I thought that I would introduce you to my mom, who is just such a wonderful mother and person.

In recent weeks, I have been asked not very many questions, but these questions have been asked repeatedly, so that makes for a lot of questions.


Question 1: What’d you do THAT for?


I don’t know if you noticed, but my blog recently had a face lift.  Well, my dad noticed.  He doesn’t like it.  He specifically said, “I don’t like it.”  He asked me why I changed it.


Well sorry, DAD, I’m sorry that I wanted to add a little more SPICE in my LIFE.  GAWD.


Really though, when I first started my blog, I honestly didn’t think that it would get as much traffic as it does… So I did something super plain and simple, as in, I just went with whatever blogger chose for me (Obviously blogger doesn’t know as much about me as Google Ads does).  But upon further analysis, I decided that the only thing that is plain and simple about me is my name (thanks Mom and Dad…), but THEN when I was thinking about it, I’m not THAT complex because I am an idiot and don’t think before I talk, so everyone knows what I’m thinking anyways.  AND I don’t know how to lie, because people can guess what my emotion is just by my face.  UGH.  No secrets here.


Speaking of not thinking before talking, I was watching a TV show, and a wife was getting all riled-up and angry at her husband, and when she asked him if he thought about what he was going to say before he spoke, I really liked what he said: “Yes, I do.  And in my head, it’s amazing, and then when I SAY it, I ALWAYS impress myself.”  Yeah, I really liked that.


Another reason that I decided to add a little pizzazz to the old blog was because darling Peter gave me an early birthday present: http://www.realworldsara.com.  So now with this ritzy domain that I have, I thought I’d do a complete makeover.  Which isn’t completely done yet, but I don’t really feel like working on it any more.


Question 2: Do you know how to say…??


No.  I don’t.  Being able to pretend that I can speak and understand Spanish has it’s ups and downs.  One of the ups is that I got hired because of it.  One of the downs is that people think that you know every single mother trucking word.  Do you know how many words exist in Spanish?  A lot.  Not as many as English, but that almost makes it MORE difficult, because there aren’t as many ways to say “idiot” in Spanish as there are English, so you’re stuck sounding like the idiot repeating the same word.


The other day I sent a very hostile email in Spanish that had a lot of CAPS LOCK AND EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!!!!  Because the man I was dealing with didn’t make ANY sense, and this was like the 5th communication or something.  I was SO mad that I even translated the email literally word for word and sent it to Peter so that HE could get mad too (not that he doesn’t have enough on his plate to worry about – specifically what to get me for my birthday), and he was all “WHOA. This guy is NUTS.  How do you DEAL with PEOPLE like this, love of my life?!” or something to that degree.  Then he asked if I responded with “wtf???” in Spanish.


Confession: I don’t know how to swear in Spanish.  I know that it’s like, the first thing that you’re supposed to learn or something when you live in a foreign country, but I just… didn’t.  I don’t really swear that much in English though, so it’s a pretty simple thing to leave out of my Spanish vocabulary.  I actually swear the most around my mom, because it makes her kind of mad, and that’s our favorite thing to do.  


And how was I supposed to go about learning these swear words, anyways?  I taught 8th graders, which I KNOW that they know swear words, but I didn’t think it was appropriate to have a lesson consisting of an exercise where I ask them how to say asshole and they tell me.  They DO know the word bitch though… I don’t know if you remember THAT episode…  So anyways, I just never learned swear words.  Sorry I’m lame.


Question 3: Did you get that text?


-“Was it a picture text?”


-“Yes.”


-“Then no.”


Oh, the joys of cell phones.  For some reason, my phone refuses to receive picture texts.  Why, I have no idea.  It USED to, and then it just… stopped.  This frustrates me to no end.  It also frustrates Jenna, who likes to send me pictures of outfits/baby stuff/gifts/anything she wants me to judge, because she knows that yes, I’m judgey, but I will give her my honest opinion about it, even if that opinion is, “Jenna.  Seriously?  That is HIDEOUS.”  And then she gets all offended, and I’m all “You ASKED me my OPINION, and you have KNOWN me for twenty three YEARS, so you should know by NOW that I will tell you the TRUTH and not SUGAR COAT it.”  And then she sighs and says, “I knooooooooow.”  


So.  No, I do not receive picture texts, so stop sending them to me, because I don’t want you to think that I’m ignoring you or that I think you’re stupid so I just am not responding.  It’s not you, it’s me.


And now, the question that I get asked MOST often:


Question 4: Have you always been so attractive?


No.

Well YESTERDAY was an exciting morning! Sarcasm: check.

I struggle to get out of bed. Every. single. morning. It doesn’t matter if it is 4AM or 2PM, when my alarm goes off, the only thing that I want to do it turn it off, not even snooze it, turn it COMPLETELY off, roll over and close my eyes once again. Especially if a dream was interrupted. This whole not-wanting-to-wake-up thing is going to REALLY be a pain after Memorial Day when summer hours start, and I’ll have to be at the office at 7:15… When I struggle to leave my APARTMENT at 7:15. Shoot.

Anyways, yesterday morning was like any other morning, including hitting the snooze 3 times and then having a heart attack when I realized that it was 6:30 ALREADY, and SHOOT if I didn’t get in the shower NOW I would look like a wreck at work. So I got up.

At 6:50, juuuuuust as I was straightening the last out-of-control piece of hair on my head, the power went out. AWESOME. I stood in my bathroom for about 5 minutes brainstorming.

If my power is out, I…
… can’t finish styling my hair
… can’t put on my make-up
… can’t make my bowl of oatmeal
… can’t OPEN MY GARAGE DOOR. Ohhhh mother.

At 6:54 I called my boss, who I knew would already be at the office.

Boss: G’morning this is Sara’s boss.

Sara: Hiiiiiiiii Bossssss, this is Sara Vanderstappen calling.

Boss: … Are you ok?

Sara: Oh yeahhh, I’m juuuuust fine. I might be a little bit late to work today though. You see, my power went out? And I can’t open my garage door without the clicker? So… I can’t really drive to work without my car…

Boss: Alright, Sara, that’s just fine. Now, don’t start panicking, you’ll be alright.

For the record, I wasn’t panicking at all. But he’s seen me panic before – he knows me so well.

So, I continued standing in the middle of my living room. In the dark. Then, I decided that I could brush my teeth.

Mid-teeth cleaning, the power went back on!!! Using my brains, I threw my toothbrush in the sink (I turned it off first. It’s electric. And one time – I have no idea how this happened – it fell out of my mouth while it was still on, and I was really proud of myself because I caught it in my hand, but then I was an idiot again, because I was standing in front of the mirror with my electric toothbrush still on, and there was toothpaste EVERYWHERE. Including in my hair and on my face. Not one of my finer moments…) and ran over to my living room where the clicker to my garage door sits on the entertainment center. I opened my garage door, just in case the power decided to go out again.

JUST when I was screwing the top of my mascara back into the base, the power went out AGAIN. UGHHHHHHHH so ANNOYINGGGGGG. And apparently no one else in my building has to get to work at an early hour, so no one else cared.

I ate a bowl of cereal, packed my lunch (all in the dark), and was on my way. My garage door stayed open for the day, but it’s no big deal because the only thing in my garage is a shovel that cost $3.00. Knock yourself out, thieves.

As I was driving, I noticed (kind of hard not to…) that the stoplights were out. Havoc was wreaking among the citizens of Northwest Green Bay! Just kidding, every one was actually really calm, cool, and collected, and took turns and everything so no one got killed. So that was nice.

When I got to work, it was pouring rain outside, and so I was “running” from my car to the building, because since it was dark in my apartment when I left, I couldn’t find my umbrella. As I was “running” in the pouring rain, I hear something clatter to the ground and fall face-down into a puddle.

My phone.

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I picked it up and continued to the building. Upon arrival at my desk, I mopped up my phone and took out the battery. That would have to sit for a little bit.

The next thing I did was do a little research about the power outage that I experienced. This is what I found:

Do you see the red? Where “5001+” customers are affected? That’s where I live.

Great.

My phone was doing some crazy stuff all day yesterday, but finally started working normally, and when I got home from work last night after a stop at the mall to return some shoes, a stop at Orange Julius to pick up a little treat for Peter, and a stop at Peter’s office where everyone was working WAY late, all of my lights were on. I guess the power went back on around 1. WHEW good thing I thought fast and opened my garage door when the power was on for that little bit of time!!

And it’s a good thing I had the sense to turn off my straightener so that the building didn’t burn down.

Because that would have REALLY sucked.

As many of you know, and shame on you if you don’t, yesterday was another miraculous holiday where Peter and I went down to Lake Geneva to visit our families and eat copious amounts of food and candy: Easter Sunday.

Dear everyone,