The Waiting Game

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I hate waiting. I’ve always been impatient. Now, it seems the universe is out to teach me my big lesson on patience. I apparently will begin by learning to wait on EVERYTHING.

I’m waiting for my hair to grow back in.

I’m waiting for the pimples to go away.

I’m waiting for the stress and anxiety levels to go back down.

I’m waiting for my vitamin deficiencies (the official word from my doctor) to resolve.

I’m waiting to feel hungry again (the supplements I’m on don’t mix well with an anxious stomach).

I’m waiting to see if they accept our offer on the house.

In the evenings I wait for Jason to get home, and then I wait for supper to be over, and then for the boys to go to bed, and I don’t even know why… I end up falling asleep shortly thereafter. What the hell am I waiting for?

Related: I’m waiting for good television to come back on.

I’m waiting to see if I can connect with some of my friends and blatantly use them to get out of my funk. I think I really need to connect with some of my girlfriends. Like, y’all might want to start a phone call calendar.  And plan a weekend. Like, NOW. For Sarah’s sanity.

Have I mentioned I am trying to wait patiently for my hair to go back to normal?

I’m waiting for that divine spark of creativity to ignite in me, and then I find exactly what I am meant to contribute, what I am meant to share of myself. Can’t forget to mention that I’m waiting on that!

It feels as if I’m waiting on everything, even if it’s not really the case. And this, THIS MONSTROUSLY HUGE AND ANXIETY PRODUCING (and oh, my God, will even more of my hair fall out with all of this anxiety???) waiting game, which is likely little more than a figment of my imagination, is making you wait on things. Like regular posts. Or the coffee mug Alex won with the Spam Comments contest (Sorry Alex! I promise I will send it to you soon!). Or for me to do anything of any worth on social media (I don’t even remember the last time I signed onto Twitter). You see? Phone call calendar… Regular check-ins for Sarah… Let's all chip in to get her back on track...

Or perhaps I should take a deep breath, my lumps, and get over myself. Which is what I’m trying to do.

While I wait.

The Results Are (Finally) In!

Who will get this mug???

Several (ahem,) weeks ago, I started a contest for the best spam comments. I was going to post the contest winner forever ago, but as long as I can blame the snow we’ve recently received, I will. It’s not often that it snows so bad that it sends the universities into full closure; and I get to milk this excuse along for quite some time.

The spam has been especially strong amongst the blogger-types as of late; it seems as if all the spam-bots of Twitter have decided to take a completely different approach, and move platforms.

Today alone, I rejected some interesting spam comments of my own:

“This paragraph is in fact a fastidious one it assists new the web people,

who are wishing in favor of blogging. Visit my page for cheap Oakleys.”

I think that’s the first time anyone has called me fastidious. And:

“When thesе trоubles ѕtart

to ѕet in, men will сome aсross themselves going tο the wаshroom a number of occаsions a night, getting couple of

reѕtful nightѕ of sleep, anԁ typically

locate themselνes гeаlly fгustrated oг embaгrassed.”

I think the last one was supposed to be some type of poem, although I can’t be sure… That being said, no comment yet has beat the hermit crab saga of a few weeks ago.

Several of you submitted comments of your own for the contest, and they were awesome! After a week, I asked my two judges (yes, we had a panel) Josh and Lance (check out his blog AND his new book) to help me weigh in on the best comment submitted.

So, without further ado, our honorable mention goes to: The Six-Fingered Monkey! His spam comment attempted to lure him with potential ways to block further spam comments.

And, our winner is…. Alex from Late Enough! Her spam submission involved a rather impressive level of insult before being directed to a website for cheap Nikes. Congratulations, Alex! Go ahead and hit me up via email (on my Contact page) and I’ll grab the information I need to send you your “Best Spam Comments’ coffee/tea mug.

Of course, if you would like your own mug, you can check out my Zazzle store over here à. I even have a pin us moms can wear for when we temporarily go on strike. I figured it’s much easier to wear a pin than it is to carry a picket sign…

I want to send a big thank you to everyone who played along! I know we talk of this time and again, but the fact remains… I have made amazing friends through the blogging community that I would have otherwise not made. Even when the spam and stupidity starts to weigh me down, I can remember just how much fun and inspiration the interwebs delivers to us each and every day.

A Contest: The Spam, It Keeps On Coming

I know, I know, the blogging has not been much over the past few weeks. Being a basketball mom, and also winning that grant (Remember the grant? Remember the large quantities of chocolate and wine I consumed during the seven weeks I worked on writing the grant proposal? Yeah, we won that puppy! Hooray! Oh, wait… that means I have some more work to do…) has kicked my butt.

Despite the fact that I haven’t written anything in weeks, there’s one thing that hasn’t changed at all on this blog. Something that you don’t see. Something that occurs on the back end of things. Something that requires nearly constant attention. That something? It’s the spam comments. Oy, the spam comments. I think this is how we know we’ve made it in the blogging world.

It seems as if as soon as the spam comments started to disappear in the Twitterverse (I don’t know exactly how they fixed those spam bots, but let me know, Twitter, how I can express my gratitude), they started popping up on my old blog posts. By the dozens. Each and every day. Most of them are boring. Most of them don’t even register on one’s consciousness. And then… then… there are the spam commenters who up their game. Dramatically.

In the course of one day a few weeks ago, I received one who graciously complimented me on my blog, and then in the very next sentence told me that I was a horrible writer because my post titles. The next sentence directed me to their site to buy Chinese tobacco. Wait. What? Say that middle part again?

The next one I deleted was a post-length story about how the spam commenter’s daughter had recently found a seashell on the shore, held it up to her ear, and then proceeded to be pinched by the resident hermit crab in the shell. The detail given in the story (which they just had to send to me, so that SOMEONE would know the story) was astounding. Then I was directed to buy their Chinese Viagra tobacco. Because, one should feel multicultural when smoking something that may require them to seek medical attention in about four hours.

Reading these comments prompted me to immediately go to the Facebook page and ask if anyone was interested in judging a spam commenting contest, and also, what the appropriate prize for one who wins such a contest. Of course, SPAM is a natural fit, but frankly, I’m unwilling to even purchase a can of SPAM in the store, much less ship it to someone as a prize. So, I’ve had to come up with something better. As lance pointed out, spam backwards is maps, so I could give maps as a prize. Nope, I didn’t like that one, either. Or I could give the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs as a prize (they have Maps as a song title, as do the Fray and another band—The Front Bottoms—whom I’ve never heard of), but sending a CD as a gift seems to be assuming a lot about your musical tastes.

So, I’ve decided that I want to make some coffee mugs, Zazzle-style. And what better way to reward the winner of the best spam comment than with a mug that says just that: 

 Then I had to make a t-shirt, just for fun:

  

This Zazzle thing could become dangerous... But, I digress… So, let’s talk about this contest, why don’t we?

The rules: Starting today, you can enter the contest with the best/funniest/weirdest spam comment you’ve ever received on your blog by commenting on this post! Share the link to this post with all of your bloggy friends, so they can compete as well! I have a panel of judges (I know! It’s like it’s official or something! A panel!) who are going to be judging your entries for the next week (through next Tuesday night). Then, next week, I’ll announce the winner, and any honorable mentions. I’m betting we’ll have some honorable mentions…

Did You Miss Me?

I desperately need to blog, so I am going to fix that right now… Even though I don’t have anything particularly poignant to say.

Although… and I know you’re bound to be just as excited as I am about this… I am done with the grant proposal at work! Woohoo!

What? Did I forget to mention that thing? Oh. I’ve spent the past few weeks writing a grant proposal at work, asking for money. Which is really the only reason why one would write a grant proposal, but…

Do you know how difficult (and time consuming) it can be to write a big, thesis-long, technical thing asking for money? And explaining how you will wisely and responsibly spend that money? I don’t like asking the neighbors to check the mail while we’re on vacation! Can you imagine how odd I feel asking for fistfuls of cash—even when it’s not my own?

I did find time to put the tree up, though...

 If I had participated in NaNoWriMo this year, I’d have been about half-way done, which is a vast improvement over how far I got last year. So maybe grant-proposal writing is my thing.

Nevertheless, the proposal is done, edited, and gathering signatures as we speak. And this means that the few weeks of being able to think of nothing other than the proposal are over!

Unless we win, and then I’ll be spending a lot more time thinking about the whole thing. Which is kind of the point, but hopefully, it won’t suck out all of the creative writing juices from my brain, like the writing of the proposal did.

Also? I think I’ve gained about ten pounds during this grant proposal writing process. Writing a grant requires that you eat chocolate, and have wine with dinner. And not exercise. That’s the important piece, there. I’d probably appreciate it if the weight gain thing would stop now too.

How could anyone resist this wine??? They couldn't.

Although—here’s an idea—I could go back to my Fitspo motivational posters, and my blog posts about how losing weight sucks and why exercise is the devil’s work!

You see? The juices are already starting to flow after just starting a blog post.

Except this is really a blog post to nowhere. While the big names, like The Bloggess, are incorporating half a dozen different animals (dead, alive, mythical, and saintly) in one post, and SDL, who came out of the closet as not-straight this week… here I am with no coherent thesis statement and no idea of an ending to this train wreck.

Maybe the proposal burned up that area of my cerebral cortex…

Or... maybe it's creepy owls who are now the newest thing in house accessories...

 Although, I was able to write some fun posts for Sprocket Ink over the past few weeks, and I’ve not yet had the chance to share them with you here! So, let’s have a recap of some of the good ones:

I was amazed that our culture needs Legos to explain the Bible…

I made fun of Lance Armstrong’s Twitter skillz.

I got to applaud Cory Booker, and…

I wondered what all of you would be doing with your Powerball money, had you won.

You know what? That was almost like a weekend wrap-up! Which I haven’t done forever! Perhaps I’ll bring that back as well! And maybe a giveaway? I haven’t had the chance to do one of those in a while… And didn’t I promise everyone a post of the vacuum that Twitter gave me?

And… I’m back!