No More Free Skittles For You Mr. Senator

I had the "pleasure" of spending a few days at the state Capitol in March and I really think that everybody should make the trip up there are least once in their life. I was truly amazed at a lot of things, one of them being the irony of debating the state budget while they sit and eat their free snacks. Free snacks? Oh yes - snacks ! There is a whole spread of snack type items at the front of the chambers for them to munch on. There is also free drinks and the state government even pays pages to bring that stuff to them. I say that we do away with the free drinks and snacks for them and install soda machines, snack machines, and coffee machines right there in the back of the room. If Senator Knowsitall wants a bag of Skittles then he can haul his happy ass to the back of the room and pay a buck for them. He sure doesn't need some high school girl in a short skirt to giggle and laugh at him every time he beckons her to run an errand for him (that is a post for another day). The point that I am trying to make is that there are plenty of places that we can save money in government and it can start with the free snack spread for the elected officials. I could be completely off base here - there could be somebody who goes around to all of the Senators and Reps on a monthly basis and collects money for the snack fund .... there could be ...

He Can't Even Find His Way Around the Block

The sixteen year old girl that was lost at sea while trying to sail around the world returned home last night. Derek and I were talking about it this morning while I was getting ready for work. "Can you imagine sending Bryce (our 16 year old son) around the world in a sailboat?" To which Derek replied, "Honey, I worry sometimes that he won't find his way home from the park and that is just four blocks away."

Glad I Wasn't at Woodstock

Thursday I drank the gallon of evil. Friday I was doped out of my mind. Not a good combination. I figured out that after you drink a glass of the gallon of evil, then chase it with really strong limeade, then chew on a piece of Juicy Fruit gum, you can actually get the whole thing down without puking it back up. It is also better to be able to chug the whole glass in one drink ... if you stop to take a breath then you get a whiff and a taste of it and at the time waterboarding seems like a better option than drinking the rest of the glass.

Whatever they give people to knock them out for colonoscopies does NOT interact well with this chick. Anybody remember the hummus incident from last year ... yeah ... not pretty. I told the nurse as she was rolling me into the procedure room that I was not going to come out of it well and she said that she would tell the other nurses so they would be prepared. The time said 7:48 on the big digital clock. The doctor was talking to me about whether or not I had drank the entire gallon of evil. The nurse injected the "good stuff" into my IV and then it all went loopy. Why the hell do people want to feel like that? It is not a good feeling.

I don't remember getting dressed to come home (Derek claims that he dressed me, but who knows .... circus clowns and monkeys in tutus could have dressed me and I wouldn't have known any different). I vaguely remember stopping at Sonic and getting a Sprite ... which I promptly puked back up into the blue condom looking thing that the nurse must have given me before we left the hospital. But that didn't stop me from drinking more Sprite (hey - I was thirsty !), which I promptly puked back up into the giant blue condom thing again .... I evidently did this several times while poor Derek was trying to drive us home. I also evidently missed the big blue condom thing at some point and puked on myself (it's a good thing that Sprite is clear), which made me laugh and cry at the same time. Derek was laughing when he told me about it later on. So glad that he enjoyed the day. I however DID NOT !!!

The good news is that they didn't find any polyps and I don't have to go back for 3 years !!! WOO - HOO !!! The bad news is that I basically don't remember the past 3 days and I could have been running down the street wearing nothing but the monkey's tutu and the circus clown's big floppy shoes and I wouldn't even know it. So if you see me on the news or on youtube please don't make rude comments. I was doped up ! I had always thought that I would have made an awesome flower child, but after this incident I think that I would have been too out of it for even Woodstock.

