Everybody's Working for the Weekend...

You should know better.

2010-12-07T21:21:00.002-06:00

Yeah, I said I was going to be blogging more on the regular in my last post... this summer. If you were disappointed, it's your own fault because you can see I never do as I say I will, at least in respect to blogging. BUT here I am!

So much has happened in the last 6 months or so. Here's one of the stories that I'm famous for, one of those "no way that really happened" tales. If I'm good for nothing else, my life is great for a good laugh.

That boyfriend I talked about in my last post lasted less than a month. It goes down as one of the "Black Hole Theory" stories of ALL TIME. It's a great story for you married/attached friends out there who have the grass-is-greener-complex about us singles!

This guy, let's call him R.J. (names have not been changed to protect the guilty) and I met in July at a restaurant I go to a lot. He came up to me and started talking to me, but I was in the midst of grieving over a good friend who had passed away that week, and more worried about drowning my sorrows than hooking up with anyone. Needless to say, I was not the most approachable person that evening and blew him off. A few days later he found me on facebook, and sent me a message. I ignored the request and message, but the next week, he was back at the restaurant again and I was a little more able to talk to people, so I let him buy me a drink. He got my number and asked me out for the next week, and I hesitantly said okay (I hadn't been on a REAL date in years, unless you count going to a bar with a guy and paying for my own drinks as a REAL date).

He took me to a super nice restaurant, and we had a great time (and two bottles of wine... that probably made it more fun), and talked for so long we missed the movie we were supposed to go to. It was still relatively early, so we went to a dive bar (my favorite!) and talked and drank some more. It was really fun being with him - but if you know anything about me, you know I have walls bigger than that one in China built up around me. I am very cautious about letting people in, due to my sordid past of douchebag exes who have cheated, lied, and dated my friends. I have trust issues, to put it mildly. But R.J. said and did everything right, so I agreed to see him again.

So things went great for a couple of weeks, and then I finally decided I might be able to not hyperventilate at the thought of calling someone my boyfriend. So we made it official, and things were great... for four days. He suddenly got really busy, work was really stressful, and the gym and tannning and laundry (no, he's not from Jersey Shore) were taking up a lot of his time. I finally laid it out on the table, I'm not going to compete for my "boyfriend"'s time with free weights and dryer sheets. He apologized and promised to come over the next night so we could have dinner and watch a movie. He was supposed to be here at 6:30, but didn't show up until 10. The next morning, he kissed me goodbye, said he'd call me when he got to work, walked out the door, and that is the last I've heard from him since.

Within a day, he had deleted me off his facebook friends and wouldn't respond to any of my texts asking if he was alive. I only texted him a couple of times, because I'll be damned if I turn into one of those chicks who lets the dude know he got to her. So. WTF happened?? I still don't know. I was talking to a different guy for a week or so a few months after the R.J. incident, and the exact same thing happened, he just stopped calling and texting, and dropped off the face of the earth. It has got to be something I'm doing, but I have no idea what it is. My girlfriends that I've shared these stories with are as puzzled as I am.

Anywho, I really really (cross your fingers) really am going to try to keep up with this blog more frequently, I super promise. I have many more stories of events that have transpired over the past few months, and I need to entertain yall with them, just so you can convince me I'm not as crazy as I think I am. :)

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes.

2010-08-05T11:50:00.002-05:00

(Sing that like David Bowie, okay?)

Yeah I know, it's been over two months. Sorry. MAJOR shit has gone down in my personal life... lots of changes. And in my favorite way to recap, I'll give you a list!

Things I've done in the past month and a half:

*Quit my corporate job.
*Got a job at a teeny construction company.
*Moved back to the area where I grew up.
*Traded in living in a house for a townhome (I like it way better, no yard to mow!)
*Got me one of those boyfriend thingys.
*Possibly may be breaking up with that boyfriend thingy (jury's still out, I should have a decision by the weekend).
*Readjusting to small town living.

All of this is for the best for MP and I, and I am very happy with my decision. I thought long and hard for 6 months before I made the move, and although I worry every day still, I feel more at peace with this decision than a lot of the ones I've made in the past 4 years. I decided I wanted my daughter to grow up in a small town like I did, and be closer to family.

So. We shall see how this all turns out. I'm uncharacteristically optimistic about it all.

Hope to be back posting more on the regular. :)

Dirty 30.

2010-05-17T20:15:00.002-05:00

Today's the day I've been dreading for the past, oh, six or so years. My 30th birthday. I know it's all in my head, I shouldn't be so upset and depressed about it, yeah I get it. But it's just something I've been pretty much stressing over for quite some time now.

Friday night my friend Kristin and I went to dinner and to a bar for some drinks. Apparently, I couldn't handle my liquor because I puked at the bar, outside on the deck. It was super classy. The only thing I can come up with is that I shouldn't have downed the margaritas at dinner, because I had my normal amount of alcohol, the only different variable was the margaritas. So, sorry, Rita, you and I will no longer be friendly acquaintances. You too, tequila. Those relationships are O-V-E-R. Some nice guy at the bar saw me puking and dragged over a trash can for me. Thanks, random stranger. Mucho appreciated. Kristin quickly called a cab and we went home. By that time, I was feeling much better, so when we got back we started drinking beers again. Puke 'n rally, bitches! We stayed up till about 4 drinking and dancing to rap music in our bikinis (no, I don't know why). It was, minus the ralfing at the bar, a good night with my bestie I haven't seen in a while.

Saturday when I woke up I drove out to my brother's place. The original plan was for us to go to a friend's house and BBQ and swim in her pool all day, but Mother Nature had a different plan and the torrential rain prevented us from doing that. Ended up just hanging out with my bro and Stephanie at his place, then that evening we went to the Magnolia Music Fest and saw a Texas Country singer, Cory Morrow. It was a good time, although I was still kind of hurting from the previous night's brou-ha-ha. The festival had a bunch of food booths and some small rides and stuff, but by far the coolest thing was the white tigers they had. Yes, REAL white tigers. We paid $3 each to go see them, and ended up going back about 5 or 6 more times throughout the night. Steph and I even got to feed the daddy tiger. There was also a mom tiger who had given birth to two cubs the morning before, and they were so friggin cute.

So that was my birthday celebration. This weekend my friends are throwing a crawfish boil in honor of my birthday and one of my friend's as well. Should be a great time.

Today, I took the day off work and pretty much laid in bed all day. That's just about all I wanted to do. Finally around 5ish I said fuck it and got up and took the kiddo and I out to eat for my birthday. Nobody else was gonna take me, and I'll be damned if I'm going to sit at home and cook hot dogs on my big 3-0. It made my day better when I checked my facebook and had like 60 new notifications, all of my friends wishing me a happy day. The one thing that's really upsetting me is the person who's supposed to be my best friend never called or even texted me. As I'm writing this, it's 8:37, so if she calls later I'll delete this part, but I'd place a large sum of money as a bet that she won't. We got in what I thought was a small disagreement, but it's been two weeks now and we haven't spoken. I just would think that whatever issues there were, she knows how I've been down in the dumps about this birthday, and I made a huge effort to make hers memorable, so I would assume she'd put away the angriness and call a truce just to say Happy Birthday. But I guess that's not important to her right now. It really hurts, and is what has been in the back of my mind all day. I just never thought a best friend would act this way, but I've been wrong before...

Proof that karma is real.

2010-05-07T09:10:00.003-05:00

So, last weekend was another busy one. One of the guys my brother played rugby with was getting married in Austin (a couple hours away from here), and my brother's girlfriend Stephanie and I drove up after work on Friday. My brother had to be there early to help cook for the rehearsal dinner, so Steph and I decided to carpool, and it was one of the funnest road trips ever. We got some Boone's Farm wine on the way out, and jammed to Journey, Eminem, and Guns N Roses on the way up. I had plans to hang out with Tara, one of my best friends from my hometown who now lives in Austin, so I headed over there after we met up with my brother once we got in town.

Tara took me to this honky tonk bar - just my kind of place. Juke box, pool tables, big outdoor space with picnic tables. You get it. I love low key places like this. We were sitting outside for most of the night, enjoying the beautiful Austin weather. I went inside at one point to get us some shots, and as I was chatting with the bartender, this middle aged lady next to me turns around, looks me up and down, and says, "I'm cuter than you".

I had no words. I looked at the bartender, with my mouth open, and he was cracking up. By this time I was pretty drunk, so I tapped the lady on the shoulder and said, "Could you please repeat what you just said?". She rolled her eyes and turned back around.

I was in shock. And pretty pissed, mind you. This bitch looked like she had been rode hard and put away wet a LOT in the 70's, before I was even born. She was NOT cuter than me (this said while crossing my arms and stomping my foot like a toddler). Had I not been drunk, I know it wouldn't have bothered me. Anyway, I told Tara about it, and she laughed, and we made fun of middle aged lady all night. It was pretty fun.

The next night was the wedding. Ex BF Jered was there, which I knew he would be, but I was determined not to say a word to him. As we walked up, he stopped and said hello, and I just mumbled hi as I walked by. I just did not want to have anything at all to do with him, so he couldn't go back and tell his skank girlfriend I was talking to him so she'd text me.

Later, at the reception, Jered was walking around with those disposable cameras that people sometimes have at weddings. He was taking pictures of people around me, then leans over, sticks the camera in my face, says "HATE ME", and snaps a picture. The poor bride is going to have the meanest looking picture of me, because I was glaring at him as he took the picture. What a tool.

Even later in the evening, I was at a table talking with some of the guys. I mentioned how I didn't think I was anywhere close to drunk, even after drinking beer for 4 hours, I just felt tired. Jered apparently had been standing behind me the whole time and said, "That's why I've been drinking Sangria all night, do you want some?" I paused for a few seconds and said, "Okay, I'll go with you to get some because I don't know where it is (it was hidden inside the reception hall kitchen), but you are not allowed to look at me or talk to me the entire time, ok?" He agreed, and we went inside, and as he was pouring me a drink I said, "The reason you are not allowed to speak to me is because you twisted everything last weekend so you'd seem like a big shot to your whore girlfriend, and I am not dealing with that firecrotch's drama anymore. I don't want ANYTHING to do with you after you finish pouring me that drink". He looked at me and grunted, I guess because he was following my directions not to speak, and I took my drink and walked away.

At the end of the night, everyone decided to get in the huge hot tub at the reception location. We had all thought ahead to bring swimsuits (well most of us), so we dragged the keg over and grabbed someone's iPod, and had a great time. Jered apparently didn't think ahead, so he just stood around the outside of the hot tub looking like a creeper. About an hour passed, and he decided to just get in in his boxers. As soon as he got in, I got out and told my brother and Steph I was ready. I think we all were. We loaded up and went back to the bed and breakfast we were staying at.

Sooo here's where the title of the blog comes in. I got a text last night that said:

"Jered was making out with one of the bridesmaids in the hot tub until 4AM after yall left the reception."

I just about died laughing. Firecrotch bitch was so quick to gloat about having Jered on her arm, and how much they love each other, but he CHEATED ON HER IN A HOT TUB. He never cheated on me, and said he would never cheat on anyone. Guess she's the exception.

So, Firecrotch slut screwed a man that was married for over 2 years, then broke girl code and dated a friend's ex, and now got cheated on. That's a pretty blatant example of karma, if you ask me. I don't think I've been this happy in a while. I really really really want to text her and say something, but I know that she won't believe me and will think I'm starting shit. Which is the whole point, I'd love to gloat in her face like she did in mine, but I guess I'm going to have to be the bigger person here and let her find out on her own.

I'm going to my parents' house this weekend, so it's very likely I'll have some stories next week. I hope everyone has a great Mother's Day weekend! I'll leave you with some pictures from the wedding:

Group shot of the girls - "We're cuter than you!"

Me and Steph

My brother and I (a little fuzzy)

My friend Kim and I

Flopping Douchebag.

2010-04-27T12:54:00.004-05:00

This past Friday was my brother's college rugby team's annual Alumni weekend, which I haven't missed in the past 9 or 10 years. It's always a blast, everyone comes back for the weekend and it's a great chance to see everyone who we used to party with every weekend. Re-live the glory days, if you will. Yes, I know I didn't play rugby, but those guys and their wives/girlfriends are some of my best friends, and I look forward to this weekend all year.

I got to Huntsville (the town it's held in) around 4 on Friday afternoon. It's tradition to head to the local bar that is home to the ruggers, and my brother calls it the best bar on the Earth. I have to agree. It's a great place, everyone knows everyone, the owner's super understanding of the crazy rugby players that pay his light bill every month, and the jukebox has got awesome music on it. My brother and his girlfriend Stephanie showed up about 10-15 minutes after I did, and the party was on.

About an hour or so after I got there, I glanced in the parking lot and saw my ex boyfriend Jered walking up. I may have mentioned before that he played rugby with my brother, so I pretty much knew he'd be there, and had prepared myself. Funny thing is, he actually PLAYED on the team, and I didn't of course, but everyone preferred to hang out with me at the bar and took my side on the whole breakup. THAT's pretty damn cool if you ask me. He looked so out of place and uncomfortable, and Steph and I kept giggling about it all night. La-hooo, za-herrr.

I had been avoiding the tool for the entire afternoon and evening, but around 8 or 9 he came up to me, grabbed my arm, and asked if we could talk about things. I was incredibly inebriated by this point so I rolled my eyes and said fine. We walked to the side of the bar and he starts to tell me how he really hates how things turned out with us, he was hoping we could be friends. I told him that we WERE cool when we broke up, I had no problems with being friends one day after I got over the heartbreak stuff, but then he started dating the ugly whorebag ex friend of mine. Yes, I used all of those words. I also called her firecrotch slut, disgusting, and almost anything else I could think of. I also said I'm surprised he would date a girl who slept with married men. He didn't really say much as I was talking shit on his girlfriend, which was surprising. I also said she and him deserved each other because they are both shitty people. He then proceeded to tell me that he loves her. I was with the guy for an entire YEAR and he would always tell me that he didn't love me. That kind of stopped me in my tracks, because I realized he was trying to hurt me, but it didn't work because I am so over it. I said, "well maybe she can deal with your weird sexual fetishes because I sure couldn't, even though I did love you". I think I won that round.

He told me that I'd left some boxes at my old house (his new girlfriend's house, remember) when I moved out, and that he'd brought them with him because he figured he'd see my brother. I told him, let's go get them because I wanted that to be the end of it... closure. We walked to his truck then to my car to put the stuff away, then he walked back over to where my brother and Steph were sitting. And that's when the best thing I've ever seen happened.

I introduced Steph to Jered, she looked him up and down with narrowed eyes, and said, "Oh, yes, you must be Amber's douchebag ex."

I died laughing.

Thank you, Steph, for that. I think that's an introduction for the history books.

He walked off shortly after that, and the party continued. We went back to one of our friends' houses for the after party, and douchebag ex showed up and passed out on the couch. I went downstairs to go to sleep around 4 (I think).

The next morning I woke up, on the floor, with no pillow, with one of my guy friends spooning me with his hand in my jeans pocket. Under a snuggie. WTF. It's probably one of the weirdest things I've woken up to. I was fully clothed though, so all was good.

Then I checked my phone, and there was a text from the ex's girlfriend. It said, "Please grow up".

WHAT.THE.FUCK. I was beyond livid.

I responded "Lose my number, bitch", and ran upstairs to look for Jered. I found him on the couch he passed out on and smacked him in the head to wake him up. I said, "I don't know what the fuck you told your whore girlfriend but obviously she's a psycho. Tell her to NEVER call or text me again". He looked thoroughly confused, and said he'd take care of it, and as we were talking another text came through from her - "Then stop talking about." I told him he could add on to the message to never call me again that she should probably learn grammar and the English language as well.

All I can think of is that he told her that I was talking shit about her, which isn't a lie. I'm sure there was some exaggeration on his part so he could feel important, but that's okay. Some people feel the need to lie to feel better about themselves.

I'll be seeing him again this weekend for one of the rugby guys' weddings. I asked him last weekend if he was going and he said he was, and said he wasn't bringing his girlfriend because he didn't think it was appropriate. Now, why would it be appropriate to date her but not bring her?? I think he was worried I'd start something with her, which I would NEVER do at someone's wedding. I WOULD, however, make damn sure that none of my friends talked to her, which means the only person that she could conversate with would be her boyfriend. I kinda wish she would go just so I could see it. :)

This post ran a lot longer than expected, so I'll fill you in on the ZZ Top concert I went to Saturday night at another time.

**UPDATE: Upon reading this, Steph sent me the following email that I think I should include because it's funny: "You forgot the part when I asked Jered why he wasn’t bringing fire crotch to the wedding and he told me “it just wouldn’t be appropriate” to which I responded “Oh but f*cking her behind Amber’s back for several weeks after Amber specifically asked Laine NOT to go after you was appropriate”?"***

You see why I love her?

Oh yeah, Sassypants is doing well, she's due in a couple of months, and is having another boy. She is beyond ready to pop the kid out, and is extremely miserable. I'm going to get on her to post on her blog, since she's been MIA for MONTHS.

What does the barber say? Neeeeext!

2010-03-31T11:46:00.004-05:00

Below is the story of the dude I was seeing. I'm hella busy at work, but feel like a total asshole because I never post anymore. So here goes...

I've known Chris since junior high, never really hung out with him because he's two years older, but he was always at high school parties and whatnot so our paths crossed often. Later, I'd see him occasionally at bars, but he was dating this girl I knew and they had a crazy psychotic relationship that everyone made fun of (kinda like this-isn't-working-but-if-I-can't-have-you-nobody-will-and-I'll-burn-your-fucking-house-down kind of thing). I'd heard all kinds of stuff that she was straight-jacket-crazy, but we have a bunch of mutual friends so I'd see her out a lot, and she never seemed like that to me. Little did I know.

Over the Christmas holidays, I ended up going over to Chris's house a few times with my brother, who is good friends with Chris's roommate. We got to talking one night, and Chris mentioned he had tickets to go see Lil Wayne (don't judge, you know you'd go too) and said he couldn't find anyone to go with him, would I wanna go? I said hell yeah and gave him my number, and that was the beginning. He texted me that night, and every single day after that until the end. Didn't end up getting to go to the concert because I had to be back in Houston and didn't want to drive back to my hometown in the middle of the week for just one night, but it was ok. After New Year's, I went back home and Chris invited me over to hang out and watch the Cowboys game (I love the Cowboys!). That was the beginning. Long story short, we ended up seeing each other every weekend for two months.

During this time, I knew his psycho ex would freak out if she found out we were seeing each other, so I asked him to keep it quiet for the sake of my car tires and for his testicles. She'd have cut them both if she found out. I was thinking there was no need for her to know since it wasn't anything serious.

**Before you go thinking I broke girl code and refer back to what happened to me a few months ago, I'll clarify that me and his ex weren't friends, didn't hang out, anything like that, so I didn't feel I was crossing a line. I honestly thought long and hard (hee hee) about it, and after talking to several friends, we all came to the conclusion that I was NOT breaking girl code. Just to be clear. :) Anyway, back to the story**

So, after over a month or so of talking every day and seeing each other every weekend, and him getting a little jealous of guys hitting on me while we're out, I decide to have the talk about where this is going. I also decide that we haven't been really discreet about this, so since there are so many mutual friends, crazy ex is bound to find out, and I think she should hear it from him instead of through the gossip mill. I should probably mention that the crazy ex called him all the time, and one time when I posted what bar I was at on facebook, she commented and said, "Chris is there playing pool" and immediately started blowing his phone up asking who was all in the bar. I obviously went there with him, but said, "oh yeah I just saw him... small world". This made me start thinking... she knew he was there, so he must be actually talking to her, instead of ignoring her calls like he told me he was doing. Hmmm.

Few weeks later, Chris is supposed to come to Houston to stay with me for the weekend. Monday night of that week, he called me and said, "Hey, crazy ex found out about you and I seeing each other, if she calls you don't answer". Which she did about 5 minutes later. Now, my thoughts were, it's not my place to get involved in whatever drama they have. Below is the text conversation we had after I didn't answer her call:

Crazy Ex (CE): "I am not trying to be the crazy ex [she even said it!!] but I know you have been talking to Chris. I am hurt. I know you have to be aware of how close Chris and I and how much we love each other. I just want to talk to you about this."

Me: "I'm sorry if you're hurt. Don't know how you heard but wanted it to be from him and not from anyone else. I don't see why we'd need to talk about this though."

CE: "Oh I have been talking to him about this and will more in a bit. I stay with him at least once a month. I was there all last week. [Funny, because I stayed with him that weekend. Another example of her delusions.] I could forward you tons of text messages from today on how much he loves me and misses me and that he wants to marry me still."

Me: "See, this is what I didn't want... drama. I'm going to let you guys hash it out, I really don't want to be involved. I could tell you what he says to me but that's not my place and it's none of your business."

So I let Chris know what's going on and went to bed, sick of dealing with all this. At 2:30 AM I get a text from her that says:

"Sorry so late. Chris and I are okay. We're going to give it another shot. We really do love each other a lot. I asked him if this would upset you but he said no that you were just friends and nothing more".

WHAT!?

The next morning, he called as usual, and I said, so I guess we're done here, right, you're back with crazy ex? And he said, "WTF are you talking about, no way... she called me last night saying she was going to kill herself, shaking a bottle of pills into the phone so I could hear them, and saying I need to call 911. I haven't talked to her since." As we were talking, I checked my facebook and the girl updated her relationship status to "In a Relationship" and said, FINALLY BACK WITH CHRIS! in her updates. I started laughing and told him, and he flipped out. Within two minutes both of the updates were deleted.

Friday comes, and Chris is supposed to come to Houston after work. As we're talking that day, I've got this weird feeling, and I tell him that I'd bet anything she's going to be at his house when he gets off work that day. I just know how crazy she is. I should have mentioned before, she lives in Austin, which is a 5 hour drive from where he lives. But I know how this girl works, and I told him I'd be willing to bet a very large sum of money that she'd be at his house that afternoon. He told me I was absolutely nuts, and there was no way. That evening, around 5 (when he gets off work), I checked facebook and on crazy ex's updates it says "Good 'ol Paulwood!" Paulwood's the name of his subdivision.

I flipped out and texted him, and said, "Have fun with crazy ex. I'm done." He responded that yes, she had been there, but he made her leave. I told him if he didn't make it to my house that evening and put forth some effort, I was done.

He didn't drive to Houston.

Now they're back together.

I'm such an idiot, every word out of his mouth must have been a lie the whole time we were seeing each other, and I was so dumb I believed him. All I can assume is that he expected me to never find out he still talked to her so much, and never expected me to get some balls and end things.

Like a game of football, I got PLAYED, dude.

Oh well... like Jay Z says, on to the next one.

Duuuude. I've been gone a while.

2010-03-04T15:05:00.002-06:00

I just realized I last posted way back in January. I always have stuff happening to me that I think to myself I need to blog about, but life's been getting in the way a lot lately. I'll give you bullet points, as I seem to do a lot, and hopefully get back atcha in the next few days to give you full recaps.

* Guy I got under in the last post is no longer in my life. Long story that will have to have it's own seperate post because it's a doozy. I'm thisclose to becoming a lesbian or starting my cat collection, either one.

* I just recently (as of this week) transferred jobs at work. This is part of the reason I've been MIA.

* A trip to the bar last weekend that included about 12 shots (no exaggeration), me groping the bartender's store-bought boobies, and dropping it like it's hot on the pole in the middle of the plywood dance floor. I don't get down like that anymore, and I was hurtin' for the whole next morning after. But it was fun. :)

That's all I can think of at this moment. I just wanted to let you guys know that I'm not dead. Oh, and Sassy Pants is still alive and kickin' too... still prego and starting to waddle. I know the sex of the baby but I don't know if she wants to share it with yall herself or not so I'm not stealing her glory. BUT she hasn't posted since like October, so I'm sure she wouldn't mind. I'll ask her and get back with you.

Hopefully, I'll be able to wrap this post up within two or three days. Cross your fingers that I'll be able to do so...if I still have anyone out there interested in the goings on of my pathetic life... :)

The best way to get over a guy...

2010-01-21T12:17:00.002-06:00

is to get under a new one.

One of my favorite quotes from "Sex and the City". It's ohhh so true. :)

The full stories from the last post.

2010-01-06T14:46:00.007-06:00

Below are the full (or, maybe condensed a bit) explanations of the event teasers I left you with on Christmas Day. I was drunk when I wrote them, by the way, so it's kinda amusing seeing what I wrote and now having to explain them. I've included the original text so you (I) can remember what I wrote. Here goes:

**Mom got effed up on Christmas Eve. Shocker.
Yeah, I may have mentioned before that my mom has an addiction to prescription painkillers that she won't admit to. She thinks my brother and I are crazy, and she thinks she doesn't have a problem. Anyway. She got all spaced out at my dad's parent's house and ended up eating pecan pie (or jabbing a fork into the full pie tin and missing her mouth on the way to take a bite) in a sleepy daze. I could have slapped the bitch, and would have if my grandmother hadn't have been sitting right there. Or if my brother didn't yank me outside.

**I spent Christmas Eve in a BYOB bar. Pictures will be included.
After said "high mother" incident, my brother and I grabbed a bottle of bourbon and went to a dirty bar that serves beer only (that's why we brought our own bottle) and listened to drunks sing horrible Christmas karaoke and play pool. I think at one point I floated above my body, looked down, and realized how pathetic it was to be sitting on an old spool that was serving as a bar stool, swigging cheap bourbon out of the bottle, with a guy with one eye hitting on me, and my brother off-key-karaokeing ZZ Top with a pool cue as his fake guitar. Then I just realized that's life and tried to make the best of it. And here are the pictures. Excuse the quality, they're from my Blackberry, in a dark bar, with a not so sober hand holding the phone.

The sum of our bar experience: Beer, bourbon, quarters for playing pool, and smokes. KLASSY.

Me standing next to the neon Christmas tree, swigging my cheap bourbon. My bro thought it would win for most pathetic Christmas card.:

My brother holding a Christmas card some 500 pound man gave me. You can see the upscale bar atmosphere in the background.

**Snuggie action.
Nuff said... here's a picture of my dad in the pink snuggie Santa brought me:

**Waffle House.
You should know this story by now. We get yummy Waffle House every Christmas morning. This year I actually got to sit my ass on the couch while my brother had to get out and pick it up. Ha, sucka!

**Drunken Santa present giving involving Twister and a broken lamp.
Since my brother and I had been at a bar on Christmas Eve, we were not sober when we got home, and had to put out MP's gifts from Santa. We got everything set up, got in bed and had almost passed out when MP woke up and said no way she could sleep and ran in the living room before I could stop her. I had to get everyone out of bed so they could see her open her gifts, and we ended up drinking coffee at 1:30AM and watching her play with everything. This included Twister. My brother volunteered to play with her, lost his not-quite-sober-yet balance, and fell into that table up there in the picture next to my dad, and broke the lamp. Here's a pic pre-disaster:

**White Elephant gift exchange almost coming to blows.
I got a margarita machine out of the gift exchange, and everyone wanted it. That simple. But I ended up walking away with it, thank goodness.

**Whiskey, beer, and karaoke.
I think I've told this story already. Damn, I was drunk when I wrote the list.

**Drunk uncle who never drinks slurring words awesomely.
My super straight laced uncle put away an entire bottle of Crown, and entertained me ALL Christmas day. Since I was drunk as well, I can't remember what he said. Dammit. I know he had some great drunk slurry made-up words.

**Family arguing abundantly.
But that's a given, right? Especially when your mom takes non-prescribed narcotics and ruins the 6th Christmas in a row.

**Cheese dip ruining my expensive peacoat.
I was in charge of bringing the crock pot full of cheese dip back from my grandmothers, and that was a bad idea. I was drunk, tripped over the cord, and the crock pot spilled the lava-like Velveeta all over me and my coat. Thankfully, I have finally located all the areas of cheesy gooeyness and removed them. Only took me a week.

So. Merry freaking Christmas. Hope everyone had a wonderful one... and my New Year's Eve trip to New Orleans post will follow soon. :)

SO MUCH TO TALK ABOUT...

2009-12-25T20:53:00.002-06:00

But not enough time. Here's the bullet points...

**Mom got effed up on Christmas Eve. Shocker.

**I spent Christmas Eve in a BYOB bar. Pictures will be included.

**Snuggie action.

**Waffle House.

**Drunken Santa present giving involving Twister and a broken lamp.

**White Elephant gift exchange almost coming to blows.

**Whiskey, beer, and karaoke.

**Drunk uncle who never drinks slurring words awesomely.

**Family arguing abundantly.

**Cheese dip ruining my expensive peacoat.

I'll leave you with that to think about until I have the time to actually write the post. You'll need to tune in for that one. :)

Overflowing with frickin' Christmas cheer. Or not.

2009-12-22T08:15:00.003-06:00

I know I'm not the only one stressed out around the holidays. It's a given that EVERYONE'S stress level spikes around this time. That's why it's so hard for me to get in the Christmas spirit and enjoy the sights, sounds, smells, etc., because I've constantly got a knot in my stomach about money, gifts, travel, etc. I've actually done better this year though, I got my Christmas tree the Monday after Thanksgiving (more to come on that), and taken MP to look at lights, and watched all the claymation Christmas specials, etc. like a good mommy should. Since I haven't posted stories in a while, I figured today would be a good day to do that (since I'm at work, nobody's here, and I have less to do than I normally do). Here goes.

I went to get my Christmas tree early this year, since I like having it in my house for the whole month of December. I always get a real tree... I know it's more work than an artificial one, but I love the way my house smells. It just smells like Christmas. Anyway, I went to a garden center here in Houston, and was worried bc I've never had to do the whole tree thing alone before, and I was wondering how I was going to manage getting the tree on/in my car (I drive a SUV), and in my house. I asked the guy at the center if he could help put it on my car, and of course he didn't speak English. Ask three more people, and none of them speak English either. NOBODY in the damn place spoke English. I literally threw my hands up in the air and stomped out of the place, I was so pissed. THIS IS AMERICA. Have someone in your store that can speak the native language, mmkay!? So I go to Kroger, and they have trees there! I was so excited. I know everyone speaks English there. I get a little guy to help me get the 7' tree to my car, and on the way out of the store, I slip and fall right on my ass. I was only on the ground for a millisecond because I jumped right back up, but MP yelled, "MOMMY ARE YOU OKAY! YOU JUST FELL!!", drawing attention to me. There was a lady coming out of the store behind me and she had this look on her face... I looked at her and said, "It's okay, you can laugh. If I walked out of a store behind you and you fell, I'd totally laugh after I knew you were okay". So she did. I would have done the same. Anyway, we get the tree IN my car (yeah that was fun), and I get home and realize I have absolutely nobody to help me do this. So I roll my sleeves up, change shoes, and proceed to drag this enormous tree up my walkway and into my house. A half hour later, I had it in the stand (somewhat) securely, and ready for MP and I to decorate. It may or may not be leaning towards the wall a bit, but hey, I did it all by myself.

MP's class holiday party was last week. The room mom was going to be out of town, so she emailed me and asked if I could handle coordinating the day of stuff, and I hesitantly said I would. Now, here's my deal. I am a single mom that works full time. There are plenty of moms in the class that don't work that she could have asked. I don't mind helping out at all, but my idea of helping out is bringing a couple bags of chips and showing up in time to help my kiddo decorate her ornament. Instead, since I felt bad saying no, I took the day off work so I could make sure to be at the school early and prepared, and I could also try to knock out my shopping in the morning. When I get to the classroom, two other moms are there and bitching about what a crappy room mom the other lady is, and how everything is stupid, and how they could have done a much better job. WTF. I hate people like this. (Sidenote - I know I'm Negative Nancy a lot, but the way these women were bitching, you'd think the children's Christmas craft was making Nazi swastikas out of cotton balls or something. They were just bitching to bitch.) I shut my mouth and worked on getting the ornament stuff sorted out and organized, all while they're bitching and moaning about the room mom who's not there to defend herself. They also don't bother talking to me. Now, I know some of my blog friends are stay at home moms, but from what I gather, you are not THIS TYPE of SAHM. These bitches wear Juicy Couture track suits, have perfectly manicured nails, fresh highlights with perfectly cut hair, and spend all day shopping with their husband's money. Ok, fine. But the worst part is these ladies look down on me like I'm trash because I'm a single mom, work full time, send my daughter to school with messy hair and unmatched socks sometimes (MP likes to dress herself, and I don't always notice if one sock is pink and one is white, sue me), and don't wear designer clothes. I CANNOT STAND BITCHES LIKE THIS. I did the bare minimum to get through the class party then took MP home early. I will continue to go to school functions because it makes MP's day, but I will never, NEVER offer to set up or coordinate another one. Let those bitches fight about it, I'm o-u-t.

So I also have a story about babydaddy, but since this post's gone a little long, I'll save that one. I'm sure I'll have plenty of time to write while I'm in my hometown trying to avoid my crazy ass family. If you need a reminder of what I have to go through on the holidays, see here.

Hope everyone has a great Christmas/Hanukah/whatever you celebrate!

Quote of the day

2009-12-18T22:02:00.003-06:00

"I can't believe you made me turn off Mmm Bop to listen to New Kids on the Block!"

From my brother, tonight.

He came in town to hang out with me, since MP's grounded (AGAIN. She just can't keep her yap shut in class. Her words, not mine.) and our plans to go to Sassy's house had to get cancelled.

We were playing our favorite drinking game, which is switching between the music channels on cable to see who could name the artist first without looking at the screen. Bonus points if you can name both artist and song. We were switching between 80's and 90's channels, and Hanson was on first (which he got right off the bat...embarrassing for a 27 year old hetero dude), so I switched to 80's and got the first words of NKOTB because they're my favorite, and he said the above sentence. I made him listen to the rest of "Didn't I Blow Your Mind (This Time)", and he got angry.

Guess Hanson's less gay?? DOUBT IT.

I love my brother.

Holy Snowballs Batman!

2009-12-04T12:48:00.002-06:00

It's actually snowing here.

In Houston, Texas.

I've seen snow about 4 times in my entire life, and only once did it collect on the ground and stay for more than an hour. This one's supposed to be a pretty big snowstorm, like with actual inches collected on the ground. I am like a little kid right now, I want to play in the snow because I never have!! I know some of my Northern friends will find this absolutely crazy, but it's true. It's such a big deal here that everyone's been freaking out about it for a week now. Today I left work around 11 to drive home and log on from there, so I wouldn't have to drive in rush hour traffic with the snow/rain/ice, and once I got here and logged on there was a company-wide email sent out saying that everyone was being sent home. Scooore! I'm on my way to light a fire in the fireplace, lay on the couch, look at my pretty Christmas tree, and catch up on some DVR'd shows I never have time to watch. Maybe some wine too... don't judge, I know it's only 1PM, but it's totally appropriate for the circumstances. Who am I kidding, I'd probably still drink if it was sunny and 75 degrees...

I wish it would snow every Friday!

The bitch is back.

2009-11-23T13:18:00.003-06:00

So. This one's gonna be another bitter Betty bitching post, so if you're looking for funny I can't help you out. I had a whole post planned out that I was gonna do this week, but then Friday happened.

If you are sick of me whining about the ex, I completely understand and won't be offended if you skip this post and come back later when I'm in a funny mood.

So. Friday. My friend Sarah and I met my brother and his date at my favorite bar. I was happy because I hadn't gotten out in a while, and my cousin had called me that day to see if she could get MP for the weekend. Anyway, we were having a good time, listening to the band and stuff, and then I see exBF's sister walk in. I waved at her and she came over to give me a hug, and I chatted with her for a sec until I realized her brother and a friend of mine were with her. This wasn't weird, as the girl is the person who owned the house I moved out of this summer, and her and exBF's sister live down the street from each other and know each other. I gave her a hug too, and said hello, but she was acting weird. I asked exBF's sister if they were on a date or something, and she said of course not, no way. Cool. Still awkward that he's at this bar, but I can deal with it.

Later we leave and go to another bar and then back to my house to hang out and drink. I mention how weird it was to see Jered (exBF's name, guess he doesn't need to be anonymous anymore. Want his SSN?) at that bar, since he kinda knows that's my turf and I go there a lot. Then my brother says, "Oh yeah, when I saw him a few weeks ago he asked how you were, and told me he was seeing her."

Picture now, my jaw dropping on the floor.

Silence for 10 seconds, then I manage to squeak out, "WHAT???"

He can clearly tell that his size 14 foot is snugly inserted in his mouth and says "Well I just thought you should know!"

Now, I would have lost my shit even if I was sober, but I had been drinking and took about 5 shots after I saw Jered at the bar (to numb the pain), and this was definitely not a good time to tell me. I ran into my bedroom and started bawling, and I know my brother felt like a POS.

Anyway. Next day. I text Jered, first time since we broke up, and ask him if he is seriously dating her. He says he is, for about a week now. Then he called me, but that conversation was pretty much him defending the whore and saying how uncomfortable she was and how it's weird for him to be sleeping in the same house that he used to go see me at. I said, well, at least you know where the bathroom's at so you can wipe your dick off after you bang her in my old bedroom. Juvenile, I know. But I am extremely snarky and rude when I've been crossed.

So there's more. The girl (her name is now Firecrotch Slut, or FS for short) had asked me since the first day I knew her if I had any single guy friends to hook her up with. I saw her two months ago at a bar, and she said how desperate she was to find a boyfriend, and would I go troll the bar with her? I half-jokingly said, "I will, but please just don't ever go after Jered" where she responded, "Oh hell no, we're friends! Girls don't do that to each other, and I don't like him anyway".

FS had a relationship with a married man for a year and a half. I shouldn't be surprised that she will go against girl code and date someone I truly loved, because if a person will sleep with a married man and have no regrets about the morality of that, she'll fuck over a friend as well.

This morning I posted "guess I shouldn't be surprised when a person who I considered a friend is dating my ex... she dated a married man, clearly boundaries don't exist." as my facebook status. (I told you, snarky, mean, catty when I'm pissed. You can throw in juvenile and high-school-malicious too I guess. At least I realize it.) Within ten minutes I get a text from Jered asking me to take down that status update, and to leave her out of this, it's between he and I.

He's got to be ten kinds of crazy to think that I'm taking that status down. I think it's funny. I'm not doing it to get sympathy comments, I'm doing it to be a bitch, plain and simple. I'm thinking about updating it to something like "Jered's apparently uncomfortable with me posting true facts about his new girlfriend, so here's the status change update that he requested". But I'm not gonna. I'm just gonna leave the other one up for now.

I know I've rambled, and there's still more to the story, but it does feel good to get it out and vent a little bit. I'm going to leave you with a picture of her and I when she was my "friend". You may understand my confusion as to why he'd date her after you see what she looks like.

I'm sorry....

2009-11-19T14:41:00.002-06:00

Been gone a while, and no time to post anything significantly cool today either. I've been hella busy at work with my old boss transferring out and a new one transferring in. It's a lot of work, to put it mildly.

I promise to come back soon. Until then, here's some pictures that made me laugh out loud today...

I am now a fan of the facebook page Not Listening to Nickelback, where I got these. It's awesome.

Concertgoing, run-in with the ex, and Halloween post all crammed in one!

2009-10-29T12:06:00.005-05:00

Last Saturday my brother and I met some friends at Ziegfest, an annual Texas country music festival that's held here in H-town. It starts around 2ish in the afternoon, and there are two stages and about 8-10 bands or so. We got there around 4:30 and staked out some grass (not drug-grass, people... that's not my thing) to post up and listen to some good music. Here's some pictures from the fun day/night:

Here's a shot of a friend and I from the beginning of the day, obviously...

My bro and I, a little later.

Group shot as the sun was going down, the beers were flowing, and the coldness was beginning.

Some of the dead soldiers, as we like to call them. I tried to make a pyramid. The one I made at the end of the night was phenomenal.

Sun's down, my friend is slightly inebriated by this point.

My bro and I again. We smuggled some vodka in, but had no mixers... I went to find some Sprite but the line was a mile long, so I found a sno-cone stand. Nobody was there because it was freezing, so I just got a couple of extra cups and we made strawberry vodka slushies. I'm pretty resourceful. You can see the evidence on my brother's tongue.

We were giggly dancing here.

Rockin' out to Cross Canadian Ragweed. Love them!!

After the concert ended around 11:00 we went to a bar... we walk in, and I immediately spot the ex boyfriend. I couldn't turn around and walk out at that point, so I had to stay and suffer through the misery of being in the same place as him until the bar closed. We just ignored each other, but it was like there was a huge pink furry elephant with neon lights on it in the room the whole time for everyone else that was there. I think I did pretty well by not freaking out or crying or anything, but it still sucks really bad. I wish I could just get over him!

All in all though, it was a really fun day/night. My brother and I are happiest when we're at concerts, so it was nice to get to spend some time with him in our favorite element.

This weekend MP and I are going back to my hometown so I can take her trick or treating with my parents in their neighborhood. I'm still not sure if I'm going to do the whole dressing up and going out thing this year... normally I'll have my costume ready to go weeks in advance, but I'm not feeling so hot on the 'ol body image right now, and am not in the mood to dress like a skank and go to a bar. Who knows though, I may change my mind. Hope you all have a fab (and SAFE!) Halloween weekend!

I got tagged twice. Hee hee.

2009-10-23T08:33:00.003-05:00

So, in the past couple of days I've been tagged on a couple of blogs. It must mean I'm awesome. Ok, well, that's how I'm taking it anyway. Most people would do these seperately, but I'm a busy gal so I'm combining them. I'm all about shortcuts.

First up: Kelly nominated me as a Kreativ Blogger, and I'm super honored (I love her blog, and finally committed as a follower recently, after stalking her blog for a few months). Although the misspelling of 'creative' in this award does bug me quite a bit, as I am pretty much a stickler for correct grammar. I hate those people on facebook who can't spell and are in graduate school, or those who STILL don't get the difference between THERE, THEY'RE, and THIER, and YOUR and YOU'RE. And people who spell refrigerator with a "d" between the I and G. I'm always the asshole who writes a comment correcting them, like I'm their high school English teacher.

Oh, right... Kreativ Blogger award. Sorry.

What I'm supposed to do is write 7-10 facts about me then pass the “Kreativ Blogger’ award on to other favorite bloggers of mine. I've done one similar to this before, but I'll try to think of some other stuff. I'm not THAT interesting, yo. Here goes:

1. I'm a grammar nazi. You probably have already figured that out by the ramblings in the beginning of this post. No further explanation should be necessary.

2. I was on an episode of America's Funniest Home Videos before. In high school drill team before halftime, we'd go to the side of the football field and stretch before performing. I would always get my friend to hook my shoelace above my head to the fence above me (my back was against the fence), and that way I could keep my leg stretched for a while. I flexed my foot and my shoelace broke, making my leg snap down and smack my friend in the face... all while my mom was filming. She sent in the tape, and they actually put it on air. We didn't win any money though. :(

3. I have a MASSIVE crush on Jordan Knight from New Kids on the Block. I've been in love with him since I was 9. That's twenty years, folks. I literally almost started crying both times in the past year when I saw NKOTB in concert when he came on stage. We also share a birthday, so I really feel this is the universe's way of telling me we're meant to be together.

4. I have an abnormal memory for dates and events that have happened in the past. Sassy always asks me when something happened because I can always remember the date. The latest one was when her last period was and I replied, "Well, it was the week before your hubby's birthday party, which fell on September 26th, so I would say you started around September 20th or so." Which helped her determine exactly how far along in her pregnancy she is. Ask me any date of a weekend night in the past year or so, and I can figure out where I was and who I was with. It's kinda weird, and not a notably cool thing, but I'm running out of interesting facts, people.

5. I'm on Facebook about 5 of the 8 hours I'm at work. I have a major obsession. I need an intervention, for real.

6. I'm really scared that I'm screwing my kid up by not having a "normal" family life for her. She seems well adjusted and all, but I can just see us in 10 years in a psychologist's office and all her problems stemming from living with her single mom for the majority of her life. Maybe I'm just paranoid, I dunno.

7. Even though I put this on my previous list, I'm listing it again because I'm running out of facts and I feel VERY STRONGLY about it: I HATE MAYONNAISE. Hate, hate, hate it, as much as I hate pedophiles and murderers. MP actually LIKES the shit, I have to make her sandwiches with it, and I gag the whole time. I love my kid so much that I'll put the substance I despise most in the world within a foot of my nose just to please her. That's devotion.

8. I'm a total band groupie. Not the kind that sleeps with them though. I'm a huge fan of Charlie Robison (if you don't know him, he's a great Texas Country musician, and used to be married to Emily of the Dixie Chicks). You probably don't know who he is if you don't live in the south. Anyway, I've been on his bus a few times, and the last time just he and I hung out in the back, drinking Jaeger and smoking cigs, and talking for hours. He was awesome (and super HOT). I've also met Pat Green, Cross Canadian Ragweed, and gotten backstage at several other concerts. Even if it's a local band playing in my favorite bar, I manage to go over there and make friends with someone in the band before the night's over. It's an addiction.

Alright, I told you I'm not that interesting. I can't think of much else... so on to the next one...

Sassy tagged me as an Over the Top blogger - thanks, dude! Here are the rules for the Over The Top Award:

USE ONLY ONE WORD! It’s not as easy as you might think. Copy and change the answers to suit yourself and pass it on. It’s really hard to use only one-word answers so try your best.
Tag 6 other bloggers and let them know that you think they are 'Over the Top'!

1. Where is your cell phone? Desk.
2.Your hair? Ponytail.
3. Your mother? Talkative.
4. Your father? Generous.
5. Your favorite food? Cajun.
6. Your dream last night? Sad.
7. Your favorite drink? Whiskey.
8. Your dream/goal? Happiness.
9. What room are you in? Office.
10. Your hobby? Cooking.
11. Your fear? Hurt.
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Happy.
13. Where were you last night? Home.
14. Something that you aren’t? Rich.
15. Muffins? Blueberry.
16. Wish list item? Lasik.
17. Where did you grow up? Orange.
18. Last thing you did? Procrastinated.
19. What are you wearing? Sweater.
20. Your TV? Average.
21. Your pets? Nonexistent.
22. Friends? Loved.
23. Your life? Stressful.
24. Your mood? Complacent.
25. Missing someone? Jered.
26. Vehicle? SUV.
27. Something you’re not wearing? Watch.
28. Your favorite store? Forever21.
29. Your favorite color? Pink.
30. When was the last time you laughed? Earlier.
31. Last time you cried? Today.
32. Your best friend? Amber.
33. One place that I go to over and over? Work.
34. One person who emails me regularly? Kristin.
35. Favorite place to eat? Outback.

Sooo here are the people I'm tagging. You can do one, both, or neither. I won't be offended.

1. Kayleigh at http://somepeopledoartsandcraftswejudge.blogspot.com/

2. Megan at http://meganmcdaniel.blogspot.com/

3. Crystal at http://sexylovepits.blogspot.com/

4. Sassy (do the first one, since you tagged me for the second one) :)

5. Courtney at http://whiskeygirl9.blogspot.com/

6. Spot at http://whatpassesforsaneonacrazyday.blogspot.com/

7. Calico at http://calicobebop.blogspot.com/

Sorry if I missed anybody... I gotta get back to work!

