You Might Be A Redneck If . . .

I realized something a little disturbing a minute ago. While I was listening to a country song about a trucker. You see, country music is pretty much the staple music for rednecks, and I have always been a country music fan. More so the stuff from the 90's to now, but still. So, I'm listening to this song about a trucker, and my husband is a trucker, and I'm thinking to myself, "Ha, kinda makes us a little redneck-ish."

And then I considered something.

Here's some info I know about rednecks. They live in the country, you know, rural areas. They own horses, and the smell of manure in the morning is like a breath of fresh air. Hand-me-downs are almost as good as shopping at Walmart, which is the mecca of a redneck when there is one in the area. Rednecks love country music, play guitars, drive pickup trucks, and eat fried chicken. A lot of rednecks are truckers. Sometimes their family tree is a little bit . . . skewompus.

So . . . for a good portion of my life I lived in an apartment building next to a field, in which there lived horses, in a smallish town that always seemed really Mayberry to me. I even rode one of the horses once when the neighbor kids and I jumped the fence. The smell of manure, to this day, is still a bit homey to me. I'm very careful when walking through tall grass to avoid cowpies and other treasures that might be hiding in the grass.

I love hand-me-downs, and my mom and sisters and I play the pass-along game very well. My daughter, for her whole life, has been wearing some of the same outfits I wore when I as a baby and toddler, and I always pass on my nice clothes that don't fit me anymore to my sisters who are all smaller than me.

I also love shopping at Walmart, that is like my favorite store ever. I am hard on clothes, especially shirts and jeans, so I can't afford to spend half a paycheck on a new pair of pants every six months. $20 jeans at Walmart, come to mama! And $4 t-shirts? I'm so there! I also know where to find all the food stuff at Walmart, especially the snack aisle.

I LOVE country music, it is by far my favorite music genre ever. I love most kinds of music, with the exception of rap, most hip-hop, most jazz, and soul and stuff (I never grew up with it), but country is my music. Love it, love it, love it. I also play guitar, and someday I want to have my own pickup truck that makes the other little four door sedans on the road look little and scared. I also want a nice little car with amazing gas mileage, but my heart's desire is a really big pickup truck. And I love fried chicken, KFC is one of my favorite restaurants.

This is practically irrelevant, but I have a cowboy hat too. It's my favorite hat. And I recently bought cowboy boots that match it.

My husband became a trucker at the beginning of this year, completely with the insane facial hair and one arm tan, the other not. It took a lot of self-control not to pin him down, sit on his chest, and take a razor to his face and scalp. It was long enough that you could almost pull it into a ponytail in the back.

And as far as my family tree goes, my psycho uncle was once married to my sister-in-law (big disaster, don't ask), meaning my uncle was my brother-in-law, my sister-in-law was my aunt, my mom was my sister-in-law's sister-in-law, and my husband was his sister's nephew-in-law.

Now, I've always considered myself a country girl at heart, but holy cheese balls.

I'M A FREAKING REDNECK!!!!

Technology is Winning . . .

You know what one of the best things in the world is? When you can go back and read something you've written and and still find it funny. Bonus points if you actually laugh, which I did. If nothing else, I have the consolation that I can occasionally be a funny person, and luckily I get it in writing sometimes.

So . . . guess what. No, I'm not pregnant. No, I don't have a present for you. No, you cannot have my candy bar. Any more guesses? Anyone? Ok, so . . . I got a new phone. And I am unsure how I'm feeling about it. Because it's an Android, a Samsung Continuum, if we're being specific, and I've never had an Android before. I've never had the desire for one, because the things always looked WAY too complicated. I need a phone that calls, texts, and takes pictures. Yeah, that's pretty much it. I don't need it to be able to transform into any kind of gadget you can imagine, send lasers to the moon, or predict my mood. I'm fairly sure the first two are pretty useless and the third one I'm starting to get really good at doing all by myself.

So why did I get one? Well, I didn't want to. It was a battle, and Pete's been trying to talk me into getting one for at least a month. I was steadfastly refusing. The only reason I got one is because the selection for normal phones is pisspoor now that Androids have hit the scene. Beware old people, normal phones are phasing out. And sadly, I'd rather have to figure out this contraption in my pocket than deal with a crappy phone for the next 22 months. Or however long I have until I can upgrade.

I now have a phone that can predict my mood based on a scan of my thumb, has a selection of at least 4 different flashlights, pretends to be a pad of sticky notes, and makes a beeping sounds just like the Wii when I get a text message. I think I'm getting the hang of the texting, and I do have a few apps I really enjoy. One is jokes. The other is music. Another one is wallpapers that I collect like a homeless man collects spare change. All in all, I think I'm getting used to it, and bonus points because I'm getting a really awesome cover for it! PURPLE HARRY POTTER STYLE CHECKS, OMG!!!

Anywho, how's life? I haven't posted anything for like a month, I feel bad. I could have jotted down all manner of Sammy shenanigans, I'm sure. But I've been busy and never have anything to talk about when I actually remember I have a blog. Bearing in mind the danger that I might be repeating myself, it's like every time I've tried to keep a diary. I do great . . . for two days. And then cast the poor thing aside for up to a year or more and then when I need to have a massive venting session, guess who gets hired for the occasion? Long lost diary! Don't worry, though. Blog is not diary, will not vent on blog. Unless there is a really funny punchline.

Ooh, ooh, I have one other thing to tell about. StumbleUpon. It is amazing. It is a website you go to (www.stumbleupon.com) and you sign up for free, and you select the categories that interest you. And then, you click the Stumble button, and it takes you to a random page of the internet based on what categories you like!!! IT'S FRICKING AWESOME!!! Never has it been so easy to waste an hour doing something completely useless! You just keep clicking, and you thumb the page up or down according to if you like it or not, then Stumble again! It's so cool! You should try it, just for kicks. I've found an enormous crapload of stuff I've loved, pictures I've saved, and projects I want to do. I've been having a ball! So, there's my advertising for the day, everyone get off my blog and scurry off to go check it out now!

. . .

You're still here. What are you waiting for?! Go!!!

Soap Is Not A Plaything

My dear darling daughter brought something to my attention today that I hadn't noticed before, and it's significant enough to be worth pointing out. The child is extremely talented at creating disasters. I'm not talking your everyday, run-of-the-mill child disasters, like coloring on the wall with a crayon. I'm talking the big whoppers. Like coloring on the wall, the chairs, the cabinets, the table, and their own bodies with a marker. Of the non-washable variety. These disasters happen fairly frequently, such as the ketchup-smearing party. The great toilet paper caper. The bathtub tidal wave predicament. The chocolate-milk-spitting occurrence. The water-and-dog-food-mixerama. The juice puddle oops. The deliberately-peeing-on-the-floor-instead-of-the-toilet incident. The apple and orange throwing game. The dance-on-the-crackers-on-the-carpet day. The popcorn-is-confetti misunderstanding. The doggies-like-to-eat-a-whole-box-of-vanilla-wafers problem. And, sad to say, and we had another one today.

To qualify as a disaster, the act done by the child must have one or more of the following requirements: significant (definitely more than normal) cost, cleanup of site and/or child, aftereffects, side effects, and mental and/or emotional damage to parent. Please, if any of you have stories you'd like to share, do tell. I'd love to hear about kids that are either better or worse than mine. Because both kinds carry some kind of status for me. "My kid is better than yours, ha ha." "My kid is worse than yours, pity me."

Anyway, about the incident today. I like to call it the soap-is-not-a-plaything experiment. You see, Sammy is fascinated with soap. She loves to play with the stuff, the bubbles in the tub, the hand soap when she washes her hands, shampoo. Well, shampoo she recently became less enamored with because she discovered that it tends to hurt when it gets in the eyes. But bubble bath and hand soap are very dear toys for her.

Today she learned why that may not be the wisest of choices. You see, apparently she decided to empty half the bottle of hand soap onto the sink, spread it around and all the way down the cupboards, and smooth it up her arms as well. And didn't wash it off. I hear her start her "hurt cry", and go running to find out what she got stuck in, under, on top of, or out of. I go in to my room and see her standing on the bed with white streaky stuff on her face while she's screaming and crying. I realized it's soap, she's covered with it and it's in her eyes, and pick her up and take her to the bathroom to rinse her off. She didn't appreciate it, and by the time we were done with that part, her whole face was red and splotchy like it gets when she cries hard. Then we had to rinse her off in the tub because her clothes were covered in soap and her arms were too. And then, since in my haste I hadn't really had time to survey the damage except for the top of the sink, I found the copious amounts of soap and water running down the cabinet under the sink.

