A Blog about Nothing

Okay, not really "nothing." I have been doing some stuff.

But mostly, I do nothing. Here's a typical day in the life of summer Laura:

7:30-Wake up and bemoan the fact that Teacher Laura has ruined Summer Laura's ability to sleep in.
8:00-8:30- Spend some time with Chris before he goes to school.
8:30-10:00- Facebook.
10:00-10:30- Decide if it's sunny enough to go to the pool.
10:30- Scope out all the channels for a Teen Mom/Ghost Hunters/America's Next Top Model marathon. If marathon exists, this is the rest of the day. If no marathon, ....
11:00-11:30- Think about the awesome stuff in the freezer for lunch.
11:30-12:00- Cook one of the awesome freezer goods.
12:00-2:00- Facebook.
2:00-2:30- Decide what to cook for dinner. Only recipes that involve ingredients we don't have are applicable.
2:30-3:00- Go to grocery store to buy ingredients.
3:00-4:00- Facebook.
4:00- Realize you didn't thaw any meat for dinner. A) Throw some chicken in a bowl of water, or B) Go back to grocery store.
4:30-5:30- Greet Chris and talk about what we he did today.
5:30- Begin cooking dinner. If it's easy, you're doing something wrong.
6:30- Eat dinner and have nightly debate about whether we should ever cook this again.
7:00-10:00- Facebook.
10:00- Realize you didn't do dishes and do just enough to get the stinky out.
10:30- Go to bed.


So as you can see, there hasn't been much to blog about. But here are some awesome things I have done that broke up the monotony of the above schedule.

Girl Cousins Weekend in Birmingham
I have a lot of cousins. We are spread across Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, and Texas. We don't get to see each other a lot, so it was super fun to get together with the lady cousins for a girls weekend. Apparently, we didn't take any pictures while we were there, so here's a picture of us from Thanksgiving:

Me, Janice, Paula, Julia, Kathryn, and Ashley.

Julia is being awesome at a summer camp in Arkansas so she couldn't make it. Ashley was being awesome and hosted the whole shindig at her new house in B'ham. We played games. We watched movies. We painted our nails. We cooked delicious food. It was a lot of fun.

--Side bar-- I learned that all of my cousins are 10x more skilled at cooking than I am. Who knew it was less messy to blend the powdered sugar into the cream before turning on the electric mixer at high speed?!?

This is how Itchy rode the whole way there. He loved snorting in the air from the A/C. Weirdo.

 

 

Nail art!

Cutest part of the weekend! Ashley has two wiener dogs, Tucker and Sadie. Itchy absolutely loved them! Minus the pooping incident 5 minutes after we arrived to claim his territory, they got along just fine. We might have to get more wiener dogs to continue the adorableness of this picture.

Alright, onto other exciting things...

Hedwig is now a Davidson County resident.
(Hedwig is my car.)

It's somewhat inconvenient to move the same month that your car tags expire. It's a LOT cheaper to renew tags in Knox County, and there's no emissions test required, but apparently vehicle registration is the one piece of mail the post office won't forward to a new address. However, we don't really have anything confirming that we live in Davidson County either. But it's cool. I can apparently get away with anything without proof.

Last year when I got married, I prepared myself for an epic fight to change my name. I walked into the Social Security Administration building armed with every document on earth proving who I was and that I was, in fact, legally married. And what happened?

Absolutely nothing. They changed my name on my social security card without asking for any kind of proof. They didn't even ask to see my old SS card. Just asked my number and my new name.

That can't be okay.

Then I went to the DMV to get a new driver license with my new name AND address. Again, I had no proof of my new name because I had just ordered my new SS card. What happened?

Nothing. I filled out a form with my new name and new address, and I walked out with a new driver license in less than 10 minutes. I've heard horror stories about just changing your address and bringing enough documents to prove where you live, but no one even asked for a utility bill.

That's not okay either.

Today, I went to the county clerk's office to get new tags with a new county sticker. I brought utility bills, proof of address change with TDOT, emissions testing, etc. I was somewhat concerned because my car is still in my parents' name, and according to the website, you have to have Power of Attorney to change the address. I thought I'd try it anyway.

And yep, you guessed it. Nothing happened. The lady asked what my new address was, took my money, and gave me a shiny Davidson County sticker.

HOW is it possible to do all these things without proof? I know people get tired of all the red tape everywhere you go, but seriously?! I could have completely changed my entire identity without any proof of who I used to be. I feel like this is a case of "profiling" in reverse. It's rude to "profile" someone for looking shady, but we can't assume someone's not being shady because they look decent enough. It's a little disconcerting to think someone else, who is up to no good, could completely change their identity without so much as a question.

Let's stick to the rules, America. You're not inconveniencing me to make sure I'm not a serial killer before you give me a new social security card. I'll wait the extra 3 minutes.





Okay. Wow. I thought I had done more exciting things. I guess not. I was pretty excited about the return of So You Think You Can Dance and watching it with Leslie, but you probably don't care. (Unless you're Leslie, in which case, I'M SO EXCITED!!!!!!)

Stay tuned for next time. Chris and I are cooking up a pretty awesome post about why "organic" foods are not as awesome as everyone thinks they are. This will be written as a scientific paper with source citing and all. Be excited.