Facebook – The UnderToad

Because She Should Write a Book But She’ll Never Finish It

Meet Tiffani Price. She’s small town Texas girl, mother (two kids, several chickens, probably some goats and horses, and a countless number of dogs and cats), and wife to a man who spends at least half the year on an oil rig in the Gulf. She’s a crazy Right-Wing conservative and outspoken Evangelical who, I trust, has a direct line to the office of God himself. When it comes to habits of organization, patience with children, and our general approaches to home-management, she and I are probably polar opposites.

Yet. I love her.
When I met her over fifteen years ago, she was Tiffani Wright, and she lived across the hall from me at Baylor University. She was a theater major, and the size of her laugh was only outmatched by the size of her hair on a rainy day in Waco. She left school in September when her little brother was tragically killed in a car accident, sad for many reasons, not the least of which was the fact that her only-child roommate who had never cleaned a macaroni and cheese pot in her entire life sort of adopted me and my roommates to help take care of her (for the next four years). I haven’t seen Tiffani since 2003, but I feel confident that if she moved in next door, we’d pick up like we’d been together every day for the last decade.

She does nothing on a small scale. From her house, to her hair, to her heart. I could try to tell you all about how refreshingly honest she is, or how, despite her sense of humor, how much she actually cares about people, but instead, I’ve simply stolen her words from the last few years of Facebook posts, and today I’m calling her a “guest writer.” This isn’t a best-of list, by any means, because I’ve left too much out. But it is good for a chuckle today.

Enjoy.

I tried on a strapless bra today and I’m pretty sure I heard my boobs laugh at me. Well, the right one did. The left one is usually quiet.
Inferiority complex.

Welllll, my web surfing has taught me another very valuable lesson tonight. In the world of high fashion and even higher priced vacations, there is a new term in swimwear. It’s called the “Brazilian bottom.” Now, I figured with my keen vocabulary and the use of context clues I had that one pegged. Nope. Come to find out it does NOT indeed involve the use of spa grade roadside tar or a new role of duct tape. It DOES, however, revolve wholly around the idea that skinny girls like wedgies and that designers know this and will ask said skinny girls to pay $150+ for a bathing suit bottom that gives them one. This proves to me yet again that the amount of calories you ingest directly affects your I.Q. If these skinny girls would just eat a little something every now and then, they would realize they could buy a regular swimsuit for half the price and their hiney would do the rest of the work.
It’s been working for chubby girls for years.
It’s sad, y’all. Somebody needs to organize an intervention.

Ohhhhhh people of the world, you just don’t even KNOW how hard it was NOT to buy Keith a speedo today while looking for swim trunks for him online.
The look on his face when he pulled that thing out of his luggage. . . I can’t even.
I might still.
OMG- this one has an American flag on it.

You know that day when you realize you’re going to be in a swimsuit in two weeks and you need to lose 40lbs in ten days?
It’s that day.
I heard the body wraps are awesome, but I’m pretttty sure the only way that’s gonna work is if I get her to wrap it around my head so no food can get in.

5 am for an 8-y-o’s softball tournament is really pushing the limits of sanity.

So Izaac’s t-ball practices are scheduled for 7:15 – 8:30 pm.
Am I the only person who thinks that’s an INSANE time for a bunch of 5 & 6-year-olds?

Getting passports for the kids. Because you don’t need jack to get in, but you need your family history, a detailed grocery list and a blood sample to get out.

Well it’s official.
I shaved my legs just in time for Mother Nature to decide to spaz completely out.
What a waste of a roll of weed eater string.

Being a mom is all fun and games until you sit on a wet toilet seat.

The ballet was amazing. Well, it was until the middle of the sugarplum fairy solo, when, in a deathly quiet theater, Bella pooted right on my lap. Oh. My. Gosh… I spent the remainder of the show trying desperately to convince everyone around me it was her. Hard to do without talking – and in the dark.

I just almost died. Seriously. I had Bella thrown over my shoulder while we were playing, and right as I was flipping her back up, she reached both hands down my pajama pants… and grabbed my thong. And held on for dear life. Like she was spelunking. So I pretty much used my three-year-old to dismember myself.
I am going tomorrow to apply for disability.

Saw a three-year-old little boy slap his mama in the face repeatedly today at the elementary school during a fit… apparently the “Butt Whipping Fairy” does not visit his house as often as it does mine.

Cereal stinks. It’s supposed to be the “fast and easy” way to serve breakfast.
By the time I clean up the milk and all of the little fruit loops catapulted across the living room, I could’ve made eggs and bacon.

I am WAY too chubby for 100 degree plus weather. Seriously, my sweat is sweating.