I had to take a few deep breaths. We got Sammy dressed again, did her hair again, and set out to clean up the soap. Yes, she helped. No, she did not want to. Yes, we had a discussion about why playing with the soap is a bad thing. Yes, she cried again. No, I did not feel bad AT ALL for making her listen to why playing with soap is a bad thing and making her help clean it up, even with her red eyes.

Now, I was in a bad mood anyway. Pete went back to work today, I work every single day this week, and my room is a mess. I really did not need this today. Nor did I need to buy soap again so soon. Or toilet paper, since Sammy is still under the impression that toilet paper is a toy. But now I have half an hour until I need to leave for work, I need to change my clothes because now I'm covered in soap, I have to clean up lunch because Sammy HAD to have mac and cheese AGAIN, and thanks to the clean up in the bathroom, I have an extra load of laundry to do before I go to bed tonight. Joy.

Garfield, I'm so there with you buddy. I hate Mondays.

Diaper Vs. Panties: The Debate

You know, I usually try to have some idea of what I'm going to write about when I shimmy on over to my cute little corner of the internet here, but tonight I don't. Not the foggiest idea. I was showing my hubby, Pete, the grand chopstick caper from last week and figured since I was already here . . . Yeah. Got nothin'.

Although, may I just mention how annoying it is to have a song stuck in your head when you don't know all the music or the words? Wanna know what's worse? To have a whole musical stuck in your head when you don't know all the music or words. I have had the soundtrack to Sweeney Todd (creepifying movie) stuck in my head ALL DAY LONG. The same lines, over and over again. It's been driving me bonkers. I tried to distract myself with Cats, and it just didn't take. I lip-synced through an abbreviated version of at least half the musical today at work (yes, I did get weird looks), and I STILL had Sweeney Todd stuck in my head like he'd taken up shop there and had no plans to vacate. *Annoyed expression* See, I LOVE the music, it's just . . . oh, gorgeous, I love it. But the story is about fourteen different kinds of creepy. And I will never watch that movie again, unless I suddenly find myself nursing a really kinky blood/gore/slitting throats fetish. But the music . . . Now, if only I could remember the freaking words.

Ooh, ooh, I have another funny Sammy story. This one is the Panty/Diaper argument we had tonight for a good fifteen minutes at bedtime. I also have a story about her banzai leap off the furniture yesterday, but I kinda already told that one on Facebook. The punchline is, she shorted it. But anyway, Panty/Diaper Debate. You see . . . I forgot to go to shopping today . . . and we're out of diapers. Completely. Panties work great when the child is conscious and is being told to go pee every hour, but at night? Yeah, right. Not happening, waterproof mattress protector aside.

Well . . . we had no choice, we had no diapers. So I, thinking that she wouldn't care that she got to wear panties to bed, indeed, might even be excited about it, held them out to her while she was running around her room with her bare bum hanging out. Her answer? No. Mommy was not amused. So I tried again, explaining that the diapers were all gone and she needed to wear panties tonight. No. *Annoyed expression* We tried bodily lifting her into the things and she threw a fit, crawling onto her pillow, facing the corner, burying her head in the mattress, and sticking her butt up in the air as a defensive position.

We tried to talk her into it. "Look, this pair has pretty flowers all over it! Do you want to wear the princess panties? Oh, cute, bows! Don't you want to wear some panties with bows?" She was not convinced nor swayed in the slightest, merely hurling the pair of flower panties back at Daddy and possibly shouting an obscenity in whatever language it is that she speaks. It's certainly not English.

At this point I'm torn between laughing hysterically and letting her go to bed naked. We were ransacking the house trying to find a diaper lying around somewhere. There is ALWAYS at least two diapers running around the house stuffed down the side of a mattress, tangled in the covers on a bed, sitting under a small collection of dog hair on the floor, tossed in a basket of laundry to be folded, stashed in her "going to Grammy's house" bag. Tonight? NOTHING. Not a diaper to be found ANYWHERE. We tore our rooms apart trying to find one, just one little diaper that the girl could wear to bed because she was finding her panties offensive. Nothing.

