Doing The Monster Mash!

Happy Halloween Everyone!

The trick or treating here was sparse and crappy. One of my kids came home with a half a bag of open doughnuts! HHH said the people kept saying, "Oh we don't get trick or treaters here." WTF?? There are kids everywhere here! How can you NOT get ToT'ers here?? Anyway, they did get to dress up and go out, and tomorrow we are going to get some discounted candy at the store to make up for the crap fest that was tonight. I stayed home and handed out candy to the kids that came by here. I had the fog machine going, the music on high, and the lights and Halloween sounds set to go off when ever a kid knocked on the door! We are Halloween people. I even dressed in my Pirate outfit and handed out the candy with salty pirate talk. (well.... not SALTY, salty.)

Either or..... it was a Halloween. Let the sugar high begin!

Obama Stole My Route Home!

Oh my sweet baby Jesus! Today was an ordeal and a half! The great Democratic candidate Obama is speaking at Ed Smith Stadium, a mere 1 block from my home. This is in a last ditch effort to secure Florida for the democratic party and sway all these undecideds still left. I, however, was not concerned with that. I was more concerned with having to get my children to school. Let me elaborate.....

Here is a map of my neighborhood. My apartment community begins at the "A" and Yahoo maps says it is .44 miles to get to the entrance of Ed Smith Stadium. I have to go .50 miles to my kids school. I get to the school, drop off my little dumplings, and begin to walk home. Just for shits and giggles, I decide to walk down to see what's going on. BIG MISTAKE!!!!! Warning, warning! Danger Will Robinson! DANGER! As I approached what I thought was the end of the line, I realized it wasn't. I was further encouraged that this wasn't the end of the line when a few less jovial Obama/Biden supporters were rather nasty about saying the end of the line curled around the block and down 12th street. In my map above, I marked where the beginning and end of the line was. Let me tell you, it isn't as short as the map makes it appear!

These were the enterprising souls at the end of the line down by Euclid Avenue. I felt sorry for them because from what I saw, they weren't going to get in. Ed Smith has a max capacity of 10,000 people and I had to have passed that and more when I was trying to find the end of the line. It was then that I decided not to attend this function. Really, when you think about it, I can hear everything that goes on from my balcony. Add that to a live stream on the Internet and it's like I'm there, but a block away!

It looked like there was a forest of satellite towers sprouting up from the news parking lot!

This was the traffic outside of my kids school! It was redonkulous!! And not only was there a giant amount of traffic.... they had no regards for the school zone, kids, or the crossing guard trying to get those kids safely across the road. Who cares if you are blocking the intersection and the cross walk, your just trying to get over to see Obama! Well, we moms and dads care dumbass! I can hear the thing starting up now! The speech must be starting. Time to go listen on the balcony!

Oh and getting back home? A complete and total B. I. T. C. H.! I started walking back to the house and every street was blocked off. Every one! I had to walk up to Lime Avenue(which is so far up it is cut off the map!) and go back towards 10th street so I could get home. It was a round trip of about a mile and a half. I don't care who you are...... that's a long walk if you haven't stretched out. Luckily by the time school is out, Obama will be long gone..... off to make a nightmare out of someone else's traffic patterns.

One of the funnier things I saw was a single guy standing on the corner of Tuttle and 12th, holding a McCain/Palin sign. He wasn't saying anything to anyone, but the Obama Volunteers were surrounding him trying to get him to leave. (I thought we were allowed to assemble peacefully in this country?) Oh, and there were people selling all kinds of things. There were towels that said "Change" on them, t-shirts, buttons, signs, hats, bumper stickers, and everything you could imagine! It was almost like trying to get into a concert and trying to get past the vendors hawking souvenirs!

So what did I take away from today's experience? Well, one..... I guess I am not enough of a supporter to wait for hours in line to see a candidate. Two.... I am NEVER going to try and see what's going on "just for fun" anymore EVER! And three.... I can't wait for all this stuff to be over and for November 4th to get here!

Remember to get out and VOTE people! I will, and that will be the line I will be grateful to stand in!

Would You Like Some Pie?

I was catching a ride with Ms. M from the walking Moms the other day and the talk turned to food. For some reason my conversations always turn to food. Duh..... could that be because I was a chef? Anyway, we were talking about food for the holidays. She's Jewish and was talking about making Latkas for her sons class and me being Christian, I was talking about making Yule Logs for Christmas. Then we started talking about food for the main dinners and I started going on about how I make a turkey and a ham and possibly a stuffed pork loin, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, two types of green beans, baked squash casserole, dinner rolls, cranberry sauce, home made gravy, and usually 3 kinds of pie and a cake for what ever holiday it is..... Thanksgiving or Christmas. It sounds like a lot, but with this family...... it really isn't. They eat like horses, I swear! So after I got done rattling off the laundry list of stuff we eat, Ms. M was looking at me with huge eyes and she decided that my home would be the place to be for the holidays! Ha! I thought that was funny.

After Halloween is over, I go into full meal planning mode. I start mapping out my grocery purchases, my meals, cookies, snacks, tasty holiday beverages, and if someone needs a little help with their holiday meals, I am available for catering and cooking supplementation. Oh yes, if you need a perfectly stuffed turkey, baked to perfection, or a savory side dish that you can pass off as your own, I will make one for you at a discount. Heck, it's what I used to do for a living. I can make a beautiful yule log that your guests will ooh and aahh over. Your turkey will look like the centerpiece out of Good Housekeeping. Do you need help? Can I give you a hand for a little extra cash so I can buy a few extra gifts this season? Go ahead.... ask. I'll also share recipes......... maybe.

Till then, I remain the "Martha Stewart On Crack" at holiday time. MSOC for short.

It's Freakin' Cold, Yo!

OMG!!! I moved away from the Great White North to avoid this crap....... WTF??!!?? It is 46 degrees outside right now at 6:46am on Wednesday. IN OCTOBER IN SOUTH FLORIDA! Why? If I was still in Memphis I could see it, but in SOUTH FLORIDA?? And yes, I am speaking in a lot of capitols today because I am freezing my ass off.

