White-trash comes at a price

Remember how I said that life would be sorely wasted if I did not quickly and completely engage in absolute white-trash behavior (i.e. grow a mullet, marry a cousin, eat squirrel, and recognize a few neighbors if not most of my family while watching Jerry Springer)? Well, after my best friend, Haylee, sent this to me, I think I'd like to reconsider. I mean, did she buy these brand new or did these belong to someone she knew? No, your eyes do not deceive you, unfortunately. This make-shift bra/shirt is in fact, men's underwear. Maybe I don't want to be white-trash afterall.
Although, it does evoke a kind of creativity. I mean, what average person would see a pair of underwear and think, 'What a cute top! I just have to cut out the crotch and I've really got something here." Mind you, if the words, 'if I just cut out the crotch...' ever brush your lips or cross your mind, you should probably admit to being absolutely disgusting and tell your mother so she can disown you. Thats assuming that you even have a mother. People of your circumstance tend to just crawl out from under a rock. Too harsh? Try nursing your wounds with a nice squirrel-kabob and a shopping spree at WalMart.

Marrying into the Brady Bunch....

Since none of my in-laws read this (thanks to it's absolute worthlessness and their complete ignorance of me having a blog...), I feel it safe to discuss their strange quarks and tics. I love Josh's family to no end and seriously would pick them if I were to pick in-laws. The constant problem I run into, however, is actually fitting in. See, the Robbins family is actually nice. Seriously. They like, say 'please,' never swear at each other, and are continually hugging each other, none of which is for show. *minutes go by...* I was just letting you catch your breath after the long gasp. Anyway, these people are seriously my heroes since they truly enjoy being around each other and do this sort of play-teasing thing that really is endearing. They never cross lines, say truly cruel things in jest, or even snap when we've been camping in confined quarters for a week and just need a little breathing space (it might have just been me that needed breathing space. I'm incredibly private when it comes down to it.). But I kid not when I say that if I lived during the pioneer times and was to cross the planes, I would pack up with this family. Josh's mom wears a sweet fanny-pack (Barb still clings to the days where it was acceptable to wear fanny-packs. Bless her.), filled with every imaginable needable thing. Sanitizer? Got it. Soap? Got it. Tissue? Got it. Chapstick? Got it. Portable radio? Got it. Extra pair of pants for every member of the family in five shades of colors? Tucked away in the mysterious fold of the fanny-pack. So what with Barb constantly being prepared and the family being permanently nice, I think I'll put the handcart next to the Robbins.

But what I initially was saying was that I didn't grow up that nice and sometimes I slip in saying things that aren't 'Robbins appropriate (for instance, calling my favorite sis-in-law a 'biotch.' Hey, I was kidding! Her husband needn't get so red-faced). My family is a different sort, really funny but not really that nice. We all love each other but seem to only be able to cope with an hour or two together maximum. I'm not complaining, since I was born and bred in this family and can not consider any other alternative; we would probably all go stark-raving mad and kill each other if we actually hung out more than once every two months for an hour at a time. Its for the best. We prefer it that way. But as for the nice people, the Robbins, they like to get together often, spend long bouts of time together, and actually do stuff together. It continues to blow my mind. For instance, when I went on this camping excursion to the farm with them, guess what Sunday night entails. A talent show. I kid you not. Yeah, everyone had to participate and do their own talent, and imagine this, everyone did. It ended up being really funny, but it always seems to baffle me, the endless amount of brady bunch this family has. I honestly feel like at some point in the night, when I was sleeping, someone picked me up and moved me to a scene on the Brady Bunch. I constantly harass them about it, but again, being the individuals they are, they just laugh and toss out a few coins to a homeless man. The damn saints...

The Robbins are great and surprisingly funny (I was under the impression that to be nice meant to be unfunny; not so much this case). The family isn't perfect, naturally, but they come pretty close. In order to fit in better, I have listed a few qualities or rules I will try abiding. I doubt very much that I will change, since I happen to like who and what I am, but maybe these small guidelines will make the Robbins more comfortable when spending time with a purely evil being.

