Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Gift giving wisdom?..............

Responsive reading -

Me- Hello.

Me- I am Amy.

Me- I am a recovering blog neglecter.

You - HeeeellllllllO AAAAAAAAAmmyyy

......................................................

There are some things I shouldn't talk about. Sometimes though situations end like this "....." instead of like this " . "

It's uncomfortable.

So this is what I shouldn't talk about, but I will so it can have a " . "

D posted this on his FB: "Christmas lesson #1: Never buy your wife something she says she doesn't want. Odds are she will not like it!"

This statement is true. Men should surely heed this Christmas lesson lest they get their feelings hurt a bit... or is it their pride. I guess it depends on the man. You know, whether he is in touch with his feminine side or not.

feelings = in touch

pride = not in touch

At Christmas, when you ask a woman what she wants for Christmas and she tells you point blank. That is the gift she would appreciate or her heart truly wants.

If she hem haws around and doesn't give you a direct answer... then she gets, what she gets. If she doesn't like her gift because she neglected to tell you a certain thing, it's her fault, not the males.

I have learned over the past 5 years particularly, that you must be direct with the male species. One must say exactly what they want or need. No matter how harsh it sounds to the female or other females. It has come to me that males need to have specific directions and spoken out loud. They need the female to say exactly what she wants or needs so they can do it.

I have learned that hoping that the male will understand what I mean without saying it so as not to be harsh or direct...DOES NOT work. This is not just with my husband, but with my son, my brother, salesmen, men on the phone.... all males in general that I deal with.

I have learned that generally they do not perceive this as rude. They see it as helpful (or maybe understandable) even if they are annoyed by the action required.

This Christmas I was asked what I wanted, point blank. I would normally hem haw around and then get whatever. Usually whatever is fine. But since I am being a tad more money conscious these days, I thought better to get something that would truly be used by me or others and would bring everyday pleasure.

Because even when I say, "Don't get me anything." I still get something.

So I stated a bird house or the new pink glitter TOMS. My alpha male, believes these to be not good gift ideas and buys the thing I repeatedly said I did not want.

When I opened the gift that I already knew what it was because he loves this particular gift himself (which is a fine gift for him)...I had an extremely unpleasant battle inside my body to control my emotions and make sure they came out grateful.

I did not do a good job.

I failed.

My face, eyes and lips spoke not gratitude in a very uncomfortable way. I know it was uncomfortable cause my mom chastised me later and D didn't talk to me for almost 2 days even though I apologized several times. I had it coming though so I just gave him some space to work it out. He loves me again now, which is always good.

I would like to blame it on some random hormonal madness, but truly I think it was just me, showing me. I get weary trying hard to be just the right person to all people. I unleashed my emotions on purpose. I didn't hold back the furrowed brow or fake smile or comments that should have been held for a private conversation.

I didn't spew venom or anything or get mad...I just didn't shoot fireworks out my butt on purpose. I didn't pretend to love the item or even like it....cause my insides didn't want this. I would have rather had the nothing than to have had to go through opening the thing I didn't want at all, faking gratitude, and then sending it back, which I have done already.

My mind was chain linking thoughts of, "Why ask if you don't want to know what I really want? Why waste money just to buy something? Why do I have to open it while everyone is looking at me? Don't take my picture."

Please understand I am not being rude or ugly when I write these words. I am just stating....that sometimes giving the gift is more fun to me than receiving one. Not in a cliche way either...I mean for real.
I learned this about myself this Christmas. For real, believe these words....

I don't like to receive gifts. It embarrasses me.

It makes me feel uneasy and anxious. The gift turns into a show of emotions that I may not be capable of living up to in truth.

I honestly feel like the true gifts people give me are shown to me in their actions...wrapped up in the sincerity of their eyes as it is done in love or wanting to please.

These are gifts that I feel the most thankful for and gratitude is freely and truthfully given. My heart has no boundaries for gifts given to me like this.

On my 40th b-day D gave me peace and quiet to read while he earnestly did the thing I didn't want to do...cook and clean up a delicious meal full of things that I adore. The thought he put into my b-day was a true gift. My sister gave me a day at the spa (which I haven't used yet). I loved this gift too, the reason being, she knows I never do things like this for myself. She gave it to me because she loves personal gift giving. She sent it to me in the mail, so I was able to open it in private. No one was staring at me waiting for my gratitude and fireworks. I was able to express my gratitude in words shared between only her and I. Both of those gifts meant a lot to me.

My mom cashed in her credit cards points to this year and got me a $50 Starbucks gift card out of them. I loved that too. After the present swapping was done and everyone was on their on later that morning, she gave it to me in private. I was grateful. When I hugged her it wasn't for show, I loved her and it was a gift she knew I would use.

Receiving gifts is hard for me and I generally do not prefer to receive gifts.

I would much rather pick a personal gift and give it randomly out of gratitude than to buy a gift....just to buy one. I hate that. Pondering what to get someone to the point it becomes a chore, sucks. It's not longer a gift of thought & love, but a thing to fulfill the obligation.

In this instance it is better to receive the nothing and watch the happiness of others......at least, to me anyway.

I ended up buying myself the pink glitter TOMS with Christmas money from my mom. D's mom and dad also gave me money. Later that that afternoon, after receiving the money, my car battery FINALLY put itself (and me) out of its miserable existence by dying permanently. The cost of the new battery was just a little over the amount of Christmas money that D's parents had given to me. I felt I no longer had to worry about spending the money on groceries, sports or extracurricular activities...misusing the money so to speak. I had used it on myself in a really useful way. I felt satisfied.

These words are one of my truths. I don't feel ashamed of them. I hope you will not find fault in me when my face is in your presence.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

just squeezed as hard as I could..............

Looking back a bit...........

Early one morning after we had just gotten our tree up, before all the lights starting acting like morons....

CB jerks away from the tree as I walk into the living room, he looks guilty.

A- CB, what are you doing over there?

CB- Nothing

A- Are you sure? Cause your eyes tell me another story? I won't get mad just tell me. I promise I won't get on to you if you tell the truth. (we are now face to face- eye to eye)

CB- I broke something. (points to the tree)

A- Well where is it so I can see, cause I don't see anything Cole.

