Bees Wasps and Hornets .....Oh My!!!!

Yesterday is was BEAUTIFUL outside, I mean REALLY GORGEOUS!!! It was one of those nearly perfect days that you just want to spread a blanket out in the yard and lay in the sun soaking up the rays.

Well, I don't have a yard, and I'm in no shape to be laying out....not to mention I don't own anything to lay out in, so we opted for the take the child to the park option.

We took Jareth and went to the city park to play, it was good fun, we stayed for about two hours. He had a blast. After the park we decided to walk downtown and then out to Walmart to do some shopping.

Stopped and bought some summer clothes for the boy. Picked up a couple of DVD's. Stopped and had some lunch. Nothing extraordinary, right? (Well except for the stunning move I made at Subway where I managed to drop a piece of marinara covered meatball RIGHT onto my right breast. Left a HUGE stain. Yeah, that was fun. )

Anyway, we get all the way out to Walmart and we decide to stop in at Gamestop first, check and see what old Playstation games they have.....hang in there I swear this story is going somewhere.....

So we walk into the store, laughing, talking, blah blah blah...I walk over to where the Playstation games are and all of a sudden my arm hurts. I slap at my arm and kind of rub it and I say, " Shit, what the hell is wrong with my arm." Then it hurts again, sort of a sharp little pain, but nothing serious, just kind of weird, you know? I complain again, but pretty soon it goes away so I think nothing of it.

I'm standing there looking at movies and talking to this girl I know when she says, " You had a bee in your shirt." I look at her and say, "I had a what?"

She turns and points as the bee flys off through the store, " I tried to swat at it. It flew out of your shirt."

At this point my brain clicks on and I say, " Oh crap, I wonder if that's why my arm was hurting. I wonder if I got stung."

I lift up my shirt sleeve and sure enough, there it is, a bee sting. Well, not just A bee sting....FOUR beetings. Yeah, so it wasn't a bee, it was probably a wasp or something and it stung me four times, and apparantly I wasn't there enough to notice. How do you like that?

I haven't been stung by a bee since I was nine. I haven't been stung by anything since I was nine. And then WHAM four in one day. Big kicker here, the stings were gone in under two hours, totally vanished. You can't even tell I was stung at all.

What a thing.

It was still a nearly perfect day though.

This one is good for a laugh on a Friday, too

You have to wonder who has this kind of time on their hands.

This is Just Wrong.....Funny, But Wrong

Just watch the video.....*shakes her head* So funny, and still so wrong.

Genius I tell you, sheer Genius!!!!

The geniuses over at the Harvard Medical School have decided that chronic stress could help cause depression. Gee guys, you think???? I thought Harvard was for smart folk. You know, smarter than most....smarter than say, me....

I could have told you that chronic stress would contribute to and even CAUSE depression. How much grant money from the federal government do you suppose these idiots wasted on this brilliant piece of academic work?

Seriously people, I haven't seen something this stunning since the fabulous ketchup flow rate study of the 1980's.

Read the article. Basically, they made mice stressed out ( how hard do you supppose THAT is to do?) and then measured which ones seemed more depressed.

And I quote:

"Compared to the mice with short-term exposure, the mice with chronic exposure took much longer to emerge from a small dark compartment into a brightly lit open field. This is a common behavioral test of anxiety in animals. The results suggest that the mice with chronic exposure were more fearful and less willing to explore their new environment." (they are reffering to a hormone they gave the mice to simulate chronic stress)


And here's the kicker....they actually got PUBLISHED!!!!!!! And not in like Bob's Big Book of Crap We Already Knew. They got published in Behavioral Neuroscience. Must have been a slow month for the scientific community.

The Plight of the Fat Girl

I hope I lose this baby weight quickly because I seriously don't think I'm going to last long as a fat girl again. I've been browsing the "plus size" clothing that's out this summer and OH MY GOD!!! Can you say Ungodly Ugly Batman? I knew that you could. I want my damned jeans and my funky tshirts back....and I want them back now.