• I will still try not to curse like a sailor when I'm around them. I will save the cursing to when I am truly and ridiculously mad at Josh, when I don't like what I'm wearing, or when I feel happy, sad, angry, or scared. Just then. I promise.
• I will stop cheating every chance I get when we play games together. No more changing scores, hiding cards, or moving game pieces during the actual game. If someone leaves for a bathroom break, then the rule does not apply.
• I will turn my constant grimace into a smile and the showing of my teeth for smiling rather than snarling.
• I will try to pretend that I don't value sleep more than any amount of bonding time.
  
• I will stop saying, "Who the hell are you and where the hell is my gun?" every time one of the family members walks into the room.
• I will pretend that I do not own a two-piece bathing suit and act confused whenever anyone mentions one. A bikini? Is that a kind of sandwich?
• I will feign devastation when someone suggests listening to anything in the car other than the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
• I will act like I enjoy sleeping in a tent, and prefer not showering for days at a time.
  
• Lastly, I will try to implement the Robbins way of speaking.
• Use the word 'bottom' instead of 'butt'
• Use the word 'psg (passing gas)' instead of 'fart'
• Use the word 'gunk' instead of 'snot'
• Use the word 'bm (bowel movement)' instead of 'poop'
• Use the word 'stink' instead of 'suck,' although this one will truly be a hard one. I do so love to say, "That sucks." *sigh* All good things must come to an end.
• Use the phrase, 'you are the best ever' instead of 'I'm going to rip your innards out'
  

Following these rules will surely make me more like the Robbins, so that maybe, when I die, God will mistake me for one of them and let me go to heaven, too.

I'm famous!

I'm famous, did you hear? Well, maybe you were blissfully unaware; I know I was.

Apparently word has gotten out that I have a remarkable sweet tooth and a divine weakness for maple donut bars. I go into work today and my boss, who also happens to be my bishop, starts telling everyone how he heard from a friend, who heard it from a friend, who heard it from another friend, who heard it from a distant aunt twice removed, that I can eat two Leucadia maple donut bars without blinking. These bars do tend to be a bit above average size, but I grew up in a family where the more full and more sick you were, the better it must be. I never learned to gage my eating based on when I was not hungry anymore, but more on when I felt deliriously sick. You feel only slightly nauseous? Pack in a few more potatoes. Not ready to hurl everything you've eaten in the past week, plus everything you've considered eating? Try some more pie. So I thought nothing of eating a donut the size of my arm, and then eating a second arm donut. But I guess everyone else did since the word is spreading and my fame in donut consumption is growing. I'm pretty proud, as I'm sure my mother is, too. I'm not sure where they will put the monument, but I'm guessing somewhere between Dairy Queen and Baskin Robbins.

White Trash!!

I have decided after long hours of serious contemplation ('serious contemplation' consisting of watching hours of America's Funniest Videos...), I have decided that my newest ambition in life, other than becoming an assassin, is to commit myself wholly to becoming absolute white trash. I have decided that they live better lives than the majority of Americans and I want a piece of that action.

See, I want to be able to park my car on my front lawn (never mind that I don't have my own front lawn...). The sheer brilliancy of it all just only came to me and I'm devastated to death about all the wasted steps I have taken in my lifetime, when I really could have simply parked closer to the front door by parking on the grass. All those years! Imagine the mileage! Probably at least 1/2 mile. Plus, your car covers part of the lawn and you could stop watering the grass, saving on water (if a light bulb just went off in your head too, consider yourself my soulmate. We can call NASA together). Think about it and then seriously tell me that you don't want to be white trash also, though after the serious logic I just presented, I doubt anyone will want anything but white trash paradise. No more haircuts (at least not in the back), shirts with sleeves, homes without wheels, or trucks without a 30 foot lift. Hello, NASCAR!

The other thing I've been thinking about today (I can only think of two things per day before my brain starts to overheat and I start really laughing at America's Funniest Videos. Seriously. That show gets funnier the later it gets), is the obsession we have with all things organic. I realized that I don't really even know what that means, since I was watching the tv auditions for High School Musical 3 (you can stop barfing; I only have one channel and I've finished all my library books. What else is there to do? Don't answer that...), and one of the judges said that the auditionee was, 'not organic enough.' She wasn't 'organic enough?' She was grown using pesticides, maybe? Was I grown with pesticides? Tell me what that means, and I'll tell you who killed Kennedy. Wait. Thats still a mystery right? Because my point would not be made if you already know the answer to that.

