Friend Makin Monday

They have this thing called Friend Makin' Mondays and I thought I would join in this week. It is hosted by Amber so hop on over when you are done with mine. This week we are playing 20 questions. Easy huh?!

1. Do you cook every night?
We cook every night but it is usually Benny that cooks. He really likes to cook and is way better at it than me. I do cook a lot but its usually simple stuff. He does all the grilling which is what we do mostly in the summer.

2. What kind of laundry detergent do you use & why?
I always use Tide. My mom always has and so when I moved out that is what I bought. This has never changed (unless I was really broke at the moment).

3. Do you do laundry every day or loads at a time?
I usually do it when we need clothes. Which means we have a lot of clothes laying around. I should really do better at this.

4. How often do you eat out per week?
At some times, we never eat out. Other times we eat out a lot. Not really eat out but get take out. Right now we are on a never eat out time.

5. Where do you usually eat out?
If we do get take out it is either Taco Bell or pizza from the gas station. They make really good pizzas and it's pretty cheap.

6. What is your favorite retail store?
Don't really have one. We do WalMart a lot. But, I do love to go to Old Navy and Cavenders when I have money to spare.

7. What's your favorite thing to drink?
I love sweet tea, fountain cokes, Busch Light and water. That is all I drink. Oh ya, and gatorade.

8. Do you take vitamins? What kind?
Nope. Probably should but I don't.

9. What percentage of the household chores to you do?
I pretty much do all the inside stuff and Benny takes care of all the outside stuff. This has always worked out pretty good for us.

10. Do your children do chores? {Or will they, did they, etc}
When I am cleaning, the little kids will help by picking up their toys and putting them up. Sometimes. Little Man has the job of picking up the yard so Benny can mow and sometimes he gets to actually mow.

11. Do you go to church?
Nope.

12. Do you have a housework schedule?
The housework gets done when I get off my ass and do it. I try to do a room a day. With 5 people living here, it can get messy.

13. Do you keep a working budget?
No. This I know we REALLY should do, we just haven't yet. We pay the bills and then live off what is left.

14. What do you do at night as a family?
A typical night for us is just lounging around, watching TV and eating supper. Then it is getting everyone ready for bed and taking care of all that. Pretty relaxed.

15. How do you prepare yourself for a new week?
Gonna go with Shortmama's answer and say "I wake up". We don't plan ahead, just go with the flow. I do make sure that Little Man has enough school clothes clean for the week.

16. What do your mornings look like?
School mornings are always the same. I wake up, go wake up Little Man and get him all set up. After he is basically ready, I go get the little ones and we all load up and take Little Man to school. When we get back home I fix breakfast for the little ones. Then it is time to get on the computer and do everything I do on it.
On weekends, we get up when the kids wake us up and do whatever it is we plan on doing for the day.

17. What time do you get up in the mornings?
Weekdays, I get up around 6:45am. On the weekends it's closer to 9am.

18. What time do you go to bed at night?
During the week, we all go to bed at 10pm. On the weekends, just whenever we all fall into bed. It all depends on what we did that day. Sometimes it's 8pm and other times its midnight.

19. How do you manage all of the paperwork that floods into your household? {bills, school work, magazines, ads, etc}
That's easy. Trash. Not really worried about someone stealing our identity because we burn our trash.

20. How do you keep your household organized? {calendars, charts, etc}
All in my head. Sometimes I tell my mom so she can remind me. We are NOT organized people if you couldn't tell. ;)

Dear Family

My good friend ShortMama is starting a new thing and I thought I would join in. It is to write letters to whoever you feel needs them to get get out what you want to say. This week (a day late) I will be writing them to my family.

Dear Benny,

I totally understand that there is a tube leak at one of the plants and that it is your job to fix it BUT, do you think you could still do some of the stuff on my 'honey do' list? It usually takes only one, sometimes two, days to fix those leaks so if you could just do some of it Sunday, I would love you long time. The two most important things are to mow they yards and burn the trash. Then if you feel up to it, I would also love for you to get the trampoline out of the tree. That would be great!

