Black cats beware!

Superstitious? Ya, sometimes I am. Mainly with the black cat crossing my path. I have on many occasions turned around. This past week, I had a black cat cross my path twice and Benny's once. Benny laughed at me because he knows how I am. But then, shit started happening.

Sunday night, a black cat crossed and 30 seconds later I almost hit a deer in the road. It was just standing there staring at me. Benny was sitting in the passenger seat because he had thrown his back out so I didn't want to slam on the brakes (and hurt him worse). Didn't want to swerve because that's how folks die. BUT, didn't want to hit the damn deer. So, I just slowed down and hoped it ran the right way. It didn't. But it didn't run the wrong way either. Just stood there.

Then, Wednesday morning another black cat crossed. A few hours later I was jumping on the trampoline with my kids and broke my toe. That shit hurts! The bruise is a lot darker now and twice as big and I now walk funny.

THEN, yesterday we went to South Louisiana with Benny. A damn black cat crossed our path and of course he laughed. But ya, he wasn't laughing later on when we got lost and he drove 50 miles to only go 4. Or when he had to change a tire on the trailer, in the freezing rain, on a tiny ass hwy with no shoulder. Or when he had to drive in the snow.

I don't think he will be laughing at me anymore. Who am I kidding, he probably will. He's an ass like that sometimes. I do know I'm shooting the next black cat that tries that shit thought!

Workin girl!

I know I have talked before about Benny working shutdowns but you may not know what that means. Benny's company goes into power plants, shuts down part of it and then fixes whatever needs to be fixed. Some last a few weeks and others last months. Here are what the power plants his office works on look like. Talk about job security, folks will always want electricity!
Benny is the tool room manager. Basically, he has to get all the tools ready to go to the power plants so they can do their job fixing everything. He takes care of basically all the plants in Texas and Louisiana, which is a ton of tools to keep up with. Then, sometimes he has to actually go to the plants to try and make sure all the tools end up back at his warehouse. Not so easy. This weekend he had to get 5 huge game boxes (huge tool box) and 2 conex's (one was 20ft long and one was 40 ft) loaded to send to south TX. Before he had this job, he was on his tools actually fixing plants. This is a conex. It turns into the tool room once they get to the plant.

Well, I decided to go help him. He works alone and if I wanted to see him at all this weekend, I had to work. I have no problem working so he basically worked my ass off! Now I totally understand why he is so damn tired when he gets home. The tools he loads aren't little either. THANK GOD for wheel barrels but they seriously need to get him a forklift!!!

Anyway, we worked ALL day Friday and Saturday and half a day Sunday. I'm tired and sore! Poor Benny is back at it today making sure it all gets loaded on the truck right and start loading the next round of tools for another job site. I told him I wasn't doing shit today but I do plan on making him a great supper and getting a bath ready for him.

I have always appreciated what he did so that I could be a stay at home mom but after doing it for 3 days, I have a new found appreciation for him. At least I get a 4 day break before I am back at it again with him. To me that is a small price to pay to get to hang out with him all weekend.

Last weekend

Started like this

Then some of this
And ended with this! (That's my brother in law)

This weekend wont be so crazy. I am actually at Benny's work helping him out this weekend. Hope you all have a great one though!

Dear....

Dear Benny's brother and sister-in-law,

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for the early birthday present! Yall are so awesome for getting us tickets to the Hank Jr concert on April 9th. I have never had the chance to see him in concert even though he is my favorite singer (besides Benny of course). I am sure we will all have a blast. Also, thanks for the hotel room because I am sure that we will be in no condition to drive when it's over. I am so excited and can't wait until then. I owe ya bigtime!

Forever grateful,
April

Dear Benny,

I am sorry I felt so bad last night but thank you for taking care of me. Really means a lot. Also, I LOVED the card you got me and yes, it was perfect.

I love you,
April

Dear Toot,

Why in the world are you up so early? Go back to sleep!

Love ya baby girl,
Momma

For more letters, go visit Shortmama!

Seven years ago today, I married the man of my dreams.

I just wish I could quit puking long enough to enjoy tonight.

So funny but so creepy!

A few years back, I decided that a hamster would be a great pet for Little Man. I had one when I was little and loved it. So, I finally talk Benny into getting one. Benny is the kind of person that goes way overboard so of course this hamster had a freakin MANSION. I'm talking 3 story, very colorful, tubes and little houses everywhere. It was so big it had to stay in the living room on our entertainment center. Benny decided that the cage was so huge that we should get 2 hamsters. THEN, he decided it would be cool to get a boy and girl, breed them and then sell them back to the pet store. This is where everything goes crazy.

We get them home and the little shits are MEAN! They would bite EVERYTIME you tried to touch them. So, basically they just stayed in the cage and I got to clean it all the time. Not much fun. THEN, we had babies. 8 to be exact. Now they were cute! We would take them out and look at them and Little Man loved it. That was until the daddy ate them. What an asshole.

A few weeks later, we had more babies. 11 of them. The daddy like this bunch or was scared of what the mommy would do and he let them live. When I would clean the cage, they would scamper to other parts and so I didn't have to take them out. The tubes were colored and hard to see through so I never really looked for them much less did a head count.

One night, everyone else was sleeping and I was hanging out with Smiley (he was only like a month old) and watching TV. I noticed something long and white stretching from the top of the cage to the bottom. It was the belly side of a FUCKIN SNAKE!!!!! I flipped out!!!!! I stood on the couch and start screaming for Benny while looking all over the floor for more snakes. We lived in a TINY mobile home and no one woke up to my screams.

I grabbed Smiley, RAN on the furniture to my bedroom, jumped on the bed and screamed "There is a fuckin snake in the house!!!!!" That woke him up. FAST! Benny is a tad scared of snakes. He went from sleeping to standing on the bed in less than a second. I told him what was going on and we go investigate.

I take my place back on the couch as he looks in the cage. The snake is now big enough that it can't get out of the cage (it was a metal cage). Benny decides to do a head count of hamsters. There was ONE! The other 12 were gone. Guess that's why the snake was so big. The only survivor was the daddy. Then Benny says he is going to shoot it with his shot gun. Ummm, no. That would put a huge hole in our house. I say we should put a sheet over the cage and carry it out so he can shoot it and he says, "Ummmm, not no but hell no!" He doesn't want to get that close to the snake. We agree on him using Little Man's BB gun.

I get Smiley undercover and Benny goes to shooting. I think he probably shot that damn thing like 50 times. We had BB's bouncing around everywhere and some actually hitting the snake. He wouldn't quit shooting until it was no longer moving. Once it was dead, he got a coat hanger and got the snake out and into a pillow case (that he made me hold). After that, I wanted the last rodent gone so more snakes wouldn't show up. He let the little guy (that was shaking soooo bad) go off into the woods.

Needless to say, we didn't sleep there that night. We loaded up the kids and headed to my moms. After all the drama, I got to thinking. Just how long WAS that snake in there? He was there long enough to eat 12 hamsters and get fat enough he couldn't escape. How many times had I put my hands in a cage where a snake was living? Gives me the heebie jeebies just thinking about it.

We moved very shortly after that. We now both agree, never again will be have a pet that snakes eat as food!

Update on the date

We didn't do date night. We all decided to do it this coming weekend when we aren't so broke. Instead we hung out with Benny's brothers house and had a blast watching football all weekend. Really sucks that the Cowboys got their asses handed to them but I was happy about the Jets winning.

No, I am not a Jets fan. That was actually the first game of theirs I actually watched. Benny and I have a bet going. I bet him that the Jets will make it to the superbowl. Not that they will win but that they make it to the game. They are such the under dogs and he was convinced the Chargers would stomp them so he took the bet. Now I just need them to beat the Colts! Wish me luck. If they win, I get a FULL body massage and he has to keep his clothes on so he actually finishes the massage. I'm talking head to toe!!!

Sunday we brought my niece home with us and she spent the night and then she got to ride a horse for the first time. She did really good. I'd show ya a pic except for some reason I can't get them from my phone to computer right now.

Anyway, we are doing date night this coming Friday. Still have no idea what we will do but at least now we have some money to spend.

HELP!!!

Benny gets a 3 day weekend. WOOHOO! I love that his job works 4 days a week/10 hours a day instead of the normal 5/8's. So I get him for 3 days all to myself with the two little ones of course.

Except we wont have the two little ones Saturday night! My folks have agreed to let us have a date night every month and Saturday is the day!

There is one slight problem though and where I could use a little of your help. We are broke. Funny how bills and food and gas can do that to ya. Ok, not funny but life. So, we got about $20 to use for our date night so it's time to get creative. That's where you come in to play. What are some good things we could do on $20 without kids?

Thinking the movies because I don't think we have EVER gone to the movies without a kid. I already had Little Man when we got together so we always took him. Actually, the first couple of years we were together we (Benny and I) never even went to the movies together at all. It always worked out where either he took Little Man or I did but we never all 3 went. I don't know why. I don't even know what we would go see. Guess I need to see what's playing.

So, what else would be a great idea on limited funds. I know I have some creative readers so let the ideas poor in!!!

Also, gotta tell you about a funny conversation I had with Benny.
First, I gotta tell ya that my brain sometimes thinks really random stuff that has nothing to do with what we are talking about. The smallest thing can get my brain going in a totally different direction.
Anyway, we were sitting in bed watching football (I think) the other day and a commercial for Private Practice came on. That got us talking about how pretty Kate Walsh is. He asked if they still showed the Cadillac commercial that she was on. I told him I didn't think so but that you can look it up on youtube. While we were having this conversation I was digging in my purse for something and ran across Toots blue ribbon from her rodeo debut. So out of no where I said "You need to nail her......cork board back together so I can hang her stuff up". I paused because of something on TV and when I finished the sentence I looked at him and he looks SOOOOO surprised and confused.

Benny: "WHAT?!"
Now I am confused.
Me: "The corner came unnailed and I need you to fix it."
Him: (now even more confused) "WHAT?!"
Me: "Toots cork board. You need to fix it."
Him: "OHHHHH, I just thought you told me I needed to nail Kate Walsh!"
Then we just both cracked up and I told him if he ever had the opportunity to be my guest.

I guess the pause in my sentence threw him off and I was confused because in my head, I had totally switched subject and didn't think of how it would sound. He is usually really good at keeping up with me. Maybe he just heard what he wanted to hear!!!

Dear family...

Dear Mom,
Thank you so much for everything you have done for me all my life, but what all you have done this month for me really means the world to me. I don't know what I would do without you. I am the luckiest girl to have you as my mom.
Love,
Your VERY grateful daughter


Dear Toot,
PLEASE quit asking me 50 times a day if it is Christmas yet. I know you are excited but dang girl, you are driving me crazy. I promise I will not let Christmas pass without telling you. I also promise that we will make Santa cookies on Christmas so don't worry. I have everything under control.
Love,
Your pinky promising mama

Dear Smiley,
I love the way you are. You are perfect in your own little way. There is just one thing I need from ya. Now I know most parents would love what you haven't been doing but I need a little help. All you have asked for Christmas is a truck and a REAL train. I'm gonna need a little more to work with babe. So, give it some thought and let me know.
Love,
Your mama that is out of ideas

Dear Little Man,
OK kiddo. It's get that it is almost winter break and you are excited. I get that it's almost Christmas and you are excited. And, I get that you are so excited about going to Boy Scout camp right after Christmas. BUT, do ya think you could tone down the attitude a tad. And when I say tad I mean A TON. This arguing with me over EVERYTHING is getting old real quick. And so is talking to me like I am your child. I don't let adults talk to me like that and I sure as heck am not going to let you. So, just go back to your sweet self and all will be well again.
Love,
Your mama that happens to know where she can get some coal

Dear Benny,
Quit stressing. I have everything under control.
Love,
The woman who hopes you are a gullible as your daughter


For more Dear someone letters head on over to ShortMama's place. It's all warm and cozy over there. You'll love it!

He's my lobster!!!

Hmmm...life....

So hey, it didn't snow here. Apparently it did in Houston but not here in Linden, TX which is 5 hours NORTH! Oh well, I was actually looking forward to it because of the kids. We went and did some cool shit though because I just rock like that.

Did have a really shitty Thursday. It happens I guess. I'm just not quite sure how to get over it. Benny and I hardly ever fight but Thursday was our worst ever. It was bad. My heart is pulling me in two different ways. One says to hang on for dear life and never let go of him and the other says to run away as fast as I can. It's not fun. We are going on a 'date' tonight so hopefully that goes well. I hope, I think. I don't really know right now.

I do love him so much and can't imagine life without him but......

