Month: June 2018

Summertime Procrastination

/ Quirky Girl / 18 Comments

Good things come to those who wait.

Well.

If that’s true, why did I just get eaten alive by a tribe of vicious fire ants?

Let me backtrack a moment.

Four years ago, we started a new tradition after moving to No Man’s Land.

My boys wanted to do something epic to celebrate surviving their first chaotic school year here.

With a crazy housing market at the time, we made a major move without being sure where we’d be living, where the kids would go to school, or if I would be homeschooling them…

And this was a mere three weeks before school was set to start.

Yeesh.

But all the pieces eventually fell into place.

And we survived.

So we celebrated.

My older son had enjoyed watching his New England Patriots get doused in massive buckets filled with freakishly neon Gatorade to celebrate their Super Bowl victory earlier that year.

My boys wanted to celebrate their victory of surviving the school year.

And so a new tradition was born.

Every year for the last three years, we did our Gatorade Victory Shower on the last day of school.

Except this year.

It rained heavily and the wind howled like a banshee.

So we decided our celebration could, and probably should, wait a day or two.

Or, you know, five weeks.

Yeah.

First, we inadvertently “floated” my birthday back in April when my husband was out of town for work, with the intention of celebrating that weekend.

And celebrate we did.

Almost a month later.

When I’d practically forgotten about it myself.

Life has a way of keeping us busy, overwhelmed, and overloaded.

But at least we finally got out and enjoyed dinner and drinks.

And an impromptu trip to Toys R Us.

(For the record, I will ALWAYS be a Toys R Us kid. Today is a sad, sad day.)

But anyway, back to our floated Gatorade Shower.

Days passed.

Then weeks.

And then I had a thought.

Maybe we would do the shower for my son’s 13th birthday!

But no.

We’d missed out on that, too.

Maybe we should’ve just started a new tradition with a Back to School Gatorade shower!

But I wanted to do it this summer.

We weren’t moving very fast, though.

We’d keep drinking from our stash of Gatorade.

We’d keep replacing them.

The cycle continued.

Just in case we ever got around to doing the shower.

Which we finally did.

Today!

This morning, I gathered all the Gatorade bottles.

And the Nerf Super Soaker water guns.

Which are great…

Unless your child is gleefully spraying you in the face.

I even splurged on those self-sealing balloons so I wouldn’t spend 30 minutes trying to make and tie a whopping 10 water balloons.

3 easy steps Bunch o Balloons!

None of the steps of which involve me actually reading the directions, it would seem.

The first batch of balloons didn’t go over all that well.

I hadn’t realized they needed to be in water.

Like a fish.

Otherwise, you pretty much get the same end result.

We’d been so ready for this shower for five weeks.

Except not really ready.

Until today.

I can’t be certain, but we might’ve just unintentionally celebrated my older son’s last day of Drivers Ed.

Oh well.

At least we finally had our celebration.

And aside from a few WWE-like moments with flying Gatorade bottles, a good time was had by all.

Until those evil fire ants came along…

~Happy Friday, friends! Have a great weekend!~

Our exciting arsenal of melee makers...

Our exciting arsenal of melee makers…

Bigly Bestest Pep Talk

/ Quirky Girl / 11 Comments

@thebiglybestestdoggie: Quick! Put on your biggest, most natural-looking smile! Work that charm! Momma will never know you’ve been up to no good again!

~Happy Tuesday, everyone! Jett is a charmer and he sure knows it!~

Terribly Terrific Teenagers

/ Quirky Girl / 41 Comments

Teenagers.

They’re awesome.

Really, really awesome.

Sooo…

Yesterday was my youngest son’s birthday.

He turned 13.

Now I have two teenagers.

With one kid learning to drive and the other playing his new electric guitar around the clock, things are now twice as fun around here!

And that’s not even factoring all the hormonal mayhem and other joys of those delightful teenage years!

(And kids are always complaining they don’t have anything in common with their parents!)

(Well, overwhelmed by something, at any rate…)

(Make that plural. Teenagers. Not one, but two. Twice the woo hoo!)

(Yeah, that. And speaking of wine…)

(Did you know some wine glasses can actually hold an entire bottle of wine? Probably the genius invention of a frazzled, disgruntled mom..)

(It takes my kids a whopping two hours to even realize I’m home from work. Meanwhile, The Bigly Bestest Doggie always eagerly awaits my return. Yeah. Dogs clearly care more.)

(Google takes a backseat to my expert kids and the plethora of factual knowledge they evidentally think they possess.)

(If you’re a fan of unpredictable extremes, then teenagers are totally your people!)

(If you’ve already punished your child by confiscating their electronics, there’s only one thing left to do. Hey, desperate times call for desperate measures.)

