Random

My Glucosamine Chondroitin supplements smell like Elmer's glue when you open the bottle. This does not stop me from taking them because I like how Elmer's glue smells. In fact I like taking them but I stop at the number I'm supposed to take per day.

Do you remember back in middle school (maybe this was just an east coast thing) when you would coat the palm of your had in Elmer's glue, let it dry and then peel it off. Yeah, I learned a lot in school...

Also why is it always so staticy when it's just snowed? My sweater is driving me crazy because I don't have a dryer sheets and the next best thing is to put water on the garment that is staticy. Now I am damp and cold as a result, and the static is coming back.

Also if you need a blank piece of paper and your comfortable in your chair (as in you don't want to have to get up severely bend over and wrestle with your printer under your desk to open the paper drawer and snag one out) open a word document and print a blank page. I am a freakin' genius.

When you see the letters perf what does your mind fill in as the rest of the word? Mine turns it into perforation but apparently it's performance.

I thought yesterday's drive home would have been one of the easiest in the record of driving home. I checked WSDOT and it was green the entire way. (This never happens) And it would have been except for the two mile blizzard that popped up about 10 minutes before I hit the highway...

The other shoe.

You know how when you get really happy and then you start thinking "Okay, what's the catch? This is too good." Okay, so maybe you don't, but I do. I feel this way about my whole life and I'm pretty sure it's just how my brain is programmed. It's actually pretty comical. Because I feel this way I do everything, (well almost everything) by the book, to a T. I drive people (especially Isaac) crazy because of this.

I can't help it. I feel like I'm always the exception to the rule, and not in the good way. Like let's say I'm driving and I see a cop and I might be going 62 in a 60 and I swear up and down that I'm the one he's going to pull over right then and there. It's so obvious, I'm speeding. I know deep down this is ridiculous but I still feel this way.

Like back in October when the guy that lost control of his car and slammed into me from behind turning out cars into a 360 metal pretzel. He obviously lost control and was going way too fast. I still asked the cop if I did anything wrong. (I'm pretty sure Isaac who came to get me because my car didn't work was shaking his head as I asked this) The answer was an obvious no even before I asked the stupid question. I'm always so sure that even if I'm following the rules and doing every specific (or non-specific which drives me crazy because then I could be doing it wrong) thing it entails I'm doing something wrong. Even. When. I'm. Not. The cop was somewhat taken off guard (I mean come on who wouldn't be? It's a ridiculous question.) and Isaac then had to explain to the cop that this is how I am. Just another day of being Sarah. If you know me you know this, yes it's counter intuitive.

Sigh, just another day in the life.

And randomly pictures of the snow we got. Even though it was so hyped up and nothing really happened.

I've got nothing

I really want to read this because I think it will be a rather fascinating read. The article is here.

A Field To Watch The Stars

I've realized lately that I've never explained why I named my blog what I've named it. It's really obvious to me but I realize that it probably isn't to you.

I started this blog so my siblings and I can still keep in contact even if we don't talk every day. Because when you do talk on the phone with anyone that you haven't talked to in a while you only talk about the most current happenings. I wanted to give the story in between. I wanted my family to know me more in depth along with all the minutiae. And over the years it's turned into so much more than that and it's included more than just my family.

I chose the title because I love the outdoors and nothing leaves me happier or more awe inspired than laying in a field on a clear night looking up at the stars and picking out the constellations.

How a $4 purchase almost turned into a $40 purchase.

So remember when I was freaked out that my downstairs bathroom had no lights? Yeah, apparently it was just a burned out circuit breaker. You have no idea how much better it made me feel to find that out. I figured it out when Isaac told me that the outlets in the front hall weren't working either. And I tried to turn on half the lights in the basement and they didn't work. There's no way all of those circuits just randomly burned out on their own.

