• I run at 5 a.m. That's 5 in the alien mutant hour, people. I'm telling you.

  • I write posts about knights and knicknack-like knives (honestly, what even is that?) while wearing unflattering polka-dot suspender shorts.

  • Planking is one of my all-time favorite activities. "Let us lay face-down on the ground now and take a picture. It will be cool, I promise." Yes, let's!

  • I could enjoyably survive on water and chunky peanut butter straight from the jar for the rest of my days, which would consequently be reduced by two decades, give or take a decade.

  • It's been weeks since I've woken up without discovering I've either chucked my retainers at the wall or stacked them neatly on my bedside table in my sleep.

  • I just spent an hour contemplating how I might go about sewing an ROUS costume (Rodent of Unusual Size).

  • Favorite flavor of candy? Butter popcorn. This combination of sweet and lard is a sacred matrimony that I shan't hear anything of being defiled.

  • Sometimes I find myself staring at a wall, completely awake, and when I come to I can't remember anything that happened during the previous ten minutes. Probably I was beamed up and worked on.

  • Lady friends, I enjoy visits from Auntie Flow (nickname credit to Meg...if she even knew about this blog) because they explain and justify any recent flaws in temperament and my consumption of indecent amounts of peanut-butter pretzels dipped in Nutella, and they also mean I will mysteriously drop 3 pounds within the week.

  • Occasionally when l write the word "I" l use a lowercase "L" instead of an uppercase "i" because such undetected tomfoolery brings me twisted satisfaction.


No, I suppose these things are not conducive to human behavior.
I think I'm an alien

What do you get when you cross a competitive tennis-playing animal with a Jordan?
A ping-pong match filled with "OHH my LANTA!!"s and the repeated proclamation, "This is rubbish."

Plus one very pleased Laura, because no matter who loses, she wins in matters of free entertainment and mockability.



What do you get when you cross an All-Idahoan, potato-loving fiend with this Mormon girl from Utah?
An artistically sculpted, deliciously-nutritious loaf of sweet potato bread filled with raisins and walnuts and all sorts of other happy surprises. EAT IT, VIRGINIA!!!!!



What do you get when you combine two ever-hungry beastly runner guys and their "I will eat more than my money's worth or so help me" female sidekick with a restaurant full of all-you-can-eat meat and salad bar?
Nothing to do with said visit from Freddy

An hour of solid green time. That means go go go and don't stop. Those quail eggs, chicken hearts, and sirloin tips weren't going anywhere but down for at least a day, depending on impressiveness of individual digestive systems, and I guess even then it still went down. 
(Please accept my nearly sincere apologies for that unnecessary elaboration.) 

Tucanos, keep up the grilled pineapple and heaven-sent tenderized Brazilian meat and I will court you more intensely than Edward ever courted Bella. Take into account that I will never leave you and I will double in quantity the number of nights spent creepily watching your sleeping merchandise from a chair I will find in the corner after sneaking through a window.



What do you get when you cross two old running buddies who are both insane and haven't seen each other in three months?



Redneck stories about eating roadkill rattlesnakes, riding dumpster-found mattresses down the crick, exploding fruit, and a plethora of pant-tearing tales. Really, a plethora. Like, if I were to count the stories on my right hand of the various missionaries and Walmart sales associates who spied our stripy skivvies this summer (and I thought only girls went for the patterny breed of unders), I would run out of fingers.




What do you get when Virginia is not there to stop you? 

The following plank:

We talked about it, but forgot to actually do this together before Freddy left. 
Er, I mean.....look how small Freddy got real fast?
(and also, Jordan bought a scooter and I wear cool clothing)

A visit from The Fred

...or something.

Occassion: Father's Birthday
Setting: Living Room

All the Hubbub: Buckyballs
They're super rad.
You can do anything with them.

Instant wristband?
Pointless magnetic pyramid?
Computer screen destroyer?
Hypnotic ball on a chain?
Ammunition for straw gun pointed at the heads of nearby brethren?

Why yes, I do believe I did say anything.

My youngest brother-child questioned whether or not he could eat said pricey magnetic magic balls.


Mom: "That would be one expensive waste."

Bam. I knew they were lying when they said I was adopted.
Punday Monday

He must be a philosopher.

"Ok mom, here's what you have to do. See this wall? You've just got to take a motorcycle and run it through the wall. Yes, it has to be a motorcycle."

This picture happened in my parents' dark bedroom from my dad's phone, which only emailed the top half of the picture to me. Sorry, I do try for you.
Jordan Says


 Knowing I have a knack for knitting knots in my knickers' knees


after kneading them with my knuckles on a knoll,


 I need a knight

 with a knickknack-like knife

 to knock the knob off 

 that nearby kneeling knave's knapsack.


 You know?

Logical, if you learn Laura's lip-style

Jake,
I hope you "found" my blog and are reading this, because I am now going to present your backside to the general public all in the name of good planking.

. . . . . . . . .

Hello blorld. I cannot be sure how many of you have been cultured in the art of planking, but it is now time to leave that lazy summer tan on your back deck where it belongs and put on your college clothes.
Yes, you are getting a ejukayshun. 

Planking is a competitive sport as well as an art form; 
kind of like ribbon gymnastics but less gay. 

Example:

Good Form, Squire

This is Jake. We plank.
He's real good at planking on treacherous rocks in nature. 
It's pretty neat.

Points are awarded for good form, creativity, and extremeness.

My roommate Sarah challenged me to a plank war. I pray that she doesn't beat me up for linking you to her post to explain this better. Above is a fine example of a young man taking the challenge seriously and making the competition threatening as well as spicy.

Below is an example of some girl who has never planked before.

Silly Head. Literally.

I extend the contest to all of you. This is a good activity and a form of exercise. It will make you buffer, tanner, smarter, and popular. I am sorry, but all of us are significantly lacking in all these departments, so you'd be wise to consider this one.

As an added incentive, if you participate and blog your pictures linking to this post so I can find you (in comment form as well as in the post), I will have an impartial judge award points. Winner winner gets a plank and a dedicatory feature up in this piece. Really. I will carve your face and name into a wooden board and mail it to you, even if you live in Texas. Or Cambodia. Believe me when I say it will be extraordinary. Spread the word if you like.

Deadline: August 3
Be there. Get planking. Entries are not limited. Neither is fun. 

Plank'd

...I guess giving off the stench of sweat and awesomeness makes me a man flute too. We can be friends now Dylie boy, as if that were ever even a problem before.



If it upsets you that I posted this video, you may challenge me to a duel. Perhaps a "shove-pizza-down-throat" duel would be appropriate. I feel like my mouth is pretty big these days.
Feel free to ignore this, unless your name is Dylan and you're a man flute.

Jordan is my guru. He makes everything simple and logical and obvious.

"Ok, this what you have to do. Here is the ice and here is the hammer. You see the hammer? You've just got to take it, and break the ice."


Yes, I also enjoy how he is wearing the same outfit every time I get one of these. My brother is a stallion. 
Jordan Says

It's called 2 Truths and a Lie. You may have heard of it. I offer 3 (West Side!) statements. You decide what's real. Let's try this out.


1) I tried loco weed last night. Mmmm.....loco weed.

2) I saw a dog today.

2.5) My sunburn ate Ocean Potion for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and second dinner. Then I shed a layer of skin. You may find a hollow shell of my body over there, on the ground. Ewww.

3) I am wearing pants.





    ANSWER KEY - beware: don't look at word "answer" for long. brain will 'splode.

         
   






*Disclaimer: Drugs are bad. Loco weed is a vegetable. Word of wisdom, people. Let's keep it.    
Let's play a game

I recently stumbled upon a truly disturbing statistic claiming that the rate of illiteracy in the United Sates is increasing as technology advances and becomes more widespread. While I will not say that the correlation between the two is unreasonable evidence for causation (though any good statistician most certainly would), I will present more believable grounds for the illiteracy trend.
When I was a girl in the middle-school stage of life, I loved to read. Give me a summer and give me a paperback, and I would love you forever but never thank you, as I’d be too absorbed in my Janette Rallison novel to think of another actual living, breathing, real-life Muggle human being.
However, what is one to do with their hands if they find a reading position where using them to stabilize the book is unnecessary? (As with the Kindle—perhaps technology does play into the equation to some extent.) The fact is, as I read there was not enough remaining brain function to compute that my hands had become possessed and were doing their worst to transfigure me into a more female version of Trump Boy.
That evening I ventured up, pale-faced, from my basement cave to expose myself to sunlight (that dangerous menace), and those unfamiliar peer human relations. It was then, as I lifted a hand to smooth my tresses, that I realized a bald spot. Albeit small, the creature was obvious and embarrassing. I christened it Harriett. Realizing that my reading hands were to blame, I gave myself a comb-over, told my books “You’re Fired,” and left my leisurely reading habits in the past, moving on to the more sensible and popular hobbies of thrifting and crocheting. Thus my fashion sense peaked, and my literacy sense plummeted.
I doubt my experience is unique, and I trust that others have suffered with similar or identical reading predicaments of their own. I would propose that the true problem is that an apocalypse is upon us. Zombies? A mere distraction. Protect yourself against your hands and your bald spots. There is no escape and little control to be had. Prospects are grim. The severing of ligaments may become necessary. The use of infomercial hair-growth products might become essential. The preservation of literacy is worth the sacrifice. Do what you must. Prepare now.
Illiteracy: Just blame Harriett

Sure this week was full of fathers popping soda and myself feeling candied as I ate my very syrupy cherry pie before attending a concert featuring Bernstein’s Candide Overture, but the sweetest pun of all (ding!) touched me deeply today while sitting in the office, editing an annual report. I was the one sitting. The pun was actually upright.
I positively beamed with pride upon reading this one, and I’ve never even met the humble mastermind. Beamed, I tell you. It would be easy to believe the person I share working quarters with mumbled “weirdo,” but I prefer to suppose that in her own work she had happened upon a picture of an abnormally hairy educator and felt clever about dubbing him “beardo.”

Enjoy this picture and caption accompanying an article regarding students in the Renewable Energy program:


“These students are OUTSTANDING in their field.”
HAHA!! HAHAHA!!!!!!! 
Bah. Dumb. Ching.
The next person to produce a pun to draw tears from my ducts gets a feature the subsequent Punday Monday. I'm a little misty-eyed right now all over again. So proud.
Punday Monday

Go get a massage. If you are one of the brave, the proud, the few, the Simpletons, I swear you will giggle off your rocker. Or maybe your dog. I honestly don't know what we Simpletons are riding these days.

Why a massage? They are expensive and weird.

True and true.

Solution: Wait for a half-off weekend at a place where you can lie in a room with 30 other equally naked bodies, separated by thin curtains. You will probably be welcomed by a "therapist" who is 5 years younger than you, half your size, and wearing braces. Huzzah for the students. Huzzah for cheapskatianess.

Solution: Amidst the eclectic relaxation music, listen for the rotating and reoccurring sound of bums being karate chopped. I dare you not to smile.
Simpleton Pleasure #7: Mmm, a Massage


My name is Laura and I live in Utah. Obviously. I can probably quote the first four episodes, too.
I know you've seen this already, but that's ok.

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