Did someone say "oiled bikini-clad bodybuilder"?

Yesterday I went to the store for brads and came back with a weight bench and free weights. I was not looking for a weight bench. I was looking for brass fasteners, which are such an outdated office supply item that NOBODY stocks them anymore.  After gesturing in exasperation at all the bradless shelves in FIVE stores, I finally ended up at the thrift store, rummaging fruitlessly through miscellaneous bags of office garbage, and ran right into someone's New Year resolution from last year - fresh and never used and all for the price of just one of the giant free weights it came with.

POWER OF THE SEEEEECRET.

So I came home with the weight bench. And no brads.

Goddamn it. Now I need to use them. I will take a "before" shot. As soon as I find my jar of coconut oil.

The reason I am not using them right this second, and am instead sitting on my butt writing about it, is because I am pretty sure that being home alone, drinking a beer, and getting covered in coconut oil is the best way to murder yourself with a set of free weights. I am not an expert, though. But I will use them. SOON. TOMORROW.

Update on wizard mouse

This morning the little cage was foggy with steam. The little animagus was huddled inside under the ramp. It did not smell as cute as it looked. I texted the man before skipping to the pet store for a cage and tunnel system, and he said something something cats something diseases, so I tromped out into the far bushes and let the little thing go. Which is a bit closer than the two miles it recommended on the box, but still. If he comes back, I get an adorable smelly little diseased pet. Win.

Highland games

note: blog images broke and were removed, sorry

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The highland games used to be an event filled with masses of people in costume and kilt; vendors stuffed under rows of enormous tents, and food booths with everything from bangers to Korean BBQ. But then some charismatic event planner got old and died, and the festival became a limp scrap of an event. This year, it was ousted from the usual park because of construction, and was locked up in a pavilion surrounded by homeless people asleep or dead under every tree. I've had better attendance at my toddler storytime. It's a travesty - one I have no intention of correcting, because Event Coordinator is top on my list of jobs that I never never ever want. Right under Wedding Planner (kind of the same thing, but with more screaming), Emergency Vet (also with screaming, but this time mine), and CPA (see previous).

Anyway, it was still exciting, because Zenny got her head stuck in the cast iron fence.

RSCDS dancing to handful of indigents 

Boys, confused about who was losing Pokemon, but certain it was not themselves.

Red ear of fence-wrenchingness. I win for catching her just before she popped her entire melon between the rungs.

Waiting for very sad fish and chips.

This morning I finally cracked into a new 10-pound range on the scale, and got to pose awkwardly in the mirror to document it.

And then my jokes about positive manifestation backfired AGAIN. I've been thinking kind of a lot about a home and  furniture lately, and then this happened:

Power of the seeeecret. Again. 

Someone moved, and sent their burly nephews over to jam the tiny house full of giant chairs. Be more specific, I have said and said and said.

Send me a new house.

Power of the SEEECRET

I start making quilts when I'm having feelings. 

When I was 10, I made friendship bracelets for the same reason. More accurately, I used friendship bracelet techniques to make rope out of thread, which my barbies then used to rappel down cliffs and truss up Jem and the Holograms. I could have just used kitchen twine, but my characters had survival skills to hone, and all they could scavenge in my bedroom were spools of thread. Yesterday, I taught Gavin how to make bracelets, and he's been walking around with floss pinned to his jeans, weaving maniacally and tying colorful ropes around everyone. It warms my cockles.

Then I went to two more interviews. I tossed the fancy black pencil skirt over my shoulder (at home, not during the meeting) and wore my own jeans skirt, put on a scary bug necklace, drank a cup of fully leaded coffee, and told gross hobo stories. These interviews were much better. Feeling marginally more like myself.

Came home and discovered that we had acquired ANOTHER BIRD OH YAY.

And then I fell in love with it. Stupid adorable fluffy chickens.

Three more interviews, then tenterhooks while I wait to find out if any of them took.