PollyWollyDoodlesAllDay

On Weight Loss

2011-07-17T09:45:00.000-07:00

Today I have started Phase 3 of a diet that I have been on for about 6 weeks. The HCG diet.

To some people it is quite controversial, so I refrained from saying anything on fb to avoid the criticism.

Yes, it is a 500 calorie diet.

No, I didn't feel awful every day. In fact, I felt wonderful.

No, I was never starving. The HCG regulates your body making you use up calories that are already stored in your body, or something.

I know that if I would have been more faithful to the diet I would have seen greater results, but as of today, I have lost 21 pounds. For now, my goal is to keep the weight off.

I am pretty sure that I will make another go-round on the diet. The thing that I struggled most with was all the summertime activities. Parties, weddings, camping, stuff like that! So I am going to take the rest of the summer off and start again after Labor Day.

Not Much

2011-07-16T21:45:00.000-07:00

I don't really have a lot going on right now, so I don't really know where to start with this one.

In March I quit my job at Red R0bin for a full time position at a technical college, a job that it took me about a year to get.

And only two months to lose.

I don't really have much to say about it. I knew from the second day, when the b*%ch that I was sharing a cubicle with went to our boss and told her that I was eating lunch at my desk (apparently frowned upon, but I'm not sure how I was expected to know that), that it was not my dream job. Every day in that office was a nightmare. I felt like we were offering students things that we couldn't deliver, and most of the people in that office were lying to their graduated students on a daily basis (telling them they had faxed in their resume for them to several places, when really, they didn't send out a single fax all week, stuff like that...) I'm not big on lying. Or sitting in an office full of liars for 8 hours a day... Part of the promise of the technical schools is that they have a huge graduate placement rate. So my job was to make sure that a certain number of "my" graduates were working (placed) in their field of training each week. I was never able to hit my "budget", so one sunny day in May I was relieved of my duties.

I woke up that fateful morning with the clearest thought I had ever had---if I did not make it past my 90-day probation period, I was going to try to get in to cosmetology school. Strange that I had that thought that very morning.

When I got home that day I revised my resume to perfection (which was actually a part of my position at that job, so I was at least armed with the necessary skills for that) and started sending out to any open positions I could find. It's been nearly 2 months now, and I have yet to have a single response, but I am still actively pursuing going to cosmetology school. In fact, I have an appointment at my favorite school on Monday afternoon.

So, there's that.

More soon, I promise. It actually felt really good to get that all out. :-)

THIS Much Times Infinity

2010-11-03T23:01:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure how many times I've said this lately, but: What a crazy month!!!!

The first ten days after my dad passed away are a complete blur. If I didn't write it down, I'm not really sure it happened. I mean, I remember all of the things that happened, but I'm not exactly sure what kind of timeline in which they happened. Like I said, I bought Cal some new shoes the morning that my Dad died. A week later I was staring at his shoes wondering why the heck they still looked so new.

It felt like it had been AT LEAST a month since I bought the shoes.

Since life was normal.

A beautiful memorial service was held in his honor on the 23rd of October, and so many people had so many nice things to say, and so many funny stories to tell.

My brother and I decided that my Dad would be super happy if there was beer at his memorial, so after the church services we got good and drunk. (Like, when the beer was gone we were drinking wine---out of the bottle in his case, lol, yeah, that kind of drunk!)

So many people that I had never met were approaching me and telling me silly things like, "You have no idea how much your dad loved you." And I would say something along the lines of "Um, yes, I do". If there was one thing my Dad was good at, it was telling me how much he loved me.

Ya wanna know how much?

THIS much times infinity.

That is a WHOLE LOT!!!!!

He may not have always been around to show me how much he loved me, but he certainly always found a way to tell me. He was my biggest fan, and to him, I was the bees knees.

Last Wednesday I went down to Merced with the thought that I was going to spend the day there cleaning out his house. Ugh, yeah, that didn't happen quite as I had planned.

When I arrived to town I went to the funeral home first. I signed a paper and they gave me gift bag containing my Dad's remains. Cremains. I walked around my car, fumbling. Should I go to my side of the car? Should I go to the passengers side of the car? Where the heck do I put him? Hmmmm. I opted to put him in the backseat. And buckle him in. And drive him to his house.

I was no where near done cleaning, or sorting, or packing at the end of the day.

Not even kinda.

So I took a couple boxes of my Dad's stuff, stopped by my Auntie's house to get his urn, put him in the front seat so he could ride shot gun, and I headed back to my mom's home to get my kids.

When the kids and I pulled up in front of our house Riss decided that she was going to carry Grandpa in. When I walked in the house after her she made the announcement that, "Grandpa is sitting on the couch." Funny, funny kid, she is. A bit later she brought me a book to read to her and she sat on the couch. I went to sit next to her and she says, "You can sit next to Grandpa." I laughed so freaking hard. My Dad was definitely smiling down from the heavens at all the silly talk.

My mom decided that she would go down there with me and the kids on this past Monday and we would get it done then. On the way down to Merced we stopped in Modesto to get my uncle, my dad's brother. Then we went to my Dad's place. Two of my other uncles showed up, and together, they got a whole lotta nothing done (I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Kinda.). I sorted through old bills, papers and junk, filling up 9 huge black garbage bags, packing up the Tahoe with some of the stuff that I wanted to take, and not much else. The day was mildly successful, and unfortunately, I'm not done. So my brother and I have dedicated Sunday to going down there and hammering it out.

I went to a storage facility today and rented a 5x5 storage so that I have a places secured just for his belongings. My garage is already full and I didn't feel like the kids needed to have the temptation there to go through the boxes. And believe me, they ARE tempted. One of their favorite pastimes with Grandpa Greg was doing art with him, so seeing the art supplies in those boxes, even just markers, is like putting cake in front of them and telling them not to eat it. It ain't gonna happen...

Fudging Jerks!

2010-10-21T09:49:00.000-07:00

Today is hard.

It's been a week since I learned of my Dad's passing. The longest week EVER. I feel like it's been a month.

Or two.

There are times when I can be happy, usually when I am surrounded by the love and support of my friends and family, and for that I am truly grateful.

I'm just having a really hard day today. I want to call my Dad SOOOO BAD! I want to tell him that someone played a mean prank on me and then we can laugh about it and call the whole world jerks. I can actually hear him saying that. Everywhere I look I see people saying what a kind, sweet, gentle soul he was. It's all very true. He never had a harsh word for anyone. Unless they fucked with someone he loved. "Those fucking jerks. Oh, excuse my language honey, those FUDGING jerks!"

In my head I know that is not going to happen though. Somewhere in my head, anyway. But there is that other part that really just wants to TRY to call him, just to see.

Rest In Peace, Dad

2010-10-14T17:18:00.000-07:00

This morning started out relatively normal, with me waving my Mother of the Year Award high and proud. Unable to locate the boy's shoes, I allowed him to walk down the street to the neighbor's house to look for them. He found them in their back yard, soaking wet. We dropped the girl off at school, then headed to Kohls to buy some new shoes. Oh yeah, Cal was 30 minutes late to school because we were shoe shopping. That right there? A++ momming. Take notes.

I got home after dropping him off, then drove my neighbor across town to her job.

Then I got ready for the day and went to my own job.

When I got off work I picked the kids up from school and brought them home. I started making dinner, but not really knowing what I was going to make, so I just started throwing random food in to a pot. It started simmering and then I called to follow up on an interview of a job that I REALLY want. I was happy to find out that she had not yet picked someone, and that I would hear from her soon.

I got on facebook and started talking about the dinner I am making.

My phone rang then. It was my aunt.

Through her tears, I could barely understand her words, although I knew VERY WELL exactly what they were. My Dad died sometime today. His in-home worker was there late last night. And today a second in-home worker came in to his home and found him gone. They wouldn't allow my Aunt in to my Dad's home, so I am assuming that he was still there.

That is all I know, that is all that she was able to tell me.

So, to my Dad: May you rest in peace, wherever you may be. Love, your little girl

Gregory Francis Campi

February 23, 1947-October 14, 2010

My First Time

2010-10-12T12:14:00.000-07:00

Since I'm already here, I should just keep going.

I got my first tattoo last month.

It was just something wild and crazy that I was going to do on the 25th of September, to mark the start of my newly single life, but I drew it on my wrist, and I couldn't get it out of my head. I'm like that, once I decide to do something, I just go right on ahead and do it.

I knew exactly what I wanted, I have known for months, if not years. One night I went out with some girls from work to celebrate a birthday. The club that we went to stamped the inside of our wrists when we paid our cover charge. All night I kept looking at this blurry stamp of a high-heeled shoe, thinking about how much I loved it!

So, it was a Sunday, I was hanging out at home, and decided to google image the picture that I wanted. It is a sketch by Picasso, originally done in primary colors. As I was looking at the image on my computer I decided to see what it would look like on my wrist. Shortly thereafter, my BFF 'A' came over, encouraging me to get it done that day. I decided to take the kids to her house, since her boyfriend had made ceviche for dinner. We made an appointment at a parlor down the street from her house and I got it done that day.

In Italian, Paloma means 'dove'. I wanted to get this as a reminder to be myself, because sometimes I forget that, above all, I am free to be me.

I'm super happy I got it done. I absolutely love it, and find myself drawing pictures of things that I want to get done next.

Singledom.

2010-10-12T11:54:00.000-07:00

I'm a single mom.

Yes, this is new.

No, it hasn't yet been announced on Facebook.

Yes, it is official.

Not many people outside of my immediate circle know.

Josh and I got into a huge fight last year, and while we did make amends, we never really fixed our problems. So it was basically like living with a roommate for nearly a year. In August he started driving the Tahoe to work and sleeping in it, then coming home on the weekends. On the 24th of September, he moved in to his own apartment 50 miles away, in Manteca.

For nearly 10 years I have defined myself as a wife, and a mother. I think right now it is important to find out who I really, truly am, if not a wife, but still a mother. I'm not ready to date, and neither is he, but I know that when I am ready to start dating I would like to know who I am, and most importantly, I would like to have something to offer.

Poopy Patios

2009-08-11T00:46:00.000-07:00

Tonight I had my BFF, Am, and her two kids over. We had gone swimming earlier in the day, then we retreated to my house for some dinner and a movie.

Am and I were in the kitchen preparing dinner, having a good time, and enjoying ourselves.

I went to go to my bedroom to retrieve my water bottle and noticed that my bedroom door was locked. Oh, bother.

Upon further inspection I found that all of the bedroom doors were locked, as well as the hallway bathroom. I went to the garage to get a mini-screwdriver, as that always seems to do the trick. I tried first on the hallway bathroom, to no avail. By this point we had kids lining up to go to the bathroom, so we did what any good parents would do: we sent them to the backyard to water the lawn.

Riss was outside with Am's boy and he comes in to inform us that "Riss is outside pooping".

Oh my dear lawd, she sure indeed was. She popped a squat right on my back patio and pooped.
A big fat nasty poop.

I'm not mad *deep cleansing breath*. I promise. I mean, how was she to know that she could have asked me and I would have taken her next door to use the restroom, really? *deep cleansing breath*

Kids are gross.

Nowhere Else To Start But Here

2009-08-06T13:10:00.000-07:00

OK, y'all, I know I owe you quite a few posts. It is not like I have crawled into a whole and died after all. We have been quite busy, and the Casa de Mrs. F has been going through a lot of changes.

Let's start with a mommmmy-blog for today, OK? I am completely overwhelmed and this is the best place I know where to start. To brag on my kids.

The short people of the house went back to school on the 20th of last month. They started at a new school, on a new track system, and they get a chance to make new friends.

I think they are adjusting well, and their teachers are wonderful. They are attending one of the three Yellow ribbon elementary schools in the region, so I know that they have a good chance at becomin' rill smart, y'know.

I can't believe I am writing this post when they only have 8 days left until they go off-track, but I am. just. that. lazy. And just that addicted to facebook.

Cal is in 2nd grade now, and Riss is in 1st grade. Gosh, these babies sure are growing up supah fast!!

Skipping to class.

Father and son.

Ready to tackle a whole day of school.

I had to cover up his school logo on his shirt. Hence, the eyeball.

Hard at work in the first five minutes of class.

Sorry, my friends, I am going to try to be a better bloggy-buddy. Promise.

Live Nude Girls.

2009-07-04T20:21:00.000-07:00

This morning the hubs and I had to go meet our friend downtown, so we could get our boy from her. He stayed the night with her and downtown Sac seemed like a good half way point.

We get the boy, and we are driving downtown.

As we pass the county jail we see a woman of my stature standing in front of the jail.

She has her hands on her hips.

And she is bootie butt naked.

It was quite reminiscent of a statue. She was standing so perfectly still.

"OH MAH FREAKING GAWD!!!!!!!!!!!!" I screamed.

I explained to the hubs what I had just seen and ask him to turn the car around so that I can go back and get a picture of her.

Anyone who has ever driven in downtown Sacramento knows that it is not as simple as that, we actually have to drive all the way around a few city blocks in order to get back there.

By the time we got back she was already being arrested, and the cops had covered her body.

I was soooo bummed, because I was REALLY excited to finally have something to blog about!

So I am blogging about it anyways.

And here is your picture.

She is the second one from the left...

The One That Got Away, Thank God!

2009-06-09T19:46:00.000-07:00

Lazy blogger in da house!

It has been a very strange week and a half around theses parts.

Let me start from the beginning of time though, OK...

Back in high school I had a boyfriend, who we will call Romeo, which sounds appropriate, since at some point in my life I actually thought I was going to die without him.

We were in love. It was passionate, infuriating, intense, and confusing.

We spent a lot of time together. He lived in a group home, and the weekends he would get passes to come stay with my family.

He was my date to the Senior Ball.

After high school I did a lot of things all wrong, like drugs. He was there for that part of my life and it caused a ridiculous amount of problems between the two of us. I still have a box of letters from him, and most of them are of him begging me to quit doing drugs. It is really quite sad to read them.

He even bought me a ring and proposed marriage to me.

He converted to Mormonism for me.

I moved down to San Diego, and eventually he followed me down there and moved in with me.

One night he went out with my brother, who happened to be visiting from Sacramento and they walked around our apartment complex, looking for a party. I have no idea why, but when he came home from that kegger with that red cup, it just fueled my fire. I was soooo mad.

His mom came to visit from Utah shortly after that happened and I sent him home with her to live there.

I am sorry if my memories are so fuzzy, but it was over 10 years ago.

We continued to talk on the phone. We were still crazy in love. I moved back to Sacramento in December of 1998. He was in Utah. I wanted to start dating other guys. This pissed him off, so he told me never to call him again.

And I didn't.

That was March 8, 1999. His birthday.

Time went by, 10 years and 3 months, to be exact. I have thought about him on numerous occasions. Actually, I have thought about him quite a bit. Namely, every time I get mad at the Hubs, I look for him on myspace and on facebook. Obsessively. I have just always felt like there was no closure in our relationship. So for the past 10 years he has been my "What if?" My "Shoulda, coulda, woulda..." "The one that got away"...You get the picture.

So imagine my shock last week when I got home from a fantastic weekend of camping and checked my email to find that there was a message from him on myspace.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It read:

"Date:
May 30, 2009 6:30 PM

Subject:

please dont reply

Body:
It's taken me over a decade for this and I am so very proud of you and I am pleased and happy for you. You have a beautiful family and I wish the best for all of you but most of all, I'm sorry.
I've never forgotten you, p.l.a.s.t.i.c. (a high school nickname). I owe you so much. I could never repay you, I wouldn't know where to start.
Well, good luck and godspeed. You guys got the world to conquer. I'll never forget how amazing you are."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Immediately I ran to the garage to tell the Hubs that I got a message from my ex-boyfriend on myspace. He laughed. He is awesome like that. Never jealous.

Then I rushed over to Twitter and Facebook to announce on there that I got a message from an ex and asked people if I should reply or not. I got mixed reactions from everyone. It did not matter what anyone else said to do, I knew what I was going to do.

I waited a few days, then I replied.

Not at all surprising, he is unhappy in his relationship with his wife. He is married with 3 kids. She hates me. Apparently she was planning their wedding for November 27th, and he told her that there was NO WAY he was going to marry her on that day, because it is my birthday.

