Art teacher.

I look like a middle school art teacher today. I think it might be a combination of the brooch, earrings, and scarf.

This one speaks for itself.

Click on the image to make it larger. I found this on Craig's List and thought it was pretty funny.

Awkward TV

I was just watching the local news station and they have a segment where a chef goes to someone's house to cook a meal using the ingredients in that person's cupboards. The chef says, "OK, let's see what we have to work with" as he opens up the refrigerator and sees a beef tenderloin, puff pastry, tomatoes, mozzarella, and balsamic vinegar - all grouped together. The chef contemplates for a minute and says, "I'm thinking beef wellington and caprese salad..." He then opens up the bag of ingredients he brought and... Surprise! He pulls out the rest of the ingredients for the beef wellington, that he just randomly brought - mushrooms and 1 onion.

At the end of the segment the TV hosts were talking back and forth:

Host #1: He should do that professionally!

Host #2: (in a quiet voice) Oh I wouldn't go that far...

My sisters are just as weird as me.

A video my sister made of her cat Sally.

Homemade bathroom music dock.

This morning (at Carrie's apartment)...

Carrie: Want to see how I listen to music while I'm in the shower?????!!!

Me: Yeah!!!!!

[Carrie rustling through her pots and pans, a bit of maneuvering of stuff in the bathroom, a demonstration of the volume before putting her phone on her homemade dock...]

5 minutes later...here's the final product! Who needs Bose anyway??!

Some days you just see weird things.

I had a very interesting day...

1. On my way to South Haven my attention was caught by a guy video taping himself cutting the lawn in a bikini and wearing bright red lipstick. I had to drive by again to make sure I wasn't going crazy. I was trying to discreetly capture a photo, but I wasn't successful (at being discreet or getting a photo).

2. On a moped ride I was stopped at an intersection and an Aztec was driving through the light and I swear there was no one driving it... or anyone at all in the car for that matter.

3. On the same moped ride I blew past a beat up doll head on the side of the road.

... and then I ran over a dead squirrel (yes, while I was riding the moped). That was gross.

I just want to eat, with some beeeeats!

Uh huh. You heard right. I added some beatz (and made a music video) to the song I wrote back in January (I just want to eat)...




I have had some requests for the song lyrics. In this video I only used the first verse and refrain (see below). Click here for the full lyrics.

Verse 1

When I hear the word “eat”

My ears touch the sky

Oh the glorious sound

I’m right at your feet

I just want to eat!

Refrain

It’s all that I am

It’s all that I want

I wait all day long

I love to eat! I just want to eat!

Midnight Donut Run

I am in the process of redoing a chair right now and spent the evening in my driveway sanding it down to bare wood. At one point during the rigorous sanding I randomly smelled a donut and, from that sniff on, was determined to hit up the local donut mill when I was done in order to fulfill my craving. That I did... but I ran into an obstacle on my journey home. Good thing I had a tasty, fresh mini apple fritter to keep me occupied because when I turned into my neighborhood, this is what I saw.


Only I would get stopped on my way back from a midnight donut run by a semi that is stuck sideways and blocking the entire road... I sat there for 3 minutes and the thing couldn't go forward or backward for anything. Don't those tires look super mini for a truck that size?! Just in case you're wondering, this is not the kind of street that semis travel on frequently, if ever, and usually no vehicles drive down this street past 10pm, so the chances of getting stuck at this hour are pretty slim.

Once I was done devouring the mini apple fritter I decided I should probably turn around and take a different route home. I wonder if it's still stuck...

Why you should accept my sister.

Dear Whomever Is Reading This Letter Of Recommendation,

I would like to recommend my sister, Carrie, for the Romance Languages program at your institution. Why, you ask? Well, where do I start... (I used bullet points so that you can clearly see the reasons).

1. She's a well-rounded person. Not only is she super smart, but she is hilarious and knows how to have fun. See exhibit A. This is an example of what she does in her spare time. (Don't worry, she doesn't really have rotten teeth. She has an entire mouthful of cavity free pearly whites).

Exhibit A

2. She is super creative and artsy. See exhibit 2. This is a photograph she composed.

Exhibit 2


3. She is honest.

She doesn't fart and pretend she didn't do it (like I do, I'll pull out a bottle of lotion and start spraying it everywhere)... she farts loud and proud!

4. She loves the farmers market. Come on now, have you ever met a person that loved the farmers market that wasn't incredibly awesome?