Your wife that desperately wants this done,
Me

Dear Little Man,

I get that Toot can be a, well, a little toot sometimes but do ya think you could go a whole day with out coming to me every 5 minutes about it. 99% of the stuff she does you can handle yourself and the other 1%, just ignore her. She knows how easy it is to bug you and if you just calm down about it, I am sure she will stop. She really does love you and just wants to play with you. It is starting to drive me crazy when my biggest tattle tale is a 11 year old boy.

The woman who is tired of all the tattling,
Mama

Dear Toot,

As funny as it is sometimes (OK, most of the time to you) driving Little Man crazy is in turn driving me crazy. Do ya think ya could slack up a little bit? I know that it is your main job right now as a little sister but come on, it's really getting old. Besides, if you quit pissing him off, he might play with you more. Just a thought.

The woman who is still tired of all the tattling,
Mama

Dear Smiley,

If only one person actually pays attention to these letters, I hope it is you. Could you PLEASE stop pouring out the sugar, salt, pepper, coffee..... every time you get your hands on it?! It really makes a HUGE mess and I really don't like cleaning. That just really puts me in a bad mood and I don't want to be in a bad mood. While we are at it, do you think you could just stay out of the cabinets all together. I already had to put a lock on the fridge because of you feeding the cats all our ham and hot dogs (a bunch of times). I don't have enough locks to lock all the cabinets. Picking up a whole box of cereal AND mac and cheese was NO fun at all yesterday.

The woman who doesn't like all the extra cleaning I have had to do,
Mama


I love my family but if they could just do these small things for me, it would help out my life so much. I don't think I am asking for a lot so this shouldn't be hard, right?

It happens to the best of us.

I don't know if you could tell lately by my post but I have been in a funk for a while. I don't post as often as I use to and when I did they were not as 'feel good' or upbeat as usual. It got to the point that my mom called and asked if I was OK because I use to post every day. Well, here is the deal.

I have dealt with depression all my life. Well, not all my life but most of it. I have used drugs and alcohol to hide it in the past but that doesn't work real good. I was/am really good at putting on a 'mask' to hide it from others. If you didn't know the real me than you would never know anything was going on.

So, I felt it was going to far the other day and made an appointment. Went and talked to my doc and he agreed it was time for me to get back on my meds. Lexapro. I have been on it before and it worked really good. It doesn't make me a different person, just gets me back to the real me. I started taking them Friday and can already feel the difference.

People shouldn't be scared to say they have a problem and I know that. For some reason, I let it go farther than I should of but I did do something to take care of it, finally. It's easy to be 'who you want' on your blog but I am always me. Whether if its the happy go lucky chick or the chick that is battling depression. I am always still the same chick, you either love me or hate me.

Leave me ALONE!!!

How many of you have neighbors you just can't stand? I know I do. At our old house, our nearest neighbor was a little over a mile away. It was great. I loved the privacy. The house I lived in before that, my only neighbor was my parents and they were still 100 yards away. They were great neighbors because they respected my privacy.

In the house we live in now, horrible neighbor. She is also about 100 yards away and there if a chain length fence between us. This does not stop her from bugging the shit out of me.
She is the woman we bought the house from. NEVER buy a house from someone that will live next door to you! Trust me.

After we moved in, she would still just walk in to the house on her own. OK, I am a very private person and don't like people in my house or even on my property unless I invite them so someone just walking in is a big no no. The first time she did it I had just had surgery and was doped up on pain pills. I just kind of stood there in shock and didn't say anything. The door she would just walk into was the door that comes in from our garage and then you have to walk through Little Mans room. We don't even use that door! So, we put a note on the door that says "Please use front door".

After that she started using the front door but she would barge in when I opened the door. By this time I REALLY don't like her and definitely don't want her in my house. So then I would open the screen door as I was shutting the wooden door behind me and that seemed to work.

