Court TV

I am in love with courttv.com. Thats right - not the television show. I actually hate television. I don't watch it - we don't even have it hooked up in our house for regular channels, but we can watch movies on our tv.

So, to get my fix on criminal history I read courttv.com 5-days a week. Its fascinating. Its unbelievable. Its sad. Its hysterically funny. Its real-life drama without the script being written by NBC or ABC or CBS. These people are for real and some days it blows my mind.

This all started with the Scott Peterson case. I said he was guilty from the start. It was just all too "fishy" (no pun intended) that she disappeared on the same day he went out in his boat and then she ends up floating up to the shore...too much of a coincidence.

Next it was Michael Jackson..he's turned into such a weirdo. It wasn't so long ago that I remember Sissy Sarah and I rollerskating up and down our driveway singing Billy Jean at the top of our lungs. Damn those were good years. good music. a cool Michael.

Now I read about so many crazy murders. 911 operators who blow off callers as fakes, insane mothers that hurt or kill their children, stupid drunk people that hurt each other...all of them stories of loss in one way or another.

Having never been arrested I start to wonder at what point the intelligence chip in the brain turns off for these people. At what point is it ok to kill or hurt or lie...I don't understand how they think that they are going to get away with it.

Like the Alaska teen whose two old boyfriends beat up her mother then set her and her car on fire while she was on a trip with her dad. They swore she set them up to it...her mother beat her and threatened her...or so she said to them. In real life her mother was nearing sainthood by all comparision. She claims she didn't know they would actually KILL her. So, I guess its not your responsibility for lying to these twisted insane men to make them think they were protecting you. She got off. I suppose the knowledge of what she did will rest with her the rest of her life. Thats punishment enough for some...their own private beating heart under the floorboard.

Well, I've rambled on enough. Tomorrow, I'm sure will be more of the same. I'll read it with the same mixture of interest and revulsion and wonder that I do every other day and wonder if I'll ever find myself crossing that point where logic goes away and I think I can commit a crime.

Young Love...

Awhile back Chortle told Gag that if she teased her daddy again he'd start to call her corn. We didn't really get the insult that the word "CORN" had built up inside his young mind, but from that comment we thought it might be a good idea to teach the principle of "if you can't say something nice..."

Well, corn turned into candy corn and that moment has spurred a series of pet names for our family - Sweet Cheeks, Baby Cakes, Candy Corn, Lemon Drop and Cherry Nose.

I love it when LG hollars at me - I love you baby cakes! or when Gag tells Chortle he's the cutest little lemon drop.

Since then Chortle has turned into quite the romeo. Apparently he's known as "Chortle Eyes" by the girls in his kindergarten class. And just recently he told me that one girl in his class made hearts float out of his eyes.

Young love is so innocent and sweet.

Expose' on potty training

My darling 3-year old Little Giggle has taught us a new way to pottie train for #2 - swallow a penny.

Now don't get too grossed out here...this is a PG-rated post, but on Friday last week LG swallowed one U.S currency piece valued at $0.01. As soon as it happened she burst into tears and told us her money was eaten up. When we figured out what really happened we had to explain to her just what happens when something is eaten...the digestive process and where it ends up.

Now for my favorite part...every 1-3 hours she was sitting on the pot yelling, "Here comes the money!" I don't think I've laughed as hard for a year.

Unfortunately, the money never did show up until the day that she left back to the Cruella's house. Mr. Chucklehead decided to take a much needed "manly" bathroom break (which essentially means sit on the pot for 40 minutes reading). Before he had a chance to do his thing he yelled for me to come and look...sure enough there on the bottom of the toilet lay one US penny circa 1979. He wanted to take a picture. I told him the story was probably good enough.

By the way - this story is in honor of TODAY being her 4th birthday...HAPPY BIRTHDAY Little Giggle. I sure do love you, silly girl.

Cutest babies around

I just got this photo of my nieces. They are sitting in my kitchen sink in this photo. It was taken during my wedding week. Aren't they adorable!

So, married life is interesting. I think when you live with someone before you get married you lose something when you finally do get married - there just isn't a huge change except for the fact that now you are REALLY committed...at least on paper. :)

Gag, Jimmy (boyfriend du-jour), Mr. Chucklehead and I played Apples to Apples last night. It was hilarious. Poor Jimmy didn't know what a lot of the words meant...he threw down Albert Einstein when the word was "useless." Ha ha ha....

I have decided to keep this more up-to-date...it may be the one and only place I can vent about Cruella... the nightmare. Perhaps I should rename this blog to Trials of a Step-mother. :)

Yard Work Shmard perk

Thats right. I'm so tired of my yard that I'm about to SCREAM. We had two trees taken out in the front yard and they had roots coming almost all the way to the sidewalk as well as through the lawn and breaking up the driveway and so now my yard is a big pile of dead stuff and its soooooo frustrating to have had the crappy neighbor's yard for 6 months now.

Mr. Chucklehead and I decided to make it our project. At the very least, the front yard has to get done ASAP. So, we are going to lay the first section of the rocks in and yank all the nasty roots tomorrow. Then, this weekend in the rain...:P We're going to lay our sod...that is if you can lay sod on the rain. In one week I'm going to have to become a laying sod expert.

We have to do it tomorrow because thats the last non-rainy day for the rest of the year (at least thats what it feels like.)

Funny news. Kids are with Cruella tonight. They called asking Mr. Chucklehead how to "control" little giggle so she doesn't hit and kick....and Cruella doesn't want to let him be the custodial parent...I don't get it.

Poor Toesies

Poor little Giggle had some warts removed off the bottom of her toes. She had it done at Cruella's work since she is in a dermatologists office and the poor little girl just cried and cried.

Lucky for me I am working from home today. Trying to get the marketing section of a proposal written and having serious writer's block. I just spent an hour on the phone with NY trying to get some ideas...inspiration...anything to make this a little bit easier. I suppose it will come in time.

LG has been asleep since about 10:30AM. She took some children's tylenol before going to see the doctor and I think its working on her for a long long nap. Her little toes need to heal so this is a good thing.

Its fall and the leaves are falling and the sky is gray and next weekend we are finally getting our yard mowed under. Hoorah! I'm pretty happy for all that. I'm really looking forward to getting this all done. By next month I should have a beautiful green lawn...right in time for the winter. :P

Out of Shape

Ugh...you know you are out of shape when a 3 and 5 year old go on a bike ride with you only a few blocks away down the street and by the time you get done running around playing frisbee you are totally wiped out.

We had a great evening together at the park...Chortle is getting so good on his "two wheeler" with no training wheels bike and LG is learning the art of braking while going down hill. We had to stop near disaster near the duck pond when she was about 4 feet from a pile of bramble bushes. Sheesh...Lucky that Mr. Chucklehead moves faster than her bike!

They were exhausted by the time we got home. I'm so pleased to announce that we have had one FULL WEEK of no incident reports with LG! She hasn't had any fighting/kicking/hitting/screaming issues for an entire week of school. This is a serious milestone. We're praying for 2 weeks...Hoorah!

This photo is of those two cuties watching a scary movie in my bed while eating fruit snacks. Aren't they adorable!

PULSE!

Last night was the coolest fundraiser benefit that I've ever participated in. They had 16 artists that all created some magnificent piece of work in 8 hours for congenital heart research in children. It was a great cause and the tickets were spendy...$45 for the evening or $100 for the evening with free drinks. Mr. Chucklehead and I went as the event photographers for the group. We had a smashing time. Starting at 1pm we followed the artists through the creation process (photographically) and it was fascinating. We were hooked up with this group because my sister is one of the artists.

They held it in this great big warehouse that has a huge train track set up all around and the evening turned out fabulously. They raised over $13,000 for research and costs associated with one little boy in particular. The couple that set up the event have a son that suffers from this. It was very touching and everyone was very generous.