Here is a picture (I don't have any of the really cute beach ones) of me, Annie, and Haylee. They came, we partied, they left. Sad day.The second picture is a pic of us at Leesa's (my other friend) wedding shower. Look how cute we are!

Time flies!

Time flies when...

1. You go to work and the receptionist that is 108 years old and recently got plastic surgery to look 97 asks you to assemble 100,000 boxes. I looked at her, saw the sheer joy she had in bossing me around, and realized that my life might afterall, be a complete hellish wasteland. At least I took my boxes into the breakroom, where she couldn't watch and gain the sick satisfaction of knowing she had the ability to command and I to obey (like my sisters, I do not respond well to being told what to do).
   
2. Your friends come to visit you! Haylee and Annie are here, in California, witnessing all that is wonderful in San Diego. Probably not all, since we're not going to San Diego Zoo, SeaWorld, Disneyland, Six Flags, etc., but they will still undoubtedly have an incredible time since they are currently asleep in the next room and I am making to prepare them a delicious bowl of AppleJacks. I'm such a good friend.
3. You stop exercising and eat everything you could ever imagine would be bad for you and then get ready to jump into your old clothes, and realize that they don't fit right. They bulge here and lump up there. No wait, that isn't the clothes. Its my butt.
4. It is any day besides a work day and you realize you have to go back to assembling boxes for the 98 year old grandma with a face job the next day. Evil, evil woman...
   
5. While assembling the said boxes, you start contemplating how you could go and get your Masters, do some volunteer work, save the whales, etc. etc. etc. The second you leave work, however, you forget your noble ambitions and remember that you are perfectly content to sit and watch tv, getting dumber instead. You forget why we're even trying to save whales, what a whale is, how many whales you know, and think more on who is going to win Wipeout (the latest and greatest show on tv). Hahaha.... people go boom. Funny.
6. When you're eating Fruity Pebbles or anything else with high, perhaps toxic concentrations of sugar. Most things I eat fall into that category. Hence the size of my butt and the jiggle in my arms.
7. You start realizing that your dream job would be to work as an assassin. You fit easy into the mold -heartless, ruthless, desire to kill, enjoy the color black -and see that your calling is elsewhere. Assembling boxes is for chumps; you belong on a rooftop with a fine piece of weaponry sitting in your cold, calculating hands.
8. It is time to go and your vising friends are still holed up in their room, not even pretending to be awake. You stomp around, trying to 'accidentally' wake them up. They do not stir. You get angry and remember your future as an assassin, relax, and wait until they become your next assignment. They will rue the day they did not wake up when you wanted them to! Rue the day, I tell you!
9. You realize that you have absolutely lost your mind. I know I have. But who wouldn't with an ancient woman bossing me around, jiggly arms, and two friends who refuse to rise?
   

Back from the farm...

Okay, I'm back from the farm. I have to begin with some very discouraging news to all, I'm sure. Since there is no real way to prepare one for such news, I will have to simply say it. I did not get to feed a baby anything a bottle. *gasp, mixed with an expression of absolute shock* Yes, I know. Life has lost it's purpose, right? The trip was actually really fun, despite constantly sweating (humidity has that effect) and having a constant fear of a tick finding it's way to my innards. We hiked a lot, canoed 15 miles down a river, and just basked in the awesomeness that is the wilderness.

I couldn't help but notice, however, the difference in the day's activities, depending on whether or not the certain person was a parent. There was the kidless group and the kidful group (I say 'kidful' because every person that had kids had a minimum of 3; that's pretty full of kids, if you ask me). There were really advantages and disadvantages to both sides, and I can't decide which group it is better to be in while trecking through the wilds and sleeping in the roughness (I am by no means an 'outdoorsy' type, so any kind of sleeping done outside of a fluffy four-posted bed is technically 'roughing it'). Sometimes it was advantageous to be in the kidful group, because Josh's mom would get them better treats. Sometimes it was advantageous to be in the kidless group because you could spontaneously decide to go on a 2 hour hike through incredibly dense forest without having to pack for an 87 day adventure. Seriously though. We would be going to take one of the kids 14 feet away and the mom of the said child would be stuffing diapers, changes of clothes, bottles, tools, toys, pictures, food, cameras and every other imaginable and unimaginable object alike, into a very small and very black bag of sorts. It was astounding, if not heavy.

