Oops, I Did It Again

I'm not proud of what I did this morning. I don't even know why I did it; it's so unlike me! Maybe I'm still exhausted from my week at camp; maybe I've become desensitized by years of watching Orkin Man commercials*; or maybe I haven't fully gotten over what happened to me last summer, but I know two things for sure: I killed another moth, and it was gross.

It started out just like any other morning. I reluctantly rolled out of bed, tripped over both dogs on the way to the bathroom, flipped on the light and then squinted into the mirror to assess whether or not I needed to wash my hair. It appeared to be somewhere between curls and dreadlocks, which is cool for the weekends but doesn't quite cut it for work. Since showering is my all-time least favorite activity, I decided to stall a little by brushing my teeth first.

That's when I saw it. (This is the part where those of you with stomachs on the weaker side might wanna bail out.)

Yucky. Brown. Seemingly lifeless, and just chillin' in my sink. Heck, maybe it was already dead. I guess I'll never know, because I didn't waste any time investigating before grabbing a handful of toilet paper and forcibly relocating it to the trash can. Unfortunately, I guess I don't know my own strength, because during my celebratory forward fist pump for catching it, I accidentally squeezed too hard and felt the moth burst like a grape between my fingers.

So is this what I've become? A heartless killing machine? I didn't even stop to consider that this moth might have had a wife and family! In fact, I'm quite certain he did, because I'm pretty sure I saw him playing hide and seek with his kids on my back porch last night! WHAT HAVE I DONE?!?!? WILL THE MADNESS NEVER END?!?

I guess there's only one thing I can do now to make things right, and that thing is to hold a memorial service for the poor little guy. I took the liberty of writing up his eulogy in advance for those of you who are out of state and therefore will be unable to make it, although I know your hearts will all be with us.

Dear, sweet, innocent moth,

You were one of God's creatures. However deeply your winged brethren  may have wounded me in the past, I had no right to do what I did. I'll be placing the sleeve of a sweater in your tiny moth casket before we put you in the ground. It's cashmere; I think you would have really liked it. I'll do my best to look out for your family...unless they catch me off guard in the shower, in which case I'm afraid they're in grave (was that insensitive?) danger of facing a similarly sticky (too soon?) end.

Word to your mother (GET IT?!?)

Emily

*Sing it with me! Orkin MANNNN!

Baby, Baby, Baby OHHHHH

I'M SO HAPPY I CAN'T EVEN -- JUST LOOK AT THIS BABY!!!

Archer Abishai Kelly, born at home at 11:35pm on June 27, 2011, weighing in at a hefty 9 lbs 3 oz!!!

CONGRATULATIONS SAM AND JAKE!!!!

If he goes missing, he's probably NOT in my purse.

AND WE'RE BACK! Mostly.

Gary and I got back yesterday from an awesome week at camp! While we were gone, we spent a total of 40+ hours on a bus; hung out with some awesome high school friends; went tubing, banana boating, and parasailing; dabbled in synchronized swimming; played a little beach volleyball; got pied in the face; ran around in the pouring rain like a bunch of crazy people; had big hair and LOVED EVERY SECOND.

So why did I say mostly, you ask? While I fared pretty well (getting my first watch tan, getting a tan at all, having fantastically curly hair all week, drinking slushies and learning how to be cool by using hot pink pre-wrap as a headband) Gary didn't do so hot.

First off, there was his toe. He bruised both of his big toenails the week before we left by wearing shoes that were too small to work, so he was pretty sure he'd probably end up losing both of them eventually. Naturally, as we got off the bus at camp, a certain red-headed someone (I don't want to name names but ERIC) sped up the process by stepping on his toe. So during the camp welcome, I looked down to see that blood was gushing out of the top of his toenail at an alarming rate. When I urged him to go see the camp doctor, he replied that he was a man and all he needed was a little duct tape.*

His voice was gone after about the third day, and around the same time his sunburns began to develop sunburns. When I offered him some after-sun lotion, he replied that he was a man and therefore did not use lotion of any kind.

On the fifth day he went tubing with his cabin and jacked up his knee, giving him a bit of a gangster lean. After seeing him limp around camp, I offered him some Tylenol, to which he replied that he was a man and his body would heal itself.

So I guess if he dies, it will be a comfort to know he died like a man.

*At one point, when the wrap around his toe came off during a game of tug of war, I watched him rip the sleeve off the shirt he was wearing, tie it around his toe, and rejoin the fray.

