Confessions Of A Stage Mom

H.A.P.P.Y

2009-04-20T18:23:00.000-07:00

With all the bad news in our world today I think it's a personal duty to try to cheer everyone up.

Can we get a big Hey-Ho would SOMEBODY pleeeeeeze re-release this song to the AIRWAVES????

Have a blessed day y'all.

Bug spray

2009-04-19T21:38:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I was getting ready to take Giz to a pageant.

Early in the morning, as you go in and out of the back door to the house, there are usually quite a few gnats and flying bugs still hanging out by the porch light... which isn't a big deal, considering we live in the woods with critters way bigger that can randomly show up - but I digress.

I felt a bug brush by my nose, and I kind of slapped it away, but I really didn't see what happened to it. I assumed it just sort of fell on the floor, and I didn't have time to worry about it otherwise.

Well, without another thought, I loaded up the car, tossed her in half asleep and headed down the road.

About an hour and a half later, my nose was really, really starting to er, bug me, so I finally found a tissue and blew it.

I looked at the paper, as it felt rather strange when I extricated the contents of my nose into it, and there, kind of laid out like some million year old fossil, was...

the bug.

I said "hey giz, you want to see what came out of my nose?"

Giz, "sure."

She looked the contents, thought for a moment, and said.

"well. I sure am glad it's not in the mudroom anymore."

:op

Citigroup profit

2009-04-17T06:51:00.003-07:00

http://money.cnn.com/2009/04/17/news/companies/citigroup/index.htm?postversion=2009041706

Well, hell. They should have, they went up on my credit card interest 3.5%.

>o(

Oh I'm not dead.

2008-08-06T22:04:00.001-07:00

I took this picture last year (while driving btw)....

Double click on it to enlarge and Look carefully, I found it quite amusing.

WWII for Dummies

2008-05-22T19:50:00.000-07:00

Well, we had to endure this week an event that, surprisingly, more parents than I would have expected have experienced (based on my mini-poll at work)

"Mom, I have a History project due"

O-Kaaaay.

It's Sunday night.
He's known about it for 2 weeks.
It's due Wednesday.

He had to put together a powerpoint presentation on the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the following requirements:

A minimum of 25 CONTENT pages
Not too many or two few graphics - must be very clear and pertinent to the subject
Require a minimum of Five different sources
Formal Bibliography required
5 additional sentences relating to EACH of the 25 content pages
Music ok but only if pertinent to the project
Must select or develop a powerpoint template that fits the subject
Must be in a NEW clean folder
Must include printout with Notes, Labeled CD, project on Flashdrive

Did I mention he's in EIGHTH GRADE?????

...and only two evenings to do it.

ARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!

Luckily, I happen to like History, and in return for his lack of planning, I was going to make sure his sorry butt was going to not only learn his subject in record time. (and pulling it off a couple of serious all-nighters)

He better LIKE IT too.

I didn't allow him to do 25 pages on the single act of the bombing. Because it was bigger than that.

I made him set it up from the start of WWII with a timeline leading up to the bombing and the corresponding socio-economic-cultural effects of post-modern Japan and the rest of the planet.

BROOOO-WAAA-HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAA.

He'll be in therapy for years, I'm quite sure.

*******

We, yes WE (well, hell, I had to at least steer him on it but he had to get the better part of it done with me proofing and doing grammatical clean-up and goading him to stay awake and not pass out onto the keyboard of the laptop ), got it done barely in the nick of time - and as a post script to his "I still don't get it" attitude, we had a long discussion last night about what his project really meant. After many tries, kind of like the proverbial story of teaching a pig to dance, I broke it down for him like this.

********
The Redneck's guide to WWII.

The world gave Germany a big ol' spanking after WWI
They didn't like it, so they picked on Poland.
This set off something akin to a bar-room brawl across the planet.
In the meantime one of the side fights got a wee bit out of control in Asia....
The US tried to stay out, but Japan wasn't behaving towards China.
We told Japan to behave and imposed economic sanctions until they did.
They didn't listen, and sucker punched us at Pearl Harbor.
We decided we'd had enough and ended the fight with a nuclear tko.
Japan decided to listen after that (to their benefit)
and that's how we got VCRs and Hondas today, and its why it was decided we needed the U.N. to prevent anymore trouble in on this here planet.
**********

Now I'm not certain my summary was historically accurate, but for some reason Firstborn decided to go do some serious reading out of the encyclopedia after MY history lesson for him.

**********

And don't you dare furrow your brow at me like that. I might have to follow up with a diatribe on the Cold War if YOU don't behave.....

**********

Post-script - To Firstborn:

"IF THE TEACHER GIVES YOU TWO WEEKS TO DO A PROJECT, SHE EXPECTS TWO WEEKS WORTH OF WORK - Ya' big DOOFUS!!!!"
;o)

Help!!!

2008-05-18T09:30:00.001-07:00

We need help.

In light of the gas crisis, we need to eat at home more.

Problem is, we only have about 10 different meals that are standard in our household repetoire.

I need a TRULY EASY and NEW recipe for a bunch of seriously picky eaters.

I don't get home until 7pm, and my husband does the cooking... but when he gets too creative the kids (and unfortunately me too) won't eat it.

Here's what's out as far as ingredients:

BEETS
OKRA
SAUERKRAUT (or however the heck you spell it)
GREEN PEPPERS
PINE NUTS

The recipe has to be able to be put together in 20 min or less and cooked within 30-45 min.

Soup recipes are excellent for us.

Anybody have one? We're getting sick of spaghetti and poppy chicken.

:o)

Thought for the Day

2008-05-03T15:48:00.000-07:00

You know the gas crisis is BAD when you pull in to get gas and the "LOW FUEL" light comes on AFTER you put the gas IN your car.

No lie.

I pulled in to get a few bucks worth to get around town, and my low fuel alarm didn't sound until I pulled AWAY from the pump.

I swear it was mocking me......

:o)

PROM SEASON

2008-04-30T20:36:00.000-07:00

Ah Spring! It changes the whole "eat out" perspective, because now, in addition to having a nice meal out you get the entertainment value from seeing the local kids in their finest attire out for the PROM.

I always get a little twitchy when it comes to the whole subject. Being a geek and all in high school, it might go without saying, that although I made three attempts to get to the prom and have a good time....

It never went very well.

Attempt #1

In my high school, one of the BIG status symbols was to get asked to the prom (and actually go...) as a freshman or sophomore. So my best friend and I set out to get ourselves to the prom any way we could. Now never mind that after the boy with the car showed up at my house when I was in eighth grade and caused an incident of such epic proportion with my father that no boy with any sense within 625 miles of my house would dare even pass me a stick of gum underneath a jail cell door... TWas not enough of a problem to daunt my attempt to GET TO THE PROM.

Needless to say, I wasn't exactly the most dicerning when came to getting someone, ANYONE, to take me and neither was my friend.

Do the words BIG MISTAKE mean anything????

Well, considering I didn't think this through very well, there was a boy in my typing class that showed some interest in taking me. Good enough, I figured. I go to the prom, he has a date and avoids complete and utter social disaster, everybody wins. He was a junior, I a sophomore.

To sum up the guy - imagine David Spade's gay cosmic geek twin with braces.

Everything was fine until I agreed to go to the prom.

"How do I run from thee, let me count the ways...."

Here is the conversation I heard:

HIM "Will you go to the prom with me?"
Me "Okay"

What HE heard:

HIM "Will you go to the prom with me and love me forever and let me follow you around like a sick puppy for weeks on end??"
ME "I Love You. You are my hero and I want you to be my boyfriend"

Now, either I was the first girl to give him the time of day (much less a date) OR he was really, really, not that picky about who he would attach his affection too.

No matter how acerbic my responses to his existence, he remained, well, undaunted.

I got Cards. Flowers. Candy.

To make matters worse, he sat right directly in front of me in typing class, so when he was finished, he would turn around and watch me longingly (don't EVEN go there...)

Well, after 3 months of dodging loverboy and still keeping the delicate balance in place between keeping him at bay and not losing my prom ticket, the big day came.

So I and my equally unpicky about her date friend asked the guys if they wouldn't mind double dating. Thankfully, they complied. Oh and if the eighties weren't bad enough, our dates had the whole powder blue tux that matched our dresses thing going on.... So my friend and I spent most of the evening tittering and chattering on and on and on and on.... ANYTHING to distract, disturb, or deflect any interaction between us and our dates.

Now, before you get all irritated about our behaviour.

We were fifteen year old girls. And all would have been well, had these guys not taken our acceptance of a prom date as the first step towards some sort of future matrimonial engagement!!!

Needless to say, we bolted from the car (both retreating to my house) and politely waved good-nite as sweetly and remotely as possible.

Karma baby, Karma. Don't think it didn't come back on us.

My next attempt at the prom was worse.

Can you say BLIND DATE???

To be continued...

Some kids should have locks on their mouths....

2008-04-08T20:27:00.000-07:00

Anyone who knows me personally, knows I cannot live without my AMP Energy Drink.

Period. I must have it. And preferably, with a chocolate iced donut.

So we're in Wal Mart picking up a few things we needed this evening.

Oh Happy Day! AMP now comes in an 8 PACK!!!

However, they don't keep it where I can FIND it and no matter where it was last time they don't have it in that spot the next time I make a trip in....

So here I am dragging my little Giz all over Wally World on a desperate search for mommy's little helper.... and the entire time she is joyfully skipping along and singing her own little TMI song to the world:

"Mommy needs her AMP or she'll go out just like a LAMP..."
"If she doesn't get her drink. her at-ti-tude will STINK...."

GRRRRRR. Intelligent kid, BIG MOUTH.

.

detention.

2008-04-02T20:06:00.001-07:00

Firstborn got his first detention this week.

And he has to be at school at 6:30 A.M. to serve his sentence!!!!!

The offense? Several boys were on the internet at a time during computer class when they should not have been. I don't disagree with the punishment, but DAMN, we live an HOUR away from the school. Needless to say, he got seriously grounded HERE.

That said, my kids are so lucky. My parents pay to have them in private school, so in a lot of ways they are very sheltered. My husband went to private Christian school growing up, and it shocks me the things he talked about getting in trouble for!

In MY school, you basically had to shoot somebody to get suspended. And even then, it was less of "oh go get the grief counsellors and call the national news" and more of "whew, one more of THEM out of the gene pool...." Of course in the 70s and early 80s, school culture was very different. Columbine hadn't occurred yet and truly gross acts of violence were more random and singularly focused (rather than on "populations" of students.)

Honestly though, I went to a very rough high school. And you know, it wasn't so bad while I was there, because everyone kinda knew their place - in a strange way. You knew where you could go and when, who to avoid, etc. The freaks and geeks stayed in their group, the jocks in theirs, the "heads", the gangs, etc. You just didn't really cross lines.

However, we knew better than to go back to a football game at our 20 year reunion because we knew, that they didn't know us. We'd be fair game for a mugging for sure.

To give you an example. We were sitting in biology class one day, and all of a sudden we started seeing "stuff" falling past the windows outside. Well, apparantly, the typing teacher in the class above got sick and left the class alone for a bit, and so the kids started dumping EVERYTHING out of the windows!!! (of course we all knew it wasn't a real typing class, they basically made it up to round up all the heads and gangsters and put them someplace...) But needless to say, not much was done to the kids, or the teacher (bless his heart.) Nowadays, this would probably make national headlines!

Or another time, a teacher was shoved down the stairwell. Again, not newsworthy then, but probably would have been a candidate for national news on a slow day.

We had plenty of drugs. And we knew who took them and who didn't. I mean for crying out loud, field trips were banned in my middle school because the kids kept bringing liquer on the bus!

Pregnancy was rampant, and violent fights were a regular occurrence. The dropout rate was pretty high too.

We did have the er, coolest, scariest, (or most memorable) Vice Principal. I'll call him "Mr. Cook" for reference sake.... but he was the... BIGGEST, BLACKEST, BALDEST, most STERN looking human I have, or proabably ever will, see in PERSON. He was about 6'4" tall, and wore a three piece suit (even in 90 degree weather) and he wore a fedora on the way in and out - the mere sight of him made even the thuggest of thugs shake in their shoes. We all swore the whites of his eyes glowed from a deal with the devil. You never, EVER, looked him in the eyes. Kids who went to his office were purported to occaisionally never return, ever to be seen again. It was rumored he mysteriously appeared after the riot of '78, but no one would ever corroborate or refute the story.

We even had a special room known as the B.I.R. room. Or respectively, the "Behavior Improvement Room". That's where Teddy the Dropout and Bart the Fart lived, and you did NOT want to have to spend the day with THEM. I'm quite certain that they were there so much, they got posthumous credit for it. Just so the administration could find a way to get them OUT... LOL.

So, it could be so much worse.

Detention, it is.

Recycling today.

2008-04-01T19:54:00.000-07:00

In honor of Earth Day or Blackout Hour or whatever it is that is currently being done to save the planet... I am pulling up from the earlier days an old post (and to substitute for today's lack of creativity)

But today I also physically recycled:
1 bag of aluminum cans
1 inkjet cartridge
14 old batteries
and I fed the dog my leftover baked chicken so it wouldn't go to waste.

I'm not expecting any awards, but I did try a little....

FROM NOVEMBER 2006:

"Yes Doctor, I AM Bitchy today"

Today I got to participate in my favorite yearly event.

Oh the beloved annual visit to the ob-gyn.

Just the mere idea of having to go sends my blood pressure up at LEAST 30 points.

Notably, my doctor erroneously asked me why I was so grouchy for all my annual visits - after all, "what had he done to deserve such a bad attitude from me all these years?"

I apologized and asked him not to take it personally. And after a brief moment of pensive thought I responded:

"Never mind, the minute I walk in, your perniciously perky receptionist starts in on what a nice day it is and her gratuitous, yet contrived efforts to be overly pleasant start off raking on my already edgy demeanor. The next series of questions, that after 12 years of NO changes, I still must answer. Next, I have to wait for 30 minutes in a waiting room full of annoyed and bored husbands and boyfriends - all of which now KNOW what I'm going to have to do... Once my name is called in a depersonalized fashion 'MSSSSUSS. SMMMMITH!' (no real name used here of course) you force me to attempt a skilled exercise for which I am not physically designed to do properly - the whole pee in a thimble mess. After the initial denuding of my dignity, I am STABBED in the finger, made to stand on the ENEMY known as the "scales" and if THAT isn't enough, you stick me in a refrigerated room with nothing but a tissue to cover up with and only "Oprah" magazines to read for God knows how long.... THEN you come in here and SMASH what's left of the bags formerly known as breasts after nursing two wonderful children, and if that wasn't enough....,

YOU SCRAPE MY VAGINA WITH A TOOTHPICK!!!!!

....and have the nerve to ASK ME WHY I AM IN A BAD MOOD????"

Awkward Silence.

Needless to say, I got an extra bag of samples today >o)

***************************************************

:o)

YUP.

2008-03-31T20:51:00.001-07:00

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

How do I call in sick? Let me count the ways....

2008-03-29T08:17:00.000-07:00

Of all the ordinary things one must face once in awhile, the one I hate the most is calling in sick to work.

I mean, there is a bit of an art to conveying how bad you feel without either disclosing too much detail (TMI) or sounding like you are just faking it. And it also depends on how well you know your boss. And lately, we've been changing bosses like socks at work, so I keep having to break in a new one...

For the most part, I'm a pretty healthy gal (although due to my horrid eating habits and whacked out personality I'm not sure how much longer it'll last...) but every now and then, I go down for the count. Generally I barrel along at a pretty intense pace, and even sometimes when I don't feel good, I just scarf an extra donut and Amp, several Tylenol, and my Adderall and "voila" - all better... Or I just tend to ignore the fact that I have snot running down my face and stick a fancy SNIFF tissue up there and declare it a fashion statement.

Anyway, I woke up Wednesday with a burning sensation in my stomach and a raging headache. I KNOW the offending catalyst for this condition HAD to be that taco salad I ate at my mother-in-law's the night before, and it had pretty much royally pissed off my persnickity diva of a gallbladder. Plus, I missed my meds the day the before because I was too lazy to go to the drugstore so I had a king sized migraine, and now every cell in my body was starting to ramp up into hyper state again. You'd be surprised, the Adderall calms EVERYTHING down, not just my hyper-drive OCD issues.

This equation results in the following:

pounding head + gastrointestinal distress = ain't coming into work I need a dark room very near a potty

So how do you summarize this to a new boss in a sentence or less?

I could go the TMI route:

Hi! I didn't take my Adderall yesterday so now my system is a wreck and I ate Taco salad to boot so now I'm two steps away from having a colon blowout and I need to take a bottle of Tylenol since my head hurts from missing the meds as well??

Or just leave it short and simple:

Hi, I don't feel well. See ya.

What I actually compromised on:

Hi, My stomach is torn up and I have a migraine. I'm not going to be available today. Bye.

****

I remember I got a rash a couple of years back, that started on my hips and spread juuuuusttt to the top of my knees and juuuuuusstttt up to my breasts. It was the most horrible thing ever, they called it "follicular mucinosis" and it drove me to the point of almost suicidal behaviour. I had to see 5 doctors and a nutritionist for it and I was diagnosed with everything from nerves to t-cell lymphoma (I'm not kidding on that either.) Oh, and the nutritionist was the one who actually cleared it up btw. When they finally stopped the itching I was black and blue and in pain from all the clawing I had done to myself! Yet, aside from all the doctor's notes, the crying and screaming etc. To the outside world, I looked perfectly NORMAL.

I had to call in sick for two weeks for a rash no one could see. And I hated having to explain to my male boss that I was swollen and prickly and scabby from the tops of my knees to my chest. He made an art form of looking at me like "yeah. right. whatever."

****

Is it just me? What do you do?

:o)

Aren't they cute?

2008-03-25T20:08:00.001-07:00

I don't understand a word they say but Giz and I agree they are adorable LOL!

Somebody needs to put a diabetic warning on this video.

:o)

Confession #2

2008-03-21T10:42:00.000-07:00

Lordy, I was so busted today.

Confession #2.

I like to sing when I'm by myself in the car.

Not sing like, under my breath, but belt-it-out-showtunes style sing.

Today, I got CAUGHT.

Normally, I am used to just me and the seatbelts knowing this little secret, but today I was exposed, wrong words and all.

I'm sitting at a stoplight at the highway - and it's a GUH-OR-GE-OUS day - I'm not stressed 'cause I have the day off, and I'm on my way home, feelin' groovey....

And of course, I am soooooo a product of the 80's. And there is a particularly belty song on the radio (Heartache Tonight by the Eagles is one of my other personal favorites to have at it...)

"GLOR-I-A! da-da-da I THINK THEY GOT YOUR NUM-BER! da-da-da ...IF EVERYBODY WANTS-YOU, WHY ISN'T AN-Y-BOD-Y CAAAAAALLLLLINNNNGGGGG...!!!!"

etc & so on.

So here I am thinking I'm all by me-myself-and-I, just a going at it with the windows rolled down and the wind in my hair, and then the song is over.

APPLAUSE.

Huh??

I look over and at the entrance of a new neighborhood they are building are a bunch of road workers.

They weren't just laughing, they were ROLLING.

:o|

I want (to be on) my MTV.....

2008-03-19T19:36:00.000-07:00

One of the more interesting side effects of my blog is that from time to time I get contacted by some sort of tv show or other media outlet.

Apparantly I wasn't controversial enough for Montel Williams.

The news reporter I was going to meet in Nashville stood me up (okay she had a pretty good reason, but she could have called to let me know...)

And now I get this:

Teen Dream Casting wrote:

I am a Casting Producer for MTV's "Teen Dream", a brand new, competitive reality show for female singers between the ages of 16 and 22 (their mother/managers will also be featured on the series). The executive producers behind this exciting concept are the ones responsible for career-launching, reality series like "America's Next Top Model" and "The Pussycat Dolls." We've just started the casting process, but have already gotten incredible response from both potential cast members and media outlets. I saw your blog and thought I would drop you a line to see if you could mention us on the blog...or you might even know about some potential cast members for us. Thanks for your time.

Randolph Jones
Associate Producer for Casting
MTV's Teen Dream

****************************************************

So. Here ya' Go. If anyone out there is reading and fits the bill, I suggest you go for it! (Why not?? Might be fun! And even if you look silly for 6-8 weeks on the show, how many people really remember who was on the show unless you REALLY make a spectacular spectacle of yourself - and then worst case you end up on some reality show about former reality stars in a truly really REAL setting. After all, those shows must pay pretty well, because people keep signing up.... ;o)

Next, I need to talk to them about MY show.

Stage Mom from Hell tries skydiving to win pageant fees off - story at 6:00 and 10:00.

LOL

Well, it IS kind of true, I do happen to be a former Miss Hell Hole Swamp.

:o)

You... Da'.... MAN !!!

2008-03-13T19:19:00.001-07:00

Now, being that the title of the blog implies I am primarily a "stage mother" you know I don't talk that much about Firstborn.

It's just I don't hang with him and hubby so much. Because as much as they love me, and we are a family, I have another love to compete with.

GOLF.

It's not a game, it's a 24 hour 8 day a week obsession with them.

I can only think of 3 conditions under which they don't play:

1) They are deathly ill
2) A herd of rabid deer are on the loose trampling the tee boxes
3) There's an active tornado present on the greens

The golf channel stays on the tv almost every minute they are present in our house.
Golf news, golf reality shows, golf tournaments, golf instruction, golf inventions, golf info-mercials. You name it about golf, it's been watched at our house. Including the 4,568 commentaries and analyses of everything from what Tiger Woods brushes his teeth with to every angle of every golf shot he's ever taken....

I have washed and dryed thousands of golf balls, ball markers,golf gloves, and tees in the laundry by accident.

We even have a special room set up in the basement where a net hangs with a mattress behind it so they can drive golf balls morning-noon-night. It's not uncommon every night before bed for either Firstborn or hubby to run down and drive 50 or so balls for practice. I have to vacuum constantly because they use that green indoor/outdoor carpeting in there, and the little bits of it get all OVER the house. It's worse than cat hair. It gets in the carpet, in the animal's fur, in the laundry... nothing like throwing on a pair of underwear on with some of THAT stuff stuck to it in a strategic area (TMI, I know....)

Every bathroom has a golf magazine for one's reading pleasure available.

I DO draw the line at decorating the house with anything golf. I think the caps,gloves,bags,balls,markers,head covers,golf shoes, etc laying all over the place is decoration enough.

Giz and I go to pageants for a desperate reprieve from the saturation of the sport in our lives.

And after 7 years of lessons, threats to quit, scraping up weekly greens fees, gnashing of teeth over lost or broken equipment, etc.

Today was the crowning moment of all the effort.

Firstborn is on the middle school golf team, and they have a pretty strong group this year. Firstborn's not always the lowest score, but he's usually the lowest, and he's very consistent. There are two other boys who push him some, who are strong players but not as consistent (they will beat Firstborn by a point or two, then lose by many points - they are good but very inconsistent.) Overall they are really strong players for their ages and they have a lot of enthusiasm for the sport.

Tuesday they played a par 3 course (par 27), and Firstborn came in behind the other two strong players on their team by a couple of points (I think they shot a 34,35,36 respectively) and they beat the other two schools they were playing by 16 points. They play 6 players in competition and the scores are totaled to see who has the overall lowest score. They were psyched!!!

Today they played their first regulation course, playing 9 holes only. Par 36.

Firstborn shot a 37.

For the non-golf person, that's pretty darn good for an eigth grader.

No other player from either his team or any of the other schools even came close. Next highest overall score was a 47.

And Firstborn's team STILL won by 16 points. He pretty much put the BOO in the BOO-YAH today. And when I picked him up he practically glowed.

The coach was pretty jacked about it too... (I think he even had to nip a situation because one of the other school's coaches was concerned that Firstborn was playing as a second place seed and not a first - I'm not sure why this would matter, but these guys take it all VERY seriously.)

I let Firstborn pick where to go out for dinner afterwards to celebrate, and I don't think I've ever heard him recount the day's events in that many ways ever before.

I am so proud of him in his "moment of glory."

Firstborn was DA' MAN.

Damn Cat

2008-03-11T21:19:00.000-07:00

'K

I need some help.

I have this cat who has adopted ME as her human.

She showed up around Halloween, and being a black cat, I didn't think it wise to try to run her off (superstitious,I am.) I didn't really encourage her, but geesh she really weasled her way in.

She's been fine for a few months, but all of a sudden she has started pissing on the basement floor randomly.

I keep her fed and watered each day.

I keep her litter changed morning and night.

I even let her "hug me" when she needs one. Strange, strange, cat she is... she has to get in my lap, then she puts both front legs around my neck and pushes her head up into MY neck and clings to me like glue.

She musta had a REALLY bad childhood.

But I think she's either mad at me for something or there's something else bothering her, and I've no clue about cats.

Any ideas???

Yes, I know I could put her out, but Giz would have a nervous breakdown if I did.

I had a bad day.

2008-03-10T20:08:00.000-07:00

I discovered today, that somehow I missed factoring in an extra $40,000 while closing the accounting for a project I am working on that the project manager before me had spent launching the project. Talk about feeling sick.

Okay, so I'm only 68% over budget now.

We DID put the fact that I am a first time project manager in as a risk LOL

In my defense:
- I'm not an experienced project manager
- The start up of the project was a disaster under the previous pm
- They gave it to me because they thought I could save it all the while asking me if I thought I could do it
- I was expected to get it launched under a new project methodology
- And the rules of the methodology and accounting changed weekly during the life of the project (oh and we got trained on the tools about halfway through the final development phase.)

