I was going to write a post about how much I love the month of November because hello? November means no more heat and humidity which means no more boob sweat which means CHRISTMAS DECOR IS IMMINENT. But then the other day happened and I use the term “other day” loosely as a euphemism for the absolute shitfest that was this past week and I’ve decided I’m no longer going to write about how much I love November because so far, November has been strikingly similar to October in that it, too, has sucked ginormous, staph-infected buffalo balls.

So instead, I’m going to write about three different mediums because they make me happy and have nothing whatsoever do to with over sized male genitalia engorged with pus.

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~ DIGITAL ~

How much do I love Heather T? Lots. First of all, I think she’s been reading my blog since before it slid down my brain’s fallopian tube. So she is either very loyal, very bored, very strange or very mentally impaired. I opt for an eclectic combo of the whole bunch because it makes me feel smart to have eclectic readers.

Second of all, she’s über creative. Like, super über. I stopped commenting on her blog because I ran out of adjectives to describe her work and now I just echo what everyone else says by typing “ditto” in the comment field.

But only because I’m efficient!

Not because I’m lazy.

Heather is a digital scrapbook designer and sells her designs at thedigichick.com and mscraps.com.

And look! She also sells her secrets there too. Only she calls them tutorials.

I, on the other hand, will NEVER sell my secrets!

Not now, not ever!

Not even if I actually had any.

See what I mean about being super über creative?

I know!

DITTO.

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~ PAPER ~

Katrina is another reader of mine. Don’t you like the way I say “of mine?” Like the Internet is one enormous sandbox and she’s my sparkly purple pail with matching shovel that I brought from home.

MINE, MINE, MINE, MINE, MINE. I’M NOT SHARING.

Katrina owns KatePaper where she sells pretty things that she’s made with … what else? Bok choy.

Kidding!

She makes pretty things with paper.

Just seeing if you were paying attention!

ALERT: OPINION AHEAD

Bok choy is gross.

ALERT OVER.

How cute is this book? Katrina is relatively new to my blog and she told me she actually went into my archives to read all of my older posts.

I don’t even do that! I mean, not unless someone forces me.

Or pays me!

I take PayPal, in case anyone is interested.

Aren’t these pretty cards?

SQEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! <—— me, spying a bit of Christmas.

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~ VIDEO ~

Remember the show West Wing? It was, and still is, one of my favorite television series in the history of ever. Best acting, best writing and best sixty minutes of enjoyment that doesn’t involve getting naked. Although I suppose you could watch West Wing naked, if that’s your thing. Just keep your thing under wraps, okay? It’s creepy.

Joy likes West Wing as well. In fact, you might say she’s an aficionado of the series.

I want to be an aficionado. Of something. Anything. Except bladder infections and cold sores.

Joy writes a blog called Simply Me in which she posts a West Wing video every Wednesday. She calls it West Wing Friday.

Hah!

Just making sure you haven’t lapsed into a stupor over there.

WAKEY WAKEY.

Joy calls this West Wing Wednesday and this means that every Wednesday, I run over to her blog and get my Josh/CJ/Donna/Sam/Toby/Leo/Everyone fix and then I get all dressed up, meaning I put on pants, and pretend to have intelligent and witty conversations with imaginary friends while walking briskly throughout my house and I don’t even feel stupid.

But I can only do this on Wednesdays because I don’t own the West Wing series on DVD and for reasons unknown but which I’m choosing to file under the WHO PUT THE BUG UP YOUR ASS category, Bravo recently decided to no longer air the series at 8:00 a.m., on weekdays, giving me one less reason to stay awake after I fling my youngest on the school bus.

Or to put on pants.

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There are going to be a few changes coming to my blog and I figured I’d give you a heads up because personally, I think it’s only polite that when you invite friends into your home to shoot the shit, you warn them beforehand that while the shit might look different, it still smells the same. This way, your friends don’t wind up standing in the middle of your blog, freaking out and yelling WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO OUR SHIT?

A few things to look out for:

• A new blog design. I haven’t yet won the lottery so I’m doing it myself. Again. Because apparently, I didn’t learn my lesson the first time around when I ate my frontal lobe and burped out a psychological meltdown. But this time, I’m being smart and ordering an extra 52 cases of Xanax and vodka, just as a precaution. I figured that way, if my blog explodes in my face and covers me in gelatinous goopy glops of HTML and CSS, I won’t care.

• A “store” of some sorts. And when I say “store” I don’t mean that I’ve hijacked Amazon and I’m holding it hostage on my blog although wouldn’t that be downright nifty? No, I mean that with my “Stuff I love” series, I will occasionally offer whatever it is that I love that day for sale right here on this blog as part of the new OpenSky e-commerce platform. Now, don’t expect a storefront with millions of generic items in it because my name is not Walmart. I will only offer very specific products that I love, based on personal experience. These items will not include my husband or children. Unless, of course, they continue to do this with toilet paper in which case, all bets are off.

• Also as part of my “Stuff I love” series, I may not offer an item for sale on my blog but I might provide an affiliate link to purchase the product elsewhere. Sometimes, I might even do this on a totally unrelated post, like if I’m talking about Skinny Cow ice cream or my latest putrid bladder infection or cold sore. Although I’m not quite sure what product I would link to when I’m peeing an ocean of fluorescent neon orange urine or playing hostess to a rancid leeching hemorrhoid on my face, unless Amazon starts carrying shiny new bladders and/or lips in which case, SIGN ME UP.

• Remember my UkuMi post from earlier this year? They’ve been working hard getting their ducks in a row so you might soon be seeing their newest generation of widgets around here. Here’s to hoping that they don’t run across any drunk ducks because it’s really hard to make those suckers stand still even when they’re sober.