How do I know all this?

Besides the rampant messages being fired off back and forth between the two of us? We talked on the phone on Sunday. For OVER three hours.

We agreed that it was like talking to an old friend (actually, he said "Sister", but YUCK), and there is no harm coming out of it, but I have to tell you that I was really worried about what was going to happen if I talked to him.

Do you want to know what really happened?

I gained a greater appreciation for my husband, who is everything I ever wanted, and needed, and is everything that he is not.

God really knows what he is doing sometimes. And has a great way of working things out!

GE Can Suck It!

2009-06-02T12:05:00.000-07:00

Two years ago we splurged and bought new appliances for the whole house. Most of the appliances were GE brand, and in all fairness, most of those appliances are still working like the day we bought them. With the exception of one. The washing machine.

The less-than-two-years-old front-loader.

And I have something to say about that.

Shocking. I know.

So here it goes; my open letter to my washing machine:

Model Number WBVH5100 or WBVH5100HWW,

You can suck it.

You have been nothing but a headache to me for the past year or two. And I mean that literally. We live relatively close to the train tracks, and I hear the train at a quieter tone than I hear your spin cycle.

Your timer says 59 minutes, but apparently that is just a suggestion, because you take roughly two hours with each load.

You have gnawed up my clothes, leaving them in absolute shreds.

But this last stint you pulled? Well, that was a doozy. I mean come on.
I start the load of laundry as I would any other load of laundry. About half way through your cycle I walk past you to find that you are leaking. All over my house.
I wait until the wash is complete before I check your problem. I look inside and find that the gasket that seals your door is SHREDDED. All the way around. Are you mother-flippin' kidding me? I mean seriously? I did not even put any sharp objects in you. Ever. And this is how you repay me? By making me go out and buy a new $150 part for you.

I hate you so much, GE Model number WBVH5100. You will never know.

Next time I am going with the LG. Or Bosch. Because GE, you can suck it!!!!!!!

Sincerely,

Paloma

waiting for a new part

the shredded gasket

I had to go to the laundromat, and now I have ten loads of laundry stacked up on my bed
This is not even all of it!

Also? Laundromats are expensive. I spent $3 per load, and when I got home I still had to throw the laundry in the dryer because it was not completely dry. I spent a total of $30 at the laundromat in one week.
Laundromats can suck it, too!

Oh My Freaking Gawd, Time Flies

2009-06-01T21:50:00.000-07:00

I can not believe that I could possibly be old enough to be the mother of a seven year old. But I am.

We went camping over the weekend for Cal's seventh birthday. It was what he wanted to do. And it was a great idea on his part. We all had a blast!

His cousins came out, as did his faux-cousins. And grama and grandpa and Uncle were there. We had a small cake, then went and played in the lake in the middle of a thunder storm. Totally awesome!

Cal is one of the smartest, sweetest boys around. He is a good friend to those that are lucky enough to be his friends, and a wonderful son. I am very blessed to be his mother.

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner

2009-05-20T09:31:00.000-07:00

In this post I asked you all to guess how many lingering receipts I had in my purse.

The answer: 35

The person who guessed the closest to 35 was Billie, of BugsAndSnails.com, who said:

"Ooo!! Love the new purses! Totally cute.
I thought my purse was stuffed! Too funny!

I'm going to guess 37 recipts!"

Congratulations, Billie, your $10 gift card will be on it's way to you as soon as I get your info!!

Thanks to everyone who played along!

Oh My Holy Heck, Y'all

2009-05-18T23:14:00.000-07:00

I just got done watching Twilight, you know, the wildly popular movie based on the books by Stephanie Meyer.

Oh mah freaking gawd, y'all.

I finally get it!

I understand why you all went crazy months ago (and I was making fun of you), giddy with love for Edward.

As soon as the credits started rolling I announced to the hubs that I am going to get the book, first thing in the morning.

So if I go AWOL for a while, you will know why.

I will be lost in a book. Or four.

We Lived Extra Large Last Night---Well, Our Tummies Did, Anyway

2009-05-14T21:16:00.000-07:00

I get my sneaky from my Mother. She gave me this for Mother's Day, which is awesome, since I did not have a hand mixer, but always needed one.

She, however, told me not to open the box because there was something else inside and she did not want my step-dad to see it**.

I get home and open the box to find two gift cards to Macy's. Yay! My favorite store. This is awesome. I need some new summer tops, some capri's, some moisturizer, and, you know, a bunch of other crap that I certainly ~~can't~~ can live without...

The next day I am rifling through the cupboards looking for what I am going to prepare for dinner. I find a box of tempura batter, look at the hubs and announce that we need a fryer. He agrees with me, and within 20 minutes I am out the door and headed to Macy's to spend my gift cards. On something that was totally only on my list of things I wanted for what? 15 minutes?

So here it is: The Cool Daddy. I feel like this would have made a better Father's Day present. I'm just sayin'.

I cut up some chicken, rolled it around in the tempura batter, fried it up. As well as the green beans. And yeah. Tempura is not my favorite. So I covered the rest of it in tempura, plus panko bread crumbs. And pepper. And yummmm.

I mean really. Yummmmm.

These? Were bland.

Oh look, I pretended like we were eating a healthy meal. Heh. (Because fried chicken is somehow healthier when you throw it on top of a salad, no?)

And we washed it all down with this strawberry shortcake, which the kids helped me make. It turned out divine.

There is no moral of the story, but I am putting the fryer away in the darkest corner of my cupboards that I can find. It is for special occasions only. Oh, and for when I get a craving for pepper poppers. You know?

So tell me. What has been one of your stupidest impulse purchases?

**I started giggling maniacally and told her that I had one more present for her stashed away at home, but could not bring it over, because I did not want the hubs to see that I bought it. Hehee. (What? I get it from my mother, I tell you!)

PS I hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day, whether it was on Sunday or whenever you celebrated it (We celebrated on Monday). OK, I hope you at least were appreciated/let your mother figure know just how much you appreciate her. Cause that is what it is really all about (not the gifts)...

If You Give A Dog A Bone...Wait. What?

2009-05-13T10:12:00.000-07:00

Both of my kids have special "tricks" that they can do.

You know, kinda like dogs.

I ask them to do their tricks, then I give them a treat. It works for us.

I finally caught them on camera.

Cal has been doing this weird/creepy laugh for a few years now, and I think it is HILARIOUS:

Aside from the weird tongue twisting things Miss Riss can do, she also does this noise with her tongue. It gets a bit weirder, but this was all she would let me capture:

Lets Play A Game

2009-05-07T09:58:00.000-07:00

A few months ago we were challenged by the MisguidedMommy to photograph what is in our purses.

I figured there is no time like the present to do it. And by present I mean: My kids got me two new purses for Mother's Day and I switched to the new purse already (they insisted!).

Old purse:

New (Fossil) purse:

Other new purse (Kathy Van Zeeland) that I am not using yet:

Junk that was in my purse when I dumped it out on the table:

Organized junk, for your viewing pleasure:

What is it?

$20.16 randomly floating around
Seven pens
Yellow highlighter
White-out pen
Comb
Two toothbrushes
Two toothpaste tubes
Vaseline hand lotion
Bath and body works spray
Two tubes of Burt's Bees lip stuff
One tube of Bare Escentuals Buxom in Dolly
Pur minerals face powder
Clear nail polish
Two sets of tweezers
Six bobby pins
Two clips
Two hair rubber bands
Makeup brush
Brown liquid eyeliner
Lipstick that I haven't used for over a year
Two packets of Neosporin
Almost empty bottle of Excedrin
Some acne medicine that my mom gave me because my little brother won't use it because it dries his face out. (Like I want my face to dry out?!?!?!?!)
Two necklaces, both made by my mom
Two packs of matches
One lighter
My wallet
Coasters from my work
Bottomless button from my work
A key chain medallion from the Hubs work
Two pedometers
(4) 3-day passes to Disneyland
Hotel key from the Suites at Fisherman's Wharf
Paint sample paper
Build a bear club card
Two of my old boss' business cards
Nintendo DS flier that looks like an actual DS
$50 gift certificate to "Brew It Up" that I bought from Restaurant.com for $4
Doctor receipt
Pay check stub
Paper from the kids school with their numbers on it so I can pay for their lunches online
SVC paper telling us how much they were giving us for "updating"
Green foam paper for in between my flip flops if they hurt my toes
red thing from my old purse that held the string together or something

And now for a guessing game/giveaway: How many receipts did I have in my purse? The one who comes the closest gets a $10 gift card...C'mon. Get your guess on, yo!

P.S. You should do this, too!

We Went to Tahoe and All I Got Is These Handmade Drawings

2009-05-06T13:00:00.000-07:00

Monday was a minimum day for the kids at school, and despite the weather predictions in Tahoe we decided to take a trip out there for the afternoon. The weather called for rain and wind. What we experienced was wind, not really much rain (until the sun started to go down). Oh, but there was snow on the ground...

So we drive out to the place that we were looking at to go camping at the end of the month, a place called DL Bliss State Park. We knew that the place was going to be closed, so we brought our bikes, so that we could bike down to the campgrounds to check it out.

[[[REMINDER: Riss just learned how to ride her bike last week!!!]]]

We get on our bikes and sneak around the gate. From the top of the hill it is hard to tell how far down the campground is, and it does not look like an extremely steep hill either.

So we start off biking and I instruct Riss to stay in the middle of the road, because while it was not visibly steep yet, it was downhill.

We start off and everything is seemingly fine. Here is the part that is a little fuzzy to me. I start flying down the hill at probably 40 MPH, and Hubs stays with the girl while Cal and I go ahead. At some point Riss gets off her bike and starts walking it. She is crying and frustrated, and basically hates the whole concept of biking by the time they catch up to us, about 10 minutes later...

We start to check out the campgrounds and I tell hubs he has to go down the road more to find the specific campsite he was looking for.

Riss is so hysterical at this point that I ask him for the keys to the Tahoe {It was at this exact moment that I realized my camera battery was dead, and that is why you get no pictures} and Riss and I head back up the hill. Walking our bikes, mind you.

Riss cries, almost continuously, the whole way up the hill back to the parking lot, only stopping a couple times to make fun of me for singing funky songs. She finally stopped crying when we had a visual of the gate, as that is when we knew that we were close to the truck. If there was anything to cry about, she pretty much covered it. Her legs hurt. She hates bike riding. She hates the camping place. She was cold. She was hot. My singing was awful. She was thirsty. She was hungry. I mean, really. I heard it all.

So we get up to the truck and we hung out in the warmth for about 30 minutes, then I decided that we should go look for the guys, because, deep on the inside, I am freaking out. Hubs had left his phone behind, and they should not have been that far behind us.

We start off, walking this time, down the road. We get about 1/4 of a mile down the hill when I see an animal on all fours. It took me a second to register exactly what it was in my brain, but as soon as I did realize that is was A BEAR we promptly turned around and high tailed it out of there. Even though I did not tell Miss Riss that I saw a bear, she sensed my fear and she started freaking out even MORE, as if that were possible.

We got back up to the gate and that is when I realized that it was unlocked. The two of us got in the Tahoe and pulled up to the gate. I got out to open the gate and these two girls were getting in to their car to leave, but they stopped me and asked if I was looking for the Dad and the little boy. I told them that yes, I was, and that is when they told me that they had seen them, and they were on their way back up the hill, but were pretty far back there. I thanked them, and as we stood there talking (I was telling them that I freaked out when I saw the bear, and they were like "WHAT BEAR???) within 30 seconds my men were in my sights.

We stood there talking to the nice girls for a little while longer, while the hubs was putting the bikes back on the rack, then we headed to town to get some pizza.

It was a good family day, but mostly, a horrible time. But fun. And horrible. And a little scary. Nice. Horrible. Scary. Nice.

The moral of this story is:

I am a paranoid freak (I thought one of my men had possible fallen off his bike and gotten seriously injured)
Bears are scary as hell
Don't take your 5 year old who has just learned how to ride a bike down to Tahoe to conquer a mountain. It does not make for a happy time for ANYONE!

Look Who Learned How To Ride A Bike

2009-05-03T17:35:00.000-07:00

Big Daddy held on to her seat, he let go, she flipped out for a second, then kept on cycling. It was basically as simple as that, and now our whole family is mobile.

The hubs was so proud of her, so he decided we should go to Tahoe tomorrow and go for a bike ride. Unfortunately, I just checked the weather, and there is supposed to be rain, so maybe we will head out there next week.

I was looking through the pictures that I just took of her and it quickly became evident that there is an obvious progression of irritation. She REALLY wanted me to stop taking pictures, apparently 5000 pictures is too many?

Totally happy

Kinda happy

Kinda annoyed

Really annoyed

And...She is DONE letting me photograph her!

OMFG, OMFG, OMFG, OMFG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-04-30T22:04:00.000-07:00

It is on like Donkey Kong, y'all!

Remember this post...

Second, no wait, make that third, chances ROCK!

The tickets are bought and paid for!!!!!!!!!!

I am going to NKOTB July 9th.

I am so giddy with excitement.

SO GIDDY!!!!!!!

Eight is GREAT

2009-04-29T00:00:00.000-07:00

April 29, 2001 I married the love of my life.

To read the story of how we met, go here.

This post would have more words and stuff, but I am not home right now. We are on a mini-vaca. Seriously, if you want more words, go read the post I wrote on this day last year...

For more Wordless Wednesday Participants, go here.

On Starting The Day Off In A Suckish Way

2009-04-24T09:29:00.000-07:00

This morning we were running a bit behind schedule. The kids had not showered/bathed last night, and I had nothing to pack for their lunches. Add that together with their perpetually hormonal mother and I was pretty grumpy.

I ran in the house last minute to grab Cal's homework, which just kinda escalated the grumpiness.

I join the kids in the car, I fire that puppy up and start to back out of the garage.

I am watching my mirror, as I always do, since garage wall clearance is not so great and I feel like I am holding my breath every time I back the car out of there.

As I am staring at the mirror I watch, in slow motion, as that sucker POPS right off of the side of my car. It was the loudest noise, probably EVER, and it scared me. I was already a hot mess, since I was frustrated that we were leaving a tad late, but when this happened I broke down into an even hotter mess.

The hubs came running out of the house (which is amazing, considering the fact that he sleeps through our whole morning routine on any average day, including today) and all I could do was cry. In hindsight, I want to blame it on him. He is the one that parked the car in the garage last night, after all. I am too old for the blame game though, so, you know, whatever...

I just got off the phone with the Toyota dealership and the guy was super nice, and very funny. Just when you think you got the shit end of the stick, you realize that it could be so much worse. He was telling me a story of another woman who did something quite similar to what I did (apparently people knock their side mirrors off all the time when they are backing out of the garage), but only this lady's story is funnier than mine...

"This woman lived in the downtown area and has a one car garage. She was backing out of her garage and knocked off the passenger side mirror, and she was so pissed off when that happened. With such gusto, she pulled the car forward to correct her mistake, but in correcting it, she knocked off the driver's side mirror as well."

When she called him for replacement parts that day she was having a beer (days like that deserve a beer, I say) at 9am.

He gave me the quote for the mirror, and asked me if I would like him to order the part. Quite frankly, I can not afford the part right now, so he suggested that I go down to Pep Boys and buy a universal mirror for the time being, just to make the car safe and legal. He suggested that I stick it on with double sided tape, or duct tape. When he told me that, this was all I could imagine:

To see this image in it's full sized version, go here. It is awesome!

He helped me to find the humor in a craptastic situation, he made me laugh. We all know it could be sooooo much worse, it is, after all, just a car.

The point of this story is: Toyota has excellent customer service. It is just a car. And I hope you all have a better day than I!

P.S. It is going to cost $202.54 for the part, and $110/hr for labor (who the hell makes $110 an HOUR???), registration is due on the 20th for $175, plus the monthly car payment, plus gas, and we are looking at potentially spending over $1000 on the car this month alone. Crap, that sucks.

P.S.S. I accidentally bought one-ply Charmin toilet paper the other day. That can also be filed under "crap that sucks"!

