7 months

Look who's 7 months old. Why, it's my puppy Nitro. I'd guestimate him at about 95 pounds now, considering he was 85 @ 6 months. The days of picking him up and getting on the scale are long gone.

The only way I could feel more safe is to have armed guards outside my house with machine guns.

Yeah, you'd have to be pretty stupid to break in here if you got a look at that great big head that is full of great big teeth.





Now I used to think that little hunny bunny (god help me that's what we call him most of the time) did not have an aggressive bone in his body. He is a baby that is bullied by the cats Oliver and Martini





and won't even go in the same room as the hamster. There will be no picture of the hamster Lucifer because I am deathly afraid of him and the only reason he lives in my house is because he is my nieces pet. That's all I got to say about that.

I figured the German Shepherd half of him that would be protective had not kicked in at all. Oh, he follows me from room to room and is incredibly attached and loyal to me, but when you see a 95 pound dog scamper away because your niece is cleaning a hamster cage you gotta kind of wonder how much balls this dog actually has.

Then we went for our walk and the really horrible neighbors with the really horrible pit bull had let him loose to run. As it snarled and ran towards us Nitro turned from hunny bunny to a dog that I do not know.

I did not know he had that many teeth as he bared every single one of them. He did not lunge at the pit bull, he just stood in front of me emitting a very scary low growl while showing the dog exactly how big his teeth are. The pit bull said "fuck this" and ran the other way. Then Nitro returned to hunny bunny status and pranced around me, who was now frozen in shock, fear, and awe, because he wanted to get walking again.

I have a feeling if anyone ever entered my house uninvited they'd leave on a stretcher. Who needs a gun when you can get a hunny bunny?

It should be illegal

So I got home from work last night around 1:00 am, a couple of hours earlier then I usually roll in. My niece, who lives with me, is the TiVo queen. This means I just might be able to keep up with all that water cooler talk about the hot new fall shows.

She had TiVo'd CBS's new show "The Class."

It should be illegal for CBS to advertise that the people behind the show "The Class" are the same people behind "Friends" and "Mad About You."

This is like comparing a little league team to a World Series championship team.

It. Sucks. Hardcore.

The Class tries as hard as a woman who just got laid properly for the first time.

Yes, it is that bad.

The only redeeming feature of this show is Jason Ritter, who shows great potential and really, really reminds me of his father, which I mean as a HUGE compliment.

Maybe it'd be ok if I couldn't keep up with the water cooler talk, eh? Unless it is about Jericho, of course. See post below.

I wonder

So I wonder if my day I had yesterday is how people live if they are rich or a housewife.

I'm guessing not, since rich people more then likely work thus the rich part, and housewives usually have kids which mean there is no way in hell you'd have a day like I had yesterday.

Unless you are a rich housewife that has a nanny. Yeah, that's it. Yesterday was like if I was a rich housewife with a nanny.

But not a maid, because I did have that chore to do, which only took an hour or so.

Then I was free........

So I spent a good portion of the day lounging on the couch, planted some bulbs for next spring, caught up on some emails, watched a couple of movies, surfed the net for awhile, and ate some bad for me food.

Heaven, pure heaven.

One thing that I did do yesterday was watch this on Y! TV. It happened by accident really, and I found myself riveted to my computer while I watched the first episode of Jericho.

Riveted. I'm telling you people, if the rest of the season of this show is this good......I've found a new addiction.

Lazy Saturday

So for the first time in a long time I think I might get a lazy Saturday.

A Saturday where I don't have to do anything that I don't want to do.

My friend C is coming over for a bit this morning. My lovely now 90-95 pound 6 and a 1/2 month old puppy has learned how to open the gate in my back yard. He's coming to install a taller gate with double locks.

Double locks for fuck's sake.

C has got to be real sick of my house, and eventually my I loooooove yooooooooou's are not gonna work anymore. I just want the work to end around here. My bank account wants the work to end around here. I shouldn't complain about that though, since it basically just costs me the materials because C looooooooooove's me.

So after C is done I have nada to do. My new business venture has taken up way more time then I thought it would (and made me a hell of a lot more money then I thought it would). You gotta love being on the ground floor for something that has just started out west.

On top of that I had all the construction stuff going on, a long distance type relationship going on, a very bad puppy, crazy working hours at my regular job, and friends that need to be seen.

I haven't had a fucking minute to myself in about two months. But today....The construction is pretty much done, the sometimes-boyfriend is on a guy's weekend, the very bad puppy is wore out from playing with his girlfriend, Rizzo the Boxer,



I am off work at my regular job, and my friends all have family crap going on.

A whole day to do nothing.

Honestly I can't remember the last time I had a day like that.

Oh how wonderful this shall be......

I'm a Soccer Mom

Ok, so technically I don't have any kids, but I now look like a Soccer Mom. At least while driving.

Who am I kidding, my big ass honking SUV's of the past made me probably look like a Soccer Mom, but I didn't see it that way.

This new vehicle, ummm yeah, it is total Soccer Mom.

You see ever since that fateful day back in 1998 when Chicago got dumped on with snow and my itty bitty Escort GT (you know, the really good Escort *snort*) would not get me out of here I have owned something that could switch to 4x4 and climb a damn mountain if necessary.

I think I wrote about it before, but here's a recap. My brother came to get me because there was no power and I used the last of my water (have a well, didn't realize it ran on electric) to fill up my cat and dog's bowls. So after one huge ass fight about how I was in no uncertain terms leaving my animals we (my brother, cat, dog, and I) made our way to his house because he had a generator. He had a big honkin' F250, and the normally five mile trip took an hour.

His two year old had chicken pox, and his 6 year old was just getting over them. Two very cranky kids. His wife was pissed that my animals came with, every freakin' person in the neighborhood was there, and I ended up breakin' up with my then boyfriend because we had a major cell phone fight.

I was trapped and I swore that would never happen again.

So I have always owned SUV's since then. With my tendency of crashing this isn't just for snow purposes people. I need something safe.

Well gas prices don't exactly mix with SUV's right now, mine had about 130,000 miles on it (I go lots 'o places), and I hadn't exactly kept up with the maintenance part of the deal.

As my truck was smoking and leaking, I pondered on why the hell I was so stupid and didn't keep up with that maintenance part of the deal.

Anyway, I had a choice. Fix it, which was going to cost some major $$$$, or get a new one.

So I bought a car. Not just any car, the car we make here in Chicago. The Soccer Mom car. A Five Hundred.




There they are rolling off the line where I work. It's a big honkin' car, just voted the safest in America.

Which I totally need.

While this isn't a vehicle I would normally pick out, I decided to support my plant and to support American made Union made products. I know, I know, those little foreign car manufacturers have their little plants here, but when you think that the American car companies employ like 3,000,000 people they they employ 300,000, it kind of puts it into perspective.

Yeah, hungry? Eat your foreign car comes to mind. How the hell did I get on my soap box? Ok, getting back down now.

So I decided to support Chicago. It isn't that it is a bad looking car. I totally love the way it drives and how it sits up high and the interior feels like a luxury car.

It's just that I've always had well different vehicles. Like when I bought my first car. It was this candy apple red Escort. Once I realized that there were a million other candy apple red Escorts my Dad and I proceeded to paint it PINK. Like Bubble Gum Pink.

I then bought a PURPLE Escort GT. Back then I couldn't fathom buying a car that costs as much as a really small house, so I always went cheap, and always went Ford for obvious reasons.

Then the storm hit and I bought my first semi-expensive vehicle. The Explorer.

Oh how I hearted that truck. I would probably still be driving it if it wasn't for that little incident with the black ice and the guard rail. Oppps!! The people that picked it up assumed I was dead, thus enforcing my belief that I needed a really big, safe suv.

So I'm back to a car, which I sure will make my tree-hugger Mama happy. I must admit, even though it isn't Pink, and even though it doesn't have a GT in the name, and even though it has four doors, I'm really diggin' it.

