The Name Game

The Name Game

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet’s name & current car)

Boots Odyssey

2.YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fave ice cream flavor, favorite cookie),
Peanut Butter Nutter Butter

3. YOUR “FLY Guy/Girl” NAME: (first initial of first name, first three letters of your last name),
Jfer

4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal),
Pink Kitty

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born),
Anne Santa Monica

6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first),
Ferju

7. SUPERHERO NAME: (”The” + 2nd favorite color, favorite drink),
The Purple Daquiri

8. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers),
Randy Donald

9. STRIPPER NAME: ( the name of your favorite perfume/cologne/scent, favorite candy),
Vanderbilt Chocolate

10.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names ),
Carrie Wayne

And a few more…
11. TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME: (Your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter),
Hicks Houston

12. SPY NAME/BOND GIRL: (your favorite season/holiday, flower).
Winter Star Jasmine

13. CARTOON NAME: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now + “ie”)
Strawberry Jammie

14. HIPPY NAME: (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree),
Granola Oak

15. YOUR ROCKSTAR TOUR NAME: (”The” + Your fave hobby/craft, fave weather element + “Tour”),
The Knitting Thunderstorm Tour

Tag! Your turn!

Happy Burfday To Me

I had a birthday two days ago. I am now a few days closer to Forty than to Thirty. And, yet, I feel the same as I did at the beginning of the week. Why is it that so many people become obsessed with numbers? Of course, there are the major milestones...at 16 you can drive.....at 18 you can vote....at 21 you can drink (legally). After that all of the major milestones quickly become negative ones. I think I'll stick with the belief that you're only as old as you feel. At 25 I felt like I was about 40. But today, at 35, I feel about 35.

Anyhoo, my day was pretty normal. Work from 8am until 5:30pm. Take the kid to horse lessons (by the way she is doing AWESOME, had her first little jump and didn't fall off the horse!). Come home to a cooked dinner (yay!). And cheescake for dessert (double yay!). My present from Ron? Tickets to go see Stevie Wonder in concert! He is definitely on my 'must see in this lifetime' list. And now I'll be able to check him off that list. For those of you that have been around here for a while, you might recall I actually got to see Stevie sing one song last winter at the Gerald Levert memorial. But a whole concert of nothing but Stevie? Pure heaven.

I also got a phone call from the family. As soon as I answered everyone (including all the kiddos) yelled (mostly) in unison, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ROXANNE!!!!!". Except, of course, it was my real name because that would just be freaky if they called me Roxanne, right? My mom and sister informed me that I'll be getting my presents from them 'as soon as they're finished making them'. I told 'em don't worry too much about rushing. I can wait patiently. 'Specially for something handmade. :)

Eat me

Out of curiosity, I Googled "Cinnamon+acne". Not only did I NOT FIND ANYWHERE WHATSOEVER anything implying that ingesting cinnamon will cause an acne breakout, BUT many of the home remedies included a honey and cinnamon paste to be applied to the face every night. Also, suggestions of garlic being rubbed on the affected areas.

So if I eventually decide to give up with the nasty prescription cream, I can try the more natural route. And smell like garlic, honey, cinnamon, and there was also mention of the use of vinegar. YUM!

Red faced and not even embarrassed

Let's see............

Went to the dermatologist last week. Felt reprimanded for how long I had waited to come get my acne issue resolved (didn't need that...like I hadn't already beaten myself up enough already).

"Wow, that's really bad", comments the doc as she shines the extremely bright spotlight right at my chin area. Again, thanks doc. At least my face didn't fail me and miraculously clear up right before my appointment. I wanted to show the doctor the reality of my situation. And she got it. Actually, I didn't mention to her that is has been far worse at times. She had already seen enough to be convinced.

Along with the three part cleansing system, I have been advised to steer completely clear of.......get this......cinnamon! She said no other food will cause acne. Cinnamon? Apparently she does not realize how much I love cinnamon. The worst part? It's pumpkin bread season. And pumpkin pie season. And apple pie season. I've yet to experiment with making my famous pumpkin bread sans cinnamon. This was Jesse's idea. I really hope, with all the other spices, that the cinnamon will not be too obviously missed.

The other thing I was told to avoid is any toothpaste with whitening or tartar control agents. I am to use the basic paste with no special additives. No gels. Just paste. That one is much easier to do than the cinnamon ban.

After the first two days of using the topical prescription treatment (Duac with 5% benzol peroxide), I literally felt like my face was burning, stinging, itching, bright red, and inflamed (and hot!) in all the areas where it had been applied. Which means the areas around my eyes and mouth are still white white. So, to sum up.....I look like a freak. But a freak with a face that's slowly clearing up. Now, after a week, my face is slowly getting less red and is so dried out that it feels like sandpaper. Of course, I am to not use ANY moisturizer whatsoever and no makeup.

I only have at least 5 1/2 more months of this to look forward to. If everything looks good at that point, I will be put onto maintenance. I asked the doc what maintenance consists of. She said that depends on what your situation looks like at the time. I just hope it doesn't involve putting the "evil cream" on my face anymore.

All I can hope for now is that the sunburned look goes away before the snow starts flying.

Found!!!!

I continued to stress the whole day about my missing wallet until, this evening, I was frantically searching every nook and cranny of the house with flashlight in hand. Nate was sitting at the computer desk and asked what I was up to.

I NEED TO FIND MY WALLET!!!

Without me asking, he pitched in and started opening cupboards and shelves. I went into the next room and shortly thereafter heard him exclaim, "I found it!"

WHA????? Where was it?

In the bottom drawer of the desk, all the way to the back.

I gave him a great big hug and a few thank yous. He says, jokingly, "Now you owe me $20 bucks!"

I am so, so happy not to have to replace my driver's license and credit cards and everything else I have stashed in there. Plus I really needed the contents of the my wallet for the next three days. Doctor's appointments on Wed. and Thurs. in which they'll need to see my insurance card. Then Friday I'm taking the daycare kids on a field trip to the zoo. It probably would have been bad form to be driving other people's children around town without a license. So, yippee!

In other news, we are getting a new roof on our house and two garages. It is only going to cost us $250! Due to a hailstorm back in June (in which we didn't think we even had damage from but all the neighbors were getting approved for roof repair), our insurance adjuster determined that, yes, we did have enough damage to replace the whole roof. Phew!! I was really not looking forward to shelling out $10,000 - 15,000 in the next couple years. We have moss growing on many of the tiles and a leak here and there so this was a great relief. All hail hail storms who do great amounts of property damage! I'd like to also note that this is the first homeowner's insurance claim we've ever made in 15 years of owning various homes. So, we were due. Maybe I'll take some pictures of the roof being installed so y'all can see our new, pretty rooftop (and maybe some shirtless dudes!).

AAAAWWWWW!!!

I need everyone to send some "finding wallet" vibes this way. As of yesterday, my wallet is MIA. I am not one to typically lose things. I have retraced my steps and narrowed it down to a couple of things.

1. Jesse was sleepwalking (as she often does), took it out of my purse, and placed it God knows where. God? A little help here?

2. It flew out the window on the way home from Sam's Club.

We've ruled out the possibility of it falling out of my purse from the cash register in Sam's on the way to the van. Because if someone dishonest had found it, Mastercard would have called us already alerting us to many, many charges. If someone honest had found it, we would have gotten a phone call to set up a time to retrieve it. Either way, I am very, VERY frustrated!!!!!

This and That

• I'm finally (!!) going to the dermatologist to get my face fixed. I am not kidding you when I say that my face has literally exploded the past couple of weeks. I really should take before and after pictures, but I really don't want to have a reminder (once my face clears up) of the pain I've allowed myself to go through for so long. I can't wait for my face to stop throbbing.

