Happy Hallowheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen!

Happy Halloween!

Friends, here we are.  It's Halloween, and I just can't help but say "wheeeeeeeeeee!"  I'm so excited.  I get to dress up in a costume.  I'm going to be Pebbles Flintstone, you know, from the vitamins, but here's the twist: Not only am I gonna be Pebbles Flintstone, from the vitamins, I'm gonna be Pebbles, all dressed up in a Sabretooth Tiger costume.  From Bedrock.  Not Sabretooth from the Sabres.  He said I could, but I said I wanted to keep hockey out of my Halloween.

Well, he's been watching the games this season, so he understood!

Back to my Halloween plans! I'm dressin' up, and this year Mommy AND Daddy are dressin' up!  Rozzie, too.  Rozzie's going to be Dino.  From the Flintstones.  Not my Chief of Transportation Dean O.  It's confusing, but try to keep up.  Rozzie's gonna be Dino the dinosaur dressed up like a white German shepherd dog!  How about that?!  Mommy suggested purple Manic Panic and black spots for Rozzie, and Rozzie said 'Don't even think about it!' So Rozzie's costume is high-concept this year.  To the uninitiated, it'll look like she isn't even dressed up at all, but in the context of the rest of us, she'll fit right in.

We're all dressin' up and trick-or-treating!

Now, dressing up in a costume is nothing new for me. I've been dressing up for Halloween my whole life!  The first year, I was a pink piglet!  But I didn't get to go trick-or-treating.  I remember I got to go to the vet's to take Rozzie for her bath.  Rozzie was mad that she had to get a bath, and I was mad that all I was allowed to have was Similac, but it was still fun to go into the vet's and say hi to everybody, dressed up like a piglet!

Last year, I was a piglet again, because my piglet costume from my first Halloween was so big I could get away with wearin' it two years in a row!  Last year was more fun.  I got to go around to a coupla places.  Grand parents.  Great-grandparents.  I got a little candy.  I got a fancy cupcake!

Oh, wow, do I ever love cupcakes!  I'd tell ya more about how much I love cupcakes, but people think I have a problem with cupcakes when I talk about 'em so much, so I've been trying to curb my enthusiasm.  But in my head, I'm thinking of the cake, and the icing, and the sprinkles.  OH MY GOODNESS, I LOVE SPRINKLES!

Anyway, last year, Mommy stayed home and handed out Smiley Cookies to our trick-or-treaters.  We don't get many trick-or-treaters.  Plus, we were right in the middle of a big storm.  Do you remember that, Friends?  It was a superstorm!  I remember the wind was blowing and it was thundering and lightninging and snowing and just acting awful outside!  And we didn't even get the worst of that superstorm! 

I hope I see the Great Pumpkin!

Plus, we had yellowjackets taking over our house!  Now THAT was a scary thing!

This year, though, I'm really excited.  I get to dress up, and my whole family's dressing up with me.  I'm not going on a big Trick-or-Treat Expedition.  Just around to all my grandparents and great-grandparents.  Daddy's office.  I don't really care much about the candy.  Don't get me wrong.  I like candy.  But for me, it's gonna be fun dressing up in my costume-within-a-costume, and spreading the Halloween spirit, maybe meeting the Great Pumpkin, and being out and about with my whole family. 

I'll have pictures of us, day after tomorrow, okay, Big People? 

In the meantime, have a Happy Halloween!  Wheeeeeeeeeee!

I love ya!  Muah!

The MONster M*A*S*H

I've seen some things this week, Friends.

Hiya, Friends!  Well, how's your HalloWEEK been treating you?  It's been a busy one for me, especially at my internship at St. Laffalotatus-Mercy-Mercy Hospital.  Yes, I'm still an intern at St. Laffalotatus-Mercy-Mercy Hospital, and it's been just crazy this week. 

You see, we've had an influx of traffic in our Emergency Room, affectionately known as "The Pit."  We interns hafta put our time in The Pit, running scut and doing the grunt-work.  It actually would be pretty interesting if we weren't so busy and if things weren't so crazy!

For instance, yesterday, we had a fella come in to The Pit wearin' a cloak with a big stand-up collar, and knee-breeches, and a ruffly shirt, and a waistcoat, and... he was carryin' his head under his arm, and his head wasn't a head at all.  It was a Pumpkin!  Holy smokes!

Well, you can't just scream when you're working in The Pit, even if you see a fellow come in, carrying his pumpkin-head under his arm like a football.  That'd be unprofessional.  So I sat him down on a cot, and got his health-history.  Checking his vital signs was a little weird, since he didn't have any, but he was walking around and could sit up and stuff.  He answered all my questions with this weird echoey "muahahahahahahaha!"  Just as I was gonna go to my attending for some help, I decided to have him write down what was the matter.  I thought for sure, it'd be the fact that he had no head but for a pumpkin, but that wasn't it at all.   He had a bad splinter in his hand, which I was able to take care of.  I even got to do stitches!  All by myself!  That was something!

Some wild and crazy things!

That was just the beginning.  The next patient I saw was a Jacko Lantern.  He was doing the Moonwalk and blew out his own candle.  He was all dark and spooky, sitting on his gurney, but I got him lit back up in just a few minutes, and he was on his way.

There was this witch who flew her broom into a tree.  She was pretty banged up.  We had to refer her up to ortho.  She's gonna be all right, but she won't be flying around on a broom for a while, poor thing.

A tall fellow came staggering in through the Emergency Room doors, and he had a bolt through his neck!  I thought for sure he was a construction worker, and his bolt gun got away from him, but the bolt was holding on his head.  He came to us for a fever of 98.6.  That's normal for you and me and the other interns at St. Laffalotatus-Mercy-Mercy Hospital, but for this fellow, he was burning the heck up!  I saw him when we were on rounds with one of our attendings, Dr. Frank N. Stein, and he's doing much better, but he's going to have to stay in the hospital for a few days.

A vampire fellow came into The Pit because he was playing racketball with a mummy, and he got hit in the head with the ball.  The mummy was fine but felt bad for the vampire.  We had to do an MRI on the vampire, and he was the stillest patient I've ever seen in the MRI machine!  The thing with him was that once he started feeling a little better, we had a hard time keeping him out of the blood bank.  Finally, one of our nurses thought to get him some blood orange juice!  That saved the day!

A skeleton swallowed a key.  You'd think it'd just go straight through, but it surely did not.  And what's worse, we didn't know whether to get an ortho consult, because it's a skeleton who swallowed a key and is just bones, or if we needed one of the gastro fellows, or a general surgeon, so we paged everybody and got in hot water for doing that.  Especially when they told us we should have paged the locksmith, and when the general surgeon paged the locksmith for us, did we ever get a dirty look!

We had a heart for transplant come in.  They brought it in one of those red coolers.  And we all kept hearing a lub-dub, lub-dub sound.  We couldn't figure out where that sound was coming from, and we looked all over The Pit, and as it turned out, it was that heart, in the red cooler!  We saw the heart and its new owner this morning on rounds.  They're both doing well, and the beating sound wasn't so loud, so the heart must be happy to be there.

A werewolf bit himself, so we had to give him a rabies shot and also a Milkbone. 

It's all in a day's work, though, at St. Laffalotatus-Mercy-Mercy!

A banshee came in because she'd lost her voice.  She was my patient, and at first, I was really afraid, because you know, she was a banshee.  But she turned out to be really sweet, and she had a really sore throat.  I got her to gargle with some salt water, eat a coupla marshmallows out of the refrigerator, and wear a scarf to keep her neck warm.  She's doing lots better, but she still has to rest her voice!

Friends, I'll be honest with you.  When I started my internship at St. Laffalotatus-Mercy-Mercy Hospital, I never thought I'd be working in a Monster M*A*S*H unit, but I sure am.  This week has brought out some crazy, crazy things.  Things I'm not sure I'd see if I'd have gotten an internship somewhere else.  It's rewarding, though.  It is.

Well, Friends.  Stay safe and sound for the rest of this HalloWeek!  If you're playin' racketball with a mummy, please keep your eye on the ball!  Don't let it hitchya in the face!  And remember, Friends, I love ya! Muah!

So Fun It's SPOOKY!

Mr. Noodle just squirted that toothpaste all over himself!

Friends, how's your HalloWEEK going?  Mine's going really well.  I'm keeping up the HalloWEEK spirit, no problems! 

Something that's really helping me get and stay excited about Halloween is watching the Noodles on Elmo's World on Sesame Street.  Not because the Noodles are scary or gross or creepy, but because they're much fun!

Actually, the Noodles are so much fun, it's spooky! 

Did Miss Noodle just put that sweater sleeve on her LEG?!

What makes it spooky is that the Noodles know just how to make me laugh.  Whether it's Mr. Noodle putting his raincoat on to go to the beach, or Mr. Noodle's brother Mister Noodle trying to brush his teeth with the toothpaste inside the tube, or the antics of Mr. Noodle's sister Miss Noodle or his other sister Ms. Noodle, they know what to do right at the right time to make me laugh.

Mister Noodle! That's not how you fly a kite!

It's like the Noodles are in my head!  That's SPOOKY!

They just get me!

So there you go, Friends!  This HalloWEEK, if you don't like gross things, or really scary things, but you still want to experience some kind of thrill this timeayear, have a great laugh.  The kind of laugh that starts down in your belly and bubbles up and you can't stop laughing.  It's a great way to celebrate HalloWEEK!

You might say it's so much fun to laugh like that, that it's.... SPOOKY!

I love ya, Friends!  I'll see ya tomorrow!  Muah!

Uh-Oh! It's HalloWEEK!

Why, yes, I DID dress up for Halloweek!

Hiya, Friends!  Well, it's finally here.  Thursday is Halloween, so this is Halloweek!  I bet it's going to be positively spooktacular!  So welcome to HALLOWEEK, Friends!

I'm not really sure what a person does for HalloWEEK.  I s'pose you could wear a lot of black and skulls and spiders and stuff.  Or if you're my Mommy, that's every single week of the year.  I suppose wearing spooky clothes is a really easy way to gt into the spirit of HalloWEEK!  That's what I'm gonna do!

I believe another way to celebrate HalloWEEK is to enjoy Halloween-themed foods all week long.  Roasted Pumpkin Soup would be a good and nutritious food to start with.  I love pumpkins, and I love things that are roasted!  I bet putting those things together in a soup is just delicious! 

I find it's really easy to get into the spirit for Halloween!

I love delicious foods!

