Happy 'Orange is Terriffic' Day!

It's no secret to anyone who knows me that orange is my favorite color. Some might call it an obsession even. So several years ago I decided to turn my birthday into a "national holiday." Thus, 'Orange is Terriffic' day was born!

There's really not a lot to this holiday. You wear something orange, have a beverage of your choice (adult or otherwise), and toast to the awesomeness that is September 20th. And really, it's a great time of year (even aside from my birthday). Autumn is approaching, the air is becoming crisp and clean, and the leaves are turning... orange!

So toss on an orange shirt, raise your glass, and celebrate with me :)

Laundry, thou art a fickle bitch

My laundry and I have a rather precarious relationship. I've never actually run out of clean clothes, but I have run out of clean, folded, put-away clothes.* My normal laundry cycle is as follows:

Fill laundry basket
Wash clothes
Dry clothes
Leave clothes in dryer for about a week
Wash another load
Take first load out of dryer and put into a spare laundry basket, place basket in living room
Dry second load
Repeat until I run out of laundry baskets
Begrudgingly fold clothes
Move basket full of folded clothes into bedroom
Rummage through clean, folded clothes for about a week
Put away remaining clothes (usually about 3 pairs of underwear, some socks, and a couple shirts by this point)

I don't know why I put myself through this cycle over and over, it's just one of those things I do. It's a habit now. I know it would be so easy to just fold my clothes and put them away, but for some reason I just dread it. So I keep putting it off until my living room looks like this:

Not my actual laundry. Or my shoes. Although they are pretty fabulous.

Maybe one of these days I'll get into a better groove and actually fold and put away my laundry as soon as it's done. Or maybe when my daughter is old enough that will be her chore. ;)  Only time will tell. Until then:

*This may say more about the quantity of clothing I own than my cleaning abilities.

Things That Make Me Smile, Part 1

This commercial:

(from theshelterpetproject.org)

This comic:

http://xkcd.com/864/

These flowers:

This video (and every other video in the Simon's Cat series):

(It's funny because it's SO true)



And lastly (for now), this:

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/06/this-is-why-ill-never-be-adult.html

Enjoy!

This post is brought to you by the letter P... for Pee-Yew!

Alright, kids, today we're going to talk about one of my biggest pet peeves: Air freshener. Or, as I like to call it, air "freshener." Seriously, has anyone ever walked into a bathroom and thought to themselves, "Gee, it smells like roses in here. I'm sure nobody has taken a dump in here, EVER." The answer to that is no. No they haven't. All air freshener does is mask bad smells, and it does a shitty job of that. (See what I did there?) Also, it's aggrevating for people with asthma and allergies. Oh, and it gives you cancer. All those little smell molecules just fly up your nose and start cancering your brain. (Yeah, I don't really think cancering is a word, but who cares? Isn't that what people do nowadays, make up words? I mean if vajay-jay can make its way into Webster's, I'm sure cancering can too. Let's start a movement! But I digress...)

Oh, and along those same lines, I just want to say FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PEOPLE, PLEASE STOP WEARING SO MUCH DAMN PERFUME!!! Just an FYI, if you wear the same perfume or cologne every day you start losing the ability to smell it, and thus put on more, and more, and more, until people can't walk their dogs near you because the smell wafting from you will literally kill puppies. (That last statement may have been just a tad hyperbolic. Maybe.)

If you're the type of person who skims instead of reading, here's the moral of this story: smelling a little poop won't kill you. Smelling buttloads of chemical scents might. And you don't want to take that chance, do you?

What's my age again?

In 17 days I will be turning thirty. The big three-oh. I have been counting down to this day for approximately 349 days (you know, more or less...)  This is not the gleeful, excited, 'my birthday's coming up, time to party' countdown of my twenties - noooo, this is a terrified, 'my life is slowly ending' kind of countdown. Why should I be so scared? Most of my friends have reached this milestone and come out (relatively) unscathed, but for some reason the day has me filled with dread. To me, thirty means adult. Nevermind the fact that I've already bought a house, got married, and had a kid. Nevermind that 'thirty is the new twenty.'

But I think more than just feeling older (excuse me, 'more mature'...), thirty means starting a new chapter. My twenties were a time of discovery, fun, new experiences, and finding myself. I was finally able to carve myself a niche, to figure out where I belonged. I no longer felt like that dorky girl in high school who didn't fit in (well, at least not ALL the time). Sure, I made plenty of mistakes, but I learned from (most of) them, and they helped shape who I am today. I feel lke turning thirty means leaving all that behind. I'm an adult now. I have responsibility.

Deep down, I know this will probably be just like every other birthday. I'll turn a year older. I'll still want to say "I'm twenty-nine" for about 2 months (because I can never remember how old I am after I've had a birthday... what year is it again?)  Life will go on, day in and day out, and the universe won't care that the first number in my age is no longer a 2. Nothing is REALLY going to change...

Except I'll be an ADULT.

Welcome!

Welcome to my first attempt at blogging. I won't bore you with the "all about me" stuff - if you know me, you probably know most of it anyway, and if you don't then you probably don't care. This will probably end up being a haphazard combination of stories, recipes, rants, and things that I find amusing. I'll try not to gush about my daughter too much (that's what facebook is for), but I'm not making any promises. ;) I also can't guarantee regular postings (being a working mom and all), but I'll try to update as much as possible.  Maybe I'll be able to work through some things that have been bugging me, or maybe this will be a good distraction. Either way, I hope you stay along for the ride!

In closing, here's a picture of a bunny with pancakes on its head: