Aw, nuts!

I’ve written before about my love for the movie My Neighbor Totoro. It’s a magical little movie by one of the most brilliant men in animation. One of the things that I love about Totoro is Cat Bus.

He is exactly what he sounds like. He’s a living bus, made out of a cat. It’s a little hard to explain and more than slightly bizarre and surreal, but it works. It totally works, and Cat Bus is awesome. I was bummed that when we were at the Ghibli Museum in Tokyo, that the Cat Bus was only for little kids. Because I totally wanted in on that action.

How can you not want to climb inside this thing?

But since we didn’t get a chance to go in the life-sized plushie Cat Bus, Andrea did pick up a Cat Bus key chain in the gift shop. And it’s pretty awesome.

It even includes a little Mei sitting inside

Until today, I guess I had always assumed that Cat Bus was a boy. I’d heard other folks call it a him, so I just went along with it. It was not until I happened to glance down at the table, with little Cat Bus laying on his back, that I discovered that I no longer had to assume Cat Bus was a boy.

When you see it…

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that they went into such great detail for a key chain.

And Japan is known for some really odd things, so the fact that they have a lovable children’s character complete with reproductive organs shouldn’t shock me. I guess.

What was amazing to me was the detail. I mean, that’s some serious craftsmanship on those bits.

Where else but Nagzilla’s blog are you going to get tea bagged by Cat Bus? Where, I ask you? Now you can go and thoroughly enjoy your holiday weekend. Maybe start it off by watching My Neighbor Totoro. After all, you’ve already seen Cat Bus’ balls. So there are no more surprises. I imagine.

Dollar Daze – Treats for teh Kitteh!

Who doesn’t like to give their little fur babies some lovin and special treats from time to time? A while ago I tested out some dog bones that went over really well.

Scary growly face = I don’t want to give up my treats! Must be yummy. Course this is also the dog that eats Tootsie Rolls from the cat box, so I don’t know how accurate that assessment is.

The latest Dollar Daze I decided to let Hazel have her turn by trying out:

“Dude! You got me some weed! Sweet!”

Obviously, the photobombing cat approves.

The package says it includes everything I need to get started.

Sounds easy enough. Basically, just add water. We’ve all used those cool little disks before right? I remember in grade school (okay, and even today) thinking those were the coolest things. How they expanded when you added the water. Amazeballs! And look at the size of this disk!

As Grandma would say, “Ouch, that’s bigger than my cucumber!“

That thing is HUGE! So watching it expand will be AWESOME!

Hazel watches with antici…….pation as her disk gets wet. That sounded way dirtier than it was intended.

Hmmmm… well here’s a little snag. Apparently the disk is too wide to fit into the container until after it’s been reconstituted. That’s alright. We’ll just put it in a bowl instead.

It wasn’t working as well as the other ones usually do. Whenever I use those cool ones, they are wet and expanded in less than 20 minutes. After about an hour, I had other things to do, so I left it to soak while I did other important things.

Admit it. You totally read that with the Sponge Bob narrator’s voice in your head.

Well, it’s bigger. Not any easier to handle though. Not crumbly at. all.

Even after soaking for that long, the disk absorbed the water, but it was not (NOT!) breaking apart easily.

I had to do quite a bit of manhandling to get it into the container.

After some major effort, I was finally able to break it apart enough to put it in the container, plant the little seeds and put the dome on top. It only took a couple of days to realize that this little experiment? Not going to go well.

There’s fungus among-us.

Yes, sadly with all of the water required to get the darm disk apart, there was too much water in the soil and it rotted. Needless to say, nothing grew out of this. Kitty was bummed. Actually, I don’t know for sure that she was bummed. She was rather aloof about the whole thing. Other than wanting to hang out on the counter when I was trying to put the thing together. But she does that any time she can get on the counter, so I’m not sure she cared. She was nonplussed about the whole thing, frankly.

So, despite some recent successes, this Dollar Tree item gets a stone cold F. The disk didn’t work, the lid didn’t actually fit all that well, and all that water made the soil mold. So no illicit kitty-cat pot for me. Which is just as well. I imagine I’d make a really horrible cartel manager.

Where My Wrens Be At?

Admittedly, it’s been a crappy spring here in Minnesota. What makes me say that?
April 18

April 24

MAY MOTHERFUCKING 2ND

Yeah, okay. I’m a little bitter. But I come by it honestly. There are several reasons why this cold, dark, snowy spring was particularly distressing.

First, (and this one is the serious one) for those of us who struggle with chronic depression that is exacerbated by seasonal affective disorder, the never ending winter was a mental health hazard. A couple of people on facebook were all, “We live in Minnesota- it’s always cold here. Winter will end and you’ll be bitching about the heat and humidity.” While I will admit that living in Minnesota does mean longer winters, at some point in March or April, you start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I am usually able to make it through February (the absolute worst month for me in terms of depression) by knowing that spring is right around the corner. This year, there was no light. Not even enough to make me wonder if there was a train coming. It was just never ending. Never. Ending.

Is there anything as depressing as birdie footprints in the snow? I don’t think so.

In general, I don’t mind snow. I really don’t. Not a big fan of the -30° with -20° wind chills, but they’re usually only for a few days, so I’m willing to endure it because I can watch the changing of all four seasons. I really love it here. I feel at home here, and am willing to endure a lot. But I want to make sure that at some point, it will actually warm up. And when we were having 6-12″ of snow the first week of May, I was starting to feel like that was not going to happen.

At least the dog had fun.

Secondish, I like to camp. Actually, I love to camp. There is nothing like tenting it in the woods with a lake and a campfire to make my stress just melt right off of my body.

How can you not love life with views like this?

What does this have to do with the whole snow in May thing? Well, I have two camping trips coming up fairly soon. One of which is next weekend. And if there’s still ice on the lakes in the first week of May, it’s pretty unlikely that the lake is going to be warm enough to swim in come the fourth week of May. Now we’ve had a couple of 90° days here this week, but is it enough to warm up the water to swimming temps? That will remain to be seen. Will it be warm enough to swim in come the second week of June? Not sure on that one either. I may be doing a whole lot of kayaking instead of swimming. On the plus side, we won’t have near as many mosquitoes. So there’s something.

Triple A and I both have major mosquito bite allergies, so if there’s fewer of those lil’ bastards because it’s been too cold for the eggs to grow, I suppose that’s my silver lining.

Finally, we were completely spoiled by last spring. Which I think is what made this year so unbelievably unbearable. Last March for Andrea’s birthday, we had to turn the AC on. In MARCH! In MINNESOTA! That was pretty common when we lived in Texas, but not likely here. When spring came so early last year and so late this year, it really made it feel that much worse.

One of my favorite harbingers of spring has yet to show it’s face. Which makes me sad, because last year’s warm temps brought them in so early that I was able to use them as my W entry for the A to Z Challenge. I’m talking about wrens.

Awwww! Fercute!

I wish I could explain why I love them as much as I do. There’s so many things, from their cheery little songs to their teeny tiny chibi size to the fact that they were Grandma’s favorite birds. Whatever. I love them, and I am anxiously awaiting their return now that the weather is warmer.

What confuses me is how the wrens knew to stay away when the robins did not. Those poor confused birds- it was so sad to see them standing in the sparse tufts of grass under the trees when the snow was coming down hard and heavy. They came back and were stuck in the snowy onslaught. But somehow the wrens had the sense to wait until the weather was actually done with all the cold and dark and crazy. How did they know? And why didn’t they warn me?

I’m hoping I see or hear them soon. A couple of times this week I thought I heard one, but once it was a goldfinch, and the other time it was so short I couldn’t be sure. With spring finally here, I’m hoping my little buddies will soon be here to let me know it will be okay. We’re all going to be okay.

Dollar Daze – Wall Art

Despite what you may think, this post was not inspired by The Bloggess’ post last week. Because honestly, I’ve had these for a while, and it was just their turn. If you look at the pictures from this and from the Zen Garden post, you’ll see the original pictures were taken at the same time, so I’ve been sitting on these for like four weeks or something already. So what’s on the docket today?

Wall decals! Woo hoo!

When you see these at Target, they’re running around $10-25, depending on style and complexity. I managed to finagle six sets at Dollar Tree for the price of what I’d generally pay for one. Because I’m frugal like that. And I know that if I bought them at someplace like Bed Bath & Beyond or Macy’s, I’d be paying at LEAST five times that.

Oh, who am I kidding? Macy’s would so not sell this stuff.

Apparently my dog and cat are not the only photobombers in the family.

Although Triple A® is not technically helping me with this challenge, I did get a set for her. Because, cherry blossoms.

ERMAHGERD! CHERER BLERSERMS! (thank you, http://ermahgerd.jmillerdesign.com/#!/translate)

She did a very nice job of putting them up in her bedroom. They look gorgeous with her yellow walls.

I decided to experiment with my sets in the living room. Which thrilled my husband to no end, let me tell you.

Let’s start with something inspirational, shall we? Wait, what are all those dots for?

Holy crap, are you kidding?

Really? That’s a lot of work with a bunch of little dots. I decided to do something somewhat more appropriate.

See what I did there? Because they’re dots? You know what, never mind…

The problem with having some letters is that eventually, some smart ass (me) will figure out other uses for said letters. And since said smart ass tends to be a little bit on the cussy side, you know where this is going.

In honor of Mother’s Day, I enhanced my wall display of Grandma’s picture with one of her favorite cuss words. What a perfect tribute.

But that was just using one set. I had two whole sets of fun girly colored letters. Let’s make this more awesome, shall we?

That’s what I’m talking about.

And what’s more epic than dinosaurs? Nothing, that’s what.

Mission accomplished.

I also decided to use the letters on other objects. Besides walls, that is.

Decorating a table lamp with an obscure movie reference? Yes, please. And yes, that is a lightsaber sitting on the table in front of it. And yes, it is mine. Don’t judge.

And played with the dinosaur stickers.

Velociraptors are kind of assholes. Look at these two jerks, taunting poor T-Rex by playing monkey in the middle with one of the tittles. They know he can’t catch it with his itty bitty arms.

Does anyone else find dinosaurs playing with a clock to be cosmically ironic? No? Just me? Okay then.

Finally, I decided if I was going to have lots of letters, I should make good use of them.

So far, this has managed to stay on the chair rail above our sofa for a day now. Either Jason hasn’t noticed, or he’s totally given up on caring.

Of course, if we’re going to play with letters, you know Nagzilla’s eventually going to go here.

I’ve been involved in several conversations about cursing and censorship since the whole A to Z wrap-up thing, so out of consideration for others, I put an asterisk where the u should be. That way no one will be offended, right?

Although the wall stickers were fun to play with and are a great creativity outlet, we weren’t without some challenges. There were a couple of issues with stickers either not sticking well to the wall, or conversely sticking very well and making me really glad I have long fingernails right now. When the stickers stick, it’s hard to get them off unless you can get a nail underneath to loosen them.

You can already see the h and the f starting to pull away from the wall.

And trying to put the dino back on the sheet (so we can use him again) it stuck to its own paper. Dang it.

I also enjoyed some of the hints and tricks they offered on the display.

I “love” when people use extraneous quotation marks.

Wait, there’s pie? I love pie!

All in all, I give these products a B+. They weren’t perfect, what with the whole sticking/not sticking issue. But they were fun and gave me a creative outlet, and they were waaaaaay cheaper than what you would find at a typical department store. Nice job, Dollar Tree. Your wall decals are made of awesome.

I Can’t Understand You With Marbles in Your Mouth

And I’m not referring to Jenna Marbles, although she is awesome.

No, I am once again referring to rock stars who can’t seem to enunciate well enough to help me understand what the hell they’re saying. I’ve complained about this issue before (“Hefty bag of home fries, bitches!“) but in the past couple of weeks I have found two new offenders. Neither of whom is Train. So Mr. Train Guy (really, I should Google this guy’s name), you’re off the hook. For now. Since you’re a multiple offender, I’m sure I’m be speaking about you again.

And dude, what is up with that hair?

I have learned that rock stars aren’t the only ones with enunciation problems; apparently Ryan Seacrest has an issue as well. But we’ll start with the rock star first, because that’s the running theme.

Have you heard the song “Gone, Gone, Gone” by Phillip Phillips? Thank god for Google, because honestly I hear the song ALL. THE. TIME. but I never heard them say either the name of the song or the artist. Oh, how I love heavy rotation. Anywhoo… so “Gone, Gone, Gone” is a lovely song in general. But once again, there was a lyric that made me almost run my car off the road because OH MY GOD! WHO SAYS THAT?!?! If you haven’t heard the song (and seriously, how can you not? They play it every 20 minutes), it’s a loverly little ditty about all the nice things this boy will do for his love. The lyric in question, however, made me really rethink his motives:

You’re my back bone,
You’re my cornerstone
You’re my crotch when my legs stop moving

Ah ha! The truth comes out. I have to admit, I’m always flattered when a guy says I’m his crotch. Write that one down, boys. Great pick-up line material. So what are the actual lyrics?

You’re my back bone,
You’re my cornerstone
You’re my crutch when my legs stop moving

Hmmmm. Slightly better. Still a little weird, but it’s better than being called a crotch. I still hear crotch whenever the song comes on the radio, however, so I have a chuckle every time I hear it. And I could use a good laugh every 20 minutes.

The other offender this week was Ryan Seacrest. He has a syndicated radio show on one of the local stations, but I guess he is the host of some reality show of some sort. Star Search, maybe? I don’t remember. Anyway, he was doing an intro to a commercial break and started talking about Velveeta breakfast biscuits. I have to admit, it kind of sparked my curiosity, because I heard Velveeta breakfast biscuits, and it made me think of cheesy biscuits (which is ironic, since Velveeta isn’t really cheese) which made me think of

Red Lobster Cheddar Biscuits. Sweet ambrosia of the gods.

I would be all about eating cheesy biscuits for breakfast. Especially since I was assuming that, since it was a morning food, they would eliminate a fair amount of the garlic that Red Lobster puts in theirs so we don’t knock over our coworkers when we talk to them during the morning meeting. I was going to have to check these out.

But he mislead me. Ryan Seacrest is an inadvertent liar liar, pants on fire.

Because after his little lead-in, they ran the actual commercial. Which was not for processed white blobs of cheese product goodness. No. He was not advertising Velveeta breakfast biscuits. He was advertising BelVita breakfast biscuits.

Wait. This is not white flour and processed cheese food! What the hell?

I have actually seen these in stores, and have absolutely no interest in sampling them. Goddammit, Ryan Seacrest! You and your inability to form words have raised my hopes and dashed them mercilessly against the concrete. Jerk.

But on a positive  note, in my search for a picture of Red Lobster’s biscuits for this post, I discovered that it’s a thing. Like, seriously. People are making memes about Red Lobster’s biscuits. Who knew? Not me. I’ve been missing out. I still don’t forgive you, Ryan Seacrest. But at least something good came out of it. My little Red Lobster biscuit meme silver lining. Enjoy!

Dollar Daze – Leggo my Lego

You always have to wonder when things that cost a dollar say they’ll play nice with things that cost significantly more than a dollar. Case in point:

These fake Legos said that they’ll work with any brand. So I assume that means they’ll fit together with the real thing. I wouldn’t mind this, because Andrea does love playing with the bricks. But at $10 for just a basic pick-a-mix container (and over $100 for the really cool sets) if we can find a cheaper version to help build awesomeness, I was willing to give it a go. Since she’s the building fan, I once again enlisted the help of Triple A (my Awesome Assistant Andrea®, for you newbies) to help me test them out.

First, it should be noted that fake Legos have joined the rest of the toy industry in segregating “boy toys” and “girl toys” because god forbid a girl enjoy playing with something that is bright and primary colored.

And boys shouldn’t have to suffer through playing with toys that are pink and pastel-y.

What’s especially odd is that the back of the boxes show things you can potentially make with said bricks, and the items are the same, the colors just changed

Primary version

Pastel version. Congrats on your use of Photoshop. Tool.

It should be noted that the two packages on the bottom are from Triple A’s Lego collection. It should also be noted that my total girly-girl does not have any pastel items in her collection.

So how do they work, Triple A?

Meh, not so well, eh?

So what are you going to do now?

Go back to playing with my regular Legos, of course!

Check out her bliss face. She loves her Legos.

It’s been a while since we had such an epic failure from Dollar Tree. Son, I am disappoint. Oh well. They did work well as just regular bricks, and with the two small boxes I bought she was able to make a couple of things, but it should be noted that if you’re going to advertise that you are compatible with other brands, you should actually, you know, be able to use them with other sets.

Lies. All. Lies.

Just saying. This product gets a stone cold F. Dayum.

The Most Wonderful Day of the Year!

For some folks, it’s all about Christmas. Some people love Halloween because they can dress up and have fun or scare small children. Some people love 4th of July for the picnics and fireworks. And some folks love St. Patty’s Day because getting drunk is not only okay, it’s expected. But today, my friends, today is my most favorite holiday of the year. For today is Star Wars Day.

For those who are not initiated in the cult of Star Wars, one of the key phrases from the films is “May the Force be with you.” Playing into that geeks everywhere started recognizing May 4th as Star Wars Day, and the rest is history.

I don’t remember when I first heard about it, but it was thanks to the interwebs. Originally one of the conditions was that you could only speak in phrases from the movies. Kinda like on Talk Like a Pirate Day you’re supposed to, you know, talk like a pirate. But as much as I love the movies and HAVE memorized every line from the original trilogy, I think that would get pretty tedious fairly quick.

So how does one celebrate Star Wars Day? I have traditionally always watched at least one of the movies on that day, but since the holiday falls on a Saturday this year, I’m having a viewing party. I have to admit I’m not sure how many people are going to make it, because between work schedules and weather, people have been having to bow out. And who knew you’d have to worry about snow and ice storms on May 4th, but I digress. Even if it’s just two or three folks, we’ll still have an awesome time watching the movies and maybe playing some trivia. For food, we’re providing traditional movie theatre fare (hot dogs, popcorn, pizza) and maybe a recipe from my Wookiee Cookies Cookbook.

Y’all thought I was making this up, didn’t you? Yes, this actually exists. And yes, I do actually own a copy.

I even thought about digging out my cookie cutters and making Star Wars cookies again, but we all know how well that went over the last time we tried.

I was torn about whether to show the just show the original trilogy, or if I should show all six movies. While I will begrudgingly admit that I’m not a huge fan of the new ones (Episodes 1, 2, and 3) I don’t hate them like many of my brethren fanboys and girls do. But I do have a bias and preference for the ones I grew up on. I did put it to a vote and original trilogy won. Which is good, because we had something suddenly come up this evening so we’ll need to cut the party shorter than expected.

I also considered showing the films in Machete Order. If you haven’t ever heard of Machete Order, go here and read an explanation. The guy is brilliant.

Celebrate Star Wars Day in style. If you have the movies, bask in their glory. If you haven’t seen them (and seriously, what is wrong with you?!?), take this as an opportunity to finally correct that egregious error. If nothing else, put your hair up in Leia buns and tell someone “May the Fourth be with you!” And if they’re Lutheran Star Wars fans, they may even reply, “And also with you!”

What Have We Learned- an A to Z Reflections Post

Didn’t I say that now that the A to Z Challenge is over, I’m not going to post every day anymore? I just have to get through this one and then the one for tomorrow, and THEN I’ll be back to my Monday/Thursday schedule. I promise.

This post is a reflection for the Challenge. What lessons we learned, what benefit it had, etc. etc. I have to admit that I’m having some mixed feelings this year.

The positives:

One- As ever, I met some amazing new floggers (friend/bloggers) through this exercise. While I did visit many blogs, there are some that have been added to my must read list. And they’ll eventually be added to my blogroll, but being The Laziest Person Alive®, it may take a week or so. In the meantime, I want to highlight some of the amazing new folks I found:

http://treadmillconfessions.wordpress.com/
http://www.gillianhefer.blogspot.com/
http://delightfullyludicrous.blogspot.com/
http://jennyhansenauthor.wordpress.com/
http://joeowensblog.wordpress.com
http://diaryofasquaretoothedgirl.blogspot.com/
http://loungingwithlindsey.blogspot.com/
http://petedenton.wordpress.com/
http://alsgeekbanter.blogspot.com/
http://cbwentworth.wordpress.com/
http://conundrumsrhapsody.wordpress.com/

Secondly- The challenge is always nice for a bump in numbers. Like last year, the challenge led me to have my highest viewed day ever during the month of April. While it’s nice to see more people stopping by, it actually made me realize that while I love getting read, the writing of the blog is what makes me happy. Readers are just an added bonus.

Thirdst- I learned a lot of cool new things this month. Between travel blogs, craft blogs, and writing blogs, not a day went by that I didn’t discover something new OR reacquainted myself with something I enjoyed in the past but somehow lost interest in. One blog has made me seriously consider taking up counted cross stitch again, because I used to love that when I was a kid.

The negatives:

Uno- Even though I love seeing all the other blogs, the blog hop part of the challenge is a HUGE time suck. It’s not that it’s a bad thing to go visiting, because that’s how I found a number of the cool new folks. But when you’re busy it feels like you’re not doing it well. OR you spend the entire weekend playing catch up. As Kid President says, “Not cool, Robert Frost!”

Twiddlepop- While I did have increased traffic this year (and one day topped my previous most viewed record) I did notice that this year there weren’t as many folks stopping by. I’m wondering if everyone else was a stressed out and overwhelmed with life as I was, because with almost 2,000 people participating, I thought the numbers would be higher. I also saw a lot more folks who started strong and didn’t finish. I just think sometimes life gets in the way.

Fork- Like last year, there are some people who just are kind of rude. I know that not every blog is going to be your cup of tea, but if you read something that you don’t like, just move on. The same chick that I saw last year bitch and moan about posts left backhanded compliments again this year on a couple of other blogs that I visited. Thankfully, she didn’t get to mine this year, but she did leave the following comment on one of my friends’ blogs: “Hello… when I happened upon your commentary, I was not aware of your propensity to use such crappy language, but nonetheless read your prose, I happen to be someone who enjoys math and taught it for several years, loving it. Bless your heart! Best regards to you.” I don’t know about you, but I think that’s rude. You have every right to say what you think, First Amendment and all that, but just because you can doesn’t mean you should. If you don’t like it, just don’t come back. Which leads to…

[redacted] – There were some issues this year with some bloggers getting chewed out for their language and were threatened with having to change their subject to Adult Content or be dropped from the list. I saw this myself with one blog in particular, and I thought it was ridiculous. Yeah, she cussed a bit. But a lot of us (particularly those of us with humor blogs) tend to do that. I would have never considered placing my blog in the Adult Content category because I figure that’s for folks who talk quite a bit about sensitive issues, such as sex. But based on what I was seeing, if I do the challenge again next year, that’s how I’d have to categorize my blog. All because I say fuck once in a while. While I agree that not all (okay, most) of my blogs aren’t appropriate for little eyes, I don’t really know a lot of blog reading six year olds. But maybe that’s just me.

To me this smacks of censorship, and I think rude granny from the previous section may have been one of the complainers who want to see all of us potty mouthed bloggers moved to our own category. If your sensibilities are that delicate, you may want to rethink this whole internet thing. I know a couple of folks who quit the challenge in protest, and I was kind of torn. On the one hand, I wanted to support those who were being forced to edit their writing and views, but on the other hand I had already planned this thing out. I know that morally, I probably should have joined in the protest, but this is one of those times where I am a total hypocrite and my convenience or self-interest outweighed my decision to do the right thing. And I’m sad about that, because I genuinely enjoy doing the A to Z Challenge. I find it engaging and (yes) challenging to my creativity. I’ve met some amazing new folks because of it. But I have a hard time deciding if I’ll do it again if it’s going to become an exercise in exclusion and censorship. What may be offensive to one person is hysterical to another. Who’s to decide? Do you want to limit and entire group of writers by telling them that if they use curse words, they have to be separated from the rest of the group? Should I warn people that they may see me cuss from time to time? Aren’t we all grown-ups here? I am genuinely distressed by this, because I don’t want to have to change my writing style to fit into someone else’s little box. Especially since there are no guidelines as to what is considered adult content and what is not. If you’re going to force people to have to use an Adult Content category, you really need to lay out what constitutes adult content. To me, it would be sex and excessive violence. For granny, it would apparently be teh swears. For someone else, it could be anything religion related. It would be nice to have a clear understanding of what is expected and meant by an AC listing, especially if you’re going to threaten to remove folks from participation if they don’t have their blog marked as such.

So will I do it again next year? The jury’s still out on that. I guess I’ll wait to see how things shake out and what the response is. If I find another blog hop that meets my needs, maybe I’ll do that instead. But it does make me sad that I’m even considering that.  All things considered, it was still a successful venture, and I love the concept. I’ve had nothing but fun both years I have participated. But I can’t abide by censorship. I just hope that clearer heads prevail on this one, or this may be my last time.

And This is Why You Never Leave Kids Home Alone

I was a latchkey kid when I was growing up. I’ve talked before about my babysitter, Billie, but at some point somewhere between second or third grade, I was given the opportunity to “babysit myself” for the couple of hours between when I got home from school and someone made it home from work.

