Evil Creeper

I don’t get how some people can practically roll in poison ivy and never get a spot while others can simply be downwind of it and get an outbreak that resembles textbook leprosy. I just happen to be in the category of “breaks out as the word is spoken.”  So, you would think I would know what the vile shit looks like so I could stay as far away from it as possible, right? Oh hell no! Sure I’ve heard the phrase “leaves of three let it be” but there are a lot of plants that have three leaves that aren’t poisonous so I never really worried about it.

That is, until now.  

After having family members inspect my yard and researching images of the beast online I am obsessed thinking about it because my yard is absolutely infested! There are hairy looking vines all over my fence that are a half inch in diameter and clearly have been there for many years. It’s growing up one of my trees, around my air conditioner, and hither-thither throughout the planting beds. If only I had done some investigating prior to last weekend when I took it upon myself to pull a bunch of those vines and plucked what I thought were random oak sprouts from the ground. Now I’m using Calamine like its body lotion, trying not to scratch my skin off, and shopping for a level B Hazmat suit.  

Happy Easter Peeps!

My sister and I did all the cooking for Easter dinner. As scary as that sounds, it all turned out shockingly good. For a change, mom and grandma were reduced to spectator status watching from the sidelines and they weren't complaining a bit.

 

We did have a volunteer taste tester who jumped at the chance the clean the mashed potatoes off the mixer beater. 

This kid LOVES her starches and has to have home-made mashed potatoes at least once a week.

 Looks like the Easter Bunny hid some of the eggs kinda high...

Then some time soaking up the sunshine. 

Meet Lil G

Shortly after Christmas Syd begged and pleaded to get a Gecko. I bucked her as long as I could but after she worked her tail off doing extra chores (including her lazy Sister's share) and resisted spending her loot at her favorite store, Claire's I realized she was serious.That was when we went and picked out his guy...

My only regret is that I let her do all the research (because it was her money) and therefore did not realize that he will only eat LIVE crickets. So guess who is running to the pet store every damn week buying crickets and then trying to keep them alive to feed to the lizard? I'll give you a hint; it's not Syd. That's a messed up deal when keeping the food source alive is more complicated than caring for the thing eating them! That is one of the reasons why Lil G is now hoping to be adopted via Craigslist.

Earth Day was over celebrated at our house this weekend. No, we didn't go downtown to watch the parade or run around barefoot with all the other hippies. (Lucky bastards)! No, instead we played in the earth right in the backyard. In fact we celebrated so much that I'm actually typing this with my nose because my hands hurt so freaking bad from all the raking and shoveling! For weeks I have been impatiently waiting to get my garden planted. The problem was 1. the ground was not anywhere near being plant ready and 2. mother nature has not been able to make up her mind as to what season it is. Saturday I said 'screw it' and planted.

Syd and one of her neighbor friends decided to celebrate in their own way by making the outdoors their personal little pillow oasis. Their plush pad was complete with some sort of concoction Syd made out of lemonade and orange Crush and hotdogs from the grill per their request.

The Grill Master/Root pulling He-Man

 

Oh, and Gen celebrated by not doing a darn thing other than playing on her computer all day; even outside by the fire. Next year I'm totally doing that too!

My oldest is a bit of a smartass; no shocker there I know and it's one of the things I love most about her. One of her homework assignments this week was to create a poster and travel brochure on Kenya. She worked for two hours on it and as a result got a high-five from her teacher signaling a job well done. On Wednesday Gen and two of her girlfriends were being nice enough to help another friend with his poster. The school was having a special assembly just for the African American students to discuss low testing scores, something that I was like, Are you kidding me? That seems borderline suspect but apparently it’s been done before. So the plan was he would go to the assembly while the girls continued to work on his poster. This dude made the mistake of bragging (within ear shot of the girls) that he had “three white girls doing his work for him.” (Big, HUGE mistake). When he returned to class he found his poster done; complete with big pink hearts and pretty little swirlies. Gen said she smiled at him and said “Hope you like your poster!” and walked off. I know that smile; it’s more of a devilish “I got you” smile that tends to make you very uneasy. In this case the poor guy deserved it.

Since her Clay Center friend came to stay with us Gentry has been more out-going. A comment her friend made kind of made her realize how closed minded some people are and maybe being here isn’t so bad after all. She has just now started letting her guard down and acting like her real, goofy as hell self around her Lawrence friends. The other night as we took one of the girls home after track practice she nonchalantly said, “Hey Twiggy, what language are you guys doing in IFL?” Without blinking Gen answered “French.”  I HAD to ask her about it and she said that’s what all her friends call her. Unfortunately that was the nickname I had when I was Gen’s age however I never did embrace it like she has. Now when I pick her up from school it’s like picking up Norm from Cheers only it’s, “Heeeeeeey Twiiiiiiggy!”    

Bon and I were quickly informed that we are NOT allowed to call her that name either. So instead we made up a song cause we are mature adults like that. “Twiggy, Twiggy, Twiggy, can’t you see see…. that your legs are sooo skinny….” Turns out we were the only ones amused but we were okay with that. Come to think of it, we did get that evil little look that I’m certain her friend got when he made his unfortunate comment…

Oops.  

My Color Therapy

I wish I had taken better before pictures of this room but I kind of did it in haste as I was just beginning to start painting. I was so excited to get cracking that I almost skipped taking them all together. All the white is impossible to miss. In fact it was blinding. 

 

Some people spend a lot of money to have someone else dictate their moods, lives, whatever. I have gotten my best "therapy" from color and the creation of these vibrant spaces one room at a time. I have not shared this particular room sooner because I was waiting for all of it to come together which I feel that it did this past weekend.

This is my room; my space, my sanctuary.

I love this lamp. Absolutely love it. I asked Daniel if he loved it. His answer was, "It's the lamp you wanted..." I think that means he loves it too!

Two of my New Orleans prints in floating frames.

Chocolate walls against bright white trim. I craved dark chocolate the first week after I painted.

Finally a space for my antique armoir.

My new wicker chair that I got for a steal!

The Season Finale

My sister was gracious enough to take Ali and me as her “dates” to the KU Men’s Basketball Banquet. It’s these little perks that I would be so jealous of if it were not for the fact that she usually includes me. My bro-in-law is a devout ‘purple fan’ and could therefore care less. Fine with me; let’s go before he changes his mind!

The night was pretty low-key but there were some moments that were more touching than others. I got chills when Wayne Simien gave the invocation and choked up when all the parents of the players were asked to stand thinking about how that must have stung for T-Rob. At times we wondered if Coach was drunk especially when he said that the best thing about Brady graduating was that he was taking Roger with him or when he mentioned an athletic staff member by name and congratulated him on a successful colonoscopy from earlier that day. The cherry on top however was when he introduced the three seniors and was starting to explain how Mario had a rough start to his KU career with an injury. He actually said “How big is your rod Rio?” referring to a metal rod he had to have put in his leg. The entire room of 600 plus and all the players cracked up.  In response Little held out his hands about 12 inches apart and the laughter in the room escalated. Coach turned red and said, “I think I need to call a time-out!”

A season 35 and three AND back to back to back to back to back to back to back Big 12 Championships. Rock Chalk Jayhawk! See ya at the Fieldhouse in November.

Lies, deceit...

Let me start by saying I am NOT easy to fool. This past week the only thing I knew for sure was that Friday night Dan was taking me to The Legend's in KC to celebrate and to pick up my gift. Saturday remained a mystery that I obsessively tried to piece together by bouncing ideas and clues off my friends and my sister trusting their responses. That apparently was my first mistake! I was given the impression that there would be some sort of wine tasting, perhaps a party and I was fairly certain it was going to be at his home because he had taken the past two days off from work to "work on his house." He said he planned to put a 'For Sale' sign in the yard on Sunday and needed to get the house ready. So I attempted to do some digging and asked those close to me, "Have you talked to Dan this week? So, did you get an invite to any kind of wine tasting?" They were absolutely no help whatsoever and I had NO IDEA that while they remained firm in their denial, they were instantly reporting back to Dan letting him know that I was suspicious! Traitors.

