2 Great Christmas Giveaways!!

I have stumbled across a couple of great giveaways in the blogoshere. They are just in time for Christmas and have some pretty cool prizes! Check them out!!





And...

UPDATE

Several more hours spread out over 2 more days + 4 more trips to the hardware store = a dishwasher that still doesn't run.

The water and drain pipe are hooked up and running, but the electrical still isn't hooked up. Father in law may come over tomorrow to take care of that. Did I mention that I love that man? He is my new hero!

Here's to Jeff!

How many people does it take...

to put in a dishwasher? The world may never know.


Who knew that putting in a dishwasher was such a task? I thought it would be as simple as cutting a hole in the cabinet and hooking up a drain line and a water line. But that is sooooo not the case. My husband and father in law spent on the upper end of 6-7 hours working on that thing yesterday. Now, my beautiful dishwasher is in place! The only problem is it's still not hooked up. WHAAAAAA!!! But father in law is coming back over today (I think) to work on it some more.


So, yesterday those silly boys decided it would be a good idea to send me to the hardware store with a list that looks something like this:


1 drain hose clamp - 1 1/4"
elbow, 90 degrees w/NPT - copper
y branch tailpiece & connector kit - 1 1/2"
conduit connector
water line 3/8" OD copper or 1/4" ID plastic (6 ft at least)
T- 3/8" for water supply
Hose clamp - 2 each


WHAT????????? Are you serious? Guess what? The extent of my plumbing knowledge pretty much ends with knowing how to flush the toilet.


So I go into the hardware store, hand my list to someone, and even she didn't know what some of the things on the list were. So a 100 questions (some of which I actually knew the answer to) and almost $50.00 later, I came out of the hardware store with a very small bag of stuff.


Now I'm not actuallysure what happened, but they couldn't finish putting it in because either something wasn't the right piece, or because they needed something else. So I have a b.e.a.u.tiful dishwasher in place, that doesn't work yet.


On the plus side though, I'm going to Wal-Mart today and I'm going to buy some dishwasher liquid!!!! A girl can dream right?

The Boat is NOT going to turn over!

So, school went well on Thursday. I think I'll easily get back into the swing of things. And much to my amazement (joy) most of the students in my classes are as old (or older, yes!) as I am.

My sister in law is watching the kids while I have classes. She got to the house at 7:45 am on Thursday. The kids were still sleeping, so I gave her the run down. Feed them when they get up, watch TV, play a game, hang out, whatever you want to do. I got home at 11:15 and my daughter had been up about 15 minutes, my son was still sleeping! STILL SLEEPING!!! He slept until 12:30. So why is it that I haven't slept till 11:00 in I don't know when, but the morning I have to get up at 6:15 and leave then with someone else, they sleep all damn day?!?!?!? Interesting question. Maybe it's a conspiracy.

So when my lazy son finally hauled his little tushie out of bed, we loaded up and headed to Mobile. My brother in law and sister in law live down here and Jimmy has been working down here with him for the last 2 weeks. We decided that since we had a long weekend, my sister in law was off on Thursday, and Jimmy was off all weekend, we would come down and have fun. It's a change of pace from staring at the walls in my house all day. They are a lovely shade of green though.

Last night, Jimmy's best friend brought his boat down. Jimmy, brother, best friend, and cousin decided to go out on the boat last night and deep sea fish. They thought it would be a grand idea to make it an overnight trip. So they loaded the boat, got all of their stuff together, and headed out about 8:00. The kids and I planned to meet them at the dock about 8:00am to get on the boat. Well, overnight there were unbelievable thunderstorms. When we got there this morning, I found out that the weather was even worse on the water. There were 12 foot seas and at one point, all the boys put on their life jackets because they thought they were gonna tip. None of them even slept last night at all. YIKES!!!! Now, said best friend is the same friend that was featured in my previous blog post "My Big Fat Redneck Weekend", so it should explain the decision to go boating on the Gulf when there is bad weather rolling in. I think I'll steal a phrase from my best friend Donde and start calling his best friend "bad decision friend". He still has the black eye from last weekend too.

