January 5, 2011

It's the fifth day of January and this is my second post of the year so I guess you could say my new year's resolution to blog everyday is working out well...

Today is my grandma's 75th birthday (but for the love of God if you see her DO NOT tell her you read it on my blog). She's NOT the kind of person who wants her age or her birthday flaunted...or celebrated...or mentioned. So just tell her you heard it from Gretchen or Becca.

OH we also ate chinese for dinner so our "eating well in the new year" is also going as planned...

I came to a couple of realizations about our house the other day; we need more room...That's pretty much it.

Seriously though I don't know what we were thinking when we built this house. We only "needed" one bedroom. We would have "plenty" of money to build up by the time we needed more. Yeah, I wonder what we were smoking. The next time I make a decision like that someone please slap me. (And then run over my leg with your car so I can sue the crap out of you).

But no, where was I? Okay so more room. We have a huge closet in our bedroom that doesn't "technically" get used. Sure it's packed full of stuff but nothing that we apparently need since it's been packed with the same stuff for *about* two years now. So I'm thinking whatever this "precious assortment of crap" is, it can surely move upstairs (to our attic) since our uses for these things are obviously so few and far between.

Okay so this frees up the closet <-----(this is where I would use the "strikethrough" option I've seen on blogs but FOR THE LIFE OF ME CAN'T FIND THE CONTROL KEY FOR) because I no longer want you to think of the "closet" as a "closet" but yet as a very small (STRIKETHROUGH) QUAINT room. Now next to the "room" there is a hallway. (Hallways are something that you only need if you're not already living in a basement so that you can crouch and huddle if a tornado is coming. As for us, we're covered, half of our house is underground so the hallway can go. I mean, yeah it leads to the laundry room but still...

So after we knock a wall down and add a door we have: former closet+useless hallway= QUAINT CHARMING TODDLER BEDROOM (with a door leading to the laundry room). I love it. It's the plan of 2011.

And it's totally going to work out better than the blogging and eating right thing...

The Balancing Act

I've deemed 2011 'the year of saving money' so I was pretty stoked about my deal on January 1st.

I got four single rolls of Scott toilet paper (my absolute favorite that lasts FOREVER). It was $1.29, buy one get one free and I had two $1.00 coupons so for all four rolls I only paid $0.74!!!!

Then I went to pizza hut and spent $26.59.

Yay for 2011.

I Weighed the Options

Running out of gas is something I've done too numerous times to count. This is just not a big deal to me. So you run out of gas, big whoop. Some people are absolutely terrified of the possibility of this but I'm okay with it. In fact sometimes I almost welcome the idea, like when I'm running 45 minutes late for work and I'm by myself and I think "oh if I could only run out of gas that's like the best late excuse ever then I could call Marie and ask her to come pick me up from the side of the road and she'll feel so sorry for me there'll be no yelling..."

Three days ago I was almost out of gas. Two days ago the needle hit the red. Yesterday I finally decided the dreadful time had come and I would stop. All day long I put it off until I got to the last gas station before my house. I pulled in, already dreading the bitter cold and the draining of my debit card for a useless fuel-like product.

Except there was no gas. All the pumps had bags over them. Hmmm, this wasn't part of the plan.

So this morning I cranked my car (and yes I was running late). I was a teensy bit worried because as much as I don't mind running out of gas myself I don't want to run out with Cooper. I was relieved when I approached the station and saw that the bags had been removed, whew, dodged that bullet...then I saw the sign "PREMIUM GAS ONLY".

What?! Premium?! That crap's expensive! I weighed my options. I really didn't want to buy premium...I could try to make it into town to the next station...I gave this serious consideration...Worst case scenario I run out and have to call my dad to come bring me gas...now those who know Thorney know that even in the best of moods he's still a tad scary and probably me running out of gas with his PRECIOUS, NEVER DOES ANYTHING WRONG, PERFECT, LOVE OF HIS LIFE, FIRSTBORN GRANDSON in the backseat with the temperature below freezing would NOT qualify as putting him in the best of moods...

So I sucked it up and gave $10.01 that I'll never see again just to make my gas needle move to the middle of the red instead of below it.

You may have won this time gas pump but you're on my list.

i think i have LOOK A YELLOW CAT!!! a.d.d.

"Distraction, random, a.d.d., distraction, staring into space, a.d.d., flighty, a.d.d." Words to describe me lately. Not lately, always. I realized today (after Mrs. Posey kindly reminded me) that it had been over a month since I've blogged last. WHAT THE WHAT?! That's craziness but I've been "distracted"...


It started with mom's 50th birthday. Sometime around October me and the Becster realized that our wonderful mommy was about to celebrate fifty marvelous years of life on this planet and we should try to think of something creative and fun and meaningful for her birthday. (Something more meaningful than an Applebee's giftcard...pffft like there even is such a thing).


So we deliberated and brainstormed and finally decided on "THE PROJECT". This is what we would refer to anytime we were around mom to make her crazy. We would whisper incessantly and were always talking in code and whenever mom would look our way we would reply "it's THE PROJECT, don't worry about it!" And of course she knew we were doing something for her birthday, she just didn't know what. So she would roll her eyes and say "now girls please, please don't be planning anything big, you know I don't like being the center of attention!" We'd just laugh manically, ONE because we're mean like that and TWO because at times during this this project we were very sleep deprived and delirious.


We had decided to commit fifty random acts of kindness, all in honor of mom and video ourselves doing them and set the whole thing to music. Now I take absolutely no credit for the actual technical part of this project. Becca was the video and download and upload and WHATEVER guru. My job was to occasionally turn the camera one and even with that we have a lot of outtakes of me doing that at the wrong time.


So we started our acts and they varied GREATLY. We did a wide range of everything from giving some Vietnamese directions to taking a friend to chemo to bringing Kenneth at walmart coffee to sending a solider in Iraq a package. We even had a gun pulled on us once. But it turned out it was our friend so he didn't shoot us. The whole time this was going on I kept thinking I HAVE TO BLOG ABOUT THIS but then I couldn't because my mom is still one of the faithful twelve...and then THE JIG WOULD HAVE BEEN UP...(I use that as absolute often as possible).


Some of my personal favorites were delivering balloons to the nurse's desk and asking her to give them to a patient who hadn't gotten any, randomly picking mailboxes and leaving encouraging cards (in the pitch dark and no Becca the mini storage does NOT count)...and taping quarters to a vending machine. Basically it was all fun and I would love to share the video with you except now all of a sudden Becca's knowledge of tech things vanishes and she swears she doesn't know how to post it to the internet in any way, shape or fashion. So if anyone has any thoughts on how to do this (it's like thirty minutes long) (and VERY entertaining) contact Bec...


Okay so that was basically my excuse for not blogging until November 17th...after that I can only blame amazon and my credit card for taking up an extraordinary amount of time online Christmas shopping.


Let's see, what else has happened in the last month...


I lost someone that I cared deeply about. She was my teacher in high school but so much more than that. I babysat her precious boys who are now little adults which totally blows my mind.


SIDE NOTE: While talking to Ben and Will at the funeral home they told me their favorite memories of me babysitting. These memories included the time I was driving, someone cut me off and I decided that was time to introduce the Mayfield boys to my arsenal of teenage cuss words and the time I was driving and we got pulled over by a state trooper...Now I don't know that this attests very much to my excellent driving skills nor my babysitting abilities but at least they have memories!!!

Last January I saw Mechelle at walmart and she called me over and she was like "I have something for you" and she handed me $60.00 and I'm like "what in the world?! I am NOT taking that!!!" But she made me and she said it was for Cooper and she had hoped to see me before Christmas but I was to take it and spend it on that baby and the only thing she wanted in return was for me to one day pay it forward. I cried that day because if only she had known how much more that meant to me...or how very much we needed that $60.00 right then...

When she went in the hospital this last time it was a bit before Thanksgiving so I had a plan. I figured she'd be home by Thanksgiving but tired and needing to rest so I was thinking I could do a Thanksgiving dinner for her and her family (not that I could cook crazy things like turkey but my mom and grandma can and I was going to enlist help). I was excited because it seemed like a good way to pay forward something wonderful back to her. Who was to thought that I would never have this opportunity because she passed away just days before Thanksgiving. I felt like my heart would break into a thousand pieces. Why is it that you don't even realize how much you yearn to talk to someone until you can't and then it all hits you like a brick wall...

Ughghghgghgh okay so this blog has turned incredibly sad and not at all what I had in mind. Just know ShelleyBean that I'll spend a lifetime making sure I pay it forward every chance I get.

DEAR KARMA,

I guess you didn't appreciate it yesterday when I made fun of my car on facebook. I guess it pissed you off. I guess you decided to get revenge...

So yesterday we're getting ready to go to church and I decided I had a few extra minutes, I'd take this time to tighten up the carseat. Now I'm a self proclaimed carseat nazi. I always keep Coop in the backseat, in the middle because it's the safest. So I'm pulling on the seatbelt to tighten it and THE WHOLE EFFING FRONT PART OF THE CLIP JUST COMES RIGHT THE EFF OFF IN MY HAND. Well that would have done a *mother puppy* lot of good had we been in a crash. It just FELL OFF. The seatbelt literally fell apart IN MY HANDS. Now my car is a piece of crap as far as the engine (and other unimportant parts) go but I thought the seatbelts were fine. My car is by no means new but it's a '99 which doesn't seem old enough for me to be able to rip away factory installed parts by my very own hands.

