Why I Love Critical Role (Fan Submissions)

I'm not sure if this would fit on this blog, but I think the show Critical Role is worth checking out.  It will spark your imagination and open your mind to the world of Dungeons & Dragons, having you look forward to every Thursday.

The Mom Your Children Need

I feel terrible that we can't do all the extra things that other parents and kids do.  On numerous occasions, Bella has brought home flyers for stuff that she'd like to do.  Most of the time, we can't do any of them due to work schedules.

I work two jobs to make sure that we can have the things we need be it new glasses, clothes to replace the ratty stuff, new shoes because our feet are growing at an alarming rate.  I just want to make sure that the kids are happy with what they have.  I hope they're never want for anything.

So, I'm trying to get a beauty YouTube channel started.  I pick up things to test and review and create content with.  This does not go in front of my children's needs.  You ask either kid if they're happy.  I'm 98% sure both will tell you, "Yes."  You ask either kid if there are things they wish we could do more often or things they'd like to have.  They'll both tell you, "Absolutely."  Wanna know what else they'll tell you?  They'll tell you that they understand that we can't always do the awesome and fun things.  They understand that we don't always have the money to do stuff all the time.  They UNDERSTAND that so long as we're together, everything is perfect.

My family is wonderful.  My kids are fantastic.  My daughter is creative.  My bonus son is passionate.  My husband is amazingly supportive of me, his son, and our daughter.  I couldn't ask for anything more, really.  A lot of the other things will come in time and when it's right.  We'll get a break one day and we'll be appreciative of the experiences that we've had to get to that point.

Sucker vs. lollipop

My 11 year old son held flat blob of candy on a stick and called it a lollipop. I asked him if it was a lollipop or a sucker. Definitely a lollipop mom. So what is the difference. Lollipops are flat blobs of hard candy on a stick. Suckers are balls of hard candy on a stick. I got on line and did a little research of my own. I found a blog that said a 10 year stated it was just the opposite of what my son thinks. I always thought of a lollipop as something you have to lick. (You know those big coiled lollipops that are as big as your face.) and a sucker as something you could put in your mouth and suck on.

It turns out that they are all lollipops whether you call it a lollipop, sucker, pop, or a lolly. It is hard candy on a stick that can be licked or sucked. Who knew.

Summer Memories

Most of the memories I have from this past summer include a lot of work and a lot of school.  I didn't get a chance to spend a lot of time with my family.  I think I spent more time at both work and school than I did with my family this summer.  I just keep telling myself that when school is done, I'll have an Associate's degree in something that will help me get a better job than the cashier job I have now.

I went to the lake with a couple of friends of mine earlier in the summer before it got really, really hot.  Bella loved it and and made some new friends.  As it happens, one of those new friends lives less than a minute away!  We haven't been over there, though.  I work with her daddy and bonus mom.  Hopefully we'll be able to hang out more often.

While this next bit has nothing to do with today's title, I think that if I really like the math instructor I have, I might take an additional math class or two to complete my Associate's in Business Administration.  I think I need Finite Mathematics and Statistics, so we'll see how that goes.

I also need to take a Spanish class.  I think I'm going to take a full load in the Spring semester (five classes) to try and finish up as much as I can toward my Associate's in Business Administration.  I think that with all that classes I've taken (and will take during winter break and intersession next year), I'll have enough for SOMETHING besides General Studies.

I've also been going back to my Milady book.  When I have the funds for it, I'm going to register online to take practice tests and save the money I need to take the REAL written exam.  After I take the written exam, I can do the practical exam and then I'm done!  I think I'm going to drive to Shreveport instead of Dallas.  I need to make sure that it won't count as a Louisiana cosmetology license, though.  I also need to replenish what I need for my practical exam and find someone to go with me to Shreveport when I take my practical exam.  I'm sure if I post something on Facebook around that time, I won't have a problem finding someone.

Old Friends

It's strange to have ex-boyfriends on one's social networking page.  I suppose I'm one of the strange ones.  Of the few serious relationships I've been in (including my current as a wife), only one boyfriend isn't on my friends list.  I'm not losing sleep over it, if that's what one wonders.  I do see if they're on this networking site, but maybe only once a year.

The first love of my life is on my friends list.  Though things were tough and quite rocky toward the end, we managed to scrape up what was once a good friendship, and reform that friendship.  We're both happily married and have children close in age.  His oldest daughter is less than 14 days younger than my only daughter.

