New Coat of Clean

Don't know what got into me today but my house didn't stand a chance against me today. If there are any germs left in this house then we are all bound to croak over because it would have to be stronger than my bottle of Clorox Cleaner with Bleach. I scrubbed my kitchen and bathroom cabinets today like they have never been scrubbed before. I vacuumed up all the dust bunnies that I could feel plotting to take over my house and mopped up all the drops of Popsicle and milk that I've ignored for a week now. I didn't get to clean everything that I wanted to clean so tomorrow I'm going to dust all the furniture and wipe down all the baseboards. Once I've done that I'll be good for another month or so.

Last week was just so blah that I let everything go. I do mean everything. About the only thing that got cleaned last week were the toilets. I think I only managed to jump in the shower about three times and I'm pretty sure I'm being a little generous with that number. Do you think I shaved my legs during those three (or two) showers? Nope. I didn't feel like doing anything. My little pity party I was throwing myself was a real bitch and today I paid for it.

After sweating my ass off mopping all these floors, I couldn't put it off, I had to have a shower. Since I was in the cleaning mood I decided to throw caution to the wind finally shave my legs. I swear I must have shaved off a pound of hair. I was standing there and the muscles in my legs were starting to hurt, that's how freaking long it took me. I had to shave slow and go over each spot at least three times to make sure I got it all. How sad is that?! It's a good thing I decided to do it while standing up in the shower because if I were sitting down taking a bath I would have had to scrub my tub all over again, probably with a scouring pad. I'm pretty sure by the time I finished and let the water out, my tub would look like it was wearing a furry mink stole. TMI? Probably so. Sorry. But you know you've been there ladies with that nasty ass leg hair ring around your tub, so don't judge me!

Anyway, my house looks and smells better, my legs feel softer and look more like they belong to a girl and not Sasquatch, and the children have been wonderful today.

I'm still fat (that's another post) but life's good! It makes me happy to have a clean house!

I'm so easy to please, just don't ask my husband if he believes that.

Luck Be A Bargain Shopper

It's official, the baby is no longer sleeping in a baby bed. We made the switch and took the front panel off of his baby bed Saturday afternoon. It looks a little weird to me now but I'm getting use to it more and more. It was a little sad to have to put up the Winnie the Pooh bumper pad and mobile that had been hanging in there for well over two years now because we set the bed up a couple of months before he was even born. My baby is officially growing into a big boy.

Since his room is yellow and all decked out in Spongebob I HAD to have a Spongebob bedding set. Mothers will understand this, my husband, not so much. He had to be coaxed into the idea of spending Sunday afternoon shopping all over the place for a toddler bed set. He relented, because he loves me, or maybe because he didn't want to listen to me whine about it for hours on end. I'll take either one. Anyway, do you have any idea how freaking hard it is to find a Spongebob bedding set? I'll tell you. It's next to impossible. We searched and searched and I finally had him talked into buying two yards of Spongebob material so I could just make him a top sheet. How hard could that be, right?

Defeated, I told him we should at least check Kmart. We hardly ever go in there because they hardly ever have any good deals in there and frankly Wal-Mart trumps them on selection any day of the week. We go in and start looking and lo and behold there it is. Packaged neatly in a little roll, a four piece toddler bed set in none other than Spongebob himself. Woo-freaking-hoo!!

The rain on my parade though was that it was $35. Not that that is a horrible price (if you consider buying each piece individually) but hubby said we could get it under the conditions that I had to do some online shopping around first to see if that was indeed a good price or not. I agreed. We walk around looking at some other stuff and it's finally time to check out. I see the checker dude scan the bed set and then bag it. He scans something else but then goes back to the bed set. He scans it again, gets some goofy look on his face, shrugs his shoulders and then puts it back in the bag. Weird, right? Not so bad for me though in the end!

Well, we finish the transaction and I ask hubby to see the receipt and he said hang on he had to look first. He looks up and says, "Do you KNOW how much we paid for that bed set?". I'm thinking, "great, now I'll have to hear it from him how much we paid for something and blah blah blah". Well it turns out we got a spectacular deal on that little bed set. Wanna know how spectacular? We paid $2.09 for the whole thing. Yep, that is two dollars and nine cents.

Holy freaking cow! I was so excited I had to call my daddy and yell (yes, yell, not tell) it to him. I'm guessing it was a close out or something because that was the only one back there but I tell you one thing, for $2.09 I would have bought every one they had on the shelf.

I couldn't believe we had spent the past four or so hours scouring the mall and toy store and wal-mart and came up with nothing from all of them except for a $7.92 piece of material that I was going to have to sew into a sheet on my own. (Which I did yesterday and it was too cute!)

Now I'm on the hunt for a Spongebob body pillow to lay across his bed during the day and on the floor during the night. I saw an Elmo one at Kmart and it was adorable. It was long and red and plush and on one side was Elmo's eyes, nose and mouth. If I can't find a Spongebob one I'd settle for Elmo.

The other thing I found yesterday when I got out again was an Oscar the Grouch t-shirt that I had been searching for for months. I couldn't believe I hit two lucky buys in two days. I wanted a sweatshirt this past winter that was just green with Oscar's face on it but it was nowhere to be found. Since I've found the t-shirt now, I'm just hoping I find a sweatshirt for this winter. We aren't big Sesame Street nuts around here but A1 loved Elmo when he was little and A2 likes him a little so we have a some Elmo stuff, but anyway, I use to call my Daddy "Oscar" [the Grouch] whenever he would get cranky and it's more or less a little inside joke for us. I sent him a picture of A2 in his new shirt but I can't wait for him to see it in person. I'll show it to you since you've seen him already anyway.

