Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! I have to work 3rd shift tonight (boo!) I go in at 11 so I get to spend midnight answering the phones. I'm looking for it to be a crazy night with probably a lot of drunks and car accident victims in the ER and lots of calls to the crisis line from depressed/drunk peeps. Should be interesting. How are you spending your NYE?

Christmas Extravaganza!

Because I worked 2nd shift on xmas eve, we had to break our normal family tradition of going to my sister's house to open the gifts she had bought. We were going to do it on Saturday, then they decided on Friday night that the roads out their way were too bad. Saturday morning they changed their minds and we headed to the land of presents as originally planned.


My sister buys a ton of presents for people at xmas time. Like a lot. Like lots and lots. Here's a breakdown of what I can remember everyone getting. Remember, these are all basically from my sister, with a few from my dad. Keep in mind though, my sister takes care of all of our dad's finances and of course his xmas shopping so basically a gift from my dad, while PAID FOR by him, it's really from my sister.


Me:


1. A Swatch watch. That's right! Early this year I posted a blog on my myspace about a website that lists all Swatches. I was able to find a picture of the one I got in 7th grade. I also declared in that blog that I would get another Swatch from this website in the not so distant future. I wanted one that screamed, "I am a Swatch watch straight out of the 80's!!!" Well, lucky for me when I did all that planning and booking for my sister and BIL's vacation this summer I happened to show her the Swatch site and how I wanted another Swatch. Lucky again for me that Caesar's Palace has a Swatch store in it. Whooohooo! While my new Swatch isn't TOO funky and doesn't scream 80's, it most certainly screams Swatch and I absolutely love it! I'm totally getting a Swatch guard in the next couple weeks.

2. Two Hallmark ornaments

3. 5 scratch-off lottery tickets (we each got these. She bought 30 tickets total and only 4 were winners. Blake won $5 and a free ticket and my BIL won a free ticket and $1.)

4. A handheld Sudoku game (this was "from the kids")

5. bed sheets

6. Adam and I got a $60 gift cert to Texas Roadhouse

7. $125 from my dad which we immediately handed over to my sister because she bought us a new washing machine the day after xmas when mine died last week. The rest of the washing machine money came out of Adam's snow plowing $$$.

8. Each of us got these Hallmark dancing globes. Mine was the elf one. Unfortunately Adam's reindeer would only tap one foot so he's gotta go back to the store and be exchanged.

9. The Office Season 4

10. Across the Universe DVD which I gave back to my sister because I already bought it for myself

11. A huge humidifier

12. Monopoly electronic banking



Adam got:

1. His own leg lamp from the movie "A Christmas Story". It was the first thing he opened and he said it's the only thing he needed. Even still he keeps saying, "That's the coolest thing ever. If that's all I would have got I would have been happy."

2. 4 pair of jeans

3. Fleece jammie pants "from the kids"

4. a Hallmark ornament

5. an ornament "from Emily"



Blake got:

1. 4 Planet Heroes guys

2. A Red Ryder BB gun (Emily got one too but in pink. They'll shoot their eyes out, I know. That's why they're locked in my BIL's safe.)

3. Preschool activity books

4. Both kids each got one of these DVD players (Blake's is blue) and a case to keep them in

5. 2 Leapster games

6. Each of them got Flik Flak watches which are kid's Swatch watches

7. Clothes, clothes, clothes

8. Jammies, jammies, jammies

9. Batman remote control car

10. Tonka helicopter

11. play-doh

12. in his stocking (yes, he has one there too) there was a coloring book, M&M's, and Hot Wheels

13. A big talking Incredible Hulk

14. Transformers bubble bath

15. A Smart Cycle



Emily got:

1. an iPod shuffle

2. Kung-Fu panda dvd

3. Tinker Bell dvd

4. 2 games for her Nintendo DS

5. Clothes, clothes, clothes

6. play-doh

7. her stocking had a coloring book, M&M's and littlest pet shops

8. Dancing castle barbie

9. a leapster game

10. Tinker Bell bubble bath

11. SpongeBob Monopoly

12. About 3 or 4 Crayola color explosion/light up drawing thingys

13. a bunch of craft stuff ie. pompom balls, craft sticks, glue, tape, pipe cleaners, etc.

So, yeah...not that much really...if you're a family of, oh say, TEN!

Hold me closer, Tony Danza

Hello Interneters. I thought after a long holiday weekend filled with extended family, listening to your Uncle Willy give a blow-by-blow account of his colonoscopy during dinner while you try to gag down great-grandma’s jell-o salad, it would be nice for a completely holiday-free blog post.

I’ve come across a website where you can find the correct words/phrases to songs and what others have misheard the lyrics to be. I started going through this huge site, which lists songs by artist, when I figured I would just cut right to one of my favorites, Prince, who had an extensive list. Even though there are many, many that I know, I only bothered to look at the songs I knew very well.

Erotic City—This one REALLY made me laugh out loud. The actual lyric is:
“We could f**k until the dawn, Making love ‘til cherry’s gone”

What someone thought Prince said was:
“We could f**k a chili dog, Making love ‘til chili’s gone.”

I guess you probably could hump a chili dog, but somehow I don’t think Prince wants any part of it.

This one holds a dear spot in my heart because it is the same misheard lyric that my husband once confessed to me. The song is “I Would Die 4U” The actual lyric is the title, “I Would Die 4U”. The misheard lyric this person shares with my hubby is, “Apple—dapple—you.” Very cute, very innocent, sort of “Bippity-boppity-boo-ish”. Definitely not Prince-y.

Here’s another that made me chuckle. Remember “Kiss”? Prince defies his manhood by singing in a very soprano voice for pretty much the entire song. The original lyric is, “I just want your extra time and your…KISS.” Misheard lyric? “I just want some extra time with your….KIDS.” Awww, that’s sweet Prince but I’m pretty sure after 7 minutes with my son you’ll bring him back and run away on your purple motorcycle.

Now onto a song which had SEVERAL entries in the site. In fact, there were 80 entries for people simply getting the title of the song wrong. How do you do that? Don’t you pay attention to what the song is actually CALLED??? Anyway, our little song that could is “Little Red Corvette.” I’ll start us off with telling you that a former roommate of mine thought our man Prince was saying, “Get the rent, collect”. Because I’m a big Prince fan, the thought of someone not actually “getting” the song was a little unsettling. To think that Prince is singing about collecting rent like some 105 lb. landlord in purple velvet instead of the sexual song it was made me a little sad. Turns out there’s a bunch of people out there just like my old roomie that seem to think Prince is singing about the rent. Like the lyric above, they too must not have known what the actual title to the song was. Here are some of my faves:

“Pay your rent, Georgette”
“Pay the rent, Collette”
“Pay the rent, collect”
“Pay the rent, Yvette”
“Leave the rent, call back”

This one expands on the rent issue:

“Pay the rent, Collette
You need to find a job that’s gonna last.”

You know, really Collette. Stop jerkin’ around and grow up already. Get a good job and pay your rent on time for christ’s sake.

Here is a list of other good ones:

“Me and the red corvette”
“Me and the revco man”
“Lyrical Corvette”
“Love in a red corvette”
“Living in a jet”
“Living in Quebec”
“Leave and then come back”
“Keep it wet, Collette”
“I’ll make you so wet”
“Lady in red, come back”

And this one is the most ironic:

“Isn’t it correct”

No, actually it isn’t. At all.

Besides people getting the title “Little Red Corvette” COMPLETELY wrong, they also fuggered up other parts of the song:

Actual lyric:
“Guess I must be dumb
she had a pocket full of horses…”

Misheard Lyric:
“Guess I must be dumb
As a bucket full of horse sh*t…”

Well. You had one part of that right.

Another one…actual lyric:
“Baby you’re much too fast.”

Misheard lyric:
“Phoebe you’re much to fast.”

This one is awesome. Actual lyric:
“Guess I should have known by the way your parked your car sideways that it wouldn’t last”

Misheard lyric:
“Guess I should have known by the way you parked your car sideways at a fotomat”

Based on that, you’re right. You SHOULD have known. GAWD!


The new theme song for “Biggest Loser” should be changed to this misheard ‘P*ssy Control’ lyric:

“Aaaaaaaahhhhh! Portion control! Oh!”


One smarty even effed up the title to ‘Purple Rain’. No. Really. Apparently he doesn’t know the title to the song or the freaking movie! He seems to think Prince is passionately singing the words, “Burn your brains, burn your brains.” Awwww. That’s sweet.

The last song in my Prince non-tribute is “Raspberry Beret”. I’ve saved this one for last because it includes the lyric I used to mis-sing for many years. From the time I was elementary school until who knows when. I’m sorry but it isn’t anything clever or funny. The actual lyric is: “And when it was warm she wouldn’t wear much more.” I used to belt out, “And if it was more, she wouldn’t wear much more.” Makes a lot of sense, right? Right? Shut up.

Here’s a good one for all of us big girls out there. Actual lyric:
“I wouldn’t change a strokecause baby I’m the mostWith a girl as fine as she was then”

Effed up lyric:
“I wouldn't change a stroke 'Cause baby I'm the most With a girl as fine as she was thick”

She must have been F.I.N.E! And T.H.I.C.K.

Because who could think the title of the song could actually be “Raspberry Beret”? It HAS to be, “She wore a brass miracle ring”. Of couse she did. She got it on QVC using easy-pay.

And finally, the way you’re grandma intended the song to be heard:
“She wore a raspberry beret,
The kind you find on a second-hand whore.”

Merry Christmas Interneters!

It's 10am xmas eve and I wanted to take the time to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. I have to work 2nd shift today and I just realized an hour ago that I forgot to pick up pictures at Walgreen's that I had developed to put in a big frame I got for my dad. So I gotta do that, pick up some photo paper to print off ones that need to be printed wallet-size AND I need to get some yarn to finish Emily's doll blanket I'm making for her. Hopefully it wont be too busy at work so I can get it done.

Last night Adam took the kids to Burger King to eat and play for a bit while I wrapped presents. While there Emily ended up running full blast into a kid's forehead. She knocked a slightly loose tooth even looser and banged up her gums (or gungs as she calls them) pretty good. Today the loose tooth was noticably blacker, which is always great, so we got it out for her.

This means we're going to have a rotating door of visitors tonight. First our elf leaves to go back to the North Pole. At some point Santa and the Tooth Fairy will come and go as well. Yikes. I hope they don't mind the messy house.

So, I hope Santa brings you everything you want and deserve this year. Until next time, Merry Christmas!

...and now a word from our sponsor

I get a little bummed sometimes when I don't see an update from some of my favorite blogs for several days. This year those delays have typically come about because a lot of my fellow bloggers have had or are about to have babies. I don't know what's in the water around my blog but if you're looking to get knocked up, come drink at the fountain that is my blog. Today, however, I get to lump myself in "that" category.

Uh...what?

OHMYGODNO! I'm most certainly not preggers! Whew! No way! Should I find myself in THAT situation I would most certainly run away because A) While eight may have been enough for Dick Van Patten, TWO is most certainly enough for me. and B) We cut off Adam's baby making factory 3 months after having Blake, forshadowing the Hell he would already put us through even by the age of 4.

The category I am speaking of is those that negelect their blogs for days at a time. While I would like to make some really great excuse like, "I've had morning sickness 20 hours a day", or "my baby only sleeps 4 hours a day and cries the rest of the time." I obviously don't have those issues. I do, however have a very crazy work schedule right now and it's the holidays and...yeah...I've just been plain old lazy.

So a few things that have happened this week. We had a bit of an ice "storm" on Sunday night. Boo because I had to work that night but I have a kick-ass hubby who scraped off my car and had it toasty warm for me by the time I left and that was awesome. Then we got about 4.5 inches of snow last night. Again Adam cleaned off my car for me this morning so I could get to work. A few minutes late, but I made it.

On Tuesday morning Blake had his preschool Christmas program. He did so good! We were so proud of him. Also it was nice to sit in a church pew for a Christmas program without having to hear about money, which was the case every time we went to one of Emily's programs when she was enrolled in Christian School. No really. Every. Single. Time. If the minister wasn't talking about people paying their tuition on time then they were harping about the fundraisers or buying freaking chairs so they would have more seating for future programs. Ugh. Terrible! And so tacky. Like other family members want to hear about those things. Seriously. Here are a few pictures of Blakey in his program:





Last night Adam went to bed early so he could get up at 2am to help the BIL plow snow. That's what Adam does during the winter. He helps my BIL's snow plowing business. It puts cash in our pockets and gets the stink blowed off of him for a few hours. Works out for everyone. Anyway, after Adam had gone to bed Emily took a shower. Afterwards Blake was in bed and Emily was doing her homework while I watched TV. I looked over at Em and she looked different somehow. That's when I realized her right eyebrow looked a little funny. I asked her to come over to me and I saw that the top of her eyebrow was actually gone. When I asked her what happened she acted like she had no idea. I asked her if she had a sticker on her head or something and pulled it off, taking half of her eyebrow with her and she said no. She went in the bathroom to look at it and still denied knowing anything when she came back out. I looked her right in the eyes and said, "Really Emily. Tell me. What happened? There's no way part of your eyebrow can come up missing and you have no idea what happened. I wont be mad, I promise." She starts crying. The story goes like this:

Emily was in the shower washing her leg. She notices it feels prickly, "You know, like yours does sometimes." (thanks Em.) So she decides she's going to shave it. She goes for my razor when she realizes not only is her leg hairy, but the area between her eyebrows is too. She decides that before she shaves her legs, she's going to take care of her uni-brow. This is when she knocks off the top of her eyebrow. She said she saw all the hair in her hand and freaked out and threw the hair down the drain. She said she thought she shaved off her whole eyebrow but then felt that there was some hair left.

OMG.

So now she's still crying and I'm trying not to laugh. I'm also very impressed with the fact that without a mirror, she's managed at the ripe old age of seven, to lob off the top of her eyebrow, cleanly, without so much as a cut on her face. Also without any real stubble. I said, "Are you crying because you're mad at yourself?" She nods. I said, "Well, you're going to do a lot of things that make you mad at yourself so it's ok." I asked her if she learned anything from this. "Yeah. Don't mess with your razor." I said, "Well. I don't think any of your friends at school are even going to notice so I wouldn't even mention it. But...now I have to take your picture."




Adam didn't notice it today so when I got off work this evening I had to tell him the story. I thought he was going to die laughing. Obviously, after the eyebrow scare, she didn't dare go at one of her legs with the razor. Thank god.

Last weekend we went to Christmas in the Village in Downtown Davenport. It was from 6pm to 9pm with fireworks starting at 9pm. The weather started out decent, for December anyway, and despite Adam treating me like I was coo-coo for cocoa pops, I made the kids bundle up in every winter acessory they had. Turned out this was a great idea because it was pretty freaking windy and cold by the time we left. We had found a spot to sit with chairs outside of a coffee shop to watch the fireworks but Emily started complaining about 5 minutes before they started that she was cold and tired so we headed to the car. Just as we got to the car the fireworks started and they were directly across the street from us. We had an awesome spot, so we thought, until we realized the little things flying at us weren't bits of the tree we were standing under but actual bits of shells from the fireworks. The wind was blowing directly at us and turned us into targets. After about the fourth one and seeing the sparks from the fireworks scurry over our heads we decided to get everyone in the car and get outta there. As we pulled about 50 feet forward to a stop sign the fireworks finale started and we had a toasty warm (and safe) spot to watch them. We had a great time otherwise. We took a horse and carriage ride and got our pictures taken with all kinds of wintry friends. Blake was really freaked out by The Grinch but as he only seemed to weigh about a buck seventy, I told Blake I could take him if needed. Didn't matter. Blake hid with strangers to avoid the greeny meany.







This Friday is Emily's winter program and hopefully she can hang onto both of her eyebrows for the performance. If not, I'll surely have pictures.

...and that's why you found me in the fetal position when you came home from work last week...and the week before that...and everyday in August...

Now that Adam is laid off I’ll be picking up extra shifts at work, and believe me, there are plenty of extra shifts for anyone who wants them. Our FT 2nd shifter goes on vaca next week. Our FT 3rd shifter is taking the following 2 weeks after that and a FT 1st shifter is taking the 2 weeks after that. My schedule for the next 2 weeks goes a little something like this:

Work 3rd shift on Sunday, off for two days, work 1st shift, 2nd shift, 2 days of 3rd shift, off for one day, 3rd shift, off 1 day, 2nd shift, off for xmas day, 2nd shift then 3rd shift. Whew. This is soooo going to screw up my sleep but we are so broke right now with Adam not working full weeks due to the weather and now waiting for his unemployment to kick in at the end of the month that it’ll be worth it when we’re actually able to pay the rent in January.

Adam paid me a huge compliment Tuesday night. All summer I’ve been telling him how awful Blake can be. He gets into everything, doesn’t listen and talks back. There were days, especially during the time Adam worked out of town and wasn’t home, that I wanted to rip my hair out. All day on Tuesday I let Adam pretty much take care of Blake. I let him get mad when Blake got into the fridge AGAIN, when he made a big mess in his room, when he wouldn’t eat his dinner and would scream out, “NO!” when you ask him to do something. Finally, at the end of the night, when Blake was supposed to be in bed but got up for what seemed like the 15th time, Adam had had enough. Blake got scolded and I got a “I’m so sorry you’ve gone through this all summer. I don’t know how you did it.”

It’s ok. When I look back I wonder how I did it myself. I keep telling myself, “Someday he’ll be in school and I’ll miss these days with him.” Of course it’s easy to feel nostalgic AFTER he’s gone to bed and the day is done. During the day its more like Joan Crawford. You don’t really get that warm fuzzy feeling when you’re screaming out, “NO MORE WIRE HANGERS!” Or maybe you do, in which case you should consider therapy. And Xanax.

Off to a good start...almost

So Adam did get laid off for the winter at the end of his shift yesterday. When Adam gets laid off we practically reverse rolls for a while. It allows me to work more hours and then he gets to do all the running around with the kids, clean and make dinner.

Since today's Tuesday Adam got to take Blake to preschool. When he got home we stuck with our plan to go to our apartment complex's workout facilities while Blake's at school. We worked out for an hour, did a little shopping and Adam dropped me off at a craft store so I could get some more yarn for the blankets I'm working on for the kids. Unfortunately of the 4 skeins of yarn I bought, 2 were the wrong shade. Boo! Anyway, we picked Blake up and then came home and attempted to put up our xmas tree that my sis and BIL brought from their house. Sadly we couldn't put up the tree because the tree stand wasn't in the box. Double-boo! So, then we both battled the disaster that is our bedroom. I cleaned our bathroom, Emily came home and we went to Wal-Mart to pick up Adam's new glasses.

I made dinner, we ate and around 8:00 the kids put on their jammies and got ready for bed. I don't remember why she said it but Emily mentioned that tomorrow was Wednesday. That's when it struck me that we totally forgot to take Emily to dance class! Whoops! Well, we almost got it right today.

It's like this and like that and like this and a...

Blake's birthday party was a huge success yesterday. Special shout-out to my hubby who stayed up very late on Saturday night cleaning while I was at work. The house looked wonderful. Now if he could only magically make our living room about 5 feet wider so we could comfortably put the Christmas tree where I want it. *sigh*

Also awesome job to everyone who bought Blake a gift. I think everyone except my sister asked what to get him and to everyone I said, "Anything Batman, Superman, Spiderman, Iron Man. Basically anything ending in 'man.' " Everyone got him the perfect thing that wasn't already something he had. He got big Superman and Batman action figures, some little spiderman, iron man and such, some cash, remote control cars, a hot wheels track. Lots of goodies. Adam took one look at that hot wheels track and said, "Yeah. I can't WAIT to get laid off!"

I started putting some of the xmas decorations up this morning. I'm missing things and I don't know if I want to go out to my sister's house to dig through all my stuff and bring it back here only to take it down in a couple weeks. It just doesn't seem worth it somehow.

I slept on the couch last night because Adam fell asleep on top of the bed, diagonally. With his clothes on. And his shoes. And he would NOT move. In fact I got yelled at by a very groggy Adam for even suggesting it. I thought it was FREEZING in the bedroom anyway so I grabbed my pillow and a blanket and spent a peaceful night on the couch.

If my son doesn't stay out of the kitchen and refrigerator I may be forced to duct tape him to the wall. Don't make me do it. No. Really.

I seriously need to clean our bedroom and our bathroom. I cleaned the main bathroom before the party but would have DIED if anyone would have needed to use ours. In fact I probably would have made one of the neighbors open up their home so as to save myself the embarrassment.

Adam may very well be getting laid off today for the winter. Then we'll be spending the next five months watching movies, playing RockBand and drinking. It's a lot like college all over again, except with clean clothes.

To my Buddy Bear

Well the snow is flying and that can only mean one thing. Today, December 3rd, my little Buddy Bear turns four years old. I would say it doesn't seem that long ago but actually, it does. We've often said, and by often I mean as recent as last night, "If Blake would have came first, we would have never had an Emily." I used to think my grey hairs started when I got Adam. That was NOTHING compared to my Blake. I love spending time with Blake but I think I would enjoy our time even more if he would just "quit it." Quit getting into the refrigerator. Quit getting into my purse. Quit trying to cut open packages with scissors. Quit using his Leggo table, a Rubbermaid tote, a small folding chair, a dining room chair--whatever to get up on the counter, the table, the dryer, the bathroom counter. Quit getting into the Band-aids. I swear he opened up 3 boxes of them 2 weeks ago, and where most kids just put them on their bodies, Blake put them...who knows where. All I know is I had zero Band-aids left and I couldn't find a single one stuck to anything.

Threats are nothing to him and cuss words are his new thing. Today he told me, "It's my birthday, bitches!" After we got groceries as we pulled up in front of the building he declared, "I'm home, bitches!" (Don't worry, we're working on putting a stop to that, although sometimes, when we're not out in public, it makes us giggle.)

Yes, our Blake has always been a maniac. Right from the day he was born. Sure he looked sweet.



Even when Emily held him for the first time and said, "He's cute isn't he?" Yep. He even had her fooled.



But you can look into his eyes and see it. The craziness.





He does have his moments. The ones where he finally lets you breathe and you can take a step back and say, "Geez, he's not so bad!"





Then he wakes up and you're fighting to keep him from putting those stupid boots on again.



But we sure do love you, buddy.



Even when you would drool and have mystery baby food stuck to your nose.



Even when you puked on us. (Which is exactly what happened RIGHT after this photo, even though he doesn't look like he's about to yakk. Sorry Susie! Thanks for being such a sport!)



We love to hold you and have fun with you. Even now that you don't always want to be held.






Even when you get scared of your first fireworks and throw the blanket over your head for cover.



You will always be my hero.




Despite your obvious drinking problem.

Gobble Gobble Goo and Gobble Gobble Gickel. I Wish Turkey Only Cost A Nickel

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I’m working tonight (Wednesday night) and then have to go home, finish a few devilled eggs I didn’t do yesterday, make a 7 layer salad and then try to catch a few hours of zzzzz’s. We’re eating dinner at my sister’s house at 1:00 and I don’t plan to get there until 12:30-1:00. Those bitches can wait on me. Dinner’s never served on time anyway.

I’ve done the head count a couple times and I think there’s going to be 15 of us. It should be fun. It’s my better side of the family. I’ll try to remember the camera. Getting pictures of people sleeping with their pants undone is always good for blackmail. Most will pay to keep that stuff off the Internet. *evil laugh!*

The only thing I'm not looking forward to, which my dear husband is, is the yearly broadcast of "Alice's Restaurant" played in it's entirety beginning at noon. Whooooo. Blake's gonna have a fit. I can hear it now. "Noooooot thiiiiiiis! I wanna hear the Ting Tings!" Goody.

My lips are turning blue and I haven't felt my toes since 10:15

Last night I worked and on the way home stopped to get some gas. ($1.76/gallon baby! Yeah!) Once I got home I made Emily put on some shoes (she had slept in her clothes, wtg Adam!) and then I threw her in the car and made my way over the bridge, through Moline, into the heart of East Moline for Emily's FluMist appointment. That took all of five minutes once we got there so we headed back through the heart of East Moline, into Moline, over the bridge and into our warm house.

After that I made Emily add some clothes to her current ensemble. From there we all dug through the corner basket that holds all of our scarves, mittens, ear muffs and any other diddy that keeps random appendages warm, then we piled in the car and headed downtown to the Festival of Trees parade.

I am so, so kicking myself for not bringing the camera, but truth be told, I'm not sure I would have even taken any pictures because it was SO FREAKING COLD! Though we were all dressed warm, none of us had on enough clothes. We could have brought more blankets. I should have brought a couple chairs for the kids to keep them from having to sit their cold butts on the concrete.

I'm not even sure the parade was over when we left. It may have just been a very large gap between the three story Mega Hunter balloon and some local high school band. We never even got to see Santa in his souped up coupe.

When we stood to leave my but was so frozen that I didn't even notice I had to pee until I actually started moving. My feet were so cold that I literally didn't feel anything from about my mid calf down. At one point I was nervous walking for fear I may fall down and be trampled by the thousands of parade-goers (or would that be parade-leavers) behind me.

It very much reminded me of the time I worked as a receptionist at a car dealership. (My first job). One Saturday I spent about two-hours sitting on one of my feet. There was really no reason for it other than I was just comfortable sitting in that position. The problem was when I got up and started walking across the showroom floor to go to lunch. My foot and leg were so asleep that I didn't even notice that I left one shoe (a flat) behind. Someone had to point it out to me.

"Hey Amy. How come you're only wearing one shoe?"

"Oh, because I can't feel my leg past my knee."

"..."

I'm surprised I didn't end up stepping on something ridiculous like a wandering tack or meandering staple. Then I would have formed some new strain of gangrene and end up having to be fitted for a new titanium foot. My luck the new foot would be smaller than my normal shoes and I'd have to forever endear the question, "Hey Amy, How come you're only wearing one shoe?" Then I would flashback to that fateful day in the dealership where a young girl dared to find comfort at her desk on the showroom floor.

So, yeah. It was really cold at the parade.

The Dad Update

In my last post I talked about how my dad went into the ER on Sunday the 9th. He was then admitted to the Surgical ICU unit, then was moved a day or 2 later to the Medical ICU unit. I think he was there a day before he was again moved to a regular medical floor on Thursday.

Friday morning at 5:45am my phone rang, which is never good. It was my sister. She said dad's nurse had just called her and that dad was missing. Had been missing for the last 15-20 minutes. This does happen every once in a while. I'll hear from security that a pt. has gone missing, they'll ask me to keep my eye out since my office overlooks the lobby. In all of the cases I've know it to happen, 100% have been found within 10-15 minutes. Usually they are outside smoking or in the cafeteria trying to score some food. So, when I got off the phone to call security, I was really expecting to hear that they had already found him. Instead one officer was out driving around town to see if he had walked toward home, the other was walking around trying to find him. He asked for a description because he said the nurses couldn't give him a good one. Uh...what????? He's been there for five days and NO ONE can describe him???

"He's a big guy. Probably around 275 lbs. He's got grey hair. He wears glasses but I'm not sure if he's got them on. He's had knee replacements, a new hip and new shoulders. This is not a guy that gets around quickly."

Then he asked if he had street clothes in his room.

"No. We took those with us on Sunday night."
"Well I should tell you that the nurses found his gown on his bed."
"..."
"So we're potentially dealing with a naked man walking around the hospital."
"I don't know what to say."
"Have you ever had any issues with him like this before?"
"Never ever. He's never even had so much as a senior moment. That's why I'm at such a loss. I really, really have no idea why he's doing this."
"Call me back in 10 minutes. I'm going to check the security cameras."

The next 10 minutes was the longest ever. I was perplexed as to whether I should get dressed and go over there or stay home because surely they would find him in the next few minutes. By now it had been about 45 minutes since he went missing.

I called security back and talked to the guard who had been out driving around. He said, "I heard he doesn't have any clothes. That's not right, is it?"

"Well, he didn't have any street clothes in his room, I can tell you that. I really don't think he would have left the hospital. Plus, if he really doesn't have any clothes on and was outside, someone would have called by now to report it."
"Well, why don't you call the police department and find out."
"...." (that's me, shocked that I'm being asked to call the police myself.) "Is it possible he just got up out of his room, got confused and then came back to the wrong room? Have the nurses on his floor checked all the rooms?"

"I don't know. Why don't you call the floor and ask. I tell you what, why don't you call the police then call the floor to see if they've checked the rooms. I haven't talked to the nurses."

(In this guard's defense, I think he was confused when I first called. I think he thought I was at work and would have had all of these numbers at my disposal. If that would have been the case, I probably would have already made these calls myself. I don't think he realized I was calling from home.)

At that point I decided to go there. My sister was already on her way.

When I was almost to the hospital my phone rang. They had found my dad. An hour and a half later they found him. He was underneath a stairwell. He went down six flights of stairs and found a resting spot under the stairs. They had wheeled him back upstairs and were in the hall outside his room when I got there. Our nursing supervisor said she thought she knew all of the hiding places for patients. Guess she knows better now.

My dad seemed completely back to normal when we got there, although he was pretty shook up and scared as to why he did it. He told me he went looking for French Canada. We're pretty sure it was the new meds they have him on, or the lack thereof, because they had just taken him off a bunch of meds and morphine the day before. We can't seem to convince him of that though. They think it may also have been a severe UTI that caused it. Either way it seems to be an isolated case.

Oh, and he wasn't naked BTW. One of the nurses had remembered changing his gown. He also stole his roommate's coat before he left, so he wasn't totally crazy.

Despite all of that they did end up releasing him that night. He ended up back in the ER the next day (last Saturday) because he felt like he was going to pass out. Turns out his pulse was spiking up to 180 due to a potassium and magnesium deficiency. He was released again last night and is now staying out at my sister's house. Now comes arrangements for home assistance and probably a new apartment. One without stairs.

Life in the ER and a completely different reason it rocks to live in an apartment

On Sunday I spent a few hours shopping with my sister. When I got home Adam ran next door to the grocery store to pick up a few things to make dinner. Right after he got home our new neighbor came up and invited us to her house for tacos. Rock on. All of our building regulars were there, as well as all of our kids and we ate tacos and hung out and had fun for about an hour and a half. That's when Adam left with our 2 kids to give them baths and put them in bed. He had been gone for a few minutes when he came back downstairs and told me my sis and BIL had been trying to reach us for an hour because my dad had been taken by ambulance to the hospital, my hospital I work at.

I ran out and headed over there, calling my BIL on the way. Apparently my dad had passed out at home. Just before that though, he managed to hit his Lifeline button to have 911 dispatched.

He got there around 7pm and I got there at 8:30. He was awake but in a lot of pain. He had bouts of diarrhea there in the ER so bad that even the nurses were gagging. It may be terrible and gross but you have to give yourself a high-five if you've got it bad enough to gag a nurse, that's my opinion anyway.

So after a couple hours they did some xrays and a CT scan and the ER doc had a strong suspicion it was colitis, or a blockage of the colon. He said the strong odor was what they call "dead bowel". Ack. He was in a lot of pain and there was talk that they were going to have to call in the surgical team. Once the CT results came back and the surgical doc was called, they confirmed their diagnosis but decided to treat him with anti-biotics to avoid surgery. They want his colon to clear itself, which it seems to be doing. At 2:30am they finally secured a room for him in the ICU and we finally left the place at 3:30am.

My BIL had taken my sister's car home with him so I drove my sister back to our apartment and we got there around 4am. I knew the kids would be up around 6 and our neighbor was bringing her 2 sons at 7:30 to hang at our house until the bus comes. I had intentions of just staying up but went to bed a little after 5, getting up at 7:15.

After all the kids were on the bus my awesome neighbor downstairs took Blake for the day so my sister and I could concentrate on our dad. We went out for breakfast and headed back to the hospital.

My dad arrived at the ER without his bottom dentures. He said he had thrown up in a trashcan next to his chair at his house so my sister and I knew we had a nasty task ahead of us. This afternoon we went to dad's apartment to make sure it was all locked up and to try to find his dentures and glasses. I was really dreading going over there, fearing what we would find. I grabbed a handful of rubber gloves from my dad's room in the ICU before we left.

My sister was in front of me unlocking the door. I lagged behind, waiting for the horrible smells to hit my nose once the door was opened. She opened the door and said, "Well, it doesn't smell." Good! We walked in and you would have never known my dad had been through hell that afternoon and early evening. His apartment was practically spotless. Seriously. Imagine yourself sitting at home when suddenly you get stricken with severe stomach pains, you get diarrhea, throw up and just before you pass out you call for help. The next thing you know you're outside on a stretcher with paramedics and firemen all around and you're asking for the trashcan you knew you threw up in before. Now imagine what your house would look and smell like the next day. Grody, right? Not my dad. His house was cleaner than mine.

Fortunately or unfortunately for us the trashcan was no where to be found. After a lot of phone calls we decided it had been chucked somewhere and dad was just going to have to be without half of his teeth for a while. We went back up to the hospital to give him the glasses, which we did find, today's newspaper and to deliver the bad news about his choppers. He was like, "Well, I was due for new ones anyway."

We came back to my house since Emily had just gotten out of school and my sister started going through dad's big bag o' meds. There in the bag was the lost dentures. Hip-hip-hooray! She took them up to him tonight.

So the awesome neighbor who kept Blake today agreed tonight to keep the kids on Wednesday night because I have to work 3rd shift. I can't tell you how great it feels to have people you haven't known for very long step up for you and help you out. Adam is still working out of town and I was starting to feel a bit stressed about what I was going to do. I have a strong feeling a couple other neighbors would have volunteered as well, had they been asked first. Adam and I are indebted to these people forever. I think this is what they meant by, "It takes a village..."

Tomorrow I have to call my manager about my schedule. Since my dad was the only sitter I had to watch the kids when I was scheduled to work on first shift, I'm going to have to take myself off the availability for first shift. At least for a couple weeks until Adam gets laid off for the winter. I don't like to do it this way but I really have no other choice and it's only for a couple of weeks. Then they can schedule me for just about anything, but right now I need to concentrate on my family. Adam and I have already had a discussion about child care next year when he goes back to work. We know that we are going to have to find someone else because we knew, even before this, that my dad was getting too tired to deal with the kids, even for a few hours. We're going to retire him and let him just be "Papa" for a while, coming to visit every few days just for a little while.

As for my dad, they're keeping him tonight too and will likely let him go home sometime tomorrow, if everything continues to look good. I'm pleased as punch about that.

I'll be there and I'll follow you...

check out the link to the right. Now you can follow my blog and have your beautiful profile pic featured on my site. Who's gonna be the first to do it? Will it be you? Hmmmmm....

Remember, once your mug is featured on my blog, it will give YOUR blog that much more exposure. Can you handle it? I think you can.

Well she didn't get THAT from me...

On Thursday when Emily came home from school she said the girl she is assigned to sit next to on the bus was giving her a hard time. I asked her what she said to her and she told Emily that her breath stunk and that she doesn't sing well. I guess she made other comments too. I figured this was an older girl but no, one who is also in 2nd grade but in a different class than Emily. I swallowed my instinct to find the girl and push her over and told Emily that she needed to report it to the bus driver. What the girl is doing is essentially bullying, which the school has a zero-tolerance for. So zero-tolerance in fact that a boy who lives in our complex, who annoyed the kids and parents every day this summer at the pool with his over-the-top behavior, got kicked out of Emily's school for bullying. He had to be transferred. He's in maybe 4th grade.

I wasn't looking for this girl to get kicked out of school. I don't however, think Emily needs to tolerate some kid with a nasty mouth. I mean, this is 2nd grade. 2nd grade! I would have never even thought to talk to someone like that in 2nd grade. I could have understood if it would have came from and older kid. I would have suggested to Emily that she still talk to the bus driver, but I would have not been as surprised if the kid was older. And a girl! Who are her parents??? Wait. I know who they are. They are the adults you see out in the store, in the bar, wherever, that make you say, "Geez. I hope they're not someones PARENTS!"

Anyway, Emily really wasn't that upset about it. I asked her if she said anything back to the girl and she said no. I asked her how she felt about what she said and she said it just made her annoyed, mostly. She said she would say something to the bus driver and we left it at that.

I started to think about how I would have reacted to that situation if I were her age. I probably would have been more than annoyed by it. I would have been hurt and angry. I would have told everyone I knew who had any type of authority to try to get the girl in trouble. That's just how I used to roll. In some ways I'm still like that, to a point. Maybe not so much to get people in trouble, but more to find the drama in situations. I don't like to admit it but I like drama. I do. I really do.

So Friday afternoon when Emily came home from school she nonchalantly said that the bus driver was going to move her to a different seat. Like, that was the end of the conversation. As though I would want no more details about what happened. I was like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. What did u say to the driver and what did she say?"

"I asked her if she could move me and she asked who I sat next to and I told her and she said, 'Oh yes. It will be done by Monday.' and she wrote my name down."

"Did you tell her what had been happening?"

"No."

"Did you talk to the driver when that girl was there on the bus???"

"No. She gets off at a stop before mine and I told her after she got off."

Wow. Was all I could think in my head. She totally didn't dramatize the situation AT ALL. She very simply asked to be moved and got the job done. She didn't rub it in the girl's face or even do it in front of the girl. She waited until the girl got off the bus and then talked to the driver. If she didn't already have my face I would think that my REAL child was switched with some other good moralled child at birth. Good thing Blake likes to tattle. I'd hate to be the only drama queen in a house full of do-gooders.

Dorothy Harris: Are you coming along?
Young Forrest Gump: Mama said not to be takin' rides from strangers
Dorothy Harris: This is the bus to school.
Young Forrest Gump: I'm
Forrest, Forrest Gump.
Dorothy Harris: I'm Dorothy Harris.
Young Forrest
Gump: Well, now we ain't strangers anymore.

FSA Update

Remember my problems with my FSA account? Yes, that's the one. The one from close to FOUR MONTHS AGO!!!! Anyway, it's been resolved. I don't want to get too much into it for fear of being drug into my HR office (again) but it turns out it was the hospital's fault. I really don't understand all of the details, mostly because I didn't listen to the voicemail much after "I've got it all straightened out" but basically the hospital ran the charge through twice due to some computer something or other. Anyway it's done. Now I have two months to spend approximately $550 out of my FSA. Luckily Adam's glasses were recently broken so we get to spend a large chunk on that. After that, well it's a helluva lot of band-aids, Vagisil, Tylenol and various other OTC meds. Whoohoo!

Obama fo yo mama!

Go Obama! That's all I have to say. WTG!

There's more Balwin brothers than that.

In case you've been living under a rock for the past 16 months, you should know that tomorrow's election day. No matter what else you've got going on...VOTE!

I love this commercial. Everything Jonah Hill says cracks me up. Also Sarah Silverman is hilarious:



Or, don't vote. This is one of my favorite 'Hollywood wants you to vote' videos. I especially love when Neil Patrick Harris, who in the last year or so announced he was gay says, "I vote because I fell in love, and I want it to matter." Plus, you get to hear Justin Timberlake say, "I can do anything. I was in a boy band."




If those videos don't convince you. Maybe Justine Bateman can.

Pictures!

Whoa!

I almost went to bed without posting today. Would have screwed up my NaBloPoMo on day 2! Not good. Anyway, here are a couple Halloween pics for your viewing pleasure. I'm heading to bed. Gotta work tonight. Booooo!

A Halloween complete with no pictures

Well today is the first day of NaBloPoMo and I've got another boring post for ya! It would probably be a much more exciting post had I remembered to take my camera with me to Blake's school party last night. Actually I did have the camera, however I forgot it in my sister's car and didn't really think about it until much later. Bad mommy! I'm definitely going to try to get some of the pics my sister took and then publish an update because some of the kid's costumes were AWESOME and there was one particular old man that just has to been seen by the whole world.

Everything came off without a hitch yesterday. I did some cleaning in the morning, made the kids mummy dogs for lunch as their "super-special-Halloween-lunch" and then we all got ready to go. My sister met us at the house sometime close to 4:00 and we took the kids over to Walgreens to get free Halloween pictures taken of them. I could have picked the pics up today, had I not forgotten until just now. Maybe then my post wouldn't be so picture-free.

From there we headed to our local pet store so I could get the birds some more seed. We've been having an issue with moths which our "bug guy" says is due to the seed. They are attracted to the seed. Ack. Poor Jake and Sam. Emily and I totally cleaned out the bird cage, the bird stand, the container we keep their seed in and dumped out all of their food except for a small amount we put in their bowl. Now we're keeping the food out on the deck, although I've heard it works well to keep it in the fridge too so once it starts getting too cold to head out on the deck, we'll be storing the food in the fridge.

Once I got the seed we made our way over to the church where Blake goes to preschool for their Wild, Wild West festival. I had given the kids a choice of going there or trick-or-treating and this is what they chose. I told my sister it figures that we'd be INSIDE at some festival on Halloween night since it was nice out. The last 3 years it's been freezing and the kids have been out in the cold with their costumes under heavy coats and hats. The church had a free supper of hot dogs, baked beans and chips, which was pretty good. The kids got to play lots of games and won a ton of candy. Adam was even able to join us for the last hour and a half or so. He's still working out of town but got off early enough to make the hour and half ++ drive.

