Kait and I were coming home from the grocery store last week and saw a large bolt balanced upside down on the top of our mailbox.  We both commented on what that could be all about, then promptly forgot about it once we had pulled into the driveway.

Later that night one of my sons asked me if he and his brother could rig up our mailbox for the purposes of trying to get it struck by lightening.

I said no because that would be ridiculous. Also, I don’t want my mailbox struck by lightening.  What if my Publisher’s Clearning House 25 milion dollar winner’s notification that I’m expecting any day now was in there?

Turns out the innocent bolt was to be a homemade lightening rod.

Only my kids…

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I’ve been trying to come up with something funny that my kids have done recently for my grandmother, as she requested a funny story. Hi Grandmom.
And while I’m sure they’ve done at least a few hilarious things in the past month, I am drawing a blank.  I have no idea what to say.

Tapping out funny tidbits about my kids has always come easy to me and now that it’s not I kind of feel like my brain is a little bit broken.

I’m sure it’ll come back, probably in a wave and I’ll write 10 posts in 2 days and somebody will tell me to shut up for sure, but for now I’m in a slump and there is only one thing I can think of that may or may not be even remotely funny.

Lucy throws shoes in the trash.

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Many months ago Rabbit and I were invited to a get together at his boss’ house.  I’d already heard that the boss and his wife had an absolutely beautiful home so I was not surprised to see a very attractive exterior as we pulled along side their driveway.  However, as nice a place as it was, it wasn’t the house itself that stuck so firmly in my mind, it was the paver driveway that I remember so clearly. It was beautiful and has made a lasting impression on me.

In the next few years Rabbit and I will likely be in the beginning stages of either building or remodeling our dream home, and although a gorgeous parking area is not quite at the top of my dream list, I would certainly be pleased to have a brick-like paved driveway like the one I remember from Rabbit’s boss’ lovely home close to a year ago.

InstallitDirect driveway pavers are exactly what I’m talking about here. Rustic and beautiful, classic yet modern, InstallitDirect driveway pavers would be a simple way to create and complete an attractive and unforgettable exterior to any new or remodeled home. Whether you’re sprucing up an old look, or creating a new one, InstallitDirect driveway pavers may be a very reasonable driveway solution.

Disclosure: Even though this is not a real post, all opinions are my own. Just so you know.

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I haven’t re-found my blogging groove yet since Rabbit shipped off. It’s disturbing me because usually when I’m stressed or anxious or something, blogging is my release.  Whatever because I just need to write something, anything, to get this train back in gear.

I figured I’d start by writing how my week has gone so far and maybe something will come out of it that will make this fake blog post a real blog post.

Monday: I missed Rabbit.

Tuesday: I missed Rabbit.

Wednesday: I missed Rabbit.

Thursday: Took my kids to a playground with my friend, Brandy, and there was this young dad there playing with his 2 year old daughter and he was wearing a tank top that said, “Yes, I’m staring at your titties.”  It was the highlight of my week. Some people wear their redneck-ness so proudly.
Also, I missed Rabbit.

Friday (today for those of you who forgot your days of the week): I missed Rabbit.

As you can see, missing Rabbit is a common occurrence for me lately.

To be honest, we did more this week than just miss Rabbit and read a strangers sexually harassing t-shirt. 

On Monday I drove my in-laws to the airport after a nice, relaxing 5 day visit.  It was a good visit, despite the negative in-law connotations.  I was so pleased to have them stay with us.

And on Tuesday my friend, Brandy, came over with her 4 kids and we hung out talking about nothing and catching up on the last 6 months since we last got together.

Wednesday we did nothing. I think I might have swept the floor.

Thursday we did kickball with Brandy’s family and learned what not to wear to the playground.

Right now some of my kids are walking down to see a movie, Mirror Mirror, at the beach, just a half mile away. We have great Friday night movies at the beach here throughout the summer. It’s really pretty cool.

And that’s it so far.

I know and I’m sorry.

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I know, I know. I’m a blogging failure.  My best good friend, Lauren, is unhappy about this and has been pretty insistent on me blogging something RIGHT NOW.

And RIGHT NOW I’m giving Rabbit’s parents a tour of the helicopter squadron so here is a picture of Kait and me in front of a 60, the helicopter Rabbit flies.

So there, Lauren. I blogged. And I added a picture, too, so bonus, right?

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So I’ve been trying to find a way to write about the night the police came to my house because we were having a block party but everything I try to write doesn’t come out as funny as it was when it happened and what I am going to end up giving you isn’t going to do the event any justice but I told you I would write about it so here.

Most Friday nights somebody in our neighborhood hosts a get together. It’s called Flamingo Friday. It starts at 5:30 and has a few rules that nobody really follows much. Like everybody has to bring enough food to feed their family, and they have to supply their own drinks.  And the festivities end sharply at 8 pm.

