Aaaahhh!

So cute, I had to reblog!

Go here for more Six Word Saturdays.

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Kitty Bloger

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Joke 373

Thanks to Big Al for this one.  It’s gross but funny.

Did you hear about the man who fell into the cesspool but couldn’t swim?

He was just going through the motions.

101/1001 (53)

In all the excitement of Sunday’s anniversary and my first – and last – You Tube appearance, I forgot to update you on what I’ve been doing with the 101/1001 challenge.  Not much, as it happens, so this will be a short post.

Read 101 new books (26/101)

In spite of my new Kindle, which has become my symbiont à la Trill tradition (non-Trekkies should look away now) – or maybe it’s the other way around, because I can’t live without it, but it can survive without me, though not electricity – this is becoming a triangle in which it appears I am a necessary evil in order for the Kindle to exist – in spite of all that, I have read just three new books in three months.  I have read a ton of old favourites, of course, and some rather bad Agatha Christies, but I need to open myself up to the possibility of enjoying new books by people I’ve never heard of.

Any suggestions?  Preference will be given to books that are free to download.

Cover of Trekkies

Tell a joke every day for the next 1001 days (371/1001)

I’m bang on target with that one.

I’m still looking for the perfect joke for Day 1001, however.  Any suggestions?  Preference will be given to those that make me laugh.

Write 1001 new poems (325/1001)

I’m way behind on this one.  Blame Twilight.

Save £1 for each completed task.

I’m way behind on this one.  Blame the recession.

Walk the dogs for 1001 hours (269.55/1001)

Way behind on this one, too.  Blame the weather.

I do walk them every day, but only until the frostbite starts.

Get the first series of Glee on dvd.

Behind on this.  Blame my anti-Glee family.

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Of the 68 tasks I have set myself so far, I have completed seventeen.

The challenge may be fun but it appears I’m not rising to it.  Sarsm‘s snail is starting to look like an insult, not a celebration:

Joke 372

Africa (Photo credit: cliff1066™)

Son: Is it true, Dad, that in some parts of Africa a man doesn’t know his wife until he marries her?

Dad: That happens in every country, son.

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A man placed an ad in the classifieds: Wife wanted.

The next day he received a hundred letters. They all said the same thing: You can have mine.

E Is For ‘Poo’

Cover of Dog Day Afternoon

I’ve had a rash of new subscribers the last few weeks, so they might as well know my level from the start, before they get sucked in to my dark world of bad puns and toilet humour.  Welcome, newbies!  Thank you for subscribing.  Just so you know, you may regret it.  Ask my regulars.  You can’t say you weren’t warned.

FYI: I write an irregular series of posts about me, based on the alphabet.  No reason, really; just copying more original bloggers.

Where was I?

E is for ‘poo’, or ‘excrement’.  Excrement is the same thing as poo, but sounds worse.  Let’s not go there.  Babies and children poo; adults excrete.  Okay, I went there; but I need to thrash this out.

I write about poo a lot; I don’t know why.  Bowels don’t move me.  Perhaps it’s because I spend my life picking up after my dogs (I am a responsible owner).

Before we knew Spud had an eye problem, he used to fall down a lot.  Into big piles of steaming (summer)/frozen (winter, spring, autumn) doodoo.  I lost count of the pairs of pants and/or shoes I threw into the bin on the way to school (just to clarify: he was a toddler at the time, escorting his big brother). 

I HATE dog poo.  I LOATHE lazy owners who leave their dog’s dirt lying around for children to fall into and go blind.  If caught, they should be forced to collect all the poo on the park with their bare hands.

I have a whole collection of poems about poo. 

Really.  It has my favourite title of all my collections: Number Two Cycle.  Here’s one:

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Dog Day Afternoon

Spring day; a walk in
the park: the triumph of hope
over effluence.

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And another:

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Time and Motion

I’m always here
On the loo.
Diarrhoea?
It’s déjà poo.

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My favourite post about poo was a long ramble with the dogs, in which I described their toilet habits (regular and often) and colour (five in one, at one point), and how I had to carry it all around with me until we found a bin.  It was a lovely sunny day and it allowed me to close with the line, I never felt more like swinging the poos…

Toilet humour!  I love it!

Unsubscribers to the right, please.

Joke 371

Thanks to Granny1947 for this one (slightly adapted).

Charity shop in Wellington Way (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Hub has been missing for a week now. 

Police said to prepare for the worst, so I have been to the charity shop to get his clothes back.     

Feeling Philosophical

This morning’s post wasn’t really a post so I trawled through old posts to bring you a new post, of philosophical quotes; a new post to you, that is, but don’t quote me. 

