Say what?

Have you ever been singing along to a favorite song and all of a sudden people around you are snickering and what? What are they all laughing about? And as it turns out you have been singing completely incorrect lyrics to a song for years and never even knew it! This happens to me DAILY. I actually recently discovered there is an actual term for this: MONDEGREEN. A mondegreen is the official word to describe misheard phrases or lyrics.
I am pretty sure this is a trait i must have inherited from my father as he is also famous for mishearing or changing the lyrics to songs... some of our favorites include: "I am a friend of dog, he calls me Fred!" and, "...I can see all the popsicles in my way!"
I sang sang the following incorrect lyrics with Joylia for years: "...I wouldn't dance with her mother" and "In the naaaaaame of love, one night in the name of love!"
For the longest time I was certain the Beatles were saying "I want a beer, ain't that right, yeah?" I had no idea what the rest of that song was about... but it seemed racy and inappropriate so innocent child that I was decided not to listen to the beer song, and always wondered why it was called paperback writer. And I shall never live down belting out: "...Some other worse guy, or the wife of a postman, wife of a postman!"
The other night at rehearsal I was having issues with my native language and couldn't quite get out a correct phrase, but the people around me got to hear me sing about "...one boy to quack with." And it was just all down hill from there.
So there you go, next time you find your face flushing from embarrassment over the wrong words you have been singing for years... you can share with your friend that you are not stupid, you are simply the victim of a mondegreen. (either that, or you can tell them about the stupid things I admitted to singing... either way, you look better.)

A grown-up decision

Tonight I chose not to use my blog as a passive aggressive venue for venting my anger toward certain un-named entities. See? I am so grown up, it's sickening.
BLEH.

Random holiday

I stole away for the weekend to spend some time relaxing with my best friend and getting my summer wardrobe in shape (B and I in the same city and you didn't assume we would spend a solid 48 hrs shopping? Seriously, the debit card was panting by the end of the day. haha) I flew up here and as is always the case with that kc/chicago flight, it was delayed. So I sat for two exta hours in the kc airport watching BBB DVD and reading through my script twice. I was frustrated to be delayed but I guess it accomplished what I needed it to after the insanity of the past couple weeks, I was able to sit and relax, and think through some things while working my brain through this character I am supposed to play. I still don't think i have fully wrapped my brain around the concept of playing one of the leads in the GCT musical this summer. Friends, I am not a lead kind of girl-- I am a chorus girl. Blend in the crowd, sing with the masses, and goof off while the leads are working hard... sooooo... i'm not exactly sure how this thing is going to fly. I feel overwhelmed and under-prepared already. Grr. Anyhow, flying out of midway tomorrow means I will no doubt have another delayed flight and plenty of time to get a thrid time through that script. Oh, I got a pink coach bag. I think I forgot to mention that about our shopping extravaganza. It's pretty...

UPS Creeper Update

(Some of you may not know the full background of the creeper. The creeper story starts here on my old blog. Just don't get too cozy there-- thats not where we hang out anymore, right? Right.)

So the UPS creeper took things to a whole new level today. I am actually curious to know if he is ALLOWED to do what he did today, so I was hoping all those UPS and FedEx friends who secretly read my blog (come on, who are you kidding?) might be interested to fill me in... I returned to work from my lunch break at the same time the UPS truck was pulling into the parking lot. Another day... another awkward moment with the creeper. He hands me a package and said, I thought you might want this right away, so I brought it to your work since you aren't home during the day. Um, Okay Creeper. Why would I want my personal packages delivered to work? If I wanted it at work don't you think I would have shipped it to work? Why did he feel it was appropriate to make that decision for me? He doesn't deliver things for my roommate at work. And... I'm still just a little concerned that he knows when I am at work, when I will be home, when I take my lunch break, etc. That seems like he is going a little bit above and beyond good customer rapport-- and not in a good way.
(shivers) ooh... creeper.

