A Punny Winner

Well, that was a lot of pun! You know what's the best part about this post? It could go on forever. I think there's at least 100,000,000,000,000,001 puns. Yes, really.  And since that is the case, we shall do puns every week for the rest of the year. Devree's dad will be our weekly guest. Will you tell him about his new duty, Devree? Tell him that's what he gets for being the world's leading punner. And your English teacher can help out too. 

Actually, I don't know if I want to laugh that much. I'm in the wrinkle years, ya know. I must keep my face as passive as possible if I want to avoid Botox. 

We are lucky again this week ... we've had a prize donated to us by Bakerfam, who is a Young Living Oils distributor. It's a bottle of Peppermint Essential Oil. Ooo la la.

This is nice, expensive stuff girls! You'll love it. If you are interested in learning more about Young Living Oils, you can email me and I will forward it to Bakerfam. 

Since I felt guilty that I haven't had to give out a prize all month, I threw in a pure soy candle from Targe' as well. (I've got to make it sound good to match the quality of Bakerfam's gift.) It's Lemon Verbana (I love the smell of lemon. What can I say, I'm a sourpuss.) And candles and essential oils go hand in hand. (Kind of punish right there too. Get it? 'Cause you know you you have to use your hands to rub on essential oil. Ah ... never mind.)

Now this is where it gets confusing. The winning week was week #1. That was the State of the Blog Address. And how the prize fits with that topic ... um ... participating on a blog every week is a lot of work and you guys deserve to relax and de-stress after a year of dealing with me. ( You didn't think I could tie those together, did you?)

There were 14 comments that week, and the winning comment was #5. Caitlin! You can definitely use this after a stressful day at work. I will get it in the mail to you.

Since next Weds. is the 4th (oh yay!), I will try to post on Monday to make sure I give everyone time to visit the blog before your mind goes on vacation. I did say "try," so I'm not fully committed, but do check in on Monday after noon, OK.

Thank you a million times to the very punny Devree for sharing her post with us. You rock girlfriend!

But It Was Punny, Right?

Hello friends! I have something special in store for you this week. Devree has taken over BlogAway! Yay! It's a guest post from America's smartest, wittiest, bravest, most amazing, recent high school graduate! 

Not only is it fun to hear from someone else, it also gives me a little extra time to work on other things. Is there anyone else out there who wants to help lighten my work load? I've got some laundry you could do. Or some toilets you could scrub. Anyone? ........

(Um ... this silence is very awkward.) 

I guess I'll move right on to the guest post. Take it away Devree! (And warning readers: don't drink milk while reading this post or it will come out of your nasal passage.)

I know everyone has come across some just plain awful puns. My dad is the pun master. Since I was little we would be driving somewhere, and he would break the silence with a pun. That or singing. His favorite puns are these:

Why’d the girl eat bullets? She wanted to grow bangs.

How do you make time fly? Throw a clock out the window.

What happened to the frog that died? He croaked.

What happened to the frog that died?  (You’re going to answer “He croaked” right? WRONG! ) He got towed away. 

How do you catch a unique rabbit? You ‘neak up on him!

How do you catch a tame rabbit? The tame way! (You have to tell the rabbit ones  in this order or it loses all the hilarity.)

What do you call a cow with three legs? Lean beef!

What do you call a cow with no legs? Ground beef! 

What do you call a cow that just had a baby? De-calf-inated!

Those are his puns. He cycles through them so it’s not so awful because you could forget some of the answers.  But after you’ve heard them for almost 18 years you know all the answers.

Also for many years I would go through everyone’s Halloween candy and look at the jokes on the Laffy Taffy wrappers to find a good one. I found one good one amongst all the groaners;

What do you call a sleepwalking nun? A Roamin’ Catholic! I thought that was pretty good!

My Uncle John is a dentist and he likes to tell jokes. Because he would tell so many jokes, his kids started to make up jokes. Matthew, who is 4 or 5 now, made a knock-knock joke:

Knock, knock

Who’s there?

Island

Island who?

I land on your belly! HA! He would say the punch line really fast and let out a deep HA!

Uncle John had one that went like this;

What do you call a boat going up a river with no oars? Brown, pancakes are flat! This was his way of saying some jokes are just stupid and don’t make sense. He probably came up with it when they were kids and his brother, Jeff told this joke;

Why did the car drive up a tree? It ran out of gas!

I want everyone to share the worst puns, jokes, groaners, kid’s jokes, whatever, that you’ve ever heard as well as some of the best.

Well you heard the girl: let's have some pun! (That's my worst.)

And here is my second worst: 

 Ha ha. Now it's your turn!