Once it was over we headed home, put the kids to bed, hung with the neighbors for a bit and then Adam and I played a bit of Rock Band. I got to show off my mad drumming skills. I even finally made my way through "Green Grass and High Tides" which has been kicking my ass for the last few days.

Today I started to clean up our bedroom which literally looks like a laundromat exploded in there, however I lost interest after about 3.4 minutes. Adam was nice enough to clean out my car, which was another mess, and then the fam and I headed over to my work so I could do a few days of the on-call schedule. November is my month to do this, but since I only work part-time I have to do several days at once. I had started it when I worked on Wednesday night but our company Intranet was down and once it came back up I had spaced it off, so it was my own fault that I had to come back in on my own time and get caught up. Oh well.

After that we got some lunch, groceries, came home and we all played Rock Band for a bit. Emily loves the song "I Think I'm Paranoid" by Garbage. She'll tell you she thinks the name of the band is silly because their songs are really good. She actually does an awesome job on the song. Blake likes to sing "Should I Stay or Should I Go" by The Clash. Basically he screams, "Should I stay or should I go now" over and over the whole time and we end up getting kicked off the stage 2 out of 3 times.

So now I think I'll try to get some more cleaning done in our bedroom. Right now Adam's working on some songs with one of the guitarists for the 2nd band he's in but I'm hoping he'll come in soon and help out.

Happy November everyone!

more randoms...

I enjoyed the style of my last post so much, I'm going to do it again. Short excerpts on what's going on with me, my fam and the rest of the world.

On Friday Adam and I purchased a PS2 and Rock Band. Let me just say I've been rocking out with my cock out since Friday afternoon. I haven't yet touched the guitar but I plan to eventually so I will be able to play anything should any member of our band suddenly drop out or need to go back into rehab. My specialty so far has been the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums...sorry, was channeling The Ting Tings there for a minute. They should put a Ting Tings song on Rock Band. Blake would flip!

Found an awesome website last night at work. www.x-entertainment.com. This guy has everything 80's. Not for sale, mind you, just as a general discussion. He's complete with pictures too. For instance he's got an entire section dedicated to old school McDonald's tray liners. Go. Look. Feel old.

On Wednesday I worked first shift and the cafeteria served my favorite soup, California Medley. I'm working first shift again on Monday and guess what? California Medley soup is being served. It's like I just won the soup lottery.

Speaking of lotteries, I also won the "you just pissed out your ass lottery" at a local McDonald's bathroom on Friday. Apparently drinking 2 glasses of milk the night before and then eating at Denny's the next day for breakfast automatically enrolls you. I had no idea. TMI? Yeah. I thought so too.

Blake is Iron Man for Halloween. The best part about this is when he puts on his costume he walks around Ozzy-style saying, "I. Am. Iron. Man!" Now if I could just play that on my Rock Band drums.

Adam's been called back to working out of town. Boo!

Playing Rock Band instead of sleeping before you go into work 3rd shift will make you very, very, very....VERY tired about 2 hours before your shift ends. I wouldn't recommend this.

Sometimes when you're at home and bored you pull out the old Microsoft Paint and draw pictures of your hubby that look like this:



Seriously. It looks just like him. See?



Told you. Pay no attention to the bitter look on his face. This was taken New Year's Day this year and he had just put his car into a large snowbank on the side of Interstate 80.

The above cartoon Adam is the first time I've mentioned his band since I started this blog almost a year ago. Let me now give them a proper introduction:

Ladies and Gentlemen, Plagued By Saints

www.myspace.com/plaguedbysaints

I don't like people who call us at the switchboard at work and want to know what time their appointment is with their doctor when they don't even know their doctor's name. Honesty, how do these people function every day?

30-year old women who go to the ER for a pregnancy test need to man-up and find the courage to spend $9 on an EPT at their local drug store. No. Really.

Tonight I went to Emily's school for a parent-teach conference. Turns out I signed up for Thursday night, not Monday night. Maybe I should write these things down.

Last night it flurried. I am NOT ready for winter. Winter can suck it!

Remember THIS post? Turns out I'm not skerrd anymore. I've actually listened to "American Girl" a few times. In my car even. Ta-da! I'm cured.

You should be more like me

I've been eating some yummy things and watching some great tv so I thought I would share. Actually, I've been eating some decent things and watching some OK tv, and I'm bored and want to share.

Tonight for dinner I made Stouffer's Beef Stroganoff. It's about $7 at Wal-Mart and everything comes in one big bag. It has 3 very simple instructions:

1. Pour contents of bag in large skillet, cover and cook on high for 3 minutes
2. Uncover and stir
3. Re-cover and cook on medium for 9-11 minutes.

Viola! Dinner. Here's how quick and easy this is. I worked until 5 tonight. I got home at 5:35 and I was clearing off the table at 6:30. Now that's awesome. It was pretty good too. The only thing I would remove if given the option was the onions. I love onions, don't get me wrong. In fact when I was little, like say between the ages of 2-6 I would sit on the floor, in front of the onion bin and eat them like apples. My mom, a true cussing genius, would say to me, "Amy! God dammit! Don't eat those like that! You're three! That's not right! Fuck!" Frozen onions put into once prepared food and then reheated into pieces of slime are acky.

This past Sunday on my weekly Sunday grocery shopping adventure I picked up Ben & Jerry's Pumpkin Cheesecake ice cream. It's the bomb! Holy gourds, Batman, this shit is great. I grabbed one for my sister too. No word yet on if she's tried it or likes it. The only thing I don't like about it is the texture. Because it has a swirl of graham crackers the texture is a little gritty. The flavor though, rocks!

Every Sunday night Adam and I wrap up our weekend by watching Little Britain, USA. According to my bestie, Jim, who knows all things having to do with British TV shows, it is basically the same show that's been on in England, just now finally making it's way to the US. This show is raunchy and hilarious, and I love it. Just once at work I want to imitate the skit with the lady who works in a hospital and say, "Compu-ah sez no."

Raising the Bar. This show is on TNT and stars Mark Paul Gosselaar, aka Zack Morris from Saved By The Bell. It's a lawyer show and MPG plays an attorney sporting a Jesus meets Richie Sambora shag hairdo. I think this show started out a little weak but it's getting a lot better. I look forward to watching it each week.

The Cleaner. Two words: Benjamin Bratt. Yum! I can even make my way past the 'stache and goatee he flaunts that really needs a trim. Unfortunately the season finale was last week so you might not be able to check this one out, however it's worth a search on your DVR. I think this one is on A&E just like...

Intervention. I'm sure you've heard of this show. I watch it every week to remind me not to do drugs or drink to excess. These people are all kinds of fuggered up. Love it.

Easy Fries. These are microwaveable fries sold in single serving boxes that sell for about 88 cents each at Wal-Mart. I bought them for the kids last week as part of a quick dinner that included hot dogs. They actually microwave up crispy and are pretty good.

Baked chicken and rice. I'm throwing this one in just to prove that not everything I make comes out of the freezer section premade. I got a recipe for this online and the rice is made with onion soup mix. Once I served it and tasted the rice I almost cried. It tasted EXACTLY like the chicken and rice my grandma used to make. Should you find yourself wanting the recipe, let me know. I'll hook you up.

So, what have you been watching and eating? Anything I need to know about?

Some things and some pictures

I haven't blogged in a while and I'm planning on participating in my first NaBloPoMo next month so I guess I better get on the ball here. This post isn't going to talk about world hunger or the recent economic crisis, however I do plan on talking about murder, death, alcohol, vandalism, Lysol, trickery and the color red. I know! You can hardly wait!

So in my last post I talked about taking the kids to Disney, Live! Well, the next day my sister came to take the kids for the weekend and I got to get my hairs done! I was so freaking excited you have no idea. I haven't had a haircut since maybe June but no later than July. I was tired of it and wearing it up all the time. I walked into the salon I always go to, headed toward the girl that always cuts my hair and she totally read my mind. I said,

"I want something kinda funky."

"How about red?"

"OK."

"No, like real red."
"OK."

"I mean like red-red."

"Sure!"

With absolutely no prodding on her part she talked me into bright red, red-red, no like really-real red highlights in my hair. It looked awesome. Then she totally chopped it up and I absolutely love the cut. I can blow dry it without even putting product in my hair and it looks awesome. I can also put a bit of wax in it for definition and some spray and I'm good to go. I couldn't love it more. Here are 2 pics that absolutely do it no justice. The color these pics came out don't really do the highlights justice, but you can get the idea.




Excuse the disdainful look on my face. From the lanyard around my neck I must have just gotten off of work. I'm probably tired and cranky.

Last week was fairly uneventful. We found out on the 9th that a long-time friend of my family, who has also been my dentist since I was about 5 years old passed away. His name was Phil. He was only 60 years old. The story was told to me that he was hunting, had a heart attack and fell out of a tree where his deer stand was. Also, apparently he was out there for a while before he was found. I've heard several hours and I've heard a couple days. I do know his wife (who has worked as his office manager for 35 years) was out of town at the time and that everyone became suspicious when he didn't show up at the office for an appointment Thursday morning. That's when he was found. Anyway, my dad had grown up next to his grandparents and that's how he got to know Phil as well as his many brothers and sister. When Phil and his brother Jamie were in dental school, my dad got them jobs in construction. Because of this I got very cheap, if not free dental work for a long time. I remember one time when I was about 21 or so I came in to the office to have Phil fix a cavity. He fixed it, then another one he found. He said, "Amy, I fixed the one cavity, and I also filled another. Consider the second one an Easter present from me to you." I was only billed for the one filling, and was probably only billed $50. It seems like everytime I went in there, if there was an actual charge, it was $50, no matter what. He also asked me during this visit, "Amy, are you seeing anyone?"

"No."

"Well, when you find a boyfriend that you think you want to marry, make sure he has a nice father. You want to have a father-in-law that will spoil you."

It was the most bizarre advice I've ever gotten, yet the sweetest. I can't even tell you how kind and gentle Phil was. Phil made you look forward to going to the dentist. I sure will miss him.

My dad and sister and I decided to go to Phil's visitation. We knew it would be very, very busy so we got there early. The visitation started at 4:00, we got there at 3:45 and didn't leave until 5:00. That's how long the line was. It was easily 4 times as long behind us as it was in front of us so I don't even want to imagine how long some people had to stand in line. Ugh.

One day last week some ambitious girl decided to write on the windows of all of the cars in front of our building with one of those window paint markers. You could tell it was a girl by the writing. Well, everyone got their window written on except Adam. Apparently it was done sometime after he left for work. He was actually bummed. I was pretty pissed. I had to drive to work that morning with "UR Sexy! Rock on!" on my back window. Some other people got I "heart" U" and "Hi" on their windows. None of them seemed so large or blatantly obvious as mine. Mine covered my entire back window. Others were just small-ish in the corner of a back or side window. Awesome. No one fessed up to it, although I have my suspicions of who did it. Idiots.

Also on Tuesday, before I left to get Emily from school to get her ready to go to the visitation, I got to hear an awesome argument coming from our neighboring apartment. What I heard was a one-sided phone conversation that went a little something like this:

"I fucking hate you! I fucking hate everything about you! You are a fucking liar! You can just give me your money for the rent and go live in your car for all I fucking care! I will kill you! You are lucky I haven't killed you yet! I will cut you in your sleep!"

(slight pause)

"I don't care! I'm done! I'm so fucking done! I can't stand you! You were in town! You were in town all day yesterday! I saw you! I had no fucking idea where you were! I hate you mother fucker! I hate you! I'm done! Good-bye!!"

(heavy sobbing, then a couple minutes later...)

"I don't care! You are a dumb fucker! You are a DUMB mother fucker! Why were you looking for this girl? Why did you want to kick that guy's ass? You never told me why you wanted to kick that guy's ass!"

It was soo sweet. The chick who lives there is around my age or slightly older. She has a teenage son and her boyfriend was the one she was yelling at. This past Saturday night she had a bunch of friends over and they were all pretty drunk. Adam and I were on the front steps with the neighbors we normally hang out with that night, drinking and chatting. We also have a newbie in the building who hung with us and she is super cool. Anyway, drunkies upstairs were yelling down to us from their balcony in a manner that drunkies do best and Adam played stupid and asked if the boyfriend was there. One of the party-goers was like, "Uh....no....no, he's uh....he's not here." I love drama.

So, Adam and I hung with our neighbor-friends without the constant badgering of our children. How did I pull this one off? Because I suckered my sister. On Saturday afternoon Emily had a birthday party to go to for one of her classmates. I hung out with Blakey then met my sister at Chick-Fil-A for lunch and then shopping. We left my car at C.F.A and picked Emily up from the park then did a little more shopping. When I was almost done shopping Adam called on his way home from work. He asked if my sister was keeping the kids overnight.

"I don't think so."

"Well you should ask her, then we could go out or hang w/ the neighbors."

"I don't know..."

"Or you could just use the kids to sucker her into it."

"Whatever, Adam."

So fast-forward to my sister dropping me and the kids at my car at C.F.A. She pulls behind my car then gets out to throw some trash away up by the building. I get in the backseat, reach over Blake to take off his seat belt and quietly say to him, "Well Blake. I guess you're not staying at Aunt Lisa's house tonight." He immediately starts crying. I get him out, set him down and my sister says, "What's the matter?" I said, "Oh. Nothing. He thought he was staying at your house tonight." "Awwww! Buddy!" My sister picks him up and he's just sobbing. I know right then that I've got her. She says, "So, is it going to be just you that's staying, maybe Emily can come another day?" My mind scrambles. What? No! My plan wont work with one kid still at home! Anyway, I did a little more fast talk and soon I was driving away kid-free.

Adam was at home and had already eaten dinner so I decided to run through the C.F.A. drive-thru since I was there. I ordered a combo meal which was $5.72. The lady hands me a bag that's pretty heavy and I'm quite certain there's way more in there than a sandwich and fries. I get home and there's actually THREE sandwiches and THREE fries. Super sweet! I gave the other 2 to the neighbors.

After our outside pow-wow w/ the neighbors dispersed we decided to go to karaoke and took one of our neighbors with us. It was fun except for Adam's horrible gas. We were sitting in a booth with hard seats when Adam let a pretty loud one loose. The karaoke DJ, who was a woman, was nearby, heard it, and without missing a beat said, "We need Lysol over here! This guy shit his pants!" It smelled so terrible I had to go outside. Blech!

Nothing exciting going on this week. Just work and life. I got some pumpkins from my sister and bro in law yesterday afternoon so we'll try to get those carved maybe this coming weekend. The pumpkin I picked up for myself is so huge it might take me all weekend to get it scraped out! I'll be sure to post pictures of the whole experience!

Oh, and here's a picture of the mouse pad my sister brought me back from Vegas. It rocks my world.

OK, so it wasn't so bad.

I lived through Disney Live, and so did the rest of my clan.

Let me start my story by saying that I've really been lacking in the sleep department for the last several days, and not by choice. It's just happenstance and a crazy work schedule that have been denying me dreamy bliss. So, on Thursday night, the night before the show I had to work 3rd shift. This was the 2nd day in a row I had to work and I was running on about 1.5 hours of sleep for the 2 day period. Adam had worked out a deal with our awesome, awesome neighbors who said they would watch Blake for a few hours so I could catch some zzz's. They came and got him around 8am and I slept until about noon. I got up, got Blake and made him some lunch. I hopped on the computer to check email and things got quiet out in the living room. I peeked in on Blake who was sound asleep on the couch. Whoohoo! Another nap for me! I jumped at that opportunity to get back under the covers, even if for an hour or 2. I woke up at 3:30 as Emily was coming in the bedroom, just home from school. She said Blake was awake and watching cartoons quietly. I let Em play on the computer for a bit while I caught "just a few more" zzz's. I woke up at 4:45. OMG! I said, we have to get going! The show started at 6:30 and I had promised the kids McDonald's before the show. I put the kids in their new tshirts my sis and BIL had gotten them from Disneyland a few days before and we headed off. After we ate and were on our way to the show I was bummed and so were the kids when we realized we forgot their Mickey Mouse ears at home. My sister got them each ears from Disneyland and had their names embroidered on the back. Blake's is a Pirate Mickey version. There's a scarf around the "head" and a big gold earring in the ear. Emily's is an old school Minnie Mouse one. The kind when Minnie used to wear that little yellow hat with the daisy coming strait out of it. You know, when Minnie and Mickey used to have white faces and pac-man eyes? Yeah, now you get it. But I guess it's ok that we forgot them because it would have been just one more thing for us to deal with. Also, I forgot the camera. Dang it!

