"Is f*ck off an emotion? Because I feel it in my soul." -Me, most days.

It's Monday.
I didn't want to get up out of bed this morning.
Mostly, I didn't mind the getting up, I just didn't want to leave the house.
I just can't be responsible for my adulting today.

We need the weekend back. Mostly, I need the weekend back.

Let's blow this popsicle stand and go drink and watch Netflix.

It's Friday.
I had both doughnuts and white castle for breakfast.
And I received three presents today (including whisky) for absolutely no reason.
I'm good with it.... it's been a long week.

Here's to the weekend. Cheers, y'all.

You can always count on your real friends to remember.

I can feel the hatred that I have for this day (this day being a Monday) deep in my soul.
But I still had to come into work like an adult.
No worries, my friends find ways to get me through these kinds of days.

Every single friend in my entire life:

"Hey, I found this really old and questionable picture of Katie that makes us all remember how much of a dork she has always been.... let's go ahead and post that right now."

Courtesy of Krista (JB's wife) on FB 1/22/18 (circa 2002....2003?!)

LaCroix.... yeah, that's definitely gonna be a no for me.

I should know better than to try and replace something that I love in my life with something that I'm unsure of.

You see, I'm basically the essential guide to "old and set in her ways" without actually being old. I'm only twenty-seven (twenty-eight next month) and while that's not a teenager, it's still fairly young. Let me say it again, I'M YOUNG, DAMMIT.

Recently I've decided that it would probably be a good idea to try and make tiny changes to maybe make myself either be a little bit healthier, or at the very least, feel a little bit healthier. It's not one of those "resolution" type of things, as I started thinking about it long before the new year.

I don't want to make any big changes or anything, because I basically like everything that I already do, eat, say, etc., but I thought a couple of small changes couldn't hurt.

The biggest small change (shut up, it's a thing) that I've been rolling around in my head is that I should cut out soda from my life. Now listen, I know that doesn't sound like a huge change, BUT I love soda. Granted, I'm not picky about what I drink by any means and I love many other beverages, but the fact that soda is my go-to is just a plain fact.

I'm not sure what it is about soda, but I'm assuming that it's all of the deliciousness smooshed into a can or bottle (or soda fountain!).... and maybe it has crack in it and we just don't know it yet?!!?!

I heard somewhere that if you're trying to give up soda that replacing it with flavored sparkling water was a great way to help, because it combines two things that most people miss with soda: flavoring (alot of people don't like the taste of "plain" water) and carbonation.

With that in mind, when I went to the grocery store yesterday I went ahead and picked up a pack of LaCroix flavored sparkling water (cherry lime). I let it stay in the fridge for hours, because I figured it would be better cold and then I cracked a can of it open.... and almost puked.

Y'all, I don't know if it's the brand, the flavor, the fact that it's sparkling water or what, but it was DISGUSTING. It tastes like when you get a coke out of the fountain with ice and there's only carbonation and no flavoring in it and when you drink it you want to puke. And that's really surprising to me, because I've seen people rave about this stuff over and over again (hence the idea of trying it in the first damn place.... y'all are liars and I don't know how you can like it!).

I didn't even finish the can I opened, I actually took two sips and poured that shit down the drain. Now, I have seven cans (they come in an eight pack) that I'm just going to have to get rid of, because I'm not drinking it and try to find something else to replace soda. (Says the girl that's drinking a coke right now).

This is a shit show and it needs to take a step back. *insert eyeroll here*

Y'all, it's currently -4° outside and teenagers won't quit eating Tide Laundry Pods. WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING?!!

Didn't we all agree that we weren't going to have another year like 2017 (or 2016, for that matter)? I feel like we all got together and collectively agreed on this. We all said that we were going to try to take things easier, slow down a little bit, try not to have so much bad, and get to the bottom of our issues and solve them like adults.

And now, here we are. IN THIS SHIT SHOW THAT WE CALL JANUARY 2018.