So I (smartly) took a picture of the circuit breaker and the panel and then we set off for Lowe's. We knew over all what we needed and so we set out looking for it. We found the aisle that held the circuit breakers (after being steered to the wrong aisle, that should have been my first clue) and found what we believed to be the right circuit breaker. We then asked an employee of Lowe's who was in the aisle if what we had was right. The circuit breaker (okay the word circuit is starting to look like biscuit, maybe I'm just hungry) we thought was right was around $4. The circuit breaker that the employee tried to steer us towards was around $40. There was another guy in the aisle that the employee deemed "must be an electrician" and so he then asked him to weigh in on our purchase. And the "electrician" agreed with us, yay!

So we got home, found a good youtube video (what would we do without the internet?) that made us pros on the subject. Also apparently the guy doing this video is in someone else's home. That's kinda weird to me, is he charging them for making his own youtube video? I know, but it's where my mind goes. Anywho, so we changed the circuit breaker and voila, let there be light!

You too can have this amazing experience by burning out a circuit breaker, taking a week to realize that's what it is, almost being sold the wrong item but quickly correcting to the right one, and struggling with the circuit breaker panel with your husband, all for the low low price of $4 and half of your patience.

Happy Monday all.

So I'm going to ruin this for you.

Okay so you know how last year women put their bra color as their facebook status to show support for breast cancer awareness? Apparently this year it's going to be relationship status = some sort of alcoholic beverage. (Note to self: it would be funnier if it was relationship status = some sort of alcoholic) Anyway I won't fully spoil it and tell you all of what equals what.

I just want to talk about beer. I say this because married = beer. Really? Marriage is so not beer. (Reversely engaged is Champagne, that's all I'm ruining) Okay so some of the microbrews maybe, because they're awesome. But I'm going to go with the assumption that it's Bud, Miller, vitamin H etc. I get it, ha ha. This is analogizing that marriage is just run of the mill. If you feel that your marriage is run of the mill then you've kind of given up. If anything marriage should be Champagne because you should put your best forward every day (still totally being yourself of course) because you obviously love this person so much you married them. You agreed to be around this person every day for the rest of the days you are alive. And not just around them but happily around them, because you chose this. Marriage is work people. So, just so we're clear.

Protest

I've been following the protests in the Middle East for the past few weeks. I feel a mixture of awe and hope along with fear and sadness. I'm impressed that so many people are able to band together trying to bring about the change they need from their governments. I'm also really fearful for all of them because of the violence.

Johnny Clegg's album Cruel Crazy Beautiful World has been playing and one specific song keeps coming to mind.

Woman Be My Country

Here we stand on the edge of the day
Faces melting in the african rain
So many seasons of silent war
So many drowned before they reached the shore
Nothing is clear to me any more in this sad and strange landscape
I've got no defense, I've got no attack
I can't leave, I can't stay and I've got no way back
Hard to deal with the way things have been
I can't lie but the truth is so extreme

Chorus:
Woman be my country, 'till my country can be mine
Hide me deep inside your borders in these dark and troubled times
Remember me my innocence before I drowned in the sea of lies
Woman be my country, 'till my country can be mine

Too many seasons of quiet rage
Too many young people just wasted away
Too many futures hanging in the balance
Too much owing nothing left to pay
A lonely flag flutters in the breeze
for the hardened hearts who still want to believe
Am I the witness or am I the crime
A victim of history or just a sign of the times
Across my heart questions and shadows still fly
But in the dead of the night I know where the answer lies

Chorus:
Woman be my country, 'till my country can be mine
I have no flag, I sing no anthem, I no longer carry an armalite
Bathe me in you sweet rivers, anoint me with your touch and your smile
To your colours I give my allegiance, I lay it on the line

Ngikhathele ngifile wena weqat' izwe
(I am dead tired of you who causes friction in the land)
Ngikhathele ngifile zindaba zakho
(I am dead tired of you, and your matters)
Yash' imizi yobada
(The homes of my fathers are burning)

Chorus

Someone needs to calm me down.