One Year

A couple weeks ago Zach found The One Year Bible my mom gave me on my book shelf. He started flipping through it and liked it, so because he already has a shortage of bibles around his place (Ha!) he decided to purchase one like mine. Well, sort of like mine, mine is NLT I think his is NIV. Anyway... we are going to read our way through over the next year, which should be a fun and hopefully edifying experience.
Last night while we were hanging together, he decided he was going to read the day's selection to me. I am a literate person-- but I LOVE it when people read aloud to me. It is perhaps a childish pleasure, but I don't think I will ever grow out of it. My mom used to read to us on car trips, I used to love it when teachers would read aloud to us at school, and I get excited when we read long passages in church. I like listening to other people read. In one's adult life, you don't get to very often, so it's a very pleasant surprise when it happens. So I was tickled when he grabbed the book and started to read. But I digress...
To be honest, I am not really good at keeping up with these one year kind of things, I usually hold on for about a month, then things start to go downhill, and excuses come easy, and pretty soon it's like, wait-- how did I get four months behind??? Hopefully it won't go that way this time around since boyfriend is participating as well... excuses don't come quite as easy when someone else is working through it with you. Anyway... check back in a year-- I'll let you know how it went. :)

I hate cats.

Let me say that again, in case you didn't hear me the first time: I HATE CATS.

We had babies!

While at work the other day I received an email from my dad (who was also at work) with the following subject line: We had babies!

What in the world could this be??? I was thoroughly confused as there was no explanation for the email, just an attachment. Included were these pictures, taken in front of the building my dad works in:

This morning I received another email from my dad saying: We have baby ducks also. And because I am not the kind of person to deprive my friends of baby animal pictures to 'awww' at, I have included the attached pictures of ducks as well:

So there you have it. Baby pictures compliments of Dale Sass... enjoy!

Ex-boyfriend love letter free!

For reasons unknown to me, my boyfriend has always been really irritated by the 'guest' account on my computer. He refuses to use it, constantly reminds me to delete it, and is frustrated when other people are able to use my computer because of said guest account. About a week or so ago, I guess he finally had it, and decided he would just delete the guest account for me. I finally agreed because a day earlier I had caught a glimpse of the screen on the offending account, which shed some light on the otherwise baffling situation. My boyfriend's unexplained animosity toward my guest account may or may not have had something to do with the fact that the wall paper on that account was a lovely little picture that read:
Dear Val, I love you so much! -Joel
Uhhhhhparently, Valerie doesn't often use the guest account on her computer. Or hasn't for about two or three years now... because I was unaware this ex-boyfriend love letter was still embellishing my computer screen each time a guest signed on. Whoops. Okay, I admit, upon this discovery, but I did get a bit of a chuckle out of the situation. I hope that doesn't make me a bad person.
Anyhow... the account has been deleted and my computer effectively cleaned of all ex-boyfriend love letters. Whooo!

My smile is mine!

You are most likely aware I have always been a slave to my own vanity, but about two years ago it manifested itself in a particularly grotesque form of torture and disfigurement widely referred to as orthodontia. It's been painful and heartbreaking-- but I've made it through the tears and ridiculous amounts of drool (ew, right?) and I am now in the home stretch of my orthodontic treatment... a mere weeks from my liberation! And as fantastic as that day will be-- it pales in comparison to this day. This day, I received a letter from my orthodontist thanking me for my final payment-- thus completing the financial arrangements I made with them about 18 months ago. You may or may not be aware that orthodontics is rarely a cheap endeavor, and my case was no exception to this rule. Thus I have been making payments for the past year and a half to pay for the straightening of my smile. But as of today I officially own all of my teeth (and all of the spaces between those teeth) again. I have made my last payment. I no longer have any debt in my mouth. And it feels good. And... well... it looks pretty darn good too. :)

Notable

My purple Honda, Barry, hit the 100,000 mile mark last week. We celebrated with a full tank of gas, rather than the half tanks Barry is more accustomed to. I think Barry appreciated the extravagance.