No joke, it is written in stone* that if Patrick Dutch Ovens me, he is immediately removed from my life, the house, and the children’s lives. We will consider him dead and expect the life insurance check to arrive within 2-4 weeks.

Unfamiliar with a Dutch Oven?

A Dutch oven is a slang term for pulling a cover over someone’s head while in bed and creating flatulence, thereby creating an area of foul-odored air in an enclosed space that must be inhaled. This is done as a prank or by accident to one’s sleeping partner. via Wikipedia

IT IS NOTED.

*Writing it on the internet is the first world version of the ancient practice of carving something in stone. It’s around forever.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: comic, dutch oven, farting under covers, hahas for hoohas

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My husband is lucky to have me as his wife.

There’s no more profound statement I can make other than saying “TV is Everything” and “Brownies Bring Happiness.”

Patrick is damn lucky to have me as his wife.

One of the many things he likes to say is that I have too many purses. “But you don’t NEEEED another purse.”

Friends, I do not have too many purses. We’ve been together since 1995, so going on the 17 years of togetherness bliss, I’m sure a man would think that the 20+ bags-used-as-purses I have in the closet would qualify to him as being “too many.”

I get a new purse about ever 6-12 months. We ladies use our purses on a daily basis. We carry them with us everywhere we go from Target to the movies to shopping to hanging on the door of a toilet stall.

Pro tip: Never put your purse under a black light.

We ladies need new purses for our health.

I am the best wife in the history of the damn world.

I don’t shop for purses at the fancy pants designer stores. Before kids, sure I coveted and even bought a Coach purse, but Patrick gave me my first one! Sure I had a Kate Spade diaper bag, but my sister bought it for me!

Since pushing my beauties out of my bagina, I can estimate that I’ve spent no more than $200 TOTAL on purses. That’s not on one purse, but on all the purses I’ve owned since birthing my children.

I told you, he’s lucky to have me.

While waiting out the carpets to dry after Rug Doctoring them, we went to the outlet malls to walk around and not shop.

The Vera Bradley Outlet store had a 20% OFF EVERYTHING sale.

I had to look.

Because.

And I found her.

Isn’t she pretty?

Ask me how much I paid for her.

ASK ME.

$29.

I paid $29 for a Vera Bradley purse that retails for $68.

Did I need a new purse?

This is the Lands’ End Canvas purse I’ve been using for 7 months for which I paid $13.

You tell me. Did I need a new purse, or do I just plain deserve to have something new and pretty?

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2012. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: lands' end, new purse, vera bradley

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My Family: Setting a bad example for future generations.

I was raised in an abnormal household of two un-divorced, full-blooded parents with a full-blooded sister. It’s a wonder I even turned out to function like a semi-normal person with all of the surrounding abnormalities.

I’m pretty sure the chances of me becoming a semi-well-adjusted person after being brain-washed by my parents who planned to have me after being married several years into a stable household are slim.

It’s just not normal! I can only hope to hide from the world my shame as someone who is different.

There may be hope for my abnormal family life after all. Though my parents are still married and have been for 42-1/2 long years, there’s sunlight on the horizon of the agony of their longtime marriage.

My parents have turned into their parents, and I can now justify their asylum commitments.

Growing up, each of my parents separately urged me and my sister to kill, or at the least commit, them if they ever turned into acting like their own parents. Now in their 60s, my mom and dad bicker and fight and argue and mumble under their breath at one another more than I ever witnessed my grandparents doing. I just spent 12 days at my parent’s house. Covering my ears and singing loudly when they started nit-picking at one another was my only way of coping.

The problem here is clear: they learned it by watching their parents and their parents before them. My mom’s parents are STILL alive and married after 40 years of wedded bliss and 20+ years of wedded angst. Before they both died, my dad’s parents were exactly the same.

I can hear the "just take the damn picture" and the "would you just shut up and look at the damn camera" said just before this was taken.

Being married for over 40 years is clearly the milestone marker for insanity.

You people who come from divorced parents and split-up families, basically the normal, everyday American household, are lucky. You don’t have the examples set by people like my parents and grandparents that staying together until the end of time is OK.

It’s not OK, because like the abscessed growth on your finger you refuse to acknowledge, never-ending marriage will end in throbbing pain and someone offering to pop it for you.

Though at least when you’re married to someone for that long, you have someone who will squeeze the puss. Just don’t mind when she does it a little too painfully just because she can. She’s earned that benefit. And he’s earned the right to use 16 colorful words to throw at her while she does it.

