Briefly.....

We are heading out today to go on vacation with the Sh1ts and Giggles crew. We are looking forward to hanging out with my folks, aunt & uncle, brother, son and g-friend. On Sunday we will be entertaining the hubs family. He's not thrilled either...trust me. He loves seeing them but... We don't go down south too often. We usually end up catching grief from his siblings about WHY we don't drive over to see them or they don't have time or they made other plans. It really bothers me how they treat him. My family is pretty close, we speak our minds, we fight and we make up. That's not the case on his side. They tend to hold grudges or they sometimes act like we live in a foreign country. Not telling us if something happens in the family or acting like "we already knew". Anyway, we will do the family thing then they head back home, which is within a few miles of where we are camping, which is within a few miles of where our folks live...get the picture. We will get kudos for being precious and yadada.

On a happier note, I have no idea exactly how I did it but I dropped another 5 lbs. this week. I am now at 143. Wasn't trying, husband didn't want me losing anymore 148 was fine with him.

Bi-polar is pissed cause I'm leaving at noon. Only about 2 hours before I normally get off. Said I take every Friday before a holiday off. So, the hubs got pissy because he has off & we could have left 1st thing. Anyway, we checked calendar. No I haven't for the last 2 years. I had 1 Fri. All the others got off normal time, picked up SIL and we drive to campgrounds! Crazy Bi-polar bitch. She just wanted another "feel sorry for me pity party" from the bosses wife. The husband wanted me to say something but why?

Totally loved g-sons arts & crafts on his head using scissors. Love his little brush cut just as much. His mom & dad are kidding themselves if they think this is his last "adventure". I can't find it now, but I will post an e-mail that was titled
"A mother of boys" It described things these 3 boys did. Went something like:
"You can't tie your brother to the fan to make him fly like Superman", "Putting eggs in the dryer doesn't scramble & cook at the same time".
Hopefully I will have saved it somewhere. I laugh my ass off each time g-son does something I think of that "info sheet".

Anyway, I'm getting ready to head out, everyone have a safe and happy Labor Day Weekend!

For my daughter -

I was e-mailed this today and I loved it. I have called my folks and said "where you guys been, I've called four times?" They are retired and not mentally deficient so I expect they can handle themselves. LOL I have also been the recipient of a call like that from my daughter. So as her 32nd birthday approaches this is for her because, she has 4 young'uns, I liked it and most of all it will give me 2 posts this week and keep me "safe" from the "anonymous" comment person:

WORRY

Is there a magic cutoff period when
offspring become accountable for their own
actions? Is there a wonderful moment when
parents can become detached spectators in
the lives of their children and shrug, "It's
their life," and feel nothing?

When I was in my twenties, I stood in a hospital
corridor waiting for doctors to put a few
stitches in my son's head. I asked, "When do
you stop worrying?" The nurse said,
"When they get out of the accident stage." My
mother just smiled faintly and said nothing.

When I was in my thirties, I sat on a little
chair in a classroom and heard how one of my
children talked incessantly, disrupted the class,
and was headed for a career making
license plates. As if to read my mind , a teacher
said, "Don't worry, they all go through
this stage and then you can sit back, relax and
enjoy them." My mother just smiled
faintly and said nothing.


When I was in my forties, I spent a lifetime
waiting for the phone to ring, the cars to come
home, the front door t o open. A friend said,
"They're trying to find themselves. Don't worry,
in a few years, you can stop worrying. They'll be
adults." My mother just smiled faintly
and said nothing.

By the time I was 50, I was sick & tired of being
vulnerable. I was still worrying over my
children, but there was a new wrinkle. There
was nothing I could do about it. My
mother just smiled faintly and said nothing. I
continued to anguish over their failures, be
tormented by their frustrations and absorbed in
their disappointments.

My friends said that when my kids got married I
could stop worrying and lead my own
life. I wanted to believe that, but I was
haunted by my mother's warm smile and her
occasional, "You look pale. Are you a all right?
Call me the minute you get home. Are
you depressed about something?"

Can it be that parents are sentenced to a
lifetime of worry? Is concern for one another
handed down like a torch to blaze the trail of
human frailties and the fears of the
unknown? Is concern a curse or is it a virtue
that elevates us to the highest form of life?

One of my children became quite irritable
recently, saying to me, "Where were you? I've
been calling for 3 days, and no one answered I was worried."
I smiled a warm smile.
The torch has been passed.

