A Rush of Hormones to the Head

Well the nausea hasn't made an appearance yet but the hormones have! I went to the gym this morning and got in a good hearty workout, 40 minutes of cardio and chest and arms. I was workin up a good sweat to my I-Pod and it was nice. I left the gym and headed over to Sally's to get some eyebrow wax because I was going to try this myself. I was looking forward to a day of chicken soup in the slow cooker and some eyebrow wax. Yes, I forgot it was Friday and I'm making chicken noodle soup tonight for dinner. Whoopsee! Bad Lentil! So, Gymboree is right next to Sally's so I thought I'd pop in and see what all the hubub was about. A lot of my friends do Gymboree and I've never even been inside, but I heard it's fun. For us, the bottom line is usually, "what's it cost?" I went in to find out.

How cute! There are all these little foam playmats and things to climb on and cute little kiddies everywhere and if you've been, you probably already know that. But it looked like a lot of fun, and for some reason, and I have no idea why, but I really must have thought it was cute because I started crying. Right there in Gymboree! The lady at the front counter gave me some handouts and told me her whole spiel on cost and programs and how many weeks the classes last, the whole shabang, and I was standing there in my sweats, all stinky, trying to blink away my tears. I'm not sure what it was, maybe it was picturing Poops playing with the little kids or something ridiculous, but foolish me! So I thanked the kind lady and I fled out the door and went and cried in my car. I'm crazy.

Dyson Dreams and a Contest! Count Me In!!

The other day, I walked by a display of Dyson vaccuums and petted one of them, just like I was a little Ralphie, rubbing that sexy Leg Lamp in A Christmas Story. But of course, then the price tag was staring at me, eye to eye, and I had to cower and walk away. You win, Dyson! Bah! Anyway, I know I've given my thumbs up to the "Dirt Devil Sweeper Vac" but that's just a sweeper vac. Our regular vac is still with us, but it gets all cloggy and starts spitting and that's been the same tune we've sung for three vaccuums now. Why do I bring this up, you ask?? Only because the wonderful women at "5 Minutes for Mom" are giving away a Dyson! And I'm sweating! Pick me! Pick me! But to be fair, the contest is open to everyone, and I mean everyone, even if you don't have a blog! So head on over to the 5 Minutes for Mom web site and sign up!! They're giving away a Dyson Slim, a new model that's a little skinnier, and believe it, it is still just as expensive as the heftier model. So good luck to you! And wish me luck too! Cause I'm going to go summon The Secret to help me out on this one.

Thursday Thirteen #22

13 Random Thoughts About This Pregnancy (So far)

1. I can eventually take my Snoogle Pillow out of hiding! I love this thing! We just put it away using that vaccuum sucking bag storage thingy. This pillow rocks. It works wonders to help me sleep when the belly gets big, although admittedly, it's like having a third person in the bed with us.

2. I just went through all my maternity clothes again and I forgot how much I actually like them, especially the cute shirt my friend sent me last year from the online store, NOM. (I have it in green and I'm wearing it now just because I can! Yes, I know it looks silly with no belly but I'm only wearing it around the house.) The good thing about being pregnant these days is that Hollywood is also getting into the baby-thing and I'm convinced that's why the clothes are no longer giant hideous frocks anymore. Yippee!

3. Our sonogram is next Thursday!! I can't even believe it! Just one week away!

4. The throwing up hasn't kicked in yet. I actually thought last night that I would rather be throwing up and knowing things were progressing nicely. Then I kicked myself. That's ridiculous!

5. Sorry guests! No more guest room! We'll have to invest in a pullout sofabed at some point because the guest room is going nursery. Now.. what color will it be, I'm busting to know.

6. I am definitely one of those people who needs to know if it's a boy or a girl.

7. Repeat after me: We will go the whole 40 weeks this time we will go the whole 40 weeks this time we will go the whole 40 weeks this time we will go the whole 40 weeks this time we will go the whole 40 weeks this time.

8. I will eat healthy. This is already easy so far, I am craving plain old vanilla yogurt which my mom thinks looks disgusting, but it is sheer joy! Of course I'm also craving hot fudge, but I'll do my best to stick to the yogurt.

9. It's so nice to not have to work in a crazy, noisy, chaotic newsroom this time around. There is so much less stress at home! It's still a little stressful, but it's a different stressful. I like this kind of stressful.

10. I am dreading frizz hair. Last time, pregnancy sucked all of the moisture out of my hair and I couldn't fix it no matter how much conditioner, spray or gunk I put in it. It was a frizzy coif and I looked like Chris Sligh on American Idol.

11. Cleavage! Sweet!

12. I am not liking eggs anymore at all.

13. I have the gift of supersonic smell. I can smell something from miles away and it can be a gift and a curse. Trust me.

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Fashion Idol

Yummy! The outfits on American Idol tonight were absolutely spectacular! I feel like bizarro-Joan Rivers, the one who gives out compliments. Lakisha's little geisha dress and hot "f-me" boots, as we like to call them, were simply dee-lish! Loved her song, too, a Donna Summer classic that my mom and I used to dance around the living room to while playing her Donna Summer records. (Yes, records, I'm that old). It brought back memories. HOT dress, though. Seriously.

Chris Sligh, eh. Bo-ring. Gina in her gorgeous dress which reminded me a little of a really tight Hot-Pocket sleeve, but oddly enough, I do mean that as a compliment! Loved the dress and the song. Melinda Dolittle, I know you're not as surprised as you look when you get compliments, lady! You know you're that good! (Hot dress too, and don't listen to that "fashionista" Simon Cowell, he makes me gag with his chicken chest and open shirt, or his signature tight black shirts where you can actually see his man-nipples. Ick.)

Haley also had a hot dress on, it was seriously "hot dress" night on Idol. These girls just looked fab. Again, I say this with a staunch record of heterosexuality, as George Costanza would say. Her song though, bo-ring. Same with Blake, sorry. Thank you, Dr. Evil, for wearing your hat! Even Phil Stacy looked good tonight, covering up that "bald cap-head" of his with a lovely crochet number. I guess it's not quite the hat I'd have chosen, but it'll do. It's a hat. Song was great, though! Chris is such a cutie, it was a darned shame he was in the bottom two last week, but I think going last in the lineup this week will help him. By the way, off-topic, one of my favorite things about watching Idol with my tone-deaf husband who can't carry a tune is when he proclaims that a singer is all "pitchy" with their song. It's like a mechanic saying a figure skater didn't quite stick her triple-toe-loop. It's funny, honey! I'm laughing WITH you!!

