Spoken Between True Friends

The girls on my street are going out for dinner and drinks tonight, while the guys stay home and cook moose steaks and drink beer. Most of our gatherings are couples events, but once in a while we go our separate ways and let loose a little bit. I've been looking forward to tonight - a chance to leave work and cleaning and kids and just relax in the company of good girlfriends.

Good girlfriends. Tonight's outing got me thinking about the different types of friends I have in my life. I have you all, my blogging buddies who know more about me than most of my neighbors because I've let you into my sick little mind. I have childhood friends that keep in touch only out of respect for the amount of years we put in when we were growing up. Had we met later in life, I doubt we'd be close. I have my real life friends that I laugh with and drink with and share fun and work alike. But nothing compares to the bond between true friends. A true friend to me is someone you feel completely comfortable around, someone you can tell anything to without fear of being judged and a true friend is someone who will tell you what you need to hear.

I have three such friends.

Clew, my long distance best friend is my compass and support. I don't remember not knowing her. We've seen each other through heartache and happiness, silliness and fights. I run to the computer to tell her about people who've pissed me off, stupid things I've done and when I need advice on how to keep myself out of the nut house. Even though she is geographically distant, she is never far from my heart.

Then there is Molly. She is my neighbor and my best, real life accessible friend. I can call her day or night and she's always there for me. She is my drinking buddy and my confidante. We've shared moments of laughter when neither could stand up, held each other's hair to puke, held a nervous hand at the hospital, and have racked up countless hours of conversation.

Sherries friendship goes beyond the realm of friends. She knows EVERYTHING about me and I her. No matter what happens in each of our lives, even when we don't talk for months, we will always be there for each other, our bond is deeper than blood.

Each of these friends hold a special place in my life and I couldn't live happily without either of them. The following are conversational tidbits between us that let's me know for certain, we are true friends.

CONVERSATIONS WITH CLEW:

Clew: Man I gotta fart!
Me: letting one rip
Both: hysterical laughter

**********************

Me: What do you think of these colors together?
Clew: cocks head back slightly and raises an eyebrow You might want to rethink them?
Me: Yeah?
Clew: looking side to side Unless you want to look my grandmother's afghan.

CONVERSATIONS WITH MOLLY:

Me: I hope I don't pass out
Molly: If you pass out, I'm having them pierce your nipples too!

**********************

Molly: Hello parking lot pavers! flirting with a couple guys as she's getting into the car
Me: Get in the car you whore.

**********************

At a clothing store trying on this cute little brown pair of cotton gouchos.
Me: Ready, I'm coming out.
Molly: laughter ~ the kind that you try to stifle and it ends up rushing between your teeth causing spit to be sprayed everywhere.
Me: shutting the door ~ Thanks.
Molly: still laughing
Me: Ok, you can stop already. I'm taking them off.
Molly: laughing ~ I can't help it. You look like a clown.

And this is how I know they are my true friends. Not just the kind that say, "you can call me anytime". The ones that have proved their loyalty and their love to me over and over again. Who could ask for better friends?

The Bumblebee

Aerodynamically, the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn't know this so he goes on flying anyway. ~Mary Kay Ash

Like every child, I began my life as the bumblebee. Never questioning my limits. Never giving impossiblity a second thought, certain that I could achieve all my wild dreams.

As child turned teenager, social acceptance taught me to doubt the very foundation of ideas that made me unique. She taught me that I had to make others happy even if it meant not being true to myself. She showed me that my fragile wings shouldn't be able to carry my awkward body.

Years of believing these notions faded to reluctant acceptance that I sold myself short. I killed the bumblebee without ever knowing the beauty of that blissful ignorance; before I could cement that concept into my personality; before I was able to arrive at my full potential.

Co Co Muk

I was worried that my baby would never talk. His first words were "all gone" spoken in perfect English and "det dow" for get down. Those are the only two phrases he said for seven months. At 18 months he has yet to look at me and say "mama", but he'll pull on the handle of the refrigerator and yell "co co muk" when he want's his chocolate milk.

I reinforce by asking, "Do you want your cocoa milk?" which sends the dog into a hysterical frenzy. He comes from anywhere he is in the house with a high pitched wine, runs past the refrigerator, (Drew yells "DET DOW!") stops by the back door and shakes uncontrollably for like ten minutes. Meanwhile the hair is leaping out of his body and piling up on the floor in black drifts.

I had to shave him. Not bald or anything, but his fur is now only 1/4" long. He's sporting stripes up his back from the clippers. The other dogs in the neighborhood are pointing and laughing all because Drew needs his co co muk.

Cue Big Top Music

Bump-ba-da-da-da-da-dump-de-da-da-bump

Yeah.

This is the kind of circus-ry that goes on in our household. I was playing this game with the little one...

You know, when you balance them on your feet and they pretend they are an airplane. He was having fun until the 14 year old thought she should get a turn.

Check him out in the back ground waiting for another go at it. Once she was up, it tickled her tummy and she started wriggling around until she collapsed on me busting my nose. It's not really broke, but it sure hurt like it was. I hate that feeling ~ the eyes water, the nose runs and you're certain it's blood and then you have a dull headache the rest of the night.

Damn kids.

Big Dudee Roo and the Raptors

Friday night was my oldest son's big debut with his band Big Dudee Roo and the Raptors. Steve is a self-taught guitar player and while I knew he was a good player, I had no idea their band would be so good. Or that they'd all be that comfortable up on stage. They performed two songs at the talent show, "Throw Your Hatred Down" by Neil Young, and "My Generation" by The Who. Their next gig is at Summerfest where they will play in the afternoon. They didn't make the night slot, but for an up and coming band, I think that's pretty good.

This is Steve playing his solo. My daughter took it and it's blurry, but it's the only one I've got.

And me and Emily ~ the proud groupies.

Captain Crash and the Beauty Queen from Mars

I was confronted with a rather awkward incident this afternoon.

Let me set the scene.

In an impulsive decision to descend on my house in a freakish cleaning frenzy, I tossed a load of whites into the washer before tackling my acres of hardwood flooring. Because I was wearing some white capris that I wanted washed, I pealed those off and threw them in with the mix. I proceeded to vacuum the floor in my underwear and blue, Redondo Beach hooded sweatshirt.

The 18 month old who was toddling around with his plastic zoo animals kept handing me shoes. For some reason, he's engrossed with me having my flip flops on. To keep him happy and out from under the vacuum head, I took his offering and slid my right foot into a black flip flop. Shortly after that, he carried a bright pink plastic garden clog to me, which I distractedly placed on my left foot. He stood drinking his apple juice and watching me suck up dog hair, satisfied that my outfit was complete.

I didn't hear the knock at the front door.

My neighborhood is of the variety that people borrow stuff and when they return it, they don't hesitate to knock on your door and if you don't answer, just open it to put whatever they are returning on the inside. One might even venture all the way to the kitchen to place said item on the counter. Being that he heard the vacuum and not thinking that I might not be properly dressed, one of my neighbors steps into my entryway and encounters me in this costume. Stunned would best describe the emotion that entered his face.

At this point, explanations might only complicate the situation further so I turned off the vacuum and shimmied my sweatshirt down as far as it would go before I croaked out a pathetic, "Hi". My emotion wasn't quite embarrassment, but rather resigned disappointment at realizing the only shred of cool I may have had, is forever gone.

I'm back Y'ALL

You know the old running joke about being forced to watch slides of someone else's family vacation, right? Well, contrary to my username, I am naive enough to think that you've all been dying to hear the details of my trip to Myrtle Beach and see the evidence in pictures. Right? Yes? No? Well, if you aren't interested, just scroll to the bottom and comment anyway.

This is me on the way down before the kids started picking fights with each other, before the air conditioning broke and before the dog in the room above us where we stopped for rest barked all night long! You don't want to see the picture of me when we rolled into Myrtle Beach after an additional 12 hours on the road!

Once we were there and had a good night's rest, we were ready to hit the beach. The weather was extraordinary even though the water was freezing, but you can't go all the way to the ocean and not go in at least once. So we learned to boogie board and skim board until Molly got stung by a jelly fish and that was all the ocean I needed.

Since the waves were too rough for the little guy and the jellies were abundant, we decided to bring the ocean to Drew. He loved having his own personal oasis to play in.

No vacation would be complete without a trip to the emergency room. This was a mild emergency but I was unsure of what to do and erred on the side of caution. Just before a dinner show on Thursday night, Drew swallowed something. We have no idea what. About five minutes later, he started squeaking. Just like a dog toy. We weren't even sure it was coming from him at first, but every time we pushed on his tummy....the squeaking sound. Maybe whatever he swallowed was partially lodged in there allowing some air to pass through making the whistling sound. But what if it moved and blocked all air flow? So we headed to Seacoast Emergency, where he was evaluated immediately and then told to wait for an x-ray. Two hours later when we still hadn't been seen, and Drew had fallen asleep and quit squeaking, the hospital had a major trauma come in and we left. I checked with the triage nurse first and she agreed with my assessment, gave me a number to call if we had trouble in the night and sent us off.

