Home Improvement

I have learned a lot while remodeling our house. The previous home owner has taught me all kinds of things! Like did you know you don't need expensive power tools? You can use kitchen knives as saws and screw drivers and just leave them in walls, ceilings and crawl space after you bury the bodies. . . I mean after you are done with dry wall.

In the red-neck spirit of our former home owners I have decided to give some handy home building and remodeling advice! You'll thank me later!

New roof - Start saving those burned pancake to reuse as roofing material! By the time you need a new roof you should have a stock pile of roofing material that cost you nothing! Seal them with driveway sealer every few years and you will have a long lasting, inexpensive roof that is easy to repair and can be eaten during the Zombie Apocalypse.

You can save on the cost of paint - by flinging expired milk and dairy products on the walls. Stores will probably pay YOU to take it home. You never know what color you might end up with. For a chic finish simply rub left over bacon grease on the dried walls for a unique designer patina. Plus the house will always smell like bacon! 

Instead of expensive hardwood flooring - just remove the floor. You can cover the ground under the house with less expensive sand for an indoor playground for the kids year round, and never have to worry about mopping or vacuuming again! Floor joists make great monkey bars and balance beams to strengthen your core muscles. Plus: No more litter box for kitty! Don't have a cat??? You will soon have hundreds of cats, opossums, and stray monkeys to love and adore!

Windows - Who needs windows? Those are so 20th century. "Dark is in" says the Emo Kids! Windows are expensive! Why not just be done with them, and return to our cave dwelling roots. The energy savings and building/remodeling costs will amaze you! The gas company will actually start paying you! You can grow your own mushrooms all over the house with little effort. They will probably start springing up spontaneously! Plus kids thrive in the dark!


Foundation - You don't actually need a foundation. You can just put a large rock under each corner of the house. When it rains you will have a soothing water feature your guests are sure to be jealous of! What about mice? No worries. Your hoard of animals are sure to protector the perimeter of your home by killing, eating and burying the remains of anything that enters! ... including certain in-laws ;) If the county inspectors give you crap, show em your gun, or suspend the house from your trees with tow strap. They have no building codes for international air-space! 

Go Green! Whether building or remodeling, you can't go wrong with earth friendly, heavy duty recycled cardboard for walls and siding material. A great alternative to earth-unfriendly foam and vinyl! In a house fire you can smile at the plumes of eco friendly white smoke while all of your neighbors homes darken the skies with their toxic black clouds as they catch fire from your debris. This will also make it easy for the house to biodegrade back to mother earth after you die, or a pack of rabid raccoon's move in to feast upon your bacon paint and pancake roof.

I hope these tips have helped! I have had fun learning as I go. Next week I will give you tips on upgrading your Personal Computer and or Heatlh Care.

De-Friended

"Hmmm, I haven't seen an update from ____ in awhile... 

I wonder what's up with... 

wait.... what? 

No... Am I??? 

I'VE BEEN DE-FRIENDED?!?!"

It's been a while since I've gone off... Well get ready, cuz Ima be, Ima be, Ima, Ima, Ima be goin off right about now.

I love when I see a comment on Macy's facebook from people I haven't heard from in awhile, and it ends up being due to the fact that I was de-friended by them. I particularly love when these people are FAMILY MEMBERS (you know who you are), and when I see them they are all smiles and "We miss you guys!"
"Blah Blah Blah! Zip it, you're dead to me!"

I just came across yet another person or six in my family and a former "friend" who has defriended me. Let's not have any misconceptions that I am the kind of person who likes to just let things slide without stirring the pot in traditional passive aggressive fashion.

Defriending: is exactly what the button implies. You are taking an action to disassociate your friendship with that person. Oh yes, it is exactly that serious.

NO, IM NOT OVER-REACTING! YOU ARE!

Defriending implies, you don't care what I'm up to, you are not interested in what's going on in my life, you don't care to see pictures of my family, or watch my twilight video... or read my aimless ranting blog posts (much like this one)... and you would like to stop sharing the same information about your life with me.

These days there is no better way to send a message of personal disdain and lack of carring than to de-friend someone. If they made a Hallmark card that simply said "I have de-friended you" inside, it would be no different than sending it to someone. You went out of your way to defriend me. It took thought and effort to send me this lovely DEFRIENDED card, and you even put a little heart over the "i".

