

I've also gotten really slack in drawing lately. Forgive me. I'm only human...and a bad lazy one at that. Speaking of which, my latest song obsession is 'The Lazy Song' by Bruno Mars. I've been listening to it for the last month and the other day I heard it on the radio. I starting punching Boi's leg in my excitement. He's so tolerant.

Okay, last thing for now. Boi and I have declared a Nerf War for the 3rd annual Tribe Beach Trip this summer...and we are serious.

Please note in my picture that Sid is lurking, terrified in the background.

Teeeeeny side note: I know the date looks like April 2 but I've fixed my camera now. See? We're learning as we go....

We've warned the other Tribal Elders and I can not wait for the beach. This is gonna be epic. Since the pictures were taken, we've 'decorated' our guns and purchased more. In the words of Barney from How I Met Your Mother:

It's gonna be LEGEN.....wait for it....DARY.

And on that note people, I bid you farewell for now.

Dark Showers

Yesterday I discovered my new favorite game. I've dubbed it "Dark Showers".

To play, you must have a bathroom that is completely dark. If your bathroom has windows, you can purchase blackout curtains.

It's most fun when played with others but can be a one person game as well. Here is how to play:

Step 1
Turn on shower and get it to a comfortable temperature.

Step Two
Memorize as best you can where everything in your shower is.

Step Three
Turn off the light, close any curtains, shut any doors, whatever you need to do to make the room pitch black dark.

Step Four
Take the most epic shower(s) ever. Be creative in this part but just be sure that you wash everything. No cheating.

It's far more fun with someone else in the shower with you. An awesome twist is to wash each other.

Unless you are really Really REALLY stupid brave, I would advise you to not try to shave each other. Bad idea.

Step Five
Turn off the shower and dry off in the dark. If you have plenty of time and are feeling even more adventurous, try to get dressed and ready also in the dark.

When you are finished playing the game simply turn on the light for game over. Epic right!?


Tonight I went to eat out at CiCi's Pizza which always brings back so many middle school memories for me. There was one right across the road from my middle school that I went to all the time.
In it's little arcade, there were always a few of those $0.25 cent machines that hold gum or silly cheap toys in them. One of the toys I remember most fondly in those machines was a miniature glow stick. I used to get one every time I went. It scared my mom to death, and she was always terrified that I was gonna choke to death on one. I sure loved those things...and I have never found them anywhere else since then.
So anyways, back to tonight. Guess what was in one of the toy machines tonight. Yuppers, those little mini glow sticks. Now they cost $.50.
I got some change from Boi and slowly turned the knob, savoring the experience. Ahhhhh, lo and behold, I was rewarded with not one, not two, not three, but FOUR epic mini glow sticks!!!!!!!!!! *Mini little happy dance*
I've brought them home to add to my new Dark Showers game. I'm not going to put that part in the steps; mainly because you might not be able to find them but also....well, you use your imaginations ;-)

I tried taking some pictures of the nifty little creatures for you but they're so small and I'm too lazy to work harder with my camera to make it focus tonight...so here are the best two pictures I got:

If you need your hair pulled out, I'm your girl

Truthful. Honest. Candid. Bona fide. Straightforward. Veracious. These are all words I would use to describe myself. I've come to think that some people resent me for it, but I don't mind. When you need the honest-to-God kick-in-the-butt blatant truth, I'm your girl. I might not put it politely, sugar-coat it, or put it politically correct, but I will give it to you straight.

When working at The Restoration Company, I was assigned to work with a team. In that team there was a person who really liked to complain. It didn't matter the situation, she would find something to gripe about. We're gonna name her...Griper.

I'm not perfect (not by a LOOOOOOOOONG shot), but I do try to keep my complaints to myself while at work. When I get home, of course, it a completely different matter and Boi always hears all about it!

So on this one particular day, Griper mentioned several times that she had this one particular hair that was driving her crazy. The first couple of times she said it, I sympathized with her.

The next few times she said it, I ignored her.

Then she said it again. I walked over to her and squinted at her and asked, "Oh which hair is it that's buggin you?"

She reached up and held on to one tiiiiiny hair that was swinging free and in her face.

