I can't turn my head without turning my whole body.........

I had the most awesome weekend. It was one of those weekends where everything despite a full schedule just comes together. It should be rushed, but some how time stands still and its okay that it isn't.

Friday was beautiful. We finished school early and walked the drained lake beaches combing for the usual 50 huge clams in several zip loc bags and a shoe. Kids got in the water a bit and had to walk back wet as usual, so we managed to keep that tradition well in tact. While on the beach we met a new family in our neighborhood. Well actually just the mom and her young toddling girl.

They were bundled up in sweaters, socks, and shoes, trying not to be muddy.....and here comes my brood with shorts, no shoes, and mud to the calves minimum. Hollering to me from afar how they have just found "the rare beer can" and that I should come and look.....oh and this too, "Mom!! Listen!! I can make the mud make fart sounds(insert 2 children fast farting and slow farting with the mud slop & having great jolly with it)."

I had this shirt on that was 2 whole dollars at Walmart the other day, that read, "I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am." I bought a couple $2 shirts to mow the lawn in and so forth, cause you can't make a dang shirt for $2. I wondered what type of first impression I or we made on the new neighbors. It scared me a little , even though I felt we talked well, and of Christ too.

I invited her to sit under the tree with Sarah and I if she was out walking and ever saw us out gabbing. She seemed glad about the invite, but still.....clearly we seemed a contrast to one another as we stood there on the beach. She, hair pulled back neatly in a pony tail, & her daughter with mud on her pink ballet flats with precious little flowers, waving goodbye to us as we moved on......we.....shorts, boasting shirts & afro hair blowing everywhere, unable to be tamed by a flowered bobby pin, muddy, and loud......eeesh, I have to hope for the best.
















Saturday, a day full of awesome.

Read the paper with D a bit, and worked on my curriculum for next year, cleaned the house a bit while he sprayed weed killer outside. I worried he was going to spray to the wrong flowers to spite me. I figured oh well, if he does I will just grow some more.

Later in the day we attended a wedding for a girlfriend named Lisa R.(now Lisa B!). It was so dang fun! This is why.....cause it was the first wedding I have been to in a while that I felt like this is gonna last.

She had great music as we waited for her to enter that made me feel joy to be at her wedding. Once the deed was done the two left the sanctuary husband and wife to the song Signed, Sealed, Delivered, by Stevie Wonder. How could one not be happy and wear a smile?

Her husband is Hungarian. He is handsome. He is a Chef. D told Andras if Lisa kicked him to the curb, he would marry him. We sat with Lisa's dad at the reception where the food rocked every taste bud in my head. The dad told us without being prompted, if Lisa didn't marry him, he would take him....we all laughed, cause we understood how good the food Andras had prepared was. Music at the reception was awesome, it was beautiful outside where we ate and watched all the little girls have their own dance party.

I had told D we'd help him get some stuff at the church set up for Sunday, so we all had to leave a bit early which kinda stunk. However, since we were in separate cars, as usual....The girls and I stayed for the cake cutting, which was a blessing straight from taste bud heaven. Lisa asked me if I wanted some to take home.........um, yes.............could you just box up the whole middle layer please, thanks.

Lisa's smile of happiness made my heart overflow with love for her. I am so glad she invited our family. I would have totally missed out on something fun & special that day.

After that we worked at the church till, 7:15 or 7:20 or something. The girls and I singing karaoke Shania Twain, Amy Grant, Kingdom Heirs and whatever else he needed us to do for him to adjust some equalizer or something...then D pretended to be a typical Southern Baptist hell, fire, and brimstone preacher so I could adjust the lapel mike for Pastor Mike the next day. Which was completely hilarious...you can ask Lauren Woody.....she caught some of that.

.....and last but not least for the icing on the perfect day....NEW MOON BABY!!!!!!!!!!!! Amazon Video on Demand gave me a freebie for New Moon cause of the pre-order DVD thing.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Jacob with short hair SCREEEEAMMMM like a teeny bopper, and break a sweat, blink my eyes uncontrollably, holy moly, the New Moon video is about 1000 times better that the first Twilight movie in every way. As soon as I get my hands on the DVD coming to my mailbox today I hope, I am going to watch it about 100 more times....I can feel it already coming. Angie B if you haven't seen New Moon girl, you cannot have mine, BUT I will swoon with you as soon as you get your own. :oD

We'll discuss it, over a brisk 3 mile walk at the track.

