Charting in Unsafe Waters

Last week on Friday night, I did something that no mother should ever do.... something that NO ONE should ever do! I chaperoned a sleepover for my daughter's 7th birthday. Alone. In an apartment. On the third floor. With... 10 kids. And I survived.

Why I ever agreed to a sleepover is beyond me. Perhaps it came with the alluring promise of spending very little money - compared to other types of birthday parties. Spending less money meant a lot more work than it's worth. Having a sleepover also meant I would not have to deal with making polite awkward conversation with parents I don't even know for two hours. After 12+ hours with 10 kids, I'd trade that for 2 hours with their parents anytime.

It started and ended like a typical sleepover for 7-9 year olds. One by one, the girls arrived. Each and every one of them was extremely hyped up. I wouldn't be surprised if their parents give them bucketfuls of sugar just before dropping them off. I let the girls play for a while while waiting for pizza to arrive. Once pizza arrived, I passed out a slice to everyone and poured them all a drink. I popped in a movie and settled them all down in front of the TV. Hopefully - that will keep them quiet for 2 hours. Wrong. The movie, pizza and drink only kept them calm for 20 minutes. Maybe less. The girls decided they wanted to run around and make the biggest noise possible. After 3+ hours of yelling at select girls, telling them that I have people living below me and would they PLEASE be quiet, I gave up and decided to send them all off to bed.

About half listened. The other half complained about this one girl who proved to be the biggest troublemaker of all. Within the first 10 minutes this girl was here, I knew she was trouble. She proved to be trouble through the night and all morning the next day as well. Thank God her mother was the first one to show up in the morning. I would probably be willing to bet my life savings (which isn't much) that this girl is an only child. She had the spoiled brat personality - and she knew it. She flaunted it. That annoyed me.

I can't come away from this experience with only negative things to say. I did have the pleasure to hang out with the cutest 8 year old you could ever possibly meet. She was an angel throughout the weekend. She's certainly welcome back over anytime.

Sleepovers are wonderful - just make sure it's at somebody else's house with somebody else's parents watching them. I know I won't be doing it again anytime soon.

Reality Shows aren't Reality

So... it has been 10 days since my last blog. I'm slacking off....

I was watching TV the other day. A reality show. A show about boys who can't let go of their mothers. A show about a blonde boy who cares about blonde girls. Specifically, a girl who's a Barbie wanna-be. A show about a blonde boy who cares much more about how the girls look rather than how smart they are (whose mommy is upset about that). A show about a jewish boy who wants to break apart from his tradition and date a non-jewish girl (with much chagrin from his mommy). And about a boy who just cannot get out from under his mommy's shadow. You get the idea.... I'm watching Momma's Boys.

I have to admit it. I'm addicted to the show. It's only been running for 3 or 4 weeks and the finale is on Monday. I'm looking forward to it. It's about 3 boys who are obviously momma's boys. They set out on a journey to find a girl that they could possibly marry - and bring their moms along for the ride. Their mothers have a say in who they shouldn't and should date. Sometimes the boys listen, and sometimes they don't (when they aren't listening to their mothers, you know what they're listening to...).

What makes the show really interesting (and I mean really interesting) is a mother from hell. She'd make the worst mother-in-law ever. It's no wonder JoJo is still single. The umbilical cord wasn't cut at birth and still hasn't been cut. Seriously, the boy is in his mid-20's. It's time to let go.

While I'm fascinated by the show and wait anxiously each week for the next episode, I see a huge flaw. Not only in M0mma's Boys, but in every other reality dating show like The Bachelor, The Bachelorette and whatever else. See... while it may be "reality", it isn't real. On each date, you see romantic candles, the sun setting, making out on the beach, making out in the hot tub, making out in the ocean, and drinking wine (while making out).

Sure, the show's romantic. When you're thrust into a romantic environment (like Cabos) with a beautiful girl (and a sexy man), you just cannot resist the temptation to make out and make goo-goo eyes at each other. I have a feeling the blonde boy has gone a lot further than the show has let on (with multiple girls). He's a player, I'd bet on it.

Even if the boys find love (and if their mothers approve), it won't last. Why? Because it isn't real. Once they're back in real life... working, going to school or doing whatever it is that they do in life, they'll find out that when the romantic environment disappears, the lovey-dovey feeling will probably disappear as well. Then what? What's more - the boys and girls are all from different cities and states. Long distance relationship? Won't work. Count on it.

The best relationships start out boring and plain. Well, not boring - but normal. Become friends, go out once or twice to a restaurant, a coffee shop or even a movie to start with. If you really like each other, go out some more. If you're both daredevils or like to have fun, go have fun. It's your life, do whatever you want. Just keep it real. Get to know each other (slowly, might I add) and learn all your flaws. Get into arguments every now and then (and enjoy the making-up process). That's how you build a real relationship. Being whisked away to the tropics where you're dressed in bathing suits all day long, making out in the ocean and the sand gets you nowhere. It's all physical and nowhere near meaningful.

So here's a tip to the producers (like they'll listen), next time you want to make a "reality" dating show, make it real. Please.

What I did in 2008

I left 2008 behind with lots of memories, both good and bad. People have already asked me how I would rank 2008 compared to other years. With at least 50 years ahead of me (I hope), it's impossible to determine 2008's status just yet. With tons of articles on resolutions and photos of 2008's main events gracing the Internet, I figured I'd take the time and record my most memorable events during 2008. As you can see from my list, I've had a lot of ups and downs, but overall, I think it was a good year.

I watched movies - lots and lots of movies!

Welcomed a new niece into the family.

Went skydiving for my 26th birthday.

Went on a 2-week road trip.

Celebrated my son's 2nd birthday.

Wrecked my car.

Attended college.

Got a job.

Got laid off.

Helped plan, design and open the Deaf Center at church.

Got divorced.

Had a "real" ride on a motorcycle that lasted more than 2 minutes.

My daughter turned 7 (although I wasn't with her - we'll celebrate it here soon!).

Out of everything I've done, I figured movies have taken much more of my time than anything else.

Just for fun, I wanted to check out my Netflix movie-watching history. I counted 169 DVD rentals. The majority of them were movies, but 32 of the DVD rentals were TV shows. I decided to do some math. At 137 movies at an average of 2 hours each, I have watched 274 hours. For TV shows on an average of 3.5 hours each, I have watched 112 hours. This brings my total hours watched to 386 hours - and when you break it down, that means a total of 16 DAYS (yes, 24 hour days) of nothing but sitting on my couch and watching pretty colors move on my TV screen. Amazing, isn't it?

If I had to pick top/memorable DVDs from my list, here's what I would pick:

The Ultimate Gift, Stardust, Freaks, The Lost Room, Doogie Howser M.D., The Autopsy Files, Into The Wild, 27 Dresses, No Country for Old Men, Jackass series, Juno, Saw, Saw II, Saw III, Saw IV, Door to Door, The Other Boleyn Girl, Dukes of Hazzard, Made of Honor, Heroes Seasons 1 & 2, The Love Guru, House of D, and finally, Dexter.

Actually, I figure I would have to add another 3 or 4 days to my total watch time. Thanks to Redbox and their free codes on Mondays & Wednesdays, I have rented plenty more. I would list my favorites but I wouldn't remember them all.

As I sit here and contemplate the fact that I have watched 2 weeks and 2 days worth of movies and TV shows (again, this doesn't count Redbox, movies I've seen on TV or all the TV shows on TV now), I wonder - is this a waste of my time? Granted, I could be doing lots more other stuff in 16 days. Probably get a lot more accomplished. If I took my hours of watching movies and turned them into working out, I'd be all fit and sexy now. Oh well.

Although I have devoted a lot of time to movies, I'd have to say I don't regret it (yet). I love movies and I plan to watch many many more in 2009.

Video feature on your digital camera... USE IT!

I received an 8 GB flash drive for Christmas. As I was cleaning up my files and rearranging folders and whatnot so I could move them to my new flash drive, I found a really cute video of Frosty and Mocha from way back when I found Mocha. I was driving a bunch of kids home from summer camp when we stopped at a gas station near Waco. At the gas station, we found a homeless kitty that was just too adorable to leave alone. I ended up taking the kitty home with me and was looking for a home to put her in. While I was looking for someone who wanted a kitty, I kept her with me for a few days. This is a clip from when Mocha was living with me... How CUTE!!!

Update: This video was taken approximately a year and half ago. Frosty is now 2 and 1/2 and Mocha is a little over a year and 1/2. Mocha is living happily with a new best friend (who is also a doggy.. and who is ALSO Frosty's best friend!) and is being spoiled by her owners. Sadly, when I bring Frosty over to visit my friends and their dog, Mocha isn't too friendly and takes refuge in a secret hiding place.

Most digital cameras nowadays have a nifty little video feature on it. If you have it, use it. You'll be able to catch cute moments that you can cherish for the rest of your life. Use it - I'm glad I did. You'll regret it if you don't.

My first thrilling ride

Dear Diary,

I did it! I can now cross another thing off my Bucket List. I hopped on a motorcycle and went up to 85 mph on it.... and heck no, I wasn't driving! Don't worry, I was safe... as safe as I could be.

I have a close friend who has a motorcycle. He's on it often. Originally, I couldn't have cared less - but then I got interested and decided that I wanted to give it a whirl. I received a nifty dark blue leather jacket as a gift for Christmas that is just super cute and sexy. I bought myself a neat blue/silver/gold helmet. My jacket arrived almost two weeks ago. My helmet took forever but it finally arrived yesterday.

Tonight, my friend needed to go to Wal-Mart to get some last minute Christmas gifts. We used this opportunity to go out on the bike because now, since I have the appropriate gear, why not!? I was nervous at first. Anytime I try something new, I tend to get a little bit nervous. But I never let that get in the way. It was awkward trying to get up on the bike. The ride to Wal-Mart went smoothly, however, I was struggling with trying to stay in my own seat. Whenever the bike slowed to a stop, I would slide forward. When the bike sped up, I would slide backwards. Pretty scary at first.

Of course, I'm a total newbie to this kind of stuff. So I figure it'll take a few rides for me to find my "stability" and become more comfortable with the bike speeding up and slowing down. My biggest fear was (and still is) sliding and falling backwards off the bike as it's speeding up. But like I said, with a couple more rides and practice, I'm pretty sure I'll get over it and learn how to stay put. Anyway, the ride to Wal-Mart was pretty tame. It was exciting for me and a totally new experience but nothing happened (thank God). However, the ride back was a different story....

I guess my friend decided to try to spice things up a little bit. Maybe he was trying to scare me. Maybe he was testing my limits. Or maybe he's just a jerk. He sped up to 85 mph on the Katy Freeway. If a cop is reading this - this didn't happen, I'm lying. At the time, I had no idea how fast we were going. The posted speed limit is 65 so I had figured we were going 70 or 75. I remember thinking at that moment "wow, we're going kind of fast." Yes, I did grip a little tighter then. After we took our exit, my friend decided to start to weave back and forth within our lane. Fun? Maybe for him. But me - that just made me nervous. We had to slow to a stop at a traffic light. He decided to start playing with the brakes. Again - fun? Maybe for him, but not so much for me....

The rest of the ride was uneventful, thank goodness. Now, I don't want to come off as someone who gets scared or nervous easily. That's not me. However, I do have to cut myself a little slack. This was my first real ride on a motorcycle! That has no seat belts!!! On a freeway! With speeding cars! And I didn't freak out. No sir.

All in all, it was a unique experience. While it's not exactly as exhilarating as skydiving, it was a neat experience. I'm already looking forward to my next ride.

Signed,

A motorcycle passenger

Families and the Holidays

Every year, people go through the same routine. Around the holidays, especially Thanksgiving and Christmas, everybody packs their bags and head out of town to visit families. Or they would diligently clean their homes and buy lots of groceries if their families were visiting them. If your family lives in the same town - and if you're married, or have two sets of parents - you'll cram your days with visiting everybody. Not only the holidays are for families, they're for friends as well. Everybody is hosting holiday parties left and right.

I had just attended a Christmas party at a friend's house just the other night. It was a pretty big turn-out. I saw lots of people that I knew all in one place. This was the first party in a long time that everybody showed up at. And excluding New Year's Eve, that was probably the last party for a while.

So the holidays, all the parties and people seeing families had me thinking. Typically, throughout the year, you hear about people visiting families and hanging out on special occasions like birthdays, mother's day and father's day. But it's nowhere near as much as people would visit families for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Right around then, everyone has "family" on their mind...

Not that there's anything wrong with that. Families should be adored and appreciated. However, it has me feeling a little bit left out and bored. See, I have a very small family. Actually - I have family in Austin and Dallas, but haven't spoken to them in years. I have family in New Jersey and naturally, I'm just too poor and they're too far for me to see often. As a result, we don't keep in touch. So, the only family I have that I consider "family" are my parents, my sister and her two kids. And well, I see them... often.

I guess I should be lucky. I see them at least once a week. Back when I was working, I saw my mom everyday because she took care of my son while I was at work. So I guess whenever the holidays roll around, people are going "family, family, family..." and I'm thinking "so what?" Maybe this makes me a bad person. Maybe not. Like I said - I see my family... often. Probably more often than anybody else that I know right now. And if I don't see them, I talk to them - usually everyday.

I guess it's harder to appreciate something that you have if you're around it everyday. I guess part of my feelings towards family have to do with how I was raised. My family aren't very affectionate people. I've always known that my parents and sister love me - that isn't an issue. And my 3-year old niece is just crazy about me - she'd have to be ... I'm her only aunt! We just aren't the close, touchy-feely, sappy, hugsy-kissy types. So because of that, I'm very selective about who I'm physical with and aren't usually comfortable when someone gets a little too close. And no doubt, it has a small effect on how I am with my own children. But I try hard to change that....

Anyway, back to the point - so whenever the holidays roll around and people are spending all their time with families (again, nothing wrong with that), I feel left out and lonely. Sure, I plan on seeing my family on Christmas Eve. We have plans to eat dinner together. And I'll probably pop over again on Christmas morning to trade gifts and play with my nieces a little bit. But I'm sure that I'll get bored by mid-afternoon and will want to head home. However, there's nothing worse than spending Christmas Day alone.

So, let this be a lesson to anybody out there that will listen. For anyone who is whining about having such a big family, stop. Be glad you have family to hang out with. I, for one, wish I have a bigger family and have more things to do around the holidays.

Telling Stories Through Photos

(I apologize in advance for the formatting. I hope to get this fixed soon!)

I've always loved photos. I just hate being in them. Photos tell an amazing story of a person's life. Specifically, it tells what the person was like, what the person did and what trials/tribulations and happy times the person went through...

So I decided today I'd post some pictures and let them speak for themselves.

This is Logan's first year participating in decorating the home for Christmas. He was flabergasted to see fiber optic lights blinking in the tree

Here he is setting up the

Navtivity.

Christmas season wouldn't be complete without snow... in the north. Down in the south, it's quite normal to celebrate Christmas in 70-80 degree weather. We received a very nice surprise the other night - it snowed! Funny thing is, the next day - the temp rose back up to about 70 degrees or so.

This is our attempt at a snowman on top of my car. Becki scrambled around looking for twigs to use as arms and bits of grass for eyes.

