I was raised 20 miles southwest of New York City, in a suburban New Jersey town where today city commuters still reign supreme and real estate is precious. I grew up thinking anyone with more than half an acre of land was a millionaire. Or crazy. I hated country music, horseback riding and wide open spaces. At 20, I transferred to college in Manhattan and became one of those commuters myself. I was sure I’d grow up to be an urban-dwelling writer/cat lady. Gladly so.
Now look at me. 29. Married. Project Manager. Labradoodle. Barn.
WTF.
I have a barn. What the h-e-double-hockey-sticks is a girl like me supposed to do with a barn? I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately from a guilty pleasure perspective (duh, what other perspective is there?) and I have some ideas. I’m not dead-set on any, so I’d really appreciate your suggestions. (I know how creative you are when you’re supposed to be doing boring serious things. ;))
There’s the obvious:
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Vodka Distillery.
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Animals Dressed as Other Animals: An Aww-Inspiring Exhibit.
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SexySecret Hiding Place for Second Husband, Darren Criss.
And the slightly less obvious:
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Clubhouse for My Very First Cult. (Alert: Currently recruiting. Must love deep-fried Oreos and puppies. Serious inquiries only.)
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Storage Room for guillotine, life-sized Twilight dolls, barrels of wine, aged cheeses and fireworks*.
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Goat. You know. Maybe. Like one cute, little goat. And some chickens. Just 1 or 2 or 50. And the goat probably needs a friend, now that I think about it.
*This might sound more impressive if you knew fireworks were illegal [for residents to own/set off] in New Jersey. …No? Still not impressed? Did you see that chicken?
How has life surprised you??
Go Jules Go 
How about a speak-easy and brothel for extraordinary chickens?
Holy crap. You are a genius.
Nah. I just like chickens. lol
Haha!! Great idea
Ha! I want some extraordinary chickens too! Love it, my post today is similar.
Aren’t they amazing? Who knew?? I loved your post!
I have to say, a show chicken was probably the last thing I expected to see tonight 🙂
Well, then, all I can say to that is, you’re welcome.
Okay, so ideas for the barn…how about tupperware and mimosa parties? With the show chickens running around dressed as other animals of course. OR…a while back a fellow blogger suggested a very cool home business on her blog about manufacturing poison ivy underpants for ex’s. (How To Win at Halloween and Alienate Your Neighbors-I reposted her article on my blog).
How big is the barn? Lol.
Wow. Okay. First off, thank you. Secondly, I won’t tell the county about the lack of building permits if you won’t. (I mean, what says second-floor-poison-ivy-underpants-manufacturing-facility like a hay loft?)
See? That’s just what I was thinking. 🙂
Jules… you complete me
Well, then. This confirms it. You can still complete someone else after they’ve already completed you. It’s like a double rainbow.
I always wanted to sleep in a hayloft. It looks so cool in the movies. I’d take plenty of allergy medicine, so I know I’d sleep pretty well.
FYI – goats are a no-no unless you want to be constantly surprised. Even the best behaved goat in the world is like a really bad dog.
I’ll set aside hay-filled sleeping quarters for you, but you might have to fight the goats to get there. (Actually, I’m glad you mentioned this. I had no idea they were so feisty! We already have a sassy ‘doodle on our hands. And me. That’s a lot of sass for one house/barn.)
Animals dressed as other animals! That one! That one!
No, seriously. Please?
Pretty much everything about my life has surprised me. The biggest surprise has, of course, been Li’l D . . . and a wonderful surprise that’s been! (The answer of “what to do with this” came surprisingly easily!)
Hip hip hooray for animals dressed as other animals! If I do this, it could be HUGE.
And Li’l D would love it. 🙂
I’m with Deb, animals dressed as other animals!
I also like the goat idea. My brother has two and he claims they’ve replaced his lawnmower. They also have managed to destroy everything else in his entire yard.
I love all of this animals dressed as other animals support. People don’t usually take this seriously. But I can see you understand. It’s (they’re) amazing.
Okay, two strikes against goats. Maybe stuffed animal goats (dressed as other animals, of course) will satisfy me. Especially if I have some of those chickens.
Animal Disco.
On first read – I’m very tired – I read “Darren Criss” but it entered my brain as “Criss Angel.” I thought we’d discovered a fascinating new side to you!
Yesss. Maybe theme nights, like on a cruise or at summer camp. But cooler. Way cooler. Disco night, Elvis night (one of those chickens could pull off Elvis, I think), and to borrow someone’s earlier suggestion, speak easy and brothel night. The outfits would be amazing.
I think if I was going to hide a magician, it would be David Blaine. Except I wouldn’t really need to hide him. People think he’s irrelevant now, but what they don’t realize is he’s actually perfecting his invisible man trick.
P.S. – this David Blaine joke has been bothering me. I feel like I stole it. But since I’m not sure, I’ll take credit in the meantime.
A barn isn’t a barn until you paint it red. So I don’t believe you. I’m betting it’s your house and you just don’t want to admit it.