Portrait of René Descartes, dubbed the "Father of Modern Philosophy", after Frans Hals c. 1648 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dale Carnegie: Tell me what gives a man or woman their greatest pleasure and I’ll tell you their philosophy of life.

Real Carnegie: Tell me what gives a man or woman their greatest pleasure and I’ll sell it to ‘em.

Alphonse Karr: The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Carphone Warehouse: The more phones change, the more money we make.

Ursula Le Guin: It is good to have an end to journey towards, but it is the journey that matters, in the end.

Urge Le Goin: If you must travel, go First Class.

Soren Kierkegaard: Life must be understood backward. But it must be lived forward.

Liam Gallagher: Don’t look back in anger; throw the first punch.

Charles Schultz: I’ve developed a new philosophy… I only dread one day at a time.

Charlie Brown: I’m a miserable git.

Lao Tzu: The journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.

Low Shoe: The journey of a thousand miles must begin with a flat tyre.

John Keats: Beauty is truth, truth beauty –  that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Dodge McLarty: Don’t buy no ugly truck – it’s unpatriotic.

René Descartes on Philosophy: I think; therefore I am.

Tilly Bud on Pig Philosophy: I’m pink; therefore I’m ham.

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Dirty Stopout

Sunday: church

Monday: doctor

Tuesday: library

Wednesday: church meeting

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A short post today: I’m exhausted from the dissipation.

Joke 370

Thanks to Granny1947 for this one.

Doctors have just identified a food that can cause grief and suffering years after it’s been eaten. 

It’s called a wedding cake.

Too, Too Much

Today, I have cobbled together and updated two posts from two years ago, telling two separate stories of my two sons.  I enjoyed re-reading them.  I hope that you enjoy them, too.

I have such an embarrassing mother...

Tory Boy, the aspiring politician and future world dictator, joined formspring.me (is that site still around?) in 2010.  Anyone can ask you any question and you can answer them.

He had lots of political questions:

Q: If after the election we have a hung parliament, how would you like to see the situation resolved?

A: Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah [Far too dull for The Laughing Housewife blog; you come here for a laugh, not a nap.]

I preferred the personal:

Q: Are you eating properly?

A: Stop nagging.

Guess who asked that one? 

Here’s one I didn’t ask:

Q: Boxers or briefs (or other)?

A: Boxers. Always. Also, other? What the hell? No, just no.

I liked his answer to it so much, I Liked it on Facebook.  Five minutes later I received an outraged phone call from my son asking me to Unlike it immediately and to refrain from liking his underwear on a public forum.  And in private, come to think of it.  It was just wrong on so many levels he would have to deny I was his parent if we were ever together in public.

That really made me laugh: as if I’d ever admit that a politician was related to me, let alone be seen with him in public.  How embarrassing would that be?

Love me, love the boy who thinks he owns me...

You wait ages for a child, then one comes along every three minutes.  In this instance, the same child. 

Spud left for school this morning in the usual manner: me hassling him and telling him he’s going to be late if he doesn’t get a move on will you just hurry UP!  and him…taking…his…time…I’ll be fine…don’t worry. 

Sometimes, I hate being proved right.  Our creaky door bell – creaky because the battery is dying and instead of a chirpy ding-dong! we get a biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggggggggggggg…boooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggcough…splutter…fade… announced his return, three minutes after he had left the house two minutes late.  He missed the bus because it was five minutes early which, by my calculation, means if a = plus2 and b = minus5 then c = too long in the bathroom with the hair gel; remainder ten, as in, leave the house ten minutes earlier tomorrow if you want to be sure of getting your bus.

He tantrummed on the doorstep along the lines of busesIhatebusesbusesarerubbishwhydowehavetohavebusestheymakemelate? for a couple of minutes; explained that he had come to tell me he was going to be late for school because he had no money on his phone  – let me clarify in case that whizzed over your head as it did mine, first time around: he was telling me he had no money on his phone which was why he had come to tell me that he had missed his bus, not that he had missed his bus because he had no money on his phone.  Got that?  Me neither.  Then he stomped off to the bus stop for the 8:05 bus, which would make him late for school. 

I returned to the important business of King.com and thought no more of it.   Five minutes later the familiar biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggggggggggggg…boooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggcough…splutter…fade… interrupted the first chance I have had to beat my high score on Rainbow Rescue in months.  It was Spud, enraged, at the door.  He had come to tell me he had missed his second bus as a consequence of coming to tell me he had missed his first bus and now he was going to be reallllllllly late for school.  Stupid buses! 

