"I thought someone had bought Europe with my credit card"

This makes checking your account and finding only $11.56 seem not so bad.

heh

link via stollerderby

F9 THIS

So, I don't know if you know this, but I usually blog here using my teeny tiny laptop that I bought almost two years ago before Dell came out with their teeny tiny laptop. I tell you this because, had Dell offered a teeny tiny laptop with an operating system I was familiar with two years ago, I would have bought it. Instead, I bought THIS teeny tiny laptop because it was there, available for purchase at the time. Also, I can carry it in my purse. I'm easy, what can I say? Aside from the fact that you have to have leprechaun sized hands to type on this thing, it's been a cool, workable little computer. Until this morning when it started giving weird little messages to me. They looked a lot like "Could not read network connection list /home/user/.DCOPserver_eeepc
Please check that the dcopserver is running!" which I immediately translate as: YOU ARE SCREWED BECAUSE YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT LINUX, WHY DID YOU BUY A LINUX OPERATED MACHINE, YOU IDIOT. But, being the resourceful person I sometimes am, I googled this phrase (the first one, not the second one) and found the teeny tiny laptop users forum. Apparently, this whole dcopserver whatever BS happens a lot and there are people who have come up with 27 different ways to fix it. The thing that struck me though was that in every post, they talked about "avoid F9 at all costs", F9 as a "last resort" or IF YOU HIT F9 THIS MACHINE WILL MELT INTO OOZING ACID AND YOU WILL LOSE ALL YOUR FINGERS and I'm thinking, whoa, maybe I shouldn't hit F9, right? Until I get that error message another twenty-three times and I'm all, Efff this. I'll give it a shot. (obviously, there is a reason I did not go into tech support as a career, you don't need to tell me this). But you know what? All it did was reinstall the Linux OS and voila, my teeny tiny laptop workie again. What's up with the F9 Freakout, Geeks? Ok, so I lost any settings I might have had and anything I had saved on the hard drive is gone, and now my computer thinks my user name is OOJAY but pfshhhhh, dude, it worked. I'm happy. Feel free to call me the next time your computer gets all muckety muck. I have a really light touch.

Today, in the Land of DUH.

link via jezebel

Hopper's Gonna. Kill. Bill... Right after Bill stops licking him in the face.

So, last night I went "jogging" with the baby. Note the quotation marks, those are intentional. Because right now my "jogging" more closely resembles what it looks like when someone else is just lurching down the road at a good clip with a tidge more bounce and a lot more hyperventilating. Last year, I was jogging pretty regularly--about three or four times a week, up until the time I found out I was pregnant at which point my doctor told me to cut that out. Apparently, heaving yourself around in 100+ temps=not good for baby growing. So, I embraced this medical directive wholeheartedly. I mean, I tried jogging on the treadmill at the Ladies Gym That Sounds Like A Stripper Bar that I go to, but I felt dizzy and then, my friends, it was Allll Couch, No Treadmill for the next 10 1/2 months. Being the silly that I am, I thought I could just start right back up again as soon as I healed from the Baby Getting Surgery, but alas, a few things have gotten in our way. I shall name them here for you now so you know that I'm not just trying to get out of jogging for the rest of my life, I would just like to make it to where the neighbors aren't clutching their cell phones with their fingers perched above 9 and 1 as they watch me make my way down the street.

Problem #1. My feet don't seem to work very well. There's something I've been dealing with for a few months now that I haven't mentioned here because even though I know there might be a wee bit overshare on a regular basis, I like to think that I can save up all my "Huh, isn't that Medically Weird?" posts for when we're all still blogging at age 97, but here it is: I can't feel my middle toes on both feet. I haven't been able to feel my middle toes since I got a spinal block for surgery back in March. It feels like someone shot my toes full of Novacaine and it just hasn't worn off.. I mentioned it to my doctor once and she said that it would probably wear off eventually. But it hasn't yet and it makes landing on the balls of my feet feel awful and weird, like maybe I'm stepping on a crunchy frog or something. As you can imagine, it makes my stride a little off. It also makes every frog in the vicinity dart for cover.

