I thought it would be cool to have a post dated February 29th, but not cool enough to devote any time to it. So it is in this spirit that I present a few things that popped into my head last night:

Am I a bad mom because I don’t inspect my kids’ posteriors for toilet paper residue? I mean, that mama bear on those Charmin commercials really makes a big deal out of it. My mom never checked my butt and, quite frankly, I’m thankful. But perhaps this indicates some sort of cycle of neglect that, as an enlightened parent, I should rectify. The fact that ‘rectify’ sounds a lot like ‘rectum’ only adds to my puzzlement.

Those Cinnamon Toast Crunch commercials with the pieces of cereal eating each other is just plain creepy. It’s cannibalism for God’s sake.

I feel sorry for pails. Unless you’re building a sandcastle, you never ask for a pail. You always go for a bucket. It always rains in buckets. If you’re loaded, you’ve got buckets of money. When you die, you don't kick the pail. Alas, to always be considered the wimpy, effeminate cousin of the bucket. Poor pails.

I wonder who came up with the idea of fork-splitting English muffins. The whole concept seems unusual to me. Also, the concept of forking a muffin sounds more than a little dirty to me.

Anyway, my ten minutes is up. To make this post somewhat leap year-y, I will end with a freaky photo of a frog cake. The alliteration is just a bonus. Your welcome.

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Late addition:

I just found out one of my very first celebrity crushes died today. Click here to read a post I wrote a little while back featuring him.

I'll miss you, Davy. You always made me smile.

So it starts like this...

My friend, Rita, changed her Facebook profile pic to a cute photo of her family. I wrote on her wall, “I love your profile pic. Everyone looks so good!” She replied, “Well you never pick a bad one, do you???”

Hmm. Excellent point.
 
Then our friend, Karen, chimed in saying she was tempted to change her profile pic to something hideous. Of course, knowing Karen, she did just that. Minutes later, a goofy photo of her appeared.

I laughed. "Game on," I posted on her wall. Then I dug into our computer archives. An awful photo of me had to be somewhere in there. Well, guess what? I couldn't find one. 

That's right. After scrolling through thousands of photos, I couldn't find even one where I looked bad. Sound conceited? I'm not. It's much sadder. Truth is, I'm just vain.

Whenever I see a bad picture of myself I delete it, no questions asked. I think, "No big deal. A lot of people do it." And that's true, but here's the thing: in the 3000+ photos we have on our family computer, I’m only in about 60.

Yep. I'm in less than 2% of our photos. What a legacy.

Granted, I’m the cameraman. During trips and family gatherings it's usually me taking the photos. Still, that 2% statistic really stinks, and it's all because I have to look perfect. In my quest to look flawless for future generations, I quite literally cut myself out of the picture.

What spurred me to delete so many photos of myself? Could I have had that many bad hair days? Does my smile keep looking crooked or my eyes keep drooping or did the photos just look like the real me instead of the idealized one I had in my head?

Well, effective immediately, I'm going to stop discarding every bad photo of myself. Life isn’t perfect and neither am I. My friends and family still love me the way I am. Why can't I love myself, too?
 
Years from now, when I have a grandchild in my lap and we’re looking at old family photos, I may not look great but at least I’ll be there. Present.

In the picture.

As a blogger, I get to see the search terms people type into Google before finding their way here. Every month, right at the top of the list it’s always “what color season am i." I get it. If you want to look good it's something you need to know. What I don't understand is the search term that always takes second place:

big time rush heights

That’s right. Legions of people come here wanting to know how tall the members in that boy band are, and Kendall, James, Logan, and Carlos are all included on my page, How Tall is Your Celebrity Crush?

I wanted to do something to thank these people Yep. I'm a giver. At the same time I had a strong desire to totally goof off. What's a woman to do? I decided to download head shots of all four members of the band. Then I uploaded them at morphthing.com. and morphed them into various combos. Here's the silly slideshow that resulted:

Now I couldn't just ignore fans of other celebrities. Take the Twilight folks. They need love, too. So I went ahead and morphed Rob Pattison and Taylor Lautner. Not a bad combination.

And of course, I can't for get the Beliebers out there. Here's Justin Bieber morphed with Selena Gomez.

Moms also drop in quite a bit. For them I morphed Brad Pitt with George Clooney.

