The lighter side

I had a conversation with my older brother the other night. Headlines are bothering him. We were, or I should say, he was discussing his place in life. Many people ponder Why, What and How we are supposed to live. As if it feels like there should be something more or we should be making more of an impact or significance. These things haunt us in our sleep. They hit us as we are driving down the Interstate. They keep us up at night. While it may be that my brothers purpose is to die a martyr in the apocolypse, I believe it is my purpose to lighten the load. It's my purpose to stop and smell the lilacs. My purpose is to point out the not so serious side of life. My kids think I'm a dork. I'm okay with that. I try to be weird any chance I get. My goal in life is to get my Tween Thing 1 to crack a grin. There's so much shit happening out there right now. So much stress and tension that weighs on our shoulders. I choose to just simply flip the switch and bring out the black light.

Here are some funnies to give you a chuckle-

I have this great T-shirt. It says "Gay? Fine by me." Simple statement. It just says I could not care either way. It was given to me by my Lars and I was dared to wear it around my mother who thinks all Goth people are gay. I haven't exactly worn it around my parents, BUT I was wearing it the other night when I noticed SLJ's mother and sister outside sitting in the swing. I galloped over to converse. It hit me about halfway across the yard that I was wearing my "Gay? Fine by me" shirt, but I shrugged and didn't really think it mattered. I'm not out to offend anyone, I'm just okay with how I feel. I wasn't trying to make a statement. I was just wearing a shirt and wanted to converse with the boyfriends family. Well, it got back to me a few days later that SLJ's mother and sister didn't really care for my shirt. SLJ and I had a good laugh over it and I called Lars up and had a few more good laughs over it. Take me as I am, or don't take me. Either way, you lose. Hee Hee.

Picture this. There I am at the lake with SLJ. We decide to go for a night ride on the boat. SLJ is taking forever trying to get the rear pole light to work. He's spent 20 minutes on it. Switching poles out, fiddling with the wires. It will only work if he holds it at a certain angle. Well, that's never going to work. I'm standing there on the dock day dreaming and contemplating how I'm going to enter the boat. Looks easy enough. Place one foot on the seat and then the other and then Viola. One would think. Somehow, and I blame Smirnoff, I had my left foot on the seat and my right foot in the water between the boat and the dock. I'm hanging by my left knee from the boat. I pull myself up on the dock and lay there laughing and wondering how the frell that just happened. It looked so easy. I have a nice bruise now on my right knee. SLJ and I decided that it was clearly a big sign with blinking lights that we should indeed NOT take the night boat ride. Not 10 minutes later did it start storming.

Speaking of signs; I like to read Church signs as I drive. I don't go to church. I just read the signs. Currently there is this Church sign that reads "Joint Services." I think I might start having to go to church.

I'm not good at haggling or bartering. It's not something I do. I was talking to one of SLJ's sisters about going to Garage Sales etc... and trying to talk people down on their price. Apparently she's pretty good at it. She was at a garage sale just the other day and found a blanket she just had to have. It didn't have a price on it. The owner said he wasn't going to sell it. But then asked, just out of curiosity, how much would she give for it. She said she wasn't comfortable bartering. The owner said he'd sell it to her for Five dollars. She said "How about Three." He said okay and then she said, "You got change for a Twenty?" Oh she's good. She's real good!

We've all seen those shirts that say "I'm with Stupid" and points to the person next to you. I really wanted Andi and I to wear shirts like that when we went on that amusement park trip with our now x's forever ago. I so badly wanted to wear a shirt that pointed to the STBX in the mass crowds. Well, my IT guy the other day said he thought of me on his drive into work. He said there was this lady driving beside him just singing away. Really gettin her groove on and belting out the verses. He chuckled and then as she passed him, he read her bumper sticker that said "I'm not with Stupid anymore." That's GREAT! The fact that she was gettin her groove on was even better.

I have this nephew I completely adore. He's this little toe-headed creep. He has that sweet and innocent look about him, but the kid is completely insane. That's why I love him. He loves his Aunt Tarol too! I remember in preschool him getting in trouble in the restrooms. Apparently he wouldn't come out of the stall for the teacher. Instead he giggled and went under stall to under stall and locked all the stall doors. I was pretty darn proud of him for that one. Then once when I was living with my parents still, I came home to find my mom was babysitting creep. He ran up to me to tell me all about his video game accomplishments. I mentioned that I had his birthday present to give to him since I had missed his party. I then got side-tracked and got busy talking to my parents and doing some other things. About an hour later, Creep comes up to me and says "Aunt Tarol, we need to talk a minute." So I follow his lead into the other room where he turns around with a stern look on his face and says "You mentioned something about a birthday present." I completely lost it. Creep just has a way of working you. He's completely insane and so very cool. Apparently his mother has banned him from all violent video games and TV. Come to find out him and another little boy broke a cats tail. Not sure how it happened, but neither one of them had been scratched.

I can't believe I'm telling you this, BUT the other day I had a blonde moment. I've got my own power tools. I know a lot more than the average person about remodeling. I can drywall with the best of them. Well, the other day I was hanging some things up on the kitchen wall. I was using my cordless drill to drive in a screw. But for some ungodly reason I just couldn't get the screw to go into the wall. I thought I must have hit a stud or a freakin pipe or something because no matter how much pressure I exerted on that drill, it just wouldn't go through the wall. So I did something I hate doing. I sucked it up and called SLJ in to help me out. I was clearly exhausted from my exertion and explained that I just couldn't get the screw to go in the wall. So he simply flips the little switch that directs whether the screw goes IN or whether the screw goes OUT of the wall. Zip, screw went right in. I looked very seriously at SLJ and said "We will not mention this again." He didn't even smile. He just handed me the drill and walked away.

And in other news. It's August. It's time to start planning my Halloween Party. I got SLJ's approval last night. I'm so stoked! I can hardly stand it. If you've never been to one of my Halloween parties then you're missing out! Halloween was kind of a let down last year, so I definitely plan on making up for it this year! I'm afraid SLJ doesn't know what he's getting himself into. Oh, he's seen the boxes of Halloween Decor, but he has not seen the transformation I go thru in October. Gawd help him.