This is my life. ~Hayley Townley

As I was headed through the central valley to Vegas last weekend, you could see this huge orange pile from several miles away.

What the hell is it? It’s orange dirt. It’s oranges. It’s dirt covered with an orange cloth. NOPE.

It’s Bugs Bunny’s dream. It’s carrots. Lots and lots o’ carrots. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. Quite possibly eleventy six million.

That is certainly something you don’t see every day. I ask you, how can you not stop and take a picture of that?

And what about this sign?



I didn’t realize they had gone out. I am a pen freak. I love pens, pencils, and markers. The kookier the better. Had you asked me, I could have told you that kooky pens are in. After my mother-in-law passed away, we were cleaning out her condo. I found quite possibly more pens than even I had. Two bankers boxes full of them. I shit you not. There were pens from everywhere: the USS Arizona, Space pens (that write upside down and underwater, in case you are ever in a situation that calls for something like that); spirograph pens (remember those?); pens taken from banks, insurance agents and doctors offices; pens that work; pens that don’t work. Why is it so hard to get rid of pens?

Try this sometime. When you pick up a pen that doesn’t work – it’s out of ink – rather than putting it back in the pencil cup for future frustration, try throwing it away. Really. It’s okay. I’m pretty sure they will make more. Red ones, blue ones, purple ones and kooky ones. Because rest assured, as this sign in the window of a truck stop in the Central valley of California points out – kooky pens are in.



And finally, you know how people talk about their “happy place”? They tell you (those “they” people again” you can simply go to your happy place to take a break, or perhaps get away from annoying people. Well, I found it.


I found my happy place. The problem? It’s in Maricopa. I always imagined my happy place to be somewhere on an island, with warm water, awesome sunrises and sunsets, toes buried on the sand.


I guess I should get my imaginator fixed. I didn’t quite picture it like this.