Is it considered sleepwalking if you’re conscious?

by Camille Posted on January 24, 2011

I distinctly remember waking up last night around 2:30 a.m. and being worried—consumed, obsessed—about finding some petroleum jelly for my nostrils, which sometimes get dry at night and which, if I let them get too dry, are known to bleed in protest.

And since I hate blood so much I try to avoid bloody noses when I can.

I walked through every room of the upstairs trying to find a jar of it.

I did not turn on a single light or take my phone with me to use as a flashlight. I just felt my way around the obstacles.

When I finally located some in a pocket of my backpack on the kitchen counter, I took it back to bed (the jelly) and set it on my nightstand, where it remained, unused, until morning.

I have no idea why I did this.

Posted in mondays suck, oh brother what next | 2 Comments

Saturday Steals: McDonald’s Grilled Chicken Spicy Buffalo Snack Wrap

by Camille Posted on January 21, 2011

Hello, and welcome to another rousing round of Saturday Steals, where what you get is what you see and what you see is cheap or free!

To participate, simply:

1) Steal a steal.

2) Write a post about it on your blog, mentioning that you’re participating in Saturday Steals (you can steal the above image if you so desire), and

3) Add the link to said post to the list at the bottom of this post.

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Have you ever met that woman who is obsessed with figuring out secret restaurant recipes for her own personal recipe file so that she can make all her favourite restaurant dishes right there in the privacy of her very own kitchen without spending the time energy effort and don’t lets forget money on driving all the way to the restaurant to have her favourite foods?

Not that I’m judging.

But have you met her?

Hi, I’m Camille. I am that woman.

Or at least I’m becoming that woman.

Or at least a semblance of a sort-of her.

The main difference between me and that woman is that she seeks after the very best recipes from the most illustrious restaurants—you know, the thirty-dollar plates and the fifteen-dollar appetizers from the choicest restaurants in town, the ones that actually use tablecloths, and clean ones at that—while I set my sights slightly lower.

Leap years lower.

Friends, my newest obsession:

The Spicy Buffalo Grilled Chicken Snack Wrap from McDonald’s.
(Image from here.)

I feel a great deal of real American shame in admitting that I do actually like McDonald’s food on the more-than-rare occasion [because of course every average American is allowed to confess with token humility that she likes McDonald’s “on the rare occasion,” a sort of guilty-pleasure admittance, but any more than that is just too cliche and embarrassing to admit] which fact (I have on honest-to-goodness French authority) amuses my European brothers and sisters to no literal end.

(Make what you will of the fact that this very post represents not the first but in fact the second Saturday Steals dedicated to the infamous fast-food chain.)

Yet also like every good American, said shame stops me exactly not at all from indulging in my favourite guilty pleasure on my way home from school on the days I feel I deserve it.

A treat, I rationalise, after a long and tiresome day crunching numbers (or letters, as it were, if letters are in fact crunchable).

It started out innocently enough. During the final month of classes back in December, I woke up late one morning and rushed off to school without eating breakfast or packing a lunch, but after making up for lost time on the miraculously bare highways, I found a few extra minutes to swing into the McDonald’s drive-through near campus to purchase a breakfast burrito for $1.39, for which I paid in change.

A few days later, my last class of the day let out a little early and I celebrated by picking up a Grilled Chicken Snack Wrap on my way home from school. And it was delightful—the juicy grilled chicken, the crispy lettuce, the trace amounts of cheddar, and all sauced up with Frank’s Red Hot—not uncomfortably spicy, just enough to bring a couple of tiny tears to my eyes—all combined to become my newest guilty pleasure.

And of course, December was just so full of ups and downs that I found a lot of great excuses to swing by Ronald’s place on my way home from school, either in celebration or consolation. Paper submitted, what a relief! Snack Wrap! Miserable finals coming up, what a bummer. Snack wrap time.  Weeks past, and I got into a really nasty habit of stopping by McDonald’s after every tiresome day instead of just the occasional one.

All that had to stop, I knew, once classes ended and took my lazy rationalisation with them.

Plus also too even though they are only two dollars a pop, two dollars a pop can add up in a jiffy when you have addictive tendencies such as my own. (Just ask the garbage bags full of empty DDP cans cluttering the back of my garage.)

So I quit the snack wraps cold turkey this semester, but a few days into my withdrawal process, after I’d gotten through the worst of the shakes and the sweats and my mind was once again free to think (somewhat) clearly, it occurred to me:

This does not have to be the end. Snack wraps cannot be that hard to make.

Enter whole wheat tortillas. Enter shredded iceberg lettuce. Enter grated cheddar cheese, grilled chicken breasts and Frank’s Red Hot™ sauce.

(All of this is, of course, not pictured because I was in the state of mind I like to call Recovering Addict About to Unrecover, and of course it didn’t occur to me to photograph the process.)

Enter the exact homemade replica of my beloved fast-food favourite.

Enter bliss.

And at 1/4 the price of Mickey D’s, I’m calling it a steal.

*******************

Now it’s your turn! What have you stolen lately?

Add your steal to the link list below. It will be open from now till Sunday at 11:59 p.m.



Posted in Saturday Steals | 4 Comments

Your Furniture Resource: A Plug

by Camille Posted on January 21, 2011

So I have a sister, and I love her. She is amazing, both as a person and in her role as sister. (She’s also a great wife and mother, although I have on good authority that she wouldn’t let her three year-old son wear his camouflaged rain boots to church on Sunday, which to me is just a bit harsh and Type-A, but to each her own.)

Anyway, she’s a pretty much all-around great person, and she recently started a blog which I plugged once but which has since taken off to even grander proportions and deserves another solid plug.

Because she does impressive things to ugly furniture.

Take this nightstand, for example.

Before:

After:

What a transformation, right?

Or this one…

Before:

After:

Or my most recent favourite:

Before:

After:

And she’s really good at chalkboard-ish stuff:

Like I said: amazing.

If you’re interested in home decor stuff and you live in the greater Phoenix metro area, you should stop by and go shopping. Her prices are very reasonable (did I mention she sells this stuff), and if you read her back posts you’ll see examples of some of the furniture she even builds herself (benches, shelves, etc.). Which is also for sale.

Even if you don’t live in the greater Phoenix metro area, but you’re still interested in homey stuff you should still read her blog regularly—it will give you good ideas.

So check it out!

Who knows, you might even find a good steal for this weekend’s Saturday Steals (kicking off at 8 p.m. tonight, my time).

Posted in awesome., design, do what I say, family, Saturday Steals | 5 Comments

Rationale

by Camille Posted on January 18, 2011

I do not get my nails done.

I do not colour my hair.

I hardly even get it cut, truth be told.

I wax my eyebrows myself.

Armpits, too. (51,000 views, toot toot!) (The toot toot was the sound of me and my own horn.)

We don’t have cable.

We don’t even have peasant vision.

We don’t have a cell phone bill (courtesy of Kyle’s work, but still).

I have never purchased anything from Anthropologie. (Sadly, but truly.)

I do get a massage every month, but only because our insurance pays for it.

I don’t buy new clothes very often, and even then I usually shop at thrift stores and clearance racks. (With the exception of my jeans, which I buy full price from the Buckle, but so then of course I only ever buy one pair a year.)

Sometimes we eat out too often, but we always reign it in before it gets outta control.

We don’t have a timeshare.

We don’t drive outrageous vehicles.

When we have kids I probably (as in for sure) won’t get a nanny.

For the most part, we are sensible, down-to-earth folk.

Oh, sure, we like to play along with the best of ’em (Poor Kyle probably more than me, with his techie stuff and his video game stuff and his motor sports stuff and his remote-controlled stuff and his et cetera), but generally speaking, we make level-headed financial decisions.

So then why do I feel so overindulged at the fact that we have officially hired a Snow Man?

No, not Frosty (although my energetic 3 y. o. nephew would think that was boss).

A Snow Man—as in, a man to take care of our snow. A lovely wonderful caring kind and generous man who, for a nominal monthly fee, will come to our house every morning after a heavy snowfall (heavy = anything over 1/2 inch according to Mr. SM), while I am either long gone at school or still toasty in my bed (depending on the day of the week it is), and make it disappear by means of shovel, snow blower, and salt.

This is the stuff that dreams are made of. Some women indulge in mani-pedis. I get a Snow Man.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS.

It means that never again will I have to schlep outside in sub-sub-freezing temps wearing five layers and breaking my back (my Arizona friends wouldn’t believe how bad it hurts, and not just the back, but the whole entire body, to shovel two walkways, front steps, a sidewalk and a driveway), fingers going numb after only a few minutes, breaking a horrific sweat despite the sub-sub-freezing temps, which sweat promptly freezes and forms mini icicles and snow pellets that cling to my face and brow, and finally coming inside after it’s all done just to have to do it again in a few hours or the next day, depending on how hard it’s snowing and/or how shamed I feel when I look out the front window and see my semi-retired over-achieving across-the-street neighbor back at it yet again, and after all of that still having my driveway look like crap because NEWSFLASH: I’m not Canadian and I’m no good at this!