Anyway, the kids and I got there and loaded up on the boat and we went out about 8:30am. It was still cloudy and overcast, but it wasn't raining. We knew there was a line of storms coming, but we knew it would be a few hours before they made there way in. The water was a little choppy, but not too bad. So we get on the boat and we were in the "no wake zone", so they kids were super excited. This was their first trip onto a boat. We saw seagulls, oil rigs, a ferry carrying cars, and other big boats. They were having so much fun. Then we got out of the "no wake zone" and they gave the boat some gas. Then a little more, and a little more, etc... until we were going a normal speed that you would go in a boat, nothing too fast. Then Baxter started getting a little nervous, and started scooting closer and closer to me. Then he was holding my hand, then he was in my lap, then he had his head buried in my bosom. Then I started hearing him say it. "Momma, the boat is gonna sink! It's gonna turn over. It's gonna stop floating! It's gonna sink, I know it's gonna sink" No Baxter. The boat is NOT going to sink. So here is my 4 year old boy fa-reaking out, and then I look over at my tiny 2 year old girl and she is having the time of her life! She was laughing and walking from person to person, and generally enjoying herself. That child has no fear whatsoever. We parked the boat out by an oil rig and everyone jumped into the water. We did manage to get Baxter in for a second, but that quickly turned into crying and complaining about how cold that water was, so it didn't last long. We also saw a few dolphins while we were out! When everyone was back on the boat, we rode around a little longer, and then headed back in because the clouds started looking pretty ominous. Baxter rode in the cabin of the boat on the way back in and he seemed to enjoy himself much more when he had a room and walls surrounding him.

We got back into the dock, got the boat back on the trailer, and the flood gates opened. JUST IN TIME! Lord knows, my child probably would have just died if we had still been on the boat in that storm. We got home and ate some pizza, then we all showered. Now, everyone is sleeping, except me. I thought I would make use of this heavenly (and very rare) quiet time to catch up on my blogging. Now I have done just that and I am going to lay down.

the end!

Chicken Here. I have no head.

Here I am at 11:06 pm and I am not even close to being done for the day. As I predicted in my last blog post, I spent the entire day running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Got up this morning, started laundry, got dressed, fed the kiddos, and off we went. First stop was the dreaded financial aid department. I HATE that place with a passion. Thank God I was only handing some paperwork in. That meant I only had to stand in line for an hour. If I had needed some actual financial aid counseling, I would have waited in line for an hour to sign in, then sat in the smelly waiting room for another 2 hours, holding my breath every time the loud speaker clicked on, hoping my name was the next to be called. After that, it was back to the bookstore to purchase 4 USED books for a grand total of $311.87. USED BOOKS!!!! Ridiculous.

Then it was to McDonald's to feed my children a nutritious lunch of fat, grease, cholesterol, caffeine, and sugar. After lunch on the run, we headed to the bank and the post office, then we were off to my mom's house. I spent the afternoon photographing art (that's a whole other blog post). Then we ran to Lowe's where my wonderful, beautiful, loving, precious mommy bought me a DISHWASHER!!!!! I want to scream it from the room tops! I HAVE A DISHWASHER. No, it's not installed yet, we haven't even picked it up from Lowe's yet, but I have a receipt that says it belongs to me and that is good enough to make me giddy! Now, I might actually be inspired to cook. You see, I loathe hand washing dishes. In fact, I would rather go hungry that have to hand wash dishes. Unfortunately, my children have to eat, so I've spent the last several months letting dishes pile up in my sink. So my lovely mother (whom I adore, by the way) decided to buy me an early Christmas present! God Bless that woman!

We ate dinner at her house, then headed back home. I put the kids to bed about 9:30 and they still aren't sleeping. I can hear some screaming, them some crying, then "Mom! She's kicking me!" or "Mom! Bubba slapped me!". Then every 15 minutes or so, one of them will sneak out hear, hoping I wont notice. Dream on!

I still need to do laundry, wash dishes (damn I wish my new toy was here already), clean the house, and pack. Did I mention that the kids and I are going down to Mobile tomorrow when I get out of school? Actually, we were planning on going down there tonight, but then school snuck up on me. So I put it off until tomorrow. Since Jimmy is working down there, we are going to spend a few days down there with him. My sister in law is off tomorrow, so we're gonna hang out with her. I was planning on having everything done tonight, so we could leave as soon as I get home, but it's looking like I'm gonna have to put some of my to do list off until tomorrow. It's already 11:30 and I have to leave the house at 8:00 am to go to hell, uh, I mean school.

Alright, I guess with that I will close this blog post. I have way more important things to be doing than blogging to all of you people.

Peace!

Holy Crap! I start school when?

Ok, so some of you may know that I decided several months ago to go back to school. I decided that I wanted to go back and get my Elementary Education degree. I found out I was only 5 semesters from having my bachelors and decided to just do it. I talked to my advisor at USM and found out that I could take 4 classes at the local Junior College (much cheaper) and start USM in the Spring as a Junior. So, I registered for Human Growth and Development, English Literature, Real Number Systems, and World Geography (sounds thrilling, huh?). I was told by a woman at said Junior College that classes start on August 25th. Great! I have 2 more weeks of jacking off before I actually have to become an responsible student again. I haven't been in an academic classroom in over 6 years. I even have a girl's night out planned with my sisters in law for the 22nd, to blow it out before I start back! I'm so excited!

Today I head up to the college to turn in some paperwork and while standing in one of the many lines (WITH my 2 year old and 4 year old in tow), I over hear some young little thing talking about how she is dreading Thursday, what's she's got to do before Thursday, going to the bookstore before Thursday, what she's going to wear on Thursday. WTF? Thursday????? What's Thursday? So I keep on straining my ear to totally invade her privacy (while trying to wrangle the 2 little monkey's that are laughing like wild banshees and running in circles around my legs like I'm a tree), and hear her say something about classes starting Thursday. Are you freaking kidding me??

You mean to tell me that my 2 weeks of jacking off just got cut down to 1 day? And that one day of jacking off is going to look more like running around like a chicken with my head cut off to get textbooks and supplies, clean my house, do laundry, call sister in law to make sure she can start keeping the kids this week instead of 2 weeks from now, and generally psych myself up for starting classes again.

Good thing I went in today and over heard the kid (I feel like I'm 100 going back to school with a bunch of 12 year olds that weigh 80 lbs. Skinny bitches.) talking about Thursday. If I hadn't I would have merrily waltzed into my 1st class on the 25th and sat down like I owned the joint. All the while the professor would have been looking at me like "who the hell are you?" And I probably would have gotten a crushing statement from her along the lines of "Excuse me, ma'am? We don't generally deal with the mother's of students. If you have a question about your son or daughter, you can go talk to someone in student services". I know, I know. I'm not that old. I mean, I was the 12 year old that weighed 80 lbs about 9 years ago. It's just the fact that I'm starting to feel anxious about going back. I am going to be the minority this time around instead of the majority. I'm a wife. I'm a mom. I have responsibilities. I drive a mini van for crissakes!!!

Awww hell! What have I gotten myself into? I'm officially a college student again!

Our Big Fat Red Neck Weekend!

It's been a while since I've been on here. I told you I'm not very good with keeping up with things like this. I just wrote a huge post about our weekend on another website that I'm on. I do not have the energy to re-write it, so I'm gonna copy/paste it here...

I got my lazy butt up this morning and weeded my dreadfully overgrown flower beds. They have been looking so terrible, but it's just been absolutely too hot to do anything about it. I mean, I could probably stand the heat, but if I'm out there then the kids are out there too. And there is no shade in the front yard and I just don't want them out there for that long. So anyway, it's a dreary, rainy day today. The high is only supposed to be like 76. When I got up it wasn't raining, so I ran out there and got it done before the next line of thunderstorms comes through. It is such a relief to have it done!

