Expanding my muffin in the name of charity.

Let’s face it.

Me? In a charity pancake eating contest against former rock stars and a local weather guy?

I don’t stand a chance.

I can talk smack, but in this case? I can’t bring it.

What I can bring? An audience and maybe some donations.

The Indy 500 is a big huge deal out here, the entire state turns into one giant black and white checkered flag for the entire month of May. Potato chips are also perpetually on sale. There’s something called Carb Day every year before the race and it has always involved beer and music.

However, the Carb Day I’m involved in? Carb Day for a Cause. And that Cause? St. Vincent de Paul food bank, which feeds over 3,200 families each week. No beer, just pancakes and rock stars. With tattoos and trendy jeans. (I personally will have stretchy pants and Hannah Montana on my iPod.)

The goal is to raise money by having a bunch of us Indy Social Media dweebs trash talk each other and make a sticky spectacle of ourselves this Saturday. I of course would adore any donations, from $1 to $1,000. I’d also love for you to come.

Time: May 23, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. (Parade starts downtown at noon!)

Location: Locally Grown Gardens, 1050 E 54th St

Cost: Spectators can get a $10 all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast, which will also go to the food bank

I’ve kind of become the social media poster child of feeding hungry people in Indianapolis. Thanks to your efforts moosh in indy readers were able to win $5K for Gleaner’s Food Bank from Quaker Oats back in February. A month later y’all helped me get a truck full of food donated to the same food bank from Tyson Chicken.

Social media can do so much more than suggest the best new app for your iPhone or the best place to get all of your political news. It can feed the hungry and bring together a community, no matter how big or how small.

Thanks for any help in this bum expanding effort.

carb day for a cause

I am the pregnancy rule.

I’m writing this on the 17th of May, a day before my period is scheduled to come and nineteen days after I ovulated (and made out appropriately.)

Which means for the past nineteen days I have interpreted any tiny fluctuation in my existence to mean I am either pregnant or not. For anyone who has ever longed to be pregnant you know exactly what I’m talking about. Suddenly everything you do with yourself from the day you ovulate could have bearing on the entire future health of your hypothetical fetus.

Feeling a little barfy? It’s because you’re pregnant, ignore the fact that you ate some seriously questionable chicken fingers chased by lukewarm fruit salad and a flat soda the night before. Commence eating nothing but Gatorade and Saltines.

Cookies and cream ice cream for dinner one night? You just ruined their chance at a Harvard education by dumbing them down with chunks of frozen chocolate cookie in your first trimester.

Forgot to take your pretatal Flinstone vitamin on Wednesday? Congratulations your pretend (or is it?) kid is now going to have a flipper.

Fell down the stairs?* Whoops, you just knocked the little imaginary embryo loose and you are completely out of luck, thanks for trying, come back again later when you’re a little more graceful.

I even convinced my husband to go out at almost midnight to procure me a Cherry Slushee because there’s a chance I could be pregnant and the violent vomiting could begin any! day! now! rendering the enjoyment of a Cherry Slushee null and void for the next nine months because they burn so bad on the way back up.**

Speaking of vomiting, with the way my last pregnancy turned out*** I seriously consider everything I put in my mouth, because it could be the first thing to come up. (Seriously, with the moosh? I felt fiiiine, then one day, I kinda had a tummy ache, I ate some Cheerios for breakfast at 8:31am MST and at 8:43 am MST on April 15, 2004 those suckers came rocketing back up in the last stall on the left at Beehive Clothing. Nothing stayed down for the next 35 weeks. The last thing I vomited up? Lime Slushee in the delivery room, I told that nurse I was scheduled to puke just after 10 am MST and to hurry up and give me the Zofran already, however she went with a ‘wait and see’ approach. Lime slushee puke? 10:08 am, Zofran administered? 10:12 am. THANKS NURSE.)

So here I sit in limbo. Wanting so badly to troll etsy for baby stuff that was never around when the moosh was a baby.  Ignoring the overwhelming desire to enter every online contest for onesies and burp cloths and bedding sets. Putting off buying one of those “I’M A BIG SISTER” t-shirts for another month**** because frankly there is a possibility that the moosh may never be a big sister.

My time would be better spent vacuuming than dreaming up ways to tell my husband, my daughter, my family and all of you magnificent witty ways to announce my pregnancy.