We can send a man to the friggin’ moon, but we can’t create a firework that explodes in the shape of Dora?
Common, NASA, get your priorities straight!

Do you think that C.P.S. can come get me for feeding my three-year-old brownies and Doritios for supper?… not that I DID that, but in the event that something like that were to occur in the future….

Breaking a 3 day water fast at Freebirds World Burrito is a BAD IDEA.
So I hear.

I am missing my husband soooo much tonight.
I know I get all ooey-gooey a lot, but I love him so stinking much. I miss him and I appreciate him more and more every day.
And of course the kids have some weird skin rash and I have no idea where to get my registration sticker renewed and there’s a gecko in my bathroom and he needs to be here for stuff like that. I’ve checked, and I’m only good for elementary craft projects and incidents that somehow include farm animals, crazy glue or unfortunate bowel issues.
Love you, Keith. Thanks for handling the crazy.
Now tell me again how I get a new sticker?

It’s almost that time of year!
You know, that time of year when all of the Crossfit, eat right, “check this out you fatties, I just rode my bike to the moon and back while you were eating a donut” crowd starts complaining about all of the extra people at the gym.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

I am the hamburger helper of housekeepers.

You know that night when you vacuum up a bunch of red glitter in a Dyson, look down as it catches the light and think you’ve caught your vacuum cleaner on fire?
Yeah. It’s that night.

So, apparently I had a handlebar mustache that no one was telling me about.
Either that, or the woman who just waxed my ENTIRE FACE is on a personal crusade to eliminate duck face.
Thank you Yeow Chi, but I’d really like my lip back. And please put it on ice for transport.

Found out today that some company has come out with bacon scented deodorant.
Personally, I’m going to be a very unhappy consumer if the marketing plan for this endeavor does not include the phrase “pork pits.”

The bras at JUSTICE are padded.
Padded.
The bras are padded.
I have lost all faith in humanity.

So, I’ve learned a few interesting things while being at Round Top this year.
One- it always rains, bring Wellies.
Two- it’s hot. Wear linen. (Those people dressed like pirates might actually be smarter than you think.)
And three- when you complain of boob sweat and the older lady you’re with tells you the perfect remedy is corn starch, do NOT confuse that with corn MEAL or you could very easily end up with a muffin in your bra.
Now you know.

Carter, Confessions, Eliott

Life With Eliott and Carter, 2012 Edition

January 29
John to Me: Does this shirt make me look like I’m trying to be 18?
Me: Why, because it says Abercrombie?
John: Yes, or because it’s so tight?
Me: No, you look good. It isn’t too tight. Seriously. Leave it, we have to go.
Carter: Daddy, you wearing you nipples today?
John: Nevermind, I’m changing.

February 3
“Well, we could choose apple juice, milk or water. And this girl in my class said, ‘Everyone who chooses apple juice only can be my friend.’ So I chose milk. But guess what, when we got to the Life Center, she was still my friend.”
Somebody get this girl a D.A.R.E. Bear, now.

Continue reading “Life With Eliott and Carter, 2012 Edition” →

Confessions

My Super Power

I finally figured out how to add birthdays to the Google calendar on my iPhone. (You have to add it as ‘extra’ info to individuals in your contacts list, FYI.) Whenever I’m outside with the kids, I need a mind numbing activity to make my otherwise malaise afternoons feel more productive, you know? So I went through my entire contacts list and added as many birthdays as I could remember. Don’t quote me on this as a hard and fast fact, but I’d like to report that of all my friendships, pre-marriage and definitely pre-babies, I could remember nearly every single birthday. I could probably recall about half of those who were added to my already-full-of-useless-information, post-baby brain. It dawned on me, about three-quarters of the way through this process, that if I can actually remember birthdates, why add them to my calendar? I don’t know. It felt productive.

For this reason (among so many others), I hate Facebook. By publishing and announcing in advance that one of my friends has an upcoming birthday, my “Look, I remembered your birthday,” has completely lost its value. One of the best things about birthday wishes is the surprise of who actually remembers and takes the time to announce it. And the thing is, it isn’t that I expect people to remember my birthday just because I can remember theirs. I actually just love being being that one person who remembers everyone’s birthdays.

I used to be the same way with phone numbers. I owned my first cell phone at the age of 22, and even then, it was on short-term no-contract* basis. I never even took the time to create or update contacts because I could remember everyone’s phone number faster than I could scroll through the list.

