What's six months between friends?

In a feeble attempt at getting myself in order, my blog fell to the wayside.  Not that it was a hot topic of conversation around the water cooler mind you, but it still felt good to vent to someone other than my poor husband.  Lord love him and the rants he smiles through....he really does love me.  I have now realized that the blogging was pretty good for my mental state...what's left of it.  And so it begins...again....unless I forget, or get distracted (which I am apt to do), or am feeling lazy.

I went through a period of time in the past year or two where I have felt nothing but angry.  Actually that's more of a sugar coat than anything...it has been more like unbridled rage.  Completely justified (believe it or not) but not something I have taken any delight in.  The more I tried to ignore it the worse it got.  November is when I decided I'd had enough.  Working from the inside out seemed to be the best plan at the time...eating healthier, incorporating more exercise into my sedentary day, getting more sleep....blah blah blah...all that crap you're supposed to do anyway.  It worked for the most part...until I fell off the wagon.  I'm still not smoking (almost a year quit BTW) but I haven't exercised but 4 times since Christmas...and supper the other night consisted of a Burger King double cheeseburger (add mayo please) a small fry and a king size Whatchamacalit (instructed husband I needed something sweet at Sheetz).  Dinner of champions.  Of course since we ate a boatload of crap for supper we were both starving and scavenging for more junk before bed.  Not what I had in mind, yo.  So, as the initial excitement at how my mood had improved began to wan I started to slack.  The bad moods made a hasty return.  I've been more back on track this week...still not exercising and the scale has been banished to the back 40 under the microwave cart.  I'm feeling better in general and I'd like to keep it that way.  Looks like I need to keep the old nose to the grindstone and out of the pantry.  I'm tired of being a grumpy fat ass and I'm the only one that can do anything about it. 

For something completely different....people that give 18 month old children Moon Sand for Christmas need to have their heads examined.  Seriously.  Come on, what did they expect her to do with it?  Make a castle?  She can't even feed herself.  I typically try to give age appropriate presents....Moon Sand CLEARLY states ages 3+ on the front and it even has age recommendations on the back.  My youngest is 2 years under the appropriate age.  Furthermore, have you ever seen this stuff?  It's so freaking messy I wouldn't recommend it to an adult.  So, for now, it sits at the bottom of our craft stack and is currently awaiting a delayed exile to Granny's house. 

The Watson Twins new CD TTY/TTM is coming out 2/09/10.  If it's as good as Fire Songs, I can die happy.  Now, if I could just find my Pink Mountaintops CD all would be right in my musical universe. 

As for right now...the laundry is yearning for my touch and the baby is rattling the bars of her cage.

Thought for the day....You can certainly make lemonade out of lemons, but you can't make chicken salad out of chicken shit. 

And why was that a good idea??

I love 80's music. I am a child of the eighties so you should expect no less. The neon jelly bracelets and shoulder pads I can happily live without....but endanger my music collection and your ass is grass. Between my husband and I, our beloved Zune's contain about every genre of eighties music imaginable. From New Order and Blue Oyster Cult to Kenny Loggins and Run DMC....we like to call it the "Ultimate Crackhead Mix". (You know how I oppose the use of the word ultimate....in this case it works....it's OUR ultimate.) There are a couple of songs that I've had in heavy rotation the past couple of weeks....very similar to taping your favorite song on the radio and making a 60 minute repeat of it on the pink and green Sony PopTape. Europe's Carrie defined 7th grade school dance season.

To get to the point, here's a sampling of "80's Stuff"...pretty sweet tunes when you're mowing the back 40 with a push mower. (I pride myself in creatively titling my playlists. Random stuff, Other Stuff and Shake My Ass are some of the others. I'm contemplating using "This and That" but I'm afraid it might be a bit pretentious)

1. Roxy Music - More Than This
2. Elvis Costello - Accidents Will Happen & Everyday I Write the Book
3. B-52's - Summer of Love
4. Tears for Fears - Head Over Heels/Broken (LIVE)
5. INXS - Never Tear Us Apart & Kiss the Dirt
6. The Cure - Boys Don't Cry & Let's Go To Bed
7. Howard Jones - No One Is To Blame
8. Guns N' Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine
9. REO Speedwagon - Take It On The Run
10. Band Aid - Do They Know It's Christmas (Shut up....I know it's June.)
11. The Outfield - Your Love

There is a bit more to my list but but for the sake of brevity I'll leave it as is.