Did I mention that people are eating laundry detergent? I'm sorry if I keep bringing it up, but I literally can't get over the fact that people are being this stupid. Also, how are they affording this ridiculous habit? Washing powder is expensive, dammit! (How old did I just sound right there?!)

I would like to say that it's moments like these that make me want to stay indoors and avoid the outside world and people in general.... but if I'm being perfectly honest, I feel like that the majority of the time either way.

Do y'all know what my friends and I were doing as teenagers?! I mean, I can't go into specifics, because we all made a pact to NEVER speak of some of that shit ever again (ah, the days before social media) and we did stupid shit, but we DIDN'T EAT LAUNDRY DETERGENT.

Although, one time a friend of mine's brother ate some old gum off the school bus floor, but that's just because he was kind of strange (and apparently, hungry?). I feel like that's not on the same level. You might think it is, but I would have to disagree.

My point is, can we stop with all of this ridiculousness (the situation, not the show, because I love me some Rob Dyrdek) and maybe I don't know....NOT LET THIS BE KNOWN AS THE YEAR THAT PEOPLE DIED FROM CONSTANTLY EATING LAUNDRY DETERGENT?!!?! Here's to hoping.... come on, 2018, we're rooting for you (and us by extension).

My irrational fears: Sharks and why I fear the ocean out of respect.

Someone asked me one time what I was scared of. Afterall, some people are scared of spiders or small spaces, others clowns, and honestly the list just keeps going on. I couldn’t think of anything off the top of my head, so I let them know I wasn’t sure.

Of course, jokes were made that “I wasn’t scared of anything” and I “must be related to John Rambo” but the truth is, there are things that scare me. I just needed a minute to think them through.

You see, I have fears that are a little.... how should I say this?.... we'll go with odd. I wouldn’t say I’m the oddest given the fact that some people are afraid of cellophane, but that’s neither here nor there.

My list of fears include: ventriloquist dummies, outer space, falling from high places (I’m not actually afraid of heights, but I am afraid of falling from somewhere high), Freddy Kreuger.... and sharks.

Actually, if I’m being fair, the entire ocean in general petrifies me, but I’m sticking with sharks on this go around. I’m not sure why, when I was a kid I loved swimming out and would go out pretty far. I wasn’t in the same skill set as an Olympic swimmer or anything, but I was decent enough. My brother, cousins, friends, and I used to horse around out there with no more than a half thought. We would all be out there for HOURS and never once did we think about being eaten alive.

And now? It seems the older I get, the more bodies of water sharks terrify me.

It probably doesn’t help that some of my favorite movies include sharks (have y’all seen Deep Blue Sea?), and that I won’t stop watching them, even though clearly it’s becoming a problem. (Anxiety, amirite?!).

So, what does my dumbass do even though it could potentially give me heart failure?! Well, I watched a particularly terrifying movie that was literally my worst f*cking nightmare crammed into 85 minutes.... 47 Meters Down.

Yeah, because that isn’t my greatest fear come true.

You know what I learned from this movie?! I learned that #1: You NEVER trust a man named Taylor and #2: If you have a fear and your gut is telling you to not do that shit, then you should probably listen to yourself and NOT do it.

Also, if you have a fear of sharks that takes you to the point of hyperventilation.... you should probably be smarter than me and stop watching shark movies. You know, those who can't do, teach, and such.

Things that would have been nice to know.... but what I know instead.

Have y'all ever thought to yourselves: "if only I could get rid of some of this useless information, I would have so much more room for stuff I actually want to know"?

For instance, instead of being able to do taxes and fill out a money order properly in school, they made me learn where the cells in a leaf lie (they're sandwiched in between two layers of epidermal cells, in case you want to know). And guess how useful that information has been throughout my life? Aside from bringing it up right here and now to make my point, IT HAS LITERALLY NEVER COME UP IN MY DAILY LIFE.

Granted, I am only twenty-seven (twenty-eight next month.... oy vey, I'm getting old), but I don't foresee a whole lot of situations down the road where I'm going to need to know this.