I have a life....well sorta

Want to know what I did this weekend? I baked 3 new cake/muffin recipes and took 2 showers. I sat in my recliner and watched the sci-fi channel for 2 days. I made meatloaf, smashed 'tatoes and green beans for dinner Sat. and Steak, squash, salad and baked potato tonight.
Do I have a life or what?
Anyway, thought I would post these recipes, they came out really well. They were all experiments and thank god I have a wonderful husband and great neighbors who are totally honest whenever I experiment on them. Sometimes I wonder why they are still my friends after some of the stuff I've fed them. So here goes, they are extremely easy and low fat!

Banana Nut Muffins:
1 Box Angel Food Cake (Not store brand, use NAME brand)
4 Bananas smashed (Squeeze in their skin its easier to smash)
1 Cup water
Crushed Nuts, about 2 handfuls and I used Walnuts
2 Muffin tins & the little paper cupcake things if your like me and hate cleaning muffin tins, if not be sure and PAM them.

Mix bananas and water in mixer until smooth as possible, add cake mix, mix.
Batter will be thin and frothy, that's OK. Stir in nuts
Fill muffin tins all the way to the top.
Bake at 350 for 14 min. (We all know our ovens so check 'em if you need to.)
Great for breakfast and swings by the kitchen counter. About 35-40 calories per

Cherry Angels
1 box Angel Food Cake
1 1/4 Cup Water
1 Can Lite Cherry pie filling
Pour Cherries in lightly PAMed 9x12 pan
Sprinkle Cake mix evenly over Cherries
Pour water slowly over cake mix
DO NOT STIR
Cover with aluminum foil bake at 350 20-25 min
Uncover and bake about 15 more
Tada!!
You can also use Chocolate Devils Food cake and instead of water use 12oz (1 can) Pepsi Diet Wild Cherry soda. Build it the exact same way, even cook time.

Baked Smashed 'Tatoes & Gravy
Dice then boil enough potatoes for your family
Drain and set for about 5 min. so the water is out of 'tatoes
**Mash with butter, LF sour cream, softened reduced fat Cream cheese-1/2 to whole 8oz package, salt & pepper, bacon bits.
Place in lightly PAMed casserole or 9x12 pan Depends on how big your family is.
Make own gravy or pour over Heinz LF Beef gravy bake about 18-20 minutes @ 350.
My husband loved this "new" version of smashed and gravy.
**I usually use 8oz or so of Sour Cream. You want it creamy like smashed but not runny and you don't want to taste all sour cream. How much truly depends on how much smashed 'tatoes your making. But, you really won't need more than a 80z pkg cream cheese.

On another note has anyone been watching Big Brother 8? If you have, how many more times do you think AMBER is going to CRY before the season finale? And how about good 'ol JEN! Jeez took them long enough to get rid of her. Thought her and Dirty Dick were going to mud wrestle the other night. This one has got to be the craziest yet! I definitely would not want to be caught in a survival situation with any of this group.
See I told you I had a life!!!

Vicious, Vicious blooger

OK, my last post was August 10th. I didn't notify everyone that I had been very busy and my husband has his work laptop hooked to my modem and I can't sign in to any personal stuff because it will "flag" him then he would get a nasty e-mail: "this is not an acceptable..." from his job with a warning.
This could then lead to him being fired if they decide he hasn't been ambivalent enough staying away from all those "nasty blogs" I read. If that happens I have to sell my 4x4 Dodge truck, my 5th wheel camper, quit getting my eyebrows waxed, my hair trimmed, no more pedicures, manicures and fishing trips. Are you guys seeing where this is going?
I am begging everyone's forgiveness. Why, because there are vicious, vicious folks out there. You might know the blogger...sh1tsandgiggles. OOOOO heartless. She has my home phone and she comments on my page. Lord the things she says. "Ma, you gonna post again this year?" "Are you waiting for people to beg you to post? Cause they won't, your not that good and they like me better." LOL

I really wanted to wait until I could get to my computer so I could add some really great pictures of the g-kids and some other things. But, instead I have been pushed into using my work computer and posting while bi-polar is at lunch. I promise when the husband is off vacation and takes his laptop back to its own modem I will then be able to at least post on a regular basis. In the meantime please again forgive me for negligent posting.
On another quick note to a special blogger out there. My husband read your EMT posts and got so engrossed that he read several. He loves it! I have now left up Weathers site, and Burg, I can't wait till he reads some of these also.

