Back in Biznitch!

April 15, 2008

Wow, this is strange. It's been just over four months since I've lounged on my blogging couch, ignored my begging child, logged onto Blogger, and written an hour's worth of senseless dribble. And to be terribly honest, I've missed that ritual deeply. For the past four months you see, I've been writing my posts in Microsoft Word, saving them to disc, bringing them to work, and emailing them to my sister to post. Trust me troops, that's a whole lot of steps for a lazy sack o'crap like Amy B. Lawson. In all seriousness, I almost abandoned blogging and took up smoking for the sake of simplicity--buy, smoke, die. That's one less step.

But today my friends, after a cross-country move that was more like a migration, I'm happy to announce that I'm finally back in business! I am totally, completely recommitted to my former lifestyle as a sweatpant-wearing, internet addicted, excusing-making housewife. Well, to be quite honest, I'll be working sixteen hours a week, but I'm very hopeful that it won't get in the way of my lifestyle too badly. I'm crossing my fingers that a career won't prompt me to suddenly want to clean the kitchen sink, because if it did, I may as well flush my identity right down the pooper, ya know?

I'm thrilled to let you all know that we're officially settled into our house, we officially have our very own internet connection, and I'm officially ignoring James's plea for fruit and water this very minute! On the down side, I've also officially lost some standing in the blogging world. Before my several-month hiatus, I was getting well over one-thousand unique views a day. Now I'm getting somewhere in the range of four. My BlogHer check has gone from covering my car payment to covering our monthly diaper supply (that's right...still not potty trained!), but starting now, I'm officially working my way back up.

I'll wrap up this post by extending a huge thank-you to all of my readers who have stuck through the past few months of light posting and little-to-no commenting. Also, thanks to my sister for taking a minute to post my garbage, and then taking forty minutes to correct formatting and typos according to my bossy requests.

Stay tuned, because tomorrow I'm posting pictures of James's third birthday. Let's just say that the highlight of the event was a package of Hostess Cupcakes purchased from our local Blue Canoe convenience store.

See?! I still have the same old questionable parenting skills...

A Message from Amy...

Hi There!

Amy asked me to let you all know that she is MIA for a good reason- this week, she is transitioning jobs and moving the rest of their stuff out into their new home.

She also said she has no internet access because it was Jared's job to hook it up, and, well, he didn't... yet. I have faith in my brother in law. :)

So, feel free to flood her inbox with happy email, because when she eventually logs on, she'll be glad to know she was missed.

Thanks for reading Amy's blog!
Katy (Amy's sister)

When Men Grocery Shop

April 8, 2008

Several days ago, Jared took it upon himself to do our family's "major grocery shopping." You know the type, we needed everything from flour to milk to peanut butter M&Ms--the "basics" if you will. If you're a regular reader, you're well aware that we recently moved into a new house. Until last week, we had been doing a whole lot of painting and not a whole lot of living, so it's needless to say that we didn't have a single crumb to speak of. Jared, bless his tender soul, was anxious to stock the shelves.

Jared's grocery shopping extravaganza lasted a total of three days and required three separate trips to three different grocery stores. What can I say? The man has lofty standards and he searched high and low to painstakingly locate every single item on his mother-lovin' list. I don't care how many sausage-like products were purchased on my credit card account, that level of determination is commendable--always.

Speaking of sausage-like products, I'd like to provide you with a brief list of items that are currently housed in my cupboards:

1 Package of Pre-Cooked Bratwurst--Always a lady's favorite.

1lb of Sliced Salami

2 Tubes of Maple Flavored Breakfast Sausage

8 Ball Park Hot Dogs

1 Extra-Long Kielbasa--Are you beginning to sense the theme here?

2 Cans of Black-Eyed Peas--Well slap me on the ass and call me Bo Jangles, I done didn't realize we wur from the South!

20 cans of Coke

1 Tub of Coconut Oil--?

1 Big Bag of Apples--Okay, now we're getting somewhere.

4lb Bag of Peas

1 Jar of Organic Garlic--Every little bit counts, I suppose.

and last but certainly not least,

2 brown bananas

Why wouldn't I be in love with this man? I can barely wait to start cooking!

Dear Uncle Sam...

April 7, 2008

People have been staring at me lately. Perhaps it's the cartoon caption that's been lazily floating over my head for the last few months. It says: SHE HASN'T DONE HER TAXES YET. I've gotten 1,001 email reminders from Turbo Tax, I've heard the H&R Block commercials on the radio, and honestly, I wish they'd all just put a lid on it. I'm well aware that I'm an unmotivated sack of procrastination, and I certainly don't need some voice-over rubbing lemonade in the wound over and over and over again.

