Please excuse the lack of posting over the next week - I will be leaving this evening to drive to Richmond, VA, where I will crash for a couple hours on Marci’s couch, then wake up, get ready and catch a 6am flight with her to Montego Bay, Jamaica where we will spend six GLORIOUS days/nights at the all-inclusive, beautiful Iberostar Grand Hotel Rose Hall sipping cocktails at the pool bar and enjoying DOING NOTHING.  Well it’s never nothing when there is liquor and myself involved.  I feel like I have a TON of shit to get done before I leave tonight and am a bit stressed, so I cannot wait to be on that plane!  We fly back into Richmond next Friday at 11pm, and I will drive back home to reality Saturday morning… unless we decide to not come back ever.

This is Heidi:

Heidi grew up in the same area as my siblings and I and went to High School with my brother.  She is also really good friends with Dena’s daughter Cristin.  She comes and hangs out sometimes when Dena and I are out, she comes on our yearly camping trips and hangs at the pool with us sometimes.  She is a regular in our lives… and according to Ashton, she is his girlfriend.  He is absolutely serious when he says this and it is something that he has been saying for a couple years now… in other words, he is not dropping this.

Whenever Heidi is with us, you can pretty much bank on Ashton ditching me completely and hanging on Heidi.  He thinks the sun rises and sets with Heidi.  We can go weeks… months even,  without seeing her and he will out of the blue say “I wonder what my girlfriend Heidi is doing today?” - and I will chuckle and reply “I don’t know buddy… she’s probably working or hanging with her REAL boyfriend.”

This is Heidi with her “real” boyfriend Jesse.  Ashton is not fond of Jesse.  He tolerates him, but that is about it.  Whenever we are camping and are all together, Ashton will do all he can to hog up all of Heidi’s time and when Jesse walks over he will say stuff like “Don’t you have to go take a walk Jesse?” or “You can sit over there Jesse…” and it cracks us all the hell up, including poor Jesse.

Lately, my hip has been bothering me from running.  Heidi is a massage therapist and said she would bring her massage table over and work on my hip for me.  So last Sunday, she came and hung at the pool for a bit, then came to my house to rub on me.  The kids had been at their grandma’s house all day with Todd, so Ashton did not know Heidi was coming.  By the time we got home, Todd already had the kids bathed for the evening and in their pajamas.  Heidi and I got home and set up in the den after she said her hello’s to the kids and gave them hugs.  Well in the middle of the massage, Ashton comes downstairs dressed… dressed nicely in some nice shorts and a button up shirt and very nonchalantly, is all “Sooooo, what’s happenin’?” - I THOUGHT WE WERE GOING TO DIE!!!!  He seriously changed out of his pajamas into some spiffy duds FOR HEIDI… and tried to play it off like he didn’t.

He has insisted ALL WEEK on wearing button up shirts, just in case Heidi “stops by” again.  It is the cutest damn thing I have ever seen in my life… that is until he made her a craft at Summer Rec… A CRAFT!

I let her know about her gift that is waiting for her, for the next time she comes by.

Jesse better watch the hell out on our upcoming “Annual End of Summer Camping Trip” - Ashton is not going down without a fight for his woman!!!

Up until this past Sunday - I had NEVER eaten a pistachio - not one - not my whole life.  While lounging at the pool on Sunday with Dena, our friend Mary had a huge bag of them with her and I confessed to Dena that I had never eaten one.  She made me try one, which led to a handful, which has now led to a full on addiction.  Damn you pistachios… why are you so delicious?  I was better off not knowing.

At about 9:30 last night, I was in my bathroom washing my face and brushing my teeth.  Kaiden was asleep and Ashton was laying in my bed watching his favorite show… Chowder.  I had the water running and heard what sounded like water coming from somewhere else in the house… but didn’t think anything of it until Ashton started freaking out crying and yelling “it’s raining in the house.”  Our washer and dryer are upstairs in a laundry closet - and as I came out of my bedroom, I could see water spraying out of the closet from behind the washer.  The water was spraying so hard that I could not figure out where it was even coming from… I had to run and grab a towel to shield myself from the water to hop on the washer and try to reach back there and turn the valves off.  I got the valves off… and I was completely soaked.

The hose from the valve to the washer had busted and soaked my entire upstairs hallway and me.  To say I was freaking out would be an understatement.

There was disgusting, wet lint from underneath and behind the washer and dryer that was now a soggy mess and was EVERYWHERE.  SO GROSS!!!  SO SO GROSS!!!

The carpet in the hallway was completely drenched and as I stood there in a t-shirt and my underwear, starting to cry and dripping wet from head to toe, I could hear dripping noises downstairs.  I went down the first couple of stairs and looked through the banister to see this:

And this:

The water was now coming through the ceiling and the vents on the first floor and soaking the downstairs carpet too!  That is when I pretty much just lost it and sat on the couch downstairs crying.  Soaking wet and crying.  I just really suck in stressful situations.  I am not equipped to handle them.  I spent the next two hours soaking up as much water as I could with towels.  Todd fixed the hose today and brought a shop-vac from work to suck up the rest of the water.  Fans are now blowing on the carpet.  We’ll see how much damage there is when it all dries out.

I hope tonight is better - although I have to take the dog to the vet… so I am not holding my breath.

Yesterday, I posted the above image on Facebook with the caption “Who’s Going With Me?”  It’s a brave thing to post something like that on Facebook because (1) there may be people that don’t know you well enough to know that you are COMPLETELY JOKING and (2) some people may seriously take you up on the offer, letting you know that they actually LIKE the Insane Clown Posse and now you are forced to block them on Facebook and forever think poorly of them.  See the issues I face with my kind of sense of humor?  It’s something I have to struggle with every day.  But there is one person that I KNEW would totally get it and not let me down… and she did not.

The second the email came through that Dena had commented and I read it - I lost it.  I was laughing so hard that I was seriously balling crying.  I called her and could barely get words out I was laughing so hard.  I KNEW that she had seriously done some research on “Juggalo Names” to be able to comment for me… which is AWESOME.  Dena and I have had an unhealthy obsession with fans of the Insane Clown Posse (better known as Juggalo’s and Juggalette’s) for a long time now - seriously… we have had MANY in depth conversations on what makes these people tick.  We have followed crime investigations when a juggalo is involved… the works.  It cracks us up.  We are weird like that.  Not familiar with what a Juggalo is?  Well Urban Dictionary defines it as:

1. juggalo
For the most part, an uneducated, pathetic excuse for a human being who listens to the group ICP who are bold enough to actually consider themselves musicians. People you see wearing “hatchet-man” accesories. They should not be allowed to reproduce, because that is too cruel to future generations. ICP isn’t rap, it isn’t metal, it isn’t rap/metal, and it isn’t horrorpop. There is only one way to properly categorize ICP; unnecessarily and unartfully offensive and obnoxious noise.

OR

Darwin’s biggest Obstacle.

OR

A greasy, fat, teenager with a kool aid mustache and no friends who listens to songs about clowns in his step mother’s double wide mobile home when he isn’t hanging out at the mall food court.

A google image search on the word will spark your interest too I am sure of it!  Click here and prepare to be AMAZED!  You are welcome for that.  If you REALLY want to laugh, check out my favorite juggalo site here.  And if that was not enough, pour yourself a cup of Faygo (official drink of the Juggalo community) and read about this “Juggalo Baby Funeral” here - if that does not make you question life, I don’t know what will.

Enjoy the links and say a little round of thanks today that your not related to a juggalo and do not have a child that is “down with the clown.”