Mama cut out pictures of houses for years from “Better Homes and Garden” magazine, plans were made and concrete poured, nail by nail and board by board, Daddy gave life to Mama’s dream…

Last week, I went with my mother to a furniture store.

We went to look for a maroon love seat for the study.

This new house is really becoming exciting. When all of this mess began, I was pretty psyched for her because it was kind of fun talking about all the fun things we would maybe have in this new family home. But then there were a lot of repetitive questions and I lost interest. And then I started to feel bitter because this was replacing our home. This brand spankin’ new house was going to make us have to get rid of the house I grew up in. And that made me sad. So I ignored all the new-house stuff. I became really irritated when conversations turned to all the “fun stuff happening with the house” because I really didn’t like this new-house stuff.

But the house is almost done. It has to be done by September 24 for the parade of homes. It’s gorgeous.  And now it’s super exciting for everyone.

So with everything coming together, we needed to find a maroon love seat for the study.  And we were going to just look at bedroom furniture for the room intended for Drew.

I was really, really helpful. Like when Mom asked me to go re-measure something because we forgot the dimensions, I went to the part of the store that had the dresser Mom was looking at for Drew’s blue room.  But then I saw this:

THAT BEAR IS WEARING A BASKET LIKE A BACKPACK. OF COURSE I WAS GOING TO WANT TO OWN THIS PIECE OF ART.

Hello! I LOVE BEARS! (And dinosaurs. But there were no backpack-wearing dinosaurs. Sad.)

So THEN I found THIS:

What a precious little bear face! I immediately wished that “my room” hadn’t been painted a perfect yellow color and that all my furniture and bedding wasn’t already decided upon. I wished I could change the design concept of “my room” to BEAR LAND.

And then I found THIS and knew that we had definitely made the wrong choice with the yellow.

DANCING, HAND-HOLDING BEARS. I was IN LOVE. How can you NOT love that?!!? It’s hilarious and precious! What an excellent conversation piece!! THIS IS ART!!!

I obviously was taking way longer than she had anticipated, so after a while, Mom came looking for me. I had been running around like a ninny, looking for all things bear-shaped/themed.

I found this gem when Mom found me:

It reminded me of the time I murdered one of God’s creatures. And Mom wondered what the fuck I was doing.

I told her I had a brand new design concept for any room of the house. I told her bears would look glorious in any room, or that we could spread them out throughout the house.  I told her that they would be great conversation starters and that if no one else would appreciate them, I would appreciate the bears enough for everyone on earth. Because I loved them.

But then she scolded me, reminded me I’m an adult and t0ok my phone away.  I followed behind her, dejected, as we made our way to the place where she paid for her maroon love seat and Drew’s bedroom furniture.

Looks like I did a lot more looking than she did. And the bears remain at the store.

I have the best Christmas Present ideas….!

Tell me how I’m supposed to breathe with no air? Can’t live, can’t breathe with no air…

There’s a story that seems to come up all the time at work. It gets talked about between us girls and it gets told in front of our customers. It’s all-around excellent, always appropriate story.

If dead animals and murder are always appropriate and excellent.

One morning, I was driving to work. I wasn’t running late, I wasn’t in a hurry, I wasn’t feeling rushed. I was just driving, like normal. I was probably listening to Justin Bieber. I had probably stopped at starbucks and thought it had the promise of a good day.

And then a squirrel darted across the street. And then it stopped. And it turned around, darting back the way it came. And then it stopped again. And turned around to go the way it was originally going. And then it stopped.

I watched all of this happen.  And I thought it was finally gonna cross the street. So I took my foot off the brake and started to accelerate again.

Then the little guy changed his mind one last time. I didn’t have time to stop. I wanted to, really. I can’t even tell you how badly I wanted to stop the car. But, dear readers, even with cat-like reflexes, that little squirrel couldn’t be saved. I ran the squirrel over.

I’m a murderer.

At that moment, I burst into tears.

Then, I busted out my phone and mass-texted the shit out of my phonebook. I texted my dad, my mom, two or three of my coworkers, and a couple other friends. It was highly upsetting.

My parents tried to make me feel better by sharing their roadkill woes. It didn’t work.

When I got to work, I still couldn’t shake the feeling of being a murderer.  I had stopped crying, but I still felt really bad.  My first customer asked me how I was doing, and he got an answer he definitely hadn’t been anticipating.

“Well, I ran over a squirrel this morning, so now I’m a murderer. Today’s not going how I thought it was gonna go.”

Silence.

And then my coworkers piped up with tons of laughter and did work to make what just came out of my mouth way less awkward.

It’s now a classic tale shared with all. I enjoy that this story is shared with friends and strangers alike. I enjoy that months later this story comes up out of nowhere and takes the workplace by storm. The story goes over really, really well too. There’s just something about me, I guess, that makes people find murder endearing.