When I was 14 years old, the State Fair was the place to be at the end of the summer. I have many fond memories of that fair. Friendships. The first kiss with my biggest high school crush. Being able to ride The Zipper without throwing up all over myself. Bright lights and colorful people. The smell of funnel cake in the air.

After years of driving past the buzz of the fairgrounds and not actually going inside, I was curious to see if it would still hold any kind of magic for me. Fortunately, someone at work passed me a couple of free tickets, and since my office is right nearby, we wouldn’t have to pay for parking either. I was cautiously optimistic that we might have a fun experience. My husband, who is much more of a realist, was not.

I’ll let you guess which one of us assumed correctly.

All that happy stuff I mentioned at the beginning of this post? The State Fair is still the place where memories are made, all right. The night terror kind.

I have never smelled anything like it. It was bad enough that every time I saw someone lighting a cigarette, I cringed waiting for a methane explosion. Never again will I complain about the animals at the Farm Fair.

We stayed for only about a half hour; ate nothing, because neither of us felt in the mood for a coronary (fried POP TARTS?!), and rode no rides, because I was afraid to touch anything. If M had had his way, we would have turned around and left the moment we saw the large woman in a gorilla suit standing just inside the entrance gate. Except it wasn’t a gorilla suit…she just had that much hair. And she wasn’t a side-show freak either; just a typical Saturday night fair patron.

Because he is an awesome husband though, he stuck with me because I wanted to get a few pictures so I could always remember what hell on earth looks like.

At least something good came from the experience. From now on if I ever have the urge to visit the fair, I can just look at these photos. And I won’t even have to take a bath in hand sanitizer afterwards.

What’s your state fair like?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR

SALT’S BLOG!!!!

(Happy birthday to YOU!)

(I wish I could take credit for this epic picture, but alas I cannot. I found it on the Google.)

You guys!!!! I can’t believe that I’ve been writing this hot mess for an entire year! My very 1st Blogoversary is on Sunday, but I’m never around on the weekends…especially HOLIDAY weekends!…so we are going to celebrate it today.

I hope that’s okay.

Lots of times when I’ve ventured onto a fellow blogger’s site for their bloggy birthday, I notice that they post up the very first thing they ever wrote. I’m not going to do that. My first blog was incredibly brief and stupid and really served no purpose other than to make sure I was smart enough to type some words in and make them publish on the screen. I succeeded, and Salt says was born on September 5th, 2009.

It started off as a place that could be a brain-dump for all my wedding planning stuff, but has since evolved into a place where I can blather on about random crap and for some reason, wonderful people read it. This is my 260th post. As of the time that it is published, I will have received 10,513 (not spam) comments. Of course a few of those are me responding to what people said, but still. That number makes my jaw drop.

I’ve made some great friends. Before I started doing this, I had no idea that there was such a cool and supportive community of other bloggers, and I’m so thankful for all of you!

And I like to show it when I’m thankful to people. Some of you might know that I make jewelry as one of my way-too-many hobbies and since it’s my birthday over here, I wanted to make something to give away to one of you.

It’s a necklace. Duh. Allyson might recognize those glass beads as the ones I bought when we visited one of our favorite bead shops, The Vajazzled Beaded Venus in Charleston. I love that sparrow pendant like woah. I hope you like it too.

If you would like for me to randomly pick you for this prize, here is what you can do:

LEAVE ME A COMMENT TELLING ME SO.

Difficult stuff, right?

If you would like more entries, you can also do other things such as:

• Become a member of my blog with Google Friend Connect. *points to top left sidebar* (2 entries)
• Follow me on Twitter. (2 entries)
• Tweet about this. (3 entries)
• Blog about this. (5 entries)

There’s no need to leave me multiple comments; I will still count them if you put everything into one. If you already follow me any of those places, please make sure to remind me because my memory sucks. If you have been reading my blog for awhile, you might know that I let my cat, Baby G, choose my giveaway winners, and he will be doing this next Thursday night using a random number generator. Then I will announce the winner on Friday!

Again…I wanted to thank you all so much for sticking with me for the past year. I’ve had a LOT of fun with this blog and I’m definitely not done yet.

I hope you all have a fun and safe holiday weekend! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!

(Yeah, like that narrows it down a lot.)

I have this problem.

Apparently, I lack the capacity to say “NO” when someone asks me to do something. Regardless of how asinine the activity is that they want me to partake in, or how foolish I’m going to end up looking in a public place.

It was my Yes Woman ways that got me into the freezing bay…in a snowstorm…in a bee costume…back in January. And it is my Yes Woman ways that have secured me a spot GUEST BARTENDING for an event in 2 weeks. I can’t even pour a draft beer correctly (trust me, I’ve tried), so I can only imagine what a terrible bartender I’m going to be.

Oh and did I mention that I was also asked to wear a coconut bra? Of course I also ‘yessed’ to that. Luckily, as of now, I have managed to conveniently not find one. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the Halloween store down the street can hold off opening up until September 15th.

I also ‘yes’ constantly at my job because I love it immensely there and am a good little worker bee. Would I like to hang around outside in 100 degree heat with a bunch of stinky farm animals and screaming children? SURE! Do I want to spend my Saturday morning listening to a kid’s band sing songs about tying your shoes and have my life ruined by the scariest excuse for Dora the Explorer in the history of ever? Absolutely!

Would I like to dress up as a cheerleader, and help choreograph cheers for an event next week that culminates in me mooning the audience with a big, felt, letter “R” pinned to my ass?

Where do I sign up!? I’ll even do a split!!

I’m serious. It is actually happening.

Today I am at cheerleader practice again. This is what I spent yesterday afternoon doing and it is how I will be spending the first part of my day as you are reading this. As peppy and spunky and generally full of cheer as I am, I was never a cheerleader in high school, and I have no idea what the heck I am doing. I am not a good dancer. I am not coordinated.

I cannot do dance moves and say words at the same time.

Either way, I’ve gotten myself into this mess and now I’m stuck with it. At least the pom poms are really cute and I don’t look horrible in the purple, pleated skirt they bought for me.

Wish me luck.

Am I the only one who yesses people all the time? Have you ever gotten stuck doing something you really weren’t that enthused about because you are so darn agreeable?

]]> http://www.saltsays.com/?feed=rss2&p=6001 70 http://www.saltsays.com/?p=5982 http://www.saltsays.com/?p=5982#comments Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:09:57 +0000 Salt http://www.saltsays.com/?p=5982

You are going to learn something new about me today…the truth is, I love to smell.

No, not like hot garbage. Let me explain.

Ever since I was a little girl and my parents foolishly stocked me with Tinkerbell cosmetics – I pretty much REEKED 24/7 of that raunchy perfume – I have loved to try out different scents. I’ve skipped through tons of different fragrances over the years; from the fancy (Gucci Pink and J’Adore by Dior are two of my top faves), to the hippie (I may have worn patchouli oil for like a week when I was 13…don’t judge me). Some were great. Some not so great. I’m looking at you, Juicy Couture.

Seriously. You smell like a grandma.

But for whatever reason, my favorite thing to smell like has always been food. Think baked good; not bacon. Vanilla has been my favorite for as long as I can remember and I’ve been accused (in a good way) of smelling like cookies  more times than I can count.

Philosophy is known for their shower gels that smell so good you have to remind yourself that you might die if you drank them, and a while back I discovered one in the scent (flavor?) of red velvet cake. It was the most delicious smelling thing ever and made me want to shower 11 times a day, which is totally bad for your skin.

Alas, the smell would wear off as soon as I toweled myself dry. Then eventually I ran out of my red velvet gel and completely forgot about it until this past weekend.

I write another blog besides this one; it’s a friendly little foodie competition with a gal I work with. The challenge this past week was to see who could make the best red velvet cupcake, and my whole apartment smelled so phenomenal when I was done baking. It made me miss my shower gel and wish that I could smell like delicious cake all day long.

So I almost jokingly asked in my post over there if anyone knew where I could find red velvet perfume oil. I wasn’t even expecting an answer because the notion seemed so ridiculous.

Which brings us to today’s word:

Awesome Sauce
Function: Adjective
A beautifully assonant phrase which can and should be used on any occasion where joy and elation are expressed. ‘Awesome sauce’ has been adapted for use both as an exclamation or reserved sign of approval.

Used in a sentence: You will never believe what Heidi Renée gave me a link to on Etsy. Totally awesome sauce.

Except in my case, it can also be used as a noun. As in: Check out my new awesome…sauce.

The picture is majorly underwhelming, but that right there is RED VELVET PERFUME OIL from someone who is sure to become one of my favorite Etsy sellers, Peakbloom Naturals. (Thank you, Heidi Renée!!!) I have ordered many, many things online in my life and for some reason, I’m bouncing-off-the-walls excited about this little $4 vial of oil. I cannot wait for it to get here.

I can practically smell it right now as I’m typing this.

Probably because I just finished eating a Yoplait Red Velvet Cake flavored yogurt and the empty container is sitting right here. (Highly recommend if you love yogurt. SO good.)

By the way, my recipe for red velvet cupcakes WON this week! You should try making them too!

Do you wear perfumes or oils? What is the best one you’ve found? Are you a weirdo that enjoys smelling like food as much as I do?

Spam comments.

We’ve all gotten them. We’ve all been annoyed by them. I used to have to pick through 30+ complete bee.ess comments per day. There were fake people trying to sell me viagra, or long drawn out paragraphs written in barely understandable English, or my personal favorite…the ones that say they are having trouble viewing my “weblog” in *insert rando unheard-of browser name here*.

It took me a little while to figure out those were fake and I actually wasn’t having technical difficulties. Stupid spam jerks. Who the eff says “weblog” anyway?

This was, however, until I discovered all the rage that is Akismet. Akismet is this awesome plug-in that filters my spam for me. My own personal bloggy bouncer has “protected” me from the assault of 5,542 spam comments so far (WTF). I feel safe and secure and no longer have to keep my mace next to the computer. 98.7% of the time it’s very accurate, but there has been the rare occurrence of a perfectly good comment from one of you slipping through the cracks. Because of this, I always quickly skim my spam comments before I delete them. Just to be sure.

Which is what inspired this post today. Because skimming through my spam, I have realized that some of it is kind of hilarious. Here are a few recent funnies:

Why is this spammer so aggro…all laughing in my face and trying to get me to talk about controversy and junk? I have never once mentioned that attention whoring waste of perfectly good oxygen (Tila Tequila) anywhere on my blog (until now), but I actually learned more about her than I ever really cared to know from this informative comment. I still don’t have to love her though. And I won’t. She’s not even controversial. She’s just really gross.

WOW! MAGNIFICENT! These are all words that make me feel super good about myself. I’m absolutely shining with pride over having written one particular of the top blogs this spammer has ever read about eating a grilled cheese sandwich with the plastic still on it. I didn’t realize so many other people had done the exact same thing! Suddenly I feel not-so-alone in the world anymore.

Okay, be honest with me. Is there something about me that screams, “Please talk to me about celebrity sex tapes”?

Because I seem to get a lot of spam comments like this one. This spammer doesn’t care what any of you say, and I like to picture that part with a *z-formation finger snap*. I know that probably all of you are just DYING to see this video it as much as I am, right? Gosh, we better hurry over to that sleazy website and pick up a copy before it gets taken down. (They have morals and standards, you know.)

The best part of this comment, however, is the fact that it was meant for my post about the Farm Fair. Ohhhhhh glorious irony….

But my personal favorite that I received this past month was this one:

Ummmm what? What the heck does this even mean? I’m assuming that the spammer likes what they are reading because of the smilie face emoticon. But is it moooooaaaaar like the sound a dinosaur or a zombie might make? Or moar as in MORE? Like you want MORE?

MORE talk about FOOTBALL!?

Well stay tuned, DinoZombie. I can definitely make that happen for you in the coming months.

Do you guys have a fabulous filter to catch the spam comments on your blogs? Have you ever received any really funny ones?

My husband is away on business until Thursday. Obviously I miss him a ton and I’m very sad that he’s not around, but I lived by myself for such a long time before we moved in together that it’s not completely terrible having my own space for a few days.

Like yesterday. I woke up at 3:30 in the morning (gahhh) to take him to the airport and as I drove back through the sleeping city, all bleary eyed and looking like a hobo in my pajamas, I thought about how I was going to make the most of my Sunday. I’ve always really enjoyed things like going to a restaurant, or downtown shopping, or to the movies by myself, so I was excited at the prospect of a solo adventure.

Plus I just got a new camera:

It’s nothing spectacular – a la super fancy DSLR with many interchangeable lenses that one day I hope to have, but didn’t feel like selling one of my kidneys for right now – but it is much nicer than any other digital camera I’ve owned before and actually has a decent zoom. And what better place to try out some decent new zooming than…

Now, I don’t know if you all have zoos or how they work or anything, but ours is right in the middle of the city. Actually it’s in a really sketchy part of town complete with dilapidated buildings and drug dealings and the occasional shooting, but soon after passing through the zoo gates, you will have the most magical feeling of being transported straight to the plains of Africa.

And also maybe after a little bit of suspension of disbelief when you hear sirens out on the main road.

Temperatures were back up into the 90′s yesterday, and when it’s hot like that, you don’t really expect many zoo friends to make an appearance. They must have heard I was coming though. Who needs to hang out with a husband when you can spend the day with these guys??

Fancy bird.

Contrary to popular opinion by some kids touring the zoo at the time, this polar bear was not “dead”. He preferred to nap in the shade, while his bearfriend chose the cold water.

