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.

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.

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........

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!!!!!

My people are fixing to go into battle for crying out loud (Biltmore stuff).........

After we had eaten dinner at The Old Stone Inn (later on that) and had made it back to the cabin, D went out on the back deck to smoke a cigar and watch the storm coming in. I put on my PJ's and ate his Nutella dessert before he could eat it. I figured his dessert was a cigar, plus he said earlier I could have his Nutella dessert....even if he didn't mean it, I ate it.

So the storm comes in. We have the door open and all is quiet in Mr. Roger's neighborhood except the cool breeze blowing in and the sound of rain. We are both reading in total silence which is awesome! I have my Nook with Pillars of the Earth going to town. D has grabbed a real book from the side table about some mountain living and so forth from about the late 1960's to early 70's publishing time. I am not sure but some of those books may have been there since that house was built.

He starts talking to me about some mountain folks in the book. I stop reading to listen well. He informs me to keep reading he isn't going to go on & on, he just wanted to tell me about x, y, and z. When he has finished I pick back up where I left off. My people are fixing to go into battle for crying out loud, I am right in the middle of Medieval time battle anxiety and chaos.....

D- Babe! You have to look at this guy, he is standing on this piece of wood barefooted and cutting with his ax! LOOK at him.

I look at the mountain man. He is in fact using an ax barefooted with overalls on and no shirt underneath.

D goes into the what feels like an on and off 25 minute discussion about the fellow with no shoes on and his overalls hacking away at the round piece of wood that he believes is a wagon wheel in the making. When he realizes it is actually a water wheel, it freaking rocks his world. Then he goes into another discussion about the amount of work it took to whittle out the vanes and blah, blah, blah....on and on and now this other hillbilly, old fellow, dude has made a bee hive out of an old humongous log and he's telling me how to do this.

I dang HATE bees. This information will never be useful to me in anyway. I have to listen to him though cause he has been so sweet to me all weekend. He tells me about bees, queen bees, worker bees, bee hives, bee swarms, how to mark a tree in the old days so no one else claimed the tree and it wouldn't get cut down by loggers, how to track some bees, boiled bees, fried bees, bees soup, bee gumbo, bee ca-bobs, bee pudding, bees and rice, here a bee, there a bee, everywhere a bee, bee. He informs me he is gonna get some bees and make a bee hive out of a log.

A- Really Babe? My people are fixin to be in the middle of a battle in Earlshire or something or other and the dang stable is on fire.....You know I hate bees, we are never going to own a swarm of bees, freaking EVER.....

....then this.....

...there is a framed newspaper article and picture in the mountain house about this really, really, old woman that was related to his mom from way back when....way, way, way back when....she was a midwife among a lot of other things she did while she was alive. Truly she was an amazing woman. I hadn't read the article in many years.....but, again, then this...

D- Amy you just don't understand how hard these people had it till you think about all this stuff they had to do to get honey and grind corn and .....have you read that article on the wall over there about that woman? I mean sometimes people couldn't even pay her. All they had for payment was a dang squirrel.

A- (laughing, cause I suddenly remembered that part of the article. It never occurred to me as funny at the time. Now I am delirious over barefoot, no shirt wearing under overalls hillbillies who used to be sweet mountain men at the beginning of the conversation who are now keeping me from Medieval battle in my Pillars book.)

D starts laughing a little too cause he understands how funny that sounds now too.

I'm all in my mind..... birthing Skylar or Cole or something and suddenly saying to the doctor...um, I am sorry I forgot my debit card...... but I gotta squirrel. Do you take a squirrels?


If you pull his tail you can run his tongue through he slider. Now Doc... that's the wrong way. Now his testicles are stuck.....yer gonna get a decline runnin him that way......


A- Babe, Shut up! You are killin me. I love you and all but I don't want to hear one more thing about that barefooted man or idiot bees......

D- I am just sayin it's all interesting I bet Dad loves looking at these books.

......all is quiet a few minutes........then,

D- Hey Amy, look here we are at the Biltmore.

I look over my reading glasses at him with that blasted book, for sure I am half cocked.

He shows me this picture.

