25 Random Things About Moi....

Okay, so there are emails going around right now about 25 random things about yourself. The geenral idea is that you give 25 factoids about yourself (dreams, hopes, wishes, or used-to-be's), share them with your friends and then they reply back sharing with their friends and so on and so on....I decided to share mine.

1. I love shoes more than any normal person! I notice EVERYBODY’s shoes!!

2. I always wanted a sister...I have three wonderful brothers, but a sister would have been super!

3. I am gullable...and no they didn't take the word out of the dictionary, I already checked.

4. I don’t talk to any of my close (well...used to be) high school friends anymore. : (

5. I bought duplicate tiaras for my wedding (just in case something happened to one) only to realize that both were still lying on the bed at our hotel as I was walking down the aisle.

6. I talk to my mom every day.

7. I love the Parent Trap movie and will watch it every time it is on.

8. I can recite the movies Tombstone, Grease and South Park, Bigger Longer and Uncut from any given point!

9. I’m not a “social butterfly”, but I wish I were!

10. My hands sweat..especially when I am nervous...it’s disgusting!

11. I hate confrontation more than any human on this planet! I won’t even look someone in the eye if I accidentally cut them off in traffic.

12. I love watching sports. Not just a background watcher either...I am a true sports junkie!

13. I have worked for a total of 2 companies since entering the workforce 9 years ago.

14. I could listen to my Kunkle (uncle) play Floyd Cramer’s Last Date over and over again!

15. I am a lightweight when I drink and normally order my drinks in a tall glass with only half a shot of rum so I don’t pass out half way through the evening!

16. I care WAY too much about what others think...it’s a fault.

17. My grandparents recited the nursery rhyme “Little Miss Muffet” to me so much I actually thought it was about me. I was devastated when everyone in pre-school knew my rhyme!

18. When I was in high school, I wanted to be a paralegal, drive a Jetta and work downtown...when I accomplished that goal relatively quick; I realized I set my goals a little too low. ; )

19. I wish I had one of those “drop boards” they use on the radio to use in normal everyday conversation. (I would be the chronic over-user!)

20. I like my job, but am considering a possible change soon.

21. I proofread everything...even stuff I can’t change.

22. I am addicted to celebrity gossip, not national enquirer bad, but all the blogs!

23. When I was a baby, I would only go to sleep if ACDC’s Hell’s Bells was playing...hmmmm.

24. My daughter was born with a hemangioma that wrapped around her windpipe and had to wear a trach for the first 10 months of life. By the grace of God, literally, it just went away one day...no trace, no scar tissue...it was a true miracle!

25. It was a rare occasion to ever see me cry until after I had my daughter...now I cry at everything!

Oh what a night...

Anthony came home from the sitters today in a real bad mood!! He is having allergy issues and is just fed up with everything (and everyone). After throwing countless fits, screaming and stomping, I threw him in the tub around 8'ish. BTW this is after I screwed up dinner and Brian had to make an emergency run to Taco Bueno. For whatever reason, Anthony wasn't quite digging the bathtub experience so he got out, I got him all dried off, brushed his hair and his teeth and then rubbed him down with baby vapor rub.

Because Anthony was in such a hurry to get out of the bath, I didn't drain the tub and thought that I had locked the door behind me when I walked out. Apparently, I didn't! I went into the kitchen to get his milk for the night and when I came back into his bedroom, he wasn't there. I turned around and looked across the hallway to see my fully clothed baby IN the bathtub playing as if he were supposed to be there. I almost died!

Yes, I realize the danger and trust me I was feeling it all last night. Thankfully, nothing horrible happened and we can now look back on it and giggle!

On a better note, Brian and I had a parent - teacher conference with Jaiden's teacher yesterday who told us that she was doing so much better and has improved so much over the year. Progress, progress, progress! I was so happy to hear it! And, she passed ALL of her classes this semester! Yeah for Jaiden!!!!

He's a big'un!