Personally, I think bearfriend had the right idea.

This lion (who I decided should be named Oskie) was very good at looking handsome and posing for pictures.
I love how his paws are turned up and I wish I could hug him without him eating my face off.

And just across the way we have…dinner.

Lazy-ass rhinos. Also not “dead”, despite what I heard like 10 children say.

Hey it’s penguins! In Africa! Wait…what?

Escaped convict from the nearby Charm City penitentiary.

FAVORITE. If I could have one for a pet, I would. PS. I’m totes jealous of her eyelashes.

I call this guy “Murderface”. Because that’s basically what he wants to do to absolutely everyone that passes by.
I am very proud of myself because not only did I get near some birds yesterday, I even went into the aviary where they can fly around and ruin your life at will. Go me.

Cheetahs are such attention whores.

Elvis the Otter. I didn’t even make that up; the zookeeper told me what his name was.
I got to watch Elvis and his friend Mary dive for fish. It was obscenely cute.

Obligatory MySpace self-portrait.

This picture is not the best (low light and through glass), but I just love the way he was sitting there.
It reminds me of how I sit when I watch television.

OMGHI2U!
(I think this is Baby G’s cousin.)

And finally…they have this damp, creepy cave you can walk through in the kid’s zoo area (and yes I felt totally awkward being the only adult there without a kid). I’ve always been freaked out by that cave.

Because it has bats! Eeeeeeeeeeeee!!! Every time they flew near the glass, I died a little inside. Their high pitched squeaks haunted me for the rest of the night.

I seriously felt like a little kid all over again. It was an awesome afternoon.

When was the last time you took a trip to the zoo? What is your favorite animal there?

I’m a married lady. I’m sure that most, if not all, of you knew that. If you are a newer reader, you might not know that I am still pretty newlywedded. My husband and I tied the knot on February 27th, 2010. Exactly six months ago today.

Here is the post I made the day after the wedding. I have much respect for the ladies I know who have done wedding day play-by-plays on their blogs, but I just couldn’t do it. I was far too drunk busy.

For those who have been reading since the wedding…doesn’t it kind of seem like I just got married last week?

Well to me it does, okay!?

This is where I will torture you with many pictures of my handsome guy and me on our wedding day. Otherwise known as one of the most sparkly special perfect days of my life thus far. Humor me. You won’t have to look at them again for at least another 6 months.

For the record: The resort stylist sucked big time + it was rainforest humid outside = I mostly hated my wedding hair.

My poor husband was encouraged – not by me – to not wear his glasses. I think if he had worn them, he would have been about 95% less squinty in all the pictures. Oh well. Look at the water! Isn’t it ridic!?

The location is Providenciales, Turks & Caicos, and currently my dad, new stepmom, and all my brothers are vacationing at this very resort for their honeymoon. Words cannot accurately describe how much I wish we were there with them. (We were invited, but I have no vacation time left for the year and M is leaving on a business trip this weekend.) I bet they are having the best time ever.

*sulk*

So happy 6-month-aversary to us! It has been wonderful so far and I think I’m going to love being married to him for the rest of forever.

I hope all everyone has a wonderful weekend!

When is your anniversary? Would you ever consider a destination wedding? Did anyone else want to punch their stylist?

We were having a nice relaxing evening at home last night, lounging on the couch and watching television, when suddenly our brand new episode of Ghost Hunters (that hotel was SO haunted!) was rudely interrupted by a trailer for something much more frightening to me.

Have you guys heard about  The Social Network?

So…basically what we’re looking at here is Facebook: The Movie. I bet Tom from MySpace is SO pissed off right about now.

At first I thought this was some kind of hilarious joke until my husband assured me that it is actually real and actually going to be released nationwide in theaters just in time to scare the crap out of everyone for Halloween. It stars actors that I used to have respect for such as Jesse Eisenburg (Zombieland was so awesome and now this?) and…Justin Timberlake?

A scan of the rest of the cast list on IMDB showed me a bunch of nobody-importants playing such career catapulting roles as “BU Bra Guy #2″ and “High Guy” and “Final Club Girl”.

So will they be selling tubs of broken glass at the concession stand at the theater? Because I think I’d rather eat that then sit through this steaming pile of hot garbage. Extra butter please.

What do you think? Will you be running out to see this when it opens?

The Pros:

1. You know when you go see one of your most favorite bands of all time in concert and they don’t sound nearly as good as you hoped they would? Yeah that didn’t happen.
2. They played my five favorite songs. Mad World (cue me nearly dying), Sowing the Seeds of Love (I nearly die again), Break It Down Again, Head Over Heels (nearly die for a third time), and Floating Down the River. Also played such classics as Shout and Everybody Wants to Rule The World. Plus more stuff. Plus a cover of Michael Jackson’s Billy Jean. Awesome.
3. Roland still rocks the long curly hair, although it is no longer a mullet. He was absolutely hilarious and T and I were convinced that we needed to become best friends with him immediately. Curt has since cut his hair short and is now my favorite hot older musician of choice.
4. They both have fabulous British accents.
5. The opening act told us a story about how he wrote one of his songs while he was on the toilet.
6. There were no noticeable obnoxious college students, hence my level of irritation about being packed into a small club was lowered from an orange threat level to right around a blue.
7. Amazing people watching opportunities. Our favorite was the guy that was obviously there on a “date” with someone he had…paid for. At first I thought T was just pointing out a very oddly matched couple (older, nerdy looking guy with a MUCH younger, very voluptuous girl with face piercings and a bad weave), but then I realized that her shirt was actually a bra. Hookeriffic.
8. There weren’t any bathroom attendants. I hate when people try to hand me towels and soap and then look at me like I’m a d-bag because I don’t drop money in the tip jar. I’m perfectly capable of doing those things myself, thank you very much, and don’t enjoy being given a guilt trip every time I have to pee.

The Cons:

1. The couple next to/in front of us (depending on how they decided to situate themselves during any given song) had clearly never been to another concert before ever. Neither of them had any concept of personal space, and the girl seemed to like us much more than she liked her guy because while she had no problem practically standing on top of me, an extra person worth of space separated the two of them. I made up for it by screaming really loudly into her ear in between songs.
2. At one point, I became very warm and I pulled my hair up. So for the rest of the show, I could feel the guy behind me breathing on the back of my neck. Gross.
3. It was $9 beer night.
4. Everyone left at once because the show was over at 11 and I think at least half of the venue needed to be up at 4 am for their early bird specials. This would have been fine except that the parking garage had only two payment kiosks. Have you ever been to the grocery store and became stuck behind an older person trying to figure out the crazy new technology that is the self-checkout? Imagine that, but then multiply it by like 200.

Obviously the pros far outweighed the cons though. Plus, I’m not even tired today and the ringing in my ears went away within an hour or so of getting home. Definitely in the top 5 of best concerts I’ve ever been to!

(Top 5 is good…I’ve been to a lot of concerts.)

What’s the best concert you ever went to?

Yesterday it was brought to my attention anonymously that my blog is not funny.

Super sads for me, right?

Apparently, according to ‘anonymous’, I am attempting to emulate another blog that, while hilarious, I haven’t gotten around to reading for several months. Hell, I barely have time to keep up with all of my faves right now, much less try to pretend I’m someone else over here.

The blog I was ‘compared’ to was Hyperbole and a Half in case you were wondering…and frankly, as flattered as I am to have been mentioned in the same breath as her, unless she recently went on vacay, or her dad just got married, or she has been suffering from a serious case of indecision over nail polish shades, I’m having trouble seeing how anything we write about is in any way similar. Also, last I checked, I’m seriously lacking in the Microsoft Paint art department.

Anyway, I was also told that I try too hard. So in that case, I’ll be addressing all of you today in caveman-esque sentence fragments. Because full sentences would fall into the trying too hard category. I might also post a picture. I hope I’m still allowed to do that without fear of someone accusing me of being a copycat.

Speaking of Fears…

I love Tears for Fears.

My favorite song: Mad World.

We will hear it live!

__________________

T and me downtown.

Hope they still have permed mullets.

And will be our bffs.

__________________

Crap I wrote haikus.

So much for barely trying.

Bite me, blog stalker!

Tonight is going to be FUN with a capital F-U. Tears for Fears has been one of my favorite bands for as long as I can remember and it’s our plan to try and get right up close and personal with the front of the stage like we did at the Psychedelic Furs show. Maybe I will even get to touch another rock star. Stay tuned.

As far as the nasty comment goes, I honestly think whoever wrote it has the wrong idea about why I’m here. Blogging is not my job. I have a real job I go to every day that takes up a ton of my time. And as much as I adore everyone that comes here to read and comment, I didn’t start blogging to entertain people. I did it because a year ago I was planning my wedding and then once I was married it was on to the next stage of my life, so why should I stop writing? And you guys just happen to be awesome, supportive and I’ve made some great friends. I appreciate it and I will always try to do the same for you whenever I can.

I feel really sorry for the person who felt the need to hate on that. Maybe they should start a crappy, not-funny blog also and then they would see how rewarding it can be.

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