Happy Friday, happy list.

Happy Friday!

It's time for a happy list.

1. The weekend will be here very soon!
2. Last night, I started making some more pumpkins.
   
3. I have leftover macaroni and cheese and okra for lunch.
4. I saw an Iowa quarter this week and discovered the motto "Foundation in education." I intend to ask my Iowan brother-in-law why he uses so many double negatives if that is the case. I meant to ask him last night, but he asked me to Thanksgiving lunch, then Thanksgiving supper, and then kicked me off the phone in under 4 minutes so I didn't have the chance. He even managed to begin berating me for going to Wal-Mart after 8 p.m. until I told him I was there with a friend. I felt loved.
5. I bought some more foundation last night. Foundation is really great for covering up what your skin actually looks like. That sounds like a dumb and shallow thing to say, but for right now, I would prefer you not see what my skin actually looks like.
   
6. The sun is shining today.
7. When I checked my email this morning, my mom had sent me this article. I would have seen it anyway, but it was more exciting to see it in an email along with Mom's ideas and suggestions.
8. This is currently my favorite picture of Cody. Laine took it back in August. It's very...him. I would like to point out that he has clearly lost weight since then. Yay for being fit!
9. My husband is Rubenesque. It's attractive. He seems concerned that I would use this term for a man, but still. However you want to describe it, he is handsome and that makes me very happy.
   
10. The cold has yet to kill my solitary marigold plant on the back porch. It's a nice spot of orange cheerfulness at our back door.
11. I finally remembered to buy gum. I love gum.
12. Last Sunday my parents were in the area and they came by to see us because I didn't feel well and Mom had never met my house. I made her look at all my arts and crafts and she dutifully praised each project. She genuinely seemed to enjoy the banner in the hallway of these pictures.

(Photo by Brian)

These are against a green satin ribbon (yes, I still have tons of green ribbon left over from my wedding) with blue knots. It's cute.
13. Thanksgiving is less than a week away!
14. My birthday is less than a month away! I will be 27. I'm such a big girl.
15. Arts and crafts.

At least there are flowers?

So.

I went home yesterday, still enjoying my second bottle of Mt. Dew for the day. I checked the walls of the closet, which weren't great. But: they also weren't as bad as the night before.

Score.

I washed the walls down again and gathered up some clothes for the laundromat.

I even found a pair of jeans I'd lost (the nicest pair I have! Fine, it's a very relative term). They weren't just under the bed. They were under the bed and wedged behind several items. I'm just glad I found them. It's a small house with few areas for clothing to get lost. I thought I was losing my mind.

You may have noticed. Ahem.

Anywayyyy, I went to the laundromat and washed 3 loads of pajama pants, towels, Cody's smelly work clothes, and one of his caps. This cap, actually.


Fine, you can't see the cap. Sara brought it home from work. A co-worker had it and didn't need it and asked Sara if she knew any little boys who might want it.

You can't tell in this picture, but the Spiderman logo is on it.

Sara immediately thought of Cody and made his day. Look at how happy he is about it!

Cody's not really a hat guy, but he wears caps at the restaurant. He can't run around in the kitchen all willy-nilly and make cheeseburgers and pie and whatnot with his hair flying all over the place.

Spencer wears bandanas. Cody wears caps. Food is safe.

Unfortunately, this fabulous Spiderman cap happened to be in the closet during the middle of my Great Mold Meltdown and I couldn't tell if it was covered in flour or mold. It smelled like a vat of cooking grease either way, so I decided to wash it.

Anyway, I sat and read while the clothes were washing. I switched the clothes over to dryers at the appropriate time. I continued reading. I actually kept feeding quarters into the machine because 1) I'm not bringing slightly damp towels into our little corner of moldy hell and 2) I wanted to finish my book.

Mostly #2.

I finished my book. I pulled out the pajama pants and towels and Cody's dingy work clothes and .....

...and....

uh, his cap.

Now. You can wash a baseball cap and have it turn out relatively okay. It will come out a little different and misshapen but wearing it for a little while should straighten it out just fine.

Drying, on the other hand, is completely foreign territory to me. Based on what I saw last night, people tell you to air dry caps for a reason.

It's just a little warped and shrivelled and, ultimately, ruined.

Oh dear.