Probably one of my best traits is how I get amazingly excited over the smallest of things. Remember that post about cheese? Also I can't ever buy one of anything (small, price wise), I've tried. It's at least two if not three. I honestly can't stop myself. Like how Safeway has started carrying Harry and David candles. You know, the big ones that normally cost $25 for, wait for it, $12. I got three. Honestly can't help it. They smell amazing and did I mention they're $12? I'm also on a candle kick lately so that's my justification.

P.S. I'm thinking about going back and getting more. I haven't bought the peach one yet.

I am however very proud of myself because I stopped at the stationary store tonight and I only bought one package. My insides were freaking out over all the amazing cuteness and really funny ones. But I was good, I restrained myself. I did it by reminding myself that I want it only to have it, and that's really not a great way to justify something. Sometimes I think I need a parent around.

And vitamin C drops. Really? (I mean come on now Sarah.) I still can't find the watermelon ones. I desperately want them and I am completely deluded into thinking that they taste the same as the jolly ranchers watermelon.

This

I'm kind of stuck on this this morning. Green is one of my favorite colors (the other is orange, yes I know, carrot colors) and I can't wait for spring and the tulips to come back so I can go tromping through the fields again to take some of my favorite pictures.

Valentine

If you know me you know how I feel about today. And if you don't then you should know I personally don't really care for it. When I was single people would tell me I was just bitter that I wasn't in a relationship but I would never be able to get across to them that that's not it at all.

I love love. I love the idea of love and how it makes us do really incredible things that no sane person would do otherwise. We learn to give more than we thought possible and to self sacrifice for the betterment of someone we love. We learn to be selfless, and kinder. Love in its best reincarnation is rather awe inspiring.

What I don't love (no pun intended) is that I am told on a specific day that I have to feel love and show love. I guess I don't like Valentine's Day because I feel like it's somewhat of an act and that you are forced to perform. I feel like it kind of negates any other act of love that you do throughout the year because this is the penultimate day for love. And if I don't show you love today then the love I do show you throughout the year is rather small. I don't like the competition it turns love into. I don't think love should be flashy and about what I have to do for you (you remember the self sacrificing part right?). It's love because I choose to do so. I choose to declare and do silly little fun things for you. I give you a shoulder to cry on, and a hand to hold. I'm present because every fiber of my being wants it to be so. I don't think love should be an expectation waiting to be met but a surprise gift freely given.

And now I'm going to contradict myself, wholly. I know that when I have kids (nope, not yet) I will probably make a big deal out of this holiday and I don't know why I think it will change. I do know I want to make every holiday a big deal and very magical. And I want to do that because as an adult the magic has kind of gone out of it. It's very different when you're setting up the surprises and buying the gifts, etc.

I know not everyone shares my views about Valentine's Day and if you love Valentine's Day then Happy Valentine's Day. I'm the one in green.

It's like the world is taking bets on how much it will take before I go crazy...

So apparently my google latitude has me in Texas this week.

Yup.

Um, I don't live in Texas and I didn't move. And I believe my phone is still mine. This is making me paranoid.

Jilian gave me the heads up because my Google latitude shows me right where I actually am.


We're getting brand new phone numbers at work today and I found out that the name of my extension at work was never changed. So just think of me as your local quality assurance nurse. (I don't even know what that entails. Also, I'm not a nurse.)

Also for some reason the light switch in my downstairs bathroom stopped working. However, the outlets still work. I'm going to worry about my house burning down all day now.

P.S. Telling me that my house could burn down anyways, at anytime doesn't help. It's not going to calm me down but instead I'm just going to worry more.

It's like these posts write themselves. I couldn't even make this crap up.

Don't put whole fruit in my food

We all have our food issues. I have an aversion to certain textures. Such as I love peas, love them. But you put them in a pod and I won't touch them with a ten foot pole. They become all yours at that point, as I'm never so desperate as to actually shell them. I don't like the strings on the pods. The oddity? I have no issue with celery.