I had to go relieve myself at this point before I giggled and needed my own diaper, and by the time I got back, Pete had found one blessed diaper tucked in the sheets on his parents bed. Hallelujah. We were saved. Child: diapered. Panties: exiled to drawer. Bedtime: hour late, but accomplished.

So, I guess you could say that Sammy won the debate tonight. If I had remembered to go to the store and actually get diapers since I knew we were out, this whole fiasco would have been avoided, but then I wouldn't have a funny story to tell you, now would I? Life's funny that way, if not a tad cruel. But anyway, I'm going to see about either reading some of my fantastic book that I'm obsessed with, or going to bed a titch early . . . honestly, it's a toss up. There's a sleeping man in my bed, and he's a lot more exciting than a book . . . but he is asleep. *Shrugs* I'll let you know. Ciao!

Beat the Jell-O into Submission

Today . . . has been an epic day. It's the Saturday before Easter, which means that all that fun holiday stuff that you can't really do on the Sabbath, happens today. You know, shopping for all that stuff you forgot to buy at the grocery store on the four previous trips you made. Making the house all pretty and shiny for Sunday. For my family, that means boiling and dyeing the Easter eggs, so they're all ready to be skinned and eaten alive the next day. Oh, and getting started on all the food that the ravenous children will be eating tomorrow.

Of course, I'm talking about my mother. I am not cool enough to clean my house (well, rooms that I live in at my in-law's house) for special occasions. Or every day. Or at all, really. Have I mentioned I hate cleaning? Yeah. But my mom, who is pretty much the Supermom that other moms try to emulate and usually fail at, is awesome like that. House: clean. Brand new Easter clothes (half of them handmade): done and ironed. Food: ingredients gotten (after 17 trips to the grocery store). I am not this cool. I would go to the grocery store once . . . and if I forgot to grab the French fried onions for the green bean casserole, well, dehydrated onions work too, right? And how crucial are the apples in the Snickers n' Apple Salad? Cut up Snickers smothered in Cool Whip (I remembered to buy that, right?) works just as well. Right?

Well, anyway, my Mom's amazingness aside, here is what else we did today: We went out for lunch and a movie. The movie was Hop, and it was cute and funny and a keeper! I love James Marsden. But the real highlight of this outing . . . was lunch. We went to the Beijing Buffet, all 8 of us, and systematically consumed half the food in the place. And my little brother . . . found the chopsticks. Now, see, normally this is not a problem, since 7 of us are over the age of eight and therefore quite adept at using chopsticks. However . . . my daughter . . . is 3. We gave CHOPSTICKS to a THREE YEAR OLD. Yes, at the time, I knew this was a supremely stupid idea. I knew I would regret it. I was not, however, prepared for how . . . epic of a fail it turned out to be.

First of all, she tried to eat salmon with the chopsticks. And promptly ditched one of the chopsticks out of sheer annoyance. So, three year old, piece of salmon, single chopstick. And next to the plate, a cup of Egg Drop Soup. Want to know what happens when you semi-violently attack a helpless piece of salmon with a chopstick? That's right. A piece of it goes flying hari-kari to commit suicide in the cup of soup, and it may or not have had help from the semi-violent three year old brandishing a chopstick like a Japanese samurai sword.

Most of the salmon (that didn't end up lying peacefully in the soup) ended up scattered all over the floor. Then . . . we moved on to the Jell-O. My sister, with the greatest of intentions, got my daughter some Jell-O cubes to eat for desert, along side the ice cream (just for the record, Sammy ate more of the ice cream than she did of the actual food for lunch). Still using her single chopstick, my daughter decided that the easiest way to make use of these strange, squishy, rubbery-lookin' orange things would be to spear the sucker, raise it in the air, and try to navigate it to her mouth. Didn't work. *Plop* Orange Jell-O jiggler is back on the plate, somewhat holey, and three year old is surveying it with a look of confusion.

