Google-y Eyed

The internet is great for the overly curious and for those curious about the overly curious. When I stalk my stalkers to see how they got to this site, I find a fair number of people reached this site by searching "skwood". And that's great, because I'm trying to turn it into a household word!

I still get about two searches a day for motorized ride on beer coolers. Unfortunately, those people just like READING about motorized coolers and don't particularly want to buy one, so my beer cooler selling friend changed careers.

I get a lot for lesson plans and other teacher stuff. I sort of doubt I'm much help.

I haven't been getting near the searches for body piercings lately. So, in order to amend that, let me just say: navel pierce, belly button ring, body jewelry, and piercing studio!

Just in case I landed anyone with that one, let me dole out the only advice I have: No matter how many people tell you to use only soap and water on a new body pierce, I say "Put sunscreen on that baby!" And stay off the roller blades for at least a week or two.

Here are a few of the google searches I thought odd, interesting, funny, or some combination thereof:

Balding toothpaste (Actually, if your toothpaste had hair to begin with, I’d be worried already.)

Should i call the man i'm dating (I think I’ve stated my opinion pretty clearly on this one as a “no”.)

Scabies preschool teacher (None for me, thanks!)

I get quite a few for this one:
Dating a cokehead (Since these people seemed to have missed it: Don’t do it!)

dating for six months and no call (In the words of my brother, “If the dude’s not calling, the dude’s not calling.”)

how to compose my own dj jingles (What does that even mean?!?!? I’ve stalked a lot of DJs in my day & I don't remember any of them coming complete with jingles…maybe one has to listen to commercial radio to understand.)

"lick the toilet" (Way more people than I ever realized are curious about toilet licking. Who’d’a thunk?)

a professional word for poop (I would like to suggest “bowel movement.”)

traumatized washing machine (I’d like to know more about this myself.)

My semi-normal life (I might be able to help there. My life seems almost semi-normal at times…)

great naked stories (When you find out, let us know, would’j’a?)

And finally, one where I can actually be of use:

"nicest bathroom award"
I categorized them all under "bar bathrooms", because I didn't really understand the tagging system at the time. But here, here, and here are my awards.

And if you choose to seek them out, have a great time performing bodily functions in a clean location!

More from out of the mouths

One from school: I open the bathroom door to find one of my four year old boys frantically wiping the floor, wads of toilet paper strewn from one end of the stall to the other, seemingly flabbergasted and shouting,

"Ms. H., my fountain was pointed UP! My fountain was pointed UP Ms. H.!! It was UP!"

Two from my girl:
Casandra's four year old somewhat successful bid to save face after having been told that the correct name of the city in Nevada is, in fact, LAS Vegas:

"Well I call it LOST Vegas. (pauses) Because people get lost."

That same child at age 12 nicely illustrates my position on a six page long discussion about whether or not teachers do or should eat homemade foods they receive from students as gifts:

Cassie (while chewing on a lemon bar): "Why do you have those lemons?"
Me (in bewildered shock - how could she possibly not realize?!?!?): "Lemon bars! I bought them to make the lemon bars!"
Cassie (also in wonderment): "You MADE these?!?!?"
Me: "Of COURSE I made these! Where did you THINK they came from?!?!?"
Cassie: "Your school! That's where the rest of our treats come from!"

So rest easy, people. At least some teachers are eating our share of the homemade treats!

And one from my boy, who is so compliant sometimes it's scary. In this case he confuses my search for information about school uniform policy with an imperative:

Me: "Jared, can you wear this Odyssey of the Mind shirt to school sometimes?"
Jared: "Uhhhhh...okay."
Me: "No, I mean can you? Are you allowed to?"
Jared: "No."

Yet another addition to the Salvation Army pile it is.

Speaking of those sweethearts o' mine, after THREE DAYS of cleaning, I've discovered a whole new phenomenon in their room.