Whenever the tax topic comes up in conversation, people tend to have the same reaction: "You haven't done your taxes yet? Wow, you must owe some money this year!"

Well, not exactly. Thanks to the fact that Jared and I were both graduate students, parents to an afro puff with legs, and ridiculously broke in 2007, we're actually getting a pretty sizable refund. Based on our situation, we're able to deduct our educational expenses, we qualify for some kind of Earned Income Credit, the Child Tax Credit, and I'm not totally sure on this, but I think we're also eligible for the '89 Blazer Credit and the Damn Girl! Get Yourself a New Pair of Jeans! Credit.

Just like 97.8% of my fellow countrymen, I could really use a four-digit check from Uncle Sam. After all, there are bills to pay, birthday presents to buy, and Ding-Dongs to purchase. But unlike 97.8% of my American brothers and sisters, I haven't carved out the ninety minutes that are necessary to claim my small fortune.

If you're super responsible and filed your return on January 2nd, then puh-lease spare me the comments that express ideas like: "You could have earned interest on that money!" or "You just made a short-term loan to the government!" Have you ever stopped to consider that fact that I prefer to have an anorexic balance in my checking account? Perhaps I'm a generous person and it fills me up with love when I let the feds have temporary access to my rightful cash. Chew on that, people. Chew on that.

Fortunately, our most recent credit card bill in combination with the looming April 15th deadline has lit one hell of a campfire under my tooter, and I'm ready to buckle down and claim some cash. Yahooters for doing taxes!

So my question of the day is this...Are there any other dilly-dallying tax slugs out there? If so, give me a shot of self-esteem and make yourselves known.

A Day in the Life

April 2, 2008

I know, I know. It’s been almost a week since my last post. That’s a record for me.

I hope you’ll forgive me for my recent lack of activity, because things have been straight-up crazies in this corner of the world. Not only have we moved into our new house, but Jared’s practice is so close to completion that I can almost taste the BioFreeze. On top of that I’m transitioning to a different job (fewer hours, better pay!), and I’m not really sure where my two-year-old is--but rest assured, he’s bound to turn up somewhere.

Other interesting tidbits in my life are as follows:

My childhood home is going on the market today. After 25 years of faithful service, my Mom and Dad have decided to hang a “For Sale” sign and move on to greener pastures. I’ll miss that place, and all of the happy memories--I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I snuck out that second story window and shimmied down the drainpipe in the dead of the night.

Good news on the Lawson front. My brother-in-law is now engaged to the girl of my dreams, and I couldn’t be happier! They’ve been dating for almost a year, which is ridiculously long for us Mormon folks. Seriously, if they had followed the Standard Mormon Timetable (SMT—it’s a real thing) their one-year anniversary would be just around the corner and they’d already have a carseat in the back of their Corolla. But who am I to speak? If I had followed the SMT, I’d have a baby in my bed and a fetus in my belly. All I've got is an almost-three-year-old who has an ongoing love affair with diapers.

My friend Vanilla over at Half-Fast recently wrote a blog post about those slick, slimy, target-on-their-arse people the world likes to call chiropractors. Let me tell you, it was so funny that I laughed for a couple of hundred of thousands of seconds--you know, a second for every dollar of student loan debt that Jared is in as a result of chiropractic school. My response to Vanilla's post is simple: I RUN FASTER THAN YOU. MUCH FASTER, IN FACT.

April Fools Day sucked. My friend walked into my office and slapped a florescent green parking ticket on the edge of my desk. “Twenty-five bucks,” he said. I shot him the classic ‘I’m a city-employee, and I’m not amused by you’ look and said, “Mmmmm hmmmm,” assuming it was an April Fools trick. Well, it wasn’t. Based on that experience, I’d like to extend the following message to Officer Friendly: I USED TO THINK YOU WERE SO HOT THAT YOUR UNIFORM WOULD FIZZLE OFF YOUR FRAME. NOW I THINK YOU’RE JUST A LITTLE BIT TOO PUDGY.

I was in a strange mood last night and had the irresistible urge to spend money on cheap crap, so I went to the best cheap crap store on the Eastern sea board--the Christmas Tree Shop. When I walked through the automatic doors, my eyes immediately fell upon a fake bird, in a fake cage, that chirped a fake song. Two associates, one ladder, and $1.99 later, I was the proud new owner of a creepy little styrofoam pigeon. I already threw him away--that bird sucked and I hated it.

And that's that troops--a day in the life of Amy. Have a good one!