So I reached over and ganked that sucker out. She squealed and threatened my life a few times. I laughed like a maniac and fell down to roll around on the floor gasping for breath.

I just figured that of all the complaining she has done, this was the only thing I could 'fix' for her. So I did.

It might not have been what she wanted or thought was best for herself. But she presented a problem to me so I solved it for her. I gave it to her straight.

So if you need your hair pulled out, I'm your girl.


PS - After the story was relayed to my manager, she told me later that I was probably the only person that Griper liked well enough to let get away with pulling her hair out.

PSS - Griper advised me that she has precious little enough hair and needs them all. I thought that she didn't appreciate that particular one well enough so she didn't deserve to have it anyway.

Kadaver Kitty

I have invented a new character. His name is Kadaver Kitty.

Boi and I were working with a company recently that specializes in fire and flood restoration.

This one particular house was burned pretty bad. We kept finding kitty toys (seriously, I have never seen so many cat toys in my life) and there was a really big cat tower in this house.

As I was shoveling burned debris, I got to thinking. Yes I know that probably scares most of you, as well it should. I wonder if they got the cats out. How horrible would it be to lose a pet that way. Wait, how horrible would it be for me to FIND their cat(s)!?

So out loud I asked my co-workers if they knew if the owners got their cats out. Everyone just kind of looked at each other and shrugged or said that they hoped so.

Let me stop here and say that I know this is a fairly morbid topic. Also, I know that it's not funny to think of some one's pet burning to death. I would like to inform y'all that my way of coping with tragedy is by making jokes...even if those jokes are in somewhat bad taste. Like I said, it's my way of coping. You have been warned.

So anyways, we all started joking about finding the burned corpses of these poor people's cats. Let me just stop and say that now that I'm writing this all out, it sounds perfectly horrible. But at the time it was really funny,and I hope that's how this comes across because that's how I mean to convey it.

With each shovel of charred insulation, melted plastic, burned cat toys, etc, I seriously wondered if I was going to come across these people's cat(s). Well, what if I did? What would I do with it? Do we bury it? Cremate it? That one kind of makes me chuckle because well, that's pretty ironic isn't it? For your body to make it out of a fire mainly in tact and then for someone to cremate you...well that's just down right funny.

I think that a half burned cat would make a fantastic super hero. I started trying to come up with names for my new friend. (These are the sorts of things that get me through a work day....now you're all going to wonder what your co-workers are thinking of while you work with them...just know that there are definitely other people like me out there. If that doesn't scare you, nothing will).

Aha! I've got it! I'll name him, Kadaver Kitty!! He'll go everywhere with me. I think I'll even go home and draw him. Maybe I'll even blog about him. I think I'll get a stuffed kitty and rough him up a bit, set him on fire, put the fire out, and take him everywhere with me from now on. I'll nickname him KK. This is awesome.

With such great ideas floating through my head, I just have to share it with someone. "Kadaver Kitty," I shout. Everyone stops their work to stare at me. Then they all start to crack up. The jokes just flew through the room.

So seriously, I came home and started drawing.  My very first sketch of Kadaver Kitty was:

He's not much to look at but I thought that y'all might want to see the process of how a super hero is born. Looking back I think I like the head of Take One the best.

He obviously needed some work so I started fresh and came up with:

Take Two of KK just kind of looks mildly annoyed to me. However, I love how calmly he sits there while his face and tail are both on fire. I feel seriously like I'm getting somewhere.

Moving on to Take Three:

Boi said that he really likes this one because of how the cat's eyes are on top of his head. I like that he's kind of raggedy looking, and I enjoyed making the burning building in the background.

Take Four:

Oh yeah. I love the black eye and half burned ear. Am I taking things a bit far, I wonder?

Oh well. I think I'll put the missing eye back in. That just seems to have taken things a bit far. Oh what the heck. Guess I'll put the ear back on too.

Take Five:

Well, what can I say. It's still a work in progress. But I seriously think that Kadaver Kitty is here to stay.

I'm also shopping for the perfect stuffed cat to destroy and then call my precious KK.

So what do y'all think? Which one is your favorite and why?