And for the guys, I found the Megan Fox/Jessica Alba mash up quite appealing.

Since President's Day is coming up, I uploaded pictures of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and morphed them, too.

And finally, just because I could, I morphed Kim Kardashian with Gollum from The Lord of the Rings:

As for the combo at the top? It's Madonna and Lady Gaga. Did you get that right? If so, treat yourself to a lollipop and a big 'ole bag of Cheetos.

Ciao!
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It happened again. One of my pleasantly perfect friends just posted a Facebook status (not evenly remotely) similar to this:

That’s right. She was fake flaunting her magnificent culinary skills, an area in which I’m sadly lacking. You see, as a mom, I have a terrible inferiority complex. I'm always worried I don't measure up. I don't want to be one of those women who bring home the bacon and fry in up in the pan. I want to one of those women who bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan, then crumble it into a savory bolognese sauce and serve it over pasta al dente.

Sadly, I am not one of those women. Still, I try my best. Take last night’s dinner. I think I fared pretty well....
 
For my husband, I went all out and served him Banquet’s salisbury steak meal.

Ahhh. There’s nothing like errant corn nibblets swimming in brown gravy to get the salivary glands going. Notice the potatoes, effortlessly stirred to make them extra fluffy. And that green stuff on the plate below the tray? A sprig of parsley, just like they do in fancy restaurants. Okay, so it’s tarragon. I didn’t have parsley. And yes, it’s just dried leaves out of a McCormicks bottle. But I made the effort so I demand some credit. Would anyone else ever think to do that?

Don’t answer that. Instead, take a look at the beverage so beautifully positioned by the plate. I could have made lemonade from scratch, but that would have denied my husband his daily requirement of Yellow dye #5. Instead, I went with Kool Aid lemonade -- made with an extra pinch of sugar because I’m sweet. Not only that, I served it up in a wine glass. Because I’m classy.

Since my kids rarely like the same thing that my husband and I do, I went a little crazy and microwaved something different for them: Banquet chicken pot pies.

Here's a sample. You may not be able to tell, but I went the extra mile and created a smilie face on the crust by poking holes on it with a fork. Yeah, that’s me. Just adding a little extra magic to the experience. And, yes, after I microwaved it the face did look like it threw up a little bit, but I think my kids still appreciated the effort.

Scooby Doo fruit snacks were added a a side dish to fulfill their vitamin C requirement. As for veggies? No worries. Carrot cubes and peas were already in the pie -- so much nutrition in one place! Of course, I served up more Yellow Dye #5 in Olive Garden kiddie cups. Nothing like a touch of whimsy to make the dining experience special.

So there you have it: family dinner made with a touch of Mom’s love. Please hold your applause until this post is over, which is now.

I’m taking a bow.

A few weeks ago I took the plunge and started using Twitter. It’s been a little scary, a lot of fun, and a complete waste of my time. Since I only have -15 followers, I thought I'd give myself a plug. If you find any of this mildly entertaining, go ahead and follow me by clicking the Twitter button on the right side bar.

Anywho, here’s a recap of some of my activity so far…

I expressed outrage at costumefail.com's classification of this hysterically adorable baby costume as a fail. It is clearly an epic win.

I offered a snippet of my sage advice: Don’t give a word to the wise. They don’t need it. Tell someone stupid.

I re-tweeted the soon to be immortalized quote from Rebel W/out a Cause (paraphrased due to potty mouth language) :  Maybe she’s born with it? Maybe it’s Maybelline? Dude, IT’S PHOTOSHOP.

I gave the links to some things I wrote on expatspost.com, like my sick fantasy involving a Hollywood actor and my chronic nightmares about mutant cotton balls.

I assured one of my friends that he could be manly and sparkly at the same time. (Go with me on this. His ego is at stake.) Then I asked another friend if the recent discovery that the cells she is experimenting on are bipolar makes her depressed or manically happy.

And lastly,  I tweeted the ever-so-excellent commercial Matthew Broderick made for Honda that I’m sure millions of people have seen by now. Ferris Bueller fans rejoice! Just see it again. It's that awesome.

Anyway, I’ve enjoyed my Twitter time so far. Care to join me over there? If not, no worries. Keep coming back here. I won’t hold it against you. Honest. ;)