When I was a kid, I seriously thought there would be tons and tons of screwing-around time.

I am sad to say that I was mistaken.

I don't know why I had that idea. My parents didn't have that much free time, what with work and dealing with two little monsters, running around creating havoc at all times and in all places, so I guess I must have gotten that idea from TV.

They never show all the little things adults have to do on TV. I think I should sue.

I will sue TV. All of it. My lawsuit shall be for willful inflicting of damage onto my brain and insidey parts because they made me think being a grown-up was going to be all rollerskating and watching TV and eating sandwiches.

It is not.

Therefore, they owe me one kajillion dollars for emotional distress, another kajillion for intestinal distress, and a book of coupons for free Whoppers, because I haven't had one of those in a while but I'm kind of feeling like I want one right now.

That'll show you, Mr. Drummond. With your casual dress shirt and slacks. Or Mr. Belvedere, with your apron that never really got dirty and your hands which looked suspiciously smooth.

Mrs. Garrett, too. With her bouffant hairdo and sassy attitude.

You guys made me think this was going to be a piece of cake. I'm here to inform you that it is not, so I'm suing you. All of you.

Not the actors, though. They were just being their awesome actor selves.

I've written a letter to Santa, explaining the whole situation. I'm hoping he takes pity on me and grants me a ton of time where I can just watch some TV and eat ice cream right out of the carton. 

He can do that, you know. He's magic. That's why the debate on his skin color is ridiculous. He can turn into a chameleon if he wants. For crying out loud, he can visit the whole world in one night, he has flying reindeer and he can squeeze his ginormous butt down a chimney (not to mention the fact that he hasn't had a heart attack). He's magic. He doesn't look the same to everybody. Just accept it and move on.

So watch out, TV. I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I'm pretty sure all of my problems are your fault, so I'm totally taking you to court for that two kajillion dollars and book of Whopper coupons. I won't settle for less. 

Well, maybe I will. It depends on how hungry I get. I might settle for just the Whoppers. But, no Whoppers, no deal.

(Photo from http://www.thecriticalcondition.com/2009/05/08/link/)

So when did we all get so sensitive and, frankly, annoying? Right now, my Facebook feed is chock-full of people who are mad at other people for having opinions and stating them. 

Seriously. It's like everyone is mad at everyone else. It's Christmastime, for crying out loud. Shouldn't we all be celebrating our similarities and trying to be kinder to our fellow human beings?

Sheesh. I feel like we need a referee.

I decided to spell it out for all of you, since I'm always right about everything. Here you are:  OPINIONS ARE NOT FACTS.

There you go.

They're not. They're what a person feels like about any particular given thing, and whether or not that person is right is irrelevant. He or she is allowed to feel however he or she likes about any given topic.

This does not mean his or her feelings are not stupid. It just means that I really want to support his or her right to speak his or her mind (or lack thereof), because if he or she is limited, I can be, too. If someone tries to stifle my fart jokes, I could die. That would also be lame because I'm sure your opinions are super great. I'm also not referring to people who use their opinions to make laws. Those kinds of opinions are dangerous and should be stopped. I don't want anyone else making my choices illegal if they aren't affecting anyone but me. I call shenanigans on that. Not cool. 

So let's all learn a trick to get through the holidays, because we all know we're going to get an earful of some old guy's ramblings about why the (insert name of some group of people) are not as good as the (insert name of another group of people). It's called, "smile, nod, and walk away."

Yep, it's as easy as it sounds. Smile, nod, and walk away. Just because you don't agree with him doesn't mean you have to smack him. And we all know yelling back is completely ineffective with some people. Just, let him have his stupid, ridiculous opinion. There may be some people that just weren't meant to be friends with other people, especially if they can't overlook differences and love and support each other. (Wow, I went all hippie there for a minute. Peace, my brothers and sisters. Anyway…)

After smiling, nodding, and walking away, go find a group of awesome people and make fun of the old guy. In addition, one can always try to feel better by remembering that we live in a day and time where we can still speak our minds, and that's a pretty gosh darn amazing thing.

