Treat or Trick...

I caught a cold yesterday, of all days. I can't be sick...it's Halloween for goodness sake! But alas, I am. So my day today is already crap-o, just because I feel like, well, crap-o.

I get into work this morning and there are yummytreats waiting for me like almond cookies in the shape of fingers, festive Halloween cupcakes and home-made scones (I brought in some home-made caramel apple cider again). With the first impressions of the day, I think it's going to go pretty well, considering.

Until...I go to use the bathroom. It overflows...all over the floor. Seriously, it was a mini-lake inside of the 4x4, not enough room to bend over, tiniest bathroom you'll ever be in. I clean up the mess. It wasn't so much a mess as it was just wet. Of course, after I clean it all up, the toilet decides, "Now I'd like to perform normal and allow all the water filled up inside of my bowl to correctly drain." Stupid toilet.

Anyway, not two minutes later I hear, "AH! Come quick! Hurry!" It had overflowed again on a co-worker. I'm trying to run all over the place to get a plunger only to find there is no plunger in any of our three bathrooms. There's nothing to do but watch as the toilet, once again, fails us and spits out all that is within it onto the floor.

Now if you can only imagine, half of my co-workers are in costume. Trying to clean up in a tiny space is hard enough, but add the difficulty of wearing a costume in the mix and you have one unbearably funny scenario.

Thanks, Halloween...I didn't really ask for the trick.

Vacuum The Building!

My BFF's two daughters are 8 (almost 9) and 5. Last night when we were all sitting down to eat some delicious dinner, the dog (a 3 year old black pug) had a bad case of gas. M, the oldest of the two girls, immediately got a whiff of his stickiness exclaimed, "Everyone! Evacuate the building!" Because Z, the 5 year old, looks up to her older sister, she promptly replied, "Everyone! Vacuum the Building!"

I was rolling.

Autumn

We had our first frost of the year yesterday. I woke up to crispness in the air which filled our bedroom while snuggled under the warmth of my down-feathered, micro swede slipcovered, flannel sheeted, nothing but snuggly comfiness of blanketed layers. I was in the perfect mushed position on my side, hesitant to get up and face the day, but yet excited for the sun had just started to peak through the curtains and even though I knew I had to go to work, I was eager to greet this beautiful fall day.

Why is it that no other change of season fills my spirit more than Autumn? I am a summer girl, I love the spring and my Dad always called me his "Little Snow Bunnie." But it's Autumn that gets me giddy. The sipping of warm pumpkin spice lattes and caramel apple ciders, pumpkin pie, crisp mornings, and the array of magnificent colors in the trees.

My husband and I carved pumpkins the other night. When I got done scraping the stringy pumpkin insides, I stuck my head in the freshly carved pumpkin and smelled its cool pumpkiny freshness. Do you remember that smell from when you were a kid? Maybe I'm the only one who likes sticking their head in a freshly carved pumpkin and sniffing it, but it's one of my favorite fall treats.

Fall is also my favorite time of the year to go on walks...especially at night. Even if it's raining outside, I put on an extra layer to tramps through the crunchy leaves lined along the sidewalk awaiting for my arrival. This, I'm sure, is God's way of making sure I get that extra needed exercise for the arrival of Thanksgiving.

Oh Fall...thank you for your arrival. I will enjoy your weeks to come in pursuit of winter.

My Husband

I know this would completely embarrass him but this is too funny to pass up (I love you, Oats).

Last night as we were crawling into bed I noticed how much his feet stunk. Now I know guys' feet aren't supposed to smell like roses, but these were pretty bad. His response to my foul face was a very nonchalant, "Oh, I guess I should wash them tomorrow." Other than my first thought of how disgusting I just found my husband to be after being married for 3+ years, I was wondering why he replied as though he doesn't wash his feet every day. Now my husband isn't one of those plumber crack kind of guys. He doesn't usually stink and he's very handsome. So being curious I asked, "You don't wash your feet everyday?" and he laughed. When my husband thinks something is really funny he'll laugh in a sort of Bert and Ernie (from Sesame Street, you know: heeheeheeheehee) combined with the snake laugh (tststststs) kind of way...it's quite funny. But generally he only laughs like this at really disgusting stuff like farts and stinky things and only particularly when he's done such things...not quite so funny when I cause the event.

Anyway, this sparks a whole new conversation on yuckiness that in the 7 1/2 years I have known this man, I have never known what I am about to share with you. He told me that when he was in high school he never clipped his toe nails. YUCK! Now why I continue to ask questions to keep this conversation going rather than gag and move on, I don't know. So I ask him, "Did you have very long toe nails (invisioning the Ripplie's Believe It Or Not's curling toe nails that haven't been clipped in 20 years) or...what?" He replied, "No, they managed to usually fall off in my socks." Again, not knowing why I continued rather than GAG and leave it at that...I pursued the disgustingness..."SO you had toe nails swimming around in your socks all day long while you went about your day?!" He said he usually didn't feel them.

I just want to leave you with this:

Guys: Why are you so disgusting? And why do you always have to laugh at your most disgusting moments in life?
Girls: Why?