I'm happy to report I (obviously) found my camera the other day so I can now post pictures from vacation that I wanted to share. I wanted to do it in a cool little layout way but since I can't figure out how to do it and make it look right I'm just going to put them all at the bottom of this post. One is the condo we stayed at, one is the bed I loved (or maybe it was the down comforter that I really loved that was on it) and one is of A2's "new" bed.






Oh, and that rabbit you see there on the bed...it's mine and I have to sleep with him every night. It bugs the piss out of my husband! Every chance he gets he throws him in the floor. He now has A2 doing it. A1 got me that rabbit one year for Easter and every since then I have a hard time sleeping without him. Is there a name for that?

The Great Escape

My child (A2) has officially outgrown his crib. I said before that he's been sleeping with me and his daddy for some time now because A) I'm too lazy to get up and schlep him all the way across the house after he falls asleep and B) His daddy is a freak and still after almost two years, will get up in the middle of the night to go stick his finger under the baby's nose to see if he's breathing. I tried to tell him that if he listens he can hear that child breathing over the baby monitor. We've got one of those digital ones that pick up EVERYTHING. I can hear that baby farting at night over that monitor. But he still insists on getting up.

Anyway, last night he fell asleep early and then woke up ready to raise Cain sometime along midnight. My husband was moaning and groaning so I decided to just get up with A2 and try to rock him back to sleep. Didn't work. We sat in his room for about an hour and then he finally got up and went to the little couch in his room and fell asleep on it. Had I known what was about to transpire I would have just left him on it to sleep and taken a chance on him rolling off. But I didn't leave him. Like a good mommy, I tried to gently pick him up and move him over to his crib. That went over like a friggin ton of bricks. He, of course, woke up and started screaming bloody murder.

At this point it's close to 2 in the morning and my eyelids are sagging down to my knees so I kissed him on the head, told him goodnight and shut the door to let him cry it out. I went back to my bedroom and as I go to lay on the bed I hear a door slam across the house. It was A1. He's awake now. Hubby hears it and he's awake again. I told him to just go back to sleep that A2 is just going to have to cry it out. I lay there for less than 10 minutes listening to the baby cry and fighting back the urge to just go get him. But them something strange happens, it sounds like he's getting louder and louder and then I hear him walking towards my room yelling, mama, mama, mama, mama, mama, mama, mama! What the hell!?!

I sling the covers off me and I'm ready to choke A1 out. I just knew he had opened the door and set that baby free. I picked up A2, dumped him on the bed with his daddy, because what the hell, he's already wide awake. I stomp halfway back to his room but he meets me asking me what the crap is going on. I asked him if he let the baby out and he said no way and starts freaking out because he's now convinced there's somebody in the house that did it. I told him that the baby did it on his own and to just try to go to sleep now.

I go back to my room to find the baby snuggled up next to his daddy quiet as a little church mouse grinning from ear to ear. I was defeated so I just crawled back into bed, rolled over and stuck my earbuds in my ears. I was done for the night.

I guess I know what hubby and I are going to be doing this weekend.......turning the crib into a toddler bed. Might as well eliminate the element of him falling out on his head from over the rail. It's hilarious to me that he got out like he did but at the same time it's a little sad. My baby is growing up.

I would have given anything to see how he got out though. Apparently he didn't have trouble with getting out of the bed, it was the door he was struggling with because A1 said he kept hearing the door jiggle and THAT was the part that was getting on his nerves.

Moving along -

My next order of business today. An open letter to HBO.

Dear HBO,

Can you PLEASE stop running freaking Star Wars on every channel you have and at all hours of the day?! I beg of you to take it out of rotation because EVERY SINGLE TIME my husband sits down with the remote control and he sees it on, he turns it to your stupid channel and watches it as if he's never seen it before in his life. I now HATE Star Wars Episodes 1-100, or however freaking many there are now, with every fiber of my being. I would rather listen to a tape recording of my own mother, on a continuous loop, until my eardrums bleed than to watch one more second of those damn movies. (Seriously, she called me the other day out of the blue and left a message and it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up just to hear her voice. ***shuddering violently***) So people at HBO could you please spare my eardrums and possibly the side of my husbands skull and do this one little thing for me. Thanks.

There, I'm done for today. Actually, I'm going to go look for my camera. Again. Man, it's hard to reach this level of boring everyday, but I somehow manage without a problem.

Happy Friday!

Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama

Dear Lawwd Make It Stop!

For the past two days my children have done nothing but call my name continuously. I can't step out of their line of eyesight for 2.2 seconds before they freak the hell out and start looking for me. It's driving me batshit caarrraaazzzeee! I'm contemplating locking myself in a closet in the basement with the computer and a Dr. Pepper for about half an hour just to see how they would react. Scratch that, those two would end up with hives or start to hyperventilate or something worse if they couldn't find me for that long. At least that's how they act. I know their freaking throats would be sore because they literally shout out my name in a string of 7 (seven) Mama's at a time when they are looking for me.....or want to ask me a question......or when I'm on the phone.....or the toilet. Pretty much all the time!

High stress around here you ask? Why no child, not.at.all.

I spent Monday making my house livable again from the weekend/week/weekend away. I got all the suitcases emptied and put away. I still haven't done laundry because I HATE doing laundry. Tuesday the two little boys from next door came banging on the door to see if A1 and A2 wanted to come out and play. Since I didn't know them that well I spent most of the day (they were here for like 4+ hours) watching over them and watching how they all interact. I cooked pizza for all of them and A2 was so cute. He had to sit in a big chair at the table with a plate of pizza and a Kool-Aid pouch just like the big boys.