It's so smooth and quiet. You ride up high like in a truck, so you can really see. It has lots of cool bells and whistles like a navigation system and satellite radio.

All for way cheaper then my truck. I can probably get about 3 new coach purses a year with how much cheaper it is. Yay!

Let me tell you about the interior folks.....Beautiful soft leather seats that would fit a line backer. I feel like a size 0 model on a skinny day in it. My friend C, who is 6'5, can cross his legs in the back seat, which is good because the huge puppy Nitro



will have to fit back there.

So yeah, I'm diggin' being a soccer mom.

My GOD please tell me this doesn't mean I am fucking growing up, mmmkay?

Admitting is the first step

When is the last time you went trick-or-treating and dressed up and asked for candy?

I didn't do it last year, so for me it would be 33.

Age is a state of mind they say.

That is all.

Damn Disney to Hell

So if you have read this blog for any amount of time you may have come to realize that I love Halloween a little more then the average person.

Ok, I love it a lot more then the average person. The annual Halloween party that is thrown by my friends and I is the party of the year. It is the party that people talk about for months afterwards. It is the party that turns people into insecure 15 year olds praying they get an invite.

I'm having a bit of an issue this year. You see, my bestest friends and I always do some kind of theme. Like last year we were fairies, and another year we were fembots.

Well this year someone came up with the brilliant idea to be Princesses from Disney. Ok, the idiot was me. Originally we wanted to be Kiss, but since my sis-in-law just had twins in February it is going to take her another year to have her body spandex-ready.

Anyway, so I thought it would be cute to do the whole Disney Princess thing. Actually I have always always always wanted to be Cinderella for Halloween.

So I was excited when I found out that a local party store had their costumes out already. I went found a beautiful deluxe Cinderella costume. Just gorgeous.

Then I remembered why we are usually so original with our costumes and make them ourself.

The dreaded Adult-Size-Standard.

You see, the costume companies do not exactly anticipate that some of their customers may have bigger then a B Cup. The adult-size standard usually encompasses a size 10-12. No prob, as I'm an 8 on the bottom right?

As I slipped on the beautiful Cinderella dress everything seemed fine. I started zipping it. No problem as the zipper went over the small of my back with ease and room to spare.

Then I got to that spot about 4 inches above the small of my back. The dreaded area that I always have problems with.

About the only way I could get it zipped there would be a yard of material and a miracle from God.

I mean, check out the pictures of these damn disney princesses. They have a little tiny waist. They have no hips to speak of. Oh yes, they also have quite a rack.

Ummm hello that kind of costum would fit perfect!! Why don't they make them like that??? Why do they assume that every person that is a size 10-12 have the breast of a 10-12 year old boy?

What the fuck?

So I checked out some plus-sized costumes thinking that I could get someone to take it in for me. The only one they had was Snow-Freaking-White and I don't wanna be Snow-Freaking-White. They'd also have to cut 3/4 of the damn thing off to fit my damn hips and waist.

This is such bullshit.

So I can either be Snow-Freaking-White, buy the Cinderella costume and try and find fabric to make it bigger, or try like hell to find a plus-sized one somewhere out there on the Internet and get it taken in.

Looking on the Internet has not been working out to well. They have some, but not much in the plus-sized arena as far as Disney goes. Mostly ghastly Mini-Mouse crap. I did come to find a couple of "Sin"-derella costumes.

Sinderella? FFS...... Why is it they try and sexy up all these costumes? Sexy Raggedy Ann....Sexy Bo Peep....Sexy Judge...Yes, that's right, sexy judge. Anytime I have been standing in front of a judge sexy is the last thing I thought of, but I digress from my digression...

So Halloween is not going well so far this year. Will I be Cinderella? Will I be a rather grumpy Snow-Freaking-White? Only time will tell. Stay tuned.

Drowned

So last weekend, after a long couple of weeks, a few of my bestest girlfriends came over to celebrate the fact that I was finally getting my house back after all that construction.

