She Knows My Weaknesses

I swear, A is on a mission to keep me chubby! I just ordered a new swimsuit...one of the most depressing things a woman can do and then I came home today to find this waiting for me in the kitchen.

Damn, damn, damn her! 
(And yes, you know damn well I ate them too.)

Tag, I'm It!

Kym over at The Cuteness of Curiosity tagged me for this one. Thanks Kym.


The Rules:
* Thank the person who tagged you.
* Share 7 random facts about yourself.
* Tag a few of your favorite bloggers and let them know.


So let me see what I can come up with for this one. Hmmmm.


1. I love the beach and can hang out there all day but I don't like swimming in the ocean/lake/river. I hate the fact I can't see what's down there. If something in that water touches me...ugh! I imagine whatever it is resembles this and I can practically walk on water to get outta there!

On that same note, I will jump out of an airplane at 15,000 feet but the idea of scuba diving or even snorkeling out in open water freaks me out. I guess I've seen Jaws too many times. I will not consider a submersible either.

2. I'm addicted to Stride gum (sweet peppermint is my fav), Excedrin, purses and shoes, especially flip-flops.

3. I don't remember ever really wanting children. Through my 20s and into my 30s I kept waiting to see if that "need" would ever emerge. It never has and I now think I was born lacking that in my genetics. 

4. I hate carrots and celery but love spinach and brussel sprouts. Makes absolutely no sense, I know. 

5. I am almost always running late...for work, appointments and life in general. I always say I'll be late to my own funeral. My lateness is usually exaggerated by the fact I stop to catch cats in the ditch or take turtles across the road. A on the other hand is always early so if we are going somewhere together, we balance each other out.


6. I NEVER leave the house without make up. I'm not saying I'm completely done up but I at least have few swipes of mineral foundation and mascara at the bare minimum.

7. I'm afraid of the dark and always have a nightlight. It used to bother A but now even when we stay at a hotel on in the RV, she always leaves the bathroom light on with the door cracked so I will be comfortable.


So I'm breaking the rules (again) and not tagging anyone but would love to read 7 Facts about any one of you. 

This And That and Some Other Stuff Too

For the last couple weeks A and I have been trying to get our butts in gear for a 5K. One of the women I work with did it last spring and afterwards she was talking about how we should do it as an office this year. At the time I said yes and then forgot. She didn't and 2 weeks ago pulled out the paperwork. Holy shit, we've only got 6 weeks (down to 4 weeks now)! Really it's only 3.10685596 miles (I had to look it up) but well I'm just not a runner. I've always believed that the only running I should do is for my life. Since I live kind of low key, that opportunity has never presented itself. I'm more of a speed walking kind of gal. I imagine I'll do a combination of walking and jogging since I'm not in it to beat any certain time; just to finish before time is up. That means I may coast in at 44 mins and 59 sec but damn I will be finished in time and then we're off for Bloody Mary's.

Whenever I think of running, I start feeling that sharp knife pain in my side and I remember those horrible days in gym class when you had to do laps around the football field. I tried every suggestion to stop from cramping but nothing ever worked. It was a miserable experience and then afterwards I would be forced to go back to class and take a math test or give an oral report. My god, I just realized I'm still traumatized.

The weather is finally improving and just this week the snow is finally gone from my yard and most of the world around us. Still there are no real signs of life out there yet but maybe I saw some buds on the trees. This means we have finally started taking LuLu out into the yard, after we catch her of course. 

She's more comfortable but still a work in progress. She will come take food from our hands and lick peanut butter off our fingers. She scratches at my leg when I'm getting her dinner ready. Every few approaches she may let us scratch under her chin or behind her ear for maybe 5 seconds and then she's off again. Catching her means cornering her and I have tried to limit that as much as possible. I see her watching the others get attention and can tell she wants to join in; 9.5 weeks in and only a little progress. I still have hope since it took nearly 8 months before I could touch Orville without catching him.


Around here life with 8 dogs is still kind of a zoo. It has been wonderful to be able to just leave the back door open when we're home and let the crew wander in/out as much as they want. It really is like living in a house with 8 toddlers and no matter how much we try to dog-proof the house, they find things to get into. I mean look at this book. It's been on that spot on the book shelf for months and just today they decided to rearrange the cover. I didn't find all the pieces so I can only assume someone ingested it.

