Bless Your Heart

My husband is turning into a Daddy. When I came home from IKEA I showed him pictures of the crib and changing table/dresser I liked (dude, they are like less than half the price of the cribs I’ve seen around town. I know it’s not heirloom quality furniture, but it is good stuff and we’re on a major budget, esp if we need 2), and then we looked up the matching pieces on the IKEA site. Up until now any time he’s talked about things we should buy the girls it is because we have to. He totally surprised me and melted my heart when he spotted the toy chest and said he wanted to get one for his girls, “cause every kid should have a good toy chest. We can put it between the cribs.”
Yep, we’ve starting talking in terms of 2. It is so hard not to. We want two so badly and part of me feels we’re jinxing ourselves, but the other part of me feels like that’s what is meant to be so we might as well prepare. We rarely spoke of anyone but Ling Ling until our social worker said we needed to get ready for two cause there was a good chance we’d get two. I really hope she’s right. Jon’s so excited, he said “Ooh we could each have one.”
I showed Jon the goodies I brought home for Ling Ling and Mei Mei from IKEA including the coveted and much hyped stacking cups. Everyone has told me to make sure to bring a set of these to China. So when I saw them on the IKEA site I knew I’d have to hunt them down in store. I got lucky and picked up 2 sets for the girls and 1 set for Joey. I let Jon unwrap a set so he could see how they worked. He played with them a minute and examined each one then announced that our kids have been ripped off. Why? “They can only drink out of one of these cups! The rest have holes in the bottom!” Bless his heart, he thought they were stacking drinking cups.

I don’t know if it’s the heat or if it’s cause we’re Southerners, but it seems that we sometimes can’t leave well enough alone. Why have a plain ol water tower when you can paint it to look like a baseball (like the one just a couple miles from my house that tells you when to get off the highway if you’re going to see a game). Or how about a huge peach? The peach is in Gaffney, SC on hwy 85. Going North it looks right nice like a peach with it’s leaf and all. However, going South down 85 it looks more like a big, peach, ass. That’s Southern charm for ya. I checked with Google to see if there are other water tower creations out there and there sure are! This site has a whole list of them. Cute!

Ah, so I didn’t win the lottery. Oh well. At least I can still afford to smell nice. On our way back from Atlanta last weekend (love how I can strectch a 2 day trip into a week’s worth of posts right?) I spotted this machine in the bathroom at a travel center. It cracked me up so much I had to take a picture of it. You deposit your money, turn the dial, then lean in really close. The machine will spray you with their “exquisite” version of either Sunflowers, Happy, Pleasures, etc. Apparently you will Feel Refreshed! and Feel Fantastic! Because a machine in a bathroom sprayed you in the neck or other various regions with 25 cents worth of knock off perfume. This, people, is why I love America.

So today is the drawing for the big $340 million lotto. I’ll cave and buy a ticket. I don’t usually play as I like the instant gratification of scratch offs. Last night as we were going to sleep Jon and I dispersed our $164 mil lump sum payment in our heads (and dreams). The plan isn’t in stone, but we’ve got a rough draft.
-Of course we’d adopt at least 4 kids.
-We’d fly first class to China and back to bring them home.
-A major donation to the orphanages our kids came from.
-Trust funds and college funds for all the kids in our family including our nephews and my little sister Morgan.
-We’d pay off everyone’s homes and cars (on the loved ones list)
-We’d set up retirement funds for our parents, siblings, etc. (the list)
-We’d buy new cars: I want the Toyota Highlander Hybrid, Jon wants a BMW. My car would go to Morgan, and Jon’s car would go to someone else who needs a good car to be determined later.
-Major donations to charities and church of course.
-10 day cruise for lol (loved ones list).
-For me: laser eye surgery, laser hair removal (I’ll never shave again!), twice a month spa visits for mani pedis and massages and facials.
-For Jon: backstage passes/tour/ whatever to the Minnesota Twins, a spin on that Richard Petty Experience.
-We’d build a house on 15 acres with a 5 acre pond. I want a paddleboat and a big floating dock. Our parents, siblings, and Lisa would have homes built within golf cart driving distance. Jon wants a big home gym with connecting nap room and pub. I want my own roller rink and bike path. Also a whole area devoted to lawn games: badminton, croquet, bocce.
-I’d go down to the Gulf Coast and do whatever I could to help those people get back into homes and the swing of things.
-Dude, you know we’d shut down IKEA for a day and just shop our butts off.
-We’d buy a home in the mountains and on an island somewhere.
-Of course we’d do a good amount of investing. And we’d venture into business. Jon wants his own Star*bucks and car wash. I’d love to open a funky little store full of cute things.
-I think it would be way cool to randomly leave envelopes with $100 in them for people and see their faces when they find it.
-And I would definitely organize and host a fabulous bloggy convention someplace wonderful so I could meet up with all you fantastic bloggy friends! Would you come?

And what will you do if you win?

Jon babysat Shannon’s lab mix, Rascal, while we were in Atlanta last weekend. Rascal had been over to play with Ike and Kea a few times, but Jon had never met him. Shannon and I hit the road at 7am while Jon was still sleeping. I called him around noon to check in. He promptly asked me who let the horse in the house. He’s so used to the pugs and kitties so the big lab threw him for a loop. Rascal is a sweetie though and got along great with the pugs all weekend. When I called back that evening Jon told me he was busy fashioning a saddle so the pugs could take a ride on Rascal. I swear, you can’t leave a boy alone for a minute.
Oh, there seems to be some confusion from my last post. That’s Shannon H. in the pic with the knight. I’m the photographer so I don’t end up in many photos. For instance our honeymoon scrapbook showcases Jon standing next to lots of Vegas landmarks. It’s like he went on vacation with his photographer. I did manage to snap a pic of myself while waiting in the checkout line at IKEA. Jon gets a kick out of this shot. He says it looks like IKEA got the best of me. My hair’s all crazy and I’m wild eyed.

One of my favorite parts of a road trip are the roadside attractions. I love being on a loosy goosy schedule so I can pull over at whim. We stopped for our first gas up on the way to Atlanta Saturday and saw a castle across the street. So we had to go investigate! It was an abandoned video gambling joint. (Video gambling was legal in SC for a minute then all the sudden wasn’t legal so there are tons of odd themed buildings abandoned or converted across the state. For some reason a lot of them went with the castle theme.) Let me tell you, we tried to come up with a plan to strap the knights in shining armour to Jorge’s roof but being that they were like 20 feet tall and probably weighed 63 tons, it wasn’t in the cards. I just didn’t have enough bungee cords.

Lisa & Eammon (pronounced like Amen), invited us Shannons to stay the night with them after shopping at IKEA. Lisa cooked a fabulous meal and we had a great time getting to know each other. Their home is just gorgeous- I was very careful and didn’t break a thing! Amen is Irish but from London and I had the best time listening to him talk. It was so hard to keep from breaking out with my “British” accent. Amen and Lisa said it sounded like Dick Van Dyke from his Mary Poppins days mixed with Pakistani! They were so nice to let us stay over with them. We were so tired from shopping all day at IKEA so we really appreciated the rest before driving home. Of course I forgot to take pictures, we were too busy having fun!

So at the crack of dawn this morning, Shannon and I hit the road for Atlanta to go to IKEA. We got a little lost (damn Map Quest) but found it eventually. It did not disappoint. I had prepped Shannon before we left with “wear comfortable shoes, bring water, follow the arrows.” And I brought walkie talkies if we got separated, which we did. All of Atlanta was shopping today. At one point I had called her to find her and after she made her way over to me this man stopped in his tracks and said “Oh no, you do not have walkie talkies.” He couldn’t believe it. I said have you seen how big this place is? If we got separated Shannon ran a big risk of finishing out her days in IKEA because odds of me finding her after a cripplingly long day of shopping were slim to none. We ended up using our walkie talkies a lot. Shannon loved IKEA (how could she not) and bought a coffee table and dresser along with a buggy full of goodies. I got some roman shades for the den to replace the mini blinds that I hate. Of course the shades are the wrong size. I did really well and stayed within my budget. It was easier cause I was shopping vicariously through Shannon. We used the travellator to get down to the parking deck after we checked out. It was a wee bit scary. The wheels of your buggy lock into place. Thank goodness cause otherwise Shannon would have been bowled over by 2 buggies full of fabulous housewares!

Thank the Lord, cause sometimes I feel I’m running a little short in the skill and knowledge department!

I noticed recently that just about every message on our machine at home, or on my cell phone, all start with “Hey, it’s me.” Everyone is “me”. I do it too. I didn’t realize I did it until I heard a message I left at home. The problem is sometimes I’ll hear messages from women who all sound alike. So I have a chorus of It’s me’s to call back, but no idea who called! That’s when it’s best just to run through speed dial, calling everyone and saying “Hey, it’s me.”