I'm not stalking you.

I’m Not Stalking You’s 5th Anniversary!

Posted on April 8, 2016 by funnygurl2

When I started writing on this blog, I barely knew what a blog was. I had been working for 12 years for the same company that was about to go out of business, leaving me jobless, and an infant that needed major surgery. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, although I was already well into my 30s.

Happy Birthday to INSY, Happy Birthday to INSY…

In the intervening five years, I had a job for 21 months that I liked that progressed into one that I couldn’t stand to stay with. Now I have finally settled somewhere closer to home that I hope to stay at for a very long time. My young son actually had to have two surgeries to accomplish what one should have done, but today he is happy and healthy and annoying me on a consistent basis, as any growing child testing his boundaries should be. (Doesn’t make it any easier though.) My family lost a dog. We have struggled, but I think that glow up there might be the light at the end of the tunnel.

Oh, and I wrote three books. And as I have said before, I don’t think I would have accomplished that if I hadn’t started emptying my chaotic brain out into this little blog first.

I welcome you to click on my comical categories or explore with the search bar my amassed collection of 520 posts. Don’t know where to start? Below are links to my most popular posts and some of my favorites.

And here is to the next five years. Make a five year plan, you say? I wouldn’t even know where to begin.

Most Popular Posts

Boxelder Bugs Must Die

Homefront

MicroMagic [Fine] Frozen Foods

Kiddie City

The O.C.

__________

My Favorite Posts

Dead Dad Movies, Part 1

Dead Dad Movies, Part 2

My Favorite TV Shows

Punky Brewster

Matthew Perry

And, well, since I’m feeling like anyone who is reading this post deserves a little gift, here it is. I have talked about it for a while. This is as close as you are probably ever going to get to seeing me karaoke Vanilla Ice’s “Ice, Ice Baby.” Don’t ask me why I feel more comfortable releasing this on the Internet to a bunch of ruthless strangers than I do a roomful of drunks who would forget me tomorrow, but I do. It is a public speaking anxiety thing, which is rendered temporarily ineffective when confronted with audio or visual equipment, rather than a physical crowd being present. Hence, the Communications degree in Radio and Television Broadcasting. Oh, and remind me to disable comments on this video.

This is a long time coming. Years ago, I bought the karaoke track of “Ice Ice Baby” off of iTunes to practice with. But I still had no words, and that version cut off the third verse, which is my favorite and the one I am best at. At some point in the intervening years I Googled the lyrics and saved them on my flash drive, where they have traveled around aimlessly since. I found a karaoke track with lyrics on YouTube and made a practice video one day. That seemed like only a few months ago, Christmas maybe? Nope. That was last APRIL! I had the idea that this may be a great stunt for INSY’s anniversary…then my mom brain took over and I forgot until like Monday.

So, I had to cram. I have been rapping the words to this song for 26 years—some of them being the WRONG words. Oy. It is hard to untrain myself. I will always say: “Falling on the concrete real fast” as “Fallin’ on the concrete grill fat.” Mmm…grill fat. Anyone hungry for McDonald’s?

Follow the romantic entanglements of The Riley Sisters in my books:
Be Careful What You Wish For – AVAILABLE NOW!
When You Least Expect It – THE CONTINUING ROMANCE!
The Wind Could Blow a Bug – WHERE IT ALL BEGAN!

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Posted in A day in the life, Entertainment Worship & Review and tagged anniversary, author, blog, blogger, celebration, editor, entertainment, fifth, humor, Ice Ice Baby, karaoke, review, surprise, Vanilla Ice, worship, writer. Bookmark the permalink.

I <3 Koala Yummies

Posted on April 6, 2016 by funnygurl2

Koala Yummies have been around for a long time. So long, in fact, that their name has since been changed to Koala’s March. They are delicious filled cookies and used to be hard to find, but in recent years they are stocked in the cookie aisle of all major grocery chains.

They come in packaging shaped as a hexagonal prism. The shell of the cookie is thin and tastes a bit like a sweetened cracker. It has adorable pictures of cartoon koalas stamped on it. The inside has a chocolate fudge filling. They are made in Japan by Lotte, so they have a cute Kawaii appeal. (Kawaii means “cute” or “adorable”. Think Hello Kitty—it always makes me happy when I think about her!) Apparently the cookies are also available in strawberry, but I can’t recall ever sampling that variety. I usually only buy one box at a time as I tend to inhale them. But on the occasion I took this picture, I bought a family pack.

Koala’s March, formerly Koala Yummies

I learned something from the Koala’s March website that I never knew before. Koala’s March supports the Australian Koala Foundation, a conservation group. Unfortunately, it doesn’t say whether buying more boxes will increase the support they receive or not. But, buy more anyway because they are delicious.

Koala’s are super cute, but if I ever have the means to support a threatened animal Down Under, I would choose the dingo because my dog looks like one.

My wild dingo, the first day we got her back in 2004.

