Dog vent... no, not mine!

If there is one thing I will never understand, its how/why some people let their dogs ride on the backs of pickup trucks on busy roads. Despite what magnetic-paw superpowers they think their pups might have (or incredible balance or self-control or whatever) dogs have been known to fall out and CAN get hurt! That to me would be the obvious reason not to do this, but today I was reminded of yet another.

As I was driving to school this afternoon, I came upon a pickup truck with a beautiful Australian Shepherd in the back. Not only was this dog in the back of the pickup, she was running back and forth on top of one of those metal toolbox thingies that come up higher than the lip of the truck bed! She was even standing up on her hind legs and resting her front paws on the roof of the truck!!! All the cars around me (myself included) slowed way down and I bet we were all thinking the same thing- "Oh please don't let me be the one to A) run over that dog when it falls off or B) get into an accident trying to avoid that dog when it falls off!" We were all keeping a distance of about 4-5 car lengths between us and that crazy shmuck driving this vehicle.

SERIOUSLY dude?!?! Ok, so let's just say that this guy couldn't give a rat's fart about his pup's safety ... what about US, his fellow drivers?!?! I mean come on! No one wants to see a dog splattered all over the road, much less be the one to run over it OR drive into oncoming traffic/a pole (etc) trying to avoid it! If I were a cop I would have pulled him over and cited him for reckless driving and/or whatever else I could get him on, including endangerment of an animal! This can't have been the first time the dog did that, and knowing how it behaves and the increased risk it puts everyone in should be one more reason to either keep the dog in the cab with you or leave it at home!!!

Still, best case scenario- your dog is well mannered and sits quietly in the back? Congratulations to you. That doesn't mean he/she couldn't go flying out and get run over (or cause accidents) if you have to make a sudden stop, turn, or get into an accident yourself. I recognize that I am super paranoid about doggy safety and all, but this is something that transcends even my paranoia. It's about our responsibility (not just as dog owners) as drivers to keep the road safe for ourselves and everyone around us.

Sheesh people, use your brains... Grrr...

Read before you swallow!

I've always been really particular about reading the pamphlets that come with your Rx's and tell you about all possible side effects, drug interactions, etc. I always read them... always.

Except today. Why? Because I've taken drug X a gazillion times, which means I've read that piece of paper a gazillion times. Then what's the big deal you might ask? Well... I'm on a new medication now that I wasn't on all the other gazillion times I took drug X... can you see where this is going?

It's 1:15 am right now... I should be in bed asleep, but instead I'm sitting here, trying to keep myself awake because I am itchy all over and and have broken out in hives. Drugs X and Y don't like each other much. Normally, I would reach for drug Z (you know, Benadryl) but it just so happens that drug Z also interacts with drug Y, and the fact that drug X makes drug Y much more potent increases the odds of drug Y and Z causing me to stop breathing in my sleep...

So... I'm trying to stay awake, to make sure the itchiness and hives go away soon, per the pharmacist's orders. Basically, as long as it doesn't get worse (ie. my tongue swelling) I'm ok, otherwise its off to the ER with me... *sigh* I'm trying to avoid that right now.

Hmmm... maybe its time to pop in Twilight/Harry Potter/HSM/Mulan again. This is going to be a long night... *yawn*- slap!

PS> We saw Push tonight, it was good. I'm not an action flick kind of gal, but it was pretty decent. I kind of wish they'd make a sequel.

Tha Sad Tale of a Stubborn Stitch Named Stan.

There was once a stitch by the name of Stan. Stan was born with two missions in life: 1) Hold his assigned incision closed tightly until it had healed and 2) Once finished with his first mission, quietly and quickly dissolve and return to that great big pile of dissolvable stitches in the sky... But no, this stitch was special. You see, Stan was a particularly stubborn stitch. His goal was to be the strongest stitch out there, and do the very best job he could at keeping his assigned home (incision) safely closed up. So zealous was Stan about his first duty, that he began forgetting about (or ignoring, in my opinion) his second duty. One by one, Stan's stitchy buddies began saying farewell as the weeks went by and Stan's home healed and closed tightly. Yet Stan stood steadfast and immovable. Each day Stan's home would check to see if Stan was still there, and sure enough, he was. After a few weeks, something long and metallic began pulling on him every few days, but Stan did his best to hold on... and hold on he did. "Why is my home trying to pull me out?" wondered Stan. Resolved to make his home proud, he held on even tighter, and did his best to be visible and poke his home several times a day to remind it the he, Stan the Stubborn Stitch, was still there... doing his duty.
Today however, was a sad day for Stan the stitch. Countless times, that long metal instrument had failed to pluck him from his home. Today his home tried again, but with a much less formidable enemy... fingers. "Ha!" laughed Stan... "You shall never overcome me, Stan the Stubborn Stitch! I shall stand my ground forev-"
"Yes!" cried Stan's home as all of a sudden Stan found himself trapped between two fingers. "Finally!" the home screamed. And with that, Stan was chucked unceremoniously into a nearby trashcan.

The End :)

I blame it on the black hole...

You know, the one that sucks you into Oklahoma and then never lets you escape? Yeah, that one. Anyway, I found myself watching the bedlam game last night, between OSU and OU. I then found myself cheering on one of the teams... That's right, me. Cheering on an OK team. Yeah, I know... like I said, I blame it on the black hole... it apparently has addled my brain a bit more than I thought.

I cheered for OSU. I'm going back to school next summer and I'm abour 90% sure thats where I'll be going. OSU has a campus here in OKC, a good RN program (Nursing was my first major, before I had my most monumental brain fart and changed it to MFHD... a totally useless degree in the real world, sad but true. By that I mean it's useless when trying to get a good job, not that the knowledge behind it is useless) and odds are I'll be able to complete it all with night classes in a relatively short span of time. I like my job and all, but it's not a career, and it's not where I want to stay forever. Now that we've had to put our dreams of parenthood on long-term hold (due to health reasons, not to mention IVF and/or adoption aren't cheap!) I think it's about time I focus on doing something worthwhile, such as finishing my edumacation and doing some good in the world.

Anyway, OSU lost, but they fought the good fight and had OU sweating the big bullet there for a while. It was fun to watch. It will be exciting to feel more involved next year when I am actually a student of this school. I never thought I'd ever be counted amongst OK school fans, but OSU is cool, I guess. At least it's not a school that takes pride in and names itself after a bunch of sneaks and thieves. Why anyone would be proud of that is beyond me... perhaps the black hole addled their brains too... only to the point of insanity?

Teehee... Can you tell I hate OU? ;)

You know your town is PODUNK when...

... the news channels can spend over 40 minutes covering "latebreaking news" entailing a fire in a building under contruction, where absolutely NO ONE has been hurt because there was no one in there to begin with! Mind you, the fire has long been out (about 10 minutes after they started shooting live) yet they still find it necessary to keep reporting on it. Shot after shot of all the smoke (ooooh, how exciting! NOT) and all the fire engines still hanging around. I have lost count of how many times they've told us what this buidling was being constructed for, and what their "thoughts" are on what might have started it, or that ONCE AGAIN, no injuries, folks! So.... now that the blaze is under control (for a good 30 minutes now) and we know that no one was hurt... WHY are we still having to watch this? Is there really nothing else more interesting going on that this has to be on every single channel??? Dancing With The Stars is scheduled to start here in about 20 minutes and they better be done with all this stupidity by then, GRRRRRRRRR! Sometimes I really um... dislike Oklahoma. X<

Confessions of a closet High School Musical-lover

Ok, so its been way too long since I last posted, I know. I've got a really good excuse(not nearly as good as Shannon's, unfortunately!) but more on that later. Right now there is something I must get out of my system... Last night I sunk to a new low, in Ben's words, and purchased a movie that will forever torture him and probably me too. For weeks I've been trying to surpress the desire, but last night it won and we lost. The songs would just not get out of my head, and so we decided to follow my brother-in-laws advice (His theory is that when you have a song stuck that you don't know all the words to, its b/c you need to listen to it all the way through and it satisfies something in your brain and then you can get passed it) and give my brain what it was yearning for...
I BOUGHT HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL... ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!! :O
Oh and by the way Nate, no, it didn't work. I'm still walking around singing bits and pieces of all the songs.


This one tells it best: (sorry, the resolution is awful)

Go Figure...

Leave it to the idiot liberals in Seattle to come up with this latest attack on marriage just to prove a point. Good thing Ben and I don't reside in Washington, otherwise we might just find ourselves single again shortly... after all, our 3 year time limit is up and apparently we remain ever so childless... by choice? HA!
http://www.cnn.com/video/player/player.html?url=/video/us/2007/02/13/rowlands.childless.couples.cnn

10 = 10... NOT 32!

Ok, so I was doing some shopping after work at the local supermarket and only needed a few things. Once I was done I made my way to the 10 Items Or Less checkout lane because I had just that, 10 items or less (5 to be exact). As I'm approaching that lane this lady with quite a bit of stuff in her cart cuts me off (she was practically running) and gets in front of me. NOT nice. Then I realize that there is NO way she has 10 or less in there, so I started counting. 1,2,3... 10, 11,12... 20, 21,22...all the way to a whopping 32 items! Now, I'm not saying that its an unpardonable sin to squeeze in an extra few items every once in a while, but 22 over the limit? She had 3 times as much as that lane was designated for!!! I think she saw me counting because she moved right in front of the cart so that she was blocking my view. I don't know is it was "karma" coming back to bite her in her obviously illiterate butt, or if another cashier saw me staring daggers at her... but all of a sudden this lady (an employee) came up to me and ushered me to another lane that had just opened. This other lady looked up and pulled this face like, "Hey, I was here first!" but to no avail, she had to sit there and wait while I (and my FIVE items) got scooted through before her cashier even started scanning her 32... oh well, too bad, SO sad! HMPH!

DOH! (Part 2)

Oh if you could only see me right now... you can't so I'll take a moment to describe what is transpiring in this moment of utter shame. Remember that lady driving and smacking herself in the head? Yeah, thats me right now! *Smack!* Well, I guess it's been a while since I've come to check on my own blog. My excuse was that my life has been pretty boring as of late... well, until about 4 days ago when we almost burned down the house, but we'll get to that later. So yes, guilty as charged... I , Alex, have been neglectful and caused some major upheaval in the wonderful world of blogs. I will take this moment to publically appologize to my loyal fans (all 2 of them) for keeping them waiting and forcing them to sink as low as commenting on eachother's comments in order to provide some semblance of entertaining quality to my poor blog. (Wow, Clark you should get Suzanne to diagram that atrocity of a run-on sentence!)
Ok, so onto the juicy juiciness... WE ALMOST BURNED OUR HOUSE DOWN! Yah, see thats what I get for complaining about my life being boring and not having anything to blog about! A few days ago we had a big snowstorm and so we were making lots of fires in our lovely fireplace... Well, due to inclement weather, we were too lazy to take our ash bucket outside to dump it and began collecting our ashes in black trash bags... the NOT so Hefty kind... I know you are all shaking your heads here... yeah, that was oh-so-stupid of us, wasn't it? Well, of course one of those times the ashes were not all the way cooled off and were still, in fact, partly embers that had not cooled off entirely. The said ash/embers were placed in the bag and set on the hearth rug (fireproof my behind!) where they slowly but steadily began to melt everything they came in contact with... including the bag, the rug, and our carpet.
Hours later we noticed a distinct stench in the air... Upon further investigation we discovered to our dismay a very big HOLE. Yup, singed all the way down to the subfloor. Not a pretty site! (I'd post a picture but I can't yet... more on that later.)
What now? Well... we play "lets remodel!" We had always wanted to tile the area around the fireplace (for some reason having carpet by the fireplace always struck us as... hmm, unsafe?) and looks like we get to now! Ben is currently cutting and ripping up carpet in preperation for our tiling escapade 2 days from now. It's a long drawn out process it is... and guess what? Since I've been so neglectful, you all get to hear about it all... every step of the way! It will take me a few days to get the pictures up since the computer had to be disconnected and moved, but never fear... in the meanwhile you will be regailed with my descriptions of whats taking place each and every day. Are we excited???

DOH!

Ok, so I'm driving to work this morning and there is this lady in a white Taurus in front of me. She was going rather slowly and I was about to switch lanes to pass her when she started hitting herself on the head! You know, the open palmed smack on the forehead you do when you're having a "duh" moment or when you've forgotten something really important? Yeah, she was doing that. At first I thought I must've been imagining it, but then *smack*, she did it again... and again... and again! Soon she was doing it with both hands! (Alternating hands of course, between smacks and holding onto the wheel) Surely she was going to stop this, I thought... well, she did... but rather than resuming driving like a normal person, she started yanking at her hair! By this time we had approached an intersection and she managed to control herself enough to signal and turn... I (despite my curiosity) continued straight and laughed my way to work... bizarre.

And so it begins...

So here I am again... blogging. I haven't done this in years! Not because it got boring or old, I guess I just got too busy. If I recall correctly, my first attemp at all this got thrown by the wayside about the time I left on my mission. Something about not being allowed to be on the internet? Hmm.... Then I got home, returned to BYU, got engaged, had the worst 18credit Fall Semester of my LIFE (18 credits after being un-acadamiafied for 18 months and while planning a wedding... what was I thinking?!?!) so... yeah, not much time for dinking around online. But alas... I'm married now and boring, once again. Not much to do except work and hang out with my hubby and puppies (how did we get this boring?) So thank you Cloark and Shannon, for re-introducing me to the wonderful world of rambling about anything and everything on a spiffy blue page that took me hours to tweak to near perfection. (Again, thanks Cloark) I now have something to keep me busy at work... ;)