I was pissed. And livid. And had no greater urge than to light my car on fire and then push it down a hill and then spit on it.

So I moved Cooper to the side seat (aka: death seat) and we proceeded to church all the while I'm trying my VERY BEST to remember we're on our way to church, ON OUR WAY TO CHURCH, I have to be good, I'm teaching tonight, I cannot commit car murder yet...Not yet. I want my car to die.

It's very unsettling to think about what *could* have happened. It's really nerve wracking to know that I'm still driving the mother puppy P.O.S. and I'm sure that the other seatbelts are going to crumble at any minute.

I have never been so disheartened by a material object or as livid as a consumer as I am now. And that's saying a lot considering I have owned things such as a crimper and the beadazzler. I haven't exactly set my standards high. But this is crossing a line.

I have literally spent hours the last couple of days pouring over consumer reports, safety reviews and national safety charts trying to find the absolute best booster seats to purchase. My head is filled with trivia about 5 point harnesses, high backs, no backs, side impact wings and all of this is FOR NOUGHT CONSIDERING MY SEATBELTS FALL APART WHEN YOU TOUCH THEM.

So last night I'm telling Craig how this is unacceptable and something needs to be done and he's all like "it's okay, I'll look at it, probably I can fix it." Fix it? FIX IT?! This is not something that can be *fixed* with duck tape like we *fix* most things, this is our child's safety!

But it's okay, I've had a night to sleep on it. I'm calmer now. I'm rational. And I'm still pissed. But boy isn't chevrolet going to be sorry they messed with this girl. I mean I plan to bash and boycott them from now until forever. I guess when they teamed up with karma they didn't know this *mother pupper* had a blog with a following of TWELVE.

So suck it, karma. (And chevy, as for you, I wish you nothing but death).

My To Do List (and a litte bit of NATE the GREAT)

(my list) was going to include "BLOG" but I decided I could just knock that one out now. So I've gotten a few comments such as "friggin loser, where the F are you and why haven't you blogged in like a million years". Honestly, I have no excuse except that I *maybe* live the most boring life of anyone you know and probably no one could really give a care less what mundane crap I've been up to.

So halloween was fun. Cooper was a cowboy which I thought was totally cute and unique and a little old school until I found out every kid under the age of five was Woody from Toy Story. To clarify, Cooper was a COWBOY, not Woody.

I recently found out that a good friend (what up nate-nate?!) was going for his doctorate (honestly that's probably spelled wrong and I should take the time to point out now that I am NOT going for any type of higher education). So anyway he jokingly put on facebook that he'll soon require his friends to address him with his proper "doctor" title. I then immediately asked if he would deliver my next baby because it was the most inappropriate thing I could come up with on short notice. He then sent me a text message to the effect of: *gag* and *NOOOOO* and *i thought you were through having babies*. I then replied that I would be willing to bring my uterus out of retirement if the conditions were right (which by the way I thought was AMAZINGLY witty), however unfortunately he ceased to find the humor in it.

Shocking that the *good doctor's* sense of humor was the first thing to go..

I have come to the CONCLUSION that:

~I can't rescue ALL the cats in the world and I must be satisfied with the five I've managed to adopt.

~Cooper is beyond what we ever imagined our child could be and we truly won the genetic lottery and could never do it again therefore he might have to be an only child.

~I had always wanted a housefull of kids before Cooper but now I'm not so sure and it's not because he's horrible, it's because he's grand!

~Me and Craig both lucked out on the mother in law thing. We wouldn't trade with anyone in the world.

~A little part of me will always *belong* at the dippers.

~As of today I am officially behind on Christmas shopping.

~We're stuck with the crappy new phones and so for now on I'll have to curb my desire to light them on fire...forever.

~I was not meant to be GCIC certified.

~No matter how much I try I'm just not a dog person.

~I'm going to stop letting other's opinions, thoughts and comments dictate how I run my house.

~Planning a cruise may just be the best therapy ever.

~Vegetarian chili (no matter how good in theory), is just not good.

~No matter how often we have tacos I crave them.

~I will never come up with a name I like more than 'Cooper'. Sometimes I hear people say it and I think to myself "man, that is an AWESOME name!".

~Negative people just annoy me. (Let me clarify. Some may see me as 'negative' but I am far from it. I am 'sarcastic'. Sarcastic is negative's hilarious older cousin).

~This post is going nowhere and I should wrap it up.

~I'll do my best to do something humiliating/blog worthy today.