It's called "carpet", and as it turns out that carpet stuff regularly resides under a thick layer of legos, markers, pokemon cards, discarded lava lamps, hair ties, pennies, dismembered dinosaurs, wheels of all shapes and sizes, odd bits of scotch tape, and stuff too scary to mention.

The carpet is likely to be visible for all of sixteen seconds once the kids get back from their dad's, so I offer this picture of their closet as proof that the carpeting does exist:
Last but not least, this is what happens when I lend my 12 year old the camera: thirty pictures of our cat's ear!

Okay, they weren't ALL of the cats' ears. But there were thirty of them. Thirty. Thank goodness for digital. She actually is pretty good with the camera so here are a couple out of the thirty that feature a full furry face:
And now, since the inside of my fridge looks like this:
(okay, it doesn't look like that - the beer is actually long gone), I must hit the grocery store in order to fuel my children for their imminent carpet demolishing activities.

Hope everyone had a happy, happy Thanksgiving!

Have I ever mentioned how graceful I am?

Since Disa requested more information about the guy who knew a song about a chicken, I decided to go ahead and oblige. It turns out I'm a total sucker for a guy in jeans and a white t-shirt, too. Now let me tell you WHY he had on an undershirt. The reason is, when you're scrubbing the daylights out of your car carpeting because of an unfortunate accident...or two...or three...and you live in Texas where it's still in the low 80s during late November, two shirts might be one layer too many.


In case you were wondering if there's anything better looking than a guy in jeans and a white t-shirt, let me just tell you that there is: it's a guy in jeans and a white t-shirt who is laughing his boohonkus off at the fact that you've flooded the floorboard of his practically new car with an entire cup of chocolate syrup and milk filled coffee.

I don't know a whole lot about a whole lot, but I'm thinking there's probably something to be said for a guy who finds that particular scenario hilarious instead of disastrous, especially considering I practically blinded him for life earlier that very same day by sticking my thumb into his eye. And, in case you're wondering if eyeballs are as wet and gooshy as they seem like they'd be, they are.

Here's the sign I was stopping to take a picture of when I seemed to suddenly decide that practically blinding a guy was not sufficient to reveal his true character and that I should cover as much of his car in liquid as possible. Did I mention that I also tossed a water bottle with a loose lid into the back seat?

I thought it was a good sign, even though we were going the other way.

Happy Thanksgiving! Hoping you're all enjoying dead bird today! This one's for you, Saradevil:

Well, I can't find an Alice's Restaurant that can be embedded in its entirety, but at least here's a link!

Camp weekend, part 2

The gal who was engaged to marry my son from ages two until age four was in my bunk at camp last weekend. Isn't she a doll? She's good natured too. She didn't engage in any of the friends stealing stuff from my last camp post, but happily played with anyone available. So, she seems like a good candidate to me. Then again, I don't have the best track record on picking out spouses.


My son got one other marriage proposal before he entered kindergarten. This was from the daughter of a coworker who told me, "Ms. Jill, I'm going to marry Jared, your son, because he's so funny and so WILD!." That mom better watch out!"

When I signed up on the dating service, I requested someone who enjoys a "harmless yet demented sense of humor." I think I was right on with he demented part at the very least...the harmless part perhaps not so much...

I heard all kinds of reactions to this camp incident, from outrage ("How could they do that?!?!?!?") to disbelief ("What's with these kids that they wouldn't know better?!?!?!?"). I, on the other hand, found the entire situation infinitely absurd, hilarious: someone decided that it would be a great idea to have approximately 100 children shave balloons.

Sound like fun? I'm sure it would have been. Except, they armed the children with about 20 disposable razors. As far as I know, they did not give instructions about keeping the razors closed. As one councilor wiped up the blood from the floor (Yes, wiped up the blood), and one girl headed to the infirmary, they went ahead and just brought a nurse straight to the activity area.