Let's Talk About Controlling Birth, Yo!

2009-04-22T23:22:00.000-07:00

Alternate Title: TMI, Look Away Or Keep Reading. Either Way, You Have Been Warned.

Nearly five years ago I did my research, made an appointment, and dragged my a$$ down to the local Planned Parenthood. After talking with the nurse at the clinic, we decided that I would have a Mirena IUD inserted for maximum birth control protection. Superhubs and I were not ready to decide if our family was complete, our baby was less than a year old, but we weren't too keen on using condoms. That is how we got baby number two, after all.

At my one month check up the nurse asked me how I was doing with the IUD. I was fine, but I had some concerns about my mood swings. She assured me that there was nothing to worry about, that the Mirena surely was not causing the mood swings. [[[I am such an idiot.]]] I never really thought about it again. So basically, for the past four and a half years I have been irrational, moody, and unable to lose weight (among other things, but basically, a real joy to be around!). I have gained a ton of weight since having the IUD inserted, about 80 pounds. At first I thought the weight was the direct result of going spoon for spoon in an ice cream eating, beer guzzling challenge with the hubs. The only problem with that theory, however, is that I have tried extensively, and continuously, to take the weight off. It just is NOT working.

The other day one of my very good friends, a 28 year old non-smoker, was admitted to the hospital and diagnosed with blood clots in her lungs, a side effect of Yasmin birth control pills usually reserved for women over the age of 35 who smoke.

This got me worried so I googled some of the side effects of Mirena IUD, mind you, my nurse assured me that there were NO side effects, and found lists a mile long, as well as petitions for the maker of Mirena to include all side effects in the patient pamphlet.

So that got me to thinking. Of how desperately I want this tiny piece of silicone removed from my body. I can not believe I have had something so toxic inside of me for so long and not really known just how much havoc it is wreaking on my body (Come to think of it, I should have known how unhealthy this BC is, I get my monthly visitor about once a year, for one hour...that can NOT possibly be good for me!). I have decided that my body is convinced that it is pregnant, and it is storing up the weight for the baby (I am NOT pregnant, I PROMISE)!

So what next? I am not getting another IUD put in. I am NOT willing to bear any more children, my loin is locked down. I will not use Yasmin (duh!), nor will I use Nuva Ring (I know of a 22 year old mother who died from a stroke while using Nuva Ring...). We conceived a child while faithfully using condoms.

I have only 4 short months left to have this device inside of me (it has a 5 year *um, what is the word I am looking for?* shelf life) and quite frankly it seems like there is only one option left *gives the hubs the puppy dog face and refers him to several websites*

So what about y'all? When you decide your family is complete are you going to refer your husband to the doctor, or are you going to take care of that end of the spectrum? What kind of birth control do you currently use, if any?

I'm Not Sure Whether I Want To Run And Save My Brother

2009-04-18T12:18:00.000-07:00

Or if I am comfortable enough to sit at home laughing my ass off at the crap he is going through this weekend.

Luckily, I trust his friends and my Uncle and cousin enough to know that they will not let him be truly harmed.

This weekend marks the weekend of the Spring Doin's for the ECV and my brother is going to attempt initiation.

I have no idea what this entails, but I do now know that my hillbilly is showing.

I looked up ECV initiations on youtube and all I found was this.

Apparently the initiation rites and secrets of the Order truly are just that...secrets. I can not believe how ~~hard~~ impossible it was to find a video of initiation. I actually came up empty-handed.

I just know that my cousin said that sometimes when he sweats (years after his initiation) he still smells chicken guts. I have no idea what that has to do with anything, but it certainly sounds traumatizing enough!

Good luck, brother. And just remember, when you are done with this weekend you will no longer have to endure any of this crapiness:

Having your crutches painted hot pink then hidden in a tree

Owning the worlds most outlandish Halloween costume
(although I kinda think you enjoyed that one!)

Showing off your skinny legs in tights...

Haha, truth be told, you probably will still have to endure that kind of crap from your friends. Look on the bright side, at least now you will be able to fight back.

I Successfully Baked The World's Ugliest Easter Treats

2009-04-12T01:23:00.000-07:00

No doubt there will be mocking to endure in the afternoon.

I baked these mini-cakes to take to Amy's house for the Easter party that she hosts every year.

We were at Joanne's, a local crafting store, a couple of weeks ago when I found the cutest silicone mold. in. the. world. I mean seriously. The cutest. Easter egg shaped mold. With zig-zag's on it and everything. Of course we bought it. I told Amy so, and she insisted that I bring the dessert for Easter.

I baked the little cakes, which, as it turns out, are not nearly as cute as I thought they were going to be.

I looked up ideas for decorating them on the Wilton website and found one that I thought was insanely adorable. You melt candy melts and pour them over each egg and what you are supposed to get is a smooth surface, beautiful and sophisticated. Like this...

This is what I got...

With no time left to fix my horrible craftiness, I went ahead and decorated the little buggers. I thought, maybe, just maybe, they would end up looking somewhat decent, or at least if I put a bunch of candy and shit on them that they would be disguised as cuteness.

This is officially going down as the worst cake wreck ever. Good thing I am not a professional baker, or there would be internet mocking by the famed cakewrecks website, for sure...

Happy Easter my friends.

Backwards Aging

2009-04-09T09:08:00.000-07:00

I just got off the phone with my BFF, Amy. Today is her birthday, so of course the kids and I called to sing to her. We got her voice mail and left her a message and we said "Happy birthday Dear Auntie." when it came to that part.

She played the voice message on speaker phone and one of her three year old's was in the room when she was playing it. The sweet little nugget said, "*gasp* It is AUNTIE'S birthday, too????"

Haha. Get it?

The little one thought that it was my* birthday too (because, obviously, she does not call her Mom "Auntie"). Funny kid.

So I got her on the phone and we had this conversation:

Me: So, are you feeling really old now?

Her: Actually, no. I thought I was turning 33, because I thought I was 32 all year long. So it is a pretty nice surprise that I am only 32 today!"

Me: *cackle, cackle, laugh, laugh* OMG. So you are doing the opposite of aging? That is so awesome!

Amy on the left, me on the right, circa 1997

Happy birthday to my very best friend, may you always feel younger and younger with each passing year!

*She could have thought it was her other auntie's birthday, but for the sake of the story we are going to make me the only auntie, because that is more awesomer.

It Was Only A Matter Of Time Before THIS Happened

2009-04-05T09:15:00.000-07:00

I just opened my inbox to find an email from one of my favorite (novelty item) stores, Torrid. They tend to keep up with the fashions, but their clothes are for women who wear size 12 and up.

So I open up today's email from them to find this image staring back at me.

WTF???

Photo courtesy of Torrid

Are you gonna rock the acid wash denim? Apparently, they are bringing it back. What do you think?

Peek-a-boo

2009-04-03T16:14:00.000-07:00

Peekaroo, or "CreepyPoo"?

You be the judge.

Would you carry your tiny tot around in this thing?

Reminder: I am about to hit my 1000th blog comment. The 1000th commenter gets a prize, although, I have not decided what it is going to be just yet.

The winner of my little giveaway is JNJHasleton, aka Jennifer. Congratulations, J!

Thanks to all of you who helped me hit 1000 comments today!! You guys are all awesome and you make me want to blog more. (I heart comments. I am kinda attention whorish like that.)

Are You An Extrovert Like Me (A.K.A. Dork in Public)?

2009-04-01T14:33:00.000-07:00

Generally speaking, there are a couple types of people in this world: The extrovert and the introvert.

OK, there are obviously more types of people in this world, but I am trying to make a point here, so stick with me.

The ones that say hello would be the extrovert, and the ones that hide for cover in a corner, not wanting to be seen, well, those would be the introverted types.

Then there are, of course, the people who fall somewhere in the middle.

I kinda think I am an extrovert. Usually. Sometimes, however, I do find myself hiding in the corner of Target, not wanting to be seen by an old friend. Note to self: Stop leaving the house without brushing your hair. It almost always guarantees that you will see someone you know.

I work in the restaurant business and I have been at this particular restaurant for nearly 2 months. In this short amount of time I have seen 3 people that I know, all whom I have not seen for over a year, and in one instance, I had never really met the person. Each time I felt conflicted in whether or not to say hello to them. In the end, what it boils down to, is that I AM the type of person that is going to say hello to someone that I know.

The first time I served someone that I know, it was a woman that I had not seen in about 10 years, a woman that I went to church with when I was in my youth. I spent an hour working her table, knowing full well that it was her from the moment she walked in the restaurant. I did not say anything at the beginning, but when their bill came, she took a peep at it and realized who I was (my name prints up on the bill) and we had a nice conversation.

The second time it was a friend of a friend, and I barely recognized her, because she came in with a hat on. She took her hat off and I went over right away to say hello.

The third time I saw someone I know was yesterday. The only thing is, though, that I only know her from reading her blog for the past year and a half. I thought that it was her, then as I kept walking by I kept thinking more and more that it was her, and finally I told myself, "Self: She recently got engaged, go check out if she has an engagement ring on her finger."
So I did.
And she did.
So I say, "Is your name Aimee?" (I had to use a lot of restraint to not add the Enchilada to the end)
"Yeah."
Me, in my most creepiest whispery voice, "I read your blogggg."
Anyways, I tried to play it cool and like I wasn't TOTALLY excited to meet her.
FAIL.
I mean, at least I think it is a fail, when I kept saying over and over, "I am so excited to finally meet you!"
I am pretty sure that I came off as an over-excitable puppy dog, but guess what? I hardly care. I am so happy I said something to her, because this morning she emailed me and I am pretty sure we are going to get together for coffee. Yay. New real life friend.

Which type of person are you? If you saw me in public would you stop and say Hi? Or would you keep on walking (covering your face with your hand), hoping that I don't recognize you?

Edited to add: I have a big comment milestone coming up real soon. The commenter that leaves comment number 1000 will get a prize, just for fun!

An Interview With My Children

2009-03-31T19:38:00.000-07:00

I am a little late at hopping on the bandwagon, but you may or may not have seen this meme floating around the interwebz.

It is an interview with your children.

I brought each kid of mine over to the computer separately and asked them each question, trying to get their answer exactly as they stated.

Cal's answers are in blue, and Riss's are in purple. She wanted pink, but the pink was too light, she was not happy about that at all.

My response to their answer is in green.

Without further ado...Here is what my kids think of me.

1. What is something mom always says to you?
No.
No.
They heard me say that? I could have sworn that I was talking to the walls when I said that.

2. What makes mom happy?
Disneyland.
Dad.
Awww, they are both right

3. What makes mom sad?
Dying.
When Dad hurts your feelings and crying.
Death makes me sad. True. Haha about Dad hurting my feelings. Better watch where we fight from now on, huh!

4. How does your mom make you laugh?
Jokes
Tickling.
Cool.

5. What was your mom like as a child?
Little.
Nice. Like me.
:)

6. How old is your mom?
30
18
I will always be 18 at heart, but yes, I am 30.

7. How tall is your mom?
Maybe 30 feet.
516 inches
WHOA, Nelly. They are hilarious. They actually used a scientific arm lifting method to figure this out!

8. What is her favorite thing to do?
Go to Disneyland
Go to work
Oh yeah, I LOVE working. *snort*

9. What does your mom do when you're not around?
Uhhhhh, get on, uhhhh, hahahahaha (as he reads this) hahahahaha. Sit down and watch TV and do nothing.
Go to work, noooo, watch TV.
(I read blogs and try and straighten the house up)

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?
Singing good.
A superstar because she is cute.
Hahahahaha, this is the funniest one, because I sing like a dying cat, but I am pretty cute. :)

11. What is your mom really good at?
Texting.
Texting.
WTH?????? I only get 200 texts a month to share with the hubs. I interviewed them seperately, how did they come up with the same answer? This is insane.

12. What is your mom not very good at?
Playing games on the Playstation. "Just write PS2, it is easier"
Very long books.
Uh, I have no idea about the books. I can't write a long book, but I sure can read them. Ohhhh, I don't read long books to her. I only read a few pages a night from her giant books. I bet that is what she is talking about.

13. What does your mom do for her job?
Serves.
Serve.
*nods head*

14. What is your mom's favorite food?
Chicken sandwiches
Everything.
It is chocolate, you fools. Get it right!!!!!!!!!!

15. What makes you proud of your mom?
She feeds us, no wait, she buys us all the toys.
Smiling.
OK, they are so cute.

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?
Supergirl
Ella
I AM Supergirl, son, I AM!!! (Ella Enchanted is on TV right now...)

17. What do you and your mom do together?
Go shopping.
Sleep.
Awww, my snuggle bug. She does sleep with me still. And we do go shopping, but not nearly as much as we used to (or as much as I would like...)

18. How are you and your mom the same?
We have the same colored eyes? Do we? "No." We have the same colored lips.
We have the same eyes.
Haha. Colored lips. For the record, the kids have the same eyes, mostly. Mine are hazel. Theirs are their very own makeup of color. Some blue, green, brown and grey.

19. How are you and your mom different?
We don't have the same colored eyes.
I play and you watch TV.
True, true, and true. What?

20. How do you know your mom loves you?
Because I love her.
Because she always smiles at me.
Awww, I'm am melting from their cuteness.

21. Where is your mom's favorite place to go?
Blockbuster?
Chick-fil-A
Um, NO, and NO.

Less Words Wednesday

2009-03-25T07:38:00.000-07:00

The other day Riss was quiet for more than 2 minutes. [Any mommy knows that this spells trouble].

She walked out of my room looking a little guilty, and also looking like she was holding something. I made her open her hands to show me what was in them and she showed me the tops of her open hands. Empty.

A short while later I went to the bathroom and I discovered this. Let me just tell you that we do NOT use pink hand soap.

For more WW participants go here.

Paying It Forward Stories

2009-03-24T09:10:00.000-07:00

One of the rules of the Pay it Forward game is that you have to write about a pay it forwarding story.

I have thought and thought, and stewed and brewed about it for days on end now. I have come up with nothing. Nothing from my own personal bank of stories, anyhow. Not that I have never done anything nice for anyone, just that I am drawing a blank.

So then I got to thinking of other people's pay it forward stories that I have heard about and the first thing that came to my mind was a story that was told at my work. It is a true story and goes as follows.

Roseville, Calif. – Team Member Brad from the Creekside, California [business omitted for my own privacy]restaurant, came into work one morning after stopping at the Starbucks drive-through. As it turned out, he knew the manager at Starbucks, and the manager bought him his coffee. Brad quickly pulled money out of his pocket and told the manager to pay for the car behind him. The manager took the money and told the next car in line about what Brad had done. That car went ahead and paid for the next car in line, which started something awesome - the following 23 cars continued to “pay it forward!”

Later that day, a couple came into [business name omitted] and asked to be seated in Brad’s section. When they sat down, the couple told Brad that they were the car behind him that he had paid for, which started the 23-car Unbridled Act. They wanted to meet him and thank him. And thank him they did; they left Brad a 100 percent tip on their bill. Just by doing a small Unbridled Act, Brad managed to make the day of so many others...

My favorite fictional story is told by Clay Walker, in the form of a song.

He was driving home one evening,
In his beat up Pontiac
When an old lady flagged him down,
Her Mercedes had a flat
He could see that she was frightened,
Standing out there in the snow
'Til he said I'm here to help you ma'am,
By the way my name is Joe

She said I'm from St. Louis,
And I'm only passing through
I must have seen a hundred cars go by,
This is awful nice of you
When he changed the tire,
And closed her trunk
And was about to drive away,
She said how much do I owe you
Here's what he had to say

You don't owe me a thing, I've been there too
Someone once helped me out,
Just the way I'm helping you
If you really want to pay me back,
Here's what you do
Don't let the chain of love end with you

Well a few miles down the road,
The lady saw a small cafe
She went in to grab a bite to eat,
And then be on her way
But she couldn't help but notice,
How the waitress smiled so sweet
And how she must've been eight months along,
And dead on her feet

And though she didn't know her story,
And she probably never will
When the waitress went to get her change,
From a hundred dollar bill
The lady slipped right out the door,
And on a napkin left a note
There were tears in the waitress's eyes,
When she read what she wrote

You don't owe me a thing,
I've been there too
Someone once helped me out,
Just the way I'm helping you
If you really want to pay me back,
Here's what you do
Don't let the chain of love end with you

That night when she got home from work,
The waitress climbed into bed
She was thinkin' about the money,
And what the lady's note had said
As her husband lay there sleeping,
She whispered soft and low
Everything's gonna be alright, I love you, Joe

If that song does not make you at least choke up a little then it is quite obvious that you have no soul.