Today, though I have shared it, written it on a form, or typed it on a computer at least fifty times, every time I have to give John’s business phone number, I have to look it up. I know my father’s social security number, still, by heart, but I don’t even know what John’s ends with. Sounds crazy, but these are the kinds of numbers stay-at-home moms have to recall at important events like Pre-School registration and annual physicals. Truth be told, though she was born on her due date (the one date I had engrained in my mind for exactly 40 weeks), I still have to think about it when someone asks me Eliott’s birthday. February 8, 2007. (It’s so much easier to just write 2/7/2007 that I my mind has often mistaken this as the day she was born.

I haven’t completely lost my knack for numbers, however. I’ve simply replaced my memory for dates and phone numbers with a memory for prices. I’ve also become scarily adept at mental math, especially where percentages are concerned. I seriously need to be a contestant on The Price is Right.

*A friend from college was moving to an area that didn’t have Cingular coverage and still had four months left on his plan. This was obviously before the times of free cancellation if you move out of our coverage zone (or maybe we were all just too naive at the time to demand this). I kept the phone for about 9 months, then decided it wasn’t worth the $40 a month while I was working at Eckerd with no time nor reception for cell-phones. I didn’t sign my first real cell phone contract until I was 25, when I had to borrow the phone of a stranger after totaling a rental mini-van on the highway on my way to work. The rental was the result of a different not-my-fault fender bender with the one car I shared with John. 1st year of marriage: 1 car, 1 phone, no TV, no microwave, no kitchen table. And you call this America!?

Confessions

iPhone Anxiety

Typically, I am not a fickle decision maker.

This is especially true when someone else is paying for the thing on which I’m deciding.

When it comes to spending my own money, however, I tend to be a bit obsessive about making changes to my routine, adding a new expense to the budget, or deciding on a major purchase. It kills me, because, the longer I spend thinking about a decision, the less I trust myself.

But I think I may have discovered a solution to this problem: Make the decision. React. Undo decision if reaction is more negative than positive.

Thank God we live in a 30-day money-back-guarantee world.

On Tuesday, John and I mutually ended a 6 year relationship with Verizon and committed to AT&T. The decision was not made instantly, and most of it was out of my control. John’s been flirting with AT&T for several months now as he’s building a business with nothing but Apple technology. This is one expensive relationship which I fully support and plan to join at home as soon as possible. The cell phone break up, however, has not been so stress free.

On principle, I hate AT&T. I hate their customer service. I hate their coverage. I hate their website and its inability to be forthcoming about what is the best plan to fit my family’s needs. I hate that their customer service representatives range from Johnny-On-The-Money-Saving-Spot to High School Dropout and that inevitably, whatever Johnny told you yesterday, is no longer available today and suddenly neither is Johnny.

However.

It turns out, for what we need right now, AT&T is cheaper than Verizon. And, in all fairness, I hate Verizon, as a company, for all of the same above reasons. The only difference is that I haven’t made any changes to my cheapest cell phone plan on Earth in 6 years, so I never have to deal with them. And, because of the iPhone 4, the previous generation iPhone is currently $50 with an AT&T contract. To John (and his business mind), this is a steal that he snatched up immediately. My first (and entirely wrong) reaction was: “Why do you get all the fun toys? That is not fair.”

What a stupid thought. What a stupid thing to say.

Unfortunately, my husband agreed with me.

So I bought an iPhone and we signed a 2 year contract that will cost us $140 a month. *GULP*

I called it a “business expense” and blinked exactly twice before signing the paper.

Then I went home.

I have been having mild to moderate to severe anxiety ever since.

My brain:

Can you really justify an extra $15 a month right now for a data-plan you may or may not need? (Yes, probably. That’s only $0.50 a day. I’ll potty train Carter this summer and it will come out of our diaper budget.) You have an iPod Touch that you rarely use. What makes you think you’ll use the iPhone features if you don’t even use them on your iPod Touch? (Good point.) How often are you in an area that does not have Wi-Fi access where you could not live without the Internet? (The park?) Wait a minute. What do you do all day? Do you really need Internet access all the time no matter where you go? What are you going to do, check your email? How many emails did you receive in total last week? (Not counting Groupon nor grocery store deals? Four.) Do you really want to be that available? Do you really want to be that woman, checking her phone every 5 minutes like she’s so important? (Oh God. I hate that woman. Is that what I would be? Yes. Yes it is. And I hate her. I’m not that important. I don’t even have a desk job. When I did have a desk job, my favorite thing about it was leaving everything on my desk when I left for the day and boasting of my ability not to do any work at home. The most important things in my day haven’t even fully grasped fine motor skills, let alone the use of their fingers for things like typing. In fact, any and all emergency situations would likely result from my lack of attention to them, the chances of which rise with the idea of portable Facebook. Do I really want my children to associate me with a hand-held idiot box? What kind of message am I sending?!)

And with that, my decision has been made.

I’ll be returning to AT&T tomorrow.