(Judging by the size of the average teenager, it’s probably far too late to even consider attempting this.)

(Kids don’t realize all that arguing and back-talking is equally exhausting for their parents. And tired and cranky parents are not happy and reasonable parents.)

(Seriously. Don’t mess with me. Mostly because I’m already at the end of my rope…)

Truly, for all that people complain about teenagers, they’re really not so bad.

Except when they’re arguing with you.

Or being irrational.

Or finding ways to endanger both your life and your sanity.

But other than that, they’re the best!

~Happy Friday, friends! Who here has teenagers, or has survived the teen years and lived to tell the tale? I hear there is hope, so I’m fairly optimistic… Have a great weekend!~

Bigly Bestest Treat Tantrum

/ Quirky Girl / 19 Comments

@thebiglybestestdoggie: So you’re telling me I can’t have any more treats today because I already had two? What kind of nonsense is that? The doggie down the street told me he gets four treats a day! Four! I know where I’m sneaking off to later…

Gimme a break. Do I really look like I'm buying this nonsense?

Gimme a break. Do I really look like I’m buying this nonsense?

~Happy Tuesday, friends! Jett is still resisting his deliciously crunchy dry food, but he’d sure be happy to eat treats all day long!~

Driving Mr. Mascot

/ Quirky Girl / 53 Comments

Who knows?

I might be a better driver than you!

And I won’t get any tickets!

Unlike you…

And if YOU keep talking, you’re going to be riding in the trunk.

Eyes on the road!

The light is green!

Let’s move it!

My oldest son, the high school mascot boy, started Driver’s Ed this week.

I’ve never seen that child take such dedicated interest in learning anything.

Ever.

Granted, the monster was a natural on his dirt bike all those years ago.

And I always pictured him to be a decent driver.

When the time came.

Which, evidently, is right now.

After just one day of class, he was already an expert.

Monitoring my speed.

Correcting my hand position on the steering wheel.

Pointing out all the road signs that I’ll obviously fail to pay attention to.

Suddenly, I have new appreciation for the meaning of driving someone crazy.

Not only won’t I be getting tickets like you, I also have way better sense of direction!

Hey! You’re going over the speed limit again!

OMG! GET OUT!

Of course, I didn’t actually throw him out of the car.

But his future as a pedestrian was looking increasingly appealing.

We coasted along to the ultimate soundtrack to insanity:

Crazy Train.

Gangnam Style.

Hakuna Matata.

The thumping music rattled my brain and bones as the rearview mirror reverberated in concurrence.

Then flashing train lights derailed my thoughts.

Oh, shit!

Not again!

Those trains sometimes take forever to pass.

Or worse yet, they’ll come to a complete stop out of the blue, stranding lines of cars for hours.

So yeah, I was less than pleased.

And so was my son.

But not because of the train.

Apparently, that was the second inappropriate word I’d used in just a matter of minutes.

Figuring I was on a roll, he helpfully downloaded a Bleep app on my phone to censor my  inappropriate moments.

Fortunately, the train passed in a timely manner.

And we were on our way again.

I’m probably already a better driver than you’ll ever be!

I’m tempted to take both hands off the wheel and drive with my mouth.

Just clamp my teeth on the wheel, and see how well that works.

That’ll show him…

Show him what, I don’t exactly know.

At least render him speechless for a moment, perhaps?

But I really can’t afford to drive erratically like that.

Sure, it would set a rather poor example for my child.

And also, I’ve somehow already managed to get pulled over twice in three years in No Man’s Land.

Which amounts to more than I had ever been pulled over in all my years of driving.

Collectively.

There’s a line in my son’s driving handbook that cracked me up when I first read it:

Avoid turning your car into a deadly weapon!

Well, my boy nearly broke protocol the first time ever behind the wheel.

Yesterday, he officially got his Learner’s Permit after acing the written test.

And so on the way to Driver’s Ed this afternoon, my favorite mascot thought he’d surprise me by starting the car before I made my way out the door.

Oh, but that wasn’t all.

He proceeded to throw the car into reverse…

And then panicked as he realized he didn’t actually know how to stop the car.

He barreled out of the garage and down the driveway at Nascar speeds, as I ran after him like a crazed woman being chased by the devil himself.

STOP THE CAR!!!

STOP THE #@&%*# CAR!!!

The car jerked to an abrupt halt straight across the street, halfway up the neighbor’s driveway.

Thank God the neighbor wasn’t home.

That guy never misses a thing.

GET OUT!

YOU ARE DONE!!!

The brake is NOT just a decorative item!

Use it!

Before I drop dead of a heart attack in the middle of this road!

And to think, this is only the beginning.

Did I mention I’m two days into a 14 day detox?