He instant messaged me on this networking site to just chat.  I have no problem with this.  I found it odd that he IM'ed me first; he rarely does this.  Either way, I was happy to chat (I was already chatting with an old friend from 12 or so years ago).  We talked about life, kids, work.  Out of the blue, he says to me, "And don't take this the wrong way, but your profile pic really brings out your features," or something like that.  I wish I could remember the exact wording.

I bring it up because it caught me off-guard.  I've never been all that great at accepting compliments.  Considering our past, I just never really expected it from him.  He still admits that he's an asshole.  I was really mad at him back then for being an asshole, not caring about the feelings of others.

However, maturing and parenthood tends to change people; most of them, for the better.  I enjoy talking to him.  We've finally come back around the circle and become friends again and this makes me happy.  Even if he was an asshole of a boyfriend, when we were still just friends all those years ago, he was a good one to have.  And he still is. 

Oh, Bella, my Bella

My daughter, Belladonna, talks in her sleep. She's also pretty good at telling me about bad dreams that she's had just moments before. Last night was no different.

She woke up from a bad dream last night. I heard her call for me over the monitor and rushed to her room. She was laying on her bed, feet under the pillow, snuggling her special pink blanket (made just for her) and a smallish Pooh Bear quilt. I asked her to tell me about her dream.

She said her animals were taken by a human; a "chocolate" man named Gabriel who's been following her. She said that he has two dragons: a silver one and a gold one. She says her green dragon, Gorbash (points to your House if you can remember where that name orignates), will help her.

I told her that if she returns to the Land of Dreams, she can go back and get her animals from the human and that Mommy can help her from that place.

After some kisses and "Mommy, I forgot something..." I left her room and attempted sleep. I then hear over the monitor the following statements:

• "Who is making that noise?"
• "Who is that?"
• "Who's there?"
• "No!"

I'm wondering what her dream entailed. I'm hoping she got her animals back and ran away from "Gabriel." I honestly have no recollection of helping her. I feel bad about that, but I can't control my dreams currently.

Conversations with my kids

My 4 year old comes in and says, "Can you pie me?"
Me, "Can I what?"
Blaine, "Can you pie me."
ME, "Go..." he ran off to Daddy.
Blaine, "Can you pie me?"
Daddy, "What?"
Blaine, "Pie!"
Daddy, "Is that how you ask?"
Blaine, "Please?"
Daddy, "Please what?"
Blaine, "Pie."
Me, "Blaine what do you want?"
Blaine, "Pie"
Me, "So how do you ask."
Blaine, "Please pie!"
Me, "Blaine , can I."
Blaine, "Can I,"
Me, "Have some."
Blaine, "Some pie?"
Me "Pie please?"
Blaine, "Please pie?" Almost dancing to get his point across.
Yes kid, we know you want pie.

Speech therapy is helping. He is a lot easier to understand, but sentence structures still fails him. We go through this every time he wants something. He gets a little frustrated and says it louder, but he is still not saying it in a manner that will get him what he wants. Thankfully he is silly and doesn't really get mad at us for trying to get him to speak properly. We usually all end up laughing by the time he finally tells us what he wants. He got his pie.

False Idols

You know, it's an odd thing when you find out both sides to the same story. You keep thinking the side you've been around your entire life is so truthful when, in fact, she pretended to be a Vulcan or Minbari and omit information.

For the majority of my life, I've been lead to believe that my father has been very irresponsible and never wanted to keep me when my parents divorced. Come to find out, he was pretty much forced to give me up for adoption when my mom divorced him.

She had the bright idea of sending him the paperwork while he was away in Korea (both of them were in Air Force then), she was fucking around on him.. in their bed!

Turns out my dad was an innocent bystander in everything. Yeah, he was young but he loved me. My mother has even admitted to tricking him into giving me up for adoption. I'm not sure if she feels bad about it. I wish I would have had the choice of who I wanted to live with, once I was of age.

It's amazing the things that come to light when you're older.

NO means "NO" - A Lesson In Self-Control

Pizza seduces me. It tempts me with its slightly browned cheese and its rich and nommable tomato sauce. It whispers, "Eat me" and without hesitation I do. I can't help myself.

I was having a(nother) piece of pizza at dinner tonight, despite the annoying little voice that said,

"No, Erika. Put that back. You don't want another slice."