I am a Floridian, born and bred. I never lived outside of the state until HHH moved us to Tennessee.... and that only took a few years before I was tired of the weather and made him bring us back south. When we were moving back, we had to drive through the mountains. It was February, it was high in the mountains, and it was snowing! I was saying to myself as we slipped and slid..... "Man, am I glad that I will never have to experience these temps again!" Granted it was 30 degrees..... but I was moving back to Florida. No more snow, no more sleet, no more freezing my ass off.

Nope. It's cold. I'm cold. The kids are cold. Junior said he needs more long pants. He was not thrilled at having to wear shorts yesterday. The fun thing about Florida is.... it will be a cold morning, but by the afternoon, you are sweaty and hot. What is that nonsense?

*sigh......... Can it be warm again?

Why I Had Kids.

I was young, but in my 20's. I wasn't married ....yet, but I was engaged. I had a job..... but it wasn't what I wanted to go do with my life. My children were all a surprise from Karma.... all except Junior. HHH and I planned him. Still, I do not know a single time in my entire life when I did not want my kids. Not a single one. Not when I was in the midst of my divorce from the Ex, not when Morgan became desperately ill and was later diagnosed with diabetes, not when my Ex and his Mom and Dad decided it would be fun to call DCS on me at least once a week to the point that DCS said they would bring them up on charges if they did it again without cause, and not when we were homeless, poor, and hungry. I have always wanted my children. ALWAYS!

Now, it seems, Nebraska has a law in place that says anyone can give their children up, as long as they are under the age of 18, at any safe haven designate shelter, like a church, hospital, police station, or fire station. If you are tired of your kids, can't deal with what it takes to be a parent, and really want to be free.....heck just take a drive through America's heartland and dump your kids off in The Husker State! That's what one Georgia mother just did. http://tinyurl.com/5f65dy She drove from Smyrna, Georgia with her 12 year old son and dropped him off at a Lincoln, Nebraska hospital. Just took him for a 1000 mile drive and dumped him. How do you do that? I have no idea. I cannot wrap my mind around it. Even at my most frustrated and frazzled, I haven't wanted to get rid of my children. What do you tell a kid as you're making that drive?

"Well son, it's been a hard 12 years, and you're OK and all, but Dad and I are really wanting to have some alone time, and you're just getting in the way. So, I am going to drop you off over here in Nebraska, and if our plans change, we'll come look you up, OK?"

What does that do to a child's psyche? How does that affect them for the rest of their lives? Can they even recover from hurt like that? How much therapy does it take to make someone not feel like they were thrown out like a piece of garbage? A whole damn lot I say. Those parents......wait, I'm not going to say it. There may be something horrible happening at home that made these people do this, but dammit man..... I was freakin' HOMELESS and I found a way to keep everyone together.

I feel sorry for these kids..... but a part of me is glad Nebraska had this problem with their law. What would have become of these kids if there was no where for them to go?

The world is frightening..... and it isn't even Halloween yet.

Who Is That Masked Man?

Oh...... that's just a wrestler on the TV. Okay.....okay, stop your hissing. I don't care if the entire world knows it or not, but we are a family who watches wrestling. Professional wrestling. WWE to be exact. I know....I know..... everyone says it's fake, the persona's are not real, the matches are choreographed..... yes I GET it. There is just one thing........

My 9 year old daughter LOVES IT!!!!!!!!

And I am not just talking the pretty girls, or the flashy costumes, no...... my little princess ballerina Morgan is a rabid John Cena fan and has been since she was 5. She knows all his moves, his two entrance music themes, she can quote his movie, and had drawers of camouflage clothes because he wears it. Her prize possession is a John Cena T-shirt her grandmother got for her from a RAW match that was at the FedEx Arena in Memphis. She wears it every Monday night to watch Wrestling with HHH, and cries when it is bed time and she can't stay up to finish watching. She can name each and every wrestler's entrance music just by the first few notes....sometimes before HHH can name it! Last Christmas, she asked for a WWE Elimination Chamber play set and a My Little Pony Teapot Palace set. (That one was hard to wrap my mind around.)

And I have to tell you, there is not a more heart warming sight to see than my tiny princess climbing up into her Daddy's lap, snuggling up and yelling, "Give him the chair!". It just brings me to tears every time. HHH has tried to get Junior to be as interested in wrestling as Morgan is, and to an extent he is. Junior is just such a hyper, bouncy kid that he doesn't sit still long enough to get through a whole match, although he does like Rey Mysterio as his favorite wrestler. Still, Morgan is the child of HHH's heart, sitting in her Daddy's lap just like he sat in his father's lap many years before.

We watch the pay per views, we keep up with the scandal sheets, we have weathered the steroid debacle, and the terrible, terrible day when Chris Benoit killed his family, and I am careful to remind Morgan that WWE stands for World Wrestling ENTERTAINMENT......... it isn't really real, that the things we watch on TV are practiced by athletes who are very able to do them. It isn't something I want her doing at school or when playing with friends.... kind of like the martial arts moves on some of the cartoons she and her brother watch. We keep it real, we take it just like it says, as entertainment, and we are entertained..... as a family. We root for our favorites, boo the bad guys, and at the end of the evening, we've had two hours together watching TV as a family.

Together.... can't beat that.

1.....2.....3....... DING DING DING!

We win.

Why I Have Half A Brain, And Other Stuff....

Today Morgan and I went to the ASOLO Theater to attend orientation for ballet! We were late to begin with. I spaced on the appointment, and HHH forgot to remind me about it. Really good right? Shut up....the Celiac's messes with your brain and makes your thought processes all scattered. I've seen the information. (And here you thought I was just your regular ditzy blonde.) Anywho...... we bum a ride up there from a friend and arrive in time to catch the last part of the meeting and fill out all the necessary paperwork. I waited until everyone had gone to explain about Morgan's diabetes and Celiac's to the woman who runs the program and then Morgan got her leotard. (or as she likes to call it....a "leo".) It was pink, dainty, and small. It was tiny! Yeah it'll stretch, but man..... my kid is little! We get done and catch a cab back to the house just in time to go get a few groceries at the market on the corner. We had ribs, corn and baked beans for dinner. It was tasty. Now I am so stuffed I can't move.

Did I mention the Chocolate Caramel Crumb Cake??

Cause This Is THRILLER!

