We are pulling the plug on this blog.

The attention whore in us are sick and tired of people not commenting.

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...April Fools!  

We are pleased to present our new and improved blog.  Hopefully you people will comment more dammit.

Just when I thought I had experienced all of the weirdness in the world...

I woke up yesterday morning, and my friend Nicole had posted the best Facebook status Ever...

Hilaria ensued, and she concluded that was a term she could go the rest of her life without ever having to hear again.  So, of course my Facebook status was...

And there was all kind of speculation.

If you guessed that Vajazzling involves bedazzling your Va-Jay-Jay, then you win.  If you can call that kind of knowledge winning.

Yes people, the newest thing in vaginas is to bling them out with crystals.

And then, I took a household poll about it with the NC-17 members of the house (the eldest spawn turns 17 this year and he refused to leave the room...stop judging me)...

Me:  What would you do if you were hooking up with a chick and her hoo-ha was decorated with Swarovski crystals in the shape of a butterfly?

Ted:  Don't get any bright ideas.

Me:  So, I'm right then and that's really fucking weird?

Ted:  Hookers.

Me:  Don't you think it would be uncomfortable?  To have crytals glued to your genitalia?

Ted:  Fucking Hookers.

Eldest Spawn:  Ummm, I think I'm going to go upstairs.  I'm tired.

Ted:  Vaginal decoration.  Really?

Eldest Spawn:  Goodnight.

Thanks Nicole.  You've scarred the spawn for life.  I didn't even go into the whole Winter Bush thing.

New...There is a website dedicated to this www.vajazzling.com, which isn't surprising.  What is surprising is that people can send in their own homegrown vajazzles.  Warning:  There is a heavy dose of razor burn.

If a man vajazzles, is it still vajazzling?

Eat My Short Ribs

The youngest spawn requested we have rib night.  He wasn't sure if he liked beef ribs, so we ended up having them two ways.

It's how we roll.

Braised beef short ribs over roasted poblano cheddar grits w/ refried pinto beans and sweet picked red onions & jalapenos.

Braised country style pork ribs over grits w/ refried mojo black beans and pickled onion/jalapeno.

We didn't even bother to sit down to eat.

The verdict...

Tasty!

So good in fact, that Farmer Ted is going to do the beef ribs as a special next week at his restaurant, and add it as a tapas to the party menu.

Pickled Red Onions & Jalapenos

2 limes, juice & zest
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup sugar
1 jalapeno, seed and sliced thin
1/2 small red onion, sliced thin

Bring the lime, vinegar and sugar to a boil.  Take off the heat and let it cool for 5 or so minutes.  Pour over the onions and jalapeno, and refrigerate for a few hours.

Next...Are everyone's eyeballs the same size?  And, other conversations with Farmer Ted.

In the Doghouse

Man...I didn't do nuthin'!

Backstory...The youngest spawn came home sick from school midmorning one day last week and stayed home sick again the next day.  And, then he got over the plague and went back to school.  So what you say?

Rufus versus the $50 backpack is what.

What we all failed to remember was that in the bottom of that backpack was an old lunch with ham in it that didn't get eaten the day the spawn came home early.  The Dragon's senses are keen, and being a jackass he tore through canvas and stitching in the bottom of the bag to get that lunch.  The only thing left standing was the lettuce.

What can I say?  That damn dog loves him some ham.  Probably even more than he loves Farmer Ted and parmesan cheese.

And then, My Dermatologist called me easy...

When I was fully clothed the whole time.

At the end of my visit today, he told me I was his easiest patient so far after he told me that whatever the fuck is growing on my chest probably isn't cancer.

I have some sort of colorless, scaly growth that appeared on my chest.  Relax, it's small and doesn't make me look like I have a goiter or anything.  However, my general practitioner was concerned enough to have it looked at and I am vain enough to want it gone...so off to the skin doc I went.  I mean, I did my share of tanning back in the 80's with babyoil.  To not keep an eye on skin issues would be stupid.

Anyway, he thinks it is something not cancerous that can be solved with a cortisone shot.  He asked me if I wanted it biopsied or wanted the shot.  I asked him if he was the expert that should make that call, or was I?  To which he acknowledged my point and suggested that I take the shot, and if the shit didn't clear up in two weeks THEN we needed to have a biopsy.  To which I agreed because I'm paying him a gazillion dollars a minute to tell me what to do.