I sent him away with the warning not to come and tell me if he missed his third bus, but to take the radical decision to stay put.

Kids!  They are so selfish – it’s going to be weeks before I get close to beating my high score again.

Joke 369

Thanks to Granny1947 for this one.

I Will Survive (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I woke up last night to find the ghost of Gloria Gaynor standing at the foot of my bed. 

At first I was afraid…I was petrified.

Guest Post: Brenda Youngerman

My guest today is Brenda Youngerman.  Brenda is an author, and I have invited her to tell you about her new book.

Writing… reading… talking… breathing. These are all adverbs when you take them singularly; but to me they are vital parts of my life. I cannot imagine any facet of me without all of these adverbs interacting. Obviously we all breathe and have done so from the moment of birth.  Talking? Well…I have no idea when that started, but reading I distinctly remember doing from a VERY early age. Trips to the library to check out children’s books (which I later checked out with my own children) and then as my reading level progressed, my walks down the aisle of the library to grab a book that looked interesting.

And writing? Well I’ve definitely been writing since I was in high school with a precise memory of a short story I wrote about love and loss. It started with “Her memory hung in the air like the scent of a rose.” I printed out that short story and put in on my bulletin board. I had no idea then (when I was sixteen) that I would end up writing novels, nor that I would enjoy writing so much and it would become an extension of myself.

A Youngerman novel will take you on a journey into a life that you may or may not ever imagine. There are always twists and turns that the reader does not expect, and although life does not necessarily have happy endings, my books try to leave the reader with a bit of hope that things will be better for our star character.

I hope you give it a try…. Check out my latest book: Skewered Halo. You can buy it directly from me and I will autograph it for you! Come on by my blog or my website.

Psst! She’s Got a Secret!

Why would one sister have it in for the other? Sibling rivalry is taken to the extreme in my novel Skewered Halo.  Diane Newsome is the middle child born into a middle-class family. Her older sister, Brittany, has resented her from the moment she was born. Brittany convinces Diane that she was placed on the doorstep as an unwanted child, and she dare not make a wrong move or she will lose her family. Years later, when Diane finally tells her parents what Brittany has claimed, they are aghast, yet her mother still sides with Brittany.

Skewered Halo is a thriller exploring the lies and treachery that can exist in families. Join Diane as she discovers that her entire life has been a lie, resulting in murder and mayhem.

Joke 368

Animated sequence of a race horse galloping. Photos taken by Eadweard Muybridge (died 1904), first published in 1887 at Philadelphia (Animal Locomotion). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Just to establish some parameters,” said the professor, “Mr. Nichols, what is the opposite of joy?”

“Sadness,” said the student.

“And the opposite of depression, Ms. Biggs?”

“Elation.”

“And you, sir, how about the opposite of woe?”

“I believe that would be giddy up…”

One Year On, What Have We Achieved?

So an almost total stranger emails me in early March last year and says, Want to do 101 things you’ve never done before in a 1001 days, and do them with me?

Yes, I said.  Why not?  It’s not like my time is taken up with housework, caring for my family, job hunting, dog walking and backside expanding.  I’m in! 

Of course, I didn’t have a Kindle then, so I was optimistic about the time I could give to the challenge.

Sarsm – for it was she of the evil disease name who roped me in – got her hubby to provide us with an excellent logo:

and all I had to do then was come up with 101 challenges.  One year later, I’m still thirty-three challenges down.  I need thirty-three suggestions from you, dear readers (non-rude, please) in the next…hang on…let me do the maths…143 weeks take away 52 weeks equals 91 months times seven days then take away the number you first thought of add a large glass of wine maybe one of my challenges should be maths lessons?

By the way, I hope you’re impressed with the celebrating snail: drawing by Sarah’s clever daughter; animation by Sarah’s clever husband.

So Sarah – she of the disease – and I started our challenge one year ago today.  I have to admit, it’s been fun, even though I had reservations at the start:

Task 1. Accept a challenge I don’t really want to do.

I did; I’m glad; it’s fun. 

Fun! fun! fun! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sarah – she of the good idea – and I asked ourselves some questions last week (her replies are here):

What did you expect of the challenge at the start?

Not much at all, if I’m honest.  I thought I’d fizzle out after a couple of months.  This time last year I had not learned to say ‘no’, so I was in it out of politeness.   (Sorry about that, Sarah.  On the plus side, I may be weak but I have excellent manners.)

How do you think you’ve done?

Much better than I expected!

Anything you would change?

No.  Because the beauty of the challenge is that it’s all on my own terms.

Has anything unexpected come out of the challenge?

A wonderful friendship and many phone chats with one of the funniest people I know (that’s Sarah – she of the exquisite funny bone – if you were wondering).

What has been your favourite task so far?

Hmm.  Tough one.  I have two:

Task 4. Type up and print out for folder and notebook over 150 poems I’ve written.

I was never going to get around to doing this before I started 101/1001; but I’m pleased to announce I’m halfway through.

Task 62.  Learn all the words to the South African National Anthem. 

I had great fun with this one, sitting at my computer every morning, singing along to You Tube.  I promised you I would post a video of me singing it with my eyes closed, to prove I know it, when I had learned it; but I never got around to it…until now.

This was a challenge in itself: first, I had to find an aligned moment when I was clean and dressed and the Hub felt well enough to locate the camera.  Then he had to find an SD card for the camera.  Then he had to find an SD card that worked.  Then he had to give up on that and record it to hard drive.  Then we had several false starts, including his instruction to me to ‘Open your eyes!  You look stupid!’  Then we had a brief hiatus for a furious discussion on the merits of wearing cameras where the sun don’t shine.  Then we recorded it and found we couldn’t upload it to my blog, even though he’d downloaded various free software.  Then he said, ‘Let’s put it on Facebook.’  Then we argued because I said my family, who I don’t particularly want to be able to see it (they already have enough reasons to laugh at me), would be able to see it but my readers, who I particularly want to be able to see it (I can never give them enough reasons to laugh at me), wouldn’t be able to see it.  Then I suggested we put it on You Tube and I would include a link right here.

I have to include a link because I can’t upload You Tube videos for any reason that the WordPress techies can find.

Here it is again, in case you were skim-reading:

http://www.youtube.com/v/KEbnEgwsmZY?version=3&feature=player_detailpage

As embarrassed as I am by my reedy singing and pitch issues, I am also rather pleased with the whole debacle because it allowed me to add another tick to one of my challenges:

Task 11.  Expose myself to twenty new experiences (5/20)

Appeared on You Tube (6/20)

Go me!

So, one year on, what have we achieved?  I can’t answer for Sarah – she of the excellent blog, Sarsm’s Blog (she’s great with ideas but maybe not so hot on names) – but for myself, I’ve achieved the satisfaction of committing to something and sticking with it, despite my misgivings.

And I had an excuse to re-read all the Harry Potter books.  Again.  And again.  I accidentally did that one twice.  Well, not so much ‘accidentally’ as, ‘on purpose’.

So, what’s next?  I have quite a few tasks that I haven’t started – Leave my poems in 101 locations; Ride my bike twenty out of thirty days; Dance in the rain; amongst others – so I have to get cracking on those.

Now I think about it, I could combine those three tasks: I will ride my bike in the rain, delivering poems to unsuspecting Stockport locations.  When I fall off my bike (did you not hear me say it was raining?), instead of crying, I will dance; and ask the Hub to collect me from the funny farm to which I will no doubt have been sent when people see me dancing around my bike in the rain, showering poems on the witnesses.

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You can see how I’ve progressed with my tasks on my 101/1001 page.

If you have enjoyed this post, please head on over to Sarsm’s blog – she of the genius idea – and check out her take on our first year.  And go even if you haven’t – it’s only polite, and we’re big on politeness here.  You will enjoy it, I’m sure.

Sarah – my new BFF – has put up an FAQ page, if you’re interested in joining us.

I wish you would: it’s been a blast!

Joke 367

A cat with an ocular prosthetic. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Thanks to Cliff for this one.  He sent it to me ages ago but I saved it because I wanted a cracking joke to celebrate today’s anniversary.

A man was dining alone in a fancy restaurant and there was a gorgeous redhead sitting at the next table.  He had been checking her out since he sat down, but lacked the nerve to talk with her.

Suddenly she sneezed, and her glass eye came flying out of its socket towards the man. He reflexively reached out, grabbed it out of the air, and handed it back.

‘Oh my, I am so sorry,’ the woman said, as she popped her eye back in place. ‘Let me buy your dinner to make it up to you.’

They enjoyed a wonderful dinner together, and afterwards they went to the theatre, followed by drinks.  They talked, they laughed, she shared her deepest dreams and he shared his. She listened to him with interest.

After paying for everything, she asked him if he would like to come to her place for a nightcap and stay for breakfast. They had a wonderful, wonderful time.

The next morning, she cooked a gourmet meal with all the trimmings. The guy was amazed. Everything had been so incredible!

‘You know,’ he said, ‘you are the perfect woman.  Are you this nice to every guy you meet?’

‘No,’ she replied.  ‘You just happened to catch my eye.’