5. She plays the piano and might even write a song for you. She wrote a song for me, below are the lyrics:

"I loooooove YOU.... yes I DOooooooo. Yes I YES I DOOOOOOOOOOO!"

There are about 1,528 more reasons, but I should probably keep this to one page.

Thank you for your consideration. I just have to say that you would be SILLY not to accept her. SILLY SILLY SILLY.

Silly and Seriously Serious Sincere Regards,

Stephanie

Sometimes...

I just have no idea what people are saying...

You know those times when you cross paths with a stranger in the bathroom (for example) and they just start talking about random things and it's not really worth it to try and figure out exactly what is going on because you're almost done washing your hands anyway...? So you just give a friendly nod, maybe even a little "haha," and go about your way thinking, "What in the heck just happened??" I mean, I'm all about striking up conversations with strangers whenever I get the chance, but sometimes people just don't make sense.

Thanks for replacing my oatmeal (not)

I bought some bulk organic oatmeal at a local health food store a few weeks ago and noticed shortly after there were bugs flying around in it... so I obviously threw it away and... wala! The bugs were gone. I've been in the store twice now since and talked to a few people about it and all they say is "Haven't heard anything about that." "Hmmmm. Weird." No one apologizes, offers me a replacement or anything... so today I bought more oatmeal (from a different bin, of course), I said to the lady (after explaining what happened) ... "It would be great if you guys could replace it for me." She then proceeds to ring up the oatmeal, doesn't respond to me and I say "Welp, guess not."

Seriously?! They can't give me $1.38 worth of oatmeal or even really acknowledge that their food had bugs flying around in it? I just may never shop there again.

My question is... where was the library card??

I just read an article about a guy who walked to the library, buck naked.



Poor guy just wanted to take a weightless afternoon stroll in the fresh fall breeze and checkout a book from the local library in peace... for goodness sake! haha

The last line is hilarious to me for some reason...

Traveling to Montana = Must bring cowboy boots

I always take my cowboy boots everywhere I go... they've even been to Portgual, Spain, and Italy for goodness sakes! They are my most comfortable footwear (maybe even more comfortable than my running shoes) and, in my opinion, are super fashionable AND... they are just me. I glanced at them sitting on my shoe rack the other day, all dirty and in desperate need of conditioning and decided they needed a break. Very bad decision.

Before I continue, I thought you would like to see a picture of my cowboy boot on a bench at the train station in Lisbon. I almost left it there (I wasn't wearing them because they got completely soaked in Aveiro)... poor cowboy boot.


OK, so now onto the purpose of my post... indications that I should have brought my cowboy boots to Montana:

1. Each state that uses the website I work for can choose an image that depicts their state, which then appears when they login... this is the image they chose.


2. On my flight from Denver to Billings, MT, I looked around and all I saw were cowboy boots and hats everywhere I looked!

3. When getting in the hotel shuttle from the airport, the driver was blasting country music. "If it weren't for trucks there wouldn't be tailgates..." Those were my favorite lyrics.

4. I have huge cuts on the back of my feet from shoes that are not as cool as my cowboy boots. I mean, look how big the bandaid is that I have to use! It's bigger than my iPhone!


OK, off to Cabela's (hiking shoes), go see some mountains, drink some Montana Brewery beer, and eat some country fried steak!

This is my life...

I'm leaving for Montana tomorrow morning. Typically when I go on trips I spend a lot of time putting together a very detailed itinerary weeks beforehand. Well, not this time. I've been so busy and it was one of those tasks that just kept getting pushed to the bottom of my list because knowing when your flight leaves isn't that important, right? So, by the time this evening came and I still didn't know what time my flight was to leave, I figured it was definitely time to check it out. It could be 6:15am, 7:45am, 8:15am... who knows?! So, I go to sign into the reservation website for my work travel which has never let me down the 7 years I've been using it and I see this...

So then I try to login to the airport's website and I get this...










Yup. That's right, it's a blank screen because there was NOTHING. So, then I figured... I'll call the airport and see if they have any suggestions on how to find my flight information and this is what I hear on the other end of the phone.

"This is Verizon Wireless, the number you have called.... blah blah blah..." OK then, what's next? I look up flight times on delta.com and I get this times 10 (my screenshot couldn't capture it all)...


Well that's helpful when there's 20 different flight schedules from AZO to BIL! What should I do? Well, what I am going to do is get my ass to the airport at 5:30 am and that way I'll be ready. Let's hope the obstacles don't continue!

Solutions to reimbursement difficulties.

