You're a monster-

Well, perhaps. It is Halloween by the way. You can do what you want. Just be prepared for the candy to follow.

Sorry to be boring, but have you been eating all the fall stuff you need to be eating? Like potatoes, pumpkin, and cinnamon? I'm just asking because Christmas comes but once a year, and it's only around this time I actually eat apples. When is a better time? Never.

What am I doing right now? Eating second lunch. It's a delicious scalloped potato and cheese dish. It pleases me, this dish. Lunch was a sloppy joe. I met two people at work who had never heard that song before. So I shared it with them. Weird.

After work, I'm going to help my friend Emma make her mermaid costume. She already looks like a mermaid, but I'll do my best to sew her into a fish costume. Doesn't she know she's already all of Ariel's dreams come true?

Charles and I need to get his costume. He insists his costume should be a secret from everyone until the big day. So, I guess we'll surprise everyone with a big reveal next week, after the fact.

Happy Birthday to my eldest sister America and Charles' eldest sister Jenny. It's a great day to be born the eldest. Woot you two!

Our garden is not growing very fast anymore. I don't know if it's due to lack of sunlight or what. Hopefully they'll keep growing, despite the what. We could really use some crazy grazing at our house. See apple pie and quiche from last weeks lunches.

Whenever I see people have been canning all over the place, I feel the need for a fruit tree. However, I know all trees produce differently, and when would I eat all that fruit? I do love fruit though, so I would try. My favorite fruits of the moment are:

1. Raspberries
2. Apples
3. Strawberries
4. Bananas

This is what we've been putting in our smoothies: yogurt, orange juice, spinach, bananas, strawberries, raspberries. So I guess you could say my favorite fruits are very smooth. You can also put carrots and apples into your smoothies. Or kale..bleh. Too healthy. Blend it all up and you're drinking magic.

My friend Megan also posted this divine looking pumpkin cookie recipe, so I'm going to link it here so you can find it and make them too. They look sooo grood.

I want to be a witch-

For Halloween. I don't want to be some other weird thing. Everyone knows a witch is a great costume for a mommy. I'm no mommy, but I'm sure everyone wishes I were. Someday. Don't worry, we'll have beautiful babies for show, at the latest, in 2030.

Charles wants to be Batman. For realzies though, not just for Halloween. He saw a video where this guy talks like Batman to torture his wife and he loved it. So he was doing that for a little while. Once in a while for me is great, but when he was doing it all the time it freaked me out a little bit. He loves this talent of his. He liked to talk in that voice to Kitty because she wasn't scared of it, she just smiled up at him like he was the sanest person out there. She's a baby. She doesn't know.

I sometimes wish I could do cool deep voices. My voice was not made for such things however. So I will have to be content with my shrill voices. Witches have shrill voices. See what I did there?

Now, I will need a pointy hat. I can probably use my brown boots. Do witches wear brown? Well, I'll be a cowboy witch. That's not something you see every day. I will capture the cat that keeps digging in my garden. I will put it in my giant bird cage and make Charles carry it around. He is the best husband ever. Batman loves cats anyway. Didn't he marry Cat woman? I guess it does matter what kind of cat, but I am a little older and I graduated from BYU. So Cougar it is.

We have to bring some candy. We will trade out the sugar, teeth decaying candy from our house and maybe score some chocolate to bring home with us. We don't have any kids though. Perhaps we can borrow one. We should just worry about building up our carrot stick hoard. I'll put Charles in charge of that.

Speaking of sticks, I could bring my broom. It's not a fancy witch broom. Who cares? If anyone asks me about it, I will turn him into a toad. Then I will feed him to the cat. That'll teach him to not ask silly questions.

I don't think face painting is allowed. Thank goodness. Face paint always makes my face itch. I painted my face once for a BYU football game and by the end, I wanted to scratch my face off. I will also make my hair look a little crazy. Perhaps put a couple barrettes in it? Thanks, I will do that. I'll just do it how I usually do it.

Ok, we are making chili and that's a wrap. Or is it rap? We should do a Halloween rap. You dig? Aw Snap. Busta Cap!!! Witches.

Ode to comments - An excerpt from Awkward Begets Happiness-

Rachel, if you could get me some motivational speaking gigs, I would so be there. I love hearing myself speak and dancing around in front of people. I guess you could say it's one of my talents. If not, it's just something I love to do.

Heather, this one's for you. A little sample from my book. I know many Heathers. You are my favorite one. No offense to the other Heathers, but I have known you the longest. Maybe it is and maybe it isn't. Oh, and in response to the Mighty Mouse coloring book comment, which I'm not sure you saw, I didn't color in it because I was saving it. It was too cool to color. And now it is dust in the wind. Long live Mighty Mouse.

Buried Treasure

Starting in kindergarten and extending all the way through high school, my personality took some time to blossom. In high school, it usually took me a full semester, 4 months, to get comfortable and during the next four months, everyone would wonder who the weirdo was that had taken over my body. I did have some outgoing friends that inspired me to climb out of myself. One of those friends was named Stephanie.

Stephanie was always encouraging me to shine. When she called me up, we would go out and do things together. I turned into a semi-social butterfly instead of folding into some kind of stunted moth partly because of her. One particular Saturday Stephanie was bored.

When she called me up, she said we were going to make brownies. When she came over and told me were going to give them away, I groaned inwardly. The plan was to make brownies and take them to her boyfriend Frank. Do not get me wrong, Frank was a fantastic boyfriend for her and a great friend to me. I just did not want to make treats for someone else. Look at me, I am wasting away over here!

Besides that, I also reminded Stephanie about the never ending game of tag we encouraged in our circle of guy friends. Futile as it seemed, we insisted on playing a modified version of tag.

Instead of mutual running and tagging, our version was mostly giggly girls running up to boys and saying“Tag, you’re it. You’re it. Tag, come chase me. Hey, want to play?” Laughing off my qualms, Stephanie insisted on an offering of delicacies headed straight to Frank’s mouth.

After glorying in this confection perfection, we drove my sporty red Toby twenty minutes to Frank’s pad. Unfortunately, during a fateful timing accident, a policewoman also gave me a ticket for running a red light. I did not run it; I was in the middle of an intersection and did not want to block oncoming traffic. Truly undeserved, but given anyway, this ticket was a cause of grief on our otherwise joyful goody trip.

When we got there, Frank popped the door and showed us in. Stephanie presented him with the platter of brownies he courteously directed us to furniture. Stephanie sat by Frank on a bench and I sat on a cushy flowered chair across from them.

After arranging ourselves in comfort, Steph went into an elucidation of our Nazi policewoman experience. While doing so, Stephanie requested the plate of brownies and delved into its sugary goodness, accidentally dropping a tidbit onto her awaiting cleavage. This confection went unnoticed by Stephanie but was observed by Frank’s acute senses, who must have waited a full two minutes before abashedly pointing to her face and saying, “You’ve got something on your…”

Both Stephanie and I watched where his finger pointed and thought she had some chocolate on her face. Stephanie spotted her vixen opportunity and decided to play it coy. She slyly grinned and with a shimmy shake of her upper body said, “Oh, really? Why don’t you get it for me?” Poor Frank, confused and blushing responded, “Because I don’t want to.”

By that time I had realized the cause of Frank’s supreme embarrassment. I never saw any chocolate on Stephanie’s face, so I looked down to her chest. Lying somberly on a cushion of unabashed chest flesh, lay a fat brownie crumb. Since I now saw the situation from both vantage points, I let out a high pitched squeal. Sucking in gasps of air sandwiched between loud guffaws of laughter, I somehow managed to point out Stephanie’s lost morsel to her.

Mortified, she pinched the lost crumb between her thumb and forefinger and devoured it. Frank’s embarrassment was akin to Stephanie’s and as they both sat in astonished consternation I stood up to retrieve another delicious cookie. Stephanie swore off brownies before dying of embarrassment.

This story had to go into a book. Embarrassment happens to everyone including Stephanie, me, and Frank. Being a good sport makes any story worthwhile. Playing tag is a fun game when everyone plays. It stops being fun when nobody is serious about the game anymore.

When you stop paying attention to your garden, weeds sprout up and take over. Do not think you can plant a garden without taking care of it afterwards and expect a large harvest. Plants and relationships need time and care to develop to their full potential.

Moral: When people start leaving and paying attention to other things, the game loses its charm. Advice: Be a good sport and play the game with your whole heart.

Ahh the French-

Perhaps I should mention other countries in my blog posts, but this week, since more people from France (71) have looked at my blog than people from the United States (70), I am thrilled and don't mind mentioning anyone else. It might be due to past references of the French. I do love me some French bread.

In other news, I am working towards getting my book published, but it takes forever and gee whiz if it isn't a pain to edit my lovely word child over and over again. However, as Orson Scott Card said, don't get mad if nobody wants to publish your book. Just make it worth publishing. Something about risk and publishers assuming it all, yada yada. True dat.

So I decided to write a Query letter on my blog. That way, you people have to read it, or have already stopped reading this. If you like, you can give advice about what to change so you would actually want to read this book. Or if you know anyone who wants to publish a book like mine, or mine, let me know.

I know, it's shameless of me to talk about my book Awkward Begets Happiness: Memoirs of a Playa on my blog. However, I'm assuming if you read this blog, you would also be totally interested in reading a whole book based off all the embarrassing situations I have been. Or at least a small percentage of them. Plus, Amanda, Cyndi, Sarah, Bonnie, Tiffanie, Heather, Summer, and Clint, your stories are in here. That said, here is my query letter thus far:

Query Letter

Attn. Mrs. Snoops (that's you):

(The Hook) So I said, “Yes, but if you touch me, I’ll put my skate in your face.” Every bad situation includes serious awkwardness. In Awkward Begets Happiness, a 47,289 word compilation of essays, readers experience weirder than fiction yet relatable stories and walk away with a smirk and some advice for love and life.

(Mini Synopsis) Embarrassment feeds growth. That is what I will tell my drama filled teenagers someday. Yet teenagers do not have a monopoly on embarrassment. You know it and I know it. This compilation of humorous essays tells of awkward dating stories, life experiences, and that time my hand got stuck in the buttcrack of an acquaintance.

(Writer's Bio) As an active blogger, I have more than 500 page views monthly and 16,740 views in its history. I have always loved reading. I always had more than my fair share of awkwardness and began collecting these stories to prove that others have similar experiences. I read about your (agent's accomplishments).

Thank you for your time and consideration. I have included an outline, table of contents, and sample chapters for your review.

Sincerely,


Merilee Ward

I then will include my table of contents and outline. Except my table of contents is just a list of chapters and my outline is just a list of chapters with little blurbs and a quote for each story. Turns out my story is 76 pages, but my outline is 6 pages.

Oh you little faker-

Once again, I am blogging about Wells Fargo. Come on Fargy, you would think after the first three calls you would have gotten it right. Perhaps after three more, it will be all settled.

So remember how I had to call in and get my stolen credit card number set to rights? We also got a notice from Wells Fargo telling us to sign the paper if we had not authorized the charges. Both people on the card had to sign it and they would take care of the rest.

Imagine my dismay, when I noticed duplicate charges again on my credit card statement for the fraud charges. After calling in yesterday to straighten it out, we found out the person who had received our paper had gotten confused. They thought by signing the paper, we admitted to authorizing those charges. So they put the charges back on our credit card.

HELLO! Why in the world would we call in and say we had not authorized those charges, and then sign a paper that said we did? And why in the world did the last girl I called tell me it was all taken care of when I told her exactly what I told the guy yesterday and he found the problem after a minute or two?

Seriously? No, seriously! Why would I keep my money in a place that is always making clerical errors? Money is important to me. Maybe it is not important to you, but it is to me. Bank.

So dumb. I am not pleased. Thanks for listening to my rant, especially since I have not written in a whole week. Why have I not written? Because I have been working on my book silly, like I told you before. And now, I am on page 67 of 71 and am terribly excited to finish it.

Did you see how my book has grown? Now it is 10 more pages than it was before. I think it's because I've added some spaces and tried clarifying some inconsistencies- thanks Heidi. Anyway, I am excited about where this can go. Will go! I wrote a book and it will see the light of day. It's in my life plan yo.

