it's a huge holiday today and you don't even know it...

happy national hamburger day!!  how will you celebrate??

where i'll be the next five days...

okay, i know.  i've been the world's worst blogger.  (flash) pasteurized has been neglected for the better half of the week and it's all because work has been an absolute nightmare.  i've been going 90mph all week long (both figuratively and literally on the highway everyday).  

my little sister is graduating from 5th grade today!!  she's so excited.  being a middle schooler next year is a big freaking deal.  not sure if you guys were aware.  then wayyy later tonight (like at 11:00 p.m. - way past my bedtime), i'm speaking to a group of 200 junior high kids at my church.  middle schoolers are a tough crowd, so i'm actually kinda nervous.

anyways, i needed a mini-getaway vacay before i lost my mind entirely.  quasi kindly obliged, of course.  we leave on sunday after church!  i'm going to spend lots of time sleeping, shopping, eating, laying out by the pool, and probably checking work emails.  i promise to come back with some decent pics!!

meet me for brunch at saks??

clever title, huh??  that's right friends, i'm guesting at brunch at saks today so meet me over there.  you get to see me wielding a drill.  go and you'll see what i mean.

an open letter to the elementary school crossing guard who is out to get me EVERY.SINGLE.MORNING.

dear miss/ms./mrs. (though i'm 99.9999% sure you are a "miss") elementary school crossing guard who is out to get me EVERY SINGLE MORNING:
 

here's the deal.  i'm going to cut to the chase.  you are out to get me and i know it AND i don't like it.  

EVERY SINGLE MORNING i drive into my parents' neighborhood to drop my fur baby off at her mimi's.  i know you know this because you see me drive into the neighborhood EVERY SINGLE MORNING with a bat-eared fur nugget hanging out of my back window; and then you see me exit the neighborhood sans bat-eared nugget.  

once you see my car coming you immediately stop traffic.  and by "traffic," i really just mean you stand right in front of MY car shaking the stop sign and a flash light at me.  (not to change the subject, but can i ask what's the deal with the flashlight??  it is daylight outside, you know.)  you proceed to mean mug me for the next 20-30 seconds.  i look around and, what do you know!?  there are NO children waiting to cross the street.  so why do you insist on making me stop and wait for 5 minutes??  the only explanation i can come up with is that you are out to get me.  so we sit there staring at each other waiting for children to come and cross the street.

i realize holding up a fake stop sign and wearing a bright orange reflector vest is a big freaking deal.  i get that.  you take your job seriously.  i take my job seriously, too.  too bad my job doesn't involve a stop sign or a reflector vest.  i'll have to talk to my clients about that.  please don't think i'm trivializing your job, because i'm not.  i take children's safety very seriously, and i'm glad to see that you obviously do, too.

i promise i'm not going to run any kids over.  or their parents or their dogs who dart out in the middle of the street.  (please tell the parents to put "fido" on a dang leash, by the way.) 

anyways, point is, you are my entrance into the neighborhood and you are also my exit out of it, so can we please just be friends?  no?  okay, fine.  then at the very least for the love of Jesus, mary, joseph, and all the twelve disciples, can you puhh-lease stop weilding that stop sign out in front of my car like a damn sword.  you make me 10 minutes late to work nine out of ten mornings and i know you do it because you hate me.

i promise i will not run you over, but if this keeps up, we're going to have serious problems, woman.

love, reflector vests, and flashlights,
meredith.

giveaway. i want to win. don't enter.

so THE stephanie (kind of like THE ga) at live.laugh.love. is having a le creuset giveaway.  you all know how much i love to bake (without burning off my eyelashes, though), so i'm sure you all can appreciate how much i realllllly want to win. 

and you thought your family photos were bad...

TGIF, for reals, yo.  i swear this past week has felt like i worked for a month straight.  and to make matters worse, i burnt off part of my eyelashes (which are already growing back nicely, thank you very much) and was bitten by what has to be a monstrously huge spider because my whole left hand is swollen and red and hurts.

in honor of the weekend, we all need a good laugh.  these somewhat unorthodox family portraits were too funny not to share.  i wish i had time to dig around at my parents' house, because i'm pretty sure we have a ridiculous christmas photo somewhere.   if you have an insane family photo, send it to me and i'll post it here.

unless otherwise noted, all photos were found here.

news you can use #20: it IS possible to have your eyelashes burned off by a flaming hot oven; VS models forced me to buy five swimsuits; and the unveiling of quasi

today's news you can use! is going to be a bit different.  you can thank my insane schedule for that one.  my day involves back to back to back to back meetings, so i'm actually posting this from my phone.  (whoever doubts my love for you should be feeling ashamed right about now!)  anyways, there are some important unimportant things i feel like you should know:

1. it IS possible to have your eyelashes burned off by sticking your head in a 450 degree oven.  i did it last night, and yes i am serious.  

so you know how i like to bake, right?  seeing as though i'm allergic to 90% of packaged goods, i experiment with various recipes to make something yummy and delicious and full of sugar.  well last night, i decided to make some "cinnamon-oatmeal-whole-grain-banana-muffins."  (they are delish, p.s.)  well, this being an experiment, i continually checked on them.  (i treat muffin making very seriously.)  

(here i am baking in my kitchen.)

apparently, i must have stuck my head or face too far in because this great rush of flaming hot heat seared my face, burning off half the length of my eyelashes.  i don't have a picture because i didn't take one.  i was too busy crying.  i three-way called my mom and quasi to determine if 911 would accept "burned eyelashes" as a legitimate emergency.  they both said "NO."  

suffice if to say, my left eyelashes are now shorter than my right eyelashes by a considerable amount.  fortunately, i have decently long ones to begin with.

2.quasi and i are planning a quick getaway weekend soon, so i order not one, not two, but five swimsuits from victoria's secret.  i'm not even kidding you, those VS swimsuit models are always trying to convince me that if i buy their swimsuits, i, too, will look like them while wearing them.  i'm not sure if they take into account the 6 muffins i ate for breakfast or the 4 fajitas i had at lunch.

(i got all five of these swimsuits.)

3. the post about my DIY project, a panic attack, and the unveiling of quasi's identity is coming very very soon.  just not over here.  it's being debuted somewhere else.  (i'll give you a hint - it's going to be posted next tuesday a.m. so get stoked and mark your calendars accordingly.)

oh, how i've missed you. and i want a bra that grows rice.

blog lovies!  gosh, i have missed you all so much.  this has been the most insane week for me, mainly all work related but some personal stuff thrown in.  last night i was asked to speak at a women's ministry event at my church and give my testimony.  it was one of the hardest, yet most freeing experiences of my life.  God really blessed that event last night in a big way and it was an incredibly special night for my mom and i.  one of my best friends, tara (thank you so much for coming, tara!  i love you!), and of course, quasi, came.  quasi has to come up with an excuse to buy me a present for everything, so he got me a new digital camera.  it's the samsung tl220, in case you're wondering.  i'll tell you how much i love it when i get to using it more.

i promise to be back in the game soon.  in the meantime, here's something that i really, really want: a rice-growing bra.  ( <--- click on the hyperlink.)

and i'll also be back with a story involving a DIY nightmare, a panic attack, and pictures of quasi.  get excited.

news you can use #19: acrophobia, bulls in texas, spongebob apparently can save your life, and a giveaway

have you missed news you can use! ??  don't answer that.  or do answer that and just lie to me and say you have because i'm pretty sure it's missed you guys.

man conquers fear of heights by living on roof.  a vermont businessman hoping to raise awareness about child abuse spent four days living on the roof of his business.  he ended up raising about $4,000.  not too shabby.  though, i must say - i'm pretty darn acrophobic and camping out on the roof of something sounds fun to me.  and if his office building was only a few stories high, i'm not impressed.  what would have been more impressive is if he would have slept face down on this:

this isn't my cup of tea.

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arlington, tx police shoot bull on loose on interstate.  for you non-texans out there, arlington is a suburb city outside of dallas.  (surely you've heard of the dallas cowboys??)  the bull was apparently jumping back and forth from the eastbound to the westbound lanes.  why is this so stereotypically texas??

"home, home on the range, where the deer and the antelope play..."

