Hey! I'm half way to dead...ain't nobody got time for dat

"I know you don't read my memo's, so in case you are unaware, I am now a super villian."  
       - Mosely, The Suite Life

It's funny how quickly the right things in life become the wrong things....and the wrong things become the right things depending on who you are hanging out with.

As you get older you think  that wisdom through trial and error will grant you the gift of discernment.  It doesn't though.  I believe discernment is truly a gift from God that not everyone is given.  Certainly as adults we love to have the favortism of those that are well liked, cause then we feel well liked. Who doesn't want to be loved and adored by most people? If you say it doesn't matter what people think, then I believe you are a liar...dig deeper, it's there.

It's those times when folks ask of you to turn a blind eye, wink away certain behavior, or excuse it with immaturity to stay with the well liked group and to "be like everyone else" or "get on board" that we figure out who we really are on our own.

Drama starts as children, rocks hormones to the foundation as teens, annoy's the hell out of us in our 20's and 30's......and by our 40's, heck we are half way to dead.  Do we really want to spend the next 40 years of our God given lives dancing around everyones clearly seen stupidity and bad choices?

NO! I just want to be all ...REAL TALK IN YOUR FACE... and be done. By the time I speak all the nice words that coddle your ego and make you feel all furry bunnies and rainbows....I'll dang grow a freaking beard and die.

 "Ain't nobody got time for dat"

The thing is, being a Christian now is hard work for me. It shouldn't be, but it is.

Like....feeling God's grace and knowing His presence in my everyday and all day comings and goings is as natural as breathing. I'd suffocate literally without this constant hand holding session God has with me.

Dealing with stupid people = hard work......HARD WORK, intense manual labor. It's funny because these people believe in themselves and their faith is in themselves and the popularity they surround themselves with. So they "are always right." The entourage tells them so because that is what itching ears want to hear.

This is where the gift of discernment is halted. The things you once knew were right and good and planned to never leave, knowing bad things come from making rash decisions.....have now become the wrong things, and unpopular, and hard.....so they are left as thoughts in the file cabinet of the mind.....

.....to be picked back up at a later date when humbleness has forced your hand and won.......again.   Discernment will not be gained though, for alas, it is a gift.

If or when you come to the knowledge you haven't been given this gift....surround yourself with the folks who have it. Folks who love the Lord with all their heart, their soul, their strength, and their mind, so that your pathway will be much straighter.

A lot of times people who do the right things that are deemed wrong by the world or by the popular, unknowing, useful crowd. Then they are made to stand alone until (Warning REAL TALK that won't coddle an ego) life blows up in your face and you want to talk about it....just.... a little bit...... that turns into weeks of chaos of the mind.

It's pretty sad really.

I have been thinking a lot about Mulims lately because the beginning of Ramadan was today I think. They are afforded so many rights that we as Christians are not.  They are aloud to discriminate and be racist, to celebrate holidays without ridicule and are even celebrated in the media with positivity, they disrespect the role of women in 100 ways, and on and on.....

The reason people give them the respect they command as a religion is because they stand up for their god boldly and believe in what they are doing with the purpose of serving their god to be looked upon as righteous and good, we may see them as radical or crazy.....but what they are is crazy in love with their god, seeking his approval and blessings for faithfulness.....and so many times Christians just aren't.

.....and we are losing our people.....by our own self destruction. Worshipping the world and calling it changing with the times...trying to make God more hip and appealing to younger people ...

.....when the message is already appealing by itself. If we could be as radical and as crazy in love with the ONE TRUE GOD, seeking His approval and boldly standing alone for what is right....just to have Him smile upon us if for no other reason.....because His radical love makes us radical people.

I am downhearted about what our churches are becoming. Not even that you expect to find a perfect church, cause there are none, but just that you hope to find one where integrity and character mimic that of Christ consistently from the leadership down and not vice versa.

I am beginning to think America is surely not mentioned in Revelation because we are so incredibly weak in our faith and our knowledge of what God is really capable of.

There were a lot of things I used to want in a church for my family, but now I long for all Christian churches to put off what we deem as "church" and put on straight up, pure, radical love for Christ, HIS WORD, His adoration and love for one another and our neighbor as ourselves.

..............cause what we  do is play church......My heart weighs full to capacity with confusion and sickness.

Warning! REAL TALK is fixing to not coddle your ego, look away now: I am afraid to invite people to church. Scary folks, called Christians, live there and they could hurt you.

They do it all the time, and wink it away.

Yo!.................

In the car on the way to the home school co-op  on Thursdays we listen to 102.3 in the morning.  Its one of the pop stations here.  The DJ's are pretty clean in the morning and funny.  One them is "type A" I think and with all the OCD stuff we got going on, we find some of his stuff pretty funny.  Two of the DJ's give the type A guy a hard time but, as I see it, he handles them well.  In the afternoon though, the music is pretty dang iffy. We end up having to turn the channel.


I remember when my mom would have a conniption fit  if she saw us watching MTV when it first came on. My brother and I would watch it while she was at work, after school.  That's also when rap music was getting a foot in the door. Remember "Yo! MTV Raps" with Ed Lover & Doctor Dre?  So dang funny....


Anyway, we got in the car after their classes to head on home.  The radio station was still on 102.3 and this song was playing with a pretty good beat, that sort of made you want to dance and get day rolling, so we left it there.  Feeling pretty good heading for Game Stop to return some stuff, getting hair cuts, and then going to the gym.....feeeeeeeling gooooood.


Almost through the week and heading for the weekend. thump thump thumpin, dancin in the car, Sippin sizzurp in my ride, like Three 6
Now I’m feelin so fly like a G6
Like a G6, Like a G6
Now I’m feelin so fly like a G6

What?

We always listen to the words in the songs...cause OCD..... God forbid someone hears something that causes bad thoughts, has a cuss word, something that provokes bad thoughts to go wild and confessions nonstop for days.  We are all usually very careful about what goes into the minds of people in my house..........CAUSE IT WREAKS HAVOC...AAAAAAHHHHHH

This day though it took a while for us to catch up with the song cause we were all so happy to be done with classes and heading back towards the casa.

(song going on)

"Poppin bottles in the ice, like a blizzard
When we drink we do it right gettin slizzard
Sippin sizzurp in my ride, like Three 6
Now I’m feelin so fly like a G6
Like a G6, Like a G6
Now I’m feelin so fly like a G6

Gimme that Mo-Moet
Gimme that Cry-Crystal
Ladies love my style, at my table gettin wild
Get them bottles poppin, we get that drip and that drop
Now give me 2 more bottles cuz you know it don’t stop

(808) Hell Yeaa
Drink it up, drink-drink it up,
When sober girls around me, they be actin like they drunk".......um Z & I fighting to flip the station quickly.


um, yeah, that song is......... not good.


So Z is all, "What is a G6?"


A- I think its a plane or jet or something, maybe that's why she feels "fly."


S- She said she was sipping scissors, getting DRUNK!


Oh gosh, here we go.....


A- Sky, nobody drinks scissors and gets drunk, thats retarded.  I don't know what she said, who cares about that girl anyway, she's gross.


distraction, distraction, distraction till we get focused on something else and she has forgotten it.


A couple days later Z and I were looking up some songs for our MP3's and decided to look up the words to that song.


Z- What is slizzard?


A- I don't know, look it up. (we google what is slizzard)


Urban Dictionary tells us it is a "slutty lizzard."


A- Well that makes no sense. She is getting slutty lizzard?  


We giggle a little. We redo the search and it tells us this is the urban word for getting drunk.


Z- So she is getting drunk on sizzurp. Well what is that?


So we google... What is sizzurp?


OOOOOOkay. Sizzurp is a "purple drank" (this is a link BTW if you want to read for your self) made out of cough syrup, codeine, and some fizzy beverage from the grocery store....mostly grape.


A G6 is in fact a fancy jet in the extreme price zone.


Z- Well this song is certainly full of furry bunnies and rainbows now isn't it.....


We cut up a little more, then determine that this song belongs in the bottomless trash pit along with anything Ke$ha sings.  Cause she is a complete moron who offers ZERO to young females that is positive.


So this whole song that young people listen to, sing and dance too....is about a girl/guy using a homemade illegal concoction to get drunk at the club.  She is feeling like a G6 because she is high...not fly.


I am serious, I hate to sound freaking old and all but the songs that filter through our young peoples minds are contamination at its fullest.  The gal Ke$ha tells young people she brushes her teeth with Jack Daniels and tries to get tipsy, she sings she wears ripped up stockings looking sexy with Jesus hanging on her neck, the whole time she's cussing it up during the song. (I looked this song up after seeing her on Dick Clark's New Years thing acting like, lets see....an idiot) They have actually made her music into the Kids Bop crap they sell on TV.....I am just astounded.


I know we had Guns and Roses in our time and rap music was getting popular back when my mom was conniption fitting.  But I  swear music gets more and more bold promoting things that are not good for our bodies in every way.
Music is huge in teen life.  The things we filter into them is exactly what we are going to get out of them.  Its sad to me that this is quality we are serving on platinum, diamond crusted platters for our young people to aspire too. 


There is a gaping hole of no hope in getting slizzard or brushing ones teeth with Jack Daniels.


I don't expect young people to listen only to Christian music, cause that isn't all I listen to.  I enjoy all kinds of music from Pavarotti, Hank Williams, Jr, and Dougie Fresh to Yiruma, James Taylor, & Third Day.  But gosh, it troubles me terribly the stuff so boldly flying out of the mouths of celebrities and media that bring no good to those who hear.
It seems like a more and more impossible task to compete with the world for young peoples attention for Jesus.


All the while diligent Christ lovers are looking to turn young people onto Him and they view Christianity as hypocritical, constrictive, and old school.  Constantly being bombarded by famous people telling them "Heaven seems like a boring place, maybe they can a have room there and vacation in Hell a few days a year."


That scares the crap out of me.  When I hear music like this, celebrities spouting off their careless words, and the media in general, including gaming geared towards kids who love things their parents hate......I have to pray hard for Christ to give me peace that he is in control. That His victory will be so in the end.  More specifically that I am equipped to witness properly to young people who seek my attention. So that I may fully understand what it takes for me to show them that Jesus Christ is more than "boring," He's my everything and no happiness in my body exist without him.


I have to be ready.  I hope every time I talk with a young person they seek the thing in me which is different from that which they get from the world.   


The ability to see beyond the now and aspire to the things that matter eternally.

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!!!!!

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."

*

I am sure other parents do stuff I don't like.....

...because little kids examine themselves in the mirror trying to figure out their bodies and stuff, CB discovered his birthmark on his butt. His birth mark is a bout 1 1/2 inches long and maybe a 1/2 inch wide.....

He comes to me in the laundry room....naked, as usual ....

CB- MOM! Look what you did! You spilled your coffee on me and stained my butt! Look what you did.......

It's the exact color of a coffee stain. I had never noticed that before.

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

I saw a dog hanging out of a car window waggin its tongue....the dog had on blue goggles.

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

To keep Skylar interested in reading we have been reading The Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. They are hilarious. The movie just came out on DVD, I love it, it's hilarious. I think it's surely one of my favorite kids movies. Cole does a great impersonation of the Indian kid, who tells Greg Heffley, the main character, that he almost got the infamous "cheese touch."

Anyway.. I am convinced the best way to keep a kid interested in reading is to get them interested in books they love to read. One can only read about George Washington and the pilgrims so many times before they began to hate reading, thus dreading it. Many of the books for required reading at this age are not very engaging.

I dread reading time with Sky...blah, blah, blah, blah....blah, blah....blah, blah, blah...blah, blah, blah, blah....Oh my gosh, then some poetry, I want to scratch my face off...humbly, bumbly, tumbly , in my rumbly fumbly, gumbly, zumbly.......can't do it right now. Understanding for that stuff comes much later than 3rd grade.

I have never figured out why they put these awful books on required reading list when kids hate them and dread reading them. Let me say I am fully aware that The Diary of a Wimpy Kid books ARE NOT classic literature or even could stand in the same line with the classics. However, if I can't get my kid to read the classics cause she hates reading...I haven't gotten anywhere anyway.

You don't get to The Screwtape Letters, Jane Eyre, and Shakespeare because you just can't get enough freaking "Susie loves to go to church, her mommy and daddy love George Wash ing ton and the first Thanksgiving. Everything in the world is furry bunnies and rainbows. The End."

One has to climb a mountain before they can stand on top and claim conquered with their flag waving and arms raised in victory!

Okay I am so done with that rant.

SOOOooo, in the name of learning to enjoy writing and some outside of the box creative thinking, I let her buy The Diary of a Wimpy Kid, do it yourself book. I thought it'd be a waste of cash really but she wanted it and she was willing to pay for it out of her account. She loves the dag gone book. Sky wants to write in it constantly, to the point of I am fixing to hide the thing and tell her it's lost.

To those who have never read the books or seen the movie, "Zoo-Wee Mama" is the punch line to dumb jokes and barely understandable cartoons. In my house "Zoo-Wee Mama" should be a new word in Webster's Dictionary, right along with the distraction word, "Squirrel!" from the movie, Up.


The book has cartoons you are to fill in with your words like this one Maysie did here....

To me this is classic "Zoo-Wee Mama."

So I start to draw one of my own thinking I am sort of creative this should be easy. I drew a complete blank after I drew the first picture, grew frustrated, and wrote some random caption about Elmo on crack. I told Sky to erase it and re-do it with her own, cause I was blank on the Zoo-Wee Mama and forgot about it.

The next day Sky brings me this that she has completed and drawn herself....

Which I thought was hilarious. I know, I know, most parents don't like this kind of talk.....that's fine. I am sure other parents do stuff I don't like.....try to move on, it's funny.


*

http://www.wimpykid.com/

*

no....just chill out............

We made it to the mountain house after an extremely looooooonnnnnng drive over the mountain.  This dude from another state, but not Florida or Texas was driving like 15 mph.  I am not exaggerating.  He might have went 20 mph at some point but I just can't be sure.  There were about 120 places he could have pulled off and let the cars stacked up behind him go by...but he just chose not too.

At first we were all... so what if it takes a while we are alone and together and in no hurry.  Then after about 20 minutes we were like is this guy for real?  Who puts their brakes on going up a mountain at a speed one could walk faster?  Derrick is generally honk yer horn happy. He told me he was going to start honking his horn at every pull off and maybe the guy would get a hint and pull over.  We now had 16 cars stacked up behind us(I counted).  We were #2 behind some Floridians who were growing impatient also and had started to totally ride the dudes bumper.


D commences the horn honking on three different pull offs and by now I am all for it.  I'm ready to scratch my face off thinking I may grow a beard and die before we get to Bryson City.  The guy does not pull off.

We go through a tunnel and as a tradition we always honk the horn in long dark tunnels....so we honk some more for fun now cause he is obviously not going to pull off.  EVERY car behind us lays on the horn as they go through the tunnel.  D and I snicker to each other cause we know everyone is getting delirious.  They don't just "toot toot", they

toooot toooooot toot toot toooooooooot 


...it's stress relief.

It has been some tiiiiiiiiiiimmmme now for real. I think folks had settled into never getting to their destinations.....except for the Florida peeps who were almost about to ride connected to the back seat belts in the slow dudes car....when he suddenly decides to pull off ....at a pull off like he's freaking supposed to do instead of back up traffic.

• I roll my window down.
• Florida stomps their gas and takes off, we don't ever see them again.
• I hang my head out of the truck and make the raise the roof dance motion and holler as loud as I can accessing my inner redneck, "Wooooooooooo, yeah!  Way to go dude, Alllllriiiiight!!!!"

In that order.

As I pass I see a balding late 20 something male looking out his rolled down car window smiling at all the passing cars.  I swear, I swear.... he is looking proud of himself, like he has really done a good deed  for all man kind....and believe me he has in a way.

He appears to be amazed at all of the cars he has backed up by this time.

My heart thinks I have truly seen a real live moron. In fact I think my mouth may have said it out loud and D's concurred with it.

...so we get to the house, unload a few groceries, unpack, put sheets on the bed and chill out a bit before dinner on the deck... reading the paper and so forth.

I get caught up in my Pillars of the Earth book and D begins to cook dinner.  I tell him I will come in and help as soon as I get to a stopping point. D says to me, "No, just chill out with your Nook," and I decide to do just that.

Soon it's getting dark and I can't see on my Nook as well as I had been able to about 45 minutes to an hour ago and I am smelling garlic galore....

D- Come eat!

This is what I see when I go inside. 

Menu

• fresh basil linguine & shrimp with a fresh, garlic, parsley, basil, and Parmesan cheese sauce
• Ciabatta bread with Benissimmo dipping olive oil
• Spring Salad with balalmic vinegarette dressing(my favorite)
• Smoking Loon Merlot(another favorite)
• For dessert he made a NUTELLA Mousse  the night before we left so it'd be ready for dinner on this night.

Everything was delicious tasting.  I couldn't have had a better meal in a restaurant.

  All was super quiet.
      We didn't eat fast purposefully.
            It was my dream dinner.
                 I felt really special and loved.

He took care to make things he knew I would go nuts over.  I am so glad we ate at the mountain house instead of going out.  This was definitely a night that will rank high in my memory files cause literally everything was perfect.

When we were cleaning up the dishes I found this.

Which I thought was sort of funny.

A- So what did you do? Google romantic dinner for two?

D- Yes.  You aren't supposed to be looking at my cheat sheets...give me those(yanks them from me and puts them away).

I was secretly glad he had cheat sheets cause it told me he took the time to care about what were going to do on this rare occasion we had alone more than 2 hours.  I believed it to be thoughtful and I liked it a lot.

After dishes we gabbed some more on the back deck about the book he was reading, then about the book I was reading, then about how people write such clever books, then about this and that and on and on and on....

.....not once were D and I interrupted by a wee little voice that said we needed to wipe a butt or break up a squabble.  I missed my kids....

......but just not that much at that moment.    ;o)



....cause.....I knew Nana was wiping butts.   :oD

when you put a platypus in someone's bed it's called a platy-prank.............

Uncle Charlie to Maysie some time ago - What did you do to your hair?

M- I got it highlighted.

UC- Yeah one time I highlighted some strands of my hair....the ones that were more important than the others.

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

May to me one night before dropping them off at Awana - Are you going to fix your hair?

A- Yes.

M- Good. It looks like the curly wall of terror and doom.

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

Z in the car on the way to soccer practice - Did you know that a platypus is poisonous?

A- No

Z pretending to be a geek and dorking out someone else dorkier than himself - Hey, ya know that kid over there?.....Well, he got bit by a platypus. Now he has platy-pox.

M (from the back seat somewhere)- ....and he had to take some platy-pills and rush to the platy-porcelain pony when he had to platy-poop. He had to platy-pray to the platy-pope for healing so he wouldn't become platy-paralyzed.

A, Z, S, & CB (insert much laughing)

M- You have to cook platypus eggs in a platy-pan......and when you put a platypus in someone's bed it's called a platy-prank.

A, Z ,S ,& CB (insert much laughing)

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

Getting in the car for practice one night, it's just me, Z, and one other kid, I can't remember which one, probably Cole. Cole is in his car seat Z climbs all the way to the back of the van. I am like why is he sitting all the way back there?

A- Why are you sitting all the way back there?

Z- I don't know I just felt like it.

A- Well, sit up front or in the middle?

Z- Why? What difference does it make where I sit?

A- Number one because I said so. Number two because I am your mother not your chauffeur. I don't chauffeur you around from event to event cause I have nothing better to do...because that's my job. I purposefully drive you to those events because I want to watch you play. I want you to have a good time doing what you enjoy. So when you sit up front it acknowledges to me that you understand I am not your maid, I am your mother who chooses to take you to your happy place.

Z moving up front huffing a bit.....I know he is rolling his eyes though I cannot see it.

Z- Why Lord......do females have to be so dang complicated all the time?

The way I see it....I'm just breaking him in well for his future wife.......

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

I haven't had the time to blog or do anything that remotely causes my brain to rot in decompression since school started and it's not going to get better any time soon. The only thing I can do is drive from place to place and try to "keep up with the Jones' " which I despise. I can't stand running all over Hell and creation throwing money out of my car windows in the form of gas and losing what feels like a life time in the drivers seat of my car. Keeping the files in my mind in order so as not to skip something is a freaking chore these days.

So one morning while lamenting in despair over my Outlook calendar looking like someone threw up lego blocks on it in the form of activities that steal my valuable time.....Cole shuffles into my room in the early morning darkness and crawls up in my lap. He nods back off to sleep.

I notice his top lip pushed forward as he sucks his thumb hard. I can smell his breath, it wreaks of a good nights sleep. I can see the veins in his eyelids, smoothly covering his big greenish eyes. I notice his stark white hair bleached from the summer sun and his tan body hanging all over me. His legs have gotten so long that they hang over one side of my chair and his head is hanging over the crease of my other arm on the other side.

My baby is so long all of the sudden.....in fact he isn't even a baby or a toddler, he's a little boy. When the heck did that happen? I try to hold him more like a baby to see if it will change my perspective, but it doesn't.

He's really big.

My last baby is a baby no more.

I pulled him close to sniff his hair and his face to see if he smelled like a baby. He smelled like shampoo from the night before and that's it.

CB(sleepily)- Mom.........quit smelling me. I took a bath last night. My stomach wants something delicious to eat. It wants toast with no butter and chocolate milk.

This means he wants toast with butter. If he sees you put the butter on the toast, he won't eat it. If you serve him the toast with no butter...he won't eat it. So you have to do it all in secret, then everything is furry bunnies and rainbows.

I completely forgot about that despicable calendar of events for the day. I realized that my baby boy was really a little boy.......

........all the time with all of my babies is forever gone. It was really a jagged little pill to swallow for a few minutes. My throat physically squeezed tight and my eyes tried hard not to get wet.........



.....then suddenly..... I felt euphoria.

It came to me, I would never ever, ever, ever, have to potty train again.

All the stars in my universe were aligned properly after that.

Let's face it, it wouldn't be my first............

Yesterday Ms. P invited me and my tribe to go to the Farmers Market in Knoxvegas with her and her tribe.

I accepted.

I had a ball.

In my mind I pictured the farmers market in Santa Fe. I immediately started to drool over the possible purchase of honey sticks. I felt excited about hippies with guitars and homemade pitchouli soap. When I told May we were going to the farmers market she was all, "BLUEBERRY HONEY STICKS!!! ShaZAM!"

I'm like, "I know, right?!"

The farmers market didn't turn out to be that much really. But I did purchase some awesome blackberries that didn't even come close to making it home. Between her 4 and my 4, the blackberries didn't stand a chance. I got some outstanding raspberries, that I have not been able to keep my hands off of. I got some green beans & okra too.

I didn't have to pay for parking at the meter either. My meter wasn't working properly after I fed it not enough dimes and nickels and Ms. P fed it another quarter, so I resigned myself to getting another ticket. Let's face it, it wouldn't be my first. After all, I consider myself to be a professional ticket payer. I probably own that meter anyway.

.......but to be on the safe side....I told on myself to this ticket writing officer on a bicycle and this other cop in a car that were chatting with some other long haired dude. Ms. P and I descended upon them three with all our kids defending the silver bullet before we even stated our case.

Cop(kidding us)- So you want me to believe you two fed the meter? I'm supposed to have some pity on you?.....

A- Yes, absolutely look at all these kids. You can clearly see we are outnumbered severely? Absolutely, show us some mercy man, please......

The smiling cop relays to us if the meters aren't working it's on them and we'll get not ticket. So I underpaid to begin with probably and then got a free ride. I was pretty dang happy about that.

Ms. P- Well that's not fair, I had to pay, I gave you my last quarter.

A - I know, but I'm not gonna get a ticket! I totally owe you a quarter.

When I got change I gave her two or three of my quarters then I took one back cause I needed change for something. Thank goodness the next place we went we didn't have to pay for parking. Cause I didn't have anymore quarters and I don't think she did either.

After we shopped at the market a bit we stopped and had our picnic lunches in the shaded area of the park. We all gabbed about nonsense without any effort. It was wonderful.

After lunch we headed over to the Worlds Fair Park to play in the big fountains. They really were a treat out of our everyday norm. All of my kids had a ball and were tired on the ride home. We had to cut the afternoon short when thunder clouds started to build up and behave disorderly.

Here's what was so fun about the day to me. The market and fountains are something I have never done in Knoxvegas before. I was able to do them with a family that I am completely comfortable with. I never feel the need to curtail my personality cause Ms. P doesn't seem to mind my family is louder than hers. We hadn't spent any real time with them as group in a long time.

It was great to not feel like I had to squeeze 3 hours worth of conversation in a kid exchange in the Rite-Aid parking lot in the rain.

I love days when it requires little to no effort to make it all happen. This day could've been completely whacked.

I started off a little over an hour behind unknown to me. The clock I was counting on hadn't been reset from the power outage the day before. May got up and had asked me why I hadn't gotten her up, "Are we going?"

I suddenly realized we should be leaving the house right that very minute. It was like someone hit the bees nest and bees went flying about. I originally thought this day is gonna be a bust. Why can't anything be easy?

Then suddenly............it was.