Insert clever title here...

Lately, as in the last couple of years or so, I've been really bad at eating lunch.  If I don't take my lunch, most days I don't eat lunch.

But it's also really difficult for me to take my lunch since I'm not great at grocery shopping often enough to have lunch supplies on hand.

Today, I decided I really needed to take my lunch to work, so I was scavenging the kitchen for something...anything...to take with me.

I decided a can of soup would be fabulous.  It's healthy.  It's easy.  It's relatively good.  But it's also pretty much water, so I was sure I'd end up hungry a few minutes after eating it.  Plus, it was something not too exciting, like Mexican Vegetarian Bean and Tomato.  Seriously, how did I buy this?

So I did some hunting and gathering and found some mini saltine crackers.  I figured adding some carbs to the soup would help a little in filling me up.  I don't remember exactly when I bought them, but it had to have been about a year ago since it's been too hot for soup the last 6-ish months.  And I really only eat saltines with soup.

I foraged a little more and found a string cheese (which Darrell tells me I eat incorrectly since I don't peel apart), a cherry-flavored Jell-O, and a vanilla-flavored pudding.  Sounds pretty well-rounded to me.  Plus, there's the girl at work who has a stockpile of chocolate that I can raid as needed (although that is seriously my lunch most days).  (Don't judge...chocolate is a protein since it comes from the cacao plant which is a legume.)

As I was writing this, I found it pretty sad that most people could find better food in their desk at work than I could in my kitchen.  At home.

So, around lunch-time (you know, 2:30-ish), I decided to eat my lunch.

I dumped most of the contents of my soup in the mug I took to work a couple of weeks ago...just in case I needed it.  It was a little smaller than the soup can, so I decided to heat up what I could, eat some, and then pour the rest in the mug, heat it up, and eat it gone.

I then pulled out my baggie of saltines.  For some reason, I really love saltines in my soup.  I add them one at a time since soggy anything really grosses me out. 

I was really excited to eat my soup and crackers since it's been awhile since I had this meal. I tasted the soup and it was sort of boring.  It was, afterall, one of those "healthy" soups that has less sodium, which means I normally dump a tablespoon or so of salt into it so that it tastes like regular soup.  I tried to find one of those little paper packets of salt in my desk and had no luck, but that's okay since the saltines are salty. 

Hence the name saltines.

They tasted a little funky, but I figured the soup would help them taste normal.

No.Such.Luck.

They made the soup taste funky.  But, although there are some lunches you can easily throw in your trashcan, soup isn't one of those.  So I was stuck eating it.  I tried it with some more crackers, but it started tasting bad. 

I gave up on the saltines and ate the soup plain.  I searched my desk drawers again for salt and for a moment, I contemplated dumping a couple of ketchup packets into the soup.  But then I remembered the stew + ketchup fiasco of 1976 (which is an absolutely true story--for another day), and decided to go plain.

I finished my soup, ate my string cheese (the way I like to eat it), ate the Jell-O (which I'm always tempted to slurp up through a coffee stirrer), and ate the pudding.

Awhile later I raided the chocolate dish...isn't it amazing how much fresher the candy tastes the closer you get to Halloween?

When I got home from work and put away my lunch stuff, I saw the Saltine box on the counter.  I decided to throw away the rest of the crackers and recycle the box (hey...I do my part to save the world!).

I glanced at the "Best By" date. 

January 12, 2009.

Seriously?  No wonder they were disgusting!  They did taste a little like rancid oil.

But the worst part of all is that had they expired 10 years ago, they would have been made with trans-fats and tasted as fresh as the day I bought them.

A Piece of Art, or #7 of 30

About 6 months ago, in my quest to post more frequently, I posted a list of 30 blog titles.

So far, I've done six.

And number 7 is "A Piece of Art."

I am not a self-proclaimed artist.  I have several artsy family members, but I am not one.

I am, however, a self-proclaimed sorta crafter.

I'm pretty good at copying other people's ideas.

And not making them perfectly.  Rather imperfectly, in fact.

But most of the time, I like my little imperfect pieces of craftery.

I have a few things that I should be posting, but since it's too dark to photograph them even remotely effectively, I will just re-post a recent craft that I consider a piece of art.

Unfortunately, I just recently posted this, so it's not exactly exciting. 

But I promise I will take some photos of my other endeavors and post them here soon.

'Cause I still have 27 more days to go this month!

Since it's confession time...

I just found out my profile at mormon.org is up and running.

Check it out.

And if you have any questions, just let me know in the comments.

PS...I thought I scheduled this post and it's a good thing I checked so I could keep the ball rolling since it didn't automatically post.  Scary!  Spooky!

Hi. My name is Stephanie. And I'm an addict.

(Go ahead...say it.  "Hi, Stephanie.")

I have become absolutely addicted to Pinterest.
I joined months ago, when it was difficult to get an invite--and yeah, you used to need an invite to join.
I kept reading all these blogs ('cause, if we're being honest, I'm addicted to blogs.  Of people I don't know.  Yeah...I've got a serious problem) and everyone was talking about "pinning" and "boards."
I didn't quite understand and I was a little annoyed.  (Truth be told, I read several blogs written by people who annoy me.  Some of these people are over-the-top narcissists.  And tell everyone about their narcissism.  Only they don't call it that.)
So, although I was annoyed, I figured it was just another thing these self-apprecating (you know, the opposite of self-deprecating) folks were discussing that was a secret society, only accessible to the blogtastics.
But then, one of the bloggers I admire wrote about it.  And even described it.  And was willing to give out invites.  (That's one of the reasons I like her...she doesn't think the world-wide-web is HER oyster).
So, I went to the website and checked it out. 

It looked a little like heaven. 

