Wanted: Experienced Pyrotechnician to Light a Fire Under My @ss

Note: Those who can't discern literal from figurative statements and/or those who are here because they googled anything containing the prefix "pyro" need not apply. In fact, please go ahead and click the "X" in the upper right-hand corner and no one will ever have to know you were here.

Waaaaahhhhhh! I HATE this!

(Making excuses for not posting, I mean.)

Almost as much as I hate the radio silence, which is why I will now offer you several excuses* as to why I have been unable to post something (since my last post) before today:

1. I have forgotten how to pluck the hair-brained stories from my deteriorating brain and transfer them to the screen. 
2. I have ants in my pants.
3. I have age-related hormonal imbalance, which leads to bouts of not giving a flying flip, followed by soul-scourging guilt.
4. I have three kids who just started back to school and six slightly dysfunctional (as a group) pets.
5. Lack of monetary compensation.
6. Occasional irregularity. Like you have room to judge. ;)

*Not a complete list of excuses.

Wait a second. I've lost my train of thought.... 

[insert silence]

Okay, so I was saying: I might be having some issues getting back into the swing of posting my usual HIGH-QUALITY material. BUT. If I don't get these (one in particular) practically written pet-related stories out of my head soon, I'm gonna burst into a fit of hysterical cry-laughter and scare my family! Therefore, it is imperative that I overcome this setback. 

In the near future.

Don't you worry. :)

So (in slightly unrelated news), while I was looking for some appropriate fire-under-the-butt clip art to insert into this post, I (ironically) found a few highly motivational quotes and sayings. Please consider them a "gift" to you for reading down this far.

Image credit

To which I say to Mr. Covey: "Isn't that the point of a fire under one's butt?!!!! Make it swift, please!!!!"

In fact, THIS is what happens to those who light LONG-BURNING, PAINFUL fires under butts:

The New Yorker via Conde Nast
(In case you can't read it, it says, "He was someone you had to light a fire under in order to get anything done." As in, the dude is on trial for burning off his employee's butt.)

Don't be dumb, friends. 

Like the dummy who thought THIS was a good idea!

Image source

For the record: I WOULD RATHER BE COLD!

And finally, here's a sweet bunch of polar bears bearing a weekend-appropriate motivational caption!

Image source

Have a great one, y'all! Be back when I get back!

(lest, out of guilt, I post my grocery list as filler)

Got Dust Mites on Your Blog Archives? There's a Widget for That.

Disclosure: I haven't been compensated in any way to write this post; I do so because you are awesome and I want to help you. :)

If your blog is more than a few weeks old and updated frequently, I'm sure you can relate to this thought scenario:

"I've just spent the better part of a day/morning/evening putting this post together...that I think just might be some of my best work...and dang-it, after a few days, when it rolls off the front page, nobody's gonna remember it, or know how to find it, and MAN <insert wincing>, I wish there was a way to keep this stuff fresh...."

Depressing, huh?

I used to think so, too. 

But then I found and installed the LinkWithin widget. 

A virtual blog archive tour guide

If you don't already have this widget (or one that functions similarly) on your blog, 

why are you depriving your readers of all your great stuff?

Seriously.

Help people find your stuff. 

Since I installed it (with about 10 weeks worth of archives saved up), 

(according to Blogger stats) my blog has had 2,500+ page views referred by LinkWithin.

That's 2,500+ times that my ARCHIVED POSTS have been viewed (via LinkWithin alone).

2,500+ confirmed times that someone ON PURPOSE decided to read more than one post in one visit. 

2,500+ times that all that hard work didn't get left behind (under a virtual pile of mite-infested dust). Ick.

Installing the widget is easy and there is NO sign-up or advertising.

Just visit LinkWithin and follow the simple directions.

No HTML knowledge needed.

You won't be sorry.

***

Oh, and if your blog is on Blogger, there's a customizable "popular post" widget that you can install in your sidebar, header or footer. I just recently added one; it looks like this:

This widget will always fill with my 10 most viewed posts, in descending order. 

