Bless Your Heart

Our little town is basically owned by one very large and very rich family who are in the textile business. So there are lots of statues all over town depicting family scenes involving textiles like sheets and towels and what not. This one statue features a mom, a baby who’s just had a bath and is running to her dad. Well, periodically you’ll drive by and the baby is gone. Kids steal her all the time. We’ve lived in this town for 2 years next month and baby has been stolen 3 times! You know that the dude in charge of making new babies is so tired of this. And what do the thieves do with a big, bronze baby?

Morgan and I did some running around yesterday afternoon, and while we were out we stopped by our cute little Starbucks to try their new green tea frappucino. It was really good I thought, different, and with a taste of something familiar and fruity, but we couldn’t put our finger on it. It was really, shockingly GREEN. That night we had dinner and game night at my mom’s with Mom, Hale, Morgan & Sweetface (Morgan’s boyfriend). Morgan’s still not too sure about being a mom to Charlie the puppy. She actually said at one point this week “I just have so many other things to worry about- like my hair!” Charlie is still at the house though, and we all just love him. Sweetface got a taste of life with my crazy family during an extremely competitive round of Scene It. Jon and I won, much to the chagrin of Hale, who morphs from super sweet man to crazy competitive game monster. Jon and I drove Sweetface home and the whole way he yes ma’am and no ma’amed me. It was so sweet, yet it made me feel so old. Sigh.

Jon’s been jonesing for another pug. They are addictive, like tattoos and heroin. He wants a little black girl pug and he’s already named her Molly. He talks about her almost as much as we talk about Ling Ling. Well imagine my surprise when I’m searching for books at the library online and I type in pug and Molly Moon comes up. A whole series of books about a little black pug named Molly. Jon thinks it is a sign from God. We’ll see about that. =)

Karen over at The Naked Ovary wrote a post the other day about her parents’ dog eating her tampon in the living room, leaving a big blood stain. She invited her readers to leave their grosser than gross stories in her comments. I read those comments and laughed so hard while being horrified for those people all at the same time. Her post made me think of my grosser than gross stories.

The grossest thing that’s ever happened to me:
When I was a teenager I worked summers at my uncle’s skating rink. A bunch of us worked there and we all kept our drink cups with our names on them behind the concession stand counter. We’d skate up and grab our cups for a quick drink, then it was back out to the skate floor. I rolled up once and grabbed my cup and took a big swig. Then everything happened in slow motion. First I saw that the cup didn’t say Shannon. It said Shaun. Then I realized that Shaun used his cup TO SPIT HIS TOBACCO JUICE INTO. I had taken a huge gulp of backwashed spit and chaw. That was the one time in my life I’ve experienced instant projectile vomiting. Justified I think.

Ok, your turn, gross me out! Tell me your grossest stories! Don’t hold back my people!

Jon’s cousin and his wife are in the Coast Guard and they just got deployed to Guam for 3 years. Guam! That’s so far! They have two sweet little girls who will be big girls by the time we see them again! But they are settling into island life quite well, and we’ll be sure to wave as we fly over on our way to China!
Oh, and a couple of you have asked about the job hunt. It’s going well I suppose. I’ve been on a few interviews and have had some offers, but I’m being choosy. One place was in a bad part of town, one wanted me to commute 1.5 hours one way, one job meant traveling and sales. I need something I’m going to be happy with in the long run, and something that is family friendly. I’ve got some more leads to call this week, so we’ll see how that goes. I’m blessed that our house payment doesn’t depend on my paycheck, and that I don’t have to rush into anything. But I’m antsy- the quicker I bring in a paycheck, the quicker we go to China!

My little sister Morgan got herself a puppy yesterday. He’s a 2 month old beagle-lab mix that she named Charlie Bean. He’s a real cutie, but she’s already learning the responsibilities of pet ownership. “Aw man, he’s drinking again, that means he’s gonna have to pee in a little while.” She called me this morning after her first night as a mommy, exhausted. Heheh. Welcome to the world grasshopper.
I drove my mom to see the camel in my neighborhood yesterday. He’s really friendly and came right up to the car. He even let me feed and pet him. He didn’t spit though, thank goodness. Wait, is it camels that spit or llamas?

