don't even bother. seriously.

ok, so since i'm now being called out in my comments for laziness, i guess it's time to get back on the horse. though i cannot promise anything of substance. like i ever deliver that anyway!

i almost posted yesterday to let you all know that while i did indeed finally get my kone, i was soo excited to use it that i threw away the box AND THE INSTRUCTIONS FOR CLEANING IT before i read them.

i just decided, out of laziness (NEWS FLASH: i'm lazy), to not empty it. ever. well. that doesn't really work, so i finally googled the dirt devil website. [it's dirtdevil.com would you believe it?] and downloaded the manual for it. side note: did you know you can download by COLOR of the kone? um, does it perform differently based on it's color? in this day and age, shouldn't our handheld vacuums be color blind???

sorry. anyway, um, all you do is screw off the motor and dump the dirt out. now after rereading this, i remember why i didn't post it. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....I TOLD YOU THIS WOULD BE A BORING POST.

i promise to post more tonight after therapy. hahahahaha THAT ought to be fun-filled. oh wait, LOST premieres tonight. yeah, fat chance of me posting tonight, suckers!

wtf

do your teeth HURT after going to the dentist? i don't mean for like a root canal or something painful like that. i mean for a CLEANING???

my teeth HURT. for those of you who've suffered orthodontia, they hurt like tightening braces hurt. all they did was clean them, for crying out loud.

this is NO way to get me to floss. i'm just saying.

also, i'm sorry i've been such a lazy ass about posting for the last week. it's like the opposite of sex. the less you do it, the less likely you are to want to do it. or wait. is that the same as sex?

dirt devil update

i love target.

target, will you be my valentine?

so, i called them and told them my tale of woe fully expecting them to laugh and hang up on me (because that is what i would do.) and the woman put me on hold and then came back, "Oh yes, I have a record of that hand-held being brought over to the service desk, but I don't see it here. Why don't you just bring in your receipt and we'll GIVE YOU A NEW ONE"

(side note: why do i not feel it necessary to use capitalization except when i'm quoting someone? wtf?)

so i hopped over there on saturday and picked up and BROUGHT HOME my new dirt devil KONE. i love it. though they say you can put it anywhere in your house and because it's soooo stylish, it'll fit in.

my husband doesn't really notice house stuff, but he stopped mid-sentence when he returned home saturday to say, "When did we get a megaphone?"

son of a...

the dirt devil is NOT IN MY CAR. nor is it in my home.

target=1
stephanie=0 and PISSED.

waaaait a second...

ok, i am in a possible predicament. yesterday i stopped at target and purchase a dirt devil kone (because i am just that stylish, ok?!) and last night when tom was prattling on about something to do with our Very Nutritious Dinner (boneless buffalo wings and french fries. AND BEER!), i realized i didn't bring the dirt devil in with me.

this morning i took the jeep to work instead of my death mobile so now i'm paranoid about where the dirt devil is. i KNOW i paid for it. i KNOW i put it in my cart. what i cannot remember is whether i left it in the car or if i left it IN THE CART. can you fucking imagine if i left it in cart? merry late christmas, random target shopper! i hope my CREDIT CARD RECEIPT IS IN THERE, TOO!

i'm hoping i just left it in the car, but it would be my luck to just leave it at the store. what an asshole i am.

please make me feel better. tell me you've done something even remotely as stupid.

oh yes, another

HOT WEDDING PHOTO!!!!

it's not only kids...

who are troublesome to photograph. here are my sister-in-law's attempts to photograph tom and me on our first married christmas:

ok, she said in that one, tom was covering my face with his gang signs. she should have said YOUR HIPS LOOK ENORMOUS IN THOSE JEANS. never wear them AGAIN. but she is sweet and would never say that.

however, here's take two: clearly there is a theme here of tom not liking my face.

let's try again:
um, yeah. this one, i will admit, is my fault. OK ONE MORE:

FINALLY! ok i'm through attention whoring for the day.

saturday morning

just a little serenity now for ya's...