I also realized while adventuring in the midwest (we hit Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri) that there were times I was too busy sweating to actually do anything else. Seriously. Sweating became more of an activity than a bi-product or result of another activity. People would ask what we were going to do later that night and we would shrug, look around at each other, and say that we were probably just going to sweat tonight. They would nod and say that they were initially planning on sweating Friday night, but that they had to go to their son's Little League game instead. Little did they know that they would likely be doing both.

Here are some pictures and stuff. We spent the first day in St. Louis and went to a Cardinals game. Here is Josh and I...

While still in St. Louis, we went to the arch, the Gateway to the West. Here is a picture of us gangmembers doing the sign for 8, being that we were riding in pod 8 to the top of the arch. Don't ask. We think we're pretty cool.
After St. Louis, we went to grandma's farm for a couple of days. Here are some pictures of the barns and the dilapidated house that houses the corpses of many dead animals. Its pretty on the outside, but very creepy on the inside.


After battling it out with nature, I stole over to Utah for a little time with two of my sisters, or 'sistas' as they are apparently called (props to Meg). It was awesome being back (I'm pretty pathetic since I've only been gone for about 3 months), and I had a blast that weekend. Something unusual for me, but not so unusual for my white-trash sister, Meg, is the roller blading we did. We are pretty awesome.
And here are me, Meg, and Britt on the Sunday that I left, right before we went to church (damn, we're righteous). The night before all 3 of us went to dinner and a movie (my absolute favorite date ever...), with my two best friends, Annie and Haylee. It was rad.

Wilbur takes first!

I just want everyone to know that I will be indisposed (whatever that means...) for the next week and a half. Josh's grandma has a farm out in Illinois, so we will be adventuring with the rest of the Robbins out there to the muggy midwest. I'm actually getting pretty pumped about it (Josh is shaking his head and calling me a liar), and am ready to feed some baby cows with bottles. See, I wasn't exactly gung-ho about the whole experience, being that his entire family described to me images of picking ticks off each other's backs like some kind of chimpanzee family, so I was pretty much dreading it. The Robbins don't exaggerate or lie so I know that when Sarah, the baby Robbins, told me how it wasn't that big of a deal and that the girls all comb through each other's hair every night, hunting for any unwanted guests, I not so mildly freaked out. Are you kidding me?! I was dead set on sabotaging the entire trip by feigning an illness, pretending my leg got cut off the day before, or even going so far as to take Josh as hostage and threaten to demolish him should anyone force me to climb aboard the plane to Planet of Disgusting Bugs. But that all changed when Josh made me the most beautiful promise ever. He promised that I would be able to hold a new baby cow, clean and sparkling, in my lap and feed the little sucker a bottle of milk (He also promised to catch me fireflies, but since that is just another form of bug, I was less than impressed). I would love nothing more than to feed baby anythings with bottles, so I am officially jazzed (see all the peppy words I'm using?) to go to the Tick Farm (a.k.a. Josh's grandma's farm).

I know you all will be fairly devastated to not have my oh-so-incredible blog to read every week, but I must apologize since there is a baby cow that has magically been wiped of it's mud and poo, waiting for me and me alone, to nurse it back to health. The cow has probably gotten very skinny and sick looking, and Josh's grandma is probably going to have to shoot it soon. I will sweep in, rescuing the little cow from it's doomed fate, and take the little reject under my wing. I will gradually (we're only there for a week so 'gradual' really means rapid fire) feed and nurture the once-starved calf back to life. The cow will blossom into adulthood, being the strongest and biggest cow Josh's grandma has ever set eyes on (that's saying a lot since she has been raising beef for nearly 50 years...). I will take him to the fair, where little Wilbur (the name of my cow, duh!) will take first place. First place! Imagine! I will ride Wilbur back to the farm, cry, and say my goodbyes. Wilbur will continue to grow strong and beautiful, and Josh' grandma will send me pictures of him, with sentences like, "The best cow ever!" or "We couldn't have done it without you feeding and believing in Wilbur! You're the best person in the entire midwest!" written on the back.

So that is why I won't be updating my blog for the next little while. I will be on a farm, feeding a cow with a bottle, and then taking it to the fair to win first place. *sigh* I just wish we could do something less noble every now and again, but it seems we aren't anything less than noble or heroic (apparently going to a farm is both noble and heroic...).