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I Finally Hit A Hundo

November 21, 2008 7:00 am | 28 Comments

Today marks my hundredth post. Woo hoo! Here’s to a hundred more and all that sentimental stuff. In keeping with the theme of other people’s big milestones, I’m going to share a hundred potentially interesting facts about myself. These are in no particular order and are probably going to drag on so feel free to skip past the boring parts.

Also, in sharing these facts I’ll be killing several virtual birds with one bloggy stone since I’ve been tagged and awarded and meme’ed like a two dollar whore and haven’t gotten around to doing them all just yet. Read my list of facts and the shiny awards are all at the bottom. I had to leave something pretty down there to keep you entertained. And by down there, I don’t mean “down there,” you pervs. I did once have a pair of underwear with sparkles on them so I guess.. well, never mind. I don’t like where this is headed.

1. I have two red couches in my living room and they don’t match (one is a leather love seat and the other is a Pottery Barn one that’s faded and needs to be replaced).

2. I obsessively check to see if I have new comments. I think it’s an addiction… when I’m playing with the kids, I run over every so often and check before we move on to the next activity.

3. I played hockey with Jamie on a coed adult league the year before I got married.

4. We also played soccer on a company recreational league.

5. I have three cats who my parents now own. I intended on taking them with me when I moved out but my mom was SO emotional that I left them for a little longer. That turned into five years so I guess they’re not my cats anymore.

6. I’m a dog person now.

7. I chew on my left pointer finger when I’m stressed out. Gross, right? The skin is rough on that finger and I can’t break the habit.

8. I raced BMX from the time I was five through seventeen. I used to travel the country racing and I was pretty fucking good at it.

9. I grew up in FL but spent every summer with my Grandma in NY. She was my all time favorite person and I miss her every day.

10. I have a terrible sense of balance and clip my shoulder when I walk through doorways. I’m always covered in bruises from running into things. This makes it scary to carry a baby, I walk with my elbows bent and my arms spread wide to catch any doors or walls so Elliot’s head isn’t the target. Yes, I’m weird.

11. Jamie and I finish each other’s thoughts in the cheesiest way imaginable.

12. I have several head statues in my house, mostly from Ikea or Pier One.

13. I don’t cook. Jamie does all the cooking in our house. Sometimes I’ll make something easy like spaghetti or microwave something but he’s the master. Oh, and I can order a pizza online like nobody’s business.

14. I’m way too nice to service people and also tip way too much in restaurants. Even if I get bad service.

15. I would prefer McDonalds over a fancy steak dinner any day of the week.

16. This fact makes Jamie sad and he has banned me from ever going for a nice steak with him again. I should ban him from McDonalds.

17. I didn’t play school sports because I was afraid of doctors and wouldn’t get a physical.

18. I was one of the fastest female runners in middle school and the track coach begged me daily to sign up.

19. I hated pregnancy but love my kids.

20. I spend at least an hour every night trying to get comfortable in bed.

21. After that hour, I ALWAYS end up on my left side with a pillow between my knees and another in my arms. Also, one for my head. Oh, and I still sleep with a teddy bear. I swore I’d never admit that in my blog but there you have it. Mock away.

22. I have to sleep with a blanket, fully covered, even if I’m hot because I can’t stand the thought of someone grabbing my exposed feet (Mrs Bear is the same way. I know this because she wrote it in a Meme once, not because I look in her window to see her sleeping position).

23. I’m not a fan of other parents (IRL, you guys are fine). In my short experience as a parent, other people’s kids have posed an issue when they bully my kid while their asshole parents sit there and do nothing. Also? Don’t bring your sick kid to the playground to spread the plague. Asshats.

24. I’m not good in a social situation but you might not know it. I tend to be way too outgoing and am somehow the life of the party but I’m dying on the inside.

25. We bought an HP laser printer awhile back and it’s one of my all time favorite purchases.

26. I’m the only one in my family to graduate from college. My parents and brothers never went.

27. I’m the youngest of three and the only girl. Can you say tomboy?

28. I don’t have a middle name but both of my brothers do. Guess who the least favorite kid is? My mom claims nothing goes with Casey but I know better.

29. Jamie and I went on a company deep sea fishing trip before we knew each other and I had my eye on him from across the boat. I told my boss Jamie was hot and my boss was like “that dude?” Yes, that dude. We both got a big kick out of the rod locker on the boat. Heh, rod locker.

30. I’ve skipped school twice in my life. College is a different story.

31. There was a bar on campus at college so I used to skip with a friend and get wasted. I went swimming in the school fountain while wasted and then went to class dripping wet and still drunk.

32. I hate the term “hubby”. I have resigned myself to the fact that everyone else loves the word so feel free to use it in my comments. I’ll translate it to mean “husband”.  Before I started blogging, I used to CRINGE when people used it but now I only feel slightly annoyed by it.  I can’t tell you why I hate it. I also hate the word “panties”.

33. My DVR controls my life. We don’t watch any live TV, everything is recorded. We recently bought a 500 gig external hard drive for it since it gets full so fast.

34. I own lots of shoes but zero pairs of heels. Mostly unused tennis shoes and flip flops. Of those shoes, I probably only wear three pairs on a regular basis.

35. I drive to my mailbox, which is at the end of my driveway. I don’t get in the car just for the purpose of driving to the mailbox but I’ll swing by it on my way to or from someplace. That hundred feet might kill me to walk.

36. We stockpile 12 packs of soda whenever it goes on sale (4th of July, Memorial Day) and have an entire shelf in the garage dedicated to soda storage.

37. I rarely sleep since I’m always afraid someone is going to break into our house and steal my kids.

38. I miss the single life but I wouldn’t trade it for anything when I hear my kids laugh or cuddle up next to Jamie.

39. I get frustrated easily and sometimes snap at Jamie for no apparent reason.

40. I have a strange fascination with Ikea and we don’t have them here. I’ve been waiting forever and they’re finally opening one in Tampa next year.

41. I hate shopping for clothes. Jamie encourages me to shop as much as I want but I just don’t enjoy it. He likes that I’m cheap and hate shopping.

42. Jamie watches Battlestar Gallactica, Doctor Who and Babylon 5. I make fun of him for it but I did try watching Doctor Who. I loved the previous Doctor but when they changed, I felt betrayed and stopped watching. I know it’s part of the show’s charm but I refuse to get on board with them changing the Doctor every so often so I won’t watch it anymore.

43. Jamie and I sometimes IM each other when we sit in the same room and play on our computers. It’s easier than opening our mouths, I guess.

44. I’ve never cheated on anyone I’ve dated, but I’ve been cheated on (but not by Jamie).

45. When Jamie and I began dating, we hashed things out adult style. No cheating, no faking the relationship. No guest stars and no guest starring. I’ve never lied to him and vice versa. It’s just easier that way.

46. I miss working for the sense of importance and adult interaction. But blogging has filled that void.

47. I recently cut about thirty blogs out of my reader because it pissed me off that I always read and commented on their sites but they never even came to mine.

48. I feel bad for doing that.

49. I love mirrors. Not to look at myself in them, oh no. I love cool little decorative ones to hang on the wall. These days the mirrors are all in the garage since Mr. Grabby toddler tries to pull them down.

50. I sometimes feel like a horrible parent when I complain about how tough chasing Graham is.

51. I live in FL and have a fireplace. We even light fires in it a few times a year (but not when the kids are awake).

52. My dad isn’t my biological dad but he’s raised me since I was born and he walked me down the aisle at my wedding.

53. He’s more of a father than most guys I know and my kids call him Grandpa (well, they will when they can talk).

54. My parents aren’t married. They never got around to it and it’s been thirty years. They keep saying they’re going to tie the knot but I doubt they ever will.

55. My mom is very crafty in a Martha Stewart kind of way.

56. I’m not.

57. I only have a few close friends IRL and they don’t regularly frequent the blog.

58. I have season tickets to the Bucs but we sell our seats because we don’t have a sitter.

59. We won the opportunity to buy SuperBowl tickets in the NFL lottery. We bought and we’re going. Woo hoo!

60. I hate basketball and baseball.

61. I love hockey. When the Lightning won the Stanley Cup, we paid a ridiculous amount of money and went to every single home game in the playoffs and finals.

62. Since having kids, my ability to watch and enjoy sporting events has dwindled and I feel guilty that I let my teams down. Weird, eh?

63. We own 1/3 of a lake house in PA. It was Jamie’s grandparent’s house and they left it to the grandkids when they passed away. Jamie, his brother and sister keep it for a vacation place although we haven’t been since Graham was six months old. It still has his Grandma’s furniture and knick knacks in it and I love it since it gives me a sense of Jamie’s childhood.

64. I hate the beach, but only because wearing a bathing suit just isn’t going to happen anytime soon. When I was thin, I loved the beach.

65. I want to move up north but would never move away from my family.

66. My parents, brothers and I are all a forty-five minute drive from each other so we only get together maybe once a month. With babies and schedules, it may as well be a three hour drive since it’s nearly impossible to make.

67. My first job was at Chick Fil-A when I turned fifteen. I worked there for three years and even got a college scholarship.

68. I’ve never been a “smoker” but I smoke when I drink.

69. My parents would kill me if they knew that. I’m still afraid of my parents. They don’t know about this blog or that I have a potty mouth. UPDATE: My mom may have stumbled on the blog this week but hasn’t said anything. If you’re reading: Hi Mom!

70. I don’t wear makeup, like ever. Well, maybe if I go to a wedding, I’ll put on eye shadow but that’s it.

71. Jamie encouraged me to start blogging because he thought I’d be good at it and enjoy it.

72. He’s my webmaster. Not because I can’t do it but because he likes installing plugins and upgrading my Wordpress. I like it too, more time to read your blogs.

73. I have a low self-esteem in a lot of areas but Jamie makes me feel better.

74. My biological father was an abusive alcoholic asshole. My mom left him when I was born. Now he’s a born again Christian who tries to push religion on everyone he sees.

75. I don’t talk to the guy. I have nothing to say to him and don’t consider him my father. I told him this when I was eighteen (and my mom could no longer force me to see him).

76. He was at my brother’s wedding last year and found out that I’m married with kids. He confronted my brother and made him feel guilty on his wedding day.

77. We updated our wills shortly thereafter to make sure he doesn’t try to contact my children. I have a dad and it’s not him. Gee, daddy issues much?

78. My kids are growing up in a stable environment and will never want for anything.

79. This worries me because I still want them to learn responsibility like I did.

80. I used to use baby oil for suntan lotion when I was younger. My kids will never see the light of day without sunscreen.

81. I got my first pedicure the week before I got married. Since then, I go once every month an a half but I don’t let them do the massage part since I hate being touched.

82. I talk about my bloggy friends like they’re my friends in real life. Jamie laughs at me when I do it. I think he thinks it’s like having imaginary friends.

83. I changed the font color on today’s post to see if it hurt my eyes less to read. How about you?

84. I play drums. Well, not well and I haven’t played in forever. We sold my drum kit to make room for Graham’s nursery. Jamie plays too.

85. I learned to play drums as an “in your face” thing toward an ex who I dated for six years. He refused to teach me to play and mocked me when I tried to learn on my own.

86. I used to own a boat. My friend Jeff and I bought it seven years ago and it never ran. It sat in storage and we had it worked on here and there over the years until I finally sold it on ebay two years ago.

87. I got pulled over for reckless driving in VA and landed a court date out of it. That was four years ago and for some reason the points never transferred to my FL record. Phew. We were on a road trip to PA and it was 3AM and I was hauling ass to try to get there faster. I came up on a cop while I was doing 86 in a 65. He was not amused.

88. I don’t eat healthy by any means but I love vegetables. Junk is just easier and quicker.

89. I don’t eat seafood and refuse to eat anything that swims in its own shit. Yuck. Yes, I know livestock sits in poop but in my mind it’s somehow different. People often try to get me to try it and it pisses me off. If I snorted coke, would you be offended if I pushed it on you? Me too.

90. I order chicken almost everywhere I go and I’ll usually order the same item on the menu every time I visit a restaurant. We don’t eat out often so I go with what I know I like. This baffles people but I stick with what I like so I’m not disappointed.

91. I’ve never been west of Illinois. Also, Niagra Falls is the furthest I’ve been in Canada and going to the Bahamas was the only time I’ve ever needed my passport. UPDATE: DeeMarie informed me of my lack of Geography knowledge. Vegas is west of Illinois and I’ve been there several times. Duh! I guess I figured since I hopped a plane to get there it didn’t count?!?

92. Jamie and I always find stray dogs and reunite them with their owners. Last week, I found the cutest Great Dane puppy and was tempted to keep him but I knew someone would miss him so I tracked his owners down.

93. I’m a scheduling nut when it comes to my kids. I won’t leave the house if they need a nap. Jamie helps out a lot when he works from home since I can put Elliot down for a nap and run errands with Graham.

94. I brought in cabinet locks and baby proofed Gymboree. I was sick of chasing Graham out of the cupboards there so I took matters into my own hands. People looked at me like I was nuts but oh well.

95. I love to gamble. Specifically, slots. I’ve been to Vegas four times, Atlantic City three times, Biloxi once and my SIL lives five minutes from the biggest casino in the world (in CT). Of course, all but one of these gambling junkets happened before children.

96. I had to make myself stop reading the local news sites because I was freaked out about the crime rate in Tampa.

97. I have one pair of jeans that fit me at this time. I have other pairs that are too tight or too big but these are the only ones I wear. I’m not buying more until I lose weight and I usually wear them about three or four times before washing them. I only wear them when I leave the house. The instant we get home from anywhere, I change into boxers and a t-shirt and Jamie throws on comfy shorts. We’re slobs.

98. I do all of the lawn mowing around here. I love the riding mower and I mow full speed and look like a crazy person.

99. I don’t vacuum, Jamie does. I hate the sound of the vacuum and it makes me want to kill.

100. I have a tattoo in my nether region that I got when I was eighteen. It’s not very artistic and I wish it weren’t there since pregnancy has drastically changed the look of it. It’s a butterfly (how generic) and after two kids, the sucker looks like it’s trying to fly away. It didn’t originally look like that.

Holy crap, that was hard to type. I bet it was hard to read too, sorry about that! Now for the bling and Meme recognition:

The following awards were given to me by Lydia from On The Verge, Petra at The Wise Young Mommy, Keely at A Letter to Xander and The Un Mom (Keely gets around in the blog world), Cape Cod Girl from Diamond In The Rough and Jenni at Oscarelli. They didn’t each give me all of them but some of them overlap and I’m too tired to sort through them for your sake so here they are. I swear, you guys have to stop giving me awards because I don’t deserve them. I’ll take them though, don’t worry. I’ll take them and hoard them on my site and not share with ANYBODY. So there! Once again, the awarding stops here, I always feel bad singling out people and potentially accidentally leaving some other deserving schmuck out. I don’t like to make people feel bad so there. I need a niceness award. Oh, and I also got Meme tagged by Kirsty at My Life For The World To See. If you had asked me six months ago what a Meme tag was, I would have guessed someone was playing tag with the chick from Drew Carey.

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Why Didn’t I Think Of That?

November 20, 2008 7:00 am | 31 Comments

Over the last few months I’ve gone from a person who hates coffee to someone who kind of likes it and now someone who needs it daily. We don’t brew it at home every day since hot coffee makes me sweaty and irritable so we usually go on a coffee run at least once a day. I know it would probably be best to break the habit since coffee runs aren’t cheap but I just can’t help it. Maybe I’ll kick the habit for New Years, you don’t know.

The other day as I paid my $2 at McDonalds (Dunkin Donuts had a line a mile long), I got to thinking about what genius invented iced coffee? Some guy was probably like “hey Joe, don’t throw out that pot of day old coffee, let’s throw it on ice and sell it to some dumbass willing to pay money for it!” Guess who the dumbass is now? Me.

We’ve tried our own rendition of iced coffee at home. We bought a bag of ice (ours somehow tastes nasty and we affectionately call it “poop ice”). We bought real creamer to use instead of milk. We even boiled down some sugar into water to keep in the fridge for sweetener. HASAY peeps, don’t judge, I’ve purchased every artificial sweetener known to man and they all taste like ass, so sugar it is. The problem is that I just don’t love the home brewed coffee like I do if it comes from a drive thru. What’s wrong with me?

This post was paid for by Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks and McDonalds. Not really but did you know that McDonalds has $1 iced coffee every day from 2PM - 7PM? Not a bad deal…

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You’re Killing Me

November 19, 2008 2:37 pm | 19 Comments

Two-fer today that’s going to further contribute to the problem I’m about to tell you. It’s Wednesday again and I have my 12-4 sitter so I’m trying to catch up on my reader. Every time I read one post, three more fucking posts pop up in my reader! This NappyBlowMe thing isn’t just killing my creative side, it’s killing my ability to keep up. Stop writing, you guys. Stop it this instant! Ok, don’t stop writing but forgive me if it takes me a little longer to keep up these days. I can’t wait until December 1st…

Forget I said any of that, carry on with your writing. I love reading your shit so please don’t hold back. I was kidding about telling you to stop. And now, back to my reader to see what’s new.

19 Comments | Permalink





Too Cool For School

November 19, 2008 7:00 am | 27 Comments

The glasses debacle of 2008 is still in full swing. I picked up my prescription glasses, got dizzy as all hell, saw the eye doctor again, got the prescription remade and finally picked up the second pair this week. The problem? Still dizzy as all hell. They’re better, but I have to really strain to use them and they give me a worse headache than if I don’t use them at all. I’m planning on taking them back this week and demanding a refund. It’s bullshit that I paid almost $300 for glasses (my insurance covered roughly half) that make my eyesight worse so I’ll take my money and go elsewhere. I’m a very patient and reasonable person but this place is making me angry and I want to be done with them for good.

After taking the majority of two weekends ago off from the computer, I had a lot of catching up to do when I returned. The night after my visiting SIL left town, I put the kids to bed and sat my happy ass down at the computer to catch up on some reading. A few short minutes later, my head was throbbing and my eyes felt bruised. I deduced that my computer screen was too bright (the brightness had already been lowered to a readable level) and reached for a pair of sunglasses. Seriously. I sat at my desk for a few hours wearing my super cool Dollar Store shades and my eyes felt great! Jamie, however, didn’t feel great about the situation. He told me that I looked ridiculous and that he couldn’t take me seriously with sunglasses on. I laughed at him and continued wearing them. He loves poking fun of his loving wife so why not give him an easy target?

The next night, Jamie was sitting on the couch playing around with the laptop. I, for once, was sitting on the other couch NOT blogging. Jamie looked over at me and said “oh look at me, I’m Casey, I’m posting on my blog. Blah blah blah. I’m part of Club HASAY, oh, so and so just left a funny comment, blah blah blah,” while he pretended to vehemently click away on the keyboard. Of course, he looked nothing like me. He wasn’t wearing his cool shades OR eating a cheeseburger. What an ameteur.

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Which Way Did SHE Go George?

November 18, 2008 7:00 am | 39 Comments

I’m ashamed to admit that I misplaced my daughter today. Not for long, but it happened. This morning Graham was at school and Elliot and I were happily playing on the floor in her room. I got up for a minute and took her empty bottle into the kitchen to put it in the dishwasher. While I was there, I put the few breakfast dishes in the dishwasher before heading back. Elliot was contentedly playing with her toys and I could hear her babbling in the monitor.

Elliot turns seven months old this week. She’s been crawling for a little over a month but in recent weeks, she’s really gained momentum. She usually crawls in stealth mode, she will lay on the floor and play with her toys and when something across the room catches her eyes, she hauls ass toward the shiny object. This hasn’t gone over so well with Graham since he has claimed every toy in the house as HIS and doesn’t appreciate Elliot playing with his toys. The girl is smart though, she knows which toys she wants and bee lines for them.

Today when I went back to Elliot’s room, she was gone. My first instinct was to look under the bed (Graham was a backwards crawler in the beginning I lost him UNDER HIS CRIB once. I know, great parent here). Elliot wasn’t under the crib. She also wasn’t in the hallway or in Graham’s room next door. I found her a good twenty feet away across the hall in our room. She crawled across the hall into our room and around the corner into our bathroom. Luckily, there wasn’t anything dangerous lying around but the fact that she escaped my watch really freaked me out.

My brief moment of panic did a number on me. Sure, Elliot was safe and only a few feet away but this is just the beginning. I know some day this situation could happen in public and the fear I felt could be much much worse. As the mother of a “runner” (note: Graham will run away from us every chance he gets), I’m afraid to bring my kids out in public. I know as their parent, I’ll need to let go at some point and give them some space, but I just lost my daughter in my own house. Have any of you guys ever lost your kids or am I the only one?

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Club Half As Small As You: Week 5

November 17, 2008 7:00 am | 20 Comments

Welcome to week five everybody! For those of you new to the game, read all previous HASAY related posts here. Feel free to join if you’re feeling frisky! I started this week on a high note, by doing the 30 Day Shred on Monday night. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were not so great. I hobbled around here like a ninety year old woman because I was so f’ing sore. Note to self: Stretch before working out. Also, wear shoes… jumping jacks and fake jump roping barefoot isn’t the best method for keeping you from writhing in pain. I briefly managed to get back on the horse over the weekend by taking Graham for a walk. The problem with that was that I left the stroller behind so my 23 month old’s pace wasn’t exactly a workout. Plus, he plopped down ever other house to enjoy a newly discovered stick or wave to his shadow so I didn’t even keep up the pace. I’m starting again with the workout DVD tomorrow. They say you have to work through the pain but I say that’s a load of BS. I think you should either nap or drink through the pain.

This week’s guest blogger is Christy from Heavy on the Caffeine. I honestly have no idea how I stumbled across Christy’s website but once I did, I knew I had found a friend for life. Christy is in the middle of a possible life relocation and just might end up in my neck of the woods. We’ve been emailing back and forth about the area and have actually discussed meeting up at some point. In real life! That would mean my virtual and real lives would collide and it’s very exciting.

Enjoy the reading and stick around to the end. Jamie found a nice flow chart that had HASAY written all over it.
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I’ve been on the HASAY bandwagon since the its inception, although I’ll admit that my participation has been half-hearted at best. Sure, I may have gone a day here and there without jumping into my car and coming close to running all the neighborhood kids down in my rush to get to the grocery store and buy up every last bag of Lay’s Potato Chips. And I may even have made it to the gym once or twice (albeit begrudgingly and reluctantly.) But the fact is, up until 2 weeks ago, I wasn’t fully committed to changing how I eat.

I’ve never really had any success with diets. Mostly because I can’t manage to stick with one for longer than about 6 hours–tops. I’m a big planner–I love making the plans, making the lists for the plans, and making the lists of things I need on my other lists for making the plans…but for some strange reason, when I have a plan in front of me that tells me what I have to eat every day for infinity (or until I lose 50 lbs–whichever comes first) some revolution takes place deep inside me and I resist. I FREAK OUT, in fact. I don’t know what happens, but I just WILL. NOT. DO. IT.

So, I tried to keep that in mind when I decided that if I was truly going to participate in HASAY, I needed to figure out how I was going to change the way I eat. I wanted to find a plan that was healthy and balanced, made the most sense, and (most importantly) was one that I could live with and not go completely bat-shit crazy. I did some research and I came up with the South Beach Diet.

Now, South Beach has a reputation for being a low-carb diet–it’s not. It’s essentially a mediterranean diet: lean protein, whole grains, lots of veggies–foods low on the glycemic index (i.e. foods that don’t cause a spike in blood sugar levels, which results in excessive cravings.) All good stuff, but still NO chocolate; NO chips; NO anything I used to live for.

What following this plan has made me (unexpectedly) realize is how pathetically attached to food I’ve been. Everything I’ve looked forward to, or experienced as fun has been so in part, because of the food involved. Movies? It’s all about the popcorn. Going over to a friend’s house for the evening? It’s all about the appetizers and the wine. Having ‘date night’ with my husband? It’s all about where we’re going for dinner and what I’ll have for dessert. How sad is that? In the evenings now I look around thinking, okay, I can’t break out the cookies anymore…what IS there to do? It’s absolutely insane how much pleasure I got from eating crap and what a habit it became for me.

So, I guess my next step on the HASAY journey is to figure out how to replace my preoccupation with snacking with something a bit more productive. Like cleaning my pit of a house, perhaps? NAH! That would be a stretch, but baby steps, you know? Maybe I could start with something a little less time consuming. Like brokering the Middle East peace talks.

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Leslie at Captain Crazy: NEW THIS WEEK!!! CHECK HER OUT!!
Christy from Heavy On The Caffeine
Sheilamaiden is from Dispatches From The Northern Outpost WEDNESDAY UPDATE here.
Keely from The Un-MOM
Lisa from Boondock Ramblings MONDAY UPDATE here.
Kristy at Mommy in Pink MONDAY UPDATE here.
Ali over at Aloicious: Life in the SLC MONDAY UPDATE here.
Jen at Coconut Belly WEDNESDAY UPDATE here.
Kat at Mother Fonker THURSDAY UPDATE here.
Heidi at The World According To Heidi TUESDAY UPDATE here.
Kiki from Kiki’s Corner
Lindsay at Rock and Roll Mama

Laufa from Morgan Madness MONDAY UPDATE here.
DeeMarie from My Life In A Nutshell SUNDAY UPDATE here.
Carrie from Colepack 11/16 UPDATE HERE.
Cellobella from Redsultana
Katie from Parental Supervision
Jenboglass from Steenky Bee TUESDAY UPDATE here.
Jen from Sprite’s Keeper MONDAY UPDATE here.
Heather from Geez Louize!!! MONDAY UPDATE here.
Mrs Bear from Outnumbered Two To One SUNDAY UPDATE here.
Debbie from Buzzin By … With Thoughts On The Fly MONDAY UPDATE here.
Beth from Drastic Measures MONDAY UPDATE here.
Elisa from Fairy Flutters MONDAY UPDATE here.
AnonyMOM from Simply AnonyMOM
Brenda from Seriously Mama FRIDAY UPDATE here.
Cape Cod Gal from Diamond in the Rough

Here you go, click on the picture twice to zoom in.

Also: A message from our sponsor. Captain Dumbass has launched an anti-HASAY campaign. Get him, girls (and guy). Let him have it.

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I Love This Time Of Year

November 16, 2008 7:00 am | 30 Comments

I spend a good portion of my year hating Florida because of it’s heat, humidity and hurricanes. I see northerners enjoying backyard BBQ’s without sweat dripping down their backs and I’m green with envy. For most of the year in FL, you can’t walk to your mailbox without coming back drenched in sweat and it’s miserable.

Around this time every year, the weather starts to cool off a bit. For those northerners I mentioned, this means packing up the summer clothes and heading inside for the winter. For us southerners, it means finally being able to play outside without feeling like we’re going to pass out.

I took these pictures during a fantastic outing we took last weekend to a local park. We were the only ones there (save the hawk in the treetop), and it was such a beautiful day.

It’s around this time every year that my resentment towards Florida wears off and I forget all about the heat and humidity. We’re finally bound for the great outdoors and we plan on spending the entire winter out there. Preferably in shorts and t-shirts but we’ll take what we can get.


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Spin Cycle: Playing Favorites

November 15, 2008 7:00 am | 25 Comments

This week’s Spin Cycle topic over at Sprite’s Keeper was to go back through your old blog posts and pick your all time favorite. I’ve been blogging less than three months and haven’t even hit the big 100 yet so this one was tough. Obviously, ALL of my blog posts are amazing and cracked me up to reread them. I’m so vain, I probably think this song is about me.

The truth is that I never know which posts are going to go over well with you guys and I’m always afraid that I’m uninteresting and lack funny. Those of you who say that you write solely for yourself and don’t care if people read or comment are full of shit, plain and simple. While I do write as a form of bloggy therapy, the attention seeking part of me always enjoys the reaction I get from you guys. So I’m not so vain although I still think this blog post is about me.

Keeping with the theme of “please like me,” I chose one of the first posts where I broke ten comments. To me, this was a huge milestone and I was super excited that TEN people actually cared enough to leave a comment. Keep them coming guys or I’ll cry, or at the very least be a teeny bit sad when I check my comments and there are none. This post originally ran on September 16th, a whopping seventeen days after I first started my blogging hobby. If you notice on the original post, Jen from Sprite’s Keeper was the first to comment. She’s been around since the beginning and keeps coming back! Now it’s time for the blast from the past.
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I’m Declaring War On Nature

Sleep is something I really try to work into my daily schedule. It’s usually the uninterrupted kind that works best for me. Having a four month old and a toddler sometimes clashes with the whole sleep plan but most of the time we manage to get by. Elliot is a great sleeper, she slept through the night at six weeks and hasn’t looked back. Her father and I in no way take credit for her sleep habits but we appreciate them nonetheless. Graham never slept through the night until he was seven months old. That’s when we decided to go binky-free and let him cry it out. We endured three nights of hell and then he slept straight through. Since our kids are pretty great sleepers, we’re used to getting a full seven to eight hours of sleep a night.

We bought our house three years ago this month. Our neighborhood is lined with big, shady oak trees and it’s very quaint. One of the things that sold us on the house was the huge Oak in the front yard. The Oak tree spans over most of the house and driveway, it’s awesome. When we moved in, we used to sit out in the driveway and look up at the tree, it was relaxing and peaceful. The following January after moving in, the Oak tree started dropping leaves. I would go out and rake them up, only to have the entire yard and driveway covered again the next day. I cursed the tree but was determined to fight the war on leaves and win. I think I actually might have won that first year.

Two years after moving in, the damned tree started dropping acorns. Jamie and I went over it in our heads and agreed that it hadn’t dropped acorns the previous two falls and we were both stumped. A quick google search had us out in the yard measuring the diameter of the tree to try to figure out it’s age. You see, oak trees don’t start producing acorns until they’re getting up there in years. The conclusion: our fucking tree had finally hit menopause. It was going through the change and was pelting our property to let us know how fucking pissed off and hormonal it actually was. The menopausal tree and it’s estrogen-laced acorns cover our entire driveway and yard. I clean them once a week and the damned thing even has the nerve to pelt me in the head while I’m blowing off the driveway. WTF.

The acorns themselves don’t bother me. Well they do, but I can live with having a messy driveway a few months out of the year. It’s when the tree decided to fuck with my sleep that caused it to become an issue. You see, both of my children’s bedrooms are on the front of the house, under the shade of our arborous friend. Every night, after we’ve all gone to bed and the house is quiet, the tree comes alive and starts pelting the side of the house. Specifically, the gutters right outside of the bedrooms where my kids are asleep. The sound is like a gunshot and has woken me (in my bedroom on the other side of the house) from a deep sleep on several occasions. We’re currently in week three of acorn-pelt-the-shit-out-of-the-house season and for the entire three weeks, my children have been waking up several times nightly.

This new development, the lack of sleep, is causing me to get very bitter towards nature. This beautiful, shady tree who I was happy to share my property with before is quickly working it’s way up my shit list. We’ve tried to work around the problem by using fans in the kid’s rooms for background noise but the acorns are just too loud. I’m tired, I’m cranky and I’m thinking about inciting a chainsaw massacre.
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Without further ado, my nemesis:

Look how peaceful and serene it looks here.

Look at these unsuspecting dumbasses who just bought a house with an evil tree. Oh, to be young (and childless) again!

Doesn’t look so bad, does it? If you look closely at the tree, it kind of looks like a vagina, thus explaining the menopause.

Then at night, it turns on us.. Muhahahahaha! It actually only looks green in pictures, usually the up/down lighting make it look very cool. Ignore the glowing snowmen in the background.

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For those of you wondering, the tree  hasn’t been sent to the glue factory yet. Or the mulch factory. The damned tree IS still dropping acorns but has slowed down to about a million a day vs the initial kajillion per day. The kids are no longer waking up to the sound of acorns pelting their windows so the tree is in the clear until next year.

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Blatently Professing Their Love

November 14, 2008 7:00 am | 26 Comments

Wednesdays are my favorite day of the week because I have a babysitter from 12 - 4. I like our babysitter but I’m not sure I completely trust her with both kids awake so I usually hide in the bedroom with my laptop until nap time, then I go off to run my errands and relax a bit.

Our sitter has been on vacation for the past two weeks so my Wednesday retreat hasn’t happened recently. The two weeks before that, I took my laptop and hid at Panera while I stalked your blogs in a kid free environment. It was AWESOME. Two days ago, Lappy Pappy (my trusted laptop) bit the dust. We spent all day yesterday running diagnostics and trying to fix him but the hard drive is kaput so we have another one on order. Today when it came time for my afternoon retreat, I was sad because Lappy Pappy was dead and I’d have to go out and actually do something. This something couldn’t involve holing up in the corner booth at Panera while I snickered at your blogs.

I decided to go out for a solo lunch today. I’ve always loved eating out or going to the movies alone, it’s nice to just be and not have to talk or think. I know people who would NEVER go to a restaurant alone and think it’s weird but it’s actually very peaceful. This restaurant of choice was the Ale House. I walked in and was given a strange look when the hostess asked me if there was “just one?” She led me to my booth and I got settled in and placed my order. Shortly after I sat down, another solo person was seated in front of me and he sat facing me. Can you say uncomfortable? Now we were sitting at adjoining booths trying to avoid eye contact so I quickly started reading the menu. And the beer specials (oh to drink and not have to wake up hungover to a screaming toddler). My focus turned to the muted TV in the corner.

A few minutes went by and I was entertained by reading the news scroll on the bottom of the screen while I waited for my food to come. Then an infomercial came on the screen for a product called ProCaulk. I swear, I laughed out loud in a very twelve year old Beavis & Butthead like moment. They said caulk. Heh he he heh. Caulk. The few restaurant patrons in the place looked at me like I was nuts, this haggard housewife sitting alone in the restaurant booth laughing out loud. I have to admit, I’m pro-caulk too but I wouldn’t profess my love in an infomercial.

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The First Time I Got Drunk

November 13, 2008 7:00 am | 24 Comments

In order to keep up with this NappyBlowMe thing I singed up for, DeeMarie over at My Life In A Nutshell and I decided to share the stories of our first drunken experiences. DeeMarie’s story involved being told to pack her things when confronted by her dad the next morning. Be sure to check it out.

Although some of you have previously stated that you DIDN’T think I was a goody two-shoes during my high school years, I sort of was. I managed to make it through them without ever partaking in any drugs or alcohol. Seriously not even a cigarette touched my lips. When I applied for colleges my senior year, I got into all four state schools that I had applied for. My friends all went to the University of Florida but I chose not to go there for a very specific reason. Several of my older friends had already gone and dropped out of UF because it was such a party school. They all got sucked up in the drinking vortex and I was afraid I would be next. Instead, I went to the smaller, closer University of Central Florida which was an hour and a half away should I need to run home to my parents.

After I graduated from high school, I spent the summer working as much as possible to put away money for school. My parents didn’t have money to pay for college so I took out student loans and worked to pay for the rest. This kept my nose pretty clean since I was always working and being responsible and all of that lame crap. The summer rolled by without any incidents until the night before I moved away. I went to my friend David’s house a couple of blocks over to say goodbye. David was one of the UF drunken dropouts and had moved back home to his parent’s house. He liked to poke fun of my good girl routine and was always trying to get me to drink a beer with him. I secretly had a crush on David and really wanted to impress him so that night when he asked if I wanted a beer, I said yes. He was so shocked at my response and quickly ran to get me a Natty Lite. Mmmm, nothing like a cold Natty Lite for your first alcoholic beverage. All eyes were on me so I chugged the damn thing (it was NASTY). Then I asked for another. And another. We finished off the beer and moved onto strawberry daiquiris. Suddently I wasn’t feeling so well so I had David walk me home.

When we got to my house, it was pretty late but the lights were still on. I snuck into the house doing my best “I’m sober” routine. My dad was asleep on the couch and as I walked down the hallway I saw my mom sitting in her bed reading a book. She looked at me suspiciously (I was a good fifteen feet from her) and said “what are you doing?”. “Nothing,” I said. “Then why are your eyes bloodshot?” (Seriously how the hell could she see my eyes from that far away?) “Cuz I was drinkin!” I giggled. Bad move on my part. My poor mom immediately broke into tears and went on and on about how I was going to move away to college and be an alcoholic and ruin my life. I ended up being the one to console her even though MY room was spinning.

I paid dearly for my binge drinking when I woke up the next morning. I spent a good portion of the morning huddled over the toilet praying to the porcelain gods. The saying “beer before liquor, never sicker?” That saying is absolutely true. To this day, I still can’t drink strawberry daiquiris, just thinking about them makes me gag. I went off to college the next day and began my adult life with a bitchin hangover. Although there were many other nights I regret, I never did turn into the dreaded alcoholic. My mother is actually proud of the person I turned out to be.

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