Problem #2 I'm used to running with my old boobs. These new boobs don't know how to act in an athletic bra, thinking they can go whichever way they want, regardless if it's in the same direction as me, AND, they have the nerve to think that I want them to start working their dairy job right as I'm the furthest distance away from the house. Stop that, dammit.

Problem #3 It's one hundred M*#$@#RF@*@ing degrees at 8pm. Yeah, starting up running outside in Austin during the part of the year that melts cactii: possibly stoopid.

So, we're probably going to have to re-think this jogging thing. Or just Wii-it til the Fall.

Here, Look at the Baby

Today we at Stinkydog officially fall into the realm of "I Got Nuthin' Here, Look at the Baby!"

Below is video of Hopper's first ever meal. And no, it didn't have sriracha sauce in it. (surprisingly). I know, I know, it's of limited interest to anyone who is not his grandma, but it's kinda cute how he immediately trains me to catch the food on his chin by instantaneously spitting out whatever I am putting into his mouth. Not shown: Hopper hitting the EJECT button 10 minutes after this meal was over and me having to completely re-dress for work. Also, not shown: all four dogs standing at attention at my feet, waiting to lick off that chin. mmmm, baby spittle, YUM.

Make Your Own Caption

P7040061
Originally uploaded by leeble1

Hopper thinks Mel is funny. Either that or her tongue looks delicious.

I got hooked on Deadliest Catch one night when I was up late pumping milk.(..that sounds really dirty when in reality, could not be more unsexy if it wore knee high panty hose with corrective sandals). I have no idea why I find a TV show about commercial crab boats so compelling, but give it an hour or so and you'll find it hard to stop. Anyway, I tell you this because one of the producers has his own blog about what its like on the boats. It makes for a fascinating read.

Good Mornin' did y'all have an awesomely patriotic weekend? Ours was pretty good--lots of family time and eating and sweaty fireworks watching. (us, sweaty.. not the fireworks). Hopper and I managed to make it through four flights home to Little Rock and back without me dropping him, checking him in baggage or sonic screaming (OK, maybe one little screech, but that was because we were flying through a thunderstorm and I may have clutched him a little too hard). Hopper was, in fact, a very easy traveller. He actually fell asleep every single time while the plane was still on the tarmac. I think he finds that jet airplane noise very relaxing. I, on the other hand, may have looked like a deranged woman lurching through the airport with my hair only half up in a ponytail, my yoga pants bunched up in an unattractive, yet revealing manner up in the back-- with me attempting to hold the car seat (which weighs 700 lbs even without the chunky kid in it, I promise, ask my sister) in one hand and the carryon bag I packed with 21 days worth of diapers, formula and toys in the other.. I learned really fast that there is absolutely nothing wrong with using your boobs to hold onto both your boarding pass and your iPod, but you have to be able to at one point free up one hand to get the boarding pass out because those Southwest employees balk at plucking things out of your bra. Oh, smirk if you will, but I had lots of room to relax and put up my feet every where we went because, apparently when you both bring the Kuhrazy and the Baby, no one wants to sit anywhere within a 10ft radius. Suckers.

Pictures from the weekend coming up soon. I have about 70 shots of people making funny faces at my baby, it's hilarious.

This morning was the second morning in a row this week that I was woken up at 4am--this time it was because I kept hearing this bizarre bump and scratching noise, like something had gotten knocked over and was being drug across the floor. And you know, I didn't immediately assume it was a bad thing-- I had visions that maybe an extra large squirrel got in through the fireplace and took out Mr. Bean. All that damned barking all the livelong day, honestly, I would not blame the squirrel. He'd probably get a high-five. Anyway, so, I got up and stumbled down the hallway to investigate this bumping and scraping noise only to find Micah (our 15 year old cocker spaniel) body slamming the Diaper Genie. Presumably to get to the scrumptious poo diapers inside. Now, this isn't Micah's first tango with the Diaper Genie. She has successfully emptied it out and spread the contents across our hallway at least once before, an act that actually ALSO WOKE ME UP FROM A DEAD SLEEP because of the overwhelming aroma of poo diaper wafting throughout the bedroom. Ah, the lovely smell of day-old baby shit, nothing like re-visiting it in your dreams.. And you know: I'm just telling you these things now, in writing, so you know that when this happens for the third time and Micah "goes to live on a ranch somewhere where there's lots of room she can run" and no one ever sees her again, you will not ask any of those pesky little questions, like, "Hey, didn't you have a fourth dog??" and I will not have to answer, "Yes, we did, but she wouldn't stop shredding poo diapers and SHE HAD TO DIE."