It's not his only cap, but this was not quite part of the plan. I don't like laundry mishaps.

Sidenote: you know how yesterday I said that I told Cody on Tuesday he should bring me flowers and he didn't and he said he didn't know what I was talking about, etc.? Awkward story: I wrote the text and never sent it. No wonder he was confused.

I decided to be nice and buy him some apology flowers. I could write a whole separate post about how I love buying those cheap grocery store boquets and dividing them up to make pretty arrangements. Because when I went home, that's what I did.

And then Cody came home and still hadn't brought me flowers after I actually sent him the text, so I decided to keep them for myself. Since we live in the same house, it really doesn't matter.

He assured me that all of his caps are covered in flour or that stuff you bread catfish with or something.

I think he just wants me to leave them alone.

Especially since I killed that Spiderman cap. It is utterly destroyed.

He looked at it and declared that it was completely fine. But since he couldn't actually make it fit on his head, I think he was just trying to be polite.

Goodbye, poor Spiderman cap. We will remember you fondly and treasure this picture forever.
Mostly because this picture is fantastic.

In conclusion, be careful about washing baseball caps.

Flower pictures

I don't like November today.

I miss flowers and sunshine and growth.

At least there are pumpkins

It's cloudy.

It's cold.

My house is trashed.

Everything is dirty.

I'm out of dishtowels.

I'm going to the laundromat.

I have intense dislike for the laundromat.

My stomach is growling.

I'm filling it up with coffee.

That doesn't seem to help.

I'm tired.

It's asthma/self-pity season.

My husband cooks with cheese and won't rinse it off of things immediately, leaving me with congealed cheese.

I looked at the dirty dishes last night, started crying, and went to the couch.

I had already swept the house.

I'm not supposed to be kicking up dust.

Cody had tracked in dirt everywhere.

He doesn't remember doing it, so he isn't sorry.

I told him he owed me flowers, and he didn't bring me any.

I threw away half of my shoes last night because my damp closet is up against an outside wall and the other half of the house is unheated.

Mold.

Green.

Gray.

Blueish.

Fuzzy mold.

I called my mother in tears because most of my shoes molded.

Some can be saved.

I am trekking out to the farm this weekend so I can mooch off my mother's really nice washer and dryer while my dad washes my shoes and polishes them with whatever he uses to polish shoes.

No, not just shoe polish.

It has something to do with saddle leather.

Only one pair of Cody's shoes will need to be cleaned.

There are apparently benefits to leaving your shoes out everywhere (aside from tripping me).

Like they won't mold in the closet.

I didn't even realize this would be a problem.

I would muster the effort to say "We're not dirty people," but we are. We are covered in dirt and dust and mold and congealed cheese.

I am also a little certain that Cody set something on fire on the stovetop.

I've already washed down the walls and floors once.

Some of my shoes are all cleaned up already.

There is just a lot left.

I'm tired.

I'm sick.

I'm cranky.

I accidentally wore pants on Duggar Day!

Dirty dishes and heavy loads of towels and jeans are filling up my evening (they can't wait until this weekend).

I'm weak.

So, before this depression goes on for much longer let me leave you with some positive things.

1. I am wearing a cardigan. I look very serious and 'together' in it because it is black.
2. I found a (very detailed) tutorial for the pumpkins featured on page 183 of the November issue of Martha Stewart Living. I wish I could show you a picture of some of mine. But I don't have a digital camera for instant Internet gratification (no! Stay positive!). Then I could show you how I knitted the stems of the pumpkins instead of sewing them. I mostly did that because I love the yarn I used. Just check out this link, though. Her pictures are lovely.
   
3. I am about to enjoy my third cup of coffee. Everything gets better with the third cup of coffee.
   

At least you're not that poor beaver

About a month ago, my sister Laine went on a camping trip.

She subsequently took some pictures and uploaded them to facebook, as is the mandatory custom of our generation.

Unlike many people, though, her witty captions truly are funny.

And that is why seeing this picture with this caption made my day.

"This poor beaver. He gnawed this entire tree, and it looks so cool, but when it fell, it just got stuck in a bunch of other trees and didn't hit the groud [sic]. I bet that beaver killed himself after this incident."

A month later, it's still one of the most hilariously depressing things I've ever seen and I still love it every time I look at it.

So. That is my offering to you today.