I ignored that voice and went for the second helping:

"Add more crushed red pepper! Mama-Mia, I like-a the spicy pizza!"

*shake-a shake-a shak-AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!! MYEYESITBURNSMYEYESOWOWOWOWOW!!!*

Yes. In my fevered frenzy of seasoning, the smallest particles of (really) crushed red pepper caught the wind of the ceiling fan and...I peppered myself.

Ow.

After about ten minutes of flushing my very sore, very red eyes under the bathroom faucet and cursing the employees of McCormick Spices and their offspring and their offspring's offspring and anyone who knew their offspring's offspring, I spent another ten minutes enduring watery eyes and an uncontrollably runny nose. I now understand what it is that pepper spray will do to an assailant.

I have learned my lesson. If I insist on forcing myself on the pizza, I MUST NOT ARM THE PIZZA. (Clearly, I was asking for it.) Better yet, I should steer clear of that Italian-American tease and never think of it again.

"NO" means "NO". I get that now.

I guess I didn't really want that piece of pizza after all. Now that I think about it, it probably had a parasite in its pepperoni.

(Ah-HA! Did you see what I did there? I rejected the pizza, it didn't reject me. I dumped it first, therefore I win. Humph!)

*quietly* Slut.

There's No Place Like Home?

After seeing the musical Wicked the other night (which was a completely amazing experience), I'm stuck with multiple Oz-related references resounding through my cranium. But Dorothy's famous click-of-the-slippers catchphrase hits me much closer to home than the lions and tigers and bears that we saw at the zoo today.

I've been at my mom's house for three weeks. This weekend, I'm packing up the kids and returning home. I sorta have to, right? After all, I do live there. I have bills to pay and obligations to fulfill, my kids are enrolled in swim lessons at the local community center in August and will be starting school again in September...and oh yeah, my husband is there.

My marriage has been so emotionally tumultuous over the past year that I was on the verge of filing for divorce a month ago. I changed my mind when my husband experienced what seemed to be a genuine change of heart just before I left. My only explanation for his apparent turnaround is that he could tell how disconnected I was from the relationship, and it helped something click for him. I can't quite explain it, but he acts much differently towards me now. I can tell that he is feeling things more deeply and has gained some awareness of his own emotion.

He calls it a miracle. If it turns out to carry any sustainability, I might use the same word.

That should be a good thing, right? Honestly, the lack of any deep sense of connection between the two of us was one of the biggest voids in our marriage. And it seemed that all of a sudden, his emotional light bulb went on--but it felt more like a stadium flood light than a 50-watt reading lamp.

That's typical for him, though. He's a very extreme person overall. With him, there is almost never such a thing as a middle ground. His positive emotions are smothering and his negative emotions are crippling. And now, even though I can clearly sense that he feels things much differently than he has before, I am still very much aware that he is still the same highly intense person he has always been.

I want love to grow in my marriage, without a doubt. But it feels like his love for me has turned from a tiny seed into a mighty oak overnight, and any love I might feel for him is still a young, tender shoot that needs gentle and proper care--not a sudden blast of desert sun doused with a tsunami of water, but something warm, nurturing, and appropriate.

Although I feel ready to go back home and get back into my regular routine with my kids, I carry with me a sense of dread about the emotional roller coaster ride that awaits me. Caring for my husband is a hell of a lot of work. I hadn't realized how much until being away from him for a while. And ultimately, I've been much happier while not having to live with all that uncertainty about what my day to day life will be like.

Living with my parents can be difficult, for sure, but at least it's predictably so. I know my mom is anal about crumbs on the counter and dishes in the sink, I know my dad is rather silent and endearingly protective, and I know that my kids have to clean up after themselves around here or they'll send my mother to an early grave.

But I can always count on that, every day. It's secure. It's stable. It carries a vague sense of lunacy and a slight air of dementia, but those things feel comfy here because they have always been a part of this house. It's much easier than living with a person whose personality is so naturally volatile that he can seemingly turn from an arrogant bastard into a smothering emotional flood overnight.

I have been able to discuss some of these feelings with my husband over the phone, and I can tell by his responses that he is listening and understanding at least a portion of what I'm saying. But the conversations feel eerily vacuous when I lack the ability see his face or read his body language, and I can't feel confident that the person I will be living with when I get home will be at all receptive to my efforts to communicate with him.

I'm going home because I live there, because I want to give my marriage another chance, and because I know my husband needs me. But I wish I needed him as much as he needs me. I wish that I was going home with a sense of excitement and anticipation. I wish that I really missed my husband and couldn't wait to see him again. I wish that I could trust him to ask me what I need from him instead of assuming that he has already figured it out.

But mostly, I wish that I could be as certain as Dorothy that there's no place like home.

Can't live with 'em, can't sell 'em on Craigslist.

I've noticed a lot of my mommy friends are encountering the same stressful problem right now. Our seemingly delightful offspring are fighting more and it's bugging the snot out of us all. Summer is here and we're still trying to get everything done that we normally do, only now we've got all these little needy people in the house and no school to send them off to during the day...and they're BORED little needy people.

Planning things to keep them busy will work to cut the fighting down a lot, but I know I'm not always that on-the-ball. So when we fall asleep at the Parental Wheel and the fighting begins, what can we do to keep our cool?

There are a couple of quick and easy fixes, that I use myself, They really will work. I just need to remember them in my day.

Say this. Don't think about it, just say it.

"I charge a dollar a minute to listen to children argue. Solve it yourselves."

Then look at the clock. Those kids will skedaddle out of there faster than you can blink. If it comes to fisticuffs, so be it. They'll learn other ways of solving their disagreements without bringing you into it.

For those kids who have no sense and very few cents, toys can be easily substituted for cash. Only the most awesomely cool, most played with toys are confiscated. Then they have the opportunity to earn the toys (or money) back by replacing the energy they drained out of you in doing some extra chore(s).

One for the tweens and/or teens who need to be chauffeured everywhere is this little gem: "I'll drive you to (wherever) as soon as ____, ____ and ____ are done." If these ____s are not completed before it's time to leave, the kid doesn't go. Simple as that. Their friends' birthday parties are not a grade requirement.

Whatever you need to get done today, make your job less stressful by getting those able-bodied young'uns to help. They live there, too. Home is more than a place for them to eat and sleep and ask for sh*t.

These are actually a couple of techniques I picked up from Parenting with Love and Logic, and although I can't take credit for them, I can certainly tell you that Love and Logic really does work.

Even the toddlers can do this stuff! It keeps me ahead of the AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH Moments when I remember to use it.

I hope I've just made your day easier. If you like these, use them. If you don't, forget them. Just remember that we DON'T have to do it all. Really. Keep your cool. It's summer and it's a jungle out there.

Spoiling Kiddo.

Kiddo is my little sister. I'm not quite sure how she got the nickname, but it stuck - even some of her teachers refer to her as Kiddo. Oh, and by little sister I mean my nearly 16 year old 5'9 or so sister who has curves in the right places and makes clothes look good. Did I mention I'm 5'5 on a good day? Her legal name is Nicole Christen.

Kiddo has been having difficulty with backstabbing faux-friends and assorted other high school drama. It seems to have peaked lately, with one girl telling my sister to watch her back. Ugh.

Through a state funded program, my sister got a job that pretty much teaches her how to work. It is, in essence a paid internship. She gets $800 for 4 days a week for 5 weeks. Not bad for a first job. She has her official interview tomorrow (even though she already has the position, and starts Monday). Until my friend Kate and I took my sister on a shopping spree at H&M, she had no clothes that I would deem interview worthy. The only caveat was that Kate and I had final say on her clothes - since I was buying, I thought it was only fair. We picked out everything for her, living vicariously through the skinny girl.

She left H&M with a black pencil skirt that falls right at her knees, deep charcoal semi-wide leg dress pants, and salmon colored skinny fit dress pants to cover her 'non-butt' as she puts it. She also took home a gorgeous deep purple top that fits her like it is tailored just for her, a nifty looking non-fitted black top with flowers printed at the bottom hem (to go with the salmon pants) and a turquoise sundress.

We then headed over to Old Navy where she got two nice dressy tee shirts (one is Pink and the other is Teal), followed by Famous Footwear where she found a really cute pair of black low heels (not too easy in size 11!) on clearance.

Lucky girl made out like a bandit. She looks like an adult, instead of a trend-worshipping teenage drone. I walked out of the mall nearly $200 poorer. I spent a portion of my tattoo fund on her. I don't even spend that much on clothes for myself, but without hesitation I bought her every single thing that looked great on her.