A Really Cool Thing

I am so jealous of talented people !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osQNO6Tt9hs

The Gallon of Evil

Today is the day I have been dreading for months now. The Gallon of Evil day. I mixed it up last night and added one of the flavor packets to it. I love that they give you flavor packets. Here drink this cherry flavored bleach water .... yum ... yum. The flavor packet choices are cherry (um ... gross), orange (um ... even grosser), lemon-lime (ew), pineapple (already tried that one years ago and it just ruined me for pineapple flavored anything), and citrus berry. I went with the citrus berry. So the Gallon of Evil is now sitting and waiting for me at home in my refrigerator. Lurking. Stalking. Plotting evil things. It's probably in there trying to talk the milk into going bad .... making weapons out of the carrots and staging a revolt with the olives. I think that I can hear it laughing from here. Muahahahahaha !

There will more than likely not be a post tomorrow, because whatever they give people to knock them out for a colonoscopy turns me into a babbling idiot for about three days. So if there does end up being a post about monkeys in tutus being attacked by ninja bananas, please just disregard it and I will be back to my semi-sane state next Monday.

WARNING ! Those Cute Little Babies Turn into Evil Teenagers !

For all of you mothers of daughters ... be warned. If you ever tell her that she is not allowed to talk to or date a certain boy then she is going to do anything and everything in her power to do exactly that .. why? Because he is just the most fabulous thing on the face of the earth and even though she is just barely 17, she knows everything about relationships and there is noooooooooooo way that he is only after her for "one thing" and they are best friends and even though he is about to turn 21 he would NEVER try to talk her into doing something that she didn't want to do. She knows that we check the phone bills and she has been talking to him on a daily basis. He has been "sniffing around" since she was 15 and he was 18 and she knows how we feel about the age difference. We are trying to stay calm .... DAMMIT !

Anybody want to help me build my fort of wine boxes?

Excuses for My Depravity

I had chocolate cake for breakfast. Yes - I have gained back ten pounds and Yes - I know why I have gained back ten pounds. I eat out of boredom. I did it last night. Wasn't really hungry yet I made myself a bowl of popcorn with http://www.kernelseasons.com/ on it while laying in bed watching The Bachelorette. Noticing that those people on there sure do consume a lot of alcoholic beverages ... which made me go downstairs and mix cranberry juice with coconut rum.

We did soooooooooooo well before we went to Vegas and both Derek and I had actually lost some poundage, but while we were there we tied on the feed bags at the fabulous restaurants and all hell broke loose. Now we are back in glutton mode. What the heck is wrong with us?

Thursday I have to drink "The Gallon of Evil" in prep for my colonoscopy on Friday. I am going to use that as my jump off point for a new way of eating. I can only have clear liquids on Thursday along with "The Gallon of Evil" .... chicken broth, apple juice, Sprite, etc. I can have Jello, but recently learned how Jello is made so will NEVER be eating that again. So I have one more day to stuff myself with horrific foods before the day of hell that will kick off the new weight loss program. Burger and fries for lunch with the 55 gallon drum sized Dr. Pepper. Sure. Why not ?

Unplug and Reconnect

I spend way too much time in front of either a computer screen or a tv screen - not really doing anything constructive. Just sitting and zoning out. We don't have the fancy schmancy cable package with hundreds of channels, but the 50 or so channels that we do have don't usually have much on them anyway. Why do I do it? Couldn't my time be better spent doing something else. So that is this week's challenge to myself. To unplug and reconnect. To unplug my fat ace from the chair or the bed and to reconnect with my kids, my husband, or my love of reading. I challenge you to do the same. Get outside and suck up some sunshine ! It will do you a lot more good than watching Jersey Shore - I promise !

When They Grow Up - Part 1

My kids are always telling us about all of the fabulous things that that they are going to do when they grow up. Well Derek and I have been writing a list of all of the fabulous things that we are going to do when they grow up too. The list grew every time we went to use something of ours and it was gone, every time that we went to eat something that we had bought just for us and it was gone, or every time that we found something that the children had torn up and forgot to tell us about. This morning I went to use one of the three pairs of scissors that I keep in the bathroom drawer to cut open one of those little conditioner packets that are impossible to open without scissors and guess what ... there were not any scissors in the drawer. Some evil elves must have broken into the house in the middle of the night and stolen all three pairs of scissors. They are probably the same elves that leave all of the cabinet doors open in the kitchen, leave their shoes in the middle of the hallway, drink the $6 per bottle cranberry juice that I bought just for me, and use my nail polish to paint with. Those damn elves !!

