My Life as a Hotfessional

One day, I got an email from an Author. A real-honest-to-goodness Author who reads my blog. After I finished blushing and I picked my ass up off the floor, I ran through the house telling everyone “An Author is reading my blog!!!” and “She’s published!” while jumping up and down and waving my arms around.

Then a package arrived in the mail, and it was from said Author (see, I revere these people! I use Capital Letters!). And it was a copy of her book - with an autograph and an inscription and everything. Then I picked myself up off the floor again, and hugged the book to my breast and danced around the kitchen some more.

The book? “Goddess in the Groove - Musings From the Goddess Within“. The Author? Heike Boehnke-Sharp.

It’s such a lovely book to read. Heike relates stories from her life - stories about herself, her mother, her daughter. Like when I read blogs, I found myself nodding - agreeing with her insight. Relating to the words and the underlying feelings of those words. And, of course, grinning.

Thanks so much Heike, for the gift of another inspirational book for my library.

Plus, check it out y’all. I was so inspired by the whole “goddess” feeling I was left with, I channeled some of that into something I never, ever do! I baked.

Okay, so the bananas were blackening on my counter and I couldn’t stand the thought that I paid for bananas that were going to go to waste. Of course, I had no flour, or baking soda, or baking powder, or shortening (can you tell we NEVER bake?) so to keep from tossing $1.69 worth of bananas, I went and spent $20 on the other the other ingredients I needed to make banana bread.

—- At least I cleaned up the kitchen AND washed the seventy-eleven bowls and measuring spoons it took me to make it. —-

Grinding my back teeth,
The anger is testing me,
Will I break or scream?

Do you ever have days when you’re on the verge of having a huge-ass hissy fit all day long? From the time you get up in the morning until the time you go to bed (or, at least, lock yourself away from all other human beings?) - you feel like if one more person says one more word, or walks past, or looks at you, or fuckin’ BREATHES - you’re going to explode?

That’s pretty much how I feel right now.

Everything is pissing me off. From the 27 emails I had waiting for me this morning reminding me that we have a huge initiative happening next week that absolutely, positively, must be flawless (Gee, sorry, I had no idea….dumbshit) to the fact that Shortman just walked out of this room without turning off his Teamspeak headset so I hear a bunch of 16 year old boys screaming at each other to “Shoot him, shoot him. Dammit.”.

I’ve wanted to haul off and punch the crappe out of, oh pretty much the entire world. (Well, except you all…no, seriously, I wouldn’t punch you….you’re the greatest. Stop.Backing.Away!)

Ahem.

So, that’s my mood today. I need to go to the grocery store and run over some perfect strangers with my cart and stock up on the vodka buy some beautifully scented aromatherapy candles and some bubble bath.

—- Meh. That’s all. —-

In honor of May Day:

Thanks to DaysGoBy and available here - A picture of Hotfessional.com!

The Key:
What do the colors mean?

blue: for links (the A tag)
red: for tables (TABLE, TR and TD tags)
green: for the DIV tag
violet: for images (the IMG tag)
yellow: for forms (FORM, INPUT, TEXTAREA, SELECT and OPTION tags)
orange: for linebreaks and blockquotes (BR, P, and BLOCKQUOTE tags)
black: the HTML tag, the root node
gray: all other tags

For May’s Hotlight, let’s do gardening sites! Send me your favorite blog about plants, flowers, and other grow-y things by May 24th, and I’ll get them hotlighted by the end of the month.

And I needed to check:

You Are A Lily

You are a nurturer and all around natural therapist.People see you as their rock. And they are able to depend on you.You are a soothing influence. You can make people feel better with a few words.Your caring has more of an impact than even you realize.

What Flower Are You?

Aw.  I am a saint.  (Who says fuck way too often?)

and here’s another:

What These Tulips Say About You

You are very popular and universally admired.You are often hopelessly in love, and you connect to other people easily.You are a naturally cheerful and upbeat person. You have an amazing smile.

What Do The Flowers You Pick Say About You?