However, Kiddo deserves it. She's the baby of the family who got shorted on so much, because my parents had done so much for my brother and myself that there isn't extra to spend. Kiddo watches Connor whenever needed, without asking any repayment. She rarely complains about anything, especially the lack of spending money that her friends have. They're the annoying girls at the mall that I hate with a passion.

Back to my point - my sister is one of the best people that I know. She is selfless, she gives and gives without expecting anything in return. To see her reaction when she saw exactly how much I'd spent on her was priceless. She was shocked. And unlike most people in her generation, grateful.

That is why I love spoiling my sister.

Where did I go wrong?

My oldest son is 9 years old. He used to come and talk to me all the time. Then suddenly he wasn't able to talk to me about things. Now he comes and stands in front of me and just stares at me. If I ask him what he wants he puts his head down and talks so softly I can't hear him. If I ask him to repeat what he said he starts to cry. Sometimes he will write out his question, toss it at me and run away. The thing is I usually say yes.

This has been going on for a couple of years now. It is getting to the point where I just want to send him away as soon as he comes to me with that look on his face. I don't even want to try to deal with him because I know it would be easier to milk a bull that to get any information out of the child.

I know something has to change, but at this point I don't even know how to go about getting there. At the moment I am getting frustrated with him and yelling at him. I know that doesn't help the problem, but asking him nicely doesn't get through to him either. At this point I just want to scream.

I always hoped that I would have a really good relationship with my kids. I wanted to be the mom that all the kids came to. I want to be the cool mom. I feel like I am the mom that just yells at my kids and can't get them to listen or get through to them. I wanted to do 'do today' with my kids. My dad used to sit with us before bed and ask us 'what did you do today.' It was shortened to do today. I want that. I would ask my son when he got home from kindergarten what did you do today. NOTHING. I know you did something, what was it? Ever since then I can't get through to him. What happened? Where did I go wrong? At what point did I lose that little boy that use to tell me everything? I don't know. I do know I need to do something about it. I jsut don't know what.

Specializing in the removal of live things

"If it grows, it goes."

I'm forming a new landscape company, and the above is the company motto. Screw the careful delicacy of only removing weeds. Nevermind a well-shaped wall of hedgery. You want us to prune your trees but leave them standing? You need a different company. I and my mighty army of weed whackers, clippers, shears, hedge pruners and lawn mowers will remove everything in your yard to a close-cropped three inch height.

I'm done with having to choose what stays or goes in the yard. I give up on trying to remember if I planted X. Having to decide if it's a foxtail or something destined to be pretty. Should that random fig tree stay, or will it eventually wreak havoc on a plumbing line. Nope. Not gonna do it. I've spent my time in the trenches carefully nurturing what became a burr nursery. I once weeded a patch of the yard, convinced that I was yanking up a patch of soon-to-be ickery-stickery pokery things, and realized later that I'd removed the sproutings of a packet of Alyssum seeds. I'm plagued with tree of heaven rootlets everywhere, and the oaks I DO want to grow keep falling down.

Part of the problem I face is that I've got some of the best dirt on earth. The only place that nothing will grow is under my olive trees. (Really, what does one plant under a tree that oozes acidic oil 8 months of the year?) Anything that can grow, WILL grow, and when you're confronted with 18 varieties of "Well, it's green, it has leaves, and it's in the dirt", it's hard to determine what you've got. If it's all three inches tall, who cares?

I can't even kill what I do want dead. Two summers ago, I decided to intentionally kill a rose bush. It was in the most inconvenient of places; I'd fallen into it several times because it's right by a walkway, and due to its size, there wasn't a chance of being able to transplant it. In the middle of a Redding summer, I cut the thing to the ground, didn't water it for the rest of the year, and figured it was done for. The next spring, it blew back out of the ground bigger than ever. The only thing I'd managed to do turned out pretty impressive - I'd whacked the outer canes far enough down that they grew out as wild bright-red roses, and the inner portion of the rose bush spits out buttery yellow blooms.

Beauty, even in my failure.

Post-Consumer Waste and Impressionable Young Minds

Pondering jingles.


Yes, I was thinking of commercials and slogans and my brain wandered as it tends to do and it ended up here. I know you like to get a ringside seat to the craziness, so I decided to share.


