A signature always reveals a man's character - and sometimes even his name.

Goodnight Brain…
It feels like my brain needs a nap. It’s just sluggishly dragging itself around today. The Brain is taking minutes to answer questions that normally take seconds. Mundane repetitive tasks require a pause and step by step think thru to get things moving again. In short my brain needs a kick in the ass, but being that I don’t (and hope) my brain does not HAVE an ass, or ass section, since most things in the brain seems to be in sections, I’m not sure where to direct my kicking motion…

If you build it, they will tax you.
So I’m already sick of this whole Sarpy County Stadium debate here in Omaha. While I think it would be fun to have a Haymarket Park type of picnic thing going on, could we get a better team than the Royals? One actually worth watching? I remember we used to go to this Fourth of July family thing the first couple years we lived in Nebraska and my mom worked on base, and we always had to plan an activity for during the game, because the Royals were that bad. I actually cannot remember watching a game. I have pictures of Kathy reading a book and Jesse playing with walkie-talkies. Pretty much we were there for the fireworks and whatever world record attempt was going to get us into the Guinness Book of World Records (Of which I am in both for biggest crowd playing a kazoo to the tune of “take me out to the ball game” and biggest crowd doing the YMCA-booyah!) So unless this new stadium can not raise my property taxes or any other taxes and will have the WORLD’S Largest Fireworks show-you won’t get my support. Or maybe if they give everyone whose names are Carrie free tickets. I also think there are better things to spend money on, like hospitals and schools. One guy on the news last night said something really striking to me, "We don't build factories for manufacturers. We don't build warehouses for distributors. We don't build stores for retailers so why would we build a stadium for a sports franchise?" SO TRUE. Anyway moving on…

Grand Ole Idol
American Idol last night was…snooooozzzzeeee. I of course, as planned voted for Scott because I laughed at Randy Travis and his awkward “go in for the hug, oh he’s blind he can’t see the hugging so we’ll do a handshake moment”. I rolled my eyes at Danny Gokey’s “Jesus take the wheel” (predictable) and got uncomfortable with Adam’s “Ring of Fire” which was super strange. I really wanted to be like, “Dear Adam-you aren’t Jim Morrison yet, please refrain from freaking out America until after you get arrested the first time for indecent exposure. Thanks, Carrie” I get he was trying to pull a David Cook and do it “his way” but seriously, he all but took off his pants and sang about his man junk while he pointed to it and thrusting it inappropriately. Everyone else was pretty much forgettable except Matt G-who can play a piano like nobody’s business. He even shows up the blind guy-who whined about getting bad hat picks, I’m sure he will go home tonite because AI is rigged and NO ONE spills the secrets of AI.

Weekend cooking plans
This weekend I’m going to attempt to make ricotta cheese on my own. I’m very nervous. This could go horribly wrong with a quickness. And I could waste 6 dollars of milk, buttermilk, and half and half. And also about 2 hours of my life. Let’s keep our fingers crossed though and hope for the best. Because if I can MAKE CHEESE, the world would be a BRILLANT place. My dream is to make something so awesome and unique that my friends and family stop asking me for the recipe and just start begging me to make it for them and bring it to parties. Kind of like my Dad’s guacamole recipe. I also have a lovely cheese stuffed chicken recipe from A year in the kitchen I’m going to try.

Wake me up, before you go-go-oh wait don’t.
I woke up this morning to a headache. A headache is like the fifth worse thing to wake up to. The first being blood of any sort, second a stranger in your bed/room, third cat butt in your face, fourth the sudden urge to vomit. So needless to say, didn’t start off this day well, but at least its overcast and moody, kind of like myself today. If it was bright and sunny I’d be even more crabby, because we all know how I feel about sunshine.

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Speaking of overcast days, you know what my favorite thing in the world is? Curling up under a duvet on the couch, with a really good book, and a cuddly kitten or two, and reading three sentences of the book and falling asleep-this is the best thing ever. This scenario can also have cuddly kittens substituted for a cuddly husband and the book substituted for a boring football game.

