The Week(s) In Review

So yes, I'm still alive. Kind of.

It's been a very busy couple of weeks, in between work, Mardi Gras, the Saints going to the Super Bowl, the Saints winning the Super Bowl, getting to publish a modified blog post in an online journal, going to the Saints Super Bowl parade, spring cleaning the house, etc.

Let's begin, shall we?

Work is absolutely insane right now, and I've been living, eating, and breathing it lately. I still maintain that it was highly inconsiderate of NIH to set the deadline for one grant application and three grant progress reports, all of which are 20-50 pages long, less than two weeks after Mardi Gras. Poor planning, people. I don't care if you do live in a place where Mardi Gras doesn't exist.

Recently, I introduced Emmeline to computer games. I'm not sure why, but for some reason, it makes me feel less guilty when she's being babysat by the computer rather than the television when I need to do something really important, like vacuum. So anyway, I showed her how to get on NickJr. and play coloring games, Candy Land, etc. Great, right? Yeah, it was, until one night last week, when I didn't think and let her bring a big cup of water (sans lid) in here with her to play on the computer. I also didn't think when she came running into the kitchen to grab a towel. (I believe I was busy vacuuming or something.) So, fast-forward about 20 minutes, when I go to tell her dinner is ready, and find her sitting there with a panicked look on her face, in front of a still-dripping, madly beeping laptop. It died shortly thereafter, bless its heart. So I was without a computer for a while. Note to self: no more food or beverages allowed around the laptop if you're under 30.

And sadly, I can't even bring myself to be all that mad at Emmeline for trying to sneak the destruction of the computer past me. I'm sure all children her age are sneaky to some extent, but she is my child. When I was a kid, I made trying to get things past my parents into an art form and can't help but wonder if she somehow inherited the trait. I still get constant hell from my family about the time when I was about E's age and wrote my name on the wall with a pen. I then denied it up and down, backwards and forwards, and had all sorts of answers as to who would write my name on the wall. And why. I don't think I ever admitted that I was the one who wrote on the wall. (Although in hindsight, I probably should've picked something else to write if I were going to try to deny culpability.)

As I said, my husband and I are doing some spring cleaning right now, which resulted in an extremely entertaining fight about what else but the vacuum cleaner? Kenny decided that the reason there's so much dog hair and dirt in our house is not because we have a golden retriever who sheds about eight pounds of hair a day, but is because although I vacuum the house about three times a week, I'm not vacuuming properly. That's right, folks, the man who is apparently more afraid of our vacuum cleaner than our dog is, and who therefore never touches the thing, told me our house wouldn't be so dirty if I would just clean better. I'm sure you can imagine where I told him he could stick the vacuum cleaner hose. I would also like to point out that the next time the vacuum cleaner made an appearance, it was because he was the one doing the vacuuming.

So that's about it. My life in a nutshell. Did I mention that there was also Mardi Gras? And the Saints winning the Super Bowl? And a Super Bowl parade? All of which I had lots of great pictures of, about 2/3 of which were on the computer? That Emmeline spilled water all over? And then it died and I lost everything on it?

Sigh. Guess I'll go vacuum now.

A Tale of Two Saints Parades

So, while I was standing outside in early February in freezing weather on Canal Street for over three hours, shivering with some friends and our kids and waiting for the Saints to finally pass by, I was feeling a bit sorry for my husband, who was at work. I shouldn't have.

Did we have fun standing out in the street with 800,000 of our friends and neighbors? Yep. But it was also cold and extremely crowded--in hindsight, we picked the worst possible place to watch the parade, as we were stuck behind NOPD barricades with tens of thousands of other people. (The lure of free and convenient parking at my work parking garage is what made Canal Street seem like a good idea at the time.)

After the parade was all over, we learned that if we'd been pretty much anywhere else along the parade route, we wouldn't have been boxed in by police barricades and would have been in crowds 10-15 people deep rather than 60-75. We also learned that people who got to the parade much later than us (we were out there for about 4 hours total) but went to different spots on the route were home before the parade even made it to us. Another mistake in watching the parade on Canal Street was that it was almost the end of the route, meaning we had to wait, and wait, and wait for the parade to get to us. (Dear Saints Super Bowl parade organizers--next time, please use the Uptown parade route. Love, A)

Google Search of the Month

This month, we have a plethora of funny, strange, and just down right creepy google searches to choose from. So many that I couldn't pick just one. Or even two. So, here we go....

Funniest - "What is the spiritual meaning of grits?"

Worst Spelling, Porn Category - "I wots to see gris necid in the bed." For those of you who don't have your bad-grammar/spelling-porn-site-translator on you, I believe that should read "I want to see naked girls in bed."

Shameless Self-Promotion/Number of Searches for the "Pigs Have Flown" T-Shirt My Sister and I Made - 7. Number of money I make per t-shirt? $1. Would you like to buy one? The "Believe" shirt was much more popular--we sold 200 of those! Can I quit my day job yet?

Creepiest Search and Result, Porn Category - It's not so much per se that I'm creeped out by the guy who searched for "momy.gris.porn" and was directed to my site as I am by the fact that he spent over 30 minutes here. Doing what? I don't even want to know.

And the most exciting search - "gris grits." Does the fact that more people searched for my actual blog this month rather than "gris gone wild" mean that I've made it and can quit my day job now? Yeah, I didn't think so, either.

(Kinda sorta) Published

A big thank you to the editors of likethedew.com for requesting that I submit an article on the effect that the Saints are having in New Orleans this year, thanks to their magical season. And an even bigger thank you for posting it.

I must confess, geek that I am, having a byline was pretty damn exciting.