Yesterday Rey came and took Brian, Jaiden, Anthony and I out for lunch at a catfish resturant around the corner from us. While we were there, Anthony found a little boy to play with. After they played for a bit, I asked this little boys' mom how old he was....and they are the same age...
Sorry, the pic isn't wonderful, I took it with my phone, but can you believe this!?!?!?!

Just had to share!

Mom's Electric Orange Hair Experience...

Saturday my Mom calls me and tells me that she dyed her hair and she couldn’t tell if she liked it or not and wanted me to “be the judge”. She comes over on Sunday with the main intention of going to get her newly dyed hair cut after I judged the color. She came in and I told her that although the color was cute, it kind of had a pink tone to it...you know what I mean, like the little old ladies that walk around with blue hair, that kind. So, she decides that after she gets her hair cut, she wants to go to Sally’s and get some more dye to get the pink out. While at Sally’s, the lady working who insisted that we all know “she had her license” (she must have said it a million times) gets us all fixed up and gives us exact directions for us to follow to achieve Mom’s desired color. We get home and do exactly what the lady told us to do and unfortunately, desired color...not so much.

Mom stepped out of the shower and came in and the look on my face must have said it all, because she panicked and she hadn’t even seen a mirror yet. Her hair was a color of orange that I cannot do justice to by putting it into words. She looked like a cartoon character.



After we all got our giggles out, well, just Jaiden and I because Mom wasn’t finding the hilarity in it like us, I went back to Sally’s and found the lady that has her license, (which she did tell me four more times this go around) and explained to her that something in her last concoction went horribly wrong and we needed to fix it because Mom had to go to work tomorrow. The lady that has her license told me that the chemicals in the box that Mom had used on Saturday must have counter-acted with the chemicals that she gave us (nice cover up for her, huh) so we were going to need to strip Moms hair and then add a new color to it. I buy all of the stuff, which also included a special shampoo and conditioner for "overly processed hair", get home and we put the chemical stripper on her hair, wait twenty minutes, she rinses it out and then we put on the new color with all of our fingers crossed. Oh, I should also mention that by this time it is past 6:00 and Sally’s is now closed, so we were all praying that this worked.

Thirty minutes later Mom steps out of the shower again and although it didn’t quite have the “electric orange” tone to it, it was still orange. I felt so bad for her. She just went home.

She told me that after she got home and looked in the mirror a million times and cried a bucket of tears, she finally just packed up and went down to Wal-Mart and bought another chemical stripper and another box of dye, went home stripped it again and then dyed it dark brown. She said that after she rinsed all of the dye out of her hair (the Fourth time), she didn’t even go to the mirror. She had to work herself up to walk into the bathroom and look. Luckily the fourth time ended up being the charm. She told me that she can’t even touch her scalp after all of the chemicals that she ended up putting on it. She also told me that she will NEVER, EVER try and color her hair herself again.

Here's just a quick review of what this little adventure cost her...

2 boxes of hair color from the grocery store...........$20.00
Chemicals from Sally’s.................................$25.00
2 Chemical Strippers...................................$20.00
Special Shampoo & Conditioner
(for overly processed hair)............................$10.00
Grand Total............................................$75.00

Mom’s bad hair dye job..............................................................$10.00
What it took to fix Mom’s bad hair dye job................................$65.00
The look on Mom’s face after the first orange experience..........Priceless!

Holidays....just a little late.

I know it’s been a while since any thing has been written here, so here I go.....

First off, I never got to the herbal remedy thing below, so I truly have no idea whether it works or not, sorry...okay, now we can get on with things~

Since I haven’t even written since Christmas, I will tell you that we had a great one! The weekend before Christmas, we did our annual get-together at Aunt Linda’s house which was as always packed, crazy and so much fun! Early Christmas Eve was spent at Rey and Anna’s house. They gave our family a Wii for Christmas (so awesome!) and then later that night, we went home and my mom and little brother spent the night at our house. Shockingly enough, Santa did make a visit to our house and left a mess of toys! We are still finding little balls of wrapping paper here and there!