Sanjaya and his hair. The faux-hawk was just plain weird as we've come to expect from Sanjaya. I feel like he's an Indian-version of William Hung who should just give up and sing "She Bang", already. We won't even say that Sanjaya will be in the bottom three this week. He will be back next week. And the next. He just won't go away. I am sure now that he has the entire Indian outsourcing call-center vote and will remain in the competition for a while. Unfortunately. He has fans. En mass. Somewhere.


Oh yeah, Jordin. Has anyone noticed how giant she looks next to a tiny cowering Ryan? She's just a tall girl and Ryan looks so peensy standing next to her. It's quite funny seeing them together. I didn't really like her song, "Hey Baby", and usually I love her to death. I thought the song was a little too R&B-Diva-ey and it didn't really match, but the judge's seemed to like it so what do I know? Like I always say, everyone's a critic from their couch, in the comfort of their own living room while stuffing their pie-holes with peanut-butter-cup frozen yogurt! OK that's just me. Hey, I'm eating for two!

Should I be worried?

I haven't had much of any pregnancy "symptoms" lately, except for some cramps. There's some complete exhaustion but no real nausea. I guess it could just be the calm before the storm and I may be in for a real "treat" when it really begins to kick in. That's what happened last time. In fact, I'll probably look back and think "What was I thinking!" So no need to worry, right? Of course, I am probably "manufacturing craziness" and needlessly worrying and probably will for quite a while. But I just got all my maternity clothes back that I had lent out and I had forgotten all of what was in there! The rush of memories just came flooding back! It'll be a while till I fit in those, anyway, but I'm actually looking forward to it. I had some fun stuff! (For maternity-wear, that is). Some of it even has sparkles! Which is always a plus. It just reminded me how much I loved being pregnant the first time around. I really hope this continues, happily and healthily. I also want to say thanks to everyone who emailed me and commented with your kind thoughts and words!! Thank you so much!

Anyway, it was a nice day today at home. I feel like Poops and I have these little bonding sessions now that he's getting older and his little personality is coming out. He has a bit of a nose dribbly lately, and as I sat there on the floor wiping it off, I thought to myself, "you know you're a mom when you wipe some boogers off another human being with your sleeve and you don't think twice about it."

Then at some point during the day, I looked over at Poops who had his entire mouth on a roll of toilet paper and was biting into it like he was eating an apple. That, along with our normal morning "hiding in the curtains" and chasing the cat around the house, and it was a banner day.

This all was after we had a fiesta trying out new cups for this whole weaning from the bottle thing. So, things we found out:
-Will drink formula out of a) bottle and b) messy cup with no top but not c) any kind of sippy cup, ever.
-However, will drink cow's milk (I know, not till a year, but I only tried a tiny bit!) or water out of sippy cup, happily. This will be good because he'll be off formula soon.
-Most successful venture: cup with no top on it. He loves this and slurps his way through the whole thing. However, it's the messiest venture. He only gets about half in his mouth. The rest goes down his neck and onto his shirt, thus requiring bath.
-Least successful venture: the sippy cup with the spout that you have to suck like an asthma inhaler to get anything out of. He didn't "get" it until mommy tried it and got a mouth full of formula. Yeesh.
Anyway, here's the cup montage:

The Candidates

The Winner

The Mess

Oops. We did it again.

I guess I could do a Wordless Wednesday with this one because the picture says it all, but it's Sunday, so instead I'll do a Sunday Thankfuls or something like that.Yep! We're pregnant! I had to wait to tell all my immediate family members first before I blogged about it, and frankly I was so busting and just couldn't blog at all until I could blog about this! So that's the real reason I've been MIA. I am a terrible secret-keeper and this has just thrown me for a complete loop! Ohhh the myriad of emotions I've been through this week, which coupled with raging hormones, was a very interesting experience to say the least. I bought the test last week and took it totally thinking "Nahhhh...". I was rushing through it too, taking it at the totally wrong time of day (around 5pm after drinking a bottle of water, which while you're trying to get pregnant is a no-no because you want to have all the stars aligned -- first morning pee without the water to dilute it -- yes, you can file this under "TMI" or you can file it away for later, either one). But we were not "trying" really, and as I finished peeing on the stick touted as the "most advanced technology you'll ever pee on", I heard the lock on the front door turn, and heard my husband's footsteps toward the bedroom. Just before he walked in, I saw it. "Pregnant." And my mouth was agape and I handed him the stick and didn't say a word. He was so super-excited he could hardly contain himself. I, on the other hand, was stunned. I was happy, of course, but terrified. Ironically, I had just hours before had a conversation with my friend about having more children. And I admitted to her that I had only just recently thought that I could even think about getting pregnant again. Think about it. I was a little scarred from the first one. My first pregnancy was riddled with complications and I wasn't sure if I could handle it if it happened again. But you know what? I'm just going to have to believe that whatever the plan is, I can handle it and hope for the best in the meantime. I have to keep my blood-pressure low and find my Zen place so I can keep the stress to a minimum. At least now I know what to expect. So our first appointment and sonogram is April 5th, which is so soon! If I had to do the math, I would say we're probably only about 4 or 5 weeks along right now, so it's early. But I figured, if anything (God forbid) happened, I would be blogging about that anyway, so it's only fitting that I share it now. Like I said, I'm not a good secret-keeper. I can "vault" other people's secrets, but not my own. I've been completely frazzled all week, along with nauseous and exhausted, all the normal stuff. But I'm so excited! Bye-bye guest room! Oh and I'm glad I took a picture of the test. The little digital "pregnant" reading wore off after only a day! The first time around, I did the one with the lines, and I took four of them because the second line was only the faintest pink line and I didn't trust it. But I still have them in a drawer and all the lines are still there. FYI.

MIA

Goodness, so sorry I've been MIA this week. It's totally unlike me to be not connected at the hip with my laptop. I've been a little frazzled these days! An entire Thursday went by and I didn't even think about the Thursday Thirteen, around which my week entirely revolves around, until about 8 o'clock at night! I can't believe it! Anyway, I promise I'll be back tomorrow with a real post. Happy Friday!

Why don't I learn

I had an incredibly long, incredibly witty post about this week's Idol and something went entirely amiss and the next thing I know I'm getting a message about encountering problems and while it's happening, I'm saying in slow motion, "Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo" because of course, I haven't hit "save as draft" like I have to remind myself time and time again and I lost it. And I just don't have the energy to do it again. Blasted! So here's my quickie recap.

Two words: Jordin Sparks! Woman, I felt your words so much that I almost wept into my peanut buttercup Ben & Jerry's. Haley's outfit rocked (and her song did too, but let's face it, her performance tonight was not about the song.) I always get a little uncomfortable in my seat when I see Simon drooling. It gives me the heebies. Cute little Chris with a cute little ditty that reminded me of Hotel California. I would like to pinch his cheeks. Blake, I was luke-warm on your beatboxing for a while, but you added it wonderfully like a smooth side of fries next to the song that would be a burger in this scenario. Snaps for you. Lakisha and Stephanie are never not good (blatant use of double-negative here). They are always good, even if they weren't particularly exciting this week. Dr. Evil pranced awkwardly across the stage to one of my favorite songs, Tobacco Road. I can't even picture him without pursed lips and his pinky out. Phil is Dr. Evil. There is no two ways about it. Hat, please! Don't make me beg!

Then the case of Idol Hiccups that won't go away. Sanjaya. Did anyone catch the little she-fan bawling her 7th grader eyes out at the sounds of Sanjaya? Husband and I couldn't even watch this display. We had to look away. This has to be Sanjaya's week. I can't even take another week of this freakshow.

Big-haired Chris. Pretty good, but the best thing about his performance was the guy in the audience holding up the sign "Bringing Chubby Back." Gina went all Joan Jett on us and she was pretty good but not the best. And Melinda Dolittle was cute and good as always but her shirt gave her an unfortunate case of droopy-boob. But this is not a shirt competition, it's a singing competition. In sum, parts of this show were so good, I almost even wanted to vote! Almost.

So my closet mental vote goes to Blake and Jordin.

First Birthday and Cocktail Hour

So I've been spending a lot of time the past couple weeks researching "first birthdays" (yes, actually researching-I'm new to the kid birthday thing!) being that Poops' is turning one in about three weeks. I've finally got the theme and the place and after the flop that was trying to make the invitations, I think I've actually got one made that is actually pretty cute. I am really trying to be creative with his birthday without going over the top. (Keep repeating: he's not even going to remember it!) But trying to find that balance is hard. I don't want to be chintzy because it is my first child's first birthday and his first birthday is really a milestone not only because it just is, but it's the first birthday of my preemie. And it sort of marks the long way we all came, completely unscathed. It really is cause for a celebration!! (High fives all around!) But at the same time, I have seriously been doing my homework on ideas for parties, and man are there are some moms who really go all out! And then I think, boy am I a cheapskate lame excuse for a mom! Like the one who rented out a hall and had it catered and invited 140 people, but the fact that there was a cocktail hour beforehand is really what did it for me. What??? So I'm guessing that having his birthday at my house with paper plates and hot dogs on the grill wouldn't fly with her. Or the mom in the line at the grocery store who had an entire petting zoo brought over, along with clowns, and ponies for her son's first birthday. I don't know. Not to be judgemental of course, I mean, it is Lent and all, but I guess because I have 40 people in my life that I could possibly invite, and only about 8 of them are kids, means for me that buying the circus for the party won't really work and maybe I have somewhat of a warped view of a birthday party. Maybe one day I'll consider purchasing Noah's Ark because that number will one day be 40 people and more than half will be kids. But I just don't know that many kids. I know 8 and four of them are just shy of one. So here it is, and it will have to work. We're going on a jungle safari. (Inspired by the Fisher Price Animal Train-his favorite toy-thanks Aunt Clairanne!). Kids are getting safari hats and binoculars and Poops will be dressed like Jack Hannah. We're going to have it at a pavillion at this really pretty tree-ful park along the bay which will be great for the theme. There will be "jungle juice". My mom and I were on the phone for hours excitedly shouting all sorts of ideas at each other. "We can get dad to make a fake Jeep for everyone to sit in for pictures!" "And we can make an animal chasing it!" "And we can use mosquito netting and make chalk outlines of paw prints on the sidewalk!" Anyway, I think this will be really fun. I'm still working out the menu. But I'm curious, what were some of your birthday party ideas?? I would love to know!! Do tell!

Honesty Poll!

Where do you do your best thinking?

I do mine in the shower. I once redesigned my entire department in my head, in the shower, a system that they still use today, years later go figure! We were talking about this the other night over my corned beef and cabbage, which actually turned out pretty good by the way!, and one of our friends said she does her best thinking right before she falls asleep. My other friend admitted that he did his best thinking on the toilet. My husband remained silent, but I'm assuming it's the same. What about you? Where does your lightbulb go off?

Crash Bang

"Boy: A noise with dirt on it."

One of the funniest stickers on the scrapbook Robin gave me has that definition of boy on it. Which was hysterical to me because it seriously couldn't be more true. I swear, in this house, we are really starting to get into the nitty-gritty of boyhood. I can just feel it. He is truly a noise, with dirt on it. And already at 11 months, I am becoming the mother I never thought I would be. "No". "Don't touch that." "Stay over here." "Come away from that." I hear myself and I cringe. My single friends would be scared to visit if they heard me. And despite my efforts to deter him from harm, if I turn away for one second, one of two things happens. One: there is silence. Silence is never good (unless of course it's sleeping silence, which is wonderful). Silence means there is a hand in the catfood. Or that he's definitely gotten a hold of something and is in the process of putting it in his mouth. The second scenario is the crash-bang. Of course, this is usually followed by stunned silence. Followed by the slow whine that really is just the windup for the real lung-power, the freak-out wail. Both of these scenarios keep me on my toes at every second and I am surprised (and a little upset, frankly) that these have not aided in my weight-loss efforts.

The boy can literally crawl 50 feet in one-point-two seconds. He crawls at the speed of light. He also pulls up on everything, whether it is stable or not. The seat of a chair is stable. However, the back of the chair is not. Crash-bang. A table is stable. The tray on the table with a vase on it (which mommy thought for sure he could not reach) is not. Crash bang. This was today. And you know what followed in both of those scenarios.

