I now bequeath

Valentine is my lovely new blogging friend. Her blog, "Letters from Valentine" is new and fun, and I've enjoyed it very much so far.

This award was given with no rules, so I decided to pass it along to three of my favorite blogging friends.

My mom always tried to teach me that there were more important things about people than a sense of humor, but it didn't stick. All three of the following ladies make me laugh and, just as importantly, they seem to get me when I'm trying to be funny, too.

First, I will introduce you to my friend Diana. She is a blogging friend and a real-life friend. I forget which came first. I met her when she and her family delivered a delicious plate of fudge to my house when I first moved to the neighborhood, but I feel like I really got to know her when I started stalking her blog. It was then that I realized that she was my kind of girl, for sure. Before I was brave enough to leave a comment, I read this post, in which Diana inflicts serious psychological harm on an Iceberg drive-thru employee. I also enjoyed her account of a friendly (or not-so-friendly) race with a fellow neighborhood runner. I was sure the dog in the story (which she pepper-sprayed) was mine, but it wasn't. Which actually wouldn't make sense anyway, since Diana has requested to borrow my dog. Anyway, she's a funny lady and I'm super lucky to live right across the street from her.

Next, I would like you to meet Julie. Julie was in my brother's high school class, so I knew her a little, but I feel like I know her better now thanks to the wonders of technology.

(I think this calls for a soundtrack. And in fact, this song applies to both of the recipients so far. I know Julie better now through blogging than I did when I used to see her at school all the time, and Diana met her one true love, the one who makes her salvivate, online.)

Now, back to Julie. She's always looking out for the rest of us. Like when she told us to say nothing about other people's baby names. Ever. This post also contains valuable advice about staying virtuous as a teenager and other "Jules" of wisdom. Ha ha ha.... I made that up myself. Oh, and here she saves you a whole $5 (or however much a magazine costs) by reviewing an issue of Cosmo and offering her own helpful tips. You know what kind of tips I'm talking about.

And last but never least, my former nemesis, Jen. Jen was my roommate at Ricks College who went from being my buddy to my enemy who kept too much water in the fridge and cut me off from her wardrobe after an especially heated argument in which I accused her of keeping too much water in the fridge. Years later we reconnected on MySpace and buried the hatchet. Now I consider her one of my favorite people and dearest friends. As long as we don't have to share a refrigerator, Jen and I should be just fine. Especially because I wouldn't even fit in her clothes anymore. And she lives about 2,000 miles away.

ANYway...

Jen has aspirations to become Dooce II, and how could I blame her? Who wouldn't love to make $40k a month from their blog? So I'm doing my part to bring Jen fame and fortune by introducing my tens of readers to her.

Jen always has great ideas for home decorating and she might be a little bit addicted to spray paint. And she likes the same TV shows that I like, which is really important.

So Diana, Julie and Jen, I hope you feel honored! :) I'm not giving you any rules. Post the award on your blog or don't. Pass it along or don't. But know that I think you're all awesome.

P.S. You might notice that today is Thursday and I'm not supposed to be online Tuesday and Thursday. But Dave didn't unplug the internet. I could pretend not to be online to save face, or I could just carry on. But my house is clean-ish and I made cookies like a good frau... so that's what matters, right? And my son is learning a lot about teamwork as he watches "Wonderpets" on my lap.

Left to my own

On Tuesday night as my smart, adorable husband was on the brink of sleep, I remembered something.

"Hey hon..." I whispered. "This is a really bad time for me to mention this, but have you heard about that bad computer virus that's supposed to activate tomorrow?"

"Huh? Where did you hear about it?" he asked, sure that I had fallen for an April Fool's joke.

I told him I had heard about it on the radio and read more about it online.

"What's it supposed to do?" he asked, expecting me to have something smart to say, which I didn't. He's a database administrator, so any explanation I would have tried to give would have just sounded stupid.

So with 15 minutes remaining before the clock would turn over to April 1, I ran downstairs to find something smart to say.

Back upstairs: "It could turn our computer into a robot."

Smart, right?

Dave hadn't heard anything about it, and since I'm obviously not to be trusted handling it on my own, we decided we would unplug the internet until he could get some sleep and learn more about it, and make sure our computer was safe.

(Reading more about it today I see that there wasn't a significant risk to us, but ANYway...)

So yesterday I had a whole day with no internet. Dave was thrilled with the idea. Maybe he expected to come home to a spotless house and a wife in a red and white polka-dotted dress holding a casserole.

Disconnected from the outside world, I took the opportunity to finally take care of something that's been on my to-do list for a good 15 years. I finally learned how to play FreeCell.

(This was after a few games of Minesweeper because, as you know, "Those mines aren't going to sweep themselves.")

When I won my first FreeCell game and it asked if I wanted to play again, with big eyes I said to my computer, "Um... yeah." Because my brain really liked it.

I knew I needed to catch up on housework, but I feared the precedent it would set. I knew Dave would think all he needed to do to have a good housefrau was unplug the internet every day before work.

But I decided to be a good frau and work on the house the rest of the day. And I really did get a lot done! And I learned that maybe I really do spend too much time on the computer, because I had so much free time when it was disconnected. Imagine all the things I could do! I could bake cookies and cakes for friends like my friend Jennika! I could go jogging like my friend Diana! (Baby steps. We'll start with walking.) I could teach scrapbooking classes like my friend Crystal! (After I learn to scrapbook, which I'm not really in the mood for.)

We decided that because I am not good at moderating myself and I actually enjoy doing those domestic things that good fräuleins do, that we would disconnect the internet every Tuesday and Thursday. Except for today, of course, because we just did it yesterday and two days in a row would probably send me into shock.

And, if you were wondering, I do not know where to plug in the internet cord (am I being too technical with terms like "internet cord"?), and I don't want to learn.