Wednesday, August 31, 2011

The last few days

This week, after looking in the mirror, I had another instance of the occasional recurrence of square hair. Bad hair day was on the horizon.

Last Friday as I was picking Owen up from school, there was a real, screaming at each other but not throwing punches fight, occurring in the exact vicinity of where he was walking. We both had the big eye as he made his way to the car and I hoped no firearms would make an appearance. Fortunately it went no farther than yelling.

Sunday evening we went on our weekly car ride. As I said in the past, the Sunday ride participants vary wildly from week to week. This week's peeps included myself, Melanie, Lydia and Grandma. We rode a bit, got some refreshments, Lydia went into an ice cream shop in her jammies. And I'm not kidding. We'd been riding a while when we remembered we wanted to check out a mega huge you've got to be kidding this is so big, house being built in a subdivision nearby. When we drove into the subdivision, we saw Dale and Whitney walking with multi dogs and went to say hey. Bad decision. Many bad decisions were about to be made. My hello was greeted by Dale wiping sweat on me. Lovely. We assumed they were finishing their walk and were leaving, so we then made our way to the mega house. Lydia, Melanie and I went into the house to look around leaving Grandma to guard the car....bad decision number two. She has NO karate moves for defending anything. Bad decisions three and four were: I left the keys in the car and none of us had cell phones. Of all the bad decisions made, leaving the keys in the car was the worst. You'll read why in a sec. For about 15 minutes we walked through the house. It's HUGE. I'm talking HUGE, and while we were on the second floor, Melanie noticed my car driving off down the street.

Strap yourselves in cause here we go.

Dale and Whitney WERE NOT finishing their walk and therefore WERE NOT on their way out of the subdivision. It was not the case. It was just not the case at all. As we watched my car drive away, it was obvious what was in play. Dale and Whitney had only been making a circle and when he came back around, he got in my car and found my keys. This caused his ridiculous brain to snap and kidnap Billie and proceed to go on an adventure ride. If an adventure ride means to get in my car and drive it as far from us while staying in the subdivision as he could.

Now Billie has no cell phone skills. All she knows to do is "mash a button" on a cell phone but she doesn't check to see what button she's mashing. So she's completely unable to call 911 or the "get my car back from Dale" agency. As the three of us made our way back down stairs, we knew not to be in a hurry. We walked outside and had a seat on a nearby stack of lumber and waited. It was getting pretty dark by now and he was about 18 miles...or some blocks away from us...but we could still see the car. Now the only thing working in our favor was Dale's short attention span and the odds that he was gonna get tired of sitting still sooner than later. Sure enough in a few minutes we watched as the car began to move in our direction...ever so slowly. Eventually he stopped in the middle of the street about 100 yards away. And all of us sat. Neither party willing to budge. We knew any sudden movement from the three of us would cause him to bolt like a crazy wild animal and run farther from us.

Now as we waited, two cars came into the subdivision and into the direction of my car. When they got to my car, each had to off road it to get around. Ridiculous. And so as we sat on the lumber seat, not one but BOTH cars pulled up in front of the mega house. That's right, we were sitting on their lumber, in their yard, and Lydia was in her jammies. Two couples got out of the cars. I'm sure they were curious about the hillbillies, one in her jammies, in their front yard. Never one to be shy, even in her jammies, Lydia asked if the house belonged to them. They replied yes. Then Melanie jumped in and tried to explain what was happening, how our brother had swiped the car and we were waiting for a flinch. They laughed nervously. I said nothing. After Melanie explained our predicament, one of the men said, "We wondered why someone would park in the middle of the street." She tried to further explain that our idiot brother was in the car with our mom and then he said, "There's no one in the driver's seat." We said, "Umm what?" Again he said, "I'm sayin there's no one in the driver's seat." (Insert cuss here.) So we immediately trekked down the street to the car, and did in fact find Billie sitting in the dark, alone, still not having mashed any cell phone buttons. In just another second, Dale drove up in his own truck to finish off the prank. And none of us ever saw him get out of my car.

The moral to the story. NEVER leave your keys unattended if he's in the country of USA. Even still, hide them if he's anywhere in the world.

Which brings us to last night and me deciding to run to Belk to look for a $5 fall purse, (there were none in case you are wondering.) My girls decided to tag along. I ran by Bed Bath and Beyond first and then as we were passing Dillard's, Emma asked, "Aren't you going to Belk's?" To which I replied, "Do you mean the Belk's that is Dillard's or the Belk's that is Belk's?" She then said, "I mean the Belk's that is Kohl's." And then I said, "I'm going to the Belk's that is Belk's." Did you get all that?

Today that is now yesterday since I started this post. Nothing interesting happened at all besides gearing up to go out of town for the weekend. It is very much time for a vacay, even if it's a short one.