If I visited your blog today, could I easily find your most popular posts? Or are they gathering dust?

***

I am happy to answer any questions.

Hope this has been helpful!

Mother's Day Revelations

(Dog content will return tomorrow; I promise.)

Sapori Ristorante Italiano

In a moment of pure revelation, yesterday just before lunchtime,

I had a vision of the perfect Mother's Day lunch,

which in the fog and noise of my mind, was free from all responsibility related to my own motherhood, including my own children.

So next thing I know (while the Hubby was off somewhere completely oblivious to my enlightenment)...

I (almost) apologetically inquired of Oldest Child:
"What would you think if instead of all of us going out to lunch, Daddy and I go out and leave the three of you home to make your own lunches?"

To which Oldest Child shot back in a panic, "No way! It's Mother's Day! We're your kids and should be with you, not Daddy!"

To which I smartly rebutted, "But on Mother's Day moms are supposed to get a break from their kids."

[silence and look of shock on Oldest Child's face]

Oh, I thought. Did I just say that outloud to my child? She's gonna need therapy, I further pondered, but yet, could not stop myself from continuing in a fit of desperation...

"But you can eat all the bagels (Dad had purchased from the local bakery that morning) and all the brownies (Middle Child had baked the previous day)...and (after mentally inventorying every snack food currently in the pantry) all the microwave popcorn you can eat!"

To which Youngest Child (who was listening) quickly chimed in, "Yay!"

To which Middle Child interjected bossily, "I call the cinnamon crunch bagel!"

To which Youngest Child whined, "But that one was mine!"

To which I reminded Youngest Child, "There are two of those in the bag."

To which Youngest Child stated in relief, "Oh."

To which Oldest Child blurted out, "Can I have the leftover taco (from previous night's dinner)?!"

To which the Hubby and I joyfully replied, in unison, "Sure!"

As I glanced around at the dirty dishes piled in the kitchen sink and remembered the baskets of folded kids' laundry needing to be put away, I had a second revelation.

Me to kids:
"Since it's Mother's Day, I'll be needing you to unload the dishwasher and then load up all these dishes, and while you're at it, I don't want to find even a crumb from your lunches when I get back, so clean it all up...and after you get done in here, put away all your laundry, and then clean the cat litter. We'll be back right after lunch, so get moving."

To which they blankly (almost robotically) replied, "OK."

I knew they hadn't heard anything I had said beyond "unload the dishwasher," but the thought of driving away to a quiet Italian restaurant -- without them -- somehow made it alright.  :)

Tasteless Tuesday: Is Blogger comment 'word verification' really random?

If you've ever commented on a post in Blogger, chances are you've encountered "word verification."  You know, the step where Blogger - or some evil goblin - prompts you to enter some random, garbled word before your comment will be published?  Yeah, well, I got this "random" word a little while back:

uPYrES

I didn't know whether to change my comment to "Well, UPYRES, too - *ee-atch!"  or laugh.  Of course, since I know the blog owner is incapable (at least publicly) of such unwarranted vulgarity, I chose laughter.  ;)

Oh, and FYI - Yesterday I got this one:  BalEsS   

Since I'm hormonally challenged this week, it's a darn good thing I'm not a guy.

Has anyone else ever received a *questionable* random word?    (or, should I be concerned?) :)

How much would you pay for this a week after Christmas?

A local grocery store has a cart bearing a BIG sign that reads "90% OFF" parked conspicuously in front of the checkout aisles.  The cart contains mounds of various candy canes and several bags of "Christmas" Hershey's Kisses.  I need chocolate right now like a gaping wound in my head, but, WHO can pass up a 30-cent, 11-oz bag of kisses?!  The irony is that if they had put a "FREE" sign on the cart, I would've felt too embarrassed to take a bag.  Ugh - I just spent 30 cents for a half pound of "padunka butt" with a side order of guilt. (But, so yummy.)