tongue in chic journalings

famous chicken and biscuits

I just ran over to Bojangles for my lunch break. This is how you know you're southern, when you get lunch from a place called Bojangles. I pulled up to the window to pay. When the nice lady gave me my food, I asked for some mayonaise.

"You're welcome!" she said, as she closed the window.

I sat there for a minute, thinking about how the phrase "Could I please have some mayonaise?" sounds nothing like any phrase that would evoke "You're welcome" as a response.

So I waved at her through the drive though window.

And she smiled, and waved back.

I told you she was nice.

Then I thought maybe my wave looked too friendly and less beckoning. So I tried beckoning.

And she waved again.

All the while I could see the little mayonaise packets mocking me from their spot nestled right inside the window.

I thought about honking my horn. But then I remembered that my horn is broken. It's in cahoots with my air conditioner. The guy behind me in line apparently has a horn that works. Because he used it. I guess all of my frantic gesturing was taking up his precious time. I remembered that I had some mayonaise packets in the fridge at work, and that cold mayonaise is better than room temperature mayonaise anyways.

As I was pulling away, I waved to the guy behind me. Not a friendly wave. More of a "yeah dude, I totally get that you can't wait 2 minutes for a girl to get her mayo. I'm pulling out and you can stop honking at me now before I throw my chicken biscuit at you" sort of wave.

And as I look in my review mirror, I see the nice drive through lady poke her head out the window.

Apparently, my "wave of irateness" signaled to her that maybe I possibly needed something.

Next time, I'm going to request the other Bojangles drive through lady. The one that calls me Babydoll and gives me my mayonaise.

But I CAN locate the US on a map

Last night while we were watching tennis and I was attempting to explain the meaning of "sports widow" to my husband, I was noticing how fast the the guys run back and forth.

"Honey, I asked, do tennis players have to wear special kinds of shoes?"

"What?" he said.

"You know, shoes. Like runners wear running shoes, and basketball players wear basketball shoes. What about tennis players?"

He looked at me for a lengthy moment and then said very slowly, "Tennis. Shoes."

If I'd had a brother, maybe all this boyness wouldn't seem so weird

Last night my husband came home all a twitter with excitement.

"I have the BEST idea that will keep you from having to cook on Tuesday nights!" he said

I was game because he plays tennis on Wednesday nights so I don't cook that night. I would cook but he's all about his pasta regimen of protein or something about something. Which is why I also don't cook on Sunday nights before his baseball games.

So I'm thinking to myself "Self, this is great. This gets me out of cooking three meals per week!"

And then he tells me that this great idea of his involves some restaurant that serves 10 cent wings on Tuesday nights.

Apparently, to a boy making every Tuesday "10 Cent Wing Tuesday" sounds really fabulous.

You know what sounds fabulous to me?

A new pair of shoes.

90's Memes are better with KA input

You're a 90's kid if:

You've ever ended a sentence with the word "PSYCHE!" Um, I ended a sentence with that yesterday. I asked Jeff if he wanted me to make brownies, and he got all excited. Then I realized I was out of eggs and I was all "PSYCHE!" Seriously.

You can sing the rap to "The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air" Yes. And I can do it with the faux gangsta hand motions Will Smith used.

You remember when Kurt Cobain, Tu Pac, River Phoenix, and Selena died. Now this is just sad. But I remember River Phoenix most because he was a little hottie hottie hot hot.

You know that "WOAH" comes from Joey from "Blossom" and that "How Rude!" comes from Stephanie from "Full House" I owned the trademark Blossom hat y'all.

You remember when it was actually worth getting up early
on a Saturday to watch cartoons. The Tick and Earthworm Jim were among my favorites. But nothings beats LionO and SheRa.

You got super excited when it was Oregon Trail day in computer class at school. Actually, I hated Oregon Trail day because I purposefully killed my neighbor so I got banned from the game and had to sit in class and listen to the little bleep bleeping while everyone else played and I wrote a paper on Why It Isn't Polite To Kill Our Neighbors

You remember reading "Goosebumps" My speed reading self skipped those and went straight to the Fear Street novels

You know the profound meaning of "Wax on, wax off" I remember that it was also in the original Ninja Turtles movie

You have pondered why Smurfette was the only female smurf. And how tired she must have been

You took plastic cartoon lunch boxes to school. I did not do this because my family was so cheap, they made me recycle my plastic ziplock baggies. I carried my lunch to school in my pockets.