Follow the romantic entanglements of The Riley Sisters in my books:
Be Careful What You Wish For – AVAILABLE NOW!
When You Least Expect It – CLICK HERE TO WIN!
The Wind Could Blow a Bug – WHERE IT ALL BEGAN!

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Posted in A day in the life, Childhood Reminiscing and tagged cartoon, Chocolate, cookie, Dave, dingo, Japan, Kawaii, koala, Koala Yummies, Koala’s March, Lotte, snack, stamp. Bookmark the permalink.

Blatant Product Endorsement: Phazyme

Posted on March 23, 2016 by funnygurl2

I have been meaning to write a review of this wonderful product for a long time now. Most of you have probably never heard of the medicine Phazyme. If you need this product, you will be sooo glad you are hearing about this now.

Phazyme is a GAS RELIEF MIRACLE!

You are probably saying: Gas, EW! TMI, stranger.

But we all overshare on our blogs, and sometimes it happens to be health-related. But how are we ever going to learn from each other if we never share?

While I was in college, I got diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS).

What is IBS?

Is it a frowny face on your intestines? Not really. For me, it usually felt like my digestive system was trying to revolt and leave my body. It is a more sophisticated name than “chunky soup stomach,” which is what I had been calling it up until then (boiling, churning chunks in your stomach that have a gravy consistency).

FYI—I love Campbell’s Chunky soup. And consuming Chunky soup doesn’t give me chunky soup stomach.

IBS is the medical term for “eat shit [-ty food] & die.” Once I stopped eating my mom’s fried dinners every night, I began to recover a bit of “regularity” and start leading a semi-normal life again. (Regularity makes me think of Jamie Lee Curtis. I got to hear her sing the Activitia in person. Here is a picture of me with her. I bet SHE doesn’t need Phazyme.)

Jamie Lee Curtis and me

But the official definition of IBS? You have tummy troubles that we cannot find an explanation for.

This leads me to gas and Phazyme. IBS gives me gas. And on many occasions, it is the kind that does not leave the body. It just stays inside and is so painful all I can do is roll around on the bed in agony. I wish that I could thrust a knife into my gut and release all the pressure, like a big balloon. (I have always wondered which is worse, gas pain that painful or labor pains. As I never had a single contraction while I was pregnant for my son, I guess I will never know.)

So, I tried Gas-X. Not much relief. I used to get some relief from Riopan, but it is no longer made. Tums/Rolaids give no relief.

I don’t even remember how I heard about Phazyme. I think someone must have recommended it to me. Maybe the doctor (although I hate to give doctors credit for anything). The first pharmacy I asked at had it, but only in infant drops. Then I did find it and…

HALLELUJAH!

Phazyme packaging

It helped! I buy the maximum strength 250mg simethicone dosage, so I can only take two pills a day. Usually I take one and wait several hours. If the pain is really bad and persistent, I will take a second one. It seems to both eliminate lot of the gas/pressure, and also shows it how to exit your body, rather than hang around—sort of like the Mucinex commercials do for mucous.

And that allows me to pretend to lead a normal life. Many days Phazyme allowed me to go to work and appear normal, easing the pain and pressure enough that I could walk upright and not scream out in pain. It also allowed me to get my pants zipped up at my desk. I am sure all my former coworkers were unknowingly thankful for that.

To sum up: Got gas, get Phazyme. I like to buy the blister packs, then I can always have one with me and not worry about the fast-working softgels getting crushed. Never leave home without it. And ibuprofen. That is some good shit too.

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Posted in A day in the life and tagged bloating, chunky soup stomach, discomfort, gas, Gas-X, IBS, irritable bowel syndrome, pain, Phazyme, pressure, problems, relief, stomach. Bookmark the permalink.

What I Learned This Week – 3/20/16

Posted on March 20, 2016 by funnygurl2

This week I learned that GOOD CHARLOTTE is coming out with a new album!

The Good Charlotte boys, back in the day.

Have I ever told you the long story about my Good Charlotte obsession? Well, it’s long and will have to wait for another day. Suffice to say, they are my boys! More specifically, the Maddens who, even though they bulked up, I still love.

I have all their previous albums. The still-untitled new album will be out this summer. This is great to hear, but, um, could you be more specific? Why not wait to announce it until you have a title or a date? That would be like me saying, “Hey, I have a new book coming out Fall of 2016. It is similar to my previous writing, but also new and different.”

Well, they got me to write about them, didn’t they? ❤ Those boys. I think I have seen them in concert at least four times.

This week I was looking for an item that is very special to me and that I thought would help inspire me while writing my latest book.

Of course, I couldn’t find said trinket (Jack Sparrow’s voice says that in my head), but I did find a collection of bookmarks I have had for 30 years. I’m sure for other people bookmarks come and bookmarks go. But to me these are special, especially an Amelia Bedelia one and one from my local library.