Sure, I learned how to do all of those things for myself, but it would have been nice for just one day a teacher to have set us down in any of the years we were there (at least K-12) and be like: "look you little shits, this is what you're learning, because you're not going to be able to function as an adult without it." That would have been some really nice information to have going forward.

Personally, I would rather shoot myself in the foot as opposed to teaching teenagers how to do taxes, or small children the importance of diplomacy, but that's why I didn't choose a career in education (among so many other reasons, but I commend y'all for what you can do #underappreciated).

If I could clear my head of lyrics from every single album of New Kids On The Block, NSYNC, and the Backstreet Boys from 1986 to 2002 then I could probably have room for some really important information that could help me cure an ongoing disease or something. I mean, I probably still wouldn't be smart enough to cure cancer or anything, but I could probably make late stage neurosyphilis pretty tolerable.

There is not a damn thing that I could tell you about Quantum Physics, but I can tell you that Lily Collins and Jamie Campbell Bower belong together. I can also tell you that there's no hyphen in between Campbell and Bower, but I can't actually tell you how to accomplish a field in chemical engineering.

I took all the English and grammar classes known to mankind to learn how to properly structure a paragraph and use correct comma placement and punctuation, but had I known that the world was going to devolve into mass chaos that doesn't care if what they're using is even a legitimate word or not (when did everyone just start abbreviating everything and taking out letters just because?), I could have probably saved that brain space for more pertinent information like "how to survive the next generation." If you want to abbreviate something, that's fine. Use "legit" instead of "legitimate" but have a stopping point.

If I removed all the plot points from every single Terminator movie out of my brainstem I could probably have the space to store the information that tells me how a brainstem actually functions.

What's that old meme saying? "I'm glad I learned about parallelograms instead of how to do taxes. It's really come in handy this parallelogram season." And as I said when we were discussing the leaf cells, I eventually learned how to do my own taxes as an adult, BUT I still can't believe that they just send you out into the world with no clue. Blows my mind.

Speaking of blowing a mind: I can tell you that John McClane's catchphrase is, "Yippee-ki-yay, motherf*cker" but I am not actually smart enough to thwart a villain like Hans Gruber (#RIPAlanRickman).What I can offer you instead is an assortment of Charlie Day's greatest hits.

I thought that I had a decent enough grasp on math to get me through life, but then I started at the job I have now and quickly learned that I KNEW NOTHING. Sure, I've learned over the years, but the fact that that I was thrust into the world with rudimentary math skills is insane. I know all about long division, but can I actually read a categorized bank statement for an entire company? I'm working on it.... it's a process.

My point is, I have all of this useless information just banging around in my head, but it would probably be wiser to clear some of it out to make room for actual important information?

You know what.... screw that. I'd rather be able to bust out into "Step by Step." I'm too old and set in my ways at this point to turn back now. "Step by step, oh, baby, gonna get to you, girl... Step by step, oh, baby, really want you in my world... Step! Hey, girl, in your eyes I see your picture of me all the time..."

You can't talk us into shit just because we're bored anymore.

Being a woman in 2018 is strange. (And yes, I know we're only five days in, BUT I'm fairly certain that all my ladies out there will agree, because being a woman in 2017 was strange, as well).

We're somewhere between our "old fashioned" ways and "we can do what we want because we are women hear us roar!"

By old fashioned I mean, some women like having the role of mother, wife, and even "lady".... but society has managed to once again spin it around. You see, if you don't do those things half of society thinks low of you, because "a woman has a certain role" and if you actually like having that role in your life, the other half of society says that you are against feminism and that people like you are "the problem."

That's right. The same people that say "woman can do whatever they like because that's the world we live in now" are also the same people that condemn said women if they choose to settle into the more "traditional" role. Whether that's what you enjoy or how you feel, you're made to feel ashamed for it.

I'm probably the worst female on the planet, because I'm somewhere between "huh?" and "ugh" on a pretty consistent basis.... and I wake up with my eyebrows already on my face. (Another story for another day).

