The Long Way Home...

If you had told me 4 months ago that I would be sitting here in this...this...limbo, I would have told you crack is bad. It has been a long, long journey. One that almost broke me. For those that say what doesn't kill us, makes us stronger....I have 2 words for you. Bite. Me. No seriously, there might be a little truth to it...

There was a trip to jail ( a thirty minute trip, but the clink of those bars truly made time stand still.) Then the flood that wiped out my vehicle and the entire downstairs of both the apartments I was occupying. Not to mention the 197 other apartments it effected. A third of those occupied with people who also lost everything.

After several months of staying with my parents (6 adults, 4 adolescents and 3 dogs), red tape, lists and paperwork out the wahzoo with FEMA (I thank them every time I open the door to my new place), car shopping (you would think that wouldn't be in the complaint section, but seriously, I would rather eat dirt!), all while dealing with upset tenants, contractors, city inspectors and just the overall curious (because nothing brings out the wackos like tragedy) for many, many hours several days a week we have finally brought the 1st few families home. Myself included!

My apartment is..I can not find a better word than...mine! There isn't a room I walk into that doesn't make me giddy! Even the laundry room. The spirit crushing minivan drowned and after weeks of searching we found a little convertible that the kids and I can't stay out of (BIG HAIR FOR THE WIN!). I have lost unreplaceables along the way and they will be missed but I keep them and their memory with me always...

Man, it feels good to blog again! Talk to you soon...

Life and times of my hair...

Born: No hair.

2 years old: Sprigs of hair but not enough to keep people from thinking I was a boy.

3-4 years old: Still pretty short and mom still frustrated because I could pass for a boy.

5-8 years old: Long, thick, straight, beautiful hair. Mom couldn't get it to hold a curl with all the rollers and hairspray in the world but she was at least satisfied I finally had some.

9-10 years old: Now this is an age where it starts to matter to you also (if only just a little). It's long but has turned puffy and huge and for the life of us we can not figure out why. We decide to cut it short.

11 years old: Hair is still puffy and huge, just short. Also, no boobs yet so once again...that's right....I COULD BE A BOY! Come to think of it, I could have passed as my first crushes twin brother.


At some point during this year my wonderful Aunt introduces me to Mousse. Best. Thing. Ever. Invented. Ever. I am sure I helped fund the founders children's college education.


Photo: Hair in it's Glory Days!

12-15 years old: Struggled with what turned out to be natural curly hair. Fits were thrown. Many, many styles were tried but eventually decided to just let it grow out and thank the gods that the puffiness was gone except on rainy, muggy or windy days. Which mother nature always scheduled on picture days, but I digress.

16-17 years old: A pretty little actress named Julia Roberts made long, curly, big hair popular.Hooray! I hit the jackpot!! I'm finally cool! At least, I thought so.

I then spend the next 17 years buying mousse and good conditioner and loving that I am different from everyone else.

34 years old: The hair looks like I am letting a perm grow out.

Photo:THIS! This is now!
Flippin Straight Hot Mess!!

35 years old: I cut it all off thinking the weight was making it too heavy to curl.

35 1/2 years old: I sit down in the most talented woman in the worlds chair.

"I would like you to trim it and put long layers in it. I want to come back in a month for a trim one more time and then a month after that I want you to perm it." I say. Not completely discouraged because I have a plan.

"Ok" she says.

She does everything I ask. Then begins to blow dry it, I think to myself that's ok, I know she likes to break out the straightener when I come to visit her. When she is done blow drying it, she turns me around to face the mirror and there sits that 8 year old girl.

"But you haven't touched it with the iron!" I am shocked.

"I know." she isn't shocked.

We then plan to have me spend the next two months seeing if I like this. The thing is...I do...when she does it! But if she isn't willing to move in with me so that she can do it every morning, I'm going to lose my flippin mind. I have had major tantrums (the childish kind). I've broken the picture that hangs up in the bathroom trying to get the brush untangled from my hair. Once I tripped over the blow dryer cord after it wrapped itself around the knobs on the cabinet a few times. My once 15 minute routine of shampoo, condition, comb, mousse and go has turned into an almost 2 hour ordeal that ends in a ponytail. I HATE IT! I type that while stomping my feet!! Stupid, stupid hair!

It's been a while...

I have decided I am gypsy. I don't know if I was born this way or maybe it was because as a younger child I was a military brat. All I do know is that I get this incredible itch to pack boxes and start all over about once a year. I figure the only cure is to maybe start a moving company or seek therapy. Possibly both, so that one can pay for the other.

It is the number one reason buying a home makes me all hyperventilate-y!

We are pretty much sitting on go...having painting parties every night this week and a few finishing touches here and there and then the settling in begins! I'm exhausted but very excited. I will have to post all the colors! My person told the grumpy teen I was trying to live in a jigsaw puzzle. I think maybe I'm trying to cure the gypsy-ism by making myself feel I am in a different room every time I turn around....we shall see.

Just a thought...Is there a special job for thinking up paint color names? I think I would like that job....

A tiny "deep breath and move on" moment....

I needed to escape for a little while tonight. Lucy and my person decided that a windowless jeep ride to some little place they love for a couple of beers was in order. It is a wonderful thing to have people who always seem to know just what you need, or maybe they needed it too. Either way its good to have people....so be warned this post is heartfelt but a beer induced kind of heartfelt.

I would like to thank the bestie (I have referred to him as the ex-bestie in earlier blogs, but he isn't. He will be my bestie until the day I die.) for teaching me how a person should be loved. For teaching me that I am worth being loved that way. For teaching me that it's ok to want that kind of love and to not accept anything less. I hope that you have found the person that will love you this way and that you are their one, because you of all people in this world deserve it. Know that there is someone always rooting for you.

To all other blog readers if you have found this kind of love. Hold on and don't let go. It is a hard thing to find, my friends. I think I will take my broken heart to bed, sleep off these few beers and continue my search tomorrow. Hopefully I wont wake up and feel the need to delete this post and thank God for spellcheck! It is your friend!

Here we go...

This week the Bug has found her...I can not find the words...give me a second...I will say whatever I want so I can hurt you because you are my mother voice, for lack of a better term. I have been preparing myself for this, but yeah...

On Wednesday night she put my dining room chair through the plasma television. Since she can't move the couch or chair in the living room she uses a dining room chair when she is playing the Wii.

Me: "I have told you a thousand times to stop making the chair rock. Now stop before you break your arm, or worse the chair."

Bug: "Funny, mom."

Me: "I do not have the money to replace it when you break it! I'm not trying to be funny!"

Bug: "The table has scratches on it anyway. A new one would be good."

This does not phase me. She is typically a smart @$$. (ha! Like my mother can't figure symbols out. It makes me feel more respectful, don't judge!)

Me: "Stop it or you can sit on the floor!"

I will warp us to 2 hours later in the evening. A hysterical Bug comes in my room crying the chair finally fell over and through the TV. I politely ask her to go to her room. I then call her dad and inform him in a raving lunatic rage that I am going to kill her. He says that even though a deduction in child support payments would be nice, he can't allow this and somewhat calms me down.

The next night I give her her sentence and she completely loses it. I mean full blown crazy. I will just do a nutshell version for you.

Bug: "I AM A GOOD KID! I NEVER GET IN TROUBLE! I ALWAYS LISTEN TO WHAT YOU SAY! I HATE YOU!"

The last part throws me but I do not let her know this...

Me: "Good. It means I'm doing my job right."

Bug: "I WILL DO EVERY CHORE ON THE LIST THEN I'M GOING TO LIVE WITH DAD!"

Me: "No you're not."

Bug: "THEN I WILL RUN AWAY!"

Me: "Can you fold a load of clothes first?" (Sidenote: I slept with my bedroom door locked and haven't decided if I will be getting rid of the kitchen knives or not.)

She runs up to her room, slamming her door and proceeds to makes sounds resembling a howling dog until she falls asleep. I call my mother and apologized for every hateful thing I said to her when I was a kid.

In her defense she did come to me the next day and apologize saying she didn't mean it. I accepted and told her she is most certainly allowed to hate me, it will be natural over the next few years, but the next time she says it out loud she will be grounded until Hannah Montana (c'mon I had to use a reference she would understand, there you go judging again!) had grandchildren.

Conversation over dinner...

I made spaghetti and meatballs tonight and I DIDN'T MESS ANYTHING UP! GO ME! Alright, on to the real story...let me set the scene...

I have finished eating and while the kids are finishing up, I'm wiping things down, putting things away...yadda, yadda, yadda...as I'm throwing something in the garbage can the entire trash bag folds into itself and falls to the bottom of the can. I say to the kids...

"The next time I buy trash bags that aren't Grippers (much love to the Hefty inventor of this product!), slap me! Well, unless we are poor." (some weeks we struggle more than others...sigh)

The bug pipes in "Wait, if we aren't poor...why are we eating spaghetti?"

I just look at her.

The grumpy teen answers "Ummm...normal people eat cooked meals all the time. Normal people do not eat McDonalds four nights a week."

I just look at him.

After deciding not to throw meatballs in their eyes and start a massive food fight (because I would have to clean it up, otherwise "It's on like Donkey Kong" comes to mind), while shouting "NORMAL KIDS WOULD NOT COMPLAIN ABOUT EATING MCDONALDS!!" (where did I go wrong), I shake my head and go load the dishwasher.

I will now add teach the kid the value of a dollar to my To-Do list and try not to dwell on the possibility they were both switched at birth...

The brain has left the building!

I HAVE BLOGGERS BLOCK! I can't think of a single thing to blog about. I'm not sure why...maybe not enough "interesting" going on right now. I leave work with a brain that feels like if I try and make it work one more second, it will decide to go on strike. Leaving me a vegetable while it walks the picket line. I am imagining a brain with legs and a picket sign that reads: WTF?

I wish I could draw! That would be an awesome picture.

I'm preparing to move to a new apartment. Packing doesn't require brain power but it doesn't make for good blog topics either. Bubble wrap or Styrofoam peanuts? Yeah...bet that would go over well. Maybe when things settle down I will find something interesting to be random about...

*FYI...bubble wrap OWNS Styrofoam peanuts. Hands down! Oooo...now I want some!