We have a winner!

Sort of.  Close enough, anyway.

<a href="http://1mileatatime.com/">Diana!</a>  Come claim your prize.  I will give you a post on the topic of your choice.  Be as crazy as you'd like with it.  Or, not.  Whichever you prefer.

(We were mini golfing, by the way.)

Let's play a game.

It's called "I'm going to write a bunch of random quotes from today, and you have to guess what we did."  If you guess right, I'll write a post about whatever you want.  Please include your post request in your comment with your guess to minimize the amount of work this lazy blogger has to do.  If anyone guesses, that is ;)

"Holy crap, relax a little!  Take a breath.  Breathe in, aim, breathe out, squeeze the trigger."  (Boom, Divergent reference.)

"You look like you need a little more flexibility on that side, to spread your legs a little further."

"I'm a mountain goat!"

"It's not hockey, kid.  You've got to let it stop before you hit it again."

"It looks just like the other ones!  A bunch of amorphous blobs with a hole in the middle and a couple of hills."

Happy guessing game!  And may the odds be ever in your favor.

This is really not intended to be a difficult concept, I swear.

I'm seriously concerned about people and their ability to drive.  I'm baffled that people find four way stops to be so incredibly difficult to master.  It's really quite simple.  You proceed in the order you stop.  It's not actually every other, you don't go around the circle...whoever stops first goes first.  If you stop at the same time, and going at the same time would cause a crash, you yield to the car on the right.  Unless one person is going straight and one is turning.  Then the person going straight goes first.  I learned this in driver's ed when I was 15.  Not really a difficult concept.

And if people have this much trouble when they're actually stop signs, Lord forbid the stoplights go out and they're either flashing or not working at all.  "AHHH!!!  WHY IS IT BLINKINGGGGGG?!  WHAT DOES IT MEEEEEEAN?!  IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO DO THAAAAAAAT!!!!!!"  Flashing red means treat it like a stop sign.  Flashing yellow means treat it like a yield sign.  No lights at all means free-for-all-survival-of-the-fittest-hope-your-car-is-bigger-than-the-other-dude's.  Or....4 way stop. 

I have to assume this knowledge was imparted on these people at some point in their lives.  I'd like to think they even retained it for long enough to pass their written test for their license.  But somewhere between that point and now, it's been replaced by more important things, like what time Real Housewives of New Jersey is on. 

Some people want to make old people retake their driver's tests.  I would be 100% in support of EVERYONE having to retake their tests to renew their license every 5-7 years.  And I would require one of the questions to be on four way stops, and it would be mandatory to get it right to pass.  And the world would be a better place.

Best day ever!

Last Sunday was the best day ever. It was the last day (hopefully, ohmyfrickinggosh hopefully) that we will have to move out of a rental and clean the crap out of it. In fact, I hope to not move again at all for at least 5 years.

I seriously hate moving. This was my 12th time moving since 2004. I mean, seriously. Who does that? Luckily they weren't all full house moves (a couple were moving up to school/home from school, but still a major production. Just not with much furniture), but my complete home moves total 8 moves since 2004. That's a lot of moving. And it sucks and I hate it. Like, I dread it, and put off packing until the very last minute, and then I hate myself. And everyone else, for that matter.

This time, we ended up moving a week sooner than we had planned. We found out last Thursday that we were moving on Saturday, so it was stressful, but it was actually one of our smoothest moves yet. We must be getting good at it.

 We were hating this house for awhile. When we bought it, it was "turn key." We're not handy, so we didn't want to have to do any work. We ended up doing a bunch of painting, and there were a few...minor mishaps (like a big hole in the wall from the seller moving out) that needed to be fixed, and we felt like we were spending all our free time here fixing things. But once we finally got our stuff in it, and I could look around and it LOOKED like our house, I finally had a moment of "Hey, this is OUR HOME. We worked hard for it." I appreciate it more now. I would appreciate it even more if it unpacked itself while we out celebrating our anniversary tonight.

Oh yeah, our one year anniversary is on Monday! Holy crap. It seriously seems like just yesterday I was freaking out because it was snowing the weekend before our (outdoor) wedding.

Thank you, again, to the wonderful Bobbi of The Salty Peanut Photography and Leah of Leah Crubel Photography for our gorgeous photos (and for driving me to my hair appointment while my mom and awesome bridesmaids were dealing with a mishap, and for looking the other way while I freaked out about said mishap).

