Michael - “How can you tell someone you care about deeply, ‘I told you so’?”

Michael - “You are a thief of joy.”

Jim - In reference to spending the entire day watching Dwight to see if he spent any time on personal matters (i.e. sneezing, taking potty breaks), and consequently not doing any actual work himself: “It’s exhausting, being this vigilant. I think I’m gonna need to go home early.”

Update: Here is the link to join my Fafa Group: Griddle Bandits

New episodes of The Office start next week! If you’re a fan, get on Fafarazzi.com and create your own Fantasy Team. I created a group so we can compete with each other but you need to request to be a member. If you’re interested, email me at mindy at griddlebandits dot com and I’ll send you an invitation. A few of us participated in this with the last season of The Office and it was a lot of fun. Kinda silly, but that’s what makes it so fun!

This is a guest post written by my husband, Mike:

Maybe you have witnessed the Lions commercials that ask “Do you believe in now?”. I’ll admit it, I’m a sucker. I believed in the Lions. I thought they had a chance to finish above .500. I thought they had a chance to make the playoffs. Who knows, maybe this was the year they would win their second playoff game in my lifetime (I’m 31 years old).

After watching parts of todays game (the parts in between my two naps) I realize I have been duped again. Every year I say “I think the Lions have a shot at doing something this year”. Well, I said it again this year. What an idiot I am.

I’m kind of torn on what to do with Luke. I don’t want to raise him to be a fair weather fan (also known as a typical Michigan fan), but I also don’t want to subject him to the yearly heartache of being a Lions fan. One of my great, great uncles played for the Packers. Maybe that gives me a valid excuse to teach Luke to root for another team. Could teaching Luke to be a Lions fan be considered child abuse?

Oh well, at least I still have Call of Duty 4.

I am loving Carson Kressley and this Lifetime show, “How To Look Good Naked“. I love it when I see mainstream media encouraging women to love themselves as they are. I know Dove started a campaign awhile back to celebrate all the different sizes and shapes women come in. This show is along those same lines. Each episode shows them taking one woman at a time and helping them start to see their bodies the way others do.

We women are so hard on ourselves, mainly because we compare ourselves to other women who (A) are not built like most OR (B) only exist in Airbrush World! It’s about time we started realizing that curves are normal. No curves is normal. Small boobs are normal. Big boobs are normal. Big butts, small butts, big thighs, little thighs, broad shoulders, narrow shoulders… the list goes on. The bottom line is we were all built in a million different ways so we need to stop focusing on the parts we don’t like and start celebrating our uniqueness.

I love my body - I have a big butt, a flabby belly, and I only stand at 5′1″ tall but it’s MY body. It’s one of a kind and I love it!

I’m trying to blog while the television is on but I keep getting distracted by the commercials so I decided to combine the two.

*”If you have too much stuff and not enough space, get the smart solution.” I just saw this ad for those vacuum sealed space saver bags. When the lady on the television started that sentence, I wanted to finish it for her. “If you have too much stuff and not enough space… get rid of the stuff!” Seriously, Americans have way more stuff than we need. Ditch the clutter! You won’t regret it!

*I just have to say I’m highly entertained by these new Hanes commercials advertising Wedgie-Free Panties. Very clever with the wedgie dance. You’ve gotta check out the website. They have the videos right on the home page, so you can see what I’m talking about. I was blessed with a bit of junk in the trunk so I have this problem a lot. I am a Hanes lover anyway, but this just seals the deal. Needless to say, I am intrigued. I want to be wedgie-free!

*Oh, and don’t even get me started on infomercials. Watching them is my favorite Saturday morning past-time. My favorite is the GTXpress with Cathy Mitchell. She just makes the meals look so easy and appetizing. And what the woman can do with leftovers… Wow! I’ve never been swayed to actually by the thing, but I could watch Cathy talk about it all day (in fact, I’m watching her right now…”You can make two meals at the same time!”). Apparently I’m not alone with this weird obsession. Read this: Cathy Mitchell Infomercials as Comfort Food?

*And now I’ll close with some commercial taglines that I find rather ridiculous (pairing totally serious statements with product advertisements makes it impossible for me take them seriously).

• “Keep Life Simple” (Mirena)
• “Unity on the Coke side of life” (Coca-Cola)
• “Save More. Live Better.” (Wal-Mart)
• “Come and get your love.” (Alltel)
• “Put a little love in your heart.” (Smart Balance butter. Butter, people.)

And here’s one that is just plain silly:

• “The result? An extraordinary nut snack” (TrueNorth)

Andrew from Top Chef Season 4: “They will culinarily crap in their pants when they see what we have for them.”

I don’t know, Andrew. I don’t think pants crapping really goes well with fine dining. Just a hunch.

On Top Chef last night the contestants were divided into teams named after animals. They were discussing which animal they would choose to be if they ever had that choice. When I was walking to work today I saw some ducks hobnobbing in the river and I immediately thought how nice it would be to just glide along like a duck. I’ve always loved rivers. They are peaceful and often go untouched. Rivers seem to me like a whole other world. If I were a duck I would live on the river and it would be like vacation all the time. Although I don’t care for being in deep water I do love being on the water. Ducks just seem to be very laid back. They float along, occasionally dipping down for a swim, and they just let everything roll of their backs.

As it turns out, I have had a fascination with ducks all my life. I was unaware of this until awhile back when I was looking through some old photos.  As I sorted through the photos I  discovered that I had taken an abnormal number of pictures of ducks. Not pictures of people with ducks standing nearby, pictures of just ducks. The first photos I came across were photos I took at summer camp. I remember taking them. I had wandered off on my own and when I stumbled upon a gang of them I apparently found them so beautiful and exotic that I had to take multiple pictures. I thought it was just an awkward 5th grader thing but then I found more. When I was in college I used to sit on a bench near a pond on campus and eat my lunch in between classes. Thank God I had a camera with me the day that the ducks showed up, or else no one would have believed me. Who does that? Who sees a duck, a plain old duck, and is compelled to photograph them as if they might be worthy of a National Geographic cover?

I’m not sure where this all came from, this duck thing, but it may have stemmed from singing “Six Little Ducks” with my mom as a young child. Thanks, Mom. You gave me great memories and a great song to sing with my child, but the side effect was a weird fascination with a swimming bird.

This Wednesday is the premier of Top Chef Season 4 - Chicago! Egads! I am way too excited. It’s gonna be sooo good.

My mom called me last night to talk about a website she’s working on for Mike and we talked about her coming to visit on Saturday (she’s coming to help me recover from getting my wisdom teeth pulled.). We talked small talk for a minute and then the following exchange took place:

Mom: I saw that Mike logged in and made some changes, so I’m working on… blah, blah… website…. blah, blah… wordpress… blah, blah…  (I was listening, I’m just not well versed in techie talk so I can’t remember enough to quote it.) 

Me: Okay, well I’m looking forward to seeing you on Saturday. What should we do? Watch a movie or something?

Mom: Long pause… Yeah, I wouldn’t worry about it. Just tell Mike I’m working on it and I’ll call him later.

Me: Mom? Are you watching tv?

Mom: Uhh… yeah…

Me: Okay, well I’ll let you go then.

Mom: Okay…

Apparently American Idol had just started. I do believe my mother shares my addiction to television

Has anyone been watching this season of The Office? After I saw the rerun of last season’s closer episode I have been hooked. I used to love this show in the early days but then the writing seemed to change and it just got too painful to watch (Michael is a train wreck). Somewhere in the middle there I just lost interest. But this season has me cracking up laughing. Especially last night, when Phyllis looked at the camera and told us that she was having problems with Angela so she googled “how to deal with difficult people.” Then she held up printouts of what she found. Oh, lordie, how many times have I done something like that? I think I’ve even googled that exact phrase once or twice. Ouch.