Another one is don't put whole fruit in my food. Don't put it in my yogurt, Popsicles, etc. (Basically those are the only two I could think of but I'm going to make you think the list is long. I love raisin bread.) Whole fruit in yogurt is just slimy and gross. It's like you want me to eat decaying fruit. Why don't you just puree the fruit? It would save us all the hassle (and by us I mean me). And the real reason this whole post is coming about is that I love fruit Popsicles. But apparently because even though I have 20/15 I am sometimes blind.

See up there where is says made with real fruit? Yeah, if I'd have seen that I wouldn't have bought them. I wouldn't have gotten excited and bought two packages. I would have turned away from the freezer case really disappointed because I love pineapple. I originally went to the store for lemonade Popsicles because they're my favorite. Obviously the store I went to didn't have them (also obviously I didn't go to my regular store) but I saw these and apparently my excitement made me gloss over the real fruit part. So imagine how grossed out I was when I had one that evening. I think putting fruit in a Popsicle is just trying to torture you (for some reason coconut is okay). I mean I'm eating this frozen treat and you want me to chew frozen fruit? That or what? Spit it out and let it get to room temperature so that I can eat it then? Cause that's attractive. Both are bad options in my opinion. If I'm going to eat whole fruit it's going to be a la carte, thank you very much.

Comcast is not doing anything for me to like them more

Dear Comcast,

     When you told me over and over that my email address was linked to my account and made me feel like I was out of my head, you were wrong. Please don't tell me that I created a brand new email address where I misspelled my name. Also why don't I know my password? Or that this email address even exists? Also, thank you for making me contact the people who's account you left my current email address tied to (thankfully I know and get along really well with them) and have to explain the whole situation and make them go through the hassle too. But when they tell you that they just want to transfer the email addresses why do you offer to delete them instead? This makes me think you just like to mess with your customers. Like somehow it really makes you happy to screw your customers over. Also when you make me call you back up to verify that I want these email addresses on my account which I've already told you I do, don't tell me I can't because I'm not an authorized user on the other persons account. I don't want access to their account, I just want my email addresses which they've already released to me.

Sincerely,
Me

P.S. They had better show up on my account by Thursday at the latest.

P.P.S. I am going to feel a lot of resentment towards you again when I have to stand in line to correct my name because you misspelled it all over my account. And now I have to prove to you that you don't know how to spell my name and I do. Really? You think I would misspell my name and call it good? Seriously.

*Update*
They're there!! Yay! So excited it didn't take til Thursday.

Why I think < and > just needs to be one symbol

So here's a little math lesson for you.

this < means less than
while
this > means greater than

No need to applaud, I know I'm your greatest hero.

Both of these symbols drive me crazy. Because:

this side means the larger number, thing, etc. > while this side is the smaller or lesser of the two.

Or a better diagram that I don't have the patience to make, it came from here (see below).

Why!?! If the eating side (I found the time to make this one because it's funny) always means it's the bigger number. Why do we have to do the flippy flippy?

If someone could explain this to me I would be grateful because right now it seems really dumb to flip it over to mean the opposite when the open end always means it's the bigger number.

Okay, after writing this post and thinking about it (especially that last sentence) I get it. I still think it's stupid.

Crazy

For the most part I was raised in Crazy. I grew up thinking Crazy was normal because it was my normal.

When I graduated high school and went on to college I only had to live in Crazy from time to time. And when I graduated from college I only made self appointed field trips to Crazy.

By the time I was 26 I knew what Crazy looked like but still couldn't stop the field trips because I had hope.

By the time I was 28 I was able to extricate myself from Crazy and pretty much never look back. This doesn't mean that I don't talk about Crazy and how f***ed up it is.

What it means is I figured out how to stop being torn to pieces by Crazy. I stopped letting Crazy rule my self worth and what I supposedly could contribute to the world and how good/bad of a person I am.

I will always miss Crazy but only because I will always wish it was Sane. It will never make me go back.

