Happy 23rd Birthday Julz!

23 years ago today, someone changed my life dramatically.

This little lady made me her Mom.

Happy Birthday Julz!

I hope this day is as wonderful as you are!

~En-JOY it!

Please Shut Up So I Can Talk

Did you ever have someone in your life that always has to one-up you? That what ever you say, they will have a problem ten times worse? Nothing you say ever stands on it's own, because they are going to one-up you....sometimes to the brink of death. My grandmother is one of these people. I will never be anything to my grandmother, a fact she reminds me of whenever she has the chance. I try to avoid her and all her negativity.

Or everything they say about you is negative: your kids' are awful, your husband's awful, you are awful? Nothing like sitting through that conversation over and over again. You start to see your own life as shitty ( yes Mother, I said it) because in comparison, theirs is soooooooooo much better and they tell you it is at ever possible chance.

They will also turn all your positives around to be something negative too.

Or they make your negatives worse, when all you really wanted to do was vent and have someone tell you that this too will pass. Yeah, it's a small thing, but it's really helpful to have that confirmation from an outside source.

Or they are judgemental and "holier than thou. They tell you that you are selfish/ childish/ whatever, but then turn around and talk incessantly about their own, depressing problems and expect you to listen.

Eventually, you give up. They wont hear what you have to say anyway, because they are so focused on their own problems. They will find things, silly, unrelated things, to blame the disconnect on, but it really all boils down to them and all that they've said.

But they have no idea what's going on in your life because they never stop talking.

Did you ever want to just scream "PLEASE shut up so I can talk"

Yesterday, I did that.

Happy 17th Birthday Kit-Kat!

Happy 17th Birthday to my little Kit-Kat!

Thank you for allowing me the privelege of being your mom.

~En-Joy!

Welcome New Readers!

Welcome New Readers!

I hope you enjoy my blog!

As you can see, this is my sixth year of blogging. I'm kinda surprised I've found enough to blog about in one year, mcuh less six! I blog about my life, my opinions and thoughts on certain subjects and what-not.

For those who know me, you may see that I've shared a story about you, though I did change up just enough of the details (like the name, cause really, that's most important, right?) For those who don't know me, yes, these crazy things really happen to me and I change just enough details so I can protect the guilty.

Feel free to jump around; get to know me, my crazy family, and our friends.

As always....
En-Joy!

Playing Catch-Up....Again

After not sleeping on Saturday night, I have been playing catch-up. I hate that game, especially when it comes to sleep.

First, Tigger decided that he needed to go to church with his girlfreind, Miss Mac. Had he had his license, that wouldn't have been an issue. But because he has no interest in driving whatsoever, I had to drag myself out of bed and carry him. Then I had to go back home and fight sleep in order to go back and get him. Fun Times.

When I did get back home, my phone starts ringing off the hook. Actually, off the nightstand, but I digress. I wasn't in the greatest of moods. I'm told that I am not at all pleasant to speak with when I am sleep deprived. I thought it best to send those calls to voice mail.

Darling Hubby then started to complain he was hungry. That meant I had to get up and give him my debit card. I don't know how it happens. He gets paid one week and I get paid the next. Somehow he tends to eat the most when it's my week to get paid. This makes me even grouchier because I just want to know what he does with his paycheck. I've seen our bills. Unless he has a boat, or a sports car or another family somewhere, I can't fathom where all his money goes. In the interest of peace, I hand it over.
But
Now I'm so riled up, I can't get to sleep.

I sit on the couch and sulk. The tv is on pause while he's gone. I am "remote-ly challenged," so I watch the Direct Dish logo bounce around the screen.

Zipper and JB use this as the opportunity to get in my lap.

Zipper, now 14, is thin and somewhat feeble, but will muster up enough energy to occasional have a sprited wrestling match with JB. Younger by 7 years, JB is the fat cat, thanks mostly to overindulgent self-feeding. He outweighs Zipper by a good 10 pounds. He has silky fur and loves being being petted so much, he usually starts without you. He loves to roll over and have his belly scratched, but can't stand this posture for very long. Probably can't breathe.

Recently, one of them yacked on the couch, and Darling Hubby was none too happy about that. He has since started a campaign to keep them off the couch. I don't have the heart, so I make him shoo them from the couch. Besides, I'm not the bad guy, right? But the moment that he leaves the room, both jockey for my attention, and my lap.

I nod off on the couch, only to be awakened by Darling Hubby, who is mad the cats are on the couch with me.

I have to go back to the bedroom, because Darling Hubby is watching something called "Dale and Tucker vs. Evil." It is every bit the cinematic masterpiece the title implies. There I watch David Tutera make over tacky bride after tacky bride. In between I see commercials for "Big Rich Texas" and "Jerseylicious" and wonder, "Where the hell do they find these people?" First there are all the people airing out their dirty laundry Saturday night, now there are all these ladies, (using the term loosely) yelling at one another, while holding guns! Yeah, I know that's ' Jersey for ya, but I expected a little more from the country club set.

I nod off again, and when I wake up, it's almost time for Desperate Housewives. I am hooked on Desperate Housewives. Kit-Kat and I muse what we will do when it finally goes off the air.