Click here for a comparison of Flanders’s driveway to my own, for an example of how a proper snow removal should look upon completion.

In short, never again will I be that person (video at bottom of link).

Why not just have Poor Kyle do it, you ask?

Simple.

Because he’s not a very good Canadian, apparently, and doesn’t like shoveling snow any more than I do, only worse because when he’s shoveling I feel guilty that I’m not helping him like a good feminist, plus he works really hard all day to support my DDP habits and it’s not very fair to make him work just as hard when he gets home, plus plus he complains and makes me feel even more guilty, so in the end it’s just easier if I do it myself because martyrdom suits me, in case you missed that memo.

And that’s what it really comes down to, doesn’t it? Martyrdom. I have finally shoveled enough tons of snow to feel justified in paying someone else to do it for me. I was not at this point last winter because I had not sacrificed enough last winter. I didn’t have a job, I was only in three classes at school, I had no good reason not to be able to shovel my own damn sidewalk. This winter is a different story, however, and by golly, I’m getting a snow man.

It will save my marriage, too, probably, because if I don’t have to shovel snow then I don’t have to hate the snow, and if I don’t hate the snow then I really don’t have to hate Canada anymore and will finally be able to stop fantasizing about hopping the next flight to Aruba every year from October to approximately June.

Now if only I could hire a full-time driver, I’d finally be able to commit fully to this marriage.

Posted in awesome., Canada, Married Life, mediocrity | 11 Comments

Knott’s Berry Farm for YMKs (Young, Married, and Kidless)

by Camille Posted on January 17, 2011

Housekeeping: This is just a wee reminder that this Friday will mark the opening of Saturday Steals for the weekend, which Saturday Steals I blithely ignored last weekend during a bout of defiant devil-may-care attitude toward this here blog. But not to worry, there will be a true Saturday Steals up and running this weekend. Beginning Friday, 8 p.m. Mayberry Standard Time, and lasting all weekend until Sunday, 11:59 p.m. MST.

For more information on what exactly Saturday Steals is and how you can participate, click here. Or to read through all the previous Saturday Steals posts to spy on other people’s good steals, click here.

********************************

Over the too-short Christmas holiday, Poor Kyle and I voyaged from Mayberry, Canada to Mesa, Arizona and then to Palm Springs, California in the name of visiting family and also just getting the hell out of sub-freezing temperatures for a spell.

It was nice.

Notice the chillingly blue background, taken somewhere around Montana. Also notice, if you will, the deep ocean blue of my husband’s eyes. Then direct your attention to the murky lake water hue of my own less striking eyes. Worthless.

As part of our Christmas gift to each other, we also decided that we (Poor Kyle and myself) should go to a theme park in California together, just the two of us.

It was to be the first time in our marriage we’d ever done that.

We’d been to Disneyland several times together, but always before with either his family or my own, which trips were fun to be sure, but you know it’s impossible to have a fully relaxing time at a theme park with either one’s or one’s spouses in-laws along for the ride(s).

Nothing against in-laws [I love my own in-laws and Poor Kyle gets along well with his], but you know.

Remember too, if you will, that I was also pretty spiteful on aforementioned Disneyland trips with my new husband on account of his not being a Disneyland Virgin, whereas I had saved my own untarnished D-Virginity for That Special Someone.

Also I was bitter that he refused to ride Splash Mountain with me. On more than one occasion.

So anyway, considering our history with the Happiest Place on Wherever, we decided to start with a blank slate, a tabula rasa of marital theme park experiences if you will, and opted instead for Knott’s Berry Farm.

Knott’s Berry Farm was in many ways like Disneyland (overpriced, annoyingly chirpy, lines of strollers at every turn), but in many ways completely different.

I don’t think Disneyland has funnel cake, for one thing.

And I know they don’t have Dippin’ Dots. (We are food-oriented travelers, in case that wasn’t obvious by now.)

But was more than just the victuals—Knott’s Berry Farm had an altogether different feel to it.

They had a horse-drawn (four horses to be precise) stagecoach free for riders, which you would be hard-pressed to find at Walt’s place on account of the sheer size of things over there. The logistics of it just don’t work at Disneyland.

Not that you can tell, but here’s us on the stagecoach ride.