The Joys of Apartment Life

We live in a small apartment complex. Our complex manager is, oh around 85 years old. I think he's senile because it takes him at least 5 reminders and a year for him to do anything you've asked of him.

This morning I was ironing my clothes and getting ready for work. Note: I am usually buck naked from 7:00 until about 7:40 in the morning. At about 7:30 I heard a knock on the door. My husband had already left work for the day. Immediately I rush to my bedroom to put on a robe where I quickly realize I don't know where it's at because, well, I'm usually naked when I should be wearing a robe (my husband calls me his little exhibitionist...I'm not really). So I finally find the robe and answer the door. It was my 85 year old apartment manager. The first thought going through my head was, "WHAT IN THE HECK ARE YOU DOING KNOCKING ON MY DOOR AT 7:30 IN THE MORNING?!" He was there to let me know he was getting the locksmith to change the lock today. We've been asking for this to happen for about three months now, why couldn't he wait until later today day? It's not like it was imperative for him to knock on my door at 7:30 in the morning and ruin my naked morning frolicking.

Tell me if this isn't funny:

While driving to the post office today, I thought something looked strange, so it was worthy of a second look. It was a forklift forklifting a forklift...

My Ish

I have a friend who sparks me. There's just something about her that makes me feel child-like and rejuvenated. We can sit and color at the coffee table or have intense theological conversations. I feel I can be me around her.

I've been battling depression and have been on anti-depressants for the past couple of months. I was very hesitant at first to get any sort of "help" because I was raised to think it's all in my head. If I tell myself to be happy, I will, inevitably, be happy. Ha. I tried that for a year and it got me nowhere but bad yuckiness. But now I'm working my way through it and am finally to a point where life is good again. I've surrounded myself with people who I thought I wasn't good enough for but who inspired me. I've found that they gain just as much out of my company as I do theirs'.

For my birthday, my friend gave me this book, "Ish" by Peter H. Reynolds. It's written like a children's book, you know the kind you can read in two minutes because there's only 5 words per page. This is the most influential book I've read in years. It's about a boy who, like me, is an artist. One day he was sitting down at the kitchen table painting a vase of flowers and his brother comes along and basically tells him his painting sucks and that it looks nothing at all like a vase of flowers. The boy tries, through many more attempts, to make a painting that looks more perfect but finally gives up, crumpling every painting. His sister grabs the crumpled paintings off the floor and runs to her room where she's hung every one of his discarded paintings on her bedroom wall. She points to the boy's very first painting and says, "I like this one the best." He says, "but it doesn't look anything like a vase." She replies, "it looks vase-ish." The boy's creativity suddenly comes alive and he paints trees that look tree-ish, houses that look house-ish, fish that look fish-ish and so on.

I haven't painted in about a year. I've been so caught up in what other people think of me and my work that every time I had a creative idea, I would immediately tell myself that it wasn't good enough, it wasn't perfect. What I've forgotten is that I am good enough in God's eyes. My paintings might not be perfect, but they are ish, they're me-ish.

Spiders

I'm am deathly afraid of spiders. SO afraid, infact, that if I see one, I immediately get this pee-my-pants sort of feeling. I don't know where this fear actually came from and quite frankly...I think it's rediculous. They are more afraid of me than I am of them. Plus I have the power to squish them.

So one of my co-workers decided to play a little joke on me. Do you know those black plastic spiders you can pick up around Halloween time? Well, I just happen to have a black keyboard and a keyboard tray that pushes in under my desk. She put the black spider on top of my keyboard, pushed my keyboard under the desk and patiently waited in the break room (which is about 10 feet away from my office) while I discovered my little surprise.

I arrived at my desk, hurredly pulled my keyboard out to type something important on the computer, and went to position my fingers on top of they keyboard. That's when I just happened to look down....I jumped back, gasped, and the quickly realized before peeing my pants or screeming that the spider on top of my little black keys was fake.

She was laughing...I was rushing to the bathroom.

Another Random Work Conversation:

A: "We're going to have caramel apple cider tomorrow at work, would you like some?"
K: "What's that?"
A: "Well...it's cider...made from apples...and it has caramel sauce in it..."
K: "What kind of caramel sauce?"
A: blank stare...

A quote from my office for the day

"Don't tell me what to do with my panties"
-a 60-year-old redhead

Imagine this:

It never ceases to amaze me, Seattle that is, the unique diversity of this beautiful city where I've inhabited all of my 26 years of existence. This past weekend my husband and I and my favorite couple friends escaped to downtown Seattle for a day of fun. The drive to downtown was, as always, beautiful...although I swear my BFF's husband ripped a couple in the car...making for a quick flashback to stinky cheese day (I'll save stinky cheese day for another post).

So of course our first stop is Pike Place Market. A wonderful market full of stinky fish smells, unique foods, very inexpensive but beautiful bouquets of flowers, people, and any kind of art you can think of including a shop quite not so full of merchandise dedicated to "lefties" (because seriously, how many things can you put "I write left-handed" on?) to the performing arts. Which leads me to this guy...a balloon artist I'd like to name The Seattle Troll: