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There it goes!

By Elle on May 16, 2013 in a glimpse into my mind, marriage, ugh!

Years ago when my husband and I lived in Seattle we lived in a house (built in 1917) that had the creepiest mofo unfinished basement.

It smelled like dead people. I would dread it every time I went down there. It’s where the washer and dryer was so I was sure that when I went down to get the clothes, I would be murdered by something.

It was also where my husband set up his workshop.

One time, my husband told me that while he was down in the basement of horrors, he saw a mouse running across the floor.

Oh. Hell. No!

Not only did I have to deal with the thought of ghosts, demons, and Freddy Kreuger getting me while I was down there, I also had to deal with mice.

I don’t take too kindly to mice.

One night while my husband was down in the basement, I went to get the laundry out of the dryer.

Whether he was down there or not, when I had to go in the basement for whatever reason, I would have a mini heart attack. I would tip toe to the basement door as not to give whatever supernatural forces that were down there any warning that I was approaching, I would open the door, then I would race down the stairs, grab the laundry while my heart was thumping out of my chest, and race back up the stairs.

This time around, my husband told me that I just missed the mouse running near the dryer.

I wasn’t amused and my husband got the laundry out of the dryer for me while I stood by the basement stairs. When it all looked clear, I decided it was safe for me to got back near the dryer to grab the laundry basket.

That’s when my husband pointed out the mouse scurrying across the ledge of our basement wall and said “LOOK! There it goes!

I dropped that motherfucking laundry basket onto the floor, screamed, and ran up the basement stairs. I ran though the house, out of the front door, and down the stairs of our house to the sidewalk while still screaming. It’s a good think nobody called the cops.

I stood there barefoot on the sidewalk in front of our house and started laughing. By that time my husband had come upstairs to our living room when I walked back in the front door.

He was was cracking up and he kept on rubbing it in and saying “There it goes!” He got a good playful ass kicking.

I sent him out to get mouse traps the next morning. Not long after, he was sent on a 9 month deployment and I had to deal with the mouse traps. Eeeek!

To this day, he still loves keeping me on my toes by yelling out “There it goes!”

Bastard.

*Pomplamoose – Beat It

Comments { 1 }

A Hairy Situation

By Elle on November 8, 2012 in a glimpse into my mind, ugh!, wha?

I hate having to get my hair done because it’s hard for me to sit still for so long. It usually takes 3 hours to have my barely brushed or thrown in a ponytail hair all glammed up with foil highlights and a cut. Then, afterwards, I’ll be so glad I went to the hairdresser after all.

I’ve had plenty of experience getting a hairdresser from hell and here are just a few….sorry mom but you’re on here. I’LL NEVER FORGET WHAT YOU DID DO MY BANGS!! Ahem.

Since my husband is in the military and we move frequently, the hardest thing I’ve found to deal with is…. finding a good hairdresser. We’ve moved over 10 times since being married and Oy! A good hairdresser can be hard to find.

Once I find a good hairdresser, we’re off to the next place to live and I have to start all over again.

This one time, at band camp…kidding. Really though, this one time, my husband and I had recently moved to San Diego. I had been going to a few different hairdressers but couldn’t find one I liked.

There was a hair salon a few blocks from where we lived that looked pretty nice. I used to walk by it whenever I went to the grocery store and after my disappointing results with my most recent hairstylist, I decided to give this place a try.

My hair is fine but I have a lot of it so it usually takes a good hour or so to get foil highlights. The guy I went to see whipped through my hair and I was all foiled up in about 20 minutes.

Not long after, I was walking out the door. The color looked fine when he showed it to me in the mirror and I thought, ‘FINALLY, I found a decent hairdresser!”

I went next door to the drugstore to pick up some new products for my new color when I happened to come across a mirror.

The HORROR!

I looked like fucking Bozo the Clown. No really, I did.

My hair was orange. Really, really orange.

I know I could have easily gone back and asked for a refund. I certainly wasn’t going to ask this man to fix it after the damage he had already done.

Better yet, my head could have been used in place of an orange traffic cone but alas, I decided to just go home and die of embarrassment.

I scoured the internet for hairdressers and found one nearby that I went to the next day.

The hairdresser I went to see told me she gets several clients from the place I went to who need to get damage control for their hair.

The good thing that came out of the ordeal was that after that, I found a really good hairdresser.

Another memorable hairtastrophe involves my mom. Hi mom! I was about 9 years old and needed a bang trim. My mom took me into the kitchen, sat me down, and proceeded to snip away. She snipped some more. Then she snipped even more.

I was thinking ruh roh the whole time.

After she was done, I raced to the bathroom mirror and I’m pretty sure there were tears. She had cut my bangs so short that they were high above my eyebrows. Worse yet is that my hair is naturally curly so they shrank up even more.

My bangs, which usually seem to grow fast, took forever to grow out. After that, I never let her near my hair again. Well, at least not until 10 years later when she seemed to have worked on her bang trimming skills because by then she was bad ass at it.

In my early 20′s, I would dye my own hair and there were plenty of hairtastrophe’s that proceeded. I finally promised myself to never color my own hair again and have since left it to the professionals.

When going to a new hairdresser, I’m always on high alert by what they do and ask question since I don’t want to end up like Bozo the Clown ever again.

Now I am happily having a hair affair with my current hairdresser who gets it perfect ever time. I did have to “cheat” on her once because she wasn’t available.

Isn’t that the worst? Cheating on your hairdresser. Then I went back to my regular one in a sweat. Her: Your hair sure has held up well since I last saw you. Me: OMG, I can’t stand the pressure. I had to see someone else because you weren’t available. Aggghh!

Next year my husband is being stationed one last time before he retires from the Navy so by this time next year, I’ll be back to hitting the pavement, trying to find another great hairdresser.

I’ve already solved that problem though. She doesn’t know it yet but my hairdresser is moving with me.

What kind of hair catastrophe’s have you had?

Comments { 4 }

An ode to Captcha

By Elle on February 23, 2012 in a glimpse into my mind, blah blah blah, i know i'm strange, ugh!

Oh dear Captcha how annoying you are

You’re a pain in the ass and I’d like to run you over with my car

All I want to do is leave a comment and you make that impossible

Trying to read those funky words makes me stabby and hostile

I have no idea what a seaction eaketar is

Just let me leave a comment and go about my biz

My dear Captcha you can suck it, you drive me insane

A ferminedo llyso? What in the hell, you’re a pain!

So listen up Captcha and take my advice

Use something that resembles words or I’ll put your balls in a vice

~~~~~

Photo Credit: Geek & Poke

~~~~~

Comments { 5 }

My in-laws are visiting this week so if you’re an inventor of an in-law repellant, kinda like how vampires can’t go into your house unless you invite them in, then let me know.

By Elle on February 6, 2012 in i know i'm strange, in-laws, marriage, mother-in-law, my brain is melting, ugh!

Not only are my in-laws visiting at the end of this week, I invited them an extra day so they’ll have plenty of time with my hubby and the little hummingbird and they’ll be here for 5 freaking days.

I don’t remember what compelled me to invite them an extra day but I blame Miley Cyrus.

Whenever I hear her voice, I feel like I lose a few million brain cells so I probably saw her on ~~the Kardashian channel~~ E!, my brain cells went pop, and then I came up with the not so brilliant idea of having my in-laws here an extra 24 hours.

I’ve been talking about them in therapy for the last few sessions and just before my therapist jumped out of the window, she told me that it sounds like no matter what I do, it doesn’t seem like they’ll ever accept me.

I can totally understand that and live with it but even if my mother-in-law will never accept me, I figured she can at least be civil but she’s not.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to avoid my MIL as much as possible and while on Pinterest last night, it came to me. I can cook and be stuck in the safety of the kitchen as much as possible.

When I say “cook” I mean microwave. Although just on Friday I actually used my stove and made a jalapeno popper grilled cheese which was orgasmic, by the way.

I’ve been on the Pinterest food boards but I haven’t found anything yet. I need to find recipes that are easy peasy but will give me an excuse to hide in the kitchen for ~~5 days~~ awhile.

We always watch a movie when they visit and then we have to sit there for 2 hours while they do an ongoing narrative of the film and tell us in what ways it isn’t realistic. I decided we could watch Crazy, Stupid, Love because if anything at least I can stare at Ryan Gosling and his abs.

Since my in-laws tend to never give us any breathing room, if I can’t escape them while I’m in the kitchen, I’ll just use my old standby and hide out in the bathroom, making them think I have some kind of gastrointestinal issue that causes me to be stuck in the bathroom for hours at a time.