And I donated my hair. I know, you already saw my pictures on Facebook. However, just in case you are one of the people in France that reads, here are some pictures.

Lefty toilets-

I have never noticed before today, but the lady's room at my office has a flusher on the left and the men's room has a flusher on the right. What in the world?

You are probably wondering what I was doing in the men's room. Well, that's a great question. Anyway, back to the point. Why in the world are the flushers on different sides for men and women? I'm not lefty, but I am glad our lady flushers are located on the left.

Some people like change. I love change, but it's in an owl on my dresser ie. chest of drawers. As I say it, the chesterdrawers. Obviously that is the correct way to say it. Who in their right mind would just say dresser with such an interesting substitute resting on the tip of their tongue. Granted, it is quite difficult to say multiple times in a row, but who does that? Nobody does. And everybody dislikes nobody. So there. 

Aside from the button conspiracy, belts are also opposite for men/women. Truth be told, I belt my waist as a man. Clearly I was taught at a young age to be ambidextrous. There is no other explanation for it. Why do belts look like snakes? Or why do snakes look like belts?

I am also a lefty at pool. Congratulations people, you are in the company of a gifted friend. Clearly if you read my blog, you are my friend. Welcome, friends. Welcome also my enemies, who are looking into all my devious and deciduous plots and deciding when to spring your counter plots. Well, cheerio and add some milk, because the day is young and I'm wearing a striped shirt today. Plus, spring is a good time to foil deciduous plots, because the winter is over and summer is afoot. 

Now, I use the men's room here when the women's room is occupied, because I don't want to have to walk to the end of the hall or downstairs to all the other unisex bathrooms in the building which are not specifically labeled. I do say, wot wot. Who cares what the label says if it's a single person use bathroom. I would hope nobody is using the door sign as an excuse to pee on the seat- if you'll pardon my French.

In other bathroom news, we've put coffee grounds- from my work- on the garden bed, brushed the top of the fence with grounds, and covered the dirt with nothing but net- and we're three days without a cat digging in our garden. Hooray and hallelujah. I saw a tabby around our place the other day. It was right by my parking spot and I figured it was probably The One. You, orange tabby, get away from my garden.

Last week, I looked through a couple forums to see what to do about our cat problem. One person wrote concerned about their neighbor's newly placed fence spikes. I was impressed by the neighbor's creativity. However, the person posting was concerned about the spikes harming her cat. Clearly she does not understand the point. Keep your cat out of your neighbors' yard.

I was also surprised by the sheer number of cat lovers befouling said neighbors' ingenuity, each in agreement that such cruelty was atrocious. Those spikes could seriously wound the writer's cat and encouraging her to send any vet bills caused by the fence to her surly neighbor. I was alternately delighted to read a comment by another guy saying if her cat was planting feces in his garden, he would do more than put spikes on his fence. What a hilarious bunch of comments. Come on people, don't be dumb. Take care of your cats. 

I have dedicated some of my extra writing time to edit my book. Some of you have read it. It's called Memoirs of a Playa. I thought I had put it someplace on my blog, but I could not find it anywhere when I looked for it today. I'm on page 23 of 62 pages. Believe me, it is high time I edited this baby again. Then maybe I can send it out to readers and publishers and whomever wants to make my writing dreams come true. 

I have a friend, Heidi, who is getting a work of fiction published. Congratulations Heidi! I know your book will be great! Editing is such a pain and totally worthwhile. Even as I am editing, I feel the book getting more interesting and refined. Of course I do, I'm writing it. Anyway, I have added a couple things Heidi suggested and am working to increase my readership so I can prove people would actually buy the book. You would buy the book wouldn't you? I have been thinking of changing the title to Awkward Begets Happiness. 

It's just a huge story fest. Mostly they're awkward dating stories, but some are just awkward stories. You know how my life is, chalk full of weird. I'm beginning to think perhaps 40% of those situations were of my own volition. Maybe when I get closer to finishing my grand edit, I'll post a story or two on here and fuel your interest. I mean, come on, it's already 62 pages and it is not even double-spaced.