I spent my evening running around from booth to booth trying to keep a log of the progression each artist made in their pictures. Some of them were really weird. They had a guy who created like a bird-woman thingy that I was so not impressed with and another that had a bunch of charcoal drawings that we used to do as warm-up in art classes...just figure drawings on brown paper. These things were selling for hundreds of dollars.

It makes me really want to get off my buns and figure out Oregon Artisans...you can really see the good that can be had from just a little teamwork and volunteers.

I'm inspired to paint now too!

UPDATE!!! - They raised $13,000 in straight donations, but you'll never believe how much they raised total....$63,000 dollars! IMPRESSIVE!

some days you just gotta dance.

It was insane day at work today. I had the first of my big webinars and ugh...of course it couldn't go too smoothly. We had issues with the mute on the conference call....something I will definitely remedy by the next web seminar. I wrapped it all up by about 4pm and headed home for some TLC with John, but on the way home we got into a weird funk...I mean...both of us just kind of got quiet and it wasn't that either of us was mad, but the mood was somber.

So - picked up the kids and Chortle and LG were adorable the whole way home. LG has been good all week so far! I know its only Tuesday, but we celebrate where we can. :0)

Monday Monday

I suppose that this blog is a little like my old journals growing up. I have the best of intentions then fail to actually post anything after three entries? One in particular makes me laugh...I have a journal that reads, "this is my new journal and I will write in it every..."

And that is the final entry in my new journal...the one and only. :)


I was reminded of this blog when I got an email telling me about my cousin Joseph's wife's blog...housewifeinspain...and it was quite amusing and I loved reading stories about her kids so I thought I should step it up and start writing again. Especially because there is craziness in my life that it would feel good to just throw out for perfectly good strangers to read about.

And on that note...this is my new blog and I will write in it every...

A gift from Mr. Chucklehead

A gift from the love of my life....Mr. Chucklehead. He made me very swirly and dreamlike don't you think?

Now - Mr. Chucklehead comes with a wicked stepmother (oh yes..thats me....) and three charming children - Gag, the 13 year old darling...Chortle, the 5 almost 6 year old big brother and little giggle (LG), the crazy 3 year old. We're quite the little family.

And, of course there is always and will always be Cruella DeVille in our lives... that would be birth mom (BM) or egg donor (ED) or whatsherbucket...

Ho Hum Lazy Day

It certainly is...very cold here in the Portland, OR area...there has been a cloud cover and fog all day long...the kind of cold that gets into your bones and makes the cold seep all the way through your body. After my first post I pulled out my old boxes looking for that paper I wrote and ended up finding some hilarious stuff. My parents made us write essays when we were bad instead of spanking or groundings. I found a few of them...my favorites being one about telling my mother to "shutup" and another called "Why I should not lie to my mother" and the third about making my bed.

I also found a scary story I wrote at age 7...Here it is in all its glory - spelling and all...

The Mystery of the Cackling Gost
One there was a family. They lived in a big house. Once night the mother and father and the three children heard a nois. Was it a gost asket the children? I don't now said the father. So the father got a flashlight and went into the attic. And ther was a ghost! The father asket tonot macke so much nois. When he was out of the attic the children asket if it was a ghost. The father said no becouse he did not want the children to be scared.
The next day they were eating breacfeast when the ghost came from the attic and come down. The children screamed! The dad comed down the children and asket why he was in the light. The ghost said he was a light ghost and from that day on he was frinds.

I think I show promise...At least an imagination if not a penchance for the supernatural.

How it all started

My first foray into blogging and now I suppose I shall have to find something interesting to say...or maybe not? I really wanted to use this for musings about this and that and to practice my writing because some day I will be a very famous writer....like Dave Barry. You laugh, but he's really the master of the art of comedic writing....no satire gets past him...no ironic touch in any way shape or form.

When I was in 9th grade I wrote a paper about getting my teeth pulled that closely resembled a Dave Barry article...I'll have to pull that out and put it up here for all to read. I got an A, by the way. Dave would have been proud.