So Saturday after doing some shopping with my sister (who still professed her innocence) I was only told I would be picked up at exactly 5:30 and I needed to pack a bag and be ready to go so we could meet our reservation on time. Oh my gawed, really? A 5:30 reservation?? That alone officially signaled the crossover to my new demographic. We have NEVER eaten that early on a weekend. Something was up.

As we drove out of town he suddenly remembered he forgot something at his house so we needed to go there real quick. There were no cars in the drive; no sign of life and he even left the truck running as we ran inside for "just a minute." As I walked into the great room I first saw the "40" balloon bundles, the streamers, and two tables packed full of all kinds of food. Then they jumped out at me! My Daniel had managed to somehow get my friends to Lawrence along with my sister and several of our good friends we have here to all congregate at his house to scare the hell out of me for my birthday. After the shock wore off then all the confessions starting coming out. Needless to say they were all pretty tickled with themselves for getting away with it. As for Daniel.. he had been stressed to the max for two days worried that I was going to find out and that he wouldn't get everything done in time.

I have never, never, NEVER had such a great birthday. The lengths they went to in the planning and the preparation for this shin-ding was touching. If I hadn't been in such shock I probably would have started crying instantly. Instead all I could muster was, "You lied to me!"

To my younger friends and my sister.... ya'll have given me some great ideas that I will store for later but just remember, paybacks are a bitch! To my Daniel... you are amazingly wonderful, so, so thoughtful and much sneakier than I gave you credit for.

Thank you all for an awesome night. Yeah, you got me.

Good friends = Awesome party!

I have no idea what was so funny... 

Black Friday

I have half jokingly referred to today as Black Friday all week long anticipating this particular milestone birthday. Yesterday a gargantuan wave of sheer terror wash over me as I contemplated my impending doom and I immediately shot off a text to Daniel with the revelation that as of tomorrow he would not be able to say his girlfriend is 30-something! Then, I did what any rational woman experiencing trepidation would do in my situation; I colored my hair, bought a beefier wrinkle cream, and vowed to stay in denial as long as those around me will allow! Problem solved.

Sometimes....

It feels really good to have a teenage daughter.

Like last night after her track meet when she let me hug her (in front of her friends) and she asked, “Did I make you proud Mama?”

And then again this morning as we were getting ready for our day, when out of the blue she asked, “Do you love me unconditionally because I love you unconditionally.” 

 Both to which I answered, "Absolutely!"

Passing the Baton

Today I felt all those old jitters and feelings of anxiety return as I watched Gen line up for her events. I cringed when she passed the baton to the next runner in the 4x400 relay praying she wouldn't drop it or worse, wipe out stretching to make the connection. Gen realizes she is more of a long distance runner rather than a sprinter and so far the 400 is her strongest race. Today she earned 2nd place as the first leg of the 4x400 relay and third in the 400.

4-5-11 4x400 Relay - 2nd Place

See Gen run....

Run Genny ruuuuuun! 

There are three do-overs I would love to have and one of them is my regret of not staying in track and competing in college. That will always be a big 'what-if' in my world. Now my fat ass will just have to settle for winning that t-shirt at the conclusion of Dog Day's each summer.

Get My Special Jacket Ready

As of 5:05 yesterday morning I officially have a teenager. According to everyone around me the gnashing of teeth experienced thus far is nothing compared to the hormonal turbulence yet to come that is sure to be nothing short of the apocalypse itself! Oh JOY I can hardly wait! In all seriousness, the relationship I have with my girls is one of respect. Sure we have had our conflicts but that is because we are normal, hello? And not to mention that all three of us are very much alike. That denominator alone is my biggest speed bump. I'm actually looking forward to having a teenage daughter and watching her grow into a young adult. This is just another chapter in our book and I will help her write her pages as much as she will let me without too much creative editing. Happy Birthday Gig!