One might think, knowing me, I would be a major advocate for de-friending rights. But to the contrary; there are only a handful of acceptable reasons to defriend someone. First we must establish there are 3 different types of facebook "friends" and some are OFF LIMITS to defriending. (Plus I am the defriended in this case... that might play into my direction with this post)

1. The Regulars - People in your real life
Usually family members, in-laws, out-laws, your best friends, etc... These are supposedly the people you love. They are both people you see on a frequent basis or only at the holiday's when you are visiting.

This makes up 2.5% of your facebook friends list.
How to defriend?

YOU CAN'T!!! The only way you can defriend these people is by actual divorce and even then you have to wait an acceptable cool-off period, unless they are really horrible people. You generally make an advent calendar and wait the standard 60 days before the defriending so it won't be as obvious.
If they are actual blood relation family, like say an UNCLE or a FAVORITE AUNT! or a COUSIN (who's butt you covered for after a couple of crazy parties)... (scorned hinting implied).
Inlaw or outlaw, it is NOT acceptable to defriend them, period. You can ignore them all you want, filter them if you will, but no defriending without legal documentation. I don't care if they are a fan of "Clubbing baby seals Group" or "Obama 2012"... NO DEFRIENDING.

2. The Occasionals

These are people you are friendly with, but not FRIENDS with... people you lived by, worked with etc... see from time to time at parties, church, Wal-mart... and keep in loose contact with. You generally "get" each other and can joke around. 

This makes up about 7.5% of your facebook friends list.
How to defriend?
You must be out of communication for at least 6 months, every time you "catch up" the counter resets.

Exclusion: As per the family designation: family members are not eligible for this clause. 

3. Extra's
A: People you knew back in the day

B: Friends you grew up with
C: Friends or family of friends who you find interesting
D: People you dont really know...
E: People you met once and thought were kinda funny
F: People you haven't actually met but you heard a story about them or saw a comment they made once on someone else's facebook post... (Tom Parker)
This makes up 90% of your facebook friends list.
How to defriend?
Subject to the above exclusions... Have at, you can defriend them at any time for any reason. Are they a fan of "I like crackers and cheese" ? Go ahead defriend away! Maybe they posted pictures of their dog and cat in holiday sweaters.... DEFRIEND. Clicked the "Like" busson for Nancy Pelosi... you go it : DEFRIEND!

Bottom line, defriending is the perfect way to say "get out". So you had better be careful with you defriending and make sure you know what you are doing and who you are doing it to. You never know when a disgruntled nephew or cousin who has put up with you for 30 years will decided to write a blog about you, and that party we were at... with Josh's band... You know the one.

The really frustrating thing is, I am now defriended, and thus it is doubtful any of these people will read this rant, because they are jerks who defriended me...
I am just a little hopeful that a friend or family member will read it and then ask them "Hey, are you one of "the ones" who DE-friend Brent?" and they will say "Yeah..." and then that person will punch them in the face, drag them to a computer and make them read this, Ala Cousin Eddie in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

XOXO
You're dead to me

Quilted for her pleasure...

(I'm sorry! Just skip this post! ;)

A change in employment will give you pause to make all kinds of comparisons! The difference in language, dress, attitude, toilet paper... Yep! I always thought our building management in Lincoln Tower was trying to cheap out on us with their toilet paper. 

It was no doubt made from the scraps leftover from making news paper, bit of wood pulp and such visible in the weave. Perforated all over giving it a bumpy sand paper like texture designed to strip paint, or the first layer of skin. 

None of that quilted quadruple ply made from the hair of baby angels. We're talking the real Civil War toilet paper here. 






Who would have thought I would miss it! I just needed to reference against something else to realize it:
Lincoln cheaps out too, but in a different way, they buy the straight up newspaper. I think they seriously get the end of the press roll from the Journal Gazette and cut it down! Did you know newspaper doesn't clean anything? Try to clean up some chocolate pudding off the kitchen floor with newspaper sometime.


..... Now I suppose if I had a spray bottle full of Windex I could get a nice shiny streak free finish like the family room windows.