Saturday, November 20, 2010

The C.A.W.S.

Today, I am here to talk to you about something very important.  Something very special.  Something very pertinent. That thing of course is this:

The Christine Advanced Warning System

 The CAWS is a slightly-less-than-effective system in place to prepare me for Sister awesomeness!  It is supposed to let me know BEFORE she posts in her blog, so that I can be the first to enjoy it, and perhaps even enjoy the chance to perform my First Comment Dance.
Also, it's really helpful because, then I can prepare myself for mind-blowing humor.  It's especially important to be prepared so I don't explode after reading her new posts!
Because folks, they really are that funny!  I swear!

Anyways, I have attempted to create a Christine Advanced Warning System....but it isn't very effective. I need to add some sort of bell to it, or something.  It's just a bit hard...cause how do I attach a bell to Sister that ONLY rings when she updates her blog, and how do I get it to work from a 560 mile distance?  And then there's that whole obsessively waiting problem of mine....
I would probably watch that bell, instead of eating, or sleeping, or.....you know....anything else I need to do for whatever reason.  And really, Sister doesn't need all that pressure, cause then she might crawl into a corner and refuse to come out and draw for he blog posts anymore!

So ....yeah......I need to make it work better.




Also, on a side note, I am looking for some GUEST POSTS to help fill in some of the gaps between posts until I make it through the final push through the school year, and get a job!

Want to try your hand at Paint?
Want to try your hand at humor?
Want to take a chance to abscond my readers for yourself?
Want to do my work for me write a post for someone else?

This is your chance!  Shoot me an e-mail at seenandsaid@gmail.com  or leave a comment here about it, and I'll definitely be in touch!  I'm talking to YOU.  You know you want to guest post!

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Training Your Significant Other

I'm super lucky to have Fiance in my life.  We've been dating for just over 4 years now, and I couldn't be happier.

Because I have trained him well.

Here is my patented list of ways to TRAIN your significant other.

1) Reward them for every little thing!  Opened the door for you? Give him a kiss!  Cooked you dinner?  Give her a kiss!  Cleaned up the house while you were gone?  Give 'em a kiss!  It's very important to let them know that you appreciate everything they do.  This will make your significant other more likely to do things for you!  Eventually you can phase out the rewards.

2) Disguise your requests for slave labor.  Don't ask him to come do all the chores and cleaning help you out.  Ask them to come over for a moment.  Give them a reward, and then mention your need in an offhand way.  "Oh, hey, while you're here, could you hang this up for me please?" Keep this up, and he will come every time you call, no matter what you need!

3) Never hesitate to correct your significant other when they step out of line.  A swift, and prompt punishment is important whenever your significant other steps out of line, or they will continue their negative behavior.

4) Remember that rewards should be interspersed randomly after the association between a behavior and the reward is established.  This way, they will continue to do the positive behavior hoping for the reward to come, because they never know when they will get it.

5)  When out and about, if your significant other doesn't want to go along with you to a particular store, give him a sharp tug in the right direction.  He will follow you happily.

Remember, folks, training your significant other is a lot like training a dog!  Except better, because they don't pee on the carpet, and the best rewards get enjoyed by both of you! (i.e. sex)

Thursday, November 11, 2010

A Page from Sister's Book

I am sorry for no post today...and probably not for another for a few days, so I am taking a page from Sister's book.  Tonight, you are getting some cute pictures of my puppy! Enjoy.







And also, for those of you who are curious, here is a picture of Fiance and me!

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

I am Extremely Busy

I'm so so so so so so so sorry for the sparse updates, dear followers and readers!  I am sad to say that the sparse updates will have to continue for a few weeks.  I am so sorry, but I am just too busy to update every day with oodles and oodles of pictures.

This is what my next few weeks are making me feel like.









Needless to say, I have some very important things demanding my attention.  Unfortunately for you, dear readers, blogging has fallen to the background for now.

My question for you is this:

Would you rather have more posts with fewer (or even no) pictures, or fewer posts with more pictures?

Thanks so much for your input!!! I have to go now though.  I have some exercising to do tonight, and I need to eat dinner first, let it settle, and stretch.

Bye!

Monday, November 8, 2010

A Letter to Mark Burg

Dear Mark Burg,

What the heck is your problem?  Why would you ever spend that much money to produce the Saw movies?  They are torture porn.  Who the heck would want to watch torture porn?  Who the heck would want to produce it???  You are truly a strange human being.

As a result of your graphic, violent, malicious, sadistic films I find that I have trouble sleeping at night.  Shortly after seeing any of these films (that is to say, hiding in my room while Little Brother and Fiance watch them), I have trouble sleeping.  I think every little sound is something terrible.  My nights then go something like this...




And I spend all night moving between these three steps.  Settling into a restless light sleep, and then BAM.  There is some sort of creepy noise.  A car driving by, some jerk yelling at his drunk friends down the street, my roommate coming home.   A door creeking.  The house settling.  The floor groaning.

Then I can't do anything but curl up in a corner, going crazy.


Please, Mark Burg, do the world a favor, and create less horror, gore, and fear in the world.  Why can't you produce a few movies with happy fuzzy bunnies that like to paint rainbows or something?  I think that would make a much better film.

Also, if you INSIST on producing films that scare the pattootie out of me, I wish you would at least have the decency to make films that FAIL in the box office, instead of creating a bunch of box office hits.  This makes these torture pornography films impossible to avoid or ignore.

Mark Burg, I hate you forever.  Please go eat some candy, pet a unicorn, and look at the bright side of life.

Yours Truly,

Catherine

P.S. You even give my dog nightmares.  Congratulations. I hope you are happy.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Houston, I Have a Problem

As many of you know, I am HOPELESSLY addicted to cookies.  But this addiction goes so much further than cookies.  I am addicted to pretty much all desserts.  I love sweets.  My sweet-tooth is VERY demanding.

When I see a plate of cookies, or a freshly baked brownie, or chocolate cake, or a happily colored package of candy, my sweet tooth comes to life!


How can I possibly do anything but obey?  Unfortunately the end result of this is that I get food babies very often!  Until eventually, my frequent food babies ceased to be frequent, and started being permanent.....Here is my proof.


I am able to devour piles and piles of food.  You might even say MOUNTAINS of food.
.....but.....alas.....

This has to change.  I am tired of being at the beck and call of my appetite!  It rides me like a slave driver!  It looks something like this....


So I have decided to go on a diet!  And I will be totally awesome!!!  I plan to lose 40 pounds!  Which is a lot...I think.

Anyways, I mentioned it briefly in my last post....but here is the badge to my new secondary blog to track my diet progress!  I don't expect any of you to care so much, but anyways...if you want to follow along on my journey, and don't mind a lack of pictures or humor, or if you want to get to know the person behind the blog a bit better, feel free to check it out. =)

Diet Fiend

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

I Apologize Yet Again

I have been very busy.  I started a weightloss blog today.  I've added the badge to my list of badges on the sidebar.  It's called Diet Fiend.  Also, I got a brand new phone.

...an iPhone 4.

I will tell you all about one of those two things tomorrow.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Things I Do in the Bathroom....But Probably Shouldn't.

Everyone has a few things they do that they know they really shouldn't.  I am one of those people.  There are LOTS of things I do that I shouldn't.  In fact, there are so many of them, that I am going to focus on just one place.  The bathroom. The water closet.  The toilet room.  The restroom.

Whether it be public or private, there are things I do in the bathroom that I really shouldn't do.  I'd bet money that you guys have a few things you do in the bathroom that you shouldn't do also.  Here are just a few of the stupid things I do.....but probably shouldn't.

1)   Eat - I know that the bathroom is germ-infested.  I know that it is coated with a fine spray of fecal matter.  But damnit, if I'm eating a jello cup, I'm not going to stop just because I am walking into the bathroom to retrieve some make up...or deodorant....or my cell phone, because sometimes I leave it in there.

2)   Talk on my cell phone - I'm not saying that this is a good thing.  Actually, this annoys the hell out of me when I see other people do it.  But I am not innocent of this crime.....Yeah.  Sometimes, I'm that annoying girl having a conversation while I'm peeing.  Get used to it.

3)   Play video games - I have a Nintendo DS lite.  It is AWESOME.  The upside is I have something to do when I'm waiting on something.  The downside is that this means I spend more time on the toilet than I need to....finishing up just one more puzzle on my game.

4)   Read - This is pretty much the same problem as the video games....except worse.  I can sit on a toilet for twenty minutes distracted in a video game.  I can sit on a toilet for an HOUR distracted by a book.  It is BAD NEWS, people.

5)   Skip washing my hands - This is the one that I am most ashamed of admitting.  Sometimes I don't wash my hands.  I'm lazy.....and busy..... and sometimes I just don't care enough to wash my hands after using the bathroom.  This doesn't happen often or anything.  But come on.  I bet you skip occasionally too!

6)   Pop pimples - I know you are not supposed to do this.  But I do.  I just can't help it.  They DEMAND to be popped.  They haunt me.  I just can't....ignore....them......

7)   Remove dirty clothes - This is only a problem because I leave them there, instead of placing them in a dirty clothes bin.  They go on the floor....in the bathroom.