One of my friends ~D~ brought up the fact that her little sister, who is 30, told her that at 35 ~D~ is now certifiabley old.

Pfffffft. Whatevah!

So we reminded her that while her sister maybe 5 years younger then her, she also has the wrinkles of someone 10 years older then us, with all the sunbathing she's done in her lifetime. We also reminded her that little sis hasn't exactly hit the treadmill in awhile either, if you know what I mean.

Ok, so maybe we were being catty and just a wee bit mean, but we need to perk up ~D~'s spirits because if she is certifiabley old, that means we are too.

We can't have that.

I'm pretty much convinced little sis's attack came from the fact that we all went out a few weekends ago and us geriatrics scored far more free drinks then the spring chicken. In fact, I don't think spring chicken scored one drink.

They say the best form of flattery is jealousy, no?

Our attempts to make her feel better led to a discussion on plastic surgery. Now looking at all of us, I wouldn't say that any of us were even close to needing it. I think acting immature for so long has helped us stay young looking or something. That, or we have just plain embalmed ourselves with alcohol over the years.

I mean I was upset last year when this guy thought I was 27...lol I guess it had to happen some day, me looking over that 25 year mark. I still get carded for cigarettes, so I'm not too worried.

Anyway, so everyone started discussing what they would get done if plastic surgery was free and had no pain involved whatsoever.

One of my friends wanted bigger lips, another wanted a breast reduction, one wanted implants, one wanted lipo....

Then the eyes turned to me. I'm pretty happy with my body right now, the girls are thankfully still in the upright and locked position. I already have full lips that are big but not too big....

So what would I do? What would I change?

My nose. It would have to be my nose.

You see, I am a bit paranoid about my nose, and people think I am cRaZy. It's one of those little button noses you see on Barbie Dolls. I think you can kind of tell if you click my pic to go to the profile and view full size. There are no lumps or bumps. It's very petite.

So why would I want to change my nose? It's all my Dad's fault. When I was a little girl and it was raining he always used to say, "Don't go outside or you'll drown!"

I've always hated my nose, even though the more sensible side of me tells me that is like the skinny chick saying "I'm soooooooooooooo fat."

So of course saying my nose was met with groans and boos from the crowd. It really makes you think though, about what affect parents have on their little kid's vision of theirself.

My Dad was just kidding me, and he has made me paranoid about my nose for the rest of my life. Paranoid about a nose that I know most people with more "distinct" noses would kill for.....

Thank God that's all I had to deal with, eh? I can't imagine being one of those kids whose parents tell them they are fat or stupid.

A Return to Normalcy

So the construction inside my house is COMPLETE. Done. Finished. All my stuff is back to in place, no more paint fumes, dust, and dirt everywhere.

There is a God.

I did my living room in beeeeeeautiful Ralph Lauren paint, which let me tell you, is the BEST I have ever used. It's a rich red color and I love love love it. Here's a pic of the almost completed room:



I hadn't hung all my stuff back up or put furniture back in it's proper place all the way yet, but you get the idea. I love my Home/Where your story begins on the wall. It's absolutely stunning. Kudos to this new company for that. I'm an independent demonstrator for this relatively new company, which means discount! Score!

But the new real love of my life is the new deck:



This picture only shows half of it, as it was raining and I took it from under the Gazebo. With benches instead of railings, this deck is perfect for entertaining. Plenty of seating, the deck shall be christened next weekend.

My friend C made the benches incredibly comfortable. They have a slight recline that only those of us who are rather well endowed can truly appreciate. I was afraid that they would be not very cozy, but once I throw a couple of cushions on them they will be as comfy as my beeeeautiful wicker furniture.

I heart my new wicker furniture, and I heart it even more since I got it @ 60% off!

Now I just have to deal with the mud pit that is the rest of my backyard now and a dog recovering from surgery. Yes, the Nitro went in and got fixed. He's not to happy right now.

Then hopefully I will have a full return to normalcy. Well, at least what normalcy is in my world.