Funny, funny, funny stuff.

First of all, if you haven't seen Tom Cruise's Scientology clip, see it first. (Warning though. It's really creepy. The man is a whack-a-doodle.) After you watch it, watch this. She nails his laugh here. This is the funniest thing I've seen in a long time. Cathy Z (of scrapbooking fame) is hilarious. Enjoy.

Good Saturday Morning to Ya!

How are my peeps out there? Everyone of you. Even those scattered to the winds? Good morning. I know, it's almost lunch time. I don't care.

I'm trying to distract myself today. I want to eat as little as possible without my body thinking that starving thing and going into conservation mode. I have to get on the scales tomorrow and I fear things aren't as good as last week. I cropped at church last night. The girls got barbecue from the place across the street. Oh my - - it smelled SO good. I wanted a chopped sandwich and some potato salad SO bad. And the kicker? They brought back my absolute favorite dessert of all time. Peach cobbler. *sigh* I drank my slim fast when I got there and then snacked on my pretzels while they ate their dinner. I was a good girl. Kimmy did give me *one* bite of her potato salad. It was good. Whew. Close one. I *CAN* do this.

It seems that I won week one of the contest I'm in. Highest percentage lost. Yay! It was the inspiration I needed to stick with the plan. I LOVE the competition. But what I'm going to love more is dropping this weight and feeling better about myself again. Dieting sucks. It's not easy at all. I love food. I love to eat. I would have loved to have stuffed my face last night and not given it a thought at all. I also don't like for my butt to jiggle when I walk. So...

Okay. I believe a creamy milk chocolate slim fast is in order for this morning/lunch and then I'm going to make sure I drink my water today. I won't win this week, I'm sure. I just don't want to gain any either. I'm afraid my illness last week may have messed me up on on the scales. I would seriously like to keep up with it. We'll see.

I'm outta here. Smooches.

Ten Things

Ten things I've done that you probably haven't. Please note that I said probably.

1. I had a breast reduction surgery where they took two and half pounds off of each boob. Wow, I had some huge knockers.
2. I've been para-sailing across our teeny-tiny little excuse for a lake. (The lake that is now all dried up.)
3. I once dated a man named John Kennedy. Unfortunately, not *the* one we're all thinking of.
4. I won three slot jackpots at an Indian Casino in California over a one hour span.
5. I also won airline tickets to Paris at a bridal showcase back when I was in college. I wasn't even engaged at the time. I never used the tickets.
6. I've had sex on the boat dock at a local boat club. (Ask Husband about it. He remembers it!)
7. I pan-handled in Wal-Mart's parking lot for $ for Spurs tickets. It was the playoffs. (I rarely turn down a dare or a photo op.)
8. When I was a senior in high school, I got spats from the principal for leaving campus without permission.
9. My dad drug my rear end out of a bar when I was in college. I was at a bachelorette party and didn't frequent those establishments. He caught wind of my being there and came and got me. (My mom ratted me out.) He told me that if I was going to live that kind of life, I could find a new place to live. I chose my current living arrangements.
10. I ran radar with my ex-boyfriend's brother-in-law (cop) on the interstate in San Antonio. Good times. I didn't get to write the tickets. But I did get to ride in the cop car and "tag" the speeders. So fun.

Going to ramble

I have some things on my mind and I need to vent. It will likely sound like rambling to you. Sorry. It will make sense to me. Feel free to ignore it. I don't care.

I don't even know where to start.

Have you ever thought that you knew where you stood with someone, only to figure out that you really didn't? I'm tired. Of lots of stuff. Of the crap and muck that some people seem to delight in dragging me through. I'm tired of walking on eggshells - - only to discover that the shell was cracked all along. I'm tired of feeling like I'm in junior high all over again. I'm just - - tired. I just want to live my life. I want to be happy. With the risk of going all "psycho-analytic" on you, I want some closure. Nobody likes being cast aside. Truthfully, that's how I feel. Maybe I did it first. I don't know. I sure didn't mean to.

I think that as we grow and mature, our relationships evolve. Our needs change. Something happened to me on my marriage retreat. Something really important. I think it happened to Husband, too. We connected with each other again. We realized the importance of leaning on each other. I realized that I wasn't taking my emotional needs to him like I should. I wasn't giving him a chance to fully "partner" with me. I was taking the emotional side of me to my friends. Then I still expected an emotional relationship with him. Now how exactly is that supposed to work? Not putting anything in. But wanting something in return. Duh. As Dr. Phil would say, "And how is that working out for ya?"

So - - I began to make some changes. I began to talk to Husband more. Talk to him more about the things that matter to me. The things that were on my heart. And I'll be if that doesn't work!!! Wow. Who would have thought? (Again. Duh.) Well, what do you think happened to me when I made this conscious effort to take my emotional stuff to Husband? I didn't take it to my friends anymore. It's not that they aren't important to me. And until now, I wasn't sure I understood my own "metamorphosis." Or that I was even experiencing one.