So I'm cutting the counterpart to Crazy out of my life and while this one is harder I can't live in Crazy again.

I do classy things on a daily basis

Here are some examples of exactly how classy I am:

Once with a mouthful of coffee I had to cough, this was not by choice but compulsion. I spewed coffee all over my keyboard and computer screen at work. Try explaining that one as you clean it up.

I constantly trip over myself so it didn't help when one day as I was getting out of my car I turned my ankle luckily saving it before I fell on my face. There were people around and I realized it looked like I just exited my car looking drunk. I walked as soberly as possible (um, how do you do that?) until I was out of sight.

I have problems with too much phlegm (I know TMI) so when I'm clearing my throat out people think I'm sneezing (I've never understood that). I let them think that and I thank them.

When picking up my car from a regular maintenance service I "found" my car.

Dear woman in the drivers seat that I yanked the unlocked door open on,

         I'm sorry and my maniacal laughter as I was walking away was recognizing that I had cracked.

        Sincerely,
         The woman that almost tried to sit in your lap.

Stopped at a red light I saw the turn lane had a green light. Started honking my horn furiously at the car in front of me because we could go. Stopped when I realized that we still had a red light. No I'm not in labor, having a heart attack, or legally blind. Proceeded to not look at anyone around me. Thankfully I was close to home.

This seems like it could become a multi parter...

A feeling

Do you ever see a picture and automatically have it take you back to a memory and you're sucked back into that moment remembering every sensory perception?

Well this one does it for me. I'm not buying the photo for one blog post so you have to deal with the logo. Also don't bother clicking on it, it doesn't get any bigger.

It brings me back to summer mornings in Kansas or anywhere in the Midwest. Where the heat is so thick with humidity but you have this gorgeous sunrise that makes you forgive the drenching humidity. It's a feeling that reminds me of no where else. Summers in Kansas I ♥ you.

This is your PSA on Unicorns

A little while ago I was told the truth about unicorns and I haven't posted about it yet because it's left me a little shattered. (I know, to have your dreams shattered by a 2 year old is kinda mind blowing, huh?) Pictured below is exhibit A. (That's right Keller, I'm outing you) One of the sweetest looking (he's deceptive like that) little boys who has left me seeing the world through a new (broken and terrified) lens.

OMG. Stop bragging about your mom Keller. We all know she's hot okay? Geesh, someone has to rein this kid in.

Anywho, one day Mel (Keller's mom, the hot one) and I were working with Keller on his sounds, (i.e. "what does a horse say?") and I thought I would throw Keller a curve ball and trick him into telling me about unicorns (he's a child so he still gets the 411 on the status of unicorns, you know the whole innocent bit). So I asked Keller "what does a unicorn say?" and without hesitation he answered "nom, nom, nom, nom". I. Was. Shocked. My entire life was ruined in one second. I always wanted a unicorn but I suddenly felt a wave of relief that I never got one. This was followed quickly by nausea because oh crap where are the man eating unicorns!?!?

And then he looked at me like "oops, I just said too much" and then started talking animately about his chocolate milk. You didn't fool me Keller. And the kicker is that he knows he's safe, HE can see unicorns so he can escape. He just told and adult that she's screwed. Dammit.

Thanks a lot kid but you know what? You're. Getting. Older.  So I'm thinking that instead of being vigilant for the Zombiepocalypse we actually need to be vigilant for the Unicornocalypse (I'm still working on it). I mean we can actually see zombies but unicorns? Once you're an adult, not so much. They can keep goring you with their horn just to be really sadistic.

I even tried looking up unicorns with the phrase man eaters. But it's so well hidden that this was the best (and closest) answer I found. And it's not even close. The unicorns are still hiding behind the man eating sharks. Way to go sharks, give shelter to the unicorns.

Oh wait. I just found this, so I guess someone else is trying to get the word out too.

UNICORNS. Be super vigilant y'all, because Keller's just going to laugh while we all get eaten.