We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned,
so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
— Joseph Campbell

boston fans only!

ha! that is the sign my nephew read (or rather, SHOUTED) to me tonight before going to sleep. we're keeping him overnight tonight for my sis and he sleeps in tom's "man room."

the name is in quotes because it is SO NOT a man room. i promised him when we rented the apartment that the second bedroom could be his man room to decorate as poorly as he'd like with NO INPUT from me. well, life happened (or, more accurately, life stopped) and my mom died. mel and hunter shacked up with us for a while and the man room became their room.

once they flew the coop, i promised yet again to give him the room. well, then we got engaged so it became "the wedding crap room" -- nothing manly about that. ok, wedding came and went, but then CHRISTMAS came and it transformed into wedding-crap-we-need-to-get-rid-of SLASH christmas-presents-and-wrapping-paper room. complete with a closet full of piece-of-shit-crinoline and balled-up-wedding-gown.

it also has a futon that doubles as hunter's bed when we keep him overnight, so there is a toybox and a bookshelf filled with our books and hunter's books.

the only stuff that sort of even makes the room even slightly resemble a "man room" is the panoramic framed print of fenway during the 2004 ring ceremony, a 2007 world series parking sign and a book with a cover reading................ BOSTON FANS ONLY!!!

by the way, did i mention hunter is learning how to read? it is completely insane to watch him SOUND OUT WORDS and. like, READ. READING, i said. i don't understand how it makes me so ridiculously proud and incredulous to watch him learn this skill. he read two books to us tonight:

• where are the dogsharks? (side note: what the fuck is a dogshark? way to confuse a level one reader with a MADE UP ANIMAL)
• bug stew (dudes, he completely housed this one and i thought he would have trouble. HE KNEW BUMBLEBEES! that is a long-ass word.

ok, i'm going to say what you're all thinking. if this kid is my nephew, i'm going to be one obnoxious mother when i have my own kids.

if i have time to teach them to read between all the wine fetching they'll have to do. chores are good for kids, right?!

who else is sick?

am i the only one who is on antibiotics for the second time in six weeks? just checking. did i mention that both times are for TEN DAYS? at least the first time (double ear infection and sinus infection) it was just one pill a day. this time (strep throat) it's one pill TWICE a day. what the hell? between that, my vitamin and the several thousand advil i ingest to combat minor aches and pains, i'm a bonafide Pill Popper.

not excited about this. i'm also not excited that i don't have anything better to blog about today. 2008 has not started off as the Year of the Blog for me. but i am adding to my very short list of resolutions to blog at least five times a week.

so far, so boring. maybe i should try to make the blog WORTH reading five times a week.

ugh. pill time.

making it in just under the wire... (east coast time)

hope 2008 is better than the weather in CT right now.
CHEERS!

very exclusive.

so tonight i had a pajama party with my sister and my nephew. when they walked in after work (at 5:45pm) i was already IN my pajamas, complete with glass of pinot noir.

i told them there are RULES to this pajama party. hunter agreed immediately. i said, "don't you want to know what the rules are before you blindly agree??" he didn't really care, so i fired away:

1. you must be in pajamas
2. you must party
3. you must have a special drink
4. you must eat until your belly hurts

he was like, well DUH, OF COURSE I AGREE!! so, melanie switched her special drink between heineken light and amstel light ( i prefer HL. i HATE regular heineken, however. just in case you wanted to send me beer or something.), i stuck with the wine and hunter had several shirley temples.

we ate: mozzerella sticks, egg noodles with butter and cheese, pigs in a blanket, salad with chicken, tortilla chips with spinach artichoke dip AND hot fudge sundaes. shut up, there was a randomly healthy salad involved. it's a PARTY, for christ sake!

hunter was a little disappointed because we didn't have "special effects" -- he is hosting a new year's eve party and said it will include a disco ball. i totally failed in the special effects department.

he also let us in on a VERY top secret fact about polar bears... did you know if they aren't "developed" properly, they just turn into seals? and if seals don't develop properly they turn into whales. hey, thanks animal planet. you're CLEARLY teaching him a lot. oh yes, and while orangutan is SPELLED o-r-a-n-g-u-t-a-n , it's pronounced "o-rang-uh-tang" -- he will not budge on this. yum, tang...

ps, i think i'm getting sick again, but did i take airborne today? no. instead i drank basically a bottle of pinot noir. eh, same diff. CHEERS.

wait, it's over?

christmas came and went in a flash this year. in the blink of an eye. without warning. or more accurately, while i was in DENIAL. how the hell did it get here so FAST?? i had no prep time.

or at least, i felt like i didn't. i blamed the wedding, but let's be honest, people. the wedding was 11/3 and we were back from the honeymoon on the 12th. i should have been out beating up strangers on black friday with the rest of you. or at least -- online shopping!!!! that requires about ZERO effort. ugh. i suck.

i did manage to get the tree up and get gifts for everyone, but don't think i wasn't out shopping on christmas eve, because i totally was. i think tom and i did ok for family gifts, but i just wish i had more time (wasn't so lazy?) to really put 100% thought into each and every one. hahahaha who am i kidding, gift cards for all, forever!!!

and speaking of gift cards, i always hear that is a lame ass gift and people feel like you cheesed out on them if you give them a gift card. that? is a little thing i like to call bullshit. i LOVE getting gift cards. i have a STACK of them that i am staring at right now and planning how to use. ooooh i cannot wait. coffee, clothes, shoes, gas, electronics -- hell to the YEAH, santa!!!