Unless something really funny or awesome happens tomorrow, I'll be blogging on the other side of the holiday.

Which means, I'll see ya next week.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

School, cars, bad dogs and Reese's

The whole shebang school year's now efficiently and busily under way! One in high school, two in college, one old job and two new jobs are all in full swing and making life a bit hectic. Juggling 6 people in three cars is once again proving to be a challenge, but for the most part it's working. Last night Caitlin called to inform she was stranded at Carlie's with a non starting car. That's not good. So, John got jumper cables and off we went to get it started. The ridiculous heat's been killing batteries by the dozens for reals, and until last night, we'd dodged the dead battery bullet. Well, John got the car started and as we were coming home, just down the street from our house, I ran over a stick and it got stuck under the car. I thought John saw the whole thing happen, but apparently he didn't and when it IMMEDIATELY sounded as if the engine had just fallen out, John took a page out of the "I'm gonna lose it" handbook and said with tension in his voice, "What is that?!?!" I calmly stated that I'd run over a stick and apparently it was stuck under the car, which prevented a John sized hole in the roof of my car. When we got home, the offending stick was removed, but I could tell that in that one millisecond he'd gone from facing not one but two car crisis' and if so, it would be enough to make him super freak. His super freaking never happened thank the good Lord. If the freaking had happened, I'm certain we'd have ended the night in some sort of freaking "discussion" and it wouldn't have been freaking pretty.

Well, we had to wait til morning to go get a battery because Wal Mart doesn't carry the kind we needed because there's only one kind of battery that works for the girls' car. Today we found another place that carries the rare battery and it costs a whopping $150! Are you kidding? No, I'm not. We ended up having to order it and it won't be in til Thursday morning and so with us down one car, this is how today went. At 11:30 I took Owen's lunch to him, then I took Olivia to school to purchase a 3 million dollar book for her French class. Oh contrar. Oui. Oui. Then we came home. She had to go back to school for a 2:00 class, but Emma had to be picked up at 2:30. So, back home I came to get ready to go to work and then went back to get Emma and then Emma and I picked Owen up from school and then the two of them dropped me off at work and then they had to go get Olivia from school. My fingers are out of breath. Sometime tomorrow we'll be back to three cars and it'll be back to semi normal, welllll not sure about normal, but semi something. Car trouble is awful.

As I stated earlier, college began on Monday and Olivia's taking a Math class from a lady she's had before. Olivia's now witnessed this following phenom twice since she's had the lady twice. At the beginning of the class, the teacher asked for each student to state their last name and the name each one wanted to be called by. So, the kids called themselves out, the teach followed along saying their names and so on and so on. At the end of the class, and with no cheat sheets, the teach said, OK let's go over your names." She then proceeded to rename each of the 40ish students CORRECTLY from her memory. Olivia was impressed for the second time in her life. I asked her if the class gave the teacher a round of applause and sadly she said they did not. I was so impressed by this, because I'm not a good memory person. Kudos to the lady wherever she is.

This evening I had to come in and immediately help Owen with a paper for English class and don't judge me but I decided to treat myself to about 10 mini frozen Reese's cups and as I sat in my chair and balanced the last three on the arm of the chair, something happened. I noticed Addy'd been watching me quite closely and just as I began concentrating on Owen's paper, she swooped in and ate one of my Reese's cups! As she licked her lips in victory, I could tell she wasn't ashamed AT ALL. She needs a good reform school.

For supper we decided, because Emma's been complaining about having cold food all summer long, to have tortilla soup so we turned the air down to snow and still sweated as we ate super hot but yummy soup for the first time since last winter. We need some emergency cool weather ASAP.

And with all of that being said, that my friends has been the last three days in a nutshell.

Time for beddy bye bye.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Here's why

I've found that although I love some backgrounds I choose for my blog, they don't work AT ALL on phones. It's so frustrating! So, even though I loved the polka dots, I had to change them. I'm still looking for the cutest background ever in the history of the world, but I haven't found it yet. So, for now, I've changed again. Expect it again soon.

Wake up people!

With any photograph taken, there's always a risk. That risk is real and annoying. I'm talking about the blinking eye. As you will see in the following photos, last Easter it seemed as if the risk was realized in EVERY OTHER FRAME. I decided to crop each pair of closed eyes...and there were a bunch. At first I was only going to post the cropped pic of the blinker, but then I decided to go back and add the pre-cropped so people could see the picture in its true context. After I began to upload all the closed eye photos, I thought Jared was going to be the clear winner....but then....a dark horse came out of nowhere and took the lead. Scroll down and have a look for yourself and then I'll announce who won the nonexistent first prize.