Quick little update on where we are in the adoption process.
I’ve downloaded the applications for our passports. We’ve paid off our cars, thus freeing up 2 car payments worth of mulah each month that will go into the adoption account. We opened a safe deposit box at our bank to store important papers until needed for the dossier (I’m paranoid about fire). And the biggie:
We’ve learned over the past few weeks that certain items that will be in our dossier have expiration dates. This means that we’re waiting yet another month or so before applying with our agency so we can save some more money. We don’t want to get started then have to put the process on hold while coming up with money and run the risk of something expiring (like the fingerprinting and such) and having to start all over.
But, another good thing we’ve decided on…we’re putting in for twins! Woohoo! I’m so excited. I’ve always wanted little twins. This by no means guarantees us twins, and the twin rate is low in China, but it happens. And if we can go ahead and adopt 2 at once then we will be thrilled!

My MIL gave me this cute little gerbera daisy on Independence Day. I need to transplant it, but I feel so sorry for it because I know that by living in my care it has been dealt a death sentence. There are teeny little buds in there though, so there’s hope. This morning I got up at the crack o dawn to go yard sale-ing with Shannon. I’d never gotten up and gone out for the sole purpose of yard sale-ing, but apparently it is a major past time. It was fun looking at other people’s stuff, and their houses. This one lady kept showing up at all of our yard sales, sometimes ahead of us by so much it was if she were teleported there. She must have a gps system in her car. Shannon and I did decide to have our own yard sale sometime this fall. We paid attention and learned what to do, and what not to do. Lesson one: when selling children’s chairs to 2 young ladies, try not to let the cigarrette dangling in your mouth become so ashy that your ashes blow in the wind and said young ladies have to wipe your nasty cancer ashes off them as they get back in their car. I didn’t find any treasures, but Shannon came away with some great finds. Including 4 colorful kid’s chairs from the Ash Man. I’m excited about holding our own yard sale now. Like they say, one man’s trash…. or in my case, unused, HUGE George Foreman grill, computer desk, bowling ball…..

While tropical depression Cindy made for a rainy, nasty day here in the Carolinas, Jon and I braved the elements yesterday to get some errands taken care of. When we got home we found that we had lost a shutter to Cindy, but we’ll take that over our neighbors who’s tree landed in their living room.
While out and about we stopped at the library so I could pick up some books I’d reserved. I found a loop hole and I’m really excited about it. You see, I live in a small town in a small county with a small library system. If you don’t reserve a “hot” book right off the press, you’ll be 417th in line. I’d been wanting to read “The Mermaid Chair” and tried to reserve it online, but was told I was #67. Bleh. So I hit the back button and noticed an entry for “The Mermaid Chair” by Sue Monk Kidd- Large Print. Clicked on it and found out I was #1! Woohoo! So yesterday I picked up my spoils, Mermaid Chair plus “The White Swan Express” and “The Queen’s Fool” and ran back to the car in the rain. I tossed the books to Jon while I was wrestling to close the umbrella.
I got in the car and Jon said to me “Large Print?”. I explained my new process. He explained “You do realize you are robbing blind people of their reading material now right?” “Oh, I’m sorry Old Lady Smith, but you can’t read The Mermaid Chair right now, some 30 year old girl has it. Go back to your miserable old folks home!”
Damn him, librarian’s son. Sucking all the joy out of my new easy on the eyes reading plan!

Talking about the Real World the other day, and how I’ve never kissed a girl, got me thinking about what other things I haven’t done. You know, things that would seem everyone, or a lot of people, have done. And I’ve not avoided these things on purpose, they’ve just never come up. Here’s a partial list (what I can think of right now)
I have never:
-Eaten at Denny’s.
-Watched any of the Godfather movies.
-Bungee jumped or skydived.
-Gone on vacation and slept with a local.
-Pierced anything but my ears.
-Worked as a waitress. (it would be a disaster-they work very hard, and I am very clumsy)
-Been a part of a 3 way or attended a sex party.
-Traveled to Canada.
-Ice skated outside (just at indoor rinks)

What haven’t you done?