• I have installed a new plugin in my comments section so now, if you want to specifically reply to someone’s comment, you can click the “reply to this comment” option located below each comment and not only will your reply be posted here but an email will be sent to the original commentator notifying him/her of your comment and giving them the opportunity to post their own response. I’m hoping that this type of interaction will foster great relationships amongst my readers. And as for me? Well, you guys know that my OCD tendencies dictate that if I respond to one comment, I must respond to all comments on all posts until the day I die or risk breaking out in an itchy rash all over my body. So up until now, I have avoided responding to comments and thusly, have not scratched all the flesh off my bones. But … I am going to try very hard to reign in my freaky weirdness and occasionally reply to some comments. Maybe someone will ask me how I made something or how I intend to handle Oliver’s increasingly obstinate bowels or how much I’d be willing to fork over for Anderson Cooper’s private cell phone number. Cortisone and skin grafts are on standby. And if they don’t do the job, there’s always the Xanax and vodka.

• My left kidney. Just in case you were wondering, Anderson.

That’s about it! Nothing too drastic, although dealing with any kind of change, for me anyway, is akin to puking up my soul. So I guess I did regurgitate something in this post after all.

Happy Sunday, everyone!

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Remember when I was going to go all blogstar on you and show some initiative by writing an ongoing series called Stuff I Love? Where I was going to periodically post about things I adore, things that I neither gave birth to nor married? And I was going to compile the posts into one ginormous collection that could be searched and cross referenced at will? And it was going to be the very definition of AWESOME?

Me neither.

I wrote one post about aliens and another about epiphanies and then suddenly the laundry piled up, Oliver pooped everywhere, the kids fought incessantly, I had to find Helena a pioneer costume and teach Zoe how to drive, I had to find something other than cornstarch to serve for dinner, my aunt fell and then yelled at me because I tattled on her to my parents and then finally, Lost chewed up my cerebral cortex and hocked a loogie with it onto my ambition and before I knew it, three months went by and the whole concept of Stuff I Love fell by the wayside, lonely and neglected. It would occasionally wake me up at 2:00 a.m., and try to get frisky with my brain but my brain was all OH MY GOD, SERIOUSLY? RIGHT NOW? YOU WANT TO DO IT RIGHT NOW? I’M EXHAUSTED. FINE. KEEP IT SIMPLE, NOTHING FANCY. AND HURRY UP.

So moving forward, I’m going to try to pay a little more attention to Stuff I Love in hopes that it will stop waking me up in the middle of the night for some nookie and let me get a decent night’s sleep.

This is my new watch:

It’s a bangle watch by Brighton and before I say anything more, let me just clarify that I am not a spokesperson for Brighton, no one compensated me for this post because no one pays me to say anything nice about anything and this is probably why I don’t say many nice things. SEE, NATE? IT’S NOT MY FAULT.

This watch is heavy and chunky with a seamless magnetic clasp, giving it the illusion of a traditional bangle. I adore this watch. Sometimes I appreciate it even more than I do Nate because it will tell me the time whenever I ask it to without prefacing its response with a distracted “Wha? Hang on a sec … OK, now … wait … hold on … d’you need something?” and some frantic scrolling on a crackberry.

This watch was my Christmas gift from Nate although, to be honest, it didn’t look like this when I opened it Christmas morning. On Christmas morning, it looked more like a delicate gold-tone bracelet watch with a traditional jewelry clap and mother-of-pearl face peppered with little diamonds, and it came in a box emblazoned with the name “Citizens.” That particular watch was a very glamorous, lovely watch for a very glamorous, lovely woman somewhere but it didn’t exactly suit the lifestyle of the more practical woman to whom it was gifted, the woman who spent her days banging out useless blog dribble on a computer and waging wars against hard water stains and underarm razor stubble and morons who were genetically incapable of parking between the yellow lines. And, more importantly, it wasn’t a bangle watch.

So I returned Nate’s beautiful watch and went in search of what turned out to be this one, all with Nate’s blessing which was cloaked in an exasperated NO ONE MAKES REAL BANGLE WATCHES ANYMORE! IF YOU WANT ONE, YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO DRIVE TO THE END OF THE STREET AND TAKE A LEFT AT THE NINETIES. BRING ME BACK SOME PARACHUTE PANTS.

Admittedly, it’s substantial size and weight dwarfs my freakishly scrawny and bony wrist but it’s a small price to pay for a stylish, sturdy watch that has no annoying chain that will snag on my sweaters and bungee jump to the pavement. And chances are also unlikely that it will stow away on a sleeve and enjoy a ride through the permanent press cycle anytime soon. And I honestly think I could bonk a would-be attacker on the head with it and stun him long enough to kick his balls into neighboring Pennsylvania.

And bonus! When I push it up my arm, it can completely obscure the weird lumpy bump that has copped a squat on my forearm for almost twenty years. I just keep repeating IT’S NOT A TUMOR over and over to myself and it makes me feel better, but only if I do it a là Arnold Schwarzenegger in Kindergarten Cop so it comes out sounding more like IT’S NOT A TOOMAH! Otherwise, it doesn’t work and I wind up freaking out about the whole lumpy bump thing, envisioning all sorts of scenarios including, but not limited to, aliens inserting a monitoring device under my skin to observe how the female member of the species manages to get any rest while sleeping next to her mate who is single- handedly responsible for keeping the alien pods up at night with his snoring.

You can find Brighton accessories here. I love most of their stuff and when it comes to decorating my body, they’re my go-to place for lumpy bump cover-ups. If they ever come out with an industrial strength bra, I’ll be golden.

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