I’ve been stuck on Band-Aids ever since I was a Toys-R-Us kid eating hot dogs…Armor Hot Dogs. I drank Pepsi before and after it became the Choice of a New Generation. I’ve celebrated moments of my life with International Instant Coffees. I filled it to the rim with Brim (of course I would’ve rather had Taster’s Choice, especially if Rupert Giles was likely to show up at my door).



My bologna had a first name. I made things last a little longer with Big Red. I soaked in it because Madge told me to. When I spilled a drink, I reached for the quicker picker upper. A sprinkle a day helped keep odor away! I had it my way at Burger King.



Now I’m tired and rambling. I digress…but WAIT!



Speaking of jingles and the like, what made execs approve the Juicy Fruit song?
“...Take a sniff, pull it out. The taste is gonna move ya when you POP it in your mouth...

(That’s pure pervy genius, right there.)


When I think of how simple some of those little song snippets were, I’m certain I have what it takes. After all, it’s probably so easy a caveman could do it.

The Need to Talk

Since the beginning of time, women have needed to talk. While passing the time while sewing, crafting supplies, or birthing a child- women have worked together. The idea of a village comes from the idea of women working together in order to make life happen.

Today, we no longer live in villages. We live worlds apart from even our families and friends. Women get up each day and make life happen for their loved ones. This can be a lonely job- rewarding, but none-the-less, lonely.

Women still have the need to talk, which is more than a well known fact. Cell phone companies and Internet networking sites are very much aware, as one of their largest target audiences are women. Places such as CafeMom have targeted the female audience because we are a shore win- give us room to talk... we'll have at it!

Even those of us with partners here in the home are privy to a well known fact: Our husbands may love us dearly, but they are not the same thing as a female friend. Men are fixers, and while this is nice when they use this skill to fix a leak, a broken toilet and even that weird noise coming from the basement... fixing is not what a woman needs when she has the urge to talk. The need to chat, to cry, to love, to vent, to scream or to just converse is merely a way of release for a woman- no doing is necessary, other than being.

CafeMom fills this need for many of us, which is why we are such "addicts." It gives us women something we need- each other. Simply genius, if you ask me. You do nothing but let women talk- something we all know comes so naturally. We can talk about anything and everything- and we do! This place is a wealth of information and misinformation, strong feelings and stronger emotions. It is both perfect and dangerous- and I hope it lasts forever.

I have been lucky to have found a great niche here in our virtual world. 30 wonderful friends that have grown together in ways real-life friends couldn't begin to understand. From one small commonality- we've become something life changing and unforgettable.

30 women have come together to share everything. We've seen love lost and love anew, the birth of a child and the loss of those loved, everyday triumphs and super life achievements, the joys and agonies of motherhood and most importantly- WAY too much information! :0) We've shared stories that would make a sailor blush, advice you wouldn't seek out from a normal play-date and held each others virtual hands during times deemed too much to handle.

There have been days that I have been late to the computer, yet still my thoughts have been on friends I know are going through hard times... times where my friends haven't been online and the rest of us have began to worry about where they are. When a person enters your thoughts during the day in worry, in joy and in happiness- and do not directly effect you or your being- this person is a friend. It doesn't matter if they are a part of your real life village or a virtual one. What matters is that we all have someone we can reach out to, someone we can talk to, someone that isn't trying to fix us... but rather just let us be the women we were born to be and the talkers that we are meant to be.

Thank you my friends... You are my village. :0)

If you don't like the weather, just wait.

The weather in Kansas is a very dynamic thing. It does usually get hot in summer by about mid June and stay hot until late September. By hot I mean 100+ temperatures. This year do far has been It has been relatively cool. Only one week do far of 90+ degrees. Usually in the summer the storms just make it more humid and sticky, but lately the storms have brought cool weather. It is nice after a week of 90 degrees to be back in the low 70's. I love having the house opened up and the cool air blowing in.

Speaking of the air blowing, the wind is usually a constant thing here in Kansas. When the wind doesn't blow you have to wonder what is wrong. We do have some days with little to no wind, but it is much more common to have a steady breeze blowing at least 20 mph.

The big draw back of the ever changing weather is the storms. We get lots of severe weather, thunderstorms, hail, and the occasional tornado. We always hope there won't be one, but we get a tornado warning with almost every storm we get. Thankfully we don't always get a tornado.

Today I am going to enjoy the beautiful cool weather. I am going to take advantage of having the windows open and go for a nice walk. I may even play outside with the boys and work in the garden if the baby lets me. Enjoy your weather where ever you may be.

The Good Sport

A shame it was about old Bert, they said,
A drinking man; a sport; a thoroughbred.
He'd never mean ill to beast or man or mind,
And seldom would utter a word unkind.

Forget, meanwhile, less-then-perfect Bert
Libido pert; ego-girted Bert
Attractive flirt; oh happy Bert.
Voracious dilettante; ah shallow Bert.

When Bert decided on a taste of grog
He'd shock the bar with cronies' eyes agog
He'd quaff his beer making gin a double-chaser
A glass of sherry made an ample bracer.

Fired with fuel, instead of heading home,
The wayward ways of wine tempt him to roam
The suburbs seeking fun, games and kisses
Carefree coupling robbed from married misses.

Unwise, he fails to see that trouble's brewing
His wife ignores his none-too-secret wooing
She's other interests sank while hubby drank
Unwitting, Bert was free to hanky-pank.

But, matrons flirty meet at eight-thirty,
And plan a trap to humble Bertie,
To catch him liquored and quick to bandy
They mean to prove that 'candy is dandy'.

Now Bert, in spite of sophisticated face
Is prudish, tense and straight-of-lace.
The missioner's position's rule of thumb
Is looser once upon some rum.

The party plans to nobble Bertie
To quell his drunken sprees by playing dirty
To catch him late with belly full from drinking
Bed-hopping Bertie seldom stops for thinking.

True to say Bert might never learn
Until he's well and truly burned
He hangs one on 'til pulses roll
Then heads for sunset matinee, still droll.

Stopping dead, he sniffs the air
As nymphs present their bodies bare
Some nude, some rude and dressed exotic
With hairstyles outrageous, makeup exotic.

First hot, then cold and funny, feeling sick
Bert suffers claustrophobia, panics quick;
Seductive ladies sing and belly dance,
Ringed fingers gesture, vulgar stockings prance.

A guild of giggling girls, a touch too tipsy,
Their heat and sweat and scent would scare a gypsy.
Enrapture Bert with wet and loveless kisses
And take his trousers down with loathsome hisses.

He's perfumed and painted and stands half-naked
No place for wowsers intimidated;
The multi-mirrored entrance hall reflected
Defective Bertie, bottom bared, dejected.

He shakes with fear and rage and shamed aghast
He finds his car and sobers up at last;
He races reckless, gray and looking queer
And hurtles off the end of the lofty pier.

'A shame it was about old Bert', they said,
'A drinking man, a sport, a thoroughbred'.

The child who would not be dirty.

My second son loves to get dirty, but to be dirty is another thing. One drop of water on his shirt, one speck of food on his pants, any dirt at all and he needs clean clothes. This makes for an awful lot of laundry. It get to be a challenge to keep him in the same clothes for more than an hour. Heaven forbid he gets water on his shirt. It's water! It will dry!

The last few days the boys have been playing in the mud. The younger one's shirt gets dirty he wants to change. I stopped to it today. Knowing full well he was going to go back out to play in the mud. By the time all was said and done both boys were pretty much covered. The front door was covered from all the splashing in the mud. My car had mud on it. Yes I yelled at the younger child for that one. No scratching Mommy's paint while finger painting my car. The house had also been finger painted in a few places. I can't get too mad at them. I always knew I would be that mom that let her kids get muddy. After all what are bathtubs and washing machines for if kids can't be kids. I think my next door neighbor is glas her child has snece enough to not play in the mud with my children. I can't wait until the baby is old enough to join them. My little girl will be a mud montser too. Oh the joys of being a parent.

Papa's Boy

When my father is home... nobody else exists to my son. I find it to be cute, and very endearing. Of course my dad loves it. I was Nana's girl when I was young, and my brother & sister were mommy's kids. So, Dad never really got the "Daddy's Lil Kiddo" thing. Well, Connor has my dad wrapped firmly around his little fingers. It is always "Papa Doooo Eeeet (think a French Accent on Eeet)" or "Papa hold You? (Hold Me)" or "Papa Game? Monsta Cuck!" If we put Connor's outside shoes on, he'll grab my dad's Sox cap and say "Papa Ouside?" until Papa gives in to the persistent blonde. Dad can be watching the ball game, trying to fix a car, cleaning the pool, or doing other puttering around the house type things and Connor will be right there beside him.

I think it is absolutely the most adorable thing!

I am so jealous!