Welcome!

I'd like to extend my warmest welcome to those of you that have found my blog through the following google searches:

"What does Central America look like?"  You will not find the answer to that here, but I wish you luck.

"Points of interest in spiders."  There are none.  You're welcome.

and, of course, " Zombies hiding in backseats of cars."  That one, sadly, makes perfect sense.

Things I Don't Get: Mall Edition.

1. I don't get why people continue their conversations as they're walking away from each other. Finish conversation, THEN walk away. Logic, guys. Unless there's something seriously fun about yelling over your shoulders to each other, walking backwards and bumping into people, and the entire mall hearing your conversation. If that's the case, I guess I'm missing out.

2. I don't get why people think that everyone should have to move for them. There are lots of people at the mall. Sometimes you're going to have to alter your walking path. It's really not a big deal. I'll move a little bit for you, you move a little bit for me. OR, I'll move a little bit for you, you don't move at all, and you get my shoulder or elbow in your ribs, because I'm not going to kill myself getting out of your way if you're not going to get out of my way.

3. I don't get how salespeople can't make the distinction between "helpful" and "annoying." Hint: If you offer help to me, and I say "No thanks, I'm just looking," and you continue to talk and I'm now walking away from you, not responding to anything you say, chances are good you've gone past "helpful" and into "annoying." I understand that you need to make sales and you're just doing your job, but there's a better way. If you let me browse a bit without you, and I find something I have a question on or want to buy, I will find you and ask you. If you annoy me enough, I'll leave even if there IS something I want to buy. And if I wasn't intending to buy something in the first place, the chances of you talking me into it are slim, I promise.

4. Speaking of salespeople, I don't get why the associates at stores get rude and snippy when they ask for your email or phone number and you say no. I always give the same firm, but polite answer "I'm sorry, I'd rather not." You getting snippy and rude will not change my mind. I know that's surprising, but it's quite true. I don't really care WHY you want my phone number. Regardless of your reason, I'm not giving it up. And I know you only want my email to spam me with 17 coupons a day. I promise if I wanted the coupons, I'd go sign up for them. I'm perfectly capable of managing these things on my own.

5. OK, I feel like men in general don't like to try things on. At least, none of the men I've ever been shopping with do. But if the urge does strike, there are these cool things called "fitting rooms." Usually one every department or so, depending on the store. It is not acceptable to take your pants off in the middle of the menswear department and try those shorts on. I don't care if you're wearing boxers and they're practically the same as shorts. They're really not, and you're really weird. If I wanted a peep show, I'd go to a peep show. I've seen this happen twice, and I just don't get it.

4.

These are the conversations we have in this house.

This isn't actually a conversation, but it was too good to pass up.

Husband: Minka, you can be Katniss Everdeen because you're a cat. (to me) You can be Primrose, because...I don't know anyone else. And I'll be Lenny Kravitz because I'm a sexy bitch.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

In the new neighborhood, that is. Well, the weather was nice in the old one too, but that's about all the good I have to say about that.

So today, I got home from work with excess energy (I don't get it either), and I knew I had to head over to the new house to put my plants inside so they didn't get too cold overnight, so I decided I'd run over. Like, literally run--shoes and sports bra and all that good stuff (the house is in the next subdivision-ish over, about a mile one way). This was a poor choice. There are two gigantic hills. It was hard. But it was lovely.

You know why? Because I didn't have any of these issues. In fact, not only did no one's dog chase me, did I not have to pick my way around cars parked ON THE SIDEWALK, did I not have to run past people screaming at each other in other languages, but people did NICE things. One man was chemical-ing his lawn. He stopped as I was jogging past, smiled, and said hello. My asthmatic lungs were happy. One man was edging his lawn. He stopped as I went past, presumably so the grass clippings did not get all over me. I appreciated that. Grass clippings make me itchy.

Then, as I ran back into my current neighborhood, I almost stepped on a used-looking condom on the sidewalk in front of the park. I mean, I don't live in the type of neighborhood where you'd expect things like that. But it's apparently amazing what crossing a road from one subdivision to another will do.

I think I'm going to like my new neighborhood.

This is the post where I give away my opportunity to be the brains behind the next big thing in furniture.