Also, instead of serving just regular corn for meals, you could serve Candy Corn.  You don't even need to cook it!  You don't hafta toss it with any butter or salt and pepper!  It's all ready for you already!  Plus, it's available in giant bags and tubs this timeayear! 
I think the word fancy people use is "Plentiful."  Candy Corn is plentiful this timeayear!

Um, what would be some other good HalloWEEK foods?  Do you have any suggestions, Big People? 

I know some people like to name regular foods gross things or spooky things for Halloween, like peeled grapes for eyeballs, or any gross application of cooked pasta of different shapes.  Or they'll make up regular food to look gross or spooky.  That's not what I'm into.

See ya tomorrow, Friends! We'll have a SPOOKTACULAR week!

I am excited for this year's Halloween, since I'm going to dress up in a Halloween costume and go around with Mommy and Daddy.  I'm not going on a full-on Trick-or-Treating expedition, but I'm going to do a limited engagement.  Just goin' around to my family in the area.  All the Trick-or-Treating greats started small, just like me, so I'm really excited to have this opportunity!

It doesn't really matter how much candy I get.  What really matters is how much fun I get to have, and that's why I'm so excited that this week is HalloWEEK.  We get to stretch the spooktacular fun out and have four or five days, instead of just one!  How about that?!

I'll check in with ya tomorrow, Friends! 

Be sure to get HalloWEEK started out right, Friends!  This kicks off the Big Fall-Winter Holidays!  I love ya!  Muah!

Go Team!

Time to go to WLorD practice!

Friends, did you know that I participate in my company's intramural Win, Lose, or Draw league?  Well, I do, and I'm not the captain.  Just a Win, Lose, or Drawer, and I'll tell you something.  When you're on a Win, Lose or Draw team... How's about I just shorten it to WLorD from here on out?

Anyway, when you're on a WLorD team, it sure helps if you and your teammates are on the same wavelength, you know what I mean? 

Now, it seems that everyone else on my team is all on the same wavelength, mentally.  They're all dialed in to each other pretty well, evidently, because over and over again at team practices, and even at WLorD games, because someone will draw a straight line, and someone else will guess "Spaghetti!" while I'm thinking that I need more information, or they'll draw a square.  Just a square, and someone else will shout out "Cafeteria Pizza!" and it'll be RIGHT!

We're mostly on the Lose side of that.

They get that from a SQUARE?!  I mean, it didn't even have any circles on it to represent pepperonis or anything!  Just a square.  I was shouting out "Box! Fence!  Yard! Don't Fence Me In!" etc., etc.  Cafeteria Pizza never even occurred to me!

Now, yesterday, at our team practice, my word to draw was "Pegasus."  So I drew a really nice horse.  Four legs, mane, tail, wings, and you know what my team guessed?  Gas pump.

You read that right.  They thought my horse was a gas pump.

Now, I realize I have limited skills as an artist.  I know that, and I'm working a little bit every day to get better at my drawing.  I've been working really hard on abstract concepts so I'm a better guesser.  But there's no way, no how that my Pegasus looked like a gas pump.

So I got mad. Really mad.  And I asked my teammates how in the world they got "Gas Pump" from a beautiful horse with wings. 

You know what they said, Friends?  They said they thought it was "Gas Pump" because Mobil Gas stations use a Pegasus as their logo, so they thought I was drawing the Mobil logo, which made 'em think of gas stations, which made 'em think of the pumps, and so that's how my Pegasus turned into a gas pump.

I might need to find a new WLorD team!

How would I draw a gas pump?  Why, not with a horse with wings, that's for sure.  I think I'd draw a rectangle standing up the tall way, with a dollar sign near the top, for where it tells you how much money you're exchanging for your gasoline, and then I'd draw and upside-down letter P with a curving line attached to it and the tall rectangle, and that'd be my hose.

I sure wouldn't go to all the trouble of drawing Pegasus for a gas pump!  No I wouldn't!

Sheesh.  Well, it seems like maybe it's just me, since everybody else on the team is on the same wavelength.  I know I can't put in a transfer and transfer out of my department, but I wonder if I'd be allowed to play on a different department's WLorD team.  Maybe with people whose wavelength I can find.  That'd be great!

In the meantime, Friends, I'll just keep on trying hard to find a magic wavelength that works for all of us on my team.  I'll keep trying to get myself better.  And most of all, I'll keep on loving you all, Friends!  You make my day so bright, and I love you!  Muah!

In Case of a Mess-Up

First, admit the wrongness and don't let it ruin your day.

Hiya, Friends!  You know me.  I try really hard to do things right, to pass along the right information and such, but sometimes, I just get it all wrong.  Yes, I do.  I think all of us, despite our best intentions, gets it wrong every so often, you know?

I have this system I do, when I get things wrong.  Wanna hear about it?

Well, it's what I'm going to talk about today, so if you don't wanna hear it, you can surf away and come back tomorrow.  No hurt feelings!

You still here?  Good!

First of all, when I make a mistake, I own up to it.  I say, 'Hey! I've made a mistake!'  It's so important to acknowledge a mistake, otherwise, it can snowball, and snowball, and snowball!

Then go like this with your arms and tell yourself to try again!

Next, I try to retrace my steps to see how I goofed up, so maybe I can fix it, and also so I don't make that mistake again.  Learning from your mistakes, I think is what they call it!

Sometimes, I need help, getting myself out of the mistake.  So I ask for it.  There's no shame in asking for help.  Ever.