The other day Rachel borrowed the van to drive a few of her friends down to Sonic. When we got in the van to leave the next morning there was pink goo all over the dash, down the side of the door, and ON THE FRONT WINDSHIELD !!! When I pointed it out to Rachel she gave me the usual "who are you and what are those words coming out of that hole in your face" look. "Oh my bad .... Jessica dropped her shake last night and she told me that she would clean it up". She is going to think "my bad" when she gets her first car and her daddy and I drive it down to Sonic for the biggest strawberry shakes on the planet ! I sure hope that we don't drop them all over the car .... oops ! My bad !

So when our kids grow up, we are going to visit them and bring along the evil elves so that they too can experience the joys of:

- somebody running up and down the stairs and screaming like they are on fire at 6 o'clock in the morning .... followed by slamming every door in the house at least twelve times

- using all of the spoons to get rock hard ice cream out so that they bend into lovely origami shapes

- trash thrown in the general direction of the trash can but NEVER actually making it in the can

- using every single cup in the cabinet each and every time you get a drink

- soaking the hand towel so that it is dripping in the floor when somebody wants to dry their hands

- opening bags of chips, boxes of crackers, boxes of cereal, jars of pickles, etc., etc. and leaving them just sitting on the cabinet.

Oh yeah ... me and the elves are going to have some fun !!!

Seeing How I Used to Be

Tonight I have to spend time with a member of my husband's family that is on meds similar to the ones that made me crazy. It is tough for me to be around people who are on meds like that, especially when they act the way that I used to act (and she does). Being around them brings back horrible memories of the way I treated people and the stupid things that I used to say or do. I am trying to be calm about it, but am really dreading it. I am trying to talk myself into seeing it as research for my second book. Maybe I will just sit and babble incoherent things with her and that will make me feel better.

We Love it When They Tell on Themselves

The younger four childrens walked down to the park last night ... we had to force three of them to go actually. If we had told them "no ... you absolutely cannot go to the park" then they would have whined and begged to go, but because we wanted to spend some time alone they decided that they really didn't want to go. Well too bad you are going anyway ... and you are going to run and jump and laugh and play and you will have fun whether you like it or not ... DAMMIT !

After being at the park for about an hour, it started to cloud up and storms were looming. Bryce called the house to tell us that they were walking home, only he couldn't find Riley and wanted to know if he had already come back to the house. He had not. We went straight into panic parent mode. Derek got in the van and drove down to the park. I didn't really have a fear that somebody had grabbed him. I had more of a fear that he was off with his buddies doing something stupid. This is the same kid who broke into the abandoned hotel during his lunch break just for the shits and giggles of it.

Derek found him at one of his friend's houses that lives right across the street from the park. Riley swore that Bryce knew that he was over there. Bryce swore that he did not ... and logic tells me that if he had known where his brother was then he wouldn't have called the house to ask if he was there ... um ... duh ! So I proceeded to yell and scream at Riley about trust, and responsibility, and dope smoking (oh yes ... I was on a tangent). Riley proceeded to loudly declare "I go over there every time that we go to the park" to which I replied "well then you are a dumb ass for telling on yourself". Yes - I called my fourteen year old son a dumb ass .... why? .... because he was being a DUMB ASS !!! Not only was he not where he was supposed to be (which is a big thing with us), but he proceeded to tell us that he was not where he was supposed to be EVERY time that he went to the park ! DUMB ASS !