Dear little prankster at the cajun restaurant I lunched at:

2009-10-20T12:34:00.004-05:00

I know you thought it would be HILARIOUS to not screw down the ketchup bottle after you used it. You probably also thought that the person sitting at the table after you would check the aforementioned bottle before shaking it. What you didn't anticipate was the level of starvation I was at. Being that hungry for the steaming french fries and crab cakes that was in front of me made me not even think to check to see if the cap was screwed on tightly. Well, little bastard, that's exactly what happened. As I shook the bottle from side to side, the cap flew off and hit the window as the red fluid shot all over me, the table, the window, and into my purse. You also made my newly pregnant friend laugh so hard that I was worried for her health. So, thank you, little pranking bastard. I now reek of tomato, have stains all over the front of my shirt, stickiness in my hair (that I had to pull in a ponytail when I was actually having a decent hair day), and I'm scared to reach into my purse, because I keep finding cold wet puddles of gooey tomato paste in it. It's also way fun when someone walks in your office and asks what's on your pants, when you thought you got all the spots taken care of.

I'm going to be cleaning up this mess for days. FML.

I suck as a blogger.

2009-10-16T09:22:00.004-05:00

But I do try to read everyone else's blogs that DO manage to post. I've had a super busy week, so that's my excuse.

Yesterday I had the longest day ever, had dental appointments for me and MP, took her back to school, ran to the bakery to get a cake for our monthly birthday celebration at work, went to work, had two meetings and an assload of work, left and went to the bank, mall, and parent teacher conference, came home and did dinner, MP's bath, homework, and two loads of laundry, cleaned my kitchen and living room, then got to watch one DVR'd show (Cougar Town... anyone watch that??? It's SOO FUNNY!), then passed out by 9. That's just one day out of this week, and most of the other days have been equally busy.. so you can not be mad at me now for not posting. :)

I have a story for yall but no time to post it in it's longevity... it includes a trip to Austin, me getting stranded and sleeping in my car, and a 7AM roadtrip jamming New Kids on the Block. I'll give you that as a teaser, and hopefully get the post up in the next week.

This weekend my parents are getting MP so I get a much needed break... I'm pretty stoked. Going to see a band with a friend tonight, then girl's night out tomorrow with Sassy and a couple other girlfriends. I'm sure there will be some interesting goings on, so you'll have some stories to look forward to. Until then...

I hung out in the backseat of a Cutlass when I was 9, didn't you??

2009-10-05T13:16:00.006-05:00

I have quite a bit of blog fodder for you guys, but it's waaay too much for just one post. I've had an eventful few weeks (not all of it great, but most of it entertaining). So lucky for you guys, you'll be getting some new posts in the next few days if I can get my motivation up. (That's what HE said).

So, Crystal... this one's for you darlin'.

Two weekends ago Sassypants' husband had a birfday. We planned a party for that Saturday afternoon, when UT had a game (hook 'em Horns!!) and we figured we'd grill fajitas and have some drinks and watch some good college football all day with good friends. I went to Sassy's house that morning, and we went to the grocery store to get all the food and beer and stuff while her hubs and his friend assembled the new patio furniture they just got. Sassy and I got busy in the kitchen when we got back from the store (get your mind out of the gutter, dirty peeps), and made a great spread of appetizers - from her bomb diggity pasta salad with spinach, tomatoes, and feta, and my stuffed potato skins, plus lots of chips and dips.

After we finished slaving in the kitchen we went outside to enjoy the new furniture and drink some cold beers. We had invited a bunch of friends, but one of the first to show up was our bloggy friend Crystal. Now, if you haven't read her blog (yeah I linked her twice, what?), go NOW. I won't be offended, you can come back to me later. This bitch is hilarious. She's even better in person. She sits down with us and joins right on in with the gossiping and joking around. She mentions she has a low tolerance and is a cheap drunk, but we didn't really pay attention until an hour later when she was DEEE-RUUUNK. With every sip of Shiner Blonde beer this trick drinks, she gets funnier and funnier. Sassy and I knew she was crazy, but the other guests at the party realized quickly that outside on the patio was the place to be, just to hear the shit that came out of her mouth. I'll give you a taste of her verbal stylings:

- While talking about a charity (why we were discussing that I have no idea), she slurs her words and ends up saying Ronald Donald McHouse instead of Ronald McDonald House.

- When talking about options for saving money, she pipes up that her fiance' is going to have to deal with her stubbly bush because she's not getting her snatch waxed until the wedding. Her words VERBATIM.

- When a date of one of the guys that was at the party mentioned that she was born in 1989, Crystal scowls at the youngness of this little whippersnapper and bellows, "I was getting finger banged in the back of a Cutlass in 1989!".

- As we were trying to finish up everything for the fajitas inside the house, Crystal was playing Mr. Potato Head with Sassypants' son, who is four. I'm not completely sure of the wording because I was drunk by then, but I think she asked him if he thought it was weird that Mr. Potato Head keeps all his stuff in his butt. And now he asks everyone if they keep their stuff in their butt. Sassy thanks you, Crystal. And so do the other moms at his daycare.

We soon ended up in the garage playing flip cup, which isn't a great game to play if you're already three sheets to the wind. Crystal and I went head to head for a couple of rounds, and I don't remember who won, but there was a lot of shit talking and beer dripping on her boobs, which caused lactation jokes. Oh, and I did find out that her tits are REAL, which is amazing because they're pretty much perfect and Sassypants and I were convinced she'd had them done. We almost got her to show us, but I guess even drunk she has limits.

All in all, it was a great day/night, and I think we'll all agree it just wouldn't have been the same without her there. So. My message to Crystal: get your tolerance up for your bachelorette party, hooker, because Sassypants and I are GOING. And we'll be bringing the tape recorder this time.

Just so ya know...

2009-10-01T18:50:00.002-05:00

I've been MIA because I've been at home with a flu-ridden kiddo for 5 days now. Yeah, FIVE. I will be back soon with an awesome story involving Crystal from Sassypants' husband's birthday party last weekend. I know she's hoping I forgot, but I sho didn't. :) More to come...

Weekend Wrap Up

2009-09-21T07:55:00.002-05:00

Friday morning Sassypants IM'd me around, oh, 7:38 or so asking if we were drinking tonight. That's 7:38 IN THE MORNING. Someone had obviously had a bad week. So, I told her of course we were and after work went and picked up MP, ran home to change, picked up lots of beer, and went to Sassy's house. We ordered pizza, drank some wine and beer, and played Wii... good times. This guy I had met a couple of months ago had texted me Friday morning to see what I had going on for the weekend, and asked if I wanted to hang out that night. I told him he was welcome to come hang out if he could deal with kids running around and lots of drunken conversations. He ended up coming, and as soon as he walked in, Sassy started in with the 3rd degree... why are you divorced? was it your fault? do you still love her? do you have any kids? how many family members do you have? does cancer run in your family? where did you go to college? do you want children someday? why are you drinking Amstel Light? (okay that last one was from me.) Anyway, I stopped Sassypants from embarrassing me further by throwing out an embarrassing question to her that I knew she wouldn't want to answer in front of a stranger, and she got the hint. Although later she ended up talking about it anyway. Eh. The guy said he had a great time so I guess it was alright.

Saturday I got to sleep until almost 9:00! MP crawled in bed with me around 7 but fell right back asleep, so I was super stoked about sleeping in. We got up and got dressed, then met Sassypants and her little one for lunch and then went to the movies to see Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. It was pretty cute. After that we went to Garden Ridge to look for some patio furniture for Sassy's backyard. The kids were running around (on a sugar high from the movie), so we were in and out of the store in about 10 minutes. After that MP and I went home and I did some stuff around the house, got some chicken strips for dinner , and watched movies until we fell asleep that night.

Sunday I woke up around 8 or so and got MP dressed, and we went grocery shopping. I wanted to get there early to beat the crowds, but I guess that's not possible on weekends. I ended up spending about an hour and a half and double the money I wanted to in there, but I got everything I needed (and more). Going to the grocery store is weirdly fun for me. Even funner when you don't have a kiddo asking for everything on the shelves, but oh well. Went home, unloaded the groceries, cleaned up the kitchen, made lunch, did laundry, and took a well-deserved nap. Woke up and started cooking dinner, watched another movie with MP, got MP a bath, read a book with her, put her to bed, cleaned the kitchen, then collapsed into bed to watch some Food Network before I passed out.

All in all a good weekend, although 62 hours with the little one nonstop can be quite tiring! Hopefully this week goes smoothly... work is getting to be quite stressful, I may need a good wine and bubble bath night soon. :)

Adventures at lunchtime

2009-09-18T12:25:00.003-05:00

Sassypants and I work together, as most of you know. We also have lunch together every day, unless one of us has a meeting or something. We'll eat in one of our offices, or if we're having one of those "I'mgonnakillthenextmotherfuckerthatwalksinhere" kind of days, we'll go out to lunch, just for the safety of our coworkers.

Sassy's blogged about our lunch hour before. You'd think that we wouldn't have too many crazy things happen, since we only go out maybe once a week, but au contraire, my friend. Here are happenings from THIS WEEK ALONE:

Tuesday: Had one of those days where we wanted to go sit on a patio and share taquitos and smoke cigs during lunch. Normal for us. Went to a decent Mexican restaurant, and sat down with some chips and hot sauce and gossip. I happen to see commotion over Sassy's shoulder, and stop whatever I'm saying mid-sentence. I say under my breath, barely moving my mouth, "Oh my God, look over there. Don't stare." (Sassypants is a notorious starer.) Behind her were four girls in their mid-twenties, posing provocatively with a plastic parrot (how's that for alliteration, English majors?). Like, one girl was bent over so her vajayjay was in the parrot's mouth, and one was behind it doing it doggystyle, one was laughing, and one was the photographer. They kept switching positions and giggling for about 4-5 minutes. Sassy and I had no words. We just stared at each other, wide-eyed until they finished their parrot threeway. I should mention it was about 11AM. I should also mention they all had beers in their hands, which probably contributed to the photo session. Now, I've probably been one to do drunken funny photo sessions with my friends, but NOT AT ELEVEN AM DURING LUNCH HOUR IN A RESTAURANT WITH PROFESSIONALS EVERYWHERE. Maybe I'm just old, but I don't need to see that shit when I'm eating.

Today: Sassy and I are leaving the area we work in (if you don't know, it's a pretty ghetto part of town, with one of the country's wealthiest oil and gas company's headquarters smack in the middle of it. Why my employer decided to set up shop in the midst of bike stealing and gunfire, I'll never know). We are sitting at a stop light and see a guy and his girlfriend walk across the street. The dude is holding his 7-inches-too-big pants up with one hand, and holding his old lady's hand with the other. A truck pulls up next to us, and for some reason 'Lil Scrappy decides to start talking shit to the driver. I couldn't see what the driver said or did, but as he turned his truck onto the next street, homey hit the side of the truck with his hands and raised his arms above his head, taunting the driver to bring it. The truck stopped, but there was traffic coming, so he had to end up going on down the road. I would have loved it if some big ass country dude with a cowboy hat jumped out and squashed that little gangbanger.

Also today: The restaurant we chose to go to is famous for their "Throw'd Rolls". Crystal, you definitely know this restaurant. It's a country restaurant, with awesome chicken fried steak, fried okra, fried anything, and taters. Really healthy, right? The rolls are to die for. There's a guy who walks around and throws you the rolls. Yes, you read that right... if you want a roll, you have to catch it. The best part is that the guy who throws the rolls is slightly on the... how do I put it nicely? He's slightly on the "slow" side. Like, his IQ is probably low 90's. Not the sharpest pencil in the box. I think you understand. So when he asks you if you want a hot roll, he looks at you quizzically and says, "Haaat rooooowwww?" You really have to be there, but it's all but impossible to not laugh. **For the record, I am not a hateful bitch and do not make fun of slow people. This guy is just on a level all by himself.** Anyway, he threw a roll from across the room to the guy at the table next to us, and smoked him in the side of the head. The guy was a bit stunned, the the roll thrower acted like this happens every day (which I'm sure it does) and just threw another one over.

Today, again: As Sassypants and I are having a smoke outside the restaurant, we see a guy on a scooter riding through the parking lot. Ok, fine. But he had a deputy's badge painted on his Rascal scooter, and made several laps around the parking lot. I think he may have been security. Or at least he had convinced himself that he was security. Who knows.

We actually stopped ourselves from laughing today to ask if the world has just gone insane, or does this shit happen to ANYONE ELSE?!?

Weekend Wrap Up

2009-09-08T07:42:00.005-05:00

This is gonna be the most boring post EVER. Don't say I didn't warn you. Here's what my weekend entailed:

Friday - picked up MP from school and drove to my parents' house two hours away. Ate dinner, watched some TV with the 'rents, and went to bed by 8:30.

Saturday - woke up around 8:30, took my car to get the oil changed, swung by my grandma's to help her upload a picture to her Facebook (yeah, I know), then back home. Made homemade spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, watched some college football with my dad, and watched Flashdance until I was tired and went to bed.

Sunday - woke up around 8:00, watched the Parent Trap with MP. My friend called and I went out on the river with her and her fiance' that afternoon to go crabbing and fishing. We ended up getting about 28 crabs, with no net (guess what has two thumbs and was supposed to bring the nets?? This girl.) so that was pretty impressive. It was a fun time though... Had a few beers, and with the combination of that and the sun I was dog tired. Got home and took a shower, had some ribs and sausage my daddy grilled, watched some more college football, then went to bed. At 8:00.

Monday - woke up at 9:00, then MP and I met my grandma at this nature reserve in town. Walked a mile or so looking at plants and flowers (so not my thing, but my grandma enjoyed it, and I enjoy spending time with her). Went back to my parents, took a quick nap, then back on the road to Houston. Stopped by Sassypants' house to have dinner (she made some enchiladas that were the bomb.com). Got home around 8:00, put MP to bed, unloaded the car, and hit the sack by 9.

I'm pretty shocked I didn't go out and do ANYTHING the whole time I was there. I had three nights to go out, a free in-house babysitter, and Louisiana with it's 24 hour a day bars 5 minutes away. There really wasn't anyone in town that I wanted to hang out with except for the friend I went out on the river with, and she didn't want to go out, so I guess that's my excuse. Or I'm just getting old. Please, say it isn't so...

Now, I didn't do SHIT all weekend... why am I so tired today?

Weekend Wrap Up - first edition

2009-08-31T08:31:00.003-05:00

A lot of the blogs I read do a weekend wrap up, so I decided I'd jump on the bandwagon and try to start doing one as well.

Friday I picked up MP from daycare and went home to relax for a bit. My friend Tiffany was supposed to come over and we were going to do a girls' night in, with wine, pizza, and movies. Tiff had a conflict at the last minute and couldn't make it, so Sassypants called and told me to get my ass over to her house because her kid was driving her crazy, and my kid was driving me crazy, and if they were together they could play upstairs and drive each other crazy. It worked, pretty much. There was only one time when I had to go upstairs to Kid Town (the room Sassypants and I put all her son's toys in, we jokingly named it Kid Town and it kind of stuck) and have a talk with them about behaving. Sassy's kid listens to me (she says he's afraid of me) so she'll send me up there to put the fear of God in them when they're getting out of line. A couple of our friends were over there too, and before long we had segregated the women on the front porch gossiping, the boys in the living room playing Wii, and the kiddos upstairs. It was a good time. I might mention there was lots 'o wine flowing. You probably already knew that.

Saturday MP woke me up around 7 (WTF is up with children waking up early on weekends??). My cousin wanted to get her for the day/evening, and called early to come pick her up. I met her around 8:30 then headed back home to catch up on some DVR'd shows I had recorded earlier in the week. I met my newly engaged friend downtown to go to the Bridal Expo with her, and we stayed there a couple of hours. You know that was like torture for me, but I love her so I went. When we left, she wanted to go to the huge Forever 21 store they just opened in downtown Houston, so we headed over there... I swore I wasn't going to spend any money, and I didn't. But it was like bringing a drug addict to a pharmacy, it was HARD. I had several things in my hand, but at the last minute put them down and walked out of the store. It took some major willpower, but I was proud of myself!

After we left there, we met her fiancee for dinner at a seafood restaurant. It was super yummy. We headed back to her house to get ready to out for the night. As we were getting ready we were drinking Red Bull and vodkas, and that definitely woke me up. We got a cab and went to a club called Wild West (they play country and rap, like most dance places here in Texas). We had a great time, ran into some people we knew and ended up all going back to my friends' apartment and hanging out for a while. I managed to smuggle a beer out of the club in my pants (last call is at 2 AM, and I had just bought a new beer... I didn't want to throw an almost full, cold beer out, so instead I put it in my waistband of my pants and hid it under my shirt.) I'm nothing if not classy.

We drank for a bit at their apartment, then I hit my limit and wanted to sleep. We all slept in till 11 the next morning, then made plans to go to brunch. My friend was pretty hungover and struggling bad. She actually got up from the table at brunch and went outside to throw up. We really are girls you wanna bring home to mom, right?

After brunch I went home and took a nap, waiting on MP to get home. She was dropped off around 5 or so, then I heated up some pizza and we laid on the couch watching "Raising Helen" until her bedtime. It was nice to cuddle with her for a while.

So, no run ins with the law, no broken bones, and no heartbreak. I actually met a cute guy, but we'll see if he calls. I'm not getting my hopes up, but it was nice to go out and have fun and not have exBF on my mind all night long. I guess it is slowly getting better...

So, what did you guys do? Anything fun?

Back to the grind.

2009-08-28T09:50:00.003-05:00

Short list of the goings-on of this week:

1. MP started 1st grade.
2. MP began taking ballet, tap, and jazz classes.
3. A migraine made it's home in my noggin for 3 consecutive days.
4. I actually cooked dinner every night of the week. No takeout. That's shocking.
5. My boss was in the office, which means I have little time to blog or facebook because he's making me do mundane shit.
6. MP lost yet another tooth. (I swear she loses one every 2-3 weeks!)

Sounds pretty boring, and it is, but I'm giving you a reason why I haven't posted in a bit. I've got a lot planned for the weekend, so hopefully I'll have some fun stories for you on Monday. And hopefully none of those stories involve a broken arm, broken heart, or run-ins with the law.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!!

Random thoughts

2009-08-24T08:33:00.003-05:00

I got this email from a friend, and had to share... I know it's taking the lazy road, but I'm positive you all will love it. Sassypants and I almost pissed ourselves reading it. It's a list of a lot of things we've probably all thought of, but never voiced out loud. Enjoy! (My comments in italics)

1. More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can't wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that's not only better, but also more directly involves me. Guilty.
2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong. But it's if you choose to admit you're wrong that's the dilemma.
3. I don't understand the purpose of the line, "I don't need to drink to have fun." Great, no one does. But why start a fire with flint and sticks when they've invented the lighter?
4. Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you're going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you're crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk. I do this ALL.THE.TIME.
5. That's enough, Nickelback. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. Couldn't agree more.
6. I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger. Right!?
7. The letters T and G are very close to each other on a keyboard. This recently became all too apparent to me and consequently I will never be ending a work email with the phrase "Regards" again. I'll give you a minute to figure it out...
8. Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn't work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ's. We just figured it out. Today's kids are soft. This is so true, and it baffles me... how did we ALL just know to do that??
9. There is a great need for sarcasm font. YES!
10. Sometimes, I'll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what the fuck was going on when I first saw it. Ha, Saturday Night Fever. My mom told me the condom they showed in it was candy. Imagine my surprise the first time I saw a condom in real life.
11. I think everyone has a movie that they love so much, it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I'll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone's laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I'm still the only one who really, really gets it. Again, guilty!
12. The other night I hit a new low at an open bar. I had already hopped on highway blackout when, inevitably I had to find a bathroom. Eventually I decided it was probably on the other side of the bar so I tried to walk over there, but ran into a guy coming the other way. We played that, Both go left, Both go right game to no avail, so I finally put out my hand to guide myself past and that's is when I realized, yup, that's a mirror I just tried to walk through. And the guy on the other side is me. Even cats can re cognize their own image. All I can say is LMAO.
13. How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet? Thank you!
14. I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each handthan take 2 trips to bring my groceries in. It's called laziness, and I'm diagnosed.
15. I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die. After reading this, Sassy and I agreed and shook on it.
16. The only time I look forward to a red light is when I'm trying tofinish a text. So true.
17. A recent study has shown that playing beer pong contributes to the spread of mono and the flu. Yeah, if you suck at it. I liked this so much I used it as my facebook status.
18. Was learning cursive really necessary? No shit. My signature is half cursive, half print. I normally write in all caps.
19. Lol has gone from meaning, "laugh out loud" to "I have nothing else to say". Yup.
20. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger. Gawd, I wish I would have figured that out 20 pounds ago.
21. Answering the same letter three times or more in a row on a Scantron test is absolutely petrifying. Haven't taken a scantron test in a while, but I do remember that.
22. My brother's Municipal League baseball team is named the Stepdads. Seeing as none of the guys on the team are actual stepdads, I inquired about the name. He explained, "Cuz we beat you, and you hate us." Classy, bro. LMAO.
23. Whenever someone says "I'm not book smart, but I'm street smart",all I hear is "I'm not real smart, but I'm imaginary smart". Ahhhh Sassypants, this one's for you. :)
24. How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear what they said? I think three times, tops.
25. I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars teams up to prevent a dick from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers! I LOVE THIS!! Wait your turn like the rest of us, asshole.
26. Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using 'as in' examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss's last name to an attorney and said "Yes that's G as in...(10 second lapse)..ummm...Goonies". Did this last week. I said N as in Ninja.
27. What would happen if I hired two private investigators to follow each other? That would be awesome.
28. While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it...thanks Mario Kart.
29. MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood. NO SHIT.
30. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died. I always think this!
31. I find it hard to believe there are actually people who get in the shower first and THEN turn on the water. WHY would you want the first blast of cold water??
32. Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never getdirty, and you can wear them forever. True dat. And by the third wear, they are stretched out perfectly. 33. I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.
34. Bad decisions make good stories. Hence most of my blog posts.
35. Whenever I'm Facebook stalking someone and I find out that their profile is public I feel like a kid on Christmas morning who just got the Red Ryder BB gun that I always wanted. 546 pictures? Don't mind if I do! Yessss.
36. Is it just me or do high school girls get sluttier & sluttier every year? I am terrified of what it's going to be like when MP is in high school. Lord help me.
37. If Carmen San Diego and Waldo ever got together, their offspring would probably just be completely invisible. LMAO. Or really good at hiding.
38. Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I'm from, this shouldn't be a problem.... This is a staple of every meeting we have at work, and I still start stuttering over my own name! WTF.
39. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you've made up your mind that you just aren't doing anything productive for the rest of the day. This usually happens mid morning for me.
40. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don't want to have to restart my collection. I'm down!
41. There's no worse feeling than that millisecond you're sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far. I wonder how many deaths we'd see in obituaries from this?
42. I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to. I have to always hit cancel and go re-read the document.
43. "Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this ever. It also means I won't buy it.
44. I hate being the one with the remote in a room full of peoplewatching TV. There's so much pressure. 'I love this show, but will they judge me if I keep it on? I bet everyone is wishing we weren't watching this. It's only a matter of time before they all get up and leave the room. Will we still be friends after this?' That's why I'm never the remote holder. I'm too much of a people pleaser, and it stresses me out.
45. While watching the Olympics, I find myself cheering equally for China and USA . No, I am not of Chinese descent, but I am fairly certain that when Chinese athletes don't win, they are executed. We should probably check on this.
46. I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Damnit!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What'd you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run away? LMAO. Like times TEN.
47. I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste. Happens to me all the time. You're guaranteed to run into someone important when you woke up late and didn't put on makeup though.
48. When I meet a new girl, I'm terrified of mentioning something she hasn't already told me but that I have learned from some light internet stalking.
49. I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it's on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes. How is that possible? Even when I make playlists??
50. Why is a school zone 20 mph? That seems like the optimal cruising speed for pedophiles... Nice.
51. As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists. They're everywhere in this little wooded community I live in.
52. Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.
53. It should probably be called Unplanned Parenthood. Hilarious!
54. I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call. Or I'll change their name to "DO NOT ANSWER." There's about ten in my phone right now.
55. I think that if, years down the road when I'm trying to have a kid,I find out that I'm sterile, most of my disappointment will stem from the fact that I was not aware of my condition in college. "Hundreds of dollars worth of birth control, I coulda been rich!" said Sassypants.
56. Even if I knew your social security number, I wouldn't know what to do with it.
57. Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, hitting the G-spot, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I'd bet my ass everyone can find and push the Snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time every time... Flying like a vampire out of the bed, too.
58. My 4-year old son asked me in the car the other day "Dad what would happen if you ran over a ninja?" How the hell do I respond to that? Not a clue.
59. It really pisses me off when I want to read a story on CNN.com andthe link takes me to a video instead of text.
60. I wonder if cops ever get pissed off at the fact that everyone they drive behind obeys the speed limit. Hahaha.
61. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.
62. I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lites than Kay. Or roofies, whatever.
63. The other night I ordered takeout, and when I looked in the bag, saw they had included four sets of plastic silverware. In other words, someone at the restaurant packed my order, took a second to think about it, and then estimate d that there must be at least four people eating to require such a large amount of food. Too bad I was eating by myself. There's nothing like being made to feel like a fat bastard before dinner.