There is a new show coming on ABC in March. I, personally, am looking forward to it. It's called "GCB." I later found out that stood for "Good Christian Bitches" but after getting scads of hate mail, ABC changed it to "Good Christian Belles," which to me is just as bad. They finally just called it "GCB." It looks like it's about a bunch of "desperate housewives" from Dallas and centers mainly around the cliques at their church. Oh Boy! (Some of us know how dramatic that can be now don't we?) So we get a whole bunch of new folks and their problems with a dash of religion thrown in for good measure!

Kit-Kat says she doesn't want to "get attached" to any more ensemble shows, but I bet she will.

I wonder if their church will be like the one I grew up in. In my lifetime 2 out of 5 of the pastors that have led our congregation have had an affair with their secretary (and one of them even divorced his beautiful wife to marry the cow! More on that at a later date) so I can just imagine the storylines of a ficticious congregation!

Anyway....

I am fighting sleep during DH. It's really good, so I'm surprised that it isn't keeping me awake. I barely make it to the next week's preview.

I slept until 6:00 a.m., missing my "designated shower time" and wind up taking a cold shower. I am still on time for work, but I am none too happy.

Which leads me to now, my lunch hour, where I am again fighting sleep.

Enzzzzzzzzzzzzz..............

My Freakin' Back Hurts So I Can't Sleep

So it's 1:00 a.m. and my back hurts so bad, I cant sleep. I'm tapping this out with my stylus, if you can believe that. I've been reading up on The Gold Digger and watching this show on the Oprah network called "Unfaithful." People sharing their stories of how they cheated, got away with it, got caught,went to councelling, and stayed married. Interesting! Well, it beats a freakin' infomercial.

Confession Time: I'm Addicted

...to a blog called Diary of a Gold Digger.

I stumbed across it, very much by accident, while reading another blog to which I had become addicted.

It tells the tale of a woman, who finds the perfect mate with not-so-perfect parents. From time to time she shares snippets of her youth. It is with these posts that I relate the most. She is apparently very close to my age, because some of the stories she shares remind me of my own childhood in Alabama.



Today's post she talks about finding kittens in the hay shed at her grandparents farm. This could be a story from my own life! With the notable exception of her granparents' farm being a dairy farm and my grandparents' farm being a poultry farm, nearly all other details seem the same! Right down to the Hee-Haw overall shorts.







(me in the green, obviously, and Brother in the blue)






My brother and I spent each summer at my grandparents' farm in rural Alabama. We spent those days fishing, tending the cattle, chasing the baby chicks and frolicking in the shavings shed. (The hay barn was off limits.) There was Ole Mama Cat and she kept us in a seemingly never ending supply of kittens that would all grow up and run off. She'd give birth in the hay barn and before long there'd be kittens crawling all in the hay. Despite our best efforts, very few would be tame enough to catch. Those that we did catch, would later come tumbling out, looking to be petted and fed.

We had a duck take up residence in the shavings shed once. She had 12 ducklings and didn't take kindly to meddling children.

Have you ever been bitten by a duck?

They may not have teeth, but it hurts just the same.

She stayed on the next year, and laid several more eggs. My grandfather didn't really care for the duck, but he demonstrated that he was more than tolerable of her (or maybe less tolerable of the tortured cries of his granddaughter) when a snake invaded her nest and attempted to eat one of her eggs.


I learned early on that chickens were for eating and they didn't last very long off the farm. Each year I'd beg for a chick to carry home with me and each year, I'd be disappointed as my chick would become lonely and sick. I'd either return it to the flock or bury it in the flower garden.


When I was little, my grandparents had 3 garden plots. As time went on, they could no longer tend a garden, and I missed the steady supply of fresh produce that was once so abundant , I took it for granted.


The one behind the hay barn where my grandfather only grew corn. Rows and rows of corn, with a long post in the middle that my grandfather hung the body of a crow. Believe it or not, nothing is a better scarecrow than the body of one of their fallen brethren.


A large garden, down by the road. My grandfather turned chicken manure into the soil every winter. It yeilded the best produce for miles around. The most memorable was the cabbage heads as big as basketballs. Even today, long after my grandfather is gone, that land has the lushest, greenest grass.


A smaller garden by the "little house," my grandmother's term for the two room cinderblock building. They would retreat to it between chores and used it to stay the night when they caught chickens. It had a couch with a tv, a stove and fridge, a table for 4, a bed and a bathroom.


We'd go out to "find the cows" every day. My grandfather would count them and then go find any that were missing. Every spring there was a new herd of calves that would run and jump and kick up their hooves. We'd sell them off the following spring as yearlings, but there were always new calves to take their place. The never ending circle of life.


There was a pond on one side of the property and we'd spend the end of each day with a line in the water. I have many pictures of the crappie that we'd catch. The kids up and down the road would climb the fence and try to fish that pond and my grandfather would run them off. On weekends in the winter, my grandfather would take us dove hunting underneath a grove of trees. There we learned to be patient and still.

Like the "Gold Digger," some of my best memories growing up were on that farm. I hate that my children have never known that simple, easy-going childhood.

En~Joy!

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On a related note, here is this year's Valentine's gift from Darling Hubby.
He loves me so =)

I especially love the lion!