Saturday, July 30, 2011

WithTheFrys

I have a bad relationship with my name.  See my first post.

My initials?  ALF

My husband thinks this is hilarious.  I do not.

My name backwards?  ASSila

One of my friends used to think this was hilarious.  I did not.

The name of my blog in acronym form?  KWTF

I am mortified that I spent so much time thinking about the perfect name for my family blog, and now I've discovered that it includes unintentional profanity.

So now I guess I have to always type out Ketchup with the Frys.....I was hoping my blog would get to the place where I could give it a cute acronym or cool nickname, kind of like JLo or SCsquared (does anyone knows who SCsquared is?)

Anyway, I guess the curse of my name follows me here on the blogosphere too.

And if you know who SCsquared is, let me know.  You can't google it, because you won't get the right answer, so don't try.  There's no prize anyway, because this is a loser blog with no sponsors.  If I did have sponsors, I would give you something.  But you just wasted like 2 minutes reading a blog called KWTF, so I wouldn't waste anymore time thinking about SCsquared because you're not going to get anything for it.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

not having to dial 911 while doing yard work is a plus

There was a bee's nest in the ground next to our well. 

Superfrydad discovered it while doing some yard work and proceeded to launch his attack.

I happened to look out the window and saw him walking across the yard with a big long pole that had cloth wrapped around the end of it. 

A man + gasoline + fire = disaster waiting to happen.

I got the phone ready in case I needed to dial 911.

He sat and watched the smoke and fire from a safe distance. 

I removed my finger from the 9.

Then he came inside and cut an empty coke bottle in half.  When I asked him what he was doing, he ignored me.

I put my finger back on the 9.

Obviously, he thought he needed to add a little bit more gasoline to the fire.

What is it with men and fire?

The next day he sprayed a whole can of Raid down in the hole. 

I'm pretty sure the bees are gone.

And we did not have to dial 911.

Mission accomplished.

Just like not getting stabbed is always a plus, not having to dial 911 when your husband is doing yard work is also a plus.

Saturday, July 23, 2011

nascar prayer

Superfrydad likes Nascar.  Yes, that's the man I married.  No, I didn't care at the time, but it does annoy me now.  But I'm not perfect either, so I won't go there.  Anyway....

Tonight I happened to catch a glimpse of a few moments of the pre-race show for the Nationwide series.  They have a prayer and then the National Anthem. 

The prayer was quite possibly the worst prayer I've ever heard.  (The funniest one was one time when I was at my friend's house as a kid & my friend said "Amen, hot dog." at the end of grace.  It was not very funny to her parents.  It was almost as bad as saying a cuss word. Shout out to Day By Day and Simply Us!)

The pastor was praying and saying things like, "thank you, Lord, for Sunoco gas", "thank you, Lord, for Good Year tires."....then he said, "thank you for my smokin' hot wife".

Say what?

What is this world coming to?  I mean, it's nice that Nascar offers a prayer before the race, and often the pastors read them off of a piece of paper, which is ridiculous.  This brings it to a new low.   They should just not have it if they are going to make a mockery of it. 

(stepping down from high horse now)

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

hotter than a fart in a mitten

It's really hot & humid outside.

Therefore, the air conditioner that cools my home decided it would stop working today.

Tomorrow and the next day are supposed to be 99 and 100 degrees, respectfully.  (I'm too lazy to figure out how to make the little 0 thing for the degrees.)

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before that I don't like hot weather.  And I don't like summer.

But when my A/C stops working in the middle of a heat wave?

Summer, I hate you even more.

My feet have sweat dripping from them.  That is not even an exaggeration.  I know it sounds like it, but it is actually true. 
I'm also trying to type fast because I'm afraid the sweat from my hands is going to short-circuit my laptop at any moment.

The only thing that I like about summer is that is gives me more opportunities to say "It's hotter than a fart in a mitten." 

This is perhaps my favorite phrase of all time.  It always makes me laugh. 

Is it inappropriate?  yes
Is it a bit crass?  yes
Is it kind of rude?  yes
Is it the worst thing I say?  pretty much
Is that so terrible?  maybe.......or maybe it's not.  It really depends on your level of tolerance for potty humor. 

I would like to say that I am much more sophisticated than this, but alas, I am not.

Monday, July 18, 2011

common sense - is there an app for that?

Last night we watched a few minutes of a show that was called something like, "I Survived" or "I Shouldn't Be Alive" or "I almost died, but I didn't"...you know the ones.