So, remember how we bought a house? Well, surprisingly, the house did not come with furniture. I know, we were shocked too. We're not currently homeless, and we do not sit on the floor, so we do have furniture in our current abode, but it's all hand me downs and it's to the point where I would not even give it to you for free if you asked, because it's rough. So we pretty much needed to furnish our entire 3 story, 5 bedroom house. I sort of want to die just writing about it.

We went last weekend and had a bad experience which pretty much boiled down to the saleswoman assuming we could not afford the furniture we were sitting on, and pissing us off royally. We went to three more places this weekend, and ended up back at that exact place, where we purchased ALL of our furniture. Too bad none of the other furniture places here have nice stuff.

Anyway, what Husband and I quickly realized is that we do not have the same taste in furniture AT ALL. Especially couches. Especially with what we find comfortable. Now, last weekend, we bought a Sleep Number bed. And the cool thing about this bed is that we can individually adjust each of our side however we want. So, I kind of don't understand why the awesome folks at Select Comfort have not yet made Sit Number couches. Make it happen, Select Comfort!

Now, I made numerous other observations while spending 8 hours furniture shopping yesterday. I'm going to share them with you, because I know you all care very much.

-I understand wanting to set up the furniture like real rooms so people can see how things would go together. But WHY do you have to have living rooms next to bedrooms next to dining areas? Please put all your living room furniture in one area, and all your bedroom furniture in another. I do not want to walk through a bedroom just to see the other couch. This makes sense, I promise. People will like it.

-Couches have stupid names. Our TV room couch is named Sugarbear. I spent 4 hours saying things like "How do you think these end tables will look next to Sugarbear?" And now, I will forever call it Sugarbear. I will introduce it to guests as Sugarbear. I will never call it "the couch."

-With so many options for patterns, colors, and fabrics, I don't understand why so many couches need to be ugly. The ugly options outnumbered the attractive options by about 20 to 1. And I'm just talking fabric choices, not even design of the couch. Does anyone under the age of 80 actually choose a forest green and burnt orange floral patterned couch anymore?

-There are so many comfortable, attractive leather furniture options. Someone please explain to me why you cannot get any of those options in fabric. I HATE LEATHER. I sat on about 2 uncomfortable leather couches. On the flip side, 2 is the number of COMFORTABLE fabric couches I sat on. Why? Fix this. It's stupid. Not everyone wants leather.

I hope we have this furniture for the rest of our lives, because I am never willingly going furniture shopping again.

I don't understand how you've made it this far in life.

Last night, the Husband and I went to the Michael Jackson Cirque du Soleil show. It made me remember why I hate "events." Well, I love events, but I hate people. And any time I'm out in public with large groups of people, I end up wondering if I'm the only person with a brain or common sense left in the world. Then I realize that there are probably plenty of people thinking I'm just as stupid as I think they are, but that's besides the point.

So, in order to make life easier for everyone, but especially me, I offer you my Event Tips:

1. Bad places to stop and/or congregate:
- at the end of a row of seats
- at the bottom or top of stairs or escalators
- directly in front of an exit/entrance
- in front of the bathroom sink if you're not washing your hands
- anywhere that's not your seat. If your butt is not in your seat, your feet need to be moving.

2. Your ticket says the show starts at 8. Use your common sense to realize there will be a few other people there, and that you will have to have your ticket checked, find your seat, etc. Use that knowledge to determine a sensible time to arrive. I know that shit happens, but did shit really happen to approximately 25% of the people at our show? Nope, far more likely they are victims of poor planning.

3. To the companies putting on the events: If you start on time, people will get there on time.

4. While in a large crowd of people waiting to get into an event, it is a bad choice to put your hair up, swing your bag around, take large steps in any direction without first checking in that direction, or scream like a 13 year old fangirl that just spotted Justin Bieber outside his concert venue.

5. Wearing shoes that you can't walk in is stupid. I don't care how "hot" the shoes are. If you can't walk in them, you look stupid, not hot.

6. I understand that there are a lot of people and that you're really excited to get in and find your seat. But getting closer and closer to me will not make the 1700 people in front of me move any faster. All you're accomplishing is irritating me, though let's be real, you're not alone.

These are reasons why I really shouldn't even go out in public.

And also? Someone found my blog today by searching "jesus cpr." Funnier if I didn't actually have a post about Jesus CPR, but still awfully funny that someone would search that.