Totally Random Thursday

Hi, I'm back.

I was gone for a day. Didja notice? Didja miss me?

Anyway, just a bunch of random stuff once again. I have ideas for blog posts but I can't seem to get off my lazy butt to write about them. One day, my friends, remind me to tell you about the nude play.

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I was just listening to Pink's "Stupid Girls" and you know that part where the "stupid girl" is in the bathroom and barfs up her grape she had for lunch and then says in that weird hoarse voice "I will be skinny"? Well, I imagine that's what the girl that crawls out of the T.V. in that jerky motion from "The Ring" would sound like. And that creeps me out. For reals.

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Don't you hate it when 31 year old mothers try to talk all hip and cool? (see the above last two words).

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I hate that Wal-Mart only seems to carry swim suit "skirts" for people either a size minus 300 and super short or size plus 300 that falls to mid-calf. Really, is it too hard to sell a size large swim suit skirt that hits the mid-thighs?

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It was Turtle Day yesterday. My mom found a turtle munching on a plum in our backyard yesterday. We kept him in an old laundry basket and meant to let him go when we got back from the pool, however, he had other ideas. He managed to tip over the basket and just left without a single good-bye. Rude turtle. Good thing I managed to paint a small red dot in nail polish on the back of his shell in case he decides to return. That way I can properly tell him off.

On the way to the pool, I saw a HUGE ASS turtle in the road. I stopped and picked him up and set him in the grass....at least 12 feet from the road. You're welcome.

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A mouse and I had a stare down this morning in the pots and pans cabinet. He blinked first and ran away. Hahahahaha! Stupid mouse. I won!!!!! Nanny, nanny boo-boo.

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Wait, the mouse got away....I guess that means he really won, right?

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How come when I hear the song "It's A Hard Knock Life", I just want to run home and feed light of my life some porridge and dress her in tattered clothing and sit on the couch and watch "Annie" all day long?

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I heart Stephenie Meyer.

I got more later. Gotta go pretend to work now.

Later,

Mama Dawg

Totally Random

"It's Random Man".....to quote Kidd Kraddick.
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I have a whole bunch of nothing to mention here today.
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I swear I saw a (or an?) UFO this morning on the way to work. Could have been a low flying slow airplane, but it's more fun to imagine it was a UFO.
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Light of my life has her dance recital tomorrow night. Thank goodness that's over for now. She loves dance and has been taking it since she was 2. As long as she wants to take classes, I'll keep signing her up. It's good exercise after all, but I hate the whole dance recital part. All the costumes and changes and hair and make-up (yes, I put a bit of make-up on her, not Jon-Benet, crazy rouge-hot pink lipstick-blue eyeshadow-pancake makeup base crazy, just a little color on her lips and that's about it). Drives me crazy.
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We got our new stove delivered Tuesday. We call him "Bernie"........for obvious reasons. Hopefully he won't burn in the same way as the old one.
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Light of my life and my mom made peanut butter cookies yesterday afternoon in the new stove. Boy, are they tasty. Just perfect.
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I had to go to Wal-Mart yesterday to get some stuff. Yeah, nothing I really needed (except for light of my life's tights for her dance recital) but I had been hearing advertisements for a Coca-Cola t-shirt that Wal-Mart was selling. See, I'm a Coke collector. Not so much lately, but I have some good stuff that I've collected over the years. It matches perfectly with my yellow, white, red and black kitchen. Anyway, the advertisement was for a recycled t-shirt. They make the t-shirt out of the 20 oz plastic Coke bottles. The t-shirt I got was made from approximately 4 Coke bottles (says so right on the shirt in the tag area!). It's pretty cool. Feels softer than regular cotton tees. I like it.
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When my tax refund arrives, I'm thinking of buying a picnic table. So I can entertain and stuff.
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Did I tell you guys I had to ground light of my life? Only 8 years old and she's had her first grounding. I'm probably being a bitch, but I had just had it.

On Monday, the day after the big exciting fire, we had to get take out because we couldn't cook. Yes, I know, we could have microwaved something, but really, we just wanted to take advantage of the no stove to get take out. Anyway, light of my life's friend, M, was over playing. I went outside and asked if she had to be home at a certain time (if she didn't, I was going to see if she wanted to eat with us) and she said, "No, mama will get me when the hamburgers are done". They were having hamburgers that night and that's what we were getting for take-out as well. Anyway, light of my life did the big puppy dog eyes and begged to let me eat with them. I've been trying to teach her that you don't invite yourself to dinner at someones house but that you have to wait to be invited. I explained to her that, no, you can't eat over there, I'm already ordering you dinner and you haven't been invited. She got upset but seemed to get over it quickly.