When you ask for help, what you're getting is another person's perspective.  You get the benefit of their experience, and also, they might be able to think of something you haven't thought of!  How about that?!

Always ask for help when you need it!  I sure do!

The next thing I do is go like this with my arms- see the picture to the right?  That's what I do with my arms, and I also tell myself to try again. Then I go try again!

Mistakes aren't the end of the world!

The thing to remember is not to let a mistake ruin your day or your week.  I mean, some mistakes can be huge.  But that's a different balla wax, Friends.  I'm talking about the ordinary little mistakes we might make, and then beat ourselves up for them when really, we should just shake it right off and move the heck on. 

You know what I'm sayin'?

That's what I'm trying really hard to do, Friends, and I hope you do, too.

I love ya, Friends, and that's no mistake!

See ya tomorrow!

Muah!

Just Around the Corner!

A favorite holiday of mine is coming up!

Hiya, Friends!  Hey!  I couldn't help noticing that the calendar says it's October the Twenty-Fifth.  Do you know what that means? 

Christmas!  Christmas is just around the corner! 

...Whoa!  Hey!  Don't throw things at Zoe!  I'm just the messenger!  I'm just stating a fact!  Today's the twenty-fifth, and in two months it'll be Christmas! 

Your reaction brings up a question I've wondered about for a long time, though, Friends.  It really does!

Time for cocoa and cozies!

Why is it that you Big People are so ambivalent about Christmas?  I don't understand it!  Christmas is such a happy time!  Magical, even.  It is if you let it be.  That goes for every day, but especially Christmas, Friends!

I talked to my friend Santa Claus recently, and I asked him why he thought Big People are ambivalent about Christmas.  He said he thinks it's because Big People try to do too much.  Big People try to BE Santa Claus, but most Big People don't have magic to help 'em keep up the way Santa Claus does.  So I asked Santa what he thinks Big People can do to minimize feeling like they hafta do everything big, big, big for Christmas, and Santa Claus said to simplify! 

I'm gonna go check my List!

That makes sense, Big People.  If it stresses you out to do something during the Christmas Season, really think about whether or not you really wanna do it.  If you realize it isn't worth the stress, just don't do it!  Or maybe ask for some help.  If it IS worth your stress, find other things you do during the holidays that you don't like to do but feel like you hafta, and then really evaluate it and see if you couldn't cut that out, instead.

Simplify.  It's great advice, Friends.  Why, I'd rather spend my Christmas with my own Big People and have 'em be relaxed, happy, and fun to be around, instead of being stretched so thin that they're brittle, snappy, because they were trying to make the house look like a gingerbread fairyland.   I'd rather get to play with my Big People for Christmas than have a big pile o' toys piled up!  I really would!  Aunt Colleen, in particular, has the best songs!

So I guess I can fill out a Christmas list for the sake of my Big People.  And I will.  But just so you know, Friends, I'm okay if I could just get some serious playin' time in with my favorite people.

Think about it, Friends.  Think about simplifying your Christmas, and them hopefully, you won't try to hit me in the head with a shoe you threw, kay?  I love ya just the same, Friends!  Muah!

The Chickener The Egg

Let's see, which came first: the chicken or the egg?

Hiya, Friends!

Recently, I heard a question: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

At first, I thought "Oh, this is easy!" and then immediately after that, I thought, "I'd like a milkshake right now!"

But back to the question at hand.  Which DID come first, Big People?  Was it the chicken or was it the egg?  Do you know?  Does anybody know?

I could argue all day for the case for the egg coming first.  Think about your day, Friends.  If you eat any kind of breakfast, I betchya there's eggs involved.  Scrambled, poached, fried, hard-boiled, RAW, in a protein smoothie if you're hard-core... Eggs are an important part of a nutritious breakfast.

Gee, this is harder to answer than I thought!

Furthermore, little chickens come from eggs.  I have a book that Aunt Colleen got me that's fuzzy like a little chick, and it's called One Little Chick.  It's actually about a buncha little chicks hatching in a nest, but it's still one of my favorite books, despite the misleading title.  I just love it!  And in that book, it's clear that the little chicks come from the eggs, therefore, the eggs are in the nest first, and chickens are eggs first.

BUT.  Two things.

First, when you're starting your day, it's possible that a rooster cockadoodle-doos and wakes you up before you can eat some eggs.

Second, I ask this: Where did the eggs come from?  Why, in my book, there's a Mama Hen.  She laid the eggs.  I believe this is how it is with all the other chickens, not just the chickens in my book.  A hen has to lay the eggs.  So the eggs that all little chickens are before they're little chickens hafta come from a hen.  That means the hen was there before the eggs, so the eggs couldn't have come first, because they come from a hen who needed to exist before she could lay eggs.

Hey, I'm goin' for that milkshake now!

And that hen would have had to have been an egg herself once.  So there was another hen before her.

So where DID that proto-hen come from?  Or did chicken eggs just mysteriously appear one day in a nest?  I think we're gettin' into some science fictioney stuff here. 

Let's back up and re-examine the original question: Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?

By Jove, call the newspapers.  I have the answer. 

You see, it doesn't ask which EXISTED first, the chicken or the egg.  It says which COMES first.  Doesn't say comes where or why.  Now, eggs can't really move on their own.  Yes, they can roll, but they aren't deciding for themselves to go from here to there or there to here.  A chicken can, however.  A chicken can look across a yard and bring itself from there to here. 