Like the time that Bryce snuck away from the house and broke his arm while skateboarding at the park .... he lied about where he was and Rachel lied for him to help cover it up. Until I got a call from the principal at school telling me that the rumor going around school was that Bryce had broken his arm at the park, so I asked Rachel "do your know where your brother was when he broke his arm?" to which she replied "I didn't even know that he was at the skatepark." Derek and I busted out laughing. "I didn't even mention the skatepark". I just love it when they tell on themselves.

We Are All Hypocrital Crackheads

After watching coverage this weekend of the BP oil spill and the outrage over it, I began to wonder if maybe we aren't all just a little bit responsible ourselves. Isn't the demand for oil what drove those execs to demand that drilling continue even under dangerous conditions? If we didn't demand so much of it, would the conditions have been safer?

It's as if we are all addicted to crack and must have our daily fix, but when the crack house that we normally buy our stash from suddenly explodes and spreads chemicals into the air we are angry. We e-mail politicians. We march with signs outside headquarters. We hold town hall meetings. Then we turn right back around and search out a new crack house. We are the very example of hypocrites. Damn you oil companies and your unsafe practices ... oh wait ... let's drive the car 1,000 miles for vacation this summer. We are addicted to oil ... plain and simple and until we stop that addiction then the crack houses (oil companies) are going to keep supplying our stash to us at all costs.

Do we have the right to be angry or should maybe some of that anger be directed at ourselves? For the past few weeks, I have been trying my hardest to stay home on the weekends. I drive to work every day, but maybe the not driving on the weekends will help cure my own addiction to oil in some small way. It's a baby step .... but if we all did it could it make a huge difference?

Confessions of a Grilling Virgin

Derek and I had been planning on cooking out Ranch Burgers pretty much all week, but with his dad being in the hospital our cook-out plans kept getting pushed back. The meat was slowly browning in the refrigerator and I didn't want to let $16 of hamburger go to waste so I decided that me and the kids could figure this out (with a phone-a-friend option). I mixed the ranch salad dressing mix, meat, and cheese together (Derek normally adds bacon bits too, but I forgot). I made little patties for the first time ever and proceeded to try to figure out how to turn the damn grill on. I confess that I have never mowed a lawn, vacuumed a room, or grilled anything, but I a woman "hear me roar" so by gosh I was going to figure this out. I turned the tank on ... heard the little clicks ... turned the main dial on .... stuck the lit Aim N Flame down in the grill .... NOTHING .... turned the main off and back on ... stuck the lit Aim N Flame back down in the grill ... NOTHING ... turned the tank back off ... turned it back on ... stuck the lit Aim N Flame back down in the grill ... NOTHING. Proceeded to call Derek, who by this time was driving his dad home from the hospital. HE LAUGHED AT ME !!! Sure I wanted him to come show me how to light the damn thing, but he didn't have to get such perverse enjoyment out of the fact that I couldn't figure it out. What an ass !!! An ass that can light the grill on the first try.

Riley pretty much took over the grilling after we finally got it lit and flaming. He loved it, so who was I to step in and take away his enjoyment. I just walked outside every few minutes to make sure that he hadn't burned his eyebrows off. "Hey mom ... check this out ... if you squish the burgers and let the grease run down into the fire then the flames can almost reach my face."

"STEP AWAY FROM THE GRILL" ... wait rethink that .... if I don't let him grill then I have to do it myself. "JUST TRY NOT TO SINGE OFF ANYTHING IMPORTANT" Sometimes you just have to let them make their own mistakes.

Collecting Stones

An amazing story about how passion, love, and patience can turn the most simple of things (a stone) into something beautiful.


http://www.theparistraveler.com/2008/07/ferdinand-cheval-and-his-palais-ideal/


(thanks for the link Amity)

The Manic in the Mirror

Most of the nine years that I was on Paxil I was hypomanic. Hypomanic is basically "manic light". You aren't completely bat shit crazy ... but you are close and you sure do drive the people around you nutso with your constant moving around and your fabulous ideas. When I changed my dose in January of 2006 (cutting it in half per my dumb ass doctor's advice), I became full blown manic. I had probably been in "poop out" (tolerance of sorts) for a few years and didn't know at the time that pretty much everybody reaches a form of tolerance on SSRIs - most end up at their doctor's who either switches the meds, increases the dose of the med they are taking, or ads another med. Fortunately for me, I never told my doctor about my mania. I know that I would now have a bipolar diagnosis and would probably be on a med-go-round like millions of others if I had.