Talk about your proverbial build the plane while you are flying scenario.

Then this afternoon,I accidentally punched a hole in the bottom of a large sweet tea (which was FULL) in my car and pretty much flooded the car during my feeble attempt to extricate the flooding container from the cup holder quickly. The liquid filled up BOTH cup holders, and I soaked myself in the most embarrassing way as the cup traversed across my lap so I could dump the remaining fluids out of my door (which ended up going into the door storage area and NOT out of the car.

SIGH

All the while spewing a diatribe of vitriol from my lips unfit for even impolite company under my breath the entire time....

So, figuring the day was a bust, I just marched into the big boss's office in my ever so subtle not terribly agitated way (oh who am I kidding I'm a walking disaster half the time...) and laid the whole budgetary mess out. Put the ol' head on the guillotine and said "go ahead....."

Well, thankfully I didn't get fired. He basically smiled and figuratively patted me on the head and said, "this one's a learning experience, just don't do it again."

WHEW. Now the pressure is REALLY on though.

I'm going to start budgeting for a project psychiatrist to be on staff for any other project I ever lead again. Kind of like those golfers who use a sports psychiatrist...

And yes, I DID whine about it the rest of the day.

*****************************

Oh and a shout out to Firstborn - he made the Golf Team AND Jr National Honor Society all in the same week!!

*****************************

Continuing the pageant saga (see previous posts for events leading up):

After we got finished with dinner,we went to the ballroom to practice.

Giz got amnesia - I cannot figure for the LIFE of me how she can practice at home, then the first night she gets to the hotel, it's like she has NO clue what to do at all. I mean she did EVERYTHING but what she was supposed too. Not even remotely close.

Drives me nuts, but then the next day after a bad practice, she'll do great onstage.

I just don't get it.

Got any help for us Dr. Phil??

Like I said, I'm sure there's a shrink somewhere who has a folder with my name written ALLLLLL over it.

Oh Danny boy

2008-03-07T05:41:00.000-08:00

Quick Note.

I like to watch American Idol.

They say it's a singing competition, but frankly I want to be entertained (being talented and being entertaining are NOT always synonymous)

Danny,we tried. We're going to miss You!!!

He was not the VERY best singer admittedly, but not bad.... He just made the show that much more interesting to watch! (I'm especially gonna miss his exchanges with Simon!)

And Later that evening...

2008-03-04T19:55:00.000-08:00

I tried to exit as gracefully as I could after the sticker shock. Not that the amount was so much a surprise, but that I thought I was soooo prepared and then I find out NOT. That, on top of being tired from the drive and a little weak from my gastrointestinal issues, was kind of the last straw of the day.

So feeling a little weak, and sick physically and emotionally, I took Gizmo over to the restaurant for a meal.

She got chicken fingers, broccoli and sprite.

I got a small salad and a BEER.

*****************************************************************

On another current note, I finally broke down and bought DDR Universe 2 for our XBox3.

It kinda ended up less like dancing and more like combat twister.

BOTH kids were trying to help me with the arrows (okay, I had no idea it was on expert mode) Giz was trying to hit some with her hands on the floor and Firstborn was trying to step on the remaining arrows needed.

Twas not a pretty site. But it sure is FUN!!!

I almost didn't buy it when the patronizing Best Buy clerk looked at me and stated that he heard it was a great WORKOUT. (okay, in his defense, what else would most middle aged women buy it for??)

WORKOUT???? He almost took the fun right out of it!!! NO. Not workout.

GRRRR....PLAY BECAUSE ME LIKE. NOT ME EXERCISE.

;O)

Sing along 'MONEYMONEYMONEY, MON-EY.... MON-EEEEEEEY!!!!'

2008-03-01T05:26:00.000-08:00

LOL

I hate pageant registration. I love pageantry with my daughter, but honey, I HATE to part with my money.

I keep suffering under the delusion that my daughter can get a title by us just partially entering for titles in the paperwork. Now, again, I had been warned by several others that this pageant could go weird, but I'm one of those folks with a bit of residual seawater and beer from my college days still soaking in some of my brain cells. Not to mention, it takes a phd in "new math" to even figure out what the heck you entered, how they score it, and how it all really ends up.

Fortunately, there was no great big line to stand in and occupy a hyper 5 year old in... Pageantry has this kind of weird way to register, where at many pageants, each mother goes in to register one at a time. I think it is done that way so as each one goes in ALONE the director can put their different spin on hard selling to the mother to enter more events and thus part the poor woman from additional CASH. This causes the lines to back up down the hallway forever, or if you get on a sign up sheet, you can never really get settled to start preparing for the next day because you are constantly running back and forth to find out how close you are to getting your name called. It's great exercise though.

Getting back to this event, I know I made several major mistakes.

1) MISTAKE #1 WE SHOULD NOT HAVE GONE GIVEN ALL THE PREVIOUS TWO WEEKS RUNNING.
Giz & I were both tired, she hadn't practiced enough, and I didn't have any help.

2) MISTAKE #2 I NEVER HAD THE PAPERWORK FROM THE PREVIOUS LEVEL'S PAGEANT FROM THIS SYSTEM.

My computer was down in November and December, and I entered Giz as a last minute whim in the local level pageant for this system. So I never saw the proverbial fine print.

Digression for education's sake. 99% of the time if you win a grand supreme in the level pageant below the next, you get the supreme package for "free" at the next level. For example, if you win Grand Supreme (highest point total out of all the girls) at a local preliminary, you get your supreme package entry paid to State. Next, if you win your state Grand Supreme title, you get either the Mini-National or National supreme package paid.

I had been warned that this lady could get money out of a homeless person, but I didn't get a bad vibe from her so again, I plowed ahead. I really need to learn to use my ears more effectively.

Anyway. Giz had won a large title at the previous level pageant, and I paid a $150 deposit right there on the scene - out of her $500 bond, which is really only $250 - so we could get the earlybird pricing for the registration fee. "That's it" stated the director. She implied that was all we would owe. Again, I am not faulting her for what I'm about to divulge, I'm just mad at myself for being naive.

For this pageant, the pricing for the "earlybird" consisted of:

$395 registration fee - which went up $100 incrementally after Dec 1 up to $595)
$595 supreme package - which allowed you to compete in Natural beauty, Glitz beauty, one interview session (natural or glitz) and one black and white photo (natural or glitz)

To be eligible for grand supreme, you needed to have a cumulative Beauty,Interview, and Photo score.

So if you entered a glitz black and white photo, just doing the basic supreme package and registration fee, you would not be eligible for the Natural grand supreme title and if you entered a Natural black and white, conversely you would not be eligible for the glitz grand supreme.

What mother is going to spend almost $1000 and not have lil Suzie out of the running for grand? At a minimum the director will get another $75 out of you for at least ONE additional optional.

Next, there was $150 for "Overall titles" and she added "one point just for entering!". Again, what mother - who has now spent $1075 miniumum potentially plus travel expenses - wouldn't buy that extra point for their child?? Now we are up to $1225....

There were about 4 other optionals you could enter at $75 each - swimwear, composite card, Natural or Glitz photo (whatever you didn't enter in your basic supreme package) etc.

In her defense, the director was giving away a lot of supreme packages paid plus 2 hotel nights "free" (translation, you only have to pay registration fee less $200) but she didn't start offering this until the registration fee went up to $595.

So even if you took the best package at the worst time, and entered the minimum to be in the running for the basic titles plus the point added overalls it would cost:

$395 plus $150 plus $75 plus door badge $35 = $655

Skipping to the cliff's notes - if you entered EVERYTHING on the paperwork plus one extra picture (at $25 each) and you didn't have to pay the supreme package (say you got it free) it would have been somewhere around $1000. And if you DID have to pay any or all of the supreme package, it ended up between $1200 and $2000. I heard that some people ended up paying as much as $1800 in fees.

Return? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Who are we kidding? Even if you won ultimate grand, the payout was a $5000, which ended up being only $2500 in cash. Various titles below ended up anywhere from $100 to $1000 depending on what you won, and if you entered that event.

And to the director's defense, you'd be paying for two pageants - so much more cost efficient! Of sorts...

So here's what I walked in expecting.

$595 package paid plus $395 registration plus $150 for overalls $75 for an optional event and $35 for a door badge, oh and one extra picture $25. LESS $595 package paid less $100 "free hotel stay" less $150 I already paid.

I expected to pay $480.

So I get to the table and she adds it up and says I owe $580.

?? This is where it kinda broke down for me... (I expected to be sooo prepared LOL)

Okay, why?

Well, she says, Giz only won a $500 BOND towards her supreme package.
Oh. (now I'm at the mistake in not finding a copy of that damn paperwork) Okay.
So I say okay, go ahead and I pay the extra $100 thinking Gizmo was still in the running for the minimum items I had planned. (I actually considered backing out at that very moment which caused me to have an unclear head.) Again, I'm not faulting the director per se, but she could have made it clearer to me what we ended up in rather than looking at me like "oh you must be POOR."

AND I DID'T EVEN GET A RECEIPT. SO I STILL TO THIS DAY DON'T KNOW WHAT GIZ WAS ENTERED IN, BUT WE'LL GET TO THAT NEXT.

3) MISTAKE #3 EXPECTING THAT OUR COACH WOULD GIVE US SOME GOOD ADVICE AS TO WHICH PAGEANTS WOULD BE GOOD FOR MY CHILD, AND WHICH NOT

To be continued....

Friday

2008-02-28T19:32:00.000-08:00

Now don't get me wrong.

I don't expect sympathy for my own stupidity. Y'all should appreciate my willingness to share. If I can stop one other dumb mistake in the world, all my humiliation will be worth it.

Well, continuing from my previous post...

Thankfully, I didn't get the full scale case of the stomach flu! I only got the er, lower part of it, and I attribute staving off the stomach part to stopping off and buying a large bag of peppermints at the quicky mart on my way to Nashville and devouring as many as possible as fast as possible. I'm getting pretty good at plowing right through an illness I tell ya.

So we get to our hotel, and of course there is the excitement of seeing who is at the pageant and who is not and getting everything in and registering. But it's hard to be excited when you are exhausted, sick...

...and worried.

First, I didn't tell MY parents about going. Now, I have been living married with children for almost 20 years, but they still suffer the delusion that I'm 17 and going on my first date every time I get in a car. And I am understanding about it, but had they known I drove to Nashville just me & Giz (following another lady and her family for safety's sake) I would have received the lecture from HELL prior to going, a rant about being stupid, risking mine and my child's life, where are we going can we have all the information plus a sled report on the family we are following, what if something happens who will come save me and if they don't have the information they won't be able to look for me & Giz etc etc etc. Now it never occurs to them that I have a husband at home to give information to and a cell phone and a gps and I'm travelling with other people. I think they like to pretend my husband doesn't exist and I have think they WANT something to happen to me so they can fell vindicated.

Besides, a lecture/rant would have been a real pain in the ass, wouldn't have changed my mind, and taken up a bunch of time I just didn't have to spare. Plus, it really bites when my Dad is RIGHT.

Anyway. Now that we have established my IQ level (again.)

You know that icky feeling you had when you were a kid and you were in trouble with your parents? I had just that on top of everything else. Even my husband was like "what on earth do I do??" if my parents should call - it kinda reminded me of when I was in college and my roommates would lie to my Mom about my whereabouts when I was down the street at a party and she would call every fifteen minutes asking as to my location. Granted, I don't blame my Mother for worrying, but it's not really a worry where they care THAT much about ME, it's more like... they hate to worry about me but they do because it's the right thing to do so if they end up having to worry about me then they get mad at me because I'm responsible for stressing them out about worrying about me. In the end it's all about THEM. Don't make me repeat that. I know they LOVE me, but I'm not altogether sure they LIKE me. But that's another series unto itself.

And if you want further explanations, I'm sure there's a shrink somewhere with a textbook just covering that subject alone.

So now. I'm sick. I'm tired. I'm spending a lot of money knowing Gizmo is probably not going to win anything (and not because Giz isn't pretty or a good model but I'll get to it later.) I'm hiding from my neurotic over-controlling parents 386 miles away from home. And I keep trying to rationalize that I'm having fun. Oh, and Giz? She's about the happiest kid on the planet no matter where she is. (sometimes I think I need to rename her on the blog to DeeDee - as in DeeDee from Dexter's laboratory 'cause that's so HER sometimes.)

Well, check in was pretty uneventful at the hotel except for an entirely ungraceful unloading of our luggage from the car (no bellman, no carts, and it's just me and a 5 year old trying to lug everything in and up to the room making 5 trips by ourselves.) But now on to pageant registration.....

And in the middle of all this mess I'm taking work calls post production launching of a project I'm responsible for at work.

....to be continued

I Think They are trying to tell me something...

2008-02-21T18:56:00.000-08:00

I reckon Giz ain't National Pageant material.
Now, I'm pretty objective, but apparantly I have lost that particular capability.

but..anywho before I get into that.

The last week or so has been INSANE.

Three weeks ago we had to go out of town for a family outing. My 90-year-old Aunt (who is like a Grandmother to me) was thrown a birthday bash by my parents and my mother's cousins to celebrate the event - and it was very much a family reunion as well. I happen to really hate these things, because I only see these people once every 8 years, and I'm expected to act "like family." Who the hell are we kidding? Once we all go home, does anyone write? Email? Or even send those stupid mass chain mail messages? No... It's like when you go back to a 20 year high school reunion and act all chummy with people you didn't get two words in with in four years of that educational cesspool of hormones and social torture. But as always, I digress.

The next weekend we were supposed to go on vacation, but Giz had a modeling event to go to, and the weather in North Carolina for skiing was crappy, and I had a raging case of bronchitis. The executive decision was made, and the lodge was more than accommadatinig, so we put vacation off a week. Much to the disappointment of the kids, but hey, I didn't want to ski unable to breathe and on grass at that....

Well, we end up leaving on the following Saturday and traveling halfway to the mountains to stay in a very small, but comfy Comfort Inn in Marion NC. I highly recommend staying there on a Saturday night if you are going into NC to ski from the South, it's HALF the price of the hotels close to the ski areas on a Saturday night, and only about 45min away. They even had a decent indoor heated pool and continental breakfast. It was about $80 for the night, vs $150 at the Banner Elk Best Western!

Did I mention one of the problems with a ski vacation is that you really don't get much REST.

We got up at 6am Sunday, so the ski school nazis wouldn't refuse my child entry. If you don't get there by 9:15 they turn up their nose at you (and your money, go figure, even with a crappy ski season and lord knows the area needs all the cash they can get this year!) But I respect the rules, and keep my opinions to myself when dealing with people directly, suck it up and deal. Nonetheless, since we have all our own equipment, we had to lug all that crap into the motel around 7pm and then back out at 6am (couldn't leave it, no way to lock it up in the cab of the truck.) Oh, and did I mention, that evening I got Giz not one but two pairs of the cutest snow boots at the local Wal Mart across from the hotel (one pair for this year and one for next) for only $7 each!!!

But back to Sunday... we get up early early... leave to ski... we usually go to Beech Mountain since we like the family vibe and the ski school staff is familiar with my family since we've put both kids through the program over the last 10 years. Problem is, to get ANYWHERE at Beech it's like 5 flights of stairs to get UP to the lockers, then 2 flights DOWN to the bathroom, then 2 flights back UP to get to the skis (all the while walking in ski boots and hauling tons of equipment...) So by the time you get ready to actually ski, you're EXHAUSTED. And especially when you are out of shape like I am!!

We had a good day on Sunday, and Giz loved her ski school class - she had a young lady with a tongue piercing (with which she was fascinated by) from Lees-McRae college with whom she instantly clicked.

Monday.
Giz got up, and she didn't look so good. And then she started throwing up.

I can't tell you the last time she was really sick, to be honest, but since the stomach flu was going around town severely, we knew we left for vacation with a bit of a gun to our heads that someone might come down with it. So the deal was, if I stayed in the room with Giz all day, I'd take Firstborn back for night skiing. So I cleaned out my purse, and I made calls into the office etc. for something to do. Thankfully about 4pm, Giz started feeling much, much better and hope was re-instated that she would make a speedy recovery for Tuesday's ventures.

Now, I do NOT recommend night skiing when the weather is unpredictable in NC. We ended up hauling all the gear in, get dressed etc. Well, on the second run down, Firstborn crashes and busts his binding. (Thankfully no significant injury!!) But still, we ended up packing up, loading up, drive BACK down the mountain for repairs etc. It was probably a blessing, the mountain was like skiing on bricks that night.

Tuesday. Back to normal, and the mountain was good, but the wind was terrible and you couldn't see squat. Thankfully, Miss Tongue piercing was back, and since Giz was the only kid in her class, she got private lessons ALL DAY!!! Yippee for her!!

Wednesday. Long faces. Beech was nothing but a soggy mess. So we figured we were done for the day, but we decided to stop by Sugar and see.... they had a 30-70 inch base!! But Giz wanted NOTHING to do with their ski school. I wasn't sure how it would go, but after skiing off and on with my husband and I, she ended up skiing from the very, very, top of the mountain with everyone. At this rate, I guess she'll being skiing the black slopes and leaving her poor ol' mom in the, er, powder??

We drove home and got back very late Wednesday night. No rest for the wicked, I had to make sure all the homework they had done on vacation got in the bags, get together lunch money, unpack the important bags etc. WHEW.

Valentines was flown through, for I had counted on my husband to cook supper, and even though I took all day off, I had to get my hair done, buy shoes and bows for Gizmo's pageant interview outfit, and finish unpacking the ski stuff and pack all the boxes for the pageant, rent the car, etc. And when I got home late that afternoon, expecting hubby to have supper ready and help me get the car loaded etc for the next day... I found him in a heap in a chair, with, THE STOMACH FLU.

Well, needless to say, I had to do all of it, MYSELF.

Oh yeah, never mind we were leaving for NASHVILLE on Friday??

Well, on Friday, we were supposed to get up at 5:30, and ended up oversleeping. I hate that - it's never a good way to start your day... hollering and panicking trying to get up, and get out the door. Thankfully hubby was feeling better, so I rabble-roused him and Firstborn and shoved them out the door as best and as fast as I could.

So now I'm staring down a 7 hour drive to Nashville on a bad wake up morning. And now I'm feeling queasy. Not queasy over nerves, but stomach flu queasy.

... To be continued.

I'm here, finally

2008-02-19T20:11:00.000-08:00

Lordy.... Can I go to rehab like these movie stars do?? I need to be sequestered off somewhere to REST.

I've been busier than a bunch of relocated fire ants.

Trying to post, but I've covered about 1600 miles of driving over the last 2.5 weeks, 3 cases of the stomach flu, my son almost broke his hand, and my daughter once again ended up getting dissed at a National pageant. And did I mention we got the biggest project of my life at work launched in two countries too??

Most of this is self-inflicted, so I don't expect sympathy... I just need more time to write. And I want off the treadmill of my schedules!!!

I'll be back....

:o)

GIRL POWER !!!!!

2008-01-30T20:57:00.000-08:00

Who needs the Pussycat Dolls!!! Gizmo's current sportswear routine is a mix of songs by these girls.... ENJOY!!!

Dirty or Not Dirty

2008-01-29T17:19:00.000-08:00

Welcome to one of the latest pageant controversies!

Now, it is rumored that a young lady (a teen) did a routine to the song "Low" by Flo Rida... and some of the mothers have found this to be offensive, some not. So in the spirit of fairness, I looked up the lyrics myself:

*********
[Chorus:]
Shawty had them Apple Bottom Jeans [Jeans]
Boots with the fur [With the fur]
The whole club was lookin at her
She hit the flo [She hit the flo]
Next thing you know
Shawty got low low low low low low low low

Them baggy sweat pants
And the Reeboks with the straps [With the straps]
She turned around and gave that big booty a smack [Ayy]
She hit the flo [She hit the flo]
Next thing you know
Shawty got low low low low low low low low

[Verse 1:]
I ain't never seen nuthin that'll make me go,
This crazy all night spendin my dough
Had a million dollar vibe and a bottle to go
Dem birthday cakes, they stole the show
So sexual, she was flexible
Professional, drinkin X and ooo
Hold up wait a minute, do I see what I think I
Whoa
Did I think I seen shorty get low
Ain't the same when it's up that close
Make it rain, I'm makin it snow
Work the pole, I got the bank roll
Imma say that I prefer them no clothes
I'm into that, I love women exposed
She threw it back at me, I gave her more
Cash ain't a problem, I know where it goes

She had them

[Chorus:] (See words above)

[Verse 2:]
Hey
Shawty what I gotta do to get you home
My jeans full of gwap
And they ready for Shones
Cadillacs Maybachs for the sexy grown
Patrone on the rocks that'll make you moan

One stack (come on)
Two stacks (come on)
Three stacks (come on, now that's three grand)
[ Low lyrics found on http://www.completealbumlyrics.com ]
What you think I'm playin baby girl
I'm the man, I'll bend the rubber bands

That's what I told her, her legs on my shoulder
I knew it was ova, that Henny and Cola
Got me like a Soldier
She ready for Rover, I couldn't control her
So lucky oo me, I was just like a clover
Shorty was hot like a toaster
Sorry but I had to fold her,
Like a pornography poster
She showed her

[Chorus:] (See words above)

[Verse 3:]
Whoa
Shawty
Yea she was worth the money
Lil mama took my cash,
And I ain't want it back,
The way she bit that rag,
Got her them paper stacks,
Tattoo Above her crack,
I had to handle that,

I was on it, sexy woman, let me shownin
They be want it two in the mornin
I'm zonin in them rosay bottles foamin
She wouldn't stop, made it drop
Shorty did that pop and lock,
Had to break her off that gwap
Gah it was fly just like my glock

[Chorus:] (See words above)

********

Now, if you do a little digging on urbandictionary.com some of the phrases after translation are not very, er, "clean." (i.e. relative context of gwap - I won't spoil it for you but look it up...)

The question is, should the parents have allowed this? I personally don't think so, and considering I must be pretty liberal since I am one of those Moms that slaps fake eyelashes and a Dolly Parton wig on her kid from time to time... but even I draw the line.

In the forum discussions, several mothers stated that the mothers who posted said those of us more, uh, conservative folks were "over-reacting" to the song...

"It's a cute dance song"
"Well, HER parents didn't have an issue"
"THOSE AREN'T the lyrics"

Apparently, if you don't understand the lyrics, they must be okay.

Footnote - I happen to have this song on my ipod, but my kids? NO.

**************

On another note. I watched Miss America Saturday night. I am so going to have to post on THAT.

I'm back. A-gain.

2008-01-15T20:26:00.000-08:00

Hi all.

I'm probably speaking to desert and tumbleweeds now... My laptop died and I haven't been able to post (I do not want to risk using my work computer) for about a month as there are very few IT people I trust to work on my stuff and my wrasslingreferee-turned-ITguy-turned-ITguybyday-preacherbynight had to figure out how to get my poor equipment worked into his hectic schedule between coffee shop wireless set ups and ministering to his flock....

I'm back in business. WHEW.

To make matters worse:
Gizmo is going through a terrible behavior spell.
I am going through a terrible behavior spell.

For the record. I am very much ADHD and unfortunately so is my daughter. And I don't even believe in that hokey pokey stuff. I don't medicate Gizmo, but we do some nutritional therapy on her that seems to help. Me however... I've been on Adderall XR for a long time... and when I started taking it the following things happened:

My ability to fall asleep and stay asleep improved. I would finally wake up rested.
Improved memory.
Reduced need to interrupt or speak out of turn constantly.
Reduced speed in general. (especially fidgeting and mood swings)

But, at my family's urging, I tried to go off the medication. And I ended up moody, fidgety, and very depressed and irritable. So, I'm back on the meds and much better for it (3 days now!)

Glad to be here (and no more freeweb site browsing for me!!)

So what do you give the kid that has everything??

2007-11-28T19:29:00.000-08:00

The only day over the Thanksgiving Holiday I ventured out was Friday morning (and no early crap for me, we didn't go until like, 11am.)

Giz wanted to spend some of her money at Build A Bear, and Firstborn had his eye on a game at Best Buy, and they both wanted to go out for Mexican food at our favorite restaurant (they were so over turkey) - so I interrupted my mission clean out briefly to traverse to the other side of town to the (GASP!!) Mall....

I also had promised to take Gizmo to see Santa, so we decided (after getting a relatively and surprisingly good parking place) to do that first before hitting the designated destinations.

The line wasn't too bad, and we only had to wait about 15-20 minutes for her turn. The Santa at our Mall had a real beard and seemed to take a genuine interest in the kids.

So Giz gets up and gets her picture made (very cute) and then proceeds to have her discussion with Santa. However, this seemed to take quite awhile, and Santa gave her a big hug and an extra cookie.

???

I asked Gizmo what the heck did she have to talk about with Santa for so long? What on Earth did she ASK for???

"A Clock Radio"

That's it?? Just a plain ol' clock radio??

"Yep"

"...and he promised to bring me lots and LOTS of wonderful surprises!!"

SIGH.

I did NOT see THAT coming.

Reverse psychology from a five year old...

Pageant continued!!

2007-11-26T19:54:00.000-08:00

Well we ran back to hair and makeup after Beauty, feeling very confident Gizmo had done her personal best...

Well, h/m lady started working on Gizmo's hair, and the fall...well, it just FELL.

The curl just died.

