Life

You should all click on this to look at it large. It's beautiful. I adore it. It's so deep and yet so simple.


Just like life.


Thanks to SS for bringing this piece of art into my life. I'm not sure who the artist is, but here's the source.

HOLY CRAP

Unreal - check out what my ol'  high school pal, Connor, is up to these days!

 

Apparently, he's made it to the big time!

 

And to think, it all started off with Chester was Six Women.

 

Start saving bail money

It's entirely possibly that I might have to kill my 70 year old, three toothed, illiterate, male chauvinist pig neighbor.

 

Just saying.

Vox Magazine - Belly dancing for the prenatal soul

Vox Magazine - Belly dancing for the prenatal soul

Check out my girl, DDFF!!!!

And, if you look closely enough, you might see Mamakohl in there, too. Hint: watch the slideshow!

Hmmmmm, worth it?

I have the chance to rendezvous with my trailer park love slave in May.

Yes, friends and neighbors, Mr. Ritchie is playing in Indianapolis, a mere 6 hour drive. Concert starts at 3:30 pm and get this - tickets are only $10!!! Yes of course, it's general seating and I'd be surrounded by oodles and oodles of scuzzy race car freaks, but sweet holy moses, surely, surely, he would sense his devoted from way up in the nose bleed section....

Good lord and butter, this is worth some thought...

Happy Birthday, Stealth

I cannot believe it. I just cannot believe it. My sweet angel baby is 5 today!!!
I love you, Stealth. I love every freaky little thing about you, Buddy. Thanks for making my life one adventure after another.

The video that didn't post below??

Family fun in the backyard

Yesterday was sooooo beautiful, I couldn't resist taking some photos and video as we played after dinner.

They call me Masochist Marge

Or they ought to.

DDFF hurt me last night. 

OH MY MARGARINE, she hurt me. 

 

And I loved it. 

And I want her to do it again. 

Today.

Twice.

 

I gotta say, I've always been a yoga girl.  A little (okay, very little) Pilates here and there thrown in for good measure, but mostly for me, it's been yoga = yummy.  I can bend and fold and stretch with the best of them and can put myself into all sorts of strange contorted positions and my body reflects it and I say, "Thank you, body, for responding well."  I feel graceful and elegant and feminine and light when I do yoga ... not so much with the Pilates and Bellydance.

 

Nope, no gazelle like action for me last night.  To be frank, I felt a little like Olive from Little Miss Sunshine (if you haven't seen it, for the love of all things chocolate, go right now and watch it already.)  You know, sort of out of place, not exactly the ripest banana in the bunch, but having fun, doing my best, and shaking my groove thang as much as possible.  Maude, let me tell you, I moved parts of my body that hadn't moved on purpose in years.  I used muscles that I forgot I had and, believe me, I can tell this morning.  YEOWCH!

 

But I loved it.  I loved every sweaty, stretchy, pulsating, quivering, shaking, swearing under my breath, vowing to punch DDFF in the nose at the next chance I got, promising myself that I *will* bitch slap my upper abs into shape second of both classes.  Yep.  And I'm going back for more next Wednesday.

 

Unless she wants to hurt me again before that.

The would be Spider and the young, English Fly

So, a friend of mine is in London at the moment and this morning, I hopped onto my mom's list to find a message that she had seen Harry Potter naked last night. Yes, indeed, she saw Equus. Which means she saw Daniel Radcliffe naked. A lot. Lots of naked Daniel Radcliffe. YOWZA.

It's true that I'm a 31 year old woman and Daniel Radcliffe is decidedly not 31. It's also true that I have found myself thinking lovingly of Anne Bancroft and understanding her plight in this cold, cold world. I have often thought of what would happen if that young little fly managed to get caught in my old lady spider web and all I can say is that I would ruin him.

Off to go scrub my mind's eye with bleach now and then play endless hours of Candyland so I can once again feel like a good mother ...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

DDFF, my queen, you are one superfly, hard core, rock 'n roll diva and I love you more than Split Lip and Sake! Shake your groove thang, Mama, 'cause you certainly deserve a celebration!

The power of Gospel music

Can make you dance like a Solid Gold dancer in a mini-van -- so long as it's Elvis singing said Gospel. In fact, it can make a non-Christian like me feel the spirit so much that she will home and use photoshop to edit a photo of her husband to look like he, too, is a Solid Gold Dancer.

Duck's makeover

 

 

 

My birthday is Sunday and make no mistake ---

I want presents.

 

I am what you might call a birthday whore.  Yes, I am and I'm not afraid to admit it.  I love birthdays, I love presents, and I love having a whole day all about me.  Selfish?  Childish?  Maybe.  I don't care.

 

See, growing up, birthdays were really no big deal.  There weren't parties or balloons or any of that.  Sure, there was a gift and we got to choose what kind of cake we wanted and what we'd have for dinner, but that was pretty much it.  I remember that, as a child, I only had 1 birthday party.  When I was 11.  And the party was my gift.  This is all fine and well and good - my parents did a wonderful job (hell, we're all still alive and there are days when that is my only goal as a mother, so I say my parents succeeded,) but needless to say, I always felt there was something missing from the birthday celebration.

 

As I got older, my friends started throwing me birthday parties, starting the year I turned 18 and did the Angel dance from Anything Goes in Daisy Dukes and platforms on the roof of my pal Joe's house and managed to somehow fall off the roof and still not quite spill my beer.  Or lose the thing I was smoking.  Whatever.  There were poker birthday parties, parties with 40s of Old E malt liquor and Pop Tarts, parties that spanned two groups of friends, 3 bars, and me deciding that I should probably just lay down and die rather than go to the concert that my boyfriend at the time spent tons of money for tickets on.  (I'm quite certain that was no where near grammatically correct.  Sue me.)

 

Then I became a mother and parties became more intimate and private affairs with my husband and my children and a few close friends.  But, still, there was celebration.  Cake.  Diamonds.  Friends.  Sushi.  Wine.  Gems.  Stones.  Massages.  You get the idea.

 

Last year was a biggie - the big 3-0.  Large 3 day celebration.  Perfect, ideal in every way.  This year?  Well, I have a stupid wedding to go to on Saturday (why oh why don't people realize that I want a full 3 day celebration for my birthday and they are just being so selfish to make plans during said time!?!?!?)  Sunday, just me and B with no kids.  Good enough.  And the annual Sushi-fest that DDFF and I enjoy every year (her bday is the 17th!)   Regardless, it'll be a good time.

 

Know how I know? 

Because I don't give anyone an excuse to forget.

 

I start campaigning for my birthday in late March.  Starting about 3 weeks before, I start making birthday countdown announcements.  I publish blog posts, leave messages, general PSAs.  I get the word out.  I do that because it's important to me.  I would be *crushed* if my birthday was just "any other day."  But I cannot expect to get what I expect unless I tell folks that I expect it, right?

So, Sunday is the big ol' celebration for me.  I wanna sleep in late, eat breakfast in bed (including a cured pork product of the organic ham, bacon, or sausage variety,) read the Sunday paper and drink coffee.  I want jewelry and tofu salad.  I want pictures and cake and phone calls from friends.  I want it all.  Yep.  ALL. 

 

Because

 

MY BIRTHDAY IS SUNDAY!!! 

 

I'm just saying ....

This woman is my hero - forever

She gave birth to sextuplets and she breastfed them all for 6 months!! Give this woman a medal and a lifetime supply of whatever the hell she wants!! HOW FANTASTIC IS THAT????? I'm all giddy just thinking about it!

When asked how she did it, she said, laughingly, "Complaining all day!" But then she got serious and said, "Well I used to nurse them all and then one day one of them bit me!! So I said, 'No, uh uh, No more,' and so then I pumped. I was brought up to believe that God will provide and he did." She was pumping 50 - 60 bottles a day!!!!

I am so so so so thrilled that this was on Oprah! I'm so thrilled that millions of people are going to see that it is possible!

She is my hero!

Well, he rose from the dead, but he sure ain't Jesus -- UPDATED

So I have a page on a popular social / networking website. It's small and private and nothing personal really and I use it mostly as a way to stay in contact with some of my friends who live in other countries. I don't check it very often, it's not an obsession for me as it is for some people, but none the less, I have this page. And yesterday, Easter morning, I decided to check it.

And found that I have a new friend request.

From someone I didn't recognize right away.

So I looked at the profile.

Scrolled down.

And crapped myself.

It was my ex-husband!

I haven't had any contact with him or any member of his family in 7 years. At. All. Period.

So, now the can of worms is just sorta sitting out there.

It's kind of amazing - you roll the stone away and are amazed at what comes out from under the rock.

UPDATE

I cannot believe how many of you care about this .... but here's the scoop.

I sent him a message. He sent me a message. I sent him a message. He sent me a message. I added him to my friend's list. I'm giving it 2 weeks. If it doesn't get all freaky in 2 weeks, well, then YAY for reconnecting with folks from my past (I have absolutely NO ill will towards him - I hope he's happy and successful.) If it gets freaky, I can simply delete him from my list. But I gotta admit, I broke down in tears when I saw he's still in contact with the few things that I bitterly lost custody of in the divorce - he's still in touch with M, R, and J. Those guys were my brothers and it was as hard for me to leave them as it was for me to leave my ex.

We'll see.

Oh. And FWIW, MySpace is like Crack.

I dropped my pants and squealed with delight

as I peed in the upstairs bathroom toilet yesterday!

 

No, the bathroom isn't *anywhere* near being done, but the drywall is up and thus, B hooked the toilet back up for a few days (weeks??  ugh) until we have to remove it again for the concrete board and the tile.

 

And yeah, I know you all are sick to death of hearing about this stupid bathroom.  Well, friends, all I can tell you is that if I have to suffer through it, so do you!

 

Now, go piss in your bathroom and be grateful.

Oh you just gotta be freaking kidding me

this morning, Bis leaving for work and screams into the house from the garage, "There's water coming from the bottom of the deep freezer!!!"

We have a huge, HUGE (like hide multiple bodies huge) 30+ year old chest deep freeze.  Sure enough, water trickling out in a stream from the bottom.

Turns out, the deep freeze outlet is governed by the same fuse as the bathroom which is on the other end of the house entirely and on a completely different plane.  So, we have the power turned off in the bathroom so B can do all those important things like, oh I dunno, run electricity into the bathroom and it's thawing our deep freeze!!!!

We'll be okay - we only eat chicken and fish and it's in our kitchen freezer, so we didn't lose any meat or anything and the veggies are still partially frozen, so we can save them, but sweet mother on toast, this is just getting to be like some sort of dark comedy.

 

Calgon, can I borrow your bathtub so you can take me away???

Awwwwwwwwwww!!

Auntie Mamakohl took Duck and Stealth to see their new baby cousin B today. I'm glad I couldn't stay long - I might have stuffed that baby into my pants and taken off! What a love bug he is!

Welcome to the world, Hoss. Hold on tight.

Monkey Business

Remodeling is not for pussies and other things I've learned out on the road ...

So I haven't been around for ages and ages. I know. Life happens and sometimes it happens with a sledge hammer and a divorce attorney and 103.8 fevers. I'm going to try to give a rough explanation of the last few weeks here, mostly for posterity's sake and to have a written record of it if ever I, indeed, fall head first into a bottle of something and cannot make my way out to tell the story. Sound drastic? Read on - believe me, you'll be sending me care packages of Shiner Bock and Jim Beam before you get anywhere close to the end.

Sweet Elvis, where do I even start?

{{{{{{{Editing this part out now even though I said I didn't care - turns out, I do care about hurting her feelings and broadcasting her business. Let's just say here that my Mom is going through some shit and those of us who love her are hurting along with her, too, and it has really set my emotions into a whirling dervish of instability.}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

Friday night rolls around (over a week ago) and the kids got shipped off to the in-laws so I could help B prepare for the bathroom remodel, which was to start the following day. We had a great time, but woke up early the next morning to the news that Duck was very ill and puking. WTH?? Good lord -we were supposed to go to JPs for the weekend so that B and the other JP could rip out the bathroom walls and replace our old pipes with new copper ones. What to do? I was also supposed to help Mom move! Sweet crackers. So I got dressed, called JP and we agreed that, since the kids had played together all week, the germs had been spread and we should just go on with our plan.

I pick up the boys, and drive to JPs. Within an hour, all the kids start dropping like flies - fevers, crying, nausea. How awesome is that? So JP and I got into our Little House on the Prairie mode and spent the next 36 hrs tending to 5, count 'em FIVE, sick children. Is it drink time yet?

I drove my sick and tired children home Sunday night to find that the house is STILL a disaster, no running water, one of the guys helping B and JP got metal shavings in his eyes and had to go to the ER, my husband had smoked 3 cigarettes during this time although he was supposed to have quit. DAMMIT!!! Got the kids to bed, hung out with the guys and then passed out cold. I awoke at 3 am just in enough time to yell at B, "Is the water back on yet? Can I flush?" and then ran to the bathroom and puked and had "The Bad Poopies" (Thanks J.M. Bill, for that term,) at the exact same time. Looked down and saw that my period had arrived early and with force! HALLELUJAH - it just gets better. feh!

Next morning, B tells me that the water is on, but there is no shower in the bathroom upstairs and the sink is in the bedroom and the toilet flushes sometimes. The bathroom downstairs works, but there are no lights because he had to rip out the ceiling and the kids are scared of that bathroom. The shower down there DOES work but there is only scalding hot water. The dishwasher is loaded with dirty stuff, but we're not sure if the pipes are hooked up correctly, so don't use it and all the dishes are covered in insulation. YUM!

Meanwhile ...

At this point, I'm still sick. The kids are still sick. There is no food. The bills have been forgotten and they're all late. So, I lay around a full day and then on Tuesday, I go and pay all the bills. By now, Stealth's fever won't leave and he's coughing like nothing I've ever heard.

Wednesday - I don't even remember Wednesday other than I was supposed to make it to DDFF's class and I really needed it, but I got stuck with sick kids and the decision to rip out more of the walls. By the end of the day, the fact that I had had several beers was the only thing keeping me from getting in the car and driving far far away forever.

Thursday - realize that all the bills are paid, but we still have no food. Realize that I have a Target Card. Shop at Target and hide out in the automotive department while I have a mental and emotional breakdown and cry my eyes out. Make due with food from the Target Pantry until I can get cash out of savings for proper shopping. My SIL enters the hospital to have her son who is taking his own sweet time

Friday - Stealth is still not better. The walls are out of the bathroom everything is down to the studs. Take Stealth to the doc - BRONCHITIS!! Yay!! SIL has baby boy -we're too sick to go see him. Dammit. Realize that the main drain from the sink is clogged beyond repair and totally needs to be replaced - involving the removal of some wall studs. Lovely.

Saturday - realize that we have 2 sub floors. The top sub floor is rotted. Pull up top sub floor to realize that the bottom sub floor is also rotted in areas. Toilet comes out. Relegated to the basement toilet (see above for fears of said bathroom.)

Sunday - grocery shopping, endless hours at the computer doing the stupid ass defensive driving class, hearing B rip out the bathroom sub floors. Go to bed with stomach cramps -wake up with extreme pain and run downstairs in the dark, trip on a zillion toys, make it to the bathroom and fumble through the dark and attempt to avoid the nails on the floor and make it to the toilet in enough time to have serious gastrointestinal distress. For an hour. Get back upstairs to bed only to wake an hour later and repeat. Eventually, I just slept on the concrete floor in the basement.

Today, I finish the stupid course, attempt to take a shower in the horrifying downstairs, pack off the kids to the inlaws so we can continue to destroy our bathroom and hopefully not plummet to through the floor into the other horrible bathroom. At some point, I'd like to hang out with my husband. Well, maybe. Remember that Stopping Smoking thing? I guess it's still on 'cause he's being a total ass.

Oh and, to make matters worse, I found this photo this weekend and realized how fucking cruel and unusual gravity and age are. That's me at my High School Graduation with my father in 1994. Ah. Yep, I'll never get that look back. FUCK.

So, to recap -

The 10 day bathroom project is going to take about a month.

We may or may not have water at any time during this month -and frankly, even having walls and floors is questionable.

I have dealt with more poop and puke and fevers in the last 15 days to never ever want to enter a bathroom ever again.

My Mom has moved and B has lost his fishing hole, which makes him even less pleasant than he is now (why he married a woman and not a Bass is anyone's guess.)

My bathroom does not exist. What does exist is 50 year old pipes, 50 year old wall studs, and a rotten floor.

I'm turning 31 in a couple of weeks and have come to realize that I'm old and washed up and will never ever be that sexy 18 year old again - nope, Gravity and Age can suck my dick.

I STILL HAVEN'T MET MY NEW NEPHEW!!!!

Remodeling will kill an otherwise healthy relationship.

Kids are resilient - 30 year old hormonal women with diarrhea are not.

I still want to drive far far away forever and ever.

Blaring Kid Rock from your computer speakers will eventually blow one of them out, no matter if you have your own separate sub woofer.

Remodeling is not for pussies.

Is it happy hour yet?

I swear, it's coming

I've been trying to write the big post of what the hell is going on but my freaking life won't stop long enough for me to write a whole post.  Wait for it -it's coming.

Eventually.