You Might Be a Redneck If... a daddy helping his daughter out

I recently freaked my parents out over Thanksgiving.

I told them all about the sketchy people that have been around my house lately: this strange man who walked his dog down our driveway, a homeless man who sleeps on our porch and one who came and beat on my door. Oh and my drug dealer neighbor with his creepy clients. Yea.

Needless to say, my parents were concerned.

And then they insisted on my need to carry some mace or pepper spray. Though my mom has been saying that for months since I moved into this house that sits off the road in the dark end of a parking lot, this time I agreed.

So after Thanksgiving, forget the fun fashion finds and such most people were shopping for on Black Friday. We set off in search of some pepper spray.

We went to a local hardware store, Walmart, Lowes - even an Army Supply store - but all to no avail.

My Daddy even called his friend who is a cop to see where we could get some but he couldn't reach him before I left home.

Then, I kid you not, as I was packing up my car to head back, my Daddy presented me with this:

Your eyes do not deceive you. That is, in fact, Raid wasp and hornet killer.

I don't want to talk bad about my Daddy but it has to be said:

You might be a redneck IF you give your daughter wasp spray in place of mace.

Right?

And I wish I could say he was joking but he was 100% serious. He told me that the stuff has blown back in his face when he was working in the yard and he was sure that if someone came up to me, this would do the trick to get them away.

He even made me do a practice spray so I could see how far it would shoot. And sure enough the can shot to a tree nearly 20 feet away!

While the spray seemed to be effective, it wasn't quite what I had in mind.

For one, it was 14 ounces!?! And nearly a foot tall.

Not quite purse-appropriate.

I tried to gently deny the Raid telling my daddy I was hoping for something I could tuck away into my purse or attach to my key-chain.

But he was insistent. He told me I could just tote it back and forth between my car and the house at night. To that I asked if it could be left in my car.... I didn't want that pressurized can exploding in the heat or anything.

He told me it would be fine and tried to give me a second can to bring back for my roommate. At this, I was the one who became insistent and told him that just one can of Raid would be enough, that she would probably prefer the real thing.

And, the real thing, I am happy to report is now what I have.

My wonderful friend Nathan saw my Raid can near the front door when he came to hang out today which led to me sharing what I have just shared with you. And, it just so happens that in his spare time Nathan goes to shoot at the local gun range. (Maybe he's a redneck too? Just kidding!)

Anyways, he said that not only did the gun shop have purse-appropriate, pocket-sized pepper spray, THEY EVEN HAD IT IN COLORS INCLUDING PINK AND PURPLE!!!!!!!! How perfect!

Now, thanks to him, I am the proud owner of this:

It is only about 3 inches tall... smaller than some of my lip glosses! And, in case you can't tell, it's purple :)

Now... if I could only figure out how to operate the thing....?

Happy Thanksgiving + a "Cooking" update

Happy Thanksgiving :-)

The holiday celebrating family, food and gratitude. I love it!

While I am good at the gratitude and family time, I struggle with the food. Not the eating it, don't worry; As I type this blogpost, I'm entirely too stuffed on turkey, green beans and pumpkin pie.

However, the part of food I'm struggling with is the cooking part. I still haven't quite caught on : /

As I was in the kitchen today with my Granny and my mom - both of whom are phenomenal cooks - I fessed up on my most recent kitchen catastrophe...

...............................................................................

Earlier this week I had some friends over to chat and bake cookies. Yea... about that. We thought why bother with baking???

We so urgently wanted our cookies that we decided to just eat the dough ;)

However, in the urgency to make the dough, we didn't want to wait for the stick of butter to reach room temperature. So I just put the bowl with the butter in the microwave... and then....

Flames. Yes.  Flames.

My friends screamed and turned around from the kitchen table. "What happened?" they asked.

I had used a metal bowl.
I thought it would be ok for just a few seconds.
FALSE.

Fortunately, I stopped it so quickly that not only was the microwave unharmed, the dough was still fine :)

BUT, as if that wasn't bad enough for one night,
my kitchen klutzyness continued...

Since the oven was already preheated for the cookies, I figured I'd go ahead and bake some potatoes I wanted to use before leaving to go home for the holidays.

In my defense, I have baked many a potato in my day - and successfully. However, I always wrap them in aluminum foil.

Well, on this particular night, we were out of aluminum foil so I just plopped them on a cookie sheet.

About 20 minutes later after we'd already gone through all the cookie dough and were in the middle of painting our nails, we heard a whistling noise.

"What is that?" my friend asked. We tracked down the noise to the oven. My sweet potatoes were whistling and my friend asked if I had poked holes in them. I said no, having no clue that one needed to.

I mean potatoes don't come with directions. And people aren't born knowing these things... or at least I wasn't.

I was about to attack the potatoes with a fork when my friend took over with a knife. Ha, oh well. At least I didn't learn the hard way by the potatoes blowing up!

My friends were concerned for my lack of culinary capabilities; they said that I remind them of Hannah Hart from My Drunk Kitchen. The only thing is I wasn't even drinking so I couldn't blame my kitchen klutzyness on alcohol... it's just all my inexperience.

Fortunately, once they were sliced, the potatoes cooked up quietly and perfectly - and the house didn't burn down!

.............................................

After sharing this story, my mom who was appalled (and probably ready to disown me!) in all seriousness suggested that I might benefit from taking this book back with me after the holidays:

That would be my Kindergarten cookbook - for ages 4 and up. 

Sadly, that is probably the level I'm at ;) We'll see if this helps... I'll keep ya posted! 

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!!!!!!!!!

11/11/11

In case you haven't noticed, today is 11/11/11.

But what is the big deal about today anyway? Why is today so much more intriguing than 3/11/11 or 7/25/11?

An article from MSNBC mentions everything from Medieval numerologists' theories to online discussions about the 11:11 phenomenon.

However, that same article points out that all this superstition and buzz about today's date may just be what:

psychologists say it is a classic case of "apophenia," or the human tendency to find meaning or patterns in randomly occurring data. This condition feeds on itself, because the more conscious you are of something — such as repeating 11s — the more often you'll notice it in the world around you, and thus the more certain you'll become that the pattern is real.

I tend to agree with the conclusion that this is all just a bunch of apophenia... even though I had a case of apophenia at the beginning of the year when it was 1/1/11 ;)

I must say, though, in all this crazy buzz (including a movie!?!) about today, I did appreciate the way these 2 groups sought to give meaning to today.

1. The 11-11-11 Project is promoting "World Music for World Peace" paralleling today's date with the end of World War I at 11 am on the 11th day of the 11th month which sought peace for the world. 
2. The 11 Eleven Project is basically creating a time-capsule of life today and it is cool how inclusive and unifying it is trying to be of the entire planet. They're hoping at least someone from all 196 countries on the globe will participate. You can participate here.

Then, of course, you can't forget that today in America is Veteran's Day which obviously holds a lot of meaning, especially while we're in the midst of war. 

So however you're going to celebrate by singing a song, watching a horror movie or thanking a veteran, I hope you have a wonderful and meaningful 11/11/11 :)