That's the true Christmas spirit. Well, that, and vodka.

Well, it's almost here. The big day.

Wait, I don't mean Christmas. I mean the day where we rip out the nastiness that is my kitchen counter and replace it with new, clean Formica.

Ah, Formica.

So we bought this house four years ago with the idea that we were going to add on a big room to the back and remodel the kitchen and bathrooms. Check one bathroom off that list.

To be fair, it's a beautiful bathroom, and we did it for (relatively) little money. My husband ripped out all of the pink tile that covered the walls by the tub, replaced it with some really nice brown glass tiles, put in a new window and made a beautiful windowsill (he's pretty much the windowsill master, for reals) and put a new piece of Formica on the old vanity and painted it, and the did a nice glass tile backsplash. So, yeah. That got done.

The rest of our plans have just sort of been floating in the atmosphere, along with my plans to weigh 150 pounds and my husband's plans to run a marathon.

Hahahaha…okay, neither of those are real plans. If you know us, you know how ridiculous they are.

Anyway, December 26th is the day we will start on the kitchen. We need new cabinets and stuff, but we decided to just do a little face-lift, since we both have a few days off and we had a bit of money set aside to do something from our growing list of house projects. Also, we're both really not into granite countertops.

Don't mock my Formica. That stuff holds up really well, if you're careful, and for the money I think it's a much better deal. I think we'd do a wood butcher-block counter, maybe, but I can't see the point in putting something that fancy onto my craptastic old cabinets. I really hate them. I really, really do. However, we don't have time or money right now, so we're going for the Formica. To give you an accurate picture of our current situation, think of white, grainy, 60s-style marble. Then, imagine that image on Formica. Then, imagine that Formica after 48 years of scratches, burns and stains.

That's my kitchen.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am not unfamiliar with bleach. Me and bleach are BFFs. There is not enough bleach in the world to make these things sanitary. There's just not. I don't care what anyone says. So I never, ever put anything edible directly onto the counter, unless it's getting washed and cooked before it goes into somebody's mouth.

Really. 

And I think four years of that is enough. Not to mention the ugly. And it is ugly. A special kind of ugly that makes all other countertops, even the ones in my sister's kitchen (which is significantly older than mine) look sparkly and nice. It's like the ugliest of all the ugly 60s kitchens. We painted the cupboards white when we moved in, because the woman who lived here before, bless her heart, had done a light whitewash over the pine cabinets and then stenciled flowers and checkerboard patterns and Bible verses all over the doors.

Nothing against the Bible up in here, but whoa. It was like the Amish Country Store threw up in my kitchen. Or maybe exploded is a better word. I'm not sure. Anyhow, the lovely white, pink and blue color scheme was not really to my liking, so that had to go. A picture, you say? You'd like to see what that looked like? Can I do that?

Yes, yes I can.

This is the photo they had on the realtor's website. I saved it, because, well, when your kitchen has a "before" picture like that, it sort of makes you feel all proud inside. Also, it's much less scary to do renovations when you realize that the only way it could possibly be any worse is if it looked like this but was dirty.

And in my house that is not going to happen. So I'm not scared at all.

This is what it looks like now, significantly better, but still…those countertops make me puke.

So watch out for the "after" photos, because I'm pretty sure I won't be able to handle the excitement and my brain may explode.

But not all over my kitchen, because that would be gross.

So, we have a cockatiel. His name is Bruce, and he is 13 years old. Actually, he was my husband's before we got married and has lived with him, my parents, and both of us at various times in his life. He's a pretty happy traveler, but if he's unhappy with where you put him, he will scream non-stop, even if he's covered, until you re-locate his cage.

Right now, he's in the room where the computer and the treadmill are. It's warmer in there, and we spend a lot of time in there, so he seems to like it, but he comes out to wherever we are when he feels like it. 