So there's my answer, Friends.  Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?  Well, it's the chicken, of course, coming along and bringing the eggs, which will arrive after.  How about that?!  It's all about the wording.  It's all about answering the question that was asked, not trying to figure out the question that you think is trying to be asked.  I believe the big kids call this Logic. 

I really don't know.  What I DO know is this was a lot of heavy-duty thinking, so that milkshake I mentioned earlier... I'm going to go for that now, and if I run into any chickens on my way to the milkshakery, I'll help 'em across the street and do a little dance with 'em.

Have a good day, Friends!  I love ya!  Muah!

Cleanin' the This!

FlyLady Sweepy: let me count the ways I love you!

Hiya, Friends!  If you know me, you know I love to help out around the house.  I especially love runnin' Sweepy, which is what I call our vacuum cleaner.  Sometimes, the job doesn't require Sweepy to come out from his garage, and I can do the job with our dust-mop, which came from a lady down south named FlyLady!

I'm not sure what I like best about the FlyLady Sweepy.  It works GREAT and that's something to love about it, but that isn't the whole thing.  FlyLady Sweepy's got a red mophead that kind of looks like Elmo.  I love Elmo!  But that's not the only reason I love the Flylady Sweepy! 

You do not want to use too much soap-a-soap!

Maybe what really sold me on the FlyLady Sweepy is that the handle biggens or smallifies, depending on who's using it.  Mommy lets that handle stretch out as far as it'll go when she's running the FlyLady Sweepy.  And I have it scrunched right down to Zoe size when I run the FlyLady Sweepy.  That feature is a game-changer in how easy it is to use Sweepy, Friends! 

I always say, the best cleaning tool to clean with is the one that you'll use.  And I figure that the one you'll use is the one that's easy to use and that works.  That describes FlyLady Sweepy pretty succinctly!


I think I might even enjoy running FlyLady Sweepy even more than I like running the feather duster, even though the feather duster has real feathers in it and is purple!  There's just something about FlyLady Sweepy!

Use just enough to get the job done, no more!

The other thing I love to use for cleanin' the this is some soap-a-soap.  It comes in lotsa colors and fragrances, and is packaged under all kinds of different brand names, but it's all just soap that comes in a squirt bottle. 

The thing you don't wanna do when you're using soap-a-soap is first of all use it with a feather duster or dustmop.  Those things are meant to be used dry!  Don't mess with 'em!  Also, whatever you do, you do not wanna use too much soap-a-soap!  It'll make a mess, you'll need more water to rinse it, and you'll need to clean up after your cleanin' up.  Nobody's got time for that!

Use just enough to get the job done, and not a drop more, okay, Friends?  That's a cleanin' tip that's worked for me, and I'd like to pass it on to you, too! 

All right, Friends!  You're the best!  I love ya!  Muah!

TutuTuesday!

TutuTuesdays are good for the soul!

Hiya, Friends!  Well, it's Tuesday!  Tuesdays get kind of a bum rap if you ask me.  Not like Mondays, but people don't really care much for Tuesdays, either, because sometimes they take over Monday's duties, like when there's been a three-day weekend including Monday, and you find yourself starting Tuesday off on a weird foot.  Tuesdays are kind of like the runners-up to Mondays.  Could you imagine being the runner-up to Monday? 

Sheesh.

That's why I've instituted TutuTuesday around here, Friends!  I think you ought to try it, too!  It's impossible to have a bad day if you're wearing a tutu! 

I have a coupla tutus, but my favorite one for TutuTuesday is bright pink.  I mean bright, bright, bright pink!  You might just as well go big, bold pink or go home, when you're talking TutuTuesday, you know what I'm saying, Friends?

Give it a try, Big People.  I know even with everybody wearin' tutus, Tuesday won't be as beloved a day as Friday, but it can be a lot more festive than it is!  Think about it!  If you need a tutu, I know a guy at a place, so send up a flare!

And remember, I love ya!  Muah!

One False Keystroke!

Boyo boy.  I don't think the computer glitches are worked out all the way yet!

Hiya, Friends!  Well, wanna know how I can tell it's Monday?  Wanna hear? 

I know it's Monday, because they've got the computers back up and running that we're supposed to enter in our TPS Reports on, so we don't have to fill 'em out in triplicate by hand, anymore.  See, we got the computers, and they said the office was goin' paperless, and then the computers broke, and we had to go back to paper TPS Reports. 

Oh, it's gone.  It's really, really gone.

Back to why I know it's Monday.  Boy, oh boy. 

Like I mentioned, we had the computers, and then they broke again, and now we have 'em back again!  We all thought, 'Hooray!  Now we don't hafta do our TPS Reports by hand anymore again!'

And then it happened.  One false keystroke, and my whole morning's work went into the ether somewhere in cyberspace.

Computers.

So I tried shutting down the TPS Report program, re-booting it, searching through my rescue documents, searching my backups, and guess what happened. 

Nothing. 

All that work's gone.  It's really, really gone. 

When ya can't do your work at work, go for donuts!

Now, there's a coupla ways I can handle this.  I could cry and throw some things around, maybe even my computer.  I could send a yellsy voicemail to the IT fellas, but that just makes 'em come up here slower, and besides, I called the Help Desk already, and they're swamped, because EVERYBODY'S TPS Reports program crashed and took their work with it, so I just asked 'em at the Help Desk where I am on the queue, and I'm somewhere up in the fifties.  So I won't be the first to get my computer fixed, but I'm not the last one, either.  I'm towardser the first than I am the last. 