I refuse to walk around dressed like my grandmother!! *insert stomping of the foot here*

I will be back in my oh so cute size 12 jeans and my check out my great breasts tshirts by August if I have to go to the stupid gym every freaking day! *stomps foot once more for good measure and dramatic, childlike effect*

Okay, I feel better now.

Joe Cartoon

So I'm checking out Steph's blog tonight like I always do and she has a link to Joe Cartoons website posted. (click the title...go on, you know you want to) I haven't been there in ages, it was good fun.

You have to check out the new one, 10 Pump BB Gun and don't miss Live and Let Dive 2. You have to hunt for that one, but it's worth it.

If you've never been to this site before, spend some time, surf around, you'll be glad you did. If you've been before, but it's been awhile, reaquaint yourself...good times to be had by all.

UnSexy Men

Apparently two men wrote this list. Hmmmm.....now did they ask women or did they just decide they thought these men weren't sexy? Because I disagree with several of their choices, but then we've already established that I have slightly weird taste in men.

I actually had to look up several of the men on the list, most of them sports related...or politically affiliated. And I have to admit, I agree with the whole Brad Pitt thing. I really don't find him all that attractive. (Please reference weird taste in men comment)

Here's the list, see if you agree with it:(wuth occassional commentary by yours truly)

Complete List

001. Gilbert Gottfried (Come on, I think he's kind of cute...seriously)

002. Randy Johnson

003. Roger Ebert

004. Dr. Phil McGraw (Not what I would call *sexy* but not *unsexy* either)

005. Alan Colmes

006. Chad Kroeger (Sooooo do not agree with this one!!)

007. Mike Mills

008. Osama Bin Laden (Unsexy? How about Fucking EVIL???)

009. Jay Leno ( A sense of humor and great hair....)

010. Don Imus

011. Michael Jackson (Shivers...)

012. Wallace Shawn

013. Mike D. of the Beastie Boys

014. Richard Simmons (One of the gayest gay men ever)

015. Jon Lovitz ( Again, I think he's got something kind of cute goin on)

016. Carrot Top ( Two words Ick Y)

017. Jerry Seinfeld

018. Malcolm Gladwell (WHO?)

019. Chevy Chase (Totally shouldn't be on the list)

020. Raffi

021. Ron Howard (not really unsexy, just hard to get past the whole Richie Cunningham thing)

022. Clint Howard (Horror movie level not sexy)

023. Bill Gates ( There is a difference between seriously nerdy and not sexy...although Bill has BOTH)

024. Paul Shaffer

025. Axl Rose (Drugs will do that to you)

026. Tim Burton (Wierd, but kind of hot)

027. Edward James Olmos

028. Gerard Way

029. Don Zimmer

030. Tony Kornheiser

031. Chris Kattan

032. Otis Nixon

033. Julian Tavarez

034. Christopher Lloyd ( LOVE HIM)

035. Willie McGee

036. Pat Cummings

037. Scottie Pippen

038. Larry David

039. Michael Moore

040. Al Franken

041. Paris Latsis

042. Rush Limbaugh (Any one that finds this man sexy should seek immediate professional help)

043. David Gest

044. Gary Busey

045. Nick Nolte ( Have you seen the mugshot????)

046. Leif Garrett (One of my first loves, but honestly has gotten crusty in the old age)

047. Andy Dick (Just creepy)

048. Scott Stapp

049. Lyle Lovett

050. Ric Ocasek

051. Bill Wyman

052. Danny DeVito

053. Peter Jackson

054. Drew Carey ( Now this man is an example of Nerdy SEXY....)

055. Newt Gingrich

056. Rob Schneider

057. Ed O'Neil

058. Bill O'Reilly

059. Clay Aiken ( Santa's elf unsexy)

060. Joe Lieberman

061. Jim Gaffigan

062. Bill Maher

063. John Popper

064. Dennis Miller

065. John Madden

066. Robert Englund

067. Robert Patrick (Disagree...I'd do him)

068. John Ashcroft

069. Joe Gannascolli

070. Kevin James

071. George Steinbrenner

072. Grady Little

073. Harvey Pekar

074. DJ Qualls

075. Joey Buttafuoco

076. Garry Shandling

077. Meat Loaf Aday

078. Joe Walsh

079. Tom from Myspace

080. Art Garfunkel

