Garage Sale...May 24-25 Yes, the horse is dead

but I'm going to keep beating it.  Really, the beating the dead horse scene in Gone with the Wind was probably my favorite part.  So, in honor of that...I will beat this dead horse some more...

Neighborhood Sale

 May 24-25 (that’s this coming Thursday and Friday)

9-4

 Green Prairie St

Vicksburg, MI

From Portage-

South on Portage road. Past the lakes, past the fields, until the 4 way stop at VW and Portage road.  Yep, it's the corner in the middle of nowhere with the car dealerships randomly.

Turn left.

On your right you will see an abandoned building.  It's white with orange trim.  I swear it is filled with 1 million bats.  Keep going. No, really.  Those bats will eat you alive.

Just past Hoard Chiropractor, is Green Prairie St.  It's the first road, first right. Turn right.  If you turn left, you will be in a watermelon field. If you get to Napa, you went too far.  If you get to Yogi's, dude, really? 



For sale at my house:
Massage Chair-not a massaging chair, a chair in which one sits to obtain a massage from a Certified Massage Professional It's marked $100, I'll take $75 if you ask nice.
“Vintage” knitting machine-That means it’s old
Tent-Yes, it probably has been peed in
All Electronics work and are priced from $5-$20
Microwave
5 disc cd player
tuner
Bose Speakers-holy shit, I can’t believe I am selling these :(
Dvd player

Yarn-misc and cheap as hell. You may have to take a 3/4 finished sweater to get 1 skein of yarn, but it’s my racket I can do as I please.

Interweave Knits-back issues $1 each

Kid’s wooden table
Kid’s wooden bench with Winnie the Pooh Carved in

Clothes:
Including my unicorn parts t shirt. I’m old, and fat, it’s over sparkly unicorn. We have to break up.
Plus my comfy black work shoes.  Screw you work!  

Many, many more exciting treasures await you in my mystical garage of unicorns.  Oooh, did you know that rhinos are just unicorns that let themselves go?  Think about, the horn?

If Jeanna doesn't claim that Droid Factory with cash money, I'm all about selling that shit too. I'm talking to you Al of Al's Toy Barn.

If it's not nailed down...it's for sale

I've been working on cleaning out the attic

These are not the droids you are looking for...

 and getting stuff ready for a neighborhood garage sale.


(May 24th and 25th 9-4)

As many of you know, I have a problem.  Ok, I have loads of weird quirks, but this one involves tents, and nothing kinky.

I own a lot of tents.  Like, 5.  Like 5, I'm going to keep with 3 in the probably going to get rid of pile and 2 that the Ogre managed to "lose" between here and the storage unit.

A good friend, but he didn't make it home

So, that's like 1 million tents, right?

I asked Pig 1 to help me set up one of the probably get rid of tents.  You know, to help future buyers, with any questions they may have.  "Is it a tent?" yes  "does it work" yes  "Has it been peed in?" Not this one.

 So, let's revisit: being a good citizen, cleaning the garage, getting ready for a garage sale.

One of our neighbors walked out of their garage, spied what was being done with the tent, laughed, and went back inside.

 Maybe not everyone sets up a tent in the front yard and tips it upside down.  But heck, how the hell do you get sand out of a tent?  Oh, a broom.  Broom.  Yeah, maybe that's what a normal person does, but it doesn't work as well as the tipping.

Comics, Avengers, Pizza...a Perfect Day

Today is the first Saturday in May.  Which, you know, is a Holiday.  Oh, you keep your horses, Kentucky.  I'm talking about the real first Saturday in May Holiday...

If you thought you were a nerd, and you didn't know about this, well, you may want to rethink your level of nerdiness.

After the family fought through seas of fellow comic book lovers, we went to the 1130 showing of The Avengers!  Sold out show.

Pig 3 was not the only person in costume.  He could have assembled the whole Avengers team.

The movie was amazing.  There was actually a point where I thought "the only way this could get more awesome is if Doctor Who showed up." Plus, I am board with you, Hulk. I get it now.

With such an awesome day, it didn't seem like my cooking would be the way to top it off.  So, we got pizza from Jaspare's in the 'burg.

The crust is thin, fresh, and foldable.  The sauce is sweet, but not weirdly or overly so.  The cheese.  Oh, damn, yo.  The cheese is amazing.

Yeah, pilates, hot yoga and many a walked mile were wasted on that pizza.

To finish our perfect day, a Big Bang Theory Marathon. 

Back Fowl Beast!

Cooking.  I try.  I really do.  But somethings are gross, like whole chickens.  Other things are scary, like eating raw chicken.  So I get a bit leery of cooking, mainly anything that involves chicken.

I can say that my old oven may have helped with the high number of raw chicken meals I've served up to the family.  But now I've got this shiny new oven.