So here's what I'm gonna do about this.  There's nothing I can do to fix things myself, so I'm going to the donut shop.  I'm gonna have me a donut or two, and a bambinoccino.  Then I'm gonna bring a coupla boxes of donuts for the IT guys.  I'm guessing they're gonna have a bad day today, and at least when they get to my computer to fix it, they can have some donuts.

Tsk, Tsk, Tsk, Whisk, Whisk, Whisk!

I got my green whisk!

Friends!  Didja know I love to cook?  Oh, yeah!  I'm awesome at it! 

My current obsession is the pink packing peanut.  Oh, my goodness, it's such a versatile ingredient in everything from soups to appetizers to main dishes to dessert to coffee!

That's right, I said coffee!

No, no.  Don't let that hang you up.  Let me explain!

You see, the lowly pink packing peanut lends itself so well to so many things.  I recently was gifted with a gorgeous PBKids coffeemaker, and there sat the pink packing peanuts right there, and I couldn't resist trying them through the coffeemaker.  I put 'em in the tank, I put 'em in the part where you put the coffee.  I pushed the button, lights flashed, sounds were made, and in the end, I had the best cuppa pink packing peanut coffee I'd ever tasted in my whole life!  It was smooth, and aromatic, and had just a hint of cherry. 

I got my green flipper!

Now, making dessert from pink packing peanuts is a snap.  All you do is get out a cutting board and one of your plastic knives, and you just chop up some pink packing peanuts, get out a little bowl of ice cream and some chocolate sauce, and puh-POW!  You've got yourself a fancy little Mexican Sundae right there!  Que Bueno!

It's the savory things that really make the pink packing peanut shine, though, Friends.  It really is.  You see, you can put some pink packing peanuts in some imaginary boily water on your Red Retro Stove, let 'em get al dente, drain 'em, toss 'em with some sauce or olive oil, and you've got PASTA!  Or you can throw a handful into some soup!  Pink Packing Peanut Minestrone is a favorite around here!  You can also cook up some pink packing peanuts, whip up some cheese sauce, stir it all together, and have yourself some Pink Packing Peanuts and Cheese!  I love how the yellow of the cheese sauce compares and contrasts with the pink of the packing peanuts.

With the right utensils and a li'l imagination, there's nothing I can't do!

You can bake with pink packing peanuts, too.  Pink packing peanuts help a souffle rise up nicey tall like nobody's business.  Or they can act like marshmallows on a pan of brownies.  S'mores brownies are the best!  Mmmmm!

Of course, you know how much I love my cupcakes, and pink packing peanuts aren't excluded from those.  No!  I make pink packing peanut butter icing all the time, and it's just grand. 

You see, Friends, with the right utensils and a little imagination, there's nothing pink packing peanuts can't do or be.  And the same goes for me!  (And you!)

Lawnmower Girl!

Mowin' the lawn makes me feel like a big cheese and a big helper!

Hiya, Friends!  Well, even though Summer's pretty much over ... Oh, I know it's sad, but we have a lot to look forward to in the Fall, still!  We really do!  Friends, instead of being all stuck on Summer and being sad when it's time to change off it, and getting all grumpy when it starts getting darker earlier, focus instead on how much fun it is to watch the seasons change!  Really!  I mean, if you love Summer a lot, there's places where you can live where it IS summer all the time, but there'll be lotsa heat, and maybe some humidity, and you still can't really stop it from getting darker earlier, unless you live on the equator.  Just be cool with the Changing of the Seasons, if you live in a place where the seasons change!  Accept and adapt!  You'll be so much happier!

It's like a workout that gets work done, really!

Now, what the heck did I start out saying today, anyways?

Oh, yeah!  My lawnmower!

Friends, I love to mow the lawn!  Granted, right now, by rig blows bubbles instead of makes the grass all nice'n'short, but I'm workin' my way up, showin' Mommy and Daddy I can be trusted with yard care responsibilities.  I'm always really careful when I'm mowin', too.  I don't wanna hurt me, or any standers-by, or throw rocks onto the house or cars!  Nice'n'careful is how I roll when I'm mowin' the lawn.

I like to think of mowin' the lawn as a great workout.  Pushing that mower around works it all: my back, my quads, glutes'n'hammies, my trapezius muscles, my delts, my pecs, and of course, my core.  Also, I get a lot of steps in, pushing the lawn mower back and forth!  It's a workout while getting work done... or getting work done while working out!  I haven't decided which, really.  Either way, it's great!

And when I'm allll done, I can sit down and relax!

Now, what I like most about my particular model of lawn mower is that it's really quiet, so I can hear the sounds of nature going on around me.  You know, birds singing, Rozzie barking to other dogs in the neighborhood, cars going by, airplanes flying overhead. ... What's that? ... Oh, cars and airplanes aren't nature? ... I see.  Well, that's okay.  I don't mind 'em.  It's nice to know there's other people in the world.  Helps with feeling connected and all that. 

I'll miss the summertime and using my bubble lawnmower, but I know that I'll be seeing Summer again, come next April, May, or June.  You never know when Winter's gonna move out here in the Bing, and Summer's gonna return.  That's another thing that makes life so exciting.  But Summer always comes back.