Anyway, head on over to my other post and be one of the first three people to comment, write a story of your own, link to it, and then you will get something cool in the mail from me. Just do it. I know it requires some thought, but it is fun.

Pay It Forward

2009-03-20T22:53:00.001-07:00

Wanna get a cool gift in the mail from me?

All you have to do is leave a comment with a pay it forward story (or a link to one if you have one) (or whatever) and 3 winners will get something cool from me. The only catch is that the winners have to pay it forward on their blogs or Facebook, or whatever social networking they choose....

I am copying this from Chrissy over at Mathers, party of 4! Go check her out. Check out her super cute stuff on etsy, too, while you are there!

Don't Poke The Bear

2009-03-20T09:36:00.000-07:00

OMG.

When we were looking for a house to rent my step-brother's girlfriend referred us to this house, telling me that her Aunt's neighbor was looking for a tenant and that the price was in our range. She gave me her Aunt's phone number and I called right away to set up a time when we could come see the house.

We walked into the house and immediately fell in love with it. It is perfect. Just our size. In a gated community for added security. In a great school district with distinguished schools. Closer to the hubs work.

We spoke with the owner of the house, who lives in Southern Cali, and arranged everything and moved right in.

What I was not expecting [although I should have been] was for my [step] brother and his girlfriend to break up.

They have a 9 month old baby, and she is simply adorable. We all love her to pieces. Especially Riss. Riss just can NOT get enough of her cute little squishiness.

Ok, so we live next door to crazy drama baby mama's Aunt. The Aunt watches the baby a couple days a week, and when we were over here the first time, just to look at the house she told me that the baby is at her house a couple days a week and the kids could come over and see her...

Fast forward to last week.

The baby had just been dropped off by crazy drama baby mama {CDBM}.
Riss asked me if she could see the baby, so I asked CDBM's Uncle if it would be OK if Riss went inside to say hello. He, being the nicest man ever, said of course, no problem.

He walks us in through the garage door, and CDBM's Aunt is there changing the baby's diaper, getting everyone ready to leave. He tells her that Riss wants to say hi to the baby, and she starts freaking out. "J, there is so much commotion right now...blah, blah, blah" I understand that she is trying to leave the house. Fine. [He turns to us and tells us that it is OK] So I tell Riss to be quick about it. She stands there and makes googly eyes at the baby for like, oh, I don't know...10 seconds. Gives her a kiss. Says "Hi cute baby". Then we leave. So we were in there for a total of maybe 20 seconds (although, with CDBM's Aunt being such a stress-case it felt more like 20 minutes...)

I understand that CDBM's Aunt was trying to get ready to leave.

Really.

I get that.

However, like it or not, Riss is that baby's cousin.

So when CDBM and my brother were talking last night she told him that she did not want my kids going in to her Aunt's house to see the baby.

Specifically, she said, "When the baby is over at my Aunt's house I don't want Paloma's kids going over there to see her."

So, to say the least, she has poked the bear. Anyone and everyone knows that you do not poke the bear. Especially the Mama Bear.

I have never been even remotely rude to CDBM, and get along quite well with my neighbors.

CDBM has actually never, and I mean NEVER, said anything crazy or rude or bitchy to me, she has to everyone else in the family, with the exclusion of my sister and me.

I have never talked bad about her crazy I-need-meds-for-being-bipolar-but-refuse-to-take-them-because-they-will-make-me-fat ass to my kids. They really like her. They also get along famously with the neighborhood children.

For her to say that my kids are not allowed to go next door when the baby is there just kinda pissed me off. The only problem is that I have no idea who to be mad at...CDBM? Or CDBM's Aunt for even making an issue out of Riss coming over there to see the baby for 10.5 seconds?

The baby is in a bag. Hahaha.

Love, love, love, her roly poly baby self. SO much!

Sorry, y'all. I just really needed to vent. I really think that it sucks that the kids always know when the baby is next door, and although they never really do go in to the neighbor's house, now they can't. I guess that what I really don't understand is why it was such a big deal. Riss is 5 years old. Five. C'mon.

My Mom told me not to say anything to the kids. And if they do happen to go into the house when the baby is there that I should let CDBM confront me. Other than that I have been told to take no action. They are in the beginning stages of a custody case, which has the potential of getting very ugly. I really feel like my hands are tied.

For the time being I am going to listen to my Mom and just keep it to myself (well, and you, interwebz...)

Happy Drunken Irishmen's Day

2009-03-17T09:15:00.000-07:00

Alright, alright, I know I just posted a whole blog dedicated to the Leprechaun Trap, but that was a re-post of last year's trap from when Cal was in Kindergarten.

Riss is in Kindergarten and she, too, had to do a Leprechaun Trap. So you get yet another post about Leprechaun Traps.

Yay. I know.

First I am going to give you a list of our supplies:
~Shoe box from Daddy-sized shoes, free
~Metallic green wrapping paper, $1 at the Dollar tree
~Shirt box, found in garage with my wrapping crap
~Bamboo sticks, from my kitchen drawer, normally used for kabobbing
~Wooden circles, "Woodsies", $3.39 at Michael's
~Metallic Gold Paint, $0.89 at Michael's
~Wooden circle box that opens (for lack of better words), $1.99 at Michael's
~2 pieces of green foam paper, $0.59 each at Joann's
~1 piece of green felt, $0.25 at Joann's
~Shamrock confetti, $1.99 at Joann's
~Shamrock wire stuff, $1 at the dollar tree
~Glitter Glue Sticks, $1 at the dollar tree
~Glue
~Black paint that I found in the garage
~Paintbrush
~Scissors
~Pen
~Box cutter, or razor blade

The first thing we did was wrap the shoe box in the wrapping paper.
I then cut a small 3 sided hole in the top of the box as the "trap" for when the Leprechaun tried to get to the gold. We glued on about a gazillion pieces of shamrock confetti, then wrapped the wirey shamrock stuff around the outside of the box.

I found it impossible to find gold coins in any store in the area, so I finally gave up looking for them and I bought the little "woodsies" at Michaels. Putting chocolate coins would have been frowned upon, since chocolate draws the attention of ants and Kindergartner's do not want ants in their classroom. (Just so you know, for future reference.) We painted the woodsies gold on one side, let them dry, then turned them over and painted them on the other side. While we were waiting for them to dry on the first side I painted the cicle box thingy black, using the Behr paint, since it was what I had on hand.

After all the paint had dried we glued the circular box thingy to the top of our wrapped shoe box, then we threw in all the gold.

It took me a while to decided what material to make the bridge/rainbow out of. I wanted it to be sturdy, but not wood. In the end I probably would have used a cardboard box, but I ended up using a shirt box. I cut out the rainbow shape and let Riss color the rainbow.
For the bridge part I used a piece of green foam paper and taped it in the middle of the two pieces of colored in shirt box, aka rainbow.

We glued cut up pieces of bamboo sticks on to the foam paper bridge so that the Leprechaun would have some steps to walk up, otherwise it would have just been a foam slide. Heh.

We were having a hard time getting the rainbow to stand up straight, so, as with most bridges, we had to use some leverage, and we added bamboo sticks to the top to get it to stand up straight, this is why I say that I would have preferred to use a cardboard box.

Next we made the sign, as to entice the little Leprechaun up the bridge and to the end of the rainbow. "Free Gold", it says, because really, who doesn't love free gold?

The goal is that the Leprechaun walks up to the pot of gold, in all his greed, and falls through the hole and gets stuck in the box.

We went to class this morning, and, unfortunately, we did not catch a leprechaun. He did, however, leave a piece of candy, letting us know that he had been there.

Maybe next time!

I told her to smile and I got this...

We tried for another smile and she gave me this...

That is better!

Our sign...

Showing off her hard work in class...

Just remember that each Leprechaun Trap is unique and special in it's own way, this is just our idea of how to catch a leprechaun.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Oldie, Goody, Goody, Oldie

2009-03-11T18:54:00.000-07:00

I have been noticing that I have had traffic [aside from my regular readers] of people looking for the Leprechaun Trap.

It was a Kindergarten project that we did last year.

To satisfy the needs of those looking for ideas of how to make one I am re-posting it here today...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cal came home from Kindergarten last week with an assignment- a family assignment to be exact: There is legend in the Irish culture that on or around St. Patrick's Day little men dressed in green are around watching us. If the little men are caught, they will leave us gold. These little men are really clever, naughty, and sneaky. In years past they have come to the classroom and made a mess, but this year we want to catch them.

Your family project is to make a Leprechaun Trap. Feel free to make your trap really fancy. These traps will be displayed in the class during Open House.

There was more to the letter, but I do not think I need to type all the boring logistics out verbatim for you. You get the idea, right?

We are supposed to get down and dirty with the craftiness as a fam.

Wednesday night I took the kids to Target, thinking that their dollar section would have an abundance of goodies for our trap. It didn't. We had to go to other, more expensive sections of the store and we spent a bit more money on this cute little Kindergarten project than I would have liked to spend, but I am not one to be a fuddy-duddy mommy, and our project was going to be dope...

And without further ado...

I give to you, dear reader, the first online view of our Leprechaun Trap!

Please note that Leprechauns are seriously attracted to the color green, and to clovers and gold, so already they are going to definitely be lured in to our trap. But the fact that we made it into a dance club is even better. I mean, really, what kind of Leprechaun does not like to dance and get his jig on???

We added a ladder for their convenience...

The sign at Club Leprechaun says "A Dance Club for Leprechauns Only"

Notice the pot of gold? When the leprechauns try to get to the pot they will slip through a trap door that we cut into the floor of the club, fall into a cup and become trapped. This Leprechaun trap is fool-proof. We are for sheezy gonna catch us a little green man!!!!

**Click on the pics to make them bigger**

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We have another Leprechaun Trap due on Monday, so we need to get started. I am trying to make it different this year, but I really loved last year's project!!!

Finding Old Friends On Facebook Can Lead to Photos Of Your Younger Years Being Posted For All To See

2009-03-10T22:08:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine just uploaded this photo to her Facebook page.

I would be embarrassed, but I think it is really cute!

I was 14 and had just been in a cake war or something...

Without further ado...

Happy Wordless Wednesday!

Five year Olds Are Put On This Earth To Teach Us A Lesson. Or Something.

2009-03-06T23:10:00.000-08:00

My brother watched the kids today while I was at work, which is basically awesome, because it was the first time he has watched them in a really long time. (Like since me and two of my girlfriends drove down to San Diego and had him come to our hotel so we could ditch him with the kids. Riss was 8 months old.)

Upon my arrival home he had a couple things to report. Miss Riss had a couple of minor run ins with inanimate objects (walls and doorknobs) (completely normal), and that my mirror is now nailed to my wall. And the hammer is on a really high shelf.

I should have known that was going to happen, after all, I did leave the hammer right next to the mirror...

~~~BACK STORY~~~

Two nights ago Riss came to me and told me that the mirror fell off the wall. The mirror was nailed in at all four corners, and stuck in the wall pretty sturdily.

Or so I thought.

Oh the things a five year old can teach you.

So here was her story: " I was laying on your bed and the mirror started shaking (she starts shaking her arms violently to reenact what she saw) and then it just fell."

Uh, ok.

I question her some more, because, of course, I highly doubt that this is what really happened...

But her story remains rock solid.

She is not wavering at all.

She was laying in my bed and it started shaking, then it just fell.

OK, fine.

I walk away, as she simply exasperates me.

Later that night I am standing in my room and something on the mirror catches my eye.

A perfectly round circle.

Anyone dare to take a guess at what left that perfectly round mark on my mirror?

Anyone at all?

No?

Then I will just come out and tell you that I have found this particular household helper laying around the house in pretty random places lately.

***

Are you barfing in your mouth yet?

So today while my brother was in the living room he heard a banging noise coming from my bedroom and upon further inspection a pretty little five year old terrorist was...um, helping?...feeling a bit guilty?...nailing my mirror back onto my wall, in its exact position that it was in--leaning against the wall a few inches away on the bottom.

Raising children is just one big lesson. On what, I am not sure. Maybe a lesson on what NOT to do next time. Maybe that is why people have more and more children...for do-overs. The last child is bound to have a close-to-perfect parent, no?

Note to self...hammers belong in the garage, not your bedroom.

***I realize that I am pretty much the best mom in the world for taking the time to run and get my camera when I discovered that my daughter had suctioned the toilet plunger to her belly. Really. Best. Mom. Ever.

The One With The Uncensored Peek Into My Life

2009-02-18T13:03:00.000-08:00

My kids went off track from school on the 5th of February.

They have been driving me berserk since that day!

Let's add in the fact that it has been raining for about a week...straight.

TORTURE!

What you are about to see has been happening every day.

Granted, there are good moments, too, like when they play hide and seek 400 times a day and Cal always hides in the same spot. Every. Time. And Riss spends 15 minutes looking for him, then he gets bored from sitting in the same spot, so he goes to switch spots and that is when she finds him. That part is entertaining!

But this. This is just annoying.

A Photo Blog About Painting and I am Making You Look at it, Because This Took Me A Whole Week To Do, So There

2009-02-17T14:31:00.000-08:00

All right folks, I know you have all been anticipating the arrival of this post.

What? You haven't?

Oh, well maybe I have just been anticipating being able to write this post, because that would mean that I was finally done painting the damn dining room.

I believe you recall me showing you a picture of the room before we moved in here, and asking what color you all thought I should paint the room to cover up the taxi-cab/school bus/big-bird-exploded-in-here yellow paint.

So I decided to go with pink. (Which NO ONE suggested)

You likey?

What do you mean it reminds you of a child's bedroom?

I think it is purrrrty

OK, I was kidding, that was primer.
I made it red. This is after one coat.

After two coats of paint.

After three coats of paint.

After deciding that is was taking too much effort I decided to go to Home Depot. The nice man there pointed out the little cross next to the name of the paint.
He explained to me that when I see that cross I need to understand that is is going to take a couple of coats, per the stupid disclaimer on the back of the paint sample.

Four coats of paint and a second trip to Home Dep0t later and I am finally declaring it done.

Pretty, huh!

Probably should have swept the floor, but I was too excited to post this than to bother with that piddly stuff.

Big Daddy has been calling me 'Red' for about four days now. I don't know why. It's not like I had paint on my hair or my skin or my clothes, or anything, really. Heh.

I started this project a week ago and I finally got to remove the tape from around the edges this morning and I just got done hanging stuff up in there. I love, love, love it. And even if I did not love it, I would still pretend like I did love it, because there is no way on G0d's green Earth that I am painting over it now. No way, no how!

The one person that said red, when I originally asked in the other post, was Steph, aka MarvelousMOM, if there was a prize for guessing, she would have won. Alas, there is no prize, so sorry.

Heh.

I'm out. I have a cake in the oven for Big Daddy and I need to go finish tidying the house.

The One Where I Come Across as an Idiot, but I am Really Just an Unknowing Person and NOT an Idiot

2009-02-13T09:09:00.000-08:00

I took my certification tests at work yesterday, and as it turns out, I still have a job. Whoopee! I can finally start making money, because when you are training to be a server what happens is this: You "follow" another server around. But really, when I say that you follow another server around, what I really mean, is that the other server lets you take all the orders, get all the drinks, run food, close checks, and everything in between. So, basically, I have been doing all the work for no pay. I have been working for another server's tips. So to finally be done with my training and ready to move out onto the floor all by myself, well, that is just plain exciting. I am going to be actually working for my own tips. Wheeee!

Last night, after work, I thought to myself, well since I have no kids right now and a big empty Tahoe, I guess I should swing by the old house and pick up some random crap that has been left behind (trust me, there is still lots of random crap). I pull up to the house and I am instantly thinking, "Huh. That is weird, I could have sworn we have been leaving the porch light on."

I put the truck in park anyways, since I am about to pee my pants, I go up to the house, unlock the door, I try to switch on the lights and BAM nothing happens. NOTHING.

The house remained PITCH BLACK!

Awww, crap. I am about to pee my pants at this point, and since I have the bladder of a 2 year old (or 80 year old, take your pick) I have no other option but to go inside.

So here I am, a 30 year old woman...swinging my leg around kung-fu style, making sure there is nothing in my way, because even though I know that house like I know the back of my hand, I had no idea if there were boxes in front of me or not. I am yelling (which really only sounds like yelling, but it is more like talking, but the house is mostly empty, so it is echoing), "There better not be any squatters in here." And basically acting wimpy. It is awesome.

I made it to the bathroom, still swinging the whole way, and this is the part where I think it would be funny to tell you that I fell into the toilet because someone left the seat up, but that did not happen, I am not that dense, I did actually feel to know that I had to put the seat down.

Soooo, I am talking to the hubs about an hour later while he is driving home from work. I say, "Oh, apparently when you tell PG&E that you are moving and you ask them to turn off your power, they actually DO IT." And I proceed to tell him my story that I just told you.

His response..."Yeahhhhh, about thaaaaat."

Apparently when he was unhooking the dishwasher on Wednesday he turned off the power on the breaker. And PG&E does not handle our lights, that is SMUD. PG&E is gas. So you can imagine how funny he thought my story was...

He actually asked me if I used my cell phone as a flashlight.

I swear I am not stupid, but it was in the truck, and if I had even thought about doing that, that would mean I would have had to walk all the way back to the truck. Did I mention that I had to peeeeeee?

Anyways, when I was thinking about writing this post last night, I was going to title it something like, "When you tell PG&E to turn off your power, they take you seriously". But since Big Daddy explained everything to me, well that would just sound stupid now, wouldn't it?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Most of the house is unpacked, and I am done studying for work stuff, so I am slowly catching up on my blog reading. I have also been painting my breakfast nooky area, and there is going to be a photo blog about that coming up. Believe me, it deserves it's own post...

A Baby No Longer

2009-02-08T00:48:00.000-08:00

My kids are looking very scraggly lately. Cal has a tooth just barely hanging on in the top front of his mouth. Neither one of my children has ventured to eat an apple in dayyyys, when normally they eat approximately 2 each, every day.

Little Riss woke up this morning at 9:15am. At 9:30am she had to go to the bathroom.

When she came out of the bathroom she was giddy with excitement.

"Mom, look!!!" pointing to her mouth and happy as a clam.

I had a moment of panic when I realized that she did not have the tooth in her hand. I asked her where it was and she could not tell me. Because she didn't know.

We quickly went to her bedroom where she ripped off her comforter, only to reveal her perfectly white and tiny tooth sitting smack dab in the middle of her bed.

We bagged that sucker up and stuck it under her pillow.

I can't believe she is not a baby anymore. I asked her who was going to be my baby now that she is such a big girl and she told me that Cal will be my baby now. Heh. What is a mommy to do when her babies aren't babies any longer. And don't you dare suggest that I am supposed to have another baby, because we are done with that stage in our lives, but geeze, now am I just expected to look back in nostalgia? Or what?

My baby lost her first tooth

Look mommy

Cheeese

Clean break

Isn't it adorable (in that weird creepy way that a tooth falling out of one's mouth is adorable)

I ran to the old house today to recover our 5 gallon water jug that is only 10% full of money so that the tooth fairy will have something to put under her pillow tonight. I need to go scrouge through that sucker.

The One Where I Make Myself Look Like A Slob For The Whole Wide Web To See

2009-02-07T22:28:00.000-08:00

I like to believe that I am a fairly-semi-ok-sometimes-good-enough house keeper. What I am about to show you is evidence of otherwise. These are photos of moving day.

The Master sized mess.

Heh. The closet is still completely full.

Oh, look. I actually have an empty room.

See. It is completely empty. Yes, it is just a bathroom, but still...

My bedroom. I am so totally excited to finally be away from that wallpaper. Do you see the patch of missing paper? I did that to see how hard it was going to be to get it all off. It was next to impossible. I can finally buy a bedding set that I like instead of being forced to buy one that matches that damn wallpaper. I would lay on my back and look around feeling like I was sitting on the inside of a hat box. Previous owner said it reminded her of an ice cream shop (not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing, but she spent $8000 to have the walls prepped and have that wallpaper put up, so I imagine at one point in time she did like it). In any case, it is uggggggly.

The little man's room. Almost completely done.

The girly girl's bedroom. Not too bad.

The view from upstairs.

Screw moving boxes, we use garbage bags. Heh.

Um. Yes. My computer was still hooked up on moving day.

Zach is Big Daddy's cousin. Zach and big daddy's brother were painting and big daddy's brother did this right before shoving the oven back in to it's place, after all the paint was put away.

The laundry room.Ugh. That is just nasty. It still looks like this.

Not too bad from this view, but if only you could see that the other side of the room was built in shelves that were still mostly full of crap. On moving day.

Crap, crap, and more crap.

In case you were counting, I just showed you 7 different types of flooring in a 1417 square foot home. Four different colors of carpet, linoleum in the master bath, wood floors in the dining room/computer area, and tile in the hallway/kitchen...FYI I did not picture the other upstairs bathroom, which had yet another flooring type.

Anywho, I have been ridiculously busy this week, what with moving, unpacking, still packing, running from house to house, studying for these quizzes that I have every other day at work, actually working. Blah, blah, blah. I have barely had a second to breath lately. The first time I actually sat down yesterday was not until the kids were in bed. (I just read this and felt like I was maybe coming across as whiny, which I hope I wasn't, because I am really happy with the direction of life these days...)

I am exhausted and I have to work in 8 hours, so I'm out.

Hope you are all doing well, I am slowly catching up with my blog reading, but I still have nearly 200 unread blogs in my reader. I'll get there!

Sorry I'm Not Home Right Now, I'm Walking In a Spiderweb

2009-01-31T14:42:00.000-08:00

We are scheduled to move on Monday.

My house looks like it has looked for the past two years.

I think I have 4 boxes packed.

No time to blog or read blogs.

Gotta getter dunn.

In the midst of all this I have to study for work tests.

I will return next week!

So Much To Do, So Little Time. Ack!

2009-01-29T22:30:00.000-08:00

Today the governator is making stuff happen (not happy about this AT ALL):

SACRAMENTO, CA - A judge has sided with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in his bid to save money by forcing state workers to take days off without pay.

The two-day-a-month furloughs are scheduled to start next week.

The Professional Engineers in California Government and the California Association of Professional Scientists had filed the lawsuit, challenging Schwarzenegger's executive order.

The governor has no authority to take actions, like mandatory furloughs, without legislative approval, the unions argued in a press release sent to News10.

A Sacramento County Superior Court judge disagreed. He also cited the state's financial condition.

In his order Thursday, Judge Patrick Marlette said: "The current circumstances constitute an emergency. "
Schwarzenegger had warned Wednesday that unless public employee unions don't accept proposed furloughs, he may have no choice but to lay off workers.

The Governor said he is seeking to cut $1.4 billion in labor costs from the budget. California will be forced to make billions of dollars in cuts to close a deficit projected to hit $42 billion through June 2010.

Big Daddy works for the great state of California and this news is hitting us hard!

The fact that I got a job and I start training tomorrow could not have happened at a better time. Oh, wait. What's that? Yeah, you read me right. I got a j-o-b. Word up. I am so freakishly excited.

What is my new job?

I am going to be slangin burgers for a living.

As a server in a restaurant, of course.

I start my first day of training tomorrow, and when I say training, I mean boot camp for burger slangers.

Seriously.

There is going to be testing.

Testing that I have to get 100% on, or I get sent home. If I fail the test a second time I will lose my job. It sounds pretty intense, but I am quite confident that it is something that I can do.

So here is what happened: Tuesday I was out trolling around town, handing in applications. I was fortunate enough to be able to speak with the assistant general manager at one restaurant and we sat down and had a nice long chat. I left there thinking that they were not really hiring. I moved on and went to the next restaurant down the road. I handed in my application, went out to my car and my phone rang. The woman that I had just talked to at the first restaurant was calling to welcome me to the team. How awesome is that??? In my dreams of grandeur, that is exactly what I had imagined. Oh, and since I have already directed you to the last post, can I just tell you right now that the girl who shot me down is now one of my co-workers? Haha. No hard feelings.

In the midst of studying my 207 page work book I am also packing up our house. Not 24 hours after receiving the news that I got a job, we also received news of being approved for the house we had applied to rent.

We move in on Monday.

And since I am such a fabulous photographer I will include the best picture ever of the new house. This is the kitchen/breakfast nook and it is messy because we went to see it when the previous tenant was busy cleaning. The school bus yellow has gots to go. What color do you suppose I should put up in its place? Red, green, or taupe?

I was feeling pretty lucky yesterday and I know that I should have bought some lottery tickets, but I didn't.

Oh well.

So my friends, I need some input. What color should the new dining area be?

On Losing Power and Losing Teeth

2009-01-25T12:44:00.000-08:00

Last week I was blow drying my hair in my bathroom when all of a sudden the power went out in the house. Not all of the power, just the blow dryer, the TV, the computer, and the laptop. You know, the stuff that was on. Anyways, I walked outside to the power box (I know it is called something else, but I am drawing a blank on that right now), opened up the lid and flipped the two switches that were now in the off position.

Fast forward to last Wednesday or Thursday when Big Daddy was watching TV. Rissa came in wanting him to switch it to cartoons, acting like a real turkey. She eventually walked out front, saying she was going to go jump rope. Within minutes the power on the TV was out, as well as the power to the computers. I could hear the neighbors dog barking, so I went outside to investigate. The moral of the story, in a gist, is to never let your five year old know that the breaker box thingy controls the power to the appliances inside the house. She will exercise her new-found power liberally.

~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~

Last night we trekked out to Novato to go to Hay-Hay's birthday party. Cal got super excited when we got there, because he realized that we were at Zorro's house, and Zorro is pure awesome in his eyes. Zorro was upstairs with a couple of his friends, so, of course, Cal also wanted to be upstairs.

Cal: Uncle T, can I go upstairs and play darts with Zorro?

Uncle T: Can I pull your tooth out?

Cal: Um, OK.

T said he stuck his finger in there, wiggled the tooth a couple of times, then gave it a good tug. He looked at the tooth in his hand and noticed that it was not bloody at all. He showed me the tooth and then we both looked at Cal, who, by this time, had blood gushing out of his tooth. We took him to the bathroom and cleaned him up, then we took pictures. He is so proud of his third tooth loss.

The kid with the villain that stole the tooth right out of his mouth

Toofless

Can you see the new tooth already growing in?

Heh. So cute.

When we got home we put Cal's tooth under his pillow and this morning he woke up to find that the tooth fairy had left him 8 quarters. He was super excited.

How much does the tooth fairy leave for teeth in your neighborhood? Is the value the same for each tooth, or do molar's warrant a higher face value? Is the first tooth lost worth more to the fairy of all things teethy?

Hi. My name is Debbie. Debbie Downer.

2009-01-15T21:28:00.000-08:00

Forgive me for not really having much going on lately.

I have been simultaneously trying to find a job and a house.

Both ventures are major suckage. Seriously.

We found a house that we liked in a decent neighborhood, fair rental price, willing to accept us with our current situation, within walking distance to the kids school. We applied for it and got rejected. The reason? The landlord is looking for someone with higher income. Uh, excuse me. When did making four and a half times the amount of rent ever warrant not being a high enough income??? They came to this conclusion without even pulling up our credit report, too.

So, that is discouraging.

Looking for a job...also discouraging.

I have replied to nearly every posting that I have found online for a restaurant server. I find it frustrating that I have not even had one single response. Not one.

I have been spending Monday and Tuesday afternoons scouting out at all the local restaurants, getting all dressed up and in full make up with my hair done, asking 18 year old children for applications. There is nothing like having an 18 year old act like she is better than you when she talks down to you. I like to call the empty-handed walk out of the restaurant the "Walk of shame". I go in there, put on my pretty smile, ask for an application, and promptly get dissed by a child, "Sorry, we are not hiring right now, so we are not even handing out applications."

It is all quite humbling, because let me tell you, I had dreams of grandeur. I was going to walk in to a restaurant, ask for an application, fill it out on the spot, and the manager was going to love my sparkling personality sooo much that they insisted on hiring me to start work that very day.
So to be put in my place instead of letting me reside on cloud nine, well, that is awfully nice of the people who send me scurrying away with my tail between my legs, eh.

In other news, my head may explode from this sinusy thing I have going on right now. I have no idea what is wrong with me, but yesterday we were in the car and I sneezed, then coughed, or something like that, I don't really remember, but Cal asked me if I was OK, and all of the sudden my head started to feel like it was going to freaking EXPLODE! I am pretty sure it was a sinus headache from hell, but for all I know it could be something more, like a sinus infection or something stupid like that. My nose actually hurts, so that sucks.

Tell me you have something better, happier, healthier, and more wonderful going on. You do, don't you?

P.S. I have over 100 unread blogs to catch up on, I will get there, and I apologize for not stopping by and commenting, but the hubs worked early shifts all last week (meaning he was home A LOT!), then he had Saturday through Tuesday off work and I had very little time to do what I normally do, which is sit in front of this computer and read blogs for longs periods of time throughout the day.

Yay. A Day At Bay.

2009-01-08T10:27:00.000-08:00

My sister [ok, my step-sister, pish-posh] came into town for a week and a half from Mississippi (what a great word to spell) and aside from our numerous shopping trips, I feel like I hardly got to do anything with her. So when she said that she needed a ride to San Francisco to get to her hotel next to the airport, I jumped on the chance. Our kids had mega fun together the whole time they were in town, I had mega fun with her, we wanted to go do touristy things in the city, so it seemed like a win-win situation.

We left for San Fran at about 1 o'clock in the afternoon and we took my car, since it gets better gas mileage than the Tahoe. The three kids sat quietly in the back seat (picture me laughing like a mad woman here) and we made it to the city in no time at all (even if it felt like a 5 hour drive, what with all the nonsense going on in the back seat)!

I took this photo of the kids chasing birds while we were looking for the bathrooms. We ended up walking quite a ways more before we actually found the restrooms. I probably should look at my pictures when I take them. Heh.

Seeing as how I had never really done touristy things in SF with the kids, and my sister was only there for a day, we deicided to take a tour on a fleet around Alcatraz. I thought it was funny that I would suggest that we do this, seeing as how I normally get paid to go on a boat around the bay and now I was actually paying to go around the bay, but she had never been, so I was really excited for her to do it.

She loves me.

Did you know Alcatraz is really a rock, more than an island.

Yes, my daughter is wearing a sundress in January.

A guided tour via headphones.

Staying warm inside. So dang cute!

Barking

Guess what they were barking at? Cal will tell you in the video. It was ridiculously cute. Gav kept calling them whales. I wish I would have caught that on tape. He is so stinking adorable. Anyway, the video is short. The kids are cute. Watch it.

We went and got dinner and he could not fit his mouth around the hot dog. I thought it was soooo adorable. I have about 5 more pictures of him trying to take a bite of his hot dog!

We promised ourselves at the beginning of our day that if we saw any bronze statues of sea lions that we were going to pose the kids on them. Turns out that they actually do have bronze sea lions for our posing pleasure. We were totally joking.

Kissy, kissy

OMG, he is so handsome, and yes, he was wearing shorts.
He never complained about being cold. I promise.
Please hang up the phone already. No need to involve CPS.
Heh.

Gav. The appropriately dressed cute little muffin.

At least she had pants on with her sundress.
It makes sliding down sea lions much easier.

Next to impossible to get the three of them to pose.
As good as it gets.

On Day Two of Budgeting I am NOT Overwhelmed, Next Week I Might Be.

2009-01-02T11:02:00.000-08:00

Happy New Years, everyone! It has been a whirlwind of a couple weeks, so let me apologize right now for having gone missing. I am slowly catching up with my blog reading, and y'all know that I have tons of photos to load into this here blog from the hollerdays. (Did I mention my step-sister is here from Mississippi and I have developed a slight twang? Heh.)

I recently relinquished control of my household.

I took over the bills, something that I let Big Daddy take over three years ago. I was being a lazy douche, because really? Who doesn't love to have money in their bank account? I was at a point where I would have rather let the money sit in the bank all month and make the bank think we were rich, than pay a bill.

Don't get me wrong, I paid some of the bills, just not all of them (usually the utilities). It was a horrible time in my life, we had just moved to a new town and I was bored and you could have pegged me for a depressed person, even though I always kept my shiny, happy exterior (this is however the point in life where I became 80 pounds heavier, so shiny happy exterior is more referring to my attitude and facial expressions.)...

So let me get to the point.

I paid all our bills, set aside money for the bills that are automatically deducted from our account in the middle of the month, and went to the ATM to take out cash for the groceries for the whole month.

I have no idea what I am doing, really.

I withdrew $320 for groceries for the month. I have no clue if this is going to be enough money to eat on, so there is other monies set aside, just in case. Also, this does not include the $100 I set aside for dining out. Nor does it include the $150 I set aside for toiletries (I have no idea what is included in toiletries, but I imagine that it is all the taxable items that we use.)

So my question to you, my dear friends, is this: How much do you spend, either weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly on groceries? Do you budget? Do you use coupons? Where do you get your most bang for the buck?

Weekend Review

2008-12-24T13:25:00.001-08:00

In an attempt to cover up the last two posts of sheer raw emotion and anger I am going to let you in on what I did over the weekend.

Since the hubs called in sick on Saturday and Sunday, he was actually able to attend the family stuff.

So Saturday we went to his Aunt's luncheon, which was fun. I love spending time with family around the holidays. It is, after all, what it is all about, right!

Wrasslin'

Me and the muffin

Hubs and his auntie

Girly girls
My niece is a freak. I love her soooo much.

Then Sunday we got up and headed out to Sausalito to go to my work party. Even though it has been over two months since the last time I worked, we still thought it would be a great time. And it was.

A retired clown, aka Clown Shoes, painted the kids faces. There were balloons there and Rissa was hitting me with one of them, then turned and tried to hit Clown Shoes with the balloon. She had a smile on her face, so I thought she was joking when she was backing up, telling Rissa not to touch her with the balloon. When she fell and poured wine on herself I figured out that she was serious. Turns out that she is allergic to latex. Oops. My bad.

In my defense of my bad momming, I was seriously drunk. Taking two shots at a time will do that.

I had a great time, and the hubs and kids had a great time, too.

[I am thanking my lucky stars that he missed the part where I made a drunken fool out of myself, so he actually thinks I was pretty well behaved...]

The Under Side of The Golden Gate Bridge

Still has that barfy Stache. GG Bridge in the back

Here kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty

Some of mah peeps

Duhduhduhduhduhduhduhduh-BATMAN!

On the way home from Sausalito we dropped the kids off at my Mom's house and went to yet another party. This one was at my BFF's Mom's house. It was an ornament exchange party, but the hubs and I neglected to purchase ornaments for exchanging, so we just hung out and had a good time.

There was dancing

Hugging

Laughing

All the while, I have been trying to collect my thoughts on the whole situation with my Dad. Unsuccessfully, of course. While he did lie to my Mom, which is inexcusable, he is really sick, and I had to avoid saying things that I will regret, so I am just pulling it together and moving on. I will call him in a few days. Thank you all so much for your concern. It really means a lot to me!

Liar, Liar, Pants are on Fucking Fire

2008-12-20T12:34:00.000-08:00

OK, so an update on my previous post:

My Dad is a fucking liar. No doctor told him that he only has a month to live.

None.

No doctor.

Anywhere.

This is just a feeling that he has. He is pretty sick, but as far as being diagnosed with cancer and having a month to live:

It was a lie, so that he could talk to my Mom.

I am still upset with my husbands reaction to it all, but kinda feel whatever about it now, because do you want to know what he did?

He called in sick to work for today and tomorrow and we were going to go down to Merced to visit my dad, who, apparently, is or is not, dying.

I am shaking, I am so livid right now.

How dare you lie to my Mom?

I Am Probably Going To Divorce You, And NO, I am NOT Kidding

2008-12-20T11:04:00.000-08:00

All right. Maybe I just need someone to talk me down off this ledge, but I swear to all things Holy, I can not fucking stand my husband right now.

My Dad called me this morning and I was sleeping. Cal took a message and told him that I would call him back.

My Step-Dad just called me and told me that the kids called them this morning. Oh yeah, and as an after-thought he told me that my Dad also called them, too. My Dad just wanted to talk to my Mom. No surprise, although he never calls her, he always feels like he has something to say to her. He feels bad for being a shitty father, and for being a shitty husband to my Mom, forcing her to leave him when my brother and I were very young. Anywayssss. I asked my Step-Dad to give the phone to my Mom so I could see what exactly it was that my Dad said to her.

My Mom gets on the phone and tells me that my Dad called to tell her that he went to the doctor and was informed that he has cancer (not really a shock as he has had this horrendous tumor on his spine for quite some time). He has been given a month to live.

So while I stayed strong while I was on the phone with my Mom, I completely broke down as soon as I got off the phone with her.

The kids came running and were comforting me, asking what was wrong, and I told them.

My stupid dumb-ass heartless fucking husband came in and asked what was wrong. I was sobbing so hard, so the kids told him why I was crying.

At a moment when I could have used a hug more than anything else in the world, do you want to know what he did? He was like, "Oh, dang." Then he fucking turned around and opened the refrigerator, scavenging for breakfast.

He turned his back to get breakfast.**

As I am sobbing about the fact that my Dad has been given about a month to live.

He turned his back on me.

I will never, ever, ever fucking forget that.

EVER.

**Then he got himself a cup of coffee, and went to the living room to play video games with the boy.

Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down

2008-12-14T14:06:00.000-08:00

How not to build a gingerbread house. A picture story.

We had to call in the big guns. Big Daddy was needed for some walling.

Maybe we should have used nails or Spackle?

Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.

Rebuilding a community takes a community.

Ugh. Finally. Time to attach the roof pieces. This only took 17 tries. (Side note: Look at big Daddy's mustache. Barf. He is in a contest at work. Again, BARF.)

Hurry. Add more ~~Spackle~~ frosting before the roof comes crashing down.

Finish frosting that sucker, gently, before it collapses, and add as much candy as you were provided with. (like how we tried to fix the broken corner at the top of the doorway?)

Frost the cute little gingerbread snowmen that were included in the package. Add candy.

Show off your ~~life's~~ morning's work for Mommy.
Devour.

Please note that I KNOW these are my children. They felt gypped because there was no M&M's or any other chocolatey goodness included in the package. I, myself, was silently complaining about the same thing.

For now, the house is still standing, but I give it a day before all the candy has been eaten off of it.

Sidenote: Cal is not in as many pics because he would not wear the gloves that I gave him, and I'll be damned if I want his hand, foot, mouth disease all over the gingerbread house. He was only allowed to work on his little snowmen...

Has Your Grama Ever Been Ran Over By a Reindeer?

2008-12-13T19:04:00.000-08:00

The kids are watching some sort of Christmas movie on the boob tube right now, and the opening song was "Grandma Got Ran Over By a Reindeer". (OK, I just went and checked and they are actually watching "Grandma Got Ran Over by a Reindeer")

Hearing that song always makes me giggle a little.

The part where they say, "You may think there is no such thing as Santa, but as for me and Grandpa, WE BELIEVE." is my favorite part, only because it confuses me though.

When I was in high school my Grama lived with us. I loved her dearly, and to this day, just thinking about her makes me choke up. She passed away 5 weeks after becoming a Great-Grandmother. I miss her so freaking much, but damn, she was ornery.

So here is where my confusion lies.

They believe in Santa because they saw the reindeer hoof tracks on Grandma's head?

or...

That was a gift that only Santa could deliver to Grandpa?

Because I can imagine if this happened to me in 50 years, Big Daddy would play this song over and over and over, giggling like a madman!

Is It Getting Sick In Here Or Is It Just You?

2008-12-13T18:00:00.000-08:00

Random photo.
This is how we swim in December: In Mommy's jacket

Yesterday was a pretty busy day.

The boy child was home sick from school, so I had to do super sneaky running around in the morning while he stayed home with Big Daddy.

Here was my plan: I was going to go to the WalMart that is on the way to my Mom's house, I was going to purchase Miss Riss's big Christmas present there, then I was going to take it to my Mom's house and store it in a storage shed in her back yard.

So, I go to the WalMart, search everywhere for this dang bike that I was sure they would have there, but didn't.

So I had to leave and backtrack all the way across town the WalMart wayyy closer to my house for this bike. The people in line were nice enough to let me go ahead of them, which was super awesome since I was on a time restraint. I had to take the bike to my Mom's house still, then I had to go back to my house, pick up the boy and take him to the doctor.

So I get the bike to my Mom's house, and she is NOT there, which really, should not have been a huge deal. I know how to open a gate. I can take the bike to the backyard by myself. So I get the chair from her front porch and I take it over to the gate, where I spend about 10 minutes trying to get that sucker to flippin' open, which it wouldn't. Then I decide to go to the fence on the other side of the back yard and just go the long way. Except that that stupid gate would NOT open, either. I was flustered and my fingers hurt from trying to finagle the damn latches open. I ended up just leaving the bike behind her garbage cans and called her house and told her to deal with it when she got home.

Thankfully when she got home, the bike was still where I left it, but I was pretty worried...

So I got back to my house and picked up Cal to take him to the doctor. We got there seven minutes late, but mostly because the entrance to the brand new parking garage was a nightmare.

[Dear Kaiser, Please work on that. thankyouverymuch.]

Anywayyyy, turns out the boy has hand, foot, mouth disease. The name alone makes me want to vomit...He still looks pretty normal though, so that is good, you know, aside from the bumps that cover his body, including the palms of his hands and the inside of his mouth. No wonder he could not talk on Thursday...poor kid. He was communicating with me via a white board. So pathetic.

Stickers: Proof that he went to the doctor

At 6pm we had to leave to go back to the kids' school for a Kindergarten performance at the PTA meeting. I love (heh) how all the parents think that they are the only damn person in the audience with a freaking camera and they just stand up in the front freaking row.

SRSLY.

The sweet little Kinders were all dressed in their Sunday best. They worked really hard on their program, and they were super adorable performing. Of course, Miss Riss was the freaking cutest.

Hint: She is the only white kid in this picture

Can't really see my kid in this pic. Heh.

This blurry pic was too cute NOT to post.

Andddd..... a video. She is the fourth reindeer from the left.

I Can Tell You Love Me

2008-12-09T19:53:00.000-08:00

Yeah, my friends, I had one of THOSE moments today.

I was aimlessly wondering around the store this morning, when my phone rang.

It was Big Daddy's aunt. Big Daddy. You know...my husband for the past ALMOST EIGHT YEARS...

She is telling me of this lovely idea she has come up with to host a Christmas luncheon in her home in a couple of weeks, on a Saturday afternoon. I tell her that absolutely we will be there, but chances are good that Big Daddy will not be able to make it, since he works on Saturdays. I will come along with the children and it will be good fun for everyone.

You know what she says next???

Nope. You will NEVER guess, so I will just tell you.

"Oh, OK. How many kids do you have now?"

Me: Oh, uh, er. Still just the two.

Her: Oh. Right, right. I thought that maybe you might have had another one.

Me: Oh, haha. No. We are sticking with two.

Her: Huh. What are their names?

I tell her and she then asks how old they are, which is really no big deal, because how should she be expected to remember how old they are?

But seriously?????

How many kids do I have?

What are their names????

WTF?????

Photos courtesy of other peoples photobucket accounts. I think you can click on them or something to find out...

I Turned 30 and People Came Over to Get Me Drunk

2008-12-07T19:50:00.000-08:00

Random picture of my brother, because this was THE ONLY picture taken with my camera last night.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Last night was my birthday party and it was basically awesome.

There are ups and downs to hosting a party in your own home.

Ups: You do not have to make sure you have a designated driver and can drink as much as you want.

Ups: It is your pool and you can throw up in it if you want to.

Downs: The mess the next day is all yours to take care of.

I made these super cute cupcakey things, which can be found here.

I awoke to find my kitchen like this, so I did what any normal person would have done. I made myself a bloody Mary and headed to the couch to laze the day away.

Big Daddy sent the kids on a bottle hunt throughout the house and the back yard and now the only thing left to do is the dishes...There is always tomorrow.

I must go now. The couch is beckoning me. It longs to wrap me up in its warm, soft, cushy goodness.

Make Me Laugh Monday

2008-12-01T07:38:00.000-08:00

I was going to save this post for Wordless Wednesday, but it requires at least a few words, and I am super impatient. I had to share this TODAY.

So I am participating in Make Me Laugh Monday.

The other night I was straightening up the house and I found this beautiful drawing. Immediately I thought..."What the hell?"

Remember in Superbad how the big kid draws pictures of peni (is that the plural for penis?)? (That was Superbad, wasn't it?)

I thought that is what was going on here.

I mean, that is what you think this is a picture of, right?

Wait for it...

Upon further inspection, I realized that I just have a really dirty mind. Not ten feet away from the drawing I found this...

Wait for it...

Drum roll please...

Ohhh, the suspense is killing you...

It is a melon baller, you sick freaks.

For more MMLM participants, please go check out Jenny on the Spot!

The End Result of The End of an Era

2008-11-29T22:45:00.000-08:00

I know you are all DYING to know how things turned out since I kicked the kids out of our bed.

Right?

Remember how I said that I am such a lazy sleeper and I do not have the energy to reroute the kids back to their own beds in the middle of the night?

Still true.

She is so sneaky, so sweet, and so cuddly.

Our bed is still not our own, but it was a nice thought, while it lasted...

What can I say?

I am a softy.

You Are A Boob

2008-11-26T13:58:00.000-08:00

A couple days ago I called my Mom to ask her what I should bring to her house as my contribution to the family's Thanksgiving dinner. She then handed the phone to my step-dad, who told me that I was not required to bring anything.

Tomorrow marks the thirtieth anniversary of the day my Mom became a mother. Also? The day I was born.

So I just kinda figured that I was not being asked to bring anything because I was getting off easy, since it is my birthday and all.

Today I called my Mom to double check that I am to bring nothing, and also to make sure that the only sweet offerings were not going to be Apple and pumpkin pie, since I am not a fan of either, and I would much prefer a cake, or at least a cheesecake to celebrate my birthday.

Turns out my step-dad is a giant boob.

I am still expected to bring the green bean casserole and the candied yams. And now my mom has to go to the store to buy me a cake. (That is what she gets for passing the phone off to him!)

So, my friends, I am off to brave the raging rapids, better known as the grocery store...Have you ever been to the grocery store the day before Thanksgiving? It is like trying to go to Target at 6am on black Friday...sheer madness.

Wish me luck!

Sweetheart, you are not an athlete!

2008-11-22T08:45:00.000-08:00

The internet is abuzz with this video. In case you have yet to see it, I have taken the liberty of posting it right here for you.

There are soooooo many things wrong with this. Watch it first, then let us discuss.

Did you watch it? Hahahaha. It is hilarious, no?

My favorite part was where she is talking about her six inch stripper heels giving her calves a great workout. Honey, doesn't your religion forbid you from even shopping in the store where you bought those????

A rose by any other name is still a rose! (or is it a thorn that I am thinking of?)

~~Stripper dancing~~ Pole fitness in the Olympics? Lets get cheerleading to the Olympics, first. And the many other things that are considered sports.

Also? Is yoga in the Olympics? It seems like these ~~hoes~~ women want their athleticism in the Olympics, when what they are really doing is just a fitness regime. I do not see any real competition here.

And yes, I know some of you are worried that I am just making fun of them because they are Mormon, but I am not like that. I am so non-judgmental, so back up off me.

Scantily clad married Mormon women dancing on stripper poles?

What is your favorite part?

Help! What is the number for 911?

2008-11-20T22:31:00.000-08:00

I got this little story, I'd like to tell, about three people that you know kinda well. It started way back in his-tory...

OK, OK. I know, this is crazy. I am blogging twice in one day...

So earlier today I decided that since I was cooking dinner in a crock pot, and since every time I have used the oven lately the smoke alarm has gone off, and since tomorrow morning I have to bake some yummy treats for Rissa's class, that today would be a perfect day to let the oven clean itself.

I dutifully lock the oven, I turn it on to self clean and I walk away.

About an hour later Miss Riss walks into the kitchen (mind you I am five feet away) and I hear this: "Whoa my gawshhhhh. The oven is on fire."

I snort and tell her that, no, the oven is not on fire, it is just cleaning itself. I get up, walk over to the oven, and lo an behold, that mother fugger is ON FIRE!

I send the kids outside and run to my purse and grab my phone. Then I walk into the kitchen, turn off the oven and stare at the fire. I can NOT pull my eyes away.

Nor can I decide who to call. Do I call 911? It is not really a big fire. It is not coming OUT of the oven. It is only about a foot high and six inches wide. Should I call the fire department? What do I do? Do I call my Mom? 911?

Heh. I stood there and did NOTHING.

The fire went down, and eventually OUT.

I was flipping scared. The last thing I want is for my house to burn down...

Anywho. We are safe, but I am a little bit scared to turn on my oven tomorrow morning.

Edited to add: Apparently this happens a lot. Look at one of the FAQ's on GEs website. Also. When the hubs walked in the door from work he was pissed because the house stunk so bad. He scraped the gunk out of the bottom of the oven and turned it on again, which, apparently, is what you are supposed to do.
Also, I did not use any cleaning products, I just turned the oven on. Are you supposed to use that oven cleaner stuff? It stinks SO bad! I thought it was optional. Heh.

Love and Hate

2008-11-20T20:01:00.000-08:00

On the list of things I hate, lets add finding unwrapped lollipops under the bathroom sink. K?

On the list of things I love, lets add when my kids act really goofy in front of the camera for me.

My Mom got both the kids these adorable jammies at that store where Paris Hilton thought they sell walls. To get them to light up all the kids have to do is...

I absolutely adore Seal's new music. I put it on and had Rissa dance. Um, she has no rhythm. At all. She gets that from her father. Cause y'all know I am a dancing queen... *snicker, snicker*

Cal got his jammies on and then would not let me get him on video. Oh well.

Happy Thursday. Oh, wait. What? Did someone say THURSDAY??? You know what Thursday is next week? No, piggy, I am not talking about Thanksgiving. IT IS MY BIRTHDAY!!! 7days till I am officially OLD, but not really OLD, just older...

The End Of An Era

2008-11-15T13:09:00.000-08:00

I have no problem admitting that when I am sleeping I am lazy. That is, after all, what sleep time is all about, right?

We have a monster-sized bed. I am not sure if it is a California King, or just a regular King, but still, it is huge.

For as long as I can remember the kids have always jumped into bed with us in the middle of the night. Cal does not do it as often anymore, but he does it on occasion. Rissa, on the other hand, does it EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT. It is never really a huge problem, as long as she is sleeping in the middle of the bed. That way, I do not feel trapped in the middle, as I often do. I know that she is five years old, and really probably too old to be doing this, but like I said, I am LAZY! There is no way that I am going to get out of bed to walk her back to her room and explain to her that there is nothing to be afraid of...

Anywaysss. Yesterday morning Big Daddy woke up a little confused, really upset, and swearing.

Why?

He was sleeping in a puddle of pee.

It has been declared that Mommy and Daddy's bed is strictly for Mommy and Daddy now. No more monkeys sleeping in our bed.

I feel like an era has ended.

I also feel like I need to go out and buy a new matress topper. This one is tired of being peed on.

Do you let your children sleep with you? At what age do/did you make them stop? If you do not have kids, or you never let your kids sleep with you, how do you view me? Seriously, I want to know.

Temper Tantrums. Not Just For Children Anymore.

2008-11-13T10:45:00.000-08:00

The hubs woke up not too long ago and the first thing out of his mouth was something along the lines of "What the heck happened here?"

My response? "Oh, I did that. I ran in to the door."

I am such a liar.

You want to know what really happened?

I was getting the kids ready for school and we were running late. Only about 5 or 10 minutes late, but still. Late.

I finish putting the girl's hair up in several ponies, she starts screaming and crying that they are too tight, and starts ripping them out. WE WERE ALREADY RUNNING LATE!

I storm off, because for some reason THIS IRRITATES THE HELL OUT OF ME and I could not control myself.

I run into the edge of the stairs, which happen to stick out about an inch and a half. My arm is throbbing. What transpires next is really pathetic.

The laundry "room" doors are bi-fold doors. They were both open. So picture me walking down my hall way, my arm throbbing, I am irritated because we are running late and the girl ~~demon~~ child is screaming about her ~~stupid~~ hair hurting. I am the super mature parent, so instead of calmly closing the laundry door, I push on it, in an attempt to get my point across that I am MAD. Instead of this having the effect I had hoped it would have, it had more of the Incredible Hulk effect. I pushed the door so hard that it BROKE off the hinges. The wood is splintered and the door is laying on the ground. So then I am pissed at myself for breaking my super cute door, so what do I do? I walk in to the kitchen and find the door to the garage wide open. With every ounce of force in my body, I slam that sucker. The walls vibrate, as does the refrigerator. I turn my back and pray that the things on top of the fridge do not come flying down and decapitate me. My prayers were answered, but should they have been? Jeez.

I needed a good spanking, it was clear.

How the hubs was able to sleep through all that, I have no idea.

On the way to take the kids to school I had my coffee in hand (no lid, of course, as is par for the day!) and as I am coming to a stop at a red light I dumped steaming hot coffee on my breasteses.

I totally deserved it. I know.

I am going to the gym now to work out some frustrations. Please, enjoy these pictures.

Be frightened.

RAWR!!

I showed that door who is boss!

Eleven Years Goes By Really Fast When You Are Having Fun

2008-11-11T16:22:00.000-08:00

July 13, 1997 I got fired from my job as a deli clerk at a grocery store here in Sacramento. I had been up for a couple days on a drug bender and slept through my scheduled work day.

Who knew that employers frown upon that kind of thing?

My Mom sent me to live with my Grama in the house behind my Aunt and Uncle's house in a small suburb of San Diego, called Santee. The first few days that I was there I spent 'coming down' off the drugs. Then I got bored and decided to go explore the city of San Diego. It was then that I learned that Santee was not-so-lovingly referred to as Klantee. I am so uncool with racism, bigotry, discrimination, and judgmentalism that I knew I had to get out of there.

I took a bus back to Sacramento, thinking that all would be good with my Mom.

She sent me on the next bus back to Klantee.

Shortly after, I got a call from my old drug dealer, saying that he, and a couple of my other buddies were IN San Diego.

I borrowed my Grama's car and drove out to where they were (drug dealer's girl friend's new apartment) and we hung out, ended up going out to Tijuana and stuff.

That was in August 1997.

A couple of months went by and Amy (drug dealers girlfriend) called me to see if I wanted to hang out.

I was bored stiff and had just got fired from Wal-Mart (for shit that I did not do), so I was super excited for the invite.

November 11, 1997 we ended up hanging out for a couple of days-straight through, learning about each other, and bonding. Telling stories. Stuff like that.

Had it not been for that one phone call 11 years ago, I have no idea where I would be (probably all strung out on Meth, living in a ditch somewhere, I reckon!)!

I moved in with Amy and her roommate, Kelley, just after Thanksgiving.

Amy is my best friend. She supports me in all that I do, encourages me to be a better woman, makes me laugh, and is a shoulder to cry on. We vacation together. Our children are best friends, and our husbands are BFF's, too.

Amy has since dumped the drug dealing boyfriend and has been married for over six years, with [almost] three year old twins.

Also? We don't do drugs, either, so rest easy.

Anyway, I sent Amy a text this morning that read: It is 11:11 on 11/11. Happy 11th BFF anniversary to the best BFF a girl could ask for. Why the hell are we not in Vegas? All those 11s!

It is true. Amy IS the best BFF a girl could ask for, even if I can not put in to such eloquent words exactly what she means to me. {A lot, trust me!}

Here are some photos to entertain you.

The first day of a fabulous friendship 11-11-1997

We are like models, yo! 1998

Modeling the Acura :) 1998

A more recent shot.

I need to get off the computer now, I have to feed the family dinner and take a shower, I have a date tonight, and it is not with my husband!

Feed Me, Read Me

2008-11-09T11:06:00.000-08:00

I have heard it time and time again, weight loss is comprised of 80% food/diet and 20% exercise.

Well, my friends, I pretty much have the exercise part down pat, as I have been going to the gym faithfully 5 days a week since [the end of] June.

I have not, however, changed the way I eat, not one single bit.

I have lost 12 pounds in the past 4. 5 months. At this rate, I will be at my goal weight in 3 years. Are you mother-lovin' kidding me?????

Sooooo, in an attempt to lose weight a little more steadily I am going to try to eat healthier. I may even go back to Weight Watchers. We'll see.

So, my dear friends. I have a proposition for all [5] of you!

Let's share recipes.

Leave, in the comment section, a HEALTHY recipe that I can try out on my kids and husband, too. If you have the nutritional facts, that would be even better.

Come on y'all, help a sistah out!

Photo courtesy of ebaydigipete's photobucket

Speaking of the gym, I think that I may have actually NEVER talked about it on here. How is that even possible??? Some days my life actually revolves around going to the gym, when I can go, and what I am going to do there. Like on weekends, the kid care is only open until 3pm, so I have to make sure I go early.

There is a particular class that I absolutely love so SO much. Instead of me trying to explain it to you, why don't you just check out this short video. The class is called Zumba. Have you ever tried it? If your gym offers it, I urge you to give it a try, at least once. I love it.

I just watched this video and I almost could not resist. I just about got up and started dancing along with them. Haha.

OK, folks. What is your favorite healthy meal?
And what is your favorite exercise to do, either at the gym, or at home...

Pretty Pretty Princessy Girl Stuff. With Boys.

2008-11-08T20:50:00.000-08:00

While at Disneyland the plan was to take the kids to lunch with the princess in Ariel's Grotto at California Adventures.

I, being the ~~cheap ass~~ frugal Momma that I am, decided not to go. I did, however let Rissa go with her Aunties, Uncles, and cousins*...

I was there before they went in to the restaurant, and I was there when they got out of the restaurant. It is almost like I was actually there during the duration of the lunch though, what with all the pictures that Amy took.

Next time we go to Disneyland I am definitely going to shell out the $30 per person to go to this lunch. It looks soooo worth it.

And? Rissa totally behaved and ate all her lunch. She did not act up at all. It is going to be worth the money, just for that alone!!!

My computer is AMAZING me right now, as I upload these photos. When I take a picture on my camera it automatically rotates it. When I put them on the computer as soon as we got home from vacation they went back to being sideways and stuff. Everything was saved in our external hard drive as we dumped the computer. When he was making the computer all fresh and pretty he "upgraded" to Windows Vista, as opposed to the old Windows XP that we used to have. When I view my pictures in thumbnail size on the external drive folders, I see the pictures sideways. When I open them up and view them large, I see them the right side up. I was so sure that half of these pictures that I just loaded on to this post were going to make you have to turn your computer on it's side just to see them properly. What a nice surprise when they showed up on my post all right side up! Squeal!

Also? If you are wondering why Rissa is wearing a Belle dress and all the other girls are wearing Cinderella...I brought Rissa's Cinderella dress and told her to wear it. She INSISTED on wearing her Belle dress [for a second day in a row, since we went trick-or-treating the night before]. When we got to the lunch and she saw all the other girls putting on their Cinderella dress, then, and only then, did she tell me she wanted to be Cinderella...She got over it, but I am just saying, so you will know that she was in no way left out, nor was she deprived.

Without further ado, I give you...The Princess Lunch. (And a bunch of kids that are not mine. I hope their Mommy's do not mind!)

Snow White, Tora, and Rissa

Cinderella, HayHay, and Bree

Rissa, Cinderella, and Tora

Tora, Cinderella, and Rissa

Jasmine with HayHay, Mommy and Bree in the back

Jasmine and Rissa

Jasmine and Vin

Sleeping Beauty and Tora

Sleeping Beauty and Rissa

Sleeping Beauty and Vin

Tora, Rissa, Ariel, and Vin

Zorro, Bree, Ariel, and HayHay

HayHay and Zorro[not his real name]

Pretty Princesses ready for lunch

Tora, Bree, and Rissa

*Our adopted family. My BFF's family, actually, but we call them Auntie, Uncle, and cousins. They mean a lot to us, and our family would not be complete without them!

Fantabulousness

2008-11-07T08:42:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite things about going to Disneyland is how happy my family is while we are there. It is like all burdens are lifted off our shoulders when we walk through the entrance gates.

We love vacationing together, even though the ride down to Anaheim can be quite torturous. When the children sit in the back seat and argue over the only set of ear phones for over an hour, it can create the headache from hell.

I am not saying our whole trip was perfect, we do still get on each others nerves. But it is somehow more tolerable.

So for today's picture blog I give you what I like to call Family Fantabulousness...

Almost Christmas card worthy,
but we can't pay the girl to smile sometimes.
And my hair looks effed up.

Only a father could understand

She was crying until he picked her up.
Bamboozled!

The first 15 minutes in Disneyland.
No ones feet hurt, no one was hungry, no one was tired.

Mrs. F and Little Miss F

On Being The Mother of a Jedi

2008-11-06T10:25:00.000-08:00

Every time we have gone to Disneyland we go see the Jedi Academy. It is a really cool interactive show where they instruct young children on how to become a Jedi, complete with the children actually becoming a certified Jedi at the end of the show.

Cal is always one of the kids jumping up and down, begging to be chosen. The disappointment in his eyes when he does not get chosen is heartbreaking.

This time, however, he got chosen to participate.

Imagine our excitement.

Big Daddy stood by and took about 30 pictures and a shit ton of video. And without further ado, for your viewing pleasure...

I do not actually see my kid in this pic,
so I have no idea why I am posting it

There he is...

All certified and stuff

OMG, this video is taking forever to upload. Seriously! Probably because it is so longggg. Good thing we bought that 4GB memory card for my new camera, or else this would have been deleted before we even came home from vacation. It would have taken up the whole memory of our old 256MB card...I actually have another video to upload to this post, and it is much shorter, so it should upload so much faster, but geez, I am getting gray hairs from sitting here waiting for so long. I should probably walk away and do something else, but then you would not get to hear my thought process anymore, and I know how sad you would be if you were not reading this right now.

Big Daddy bought a new keyboard for the computer the other day, because I used the other one so much that all the letters were disappearing off of the keys. Apparently he has to stare at the keyboard when he types.

Have you ever had the Baked Potato soup from Chili's? OMG, it is so delicious. I am going to try to emulate that for dinner tonight. Hey, remember when I used to participate in Menu Plan Monday? That always made my dinners go so smoothly every night. I should start participating in that again.

Seriously. This video has taken at least 20 minutes to upload. Are you kidding me???

I need to go BACK to the store for some sour cream.
I can hardly wait to start decorating my house for Christmas.
Have I told you all that I am going to be 30 years old on Thanksgiving this year. Yup, 3 weeks till my birfffdayyy. I don't really feel old. I hope I never do.

I made a new friend in my Business Law class. We went out to coffee together after our test yesterday and we got in a fist fight over who was going to pay for the coffee. Heh. I'm lying, but that would have been a terrifically bloggable story. We did get in a fight about paying, though. I won. I made her buy the coffee. Heh. I am lying again. I did win, but I got to buy the coffee. I totally owed her, since she took awesome notes for me while I was galavanting around Disneyland.

OMG, I have no idea, but that last story was all crazy and stuff.

Maybe if I walk away from the computer and start working on dinner then when I come back the video will have uploaded (doubtful)...Seriously. This video is so long that you are not even going to watch it all the way through. You are going to get bored and stop it half way through. If I was uploading this for you, then I would have cancelled it a long time ago. I am actually just putting it on here to have on here. So there. Kudos to you if you attempt to watch the whole thing, though!

OK, I just left, went and picked up the princess from school, 25 minutes later, I returned home, and this dang video is still uploading. This could take all day. Seriously.
We should count the number of times that I have said "seriously" in this post. It is probably astronomical. Or something.

OK, so I decided to upload it to youtube and it took less than a half hour. Please note that I started this post over 2 hours ago...

He is so excited to be a Jedi. His souvenirs consisted of a Jedi Trading Pin and a light saber that hew built himself (among other things). It actually lights up and is about 5 feet long, he brags. Also...it was twice as expensive as the light sabers that are not DIY...(I am not complaining, I actually think that all of the souvenirs are quite reasonably priced there...) I'm just sayin'.

Freaky

2008-11-05T15:51:00.000-08:00

A picture of a real sign in a Shell station on the way to Disneyland...read it and weep (in fear)...

Quickie

2008-11-04T18:04:00.000-08:00

Taking a quick break from my studies to tell you all that I hope you voted today!

The hubs has spent the past few days defragging the computer and re-uploading everything, so I have been out of touch since I-don't-even-remember-when. It all started when I uploaded 453 pictures from our vacation. After that the computer started moving at a snail's pace...the wireless was not hooked up, so both the desktop and the laptop were out of commish. It was suckish.

I have about 7 million blogs in my reader to catch up on, since it has been over a week since I have really gone through it. Forgive me.

The hubs downloaded World of Warcraft and started playing it this morning. I fear I am going to become a WoW widow. I swear if I do, I will divorce him...

:)

Forty percent of my grade in Business Law is riding on tomorrow, so I must get off this computer and get back to the books.

Someday I will post about my vacation, because seriously? I have 453 pictures from it.

I See Famous People. You See Their Backsides.

2008-10-30T22:40:00.000-07:00

Hey y'all. I am home from my vacation. Completely exhausted, but I thought I would share a brief post before hitting the hay.

This morning before leaving Anaheim we went to Downtown Disney to do some shopping.

I was walking outside of Jamba Juice while the rest of my fam was inside ~~being my servants~~ buying my juice, when I walked past a man bent down talking to his young son.

It was Seal, y'all.

Ferreal.

So in true stalker fashion, I followed him to get a photo after his beautiful wife Heidi {Klum} and the rest of their entourage had joined them.

When I got close I chickened out and I only ended up getting a shot of their back sides.

But I swear to God. You have to believe me. I saw Seal and Heidi Klum and their kids at Disneyland today.

I swear.

Look...here is proof.

Crap That Sucks

2008-10-25T22:23:00.000-07:00

I am supposed to be packing our bags so that we can leave for Disneyland in the morning, but instead I am blogging. I am a procrastinator like that. yeah. so?

I received word from my manager yesterday that we have all been laid off. Apparently the big boss brought in a financial adviser, who advised him that not only are we overpaid, but the boat is often overstaffed, and he needs to cut back.

The solution?

Hire an outside catering company that will cater to each individual event.

Yeah, that will be cheap. Good luck with that, buddy.

To be honest, I was pretty done with the bullshit. There has been so much drama lately and while I am not going to go in depth about it, let me just say that my loyalties in the fight that was had between the big boss and the second in charge, welp, I am on her side (second in charge), so I have been ready to leave for about a month now. I was sticking it out for the money, and because she asked us to, as she felt an extreme loyalty to her clients who had already booked charters, especially the brides.

There is one exception.

I absolutely adore everyone I work with. I am sooooo sad that I am not going to be able to work with those jerks anymore. I lurve them, and I am going to miss them all soooo much.

Honestly, I have never left a job on my last day NOT crying (OK I don't actually cry, for the record, more that I get all choked up...), so this is typical for my emotional level. The difference this time is that on my last day of work, I was unaware that it was my last day of work. I jumped off the boat without saying goodbye to anyone. I know that sounds stupid. But give me a break, I just got laid off.

I am sad.

Other stupid crap that happened yesterday: I retreived the mail from the box and found that hubs had yet another red light ticket from the exact same light where he got a ticket last time (four months ago). I can no longer afford this habit of his.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Hey Paloma! You just got laid off. What are you going to do now???"

"I'm going to Disneyland!"

:)

P.S. Don't feel too bad for me. Everyone else at my work is in a much worse predicament than I am.

Belle Fail

2008-10-23T21:40:00.001-07:00

OK, y'all. Remember last month when I had a dilemma. I kept getting outbid for Belle dresses on ebay and did not really want to go to the Disney Store to purchase one at full price??? One of my smart a$$ readers suggested I make a dress. I laughed out loud at that idea for about a week. Scratch that. I am still laughing about it...

Let me tell you a secret.

I am an idiot.

So a couple days after posting that blog I ended up finding a Belle dress for about $20 on ebay on a "Buy It Now" auction. I won it, I received it, and I was mostly happy with it.

I had the girl try it on for me and Big Daddy this morning and we decided that it was a bit shorter than we would like it to be, hitting just under her knees.

The hubs goes online and I see that the Disney Store currently has the dress for only $20. Awesome.

But then the boy decides that he wants a Star Wars costume. He already has a Jack Sparrow costume, but I decide, eh...whatever. Get the boy another costume.

So we go to the Disney store and we pick out a new dress for the girl, making the total count for Belle dresses two. TWO dresses that are so much alike it makes me want to puke. Then we spent the next 5 hours this afternoon looking for a Star Wars costume, which we finally found for super cheap at Toys R Us. (I have no point in telling you about the boys costume, unless you really want to know that I wore some semi-new wedge heels to go shopping in and they wore a giant hole in the top of my foot from walking around allll day in them.)

Let's take a look at ~~my stupidity~~ the costumes, shall we?

Dress Number One From ebay

Dress Number Two from the Disney Store

Let's look at them side by side

Dress number one has white roses

Dress number two has pink roses

Dress number one has this design on the bottom

Dress number two has this design on the bottom

This is the design on the top of dress number two

And finally, the design on the top of dress one

OK folks. Are you keeping up with me here? I spent over $40 for Belle dresses, when my original intention was to get a great bargain.

I am such an idiot. (See how my story just came full circle???)

PS I am wayy happy with dress number two, as it is PERFECT...but I am still an idiot.

Babies Grow Up Too Fast

2008-10-21T23:14:00.000-07:00

I just kicked thirteen people out of my house.

I take that back. Four of us are still here.

Whoa Nelly, am I exhausted!

We baked a cake.

We made tacos with all the fixin’s.

We sang Happy Birthday, she blew out the candles.

She opened her gifts.

And in less than an hour now, she will be five! My goodness how time flies. It feels like just the other day she was the new girl in the family, and nowadays, I have no idea where I would be without her!

Rissa, my sweet little hell raiser is five. She lives by her own set of rules, but makes up for it in love. The other day she told me, “My brain told me not to put powder* under my bed, and my brain told me not to roll toilet paper* down the stairs, and my brain told me not to paint my toy box with medicine*”

Ummm, really, or did I tell you that???

I swear I did, you know, tell you that in the span of the two days when you did all three of those things…

*Powder=Medicated powder
*Two Rolls
*Medicine=Wart remover

Anyways, I need to occupy my time so that at 1:58am on October 22nd I can go into her room and watch that little angel sleep (some of her sweetest moments, indeed) and give her a birthday kiss. She owns my heart.

As a side note: My parents got her this Gourmet Girl Cupcake maker and this is what she made with it:

Does anyone else see a turd?

As another side note: I have the best best friend EVER! We went to her house yesterday and she threw a little party for Riss, complete with cake, pizza, Tinkerbell decorations, and an activity.

Best Weekend Evahhh!

2008-10-16T20:29:00.000-07:00

I am not really sure how to put in to words how fabulous last weekend was, and I have no pictures to prove the weekend’s fabulosity, so I have hesitated writing about it.

It was pretty much exactly like I said it was going to be. I woke up Saturday morning and we went to my Mom’s house, where we waited for her to finish getting ready for about, oh, I don’t know, an hour?! Then we went to Merced, where we were the first ones to arrive at my Aunt M’s house. I got the kids all situated, got the car unpacked, and took off at 1pm for Sausalito. It took me 3 hours to get there and when I finally arrived I found the office was locked and both of the boats were gone. You would never believe how bad I had to go pee. I could barely walk it was so bad. Anywho, I found a bathroom and waited around for nearly an hour for my boat to get back to dock. I worked Saturday until 11, then hopped on to the other boat and helped them with their clean up for about an hour. Everyone on that boat was pretty much spent, but insisted we go out anyways.

Thaaattt was fun. Remind me to not try to keep up with the big boys next time. Shots of tequila are NEVER my best friend.

Sunday we got up and started setting up for a trip around the bay. The trip was to be simple, appetizers only, so we knew it was going to be an easy day. When the Blue Angels started flying out above the water we all headed up to the top deck, where no one else is allowed (it is super dangerous up there) and we got the best seats in the house for the show. At one point I was crouched down and I jumped up just in time for a plane to fly about 30 feet directly over my head. It was so ridiculously awesome. You have no idea. I squealed like a schoolgirl, I was so excited. I mean, seriously, it was directly over my HEAD! Ugh, the awesomeness is too much to explain. Sorry. [[edited to add photos found on the website of the boat's photographer from that day!]] In case you can't tell, all photos are courtesy of phatcatphoto.com

Anywayyyys, I finished up work and jumped off the boat before it was even tied up. I ran down the dock and jumped in my car, because I had more pressing things to deal with.

I WANTED TO SEE MAH FAMILEE!!

I got to Merced in 3 hours.

Flat.

My Mom said it was the best birthday ever, having all her sisters and her brother there. I agree. It was so cool. She said that when my Auntie’s got to the house she was just staring at my Aunt C, in complete and utter disbelief. Five of my cousins were MIA, but it was a pretty packed house, full of laughter, and excitement. I just wish I could have been there for the duration of the time, because, uh, yeah, I was only there for 15 hours, 7 of which I spent sleeping. So on the way home I asked my Mom if anyone took a picture of the six of them (her and her siblings) together. Guess what she said? Yeah, that is a giant NEGATIVE. That sucks. So I have taken the liberty to scan in to my computer, for your viewing pleasure, a picture taken 6 years ago, the most recent of all of them together.

If ears had corners: Out of the corner of my ear I heard my Aunt M tell her husband that it was very evident that my cousin Crystal and I are related by the way we communicate. I thought that was super cute! Truly though, you can tell that we are ALL related, because it was one big house of cozy crazy, just the way we are. Just the way we like it!!

I can’t wait till next time. Hopefully then the rest of my cousins will be able to make it, too!

P.S. On a completely unrelated note, have I mentioned that my kids have been off-track from school for almost two weeks now and they are driving me absolutely batty? Two more weeks to go. I can do it. I know my head is not really going to explode (or implode!!!).

P.S.S. On another completely unrelated note, I got 100% on my first Mid-Term in Business Law. Basically, I rock.

Spoiler For My Mom, So She Bettter Not Be Reading This!

2008-10-10T12:59:00.000-07:00

Did I mention that my blogaversary came and went on October 5th? No? That is because I suck. And I am busy lately. So anyways, happy blogaversary to me. Yay.

Speaking of overwhelmingly busy...

The prospect of this weekend is making me tired.

Today I am cleaning house and packing bags. Next week is my Mom's 55th birthday and we are going to Merced for a get together with family tomorrow. My Mom is the oldest of six children in her family. She has one brother and four sisters. Guess what? (This is the part where I seriously hope that my Mom does not read my blog...) All six of them are going to be in Merced. SURPRISE Mom, if you are reading this...

Two of her siblings actually live in Merced, so obviously they are not a surprise. She knows that one of my aunts is making the drive from San Diego, but she is completely unaware that not only is her other sister from San Diego coming, but so is her sister from Florida!!!!! She is going to be soooo freakishly excited. The last time all six of them were together was at my Grama's funeral six years ago.

So here is my weekend, in a nutshell:

Saturday early morning I go to pick up my mom and we drive the hour and a half to Merced. I get to spend a whopping four hours at my Aunt's house, then I have to leave for work. I will drive the two and a half hours to Sausalito, work for six hours, stay the night there, wake up and work until 5:30pm, drive the two and a half hour drive BACK to Merced hang out with the family until Monday morning, then drive the hour and a half drive home to Sacramento. I am exhausted just thinking about all that driving. Seriously.

What have I got myself into???

I know it is all going to be worth it just to see the look on my Mom's face when she realizes that all her sisters and her brother are going to be there...I just wish that I was not working for most of the weekend. (Calling in sick is NOT an option...)

On a completely unrelated note, I waited 17 years to go to a New Kids On The Block concert, since I was grounded for their tour through Sacramento way back then. I did not go to the concert last night. Sad face. I am just fine pretending like that did NOT happen. Let's all put on our big girl faces and pretend like they aren't on tour...yeah, yeah...good idea!

This Could Have Been Great

2008-10-03T08:44:00.000-07:00

Wednesday morning I kept the kids home from school with the very best of intentions. No, they were not sick. So maybe it was almost the best of intentions. Whatev.

I had a work meeting in Sausalito at 2pm, so I decided to make a day of the whole event, since I was taking the kids with me. We piled into the car at 8:15 am and headed out to San Francisco. The kids were going to experience more than they could have if I had taken them to school. On this day they were going to get a hands on education, for we were going to the Exploratorium.

I printed out directions to the Exploraorium on Tuesday night. I shoved them in my purse and on the drive there, I followed them. Almost to a "T". Then I missed a turn, which happened to be the turn on to the last street before the Exploratorium. So I am driving on Lombard and I decide that I MUST turn around. However, by the time I have passed the street I need to be on I am almost at the Golden Gate bridge and I am totally on a highway. So I take the last exit before the bridge, which seems OK, except it is NOT.

Before long I am at Ocean Beach on Great Highway.

Completely lost.

So I pull over at the San Francisco Zoo, I call my mother. By this time I had already been driving around completely lost for over 30 minutes. Anyways, my mom gives me directions on how to get to the Exploratorium from where I am at.

She says: Follow Great Highway and it wil turn into Geary. Turn left on Divisidero, turn left on Mason, blah, blah, blah.

I follow her directions. I am completely frustrated by the time I get all the way across town and realize that not only can I NOT turn left at Divisidero, but I can not turn left at ANY street after it, either. Finally, I find a way to get back to Divisidero. The next direction was to turn left on Mason Street. Um...hello. There was no Mother Effing Mason Street. Oh wait. Did I mention that I had started SCREAMING at the streets when I realized that I was never going to be able to turn left? Yeah. Mature, I know. So the kids are sitting in the back of the car. Rissa has her ears plugged and Cal is crying. I am pretty much the Best. Mom. Ever. They were totally frightened. It was so sad.

Anywho, I was able to finally find my way to the Exploratorium, even without Mason Street.

Yippee!!!

Wanna know our time of arrival?

12:00 noon.

Did you happen to catch what time we left our house? Yeah. 8:15am

So for nearly 4 hours my kids sat in the car. You can imagine all the energy they had when we got there, no?

Divide and conquer are the names I like to call them. Oy Vey.

They ended up having a lot of fun in a minimal amount of time. We were only able to be there for one hour, since I had to leave for my work meeting at 1pm (it was only 15 minutes away, but the kids needed to be fed...). I promised them I would bring them back next month, since they totally got cheated this time.

Seriously. Who drives for 4 hours to go someplace and hang out for 1 hour??? Who does that?

Oh yeah. Me.

Here are some pictures for you to go look at while I am off polishing my Mother Of The Year trophy.

In a wind tunnel

Sand blackboard

Marilyn Einstein
*looks like Marilyn Monroe from a distance and Albert Einstein up close.

Mood lighting The ball changed colors

Playing nice nice together

Use IT

It was the kids first time on the Golden Gate bridge. They loved it.

In case you were wondering, the work meeting sucked. There is loads of work drama going on. My loyalties lie with the one who no longer works there, I am working out my scheduled days, and I may not have a job for very much longer. Yeehaw.