The October wrap-up

Adam was nice enough to point out to me the other day that I hadn't written anything on my blog "in like...forever." I guess he doesn't realize how busy I am each day robbing and killing people in Mafia Wars.
　
Since I don't have a really great memory and can't remember much about what I've done this month, I'll just start (and finish) with what's happened in the last week.
Of course there's Halloween. Emily takes dance class at our local Family Museum and she has for the last three years. This is her fourth. Every year we get a yearly membership so that Blake can play while Emily goes to class each week. Along with our membership we also get a free ticket to their yearly Scarecrow Shenanigans. This year's Shenanigans was last Sunday. Here are some highlights:

Blake dressed as a Vampire:


Emily dressed as a hippie:



She also made vomit out of cooked applesauce, some jello and a host of breakfast foods:



She dissected a real cow's eye (this is the lens she is holding):


　
We watched the Limelight Dancers while Blake checked himself out in the mirror:



We went on a hay rack ride:



...and had a generally good time:



Of course we decorated the house for Halloween. Here's our skeletons doing the YMCA:



We carved pumpkins. This is my creation:



...and that's about it. Oh yeah. We also added to our little family last Friday. Internet, meet Hank. Our new 10 week-old shih tzu:






Happy fall, everyone!!!

gack and gays

Ungh. It's been a month since I've blogged. I blame my employer. They've blocked all blogs from our computer system so I'm unable to access my blog, or any blog for that matter, from work. Work was where I used to do most of my blogging. Work was where I STARTED my blog. Now it's all blocked and I have to find time at home to do what I used to love doing. But that's that I guess.

So last Friday was the big Miss Gay Iowa pageant. Jim and I went in '08, sadly missed last year due to no funding and we almost missed it this year for the same reason. We just didn't know if we were going to be able to afford it all, especially a hotel stay for three nights. That's when I remembered that a good friend of mine lived in that area and I asked if we could stay with her for the weekend. Her exact answer, I believe was, "Duh. Yeah." and so we were psyched to be going.

We got to her house around 6pm after some horrid traffic in Iowa City and left for the pageant a couple hours later. We didn't get dinner so we stopped for some McNuggets on the way. A friend of Jim's snagged us a reserved table that wasn't being used and the drinking began. One long island ice tea turned into two, three, four then five. Getting the fifth LIIT (OMG--did anyone realize that the anagram for that is LIIT?? How appropriate.) is I think the last thing I remember. I don't remember drinking it. I only slightly remember asking Jim where the bathroom was and I remember sort of telling him I couldn't get in because apparently I was going through some wrong door. I absolutely do NOT remember walking the half a block to the car and I don't remember a whole lot after that until I woke up in the bathtub, dry heaving at 7am. From what I'm told I totally Linda Blaired in Jim's car. I sat there with this look on my face:

*sorry--will have to post this picture later. Blogger's being a dirty whore*

Then I looked at Jim and growled out a bunch of puke. I did it several more times with Jim saying to me, "Amy Warren I need you to open the door and puke outside." Of course I never opened the door and he would have to do it. Since the pageant venue and the house we were staying at were a 20 minute drive, these pit stops were taking place on the interstate. Then Jim would tell me, "Amy Warren I need you to get back in the car, the cops were coming." Of course they weren't but I believed him and I would shut the door and say, "OK, go."

So it wasn't just puking that I was doing in Jim's car. It was a whole trifecta. E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G. I have no idea how I got down the stairs to where we were sleeping in the house but when Jim got me inside and came back in from cleaning up the big chunks he found me downstairs in the bathroom, naked except for a bra and sitting in the bathtub. I'm told I growled a, "turn on the water." to which he did. When I woke up at 7am, dry heaving, the water was warm because I had the sense to keep letting some out and put hot water in. Also Jim was in the bathroom with me (he had shut the shower curtain after the first time he came in.) I was told to wiggle my toes. I complied. I told Jim to get me a pair of shorts and a tshirt out of my suitcase. Then, something to this effect was said, "When you get out of the tub, be careful because there's a lot of water on the floor."

"OK."

"...also...your pants are here on the floor and your...panties. Be careful with those too. You had an...accident..."

"..."

Yeah. In case you didn't understand my trifecta reference earlier, when I let loose in Jim's car. I let loose. I puked. I peed. I schatt my pants. Ungh.

So I put on my shorts and t-shirt and laid down in bed under the warm covers. I got up off and on through the day but basically slept until 3 in the afternoon. At one point Jim had brought me toast but I was only able to eat a very tiny piece. At 3:00 I knew I had to eat something and take my insulin, etc. I still felt really crappy. I drove us into Iowa City and we stopped at Village Inn. I ordered a sandwich and soup but was only able to eat about half of the soup and none of the sandwich. It just didn't look appealing. My meal came with a piece of pie and I was actually able to eat that. I took my sandwich in a box and we headed to Wal-Mart for cleaning supplies. I had some cleanin' to do back at the house.

We spent a couple hours cleaning and I was starting to feel like myself again. I went inside to eat my sandwich and take my insulin and a shower. Saturday night was a dry night for me. We had fun relaying the story from the night before and I got to be the designated driver. I didn't even want to SMELL alcohol.

Sunday morning we went to a local casino for their breakfast buffet and then Jim and I did a little gambling where I won $65 and ended up about $35 ahead. That night was the finals and we took our house host with us. Again I was DD and Jim and Audrey had a good time ordering different martinis off the menu. I was perfectly content with my Diet Pepsi.

I'm sure Miss Gay Iowa 2010 won't ever be forgotten, especially after I pulled a hat trick in Jim's car. I'm also sure Jim will never let me in his car again after even one shot for fear I'll technicolor yawn on his sleeve, pants, seats, ceiling, shifter, seat belt, etc. again!

The Creature on our Fridge

We've been fighting with Blake since just after birth to keep him out of the refrigerator. Last year we got one of those locks for the fridge door and that worked for a while but soon he figured it out and we've been back to square one for several months. He gets in it before everyone else is up, or while we're doing other things. We're constantly finding pasta or chicken or packages of lunchables torn open and under his bed, dresser or wherever he wants to stash them. Today was the last straw.

Blake is horribly, HORRIBLY afraid of Halloween decorations. Two weeks ago we had to go to Factory Card Outlet and that was the day they started putting their Halloween stuff up. They didn't actually have anything OUT just the ginormous sign on their door that says HALLOWEEN. Blake TOTALLY freaked the hell out. I said, "Fine. I'll just leave you hear all by yourself outside." "OK." he said. WTG, Amy. That worked out well. I said, "I can't leave you out here you HAVE to go in with me. We're not even going to LOOK at the Halloween stuff. We're going to the other side of the store."

"I just want to hide here under your shirt." he said and started lifting up the back of my shirt. He screamed and cried and I had to pull on his arm so hard to get him in the door I thought I would end up dislocating it at the shoulder but I got him in. I kept my promise and we went to the other side of the store and he declared himself "very brave" at the registers. Sure ya are, buddy.

So, today after we found four hot dogs STILL IN THE PACKAGE in the trash for no apparent reason and two boxes of lunchables torn up in his room (not the little ones either, the expensive mamas with the candy and drink pouch) we had HAD IT! Adam went to Factory Card Outlet after dinner to find something horrible to hang on the refrigerator. He came home and we affixed this bad boy to the fridge.

It has a sensor so when you come near it it wiggles and shakes, it's eyes light up and says things like, "Let me out of here!!" Blake hates it. We are all loving it. If it works we're adopting it, naming it Tammy and starting her a college fund.

Fucktards and a birthday...not necessarily in that order

I'm getting pretty stoked for Emily's surprise party except I've only got two confirmed guests from her class and one neighbor girl. Three neighbor boys are coming, at least I assume, but they don't "count." They don't get to get one of the fabulous rocker girl parting gifts I'm putting together. I've got so much cleaning to do this week it's re.dick but whatever. At least I'll get some alone time this week during the day while the kids are in school so it will be a bit easier to do just that. I've also got to get the cake ordered at some point.

Blake's bus fucktards are still pissing me off and I can only blame my own laziness for not calling the principal to complain. I'm not usually like that when it comes to things involving my kids. Last Tuesday Blake's bus that was supposed to arrive at 3:55 came at 4:50. That's not a typo. Four motha-fuckin' fiddy! At 4:40 I called the bus barn to find out where the hell my kid was. I told them my son rides bus 19 and wasn't there yet...supposed to be 3:55...what the hell? The guy said, bus 19 is here, the keys are hanging up and the driver is gone. I FLIPPED! I was like, WHERE THE HELL IS MY SON?? He said, are you sure he isn't on bus 27? Oh. Yeah. Sorryboutthat. He said the bus was running about 20 minutes late. TWENTY MINUTES???? It's 4:40! I said, when EXACTLY is this bus supposed to arrive because the last I was told it was 3:55. "Oh, no." he said. "Let me check but that's not right." He comes back to say the bus should be arriving at 4:04. "OOOOOOHHHHHHH. Well now that makes a big difference, doesn't it? Still wanna tell me the bus is running about 20 minutes late?" "He should be there in about 10 minutes ok?" "mmm." Was all I could muster out of my mouth because of the shear anger that was building up inside of me. I hung up, mumbled a bunch of stuff about his mother and the size of his manhood and waited the ten minutes for Blakey to get there. The next day when the bus arrived at 4:37 and I was mumbling to myself about not calling the principal, the bus driver had the BALLS to say, "Not bad. Better than yesterday, huh?" I gave him a look that told him I wasn't afraid to rip his nose off with my teeth and put Blake in the car. I hate those fucktards.

Oh yeah, I didn't die.

Geez, it's been a while since I posted last and maybe some of you think I died from complications of having a ginormous hernia, but guess what bitches? I didn't so HA!

I've been getting better a little bit each day. I had a follow-up appointment with my surgeon on the 21st and at that time I had a large lump--a hematoma--where they removed one of the hernias and it was VERY sensitive. In fact it would hurt to have clothing over it. I had already been told to prepare for it and I was also told it would go away. My surgeon agreed it was normal and said I would just have to bide my time until it went away. We talked about when I would be able to go back to work and although I don't have a strenuous job in ANY sort of way, the thought of sitting in the office for eight hours straight without really being able to get up and move about did NOT sound appealing to me at all. Being AWAKE for eight hours straight at that time didn't sound appealing either. My doc said it would take me about a week and a half before I felt pretty normal so he gave me the go ahead to work anytime after the 30th and he had that about spot on. Yesterday and today I've felt somewhat close to my old self. My first day back is this coming Wednesday. I still have the hard spot, but it's going away and it's definately not as sensitive as it used to be. This week I'm going to concentrate on getting back to a 3rd shift schedule. I've been staying up late and while the kids are in school I'm going to take a nap. I haven't worked a 3rd shift, (or ANY shift) since August 9th so I'm a little out of practice. Hopefully I don't fall asleep. Or if I do hopefully no one catches me, lol.

The kids are adjusting well to school and I am LOVING the quiet time I get in the afternoon. I am NOT loving Blake's bus fucktards but there's not a whole lot I can do about them. They started out saying they would be dropping Blake off at the stop at 3:42 but for the first two days of school they weren't there before 4:15. They told Adam 4:15 would be the new drop-off time. The following week Blake didn't have school on Monday and on Tuesday the bus didn't get there until almost 4:30. The following day they called me at home at 4:06 and said the bus was waiting on me. I said, "OK, now they told me the new time was 4:15." They said, "Yeah but someone dropped out and takes a different bus so the new time is 3:55." I knew they were lying because how can ONE kid affect the bus schedule so much that now they are able to arrive up to 35 minutes sooner??? Does he put his feet on each side of the doors and kick and scream when they try to take him off the bus?

So, the next time I go by what they say and I arrive ready for a 3:55 drop-off. Wouldn't you know it they got there at 3:58. Hmm. Maybe that kid was a freak of nature after all. The next day? 4:15. FUCK! They act like I have nothing better to do than to sit and wait on their asses. Christ.

I don't have any big plans this week except hopefully a haircut tomorrow and on Thursday night we're going to the circus. I'm looking forward to it.

Adam had to get new brakes on his van today. They started grinding last night when we were heading down the road to go out for a bit so we turned around and took my car. This morning he started calling around and found a place that would put on new front brake pads for $120. I was out doing some shopping when Adam called with one of those, "Do you want the good news or the bad news?" I always ask for the bad news first and there was going to be more work that needed to be done on the brakes. It was going to cost $240. Nothing like doubling the price. Luckily Adam's check on Friday had been a big'un so we had the money for it, but it just wasn't something we were planning on. Of course, when are these things ever planned, right? Oh yeah, and it turns out he didn't even have any good news so that sucked too, lol.

Emily's birthday is in two weeks and we've decided to throw her a surprise birthday party. I've given it a rocker girl theme. It's going to be all pink and black decorations and I got a bunch of stuff from the $1 bins at Target today for the attendees. I got gift bag two-packs that are black and white hounds tooth and the other is pink with an outline of the Eiffel Tower done in houndstooth. I also got glow bracelets, and rocker buttons. I'm going to pick up pop rocks and probably either colored hairclips or fuzzy pimp hats I found at the dollar store. I want to find some nail polish too. Oh, and I got some rub-on tattoos. I also got pink, black and houndstooth sticker letters I'm going to put on the outside of each bag in the each girl's name. I got blow up guitars and microphones and some signs to hang around the house. I found cute pink and black plates and napkins at wal-mart but I'm going to pick those up a little closer to the date.

Emily thinks her party is the following weekend so when I made out the invitations for the girls in her class I printed them on pretty stationery and explained in them that it was a surprise and that she thinks the party is the following weekend and PRETTY, PRETTY PLEASE DON'T SAY ANYTHING BECAUSE I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE AND I AM ABLE TO STAY UP WAAAAY PAST YOUR BEDTIME AND YOU SLEEP PRETTY SOUND, DON'T YOU??????? So hopefully they don't say anything. I also printed "Please open when you get home" on the envelopes and told Emily I did that so they don't disturb the class and open them during class time. I asked her to pass them out as close to the end of the day as possible. I hope she remembers. Now I just need to come up with some rocker girl themed games and we'll be all set. Anyone have any ideas???

ER visits minus George Clooney suck!

Adam and I have a small DJ business. Not sure if you knew that. We are DJ'ing the wedding of one of Adam's bandmates next month. On Thursday I took Blake to school then came home and decided to work a bit on our music list. We had downloaded some new music and I wanted to add it to our list of songs we have. Also I had noticed the last time I looked at the list that it was a bit out of alphabetical order.

I ended up working on the list for a few hours and right around 2:00 it hit me very hard and very suddenly. I had to go to the bathroom. LIKE. NOW!!! I went to the bathroom and suddenly I had some sharp stomach pains. Weird I thought but maybe it was just because of the sudden bathroom-ness??? I thought if I laid down for a bit it would go away. So I did. I laid on the bed for a couple minutes when I sent a text to my neighbor.

"Suddenly I feel shitty. Bad stomach pains."
"Maybe you're pregnant and don't know it. Abby watched those shows on TV all day Monday."
"Shut up. I hate you."

At this point I thought I was feeling better but when I got up I wasn't. In fact a few seconds later it hurt worse.

"Still feel like crap" I text to my neighbor.
"How far apart are your contractions?"
"I hate you."
"When you go into labor, which hospital do you want to have your baby?"
"OMG. I'm going to take a hot bath. Text me at 3:15 because I have to get Blake from the bus stop."

I take a hot bath and it's not helping. I didn't even stay in there until 3:15. I lay naked in bed for a while. My neighbor texts me:

"Is the pain on your right side?"
"Yes."
"Push on your stomach just above your hip bone. Does it hurt to do that or shake your hips?"

I'm laying on my left side and pushing, not exactly sure where above my hips I should be pushing, but it hurts, but not any worse than when I'm not pushing. I shake my hips. Yep. That hurts.

"It hurts when I shake my hips."

Then I decide to lay on my back and push above my hip. OH. DEAR. GOD. IN. HEAVEN. IT. HURTS. TO. LAY. ON. MY. BACK.

I swing my arm over and grab the side of the bed to try to get myself back onto my side. I start crying from the pain. I realize there's no way I'm going to be able to get Blake from the bus. I'm going to have to call Adam at work.

I call him crying. Tell him I'm in pain and he has to go get Blake and then come home and take me to the hospital. Blake's bus is supposed to be at the stop at 3:42. It was now 3:16.

"Can you make it there in a half hour?"
"I can try. Are you going to be ok? Are you going to call an ambulance?"
"No. You're going to take me after you get Blake."
"OK but if it starts to hurt more you call an ambulance, do you understand?"
"Yes." but I had no intention of calling an ambulance, lol.

So I'm laying in bed, in pain and I'm trying to figure out in my head how long I have to suffer before Adam gets there. My neighbor texts me and says she'll get Emily from the bus stop and have her come to her house. She'll take Blake when he gets home. She rocks despite the pregnancy comments.

Adam calls around 3:30 and says he's almost at Blake's stop. I figure I only have about 20 minutes before he gets there and I can be on my way. I figure I better get dressed. I decide a t-shirt and pants is all I'm going to wear. No bra. No underwear. I'm not really sure why I decided no underwear. I guess I just didn't want to mess with it.

Adam calls at 3:50. Still no bus. Great. It's happening again. The fucktards are late just like yesterday. The day before, Blake's bus didn't show up until 4:15, a half-hour late. Four o'clock comes. Still no bus.

Ugh.

At 4:15 Adam calls again. No bus but one of the parents had called the bus barn and found out they had forgotten a kid at the school (fucktards) and they had to go back. They said they would be there in 10-15 minutes.

I think I'm going to die!

Adam finally gets home a little after 4:30 and we head to the ER. I give a urine sample and I get a gown and an IV. I give my story a couple times to a nurse then finally a doctor and a CT scan is ordered. It's been a couple hours and I send Adam home to eat something and take a shower. I drink some contrast dye mixed with fruit punch, which was lovely, and watch Family Guy.

Adam got back just before I went to my CT scan. The scan took all of five minutes. A half hour later a new doctor comes in and says they didn't find anything with the scan but my white blood cell count is up and oh, did you know you're diabetic? No, but isn't that wonderful?

New doctor seems really stumped and says appendicitis or a gall bladder attack doesn't come on as quickly as this did so maybe it's a cyst on an ovary or maybe an ovary is twisted. They order an ultrasound.

Ultrasounds are done and they determine I have two hernias, YAY! New doctor says he's not sure it's something that surgery will want to operate on but we should probably admit me to get my sugar down. Totally not what I wanted to hear.

Adam decides he's going home because it's almost midnight and he has to work the next day. I FINALLY leave the ER and go to a room around 1:30. After vitals, a history and a long lecture about diabetes and exercise and losing weight, my nurse gave me some pain pills and left me alone at 2:50am. She said she would peek in at me at 3:30 and if they weren't doing anything she would give me morphine. But if I was sleeping she was going to leave me alone.

"Ooooh! Morphine!!!" I thought. I'm totally staying awake to get morphine.

She also said she was sending in the patient care tech at 3am to check my blood sugar and then again at 4am. Also at 4am the lab was coming for an obscene amount of blood.

Well, unfortunately I was only able to stay awake for about 2.3 minutes and the next thing I knew it was 4am and a crazy looking woman from the lab was coming in to draw that obscene amount of blood. Thirty minutes and two fresh bruises later she was finished and I dozed off again. Right after that they were back to do more vitals and I just decided to try to stay awake. It was pretty obvious I wasn't going to get much sleep.

The surgeon came in around 9:30 and decided he was going to operate. He said the hernias wouldn't get better without fixing them surgically. I was given a surgery time of 3:00. I called everyone to let them know.

The surgery turned out well. They were able to do it laproscopically so I have five small incisions. I also have a belly button again. I haven't had one in several years. See, when I had my c-section done with Blake, they found two hernias then and repaired them. I had a belly button after that but not for very long before it poked back out again. I always figured maybe I had another hernia but it never hurt so I didn't think much about it.

I was back in my room around 6:15 and not long after that I got to EAT! I hadn't eaten since around 11:30am on Thursday and here it was almost 31 hours later. They served me a small cup of cream of chicken soup and red jell-o. I didn't care that cream of chicken soup should only be used for cooking, not really for eating by itself. It tasted soooo good.

They told me the sooner I could get up and walk around the quicker I would heal and I figured it would get me out of there quicker too so Adam and I went for a little jaunt around the unit. We came back to my room and were both nodding off so I decided to get some sleep and Adam made a home on the couch in my room for the night.

I slept fairly decently and for the most part everyone left me alone. I got up for good around 5am and watched a hella-marathon of The Golden Girls. I was told breakfast would come between 7:30 and 8:00 and I counted the minutes until it got there! After eating I took a shower and of course two of my doctors came while I was in there. One was my diabetic doctor and the other a general practice physician.

The GP physician came back in a while later and she said she would start discharge papers. Whoohoo! Just before lunch one of the surgeons came in to talk to me about my surgery, check my incisions and sign off on my discharge. He gave me instructions and was on his way.

I ate my lunch and my nurses came in to make sure I knew how to check my sugar and give myself insulin. After they were satisfied with all of that I was outta there.

Adam and I stopped at the pharmacy and $222 later we were back at home. The majority of our costs were from my insulin. My diabetes doctor said he doesn't think I'll be on it for long and then I'll go to an oral medication so hopefully we don't have that expense for very long.

Adam and the kids are gone for the night and wont be home until tomorrow morning so I have instructions to veg out on the couch and watch movies. I'm feeling a bit restless so I've been playing around on facebook and here on the old blog. I feel bruised, beaten and sore but I'm sooo glad to be home.

I've got a prescription of vicodin with two refills and it looks like I probably wont be able to work this Wednesday night either. (I was supposed to work last night and tonight). We'll see how the next few days treat me. It seems like with each passing hour my stomach gets a bit harder and a bit more purple, but they tell me it's normal. I definitely feel better than I did Thursday afternoon but I'm still getting around pretty slowly.

Fucktard update

The bus people did actually call today and they also managed to screw up Blake's schedule. The woman was like, "He'll be picked up at 11:33..." I interrupted to say, "But he's eating lunch before class. He's in the lunch program."

"I don't know what that means."
"Well it means he has to be at school by 11:10 to eat lunch."
"I don't know anything about that. I'll have to tell my supervisor and we'll have to get back to you."
"Do you know when??"
"Probably not today. Maybe tomorrow."
"It'll have to be by tomorrow, Wednesday is the first day of school."
"Yes."
"OK..."

I just know I'm going to end up driving him to school on the first day. *sigh*

It's getting closer...

Only three more days until the first day of school. I'm getting a little anxious to put my little boy on a bus and just let them drive off with him. He'll be starting afternoon preschool but will be in the lunch program before class. The fucktards at the bus service haven't "created the preschool bus route" yet so I still don't know what time he'll be picked up or when I have to come get him. The only things I know is where the bus will be picking up and dropping off and that he will be eating lunch at 11:10. I'm guessing he'll have to be on the bus around 10:45 and that I'll pick him up around 3:45. Once the fucktards figure it out on Monday, they say they'll let me know. I have a feeling I'll still end up calling their lazy asses.

I am looking forward to having the house peacefully quiet four days of the week and not having two kids who have all day to make a mess for me to bitch about and eventually clean. I'm also looking forward to my just-me-all-by-myself lunch at Olive Garden. Not sure what day I'll go but I'm thinking Thursday of this week. I might be still too freaked out to go on Wednesday after putting Blake on that bus.

With regard to Rock/Paper/Scissors

I found this quote regarding the game, Rock/Paper/Scissors and it made me laugh out loud. Adam and I are prone to many, many games of RPS. I thought I would share it with you.

I understand that Scissors can beat Paper and I get how Rock can beat Scissors, but there’s no fucking way Paper could beat Rock. Apparently, Paper is supposed to magically “wrap around” Rock, leaving it immobile. Why the hell can’t Paper do this to Scissors? No, never mind Scissors, why can’t Paper do this to people? Why aren’t sheets of college-ruled notebook paper constantly smothering students as they attempt to take notes in class? I’ll tell you why: because Paper can’t beat anybody. A rock would tear that shit up in about a minute.

Whenever I play Rock/Paper/Scissors, I always choose Rock. When somebody claims to have beaten me with their Paper, I punch them in the face with my already-clenched fist. I’ll say, “Oh, shit, man, I’m sorry, I thought Paper would protect you. Asshole.”


Classic.

Back To School debt...

I spent a whole lotta time last weekend shopping for back-to-school stuff for the kids. Except for a back-pack, Blake needed nothing supply-wise. Emily was the only one that actually needed school supplies. I learned the hard-way when Emily was in Kindergarten to buy extra supplies during this time of the year. During Emily's first year of school I would get notes home saying, "Emily needs a red crayon." Or, "Emily needs another orange marker." What I was once able to pick up at Wal-Mart at the end of summer for $0.15 a pack was now $2.37. Now when the supply list calls for one box of 24 crayons, I buy six. One pack of 8 crayola markers? Great, here ya go and there's seven more where that came from. Last year I even bought her two backpacks because the ones she liked happened to only be $5 and I thought for sure she'd put a big hole in the bottom of it before the year was up. Wouldn't you know it that bag lasted the whole year so this year I didn't have to buy a backpack!

I love back-to-school shopping. I always have. When I was little every year my mom and I would go to KMart and she would put a ton of clothes on layaway. I loved that week or two before school would start when we would go pick them up. You always forget exactly what it is you put on layaway so it's exciting to see those shirts, pants and dresses hanging in that clear plastic bag and go, "Oh yeah! I forgot I got that!"

I was really looking forward to this past Friday and going shopping with the kids. I knew we had the extra money to pick up what we needed so that was one less thing I had to worry about. I had to stop at Emily's school first because I had a fear I had forgotten to register her. I went in ready to sit for at least 30 minutes filling out paperwork. Turns out she was good to go. Sweet! Then we went to lunch at our usual Friday spot, Chick Fil-A. When we left the school and I asked the kids where they wanted to go (secretly hoping for a Chick Fil-A answer) Emily said, "How 'bout McDonalds?" Blake said, "No! Not McDonalds! Chick Fil-A is better!" Double Sweet!

From there we headed to Wal-Mart. The first thing I did was let Blake pick out a backpack. I thought maybe it would keep him occupied while Emily and I got her supplies. He is starting his final year of preschool this year and will be riding the bus and everything. He'll be gone Monday-Thursday from about 10:30 to 3:30 or 3:45. I'm going to miss him terribly and I know I will cry on the first day when I put him on that bus but dang, am I looking forward to Blake-free afternoons! I already have a just-me lunch planned at Olive Garden. Soup, salad and breadsticks here I come! The first backpack he saw was G.I. Joe. That was the one he wanted. Then, no. He wanted something else. Then it was Transformers. No, not that Transformers, the other one. Nope, I like this Spiderman one. Not that one it has the Hulk. The Hulk is scary. Eventually we settled on Transformers. I started going around putting Emily's supplies in the cart. Boxes of crayons...check. Number two pencils...check. White Vinyl erasers...check. As I'm going, Blake's putting his own made-up list of supplies in the cart. When I take them out he has a fit. I let him cry for a while when I finally can't take it anymore. His own $0.15 box of crayons shuts him up.

After that we were off to the shoes. I think Blake tried on about five pair before he settled on some skater shoes that he liked. I learned early on with Blake, if he doesn't like, he's not going to eat it, wear it or use it. It's better to let him pick out things on his own, that way you know they'll get used. Emily found some shoes she liked and we were off to the clothes. I got Blake a few pairs of pants and shirts. There has been talk for the last year or more that Blake may have some color blindness. Despite that he has always been very good at dressing himself in clothes that match. Emily, however could care less if she is wearing a flowered shirt and plaid shorts with Christmas socks in May. I made sure to show everything to Blake before I put it in the cart. At one point I asked him if he liked this certain green shirt. He said yes if he had those green pants to wear with it. Done and done.

Emily ended up with a couple pairs of pants, a shirt that came with a vest and scarf and a dress. I made it out $154.00 later, which I didn't think was awful. I also picked up our Gordman's layaway on the way home.

Saturday morning after work I had planned on going to the farmer's market but the rain had different plans. I called Adam and told him I was going to go get groceries instead. He wanted to come along so I had to go home first and wait for him and the kids to get ready. We ate breakfast and made a new itinerary that included paying the rent and going to JCPenney for their door buster deals. I've been having a hard time finding jeans for Emily because while she is average height for her age, she's got a booty and a belly and apparently short legs. After literally making her try on at least a dozen pairs of jeans this week at Goodwill, I found out women's size 0 capri jeans, or ones that come rolled up and can be un-rolled fit her perfect. I just knew I could find her some size 0 capri jeans at Penney's.

I found some on clearance and after trying on several more we walked away from that department with just one pair. We found two outfits for Blake and while we were in line I remembered I wanted to check out the shoes. Adam tried to protest but finally gave in. I scored in the shoe department getting Emily two pairs of leather mary janes, one brown and one blue for $3.55 each.

After that we decided it was time for me to get new tires on the front of my car because mine are very near bald. We went to Farm and Fleet and I started hitting up their clearance sales. First to the shoes. The kids found rain boots they liked and they were half off. My dad had said he wanted to get the kids rain boots so he ended up paying me back for those. Then I found a pair of boot-type shoes for Blake in his size. They were $20 then half-off. Adam and I decided they would be better than the skater shoes he picked out at Wal-Mart and after I let him run up and down the aisle in them a few times and telling him how much "faster" he'll be able to run in them than the ones he picked out at Wal-Mart, Blake was all for it too. They had a bunch of clothes that weren't just summer clothes on clearance for Emily and I grabbed a couple outfits and some shirts. Once I got to the register I found out Blake's shoes were actually $4.88. Sweet Lincoln's Mullet! So now I think we're finally done with school shopping. My wallet says so, anyway.

Some Randoms...

Gosselin Random...

I think Jon Gosselin is the biggest douchebag to ever walk the face of this planet. I am not a follower of Jon & Kate Plus 8. I think I've seen two or three episodes and that was a few years ago. I remember thinking, "How in the HELL did these two people ever hook up in the first place??" I have no idea how they met, nor do I give two shits, but I do have a scenerio in my mind as to how it happened.

Jon and Kate go to the same college circa 1993. Jon is a partying, good-time frat boy with lots of friends. He listens to 4 Non Blondes and Ace of Base, plus a little Sugar Ray for good measure. Kate is the hard-studying bitch friend who hates her roommate because she makes friends easily and seems to be breezing through courses even though she is out all night every night having a good time. Kate has just two or three friends but she is close to them and they put up with her being a hard-core bitch because that's just how she is.

One of Kate's friends gets invited a party at Jon's fraternity. None of them know Jon, nor does Jon know any of them. One of the friends talks Kate into going even though she would really rather sit in her room and study for mid-terms since it will be quiet because her roommate is skiing with her new boyfriend all weekend. The party is like something out of Animal House. Kate thinks it's "dumb". Her friends start having a good time. They try to get Kate to have a good time. Kate finds some guy in the kitchen who shares her anger about the party and together they have many drinks with much hard liquor. Kate's new "friend" has to leave to take care of a puking buddy. Enter a drunk Jon. Witness a drunk Kate. See Kate hump drunk Jon in a random room in a passionate, drunk, angry sex kinda way. See Jon really like it. See Kate think that will never happen again. See Amy stop writing like she's all tarded up.

Kate wakes up the next day with a "that will NEVER happen again" attitude. Jon wakes up the next day and has apply cream to the whip marks on his back, but he likes it! He finds out where Kate lives. He bugs her until they go out on another date. He has to get her drunk in order to get more sex. They become a couple with her wearing the pants and him going along with whatever she wants just so she'll spank him later. They get married. They have twins. They want one more kid but her negative attitude keeps them from getting pregnant. They try drugs to help the process. They have six babies at once. Jon never gets sex again. The End.

Here's where the douchebaggery comes in. I used to hate Kate and feel bad for Jon. I think most of America did. However, since we've all had to endure the last few months of Gosslin-mania I'm starting to feel a little sympathy towards Kate and a lot of eye-rolling towards Jon. It doesn't even have anything to do with their divorce, or his new girlfriends. It has everything to do with his hair-plugs and the Ed Hardy clothes.

I see him decked head-to-toe in Ed Hardy gear and I wanna vom in the nearest trashcan. I'm not 100% sure why I feel this way. I guess it's because I read somewhere that Christian Audigier sent the whole family Ed Hardy clothing and he was the only douche who was willing to wear it. Now, because of his horrible taste in clothing and Christian Audigier's bad business sense, we're going to be forced not only to see more of Jon Gosselin's 30-something ass wearing 20-something clothing, but probably his innocent kids too. I just keep waiting for Jon to show up at some skate park wearing those tattoo sleeves they sell at halloween time for people who want to dress like bikers but don't want the commitment of putting 72 tattoos on their arms. It makes me want to kick him in his hair plugs.


Dental Randoms...
Sunday morning I was leaving work and it was raining and kinda blah. As I was pulling out of the hospital a woman was walking into the hospital drive. She was wearing pants and a heavy winter coat. It was orange with brown fur around the hood. She had the hood up over her head and a huge toothless smile on her face. She was probably nuttier than a fruitcake and maybe even smiling because she just kicked a baby bunny all the way down 24th street but I couldn't help but smile too when I passed her. She made my morning seem a little less dreary. Thanks crazy-toothless lady!


Commute Randoms...
For those of you who don't know, I live in Iowa but work in Illinois. The hospital I work at is in the 'hood, but not the deep 'hood. We get lots of shootings and stabbings and the ER is constantly having to go on lock-down.

They are doing construction on the bridge I take to get to work. For those of you not geographically inclined, Iowa and Illinois are separated by the Mississippi, therefore a bridge is necessary for my commute. (: I can get across it pretty easily but the on-ramp home is closed so a lengthy detour is in place. Because of this I started taking another route and bridge home and I love it. It gets me home a few minutes earlier than my original route even without the new detour. I also get to drive downtown along the Mississippi and there is a lot less morning traffic.

My new route does, however, put me right into the deep 'hood. It's never bothered me when I come home because It's 7am and all the drama is usually over and all the gangstas are tucked safely into their beds. Yesterday though, I had to work 2nd shift and so my peaceful route home was a little more scary at 11:30 at night. There were lots of people just wandering around, crossing the street, yelling, running, and just generally being shady. I was so glad to cross the bridge and get out of there.

Schedule Randoms...
Two weeks ago I sent an e-mail to my supervisor and my manager letting them know that once my kids start school on the 10th, I cannot help out on 1st or 2nd shift anymore. I did this because we had one girl on 1st shift who's last week was the coming week at the switchboard and then she was moving to a different department. I can't work other shifts anymore because of Blake's preschool schedule. I have to drive him to his bus, which is about a mile away around 10:30am and pick him back up around 3:45. There is no one else to do this. This is all me. Plus, my first priority is the kiddos, not the hospital. My manager sent me a response telling me he understands, no problem. Not long after that my supervisor put in her resignation. I was glad I got my two-cents in before the schedule got crazier!

Yesterday I get to work and my supervisor, who is working her last week with us, mind you, had sent me an e-mail telling me I had to work 1st shift next Wednesday. Um, no? Seriously? So I sent another e-mail back explaining why I couldn't. "Well can you work 2nd shift that day?" Really? Jesus woman! Why are you messing with my schedule for a period of time when you wont even be my boss anymore?!?!? Asshat.

...and then he made me a shaker bookcase and matching adirondac chairs

My sweet little four-year old has an obsession with moustaches. When given the opportunity to say something into a fan, as kids like to do, his choice is almost always, "Moustaches are coooooool. Moustaches are coooooool. Moustaches are coooooooooooooooool."

Last Sunday Adam and I went to a local Mexican restaurant for dinner. As we walked in the door I took a quick glance at the offerings in the bubble gum machines. You never know when I'm gonna be able to add to my Homies collection. Besides, I am still looking for that one in the wheelchair. Instead of my beloved Homies, though, I did find the mother of all machines. The Moustache Machine! Sweet Lincoln's Mullet! I knew Blake had to have one, or three.

May I present to you, Straight from his New Yankee Workshop--Norm Abram!




He even let his sister take his 'stache out for a ride. (There's a moustache ride joke in there that, yes, I AM desperately trying to avoid). P.S. I have no idea what's on her face.



Eventually this moustache ended up stuck to the bottom of the television. I thought it was a large Caterpillar and was waiting for it to spin a cocoon. It never did and Adam threw it away.

A pictoral look back at the month of June

On June 3rd I opened The Flop Shop on Etsy. Buy some. Please. I'm tired of looking at the flip flops I have left.

On June 6th Adam channeled the African tribesman in him and did this for no apparent reason.

Then he did this to my eldest child and he wasn't even provoked.

June 13th found us at the Davenport skate park where Adam's band played along with several other local bands.


Adam's guitarist Karl sat in a tiny chair...


...and I got to see my friend from high school perform in his band. He married my best friend in 2005. They had only been dating since we were sophomores. That was 1990. I guess they wanted to make sure it was the real thing.

It got pretty cold for June out at the skate park and the sun stayed behind the clouds. I made the stupid decision to wear short and not bring a jacket so I pushed a small child out of it's stroller and stole his blanket. That was MUCH better.


Adam's parents visited us from Tennessee during skate park weekend. Adam's dad showed me his packs of Camels and their scary warning labels.



Later the next week I woke up and found that not only had Blake dressed himself in his new Spiderman costume, he had also captured and tied himself up using Adam's sports tape.


He also showed off his new "old man underwear". His too-big boxers that my sister bought him.


That night he shoved the too-big boxers under his tiny sleep shorts and then pulled the sleep shorts as high up his butt as possible.


Guess who really loved the thumb wrestling set he got in his meal at Taco Bell?


Father's Day was spent at my sister's house for dinner. The kids got Adam this visor with attached hair that actually looks really natural on him.




A few days before this picture was taken Emily and I watched No Doubt perform on Ellen. If you haven't seen how Gwen Stefani is styling her hair, it's like this only there's two more knots. Emily loves Gwen and wanted to rock her style. On the last day of the month I put one of the Gwen knots in her hair and she did her own make-up. Ladies and Gentlemen, Emily Stefani...

So it's been close to three weeks since I've posted anything. I've been so busy making flip flops and just dealing with life in general that I put my blog on the back burner for a while. It wasn't something I intentionally did, but it happened.

I was able to finally open my etsy shop. You can find it at www.theflopshop.etsy.com. Emily and I had our first sale at the Young Entrepreneur's Market this last Saturday and we only sold four pair. I think if the museum, who hosted the sale, had advertised more for it, we all would have been more successful. Instead it seemed the only people buying anything were the ones who had booths and were selling things themselves. Our booth was about the only one that had handmade items. Everyone else had garage sale type things. Old toys, stuffed animals and clothes. Either way we had fun doing it and it was nice spending the day with Em.

This last Friday I also turned 35. It's a little weird saying that. 35. The night before I got kinda depressed about it. I usually look forward to my birthdays. The attention, the gifts but this year was different. I didn't want to be 35. I also didn't want to have another birthday without my mom. I have been really missing her this week, but I'm not sure why. No significant reason I guess.

Anyway, the morning of my birthday I woke up in a little better mood and looked forward the weekend. I had originally been scheduled to work the day after my birthday, which was my weekend off, but the schedule was changed and I was taken off and I wasn't unhappy about it at all. Friday afternoon my sister came to take Blake for the weekend and Emily and I ran some errands before going out to eat with Adam.

We went to a locally owned steakhouse and had a great meal. When we were done eating Adam stood up and told everyone it was my birthday and asked them if they would sing to me. They all went for it like he was asking them to pass the pepper. It was slightly embarrassing but I think our little 17 year old waitress was even more embarrassed. She got a little red in the face.

On Saturday Emily and I had our sale then we met my sister and Blake at a pizza place for lunch and so she could then take Emily for the night. My sister brought my bday presents and she got me a Willow Tree Angel, a digital picture frame and the RENT live on broadway DVD. When I saw the DVD I squealed, "Yay! I forgot I wanted this!!" Which I totally had.

After that Adam and I did some shopping then came home and started cleaning up the house. Adam had bought some Motorola walkie talkies from someone at our sale and he wanted to try them out. He left to walk next door to the grocery store to buy batteries. Right after he left the wind picked up and it started to pour down rain. I stood out on the deck until the wind changed and I got pretty soaked. I decided to look out the back of the building and watch for Adam try to make it home in the monsoon. I opened the apartment door and there he stood SOAKING wet. He looked like he had been standing in the shower for about five minutes with all of his clothes on.

After toweling off we had fun playing with the walkie talkies. Adam wandered around the building and outside to see how far he could go and it was pretty far. He came back in and we resumed cleaning. Adam got ambitious and decided to vacuum under the couch cushions. I took them off while he hooked up the vacuum hose and that's when the power went out.

Once we realized it probably wasn't going to come back anytime soon out came the walkie talkies again and Adam started knocking on neighbor's doors, going inside and saying crazy things on the walkie talkie. After a bit all the neighbors came up to our house with a cake for my birthday and an iTunes gift card and we ate cake in the kinda dark.

Once the neighbors left Adam and I headed out to dinner and then the casino. We won $88 so we went to the bar for some drinks. I watched a guy do 38 shots of gin and vodka for his 38th birthday and then walk out of the bar like he had been drinking water all night. Have you ever seen 38 shots of anything at one time? It's an amazing sight. I actually think he did more than just 38 shots because the bartender just kept bringing more and more cups of various things. After a while a friend started passing some out to people in the bar and Adam and I got one. She was the one that said she thought it was vodka and gin. It smelled like scotch tape and tasted awful.

At the bar there was also a group of guys who were out for their buddie's bachelor party. They were dressed like they had been out all day golfing. The guy getting married was a total douchebag. He was dressed like a douchebag (which, btw is plaid golf shorts and a cream polo, in case you were wondering) and he talked like a douchebag. You could tell that his buddies (all three of them) were really sick of listening to him babble on and on. That's what he did the entire time they were there was go on and on about the same thing over and over. I know this because he stood right freaking behind my stool. First he went on and on about how he was marrying his best friend.

"She's my best friend."
"I'm actually marrying my best friend."
"Like you guys are my friends, but she's my BEST friend."
"Everyone always says they married their best friend, but I am ACTUALLY doing it."
"She's totally my best friend. Like, if I came home and said, I crapped in my pants today she would be like, 'Oh.' because she's my best friend and she wouldn't care."

--OK. Let me just interject here and say, if she was your best friend, she SHOULD care that you crapped your pants. Like, if my best friend Jim came over and was like, "Wawa, I crapped my pants today." I'd be like, "WTF?? WHAT?? Why the hell did you crap your pants? Is there some issue I need to know about? Were you sick from something? Did you eat too many prunes today? Does this happen often or do we need to seek out medical attention?" I would hope ANYONE, not just my best friend would be concerned about the fact that I just crapped my pants, if for no other reason than they just don't want me to sit on their couch.

Anyway, later the conversation turned to what the name of his first born son will be. He named off one name which he kept repeating over and over. He likes it because it's the name of his favorite baseball player. I don't remember the name, it wasn't one that I recognized but I do remember, even after drinking the liquid scotch tape, that it sounded just as douche-y as he was acting. After that his second choice is Grady. "Isn't that a cool name? Grady? Grady Insert-whatever-his-last-name-was-here? I like it. Don't you like it? I really like that name. Grady. Isn't that cool? Grady? All of his buddies were silent. They all knew it was a douchebag redneck name.

In other recent happenings, Adam was on the news last week because of a storm we had. A tree fell in our 'hood during a bad storm so our neighbor and Adam were cleaning it up. Along comes the local CBS affiliate and they interview another neighbor. Then it was Adam's turn. Adam starts talking about how we were eating dinner at Hungry Hobo (that's a local sub shop for those of you who aren't from 'round these parts) and that the weather was calm and quiet. Then Adam says, "then it hit like a FRIGGIN' MONSOON. You couldn't even see the cars in the parking lot. It was raining HEAVY!" We DVR'd the event. We like to invite other neighbors over and replay it in slow motion to watch his eyes get really wonky and the serious look on his face when he says, "heeaaaavvvvyyyyy." Classic.

Up next:

A look back at the month in June in pictures.

Done and done...almost

I got my light box made and all of my flip flop pictures taken. Tomorrow I'll be opening up my Etsy shop and I expect each of you to check it out. I still have about 5 or 6 more pairs of flip flops yet to make and then I'm done for a while. We'll see what happens with the Etsy shop and the entrepreneur's market at the end of the month. I might need to stop making them for a while due to lack of sales (oh PLEEEEEEASE don't let that happen!) or I might need to turn into a mad woman and make several more pairs. Let's hope for somewhere close to the latter.

Dayum!

God it's been so freaking long since I've posted on my blog. The saddest part is that I've been spending most of my time with flip flops. I know, right? Emily and I are making flip flops to sell at a Young Entrepreneur's Market at the end of June. I told her we would do that and with the money we would have a girl's day out. I said we could go shopping and out to eat or whatever. Without missing so much as a half a beat she said, "WE COULD GO HAVE ONE OF THOSE DRINKS!!" A few weeks ago we had dinner at a Mexican restaurant close to the house. They had a list of non-alcoholic drinks on the table. She was immediately mesmerized. I said, "Emily. You're scaring me." Now it's all she thinks about. I'm going to start an Etsy shop with my flip flops, but I need to take pictures of them first. I think I have about 15 or so finished. It's been a long process but they're turning out really cute and I'm happy with my progress. If I could just get that Etsy shop opened!

I've also been working a bit more where Adam's been working less. He got called back to work but the weather had been so fucking rainy and wet that he can't work. This past week he worked one day. One lousy day. I'm ready for the rain to stop and the heat to begin.

I worked 2nd shift last night while all of my neighbors hung out and had way too many drinks. Drama ensued, as is always inevitable, and I've been up for the last couple of hours worried about a sister neighbor. I hope she's doing ok down there. Adam and I didn't go to bed until 3am and I laid there for a while while he worked hard to breathe. He's having a lot of trouble with his allergies tonight. I laid in bed so freaking wide awake that I couldn't take it anymore. So, here I am at 4:06 in the morning begging your forgiveness for being gone so long.

Well, I really have nothing better to say, I hope everyone is doing fine and has a lot less drama in their lives than I do!

My Mom's Day

Yesterday my sister had a Mother's Day dinner at her house. Besides me and my crew she also invited her mother and father-in-law and our dad. My sister's in-laws are really awesome people. They are so cute. I guess Friday was their 56th wedding anniversary and my sister called her MIL that night to wish her a Happy Anniversary and she had no idea what she was talking about. They had both forgotten about the day. I told her right then I was never going to let Adam do that. I expect something FABULOUS on EVERY anniversary, especially my 56th. Isn't the 56th Anniversary signified with a huge diamond ring, necklace and matching tennis bracelet? I'll have to check with Hallmark but I'm almost certain that I'm right. Just kidding Adam! Actually I'm not. No, I am. I'm kidding. Well, you'll just have to wait and see.

So we had a great dinner. My sister made lasagna and a salad and both were very good. For desert she had made chocolate creme pies. Yum! After dinner my cousin, her daughter and her daughter came over to visit with the in-laws. See, my sister and my cousin married two guys who are brothers. That means they have the same in-laws that I mentioned above. Our cousin was the first one to get married then 3 years later they had a baby. Two years after that my sister got married and that also meant that our 2nd cousin became my sister's niece. Confused yet? Good! It was fun getting to see my 2nd cousin's baby, Gracie. She's almost one and a half and has finally caught on to the whole walking on her own thing. She's very independent.

After all that we opened gifts. Adam had the kids paint rocks. They did an awesome job.




Both kids made me things at school too:






The purple card is from Emily. She apparently is a fan of my tuna and noodles. Hominy, notsomuch.

From my sister I got an Isabel Bloom statue called, "Memories"



She and the kids picked out this Willowtree figurine:



Also she got a wallet, which I'd love to show you a picture of, however blogger is being a bitch. Eff off blogger.

On Saturday we all went to the farmer's market where a lady had a booth for kids to decorate a pot and plant a Marigold for their moms for Mother's Day.



My dad had roses delivered to me. If you thought I was kidding when I said my dad talks in the third person here is proof:





Here's hoping your Mother's Day was fantabuloso! Mine most definitely was.

Tony Danza strikes again...

Remember this post where we talked about misheard lyrics? Well, after reading more of Test Pattern, the MSNBC site I mentioned in my previous post, they were also talking about misheard lyrics. I just finished reading the article and was chuckling at everyones comments and their OWN misheard lyrics when someone mentioned the Pussycat Dolls song, "When I Grow Up". Turns out their misheard lyric is also my misheard lyric. Since I first heard the song I've been singing:

When I grow up
I wanna see the world
Drive nice cars
I wanna have boobies.

Guess what? They don't want to have boobies. They want to have groupies. My bad. I guess I just assumed that since they are the whores that are The Pussycat Dolls, they have wanted to have silicone tits their whole lives. Wait till I tell Adam. He's been singing about boobies this whole time too. Now I feel a little bit better about putting that song on my seven year-old's iPod.

Oh, also the article said a lot of people have misheard Beyonce's song, "All The Single Ladies". They are hearing, "All the Pringle haters! All the Pringle haters!" That cracks me up, yo!

You gotta problem with that?

Yes, I know I said in one of my last posts that I was going to do something new and fabulous and that every Tuesday I was going to hand you a shiny new website to check out and the world was going to rotate in the direction your life is actually going and the planets were going to align for you and maybe you'd even win the lottery. Not a big lottery but enough so you could go on a nice vacation and put a decent deposit down on that dark blue Jeep Liberty you've been eyeing. Then the following Tuesday happened and where was the shiny new website and the mediocre lottery win? Well if they were up your ass you'd know it. OK, that's a bad answer but the next time one of your kids asks where their other shoe is or where is one of the 52 pencils you bought them at the end of last summer for the start of school, that's actually a pretty GREAT answer.

"Mom, where's my Webkin?"
"If it was up your ass you'd know it."

"Do you know where my backpack is?"
"If it was up your ass you'd know it."

"Where's the remote?"
"If it was up your ass you'd know it."

See?

Anyway, I'm back one week and two days late with the next installment of "Check it out Tuesday."

This week's website comes to us courtesy of MSNBC's Test Pattern site. I love this site because the writers are typically saying what I'm thinking. Every Monday, or almost every Monday they do a "Multi-link Monday". I have found so many cool sites from it. This week I want you to check out Foamigami. After that I want you to do some foamigami, take pictures and report back to me. Do it, it's 65% of your grade.

NO!

NO! Not Lil' Kim and Derek! Ty Murray sucks ass! I hate you voters of DWTS! You totally ruined my Tuesday night.

On a completely different note: do you think Adam would notice if I drank his Gatorade that's been calling me from the refrigerator ALL DAY? I bet it tastes GOOD.

Two down--two to go

Last July when Estelle Getty died I sent a smart-ass email to my friend Stacey who used to work with me at MCI. Stacey is a huge, huge, huge Golden Girls fan. The subject line read: "One down--three to go." I think the body of the e-mail said something along the lines of, "So Estelle Getty is dead." Just one line, plain and simple. I also CC'd that email to our old supervisor from MCI, JC. She actually works at the company Stacey was, and is still working for. Immediately after I sent the email I got a response from JC saying, "Don't say anything else about Estelle Getty dying. Stacey is really upset. He is crying and I think he's actually going to go home early because he can't function." (Oh, did I forget to mention that Stacey is a man? You know my gays love them some Golden Girls). I felt really bad for about 1.72 minutes. Then I just laughed and started calling everyone I knew to tell them what I did. Pretty sure I'm gonna have to do that again tomorrow.

Try-It-Out Tuesday

I'm starting a new weekly thing. "Try-It-Out Tuesdays". I'll post a link to a website you should go to and then I'll tell you why. Your job is to do what I say. See? Now you know what it's like to live with me. This is going to be great!

www.truemomconfessions.com

This website is cool because it's moms (mostly anonymous) that confess to things that you know we all do but would never say out loud without the help of about four martinis and a couple shots of Southern Comfort for good measure. It is also divided into different sections for those of you who don't have kids but have jobs, are single, military wives, brides and others. Check it out. Now. Go. No, really.

Hello Interneters. I bet you all thought I had fallen off the face of the planet, never to be heard from again. Maybe some of you even breathed a sigh of relief because of it. Well eff off because I'm back, bitches. Adam and I have been performing a little experiment this month and it turns out, yes, if you don't pay your phone/Internet bill, they WILL shut both of them off. Make sure you write that down kids. May be handy later. We did this for you, Internet. Oh, same thing with the Dish People. Don't pay=no Dish. Hope you have a lot of interesting stuff stored on your DVR.

So, that being said, what has been going on with little ol' me? Well, not a lot, really. It's April. I hate April. No, I LOATHE April. April makes me cringe every time I see it coming up on the calendar. April is notoriously not a good month for my family. Been that way for many, many years. Let me just give you some examples:

April 27, 1983: My brother drowns 10 days after his 23rd birthday.

April 27, 1995: My mom is taken to the hospital by ambulance due to congestive heart failure. She eventually gets better and is able to return to work a few weeks later.

April 26, 1996: My mom is taken to the hospital by ambulance due to congestive heart failure. A few days later she suffers a mild stroke while in the hospital. They take another couple of days to believe us that she's had a stroke. She recovered from the stroke but not too well from the congestive heart failure. She couldn't work anymore and went on disability.

April 6, 1999: My mother passes away two days after Easter, the last time I had seen her. She had been hospitalized in Peoria for around a week. They were getting her stronger so she could eventually have a heart transplant. They were putting in an internal IV on that morning so that she could go home and still receive her meds. She developed an irregular heartbeat and passed away during the procedure.

This month: My sister has been battling some kind of pinched nerve in her neck and/or arm. During all of her doctor visits with all of that they've found she has high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes. Boo!

Anyway, I'm just waiting for April to be over so I can move onto May. I always breathe a little sigh of relief when May 1st rolls around. It can't come too soon!

Our Easter went well. My sister ACTUALLY didn't buy a truckload of candy for the kids, so that was awesome. Usually she buys so much we sock most of it away and end up forgetting about it until Halloween rolls around when we sock away most of that candy, thus finding the forgotten Easter candy.

Adam was called back to work last Wednesday. This is early for him as usually doesn't go back until the end of May/first part of June. We were excited at first until we realized it was probably just a fluke. He worked 9.5 hours the first day and only 6 the next with no work on Friday. He's supposed to call the office today but considering all the rain we got on Sunday, I don't think ANYONE will really be working. I think he'll end up working very sporadically until his normal callback time. Whatever can be done to screw up unemployment, right? Irregardless, I look at it as somewhat of a compliment. To me it says a lot, especially with this particular company, that they've called him back so soon. Even if it's for a short amount of time, or for just that one job. Adam is only a laborer and they are typically the last called back, the last needed. Seems like they know he's a dependable, hard-worker and, just guessing, maybe he was called before other guys who are perhaps less dependable and hard-working but who should have been called before him due to tenure or title. Of course that's just my opinion because I think my man kicks ass!

I also spent a couple of hours on his second day back to work redoing our budget. Figuring out what to pay and when with our soon-to-be higher income. I'm planning on paying off our old balance on the electric bill so we can stop paying the extra $85 or so each month and paying off our car early. AT the old house the electric company under-estimated our budget billing and we racked up a hefty balance. Now we're paying that crap off. Once it's done then I'm done with budget billing. Just let me pay what we owe. I love making our home budgets, though. I just have a hard time sticking to them. It's also a lot more fun to make the budget when you actually have some money to work with. All my fun was dashed, however, when Adam walked in the door that day at 2:30 in the afternoon when I shouldn't have seen him until around 6. I knew then my shiny new budget was probably going to end up in the toilet. We'll see what this week brings.

Adam stopped smoking this month. The government's higher taxes on ciggies starting on April 1st served as inspiration. At first he was going to go with the patch. I can get a discount on it at work and that was our plan. Then a girl at work suggested Chantix. She said it's the best way to stop smoking because it fixes the neurons in your brain that make you crave ciggies. You take it twice a day for three months. It's not cheap. Adam's insurance doesn't cover it so it costs $143 each month, but in the end it's so worth it. For the first week the pills are a lower milligram and you can also still smoke during that week. Starting with the second week is when you actually quit. Adam's last ciggie was on April 7th. He's replaced cigarettes with toothpicks. So far he's doing really well and I think it's only going to get easier for him. Like I said, my man kicks ass!

Well, that's my life up to this point. I'm working tonight and tomorrow covering for our full-time gal who has some family in town. I don't really feel like working, but that's typical of me. Update me on what's going on with you? I hope you are surviving this horrible month!