Too many knobs, buttons and switches

Oh, this should be a good post. I'm using a laptop at my sons' house. So far I have chased this damn "arrow" all over the keyboard. I can't get the hang of just sliding my finger around this little tiny square while ducking a crazy cat that likes me but has decided I am swatting material. Now I know how a fly feels! Anyway back to this laptop. I spent at least 4 minutes looking for the backspace key, the enter key and how to scroll up and down without chasing this damn arrow all over the screen just to land on another tiny button/arrow to scroll. I'm not illiterate on computers but I like things I can read and see. That's why I don't own a camera phone or a laptop. Too many buttons! To the husband, buttons and knobs are a "wet dream".

I have a vacuum that you just turn on and vacuums, a stove that you TURN on and tada it cooks. If I had it my way I would have wind up windows in my truck, the dimmer switch would be a button on the floor that you just stepped on and you got brights or lows. Some of you have no idea what I'm talking about but, back in "the day" that's where the dimmer switch was. I like things that do exactly what they are suppose to.

I don't want a toothbrush that turns into a hair brush for "easy travel". I want a blender to blend and a mixer to mix. I want ONE remote for the TV!!!!! I have 3! 1 to turn it on, find a station etc, 1 to adjust and turn on the surround sound and 1 to work the DVD player!

My husbands car has buttons for everything! The other day I went to hit the blinker and suddenly the windshield wipers turned on. I try to find which side of the steering wheel the wipers were on and I hit the damn horn which caused the guy in front of me to flip me off. Mean while the wipers are slamming the dry windshield, I still can't find the blinker and now I'm suddenly on "cruise" control, which is beeping because you can't turn on cruise when the vehicle is sitting still and the car thinks I'm stupid so its beeping at me incessantly to let me know "dumb ass, dumb ass" over and over again!
At this point I just want to get out of the car, call the husband on my "hit the send button" cell phone and tell him to come get his "possessed" car. Finally, I hit something on the right side of the steering column and the wipers were off. The cruise beeper got tired of calling me "dumb ass" and shut its' self off. The light went green and I turned to go home so I could sit in my own recliner and hit three buttons for the TV and find out how many more DNA tests the "Who's my baby's daddy" show is doing today. The simple life? Where did it go?

Boys will be boys and other snippets of life

I have noticed that with some parents of boy(s)they tend to really "want" that boy to be "a boy". Trucks, cars, army men, cowboys and Indians, dinosaurs, hunting, fishing, sports and rough and tumble, you get the picture. My grandson has three sisters all of them are a combination of "down and dirty, yet jewelry and nail polish" so he gets what I consider the best of both worlds. He loves to hunt and fish and play army and Power Rangers and DOLLS! Yep, you heard me dolls.
I kept my grandson and g-daughter #2 last weekend so the folks could go out of town. In a moment of weakness I let g-sons best friend Cam and his br. Tye spend the night. Cam & g-son will play for hours and g-daughter & Tye will play for hours. Anyway, when Tye & Cams' folks came on Sunday morning g-son & Cam were in a rousing game of "House". They both had babies, they had a house behind the bar on the back porch and they were "going to the grocery" with their babies. The conversation went something like this:
G-son: Cam, we have to go to the grocery store.
Cam: What are we going to buy? Salad?
G-son: Yeah, that's helfy (healthy) for us.
Cam: And nuts too.
G-son: Yeah.
Cam: What are you going to drive?
G-son: Want to take the 4-wheel drive truck?
Cam: Yeah.
Now the 4-wheel drive truck was my hallway where they had put 4 pillows.
Cam: You can drive to the grocery and I will drive home.
G-son: OK, put the babies in there car seat. (The babies were "heavy baby" (I'll explain soon) and a stuffed Tigger)
What we got so tickled over was the mix of playing house and the 4 wheel drive truck. How cool was that? Cam and Tye's' Mom was "yeah, its good for them". I then chimed in with "but, their taking the 4 wheel drive to the grocery". Pop was "OK" with it, but you could just feel a little tinge of tostesterone in the air. Pop is a wonderful guy, but he is also "the man" just like Son in law who probably wouldn't have taken the whole thing real well, but would have dealt with it quietly until he got home and would have promptly taken g-son out to chop wood or some other man thing ".LOL
Heavy baby:
When g-son was about 2 my boss took his son to the same in home daycare g-son was at. G-son loved Bryce. Who was crawling about this time and very shy, but he loved g-son. G-son would try to carry him or pick him up and tell the sitter "This my heavy baby". This went on for about a year and the daycare closed. The boys have not seen each other since. When g-son would come to my house he would always ask about his "heavy baby" and where he was etc. Then one day he found in the bottom of the toy box g-daughter #1's old baby. This was a big ol' baby that had a stuffed body and plastic arms and legs and head. Every time he came over he went and got "heavy baby". He ate dinner with it, sat it by his cars and played. Needless to say his pops wasn't real thrilled about it but as long as "heavy baby" stayed at my house and play involved cars and trucks too we didn't have any issues. G-son is now four and he STILL drags out "heavy baby". "Gamma, where you put my "heavy baby"? After Cam & Tye left Sunday this was what g-son did:

So let boys play and girls play its all good, when they are using their imaginations.
God bless "Heavy Baby".
Now for a snippet:
How come if you take 15 shirts off hangers and wear them all week, do laundry and go to hang up your shirts you only have 5 hangers? Are they hanging out with the "other sock"? You know the one that goes in the machine but never comes out.
How come whenever I go to the bathroom at work there is never any toilet paper on the roll? Which brings me to "what did bi-polar do since she was the last one in there?"
How come in Florida when it rains everyone slows down to 25 in a 50 zone if most of our population is from the north where it snows?
If when your standing outside there are no flies flying around, but as soon as you bring out a sandwich there are a bazillion?
Just curious.
Now I'm going to take my "heavy baby" and go to bed....

2nd hand Rose

OK, if you love to shop consignment shops raise your hand...OOOO. I LOVE consignment shops..nice ones. I abhor spending money on clothes. I can go to Lowe's and drop a $100 bucks and not bat an eye lash or a plant nursery...No issues. My husband thinks its tacky and tells me "Grammice I can afford for you to buy "decent" shorts/jeans etc. why go there?" Because, I can buy 4 "decent" pairs of shorts, blouses and some kind of something that catches my eye and spend less than $60! Also, I go to a very nice, very clean repeat shop.
I can pick up jeans for winter that someone else spent $70-100 on, made them comfortable and I pay $6-10 and don't have to deal with the "break-in" period. I have bought DKNY, Hilfiger, Talbots etc jeans & paid $8.! Now beat that. Kids clothes are cute, adorable and expensive between birth and 5, Hallelujah Consignment shop!!! Half the time they grow so fast they don't even get to wear some of their new clothes.
Don't get me wrong, Occasionally I will buy clothes at a store. But I have my limits. For a special to-do at my husbands' office last year we were told to wear semi-formal. OK, now I had to go to the store. I wear jeans, shorts, t-shirts to work, formal or dressy just doesn't work for me. Anyway, husband made me go to dept. store. Told him I wasn't gonna spend a fortune, maybe $30. He laughed told me to buy something decent AND shoes or he would send my neighbor with me & give her the check. Yeehaw. I took daughter, I bought a very nice calf length, chocolate colored w/lace layover and scalloped hem dress, brownish gold "hooker heels" at JC Penney for $35! The dress was $125 marked to 75% off & another 10% for weekend Sat. before noon sale. Shoes were on clearance for $6. Damn I'm good. Anyway, get home husband loves the outfit says I'm a hottie.

Monday, he goes to work, he gets an e-mail from the "Dinner coordinator":
"We have changed the dress code to dressy-casual for the Honors Dinner."
He didn't want to come home with that message, he really didn't want to tell me period let alone in person! When he did call, after I got home, my response was exactly what he thought after 28yrs together.

"WTF! Who's' brilliant F*&^&%# idea was this? Less than a week before the dinner! Its' Probably that stupid Bitch ###* she loves to shop and needs another outfit! AND WTF is "Dressy-casual" I'm wearing jeans & t-shirt, stupid asses."

Despite the rant which I'm sure he held the phone away from his ear he never said a word. Thank goodness I had been to "my consignment" shop and had just bought the cutest pair of DKNY jeans at top dollar $10.87. But I needed a nice blouse, back to the consignment shop. A Burgundy silk blouse with poofy sleeves. $3.25!!!
We went to the "Dressy-casual (held in a barn by the way) Honors Dinner" Everyone kept complimenting me on that "beautiful" blouse. Each time I just looked at husband. HA!HA! I win.

OK, this isn't the exact post I was going to do.....but I went to the consignment shop last night and bought 3 shorts, 6 shirts (2 for husband LOL) and this totally cool wrought iron leaf thing that was just the right style for over my french doors in the family room in a spot for 5 years I've been trying to put something. Paid $8. The husband even said it was nice.
So head to the consignment shop, buy cool stuff, then head home and put all that money you saved into something you really want or want to do, like go to Lowe's!