And then, there are the millions of times that I look over and see the jaw moving as he's sitting there. Which means there is something in there. So I take out the hook. The hook is my index finger, which I bend in a hook shape and I use to pry open tiny jaw, maneuver between his 8 razor-sharp teeth and whilst getting bitten in the process, scoop out whatever he's chewing on. Grass, a leaf, a plastic thing from a tag, cat hair (gross!). Last night, I saw the chewing. But by the time I got the hook in there, there was a swallow. Husband asks, "Did you get it?" I answer, "Nope. We'll see what it was tomorrow!" I am constantly sweeping and mopping and consider myself to have pretty clean floors. But it doesn't matter. He finds it. Whatever it is. And breaks it or puts it in his mouth. There is, literally, nothing else to get! I have put it all away! But he gets it, whatever it is anyway. I don't understand it! He is like a motor going a million miles a minute and by the end of the day I'm exhausted from chasing, scooping, cleaning, chasing, scooping, cleaning. And he's not even one yet! Then I look over at that cute round portly face which smiles at me and he reaches his arms up at me and I can't help but go from angry to loving just as fast as he can crawl. Who can get mad at that??? I need a drink.

Random Acts of Kindness

There are so few random acts of kindness out in the world and when I see one or even more oddly, am the subject of one, I am just so unbelieveably touched. Robin, at Welcome to My World, sent us not one, but two scrapbooks that she worked on of Poops and they are GORGEOUS! Just out of the kindness of her heart! I can't even believe it! Thank you, Robin! Man, I could tell all the way from Florida that you were the Master Scrapper!! Poops got a kick at looking at pictures of himself, I could see the wheels turning, "Who is that baby? He looks just like me!" He loves them just as much as I do. So much so, that I've spent a lot of time, showing him, "No, honey, no grab! Do nice. Touch nice. See?"(me, petting the scrapbooks nicely). But of course he wants to grab grab grab.
I am just so overwhelmed with thanks, Robin, and I will treasure these always! And by the way, they even match my living room (how did you know??!!) I can't wait to show them off to everyone! Thank you, Robin, thank you thank you thank you!!! I can't stop posting with exclamation marks! I'm putting one here! And here! And a couple here!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy St.Patty's Day!!!

Love, M&M Me

St. Patty's Day Eve

A day before St. Patrick's Day and I can already feel the sound of bagpipes coursing through my veins. Wee! I love St. Patrick's Day! Especially now that I'm an "O'Sullivan", it makes me feel so much more Irish than I really am, which is 0%. Fully recovered now from my "anger spell" (see, I told you, it only takes a day!), I'm eager to find me a lovely corned beef and cabbage recipe that'll knock everyone's leprechaun tights off. I wish we had a more elaborate celebration planned for the holiday, but we have a birthday party to go to and of course, St. Patty's Day does coincide with March Madness, so at the most, we'll have a few people over for some green beer (maybe this lovely little margarita ditty I found over at Sparky Duck's place) and whatever corned beef concoction I come up with. There is one drawback to giving up red meat for Lent and that would be the corned beef tradition. This, of course, I realized days after I made my Lenten vow to mend my carnivorous eating habits. But I will take it upon myself to exempt myself on St. Patty's day because I know of at least two occasions that the Pope has excused eating red meat on Friday because St. Patty's day fell on a Friday, once even on Good Friday, the big one! Not that I'm comparing myself to the Pope, of course, and not that I have any right to declare or amend anything, but I will exempt myself tomorrow and I think Jesus will forgive me. Besides, I've been so good! Even in D.C. when red meat was in my face everywhere we went, burger joints, chili joints, literally everywhere. In fact, it was almost humorous how much red meat was flailing its arms in my face, taunting me, because it's never really around me when I haven't put any restrictions on myself. Isn't that the way it works though? The Secret would say that's the law of attraction working. The more I think about something (even if I don't want it) I'm luring it to myself and calling it to me. By the way, I asked some of you what you thought about the book, The Secret, a while back, and I have to say, the more my mom and I read about it, the more we find it humorous. One line just sticks out in my head and it's something like this: ask the universe for whatever you want, and you don't have to figure out "how" to get it, the universe will just move everything around to bring it to you. Hmm. That's interesting. Well, Universe, I want a convertible Corvette, skinny thighs, and a million bucks, if you could get going on that, that would be great. And I'll let you all know if the universe gets that for me. Anyway, whenever something happens that's weird, like something appears as if out of nowhere after we've just discussed it, my whole family and I look at each other and yell "The Secret!" It's actually pretty funny. It's really just interchangeable with "what a coincidence!"

Where was I? Oh yeah, St. Patrick's Day. I really miss St. Patrick's Day in New York City. What a riot that is! There are a zillion Irish pubs all over the place, and people are littered all over the streets and the sidewalks, stumbling in and out of all of them. And everyone is your friend. It's such a friendly holiday. Unfortunately, the days of stumbling in and out of pubs, even here in Florida, are likely winding down for me. Until retirement. We're now in "having friends over" mode. And I'm not really sure when that happened. Probably around the same time that "date night" started to consist of a nice dinner, followed by a trip to Wal-Mart to see if they still have that sofa table we like.

Anyway, I ran this morning for the first time since last Wednesday and by last Wednesday, I don't mean two days ago, I mean 9 days ago. Yikes. I felt like I had concrete shoes on. It was rough! Glad to be back on the wagon though. Gooooo healthy lifestyle!!!!!!

Happy Friday!

Get Thee to a Bloggery!

I feel much better now that I officially ranted through my Thursday 13. Besides the fact that it is terribly annoying to have an entire post disappear on you, it appears I may be hormonal as well. I just overall feel gross. Like nothing fits, and I want to cry when I see sweet commercials, and I get violently angry when things piss me off. And I'm sluggish and can't get any motivation whatsoever to get anything done, all I want to do is sleep, despite the gallons of coffee I am drinking to keep me awake. I'm all over the place on the emotional spectrum, as opposed to normal days, when I can pretty much brush it all off and if worst comes to worst, have a glass of wine. On days like these, I believe whole-heartedly that I should put myself away from society until it passes. Which is usually just a day. But no. Instead, I head to the mall where I, wearing a sweatshirt and jeans, looking like Shelley Long in Irreconcible Differences, you know, that part where she's wearing a gray sweatsuit and eating icecream and has pimples all on her face and she opens the door to her ex-husband and thinks, "great." And on those days, you feel like you pass other moms who are all dressed pretty with their little munchkins, and they're looking at you like, "Thank God I have it together. I could look like her". I swear I saw one of those snobby perfume ladies in the mirror, looking at me as I passed like she thought I needed a severe mommy makeover. So I got me a Venti Non-Fat Iced-Latte, went home, put Poops down for a nap, and gave myself a mini-makeover with the shirt I bought. Ahh. Serenity now.