• We have been scraping the paint off the basement floor for 3 weeks now. At times my arms and wrists have been so overworked that I can barely grasp a glass to take a drink. It's loads of fun. You're asking why would you scrape all the paint off the floor? It kept bubbling up and peeling. I kept repainting the peeled off areas. Paint chips kept ending up on the little ones' feet (not good for business). So now we are going to install 667 vinyl tile squares that hopefully will look as close to a wood floor without being actual wood. I'll take pictures when we're done. Next weekend is the big install.
• Jesse started horse riding lessons again. She was so psyched! September lessons consisted of learning the basics of barrel racing and pole bending. Pole bending is where they have between 4 and 8 vertical poles that they have to zig zag the horse through. She was awesome (if you don't mind me bragging)!! I was so proud of her. This is truly something that is in her blood. They were timed on two different maneuvers. She had the best time on the first one. And the second she "lost" only by a hundredths of a second. But really she would have won had her horse been cooperating. Penny kept trying to go off course and so her teacher kept stopping and restarting the stop watch. See? It's not just me being a totally biased overprotective mom. ;) In all actuality, I could careless how fast or slow she is. I'm just thrilled that she has found something that she is so passionate about.

All for a mere $25 per hour lesson!



We may have to start eating rice and beans to keep her in that saddle.

• Abby (our throwing up cat) does not seem to be retching ill for now. Of course I probably just jinxed it and we'll find piles all over the floor in the morning.
• I get to have my female parts manipulated at the doctor's office this week. Oh joy!
• We're looking at meeting my family (and possibly my new mom-in-law + husband) this summer for a camping trip. Due to my bro-in-law's health condition, we have to limit ourselves to somewhere within an hour or so from an airport and also near a dialysis unit. He is getting pretty close up to the top of the list for a kidney transplant. As of now, we're considering somewhere in Washington or Oregon. Should be fun!
  

Death, Barf, and Stool

Now, I know you all are still here after reading that post title. Can't wait to hear this one, right? After my extended absence, due to our laptop having gone caput (and Ron's miraculous recovery of our hard drive by putting it overnight in the freezer [yes!] ), I'm back.

Our male cat, Jake, has been on a killing spree.

He may look cute and innocent, but underneath the facade is a rampaging tiger ready to chomp down on his next victim. Last week, Jesse found him in the house with a little mouse. It was already dead, of course. She took it outside to the "Tree of Death". This is the spot that she takes all of his victims. Later on that day.............one of my daycare parents comes to pick up her daughter and lets me know that the cat has left a present on the front step. Oh joy. It is the same poor mouse. He apparently has discovered the final resting place of these poor critters.

A few days later I was outside with the daycare children at my feet (literally). We had been giving the baby dolls a bath the day before so I was putting everything back into the rubbermaid container. I went to lift up the overturned "bathtub" and was mightily surprised when I came face to face with a chipmunk. Yes, he was dead. But at least he looked peaceful. I have no idea how he made it underneath there or how he died. I don't think the cat was to blame for this one. I quickly covered him back up and left him in peace. It may or may not have also been because I hate to deal with dead things. Ron gracefully stepped up to the plate this time when he got home. Poor little guy.

Today, as I'm waiting for my first daycare child to arrive, I hear a blood curdling scream coming from outside. Apparently as mom and child were walking up to the front door they discovered not one, but two poor little dead chipmunks. Mom had let out the chilling scream to try to stop her daughter who was quickly approaching the deceased guys. You know with rabies and all. I proceeded to wash her hands really well as Mom didn't know if the little one had actually touched the chippy or not.

Onto the barf. Our other cat (the bipolar one), Abby, has been throwing up off and on lately. I had made an appointment with the vet to see if there was anything wrong. She has only be doing this maybe once every few days so we're not really concerned. But concerned nonetheless. The lady at the vet's office says that if we could collect and bring in a stool sample it would be extremely helpful in determining what's going on with her. Do you know how hard it is to collect stool from an indoor/outdoor cat? We don't keep a litter box for them as they have the freedom to go outside anytime they please. Even if we were to lock her inside and MAKE her go in a box, how do we determine that it's her poo and not Jake's? Do we have to lock him outside until she does the dirty deed? Of course, if we lock him outside you know he'll take out his anger on the chipmunks.

So for now at least, I've cancelled the appointment until we figure out a plan of action. Plus, she doesn't really seem to be acting sick. (yes, she's up-to-date on all of her vaccines so I guess we'll just wait it out and see)