PS. Great post. I do think a chicken cult would be pretty cool.
Our house, I mean, our barn has a red door, does that count??
Those chickens are clamoring to be in my cult. It’s going to be awesome.
A cult led by chickens dressed as kittens–I’d honestly join!
That’s it. We are making this happen. How are you with sewing?
My daughter likes your blog. I like my daughter. So I read your blog. You’re a funny writer. Where’s the outhouse?
Now I’m intrigued, trying to figure out who your daughter is! What I do know is great taste clearly runs in your family.
Thank you!! (And P.S., according to our dog, the outhouse is every single square inch of green grass you see.)
I’d kill for a barn… all I have is a shed! The only thing I can do with that is set up an after-hours convenience store or news stand.
You can rent ours out! (…Is the Canadian dollar worth more than the US dollar now? If so, payment shall be made in Canadian dollars.) As long as you’re not intimidated by extraordinary chickens and animals dressed as other animals, that is.
It’s worth just 5% more these days but that’s more than offset by our “Harmonized Sales Tax” (sounds kind of Zen, doesn’t it?) of 13% in my province. Also in Ontario, the HST on oil-based products, such as gasoline, diesel, and KFC, went from 5% to 13%. This fall we’re starting to convert from paper money to plastic (no joke) so if the plastic is made from petroleum, there will be a 13% tax on the mere possession of currency (joke)!
Get a chicken!!! This is great because I really want chickens. I’ll share Air Force One with you if we can share chickens. Read: You get the responsibility and I get to enjoy. Deal? Sweet.
I like the way you think, except you think like me, and I sense one of us is going to get the short of the [chicken-poop-covered] stick here. I’m sure with your presidential connections, though, we could find someone to deal with the dirty work.
I see a cute intern in our future. I have no problem going down the same road Clinton did. Good enough for him; good enough for me.
LOL, this is too funny. I grew up on Long Island wearing bad ’80’s fashions and now I live in Michigan out in the country with barns and yes… two goats and a horse, although the horse is still boarded and not home yet. Anyhow, you can read about some of this on my site if you are interested in knowing what you might be in for!! Great post – found you thru Greatsby.
Thanks for coming by! I will definitely be checking out your blog (does it sound creepy to say I’ve seen you around [Wordpress, that is]?) – I need all the tips I can get about barn ownership!!
1. I can’t believe you told everyone about our super secret cult.
2. Obviously the answer is vodka distillery because that would lead to all the other ideas actually happening.
1. I’m sorry, but I sensed we’d gain more power through numbers.
2. This is why you’ll be co-captain of my cult. (Doesn’t this make up for all those times you weren’t picked first for dodge ball? …No? Am I projecting again?)
I’d like to join your cult. Can I find the application online?
We take a different approach here at GoGuiltyPleasures. You are required to send either homemade treats or fried goods of some kind, along with a videotaped reenactment of your favorite scene from Full House. After careful consideration of both, the cult and I will determine your eligibility.
I’m working on the homemade treats…and my husband will help me reenact the “Spirit of Thanksgiving” scene from Full House.
I’d like to add that I’m neat, was trained well as a follower in high school, and have developed my twisted ways since.
Keep talking… 😉
I love your blog! Made me giggle.
Life has surprised me too! Thought I’d live in the suburbs of the Twin Cities, MN my whole life, turns out, my fiance is whisking me off to a tiny town in Texas! Not sure how I feel about suddenly having to use the word “y’all” all the time.
I vote animals dressed as other animals. I once dressed my cat as a penguin. Best decision ever.
How did I miss this comment!? I’m so sorry I never responded! Thank you so much 🙂
Have you given in to the “ya’ll” yet? It’s so easy to ‘accidentally’ fall into that southern drawl, isn’t it?! And OMG, do you have pictures of your cat in the penguin costume??
Highly entertaining Jules. You’re life reads like a Far Side cartoon. Have you heard of Newtons law “for every action there is an opposite and equal re-action”? Well I just moved from the country to the city, que ghostly music.
Ha ha! Thank you so much – what a compliment! Oooh, okay, so I can live vicariously through you, and take comfort in knowing the world is balanced once more 🙂
I enjoy, lead to I discovered just what I used to be taking a look for.
You have ended my 4 day lengthy hunt! God Bless
you man. Have a great day. Bye
I drop a leave a response when I appreciate a article on a site or I
have something to valuable to contribute
to the conversation. Usually it is caused by the sincerness communicated in the post I looked at.
And after this post I Have a Barn. How the
F#%* Did That Happen? | Go Jules Go. I was actually excited enough
to drop a thought 😉 I actually do have a couple of questions for you if it’s okay.
Could it be simply me or does it give the impression like
some of the remarks come across like they are coming from brain dead individuals?
😛 And, if you are writing on additional sites, I would like to
keep up with you. Would you list the complete urls of all your communal pages
like your twitter feed, Facebook page or
linkedin profile?