A place I could put all those things I see on blogs that I love/want to do/dream of/etc. 
Somewhere that I could remember. 
It wasn't one of my secret hiding places.  (I have so many of them, I can never remember where I put what.  My cyber hiding places are various places on my C drive or emails I sent to a friend or emails I sent to myself or bookmarks on my browser or little pieces of paper I scribbled details or printouts I put in real [as opposed to cyber] hiding places like the pile of paper on the desk or the pile of paper on the floor in the home office or the pile of paper on the floor in the guest room....I think you get the idea.)

So I signed up and started using Pinterest.
I pinned a few things, but would forget about it most of the time.
I would get emails saying that someone I didn't know re-pinned a pin.  Or was following me.
And I'd pin a few more things.
I had a conversation with one of the 2 other people I knew who pinned.
We couldn't figure out the re-pinning.  And following.  And found it slightly creepy.
And I pinned a few more things.

And then more of my friends started pinning. 
And I learned about re-pinning.  And following.
And I pinned more and more.
And re-pinned.  And followed.

And now I find myself addicted.

And I'm SURE I can quit any time I want.
I don't pin at work, so it clearly isn't a problem.
I've gone DAYS without even thinking about it.
It's not like I installed the app on my phone.  (Ok...I don't have an i-phone, which is [currently] the only phone that has an app.)
And I've only tried to access it at a friend's house once.  And that was just because SHE wanted to see something I pinned.
And I haven't forced Darrell to sign up so I could have a secret Pinterest account...although that doesn't sound like a bad idea.


Ok....I'm an addict.

But hey...admitting I have a problem is the first step.

I saw that on a pin!

Holy freak-out, Batman!

First, I'd like to apologize that this post isn't even half as exciting as its title would imply.

In case you hadn't noticed, I haven't updated this here blog in quite some time. 

And a whole bunch of bloggers are posting every day in October, so I thought I'd jump on the band wagon since that's what I do.

I'm easily swayed.  And if you didn't know that about me, now you do.

So, to the point.  Since I decided to post every day in October, I started to do that very thing.

And blogger has totally changed itself.

When, exactly, I don't know.

And so, the reason for the blog post title.

Or maybe, even more appropriately, it is a little shocking I posted.

You decide.

(And comment your thoughts below).

Thanks for visiting!

E.A.T., or an example of my procraftination

I'm the girl who loves to start crafts.  But, unfortunately, I don't finish even half as many as I start.

Take my E.A.T. sign, for instance.  

                                                                         

For months, I wanted to make some sort of craft revolving around the word "eat" for my kitchen.  I wasn't sure of what it would look like, but I knew I wanted it.

One day while at Hobby Lobby, I saw the papier mache letters on sale and I bought an e, a, and t.  I still wasn't sure how it would turn out, but I needed to make a start and that was a good one.

I then decided to decoupage pretty papers on each and attach them to frames.  So I went back to the HL and searched the stacks and stacks of scrapbook paper.  (Because the stacks and stacks I have at my home--under the guest bed, in the end table in the guest room, and stuffed in little hiding places here and there--were not quite right).

I went to the dollar store and scoured the picture frame section trying to find 3 frames that had character and were made well enough to not look tacky and cheap...'cause when you spend a dollar on a frame, you don't want everyone to know.  But you certainly don't want to spend $5 on each frame.  I spray painted the frames a glossy white (which looking at them again, I should have done at least one more coat, but I am an impatient woman...sorta).

I painted the glass of the frames a dainty aqua (the inside, not the outside).  This time I painted about 3 coats to make sure you couldn't see the paint strokes and ensure uniformity.

Then I assembled the parts.  The aqua glass in the now-white-frames and glued (with E6000--good stuff) the letters to the glass.

Then the letters sat in the bookcase in my home office.  For months.  They weren't quite done, but I couldn't figure out what they needed.  So as I tried to figure it out (and live the rest of my day-to-day life), they sat.  And sat.  Finally, I figured I should hang them up and figure it out while I enjoyed them.

And I did.

About a month later, I decided to make some paper flowers, which wasn't too hard.  I'd link to the tutorial where I found the instructions, but don't remember which of the millions of blogs I checked out was the one with the instructions.  And so, alas, you'll need to just take my word for it.  They are easy.

And now, it's been about another month and I finally took the letters down and glued (with hot-glue this time) the flowers on.

So there you have it.  A tutorial of sorts.  On how a craft that takes other people 30 minutes can take my 492 days to complete.  (that is an estimate, but I wouldn't be too surprised if it was the true time frame).

Giveaway!

After years of blogging--admittedly, it has been rather sporadic and lame, especially as of late--I am happy to announce a giveaway!

The winner will receive the rights to my debt.  All of it.  My mortgage, car payment, credit cards, and (while we're at it) my monthly bills, like groceries, utilities, and my shopping sprees.  And by "rights," I mean "responsibility for paying."

The bad news is that it is way less than the national debt.  The good news is that I can make arrangements for it to last your lifetime. 

Here are all the rules of the giveaway:
Unlike all those other giveaways you are familiar with that have all sorts of questions to answer, or buttons you have to add to your blog, or Twitter/Facebook tag lines like "Oh my gosh!  I just entered the best giveaway in the world and you should too!  Just click here to enter.", all you have to do is nothing.  Yep, that's right!  Nothing.

'Cause here's the deal.  I have a special tracker that lets me know who reads my blog, including their name, shoe size, and cell phone number--even if you use a reader and don't actually read from my URL.  So, everyone who comes to my blog and doesn't leave a comment will be entered into the giveaway. 

Now, if for some crazy reason, you decide you don't want to win this glorious giveaway, just leave me a comment.

Thanks for entering!

Fine print:  I don't REALLY have a "special tracker" or know your shoe size, but I would really like to hear from my readers (assuming there are any :) ).