Those who know me know that “Thank You” cards are not usually something that I ever actually get around to doing (I have at least 200 in my desk at home partially filled out) and this year will be no different. I do appreciate all of the wonderful gifts that anyone got for me and for my family and I am expressing that now...so if you don’t get a note stating this same exact thing, please don’t be mad, I just really have no time!!! ; )

New Years Eve we went to Gatti Town with our friends Jared and Amber and their son Garrett. After Gatti Town Brian, Jaiden and I all stayed up and watched the ball drop and then Jaiden crashed pretty quickly after that and...so did Brian and I! ; )

Our last “holiday” dinner happened last night...a little late, but we made it. Phillip, Elicia, Lacie, Lori, Mema and James all came over. We obviously had to host considering one member of my family (A.R.B.) is considered “high risk liability” when taken into anyone else’s home. We had a great dinner and then out came the Wii! Let me tell you, there is no fun like watching your Grandmother play a rivaling game of Wii tennis. I laugh, but that was only before Mema kicked all of our butts in bowling. Boy, that’ll get ya! ; )

So, that was all of our holiday ruckuses!! I have several more stories that all deserve their own post including one of me and my mom turning her hair electric orange (don’t worry Mom, there aren’t any pics) and also Anthony’s first shiner (that I do have pictures!)....

I hope that everyone else’s holidays were as wonderful as our were and I’ll get all of these other stories out of my head and onto my screen soon!

Herbal Remedies - Coughing

I really have no idea why, but I have been insistently obsessed with herbal remedies here lately. I just think if you can avoid putting "drugs" into your body to cure something...why not! So anyways, I recently got over a cold and now the coughing stage has set in and we all know how absolutely irritating that can be and this is something interesting that I found and wanted to share. I can't say that I have tried it yet, but I have every intention of doing so tonight and will let you know how it worked in the morning!

Homeade Hot Chocolate

The theobromine content of dark chocolate may actually be a more effective cough medicine than traditional or over-the counter cold and cough remedies. Sugary premixed powders won't do the job, so try this homemade version.

Mix together :
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup natural unsweetened cocoa
Dash salt
Stir in 1/3 cup water in a sausepan, bring to a boil over medium heat, boil for 2 minutes.
Add 4 cups milk and heat. DO NOT BOIL
Remove from heat and add
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

My Brian....

Sympathy is not one of my strongest points, but my poor husband! I feel just terrible for him right now.



Brian sold his postal center last month to a man that he had met through the store who had a couple other locations and really seemed interested in the store. Unfortunately, the guy needed to finance the purchase amount through us, and because my husband has a heart of gold, he said okay. At the time, Brian thought that he was going to open a new store in a better location, so it was a good thing that he was selling this one. A couple of weeks later, the new store deal falls through and Brian was then in the position where he was going to just have to find a job. A couple more weeks roll around and Brian goes to the old store to collect rent and the monthly store payment, and what does he find...nothing! Literally, nothing. The guy cleaned out the store and locked the doors.

After a couple of hours of absolute panic, Brian finally got in touch with the man who in a round about way, just said he couldn’t do it anymore and told him that his ex-wife had been tearing up all of his other stores and he was afraid that she would hit that one...blah, blah, blah..... So, now Brian has an empty store and the guy pretty much ran all of the business out of there while he was there, therefore no business either. So, Brian gets back in there and pieces it together as much as he can with the stuff that he had kept with the intentions of going to the new store and starts calling mail box holders and asking them to come back. It only took him about a week to get it back and going again and he put it on Craig’s List and has a new purchaser.

The people that are buying the store now are a couple who don’t need a lot to run on, but would like to try and make the store a bit more successful. Brian ran his ideas that he had envisioned for the store and the couple liked them all. So now, my poor thing, is having to set this couple up with the exact setup that Brian has been working so hard to try and build himself, but then he’ll have to walk away when it’s over.

I really feel bad for him! So with all that said, please keep him in your prayers that this deal doesn’t go anything like the last one and that he finds a job soon that he won’t be miserable in!