Cole heads off towards his room and I follow him. He gets underneath his train table and brings out a hand full of broken elongated glass Christmas ornament. I rush over...

A- Cole, baby, you can't have broken glass under your train table, give me that. You could have cut your hands.

Cole holds out his other hand which he has in fact cut, something like a long paper cut. I am astounded that he has cut himself and not told me and also that he hid the broken glass under the train table in his room.

A- CB, why did you hide this glass under your table? Why didn't you throw it into the garbage can, or tell me?

CB- I didn't want to get in trouble.

I am now under the train table myself picking up tiny pieces of broken ornament out of his carpet. I head back to the Christmas tree to look for more glass within the tree and on the floor around. I ask him how the ornament got broke, assuming he picked it off the tree and dropped it. um, no....he thought it "fit perfectly" into his baby grip, so he just squeezed it as hard as he could. It busted in his grip.

A- Cole! Gosh Son, that is madness. Look at your hand. Do not do that ever again.

CB- Well....I broke some more stuff too.

....heading back to his room and under the other side of his train table that I had paid no attention to before. I am like Oh Lord, what else God, what else?

Cole drags out a birage of broken crap toys(Happy Meal type toys and the likes) that he has taken apart and not been able to put back together.

He has always taken apart his stuff....and ours too. Like our air purifier...he totally took it apart when he had just turned three, filled it full of hot wheels and then put it back together. When I went to move it one day, I noticed it was heavy as all get out. I could hear stuff moving around inside but it wasn't in the area that you would change the filters, which perplexed me. He had filled a section that I didn't even know existed or even came apart.

I swear when he was little if I would 've given him a fork he'd have pried my baseboards off with it.

A- Wow CB. I can't fix this stuff, just throw it in the garbage.

CB- Are you mad Momma?

A- No cause I said I wouldn't get upset if you told the truth. Plus, now I get to throw some stuff that I hate to step on in the garbage (which I am happy about secretly). CB stop taking all this stuff apart, do you understand? Next time I find a pile of treasure hidden like this I will be upset.

Later that morning as all the other kids are getting motivated, CB is feeling good about himself telling the truth.
He starts to spill his honesty all over the breakfast table.

CB - Zachary, I am sorry I broke your Easter Egg. Maysie I am sorry I broke your swirl pen.

Maysie and Zac looking at each other - "What?!"

CB- I broke your stuff but Mom said it's okay today. I threw my pile of treasure in the garbage. I didn't get in trouble for breaking the glass cause I told the truth.

M & Z - What???! MOM!
............................................................

I am pumping gas at the shell station, the same gas station that my car battery quit working for no apparent reason and the one legged man wanted me to show him some love. They dang have TV's to watch while you pump gas. It's idiotic and yet entertaining at the same time. I mean for real, are we so in need of entertainment 24/7 that one has to watch freaking TV while pumping dang gas.

Television is everywhere. On it's mission to contaminate our minds and destroy what shred of decency our minds have left in some tiny corner. Let the brainwashing saturate us...even whilest thou pumpeth the freaking gas.

sidetracked...sorry.

Dig on this...this white dude hippie with dreds that have food and other unknown pieces of white crap in them, pulls up in his car with his girlfriend, a couple pumps down. He gets out, PUMPS THE GAS, THEN starts asking people around him, including me, if we have a dollar we can spare for him to get gas. I am like, you idiot, NO! No money hippie = no gas. you shouldn't have pumped till you could pay for it.

A- Dude...didn't you already pump yer gas??

Hippie -(distant far away look like he may be missing his time spent in rainbow & glitter Never, Never Land) uh, no.

A- Yer lying...

Hippie - (not affected by my calling him out, almost as if he has not heard me at all) - Do you have a dollar I could use to buy some gas.

A- No, all I have is my card. (Which is true, I may have had a quarter and dime stuck in my seats somewhere visiting with the stale, hard french fries)

The hippie continues on to ask some others, that also tell him "No." Hippie is in dilemma now and confers with his girlfriend in secrecy.

I finish pumping and rotting my brain with the gas station television and pull off. I have no idea how they paid for that gas or even if they did pay.

Those kinds of folks agitate my well being intensely in about 100 different ways. While one side argues I should have pity, feel for those in need, and help, help, help, give, give, give, do, do, do.......it's these exact folks that make me feel like this....



I think this is a sure sign I am getting older and less tolerant. The thing is I don't even feel guilty about it anymore either.


Tuesday, December 7, 2010

I totally gave her permission to kick me square in the butt ...........

Last Monday, not yesterday, Kacka Lacky, TN had our annual Christmas parade. I had agreed to walk with the girls in the parade because the gal who owns the clogging studio where they take lessons needed some adult chaperone's. It was cold, which was to be expected. The clogging studio got a super position in the parade sort of near the front of the line. The girls got lined up...the truck with Christmas clogging music screaming out the back of the truck bed, the "pro-cloggers" to clog all the way through the parade, the girls with the banner saying who we were, and then all the girls walking and throwing out candy...in that order.

It started to rain just as we were about get the show on the road.

.......that and the truck battery with the blaring music was dead.

Immediately the gal who owns the studio runs over to me and Ms. P and asks us if we have jumper cables. Which we don't cause she wrecked her vehicle hitting a deer and she had a rental car and I am just generally unprepared and in constant need of supervision when in the presence of any vehicles.

It has started to pour down rain now and we have lost our position. Our bags that have all the candy to throw out have gotten wet on the bottom and the bottoms literally start to fall out of the bags, spilling candy all over the streets where we stand in the pouring rain.....it's 40 degrees.

I had pathetically persuaded Ms. P into walking in the parade with me so I wouldn't have to walk all by myself not knowing anyone. um, yeah....I totally gave her permission to kick me square in the butt right in front of God and everybody.

The truck did get jumped off and despite losing our spot we ended up slap in the middle of the line in the parade. The SECC pro girls did clog all the way through the parade in the pouring rain. We did get sopping wet beyond all wetness in 40 degree weather. It was insane. In the end, it was a night I would surely remember as a sacrifice for my girls. Not only that, but even in the pouring rain Kacka Lacky town folks STAYED for the parade. I would have totally bailed if we had not been in the parade. But piles of folks lined the streets with their kids waiting to grab as much candy as possible. Our girls had a ball. I can actually say I had a pretty good time too.

D had the biggest umbrella known to man with Cole and Z waiting on us to come around. They got three full gallon sized ziploc bags of water-logged candy that night. Most of which hit the garbage the next morning for failure to dry in a manner that was eatable.

Ms. P's husband should have been in the parade he was waving us on bigger than the wavers in the parade. He was clearly excited and it made me happy to see his excitement. Her two boys, not quite as excited.


Meg and I agreed if we could get one of our kids to marry the other and have some children... some day...we could gab on about this night when we are older and grayer than we are now....cause it was surely epic.

We had to walk back to our cars at the end of the parade. Most of the mom's and a few teens could have passed for Alice Cooper.

It was till pouring down when we decided to just stop walking and call D to come pick us 6 drowned girls up under the shelter of the local car wash. He did.

My car smelled like wet vermin for like two days after that. I despise Febreeze cause it kills my sinuses, but it works so I used way too much of it.

We all got home, took hot baths, and put on warm fuzzy pajamas with slippers. It was an awesome way to end an unthinkable parade situation.


..........................
Quotes from parade night:

.....the Baptist church handing out cookies and hot chocolate earlier in the night before the parade.

D - CB, do you want some hot chocolate?

CB- No it's too hot, I don't like it too hot.

D- CB, do you want a chocolate chip cookie?

CB- No, I don't like chocolate chip cookies?

D- Well of course you don't. These are made with goodness and love by kind Christians, you probably want devils food cake.
____________

CB in the car on the way home...

CB- Yeah and then Zachary pushed me down in the street and my hat got grinched. (drenched)


____________


This is not our city parade, but gosh, it's funny....and worthy of parade catastrophe mention for sure. Listen to the folks distress when Rudolph meets his fate.



"You're tearing Rudolph!!!"....oh man...it's just ...a little funny.

This goes back to my previous blog about why do we do abnormal things at this time of year?

....like striding in pouring down rain in 40 degree weather to the equivalent of a Christmas version of Cotton-Eyed Joe....and pulling an extremely over-sized baby deer with a birth defect on an under thought out parade path that tortures town folks and little children into night terrors about it's death by gouging of an over zealous stop light.

...anyhoo, Happy Tuesday.



Sunday, December 5, 2010

um, stupid..........

The holidays are always full of stuff aren't they? It's that time of year when you do stuff that isn't yer everyday activity and then get frustrated and wonder why you do these activities at all....like put lights on yer slumbering bushes and stuff.

I totally had lights on my house before Thanksgiving to get ahead of the game this season. I didn't cut them on till Thanksgiving though.

The kids were playing flashlight hide and seek with neighborhood kids one night. The next day my lights were not working, the wiring was broken slap into two separate strands going from one bush to a Christmas tree shaped evergreen bush thingy. so I blamed it on the kids hiding behind my bushes and told them not to hide there anymore this season. I restrung the lights on the Christmas tree shaped evergreen, it actually looked better than before I thought.

Hide and go seek again....the lights aren't working again. I am like, really?? Some kids are gonna lose a body part for this. I get all CSI trying to figure out which child to convict and sentence. Then it dawns on me the second break is in the exact location of the first. An animal has chewed my lights in half. I do apologize to my children for interrogating them and then relay to D my situation.

Because he can fix everything, literally... he fixes the lights using some cool gadgets he has gotten at this convention in Florida. He does this immediately so I will leave him alone, so that he can watch football on his new 46" TV that everyone in my family practically worships. It's as if they never had TV. If I hear the words "high def" one more time, my eyes are going to pop out of their sockets.





So my lights are working. Here's a picture of CB with "his boyz" as he fondly called his over lit frozen pals.

Then for no apparent reason the lights in the middle of my pre-lit tree that I purchased trying to be "green," went out. May and I replaced about 25 bulbs, on dang quest I tell ya.


Then D replaced 25 more bulbs and checked his meter thing for fuse issues, nothing, the fuses were good. So I made the executive decision to unstrand the lights on the pre-lit tree and re-string them.

um, stupid.

The lights were wrapped onto my tree by an uneducated individual in some random pattern that made no sense to God or anyone in this world even remotely close to adequate. It took entirely too long to unstrand those lights and I am 100% convinced they need to offer college level courses on how to unstrand a pre-lit tree. I grew a beard and died twice while taking those lights off.

That job sucked and I have to use that awful word cause that's how awful that job was.

The lights were, no lie, stung by the longest strand of lights in the whole universe. Each bulb was almost 9" from the next bulb. I have never seen anything like it before in my life. I was thinking, for some folks trying to promote going freaking green...that's a total waste of product.


I had to take off two strands.


Now it looks okay though. I feel satisfied.

I went to upload these photos from my camera and found that at some point CB had taken some video of himself talking smack that is so crazy, I can't even put it on my blog. Not one video of himself talking smack, but 3! ....and this photograph.


Wednesday, December 1, 2010

going all the way around yer elbow........

I am in the bathroom....as usual.

I keep smelling what I think is pee. Because I have had a kid in potty training perpetually for 14 years it seems, I have learned to keep Clorox wipes in the bathroom.

I am ticked a bit and start looking for a shot of pee that was miss aimed at the toilet by a male in my house. I find it behind the toilet. I severely aggravated clean this mess up. I plan to tell them this better not happen again, but forget.

I remember when I smell what smells like pee again a few days later. I am about to grow horns while I am remembering this clean up just a couple days ago as I begin to search again. I find my little piddle present in the same spot. This time I do not forget. I march into the living room where every male in the house is and go on a tanget about...

**I am not the janitor in the house.

**I am not the one who can't hit the toilet.

**I won't clean this up again.

**Whoever does this next time will feel my wrath at full strength....including Cole.

D & Z adamantly blame Cole. Cole looks afraid, for real. I mean for him to be. Because cleaning up someone's pee cause they are too lazy to hit the target is detestable.

I began to go behind each male secretly after they leave the bathroom to catch them. I miss a few chances.
Then one night after Cole has left the bathroom I spy another mess. I go off on Cole like no man's business but I give him one more chance...cause he's 4 and he looks innocent in his eyes. I know in my heart he is Little Larry Lies a Lot, but something in his eyes convinces me chewing him up once side and down the other is good enough. I clean this particular mess up again and make him watch so he can do it himself next time. Cause I will not do this detestable thing ever again.

When I wake up the next morning.....it is there again.

Jenny! She has been sleeping in my closet at night. I know for sure no one was in that bathroom except me and her all night. SHE DID IT! It has been HER the whole time! So I grab Jenny out of my closet, show her this "piddle" behind my toilet, and ask her if she she did this horrible act. She tucks her tail between her legs, like she is guilty. I put her outside and say ugly doggy words to her let her know I mean business.

.....back into the bathroom to clean this up AGAIN!!

So D is getting ready for work now and is taking his morning bath like he does every morning. I am spouting off about Jenny this and Jenny that and Clorox wiping and fussing, washing my hands and huffing and puffing till I blow my own house down.

D relays to me I owe him, Z and CB an apology. Z hollers down from his upstairs bedroom, at 6:30 in the morning to "Amen" this.

I go get Jenny from outdoors. She scurries in with her tail between her legs and hides under my bed.

I go back into the bathroom and what do I see? A really small dribblet of what I would normally call pee behind my just scrubbed up toilet area?

D from the tub- Do you think the toilet is leaking?

I check around and notice some water under the baseboard. CRAP!

A- Yes that's it. Water is coming from somewhere. I see some wetness under the baseboards, let me dry this and see what happens.

Then I see nothing but dryness, it's perplexing. After much debate and checking we determine roughly it is coming from an elbow behind the toilet INSIDE the flippin wall.

Long story growing short quickly.

D and I have discussion throughout the day what needs to happen to repair the leak in the wall that evening when he gets home from work. We make a plan. He comes home and we begin to carry it out.

D is totally the most thorough man I know. He never overreacts and makes rash decisions. He always has his work plan well formulated on big jobs. They usually have very few glitches and he fixes them, then the whole world is furry bunnies and rainbows.

On this plan D left his body and did not come back. He opted to not check the toilet itself well before cutting the wall. I tried to get him back on track, but his mind had been made, he was sure it was in the wall and he cut the wall, despite my urging him in a panic to check the toilet well first.

When he got into the wall, through the insulation, the whole area was perfectly dry. The look on his face read, "Why did I do this? I just screwed up..."

I swear, I can't remember a time when I ever saw that look before.

A- You shoulda just paused a second and checked the toilet.....

D- Oh man, this sucks, I just created a pile of extra work.


We both shuffle into the bathroom and he starts going over the toilet. D quickly finds a little nut under the holding tank that needs to be tightened......and all is furry bunnies and rainbows. The toilet is fixed, just like that.

That is seriously going all the way around yer elbow just to get to yer butt hole.

The wall....just got finished last night.

I guess I can hand off my title as Susie Hardway now.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

with a stop sign shaped tool................

Mondays......

Last night I totally took the girls to clogging practice. No lie, Ms.P left me hanging for a business venture possibly, so I was own my own with 5 girls for the night. I wondered what the heck I would do with myself at first cause Monday is gab yer head to the point of complete and utter emptiness.

I thought to myself, "Self....you could finish yer book tonight. Except yer eReader light is out of batteries and it isn't back lit...forget turning on yer car lights and draining the battery again. What to do???" In my mind flashed Z's DS game Rhythm Heaven....I would play his game FINALLY, in peace. THEN I was super excited to be on my own.

Nothing is ever as it seems though. When Smalls and her trusty side kick Spunky finished their class, the 5 girls headed off the McD's like we always do for some not nourishment. I had to get some gas first though.

**I got out

**I pumped the gas to full tank.....without my Kroger card which was deplorable.

**I got into the car.

**The flippin car WOULD NOT crank.

tick, tick, tick. tick, tick ,tick

Insert the whole jaw dropping syndrome again with all peeps great and small seated in my car.

A- WHAT??! REALLY??!

SB, May, Smalls, & Spunky - Oh no! I can't believe this!(etc, etc, etc)

I get out and this fellow and his wife that were filling the 2 cars they own and every single gas can from here to the TN border with their Kroger gas card at .40 off a gallon.....were in disbelief also. They were pumping when I pulled in. The husband tells me he doesn't have cables and we discuss for not more than 40 seconds how insane this situation is. I am gabbing with him and making the call to D......again, to come and rescue me.

It's cold and rainy...he isn't feeling my vibe and we are disgruntled with one another cause he is asking me questions I feel are inconsequential and he thinks I am not listening again...and I feel like not listening cause his questions are not helpful. I want him to say, " I am on my way," and he wants me to say "Oh never mind, the car cranked false alarm," or something of that nature.

While I am trying not to get frustrated with his tone of voice at my situation that is completely not my fault, Gas Can Husband has located an Old Navy Truck Man with jumper cables.

EXCITEMENT! I try to hang up with D so I can help this fellow make sure both ends do not touch, in the cold flippin rain, and show my gratitude....but D will not quit lamenting to me on the phone. I want him to be quiet and hang up now and he wants to know what's going on.

I HATE talking on a cell phone, can't stand it....even when not in dire situations. It just bugs the crap out of me.

D- CALL ME WHEN you get the CAR CRANKED! BYE! (D loves his cell phone, even though at this point he was on our home phone. Both D & my mom...the two of them, would lose all consciousness without their cell phones.)

Gas Can Husband connects the cables up completely different than Mr. P has told Ms. P and I.

Gas Can Husband connects the cables up completely different than D has told Ms. P and I.

Three men connecting cables in three different sequences...all telling me with confidence their way is the right way......and at what point the battery could spew rabid, clothes melting, flesh eating, acid onto your face......all three different.

The six of us females have concurred on this: At birth, males are given the knowledge of how to hook jumper cables up. I don't care what order they do it in, they do it with confidence and authority.

My car cranks right up.

Rejoicing!! Not near what it was when Ms. P & I did the man deed. But it did feel good to be rescued and rather quickly in the cold rain.

So I walk over to tell Old Navy Truck thank you for letting us use his cables and how grateful I am that he hadn't left the gas station yet.

Cause it's the south, he wants a hug. I gladly give him one. I am grateful.

Gas Can Husband is bringing the cables over and telling Old Navy Truck Man some man words about my car, that I don't care about. Gas Can Husband is happy cause I am happy....plus he's getting .40 a gallon off every piece of equipment he owns that will hold gas.

I pat his back and tell him "Thank You" and he squeezes my shoulders as in a half hug, cause he's glad to help a car full of gals. Gas Can Wife is happy too, cause her husband is the super hero who saved the day.....plus she's getting .40 a gallon off every piece of equipment he owns that will hold gas.

Well....Old Navy Truck has been talking to a One Legged Man, who makes BBQ sauce, while we are having Monday night drama at the Shell. One Legged Man, one legs it on over to my car and discovers that my battery cables are loose and this is why my completely fine battery has repeatedly acted incompetent.

The three men agree that One Leg has discovered the answer to all of the worlds problems. They all shake their heads in a concurring manner....I do this also. It feels like the right thing I am supposed to do.

One Legged Man tightens the cable best he can till I can get home for D to tightened it properly with a stop sign shaped tool.

Then he declares the car good for another 100,000 miles.

One Leg informs me that he saw me give the other two dudes a hug and he wants one too. After all, he is "the one who discovered the loose battery cables."

We all cackle a bit, I hug him and he reminds me that the Shell gas station sells his BBQ sauce inside and for me to go and buy some. The three males shake hands. They are heroes who have saved 5 females and they have been hugged properly for it......plus Gas Can Husband has gotten .40 a gallon off every piece of equipment he owns that will hold gas.

After that, food was gotten at the drive thru.... Smalls & Spunky played in my car with it running, while I played Rhythm Heaven on Z's DS....and SB & May made it to their class on time.

Furry Bunnies and Rainbows........

Friday, November 12, 2010

crickets marinated in camel spit on a stick or something...........

One afternoon while I was having problems with the perpetual hemorrhoid(that I am now over thank you) I had decided to take a bath. I had found my jar of TOA(Tired Old Donkey) hiding in my cabinet. TOA is mostly epsom salt. This excited me more than it should have.

I poured almost the whole jar into the tub and put the water on entirely too hot. I know the water was too hot because the parts of my skin that were submerged in the tub water were a sun burned red color. The parts of my skin that were outside of the water were a tannish brown.

Relaxing……….relaxing………………….relaxing…………………

!!!!!!!BUST THE DOOR OPEN!!!!!!

S- (with her Diary of a Wimpy Kid book) HEY MOM! Will you help me fill this book out please?

A- No

S- Mom, please…

A- No I am soaking my butt. Lock the door please.

!!!!!!!!!!BUST THE DOOR OPEN!!!!!!!!!!

CB- Mom can I get in?

A- No CB! I am burning my skin off…on purpose. Look at my legs. You see how red they are? You don’t want to burn your legs off do you???

CB- Mom…you can just put some cold water in, then I can get in with you. Besides I already heard you tell Sky you were soaking your butt off not your legs. (I wish it were really that easy to rid myself of excess buttocks.)

Cole is rolling his Hot Wheels up and down the side of the tub making this horrible, unpleasant, not relaxing noise.

S- So. What is the worst thing I ever ate?

At Easter, instead of an Easter Egg Hunt I do a scavenger hunt. Sort of a like The Amazing Race on TV with “Detours” (where the 4 siblings have to complete a challenge together before they can get the next clue) and “Road Blocks” (where they select one of the 4 siblings to complete a challenging task before they can receive the next clue).

I will try to blog on this stuff later…. if I can remember.

What is The Amazing Race without an eat something yucky food challenge?

Before Sky was really old enough to do the hunt fully, Zac had to eat 2 pieces of Kibbles and Bits dog food. I can feel you thinking, why would a parent ask their child to do this awful deed…..but hey, they don’t go to school where kids can subject them to this kind of atmosphere. Somebody has to complete the daunting task of making them "normal.".....after all, this goes under the category of "it tastes like chicken," right?


I mean for real, once this kid told me tree bark tasted like chicken. So I took a rock and scraped some tree bark off of an idiot tree and ate the flippin stuff. I really believed the dang tree tasted like freaking chicken. I liked it so much sometimes I still eat it.......fried......just kiddin.


...side tracked, sorry.

Sky is an eating machine. She loves all food… meat, veggies, tuna, sushi…if I eat it, she will too. She adores eating all creatures great and small from the sea, unlike me in this way(cause you know I like to eat tree bark....just kiddin, sidetracked, sorry).

Two years ago the food challenge was eating a ¼ of a peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich.
(I actually like to eat this sandwich about once a year.)

May and Zac totally bugged out of the challenge and refused to eat the sandwich. I mean it was ¼ for petes sake. It wasn’t even like I asked them to eat crickets marinated in camel spit on a stick or something(or tree bark).


.....so they zoned in on “Mikey.”

Sky said she would not eat it either. I told them that the game was finished then. They would not get the next clue until the challenge was completed. Now…most parents would have given in and gave them the next clue, but I swear I’m just hard that way. This way when I need them to know I will stick to my word, good or bad…they know it’s true.

The beauty of this too is... they all want their perspective prizes. The clues have been set. They can’t get to one without the other. So it was over……no prizes. Life is like that you know. You don’t always get what you want without some sacrifice. People don’t cave in and give you what you want without getting something in return all the dang time.

Somebody had to eat ¼ of the peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich.

Sky did it.

Maysie and Zac worshipped her for a full day. Whatever she wanted that day, they gave her…..because they were grateful that they didn’t have to eat the sandwich.



..........Back to the bathroom taking my bath……

S- So. What is the worst thing I ever ate?

A- Well, let’s see...........Think back to Easter a couple years ago….what did I make you eat that was really gross?

Then she says….

S- I don’t know, Mom. You’ve cooked lots of gross food before.

A- Sky, get out of this bathroom with that retarded book right now.

CB- Mom? When yer done soaking your butt off will you play UNO with me?



Is there really no rest for the weary....ever?

Monday, November 8, 2010

Somebody's duck is out of line here...but it isn't mine......

I was on this rant about how kids appear to be generally ungrateful these days …not my kids of course……..or yours……you know other people’s kids are generally ungrateful is what I was saying.

I was discussing a particular situation to a friend of mine who happens to run another Awana program in Knoxville with her husband.  This woman completely encouraged me.  She and her Awana youth group are planning to go to some Awana shindig in St. Charles, Illinois.

She was telling me that the youth literally have to do x, y, z amount of community service in the name of the Lord or work for the church in some way to go on the trip and/or obtain church funding for the trip if they do not have the funds to go.  In other words, the church does not just hand them over the cash to go, even if they can’t afford to go.  The kids who want to go actually have to show initiative and do something for it.

This year, in order for the 13 youth who want to attend this event, to go to the shindig... they participated in the “Duck-out-of-line” at the Duck, Duck Goose consignment event in Knoxville.

This event is a huge consignment sale in an old K-Mart building.  It is a 4 or 5 day event (including a private shopping day for consignors) that supposedly rocks all consignment sales to the very foundation of the earth in these parts of town. 

I am told during this conversation that the line goes all the way around the building and then some to get inside….then to pay is another line all the way around the other side of the building.

A “Duck-out-of-line” is a person who gets paid $10 to stand in line for you and hold your spot while you shop.  So that when your shopping has been completed, you can get in line where your “duck” is.  If your duck is already past the paying counter, then guess what? NO WAITING at all! You get immediate ups and no waiting in line at all!!! All of the money earned by the people who volunteer for this (churches and local charities) get 100% of the money!

The ladies that I am conversating with tell me the Duck out of line is well worth the $10, as a wait in line to pay for merchandise can be up to an hour or more.

I decided to go and check out this consignment sale for myself after our co-op classes and as sure as a dog sniffs another dogs butt – the line to get in the place was as long a line as I had ever seen.  The Ducks out of line were busy with their clip boards signing people up.  I swear if I had been determined to go into the place I would have paid someone $20 to stand in line for me. Instead I opted to go to Old Navy and by M & Z new coats. I just tried to let go of my unearth friendly guilt for not recycling....it didn't take too long.  

I am just gonna say… Maysie's unearth friendly coat.... it’s tha dang the bomb. 

So, Ms. Awana Co-Commander ….. yeah, she took her 13 Awana youth teens down there to be Ducks out of line.

On the Wednesday preview sale for the people who are consigning clothes and other special designated folks….the teens made $1300…….towards their trips to the Awana event.  That’s $100 bucks a piece minimum for each kid towards their trip for one day of service.
 
I thought that was SUPER COOL!

The following week I see Ms. Awana Co-Commander and asked her what her finally tally was for the kids towards their trips…….Did they meet their goals?

Uummm YES!  Those teens made $4000 dollars towards their trip in 3 days’ worth of work!!!!!!!  

So they stood in line for folks repeatedly at a consignment sale at $10 bucks a pop and worked off the entire cost of their trip. 

This says a minimum of 6 things to me:

**These teens are motivated to go on a Jesus trip that is important to them.

**These teens take pride in seeing their goals completed.

**These teens are being rewarded for diligence.

**These teens parents don’t have to come up with $300 randomly when the economy is not optimal….AND during the holidays

**These teens parents must be proud of their child for doing something not fun like standing in line for three days to help pay for their trips and possibly the trips of those who could not afford to pay for the trip themselves.

**This Awana Leader did something right and good here.

I am just going to say, I love it when a child is able to stand back and look at good work completed and be amazed that they were a part of something bigger than THEMSELVES.  

As an adult I enjoy this feeling myself when I accomplish a big task. 

Being a child or a teenager would only magnify this good feeling of accomplishment because the world is so big and so much has yet to still be discovered.

It is my personal opinion that enabling a child to appreciate his/her situation more by digging in deep and hard sometimes……..is good for their self-esteem, not bad.

I am over handing out stuff to kids for free because they expect it.  This is the type of adult we are breeding, a society where they believe themselves to deserve to be given stuff that isn't theirs to take.  

Sometimes it feels to me... youth, generally speaking,  know nothing about how to be humble.  

However, I am proud of at least 13 who do.

HAVE AN OUTSTANDING TRIP AWANA TEENS!
YOU’VE EARNED IT!!!!


Thursday, November 4, 2010

to tuck or not to tuck, the epic ending. Praise God..........













The soccer season is almost over.  One more game and the fall school start up chaos is completed….mostly.


We finally got CB playing soccer with his shirt tucked in.  It would seem that with me as his safe haven for hiding from his fear of kids running together in a cluster and being overwhelmed….it was too easy to quit, show his butt, and sit on the sidelines. No matter that he has ran with other kids in a cluster in our backyard a billion times.  It wasn’t the same. D and I came to the conclusion for him to play I would need to be perceived as not being at the field.

These are the steps to getting a 4 ¾ year old child to play a sport that you paid money for and don’t want him to quit (When you have accidentally volunteered his dad to be the coach).

1.  When the child sasses you about how he doesn’t want to play soccer anyway….yank his cleats off, his shin guards, and his jersey then throw them as far as you can into the yard. 

2. Eat Lindor chocolate balls 3 at a time, until the bad mommy feelings inside you go far, far away.

3. Make a deal with the child about tucking his shirt in that will surely be broken.

4. Send him to the soccer field with his dad and tell him you are not able to come to his game. Plan to show up and hide behind a tree to watch him play.
 
5.  In the last quarter, after you have watched him have a great time, score a goal, smile really big all with his idiot shirt tucked in…. reveal yourself as being there the whole time. 

This is when your child will reveal to you that he saw you drive up and get out of the car. That he saw you hiding behind all of the trees.  He will want to know why you didn’t just sit in a chair like all of the other moms and dads.

This is when you will need to eat some more Lindor chocolate balls 3 at a time, until the bad mommy feelings inside you go far, far away.   


                            The End






Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Now that we're men......

Last night, in my eyes, I did this totally amazing thing along side Ms. P.

At the clogging studio we were in deep girl, God, and geek gab ....not necessarily in that order. When I say deep, it was almost an hour past the time we were supposed to have left the studio to head home. The class had ended around 9:00pm and our girls were still gabbing, so we continued to gab.

Hear this! Because we were totally gabbing incessantly for two hours barely stopping for breath.....in my car.....with the interior lights on the whole time.......at 10:00pm... my interior lights suddenly went dim.

I say to myself, "Self....I bet your battery is getting weak." I crank my car up, uumm, no I don't cause it won't crank.

tick, tick, tick, tick. tick,

try again

tick, tick, tick, tick

My jaw drops, Ms. P's jaw drops, our teen girls in the other vehicle show us that our jaw dropping syndrome has contaminated them also.

A- D is going to kill me....he is packing for a trip to Orlando in the morning.

Ms. P - I think I have jumper cables

A- (furry bunnies and rainbows....in terror. Cause somebody had to hook them thangs up)

Ms. P can't find them, she calls her husband, they discuss at length how to hook the cables up while I read the directions on the packaging.

Ms. P's husband is at home in one direction far from the studio and D is at home far away in the opposite direction from the studio, and we are out too late anyway....it just wasn't optimal.

Ms. P relays that Mr. P has said we should hook up red, black, black, red (or vice versa or something). We shouldn't let them touch... insert some more directions and technical stuff that I am starting to tune out because I'm afraid to hook the jab-O's up. All my life I have heard that some somebody's car blew up, somebody got venom spewed in their face and their face burned off, acid melted their clothes off and onto their skin and falalala la lala la la.

When I come to my senses Ms. P is standing in front of me with a red and a black in her hands and I with a red and black in my hands and we aren't letting them touch.....staring at each other.

The thing is we haven't even moved our vehicles yet and our vehicles are turned off.

A- Can you do this?

Ms. P - I think so...

Frick and Frack...the two willies decide first we should move the vehicles into proper position. After all the cables were touching each other in the bag right?

Move the vehicles. We are on the right track. We've done step one according to her package instructions. The vehicles are nose to nose without touching each other....

It is clear we are both leery of hooking the exploding battery acid face eating machine cables up. I feel extreme anxiety rising within as she and I are looking for exact locations at which to position these 4 pincher's.

I make the decision to call D finally.

A- (sweet) Helllllooo.

D- Where are you?

A- At the studio, my battery is dead.

D- Does Meg have cables?

A- funny thing.....yes, but Babe, I am afraid to hook them up and so is she, can you just come here and do it?

D- Really, Amy? I mean you can do this. Just put the positive on the positive and the negatasdkl lksjdji kjshdjhiuh nasjdhk and jhh yuy xernhg uyg.....

I don't hear him anymore he's speaking Japanese to me cause I am afraid.

So I put him on speaker phone for directions as I am using the cell phone for a flash light. Ms. P doesn't have a cell phone so this is it.

It is clear to him I am not listening well and about to panic which equals buggin out. D determines that I am going to do this. He determines he is not driving across the Untied States at 10pm...when I am "this close" the fix myself.

D- (on speaker phone....and BTW Ms. P is a deacons wife...not that it should matter it's just an ironic situation, that caused me to snicker a little in the after thoughts when I got home.) Put the "not the dam that beavers build" red cable on the "not the dam that beavers build" positive bolt, Amy, Now!

A & Ms. P(we laugh a little) - Easy Tiger, yer on speaker phone.

D - I don't care hook up the red cable and then do the black one, now, DO IT.

I totally hooked'em up. I was half way there. Ms. P is standing close beside with her 2 cables not touching. Like surgeons with special tools I take one from her hand and D tells me where to hook it on my car. Then the last one is placed on the black negative on my battery.

Not the optimal place I learned cause that is the crisis point at which a battery could explode with my face next to it. When I read the directions though it said not to hook it next to this fuel line and that cable and x,y,z...so I was afraid again cause I have a Hyundai and I don't know which line is which. I recognized the windshield washer fluid and so did Ms. P and all that was plastic. One is supposed to connect the last black one to a metal bolt or something. I was supposed to look away, but I forgot....cause I was having an anxiety attack in my mind.

So the moment of truth has arrived. The connections have been made. D relays Ms. P should start her vehicle and slowly rev the engine.

A- Okay go start your car and give it some gas.

D- No.. I said slowly give it some gas (Ms. P is revving up to start a Nascar race). Tell her to stop that.

I don't listen and go get in my car and crank it right up.

......insert redneck hooting and hollering in downtown, at night, behind some random building, with no lights on and 6 girls jumping up and down totally being girls.

D- Come home. ... and be careful, the deer are out tonight.

Insert some more jumping up and down and girly screaming cause BY GOLLY!! WE ARE WOMEN HEAR US ROAR FOR PETES SAKE!!!!!!

I know D helped talk us through that and he used some man words to do it......but I swear in my mind I felt like we did it all by ourselves. I mean really, we were nervous, but we seriously overcame it and just totally did the freaking man deed.

Ms. P calls her husband and relays to him we have done the deed. He asks her if we unhooked the cables. I told her you should have told him, "No, that's their leash, the whole clan need to be on a leash."

Even Ms. P's daughter and May told us they were proud of us. We had a big, 6 female, jumpy, girly group hug put our hands in the center and "Go Ladies" on three...1, 2, 3...GO LADIES!

I smiled myself to sleep last night cause I rocked my own world for a change.

I love hanging out on Monday's with Ms. P. It makes me feel strong and mighty in every way.

I dedicate this song to you Ms. P. We "passed the test and finished the quest!"
Hope you have an awesome Tuesday!!!!!

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

If Tim & Joe are at the mall, how old is Betty?.............

Oh gosh yesterday I had a day where my mind would not work. Like I was helping May with her Algebra and suddenly I just couldn't do it.

So I looked at the answer and tried to work the thing backwards. I could not do it. The problem was by far not the hardest problem we have ever done. It was an age problem that should have been fairly easy once we plugged the numbers in the right spots.

COULD NOT DO IT

I am like why can't I get this freakin answer right?? May was completely frustrated with me, then Zac interrupted with another easy question from his math. By this time my brain was completely and utterly fried and I couldn't even do Zac's math. It was like he was speaking French to me or something and I just couldn't hear him right or understand what he was asking me. Zac got frustrated with me.

I'm all, "LOOK!! I can only do one math problem at a time and right now I can't even do one. EVERYBODY go to your rooms and do a different subject while I figure this idiot problem out before I just die twice and grow a dang beard or something!"

That's what they did. I sat at the kitchen table well past lunch trying to figure out what the heck I was missing. It just was not that complicated of a problem. I called D at work to just get him to do it, didn't answer his phone. So I called my girlfriend Ms. SWAT so she could just give me the answer, she didn't answer. However, her 16 or 17 year old kid that has already graduated from high school and is now in college answered the phone.

A- Look, I need you to give me the answer to this math problem. Can you do this for me without judging me.

.... cricket, cricket.....no answer on the other end

A- Does this mean yer going to judge me?

Ms. SWAT's son - I don't know yet.

So I give him the problem he comes up with the same answer May and I have gotten. I felt validated. Then he takes a pause while I read it to him again and he spouts off the answer with no problem.

I get him to explain it to me like I am a kindergärtner.

Everything in my universe suddenly lines up properly....furry bunnies start hopping across the bedroom floor and rainbows color themselves across my ceiling...pink hearts & glittering stars rain down around me while all the angels in heaven sing.

I end our conversation with gratitude and adoring love that he absolutely would not take from me in person.

I put aside my parental shame and general lameness at not being able to do the idiot math problem. Since my mind has clicked back on "Go" mode, I quickly call Zac down to explain his math problem to him. His universe lines up properly & he celebrates by declaring he is done for the day and popping a bag of Doritos open.

We are all pretty delirious. My house looks like a bomb went off in it.

Mays says to Zac - Who thinks these math problems up anyway?? I mean they are like:
  • If Tim & Joe are at the mall, how old is Betty?.........45

  • The lake is 400 square miles. Four Tuesday's ago they drained it, next year it will be 6 times the size it is today? How many trees are in the forest?..........3

  • Two years ago Betty planted a tree but before she finished planting the tree, she buried her train set underneath it. When she digs the train up in 40 years how fast will the wheels move?.........35mph

  • If the cookie jar holds 37 cookies and Jack is 37 years old, how much lemonade did his mother make?


Z- NETFLIX! It's free!

.......we all start laughing, we are truly done with school for the day.

...............................................

I was fixing May a microwavable noodle dish of some sort for lunch last week.

Obviously the meal is hot when it comes out of the microwave.

I put it on the counter top "to sit for 2 minutes."

I peeled back the clear packaging to let it vent a bit and stir it a little.

One cheesy noodle came out and landed half on the counter top and half on the meal container.

I thought I would flip the hot noodle back into the dish. The blasted noodle stuck to my finger and was burning my fingertips off. So I slung in a panic downward motion to get it off.

The flippin scalding cheese defied my panic and went in the upward position onto MY FACE....... AND BURNED MY FACE! Can you believe that?

Dig on this now, one little dot of cheese hit the one mole or beauty mark, which I prefer, under my nose....... AND BURNED A HOLE IN MY "BEAUTY MARK!"

If you have ever scratched a mole or done something that causes a mole harm, you know they bleed horrible and take forever to heal. It looks like a big zit under my nose.

I didn't get the mole on this pic but who cares.

I mean for real....I do have the flippin "cheese touch."


*

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Do you want some of my whoop, whoop?.......

D got a facebook. He is addicted to it, though he claims he is not. He was conflicted about what exactly it meant to add "friends" to your list. We had this long overdrawn out discussion about "friends." Then like, one of his first status updates was some business about about how I said his "friends" weren't his "real friends" and can he get a "whoop, whoop" if you are his friend and fa lala lala la la la la.

I am like, slow yer roll dude, that is not what I said at all. But as is common practice I gave him a mulligan and let him have his FB fun. Cause you know how it is when you first get on FB...it's a time eating machine that you think about incessantly.

Well of course all of his friends are going to "whoop, whoop" him, for crying out loud. No amount of explaining I do is going to take back that inaccurate status update.

So all day long his phone is dinging to show someone else has given him a whoop, whoop. He appended a certain high pitched voice to the whoop whoop as the day progressed. By the end of this particular day D has a whoop whoop dance to go with it.

He is feeling very FB encouraged and asks me if I would like to have some of his whoop whoop.

I am like, "I don't know man, if it's anything like yer couscous I need to think about it."

....he is still getting whoop whoops and he still does the dance, even after nearly two weeks.

.........................................................


A- Cole what would like for dinner?

CB- uuuuummm......I think I would like to have some chips with some tater tots. (he's serious)

A- uuuuummmm.....Let me see......hoooooww about, no. Try again.

..............................................................................

We had this awful bout with chiggers a couple weeks ago. They were awful. Zac, May, and I all had bites all over our legs. They were rampant at the soccer fields apparently and lots of folks I had spoken with had bites on their legs also. I was Google-ing endlessly one day to find a source of termination for the incessant itching on our legs......fingernail polish worked great for us.

A link for Urban Dictionary came up. It read something to the effect of

Chiggers - Chegroes -

Politically-correct name for biting insects; ie chiggers.


This caused me to snicker a little, but not too much cause I didn't want to get honkey guilt.....

Warning: Urban dictionary can be mind contaminate, but some of the new phrases and meanings, are pretty witty.

........................................................................

I took Cole to the Kroger Deli so as not to feed his addiction to the sight of Golden Arches.

I swear if you take a child to McD's one time it is a permanent life addiction until they reach 40.
When it suddenly catches up with them and then they have to take a probiotic and some Colonix to regain some sense well being and decontamination.

Anyhoo....

CB- I don't want to eat at the Deli

A- I don't care CB. There is no way I am going in McD's today, the smell makes me gag.

CB - You can just hold yer nose Momma, that's what I do when it stinks.

A- No, CB ...you'll like this stuff I promise. Little, tiny chicken legs and green beans, it'll be good trust me.

CB does love the 5 little chicken legs he has picked out and the beans. He is smacking his lips in the back seat on the way home.

CB- mmm......mmmmmmm.......mmm...Mom I love these chickens. I am gonna save these two for Skylar and Zac.

A- Sky can't eat those Babe, go ahead and eat them. I will buy Zac some legs later okay?

CB- Mom what's this stuff say on the top? (he's holding the lid up pointing to the ingredients list)

A- That's the ingredients. It tells what they make the chicken flavoring from.

CB - Well.......I love these ingredients.

...........................................................................