And then, it got better.  A few months ago, I paid him a quarter of a gazillion dollars to walk in and get a not insurance covered cortisone shot in my head.  Why?  Because, I had somehow for whatever reason had a run in with alopecia, which caused a nickel sized bald spot in my scalp.  And being vain, I ran to him and he suggested, it turns out, the exact same shot of cortisone.  Which worked because my hair grew back.  At which point when he told me today that I would be getting the exact same shot, I told him that if I started growing hair on my chest he was in trouble.  I'm his easiest patient of the day?  No wonder he charges a gazillion dollars an hour.

So we'll see how all of that goes.

In the meantime, my go to treatment for anything will be Clorox because of this sequence of events:

Me:  Dammit, I just burnt my hand on the oven element.

Ted:  Put some Clorox on it Baby.

Me:  ???

Ted:  That's right, bleach.  Nothing is gonna survive that shit.

Fastforward me recently at my General Practitioner for some sort of nail fungus/issue:

Me:  Yeah, so my nail ends are all yellow and the nails hurt.

GP:  But, it's at the end of your nails.

Me:  I want to rip my nails out of my fingers.

GP:  It's not coming from your nail beds like a normal fungus.

Me:  I don't do anything normal.

GP:  I would change up my mani/pedi place and Clorox your nails.

Me:  You're kidding right?

Ted:  I told you.

The good news is, I probably don't have skin cancer.  And if I do, I'm going to Clorox the crap out of it just in case.

Tsk. Tsk. Mannie...

Did you really think misspelling your name on this establishment would throw us off the fact that you are involved in selling your meat?  Again.

I have my spies Mannie.

Albeit unwitting spies in this case, they are out there.  A friend of mine who is off the charts smart, as well as beautiful inside and out and fiercely loyal, giving...all in all amazing...and who doesn't think she is any of those things ate at your Family Restaurant today Mannie.  She gave it a solid thumbs down.

I suggested to her that it is perhaps she thought she was eating a "wIEner" when in fact, she was eating a "wEIner."  The fuck Mannie?  Being a Wando grad, I can at least spell wiener and my name correctly.

Next...We have seeds in the ground.  Peas and lettuce people!

Manicure Madness, or just another Pinterest anomaly.

The whole fascination with the sock monkey enigma on Pinterest first brought this craziness to my attention...Apparently a trend is to pin unusual fingernail decorations that you heart so much you must try one day.

This I don't classify as crazy, something I would never have the patience for definitely but cute & whimsical nonetheless...Not sure how I could walk into my office with it the next day and expect to be taken seriously.  And, they are pretty laid back.  At my office.  Not the nails.

These are just batshit crazy.  Call me old.  Call me out for having my No Fun Light on, but seriously?  Surely no adult does this?  I pray that no teenage spawn looking for employment does this.  Who are these Pinteresteoples?  Do they have jobs?  Where do they work?  Are they really tweens trying to be all grown up?

WTF?

Up Yours Rudy!

You may or may not know, depending how closely you follow me on Twitter, that I work for an IT development company that specializes in higher education cloud technology.  One area of expertise for my company is developing solutions to ease the way for transfer students to save time and money on their path to a degree.  It's frustrating, complicated and convoluted.

Anyway, while recently conducting a research project about Ivy League and Elite institutions to determine marketability of our website to the institutions who want their castoffs I discovered that today Notre Dame would give the Rudy's of this world...

A big Fuck You.

I'm not sure what makes me sadder, the fact that my spawn will never have the chance to be Rudy if they needed the opportunity...or the fact that Notre Dame felt the need to go there and ruin such a feel good story.  I mean really Fighting Irish?  Considering how your football program has been lackluster, perhaps you should rethink your stance on Rudy.

At least he didn't cut off his thumb. This time.

Tonight Ted was helping me make eggplant lasagna.  And, by helping I mean he took over the slicing of the eggplant on our brand spanking new "possibly the safest" mandolin on the planet because he couldn't stand to let me use it first.

Tiller Ted, immediately dispensed with the safety guard and started slicing away.  Go big, or go home...right?  He also sliced off a largerish part of the side of his right thumb.  Yes, it is as gross to watch as you can imagine.  He wanted me to elaborate this blog post with pics.  Y'all can thank me later.