8)   Put dirty clothes back on - I don't always get around to doing laundry when I need to....or....ever get around to it for that matter.  The result is that I sometimes spend fifteen minutes looking for clean clothes....and then settle on the cleanest smelling shirt I can find.

9)   Blog - Sometimes you go to the bathroom and it takes a long time to do your business....On the occasion that this is going to happen, and I know it is going to happen....I sometimes take my laptop with me....and check my email.  And watch youtube.  And blog.  I could be sitting on my toilet right now.  You don't know.....and I'm never telling. BWAHAHAHA.

10) Make Out - Sometimes, in the morning, after I get up , fiance will accost me in the bathroom with kisses and cuddles.  I know that bathrooms are "unsanitary," but that won't keep me from getting my make out on!!! Rawr!



So there you have it.  There are definitely more things I do, but I am keeping it down to 10....because it is a nice round number, and I don't want to do any more drawings than that.  Sorry for my absence lately, dear readers.  I've been busy.  And distracted.  Also, I am trying to apply for some jobs, so I have just had a bit less time than usual.


Also, I am sorry for the shortage of pictures, but I just don't have the energy for it tonight.  Maybe tomorrow.  I'm pretty sure the Lazy Monster has gotten hold of me again.  I will have to work extra hard to remove this one.

Sunday, October 31, 2010

GUEST POST: October's Bloggerstock

In honor of the last day of October, and also because I am awesome,  Bloggerstock is taking place!  So here is the guest post I've been given by Nicole!  If you want to check out the guest post I did, take a look over at Kick Her Right in the Habit!  You can read my post here!

________________________________________________________________________


Thanks to a lovely things called Bloggerstock, Catherine has allowed me to coopt her blog for the day. Every month, Bloggerstock creates a giant blog ring wherein we all write guest posts for one another on a given theme. The lovely Lily from Is it too early for a martini? is gracing my blog with her awesomeness. I signed up this month without really considering the theme. For Halloween, they have asked us to write something "spooky." They want scary stories, but anyone who isn't awesome enough to write a scary story can just talk about a Halloween costume.

I am terrible at scary stories. I apologize from the get-go if you were eagerly awaiting some awesome horror story. Maybe Catherine delivered something magical like that in her Bloggerstock post, but you will not find it here. Unless, that is, you find ridiculous homemade Halloween costumes terrifying. In which case, I definitely have some gems for you.

Recently on my own blog I have been talking about what a weird kid I was. In elementary school I was fairly well-liked so it took me a little while to put it together and realize that I was a strange child. Halloween helped me figure it out. In kindergarten I, along with every 5-year-old girl in 1993, dressed up as Jasmine. Never mind the fact that I am a pale blonde-haired-blue-eyed child who will never look anything like Jasmine. I had awesome Jasmine pajamas that I wore as my costume. This was vastly inferior to many of the other more elaborate Jasmine costumes. In first grade I was a more generic princess. I was so excited to get to wear this fantastic sparkly skirt that had belonged to my older cousin who, in my 7-year-old mind, was just the coolest person to walk the face of the earth. Again, though, it was clear that my princess costume was a bit lacking.

This one of the first moments that I realized I was never going to excel in at anything conventional. Even among quirky seven-year-olds, I was stand-out quirky. Also, my school gave out prizes for awesome Halloween costumes (this practice was discontinued after I graduated because it was deemed bad for kids' self-esteem.) I realized that Halloween was totally something I could and should be good at.

So in the second grade, I was a spooky tree. I distinctly recall patronizing adults asking me if I was a tree, and responding full of righteous indignation that I was, in fact, "A spooky tree." There was so little respect for my artistic vision. Shameful. I was so unspeakably proud of that brown piece of foam, even though I obviously did none of the actual assembly work for this glorious costume.



My mom was like a fucking magician when it came to this stuff. I think that same year my older brother was a haunted house. My mom actually built a doll-house-esque haunted house with a body-hole in the middle. I think her crowning achievement came a year or two later with my little brother's Gameboy Color costume. Not only was the Gameboy awesome, she made him an equally stellar Toad costume to wear while inside the Gameboy. I think the only problem I have with that costume was the fact that it was too good. It looked store-bought and lacked some of that home-made character.
I only managed to claim second place with my Spooky Tree. I think I lost out to a Raggedy Anne doll. Regardless, it was clear to me that this business of Halloween was more in line with my skill set. In subsequent years I would dress up as a painting and a book.

In the fifth grade my class decided to do a theme thing. Since the whole class voted to do this, our class would be marching in the Halloween parade separately from the other fifth grade classes. (I'm not sure I have made it clear how seriously my elementary school took Halloween. We were upper-middle-class Valley kids. A substantial chunk of our parents - mine not included - made their living doing Hollywood's grunt work.) This meant that I had to either participate in the theme or not march at all.

It also meant that I could kiss my prize goodbye. If I couldn't march, I couldn't be eligible. Even if I did, we were all matching so it wasn't like I stood a chance. This was devastating news for me. I lived for that contest. Elementary school kids aren't actually as inventive as people like to give them credit for, so it wasn't really that difficult to win a prize, since most kids dress up as different variations of the same five or six things. Difficulty wasn't the point. The point was that I was being rewarded for being different. This was huge in my world.

My mom realized how distressed this made me and found me a compromise. It wouldn't get me a prize, but it would satisfy my obsessive need to be different (which, as I mentioned last week, changed a bit the following year). Instead of dressing up like a soldier (which was our theme) like everyone else, we would do a Private Benjamin take on it. She bought me a large camouflage tank top and took in the sides so that it became a dress. It was pretty damn cute and I was a fierce-looking ten year old.

However, true to form, I freaked out on the actual day of the march. In an incident that foretold a pink-polo-shirt debacle the following year, my mom basically told me that I no choice but to march in the dress. I vaguely recall one of my classmates offering me a pair of khaki pants that I could wear. It would have looked fairly stupid, but maybe less defiant than the dress.

Unlike the pink-polo-shirt episode, I'm not really positive about the tears or the level of anxiety. I do, however, distinctly recall my mom telling me that I would regret it if I didn't march in the dress. I would not, however, regret marching in the dress.

And while I know how I felt after marching in the parade with the dress, I know she was at least right about that outcome. I definitely felt a sense of accomplishment for having gone ahead and marched in my cute dress. And all of the other little girls asked me where I got my cute dress because they all wanted one too.

So my childhood struggles were not actually spooky, but they were filled with life lessons. Halloween is still one of my favorite holidays because of everything that it represents to me. In college I joined my school's annual productions of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. This, again, embodies all of this self-expression, dare-to-be-different awesomeness that makes Halloween such a great holiday. The first year that I participated was a personal test; it was liberating for somebody plagued with body image issues to be able to walk around campus in a corset and fishnets. Stone cold sober.

Halloween is amazing because it is the one time of the year where we are all actively encouraged to step outside of ourselves for a little while. My second year in Rocky Horror I was upgraded from tranny to Riff Raff. (1) This is a male role. (2) He's on of the few people who wears clothing for most of the show. (3) This meant I had to actually sing solos (!!!). Now that I had gotten all comfortable with running around in lingerie I had to put my clothes back on...It was big terrifying step for me in its own right, having nothing to do with the wearing or not-wearing of clothing. I had to push myself (and the ears of our poor audience), and I was grateful for it, because that's what Halloween is all about.

So in the interest of leaving you with something a little spooky, BEHOLD:

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Friday, October 29, 2010

I Have Nothing Special Today...

Sorry, folks.  My circumstances have very seriously changed over the last few days, and I've basically got 6 weeks to get a job, get my act together, and start supporting myself, instead of relying on my parents for money to live and eat.

The result of this is that I am looking for a job.  Also, I have added a few ads to my blog.  I'm really sorry, guys, but I wanted to test out the earning potential of them, and frankly every little bit helps.

I've added on ad bar on the bottom of the side column, one in the footer, and I've also included ads in my feed.  I promise not to make my site completely overwhelmed with them.  You will NOT be seeing ads on every single post.  Or any posts, if I can help it!  I've also reduced the content on the side bar to make it a bit lighter in response to this extra bit of advertising.

Sorry I have nothing super special to post today.  You will just have to be satisfied with the knowledge that I am getting a super special GUEST POST on Sunday, October 31st.  I am participating in Bloggerstock (there's a badge in the sidebar if you're curious), and will be receiving a guest post, while I am writing a guest post for somebody else!  It's going to be lots of fun!

In addition, I was wondering if it would be worth the time and effort to set up a store for my blog... Maybe put together an art book, screen some images on a few tote bags or t-shirts.... Would it  be worth the time and money?  Would you guys be interested?  I don't want you to think I'm selling out...because that's not my goal.  I intend to continue producing quality posts on an (almost) daily basis, and I don't intend to go crazy advertising anything I make.  Right now I just want to gauge your reactions and opinions.  I'm not even sure if I have a solid enough (or large enough) reader-base for such an effort to be worth my time.

That is all.

As always, Dear Readers, I <3 you. ^_^

Regular posts will return tomorrow!

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Bear vs. Shark (part 2)

Last time, on Bear Vs. Shark, shark charged in, grabbing bear's paw for the first blood.  Bear hit shark on the nose, making him dazed and confused.  Then bear leaped in for the kill.  If you missed the picture version of this, check out part one here.

Now for the startling conclusion....