The bottom line is this. My marriage is great. And it needs to be. Perfect? Oh, no way. No marriage is. But I feel like my relationship with my husband is where it should be in keeping with my priorities and where God would want my priorities to be. My friendships have struggled. Some more than others. However, I figure if I keep God first, the rest will fall into place where they should.

My real friends will understand. If you feel as though you are my friend and you've been slighted by me, then I'm sorry. Maybe by now you have a better understanding for where I am in my life. I still want and desperately need my friends. I hope you haven't felt abandoned by me.

As a friend of mine - - it's important to remember that if you have a problem, you need to clue me in. For one, I'm not the most observant person in the world. I don't always notice things. Secondly, if I don't see you (or talk to you) often, I'm not going to have the opportunity to notice anyway. I'm not a mind reader. I can't lend a supportive ear if I don't know a problem exists. (You notice I didn't say "fix" the problem? That's because I know women. We don't want others to fix our problems. If we do, we will specifically ask for the fix. Otherwise, we assume it's just listening detail.) Also know that I'm not going to beat the problem out of you. If I ask you what's wrong and you say "nothing", I'm going to assume that you are not a liar. Deal?

I'm just at a place in my life where I'm sick and tired of the games. Games with friendship at my age are just plain dumb. If we are friends, great, we are friends. There will be good times and there will be bad. Let's deal with the bad "head-on" and be done with it. If we aren't friends and the games are going on - - those end today. I mean that. That is not to be mistaken for me rolling over. Big difference. I will be praying about my issues with my "troubled ones" and ask God to guide me in dealing with them. Right now, I don't have an answer.

I just want some peace in my life. Peace in all of my relationships. Peace - - and joy. I think I need to re-post that one word thing over here. Seems like as soon as posted that, Satan has attacked me and used everyone in my path to rob me of joy. No more. Just - - no more.

I choose joy.

Grandma Day

Well, my bursitis is all flared up again. I have to go get an injection in my hip. It sure is hard to get old. It's even harder to sound old when I hear phrases like that come out of my mouth.

Here's to the fleeting days of my youth. They were some good times.

To the Director's Office you go. Twice.

I'm tired of talking in code. It's too much. And I'm too mad. Names are fine. Just first one's though.

I went to school to pick the kids up about ten minutes early today. Early. A word seldom in my vocabulary. Usually not an action part of my day. I was, however, early. After I got Cam, he and I stopped in the hall just short of Justin's class. Justin came running out to me and then the school's director stopped me. She told me that Justin had been to her office not once, but twice today. Once for running off after the class lined up to go inside from the playground time and then refusing to mind the teacher and get back in line to go inside. The second time was for hitting another child.

WHAT?????

I am not happy. Guess what Little Man? No movies. No X-Box. And pardon this cliche, but you just *wait* until your father gets home from work.

I will not raise obnoxious brats. Disrespectful little human. He owes his teacher a BIG apology tomorrow. He *WILL* apologize to her when we get to school in the morning.

He is DANG lucky I didn't get a phone call from the Director when he got sent to the office the second time. DANG lucky. His butt would still be on fire. His only saving grace right now is that she told me he was remorseful when he got in trouble. The bad part? It was around noon when the noon crowd were leaving school for the day. Great. Other parents saw my child being taken down the hall to the office. (With him crying wanting to know where she was taking him.)

I'm so proud.

Gutless or Smart - - you vote.

I watched someone litter today. She threw a lit cigarette down in the Wal-Mart parking lot. My gut instinct was to tell her that she dropped something. I wanted to *so* bad. I wimped out. She had two other people and a small child with her. I was kind of afraid of her. For one, she wasn't the classiest of life forms. Probably a dirty fighter. Complete with hair pulling, shirt ripping, etc. I was kind of scared. Also, she knew which car I got out of. To date, I have no key marks down the side of my car. I prefer to keep it that way. I wish I'd said something. I'd love to be more bold. I know that surprises some of you. Does that mean that deep down inside I'm really just a big weenie? I'm all talk? Dang it. Now I'm mad at myself.

So - - was I gutless or smart?

2007: The year of a Legacy

This was in a previous Sunday's paper and I thought it would be good to use on my blog: Ten Questions for 2007:

1. What was the hardest thing you had to do this year? I really didn't even have to think about my answer to this one. I was driving to the hospital to be with my grandfather in what would be his final day here on earth. The last few minutes where I held his hand as he took his last breaths. It was such an emotional moment. To have been with him - here on this earth. And to know, that as his eyes closed, while he was right there with me, he saw the face of our Lord and Savior. Wow. It was incredibly hard losing him. He was my last living grandparent. I'd gotten so close to him over the past year. It was hard to say good-bye to him.
2. What was the most fun? Husband, J and I had an opportunity to go to Fiesta Texas for a day. The J-Man seemed to really enjoy riding the thrill rides. We had a wonderful day.
3. What were the milestones? I'd call getting J potty trained a significant milestone! We're there!!!! Joint effort on mine and Husband's part. He is now in preschool and learning - - a lot! C is in Mother's Day Out and just being C.
4. What was your biggest accomplishment? At one point, I was with my brother and sister at the same time this year. I don't know when that will happen again. It was nice. We laughed a lot.
5. What's something you wanted to do, but didn't? I wanted to lose weight, but didn't. Apparently, I didn't want to do this bad enough, or I would have done it.
6. What was your biggest surprise? Husband bought me a cool new laptop *and* an mp3 player this year. Yay!!!
7. What was the meanest thing you did? Hmmm. There is someone I don't get along too well with. I tend to do things to agitate her. That's kind of mean.
8. What was something you worried about that you don't worry about now? I worried a lot about my dad's health while he tried to take care of my grandfather. That's taken care of now. My grandfather is being taken care of by Jesus now.
9. What made you proud? My husband. Every day. He is so good at what he does. Sometimes I think he works in a den of vipers and still comes out with his head held high and his dignity intact. He is attacked on every level and on several occasions had every excuse under the sun to just walk away from his job. And probably should have. But he didn't. He has more ethic in his pinky finger than those guys have in their entire bodies. And talent? Don't get me started there. He makes me proud every day.
10. Finally, describe a moment you want to remember. I want to remember the last thing my grandfather said to me that morning before he passed away. It was his catch phrase for my brother, sister and me. He would tell us, "You're a good one." It was the way he said it. We all knew the phrase well. Baby Bro was jealous when I told him that I got to hear it one more time. I don't think I'll ever forget hearing it. It was music to my ears. And something told me it would be the last time.

Bumper Sticker Challenge

I was driving to go weigh in for the week (I'll tell you about that later) when I saw the following bumper sticker:

Find your inner hillbilly.

I think in this town, that shouldn't be hard. When Husband went to Wal-Mart on the "north side" of town to get my Cricut, he came home laughing. He said he was surrounded by mullets and t-shirts with the sleeves cut out of them. And this was before he even made it inside the store. I wanted to honk and tell the "dude" in the truck that he needed to travel a little further north and he'd. be. there.

Your challenge this week - - find a funny bumper sticker and post it here in the comments. Or blog about it yourself. Make it a good one. I actually saw one last week that said "Kinky Friedman for Governor." Yeah. He lost. A while ago. Take your sticker off.

Have you ever seen a bumper sticker that makes you want to drive *your* car into *their* car? You think, "Dumb ass. You deserve to get into an accident if you are going put stupid crap on your car." There is some knuckle head at my church who obviously owns a wiener dog. He has some obnoxious stickers about that on his car. I can't believe he parks that car in our church's parking lot. Pretty ballsy. I can't be fair about him though, I think he is a tool. He mocked me the other day, so now he is on my list. (Is that wrong? To have a church member on my list?)

So - - there's your challenge. Find a funny or interesting bumper sticker. Baby brother, you are obviously exempt from the challenge.

The weight loss? Good. Very good. It helped that I basically had water squirting out of my bottom yesterday. We were talking about colon cleansing at the crop Friday night. I think I've had mine. I lost 6.4 pounds. Yes, yes, yes. Yay me.

BE dying.

Kick me while I'm down, why don't you? My gut instinct was to correct my last title. But I didn't. I left it. It will bug me, but I left it. Baby Bro, did you intentionally misspell "hear" in that comment?

Since you are concerned - - I am feeling a little better.

Snarky.

If you were "hear," I'd give you a wedgie.

Tee hee hee.

I think I could by dying... (**ALERT** Very Gross Post)

I started feeling "not-so-hot" about 11:30 at the crop last night. At first I thought it was just the tomatoes in the soup. They usually give me indigestion real bad. By the time I got home, it was significantly worse. I ended up taking Alka-Seltzer - - twice. No help. So I slept propped up. I'm using the word sleep kind of loosely. Anyone with acid reflux should know that sometimes (this is gross, if you easily get grossed out, don't read the next part) stuff comes back up in your throat. That happened twice during the night. Then the cramping started. I won't go any further. Use your imagination. I finally took a prescription pill I had for just such occasions. Let's hope it "stops things up" down there.

My fever is *just* enough to make me feel like doo. (Pun intended.) When will the insanity stop around here? I think this house and all of it's contents need to be dipped in bleach.

Blech.