Besides lazing on the beach, we saw lots of dinner shows and attractions. The Grand Cirque, which is a spin off of Cirque Du Soleil, Dixie Stampede and The Medieval Times Dinner Show, which were all awesome. We went to the Ripley's Aquarium which was also cool, but not worth the cost, in my opinion.

While dinner at The House of Blues was very tasty and the ambiance was extremely cool, I could've done without the dive-bombing BAT! At the very least, they could have comped our meals for having to dine with such a rabid creature darting and weaving throughout the place. I saw the thing before anyone else did and let out a small scream when it darted from the restroom alcove right at my head. That's when the waiter asked me to be quiet so I wouldn't cause a panic. Yeah, right! You can brink my check now. It wasn't long before the entire restaurant was covering their heads with their linen napkins and giggling, pointing and shrieking. We had much better luck at Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville restaurant. That place was so festive and of course I ordered a "cheeseburger in paradise" and a "frozen concoction to help me hang on".

With all this excitement I bet your wondering how I can successfully pull off an equally climactic ending to this vacation. Right? Well the most interesting event of the week by far was the piercing. Yes friends, me and Molly mixed a big blender of Pina Coladas, snuck away from the families and got our belly buttons pierced.

Even though the sign out front promised a 100% pain free piercing, it was far from pain free. Not terrible, but I did feel a little queasy when it was over. I picked out a clear sparkly ring, but the tech accidentally put the blue one that Molly picked out in me, so I'm sporting a blue ring for the next five weeks and I got my original pick for free.

WARNING****PLIMCO*****WARNING****PLIMCO*****WARNING ~ the following is not a half naked cartoon me, it's the real thing, so if you need to excuse yourself for a few moments, please do so and return after you've composed yourself. After all this blog is rated G. Well, okay, not really, but censor yourself.

DURING

AFTER

Because I'm sure I am boring you with these vacation details and because I'm sick of uploading pictures, I'm ending this recap for now. Besides, I don't want to be home just yet and looking at the pictures only reminds me of how nice it was to not have to work.

So long ~ SMOOCH

No time to blog, just wanted to say goodbye. We're leaving for Myrtle Beach in just a little bit.

Have a great week everyone!

Down on the Farm

And the man at the back said everyone attack, and it turned into a ballroom blitz. This one line of this Krokus song has been in my head for about four days now. It's driving me quite mad! Now that that's out of the way, I can get to the details of the past few days.

I mentioned (complained) that I was going to be insanely busy last week and in fact, the busyness has trickled well into this week too. A few things that I didn't anticipate were thrown into the mix, but for the protection of the innocent, I can't blog about it. Too many people I know have been busted writing about people they know, then spend weeks trying to mend fences. But, it would make for really good blogging fodder if I could write about it.

To steal a phrase from Plimco, the siding job is coming along swimmingly. Well, not really, I've just been wanting to use swimmingly in a sentence. Smirk. Actually, the siding job is killing me. I failed to communicate that this job we are working on is an addition to an old farm house. I also failed to mention that this family has a working pig farm.

All day long, I hear, "uhRHEEE, RHEEE, ungthth" and squealing like someone is getting murdered. I suppose the pigs are cute enough, but they are nothing like the sort EB White speaks of. They are much bigger than I imagined, even being a girl from the country and having some knowledge as to the goings on of farms. These are the fellas that greet me every time I journey to the barn next to their pen to gather more siding material. (Our stuff has to be kept enclosed otherwise the birds will poop all over it - yes, there's that many.)


Too bad pictures can't portray a smell. See that mud that they're standing it. It's not mud. The brown one is the male of the bunch. Know how I know? He was on top of the pink ones all day long!

As if pigs weren't enough, they have two big lumus black labs, Buddy and Bosco that think it's a game when they steal a freshly cut piece of siding and go running around with it in their mouths, head held high, while I chase them threatening to feed them to the pigs. And cows....

Cows, I think, are the most curious of all creatures. Every time I look over at them, this is exactly what I see. They are all staring at me.