Back at square one.

2009-08-20T10:15:00.004-05:00

So, exBF's sister had a baby two weeks ago. I've been dreading going over there, just because I haven't seen her since her brother and I broke up, and I used to be over there every single day and we were great friends. It hurts me so much that I'm no longer part of their family, and I miss her and exBF's mom almost as much as I still miss him... which is a lot. A hell of a lot.

But I needed to put my feelings aside and go see that sweet baby boy and give them the gift I had bought for them, and try to be a grown up. I decided to go yesterday, and I had a little pep talk with myself in my head on the way over and felt okay about it. To add to the trepidation, she lives around the corner from my old house, so it was super hard going back to the neighborhood that I had loved so much and me and BF had so many memories there. Anyway. I did it, and didn't even cry when I pulled into the subdivision.

The visit was great, both she and her mom were there, and we chatted for a while about the birth, the baby, her other child, and everything going on in our lives. Everyone seemed to skate around the subject of the breakup, which was just fine with me. Ex "MIL"'s phone rang a couple of times and she took the calls in the other room, and one time I swore I heard exBF's voice, but I wasn't sure. Anyway, it was a great visit, and I held the tiny baby the whole time, and it was awesome. Made me miss having one for a minute.

All of a sudden I hear the front door open, and I assume it's her husband coming home from work. I'm looking down at the baby and goo goo ga ga'ing, then I hear "Hey". Look up, and it's exBF, in the flesh, right in front of me. I pause for a good 5 seconds, and manage to squeak out "Hi", and look right back down at the baby, trying not to drop him.

I haven't seen him in two months. I haven't talked to or had a text from him in a month and a half. I still think about him a million times a day, but I think I'm doing an okay job of keeping myself together. All of that flew out of the window when I saw him again, and I'm so mad at myself. He went into to the kitchen, and I got up and handed the baby back to his mom, and ran in the back room to get MP so we could leave. It was awkward like times ten, with a capital A. I was seriously shaking so bad I could barely hug his mom and sister goodbye, and the tears were about to start falling down my face. As I left, ex "MIL" followed me out, and was apologizing over and over, as I'm crying, and saying he had called earlier, and she told him I was over there and to wait to come over until I left. She's sitting there consoling me and I feel like a complete ass. It wasn't her fault he was there, yet she's apologizing. This is why I love this woman so much... she really did care for me like a daughter, and was pretty upset when things didn't work out between her son and I.

So I feel like I'm back at the beginning of the emotional rollercoaster, and I'm a wreck all over again. I wish I just would have mailed the gift.

Babydaddy Drama

2009-08-19T08:34:00.003-05:00

I've posted before about the idiot that I call my babydaddy... shockingly, there's never a shortage of ways he can piss me off. Let me give you an example of what level of idiocy we're dealing with here: at the beginning of the summer, the dumbass shot himself in the foot while cleaning his gun. Yeah, stupid motherfucker didn't check to see if it was loaded first. Hole through his foot, blood everywhere, police called, multiple surgeries, you get it... And he's responsible for my child??? I forbade MP to go to his house until babydaddy's wife assured me she got rid of the guns in the house. Clearly this asshole has no business owning firearms if he can't be responsible enough to keep them unloaded in a house with CHILDREN running around. I shudder to think what could have happened if MP or one of her sisters got ahold of one of the guns while he was taking a nap or something.

So he wanted MP for a few weeks during the summer as usual, but once he got her up there he called me and asked if he could keep her a few more weeks so he could take her to the amusement park, water park, etc. I said okay, knowing damn well HE wouldn't be doing any of these things with her (his wife, mother, and sisters would), since he never does, but allowed it because MP loves spending time with her two sisters.

MP stayed most of the summer with them, and when I got her back, she had some interesting stories. **SIDENOTE: I make it a point to never, EVER, talk bad about him in front of her. I think (as I'm sure most of you mothers that have a child with an ex think as well) that whatever drama unfolds between us is to never be brought up in front of the child, as she needs to form her own opinions about her parents and not be forced to be uncomfortable, choose sides, etc. I have never and will never bad-mouth that SOB in front of MP, as hard as it is sometimes. :) I'll just bite my tongue and vent to my friends or to you guys.**

When talking to MP about all the fun she had and things she did, she mentions of course that daddy didn't go anywhere with them and she stayed at a sitter's for a lot of the summer. Then she says, "Daddy was talking to Aunt Rachel and said you probably didn't break your arm on a trampoline, you broke it in a B-A-R. But I can spell and I know he said bar, like where you go with your friends sometimes."

What has two thumbs and was LIVID? THIS GIRL.

I immediately texted him and said "Next time you want to say something rude about me and spell it out in front of my child, remember she can read now."

He responded, acting like he had no idea what I was talking about, and it went back and forth for a few minutes until I stopped wasting my time. Basically he was calling MP a drama queen and liar. Two days later, he called my cell, and I immediately handed the phone to MP because I have no desire to talk to him. She talks to him for a total of two minutes then hands the phone back to me. "Daddy wants to talk to you". Awesome.

We proceed to get in the WWIII of Amber/Babydaddy fights. This is the guy who hasn't called MP on her birthday in two years, who always sends his mom or wife to pick up MP instead of coming himself, who doesn't call her and ask about school, etc. I can honestly count on one hand the times he's called her to talk this year. Babydaddy yells at me that I never said thank you for the school clothes he bought her. I replied that I thanked his MOTHER profusely, since she was the one who took MP shopping and paid for them. He had nothing to do with it. I also reminded him that I haven't gotten a thank you for housing her, feeding her, attending all school parties and after school activities, being there 24-7 for her, and basically keeping her alive for the past 6 years. I get $200 a month (if his wife remembers to send it) for child support, and THAT'S FAIR??? I just spent twice that amount signing her up for dance, after-school care, paying for school supplies and getting her a new cute haircut for the school year. And that was in the span of three days.

I ended the conversation by hanging up on him (mature, I know) because he wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise. He kept trying to be calm and say, "I don't know where all this hostility comes from, Amber. I can talk calm, why do you have to yell and curse at me?" I honestly have only been that angry about 5 times in my life, and cursing comes along with that kind of anger. The thing that totally set me off and sent me into orbit was when we were talking about visitation, and he said, "Earlier this summer when I called you to keep her longer, I wasn't asking you, I was TELLING you I was keeping her longer."

Psycho say WHAT??? He sure didn't have that cocky attitude when he had her in his posession, because I would have been in the car with my 6'4" brother and dad in two seconds.

So, here's my dilemma. I called the Texas Attorney General's office, who handles my child support, to see what my options were. Our custody agreement was done when MP was 5 months old, and clearly our lives, living situations, etc. are different now. The office told me that I'd have to hire a private lawyer if I wanted the court order changed, and basically if he doesn't have a job, there's no way I can get more child support than what he's paying now. Apparently people think that you can actually raise a child on $200 a month. So that aside, I would like to amend the court order in regards to visitation. We alternate holidays, which I don't like, but understand that's what normally happens, so I can deal with that. But he's insisting that he gets her for two months straight during the summer, and I think that is entirely too long a time period for her to be gone. Also worth mentioning is that I have always generously met them over halfway the distance between Houston and San Antonio to pick her up or drop her off, and I'm wondering if I can get it put in the order that they have to pick her up from my residence.

This went on quite a bit longer than I wanted to... so if you still are with me here at the end, I would appreciate to know what you'd do. Get an attorney? Leave it alone? I have to give it a lot more thought, but as of right now I'm leaning toward the attorney...

Let me mention that I want to do what is best for my daughter in all of this, regardless of what I want... I know that she needs to spend time with her father and his family, and I'll do whatever it takes to make her happy. I just think that some of his demands are excessive, and when she is asking to go back to mommy's house because she misses me, she needs to be able to.

I cannot make this shit up.

2009-08-06T14:22:00.004-05:00

An actual instant messenger conversation that happened between me and Sassypants just now. She is known for her book smarts, not her common sense smarts. Every so often, she provides me with a story to make fun of her until she dies. This is one of them. (I still love you, though, Sassy...)

**Back story: a high school classmate of ours lost his leg in Iraq. She must have been looking at his facebook profile or something when she had a lightbulb go off.**

Sassypants: do you think *classmate's name*'s kids have legs?

Me: um

Sassypants: well he's missing one

Long pause in IM conversation

Me: I wasn't away from my computer that long, I was just staring at it to figure out if you were serious
Me: and I see you are
Me: so I'll say, yes, Amber, they have legs
Me: Losing legs in a war is not genetic.

Sassypants: but it's possilble that they don't

Me: Again, pausing.

Sassypants: I'll just go look at his pictures

Me: Ok, yes, it is POSSIBLE they don't due to a birth defect, but just because he doesn't have a leg (that he lost in war) does not mean that his kids won't have them.

Sassypants: they do, in fact, have legs

Me: I am totally posting this on my blog.

Sassypants: what?

Me: This IM conversation

Sassypants: is this funny?

Me: OMG
Me: Are you delusional? Of course it's funny. Just like you asking where the homecoming game was going to be.

Sassypants: I see what you're saying
Sassypants: that the leg thing can't be passed on genetically
Sassypants: but he lost his leg BEFORE they were born

Me: Would you ever think of asking anyone that had a baby if their kid had both legs?

Sassypants: well no
Sassypants: I would just look at it

Me: **crickets**

Sassypants: moving on

Me: I see this conversation going nowhere fast.

Dear Miss Priss

2009-08-05T08:58:00.003-05:00

I understand you're still getting used to the new house we moved into. You weren't here for the first few weeks when I was alone and getting used it, so I can relate to the fact that being in a new place is a little different. But you have got to learn that those noises outside are made by TREES, those things we didn't have around our old house. Any time a pine needle grazes your window, it doesn't mean a bad guy is out there trying to break in. Oh, and while we're on the topic of bad guys, every time you see a white van, that doesn't mean a bad guy is in it waiting to steal cute little blue eyed girls. Sometimes they are just white vans, or cleaning services, or windshield repair guys. There is also no need for you to get out of your bed 5 trillion times during the night to tell me you are scared or have to potty. It scares mommy to death when her door is flown open and you yell "MOM" at the top of your lungs. Enough to where the first words out of my mouth are probably something a sailor shouldn't hear, much less your innocent six year old ears. On top of that, it doesn't help mommy's coworkers when she's a raving bitch due to lack of sleep the next day.

Your paranoia is waayy premature for your age. You stress about things I would never consider a six year old thinks about. You shouldn't start worrying about everything until you have rent and bills to pay and another mouth to feed. On that note, please stop telling everyone that we had to go to the grocery store because mommy had NOTHING for you to eat in the house. That was because I'll be damned if I'm going to cook a four course meal for only myself, and with a broken arm to boot. So, yeah, there were more beers than edible items in my refrigerator when you got back from your traveling summer, but I have rectified that situation so could you puhLEEZ stop telling strangers that mommy likes whiskey? Mmmkay, thanks.

I still love you more than you'll ever know, and when you come and cuddle with me on the couch, it makes my week. And when I told you BF wouldn't be around anymore, and you told me I should go on the internet and find a boyfriend on match.com because I'm beautiful, it made me smile for the first time in a while when his name was mentioned in a sentence. Ahhh to be so sweet and innocent again.

So, baby girl, let's work on these issues of being unneccesarily worrisome and scared (I think it's a ruse for you to try to sleep in my bed, but whatever), and it will be smooth sailing at the bachelorette pad from now on.

Love you more than the moon and sun,
Mommy

Last man standing

2009-07-31T14:16:00.004-05:00

I got a call today from my best friend (the other one, not Sassypants), to tell me that she got engaged in the Bahamas this week. I am so happy for her, she has been dating her boyfriend (well, fiance' now I suppose) for over five years, and we all knew it was coming, but just didn't know when. In the midst of my happiness for her, I felt a weird twinge in my stomach. I dismissed it until I was talking to Sassypants later, and she asked if I was okay. That's when it hit me - sadness. Sassy knew what I was feeling without me even knowing it. I feel like such an asshole for even being a tiny bit sad/jealous/whatever, but I guess I'm not the first one to feel like this. Sassypants says she feels the same way when someone comes up pregnant... it's not that she is any less happy for the person, it's just bittersweet for her because that's what she's been wanting and can't have. It probably doesn't help that I'm on the heels of a breakup and want to stab any happy couple I see in the eye with my dinner fork.

But that's another issue I'm working on that has nothing to do with this post. :)

Anyhoo, when I started thinking, I quickly realized that I am the ONLY, I repeat, ONLY person in my several different groups of friends that is not engaged or married. I'm not looking for sympathy or poor pitiful Amber or anything, it's just a strange thing to be the only one left out of the group without a significant other. Trips and get togethers with my friends can be torturous when you're the only one without a date, regardless of if you are friends with everyone and their S.O. or not. There was an episode of Sex and the City titled, "They Shoot Single People, Don't They?" or something like that, which echoes my sentiments exactly.

To sum up, I'm so grateful that I didn't marry that guy I was engaged to at 19 years old, or stay in the relationship with the controlling asshole at age 23, or any of the other stupid boys I've dated before, just to say I'm with someone. I know that I am fine on my own, and I will most likely get married someday. And if I don't, I don't. I just wanted to write this because I'm quite positive I'm not the only person out there who's felt a twinge of jealousy toward a friend, regardless of your genuine happiness for them... and I kinda needed to let it out.

It's a bird... it's a plane... no, it's Amber D.!

2009-07-28T12:16:00.004-05:00

I've had several requests for what exactly went down with the broken arm incident, so I guess I'm ready to oblige. As embarrassing as it was, it was hilarious, and I can appreciate the humor even when I made an ass of myself.

One day after work, it wasn't humid, sunny, and 105 degrees outside, so I decided I could stand to do some exercise. Without MP at the house, I've had a lot of free time and couldn't bear sitting in the house watching TV anymore. MP has a trampoline in the back yard, so I decided that would be my exercise. I used to jump on the trampoline as a teenager for hours on end, and was in fab shape (which probably had more to do with teenage metabolism, but whatever), so I figured that could be a fun workout. I'm down for anything that doesn't require me to go to the gym.

My brother was staying with me for most of the summer while he was on break from teaching, so he came outside to hang out while I was jumping. He then says the words that caused the past few weeks of doctor's appointments: "I bet you can't still do a back flip."

Shit. Of COURSE I can still do a back flip, and handsprings, and front flip, and aerial, and anything else. Don't challenge me, bitch.

So I proceed to show him the friggin' awesome display of my gymnastics skills, all while my dog is going ape shit with all the bouncing going on. After a few minutes, in the middle of an awesome flip, I see my dog bouncing up and down trying to get my attention, and lose focus. For one stupid second. And that's when it happened.

As I was upside down, I looked over at the psychotic dog and didn't fully rotate around... I landed the flip on my toes instead of my flat feet, which caused me to shoot off the trampoline at warp speed, looking exactly like this guy:

I shit you not, I was completely horizontal. I landed about 8 feet from the trampoline on my right hand and knee, narrowly missing the fence, did a barrel roll on the ground, and hopped up to my feet. Like I meant to do it, the whole thing was planned as a TA-DA finale to my awesome performance. My brother was concerned for one whole second, then started cracking up and didn't stop for a good 10 minutes. He said it was one of the funniest things he'd ever seen.

I didn't realize I was hurt until the next day, when I woke up and couldn't bend my arm past 90 degrees or move my wrist. My brother took me to the doctor, who confirmed via xray that I had, in fact, fractured both my wrist and elbow. And you all know the rest pretty much... soft cast then hard cast. Thank GOD I only had to wear the hard cast up until last week, I am now cast free and plan to stay on solid ground forever.

So there ya go. Feel free to ridicule me, but I'll assure you I've heard it all already. My nicknames from my brother and friends range from ARMageddon to kickin' chicken wing, and my brother tells everyone I'm allergic to gravity. Whatever.

I'll never make the mistake of trying to exercise again.

You really like me?

2009-07-23T14:38:00.005-05:00

So, apparently I do still have a few readers that will check in when I write every month or so (not like I had a ton of readers before, but you know... I take what I can get). Courtney, aka Whiskey Girl, gave me an award! So thanks, Courtney, for staying along with me during this ridiculous ass-rape-with-no-lube of a summer I've had.

I'm supposed to give the award to 15 other awesome blogs that I follow, but I want it to be more selective and a bigger deal for my winners. (That's totally bullshit, I am really just lazy and don't want to have to go click on a ton of blogs while I'm at work to copy and paste the names of the funny blogs I follow but they probably don't know, since they have millions of readers and don't give a shit who I am).

Was that the longest sentence in parentheses in America? I think so. Moving on.

So I have picked the following lovely ladies who have really been awesome at leaving me cheerful, sarcastic, and sexual comments lately. I truly do appreciate you keeping up with me until I get my bloggy mojo back.

So here are the rules:

1) Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link.

2) Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you’ve discovered. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

And here are my homies:

Candice at Life According to Candice
Calico over at Calicobebop
My bitch Crystal at It's Not Me, It's You
Samsmama at Raising Stink
And, of course, Tits McGee at Sassy Pants Mommy.

Some pics from the Aerosmith/ZZ Top concert

2009-07-21T19:37:00.005-05:00

Since we were way, way, WAY back on the lawn, I have no good pics of the bands... But here are some with the group, the beards, and a great glimpse of my awesome orange cast.

Me, my brother, and his best friend doing the ZZ pose (well, they're doing it, I'm trying with the cast...):

Waiting on the concert to start:

Me and Justin, aka QB, or Bizzle:

My brother, me, and QB:

Dancing to ZZ Top:

And here are me and Paula with the beards on. Just call me Billy F. Gibbons.

Since you're prolly sick of the whiny posts

2009-07-17T10:12:00.003-05:00

I have a weekend on tap that has put me in the best mood I've been in since June 17th. Here's the agenda:

Tonight = Aerosmith and ZZ Top. My brother is already waiting at my house with a handle of whiskey and a stack of ZZ Top CD's in the stereo. I'm leaving the office at 11 to work from home (translation: drink whiskey, listen to ZZ and try to work till 3). We'll pre-pregame at my house, then pregame at a bar across the street from the amphitheater, then on to the concert at 7. I'm stoked, if you can't tell.

Tomorrow = New Kids on the Block, round two. It's gonna be AWESOME. Pretty much the same plan of pre-pregaming and pregaming as the night before, but probably with beer instead of whiskey. Nobody likes a group of bourbon-infused bitches. Concert starts around 7, at the same arena as the other concert... which happens to be 5 minutes from my house. We'll have a group of girls screaming their heads off for our childhood/teen idols, and it will be batshit crazy. But that's how I like it!

Sunday = MP comes back from her dad's!! Six weeks without her, and I'm climbing the fucking walls. I can't wait to see her, I will have to restrain myself from cuddling her to death. I need some hugs and kisses!!

Thanks to everyone for the comments... sorry I haven't really been responding. Work and life takes three times the amount of time to do with only one arm. I'll be back once this cast is off. :)

You're never gonna believe this...

2009-07-06T13:47:00.001-05:00

But I broke my arm. Yup. In the midst of all the other stuff going on, and in addition to a bladder condition that was just diagnosed that's way fun, I broke my fucking arm. I'm in a soft cast until Wednesday, then a regular one for 6 weeks. I'm going to quit saying things can't get worse, because God's up there laughing, "Silly girl... it can ALWAYS get worse. SEE?"

It just took me ten minutes to type that paragraph, so I'll see if Sassypants will guest post the story sometime.

Oh, did I mention it's my right arm? You can probably guess that I'm not a lefty. :)

Whining... in numbers.

2009-06-25T07:40:00.004-05:00

38 - Hours I went without talking to a human (the dog doesn't count) until this morning, except via texting. And there were only about 4 of those.

15 - Days until I have to be moved into the new house. Haven't packed a thing.

7 - Days that BF and I have been broken up, and it's not getting any easier.

1 - Day until what would have been our 1 year anniversary. Probably the reason it's not getting easier.

5 - Number of miles between my new house and exBF's house. When I got the house, thought it would be an awesome thing, now it sucks balls. I do not need daily reminders of him as I'm driving home.

1 - Number of empty wine bottles in my trash can, consumed from 6:30 - 9:30 last night.

3 - Number of empty Natural Lite beer cans next to the wine bottle, consumed after the aforementioned wine was gone. (Don't judge on the cheap beer).

10 to 31 - days until I get MP back from her dad's. The first game plan was for him to keep her until July 5th, now he's trying to keep her until July 25th. I really don't think I can hold out that long. I've only seen her for two days since June 3rd, and I'm dying.

Sorry for all the woe-is-me bitching. It's just a really bad time for me right now. I know things will get better, and I've been through worse life experiences than this, but I also know it takes time, and I wish it didn't. I'm just so sick of being sad.

Heartbreak.

2009-06-22T15:00:00.000-05:00

Damn, this sucks. Why does it physically feel like your heart is being crushed?

Photo post.

2009-06-16T14:46:00.010-05:00

So my friend sent me some of her pictures from the river. Too lazy to write a post, so pictures will have to do since I've had a couple of requests for them. :)

Here's me and TM on our first night there. We took the no makeup rule very seriously. (That's BF's best friend behind us, being an ass as usual).

We got ahold of a bottle of Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill, and passed it around until it was gone...took us a grand total of about three minutes. We insisted on doing it as a throwback to our high school days. Our 16 year old selves would have been proud.

We had to start the mornings off with flip cup games, to get rid of the hangovers we had from the night before. Hair of the dog, I guess you could say. **Oh, and that's my brother's date (who I got in a fight with), standing next to me. I guess we got over it.**

Someone threw my brother's shirt in the tree, so the girls took it upon ourselves to pull out old cheerleading stunts. On a hill. After we had been drinking. No idea how someone didn't end up hurt.

Here's me and BF at the concert. This was his hungover day, but he managed to almost smile. That's better than he normally does.

Here's my Friday afternoon downward-spiral-inducing keg stand. This is where all the bad stuff started. If only I knew then, I would have never done this!

Get off your soapbox, kid.

2009-06-12T08:33:00.004-05:00

So, I'm out for dinner and drinks last night with a friend, and we're sitting out on the patio of the restaurant in the humid Texas air, enjoying our margaritas and nachos. As most of you know, I'm a smoker, and have written a couple of posts about the annoyances of Judgy McJudgerson people. After I finish eating, I light a cigarette (since we're outside in the smoking section) and continue gossiping with my friend, when a lady from the next table comes over and squats next to me. This is the conversation that followed:

Her: "I'm so sorry to bother you, but can I ask you something? It's really embarrassing..."
Me: "Sure, what's up?"
Her: "Well, my daughter's been at day camp all this week, and today they had a discussion about smoking and cancer. She noticed you were smoking and started crying, and she wants to come and talk to you about what she learned today. She's very concerned."
Me: ** crickets chirping **

The lady calls her 6 or 7 year old daughter over, with me sitting there, eyes wide, mouth agape, not believing this is happening...The little girl approaches with tears in her eyes and then I proceed to get lectured about the dangers of smoking. Like I'm not aware.