Then the other day she really pissed me off. I was in the dining room doing school with the little ones and all the sudden I hear someone yelling my name. I get up and walk into the kitchen and she is at the back door, with it open and her head hanging in my house. To get to that door you have to walk through my gate and across my back yard. She told me she lost her phone in my yard and would be looking for it. I just said "ok, whatever" and shut the door in her face. How in the hell she lost her phone in my yard I will never know. But that's not the part that really pissed me off.

An HOUR later, I go outside to load up and go pick Little Man up from school. Her and another man are in my yard looking at something over by Benny's shop. I loaded up the kids as my blood is now boiling and walk over there to see what the hell they are doing. She then proceeds to tell me that there is a busted water pipe. I just look at her and said "I know, that's why I have the water to outside turned off. Benny is planning on fixing it this weekend. Did you find your phone?" I didn't say it in the nicest voice. She just looked at me and said "Oh, yes I did." And with that I turned on my heels and just walked off.

Do you think she got the hint or am I going to have to actually tell her "Listen, I don't like you and I don't want you over here. We bought the house from you. We are not renting it so it is no longer yours. STAY AWAY AND LEAVE ME ALONE!!!"

I bet she wouldn't listen even if I told her that. I love my house and love our place but I don't know if I can deal with her much longer.

I'm back!

Did ya notice I was gone? Thought so. My cat broke my data card thingy so I couldn't get online for a few days. Wasn't fun. I ended up doing a lot of cleaning. That can't be good!
Anyway, Monday was Little Mans first day of school and I didn't get to take him. Oh well, shit happens. But, I did get to pick him up.
He said he had a great day. I got to looking at him and then asked him who dressed him. He didn't look bad, just not like him. He had on a button up shirt that was black and white plaid and brown cargo shorts. Hmmmm. Also, they have to have their shirts tucked in. He said he did but that he looked like a dork. I couldn't even lie. I just laughed. He then thanked me for buying him cool clothes. Ya, I'm a cool mom that knows how to do it!
So, we took a pic this morning and we are going to pretend today was the first day of school. (Yes, he is wearing a long sleeve shirt in August in Texas. He said the school was very cold!)
So handsome.
On another note, the other day I got to play on this. No, Benny didn't get a bike. It's his friends but he sure wants it. Pretty, huh?! (Not me, the bike. We had been at the lake all day.)

So, now that I am back I have some catching up to do.

Wordless Wednesday with a few words!

So fuckin hot!!

Best Blogging Friend Ever!

Carrin, you ROCK! Drunk ass! Hehe!

That's all I got to say about that!

Tuesday whatever's

I know a few of you do the Random Tuesday thing so I figured I would add to it.

• Little Man starts Jr High Monday. It seems just like yesterday when he was Smileys age. It won't be my weekend to have him so his step mom gets to take him to his first day. That sucks.
• Speaking Of Little Man going to Jr High, he decided to be in band and play the trumpet. Is it expensive to sound proof a room?
• I worked out yesterday and was surprised when I wasn't sore this morning. So, I am either in better shape than I though I was or I just did a wimpy work out. I'm going with that I am in better shape than I though.
• Smiley and Toot just about drove me crazy yesterday. They were in rare form for some reason. Somehow Smiley put a hole in Toots head and Toot spent the day torturing Little Man. Needless to say, they both took naps so I wouldn't go completely insane.
• Last night Benny and Little Man played a Sims game on the Wii. That is the MOST BORING THING TO WATCH. I watched them for about 3 hours and finally went to bed. It may be fun to play but I just can't handle watching that again.
• And lastly, if feels so good to have everything done. I have everything in order right now. Nothing to stress over just things to look forward to. The next few weekends are gonna be so good. This weekend will be just hanging with the family with no stress, the next one I will be going on a trip with my mom and the one after that Carrin is coming to see what is so wonderful about being in TX. Can't wait.

That's about it for now. For more randomness, go here.

Ouch!

I am a real clumsy person. Most people don't get just how bad it is until they actually hang around me. I trip over things that aren't there, run into walls for no reason and I have actually broken my own nose.

I also tend to cut myself with knives. Benny has joked since I have known him about how I shouldn't use a knife. Every time he cooks steaks, he asks if I want him to cut it up for me (and usually I let him!).