A conversation between Mr. and Mrs. Hellbusch:

Me: So I was reading this stuff today about circumcision-
Husband: -oh great.
Me: Let me finish-so anyway apparently some women don’t get their baby boys circumcised because there is this big movement because it’s really unhealthy or something I don’t know.
Husband: We are getting our son circumcised-end of discussion.
Me: Well why? I mean, I don’t care about our kids foreskin one way or another, I just want to know why you are so adamant about it.
Husband: Because that’s the kid that gets picked on in school, the kid with the weird wanger. He goes to the pool and we all made fun of him. (Continues long story about the boy he knew his whole life that had hippie parents and was uncircumcised and how horrible his life was with foreskin.)
Me: You looked at boys wangers at the pool and pointed and laughed?
Husband: Well when you are a kid, you look, you know, at the pool.
Me: Uh no, I wasn’t allowed to look at boys wangers at the pool. What pool did YOU go to? Let’s not send our kids there.
Husband: *exasperated sigh* No, no circumcision.
Me: Oh I don’t even care about that anymore, I’m worried about my boy looking at other boys wangers now…
Husband:…*crashes truck into tree*

Hope you all have a great Hump Day! We are almost there-hold on people!
Love, (anything that involves a duvet)
Carrie

It matters not whether you win or lose; what matters is whether I win or lose.

I wish my work didn’t have any clocks. I think it would help my day go by faster. If I didn’t know that I had been sitting for an hour watching someone write an email, I think it would be MUCH easier to tolerate the constant backspacing and sitting and thinking it took that person to write a three sentence email.
It is supposed to be AMAZING out today. And today only, of course it supposed to snow right when I’m going to get my hair done on Saturday.
I just discovered that Amazon has a “warehouse” website where they have refurbished or slightly damaged or return items. I could be in BIG trouble here people!
Someone just came to look at the new pictures that I put up in my cube and some were from my wedding, and I started talking about my wedding to her, which I haven’t done in forever. And I got all squishy about it again. Just describing my dress and how I found it and my bridesmaid colors. *swoon* Good times, good times…
I’ve sucked it up and started listening to 94.1 at work really low. I just can’t stand what they play on 98.5 anymore. Plus if I have to jump to turn of Nickleback or Pink one more time I might just throw my radio over the cube instead. *shudders* I hate them…I just have to remember to keep my radio low and to turn it off when I leave my cube. I can’t get 104.5 or 101.9 to come in to save my life and those are the kosher stations around here. Although I did hear on 98.5 yesterday that they are hosting a Howie Day concert and I practically FELL OVER but I can’t find anything on the web about it, or even about him touring. LOVE Howie Day, LOVE.
Speaking of other artists-Leona Lewis…I really like her songs, but I swear I flash back to the early 90’s every time I hear them. She is so early 90’s Mariah Carey and Celine Dion it’s unreal-even the videos. I mean I love her-but can a girl get a beat? The only song that is tolerable is “Bleeding Love” and that’s because they used it in So You Think You Can Dance (which means an automatic A+ in my book) and Ryan Tedder of One Republic (LOVE HIM) and Jesse McCartney produced and wrote it (respectively). If you would like to hear me expound on how much I love Ryan Tedder-just let me know. Basically it involves being Timbaland’s wingman for years and producing some of the greatest songs you probably never knew he produced. Wait until Chris Cornell’s new album comes out that they both worked on, you will pretty much die from the awesomeness. That is if you are crazy into music like me anyway…
I totally didn’t know that the whole Fat Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, Lent season was upon us until my mom asked me to come to church with her tonite. I wish I had time and the desire, Seth’s mom made a good point, that once we have kids, it will be easier to get back into church and that’s when most people do it. And we have always said that it is important to us to have our kids be involved in church like we are, but right now, we just can’t get into it. Its not that I don’t believe in God or Jesus or anything like that, I am very spiritual-but at this point in my life, I’m of the mindset that I think the whole church thing is more about fellowship and I rarely find when I do go, that I listen to the sermons and they affect me on some level, like I feel they should. So I feel like I’m wasting my time just to appease my mom. My relationship with God happens on my own terms, in my own words, on my own time. And right now I really don’t feel like I need church to facilitate that. But I know I will when I have kids, because I know I don’t have all the answers or all the knowledge to give my kids when it comes to religion, plus some of the greatest times I had where in church related activities as a youth, and one of my best friends (Kathy) grew out of a church relationship. So I’m not totally against church, I’m just not finding it useful in my life right now. But I know it will be again when I have kids, so I’m not too worried about it or about finding a church family. And I hate going to church just to appease my mom, because that feels SO wrong I can’t even begin to tell you. Anyway this was a horrible digression to say I learned something interesting about Lent today from an article called the Truth about Lent:
Q: Where do those ubiquitous ashes come from?
A: For centuries, Ash Wednesday ashes were created by burning the palms from the previous year's Palm Sunday Mass. But now, in a nod to modern efficiency and neatness, most churches simply buy prepackaged ashes, either online or from a religious goods supplier.

Who knew??

