• I have always been a grocery list person but lately, I always forget to bring the damn list with me to the store. And by lately, I mean since 2006. So yesterday, I came up with the brilliant idea to text myself the list! I mean, hello? I carry my phone everywhere! How smart am I? Woot!

• I forgot to bring my cell phone with me to the store yesterday.

• We now have 15 containers of yogurt and no toilet paper.

• After I write this, I will be going to the store again because the cardboard toilet paper roll is itchy and not super absorbent. I found that out in 2006.

• I am still giving Zoe driving lessons. Yesterday she tried to back out of the garage while the car was in drive. I gasped so hard that I nearly inhaled my own tongue. Zoe yelled MOM! DON’T DO THAT! YOU’RE MAKING ME NERVOUS! And I yelled AGGGRZZZTGJJJJBLFFFFFTPPPPPPSSSSSSSSSS and then flailed my arms all over the place for emphasis. Then we stopped talking to each other so as not to use up all the available oxygen in the car because it was 121 degrees outside and I was damned if I was going to open a window and let any air conditioning escape. It was bad enough I was going to die with cardboard remnants stuck to my nether regions, but no way in Hell was I also going to die sweaty.

• Remember the Enell jogging bra I bought? Just wanted to let you know that it has been worth every penny of the $65 I shelled out for it. Not only does it keep my triple Ds from giving me a black eye during a run, but it also helps me work off at least 75 calories and earn one Weight Watchers exercise point during the twenty minutes it takes to get that sucker on and fastened up. And bonus! It can double as a bullet proof vest. So if anyone wants to go on a run with me, or have me hurl my body in front of them to take the full impact of a hail of bullets, let me know! Maybe we can do lunch afterwards.

• Tonight is my first photography class! I am bound and determined to learn how to use my Nikon D90 the proper way which, as far as I know, should not include bargaining with God while using the “F” word.

• How many “F” bombs can you drop and still get into Heaven? I’m wondering if I should start rationing.

• This is my shin approximately twenty-four hours after I bashed it against the slate tile step in our bathroom. Between the shin splints I had a few weeks ago and now this debacle, my calves are pretty much hating my guts and I’m afraid they are going to beat me to death in my sleep. But, if it means I never have to clean our jacuzzi tub again, I might not put up much of a fight.

• Zoe has a date on Friday night and I’m demanding the boy come to our house to meet us beforehand if for no other reason than to show him my leg and get some sympathy. The “Huh. What are we having for dinner?” that I got from my family as I stumbled down the stairs and crawled my way into the kitchen was a little lackluster.

• Today I am sending in my check for our upcoming 25th high school reunion this August. I’m amazed I was actually able to type that whole sentence without punching myself in the throat. But honestly, I’m actually enjoying my forties! If I could live them in the body I had in my twenties, I’d enjoy them a hell of a lot more. And complain a lot less. And the world would be a happier place.

• If you follow me on Twitter, you know that I recently discovered the phenomena that is runner’s trots. Too bad I was a mile away from my house at the time. They give new meaning to the phrase Shit Happens.

• If you don’t want to be kept abreast of my bowels movements, I suggest you don’t follow me on Twitter. But then, you’ll miss out on our puppy Oliver’s bowel movements as well. Your loss.

• One minute ago, Nate poked his head into my office and declared that he was going to the DMV to get himself an enhanced license so that he can cross the border into Canada. I do not have an enhanced license so I’m thinking he’s leaving me for better health insurance and/or some skinny young Canuck who is more than willing to let him wake up in the morning with a bang because (1) she doesn’t have to take a nausea-inducing antibiotic immediately afterward to ensure she doesn’t sustain a raging bladder infection by noon; and (2), even if she does, she can afford it because she’s get better health insurance because she lives in Canada. Way to go, Nate. Get an enhanced license and get lucky, all at the same time. How about getting some toilet paper on the way home and then I’ll have a reason to celebrate too.

• The most popular search terms for my blog lately? “Orange pee,” “huge cold sores,” and “anderson cooper.” I’m not sure if I should tell Anderson this or not as it could be taken the wrong way.

So, what’s going on in your life lately?

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Zoe is learning how to drive. It took her ten minutes to back out of our garage, down our driveway and into the road only to wind up facing in the wrong direction. It took another ten minutes to pull forward and back out again, this time facing in the right direction. As Nate sat in the passenger seat and calmly guided her, I played the part of backseat driver by calling out THAT’S OK, ZOE, WE DIDN’T NEED THAT MAILBOX ANYWAY. NEITHER DID OUR NEIGHBOR.

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In the midst of our city, we have a public market that’s been going on two weeks shy of forever but I only just recently discovered it. Apparently, it’s one of those things people just know about because they’re “in the loop.” I never know about these things as I am not in the loop since I can’t find the damn loop without a GPS because they keep moving it on me. Also, the market happens to be located in the dirty, smelly, hairy armpit of our city and I happen to be a big, fat, chicken who hates armpits. But I was assured that the area was perfectly safe during daylight hours and that if I ventured out there right after breakfast, I wasn’t likely to wind up as a chalk outline on an episode of Law & Order. But I wasn’t taking any chances so I dragged my nine year old with me, just in case, because she knows karate.

While there, I bought myself this Jimmy Choo knock off purse. It’s the first purse that I have ever owned that looks both (1) stylish; and (2) not black. As soon as I brought it home, I had second thoughts which grew exponentially until I was grappling with the potential for my $35 purchase to infringe on Jimmy Choo’s copyright, compromise the sanctity of intellectual property in general and possibly violate who knows how many child labor laws in the process. All so that I can walk around carrying a gold billboard on my arm to announce to the world that I am too cheap to buy the real thing.

On the plus side, the gold color is growing on me.

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I also bought this. It has kosher salt, garlic, onion, pepper, dill seed, mustard seed, rosemary, rice flour, cayenne and something called natural smoke flavor, which hello? If I had known that people actually wanted smokey flavors in their food, I would have invited everyone I know over for dinner for three straight months after having created my own version. The secret? Inadvertently roasting gloppy grilled cheese sandwiches at 550° for an hour and a half while you watch a few episodes of Real Housewives of New York on your DVR.

I bought this stuff so that the next time I ask everyone what they want for dinner fifty-two times and they respond We don’t know fifty-two times and I wind up yelling ONE OF THESE DAYS, I’M JUST GOING TO SERVE YOU ROAD KILL, I SWEAR TO GOD, I won’t actually be lying to God.

It’s not nice to lie to God. I’m pretty sure She keeps track of that sort of stuff on Her laptop.

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We went out for ice cream the other day and Oliver got his own serving which, at first, he eyed suspiciously, then sniffed a few hundred times before sticking his entire face in the bowl without managing to actually touch any of the doggie treats that adorned it. GOD FORBID.

How did I wind up with a puppy who snubs his nose to every doggie treat known to man? Aren’t dogs supposed to eat everything, no matter how disgusting it is? Like poop and stuff? Not that Oliver eats his own poop. I nipped that in the bud because I don’t put up with that sort of thing. My kids never did it which went a long way in my decision to keep them.

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I love writing my blog and putting myself and my life out there. I really do. But if I’m being completely honest here, sometimes, sometimes, I wish I had started this blog anonymously. Because sometimes, I don’t want to be the bigger person and take the high road. Sometimes, I want to be petty and small and take the road straight to hell by ripping someone a new asshole on this blog. You know … a good ol’ bitch fest with lots of vitriolic castigation, swear words and some spitting. But I can’t because actions like that have repercussions in real life. Maybe the object of my hissy fit reads this blog and in his/her spare time, grades my kids’ math tests or fills my kids’ cavities or fixes the brake lines in my car, or has marital relations with me or cuts my hair? Is two minutes of going apeshit on someone’s ass worth my kids failing school or me walking around with an asymmetrical mullet?

Eve, a blogging acquaintance of mine, started a new site called Letters to Breathe and there, you can post your anonymous, unsent letters and say what you can’t say anywhere else. You can get the weight off your chest and the monkey off your back and finally tell your neighbor that if he wasn’t being such a bitter turd about the property line, you’d be more than happy to inform him that his wife is banging the UPS guy. You can do it without fear of discovery or consequence or a big oak tree plunging through your roof.

By the way, if you ever see a letter posted there addressed to AssHat Douchebag in which some guy gets verbally castrated and has his balls theoretically shoved down his throat because he once humiliated a shy, young, naive underclassman in front of all his friends in the middle of the senior corridor of a high school over twenty-five years ago, I didn’t write it.