Friday night I decided I was going to cook potatoes and onions. Grabbed the knife, cutting board and got to work. On the second onion, I sliced my finger open bad. It was still bleeding the next morning. I know it needed stitches but I am so tough, I didn't go to the doctor. Actually, I just really hate shots and wont go to the doctor unless I think I am seriously hurt (or know shots will not be involved). Yesterday I went and got some Neosporin and band aids and was all good.

Then the weirdest shit happened.

We were headed home from Target where I had purchased a coke. You know, the ones in the plastic bottle that they sell by the check outs? I had already drank about half of it when I tried to open it again to take another drink. I say 'tried' because I didn't actually get it open. Instead, it some how sliced open my index finger and thumb! Yes, the lid on a plastic bottle cut me open!

Benny is so sweet and was crying. Of course it was from laughing so hard. Maybe he is not so sweet. After that, every time I reached to open it, he would grab it and open it for me while still laughing.

So now, both my hands are cut up and typing really isn't that easy. Hope the rest of the week is better (and less bloody).

Not far at all

I love my dad. He cracks me up so much. I was talking to a good friend and warned her about his ways seeins how she will be meeting him in about 3 weeks. Then I realized, the apple really doesn't fall far from the tree. Not in our case at least.

I was telling her that when she meets him, he will mess with her. And that the way to get on his good side is to take it and then dish it right back at him. I then told her that the main thing he would probably joke with her about is the fact that she is a yankee. Hmmmm, that sounds familiar. Remember this post? Anyway, with my post yesterday and then talking about him, it got me thinking. He tends to say things that could go left unsaid too (but then it wouldn't be as fun). Yes, I have a great example.

As long as I can remember, Taco Bell has been my FAVORITE fast food. I LOVE IT. Use to, I always got a bean burrito with no onions and pintos and cheese. And no, I was not a gassy child, thank goodness. We always did drive thru (probably why I still refuse to go inside).

When I was a freshman in high school my best friend was also a huge fan of Taco Bell. It worked out really good because we never argued about where to go. One day we where hanging out with my folks and we went to TB. My dad said something I will NEVER forget and still cracks me up to this day.

We ordered our usual (she always got the same thing I got) and we proceeded to the window. As always, my dad checked the bag to make sure we got what we ordered and noticed they left something out. SPORKS!!! How can you eat a bowl of beans and cheese without a spork? Ya can't!

So my dad asked them for some and a second later she said they didn't have any. BULLSHIT! It's Taco Bell! So then my dad said "I don't care if you have to shit them but find me some!". Me being the smartass I am said while laughing "I care!". She found some along with a dirty look and we went on our way. IF I was the window chick I so would have found one, shoved it in beans and then handed it to him. But that's just me for ya. This is a memory I will always remember and laugh at.

Now you can really see where I got my 'say whatever you want no matter what' trait. I love that about him and it has made for some great memories.

Gotta give a little credit to my mom though. One time we went to the McDonald's drive thru and they asked us to pull up and wait. And wait we did. Forever! Finally, she got out of the car, went inside and asked if they had to go kill the cow. I guess my dad rubbed off on her.

My folks rock!

Verizon SUCKS!!!

I am so sick of what is going on with my phone and computer. It drives me crazy and there isn't a damn thing I can do about it so I am going to bitch about it.
I have had Alltel as my cell phone carrier for years. I don't even have a home phone and haven't in about 4 years. Our phones always worked great and basically everyone I talk to was on Alltel too. Back in March (I think) I got rid of my satellite internet and got the little thingy so I could get my internet through Alltel. It worked great! It was fast and I never had any problems.
THEN, Verizon takes over. Now everything SUCKS!!!!
My signal bounces all the time. I can have a full signal one second and then it will say "No Service" the next second WITHOUT ME EVEN MOVING!!!! That makes it VERY hard to finish a conversation. I cuss more now than ever because every time I get a call dropped, I cuss Verizon. Then, it started screwing with my internet. NOW I'M REALLY PISSED! I get kicked offline all the time and it has gotten sooooo slow. The signal on it bounces just as bad as it does on my phone.
I thought Verizon was suppose to be so good. I have seen their commercials. What was that they said about no dead zones? They are so full of shit!
I talked to the Verizon chick (that use to be my Alltel chick) and all she could say was "Give it some time. It should get better." WTF! Are you kidding me? It SHOULD get better? It better damn well or I will drop them (and loose my deposit) faster than they can drop another call! And I am not the only one that feels this way, EVERYONE I know is having the same problems.