Today was a rainy day. Cold rain. I wasn't very happy about that. Not only did I have water dripping on me from the roof, but rain always makes a farm smell worse than it really is. And everything was muddy. When I used to build full time, it was great fun to ask a person who was jumping around holding his thumb and cussing a blue streak, "did you just hit your hand?". Not so fun anymore. Especially when you're the one with the busted thumb. What do you expect when you're on wobbly scaffolding up in the air trying to nail a one and half inch nail.

Here's a close up in case you don't believe it's me.

All right then, that's what I've been doing all week. Now I get to play catch up on everything else that went neglected, including blogging.

Schedule Change

As I mentally lay out my plans for the rest of the week, I realize that there will not be enough minutes in a day for me to accomplish all that I need to, even if I work into the night hours. As Clew likes to say, "I'm going to be busier than a one-legged man in an ass kicking contest."

I've got two mortgages that are in the phase that requirs the most work on my part, a couple from California that wants to see five houses, and about a million errands that need to be done this week. And that's after delegating and juggling certain tasks to a later, more convenient time and date.

Tomorrow, I dust off my hammer and tool belt to start a siding job, which means I have to cancel doctor appointments, tanning appointments and try to fit my excersize, real estate and mortgage appointments into my evenings. And sometime during all this, I have to find time to make six dozen cookies for Friday night's play that my kids are in. Not to mention, cut out of work early that day because I'm in charge of the concession stand.

So with this sudden explosion of work, I doubt I will be around Blogger much until this weekend. I'll be thinking of all of you while I bake, build and bullshit with my clients.

What are your chances of getting lucky today?

According to research, not very good. Only one in ten thousand if you're searching for a four leaf clover.

In honor of St. Patricks Day, I decided to do some research on our little clover friend. I remember searching for them as a child and recall even finding a few. I can't say that I have been overly lucky through out my life though, and now I know why. Apparently, they don't hold any mystical lucky powers, the four-leaf clover is caused either by genetic or environmental factors.

According to legend, each leaf represents something. One leaf is for FAITH, the second for HOPE, the third for LOVE, and the fourth, naturally, for LUCK! In Irish tradition the Shamrock or three-leaf clover represents the Holy Trinity: one leaf for the Father, one for the Son and one for the Holy Spirit. When a Shamrock is found with the fourth leaf, it represents God's Grace.

So, friends, armed with these new found facts, let me save you the time you'd spend in the clover patch looking for a little quadrant of luck and just wish all of you good fortune and good cheer.

Breath Easy

It's hard to tell from this picture, but the Nebulizer was not a welcome ritual in Drew's little world. He screamed the entire seven minutes the treatment took us and for a few minutes after just for good measure.

Even though his dad was the one that held him down, he didn't want anything to do with me.

But after only two days, he will hold the mask in place by himself. I think he knows it helps him feel better and he does act much more like himself now.

I'm guest host over at Joy's blog today while she is unable to be an active participant. This is the second time I've had the honor blog-sitting in my brief blogging exeprience. It's liberating and stressfull all at the same time. I suppose if you don't post for a week or so, your blog goes stale and you lose traffic. So, what should I do while I'm gone for a week in April? Let things fizzle out until I return or turn the reins over to someone else. I'll think about that another day. For now, visit Joy Is Me, introduce yourself and enjoy some of the other guest posters.

Tuesday Scrapbook Layout

Fifteen months

Clew, I finally broke down and did stitching. OY!

Custom Order Apples

Across the street from my pediatrician's office is a grocery store called Big Top Market. As if a trip to the supermarket wasn't already a circus, they had to throw in the monkey music and obnoxious red and white stripes.

I took the baby back to the doctor today because he just hasn't been acting like himself and I overheard this statement announced through the store's PA even over the traffic on the busy street.

"Sandy Knocker! Your apples are ready for pick up in produce."

What? Huh? Who special orders apples?

Incidentally, the kid needs breathing treatments three times a day. So now we have a nebulizer.

100 Things

I was going to save this list for my 100th post (I'm almost there), but that's so unoriginal. Besides, I'm working on something else for my big milestone. So here it is, 100 things you were dying to know about me. (Some of this was written over a month ago and may be old news already.)

1. My name is Michelle. So much for anonymity.
2. I have to think about it for like 2 minutes before I can say anonymity correctly.
3. I want to be a writer.
4. I want my book to be fiction because someone said it was the hardest way to break into the market.
5. I want my book to be on Oprah's Book Club list, because someone told me I could never do it.
6. I used to have a lot more energy than I do now.
7. Losing several babies and dealing with infertility has sapped a lot of that energy.
8. Even though I have a beautiful baby, I can't quite get over the loss of Owen and several other pregnancies.
9. I know more than any person should about reproductive health and infertility issues.
10. If you're having trouble getting pregnant, save your money on a Reproductive Endocrinologist and email me. Seriously!
11. I don't smoke.
12. I don't take any street drugs.
13. I do like to drink. Vodka is my poison.
14. I'm not an alcoholic.
15. I love to scrap book and take pictures. I love telling the story of our lives in this way.
16. However, pictures also hold our feelings frozen in the not so good times.
17. Although I've been pissed at Him, I have a strong faith in God.
18. I suppose that should have been first on this list.
19. I still need to work on my faith.
20. I know how to build houses. My husband and I built 17 - just the two of us.
21. I had really nice arms when I was building.
22. And a really nice tan.
23. Now I have wrinkles and freckles.
24. I still don't look like I'm 37 though.
25. I can't believe I'm old enough to have a child graduating next year.
26. I started this blog because I was bored.
27. I didn't intend for it to be an online communication for my new blogger friends. Not that I'm complaining.
28. I wanted to have an outlet for my creative needs.
29. I don't feel satisfied with that outlet yet.
30. I hate cleaning my house, but I can't function if it isn't clean.
31. I'm learning to live with a mess sometimes.
32. I don't think I'll ever be totally cured. I just like things clean.
33. I'm too critical of people. I wasn't always like that.
34. Being a landlord has shown me a different side of humanity.
35. I'm a real estate agent and a mortgage broker. I hate both jobs.
36. I've been in charge of marketing for Blue Cross and Blue Shield. Not selling policies, but designing posters for other company's employees.
37. I hated that too. The politics involved over shadowed any creativity.
38. I had great benefits working there though.
39. Now, I don't even have prescription coverage.
40. I love to decorate.
41. I love gardening. Never in my life have I felt closer to God than when I was working in my garden.
42. I still haven't figured out why.
43. It's amazing that I can grow anything, because I inevitably kill all my indoor plants.
44. I wish I could travel more.
45. I love the way I feel when I'm on vacation.
46. I get migraine headaches. They suck.
47. Since I had the baby, I haven't had near as many as I used to.
48. I can't do a back handspring any more. I discovered this last summer when I broke the top of my foot trying. At a wedding. Yes, Vodka was involved.
49. I held the school record for highest score in diving. I was ranked 8th in the state at one time.
50. I hated diving.
51. I loved playing softball. I played 3rd base. Line drives hurt like crazy!
52. I put ketchup on my macaroni and cheese.
53. I've converted almost my whole family now.
54. I'm a grazer. I don't eat much at a sitting, but I nibble all day long.
55. Until recently, this has always worked for me.
56. I'd be happy losing another 10 pounds, but I have 20 to go to be at pre-pregnancy weight.
57. My nick name growing up was Mimi.
58. Clew has shortened that to Mims.
59. I love to watch movies.
60. I love to read.
61. I have 327 books in my modest little library.
62. I have yet to read them all.
63. I love winter, but I prefer summer.
64. Being barefoot is the best thing in the world.
65. Flip flops are second, especially after a pedicure.
66. I've been known to walk into door frames becasue I'm staring down at my newly polished toes.
67. I hate cleaning my vehicle.
68. I hate getting groceries.
69. I save at least 35% on my grocery bill every week because I shop for the deals and clip coupons.
70. I only started this coupon craze about 8 months ago.
71. I'm a great friend.
72. But I hate a clinger.
73. I love, love, love, love, love music.
74. Almost any kind, but not rap.
75. I'm a night person. I can stay up really late, but I hate getting up in the morning.
76. I am obsessed with wrinkles.
77. Since I was a little girl, if I feel one in the sheets or my jeans, I have to fiddle with it.
78. I also look for patterns in everything. This drives me crazy.
79. My hair is in a ponytail 85% of the time.
80. I do not look good with short hair, even though it is always pulled back from my face.
81. My favorite smell is the scent of clean sheets that have been hung out on the line.
82. These provide the best wrinkles.
83. Despite my sickness to be organized, it looks like a tornado went through my garage.
84. I adore my neighbors - well, most of them.
85. The summer is one big party on my street.
86. I don't have a television in my room.
87. I hate being taken advantage of. I don't know too many people that do.
88. It seems that it happens to me alot. Maybe I'm too nice.
89. Teenagers are tough. One minute I'm sad that they're so old, the next minute, I can't wait for them to move out. What's wrong with me?
90. I wonder if I'll ever feel this way about the baby.
91. Sometimes I feel like an inadequate mom.
92. I don't feel like an inadequate wife.
93. I sometimes think I'm not true to myself.
94. I'm glad this list is almost done.
95. I'll probably think of 20 more interesting things when I finish. That's what I do.
96. Things on this list will probably change in the next six months.
97. I don't mind change.
98. I'm used to it.
99. For the most part, I like myself.
100. For the most part, I like all of you! :)