I don't know. It's hard. I gotta fix me. I can't fix anyone but me. Is love REALLY enough? Can I forget the hurt? We'll see........

Just a reminder

No one in real life knows about my blog except my mom and Benny and I would LOVE to keep it that way so if we are friends on Facebook, PLEASE don't mention it. If they knew about it I would have to censor it and I really don't want to have to do that. I like being able to bitch about who I want, when I want. It's nice to be able to get shit off my chest without hurting anyone. Thanks.

Today has sucked! It has rain ALL day long without stopping. We have pretty much just laid in the dark watching movies all day. I sure hope the sun makes an appearance soon. They even let Benny get off work early because of all the flooding.

If Toot rides a sheep this weekend, I will deffinately take pics to show yall. Benny has to work so he will miss it so I have been told to take video and pics. I can't wait and just hope it doesn't get rained out again!

Off to cook supper. Hope everyone had a great Tuesday!

Dear Family

Dear Little Man,
I am so glad you finally got to come home. I hope you enjoyed your week with Grandma but now it's time to go back to normal. I do my best to keep you from getting sick because of your diabetes and sometimes that means shipping you off when we are all sick. It's all for you babe. I hope we don't have to go through that again for a long time.
The woman who missed you dearly,
Mama

Dear Toot,
I know you love your harmonica and all but it is driving me crazy! How about you only play it outside or in your room with your door closed? I don't mind if you do it in the living room as long as I am NOT watching my favorite shows. I hope we can come to an agreement on this little annoyance. And yes, I do believe you will be a superstar one day.
The woman with the ringing ears,
Mama

Dear Mom,
Thanks a ton for giving Toot a harmonica for her birthday. She absolutely loves to play it ALL THE TIME! Appreciate it.
The woman who still has ringing ears,
April

Dear Benny,
I understand that you do this every year but when it is the last weekend you are gonna have for 2 months, don't ask me if I am excited about it. You wont like the answer. I promise. Lets just not talk about it and just let me get through it. I love you and have never bitched about it so lets not mess that up this year. I will miss you and really hope you have fun so lets just leave it at that. OK?
The woman who will miss you while you party it up at squirrel camp,
April

Dear Smiley,
DUDE! Seriously! What is wrong with you?! You have already poured out 3 pounds of sugar, 5 pounds of coffee, God knows how much salt and a few boxes of cereal. Was it REALLY necessary to crack open a dozen eggs on MY bedroom carpet?!!!! I don't get it. You KNOW you are going to get into big trouble when you do it but don't seem to care, why? Can you PLEASE stop? I am really sick of cleaning up your messes while you hide from me. I am begging you know. This is getting so old!
The woman who is SOOOOO tired of the extra cleaning,
Mama

For more letters, go visit Shortmama. And if ya want to play along, make sure you go link up!

I just want to breath!

Seems a lot of folks have gotten sick lately.
You can now add me to the list.
Can't breath, smell, gotta sore throat, and fever.
It sucks.
Benny and Toot got it too.
Me and Toot plan on laying around feeling sorry for ourselves but poor Benny still has to go to work.
That's about all. Hope everyone else feels better.

What are you watching?

So Amber wants to know what we are watching this Fall for Friend Makin' Monday. Funny thing is, I had just gone threw all the shows this week and set my DVR for all my favorites to record then checked her blog. So, it is all very fresh in my mind. I'm suppose to be cleaning so this will be pretty short. Benny's coming home early!

• Bones - I have seen EVERY SINGLE EPISODE and that wont change this season. I have written a few things about this show. I LOVE it. If I could only watch one show, this would be it. Benny doesn't care for it but knows how much I love it so he deals with it.
• NCIS - I also love this show. I watch it all the time on USA. I have seen most of them but every once in a while I will see one I missed back in the day. This is Benny's favorite TV show so he is cool about actually sitting down and watching it. He loves Abby.
• Criminal Minds - This just facinates me. I think being a profiler would be cool. Benny likes one character on the show so he will watch it with me.
• Ghost Whisperer - I love this show and Benny doesn't. This one has to be recorded so I can watch it when he is not home. I have also watched this one from the begining. Don't really like what the writers have been doing lately but still watch. I hope this season is better than last.

Anyway, that is what I recorded. Oh ya, I also recorded 2 1/2 Men. Benny and Little Man love it. Others I watch that I don't record are all of the Law and Orders. I really like SVU.