So anyway, what's the deal with Sanjaya? I saw on the Today Show that there's a web site dedicated to supporting the sucky contestants, and that Howard Stern is also urging people to vote for him, and that may be what's keeping him in. Which makes sense, because now that American Idol is getting kind of boring, I think people are experimenting to see if they can mess with the Idol results. But I wasn't surprised to see Brandon go, because he did forget the words and all.

And I saw Borat last night! It was hilarious!! The kind of humor that has you peeking through your fingers while you watch it, kind of like "Meet the Parents" because you're so embarrassed for them and you can't believe they're doing what they're doing. I love that I know about a lot of the fallout from Borat, because you know when you're watching it who didn't know they were going to be in a movie that turned out to be an Oscar-nominated film. Well worth the watch, it was equally offensive so no one group should be mad. But if you're easily offended, this movie may not be for you. There is a little nudity that is a little-ahem-gross and if you watch it, you'll see what I mean. But my husband and I were howling with laughter through most of it.

I'll leave you with a picture of ham. My Aunt Carol and Uncle Don served it last week when their son and daughter-in-law came to visit. I couldn't resist taking a picture of it for my sister because ham is her favorite food and it was so perfectly sliced I just knew she would be jealous. Besides, who can resist putting a picture of ham on their blog? Uncle Don should be proud of his fine slicing abilities!

Thursday Thirteen #21

(Header reminds me of Sanjaya from American Idol who told us all he can hula! Unfortunately! Disclaimer: I'm not really an angry person, but this list is the product of unfortunate events)

1. First, I'm trying really hard not to get fired up at Blogger but George is getting frustrated! I just wrote an entire Thursday 13 of things I have to remember. But when I hit publish, it said "could not be processed" and it dumped the whole thing. I am trying to process that rageful feeling you get when you write a huge post and it disappears before you publish it, in a healthy manner. BUT MAN, I'M FREAKIN PISSED!!!!!!!! (I'm typing loudly here!!) And my linkies aren't working, so I'll add you at the bottom, I promise.

2. Maybe instead I'll do a therapeutic TT on things that really piss me off. Then I can let them go into the cyberuniverse and breathe and move on.

3. I'll start with US Air. Coming back from DC Monday. Checkin process: 1 1/2 hours because self-check-in terminals freeze you out and there are only 2 agents working the desk. Flight delay: 2 1/2 hours followed by "cancelled." Next flight: 1/2 hour delay. Then, baggage shows up hour and a 1/2 after I do.

4. Target and its return policies. No receipt, no return. OK, fine. Exchange? Yes, but only if you exchange it for something in the exact department, same price or more. But, it will have to be at the same price as the item was in the last 90 days, not same price as when you bought it. Note to self: return items in timely manner so as not to get screwed.

5. Concrete walls. I will love this feature when we go through a hurricane or a tornado, but concrete walls are not particularly conducive to curtain hanging. Four holes later, and a spackle project later, I have come to realize that you need special concrete screws for this.

6. Old drywall. On the opposite end of the spectrum are places in my house where you hang up so much as a tack, and a giant sinkhole opens up in the wall. I have learned that you need special drywall anchors for this.

7. Returns. I can never seem to return things and instead I have an entire box of them spilling out onto the floor. They are one step closer to going back, however, they are near the front door. Items include: a frame that broke immediately after I opened it, two sets of bed risers that broke right after I put the bed on them (scary!), a sprinkler I bought before I realized we have 12 others just like it, a table runner that looks like a Santa suit that didn't quite work out, and a camouflage coat I bought for my parents' chihuahua, Stanley, that was too small.

8. My crappy photo editing program. I thought about making Poops' first birthday invitations. I tried for hours paste a picture of his face onto a cartoon lion head because wouldn't that be funny, but it looks doctored and ridiculous. For some reason, no matter what I do, his face always retains the shape of a square, which as you might realize too, doesn't look that great on a lion head because a face is actually a circle.

9. Our pine tree. I spent an hour and a half scraping sap off our car the other day. You can still kind of see where it was because it won't all come off. Then it's on your hands, and everything that your hands come in contact with after that also sticks to them.

10. Well I'm on number 10 and I'm having trouble. That's a good sign, right? Maybe not too many things actually piss me off?

11. The show, "Heroes" is on a six-week hiatus. What will I do? Besides actually get stuff done.

12. Did you know Pampers has two #4's? One says "Cruisers" and the other one doesn't. The one that doesn't, leaks.

13. Children's toys. I just bought the coolest, most awesome bath toy for Poops. They're tiny "Disco Frogs" that light up when you touch their bellies. They rock! But I turned them over and read the warning, which reads as follows: "California Proposition 65: This item has batteries that may contain lead, cadmium, and mercury; chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer, birth defects, and other reproductive harm. Wash hands thoroughly after using this product." Yes, I feel safe giving this to my child. I guess I have another return.

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Fellow tt'ers before the Linky started working:

1. Tendrils, at Tendril's Ink, has 13 ways to relax.
2. Chana, at Live your Dog's life has 13 fun-filled facts about her.

Idle Idol

I hate to say it, but Idol tonight was as Simon would say, "ghastly", of course pronounced "gosssstly" in his British tone. There are no likeable idols! Actually, that's a lie, there are two or three, like Melinda Dolittle, despite the disappearance of her neck, and the rocker chick who I am rooting for, and Laquisha and Jordin.


Quick recap on Diana Ross night. First guy, Brandon, backup singer by day, backup singer by night. Forgot the words and danced like he was singing backup for himself. Melinda Dolittle rocked out, so did the rocker chick with the red stripe in her hair.

Big guy with big hair (above) usually makes me laugh, but this week his hair matched Diana Ross's and he did a terrible, fast version of Endless Love. Sanjaya, ooooooh, poor little Indian kid is having an inner sexuality conflict (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Cute kid, but dude looks like a lady. Haley, hot dress, girl! But you forgot the words too! Tsk tsk. (Easy for me to say, sitting on my Lazyboy in the comfort of my own home, right?). Phil, the bald guy, yikes! Great song, but it struck me mid-song that he has a striking resemblance to Dr. Evil.



No hat=bad. Needs a hat. Like the hat. Keep the hat. Lakisha, another rocking performance! Blake, the cute little beatboxing hottie, sang "Set me free why don't you babe" with what sounded like a Casio keyboard in the background. Wah. Last few were good, Stephanie, Chris and last, Jordin, one of my favorites. But there are no real standouts this season, which almost makes me not care about the show and I love the show! This week, it's seriously a six-way tie on who could go home.