Also, I am what you'd call a purist and I'm not particularly fond of change. Not a huge fan of the cover song or remixes...unless it's badass....in which case I will make a justified exception. If I liked the song when it came out, chances are (in my humble and mostly unwanted opinion) I'm STILL OK with it. So, while I was surfing youtube for my morning dose of mind rot (cat videos, drinking from cups, I'm on a boat and random music videos) I stumbled upon something that piqued my attention. I love me some More Than This (this was my #1 search on youtube this morning).....I also love 10,000 Maniacs (WITH Natalie Merchant of course)....according to the infinite wisdom that is the intertubes, 10,000 Maniacs have done a cover of More Than This. The wheels started turning....I thought to myself, this might not be half bad. It wasn't half bad....it was sooooooooo much more. It was a Goddamned travesty. This cover is right up there with Ginuwine's When Doves Cry and Jessica Simpson's Take My Breath Away. In fact I think it outranks them both. What kind of sick individual thinks it's a good idea to take perfectly good (great in some cases) music and fuck it up so badly that you begin to wonder if you really did like the original??? Is it for the money? Is it to promote an artist who is having a bit of a decline in popularity? Is it an attempt to draw in an older audience by using "their songs"? Who the hell knows.....I just want to know why they thought it would be a good idea. Maybe if we asked nice enough they could get the Jonas Brothers to cover No Sleep Til Brooklyn.

If you're feeling up to it here it is. Imagine really fucking bad techno and someone singing Celtic lullabies having a love child. I do however recommend watching the video directly after though....10,000 Maniacs WITH Natalie Merchant doing a cover of Bowie's Space Oddity. Ms. Merchant could sing the Valleydale theme song and I'd like it.....all hail to Valleydale bitches. That is all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyR4csMm5AA&feature=PlayList&p=6700FF582D0A3A5C&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=26

Observations of the semi disgruntled.

Yesterday morning the domestic bug bit me. I've been a huge fan of "foodie" magazines for a long while now but rarely do I get the chance to actually put them to any use. There are always lovely pictures and exotic ingredients (never available in Small Town, USA) and fantastical bits of new enameled cookware that I'm oh so enamored with. If I ever win the lottery I'm redoing my kitchen in LeCruset with a lovely trim of KitchenAid. Anyway, whilst perusing last month's issue of Cooks Illustrated in bed night before last I came upon a recipe for the ultimate chocolate chip cookie. Well, I know good and well where the ultimate chocolate chip cookie comes from....my mother in law. Hands down winner any day of the week.....and twice on Sunday. But, I figured I'd give it a try seeing as how I had all the required ingredients on hand ( a miracle in and of itself!) It took about an hour just to make the batter. You have to brown the butter first and then add the dark brown and white sugar and then the eggs. That part was outfuckingstanding. Kinda like if Werther's were to make ice cream topping. Sadly though, the sugar/butter base was a good as it got. The magazine raved about how the browned butter gave it depth and the particular brand of chocolate chips it called for did some magnificent thing.....I call bullshit. I followed those damn directions to the T. They were OK. Not even close to what I would call "ultimate". You feel like adding the word ultimate to a recipe....you better have your shit together or you're going to get called on it. I think from now on I'll let my MIL take care of the cookies and I'll stick to what I know.

In addition to being somewhat irked with my food porn I'm also taking issue with my pants cutting into my ever expanding waistline. Obviously I'm finding some decent edibles somewhere....even if they're not in the form of a cookie. I had decided to run down to the local mall....there is one "better" department store still left.....and see if I could procure something to disguise or possibly flatter my girth. Upon my arrival in the store ( I choose the store entrance instead of the main mall entrance because I loathe a damn mall. I believe in getting in and out as quickly as possible. Sooooo contrary to the days of my youth.) I notice that they must be under the mistaken impression that it's the dead of winter. For the record, the temperature outside had reached a high of 92 and the humidity made it feel like it was about ...oh I don't know...210 degrees. Immediately, I begin to sweat. Every garment in the place is touching, which gives the average size woman about 1/2 inch to maneuver. In turn, this gives a healthy girl such as myself about .205mm to move. There were a few selections made and I made my way to the hell hole commonly referred to as the dressing room....complete with the suicide mirror (you know the one). Mr. Roark and Tattoo should have met me at the door with a fucking lei and little pineapple drink. Within seconds of beginning the process of trying on clothes I had a thin bead of sweat on my upper lip. Before I could reach around to zip my dress I was sweating like I'd been plowing a field in Alabama. In August. I was hot, sweaty, ill as hell and my hair and makeup were shot to shit. (Good hair and makeup are essential when trying on clothes.....#1 fat girl rule...the more skin exposed in the clothing to be tried on, the better your head has to look. Detracts from the tank ass.) I have absolutely no clue whether that sundress looked good on me or not....nor will I ever know. A few weeks later I went back to the same store (sauna?) with my dear mama. This time it was for her and not me. How bad could it be if you are just an innocent bystander? You don't want to know. I will say this.....I was sorely afraid of spontaneous combustion.

I'm not sure if "Better Dept. Store" is trying to cut operations expenses by keeping the thermostat set a bit higher or if they're just fucking clueless. What I am sure of, is this.....If you want to make sure you DO NOT sell a single stitch of your "Better Maker Sportswear" in the plus size department (which by the way, you're charging 10 dollars MORE for!!).....keep it hot. Because, if a fat girl liked to sweat....she'd be thin.

Praise God and turn down the AC.

I'm trying to be a sunbeam....really.

OK, so, for the past couple of weeks I've been in the foulest mood ever conjured by female hormones. I can smell your envy. My children have been cowering in corners and skulking around which has only served to piss me off further.....my poor sweet babies. This cannot go on....I'm getting on my own nerves. When my sweet sweet husband gets his boxer briefs in a tightly wound wad (which is very rare....I'm the high strung one) I make him play a game with me. I like to call it the "You're doing that thing with your bottom lip again...quit being pissy and tell me something nice dammit!" game. There is a 99.9 % success rate with this game! See, proof I don't fuck up everything! So now for your reading pleasure or torment whichever the case may be I'm playing "the game" with myself. Here goes nothing.

I will now tell you things that are nice and things I love. I'm not really sure if I care that you care....but I gotta try something.

1. My sweet girls when they're fresh out of the bath and have clean hair.
2. The smell of Burt's Bees baby powder on MY baby girl.
3. My mother-in-law's butternut pound cake.
4. ANY trip with my husband....he is the most fantastic road trip partner EVER. PERIOD.
5. Walking on freshly cut grass.
6. Board games....preferably ones that involve useless information.
7. Flip flops....the cheap foam rubber ones.
8. Music playing all the time. I'm making my own soundtrack.
9. Diet Coke
10. Curling up in my bed surrounded by every pillow I own with a cup of hot tea and a book.
11. The way my husband smells when he comes home from work....sawdust, sweat, cologne...he smells like home.
12. Cookbooks. It's my mama's fault. I'm OK with it.
13. Knowing that because I fell in love with the most wonderful man on Earth a new person exists.
14. Reading LOLCATS and Chuck Norris factoids. Yes, I laugh at fart jokes too OK. Shut up.
15. Pictures our girls have drawn of our family.
16. Seeing my husband smile at me and knowing he loves me with all his heart.
17. Sleepy kids crawling into bed to snuggle.
18. Dear hubby's roast chicken with peach rosemary glaze and potato casserole. He's a better cook than me....his mama showed him how to cook with love. In the case of the roast chicken and potato casserole....he loves the shit out of me.
19. When our baby girl reaches out for me and says mama and comes running!
20. Deciding that 2:09 in the AM makes a fantastic bedtime!!

WOW!!! I think Mrs. Pissy Pants may have left the building....at least for now!! I need to play this game more often.

If anyone reading this would like to make their own list and post it in the comments that would be fab!

Being ill takes a toll on one's energy level. I am weary. Until next time....

How time flies.

In six more days I'll be celebrating my exodus from high school.  Sixteen years to be exact.  Kind of hard to believe it's been that long ago.  I'm not sure when I made the transition from 17 year old kid to 33 year old wife and mother of three.  What I'm really curious about is who the hell the grown up is staring at me in the bathroom mirror every morning.  She really needs to do something with her gray hair and crow's feet.  Bless her heart.  

I still see my mama the way I did when I was 6.  Young and thin and the picture of all that was good and right in my world.  She always smelled like Chanel no5 and cigarette smoke....I can get a whiff of that combination now and I'm taken back in time.  A time when I was still mama and daddy's kiddo von skido.   When the best thing ever was watching Circus of the Stars with my daddy while he supplied me with saltines with grape jelly and Duke's mayo....Mt. Dew too.  Or backbone as I called it.   Ghost stories about the Wil-O-the-Wisp or the Ignus Fatoose when the power went out.   Getting tucked in every night and being reminded that when I woke up, Mommy and Poppy wanted to see my prettiest, biggest baby smile.    Nobody asks for that one anymore.  Which I guess is a good idea....at least until I've had my daily ration of coffee.

My oldest daughter is the same exact age I was when my daddy died.   I'm 3 years older than my mama was when she lost her husband.  I can't imagine losing my husband like that.  A divorce is one thing...which I have been through with flying colors I might add...but a death.  It's abrupt.   It's messy.  It's painful.  There are no good byes.   At least not face to face.  Maybe it's best though....if you knew that this morning, when you kissed your sweet baby good bye that it would be the last time....it's doubtful you'd let them out of your sight.   I'm not sure if I honestly miss my father or miss the idea of him.  Time has a funny way of softening the edges of your memory about certain things....most of what I remember of him is more like snapshots than 8mm footage.  Sometimes I don't know if I'm really remembering him or if my mind has added the family photo collection to my memory and made up stories to suit.  What do I really remember and what is an urban legend...so to speak.  How sad is that?  On a lighter note, want to know what's even worse than that?  The third eye you grow when your granny introduces you to people by saying...."This is my granddaughter...her daddy's dead".  THANKS GRANNY!  Every time she did that I felt like I should apologize to people because instead of donning my shroud I was wearing fucking jelly shoes and a Frankie says RELAX t-shirt.   That really was the beginning of the end of my childhood.  Cabbage Patch Kids, Barbie Dream houses and a Goddamned third head.  As an added bonus....by the fall of that same year I had tanked.  In the south, "Neighbors bring food with death, and flowers with sickness, and little things in between." ( To Kill a Mockingbird)....So from that point on I was convinced that if I had a little taste of cousin so and so's chocolate pie or a nice fried chicken leg or some of Grandmother's mashed potatoes I'd feel better.  Yeah.  As I said...THE BEGINNING OF THE END PEOPLE!!!   Now, depending on how upset I am and how rattled my cage,  is a bowl of my mother in law's banana pudding or a pan of Sister Schubert's yeast rolls can just about raise the dead.   

I've done a whole lot of rambling on a whole lot of nothing tonight....to get to this one simple question....why does life have to move so quickly?  Tomorrow we'll be celebrating my granny's 79th birthday.  I'm lucky to still have her and paw-paw and even luckier to have them in such good health....but I have a bad feeling that in what's going to amount to the blink of an eye I will be taking their place....and I'm not ready.   

I've included this link because sometimes music can take you back better than words.  My mama would clean on Saturday mornings....the sun rises, the sun sets, she cleaned.  Yellow shorts and a tank top  and a bandanna holding her long dark hair back.   Pine Sol was her weapon of choice and John Conlee, Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers and Ronnie Milsap kept us company while poppy was at work.  This song is my childhood.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjxFGbToVFM&feature=related

Random thought of the day:  Humidity sucks.

How lazy can one person be!?!?!?

Now you know that's a BOLD statement coming from a slug.   

For the record, I'm not what you would consider "green".  In the past year or two, I've tried to become a bit more conscious of the amount of chemicals my family uses.  I've started recycling, buying as many organic products as my limited budget will allow and have cut the use of my beloved Ziploc bags and Bounty paper towels in HALF!!!  You have no idea what kind of restraint I've been practicing.  For the most part it hasn't hurt one bit incorporating these new Eco-friendly habits into the life of my tribe (when there are 5 people in the house you qualify for tribal status instead of family).  Yes, it takes a bit more time to sort through what used to be your trash and separate the plastics, glass & metal.....however the benefits really wowed me when I discovered that I only had to change the trash twice a week instead of daily!!!  HOT DAMN!!  That appealed to my inner slug.  Doing good old Mother Earth some good AND not having to touch a nasty ass trash bag....you should try it!  Anyway, back to the subject.  I'm not trying to convince you to go out and picket the Wal-Mart until they start using paper bags or brush your teeth with neem twigs or whatnot so don't get your panties in a wad OK....I'm just trying to make a point about my neighbor.    I was on my way to the dumpster... (rural areas have no trash pick up or curbside recycling so you have to touch the "gross" yourself...remind me to tell you about the freezer from hell at a later date) and when I attempted to turn out of the driveway that we all share, my way was blocked.  Ms. Slacker Badmom has her freaking SUV (Jesus God, don't get me started on those) parked in the middle of the "common ground"....both the passenger and driver side doors were wide open and everybody was out of the vehicle...standing IN FRONT of it.  Not sure what they were doing.  I waited for them to get back in.....hell's bells to make a long story short ....when I came back home her SUV was still in the same place but as an added bonus, I guess she'd finished her Taco Bell value meal and 20oz. Diet Coke because the damn trash was flung on the road DIRECTLY UNDER HER WINDOW!!!  Of course this shouldn't surprise me since there is a sacrificial mountain of drink cans right outside her front door. 

So, my point being....recycle or don't....just put your damn trash in a bag, not wherever you feel like throwing it.  The rest of the population IS NOT your Goddamned mama.

I need an Excedrin.

Random thought for the day:  Is it normal for girl children to want to "slap fight"?

Goddamn, I declare!!

Guess who's got a blog?  

That's right boys and girls.....I've been given a loaded keyboard and a burning drive to sit on my ass.  Plus, I needed to find an outlet for my mad typing skills.  My 10th grade typing teacher would be beaming right now if she knew that after an uber cup of coffee, 2 Ritalin and some kind of vitamin that has added caffiene (for weight maintenance) my fingers are flying across the keys and about eleventy words a minute.  Only minor errors....I'm marrying spell check in my next life.

For anyone who is offended by the premier title I do apologize....but only a little.  Maybe it harkens back to the days before the novelty of saying "bad words" had worn off....not sure.....anyway, it's a line from a song and for some reason when a song, catchy or not contains the word Goddamn it gets stuck in my head.  Forever.  Period.

You have The Pink Mountaintops to thank for the next title.

Ok....a few important things for you to know....a FYI if you will.

1. My punctuation is atrocious.  I don't care.  If I get famous I'll get an editor or pay for                       grammar check or something.  Until that day comes it's best to accept and move on.
   
2.  I dig the hell out of .......   It's how I roll.  Ideal for a pause or thought break.  Like it or don't.
   
3.    I will make all possible efforts to use these words correctly.... Your and Their             Your, yours, you're                                                                                                                              Their, there, they're                                                                                                                    Pay attention.....there may or may not be a quiz. 
   
4.   I am known to type in caps for emphasis....in essence, if I'm in caps....I'm screaming.
   
5.  ****Parental Discression Advised Here People*****
   
6. Fuck is my all time favortie curse word.  I use it as most people use salt.  Beware.
   
7.  This is a grown up blog....if you're (note the correct gramatical useage of you're there) under the age of 20 go listen to your Boys like Girls MP3's and play on Myspace.  YOU. GO. NOW.
   
8.  I am a happy person....mostly.  There are just lots of things that get on my last fucking                nerve....You, o gentle reader get to reap the benefits.
   
9.   First and foremost.....I LOVE THE SHIT out of my husband and children and family.....mostly immediate family such as: parents, in-laws, aunts, uncles and cousins.   Any "kin" farther out than that I only see at funerals or some shit and they DO NOT count.
   
10. Because I LOVE THE SHIT out of my people I feel no shame in blogging about them.  I wouldn't say anything on here I wouldn't or haven't already said to their faces (once again, check out the proper use of their).  They know I'm high strung.....they love me IN SPITE of it!!   Hella swell people....I highly recommend getting some.....oh wait....they're MINE!   HAHAHAHAHAHA  guess it kinda sucks to be you.
    
11. I love a good suggestion.....I am also quite fond of playing devil's advocate....just ask my dear mother.  Anything you'd like to hear my opinion on?  Let me know.  My opinion is ALWAYS free....not necessarily wanted....but it is one of the few things in this economy you can get for nothing!  Now, if I could only find a way to turn my hot air into a petroleum product.
    

So....without further ado......(insert sound of dramatic drum roll) here is the inaugural post.

SLUG REVOLT

In the words of The Mother Slug:

Enjoy....or don't.

Shit.  It's lunchtime and the wee slugs need some Chef B. and Capri Sun.  

**Because I'm a choosy mom I choose Capri Sun Roaring Waters....no sugar and the kids think they're getting something special because it comes in a damn pouch with a straw.  In actuality...it's just another dish I don't have to wash.  YES, we do recycle the pouches....as many of those damn things as we go through we could build a Yurt.  Get a dictionary...it's a real word.   I choose JIF too.**

Random thought for the day:  Silk Soy Milk ain't half bad.