Child: "Um, so I've been at camp and today we talked about smoking and do you know that smoking will give you black lung?"
Child: "And cancer?"
Child: "And will kill you?"
Child: "And it's gross?"
Me: "I know, baby... thank you for being concerned, that is very sweet. I'd like to quit, but it's kind of hard. You know that ice cream cone you have in your hand? Imagine me taking that away from you and you never getting to have one again. That's what I'd feel if I stopped smoking right now. But I really appreciate your concern."

Maybe it was the margaritas that made me be a bitch to a kid. I really don't care. I get that she was doing a sweet thing, but as a mother, no way in hell would I ever, EVER, allow my child to go lecture another adult on anything they were doing. That is inappropriate and rude. So maybe I should have said something to the mom instead of making this kid picture a life without ice cream, but maybe that will teach the mom to get some manners of her own and not let her child approach strangers and start preaching the benefits of a healthier lifestyle.

The nerve of some people.

In need of liquid happiness.

2009-06-11T07:56:00.007-05:00

After the week I've had, this is what I need:

Yeah, that's me, and that's a keg stand. This week needs to get better, or I'm hitting up the liquor store for a keg to nurse all by myself. It'll probably last until Sunday, which is perfect.

**Something I just noticed when I clicked on the pic to make it larger, which made me smile, is TM's husband checking out my ass as he holds my legs up. TM will find this as funny as I did, which is why she's my best friend...**

And it just keeps coming. And not in a good way.

2009-06-04T14:50:00.003-05:00

These are some things that have transpired in the past 5 days that make me want to crawl in my bed and never come out. Except to answer the door for the pizza man.

1. MP lost three (count 'em, THREE) teeth in a week. I don't normally carry cash at all, I debit everything, so the tooth fairy had to start giving out change. I think the kid's got pliers in her room or something, who loses three freaking teeth in a week!?

2. MP graduated from kindergarten, and on the stage it said "Class of 2021". Which caused me to cry even more than I had when she was singing along with her class, because I realized that I would be 41 when she graduates high school, and that freaked me out.

3. MP went to stay with my parents from yesterday after graduation until next weekend. When she gets back she'll be here for a day before she goes to her dad's for 2-3 weeks. I'm all alone in the house, and miss the little turd already. I threw a pity party for myself last night, but I'll chalk that up to being hormonal. I'll just have to find something to keep me busy. Sassypants has already been warned that I will be at her house more than usual.

4. I loaned a large amount of money to a family member, who promised I would be paid back by Friday. Turns out that's not the case, and I have to wait until the 15th now. Here's the deal I'm most pissed about: there are two weekends between now and the 15th, and I don't have my kiddo. Prime time to go have fun with friends without the stress of finding a sitter. But my account is bad news bears, and that's not feasible now...so I'll be sitting home even more pissed than usual because this time it's not even my fault. Or maybe it is, since I loaned the money...

5. BF was supposed to come over the past three nights but cancelled every night due to some different issue each night. He's supposed to meet me at the house after work today, and if he doesn't I may go to a bar and drink the pennies away in my bank account all by myself. Let's not even start on the last time I've gotten any. That's a whole 'nother story for another day.

6. I totally forgot about a ticket I had gotten in January and went to court for in March. The due date to do defensive driving and obtain my driving record was June 3rd, with no extensions given, no exceptions. I remembered the ticket...yesterday, the day it was due. No way possible to get everything done and to the court by the same day. So now I think I have to go BACK to court, and pay another $225 plus a $25 late fee on it.

7. And the cherry on the whipped cream covered sundae... my landlord emailed me an hour ago telling me that she's going to need to move back into the house by August 1st. I started crying as soon as I got the email. You see, this is the perfect house for me and MP, great school, close to everything, all her friends in the neighborhood, 3 miles from BF, low rent, etc. She rented to me and said she'd probably never move back because she wanted to save money and liked it where she lives. Guess not so much anymore. So now I have to start all over again and find a new place, and move all the shit I've accumulated AGAIN. I'm devastated.

So tonight I've already let BF know that I will be drowning my sorrows with the Keystone Lights (don't judge, I'm poor) and the bottle of wine in my fridge. Hopefully the next week will go smoother.

I left my liver at the river... along with some dignity.

2009-05-29T11:41:00.003-05:00

I'm gonna try to make this as quick as possible, but you know I ramble... so here goes the Memorial Weekend Rundown (or a few highlights) for ya...

* Night one: my brother brought a skank with him (he literally said to me, all I want to do this weekend is drink and fornicate. I swear, word for word, that's what he said). Skank proceeds to get completely inebriated and pisses off just about everyone that was at the house that night, except me (yet). I was actually defending her to everyone because I felt bad that everybody was ganging up on her. Now, I'm normally an even tempered person, but later I walk into the kitchen to hear BF say ouch, and find out that the skank tapped his man-junk. Sassypants was in bed at this point and could hear what was going on, and I really don't remember what happened, but I hear that I lunged at her like a bear and yelled something along the lines of, "THAT'S MY BOYFRIEND, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!?!" as I chest bumped her or something, and my brother and BF picked me up and removed me from the premises, kicking and screaming. I know anyone reading this would have done the same. What's mine is mine and if you touch my man anywhere near his peen, you will not live to see tomorrow. Especially if you tapping it makes his balls hurt, and that in turn makes him useless to me later that evening. Totally kidding, but you get what I'm saying.

* The next morning, everyone wakes up and grabs beers for breakfast, and heads down to hang out in the water in front of the house. No huge drama during the day really, we also had a keg so I of course had to do a keg stand. I think this was the beginning of the end for me. I am never one to not remember things, but later that evening I completely blacked out any memories, only to be told the next day what transpired. I know there was a lot of drinking whiskey out of the bottle, another keg stand, lots of flip cup, and that's about it. I think someone gave me an Adderall too (yeah, I know, WTF?). I was told I made some potatoes to go along with the steak and beans, but nobody got a picture, so I can't be completely sure of that. I know I didn't eat a thing. And when someone was nice (or concerned) enough to make me a sandwich, with no mayo of course, I took a bite of it and then hurled it into the yard, screeching "I don't want this shit". Allegedly. I also allegedly almost took off BF's face because I whizzed it in his direction. I am completely embarrassed, and when people started telling me what had gone on the next morning, I wanted to die. And not just because of the massive hangover I had.

* Saturday we planned to go tubing in the river. All was great until we got in the water, then the sun decided to be a big 'ol bitch and go away. The water was probably around 50 degrees, and I really thought I was going to get hypothermia. Sassypants and I hooked our legs on each other's tubes so we wouldn't lose each other, and I was shaking like a leaf the whole time, therefore making her tube shake too. My nipples could cut diamonds, I literally had to hold my ta-tas so I wouldn't be inappropriate to the children around. And to top it off, we didn't move at all the whole hour and a half we were in the water. Then it starts raining. We say fuck it and get out at some stranger's yard and walk back to the place to return the tubes. Sassy and I walked a total of 2 minutes, and it took us 1 1/2 hours to float that distance. So that was the end of floating the river.

* Meanwhile, there were a lot of random people that kept showing up, who had heard about our place. We knew them, but my deal was, BF and I fronted the money for this place and nobody's getting a free ride. These people expected to just eat our food, drink our beer, and crash FOR FREE. Not no but HELL NO I said. I ended up confronting several people about it, and I'm sure that made me a mega bitch, but I'm all about being fair. So one of the chicks that showed up is married to one of BF's rugby buddies. She proceeds to have sex with SIX DIFFERENT DUDES over the next two days. I'll let you marinate on that for a minute. SIX DIFFERENT DUDES. MARRIED. MOM. Yeah, I know, I'm disgusted as well. In my heyday I didn't have sex with six different people in a year! So from then on, I wouldn't sit on the toilet seat for the remainder of the trip, and I showered with flip flops on. I'm sure there are STD's creeping all over that poor house. Gross...moving on.

* Sunday morning we wake up and BF has a massive hangover. Massive enough to where he didn't get out of bed at all during the day. I've never in my life seen him like that, and I've known the guy for about 4-5 years. I actually went and got Sassy to come check his pulse because I was so concerned. He wanted to be left alone and sleep, so I went and hung out and drank with the people who were outside. That evening we had tickets to a band we like, so we load up and head over there. This is when I find out that my brother's skank date is only 20. I had been contributing to a minor all damn weekend. That pissed me off to no end... I'm too old for shit like that, man. So at the bar, the girl washes off the X's on her hands they put on there to make sure everyone knows she's a minor. Within 10 minutes, a cop comes over to our group and motions for her to come over. He proceeds to re-X her hands SUPER DARK (and that made me crack up), and let her go. Bitch still finds a way to drink, and by the end of the night my brother is begging dudes to please take her off his hands. I guess even fornicating wasn't worth putting up with that bitch.

All in all, we did have a lot of fun. There was great music, lots of good friends, and lots of memories made. I'll try to get some pics up once I get them. I didn't keep this blog short and sweet like I said I would, but there was so much to be told!! There's still so much more, but maybe I'll let Sassypants finish the stories up. I'm gonna go and plan another river trip now.

NOT.

Lessons learned from Memorial Weekend...

2009-05-26T10:43:00.004-05:00

The list is long, but I'm still too tired to really think right now... so here's what I can come up with for now:

1. Don't get close to a BBQ pit and stoke it while drinking. You will end up with 2nd degree burns all over your body, and worse of all, on your nipples.
2. Don't bring an underage person to the river, she will annoy everyone. And you might catch her in the bathroom with her hand down some dude's pants that isn't her date.
3. Even people who are shy and don't talk at all will show their boobs when prompted.
4. As organized as you think you are, you still will not collect money
from moochers. And when they say thanks for a good time you'll say "Sure, glad you got a free ride" and he'll think YOU'RE the bitch.
5. It IS possible for one girl to bang 6 dudes in a 48 hour period.
6. Me and Sassypants still rock at flip cup, even when
intoxicated.
7. If someone is nice enough to make you a sandwich, you don't throw it in the yard angrily, and narrowly avoid BF's face.
8. Even the biggest beer snobs will resort to drinking Natural Light or Lone Star when that's all you got.
9. If you come with a date, then go to a bar and bring another girl home, don't expect there to not be tension when your date finds you in bed with the random stranger.
10. When you have a set number that can stay in the house you rented, that number will increase by 15 once everyone starts inviting stragglers.
11. Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" WILL make everyone stop what they're doing and come on the porch for a mass sing along. Twice in a row.

That's all for now. I'll give you the complete rundown of the four days at the river once I recover in a month or so.

The laziest blog post in America.

2009-05-19T14:33:00.001-05:00

Just click here. I couldn't tell this story better if I tried.......

It's a must read, I promise!

Is it possible to still be drunk from two days ago?

2009-05-18T12:13:00.002-05:00

I don't think it is, but I still ain't right. The crawfish boil was awesome, we had a great time despite the monsoon that blew in mid-party. We started out with a ton of beer and made 4 (count 'em), FOUR beer runs after that because we kept running out. We might have a drinking problem, I dunno.

Will post more about the party later, or I'm sure TM will... I need to get back to normal first.

An addendum to my last post...

2009-05-11T14:09:00.008-05:00

Another thing I'm excited about...

My birthday! Ok, well I'm not excited about turning 29 on Sunday(for the first time, thankyouverymuch), but I AM excited about what we're doing for the party on Saturday:

CRAWFISH BOIL!!!!

I'm a coonass to the core, and few things make me happier than sitting down in front of a table full of spicy mudbugs, corn, and taters, with a cold beer in my hand and some good music playing on the radio. We had planned on doing the crawfish boil at my house, but thinking about it more, we decided to do it at TM's house, since she has a bigger back patio that's covered, and there's more room for the kiddos to play. Anyhoo, I'm pretty pumped about this weekend... let's hope the weather is nice to us!

Equation for my happiness, for you visual learners:

PLUS

PLUS

EQUALS

Happy Amber!!

Anticipation of upcoming events...

2009-05-06T08:03:00.007-05:00

Three things I am super duper excited about:

1. Our trip to the Guadalupe River over Memorial Day weekend. We have a group of about 16 people going, and Sassypants and her hubs are included in that crazy group. There will be four days of no kids, lots of beer, sun, tubing the river, gossiping with the gals, relaxing, and BBQing. We're also hitting up a Cory Morrow concert at the local icehouse Sunday night. I. Can't. Wait.

Here's a pic of the river from the back porch of the house we rented, just to give you a small taste of the paradise we'll be experiencing:

2. I snagged some tickets for me and my brother to see Aerosmith with ZZ Top on Friday, July 17th. Not sure if I've mentioned it before, but I LOVE ZZ TOP. I've seen Aerosmith before and they put on a hell of a show, but I don't miss a ZZ Top concert that is within a hundred mile radius of where I live. This will be my 9th time seeing them, and it never gets old. My brother has a fake beard I made for him that he wears every time we go see them, and he looks just like Billy F. Gibbons. Here's a pic from a concert a few years ago:

He's the one to the far left, standing next to BF. I'm on the far right.

3. Saturday, July 18th, the night after Aerosmith/ZZ Top, we have a girls' night to go see THESE GUYS:

Sassypants and I got our tickets the minute they went on sale. We had such a blast at the first concert in October 2008, we decided we had to go again. This time we're getting vintage NKOTB shirts off of eBay and going straight 80's style. Again, I CAN'T WAIT!!! We were transformed into screaming teenagers as soon as they came on stage, and sang every song and danced all their old choreography right along with them. It makes me excited just thinking about it.

Here we are at the last concert:

So, now, we wait...

In my favorite words by Pink Floyd: Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day...

Stories from the pokey, volume two.

2009-04-30T12:25:00.004-05:00

If one time in jail taught me anything, it was that I definitely did not want to go back. It also taught me drugs are bad and don't steal. The following story has nothing to do with the previous one, except for the bad timing and another trip to the county jail...

I was on my way home from a bar about three years ago, and wanted to drive the back roads to avoid the interstate construction (okay, I really wanted to avoid the cops, but whatever). Earlier in the evening I had a date, but it ended early and some of my friends were out at a bar so I decided to go meet them after he dropped me off. I had a couple drinks with dinner on the date, then at the bar with my friends I had some more, but I stopped drinking about an hour before the bar closed because I knew I had to drive 30 minutes home by myself. How responsible of me, right?

Anyway, back to driving the back roads... I ended up going through the tiny town I called home for 18 years, where there is literally one stop light and 2 gas stations. I got to a four way stop, stopped my car, then proceeded through the intersection. That's when it happened. This tattered black minivan smoked through the stop sign across the road, and I clipped his back bumper. I should probably mention that it's about 2:30 in the morning at this point, it's really dark, and there are no people for miles. I stop for a minute, then decide to drive a little way up to the school where there is a huge lighted parking lot to examine the damage.

All of a sudden, the minivan busts a U (I heard the tires squeal, he turned that fast), and the guy starts chasing me, swerving all over the road and flashing his brights at me. I'm freaking out, thinking there's a psycho behind me (I was actually right), and make it to the school, where he skids to a stop and jumps out of his car, waving his cell phone in the air, yelling, "I'm calling the cops!! I'm calling the cops!!".

Ok. So I'm 5'4", half the size of this dude (let me also mention he had to be at least 60 years old... what the hell he was doing out at that ungodly hour, I'll never know), and he's screaming at me like I'm gonna hit him or something? When HE ran the stop sign?? I walk a couple of steps closer to him, which was still about 8 feet away from him, and ask him to put the freaking phone down, since he was the one at fault, and he starts yelling to the 911 operator, "She's attacking me! She's trying to attack me!! Send help now!!". I shit you not. Let's just say there were two squad cars there in less than a minute, because all I'm sure they heard was that some huge bitch was attacking some innocent senior citizen in a parking lot.

The cops start to question me, and the guy is telling them that I was the one that ran the stop sign, then I fled the scene and once he pulled me over, tried to grab his cell phone and throw it across the parking lot. I swear, I've never met an actual lunatic until that night. The cops are kinda looking at him funny, and I can tell they believe me over him, but they still have to run our licenses and whatnot and file some sort of report since there was a collision. Fine, I hand over my license and the cop goes to the car to call it in.

You probably can figure out that I had a warrant. For an unpaid speeding ticket that had happened while I was evacuating from Hurricane Rita, two years prior. I had totally forgotten about it!! The cop was really apologetic as he told me I'd be taking a ride with him down to the slammer.

So, in the midst of me getting cuffed and stuffed, my friend shows up who I had called when the crazy guy was yelling at me before the cops got there. He's completely in awe... here he is, pulling up to a school parking lot to help me out, and he sees two cop cars, me getting cuffed, and a lunatic still yelling at me (but now he was laughing/yelling because I was getting arrested and thought it was justice being served). I just told my friend to somehow get my car and please come bail me out, like, NOW.

So, I get to jail, and the cops are nice to me and don't make me actually go in a cell. They do make me take the bobby pins out of my hair, in case I wanted to fashion a shank or something out of them, and then lead me over to take my glamour, I mean, mug shot. But for the 40 minutes I waited for my friend, the cops were all talking to me and being cool, and I didn't have to sit in a cold dirty cell, or even have cuffs on. I'm thankful for that. I'm also thankful they didn't make me do a breathalyzer... that could have made for a much more interesting story.

As for the batshit crazy old man... well, he called my house the next day and demanded I pay for his ancient minivan's damages. Said he had a copy of the 911 tape and everything, and I better pay up.

I told him to eat a dick.

What kind of bird doesn't fly? A JAILBIRD! (Part 1)

2009-04-20T12:43:00.005-05:00

After my last post, I decided to fill you guys in on my jail stories, since a few of you seem curious. Let me begin by saying I have only been to jail twice, not three times, so that was the false fact about me. Not that ONLY twice is something to brag about...

First time, I was 21 years old, and had just returned from South Texas where I had helped my boyfriend pack up and move home (he went to college down there). We went over to Mexico (about a 10 minute drive from where he lived) to look around and shop, and I wanted to get some liquor because it's super cheap over there. Well he had the bright idea to go into one of the millions of "pharmacies" (I use that term loosely because they sell everything without prescriptions) and purchase some medicines. People in my hometown were big into taking Xanax, Valium, and painkillers and spacing out at parties (the allure of this, I'll never know), and DAB (dumbass boyfriend) thought we should get some of them so he could sell them for a profit, since there was such a demand for them at the time. I was stupid and didn't tell him that was a really bad idea. (I WAS only 21...)

So we get the pills, and get in my car to drive back across the border. I had bottles of pills in my bra and in my knee-high boots under my jeans just in case we got searched... thank goodness I did that, because as soon as we crossed the bridge back into the U.S. the border patrol motions us to the side of the road to search my car. (Apparently, young people go across the border all the time to score prescription-free meds, and obviously that is illegal). So they search my car, take out panels on the sides of my consoles, go through backpacks, luggage, EVERYTHING, but don't actually search our bodies (thank God).

So, we get back and go to a huge party that Friday night, and DAB's selling Xanax like hotcakes for $5 apiece. I was off enjoying the legal intoxication of the keg, and didn't know that he put the bottle of pills in my purse once he was done being Mr. Salesman of the year. Fast forward to the next day... I meet a couple of girlfriends to tan, have lunch, and shop at the mall to find an outfit to wear out to the club that night. Little did I know, my friend shoplifted panties from Victoria's Secret, and then my other friend stole a shirt from JC Penney. What idiots. As we were leaving JCP, the security guards stopped us and asked us to come with them. I was clueless at this point, and was all, WTF do we have to do that for, and they informed me that the security cameras caught one of us shoplifting and they needed to search our bags. When we get to the back, they find the shirt and panties on my friends, and nothing on me. Well, the cops had already been called, and when they got there they re-searched us all.

And that's when they found the pills in my purse. I had no idea they were there, and then it went off like a lightbulb that DAB must have put them in there the night before. There were a total of 54 pills in the bottle, so obviously it looked like I was a drug dealer. I of course tried to explain, but I knew there was no way out of this, it was so obvious what it LOOKED like. So, one friend and I got cuffed and escorted THROUGH THE MALL (not embarrasing at all) out to the waiting cop cars, and taken to the pokey. (The other friend got to leave, because the panties she had were less than $50, and not a misdemeanor).

Once we get to the jail, they make us strip down, and squat and cough to make sure there was nothing, um, hidden. That was the most mortifying moment of my life, lemme tell ya. We had a phone in our cell, and we were the only ones in it, thank goodness, so we kept calling our other friend, who had promised to come back and get us. I finally get ahold of her, and the bitch is at her HOUSE, taking a BATH, and getting ready to go out to the club!! I yelled and cursed at her for everything she was worth, then hung up and called DAB. He says he'll be there in less than an hour, and he did as promised... but had my parents with him because he couldn't come up with bail for both of us. That was an awesome ride home.

I ended up having 6 months probation, 100 hours community service, and a drug awareness class. And I had a curfew, which meant I couldn't leave my house before 6AM and had to be in by 9PM. I lived with my parents at the time, therefore they strictly enforced the curfew. I also had to go to weekly probation meetings with the bitchiest woman probation officer in the world, and get drug tested (peeing in a cup in front of a woman officer, again, mortifying) and couldn't drink alcohol. Let's just say I learned my lesson. Thank goodness I got deferred judication, which means it's not on my permanent record. That's one of the things I'm most grateful for, because I doubt I'd be employed with the company I am now if that showed up on my criminal record.

Moral of the story: don't hang out with theiving bitches and/or boyfriends who want to be frat-boy drug dealers. You could end up in jail, naked and coughing in front of the large lady cop who looks like she likes girls...

**I'll post about my second jail experience later... this one went on a little longer than I thought it would.**

I'm still alive...

2009-04-16T11:59:00.004-05:00

... but I am an awful blogger. I read everyone else's daily, but I have nothing new in my life to talk about. It's been two weeks since I last posted, and I have come to the realization that I'm just boring! So, in order to have something to post (and to prove I may have at one time been interesting), I'm totally jacking Samsmama's idea and posting a list of ten random things from my past that I've done...with one thing listed that I didn't do. See if you can figure out which one it is!

(oh, and Sassypants, you can't comment until they figure it out, because it's just not fair... you've known me for 24 years).

1. I was an egg donor after MP was born... I only planned on doing it once, but ended up doing it 7 times because my baby makers were apparently a hot commodity.

2. I got busted driving drunk (yes, I know, no lectures please) when I was 19 (again, underage, I know) and my parents had to come pick me up on the side of the road. 3 miles from my house. On a Tuesday. At 3am. The cop was nice enough not to haul me to jail, though.

3. I had scholarship offers to dance in college (not strippering, dance teaming) but stayed in my hometown for a boy. We broke up 5 months later.

4. I've been on the bar at every Coyote Ugly bar I've been to. And Hogs and Heifers.

4. I have never, ever, flashed my boobies... even before I had a kiddo and they were more, um, perky.

5. I had to ride a Greyhound bus from San Antonio to my hometown twice because I totaled my car and had no other way. It was one of the most awful experiences ever, and I cried getting on it every time.

6. I've smuggled prescription drugs and steroids into the US from Mexico.

7. My first kiss was under my parents' trailer, and he tasted like bubblegum. He also tried to put his hand up my shirt and I freaked out. We were 5.

8. My friend once spilled red nail polish on her white comforter when I spent the night at her house in elementary school, and when her mom saw what happened, my friend blamed it on me and I got in trouble. I still carry that grudge. :)

9. I've been to jail three times.

10. I spent every sunny day (and some rainy ones) during the summer in the late 80's/early 90's jumping on my trampoline and listening to tapes of New Kids on the Block, Paula Abdul, Janet Jackson, and MC Hammer... from the time I woke up until the sun went down. I LOVED IT.