She sent me back to the room to see if she could work with any of our additional hairpieces while she worked on Giz in the meantime for Christmas wear! Well, I got to the room and my key wouldn't work!! and line up was in 30 minutes!! so I called Firstborn on the phone - no answer - do I run to the lobby? Try again. No answer. Try one more time... Success!! So I frantically stammered on the cell for Firstborn to hurry up and bring his key to the room to get me in! Well, now Firstborn has not one fast twitch fiber in his entire mollecular structure. So by the time he got there, we lost another 10 minutes!! So I busted into the room grabbed clothes and hair pieces and ran back up two floors and all the way to the other end of the hotel with all the needed equipment... 15 minutes to go and still no hairdo... I pulled out about 3 hairpieces, first too short, second too curly, third not right... 10 minutes and now I'm panicking and h/m lady is trying to figure out what the heck to do... well, h/m lady's daughter pipes up "what about the puppy ears you used to do on me??" perfect... now we're down to 5 minutes and she's just now getting Gizmo's hairdo in play... ARRRRGGHHHH $800 down the drain over a $150 hair failure.... I just sat down and shut the hell up at that point and set to grinding the enamel off my teeth.... So now it's exactly line up time and we're still in h/m.

She juuuuust finished in time for us to BOLT down to the stage area which happened to be 4 floors and 1/8 of a mile from where we were momentarily located. I was freaking out, but Gizmo thought it was again, all great fun....

We got into lineup just in time behind two girls ahead of her.

WHEW

And she again, did an awesome job - I was incidentally very irritated that the director emphasized NO extra moves for christmas wear modeling, and there were kids doing all kinds of cutesy stuff all over the place. GRRR.

...Next up. Outfit of choice.

****************************************

Speaking of sparkle... for some reason "Mister, yeah I'll help you get the tree up if you make me" voluntarily put up the Christmas tree this past weekend, got the lights on, then proceeded to decorate the INSIDE of our house with all the extra strings of lights we've been collecting over the years. I have christmas lights around the inside of the foyer front door, all around the back doors and windows, I have the light up garland wrapped around the balcony, chili lights around the passthru between the kitchen and the living room, in the ficus tree in the foyer and we have an extra tree on the stair landing complete with lights and christmas tiaras stuck in it for decorations. Oh and there are the fiber optic snowmen and the light up nativity city on the mantle!!! I may have to one up him and get all those stinkin' light up houses out and put up somewhere too.

Never mind there is nary one light on the OUTSIDE of the house.

I can't wait to get the power bill.

If I can find the cord for the digital camera I'll post pics of my husband's inner christmas coming out this year....

*************************************************

On yet another note, we made Gizmo's countdown to Christmas chain over the holidays... I felt a little guilty, here we were making a Christmas chain (one of those construction paper ring deals) all the while I was watching "little nicky" on tv.... I'm not sure why, it just struck me as wrong....

My Favorite Song ever!!!

2007-11-25T08:25:00.000-08:00

In trying to find an mp3 of this song I found this little ditty on YouTube!

Now if I can just find a recording...

Speaking of recordings - For those hard rock fans, I highly recommend "The Heroine Diaries" by Nikki Sixx (Sixx:A.M.) I can't wait to read the book!

Saturday Continued

2007-11-22T16:43:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving Y'all!!! I'm stuffed and we got through having my uber-hypercritical parents over for dinner... WHEW! I am so glad that's over.

Now where are those antiacids....????

***************************************************************

So anywho to continue my story just a wee bit!

1:25 So we're in lineup for beauty, and I am quite sure Gizmo could not have looked prettier! Of course I was driving her crazy making sure she was going to get that routine right, because ever since we set foot in the hotel, she appeared to have "site amnesia" and never got through it once in practice correct at the hotel.

I did feel bad about accidentally answering the phone when it rang at 1:28 - her regular modeling/charm school teacher was calling to introduce herself and tell us how much they missed Giz at modeling that day... I had to rush her off the phone and confess we were at a pageant LOL

1:30 The group lineup started on time, and Giz was dead square center in the group lineup. She looked incredible! And she was smiling her lil' butt off and never dropped it, not once. Although when the emcee came up to sing to her and I motioned for her to look at him she shook her head no. I found out later, he maybe needed some tic tacs. It's a little cheesy what he does (aka lil miss ss) but he's really a very sweet guy and the little girls adore him.

I try hard not to stress, but I now embrace it as exercise...

I swore I wouldn't get behind the judges and try to coach her from behind, what's done is done and what she's gonna do is left up to destiny. So I made sure I got over to the side so I could hoot and holler but not distract... (You have no idea how hard it is just to let them go do their thing, noooooooo idea.)

She did not disappoint me. She nailed her routine with the exception of:
1) she did fiddle with her nails for a few seconds in front of the judges
2) she was a wee bit bouncy in her walk

Other than that, she smiled the most gorgeous smile I have ever seen!!! And her modeling overall was very, very, clean - especially since she had practiced so hard and knew it herself.

I had promised her a big toy from the toy vendor at the back of the ballroom. She made me pay for that performance big time LOL.

I had so many people come up and tell me how wonderful she did. Even if she got last place, it wasn't her fault. I was as proud as I have ever been.

Off to the next events.... which didn't go quite so smoothly.......

*******************************************************

I gotta go do some serious digesting now.

:o)

We're back so why am I not in bed fast asleep??

2007-11-18T20:28:00.000-08:00

I'm still coming down off the adrenaline-centrifical-if-I-stop-I-may-never-get-back-up path residual from this weekend's events.

Well not so bad this time, but I'm pretty convinced that the way these things are judged, if my kid walked on water, the judges would complain she can't swim.

We had a really good time as far as these things go...

We arrived at a pretty decent time Friday, even though it took longer to get on the road than originally planned - especially after picking up a prescription for my husband, dropping off the dog for boarding, getting gas, breakfast, etc.

We finally got launched around 11:30am for about a three and a half hour drive. Hubby was at the wheel and Firstborn and Gizmo were in pretty complimentary moods, so our start wasn't too stressful. It's funny how just getting on the road to someplace, anyplace, and stopping by the convenience store for a treat is super exciting for the kids (kinda like hotel pools at night, I dunno, but you can't beat it hardly in the list of things kids really want to do...) Fortunately, our drive in was pretty uneventful otherwise.

Well, when we reached the hotel, they said we had to go to a special station before we could check in, since we were with the pageant... (??) And a lady trying very hard to be pleasant handed us a very nasty waiver and a baggy explaining that if there was the suh-lightest damage to the room we would be charged insane amounts of money for the problems ($40 a sheet $100 for other offenses.) Now, I can respect if they had trouble last year...but why would the director go back if the pageant caused that much damage. I hate being guilty by association, but I've never met anyone at a pageant that wrecked a room worse than rock stars, but apparantly this is what occurred before, and we were going to be treated like the criminals we must be LOL. The hotel staff was extremely rude to us - even when I asked directions to a local Chick-fil-A the maintenance lady acted like I had asked her to take poison (did I mention we were in a heavy TOURIST town?) The girl at the front desk couldn't find my overnight package even though she looked straight at it like, five times in a row. These folks had been warned that the "pageant people" were here... it was like walking into a crowded bar and you're the worst gunslinger in the west. I don't know what was worse, the treatment by the hotel staff, or the fact that they had reason to believe we should be treated that badly. I don't know all the facts directly except what I experienced first hand, so I reckon I have to give them the benefit of the doubt.

So once we got checked in and our stuff to the room, I had to get Gizmo to her modeling lesson - it went well and halfway through my husband came running in with the christmas wear, which had been fed ex'd the night before and the hotel staff couldn't find it so he went and raised a ruckus to get it... didn't do any good because our coach decided we should go with the backup plan because she didn't care for what we had custom made. SIGH.

Next up, DINNER!! Well,not quite. We had to find a local Springmaid outlet and buy some cheap sheets just in case ANY tanner might get on the hotel sheets. (which really wasn't an issue, I just wish the director had told all of us before the pageant so we'd know to bring our own... and normally we don't have too much of a problem with tanner, but not we had the penalties to worry about, and frankly this hotel seemed to be looking for ANY excuse to charge us!!) After we picked up new sheets, pillowcases and couple of extra towels ($20 not bad...) we all went to Fridays on the main drag, and it was okay, except they didn't tell me before hand that all the liquor drinks advertised had to be made with wine, so when my drink came out a completely different color than the ad the waiter sort of mumbled something about "maybe we should have told you" and that the bar staff did "what they could"... I just sent it back and ordered a beer. I wasn't mad or anything, it was just kind of a dumb move on his part.

Back to the room, take Gizmo to tanning. The lady who did her tan was super sweet and Gizmo did wonderful. I don't know how she made any money on it, she didn't charge us much and gave Giz a small stocking loaded with toys and candy. Golden in my book if you ask me :o)

Next up, registration. Throw gobs of money at curt director (I'm guessing she was pretty tired since it was around 9pm and registration started at 2pm) in hopes that your kid will beat the odds. And NO, no sympathy expected here. I'm too old to use the "I didn't know excuse." We entered pretty much everything except the door overalls, which was just more than I could bring myself to spend after the initial fees. Registration ran pretty smoothly for a national, I will admit though.

I ended up staying up late, because after a wardrobe check with the coach I ended up having to whip stitch the skirt into the dress, and everything else had to be ironed, laid out with necessary accessories and supplies in preparation for the next day. So I didn't get to bed until about 1 a.m. Everyone else was out by 11, 12, and 12:30 respectively.

7:30 a.m.

Upsy Daisy!! Shower. Get dressed. Wake up Hubby and Firstborn. Get them rolling and into the shower etc. Run down for a pre-breakfast pick up. Send Hubby to BK for egg biscuits and juice (Gizmo HAS to have protein in the morning or she crashes bad in the afternoon and it is NOT pretty - she turns into a GREMLIN...)

10:20 Take Gizmo to hair and makeup. H/M lady has bad news. Gizmo's fall is having trouble staying put. Now I rolled that thing a week earlier, it should have been MOLDED into place. Not the hairdo we wanted, but it was pretty still. Giz was perfect for h/m but I think H/M lady wanted to shoot me with a tranquilizer dart.

10:50 back to room for snacks and rest time

11:40 back to H/M lady to have hair done.

12:45 - still not done with hair, it was not going well. Run back to room to get dress and all accessories while H/M lady is struggling to create a winner.
(All things considered, I thought Giz looked pretty awesome (should have for what I PAID LOLOL but granted, you do not always get what you pay for))

1:15 Dressed and ready to go, we go to the ballroom.

...to be continued, and I promise not to make ya'll wait this time.

Update. Maybe things will turn better...

2007-11-15T18:49:00.000-08:00

Update!

Well, I emailed the lady who made the dress to let her know it just wouldn't work. I mean, in all fairness to her, maybe she DID do her best and just didn't get the vision LOL. Besides, I'd find out if she was legit, or not in the business to last. Well, to her credit,she did contact me, and told me if I would overnight the dress (cost $67) she would fix it. Demanded to fix it almost... Well, we'll see, because the repaired dress (another $47 to get it yet overnighted again to the Hotel tomorrow.... why cheaper for her I don't know, but I'll go with it but I really think she should have paid that shipping but at this point as much money as I am throwing out the door who am I to argue its so not worth it (and BREEEEEEATHE....)) So in trying to avoid paying $300 for a new casual wear, I basically ended up paying $300 after adding shipping and backup outfits. Anywho, live and learn. I had several leads on casual wears today, but I missed them because...

MY CELL PHONE DIED.

It didn't just die out, it came to a screeching halt in pieces. It apparently cracked at some point when I flipped the lid on it and then the antennae snapped off and was lost. So much for "military grade."

ARRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!

Sooooo-aaahhhh. After busting a nut (as my guys at work say) getting up and getting the house cleaned, catching up on laundry from the washing machine fiasco, trying to take calls from work on our project, walking our crazy dog (I swear he was a sled dog in a previous life), and getting ready for Gizmos photo shoot... I had to go to the mall and buy a new cell phone. And, not realizing I had voicemail with some leads about a backup plan for a casual wear, I drug poor Giz from one end of the Mall to the other looking for something suitable. Oh and did I mention, the phone ended up costing THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS??? My choices were:

a) renew my contract for another 2 years and get $75 off the phone.
b) cancel current service and go to another provider (and go through allll the sales crap and paperwork etc. when I only had a little bit of time and needed a phone NOW)
c) just pay for the phone outright and keep the strings unattached on my plan

oh, and did I mention on option a) there was a $20 reactivation fee making it only a $55 discount??

I tried every tack I could, I even marched down to Radio Shack to try and buy a refurbished phone, and don't even get me started about that ordeal.

So I just bought the dad-blamed phone. Done.

On another note, Gizmo's modeling school photo shoot went off fabulously... although I still don't think they believe me that most of her ensembles were from Wal Mart. You'd think if I could put together something swell for modeling that I could do a christmas wear at the last minute. 'Cept I lose all creative capability when I'm under extreme duress.

We ended up buying a little OTR Christmas dress and accessories at Dillards and declared the search over. Time's up - what's done is done.

The rest is up to destiny.

I'm going to need new fingernails Monday. I do not have a good feeling about this weekend now, so we're just going to try and salvage what we can of the coming weekend.

....find a happy place....find a happy place....find a happy place...

p.s.s When I went to mail the dress Wednesday, I needed packaging because I didn't consider sending the dress back and at lunchtime was going try to see if I could find an alterationist to work on it. I didn't have box or anything for shipping!! So in between two meetings I ran like a mad mofo into Walgreens kind of wild-eyed looking for shipping tape and trash bags (to protect the dress in case it got left on a porch in the rain etc.)... I'm pretty sure there's some poor clerk around thinking she just had a killer with a body in the trunk run into her store the other day....

p.s.s.s. Did I mention my iron died today too?? Just as I was trying to get Gizmo's dresses ready for her modeling shoot?

CONFIRMED: I am NOT okay

2007-11-13T21:33:00.000-08:00

Gizmo's Christmas wear came in today.

Completely unusable.

I now have two point five days to find a great christmas casual wear for her.

I'm going to cry. A lot.

I begged the lady to get it done sooner. I ordered it over a month ago and even sent her the material myself. She basically threw it together.

I need some grace right now.

:o(

I'm FINE Really! I'm o-kay. No issues. Nope not me....

2007-11-12T19:42:00.000-08:00

Who the hell am I kidding.

I am officially a nervous wreck.

My house is a mess.

My washing machine blew up...

...and after dragging parts and grease all over my basement and laundry room it was determined that yes indeed, this is an unfixable piece of crap. (don't let 'em fool you those water saver piss poor excuses for robbing you blind are NOT what they are cracked up to be...and did I mention there is a class action lawsuit against the company for making this giant hunk of scrap metal???)

Had to buy a new washing machine. TONIGHT. Thank goodness I married the plumber.

Due to the washing machine being out, I had to buy khaki pants for Firstborn Saturday - BUT!! I could NOT find one stinking pair of 28/31s anywhere in town. He's 5'8" and barely breaking 100lbs. It took about 10 stores and 6 starbucks Fraps to get me through that one... But that's another blog... We had to be at a wedding Saturday Night, then cotillion Sunday and no way to wash clothes because hubby was still damning the torpedos that he could fix that hulking hunk of junk, and of course, everything we needed was dirty.

Roll hair

Pack clothes

Arrange fees, tanning appts, modeling lesson, school excuses, make sure all accessories are intact, plan excursion for hubby and firstborn while we get ready when we arrive...

Did I mention that it is roughly three and a half days before we can leave and not one but TWO of Gizmo's outfits are NOT here!!!!

The big boss wants a fabulous demo of my new project to present to the big BIG boss after Thanksgiving as a hallmark of things that are going right in our department (sadly a lot of projects apparantly aren't.) And it doesn't. quite. work. yet.

And my uber-hyper-critical parents are coming for Thanksgiving dinner.

Stop the world, I want to get off.

Strangely, as much of this is self inflicted, I don't expect sympathy, I just needed to vent.

Live chat now! We help you long time!

2007-11-08T20:13:00.001-08:00

AAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Okay, so I have a couple of emails that for some reason appear to be ending up blocked to my regular email account (non-yahoo.)

So I sent an email request for help on how to unblock these messages.

I receive an email back admonishing me to contact their "live chat" for resolution because the companythatshallnotbenamed so very wants to help me for great customer satisfaction, blah, blah, and blah.

Here's a cliff's notes of the transcript:

THEM : Online chat - a representative will be with you in approximately two minutes
Me : oKAY
THEM : Eden has joined the chat
THEM : hello how may I help you?
ME : I have two email addresses that appear to be blocked, how can I have them unblocked?
THEM : oH, it appears you have been routed to the Sales group, do you mind if I reroute you to technical support?
ME : Uh, no (knock yerself out unless you think you can fix this...)
THEM : Cyrus has joined the chat
THEM : how may I assist you today?
ME : I have two email addresses I am expecting mail from that appear to be blocked, how can I have them unblocked?
THEM : All spam is blocked
ME : No, these are not spam addresses, last week I was receiving mail just fine from them and now I cannot
THEM : are you using webmail?
ME : YES
THEM : Is your mailbox full?
ME : no
THEM : check please
ME : 31 %
THEM : okay, please go to your filtering options
ME : okay
THEM : add these to your allowed list
ME : okay, will do , but what if this does not work? what can I do
THEM : do you have antivirus installed
ME : sure, but what does that have to do with blocking emails?
THEM: maam, it has everything to do with email
ME : how?
THEM : maam, if you need help with antivirus, please contact norton directly?
ME : ?? why? I'm not having trouble with antivirus, just blocked emails
THEM : really, you should contact norton
ME : for what?
THEM : how are we supposed to know, you are the one with antivirus problems
ME : WHAT??
THEM : thank you for contacting companythatshallnotbenamednow ... is there anything else we can help you with??
ME : uh, one more question.
THEM : yes?
ME : are you in the US or India?
THEM : I'm sorry maam that information is confidential
ME : (....BANGS SELF REPEATEDLY IN HEAD WITH BLUNT OBJECT)

$%!### ^&@@ss@@@

I'm okay. really.

p.s. I'm probably going to get beat up for this one, but geez, I was just asking the last question out of curiosity!!!

10.5 days to go, but who's counting??

2007-11-06T18:44:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Rennratt I picked up this lil' ditty

Your Karaoke Theme Song is "Livin' On a Prayer"

You believe the best things in life are mostly forgotten, and you're definitely more than a little nostalgic .
You're likely to still like the same foods, fashions, and music as you did when you were a teenager.

You have a knack for knowing what elements of pop culture people have missed, without them even realizing it.
It's great to remember the past, but don't forget that not everyone is as stuck in it as you are.

You might also sing: "Pour Some Sugar on Me," "Rapper's Delight," and "Cherry Pie"

Stay away from people who sing: "Toxic"

What's Your Karaoke Theme Song?

PAGEANT UPDATE

The dress came today!! (WHEW)

But I DID have to go get it from our Green Acres post office early this a.m. If you think I'm leaving a dress that costs as much or more than an expensive sofa there one minute longer than I have to yer flippin' crazeee!!

I was in there at 7:55 am begging for the box hollering through the mail slot at the poor woman trying to load the po boxes. Even went to the back door and stood on my tippy toes trying to get her attention asap!!! Snap to it lady, we've got business to take care of LOL....

Oh what have I been reduced to??

BTW It's GORGEOUS!!!

Now all we need to do is roll one more hair piece, get the Christmas wear and the Casual wear in the mail, pack and make it to next week without anyone contracting the siberian flu.

:o)

12.5 days and counting down

2007-11-04T20:25:00.000-08:00

Pet peeve of the week.

Why is it people have time to send me all kinds of crazy junk emails with cute little puppy pics, wishes of doom if I don't forward to 500 people immediately, and just plain old stupid jokes...I don't mind if the joke is funny, isn't over 200k, and is sent to me personally to enjoy, but when it comes via a 150 person address book send, it doesn't make me feel particularly special.

Yet this is what I get back when I call on the phone to say hello...

Title of email: "Returning your call"

Hey, I jsut wanted to let you know until I get through
parent report card conferences and my dreaded
birthday, I will not be in the mood to chat, I will
call sometime after the 12th.

I'm beginning to think it's not worth trying to have any friends at all.

**********************************************

I must be crazy.

It took me 4 hours to roll hairpieces today.

The christmas wear won't be shipped until Thursday.

I haven't heard from the dressmaker in 4 days since I sent my last payment.

The new picture came in (bright spot.)

And the only pageant we could work in for practice next weekend has been cancelled.

I don't think this is a good sign.

Never mind we made our first dress payment in JUNE.

I guess we're going to go and lose again.

Really we should quit, this is so not worth it. I think.

But on the other hand, Firstborn and Hubby are joining us this time.

Should be interesting.

Maybe I'm living right, maybe not.

2007-10-24T19:38:00.000-07:00

You haven't lived until...

It's 10:30 p.m.

You have a room full of people traveling in from various and sundry locations across North America to test a brand new computer application that they've been trying to get launched for almost FOUR years.

And it still isn't totally working.

My guys pulled through though, and at 7:42 a.m. they had it up and running.

WHEW.

Tomorrow I'm going to go have new nails and tooth enamel put on.

*******************************************************************************

My therapist should get hazard pay....

In three weeks, we are getting back on the proverbial horse and we are going back to another National Pageant.

Now somewhere between persistence and stupidity is something call perserverance. I'd like to think I'm just keeping the faith, but my husband thinks I'm stupid.

First of all, your child has to model well to be competitive. Gizmo has been practicing... a LOT. And it hasn't been going well. She wants to do pageants badly, but practice?? It's like teaching a pig to sing. To make matters worse, we changed coaches, and all her routines had to change. I told her if she doesn't practice, we'll have to quit, and when I do that, she just gets angry and screams. But when I ask her to practice (and I am working with her to get it right) I'm pretty sure pulling an oak tree out with my bare hands would be easier.

Second, Clothes Clothes Clothes!!!!!!
After the last national fiasco, we sold EVERYTHING and started over. From scratch.
It's not just the expense, but the design has to be right...Is it noticable without being tacky? Is it comfortable? Will she be able to model in it without any wardrobe malfunctions? Will she like it? Will I have to deal with a child screaming she doesn't want to wear THAT??? Are the colors right? Will the seamstress get the measurements right? Will she understand what we want? Will we get it on time? and How on earth am I going to afford all of this?????

Third
Pictures! You have to have new pictures. A new comp card... We even drove all the way across town JUST to get three additional pictures for the comp card in Christmas pajamas to complete the collage!!! I'm beginning to think they need to dedicate a lane in my name between two large Southern cities on the freeway because I've burned so much rubber between the two in the name of getting pictures!!!

Fourth
Loose ends: do the photo protectors need replacing? Do the wigs and falls need replacing? what about shoes? We need to make hotel arrangements. We need to contract a hair and makeup person (will they do my child right? will they understand what will make her look her best? will I get my money's worth?) Check socks, earrings, undergarments, storage for new clothes, wig heads, roller operation, hair spray supply, do we need to order fresh tanning solution....?? The List goes on.

It's work, work, WORK! A labor of love for sure.

help.

Happy Anniver-sry Bay-bee!!!!

2007-10-14T09:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was our 17th wedding anniversary.

And for the 17th year in a row. We did the same thing.

Maybe that's why we've lasted so long LOL.

Every year on our anniversary, we go to a particular "Japanese" hibachi style steak house for filet and plum punch...
oooooh I lurves me sum plum puncheeeeee....

Anyway.

We've watched this restaurant evolve over the years, and we were sort of waxing sentimental about how the bar used to be sort of dark and quiet with more of a romantic feel (and they used to put out little bowls of japanese cracker mix with dried peas), and now it's a sushi bar/sub restaurant where they serve a lot of beer to Mexicans and it has bright lighting now. It used to be that ALL the cooks were Japanese, now there are none (hence the "Janpanese" reference vs Japanese no quotes.) We used to be able to order a lobster tail with our order, now you can just get some extra shrimp. And customers used to dress up for dinner there and you never saw kids. Now folks go in wearing work clothes from the garage, they bring screaming babies, and jeans are the norm.

In a way, the restaurant's evolution mimics our city's changes. But that's a story for another time.

But, it IS tradition. And the plum punch is still good, even though they've gone to free pour and you don't get as much liquor in it.

I think it's funny too that when our table found out it was our wedding anniversary, and our 17th at that, they were amazed. I guess long marriages are not as common anymore? The guy next to me said he could tell we got along well, and wished he could find someone to share his life like that. Another said we looked too young to be married that long.

And there was a lady at the end freaking out because she thought my husband looked exactly like (and could have been) Dave Grohl.... (I never would've thought THAT.)

Overall we had a pretty good time, but we opted not to go out after the fiasco we had when we went out downtown for my birthday (a GIRL hit on me in front of my husband....) So we picked up the kids from Grandma's and went on home.

And had a great evening.

Here's to another 17!!!

:o)

Usually it's a lot more interesting when our date is on FRIDAY the 13th....

Today

2007-10-11T20:18:00.001-07:00

My daughter is in this stupid photo contest...

http://lipglossmodels.homestead.com/1000_Dollar_Finals.html

I have a feeling the moms of the tops might be the only ones voting...

just a hunch

;o)

***********************************************

You know, in a lot of ways I am cheap.

Cheap, cheap cheap...!

I pack my lunch most days.
...and I label and re-use the baggies (carrots, sandwich, cookies)

I live in a house that’s largely made of windows so I don’t have to pay a big light bill.
...and I use those funky looking florescent bulbs in the chandeliers

The last pair of shoes I bought were on sale.
...at Target, and they were only 4 bucks. Super comfy and stylish too.

I never use the dry cycle on my dishwasher.
...and the wet towel I use to get the water off is what I use to wipe down the countertops.

I only partially dry clothes in the dryer.
... I like to pretend that hanging the clothes up doubles as exercise.

I buy books at Goodwill for the kids.
...that way I’m not distracted by a $5 mocha frappacino at Starbucks

In a lot of ways I am a financial idiot.

Dumb, dumb, dumb...!!

My son and husband have a $100 a week golf habit.
...Plus balls, tees, and lost clubs.

I could have gone to Disneyworld for what I paid for my daughter’s pageant dress
...don’t get crazy, I could have paid for only ME not the entire family...

I have a $2 a day addiction to AMP.
... at the risk of TMI, sometimes it IS green.

I am quite convinced Pedicures are a medical necessity
...and I cannot figure out why health insurance won’t pay (reduces stress, really!!!)

*************************************************

Do you have any money saving tips to share? Send ‘em my way :o)

I need to get my toes done

You gotta work it girl!!

2007-10-06T11:48:00.000-07:00

You know, In a lot of ways pageants have been really good for Gizmo.

In others, I admit, they have been bad.

Case in point:

Today, Gizmo was invited to a birthday party for a classmate at the local "Snip Its" kids hair salon. "Get your Glitz and Glamor On" was the title on the adorable invitation she received in the mail. However, I have to worry about Gizmo's participation at these parties sometimes... so I shall explain.

She got up this morning all excited, ready to see her friends and have fun at the PAR-TAY - as she says... And of course, outfit selection was a critical event to pass before attending - "I can't GO if I'm not STYLISH!!!" Then "Kaitlyn is ALL about fashion so I have to be fashionable!!!" In the end she selected her "Dad said it was okay!" T-shirt, denim skirt with sequin scarf belt, funky knee highs and sequin hair bands. She also had to have a funky hairdo, and wanted to wear her new sparkley sketchers to complete the look.

I don't mind her wanting to be stylish, really. I know that's probably not the most responsible parental attitude, but I don't like conflict and I choose to pick my battles where my judgement deems my effort really needs to go. But it kinda looks funny to the other parents when my child doesn't want to "play dress up" when well, she already IS dressed up walking in the door. Nonetheless, she had a great time - and it didn't bother the other kids, and probably not the other parents either, but I'm a little sensitive to what they might think so it's probably all just in my head. At this birthday party in particular, the whole point was to "Play Dress Up" and be "Glamorous" THERE. Then you get your hair done. Gizmo didn't want them to do her hair, because to her, it was already done. But she did let them curl the ends of her hair, put the makeup on, and do her nails.

At the end of the party the "big deal" is for each child to walk the red carpet (yes, they have a red carpet LOL) in their fancy outfit, hair, and makeup. Most of the kids just kinda walked out and stared at the floor with a "whatever" look on their face. Of course, Gizmo sashays out doing her twisty walk, total smile and attitude going - stage presence topped out - and models, well, like a professional. Oh and never mind that although she's not the oldest child there, she's the TALLEST and the THINNEST and looks like a model. Now don't get all in a wad over that statement, I'm not saying Gizmo was the "prettiest" and keep in mind not all models are "pretty" per se, they just have that presence about them...

Embarrassing.

Of course the other mothers are looking at me and one says, "MY she's PROFESSIONAL."

Um, I'm sorry Ma'am, I truly am, but compared to the rest of these kids She IS.

I didn't say that out loud, of course. I just sort of smiled sheepishly and focused my attention on the fact that the next kid was coming up.

I know it sounds weird, but I was so proud (she has such a pretty bright smile and she DID work it down that runway...) but embarrassed at the same time (she just didn't act "normal".) I mean is it so bad she enjoyed it in her own way? Maybe I'm making a bigger deal out of it to myself because I am sensitive to the whole is-it-or-isn't-it-politically-correct to put your kids in pageants issue.

But in the end, all I know is a bunch of little girls had fun today, one of which had to do it her own way.

:o)

One thing I did notice, is that this joint had TVs to distract the kids while they were getting their hair cut. No wonder we are raising a generation of kids who have to be entertained all the time!!

Vague Ramblings

2007-10-01T19:07:00.000-07:00

I hate to be outgeeked, but since I'm not a full fledged card carrying member I really shouldn't try. (I'm sort of a fence rider....) But anyway:

I was riding back from lunch with some of the guys on my team and they were talking about back in the old days of building their own printers and protocol converters (pre TCPIP days etc.) And how they used to do all their programs on punch card readers, and how they spent Saturday nights in the computer labs in college....blah blah blah...etc and so on...

Out of sheer frustration all I could think of was the time I stuck a fork in the light socket....

(Hey! I traded out doing one guy's biology homework if he would do my data processing homework in the computer lab. I swear the geeks would leave me be for 30 minutes laughing at the dumb sorority girl who couldn't find the power button to the computer. It made me feel like tweety bird trapped at a cat convention, can you blame me for the trade out?)

But Anyway. (I supposed that explains a lot)

****************************************************

Gizmo fell out of bed early Saturday a.m. and pulled her left shoulder muscles out of whack. Oh can she milk it for all. its. worth. Now, at the risk of being called a bad mom, I didn't take her to the doctor until today. My kids can make a paper cut into a knifing attempt by Mark Twain. Complete with "...and he got away without a police report...." So I'm not known for rushing to the hospital. She's fine, says the doctor, just give her motrin and leave it alone a couple more days.

We're a pretty durable bunch in this gene pool.

Kinda reminds me of the time I rode a horse with a bad reputation on my mother-in-law's farm. "Now don't take him to the upper pasture and run..." stated my father-in-law matter-of-factly. Whatever says I. I can ride him.

So I take the perilous pony out and everything is going fine, 'cept I let my guard down on the upper pasture.

NOT a GOOD IDEA.

Next thing you know we're going, going, going. Then he's NOT going.

And I still AM.

Can you spell "Swan dive"????

Well, I ended up getting bucked off head over heels and landed my full weight on my right shoulder. My guardian angel musta been working overtime, because I came within a couple of inches of landing straight on top of my head, and I was NoT wearing a Helmet. Now, being the resilient gal I am I sort of popped up off the ground and I remember my husband RUNNING up the hill screaming "OMG are you Okay???"

"NO. I'm going to Pass out"

And I did. PLUNK.

When I came to about five minutes later I swore I broke my collarbone (and for some reason, I REALLY had to go to the bathroom...TMI, but it IS true....) After all, I'm a pretty solid girl and I took a very nasty fall and my shoulder REALLY really REALLY really HURT. My husband looked at me (the hopeless romantic he is) and said "I'm not taking you to the hospital, I'm not sitting around the emergency room I might CATCH something"

>o|

You know he made me WAIT until the next day to go to the doctor????

Well, as luck would have it they xrayed my shoulder. No break. No twist. No fracture.
Geez, I could have at least had a small fracture or something for my trouble. The bruise wasn't even much of a trophy.

Apparantly, you can bruise just the bone itself...

Now, it might not have been much, but to this day I can STILL tell you when the barometric pressure is changing.

*********************************************************

In the meantime...

Firstborn, who is full tilt boogie heading into puberty, is having so many mood swings I'm getting emotional whiplash. I'm not ever sure who I'm talking too: Sir Morose, The Giddy Puppy, The Third Parent, Mr.Hideaway... Well, Mr Morose visited juuuust as we were getting him ready for cotillion Sunday afternoon. I'd rather try to pull a large tree out of the backyard with my bare hands before having to deal with this facet of the hormonal horrors known as THIRTEEN. He wants to wear his dress pants around his fanny, the tie doesn't work, he DID? comb his hair... So my husband grabbed him by the ear and did his hair as I added to his humiliation by fixing his shirt in his pants.... I have never heard such whining (his voice is cracking too which to his chagrin tends to give me the giggles - but I try not to have them in front of him I SWEAR.) Tears, pout, huff. Tears, pout, huff. Hell, he makes the Bridezillas on TV look downright docile.

So we ended up being 15 minutes late. Not a good thing when after all you are going to Manners class...

There I was dropping off my pouting, steaming, hunk of hormones off at the club door, taking solice in the fact that there were SIX other parents dropping off their equally pouting humiliated male tweens at the door too!!! AH, Misery loves company.

When I picked him up, he was absolutely the polar opposite.

My neck is sore.

Please pray for little Maddie

2007-09-28T16:33:00.000-07:00

We pause for a life sucks moment.

My daughter does a lot of online glitz photo contests, and we get to know quite a few folks over the internet and all over the country.

There is one contest we do alot in particular, because the lady runs it well, she's very nice, her fees are reasonable and she gives away build a bear prizes, of which Gizmo has won a couple. Each time this lady lets her youngest daughter go and pick out the bear and the clothes for the prize to mail to the winner with a special note. Then she'll post a picture of the child with their prize in her winners log.

This little girl was involved in a terrible car crash today - a teenager was texting and not paying attention and Maddie was in the back seat and took the worst part of the crash. She is in serious condition.

This is just horrible!!!

Gratuitous AD day!!!

2007-09-26T19:55:00.000-07:00

I'm going to buy 10!!!!

http://www.palmercash.com/women-tees.asp?0=258&1=259&2=-1&6=1

We pause for a whiny brat moment.

2007-09-25T19:21:00.000-07:00

I have a confession to make.

I desperately want to be liked.

I envy people who have lots and lots of friends... I still long to be a popular kid.
If I had people come by and hang on weekends around the house to keep us company, I think I would be so much happier. I think I carry around a lot of baggage from being at the bottom of the social food chain in high school... I mean, for crying out loud, I DID go to my senior prom on a blind date. It sucks being a geek.

But I married a social recluse, and although I try really hard to make and keep friendships, it seems like I'm never going to achieve my life's goal to have people to really go do things with. We used to have a couple we would go on vacation with occasionally, but when Doug died of cancer my husband just sort of gave up on finding anyone else to hang with. And his wife and I had nothing in common at all to try and keep a relationship going. She was nice, but she never wanted to do anything.

I have a "best" friend, who calls me often and enthusiastically on the phone with all her news and trials and tribulations, but when I go to visit her she ignores me for her local friends (she literally turns away from me and talks to them and doesn't let me get a word in edgewise.) I took my daughter down to visit her this summer and although she is a teacher, she seemed perpetually annoyed with my daughter, and got mad when I asked if we could fix some popcorn (around 8:30 one evening) for Gizmo and I because she and the "babies" (her two dogs, had a bedtime to keep. Geez, we only visit once a year. I mean she tells me about going out to dinner with her friends and going to the movies etc. but when I suggested we all go to dinner and a movie she curtly replied "I'm so not interested...." Or if I suggest we go visit this or that she looks at me in disdain "I am NOT a tourist" Yet, I say nothing. Although I did feign not feeling well so we could cut our trip a little bit short, she didn't really seem to mind and then made all nice. She could make a little bit of effort if she really cares about our friendship. But maybe that's why she's 38 and still whining that she can't find a man.... (she hasn't had a boyfriend since college.)

I wish I had another mom with kids I could call and say "let's go to six flags today!" Or, let's go to the mall! Or, come over and have lunch. But I guess we're all kinda caught up in the day to day of things and we have our own families to harrass and hang with... Even when I go to birthday parties and meet other mothers I kind of feel uncomfortable because I don't even think the same way they do. They talk about worrying about their kids being too worldly, or the teachers not giving enough homework, or how they don't like ChuckECheese because it's too loud inside.
I don't worry about Giz being too worldly - how can she be worldly taking the dog for a walk, going to pageants, going skiing and roller skating and to the pottery place or going grocery shopping.... and I don't want her to burn out on homework in kindergarten.... and I don't mind ChuckECheese or Monkey Joe's or Six Flags... I love to rollerskate and I love to ride rollercoasters and I can ski and I want to try other things too... Aren't there any other mom's out there like Me???

I'm sure it's overrated. But I haven't felt well this week and I'm wallowing in my own self pity. I'll get over it. Maybe. (Although one of the guys on my team did give me a cookie Monday - Macadamia/Cranberry - and for a little while I WAS truly cheered up :o)

Okay. I know I'm whining. But only a few people read my blog anyway, and they don't seem to be all up in the air about me being one of those social outkast battle-ax stagemothers.

I know they'll understand.

SNIFFLE.

Dissed at the Disco - Part 2

2007-09-22T14:12:00.000-07:00

Ah.... Now where was I??

Gizmo was wonderful in outfit of choice, and knowing she really didn't have the clothes to win casual wear, I let HER pick out her music. She picked a really bouncy tune "Jump" by Jump 5 - but I figured if she was happy, she'd smile like she needed too. And she did. But she gets sooooo bouncy she looks a bit of a train wreck in her modeling when she needs to just slow down and take it easy. But, all things considered, it's all about her and she should have some creative liberty. Even if she is only 5.

Last but not least, moving on to Disco Wear. No, we didn't have custom mixed music (but I AM trying to learn Audacity now LOL) but yes, Giz had worked her lil' fanny off practicing and I was pretty confident she would do her best.

She did not disappoint me.

I get tickled after the last event at any pageant because although she's really good about the hair, and the makeup, and the nails, and the lashes etc. once that last deal is done, you blink twice and it looks like a mannequin murder scene. Pop, pop, pop. Off go the nails. UUUUHHHHHH Youch! There goes the fall. Off go the lashes... It's really quite funny. Then she hands it all to me in a wad - I am SO done Mommy! Let's go swimming now??

Of course!

Definition of Eternity = from the time you are done on Saturday until crowning on Sunday morning.

Getting out of a hotel on Sunday morning during a pageant is really tough when you don't have help. Albeit we had friends staying with us and we could pinch hit looking after kids while we loaded up the car, it's still really difficult when they are little. They want to run and play and wander etc. when you really, really REALLY need them to be a little clingy.

Anyway. They had a wonderful Disco party before crowning and they gave the kids these light up Disco glasses and glow necklaces and all the kids got to dance onstage - thus burning off some energy before having to sit still and deal with their nervous mothers for the crowning event.

So they called the 0-3 groups - a lot of predictable winners but since I didn't get to watch those age groups I really couldn't tell how they were going... So it wasn't too long before the 4-8 divisions were called.

Now it is important ya'll know that although I love doing pageants with my daughter I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE crowning. In case you weren't clear, I HATE it. I'm pretty sure one of these days I'm just going to puke and spew everywhere out of nerves. I've even been told by others that I actually look like it too. Oh well. They started calling side awards - I didn't enter Gizmo in any of the additional optional events (I have to economize some) besides casual wear so she had to watch kids get prizes for Natural photogenic, Composite, and a 2nd outfit of choice. But now they were getting down to business with the core events. Second runner up in photogenic. Good. Second runner up in Disco Wear (I personally thought she was the best, but HEY I'm not the judge....LOL) then side awards - best hair? NO .... best dress? NO.... Most beautiful? they gave like 6 places and she didn't even place. It's about this time I am not getting a good feeling.... 5th RU - went to a child where obviously she and her mother had no clue about National pageants. 4th RU - Gizmo SIGH. Might as well have been dead last. And she noticed this time she didn't get a crown! Quick! Damage Control!!! We stayed onstage until the last beauty winner was called with me distracting her the rest of the time and whisking her off stage. WHEW.

?????

Definition of Forever - having to wait until all of crowning is over to talk to the judges.

Now, losing wasn't so bad, but here's what I got wrapped around the axle about:

Gizmo effectively got a zero for facial beauty on her scoresheets.

WTF??

...well, maybe she IS ugly in the eye of the judges and I'm not terribly objective.

I got in line, trying desperately to be settled and patient. Really trying. Honest! So I get up in line to the table and finally it's my turn. I looked at the three beauty judges and said "Look. Don't tell me how beautiful and great my daughter is..." I hate when they say that - it's patronizing especially when your kid didn't do well "...don't patronize me and BS me that my daughter is all that when she came in almost dead last...." One of the judges wouldn't even look at me. She literally had her face in her hand. "I want to know what your thinking was on her scores." Well the male judge effectively stated that he gave her a low facial score because he didn't like her dress. He preferred pastels he purred in his most girly voice. I was fine until then really. Now I'm really, REALLY, reallyreallyreallyreally PISSED.

If he had told me that he just thought my kid was ugly and he wasn't into her, I would have had some respect for him. Have some balls dammit. But to dock my child's facial score, which is a totally separate score from Overall Appearance (where his disdain for my daughter's dress should have been reflected) was competely irresponsible. I could no longer contain myself. Now, I did not swear. I did not raise my voice. I did not resort to insults or name calling. But if pastel dresses were a requirement, it should have been in the paperwork, right? A respectable judge should judge how the dress compliments the child regardless of his or her preference in color. If they want to reflect an issue with attire it should be in the overall appearance score, or attire score if one is used.

Well, as it turned out the two little girls who made 3rd and 2nd runner up respectively (and oh, btw there were like nine kids in the group with 2 pulling supremes and two group titles) he did the same thing to. He effectively knocked these three girls out of the running for ANYTHING because he didn't like bright color dresses. Which is, in my opinion, bullshit. :o) Besides, my daughter does not do well in pastels overall because they tend to wash her out.

In Disco wear two judges gave Gizmo perfect scores across the board. But one judge expressed that Giz was "looking" at a coach for cues. My daughter can tend to look at me occaisionally, but in Disco wear this time, she most certainly, did not. Would not. I even tried to get her attention and she was so into what she was doing she never paid me any mind at all (should have in a couple of places...maybe LOL.) So I knew right off this judge had written us off and not really watched my baby. Because if she did, her notes should have read that Gizmo stumbled on part of her back X - and I would have definitely understood if she took off for that.

In my opinion, judges should watch a child the entire time she is on stage. They should judge whether or not the clothes work for that child. They should judge the modeling according to the age and abilities of the age group. Anything else (i.e. judging low due to personal color preference) shows NO respect for my daughter's time and hard work, and it shows NO respect for MY money. I am a paying (and lord knows in pageants you PAY....) customer, and that's what I expect - since we don't get a "product" in return, I expect good service from the pageant directors and the judges. We pay for them to be there, our kids give them their best, and we deserve THEIR best effort in return. Not bullshit I'm lazy and don't want to make any effort to truly judge your child so I'll use dress color to make my decisions.

Now when I got home, and finally received the DVD of the pageant, I told myself that maybe the judges DID see things I did not, and I promised myself I would be objective in my review of not only my daughter's performance, but the other children's.

I stand by my opinions. The kids who won, hardly smiled. The kids who did not DID. Gizmo had Disco wear in my opinion still. Did she model as well or better than the others in Casual wear. Yes. Did she outsmile all of them. Absolutely. Did her clothes hurt her? Yes.

So now what?

We are getting Gizmo with a new coach. Not because our old one was doing anything wrong, but maybe another coach could see what she/we did not. There's always room for improvement, AND you never know, another technique might be just the thing she needs.

She is getting all new clothes and we are trying different seamstresses/designers. All I can say to that is OUCH.

We took a little "break" to practice new routines and get our heads together.

We're not quitters. Maybe we'll never be able to win this game, but as long as she wants to do it, and we do what we can afford, and she's making a real effort, we'll give it the old college try.

(It would be nice if a millionaire sponsor would show up LOLOL)

BOO!

2007-09-19T19:31:00.000-07:00

I know my hiatus was a bit extended, but I have excuses! Really.

Excuse #3

We got a dog.

We didn't intend to get a dog, it just sort of happened. Weird as it was. In late July after a very rough couple of weeks of work, I finally got to steal some time at the nail salon (after threatening my husband if he didn't pick up the kids and give me a break I was going to start breaking things!!!) I had turned my cell phone off to ensure peace and quiet, I wasn't about to interrupt my evening with silly things like emergencies...

So I finish up at the nail salon (after they pryed me screaming and kicking from the pedicure massage chair) and turned my cell on upon returning to my vehicle. BEEP BEEP BEEP!!!

10 Messages

Now I know I'm right popular but 10 messages???

All ten were from hubby - CALL ME!!! NOW!!!!

"We have an incident here" he states in troubled tones.

So now I'm thinking, either someone is injured... My parents are on the warpath again... the house is burning down.....

"We have a puppy."

WTF!!!!!??????

It was kinda like getting the news of an unexpected pregnancy. Are we ready? Do we want to take on this kind of responsibility? Can we afford it?? WHAT the heck kind of dog could it be????

....aaany-who.

I grabbed some puppy chow on the way home, barreling home to see what on EARTH he was talking about. Oh, and some serious flea shampoo was ordered up too.

When I got home Gizmo ran up from the basement "He is sooooo CUTE!" she gasped emphatically! "THE cuuuutest dog - EVER!!.... you have just got. to. see. HIM!!!!"
Then I had to teach Giz to breathe again before going any further.

Oh-kay. Doh-kay.

Down I go to see this major infringement upon my life.

Oh bother. He's adorable, albeit not in very good condition. Looks to be a cocker mix puppy with possibly the most mournful face I have EVER seen since the Ethiopian Famine Charity ads.
What am I going to do? Pry him from Gizmo's cold dead hands and drag him to the shelter???
Hell no. I can be tough, but geez I AM human. But the giant fleas definitely had to GO.

So how did this come about??? Well, we live out in the country and our neighborhood is notorious for drive by drop offs of unwanted animals. Thank goodness the guy with the pet lion down the road didn't ever think to dump anything... (oh yeah, we live in we're too stupid to breathe but we're armed and have weird pets country...) Anyway, it's usually cats and they don't hang around too long. I can't tell you how much money I've spent feeding transients and bears.

But I digress.

When Gizmo and Hubby got home (Firstborn by the way was off at camp that week) apparently this puppy was hunkered down under our truck just-a crying away. As far as we can surmise, someone must have seen the little girl's bike on our porch and dumped the wee tike. A puppy that small can-NoT survive the trek from one house to another in our neighborhood (esp in his starving and flea-bitten condition) so best we can guess is they just put him out in our driveway. Bastards. But lucky for him, since Gizmo had been praying for a puppy for awhile, divine intervention kinda got in the way of us taking a hard hearted approach.

"Oh we've been sent a puppy!!!" "I found him! I'm his MOMMY!!!" Oh bless his heart.

I voted to put up "lost puppy" signs, but within two hours my husband stated "if they wanted him, let THEM put up signs...." I think pup pretty much suckered him right from the get-go...
By the next morning, hubby had named him. The vote was unanimous.

We call him "BOO!" Cause he was such a surprise and caught us all way off guard.

At least he doesn't eat much. Yet.

I'd post a pic, but dunno how. If anyone can advise as to how, I'll put one up. TIA as they say!

(Pictures courtesy of Dave & Mommasworld helping me out getting them uploaded!!!)

:o)

Food for thought

2007-09-15T21:34:00.000-07:00

Okay, Okay.

I've been told to get my sorry ass back in gear, that there are some folks out there who are pining away missing laughing at my expense (and they would like "the rest of the story")

I missed ya'll too.

Food for thought....

You know it's bad when you offer to cook supper (talking on the phone to hubby who was stuck late on a job) and your 13 and 5 year old join forces to start taking up a collection in the back seat of the car for any change they can scrounge up so you can all eat out.

SIGH.

Oh!! And look what showed up in my mailbox!!

Hello Pageant Mom,
My name is Kimberly Newman and I am an Associate producer at "The Montel Williams Show" in New York. We are having an upcoming show focusing on young beauty queens and I ran across your blog and thoroughly enjoyed it. I would love to speak to you further so please contact me when you receive this. Thanks and have a lovely day!

Should I bite??

Dissed at the Disco. PART 1

2007-05-12T17:38:00.000-07:00

Well, we tried. And apologies for taking so long to get to this!!! See footnote at bottom of the page :o)

**********************************************************************************

Now, no lectures please - I know going into these things that last place is a distinct possibility. You can work very hard, and not get a darn thing - and that's okay, as long as I feel it was a fair and square loss.

However.

This was not the case.

Let me explain something first. There is the concept of the "supreme" awards - this consists of a photogenic event (which can be glitz photo, natural photo, comp card or portfolio), one optional event (In this case Disco wear, or one of two "outfits of choice" which can be swimwear, westernwear, sportswear etc.), and Beauty. Now the important thing to remember is that your beauty score CANNOT be substituted for a preferable (i.e. higher scoring) optional. It is your CORE score. Understanding this a KEY piece of information to understanding my ire with the situation.

Friday:
We left very early Friday morning with a friend and her daughter to tackle about a 5 hour drive to Nashville. Overall the girls were very excited and happy to be going, and the other mom and I were in good spirits. On the way we stopped for breakfast and snacks, alternately chatting on the phone with coaches, hair and makeup people, and friends - everyone sooooo excited about the upcoming event!! We got there on Friday no issue, except for the fact that I have a bladder incapable of holding more than 3 ounces at a time so we had to stop A LOT for me to potty (getting old is hell btw) - We were staying at the Sheraton Music City - and we arrived early enough to get a room on a fairly low floor. The hotel was wonderful! The staff was a bit ditzy and it seemed to be slightly short on help, but overall one of the best hotels we've stayed at. I got Gizmo to tanning and to see her h/m person and then we practiced a bit in the halls that evening - again, everything going pretty smooth. We saw tons of people we knew, chatting about how we were doing, sharing photos and talking about who's there etc. We got to bed a tiny bit later than anticipated because the pizza guy took awhile to show up, but overall no problems.

Saturday:
Gizmo had to be at hair and makeup at 8:00am and she didn't want to get up, so it precluded a decent breakfast!! So I went down to the gift shop, grabbed her some milk and fed her a poptart (which isn't the end of the world but I do prefer her to eat eggs for protein the morning of competition.) Now for some reason, Gizmo decided she wanted to be difficult for her makeup that morning - I understand her issue, because they air brush the foundation, and frankly it's uncomfortable. But normally she does it no problem. Eventually, she got her foundation done, and moved on to the finishing makeup and getting her hair done.

The lady who did her makeup and hair did a good job, but I as she hadn't done Gizmo before, I didn't feel like she put her "best effort" into my baby. But overall, I was pleased and she had tons of comments on how beautiful she looked going back to the room to get dressed. We got her dress and shoes on etc. and made our way downstairs for beauty.

Nine kids!!! Why oh why is our age group always stacked? I surveyed the competition, and felt like Gizmo had as much or better of a chance at least at a title. Her modeling is strong so I wasn't so worried about that... Gizmo did look so much more mature than the round-faced toddlers in the group and that concerned me a bit. The last pageant we did, I thought I might better move her up an age group, and that nagged me a bit this time. I have so GOT to start listening to my "inner voice" more often...

But she did GREAT! She didn't look at me AT ALL onstage, she modeled awesome, except for one moment when she hesitated on the seam of the stage, but she recovered quickly! No missed moves, and I thought she took a nice pace onstage.

Now to move on to Outfit of Choice.

I wasn't all that thrilled about the outfit. As a matter of fact, I wasn't even going to enter her in casualwear, but she REALLY wanted to do her routine and she happened to LOVE the outfit... So I plopped down the extra $75 for my child to have her extra 2 minutes of fame, and possibly the extra chance at a prize. Again, she did AWESOME. Wonderful modeling, o.k. outfit. Stellar smile.

I couldn't have asked for her to better if I had sold my soul to the devil himself.

Feeling Groo-veeeeeee....

...and to be continued.

BTW since we've been back I've been busier than a bunch of re-located fireants. Between getting back at midnight sunday night after the pageant, then having to go to a four day project methodology class, then Mother's Day weekend PLUS my son's sports banquet (we had to take a covered dish to boot) I'm not sure I'm lucid enough to know my own name. Much less write a fab-u-lare blog.

....Coming back ever so slowly....

Getting ready

2007-04-26T19:18:00.000-07:00

countdown to the disco show.... 8 days

Hair rolling, tanning, and nail appts? Check!
Disco wear? Check - sort of. Outfit is darling and will look striking on stage, but vest is large and pants waist is tight. I may leave it, I'm leary of last minute fittings, you can run risk of ruining the outfit. Not a good sign on this...

Pictures? check

Casual wear? Not sure, still deciding

Hair and Makeup booked? Yes! (btw the mom whose doing Gizmo's h/m and her daughter were in the movie Little Miss Sunshine LOL)

Started packing? no...

Started worrying? yes...

Gizmo is an under dog at this one. It's a 4-6 supreme group and all the national heavy hitters will be there.

Will she end up a winner over the favorites (like in Napoleon Dynamite or any other underdog wins over too-cocky odds on favorite...) or are we going to the slaughter (like in Little Miss Sunshine)

You haven't lived until you've bet $500 on whether or not a five year old will make faces on cue and do dance moves in platform shoes, fake lashes and a dolly parton wig in front of a hundred screaming wacky people ... all the while being sung to by an ambiguously gay emcee in a blond fro, elton john sunglasses and bell bottoms...

WIMPS!

...TO BE CONTINUED.

Yes, you CAN have a pageant hangover

2007-04-22T06:32:00.000-07:00

It's 9:32am on Sunday and I can't believe I'm up already.

'Cause usually after a schedule like the one we had this weekend I sleep until about noon.

We were off doing pageanty stuff this weekend!!!

You really would not believe how much hard WORK it is for the parent... and in trying to prepare for the disco event, given the fact that my daughter hasn't been on stage since January, we hauled our sorry selves 3 hours away through the mountains to do a pageant!!! Yes, there were closer events, but sometimes it's nice just to get out of town, and not deal with the "where have YOU been??" or "Have you done so-and-so?" or "why weren't you at such-and-such??" events. Sometimes when you do a particular system several times, the directors and even the other moms get a little, well, possessive LOL. Besides, my daughter won her grand supreme package paid (this is the "base" fee to make you eligible for certain awards and there there are added awards at the door etc.) and since this fee is usually pretty hefty (around 250-495 per) I thought well, what the heck!

I took off work early Friday and picked Gizmo up directly from school (she was very excited about this since usually her grandma picks her up) but we got there early since I thought it was about a four and half hour drive, but we made it in three (even with the fourteen bathroom and snack stops) - and that evening we had a nice relaxing dinner at Outback steak house splitting a melt in your mouth filet with sides of broccoli, potato, and a sundae for dessert. We ran into some folks we hadn't seen in a long time that were there for the pageant, and I'm sure we irritated the wait staff some trying to chat back and forth between tables (seemed like they were always in the way LOL) But it was nice to see some friendly faces going into the show. Another lady and her daughter and our coach (all of whom we were bunking in the room with) got in town later, so it was a little difficult to settle Gizmo down with so many people in one room...after tanning I took her out in the hallway to practice a bit before watching tv and going to bed. We also went to visit another lady we know who sews and does hair and makeup to show her new pics and chat a bit before that.

Since it was a one day pageant, we had to go down to a dressing room for hair and makeup instead of doing it in the room so we all had to get up early to get a good spot (think cat fights for real estate and power outlets when you get there late.) It's nice to pay someone else to do this, and this go-round we used our coach, because usually between mothers and daughters it can end up the mother of all power struggles (I can't tell you how many times I've squacked "who's your momma!!??? trying to get Gizmo to look at me and not everything else going on around her....) Why kids are better for someone else to do what you could do, is a universal anomoly. It's also nice, because this doubles as babysitting service while you run 4,535 miles running your crap back to the car while you check out of the hotel, because there is the "disappearing" carts syndrome at hotels the morning of checkout at a pageant - it also seems that hotel bellmen are permanently extinct and you have this "do it yourself" mentality at hotels - not to mention that most hotels I've stayed at lately have paired down the staff working so far down to the bare bones, it's a small wonder that they ever clean the places and that they don't find more dead bodies... (and we stay at Hiltons, Holiday Inns, Sheratons, Marriotts, etc.) So we also usually bring our own lysol... But I digress. I must have walked/jogged 5 MILES running to the car taking suitcases, getting breakfast, checking out etc. I am SO not used to this level of exercise.

I hate 0-4 5-up, supreme group breakdowns. What this means is they pull highpoint levels for kids 0-4 then 5 and up before doing age divisions. It sets the competition a little higher, because you don't just compete against your age group, it pits everyone in the age ranges against each other. My Gizmo is very, very tall for her age, and she models very well - so to me it tends to hurt her when they are judging "personality" because the babies are getting goaded to do goofy faces at grandma. If the other 4 year olds are still doing "silly face" moves, she tends to look a little stiff in comparison. Then at most other pageants the 4 year olds are judged on modeling, so if they do too much cutesy stuff, they count off. Four is a bad age in pageants!! When the did group lineup, Gizmo looked awesome, but not four. Kid to the left, very cute, pudgy face, huge brown eyes. Kid to the right - same deal. Gizmo looked about a foot taller, with a slim, model's face. Doesn't help that she has kind of in-between coloring - she's neither a true brunette or blonde and she has a medium skin tone with grey eyes so she doesn't have a real distinct look on stage next to tow-headed blondes or really dark haired light skinned kids. But she smiled INCREDIBLE. If they give a best smile award at pageants, my baby almost ALWAYS at least gets that particular prize. I've never quite understood why it doesn't count for more, but we've just learned to be okay with it. At this show though, the only side awards were for "best dress" and "best eyes." Gizmo won neither of those. When it came time for her to do her indivicual modeling, she only messed up slightly on her first X - she didn't walk in a circle around it coming out and she didn't do her two step turns. But since there is no standard on the variations or order of beauty modeling steps , the judges wouldn't know the difference. From there, she did AWESOME, and she did it by herself. I couldn't have asked any more. Same for casual wear... when they came out for group lineup - once again - Gizmo looked like a runway model compared to the two kids on either side of her. She just can't help how she looks. I wished I had moved her up to the 5 year olds, even though she won't be 5 for a bit longer. It would have looked more normal. Everyone we know in pageants is pretty convinced Gizmo is going to grow up as a world class supermodel, but we all know that most models complain that their younger years were spent as the tall-gawky years. SIGH.

It didn't help that we didn't do outfit of choice (as an optional category) but we didn't have a swimwear or sportswear or westernwear.... or anything else wear for that matter. I would LOVE for Gizmo to do sportswear or westernwear too, but I just can't afford to buy the outfits (they usually cost in the range of 500-1500) and she's too skinny to buy used because they are very, very difficult to alter and the fit of the outfit is judged on stage in addition to the modeling etc.

I did not have a good feeling about the outcome of this one. We were into a local element (all the judges were from the state we were in) and she looked awesome and she performed AWESOME but my little cosmic voice is usually right (after all I've been involved in pageants for 33 years - it OUGHT to know something by now.) And I was right. She got dead last in everything for her group (rare, but it happens) and didn't win any side awards. I was a bit worried, because right after she didn't get anything onstage for the group awards, she realized this and pouted about wanting to go home. I had to tell her to wait, they hadn't done the crowns yet and not to worry (she would have at least won beauty if nothing else.) The way they do awards pretty much requires an expert mathematician's skills but I knew she would get something from how it had gone so far, just not a high title. Fortunately, she did score higher overall than other kids in her supreme group and in the older groups overall for beauty/photo combined (a paid door optional) so she did get a few toys and a banner, crown, and some cash :o)

I did go through the judges line, even though I know they won't tell me squat about what they did/didn't really like. They said they didn't like her hair up. (code for - we just weren't into your kid..) We hear that sometimes whether she wears her hair up or down, because she has a tiny face and it's an easy reason for judges to give... it's funny too, that a lot of the kids that win big have large faces (there was one child who won tons of national pageants a few years ago, and I couldn't believe when I saw her - her face was almost freakishly huge....) That's okay, that's the way it goes sometimes. You could say that we should stick to certain pageant systems, but Gizmo gets about the same level of placement whether she does a prelim or a national, or a face pageant versus a total package glitz so we go where we think we'll have the most fun and we don't worry about it. There are plenty of kids who consistently get a lot less than Gizmo who keep trying!! When Gizmo doesn't get what I think she should have, I focus on the fact that there were plenty of kids there who would have been VERY happy to have received what she got. And I NEVER let on to her if I'm disappointed in what she is awarded. That's not what it's truly all about, but after all I am human... When she's older and understands this better, I will have her focus on it that way too. It's just the opinion of three random people on a random day.

And for now she doesn't really understand that the other girls in her group got higher titles than her, and no one is worse for the wear about it... all she knows is that she won a big crown and she is going to build a bear today to spend her money.

I'm going to keep it that way ;o)

Then there is the three hour drive home, unload the car, clean out the boxes where everything is thrown back in hither and yon, going shopping the next day even though you are totally exhausted etc. No rest for the weary....

Only 6 votes???

2007-04-17T18:55:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know who's voted and who hasn't...

http://www.bloggerschoiceawards.com/blogs/show/2789/?utm_source=bloggerschoiceawards&utm_medium=badge&utm_content=freakiestblogger

Vote for me!!! Often, and liberally :o)

Someday when I run for politics I'll know who to give favors too.... If not, I'll know who NOT to pardon... >o

***

I answered BiffSpiffy's call for folks to be interviewed!

As the rules go, the interviewer (in this case Biff) asks for volunteers (i.e. me being one) to be asked 5 questions (which said interviewer gets to pick) then they post the questions and answers on THEIR blog.

'cept doofus here just emailed them back the first time... it's hard for me to get things straight - I have the attention span of a drunk puppy so sometimes I just skim and miss important details in the instructions...

Here goes:

Aliens have landed in your front yard. What will you do?

Invite them to dinner, after all I'm pretty sure they're relatives. (My dad has no photos from before his 21st birthday and very few relatives - and they are all, very, different...)

You’ve just received a box of expensive sexy lingerie from a man you can’t stand. What do you do?

Thank him profusely but send it back explaining that I'm enrolling in a convent.

If you had one destructive superpower, what would it be, and who would be your first victim?

According to my team at work, I already have the ability to kill people with a facial expression so I'll stick with that. My first victim? The idiot that cut me off on the highway this morning in the fast lane then decided to drive like his grandma while I'm trying to deliver my two hellions to school on time.

If you could tour with any band, which one and what would be your role?

Bon Jovi - I'd be the water and towel girl. (doesn't hurt I can tune guitars too!!)

Have you ever stopped to listen to a street performer?

Always! And unless they are so painful to listen to that I might have to pull out my superpower look, I tip too.

BONUS QUESTION - What would be your perfect day?

Send kids to grandmas the night before.
Sleep late.
Have limo take me to a spa for the deluxe head to toe treatment.
Go shopping for a new outfit to wear that night.
Eat dinner at outrageously fancy restaurant with hubby.
Drink and Dance until the break of dawn at a very loud club.
Have limo take us home.
:o)

SO! who volunteers for me to interview THEM?? Just put a post in for me to "interview you" (or you would write rather, "interview me") and I'll think of some really cool questions to ask you!!!!

****

On an unrelated note - unless you've been under a rock somewhere, didya notice it's PROM season?? Note to self - next blog, relate my THREE prom horror stories :o)

nite nite all

Been so freakin' busy!!!

2007-04-08T13:21:00.000-07:00

First, it's 28 degrees here in the South on flippin' Easter.

The question I ponder is - where are all the articles on global warming when we have a freak cold spell? How come they never coincide with a cold snap? Not trying to start an argument on global warming, just making an observation....

Second, I have a new fascination.

Individually wrapped prunes.

Oops, my bad, technically, they are labeled "Dried Plums."

Now, who the heck would think that, uh, individually wrapped prunes would be a marketable idea??? I can just hear the meeting now....

"These will take candy jars by storm - people will replace the Hershey bars for the convenience of the preferred healthy lifestyle!!" (after all we only put candy in the jars because it's just more accessible and easier to store...)

"Yes, and the glamorous packaging...." (yep, they come in a very fancy box) "will provide the type of image we want to portray for the active lifestyle generation...."

I am utterly INTRIQUED.

So I bought a box, and for my own little test, have offered them to my coworkers and placed them in our community candy jar. After all who could resist these babies??

I am truly DISAPPOINTED. After all the "healthy lifestyle" complaints people have submitted about pizza day and donut day, not ONE person has snatched these little beauties as a preference over the Now or Laters or the Hershey's kisses. Not one single person has emoted the same level of excitement I have over these fabulous miniature alternatives to eating mini doses of cholesterol in foil.

Buncha' hypocrites. I would think these babies would have been snatched up in a heartbeat with folks begging for more, thankful to be saved from the humdrum of 3musketeers and peppermint patties and snickers bars and.... I could go on but you get the idea....

Oh well, I DID try. Guess it's back to the boring old chocolates.

And finally - Panic at the Disco!!!

We've got to prepare for a major pageant in May - a Disco theme deal that looks like it will be loads of fun. We have the routine and the outfit, but still searching for the epitome of the disco song that is well - funky, and represents the disco sound, isn't offensive for a 4 year old to do a routine too, and isn't overused (arrggggh, if I hear Funkytown one more time......)

If you have any suggestions, leave 'em 'cause were a bit desperate here, and I've pretty much exhausted itunes (right now the front leader is "Blame it on the Boogie" by the Jackson 5)

:o)

Well, at least my blog didn't TOTALLY suck!!!

2007-03-23T18:35:00.000-07:00

I volunteered for a flogging.

http://www.reviewmyblog.blogspot.com/

And actually, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

WHEW.

Mr Fantastic

2007-03-22T17:57:00.000-07:00

Bad Birthdays aside (I don't have enough time to post about that for now, it's a bit of an er, longer story...)

The last two weeks have been ALL about GOLF for Firstborn and my husband.

Firstborn made it through middle school golf tryouts without to much of a splash and we've struggled to inspire him to practice more than once a week and to get more enthusiastic about the finer points...

He ranked 3rd out of 12 kids and they chose the top 6 to actually play with one alternate.

Well, after the first game, Firstborn got the lowest score on the team - and although they didn't win their overall match, he didn't do too shabby.

Second match - lowers his score by two points, and the other players finally bring their game on. They win the match and Firstborn has the overall lowest score (33 for 9 holes on a par 3 course - meaning each hole should be 3 strokes to par.)

Well. In one week's time, Firstborn's testosterone level has apparently doubled - the feel of winning has metamorphosized (i dunno how to spell it but you get the drift) my geeky little transitioning tween into...

A MAN.

He's so pumped up right now, I half expect him to come in any day now and ask me for a beer and a playboy.

The boys on the team have dubbed him "MR FANTASTIC"

SIGH.

(I can't STOP him from practicing now.)

Everything in my closet must DIE!!!!

2007-03-16T18:19:00.000-07:00

If it doesn't make me feel :

a) fabulous
b) 10 years younger
c) sexy (um can't wear it to work for this category LOL)

It's going OUT.

I'm finally going to do it. I'm going to clean out my closet. In the most radical way.

If it's weary? GONE.
If it screams IMAMOM!!! GONE!!!
If it doesn't make me look 10 lbs lighter. So out of here...
Dowdy? NO WAY
Haven't worn it in 3 years. Is it even a question???

Serious pruning is soooo in order.

This goes for hair accessories, scarfs, purses, jewelry, shoes, underwear... EVERYTHING!!!

I expect in a few weeks to have pared my closet down at least 50%.

I know it sounds extreme, but I'm in an extreme mood. So far, I've gotten rid of one bag to Goodwill. Now I have to make consignment shop appointments. Ebay is an option.

So far I have completed the exercise on hair accessories, and jewelry.

I'm going to feel soooooo much better. Happy Birthday to me!!!!

********
I asked my husband to take me out tomorrow for my birthday. He wanted to know what I wanted to do....

I told him I wanted to get drunk and go dancing. I'm not exactly sure if he's too thrilled about the idea, but I really don't care ;o) I don't want any "stuff" for my birthday, I just want to get dressed up and paint the town a pretty shade of red.
(although I think he's afraid I'll ruin his reputation...)

**************

Is there competent help anywhere for me??? Anyone???

Oh yeah, dance the night away....

2007-03-09T20:12:00.000-08:00

I went to the movies tonight with my son and my parents.

Not a big deal, Firstborn had a class assignment to go see "Amazing Grace" and it was an opportunity to bond a little more with the grand-parental units for him...

But I had a MAJOR discovery.

It's the "Speed Over Beethoven" Dance Machine.

Oh I'm hooked.

Okay, never mind I'm a middle aged lady in high heeled roach stomper boots, black dickies and a company button down.

I can do it baby.

They musta just put this thing in the theatre, because I really never noticed it before. It's a big arcade machine that blasts house music and you follow the arrows to "stomp" / "dance" on the boxes that light up on the "dance floor." Complete with blinking strobe lights!!! (you know I love da bling!!!!)

This now rivals laser tag as a favorite thing to do at the arcade park...

I will never do another aerobics class again...

So the next time you're at the movies and you see a buncha teenagers fighting some middle aged lady off this puppy; BINGO - you've found me!!!!

I thought my mom and my son were going to pass out from embarrassment.

I am a Fire Horse!!

2007-03-08T19:27:00.000-08:00

According to the Chinese Horoscope, I am a "Fire Horse"

Through all the moons of many a year, the Fire Horse is a dynamic creature, with a vigor that promises youth and freshness until the very end of life. The will and the spirit of the Fire Horse cannot be broken. This Horse goes through life with philosophical patience and the ability to bounce back from adversity no matter how dire the circumstances. In times of solitude, Fire Horses also have an insatiable need for intellectual stimulation and they satisfy their curiosity for learning through reading, listening, conversing, and travel abroad. Fire Horses make inspiring leaders, revered and respected. They encourage their subordinates with kindness and just the right degree of strictness and work well with people in all stations of life. Financial rewards fall in the middle ground, not too bad, not terrific, but always comfortable. Being in love with the Fire Horse brings pure rapture. These noble Horses are generous with their love, with hugs and kisses. Loved ones always know where they stand because Fire Horses demonstrate every day through their actions the love they feel deep within. Each day is a soft and tender love poem.

The Fire Horse is also known as the most troublesome of the zodiacs.

The self-centred and temperamental horse has a natural aversion to the discipline and restraint of a regimented lifestyle. Unfortunately that is exactly what big brother society asks of its members. It takes plenty of time for the average horse to mature and realise that the inconsistent bucking bronco approach is often a waste of time and energy. In between time it throws plenty of people offside...even Mike Tyson would admit to that.

From childhood on the Horse is a humorous prankster and loves playing tricks and being the centre of attention. It is also a universal dream symbol of raw sensual desire (i.e. Raquel Welch, Patrick Swayze, Sean Connery) and prefers to be around the action. They usually leave home early. Forever youthful and carefree at heart, time is no barrier to these animals who can work and play hard around the clock. They are at their best where indomitable leadership is required, as shown by Nelson Mandela.

Of all the equine stock the notorious Fire Horse is renowned as the most troublesome. Russian Premier Nikita Khrushev was one who almost set the world aglow during the early 60's Cuban missile crisis. Reportedly the birth rate dropped and voluntary abortion grew in 1966, the last year of the Fire Horse.

Sheep, Tigers and Dogs make the best partners but the Rooster, Monkey and Ox are off limits.

http://www.tuvy.com/entertainment/chinese_horoscope.htm

That 'splains a LOT.

I think it would make a cool header to find an awesome graphic representing my "spirit" at the top of my blog; but I don't know how!!!

Can anybody help??

Word of the day.

2007-03-07T19:12:00.000-08:00

Flubberconfunkuous

YOU tell me what it means....

******************

Anyway....

There is a rumor going around the pageant world that they want 3 moms that are friends who have daughters that compete together in pageants to audition for a tv reality show.

Mutually exclusive premise right out of the box if you ask me.

Here's the issue - they want 3 moms that won't make pageant moms look bad, but they want them to be Desperate Housewives types.

This seems a bit contradictory.

Or is it just me???

I think I'd be insanely interesting on tv.

Kind of like watching one of those "world's worst police chase" deals.

It came from the boards #2

2007-03-06T18:37:00.000-08:00

This has probably been all over the internet 100 times, but I haven't seen it, and I think it's funny (at least until I come up with something new & witty to write about) - I found it on the notorious pageant boards...

...And since I could spend HOURS in Wal Mart anyway:

69 things to do in Wal-Mart -- No name, 17:49:23 03/06/07 Tue [8]
* Take shopping carts for the express purpose of filling them and stranding them at strategic locations.
* Ride those little electronic cars at the front of the store.
* Set all the alarm clocks to go off at ten minute intervals throughout the day.
* Start playing football -- see how many people you can get to join in.
* Run up to an employee (preferably a male) while squeezing your legs together and yell, ''I need some tampons!!''
* Try on bras over top of your clothes.
* Make a trail of orange juice on the ground, leading to the restrooms.
* While walking around the store, sing in your loudest voice possible ''Sex and Candy''
* Walk up to an employee and tell him in an official tone, ''I think we've got a Code 3 in Housewares,'' and see what happens.
* Tune all the radios to a polka station, then turn them all off and turn the volumes to ''10.''
* Play with the automatic doors.
* Walk up to complete strangers and say, ''Hi! I haven't seen you in so long!...'' etc. See if they play along to avoid embarrassment.
* While walking through the clothing department, ask yourself loud enough for all to hear, ''Who BUYS this shit, anyway?''
* Repeat Number 14 in the jewelry department.
* Put pairs of women's panties on your head and walk around the store casually. * Leave small sacrifices or gifts in the hands of the mannequins.
*. Play soccer with a group of friends, using the entire store as your playing field.
* As the cashier runs your purchases over the scanner, look mesmerized and say, ''Wow. Magic!'' * Put M&M's on layaway.
* Move ''Caution: Wet Floor'' signs to carpeted areas.
* Set up a tent in the camping department; tell others you'll only invite them in if they bring pillows from Bed and Bath.
* Contaminate the entire auto department by sampling all the spray air fresheners.
* Nonchalantly ''test'' the brushes and combs in Cosmetics.
* Drape a blanket around your shoulders and run around saying,''...I'm Batman. Come, Robin -- to the Batcave!"
* TP as much of the store as possible.
* Randomly throw things over into neighboring aisles.
* Play with the calculators so that they all spell ''hello'' upside down. (01134)
* When someone asks if you need help, begin to cry and ask, ''Why won't you people just leave me alone?"
* When two or three people are walking ahead of you, run between them, yelling, ''Red Rover!''
* Look right into the security camera, and use it as a mirror while you pick your nose.
* Take up an entire aisle in Toys by setting up a full-scale battlefield with G.I. Joes vs. the X-Men.
* Take bets on the battle described above.
* Set up another battlefield with G.I. Joes vs. Barbie. (Red lipstick might give an interesting effect...)
* While handling guns in the hunting department, suddenly ask the clerk if he knows where the anti-depressants are. Act as spastic as possible.
* While no one's watching, quickly switch the men's and women's signs on the doors of the restrooms.
* Dart around suspiciously while humming the theme from ''Mission: Impossible.'
* Attempt to fit into very large gym bags.
* Attempt to fit others into very large gym bags.
* Fill an entire cart with boxes of condoms, and watch everyone's jaws drop when you attempt to buy them.
* Set up a ''Valet Parking'' sign in front of the store.
* Two words: ''Marco Polo.'
* Leave Cheerios in Lawn and Garden, pillows in the pet food aisle, etc.
* ''Re-alphabetize'' the CDs in Electronics.
* In the auto department, practice your ''Madonna'' look with various funnels.
* Hide in the clothing racks and when people browse through, say things like ''the fat man walks alone,'' and scare them into believing that the clothes are talking to them.
* While walking around alone, pretend someone is with you and get into a very serious conversation. Exp: The person is breaking up with you and you begin crying ''How could you do this to me? I thought you loved me! I knew there was another girl, but I thought I had won.'' Then act as though you are being beaten and fall onto the ground screaming and having convulsions.
* When an announcement comes over the loudspeaker, assume the fetal position and scream, ''No, no! It's those voices again!''
* Go to an empty checkout stand and try to check people out.
* Drag a lounge chair on display over to the magazines and relax.If the store has a food court, buy a soft drink; explain that you don't get out much, and ask if they can put a little umbrella in it. * Get a stuffed animal, go to the front of the store and begin stroking it lovingly, saying ''Good girl, good Bessie."
* Go over to the shoe department and try on every pair of shoes, not putting one pair back. Take the paper from the boxes and throw it in various aisles.
* When someone steps away from their cart to look at something, quickly make off with it without saying a word.
* Follow people through the aisles, always staying about five feet away. Continue to do this until they leave the department.
* Ask other customers if they have any Grey Poupon.
* Test the fishing rods and see what you can ''catch'' from the other aisles.
* In the makeup department, spray yourself with every perfume there is, then walk up to a boy who is with a girl and start flirting with him as ditisily as possible: ''Hi! (giggle) What's your sign? (giggle).'' When the boy shows no interest, start hitting on the girl the exact same way. ''Hi! (giggle) What's your sign? (giggle).''
* Hold indoor shopping cart races.
* Re-dress the mannequins as you see fit.
* When there are people behind you, walk REALLY SLOW, especially through narrow aisles.
* Relax in the patio furniture until you get kicked out.
* Challenge other customers to duels with tubes of gift wrap.
* Pay off layaways fifty cents at a time.
* Say things like, ''Would you be so kind as to direct me to your Twinkies?''
* Make up nonsense products and ask newly hired employees if there are any in stock, i.e., ''Do you have any Shnerples here?''
* Ride a display bicycle through the store -- claim you're taking it for a ''test drive.''
* Leave cryptic messages on the typewriters.
* Get boxes of condoms and randomly slip them into peoples' carts when they aren't paying attention.

Guess which one I pick to do this weekend??? More later....

That's Hot....

2007-03-01T19:43:00.000-08:00

Okay the whole not doing well turning 41 thing aside...

I just want everyone to know that I am one HOT mama.

Yep, went to the doctor (general practice) today because I can't breathe due to allergies, and they got a new nurse in and it always goes something like this.

Nurse: Hi, how are you today? What are you here for?
Moi: I can't breathe.

Nurse: Oh, poor thing. Are you on any medications?
Moi: Yes, here's my list. Walking Case of Chemical Warfare that I am...

Nurse: oooo-kay..... Let me take your temperature.

pause for said event.

Nurse: You have a temperature. It's 99.4 - you must have a bug.
Moi: No, that's normal. Check my chart. Never been below a flat 99.

Nurse: Oh. I see......

Doctor strolls in.

"How's the HOTTEST MAMA client of mine doing today???" !!!!

I felt soooo much better :o)

What's REALLY weird is that he and my gynecologist are buddies. I don't even want to know the conversations....

This is cool!

2007-02-27T17:13:00.000-08:00

http://www.blogthings.com/whatcolorisyourbrainquiz/

My brain is RED!!!

That is so funny because Red is my favorite color.

Of all the brain types, yours is the most impulsive.
If you think it, you do it.
And you can get the bug to pursue almost any passion.
Your thoughts are big and bold.
Your mind has no inhibitions.
You tend to spend a lot of time thinking about love, your dreams, and distant places.

Yes, I do.

I figured out my crazy behavior

2007-02-26T17:15:00.000-08:00

I know what the problem is.

I am going through my annual mid year, mid life, crisis. About one month before my birthday, every year, I go through this feeling of having to "break out" and do something to re-calibrate, feel more alive, not feel so "imamomsoimustbeboringanddowdy"...

Some years I get through it ok. Some I do not. It usually passes after the actual day (March17) and I can then go back to being "normal" (whatever that is.)

Wish me luck. Let the countdown to normal begin.

I'll be 41. SIGH.

(You can tell me I still look young and beautiful, I can take it.)

To whom it may concern at the movie theatre

2007-02-24T18:23:00.000-08:00

I saw Bridge to Teribithia tonight.

I want my money back and so do my kids.

Life is just a fantasy, can you live a fantasy life?

2007-02-23T17:37:00.000-08:00

Question:

Have you ever been insanely attracted to anyone sexually, that you know you wouldn't, couldn't love, but the fantasy of actually having sex with them is more than you could stand, even though you know the actual event would most likely be a letdown? (this is of course, hypothetical)

Yes, the devil is working very hard on me this week. This is why it is good for me to have some drama in my life.

I have decided that since I can't seem to get any REAL excitement, I am going to go have long, red, fake fingernails put on tomorrow.

Hell, maybe I'll even get a tattoo.

Vote : Panty lines are sexy, NO?

2007-02-22T17:06:00.000-08:00

I have several obsessive compulsive traits that I just cannot get over - So I will do the Thursday Thirteen (per Lady Jane Scarlett's blog) about things that just drive me NUTS:

1) Body Hair - in my next life I will be an esthetician - WAX anyone???
2) I cannot stand for ANYONE to use my pillow. (I AM an only child - hel-looo...)
3) I have a lot of jewelry, but tend to wear hoop earrings 99% of the time
4) I have to have a tall boy AMP and two krispy kreme donuts for breakfast Mon-Fri - If I don't, I become the bitch from hell (somebody asked me how I keep from getting fat, I just say it keeps me from getting skinny)
5) i swear like a sailor when I'm nervous
6) I can't stand for anyone to use my bath towel
7) I have to drink from a straw whenever possible (even at home)
8) I can't tell you #8, it's private
9) I think a proper woman should always wear a slip with a sheer dress (the guys will get me for this one)
10) I can't stand easy listening music, it makes me nervous (then I start swearing)
11) I get separation anxiety when I don't have my cell phone and start freaking out
12) I would live on peas, toast, popcorn, heath bars, donuts, amp, and coke exclusively if somebody else didn't remind me to eat something else (or feed me)
13) I abhore panty lines. It is my mission in life to NEVER have panty lines.

Trouble with #13 is that my husband says some men think panty lines are very sexy.

What are your thoughts my few and fearless readers??

Blah.

2007-02-20T19:23:00.001-08:00

Good Grief I'm bored. I wish something exciting would happen to me.

Saved by the Bag (Boy)

2007-02-18T15:31:00.000-08:00

I went to the grocery store today - um, yesterday when I actually post this.... which is not anything particularly interesting except for the fact I finally got dinged playing...

"enough money for groceries roulette"

Here's how the game goes. You only take enough money for groceries and your keys into the store so you can travel light. You do not take a credit card for fear you will spend too much and this will keep you in check. Oh and no cell phone so you don't end up in conversations with dramatic friends that might be too interesting to bloggers who eavesdrop and will use your conversations for future writings.

Yes. I'm THAT good (uh, normally.)

I should so totally play The Price Is Right.

I went in today strictly observing the rules. Had $140 in my pocket. Period. No purse, no cell, no credit card. No cheating!!

I figured I didn't have to watch it too close since normally I play with only $100.

Got up to the cashier... ring... ring... ring... It's like coming up to $170!!! OH NO! oh okay, give bonus card number (whew)... that's one of those discount card things where they can track your movements if the CIA needs to follow you for any reason. And it comes dooowwwnnnn toooooo.....

$140 aaaaand...

seventy six cents!!!

As I sheepishly smiled to the clerk that I would have to go to the car to get the remaining amount, the bagboy began to laugh at me and handed the clerk the final seventy six cents.

I thanked him profusely, and asked if he would take my groceries to the car then I would settle the debt. I was almost too embarrassed to look him in the eye as I handed him the change.

The boy deserves a medal of honor in my book.

And lived to tell about it...

2007-02-17T13:23:00.000-08:00

I read a post on another blog about someone hitting themselves in the head with a vaccuum cleaner. It made me think about a little incident that happened to my husband right after we got married...

It was November 1990, and we had been married oh, maybe 2 or 3 weeks. My husband was really big into watching boxing (back when it was interesting) and we had planned a little get together at our house to have a bonfire and some beer and watch the fight on pay-per-view.
So hubby gets the fire going and the guys are down at the fire drinking beer and cooking the dawgs and everyone is having a pretty good time. Nothing much to report so far.

This is the point of the story where I have to interject that at the time, we were heating our home with a wood stove, and my husband wouldn't use a chainsaw to cut the wood - his preference was a little more, well, manual.

Apparently, they got bored down there, and some brain surgeon in the group decided they should have a wood-chopping contest (with alcohol involved - a very bright decision indeed.) Well, the first guy does his thing, and then my husband is up to bat.

This is the next point to interject - my husband chops wood at an angle for some reason - to this day I do not know why.

Well, he hit a bump in the wood... and the AX bounces UP and hits him square in the center of his forehead.

If you know anything about head wounds, they bleed PROFUSELY. Little known fact - wrestlers use small razor blades to put tiny little cuts on themselves on the hairline to make it look like they have been mortally wounded. (useless fact for the day thank you...)

So at this point hubby realizes he has A PROBLEM - except his friends, instead of running up to get me, nearly pass out at the profusion of blood coming from hubby's head.

Weh-yul, Hubby decides to come up to the house himself before he might pass out - he grabs the dog's blanket and holds it on his head and comes into the back door looking like a chainsaw murder victim - blood is just POURING down his face and says:

"Honey, don't worry, but I just hit my self in the head with an AX"

I'm good. Really.

So being very young, and also having imbibed a bit myself (very good for the decision making process I tell you), I panicked. Hubby, being the stable one in the group says - "Call the Ask-A-Nurse hotline - quick!!!" Our hospital system at the time had set up a 1-800 number to cut down on superfluous 911 calls - so here we were putting it to good use....

Here is a transcription to the best of my recollection:

AAN "Hello"
ME "My husband just hit himself in the head with an AX. What do we do?"
AAN "An AX???"
ME "Yes. An AX."
AAN " Are you sure?"
ME "YES."
AAN "Did he hit with the sharp side or the blunt side?"
ME "Uh, the sharp side"
AAN "Is there bleeding"
ME "Oooohhhh Yeah....."
AAN " how much"
ME "Um, A LOT"
ME "Do you think he'll need stiches?"
AAN "Ma'am you need to call 911"
ME "Why?"
AAN "Ma'am please. Call 911."
ME "But he doesn't want to go!" Hubby did NOT want to leave his pay-per-view!!
AAN "Ma'am you reaaaallllyy neeed to call 911"
ME "...I think he can wait, he wants to watch his boxing match before going anywhere - can you just tell me how to stop the bleeding until then?"
AAN : CLICK
ME : "BITCH!!!"

Needless to say, that hotline didn't really last very long. And thankfully, while I was on the phone, one of the more lucid of the ladies there got my hubby cleaned up enough to discover that he only had a 1 inch cut square on the center of his forehead on the hairline (down to the bone - yuck!). So she drove me up to the CVS to get some butterfly closures and we doctored him up right there. To this day, you can barely see the scar.

Ours is a perfect marriage, I spend all my time trying to keep him physically intact, and he spends his time trying to keep me mentally intact.

I know yer nosey...

2007-02-16T18:37:00.000-08:00

I think we, as human beings, are inherently nosey. That is apparent from reality tv. We'll pretty much watch anything about anybody else, because well, we just want to be in other people's business.

I'm going to indulge you today. I had today off, as my kids got an extra day out of school, and I'm like, screw it(!) I want to be off too. (Although I'll probably wish I had the extra vacation day later in the year to spend...but, whatever)

Here's a run-down:

1. Get up at 9:30am because Gizmo makes me - she's hungry, and there's a brand new box of Fruity Pebbles waiting in the kitchen for her to try.
2. Fix cereal in a bag with some milk in a sippy cup for Gizmo. Turn on cartoons.
3. Lay back down for 20 min.
4. Get up cause my head is starting to hurt. Weird, but since I turned 40, if I sleep too much I get the biggest headaches ever!!
5. Get up and eat raisin bran. I felt guilty because I had eaten donuts for breakfast all week and had to ingest something healthy
6. Get on computer, answer email, catch up on pageant gossip, check blogs for inspiration and prowl ebay for a steal on a pageant casual wear for Gizmo
7. Do laundry, clean upstairs bathroom, clean Gizmo's room - of course, she immediately comes up and drags everything out to play with AFTER i clean it, but that's okay, at least she will play in her room with her toys!
8. Wake up Firstborn.
9. Argue with Firstborn about getting up and straightening up his room.
10. Do more laundry (I swear it BREEDs in the laundry room when I'm not looking)
11. Drink a coke and take ADD meds + migraine meds (oh so thankful to have ditched the antidepressent not too long ago)
12. Take shower - yell at Firstborn to take his, since the first 14 times I asked nicely were ignored...
13. piddle around after shower getting dressed etc
14. Get Gizmo ready
15. Have family meeting on where to eat (this takes about 30min)
16. Have long, long, leisurely lunch with kids at Mexican restaurant talking about school, and various other subjects - yes, I had a margarita too!!! So there!
17. Go to shoe repair place (I won't get rid of shoes until they've been worn through at least ONE re-soling)
18. Go to alterationist - I also will repair clothes that I especially like... plus my kids are so skinny that I have to take everything to have the waist taken in
19. Go to Best Buy - purchase Hello Kitty speakers for my iPod, and iTunes card for Firstborn
- kids try to talk me into a bling skin my my nano, but I figure I can get one later
20. Pick up dry cleaning
22. Go to bakery and have cookies and milk, except Firstborn who only wants a soda
23. Go to Mall - argue with kids all the way through since by now Firstborn and Gizmo have reached fever pitch annoyance with each other - threaten to kill on contact if they continue
24. Try to buy clothes for Firstborn, he won't pick anything - even took him to Abercrombie and all he would do is bitch about how "embarrassing" his sister was being. (she was dancing to the music in Abercrombie - it was quite a show)
25. Try to shop some more for Firstborn at a couple other stores but he just wasn't interested.
26. Give up and take Gizmo to build-a-bear for a toy, but only if she promises to get rid of 3 toys she doesn't play with - select ADORABLE shamrock bear, with one outfit
27. Hubby calls, Firstborn's best friend is spending the night and he's already picked him up
28. Come home, pick up hubby, go out to eat at Cracker Barrell
29. Return from dinner, try out HK speakers and switch the laundry
30. Give Gizmo snack and let her watch cartoons while I post a blog
31. Will read Gizmo a story, put her to bed and then myself. btw... Hubby takes care of dealing with the boys - they'll probably be hitting golf balls in the basement until somebody drops of exhaustion - we have a room set up with a net and everything...

Exciting huh?

The biggest issue I had today involved a coat at the mall. I know I'm going to offend the anti-fur folks, but I wear a fur coat. I currently have a leather and Nutria coat I've been wearing 16 years, and although I get compliments all the time on it, it's just getting a little weary. Now most people get a fur and only wear it to church or weddings, but I WEAR mine. It IS my winter coat. I mean, why spend all that money on something and not use it regularly??? I finally found it's replacement at the fur sale... A pieced mink above the knee swing coat with an insane hood - I HAVE to HAVE it. Problem is it's $850 - I mean I paid $500 for the Nutria and wore it 16 years, I could get another 16 out of this one easy. I just can't make a quick decision on spending that kind of money... So that's what I'm sleeping on tonight. To get the coat or not. I would have been just fine if I hadn't seen it; you can't miss what you don't have - but damn it was a fine coat. It was just so, well, ME.

Ugh. Yet another silly thing to waste brain time on.

p.s. Don't feel bad for Firstborn that he didn't get too much today - last night all $700 of his new Nike golf clubs and bag came in - in preparation for golf tryouts in 2 weeks. Oh they are wicked cool - we'll see how he does with them...

Ok - I shall officially declare myself stupid

2007-02-15T17:40:00.000-08:00

I apologize for yesterday's post. Apparently, the mixture of still not feeling well, Valentine's day sucking the big one, and I was PMS-ing... BAD. I did email said offender, and it appears I accidentally hit the trash can...

MYSELF.

sorry (I'm feeling pretty small right now)

Heartbroken on valentine's day

2007-02-14T20:53:00.000-08:00

Okay, so Valentine's is a bust all the way around.

I don't feel well, so hubby and I decided the weekend would be much easier to celebrate when I felt better and bedtimes and homework didn't get in the way. I can't sleep too well either so I'm up doing something that WAS fun...

But my heart has been broken by someone I wouldn't know if they hit me over the head with a chainsaw.

My feelings are deeply hurt because somebody doesn't want to be seen with me.

I made a post about playgroups & disco on a post of creative-type dad's blog.

http://creativetypes.blogspot.com/

and he deleted it. Probably because I mentioned our next pageant has a Disco Theme.

I figured sooner or later it would happen, with a name like pageant mom, but I didn't think it would hurt so much. He could have been POLITE and asked me not to post anymore.

I didn't post anything ugly or mean!!!

What would you do?

:o(

....Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

p.s. strep was a false alarm, but it didn't make my painful sore throat ANY better confirming at the doc's it wasn't strep - apparently sinus problems can make you feel just as bad...

Trying to update

2007-02-12T17:08:00.000-08:00

I'm coming down with strep throat...I'm working on my links, so if I haven't added you yet (ya'll know who you are) , I just ran out of steam... I FEEL LIKE CRAP and fading fast. I just want to be sure nobody's feelings get hurt in the meantime...

Waxing Sentimental

2007-02-10T21:50:00.000-08:00

We just got back from our annual ski trip this past week. It's tradition that every year we go to the slopes for Superbowl weekend.

I have found the ipod to be quite revolutionary to my skiing.

Here are my conclusions for favorite songs to ski by:

Green slopes:

H.A.P.P.Y Radio by Edwin Starr (Album Disco Gold ;o)
Glamorous Life by Sheila E
They're playing our Song by Trinere
Hella Good by No Doubt

(uh oh, my age is showing)

Blue Slopes:

Surrender by Cheap Trick
Vengence by Garmarna
Jam the Box by Pretty Tony (very 80's stuff)
Planet Rock by Old School Players (early hip hop so very 80's)
...update - I forgot to add Gimme Shelter by the Rolling Stones last night when I originally posted!

Black Slopes:

Cry by Tesla
Symphony of Destruction by Megadeath
I'm not Okay by My Chemical Romance
Bump by Rehab

Which brings me to wax sentimental about the first time I ever attempted to ski.

I was on the cusp of turning 30, and wanderlust was setting in. I had an 18 month old toddler, and frankly, was not feeling so hot about myself and was really not liking feeling locked to just working and child rearing. This is not usually a good thing for me because my sense of adventure and my sense of mortality get tangled up when this happens and it can lead to some very odd circumstances.

I thought to myself, "Self..." pregnant pause... "...we must do something fabulous!!"
Skiing is what fabulous, rich people do, so we must try it. Let's shake things up a bit!!! Besides, they generally have day care and ski schools for kiddies so we could do this as a family outing some day!!!

So, not having a clue, I bleached the crap out of my hair, then I booked a 5 night, 6 day ski trip to Killington, Vermont. I thought well really, how hard could it be? You just slap on a couple of sticks and slide down a hill....

For those of YOU who have no clue. Killington is the most badassest mountain of the East Coast. Who knew? I sure as hell didn't. That said, I went SHOPPING. Oh, I bought a fabulous purple bunny suit, complete with fur collar and fancy headband. I got the c-a-utest gloves to match, and of course some bitchin' sunglasses to finish the look. My husband got some bibs, and a beanie, and a jacket.

So we get to our inn - a wonderful, quaint little place with cardboard for walls and packed with half of the population of Newark, New Jersey. There were like, 10 people staying in the room next to us, and they would NOT shut up all night until about 3a.m. when my inner Redneck kicked in and I went to bang on THEIR door screaming for them to shut the hell up. It is customary for my husband to look away and simply pray at these moments (and prep for cleanup.) So needless to say, I was not starting out at my personal best on the first day.

So we take our gear and I head to the bunny slopes. I have my fabulous outfit on, and I am just so very Heidi of the Swiss Alps with my braids and cute headband and fabulous look. Hubby is not amused and insists that the green slope will be just fine for me and that the bunny slopes are a waste of time. So up we go. So on the lift he is instructing me on how to dismount, and do the "pizza" or "wedge" to come off the lift. I was okay for about 3 seconds until I did a customary face plant coming down the hill off the lift. Think penquins on a waterslide. .................Pause for VISUAL................. Okay. So after about 10 runs of plowing in a significantly ungraceful posture down the green slope Hubby says we should go down the mountain. But there were a few small caveats.

1) Unbeknownst to me - green, blue, and black level designations at ski destinations are not STANDARD. They are relative to that particular mountain. And this was a particularly difficult mountain.
2) The winds had been getting up that day, and they were only running limited lifts and opening selected slopes at the top of the mountain.
3) Everyone at the resort that day had been skiing since they were embryos, and they were bowling for Southerners as well...
4) Hubby could actually SKI. I didn't really understand this when we got there, but when I mentioned that he appeared to be experienced, and asked why he didn't tell me he was a good skier, he replied "you didn't ask." (you gotta love my man of few words - and no, we really didn't talk much about the trip before going, he pretty much lets me take care of everything then he shows up to drive, cart luggage, and provide amicable company.)

So we get down to the quad lift. Shouldn't we check to see if the green slope is open. "NO" states hubby, "they wouldn't close the green slope." Are you sure??? "YES." aggravation apparent "Just get on the lift." Are you really sure?? "Get on the..." Okay, Okay...

Up we go.

When we reached the top (you gotta love East Coast skiing) the entire stretch of slope was solid ice. The wind was blowing so hard it would move you along the area completely involuntarily.

The Green slope was closed.

So I did what any self-respecting woman would do.

I began to CRY.

So Hubby scoots down to bottom of hill and insists that I come along too. So off we go..... I immediately fell at the bottom of the first hump - not graceful or pretty or anything - but something akin to laying a turtle on its back... I fell backwards with my skis up under me, knees down and forward, feet pointed toward flattened backside. I was STUCK.

So now I'm laid out like an oyster on the half shell, with people literally jumping over me, slobbering like a St. Bernard and my face starting to freeze from the tears and goo emanating from my deteriorating, terrified self. Oh and in case you didn't know, ski patrol won't help you down if you're afraid, they only help you down if you're like, mortally wounded...

A nice individual from out of nowhere eventually came up behind me, lifted me from under my armpits and shoved me down the hill. Which was fine but in order to make sure I didn't miss the 90 degree turn at the bottom of the hill (to make the turn meant you would LIVE... to not make the turn meant sure and instant DEATH off the side of the mountain.) So I ended up embedded in the side of the trail where they had scooped out the snow for the slope. Kind of like the character Two Face in the Batman sagas - one half in the snow frozen, the other poking out desperately waving for somebody to help.

Ohhh, I'm having so much FUN!!! >o( Um.... NOT!

I spit, swore, clawed, sat on my fanny and slid, picked, stepped, cried, panicked, rinsed, repeated ALL THE WAY DOWN THAT DAMN mountain. I looked at my husband when we finally reached the bottom (I'm pretty sure it took me about 4 hours) and said:

"I am GOING to THE BAR. YOU DO WHATEVER THE HELL YOU WANT TO!!!!!"

Minus one braid, with one side of my bunny suit torn, one glove on - one lost, mascara running down my face, and one sorely bruised bum and one sorely bruised ego. I took myself to the bar and had about eight Singapore Slings. I felt much better after that.

The next day I took a lesson.

To this day, I'm sure if I hadn't had four more days of lift tickets, I'd have quit right there on the spot.

I have since ditched the whole fashion thing, and now I opt for the international terrorist look. It tends to be considerably more functional for kicking butt on badass mountains now and is way more functional. Although I did buy some really funky periwinkle and white polka dot goggles this trip to make me the coolest mom on the mountain...

I'm a VICTIM I tell you!!! A VIC-TUUUUUM!!!!

2007-02-08T18:29:00.000-08:00

I know this is hard to believe.

But I am a victim of profiling.

Soda profiling.

Now, just because I'm not going with the norm is no reason to single me out.

I just don't like diet drinks. I like Coke. Not Pepsi. Not Diet Pepsi. Just Coke. And only Coke (except for every morning at work and that's an AMP but that's a completely different blog subject.) And especially NOT DIET Coke!!! But invariably, no matter who I go to breakfast, lunch, or dinner with, I either GET the diet drink intended for the other parties (no matter if they are male or female) or my REFILL will show up as a DIET Coke. When I bring it to a wait person's attention that they brought me the diet drink errantly, they look at me like:

"sowhat'sthedifferenceeverybodyelseinthefreeworlddrinksityoumoronIreally don'twanttogobackandfixit ...."

I didn't think I was fat, but this is starting to give me a bigger complex than I already have. I think I know how poor Tyra Banks feels now (which incidentally I think she looks just FINE at her current disputed size!!!) Or maybe I just have that Gap Khaki, Diet Coke drinking, Mini-Van driving, Soccer Mom look. ( I have SO got to fix that.)

Somebody get me a lawyer....

Thanks Mom!!!

2007-02-07T19:48:00.000-08:00

I don't talk much about Firstborn in my blogs, because most of the time, I'm not sure what to say... He's a walking case of tween hormones, perpetually perturbed, never available, emotionally volatile and basically your average, normal 12 year old boy. And he lives a pretty routine life, except for the fact that it takes a piledriver in his face to do anything more than the absolute bare minimum on ANYTHING.

So I thought it funny when he came to me today and announced

"MOM!!! I got a 94 on my Science Fair Project!!!"

Well, You're welcome, baby. Don't mention it.

Now, I think it's pretty universally known that the annual science fair project is mainly homework hell for parents and if truth be known, to avoid utter ruin at the water cooler and in front of the PTA, many parents end up, well, taking over for the poor kid. It's just easier that way.

We, however, chose the HARD way.

I was bound and damned determined he was going to do the bloody thing himself - even if it ended up we hated each other for life (and then some.) I think if Firstborn had put as much energy into actually completing the project as he did in fighting doing it correctly the FIRST time, he could have cut his time by three quarters, and used the spare time to scratch his butt and work on a perfect burp (both of which have myteriously appeared as favorite activities in his repertoire of stuff he WANTS to do...) Here was the original opening sentence for his project introduction (un-censored so for those parents who are faint of heart, please stop reading now):

My project is about how music affects plants. That's pretty much what my project is about.

Um, maybe I'm asking too much, but I believe the correct description of the sentence (in a nutshell) is "half-ass."

You would have thought I'd asked him to memorize the entire unabridged version of Crime and Punishment when I asked him to please re-write that introduction (which, incidentally, didn't get any better from the first sentence...) Then came the tears, and the I hate you forever looks, etc and so on. It took an HOUR to get him to write a 250 words or less introduction suitable for public consumption. Then another hour (same process) to write the Analysis, then another for the Discussion, yet a-nother for the Title page (no kidding) etc.... He'd write, we'd send him back to re-write. Over, and over and over and over and over and over and over....

We helped him put his graphs together, but he had to design them. We helped him print the pictures, but he had to write the descriptions. And so on. My husband and I had to tag team the process - when one would get tired, the other would take over.

Aside from the 3 weeks of analysis on the plants - it took over 3 DAYS to drag the kid through completing what is now known as "the project never to be mentioned again" in our house.
You'd have thought from all the arguing and tears and threatening and begging and bribing one of us would have snapped (oh yeah, I forgot, I already did...) This kid was going to do MOST to ALL of this project over somebody's dead body. And I was pretty convinced it might be HIS the way he acted through the whole thing.

The icing on the cake: The project had to be turned in on Friday morning and the weather was a lovely freezing rain mixed with just the right amount of knock you down wind. I got out of the car to help him take his poster in (did I mention the poster was like, 6 by 4 feet in dimension?), since his arms were full and I didn't want the blessed pictures to get ruined in the weather.

You would have thought I proposed to walk into his class, strip naked, and proceed to belly dance in front of his class from his reaction. The unmentionable horror of having your (CHOKE! GASP!) mother HELP you take your stuff to class was more than he could bear. The look of sheer terror on his face was both maddening and priceless. I didn't know whether to smack him hard or just hug him to death.

Upon his announcement of success, I asked him if all the pain and suffering was worth the grade...

His reaction? Totally priceless.

"Um, I don't know what you're talking about... when's dinner?"

Please. Somebody. Tell me we're going to live through the next few years....

**********

p.s. His project was to prove if classical music would improve plant growth. Oddly enough, he had three subjects exposed to different variables: a) no music b) rock music c) classical. Call it weird, or lucky, but the classical music plant out grew the other plants by 2cm and actually started out .5 to 1 cm smaller than the other two plants at the beginning of the project. Who knew??

War of the Mommybloggers ;o)

2007-02-01T06:15:00.000-08:00

What is it they say? Oh, I believe the correct term is ROTFL...MY....ASS...OFF

Apparently the media has pissed off the wrong Mommys...um...LOL

I think it is terribly ironic and poignant that the same blogger/journalist who got me started in blogging because of her one-sided, misinformed, twisted and taken completely out of context observation on pageants, is now in an uproar because the media is presenting a one-sided, misinformed, twisted and taken completely out of context observation on a playgroup where the mothers have a glass of wine.

To quote:

"It's just another media-generated battle pitting mommy against mommy and frankly, I'm getting tired of it."

I really couldn't have said it better myself.

Um, where was this thought process when it was fun to bash the pageant moms? You called my baby a mini harlot, and that was okay... but now Meredith Veira implies that these mothers could be potential drunks and hazards to their children and that's an outrage? Frankly, I don't see the difference in what is done to pageant mothers and what is going on here.

"This is taken out of context!!!" a pageant mom has exclaimed. Detractors of pageants ignore the cry - it couldn't possibly be taken out of context, the media is soooo upstanding...

"We spend time with our children and we're not harming them. We're having fun!" a pageant mom has exclaimed. An implication of child abuse is implied in return.

"We get together and let our kids play!" the pageant moms cry! "Oh, but your child could never possibly have a REAL childhood in pageants..." sayeth the detractors.

"I'm not harming my child - she's having fun, we're having sleepovers and going swimming at the hotel and winning toys (otherwise she wouldn't be smiling)" retorts the pageant mothers.

.......

"I'm not harming my child, I'm just having a glass of wine..." retort the playgroup Mommys...

Aw sweet irony.

Frankly, I don't give a rat's rear end if a playgroup Mommy has a glass of wine with her friends while their kids run around the backyard. I think the media is just looking for another drummed up controversy. Kind of like kid pageants.

Yep, there are moms that take pageants too far. Hmmm, the story here has implied that moms who drink at a playgroup could take THAT too far and these Moms are upset at the implication. (Well, of course that could NEVER happen...)

I just think it's funny that they feel the need to DEFEND themselves, the very thing many of them have torn pageant moms a new one for doing.

HA HA HA..... HA!

(wha'd they expect? sympathy??? ....forgive me if I'm feeling a wee bit vindicated)

I wish I was making this up...

2007-01-30T16:33:00.000-08:00

Okay, I PROMISE I am so very NOT making this up.

This morning was pretty rough at work - the daily sales files weren't making it to our servers for the field guys to pick up, our main server was down, everyone was complaining, the server admin guys were flustered, I had to update management on the situation every 5 min before the poop hit the propeller from a bigwig....

And a little ray of sunshine came across my desk.

Because our users work strictly out of home offices (all 832 of them) we have to be super careful how we send updates to their laptops. So we pretty much set up any updates in a way that hopefully, would not boggle even the most dense individual. KISS is our motto. Well, we've been working to get all of our users up to compliance with an important version of a particular software package they use, like, every minute of the day just about.... so in this case we were ESPECIALLY sensitive to the need to write out every. possible. step. clearly.

Probably most poignant was the fact that the particular issue was forwarded by Satan's minion #1 - and he didn't even blink at it...

Said user sent an email reply back to Satan's minion #1's directive that he MUST comply with the upgrade upon pain of fingernail hanging with the following comment...

"Minion #1, I'm TRYING to comply. But I'm so lost at step number 4. It says to double-click on 'My Computer' but it doesn't say WHICH FINGER!!!"

I simply could not contain myself. I lost it. I'll betcha it took me 20 minutes to get re-composed.

...to make it even funnier, Satan's minion didn't even miss a beat. In his forwarding comments he demanded we escalate an issue to the main Help Desk to be prepared for incidents like this.

It wouldn't have been so funny, if they hadn't been so stinkin' serious about it.

p.s. Everyone wonders why I voted to give them all Gameboys instead of laptops...

Thought for the day

2007-01-29T20:16:00.000-08:00

I felt guilty for laughing at this but this little ditty came from the infamous pageant boards and it just gets funnier everytime I read it:

"Some people are like a slinky, not really good for anything - but you can't help but smile when you shove them down the stairs..."

Right behind it was an equally funny yet disturbing post:

"The next time you find yourself on a plane, sitting next to someone who cannot resist chattering to you endlessly, I urge you to quietly pull your laptop out of your bag, carefully open the screen (ensuring the irritating person next to you can see it), and hit this link ."

http://www.thecleverest.com/countdown.swf

hmmm, must be the meds....

Um, little setbacks

2007-01-28T08:11:00.000-08:00

Sorry I was gone so long. I had a little unexpected misstep...

It's funny how you can go through so much in life, and then something really small can knock you off your feet.

See, I have the best life and the worst life all at the same time and I stay constantly conflicted.

I have a great big house which most people want but I constantly stay overwhelmed because I fell like I can't keep it up. But my husband won't move because he nearly got killed building it.

I have a great job, but stay constantly nerve wrecked over the abuse I take in it daily. But I can't quit because it's the devil I know.

I have parents that pay for my children to get the best schooling, but it tears my family apart because they think it usurps all of my parental rights. I could pay for it myself, but then we'd have to stop EVERYTHING else we do for fun to pay...and if I put my kids in public school, I'd have to send them 30 min in the opposite direction from where we live from the other 30 min direction I go to my office. So if an emergency happened, it would take me a good 1 hr drive to get to them. The worst thing is, if we did take them out of private school, it wouldn't fix the parental issues anyway, and that's a much bigger story for a later blog.

But there are bigger parental issues - it's hard to explain. Maybe if I dole it out in little bits I can finally figure out why I either let the situation continue, or why the problems are always my fault.

My husband has flexibility in his job, but his family pays his paycheck and never lets him forget it. And he's not a real "happy" person, because he stays in pain and he has a job that's hard on his physical condition as well.

I know much of my troubles are self inflicted, but the straw on the camel's back came a couple of weeks ago.

They do a community sponsored sex-education program at my children's school for 7th graders. I personally wanted to put my son in it, but my mother demanded that we NOT put him in because "it just teaches kids about the evils of sex." Part of the dilemma is 1) we ask the school to lie to her if she inquires (which she does) and put him in...which you can see the fundamental issue with that since he goes to private CHRISTIAN school 2) now my son is the only one not going and feels kind of ostracized. Well, my husband had enough and we got in a fight over it, and I'd had a terribly bad day at work, and then my medical condition flared up (I have a rare skin condition that causes extreme itching when I get stressed out) and it all came together in a lovely case of ....

a NERVOUS BREAKDOWN.

You know, the mind can be a funny thing. Everything can be okay, and you can continue to rationalize, until one day it all just comes crashing down on you. I really tried not to fall. I told myself that it's all okay, I'm just making things a bigger deal than they are. But I just couldn't do it. It's not something you ever want to go through, the numbness I think is the worst part and the crying. I just could not stop no matter how hard I tried. I thought of my children. I thought of the good things I have. But then the thoughts come "nobody loves me" "why can't I do a better job...?" (fill in blanks of better worker, better mom, fix all the family issues etc.) But the numbness just went deeper. My mind just felt like it was going into a dark abyss - and I was clawing my way out to no avail. I don't even have a really good excuse for it. It's not like I lost a child, or I'm going to die or anything. But it's still very real for some reason. I was sick, like the flu, they explained - it just happened to be with my mental health, and I needed to get well.

Thankfully, I'm pretty resilient and they gave me a strong anti-depressent for awhile - but the question is... why? why now?

Time flies....

2007-01-07T07:21:00.000-08:00

Wow! Has it been an entire week since I could last post??

I guess I should let you guys in on a little secret - I'm living dog years. Yes, it might have been a week for you, but only a day for me. I used to be on people time, but somewhere around the first child being born, I got stuck in a time/space continuum warp and things have never been the same.

It's been a crazy week...

First - for those of you who are new, I work in corporate hell. And we are currently trying to transition year end for our sales force applications. Normally, it wouldn't sound like such a bad thing, but my two business users are card carrying minions of Satan and LOVE to make my life as miserable as possible. And last year, we had a cataclysmic disaster with closing (never mind the person executing the tasks was leaving the company, and the person taking over pissed off MY boss off so the entire time I was trying to get the new guy to rescue the system, my boss was trying to get him fired for lame reasons so he could get a buddy of his hired immediately...) which not only had the users "down" for creating sales goals and tracking actual sales for two months, ended up making us look like the keystone cops because our outsourced IT infrastructure (a world renowned services company that is referenced by the color blue that shall remain unnamed) kept FUCKING things up every time we'd get close to fixing the problem. To make matters worse, we aren't allowed to express their mistakes and have to take them as our own. ....So, the minions are rubbing it in this week. And I have good guys working for me now, so we are trying to put in as many stop-gaps, fallbacks, and checkpoints into the process as I think are humanly and computerly possible. I guess you could say we're still licking our wounds from last year... and I wish the flashbacks would stop...

Satan's minion #1 called me on Thursday, not to ask how things were going, or how they could help with the process... No... just to chew me out for 45 min about how stupid, incompetent, backlogged, and utterly worthless we are, as if we were looking for ways to be as inefficient as possible. Never mind THEY cut our budget 60 percent, which is what my staffing is based on. So I told him well, you get what you pay for.... needless to say, THAT went over well.

Then my Palm Pilot was lost/stolen. I have been struggling with extreme separation anxiety. I'm so dependent on that thing it's ridiculous. Good news is, my boss said they'd get me a cool replacement if I can't find it after another week...but I still have several more days to flounder.

And now we're getting back to pageant land. Had to take prissy miss Gizmo out of town for additional coaching. We're going for a grand at a big state pageant this month - I've not been as enthusiastic about pageants for awhile but Gizmo has been asking about doing one so I guess we'll give it a go. I hate to do anything half-ass so now we are practicing and getting ready... Where's my reality show???? Preparing for a pageant kind of changes your relative perspective, Yeah I know you're a corporate big shot, but if you REALLY want to impress me - let me see you get an even spray tan on a wiggling toddler and get her to do "surprise face" on cue on stage at any given time of day... then maybe I'll be impressed with you ;o)

Don't have the mensa schedule yet. Will keep you posted (no pun intended ;o)

I'll do better posting regularly now that I'm getting back into the swing of things!

To all who are trying to get in the groove of 2007 - Here we goooooooo.....!!!!!

Dear ol' Dad

2006-12-31T14:08:00.000-08:00

A couple of years ago at the sprite age of 76, my Dad decided to take the Mensa Test.

And passed fabulously.

All my life he's lorded over me how much smarter he is than I am, and now he has a piece of paper to prove it.

He just called to bug me once again about taking it. And recently attending all his parties (at the various clubs he belongs including Mensa) has probably brought this about because he must be running out of stuff to brag about. So the bugging is getting more intense.

If I take it and pass - he'll be like "so what"

If I don't....

Rock. Hard place.

Should I or should I not? That is the question. (help!)

Half the battle is NOT getting there.

2006-12-31T12:18:00.000-08:00

They should post a sign over any hospital door:

Your heart and dignity will be removed as soon as possible, please just get over it.

Well, after standing around with the corn fed boys of the rural fire brigade for 20 minutes or so (they were expecting to haul the skid loader out of the ditch, but my husband foiled that...) the ambulance finally showed up.

Now we live on the county line, so they wanted to take my husband to the rural hospital in the county we live in instead of the city hospital in the more metropolitan area where they have state-of-the-art care available. Sensing that this was no run of the mill broken leg, I did what any self-respecting woman would do in a moment of extreme stress.

I threw a hissy fit. Tears and all.

Eventually they agreed to take him to the city hospital. They didn't even look at my husband's leg, they just took his vitals and put him in. I even got to the hospital BEFORE the ambulance.

Now, I forgot to mention that exactly one week before this event, my husband had been to the same emergency room - with a KIDNEY STONE. The on call doctor for this event looked at me and said that I looked familiar, and keep in mind a state of extreme stress will make you say some pretty odd things...."Well, you did such a good job with the kidney stone, we just wanted see what you could do with this..." Don't ask why I said that - I call it "word vomit" - sometimes statements just come out and I can't stop myself (I'm sure there's a competent therapist with my name all OVER a folder somewhere...) The look on his face was priceless indeed.

When they finally got my husband into the trauma area, we pieced together what had happened... Apparantly, when the skid loader pitched forward into the ditch, to keep from sliding out and under the machine and being killed (as he was NOT buckled in) my husband stuck his right leg out to prevent himself slipping out. But in his frantic state to brace himself with his left leg, it hit the controls to bring the bucket down, and it scissored his right leg between the cross member of the arms that control the bucket.

His leg was basically amputated in place. CRUSHED. Smushed. But it didn't come off. And even more weirdly, no bones protruded. But it began to swell, and swell...

After they took him into the MRI tunnel, the doctors looked very grave indeed. Because apparently, a crush is not like a break, or even an amputation... you have this little problem associated with the death of tissue called "compartment syndrome" which sets up another little problem called "gangrene" which can quickly translate into "DEATH."

Educational moment in Cliff's notes format - there is an envelope that encases every muscle that feeds blood and oxygen to the tissue - compartment syndrome is when that envelope is damaged, and the tissue begins to die (gangrene). This puts poison into your entire body.

The doctor looked at me and said:

"We have to take the leg off or he'll die."

All I could say was "NO." And I nearly passed out dropping into a chair.

The wait is over

2006-12-30T08:27:00.000-08:00

Well, Gizmo didn't win the big photo contest :o( But hey! nothing ventured, nothing gained... And talk about the longest wait in photo contest history!!! Geesh!

All the pictures are beautiful, I know couldn't pick just one (IF I was objective ;o)

I thought she would at least make tops, but she didn't (she usually does) Losing IS a bit merciful in a way - I can quit entering her for awhile (okay I could quit before I just didn't want to because, well, she was winning...)

Honestly, it gets VERY addictive when your kid wins because well... it's a fundamental concept - winning is fun, losing sucks. Period. That's why gambling can be such a problem...and I admit playing these photo contests are very much like gambling. And even the ads for these things are a bit Vegas-esque. But what else are you going to do with a picture that costs more than your monthly electric bill? And you can't even put it on your desk at work LOL

The loot report this year?

- 1 Holiday Collectible Barbie
- Free entries into other contests
- 1 Build a Bear with Outfit
- Monogrammed Tote Bag
- $325
- California Barbie Doll
- A Free photo shoot with a top pageant photographer
- and a write up in the premiere National Pageant Magazine

I'm not greedy - just thankful we get to play!

..Oh and yesterday I found the most FANTASTIC hot pink hat for her next shoot - no time to waste preparing for the next pictures!! There's necklaces to buy! and hair accessories! and gloves! and feathers! and earrings...and fuzzy scarves..... to the next shoot here we gooooo......

The Emergency Circus

2006-12-29T17:40:00.000-08:00

Okay, sweater and slippers are on... back to our story.

Well, our neighbor's daughter, startled as she was, drove me up to the door of her house where she ran and grabbed her mother - who upon seeing me in my muddy,disheveled and frantic state became equally anxious about the whole situation. All I could do was blurt out: "Husband!" "In ditch... I think his leg is off....please I think they'll need to pull him out - heavy equipment involved" "Please just CALL 911...."

And I ran back. By now I could hear my husband hollering for me "GET DOWN HERE - WHERE AAARRREEEE YOU???? ARRRRGGGHHH......"

It actually sounded a little better (if you can believe that!)

Apparently, in the meantime, our neighbor who called 911 for us, called upon two of the most "useful" people that live on our street (out of what was like, all 8 of the houses on our street.) I like to call them Hansel & Gretel. Now, they are really sweet people, he's VERY British, and she's VERY German. Talk about your odd couples. He has a Poirot mustache and wears a lot of tweed, and she is tall and thin and very drawn looking and chain smokes constantly. They both have made a hobby of telling everyone that our street would not be NEARLY as clean and beautiful if it weren't for them laboring to pick up all the "litter" on their daily walks. And never mind their hatred of any animal that isn't a cat or anyone that can't play bridge... Anyway, I digress. This was actually my first meeting of these two - he brought a crowbar with him and she brought her cigarettes. How useful in an emergency. (Although I'm now convinced they're both former Russian spies still putting on an act along with the rest of the characters in the witness protection program on our street.)

So by the time I got back (again the whole slow motion time thing going on) they had driven down (Gosh, thanks for stopping and giving me a ride...) and my husband was...

NOT in the skid loader.

He apparently had enough wits, er, adrenaline (and a LOT of it) to get out of the skid loader and hop almost 50 yards up into our truck at the top of the driveway. The side of the truck was the picture of desperation as the muddy hand prints left a track of obvious clawing to get up into the vehicle.

But I STILL wasn't sure what happened. Except his leg was hanging at a very odd angle. A very, very, very, odd angle. With traces of blood beginning to seep.

But at least the screaming had died down to a gutteral moan at this point. Hansel had reached my husband before me, which apparently just managed to piss my husband off terribly... and Gretel was trying to console me (but she never dropped her bloody cigarette) while we were waiting for an emergency team to arrive.

At this point, as odd as it might seem, we got into an argument.

"Take me to the fucking hospital" he demanded. Now, being the hopeless romantic that I am I responded with basically "No, you idiot, what if you go into shock?? I can't help you... I am NOT taking you to the fucking hospital, I've called an AMBULANCE".... He was not in the mood to listen to reason.... "FUCK THE AMBULANCE, TAKE ME TO THE HOSPITAL!!!!!"

Weeeyooooo Weeeeeyooooo Weeeeeeeeeyoooooooooo

Thank God for Laurens County's finest. Our Volunteer Fire Brigade. But no Ambulance.

It sounds like everything was okay...but it was NOT.

The worst was yet to come.

Christmas

2006-12-28T21:08:00.000-08:00

Well, since I can't sleep. (I either end up over-posting or under but never in-between)

I'm feeling guilty, because all the other bloggers have given their commentary on Christmas and I didn't really say a word.

That's because there wasn't much to say.

Christmas used to be a lot more fun when I didn't have to do so much work. But this year, I threw in the proverbial towel. Only a tree in the living room and some garland on the balconey upstairs. Didn't overspend on the kids. Got everything I wanted and here's what I got:

Gift card to Ulta
Gift card to Cache
Some decorative plates for our kitchen wall
an ipod Nano (in PINK!)
Issey Miyake perfume
and some really, REALLY, cool snow boots (lace up black suede with pom poms at that!!)

We ate leftovers from the family gatherings collected on Saturday and Sunday, and never even changed out of our pajamas.

It was a great day.

Still no word :o(

2006-12-28T06:22:00.000-08:00

Well, there's still no word on the stupid photo contest :o( They were supposed to announce winners Monday, but I have a feeling it won't be until Friday.... Even the name of the contest is cheesy: "Unforgettable Faces" LOL

But hey! who doesn't want to have an "unforgettable" face?? Of course, with all the retouching, who could forget what ANY of these pics look like....

I'm swearing off these things for awhile after this one!!!

They have these stupid prediction boards (www.voy.com/189998/) that I watch just to see who everyone is "picking" to win. And it's frustrating, that even though my daughter wins a good bit, she rarely gets predicted. It's like she's invisible sometimes. I know I shouldn't worry about it, but some of these other moms must hire PR teams from New York to set up the kind of publicity their kids get. It's kind of like a popularity contest from high school - there are kids who are popular for some particular reason, and others that well, aren't. I do like to read the boards though, these bitches are something else sometimes - and if you can catch it before the moderator does.... They should call it the MOMs from Hell board LOL

I rarely post (except to sneak in a prediction for MY kid!!!)

I don't mind putting my daughter in these types of photo contests, because if you could pick my kid off the street from her glitz pics, I'd kiss yer butt at high noon and give ya three hours to collect a crowd... (and no, these pics are not the ones that go on Grandma's mantle. )

But it's fun in a weird kind of way, a bit like extending Christmas. And Gizmo knows the drill:

Win photo contest = Shopping trip

p.s. I must be getting old, we took a day trip skiing yesterday, and I can barely MOVE....

(will continue other story tomorrow)

911

2006-12-27T17:08:00.000-08:00

When I came around the corner, the skid loader was pitched forward into the ditch.

You haven't lived until you've heard the screams of a human being in mortal agony.

Especially a loved one.

My husband was clinging, convulsing, to the cage of the skid loader screaming - making sounds I have never heard from a human and never wish to hear again... and no actor can make the sound that comes out when the pain, and terror, are real. I don't care how much they try. (I can pretty much watch any horror, war, or science fiction movie quiet peacefully now.)

"My LEG!! OH MY GOD!!! IT'S OFF!!! I DON'T KNOW. PLEASE GOD HELP!!!!"

I didn't know what else to do, I knew there was nothing I could physically do at the scene, so I just ran for help. The next closest house was a mile down the road, and cell phones don't work where we live. No time to think, or feel, just RUN.

I felt like the preview of the six million dollar man running in slow motion. Not knowing what was really happening, not being able to feel, the surreal nature of the moment overcoming me like a bad dream. One leg pumping in front of the other, but going nowhere - as if time began to stand still.

Fortunately, the teenage daughter of our neighbor was out in her golf cart.... All I could do was jump in to the passenger seat and babble incoherently about needing to dial 911. I am quite sure I frightened her to death, as she still acts funny around me to this day. But in the meantime....

You could still hear my husband screaming from where we were.

I still didn't know what, exactly, was happening. But I was about to find out.

February 13

2006-12-23T18:55:00.000-08:00

I wanted to go skiing.

But we were building the house ourselves, and we had a lot of work to do. So, under quite a bit of protest, I agreed to go work on the house instead. There was a lot of industrial trash to be removed and we didn't have anyone else to do it, so my husband had talked his father into loaning the skid loader for the day so we could move the trash into the rented giant trash bin -we really wanted to get it done, because those trash bins tend to be expensive to rent and we were trying to cut as many costs as possible. So for a better part of the day we moved trash out of the ditch by our house (sheet rock remnants, pipe remnants, old cardboard boxes etc.) - my husband would hop in and out of the loader so to expedite the process, he buckled the belt BEHIND him instead of buckling and unbuckling each time. Took too much effort and time he said. Get 'r Done ya' know.

So the day passed and we were tired. Dog tired and covered in mud and dirt. My husband asked me to go around back and lock up while he went and quickly put a load of fill dirt in the ditch. Okay, let's go.

As I locked up around back, I heard a terrible screeching noise, kind of like when an engine has metal rubbing together. Not quite machine, not quite human. So I ran around the front of the house - not worried so much, but curious. But nothing could have prepared me for the indelible impression I was about to encounter.

I will never forget what I saw. Ever.

C'mon get Happy :o)

2006-12-20T17:55:00.000-08:00

Point. Counter Point.

Upon reading another blog on my way through my regular stops through cyberspace...a popular blogger, www.suburbanturmoil.blogger.com, wrote a response to a reader who suggested that she needed to write about more things that made her happy.

That apparently did not set well with said blogger.

I will admit that her biting wit and snarky attitude about pageants instigated my start into blogland. She has a bit of "I'm so over everything" in her blogs (although I don't think she's really that way at all, her blog is more of a vent than anything.) And poor thing, she's got a sick toddler AND she's pregnant. So you'd think I'd be a bit on her side or really nasty about the fact that she basically let the commentator that suggested she should "get happy" have the third degree. I am neither.

What bothers me is the fact that so many other people are apparently "so over" things and have more appreciation for the snarky than the sparkly (that phrase sucked but it's the best I can do for now.) In other words the consensus of said blogger's reading public is the same as what I tell my husband when I have a raging case of PMS:

"Don't ruin a good bad mood"

On the other hand, negativity breeds more negativity. The news tells us life sucks, there's never really anything good going on in the world. The heartbreaking is more interesting than the heartwarming. And that's sad. I think anyone who doesn't try to see the good in life needs, well, a little re-setting of perspective. Nothing pernicious, but life changing enough to see what's really small stuff and what's really important.

February 13, 1999 was my date. The most horrible day I've ever had.

....to be continued.

It's the most wonderful time of the year!!!

2006-12-18T15:48:00.000-08:00

I'm baa-aack!!!!

After two weeks of company ordered psychological training and four rotating cases of something akin to the bird flu running through my house - it's time to write again!!!

Before I go to said main subject, ya'll will have to appreciate the hopeless romantic my husband is... Wednesday night, after vomiting violently and wishing I was dead briefly from about 8-midnight, I finally got to sleep...well about 2am my son woke up destroying the upstairs bathroom like a bad scene from the exorcist - so my husband shook me awake and said "well, you're already sick with it so can you go deal with him?? I don't want to get it!"

Love ya, mean it LOL

An-y-who.

It's that time of year in the pageant world - time for one of the most anticipated events of the year!!

Is it the christmas parties the coaches' throw? no
Is it pageant slumber parties? no
Is it Christmas cards from your friends? duh
Is it the biggest Christmas pageant of the year? that is soooo over
Is it the joy of finally getting all the hairspray, makeup, and tanning solution out of everything your 3 year old owns?? No, that's an impossible task anyway...

Ladies and Gentlemen!!!! It's time for the "unforgettable faces" year end online photo contest with the "Duos Doubles" contest!!
Aaahh friends - if you haven't lived through the mad scramble to find 2 and only 2 partners - and everyone wants to pair with the best photos out there - it can get well, messy. Now, there are those moms who are resourceful enough to hire hackers to find the email addys of the kids with the best pictures. And then there are those who email the directors to ask if they know if so-and-so might like to pair. Bless the brave souls who post to the voyager boards to ask for pairings and pick up lord knows what kind of spamming.

And finally, my personal favorites. The moms who don't email anyone or try to get good partners, that commence to then sit around and bitch online about how the "regulars" will always pair up and nobody wanted to pair with them and oh the same old people win... and somebody made a deal not to get paid so they could win, and so-and-so must be related...blah,blah,blah,blah, blah, infinity

Let the "wild rumpus" begin (name that book!) oh they gnash their gnarly teeth, and they roll their horrible eyes, and they wail their terrible wails....

As they say in the South, "Bless their Hearts"

Of course a $500 purse and boxes full of gifts for the winners can make even the nicest moms go greedy ;o)

In 7 days half the pageant world will be glued to a computer screen in every corner of the US (and possibly few Canadians too...) waiting for the results as to who the "best of the best" are in photo contest competition for the year...

Now for folks who don't quite have what this is about let me explain.

In pageantry, there is another world of competition called the "online photo contest." This is where you can take the photos you paid what no normal human being would pay for a photo that doesn't even really look like your kid and win STUFF - money, prizes, gifts, PR.... You can't discount the PR needed in pageantry. It's like Hollywood - any publicity is good publicity. And this is a critical aspect. So if your kid can get great pics from the best photographers, and build their name....well...it doesn't hurt. I can't put my finger on it, but somehow, when kids start either winning photo contests, or bashed on a bash board, they mysteriously start winning everything.... hmmmm.

Along with this competition (as with National Pageants) are the prediction boards - every mom wants to see their kid "predicted" to win - although I think most predictions are from the moms, grandmas, and those forced at gunpoint to name certain kids as the front runners. I don't think race horses get this much speculation or promotion... I think it would be very enterprising of me to be the first pageant "bookie" (but then I remember I have a soul AND a concience, darn it!!) And it can turn vicious if you aren't careful. One wrong move and you can become the victim of a vicious witchhunt!!! And these girls name names LOL I'd rather take a bitch slap up side the head ANY day... But it's all part of the game.

Oh and what's that? Well of COURSE we play, duh-huh! After all, I AM "Pageant Mom."

%#@@ **$(!& I #,(* HATE ^@#(!! TECHNOLOGY

2006-12-06T20:39:00.000-08:00

I bought an HP3310 all in one printer last May. Of course, my son needs his paper printed for his writing class (and it's late in the evening.) So the (unladylike expletive) of a (piece of another unladylike expletive) thing keeps giving me (more expletives) funky error messages after I replaced the cartridges! The whole selling point of the (more expletives) item is you can replace one cartridge at a time! Well, you replace one, and it starts spitting up about the others. So I replaced them, followed all the instructions etc. still giving me (yet more expletives) the error.

MUST CONTROL FIST OF DEATH...

Called Best Buy - you gotta bring the (expletive expletive expletive) thing in. I tell the monotone guy on the customer not so service line DO NOT pa-tron-ize me I'm in IT you expletive idiot - so he says, well, I'll patch you to the geek squad. Yeah whatever, give me a geek... as long as he's not from expletive India (pause for clause: I have nothing against India, but when I am pissed I am NOT in the mood for the QUEEN's ENGLISH!!!!!!!) Expletive MORONS. Just tell me what the error is. So he said he'd get back in a moment... and he HUNG UP on me!!!! Expletive, break telephone, kick babies, eat nails...expletive piece of expletive printer.... He did NOT get back with me - he expletive HUNG UP!!!!! It's enough to make you want to claw your own eyes out and break the closest china (and it's probably something STUPID I'm just too angry and sleepy to deal with it!!!) ARRRRGHHHH!!!!
ARRRGHHH!!! ARRGGHHH!!! Just give me a freakin answer to my expletive expletive question!!!! Is that too much to ask??? (yes I went to the website, and yes, I followed the instructions, and yes I got Olli and his brother Krishna and his other brother Krishna to try to help me....)

If I didn't have $500 in the whole thing (including accessories and service plan) I'd push it out the expletive window!!!!!

>o(

p.s. For some reason they are sending me to "how to get along better with others class next week...." so I can be sanitized and politicized appropriately.... dunno why....

Can Money Buy you Love?

2006-12-03T13:11:00.000-08:00

Okay, now I'm over posting, but I have to write this down before I forget it.

Last night we went as a family to the movies - we saw "The Santa Clause 3 - The Escape Clause" - btw very cute, but very cheesy - I liked it better than the others really though... Anyway, we went to the 9:00 showing, so we didn't get out until like 11:00!! Well, right across from the Cinemas is one of those shopping centers with stores like Old Navy, Bed Bath Beyond, etc.
Definitely the Heart of Middle Class Suburbia...

As we passed through the parking lot, there, in the middle of the deserted Old Navy lot was a guy parked, in an actual, for real, abso-pos-lu-tive-ly stunning, silver colored Lamborgini Gallardo!!!! No SHIT!!!

Not that the car parked in the center of the Old Navy lot at 11:00 on a Saturday night wasn't weird enough by itself, but the guy had both doors wide open cleaning the inside of the passenger side door.

He had a vanity plate that just said "Chad."

Now Gizmo was out cold, but this was just more than the rest of us could resist. So we started up surmizing why "Chad" was out cleaning the windows of a 6 figure valued car in the middle of a middle class area shopping mall almost in the middle of the night.

Husband: "I was really impressed until the 'Chad' plate. Must be some self absorbed dick who lives at home with his mother using it to pick up chicks."

Wife (uh, i.e. Me): " Maybe he was so into himself his date spit on the window before he shoved her out the door so now he has to clean it to go out" or "Maybe he's a serial killer or a pimp..."

12 year old son: "Uh DU-UH!!! Who needs a GIRL when you have a car like THAT???"

Altogether now sing!
"..Can't buy me lu-uve, lu-uve, no no, no, no no!"

My C-section story

2006-11-30T20:21:00.000-08:00

I am posting this at the request of another blogger MadMomma. I also need to apologize for sending this late, it's been a crazy week!!!

****

It's interesting when you get a group of parents together and they start recounting the stories of childbirth. And although we pride ourselves on medical progress and improvements in civilization, childbirth is still less of, but nonetheless, a risky event for both mother and child. I mean think about it fundamentally...it's just not an obviously easy task based on the laws of time and physics... But anyway.

With my first child, I was 28 years old, and I taught aerobics 3-4 times a week. Oddly enough I ended up gaining like, 50 pounds, but overall it was fairly uneventful process except for having morning sickness - morning, noon, and night - and at the drop of any weird smell!!! I was due on July 21st, but woke up the wee morning hours of July 1st with an odd back pain. Now, I had taken the childbirth classes (I was a horrible student - I actually ran out and threw up after the childbirth video) and when I asked my husband if he wanted to be in the delivery room with me and he said "NO" I was actually kind of okay with it, because I didn't want to be in there either. And never mind that my in-laws insisted on showing me my sister-in-laws childbirth video (which had taken place just 3 months earlier) where her epidural didn't take and she was screaming in mortal pain the entire time.... oh no, that shouldn't bother me a bit! Anyway I digress..... THAT morning on July 1st something was just, well, different. So, as any woman in my situation would do, I called the doctor and asked. They were singularly non-chalant about the whole thing "Well, we'll see you if you really think it's necessary..." Wow! I'd love for people to pay me for my expertise just so I could be annoyed with them.... Anyway, it wasn't really anything earth shattering so I just puttered around the house, took a shower, etc. But I just couldn't get comfortable. Well, since the slight pain started around 1am I decided by 7am that I needed to go in whether they liked it or not.

So my husband drove me in, and since I was supposedly 3 weeks early, the doctor's office was in NO hurry to see me! After waiting in the office for an hour, they dully admitted me back to pee in a cup and see if there was a problem with my kidney, since that was in the area of the source of the pain. After ANOTHER half an hour, they gave me the results and were going to send me home, when the doctor on call said she thought she'd just take a quick look since I was in anyway.

So, I went back, and she said "let me do an internal check" OH BOY GOODY I CAN'T WAIT....

Her eyes got as big as saucers "OMG you're 6 centimeters - GO TO THE HOSPITAL, do not pass GO, do not collect $200, do not get a bag, git GIT GIIIITTTTT!!!!!!!!!" Oh, well, now we know what it takes to get their attention. My husband stopped at every green light and ran every red trying to get me there (I'm really lucky to be here!) Fortunately, when I got to the hospital they had a room ready...epidural? check! 3 pushes? check! by 7:30 I had a ready to go Baby!!!! Only thing was, he came out so fast, my husband started to panick because his head looked like one of those pointy birthday hats, and his face looked like it had been run over and the tracks of the offending vehicle were still left on his face (he still has a few remaining broken blood vessels to this day -very faint but still there.)

My point for the first child is, I still don't think childbirth is an exact science. The doctors are either so desensitized to what they see and hear everyday, or they still don't have a clue... I dunno.

With child #2 things were a LOT different. First, she was a statistical anomoly (you know that 1% caveat on the side of the box? meet your lottery winner!!!) Second, I was 35 and not at an age that I wanted to be having children. Enter major depression. I didn't ask for this baby, I didn't want this baby, I didn't want to have anything to do with any of it. Having a girl? I would be a terrible girl mom! Not to mention I think the doctor's would have rather delivered babys in taxis than deal with my appointments!! How did this happen? Why me? Something is not right. Yet they all patted my on my head. A wonderful pregnancy, a perfect pregnancy... weight gain? perfect! Blood work? perfect! measurements? perfect! Attitude.... well, anyway....

Around 5-6 months I just knew something wasn't right. Two females sharing the same space just wasn't working. I couldn't get the doctors to listen to me until about month 8 when a new doctor (young and out of school) actually CHECKED me and realized that Gizmo was NOT in a good position. She was fanny down with no room to turn - what's known as a "Frank breach" (why they call it this, I don't know maybe some guy named Frank found it...) anyway, the recommendation was that the doctors go in and turn the baby.

Now if any of you don't know what this is, it's a real blast! They take you to the hospital, give you some medicine to loosen up your uterus and then two doctors come in and try to SHOVE the baby into a new position! It's real scientific, one doctor gets at one end and the other takes the remaining end and they don't push they put they're backs into it... and it HURTS LIKE HELL. Now, the logical question is, does anyone go into labor from this? According to the doctors, "no", according to MY biology, "Uh, DUH, why Yes" (dumbasses I'm not THAT naive.) I think sometimes doctors think you're stupid because they're doctors and you should just turn your body over to them with out question. Hell, I happen to live here and NO you don't get to do whatever you want!!! (I have personal story after story where I just don't think they get it that their opinion can be wrong sometimes...) Anyway, guess what? Princess didn't just NOT turn she stuck her feet straight up and FOUGHT IT!!! And I got to enjoy 2 hours of monitored false labor. Lucky me.

Two weeks later the decision was made not to even attempt a vaginal birth, because the position of the baby plus her size might kill one or both of us. When they tell you that, with confidence, you don't even argue about doing a C section. All that matters is that you both come out safe and healthy. Now, granted, the last thing I wanted, but if you think about it, millions of children come out okay without having a so-called "perfect birth." I had one friend who planned a "perfect home birth" - she only met with a doula (midwife) and never saw a doctor at all - she wanted only to give birth in a peaceful state of tranquility and absolutely NO drugs - her opinion was if she did ANYTHING otherwise, her child would end up in therapy and probably a serial killer. Well, the baby didn't get in the correct position, and then she was in severe labor and realized that maybe she wasn't that tough. Well, to make a long story short, miss "I'm going to do everything natural" ended up not only getting medicated, didn't have a vaginal birth, and had to have an emergency C section - it's funny how things clear up when you start staring your's and your baby's health square in the face.

Needless to say, my child, my friend's child, and their mothers are healthy, happy, and suffer no ill effects from having C sections. It was never a question when it came down to safety and health. And I'll have to say, C section babies do come out much prettier LOL But I also think you have to watch the doctors and make sure they are taking the right steps for your situation. Your health is YOUR responsibility and sometimes you have to question and take control. If you don't agree with a doctor or have a shred of doubt, seek second, third, fourth, opinions, until YOU are confident the right decision is being made. It's your body, not theirs, or anyone elses!

I will have to mention though, that when I went into labor it was at my son's ballgame - and my husband had the nerve to ask me to hang on until they finished the last inning... well, by the time I got to the hospital I was howling like a caged puppy!!! And to make matters worse, by the time they got me into rush surgery, they apparently didn't realize the cabinets lining the operating room were so clean and shiny, they functioned as "mirrors" - so I happened to look over about the time they were pulling Gizmo out....

...there are just some things you do NOT need to see.

Okay, I'll take any compliment I can get

2006-11-29T18:47:00.000-08:00

I got the best backhanded compliment today.

Mr. Business #1 is known, globally, in our company as being the absolute worst human being to work with on the planet. Literally. I think he's been banned in at least three countries!! He gets frustrated if you can't read his mind, treats EVERYONE as if they were a class A moron, and thinks talking louder increases comprehension. He also does not get it that we only have 1.2 people on my team to do the work of 5 people. (I refuse to use the word "resources" - it's so de-humanizing) And this frustrates the absolute HELL out of him (never mind HE's the one who agreed to the cut budget!!) In general, if he calls I NEVER pick up the phone - I wait for an IM or I'll pick up a voicemail a few minutes later. I have instructed my team (of all men LOL) to do the same. You have to prepare as if for the SAT just to take a phone call!!!

Now never mind he NEVER picks up his phone, and doesn't read ANY of the emails we send to him with important information. We're idiots that should be treated with the disrespect we deserve. This is the same guy who writes programming requirements and expects us to code "including but not limited too the following items." Obviously he has a lot of faith in our team's capabilities to code deductive reasoning. We're completely flattered, but we just have to bring him back to reality - constantly.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely understand and take the business needs very seriously; but it's really difficult to keep a straight face or attitude with this type of behaviour to deal with!! Well, today he was particularly frustrated, since my main support guy is out on jury duty, and Mr. Business #1 couldn't IMMEDIATELY get him on the phone for an "emergency." Per his voicemail to me:

"I CAN'T GET ANYBODY TO ANSWER THE DAMN PHONE - I'M NOT GOING TO CALL ANYONE ON YOUR TEAM BECAUSE THEY WON'T DO A DAMN THING UNTIL YOU SAY IT'S OKAY. YOU RULE THOSE GUYS WITH AN IRON FIST but I... have business needs...."

I love my team ;o) I'm not going to let anybody shove my guys around. They work hard in a tough environment, and as long as they are pulling their weight, I'm going to keep them focused and un-disturbed! They're hard to get and they're hard to keep!

Of course, using me and Iron Fist conceptually in the same sentence is pretty amusing (I am an ex-beauty queen of all things and Blonde!!! LOLOLOL!)

Poor thing. Never mind the reason I do this is because if I don't he will harrass, harangue, cajole, pester, lecture, weedle, push, shove, and insult my guys until he thinks he can effectively badger them into being able to do the work of 10 people simultaneously. Our priorities are set on Monday's and if I let him have his way we'd never finish one freakin' thing..... To let him loose on my guys, on Monday morning after he's pushed them all to try to get his every whim and what for adhered to he conveniently gets amnesia in our weekly meeting and says "IT is a failure, what the HELL have you guys been doing all week?"

I burn more calories just shaking my head in this job....

ahhh Out of the mouth of babes...

2006-11-25T21:50:00.000-08:00

Gizmo spent a better part of the afternoon of Thanksgiving running around her Graam & Papa's property - fishing in the pond, riding the golf cart, and just plain ol' running around. Since the menfolk were outside with the kids, I didn't see much of what was going on because I was gratefully catching a nap inside... but I went by my sister in law's today and her husband related to me a little story.

Now you have to keep in mind, Gizmo is a very sweet child, but has some well, "delivery" problems with comments that she makes (keep in mind she's only 4)...

Apparently, Gizmo was sitting next to her uncle on the golfcart, and she likes to snuggle, so he let her nestle up on his shoulder since it was a bit chilly out. As she was doing so, she began to gently rub his forearm, as if she was "enjoying" petting the hair on his arm. He said she looked up at him, ever so sweetly and said "Uncle J", as she abruptly stopped patting his arm, "you have a lot of hair on your arm!" "Why yes I do" said Uncle J, as his arms are, well, extremely hairy (to say the least.) He said she then looked at him with an expression of utmost earnesty and said:

"You really need to shave. That's a real problem you've got there. "

Ooooh-kaaaay.... Seems like we probably ought to put "learn using tact" on the list of to-dos this week...

tired i am so geez.... margaritas three... not much after that....

2006-11-24T18:25:00.000-08:00

Okay, well Ms.Brilliant here again. I'm so tired I could sleep on the driveway with the neighbor's dogs for pillows. Today, I decided to find out what all the hoopla was about "Black Friday".

Well, I figured it out. Half the people go out to find the 1/1,000,000 deal. The others just go to watch and buy crap they didn't intend to. Not sure which category I fit into, might be obvious to you guys in internetland.

I didn't even start out right - I just couldnotgetout of bed at 4:30. I don't even think a piledriver coming through the window would have worked either. So I was late. LA DE DA. So I thought. I left the house at 5:25am feeling pretty smug that all my neighbor's dark houses were the result of massively poor planning on their part and that I was the smarty pants of Wereallinthewitnessprotectionprogram Boulevard. Yeah right - rookie!!! No traffic on the way out to Target. 'This is going to be a big piece of cake' I thought. Miles 1-3 - no traffic. Miles 4-8 - even less traffic. Miles 8-finish line..... round the corner....

OMG!!!!!!! Now, it's pretty shocking for somebody as smart as me to get smacked in the head with a "oh no you're NOT so smart" moment (I seem to have a lot of these lately...) and I then realized that the reason all the houses in my neighborhood were dark was because THEY WERE ALREADY THERE!!!!!!! Why didn't they call me? Were there alarms? How could they leeeavve me behind!!!!!! Why didn't the stupid dogs bark and alert me that everyone was exiting the area??? Lord help us if there's ever a tornado!!!!

I'm guessing there were over 1000 people at Target. It was a wee bit surreal seeing absolutely NO signs of life, for a 10mile radius, then come up on the mob scene at Target. In the dark. Half asleep. A startling leap into lucidity for that time of the morning (at my age, I'm not even sure it's safe for that kind of jolt.)

But Hey! I'm no wimp... so I parked my car in the overflow lot, and armed with a thermos full of Amp and a bag full of donuts I merged in with the crowd and forged into the swarm, not really knowing what to expect...

It looked like the end of days. Shelves, empty, except for the few crumbs of packaging remnants and a stray dvd or two. People lined up arguing for a raincheck any raincheck, desperation showing on their faces for the last of the "gonnacatchonfireimsurebrand" DVD players, videocameras and batteries. I missed getting the last of the imaho dolls on sale for 4.99 (Gizmo will be crushed and in therapy for years I'm sure) and my son I'm sure will suffer back pain until the end of days since I lost the wrestling match for the last of the $33 videogame chairs. (But I did get an offhand offer to play for the local roller dearby team) Blank stares on faces of zombies pushing red carts to nowhere, clinging to a large starbucks and a stack of empty ad promises.... OH GOD I KNOW WHAT ARMEGEDDON LOOKS LIKE NOW!!!!

I grabbed the last of the half priced dirt devils and ran, with what little of my dignity I could gather up (not too much left at that after my ob appt last week), and on the way out managed to grab just a few things... only 42 dvds, 14 pairs of fluffy socks, 3 christmas shirts,4 mystery kitchen appliances, 8 blankets, an assortment of chapstick, 2 off brand digital cameras, some towels I think I can sell on e-bay, a Hello Kitty comforter, some clearance items I think I'm still going to have to ask around as to what they actually are, and a large latte extra milk, no whipped cream thank you very much I am in a hurry to get out I am so not into this. Really.

Now I have to figure out how to fit the gifts to the recipients, I ain't goin' back. No sir, it's not safe in thar. I did my time.

(I made my husband take me out for Mexican tonight and I got THREE margaritas. I earned 'em)

An ode to my readers

2006-11-22T05:57:00.000-08:00

Now, being fairly new to blogging, I just want to say how excited I get when a new reader posts ANYTHING to my little posts on this and that....
So in honor of the few, very brave, marvelous bloggers that have visited my site, I would like to sing you a little song. Now, given that this is just text, you'll have to work with me... (warming up! lalala laaaaaaaa......) Are my backup dancers ready? CHECK!

ahh hemm!!!! Here goes!

"Addicted to BLOGS"

You're lights are on, and you're at home
You're mind, is not your own
Your hands sweat, your keyboard shakes
Another thought, is what it takes

You can't sleep, you can't eat
There's no doubt, you're in deep
You sit and wait, you can't abate
Another read, is what you need

Whoa, you like to think that you're immune to the stuff, oh yeah

It's closer to the truth to say you can't get enough you know you're gonna have to face it you're addicted to blogs

You see the notes, you don't dare blink
Another quip, is what you think
Your heart beats in double time
One more response, and you'll be fine, a one track mind

You can't be saved
More readers on, is all you crave
Anticipate, what they will think
If you are witty, or if you drink....

Whoa, you like to think that you're immune to the stuff, oh yeah, oh LOL, oh ROTFLMAO,
oh JMHO, oh KEWL, ...... (oops got a little carried away)

It's closer to the truth you know you're gonna have to face it you're addicted to BLOGS

Might as well face it you're addicted to blogs
Might as well face it you're addicted to blogs
Might as well face it you're addicted to blogs
Might as well face it you're addicted to blogs
Might as well face it you're addicted to blogs

ALL TOGETHER NOW Air Guitar Solo!!!! (pardon me a minute)

You're at your desk, or a cafe'
Your attention, is all asway
You're almost blind from all you view
There's so much stuff, beyond the news!

It was just supposed to be for friends and close fam-i-ly, Oh yeah you're gonna have to face it you're addicted to blogs.

(Sing with me now!! )

Might as well face it, youre addicted to blogs
Might as well face it, youre addicted to blogs
Might as well face it, youre addicted to blogs
Might as well face it, youre addicted to blogs
Might as well face it, youre addicted to blogs

..****APPLAUSE****....

Thanka, thanka vera much

pageantmom has left the building....