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preteen: "spongebob taught me how to save a life."  okay, so i don't know whether to be scared for the future of our youth, or totally impressed with spongebob in all his squarepants glory.  according to the article, "miriam and her best friend, allyson, were in music class when allyson began choking on her gum.  allyson turned red and started kicking her legs.  miriam says she remembered an episode from the nickelodeon animated series in which squidward gets a clarinet lodged in his throat and spongebob does the heimlich maneuver.  she tried it on allyson.  the gum flew out, and allyson caught her breath."  weird?  cool?  quasi likes spongebob, so i hope he saw this episode.

he always looks a little strung out to me, no?

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giveaway.  i will probably kick myself for doing this, but a suburban housewife-in-training is having an amazing diamond earring giveaway, compliments of kohl's.  yep, the same kohl's that now has LC's clothing line.  even if you don't like diamonds (ha!), head over to H.I.T.'s blog and congratulate her on her precious new baby girl!

these are really ugly.  you don't want them.  don't enter.  plus, you know i really deserve them.

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good things come in threes

3 names i go by

1. mer

2. mer bear

3. moody

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3 jobs i have had

1. lobbyist

2. public policy research fellow

3. special needs sunday school teacher
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3 places i have lived

1. houston, tx
2. dallas, tx
3. austin, tx

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3 tv shows i watch

1. house (i'm borderline obsessed with hugh laurie)

2. parenthood (my new fave)
3. law and order (love my christopher meloni)

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3 places i would like to visit

1. greece
2. fiji

3. cali or cape cod to visit my beloved trifecta

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3 fave retro tv shows

1. dawson's creek (i was in 8th grade, so this counts as retro)

2. full house

3. doogie howser (i used to want to be a doctor, so my nickname was "doogie" when i was little)
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3 fave dishes (these are more like favorite foods)

1. cinnamon toast
2. sweet potato fries
3. black bean and chicken burrito on a spinach tortilla
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3 things i am looking forward to

1. my mom being "healthy" again
2. summer time!
3.  (something that is super secret and i can't tell you)*

*update: you know i'll tell you when the time is right.  or uhh, when it happens. :)

my (fur) daughter has anger management issues. she may or may not get them from her mother.

with all the focus being on my mom, poor bailey's been neglected.  last night, quasi and i took her out to dinner with us on the patio of a restaurant.  because she was (surprisingly) so well-behaved, we decided to take her shopping to one of her favorite stores in the world - petsmart.  we let her peruse the stuffed animal and chew toy aisle, and she sank her little sharp teeth into her new favorite toy... meet mr. monkey:

 

please excuse her leash.  she has this thing with keeping it on.  i guess she likes to be prepared to leave at a moments notice.  anyways, here she is being all (unsuspectingly) sweet and nice with her new mr. monkey.  she was loving on him, cuddling with him, licking him, and even giving him sweet little kisses.  please notice her paw on mr. monkey's chest.  he is her man, and she doesn't like to share.

fast forward to 10 minutes later.  mr. monkey is now missing his nose.  bailey has apparently determined that  mr. monkey no longer has a need to use his olfactory senses.  i think she thinks she was doing him a favor.  plus, i'm sure she smells good enough for the two of them.

uh, oh.  not only does mr. monkey not need to smell, he apparently doesn't need his left arm either.  many of you may remember me discussing bailey's issues with men here - poor mr. mouse met such an early demise. seems like it was only fair for mr. monkey to follow suit.  i'm beginning to think that bailey is part black widow spider - female black widows kill their males after mating with them.  or maybe my baby girl just has an affinity for men full of stuffing.

update on my mom: thank you so very much for all of your words of comfort, thoughts, and prayers.  you all have been such a comfort to me.  my mom is doing slightly better than she was yesterday, which is a huge plus in my book.  her asthma and allergist doctors *think* she was reacting to the steroid treatments they had her on, so she's switching.  she's at home, but must be taken to see her asthma and allergist once a day and call in every couple of hours.  they also gave her two new medications: one for the angioedema (swelling) in her tongue and throat and one for her constant itching and hives.  i think she's taking 12 different meds at this point - all with the primary function to keep her breathing and keep her airways open!  they've got to constantly monitor her to make sure she doesn't have any further adverse reactions to all the medications.  we're taking things day by day right now, so please keep her in your thoughts and prayers.

i hope to be back later with a new edition of take me back tuesday (TMBT)!!