Nobody Ever Told Me

I was searching for an old post about moving the last freezer out of the basement when I came across this one!  It was originally published in April of 2012.  Seriously, you can't make this stuff up!  Enjoy this blast from the past!

We visited another college campus this past weekend.  Beautiful campus, set in the mountains of the Mid-Atlantic.  It was a glorious spring day when we began our tour, so the tour guides were wearing their fleece jackets with the name of the school discreetely emroidered on the front.

As we began our tour, one of the admissions officers said to our tour guide "There she goes!  Girl on fire!"  and everyone laughed.

"Everyone is being so mean to me," she lamented.  "We are given these nice fleece jackets to wear as tour guides.  and we even get to keep them! I love my fleece, it's so nice and warm, I wear it all the time.

The other day, I got out of the shower and put my fleece on to warm up quick.  I got warm, but my jacket got wet.  I didn't want to go outside with a wet coat, so I popped it into the microwave for a minute to dry it off.

Nobody ever told me that fleece was flammable!  After like, 5 seconds in the microwave, my jacket burst into flames and melted into this weird little pool of something that I can't get off of the bottom of the microwave."

We all stared at her for a moment, stunned into silence.

"When I went to housing to report my destroyed university owned microwave, they were speechless.  They told me I was the only person ever to have set fire to a fleece jacket in my microwave."

One of the fathers in our group looked up and said in a very deep voice: "I certainly hope you're not the standard  representative of this school."

"Why does everyone keep asking me that question?"  She wondered aloud.

Why, indeed.  A fleece jacket in the microwave....

Instantly Slims You

I originally ran this post years ago on an old blog, and then re-posted it once before on this blog.  I bought a new pair of jeans over the weekend that had a "slimming panel" in the front, and it brought this post to mind!  I dug the original post out and decided to repost it again, because so much of it is still true!  Enjoy!

With the arrival of hot weather here on the East Coast this week, I pulled out my old, comfy shorts.  After a good, hard look at said shorts, I decided that I needed to buy a couple of new pairs that aren't so ragged and paint covered.

I went to the local department store and found shorts of the required length.  Now, these are not just any shorts!  The bright green label on the front of the shorts scream "INSTANTLY SLIMS YOU".  I figure I can use all the help I can get.  I attempt to work out on a regular basis (You know, like once a week.  I don't want to be excessive about that exercise thing.)  So, I figure I can use all the help I can get.  I pick up a pair and look more closely at the labels.  "Tummy Control"  and "Slims Your Figure" are listed on this tag.  Sounds like a winning combination to me.  The shorts are on sale, so I buy two pairs. 

I brought the shorts home and went back to my room to try them on.  I was followed by the two cats, who are always intrigued by the large plastic bags that they can jump onto and roll around in.  As the cats waited patiently for their new toy, I explained to them that these shorts were going to solve all of my problems.  They would suck my tummy in for me, and take a couple of inches off my profile, and I'd look even better than I already do.

I pulled on the first pair of shorts, buttoned them up and turned around to see the cats staring at me.  I swear, that if those cats could laugh, they would have been rolling around on the floor, holding their stomachs and pounding the ground with their paws.  As it was, I swear I could see Luna, the female, shaking her head in pity.

The shorts did feel a little odd.  I could tell my stomach was sucked in, but there was definitely more going on.  I slowly walked over to the full-length mirror, dreading what I was going to see.

You've heard the phrase "muffin top"?  Muffin top doesn't even begin to cover what I saw.  Have you ever gotten a really loaded ice cream cone?  You know how it's all stiff on the cone part, and then where the ice cream part starts, there's a ton of ice cream just pushing out all over the top of the cone in every which direction?  That was me.  Ice Cream Top.

Yes, the shorts are slimming.  They take an amazing two inches off of my stomach.  The question I should have asked myself at the time is; "What happens to all of that fat that's no longer on my stomach"?  It's being pushed up above the waist line on my pants, that's what's happening.  I look like I have a 2 keg beer belly pouring over my belt.  The pants are stretch pants, but I honestly feel like I'm stretching them to the very last inch of their stretchiness.  If I stretch them out any more, they are going to explode off of me.  Try explaining that while handing out food at the middle school picnic.

The funny thing is, I bought a regular, non-slimming pair of capris from this same manufacturer in this same size last month.  They still fit me just fine. 

Nursing my bruised ego, I pulled the shorts off and took a closer look at the interior construction.  There is a control panel across the front of these shorts.  It looks as if I can take the control panel out with some patience and a good seam ripper.  Hopefully, once the control panel is removed, then all of my flab and fat can distribute itself where it normally sits around my tummy.   It's a little easier to hide that tummy when it's evenly distributed. 

While I'd really, really like to whittle a couple more inches off my tummy, I think I'd be better doing it the old fashioned way with diet and exercise. Or maybe a pair of Spanx.  Yeah, maybe Spanx AND my slimming shorts...

Blue Hair

 This post originally appeared in my now defunct "Mom's View" blog in 2013.  I moved it to this blog at the request of my kids, who wanted to have all of the various posts that accompanied their high school years in one place. Enjoy!

My 16 year old daughter dyes her hair.  I'm not thrilled with it, but if this is her form of rebellion, I can live with it.  Dyeing her hair is so much better than many other ways she could choose to rebel.  (Drinking, drugs, sex, etc.)

Usually, she dyes that beautiful head of brown hair red.

I came home to a different experience Thursday night.

Her hair was blue.

She had bought a bottle of blue hair dye at the store, and attempted to dye the red/brown mass blue.

Do you remember the story in Anne of Green Gables, where Anne attempted to dye the mass of red hair black, and it turned green?  This story reminds me of Anne's attempt to dye her hair.

Not only is her hair this hideous color of blue-green, so is her scalp.  And her hands.  Her neck.  Her ears.  Her nose.  Her forehead.  Her fingers are really blue, and her cuticles are just freaky.

Of course, she chose to do this on a Thursday night.  Do you see the problem yet?  She still had to go to school yesterday.  The good news is that hand sanitizer does remove some of the dye.  The bad news is, she's still a ghastly shade of blue.

Fortunately, she has a good sense of humor.  She went to school with a scarf around her neck to hide the dye on her neck.  She left her hair down so it would cover her ears.  Her face and hands are still a ghastly shade of blue, though.

When questioned about the blue, (as any normal person would), she told people one of three things:

1) I've been feeling a little blue lately.

2) I'm releasing my inner smurf.

3) I decided to go Avatar.  Didn't  you get the memo?

I honestly can't imagine what her day was like.  I offered the option of staying home, but she decided to go to school.

I'm proud of her.  It's not everyone who can pull off the blue look and hold their head up in school for the entire day!