No job for me

Well, I now have no reason to go find a job. Actually, I have a reason to NOT get a job. I don't like the reason though.
I got a call today saying that Toot and Smiley's school is shutting down for good. Around here, they have a pre-k at the public school but you have to be poor to go. Your only other option was the pre-school at one of the churches and since they are shutting the doors, my kids have no school to go to at all. Toot was so ready for school to start back up and Smiley was soooo excited to be going. It's going to break their hearts to learn they aren't going, especially Toots. She wants to see all her little friends so bad.
Silver lining, I don't have to magically come up with $450 in the next 2 weeks. Or school clothes.

They say it is so hard being poor but the poor get free food, free medical, and now (around here) an early start on their education. Pisses me off!

One cool chick

My daughter is one cool chick. Actually, she is the coolest little chick I know. She is so funny and also very adventurous. She has absolutely no fear of anything and will try everything we put in front of her. The no fear thing has scared us a few times and caused her to brake her nose TWICE but she doesn't care. She will do it all.

About 2 weeks ago we went to the lake with my folks. They have a knee board too so we thought it would be cool for me to ride on one next to her. She wanted to ride all by herself. If you remember, her one and only time to ride by herself was on Father's Day. Anyway, we did it and it was the most fun I have had in a long time with her.

After a minute of riding next to me and watching, she learned how to actually steer the thing. She did so good and giggled the entire time. It got to the point she was actually chasing after me and trying to splash me. I gotta tell you though, the chick doesn't fall off. I of course can't fall off because I know she wouldn't let go and I would be stuck floating in the water. So, I had to stay on right along beside her. I got VERY VERY tired. I finally just had to tell my dad to stop the boat. My arms were shaking for an hour after we were done.There was also a tree with a rope on it and out of 4 kids, she was the ONLY one that would swing from it. That made her daddy very proud of her.She cracks me up everyday and amazes me with all that she will try. Her daddy is worried that when she is older, all the boys in town will think she is as cool as we do. He thinks we are in trouble!

Oops!

Last Friday we took Benny's piece of shit truck to the scrap yard. It had been sitting in my yard for 3 years just looking ugly. I was so excited to finally get rid of it. While at the scrap yard, this guy had to show up.
Because Benny's truck BLEW UP!!!! Apparently they were suppose to take the battery out so this wouldn't happen but I guess the chick was too busy because she didn't. The kids thought it was cool as shit. The employees, not so much. Oops!

Also, today is my baby boys 3rd birthday! I can't believe he is already 3. We had a mini party Sunday with Benny's family. Does that cake look familiar? If you read yesterdays post, it should. It was left over wedding cake. We are having his party here this weekend. How lucky is he to get 2 parties?!

Happy Birthday Smiley!!!!!!

Beautiful

Talk about one of the longest days in history. I woke up at 3:45am Saturday to get everyone ready and out the door. We got there about noon and the day began. The wedding started at 5:30 and was so beautiful. My niece and her man looked so happy. It was such a beautiful wedding and I hope more than anything that they are always as happy as they were then.

My other niece pulled the brides baby girl down the isle in this cute little wagon filled with flowers. I thought that was such a great idea.

Toot pretty much stayed in the middle of it all. She stayed in the room with all the girls before the wedding started.

She also had a real hard time staying away from the cake. She was totally being encouraged to have a little taste by a few adults.

This is all of Benny's immediate family.

So it all turned out really great and they now have plans to get their life on track. I really think they are determined to make this work and I pray for the best. It's all up to them now.