I have to laugh out loud, cause it does look like me a little. I swear when I get up in the morning, with mis-matched pajamas, my glasses, and some random shoes...maybe they are the same on both feet... maybe they aren't....

D- Look.....it's you ridin my a** like a donkey in the rain taking pictures of flowers.

So dang funny.

*

he gave me 3 containers of Floam and then drove away..............

As stated before I try not to play up the Santa Claus thing here at he house, cause it irritates me a little.

But one year on my way home from dropping Maysie off at an Awana Christmas party, I saw my neighbor leaving his house dressed up like Santa Claus. He had been playing Santa at one of his two kids Christmas parties.

It happened like this:

He got dressed as Santa for HIS kids Christmas parties thinking he was going to be a hero, feeling good about himself.

On his way out the door his next door neighbor had her mommy GPS on go. When he set foot out the front door she asked him if he'd stop by their house on the way in from the party later that night. She'd leave gifts on the porch, one for each of her three kids.

He said yes.

He arrived home that evening and was heading toward their house when I spotted him. I was in early stages of labor with Cole, so I am all crazed out in the mind pregnant thinking, "OH wouldn't it be super cool if he could visit Sky?! Let me see if I can make it happen."

I turn my car on two wheels and descend on Santa before he knows what's happening.

A- (hanging across my passenger seat, with my passenger seat window down, trying not to be in labor) Heeeeyy Santa....you wanna go for a ride to my house real quick and see a very bad little 3 year old girl.....please, please, plllleeeeeeeease?

Santa - I told R****** I 'd go see her kids. (He looks exhausted, but I am in labor and I don't care.)

A- (I didn't want to have to do this manipulative thing at Christmas but....I had to pull the trump card. I could tell he was going to totally bail) I'm in labor and I am begging you, feel sorry for me and get in my car. I will drive you home I swear, right after you do the deed. I'll give you cookies and milk.......and some floam to give my bad little girl.......

Santa - (still walking heading up the driveway and not wanting to tell me yes) Amy....I wasn't intending to do all this you know?......

A- I know......but really... right now, I am bigger than you. I could actually just take you down Santa and make you give my girl Floam and not give you any cookies............I will be your best friend......

Santa - (almost to their door now) Go home. Leave the gift on the steps and I will drive down when I am done here...and (he hollers down the porch steps) I don't want anymore cookies!

A- Okay then! (excited, mission accomplished)...I'm outta here, FLOAM wrapped up on the front steps! Her name is Skylar!

Santa waves me off to leave.

I rush home, get my big, fat, pregnant, in early labor butt in the house and hurry to put the gift on the porch before she sees me. D is all, "What is wrong with you? What are you doing?"

A- SH! I got Santa coming over here.....

D- What.....

A-Just be quiet and wait a dang minute.

ding dong

Sky runs out of her room. My dog is barking her head off cause no one rings our bell at night that late.

I open the door and there he is with the gift... "Ho Ho Ho Miss Skylar, how are you this evening pretty girl?"

Sky is seriously looking like, what the heck? Santa is at my door?

She is hanging onto my leg so tightly......D is grinning from ear to ear......

Santa - Skylar I have brought a gift for you this evening to open early....have you been a good little girl?

Sky- (always brutally honest, even at 3) um, no not really.

Santa -(he snickers a little cause he thought I was lying earlier) Well then, I will give you this gift if you will promise to be a good girl till Christmas......at least, right?........Mom?

A- Yes, yes Santa that would be fine. (So dang funny, Santa trying to give a bad girl a gift, with stipulations he knows by her truthful eyes she won't keep.)

A - I know you are surely busy Santa....and tired, you probably need to head off huh and get some rest before the big gift exchange next week.....

Santa - Yes, Yes I do....It was surely good to see you Miss Skylar, I do need to get back, but I will see you again soon....be good now.

I shut the door and Sky is in shock. While she is coming to terms with the fact Santa just came to her house, I sneak out the front door. I make haste out to his car to tell him, thank you, thank you, thank you, and that I owe him a lawn mowing or something in the spring. Which he did not collect on.

Santa getting in his car - "Are you really in labor?"

A- Yes, just early labor, I have a little bit of time before things start to rock and roll....

Santa - for petes sake......

A- Thank you again!

That was actually the night of two Kens......

One who was Santa.

One who would sleep on my couch at some unholy hour, in the middle of the night to stay with my kids while D and I went to the hospital. Well, actually until my mom could get here the next morning.

Anyhoo....all this story to say, Sky still believes in Santa. This little boy at church told her Santa wasn't real. She has never asked me about it so luckily I haven't had to address that.

....in the car on the way home from the mountains the weekend of May's b-day.....

S- Do you know what Z** C***** told me?

A, M, & Z- What?

CB- Who is Z** C*****?

S- He said Santa Claus wasn't real.

Z- Well, what did you say?

CB- Who is Z** C*****?

S- I said, well yes he is. He came to my front door and gave me 3 containers of Floam. Then he drove away in a car.........which was weird.

We all catch each others eyes in the car and smile.

CB- Who is Z** C*****?

All this time I didn't know she saw him pull out of the driveway in a car. :oD

watching our kids and talking about 5 lb bags of weed..........

Last night was a tornado in my mind.

First at the soccer field, this parent whom we've had contact with in very small amounts over the years, announced this in conversation with D and I, randomly and loud:

" I have been a good boy workin for the government all these years, and when I retire in x, y, z years.....I'm gonna buy myself a 5 lb. bag of weed, and a big bag of pills, then I'm gonna sit in my lawn chair in my front yard with my gun in my lap and watch people drive by."

.....then he spit out some brown dippin spit on the grass to the side of us and smiled showing us his straight white teeth.

......and D and I busted out laughing, cause who freakin announces something like that at a soccer field in front of all the other parents.

Dip Dude also tells us later that while he was coaching AYSO one year, his wife was so upset by a game that she followed a ref to the car to kick his butt. So Dip Dude had to forfeit the next game and write the assoc. in the town in which this event occurred, an apology letter. Then he relayed to us that his daddy told him he could date a girl from Ten Mile, but he shouldn't never marry one. He was warned.

A bit later in the evening, still at the field, a super fit late forty-ish early fifty-ish man, takes to the track. He pulls his shirt off in front of the concrete bleachers built into the hillside where a lot of parents are sitting, including us and Dip Dude......watching our kids and talking about 5 lb bags of weed, apparently.

The guy had super small, blue, somewhat fitted shorts on. He set his watch and commenced a full out run around the whole dang track. As he passed, all of us parents, of different fitness levels, thin to fat, watched him as he approached our visual left. He was in front of us now, our eyes glued to him...full out running, now sweating & fully upright in his posture.....he's passing us now to the right......He has all of our attention, young and old, male and female....in the need to break our trance induced by the half naked, fit man running, full out silence.....

Me- Good Lord, look at that guy go, that fellow is cuttin some air isn't he?

D- He is clocking himself...

Dip Dude - It's gotta be steroids, nobody that old runs that fast....

We join the other parents in the hoot an holler laugh....and I hear a mother say, "I don't run that fast lest I'm chasin a kid that needs thar butt whipped.....

Dip Dude - I quit runnin that fast when I got a real job.

On the car ride home that evening.......

Maysie and Sky happened to be walking on the track as 1/2 naked running man was sprinting....

M- There was this man, that was 1/2 naked, that came running past us with his boobs shaking and he said "Hi there," like he was Buzz Lightyear.

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

So then the fun, fun, fun, begins. Cole hasn't pee'd in his "night time diapo" in weeks. So I let him wear big boy underwear to bed.

At 2:30am he is standing in front of me wreaking of pee.

C- Mommy, I pee pee on my clothes.

A- Aw, Cole, why didn't you get up to go to the bathroom like you've been doing?

C- I was tired.

I sit up, start to pull off his wet clothing and he is truly wet from head to toe, which obviously is NOT GOOD. He is going to have to have a bath, a warm rag is not going to cut it. At 2:30am I put him in the shower, and put his wet clothing in my blue eggs and ham throw up sink to soak with the water running and some soap...that I forget to turn off by the way. D happens to get up, see it on the verge of flooding the bathroom and turned it off.

I head off to his room to change his bedding. But as all things are never easy at 2:45 in the morning, his water proof padding had shifted a bit and the waterproof mattress cover had not been put back on from some weeks back. So his soft fluff thing that sits on top of the mattress with memory foam in it has a wet spot too. Just a little one, but it will need to be cleaned too. Now suddenly, naked Cole is in his room with me. He does not smell clean.

.....unzip the cover off the fluff, drag it back to the bathroom, run Cole some warm bath water, put him back in the tub, scrub him down with soap and wash his hair, drain the water, put new soapy water back in the tub, put the top 1/4 of the fluff into the tub and commence to washing it out.

When the thing gets wet it weighs about .....500 ponds......wring it out and try to be grateful it is just a small area at the top and not in the middle or somewhere stupid, hang it up over the shower to dry and get Cole dressed. Now both Cole and fluff smell very clean, he has clean sheets on and the waterproof mattress cover is in it's proper place.

I convey to him the need to not get up at 6:30 am unless he wants to take a dirt nap. He clearly understood cause it is now 8:35 am and no where in site.

But I am in a FOUL mood when I get up cause I was never able to go back to sleep and I had a headache and when I weighed this morning I had lost no weight. Despite the fact I am eating as healthy as Derrick and walking two miles or more 3 to 4 times a week AND I had aerobic activity from 2:30am to 3:30am......D has now lost 14 pounds with NO EXERCISE.

So I spout off my agitation to him. He is all, "Well just go eat the world then and give up."

Well, that is exactly what I felt like doing except my dang jaw hurts when I eat something hard and I feel sick to my stomach when I eat something sweet. So I determine my self not to blow this, cause ultimately this is good for me no matter what. However my attitude stills sucks.

D is leaving and not kissing me good bye. "Why? Cause I am ugly and crazy this morning?"

D- It's not the way you look that is ugly.....(the attitude...but he did kiss me anyway)

My devotional this morning......Unto you, O Lord, do I bring my life......Psalm 25:1

...about consecrating my my life for this day over to the Lord...not just my money, or one hour on Sunday, not just my ugly attitude, but my whole day, my whole life fully and entirely. Turning over undisciplined thoughts, weaknesses and bad habits.....closing my ears to the noise of the world and opening them to the voice of God. Intentionally distancing myself from ungodly things in my life....like my bad attitude and some other stuff.

Thank you Lord that I do have available to me and my family healthy food to choose from. Thank you Lord for the stamina you give to me to wreak havoc on time throughout the day when I feel exhausted. Thank you for shutting me down before I really get going and screw up. Thank you for my husband who tells me I am not ugly when I feel ugly.

Amen

I do not not like blue eggs and ham...........

Let me see.....

Last Thursday night the angles opened up the flood gates of heaven and it rained like mad. Frogs and worms galore running for higher ground or something.

Friday morning when I go out to get the paper the sun is out but it's cool & windy. There are hundreds of worms all over my driveway and the road. Some trying to get back to the wet soil and some squashed from being ran over by going to work traffic.

In the spirit of The Starfish Story, I threw a few back into the grass to save them. The Starfish Story, by Loren Eisley...... you know?

One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed
a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean.

Approaching the boy, he asked, “What are you doing?”

The youth replied, “Throwing starfish back into the ocean.
The surf is up and the tide is going out.

If I don’t throw them back, they’ll die.”

“Son,” the man said, “don’t you realize there are miles

and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish?
You can’t make a difference!”

After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish,
and threw it back into the surf. Then, smiling at the man, he said…”
I made a difference for that one.”

I brought the Friday paper into the house and announced there were hundreds of worms dying on the driveway and on the front road...."Who wants to help me save some worms?!"

(cricket, cricket.....cricket, cricket ......stomp, stomp, stomp)

"I do MOM, wait for me!!!!!" says Cole.

Cole has on his pajamas, a coat and too big bedroom slippers, I have on my pajamas, a jacket and a do-rag on my afro. We are armed with a pair of dull tweezers and science prongs. On our mission to save the wormy world, we are out the door.

CB & I saved 231 worms Friday morning. It's a good thing too cause the birds were plentiful in scraping all the dried up dead one off the roads. One might say the worms were manna from heaven for starving birds, but just so you know that isn't true cause the birds in my yard have been well fed this winter.

So we are wormy heroes. Cole has a cape and wormy red squiggler dance to prove it.

Saturday morning Cole got up and said to me, "Hey Mom, I think we need to go and save some worms!" He had his purple Bible man cape on and his too big bedroom shoes.

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

Speaking of missions....I have been on a mission to make sure my people are generally more healthy. Turns out D had some months to get on a diet and lose some weight or he was gonna get type 2 diabetes.

He didn't do it. Now he has type 2 diabetes.

He didn't believe himself to be a "real diabetic" cause he didn't have to give himself shots. BUT diabetes is diabetes is diabetes....

Anyhoo, I have been on a perpetual diet since I have given birth to my first child. So I had been on him about what to eat and this and that. He didn't really care to listen to me, cause if I am such a diet guru why aren't I loosing weight??

Well, lets see.... I am getting older too. No matter how healthy I eat, if I don't exercise I ain't loosing it. That is how my body works. I can maintain, but I ain't loosing no weight lest I exercise, so.... next....

He had an appt with a nutritionist and he was going to do whatever they said. So I was to go with him cause I guess they figure the spouse will ride their butts & make them stick to the diet. She told him everything I had told him basically, oh and by the way, stick yourself two times a day. I had put him on a pretty healthy balanced diet before the for the appt. By the time he got the stick yourself kit and nutrition info, he'd lost 10 pounds already and his blood sugar was GREAT! I am super proud of him for sticking(no pun intended) to this and being fully committed to being aware of what he puts in his body.

So D is about settled in to what his new food life looks like. Prior to D's rude awakening though, I had been trying to get my kids to eat more balanced. It was going okay with subtle changes and still is, but I added a multivitamin made for teens to May and Z's morning.

The thing is, Z's One a Day is freaking BLUE dye#123456789. When you are trying to be dang healthy....why blue dye that your body can't process?? um...stupid.....

So Z tries it after he eats, he throws up....before bed, he throws up.....empty stomach, throws up...

He wants to take a multivitamin badly, but they are making him sick. I told Z, "Do NOT take that vitamin anymore it is not good for you apparently, you have tried it 3 times and you haven't been able to keep it down." So he quit.

Little known to me though he attempted to take it 30 minutes after a meal again and he did just fine with it. Z relays this to me. So he takes the vitamin for a couple weeks 30 minutes or so after his breakfast meal and seems cool.

But dang Friday, he ate 3 eggs and bacon and randomly some beef jerky & took the vitamin to soon.

Cole - Mom! Zac's throwing up in your sink!

I go into the bathroom. Z is hangin over my sink. Mind you the toilet is 2 STEPS, that is 1 1/2.... 12 X 12 tile lengths in side steps to his left.... is my toilet. He is hanging over my sink....with partially digested blue eggs and bacon backing up my sink. DISGUSTING!!!

A - SON! Why are you in my sink with your partially digested blue food?? The toilet is 2 dag gone steps on your left.....You couldn't go just 2 more steps and hit my toilet where the partially digested blue eggs & bacon could just be flushed??

Z- Oh Man! That was the delicious beef jerky too....DANG!

A- DO NOT take those vitamins any more, I am throwing them in the trash right now. I am not cleaning this up(which I know is a somewhat lie).

Z- MAN!! That was all of the beef jerky too, what a waste.....(clearly not phased by the mess, but distraught by the loss of the meat)

A- Zac clean this up, right now......clean it up well and with comet.

..leaving the bathroom I hear this...........

Z-....."I do not not like blue eggs and ham, I do not like them Zac I am...."

There's no hair extentions in tha alamo.......

We went to a Super Bowl Party at Caesar & Cornelia's(Caesars wife's name as told by history for real , not just blog stuff.....or at least his first wife anyway).

Cornelia's house was set up perfectly for a Super Bowl Party.....plenty of room for food, flat screens everywhere inside and out, and good company galore.

I don't normally even watch the football game, not even the commercials. It has always seemed like a waste of 4 hours, generally. I usually watch the National Anthem then I am off to do something else. If the person singing the anthem starts going off on their own tangent singing God knows what, I don't even listen to that.