081. Brian Posehn

082. Howie Mandel ( Definatly sexy since he went bald)

083. Barry Bonds

084. Dick Vitale

085. Richie "La Bamba" Rosenberg

086. Jeff Van Gundy

087. Jimmy Johnson

088. John Clayton

089. Don Vito

090. Lemmy Kilmister

091. Jose Canseco

092. Bill Parcells

093. Ric Flair

094. Ralph Nader

095. Dennis Kacinich

096. Horatio Sanz

097. Dom DeLuise

098. Emeril Lagasse

099. Kevin Federline (white trash nasty unsexy)

100. Brad Pitt ( had his moments, but not sexy....Fight Club, I could see it...but not on my top ten list)

The Boobie Fairy

The Boobie Fairy arrived sometime last night. I was hoping to avoid that particular side effect of pregnancy this time, I'm not sure why I was deliusional, but there you have it. Now I have boobs twice their normal size and I get to milk myself like a cow every day for the next week or so.

To much information???? *shrug* Ahh well, as uncomfortable as I am right now, I feel the need to spread it around, even if it is only intellectually in the form of unsettling images. HonestlY? If it wouldn't border on pornographic I would probably post before and after images. *laughs* (Those of you who know me know I'm kidding now)

I called the local gym today to find out if they have a trainer on staff who can keep me from killing myself when I start working out to lose the MASSIVE amount of weight I gained....I am going to post before and after shots of that, because it will be worth it. I mean for the love of Bob...I have FAT FEET!!!!!! Do you know how depressing that is? Fat feet, I never even knew my feet could gain weight. I'm a little disgusted and at the same time fascinated.

I have a feeling that a lot of time will be devoted to talking about my body and it's radical and sometimes disgusting shifts over the next months.....look away now if you have a weak stomach.

Fair warning has been given.

New Baby!

I had the baby on Friday, April 14th, at 3:09 p.m. I tried to post pictures to this posting, but for some reason, they wouldn't come up. Sooooo, I have linked this post to the post on Stephanie's Blog that contains pictures of Genevive, James and Judy.

Genevive weighed 7 lbs 10 oz and was 20 inches long. She's got beautiful, alert blue eyes and a full head of soft brown hair. In short, she's perfect. James and Judy are the picture of new parents, always watching her, checking her toes and looking at her fingers, it's very sweet.

Judy is going to be THE mom. You know the one. She was the ultimate...you would go over to that particular friends house for sleepover and there was always something cool to do...a craft project, cookies to bake, a new game they had invented...something GREAT!!! Yeah, that will sooo be Judy!

And James...well, James is going to be that dad we all envied our friends for having. The one they all pretended to be embarrassed about, but you knew they were proud to have them. The dad that chaperones the dances, but manages not to get in the way. The dad that takes time out of his Saturday to drive his preteen daughter and five of her giggly friends to the mall...all by himself. The dad that threatens to break the legs of the first boyfriend that makes her cry...he never really does it, but just knowing he would makes her feel better. Yeah, that's James.

Genevive is one very lucky little girl. Her life will be filled with art and color and love and she will grow up knowing that the world can be a special wonderful place.

Russ and I will miss her each day, but knowing where she is and all that she is blessed with, we will smile everytime we think of her and her family.

My son had a nightmare tonight. He woke up crying and scared and he wanted me to snuggle him. I can't even explain what that feeling is like, to have this tiny, precious little person look at me with such trust and love.

It's humbling.

So I snuggled him. We sat in the Big Comfy Chair and watched a movie until he fell asleep, and then I just watched him sleep for a little while.