Plus it doesn't help that we bring home exotic new things like a pineapple.

Look at Cassie take that thing down. We watched for awhile and then I asked A if pineapple on the list as being poisonous to dogs. We couldn't remember so took it away just in case.

My little earless cat Tippy watches it all with disgust. I know she misses the days when there were no dirty smelly dogs in her house.

We used that pineapple to make my "This Shit is Gonna Kill Ya" Pineapple Upside Down Cake. Made with two sticks of butter (the real stuff) and topped with a mound of real homemade whipped cream (why try to save calories now) and you can feel your arteries forming a new layer of plaque. 

Saturday A and I went to check out a tattoo artist and made a little side trip to check out the Minnesota River. It's high and there is flooding but it's in the places that it usually flood every year.

In the past they have closed this bridge when the water was too high. Even with all the heavy flooding predictions this year, it's not even close. We wandered along the riverbank and around the municipal campground and as we walked through the playground and back to the car I noticed this piece of paper on the ground. I thought it looked old and flipped it over with the toe of my shoe.

It's army postmarked December 23, 1943 and addressed to Iowa. Such an interesting find and I couldn't believe it wasn't wet, wrinkled or damaged in any way. 

Saturday night we stopped to visit with our friends Faye and Jeff. He had an Elvis show in the town where I work. We had a lot to catch up on since they had just returned from Hawaii a few days prior. This bar isn't my favorite place to go since 90% of the people in there are patients at my clinic. I don't want to talk to people about work or their dental problems and I really want to maintain some professional distance. That means I sit and quietly visit and hope people don't approach me. Even going to the bathroom can be a gamble since I've been cornered in there a few times by people pulling at their cheek and saying "Take a look at this." Ugh!!!

I did have an unexpected encounter with an old friend that I haven't seen or talked to in nearly eight years. We had a falling out; we were both mad and hurt. A and I chose to extract ourselves from the high-drama situation and have kept a distance since. The two of us visited and laughed and after a short time it was like no time had passed at all. I've been "over it" for a long time already but it was still nice to finally put those things fully to rest.

A has been wanting to get another tattoo and I'm planning one for my birthday this year. We had heard good things about this artist and stopped in to check out his work. We didn't have time Saturday but A made an appointment this afternoon and came home with fresh ink on her right shoulder. Isn't it sweet how she sacrifices her body to test things out for me? :)

I took this picture as soon as she came home and I'm glad I did because shortly after it was red and swollen. This is a car decal that A picked up in Key West during one of our trips. We took a photo and she took it in and he did it all freehand. He did an awesome job and I'm getting excited to have him do my first tattoo in just a few weeks. 

So the RV comes out of storage next weekend. Yippee! 

When we first brought it home, we considered doing some painting inside to lighten it up a bit. It's brown paneling and so dark but then we thought we would just keep the retro feel of it. That was until I came across these pictures on an RV blog (Kate and Terry-Travels in Cholula Red).  A really thinks we should do some variation of this paint job.

Love it or hate it? Should we consider doing something like this? 

Maybe I'm Just Feeling Squirrelly

But something about this picture just made me giggle.

Happy Wednesday!

This one goes to the dogs.

Finally! 
We had a beautiful weekend. There are the faint signs of spring around and even though it was still cool you hardly noticed with all that glorious sunshine. We made it outside to go walking and maybe I'll be ready for the 5K we're doing in 6 weeks. I've fallen behind in my walking/jogging the last few weeks considering both A and I have been under a funk; she had a nasty upper respiratory and I've just been in a blue mood. 


We started the weekend by celebrating Sia's 10th birthday. I know, I know....we baked a cake and added candles for a dog but what the hell, 10 years is a milestone for a little dog. She must be up around 50 in human years. Somewhere I have a conversion chart for dog to human years but I don't feel like finding it right now so I'm just estimating. No matter what, she's my baby girl and she and the others thoroughly enjoyed their cake.  

No frosting but they did get Reddi-Whip. I could apologize for my appearance in these pictures but fuck it! I just came home from an extremely long Friday and was in no mood to try to look presentable.


Friday Gizzy's doggy stroller arrived and we strapped in him for a test drive. With his bad knees he just can't walk as far as he used to. He was a little nervous at first but I think he will enjoy it and A gets to be the one shamed by pushing a dog in a stroller. 

Saturday we had to go do the dreaded grocery shopping. Ugh! There are few things I hate more. A buys me Starbucks and tries to keep me entertained and I appreciate all her efforts. At one point we were in the meat department and I spotted a middle-aged woman with really long hair. You know, the kind that is past their butt, straight and with ragged split ends. Whenever I see hair like that, I have an incredible urge to take the scissors to it. So much so that last year I almost ran a woman down in the Memphis airport to give her $12 and send her to Great Clips. A spotted the hair at the same time and muttered that it "would make a nice nest for 2 kangaroo rats". I immediately started to giggle and the more I did the funnier it got. We received a few odd looks from other shoppers. I mean we are two adults laughing so hard we have tears while standing next to the poultry. I know it was one of those things where you just had to be there and maybe it was all the caffeine and sugar in my vanilla latte but it's those little moments spent with someone you love intensely, who loves you back just the same that are so special. In situations like these, A almost always leans in and tells me how happy she is that at least I find her funny. Yeah, she makes me laugh like no one else.


The grocery store we frequent has a large (and over-priced) floral department and we usually cruise through to check things out. Over the years we've found some cute planters there that we have been able to closely replicate on the cheap. This day I found these beautiful blue orchids at an inflated price. 

I immediately thought of Bethany and how much she would appreciate these. Although I found them stunning, I can just picture one of the dogs running through the house with those blue petals in their mouth. Lets just say it wouldn't end well.


So we have just about 2 months until we go on our first "big" RV trip and Nipples to the Wind is still stuck in storage. It's too wet and muddy to drive it out of the storage shed and we really don't want to get that thing stuck in our friend's yard. Still we're getting anxious because we still need to un-winterize it, change the oil, get new wheels and tires installed and most importantly install a new stereo and speakers. I'm trying to be patient but just don't want to feel rushed/stressed trying to get things done on a deadline. 
Patience....that's what I must keep chanting to myself. Happy Monday.

I've Got Nothing

I was home all day. I had a list of things I wanted to get done today but got no where. I started several blog posts but just wasn't feeling it. Pretty much the only thing I did accomplish was purse shopping online. I was weak and it was so bright, shiny and spring-like that I just couldn't resist.
Otherwise not much going on around here; no stories to tell and no interesting pictures to post. Today I received a link to this photo display so I'm sharing it. We've all seen photographs like these in black and white but they are even more incredible in color.

Rare Color Photographs of America Before WWII

Getting Facebook Bitchy

And I don't give a fuck who I piss off either.

My dear friend Ash (who was married last year in Jamaica) is expecting her first baby in June. What I love about Ash is that she's a smart, tell-it-like-it-is, no bullshit kind of person. I know she's going to be that kind of parent too. But like all first time mothers (I imagine), she's nervous and questioning and finding her way.

Anyway, today on Facebook she posted pictures of her nursery. Two simple pictures started a fire-storm of criticism. Someone started by asking if it was or was not okay to have bumpers on the crib and then it went on and on from there. Every know-it-all on FB had to throw in their opinion but one bitch really pissed me off. She started out talking about how she works for the state and has investigated many SIDS deaths (her FB profile says she's a secretary for the state) and that you only do things this way and lay your baby that way and NEVER take your baby in bed with you and that's what's best because those are the laws for every daycare in the state, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Maybe I'm just feeling bitchy tonight but it just pissed me off. I'm so annoyed with the fact that some people think that just because a woman is pregnant, she's suddenly public property. Pregnant and new mothers can be so vulnerable because they are inexperienced and anxious. Then you have people who come into the situation and feed into those anxieties. So some women end up constantly worrying about doing something wrong instead of following their instincts and enjoying the experience. I made some smart ass comment on FB about how I don't know how women have managed to have babies since the beginning of time without the "help" of government regulations. And that Adam and Eve are lucky they made it through before someone made all the rules

Then I sent Ash a message to follow her instincts. I know she's going to be a great mommy. And I love her response to the bitch. It went something like; as parents we all want the best for our children and I have read the recommendations and they keep changing every year. These are guidelines and the ultimate decisions are made by the parents based on the needs of their child. You tell'em Ash!