And in the meantime, I'm gonna convert my bubble mower to a floor buffer and use it inside the house.  How about that?!  Ah!hahahahahahaha!

I love ya, Friends!  I'll see ya tomorrow!  Muah!

"E" for Excellent Exercise Effort!

You wanna step up on your step carefully!

Hiya, Friends!  You know something?  Physical fitness is very important to me.  I think if you feel good, you can think better, and you're happier.  At least that's the way it is for me!

I've been exercising for pretty much my whole life.  I do a little bit of everything.  I lift some weights.  I do cardio and Pilates and yoga.  I love yoga!

Actually, if I were being completely honest, I'd hafta say I love it all.  I really do.

I'm not really sure how I got started in the exercising. I don't remember a time when I didn't.  When I was a baby, Mommy would bring me down to the gym while she exercised, and I'd stay in my playpen and kick my legs and flail my arms around in time to the music.  It was more strenuous than you'd think, and it was actually sort of a precursor to the Pilates workouts I do now!

Now own the step!  Stand proud, tall, and confidently!

I don't always make it down to the gym these days, but I DO make sure I move a lot every day.  I make the world my gymnasium!  I really do!  Who needs a treadmill when you can walk?  Who needs iron dumbbells when you have heavy stuff you can pick up and carry around?

When I DO get to go to the gymnasium, I have a blast, working on the equipment.  There's this thing called a BOSU, which looks like half a yoga ball, and you can either have it ball side up, or flat side up, if you're really good with crazy-good balance!  I like to jump on the ball part!  I love to push the whole yoga ball around the floor.  That's quite a workout, especially if you think about how I'm about as tall as the diameter of the yoga ball.

Make sure to stretch and relax after your exercises!

I think my favorite things right now, though, are the blue marshmallow balance mats. They're thick foam pads that I can use like a step if I want to, or I can stand on top of the mat, and it makes me wobble a little bit, so I really hafta work my little balancing muscles.  Heck, even sitting on the mat makes me have to work my core muscles.  Plus, they provide extra cushioning for my knees when I'm stretchin'!  They're something, my blue marshmallow mats. 

The most important thing I've learned about exercise is that you've gotta just show up.  That's a lot of the battle.  It's so easy for your brain to talk you out of exercising, but if you show up and just do it, you feel so great! 

That's how it works for me!

I love you, Friends!  I love you a lot!  Muah!

When You Use Too Much Hair Product

No, my hair isn't wet. I got too much mousse in it.

Hiya, Friends!  Well, you may notice that my hair looks a little bet wet-look today.  A little Jeri-Curl.  I assure you that I didn't come in with a wet head.  No.  In fact, I used my little hair dryer with the little diffuser.

My hair looks wet like it does because I used too much hair product in it.  I used too much mousse, to be exact.  The directions on the back of the can said a golf-ball-sized dollop.  I think what I actually used was more the size of a baseball.  I just wanted to make sure I had enough of that mousse to work its cherry-vanilla-scented goodness all the way through, from the roots to the ends.

I guess you know from my pictures today that there's sucha thing as too much of a good thing, even if that good thing is cherry-vanilla-scented mousse.

What I couldn't get over is how no matter how much I dried my hair, it still just clumped together and looked wet.

When they say 'golf-ball-size' they really mean it!

I'm learning that not only is it important to read directions on the back of the bottle of hair products (and other things), but it's as important to FOLLOW the directions. Can't stress that enough. 

For today, I'm just gonna go with the wet look, and good-naturedly answer people when they ask me if I just got back from the pool.  Or if I got caught in the rain.  Or if I used too much hair product.

I'm kind of wondering if one lather-n-rinse is gonna take care of this, or if I'm gonna hafta get into the dish soap.  I can't help but notice that the dish soap doesn't come in a tear-free version the way my shampoo does.  Yikes.

Anyway, today, I'll just go with the wet look.  I'll take my lesson with me, about reading AND following the directions on the back of the product bottle.  I'll review the size of a golf ball and the size of a baseball, for visual reference.

Until tomorrow, Friends, know I love ya!  Muah!

Camel Apples

Hoo boy. It's Hump Day again.

Hiya, Friends!  Well, it's Wednesday all over again!  Joe the Camel's in the building, asking everybody what day it is. 

You know, last Wednesday, we got him good.  A bunch of us from my department put our money together and bought a big caramel apple, with extra caramel, so it was nice'n'chewy, and then we left the apple for him at the Security Kiosk.  Hector, our security guard, said he'd give Joe the Camel the caramel apple for us, and he did, right when Joe the Camel came through the front doors.

We don't wanna be rude to Joe Camel!

What we were hoping for, and what we actually got, happily, was that the caramel apple would be so chewy and caramelly that Joe Camel would be so tied up in eating it that he'd forget about coming up to our floor to ask all of us to guess what day it is ("Hump Day!" Joe!  Just like every Wednesday, all day!  Do we really hafta go through this EVERY Wednesday, Dude?)  It's kind of disruptive, and Joe Camel doesn't let anybody off the hook.  EVERYBODY's got to answer him.  At least twice or thrice!

Thing of it is that while we're all kind of tired of playing the Hump Day game with Joe the Camel, we all like him and we don't want to hurt his feelings.  That's what made ambushing him with a caramel apple at the Security Kiosk so genius.  It kept him out of all our hair for the whole first half of the day, he enjoyed sitting down at the Kiosk with Hector, asking people coming into or leaving the building what day it was, Hector liked the company, and we could get our work done.  It was a win-win-win-win-win situation. 