The week in stressful events, so far...

2009-04-02T15:00:00.003-05:00

I know I've been neglectful of my blog, but let me give you a quick rundown of my week thus far:

Monday - Get to work, and realize that the day of vacation I used Friday for my kiddo's birthday ensures that people will inevitably have fifty bajillion urgent things on my desk and in my email when I return. Go home, find that the puppy has escaped the barricaded kitchen and shit in my living room. Feed kid and dog, bathe kid, and all in bed by 8:30.

Tuesday - Get to work with same shitstorm as day before, since with my actual body in the office they can come in and bark orders at me instead of wasting precious time writing an email. Leave to pick up kiddo to go to the dentist. Said dentist takes over two hours for both of us. Feed the kid, drop her back at school, then go home and clean (because there's no way I'm driving all the way back to work for only 30 minutes of work). Jail-escaping puppy has upped shit pile count to two. Dinner at BF's house, home, bathe kiddo, everyone in bed by 9.

Wednesday - Didn't start out bad at all... had an offsite teambuilding event where we went to College Station, TX to the George Bush Library (eh, it was okay), to lunch at a nice restaurant, then to ...get this... a WINERY. And we got to DRINK (well, taste) some. When I got home is when trouble started... puppy escaped AGAIN (yes, I realize I'm the one who's an idiot and not learning my lesson), two piles of shit again, hyper kid who won't listen is running around like a heathen and lets puppy out of the front door, I have to chase it, some Mexican is at my door trying to see if he can mow my lawn, all while BF is on the phone telling me to calm down and go drink a beer for Godsakes. Screw the bath tonight and everybody in bed by 8. Wake up at 3:00AM to puke. No idea why. But that's always fun. (totally kidding)

Thursday (so far) - Wake up to be at work by 6:30, have 4 visas and 5 expense reports to do on top of the other crap that's still piled up from earlier in the week. Boss makes me run and buy 11 $100 AMEX gift cards for employee recognition (yes, I realize that's $1100. None for me though). Stop by TM's house to bring her and her little one lunch (she was working from home and I needed a little TM in my day). Get back to work, resume churning out work requests, and prepare for the banquet our group is having tonight. 250+ people, dinner, etc. with a lot of boring presentations...and I can't get out of it. So I won't get home until about 9. At least I get to drink. And at least BF is picking up MP and basically running my house for me until I get there. I'll have to thank him properly, if I'm not too tired. :)

This, my friends, should sum up why exactly I titled my blog what I did.

Okay, off to the hotel to get stuff ready for the banquet... And following in the footsteps of Calicobebop, I will not bitch ANY MORE THIS WEEK and will promise a happy and thankful post next time. :)

Happy Birthday, Miss Priss!!

2009-03-27T15:57:00.003-05:00

6 years ago today, I was in labor for the second time in 10 days, wishing the day would end... That's a long faded memory now, thank goodness. Can't believe my baby is already 6 years old... time flies. We're having her party tomorrow, so I'll have some new pics up next week but until then...

This is her standing next to an ass (hehe) two years ago at her birthday party (at a farm, not my house... I may live in Texas, but there's no asses in my backyard. Unless BF is back there). She wouldn't take off the tiara all day, in classic MP style. I just love this pic.

A new addition to my family. No, I'm not pregnant!

2009-03-26T08:21:00.003-05:00

MP's birthday is tomorrow, and I still have no idea what to get her. The kid has three of everything. So she might be spoiled, what about it??

BF brought over his gift to her last night... a new puppy!! I was quite skeptical of this, and have been going over the pros and cons for weeks now, but BF convinced me that every kid needs a pet, and I finally caved.

He called me yesterday to tell me he picked the puppy up (a beagle/poodle mix), and also bought everything she'd need (food, treats, bowls, a crate, etc.). He even bought her a pink and white polka dot collar!! The boy knows me well. He didn't want to wait until Friday to give it to her, so he decided to do it last night. He called as he was pulling in the neighborhood and asked me to have her sit on the living room floor and blindfold her so he could surprise her. I did as I was told, and when he got there he had a disposable camera wound and ready to go, with the flash on, so I could take pictures. (I know this sounds hella 1995, but my digital camera crapped out on me, so we made do with what we could.) What a thoughtful boyfriend. :)

So, MP is sitting there and he lets the puppy go, and she runs right up to MP and starts licking her on the face. MP starts freaking out, laughing, and immediately starts rolling on the floor with the puppy. She was so excited, and I got a lot of great pictures (I hope).

BF and I sit MP down to explain her new responsibilities. She was pretty distracted with the puppy, but I think she got the gist of everything. I told her we needed a name for the pup, and she immediately says "Bella". So Bella it is. I'm glad she didn't rattle off Hannah Montana or Sharpay (from High School Musical, if you're lucky enough to not know who that is).

The night went pretty well, except for my lack of sleep. I had to let her out at 2AM wearing nothing but a ZZ Top t-shirt and a thong, but really, what neighbors are up at 2AM on Thursday morning? Guess I'm going to have to start sleeping in clothes. But that's beside the point. I went back to bed and let her sleep with us, since I have to crate her during the day and don't want to keep her in there at night too. Probably not the best idea, since she kept me up until 4:30 with her doggy dreams, but oh well. We're all adjusting, so I figure it will get better with time.

Then, this morning as we were about to leave, I hear MP from her room... "Bella, that's not very ladylike!" Turns out she pooped right in the middle of her floor. And so life with a puppy begins...

I'll post the pictures as soon as I go down to the store and get them developed. I'm so old-skool!

Miss Priss Withdrawls - and a little ranting.

2009-03-20T07:40:00.006-05:00

I'm having serious cuddlebug withdrawls. I need my little one back, stat! Her dad lives three hours away from here, and during her spring break she went to stay with him. She's been gone since last Friday, and won't be back until tomorrow night or Sunday. I should be used to this, for her whole life whenever she'd go to her daddy's she would stay at least 4 days, sometimes up to 2 weeks, because he rarely got her and I would let her stay a little longer. Now that she's in school though, she obviously can't go as often. I'm not driving an hour and a half to meet on a Friday night just to turn around Sunday morning to do the same thing. He never calls and asks to get her anyway, so this works out for all involved (except probably the most important person involved, MISS PRISS). I'm just so happy that MP doesn't seem to realize the lack of communication on her dad's part...yet. I'm sure it will happen in the next few years, and when that day comes I know that I can say I've done everything that I could to make him part of her life. I think she'll figure everything out on her own, and it makes me unbelievably sad to think of her being hurt. But it's his loss... he's the one losing out on daily recounts of what happened at school, how her friends are, what she's learning, and even how her birthday was. Yeah, he didn't even call her last year on her birthday, actually nobody from his family did. I cried for her, even though she didn't realize he hadn't called. And when she did ask me why her dad didn't call her on her birthday a few days later, I lied for her dad and said he did but I forgot to tell her. I won't be doing that again. I understand he's got a wife and two kids in San Antonio with him, but he constantly forgets about his first born baby girl, and soon she'll be in the know enough to not want anything to do with him. Again... his loss. I just can't imagine NOT wanting to spend every second with this precious girl!

Enough of the ranting... it's Friday! Two days of weekend coming up, yay!

**UPDATE, 1 hour after posting: texted babydaddy's wife (the only one I communicate with, funny huh... I never even talk to him about arrangements anymore because he doesn't have his shit together); trying to find out when the hell I can get her back bc they never responded before... she asks if we can do it Sunday because babydaddy has been out of town all week for training in my hometown. WHAT.THE.FUCK. Why the hell did MP even go then? Mood: back to pissed off. It will be a long ass time before I let her go again... turns out she was at a babysitter's house for the whole week. She could have done that here. On the bright side, babydaddy finally got a job after 5 years so maybe my child support can return to consistent instead of wondering when and if I'm going to get it...

OK, think I'm really done now. At least I hope so.

Interview with the spawn

2009-03-12T18:29:00.005-05:00

Answered by Miss Priss, age 5 (well, 6 in 2 weeks...). Answers are exactly as she quoted them.

1. What is something mom always says to you?
I love you.

2. What makes mom happy?
Me!

3. What makes mom sad?
When I act mean and bad and when someone stole something that was yours (I have no idea what she's talking about on the last part)

4. How does your mom make you laugh?
You do funny stuff and squeeze that butt. (Squeeze that butt is how I wake her up in the morning, she has a tushie that just needs to be squeezed sometimes!)

5. What was your mom like as a child?
You were always being silly and you had fun at recess.

6. How old is your mom?
28 (She usually says 58 so I'll take this answer!)

7. How tall is your mom?
20 feet long (oh dear)

8. What is her favorite thing to do?
Play with me and spend time with me and Jered.

9. What does your mom do when you're not around?
You just go to your friends and hang out and you go on a field trip with your friends like to the river.

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?
Because you sing good and because youre the most talented girl I've ever met. (Singing, no way)

11. What is your mom really good at?
You are really really really good at going to nap. (Ha, I love to sleep, what can I say?)

12. What is your mom not very good at?
Letting me play with my friends. (Seeing as she only wants to run around with boys that are 4 years older, I'll say I guess I'm not good at letting her play with her friends!)

13. What does your mom do for a job?
Work at *insert correct name of company I work for here*. (Very good!)

14.What is your mom's favorite food?
I would really say fried chicken. (Nope, but I am a Southern girl and love my fried foods.)

15.What makes you proud of your mom?
Because what you do for me.

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?
SpongeBob. (I don't see the resemblance?)

17. What do you and your mom do together?
Sometimes we play games.

18. How are you and your mom the same?
Because we're both talented and we both like boys. (Niiiice. I'm in for some serious shit in her teenage years.)

19. How are you and your mom different?
We don't have the same hair cause yours is brown and blonde and mine is brown.

20. How do you know your mom loves you?
Because you spend time with me.

21. Where is your mom's favorite place to go?
To the river. (10-4, little one!)

When I told her that was the end, she said she wished there was more. :)

Yep, it's definitely Monday.

2009-03-09T10:25:00.002-05:00

This morning I overslept, then MP also fell back to sleep after I woke her up, making me late.

Shattered my driver's side rearview mirror of my car as I was backing out of my garage this morning, trying to figure out why my babysitter wasn't answering her phone. My dumb ass hit the side of the garage backing up. My own fault for not paying attention, but WTF!

Babysitter wasn't awake when I went to drop MP off this morning, therefore I had to park and go in her house and wake her up (I have a key, I didn't break in).

Aforementioned parking-and-going-inside makes me 5 more minutes late.

Disabled vehicle on the side of the road on the way to work, causing everyone to rubberneck and make me even more late.

Get to work and park in the garage. Take a look at the rearview mirror and determine it's probably going to cost an assload of money to fix it, as the electric motor isn't working either.

Get in my office and realize I have 4 expense reports and three foreign visa applications and one passport request to do RIGHT NOW. (But I just finished them, thank GOD).

I need to go home and get in bed with a glass of wine. I just might do it.

See, even a pessimist can be grateful!

2009-03-04T08:58:00.005-06:00

Reading over some of my bloggyspace friends' blogs, I decided to follow suit and write about things I'm grateful for. Yeah, this is kind of out of character for me, since I'm pretty much a glass-half-empty kinda gal, but I do know I am a lucky girl in a lot of ways. It could be worse, a lot worse...

My daughter (of course)
I know that I wasn't ready to have her when I did, and there were a lot (A LOT) of struggles during pregnancy, birth, and raising her so far... but I wouldn't go back and change a thing. She's independent, witty, smart, and an all around good kid , and I know that there are a lot of single moms out there that struggle much worse than me. A good thing about her growing up the way she has is that she adapts to new things very well, and flourishes. No way could I have ever done that, growing up in my sheltered two parent stable household. Of course, she has her days, as we all do, but those days pale in comparison to the days where she draws me a picture with two stick figures and I LUV MOMMY on it, and offers to unload the dishwasher because "mommy looks tired". It's the little things...

My job
I'm lucky to just have one. And from the looks of things, I'll have one for a while, since my company is actively HIRING instead of doing layoffs. There are things that happen on an hourly basis that piss me off to no end, but hey, I get to go home to a nice house with electricity and water, food stocked in the fridge, and have some extra money to unwind with friends on the weekends, so I really have no reason to complain. I know there are people out there who are stressing about their wife and kids to support with no job, and that put things right back into perspective when I'm bitching about the asshole who treats me like I'm his personal servant. There are lots of people out there that would jump at the chance to be the Italian asshole's personal servant.

My bed
Yes, my bed. You have no idea. I am so freaking grateful to have the big, comfy, soft, king size bed with fluffy pillows and a warm comforter and soft sheets. I would live in that bitch if I could. TM can relate to me on this one.

Friends and boyfriend
I'm so lucky to have the people in my life that I do. I've lost touch with a lot of old friends over the years, the ones that I swore would be bridesmaids in my wedding and I would be there at their kids' births... but people change, and instead of being sad over friendships fading away, I am happy for the ones that have remained strongly intact. I'm lucky to have three best friends as well, Matter of Fact Mommy! My brother, my girl KG, and of course, TM. I know that no matter what problem I have, I can turn to any one of them and they can help me fix it (or they can just fix me a strong drink, and I'll forget about the problem, ha.) And then there's BF... we were friends with benefits for almost a year before we started dating, and I never thought anything would come out of our situation other than what it was. But now we've been officially together for 8 months and he really makes me happier than I thought he ever could. Letting someone in your life when you have a child is one of the hardest things to do, and he's the first guy that MP has ever known I was dating. Although he annoys me to no end and is emotionally retarded sometimes (I say that in the nicest way possible, ha), he shows he cares in little ways that nobody but me gets to see, and I think that's one of the best things about him. He cares about MP just as much as he cares about me, and watching him with her truly makes me melt.

The weekends
How could I leave that out!? Some people have to WORK on the weekends... but I get those two glorious days that I can spend with all the things I'm grateful for. :)

IM conversation of the day

2009-02-26T13:58:00.004-06:00

TM and I work for a company who has interoffice IM capabilities... great if you need to find something out quickly without waiting on an email or actually talking to a person, but bad if you and your best friend work at the same job. We are on it all day long.

Below is part of a conversation we've had today...

**BACKSTORY: We live in Houston, and today the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is opening. There are people who trek here on their horses, in wagons and shit, from all over the state and even lots of other states, to go to the rodeo. We also work in a place referred to as "Gunspoint" because of all the minority crime. There have been multiple shootings since we've worked here, all within a 1/2 mile radius.

Me... the trail riders are going down Greenspoint Dr. right now
TM... cool
Me... the neighborhood peeps here aren't going to know what the hell is goings on
TM... LMFAO
Me... I think they're camping out at Greenspoint mall
Me... hope they brought their trusty rifles, and if they're BBQing they better watch their back
TM... OMG are they crazy?
Me... yeah I know
Me... I see a bunch of trailers over there
TM... I wonder why on earth they picked that spot?
Me... Um, to make it more like the Wild Wild West, with shootouts and bandits and all?
TM... ohhh, right
Me... I'd like to walk over there and ask if 2 weeks on the friggin "Oregon Trail" has made them crazy enough to stop here and set up camp
TM... LOL
Me... And if riding a horse down I-10 is anything like our ancestors had to go through

... Ten minutes later ...

TM... I'm bored
Me... um yeah, uh huh me too
Me... let's go jack with the chuck wagon gang over at the mall
TM... LMFAO
TM... wait, would that mean we'd have to *walk* over there?
Me... well they *rode in a wagon* or *on a horse*
TM... hmm
Me... I'll take walking over misaligning my spine.
TM... I'm just not willing to put my life at risk
Me... this is true
TM... it's hard enough for me to get from the bldg to the garage
TM... AND down a flight of stairs
Me... I'd hate to have on my grave marker "She died surrounded by cowboys and cowgirls in a blaze of gang fight gunfire"

Yep, my friends, just another day at the office...

My first and last fistfight.

2009-02-23T09:06:00.003-06:00

TM and I were in a goofy mood Friday afternoon, and were reminiscing about some of our shenanigans over the past few years. This story came up, and she pretty much told me I HAD to blog about it. So here it is.

Halloween is always a holiday I look forward to. We always dress up and go out and have a great time. A couple of years ago, Halloween fell on a Wednesday, so we had already celebrated the previous weekend (because what grown up with a real job can REALLY go out on a work night?). Well, turns out, MP was at her dad's that year, so this grown up with a real job decided not to sit home and be sad about not taking her kiddo trick or treating, and went out. On a work night.

A friend of mine was the one who convinced me, so we got all dressed up in our costumes and went to a bar. We met some of her work buddies out there (one was actually her boss), and found out they were having a costume contest. I should mention how we were dressed, I suppose...

Me: Army girl (costume from the previous year that I had to re-wear because my goddess costume had Jaeger Bomb stains on it from the weekend before)
Friend: Bumblebee
Friend's Boss: Rocker dude with eyeliner, fake tats, etc.
Friend's Coworker #1: A cowboy, complete with stuffed horse that attached to his waist
Friend's Coworker #2: Guy from the movie Office Space: it was awesome, he had attached Post-Its to completely cover his suit, briefcase, shoes, head, EVERYTHING, and had the red stapler as well. It was very original.

So that was our group. When we get to the club and find out about the contest, we all force Office Space guy (OSg) to go enter because his costume was awesome. He complies and goes up to register. Bumblebee friend and I are dancing and drinking, and it's pretty packed, so we go to the edge of the dance floor to watch the contest. There were the standard hooker girls with not much more than a smile on, the buff guys dressed up as firefighters or cops (pretty unoriginal), and a few other randoms, along with OSg. My bumblebee friend had gone to get the rest of our group when OSg came on stage, and the crowd started laughing and clapping. I was trying to get him to win, so I was telling everyone around me to yell for him (because the winner was determined by loudness of the crowd or something). Everyone's being cool and saying sure, we'll yell for him, then I get to this big Mexican bitch. I tap her on the shoulder politely and ask her to yell for OSg and she glares at me, turns around, and pours a beer on my head. Yes, that's correct. She POURED HER BEER ON MY FREAKING HEAD. For what!? Asking her to yell!?

I was completely in shock, and stood there for at least 30 seconds with my mouth open. I turned around to find my bumblebee friend, who was behind me standing with her boss. When I got to her, she was like, "Um, WTF happened to your hair and mascara?", and I told her a big Mexican bitch poured her beer on me. She asked which one, so I turned to look for her, and she happened to be standing exactly where she had been a second ago. I said, "This one", as my arm took on a life of its own and poured my beer on her head. Eye for an eye, bitch. Then it was on.

I should mention the BMB (Big Mexican Bitch) had about 10 inches and 150 lbs on me. This is pertinent information.

BMB turns around, with beer dripping down her face just like it had done mine a few minutes ago, and lunges at me. In a total bitch move, she grabbed me by my hair (at the time, it was pretty long, so there was a lot to grab). I start swinging, as she has me in a death grip, but she's so tall that I can barely connect with her face. So I start trying to connect with her huge gut that is right in front of me. All of a sudden, I see black and yellow flying in my direction. Bumblebee friend saw it go down and decided that two small girls equal one BMB. She literally has to jump up to reach this chick, and proceeds to stick her thumb in her eye, and claw the other side of her face. BMB never even threw a punch, all she did was grab my hair and try to elbow bumblebee friend, but there wasn't time for anymore... because here come the bouncers. Great.

One bouncer grabs me, somehow gets his arms entertwined in mine and lifts me up to where my feet are dangling about 6" off the ground, and starts carrying me out. The whole time, I'm kicking and screaming, "I'm cool, man! I'm cool! Let me go!". I see bumblebee in front of me, getting carried out the same way. We get carried out past her coworkers (nice), and the bartender guy that had been calling me for a week or so, who had the most puzzled look on his face. Like, a this-bitch-is-crazy kind of look.

The bouncers put me and bumblebee against the wall and ask WTF happened. BMB is also outside, still yelling at me in Spanish and pointing her finger at us. In the glow of the streetlights she was way scarier. We knew a lot of the people who worked at the bar, so we told them what happened and they found us to not be a threat, so they let us back in. I was really scared that BMB would be waiting in her El Camino or something when we left later that night, but all was good.

In conclusion, I would like to state for the record that I am not a crazy ghetto bitch. That was the first altercation I had ever been in, and I was 27. I was totally provoked. And she started it.

Also, I'm really glad I wasn't wearing the goddess dress with heels like I wanted to. I was more prepared for combat wearing this:

Summation of last weekend...in pictures

2009-02-12T10:48:00.005-06:00

Last Friday TM and I (and our significant others) went to see one of our favorite bands, Cross Canadian Ragweed... here are some pics that might give you insight to our silly lives:

Here we have me and TM. I think this might be the only non-drunk picture we have together!

Here we have me and BF posing for a nice, clean pic... and TM's hand sneaking up and groping me. I mean, her ta tas are three times the size of mine, she could get more out of it by copping a feel of her own chest!! Just sayin'.

Here I am, checking out her hubby's nice ASSets. He's got a ghetto booty, and he says that's the only reason I wanna hang out with him. He might be right. Note the quantities of beer littering our table...

Here are me and TM, not-so-patiently waiting for the opening act singer to shut her piehole and let Ragweed come on stage. We're obviously not into the band that's the opener. (Again, all the beers... GEEZ!)

And here are BF and I, with photographic evidence that I constantly annoy him. He's trying to smile, but looks pained. I was probably drunk singing. Eh, he puts up with me. :)

We all had fun though, except for the memory loss we all seemed to experience after midway through the concert (and obviously after many beers and shots). Thank goodness TM had a camera so we could go back and piece together that night's events...

Dating and the Black Hole Theory

2009-02-04T15:02:00.004-06:00

As you must know by now, I'm not a single gal. But for about, oh, 4 years I was. And it was, for lack of a better word, interesting. I developed a theory that Tits McGee can totally corroborate. It's called the Black Hole Theory. Here's the scoop:

I would go out with a seemingly great guy. We would hit it off and seem to have a great time, and it would seem like there would be a second date. Emphasis on the word seem (three times). Date would end, maybe a kiss, maybe not, then he would say he'd call. But that would never happen. Sure, that happens a lot in the dating world, I get it. It's just part of the hazards of dating. But, you see, it happened EVERY TIME. And the guy would seriously disappear off the face of the earth. REALLY. I lived in a very small town, where everyone knows everyone and their business, and these people would literally cease to exist, never to be heard from again.

Before you're quick to think I'm an awful date, I will say that I'm not hideously ugly, boring, or have a terrible body odor. All my guy friends have said this, so I know it's true. :) I'm not narcissistic or arrogant, self-centered, or obsessed with hair, nails, teacup chihuahuas, the color pink, or saying the phrase "that's hot". I've been told I'm a catch (again, by all my guy friends), I like my "me time", therefore I like for him to have his guy time without me, I'll watch sports and drink beer and shots of whiskey, I prefer a sports bar or hole in the wall joint over a wine or martini bar, and I have no problem with getting muddy riding 4-wheelers or going fishing on the river. So what's the problem?

To this day, I have no clue why these guys decided to write me off on the first date. (Actually, some made it to two). It seriously became such a joke that TM would make a comment whenever I gave my number to someone that I better enjoy the one date I was gonna get, if he even called at all. (I was not offended by this at all, it really became a running joke between us for the longest time).

One guy, the morning after our second date, de-friended me (is that a word?) on myspace and changed his profile to private, and his status to say something about "the one that I'm in love with". Um, ok... guess he's not talking about me? And why is he dating other people if he's that close to falling in love?! Oh, shit, maybe I was so awful that I pushed him over the edge to loving some other person!! I wanted to go stalker style and find the girl and tell her that the morning before he decided he loved her he had taken me to the movies then out for drinks and tried to feel me up, but I refrained. I AM an adult, after all. :)

Next victim, same thing. Out for dinner and margaritas and back to my house to watch a movie. This one, I think I got figured out though... he kept trying to paw me during the movie and I wasn't having it. I think he thought he was gonna get some, so when I didn't give it up, guess that was a good reason for him to run for the hills. I never heard from or saw him again.

Last one (there are many more, but this post is getting long): bass player in a local band. Totally hot. Buys me a drink in the bar, gets my number, and I actually kiss him goodnight after making plans to go out the following weekend (I was drunk, not easy). :) Go to work the next day and am telling a friend about him, and she asks his name, I tell her, and her face goes white. I am, of course, very observant and ask WTF the problem is, do you know him? She says, uh, yeah, that's my friend's boyfriend. And they aren't even having problems. (PS - his name was a very common one, like, say, Brian White. There could have been lots of them in my town. Oh but wait - the whole playing bass guitar in the local band thing... right. Not likely there was another one of those.) Needless to say, our date was cancelled, without either one of us calling each other. I heard they broke up. And I haven't seen him since. But I'm sure you figured that out.

I also have quite a few stories about guys I went out with and then they married the next person they dated (I'm like Good Luck Chuck, there were honestly about 8 of those), or the psychos that I've dated and all the batshit crazy stuff they pulled, but thinking about all this makes me appreciate that I finally have a good relationship. For those single ladies out there... I feel your pain. It's hard out there, yo!

Bucket List

2009-02-02T12:46:00.004-06:00

Ok, I know I haven't posted in a while but I've been up to my ears in training at work, so I'm going to be lazy and post something that I had saved in my drafts... just for times like these. :)

This is a "bucket list". The idea is to highlight or change the color of the items you've completed. I highlighted in pink the things I've completed. What all have YOU done?

1. Started your own blog. - Duh. Obviously.

2. Slept under the stars. - I've been camping in a tent, so I guess that counts.

3. Played in a band. - Does playing the flute in Jr. High band count?

4. Visited Hawaii. - Not yet.

5. Watched a meteor shower.

6. Given more than you can afford to charity. - Unfortunately I live paycheck to paycheck! I'll volunteer my time, though.

7. Been to Disneyland. - Not yet.

8. Climbed a mountain. - I'm so not the athletic type.

9. Held a praying mantis. - Sure.

10. Sang a solo. - Hell to the NAW. I suck at singing.

12. Visited Paris. - No, but I WILL!

13. Watched a lightning storm at sea.

14. Taught yourself an art from scratch.

15. Adopted a child.

16. Had food poisoning.

17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty. - I went to NYC when I was a kid, but the stairs were closed. I woulda though.

18. Grown your own vegetables. - When I was a kid my parents had a garden, does that count?

19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France. - Never been to Europe.

20. Slept in an overnight train.

21. Had a pillow fight.

22. Hitchhiked. - Uh no.

23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill. - Guilty. Everyone does it. Right?

24. Built a snow fort. - Um well I've seen snow once in my lifetime, and it melted when it hit the ground. So no.

25. Held a lamb.

26. Gone skinny dipping. - Ah, drunken nights.

27. Run a marathon. - Again, so not the athlete.

28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice. - Quit rubbing it in that I haven't been to Europe!

29. Seen a total eclipse.

30. Watched a sunrise or sunset. - On the beach is the best.

31. Hit a home run. - Psh.

32. Been on a cruise. - I really don't have the desire to, I'd rather just fly somewhere exotic and stay there.

33. Seen Niagara Falls in person.

34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors.

35. Seen an Amish community - quite interesting.

36. Taught yourself a new language. - my brother and I had our own language as kids.

37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied. - I'm getting there, but I don't think money is what makes you satisfied.

38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person.

39. Gone rock climbing. - here's an athletic endeavor I've actually done!

40. Seen Michelangelo’s David. - Uh NO, list writer, I haven't been to Europe!

41. Sung karaoke. - Ohhh yeah, me and TM rocked out some ZZ Top and Janis Joplin.

42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt.

43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant. - I've bought a homeless guy a Happy Meal, does that count?

44. Visited Africa.

45. Walked on a beach by moonlight.

46. Been transported in an ambulance. - MP has, I rode with her.

47. Had your portrait painted. - Caricature?

48. Gone deep sea fishing. - I've been on the boat but didn't catch anything.

49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person. - GRR.

50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. - Double GRR.

51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling. - Snorkeling.

52. Kissed in the rain.

53. Played in the mud. - Before I was a prissy girly-girl.

55. Been in a movie. - I've been on America's Funniest Home Videos, that's as close to a movie as I'll get.

56. Visited the Great Wall of China.

57. Started a business.

58. Taken a martial arts class.

59. Visited Russia.

60. Served at a soup kitchen. - after Katrina, when a bunch of evacuees were in my hometown.

61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies.

62. Gone whale watching.

63. Got flowers for no reason. - Sad, right? :)

66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp. (where are 64 and 65??)

67. Bounced a check. - Helloooo, bad idea to give a 16 year old a checking account.

68. Flown in a helicopter.

69. Saved a favorite childhood toy. - Still got my teddy.

70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial. - 8th grade trip.

71. Eaten caviar. - just to say I had... GROSS!

72. Pieced a quilt. - I've helped work on one.

73. Stood in Times Square. - When I was a kid.

74. Toured the Everglades.

75. Been fired from a job.

76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London.

77. Broken a bone. - My left arm in 7th grade and the weak ankle in 2004.

78. Been on a speeding motorcycle.

79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person. - I've flown over it?

80. Published a book.

81. Visited the Vatican.

82. Bought a brand new car.

83. Walked in Jerusalem.

84. Had your picture in the newspaper. - Several times.

85. Read the entire Bible. - Only some.

86. Visited the White House. - Pretty cool digs.

87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating. - Fish.

88. Had chicken pox. - 1st grade, on my friggin birthday.

89. Saved someone’s life.

90. Sat on a jury.

91. Met someone famous. - Lots of bands, I'm a total groupie. Without the sex part.

92. Joined a book club. - As a teen. I liked to read, I wasn't a nerd. Ok I was.

93. Lost a loved one. - Unfortunately

94. Had a baby - my sweet Miss Priss!

95. Seen the Alamo in person. - Lived in San Antonio for a while.

96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake.

97. Been involved in a lawsuit. - I worked for a lawyer, so I suppose I've been involved in several... just none involving me.

98. Owned a cell phone. - I mean, come on.

99. Been stung by a bee.

100. Read an entire book in one day. - That's usually the way it goes!

Hmm... guess I'm not TOO boring!!

What's your bag?

2009-01-31T18:23:00.006-06:00

I was tagged by the wonderful calicobebop to show you my bag and its contents. I didn't realize the array of crap I had in it until I was asked to do this, so thank you, calico.... my bag is now cleaned out of unneccessary items!!

Here's a pic of my purse:

It's a knockoff Balenciaga (or however you spell it) from one of the many shops here in Houston. Yeah, I don't care, I'm not spending hundreds on something that I put through the wringer on a daily basis.

Now, here's the contents (after I cleaned out all the reciepts, crap, etc):

Contents:

Keys

Wallet

Eyeglasses

Checkbook

Bottle of Ibuprofen

Medicine for my constant urinary tract infections (way fun)

Packet of Advil

Bangle bracelets from last time I went out

My old cell phone in case mine craps out (which happens often)

Lease for house rental on the Guadalupe River for Memorial Day

Insurance cards

Now. This isn't the complete list of items found in my purse. The big zipper compartment in the middle of it is reserved for.....

LIP GLOSS!!

Now, I know you're probably thinking, "Why on earth does anyone need that much lip gloss??" Well, my friends, to be honest, I have a lot more, they just don't all fit in my purse. I am a certified lip gloss whore. I see it, I have to have it. And I'll spend $25 on a great Chanel gloss because they are beautiful and last forever. You can judge if you want, but my gloss makes me happy. :)

Oh yeah, since all of my bloggie friends have already done this, I'm not tagging anyone...

Even funerals are a debacle in my family.

2009-01-27T12:01:00.003-06:00

Last week, we had a death in our family... My cousin Shane, who was a family and hometown hero, committed suicide, and it completely devastated my dad's side of the family. He was such a great man... a stellar football player who got a full scholarship to the University of Texas and was an All-American pick his senior year, then after graduation he was drafted to the NFL and played for the Denver Broncos and Atlanta Falcons (he even started in the Super Bowl in 1998). He had a beautiful wife and two teenage daughters. A couple of years ago he had a tumor in his brain removed. His family had noticed things were not right with him recently, he was abnormally clumsy when he had always been so coordinated, and withdrawn when he had always been so outgoing and charming. His wife thought something had resurfaced with the tumor, so she scheduled an appointment with his neurologist. That morning, they got in a normal married couple argument, nothing big, and he ended up shooting himself in their home. I was so angry at him when I found out, but once I heard the details of his personality changes, and the fact that he didn't leave a note and it was so spontaneous, I have gotten over being mad and am only sad and convinced it was 100% not him thinking in his right mind. He had it all, and there was no way he would have given everything up without there being something wrong with his mental state. I fully believe he's looking down on us in heaven now.

So the funeral was this Sunday, and I drove the two hour drive home to attend, to be there for my dad. The place was packed, tons of his former teammates flew in to attend, and it seemed like the whole town was there. I know that really meant something to his family, to show them what an impact Shane had on our small town.

Anyway, the point of this post was not for sadness. It's to show that no matter what kind of event is going on, my family will no doubt turn it into something blog-worthy. During the service, my mom was sitting to my right, and I happened to look over and she had her eyes closed. Now, you don't know the back story, but my mom's had problems with prescription pills for years and constantly falls asleep wherever she is, causing me and my brother immense embarrassment. She says she's clean now but she's said that before. I've been lied to so many times there's no way I believe her anyway. So there she is in a FUNERAL, sitting on the FRONT ROW, no less, and snoozing away like it's nappy time. I elbow her hard and she jumps up, glares at me, leans over and whispers in my ear, "I was PRAYING". Uh, yeah, ok. My aunt was full blown into her eulogy and there were no prayers being said anywhere. And before you think, well maybe she just WAS praying, you paranoid girl you!, the answer is NO WAY. This was at least the fourth time I caught her with her eyes closed, and it wasn't even the last. Anyway, thinking about that pisses me off, so moving on...

After the service, everyone was outside in the parking lot, waiting for the casket to be loaded so we could go to the gravesite. I was standing with my dad and grandfather, and here comes Mom, through a packed crowd of people, with a cigarette lit. And blowing it in people's faces. Now, I know I've blogged and TM's blogged about smoking. You know I smoke. But there is a certain smokers' etiquette, and my mom DOES NOT HAVE IT. I mean, she was holding a lit cigarette eye level with a freaking kid! In a crowd! That is a total no-no, anyone could tell you that. She is just in her own little world. So I say to her, "Jesus, Mom, get some freaking manners, you know you don't smoke in a crowd, go to the back of the parking lot or something!". She just stands there, glares at me, then stomps away. Whatever. So I go to the car later (of COURSE it was just the two of us riding together, awesome), and she's pouting like MP does when she gets in trouble. She turns around and starts crying and asks why I'm so hateful. That's what she always says, that I'm hateful. Sorry, I'm just honest, and she's overdramatic. That's my take on it, anyway. Poor pitiful mom.

So, on to the gravesite. We pull in, and start walking through the grass to where Shane will be buried. I must mention that I was wearing heels, and the weak ankle kicked in, of course. I almost ate a headstone at one point from stepping in a miniscule hole and twisting the weak ankle. Anyway, I make it to where we're going by holding tightly onto my dad like he's escorting me on homecoming court again or something. When we get there, I notice that the site is right next to a fence and a pasture. Then I notice the two donkeys hanging out on the other side. Seriously. As the preacher goes into his dialogue, a cow comes running out of nowhere and head butts one of the donkeys. And then it's on. More donkeys and cows show up, and there is mooing and neighing (whatever) and ruckus like SIX FEET AWAY from where the hundred or so of us are standing. There was like a gang fight between the farm animals, and it was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Eventually, everyone started chuckling and then laughing, and it really lightened the mood. In my head I was thinking that Shane (who was a master practical joker) had something to do with it.

RIP Shane, you'll be missed...

Shitty, shitty day.

2009-01-16T10:13:00.005-06:00

As if I don't doubt my parenting skills on an hourly basis ANYWAY, my daughter told her sitter today that she wanted to go to the park, to which the sitter replied that it's too cold and to wait until it warms up, when your mom gets here. MP replied, "No, she won't take me to the park anyway, all she wants to do is sleep. And then her and her boyfriend will go to a bar. She doesn't want to hang out with me."

Mom of the year, right here. I can't believe a human 23 years younger than me and two feet shorter can make me feel like the biggest piece of shit on the planet.

I think I'm doing my best, and I know her comments were probably just for attention, but it really makes me wonder if I'm screwing her up for life. I guess I'll just marry someone off a dating website so she can have a more stable environment to live in. There are literally not enough hours in the day for me to work full time, run errands, cook dinner, do homework, bath, quality time, etc. with MP, and NOT be tired. I'm tired all.the.time. Add in trying to maintain a relationship with BF and my friends... I have no energy. I go to bed the same time as MP (if I'm not still doing chores), and that's ridiculous. I'm too young to feel this old.

To top that off, BF and I got in a huge fight last night and aren't speaking. Normally I'm the happiest girl alive on Fridays (hence my blog title), but today is just fucking bad. Real fucking bad.

PS - In my defense, I haven't been out in over two weeks. I have sat my happy ass at home every night with MP, helping her play her guitar and watching SpongeBob and making necklaces out of the crafts kit that Santa brought her. Guess she forgets all about that when she's dogging me out to everyone that will listen. :)

Sorry about the rant. I needed to vent to someone other than TM.

New Year's Eve trip to New Orleans, Part 1

2009-01-13T13:33:00.011-06:00

Ok, not a lot of time to post but I'm about to shoot someone in my office if they put another stack of papers on my desk or send me more reciepts for expense reports or ask for another passport form to be filled out or a conference call to be scheduled or a meeting to be set up or a catering order to be done. Phew. TM has heard my ranting about asshole coworkers all day. So, to take a break from the never-ending work on my desk, I'll give you a short synopsis of our NYE trip to Bourbon Street:

* BF and I arrived the day before NYE to get our drinking tolerance up before the big night. Not the best idea. It's about a 6 hour drive from Houston to New Orleans, and we had been together every day for going on two weeks. We normally see each other two, three times a week. We didn't speak much on the way, he had his iPod on and I was listening to the radio... the only time we really conversed was when someone needed to stop to pee or get a drink or something. The second we got in our hotel room we got in a fight. About nothing, really, we were just sick of each other. Already.

* I should mention that BEFORE we got in our hotel, BF lost one of his tennis shoes somewhere on the way to the room. We think it fell out of his bag in the elevator, but when I went back to check it was nowhere to be found. This didn't help his irritability level one tiny bit.

* We call a truce, change clothes, then head down to Bourbon. Luckily, we were staying at a hotel right on the street, so we didn't have to walk blocks and blocks to get back. It is TOTALLY worth the extra money if you ever go, take my word for it. Plus we had an icechest in our room and kept going back up to pour free beers in our cups. Score!

* First stop: Across the street to Tropical Isle, home of the Hand Grenades. I swear, if you haven't had one, you must book a trip immediately to NOLA to get one. It is awesome. Potent, but awesome. Seriously, I had one and as soon as I got off my barstool I was deee-runk. And I'm not a lightweight, I can outdrink grown men. It normally takes at least 6-8 beers for me to feel a buzz, but one of these babies got me a one track ticket to hammered-ville, no stops at buzztown first. Did I mention Everclear is one of the ingredients?

(This is me and one of my besties a few years ago... consuming the infamous hand grenades. See the glaze in our eyes?)

* After I was sufficiently inebriated (I might mention that it's only around 6pm-ish), we head to another bar, and I realize that I need to slow my roll, it's not even dark for Christ's sake, and I need to make it all night. I go to the bartender, and being the responsible girl that I am, order a beer. (You thought I was going to say water, huh... HA! Whatever! I needed to lay off the liquor, not all alcohol!!) The girl behind the bar comes back with not one but three beers. I look at her, puzzled, and say, sorry, only meant to order one. She replies, oh, it's happy hour and beers are three for one. WHAT!? New Orleans is the devil!! I'm trying to be all responsible and slow down and I can't even do that!! You know when you have three beers in front of you, you have to drink quick so they don't get all hot. So this did not help me out a bit.

* While BF and I are hanging out on barstools by the bar, some guy with aviator sunglasses comes off the stage where the band is setting up and orders a drink. I ask him if he's with the band (because I get all chatty with strangers when I'm drinking, plus I'm a big groupie), and he says yes, he's the lead singer. I introduce myself and he tells me his name is James and then I ask if he'll take a request. Mind you, the band isn't even set up yet, and they don't go on for a while, but he's all, sure, what do you want to hear? I take a step back, and start singing "Sweet Child 'O Mine" by GnR, and do the Axl Rose-holding-the-mike-swaying move that I'm famous for at hometown parties. He looks at me kinda crazy, laughs and says ok, I'll see what I can do. Flash forward an hour and the band's on, James is singing every song to me (and BF doesn't seem too happy), then he says, I have a very special request, points to me and launches into "She's got a smile, and it seems to me...." and I start singing (yelling, whatever) the words drunkenly along with James. It. Was. Awesome. I was a rock star. (mmhmm yeah right)

* By this time, we're ready to go to a dirty Bourbon Street strip club. We're on our way, and some random couple comes up and starts talking to us, and we invite them along. We make it to the first one we see, pay our cover, and head in. It took us a full 5 minutes to realize we're the only white people in this club. I was quite happy, since the strippers were all dancing to booty music. Our new friends don't look too comfortable, but who cares, I was having fun. One of the strippers did the booty pop (you know what this is, watch any rap video), and I'm looking all amazed, shaking my head, wishing I wasn't so white bread and could do that. One of the strippers on the side sees my wishful looking face and comes over to me. I start chatting with her (I told you, everyone's my friend when I'm drinking), and I say something like there's no way I can do that, I'm so jealous. Then she gets in front of me and does the booty pop and I touch her butt and BF's eyes get all huge, like, SCORE, my girlfriend likes chicks (and I don't, but I'll appreciate a good booty pop). I never learned how to do it properly, but I got lessons to practice at home in front of the mirror.

Alright, boss keeps coming in here... I'll post more later. Believe me, this is just the tip of the iceberg... :)

Motivational Posters

2009-01-06T11:16:00.006-06:00

Oh, how I love these sarcastic motivational posters you see all over the internet... a friend sent me these in an email and I almost choked on my coffee. Enjoy!

This one's so funny to me because we have them running around all over Houston. I call them "THOSE guys". And nobody wants to be "that guy".

Sucks to be her.

Sucks like times ten to be HER.

This will definitely not happen in my house... I made a rule a long time ago to never flash the boobies on Bourbon Street...

That shit is funny, I don't care who you are.

Someone prolly put this pic on their myspace page. Whores.

That's just mean. But funny.

I'm raffing my ass off on this one.

Everybody has their place. Hers is the ho at MSNBC.

Jeeezus. I hope they're not the church choir. Actually, they probably are...

My brother is a coach and I bet he deals with this every day.

Yeah, two in one day... what?

2009-01-05T14:41:00.003-06:00

Ok here's another one... TM tagged me, so I have to do it. She's scary if I don't do what she says. And she just quit smoking for New Year's, so she's extra scary right about now. I shall oblige.

Apparently I have to list ten things about myself that nobody knows, and be honest or something along those lines. I'm too lazy to go back and read all the rules. I think that's the gist. Here goes:

1. I hate mayonnaise. Hate, hate, hate, like can't even see it or I'll throw up immediately hate it. Honestly, the mention of it makes me get the gurgly stomach. TM loves the shit, and actually DIPS HER FUCKING FRENCH FRIES IN IT. I think she does it mainly to see how green I'll get. Blech. I really cannot even think about it anymore, I'm getting nauseous.

2. I cannot take the sound of cardboard scraping against cardboard. I freak the eff out whenever I hear it, and get chills all over the back of my neck, and make this circus freak clicking noise with my tounge and the back of my bottom lip that is a total reflex I cannot control. I also cannot explain the noise, that was the best I could do. Moving's quite an issue, obviously, because the sound of cardboard scraping against itself is inevitable.

3. I really like rap. Like, old school Master P and Snoop and Dre and Pac and Biggie and Ice Cube and Ice T and Run DMC, all of it... and I know most of the words to a lot of obscure songs that you probably haven't heard of. Pour one out for Pimp C, homies.

4. I am mildly obsessive compulsive about certain things. My house can be messy at times, but the crap has an organization to it. I cannot STAND when any of my food touches on my dinner plate (TM says she's buying me and her husband those divided kiddie plates, because he has the same phobia). I get abnormally upset when my order is wrong from a food place, and have burst into tears because of one tiny thing incorrect with my order. Normally the mistake is that they put mayo on my burger... but you will see lots more than tears on that one, friend. Like I'll go back through the drive through and throw it at the idiot who couldn't take the order correctly. Yes, I've done it.

5. I'm crazy flexible, like, all over. I can pull my thumb back to touch the top of my wrist, my legs can go behind my head, I can do backbends and splits still, all that stuff. BF loves it, obviously. It also helps when I'm breaking and entering and need to fit in small spaces. Kidding.

6. I've been friends with TM for going on 24 years. That's super crazy, right!? It gets weirder. We have the same first name. We work for the same company, in the same group, at the same location, two floors apart (and this is a HUGE oil and gas company, so it's not like we're insurance agents in an office of 4 people). We live way close to each other. It's like we share a life almost, except she's got huge knockers and a great ass.

Damn, these are hard. I'm not that interesting.

7. I got a tattoo drunkenly and it looks like crap. I requested a pink star on my foot the size of a dime or so, and got one the size of a silver dollar on my ankle. It looks similar the Houston Astros logo (definitely NOT what I was going for), so now I jokingly call it my Go 'Stros tat. It's grown on me a bit, but I wouldn't be mad if it wasn't there anymore.

8. I absolutely hate Nickleback and Rob Thomas (with or without Matchbox 20). I don't know what it is, but every time I hear something by either one of them, I'd rather have sex with Mini-Me than have to keep the song on. And Mini-Me is the most disgusting creature on the planet. Next to Chad Kroeger's voice. (Sorry if anyone reading this is a big Nickleback or RT fan... You probably don't like rap, so you can hate me about that.)

9. I can seriously watch Food Network 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I'm not kidding. I actually didn't change the channel all day Saturday when I was vegging out from the time I woke up until the time I left for dinner at 6. I would totally marry Bobby Flay or Tyler Florence, and I wish that Paula Dean was my aunt and Rachael Ray was my cousin or something (she doesn't annoy me like she does most of America). I troll the internet looking for gossip on my favorite FN stars. I'm weird.

10. I fractured my ankle jumping over a fence around a parking lot at a bar (on the way in). I was also wearing a skirt. I also still hobbled up the stairs after the incident to drink the pain away. Turns out, I needed, like, serious surgery. I guess I thought I just sprained it. Anyhoo, I have deemed this "the weak ankle". To this day, when the weather changes, I feel it in the weak ankle. The weak ankle also causes me to fall down. A lot. Sober. So, I guess I got what I deserved by being lazy and not walking around to the entrance.

Since I have like three followers and they've all been tagged already, I'm tagging no one. :)

Meme for 2008

2009-01-05T10:52:00.004-06:00

Don't worry, I'll get to my blog about New Year's Eve... kinda waiting on some pictures so you can see the debauchery yourself. So until then... a little survey I stole from BF that she stole from Matter of Fact Mommy.

1. What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before? Got in trouble at work. Seriously, I'm not a bad person, I've never gotten reprimanded, ever.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I don't do resolutions anymore, I just end up disappointing myself by January 4th.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Hmm. Don't think so.

4. Did anyone close to you die? Not anyone close to me, thank God.

5. What countries did you visit? Louisiana's like another country, no?

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008? More financial stability.

7. What date from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? June 26 - the day me and BF quit being "buddies" and started calling it a relationship.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Not breaking up with a guy over something stupid within the first week. Just call me Chandler.

9. What was your biggest failure? Not losing weight like I wanted to.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? I'm the UTI queen. I also had the flu and strep throat within a month of each other. Fun, fun.

11. What was the best thing you bought? My comfy huge ass couch. I could live on it.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? MP... she's quickly learning to read and is doing great in school.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? My mom's. Long story.

14. Where did most of your money go? Rent and drinking establishments.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Finally having an actual BF to kiss at midnight on New Year's, instead of my girlfriends. Not that they're not hot...

16. What song will always remind you of 2008? Whatever You Like by T.I. - I love love love it. Makes me wanna shake my boo-tay.

17. Compared to this time last year, you are: Much more content with my life.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of? Saving money and exercising.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of? Wasting money on Jaeger Bombs. They seemed neccessary at the time though...

20. How will you be spending Christmas? Oh. Guess I was supposed to do this last year... uh, see my previous blog to find out what I did.

21. Did you fall in love in 2008? I don't know if I'm there yet. IN love is different than love.

22. What was your favorite TV program? Grey's Anatomy, Brothers and Sisters, Lipstick Jungle, Dirty Sexy Money... the last two are being cancelled and I'm not a happy camper.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year? I don't hate anyone.

24. What was the best book you read? An autobiography on the Eagles.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery? Re-discovering some great Floyd and Zeppelin songs I had forgotten about.

26. What did you want and get? BF. I'd been chasing him for a year. :)

27. What did you want and not get? Respect at work.

28. What was your favorite film that you saw this year? Forgetting Sarah Marshall or Sex and the City.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 28, and went to dinner the night before with TM and a friend, then went to my brother's college town on my actual birthday for a day of drinking with rugby boys. It was fun.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? If my boss wasn't a complete hen-pecked jackass.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008? Casual, dressed up with jewelry when I need it.

32. What kept you sane? My awesome best friend and BF. And Miller Lite.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Jordan Knight. I swear, I fell back in love with him after the NKOTB concert.

34. What political issue stirred you the most? The fact that people were concentrating on race and sex instead of the actual issues.

35. Who did you miss? My friends I don't see much anymore.

36. Who was the best new person you met? BF's family. I absolutely adore them. I know how lucky I am.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008: Sometimes you really don't know what you've been missing until you get it.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year: "Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day...." Time by Pink Floyd.

Holiday Recap, Part 1

2009-01-02T13:43:00.003-06:00

Sorry I've been MIA for a couple of weeks. The holidays wore me out, yo. I went back home to the small town I'm from, and brought BF with me, since this year MP was at her dad's house. I hate sharing. Especially my kid. Especially on holidays. Regardless, I had to do it (because the law says I do), so I brought BF with me as some sort of a replacement so I wasn't so sad. I just really ended up drinking my sorrows away, but it seemed to work. A quick recap of the holiday events:

Christmas Eve at my dad's parents was BRUTAL. Everyone (or my grandparents and aunt and cousins) just sat around talking about their sicknesses like they were in a competition and had to one up each other. "Oh, I have a bad cough." "Oh yeah? I'll take your cough and raise you a bad back." I think the winner was my aunt who has something the doctors can't figure out. Anyway, needless to say I started drinking the Miller Lite before I got over there, and switched to whiskey before we left so I wouldn't rip someone's head off.

I actually made it to my mom's mom's house afterwards this year, instead of going home like I normally do to wrap presents. BF, me, and my brother were now all switched over from beer to whiskey so it was way fun by then. I couldn't find BF for the longest time, so I went searching for him... and found him in the back living room with my mom, aunt, and grandma DOING A PUZZLE. Like a little girl!! I made fun of him relentlessly, as I had just left the front living room where everyone was watching football like they should, and found him poring over the damn puzzle pieces, happy as can be. His only response was, "I like puzzles." No argument, defending of his manhood, nothing. It was hilarious. Here's the proof:

You like how he's wearing the Tool t-shirt (a Christmas present from me, BTW) in the presence of two 50-something and one 70-something women? This picture will be printed out and framed in my living room.

I know you're probably wondering if I put my foot down on the wrapping of gifts and Waffle House run. The answer to both of those is, well I tried. I don't want to get into all the details, but I ended up losing on both accounts. I just can't say no. I'm a pansy.

BUT I did manage to not do the baby Jesus!! Oh yeah. Me and my brother tag teamed my grandma and convinced her it was ridiculous for grown adults to be doing this after 20-something years. We paid our dues. She only protested a couple of times, but ended up conceding. Score 1 for me.

Christmas night was way fun, I met up with about 20-30 of my friends and we went out to a bar. We never all get together anymore, because we're scattered around Texas, so the holidays are pretty much the only time it happens. BF was pretty hammered by midnight or so (we'd been drinking at the family Christmas stuff for about 8 hours already), but I was shaking my booty with my old friends and didn't want to leave. In fact, I was making plans with a couple other couples (ok, drunks) to hit up a hole in the wall bar in Louisiana after we left the place we were at. (FYI, my hometown is on the border of Texas and Louisiana. Any after 1:00AM beer runs are super easy, as LA sells beer and liquor in the gas stations 24-7. AND we have a little bar we frequent that stays open 24-7 as well. It's awesome.) Anyway, BF finally convinced me with his glaring stare and raised middle finger (just kidding) that I needed to leave. The next day's hangover sucked pretty bad, so I guess it was good he made me get outta there...

That's all for now... I'll post later with my New Year's trip to New Orleans. It's still too soon to re-visit those memories right now. Back to my bed to recover.

Five dolla make you holla.

2008-12-23T07:24:00.003-06:00

So, this past weekend BF and I went to a bar (imagine that) and got pretty sloshed (imagine that), and he has this brilliant idea to go to the Megaplexxx. If you can't tell by the name of the store, with the three X's on the end, this is a toy store. For adults. Anyhoo, I really wasn't in the mood for all that, what I really wanted to do was go home and go to bed. As in SLEEP. Not the other kind of "going to bed". So whatever, he's been wanting us to go for a while, and he finally convinced me. So we went.

On the way there, I realized how bad I had to pee. (Do you notice how many posts I have about peeing? I'm not a freak or anything, just peeing somehow makes it into my stories. We all pee. Get over it.) So anyway, we get to the store (or more like a freaking MALL), and I head past the rows and rows of plastic penises to the back of the store where the restrooms are. I know what you're thinking, those bathrooms must be disgusting, who knows what goes on in there. I feel the same way, but when you gotta go, you gotta go. When I get to the restrooms, both of them have Out of Order signs on the doors. FABULOUS. I go up to the clerk and ask if there is any employee bathroom or something, because I'm doing the pee pee dance and need one BADLY. He said the water was shut off or something (??) and I wouldn't want to go in there anyway, trust him. Well I trusted him... and asked if there were cameras in the parking lot. He looked at me all weird-like, and said no. (My point was, there could be cameras in the parking lot of a SEX SHOP, people who own those places are probably horn dogs and I'm sure there's some hanky panky that happens in the cars sometimes. Maybe the employees like to watch, I dunno.)

So I find BF in the massive store (after jumping up and down to see over the shelves full of porn, because that place is BIG), and tell him I'm going to pee behind the dumpster. He gives me the "you are so weird, why the hell am I with you" look, but says ok, if you're not back in 3 I'm coming looking for you. I left him to browse and headed outside.

As I'm walking out, I notice a weird older Mexican guy behind me. I had my cell phone in my hand, ready to dial 911 if this weirdo tried to tackle me or something. I go behind the dumpster, which is in the opposite direction of where the cars are parked, and this guy FOLLOWS ME. And then proceeds to say, in broken English, "How much?"

"HOW MUCH?"

You have got to be kidding me. Seriously kidding me. It took me a second to realize that this guy thinks I'm a prostitute!!! I swear, I stood there with my mouth open for a second and then yelled "NO!" and ran back in the store. (I'm sure that "NO" wasn't the best thing I coulda said, but I was pretty much speechless and scared). Let me help you picture what I looked like that evening: I was wearing jeans, black ballet flats, a turtleneck short sleeved tunic, and my hair was in a ponytail. Nothing slutty, no heels, no short skirt, titty shirt, nothing of the sort. I have gone to my daughter's kindergarten class in the same outfit I was wearing. Maybe hookers are dressing more high class nowadays and they're hard to tell apart from regular civilians, I dunno. Regardless, I SO DON'T LOOK LIKE A HOOKER. Tits McGee says so, anyway.

So when I get back in the store and find BF after 5 minutes of searching, he can tell something's wrong. I tell him what happened, and he got understandably angry, so he put his items down and said, come on, I'll go with you. On the way out, the pee pee dance was a long memory away, and I HAD TO GO so I was running ahead of him about 15 feet. I go out the door, make the left on the way back to the parking lot, and there's this guy on a crotch rocket (not a sex toy, a motorcycle) and as I walk (run, whatever) by, HE PROPOSITIONS ME TOO. Ok. This is ridiculous. I had time to digest what the first guy did and actually get angry, so with this second advance, I started just yelling. As I am, BF who, remember, is 15 feet behind me, rounds the corner. As I'm ripping this biker a new one. He starts running over, and I turn around to walk away, hearing him yell at the guy, "What the fuck is going on, dude? You bothering my girlfriend?". I knew he could handle it, I had to PEE. I was outta there. I heard the engine rev immediately, so I guess the guy knew I was off-limits. Or maybe he just thought BF was my pimp and didn't want me doing business on my own. Either way, my scary boyfriend got rid of the would-be John.

So I did my bidness with BF standing there like a bodyguard, told him to wrap up whatever it was he was buying and let's get the hell out of there. I went and locked myself in the car and laid down in the back seat until he got back. Moral of the story: If you want to go to the Megaplexxx, make sure to dress like a schoolteacher. Not a young, hot one, the old music teacher with the crocheted sweaters and long skirts. If I ever go back, and that's a BIG if, it'll be during the day. When all the old Mexicans are at work.

Putting my foot down on ridiculous Christmas traditions.

2008-12-15T14:32:00.008-06:00

BF and I got on the topic of traditions yesterday. Specifically, Christmas family traditions. More specifically, MY Christmas family traditions. I think maybe this wasn't the best idea, as he will probably never come home with me for Christmas now, I've completely freaked him out. Examples:

* Every year, we go to my dad's parents' house on Christmas Eve. I have one aunt on that side, with three cousins within a 5 year range of me and my brother's age. One of these cousins has two kids whose dad is black. My grandfather is from a different day and age, and completely will not accept this... so my cousin is pretty much disowned, the children don't get spoken to by my Paw Paw, and everyone sits there in uncomfortable silence. (BTW, my Paw Paw's actions INFURIATE me, I don't care what things were like when you grew up, they are most definitely not like that today, so adapt and change. It is completely ludicrous that these poor kids have to deal with 50's racism in the 21st century. I could say more, but it would take a while. That's the gist.)

* After we leave my dad's parents', we go to my Mom's mom's house... or actually everyone but me goes (more on that in a minute), where my brother proceeds to get sloshed with my uncles and my mom has two seven and sevens and ends up falling asleep at the kitchen table and my dad just sits there watching the clock, cursing himself for going over there. I, on the other hand, have headed back to my mom's house to wrap every present every male in our family has purchased. Apparently, it's MY job to do this, every year without fail, in the wee hours before we wake up. Complete bullshit. I'm putting my foot down this year. They can use a Wal Mart bag to wrap their gifts in, I don't care, but I'm so not doing it. (See me in the New Year to see if I actually managed to stand up to my 6'3" dad and 6'4" brother).

* After I've pulled my all nighter of wrapping, and my brother's pulled his all nighter of drinking, we wake up at Mom and Dad's on Christmas morning and open presents, then instead of making breakfast we nominate someone to go out and get Waffle House. Funny, it seems like I am always the sucker who gets nominated. This year, I'm putting my foot down. The same foot I put down the night before about wrapping presents. My hungover brother can make the WH run this year.

* After gorging ourselves on the yummy Waffle House food (I always get a patty melt, no mayo no onions and scattered and covered hash browns... great breakfast food), there are usually naps involved, then everyone gets dressed and we go back to my Mom's mom's house for our family gift exchange. I should probably mention that my mom has seven brothers and sisters, I have 13 cousins, and there are 4 great grandchildren. Add in spouses, cousins' significant others or friends, and you've got a recipe for CRAZY on your hands. There are a number of things that have become a standard occurrance at the crazy farm we call my Grandmother's:

* As soon as I get there, I make me a Crown and Sprite from the bar (yes, there's a bar, fully stocked, and it is a complete necessity) in the back living room. I have learned not to make the rounds saying hello without making my drink first, I know I'll need it for the 30 minutes it will take to say hi to everyone, and to help me answer the barrage of questions about when I'm going to get married because you know, tick tock... GRR.

* After I make my rounds, I survey the family to see who seems to already be irritated with someone else. It is a GIVEN that at least one brother and sister will get in a brou-ha-ha, we all expect it, it's just figuring out who's gonna argue that's the tricky part. For the past three years I've actually taken bets and this year I'm going to give odds. Two out of the past three it's been my mom's youngest brother that's been the instigator. I'm going with him this year too. In a family full of Democrats, he's a vocal Republican, and I'm sure he'll have plenty to say during this election year, and with a little Miller Lite in him. (I will say though, this is my Godfather and I really like him, probably the best out of all my aunts and uncles. He's got the same sarcastic humor I do, and I totally appreciate that).

* Now, for the worst part (for me, anyway). My grandmother has a glass nativity scene that she keeps out during the holidays. Only thing is, baby Jesus isn't a part of it. Instead, she keeps him hidden away until Christmas Day, when he was born (duh). It has been a tradition since the oldest grandchild has been able to walk that we line up and carry baby Jesus to the nativity set before we open presents. We, as in, all the cousins. All 13 of us (and now the great grandchildren too). Ok, fine, whatever, like when I was TEN. I am pushing thirty and all the adults THROW A FIT if I say I'm not doing it. The best part... get this. All the adults (all 25 or so of them) stand in the living room around the nativity and sing "Away in a Manger". While taking pictures. And holding sheet music with the words and tune written on it. I seriously didn't realize the weirdness of our tradition until BF looked at me all crazy eyed yesterday when I told him about it. Thinking long and hard about it, IT IS WEIRD. Especially since the youngest cousin is entering high school next year. This, my friends, will be the year I put my foot down. It ain't happening, you may make me still sit at the kids' table but I will not carry baby Jesus to his manger as the chorus of drunken adults sing a Christmas carol. End of story.

Got a light?

2008-12-12T13:39:00.006-06:00

So I had some time to surf the net today (obviously, since I'm blogging during work hours), and I came across a blog that really hit home to me. Matter of Fact Mommy (check her out, she's hilarious) blogged about judgemental non-smokers. This is probably my BIGGEST pet peeve in the world. I am a smoker. I like smoking, it is a filthy habit I know, but I like it. I watch the clock at work to see when TM and I can go break. I cannot fathom having a beer without smoking. To me it's like the peanut butter to my jelly. Anyway. Hope I don't offend any non smokers out there (actually, I really don't care, since non smokers...judgemental ones at least... don't mind offending me) but I don't see how it is any way, at ALL, socially acceptable for you to say something about me smoking. Especially if you are a total and complete stranger!! I mean, can you imagine the HORROR of me saying something to a mother whose child won't stop screaming in a restaurant, or to someone making a major fashion faux paus by wearing white after Labor Day, or to some random dude picking his nose? Okay maybe I would make a face or something, but I definitely don't think it's my place to go up to them and tell them I don't agree with their choices and then tell them in detail how stupid they are. It's just rude, plain and simple. I'm sick of being treated like a freaking outcast because I am smoking a cigarette in the SMOKING SECTION of whatever place I may be. I'm considerate, I make sure to have smoker's etiquette and not light up around children, I don't blow smoke in your face, I won't smoke (even when I'm sharing a meal with a smoker) while the other person's eating, and I'll walk a good distance away from (friendly) non-smokers so that they won't smell like a cig.

Seriously, the last straw was when TM and I were at lunch at a Mexican restaurant, sitting in the bar, aka SMOKING SECTION, and I lit up after I finished eating. A random ass dude gets up from three or four barstools down, looks at me all disgusted, points, and yells "UGH, SHE SMOKES". I swear to everything holy, TM had to restrain me. Same restaurant, different day: A patron (again in the smoking section/bar) glares at me and asks the bartender if smoking is allowed in here. Same restaurant, yet ANOTHER day (in the bar... see a pattern??): a couple behind me sitting at table make extremely rude comments in our direction and TM finally has enough... "Don't sit in the BAAAAARRR if you don't like SMOKE!!!" she sneered. Normally I'd be embarrassed of her yelling at total strangers (yes, it's not the first time) but I was proud of my girl. I'm too timid to holler at people I don't know. Anyway, I know you're probably thinking we should just change restaurants, but we're sticking to our guns. These people will NOT run us out of this awesome restaurant with the perfect portion of nachos to split, and margaritas that are the bomb.com. (Noooo of course we don't drink at lunch).

My advice to judgemental nonsmokers: Don't sit in a smoking section if you don't want to be around cigarettes. Simple enough for ME to understand, but it might be a little more difficult for dumbasses who need to remind you over and over that smoking causes cancer. Somewhere, villages are looking for their missing idiots.

I need a smoke now.

Port-o-potty drama

2008-12-09T08:27:00.003-06:00

Everyone who knows me knows that I am prone to accidents. These accidents usually involve what I like to call "the weak ankle". I broke my ankle about 4 years ago, and ever since, I have trouble walking in heels, therefore I bust my ass on a regular basis when we go out. It happens so frequently that my friends don't even bat an eye or even try to help me up anymore... they know I can handle getting myself upright again. Anyway, I have an injury from this past weekend that had nothing to do whatsoever with the weak ankle. It started off innocently, the boyfriend (BF), his best friend (BF's BFF), and I went to watch the BF's college rugby team play a game. Of course we had to drink beer, because there's no point in being around ruggers without drinking beer. Who cares that it was 1:30 in the afternoon?? Saturday is a rugby day, as they like to say. But I digress...

So since there was quite a bit of beer consumption, along with that comes the full bladder. Which I never think of until it's to the point where I'm doing the pee pee dance and looking around for a tree to crouch behind. (I'm a classy gal, by the way) Unfortunately, all the trees were within a 15 foot radius of people, and the brush wasn't thick enough to hide me. The only other option was the port-a-potty, which I will do anything NOT to go in since the unfortunate incident backstage at a Pat Green concert where I was so sloshed that I fell back on the seat, mid-pee. *Shudder*

So there I was, full bladder and legs crossed, swaying (you know this pose), and finally I decide to just do it. I can handle this, I learned my lesson, never lose focus in the port-o-potty, concentrate, and you won't fall. All ladies know the hovering position, but in order to get out of the plastic toilet with no urine on you, you have to master the hover/hold pants away from seat/don't touch the walls technique. It's very tricky, but I had it down. And was doing quite well, I may add. So this was about a two minute pee (the amount of about a 6 pack, ok?), and about halfway through I hear BOOM BOOM and the freaking port-o-potty JERKS TO A 45 DEGREE ANGLE. I thought the Japs were bombing Pearl Harbor all over again. In the midst of me trying to figure out what the eff was going on, I lost my balance and hit the side of the wall, therefore letting go of my pants, and my feet shifted, therefore moving the pee stream about six inches forward. To where I was peeing on the floor. Close to my shoes. On my pants. Turns out my BF's shit for brains best friend decided it would be way funny to take a running start and drop kick the port-o-potty while I was in it. I could hear the laughter as I had to cut off the pee stream and button my piss-splattered pants, and charged out of the door like a bull running in Pampalona. BF and BF's BFF were doubled over in the car laughing, so I took my pee covered hands and ran them over BF's BFF's face and told him he had cooties. I'm really mature.

So, in the midst of this I don't notice the gash on my arm streaming blood until about 10 min later. I got an open sore injury in the most unsanitary place on earth, next to a sewage ditch. Tits McGee says I probably will end up with a staph infection. Awesome.

My kid's sooooo grounded.

2008-12-05T07:08:00.003-06:00

So I have a 5 year old little girl. She's adorable, and normally a really good kid... I know I'm lucky in a lot of ways to have such a (somewhat) behaved child. She's really smart too (I know, all parents say this about their kids), but there are disadvantages to her intelligence. For instance, no more can I say I'm going to "hang out with my friends" because her immediate response is, "So you're going to a bar to drink beer, right?". My brother taught her the difference between his kind of beer (Budweiser), my kind of beer (Miller Lite), and my dad's kind (Bud Light), and trained her at age 3 to go to the fridge to fetch the correct beers according to the person needing one (and now she has it in a koozie and opened by the time she returns). Really, something I shouldn't brag about. Just so we're clear, that was not bragging. Just an example of my kid. Also so we're clear, my family is not a herd of alcoholics. Just so we're clear. Capiche?

Anyway, so my adorable child has a problem with writing on anything and everything. She started kindergarten this year, so obviously they're learning reading, writing, and 'rithmatic. The writing, she's got down. I have found scribbles on everything from the bathroom wall, her blue jeans, backpack, the coffee table, her pajamas, my purse... anything and everything will suffice for a writing surface for her. Good thing we don't have a dog. Now I know kids do this all the time... hence the paint they make so you can easily wash crayon off your walls, but it is getting out.of.hand. A month ago I bought her a brand new comforter, sheets, pillows, everything, because she had drawn a masterpiece (in her eyes) all over the set she previously had on her bed. I sat her down and explained how cool it was to get all new stuff, what a big girl she was, and that this was a special treat. I mean, mommy's had the same damn down comforter since before she was born, so to get a new one in my house is a big deal. Anyway, in that conversation I also threatened her with her life if so much as a drool stain appeared on the sheets. So for the last month, all's good. Then two nights ago I go to put her to bed (which I normally do once her light is off and night light is on, but this time I hadn't killed the lights yet), and I notice HI written on her sheets. HI. Like, oh, hey, here's a little greeting to welcome you to my bed. Upon further inspection, I found two other pen drawings. I lost my shit. Seriously, you know when babies cry and cry and they tell you to just put them down and walk away because you're so upset you may shake them so hard you kill them? Well I had to physically walk away, because spanking her would have ended with me calling CPS on myself. I was that angry. It's like she's testing me to see what will put me over the edge, and that did it pretty much. So, I had to concoct a grounding like she's never had before. My boyfriend's sister came over last night and we removed EVERY toy from her room, except for a couple dolls and all her books. She's also banned from TV and playing outside. I know this may seem a little extreme for a 5 year old, but I'm telling ya, nothing else has worked. In the process of her having to be sequestered in her room, she came out ten (count 'em) TEN times to ask when she was ungrounded. This prompted me to put a calendar in her room with the grounding rules, and if she asks me repeatedly how much longer she's grounded, she has to add a day. We started off at a week, and are now to 9 days. I just hope she's ungrounded by Christmas. Not banking on it though...

I'm a blogging virgin, be gentle.

2008-12-04T14:28:00.003-06:00

So, my best friend (Tits McGee) is like the most awesome blogger ever. I eagerly anticipate when she'll have a new blog up, which depends on the frequencies of crazy mishaps in her life... here lately they've been pretty regular. I decided I needed to jump on the blogger bandwagon and see what all the fuss is about. I doubt I'll be lacking in material to write about, as my life is like a bad reality show sometimes. I can't guarantee my blog will be cooler than hers, but I'll try like hell. If you want some laughs (that won't be) as funny as mine, go check her out here before she kills me for ragging on her.