This is what it looked like after the announcement, "Anyone who has cut themselves on a razor to please go to the back of the room to see the nurse.":
I've blurred it a little, just 'cause. All injuries were minor and I'm sure we can chalk that one up to "lesson learned."

But he was really NICE psycho...

Today was a little more exciting than your average Tuesday. I woke up this morning to a dead computer. Seeing as how my watch, my DVD player, my phone, and my CD player have all bit the dust over the past month, it really came as no surprise. Luckily it turns out that I'm a genius.

Okay, I'm not a genius. It just happens that I listen to my dad now and again and dad always says when something doesn't work, take it apart and put it back together again. Didn't work for my DVD player, or my CD player, or my watch (mostly 'cause I didn't try, I'm guessing), or my phone. It did, however, work on my computer.

It's Chick-Fil-A night again and my children were handcuffed. Yes, Cassie wanted to make good and sure that those handcuffs we discussed last week really did fit small wrists. Unfortunately I hadn't unpacked my camera from the whole camp thing and these lousy pictures are from my cell phone. And you thought fast food wasn't any fun!

"I don't think I can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on."

(We actually pick up all our garbage at the Chick-Fil-A whether we're handcuffed or not. I just never had the chance to put Arlo Guthrie's words in my kids' mouths before and figured I may as well strike while the iron is hot.)

Only Beth would think to ask whether or not their noses itched and threaten to tickle them while they were handcuffed. If you read my friend Beth's blog, you may already know that my friend Beth's son Max is afraid of clowns. Tonight Beth terrorized her son by requesting that Honey Dew the clown enter the men's room. Poor Max. He was convinced that only men were allowed in there.


As if I needed a perfect ending for tonight, as well as a reminder that my bravado is mostly bluster, a nice psycho happened by just as I was typing this. I heard a knock at my door. Figuring it's my friend Terry, who I'm delinquent in calling, I pulled on my jeans and went to the door shouting, "Who is it?"

I looked through the peephole at a blond stranger. I mentioned I like to talk to strangers, but not at ten at night when I'm half dressed. Three quarters dressed maybe, but not half. KIDDING! I like to be fully dressed when I talk to strangers and I like it to happen in public during the DAYTIME!!!! Plus, it's sort of a given that a question such as "Who is it?" would elicit a response, otherwise why bother talking at all?

It turns out that I had dropped my keys in favor of chasing Sugar, my cat, during his escape as we returned from the Chick-Fil-A. I asked who it was several more times. The nice-key-returning-psycho never answered, but did say I had dropped my keys and waved them in front of the peephole. For once I managed to take my own advice and instead of opening the door just asked him to leave the keys, which he hung on the door knocker.

Sensing my obvious distraction, Sugar made yet another escape when I opened the door to collect the keys. I managed to catch him without encountering the nice key-returning-pyscho, and aside from a little excess adrenaline, the kids and I are fine.

Sugar, however, I'm planning on serving up for Thanksgiving dinner.

Camp Weekend, Part 1

Ever since I was eight years old, I've wanted to live at summer camp. Camp has all the fun of teaching preschool with the added advantage of taking place outdoors a majority of the time. I'm almost always happier when I'm outdoors.

I'm not sure exactly why or how I always find myself at home afterwards. I probably get tricked into leaving by the promise of a bunch of over-tired, hyperactive children trapped on a 3 1/2 hour bus ride home.

The best thing about camp might be that the level of chaos, while still somewhat controlled, is much higher than anything one could allow in a classroom. The kids are older at camp too, so instead of saying things like, "We don't spit on our friends!" I get to say things like, "I don't know. I'm not in charge of snack. I'm only in charge of bossing you around." and "Screaming about peace and quiet is not going to get us any peace and quiet." Followed closely by, "You're on a bus with 80 kids. You're not going to get much peace and quiet."

That last one is key, I suppose, since I found out only later that our bus was considered the worst behaved of any of the buses. It would have helped if someone had informed me I was supposed to be keeping them quiet. I know HOW to chew kids out. I just had no idea it was required. In fact, I was probably at least as noisy as they were.