See what Becki wrote on my car? Awww!!!!

After we finished with the snowman, we threw hard snowballs at each other...

Even Frosty joined us outside....(the dog, not the snowman)

It was way past Becki's bedtime so we headed inside. That was fun.... Mr. Weatherman, can we please, pretty please, have snow again?

I Heart Christmas

There's lots of things to love about Christmas. There's lots of things to hate too. When there's more things to hate than to love, I become Grinch-y (not to be confused with bitchy). The Grinch has become a well-known favorite as an antagonist who has hated Christmas for years. It just couldn't be understood by many why someone could hate Christmas as much as the Grinch did. But when you really think about it, the Grinch had the right idea.

The Grinch:

That's what it's all about, isn't it? That's what it's always been *about*. Gifts, gifts... gifts, gifts, gifts, gifts, gifts. You wanna know what happens to your gifts? They all come to me. In your garbage. You see what I'm saying? In your *garbage*. I could hang myself with all the bad Christmas neckties I found at the dump. And the avarice... [shouts] The avarice never ends! "I want golf clubs. I want diamonds. I want a pony so I can ride it twice, get bored and sell it to make glue." Look, I don't wanna make waves, but this *whole* Christmas season is [shouts] stupid, stupid, stupid!

As you grow up, you begin to lose the Christmas magic that you once knew as a child. Like me, you probably woke up one year and realized that the Christmas you knew no longer existed. Way back then, Christmas meant waiting for a jolly man dressed in red to come deliver presents. Christmas meant waking up bright and early to drag your parents out of bed so you could inspect what Santa had brought. Christmas meant happily seeing long-distance relatives and spending the holiday with them. Over the years, Christmas in its glory was replaced with long lines at the stores, rude people shoving their way to their destinations, and instead of gleefully giving gifts, people start to grumble about how much money they're spending to make others happy. Somehow, somewhere - people cared more about receiving gifts (and giving good, high-end gifts) and forgot about spending quality time with each other. When Christmas becomes something more of a chore, how could anyone like Christmas? Even Cindy Lou Who was starting to agree with the Grinch.

When Christmas becomes a chore (and it sometimes does - simply for the fact that people care about how expensive the gifts are), it loses its power to be a holiday when friends and families can get together and just simply appreciate each other.


I had started the holidays with a small grumble. Thanksgiving was never my favorite holiday. It wouldn't make the top 5. I never cared for the Thanksgiving meal either. As the end of November arrived and December was just around the corner, I thought to myself, "Here we go again." I went shopping on Black Friday to get some good deals. To my amazement, there weren't any long lines and everything was still in stock by the time I arrived at the stores. I guess you can blame the economy. I got all my shopping done in a day. I had all the gifts wrapped a week later. So far, so good. However, I wasn't feeling the Christmas spirit. I was counting the money I had spent - down to the last penny. I was more concerned about how much I could buy with so little money rather than thinking about what would mean the most to the people that was receiving the gifts. I was concerned about getting my shopping done and out of the way.

I had just finished the Christmas play at the church over the weekend. An annual item on my Holiday To-Do list. This year was quaint. Small and simple. And actually quite enjoyable for the most part. Another thing to cross off my list....


I received my very first Christmas present a few days ago. I had known it was coming so I was allowed to open it when it arrived. I waited anxiously for a week and when it finally arrived, I was giddy. Finally, I felt like a child opening presents on Christmas day.


So now, I am looking forward to opening presents with my children. I am looking forward to seeing other people open gifts I got for them. I am remembering what it's like to be around people that I care about and share the happiness in exchanging gifts. While our gifts wont be extravagant this year, it'll be packed with thoughtfulness and that's the best kind of gift.

So when you're feeling down and need some holiday cheer, become reacquainted with Cindy Lou Who and the Grinch.... and it wouldn't hurt to take a lesson or two from them.