I’m going to repurpose those drug PSAs from the 90s: “I LEARNED IT BY WATCHING YOU, ALRIGHT. I learned it by watching you.” We should be so lucky to have learned how to smoke pot from you. Instead, we learned how to make it to old age, married in wedded angst.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2012. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: marriage, parents

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There’s a good chance I could have been in jail right now.

I typically go to bed after 11:30pm, most times by 12. My brain shuts down around 10:30, so any choice I make after 10:30 should count as temporary insanity.

That time between 10:30 and whenever I fall asleep is when my worst choices are made: brownie eating, impulse buying, mouthing off to people on Twitter, skipping showers.

I’d like for this post to be used in my defense if I’m ever on the stand.

Last night was no different from any typical evening at MessyHouse. Patrick went to bed at 10, and I was up late “working” and watching Ice Road Truckers: Deadliest Roads. Even though I object to the shows featuring the IRT on non-ice roads, it’s still fun to see how many times the truck wheels can hang over a 1000-foot drop in South America to sure death if that pebble gives way.

By the time I made it to bed and watched a few minutes of Letterman, Patrick was fast asleep into his Ambien stupor. As per normal, he was snoring, but not loudly. The point when I start closing my eyes “just for the commercials” is when I turn off the TV, roll to my right, and gently nudge Patrick over to his side of our bed.

First, gently.

No response.

Next, forcefully nudging with a “roll over” whisper.

No response.

Then, jabbing in the ribs with a stern, “turn over.”

Slight response.

I think, maybe I can fall asleep, even with his pattern of throaty, nasal gargles.

Willing myself to sleep.

Really willing myself to sleep.

I roll over onto my left, how I normally pass into Dreamland, and in adjusting the cover, a waft of stale fart creeps into my face. I am displeased.

Louder snoring.

I roll back over, shove Patrick in the shoulder, raising my voice to say, “ROLL OVER ONTO YOUR PILLOW.”

NO. RESPONSE.

Reaching up to to his unshaven face, I aim to turn his head to his right, hopefully stopping the rhythmic nasal chorus.

In that moment, I realize I can plug his nose and cover his mouth with one hand. In that second, it occurs to me that I could stop the snoring and fall asleep, all with one decision. It’s either smother him in his sleep or hope that creepy House Elf, Wilson, sits on his face and drops a deuce in his mouth.

Either option seems fine to me in that moment, because mama needs to get to her beauty sleep.

Luckily for Sane, Awake Me, I decided against 1st degree murder, physically rolled Patrick over onto his stomach, got out of bed, popped my Klonopin magic sleepy pills, and fell into a deep sleep of Dreamland where Dane Cook awaited my arrival into his bed.

And that’s how I discovered I have a “thing” for Dane Cook.

I’m blaming Patrick and the Klonopin.

image credit Dane Cook

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2011. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: ambien, insomnia, klonopin, sleeping, sleeping with dane cook

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You know that 2-3 seconds after you flush the toilet when you realize it’s not flushing your deposit as it should and your brain races to find the plunger you hope is right next to the toilet because you just can’t handle cleaning up a bathroom floor covered in poo water?

If those are the 2-3 seconds most stressful seconds of my day, I’m calling that day a WIN because at least it happened at home.

I wrote yesterday about the 3 hours I wallowed without internet access that will basically throw off my routine for the next 5 days. Today, I have shit to do and it’s not even Friday. I have shit to do OUTSIDE of my house cocoon. For the normal person, this would be no big deal, yo. But I’m not a normal person; I’m a pre-pre-agoraphobic.

I’m a pre-pre-agoraphobic who likes her routine like she likes her television: on and working, and if it ain’t working, someone’s losing a throat.

So last night when I mentioned to my Dear Husband* that I “have a busy day tomorrow,” and Dear Husband* responded, “Yes, I know. You’ve only mentioned it 10 times,” I may have thought about pulling a hamstring to launch my foot up to knock out a Dear Husband* windpipe.

And then when he followed up his windpipe-losing comment by saying, “I have a busy day every day,” the list of flowers I would pick for his funeral ran through my brain.

*If I have to read “dear husband” or “DH” or “dear daughter” or “DD” or “dear son” or “DS” one more time, I swear to PETE, I’m starting a Twibbon campaign. Don’t make me do it.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2011. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: agoraphobic, anxiety, busy day, husband, patrick

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Patrick’s BFF got married this past weekend.

The groomsmen were all very dapper in their seersucker suits and matching bowties.

Patrick looked especially dapper with his freshly shorn hair. BACK OFF, BITCHES.

Look how dignified they all look up there for the ceremony! A good looking group of mens, I must say.

The couple’s first dance was lovely and loving.

Such a good looking pair of dapper men!

Sangria and Rum Punch was served with straws in Mason Jars at the lakeside wedding.

Just be warned that when you serve Rum Punch by the Mason Jar-full, dance moves like this end up happening:

This is the photo Patrick snapped and has aptly named, “Custody and Palimony.”

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2011. | Permalink | 24 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: dancing, groomsmen, seersucker suit, wedding

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While I was putting the air pockets into my bra this morning, I began to reflect on exactly what I have to appreciate.

I appreciate the air pockets in my bra that lift and separate my relatively itty bitties, because at least I have boobies and I don’t have a cup size larger than my head.

I appreciate the dog who leaves poo nuggets in my living room every day, because at least she’s not shooting diarrhea out of her ass.

I appreciate my 5-year-old who spends over 15 minutes every morning crying at her dresser deciding which clothes she’s going to wear to school, because at least she’s not 14. Yet.

I appreciate my husband who forgets to load the dishwasher from the previous night’s dinner, because at least I have a husband who kisses me goodbye.

I appreciate my 7-year-old who begs for new books every day costing me upwards of $50 a month in reading material, because at least she’ll someday make enough money being a genius to put me in a nice old folks home.

I appreciate the tiny pimples popping up in and around my nose that are a result of blowing my nose for the last 4 days, because at least I have a nose.

image credits ME; unknown

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2011. | Permalink | 16 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: anna, appreciate, claire, grateful, michael jackson, patrick

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The Man Cold has taken over our house this week.

I honor you, Dear Husband.

Except it’s me with the Man Cold and not the actual man of the house. The man of my house is really good at taking care of me when I’m close to dying. He leaves work early to pick up the girls, he doesn’t say snide remarks about me hacking up a lung, and he takes it upon himself to order pizza for dinner all on his own.

Yesterday, I sent him a classically romantic IM about how I was feeling:

Me: i just sneezed the biggest snot rocket on my shirt. i hope that turns you on.

He’s pretty much the greatest husband I’ve ever had, as exemplified in this IM exchange we had today:

Patrick: feeling any better?

Me: teeny bit
i slept good
so that’s someting (sic)

Patrick: you should…..it’s officially opening day for the NHL!

Yes, that’s right, dear. I’m feeling better because the NHL is back, not because I loaded my body up with behind-the-counter Sudafed, antihistamines, Ibuprophen, and a nip of Klonopin in order to get a good solid 7 hours of sleep with a tissue stuffed up my nose.

He knows me so well. Can I BE any luckier?

________________________________________

Coincidentally, I have a very nerdy article about search engine optimization tips and blogs on Curvy Girl Guide today. Our nerd, it runs deeply.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2011. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: man cold, nhl, patrick

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It would be super inappropriate of me to send Patrick this someecard for our 13th wedding anniversary today.

Or maybe I’ll send this one.

But instead of being super inappropriate, I’ll send this one.

We were pretty damn cute and skinny child brides back then.

I think we’re pretty cute now.

cards via someecards

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2011. | Permalink | 15 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: anniversary, marriage, patrick, someecards

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I have a friend who has never farted in front of her husband.

Yes, she’s really a friend and it’s not really me saying it’s a friend.

Yes, I have friends outside of the tubes of the internet.

I think she may be lying. Farting in front of your spouse or partner or friend is one of those milestones like introducing them to your parents. It’s bound to happen, and when it does, it takes you to the next level of your relationship.

There’s a certain comfort level reached when the first air biscuit is released while in the company of a friend or lover. Reaching that level of comfort is necessary for a healthy long-term relationship. And I do mean healthy in the body sense.

Who can hold in farts long enough to leave the room and go to the bathroom every time the spirit moves you to release the thunder?

It’s unhealthy to leave the noxious gasses inside of your belly for too long. Science tells us this. There’s a reason we were given a bunghole: letting out the Stink Beast.

To not be comfortable enough within your own house in front of your spouse/partner/spousal equivalent/family/BFF is unnatural.

My house is rife with the musical sounds of the asshole. We rate them on tonal quality and length of time expelled. We save them for a finger pull. We drop air bombs in stores, then laugh as we race to leave the aisle. My girls announce their accomplishments, and they’re always polite with a follow-up “Scuse me, I pooted.”

However, there is one butt horn that will never, ever, never happen in our house: The Dutch Oven.

Patrick has been warned with 100% seriousness that if he EVER releases a fart under the covers and traps me underneath, it is grounds for immediate divorce. No questions asked. I get everything. He’ll be left to live out his days without his loving, farting wife and kids if I’m ever locked in to the sheet trappings of a bowels bomb.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2011. | Permalink | 13 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Family, farting, marriage

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