Emma looks as if she's playing hide and seek and she's the counter. Emma, that's 1, 2, 3, 4.....


Precrop. Maggie seems to be reciting a line from Romeo and Juliet about yonder window breaking, Olivia looks as if she's about to say a word beginning with the letter B. Emma's still counting. 10, 13, 14....


If not for being a bright Easter morn, I'd say Rebecca had knocked back a few.


Precrop. Keith and Grandma were ready. Clearly Becky was the fly in the ointment.


Carlie seems to have challenged Jared to check and see if he remembered to wear a belt.


Caitlin looks as if she's wishing on a star....even though the sun's brightly shining.


Precrop. I got a two-fer here. Jared on the right, Caitlin on the left. As you can see, there's other stuff going on as well. Mollie's in full pose and Austin's working it with the two handed hip hold. Everyone else is milling about.


By now it'd finally dawned on Mollie she'd yet to take a closed eye pic.....and ....so she did.


Precrop. After checking on everyone else present, it's obvious that even if Mollie's eyes had been open, Whitney's "dawn of the dark face hat" had already ruined it.


Jared not to be outdone by his younger sister, then blinked again.


Precrop. Even if Jared was good to go, Whitney's hat had already given her the "coon eyes."


But Jared just can't help himself, he feels the pressure to blink!


Precrop. By now, Whitney's hat had become a character all its own.


Austins' thinking of a number between 1 and 10. I'm thinking....."13!" Oh wait......


Precrop. Cheeky Caitlin.


Jared's confident he's in first place for eyes closed.....and at this point, he was.


Precrop. But since the photographer had a centering problem, this photo wasn't a keeper anyway.


Melanie's trying to remember what color she's wearing. Hello!! Pink!


Precrop. Pink, pink, pink...everywhere I looked it was pink.


Owen's thinking, we REALLY DO look like a box of crayons. What was my family thinking?


Precrop. Yeppers. It's Crayola town.


This was another two-fer. Cropped or uncropped, there are two peeps with closed eyes...and someone's trying to poke Grandma in it!


Olivia's thinking about something blue!


Precrop. Gramdma's outraged Olivia wasn't thinking about something purple!


Olivia's thinking, "I have to win the closed eye contest!"


Precrop. Carlie's thinking, "Contest? I didn't know there was a contest!" Maggie's working the dreamy eyed look.


Olivia, "I'm so winning this contest."


Precrop. Carlie's thinking, "Sigh, if only I'd known about the contest. But now, Olivia's gonna win the contest!" Maggie's still dreamy.


Olivia, "What a bunch of doofus's. All you have to do to win the contest is keep your eyes closed all the time!"


Precrop. Carlie's disgusted about losing the contest, Maggie's been holding this pose for 10 frames, and Olivia's now the clear front runner.


It's now getting ridiculous Olivia!


Precrop. This was perf if not for closed eyes. Ugh.


OLIVIA OPEN YOUR EYES!!


Precrop. O M G! Another good one if only....


Maggie's gone from dreamy to meditating while enjoying her own personal wind machine. And what lovely eye makeup Mags. There's no precrop for this pic.


Lindsey, "As long as my eyes are closed, no one can see me! That's how 4 year olds do it."


Precrop. Doesn't matter anyway Lindsey. Apparently Carlie's ruined this pic because she's taken this time to lecture about the ills of ruining photos. And Bill's excited to have just seen a long lost friend across the yard. The boy's excited.


Austin, "I can just tell that I'm even hotter looking with my eyes closed."


Precrop. This was the one good photo of the Turners if only Austin hadn't been dreaming of his hotness.


I think Maggie's got something in her eye.


Precrop. No matter, Lindsey was in mid lip lick.


Maggie, "I could do this ALL DAY LONG. Horses sleep standing up!"


Carlie's obviously attempting to say the word milieu which is defined as: surroundings, especially of a social or cultural nature: a snobbish milieu. If you don't get the joke, say the word without screwing your face up.....I can't.


Precrop. Carlie and Maggie.....way to screw it up for everybody!


Mollie's just been told by Whitney, "There's a chicken about to swoop in on you."


Precrop. Swooping chickens!? Swooping chickens!?


I'm just so cool, I can even close my eyes.....no precrop.


Final tally:
Emma - 1
Lisa - 1
Owen - 1
Becky - 1
Carlie - 1
Melanie - 1
Lindsey - 1
Grandma - 1
Caitlin - 2
Austin - 2
Mollie - 2
Maggie - 3
Jared - 4
Olivia - 6

The grand prize winner for the most photos with closed eyes is Olivia Grace! Jared gets an honorable mention.

This post was ridiculously tedious and time consuming.

Let's do lunch!