So, my work is giving me a difficult time about reimbursing me for just about everything on a work trip I just took. One of them is for a taxi ride in which the driver was unable to produce a receipt, so I printed a copy of my bank activity with the transaction listed. Well, apparently that isn't good enough and they are refusing to reimburse me, so I sent an email that said...

"Some taxi companies don't give receipts, as was the case here. What am I supposed to do? Take a picture with my phone of myself in the taxi handing the guy money or my credit card?"

Oooops. I probably should have shut my computer for 20 minutes before sending that one... regardless, I "took a photo of myself" paying the taxi driver. Think this will work??
They also won't pay me for parking. I'm sorry, but I don't know of many parking meters that print receipts. Here's the photo I "took of myself" putting money in the meter.

Big disappointments...

I do this all the time and never learn...

1. WRITE AN EMAIL.... to myself.
2. SEND it.
3. A short time later...
4. My reaction.
5. What I find...

Merkin.

This post would probably be considered "R" rated, so read at your own risk.

I came across this word while on a vocabulary website. I was trying to find an interesting word for inspiration for an art project. Don't worry, this isn't the one I decided on to inspire me for my art (I'll continue my search after I post this), but I guess it ended up inspiring me to write this blog post... The word is, merkin. Apparently it means, a pubic wig for women. After reading this on a completely innocent website, I thought to myself, "What does that mean? Surely it's not what I think it is! A wig for your head made out of pubic hair or a wig for "you know where?" There must be a misspelling in the definition." They even had an audio clip for how to pronounce it.

So, then I thought, "Oh yeah, why don't I just Google it??! I'm sure to find an answer to my question that way!" Bad idea, Steph. Disturbing, yet semi- (I stress the semi) hilarious at the same time. There's strawberry shaped wigs, heart shaped wigs... yeah, I'm sorry, you probably didn't even want to know that. So, next time someone uses the word merkin, you'll know what it means.

What couch??

Oh yeah! The one I ordered over 2 months ago and haven't gotten yet?

This is a letter I received from the salesperson who sold me the couch.


This is my response letter that I will never send.

Dear Charles,

Thank you for the hand written letter - it was lovely. The plain white paper was a nice touch. The couch probably would be working for me beyond expectation, except that I haven't gotten it yet (yes, it's several days past the date you told me I should have it). In fact, I forgot that I even ordered a couch! I'm not sure if I should get excited again or continue to forget that a new couch is on the way, seeing that no one can really tell me what to expect. In regards to your offer to assist with any future needs, it would have been nice if you checked into the status of my order prior to sending this letter, so how about looking into it now?! You know what? No, scratch that.

Sincerely,
Stephanie

P.S. Just a tip, chew some gum next time you are making a sale (I know, that's kind of harsh, but so was your breath).

UPDATE SINCE I RECEIVED THE THANK YOU NOTE
The couch will now be ready in May, that's 7 weeks after the date we were supposed to have it... yup... I'm just going to go back to pretending I even bought a couch and when May (or December...2012) comes around I'll have a nice surprise!

GUEST BLOGGER - Annie

Since I am taking a short break, my sister asked if she could be a guest blogger. Here is her post... Thank you to Annie for keeping my readers entertained!

This is what happens when Stephanie takes a hiatus from [fill in the blank] ...

Taking a little break...

Hello all my faithful readers! Thank you for visiting and enjoying my blog! I am very busy at work and, needless to say, circumstances like this tend to drain my creative juices to absolutely nothing and I end up walking around like a zombie that can't form sentences (how sad, I know). So, I need to recharge, go run 30 miles, eat a bunch of olives, and probably punch a flower pot or something! I didn't want you to keep checking my blog every day and be disappointed or cry for hours or what not! I do have some new comics in the works that I am going to be developing soon. Check back in about a week! See you next Tuesday!

Das Fartbux

My boyfriend wrote this song and initially titled it "Gas Commercial" (fart gas, not to be confused with gasoline) because he thought it sounded like a jingle for one. A week later, I constructed my fart box. If you don't know what this is, check out my blog titled, How to make a fart box. He then decided it should be called "Das Fartbux." We planned on making a commercial for my fart box, but it's been over a month now and I just don't see it happening, so I decided to put his song to 2 gas commercials I found. Enjoy!

I take punctuation very seriously.

These are bumper stickers I made to support the correct use of punctuation!

WOW!

Is this for real??! This was on the homepage of msn.com. I can't stop staring at the mannequin's nose that obviously fell off and was drawn back on with a permanent marker... and by someone who obviously failed art in preschool. Also, take note of the amazing tourist attraction...