(And BTW, If you want to be eligible to win this month, you need to comment by Wednesday night. I will announce the monthly winner and prize on Thursday.)

You've Got To Fight ... For Your Right ... To Be Happy

We are back from our family reunion and let me tell you: it was FANTASTIC!

Don't study the picture too close, as it is not the "official" family photo. The timer on my camera didn't work, so PaulaShawn, I need a copy of yours the minute you get home! I think that's your shadow in the grass, but that's not good enough. We need to see your not-ugly face. (You worried that would be on the blog, so there it is. Now you can relax, as you know I will now let it go and never mention it again. Ha!)

Apparently, I don't laugh enough because my cheek muscles were burning by Friday night. (No pain no gain!) I ate so much I thought I would pop. (You read that wrong. It's POP, as in explode.)  My kids played so hard they were limping by Sunday. (Good thing this isn't the week for my Protective Services visit, or they'd be confiscating the children.) All in all, the family reunion gave me hope. Why?

Because as grown ups, my siblings and I actually like each other.

I'm the youngest of six. Let me say it again: YOUNGEST. Neiner neiner neiner. Yes, I'm immature. (Hello, didn't I just say I'm the youngest?) Since my oldest sister and two brothers were teens when I was born, I don't have a lot of memories of them before they got married and started their own families. But from stories I've heard, there is the smallest possibility that all the siblings didn't always get along. And from my faulty memory of growing up with PaulaShawn, my un-twin, we might have fought just a bit too. (Hopefully we will have a post on that later, won't we PaulaShawn?) Janice was right in the middle and I don't think she ever fought with anyone. We'll call her Sister Nice. (She doesn't wear a nun's habit, although she would look just as good in one as she looked in her ABBA costume.)

Anyway, back to my point: just a wild guess here, but I think that we kids drove our parents batty from time to time. And now we can't get enough of each other; plus all the cousins are kindred spirits and get along like bananas and peanut butter. Or like chocolate chips and peanut butter. Or EVEN BETTER: they get along like bananas, peanut butter, and chocolate chips. I bet it makes my parents go "Yay! We succeeded! We raised a happy family!"

 Happiness on a plate. Please tell me you eat this too?

Let me tell you, there are times when I worry about this: (Not about the weirdness of eating bananas with peanut butter and chocolate chips. Worrying about family.) times like when we are leaving for said family reunion and one child refuses to get in the car. Anytime you take a bunch a different personalities and make them live together, you are going to have some disagreements. The difference between a family and a college dorm is that an unhappy family member doesn't have the option to move to a different place next semester. They are stuck together. Forever. That means you have to figure out a way for all those different personalities to get along. (If you thought that sounded pessimistic, let me re-phrase. Families GET to be together forever and always because they LOVE each other!!! Better? )

With my kids, we have five very different personality types:
1. Mr. Goes-with-the-flow
2. Mr. Goes-against-the-grain
3. Mr. Not-large-but-always-in-charge
4. Mr. Let-me-go-outside-and-no-one-gets-hurt
5. Mrs. Tough-as-nails-but-still-a-girly-girl

In case you couldn't figure it out, some of those personalities don't work well together. Add in a busy schedule and a mom who spends half her time in imaginary land and some days, you have a family that feels like it might self destruct. So how do I keep it together amidst the chaos?

I don't. I just fake it. That's one of my favorite words of wisdom. "Fake It 'Til You Make It." I cannot offer any advice on good parenting. But I can tell you what doesn't work:

1. Don't threaten to take away something you can't really take away. You can't say, "You be quiet or I'm going to come over there and remove your voice box." Nor can you threaten to take away your children's future happiness by saying something like, "If you don't shape up I'm going to take your college fund and travel across Europe."

2. Don't curse them and their posterity by saying, "I hope you have twelve kids just like you." Not only can you not control how many children they will have, you must also remember at some point they will ask grandma to babysit. Do you really want to babysit twelve miserable children? No.

3. Don't say things like, "We never should have bought you off those traveling Gypsies." It will hurt the Gypsies' feelings and then you won't be invited to one of their outlandish weddings.

4. When children are fighting with each other, don't tape them together on the time-out chair. I've heard of people doing this. I've even heard of people taping them together for an entire day so they are forced to do everything together. I tried it once (I was at my whit's end. And I used packaging tape, not duct tape, OK?) but the kids thought it was cool and wanted more tape, all over their bodies. In fact, child #4 still requests that I do it to him. "Remember that time you taped us together?" I really don't like how that one sounds. (My Protective Services officer doesn't like that one either. You know I'm totally kidding about CPS, right?)

Note: that was not taken at my home nor is it my child.