You see, I think that women getting to be equal and not be discriminated against solely on account of their gender is fantastic. And the fact that women have lobbied for this and spent their entire lives devoted to it should go to show that it has definitely been a struggle (they weren't called "suffragettes" for nothing). But like with all things in life, there are always struggles and sometimes things just aren't fair. That's why we have all of these amazing women (and men for that matter) trying to rectify this. And I think that's so amazing and I am so appreciative of it.

But.... I also think that if a woman enjoys her life of being a "stay at home mother" or "wife" or basically anything that people attribute to "old fashioned" then that's what she should be and do. Why would I want to condemn someone for their choice when the same people condemning them are saying "you can choose and do anything, there's no wrong answer" right before that? It just doesn't make sense to me.

Then again, there are things that are still happening and you're like, are we really still doing this shit? It's 2018 for f*cks sake.

I'm a fairly sarcastic person. I think what I think, and act how I act, but I was raised in the deep south and to say that my mouth has gotten me into some trouble would be an understatement. In case you're wondering what that means, it means women had a certain "role" to take part in. They were supposed to be prim, and proper, and were supposed to be the equivalent of "seen but not heard." Women were supposed to want to be a mother and a wife, supposed to take part in beauty pageants, not use foul language and to show up to church at least twice a week, if not more.

Well.... I was in one beauty pageant in my life and refused to ever take part in one again, because everything was uncomfortable and I almost puked everywhere while walking down the runway (and it was at a county fair). I've never wanted to have kids and the thought of being married makes me roll my eyes. I went to church when I was younger, but knowing what I knew about the people in town (it was a teeny tiny little holler town), it felt hypocritical after a while. Finally, one of the little ladies that I used to take care of in the nursing home used to tell everybody that I "had the face of an angel.... and the mouth of a sailor."

And that's just the way I am and I'm 100% ok with that. I have no problem with being myself and people either liking or disliking me for these qualities. I don't hurt people, I try to help when I can, and while I use sarcasm for every aspect of my life, when it's time to be serious, I am also serious.... but sarcasm is definitely my defining personality trait.

That includes when people say things that I either don't agree with, think are stupid, or makes me lose faith in humanity. Stupid shit like:

Office Guy: "Yeah, he'll be talking himself into some panties real soon." Me: "Not if he has game like his dad he won't."

You see what I mean with this? There are very few things that "outrage" me and this certainly isn't one of them, but it does make me continuously roll my eyes, because how are people still this much of a pain in the ass? As one of the very few female employees that work at my company, I hear plenty of things that people would put into the category of "guy talk" or "shop talk" that would probably offend most people. But I'm not usually offended, because as I said, I'm sarcastic and make crude jokes myself. In fact, I'm pretty damn hilarious.... like a female Dave Chappelle (just go with this).

I'm not trying to be one of those "you can't do that, but I can" kind of people. I'm just trying to explain myself in this day and age.... and doing a HORRIBLE JOB AT IT.

I don't think that I can be a "good feminist" because I like things that I think you're supposed to be against? Like, I make crude jokes, and watch action movies, I like it when guys give me their coat and hold my hand and bring me flowers and open car doors for me.

And I don't know if that's allowed. I don't know the "rules" and if there really are even "rules" to begin with. I want to feel like an empowered woman, and I want the amazing women around me to feel that too, and to be able to live their best lives with their best sense of selves, but I also want to be able to like the things that I do without trying to hide behind them, because of society's judgements. Because in the end, no matter what they're judging you for, it's still technically a judgement.... right?!

Basically, I want to be able to love the fact that my guy friend always gave me his coat when I was cold, but still be able to look at the guy in our office and be like, "Dude, you can't just talk us into shit like it's 1921. Women don't work like that. In fact, women have never worked like that, we just weren't aware there was another option for a while.We don't have to define ourselves by marriage, we don't have to be engaged at seventeen so we can have babies by eighteen. We don't have to be dependant on a man, because we're allowed to hold full time jobs and work just as hard if not harder than any man. You don't get to grab us or talk to us like you have all the authority, because no means no, asshole. We can run this shit just fine on our own, because you might have the parts, but we're more "man" than you'll ever be. We can handle our own shit. Also, f*ck you, we have Netflix now, which means that we can find other ways to be complacent in our boredom. BITCH."