¡Hasta Luego!

I won't be blogging next week because I'll be at camp! Somebody thought it would be a good idea to put a bunch of impressionable young teenagers' lives in my hands, so tomorrow night I'll be getting on a bus headed for Pelican Lake in Minnesota and praying to God I can keep nine girls and myself alive until the following Sunday.

But seriously folks...for those of you who are down with this sort of thing, I would love it if you guys would take a few minutes to pray for us throughout the week. These kids are going to have their minds blown this week by the love of Jesus, and we could use all the prayer we can get to deal with the aftermath. Coming face to face with the reality of God's mercy is an absolute trainwreck. All sorts of elements come into play: home situations; relationships; and the struggle of coming to terms with how little we deserve, yet how abundant God's promises are. What these kids have seen and experienced in our screwed up world has left them broken and, not surprisingly, distrustful of something that frankly sounds too good to be true.

So if you think about it this week, here are a few things you could pray for:

• Open hearts and minds, so that kids would have a chance to hear the truth and be able to make an informed decision.
• Safety, on the way to and from camp as well as throughout the week. Pray that no injuries or illnesses would get in the way of a kid having a total blast.
• Energy and patience for leaders, so that we might not only be able to keep up with all our high school friends, but also have the strength to resist the urge to kill them all by the end of the week. (Just kidding....but seriously.)

PEACE OUT!

Time-Waster Thursday!

LET'S DO IT!

First off: adorable children, as per uzsh.





Next up: zoological interactions



This one's at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, which is IN MY HOOD! I'M FAMOUS!



Ahhh, grandparents. (Shout out to the honorable Kelsijo Kimbler for submitting this one!)



This is funny.

Burn, Baby Burn

I'm having a bit of an internal struggle regarding the title of this post. Four years of high school show choir pretty much destroyed what little tolerance I ever harbored for all those "fun" disco songs everyone seems to love so much. "YMCA," "Celebration," "We Are Family," and several Stevie Wonder songs (which is sad, because if anyone stood a chance, I think it would have been Stevie) will forever bring to my mind horrific memories of sequined shirts and poorly arranged four-part harmonies.

Anyway, this post is not actually about how I throw up in my purse every time I hear "Play That Funky Music;" it's about how I shouldn't be in charge of my own life.

This past Sunday, a bunch of my really pretty friends got together to go swimming. Like I said, they're all really pretty, so I was hesitant to join them at first, but in the end my inner pool-starved 12-year-old won out over my inner fat kid. Granted, at age 12, those were one in the same*...but I digress.

It was the perfect day for a swim. The sun was shining, there was a hint of a breeze, and the pool water was neither ice cold nor contaminated with human waste (which is more than I can say for the first pool we tried to go to) and best of all, there were BABIES in SWIMSUITS! I splashed around like an idiot for several glorious minutes before I realized that all the actual adults were laying out on beach chairs, carefully positioned for maximum sun exposure.

Suddenly, nothing else mattered. As I surveyed all my friends with their sparkling brown skin, it was decided. This would be the year - nay, the DAY - I would finally capture the one thing that has eluded me my entire life: a tan. Gone would be the days of my friends and family boosting their self-confidence via a side-by-side comparison of our forearms! Never again would I be mistakenly invited to join an albino support group! NEVER! From this day on, I would be a bronze goddess, just like my friends.

I failed to consider two things.

1. At least half of the girls I was hanging out with that day are of either Latin or at least one-seventy-second Native American descent.
2. My ancestors are Irish...meaning I am terminally freckly and pale and somewhat shaped like a potato.

So it should come as no surprise that after three hours out in the Colorado sun, my friends all left with a nice, healthy base tan and I left with this:

I would have mentioned it sooner, but it's been kind of a sore subject.**

*Which explains how I earned the nickname "Butterball" from my friend's older brother. It was an expertly crafted insult, because while it seemed at first glance to be nothing more than another run-of-the-mill fat joke, it became clear upon closer inspection that it was also a dig at my spectacular lack of color, as the skin of an uncooked turkey is one of the more disgustingly pallid things on this earth.
**Ya see what I did there?! I kill me.

The Morning After

Well guys, I don't know how to break this to you, but it turns out I am not an overnight internet sensation after all. But not for a lack of trying. Well...not from a lack of trying by my friends and family. I guess my spending approximately one hour recording a crappy song using a prefab GarageBand beat doesn't really qualify as "trying". But YOU guys did and I love you all for it.