Whatever the case, it’s going to be a really long 5 days.

Comments { 3 }

Car carts are evil and will make you smell like Axe body spray.

By Elle on January 7, 2012 in a glimpse into my mind, hold me, holy hell, hubby, mommyhood, my brain is melting, really?!, the little hummingbird, ugh!, would you like some cheese with your whine?

I love to shop but only when it’s from the comfort of my laptop. I can’t stand going to the grocery store or the mall.

It seems like when people go out shopping on the weekends, their douchey side comes blazing out. Exhibit A.

There’s also the matter of bringing the little hummingbird to the store. Yowza! At first she plays it cool but then halfway through the store, she’s over it. We take her out of the car cart that my husband always promises to push through the store but doesn’t and then he goes chasing after her up and down the aisles while I’m stuck pushing this ginormous thing.

Yep, there I am, alone, and pushing the damn thing all over the store like a loony. Excuse me… I look loonier than usual. It takes all I have to turn the cart around the aisles, trying not to kill anyone in my path.

It never fails that I’ll park the damn car cart out of the way where I think people won’t go and there’s always that one person that wants to grab something where that cart is put.

Then I tell them I’m so sorry and I’ll try to push and pull and move the cart but that’s when it decides it’s not going to move an inch and the wheels start scraping on the floor, making a horrendous noise. I can tell that the person waiting for me to move the cart starts getting annoyed since it’s taking me so long to move but do these people ever offer to help me move the cart that weighs more than I do? Nope.

Just when I get it moving along, my hubby seems to show up out of thin air.

Not long ago he put our 2-year-old back in the cart because she was really cranky and didn’t have her nap that day. He practically sprinted away, turning back and telling me he had to go get something that he forgot and there I was trying to push an out of control car cart with a pissed off toddler.

As our daughter was yelling out for her daaaaddy, I was thinking of ways to get him back. Withholding sex came to mind but we’ve been married for quite a while and he probably wouldn’t even notice.

That’s when I spotted it. Trial size bottles of Axe body spray. It stinks but more importantly it gives the man in your life a douche makeover, like Ed Hardy clothes. I grabbed a bottle and waited for my husband to come down the aisle so I could ambush him with it.

After what seemed like forever, I saw him walking towards us and I had the bottle behind my back, ready to spray him. As soon as he was close enough, I whipped the bottle from behind my back and sprayed him down. Well that was the desired scenario except I didn’t realize until it was too late that the spray nozel was pointed in my direction.

Adding insult to injury, he grabbed one of the travel sized bottles out of the plastic bin and sprayed me some more. There we were in aisle 8 having an Axe body spray standoff. Our daughter finally stopped whining and seemed to be pleading with her eyes for some stranger to get her away from her crazy parents.

We finally called a truce, walked to the check out lane, and there I was gagging the whole way. All that was missing was a trucker hat and my douche makeover would have been complete.