We had a nice weekend. Jimmy and his brother went to the casinos on Friday night when they got off. He had been sitting at a video poker machine for about 10 minutes when he heard his name called over the casino loud speaker. He went to the player's club desk and they told him that he had won $800.00 in free play!!! Now, that's not cash, it's free credits, but he started playing dollar machines (we usually play .5 or.25 cent machines) and he ended up coming home with $720.00 dollars!! That is so awesome! We were definetly needed some extra money!

WARNING: total red neck story ahead.........

So anyway, he came home on Saturday and we took the kids and went to his best friends house on Saturday night to grill out. Let me tell you, that was an interesting night. His BF just got a four wheeler earlier that day, so we spent the evening riding four wheelers and the gator (that's like a farm utility vehicle that has 2 seats and then a flat bed). The kids rode in the flat bed with either me or BF's girl friend and we all took turns riding the 4 wheeler. Well, the kids were in the gator with BF and his GF, and Jimmy and I were on the 4 wheeler following them and they got stuck in some mud. So we pull around them and get out and try to push it out, but it wont budge. So we get the kids out and me and the kids stand off to the side out of the way, then they wenched the gator to the back of the 4 wheeler. Jimmy gets behind the gator to push, GF gets in the gator to give it gas, and BF gets on the 4 wheeler to drive it. Well, he proceeds to gas the damn thing, the gator still wouldn't budge, and all he managed to do was flip the entire 4 wheeler over backwards on himself!!! OMG, I freaked the hell out, the kids freaked out, GF jumped out of the gator and picked the 4 wheeler up off of him by herself before Jimmy could even get there, so that he could get out from under it. He is so lucky though, because all that happened to him was a black eye, a bump on the head, and a sore hand. Other than that he's fine. Jimmy and BF went back down later to try again and they wenched it to a tree and it pulled it right on out. Wish we had been smart enough to think of that sooner. Moral of this story is, don't drink a lot of beer and then try to pull a gator out of the mud with a 4 wheeler that probably weighs at least 1000 lbs less.

Red neck story over.

Oh, another thing that happened that night is that I re-injured my hurt ankle. I was walking out behind BF's house (it's way out in the country and super dark) and I fell in a hole and re twisted my ankle. Now this is the same ankle that I hurt almost 4 weeks ago that hasn't even quit hurting from that. I had about decided that I needed to go have it looked at and maybe get an MRI. Now I have fallen and hurt it again. It is SUPER swollen and just generally hurts badly now. I felt like such a dumb ass. I couldn't even get up off the ground it hurt so bad. sucks.

We spent the night out there that night and then we all went and ate Mexican for lunch yesterday. Then we went back out there and the GF cooked saur kraut ribs for us last night. We got home about 9:30, gave the kids a bath, and went to bed. We were all so exhausted.

Jimmy left this morning about 11:00 to head back to Mobile. He has to work down there this week too. The bank evidently cannot get there shit together so that they can take over the restaurants in Hattiesburg. They are now saying the 18th, but who knows. It will probably get pushed back again. Jimmy I guess will be working in Mobile until it does happen. I think we are gonna go down there on Wednesday night. SIL (Jimmy is staying with his brother and SIL down there) is off on Thursday, so she and I can hang out. That way it wont be another week until we see Jimmy. And I think his BF is gonna come down there Friday night with his boat and we're gonna take the boat out into Mobile Bay on Saturday. Should be fun. We've never taken the kids out on the boat, hopefully they will like it.

Also, I have recently spent a lot of time updating my business website. You guys should go check it out and let me know what you think... www.goaskyourmama.com

That's all for now!

I'm trying

I'm going to try and start blogging on a regular basis. Who knows if I'll actually keep it up. Sometimes I'm not real great on following through on things like this. I think I'm going to try and do this blog for my family and my business. In case you haven't guessed yet, I have a business painting custom canvases. My business name is Go Ask Your Mama! (thanks for the help on that Kez!)



I'm also a full time SAHM. I have 2 beautiful kiddos, Baxter (4) and Izzy (2). They really keep me on my toes!! I've been married to my wonderful (most of the time) husband for a little over 5 years. He is a restaurant manager for a local deli chain. Here are a few pics of us...













That's about all for now. Nothing super interresting going on today!