Look at this...

Ok, so you've heard of those motivational posters, right? They've got a little phrase and a picture that are supposed to be inspiring, and they show up all over corporate America. My work is not exempt. We've got more than a couple on our walls... Here's an example of one.


I can't really tell what it says there, but you get the idea... Nice little picture, inspirational quote. Not really that impressive, but covers the walls and makes management feel a little better. So there's another website that makes fun of these types of posters. They use the nice little picture, but the supposed "inspirational quote" is really kind of mocking at the original idea of what these sort of posters should do. Case in point:


Well, thanks to the interwebs, we get all sorts of these, not just the classy kind of mocking posters like the one above. Now people make them just to make fun of goofy pictures or just dumb people. Observe:


I'm getting to a point here...

So with these sort of images running all over the place, and because I work in corporate America, I get various email forwards with bunches of all types of these pictures. The only real constant is the black background/frame, then a word or words in a large font, followed by words in a smaller font. Some are funny, some are not.

Today I got a forward with one of these types of images... I'm not proud of it, but I couldn't stop laughing. It's not that it's dirty or anything, it just really may not be that funny to anyone else. But I seriously could NOT stop laughing. Every time I thought or said the words "look at it," I would lose control. I even started crying, I was laughing so hard. Other people were laughing at it with me, but mostly, I think they were laughing at me and how crazy I was to think it so funny! Even after work when I was telling Hayley about the image, I started laughing uncontrollably. She also laughed; again, I think because I'm a dork more than because she thinks it's funny...

With my pride on the line, and the knowledge that you'll all think I'm a big, giant dork, here is the image that I think is so dang funny.

Isn't that hysterical?!!! Even when I went to upload the image just now, reviewing it made me laugh. I mean, it's a giraffe, right? It looks like he's pointing at that duck. Look at it. hahahaha!! LOOK AT IT!!

Ok, let the name calling begin.

Ingrid Concert

On Saturday, Hayley and I and two of her sisters and a niece went to the Ingrid Michaelson concert. It was pretty rad. I knew Ingrid before I met Hayley, but I have grown to love her music much more since we started dating. I'm now quite a big fan.

The concert was pretty awesome. Ingrid is a funny girl. Sure, she's obviously just ended a relationship, but at least the music produced by the breakup is good. ;) Ingrid, hope you get over that soon!

Anyway, I had a great time. Sure, I stood in one spot for like 3 hours (maybe 4? Hayley?), but it was worth it! And just to show you, I'm going to share a video I took. The song is called "The Chain." It's one of my favorites because Hayley and I sing different parts in the round at the end. It's fun. Anyway, here's the video. Hope you enjoy!

Wordless Wednesday

Lots o' stuff

I haven't blogged in a while. I think that's partly because Hayley is better at it than me. She updates more often, posts pictures, and even edits them all cool and stuff. I guess that shouldn't mean that I don't blog, but lots of the stuff that I would blog about have already been recorded! So, rather than give repeats, I'll give links, and maybe a little commentary.

We painted our house. It looks really nice, and I'm proud of Hayley and I for doing it. We did it all together and had a blast. We would write cheesy notes to each other on the walls as we were painting, and when each room and wall was finished, we would stand back and admire our work. Hayley was a little worried about the orange wall, but she likes it now. I'm glad. I like it, too.

We got carpet. It looks great! It was nice knowing we were getting new carpet while we painting. It meant a lot less prep work. :) And every time some paint would get on the floor, I would make the lame joke, "Uh oh!!! Looks like we better get new carpet!" Hayley thought I was a big nerd. With good reason. But I like the new stuff.

I put pulls and nobs on our kitchen cabinets and drawers. I think I did a pretty good job! I built kitchen cabinets from little cabinet kits thingers for a job once, but that was really my only sort of job like that. (Unless you count the night stand I made in high school. Which I don't...) There's just one pull I need to fix...

Other than that, not much else! Work is busy, and about to get busier, but we are having another Wii contest, so that's good. It's dodgeball. And I think my chances are pretty good! I'll keep you all (all 3 of you) posted on how that goes.

How have all y'all been? What have YOU been up to?

Painting, exhaustion, and obnoxious neighbors

This post is sans-pictures. Sorry. But it's a fun read, I promise...

You may or may not know that Hayley and I are paintin' it up at our place. We originally planned on painting all the walls in the two bedrooms, some touch-ups in the living room, and maybe painting the bathrooms. Well, we've done a little more than that, and will be very nearly finished with painting all the walls and ceiling (which I keep calling the roof for some reason) in the second bedroom, all the walls in our bedroom (looks freakin' AWESOME right about now), and instead of touch-ups in the living room, we're repainting the accent wall. My lovely wife has agreed to a dark, brownish, orange color. Am I or am I not the luckiest guy in the world?

With every night this week involving some iteration of painting, we have gone to bed quite tired. Last night was no exception, only because it is the weekend, our obnoxious neighbors--whom we refer to less-than-affectionately as the Drunken Sluts--were having yet another party.

As a side note, sorry Mom and Dad, but they deserve the nick name. Also, how embarrassed would you be to know your neighbors refer to you as drunken sluts?? They should be ashamed. But they have more than earned this nick name. Guys are over there at all hours of the day and night, they drink, smoke, make a general ruckus, and the place is like Grand Central Station... They're loud, vulgar, and all around obnoxious. But I digress. Moving on with the story...

So the Drunken Sluts have people over. Not unusual. Hayley usually puts on her sound machine, and the noise usually drowns out their partying. With the weather being nice, we leave the windows open rather than use the air conditioning, so our bedroom window aims right at their balcony. Where drunken sluttiness often ensues. Again, the sound machine helps, and when we fall asleep, we hope to never hear from them again. At least until the next weekend.

Last night was not one of those nights where we fall asleep and wake up much earlier than the hung-over party-goers at the Drunken Sluts' place. They went on and on, and when I did finally fall asleep, they woke me up at about 3 with more loud talking. I was annoyed, because we were planning on painting all day the next day (Saturday). While in that state of semi-sleep and anger, I started dreaming...

I dreamed that I called the cops on them. I dreamed that the dispatcher was less than helpful. The dispatcher told me to go outside and inspect things, and as I was narrating the ruckus, the Drunk Sluts and friends started to get the gist of what was going on, and retaliated. They were louder, and even shined a flashlight at our windows when we got back inside. This pissed dream Hayley off to no end, and she grabbed our big flashlight, and shined it back at the sonsa bitches. Then, one of the guys at the party tried to scale our balcony by jumping up the walls a la parkour (obviously inspired by premier episode of The Office that we watched last week), and I grabbed his hands as he dangled from the balcony and threw him off, where he crashed to the ground. I don't remember much else from the dream except the feeling of extreme anger and hatred for the Drunk Sluts and their guests, and some strong indignation at how unhelpful the dispatcher was, and exasperation at how slow the police were to arrive at the scene.

I woke up at about 3:45 a.m. after this dream to hear the neighbors STILL talking loudly. I was completely pissed. I pulled on the shorts I had painted in the day before, left our room, went to the balcony, and yelled at them to shut up, citing the time as "nearly 4 in the morning" and using a few other choice words. Turns out it was just one of the Drunk Sluts with some guy, out on the sidewalk, chatting it up like it was the middle of the day. The guy sheepishly apologized, promised they'd be quite, and he left like 5 minutes later. My outburst sorta got my heart rate up, woke up Hayley, and didn't really help us get back to sleep. On top of that, at about 4:30, ANOTHER rambunctious bunch--not from the Drunken Sluts' place, mind--staggered out of their condo and started hootin' and hollerin'. I was pissed, again. This time, another neighbor yelled at this group. They took a little longer to disperse than the two I yelled at, however.

So not a great night's sleep. In spite of this however, we got quite a lot of painting done today, and only have one(-ish) wall and we are done! Well, we'll still have bathrooms and a second coat on a bookshelf, but we're mostly done! I can't wait to see the finished product! (Hayley will take pictures, don't worry. In fact, see pictures of the second bedroom here.) It will be even cooler to see what it looks like with our new carpet!

So pardon me if I'm a little sleepy or groggy if you talk to me in the next few days. It's been a blast painting, we love the fruits of our labors, but we haven't slept as well as we'd like. ;) Here's hoping our neighbors don't need to be yelled at again tonight. Because I might actually make that call to the cops this time, and not just in my dreams.

It's the happiest day of the year!!!

Ok, maybe that's a stretch, but it's still exciting! For me, at least... it's National Punctuation Day. Who knew there was such a day, right? My mom actually sent the link, and it's pretty cool. If only I had known earlier! I might have been able to participate in the First National Punctuation Day Baking Contest! (Seriously. It's a real thing.) Now, if there was a National Punctuation Day Painting Contest, I think Hayley and I would have totally won... except that our painting had absolutely nothing to do with punctuation... but we used correct grammar while painting, with complete sentences like, "I freakin' love this color!" (While it is slang, the proper punctuation when ending an -ING word with the letter N is to replace the G with an apostrophe. Don't believe me? Check this out.)

If you'd like to learn more about my favorite punctuation mark, click here. You can also visit the home page and learn all about ellipses (not an instance when the moon moves in front of the sun, by the way), commas, brackets, question marks, semicolons, and more!

Ok, I'm a big dork. But I think it's pretty awesome there's a national day for punctuation.

I learned it by watching you!!

At least twice this week, Hayley or I have said "I learned it by watching you!" in an overly dramatic and pretend-sad voice. It happened again today on our drive home from Tori's place, so I thought I'd share it with you all. Remember this public service announcement from when we were kids? I always thought it was a little funny.



I think I thought it was funny mostly because I never imagined my parents--or any other grown up that didn't have physical signs of addiction, for that matter--even considered drugs. As a kid, I thought drugs were for kids who hated life, mostly. I realize that's a very immature way to think about it, and I got some better counseling and direction, but this ad still makes me laugh... But it's serious, folks. Say no to drugs.

Want more proof that I'm a dork?

Well, here it is.

You may have noticed on my sidebar over there that I've recently been posting books I've been reading lately. A feat re-undertaken because of Hayley's good influence on me, and I'm very grateful. I like to read. A lot. I even tried to start a book club once, and when that one died, I joined another. From then, I decided I really don't love book clubs, but still like to read. I'm getting to why I'm a dork...

So I've read a lot lately, and I'm in the middle of a really good book. We just picked up a book Hayley and I have both been anticipating, and I'm excited to read it, too! But before that happens, I'm trying to figure out which of the two books below I want read first:
















I know, I'm a dork. I want to brush up on my English skills. Part of it is because I like English. Part of it is because I want to make sure I'm still an alert writer and editor for work. but either way, I'm excited to read my grammar/English book next.

Picture day

Today is picture day at Hayley's school! Very exciting. But it mostly makes me think of this picture. :)


Happy picture day, Hayley!

I hate Mondays, but LOVE HAYLEY!!!

I had one of the best weekends ever. I got to spend the entire thing with Hayley, and even the last hour of church was combined so we got to be together for that! We had a Wii night at home, went to the baptism of a friend of mine, had a two hour massage, saw a movie at matinee price, went to a Chicago-style pizza place (and kept it pretty cheap), went to the mountains, and I just enjoyed Hayley’s company the whole time. I love weekends.

After weekends, Mondays really suck. This Monday morning was worse than usual because of how great the weekend was. And even MORE so because I’m forced to be a vegetarian today; but Hayley had a worse morning than me, and didn’t sleep well last night. On top of not sleeping well and having an aching back, I forgot part of our lunches, she forgot her water bottle, etc., and I just wish we could go back to sleep and try Monday all over again—or skip it entirely. Because we can’t, I want to try to make Monday a little better.

Hayley, I love you so much. You are my favorite person in the whole world. You’re a beautiful woman and I’m so lucky to have you in my life! You’re smart, funny, quick-witted, and I love talking to you and spending time with you. I know it was a rough morning, but think of all the good things we’ve done through this last week with budgeting, weight management, house cleaning, etc. All the hard work is showing results, or will soon! Just little by little. And when this day is over, I will get to see you tonight, and we can say goodbye forever to this day and move on through the week, which will undoubtedly be better than today. Love you. Hope this helps cheer you up and make your day a little brighter!