The horrible withdrawal pretty much just proved to me what my mother had been telling me for years - that I was destined to "need" these meds for life (WRONG ! WRONG ! WRONG!), so I went back up to my 20 mg per day dose. Increasing the dose back up made me absolutely nuts ! The really sad thing was that I had no idea that it was the meds that were actually causing the mania. I just couldn't see it. Dr. Peter Breggin uses the word "spellbound" to describe this. The person on meds thinks that the pills are helping them when they are actually causing all sorts of problems.

So for those of you who know somebody who takes psychotropic medications and have begun to wonder if the pills are causing more harm than good ... here is a list of very common symptoms of mania:

* constantly has grand ideas that are ALWAYS better than everybody else's ideas (I would actually try to convince people that my ideas were the best by yelling, screaming, crying, and throwing fits to rival a two year old)

* insomnia and the belief that they really don't need that much sleep because there is too much to get done to waste time actually sleeping (my insomnia lead to a prescription for Ambien ... which just made the crazy even crazier)

* absolutely no fear of consequences (I literally used to throw things at people and pour drinks on them - I didn't even care that it made them mad)

* talking fast and talking over people (I thought I "won" every argument if I could just bully the other person into stopping talking .... just talk louder and faster and eventually the other person will give up)

* racing thoughts (I told people that I thrived on chaos when I was actually creating the chaos - always a new "get rich quick" idea, always a new class to take, always a new job to do - raise dogs, sell toys, get a part-time job tutoring, sell cosmetics, sell real estate, take on an exchange student, etc., etc. - it was never ending)

* impulsiveness ( I had absolutely no filter between my brain and my mouth - if I thought it then I said it ... if I thought that your hat was ugly then I told you ... if I thought that you looked fat in that dress then I told you ... if I thought that me saying something might hurt your feelings ... even better)

* inflated ego (At the time I was probably a good 40 pounds overweight, dressed like Liberace, was rude to everybody, talked loud, threw things, and had a hair style that looked like it was done with a weedeater - yet I thought that I was the sexiest thing on the planet ... oh yeah ... everybody wanted me)

I am coming up on the three year anniversary of my rebirthday (my last day on meds was August 25, 2007) and am so happy to be alive and well and no longer the Manic in the Mirror.

Redneck Woman Recipe

For those of you that follow Pioneer Woman, you know that she makes all sorts of homemade yummies from scratch - heck she probably even grounds her own flour from wheat that she grew in her bathtub - well if you are reading this blog in the hopes of getting some fabulous recipe for sweet goodies then you better just click the unfollow button now ... in the words of my redneck friends "it ain't gonna happen". However, I can share with you this simple little recipe that I stole and modified from a magazine ... incredibly simple ... incredibly tasty !

Mix together:

1 - 15 ounce can of pumpkin
1 - carrot cake mix

THAT'S IT !!! NOTHING ELSE TO ADD !!! JUST THE POWDERED MIX AND THE PUMPKIN !

Grease a muffin pan and plop the mixture into the pan - it makes 12 muffins
Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes and Voila (ain't ya impressed that I speak French)!

Now I bet you can't wait for next week when I share my world famous recipes for frozen pizza and nuked corn dogs !

