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.

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.

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.”

Last Wednesday, I took off half a day of work to go to the Mayhem Metal Festival at the Virginia Beach Amphitheater with Todd, Big Kev and Nadine.  We had a lot of fun last year, so we decided to do it again.  The day started out great… both Todd and Kevin had to work a little bit later, so Nadine and I decided to start drinking while we waited.  She had some rum at the house, so we had about three rum and diet cokes before hitting the road… we already felt a little light headed, me especially since I had not eaten anything yet that day.

Things were going great, once inside, we had to go find my co-worker Bill to get our liquor.  Bill works with me during the day, and heads up Live Nation Security at the Amphitheater on the side… so the day before the show, I emptied two bottles of rum (one for me and one for Nadine) into water bottles and had him take them in for me, so that Nadine and I could just buy diet sodas all day long and mix our own drinks, instead of paying $12 per beer through the Amphitheater.  There we are up there with our first “mix your own” Amphitheater drinks… see how happy we are? 

Flash forward a couple hours and Nadine and I are getting pretty tanked.  We still have not eaten a lick of food and the boys are really not drinking at all, because they both have to be in to work on Thursday morning.  Well I do too, but apparently I did not care like they did.  Bill, my buddy from work, had given us all wristbands to get down in front of the stage, so not only were our ears ringing, but Nadine and I just kept on drinking.  What made it worse was we were drinking the mixed drinks, and then kept forgetting that the water bottles had rum in them, and it was so hot out, we kept catching ourselves swigging from the “water bottles” only to be reminded “SHIT… that’s not water… oh well… we’re drunk… hahaha!”

Now, by about 9pm - WE WERE TRASHED… but not sick trashed, just obnoxious, retarded trashed.  The kind of trashed where you are posing in pictures with the people that ARE sick trashed because you think that shit is HILARIOUS.  Little did I know that about twenty minutes after the above photo was taken - I WOULD BE THAT TRASHED.  I do not know exactly when it hit and I do not remember ANYTHING after it hit… but basically I was DONE.  According to Todd and Big Kev, I was incoherent, I was throwing up (pure liquor as I had no food in my system) all over Todd, I kept trying to lay down and sleep, I was a mess basically and every time Todd tried to help me I just kept saying “would you please just leave me the f*ck alone… could everyone please just back the f*ck off”.  I do not remember sleeping on the grassy knoll at the Amphitheater, I do not remember the ride going home, I do not remember going in Nadine’s house, I don’t remember ANYTHING.  I did wake up on Nadine’s couch at 5am, with my skirt undone and down around my thighs (according to Todd that was from Nadine “trying to make me comfortable”), a wet washcloth on my head, a throw-up bowl laying next to me and Nadine’s dog laying on top of me.  Todd said that Nadine, after getting me comfortable, went upstairs and came down to the kitchen in a shirt and her underwear and was ready to chill with Todd and Kevin and eat corn chips and guacamole… he said that was hilarious.

I have not been that drunk since I was probably 22.  I never NOT REMEMBER stuff and I RARELY puke.  I usually know when I have hit the wall and am DONE.  This time… I leapt so far over the wall it was not even funny, I did not even know the wall was there.  I still had to drive home from Nadine’s and get showered and go into work… which SUCKED.  I was still drunk till about 2pm, when my hangover finally set in.  It took me DAYS to recover from this.  But I had fun!!!  Can’t wait to do it again next year.   

UPDATE:

Nadine just emailed me some photos from her camera that Big Kev snapped of us… HOLY HELLS BELLS… FUNNY!!!

Nadine and I in one of the vendor tents hovering over a little fan they had in there blowing cold air up our skirts onto our hooha’s!  I love that the guy next to us is just looking for t-shirts like we are not even there.

Complete retards… and we are okay with that.

Yeah… I am trashed here.  I cannot even open my eyes - I am just doing whatever they are telling the crowd to do… and swaying to try and not fall down.  So funny.

My brother asked if I wanted to hang out with him Saturday night and accompany him to the Virginia Beach Funny Bone to see Jim Breuer (from SNL - you know how much I LOVE SNL) perform, to which I said yes!  I had a blast with him, we met up for a couple drinks before the show, then headed to the show.  It was good… a lot better than I anticipated actually.  I was afraid his whole act was still going to be playing that whole “stoner” angle the whole time, but it did not.  He talked about kids and other great stuff and was really funny.  We got to meet him after the show and get our pictures with him.  He was really cool.  Thanks for a great night out Billy!

