Try To Remember People, I'm A Good, Catholic Girl...

There is nothing I can do now but apologize to all my adoring fans. I was hacked. I had not been on my blog since my last post on December 11, 2009...you know how it is, the Holidays, the stress, etc....so I went on the other night with the intention of posting something new and I thought I had accidentally clicked into someone else's site...it took me a few seconds to figure out my blog had been hacked. There, at the top of the screen, was an inappropriate cartoon with an unGodly amount of html code. So if you did happen to view my blog while this was posted and thought to yourself, "Hmm, she seems to have changed the general undertones of her postings"...shame on you! Remember, I'm a good, Catholic girl. I hope viewing this posting didn't cause any harm to anyone's computer...I have no idea how hacking works so I'm assuming it was just random and for the most part, harmless. If you didn't view the post while it was up, I'm not going to tell you what the cartoon was...no I'm not going to refer to the cartoon Avatar and Smurf at all nor what they were supposed to be doing...

Elvis Is In The House!

I know it's almost Christmas, but with so much going on, I completely missed Halloween. I had to post this photo of Bethany, my 9 yr old - she made a great Elvis! She had some moves and after each house gave her candy, she said, "Thank you, thank you very much".....of course.

My parents camp for the whole summer and the campground where they stay has a Halloween weekend we usually attend. They dress up and hand out candy, scaring all the little children....

Lovely couple, aren't they?

Supposubly, It's Just Allergies.....

OK, for the record, I'm not perfect....I know, I know, it's a shocker, but I'm afraid it's true. So the venting I'm about to unleash is not done without the knowledge that I'm sure at times I can be annoying and ridiculous. Probably not, but I don't want to sound arrogant.

Anyway, in case people don't know, I do not live in the ghetto, I do not run with a gang or hang with hoodlums. I have a professional job and interact with professional people on a daily basis. It never ceases to amaze me that people like this can use words such as "supposubly" (instead of supposedly)...I know this seems like a minor detail, but if you are an adult over the age of say...4, you have no excuse in pronouncing your words correctly. Whenever I am talking with someone and they use that word, I start talking to myself about how I can't believe they just said that word and I end up not hearing another thing the person says.

Moving on. You may also not know I am an ex-smoker. Ex-smoker's are the WORST non-smokers out there. We can't stand the smell of smoke even more than people who never smoked...not sure why, but it's true. Now because I was a smoker for 20+ years, I know what a smoker's cough is. I also have allergies and I know what a cough from allergies is like. They are not the same...not even close. So when I hear someone coughing up a lung on a daily basis, in between their smoking breaks, suddenly claim their cough must be due to an oncoming cold or allergies...I want to walk up to them, laugh in their face and say, "Are You Kidding????!!! Your cough is generated from your lungs trying to rid themselves of all the goop that is oozing from them because of your smoking!!!"....I mean seriously!

I think that's all for now....

I Went, I Saw, I Was Dragged In Deeper....

I will keep this short as I know I have some readers who are not big Twilight fans..I know it's hard to believe...but it's true. My friend and I decided to forego the opening night showings this time around in the hopes of escaping the screaming throngs of teenage girls every time the main character appeared on the screen. It opened Friday and we waited until today, Sunday, to go see the movie and I'm happy to say not only was there no screaming, but there were no lines and the theater wasn't even packed. Granted they were showing the movie about every 1/2 hour...anyway, at one point in the movie, I recognized the scene from a clip I had seen online and knowing the character "Jacob" was about to rip his shirt off and reveal quite a treat for us women, I said "here it comes" to my friend. As we were taking in this wonderful visual, my friend said to me, "I feel like a pedofile!". Yes that made me put the whole age thing into perspective...here we are, 40 year old women, gawking at teenage bodies...wow...when I actual put it in print we really sound like cougars! However, it's just a movie, nothing we would do in real life....we have some morals! So no matter what you think of us, we will continue to gawk and wait ever so patiently for the release of the next Twilight movie, "Eclipse" on June 30th....or maybe we'll wait until July 2nd....

I Have Failed Miserably.....

OK, maybe Joan Crawford is going a little overboard, but I recently had a few situations with my daughters that caused me to realize my shortcomings with parenting.

Now I have talked to a few friends with kids in that 12-13yr old range so I know I'm not alone...but I keep looking for the switch....you know, the one that someone is secretly switching on and off causing my 12 yr old to suddenly turn into an irrational, screaming girl who cannot understand why her Mother does terrible, horrible things to her. Even when I wasn't there. For example, she has an Aeropostale sweatshirt that she wears all the time. It is her jacket, her blanket, her napkin, her candy hiding place, etc. You get the picture. We forced her to take it off the other night so we could wash it and I put it in the dryer, which I don't normally do for fear it would alter some way...but I was working under time constraints. Soooo....the following morning when she was rushing around like normal to get ready in time for her school bus, she put on her sweatshirt. Now, the zipper pull had migrated to the top of the zipper during the wash...and I might remind you she is an honors student, but that apparently stops at the book smarts. She grabbed both sides of the bottom of the sweatshirt and started screaming at me that I should never have put it in the dryer because now it was broken and she couldn't zipper it! I mean this was quite a tirade...as she continued screaming, she took off said sweatshirt and threw it. I almost felt bad, only because she was going to feel really stupid in two seconds. I slowly picked up the sweatshirt and right in front of her, pulled the zipper pull all the way down to the bottom...then handed it back to her. She immediately laughed and said she was sorry....oh, sorry, I was in my happy place again! She put the sweatshirt on and said I had shrunk it (it fit perfectly).

Now the next incident needs me to remind everyone that my 9 year old is nicknamed Dramatica for a reason. I also need to remind you that several times I have denied my children medical attention because I thought they were faking, only to find out they actually did have a fractured wrist and strep throat. OK, with that being said, one day this past week, instead of my alarm waking me at 5:15am as usual, I awoke at 6:30a - very bad. We have a strict morning schedule and we were all running around with our heads cut off. One of our dogs was acting weird so I asked the girls to let the dogs outside, and I turned to go get dressed. I had only managed to get my pants and bra on when I heard screams. I didn't panic, but then Jamie was screaming, "She's not breathing!" and Jamie was screaming and whining...when I asked who it was that wasn't breathing and she screamed, "Bethany!", I thought I was going to throw up. I couldn't imagine what had happened to cause such an accident! I raced to the other side of the house half dressed. Jamie is frozen in the kitchen, pointing to Bethany who is sprawled out on her back on the deck outside. Bethany is drawing in deep breaths and crying. It was at this moment that the lightbulb went on. We have seriously failed our children somewhere along the way. They are clearly grossly unprepared for life. I looked at Jamie, pointed to her sister and said, "That is breathing - clearly she is breathing!". So I wondered if Bethany had actually not been breathing, would Jamie just have stood there, doing nothing? Moving on....the slider door was still open and I looked at Bethany, still dressed in shorts, tank top, no socks or shoes...still laying on the deck in 30 degree freezing cold weather. I asked her what happened and she said she slipped. I kind of rolled my eyes (maybe a clue to the poor parenting?) and marched out to help her up...this is when I realized the entire deck was covered in a microscopic film of ice and I almost went down myself. I wished I could take the eye rolling back. I asked her what made her think it was OK to go out side dressed as she was when it was so cold? She had no answer for me. Had we done a better job, she would know this was a bad idea. So I ended up taking Bethany to the emergency room and she is fine, just sore. But does she know how to milk it!
As I was just sitting her writing this, she was making up songs while playing the piano (she does not know how to play), one song was about how the devil is coming to town to steal your soul. Something is just not right there.