On another very serious note.. how do I look as an M&M?

Excuse Me, But Where's My Flying Car?

Aren't we supposed to have these by now? Wasn't that part of the 2001 Odyssey deal? Along with our silver, human-race uniforms with the fins at the cuffs? This would have saved me from a couple of headaches yesterday. My sister had a problem with US Air around Christmas, they took her bottles of wine meant for gifts (her favorite-Jarhead Red) and instead of allowing her to check them, they tossed them in the trash. (By the way, Jarhead Red has since sent her three bottles to replace the lost ones after reading her blog.) Anyway, yesterday we flew back from D.C. on US Air and we should have known during check-in that things were going to continue to go amiss for pretty much the rest of the day. The touch screens you use to check in froze us out twice, and in the morning, there's such a huge line behind you of people that you can't just move to another terminal without looking like you're cutting. And there were only two people working the computers behind the desk, and they're helping people who have already checked in successfully at terminals that actually worked. So we were standing there like idiots, trying to tell the agents that the terminals don't work but they don't care, they say they'll be right with you, but they're not. And you're standing there in check-in-limbo trying to hop in and use a terminal that works, and we got to another one, but that froze too! So one hour later during this process, we finally get a guy to check us in, but then he can't figure out why there are seats printed on the boarding passes, but the seats are still showing as "open" in the computer (which of course means our seats can be sold). So he says "fix it at the gate." And we proceed to security, where we figure out that there are two boarding passes with my dad's name on them and none with my moms. The security guy fortunately let us pass after we convince him to and I'm not sure if I should be happy about that or not. We get to the gate and see the flight's delayed for two hours. We can live with that. The guy at the gate fixed our seats. We went up a few more times to check the status on the tv screens. Another 1/2 hour delay. OK, getting a little nervous, but ok. My dad goes up one more time. Cancelled. Crap. My mother-in-law was watching Poops until I got home because my husband had to fly out on a business trip. So first step, I called my husband, who hadn't taken off yet and I had him drop off the car with the carseat in it and the keys to my mother-in-law, just in case I don't get back and there's an emergency, or just for the simple fact that I don't want them to be stranded. Meantime, fortunately we saw the cancellation on the tv screen about an hour before they announced it over the overhead and got in line before the line stretched all the way down the terminal like herds of cattle. My dad was in line over at another gate just to see if someone would help him there and I'm on the long "service desk" line, and we're dueling to see who can get to an agent first. He does. We get on a flight that puts us in at 5pm. That works. So there we were, at the airport since 8am, getting on a flight at 2:30 but hey, at least I'm getting home. D. C. is not that far away, but I've never felt so far away as I did when I was stuck in that airport with no flight, needing to get home to my little boy. Of course, the flight got us there, but of course, it didn't bring our luggage with it. So we waited in the airport for another hour and a half before another flight came and fortunately there were our bags. I wasn't as raging mad as a couple of the other passengers who I am quite sure will be writing letters. I didn't miss a meeting or anything like some of these other people. It was just an hour-by-hour never-ending frustration. I overheard some pilots talking about how US Air switched their computers over to another reservation program last week and this is the result. I'm none too happy about the situation aboard that airline right now, but what can you do when you're a slave to it. At least I got home, right?

Moving Day Part I

I just got back from our moving extravaganza in Washington, D.C. and I feel like a cartoon character with the X's over its eyes and the bluebirds swirling around its head. Not because of the move, actually, but because of the trip back, a flight ordeal-slash-cancellation-slash-lost bags-which I'll save for another post. The move was actually pretty tame. There were movers, which meant extra man-hands, so we mopped up what the movers didn't, painted the place back to white and got my sister moved into her new condo. The best part about it all was not the fact that somewhere along the way, I lost my driver's license and had to have my husband overnight Fed-Ex me my passport, but that my sister's husband, whom we shall call "Old Man", who is serving in Iraq right now, was with us helping every step of the way. A post which can best be told by pictures.


This is him moving the freezer, and the part where he's yelling "I'm the king of the worrrrrld!!" (By the way, his picture is in the little gummy guy).



Getting ready to dig into those boxes and get them outta there!




Helping our dad move the mattress.




Taking a much-needed hydration break.





Moving the TV. Very ambitious.

Moving Day Part Deux

Losing his footing! Almost disastrous.




Whew!!!!!!




Headed to the new place and being a backseat driver.






They made it!!!

The rest of the weekend was spent decorating and logging at least 10k steps a day at Target, Home Depot, Bed Bath and Beyond, Target, Home Depot, Starbucks, Pizza, Starbucks, Pizza, Bed Bath and Beyond. There's also something draining about four family members with totally different decorating styles screaming ideas at each other at all times, and I'm sure that my sister is as much thankful that we came as she is thankful that we left, so that the voices in her head can settle down. I wish I had more energy because there were a lot of bloggables, like the man at the airport doing his calisthenics on the rack of luggage carts and having them slide away from him while his leg is still somehow attached to the top of them, or the traveling fiasco that was our US Air experience but I'll get to it. For now I'm going to bed early because there is nothing better than my own bed. That is, after I catch up on my blog reading!

Christie Needs...

OK, this is really funny so I had to do it. I saw this over at "My 20 Cents Keep Moving". All you have to do is google "your name needs" and see what comes up in the search. I tried it and it was funny, here's my list (try it too! If you are reading this, consider yourself tagged!) Plus I like any opportunity to refer to myself in third person without sounding obnoxious.

1. Christie needs money badly. (Uh, Shah! Of course she does! She needs more diaper bags and shoes and purses!)
2. Christie needs another operation. (Actually, she does! She needs to repair her non-existent ACL by transplanting tissue in there. The rehab is at least 6 months. Who has time for that!!)
3. Christie needs to grow a pair. (Hahaha!!)
4. Christie needs to lighten up. (Fine!)
5. Christie needs to watch his words. (Uh oh. Christie's now a "he".)
6. Christie needs your help, she is in deep trouble and all that she is doing is standing up for your freedom.
7. Christie needs some luck. (Could use some for that money thing in #1).
8. Christie needs to buy a clue. (Boy there are a lot of negatives in here!)
9. Christie needs no introduction. (Ah ha! That's a good one.)
10. Christie needs more contributors. (Ooh! A perfect plug for my fundraising efforts! Feel free to sponsor me and support the March of Dimes! March of Dimes March of Dimes Rah Rah Rah!)