Sunday....I knew Monday was coming. It was cloudy, rainy, my neck was killing me, arthritis in my hips and left shoulder wreaking havoc on my posture. It was still a good day though, just someone turned the fun volume down a bit.

We went to eat Mexican food after church. Then on to Home Depot where they had put out that black colored, dog crap smelling mulch that literally made Sky gag all the way in the door. Then I had to exercise severe restraint in the plant department. D did let me get a really nice piece of pottery to put one of Poppy's plants left over from his funeral. I hate house plants, but for obvious reasons I cannot allow this one to go uncared for. It needs a bigger pot. I love the one we got. Sky got a new bigger pot for her aloe plant also, pink and green.

This was my weekend to catch up with all the Kathy's in my life. The one, Kathy L., I have known my whole life, we crammed as much conversation in about 45 minutes as we could. I felt very satisfied that we had connected, her voice brings me nostalgic peace. I love her.

Kathy V. lives down the street but gosh, we're both moms and conversation passing each other in the halls at church during pick up and drop off isn't always enough. We stayed an hour or more after church Sunday night gabbing it up... in the rain even.... about everything from testosterone, school, musical instruments, to our possibly future illiterate youngest children, cause life is so busy we just want them to go to bed at night instead of read. Great quality time with her even if it did rain on us. Though we are both sweet, we did not melt.

As I said though I knew Monday was coming still cause it just got more and more rainy. D's work people called all night long....from 1:30am on.....I can't log on, try this, try that, turn the bedroom lights on, where's my glasses? I can't see a freakin thing, turn the valve on, turn the valve off, turn the valve on, turn the valve off........I finally went to get in the bed with Sky..... cause MAYSIE won't met me sleep with her anymore.

Sky slept all over me, all night. With her sweaty, sticky, big, magic belly in my face, on my back, on my legs.....toss, turn, phone rings, Jenny wants in the bed with us, magic belly on my back again, her fingers tangled in my hair, and so on, and so on, and so on.....and guess what? It's 6:30am.....Cole's awake.

...and I have this horrible crick in my neck. I can't turn my head without turning my whole body....I have "Aunt Helen" disease(that's for mom and Terri :oD ).

Happy Monday??

I am so American in a stereotypical way........

While I was eating lunch the other day and the kids were taking a break somewhere away from me, I watched a Chris Rock comedy special that I had DVR'd about a thousand years ago. I know he has a foul mouth but black humor to me is super funny sometimes. I had already conceded I was going to watch just this one show and then not subject my ears to this contamination again.

It's in these situations you ask yourself what would Jesus do? The whole time He's screaming in your ear DELETE THE FILTH, STUPID!

But as blatantly disobedient as I could be.... I pressed play.

I didn't watch to much of it cause it did contaminate my ears and my mind as expected. So I deleted it before I was 1/3 of the way through it. However I did catch a few jokes that were typical black humor on white people that had me laughing out loud. I like to watch black people imitate white people & I like to watch pastors imitate how Christians act while they are preachin...both usually hit the hammer on the nail.

So Chris was talking about health care & politics, the normal comedian stuff. Then he casually lumped in famous white on black crimes and then spewed out he isn't "scared of Al Queda, he's afraid of Al Cracka." Two completely different subjects weaved together cleverly..... hilarious.

The he went on a rant about food saying, "Americans are the only people that go hunting on a full stomach." It lead to a barrage of funny stuff with Dick Cheney and other hunting scenarios and then I cut it off. I was not wrong, Chris Rock in pretty dang funny. He's got a foul mouth that is too much distraction from the jokes.

Jesus made me mash the delete button........

I was thinking about this cause I had a Pampered Chef party this past Thursday night.

I had a food party. I thought about the Haitians(and other foodless countries)and how their food looks completely different to them than to us. We have a party with it, they seek it out. It troubled me.

As the time got closer for my gals to show up, troubled thoughts turned to excitement yet again. I am so American in a stereotypical way.

I had a great time. We hadn't had that many people in our our house for a fun gathering since we lived out west. Valerie the gal who did my show told me, "Invite 60 people, 30 will accept, but only about 15 will show up."

I am all I don't even know 60 people that well. I'm not sure I know 20 that well. I started going through my email addresses and found I did know more people than I thought. I determined my actions to invite everyone I had not spoken to for more than 5 minutes in 6 months.

I only limited myself to email addresses in invitations. Why?? Cause I did Evites, which by the way, is the bomb!! You know... save a tree and all........."all" being save some money on some stamps. Plus folks can respond, say how many they are bringing, it's awesome.......

Dig on this.......when all was said and done I have 35 people say they were coming and 29 gals showed up!




(...and this ain't all of them, these pics only show about 1/2 of the ladies!)

Excitement was an understatement. There were a few women who said, "...think of all the free stuff you are going to get." Which sure, usually if you do one of these you want to get the free stuff. Who doesn't like free stuff? But I already had tons of Pampered Chef products. In my mind this was a social to see folks that I needed more face time with, the free stuff would just be icing.



At 6:30 the ladies, some with teenagers & children in tow(growing my total to 41 people in my house), showed up like clock work. It was on!

At one point Valerie was still getting some stuff together, D & I were in the kitchen....it was so loud with women enjoying conversation with each other we literally had to speak loudly to each other. D & I listened together quietly for a second, you could not understand a single conversation going on in the living room from the kitchen there was so much girl gabbing going on.

At that moment my heart smiled.

If nothing else happened tonight the girl gab had commenced. Good food was already on the table for the takin and eaten.......


(This doesn't includes the food Valerie prepared)

I had such a good time. I would love to get them all together again but just for food and conversation only.

Here is the thing though. This was an event. People came for a specific purpose, Pampered Chef. I find these days that women are so busy unless it is specific, it is too easy to back out saying I'll catch up with you all next time. I wondered would the turn out have been so good if it was just food and fellowship......

I am thinking about doing a breakfast at church for the ladies only one Saturday. Cause then they'll have the whole day to be with their families afterward. No hymn singing, no game playing, no gift swap......just lots of women, food, gabbing, and a tiny devotional......I wonder how many would commit.....I getting excited thinking on it.......

What about the men.....maybe breakfast for them one Saturday would be awesome......the possibilities excited me........

I think I'll let it marinate for a couple weeks then revisit it........

Getting all those fantastic women who, as it turned out, each has a specific roll in my life right now, was out of control. They were all in my house at once, laughing, making plans to come back and eat another time with us, checking on my mom, fashion, home decor, child rearing, cooking, recipes, checking each other on our weight (by literally licking our plates to signify we are rebelling the diet this evening), sisters some of them are to me for sure...........oh man, I was feeling so good as I laid my head on the pillow exhausted.

I thought, WOW! Who has 29 people show up for a Pampered Chef party?? That was outstanding.

I am so glad I did this party. Even if it made me feel false guilt about the Haitians and other countries. God used this to bless me with friendship and the lightness of life. Life I can take almost too seriously sometimes. I felt a renewed sense of being able to accomplish really big stuff.

I AM WOMAN HEAR ME ROAR! :oD

you know, you don't have to stop fully at stop signs with white lines around the outside.........

These are sheer random thoughts from the past that just came to me for a no good reason today.....

When I was getting married I had gotten my invitations together to send out. A few people I did not know their addresses but knew where they lived, so Mom & I decided to hand deliver them. One in particular was an invitation I had to give because they were attached to my family by marriage. This would be my step uncle and his horrid wife. This was his second marriage and hers too. She had a son who was mentally challenged a bit, but a super kid. He was smart in school, eager to please, a hard worker at the grocery store where he bagged groceries, and he was happy despite the circumstances in which he lived.

He was super pale and when he laughed he turn bright red, so we called him "Fire Ball." His parents were morons, his mom and step father, my step uncle. My step uncle, rest his soul, was one of those that sued everybody. If he could remotely be somewhere that could potentially help him receive money so he didn't have to work, he was there. The mother never brushed her teeth. I don't care how poor you might be, a toothbrush is not that expensive, even if you can't afford toothpaste......put a dang brush on yer freakin teeth....GOSH!

She spoke in this high pitched annoying voice that made me physically distort my face when listening to her speak. I felt in my heart that she wondered how her life had become unsatisfactory and was just trying to live through it. She had become sort of an anxious woman and started to stutter in that high pitched voice and I just had to cringe.

I felt like someone needed to rescue Fire Ball so he could succeed. Given the right circumstances Fire Ball could be a superb man. I would later learn, after my father's funeral, and by sheer chance, that he was in fact doing well for himself, which made my heart feel relief.

So Mom and I went to deliver my beautiful wedding invitations to them in person. She was mowing her grass, over weight, greasy short brown hair, completely and utterly sweaty, with gunky teeth, and no bra on with her DDD boobs swinging under her shirt as she mowed....it was awful. So Mom did some small talk and I smiled and tried to be polite without making the distorted face.

Mom handed her the invitation and she stuck my beautiful wedding invitation in her sweaty underwear inside her pants......I physically said "uuuuhhh," and my mom slapped me on my thigh inside the car. She said our goodbyes and we drove off to the stop sign. Once far enough away we both started eeeeewwww-ing as loud as all get out. Trying to shake off the horrible sight of that wonderful piece of paper that signified I was about to marry the man of my dreams in her swinging triple D's, gunky teeth, sweaty pants.


Okay, shake that off if you can and we'll move on...............


This story reminded me of my mom's cousins. They have a house on the lake in my mom's home town in South Carolina. Quite a few of her cousins live in that area and spend a good bit of time on the lake eating together and whatnot. One of the cousins, I believe, owns a bar and grille with live entertainment. I have not been there, but I hear they all have a pretty good time regularly. My whole family is full of cut-ups as one might guess. We all like to laugh hard and we all love hard too.

So the one cousin that owns the bar and grille is a twin. I hear that one of the twins has a girlfriend they call "Buttah Face." I am not sure of her real name actually, cause this is what they call her....to her face, when speaking about or referring to her to other people, you know general everyday conversation and so forth. I assumed at first since they are all from South Carolina and any word that ends with or has an "R" in it is deleted. Like Charles becomes Challs and Heather becomes Heathah...Mother becomes Muthah....hence her nickname is Buttah Face so that must be Butter Face. She must have super smooth skin or be young or something....

uuuuuuuhh no

I am informed her name is "Buttah Face" because everything looks good on her BUTTAH FACE!

That's just freakin funny, I'm sorry, but it is......


I thought of this too.......


Not too long after I had gotten my license to drive, which took me two tries to get, I got a ticket for failing to stop fully at stop sign.

We had this guy who was a year younger than me living with our family, he was like my brother. Though we rarely talk anymore, I still have fond memories of him. I last saw him at my dads funeral and it made my heart happy to see him. We hadn't seen one another since shortly after I was married. His name was Mike.

Mike told me I didn't have to stop fully at stop signs that had white lines around the outside. It never occurred to me at the age of 16 that he may be yankin my chain.

Despite the fact that all the signs seemed to have white lines, it never occurred to me he was yankin my chain.

That is seriously STUPID dumb blonde material.

So I had to explain my stupidity to my mom, at 16 it never occurred to me I should be embarrassed about believing that. It was just something that happened, I got spoofed on, got a ticket, okay, and what's next on my happy little, I'm 16, and the whole world is mine to conquer life.

I don't envy my friends with 16 year old teenagers that are driving........

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

We watched Curly Sue, the old movie from the 90's I think, about a homeless girl and her friend whom they call her dad. The two try to get this rich lady to help them out by tricking her into thinking she hit the man with her car.

At some point Curly Sue goes into foster care.

We watched this as a family. It was rated PG.....in the 90's. To me that = fairly clean family movie cause I am so contaminated by filth today. The dang movie came off with the "b word" 3 times & "G D" like 4 times. The movie is cute, but the language was unexpected and made me feel like a crappy mom...........well, for a little while then I went to sleep and forgot about it.

.....so I had to take my car to the Hyundai dealership for some things to get checked out and they gave me a loaner cause it was apparently gonna take some time.

So I get this cute little red economy something or other with a sunroof and a 21,000 price tag.....

Sky loves the car. She comes in from the garage relaying her love for the red car with a sunroof.

She then asks me, "How long do we get to keep your foster car?"