Where to start, where to start… hmmmmmm…

JACK JOHNSON CONCERT:
I guess I will start with Kaiden and I’s date night to go see Jack Johnson in concert.  We had a BLAST and Kaiden really enjoyed going with me.  Kaiden is a huge Jack Johnson fan and so am I.  I don’t think there has been a night in the past couple years that Kaiden has not fallen asleep to the Curious George soundtrack playing on her iPod, not to mention I play him in the car all the time, so she was excited to go.  I got to catch up with some old friends from high school while we were there and I also got to meet TJ (who I have known online for quite some time now) and his wonderful family, so it was a really fun night.

We had great seats, we each got a t-shirt to remember the night and Kaiden stood on her seat the whole time so she could dance next to me.  This concert was easily one of the best concerts I have ever been to.  He sounded amazing the entire night.  I recorded some video footage at the concert, feel free to enjoy (although I suck at video-taping stuff).

SHOPLIFTING:
Ashton had to learn about stealing last weekend.  Kaiden learned about 8 months ago when I had her and a friend of hers from school in the grocery store and her friend told her “you’re allowed to take the candy from all those candy bins, it’s free” - to which she was in for a rude awakening when I turned around and saw the two of them chewing on some gummy worms and proceeded to GO OFF on them in the middle of the store about stealing and that EVERYTHING has to be paid for - NOTHING is free!  Ashton’s story was a little different, we were on our way to my mom’s house early on Saturday morning, so the kids could hang with her so I could go running and we stopped at Wawa so I could grab a banana and I could get the kids each a donut and a milk.  Ashton came in with me and immediately started asking for EVERYTHING BUT a donut and I continuously repeated “NOTHING, you can have nothing else except a donut and a strawberry milk!” 

We got our stuff and got in the car and got about a half mile down the road when I heard paper ripping in the back seat… I looked back and he is huddled in the corner so I cannot see what he is doing.  I said “Are you ripping paper or something Ashton?” and he looked at me and held out his had and had a little yellow now and later candy from the 5 cent bins at the register.  I had to pull the car over I was so angry.  I told him I should call the police RIGHT NOW and have them come get him and take him away for stealing.  There was a lot of crying, and a lot of “I am so sorry’s” and I am pretty sure he will not ever do it again after I scared the living shit out of him… he won’t even talk about the incident now… with anyone!  I am pretty sure BOTH my kids are very clear now that everything is paid for!  PERIOD.

NEW FAVORITE HAIR PRODUCT:
Nadine got me a bottle of this “It’s a 10” hair product and I am IN LOVE with it.  Do yourself a favor and get some!  It makes your hair feel amazing, protects it from blow drying and flat ironing and the next day, when you go to wash your hair, you can feel that your hair is all slick when you wet it and KNOW it was in your hair doing what it was supposed to!  Awesome stuff.  I tried a sample of the conditioning mask as well and liked that a lot too!

BAM!
There is this episode of “The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack” that Ashton thinks is the funniest thing in the world!  Flapjack and his sidekick K’nuckles get into a pushing match and every time someone goes down they yell “BAM!” like freaking Emeril Lagasse.  I could not find a clip of the part that Ashton thinks is so funny, but I found a clip from the episode:

Basically, after K’nuckles pushes Flapjack down 30 times, he finally teaches Flapjack how to push back and tells him “Now get ready boy, straighten out your back, put your angry face on and come at me!” so now around our house, all of a sudden (and ALL THE TIME) you will hear Ashton’s voice creep up behind you “Back Straight… Angry Face On (he makes a great pouty/angry face)...” then you will feel him slam into you and yell “BAM!” - LOADS OF FUN I TELL YOU!

UPDATE:  Found it…

Now imagine Ashton saying that over and over… welcome to my life.

Several days ago I purchased the above Victoria Secret bikini top on Ebay to go with the matching bottoms that I already own.  I have a tankini top to go with them now, but wanted a bikini top for an upcoming trip.  I paid a whopping $10 for it with $3 shipping - new with tags.  Can’t beat that!!!  The bikini top came in yesterday (just as described) in a box filled with propaganda like the three examples below:

I feel so thankful that this woman included all this literature in the box with my purchase.  I had NO CLUE that the world was ending on May 21, 2011.  It’s a Saturday, which I guess that’s good, so I won’t have to use up a vacation day for it.  I am glad that I decided to get the bikini top and enjoy it THIS SUMMER, since apparently, I won’t be able to get much use out of it next summer.  I am also guessing that this literature doubles as this woman’s “Return Policy” - I am guessing she won’t be around to handle returns after this date.

I went ahead and gave her positive feedback since the item was in fact new with tags, shipped fast and had no defects.  I did not bother wishing her luck on May 21, 2011 in my feedback notes… as I am quite sure she is already thoroughly prepared for that day!