How To Take Great Photographs on Howcast

You say you've been buds, eh?

My friend's garbage man was telling her the other day that he and her dog have been buds for several years (apparently for like 10 or 12 or something like that)! Well, the dog she has now has only been around for 3 and looks something like this:



...which looks nothing like the dog before him which looked something like this:


So, my friend said to me, "What, did he think I gave the dog a perm or something??"

I think a beaver broke into my parents house Monday night.

Timeline of Events
I'm house-sitting for my parents right now and am taking care of their cat, Daisy. This is the timeline of events that led up to the picture displayed above.

Between Friday 11:00pm and Monday 2:30pm - sifted 2 poops out of the boxes

Monday 2:30pm - Changed the litter boxes

Monday 11:30pm- No turds

Tuesday 11:00am I found this disaster. Very disturbing.

I can be a little gullable sometimes.

I keep a blog for work too. I won't share it with any of you because I guarantee you won't find it interesting, nor applicable to anything in your own lives. Anyway, one day I noticed some very flattering comments on my posts (see a few samples below) and, needless to say, reading them really boosted my self esteem... for a minute that is...

• "This is really great! Have you ever thought about writing a book?"
• "This article is so interesting. Thank you so much for this information. You are amazing!"
• "Wow! You really know what you are talking about!"

... because then I saw the names of those posting these comments.

shemale, ilovedrugs, wormmurderer, etc. (There were names a lot worse than that, but I won't list those as I am attempting to keep this blog clean).

Darn spam! You got me! So, once I cleaned out the 999 spam comments, there were 0 comments left. Couldn't at least one of them have been legitimate??!! Maybe the one about me writing a book??

Text Messaging with Nikki

This is a text message thread between my sister, Nikki, and myself.

Stephanie: "The most delicious crab cakes ever!"


Nikki: "You bitch. Look at my dinner."

Stephanie: "Awwwww, too bad... Do you wish you were hanging out with this guy??!"

24 1/2 hours

I don't really know what this means... but I'll take an extra 1/2 hour each day!!

Indications that I am Sleeping

Have you ever experienced times when you have gone to bed, or went to take a nap, and someone keeps trying to talk to you and asks if you are awake, over and over, when you clearly aren't responding? I have to admit that I have been guilty of this a time or two, however, that is the origin of this comic.

7 Signs that I am NOT Awake.

There's no doubt about it. I have strange dreams.

I had a dream last night focused solely on what is in that picture below. What is it, you ask? Oh yeah... it's the handle to my strainer that keeps falling off...?? While most people have normal dreams about going to the beach, eating extra large pizzas, George Clooney, or whatever normal people dream about, I'm dreaming about saving the handle to a strainer!

Because I never miss an opportunity to...

...give myself a really sweet stache. I love mustaches...and cats...and funny pictures...and seashells...and seahorses...and Meijer brand paper towels with searhorses on them.

Wilda's Birthday Cake.

I bet you wish you were lucky enough to get your hands on a section of cake this cool because then you could walk around at work for 10 minutes saying things like "Who put the wild in Wilda??!" or "Isn't this wild??!!" That's what my boyfriend did... and then he took a picture of it so he could never forget the coolest (and most wild) piece of cake he ever ate.

Cat Scale of Happiness

So, I had my cat declawed last week and he had to spend the night at the vet on Friday. That night I had a dream (rather nightmare) that this genie came to me and showed my cat's level of happiness before and after getting declawed.

GENIE DREAM
Cat level of happiness: Pre-declawing


Cat level of happiness: Post-declawing



REALITY
This was my cat's level of happiness post de-clawing, in real life. I showed that genie!

New comics coming soon!

I apologize for the lack of posts recently, however, there are some new comics in the works and will be posted soon!

Cat toy rip off.

So, Adam bought these toys for the cats yesterday and assumed they had cat nip in them because the toy said "CATNIP" on it. Surprise! They don't. I just don't get it. Why would they stamp "CATNIP" on the toy if they aren't really going to fill it with it. Such a tease. P.S. In case you were wondering, no, I didn't think there was 50lbs in it, but 2oz, or even a dusting, would have been nice!


However, I guess if the company used the same reasoning I had when looking at the toy, they should have stuffed the other one with money! I definitely wouldn't have minded that at all.

The Downfalls of Movie Vending Machines

I apologize the images are kind of small. Try clicking on them to make them bigger. I am new at creating comics, so knowing how best to display them to ensure they are easy to read is something I will have to explore! Enjoy (if you can)!