So my car hates me and your future babies will look like a fascist dictator. True Story.

Oh my goodness. Nothing is ever boring with me it seems. So my sister Jarica and I went to Thatcher to go see my sister Chantel's new house. Knowing that my car thinks it's super fun to break down at the most inopportune times, I thought I'd be super prepared and get my car checked before the trip. So the day before we left I took my car in to get the oil changed and have them look at all the fluids and stuff. And apparently everything was great. So the trip up was fine except I always get a little bitter towards my car on road trips because my car is a PT CRUISER without CRUISE control. Talk about false advertising.

We got there with no problems and then I decided to leave to pick up pizza for dinner with my little nephew, Ridge. We weren't even a mile away from the house when I blew a tire. This is, by the way, the 4th tire I've had to replace in 6 months. There was a super loud noise and the car started thumping down the road. I was able to pull over and I was actually really calm about the whole thing. I was always kind of expecting it anyways. So Ridge of course had to see what was wrong, so he came out and inspected the car, then looked really serious and said, "Your car is BUSTED." Then he waited a couple moments and then stated, "You just have to get a new car." Shrugging his shoulders as if he felt really bad he had to break the news to me. As I was inspecting the tire, Ridge suddenly got really concerned about the pizza that we were failing to pickup. He decided we should just leave the car and walk to get the pizza. I mean, someone has to have priorities so I'm glad he was around to remind me that even though we were stranded with an overpriced hunk of junk, the important thing is that we left the pizza all alone. And its feelings might be hurt. So I called Chani to pick us up and we got the pizza before anything catastrophic happened. My brother in law Curtis later put the donut on and the next morning Jarica and I ventured to Walmart to empty my bank account. I went to the mechanic area and the mechanics all saw me and literally refused to help. Wouldn't even direct me to where I needed to go. For literally over 20 minutes they went about their work, refusing to help. It was so incredibly obnoxious. When I FINALLY got someone to help, they said they have the tire, it would be $70, and I would need to wait an hour. After waiting almost the entire hour they called me up and said, just kidding. They didn't actually have the $70 tire. They only had the $110 one. And they didn't figure that out until just then. So I left. I was so sick of the incompetence I wanted to scream. So instead I went to Big O. They helped right away, and even though the tire cost more, I was ok with it because they weren't so rude.

Anyway, on to good news. I found the Redbox movie yesterday. (I know you were all dying to know.) It was in my craft box. Naturally.

And my laptop seems to be getting better. The double clicking thing has actually stopped. It's like it's slowly healing itself. At this rate, it will be back to normal in about 2 years, 9 months.

Lastly, I found this ad while I was on some random site. And it just cracks me up. I know there was a way to mesh you and another person's face together to see what kind of kid you'd have, but all examples I've seen are like incredibly unattractive morphed versions of yourself. So I love that this company used this example as some kind of marketing campaign. It seems to be trying to scare people into not have children, because MAN, that baby looks like a baby Hitler with a uni brow. And the "Go Ahead. Make a Baby!" seems like a dare. It's kind of awesome. And a little scary.

So Redbox and I broke up.

Awhile back, I rented the Social Network from Redbox. And then I promptly lost it. I didn't even have it in my possession long enough to watch it. Every single day I would randomly search for it - in the most random of places because that's where all my lost items tend to be found. After searching under the sink, in the dryer, and on the porch, I kind of gave up. I figured Redbox would just figure it out and charge me for the dvd and we would resume our normal renting and watching movies pattern. Which they did - they charged me $25. Then Redbox decided they don't want to be friends anymore. Even though our friendship is based on me giving a ridiculous amount of money for a nonexistent dvd. They won't let me rent from them now. It's all very tragic.

Speaking of terrible news, my laptop is dying a slow torturous death. I started to see the signs a couple of weeks ago. I guess I should have known it was coming - I've had this laptop for 4 years now. Which in technology age it's like Joan Rivers. It has started randomly restarting, suddenly exiting windows, running frustratingly slow. So I started looking at new laptops and saving a little. Then I got sick and . . . . well - this is kinda of gross, so I'll give you fair warning. So, I accidentally threw up on my laptop. I really wish that was a punchline, but no - I legitimately threw up on my laptop. So whatever wasn't broken before, definitely is now. So it has developed even more interesting quirks. The cursor thing double clicks on stuff without being touched - which means all the annoying ads get clicked on and when I try to close them, I end up double clicking on it which opens more windows. Random keys stopped working and others you have to push for awhile to get it to register. So every time I have to get online it's like a freaking adventure. I never know what's going to happen next.

So I think I've figured this whole sleep thing out. And by 'figured out' I mean 'accepted the fact that I am not normal'.

So remember how I don't sleep? And how I've quit taking ridiculous amounts of sleeping aids because I didn't want to force my liver into early retirement? So it hasn't been easy but I think I've figured out of formula of what I have to do in order to sleep at night. If I skip one step, I get little to no sleep. I figured maybe some of these techniques will help others that can't sleep, so here it goes:

- Wake up ridiculously early. Like 6am early.
- Work for 11 hours. Race around the building all day long getting to meetings and listening to callers yell at you.
- Don't drink any kind of soda after 2 pm. Even if it doesn't have caffeine. In fact, just don't drink anything after 2pm.
- Get home and tackle some kind of project. Clean the entire house, re-organize your closet, alphabetize all your dvds, etc.
- Write a To-Do List for the next day so you can stop stressing about forgetting something.
- Around 8pm start a 'bedtime routine'. This is very similar to what you would do with a toddler to get them in the routine. Take a shower at the same time every night, brush your teeth, and if you really feel like reminiscing, put on some baby lotion.
- Turn off all lights, and force yourself to lay in bed (no books! no movies!).
- Don't let yourself out of the bed no matter how much you may cry. You'll just get distracted and end up watching an entire season of Lost.
- Remind yourself to not freak out that it is 2 am and you still haven't slept - this just getting your brain freaked out which is not conducive to sleep.

If these are all not followed, I get very little sleep. But, hey! I get some sleep and that's what counts. I think.

So, etc.

It all started about 2 weeks ago. I decided to use my heater for the first time ever. As soon as I turned it on, there was a horrible smell and the smoke alarm went off. And even though I turned off the heater right away, the smoke alarm kept going for a couple minutes. I ended up trying to get warm using my blow dryer, just like our ancestors did.

Then on Monday night the 17th(?) I got sick. REALLY sick. It hit hard. And this stunk because it was also the night before I had to house sit for my parents. House sitting isn't a big deal - except that I was planning on getting my heater fixed while I was gone. Which meant I had to remove all valuables from the apartment. This sounds like an over reaction - but let me explain. So, the maintenance guy at my apartment is a little . .. .special. I'm really not sure how he got his job. When I first moved in there was a huge hole in my shower and no faucet. I asked them to fix it and the maintenance guy came over - empty handed. He actually asked me for a dime so he could screw in the faucet and then tried to leave the hole - even after I explained how having a hole can become a problem when I'm taking a shower. So - he's not the lightest bulb. So, I've thinking if he tries to fix my heater, my apartment is totally gonna catch on fire. And if that happens, I don't want all my important things to be destroyed. So I had to pack my most important things, and find a place for all the things that wouldn't fit. So . .. it was a long night. I ended up going to my parents house at 2:30 AM for a breathing treatment because I couldn't breathe. Fun stuff. Then I went to work without sleeping and then went to see the nurse. She said I have bronchitis and my oxygen count was really low because I've always had a lower lung capacity than most. So I had to go get drugs (YAY for drugs) and go home. Within 4 hours I felt worse. Much worse. So I ended up waiting 5 hours to get into Urgent Care. Who said I have the flu also. I was running fevers constantly and started suffering the fun effects of the stomach flu. It was horrible. I kept having asthma attacks and then started panicking because I couldn't breathe which made it worse. I was out of work the whole week. When I went back on Monday I was thinking I might be getting better and went to the nurse to get refills on my prescriptions. When I went there they said they were alarmed that I was getting worse, and that I had developed double ear infections. So I had to leave and get more prescriptions. The next day I felt like I really needed to try and make it through a day at work. So I went in feeling ok. Within 2 hours I suddenly had a huge asthma attack and coughing up blood (YUMMY!). I ran out to a rarely used hallway because I didn't want to make a scene. I couldn't catch my breath and was sure I was going to pass out in this hallway and die. Because I'm a little dramatic but also because I really couldn't breathe. I made it to the nurse ad when they saw that I was coughing up blood they weren't too excited. Apparently that isn't good. So they sent me home again. I then had to stay home the next day as well. When all was said and done, I spent close to $400 on doctor's visits, prescriptions, and over the counter medicines. Frankly, I'm surprised I'm still employed. So this is the VERY long excuse for why I haven't blogged in awhile. The End.

So I'll probably forget this by tomorrow . . .

So work has been interesting lately. (If you ever miss a post, odds are it's about work, my sleep, or near death experiences. Sometimes all in the same post. Like magic!)