I was so happy that they all played together well. They didn't go near the pool or the dogs and didn't act like lunatics when they came in the house to play. I'm happy to say these kids could come over and play anytime and the next time I won't have to hover so much. Seriously, four boys were in my house playing at once and I'm actually inviting that scenario to take place again. (Did someone slip crack into my Dr. Pepper? Could you? Just kidding. A little. Ok, more than a little. Gaawwd.)

Since they stayed so long I didn't really get to do much around here that day, but I'm not complaining about that at all! Tuesday night we all got in the pool and played around. Hubby was laying on the charm extra thick.

Wednesday the boys and I got in the pool and then they played in the sandbox. I had to go in after a little while, my head felt like somebody had judo chopped me in the back of the neck for the second day in a row. A1 was sooo sweet because he told me I could go lay down and he would take care of the baby. He offered to bring me some medicine or to make me soup. Could this kid be any cooler? Why can't I just freeze him when he's in that sort of mood rather than the snotty one's he cycles through?

The husband came home and stained our front door this week and painted the culverts in the front yard. He's trying hard to make me happy. It's working........a little.

Get this, you'll NEVER guess who hasn't made the time or effort to get off their lazy ass and workout even one time this week. Oh, wait, you know it's me because I'm so predictable like that. I think it's more about feeling blah this week than it is feeling lazy that's kept me from working out.

My feelings were hurt bad (by the husband) over the weekend and it put that twinge of doubt back in my brain that hadn't been there in a [long] while. On the one hand it motivated me to want to look and feel and did I say, LOOK better but on the other hand it has zapped my "give a damn". I still jumped on the scale last night (150) and again this morning (149) and I don't know what I was expecting it to say but I just know I didn't like what it did say. Shocker there, huh? I should be downstairs right now working out, Spongebob is on for an hour and that will/should pacify the boys but I choose to sit here on my tuckus whining about my weight and, I'm guessing, about my hurt ego too.

Ego is a funny thing. We all need an ego fix from time to time I guess but it's how we choose to get it that can cause a ripple effect if we aren't careful. For instance, if I need an ego fix I usually go into my closet and start trying on pants. Sure about half almost all of them don't fit or if they do "fit" and I dare try to wear them out of the house I'd get picked up for solicitation. But there are those times where I pick up that one pair that I'm convinced they wouldn't button and they slide on, up, and together with minimal effort. THAT'S an ego fix. To me.

I guess for others it's having someone think they are something special and telling them all the time or keeping extra relationships on the side, regardless of how mundane or unremarkable, just to prove to yourself you can still do it. Do you ever grow out of needing an ego fix? I surely hope so. I know my hubby isn't going to be happy if/when he reads this post because if you haven't figured it out by now, this whole ego thing is geared towards him. I basically had my ego smashed because he needed a "little" ego boost. Yeah, he's sorry and he's said it over and over again but I wonder if he really understands the ramifications?

So I'm done with my pity party. I'll try not to mention it again. I just needed to purge it all out. I'm about 1,000% positive all this bullshit that's been running through my head since Friday afternoon is what's caused me to feel so blah and to have massive headaches all week. But I'm a big girl now. I can shake it off and move on. Just make sure you aren't near when I decide to shake......it could knock you down I'm sure.

On to lighter and brighter things. The sunflowers A2 and I planted have finally started to bloom. Well, two of them anyway. Hubby says they are miniature sunflowers but they seem pretty freaking large to me. They are almost five feet tall! I'm so excited they are blooming. I've never planted anything like that before and have it actually live. Next year I'll have to spread them out a little bit. Once more of them open up I'll post a picture.

Speaking of posting a picture. I had the best intentions of posting a picture of our bed from vacation because it was sooo cushy and I loved it but I haven't been able to find my camera since I've been home. I know it made it home from Florida because A1 and I were looking at the pictures and a video I had taken on it on the way home last Friday. But from that point I have no clue where it got off to. If I know me, I put it somewhere where I would be able to find it once we got home and it would be safe but I'm pretty sure I've had a synaptic misfire and can't remember where that "safe place" would be right now. Hopefully my brain will start functioning normally by tomorrow and my kids will forget my name long enough for me to have a complete thought so I can find it and post some vacation pictures.

I'm out of here for now. I'm on another Limewire kick. Searching for some Keith Urban right now. I don't like men with long hair but this one would definitely not get kicked out of the bed for eating crackers, long hair and all.

Home Again, Home Again

Man it feels good to be sitting here in my own house with the computer in my lap and the boys right here up under me. Actually only A2 is up under me right now, it's way too early for A1 to be up out of bed. It's only friggin' 11! I slept so good last night in my own bed, that's even with A2's feet jammed into the side of my neck and face.

A2 and I came home from my parents house yesterday at around noon and he was so happy to be home too. We were a little upset though when we got here because we couldn't find the cat. We searched and searched for her but she was nowhere to be found. Thankfully A1 called us on the way home from church and said they had let her out earlier. A2 was too cute walking through the house calling for the "ditty dat" though.

I was pleasantly surprised to come home to a nice mowed lawn and a freshly painted pole on the front porch. We have one that has been peeling for a while now and hubby finally painted it. Best of all was that the living room looked spotless. A1 spent Saturday while I was gone cleaning up for me. Am I lucky or what?! He straightened up the kitchen as best as he could and even cleaned the windows in the kitchen and living room. That's major! We have a lot of windows in those two rooms, especially the living room. They go all the way down to the floor.

Since I was mad at the husband all weekend A1 told him that if they cleaned the house up before I got home then maybe I wouldn't be so mad when I got back. Awwww, how sweet of him. Hopefully Hubby was taking notes!

I'll have to say that once I got here I was still pissed beyond belief at Hubby (I moved the last post so if you don't know why I was mad at him it was because of a stupid stupid mistake he made during vacation). But once he and A1 came in from church he jumped all over the opportunity to apologize to me and swore up and down it wouldn't happen again. I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt but it's hard. I'm working on it. He didn't do anything earth shattering but he knew better than to do it anyway and it hurt me worse than some of the other shit we've gone through. Anyway, I didn't want to ruin Father's day for him or the boys so I acted like a grown up and we all enjoyed the day. He went outside and grilled up some burgers and hotdogs while I cleaned out the gazillion bugs that decided to use our pool for some sort of mass suicide.

We all went outside to piddle around again later in the afternoon and I spotted the new neighbors and curiosity got the best of me. I told Hubby I was going to go over and say hello. Naturally he wanted to too (we are so nosey like that). They were a really nice couple and they seemed a lot like us. So much so that it was a little scary. They have moved a few times because of his work, they have two boys and no family around here close.

She's a stay at home mom and he's obviously older than she is (like my husband is me). Sounds like us! Their oldest boys is into science and math and computers just like A1. Too bad he isn't a little older. He's 9 and A1 is about to turn 13. Their youngest one is a lot like A2, wide open all the time. It was so cute because A2 was actually following their youngest one around all over the back yards and even yelling at the dogs with him. The kids were talking about some of the video games they play and we have the same ones. The youngest that was 6 was even talking about watching scary movies. We are all over that!!

I wouldn't mind being friends with them, that is as long as the first impression they were putting out there wasn't some bogus one. It would be kinda nice to have a friend that lived right next door.

Ok, I know this funky house isn't going to clean itself so I better get up. Just one last thing though, just so you know - during vacation, I never once cared how other people thought I looked on the beach or at the pool. I couldn't believe it. I was so proud of myself. Sure there were some little skinny Minnie girls there but they were all young girls. Most of the other people on the beach or at the pool looked very similar to me or they were even bigger and didn't even care. Every day Hubby would tell me that he thought I looked good (but it's been established he's a fibber) and that made me just want to go out and enjoy being there and I'm so glad I did.

Today's plan: I'm going to clean up some around here today and make time to get in the pool with the boys. After that I'm going to get back on my work out schedule I created a couple of weeks ago. I even bought me a cool little workout outfit while I was home with my parents on Saturday. And, since I put myself out there and put up the pictures last week, I'll make sure to do it again at the end of this week. My plan is to put up pictures each week for the next six weeks and hopefully see a difference as the weeks go by. Let's just pray the difference is that I get smaller as the weeks go by and not larger.

I'm feeling a little country today so I think I'll listen to George Strait's 50 Number 1's on my iPod while I clean up. I love me some George!

Panama City Beach Day: 2-4

Ok, so I didn't get around to blogging every day of vacation. Did you really expect anything different? It's day 4 and we are actually on the road on the way back home as I type. Check out was at 10 this morning and since we had so much stuff to cram back into our cars and a long, long drive ahead of us we just decided to get up and go this morning.

I did manage to make it to the beach this morning though to lay out for about 40 minutes or so. A1, Nephew, and A2 were all still snoozing at around 8:30 this morning so hubby and I just went and laid on the lounge chairs out on the beach. It felt pretty amazing out there this morning. The sun wasn't too hot yet and we had a breeze blowing over us the whole time. That was the only time we had to ourselves the whole vacation.

Tuesday we all got up and hit the beach early. A1 was more than a little anxious to get out in the ocean so we suited up and played out there for about an hour before we went to the pool for a little while. We were all starving by that time and went inside to make ourselves somewhat presentable and then went to eat at Arby's.

Since we figured the boys wouldn't like having to stop in the middle of the day Wednesday so we went to the grocery store after we ate lunch. Plus nobody thought to pack a football or anything like that so we bought one for them to play with in the pool and on the beach.

Went back to the room and the boys all played X-box for a little while and then we all went back down to the beach. A2 LOVED the ocean. The waves made him squeal and he looked so cute out there in his little life jacket. He didn't want anyone to hold him at all except for his Daddy.

Sometime around 2 or 3 in the afternoon a storm blew up and everyone had to leave the pools and beach. We went up to the balcony and watched as people's stuff blew all around on the beach and out in the ocean. Apparently it was the thing to do because we could hear people all around us cheering whenever a canopy or umbrella would blow over. There were some asshead kids that ran out there and starting looting people's floats and beach balls and stuff.

Thankfully the storm didn't last long and after everything cleared up we went back out. It all worked out because A2 napped through the whole storm.

Tuesday night we ordered pizza and ate in our room. The guys played X-box some more, sister-in-law played on her computer and A2 and I laid in our cushy bed watching Spongebob and Seinfeld. He on the television and I on the computer. We actually dozed off at around 9:30 for a little while but that didn't last long because the others were so loud. I went down to the lobby and got a DVD (Lucky Number Sleven) out of the machine down there but we never got around to watching it. I thought it was pretty neat that you could go down to the lobby and get a DVD like that. It was set up sort of like a vending machine. You swiped your card and it told you on the screen what was available, you picked what you wanted and then got a CD case from the side of the machine and them your movie would pop out of a slot on the front. When you returned it you could either stick it back into the machine or just hand it to the front desk clerk.

Let's see, Wednesday morning we got up and the sister-in-law cooked us some breakfast and then we all hit the beach again. A1 and Nephew were horse playing the whole time and A2 just played around in the water. We didn't stay out there very long since the water was very very calm and the big boys couldn't really ride their boogie boards and A2 wasn't happy he couldn't jump the waves with his daddy. We went over to the pool for a little bit and they played with the balls and just splashed around for a little while. We went back up to the room, ate some sandwiches, got ready and left for downtown.

There was a Titanic exhibit at the Visual Arts Center and we all decided it would be cool to go in there and see what it was all about. Brother-in-Law cracked me up when we were paying the girl our admission fee. It ended up being about $65 for all of us to go in and he said, "We just want to look at it, we aren't wanting to ride on it." The little girl at the counter didn't really know what to say to that. I bout peed my pants laughing at him. Guess you had to be there.

It was very interesting to look around in there. They had a lot of stuff in there that had been recovered from the wreckage. A1 and I went a little slower behind everybody else so we could take our time and really read everything. He gets a kick out of that sort of thing. I kept hearing him saying, "woah" and "oh, my gosh" as he was looking at the different things behind glass. I love that he's interested in things like that. He will remember every bit of it too.

"Bye, Bye Florida" Sorry bout that, we just crossed over into Alabama as I type.

Anyway, there was come clothes in there, some dishes, some money, tools, rivets, light fixtures, jewelery, calling cards, coal and a lot of other stuff. On the walls they told the story of the building of the ship, what the passengers did, and even a little back story on some of the people that were on board.

The other cool part about the whole thing was that when we first walked in the girl handed each one of us a "boarding pass" and it gave the story of one passenger. It told their name, where they were going, what they did, who they were travelling with and whether or not they were 1st, 2nd, or 3rd class passengers. The purpose of the boarding pass was to see whether or not you survived or not at the end. They had three large plaques that had the names of all the survivors on top and all of the ones who died on the bottom. We all survived except for Nephew and Hubby.

After we went through all of that we went back to the room and hit the beach again. The waves had picked back up a little and we had some fun out there. A2 was getting a little restless though so we took him up to the beach and played in the sand. He actually enjoyed being in it and had fun knocking down the mounds of sand that we would build up for him with his truck. Hubby dug a huge hole in the sand and stood him up in it so I could take his picture. After that we went to the pool for a little while before we all got ready to go eat.

Last night we all just got our stuff ready to pack up so we could make our early checkout this morning. We ate at a place in the middle of nowhere called Boondocks and it was actually pretty good. I had the catfish. On the way back to the room we did some t-shirt shopping. Funny thing though, the whole time we were down here nobody bought one single souvenir except for me. I had A2 a t-shirt airbrushed with his name across the top with Spongebob in the center and Panama City Beach across the bottom. A1 didn't want one. He's "too cool" for that sort of thing I guess.

Well, that's about it in a nutshell. We all had a fun time. I would have liked to spend a little more "down" time on the beach but it was still fun.

We are currently on the hunt for a Harley Davidson shop so I can bring back shirts for the parentals. Too bad they don't have one in Panama City. Something about all the other bike shops around didn't want to compete with it or something stupid like that. We're in Dothan now and I didn't see anything I liked, plus who in the hell knows where Dothan, AL is? I hope we can make it up to Montgomery or Birmingham before they close so I can snag a couple.

Got to stop playing on computer now. Getting.Car.Sick.Now. Too much Salt Water Taffy or possibly it's my husbands crappy driving.

P.S. No time to edit - forgive grammar or spelling mistakes!

Panama City Beach Day: 1

What a long day!! I'm sitting here in my room, which is awesomer than awesome, tired as a dog. We got up early (for me) and got on the road. I think we left my Daddy's house at about 8:15 this morning. We had to stop for ice but that was it. We had to make a pit stop and pick up the other crew but after we got all of them we were on the road for our 8+ hour drive.....that I made in my car by the way. All the guys rode in the other car which worked out perfectly.

We drove for what seemed like an eternity but once we got onto Front Beach Drive I saw the place where my friends and I bungee jumped back in '93 when we came down here for our senior trip and I knew we had finally made it. It's weird how some of the stuff down here still looks the same after all this time. We drove by the Holiday Inn and I had to smile thinking about all the good fun we had there.

We made it here to our place by 6:30 and it is gorgeous. It has two bedrooms and a bunk room for the boys. Hubby and I snagged the master bedroom with the king size bed since A2 has to sleep with us. I am in LOVE with the bed I'm sitting on right now by the way. I climbed up in it and literally sank into it. I'd be happy to spend vacation right here in this bed. I'll take a picture of it and post it later. Wouldn't you know my camera died about five minutes after we got here.

We got all our stuff hauled in and I put all of ours away so we wouldn't have to live out of our bags. I hate that. Once we got settled in we walked over to a little cafe across from our hotel and ate there. We were too tired to go any farther than across the street.

We didn't get back to the room until about 9:30 and unfortunately the pools close at 10 here so the guys put their trunks on super fast and went down to jump in. A1, Nephew and A2 were the only ones that got in. They splashed around for about 20 minutes and then we walked down to the private beach.

Wasn't sure how A2 would do since he has YET to hop inside his sandbox on his own but once his little feet hit the sand he was hooked. We took him down so that the waves could hit his feet and he loved that. I can't wait until tomorrow when he can actually see it roll in and hit him. He decided he had enough of that and he wanted to just stroll along the beach so he and I broke away from the pack. We walked around for about 15 minutes and then all decided to come back in.

We've made it back to the room and everyone is in there watching Pirates of the Caribbean 2 so I'm going to just hang out in here watching some Seinfeld or maybe even some more of my MTV stuff online. The air card I'm using isn't that great so I may not be able to watch the stuff online in here. I'm beat anyway and for some reason I have tried to watch the first Pirates of the Caribbean twice now and have fallen asleep during it both times so it would do me no good to try to watch the second one right now.

Tomorrow I guess we'll go down to the beach or the pool and hang out. We aren't much on making plans so we'll just play it all by ear. I'll try to post again tomorrow.

Ta-ta for now.

Packfest 2007

Like a normal person I should have packed up all of our stuff yesterday or even the day before and spent today gathering last minute things that I'm sure I will forget but I'm not normal...I'm lazy and will be packing everything today and leaving here to spend the night with my daddy this afternoon. Woot!! I love spending the night there!

I'm guessing by the time we get halfway to my daddy's house (he lives 2 hours away from me) that we will have remembered at least three things that I wanted to bring or needed to bring and they will be tucked away at my house. Oh well, as long as I have my rabbit to sleep with at night nobody will get hurt. Yep, I still sleep with a stuffed animal. My husband hates it and throws it off the bed every chance he gets and he even has A2 doing it but fooey on them I love my rabbit. He's seen better days and I could use another one but guess I'll have to wait til next Easter to get one.

You know what I really want? One of those Vermont Teddy Bears, this one to be exact but can you believe they are about $60. I've been watching him for at least three years hoping he'll go on sale but no such luck.

Looks pretty good for me to get to drive my own car. The other female was none too happy to be "let in" on the driving arrangements after the fact. Poor thing that's pretty much the story of her life. She should write a book and the title should be "After the Fact". Maybe I'll ghostwrite it for her, I know more about what's going on around her than she does. Shit, I should be packing instead of sitting on my butt gossiping about somebody else. This is the kind of stuff that gets me in trouble. I'm a major procrastinator but I function better under pressure.

I didn't work out last night, I didn't do much of anything yesterday at all. I am so immature that I was browsing around on the MTV website the other day and found the complete season of Real World Las Vegas on there. I never saw that one and always wanted to. That's the 2002 season with Trishelle - she's such an uberslut. So needless to say I'm up to episode 7 of 28. Luckily they are only about 20 minutes each but you better believe I'll watch every single one of them and then the new ones that I've missed already since they are doing a Reunited series with the same group of people right now. I seriously need to, like, grow up but, like, I just can't, like, make myself. Damn you, MTV!!!

Well, I just got the "GET OFF YOUR ASS" warning from the husband so I better go get ready. Our room has free Internet, woo hoo, so I'll post while I'm there.

Smooches!!

Oh yeah, I'm planning on squeezing in a workout before I leave today. Pray for the people in Florida that I actually do it. Not that it will make a difference at this point!

Warning: May Cause Extreme Nausea

So here goes, be gone dignity and modesty. I'm tired of hiding my lumps and bumps behind baggy shirts and wallowing in self pity because I can't fit into the huge wardrobe of clothes I have amassed. I'm serious, I have a lot of clothes. I'm pretty sure the statute of limitations has run out on being able to call this "baby weight" any longer. A2 will be 2 (can you believe it??!!) in July so I technically milked that excuse for about a year longer than I really should have. I now refer to it as my "doughnut loving, Dr. Pepper guzzling, sitting around on my ass weight". That seems to fit the bill quite nicely.


Seriously, I've got to get this weight off of me........NOW! Not only will I feel better about myself but I'll have more to talk about other than whining about being/feeling/looking fat. Keep in mind I'm NOT looking to be Paris Hilton or Nichole Richie thin. I have a realistic goal of wanting to lose at least 30 pounds, have more energy and button my jeans up without cutting off my oxygen supply. I've decided to bite the bullet and post the pictures I had my huband take of me on Thursday, June 7, 2007. I can't believe I'm doing this but I'm at the point where I don't really know what else will get me and keep me motivated. I can't/won't starve myself because I love to eat and that's just dumb. I know it's going to take eating better, sticking to my workout routines and *gasp* cutting down or even cutting out my Dr. Pepper consumption.

By the way, this is the bathing suit I'm going to wear to Florida and I plan on enjoying my time there and not giving two shits what anybody thinks about how I look in it. Plus that band folds up and will hit below the belly button to help conceal some of that - I just folded it down for the pictures.

Here's the front view - obviously you can see my problem areas. If not let me clear it up for you, ALL OF IT!!

You can clearly see that my gut sticks out farther than my ass, although what my ass lacks in curvitude it more than makes up for it in spreaditude.

This one kills me. See that back fat there on both sides? That's what keeps slapping me in the back of the head when I run on the treadmill. I can seriously feel that shit bouncing up and down when I run. It's creepy!

P.S. Could I be any more bowlegged??!!

So go ahead, point and laugh I don't care. For the record, I don't hate my body, I just hate the fact that I have the ability to change it if I really wanted to but I'm just too damn lazy and I am powerless over a cold Dr. Pepper.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that by being this bold and letting the Internet see me in all my "glory" I have nothing left to lose but the weight.

Three Days Til.....VACATION!

Yay it's Friday and vacation is still on! I have to be honest and tell you that I was more than a little skeptical about whether or not we would actually get to go. I just knew that every time the phone rang it was going to be one of them calling to say it's off but come hell or high water this Monday at least one thing's for certain......me and my guys are Florida bound!

A1 packed up all his clothes yesterday and in order to have all of his "cool clothes" clean he has insisted on wearing the same shorts and shirt for the past four days. Ewww on him. I told him I'd wash anything he wanted to wear before we left but he wouldn't have it. And by the way, he and I haven't had any more flare ups since Monday. He actually came into my room this morning and crawled into bed with me and A2 and we all watched a little TV and then fell back asleep because it was pitch black outside and storming like nobody's business. I loved having both my boys sleeping sweetly on either side of me. That's my idea of peace.

I haven't packed the first thing yet for me or the hubby or A2. A2 shouldn't be that hard to do, as long as he has his swimmies he will be fine. That child has taken to water like a little duck. When we go in the pool here we put his BodyGlove suit on him that has the built in front and back panel flotation device in it and then we put those blow up arm floaties on him and the combination keeps his head above water and he can swim from one side to the other with no problem. His new thing in the pool is that he likes to suck in some water and then spit it out towards you. He's a little mean like that!

I tried out my new bathing suit yesterday to see if all my girly parts were going to stay put once it got wet and lo and behold it did so I'm happy about that. Guess what else I did yesterday? I put it on and made hubby take pictures of me in it from the neck down all the way around. I'm considering posting them here to help keep my lazy ass motivated on this work out thing. I'm pretty sure you're tired of hearing about my "weight issues" but seriously, I've got some pretty major ones that I'm struggling with. I figured if I posted them now and then kept posting them each week or two then I would stick to my workout routine and stop eating those damn powdered doughnuts that my sinister family continues to bring home from Sam's! I'll be sure to post a disclaimer before you see them so that your eyeballs are seared out of your head from the horrible sight.

Oh, my brother in law has decided that he wants us to take their two cars to Florida. He wants the guys to all ride in the cushy big car and for me and his lady to ride in his car. He has a pretty nice car and all (it's a Honda I think) but the kicker is that it's a stick shift. He asked my husband yesterday if I could drive one and my husband said yes! **cough, idiot, cough** I haven't driven a stick shift for over 14+ years and when I did it then I did it badly. Of course the husband jumped all over us taking their vehicles to save the wear and tear on mine and he said the gas bill would be so much cheaper. So I ask you this.....what's more important, me driving a car that I'm comfortable in and KNOW HOW TO DRIVE or saving some scratch and me driving a car that I'll probably kill a bazillion times on the Interstate or somewhere else equally deadly?

Guess who's going to be pitching a bitch to drive her own car come Sunday night.....me. Plus my car is a small SUV...HELLO more space to be comfortable in or just to store all the luggage so that I'm not sitting on my makeup bag for half the trip down there. I'm sure I'll either win the argument because I'm pretty good at bitching and I have extra bitch power since Aunt friggin' Flo will still be hanging around by then or we will end up taking that car but she will have to drive the entire time. I don't have a real problem with that but she's a night worker and is prone to dozing off on a regular basis. Oh well, no since fretting over it.

Just so you know I have been working out this week. I worked out Tuesday night during that horrible movie, Wednesday night and again last night. I'm pretty darn sore today because I pushed myself to run hard last night on the treadmill. I was going to run for 30 minutes but at about the 19 minute mark somehow I managed to snag my iPod headphones and the next thing I knew my iPod was on the floor behind the treadmill and the earbuds were dangling between my legs. I kept going for another minute but had to stop, my lungs felt like they were going to collapse and my legs were burning. I'll run again today but only for 20 minutes. I'm trying to alternate the two each day along with a different workout for the Blowflex I made up into a checklist and put on a clipboard.

I hear the dryer buzzing my name and the kids need food so I'm off to the land of productivity. No iPod right now - it's charging so I guess I'll just have to hum It's Raining Men loudly to myself to get through the day. It seems to fit since it's still raining here.

Hello, My Name is Mud

Monday was probably one of the worst days I've had in the land of motherhood. A1 decided to let me know that he "doesn't always love me" and that "there is a lot of things in his head that he just doesn't say when he's mad at me" (i.e. I'm a major bitch).

What started out as a typical day around here turned to piss pretty quickly.

I deleted what I wrote about this post because I didn't want to hurt A1's feelings if he ever read it, plus I guess it's one of those things that the specific details should remain between he and I.
I will say that it all started with an argument between the two of us over something that he knew better than to do and because he is getting a lot bolder in his "talking back" things escalated rapidly.

The hard part for me was hearing from him that I make it hard for him to love me everyday. Man that was a major gut shot. I took it though without batting and eye and I just told him that it was OK that he didn't always love me because I loved him enough for the both of us. I told him that even though he screws up I still love him no matter what. I might want to choke him out or put my foot up his ass but hey, I still love him.

I pretty much told him somewhere in our conversation that I know he goes into his room and makes faces and does the "mom's a bitch dance" and he confirmed it with a giant smirk and that's where he said there were other things he just kept in his head and didn't say. That's OK, I can remember doing the same dance about my mother when I was his age, oh wait, that was yesterday, anyway, it still doesn't make it any easier for me to deal with knowing he's in there doing it.

After all was said and done he lost pool privileges for two days and I stuck to it without caving. I hate having to take stuff away from him like that but it works. Even though it was tough for me to stay strong and not let him know that it hurt me to hear what he said, I couldn't risk caving in and letting this all be for nothing. He had to learn from it too. I couldn't let him know that my feelings were hurt because I couldn't risk him using that against me the next time things aren't going his way.

I know it's got to be tough on him right now. He's almost 13 and in a sense he's "too old" according to peers or society to do some of the things that I know he would still love to do and yet he's not old enough to do other things. I'm sure the fact that we had A2 so late and he gets away with so much right now "because he's a baby" is hard for A1 to swallow.

If it were a perfect world I wouldn't have had A1 so early and A2 so late behind him. I would have had A1 when I was about 28 and then A2 would only be about three years younger. But it just didn't work out that way. A1 knows he's my miracle baby, he and I have gone through a lot together and in a way we are both still growing up together. He's been my rock and it kills me to know that he feels the way that he does sometimes. I've tried to be the cool mom but I've also made sure I was the mom that didn't try to just be my child's best friend.

I am hard on him because I want to make sure he knows what's right and what's wrong and I want him to be responsible for his actions. I don't want either of my boys to turn 18 and not be able to take care of themselves or be one of those men who can't function without a woman doing everything for him. My baby (A1) can cook for himself, make up his bed and clean a room almost as well as I can, he can sew better than I can and best of all he's got common sense and uses it.

A1 is an all around awesome child. He's smart, brought home a trophy for getting A's all year long this year at school, he's funny, he's tenderhearted and he is the greatest big brother on the planet. He's got a plan for what he wants to be when he grows up and the thing that makes me proud is that he looks forward to going to college to make it happen. I just hope he realizes that even though we don't see eye to eye all the time, no matter what, I'm going to be there cheering for him every single step of the way. I may have my witches broom with me on some days but it's just one of those things I hope he can look back on when he's a grown man and understand that I do the things I do and make him do things that he may not enjoy because I love him.

Because of all that, I've tried not to dwell on what happened Monday too much this week because truthfully Monday was the only rotten day. The rest of the week has been great. We've played board games, shopped for beach towels and just hung out together with no drama whatsoever. I know it's a phase he's going through, hell, I wasn't an easy teenager either but then again WHO IS!!!???

I'm assuming this is some sort of right of passage that every mother has to endure on the road of motherhood but I'll tell you I'm praying there's a freaking detour somewhere nearby.

It's On

So after weeks of wondering what the hell is going on with vacation we've finally made reservations and we are going to Florida! Woot!! Now I can actually get excited about it and look forward to hanging out and relaxing on the beach or just by the pool would suit me just fine.

The boys and I went today and bought new swim suits. I've concluded that I'm just going to have to be OK with being the chubby girl on the beach and I'm not going to let that ruin my fun. I found a suit for me at Wally World today that accentuates the positive (the boobs) and covers most of the negative (the fat ass) so I can live with that. It's even a two piece if you can believe that!! Besides if Britney Spears can run around on the beach showing her fat booty and all her dimples why can't I???

I did make out my new work out plan last week but here it Tuesday already and I haven't worked out since Thursday. I'm about to go down there and work out now though. Hubby brought Norbit home from Hollywood video and I'd rather jab dull butter knives into my eyeballs than to have to sit through that again. I took A1 to see it in the theater and pretended to LOVE it just for his sake. If you like fart jokes (which I usually do but these are way too forced) and crude fat humor then this movie is for you. A1 and Hubby will both chuckle the whole time.

A2 got a haircut over the weekend and looks like Spanky off the Little Rascals now. He said his name plainly for the first time yesterday. It was pretty cute. He was naming all of us and he pointed to himself and said it. Of course he hasn't said it again since. He also calls his daddy the nickname that I call him (his daddy) instead of Daddy now and that is killing the husband. I think it's so cute and pretty hilarious! I use to call my Daddy "Honey" when I was little.

I still haven't found anybody to come off of Season 3 and 4 of the Sopranos yet. I would go buy it if it were up to me but since I'm rather fond of my husband and want to keep him around for a long time to come, I'll save him the coronary and wait out somebody. The brother in law may be able to come up with them for me to have on vacation but that's yet to be seen. I'm trying to barter with him a little. He needs me to do him a huge favor so I'm guessing I might actually get to see at least one season next week. If not I've saved up some of my Seinfeld seasons.

Oh - product review time! I know you love it. This time it's an actual good review. We were at Sam's last weekend and found these drinks called Jones Soda. They were like $17 for 24. The gimmick is that they are made with pure cane sugar instead of any of the over processed junk you get in regular drinks. The case had flavors like root beer, cream soda, green apple, berry lemonade, m.f. grape (whatever the m.f. stands for) and some other flavor that was red. Let me tell you these things are like friggin liquid crack! The cream soda tastes like bubble gum and the grape is fantabulous!

I noticed that Wal-Mart carried them in a 4 pack the other day and had other flavors. We have to pace ourselves and the house rule is that no one gets one unless it's with dinner and you can only have one every other day. Otherwise we'd guzzle them down all at once. Not kidding, if you like fruity drinks then these are pretty darn good. They have funny pictures on the bottles of real people (they are glass so you have to be careful with them if you have little ones in the house). You can even send in a picture of yourself and they may use it on a bottle. I thought they were pretty neat. Highly recommend them!

My next thing to try and review will be Aveeno's Positively Smooth. I heard about this from a friend and she said that she has used it off and on for the past month or so and can tell a difference. She said if someone used it everyday then it would probably be a lot better. Supposedly you use this lotion on your legs and it retards the growth of the hair. It doesn't make it stop completely but it somehow lessens it and makes the amount of time in between shaves longer. I haven't bought it yet because it's about $7 a bottle and the husband was with me when I saw it. He bout passed out when he saw the price. It's one of those things that I'll have to go back for ALONE. Yep, he's that tight bless his heart. I'll keep you posted. I'm all for anything that keeps me from shaving. I.hate.to.shave.my.friggin.legs!!!

Now that I know vacation is less than a week away I have tons of stuff to do to get ready for it so I better get off my big ol' booty and get to it. Keep your fingers crossed something doesn't happen to mess up our plans. The last time I was looking forward to going somewhere plans fell through.

I'm working on another post along with this one to tell you just how bad of a day yesterday was around here. It's hard to get through it though and makes me sad to relive it. Let's just say I found out that A1 "doesn't always love me".

Did I mention it was a bad day??