Is it too late to change the name of my blog??

Ah man... I saw this today and now have tumbled stripey-tail first into a major identity crisis.

Take a peek and you'll understand my plight:

Chipmunks are waaaaaaayyyy cuter and Look!! These little dudes have a cage and a wheel and everything .

 "Musings From the Chipmunk Cage" by chipmunk_e_girl

Whaddya think??

....hmmmm...Actually, I think I'll stick with my squirrels. That extra syllable in 'chipmunk' messes with the whole rhythm and flow....And I'm all about the rhythm and flow. (although I do have a bastard of a time trying to spell 'rhythm' right ... 'rhyme' is another word that causes me grief. Apparently, the "rhy" combo doesn't sit well with me)

OK...everyone back to your stations. Major Identity Crisis averted.

Although... I also stumbled upon this video:

honeybadger_e_girl has a pretty nice ring to it, dontcha think??

Nah...I'm nowhere near badass enough. And, I don't eat snakes.

So Many Excuses. So Little Time.

Well, it's October and you know what that means....Yep, you are absolutely right... I totally blew off September's blog post.

What kind of Blogger Extraordinaire am I??

A bad one...That's what kind of Blogger Extraordinaire I am.

In my defence, I do happen to have several relatively solid excuses for why I didn't write anything of any real substance in September.

So, without further ado, here is...

"A Comprehensive List of Several Relatively Solid Excuses for Why I Didn't Write Anything of Any Real Substance in September"
by: squirrel_e_girl

•  My Sweetie and I scored some kick ass tickets to see Pearl Jam, so, including travel time, dinner at McDonalds and a peebreak on the side of the DVP, that little adventure alone took up a good 5-6 hours of quality September writing time.
  ~ An aside- 2011 marks the 19th anniversary of my torrid (one-sided) love affair with Eddie Vedder...a momentous occasion if  ever there was one. That...and the band celebrates its 20th year together which I guess is pretty cool, too. Here's a clip of what we experienced... PJ20 in Toronto ...and for fun (and for my own personal jollies) here is the original video for "Alive" ... I guess Eddie's days of crowd surfing and hanging from the lighting scaffolding are long past ... but then again, so are mine :D ~

• We are the proud feeders/watchers of 2 adorable baby Cardinals - a wee girl and a wee boy- and they have kept me very busy. It is well nigh impossible to watch cute fluffy baby birds hop around AND write a blog at the same time.

Our Wee Baby Cardinals

• My kids swiped my iPad charger cord thingy so it was a challenge to keep my iPad charged up. I finally got it back and am good to go.

• I just happen to reside in some sort of 3G internet signal black hole and over the past few months the situation has deteriorated to the point where I would rather sit in a corner smashing myself in the face with a hammer than spend any length of time trying to stay online. To give you an idea how bad it is, Rogers actually gave us money back AND have reduced our monthly fees ...I kid you not. THAT is how suck ass our internet is. In order to maintain my tenuous grip on sanity, I have been avoiding the computer as much as I possibly can...and one can't write a blog post and not use the internet, now can one??

• I seem to have had a bit of a jumpstart on my annual foray into Seasonal Affective Disorder this year. (add that to my Social Anxiety Disorder and it makes me "S.A.D Squared"...hmmm a good name for a band, perhaps). In anticipation of this upcoming winter and its cold dark bleakness, I have been stewing in a nice case of the blahs and haven't really wanted to do much of anything. But now it's October and I adore October and all its pretty pumpkins and leaves and crisp smells and such. Apparently, a brief but spectacular influx of the colour orange is enough to distract me from dreary thoughts of November and December ... and January ...and February ...and March... sigh... so I'm feeling great(mostly).

• For a couple of weeks, I was working super duper full-time as Despot Ruler  at the kennel and getting up at 5:30 am kinda kicked the crap out of me and rendered me rather useless for that 2 week stretch. It's tough being a Night Owl living an Early Bird's life. Hoo Hoo.

• I couldn't think of anything good to write about. I was a little short on inspiration ... It's not every day that one witnesses butterflies landing on dog poop...a blogger can only dream of such good fortune.

• Unfortunately, I started to read the A Song of Ice and Fire series (yes, I am a nerd) ...A Game of Thrones being the first of five 1000+ page tomes. I've trudged through four of the five books, and so, have endured 4000+ pages of brutally depressing yet ridiculously addictive narrative. There certainly are no happy endings in these bad boys. (Well, none of the literary variety anyway, if you know what I mean nudge nudge wink wink...rarrr) Needless to say, reading 4000+ pages of woefully gruesome tragedy really cuts into a squirrel_e_girl's writin' time....and upon reflection, may have something to do with my early onset blahs.

Oh yeah...and one last thing...

• We bought a house!!!! YAY US!!!! It has been a rather nerve-wracking/gut-twisting/drawn out ordeal, that, unlike those stupid books I'm reading, actually has a happy ending. More on that later...

I gotta start packing...you would not believe all the nuts I have to sort through ;)

Whaddya mean it's the last day of September...

...and I haven't written anything yet???

I am a bad bad blogger.

Bad Blogger.

More later.

BUT....

...at least, now I've posted something in September.

Even though this something is a sorry excuse for a post.

BUT.....

Promise to myself kept!

Oh yeah.

Guilty As Charged

Life is a wonderful fabulous beautiful thing.  It has meaning. It has purpose.

~A Quick Stream of Consciousness Tangent...Auto-Correct brings so many unexpected flashes of joy into my world. For example... Just now, I was typing "purpose" and had misspelled it somehow. Auto-Correct saw fit to switch my spelled-wrong "purpose" to "pepper"...which totally cracks me up. I might just leave it that way. Not exactly the sentence or sentiment I'm going for but it is true so why not go with it.~

My Blog Post Take 2...

Life is a wonderful fabulous beautiful thing.  It has meaning. It has pepper.

Life just wouldn't be life if it had no meaning. Pepper, on the other hand, I'm not a huge fan of so I could easily do without....but... Everyone has a purpose... Something to strive for... Something to work towards... Something to give their life meaning.

Meaning is important.

You know what else is important?

Pleasure.

Pleasure is fun and it's important to have fun.

You know what's even funner than plain old run of the mill pleasure???

~Oh,  silly Auto-Correct!! No, I don't mean "runner"... I mean "funner"~

You know what's even funner than plain old run of the mill pleasure???

That's right!!!

The always awesome...

The ever entertaining....

 I'm talkin' 'bout the one... the only...

The Guilty Pleasure!!

Oh yeah.

Everyone's got one....at least one... and if you don't then I don't wanna be friends with you anymore. No, I mean it....Scram. Go be meaningful and purposeful with some other bloggy crowd. I'm going to write about fun stupid stuff and I don't want you killin' my buzz.

Personally, I have more than at least one. In fact, I have several and I am going to share them with you in something I'd like to call...

"A Comprehensive List of Stuff That I Really Really Enjoy But I'm a Little/a Lot Embarrassed To Actually Admit It" 
by: squirrel_e_girl

• "Party for Two" by Shania Twain & Mark McGrath - Such a baaaaad song but I can't help but sing and chair-dance along whenever it comes on the radio "WOO!!"

And speaking of the once-kinda-cute-now-kinda-plastic-y-cheesy Mark McGrath...

• Don't Forget the Lyrics - Nothin' like watchin' a really bad karaoke gameshow late at night when I should be sleeping so I'm not zombie-like tired in the morning "WOO!"
• Ke$ha - Trashy Trashy Trashy but Catchy Catchy Catchy. I kinda hate myself for loving her but I can't help myself.
• Nickelback - Dirty Cheese... best served super loud in the car when you're driving by yourself
• Whitney Houston...The Early Years - C'mon! Who doesn't love "How Will I Know"? A little bit of the beautiful young fresh-faced Whitney does a soul good.
• So You Think You Can Dance/American Idol - Usually referred to as Dancin'/Singin' in our household ...well, by me anyway... As in "Hurry up and finish eating so I can go watch Dancin'"... I love these shows (mostly) especially now that the judges are way too soft and nice. Mean makes me sad.
• Sneaking furtive peeks at The National Enquirer while standing in line at the grocery store - "For people with enquiring minds...like me". It's extremely important for me to know which celebrity looks worse than I do in a bathing suit. And while I would never ever actually buy one of those newspapers, I have been known, on occasion, to purchase a copy of "People". I believe that publication scores a bit lower on the Guilty Pleas-ometer so it doesn't get its own bullet-point.
• Playing Stupid games on my computer/iPad - This time and mind devouring habit started years ago with a simple game of Solitaire on our first laptop. Solitaire morphed into Spider Solitaire and then I discovered Bejeweled Blitz. Then came my iPad... along with a bottomless supply of Apps. First, there was the ridiculously ridiculous PocketFrogs...who knew hopping about on lilypads making frogs have sex was so much fun?? And my current addiction is stupid Crazy Birds ...most people call it Angry Birds ....I don't. I do try to mix in the odd word game like Scrabble or Boggle just to keep my mind sharp ;)
• My iPad - I spend far more time with my iPad than is healthy but I'm not going to think about that.
• Dairy Queen - Need I say more??
• !!!/???/... - I am developing my own grammatical style that is based on excessive use of exclamation points, question marks and dot dot dots... Purists may cringe but f$@k 'em!!!! (Oddly enough, while I am ruthlessly judgmental when it comes to spelling, the improper use of apostrophes and the whole your/you're and there/their/they're thing, I am rather careless with/ignorant of almost every other aspect of grammar. And most everyone who reads this won't give a rat's bum about anything I just said but I felt I should offer up some sort of self-observation/justification  to those of you who are of sound grammatical mind and may just be offended by my bad grammar ...but please do remember what I just wrote about Purists)

Back to my self-indulgent list of my self-indulgences...

• McDonald's - I know the food is beyond bad for me and together with Walmart (aka The Evil Empire), McDonald's is responsible for most of what's wrong with Western Civilization ....you heard it here first, folks... but goddamn but I do love me a McChicken Meal - small fries, small banilla shake <---- (see that...  SMALL!! So really, I'm only being a fraction of the bad that I could be being)
• Swearing - Classy, right??!! Swearing is fun. It's a lil somethin' I picked up during my first year at university and I haven't looked back, Motherf@$ker!!!!
• Left-over Pumpkin Pie in my fridge - If there is pump-i-kin pie (with real whipped cream mmmmmmmm) in my house, I cannot be held responsible for my actions. I will share with my Boy and my Sweetie but they've gotta stay on their toes. If they're not careful, sneaky piece by sneaky piece, I WILL eat ALL of it. The same also holds true for Quaker Oaks butter tarts.
• Nutella - Super good for you right??? Hazelnuts are healthy, aren't they?? The commercial tells me they are so it must be true.
• SpongeBob - Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?? The awesomest most annoying cartoon character EVER!!! If I were to run down the checklist of everything that makes my brain hurt and causes my eye to twitch (A HA!! Perhaps a future blog post list thing??!!), SpongeBob has got everything pretty much covered. He should drive me absolutely bananas ...really, really... but miraculously, he doesn't. I heart SpongeBob.
• The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon - Historical Fiction, Time Travel, a hot 18th century Scottish dude having smokin' hot sex with a strong 20th century woman ....doesn't get any better than that!! I have to cover my framed English degree with a heavy blanket when I read(and re-read) these books so I can't feel its disappointed, disapproving glare boring a hole into my brain. Jamie and Claire, I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER!!! :D 
• The Twilight series...Books AND Movies - The dark-blanket-covered degree gets tucked away into a far corner of the basement when those babies are being enjoyed. I'll leave it at that.
• The Wedding Planner - I love this movie. Love. It. It is so sweet and sappy and smooshy and happy ending-y. It even came out before J Lo got too big for her britches ...figuratively,anyway ... bahahahhahahha
• Hoarders - aka(by me) The Crazies. It's soooooooo bad and soooooo voyeuristic  and sooooooo very very  good. But I have to say that it has almost become almost too depressing to watch. Almost. Its effect on me is two-sided... On the one hand, watching it makes me feel happy that my house is beyond immaculate compared to the ones on the show and it inspires periodic bursts of cleaning and purging...so that's good, right?? On the other hand, it makes me a wee bit concerned to know that I have several empty Tide boxes under my laundry sink and more than a couple not quite empty bottles of shampoo in my linen closet.
• Watching couples fight at the boat ramp while they try to launch their boat off the trailer and into the water &/or try to get their boat out of the water and back onto the trailer - tee hee hee :)
• Naps/Sleeping in/Just plain old Sleeping - I L.O.V.E to sleep ... I'm very very bad at it but I love it (I have a similar relationship with golf) My nice warm comfy bed surrounded by billowy mounds of pillows...ahhhhhh heaven... makes all my sleep issues worthwhile.
• Small Dogs (more specifically...poodles) - Small dogs are excellent and funny and easy to pick up. Yeah, they can be yappy and weirdos sometimes carry them around in purses (easy to pick up, remember?!) but who cares...they're still awesome ...and easy to pick up. Poodles (big AND small) have been subjected to foppy foolish haircuts forever and you shouldn't let a silly hair-do  get in the way of getting to know a poodle. Some of the best pooches I know are poodles.
• Reading to excess - I adore all things books and if I happen to be in the middle of a great read, I tend to let everything else ....even Hoarders and Sleeping ...fall by the wayside. I know... Crazy right??!

Speaking of which...

• Reading my own blog ... to excess - It's true. I like to read what I write ...over and over and over again. And again. And again. I think there might be something wrong with me.

** Special Note:
If I had compiled this list a few months ago, Country Music would've held a coveted place amongst the bullet points above but since I came out of the Country Music Closet in an earlier post, good ol Hurtin' Music has made the leap from Guilty Pleasure to Loud n' Proud, baby!!! Loud n' Proud!!!

Quit Buggin' Me!!!!

"Why Earwigs Totally Freak Me Out"
by: squirrel_e_girl

Earwigs totally freak me out because:
(in no particular order)

• They look like this....

• The first time I became aware of their existence, I was 7 or 8 years old hanging out in a dark musty old tent trailer that my parents had unfortunately rented for our first... actually ... our only family camping trip and the dark/musty/several hundred earwig combo didn't do a bunch to establish a foundation for a loving, trusting relationship.

• They look like this...

Ahhhhh... Babies... How adorable.

• They have pincers attached to their bums. 'Nuff said.

• They look like this....

• They have the creepily magical power to manifest out of thin air. I have no idea how the hell they do it or where the hell they come from but on more than one occasion, I've picked up a facecloth that has been draped on the side of my bathtub to dry or a dishcloth performing a similar act only on the edge of my kitchen sink and ... HOLY SHIT!!! Out scurries a nasty little earwig!! Quick!!! Smish the bepincered f@$ker!! And I've had this happen in the dead if winter. Sure...summer I get. Windows are open. Doors don't always get shut all the way...Lots of logical explanations as to how a single insect can show up in my bathroom. But in the winter??? Two storeys away from a basement?? I detect a whiff of sulphur-y brimstone, don't you??

• They look like this...

• They seem to randomly fall out of the sky .... onto my head. I challenge anybody ...Any. Body. .. to not spasm and spin about whilst squealing like a wee girl &/or swearing like a trucker if one of these foul little beasts lands on your head or falls down the back/front of your shirt. I've even heard tell of a incident where dozens dropped down onto a poor soul's head after he innocently opened a door into an outbuilding. DOZENS. I can't even bring myself to imagine. Goddamn.

• They look like this...

Did you know they had wings?Yeah,neither did I.

• They like to use my mailbox as some sort of clubhouse/community centre. Congregate elsewhere, you exoskeletal jerks.

• They look like this....

• They eat holes in my pretty flowers....grrrrrrrrrrr

• They look like this....

• Anything that has stories/myths/old wives' tales recounting the "fact" that it enjoys crawling down the ear canal of its unsuspecting sleeping victim then perforating its eardrums with those f@$king disturbing  pincers is no friend of mine. No how. No way. I don't care that I'm well-versed in the ways of the world and I logically realise that this horrifying phenomenon is but a mere story/myth/old wives' tale... some things just can't be un-imagined. Ever.

And, last but certainly not least...

• They look like this...

Philosophers Wanted -- Apply Within

Last week, when the calendar flipped up to reveal the fact that the month of July had already leapt into action 2-3 days previously (who looks at a calendar on a Long Weekend??), I started to get a wee bit antsy as it hit me that in order to meet my "One Blog Post/Month" promise to myself I needed to crank one out and I only had 28-29 days to do said cranking.

Alas, my squirrels have been taking it easy lately ... kicking back whilst listening to country tunes and enjoying this fine summer weather we've been having... and no one's been trying to swipe my Intellectual Property so I've been a little light in the Blog Post Fodder Department.

 ~An Aside - My 3 new-to-me fave songs: "Knee Deep"- a happy summertime song, "Truck Got Stuck"-awesome fun country music story-telling at its finest & "This is Country Music"<--Who has two thumbs and ADORES Brad Paisley? You guessed it... This Guy!~

I've been asked by a couple of people how I come up with ideas to write about ("a couple of people" = "my parents") and I've had a difficult time not feeling like a complete poser/wanker when I throw down my stock answer...which is: "I patiently wait for inspiration to strike, then I follow the tiny fledgling idea anywhere it chooses to soar and explore"

Well, lucky you guys!!!! This morning, I was struck/stricken!!!

Inspiration appeared to me in the lovely and delicate form of a butterfly ... and dog poop.

Since, as previously noted, I work at a "Pooch & Kitty Holiday Camp" AND I am a Walker of Dogs AND I share a home with 2 hounds (and oft times more), I have the glorious pleasure of spending the bulk of my time surrounded by dogs..."Dog People" are now breathing a collective sigh of appreciation/admiration/envy, while "Non-Dog People" are now shuddering a collective "Goddamn That'd Suck" shudder.

Actually, now that I mention it....

**Special Note to Non-Dog People &/or Mildly Squeamish People... The rest of this post is focused primarily on Dog Poop and how it relates to Butterflies and Life ... So if you're so-so on Dog Poop you may want to wrap it up here, but if you also happen to be super keen on Butterflies &/or Life you may want to stick around.

Ok...where was I???

I hang out with dogs pretty much on a full-time basis so, rather logically, I am exposed to dog poop more than any normal person would/should be. I've long ago gotten over the whole ick-factor of canine excrement, therefore, it's no big schmoo for me to deal with it and probably why I've seen fit to write a blog post based on poop....Hmmmmm... That said, perhaps I should look into a new line of work ... Nah :)

So, this morning, I was at work supervising the pooches as they frolicked about in The Garden (the owners of the kennel are English ... and are awesome ...and use awesome English alternative words/phrases like: 'The Garden', 'The Corridor', 'Titivate' -- it's a verb meaning 'to quickly tidy/clean/spruce up', 'Trod' -- as in "Looks like you've just trod in some poo", and 'Nutter' -- as in "'That bloke...He's a right nutter" ....HA!! Love it! Love them.)

Meanwhile.... Back in The Garden...

I was hangin' with some hounds and had just reached the conclusion that... No, in fact, it is NOT the heat... Indeed, it IS the humidity, when I noticed 2 maybe 3 lovely butterflies fluttering by.

It was as though they were searching.

Seeking out something wondrously important.

Their desired destination couldn't possibly be any typical butterfly hot-spot like, say, a flower, because, despite being referred to as The Garden, there is, ironically, nary a blossom in sight. But one by one, in their own sweet butterfly-y time, these beautiful, fragile creatures alit upon a lone island oasis of .... dog poop.

I already noticed this phenomenon on several occasions in the recent past and had thought to myself, "Huh? Butterflies dig dog poop. Whoodda thunk?" but today, for whatever reason, my previous thoughts evolved into something more.

Butterflies actually seeking out dog poop....That's gotta mean something. Why else would The Universe keep bringing this activity to my attention?

There has to be one hugely important life lesson to be learned from this bizarro juxtaposition of these wildly disparate citizens of The Universe. Maybe a lesson akin to "If life hands you lemons, make lemonade" ...only.... different... Something along the line of "When you come up a little short on flowers, you might as well take advantage of whatever else you happen to find. Like, for instance, dog poop."

Or maybe this will spawn a brand spankin' new colourfully affirmative reply...If someone asks me, "Do you like country music?", instead of my usual retort, "Does a bear poop in the woods?", I'll just have to start answering, "Does a butterfly like dog poop?".

I truly believe, with all my weirdo heart, that there must some how be some way to draw some sort of significant life analogy from this grossly odd/oddly gross pairing.

This is where I'm asking ... no ... I'll even go so far as to say that I am imploring all you Philosophers of Life (certified &/or self-proclaimed &/or otherwise) floating around out there in this Grand Blogosphere to step in and help me out. (PoochBuddha, I'm looking directly at you, Dude...ha)

Butterflies. Dog poop. Life.

What does it all mean?

Like I said before... It's gotta mean something.

Doesn't it?

Cry Me a River

After re-reading my Country Music post for the 128th time, it struck me that my occasional reference to the fact that country songs make me cry and that I'm prone to crying when I hear certain country songs and that quite often I cry when I listen to country music, may have given people the impression that I cry a lot. I feel as though I should probably clear up any possible misconceptions regarding the strength of my character.

I'm here to set the record straight.

I, squirrel_e_girl, am a crybaby.

A big one.

Huge.

Always have been. Always will be.

Not a damn thing I can do about it.

I've learned to live with my propensity for tears. Embraced it even. It's part of my charm.

I cry when I'm really really sad. I cry when I'm really really happy. I cry when I'm really really tired. I cry when I'm really really mad ... which sucks because I could be mid-heated debate, in the act of stating an awesome point and making solid headway with my case and... WHAM-O ... the waterworks fire up and any credibility ...or pride...I have, is washed away in a flood of saline. Crap.

And, as luck would have it, I'm not a very attractive crier. My face goes all super crazy splotchy-like....apparently, starting with my nose. I was blissfully unaware of that last bit o' info until just recently when my daughter kindly pointed it out... She's a splotchy-face crier, too. (You're welcome, my darling. A gift from me...to you :P) As a bonus though, my eyes do go a rather lovely and rather cool shade of green when I cry. Alas, you have to get past all the splotchy cheeks/red nose bullshit in order to appreciate their lovely cool green-ness. Oh well.

Here is ....

...apart from all the typical Mandatory Crying Events (MCE)...
Weddings/Funerals/Line-ups at Canada's Wonderland on a blistering July afternoon....

"A Comprehensive List of Things That Make Me Cry"
by: squirrel_e_girl

• Country Music ...see last blog post for blah blah wah wah details
•  The First Day of School...a little tradition I started back in 1975. At least now I'm not the one on the school bus and I can usually hold it together until my kids' bus pulls away so as not to mortally embarrass everyone involved.(and, by the way, this includes my first day of university. No school bus involved (thank god) but I was astonishingly hung-over and had zero sleep the night before (thank Beer Fest) so it was a hell of a way to start the year. Nice work, 19 year-old Me)
• A Baby Story on TLC ... Every. Single. Episode. I. Watch. Doesn't matter if I watch the whole show or just happen to tune in in time to catch a glimpse of the freshly squeezed out teeny tiny slimy newborn, it gets me. Did I cry following the births of my own two teeny tiny slimy newborns? Oddly...nope. But show me some strangers on T.V. experiencing the joy of new life and I'll cry like...well, like a baby.
• Remembrance Day Assemblies ...something about little kids paying solemn tribute just wrecks me. Amazing.

Which reminds me...

• The Bell commercial where a young guy calls his grampa from the beach at Dieppe to thank him ...oy yoy yoy ... Watch it yourself... I dare you
• Singing "O, Canada" ...The True North strong and sappy (...don't even talk to me about singing "O Canada" at a Remembrance Day assembly...)
• This commercial for Toronto Sick Kids ....boy oh boy
• Any commercial for any charity for underprivileged children or abused animals....Yikes.I avoid them at all cost. One peek at Sally Struthers and I am outta there.
• "Love You Forever" by Robert Munsch ...Not a chance I can get through that f@#ker in one piece.
• "You're All My Favorites" by Sam Mc Bratney ...Not that one either.
• "Marley & Me" by John Grogan ...holy shit.
• "Still Alice" by Lisa Genova ....quite a way to spend New Years Day.
• "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" by Ann Brashares...shut up...I must've been at my hormonally-challenged best/worst when I read it.
• Pretty much any animated movie made by any company whose name begins with 'Dis' and ends with 'ney', or starts with 'Pix' and ends with 'ar'
• "A Walk to Remember" ... there are no words ...and no excuse, really... Well, except for the fact that it happened to be in heavy rotation on the Movie Channel during a period of intense insomnia in my life  and...I am a wienie.
• "Finding Neverland" ....For whatever reason the ending of that movie rendered me unable to speak until we were out of the theatre and within the safe confines of our Jetta and then I bawled like an idiot. I thought it might've been a "one off" but it had the same effect when I watched it on DVD ...minus the Jetta
• stupid "American Idol" and "So You Think You Can Dance"... Don't judge me...not something I'm proud of.
• Moments of Acute Pride...These are the most powerful and most crippling incidents and are reserved specifically and especially for my babies. Piano Recitals/Graduations/Wrestling Matches/Soccer Games/Acts of Genuine Kindness etc etc never fail to bring a smile to my heart and a tear (or 2000) to my eye.

So...um... yeah... in case you were wondering...

That's what makes girl like me cry.

Important Edit #1: I cannot believe that I forgot these ones (Thanks M.S.),,,

• Christmas Morning...Splotchy Face + Bed Head = Excellent Photo Op
• Singing Happy Birthday to my Kids ... Splotchy Face + Holding a Cake = Excellent Candle-Lit Photo Op