This guy was saying he was in the lobby of his hotel in Haiti when the earthquake happened.  His leg was badly injured & he said he was covered in rubble.  It was super dark, so he crawled to the elevator and got out his cell phone.  Then he said something like this:

"My phone didn't have any service, but I did remember I had a first aid app, so I looked up what to do for bleeding since my leg was bleeding really badly.  It said to wrap it up and apply pressure, so I took my shirt off and used it to wrap up my leg."

Let me say 2 things here:
1.  Why would you crawl to the elevator after an earthquake?  I'm pretty sure it's common knowledge that you don't take the elevator in case of fire.  Even though there are no signs in elevators instructing you to NOT use them in case of an earthquake, I'm pretty sure you shouldn't. 

2.  Did you really need your first aid app on your cell phone to tell you that if you are bleeding, you should wrap it and apply pressure?

I just don't see myself firing up my first aid app post any natural disaster.

Is there a common sense app? 

Because this guy might find that handy at some point too.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

things I learned from working at a bank

I used to work at a bank.  I started when I was in high school and worked there for about 5 years.

Once, my coworker and I were working the drive thru until closing.  We were the only people in the entire bank. 

The way it worked was, we had a little tiny vault down in the drive thru.  Kind of like a vault for midgets.  I mean, little people. (It was pretty small.  I'm not sure if I could have fit inside of it, and I was skinny at the time.)

Anyway, when everyone else left, they put all of the money in the "big vault".  Except they left a little money for us in the little vault in case we needed it.  When closing time came, we were supposed to put all of our money in, set the timer, close the door and turn the handle.  In that order.

By the way, let me just say here that I'm pretty sure we were both in high school or right out of high school at the time.  What bank lets two 18 year olds have full access to an entire bank?  I'm just sayin'.

We put all of our money in, set the timer, turned the handle, and closed the door.  Not the right order.

Turns out, the "little vault" was also the stupid vault that locks itself open and you can't shut it so all of the money is there for the cleaning people to take vault.

Once the timer is set, it's done - no room for errors here.  The bars on the door were sticking out and would not allow the door to close. 

What did we do?

We pulled the blind down over the big window and cried.

We thought for sure we were going to get fired.

I can't remember how many people we called, but we finally got someone higher up within the bank than we were who came and rescued us.

He will remain unnamed and how he fixed it, I'll never know.  But he saved us with a screwdriver and a little common sense, neither of which we had at the time.

After that, we always made sure we locked up the vault the right way.  And we didn't get fired.  I don't even think we got in trouble.  

The moral of the story?  Common sense and a screwdriver can fix many things, but doing something right the first time takes less time and less tears.

sauerkraut binge

Once upon a time, I joined Weight Watchers.

I did the points program and if I recall correctly, I think I could eat 21 points per day. 

According to my calculations, that meant I could eat 21 of the 1 point Weight Watchers frozen chocolate bars and as much sauerkraut as I wanted.  (Sauerkraut being 0 points)

Not sure how I did it, but I did lose enough weight to meet my goal and get a free keychain. 

Then I promptly quit.

Then I promptly gained back all of the weight I lost plus more.

Why am I telling you this? 

No reason, just had a hankering for sauerkraut and it made me think of WW.

Friday, July 15, 2011

swimming lessons part deux - why I might homeschool

Today was "parent day" at swimming lessons.

Which means that the parents go inside the fence and stand on the side while a non-teenager with a clipboard watches each child do a few basic things like bobbing, front float, back float, etc.  No real swimming here, but I guess they want to make you feel like you are getting your money's worth.

I mean, a non-teen with a clipboard should makes me feel like it's official and that I should be paying for it, right?

And remember Mr. Swimmers?

Mr. Swimmers apparently gives no regard to Mr. Clipboard's authority like the parents do, because he spent the whole time during the "test" squirting other "teachers" with a little green frog.  (Though I must say, for a tiny little toy, it did squirt water a really long way, which must have been very satisfying.)

Well, maybe he didn't use the squirt toy the whole time.  He did take a break to play a drum solo on his stomach.  And since I was standing by the edge, I could hear that it was not only a drum solo, but a rap solo as well because he added some "pffts" to it. 

Mr. Clipboard did not notice at all.  Maybe the job description does not require the applicant to have an attention span of more than 30 seconds.  After all, that's about the amount of time each child gets to "swim" and then they are banished back to the edge of the pool.  Mr. Swimmers probably has an attention span of 40 seconds, so he actually may be a little overqualified.

After the 5 minutes of "skills" (and I use that term loosely), it was play time.  They turned on the giant mushroom, opened the froggy slide and let the kids play for the rest of the 30 minutes.