When I was young I thought the world was about getting a job that paid a lot, about having tons of people like you....and then I had children. Now I know that life is about making sure the people you love are safe and secure. God entrusted me with these two precious lives, made them mine to care for and I couldn't have asked for a better job.

I'm a mommy. No matter what else I accomplish in my life time, nothing will ever match the importance or the accomplishment of that.

If you have children, and you read this...take time tonight to just watch them sleep, it's a miracle right there in your own home.

This is all Stephanie's fault...I just want everyone to know that.*smile*

All right, I'm posting this here so that maybe, just maybe one or two of you, and I think that's all there are, will answer it....just so I don't feel like more of a geek than I already am.

********************************
Okay, seriously, I'm only doing this because I can't sleep.

Two Names You Go by
1. Serena
2. Mommy

Two Parts of Your Heritage
1. Greek
2. Norwegian (don't even ask)

Two Things That Scare You
1. My children being hurt
2. My house catching on fire.

Two Fears You Overcame
1.Being alone
2. Trusting a person I didn't give birth too.

Two of Your Everyday Essentials
1. Diet Soda
2. BOOKS

Two Things You Are Wearing Right Now
1. Underwear
2. t-shirt

Two Things You Wore Too Much This Year
1. track pants ( give me a break, I'm pregnant)
2. white tshirts (see above)

This Year's Favorite Bands or Musical Artists
1. Beth Hart
2. Sarah McLachlan

Two of Your Favorite Bands or Musical Artists
1. DURAN DURAN
2. Counting Crows

Two Things You Want in a Relationship
1. Honesty
2. Communication

Two Physical Things That Appeal To You
1. strong hands
2. Smile

Two of Your Favorite Movies of the Year
1.A History of Violence
2. Walk the Line

Best Movies of All Time
1. The Road Home ( Chinese)
2. Star Wars

Two Things You Hate
1. Lying
2.fake concern

Two of Your Favorite Hobbies
1. writing
2. reading

Two Things You Learned Last Year
1. I can let go of the past
2. Money really isn't that important

Two Accomplishments You Are Proud Of
1. My children
2. Not hiding my mental illness

Two Things You Want Really Badly
1. To take my daughter on vacation
2. To finish my college degree

Two Places You Went Last Year
1. Wendover ( with Steph)
2. North Dakota

Two Places You Want to Go on Vacation
1. China
2. New York

Two Things You Want to Do Before You Die
1. Sky Dive
2. visit the Smitsonian

Two Ways That You Are a Stereotypical Example of Your Gender
1. I get angry at stupid crap
2. I think men are pigs

Two Things That Make You Stand Out
1. My breasts
2. My laugh

Two Things You Normally Wouldn't Admit
1. I actually like one Brittany Spears song
2. I have worn pink in public before.

Two Things You Are Thinking About Now
1. Finishing the paper work for the adoption
2. How to finish the poem I started last night

Two Favorite Web Sites
1.jorgelives.blogspot.com (nepotism lives!!! I have to admit, I'm biased)
2. Barnes and Noble.com

Two Favorite Sports (to watch and/or play)
1. Sports??? What?? Ughhh
2.

Two People Who Will Fill This Out
1. If I post it? Russ and ummm...maybe Matt
2.

Two Things You Did Last Night
1.Worked on homework
2. stayed up to damn late

Two Shows You Like To Watch
1. Numbers
2. House.

Two Places You Like To Go To
1.The Bookstore
2. Amywhere with Steph

Two Favorite Subjects In School
1. English
2. History

Two Favorite Places To Eat
1. Truckstops
2. anywhere else I can get good fries ( I'm easy to please)

Two Things You Like About Yourself (physically)
1. lips
2. skin

Two Things You Ate Today
1. Stouffer's French Bread Pizza
2. Shredded Wheat

Two People You Last Talked To
1. My attorney
2. Russ

Two Things You're Doing Tomorrow
1. Getting Jareth's Picture taken
2. Maling paperwork

Two Goals for the New Year
1. lose the baby weight
2. Start school again

Work in Progress

i am the silence in the hallway
that thing you whisper to yourself
promises you never kept

i know you

i am your guilty secret
slick like rain water on a greasy drive
dirty and polluted


i am every angry moment
all the shivers in your spine

i am the judgement that waits for you
every blow you landed
every ugly word you threw

i caught them
tight inside my skin


Started working on this the other night....inside my head....wanted to get it written out and see how it felt. Comments appreciated.

Let's Not Forget

While we in this country sit and scream at each other about whether people who enter our borders illegally should be given special treatment, let's not forget that the world continues to go on.

Let's remember a few things that might put what we are squabbling over in perspective:

People are dying of starvation in all parts of the world, including the United States. Statistics from a recent article:

"Food has never before existed in such abundance. The U.S. alone produces enough to feed half the world—even though one in eight Americans suffers from hunger. In Brazil, one in five people in cities is overweight, while 40 percent can’t afford to buy quality food. India, nearly self-sufficient in food production, has twice the number of underweight children as sub-Saharan Africa. If there’s plenty to eat, why are 852 million people around the world—mainly women and children—on the verge of starvation?"


"Why?" is a good question, don't you think?

Wars in the third world and the middle east continue to tear families apart and kill innocent men, women and children. Imagine having to worry about sending your child to school in the morning because you are afraid they might not make it home alive, or worse still, having no school to send your child to. Imagine living somewhere like Afghanistan where when winter comes you have no means to build adequate shelter or provide adequate food and you know that by the end, you will have seen one or more of your children die of cold or starvation.

The next time you prepare to open your mouth to begina diatribe about how horrible things are here, about how the government isn't doing what it needs to do, look around. Do you have a roof over your head? Did your children go to bed with full stomaches last night? If the answer is yes, I would suggest you take ten seconds and think about what it would be like to have to answer no.....kind of places things in a different light, doesn't it?

Where there's smoke, there's fire.....somewhere

Getting ready for bed last night and all of a sudden the entire back half of my house smells like something is burning.

Okay...breathe deep, don't panic. RIGHT!

I promptly begin to freak out, because dear reader, I am scared to damn death of having my house catch on fire.

It's midnight, it's cold outside, the wind is blowing and we have no flashlight...but I make Russ go outside and check under the trailer (yes, I live in a little redneck box)I want to know if there is a reason for me to continue to panic or not.

Russ, being a man, doesn't think before he answers the following question, " Do you see anything under there?"

He answers, " Yeah, I see something." He doesn't bother to eleaborate.

This answer sends me scurrying into the house to grab the phone and begin the frantic dialing of 911. Luckily he catches me in time and adds this, " I don't think it's fire though." My heart rate goes down a bit.

After about ten minutes, we locate the source of the smell. Our neighbors are burning some particuallarly nasty smelling wood and because of the wind and lack of proper insulation at my home, the smoke is getting blown inside.

I don't sleep well all night....and I've had enough excitement to last me all weekend, thank you very much.

I'd like to kill Murphey, whoever he was....

You know that whole Murphy's law thing? Well I would love to go back in time and kill whoever "Murphey" was.

We just get caught up enough to have some room and Russ loses his job due to a "slow down"....I have three weeks left until the baby is born, so no one is going to hire me right now....Murphey's law, you see?

"If anything can go wrong it will, and at the worst possible moment."

*dramatic sigh* Seriously, just felt the need to bitch for a brief moment. I'm seriously thinking about building a time machine and returning to the glory of being twelve....school, sleepovers and the occasionall babysitting job. Anyone want to join me?

Yikes!!

If you can look at this and not laugh, I don't know what's wrong with you.

Got a new computer!!

My new computer arrived this evening, all bright and shiny and full of promise.

And then....

There was so much CRAP already installed!!! It took me the better part of an hour to clean it up. I'm still rearranging the settings so IE isn't screwing with me everytime I turn around.

Tomorrow I get to network my two hard drives together...that should be fun!