But that’s just the thing, it’s so all encompassing, it changes everything. If I were pregnant it would mean that spare bedroom in a new house would be a baby’s room, not an office. People constantly offer the well meaning advice of “Just don’t worry about it and it will happen.” or “You think about it too much, just relax.” and then there’s my favorite, “I had this friend who gave up years ago and went out and adopted twins and a month later she found out that she was pregnant with triplets! Can you imagine!!!!1!!”

I have to remember when it comes to magnificent stories of conception they are all the exception. For every woman out there who miraculously becomes pregnant after a dozen years trying or after coming back from cancer or after going through a heart wrenching adoption, there are a dozen more of us out there who are the rule.

Those of us who pee on sticks every month to a single line or a blinking display of “NOT PREGNANT.” Those of us who will never become stories of “miraculous pregnancies.” Those of us destined to be ordinary infertile people that most of the pregnant world will feel awkward and uncomfortable around.

To those of you who are the exceptions? You’re welcome, because without people like me your stories would never be considered miracles.*****

_______________________________________

*I actually haven’t fell down a flight of stairs for almost a year. Yay me!

**Personal experience.

***For those of you who are new here I basically barfed myself into emaciation while pregnant from a soul sucking condition known as Hyperemesis Gravidarum.

****Honestly? I’ve been putting off this purchase every month for the last three years.

*****And that? Just sounded a lot more snarky than I intended. Maybe that’s why infertiles make fertiles feel so awkward?

faith.

I have often been criticized for my choice of religion. I am also criticized for not fitting a certain stereotype within it. I make jokes about enjoying my Dyson, I sometimes think a hot toddy would put a nice end to a difficult day  and I can fall victim to judgement and jealousy faster than the moosh can spot my hidden loot of Oreos.

All that being said I would not give up on my faith for anyone or anything.

Sure there’s times when it’s easier to stand behind my convictions with a burning testimony.

But there’s also times when it’s really hard. When something I’ve worked so hard for never quite seems to work out in the way I think it should.

Infertility is an excellent example of this.

There is a huge part of my heart that wants to be done with all the tests and waiting. But there is also a very rebellious part of my heart that knows it’s just not my time and it’s not up to me to say ‘when.’

There’s another kerfuffle currently brewing in my life  that I have thrown myself and my faith head first into. I want so badly to see even just one tiny improvement. To know all the sacrifice, fasting, tears and hours spent on my knees in prayer has helped.

That we physically can’t take another persons pain, suffering or burdens upon ourselves is frustrating.

Some people are given too much. And it’s not fair.

I may not have the faith to move mountains right now, but I still have it.

And I hope it’s helping.

Dysonummanumma.

In my family I have this crazy aunt who insists her carpets have perfectly lined up vacuum marks. She even vacuums on her way out the front door so as not to leave any footprints behind in her perfectly manicured carpet.

I have become that crazy aunt.

Because internets? I GOT A DYSON.

It was a culmination of gifts for surviving law school. my birthday, mother’s day, putting up with Cody and of course my all encompassing awesome.

It feels completely natural to hug it. And I do, regularly.

I need to get a house so I can have more square footage to vacuum. (And no, I’m not kidding.)

Want to be my friend? Come through my front door and throw glitter on the floor. Not only will it give me an excuse to vacuum, can you imagine how awesome glitter would look swiriling through the high impact polycarobonate canister?

NaBloPoMo for May here at moosh in indy has been foiled by my intense love for an appliance that sucks.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=4621485&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1

The Maiden Voyage of the moosh Dyson from moosh in indy. on Vimeo.

An open letter to motorcycle riders.

Dear man on the motorcycle next to me,

I get it, you like to ride your motorcycle. It’s fast, it’s good on gas and it makes you feel manly to have a loud engine between your legs. It lets you cheat in traffic jams, gets you into the HOV lane and gets you all best parking spots. I also understand the “Motorcycles are Everywhere” campaign. You’re small and quick, you must be watched out for by distracted drivers.

Much like people must watch out for little kids, especially when they are holding a magic marker or safety scissors.

But here’s the thing. If you want me to watch out for you, quit being a risk taking derfwad assuming that I’ll accommodate your lane changes without a blinker, your passing on the right, your crossing over the double lines and weaving between cars simply because a billboard and a few bumper stickers tell me to.

If you want my respect on the road you’re going to have to give the rest of us some too.

xo,

Casey

What do you get when you cross a Jew and a Mormon in google chat?

My favorite blogger has always been and I dare say always will be Metalia. If you do not read her, go read this post, come back and you’ll know why I adore her so.

If you do read her?

Enjoy this-what happens when an overtired Jew and a punchy Mormon stay on chat too late.

************************************

M: How WAS the Hallmark thing, btw? (Asking about the day I spent touring Hallmark world headquarters in Kansas City last month.)

C: Amazing. I want to have its babies.


M: Yeah?

C: When Gabi says “Casey sort of fainted when she encountered this room. ” she meant “Casey sort of died when she encountered this room.” My dream is to work there. Ironically Kansas City is where we wanted to end up in the first place.

M: MAKE IT HAPPEN. You are one of those people that seems to be able to do that.

C: And then i can have hallmark babies and send everyone Hallmark cards about them.

M: DO IT DO IT DO IT “So, you’ve gotten into your first fender bender!” “Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day” etc., etc.

C: “There really are some days kids are only good for tax deductions!”

M: HA! “You know what you do for a pulled groin? Nothing. Feel better…whenever”
Okay, so maybe that one’s not the best
But someone in my office just pulled his groin!

C: it made me lol.

M: What card do I send him, Casey? THERE ARE NO PULLED GROIN CARDS!

C: “You make me LOL when no one else can, Happy Anniversary.” “If a blogger LOLS and there is no keyboard to type with, DID IT REALLY HAPPEN?”

M: There should be twitter-centric cards, too. “If I could follow you 10 times, I would. Happy Valentine’s Day, lover.”
“Sorry you only got five comments on that last post, Blogger. You’ll get StumbledUpon soon!”

C: “I love you enough NOT to send an e-card…cherish me.”
“Don’t let the fail whale get you down, sport!”

M: “I want to retweet our love for all the world to see.” So, basically, what I’m saying here is that you and I should MAKE OUR OWN GREETING CARD COMPANY.

C: NO KIDDING. etsy here we come.

M: PEOPLE WOULD BUY THEM, I don’t know if that’s sad or not, but whatever.

C: I KNOW. I’ll make a potato stamp of the twitter bird!

M: I have ribbon, so.

C: I have a graphic design degree!

M: I have…still, just some ribbon
but it’s pretty!
pretty ribbon!

C: never underestimate ribbon, hallmark had frillions of ribbons. FRILLIONS!

M: And also, I can do calligraphy. Frillions, you say?

C: I have good handwriting…

M: We should do this, this might be my sleep deprivation talking, but STILL.

*****

Who wants to be our first customer?

(Oh, and my legs from the other day? Me being too lazy to unpack my big girl razor and instead using the disposable two blade razor which was readily available, and also which was apparently half bloodthirsty vampire.)

pancaking my battles.

the only true way to enjoy a hot dog.

Two pairs of mismatched babylegs with a summer dress and snowboots on a warm day in May?

*sigh* If you must.

“OH HAI, CASEY? This is Pledge. We want to hire you, come film the dirtiest corners of your house and have a celebrity host judge your complete lack of skill at cleaning.”

*sigh* I know I need help.

Fine.

I’ll tell you all my deepest darkest cleaning secrets.

(ENJOY! Some of the other bloggers have PICTURES!)

“HI! Casey? Want to be a local pancake eating celebrity for charity?”

*sigh* I’m so picky about my pancakes.

But for charity?

OOOHHKAAAY.

Who knew writing about my life on the internet would land me face first in a pile of pancakes with a new spring in my cleaning step? (Yeah right, so I really doubt this Trish Suhr lady can fix a whole lot. *hotmessrighthere* BUT SHE CAN TRY.)

BLOODY LEG PHOTO ANSWERS COMING TOMORROW! PROMISE!

In case the moosh grows up some more while you’re not around.

There are certain things Miss LeMoosh says that I don’t want to correct because it’s just too cute.

I don’t even care if you think it’s cute.

Her grandparents read this blog and demand moosh cuteness.

Hippopotamus-Hippa-Muss A-Pot-A-Mus

Fabulous- Fam-U-Mus

Watch the Backyardigans? There’s a song that goes “Oh the things! That Goblin has grabbed!”

The moosh’s version? “OH THE THINGS! THAT GOBLIN HAS CRAAAABS!”

“Gonna Get You” By Blondie? “One way, or another I’m gonna get you get you get you. One way, or another...”

“Gonna Get You” By the moosh? “One way or an udder, I’m gonna getchu getchu getchu. One way mama tiger..”

Picture by Cory Bracey Footprints of Grace Photography.

While at the zoo, “Hey! moosh! Why do you think those Lemurs are acting so bonkers?”

“Because they’re LAME-ers.”

While showing her dad a toilet paper penguin she made at school, “Hey dad, wanna play with my penguin? IT’S FRESH!”

It’s fresh indeed.