Seriously?  I could buy a family pass for the whole summer and teach my own child to swim for what I am paying to watch my child hold onto the edge of the pool whilst Mr. Swimmers works on his tan and his musical abilities.  (I just used the word "whilst" again....this could be a yellow flag.)

Which leads me to this:  maybe I should become a homeschooler.   

Dedicated homeschoolers would not let the lack of a pool at home keep their child from learning.  They would find the rich person in their co-op and see if they could come over everyday all summer so they can work on their swimming class (also counts for PE, right?)

Not sure how I am getting from swimming lessons to becoming a homeschooler, but that's just how my brain works.

We have 5 more lessons to go.  And by golly, we paid for it, so we are going to go.

If she doesn't learn to swim, we'll just make it up next year while we homeschool.  We can study for part of the day & then go swimming for the rest.  It will be great. 

Wait.  I forgot.  I can't really swim very well, so I'm probably not qualified to teach my kid to swim.  It's on my original Scmucket List, that I don't swim in water over my head. 

If Mr. Swimmers is more qualified than I am in any area pertaining to my child, does that mean I am a bad mom?

Don't answer that.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

swimming lessons

Superfrykid (let me know if you have a better suggestion for pseudo-names because this frystuff is getting on my nerves).....anyway, my daughter is taking swimming lessons. 

She is in the Level 1 class.

Last year, her class was still playing ring around the rosies and "we all blow bubbles!"....I was hoping that this year would be better, since the name of the course included the word "level", which seems to indicate that there is some "level" of swimming going on instead of dipping your bangs in the water and going down the froggy slide at the end of class.

I'm not sure what Level 1 includes.

Watching from the sidelines, it appears to include about 10 kids hanging onto the side of the pool while 4 teenagers talk and make motions in the air.

Some of the motions are swimming motions, like an arm moving through the water.

Call me crazy, but wouldn't it be more beneficial to the kids for them to actually MOVE their arms through the water instead of watching an overtanned, longhaired teenage boy raise his hand above his head over and over?

I watched one of the instructors today (let's call him Mr. Swimmers) for a good part of the class.  As the kids are holding onto the side of the pool, he is scooping up water with one hand and throwing it up into the air in a vertical line while slapping horizontally with the other hand.  When Mr. Swimmers is not doing his water slapping trick, he plays the drums on his stomach.  Meanwhile, the kids watch him instead of watching the other 3 who are "teaching". 

One of the other moms there said that Mr. Swimmers slapped and drummed the entire time during the class before this one too.

I have a feeling the water slapping and tummy drumming mean he is bored.

Here's a tip, Mr. Swimmers:  You're getting paid to teach little kids how to swim.  Maybe if you & your cohorts would actually do that, you wouldn't be bored and you wouldn't have to invent little games to amuse yourself.

I am hoping that level 2 will be better.  And by better, I mean, maybe you learn to swim in level 2?

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

more schmucket list

I thought of something else I can't do that I can add to my Schmucket List.

I can't drive a stick shift.

I hate to admit that, because it makes me feel like I'm lazy or not very smart, but it's true.

And as I'm writing this, I'm realizing that if I can only think of a few things I can't do, then I must be awesome at everything else!!!

Which is not true, but for some reason, it's hard to think of more things.

I'm sure I will add more later, but for now, that's it.

Monday, July 11, 2011

princess bride

The Princess Bride is probably the best. movie. ever.

I guess I shouldn't say "probably" and "the best" at the same time because it kind of diminishes the awesomeness that "the best" should convey.

But it probably is.

I've found that there is a kinship between people who love the movie that those who haven't or who have but just think it's okay don't really have.

Here's a little list with values you can add and subtract to score yourself to see how much you really like the Princess Bride.

When someone says "My name is....", you immediately think, "Inigo Montoya.  You killed my father.  Prepare to die." +5
+5 more if you say it out loud instead of just thinking it.
-10 if you try to say that and don't do it right

When someone says the word "marriage", your brain says "mawwage" +3
+5 if you giggle to yourself
-10 if you don't know what I'm talking about

+20 if you know what an MLT is

-20 if you think the Princess Bride is animated

+15 if you know what an R.O.U.S is

-5 if you just tried to figure out what the letters stand for and then remembered.  Points given only if you know immediately.  Otherwise, you are not a true fan.

That's it.  There are more but if you didn't get any of that, I lost you a long time ago.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

to death

People like to say things like:

I laughed myself to death.

I was bored to death.

I ran myself to death.

I've found myself saying this lately more than I realized I ever did.

I am annoying myself to death with it.