I wanna take a moment to SHOUT OUT to my mom, Sarah, Samantha, Bailey, Beth and Kenny for reposting/featuring me on your blog/creating a Facebook fan page. And the thing I am shouting is THANK YOU! EACH OF YOU GUYS ARE UNIQUELY AWESOME AND VALUABLE IN YOUR OWN SPECIAL WAY!*

So now the question is...what's next? I had all these big plans to become a laughing stock, make a million dollars and then star in a Katy Perry video, but it seems my dream bubble has popped and I'm covered in its sticky remains.

In the immortal words of Destiny's Child:

I'm a survivor (WHAT)

I'm not gon' give up (WHAT)

I will survive (WHAT)

Keep on survivin' (WHAT)

That song's gotten me through some tough times, and I'll be darned if it's not about to work its soul-penetrating magic once more.

*Those of you who didn't repost, etc. are still awesome and valuable.

World Premiere

Ask and you shall receive. (Don't remember asking? Then your name must not be Kenny.)

Here ya go, Kenny.  

I Do Art Sometimes.

Sometime last year, the lovely Whitney Damewood and equally lovely Samantha Kelly quadruple-handedly changed my life with a little something called the Paint Game.

The Paint Game is simple. One person emails another person a document created in MS Paint containing a few red lines/waves/squiggles. The recipient of the email is then responsible for turning those lines into a cohesive picture.

I'd like to take a moment to showcase the most recent churnings out of this magnificent art machine. Today's artists include Samantha Kelly, Sarah Howrey and myself. I'll first show you the humble beginnings, followed by the finished product. (You can click on the pictures to enlarge them in case you want to print them out and display them in your home or office.)

EMILY

"This perm was a mistake"

SAM

"Yum!"

SARAH

"Really cool sandcastle"

Time-Waster Thursday!

Slow day on the web...so you better make these precious wasted minutes count.

Freakin' birds.


This is just adorable.



This is a little disconcerting, but still adorable.



This is just cool.

Zombies Can't Get No Satisfaction

This morning I find myself feeling a great deal of sympathy for zombies. Vampires, werewolves, aliens - they're getting all kinds of action, but I think it's time we all stopped to ask ourselves: Where is the zombie love?

This all started because Samantha got that expertly written Katy Perry song stuck in my head. Kanye's part is where it gets especially ingenious.

I know a bar out in Maaaaaars
Where they drivin' spaceships insteada caaaaars

Bravo, Kanye. Bra. Vo.

So now the question is who is going to step up and write a zombie love song? Since I like you guys so much, I'll not keep you in suspense too long. The answer is me.

So here it is: the not-very-long-awaited debut of the lyrics to the greatest zombie love song of all time.

Verse 1:
They say I'm insane but I knew from the start
You came for my brains but you captured my heart
You look like you're prepared for my lobotomy
I know I should be scared but you still got-a me

Your arm fell off but you don't even care
You're lookin' so hot with your dead-eyed stare
My ex is a loser who still lives with his mom
But your crib is a grave and I think it's the bomb

Chorus:
You're a zombie but I don't care
Your brain may be gone but your heart's still there
You're a zombie but I don't care
Your brain may be gone but your heart's still there

Verse 2:
Vampires suck and werewolves bite
Aliens are ugly and their fingers glow bright
My man eats brains and they keeps him strong
Your man's a vegetarian and that's just wrong

I wrote this zombie song to let the whole world know
I love my zombie man; I'll never let him go
So to all of you haters who don't like what I said
You better step off - my boyfriend's back from the dead

Non-Digital Shorts

Last night I was in the car with Gary when we passed a runner who looked extremely tired.

Gary nodded toward the runner and said, "Is it just me or does it seem like she's having a lot of trouble keeping her arms up?"

I agreed; it was not just Gary. She seemed to have completely lost control of her arms, which were waving behind her in the wind like so many wet noodles as she trudged up the sidewalk. I sat there thinking about how if I were in as great shape as that girl, perhaps I too could get away with wearing obscenely short shorts and performing a physical activity in front of strangers without embarrassing myself and/or/by passing out. I was just beginning to consider the benefits of being flat chested when my train of thought was disrupted by a comment from my husband.

"Dude."

"Gary, if I've asked you once, I've asked you a hundred times; please don't call me that."

"No, dude. DUDE."

"What the - ohhhhhhh. Dude."

