You should take the quiz as well! Just post 10 unusual facts about yourself!
1. I much prefer store bought doughnuts to the ones from the doughnut shops! The “fresh” doughnuts are usually too heavy and greasy. I like the powdered doughnuts that make a huge mess!
2. I always really loved butterflies and admired their beauty. Then one day, David and I were at the butterfly center at the Houston Museum of Natural Science and a butterfly nearly landed on me! I was ready for it up until just before it landed. At that moment, I realize that butterflies were just big bugs. I could not get out of that place fast enough!
3. I love the parking brake. They made us use it in driver’s ed all the time, and it was part of our “checklist” of stuff we had to do before we could exit the vehicle. I use it everywhere, even on totally flat surfaces. David doesn’t share this habit, so when he drives my car, we sometimes go for several miles before he realizes that I left the parking brake on. I’m surprised the poor thing still works.
4. I can’t set my alarm for “normal” times, like 5:00, or 6:30. I have to set it for weird times, like 4:12, or 6:43. I feel like I’m getting bonus sleep!
5. Our phone number is just one digit off from the number for the criminal district attorney for Marshall. We get TONS of wrong numbers. I used to have a message on my answering machine for all the wrong numbers, telling them what they had done and what they needed to do to get the DA. Yes, I totally overestimated the intelligence factor of the majority of people who need the DA! We get all kinds of hilarious messages from people in a huge panic to talk to the DA. My personal favorite was one from a guy who got shot in a park. We also get a lot of “baby-daddy” related messages.
I hardly ever bother to answer the phone!
6. I love bread. It’s really one of my favorite overall foods! I do not like cornbread, however. It makes me feel like my insides are drying up.
7. I’ve developed a real issue with caffeine over the past few years since I gave up drinking soda. I used to drink caffeine all day every day with no side effects. Now I have to save my caffeine drinking for Friday nights and Saturdays so I can actually plan not to sleep! If I’m this senstive with caffeine, I think this shows that it’s a great thing for me NOT to drink alcohol.
8. I have to really mentally prepare myself to use ATM machines or the debit card machines at the checkout. I read once that there is more fecal matter and germs on these machines than in pretty much all public restroom toilet seats. I have to say that I believe this. At least most places make a feeble effort to clean the toilets, but how often do you think they sterilize the ATM?
9. I cannot use any product that utilizes a SPF factor. This means: no sunscreen, no lotions with SPF protection, no makeup/chapstick, etc with the SPF ingredients. Unfortunately, this allergy also extends to having any contact with the substance! If I sit in a chair where someone wearing sunscreen sat, my legs/arms will develop a rash. I can’t go to Six Flags without coming home with this particular souvenir!
10. I have an obsession with Bic Blue clicky pens. I’ve had this obsession since probably junior high, when we stopped using the erasable pens. I’ll go to the ends of the earth to search for my pen when it gets lost!
Today just made me laugh!
Capital One has this teller reward program call “The Ones Award” where they grade each teller on his/her performance, and then if you have enough points, you receive the reward and the bank treats the teller and the supervisor to lunch.
Okay, so I got the award for the last quarter of 2007. Our luncheon was today, and my supervisor (Becky), and I went to The Potpourri House in Tyler. Becky had described to me that the restaurant was kind of like a tearoom, so I had prepared myself for the soup/sandwich/salad format. I did not prepare myself, however, for the intrinsic entertainment the place had to offer!
We got there after getting only slightly lost. 
As we walked in, we had the option of going straight into the dining room, going left into a gift shop area, or going right and into a clothing store. (huh?) We found our group table first, but since we were the first ones there, we decided to browse around the store a little bit.
The store was basically like a Hallmark store, but really, it was more like a Hallmark on steroids. They had all these really cute knicknacks, and really fancy serving dishes, candles, etc. They also sold (oh no) Fenton type glass arrangements, and Lampe Berger. Some of the knicknacks were really adorable, but I was noticing this “cat” theme that kind of keep recurring.
Another thing about the gift shop was that there were very few items that you could buy as “stand-alone” products. Most of these items required COMMITMENT, as in, “I must re-do my entire room to accommodate this new glass sculpture.” I had decided it was a gift shop place when I first walked in, but later realized that if you received one item from the place, you’d basically have to go back yourself and get the rest of the set if you wanted anything to match. So, it was more like buying one piece of bait and then eventually having to go out buy the entire tackle box.
We went back to our dining room. I sat with my back to the door, but I heard someone from our group say, “Hi, how are you?” As I looked behind me, I saw this older woman coming into our area. I think we all thought she was lost. Guess what? She wasn’t! She was……a CLOTHES MODEL!!!!!!! That’s incredible! She was touting their new “spring” line, and all their new jewelry out in the store.
Side note: Why is it that the older most females get, the larger their jewelry becomes? HUGE, I’m telling you. These bracelets were gargantuan.
So I thought that was totally crazy. She wandered out with a flourish.
The meal was AMAZING! I had this really great veggie sandwich and chips. The chips were so cool! I expected them to phone it in with a handful of Lay’s, but nope! The chips were actually flat french fries! Yes, I was happy. The bread pudding I had for dessert was also yummy.
During our meal, I heard someone mumble, “Oh, she’s back!” I looked up. Our model was back! She was in a completely different outfit this time, with a huge set of rings. (Think: “Price is Right” hand models) I tried to keep my expression neutral. I don’t think it worked.
We decided to explore the rest of the store after our lunch. As we walked out, we saw the first male occupant of the building! It was this little tiny old man, sitting on a chair and looking like he wished he were totally somewhere else. Poor little guy.
The clothing store featured:
1. Designer walking canes (most with jewels (Bedazzler style!))
2.WILD sunglasses! Flamingo frames, wraparound glasses (cataract surgery style) WITH jewels, etc.
3. Lots of cat related-designs
So, yeah. I’m getting giggly, and we’re both realizing that every single person in the store is a little old lady wearing tons of HUGE jewelry and clothes with tons of bedazzled sparkle.
It was great. I loved it!! I especially loved the fact that the food made good enough to want to go again!
Back in the 80’s, there was a guy (Mike Levey) who hosted an infomercial show called “Amazing Discoveries!” He was always really enthusiastic about his products, and wore a dazzling array of sweaters. His tagline (after seeing the product work): “It’s an Amazing Discovery!!” I had an amazing discovery myself today, and I’m still excited!
One of my friends at the bank (Debra) and I had been wanting to try the Debbie Myer “Green Bags” that we’ve seen on tv. These are special bags that are supposed to keep your produce fresher longer, so you don’t have to throw out as much as you might have to usually. (This is especially great for me, since my refrigerator doesn’t actually have a crisper drawer and my lettuce dies in like, a day!)
So, we didn’t want to order off of tv, and we spent weeks looking for them in stores. (TV voice announcer, “And they’re not sold in stores!!” hehehe)
I finally found them at Bed, Bath and Beyond. It was extra exciting because we got the “tv special” (Announcer: “And we’ll double your order of Green Bags if you call now! That’s right, you’ll get 20 green bags for the same price, just $9.95 plus the cost of shipping!”) Even better, by getting them at Bed, Bath and Beyond, we paid only $9.95, saving ourselves $7 of shipping!
Debra and I split the bags so we could each try them out. I immediately went and bought some of the ready-to-eat salad mixture, since that is the produce I buy the most, and is also the produce my refrigerator kills the fastest. The lettuce was still good a week later when I finished eating the salad!
Now, here’s the Amazing Discovery. David brought me a bag of salad on the Wednesday before I got sick, which was January 23rd. I ate maybe about ¾ of the bag before the weekend, which was when that cold kicked in and I had that purse-snatching Wal-mart trip. I didn’t eat anything healthy that entire week because all I wanted to eat at all was starch. I kept thinking, “Ew, that salad is probably disgusting. I need to throw it out.” Then I’d forget about it again.
So today, I finally decided to throw the salad away. I went to the fridge, and WOWSERS, the salad is STILL fresh! Can you imagine that? It’s AMAZING! Everyone needs to buy some Green Bags.
On a totally different note:
A guy got shot on MY block yesterday! This is the link to the story: Marshall News Messenger.
For those of you familiar with Marshall, this happened in front of that old pink school “The Pink Prison” on East Houston. The pink school sits on the same lot as a city park, and that place is always full of the scariest people. So, the pink school is probably about half a block from our apartment….maybe seven houses down or so. I saw all the police cars as I was coming home from the bank, and if it had been daylight, I could have easily seen the entire thing from our front yard.
Marshall has so many ghetto areas that there’s not really a “good” area of Marshall in which to live. Plus, the city’s proximity to so many major highways: Highway 80, Highway 59, and Interstate 20 all lend themselves to being drug thoroughfares, so drugs are lucrative business around here.
I was watching tonight, and looky here, my neighborhood was on tv! I was like, “Ooooh!!! Pan the cameras down the block a little bit! I want to see my apartment!” The funny thing was that I think I was outside when the news crew was down there. I was sweeping the front steps and sidewalk (in totally non-matching clothes, thankyouverymuch) and noticed lots of traffic slowing down as they reached the pink school. My fashion disaster could have been on tv! That would have been one for all posterity, I say.
Happy Groundhog Day!
I finally defeated Yahoo!’s one-picture-per-blog-entry rule, as you can see from the post below. Go me for finally taking the time to do the HTML! It’s been a really long time since I’ve tried remember any of that stuff, and I was never truly that adept at it in the first place.
So, we now have DirecTV. That’s exciting! The guys came today and put in our new satellite dish and receivers. I haven’t gotten to fully explore all the features yet, but so far I like it. It’s weird to have ABC again! The guys were really stinky though, so the house smelled after they left. Thank goodness for our ionic breeze! I love that thing. They told David that they’ve been really busy ever since Dish Network stopped airing ABC last month. I am sure that’s true!
On to my topic!
I went to McDonald’s tonight to get a Southwest Salad. As you might remember from previous months, this salad has caused me alternating experiences of joy and anguish. Last report was that McDonald’s was finally doing things correctly! hmm….I think we’re reverting back to our old ways.
I drove up and I was the only person in the drive through. (I guess no one really eats McDonald’s on Saturday nights, huh? Me either, usually!) I was pretty happy anyway, since it’s usually very crowded.
Our McDonald’s has two drive through lanes where you can order, and then the lanes merge into one so you can pay and get your food. I still haven’t figured out how this is even remotely useful because it causes traffic jams when people try to merge into one lane, and I have yet to go there when the cashier or food people had any idea which order was mine!
So, I pull up to the outer lane and the person says, “Please hold a minute.” I say okay, and wait. I wait. I wait. Another car pulls into the other lane, and immediately gets waited on! I was like, “No way!!!!” So, I gave up on that idea and just pulled forward. Yeah, I felt like a rebel.
I get to the window and tell the lady I hadn’t ordered yet. She looked at me with this ”Wow, you really don’t understand how this works” look, so I gave her this really good sob story about being left out there all alone. I think it dawned on her then that she had forgotten me, because she started apologizing profusely.
I did my order and pulled to the second window. The lady tried to give me a quarter pounder. I said, “Nope, that’s not me. I had the salad.” Long gazing at the computer ensues. “OH! The salad!!!! What chicken did you want on that again?” *sigh* I repeat my entire order, emphasizing the ’no chicken’ part. “OH!!! I see that now; that was actually on here!”
The salad comes. I made sure to check it, and guess what? It was wrong! It was missing the tortilla strips. I waited for the girl to come back to the window. She had her back to me and was dancing and clapping to something. Finally, she turned around and was shocked that I was still there.
I guess I am just expecting too much!
2) Take each answer and type it into the search bar at Photobucket.com
3) Take a picture from the first page of results and post the html code found under the image.
1. Age you will be on your next birthday:
2. Place you would like to visit:
Grand Canyon
3. State where you were born:
4. One of your favorite things:
5. Favorite food:
6. Favorite animal:
7. Favorite color:
8. Place you currently live:
9. Place where you grew up:
Texas City, actually, but Houston is close enough
10. Name of a favorite pet:
Porkchop!
11. Name of a former crush:
12. Your nickname:
They call me “Betty” at work…
13. Your middle name:
Crazy that I’m actually on Photobucket, when I don’t even use it!
14. A bad habit you have:
15. Your first job:
16. Your grandmother’s last name:
Taft
17. Something you are planning to do today:
18. Something that makes you smile:
19. Favorite television show:
20. Favorite movie:
21. Something you’re addicted to:
22. Favorite way to waste time:
