Month: August 2010

The Things I Do

Posted on by Zolligirl

My in-laws are in town and because I’m sweet and totally unselfish, I’ve agreed to let them plan our day. I’m leaving it completely to their discretion. WHATEVER they choose is fine with me.

Did I mention there’s a regional bridge tournament in town?

I don’t even have a partner, but I refuse to let that stop me. Some lucky person, asleep in their hotel room, worn out from the long drive but excited about the prospects of a win, is going to get up in the morning, go down to the partnership desk, and meet me!

Maybe I’ll wear one of my bridge sweaters, that should put them at ease.

AND intimidate my opponents. Win-Win!

*WTSH?

Posted on by Zolligirl

I think I’m a fairly simple girl. Sure I complain about my house from time to time – it’s too dark, it’s hard to clean, the closets are small – but for the most part I’m satisfied. I don’t really need anything bigger, and I’m pretty sure I’d be in trouble with a Homeowners Association if I lived in a neighborhood.

But how much is a woman supposed to endure? This morning, I packed up my laptop and headed to the basement where our office is located. Only a portion of the basement is finished. It has a playroom for MP, and an office area for me and JD. The rest is behind a door where there’s no sheet-rock and lots of junk. For the most part I stay out of it. I did, HOWEVER, go into the laundry room to iron a dress for MP before school.

So there I sat minding my business when JD went through the door to the laundry room, then quickly came back into the office.

JD: Don’t open this door!

Me: What is it? Is it a dead rat?

JD: Uh, it’s not anything DEAD.

Me, starting to panic: What is it? A opossum, a live RAT?

JD: Wait here.

No biggie, just a 3 foot snake SKIN. Found in the doorway of the laundry room where I had been IRONING.

I’m pretty sure our neighbors heard me scream. My neighbors in TENNESSEE heard me scream. And I might have stood in my chair. It’s all a blur, really.

The good news is that JD has assured me the snake is gone.

Me: I want you to move all of the furniture, every toy away from the walls and find it!

JD: Honey, it’s so darn big, we couldn’t miss it.

It doesn’t make me feel as good as you might think.

*What the Sam Hill?

Zzzzzz

Posted on by Zolligirl

I went to a conference this weekend five hours away. Well, it was SUPPOSED to be five hours, but because I was driving with two other women, and we laughed and chatted continuously, it actually took us 7.5. We got lost, turned around for no reason, stopped three times and generally participated in behavior that would have made our husbands insane.

Is it our fault the directions were confusing? 75 North for 340 miles. Everyone at the conference had the same question when told we got lost – HOW?

Whatever, the point is – traveling with women is fun. And exhausting. We were in training all day, every day, then each night we stayed up talking and laughing until almost midnight.

And in between, I proved my brilliance by completing the Genius Determiner game at Cracker Barrel AND kicking butt at Spades.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be sleeping till Tuesday.

The Next Generation

Posted on by Zolligirl

The MoonPie wants to be a photographer when she gets older. I don’t know why. It must have something to do with the one work day per month. We had some folks over the other day and she grabbed the camera.

Excellent candid of Kim and I about to whip some serious booty in Play Nine.

Wow, I love the ironic posing of the mug reading “Bodies”, while simultaneously cutting OFF a piece of his body.

Good use of Negative Space! That’s a tough concept for beginners to get – good job MP!

I am pretty sure she has a great future as a photographer.

I’ll start praying for a rich husband now.

You Knew Me When

Posted on by Zolligirl

Are you sitting down?  Go ahead, I’ll wait. Okay, here goes – I, Zolligirl, am bona fide! Yes, Dear Readers, I have in my hot, little E-mail, an actual contract from a LITERARY AGENT! An real-live person has read my book and wants to represent me! And it’s a real person at a real agency, not some fly-by-night scam artist from Nigeria who needs to me deposit a large sum of money into their account first!

So here’s a THANK YOU to all the little people who helped me along the way.

And by “helped”, I mean provided inspiration for all my wacky characters. Expect no royalties.

I want to know what Winning Is.

Posted on by Zolligirl

Yeah, I lost. I blame my parents. Why weren’t they holding kittens or feeding each other grapes? Kissing and laughing – that’s so old school.

Okay, I DIDN’T totally lose, I won 75 bucks, but I didn’t win the TOP prize.

Maybe the next contest theme will be “Bitter.” I’ve got my photo all lined up.

*Just kidding. I’m just happy to be nominated.

*Totally false statement in case someone stumbles onto this website other than my family.

I Want to Know What Love Is!

Posted on by Zolligirl

Most of you already know this, but in case you haven’t heard – I submitted the above photograph to The Pioneer Woman. She holds photography contests about once a month and this time the assignment was “LOVE”. Since thousands of people upload their images, I really didn’t expect her to pick mine. I think it’s a great photo, but I wasn’t sure she’d even SEE it, much less like it.

Turns out she did! It was featured on Day Four, and has made the top fourteen! The winner will be announced sometime on Monday, so keep your fingers crossed.

In case your interested, here’s a little background on the photo. First of all, it was taken several years ago when I was a student at Portfolio Center. I actually shot it with a 4×5 camera. The sun was going down and I dragged my camera and tripod, along with an extension cord and a hot lamp. This was PRE-digital and 4×5, so I didn’t have the luxury of shooting a lot of images. I had 4, maybe 6 sheets of film, that’s IT. So I had to insert the holder, lift the dark slide, hit the shutter, REPLACE the dark slide, and turn it over to do it again, all while checking my focus under a dark cloth. It was a lot of work.

This image just happened. That’s all I can tell you. Since I was living at home, my parents were frequent subjects. As I was taking the photo, my dad decided to plant one on my mom, and she laughed. It’s been a favorite of mine since I first saw the negative. It’s been a favorite of all most everyone. Everyone except my MOTHER.

Oh well. Between the 42 people who look at this site and the PW’s regular readers, only 1,000,042 people have seen it.

I’ll let you know how it does. Wish me luck!

Holy Sunday

Posted on by Zolligirl

I keep seeing stories in the media about how there’s no difference in the way CHURCH people and NON-church people live. Ugh.

So, why don’t we start acting like we BELIEVE what we say?  You know, stay married, be kind, don’t steal cable, quit gossiping, help the poor, etc. I may have missed a few but you get the point.

Feel free to call me out when you see me talking the talk, but not walking the walk!

And by “call me out”, I mean send me a private email. 🙂

Enjoy your Sunday!

Weekend Revelation

Posted on by Zolligirl

For the past few years, there’s been a running narrative with the Yard Sale Ladies wherein they accuse me of driving too fast. They are very subtle about it, but I still catch on.

Me: Was that a Yard Sale sign?

Them: We can’t read at warp speed.

Never mind that I’m driving my mom’s Dodge Ram HEMI that shoots down the highway with the slightest pressure on the gas pedal. It’s my fault that we don’t find more yard sales! They can’t SEE the signs much less READ the signs. Or so I’d been led to believe. Then yesterday we had the following conversation.

Me: Do you guys see JD? He said he’d be in the Kroger parking lot.

Them: Isn’t that him right there?

Me: Where?

Them: Walking down that row of cars!”

Me: I still don’t see him. Right, left?

Them: That guy right IN FRONT OF YOU.

Me: Uh, ladies. That man is black.

Them. Oh. Well, we were just looking at the bald head.

I need a younger group of yard sale buddies.