We offered to host it 4 Fridays ago because I don’t know why, it just sounded good, but I learned that nobody really brings their own drinks and only half of everybody brings their own food.  I also learned that Rabbit and I seriously know how to throw a party, people. You should have been there.

Early in the evening this conversation happened.

Jesse (my 3 year old, talking to my neighbor, Amy): The police are going to come.

2 minutes later…

Jesse: The police are going to come.

Again…

Jesse: The police are going to come.

Amy: Jesse is pretty sure the cops are going to show up.

Me: Yeah. I wonder what that’s all about.

So at around 9, guess what happened.

Wrong. Fooled you.
The cops didn’t show up.
Yet. 

What did happen was, just as I thought the party was winding down, one of the teenage kids across the street brought over a karaoke machine. The husbands hooked it up to our projector in the garage and began what can only be described as something that has absolutely no description. It was loud and I commented that if it wasn’t for pretty much the entire block being at my house right now I’d be sure somebody would call the cops on us for being noisy.

As the singing and commotion grew louder and louder a few other people discussed how funny it would be if Jesse’s prediction came true and the cops did end up busting up our noisy party.

And not 2 minutes later, at around 11 pm…

I was video taping when it happened and I’m sort of sad that the video didn’t turn out very good because all the sudden there were 3 cop cars screeching to a halt in front of my house.

Here are some of the things I heard coming from my crowded garage that was packed with at least 16 adult-sized people, half of them active-duty Naval officers.

A neighbor: Bad boys bad boys, whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do when they come for you…

Another neighbor: JESSE WAS RIGHT! How did he know?

Another neighbor:  They’re just mad they weren’t invited.

Military cop: Who is the homeowner here?

Neighbor from the back of the crowd: UHHH… BALFOUR BEATTY.  Their office is just outside of housing but I’m pretty sure they’re closed right now.

(Balfour Beatty is the company that owns and manages military housing)

Rabbit was chuckling: I live here.

Military cop (obviously his pants were too tight because he had no sense of humor): We’ve had a complaint about the noise. I’ll need to see your ID.

Rabbit: Sure.

And that was it. There was not another word spoken as the officer looked carefully and deliberately at my husband’s military ID. Nothing. Not a warning to quiet down, not a suggestion to take it indoors, not a request for an invitation, no heartfelt goodbye…
Nothing. 
The whole thing was weird and didn’t really make much sense at all.

Of course, everybody agreed that maybe we should tone it down a little so they made a conscious effort to keep it quiet after that.  For about 10 minutes.

And the karaoke continued until 12:15, when I had to kick everybody out because Rabbit had to work for a few hours in the morning.

And the party-killing cops never came back and the karaoke singers sang happily every after.

The end.

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I was jolted awake about an hour ago by an odd dream because I watched a full episode of Glee last night for the first time ever and now I’m mostly very sorry but they sang Don’t Stop Believing so it wasn’t a complete waste of my time.

While I lay there wondering why I have such strange dreams I realized that there was some seriously heavy windage going on outside my window. I went over and took a peek and was surprised to see a very determined storm pummeling down on us.  I didn’t get any warnings, as I usually do on my phone, so I took a quick peek on the internet to see what this thing was all about and I didn’t even know we were supposed to be having a tropical storm tonight, people.

They named her Debby and I can imagine how this decision probably came about.

Tropical Storm namer guy (speaking to himself):  She seems mysterious, so I’ll call her Mystery. Come to think of it, she also seems graceful and majestic. Maybe I should call her Grace, or Majesty, or Debby.

Yes. Debby.

Keeping me informed about the weather is Rabbit’s job and he’s not here. [insert sad face here]
I guess I just figured the weather would be on pause while he was gone.

So I decided to look further into the forecast because I didn’t remember seeing anything about a tropical storm when I looked up the weekend outlook and I found that Tropical Storm Debby isn’t even scheduled to grace us until Wednesday and Thursday. Even now, while she’s right here with us being the life of the party and all, Wunderground still has her arrival slated for the end of the week.

See:

Also, I decided to peek at the Wundermap because it just didn’t seem right to me that we have a hurricane advisory for tonight for a tropical storm that isn’t suppose to hit us until Wednesday.

Wundermap tells it all.

Apparently Debby’s eye is not indicative to where the wind and rain are so it’s really got the weather peoples’ heads on backwards.   It would appear that Debby’s eye, which, it would seem, has very little rain around it, isn’t suppose to arrive until mid week.

So now I’m sitting here awake because this is the part of my life where I pretty much no longer sleep at night apparently. We have tornado watches for like the next 6 hours, too, so there’s also that.