5. Don't send the kids outside with a box of matches and tell them, "Whatever you do, don't start the forest on fire."  (That one is not based on experience. It's just based on common sense.)

So here's the burning question: how do you get all those different personalities to be happy at least most of the time and how do you help them learn to be friends? This is me asking for advice. What works in your family? How did/do your parents keep you from fighting? What do you do with your own kids? Help me or I might not survive the summer!

The State of the Blog Address

Since we recently passed the one-year mark here at BlogAway, it is now time for me to address the nation to review our success here at BlogAway, as well as tell you my plans for the future. I am wearing my nicest tie and I have the American flag hanging behind me. I will now commence with my address:

(I am shuffling through my notes, but apparently I didn't prepare a speech. I guess I'll just have to wing it.)

It has been a good year here at BlogAway. We've laughed. We've laughed some more. We've even cried. (Have we? I really hope I never made anyone cry, but I do cry when I laugh hard, so maybe that counts.) We've given away prizes. LOTS and LOTS of prizes. I haven't kept track, but my WINNER label says 45, so I'm assuming it is right. I think almost every person who has commented has won something. But it's not about the prizes, is it? They are more like sprinkles on a birthday cake. Actually, no, I take that back. I don't like sprinkles. They are crunchy and distract me from ooeey-gooey goodness. So the prizes are the frosting on a yummy cake. I love that BlogAway is just an internet version of sitting around my living having a fun conversation. Only we are missing snacks. Can someone bring snacks next time?

(I am realizing that I wore my nice tie for no reason at all because I am the farthest thing from official and formal. I should have stayed in my jammies.)

According to Blogger, the most popular post of the year is the one where I picked my own cast for Wilder Times, but here's the funny thing: it's not our regular BlogAway viewers who make it popular. It's people searching for info on the celebrities I picked. Everyday I get multiple hits on that post, especially from people searching for this cute girl:

Olivia Holt

This girl is off-the-charts for cuteness

Note to self: if you want to increase blog traffic, post pictures of random celebrities. Do you guys have any recommendations? I will start off with this guy. I hear he's pretty popular. 

Justin Bieber has eyebrows? I never knew! 

Anyway, back to the topic at hand: popular posts. Our post about embarrassing moments comes in second, and honestly, that is the one that made me laugh the hardest: yes I laughed at you guys, especially she who shall remain nameless (and lucky for her, faceless.) But since I'm not all about the numbers, I will tell you MY highlights from the past year. I LOVED writing the post with made-up words. I hadn't planned on using all your made-up words in a post, but I got carried away. (I'm just like a 4th grader on Pixy Stix.) I also loved writing my homage to Montana, but I was amazed at the reaction. Everyone loves Montana! Who knew? We only have like ten people in the whole state, which makes you think no one likes it here. Actually, I think that the weather is what keeps people from moving here, which is just fine. Oh, and the crappy job market. And the lack of electricity.

What were your favorite BlogAway moments from this past year?

And .... I'm a little worried about summer. When the weather is gorgeous and the great-out-of-doors is calling, I know it can be hard to get to your computer. But I don't want you to miss out either, so I'm changing things slightly until school is back in session. There will still be a weekly post, with the exception of a few times when I will close shop for the week, like next week. We have our family reunion next week and since half you guys are family (by blood. The other half of you are the non-related kind of family.) and will making the pilgrimage to the hometown of the infamous Unabomber, I thought we could skip next week. So (almost) every week I will post a topic, but I will not close the topic on Wednesday night. I will leave it open the remainder of the month. That way if you are gone one week, you can still go back and comment on the post that you missed. SO THERE WILL NOT BE A THURSDAY POST DURING THE SUMMER EXCEPT FOR THE LAST THURSDAY OF THE MONTH. (I just typed by holding my pinky on "shift" like I forgot how to use the caps lock key. Weird.) That also means that I'm changing how I'm doing prizes. I will select the number of weeks (for June it will be 3) on Random.org and it will tell me which week will get the prize. For example, if the selected number is 2, the second post of the month will be the winning week, and then I will enter the number of comments into Random.org again and pick a winner. So when you comment each week, you will not know which week will have a prize. Does that all make sense? Is it fair? I might be generous and do 2 prizes in one month; I also might throw in a gag gift every once and a while too. OK?   OK!

In addition to telling me your favorite BlogAway memories, also tell me: what do you want to see more of? Any topic suggestions?

And: people are saying that blogging is dead. What do you think? Do yo still read blogs? Do you blog? What is your favorite form of social media? (I have a confession. Do not slap me, but I don't like Pinterest. It makes me feel like a Loserest. Incompetentest. Lazyest. You get the idea. Everything is so ... so perfect there. Do you feel that way?) Tell, tell, tell.