First and foremost, someone shared on Google Reader that a step on improving your blog traffic has to do with avoiding clever, cutesy titles for your posts and just naming them what they are so you can catch Google hits that way.  I would agree, but my NUMBER ONE search term for this site is “pekid”.   Hands down.  Because, once a bazillion years ago, I wrote a post titled “Pekid, not Perky” and EVERYONE needs to know what the hell pekid means and you know why I suck? I DON’T EVEN GIVE THE DEFINITION IN THE POST.  Regardless, I hope to now utilize Google searches for “crap” and “stuff that sucks” and possibly even “silver lining”.

So, there’s been a LOT OF SUCKAGE lately.  But because I feel like all I do is whine here, I’m going to tell you the suckage, but end it with a silver lining.  Cause that’s inspiring, right?  When you can be like, “Man, they totally just repo’d my house, but.. no more grass to cut!”?

SUCKAGE: DAVE RAMSEY

Okay, not, like, Dave Ramsey himself that sucks, but his money managing process?  Sucks BIG OLE DONKEY BALLS.  And not even sucks as in doesn’t work because IT DOES FREAKIN WORK, but sucks as in I CAN’T SPEND ANY MONEY.  Like, at all.  Even groceries require BOTH partners of the moneys to agree on it, and to squabble over brand-name or store-brand chocolate syrup?  SUCKS. (So, btw, Bryan, who is all now like Damn, I just bought chocolate syrup and now she’s writing abou.. OH, GOD, DOES SHE HATE MY CHOCOLATE SYRUP?.. YES, I DO.  Go Hershey’s or go home, with your Target brand crap.) So we’re now current on all bills, which is nice and really a feeling we’re not quite comfortable with yet.  We sat around last night wondering why no one had called us.  Like, no phone rang all night.  Oh, I realized, it’s cause we owe no one money. 

The next step of the program is to get $1k tucked away in a safe place.  I vote that I’ve already done this since I have a well-stocked 401k, but the Ramsey naysayers say NO, THAT DOES NOT COUNT, ARGH. (They are pirates.) So we actually had a really decent plan to accomplish this within a short time frame, and I was all like, “Hm.  Maybe NOT buying thing equates to more money!”  BUT THEN WHAT DO YOU DO WITH THE MONEY IF YOU DON’T BUY ANYTHING?!

Recap:
Sucks: Can’t spend money on anything. (Related: Target brand chocolate syrup.) Clearly only creditors enjoy our conversational skills.
SILVER LINING: Ah ha!  We DO have money!  We’re just stupid with it!  Look at that chunk of money there!

SUCKAGE: Pets

Okay, not ALL pets.  Just, um, the ones who might escape out of the backyard and then attack a 5 year old boy.  And attack is a strong word, since it was just a “puncture wound”.  And your dog has NEVER shown vicious tendencies towards humans (dogs, sure, but not people and LEGALLY THAT IS DIFFERENT), but then the neighborhood baby daddy is all “Your dog bit my boy” and Jesus, did this HAVE to happen on a night that we have Jack? and then there’s mandatory quarantines for 10 days at (!!) $32 a day PLUS some $40 (!!) administrative fee on top of that.  And?  And?!  No shelter will accept a dog that’s bitten someone.  Even if we’re still kinda skeptical of the details because we didn’t see it happen and really, the dog is really very good with children as long as they don’t resemble dogs, and we’re not entirely sure that it was our dog or even a dog bite at all since the only response we got from the family was that Medicaid might reject the insurance claim for a dogbite and they gave them MY number for contact info in case that happens.  Anyway, that dog is marked for life as a dog of Cain, I guess, and no one, not even animal services, will take him.  So the system has tied our hands and we don’t know what to do. 

Recap:
Sucks: Crazy amounts of money spent to quarantine the dog, and no way to place the dog without putting the dog down once the quarantine is over.  And some poor five year old boy went to the ER.  And my children are traumatized.
SILVER LINING: Hey, we had a chunk of money to spend!  And think of much less I’ll have to sweep now!

SUCKAGE: My husband’s blogging company went under.

My husband has written a blog for a paid gig since I was about four months (maybe?) pregnant with Tony, where he scribed the JOYOUS EVENT that was Sarah-while-pregnant. (See also: root canals, Gigli, flute recitals)

Unfortunately the economy won and the company was disbanded.

There were many, MANY downsides to this but, you know?  Business is business sometimes.  Even if it means you lose all of your posts about your wife’s pregnancy and maybe the one about her peeing in the floor.  So I offered to help him set-up a new blog site.  Um, cause I can do that.  Right?

OH YEAH I TOTALLY CAN’T.  I mean, I will pretend I do, but it’s a lot of trial and error.  Hopefully by this weekend I’ll have it all under control. (BTW, you can find the new site here, should you care to bookmark it.)

Recap
Sucks: All posts gone, as well as the self-functioning site.
SILVER LINING: Sarah will now have complete administrative control over her husband’s bloggings.  MWUAHAHAHA.