Yeah, that. Just all of that.

I think I could make a pretty fancy beer funnel out of that.

As I'm sure most people know (the ones that follow along with my life and listen to my incessant rambling at least), Momma had to have emergency/life saving/altering surgery back in July 2017 and ever since that time she has been a real trooper.

Sure, she's had her good days and her bad days.... but we all have those. Her good days have far outnumbered the bad and for the most part she's felt really good. Just a little cold or headache on occasion, like us all.

We figured this winter was going to be hard on her, because it is the first "cold season" that she'll be dealing with now that she has an amputation. Although we tried to be as prepared as we could, this winter has been unusually cold for the Midwest (seriously, it's supposed to be -20° tomorrow morning and it's already -8° degrees today), so it's been a bit more of a struggle. She's usually pretty good if she can stay in and has her meds on time, but you can't just stay in the house 24/7 (although, I'm so cold right now that sounds pretty damn sweet), so some days she's more achy than others.

But, as always, she's a real trooper and is taken it all as it comes at her. I don't think she'll ever know how much I love her and how proud I am.

Today was one of those "special" days that you hear about when it comes to a surgery like she had. Because today, on this cold mother-f*cking Thursday.... she got her prosthetic.

I didn't get to go with her to the doctor, because I had to work, but on the first day she got to walk again, I was 100% there (and cried a little). She text me as soon as she got out of the doctor's office and when I got home she did a lap around the house with me. (She's only allowed to wear it for two hours a day for now as she adjusts to it and practices).

Her and I usually get through all things in life with.... sarcasm. I know, you never would have guessed that with me, but it's true. (And yeah, you probably already knew that). So, whenever we can we joke and laugh. Which lead to this conversation:

Momma: "Puss, look at my prosthetic." Me: "Wow, Momma.... that's pretty nice." Momma: "I know. What do you think?" Me: "I think I could make a pretty decent beer funnel out of that." Momma: "No, Katherine Diane! You CANNOT convert my prosthetic into a fancy beer funnel!" Me: "Uh huh, you're really regretting that whole encouraging my creative side when I was a child thing now huh?!" She laughed, I laughed, and it was a great thing to share.

And with that, my friends, I'm out.

Is Global Warming supposed to be this damn cold?!

Y'all.... it's the third day of January and I have been frozen for the last three weeks (at least). Don't get me wrong, I understand that it's supposed to be freezing ass cold in these parts at this time of year, BUT COME ON.

I live in Indiana, NOT BARROW, ALASKA.

And I'm usually good with winter.... you know, since I DEFINITELY have more of a "winter body" as opposed to a "summer body."

Side note: This gal right here loves junk food, booze, and Netflix more than she'll ever love juice cleanses, cardio, and bikinis.

It got up to a whole twenty degrees today (I can't tell it), but for the last few days it hasn't creeped up to over three degrees. Some days, it was even less than that (we're talking negative numbers, people).

At one point, it was -11° and I didn't even screenshot it, because MY FINGERS WERE TOO COLD TO WORK.

Sure, I could be mature about this.... afterall, I just got back from having four days off and practically living in pajamas.

BUT, I've been sick for the last three days and I blame one of my co-workers. (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE).

Besides, having four days off doesn't change the fact that my bitch ass had to pull itself away from Lieutenant Commander Steven J. "Steve" McGarrett and Detective Sergeant Danny "Danno" Williams (aka, #ForeverTweederToMe) this morning to trudge through the snow, ice, and frigid temperatures to arrive at work and want to jump out of our two-story window now did it? NO IT DID NOT.

I just keep reminding myself that it's just the rest of today and a couple more and then off for two more days of trying to avoid going outside at all costs.

Side note: I've taken so much cold medicine at this point that I'm not supposed to be "operating heavy machinery" which means that I can't drive the forklift at work, but my teeny little Ford Fiesta is probably ok.... right?! Yes? No?! Get back to me on that.