Pet Peeve Monday

I keep a candy dish on my desk which I pay to keep filled. A co-worker who was out sick all last week due to bronchitis came back to work today. This particular co-worker walked by my desk coughed up a lung into their hand then reached into my (just filled) candy dish to take a couple of pieces that were at the bottom, and I repeat AFTER COUGHING UP A LUNG INTO THEIR HAND!!!! I was disgusted. Needless to say I threw out the bowl of candy.

Did You Know

Did you know that 99% of people cannot lick their elbow.

(I'm pretty sure Gene Simmons is in that 1% that can)








And come on, how many of you actually tried it? =)

Unprofessional advice to home sellers from an unprofessional home buyer with a very, very particular (possibly OCD) husband

1. Do not tell me your house is the greatest let the house speak for itself - its more convincing
2. If your house is on the market – CLEAN IT!!!
3. Don’t show your house when the basement smells like weed
4. A little vacuuming goes a long way
5. I know you like to be individualistic but bold/bright blues, purples, and oranges are not pleasing colors for kitchens, living rooms and master bedrooms. When I see it I put it on my mental list of something I have to do right away when I move in – in other words it’s a turn off.
6. Crown moulding can make a room go from ordinary to extraordinary.
7. When your house sits on a quarter acre of weeds, dirt, and just plain grossness more acreage is not a selling point. It just means more work labor/time/money to make it enjoyable. Here is the point – when your lot is not pretty don’t call attention to the size!
8. Get your carpets professionally cleaned before it is on the market. I can’t believe how many houses we walk through with stained carpet – it’s hard to look at the beauty of your home when your carpet stains are yelling at us (think of the Tide commercial of the guy in a job interview with a stain on his shirt).
9. I am very particular about the neighborhood, with that said, you could have the most incredible home at a great price but if your neighbors are trashy forget it AND the price is too much. This happened to use two weekends ago – we found a beautiful home the interior/exterior was everything I wanted, but when we drove by, oh the horror of the neighbors! The one neighbor had old rusty cars parked on the lawn, the side of the house was filled with old cars, trailers, bicycles, trash cans etc. There was no grass in the front yard it was dirt. Oh how I wish I had a camera to capture it.
10. Unclutter your home, clutter gives you a disadvantage. The house seems smaller, less pretty, and less clean.

Anyway, this is just some advice/venting. Maybe reading this will make you realize we are the reason we haven’t bought a home yet. But I don’t think we are that demanding (well not me anyway – if Brad was giving the advice I’m sure it would be 4 times longer).

Picnic Perfect

Today we took advantage of the incredible weather and we went for a picnic. It has been a while since we've been on a picnic and we had an enjoyable time. We found a small park with few people (so the dogs would behave).

Brad, a.k.a "The Stud McMuffin"

Me with my bug-eye sunglasses

Our beau-ti-ful collies.

Did You Know?

I thought I would keep it spring related.

Did you know that in recent decades season creep has been observed, which means that many phenological signs of spring are occurring earlier in many regions by a couple of days per decade?

Also 'tis the season for one of my favorite children's book. This book my preschool class LOVED!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.

Only made possible with border collies

Brad here, posting on Julie's blog. Just thought I'd share this vid, as it pretty much sums up why Julie and I are nuts about border collies. If you're a fan of the unique combination of sheep, herding, sheepherding, LEDs, border collies, timelapse photography, and crazy Welshies with too much time on their hands, you'll like this video:

My Daily Rambling

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7945569.stm


An intriguing and worrisome article that states our brains embark on its descending journey at age 27?!?

There was one thing I looked forward to in the blasted aging process – wising up!

However, I must have genetics on my side (I hope). My dad is still the genius he was at 27 (or more so), and look at my grandparents who celebrated their 80th birthdays last year! You can’t find a sassier Nanny than mine and come on people she is my friend on Facebook AND her picture is uploaded! This should be a good sign for me right?

Possibly, I know there was a chance that I inherited the right genes to keep my brain from spiraling downward at such an early age, but did I?

When I was a snotty teenager, I was gloating to my brother that I was smarter than him because I got a higher score on my SATs. I continued to give him concrete evidence to support my theory that I was, indeed, smarter than he. After my gloating came to an end Jeff (exasperated and eyes rolling) told me, “Yes, Julie you have book smarts but you don’t have common sense.”

I believe my mouth dropped open in an attempt to retaliate but had nothing. He had a point. I was a ditz. Even now, at 24, I have said/done/believed the ditziest (see I even made that word up) things that a person should never have said/done/believed in a single lifetime. My family even made a name for such ditziness (my cousin Eric to be exact) “Julieisms”. I even remember a time when my mom did something ditzy and my dad said, “You just had a Julieism”.

Now I feel I need to add a comment and defend my family in case someone finds this offensive (or my family feels bad) – I am not offended by such things. I think if you can’t laugh at yourself than you need to get off your high horse. I know my family loves me and would never want to hurt me. I like that my family knows they can tease me and I will laugh along with them. I can honestly say I quite enjoy it myself.

That being said; my “Julieisms” make me wonder if I inherited the good brain genes.

Did You Know...

I feel bad when I'm neglectful so I decided to start a new weekly blog post. Every Friday I will post a useless trivial fact. I figured this would be easy since Brad is an encyclopedia of knowledge.

To kick off the first post I thought I would give you some trivia about us humans.

Our Lifetime in Numbers (Approximates)

Life expectancy – 78.5 years or 2,475,576,000 seconds
Words Spoken in Lifetime - 123,205,750
Friendships – 1,700
Baths – 7,163
Dreams – 104,390
Beef and Veal consumed – 4.5 cows per person
Chickens consumed – 1,201 per person
Potatoes consumed – 5130 pounds
Chocolate – 10,354 bars
Baked Beans – 845 cans
Soap – 656 bars
Toothpaste – 276 tubes
Deodorant – 272 cans
Shampoo – 198 bottles
Vomit produced – 149 liters
Holidays - 59 trips

For Brad

I just love this blog http://www.cardboardlove.com/.