Anyway, he's never been much of a talker. He imitates sounds, but only annoying ones. For instance, he does a mean imitation of the howling whiny bark that our cocker spaniel, Maddy, used to do. Which is kind of neat, because even though she's been gone for a few years, her, "someone is going to break in and hurt you and/or steal my toys" alert bark lives on.

He also knows a little whistle, and, most importantly, The Andy Griffith Show theme song, which he can do correctly, and then he gets way too excited and does this whole "Fantasia on Andy" type of thing. It's super creative.

When he's really happy (which is less often as he gets older and it's winter, because he is usually grumpier and sleepier in the winter) he will make these little clicking, cooing noise at me and tuck his head down and try to get me to come play.

This morning, however, I came in and sat down at the computer, and he did all of these things in a row, and then abruptly stopped. His eyes got all wide and he made a new sound that I haven't heard before. It took me like five minutes before I could figure it out (I have no life and, also, I'm pretty familiar with this guy…he hasn't made a new sound in ages), but when I did, I felt all proud inside.

My bird has now added the sound of the bathroom fan to his repertoire. Fantastic.

I've decided that, this year, I'm going to turn all of those Christmas songs I hate into a fun game wherein you can either win glory or one of those arm burn things you used to get when you were a kid. Or maybe that was just me. Really, though, I just want to see if I can find a game I can win, since the, "Nope. Still Johnny Mathis." game is killing me this year (the minute you hear a song that is being sung by Johnny Mathis, you have to be the first person to say that phrase, although that game has no penalty, so it's less interesting).

Anyway, the rules are pretty simple, even though I've only gotten around to figuring out two artist/phrase combinations; still, I think they're pretty fun. If you hear a Josh Groban Christmas song, you have to yell out, "Hells Yeah!" Doesn't matter where you are, you have to do it. If you hear a Celine Dion Christmas song, you have to yell out, "Yeaaaahhhh, boyeeeeee!" (like Flava Flav). Again, doesn't matter where you are. If you're with a friend and one of you neglects to say the right thing when the right person is singing, you get an arm burn (basically, the other person takes your arm in both hands and sort of wrings it out, like a towel…sounds super fun, doesn't it?).

The stakes are high, but if you win, you get to look like an idiot in front of everyone around you. And isn't that what we all long for?

You're welcome. Merry Christmas.

Well, the performance I was stressing out about for the last month happened last night. It went…okay. I suppose I am going to have to accept that certain things are just going to be harder now, but I still don't like it. For me, a good performance can include mess-ups, but when there's a problem that's out of my control, it bothers me, so I worry at it, and then it becomes a major issue. Thus, the massive jaw lock. Which, once started, I can't relax for at least a few minutes. Lame.

However, my husband did buy me two magnificent pink doughnuts for my breakfast, which helps a lot. Did I mention he also bought me a pair of shoes? Because, heck yes, he did. He's pretty good at cheering me up.

This morning starts off Hell Week, wherein I will be doing three jobs at the office instead of just the regular two. Which is lame, but I will get a bigger paycheck, which is most definitely not lame, especially at Christmastime. 

Fortunately, because of Thanksgiving, I had four days off in which I was able to do a lot of the things on my extremely large, ongoing to-do list. I got a batch of caramel apple jam made, made my Christmas cookies and some for my Mom, cleaned my house, put up my tree, did my laundry and finished crocheting a scarf. And had two rehearsals and a performance. Oh, and I exercised EVERY SINGLE DAY but one and I had a couple of days of incredibly good practice, which proved that it is possible for me to sing without the jaw lock. It's just really hard and takes a lot of effort and is not something I can do every single time. Yet.

I didn't really sleep too much, but we did watch the first Christmas movie of the season AND we watched The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (yeah, we like westerns…deal).

So, it was a good Thanksgiving weekend. Now to get Hell Week over with, so I can move on to more fun things. Like another performance. 

I thrive on stress. This disturbs me, but not enough to do anything about it. I'm going to channel my inner Dwight Schrute.