Rebecca went to her first dance tonight. It was the fall Halloween dance. There was a haunted house, refreshments, and glow sticks! I rode with Ms. M from the walking mom's and with her child. The kids seemed to have a good time. They were excited, chattering monkeys when we went back to pick them up. Rebecca decided she wanted to be a vampire.....like the kids in the Twilight books. That got me off the hook for an expensive costume. A little make up, some fangs and were all hunky dory! I think I did a good job on her make up. Not too gory, not too silly...... just the right mix of pale kid and undead minion! Anyway, she had a good time, and I was feeling safe with the fact that there were 3 cops at the dance to oversee any monkey business.

So, mission accomplished and now I am going to sit back and relax. Mommy mission accomplished!

What Was I Thinking?

I don't know.

That maybe I am a good mom? That maybe I set a good example for my kids? That maybe after the 1,943,876,201st time it had been said, that my son would actually listen and be careful?

Nope. Junior wasn't paying attention while riding his bicycle home from school and ran into a woman with a baby stroller. An OCCUPIED stroller! I was horrified! I was embarrassed! I was running to see if the little toddler was alright and apologizing profusely to the woman in both Spanish and English! No harm was done, and the little girl was fine, but now there was the wrath of MOM to deal with. Not two moments before this had happened, I had just admonished Junior to be careful and to look where he is going. He has a bad habit of looking behind himself while riding rather than to look where he is going. Now it has cost him.

What made me the most upset was Junior didn't want to realize that what happened was all his fault. He wasn't being careful. He wasn't looking where he was going. He was ignoring his mother's advice! Junior kept placing the blame on his bike, the other kids, the lady in the way with the stroller, and myself.....anyone but him. "It's not my fault Mom. You let me ride the bike, so you did it!" Now he is grounded from his bike for two months! I keep trying to get it through his head that carelessness will often result in pain and punishment. Pain if he hurts himself or others, and punishment if he is deliberately obtuse! Now I feel like a bad mother. I cannot even control my child for the half mile walk home.

Sigh...... Are we really a society where we just blame everyone else but ourselves when we make mistakes? I guess the current economy and the Bailout should have answered that question, but still...... what are we teaching our children? If you mess up, don't worry. Someone in the government will bail you out. If you have an accident, you can just hire lawyers to get you out of it?? Don't worry about the future, someone will fix our problems eventually before we need it??? That is not the kind of lessons I want to be teaching my kids. I want my kids to be responsible, reliable adults who will contribute to our world in a positive manner. They need to be accountable. We as a society need to be accountable. We need to hold our leaders accountable.

I can't wait for November 4th, and now Junior can't wait for two months to go by.

Live and learn.

The Last Two Days.

Man, it has been a couple of days, and I mean DAYS, you know? I was finally feeling better from my 3 week coldapalooza and BAM! HHH came down with the stuff! (I told him not to be smooching on me so much.) He looked really rough this morning! All sniffly and coughing. I felt really bad for him, so what's my remedy? Chicken soup! And not canned condensed soup, oh no! We're talking take a chicken, boil it down for 4 hours with fresh veggies and spices, then pick the chicken bones clean and make fresh, homemade soup. I added a little rice, and some sea salt to the flavorful broth and colorful carrots and celery and voila........ Campbell's eat your heart out! Believe it or not, HHH looks better already. What is it about chicken soup that makes us feel better? I also made my homemade hot chocolate.....but that is a story for another day!

The other weird thing was in one of the 12 packs of Coke we bought the other day, there was a burst can. Not at the front either..... but all the way in the back of the pack! The box wasn't even broken either, that was the weird thing. It looked like the can just simply exploded. So being the good little consumer I am, I emailed Coke and told them about the exploded can and sent them pictures of it and the undamaged box it had come in. I told them it was only one can and that they may want to check their production line just in case something was amiss in the canning process. Coke returned my email rather quickly, (5 minutes!) and asked for more information about the package (code #'s), the can (code #'s), and the venue where we purchased it at. I relayed all this information and didn't hear anything until today. First I got an email back saying they were looking into the matter of the packaging, then when HHH went to check the mail, there was a letter from Coke in it. Seems they sent me a letter apologizing for the can mishap, ( I never said it was their fault, or that they did it on purpose.), and they sent me not one but TWO coupons for a free 12 pack of Coke! OMG!! That was a really cool thing to do! Coke is the bomb diggity!

So now I have a hubby who is on the mend, and two 12 packs of beverage to enjoy!

SCORE!

WTF??!!??

I have been trying to wrap my brain arround what went on in Las Vegas this weekend, and I still haven't been able to do it. I am speaking of the kidnapping of 6 year old Cole Puffinburger from his mother's home by fake police officers. What has me reeling is that it is Cole's very own grandfather who may have caused the whole fiasco. It has been said that the grandfather may owe great sums of money to a Mexican drug cartel and the kidnapping of Cole and ransacking of the daughter's home was a direct message to said grandfather. WTF?? Who the hell is stupid enough to steal millions of dollars from crazy ass Mexican Drug dealers? And while this was all going on, the grandfather had run off to California to hide?? Who the hell does this? And another thing, what was the mother doing during all this time? She had to know her father was not exactly doing legal things. I mean, the FBI and other such agencies say that they had been investigating the grandfather for "significant" drug trafficking in the millions of dollars!! There is no WAY that woman didn't know something hinkey was going on. What kind of a mother gets near that kind of thing, better yet, what kind of mother lets her child near that sort of thing? That had to be some sort of twisted kind of family. Lucky for Cole, the state placed him with his Dad after he was found. I bet that is going to be one man who files for sole custody with supervised visits after this!

As a Mom, there is nothing I wouldn't do for my kids. Hell I do for other people's kids if I gotta! (Remember, I am the crazy lady who jumps in front of cars speeding towards toddlers.) There is no way I would put up with someone who did business with Mexican drug dealers and then was stupid enough to steal their money and run with it, family or not! She should be ashamed of herself. In the back of my mind, I am kind of thinking that she was in on it along with her fiancee'. It was the mom's house that got broken into and ransacked by the fraudulent cops, therefore the faux coppers had to have a reason to be looking there. It was only after they couldn't locate any money that they took poor Cole. It is just shameful.

Either way, I am so glad he was found safe. I'd like to think the pressure of a nation wide Amber Alert plus Twitter/CNN/AMW and all the other networks that ran information on the case made the drug thugs think twice and release the boy. Their point had been made anyway. They could reach inside the "safe" borders of the good old US of A and snatch a 6 year old child from his home as retaliation for theft. I hope Grandpa doesn't get out of Federal custody any time soon. Something tells me if he does, he may be making a trip south of the border in some drug dealer's car trunk!

Maxin' And Relaxin'......

Yawn. I have been relaxing all day today. HHH had his brother stay over and BIL brought the nephew. I was glad to see my nephew had developed some manners. I didn't have my knick knacks hit the floor like I thought they would. Only problem I had was BIL didn't tell me that nephew had peed in his britches in the middle of the night, so when Junior went to go to bed, the sheets were all smelly and yucky. Oh well. I had gotten up early and made everyone breakfast burritos. yep....I kick McDonalds ass any time, anywhere! After that, it was a lazy day of playing Wii with my family, watching cartoons in bed, (It was Scooby Movie Day on Cartoon Network!), and snacking on sandwiches. And to make the day even better.....

IT WASN'T FREAKIN' HOT AS HELL!

Oh, man it was so nice today. We turned off the a/c and opened up the doors. Do you know just how amazing it feels to be laying in bed, eating Whoppers(the candy), in your jammies with a cool breeze blowing? Ahhhhh..... Fall. I love it. It may not last long, but the little snippets of it we get down here are AWESOME!

On a funny note...... BIL was playing Wii with HHH last night and nephew jumped on BIL and caught him in the nuts. His recently castrated nuts. His recently castrated and not fully healed nuts. HHH said he laughed until he turned purple. I was wacked out on cold medicine and missed the whole thing. Man..... it's just like they say.... it's all fun and games till someone gets their nuts stomped on!

Oh, and I am watching Family Guy as I am writing this, and I have counted at least 9 movie references (3 of them Indy films), and I have figured out that the writers of that show are voting for Obama. (The Hitler/McCain reference kinda pointed that out.) Laughed my ass off. Now time to go watch American Dad in bed and make nookie.

What Ya Gonna Be For Halloween?

We have to start thinking about that. I know what HHH and I are going to be. We are Pirates. It goes back to getting married at TI in Las Vegas and also encompasses our pirate knick knack collection. Anyway, we are pirates, but what I am really concerned with is Rebecca and what she is going to be for her ..... wait for it....

FIRST SCHOOL DANCE!

Yes, her first school dance is going to be the Halloween dance at the cafeteria. It is a fund raiser for the Television Arts program. (I never had TV arts in school.....heck, we barely had VCR's to watch!) There will be a haunted house, food, dancing, and lots of supervision. Heck, they sent home a permission slip just for her to be able to BUY a ticket to the darn thing. I guess they want to make sure the parents want their kids to go and they aren't sneaking out. There were a few caveats to buying the tickets though. The kids are allowed to dress up, but no witches, devils, ghosts, or black cats. Also, the kids aren't allowed to wear masks. I guess this was for safety, but I have a sneaking suspicion it has to do with school rivalry or....maybe gangs. Either way, Rebecca is going with Ms. M's son, (not as a date, but as a friend), and I will be riding to and from the dance with Ms. M. Rebecca has decided that she wants to withdraw $25 from her allowance account and buy the all access ticket that gets her food, unlimited haunted house entry, and VIP entry to the dance. $25! OMG, we maybe paid $5 and got cokes for .50 cents back in my day. So now we have to find something for her to wear. She had a growth spurt so last years costume is out, but she wants to be a vampire one day, a zombie another day, and then something totally different the next day! I can't keep up! I will probably steer her towards the vampire thing since some white makeup, a set of teeth, and some fake blood and we're good. Morgan wants to wear Rebecca's costume from last year, (she was super girl.), and I have no clue what Junior wants to be. I'd get a new costume for me, but almost every kind I see online all look slutty. Yep slutty Goldilocks, slutty Rainbow Bright, slutty Cat....you name it. My pirate outfit covers EVERYTHING! I made sure of that. And it is theatrical quality, so the fabric isn't see through, or too light. Toby will be Spider Dog again.

So now, I have to go and try to shake out the costumes and see if anything needs washing or repairing. I'll go and see what I can find at the Big Lots for Vampire paraphernalia. Right now I am going to go shut off the lights outside for the night.

Hey Mister! Would Ya Like To Buy Some Pecan Caramel Clusters??

It's for the school!!

Oh yes, it is that time again. Time for our kids and us parents to schlep door to door and sell off brand chocolates, bric a brac, and other junk no one needs for the school fund raiser. And these fund raisers aren't like the ones we had as a kid....no. These ones have cool, in your face mascot dudes that come to the school and basically have a pep rally talking about what kind of prize you can get with the selling of said junk. There is visual aids, flashing lights, a banging sound track as the guy prances around the stage with the cheap stuff they are going to give your kid if they happen to sell a certain $$ amount of stuff. And we all know who wins. It's the same kid who wins EVERY STINKING YEAR? The one with the Grandmother who asks how much the kid needs to get everything on the prize list, and then cuts the kid a check for enough sale stuff for little Johnny/JoAnna to get it! Every crapping year!!!!! I can even remember when we were encouraged to go door to door and sell to people we didn't even know, just to make a buck for new playground balls. I tell ya, this free education system is starting to kill me! That is a real question I'd like to ask Obama and McCain.........

"Excuse me esteemed senators, my name is Blondefabulous and I am here representing all my loyal readers from Blondefabulocity.com. My question concerns both education and economics, namely, how many boxes of candy can I put you two gentlemen down for so our elementary school can afford the updated textbooks and after school care for the parents who still actually have jobs left in this shit hole of an economy? 1000 each? Well thank you senators....we appreciate your support of our free educational system."

Yeah....let me go to a debate and ask that question, screw Joe the Plumber! Last night was just a rehash of the same old same old that they already covered. Time for us good American citizens to go do our civic duty and vote. November 4th....ya'll don't forget now!