Just like I am thankful that there are no pictures about the time he was tearing around a kitchen getting rolled and actually cut off his thumb by grabbing a piece of sheet metal.  You heard that right.  I'll let him give you the gory details.  I'm still totally grossed out by the 1/4 inch of thumb slice I saw tonight.

To be fair, I did tell Farmer Ted that I wanted it big...

This year's garden People.  Minds out of the gutter.

And Ted, being Ted, tilled up the entire back yard.  Not some of it.  All of it.

Pictures to come because it is too dark to take one now.

Next...pea and lettuce seeds need to be sown.  This would have happened this weekend, but we opted to nap instead...because we had snow flurries.

Leap Day 2012

Just feeling like we should get this one on the books somehow...because who knows if this blog will be around in 4 years and how lame would it be to NOT post SOMETHING on a gratuitous day if we are still Growdammitting it?  The pressure is getting to me y'all.  And, now here is a random Growdammit Leap Year Commemorative photo...

Feel free to put us on ignore every Leap Year.  Pretty much sums it up.

Inside the mind of a Dragon...

Does Rufus appreciate being spoiled rotten?  New poll is up.

What do you do when a Christmas ornament breaks?

Me?  If they are meaningful, I try to fix them or replace them.  If they are not, I toss them.

I have/had an ornament of a cruise ship.  Can't remember where I got it or why I have it, so this year when it fell off the tree and the back half of it shattered I was going to trash it.

Here's what Farmer Ted did with it...

Hangs it from a lamp like the Titanic going down.

This is of course in the lair.  Sorry for the multiple pictures, but I couldn't decide which one best conveyed the moment.

Happy BirthdayDammit!

It's the blog's birthday.  What a crazy year.

In GrowDammit News:  We haven't started any sprouts yet.  On tap for this weekend are a couple of artichoke and brussel sprout seed starts.  And, we'll pull out Atilla to till up our new garden spot because soon we can sow our lettuces and peas.

We have learned from our mistakes, which isn't to say we won't make more.  But, we will be blogging them.

We tried to get the Keeper of the Garden to pose cheerfully, or at least menacingly, in celebration...

Can barely contain his excitement over it all...

It's been a banner day here...

At GrowDammit HQ.  I'll spare you the gory details of the toe incident, and skip to the fact that I have to tape my toenail down to my bruised toe so I can put it into a shoe.  And to add insult to injury,

I have hard boiled egg yolk stuck to my ceiling.

I was in my bedroom futzing around on the computer with the Dragon snoring on his bed and waiting for Ted to get home from work, when I heard a loud popping noise from downstairs.  It sounded like something had fallen and broken, and the Dragon flew down the stairs.  When he reached the bottom, he started barking and snarling in the general direction of the Family Room...so, I ran and grabbed the Convincer because I was convinced someone was trying to break in through a window and had knocked something over.  The Convincer is the axe handle Ted keeps beside the bed, you know, to convince somebody who has broken in that they made a poor choice.  Like Hurricane looters.  Anyway, the dog gets quiet and all of the sudden more loud noise scared me into locking myself in the bathroom.  I knew Ted was on his way home, so I called him 1st.  And 2nd, and 3rd until he finally answered.  I told him I thought someone *might* be in the house, and the next thing I know he's in the Kitchen with an axe yelling "What the fuck is this shit?"

Why Michele is never allowed to boil anything unsupervised again.

I had put on a pot of eggs, and totally forgotten about them and they exploded.  All over the place.  There was bits of egg and shell all over the counters, everything on the counters, the cabinets - floor to ceiling - the ceiling, the ceiling fan, the floor halfway across the Kitchen.  The house smelled like burned rotten egg farts.

On the plus side, Chef Ted made me Shrimp Etouffee for supper.  And it was yummy.

A bright spot for a sad time...

My Aunt Aileen passed away this morning.  She wasn't my aunt by blood.  Her husband, my Uncle Jack who is also my Godfather, and my father have been best friends ever since they met in Kindergarden.  She didn't die from liver cancer, rather she was in remission from it.  What her body ultimately could not take was all of the aggressive treatments to combat the cancer, and her organs began failing her.  As Ted often says, "Sometimes it's hard to tell the poison from the cure."

I don't post this to find a barrage of people being sorry for my loss.  And while I am very sad, I'm brokenhearted for my Uncle and I'd rather you hold him in your hearts and prayers.  What I am going to do is send him a bouquet of Shasta Daisies.  While some might think that sending him a bouquet of my favorite flowers would be silly and a bit selfish because he has wished all condolences and such be sent in the form of donations to the American Cancer Society, I want to hopefully give him what my Aunt once gave me.  Strength.

The earliest remembrance I have of death and grief was when my Grandmother Marie passed away.  I can't remember exactly how old she was, or how young I was, but I do remember how terrible it was for me, my family and my Grandfather.  I also remember that in the midst of all the condolences and cards and flowers sent to the family, my Aunt sent me a separate, small bouquet of sunny daisies with a note that simply said "A bright spot for a sad time..."  That one simple, beautiful gesture has stayed with me all of this time, and I suspect it is why they are my favorite flower.

I don't know if I ever told my Aunt and Uncle how thoughtful and significant that gesture was, but I am going to print out this blog post and send it to him as well.  I think it's important to be reminded in a time of sadness the beauty the person we mourn brought to the lives of others.

It's like the Sock Monkey is stalking me.

My friend Jody invited me to be on Pinterest which, despite the fact I've only pinned like 10 images (mostly of my kids), is a colossal time sucker.  I have found some cool, crafty ideas and some interesting recipes.  However, I have begun to notice a disturbing trend for people who obviously have way too much time on their hands and are obsessed with a toy that quite frankly never should have been.  Or at least, it never should have been anatomically correct.

Might have won Best Costume if they had been anatomically correct.

Lame Birthday party treats.

Overachiever.

Have to admit that the one on the right is cute.  Okay, so is the one on the left.

Victoria's Secret for your Monkey.

I hope she didn't pay for this.  Or wear it to work.  Unless she works at Toys-R-Us.

Scarred for life.

Her nursery is depicted above.

What did the King do to deserve this?

Destined for the Island of Misfit Toys.

I'll admit this one had me CRYING.

When celebrities lose their minds, and their baby is the only sane one in the group.

 
I feel like this...

I think I need to back away from Pinterest.

My Bad. THIS is why the US Postal Service is going bankrupt...

It's because they care.

Apparently a piece of mail that was supposed to be delivered to us got mangled, and the USPS cares enough to make sure we got our Holiday Greeting Card? No.  Our bill from the phone company?  No.  Our income tax refund?  No.

Our cover page of a catalog that got ripped off.

Seriously.

I guess this kind of care is why they need that extra 3 cents?

P.S.  The price of a stamp goes up by a penny tomorrow.

Next...The Sock Monkey Revisited.  It's scary how much free time some people have to get crafty with it.

A Facebookversary

As best that we can tell, two years ago tomorrow is the date that Farmer Ted and I actually started flirting on Facebook.   You can read about the gory details in this blog post, don't let the Wooly Aphids scare you...that was back when we actually blogged about gardening.

Ted and I went to high school together, and while we remember each other we have no memories of ever actually hanging out.  At first I suppose it was because we had gone to different middle schools.  Then, somewhere in his second sophomore year Ted got "asked to leave."  And in a pre-Facebook world, that was that.  What are the odds we would ever have met up with each other again?

But Facebook changed the odds, and here we are.  A couple.  Raising spawn, spoiling a dragon, sometimes we plant stuff and cook it.  Occasionally we go places to amuse ourselves, quite often that place is Facebook where we alternately amuse and alienate our friends.  We blog about it, mostly.

Anyway, I am truly blessed to have this wonderful man in my life.  Thank you Mark Zuckerberg.

Next...I wrote this today b/c it's my theory that the internet is going to spontaneously combust as millions of people who don't know what to do with themselves w/o Wikipedia for a day run amok.  Also, tomorrow is my youngest sister's bday.  Birthdays trump Facebookversaries, so it really should be all about her.  And, I still have to chastise the USPS.  Again.

It's the thought that counts.

Until your grandmother gives you a soccer calendar...

January

No, you didn't read that wrong.

To be fair, I'm pretty sure that the Plant Whisperer didn't have any idea what the interior of the calendar said when she picked it for her grandspawn.  Instead, we are choosing to believe that she rather meant what was on the cover.

Much better.

Next...The United States Postal Service cares.  They just don't care they are going broke.  Part II.