Let’s see what else??? We have been trying to get ready for painting on Saturday-that’s been fun, Seth fell of a chair last night and came down hard. Yikes. That was scary, I was brushing my teeth when it happened and I came RUNNING and tried to help him in my towel-which means I was not helpful at all.
Alright I’m off to try and find the Obama speech from last night since I totally missed it because I was taking off trim…
Love (of Jesus and my Mom)
Carrie

I'm old-lets face it

So I just opened up my new rolling stone when I got home and this is the picture I'm faced with-




Ew! Does anyone wanna tell me how exactly this sells clothes? I have so many questions, what are they on? Did the guy on the floor eat that girls top and that's why he's passed out and not getting any action? Is this a new Heimlich maneuver/mouth to mouth operation? HOW OLD ARE THESE KIDS?
HOW OLD AM I?
Old enough to get ding dong ditched, as happened yesterday at my house.
I'm going to go sulk in my oldness now and plan my thirtieth birthday party in Vegas-which in my head-goes something like this ad-not really, but Cool Carrie seems to think it would be cool....
*stomps off to sulk*
Love, (not to have high school porn in her rolling stone)
Carrie

I overshare, because I care.

Hello to all!
I am infinitely bored today, so I imagine I will be doing a lot of blogging or a very long blog, if I could come up with a topic…
First off, I think I will talk about some things I’m trying to find the answers to:
We are currently taking the 7500 tax credit for first time homebuyers, but I just learned that the new stimulus act makes it so that people who claim the credit this year in 2009, will not have to repay back the now increased 8000. So what about those of us who took the 7500? Do we have to pay it back? Any answers from you out there would be most appreciated as I can’t seem to find a straight one.
Also did you hear about this? Kansas can’t pay its government workers or state income tax refunds! http://www.bizjournals.com/wichita/stories/2009/02/16/daily11.html
I guess I don’t have anything to complain about this week! At least we are getting our income tax return, right?
Someone actually said to me today- "Did you get dressed still asleep?" Which made me mad because I actually put thought into this outfit, but obviously not enough because now I'm all uncomfortable and self conscious. I am wearing a maroon shirt, grey sweater, black tanktop underneath the maroon shirt, jeans, and my new black riding boots. I think the boots are what are throwing me off. People hear are think they are biker boots...anyway, here's hoping the day goes fast so I can go home and change. I knew I should have kept a change of clothes in my car!
Okay so I’m running out of topics…I think I’m going to have to throw to my analysis of how Walt Disney hates women.
Thesis: Walt Disney hates women. Look at the cast of villains that he has put in his movies. He has overblown their minor character flaws or typical female desires and turned them into awful life ruining women.
Here is the cast of female villains in Disney animated movies:

Cruella de Vil-101 Dalmatians
Maleficent-Sleeping Beauty
Ursula-The Little Mermaid
The Wicked Queen-Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Yzma- The Emperor’s New Groove
Lady Tremaine and the Step Sisters- Cinderella
Madame Medusa- The Rescuers
Queen of Hearts – Alice in Wonderland
Mad Madame Mim – Sword in the Stone
Aunt Sarah- Lady and the Tramp

So be excited because in future blog posts, if I get the whim, I will write about how I feel these woman are just being…well…villianized for their minor desires or attempts to better themselves.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Disney movies, I own a whole DVD case of them, I used to work in a high-end Disney store, and if it wasn’t for the owner, would probably still be working there.
So hopefully I get time to write on those topics, if I forget, just call me out on it!
I hope you all are having a good day, I’m sure I’ll be back later!
Love (of Disney),Carrie

So many adventures couldn't happen today, So many songs we forgot to play..

