I Have A Confession...

I have had this blanket essentially since birth. I say "essentially" because in Preschool the knucklehead custodian decided to wash my blanket, and it was destroyed, so my mom gave me my sister's identical blanket as a replacement. Lindsey had no problem with this until later years when she decided she had been shafted and demanded another blanket. Regardless, this beautiful, delicate, piece of fabric has been around and VERY LOVED for 25 years.

This past Thanksgiving, I was with my friend Jaime's family, and my blanket was exposed because apparently it's filthy & not all 26-year-olds take their childhood blankets where ever they go. Turns out, I'm just that unique. I don't HAVE to have it with me. I'm not that psychologically damaged. I would just be crushed if I left it at home and something happened to it.

Thanksgiving brought up the possibility of/need to wash it. It's taken me a few weeks to swallow that fact since my first blanket was so tragically lost in a washing accident. However, tonight I finally mustered the courage to give it a bath. And I was incredibly shocked at how nasty it was. Suffice it to say, I'm slightly embarrassed.

Of course I documented this momentous occasion because as I was prepping to wash it I realized it had been probably 10 years since it had been bathed. I know, slightly hazardous to my health, but now it's all clean!

The first bowl of water (brought to you by the makers of Ajax Antibacterial Dish Soap in Orange):
The dirt left in the bottom after the first wash:
After 4 bowls of soapy water and a few rinses, we have a cleaner blanket!
So I realize this thing hardly resembles a blanket, but humor me people. It's MY BLANKIE. And... it's almost an heirloom. Also, I can now see the original stripes of pink, blue, and yellow, but I'm afraid it will never be fuzzy & white with a delicate satin trim again.

Really?

This is what's wrong with the world, and I am so not referring to Global Warming.


see more pwn and owned pictures

Text reads:
"I was watching inconvenient truth the other day and theres the bit where it shows the sea level rising really high and flooding most of the world. Well i live near the sea, and don’t want to drown, so i got to thinking. Maybe if we lower the sea level a bit, when the water level rises then it won’t rise high enough to flood.

Anyway, heres the plan. Everyone who can should take a bucket of sea water and pour it down the sink. If lots of people put the effort in, we could lower the sea level substantially and create a better world for our children to live."

There are NO words. None.

Baby, It's Cold Outside.

It's officially getting "cold", and I couldn't be happier. I love Winter. I love Fall & Winter & Spring. I grew a greater appreciation for fun Summer activities this year, but I definitely don't like being hot and sweaty.

Honestly, I have nothing interesting to write about. I don't have any funny stories or anecdotes to share. I'm going on 4 weeks of dealing with the cold from hell & various side effects it & medicine to treat it have brought. For that reason, life has been boring because I haven't done much.

This is almost so boring that I'm tempted to not hit the "publish post" button. I'm almost too bored to continue typing it. BUT... I like torturing people, so I'm going to hit the "publish post" button now so all you blog stalkers don't have to continue reading the yucky poo story.

Saturday.

Kansas City woke up this morning to a beautiful Fall fog. LOVE IT! It was amazing to see the brightly colored trees contrasting against the dreary fog, and I was seriously in heaven. My heaven has Fall fog.

I had a community event at church this morning, which was really the only reason I was out of bed in time to see the fog. Anyway, I got home from church ready for a nap because this cold has zapped every ounce of energy I have. I decided a nap in my dad's bed would be the best choice because his bed is SUPER comfortable, Dad was gone fishing, and my room was full of sunlight. Now, the rest of the blog post is gross. It's not intentionally gross, it just is. There's your warning, moving on...

I was in my getting to take a nap routine, which involves emptying my bladder, so I went into Dad's bathroom to pee. I noticed there was a number 2 surprise just hanging out in the toilet bowl (I wish this was as gross as the story got, believe you me!), so I did a flush and run and went to another bathroom. Pretty instantly I heard something I knew was not a good noise. Dad's number 2 toilet water was overflowing. Freaking sick. I kind of just stood and watched in amazement because seriously it was gross & remember Dad was out fishing.