Our seats were great. I didn't buy floor seats because I think its ridiculous to pay that much for something so...childish, I guess. The people who buy seats on the floor for these types of shows:

A) must not have anything better to spend their money on since they are literally paying more than twice what I paid.
B) all seem to have pretty little kids, like 3 and under
C) are stupid because they don't even think or realize that their little 2 year old cannot see over the heads of the 20 people in front of him because the seats are ON THE FLOOR. They aren't staggered and tiered like the lower or even upper bowl seats. You can't see the stage on the floor unless you are in the front row. Seriously, don't parents think of these things???

*Steps down off soapbox*

I set rules on the way to the show. First of all, everyone was going to go potty when we got there. Secondly, we were not going to buy a bunch of souvenir crap especially when they got the real thing brought back from Disneyland and also because they are waaaaaay overpriced at these stupid shows. I said we might buy something small and then maybe something to drink to share.

We pulled into the parking lot of the arena and the lot was fairly empty, which was one of the main reasons I wanted to leave so early. I said, "Hey kids, we're gonna get a great parking spot." I paid the attendant and he said to take the first left into the lot. Sweet! Well we kept driving, and driving and driving down this aisle. The attendant finally pointed me into the second spot from the end. What? I was one of the first ones here and now the losers behind me are going to get to park closer because they get to go into the next aisle. I don't think so. So I sat there until the "attendants who point" headed back up the next aisle to direct more cars. I then backed out of my spot, headed 2 aisles over and parked in the 3rd spot from the front without even being noticed. It was also directly in front of the main sidewalk so we wouldn't have to try to remember what aisle we were in when we came out in the dark. Muahahahaha! Adam would have had a coronary if he were with us and would have never DREAMED of doing such a thing. In his mind you park where they tell you and don't even think of driving an extra 20 seconds to find a closer place to park.

Once we got inside the potty thing didn't go so well. I took Blake in a stall with me while Emily ventured out on her own. I went to the bathroom and then Blake refused to go. I fought and fought with him in that stupid little stall while all the other moms listened and thanked their lucky stars they weren't me this time. By the time I finally got Blake on the potty and got out of the stall Emily had been standing outside our door for some time. "Troubles?" she said, smiling with her hands on her hips. I had to laugh at her. She's like Blake's 2nd mom sometimes and knows what a handful he can be.

We made our way upstairs and checked out the wallet rapists vendors. Everything was freaking expensive, just as I thought, especially when you factor in that you have to buy two of whatever you get. We decided on pennants for each of the kids. They were $6 each so not too terrible. Then we made our way to the food and grabbed a bucket of popcorn and a large lemonade. Had I been thinking and not sleeping just before we left, I would have snuck in some juice boxes and snacks from home.

So, like I said, our seats were great. We were in the lower bowl in the section directly in front of the stage. The show was based on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse so we got to see Mickey and his buddies, Little Einsteins, Pooh, Tigger and their pal Darby, and Handy Manny. Blake freaked out when he saw Handy Manny. He started waiving and yelling and saying, "Hi Manny! Hi! Hey! Manny!" It was cute. I had no idea he had such a love for the guy. Blake asked me towards the end of the show, "Where's Pluto?" Emily wanted to know where Daisy Duck was. I really had no answer. Back at the Clubhouse? Sorry. Not sure.

The show lasted about an hour and 20 minutes, which isn't very long but it's the perfect length for kids. We made it out beautifully and without me having to drag a kid out by the arm. Of course we found our car right away, got out of the parking lot with no issues and without a lot of traffic. It was a great way to end a fun night.

M-I-C...
See ya real soon!
K-E-Y...
Why? Because like you.
M-O-U-S-E.

M-I-C. K-E-Y. Don't Make Me Kill A Kiiiiiiiiiiiiddddddd.

I'm taking both kids to Disney Playhouse Live tonight. By myself. Pray for me. Pictures tomorrow.

A gnarly picture and a Pussycat Doll

On Wednesday night Emily finally lost her other front tooth. We were sitting at dinner when I noticed the other tooth was almost exactly in the middle and sitting kinda crooked.

"Emily! Your tooth! That things gotta come out!"

(Anyone else finally catch on to my obvious obsession with getting Emily's loose teeth out? Yeah, me too.)

Long story short I got it out. The new one is already starting to come in and she said it was hurting.

These are kinda gnarly looking but I'm sharing them anyway.





Tonight Emily went to a Halloween themed birthday party for one of her classmates. She decided to go as a black cat, which I was excited about because it makes for easy costuming. Black tights and leotard to the party, possibly a black sweatsuit on the night of Halloween since it will probably be cold, as per usual here in Iowa. I'm particularly proud of how her make-up came out, which is my main reason for posting the next two photos. Sorry the first one is kinda dark. I forgot to turn the flash back on from Wednesday night when I was taking pics of her teeth.





MEOWWWWW!

A belated Country Corner review

On September 21st the fam and I went to Country Corner. It is a farm about 45 minutes from here that goes all out this time of year. On the weekend we went they had a classic car show, a flea market and a corn picking contest for the kids. This is along with the things they have every weekend in the fall such as rides for the kids, a petting zoo, corncob cannon, pumpkin chucking and their fantastic farmer's market.

We didn't tell the kids where we were going, only that we were going, "Somewhere special." First we stopped off at Hungry Hobo (our local sub shop) for some lunch. The kids were in a good mood because of the road trip, even though they didn't even know where they were going.



Once we got there we checked out the flea market, which had some interesting things but nothing that sparked my interest. Then we headed to the ticket booth to get the kids some passes for the festivities. For $10 each they got to check out almost everything once. It was a pretty good deal considering the individual prices.

First they rode on the cow train. This was driven by a guy on a tractor wearing a bright pink curly wig. Emily carefully chose her cow. Of course it's name was Jelly Bean. Once they took off the guy headed down the road where we couldn't see them and I told Adam, "Did we really just put our kids in metal cars driven by THAT guy??"
"Yep."
"Ok then."





After that Emily and Blake entered the corn picking contest. Emily snagged a whopping 11 ears of corn. Blake aka: me, got 6.



From there we headed to the giant bouncy thing and then the kid's corn maze. This place also has one of those ginormous haunted corn mazes for adults. Here's a picture of this year's maze.



It is over one mile of trails. Adam is thinking about working at it this year. I think he'd have a blast. The kid's maze, however, is a lot less intimidating, a whole lot smaller, and there's really just one path around. One entrance that also serves as the exit so you can't really lose a kid in there. Which is good because I'm sure we would have otherwise. There are a few creepys in there though, like this guy:



We were also a little bummed that we had already eaten because much to our surprise they were grilling out some of the most fantastic food. Adam couldn't pass up a pulled pork sandwich, which he shared with me while the kids were bouncing. It was awesome! Stuffed full of pork and just really good. Yum! We were joined for lunch by this stick bug.



To make your time at Country Corners more enjoyable they had a down-home band. I wish I could remember the name of them so I could give them proper credit but they were great and you could tell they all enjoyed playing together.



I didn't get any pictures but the kids also shot corn out of a cannon and then Adam did the pumpkin chuck, which was basically shooting tiny pumpkins with a big sling shot.

While we waited for the announcement of the winners of the corn picking contest we posed for some photos.






Here I'm asking Emily if she thinks she's going to win the contest.



After that Adam just had to get his hands on one of those cows. You know only a cow named Bertha would be willing to let Adam ride on her.



Finally they got around to announcing the contest winners. We headed to the stage where the band was and they said there was a three-way tie for first with Emily being one of them! They listed off the rest of the names and the band made snarky comments about it being all girls. I know that's right! Because of the tie they drew names for the three prizes and Emily ended up in 3rd. She missed out on the cool basket full of goodies and ended up with a painted pumpkin. Here you can see her look of dislike.





After the announcements the band continued to play and Emily and her daddy danced for a bit and soon she was smiling again.



We made our way out through the country store filled with lots of goodies. We took home a gallon of the best tasting apple cider I've ever had. Adam had already drank about 5 glasses of it while we were there. I also picked up some awesome salad dressing. It's burgundy poppy seed. Something I would have never bought if they wouldn't have had samples of it for you to try. I bought a couple pears and grabbed some free apples and we headed home. It was an awesome experience and one I hope we can do again in a couple weeks.