I left to go get the food and when I got back, mom said that light of my life had gone over to M's house. I gave her a knowing look and said, "I bet she ate over there". Sure enough, when I got over to B's house, she said that light of my life ate dinner over there. I informed B that light of my life wasn't supposed to do that and that she had specifically been told not to do exactly what she did. B was apologetic but it wasn't her fault at all. She didn't know. Light of my life is old enough to retain the information I told her about NOT EATING AT THEIR HOUSE! I had already BOUGHT her dinner. Light of my life has a way of conveniently "forgetting" to tell people that she can't or isn't supposed to do something I SPECIFICALLY told her not to do. This is not the first time it's happened.

Anyway, to make a long story....well, not so long.....on the walk home from their house, I informed light of my life that she was grounded for the rest of the week. That meant she couldn't play at M's house and M couldn't come over to play at our house. The first time she could play again would be on Saturday. Boy, was she pissed. I also informed her that she had to eat her hamburger and tater tots I bought her on Tuesday night no matter what. She was so upset.

This was the perfect week to ground her though. She had dance class on Tuesday night, she was over at my grandmother's last night, tonight she has full dress rehearsal and tomorrow night is her recital. It's not like she had time to play anyway. Of course, she doesn't realize that. This morning she said "I'm so glad this week's almost over. My grounding ends Saturday". At least it weighs on her mind.

Was I too harsh or was that just right? I don't want her growing up taking advantage of other people and she needs to learn to do what I tell her. I figured this was an appropriate gesture and figured she was old enough to grasp the implications and consequences that a grounding brings. What do y'all think?

Anyway, that's all I got for today.

Later,

Mama Dawg

Just Call Me Rambo

Man, I had a good weekend.

Friday night, we went to the neighbors for some relaxation.

I had to take a test at work earlier for some certification, so I was wiped out by Friday night. Went over and had a nice relaxing evening. Hung out for a bit but then came home and watched some Friday Night Lights.

Slept in until 10:30 on Saturday morning. I haven't done that in FOREVER, so it was nice. Got up and farted around for a while. Did some light cleaning. We had to make the Wal-Mart run so we got dressed and hopped in the car. On the way to Wal-Mart, we had to stop by a neighbors house. Remember that church I told you about that has the rummage sale? Well, I had done some massive cleaning out of light of my life's room and we had a crapload of stuff to donate. The neighbor is someone that my mom went to high school with and she hadn't been to visit with her yet. Well, this neighbor is a talker (in a good way). She invited us in after we unloaded the car and stayed and visited for about an hour. I heard some good stories that I'll share here one day.

Anyway, we finally got to Wal-Mart about an hour and a half later. Keep in mind, this Wal-Mart is about 30 minutes away from the city where we live.

Not even 5 minutes after arriving, we saw our neighbors B, M and C. While I was standing there talking to them, we caught sight of my aunt and she told us we just missed my other aunt and grandmother! It was so funny seeing all these people in Wal-Mart at one time.

After Wal-Mart, we stopped by a near-by BBQ place and picked up a catfish platter and a BBQ sandwich with slaw on it. Man, that stuff is GOOD. That tarter sauce with the catfish platter is to die for.

We went home to unload the groceries and to eat dinner. After we ate, we went over to the neighbors (again!). The girls hung out while B, L and I watched "National Security". It was sorta....blah. Not good but not necessarily bad. I wouldn't recommend it except as a time waster. B and I ended up doing a couple of shots of Jagermeister. It made me pleasantly buzzy. Not that hyper buzzy, but the nice lazy kind.

Got up on Sunday and went to church. Mom had gotten a panini maker for Christmas and wanted to try it out (K, if you're reading this, that was the best gift you've given her....it makes wonderful sandwiches). We used to go to this little cafe back where we used to live and they made these wonderful sandwiches with turkey, swiss cheese, bacon and ranch dressing on rye bread. I had forgotten how much I love rye bread. Anyway, mom re-created this sandwich and used the panini press. They came out delicious.

Went to visit my aunts and grandmother. We had a nice visit with them.

When we returned, I had told B and L I wanted to come over and walk their land. They live on a lot of land that has 2 ponds on it. I wanted to walk it to 1) see the land and 2) take some pictures.

The light wasn't that good due to it being overcast and close to 5 pm. B and I went walking anyway. I saw the little pond (perfect for parties) and the larger one. We walked a bit and when we came back around to the little pond, L met us on the 4-wheeler.

He had his pistol with him and offered to teach me to shoot it. I had been wanting to learn to shoot for a while, so I was all game for it. I got to shoot it in the water (don't worry, no fish were harmed in the telling of this tale). We then found a target for me to shoot at but I couldn't hit it to save my hide! I didn't do too bad though.

We walked back up to the house and when we got there, L told me we'd do some target practice. Apparently, he had enough confidence in my shooting abilities that I was granted another lesson right then and there.

He brought out an empty water bottle and tossed it up in the air. Wherever it landed was where I was to shoot. It landed about 4 feet in front of the water main. I made L move the bottle because as a novice gunslinger, I wasn't about to be responsible for them being without water while repairs were made to the shot-up water main.

Anyway, I got practice shooting some more. After I emptied the first clip (see, I'm already all over the gangsta talk), I went over to check out my progress as I had never hit the bottle (I nicked it a bit, but it just fell over). Turns out, I wasn't hitting that far from the target. One was about a foot and a half beyond it, but most were 6-10 inches all around it. Not too bad for a newbie.

I went back and got a second clip and practiced some more. On this one, I HIT THE TARGET!!!!! It went straight up in the air and landed about 5 feet behind it's original position! This pistol is a Ruger and it had a short barrel on it which makes it harder to hit what you're aiming at. But I HIT THE TARGET!!!!! L then let me open up and wanted me to take consecutive shots. I didn't really open up that much but I discovered that for the most part, I can can keep hold of the gun and not let it kick up.

I had so much fun. I thought I'd like shooting (really, there's not much I don't like) but I didn't know that I'd love it as much as I did. Granted, it was only this one time (so far) but I got such a rush.

I didn't know emotionally how I'd be when shooting a gun. I'm not a NRA member but neither am I a gun-control freak. I didn't know if I'd freak out after shooting or what, but I didn't. It was such a rush.

I can't wait for my next lesson.

Just call me Rambo.

Later,

Mama Dawg

P.S. for those of you who know me personally, light of my life was safely tucked away inside B and L's house watching TV and playing her DS Lite. So don't panic! :)

Bad Mommy

I am such a bad mommy.

I had an ok day yesterday. Not bad, not good. Just normal.

I work in a hospital. Once a year, we have to have a TB skin test. They stick a needle in your arm and inject this stuff that bubbles up and then you come back in 48 hours for them to test to make sure that you don’t have TB. I just got tested back in October when I started here but because it’s a new year, I had to do it again. It’s no big deal. I’m not scared of needles and I never have reactions to shots (except the flu shot).

I had to stop by Wal-Mart to pick up some things we forgot the day before or that the Wal-Mart we normally go to didn’t have. While I was at Wal-Mart, I started feeling faint and just completely out of it. I didn’t know if I needed to chalk it up to the TB test or if it’s just Wal-Mart. I get that way sometimes in Wal-Mart. I get dizzy and overwhelmed and feel lightheaded. I don’t know why, but it just happens.

Anyway, when I was leaving Wal-Mart, my car didn’t want to start. I tried cranking it 3 times and it didn’t want to work. I started to panic. It finally turned over on the 4th crank.

I had meant to go by Home Depot to pick up some scrap wood but due to the car incident, I didn’t want to take any chances.

I came home and mom and light of my life were outside. I had invited M and C over to eat dinner with us. We had been over there on Sunday night and I had taught the girls how to play rummy. They all liked it so much that I told them to come over for dinner last night and we would play some more rummy. C also wanted to work on jewelry.

I had been craving tilapia for a long time. Mom had been resisting cooking it for some reason. While at Wal-Mart I had picked up some asparagus to cook for dinner along with the fish and rice. I was glad to come home and find out that dinner hadn’t been cooked yet. I was afraid mom had either cooked something else or not cooked the fish the way I wanted it cooked.

The girls were in the house playing and I was starting to cook. Light of my life asked me something and whatever it was, I either denied her request or I didn’t answer her question to her liking. She started storming away. I could tell by the way that she was stomping that she was about to get in a snit and would be difficult to deal with for part of the evening.

You know how you just know your child? Inside and out? Well, I know her and I know when she’s about to get in a snit.

I heard her in her room and she cried out “ouch” and started to cry. I just sighed in exasperation and kept on cooking. M asked me what was wrong with light of my life and I said, “nothing, she’s just in a snit” and I continued to ignore her. The crying didn’t sound serious, neither did the “ouch”. I didn’t hear from her for a few minutes so I went to check on her. She was sitting down in the middle of the floor holding her foot and crying silently.

I asked her what had happened and she told me something along the lines of stubbing her toe or hurting her foot. I asked her my usual questions to ferret out the BS injuries. You know, “is it broken, is it bleeding, are you dying” types of questions. She didn’t answer yes to any of them so I just told her to get over it (that’s my usual response to imagined injuries). She has a penchant for drama, hence the sharpness of my response. She usually bounces back when she realizes I’m not going to pay attention to her dramatics. This time, she didn’t. Instead, unbeknownst to me, she went to my mom to complain to her that I was treating M & C better than I was treating her. She was claiming that I seemed more concerned about C & M when they were play fighting (one of them at one time said “ouch” and I asked them if they were o.k.). Light of my life took this to mean that I cared more about them than her since I asked them if they were o.k. She also claimed that she didn’t feel she was part of the family and that I’m never concerned enough when she gets injured. In my defense of asking if the other girls were o.k., I don't know them well enough to know when they are fake hurting or have a serious injury. That's why I asked if they were o.k.

Mom took it upon herself to “have a chat” with me about this and to push off some unwanted and unasked for advice. I informed her that I didn’t want to discuss this with her and that she needed to not talk to me about this since it actually makes matters worse, not better, for her to be a go-between. If she could remain objective, I might be able to handle it, but she can’t.

Light of my life continued to have an attitude for a little while longer and I was getting sick of it. I kept on her about her attitude. I was more than aggravated at this point. All these little things were happening all at once and I wasn’t able to recover from one thing before another issue would come up.

I felt pretty justified with my aggravation and didn’t feel the need to apologize to anyone since they were all doing this TO ME!!! (I'll later regret those feelings!)

Everything gets smoothed over and we finish dinner. C was going to spend the night over at a friend’s house so we had to hurry up to work on her jewelry.

I had promised light of my life and M that I would play rummy with them. I’m feeling like crap at this point (physically, emotionally and mentally).

Light of my life at one point was lying on the back of the couch and rolled down to the seating part. She didn’t stop there and ended up rolling to the floor. She hit the coffee table and actually did get hurt. I saw this happen but even if I hadn’t, I could tell by her cry that it actually hurt. I jumped up and ran over to her. I cuddled her and checked out the injuries. I got her to smiling again and things were fine with us for the rest of the night.

Here’s when I start to realize that was I being a bad mommy.

It turns out that light of my life really did hurt her foot. I was the bad mommy that didn’t check further regarding injuries. It was a minor cut, but it was an injury. So, everything I did after not believing her about her foot, was wrong. Including getting mad at my mother (although I still feel justified for being pissed at her interference).

After light of my life fell off the couch, I whispered to her that she could sleep in my bed with me that night and that if she wanted to, we could even take a bath together. I desperately needed a bath to relax and to try to make my headache go away and she loves to take a bath with me. Light of my life' s face lit up at that suggestion.

Here’s where I started to feel like utter CRAP.

I had to take M back home. When I got back, I told light of my life to go get her p.j.’s so we could take our bath and go to bed.

She asked me “did you like what I did in the bathroom” and so help me God, my first thought was “Now what? What the hell happened now?”. I went into the bathroom to check out the situation and what I saw made me want to cry.

She had laid out my favorite robe; she had pulled the shower curtain back, gotten one of her Pirates of the Caribbean bath fizzies out and laid out our towels. She followed me in there and asked me if I wanted her to get us some rolled up towels to lay our heads back on and offered to go find my magazines for me to read while in the tub.

All this after the way I acted.

I felt like shit. I cannot believe that it took the kindness and thoughtfulness of my 7-year-old daughter to make me realize what a shit I had been. I shouldn’t have been that way in the first place.

Later that night, when we were in bed together, I quietly apologized to her and she accepted my apology. I fell asleep with my arms around her and her hand in mine. Needless to say, my headache and heartache disappeared.

No wonder I call her the light of my life.

I think I’ll take her out for a picnic this weekend. That way, we can be by ourselves together and reconnect.

We need to go to Wal-Mart anyway to replace the dead fish, so maybe we can do that on Saturday.

Later,

Mama Dawg