King of the Dogs

I don't love this song just because it's about dogs...oh who am I kidding, of course I do, but added bonus: it's a great song. And here is a link to a very cool interactive video--choose one, but I recommend you watch all three.

Downside to co-sleeping with (almost) 4mth old: waking up at 4:30 am only to realize it's because someone is trying to nurse off your elbow.

To the left, kid. To the left.

Mel is blogging today about the smells of childhood. We didn't grow up that far away from each other--I remember muscadines too (still my favorite kind of jelly) and I have to say, as places to grow up in go, it wasn't too shabby. As kids, we grew up "out in the country"--and despite what everyone who is not from Arkansas thinks, this is not actually synonymous with just being "in Arkansas".There are are actually cities. We were not in one, though. We lived about 30 minutes outside of Little Rock which means we had woods(which are different from forests) and fields and shitloads of poison ivy. What do I remember about childhood smells? Like Mel, I remember the overwhelming crush of honeysuckle that would hit every late spring. You'd wake up one morning and if your windows were open--which they always were-- it'd be wafting through the house. We'd sit under a fence so heavy with it, you could hide underneath it or pretend the canopy of vines was a tent and you were out on a camping adventure in the Wild, rather than just in your neighbor's backyard. We'd pick the flowers and pull out the middle part to get that tiny drop of nectar and I thought if I just plucked enough of those flowers, I could probably fill up a mason jar. I remember the smell of wet grass every morning because we got up so early to go out and play before the heat dried up the whole day and you were stuck just sticking to the shade making play couches out of piles of sticky pine needles. Those couches always sucked because pine needles will stick you straight through your shorts. I remember the tangy smell of steaming asphalt after a quick afternoon rainshower when we'd ride our bikes through the biggest puddles we could find. I remember the slightly rotten sweet smell of blackberries that we would pick buckets and buckets of until the bees got too angry with the intrusion or someone ran into a patch of poison ivy. And ugh, the smell of calamine lotion which I wore like body paint for most of June and July. I remember the cool smell of the evening--a mixture of moist dirt and vegetable garden and faint smells of what everyone had been cooking for dinner. We'd grab an old pickle jar and go out right before it got dark to catch enough fireflies to make a homemade lantern for our bedroom. And despite our bedtime, we'd stay up to watch them flicker and beat up against the glass til our eyes just got too heavy to hold up anymore.

I'm glad I'm going home this weekend. I need to take a sniff.

I hadn't checked in to see what Sugar Bush Squirrel has been up to lately... why am I not even remotely surprised?


please note, she put a jeri-curl wig on a squirrel. that is all.

nap time

we were all pretty beat on Sunday..

what about the children?

I realize that it says something about me that the first thing I thought upon hearing of Michael Jacksons death was "oh, sad" but not even a split second later, "What about Bubbles????" whatever, dude, you were thinking it, too.


link via strollerderby

Ok yall, last day of high school pictures, I'm sure you're probably getting sick of them...but it's better than dying puppies, right?? (note to self: explore new blog topics, stat). Today we have photos from our senior play (My Fair Lady dontcha know), a couple from graduation--note on that: yeah we all wore white formals..sortof like debutantes which is just..weird. They still do this, by the way, my niece has photos from her own graduation 2 years ago that look almost identical to these. And then I have just a couple of random shots of friends--one of which I picked because Courtney has crimped hair, hee! Reunion starts tonight. Have a blast for me.