Yet.

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Just a few of the thoughts spinning out of control in my head this morning:

For the love of God, somebody send me some cows. I simply cannot keep going to Wegmans to buy milk every other day and I’m too stressed out to lactate.

What am I supposed to feed cows? Do they eat spaghetti?

I met with a personal trainer yesterday.

My bank account says I can’t afford a personal trainer. Loud and clear! With enunciation! And inflection! And rampant use of extraneous exclamation points!

My weight and BMI both say I can’t not afford a personal trainer. I know this because they were screaming at me in unison and I think the personal trainer heard them because right at that moment, he whipped out one of those Are You Healthy charts and with his finger, pointed to my optimal healthy zone. Then he ran across the room and pointed out the window to my current zone which apparently resides somewhere over the horizon. The exact distance between the two zones was difficult to determine because he didn’t have his GPS on him and I forgot to bring my globe from home.

Part of my brain says I need to get off my ass, suck it up and hire the personal trainer already.

Another part says I need to hit the gym on my own because who the hell do I think I am, Oprah? What’s next, a personal chef?

A teeny tiny little part of my brain is squealing Oooooooh, I always wanted a personal chef! Let’s be Oprah! Come on, it’ll be fun! Who’s with me?

And finally, one last part of my brain is telling all the other parts to shut the hell up so it can mull it over some Dove chocolate.

Just to keep you in suspense, I won’t tell you which part won.

The last part won.

Courtesy of the teeny tiny part of my brain which can’t keep a secret and thinks suspense is highly overrated.

I have come to the conclusion that I am waging psychological warfare upon myself and I am losing for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being that I am ill equipped to go into battle.

My husband is complaining that Planters is getting stingy lately with the cashews in their Mixed Nuts.

I don’t know what to tell him. *burp*

You learn something new everyday. Except last Tuesday. Not sure what happened.

Summer TV is abysmal. Never did I think I would see the day when my husband, the National Geographic, Science Channel and History Channel aficionado, would willingly watch obese, tattooed, pierced, freaks of nature with stunted vocabulary and severe pepper spray issues repossess cars and wrestle the occasional jacked up dwarf. And know all their names.

I have reviewed my schedule and managed to carve out thirteen minutes next Thursday in which to be spontaneous. Haven’t decided what I will do yet.

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I took this photo well over a year ago.

It is still applicable today.

So is this one, except that the bath mat is green.

I live in a constant state of deja vu and surprisingly enough, it’s not all its cracked up to be.

Why does my brother return my call just to tell me he can’t talk?

I want Steve Perry and Journey to kiss and make up.

I’d settle for kissing Anderson Cooper myself, even though he has nothing to do with either Steve Perry or Journey.

Staples had packs of paper on sale for $0.01 each last week. I bought enough to write War and Peace by hand fifty-two times.

I would never write War and Peace by hand fifty-two times. That’s what I have kids for.

Staples has one-subject notebooks on sale this week for a penny. If my kids ever take 1,769 subjects in school, they’ll be ready. Twice.

I believe this firmly cements my status as a bargain hunter whore.

The other week, I was waiting for my car to be serviced at the Honda dealership when I noticed a woman three seats down from me eating ice cream. With a real spoon. From a ceramic bowl.

What the hell did she do, bring it from home? Who does that?

Why didn’t she bring enough for everyone? That is just rude, if you ask me.

No one ever asks me.

Why would anyone take their two year old child to play miniature golf? Why not throw him outside with a plastic golf club and a wiffle ball and a sprinkler and just let him be happy? Because I don’t think crawling under a wind mill and getting stuck and you yelling NOW YOU’VE DONE IT. HAPPY NOW? COVER YOUR FACE, IT’S MY TURN is making anyone happy, to be honest.

As long as we’re being honest, a premenopausal hormonal woman allergic to outdoors has no business playing miniature golf either, especially when it’s a sunny 102° out and the only source of shade is currently inhabited by the aforementioned little human in a pull-up who refuses to budge no matter how many times she pokes him with her putter.

So I’ve heard.

I am putting off renting Helena’s violin. I like my ears. They work perfectly well and they look pretty and I’m not ready to rip them off my head yet. I’d tell you to ask me how I feel come November but chances are I won’t hear you because of the two gaping holes on either side of my face.

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That’s it! Anyone else want to roll?

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