I blame this whole thing on those damn car carts. One of these days the earth is going to pass through a comet like in that 80′s movie Maximum Overdrive and these car carts are going to come to life and terrorize us more than they already do. Then we’re all going to get into Axe body spray fights so before that happens, I vote that we burn every last one of the car carts to save mankind from becoming a society where we all start wearing Ed Hardy clothes, trucker hats, and smell like douchebag body spray.

~~~~~

Comments { 1 }

A Nervous Tic Motion.

By Elle on November 8, 2011 in ranty, really?!, too much info, ugh!, wha?, would you like some cheese with your whine?, writing to heal

**Beep, beep, ranty post.

For anyone who has been reading my blog for awhile, you know that in September I wanted to start a group blog which became known as Motherhood Uncovered. Let’s just say shit happens. Yep, I’ll leave it at that.

Then I got connected with the. most. awesomest tech guy and web designer JP. He is really incredible and I will link him soon (if you want then email me and I’ll give you his info that way) when the new site gets in order because if you’ve ever thought about self-hosting, he’s your man. I actually wanted him for this blog because I wanted to spruce it up but then shit happened so he took on the group site.

I decided on a new name for the site, A Nervous Tic Motion, because I wanted something more neutral. Also, when I was younger and would do something that annoyed my mom, she would fake a nervous tic with her head. That’s how I feel plenty of times with the hummingbird. I love her to death but she’s 2 and well, she’s 2.

As I type this she’s supposed to be taking her nap but instead I hear this loud thump, thump, thump above my head. It sounds like a bull is charging through her room.

The other reason for the name is I absolutely freaking love Andrew Bird and he does a song called A Nervous Tic Motion Of The Head To The Left. The man is brilliant.

Anyway, JP spent so much time working on the new site (he’s not finished yet) for me and the other writers and he redirected MU so it would go to the new site but someone messed with it after all of his hard work and now it won’t redirect. Thank you person that shall remain nameless. That was very nice of you.

I don’t mean to be bitchy but damn, that is really low. And to think this person is off starting their own group website.

The bright side is we have a new domain name (thank gawd because the website might have been completely ruined if the name and domain wasn’t changed) that this person hopefully won’t be able to screw with and we still have several of the writers who as you can imagine are just as thrilled with this person. NOT!

So, there are amazing writers for A Nervous Tic Motion and it will get better. It can’t get any worse….of course that’s what I’ve been saying for weeks. heh.

I want to thank all of the wonderful writers and I will name everyone soon, once this high school B.S. chills out.

Comments { 13 }

How my MIL ruined my wedding and made me want to set myself on fire just so I could get away from her crazy.

By Elle on October 5, 2011 in family, get the net, hold me, hubby, i'm such a bitch, in-laws, mother-in-law, ranty, too much info, ugh!, would you like some cheese with your whine?

My hubby and I have been married for over 16 years now and I’m still annoyed about how our wedding ended up being such a suckfest. I know this will come off as just a whiny, rambling post with no merit but since this happened several years ago, it’s hard to give a play by play.

When it came to my wedding, my hubby and I were going to do things low-key. I really didn’t want any fuss and just wanted to marry my man. It was my dream to wear a simple wedding dress and a must was to have the wedding outdoors with a fresh flower bouquet made up of vibrant colors. Hell, I would have been happy with some fresh picked flowers from someone’s yard. I thought those three things would be very easy to have but my MIL made it so it wasn’t.

My soon to be hubby and I found a place nearby that does weddings outside in a garden and the place provided most of the things we needed. The best part was it was only a few hundred dollars so we were going to pay for it ourselves and we were only planning on inviting immediate family because we were both 20 years old and broke.

When we called my soon to be in-laws, excited to tell them our wedding plans, my mother-in-law freaked the hell out. She said No son of mine is getting married in some garden. You will be married in a church and that’s final! I felt like I was in some Lifetime movie of the week. I will never, ever forget her exact words over the phone that night.

I didn’t want to step on her toes so we let her have her way. Looking back, I would have stood up to her but at the time, I was too afraid. She didn’t give us much choice to have the wedding we wanted because of her flip outs.

After that, my dream wedding that I had planned to be simple and uncomplicated went downhill and became miserable and complicated when my MIL took control. I know they have a show for Bridezillas but they also need one for mother-in-lawzillas.

I will never get her but what really confused me is that while she wanted this nice and fancy wedding, she wanted to do things in a cheap way. My parents didn’t have much money and my future in-laws said they would take care of most of the wedding.

They live a pretty comfortable lifestyle and what annoyed me even more about my MIL wanting this wedding I didn’t want and then have her hemming and hawing over the price of things is this reason….my hubby’s older sister got married a few years earlier but they couldn’t decide on the location. My in-laws wanted it where they live and my BIL’s parents wanted it 4 hours away where they live. So, my in-laws ended up happily paying for two weddings.

From the very beginning my mother-in-law would go on and on about how my SIL got her dress from one particular place and the flowers for her wedding from another. I kind of felt like Jan Brady when she says Marsha, Marsha, Marsha! I’m a totally different person and it was annoying that my MIL couldn’t see that.