Bookmarks

I think I was in 4^th grade when a real live author, Peggy Parish, came to our school and talked to us. I had never heard of her and I didn’t read her Amelia Bedelia books. But she was maybe the first celebrity encounter I ever had. (For more, please check out my page When Stars Align. You will find GOOD CHARLOTTE there.) It didn’t matter that I wasn’t her fan. I was a fan of what she did. SHE WROTE BOOKS. Words she wrote were in libraries all across the country (I was kind of clueless about bookstores back then. That would change in time as well.) with numbers on the pages, bound inside of covers with pictures on them, printed by some publishing house.

It is not a memory that I regularly revisit, but maybe it placed the notation into my head somewhere that it was a possibility for a career someday.

Speaking of possible careers, the bookmark from the local library was the winner in a bookmark contest many years ago. I kept it all these years because it was created by my asbestos friend! She has a book coming out September 2016 (the cover is featured below). Obviously she took the sentiment from her bookmark to heart: books can brighten your life. At a young age it also must have been imprinted into her that writing was a worthy pursuit.

I surmised (correctly, as it turns out) that my asbestos friend no longer possessed a copy of the bookmark herself. I decided to frame it, so that it would survived the coming years better than the previous ones. I decided to add a few of her other writing achievements into it as well. I think it turned out nice. She seemed happy with it, even hanging it on the wall. Now even if she doesn’t like it, she will have to hang it back on the wall every time I come over so my feelings aren’t hurt. Ha. (I think…)

The Evolution of E.A. Comiskey’s writing life

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Posted in Entertainment Worship & Review, Job hunting, What I Learned This Week and tagged Amelia Bedelia, author, Benji Madden, books, career, entertainment, Good Charlotte, Joel Madden, meeting, Music, Peggy Parish, visit. Bookmark the permalink.

Remember This?: Charms

Posted on March 16, 2016 by funnygurl2

Me wearing my charms at my favorite lighthouse

This post will only be appealing to Gen X girls. And actually I was only at the very tail end of Gen X, so am not even sure how accurate that assessment is.

When I was in elementary school, it seemed like there was a new fad every week. I didn’t always understand them at such a young age, but I tried to keep up anyway. I’m sure I mostly failed.

I remember in first grade people had something called “friendship pins.” They seemed to consist of beads on safety pins that you hooked on your shoe laces. I think this was just before the majority of shoes switched over to velcro closure in the mid-1980s. I still have some of the beads I got from them, although I can’t imagine who claimed to be my friend at that time.

I also remember stickers. It seemed as though they lasted longer; long enough for me to fill up five books full. (My favorite was always the scratch’n’sniff cinnamon roll. Yum.) Our local mall had a little store that sold only stickers–rolls and rolls of stickers hanging off the walls.

Garbage Pail Kids sharing a box with charms and New Kids on the Block cards

I remember Garbage Pail Kids. I participated, but didn’t like them as well. They were harder to get because I only knew one place to buy them and my mom had to make a special trip there so that I could purchase them. And they were more expensive than regular stickers. I had some cards from series 1-4, having the most for series 2, but never a complete set. I had a mother who convinced me that I never needed a complete set of any toy–it was her way of not having to buy me so much stuff. (Pretty genius on her part, actually. Doesn’t seem to work as well on my own child.)

There were friendship bracelets and jelly bracelets. But I think my most favorite fad was charms.

Vintage 1980s charm necklaces

They were these little colored pieces of plastic, shaped into everything you could imagine, that hooked onto a necklace. It was very popular to trade them. I don’t think I traded much, because I liked the ones I had and didn’t want to part with them.

The chains were plastic too, and came in small links and large links and every color of rainbow, sometime on the same chain. Once again, it seemed like stores at the mall were the best place to purchase charms; whatever was the equivalent to Claire’s at that time. Charms came in the shape of radios, headphones (non-functioning, of course), roller skates (this was pre-roller blades), and shoes. I had one of the iconic Coca-Cola bottle. Rumor was that it contained real Coke (for sure it contained a brown-colored liquid). I felt fortunate to have some that were thought to be hard-to-find, such as a toilet, with opening lid and seat, a baby bottle, and a clear bottle with colored pills in it. Ya, seeing as kids were buying these, I never thought the pill bottle was age appropriate. Or the bottle with the Old Grand-Dad whiskey label. But they were fun to possess anyway.

Close-up of my awesome charms

I still have my charms. I have hauled them from my childhood home to my first apartment to my first home. I keep my charms in a shoebox. I know they are silly junk I should have sent to the landfill decades ago. But they are all so pretty and colorful. Some have little bells on them that jingle when you lift them out of the box.

And it is a good thing I still have them so that I can provide pictures for this post.

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Posted in Childhood Reminiscing, Remember This? and tagged 1980's, bell, charm, children, collectable, fad, Garbage Pail Kids, jewelry, necklace, plastic, trade. Bookmark the permalink.

I'm not stalking you.