Maybe the Grass was Browner

Sitting out on my deck yesterday afternoon enjoying the shade of my umbrella (the one that I bitched about Derek buying, but have to admit that I now love ... are you happy now honey? I admitted it AGAIN ! jeez !), I got a text message from a lady that I used to teach with. She just couldn't wait to fill me in on the latest bit of gossip that was going around about another teacher - one that I used to be fairly close to before all of my scandal hit. This teacher was a person that I admired, looked up to, and was in fact jealous of for years. Beautiful new house. Two Masters degrees. Dream job. Everything that I had thought that I had lost when all of my shit hit the fan. The gossip was not pretty .... I doubt that she will ever read this blog, but just in case she does I will not repeat it. However, I did discover that she filed for divorce last month and even though I haven't talked to her in close to four years it broke my heart.

I can't quite put my finger on why it is hitting me so hard, but I have just been on the cusp of tears for two days now. Maybe it's because it was a humbling experience to realize that the person that I envied didn't really have it all after all and that even though I have legal issues, even though I have money issues, even though I have job issues ..... my grass is in some ways greener. I have Derek. I have the kids. I have my true friends (especially Amity). I have the things that are so much more important than just things. I have the knowledge that happiness doesn't come in pill form. I have the second chance that a pair of handcuffs and a jail cell gave me. I have the ability to help other people and the empathy to feel bad for an old friend even though I haven't talked to her in years. I have greener grass and I will stop comparing it to the grass that just looks green on the outside.

Gosh ... Why Didn't I Think of That?

Rachel is bound and determined to move out of the house next year after she graduates high school. At first I fought the idea, but am slowly coming to peace with it. We have an apartment type building in our backyard that has a bedroom and a bathroom in it (it was built as a pool house). I told her that she could live there while she went to college, but she would have to continue to follow our house rules. Well of course, that was the dumbest idea ever thought of by a human and besides our rules are already "choking her" (yes she actually told me that ... to which my response was "choking ? really? you want to see choking ... I will show you some choking sister").

So a few weeks ago, I casually mentioned to Derek that Rachel and a few of her buddies could rent one of our rent houses from us. She thinks that she is all big, bad, and grown-up then she can find some roommates and they can share all of the expenses. It would be a great transition to move from our house, just one block away, to the rent house and have to pay her own bills, while still have "mommy and daddy" close by ... just in case. Derek told me that if I told her about this idea then she wouldn't go for it ... and I agreed because, after all ... Derek and I are the two dumbest people on the planet and we don't know anything about anything.

Rachel printed out the price sheet for the dorms the other day and was griping about how expensive they are. I casually suggested that she could find a rent house in town and get a couple of roommates. Her wittle face just lit up. The heavens opened up, the angels were singing, and the sun was beaming down as her brain processed the perfect idea. "OH MY GOSH MOMMA ! Me and Sammie and Taylor could rent your rent house." I just had to smile as I told her, "Well I don't know about that .... Daddy and I will have to think about it"

I am So Smart ... I Should Work for BP

Somebody needs to come up with a vending machine size oil refining machine and place them all along the gulf. Then let people come out there and scoop up as much as oil as they can and refine it themselves. Then BP would be scrambling to stop that oil (aka money) from getting out.

Follow This Person .... Or Else

I am just kidding on the "or else" part, just trying to get your attention. My "friend" from the dooce community has a blog that is chock full of snarky goodness and you should read it ... even better - you should follow her blog. She and I keep joking about how shallow we are that we love to see our following numbers go up .... so go follow this cool chick ... she might even send you a cookie ! (okay - probably not on the cookie thing ... but it will make her happy)


http://wombatcentral.blogspot.com/

Playing Catch with the Universe

For some background information on this post ... please read this post first

http://a-slapintheface.blogspot.com/2010/02/letter-i-need-to-write.html

Well I finished the letter. I have rewritten it soooooooooooo many times. Wondering if it was too much to say. Wondering if it wasn't enough. Wondering if I would ever even have the chance to ever read it to this person. Wondering if it will make any difference. Slowly realizing that it didn't matter. I finished it. I printed it out. I put it in my purse. I have made the first step. I have thrown it out into the universe and now I just have to wait for the universe to catch it and throw something back. If the universe puts the right people in my path, you will be the first to know.