Randomly generated thoughts...

Hello to all... my apologies for the delay in bringing you this. GOOD MORNING! I am still of the sniffly and snotty sorts (possibly getting worse as now I have some difficulty breathing when upright) so I'm not going to make this a neat, tidy cohesive post. You know, I'm just going to sling around some thoughts and let them land where they may...think stream of VapoRub (which I have inhaled quite a bit of lately, thanks to Shannon's advice!)

First thought: I think I now have sufficient monikers for my immediate family members. My husband shall henceforth be known as Plumberboy (or hubby or beloved--ha!-- or moron spouse) while my oldest son shall be Ricky Bobby (story below) and the youngest shall remain Crabman (strong resemblance?) While I have always been a "safety first" kinda gal with an uncanny ability to think like a criminal madman, I noticed that not once BUT TWICE over the past 24 hours people have linked up with this site via this picture of me. So I am officially calling you out, Mr/Ms. Bedford, Bedfordshire United Kingdom and Mr/Ms. Halifax, Nova Scotia. Please introduce yourselves if you are reading this... otherwise, I will think you are rude and/or creepy. Please don't regard my lack of personal info as snotty (no pun intended) but simply paranoid (a la Kurt Cobain I suppose, though I'm pretty sure he's just repeating that quote. Interesting stuff to research if you're so inclined.) Also, I have given a new subtitle to my blog for all those of you who haven't noticed. It's now Steph's Other Space (Home of the Parentheses) for all the obvious reasons.

Okay, now on to something mildly entertaining. So why Ricky Bobby for my oldest? Because when he gets hurt, this is his reaction, minus the somewhat irreverant remarks about Jesus and prayers to Tom Cruise and Oprah Winfrey--but I think you get the point! Oh, and he usually keeps his clothes on. He's had this reaction for years, although we quite honestly questioned his ability to perceive pain as a baby because he never so much as flinched when he got his shots (ie: Nurse to me: I've never seen a kid not cry) or was injured (ie: he took a tennis ball hit off of an aluminum bat straight to his right temple one afternoon. The only kid crying in that exchange was the one who hit the ball and watched it subsequently bounce off Ricky Bobby's head and roll down the storm drain. True story.) Now he goes all Ricky Bobby when he incurs the slightest discomfort, which Thank God is not that often. We never had a name for this until last year but once we watched that crapfest Talladega Nights, there was an obvious resemblance. I'll be sure to post it here if I ever capture it on video.

And while football season is basically over (who really cares about any of those bowl games?!?), I do have some thoughts on the whole BS BCS debacle. First of all, I can't believe I'm saying this but I concur (wholeheartedly!) with James Carville. The BCS and NCAA are both borderline criminal in the way they handle affairs (think The Gestapo and/or The Gambino Family.) They do not care about the athletes or their respective fanbases. I do not know why the National Collegiate ATHLETIC Association is run by a bunch of college presidents (Academia who in my opinion are solely interested in settling some schoolyard score with the bullies who stole their lunch money and spraypainted "nurd" across their lockers.) Why is the NCAA not run by a group of ATHLETIC Directors?!? So I guess we're going to settle it their way, which will backfire when Less Miles proceeds to meet Jim Tressell on the 50 yardline after the game for the handshake and instead gives him a wedgie, breaks his glasses, and steals the BCS trophy.

And for the record, I don't cheer for SEC teams during the bowl season-- at least not per se. I will cheer for a team if I liked them before this bowl season (most of whom never make it to a bowl game anyway) OR if they are playing a team I detest (no further explaination needed) but I do not--repeat, do NOT-- cheer for a team on the sole basis of SEC membership. I have no allegiance whatsoever to the SEC as the SEC has no allegiance whatsoever to Alabama. It makes me sick that we even have to share any of our bowl profits with the SEC.

So hopefully that clarifies a few things. I look forward to a time when I can discuss real topics on this blog but now it's time for Yo Gabba Gabba, which incidentally is another appropriate subtitle for this blog...

Internet down...

...but fortunately back up as of this minute. Usually net downtimes are no big deal because let's face it, I'm in all likelihood just killing time (as are those of you who read this blog) but today I was actually Christmas shopping online. I rarely shop online as it drives me nuts to pay shipping and handling (hubby is not the only "cheapskate" in the family I suppose) but today I decided there were a few things that were S&H-worthy. First, I ordered our Christmas cards online. These are always worth the online effort as the Walmart Photo Center (pick the location--any location, it doesn't matter--this statement applies to every single Walmart in America) is slow to the point of madness. And that's January-November. Once you flip that little calendar of yours to December, the Walmart Photo Center somehow morphs into the DMV or the concession stands in Bryant-Denny at halftime. Surely all of you readers have experienced this too. Anyhoo, I ordered plenty of cards this year so there won't be any last minute freak-outs as the pile grows dangerously low while the stress level is high. It's only taken me, ummm, like 7 years to figure this out. Then there were a few gifts that I could only find online so I decided I better order them before it gets any closer to Christmas morning. That one took me about 5 years to figure out. (Quick learner--Roll Tide!) So hopefully I'm nearing the end of my Christmas shopping. At least my husband (and our checkbook) hope so. I also tend to freak out every year that we won't have enough--like I'm stockpiling for World Word III or worse, Walmart going out of business--and then it's over in approximately 15.2 minutes and without fail the smallest, cheapest toy was the biggest hit. So with that in mind, I spent a lot of time on the $1 Target aisle.

So I have lots of things swimming around in my head but quite honestly, there's a lot of snot up there too so I'm not feeling 100%. I know it's just from running around and not getting enough rest but then I can't get enough rest because there's so much snot in my head and I can't breathe. Hello, Mr. Vicious Cycle. I'm starting to lose it I think but good news... it's kind of funny. I let our eldest son have a friend over Friday afternoon and when his dad went to drop the kid off, the little sister (who is only a year younger) looked like she might cry so I offered for her to stay. No big deal... only four kids for one afternoon (and hey, both my sister and sister-in-law LIVE WITH FIVE!), right? All was well until we started loading up the van with all these kiddos, turning off lights, locking the dogs up... but wait! Where the heck are the dogs? OH GOOD GRAVY! They are still at the groomers...on a Friday...at 5:30 PM. So I totally forgot my dogs at the groomers for the first time ever. At least it wasn't a kid, right?


Hopefully I'll have something more interesting to share later in the week. I have a folder full of random articles I've archived to share with you my dear readers, including one about a two-headed cat, but you'll have to wait at least another day. And that, my friend, is what they call a hook.

You dodged a bullet...

...Michigan. Regardless of my feelings for you, ole maize and blue, this is not the guy you want representing your school. He was tailor-made for LSU. Hope this pans out for so many reasons, it's not even funny!