Anyway, so I'm helping train our new hires at work for the next 9 weeks. The manager had a long meeting with me today about expectations of their coaches (which is pretty much old news to me because I've been coaching for the past 2 years). So, we're going through different coaching techniques and several times he asked for an example of a certain situation (ex: "When have you had to deliver a difficult message to a co-worker?). Well, as luck would have it, I pretty much have experienced the very worst possible scenarios in my time working. Things that literally had him writing things down to remember because they were so bad. Because of this, we moved along pretty quickly because he could see I'm pretty seasoned. So we kept breezing through the material and he would start a topic and I would make a comment to show that I understand so we could move past it. I should mention that I'm still not taking any more sleep aids. Which also means I'm not sleeping. I've seriously had less than 4 hours of sleep in the past 2 days. Which tends to not end well. So I felt like the meeting was going pretty well -considering - until . . .

So the manager started going over how it's important to not just give someone the answer but to help them find the answer. To respond explaining that I understood I meant to use the old cliche "If you teach a man to fish, etc" but what ACTUALLY came out was: "Yeah, I had to teach a dog to fish."

There was a moment where I didn't even hear what I had actually said - and then I saw his eyes widen and he said, "Wow. You really have had some extreme experiences."

Maybe drug free is NOT the way to be.

So, Another Sleep Misadventure

So last Saturday (the 1st) I decided to stop taking Benedryl and Tylenol PM every night. Health professionals everywhere just breathed a sigh of relief. This has nothing to do with a New Year's resolution, I just got tired of all super fun side effects taking massive amounts of drugs to get myself to sleep has caused me in the last 4+ years. You know, the foggy daze I was in, slurred speech, the Costco size Benedryl bottle that has been my constant sidekick, and the hate mail I receive daily from my liver. So on Saturday night I was awake until 5 am. That's when my resolve started to shake and I decided to look up symptoms of Benedryl overdose. Just to freak myself out so I don't decide to crack under the insomnia-induced pressure. And you wouldn't even believe what an overdose with Benedryl causes . . . .insomnia. (I KNOW!) It also causes a lot of other fun things I've experienced like headaches, blurred vision, fevers, etc.

So I made it through and didn't take anything. And I still haven't. (Applause). It has been really interesting as I notice changes . . . . for example, over the past several years I've gotten used to this constant mental fuzziness and it's been slowly going away. It's quite unsettling actually. It's almost like sitting in a room with a TV set to static. After a few seconds of listening to that loud buzzing you're like, 'Wow, that's super annoying and quite distracting.' But you get used to it. You learn to work around it and after awhile it becomes a new normal. It's been your background noise for so long that it's almost comforting. And then someone turns off the tv and it feels eerily quiet. So that's been me the last few days - walking around asking who turned off the tv. I'm sleeping about every other night which is pretty good considering. So, yeah.

Oh! And I almost forgot. I made something. It's a jewelry holder. I've been wanting one for awhile because my jewelry ends up in a tangled mess. But the ones I want are like $50 + shipping. So I decided to make my own. I saw an example online and it took a frame, attached some hooks, and then put some plastic mesh stuff in the middle so you can attach your earrings. I wasn't a huge fan of the plastic mesh anyway, but I couldn't find them anywhere. So I tried to think of something that would work. Then I saw cheese cloth, and it looks like something earrings would snag to. And, good news, cheese cloth can be used for other purposes than just keeping cheese modest. So I got a frame and painted it, screwed some hooks into it, and attached some cheese cloth with my trusty companion, hot glue. Then I attached some fabric behind the cheese cloth. I then made some flowers for the corner. It actually turned out really well - it kind of threw me off actually. I keep expecting it to self-destruct or something. But so far it's doing just fine, functioning and everything. Who woulda thunk?

So I'm a rebel. Just not in Arizona.

I was reading an article that has 'bizarre' state laws. They picked the craziest one for each state. For example, in California it is illegal to eat an orange in a bathtub. As I was reading them, I was thinking how fun it would be to make a life goal to break every single one of them. Because really, even if I did get in trouble for it, how funny would it be to go to jail for eating an orange in your tub? Pretty dang. Other laws might be a little difficult to break though. For example, in Pennsylvania it is illegal to sleep on top of a refrigerator outdoors. I'd not only have to go to Pennsylvania, but find a refrigerator, transport it outside, find a way to get on top of it, and then go to sleep. That's a little too much effort for a laugh. Some states have laws that are practically asking the rest of the country to make fun of them. For example, in Kentucky every citizen is required to take a shower once a year. So I was thinking I can just go break the crazy Arizona law just for kicks . . . . until I read it. The 'bizarre' law they picked for Arizona is that no one can chop down a cactus. Well, we all know that. And we know there is like intense penalties for it, so it's not so bizarre. Which makes me think that maybe in other states, their 'bizarre' are also well known and totally normal to them. Like, if I was to go to North Carolina and ask about their crazy law, they'd be all, "Well, of course it's against the law to sing off-key. Everyone knows that." I also love them because I like to imagine what must have happened in order for it to become a law. Like the law in Rhode Island that says it is illegal to bite off someone's leg. How many times did that have to happen before the people to be like, hmm, maybe we should make a law against that?
Enjoy:

Alabama: It’s illegal to wear a fake mustache that causes laughter in church.
Alaska: Whispering in someone’s ear while he’s moose hunting is prohibited.
Arizona: Cutting down a cactus may earn you a twenty-five-year prison term.
Arkansas: It’s illegal to mispronounce the name of the state of Arkansas.
California: You may not eat an orange in your bathtub.
Colorado: It’s unlawful to lend your vacuum cleaner to your next-door neighbor (Denver).
Connecticut: A pickle cannot actually be a pickle unless it bounces.
Delaware: It’s illegal to get married on a dare.
Washington, D.C.: It’s against the law to post a public notice calling someone a coward for refusing to accept a challenge to duel.
Florida: If you tie an elephant to a parking meter, you must pay the same parking fee as you would for a vehicle.
Georgia: It’s illegal to change the clothes on a storefront mannequin unless you draw the shades first.
Hawaii: All residents may be fined for not owning a boat.
Idaho: A man must not give his sweetheart a box of candy weighing fewer than fifty pounds.
Illinois: It’s illegal to take a French poodle to the opera (Chicago).
Indiana: The value of pi is 4, and not 3.1415.
Iowa: One-armed piano players must perform for free.
Kansas: It’s illegal to throw knives at men wearing striped suits (Natoma).
Kentucky: Every citizen is required to take a shower once a year.
Louisiana: Biting someone with your natural teeth constitutes simple assault, but biting someone with your false teeth classifies as aggravated assault.
Maine: If you keep your Christmas decorations on display after January 14, you’ll be fined.
Maryland: It’s against the law to wash or scrub a sink, no matter how dirty it is (Baltimore).
Massachusetts: No gorilla is allowed in the backseat of any car.
Michigan: A woman may not cut her own hair without her husband’s permission.
Minnesota: It’s illegal to paint a sparrow with the intent of selling it as a parakeet (Harper Woods).
Mississippi: Walking a dog without dressing it in diapers is forbidden (Temperance).
Missouri: Children may buy shotguns in Kansas City, but not toy cap guns.
Montana: It’s a felony for a wife to open her husband’s mail.
Nebraska: Bar owners may not sell beer unless they brew a kettle of soup simultaneously.
Nevada: It’s illegal for men with mustaches to kiss women.
New Hampshire: It’s forbidden to sell the clothes you’re wearing to pay off a gambling debt.
New Jersey:It’s against the law for a man to knit during the fishing season.
New Mexico:Females may not appear unshaven in public.
New York: While riding in an elevator, you must talk to no one, fold your hands, and look toward the door.
North Carolina: It’s against the law to sing off-key.
North Dakota: It’s illegal to lie down and fall asleep with your shoes on.
Ohio: You must honk the horn whenever you pass another car, according to the state’s driver’s education manual.
Oklahoma: It’s forbidden to take a bite out of another person’s hamburger.
Oregon: State law requires dishes to be drip-dried.
Pennsylvania: It’s illegal to sleep on top of a refrigerator outdoors.
Rhode Island: You may not bite off another person’s leg.
South Carolina: If a man promises to marry an unmarried woman, he is required by law to keep his promise.
South Dakota: It is illegal to lie down and fall asleep in a cheese factory.
Tennessee: Selling hollow logs is strictly forbidden.
Texas: You may not shoot a buffalo from the second story of a hotel.
Utah: It is illegal not to drink milk.
Vermont: Women must obtain written permission from their husbands to wear false teeth.
Virginia: Tickling a woman is unlawful.
Washington: It’s illegal to pretend that one’s parents are wealthy.
West Virginia: If you make fun of someone who does not accept a challenge, you risk a six-month prison sentence.
Wisconsin: Unless a customer specifically requests it, margarine may not be substituted for butter in a restaurant.
Wyoming: Unless you have an official permit, you may not take a picture of a rabbit from January to April.