My future hubby and I drove down to the in-laws one weekend and we already knew that we would be getting most of the wedding preparations taken care of. I admit I had a chip on my shoulder because I wanted a simple wedding and since my MIL was absolutely insistent on this big church wedding, I thought fine, then I’m going to at least have some nice things I wanted.

First on the agenda was getting the wedding dress and while my future hubby stayed back at his parents house with his dad, me and my mother-in-law set out for some shops. Of course all of the places we went were where my SIL had gone a few years earlier.

The first place we went, I found THE dress. It was totally unexpected because I had a different style of dress in mind but as soon as I put it on, I knew it was the one. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to find it on the first try. I guess I wouldn’t make a great bride-to-be on Say Yes To The Dress.

When I walked out of the dressing room glowing and as happy as can be, the woman helping me took me to the middle of the room to stand and see myself in the 360 degree mirror. Angels sang, unicorns wept, and all that good stuff. Then my mother-in-law asked how much it was and when she found out the price, she said we needed to keep looking. I knew how much my sister-in-law’s TWO dresses were and the price of the one I wanted was nothing compared to just one of her wedding dresses.

Now this is where I come off as a really spoiled brat. I didn’t want any of this wedding crap in the first place and just planned on wearing a no frills dress for my wedding but figured since my mother-in-law was running the show, if anything I was going to get the dress I really wanted.

I tried to hide how upset I was from her as we went to another place to look at dresses and while I was trying on insane amounts of ivory silk with beading, I became upset and was crying since I knew that none of the other dresses would compare to the very first one. My MIL kept bringing in similar dresses that my sister-in-law liked and had tried on a few years prior and I just got angrier.

I had to finally step out of the dressing room since she wanted to have a look and there I was red-faced and teary eyed. The woman helping us thought I was crying about how great the dress I had on was. She didn’t know it was because my MIL was trying to have complete control over every detail, down to what dress I got.

When I mentioned to the woman that I found THE dress earlier that day, she said something like well, there’s no need to try anything else then. Once you find *the* dress, that’s it. My MIL wouldn’t budge and took me to one other dress place but I was finally so fed up and acting like a baby so I told her I didn’t care for any of the dresses.

That’s when she said we needed to go back home and “regroup” so we can discuss the wedding some more. My in-laws finally told us what they were willing to spend on the wedding (it was more her than my father-in-law) and I felt completely effed over.

I told her again how I really would love to just go get married at the place we planned on in the beginning and all hell broke loose. She went on and on about how it would be such an embarrassment to the family if my husband didn’t have a church wedding.

I didn’t understand how in the world she would insist on my hubby and I having a wedding we didn’t want and then making it so difficult to have the things that were needed like the dress and flowers for that type of wedding.

After a lot of discussion, it was decided that I would get *the* dress I wanted after all. I was so freaking happy but it didn’t last long because I found out soon enough that my MIL would make my life hell. It’s like she took her anger out on me because I got the wedding dress I wanted.

It’s hard to explain but it’s like she intentionally set me up to get excited about things for the wedding and then would tell me that we couldn’t get something after all. She was mindeffing me the whole time. My MIL knew how important it was that I at least have a fresh flower bouquet and she took me to this really nice florist my sister-ln-law used for her weddings.

With all the stress of dealing with the wedding and my MIL, going to this florist was just what I needed. We were there for a while and the florist showed me this simple but absolutely gorgeous tropical type of bouquet. My mother-in-law was oohing and aahing along with me and I was close to jumping up and down with excitement.

I told my MIL that I would just be fine with getting the wedding bouquet and the rest could be fake flowers. It wasn’t my preference but I was trying to play nice. She seemed fine with that and the florist got out the order slip. That’s when my MIL mindeffed me and said you know what, we’re not going to get the bouquet after all and then she walked out.

I stood there stunned for a minute and then walked out to her car. She told me because of my wedding dress, I have to just live with fake flowers for my wedding. I was thinking to myself why in the hell did she take me to look at fresh flowers and be thisclose to getting my bouquet when she seemed to have already decided on not getting them. Because she’s effing crazy, that’s why.

I also knew it wasn’t because of the wedding dress I picked. I could’ve picked a $20 dollar dress and she would have still been the way she was. She ended up taking me somewhere to not only get fake flowers, they were some of the tackiest flowers you could possibly get.

After that I said f*ck it and went along with whatever she picked while thinking how her mother-in-law was probably the same way with her. Yes, I bitch about her but I still try to get along with her as best as I can.

My MIL was 3 months pregnant with my sister-in-law and had no other choice but to marry my father-in-law back in the day. From what I know from my hubby, the wedding was really rushed and there was unhappiness with it all around.

It seems like the moment my hubby put the engagement ring on my finger, my mother-in-law has wanted to make me as miserable as she’s been.

I do plan on having my hubby and I renew our vows so we can have the simple, outdoor wedding we wanted in the first place but it might be awhile. When it comes to having a 2 1/2 year old, right now I would prefer to take the money and go away for the weekend to catch up on some much needed sleep.