I just did it again.

When I hear other people reference death, I tend to prickle up a little bit and sometimes have the urge to shake them a little.

I know it's just a figure of speech, but it bothers me.

I feel like we should take it seriously and be offhanded about it.

Death is serious stuff, right?

Just on my mind & wanted to throw it out there.

Sorry if I bored you to death.

But I guess if I did, then you won't be reading the sorry part because you already kicked the bucket and last time I checked, dead people don't read. 

Saturday, July 9, 2011

real ketchup=my kids new room

Our house is very small.  The bedrooms are tiny.  We chose the smallest one to use as a nursery and then it just morphed into a bedroom.  The other one, the "bigger" one - if you count slightly larger than a really tiny one "bigger", we used as a toy room. 

So now that superfrykid (I gotta get some better pseudo-nicknames around here, but that's all I've got for now).....anyway, now that superfrykid is almost in 1st grade, we decided she needed to switch rooms.

The toy room had a super wide wallpaper border around the entire room, which I removed in about 6 hours with a sponge and a Pampered Chef stone scraper thing.  And the toy room was painted a yellow-orange kind of color. 

Did I mention I used a Pampered Chef stone scraper to remove a ton of wallpaper? 

We painted over the orange-yellow with "Lime Rickey" from Sherwin Williams.  It's kind of a cross between lime green and Kermit green. 

Because we're subtle like that.

Anyway, surprising us all, the room is turning out pretty cute.

My sister Pee (Yes, that is her real nickname) bought the owl pillow for her because I said no because I thought it was too expensive.  Turns out, it kind of makes the room.  Thank you, my sister!  Love the owl.

Friday, July 8, 2011

bipolar marriage

The other day my hubby & I were arguing....I mean, talking, and he said this to me:

"I really think you are bipolar."

I told someone this and they asked, "Was he serious?"

To which I replied, "Yes, totally!"  

And I'm not sure if the person's facial expression was genuine surprise or if it was masked horror whilst their brain was calculating the fastest route to the exit.

I must be crazy because I think I just used the word "whilst" in a sentence.

Anyway, back to the bipolar marriage issue.

Sometimes you don't know if your marriage is having a "taking it's meds" kind of day or if it's super crazy pants day where everything is sure to be hysterical (and I don't mean the funny kind of hysterical).

We have been married almost 17 years.  You'd think we could coast at this point.   No, no....17 years is when the relational mental illness sets in. 

And you know what? 

I kind of like crazy.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

outcommented by a dog

I posted on fb that I was home from vacation and mentioned that I had been sick and had to go to the doctor while out of town and got a shot in the butt, a zpack, eye drops, and cough syrup.  Then I posted this picture of my dog getting his annual haircut:


I got 2 comments on my "home from vaca/sick while I was there" post. 

 One was from my mother in law.  The other was from my mother.

I got like 9 comments on the dog shaving picture.  Within like 5 minutes.

I got outcommented by a dog. 

I think I'll go feed my cat because clearly I am on the same level as the crazy cat lady we all know.


Sunday, July 3, 2011

pioneer woman

I like the Pioneer Woman.  I really do. 

Her blog is one that I read often and I like to think that she is a genuinely funny and nice person.

But as with all things, I can always find something to pick at, even if it's something I like.

So here goes:

PW has too many pics of her dog's crotch on there.  It's just uncomfortable after a while.

The ratio of animal pics (dog/cattle/horse/cat) vs. people pics is skewed.  In my world, animals should not garner as much or more attention as people. 

The Marlboro Man thing is kind of cute & funny until you realize she actually wrote a book about the way they met, etc. etc....which kind of makes me think PW sold out a long time ago.

She's too "city" to call herself Pioneer Woman.  Anyone who can say that an eyeliner that costs $50 is awesome has clearly not assimilated into ranch life.

She constantly says she's fat, has alien hands, and makes fun of her past fashion choices.  Clearly, she's not fat, her hands are fine and who hasn't made a bad fashion choice in the past?  This gets on my nerves.  You should have to have a permit to say you're fat because it's one of my biggest pet peeves when people who are not fat say they are fat....but I digress.

Anyway, since I only have 13 followers, none of which will be offended by my Pdub bashing, I felt I could let this out.  If someone from the PW camp comes lurking around KFryville and finds something they don't like, well, that's just AWESOME because it means my tiny little blog got a hit from PW! 

I mean, if someone doesn't like what I say, then they can go read the Pioneer Woman.  Clearly she's doing something right.  Even if it's mostly just creepy pictures of basset hounds and recipes for things that contain a lot of butter.