It took me a moment to decipher his subtle yet persistent nods toward the runner, who, as it turns out, was not a girl*, but in fact a very skinny dude...which I guess explains the flat-chestedness.

What it does not explain is the shorts.

*Not yet a woman.

Say WHAAAAAAAT?

25 pounds? That was sooo last week. I LOST 30!!! So without further ado, here are a bunch of things that weigh 30 lbs!


First on the list: Bravo, the fattest puppy around.

 

This telescope!



This giant pumpkin!!!



This speaker!

 

This might be obvious...but 30 lbs of change!



This panda!



A KAYAK!


A few other things that weigh 30 pounds ...

• $489,311.10 worth of gold
• 20 dozen (or 240) eggs - THASSA LOTTA EGGS!
• 4 newborn babies...so it's kinda like I just gave birth to quadruplets...if I had been in labor for the past 8 months instead of just being on a diet.

Refrig-A-Raiders

I'm taking a mental health day, because those are real and sometimes necessary.

Here's a video submitted by none other than Gary J. Gray.

(Things get real convincing around the one minute mark.)

Time-Waster Thursday!

Adorable dog!



Adorable children!







Complete idiot.

Twofer Twednesday!

I know, I know, I let you all down by failing to blog yesterday. I was too busy lying on my couch not sleeping thanks to the loudest, buzziest housefly in the history of the earth. Oh also I was sick.

Anyway, to make up for it I'm going to go ahead and make this post TWO POSTS! Ready? Let's two this.

POST ONE: Spoiler Alert...Sort Of

If you haven't seen the movie First Knight starring Richard Gere and Sean Connery, be warned: I am about to ruin the ending. But since I'm pretty sure the statute of limitations on spoilers runs out after fifteen years, I don't really even have to feel bad about it.

Gary and I have been watching a lot of Netlix Instant Watch, thanks to our very cool friend Jenny who gave us her password 'cause she knows we're too poor to actually pay for stuff. One night last week we decided to watch First Knight, because I can vaguely remember my parents really liking that movie when I was a kid.

Let me break the storyline down for you here:

King Arthur (Sean Connery) has been a really good dude his whole life. He finds a super hot lady named Guinevere (Julia Ormond) who has also been really good her whole life and asks her to marry him. She agrees. Everybody's happy! While she's on her way to get married, her carriage is attacked by some bad guys and she is saved by Lancelot (Richard Gere). He kisses her and I'm pretty sure she slaps him. She tells him she's engaged; he pursues her anyway. She gets married; he still pursues her. Finally she gives in and King Arthur walks in and catches them kissing. He's charging them both for treason when Camelot is attacked and Arthur takes three arrows to the chest. On his deathbed, he forgives them both and gives them his blessing, after which he dies and they presumably all live happily ever after.

So let me get this straight: Lancelot knows Guinevere is taken, yet he continues to try and tempt her with that weird squinty-eyed look Richard Gere always does (which, by the way, always kinda makes me think Richard Gere's a bit of a d-word...and I don't mean double crosser. Wait, you're not attracted to me yet? Well how about....SQUINT!...now?) Then he doesn't back off even after she's married to a really good guy. (Note: I'm not saying infidelity is ever excusable, but if you want me to get behind it even a little you could at least make the guy she's married to really mean or something.) THEN when they get caught together and all seems lost, her husband conveniently gets shot in the chest and dies, but not before he has the chance to sign their marriage license. Oh and then they burn his body.

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME THE MORAL OF THIS STORY???



POST TWO: Accent Piece (Get It?!?)

Alright, I'm gonna talk about another movie, but the nice thing is I don't need to apologize for ruining it because it did that all by itself! The name? Elizabethtown.

I'm not even going to address the fact that this movie is nothing more than a cheap knockoff of Garden State. (Alright well it seems that by saying that, I did address it...but I'm not going to elaborate.)

What I AM going to elaborate on is how terrible Orlando Bloom's accent is in that movie. Really, Orlando? You weren't making enough money as a good-looking British guy? So much so that you felt the need to come over here and hack your way through a role that called for a greasy middle part and what I can only assume was supposed to be a Californian accent? It was *actually* painful to watch. I turned it off halfway through, which is saying something seeing as I own the movie Stick It.

You heard me right: Stick It - a movie entirely about gymnastics - trumps Elizabethtown - a movie about...well, gosh, I'm not sure what it's about...something about death and white trash...?