Amazing smile, makes sure people don’t stare at the bald head!

or this:

You Are a Purple Flower

A purple flower tends to represent success, grace, and elegance.At times, you are faithful like a violet.And other times, you represent luxury, like a wisteria.And more than you wish, you find yourself heartbroken like a lilac.

What Color Flower Are You?

Grace?  Gah!  Tell my mother that.

—- Now, go dance around the stripper pole maypole. But don’t forget to send me gardening sites! Send an email with “Hotlight-May” in the subject to “reereep(at)gmail(dot)com” or leave me a comment here. —-

Did y’all see Poppy’s post from a couple of days ago?

I went looking for a milestone on my own little site, and found that I received my 4,000th comment ever on this post. The comment?

“At that age, I wanted to kill all of my siblings, so that’s a nice moment.

P.S. I made you a “Ring Girl” .. hope that’s OK”

Care of Jenny @ Anonymous Boxer. Thanks so much AB! for the comment and for making me a ring girl.

—- Now, must go pick out the highest stilettos I have so I can parade around holding up signs. Maybe I’ll get to meet Michael Buffer. Love his voice, and I’ll rumble with him anytime! —-

And on the 30th day working from home, I seriously considered bringing a bottle of wine upstairs to have during my lunch. Because, y’all? it’s been one of those days. The kind where everyone’s brains have been sucked out of their heads by some giant, invisible, ant-eater-type being that passes through the highways and byways of Corporate America with a vacuum attachment it sticks up employees’ noses. It turns on the motor and tttttthhhhppppppppttttttt - people who usually have some bit of intelligence are no longer functional human beings.

Therefore, I see no reason why I can’t suck down a 1/2 liter of my favorite Merlot with my hotdog. It would have saved me from beating my head against the wall when:

• I had a conversation with a vendor this morning and he wanted to know WHY I needed to know how many of his contractors were working for me. (Um, because I pay the bill?)
• I watched an overnight delivery van pull up to MY house with Sillygirl’s new package (the fourth try; and also wrong, by the way) instead of delivering it to HER house. Which is 70 miles away. Which would cost $77 in mileage for me to hand deliver. (Expense budget? Apparently not.)
• I found out that a new software implementation happened three months early (“We didn’t think it would be any big deal”, said the project manager) and caused some of our customer-facing systems to crash and burn.
• I got a phone call because someone issued duplicate login IDs for five people - four of which were unable to work for the rest of the day because only the first one logged in can use that ID.

When you think about it, I could have a headache from the head::wall thing, or a headache from the mouth::merlot thing. Seems to me that the mouth::merlot at least makes getting to the headache a bit more fun. (snort. snirk.)

Actually, though, not everything was bad today. Mr. Hot surprised me with a new 8 GB MP3 player that he got for a bargain basement price (A sansa e280 - pretty and shiny new) - and I’ve been loading music to it. Shortman can have my Samsung - it doesn’t hold as much, but hopefully, it won’t suffer the same fate as my IPod.

And! I get to tell you about my new commenters for the month of April! So go! Spread some love and see some new sites.

Old Knudsey - All the news that is too unreal to pass up.
Fiddy P - CommentLuv-er Extraordinaire
Frogdancer - She has a cat named Daphne and an awesome hairstyle!
Magpie - Uses “ephemera”in her tagline, yet claims her head is full of lint.
Ya Ya’s Mom - 3rd grade teacher who can quote the Wiki definition of flatulence.
Coast Rat - My new ‘down south’ boyfriend - with a Midwestern heart of gold y’all.
She Who Goes Gracefully - Another Kohl’s whore and a fellow Type A personality - they must go together.
Coastal Nest - Remodeling at the beach and elsewhere.
Snappy - Smart-talkin’ southern girl happy to explain Sweet Tea and grits.
OverThinker - Worrying IS an art, and we share a coveted place at the Louvre.
Angelawd - Mother of Teens and former Michiganian…with her own freelance writing company.
Arwyn Skye - Ivy’s best friend - trying to keep control when others are trying to steal it.
Battling Chaos - She calls her teenagers “The Recliner” and “Banshee Girl”. Her pets have normal names though.
Kate - South Dakota is freakin’ cold, but she’s got fuzzy slippers to help her through her recovery.
Quin - New Orleans outlook transplanted to NYC tells you about her version of life.
Kathy - The Attention Craving American Sweetheart - Because she says so!
Charles Jeter - Derek’s techie-expert 2nd cousin who gives excellent blogging advice.
Sensitiva McFeelingsly - A new road warrior blogger; someone to share stories with!
Charlotte - A rocket scientist (really!) with a bun in the oven.
The Bloggess - How can you not love someone who has posts titled “Free Booze” and “High”. Where has she been all my life?
Lina the Fish - She’s traveled to more countries than I have states. She’s another green-eyed girl.

—- Oh, and if you go visit Grateful Guy, tell him that the Hotfessional sent you! —-

MeMarie’s Scavenger Hunt Participants should CLICK THIS!!!!

In the past two days:

• Sitting here at my desk, with Shortman sitting next to me at his computer, I hear him tell a friend, “I’m logging off at 4:15 because I’m going to the movies with my brother.”

• Seeing them laugh at Mr. Hot’s 9th grade yearbook picture - circa 1971…. Yea, so we all looked funny then.

• Watching them drive away to catch the Tuesday cheapie matinee - in MY car. (WTF?)

• Having the four of us sitting at the kitchen table that was, until last week, pushed firmly up against the wall so that only three chairs were usable.

• Hearing them offer to swap chores, “I’ll do the cat litter if you vacuum the living room.”

—- It is rather fun having them both in the house. —-

Is it any surprise I find it a bit difficult to get any work done?

Yes, that’s my desk. I work like this, with one or the other of the cats spreading out in front of the window and shedding (oh, mah holy hell, the shedding in this house, between two cats, the dog, and me!) like crazy all over my papers.

And even more fun - guess what I got in the mail today! Return address - Austin, TX.

Sigh, no, it was not a bare nekkid picture of Matthew McConoughey. It was from the I.R.S.

It was NOT good news. Seems that I fucked up made a teeny tiny little mistake on my 2006 tax return. So I get to spend this evening figuring that out. Um, oops. Whee, fun! (I mean that in the most sarcastic way possible, of course.)  Why yes, that is my checkbook in the picture.

So, in return, I’m giving you the April Hotlights - Recipes: Yum, yum, yum. Go look around and enjoy….

First up, my darling Mr. Lady and her Super Saturday Suppers (who, by the way, has a video up today and she is showing some cleavage….). I love this damn easy Brownie recipe.

Lyvvie, over the pond in Scotland, told me about Cooking With Dog. And All Recipes. What she left out was that she’s a marvelous source of inspiration in the kitchen herself.

Dizzy Lizzy (bow your heads in memory - her computer crashed today - and we pray she’s back soon) knew I’d start drooling immediately upon heading over to Baking Bites. Especially when I scrolled down and saw this and then? Peanut Butter and Jelly muffins. Pass the napkins - my keyboard is getting wetter by the picture.

Andrea, over at SchizoFrenetic, sent me Cooking Light. After that last site, I’m going to need this. Seared Salmon. And just in time for our favorite May holiday (well, except for my birthday and Mother’s Day) - tequila!

The Yummy Mummy Cooks Gourmet was brought to this page by Veronica - who has her own hilarious take on cooking with a toddler. Warning! Do not read Yummy Mummy with anything, food/drink/your fingers, in your mouth. You will either choke or your monitor will end up wearing it. (Hey, don’t blame me if you don’t take that advice.)

And this month’s overachiever (I love her for her shoes, but she’s also a damn special kitchen whore) - Lys at Just Because… Three of her favorites are: Erin Cooks, Flanboyanteats, and The Pink Shoe Cookbook. I gained 10 lbs just reading through these three sites. Thanks Lys! (And I only mean that half sarcastically!)

—- Now excuse me while I go drink myself into a stupor rob the nearest bank sell myself on the corner look for my 2006 tax return. Do you think they’ll accept Shortman and Moody as collateral? —-