Anyway, My eldest, Rebecca, has already had her school fundraiser. Her catalogue of crap was even more expensive than the two little ones! I bought wrapping paper from her, and she had a few orders from the ladies in HHH's office. Now we have two kids in the same school selling the same stuff. Sheesh. At least everything in their book is $10 or under. I am gonna go broke soon! Add to that the fact I laid out$21 for 3 field trips, (not counting Jr's to the planetarium), and we are getting ripped right and left for cash by the school! Holy crap! And the $$$ for the field trips......

IS TO FILL THE GAS TANK ON THE BUS!!!!!

Yep, the school get free admission for the kids to go where ever they are going, but to get there they are charging anywhere from $3 to $10 bucks a kid! OMG! You have got to be kidding me? No?? You aren't kidding me?? Well shit!

Guess I should be glad the school isn't sending home MORE fundraising books.

Shut Yer Piehole!

I love this show. It caught my eye last year as I was flipping the channels and I haven't been able to stop watching since. Something about the narration keeps your attention, then the utter absurdity of some of it just makes it good clean fun. Usually I am flipping back and forth between "Pushing Daisies" and "Bones", but thanks to the baseball playoffs, "Bones" was put off for the week. BTW.....GO TAMPA BAY RAYS!!!!!!! Sorry, had to get that out. Right now, the girls and I are in my bedroom watching our show while HHH and Junior are in the living room watching "Knight Rider". I tried to watch the new "Knight Rider", but it just wasn't the same without the Hoff. Plus, most of it was utter drivel. If it wasn't for the car, it would probably have bombed altogether. Still, "Pushing Daisies" is a favorite. While flipping the channels, I saw a program called, "17 kids, and counting", and thought to myself, "WTF??" 17 kids.....and the bitch is preggo again?!? Oh Hell No! It's a vagina, not a clown car, lady! Oh and on that note....my BIL, you know, the one who let his in-laws throw us out after we had given him money to stay with them.....yeah him. Well, he had a vasectomy today. Yep, he got clipped and snipped. Here's hoping that it will take and he'll stop pumping out kids like he's trying to populate a sports team or something. I mean, 4 kids under the age of 6 by the time he's 22? Once again, with feeling...... OH HELL NO!!! As it is, we had called him the other day to ask when he would have the money for the washer and dryer we gave to him and his wife, and he ended up asking HHH for money! How do you like that?? We call asking him to pay a debt, and he ends up asking us for more money. I don't know...... I am supposed to be a bigger person, and HHH said he would give him some money if he drove out here and got it, but e have bills coming up too. I'm not really seeing him ride all the way out here on sore nuts. HHH said that BIL had called him after the deed was done and there was a wrinkle. The kind of wrinkle that is only caused by the doc starting the procedure before the local has fully kicked in and BIL is left a screaming, squirming mess. Lucky for the doc, the office had BIL sign the "I Will Not Sue" waiver before he went in. Hearing that made HHH sooooo thankful that my Tyson farm fresh egg factory is shutting down for the duration. He doesn't have to worry about that anymore. Now if BIL will just make sure to follow through with the after care so as not to make me any more nieces or nephews. (he's not that smart....really.)

Alright, enough relative smashing. I gotta take the advice of my lovely readers and OD on some cold medicine now, right after "Parking Wars". G'nite all! :-)

Well......Here Ya Go.

Whoa mama. I got put on my ass yesterday. This cold is starting to wear thin on my nerves. It is OK at one point, then BAM! I can't move. I spent all of yesterday in bed with my two little ones. They keep getting sick from this crap too. HHH went to the store and got soup and crackers for us to have for dinner last night. (bless him!) I didn't post. I started to wonder, am I getting bored with posting? Before, there was a time when I had oodles to say. I talked about my family, the news, the pets, and generally stuff I found funny. Now, it is a struggle to find something to blog about. I don't know...... I may just be trying too hard, or I am just sick still and worrying about nothing.

As it is, I am just coasting along, until this funk goes away. It's trying to migrate down to my chest, and I am fighting that tooth and nail. Last thing I need is a chest cold. Ick! My main problem is I am not sleeping well at all. The least little noise wakes me up at night. Add to that a cat that is a total nut case at night and you have the makings for no sleep. Maybe that is what the problem is, I can't get a decent night's sleep so it is almost impossible to heal. Jeeze.......

It would be helpful if the cat was a little more normal. Ever since we moved in here, he has had a small problem with the sliding glass door, namely the fact that he thinks the reflection of himself he sees is actually a real cat. Oh yeah....he will sit up like a dog in front of the glass and have slap fights with himself! It is quite entertaining......unless it is 2:30am! Hell, the other day the cat did a face plant into the window! He just started running full speed at the glass and BANG! Luckily he didn't hurt himself. (I still laughed like hell!)

Well, it's finally 6am.......I'm gonna get Rebecca up and ready for school. I accidentally set my alarm an hour early and got up at 5am instead of 6. Reeeeeeally smart, right? Anyway, I gotta run. Good morning to you all!

Ballerina Girl.......

......You are so lovely........

Yeah, one of my all time fave Lionel Ritchey songs, and now so fitting seeing as how we got the absolutely best news this afternoon! Are you ready?? Really??? Ok Here goes....

MORGAN WAS ACCEPTED INTO THE SARASOTA BALLET COMPANY!!

I could not be more pleased! It is for one of their feeder programs that start the girls off learning ballet from the best and can rise through the ranks of the ballet company. I am sooooo excited! I almost popped when she told me there was a letter from the ballet company in her backpack. When I saw the Mom's, (we seperate because they pick up their kids at the corner and I have to personally pick mine up in the nurses office every day.), I was hopping and showing the the letter! So my big announcement is about my baby girl and her acceptance into the dancing world. My little ballerina girl......she is so lovely!

Yay! We're Decorated!

Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!
I love decorating for holidays! I have crap loads of stuff for Halloween and Christmas. Now our Halloween things are up, and I am pleased with the results. We had to go and get new lights for the arch. The old ones were faded and half of them didn't work. While there we also got another little sign, some icicle lights that had light up spiders at the ends and this creepy raggedy gauze fabric. We got the fabric instead of the same old played out fake cobwebs. I was sooooo tired of those..