One of the councilors asked me why I keep the wrench/all purpose tool pictured above in my purse. Let me just tell you that he asked this question WHILE using said wrench to help a girl escape from the bus bathroom where she had been trapped for at least 20 minutes. Aside from the occasional accidental crime and a bathroom rescue, it was also useful on the way home for cutting a giant cookie cake.

I was with a third grade bunk last year, and let me tell you: fourth grade girls are an entirely different animal. I'm pretty sure they have all the interpersonal problems of adults, but lack the experience and tact to steer through them. I tried my best each time they asked, doling out sage advice about how to cope with a friend who threatens to start and spread rumors, is bossy, or "steals" friends.

They didn't want to hear it though. I finally threw in the towel stating, "I really don't know. I didn't have any friends in fourth grade." It's not true, of course. I had a couple of close friends. I just didn't have large groups of friends that I had known for years. Considering the types of problems these girls are having, I might actually have been better off.

Here's another problem I didn't have in the fourth grade: these girls have boyfriends. I was even an eyewitness to a breakup: "I'm dating someone who's older than you, taller than you, and cuter than you!" At dinner that night I had to ask who was older, taller, and cuter than the boy she broke up with. "No one," she told me, "I just made that up."

Hey burglars, here's another chance!!!!!!!!

If there's one thing I like every bit as much as spending my day surrounded by 3 to 7 year olds, it's spending 3 1/2 hours each way on a bus with 8 to 12 year olds!

Last year as I understand it, my main job at religious school retreat was to make sure that Jewish children from all over the state of Texas changed their underwear at least one time over a three day period.

I think I fulfilled my purpose by consistently answering each and every concern with, "But did you change your underwear?" This year my friend Beth said I should just write, "Change your underwear!" on my t-shirt. But I figure I can wait and see if my assignment has changed.

In any case, my stuff's all up for grabs again. Please feed the cat if you come by, but leave your paws off the CDs!!!!!!

Parenting 101

So the guy who's been partially responsible for my recent scarcity in the blogging world insists that my kids respect my authority. It's true that every now and then I do have a flash of parenting brilliance.

Tonight at the Chick-fil-A, for instance, my friend Beth notices Cassie using a cup of Sprite to beat a coffee stirrer into a pulp. "Cassie," she warns, "you're going to splatter that everywhere!" "Yeah," I chime in with a wave of my hand for emphasis toward the back of the restaurant, "If you're going to do that, go do it closer to the policeman."

I hear chuckling and glance up to find that the place had cleared out enough for the policeman in question to have heard me. He says the splatter wouldn't bother him a bit because, "I have handcuffs that fit small wrists." 

Uh huh. That's exactly what I'm saying.

Moments later, Beth is encouraging her son Jake to stuff his mouth full of crackers in order to make the recital of tongue twisters more amuzing. "Chew!" she orders, thrusting a second cracker in his general direction, "Chew!" Jake resists, claiming that "Polly doesn't want a cracker." 

"She's just saying to chew," I point out, "She didn't say swallow. After you chew it, you can spit it wherever you want."

I glance up, and once again the nice police officer has definitely heard our superior parenting in action. I tell him, "We're raising fine, upstanding citizens here, in case you're wondering." "I stopped wondering about you guys a long time ago," he tells us. 

He actually leaves his chair to inform us that, "You guys are the reason I still have a job here." Yep. That would be us. Every Tuesday, whether Chick-Fil-A needs us or not.

Here are my sweeties on Halloween ready to devil worship or practice polytheism or something:


I was SO proud of Cassie, who made her entire toga costume by herself using a bed sheet, some leaves she found outside, a few ribbons, and hot glue. My sole contribution to the project was to refuse to drive her a block away to borrow a safety pin. 

Did I mention I'm raising self reliant, fine upstanding citizens?