They had impromptu gun fights break out smack in the middle of the streets, completely at random and which startled me on more than one brain-harrowing occasion. Although I probably could’ve done without the aneurysms, I had to admit it charmed me in a way I’ve never experienced at D-land. (PK was happy because one of the villains handed him the blank shell when the shoot-out was over. You’d’ve thought he’d been handed a hundred dollar bill.)

They had a statue of a prisoner in a one-room jail cell who would talk to you—actually address you as Hey Lady or Hello Sir, ask where you were from, and comment on said hometown—which really threw me off guard. Again, not something you see at Disneyland largely due to the huge volume of visitors it gets every day.

Poor Kyle, for his money, actually prefers Knott’s Berry Farm over Disneyland and would pick it any day. He grew up going to both parks regularly and holds the fonder memories of KBF.

As for me, I grew up in a Disneyland family all the way. I sort of felt like I was cheating on Walt when I got my hand stamped at the KBF gates. My one and only experience of Knott’s Berry Farm consisted of a ninth grade band trip during which I waited in line for the Ghost Rider for three hours, which ride I cannot remember on account of having waited in line with Ferrick Trellis, the boy I crushed on for five consecutive years (seventh through twelfth grades, respectively) and who pretty much obliterated any and every other memory of the park for me, damn his pimpled face.

So I was happy to make new memories in the place. Needless to say.

We walked onto every ride with absolutely no wait. We gorged ourselves on true western delicacies. We were in no real rush to see much of anything: we sauntered through the park, sat when we felt like sitting, roller coasted when we felt like coasting, and basically remembered why we married each other in the first place.

Hint: it wasn’t for the facial hair.

But we had a good time.

Go there someday.

Posted in awesome., do what I say, Married Life, on the road again, Overall Good Things, Recreation, Travel | 6 Comments

Pardon My Petunias

by Camille Posted on January 16, 2011

Several months ago I signed up to buy a little chunk of ad space on a seriously funny blog, ABDPBT.

There was a really long wait list for said ad space, so I figured I’d have plenty of time to whip my own neglected website into tip-top shape before the ad would ever run. I had months to hire a designer and programmer to create a sweet theme and program some lovely landing pages (i.e. “About Me,” etc.) for all my new readers to explore once they found my blog from Anna’s. I had weeks to churn out my best posts ever. I had forever to make my blog perfect and beautiful and the best place on the internet. (Right…)

But of course, as these things usually go, my intentions were shot to shite and here I am, opening my cyber home to an influx of new visitors with curlers in my hair and my bathrobe on and not even a bra underneath.

Typical.

So, to anyone stopping by today for the first time…

Hello. I’m Camille and I have a butt-chin.

Welcome to my blog. I’m sorry you have to see it in such a sorry state. You are catching up with me just as I’m coming out of one of the toughest semesters of my college experience, and (sadly) just as I’m entering a semester even tougher than the last.

My blog has been a bit neglected as of late on account of some pretty hefty research papers, final exams, the usual.

But I haven’t given up on me yet.

And I hope you don’t either.

In case you’re interested, there was a time when this blog got updated five days a week, almost like clockwork. (I like to call that The Golden Age of AoOL.)

Some of the posts born during TGA are listed there in my right sidebar.

But alas, as with everything else around this joint, even my sidebars are outdated.

So I’ve compiled a list of some of my favourite posts that you might be interested in checking out.

If you have the time.

Which, if you’re anything like me, I don’t suppose you do.

But just in case, here’s what makes this blog tick:

I’m a self-diagnosed addict.

I have been married three tumultuous years (to a guy missing his two front teeth) and here’s what I have to say about that.

And here’s what I have to say about his ex-girlfriends. (Hint: it’s not very nice.)

I call my husband Poor Kyle. For reasons that should, by now, be obvious.

I live in a town called Mayberry.

I’m sort of antisocial. And by sort of I mean clinically.

I’m also kind of sheltered. And by sheltered I mean prude. (Which may or may not be another reason why Poor Kyle is so Poor.)

I once went two+ months without using shampoo. That was fun.

But really, if you don’t have time to read any/all of those posts, you can pretty much find out all you need to know about me and this blog by reading this one sentence (and if you feel compelled, then also the link that goes with it): I really don’t like Taylor Swift’s songs.

So that’s that. Thanks for stopping by, feel free to hang around, yadda yadda etc. etc.

I’ll try to make it worth your while.

But I won’t make any promises because I’m also pretty noncommittal,

cpsf

Posted in awesome., blogger finger, failures, like-it-link-it, looking back, mondays suck, what a nightmare, woe is me | 3 Comments