tom got me great gifts -- did i mention that walgreens is his favorite place to get gifts? it is. i received three "as seen on tv" items and don't hate. i love infomercial merchandise. i also got an ipod nano!!! yahoo! this is an especially excellent gift because my sad little mini was swiped (or more likely left on the plane) on our honeymoon and i have that work trip to london in february.
i need plane distractions. me + plane = fucking freakout. my flight to heathrow is like 71, 356 hours. nonstop. i might implode from fear. i don't have any real reasons to dislike flying -- just a generally irrational and primal FEAR. the ipod and all it's fun little games and VIDEO capabilities will help whatever my (hopefully) prescribed anti-freakout medication can't handle.
so, yay for tom!! i may survive this trip!

we spent christmas eve with my sister and nephew and exchanged presents and ate pizza (and drank lots of wine). opened gifts yesterday morning at our house, then we all went over to tom's parents' for dinner and more awesome gifts. last night was spent downloading friends episodes onto the ipod and watching elf. "we elves like to stick to the four major food groups: candy, candy canes, candy CORN and syrup!"

At the casino. Tom is in the back left corner.

for those of you bored on this friday before christmas....

here is a grainy, crappy cell phone movie of hunter last year doing his genius rendition of jingle bells. it's the instrumental version. he's like the trans siberian orchestra, party of one.

except, his guitar is made out of paper.

he asked me for a guitar and i said, um, we don't have one. so he asked me to make him one. MAKE him one. so i drew something akin to a beat down ukelele on a piece of construction paper. hahahahaha NOT EVEN CARDBOARD. and put some yarn strings on it. it's so lame. ENJOY!!

my car is an asshole

so this morning on my drive into work, i'm behind a giant suv. it's, of course, spraying ice and sand and all sorts of winter wonderland all over my windshield. SO, i think, as any NORMAL driver would, hey, let's just spray some washer fluid and wipe that shit right off.
i press the button, the washer stuff squirts right up and my wipers come up like normal... until about the halfway point -- you know, the part that's RIGHT IN MY LINE OF VISION -- and decide they're done for the day.
that's right. they just stopped. they stared at me as if to say, fuck you, stephanie, have fun driving 45 minutes on the highway with windshield washer fluid frozen to your windshield. also, enjoy the added bonus of wipers blocking about 75% of your view. let's not forget the overall shitty weather conditions and the fact that this car is a 1998 honda civic that is generally awful in any sort of inclement weather.
HAPPY MONDAY!

x mas tree, fireplace and SNL x mas special. NICE.

informer

remember snow? the guy who sang, sorry... RAPPED "informer" ????

no? just me?

anyway, i'm reminded of him today because:



10 inches apparently on the way.

oh and FUN FOR DRIVING, TOO!

have any of you been to london?

i'm going in february (yes, i realize that is PEAK WEATHER) and tom's meeting me at the end of my conference for a long weekend in london. the thing is... WHERE SHOULD WE STAY? what should we do? i have never been and i need ideas and places to see and visit.

yes, i realize i could google stuff and go on tripadvisor and all that, but i'd rather get some real recommendations from you guys, if you have any (read: i'd rather you do my leg work).

cheers!

squid ammo!!!

what a freakin slacker i am. nearly two weeks without a post. i blame messing with texas. she shamed me for only having 15 blogs in my google reader, so i ventured out...read more...added a ton more and now ALL I HAVE TIME TO DO IS READ. which i suppose isn't fair. i'm lazing around, reading everyone else's blog and totally not contributing. well, i comment -- does that count for anything!? probably not. listen, i'm lazy. i know my husband reads this. comment tom, and TELL THEM how lazy i am.

anyway, i worked at a Certain Big Toy Store this weekend to help educate our consumers on the total awesomeness of buying our product over some other lame-o biter brand and fell in love with this totally random (to me, because i don't have any of the accompanying product line) accessory:


it's seriously called squid ammo. it's all rubbery and snotty and i love it. so i bought some. again, i have NO USE for this. i don't have the weapon with which to fire said squid ammo, but i have seven pieces of it regardless.

in other news, it's officially two weeks till christmas. i've got about oooooh 92% of my shopping LEFT to do. how about you? i'm sure you're all finished, have it wrapped and mailed out and all that. we've received several holiday cards already. hi, real-life friends? please excuse us, tom and i haven't even finished our thank you cards from november. no christmas cards this year. HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM THE SLACKER FAMILY!!

our wedding was 11/3. am i a total asshole for not having the cards done yet? please say no. i still have like 80 left.