Your turn!

Head Start

Getting a head start on the weekend and flying tonight to D.C. for the weekend moving extravaganza (as you probably read from my TT). I am in cold sweats because we will have no internet at my sister's new place (no internet??? how will I blog???) Maybe we'll get lucky and an internet will present itself or maybe it will be a much needed time-out. I hate flying, though, so I plan on having a cocktail or two beforehand and turning to the old IPod for comfort. Remember when there was a time that everyone who flew got all dressed up for the occasion? Maybe it was just my family but I remember when I was little, it was a formal experience because it was a huge deal, trips on planes were few and far between. Now people wear pajamas and carry their pillows. Anyway, it'll be a boys' weekend here at home, Poops will head to a birthday party with hubby, and hubby will put some of our crap out at our community garage sale and mingle with the neighbors, which we don't do enough. Have a good weekend! Hope it is all you hoped for and more!! Don't forget to turn the clocks forward!!

Thursday Thirteen #20

(Ooh a purse! I love purses!!!!) Anyway, it's moving time! Not for me, but for my sister, but same thing. So we're headed to D.C. this weekend to help her move from her tiny studio apartment to her newly-purchased condo not too far away. Yippee! So, here are:

13 Things We "Plan" to do This Weekend and Hopefully We Will Cram it All In (don't you just love "to do" lists?)

1. (And probably the most important) Do not freeze to death.

2. Move her stuff of course. She is getting some mover-man-hands to help but only for 3 hours so we're gonna make them get the big stuff so my dad doesn't break his back.

3. Move what the mover-men didn't get to.

4. Traipse around her old "hood" and hit some of her favorite spots before she leaves. One of these places is a little watering hole in Dupont Circle that we hope to imbibe in. Cheers to the old hood!

5. Partake in the fine dining that is Washington D.C. Of course, it's no New York City, but it's close.

6. Stake out some of the digs in her new neighborhood...grocery store, coffee shops, restaurants, watering holes, nail places.

7. Try out exercise equipment at the "fitness center" at the new place. Get some treadmill time in. I have to! Must not fall off wagon. Must not decide there's no time. Must make time.

8. Blog? At least once. Hopefully. Wait. Will there be internet at the new place? I forgot! No internet! Bugger bugger!

9. Paint her old apartment back to white.

10. Find a new church near the new place and hopefully go to mass on Sunday.

11. Call the boys back home (hubby and little boy) a million zillion times secretly hoping they will desperately be needing mom's expertise and mothering prowess (yeah right!). Will long to hear longing in their voices.

12. Take lots and lots of pictures.

13. Turn clocks ahead! Wah! We lose an hour! I love that hour!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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OK, Now I'm Good.

Recognize the fella all the way to the left with the yellow sneaks on next to Tori Spelling? If you don't recognize him, he also plays Sylar on Heroes. So can I just say...this is the gentleman whose haunting my dreams at night? He was on Tori's awful VH1 show "So Notorious" ????? I can't take him seriously anymore! To that, I say "Yayyyy!!!" Sylar is the guy on my sidebar who is the absolute evilest of the evilest evil villains ever. He cuts open people's skulls and removes their brains to take their superpowers. It is not known what he does with their brains but I've heard the word "ingest" mentioned. He's so evil that he makes this show just barely on the border of too scary for me when he's in it, but I watch it anyway because I love the show. But man, is he evil. I can't sleep afterward usually. And after Monday night's show, I dreamt all night about people getting dismembered. I woke up thinking I dreamt about "Saw 3" all night. I know, I'm a complete wimp but I'm not a scary movie person. Things that scare me stress me out and there's enough stress in the world to me without watching things purposely that stress me out. Heroes is the one and only exception to that rule for me. I tend to get a little too involved emotionally with characters both good and bad, apparently. (And now that there's this huge cliffhanger where Sylar is trying to kill my favorite character "Peter Petrelli", worlds are colliding! I'm holding my breath for the next six weeks!) Anyway, but honestly, who can be afraid of that guy standing up there next to Tori? From "So Notorious?" His character is described in Wikipedia as being "an openly gay Persian-American who tends to be critical at times, hoping it will knock a little sense into Tori." See?? He's harmless!! No brain-eating there! Up until now, when he popped up in my head, I'd try to picture his face on a ridiculous clown body or wearing a dress or something to make him less intrusive in my head. Now I've got this! This changes everything!

Lent Poll!

What did you give up for Lent?


I'm giving up red meat. I was going to give up alcohol but I realized I'm going to D.C. this weekend to see my sister and I am sure I will foil that up there when we go out for the last time in her hood. We're moving her into her new condo, which just screams celebration! By the way, my sister called herself a "bad Lentil" because she hasn't given up anything. HAHA! Bad Lentil.

Happy Monday!

That exclamation mark in my header is a lot more excited than I am. I'm still sleeping. I haven't had that much to blog about lately so I've been slacking. My life is hitting a spot where nothing is going on actually, which is both good and bad. Good because that means nothing bad is going on. That's always good. But bad because I find myself staring at a blank page in Blogger. I count on stuff to happen so I can blog about it! So I have been working on this new blog that my husband says I need like I need a hole in the head. It's a little more writing, a little less "momblog" but I haven't started writing in it at all yet. I have just been working on the header and the background and I love that part. But I am not sure if I need another blog, I probably need another blog like I need a new diaper bag and I have 5 of those, but in my defense, you have to try them all out before you find one that works! And that doesn't mean trying them out in the store, you have to buy it and try it out in real life! I'm like Goldilocks and the 5 Diaper Bags....too small, too big, too ugly, falling apart after three days.. ahh just right. Anyway, weekend fodder, I made banana bread again which was lovely as you know because I just love (gag!) bananas (gag gag!) but I had dying bananas in the house and the smell of dying bananas makes me die. Made a blueberry crumbcake to take to my aunt's for a dinner yesterday, her son and his wife was down to visit. Went to church. Decided I will have to get over my fear of Poops squealing in the pew at church, because I cannot take another service sitting in the cry room. We've been sitting there by default because we were afraid of disturbing other church-goers, but it's hot, you can't hear anything, and everyone in there seems to think it's party-time and not that I'm judging or anything because, you know, it's church, but it's stressful in there! What do you do with babies in church?? I feel guilty sitting in a pew because I don't want to make noise. But babies make noise! And it's terrible in the cry room. Anyway, I know, riveting stuff I have today. But Happy Monday! Off to the gym!

