Do you have a kid? Are you a teacher? Do you home school? Are you in any way affiliated with a Girl Scout troop? Do you run or know of a good kids craft/activity blog? Have you ever interacted with a kid in any way whatsoever? Then please take pity on me and help!

My Brownie troop of second graders is starting up soon (Soon as in tomorrow. I am so prepared!) and I really want to come up with exciting things for us to do this year. Meaning, I am sick of making cloud pictures using cotton balls. Because if I have to get myself all excited about that one more time I will scream. And my Brownies will cry. And I’ll have to shove the cotton balls into my ears.

I have an activity planned for tomorrow, which hopefully will take up as much time as possible. (If you know kids at all then you know this will not be the case. This one activity, which I’m hoping will last 30 to 45 minutes, will last 5 minutes at the most. And that’s if I talk real slow-like when I give the instructions) If time doesn’t fly by I have my fall back plan of “Let’s go play outside with sidewalk chalk!” but that is only entertaining for so long and that’s when I’m faced with answering the question “What are we doing next?” or the dreaded “When are we going to have some stinkin’ FUN?” (One girl asked me that last year. At every meeting. That makes me feel like a great leader).

So, do you have any activity suggestions? Maybe a fun website you want to share with the class? Perhaps a book I should go purchase? Honestly you don’t have to be that specific, I’ll take random craft or activity suggestions. Something that has stuck with you over the years from your golden Girl Scout days? Seriously, I’ll take any suggestion you have, no matter how dumb you think it is.

Do I need these shoes?

I think I do. Can they be worn with skirts? Like a black skirt with tights and then these shoes? And how cute would they be with black slacks. Cute, right?

Jparks and I are having a tivo standoff. The tivo in our bedroom (also known as my tivo since it records Gossip Girl, 90210, and Project Runway. All vital to my existence) has been crapping out this week. It records shows with no problems, but will not let you watch them. When you hit the tivo button on the remote, it takes about 15 minutes to respond. And lately its typical response is just to freeze up. It has only been doing this since jparks messed with our internet settings and I want him to fix it. For the love of all things holy, make the tivo let my Gossip Girl go, jparks! His solution is that we buy a new tivo. He claims this one is old. I claim he’s crazy.

This is the tivo we got after Katrina so it’s only three years old. Jparks insists that “OMG THREE YEARS OLD! Take it behind the barn and put a bullet in its head!” I insist that he’s fucking crazy and I’m not shelling out for another tivo after only three years. Doesn’t that seem like a short lifespan for a tivo? Shouldn’t it last at least five years? Dammit tivo, I signed up for a long time relationship, not a quick fling where you have your way with me in our bedroom and then leave without saying goodbye. I feel so cheap and used.

And now a question (has this post been all questions? I think it might be. It’s because I respect you guys so much that I want your input. And because I am dumb. dumbdumbdumb) What would you wear on a ten hour, overnight flight? I know not pajamas because ew, but what? I want to be comfortable and plan on sleeping, even if it means taking something to knock me out. Normally I don’t sleep on planes because I can’t get comfortable to save my life, so what can I do to boost my relaxation level up a notch? Would you wear shoes that you can kick off in your seat? Like crocs? (I know, shut up) Should I skip the pants and wear a skirt? I should I change into a bathrobe in the bathroom and walk back out to my seat like it’s nothing? (how awesome would that be?) Help me!

In our household typically jparks is the insomniac. He’ll stay awake all night if I let him, playing on the computer or on the wii. His internal clock seems to be set to be nocturnal and I have to beat it into submission to get him to come to bed with me. But for some reason, for the past few days, our clocks seemed to have switched places in some Freaky Friday move that has me staying up all night and letting that bastard jparks sleep soundly.

It started on Thursday when I had a nightmare that I had gotten shot in the head and jparks wouldn’t take me to the hospital. Except I wasn’t really shot in the head so much as I woke up, in my dream, with a hole in the back of my head and I assumed I had been shot. Jparks told me that “No, if you wake up with a hole in your head you haven’t been shot. You’re fine and you just have to live with it.” I spent the rest of the dream poking at the hole and suggesting that maybe I should you know, have someone like a doctor look at it. It’s safe to say that I woke up in a cold sweat and pissed off at jparks.

Since then my nights have only gotten worse. Friday night I had dreams of earthquakes (no doubt because we had one that night). From Saturday night I don’t remember specific dreams, just that I tossed and turned all night and never seemed to really sleep. Finally we hit Sunday and I thought for sure I would sleep like a rock.

On Sunday I went for my long run and, to motivate myself during it, I kept chanting “You’ll finally sleep tonight.” I got home that evening and was exhausted. I showered, ate dinner (and then a cinnamon roll and maybe part of a cookie. stop judging me), and headed to bed. Yes, I know all that sugar couldn’t have helped the no sleeping situation, but shouldn’t a day of running and not much sleep in the three prior days cancel out the sugar?!? Apparently not.

Last night was the same situation, jparks and I got in bed and I listened as he fell asleep. After 30 minutes I honestly thought about waking him up, but figured why bother; I was too tired to have sex and too cranky to have a conversation, so I let him be. God, I should have woken him up just so he could suffer too.

Today I have bags under my eyes. Big, black bags that are so attractive I don’t know how random strangers are resisting approaching me to make out with them. My head feels like it’s in a fog and I would slap a puppy if it meant I could take a nap. I’m hoping tonight my body finally cries “uncle!” and I get to sleep. To stack the odds a bit more in my favor, I’m going running this evening. I’m going to run until I can’t take another step, in the hopes that the extra bit of exercise will guarantee tiredness. And so help me, if this doesn’t work I might just hit myself in the head with a frying pan.

Or do you have some sleep inducing trick that works like a charm and that you’re willing to share? Please, save me from one more sleepless night and from the pain of a frying pan slap. And by sharing it, you save yourself from one more rambling post where I whine incoherently about not sleeping. See, we all win.

I don’t want to be a drama queen but the worst thing that could happen to me while training for a marathon has happened. Like for reals people, I don’t know how I’m supposed to finish training now.

No, it’s not an injury, although my knee is pretty banged up right now. Falling off a curb onto Market St and landing on your hands and knees will do that to you. I think if someone had videoed the fall, and we watched it in slow motion, we would see that when the light turned green the top of my body went, but my legs didn’t. Whitney witnessed it and I don’t know how she kept from laughing because I know I looked like an idiot.

But no, that’s not why my training has gone out the window. It is something much more tragic: The only podcast I listen to while running has been cancelled. CANCELLED.

The problem is that I can’t listen to music while I run unless it’s a short run (4 miles or less). Knowing that most songs last 3 to 4 minutes makes me really aware of how long I’ve been running, which is not a good thing. “oh, 5 songs have gone by. I’ve run 15 minutes. Wait, just 15 minutes?!? You mean I have another hour of movement ahead of me?!? Holy crap, I’m going to die. I’m going to have to throw myself in front of a truck so I have a reason to just be still.” So yeah, music just doesn’t work for me.

My beloved podcast is the Byrant Park Project from NPR. I loved that it gave me a breakdown of current events as well as off beat topics and discussions. I looked forward to the Tuesday new music discussions and the Friday movie reviews. I love the Ramble and the Most. And I love that Alison Stewart was the host (Remember when MTV had vjs that weren’t all young and scary? Although I think Alison was part of the MTV news team and not technically a vj. And maybe the vjs just look young and scary to me now because I am old and cranky). Oh my god NPR, why do you want me to quit my training plan?

So now I’m being forced to shop around for a new podcast. I’m thinking that Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me might be a good option, but it only comes one once a week. Maybe the Onion’s podcast would be good, but is it funny? It has to be, right? But is it maybe too funny? Will I be trying to laugh while I run and then keel over from lack of oxygen? What about This American Life? Is that show’s content ever depressing? I’m thinking depressing might not make good running entertainment. Does NPR have any music based shows? Not ones that play music, but maybe discuss music? Is there some other podcast, not from NPR, that I don’t know about? Please help me or else, in two weeks when I’m running across the Golden Gate Bridge, I might just jump.

My Flip video camera arrived this week (a day before the newer model was released. Of course, because that’s just my damn luck) and I must say I’m both smitten and repulsed by it.

I thought the best way to welcome the Flip into our family would be to make a sex video of jparks and I. Kidding. Seriously. I swear I wouldn’t do that to anyone including myself. But what I did attempt to do is make an MTV Cribs style home tour for our family and friends far away. It started outside of our house with a brief introduction from me. It ended not long after that. Actually I did complete a couple of tour videos of the whole house (shoe pile included!) but when I went back and watched them I couldn’t hit the delete button fast enough.

It turns out video is much more honest than still pictures. All the tricks you can use for photographs: tilting your chin upwards, standing at an angle, do not work for video and actually make you look like a total idiot. And then there was my voice. Oh my god, it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard. I sound like southern hick meets valley girl. WTF?? How do you people that know me in real life listen to me talk? Do you just zone me out and I’ve never noticed? I really can’t blame you if you do.

After trying a couple of different takes on the home tour I gave up. And instead I present you this:

That would be Lily freaking out at Tangi because she was on the coffee table, inching toward my dinner. Exciting I know. But hey, at least it’s not jparks and I having the sex.

(Bonus question for the geeks: the quality of this video turned to crap once I put it on youtube. When I watch it from the original file on my computer the quality is much better. Why is this? What can I do to make the quality better?)

Thank you so much for the email and comment suggestions about photoshop. Perhaps soon I shall grow some balls and give them a shot.

And since I see that everyone is feeling helpful and willing to offer up such great advice I have another question for you. I need recipes. (okay, so that’s not a question. my bad.)

I want to cook more at home, but the recipes that I have on file are all very time intensive and require fancy, hard to keep on hand ingredients. I don’t mind using gourmet recipes on weekends, but on a daily basis I would love to have a stockpile of simple, tasty recipes.

So, (here comes the question!) do you have any recipes that I can have? I don’t care if it’s for a side dish, a main dish, something that has to be baked, crock potted, stir fried, or microwaved, I really want the recipe. Cookbook suggestions are also welcome.

Did I mention how pretty and/or handsome you all are? I mean really, you must have started doing yoga or something because you are smoking hot.

Now that we are back from Disney it’s time to download and sort through the 800+ pictures I took. The good news is that I won’t bore you by posting all of those pictures. The bad news is that not one of those pictures is of a tacky outfit. I know, it’s a sad day when a girl can’t go to Disney World and be assaulted by skanky outfits. I did see a few outfits that were picture worthy but they were all at Downtown Disney and it would have been way obvious that I was documenting the outfit. And then jparks would have had to fight the slut’s boyfriend and I really like jparks’ face the way it is. So, no pictures for you.

So I’m sitting here facing 800+ non-slut pictures from the trip and am feeling highly overwhelmed. The problem is that I had vowed that these would be the first pictures that I give the photoshop treatment to. That decision was made because I’ve had photoshop for awhile now, and have been so scared of it, that I haven’t even opened the application. Yeah, I suck. But photoshop is so big and scary. It’s got so many buttons to click. And I’m a pansy.

To help me get over this irrational fear I bought a photoshop how to book that a friend recommended. And that book was nice, but not quite the kick in the ass that I needed.

What is the kick in the ass that I’m looking for? I don’t think it’s a class because those are too expensive. I don’t think it’s another book, because the one I have doesn’t suck. I think what I need might be more of a tutor, either human or website based. Someone or something that can take a picture and show me what they would do to it. I’m fairly certain that having a hand to guide me through the scary “where the hell do I start?” phase would help a lot.

In my ideal world wide web there would be a site that allows you to submit a picture and then uses it to create a step by step tutorial working towards a final product. Does this site currently exist and I just haven’t found it yet? Please, TELL ME! Do you want to take the time to show me a step by step tutorial? Again, TELL ME! I would be your best friend and probably would make you cookies. Is there a good photoshop tutorial site that you love and you just know I would love as well? FREAKING TELL ME! I mean, please FREAKING TELL ME!