It mocks me if I don't use it.  "Oh, look at me.  I am a beautiful, fully operational, oven.  I can make chicken go from raw, to cooked.  I am like magic."  That's all spoken in a really snotty French accent too.  Curse you and your stainless steel, sleek design and convection cooking option!



I could attempt to blame all my cooking woes my high school counselor.  He said that I didn't need to take the Home Ec class.  I would never use those skills.  Apparently, I had a lot of potential that involved dining out, for every meal.

I know I can't blame that guy. (Mostly because I can't remember his name.) I can only blame myself.

With this in mind, I put a very sad post on Facebook.  A plea for help actually:

 So, that bag of frozen chicken breasts that I bought...I get that I'm supposed to cook it. Give me ideas, flavorful recipes...help me make it taste good.


I couldn't believe all of the awesome recipes my friends and relatives had for that horrifying beast, chicken!  Quick, easy, and in most cases minimal attention required!!

Now my only problem is picking which recipe to try first!!

A big thank you to all!  I really appreciate it.  Can you imagine how big the Pigs will grow now that they will be eating cooked, instead of raw, chicken?

Awesome...later

I was planning on sitting, and blogging our adventures while in Florida. (It's spelled F-L-O-R-I-D-A, but I generally pronounce it Disney, sometimes Dirty South)

 My plan was so involved that I imagined lounging back with an energy drink and maybe scratching some lotto tickets.  This was going to be an EPIC post.

 A storyboard was drawn up.  There were stories that involved venomous snakes!  Boat rides!  Chaz Bono!  Those weren't even the main stories!  Those were merely the side adventures.  Because there was also barfing in, and around Emeril's restaurant.  Plus, a sob story about a girl who had strong desire to crawl under a Harry Potter themed bench and die.

But no!  No friends.  Not today!  You will have to wait.  I... am a librarian.*  Or rather, my gig as a Literacy Aid gig had a schedule change, and alas!  I must away at break of day.  Or, pull myself together enough to look presentable...RIGHT NOW!

Please know that I was thinking of telling you an Epic tale of adventure, loaded with color photos. 

*Look, I referenced The Mummy movie.
The original post was going to reference It's a Wonderful Life.  See the difference in quality you are getting here?

Mixed Messages

I volunteer for Junior Achievement at the local elementary school.  This is my 4th year teaching 1st graders about family, community, volunteerism and jobs.

Today we went over jobs.  Now I remember not enjoying this lesson last year, and I couldn't exactly remember why.  Well, today my brain got a refresher.  The course outline was to have kids draw a picture of a person doing a job.  It could be a parent, them as grown ups or someone they know.  No problem, right?

WRONG. Big, fat, mind numbing wrong.   The unemployment rate in Michigan is stellar.  Like up in the freaking stars.  Yes, it's bad for everyone, but randomly reminding little kids that their parents don't have jobs, made me feel like such an ass.

I was then asked what my job was.  I said I used to catch bad guys.  They guessed that I was a cop, FBI, CIA. Wow, I was starting to feel better, I apparently look like such a bad ass in the eyes of 1st graders!

That's butter beer in that cup.

I had to tell them that no, no one wants me toting a gun.  But rather that I worked behind the scenes, catching bad guys with science!  Yes, just like CSI, eyeball juice and everything.  Along with eyeball juice and everything, I ended up needing to explain why drugs were bad.  Nancy Regan, check this out!

Me:  "Bad guys do drugs."
Kid:  "What are drugs?"
Me:  "Drugs are medicines, but bad people use them when the don't have a prescription."
Kid:  "So, if you don't have a cough, and you take cough medicine?"
Me:   "YES!!  That exactly!!!"

So, we tweaked the assignment and changed it to "What job do you want when you grow up?"

Because of my amazing science/drug filled pep talk, and my desire for a puppy, I turned the tides of Michigan employment.  In roughly 15-20 years, a small batch of crime fighting, pop tart poisoning scientists will train cheetahs and make the world a better place. 

I may not be asked to volunteer again next year. Which is totally fine with me.  Because how can I top what I taught those kids today?

On a side note, thank you to all the parents teaching their kids that raising children is a worthless endeavor. It felt super awesome having a group of 1st graders, who are in fact children, crap on me for not having a "real job", and staying home with the pigs.  Where did that attitude come from?  Home?

Not this home.

"That's sexist.  Pee in the toilet."

Quik-E-Mart

Well, well, it has been awhile.  I was in Florida, again.  This time I was with the family though.  There was many an adventure. 

Venomous Snakes were the Pigs major concern, not poisonous

It will take a week of ridiculous blog posts to update you with all the gory details. 

Honestly, some of it was actually gory.  We may never be allowed in, or near an Emeril owned restaurant again. 

Can you guess who barfed?

But for now, I thought I'd share my back from vacation "to do" list with you:

Holly-go do this stuff, preferably today

deposit checks
wash car
 put a bird on it



Hey Linda!  Thank you for the awesome gift!  It is part of all the awesome that needs more than a quik-e-mart style post!!