Most of the time it was not a big deal. I could keep myself entertained for a couple of hours, usually by playing with the Star Wars figures and watching tv. But every once in a while, I did something so colossally stupid that it was amazing I was ever allowed to be alone again. Frankly, I’m amazed people still let me be alone as an adult.

What reminded me of my adventures as a tot (because really, who leaves a seven year old alone for any length of time?) was a post on facebook. For some unknown reason, I’ve been seeing a lot (and I mean A LOT) of recipes on facebook lately. Most of them I just ignore, but this one reminded me of my epic failure.

These Chocolate Oatmeal No Bake Cookies are so good and super easy to make. Hit share so you will always be able to find the recipe on you time line. Chocolate Oatmeal No Bake Cookies
1/2 C Butter
2 C Sugar
1/2 C Milk
4 Tbsp Cocoa
1/2 C Peanut Butter
3 1/2 C Quick cooking Oats
2 tsp. Vanilla
Add the first 4 ingredients in a saucepan. Bring to a rolling boil, and boil for 1 minute. Stir in the next 3 ingredients and drop onto wax/foil paper. Let cool until set.

One of the shows I watched on TV after school was KIMT’s Kids Club. Most of the time the Kids Club just showed reruns of Popeye and Little Rascals, but sometimes the host would teach us how to make a craft or snack item. This was one of the snack items that was featured during one of the episodes. I thought it looked awesome, so I set to the kitchen to try and make it.

Here’s the thing: at the age of seven, I did not know how to light a match. And we had a gas stove that didn’t have a very good pilot light, so starting the burners required lighting a match. And that was so not happening. So if I can’t melt chocolate, what can I substitute? Why, Hershey’s chocolate syrup, of course! And not being terribly smart (because I am, after all, seven) I didn’t realize that using syrup means I should probably reduce the amount of sugar I use. But sugar’s awesome, so who cares, right?

It should also be noted that we didn’t have quick oats. But we did have instant oatmeal packets. Apple and cinnamon flavor. That would go well with chocolate, right?

I will also say that this recipe isn’t exactly the same, because there was some requirement for corn syrup. Why do I remember that? Because, not knowing what corn syrup was, I thought maple syrup would work just as well.

Are you gagging yet? I imagine just reading my substitution list is making your spleen hurt. When I put the concoction in a pie tin (what? why?), I had to put it in the freezer to try and get it to set. I will say that after four hours in the freezer, the viscosity of the various syrups did solidify a bit, but it was still super goopy. It was so bad, that we could not even get the “bars” out of the tin. Grandma had to throw the pie tin away because it was absolutely ruined. The dog would not even eat them. That’s how bad they were.

I still don’t know who I blame more- the parents who left me alone to create snacks in the kitchen, or the show host who thought teaching kids to make a snack requiring the use of a stove was a good idea. Either way, I can’t see this recipe without being reminded of what a dumbass I was as a kid.

Darn! That’s the End.

See what I did there? Tied it back to my X post? Clever girl.

Which reminds me- we still need to see Jurassic Park 3D.

So the A to Z Challenge is complete. What now?

For you normal readers (and I use that in the most loving, pejorative way possible), my blogging will return to its regularly scheduled Monday and Thursday posts. Not to say I won’t occasionally have an extra one thrown in there here or there as the mood suits me, but it won’t be the frantic pace that April required. I also won’t have a set theme. I mean, Mondays will still be Dollar Daze days, but Thursdays will be whatever weirdness trips my trigger.

For you new folks, come back and see me on Mondays and Thursdays. I post new material twice a week, sometimes more, but more often not. Because I’m the Laziest Person Alive®, just doing twice a week can get overwhelming, especially when I have a bunch o’ shit in my real life going on. Blarg.

I do have to do an A to Z Reflections Post on Friday, and I might have a little somethin’ somethin’ on Saturday because, HELLO?, my favorite holiday ever!

It’s Star Wars Day!

So keep coming back! If you liked Nagzilla’s Favorite Things, you’ll love my regular posts! Okay, maybe not love. Maybe like. Find it kinda entertaining. Either way, it’s kinda like the lottery: you can’t win if you don’t play.

Thanks for all the views, likes, and follows during the month of April. It was fun to meet so many cool new people, and I look forward to reading more from all of you as well.