Tuesday Scrapbook Layout

First Year

(done this past weekend with Clew)

Weekend Review

Well, my visit with Clew came to an end about 50 minutes ago. It's been 18 months since we've seen each other, so leaving today was a little difficult, but we had a ton of fun while she was here.

The weekend started out with an overnight scrapbook event. In all the excitement, we forgot to bring our snacks to share and a cup with a cover as was required by the host of the event, so we stopped at Target for a quick shopping trip. After purchasing more scrapbook supplies, knocking over an entire cup display, and laughing about fur gel for dogs, we were on our way to scrap. Because we were late, we got placed in a room down the hall from everyone else with three other scrappers, but we made the best of it.

Drawing by Clew.

We made quite the mess!

Saturday late afternoon, we went back to my house for....

Chinese food....

Beer......

and wine.

We watched a few movies, played some games....this is what I think of her big win...

I know she has to get back to her family and her responsibilities, but it was so nice to see her again and just relax and hang out.

I miss you already sis.

School Trip Update

After talking to the prinicpal and the truancy officer yesterday, Emily will be able to go on her class trip after all, even if she misses more school. I don't know how they are going to handle the director, but at this point, I don't care. I don't want her to treat Emily any different on the trip either, so as long as I got my way, I'm good.

T-minus 5 hours and counting until Clew arrives. In classic Bainwen style, "SQUEEEEE"!

Thursday Thoughts

Since my babysitting duties at Coffee Break were cancelled due to an ice storm (a phone call letting me know this would have been appreciated) and it's not time for me to go to therapy yet, I'd thought I'd attempt a post.

I've got nothing to write about - or rather nothing that I feel like organizing any thought for, so I decided that this would be a hodge podge rambling of sorts. Little snippets of what's going on in my life at the moment, but nothing that would justify a full blog write up.

Sit back and be prepared to be bowled over with boredom!

The biggest and least boring news I have is that Clew is gonna be here tomorrow. She'll already be on the road at this time tomorrow, but I'll be waiting impatiently for her arrival. We're going to a hotel Friday afternoon and plan on pulling a cropping all-nighter. Saturday continues with more scrapbooking and then we head back to my house for Chinese food, a nap, and more hanging out. Ditto for Sunday and then she'll be heading home on Monday. :( Sorry, I can't show you any pictures of us together. (Shhhh, she's paranoid about internet safety. Don't tell her I said so.) But for all of you wondering, she looks like Angelina Jolie. And I'm not the only one who thinks so. She's really smart too. I'm not sure why I hang out with her.

I've got a call into the principal of my daughter's school. The more I think about the conversation with the trip director, the pissder I get. I know pissder isn't a word, but it should be. I don't know how far the conversation will get me, but I'll feel better about myself knowing that I made the call.

My neck is feeling better. Just in time to wreck it again staring down at a scrapbook for 12 hours. I have a different physical therapist on Tuesdays. April. She's even better than Chad. I love her. She worked on me for an extra half hour because my muscles were so tight. Of course this was after I offered her my left over fertility drugs and needles which total about $1400.

I started a new project last weekend. I picked up some of that chalk board paint and painted a square on one of our empty bar walls. I plan on using it to list all the different brews we have available. I still want to build a frame to put around it, but for now, the black square on the wall will have to do. Note to self: pick up chalk after therapy.

Every single time I go out, I see at least one grey or white Impala in front of me. On back roads, on the freeway, I'll even pull up behind one in a parking lot. There's no mistaking those round tail lights. I never noticed them before, why now? Weird.

Since I'm boring myself to tears, I'm sure you've all stopped reading, so I guess I'll go to therapy.