The Votes Are In!!!

In a surprising last-minute turn of events, it's

GWYNETH PLANTROW

FOR THE WIN!!!

Here are the final results:

Honorable mention to all those who entered answers in the "other" field. I have no idea who submitted them unless they told me about it, so I'll give credit where I can.

• MY PLANTY (MY PONY)
• Carrie Underplant
• P. Lo
• woMandrake - none other than Tim Howrey
• Audrey III
• Ryan Chlorophyllipe - Daniel Davis
• Floral Hardy - Daniel Davis
• Botany Spears - Daniel Davis

Thanks to everyone who voted! I have a feeling Gwynnie and I will be very happy together.

Eat. Pack. Love.

You may or may not be aware that I love going out to eat. (Although if you've read my blog ever then you've probably picked up on the fact that I'm lazy by now, so I guess it should really be obvious that given the choice of making dinner myself or having someone else make it, I'd choose the latter.)

But over the past couple of weeks even I, the infamous eater of all the chips*, have grown tired of takeout. Part of it is that my body, having grown used to digesting mostly healthy food over the past 9 months, is fighting hard against all the trash I've been eating lately. (By some miracle I've only gained back about four of the thirty lbs I worked so hard to lose...but that's four too many in my opinion.) The other part is that SURPRISE! Going out to eat every night is expensive and (surprise part two!) we're not exactly rollin' in cash.

The reason of course that we've been eating so much takeout is the move. All our cookware's still boxed up somewhere in the garage. If I'm totally honest, it probably could have been unpacked by now if I hadn't completely run out of steam after about three days of doing nothing but unpacking. (And dishes. Sooo many dishes.) It's just easier to grab something in a drive-thru than to stop what we're doing; dig the pots, pans and cooking utensils out from underneath tubs of airsoft pellets and shotgun shells (SO MANY BULLETS! WHY do we have so many bullets?!); wash them by hand (because our dishwasher is still broken) and then cook a dinner for which I have no ingredients other than cornstarch, peanut butter and farfalle pasta because I haven't been to the store in two weeks.

So has it been worth it to me to feel sick to my stomach for a fortnight (that's right) in exchange for the comfort of living in a home that I love? Absolutely. But does it end now? YOU BET YOUR BACKSIDE IT DOES. In fact, it already has. Last night I went to the store, scrubbed a few pots, and cooked up a delicious meal of - you guessed it - cornstarch and peanut butter pasta.

Juuust kidding. It was just regular peanut butter pasta.

*I was unfairly accused of eating all the chips by a friend I won't name (but yes I will LEVI STERLING) during a period of my life when all I ever did was go to Chili's because it was the only restaurant in Wylie and apparently I had nothing better to do with my time or money. It's not my fault other people choose to waste their time flappin' their jaws when there are perfectly good chips to be eaten. You snooze you lose. All the chips.

Title credit: Sarah Howrey

Reasons Why I'm the Worst

Well really it's just one reason.

Last night Sarah went to see Tally Hall in Denver with our friend Daniel who's been visiting for the past few days. I knew she'd be out late so I texted her to tell her which shift we were going to be working today. (I work one of two shifts: early, which is 7:45 to 4:15, or late, which is 8:30 to 5. Sarah just works whichever shift I'm working because I said so.)

It's also worth mentioning that Sarah has been coming into work at 6am the past two days so that she could leave early and hang out with Daniel, or Dirty D as I prefer to call him. They got back from the concert at around 12:30, so at this point you can imagine that she's pretty tired.

This morning I woke up to my cell phone ringing at 7:22am. Below is a transcript of the conversation that followed.

Me: "Hmmmplmmgghhph?"

Sarah: "Hey, I'm here."

Me: "Why?"

Sarah: "To pick you up for work."

Me: "We're the late shift."

Sarah: "No, you texted me last night that we were the early shift."

Me: "Are you sure? 'Cause we're the late shift."

Sarah: "I'm looking at the text message right now. It says early shift, motha*****"

Me: "Huh. Well we're the late shift."

Sarah: "Well...I'm...still here."

Me: "Uhh...well...you wanna come in and take a nap in the guest room while I get ready?"

Sarah: "I would like nothing more than to come in and take a nap in the guest room."

And that is the story of how I came to owe Sarah one million sleep dollars.

THE END

*****fatha. What did you think it meant?!?

That's Not My Name

We put this up so that if anyone accidentally walks into our house instead of their own, they'll realize their mistake immediately.

I also have big plans to switch out the "a" and the "r" from time to time and see how long it takes Gary to notice.

It's Mighty Mighty

Gosh I hate that song.

Anyway, things are slowly but surely coming together at the house. For example, our table and chairs actually fit in the designated dining area! YAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

We have yet to hang up the coat rack, so in the meantime Beary has been doing an excellent job of keeping up with the leashes.

I decorated! Well, I decorated a little. But it's more than I ever did in the old house, so that's progress!

The as-yet-unnamed plant is happily settled on my kitchen window sill. (Don't forget to vote! Her fate rests in your hands!)

The doggy door is in perfect working order.

Bravo is not pictured using it because he is terrified of everything.

I bought some really heavy pantry shelves so we'd have somewhere to put food! I know they're really heavy because I loaded them into the back of the truck MYSELF. I let Gary assemble them so he could feel like a man and/or because the last time I tried to put something together this happened.

What?! We like cornstarch, stop asking me about it!

Thanks to the lovely Leah Armstrong, I finally have one of these vase things with the dried stuff coming out of them! I don't know why, but this makes me feel more like an adult than ever before.

And finally we come to my favorite part of the house - the coat closet! It's lined with cedar and also magic.

And this is the best part of all! IT'S A SECRET MAIL SLOT!

Okay it's not really secret but it IS a mail slot and it is also awesome.

YOU GET TO DO SOMETHING!!!

It's reader participation time!!!

I bought a plant yesterday and it desperately needs a name. DESPERATELY!

Robert Plant would work if I wanted to take the obvious route, but I don't. Not to mention that this plant is clearly a lady. Look at those hips!

So that's where you come in!!! Sarah and I have painstakingly assembled a list of ten names for you to choose from and vote on throughout the week. The winning name will be announced on Friday, so get your votes in before then!

CLICK THIS to cast your vote and be a part of plant-naming HISTORY!

Disclaimer: Any and all votes for Roseanne's Nuts will be met with an aggravated sigh and then completely ignored.

Tired of Hearing About My New House? TOO BAD!

Here's my weird sense of humor creeping up on me again: I think the title of this post is hilarious because it implies that you don't have a choice as to whether or not you read it. YOU MUST READ ABOUT MY NEW HOUSE BECAUSE YOU CANNOT SURVIVE ONE WEEKDAY WITHOUT A TASTE OF THE SWEET NECTAR THAT IS THIS BLOG! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Anyway, thanks to a few awesome friends of ours, we got almost everything moved into the new house last night. Our living room is actually put together already, and I have a PICTURE to PROVE IT!

Also just for the heck of it, here's a close-up of Bravo:



Anyway, we got to sleep in the new house last night and the most AMAZING thing happened: I woke up in the middle of the night and had to go get our comforter because I WAS FREEZING! FREEZING!

If you've always had air conditioning in your house then you probably have no idea how miraculous this is. To give you a frame of reference, the nights have been averaging around 80-85 BILLION degrees in our old house for the past few weeks, so yeah, I pretty much wanted to french kiss this new house.

See you guys Monday, at which time I will probably still be talking about my new boyfriend house.

Everything I Own in a Box to the Left

Things I found out while packing up my house:

1. I own exactly one bottle of nail polish. It is black, and I think that is funny.

2. Apparently at one point I used to draw things in a large sketchbook, and once I drew a tree that did not look half bad. Do I have a picture to show you? OF COURSE NOT!

3. SOMEbody (Bravo) ate the foam handles off all my exercise bands, but SOMEbody (me) didn't notice until now because SOMEbody (still me) works out never.

4. I have about ten thousand bobby pins. On an unrelated note, finding ten thousand bobby pins with hair in them apparently makes me gag, even though the hair in question is undoubtedly mine.

5. If you pack up every single thing in your bathroom, your husband is probably going to want to shave his head the next morning, and you will probably have no idea where you put his clippers.

6. You want farfalle pasta? 'CAUSE WE GOT FARFALLE PASTA. Like ten boxes of it, for some reason.

7. Somewhere along the way we lost our food processor. I know it once existed because we still have the circular blade plate that you use to grate cheese. If you think you might have it, we'd like it back so we can grate some Parmesan to put on the pasta we'll be eating for the rest of our lives.

8. Gary unearthed these awesomely bad place mats I'd forgotten I bought before we got married. They were purple, magenta and lime...so maybe it really is for the best that we were too poor to pursue my misguided vision for decorating.

9. I have no idea how to pack dishes, but if they're all broken when we get to the new house...I didn't do it.

10. The point at which Gary starts to lose his cool is somewhere around the seventh consecutive time through the new Adele CD.

Packin' Heat

Get it?! 'Cause we're packing?! And it's HOT?!

The beauty of being poor is that you might make it through your first three years in a house without accumulating virtually anything. And if you don't have very much stuff then maybe one day you, your husband and your sister would be able to pack up over half of your earthly belongings in under two hours.

At least that's how it worked out for me.

As it turns out, packing isn't so bad. It was actually kinda fun! We found a bunch of stuff we'd forgotten we had, like a pair of large green foam hands that scream, "HULK SMASH!" whenever you nudge them ever so slightly and also a water balloon launcher whose origin I can't identify.

It also turns out that Sarah is a weirdo who loves packing. And I say weirdo in the most gratefully loving way possible, because if she hadn't been there being weird I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have gotten anything done. I get overwhelmed easily, so I spent most of my time running around the house in a panic, touching several things that needed to be packed but not actually putting any of them in boxes.

Seeing this, Sarah very patiently gave me an autism squeeze, sat me down in a corner with some dishes and newspaper and told me to pretend I was wrapping Christmas presents.

And that's how it's done.

Stanky Lipp

When I slide through the place the back yard is what I'm diggin

I stick my leg out on the floor and start drippin

Move your leg, wipe your shoulders, and drop it to your paws

Do da stanky lipp, watch my tooth come out my jaws

If you tied up

Do da stanky lipp, do da stanky lipp, do da stanky lipp

When I eat my milkbone I be

Doin' da stanky lipp, do da stanky lipp, do da stanky lipp 

So It's Like That?

This is a letter to our current house.

(Note the deliberate omission of the word "dear") House,

So I guess by now you've figured out we're leaving, and judging by the way things went down this weekend, you're not prepared to go down without a fight. But let me tell you, it is going to take a LOT more than some crackhead ringing our doorbell in the middle of the night to break us.

We've put up with a lot of crap from you over the past three years, but IT ENDS NOW. (Actually, it ends this Thursday at 3pm when we sign our lease papers at the new house.) We were willing to overlook your gangster lean and the fact that walking into the guest bedroom felt like hiking a small mountain. We chalked it up to bad luck when Gary's bike was stolen off the back porch less than a day after he moved in. We looked the other way when the crackheads moved in next door, and if I do say so myself, dealt with their two-story meth lab getting condemned, vandalized, and burned down with an unusual amount of grace and poise.* We laughed it off when we found that dude asleep on our lawn, and the fact that it had become necessary for us to have the Colorado Springs non-emergency police line on speed-dial didn't seem like that big of a deal.

When we got robbed, I'm not gonna lie, it hurt. In a moment of weakness, you may remember me shedding a few tears and/or sobbing in the fetal position in the middle of the living room floor for a good half hour. Gary was out of town and therefore wasn't available to kill spiders/tuck me in/beat up the bad guys who took our computer, so yeah, my armor cracked a little. But I can assure you with the utmost certainty that he's here now and TOGETHER WE ARE UNSTOPPABLE!

In the immortal words of Archie Eversol, we ready.

So BRING IT.

Hoping you die a slow, painful, termite-infested death,

Emily

*Don't ask me why, but I think it's really funny to apply the word poise to Gary Gray.

So Long, Farewell, Alv...Uh...Bye

Yesterday marked the end of two major parts of my life. One goodbye was bittersweet. Many a tear was shed, but I knew it was time, and I can't say I regret a single thing.

The other was more like when you give someone a goodbye handshake with your non-dominant hand so you can surprise right-hook them in the jaw and then laugh uncontrollably as they writhe in pain on the ground - preferably in a mud puddle.

Twenty five American cents to the person who can correctly identify the two instances to which I am referring. (The answers can be found below, written backwards for my own amusement and, let's be honest, just to piss you off.)

1. .rof depoh evah dluoc I gnihtyreve saw ti dna 2 traP swollaH ylhtaeD eht dna rettoP yrraH was I thgin tsaL
2. !SNOSAES LLA ,TI KCUS !!!ESUOH RUO FO TUO GNIVOM YLLANIF ER'EW

Sisterrrrrrs

SARAH MARIE HOWREY! YOU'RE 24 TODAY! This blog's for you.

For your birthday...

...I wrote you this blog.

...I am going to shout to everyone that it's your birthday each time we enter a room together.

...I will personally see to it that no one spits on or kicks you today.

...YOU LOOK BEAUTIFUL! (I didn't have anything to do with this but it's true.)

...I will not sing you anything by the Cardigans.

...I told the kid at Dutch Bros to make you that whipped cream flower with the straw stem.*

...I will carry you around so you don't have to walk because I remember how that one time you said you'd rather get fat than work out. (I remember because it was this morning.)

...WE'RE GONNA GO SEE HARRY POTTER TONIGHT! And then when you're too tired to go to work in the morning, I promise to pinch you incessantly until you wake up and/or slap me because that's what sisters are for.

...I promise to give you a real present and not just this lousy blog post.

...I'm so lucky you're my sister. You're my best friend and I literally do not know what I would do without you. I LOVE YOU! (This is also true every other day of the year but I can get away with saying it on your birthday without feeling lame.)

*This isn't true. The truth is that kid is just in love with you and the flower was all his idea.

This Is A True Story.

Last night I had a dream that a travelling synchronized swimming opera company came to town and they held open auditions after the show, which was held in a giant aquarium. I didn't get in.

I was genuinely sad when I woke up.

THE END

Hungry? Why Wait? Grab Something Valuable.

Bravo ate my glasses this weekend. If you feel like you've heard me say that before, you're not crazy. He chewed them up a few weeks ago, but since I have no shame slash am too lazy to make an appointment with my optometrist, I've still been wearing them on a pretty regular basis. Wearing severely scratched lenses is fun if you imagine that your whole life is a Magic Eye puzzle.

This weekend he decided to go for the whole enchilada, and by that of course I mean he chewed all the protective plastic off the end of the left earpiece, exposing the deadly spike beneath so that if I tried to put them on I would gouge my own temple and die.

I was angry to say the least. It's not just the money, but mostly it's the money. Here's the deal: My insurance will pay for either one pair of glasses or one year's supply of contacts. Now I'm no mathmagician, but I'm pretty sure getting contacts is the better deal. Also contacts make me look prettier. But that's beside the point. So last year when I bought these glasses, the plan was for them to last until I could afford to pay full price for another pair, which according to my life experience so far is about four years.

So I guess sometime this week I'll head back to the eye doctor and pray that they have a decent set of frames on the discount rack, but in the meantime I made Bravo get a job to pay for the damages.



Srsly

I'm almost finished reading Bossypants by Tina Fey. In a nutshell, it's an autobiography detailing all the awkward moments that led up to her becoming one of the most well known female comedians of our time. It's hardly the first book that's made me feel something, but it's certainly the first one that's made me feel this particular feeling: just the faintest whisper of a missed calling in life; of a career I could have loved.

You probably don't realize how significant this is because you probably don't know me that well. Let me fill you in. I've never wanted a career. At all. I "tried on a few hats" if you will during my three and a half years of college, switching majors from nursing (because I thought maybe I could make money) to music (because I thought maybe I could get famous) to elementary education (because I thought maybe I'd enjoy being permanently sticky) to...nothing. I felt I would never be motivated enough to succeed in and/or enjoy any career, so I decided I might as well be done with it and go get a job and maybe a really good looking husband while I was at it. (In my mind at least, the difference between a career and a job is that a career would bring with it some defining sense of self; e.g., I am a doctor; I am a lawyer; I am a professional bubblewrap popper. A job would just be a place I went on weekdays so I could afford to buy things like two dogs and maybe a car; e.g., I am just an aimless kid who happens to spend a lot of time answering phones at a top-secret non-profit I'm not allowed to tell you about.)

Anyway, back to how I was coveting Tina Fey's career. Certainly not her career as an actress, because I can tell you right now, I have neither the face nor the mental capacity for acting. But considering the possibility of writing for a TV show actually caused me a small amount of physical pain. I think the French call it a pang, but then again they also put mayonnaise on everything so I don't know who to trust anymore.*

It's funny, because I've never considered myself a writer. I sort of still don't, because the last time I checked, people whose blogs are primarily about how pissed they are at their dog for jumping the fence don't get to call themselves real writers. In fact, up until the last year or so, if you'd asked me what my strengths were I probably would have mentioned singing, bubble spinning and being impossible to remember the second time around. (That last one might seem at first glance like the dignity-crushing opposite of a strength, but I know it's gonna come in handy someday when I'm running from the law.) Writing wouldn't even have crossed my mind. Now though, it doesn't carry the gut-wrenching, day-ruining, due-tomorrow-and-I-haven't-read-the-assignment woes of my high school and college days; I actually think it's fun. And I sort of think I'm good at it. And forty-two people on Facebook agree with me!

So what happens next? Do I go back to school? Finish my bachelor's degree and try to blaze a new and exciting career path?

Spoiler alert: I don't.

Wow, I can actually hear your eyebrows furrowing in disappointment, but hear me out. I certainly am not judging anyone else or in any way suggesting that everyone should adopt this mentality, but for myself, I think I've reached a point in my life at which it's time to accept the fact that I didn't finish college and get on with my life. I'm sure my life goals, dreams and plans will continue to shift and change, and I just don't have the energy or vault full of family gold to head back to school every time that happens.

So for now, my plan looks a little something like this: Keep showering at least 1.5 times per week; keep being grateful that anyone takes the time to read the nonsense I post online; and keep trying to make you spit out your drink.

*It's not just the French, and I know exactly who to trust.

Happy Birthdog!

So I'm the worst mom ever because I didn't remember until about 9:30 pm that yesterday was Brutus's birthday! I started to feel bad but then I remembered he's a dog.

Look how excited he was when I told him he was two years old!

He's just a little camera shy.

Anyway, here are my ten favorite things about Brutus.

1. He's prettyyyy. Well he darn well better be, for how much we paid for him! Juuust kidding. But seriously. I like to accept the compliments strangers give him on his looks as if I had anything more to do with it than paying some breeders a large sum of money and driving two hours into the mountains to pick him up.

2. He's smart. Again, I love taking credit where credit has been totally misapplied, so I like to think he gets it from his mama. (And by his mama I mean me, not the canine who actually gave birth to him.)

3. He loves me! Sure, he's not the most affectionate dog out there, but he does little things to let me know how he really feels, like licking the blood off my leg when I scratch myself. Okay...either he loves me or he's a vampire. But definitely one of the two.

4. He doesn't bark or slobber. If he didn't shed he would be the perfect dog.

5. He is self-cleaning, like an oven you can cuddle with. Huskies clean themselves like cats, which is awesome because he never smells bad ever. Also he's not a cat, which is an obvious bonus.

6. He looks like a wolf, so he could probably scare away bad guys. Except for that one time.

7. He's good on long car trips. This is huge, especially considering that when he was a puppy he was terrified to be in the car and would spend the entire trip trying to claw his way up to higher ground, a.k.a. my face.

8. His names fits into a lot of popular songs. "Broot Scootin' Boogie," "Brooty Brooty Brooty Brooty Rockin' Everywhere," "I Will Always Love Bru," "Bru Moon," and my personal favorite, "Bru (I'm So Lonesome For You)" in the style of Leann Rimes.

9. He's a good big brother. He and Bravo love each other, but more than that, Brutus is teaching his little bro lots of important life lessons like how sometimes people are d-words and they take away your toy for no other reason than they don't want you to have it.

10. Sometimes he doesn't try to run away. And those times are the special times.

Where Have I Been?!

Where haven't I been is more like it!

Wait, no, actually in this case where I have been yields a much shorter answer.

I went to Texas last weekend, where I spent the better part of three days sweating into my old twin sized bed, sidelined by what may or may not have been food poisoning brought on by a two dollar order of Denny's biscuits and gravy. Did I suspect at the time that the biscuits were too crunchy for comfort? Yes. Will I ever order them again? Probably. Come on, they're TWO DOLLARS!!!

I've also had an aggressive sinus infection for the past week and a half, which reached an exciting climax just before we were to leave for the airport. I blew my nose too hard and somehow ended up on my hands and knees on the ceiling. No, the floor. No, the ceiling. I somehow managed not to throw up in the car or on the airplane, but I did honest-to-God think I was having an aneurysm during a particularly harsh change in cabin pressure. Note to self: Stop joking about aneurysms. They're not funny. Even when they turn out to just be sinus pressure.

As I sat there dying, I thought to myself, "The blog! What will become of my dear readers?!?" And in a moment of clarity, I made a decision. Should I die suddenly, I'd like to leave this blog to Sarah. She's smarter and funnier than me, and apparently also better at staying alive. Sure, she'll have to change the name to Howrey Matter, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but cut her some slack! Her sister just died!

I'll spare you the gory details, but things haven't been much better since I've been home. For instance, this is pretty much the first time I've made it from the couch to the computer without stopping by the bathroom on the way. Anyway, I'd like to apologize for my absence the past few days...and also for not really sparing you the gory details as promised earlier in this paragraph. If you've felt neglected or personally offended, just take comfort in the knowledge that although I'm just now taking the time to blog, I still have yet to shower. That's how much you all mean to me.

P.S. This has nothing to do with today's post, but I thought it was funny and wanted to tell someone. Today there was a thunderstorm that scared Brutus so bad he pooped his pants. Ahh, but dogs don't wear pants, do they?! So what he really pooped was my kitchen floor. THE END

Grown Ups

(Alternate title: I'm A Big Kid Now)
(Honorable mention: Got A Little Cap'n In You?)
(Everyone gets a ribbon for participating: Cap'n Crunch: It's What's For Dinner.)
(Seriously though, I could do this all day: The Crunchberries Taste Like...Crunchberries!)

Anybody care to take a guess as to what we had for dinner last night?

Did you say Cap'n Crunch?!? HOW DID YOU KNOW?!?!?

As we sat at the table laughing about our meal choice, Gary made the comment, "Yep. We're adults." I laughed at first, but then it slowly began to dawn on me that he was right! I threw down my spoon, turned to him and exclaimed, "Gary! WE ARE ADULTS! WE CAN DO WHATEVER WE WANT!"

Wasn't this what I'd always dreamed of?! The day when I'd be the master of my own destiny - and what's more, my own SLEEP SCHEDULE?!? With nobody to tell me when to be home or when to clean my room or that showering once a week isn't sufficient to maintain a socially acceptable level of personal hygiene?! YES! This was my time, and I was not about to waste a moment of it!!!

But when I realized it was 9:30pm, my excitement quickly ebbed, resulting in the following amendments:

"Okay, whatever we want that's free.

And doesn't involve too much thinking or moving.

Or being awake."

And then we went to bed.

THE END