You danced to "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls. I became best friends with a Spice Girl

You remember the craze, then the banning of slap bracelets and slam books. I started the first slam book to get banned in my Elementary School. I bet my parents don't know that I also drew an inappropriate picture in it and almost got ISS but I cried and told the teacher my mother would beat me if I got ISS and got off the hook. And I wish I had a slap bracelet today.

You still get the urge to say "NOT" after (almost) every sentence...Not... Whetever, I never have the urge to say that. Not.

Where in the world is Carmen San Diego? was both a game and a TV game show. I still sing the theme song to Jeff when he's in the shower. It's his favorite part of the day I think.

Captain Planet. Has my full allegiance. I sing that theme song to Jeff a lot too. He really likes it when I sing it right after the Carmen San Diego song. I know this because he starts bashing his head on the wall, and he only does that when I'm doing something that's really cute and not at all annoying.

You knew that Kimberly, the pink ranger, and Tommy, the green Ranger were meant to be together. Yes. And also, that it was my destiny to be the Pink Ranger.

When playing power rangers with friends you fought over who got to be who............and still all ended up being Tommy. Um, not. Did you not read about how being the Pink Ranger was my destiny? I even convinced the kid that lived next door that I WAS the Pink Ranger in disguise and that is how I got her to do all my chores.

You remember when super nintendo's became popular. Yes, but I liked to play the Bug game on Sega Genesis

You remember watching home alone 1, 2 , and 3........and tried to pull the pranks on "intruders" My sister had a fake Mark Martic cut out, because she is a lot weirder than me, and we'd set it up in the window and make it dance

"I've fallen and I can't get up" Still funny. So is clapping your hands when some one turns off the lights.

You remember going to the skating rink before there were inline skates I remember Couples Skate with my fourth grade boyfriend Tyler Reeves

Two words... Trapper Keeper. I think I had a Lisa Frank one but I totally hated the velcro noise. SO did our teachers because they were banned.

You never got injured on a Slip 'n' Slide. I hooked a water hose up to the slide on our swingset, then put the slipslide at the bottom of that, and then my gymnastics tumbling mat at the bottom of that all down the hill in our back yard. I had a concussion.

You wore socks over leggings scrunched down. Dude, I'm rocking that look today. And not only that, it was two pair of socks in two different colors, mix matched.

"Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack, all dressed in black, black, black, with silver buttons, buttons, buttons, all down her back, back, back" Yeah, I preferred the one where the the lady and the doctor made out in the refridgerator.
 
You remember New Kids on The Block when they were cool. Like they're not cool now. Um, Hello? Have you seen Donnie Wahlberg?

You knew all the characters names and their life stories on "Saved By The Bell" And randomly burst into the "I'm So Excited! I'm So Scared!" routine.

You played and/or collected "Pogs" Ohhh, I forgot about Pogs. I rocked the Pogs.

You had at least one Tamagotchi, GigaPet or Nano and brought it everywhere. I did, but I fed it to my Furby.

You watched the original Care Bears, My Little Pony, and Ninja Turtles. I also had a genuine Cabbage Patch Doll, birthed from a head of lettuce. Your point?

NANCY DREW were the best mystery books. Nancy Drew sucked. Not.

All your school supplies were "Lisa Frank" brand. Dude, I'm so ahead of the game here.

You remember when the new Beanie Babies were always sold out. Yes. I also remember that somehow, Shawnie had every Beanie Baby known to man.


You used to wear those stick on earings, not only on your ears, but at the corners of your eyes. Is that no longer cool? Because I didn't get that memo.

You remember a time before the WB. Yeah, I grew up without cable people. Feel sorry for me.

You've gotten creeped out by "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" Just the one with the camera that took pictures of horrible things before they happened. I always check my camera for rogue gremlins now.