When the goin' gets tough, give 'em candy!  Yeah!

We can't get Joe the Camel a big caramel apple EVERY Wednesday, though.  Too much of that, and he'd need caps, which the caramel would pull right off.  We don't wanna make Joe the Camel go through extensive dental work, just to keep him from bugging us on Wednesdays!  That's not what a friend does!

So for today, we're just grinning and bearing it.  Yes, Joe the Camel, it IS Hump Day!  Woooo-wheeeeee!  I bet your pleased as punch!  I bet it must never get old to be a camel on Hump Day!

Maybe, though, somebody out there has a teeth-friendly caramel apple recipe they'd share?  We could call 'em "Camel Apples," and we could have 'em always at the ready for when Joe the Camel stops in.  I think that sounds like a GREAT idea!

I love ya, Friends!  Muah!

Moon, Moon

I think the moon rocks!

Hiya, Friends! 

You know, I just can't get enough of looking at the moon.  It's so fascinating.  Sometimes, it's just a little sliver in the sky, other times, it's a giant circle!  It can be kind of yellow, and it can be bright white.

I think of the moon as a friend in my head.  If I see the moon when I get up in the morning, I know I'm gonna have a great day.  If I see the moon before I go to bed, I know I'm gonna have great dreams. 

What really gets me about the moon is that it's always there, no matter where I am.  It's in the sky when I'm at my house, or when I'm even in a different state.  Why, recently I traveled with my Mommy and Daddy to the State of Ohio, and I'll be darned if I didn't look up in the sky, and there it was!  A perfect half-moon!

I'd like to be the first toddler on the moon!

It was like seeing an old friend, you know what I'm saying, Friends?  I mean, here I was, in practically a foreign country where they let you drive seventy miles an hour on their four-lanes, and I looked up, and there was the very same moon I can see at my very own house!

If I could do anything I wanted to, I mean really, and not in the way where my parents tell me I can do anything I set my mind to because they're my parents and they hafta tell me that, why, I'd hop in a rocket-ship and go visit the moon in person.  I really would.  I'd hop in that rocket-ship, fly it to the moon, and say 'Hiya!' right to the moon's face.  I'd also take a deck of playing cards with me, so the moon and I could play Old Maid.  We would not play Hearts, because I think the moon would take umbrage with me trying to shoot the moon. 

Think about it.

For now, though, I guess I'll hafta be content with visiting with the moon, long-distance, through my window.  I keep putting "rocket-ship" on my wish lists, and so far, it just hasn't come through for me.  Maybe I'll hafta check on ebay. Anyway, Friends, I love ya!  I'll see ya tomorrow!  Muah!

Monday, Monday, Monday!

Back to doin' TPS reports on paper!  Yep!

Oh, hiya, Friends!  I know I try to be positive about Mondays and all.  I know I've said over and over again how they're just a day of the week, and if you're miserable on Mondays for the sake of Mondays, then you're automatically miserable for one seventh of your life, and that's unacceptable. 

I know I say that.

But some Mondays, things all crop up and conspire to just make you miserable.

For instance, the big, fancy computer system the company put in to make doing TPS reports easier is glitchy.  We came in today, and nobody could log in.

So now, we're having to fill out our TPS Reports in on paper, by hand, in triplicate.

I still don't even know what I'm reporting on TPS reports!

And if you mess up, you hafta go get a whole new blank report to fill out, because it's in triplicate, and even though you can use White-Out on the top sheet, your mistake is preserved for all posterity on the duplicate and triplicate copies.

Unless you send it through the Shredderator right away.  Then nobody hasta know you goofed up.  But you still hafta fill out a fresh report.

Oh, my goodness, Friends.  I still don't even really know what a TPS Report is, what it's for, what kind of information the Executives are looking for on them.  Part of me wants to believe it's something important, but just from watching the way things go around here, I can't help but think they're just busy work.  I kind of can't help but think it'd be just as useful if the Boss gave us each a boxa macaronis, had us dump it out, count the little macaroni noodles, put 'em back in the box, switch boxes of macaroni noodles with our neighbor, dump out the macaronis, count 'em up, and repeat the process.

This is my third time messin' up!  Yaaaaaaaar! Monday!!!

That seems to me it would be just as useful as TPS reports.

Sheesh.  I hope some Executive isn't reading this right now.  I don't want 'em thinking I'm management material or anything.  No way, no how! 

That's how it works around here.  One day, I was commenting on the backup at the Parking Structure, and I got appointed Traffic Reporter.  Most of the time there's no traffic to report on!  How frustrating do you think it is, to be a traffic reporter with no traffic to report?  Especially on a Monday!!!

Boy, howdy, am I ever having a Monday.  I'm having a Monday, trumped up on a whole case of Monday Mooderator.  You know, that Monday feeling where you're just like "here we go again, Monday!"

Hopefully, I can regroup at naptime and be sparkly tomorrow.  I sure hope so, Friends!  But I just boogered up my third TPS report, so I'm heading to the Shredderator and to get a fresh blank TPS Report Paper.  I sure hope the Big Fancy Computers are fixed soon!

Is it like this at YOUR jobs, Friends?!  Anyway, I love ya!  Muah!