Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

Sleep has never come easily to me. Even with my Tylenol PM addiction, I still find it hard to sleep most nights (I don't want to talk about why). So my mind frequently wanders and I think of all types of different things. The other night, I went into "What would I do if I won the PowerBall?" That was the wrong thing to think about because I got all riled up with the possibilities of an unlimited cash flow!

I would travel. I know that for a fact. In fact, I may even take William out of school for a year to travel everywhere. We'd probably get totally sick of each other after about two weeks (read: two days), but if I took him out of school, I'd have to stick that commitment out! We'd hit up Europe, Australia for sure, Hawaii, and basically everywhere I've always wanted to go. We'd treat my parents to a trip or two to meet us along the way and I'm sure I'd do the same for my friends.

I don't think I'd buy a big flashy car, but I'm easily swayed, so who knows. I would, however, get my parents whatever type of vehicle they wanted. They have hooked me up with some sweet rides my whole life (the only exception being a Dodge Aries), so I would LOVE to repay the favor.

I'd donate to charity.  Favoring charities having to do with domestic violence and single mothers.  I think it would be amazing to start my on non-profit for single moms trying to get back on their feet.  When I purchased my house, that was what I had money for, the house.  We still have hand me down furniture and I'm sure there are other single mothers in the same boat I'm in.

What would you do?

Featuring....ME!

My wonderful friend Kelly Moore http://www.bykellymoore.com/ featured me in an article she wrote for GenerationIowa.com.

Take a gander if you like: http://www.generationiowa.com/articles/article_view.asp?idArticle=639

Luxury Vehicles Only, Please

Did you ever date someone and when you broke up (or parted ways...or whatever) you constantly saw something that reminded you of that person? Did you then interpret that as a sign that perhaps you should be with that person, or at least call that person? Well I have. Sure, it's a little nutty, but whatever.

The guy that I think of as "the one who got away" drove a car that seems to be very popular in my area. And although he no longer lives here, I take every sighting as a sure sign that I should call him. That we are meant to be, and eventually it will all work out. Despite all evidence to the contrary.

So, from now on, I'm only dating men who drive luxury vehicles. While we have our fair share of luxury vehicles in Waterloo, IA., not nearly as many as a particular American brand. I figure when things go awry, as they always do, I won't have the constant reminder every time I drive around.

I think it's a good plan and I recommend it.

What Else?

Our lazy Sunday started of with a bang. First, I figured as long as we were both up, we should probably try to make it to 11:00 mass. I get in the shower, do my thing, turn the shower off, when my hand held shower head falls, narrowly missing my foot. I put it back up, and tell Will to be careful when he is taking his shower. I should have known better. The poor little boy was painfully struck in the arm by the offending shower head. After soothing my poor angel, we were off to church and all was fine. While at church (during mass) my mom invited us over for dinner, which solved my least favorite question every day...."What's for dinner?"



At my parents' for dinner, I took my last bite of lasagna and tasted what I believed to be pork. I asked my mom and she said, "Oh, I forgot that you don't eat that." Yeah right. I could already feel my stomach churning. To repay her, I made off with her crazy glue.



At home, after getting a little sick, I decided to fix the shower head with the crazy glue. Except, you know what happens when you steal crazy glue from your parents? It's totally dried up and breaks in half when you squeeze it. Of course. I found some caulk and thought that might work, so I put it on and moved on to my next project.



Let me just tell you, my pear tree is the bane of my existence. I don't even like pears. However, it provides the only shade in my backyard, so it's staying. These damn pears fall everywhere and my dad was going to come over and mow the lawn the next day, so I had to pick up a weeks worth of fallen pears. Easy enough, sure, but if you take into account the five wasps on each pear, not to mention the swarm of flies, this is a difficult task. I was using gardening gloves, a child's rake and a child's shovel. I'm sure it was pretty amusing to any onlookers. Just as I've sprayed everything with Raid, I hear William yelling in the house, "Mom, the toilet's overflowing!" With Raid on my shoes, I run into the house to plunge William's handywork. Fortunately, it wasn't really overflowing, but it definitely needed a good plunging. I resumed my pear project and after about four bee stings, I kicked the remaining pears into the mulch and called it a day. But my house had other plans for me that night.

After a little rest, I went to wash my face and realized my bathroom sink was completely clogged. So, I went to remove the obstructions (hair), but no luck. I decide to be an adventurous homeowner and take apart the pipes underneath the sink. This sounds like a recipe for disaster, right!?! Actually, it went pretty well. I took all of the pipes apart, cleaned them out (all the while, still getting a little sick from my dinner) and put everything back together, with very little mess. I tell William to hit the water and it goes down....and then it comes back up. By now it's about 10:00 at night and I've had it. I did, however, keep it together. I called my dad, but he was already tucked in for the night, so I decided it would have to wait. We used the tub spout to wash our hands, but I just couldn't bring myself brush my teeth and spit it into the tub, so we filled up the sink a little more.

By this point, the bathroom rug was pretty gross, so I threw it in the washing machine. As I'm just about to fall asleep, I hear the loudest noise (ca-chunk, ca-chunk) from my basement. Apparently, if you have one item in the washer, it throws the thing off balance while it's spinning. Who knew? As it turns out, this problem remedies itself after a couple other loads (or at least I think it did).

By the time I wake up Monday, the sink has gone down a little, and I think we're good to go. My dad says he'll put some drain cleaner in it and try a couple other things (that he found on the Internet-I'm sure). Well, $107 later and two guys, two hours my drain was unclogged. Apparently, there was years and years worth of build up in my pipes (that's what she said), and this problem could not have been avoided. Oh, and I had to replace the shower head too.

Really, I think this is why I should get married. While I handled everything, it would have been much easier to pass it on to my husband so I could watch TV uninterrupted.

An Open Letter To Miley Cyrus (and her parents)...

Ok, Miley. Your little pole dancing routine at the Teen Choice Awards, NOT COOL. You think you get a pass because your parents have had you paying their bills for a long time and won't to say no to their little money tree, but you don't get a pass. I don't have a little girl, so it really makes no difference to me, but I do have a young son and you have been banned in my house for a long time and always will be. Ever since your Vanity Fair photo shoot last year, I knew neither you nor your parents had sound decision making abilities. Pretty much every thing you do and wear is inappropriate for someone your age who is, God knows why, a role model for young girls.

While I get that you are young and make mistakes, you don't have the luxury of people forgetting about it. And that's too bad, but it's the price you pay for the money you make.

I'm not sure if you've ever heard of a few girls called Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, or Mischa Barton, but those girls are hot messes, and it appears to be where you're headed.

It's time for you to get it together and it's time for your parents to be your parents. Enough is enough, Billy Ray. You can sing your Achy Breaky Heart out and let your little girl be a little girl. One that doesn't writhe on stage, dance on poles, make fun of Asians, and do risque photo shoots. And if she does, maybe if she goes away for a while, no one will care.

My Happy Place

The other day during a particularly trying day at work, images of Disney World kept flashing in my head. I mean, I could visually picture it. I wondered why this kept happening and then I realized, this is my Happy Place. It must be my mind's way of calming me down and saying "Look, you've had some good times too!" I like that when I think back to our trip to Disney World, I don't remember the lines, the extreme heat, the aching feet, the cost of it all, but I think of one of the happiest times of my life. Wow, who knew!

When you go with a guy like this....

How could it not be?

For the Birds

Let me say for the record, I DO NOT LIKE BIRDS. They are gross, I do not find them cute, and their chirping is like nails on a chalk board to me. So, it's no surprise that birds have launched an all out assault on me and my house.

It started earlier this summer with a little bird poo here, a little bird poo there. Now it's as if they've cased my patio, finding out where I like to sit, and poo exclusively on my chaise lounge, which is pretty much the only place to sit on my patio. They also once targeted my garbage can because, of course, the chair wasn't enough. They're sneaky little bastards. It's not like it happens once a week. It happens every single day. I clean it, they poo again. I even put a towel down one night, because I was too lazy to clean it, and the next day they pooed on the towel.

Then, I was in my basement doing laundry, minding my own business, when I hear little scratches and a chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp....a bird was in the exhaust pipe from my hot water heater to my chimney. This happened once before, and I didn't take it personally, but now I do. I'm not into killing animals, but there's really no way to get the stupid bird out without letting it loose in my basement, so this intruder sealed his fate when he entered my premises uninvited. So the only option is to crank up the hot water and the exhaust kills the bird. He's still sitting dead in the pipe waiting for my dad to return from his 900th vacation this summer. It doesn't stink at all, so I think it may have totally evaporated.

I was telling one of my friends that I didn't even want to talk about birds (not like we were) and he told me a story much worse than my own. Two almost hatched bird eggs fell on his car, so he had two dead fetus birds on his car sitting in the sun roasting. He said the smell was absolutely disgusting. Isn't that one of the grossest stories ever? Ugh!

I think the birds know I'm talking about them, because I Tweeted about the bird poo and the attacks seem to have intensified since then. As I was getting ready to pull out of the garage the other day, I turned my head to look behind me and there it was. One of their bravest soldiers sitting on the window sill of my car. Right there three feet away from me, ready to attack, as his leaders had sent him to do. I let out a scream and he flew away (not very well trained, huh!). As it turns out, I was never in any real danger because my window wasn't even open.

The last kick in the shorts happened when I was riding with my mom in her car. I'm playing DJ (because I have control issues) and I'm skipping around with her CD's when all of a sudden I hear chirping. I started looking around to find the bird stalker that had followed me into the car when my mom asked what I was doing. I told her there was a bird in her car and she laughed and told me that she had a CD of birds. Chirping. WTF. 1) Who sells that, 2) who (other than my crazy mom) buys that?

I feel like Elmer Fudd with Bugs Bunny.