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.