This may come as a SHOCK to you all-but Seth actually got up with me this morning! I know. I was stunned. But as I was walking out the door (late-I swear I looked at the clock and it said I had 15 minutes and then apparently I fell into a time warp and it was 20 minutes later and I have no knowledge of what I did in that fifteen minutes) he goes-“You look like a Mom today” and I was like, great thanks, that’s for pointing that out now as I am walking out the door LATE and there is nothing I can do about it except blog and whine. And feel uncomfortable all day.
Not that looking like a mom is a bad thing, it just wasn’t what I was going for. I think it was because I was wearing flannel pajama pants to bed last night-in my defense, it was COLD. But anyway, that just made me laugh. Thanks HONEY.
I think I need to like plan my clothes out for the week because if I don’t and I have to rush it in the morning, I end up smelling like cat butt or looking like someone’s Mom.
Speaking of work-yesterday I spent a good hour trying to retrieve my staple puller from the black abyss behind my desk that tried to eat it. Now I know what you are thinking, really Carrie, an hour on a staple puller? But it is a FANCY staple puller, it is ergonomically correct with hand grooves and little thumb pads, and it even has a magnet! It was special order! It's a Bostitch! In a flamboyant move, I tried to bounce it into my pen cup and ended up bouncing it directly over the pen cup and into the darkness behind my desk. Here at NPP we have these AWFUL desks that have a piece of metal that separates the desk from the cubical wall.
*Digress to demonstrate the stupidness of the piece of metal* Once a couple of years ago when I first started here it started to smell REALLY bad at my desk. Like really bad, I was the SMELLY girl. After about 100 different forms of air fresheners, the girl who shared a wall with me got fed up and threatened her boss if I didn't stop smelling she would quit. Of course, I had to prove outside the cube I was NOT the smelly girl, so it was deemed the smell was coming from the cube itself. They made me clean out all my drawers and move all of my stuff out. When it was apparent I wasn't the girl who leaves rotting things in her desk, they finally called facilities management to tear the cubes apart, and there, in between my cube and said piece of metal, was a dead snake who had eaten a mouse who was poisoned and got too fat to get out from between the metal and cube. And he was rotting, under my feet, and before that probably SLITHERING there, so needless to say, I threw a fit of LEGENDARY proportions. *digression over*
So if you lose anything back there, unless you have super long lean arms, or brute strength you aren't' seeing it again. Someone must have really wanted something back at my desk at one time, because they bent and broke the metal plate to get behind the desk. So I pried and laid on my back and laid over my desk like a beached whale trying to get my staple puller back. When I finally got it, I emerged triumphant and dusty and probably had my hands covered in petrified cricket gross. And then I was late for a meeting. I went to the meeting holding my retrieved staple puller high for all to see-proud of my victory over the back of the desk and when it came to my turn to talk about what I had done so far this week at work and what I had planned I said "Well I just fought the back of my desk VALIANTLY for the return of my super fancy staple puller (as you call can see here), so that was pretty much my focus for the last hour, I'm not sure where to go from here..." and my boss looked at me and dead paned-"maybe to a feast in honor of your victory or do you just want to do the award ceremony now?" And we all laughed hysterically, best boss ever.
Here’s an issue I’m greatly passionate about. People who hock crap at work. We are in an economic crisis people. Don’t come into my cube and corner me and then make me feel bad for not buying your crap, your kids crap, or your charity crap. I don’t want to buy a raffle ticket, buy any form of make up from you (I announce LOUDLY at every job that my mom is a Mary Kay lady and my grandma is a Avon lady-I’m COVERED thanks.), buy cookies, popcorn, magazines or wrapping paper from your kids (isn’t the point that THEY are supposed to be selling it, in my day my mom REFUSED to do anything but drive me up to people’s front doors, she never took my cookie forms into work-the lesson was I was supposed to sell it, not her), or anything of that nature. And I am vehemently against people hocking charities at work. I get that you want to do a good thing, but I think a person’s charity choices should be personal and their own. I don’t need to justify to you why I don’t want to support your charity, because maybe I have charities of my own, and I certainly don’t need your guilt trip, thanks. And we work 45 minutes away from Omaha, at the end of the day, I want to go home and take off my pants. I do NOT want to go to your home and buy your baskets, candles, plastic containers or kitchen tools. That’s what they make the Internet for. You got a website? Great, shoot it too me, if I want your stuff I’ll order it there. Seriously people, we are in an ECONOMIC crisis, I gave up going out to eat for a MONTH so that I could get a luxury item (TV) that does not mean I have 46 dollars for some eye cream or cookie dough. Thanks though. BACK OFF. I need a sign for my cube, because if one more person comes in here and asks me to be on their relay for life team or buy their kids fundraisers I’m going to take someone out at the knees really. Have I EVER bought anything from you? Dude I won’t even go in on “secret buddies” but that is because I’ve seen the crap you get in your cube for secret buddies and I really have my fill of random dollar store crap, thanks. I don’t need any bird statues or plants, I’m good. I’m quickly becoming the social outcast of the people who sell junk here. Haha. *Carrie backs away from the soapbox slowly*

So exciting news-Bob, family friend, is going to teach me how to make homemade ricotta and use the pasta maker I got for my wedding! I’m so excited. I hope we make ravioli’s and calzones. And then I will eat until I explode. So get ready, if you come to my house, I will have been classically trained by a real New York Italian chef for your meal. Don’t be jealous, I’ll spread the love!

How is it only 10:25? REALLY?
This day is going to take forever!
Hope you all are having a great day and a special shout out to my dad who had a minor procedure done but is doing great! I hope your feeling better Pop! And thanks to everyone for their happy thoughts in his general direction.

Love (among other things),
Carrie

PS if you can name that tune and band, you win a prize. :-) Its my new thing...