Whitney Houston still ranks number one in my National Anthem book.

see it here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupsPg5H6aE

I did like the Doritos commercials. Those were pretty funny. This one is hilarious...



and this one too...



Last night though, I really enjoyed the football game. The game, itself....was exciting to me. I'm not a hoot and holler type girl unless it's one of my kids playing, but hanging out with my neighbors which I hadn't done since before Christmas was AWESOME!

There was this delicious dessert pizza that used sugar cookie dough for the crust. It had this amazing white stuff for the sauce and the toppings were pineapple, strawberries, small oranges, and bananas and something else I'm sure....

ROCKED MY DANG TASTE BUDS WORLD, delicious!!!

I am going to have dreams about it for sure.

Anyhoo, somehow it came up that the guys had long hair...and by the way, were they hair extensions? A bunch of us girls determined they had to be. To which the guys could give us play by play on why they were not, the hair was real.

In my mind I heard the Alamo, Texas, high pitched voice, of the lady from Pee Wee Herman's movie...."There's no hair extentions in tha Aaalamoe."

So I decided to check it out by looking at back photos of long haired NFL players. This is what I think.......

This guys hair is real....

Troy Polamalu


and so is this guys.....

Usama Young...2006


2007


2010.......see a sort of natural progression.....believable


and maybe this guy too.....

Phillip Wheeler....2008


2010....



So, for the few I looked up I would say there are surely signs of natural hair growth progression.

However I am 100% sure as fads go, there is some NFL player with hair extentions, trying to "jack" somebody's "style" by "copying their swagger"........

See how I use the hip & cool city lingo with natural ability.


Yo.....

Does A + B really = C? So say I, NO!!..............

aahhhh, yes, there is the age old question of love.......

My 85 year old grandmother(Momma-Bet) brought her 93 year old boyfriend with her to my house this Christmas, we call him Papa Bill. They have been together now about 11 years maybe a little more, I can't quite remember.

I always think when I am that age, God willing, I am surely going to be so done trying to learn someone else's ways. All the time I hear of older folks dating these days.

Its funny cause I always say if D were to leave me or were to pass before me I would never remarry cause marriage is a lot of work. D always says he would surely remarry cause he needs someone to take care of his kids.....uuuuuuhh good luck wife hunting with that buddy, cause you don't have 1 kid, but 4. :oD

Once while we were tubing down this creek called Deep Creek in North Carolina. This gal was flirting with D and so forth. I was all from the creek bank, "Hey lady! He's cute and all but he drives a big fat minivan with 4 kids in it under the age of 9, float on yer tube a while on that!!!" I didn't really see her after that.

I love being married cause there is total security in being married. You always have your best friend at your fingertips. That person is almost always accessible to you, that person gets your inner workings even if they don't always understand you or agree with you. Your spouse is a constant when you lay your head on your pillow at night. At the end of a hard day or a great day that person is there to know it and share it with you. Cause mostly nobody else really cares about the things you care about. When they are in your face, they care with you, but when they walk away....out of sight, out of mind. That is usually not the case with your spouse.

Well, if you are both on the same page anyway.

Marriage is hard though because you have two totally separate people with their own ways that are constantly changing as they grow older and wiser (or so we think) trying to function as one in unity. Really......men are completely separate beings from women and we are not created equal.

Try to get over yourself for a second if you think you are equal to a man, cause you aren't, or you would be a man, and you aren't....you're a woman.

Equal to me means the same in every way. 2+2 = 4= 3+1 and so forth...4 is 4 and will always be 4.

Man is man and woman is woman, each created with differences that should be celebrated for what they are and not equality. It's not that I think women can't be engineers and whatever with all that job crap, I mean as human beings.

At the very core of who we are, a man and a woman, trying to come together and function as one. Different yet trying to be the same in unity. It's a hard job. Folks don't really tell young people how hard they are going to have to work when they are getting married usually, and even if they do young people don't really listen....cause they are in love with being in love and can't hear the real stuff. You know, about the riding the perfect wave moments along with the barely treading water and trying to gasp for breath while waiting for the perfect wave again.

I whole heartily believe marriage is a good and God blessed thing in human life. But equal we are not, in a marriage, there is the giver and the taker and they switch roles regularly. When you are the giver you are the bend and remake yourself for the other person.

It is non negotiable.

WHAT?! Who said that?!

I'm serious, if one person is not the bender and re-maker, there is no compromise and there is no unity and harmony. It's the truth. I am just saying it out loud that's all.

Sometimes I am the one who remakes myself to fit the other and sometimes I am the one who will not bend and D has to take the role of compromise and make adjustments. Which brings me to my point. People now are, generally speaking, so hung up on the my goals, my well being, my wants & needs in a relationship that they are not willing to bend and they check out of the marriage.

To me that's lazy and lame. Here is the other thing, some folks know it's lazy and lame to check out, but they don't care cause the "me factor" is to strong.

Being married & raising children are the hardest responsibilities I have ever had. They are the responsibilities though, that my very life depends on. Everything about me has to do with those connections.

Constantly on my mind these days in thinking on who I am, what I hope to accomplish in my life, what thumb print will be left behind when I pass - positive or negative.....is that the whole of myself revolves around others.

The struggle to do what I want has completely disappeared until I really don't even know what I want or even like anymore.....

WHAT??!! Amy, that sounds awful!

Here is a truth, almost all women I speak to these days, feels the exact same way at one time or another.

If you are a man reading that you are saying...."Okay, next.......crazy hormonal woman issue, whatever, next."...... enter thoughts I am done reading this, I'm bored now, blog on something funny....

If you are woman reading that, you might be saying..."I know EXACTLY what you are saying, yes, I get that, but if my husband asks me about this I will say no, I won't exactly tell the whole truth."

Enter the differences between man and woman.......things hugely important to us seem like a speed bump to men. I don't fault men for that. They are different from us.

I have been reading these books about understanding men, cause I need some help apparently.

I believe I know D pretty dang well. But in an effort to stay connected to him while raising our kids I just felt the need to pursue something more in the context of understanding. I feel the "my wants and my needs" syndrome dragging me along the path of "I don't care anymore," cause life just gets so full.

So in curiosity I jumped in and these are the main things I came to know as truths from the books I purchased...

1. He needs to be respected

2. He needs to be needed

3. He needs to be fulfilled

.......not in this order obviously

vs truths about women...

1. Affection.......affection, means showing love, not showing sex

2. need open, honest communication

3. Commitment to family

In my quest for understanding, I found I understood things pretty well, but needed to make some adjustments on things I am uncomfortable with making.....and therefore have not made those adjustments.........yet.......eeeesh.

I found that men believe themselves to understand things pretty well, but they completely miss the boat in understanding female inner workings & generally men don't want to read a book to know about it or hear about it from a woman. They are not as willing to make adjustments in general and believe that if a woman A's (you know, wink, wink) then BCDEFGHIJKLMNOP will fall properly into place for the whole universe and peace for all nations, world without end Amen.

This is where they miss the boat in my opinion. Though women understand men are visual very well, they do not understand we are not....we generally tend to be acts driven. The way we feel attracted to them is when they show us they care by way of actions.

The action needed by a specific woman is unique to that woman. A man would need to see what actions make their wife tick and hop on that band wagon a while. When the wife sees he cares about what is important to her without her nagging, she in turn feels love and attraction to her mate, because he is showing he cares about what is important to her. She is less tired and the brain switches gears a little more precisely.

These are the things I have learned thus far.

I have to go and do something constructive now, like put up Christmas stuff and take down lights outside.

I will finish this topic when I am done with the quest, God only know when.........

Please weigh in on the anonymous poll in the top right corner of the blog, so I can see if on my quest my boat is floating or sinking.

This is how you know.........

This is how you know kids live in yer house....

When you get up and there are sticky "muscle men" hanging from yer ceiling
and sticking to other walls in the living room area......

When your dog is wearing yer youngest child's clothing.....















When you download yer photos off yer camera and yer oldest daughter's uvula shows up, because she "likes" her uvula and thinks it's "cute"......and hey.... by the way, watch she "can make it dance".....

When you go to cut tomatoes and dinosaurs are preying on them......
























....and then later in the day the dinosaur apparently needs a drink or something and needs to climb on piled up stuff to get there......