Grammar Lesson

Wife. (verb.) Alt. To wife.
Definition. When a seemingly simple home improvement project turns into a complete renovation overhaul because of the prompting of a loving female partner.

Example: Changing a bathroom faucet. Faucet suddenly does not match sink. Sink is replaced. Sink and faucet does not match bathroom cabinets. Cabinets changed. Sink, faucet, cabinets do not match bathroom counter. Counter changed. Husband has been wifed.

Usage: To wife someone. I've been wifed. (Within group of men conversing at Wendy's on lunchbreak) We've been wifed.

Wild Hogs: A Review of Sorts

Feeling lulled into the seemingly all-star cast of Martin Lawrence, John Travolta, William H. Macy, and Tim Allen? Thinking to yourself, "This should be a laugh!"? Add to that Ray Liotta and Marisa Tomei, the two guys from Cheap Seats on ESPN and the other half of Jack Black's band "Tenacious D?" and think you've got a case of comic genius on your hands? WRONG!

I am sharing my mounting disappointment in this movie with you to spare you from this sad mirage of a good movie, filled with over-the-top "jokes" and terrible overacting and not in a Naked Gun type of way. This is one of those instances where I was looking for something even just remotely marginal for a Friday night movie but it turned into a two-hour waste that made me wish that movie theaters gave refunds for showing you crap.

Sounds harsh, yes. Quick recap: four men-friends, sick of their suburbia-lives, take to the open road on their bikes for a cross-country breather, where they run into a motorcycle gang who steals one of their bikes, then they get it back, blow up the biker's bar, save a town, and return home as happier men. I swear I thought that somewhere in there, between the four of them, there should have been at least one joke that was funny. And there was one in there, but it wasn't even delivered by them, it was delivered by a sheriff who doesn't carry a gun during a scene where the guys were all taking a turn slapping a bull's ass. So there you go. That one joke earned this movie a half a Peep because I actually laughed out loud on that one. But Evan and I spent most of the movie looking at each other in disbelief and shaking our heads at the myriad of non-funny ridicu-jokes. Half a Peep. Stinky movie. I shoulda known.

Laundry Day

One Last Time

This week's Thursday Thirteen turned into a tribute to my best friend's old house, as you may have read already. This is the house she grew up in. She didn't live here any more, she lives in Georgia now with her husband and two children, but her parents still lived there so it was nice because she would come down all the time to see them and I got to reap the benefits. I grew up in a house about two houses away through some woods and a couple of other yards and I remember going back and forth to our houses one summer when I spent the entire summer barefoot. That was an odd phase of mine, a lot like the summer I went bra-less at work. OK maybe it's not the same thing. You may be thinking, why is this an odd picture of a corner of a house, why not take the picture in front where you can actually see what it looks like? Good question, I might say. It's because, this is a picture of us now, in our 30's, in front of her bedroom window. The very window we used to sneak out of at night when we were about 15. Love that window! Not a lot, just a handful of times. I am sure that my children will not even think about doing this, by the way. It was pretty harmless for us anyway, we weren't what you might call the delinquent type. I only found out a few years ago that there were groups of people who used to drink and party in my high school class and I had no idea! I am not even being sarcastic! Anyway, one time, we took the keys of her brother's car off his dresser, snuck out the window, rolled the car backward down the driveway in neutral (it was a loud car, we of course didn't want to be rude and rouse anyone from their precious sleep!) and drove to the grocery store for what else but chocolate chip cookies. We got caught that time. A friend of ours told his mom he saw us, she told her mom, we got in trouble. For the next few years when I'd spend the night her mom would say to us sarcastically, "Now, you will be staying IN tonight, right?" We may have snuck out once or twice to meet up with some friends, but we didn't drive anywhere, we just walked up to the elementary school up the road and sat on the picnic benches and talked about whatever was important in our little teen lives back then. My parents moved out of the house we grew up in a few years ago. Now her parents are leaving to go up to Georgia so they can be with their grandchildren. It's a sign of the times, really. They're going on to make new memories in a new house. But it's hard to say goodbye to the house you grew up in, isn't it? There's the proms, first dates, driver's licenses, sleepovers, fights, hugs, tears, pets, birthdays, Christmases, all of those things that make a house a home. After my parents left our house, I really never went back and I still don't really want to for some reason. I feel like I'm preserving the house in my memories exactly the way it was and I don't really want to see what the new owner has done to it. We drove by my friend's house a couple of hours after the closing, and no one was there yet, but I am sure that she was pretty happy about not seeing a moving truck in front of it. Someone told her this week that a home is just a roof and some walls. But man, that couldn't be farther from the truth.

Thursday Thirteen #19

Yay!! Game On!! I'm so happy Thursday Thirteen decided to stick around and two wonderful bloggers are taking the reigns. So I'm doing thirteen totally random things because I'm running late and I don't have any fun creative TT ideas. Sorry! Here we go:

13 Random Things

1. My best friend's family moved yesterday. My best friend now lives in Georgia, but both of our parents lived in Florida so we would always conveniently meet up here. Now her parents have moved to be near her and her children, and I feel like she has moved all over again because she won't be back to visit nearly as often!

2. We spent yesterday and the day before saying goodbye to her old house.

3. There was a lot of history in that house.

4. She lived there since she was 11. We lived in a house around the corner since I was 12. We've known each other almost that entire time.

5. My parents moved out of that house a couple years ago.

6. But I still got to visit "our" neighborhood when I'd meet my best friend at her parents' house.

7. This TT is turning out to be about my best friend moving!

8. I feel like I'm in high school again.

9. There is nothing in the world like your girlfriends. I have had many over the years, but only a few friendships still remain and I love them more than anything in the world.

10. Friendships are harder to maintain when you're older. They change, and you change, as you go through moves, marriages, babies, and life in general.

11. But the ones that last through it are stronger than ever.

12. And you suddenly become afraid that your children may eventually hear about your crazy stories of growing up, like sneaking out of your best friend's house and slowing backing her brother's car out of the driveway in neutral so no one can hear you, and then going to the grocery store and buying chocolate chip cookies at 3 in the morning. I know, such renegades, huh? Turns out we weren't all that bad.

13. Again, yet another time I'm surprised what comes out when I'm staring at a blank screen. I miss you already, Clairanne!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants