The Crazy-Creepy Stuff You Find In The Day-After-Christmas Sales...

While I've been behind on my blogging, and I know it is no longer the actual day after Christmas, I still wanted to share the oh-so-fun things I spied while out shopping with Jarrod this past weekend.

First and foremost, I should just say that I love having a camera phone, finally. It enables me to document all this random crap that I see when I'm out in stores or at garage sales. Speaking of which, I'm totally going to incorporate some pics from the giant B.A. garage sale from this Fall that I still haven't gotten off my phone. I should periodically do "Weird Crap I Saw While Out Shopping Today" blogs. I need to share my bewilderment with somebody, afterall.

So, to Jarrod's credit, the first item in question was actually spotted by him, not me, but I can at least say that I shared in his horror. While perusing clearance pj's in a mall department store, I heard Jarrod let out a groan of disgust, as he asked me to come view his finding: a pair of super-short knit pj shorts, complete with sherpa-trimmed legs and butt-cheek hearts. Why? Who makes this crap, and furthermore, who buys it? The only person I could even picture wearing these would be Mariah Carey in a tacky music video. I'm not sure which she would get more use out of-- the tasteless shorts, or this giant box of scrunchees we saw at a garage sale. Again, I ask, "Why?"

Who wants a fur-trimmed butt? Lotsa scrunchees.

The second item in question also popped up at a department store. Aren't those places supposed to be a bit classier than the rest of the mall? Apparently not. I was sifting through some clearance Christmas decor, when I ran across Creepy Christmas Cat. Well, that's not it's "official" name, but if I had my way, it would be-- just like I have officially renamed this odd garage sale Christmas painting Child-Molester Santa. Ah, the creepy parallels in holiday decor (of all things). Oddly enough, I was a bit drawn to the cat (maybe it's wicked eyes were secretly trying to hypnotize me), and had it not been so expensive (even on clearance), I probably would've brought it home. Afterall, nothing says, "Merry Christmas" like a demonic-looking cat with reindeer antlers, that looks like it wants to claw your eyes out!

Cats apparently hate Christmas.

Sorry, this one had to be larger so you could see the detail (creepy Santa!!!!)

On to Target! I love Target, I'm not going to lie, and their Christmas stuff is the bomb, so of course we had to go there. We scored some great deals, but while I was on the hunt for a new black skirt (grrrrr), we stumbled upon some things that simply could not go undocumented on our blog journey: Gold and silver lame leggings! Those of you who are closest to me know how much I loathe lame, and why I loathe lame, so why did Target have to go and tarnish their otherwise cool image by housing such horrid leggings? ICK! I love funky and unusual fashion, but these were just cheesy and reminded me of something from a Halloween costume. They would've gone perfect with the lovely, leprechaun-green, sequined vest we saw in someone's garage this Fall. I will admit, however, that I couldn't refrain from purchasing a pair of snow-leopard print ones (only slightly shiny). Jarrod tried to talk me out of them, and seemed relieved when I couldn't initially find my size, but a little while later there was a small miracle from God, and I found some anyway. Wahoo! At least I didn't require any persuasion to not take up the offer of a free, used garage sale bra. So, what have we learned? Leopard-print: good. Gold and silver lame: very, very bad. (Oh yeah, and don't take free bras from strangers.)



Wow... Double-wow...

I feel a show-tune coming on... Free bras, anyone?

On a whim, we decided to hit a bookstore, and joked on the way in that we might find the David Hasselhoff autobiography in the stacks of bargain books. After we finally found the bargain books, we both burst out laughing when, sure enough, there it was-- "Don't Hassel The Hoff". Try to control your laughter, because we couldn't. Of course it had to be featured in this blog photo journey, without question. Jarrod tried to persuade me to buy it, just as he tried to get me to buy Michael Jackson's "Thriller" album at the garage sale, but I just couldn't justify paying the whopping $4.97 to do so. I could go eat out for that much, and I would probably be left much more satisfied.

Would you pay $4.97? When MJ was cool...

The real question, at the end of our journey, is, "Why does Jarrod take the same amount of pleasure in eating a turkey leg as he does holding up the David Hasselhoff autobiography?"

Mmmm... turkey! Jarrod's hero... Ha-ha!

Invisi-Mouse

Okay, so you're all going to laugh, but I'm not sure if this is laugh-worthy, or just plain creepy.

So, as you know, I set up my video camera on "night-vision" a couple of nights ago, in an attempt to catch the mystery creature in action. I went to bed around 1:30, and about 20-minutes later (roughly-- I don't know for sure because I wasn't facing the clock), I could hear my visitor quietly chomping on a Smartie. I smiled to myself, knowing that the camera was rolling, and that, in the morning, I would be able to see it for myself.

Or, so I thought. After hearing the creature eating the candy on my nightstand, I really couldn't go to sleep. In fact, I was awake when the camera finally shut off (I only had a couple hours-worth of tape left). I actually got out of bed to turn the camera off when the tape stopped, and confirmed that, yes, there was one out of three pieces of candy missing. At least I knew that whatever it was had been caught on tape.

I am not kidding you-- I fast-forwarded through that entire roll of footage, and there was nothing there. There was no way I could've missed it-- you could see the entire top of the nightstand just as plain as day. I have scanned that tape twice for evidence and there is nothing on it. I was hacked...

... and, to be honest, a little creeped-out. On Saturday night, prior to filming, Jarrod suggested the possibility of a "cloaking device", to go along with our other hair-brained theories. Maybe I should've added another option to my poll-- "Invisi-Mouse". This is just too crazy for words.

I filmed again last night, offering the thief four peanuts instead. All four were gone this morning, so it's all a matter of whether or not it showed up before the tape ran out. I have yet to view the footage, because I need a decent block of spare time to sit and fast-forward through two hours of footage, and with the day I've had, the opportunity to view the tape hasn't even remotely come close to presenting itself. Maybe tonight when the kids go to bed.

Wow, I really am a freak-- this is my idea of an exciting Monday night? Really?

Puke Monday

One of the many joys of single-mommy-hood is that when someone throws up in the middle of the night, it is now my proud duty to handle the mess. Bring on flu season!

Some of you know that Josh was sick right before Thanksgiving. To be quite honest, I have never seen so much vomit, most of which ended up on my couch. Blankets and pajamas are easily tossed into the unlucky washing machine for de-puking, but the couch? That's a bit trickier. After contemplating just burning the entire sofa in the backyard, I reconsidered, and let good ol' Oxyclean, hot water, and dish soap tackle the salvaging job. I'm happy to say that it worked, and my couch shows no signs (or smells) of the shower of puke that rained down on it only a couple of weeks ago.

Soon after Josh recovered from his bug, I got it-- or, at least I think I got it. I'm still debating on whether or not it was just food poisoning, but oh well, I'll never know for sure, so who cares at this point, right? I pretty much Lysol'd my entire house at that point, just because everything felt so completely germ-infested that I had to do something. It took me days to get over whatever it was that invaded my innards, and I had finally just returned to the natural swing of things, when WHAM!

Gabe lurched a runny paste of ground Cheerios all over his bed (and his brother) last night, right as I was about to turn in for the night. Just my luck. Now, I'm pretty immune to all things gross-- I mean, I worked at a vet's office for awhile in college, so there isn't much that can turn my stomach. The odor wafting from Gabe's vomit last night, however, was enough to make me want to open all of the windows in the house in the middle of winter. So foul. Of course, it saturated every little last item that was in his bed, so I had to stay up until midnight, just to get all three loads of puke laundry through the washing machine. There was no way I could let that stank sit until morning. NO WAY.

After tossing both boys in the shower to rinse the puke off, getting them dressed, and changing their bedding, I started the laundry and proceeded to piddle around the house, looking for something to do until the last load of laundry had been tossed in the wash. All I wanted to do was go to bed, but no. It's at times like these that I get a little frustrated, as I'm sure you can imagine.

The good news is that Gabe didn't throw up anymore, so yippee! He stayed home from school today without any complaint (miracle), and hopefully he will be able to return tomorrow, because he "misses his friends". So sweet.

Well, for now I am off to check on dinner in the oven. Soon it will be the kids' bedtime, and I can breathe a sigh of relief that my crazy, pukey Monday is now over.

Smarties? Check. Night-Vision? Check.

Just a quick note to say that I have decided to commence with Jarrod's suggestion of night-vision filming. I have also learned that chocolate is toxic to mice, so I have switched out the M&M's for Smarties. After tonight, we should finally know the identity of the mystery visitor (providing it didn't receive a lethal dose of chocolate last night).

I will convert my video clip and get it posted with my next blog (hopefully). There is always the chance that the visitor has the ability to create a lot of video static at the moment of its arrival. We shall see.

Experiment

So, after musing over the skills of my nightly mystery visitor yesterday, I decided to leave "it" a little treat on my nightstand, as a sort of experiment. Before I went to bed, I deposited a single green M&M on the top of the table, just to see if it would be there in the morning. I know-- I'm weird.

Like on Christmas morning, I woke up excitedly, to glance to my left to see if the candy was missing. Sure enough, it was! A-ha! Once again, there was no other evidence of the creature's existence, other than the missing sweets. This thing's got guts.

Since my last blog, I have been able to count on Jarrod for some various theories regarding the mysterious nature of my friend. First was that, since it was so incredibly high on sugar, it was simply moving too fast for me to see. Good point-- I hadn't thought of that. Another theory (to support Jarrod's Cockamouse suspicion), was that it simply had to be a Cockamouse for one reason, and one reason only-- a Cockamouse can fly. Therefore, that would explain why it so easily evaded Kooka's detection, and left no droppings. Very compelling theories.

At Jarrod's suggestion, I might just set up my video camera tonight, on the night-vision setting, and see what shows up. It goes without saying that if I do this, I will most certainly be posting the video on the blog. I mean, this could be my equivalent of catching a Sasquatch on camera or something. Ooooooh, Sasquatch! I hadn't thought of that before now... Perhaps I should change my poll.

The Mystery Of The Sugar Addict

Wow, so here I am, blogging again, after nearly six whole months! I'm really going to try to get back into the swing of things, but I make absolutely zero promises.

So, over the weekend, I think I got a nasty bit of food-poisoning, because early Sunday morning found me with my head hanging in the toilet, shooting my dinner out of my nose and mouth. Many of you already know that vomit and I are old friends, but this particular friend of mine was simply not welcome to visit over the holiday weekend. Go spend your holiday someplace else, please. Anyway, I normally bounce back from stomach bugs pretty quickly, but this one decided to linger for a few days. I was miserable, and although I wasn't throwing up, I just felt "icky".

Some of you may remember my tendency to salivate profusely when I was nauseous during my pregnancies. It was truly foul, in every way imaginable, but nothing seemed to take care of it, unless I was constantly sucking on candy of some sort. Well, when I was sick this week, I finally figured that one of the things that was making me feel so gross was the fact that I was salivating a bit, and swallowing it all. Ew. I know, it's weird that I tend to drool when I'm sick-- only my dogs do that! Anyway, I was trying to figure out a way to dry-up the drool that wouldn't require me taking a Benadryl (no need to add to my exhaustion). I was in the shower Tuesday night, and suddenly had a craving for Sweet-Tarts, knowing they would quench the saliva. I know, you're thinking, "You felt like barfing, and you wanted Sweet-Tarts?" I really must be Jarrod's sister after all.

So, Tuesday night, there I was, poring over three more chapters in "New Moon", popping Sweet-Tarts like they were the latest drug. All I have to say is thank goodness for the kids' leftover Halloween candy! Oddly enough, the candy really did hit the spot, although I skipped the green and yellow ones, because the taste just wasn't working for me. All in all, I felt a bit relieved of "the ick", and managed to fall asleep a little after 10:00, despite my recently-attempted sugar overdose.

Wednesday morning, I awoke, pretty much good-as-new, which was a welcome change to feeling like I'd been hit by a semi-truck the day before. I called my Mom to tell her about my "magic Sweet-Tarts" and of course she couldn't believe I could stomach something like that when I was feeling so ill. I guess your body just knows what you need, even if it doesn't seem all that logical. By Wednesday night, I was chatting on the phone, feeling nearly 100%, when I noticed that some of the green and yellow Sweet-Tart leftovers were missing off of my nightstand. I didn't think too much of it really, and just figured that I had knocked them off in my sleep or something. I curled up to read a couple more chapters of my book, and went to bed around 11:00.

At about 12:15, I awoke to hear the rustling of the empty cellophane Sweet-Tart wrappers on my nightstand. I didn't think too much about it at first, since I sleep with my ceiling fan on, and they could've easily just been blowing around, but then suddenly I was fully awake, realizing what had happened to the discarded candy next to my bed. Mouse. Crafty, sneaky, and most importantly, ballsy little mouse.

Last month, a mouse broke into the cabinet on my nightstand to try to gorge itself on the corn inside of my microwave-corn heating pad. I used the live trap to catch him within all of twenty minutes, and deposited it back outside. I know you're thinking, "What is the matter with you? Why didn't you kill the little sucker?" I just can't. I had all sorts of pet rodents growing up, and it just seems wrong, so I use the live trap to deliver them back into the wild. Call me crazy all you want. Anyway, I thought I had figured out from where the mouse was entering my room, and plugged it with steel wool (absolutely fool-proof, in case you didn't know that), and since then, I have heard no gnawing, tapping, or seen any signs of rodents anywhere. As a precaution, however, I've kept the live trap baited in my nightstand, but I hadn't had any visitors so far.

Crafty, sneaky, ballsy little mouse.

This mouse-- this particularly smart and brave little guy, ventured not two feet from where I was sleeping, not once, but twice! Not only that, Kooka was laying on the floor at the foot of my bed, so this mouse must have apparently been slightly suicidal in addition it being a sugar addict. The strange thing is, I haven't so much as seen or smelled any signs of a mouse anywhere. I should probably clarify that I can smell a mouse in the house before the little stinker even decides to make an entrance, so the fact that I haven't noticed any odor is a little puzzling. More importantly, there are absolutely no droppings to be found, anywhere. Hmmmmm....

I began wondering if it was even a mouse at all. Maybe it was a very discreet alien. After all, E.T. had a weakness for Reese's Pieces, so maybe I had an alien invasion on my hands. It was entirely possible. Another possibility, without question, was a candy-hungry gnome. Jarrod blames gnomes for any and all unexplained phenomena, so these circumstances could certainly fit gnome criteria. Pesky gnomes. And if it really was a mouse, then maybe this mouse possessed super-high-tech stealth equipment, which he used to cover his tracks-- kind of like Batman. Or should I say, Batmouse?

Jarrod, don't say it. I know what you're thinking. It must be the Cockamouse.

Whatever it is, I don't have the heart to trap it and toss it out into the bitter cold. It clearly possesses high levels of intelligence, not to mention sheer guts, so I have to respect a creature like that. I mean, I'm starting to think that, whatever my candy thief may be, it may just be smarter than me. Creepy. Therefore, I have no intentions of angering it in any way (or its evil minnions, for that matter).

So, if you don't mind, humor me and take the poll on the right-hand side of the screen as to who/what you think the Sugar Addict is.