I noticed I kind have a theme with my shows. Mainly cop shows. So what all do yall watch?

Dear...

Dear Toot and Smiley,
I understand that watching me clean must be the fun to watch but can you do me one tiny favor? We have company coming tomorrow so if you could just lay off on messing everything up for the next 30 hours, I would be so grateful. It's not that I don't enjoy cleaning up after you, I just have a lot of other stuff to do right now. If you do this for me, I might just go buy you something at the store. But, if that is not good enough, could ya at least pick up your messes yourself?

The woman who is tired of picking up after you,
Mama

Dear God,
If you read the above letter you will see that I have company coming tomorrow. I know you get lots of requests for things but what I want is really just something small. I see in the forecast that it is suppose to rain all weekend (just like it is right now). I had plans to go to the lake this Saturday and would LOVE it if you could just hold off the rain on that day. I'm not asking for all the days to be sunny, just Saturday. We have had tons of rain lately so I don't see where it would hurt anything. If you wont make this happen, I totally understand but it would be nice for Carrin to get to see what all we do down here without the rain.

The woman praying for a little sun,
April

Dear Benny,
Thank you so much for being you. I really love you more than I thought humanly possible. Thank you for running all my errands this week (without bitching) so I could stay home and get the house ready. You really are the best husband I could have asked for.

The woman that loves you with all her heart,
Me

Dear Carrin,
I am so excited for you to come down this weekend. I know you have been so busy and have a lot on your plate so I am glad you can get away from it all to visit me. I am sure even if the kids keep messing up the house and God wont stop the rain, we will still have a blast. As with everything else in my life, we will just play it all by ear and just do whatever comes up. I just hope it doesn't rain so bad that we are stuck at the house. I would love to be able to show you how great Texas is. Also, if you get delayed in Dallas, there is a TGIF close to the gates that fly out to Longview and their cranberry margaritas are awesome. Hope your flights go good.

The woman that is so ready for tomorrow,
April


For more letters go visit Shortmama. It is always funny to read what people have to say to others.

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?

Wordless Wednesday with a few words!

So fuckin hot!!

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!!!!!!

Decisions, decisions!

We have a few decisions around here to make and we (actually I) are having a hard time in making them.
There are really only 2 that are up in the air. Benny knows what he wants (rather what he thinks we need) but I am on the fence. Actually, one of them I am totally against and am just trying to figure out how to convince him.

First thing. Benny wants to sell the camper so he can buy a motorcycle. He doesn't want a motorcycle for play (that would just be a plus), he wants it to drive back and forth to work. His office is 70 miles from the house and that takes a lot of gas in his truck and my pathfinder. If he had a bike, we would save TONS on gas money. And, since we live in Texas, he could drive it most of the year.
My problem is, I love having the camper AND I know that next spring he will need it when he has to go back to Louisiana to work that shut down. See my problem. I don't know what we should do. Seems like an easy decision to make, but it's not for me.

Second thing. He thinks I need to go back to work. He has decided with a motorcycle and me working part time, we could do good. The thing is, he usually works 2 shut downs a year and makes a ton of money. The last shut down I didn't save any because we bought a camper, a boat, and horses. Now during the summer, he only works 40 hours and that has always been doable to pay our bills but now we have more bills AND we just got medical insurance that cost $500 a month (that covers med, dental, and vision).
Also, Toot will be going everyday to pre-school which is twice as much as we paid last year and Smiley will be going two times a week which is a payment we didn't have last year. Now, he is not sure if he will even work a shut down this fall because they need him in the office so much. That right there is a major cut in his annual income.
My problem is, I don't think me working part time would even be worth my time. That would mean I have to put Smiley in school everyday and double his tuition. We had a plan that I would go back to work when Smiley started kindergarten and I like that plan. I am not ready to be a working mom. I want to still stay home with my babies. The only thing I got going for me is that NO ONE is hiring around these parts and I would be very picky about my hours. Only 8am - noon and no weekends. I refuse to work more than that. I will be the one picking up my babies from school (they get out at noon).

We have to do something because what we are doing now isn't working out so well. I need to get us on a strict budget, save our asses off during shut downs, and maybe still sell the camper. I don't know. Such hard decisions. What do yall think?