It is illegal to let your pig run free in Detroit unless it has a ring in its nose.

Turns out the 90 degree weather last week was a fluke. It got down to below freezing again yesterday. Oh, Michigan.

On a related note (in that Michigan is a bizarre place), my husband will not let me cut my hair. It's not like I want to do anything drastic... just take off a couple inches or 10. To make his defense, he cited a bogus Michigan law at me (see #7). So I guess for now I'll settle with my beautiful flowing locks and get an adorable hair cut when my husband finally comes around to the 21st century. (20th? 22nd? I've never understood centuries...)

For those of you curious, toddler accidents are easier to clean off of the wood floor than off of underpants.

Potty training isn't going too well.

Finally: I want a pet pig! Recently the husband and I discovered tea-cup piggies. Way. Too. Fun.

We decided we need a new house before we get a few, though. Our current piglets make it a little difficult to store a litter box for the new pig. Toddlers and pig poop is a combination I don't intend to experience. Dreadful.

I'm totally serious about the pig thing. I will have one some day.

Random update: It feels like spring outside.

I only have six years and five months to learn fluent Italian. I thought I was fluent for one evening, but that may have just been my friend Jack Daniels translating for me. Molto male.

There are way too many cute things to buy in the world, and I want them all. Seriously, why do I not own this whisk???

Life if extremely stressful. Insight: that must be why there are so many fun things available for purchase. They're there to distract us from how horrible life can be.

Sea salt and chocolate is a magical combination. Also, bacon is a superior meat product.

Cell phones make people dumb. Really, is Angry Birds more intriguing than.... anything else in the word? Pink whisks, for example?

Finally: I love colors.

I love my husband, he's sings so melodious.

I LOVE Valentine's day.

I know what you're thinking, it's actually Cyril and Methodius day, you got me there. Obviously we stuck with celebrating the collective "Valentine" because it's much less challenging to make poems that rhyme with that than with "Methodius." (you're the grottiest??)

Anyway, roses are red,
violets are blue,
eat lots of candy,
and don't complain if your husband doesn't get you any flowers or chocolate because he washes the dishes and takes out the garbage every day and the least you could do for him is not nag him for 24 hours.

Happy Ss Cyril and Methodius day!

Meet my daughter... Alyzinnia...?

Learn how to give your child a normal name.

Kennedy, Carter and Reagan were presidents, not babies. Bentley is a car. Hunter is someone who catches me some delicious venison. And Jaxon is just a really dumb way to spell a dog's name.

If you want me to identify your child as male or female, then dress them in either blue or pink, respectively, and don't name them something nonspecific like Jayden or Peyton. I WILL say "look how pretty she is!" when I see a baby dressed in yellow with voluminous eyelashes and flowing curly hair.

Sorry, Riley, your mother didn't have the balls to give you a man's name or dress you in overalls with trucks and dinosaurs all over them.

Mother of the year.

There's nothing like browsing mommy blogs to bring my ego down a few notches...

This lady helped me feel inferior today, with her well-lit photographs of contrived arts and crafts completed by her overachieving kids. It's great that your kids didn't take the lids off of the painted pop-bottles used for bowling; my kids are smarter than that and would have jammed about 12 dollars worth of change into them and started whaling each other in the head after about two and a half minutes.

And what kid is going to eat dragon fruit!??!!? It looks like chopped-up Yahtzee dice!!

There's no way this mom is for real. I did notice she's Canadian, so that only increases the probability that she's imaginary.

I have to give her props for being so ambitious, because the most prestigious arts and crafts my kids and I have undertaken this week consisted of handing Z an empty toilet paper roll and saying "use your imagination."

At least I can take solace in the fact that my kids are much better looking than hers.

Sandcastles in the sand.

You know I love to pick favorites.

Favorite baking ingredient: brown sugar.

Far superior over that regular old granulated crap.

It's such a soft brown, with the texture of sand at the beach. I start to bake and I feel like I'm on an ocean coast, only it smells like butter and vanilla (not a bad idea for a suntan lotion scent).

If I can't build sandcastles every day, at least I can build scrumptious treats full of calories to fill out my beach body.

I have a real problem, and it's called baking.

A change of scenery.

I have a hard time believing there are people out there who are afraid of change. I'll admit, someone hurling nickels and dimes at me does sound a little frightening (bad pun!), but things becoming different is so much fun!

Life would be awful if things never changed.

Proof: The Lions certainly wouldn't be in the playoffs!!! (I'm still freaking out a little. Super Bowl!!!!!!!)


And how could people really be afraid of changing if so many people make new years resolutions? Unless you're resolving to stay exactly the same, I'd say that's embracing changes.

I'm also assuming most people aren't afraid of change when it comes to their underpants.


I love change so much it's gotten to the point where my husband is afraid of what I've done to the house when he gets home from a long day.

        "I saw you had the window open in our bedroom, and I was nervous that you had rearranged the whole house"

Really? I didn't know an open window could signify so much. In all fairness, I had moved the furniture in a third of our house the previous day... maybe he figured I wanted to round out to a whole number.

Happy 2012, everyone. Enjoy the changes that the new year brings!