The photo of the balcony didn't really turn out because of the flash, but all my other shots without the flash were really blurry. It's OK though, because we need another strand of the spider lights and I need to get bulbs for my other pumpkins. I bought a light rig and the damn thing had a blown bulb! Argh!!! I can't be too pissed off.... it is Big Lots.

(The blurry no-flash photo I mentioned.)

All in all it turned out great! I can't wait for Halloween to get here so we can run the fog machine and make it REALLY spooky! I may get some strobe lights to simulate lightning! Yeah.....we go overboard.

Ba Ba badubidubi Yum Yum!

Oh yes, the Gummibear song is in my head still. Damn HHH for starting all this. I apologize for putting that in You all's head. I just figured that if I had to suffer, you might want to suffer along with me. You know, for moral support!

We are putting up our Halloween gear. I already had all our pumpkins, tombstones, and hanging Dracula windsock out, now HHH and I are putting up the wrought iron archway, but the wrinkle in that is it needs new lights. The ones that came with it are faded. We'll just go to big lots and get some more. The hard part about this Halloween is we don't have a yard. We are on a second floor apartment, and where that gives me a great view, everything I have that goes in the yard had to fit on the balcony! Our grill is out there already, so it is a bit crowded. Best part about the balcony though is it is screened in. No bugs!!!! We are going to extend our decorations to the front door as well.(the arch is going out there) I want to get some extra lights to light up the porch. Yeah, I am a decorating nut. You should see the place at Christmas! Anyway, last year we had the place all done up with fog machines, cobwebs, and such. That might be hard this time around. Right now I need to find something to replace the lights inside my light up pumpkins. Something inside the sockets is fubar and won't work anymore. It sucks. I'll probably have to buy something that has a light in it and then move it to my pumpkins. I'll take pictures when I'm done.

That's all I have for now. Pictures to follow when I have everything up.

Sniffle.....Sniffle.....AH-CHOO!

Um, yeah. I didn't blog yesterday. I was ill beyond all compare. The amount of mucus coming out of my head was just staggering. HHH was the bestest hubby ever by getting me hot wonton soup and cold medicine yesterday. The soup seems to have put me right a little bit, plus the 4 hour nap I took helped as well. I am hoping to have kicked this thing by the start of next week. One can dream.......

I am also addicted to this song. I don't know why. It is embedded in my brain and it won't let go. My kids are addicted to it too. http://tinyurl.com/2y8ogx Watch it at your own risk!!!!

I'll do better on the next post, I promise!

AH-CHOO!!!

Damn sneezing.

Planetarium's Are Cool, Man.

Woo hoo! We went to the Planetarium today. Junior was really excited, more because he had his mom there than to be going anywhere. I went with Junior early in the morning and after getting my approved chaperon name tag, we were off to the classroom. Now the field trip wasn't until 10:30, so I was in the position to observe Junior in his classroom. My boy is sharp as a tack! He was polite, courteous (he let others go ahead of him in line at the pencil sharpener.), quick to raise his hand to answer questions, and excited to read his books. I watched in awe as he blossomed in the classroom from my little boy to my little scholar! I was so proud!

I did get the feeling, however, that Junior's teacher wasn't happy that I was there. At the beginning of last week, she had called me and did her level best to convince me that I was not going to get approved to go on this field trip and subsequently Junior would not be able to go, but she had underestimated my tenacity, and when I wrote her a note saying I had been approved to go, all I got was a one word "OK". Then in the classroom today, she was a bit stand-offish and not very welcoming. I was at a loss of what to say. When I go along on these things, I do not make my presence felt. I blend into the classroom and make sure I am not a distraction. Either way, 10:30 finally rolled around and we were off to the planetarium.

The bus ride was a whole 'nother fun bag! The bus we were on was driven by a jovial man who looked to be in his sixties. He was kindly, but concise in his instructions to the kids that they needed to be quiet, seated, courteous. he was lucky he got what he did, which was barely under calamity and bouncing all over the place. Of course, Junior was sitting next to me, quiet and calm. I was proud all over again.....until we hit the first bump.....and it was then that I realized that the budgetary shortfalls in the school system had landed squarely in the allotment for shock absorbers. Oh my God! Every little bump, pot hole, and divot was felt 10 fold, and the kids all whooped it up as we bounced over them. Blessedly, the ride was short and we arrived at our destination, Riverview High School. I was impressed. All we had at my high school was a rodeo team. Tre' uncool. We all exited the bus, and made our way to the planetarium. It was cozy, maybe 40 seats in total. We sat and the Astronomy teacher talked about the movie the kids were going to see, "The Little Star That Could.". It was informative, and not so advanced in terminology that the kids would get lost. They oooh'd and aaaah'd at the star machine twirling the tiny points of light overhead, and after the movie, the asked questions of the Astronomy Teacher. Then it was time for everyone to go get back on the bus and make the return trip to school. During all this, I checked Junior and administered juice and crackers accordingly.

So, we get back to the school, and Junior asks me to stay and eat lunch with him. No problem. I had my money with me, and off we went to the cafeteria. It was taco day!! Yummy. We are the last in line so as we are waiting our turn, I see that there is a menu in front of the door. Taco's, burritos, or chicken Caesar salad, refried beans, rice and fruit are being offered. Junior gets up to the front of the line and gets the burrito, fruit, lettuce and tomato salad, and milk. The lunch lady then looks at me and asks me what I would like and I ask for a taco. She unceremoniously dumps some meat into the taco shell and drops it onto a tray and shoves it at me. No extras, not even cheese or lettuce and tomato. I was flabbergasted. WTF is that? I ask the cashier what else was supposed to come with this meal and she assured me that I needed to go back in and ask for the rest of my meal. When I did this the lunch lady said "It's all in these cups here, just get some.". No, it wasn't in the cups... and the cups didn't get me and beans or rice..... *sigh, perhaps she thought I was fat.

After lunch, I went back home to change out of my incredibly hot, suffocating chaperon clothes. I was sweating like a whore in church. I always wear my Super Cool, Mom on the go clothes. They look nice, but are hot and it was sweltering at 1 pm. I went home, changed, and had a coke and thought about how sweet and well behaved my son was. My son. The raging monkey. Captain Underpants. I was shocked that he was such a good boy in class. Perhaps all those morning admonishments of "Mind your Please's and Thank You's!" really took. I felt like a mother accomplished.

Now to try to kick this cold and get better. Not looking like it will be happening any time soon. Someone send over some decongestant and a bowl of soup, stat!

Just Another Day....

I took it easy today. I didn't do any laundry, floor cleaning, dishes, or scrubbing. For me, that is an accomplishment! I tried to get as much of that done last night as I possibly could. I knew I wasn't going to feel good when I got up this morning. That was exacerbated by the fact that sometime during the night, Junior came into our room and climbed in bed on HHH's side. We have a queen size bed, but the three of us just don't fit in it comfortably any more. Junior has grown and is too big now. So, we must have looked like people origami, all tangled up in the bed trying to sleep. I gave up and got out of bed at 5:30am. There wasn't any way I could stay asleep. I waited until 6 to get Rebecca up, then at 7, I got the little ones up, but Junior was running a fever and Morgan was so stuffy I kept them home from school for the day. I figure that Junior and I needed the rest for tomorrow when we go to the planetarium. That should be fun. 20 first graders on a bus. Can't be any worse than any of Junior's trips last year.



HHH has been a busy guy this week. He's been on call, as you know, and where as the weekend was relatively quiet, the week has been busy. He had 3 calls just last night. I mentioned yesterday that he has been trying to cook dinner for me ever since I started getting sick, yet right before he gets the chance to start cooking, his pager goes off and he has to run out the door to fix someone's problems. Well he made sure that he would get dinner done this time. He ordered pizza!!!!! That's my HHH. Ever the resourceful man.



As for tonight's entertainment, there is just the presidential debates on TV, so we got some movies in the mail. "You Don't Mess With The Zohan" and "Phantom Of The Opera". We'll be watching those tonight. I am so over the debates, the mud slinging, the attack ads, and the SNL skits. I can't wait for November 4th to get here so I can go cast my vote and be done with this process. I like participating in the electoral process, but the hoo haw that inevitably happens along the way just makes it hard. I will happily turn off the debates for a movie and be done with it.



That's it for now. My next blog installment will be about the planetarium. I anticipate many photos and fun. Until then.......

What's New Pussycat?

Whoooooooa whooooooa whooooooooooa....

Yeah I am still sick. Yes I am still taking a weird cocktail medicine to feel better. My animals are hovering around me like mother hens. The cat is especially worried. So much so that he decided to sleep in my clean laundry! Yep, he thought it would be helpful to sprawl out on the bed where I had just put the laundry after the girls had folded it. And to top it off, he gives me this look of "See Mom, I iz hepful! Rub my bellah!" as I go by the bed. It's hard to not give him a skritching when he gives me his cutie pie face. Toby just looks at him like he's crazy!

Sorry this isn't much of a post.... Like I said, I'm still sick and the laptop batteries are about to die. HHH has been getting call after call all night tonight, and where that gives us extra money when the paycheck rolls around, it also means I am a lonely lady when he has to go. And poor HHH has been trying to make dinner for me for the last two nights, but just as he goes to put steak or chops to the grill, his damn pager goes off with someone's a/c problem, or dishwasher problem, or leaky pipe problem! Don't these people know I am sick and need my HHH?? To make that even more fun....the last apartment he went to was occupied by a man who called down to the office after HHH left to inquire about the "cute" maintenance guy who just left and "Is he available??" HA! Sorry dude, HHH is M-I-N-E!

Someone else will have to come over and fix that guy's pipes!

I'm Sick.

Bah! I don't like being sick. It sucks. I am trying to drown my sorrows in dayquil, cookies, and Animation Domination. Family Guy rocks out loud.

I am now going to concentrate on getting better so I can go on Junior's field trip Wednesday. We are taking a trip to the local planetarium! Let me tell you, this kid is excited! Every day, he gets out of school and starts rattling off facts about the moon, or the solar system as we are walking to the corner crosswalk. He is so psyched to go there! I remember being excited to take a field trip in grade school, although the very first trip we took was to a local dairy, and all the kids were "eeeeeeewwww" at the smell and there was a dead calf that the rancher thought would be a good way to show the life cycle to a bunch of kindergartners. Oh yeah..... that went over well.

HHH got his hair highlighted. It looks good. I've done it for him before, but he went to my friend Sherri and had her do it. He also got it cut. A little short right now, but when it grows out, it's going to look hot! If he hadn't had it done before, I'd say he was having a "OMG I turned 30!" moment, but he has done it before so it's OK. Right now he is doing the "I feel old." thing. Poor baby. NOT!!!

The cat is sitting next to me right now, biting my arm because I am typing a blog post instead of skritching him under his chin. He does this every once and a while. Like this morning when he decided to bang on the sliding glass door at 7:15am and wake me up. Yeah, I think he did that to get me back for dressing him in the dog's Spiderman costume and taking pictures of it. Vindictive pussy, isn't he? yeah, that's our Fluffy. Don't let the cutesy name fool ya!

Well, this ended up as a bullet post, didn't it. I didn't mean for it to be, but I guess the dayquil is working with the Tylenol PM's and are making my brain run in circles! I do know I want to say a big THANK-YOU to HoosierGirl for giving me the "I Love Your Blog" award. It's my first award for blogging EVAR! I am very grateful and will pass it along just as soon as my illness fogged mind can see straight.

...But The Princess Is In Another Castle!

Today, HHH put some cash on our Wii Points account and we decided to visit our youth and got Super Mario Bros. You may ask why, with all the newer, more exciting and graphically superior games that are available for the Wii system we decided to purchase a game that came into being in 1985? Well, let me explain.....

Super Mario Bros. teaches about family. Mario and Luigi are brothers. Mario and Luigi fight together. Mario and Luigi kick major ass together. TOGETHER is the word you should be noticing. Most people now a days are only looking out for #1 and screw anyone who happens to get in the way. Not Mario and Luigi. Those two brothers kick butt, save the princess, and take out Bowser......TOGETHER. I have always tried to teach my kids that family is first.

Super Mario Bros. makes you think. Do I go in that warp pipe, or do I take my chances with the Hammer Brothers? Do I jump in the air per chance to find a secret block with a 1up or do I grab the fire flower and trash every Goomba from here to the castle? You have to think, make a strategy, and plan for what might come next. Back in the day, (OMG, did I really just say that??), when there was just Pac-Man and Dig-Dug, this was the epitome of a strategy game......

Super Mario Bros. can be addictive. Before WoW, or any of those other games that sucked in the masses, there were two brothers and their mushroom covered world that took over people's lives. There were even movies made, kids cartoon shows invented, and live action people posing as them. If you weren't careful, you'd lose an entire day to the damn game! It made you have to learn restraint, and self control. Everyone could use a little more self control in this day and age.

So, you see, this was a great game for my kids to play. No flashy graphics, no neat sound track by the latest artists, just 16 bits of pure gamesmanship.

Plus....I feel like a kid when I play it.

Band Geeks UNITE!

Yep, I am a band geek. Born and raised. My mother played guitar, my sister played clarinet, & I played classical flute and drum line. I started in 5th grade. It was difficult. At first I wanted to give up. I just couldn't figure out how to get my fingers to do what the sheet music said to. I tried, I cried, I tried some more. I got frustrated. Then one day, I made a tone that carried over to the next. Then I connected three tones together, then more...... I was on a roll.

I almost gave up again in 7th grade. I had been courted by the Jr High music teacher who was trying to flesh out the music program with a few more kids. He came over and ate dinner with my family and pitched the music program to me, but I was rife with visions of art classes, shop classes, and other fine arts that I wanted to try. I tried them. I was bored. I went to the same music director in my second semester and asked to be added to the program. I was back in business again.

It helped that one of the perks of being in marching band is getting into the football games free. I am a football girl and not having to pay for my entrance to the games was nice. Granted, I had to work for that, half time shows don't just poof out of the air like magic. We practiced 4 days a week after school for 2 hours. It was hot, sweaty work. We also went to district marching contests where our precision was weighed and measured. I graduated high school with my fellow band geek friends. We had a kind of family.

I went off to college at UF in Gainesville. I joined the Pride of the Sunshine and FDL. If I thought high school was a ball, hoo boy, college was even better. I actually got college credit to be in marching band having the time of my life! We went to games in New Orleans, Jax Beach, and Atlanta. I went to Nashville, Knoxville, and Birmingham. I learned what a stadium filled with 85,000 people sounds like as they scream for you, (and it was me because I was driving Big Boom and the cheering started when our crew emerged out of the tunnel.). I got to see new places, meet new people, and expand my band family. I got asked for my autograph. I have been on TV multiple times. I was patted on the back just because I had on the orange and blue. It's a great feeling, to be a part of something that has far reaching hands all over the world to people you don't even know.

Now I am asking you for something. There is a Battle of the Bands contest on ESPN.com. http://tinyurl.com/3pqvaq There are 7 university marching bands competing for a $25,000 dollar donation to their respective school. Even more exciting, 5 of the 7 finalists are SEC schools!!! It is a promotion in partnership with Lucasfilms and the new Indiana Jones flick that is coming to DVD. Go and vote for what ever band you choose. They all have videos of them playing the "Raiders Theme" that has been arranged by their directors, so you can see and hear what these organizations sound like. (I have UF's over in my side bar. Give it a go.) I am partial to my Alma Mater, UF, but vote for whom ever you want. What is important here is that $25,000 can be used for scholarships, new instruments, equipment funds, and uniforms. With gas being like it is, it would go a long way towards bringing 8 to 9 charter buses of band members to an away game to support their team and cheer them on to victory!

We as a society have written off the fine arts as expendable. We have so much trouble just getting Johnny to behave in class so he can be taught reading, writing, and arithmetic that art, and music have been thrown to the winds. Go and vote for a band....any band, because we shouldn't have to live with out the cracking of a drumline, or the roar of a full brass front.

Yep. I'm a band geek.

PS- If you get a chance, watch all of them. LSU's is awesome!

Fall

I live in Florida. South Florida to be exact. It is warm, humid and sunny most days of the year. I was born in Florida. I have lived here all of my life, with the exception of the few years we spent up in Tennessee with HHH's mother. The summers are sweltering, the springs are balmy, the winters are mild.......

And there is no Fall.

Yep. Fall does not come to South Florida. Oh, we have trees that turn color, but that color is brown. Not yellow, not orange,....brown. Dead brown. The oak trees lose their acorns and I love the sound they make as I crunch them with my shoes. We have the holiday's down here too. Halloween and Thanksgiving, and Christmas.....they just take on a decidedly different feel. Ever since I was in college, I had a tradition of going to the beach on Thanksgiving and Christmas, mostly because I could. One of my fondest memories is of waking up on New Year's Day in Jacksonville Beach. The bowl game that year was the Gator Bowl and they had put the marching band up in a swank hotel on the beach. The game had been the night before on New Year's Eve so most of my band mates were nursing their hang overs and sleeping in. The weather was beautiful. It was clear and sunny and the view of the ocean was amazing. I got dressed and went down to the beach, rolled up my pants and went wading in the ocean.........on New Year's.........IN JANUARY!!!!!!! It was unbelievable. I vowed from that day on to enjoy the Floridian way of seasons.

So, yeah.....there really isn't a Fall here, but I can go to the beach. We don't have colored trees, but we do have football. I can live with that. You don't have to dress in layer after layer of clothing to keep warm, but you may have to run your A/C. It's kind of a give and take, but let me tell ya, you can have your snow, wind, and crappy Fall weather. I wasn't much of a fan when I lived up in Memphis, and I don't see that changing any time soon. But I do have one problem......

I have no where to wear my fabulous fall fashion coat I have from being up in Memphis........

Oh Fudge!

I did it. I'm glad I did it. I just couldn't help myself. It kind of just.......happened. I know I'm not supposed to have it. It's bad for me. It will make me ecstatically happy in the short term.....but in the long term, I will regret it and clutch at my stomach, cursing my lot in life to have a disease that makes the most delicious of foods off limits to me.

Either way, it is done now and I can't take it back.

I made Poured Fudge Icing cake. A fluffy, moist butter cake covered in hot luscious fudge. The fudge eventually cools and dries into a coating of rich yumminess. If made correctly, you can knock on it like a door and the hollow sounds that echo back tell you it is ready.

'Scuse me, I need a frosty glass of milk.