So, we moved on to a different tactic, holding the Jell-O in place with a finger while sticking with chopstick and again raising into air and maneuvering to mouth. *Squish* Jell-O, meet table. At this point, it occurred to my daughter that Jell-O seemed way more like a toy and less and less like something to try eating. So she proceeded to chase the gelatin cube around the table, giggling as it bounced off the edges of plates. And then, apparently offended and outraged that it had the nerve to split in half, she then started to beat the Jell-O into submission (that phrase courtesy of my hysterical Dad), and once subdued, sweep it all onto the floor.

It was around this point that I figured I should stop laughing and take the chopstick away. I wrapped it and the masticated Jell-O up in a napkin, keeping it out of her reach. So, Sammy just stole my sister's chopsticks, dropped one a plate, and in the process of smacking it with the other stick as punishment, sent the one on the plate flying over our heads, to bounce off of the table behind us and roll to a stop under a chair.

By now, I was crawling under our table in embarrassment and shame as my daughter shrieked with laughter and kept trying to find the missing chopstick. And then started whacking my sister with the other one, prompting me to get out from under the table and remove all chopsticks from within her reach and hide them. We managed to get out of the restaurant without too much incident (leaving a $12.50 tip for the poor person who had to clean up the smooshed Jell-O, bits of noodle and rice, and flakes of salmon ground into the carpet. Oh, and the chopstick under the chair at the other end of the room).

Apparently her exertions at trying to tame the wild Jell-O jiggler had just worn my poor daughter out, and she slept through most of the movie. Which left her all kinds of chipper and perky at Walmart, which was just so . . . fun. Really. Yeah. The next adventure on the docket was dyeing Easter eggs, and after getting the six dozen eggs boiled (yes, six dozen) and ready to go, my mom and I shared a nostalgic moment together, grinning like little kids as we plopped the little color dye tablets into the mugs, to fizz and bubble in the vinegar at the bottom. The smell of vinegar has always reminded me of Easter, for this exact reason. We watched the little tablets scoot around the edge of the cups as they bubbled, sending the dye swirling up in their wake.

And then . . . my little brother and sister got ahold of the stuff. A nine and eleven year old, 2 dozen eggs, and 12 mugs of pretty darn permanent multicolored dye, and these really nifty "dye pens" we found at Walmart that consisted of thin tubes of dye with a Q-tip fluff on each end. You break the seal on one end, and all the ink rushes to the cotton at the other end. Voila, Easter egg dye pen! Let me just say that it is a good thing my mom's Easter tablecloth is vinyl.

And now, I'm sitting at the table amidst the aftermath of a whirlwind evening of dyeing Easter eggs. We even have a set of eggs decorated as Gru and his minions from Despicable Me, I kid you not. Those were my brothers invention. Oh, and by the way, if you do not know how to juggle, attempting to learn how with hard-boiled eggs is . . . well, hysterically funny, but maybe not advisable.

So now, I'm going to see what I can do about cleaning up the disaster that once used to be the kitchen table, stick the 6 dozen eggs back in the fridge in preparation for tomorrow, and pour 12 cups of dye down the sink (best part of dyeing eggs). I hope everyone else has as . . . memorable an Easter as I did. Ta!

What Happens in the Kitchen . . . Should Really Stay There

So, tonight was a pretty sketchy food night, all in all. Dinner was a slapdash performance, and the recipe I used was called something like Chicken and Broccoli with Garlic and Parmesan. Not bad, right? That's what I thought, plus it was really simple and didn't require any freaky ingredients. There was just one problem . . . I have a chicken phobia. Well, sort of. I have a problem with handling raw chicken. I think it is nasty. I don't like seeing it, touching it, or knowing I have to deal with it. It just makes me want to throw up a little. Or a lot. Depending on the day.

Anyway, I decided that the chicken was not happening today. So I did ground beef instead (for anyone interested . . . no, I have no problem with raw beef. I know. I'm weird). Not that big of a deal, beef substituted for chicken, this is not a big deal for the most part. Yeah, some dishes don't cooperate well if you swap out the meat, but this is not one of them. Potatoes, broccoli, and the other ingredients work just as nicely with chicken or beef. So yeah, I followed the recipe (if anyone has cooked with me, you know what kind of a loose term that is for me. I don't use measuring utensils oftentimes), and it turned out fine. Just not . . . great. Out of the 5 people that ate it, Krissy was the only one that really liked it, I think. I was kinda on the fence, it was ok but not really good. Sammy liked the broccoli.

Well, when I was at the store earlier today I saw some graham cracker pie crusts and recalled that I've been in the mood for a chocolate cream pie for some time. So I got a pie crust, and performed some impressive chef skills by getting the pie ingredients ready to go at the same time as making dinner (no, I did not screw anything up. I was very meticulous). The only thing I changed was instead of unsweetened chocolate pieces (which I didn't have) I did the substitution thingy it said on the side of the cocoa powder container. And did know that if you heat up flour, sugar, milk, cocoa powder, and shortening that it thickens up? Who knew? And do you wanna know what a freaking !@#$% it is to separate egg yolks?! Holy crap! It would have been easier to just throw in the whole egg and take the consequences!

Egg yolks were separated (finally), shortening was melted (fun to watch), chocolate mix was thickening (O_o), managed to accost my sister in law on her way out of the laundry to assist in the grand "mix some of the bubbling chocolate mixture into the egg yolks and beat to prevent the eggs from cooking" attempt. It did work, I was pleased. So, I got everything all mixed together, got the vanilla and butter in, tasted the completely project, AND . . . meh. Didn't do it for me. I was very disappointed. It was too dark chocolatey, and I'm a milk chocolate girl. So I added in the rest of a bag of Hershey's chocolate chips and a handful of marshmallows, but they didn't really do much, sadly.

That lovely pie crust, all wasted now. Of course, I will eat the pie, and I will make everyone else help me, but it just wasn't fantastic. What a let down. I should have done the chocolate pudding recipe I had instead. You just can't fail with chocolate pudding. You also have a lesser chance of getting very small lumps with chocolate pudding . . . (the lumps were my fault . . . yes, you do have to start stirring the chocolate mixture when it starts to heat up. You don't wait for a minute, assuming it won't heat up that fast. *Rolling eyes at self*).

So yeah. There's my unstellar night of cheffing. I did much better a couple weeks ago, I made manicotti! Well, it was manicotti, but in giant shells instead of giant tube pasta. It was fabulous, and it was my first ever time using ricotta cheese! My mother is a die-hard ricotta hater, but I'm going to make her something tasty with it and change her mind.

Ok, this little cook is going to go check on her failtacular chocolate cream pie now . . . I should have gotten the heavy whipping cream at the store, I could have made whipped cream to pretty up the pie. Ah, well. Silly me. Happy cooking to all y'all out there, and good luck with any chocolate cream pie endeavors you take on!

Ooze

*Oozes onto the blog, peers around sleepy-eyed* Helloooooo. *Blinks* You want to know what happens when sleep deprivations meets a surprise long shift and dizzy spells. Ooze. That's what happens. A complete melty kind of conglomeration of all the exhausted body parts of a person that moves very slowly and thinks even slower. And ooze like this is extremely reluctant to separate itself from surfaces. It's like fast drying glue, and it takes a significant amount of effort to pry one's oozed self off a surface once you're all oozy and comfy on it.

Another side effect of this ooziness is that your funniness perception skyrockets. EVERYTHING is funny. Especially the looks people give you when you kinda collapse on the nearest piece of furniture laughing your head off at something that really was not that funny in the first place. *Whispering* I did this a lot at work today.

An additional symptom to this ooze is a delayed response in your mental processes. All of them. Attention span, forming words (sentences are pretty much a joke), there's a time delay between when someone talks to you and you actually register the fact. And by the time you "come to", half the conversation is over and while you're sitting there looking kinda loopy and dumb everyone gets a giggle or an eye roll out of it.

So, to wrap up this exhibition of ooze, heed this warning: Don't let the ooze get you. It is reluctant to let go. I would know. I'm oozy-glued to the couch right now, my reaction time to any kind of conversation is right around amoeba level, and there is a good chance that by the time I quit giggling at the most retarded things, I'll have confused and frightened every person in the house. So I think I'm going to get right on that. Good night darlings, I hope you have better luck escaping the ooze. Good luck.