Posted on

Top Ten Tuesday: My favorite Google search terms.

Taking a look at what search terms lead people to this site is always amusing. For some reason, most of our traffic doesn’t come from searches like “entertaining mom blog” or “hilarious blogging cousins” (I know, can you believe it?)… it comes more from things like “she looks so natural casket.”

True story.

Anyway, I always like an excuse to link up to Oh Amanda’s Top Ten Tuesday, so here are my top ten favorite search terms that have recently landed people on our little blog. Here we go.

10. “April fool‘s kids fake strawberry cake.” Cake is not a joking matter!

9. “Baby peanut butter poo.” I can’t figure out which post this lead to, but I am 100% sure it was written by Jenny. (edited to add – I just figured it out, and of course it led to this post by the one and only Jenny Rapson.)

8. “Babywearing hemmroids.” Two words – spell check! Also, do you suppose that person meant that a baby was wearing hemorrhoids or that baby-wearing causes hemorrhoids? I recommend Motrin. Heh.

7. “Matching easter dresses for moms and daughters” and “sexy easter dresses.” Frankly, I’m not sure which one is more disturbing.

6. “How to answere the question biblically on how babies get into the mommy;s tummy.” Again, spell check, people! And secondly? Don’t come to us for sex ed.

5. “I accidentally hit my dog and he suddenly pukes.” Sounds like a serious problem. Maybe he was involved in this other search term – “Girls ipecac puke party.”

4. “Figure skating crotch hand,” “female olympic figure skaters crotch photos” and numerous other variations of the same idea drew a lot of people here. Something tells me my post wasn’t what they were hoping to find.

3. “Birth control makes me rage,” “birth control pills anger,” “birth control pills make me crazy,” and “the pill made me fat.” All of the above.

2. The most popular topic of the week – unfriending. “Why are people unfriending me on facebook,” “my child unfriended me on facebook,” “can my sibling unfriend me on facebook,” “should i unfriend relatives on facebook,” “how to handle in-law friend requests on fb,” and “can i unfriend my mother in law from facebook,” which was obviously searched by the same person who later searched for “facebook unfriending repercussions.”

And finally…

1. “Poop pants wii bowling.” Jenny, I’m going to let you take that one.

Post to Twitter

Posted on

National Grammar Day: Earning my nerd status . . . again.

Hi, this is Emily. I bet you didn’t know today is a holiday – it’s National Grammar Day! The nerds of the world are excited. In honor of this blessed occasion, we’ve asked our friend and long-time reader Mary from Giving Up on Perfect to guest post about one of my favorite subjects, grammar. Thanks Mary! Happy National Grammar Day to the rest of you.

When I was in seventh grade, I drew the short straw when it came to English class. See, my middle school had two teachers who taught seventh-grade English. Mr. C was a bushy-haired, polyester-wearing hippie. Ms. B was a severe, frowning grammar dictator.

Everyone wanted to be in Mr. C’s class. Guess which class I was assigned to.

The rumors were true. Ms. B was mean. And demanding. And . . . a good teacher.

Yes, I admit it. I learned a lot in that seventh grade English class. For one, I learned how to recite all the pronouns. We had to memorize them, and really, what’s more fun for a 13-year-old than saying, “He, she, it” as fast as possible? (Try it. See how fun that is.)

For two, I learned to respect the English language. (I had to, or else I would have gotten an eighth hour.) I learned that proper grammar, along with our friends, punctuation and spelling (ah, yes, spelling), were important.

It was good timing, that class with its book reports and parts of speech and red pens, because my glory days were quickly coming to an end.

I’m talking about the days of the spelling bee, of course. Because it’s time to be honest: I’ve been a grammar nerd, a word nerd, a nerdy nerd for a really long time.

Based on this geeky history, which continued into high school with the academic team (Yeah. Go ahead and call it “nerd bowl.” You won’t be the first.), you probably won’t be surprised to learn that I am one of those. Those people who think you should use things like proper grammar and spell check, even in a blog post.

Especially in a blog post.

Today is National Grammar Day, and in honor of this most prestigious holiday (Why isn’t the bank closed, anyway?), I thought about sharing my favorite grammar tips with you. But then I sat down to write my tips, and I realized that so many others have said it before and said it better.

Instead, I’m going to share some fun grammar links with you. If you have even a tiny bit of the nerd in you, check out these sites:

• National Grammar Day: From tips to quizzes to podcasts (about grammar! Yay!), this site is full of grammar goodies.
• The Grammar Nazi Is In by Doritos for Dinner: I love this, and, as I mentioned, I couldn’t have said it better myself.
• The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks: Need I say more?
• The Grammar Blog says it’s been mocking poor grammar since 2007. I like that. I like the mocking. It’s good.

That’s all for today, class. Have a wonderful Grammar Day, and please, for the love of red pens and AP Stylebooks, use your spell check.

When she’s not proofreading ads, editing newsletter articles or writing perfectly punctuated press releases, Mary can be found at her blog, Giving Up on Perfect. And yes, she sees the irony in that blog name when compared to her obsession with all things grammar.

(oh hi, it’s Emily again. I just had to butt in and say how much I enjoyed this blog post, and how much I relate to it. I had a “Ms. B” as well, except mine was a “Mrs. R.” All of you Valley View people out there, say it with me now… am, is, are, was, were…)

Post to Twitter

Posted on

A Pharmaceutical Limerick

I know this is technically not a limerick. It is, however, autobiographical.

*ahem*

Liquor before beer,
Never fear.

Wellbutrin before liquor,
Never sicker.

What do you think? Ok, I won’t quit my day job.

I first discovered this little equation a few months ago, when after a night on the town, I was sick the next day. And by sick, I mean I wanted. To. Die. It was awful. I had, however, imbibed a couple dozen drinks the night before, so I figured it was a run-of-the-mill hangover. Except it lasted all day long and I wanted to die. And it was Christmas Eve.

So I recovered eventually, and a month or so later we had friends over and I had a couple drinks. I’m not under-estimating that – I had two! Or maybe two and a half. But again, the next day, I was sick. I felt awful the entire day until I went to bed.

After that incident I recalled having read cautions about drinking alcohol while taking my anti-depressant of choice, Wellbutrin. I started to think that maybe, perhaps my illnesses were so pronounced because of the medication. That made me a little nervous about drinking at all, mostly because I was scared to feel horrible all day again but also because I wondered what the heck the combination was doing to my body if it left me feeling so bad. In fact, I was so nervous that when we went to Blissdom, I was afraid to get my drink on!

The irony of being unable to drink in a room full of teetotalers holding two free drink tickets a piece was not lost on me.

It was rather tragic.

Fast forward to tonight (or last night, what time is it anyway?). I met a group of friends after work for dinner, and then we went on to see Wicked. Not thinking a thing of it, I joined the rest of the girls (except the preggos, of course) in having a Wickedtini. Dinner was delicious, the company was great, and the show was fantastic.

But as I started my drive home, I realized I wasn’t feeling very well. My head hurt. I was a little nauseated. I was frickin’ HUNG OVER. From one drink! I drank water and took Advil and ate McDonald’s super value meal (ok I didn’t but it certainly would have helped). My husband laughed at me.

I’ve never been super-skilled at holding my liquor (although in comparison to Jenny I have the tolerance of a house full of frat guys), but this is ridiculous. It’s gotta be the medicine.

Either that, or I’m not as young as I used to be.

Yeah, it’s definitely the medicine.

Post to Twitter