Still...I got a new computer!!!

WARNING: This post will probably offend most everyone that reads it!!!!!!!

I have had enough !! Have you been reading or watching the news lately? This whole thing about immigration laws? Are they serious? I mean the people standing out in the street yelling that their rights are being infringed upon, screaming, " I'm an American, too!"

No, you are not an American. Unless you have entered this country legally, pay taxes and have begun the naturalization process, you are NOT an American. You are an illegal immigrant.

Scream all you want to about how this country was founded by immigrants. The fact is that that was over 100 years ago and the immigration laws, if there were any were different. We are talking about NOW...Today....not "was" or "back then". If you come into this country illegally, I don't care what you're intentions were, I don't care why...you are here against the law and it should be treated as such. I don't even care what country you come from, Mexico, Canada, Cuba, Finland....makes no difference. Here illegally is here illegally.

If I were to slip unnoticed into another country and try to set up residence and I got caught, I would be treated as a criminal, deported...etc...why should it be any different here.

I'm all for people having the ability to make their lives and the lives of their families better, but come ON....it should be done properly. I'm sorry if people feel that this is the place to come to fix everything, but if we, as a nation, don't start fixing the things that are wrong with US we're doomed to continue to decline.

What about the welfare system? Overburdened and severly outdated? What about the lack of support medically and mentally for the poor and the needy that were BORN in this country?

When somone that was born here...no matter what their ethnic background gets turned away when they need assistance, but someone that is here illegally can get assistance, doesn't that sound wrong?

Don't get in my face and scream at me that they have rights, too. I know that, but it should have to be done according to the LAW. I have to live by them, I have to follow them...if people want to live here and be "Americans" then they should have to do the same?

Why is it that in this country we either swing all the way to the left, or allll the way to the right?

Where in the BLUE HELL did all of the common sense in the world go? If anyone has seen it, please pack it up and ship it back, because I'm about to scream.

A Moment of Silence

The man responsible for inventing the chicken nugget has died.

I was browsing through the news on MSNBC and came across an article talking about Robert Baker, who, at the age of 84, passed away this month. Apparently Mr. Baker was the man responible for the invention of the chicken nugget.

Anyone reading this not remember the first time they had chicken nuggets? It's practically a staple of most American toddlers diets between the ages of 2 and 4. They serve them in all varities in all kinds of restaurants.


I used to have Chicken Nugget toys from McDonald's, back when Happy Meals came in little boxes you could never close and the nuggets were packaged in a styrofoam container.

Let's face it folks.....even if we would like to think that we are of higher sensabilities and like to hear only "important" news, doesn't it make you a little sad to know that the man who invented such a great comfort food has left us?

Makes me a little sad.

Sick Baby

My son has been sick all weekend. I feel so bad for him because I can't fix it and he just doesn't understand why. It's the part of being a parent that I hate the most. The part where your child looks at you and is hurt and crying and all you can do is pick them up and snuggle them.

He had a fever most of the weekend and didn't want to eat. We spent most of our time sitting on the couch with me rubbing his little feet and whispering to him to get him to try and sleep.

When the fever finally broke, he sat up and smiled a tired smile and blew me a little kiss.....and I swear to God, it made my eyes tear up. He is the sweetest little thing.

This is the first time he's actually been sick..you know, something more than the sniffles, so it was hard on me....even harder on his daddy.

Russ had to work on Friday and so he wasn't able to stay home and do the snuggle kiss thing. Poor man looked like he was going to the gallows when he walked out of this house on Friday morning, his son laying in my arms behind him crying for daddy.

He made it home in record time that night, and spent the rest of the weekend fetching juice, playing cars and rubbing Jareth's back. It was cute and sweet and warmed my heart.

We may not have money, we may live in a ratty ass little trailer, we may not even always like each other...but there is a lot of love in this house. It just takes something like a sweet, exhausted, sick little boy to bring it to the front of our minds. Thank god for children....God couldn't have given me a better gift.