So I can’t even calm my frazzled nerves with a drink.

Oh #@&%!!!

~Happy Friday, friends! Aren’t teenagers the best? Never a dull moment. Have a terrific weekend!~

At this rate, I'm gonna need to wear this thing around my neck like a cowbell.

At this rate, I’m gonna need to wear this thing around my neck like a cowbell.

Bigly Bestest Rosy Roses

/ Quirky Girl / 10 Comments

@thebiglybestestdoggie: Why is it encouraged for humans to slow down and smell the roses, but frowned upon when a doggie stops to smell the poopie? Such a load of crap!

~Happy Tuesday, friends! Do you ever wonder what doggies think about all those crazy human-imposed double standards? Well, Jett is perfectly happy to let the world know exactly how he feels about that nonsense!~

Oh, the Things It Could Be!

/ Quirky Girl / 42 Comments

Google is to a hypochondriac what meth is to a junkie.

Oh, come on.

You know the deal.

You’re suddenly afflicted with sharp stomach pains from hell…

So you turn to Dr. Google to shed some insight.

Inevitably, Google leads you to WebMD for totally reliable self-diagnostic help.

After scanning through symptoms and possible causes, you manage to convince yourself it’s not simply constipation or indigestion.

No.

It’s undoubtedly a raging bout of appendicitis that is about to do you in, right there in the middle of the Summer Fun section at Walmart.

Unless you make a beeline for the nearest hospital right this very minute.

All you know for certain is you’re obviously dying.

I swear, the symptoms for migraines and brain damage are identical.

Ok, well.

Maybe not exactly.

But seriously, have you ever noticed how so many different health issues all have the same set of symptoms?

Oh, the things it could be!

Got a headache?

It’s obviously an aneurysm, and that clock is just a tickin’.

Or it could be head trauma.

What’s that?

Don’t remember hitting your head in the first place?

Well, duh.

Wheezing and coughing?

Could be asthma.

Or a sinus infection.

Or congenital heart failure.

Fatigued?

Could be the flu.

Or Lyme disease.

Or just good ol’ PMS.

Hallucinations?

Could be schizophrenia.

Or epilepsy.

Or just poorly interacting medications.

Irritability?

Could be hypothermia.

Or a sleep disorder.

Or meningitis.

Nauseated?

Could be food poisoning.

Or a heart attack.

Or perhaps you’re pregnant.

(Congratulations!)

Forgetful?

Could be delirium.

Or dementia.

Or head trauma.

(Seriously, quit knocking your head around!)

Oh, the things it could be!

Lucky for me, I have a high pain tolerance.

Which is great, because I’m freakishly allergic to aspirin and Advil.

And apparently, most antibiotics don’t work for me, either.

Hell, I can’t even take Benadryl to counteract an allergic reaction because it knocks me out cold.

But I do take comfort in knowing I can just conk myself over the head with a frying pan to ease the pain and be good to go.

That’s all the so-called healthcare I need.

~Happy Friday, friends! Hope you have a happy and healthy weekend, free of any un-fun doctor or WebMD visits!~

This cute little bear has the right idea. Just stick a band-aid on and call it a day.

This cute little bear has the right idea. Just stick a band-aid on and call it a day.

(Oh, the Things It Could Be originally appeared on Comically Quirky on 8/5/16.)

Bigly Bestest Selfie Silliness

/ Quirky Girl / 17 Comments

@thebiglybestestdoggie: It’s hot. I’m stuck inside. Guess there’s only one thing for me to do: take silly selfies!

Dang, I look gooood!

Dang, I look gooood!

~Happy Tuesday! Even doggies can’t resist goofy selfies from time to time!~

Dog Days of Summer Break

/ Quirky Girl / 41 Comments

I’m boooorrred!!!

Go walk the dog.

But it’s too hot!!!

Fine. Read a book.

What is this, some kind of punishment?

Take a walk to the pool and go for a swim.

No. I don’t feel like getting wet.

Okay, then. Clean your room.

What?!? Why?

And that was only day three of summer break.

It’s hard to be a kid.

There’s never anything fun to do.

But somehow, all your friends are doing fun things.

Without you.

You know so.

Because it’s all right there on Snapchat.

And so the only plausible way to entertain yourself is to torment the dog.

I mean, teach the dog new tricks.

Like how to eat his doggie treat while pretending to be the civilized human being that he clearly is not.

At a table.

While sitting in a chair.

Because how could that be a bad idea?

Oh, right.

It’s gonna be a long summer…

Is this your idea of a good time? Seriously? Go back to school, you sadistic kids!

Is this your idea of a good time? Seriously? Go back to school, you sadistic kids!

~Happy Friday, friends! Isn’t summertime the best? Hope you all have a great weekend!~