I will be honest and tell you I was totally tempted to let it wait for Dad. It was his mess after all. I just happened to flush it FOR HIM. Anyway, I ran downstairs to grab my phone to tell Dad he was going to have to clean up when he got home, when I heard water dripping from the CEILING in the bathroom downstairs (conveniently located directly under Dad's bathroom). At this point I knew I couldn't just leave it, so I ran out to the garage and grabbed the shop vac. I lugged it upstairs where I was greeted with the worst smell known to man. I had a huge dilemma because I've been SUPER NAUSEATED all week, what with the loss of equilibrium and balance from the sinus/ear infection, and today was the first day I didn't wake up ready to vomit. So I searched for a mask of any kind to guard from the smell, but all I could find was a towel to tie around my face. I spent the next hour of my beautiful Saturday vacuuming up poo water, disinfecting walls & toilets, and opening every window in the house to air out this sucker.

I'm grateful it's a perfect day to have windows open. I'm also grateful my brother returned the shop vac when he borrowed it. Lastly, I hope Dad had a great time fishing.

P.S. I wish I could take credit for this lovely Fall photo, but I stole it from http://www.wunderground.com .

Ridiculous!

So the last couple of days, I've felt like an absolute space cadet. I've had like a 10-second delay on most reactions, and I've been feeling like my head has been floating 10 feet above my body. Weird weird weird. Last night I was lying in bed, and my left ear decided to FREAK OUT. It was killing me. Being too lazy to actually get out of bed and do anything (and not really knowing what to do considering I already had Tylenol in me), I just eventually fell asleep. I woke up in the middle of the night with a nice ooze seeping from my ear. I know, sick. Anyway, I made an appointment with the Dr. Turns out this space cadet feeling/ear seepage is all a big nasty double ear & sinus infection. I'm relieved because for a second I was scared I was getting stupid, and there is no cure for stupidity. There is, however, a cure for sinusitis, & I'll go ahead and give a shout out to the Z-Pack chilling on my bathroom counter for the glorious healing it's about to do in my cranial-facial region.

Rest.

I've forgotten how to rest. Before my summer internship I started this nasty habit of overbooking myself, and once the internship started, I vowed to not do it again. Turns out, I'm now worse. I've worked at least 60 hour weeks for the last 2 months, and I'm reaching a point of exhaustion. I've thrown promises left and right to the people around me that love me about how I'm going to stop doing this and start doing that and change this and add that, but nothing has changed. Nothing has changed, and if nothing changes, well then nothing changes.

Unfortunately I still can't promise that anything will change right away. I wish I could write a simple promise about how I'm going to "fix" this overworking problem of mine, but I don't know where to start. I'm scared to start because I know changing my schedule means missing out on things I am actually too exhausted to enjoy -- but I don't want to miss them anyway. I never want to miss anything, which is part of the reason I find myself completely free without a clue what to do with myself. I had every intention of enjoying my down time, but it's a struggle to just find rest.

My head is filled with all the things and people and places my work schedule hasn't included, and I'm at a loss for how empty my life feels tonight. And because my family reads my blog, just know I'm fine. I'm just thinking out loud.

The tides are definitely changing because my body will shut down if I keep going like this. I just need to find that place to start.

Guacamole!

My name is Rachel, and I'm a guacaholic. I've been on a guacamole spree lately, and I really can't get enough of it. It's almost an obsession. Right now Mi Ranchito has the first place trophy for best guac (and also the best price per amount). It's SO good! I've had guacamole 6 days in a row now, and I can't stop. I've never been this obsessed with any food. I hope this is the food I crave in 89 years when I'm pregnant. Actually, I'd be afraid I'd end up giving birth to an avocado. I hope I don't turn green.

In conclusion, I'm always accepting donations that will feed my ever growing guacamole habit.