Man up, Nicky!

I normally couldn't care less what any so-called "celebrity" does or says. But I happened to hear these tapes last night on Nancy Grace, and I have never liked this punk Nick Bollea (Hogan) kid anyway. The one time I saw his reality show was more than I could stand. He and his sister act like spoiled brats and their parents are both stupid.

Now he has been recorded whining to Mommy and Daddy about the conditions of his jail cell. If you don't know the story behind this, Google it, because I'm too lazy to explain it.

This would be hilarious if it wasn't so sick. "Oh, Mommy, I miss getting into the Escalade with you! I miss hanging out on the boat. I don't even have a window in my cell!"

Ok, what his mom said did make me laugh. "I'm at the beach house by myself. It's not the same. WAAAAAHHHHHH!!" Really, you have to listen to that part at least. It's better than any Saturday Night Live skit.

"Can't they just move you to a room with a window? It's not like you're asking for a lot. Just a window. This isn't fair. You're my baby. You're my Bubba."

Oh gag me.

Then Grandma gets on the phone. "Well, you have to look at the bright side. It could be worse."

Yeah. He could be in a hospital bed with half of his brain removed.

The beach house? The Escalade? The boat? Thanks to him, his friend will most likely never wake up again (they really did remove part of his brain), and he is trying to get Daddy Hogan to pull some strings for him, and crying because he has to spend 8 months in a cell with no view!

BOO-Freaking-HOO!

(Okay, I feel better now.)

Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable

So now I'm so desperate for blog post titles that I'm quoting Plato.

I haven't been here in a few days, mostly because I'm busy, but also because nothing has happened worth blogging about.

Except for this:

The other day, I was leaving to go get a manicure. I told Captain Chaos that I was going to go get pretty.

"You're pretty right now, Mommy." he said.

I think that's the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me. :)

On the other hand, last night he grabbed my chest with both hands and said, "Look, Daddy! BOOBIES!! Heh heh!!"

You'd really have to hear the laugh to appreciate that. He sounds like a dirty old man.

Where do little boys learn about this? We did not teach him about boobies, I promise.

Oh, and he is starting to bring me bugs now. For a while, it was only tiny ant-size critters. Now he has moved on to slightly larger bugs. The other day, it was a dead lizard.

I'm afraid to ask what's next, but if he EVER brings me a roach, I'm kicking him out.

Multi-tasking

So, we opened our new retail pool store a couple of days ago. I am a prisoner here 3 mornings a week now. It's not so bad really. We don't have any customers yet. I don't think I want any, either, as I am not entirely sure that I know how to operate the register, or that I even understand the chemicals and other inventory enough to sell anything.

We're very prepared, as you can see.

Luckily I have this laptop, so I can work from anywhere. Or blog from anywhere. Or listen to my iTunes from anywhere. Technology continues to revolutionize the ways I waste time. Which is another reason I don't want a customer. If someone walks in, I'll have to stop singing.

They are both obsessed

This is a "huge redfish". At least that's what I am told. I don't know my redfish. Either way, I think it's a great fish, because my baby caught it and as you can see, he is extremely proud! (I'm thinking he must have had a little help reeling this one in.)

Wordless Wednesday

More WW here

Why I have not called you. (Yet another hostile rant)

Sometimes my friends call me (yep, I have a couple of friends) and they no doubt wonder why I almost never answer my phone and sometimes don't even call them back. It's actually amazing that I have any friends left, considering how little attention I pay to them. Some of them (that makes it sound like I have so many) have figured out that if they want to contact me, it's much more effective to send an email. I can answer an email, but usually can't get involved in a telephone conversation.

Here's why.

I work from home. That sounds simple, right?

Oh, isn't she lucky. She doesn't have to clock in. She doesn't have to be at work at a certain time and stay there all day. She doesn't even have to take a shower.

That's right, I don't clock in. I'm always on the clock. I get up by 6 a.m. and start working almost immediately. I am usually still working at 10 p.m., after everyone else is asleep. I have been promised that we will be hiring a secretary to do a lot of my work, but every time we hire someone, it's a new service guy to work in the field, which creates more work for me because we get more jobs done, which means more quotes to type up and more invoices to send out. There are days when the boss calls me 15-20 times with more assignments for me to complete.

If my son is home, every job I do is done a little at a time, because he constantly needs something. (Darn kid. Expects his mommy to take care of him.) How much work would you get done if you had to stop every 10 minutes to take someone to the potty or fill up a juice cup? Have you ever tried to balance a checkbook when someone is running through the room pushing a toy lawn mower with those annoying popping balls in it? Do you know what it's like to take a business call while a kid screams, "MOMMY, I NEED SOME CREAM ON MY BOTTOM!" in the background?

What about the three mornings that her kid is at school? Can't she finish all of her work in that amount of time?

In a word, NO!

Gosh, her house should be so neat and clean, considering that she stays home all day.

There is a pair of Diego underwear in my living room windowsill. This morning I found two Cocoa Puffs under my pillow. I'm not 100% certain that I emptied the kiddie potty the last time it was used. Someone left a crumpled up washcloth in the bathtub. And what the hell is this blue, sticky stuff on the kitchen floor?

But she gets to work for her husband. Isn't that better than having a "real job"?

You can't be serious. You obviously haven't met my husband. When you work a regular office job and your boss has a bad day, at 5:00 he goes to his house and you go to yours. I have to sleep in the same bed with mine. If your boss cusses you out, you could quit. I'd have to file for divorce. I am often asked over dinner if I finished that report that one of our big accounts wanted. And Mr. Type A Personality is currently working on starting TWO other businesses, which of course I am supposed to be just as interested in. I swore that I wasn't going to have anything to do with the most recent one. Care to guess how well that's working out for me?

How does she have time to keep up with this blog if she's so busy?

Well, what do you do for stress relief? Drink a glass of wine? Do a crossword puzzle? I BLOG!

If I don't, I might just go to the mall and take someone hostage.

F*CK

The offer we made on the house we want to buy has not even been presented to the bank yet. The house is in pre-foreclosure, but the homeowners are traveling out of the country, so they haven't signed off on it yet. I don't think it's right to spend money on traveling out of the country when you aren't paying your mortgage, but I'm sure they wouldn't care what I think. After all, who am I?

As if that isn't enough, the guy who owns the house we are renting called today, and he wants us to move. He is also foreclosing and he wants to try to short sell. We already knew this, but we were told we had a lot more time.

I don't really want to pay the landlord the ridiculous sum that we pay him to rent here anyway. Something about paying him when he isn't paying the mortgage (and hasn't for 7 months now) just doesn't sit right with me.

So now we are moving, probably by the end of the month. We have moved 5 times since 2003. This will be the 6th. And we will have to turn around and move YET AGAIN before the end of the year, making it the 7th time in 5 years. After that, I am NEVER moving again. I will DIE in that house.

Weekend pictures

There was a birthday party at my sister-in-law's house Saturday. It's always fun there. Especially if you like beer. Or weed.

My father-in-law even showed up. Here you can see three generations of Chaos.

I have a picture of me and Chaos every Mother's Day so far. Here's one from this year, right after he took me to lunch. What a sweet kid.

This is the card I got. I wish I could find this remote at Wal-Mart. It has so many options that I could use.

Who are you calling a slacker?

Not content with just being a little behind on paperwork, I spent the morning getting a manicure and pedicure while Chaos was in school.

Now I'm way behind on everything. But my hands and feet look fantastic!

I have already been yelled at for not finishing all of my work. My boss is really mad at me tonight. I am trying to decide if I care or not.

Nope. I guess not.

Anywho (I think I mentioned before that I HATE it when people say that), I found that spending time in a nail salon is made much more bearable if you have an iPod. Nail technicians really love to talk to you while they work. And I don't really like to talk, because I really don't like people. (Except the people who read this blog. I like those people.) So, if the nail tech was talking to me today, I didn't hear a thing.

I also couldn't hear the television. Vietnamese people (Nail technicians are almost always Vietnamese. I don't know why.) like ridiculous TV shows. I don't really understand why anyone would watch TV in the first place, but I absolutely don't want to be forced to watch soap operas, Walker Texas Ranger or Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Does anyone actually watch those shows? Besides Vietnamese nail techs, I mean.

Music

I bought an iPod. Isn't it cute?

I wasn't exactly sure what an iPod was until recently. Don't laugh. I'll be 40 in another year. You can't expect me to keep up with modern technology. But now I'm addicted to this thing. I've already put over 100 songs on it, and it's not even close to being full. I think it holds around 1000.

I also bought this thing that allows you to plug the iPod into your cigarette lighter and listen to the music in your vehicle. I am sure this device has a name, but I don't know what it is, so I just call it the "thing that allows you to plug the iPod into your cigarette lighter and listen to the music in your vehicle".

When I'm home, I can use the earphones and drown out Captain Chaos.

Why didn't anyone tell me about this contraption before?

Lookie! I have a friend!

We went to the beach today, because when your Yankee friend is visiting you in Florida, that's what you do.

Here's my friend, Tattulip. No, that isn't her real name. And since someone asked me, no, she doesn't have a tattoo on her lip. She does have a tattoo of a tulip, however. And I don't think she wants hers removed.

Me, with really messy hair.

After we picked up Chaos from school, we took him to lunch and shopping at the boardwalk. Lunch was my idea. Shopping was not. I do not shop. Chaos got a lollipop, though. I only bought him the lollipop so he would stop begging me for the lollipop. As you can see by the look on his face, he wasn't in the greatest mood. I think he hates shopping, too.


Tomorrow night we might leave the kiddo at home with his daddy and go out to (gasp) a bar! I don't know much about any of the local bars, so I am trying to recruit my drunken sister-in-law to accompany us to one of her hang-outs. (Chrissy, if you are reading this, that was a joke. Please don't hurt me.)

I don't really have a point here

You know those kind of days when everything goes right?

Today was not one of those days.

One of our employees is out for at least a week, meaning that we have to get his route covered. One of our work trucks broke down, which puts one of our other employees out for a day or so. And my husband has food poisoning.

There are plenty of other things that went wrong, but I won't bore you.

All on the same day that my friend came to town for a visit. Her first trip to Florida.

I'm sure she loves it here so far.......watching me trying to run our business alone, while my husband crawls on the floor trying to make it to the bathroom, and my son chases her around begging her to play with his toys.

It's kind of interesting having a visitor from out-of-state. Today would be the first time anyone has ever asked me to show them an orange grove.

And apparently they don't have lizards in Iowa.