The Sims Have it Easy

I wish I was living in my video game. The Sims 3 is immensely detailed, and, to my mind, lots of fun to play (in short bursts anyways). Seriously, these digital creations have it MADE.

Let's say you want to bake a cheesecake. But Oh No! You're out of sugar! What do you do? Either you scratch the project, or you go to the grocery store and pick up more sugar. Not in the Sims 3! You simply walk up to your refrigerator and put in the money needed for those ingredients missing, and BAM! Like magic, your groceries are all there!



Let's say you have a big date, and you want to get your hair done all fancy! WE have to go to the salon, or spend hours on it ourselves. Not in the Sims 3! They just walk to the closest mirror and choose to "gussy up." Boom! Instant hair style change!



Maybe you want to wear a different outfit out on this big date. No problem for the Sims! You just go to the closest dresser and "Plan Outfit." Design, create, and select clothing whenever you want! No muss, no fuss, and best of all, no cash required!!!



Now you're all fed, and ready for your date, but Oh No! You have to go to work first! Well no problem! Simply FAST FORWARD! Condense those long grueling hours into no more than a few seconds!



When work is done, and it's time for your date, you realize you're out of money! No problem for the Sims! A simple keyboard shortcut, and a well-chosen password gives you 50,000 simoleons! No muss, no fuss, and no work required! Buy whatever you want, whenever you want, at no inconvenience to yourself!



Seriously, the Sims have it GREAT! Plus, they get promotions almost every day, enjoy working on most of their skills, and don't have to worry about making any decisions for themselves. Things will work out.

I think I'm jealous.

Yoga is for Crazy People

Yoga is for crazy people. You get into it thinking that it will be easy. Because, hey, how hard can it be to stretch for an hour or so? I can do this!



Then you go to your very first yoga class. Things start out going great. Then, things change.... My first yoga routine in a class went something like this:







I looked up at the clock and was dismayed to discover that only 15 minutes had passed. There was still another 45 minutes to go! The workout continued, and things went from bad to worse...






....Then I stumbled home in a zonked out zombie-state, drooling from the mouth, to crash on my bedroom floor for a nice long nap.

I went back the next week.

I've been doing yoga for the past 8 months. Apparently, I am on a suicidal quest to out-bend a pretzel.

Yoga is for crazy people.

States Have Stupid Nicknames

Apparently states have slogans, motto's, and nicknames. Why, I ask you, do states need nicknames? Just in case it's not hard enough to remember all 50 of their ACTUAL names, let's see if we can list off their nicknames too!

In addition to that, they have MULTIPLE nicknames. AND most states have OFFICIAL nicknames. I'm sorry, but unnofficial-ness is the very nature of a nickname. Once it becomes official, it is a name. States, you need to drop the nicknames. And until you do, I am going to make fun of you.



I'm sorry, Wyoming. You are stupid. Texas cowboys = awesome. Wyoming cowboys = gay. It's true. I'm pretty sure I saw something about it in this movie called Brokeback Mountain. You should go watch it.



What are you thinking, Wisconsin? You may have truly exceptionally cheese, but who wants to name themselves after such a quality? This is very silly. This means you are yellow and full of holes.



I love you, Texas. You are a very big state, with lots of different areas. You are practically your own country. But you are not alone, Texas. Stop moping, and get over yourself. Make a few friends! I'm sure that New Mexico would like to get to know you better.



Alabama, you are not fluffy. Also, you have a stupid nickname. Way to move past your dodgy pre-civil war past! I'm sure that the NAACP is your friend. I know that I would be!



....and that is all for now. I have more drawings to do.

Comment, people! So I know that I'm still being funny!

Picky Doesn't Mean Close Minded!

I have always been a picky eater. Not your run of the mill picky. I mean REALLY picky. Beef? No thank you! Turkey? Disgusting! Vegetables? Forget it! I always have been, and always WILL be picky. To this day, I still love peanut butter, but hate peanuts. I love pizza, but I hate spaghetti sauce, tomatoes, and ketchup. I hate potatoes, but I love french fries!

My diet is filled with contradictions, and populated by a very short list of items that I consider to be edible. When I was child, I was SO stubborn about the food I would or wouldn't eat that my parents literally thought I had an eating disorder! They asked my doctor about it and everything!

Having grown up as a picky eater, I can't begin to count how many times people have told me that the problem is "just in my head," or that I'm not being open-minded. I beg to differ.

I am very open minded about trying new foods. That doesn't mean I'll like them, but I will try them. To get a little more variety in my diet, I've tried all kinds of strange food combinations to find something else that's good! And I have found a few things.

For example, have you ever put nacho cheese Doritos in a peanut butter sandwich? Doritos are delicious. Peanut Butter sandwiches are a staple in my diet. Stick the two together, and you're left with a goey, soft, delicious sandwich with a pleasant cheesy crunch!



You think that's weird? But why? Haven't you ever had cheese cracker sandwiches with peanut butter in the middle? It's practically the same thing!

Another thing that's good is Peanut Butter and Honey! It makes it nice and sweet! Plus, if you put it in a sandwich bag and take it with you to school or work to be your lunch, the honey will start to crystallize, giving the sandwich a delightful crisp to it!



Another thing that goes great with honey is french fries! I say "Screw You, Ketchup!" Who needs a condiment with more than one spelling? Hmmmm, Catsup??? No thanks! I'll just use honey!



Also, I think that strawberry milk is weird. I don't particularly care for strawberries, and I don't like milk. I ESPECIALLY don't like strawberry milk, but any beverage that's pink is A.O.K. in my book!



PLUS, when you drink Strawberry Milk you get a serving of Dairy AND Fruits!!! Yay for multiple food groups!

A tasty dessert that's kind of strange is chocolate covered popcorn! It's delicious! And addictive!!! =)



One of my favorite dishes is a chicken recipe that my Grandma gave me. You mix sour cream, white cooking wine, and cream of mushroom. Then dump it on the chicken and cook it. I don't like sour cream, and I DEFINITELY don't like mushrooms! But for some reason, this combination yields that most delicious, juiciest, tenderest chicken ever!



The last thing that I'm going to leave you all with is something that I think is very strange, but nobody else seems to notice. Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches are STRANGE. Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Catherine, peanut butter and jelly is the most normal lunchtime meal ever! What's strange about that?"

Well, let me tell you. Consider the origin of those two main ingredients. Peanuts, and some sort of Fruit. Now, who, in their right mind, would look at these to basic ingredients and decide that mashing them together would make a tasty sandwich filling? Let me tell you, I do NOT get it!



So before you go and call picky eaters close minded, take a moment to think about the lengths they must go to in order to find acceptable food! And also, take a second look at your own diet! You might be surprised what kinds of strange combinations you find!

Court TV is Addictive in the Worst Way

Court TV is addictive. I suspect this is because of the sheer stupidity of the participants! I was flipping channels this morning while I was thinking about what to post, and I stumbled onto The People's Court on FOX. The people on this show are really stupid. Not just run-of-the-mill stupid. I mean REALLY damn stupid!

Stupid, and EMOTIONAL! One episode had 4 different people cry, and all 6 people yelling. Court TV is more overdramatic than Paris Hilton with an acne breakout! It's disgustingly addictive.

The first case I watched went something like this:






And the whole while the poor judge is sitting on her bench pretending like she gives a damn.



Of course, I know who's really to blame. It was a very sad story. Somebody's dog was killed. Somebody's car was wrecked. People are hurt, and upset with each other. Blah blah blah blah blah. Nobody really knows who's telling the truth and who's lying.

But I know the truth. The LAUNDRY MONSTER snuck out of the closet and let the dog out!!!! The Laundry Monster MUST BE STOPPED!!!!

10 Things I Didn't Want to Know About Men, but Learned Anyways

I have always related better to men than I do to women. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with other women. They have their own place. Their great for gabbing, watching girl movies with, painting nails, and planning weddings. But.....generally, I am not too terribly interested in being friends with very many girls. I have female friends, and trust me, the ones I have are more than enough!

The result of those opinions, is that I find myself being friends with a lot of guys. In fact, I LIVE with all boys. I share my home with my brother, Stephen. I also share my home with a guy named Kyle. I share my room with my Fiancé. I am constantly surrounded by men. Men are funny creatures. There are some things about them that I've learned as a result of long term association and shared spaces of habitation that I sincerely wish I didn't know. Seriously, men can be very disgusting sometimes. They can also be very surprising. They have strange habits. They have strange interests. They have strange interpretations of things that seem obvious to my female mind.

So here is my list of things that I didn't want to know about men, but learned anyways.

1. When men are hairy, they are REALLY hairy.



2. Cleaning the dishes after I cook means they'll do the dishes when the sink and counters are beyond overflowing.



3. Working screens (television, computer, laptop, portable gaming systems) invariably turn men into zombies.



4. Showers are only necessary when their girlfriend will no longer sit next to them because of the smell.



5. "Grown Up" decor includes mismatched bedding with a camouflage comforter, and posters of naked women.



6. No bed is ever long enough. Their feet will always hang over the edge.



7. For some reason, extra bottles of various types of soap in the shower stall can send them into a raging tantrum.



8. Men secretly enjoy your girlie reality tv shows.

9. Clothes are "clean" if they pass the smell test, and aren't too obviously stained... Actually, sometimes they're clean even if they reek, and they're covered with ketchup stains.

10. It's time to shave when small critters attempt to nest in their beards. This usually occurs about 7 days AFTER their girlfriends stop kissing them or stroking their faces because they're pokey.

....And that's it. No more drawings, because I am lazy, and tired of drawing men.

Awkwardness Busters

Have any of you ever been in one of those situations when everybody goes silent, and something tells you that it is your own lack of tact or volume control might have possibly contributed to the awkwardness of the situation?

Like when you're at a party, and you're yelling so people can hear you over the music, and then the music stops and suddenly you're screaming at your neighbor in a vastly silent room filled with people.



And then you notice that everyone is looking at you, and not because you're wearing your sexy green dress. And then you're left awkwardly shuffling your feet, and coughing into your hands to discretely fill the silence you just created, but the whole time you feel like there's a big elephant in the room, floating above your head, reminding everyone of your social deficiencies. All the while, you can only think "STOP LOOKING AT ME!!!! THERE ISN'T AN ELEPHANT HERE! DON'T LOOK!!!"



But I have the solution! Next time you are in an awkward situation caused by your own social ineptitude, use my patented list of Awkwardness Busters!!!

1. Smile! Nobody likes a frownie pants!



2. You can also give somebody a cookie! People love cookies! If they refuse, don't take no for an answer! They're just testing you!



3. Talk about your dog, because everybody has dogs! Unless they have cats. But you don't really want to know those people anyways! =p

And that's all for now. Because I'm tired of drawing pictures.

Comment please. Because it makes me feel good. Everybody should help promote self esteem!

I'm Posting to Prevent my HabitForge Counter From Resetting

I am clearly not a consistent blogger. I would love to regale you all with tales of my dog/dinosaur's mischief, or my fiance's zombie-like tendencies, or my brother's list of super awesome car games, or my own list of awkwardness busters, accompanied by delightfully pathetic MS paint drawings to liven up the entry and augment the entry by better illustrating the thoughts in my head.

Unfortunately for you, I am sleepy.

So goodnight, for now! I'll post again tomorrow!

Tubesocks, Beware!

SO, I was considerably less than thorough when I updated about my summer... I will probably REMAIN less than thorough. Still, I can't (in good faith) completely leave out the visit from Celeste and Thom.

It ended up being a really nice visit. We ate out several times. We also talked a lot. They also insisted on buying a few things for around the house. And Tyler got some new polo's. They look great on him.... too bad he will probably wear them so infrequently that he'll forget he has them!

Nice clothes for Tyler have a way of entering the closet, never to return. I think that some sort of Laundry Monster must be responsible. The Laundry Monster is a cousin of the well-known Sock Monster that lives in dryers all over the world. The Sock Monster looks something like this:



Don't be fooled by his deceptively cute sock hands! He does not just devour socks. He doesn't just hide them. He...ASSIMILATES THEM!!!! Kind of like a stalker going through your trash, he collects socks that interest him (which, based on my experience, consists of exactly HALF of every pair of socks you own, and stows them away, never to be seen again, except during his late night reminiscing when he pulls out the fuzzy blue sock that used to be part of your favorite pair that you can't wear anymore because he has one of them, and fondly pets it, remembering your cozy dryer, and the lint that he created there for you to clean out of the lint trap.



Anyways, I'm SURE that a cousin of the Sock Monster is living in my closet, eating my boyfriends clothing. Or perhaps assimilating them. I don't know. I have yet to find or catch this beast. He behaves in mysterious ways. Sometimes he eats Tyler's clothes. Sometimes he just SHRINKS the clothes so they don't fit him any more. Most devious of all, he sometimes moves things around so that when I attempt to retrieve them, they fall on me! He is nefarious indeed! I need everyone's help to locate this fiend. Here is an rough sketch of what he may look like!



Note the opposable thumbs. I suspect he has hoarded every pair of mittens I have ever owned, and assimilated them to become his hands, hands that are capable of grabbing, twisting, plucking, and other equally dexterous tasks. Beware! They may be a laundry monster lurking in your closet too! I suspect that his weakness must be a professional organizer. When he encounters this, he has no choice but to disassemble, replacing all your lost goods in strange locations, and escape.

Alas, I can not afford a professional organizer. I'm hoping a can of Raid might be good enough....

That is all.

I'm Living with a Dinosaur

Today I was taking pictures of Sophie playing with her squeaking tennis balls. I think I made an amazing, and terrifying, discovery.

My dog is not a real dog.

She is, in fact, a miniature dinosaur.

And just in case anyone doubts me, here is my proof.



Don't hesitate to run, people. She will gnaw the fur off of your squeaky rubber hides! No tennis balls are safe!

On a side note, she is settling very happily into her new home. She LOVES all the attention she gets here. ^_^

My Dog is Too Smart for the IQ Test

So I've read my way through Hyperbole and a Half, and I was exceptionally entertained by a particular entry about her dog. I've always felt that my dog, Sophie, is an exceptionally intelligent dog. So when I looked up a dog IQ test, I believed that my dog would pass with flying colors. This was not exactly the case....

The dog IQ test consists of six different tests. They each are supposed to measure your dog's abilities. These six tests can be performed in any order.

I started with the basics. Does your dog know her name? I called her using words like "refrigerator" and "movie." Nothing. I called her name, and she responded. BUT, she did not move towards me. She did not show any inclination to get up and move towards me. She raised her head, perked up her ears and looked at me. She technically responded to her name....but she did not show any inclination to come, which is a criteria of the scoring system. Clearly she is simply waiting for a follow-up command. My dog comes when I TELL her to. She looks at me when I CALL her. If it were up to me, she would receive full credit (5 points) for this test. But according to their criteria, she would receive only 1 point. My dog did not come.

Next I attempted to test her social learning. In this test, you try to determine if your pet understands and responds to a smile. After looking at my dog for a few moments with her eyes on me, I smiled. She raised her head...and then decided to ignore me. This wins her 3 points. But, as before, my dog has been taught to come on command. A smile is not a command to come, so she stayed where she was. Again, I would award 5 points.

After that, I showed her a treat, and showed her as I placed in under a plastic cup. I encouraged her to get the treat. She sniffed the cup. She prodded it a bit with her nose. She decided that it did indeed have the treat under it. And so she attempted to be "a good girl," sitting, raising her paw to shake, rolling over.... but she did not attempt to retrieve the treat herself. This awards her 1 point. I say, so what? She didn't push over the cup. That's because she's a well trained dog. She sat, and waited patiently for me to pick up the cup and give it to her.

My dog is too smart for the IQ test. She is trained too well to respond when commands are not given, and to take things that she has not earned. So the dog IQ test can suck it!

Still Alive and Kicking

So....not surprisingly I have managed to neglect my blog for a ridiculous amount of time. Believe it or not, I am still alive. And to prove it, I can even give a brief summary of what I've been up to! =p

So, for the summer, I went home to SL. I stayed at my parents for a few weeks and pretty much did whatever I felt like. I DID spend two weeks of that time watching my nephew, Hayden. Here are some pictures!



This one is a webcam picture. We were talking with his Momma in Florida.



We spent a lot of time at playgrounds! =)

After about 6 weeks at my parent's house in SL, I drove back up to the LBK for summer classes. For the 4th of July, Tyler and I went out with a bunch of our friends. We're all engaged too, which just worked out kinda nicely. I really enjoyed the meal! =)



The best picture of the night! We all flashed our engagement rings! ^_^



The boys



The girls

After all that, Tyler and I moved to HIS new place for a month or so while I was taking summer classes. We were living with Mike and Laurel, and it was pretty awesome. Here are some pictures of Laurel's cat, Bruce! He's a really chatter. If you meow back at him, you can have entire conversations!





The best part of living with Mike and Laurel was how much we got to hang out! Well....that, plus the pool was RIGHT OUTSIDE our front door. Swimming is a LOT more tempting when you walk past the pool every time you leave the apartment!!! Here are MORE pictures!






Also, I got to hang out with Laurel and Tiffany, and help them look for wedding dresses. It was really nice to get some GIRL time. Not that Mike, and Trever, and Tyler, and Stephen, and Kyle, and everyone one else aren't fun. They are. But sometimes a girl just needs some GIRL time. This was especially nice because I have started to miss hanging out with Ashley. We had lots of time when I was in SL, but since the LBK is 560 miles away.... Well, you get it. Picture-time!







Anyways, I passed all my classes this summer with straight A's. Moved into my new place (pictures on facebook), and then I flew home a few days ago. Stephen and I drove up yesterday, dog in tow. Sophie is settling in marvelously, and I'm happy to be home in the LBK at my awesome townhome. Pictures of more fun times to come!

....but not now. This entry is long enough.

.....and I'm lazy.

Hopefully habitforge will help me update my blog EVERY DAY. I know. It's totally crazy. I suspect I will keep up with it for....oh, I don't know....maybe a week?

We shall see. Call it an experiment!