You know the Macarena by heart. I believe I may have done the Macarena after a few drinks in Chicago. Right after Hit Me Baby One More Time and Baby Got Back. I'm a little fuzzy on the details.

"Talk to the hand" ... enough said cause the face don't underSTAND.

You thought Brain woud finally take over the world. What, he didn't? The horror. THE HORROR!

You always said, "Then why don't you marry it!" And then, the best part was, I would giggle like crazy and run off.

even then

can see it all at SIStv

still.really.hot.

The power in our apartment complex keeps going out. And then it gets really hot in our apartment and people outside start yelling because the gate is stuck and they can't get out. The other day when it was like, a billion and two degrees outside, the power went out and stayed out. Jeff was playing a video game and I working on the computer. After about five minutes, Jeff said "well, what are we going to do now?"

"We could make out" I said

"Nah, it's way too hot now that the air isn't working" he replied.

"We could clean the kitchen" I suggested.

"Nah, it's too dark" he said.

"We could eat the rest of the ice cream before it goes bad" I tried.

"Sweet" he agreed.

And then power came back on.

But we ate the ice cream anyway.

Here are some new pages with the  Sonora High Class of 79 Collection from  SIStv

see the rest here

things that make Jeff go "hmmmmm"

Did you know

that if a recipe calls for plain yogurt

but all you have is black cherry yogurt

because of that crazving you had last week when you went to Target and bought all the black cherry yogurt that they had

you can just scoop out the cherries

and your husband almost won't notice

except for when he asks why the chicken tastes sorta like cherries.

I haven't shared any pages in a while so here are some recent ones, you can see them all at Scrap In Style Tv

"It's not a metaphor, it's not a metaphor...how do you even spell metaphor?"

The other day I broke a dish. Well, it wasn't a dish, it was a bowl. And it wasn't broken so much as chipped. But I cried when I did it. Like it was some bad symbol to break the first dish of our marriage. Like I messed something up. So I did the only logical thing a girl could do. I hid it in the back of the cupboard. The thing is, for that plan to work you have to make sure you actually do the dishes consistently, so that you don't run out of clean dishes. And also, so that your husband doesn't go on a hunt for a mixing bowl to eat his salad in due to aforementioned lack of clean dishes and inadvertently find the broken bowl.

I was in the den when he found it.

J:"Hey babe? Did you know one of our bowls is chipped?"

And I started crying again.

J:"Why are you crying?"

KA:"Because I broke the bowl."

J:"But...it's just a bowl. And it's not like, really broken. It's only sorta broken."

KA:"I know it. But it's so sad. Like, I broke the first thing in our marriage."

J:"This isn't the first thing. Remember how you broke the mouse to my computer? Or the washing machine? Or the..."

KA:"Okay, so I break alot of things. But this is a big deal. I broke our wedding bowl! It like, bounced out of the dishwasher and everything!"

J:"But it's not...wait, how many times did it bounce?"

KA:"Three. Once on the counter, then the dishwasher rack, then on the dishwasher door. And I tried to catch it but my hands were soapy."

J:"It bounced three times? Sweet! It's like, a super bowl! Stop crying funny girl, it's okay"

So I stopped crying. And we laughed a lot. And it was a good night. And he didn't love me any less for breaking the bowl. Although the verdict is still out on that really high tech computer mouse...apparently it was expensive.

Yesterday I cried again. I was in the bedroom folding his laundry. I detest laundry. But he does all his own normally and I thought I'd surprise him and do it for him. And I started thinking about him. And who he is. And how he pulls me into his arms, and wipes away my tears, and calls me funny girl. I don't know how to explain it to him, how sometimes when he's at work I call to hear his voice and then miss him terribly. Or how excited I am when he comes home. Or how happy it makes me to flip open his wallet and see he put a new picture of me in there. The girls and I were talking before Chicago about things we should  know about each other.

And my contribution to the conversation was that I really am ridiculously in love with my husband.

I know we're newlyweds. I know we haven't been together that long. I know the feeling might change and ebb and flow over the years.

But being Jeff's wife. Being the person that picks up his leftover bowl of pasta from behind the recliner and sort of breaks it. That fulfills me in a way I could never accurately express. I told him the other day that sometimes I feel badly for other girls, because he is my husband and that means no one else gets to experience him in the way that I do. I think he is that amazing. I feel privileged to be his wife. I feel privileged that he chose me.

And with that in mind, I sincerely hope that he doesn't mind that I just burnt the rolls for dinner.

It's getting hot out here

Yesterday I went to watch Jeff play baseball.

It was 100 degrees.

I was the only wife there.

But that's not what makes me a great wife.

What makes me a great wife is that I was the only spectator there.

The. Only. One.

The only person at the entire ballpark that wasn't playing baseball.

I'm such a great wife.

And also, I'm stupid.

I'm. So. Hot.

Not because I have great hair. But because it is currently 103 degrees here. It doesn't feel like 103 degrees. It is 103 degrees. And 103 degrees is actually quite nice, compared to the inside of my car. Where it is currently 103 degrees above hellfire.

I live in Georgia and I have no air conditioning in my car. I mean, I have air conditioning. But it broke. And in June I was like "I have a 10 minute drive to work. I have a sunroof. It's not that bad."

And today I called Jeff and said "You know those news reports you see where people and animals are locked in hot cars and they die a slow agonizing death? If you don't get my air fixed, that's going to be your wife. Only I'm going to be driving down I75 when it happens. And that will cause a 62 car pileup. It will be all over the news. There will be mass chaos mourning my tragic death. And at my memorial service my father will cry and say 'Why didn't you just fix her air conditioning?'"

Yesterday, Pregnant Tiffani (oh by the way, Tiffani is pregnant again) starts freaking out over my airconditioningless situation as I was lamenting to her about my hotness. I was telling her that it was so hot, I was sweating. I don't sweat, people. And I don't mean I don't sweat as in "I'm so girly I pretend I don't sweat." I really don't sweat. I have blocked sweat glands. So when I do sweat, it's in really weird places, like on my tummy and on my shoulderblades. Yep. And I was telling Pregnant Tiffani how I was so hot, my tummy was sweating onto my T-shirt. And she gasped, because she used to live with me and knows about the non-sweatness, and told her mother. And her mother immediately offered me her car. Which is a really nice car. And she knows what a bad driver I am. And that should tell you people how hot it is in Georgia.

You have GOT to be kidding me.

So I'm going over an order with a family. They are from somewhere not in America and they don't so much speak the English. When they came in the father sat himself across from me and permanently fixed his gaze on a blank space on the wall while I tried feverishly to explain an order to his wife. He would occasionally look up and grunt, nod, or speak to his wife in whatever language they spoke. Through no fault of her own, I couldn't understand a word this woman said. You know, because the words she were saying weren't in English. I know English. And I even know about 17 words in French. But she didn't say any of those 17 words either. 

About an hour and a half later, I've broken out in a sweat and am on the verge of calling a translator because I've run out of sign language, I have no clue why she keeps saying the word "costume" to me repeatedly, and I have no idea how to explain the concept of "units" to these people. Finally, in what seems like a massive moment of triumph, I get the order completed and then strain to make sense out of her next question. I thought she might be asking me why I wasn't there when they had the pictures taken. I could be totally wrong about that. She could be asking me to describe the mating process of penguins or why Derek Zoolander was trying to kill the prime minister of Malaysia. But I thought it would be in my best interest to pretend she was asking me the easy question. So I told her that I had been out of town visiting in a friend in Indiana.

The father looked over, leaned in on his walking cane and said in "Indiana? Which part? I used to live in South Bend. It was a really nice place to live."

In perfect English.

In perfect English.

In. Perfect. English.

As though he had not seen me stand on my head and juggle 42 apples with my feet in an attempt to make his non-English speaking wife understand what I was saying to her.

If we'd been in Indiana, I'd have thrown an Amish person at him. Beard and all.

Things to Ponder: Vacation Recap Part One

"I don't really live in the country" Darcy said

"Darcy, this morning I thought it was raining because the irrigation system was watering the cornfield across the street and at this very moment there are Amish people playing volleyball in your backyard."

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Swing by my beautiful friend Becca's blog today. Her words, her thoughts, are worth it. She is worth it.