I went out on the front porch at 2:30am and fought the sideways rain so I could stack our plastic Adirondack chairs so they wouldn’t blow off the porch because it’s happened before where they ended up in somebody else’s garden, and I noticed while I was stacking the chairs that the trashcan I told my boys to take down to the road after dinner had blown over and I did not go stand it back up because that’s my husband’s job [insert sad face again] and hello there’s a tropical storm named Debby out there.

And it seems the winds have maybe calmed a little bit and I’m feeling a bit sleepy again. Maybe I’ll actually get some sleep for once. That would be a nice change.

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Every so often something very funny will happen around here. Something so funny to me that it absolutely must be blogged about but then somebody threatens to stab me repeatedly while I sleep should I write about what transpired.  This isn’t common as I live in a house full of shameless people, but it does occur on occasion that one of my children gets embarrassed.

And because I always get my children’s permission before I post a story about them that may make them uncomfortable, some things that should be remembered forever never end up memorialized in the pages of this here blog.
There is one child that is an absolute exception to this rule. Gabe. I never have to ask Gabe for permission to embarrass him because he loves it when I post about him, no matter the subject.

So what I’m going to do here is write out the conversation that took place, but not tell you who the conversation was with because I try to be a sensitive and loving mother like that and I want to see my grandchildren someday. It’s nice to live in a house that has enough people to make this randomness work.
But you can probably assume this wasn’t Gabe.

So we were on our way to the store in the giant white van that gets mistaken as a duty van on a regular basis. Seriously, Wednesday a guy here on base tried to wave me down for a ride.

So, on with the conversation…

Me: Why are you eating a lollipop while we’re driving? We could crash and you could choke on it and die.

Child who wouldn’t give me permission to use their name so we’re just calling them Pat: (with a tone of absurdity) Mom, If we got in an accident I would be more worried about dying from injuries, not from a lollipop.

Me: You could choke on that lollipop in a fender bender that left no mark on the car at all. Somebody could just bump us and you could choke to death. Imagine what that news story would sound like. I would look like a very bad mother.

Pat: That’s ridiculous because you would see me choking and you would just pull it out and I would say thanks and I’d be just fine.

Me: You’re not thinking this through. It could be lodged way down in your throat and I might not be able to reach it. What if I pull on it and it doesn’t come out? What if I panic and forget what to do?

Pat: MOM! You worry too much. Besides, you’ve seen House. If you can’t get it out you can just give me a vasectomy.

Me:…

Pat:…

Me:…

Pat: NO! NO!  WAIT!  OH MY GOODNESS THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT!

Me: Did you mean to say Tracheotomy?

Pat: (shaking head) Oh no. You are NOT blogging this.

Me: Oh you bet your tootie frootie I am. This is absolutely hilarious.

Pat: MOM! NO!

Me: Well why the heck not?

Pat: Because…
        You can’t say the word vasectomy on your blog!

Me: Uh, I most certainly can. And this is totally blog worthy. To not blog about it would be wrong. Like a blogging sin or something.

We ended by me telling Pat that I would blog about it but not use any names. Pat sighed heavily but did not object so I took that to mean I was good to go ahead and post it.

So I did, as you can plainly see.  And if you don’t hear from me in the next few days you can assume I’ve been murdered in my sleep by one of my children but you’ll never know which one so they’ll totally get away with it. Bummer.

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So, I absolutely love running now.

I KNOW.

What’s wrong with me, people?

And because I don’t know what’s good for me I ran through some leg pain, which became leg and back pain, which became leg and back and hip pain, which I kept running through. It never really hurt while I was running anyway, but still. Something just doesn’t seem right with me.

After two weeks of this, I had finally had enough when Wednesday, the first night Rabbit was gone, the pain was so bad that I couldn’t not fall asleep. It was 2 am before I was either so tired I passed out, or the pain subsided enough that I was able to drift off.  So when I woke up on Thursday morning, though the pain was not nearly as bad as it was the night before, I called to make an appointment with my doctor and after a bit of a fight to get an appointment before July 3rd, they told me to come in the next morning and they’d squeeze me in somehow.

5 x-rays and some poking and squeezing and surprise, nothing is wrong.  My doc sent me home with some good pain medication and told me not to run and to expect a physical therapy referral in the next couple of weeks because when you’re in pain they really want you to wait as long as possible before you get relief.

Also, I have developed a weird fear of taking new medication.  It started after I became responsible and began reading those inserts that the pharmacist gives you when you get a prescription filled because apparently I don’t have enough to worry about.  I’m pretty sure that all of the most serious side effects apply directly to me.  So, because I’d never taken the pain killer that my doctor gave me I was pretty sure I was allergic to it and my body would start seizing in protest, my lungs would shrivel up, I would end up shooting blood out of my eyes, and then all my hair would fall out.  After much deliberation, and encouragement from Kait who was pretty sure I was being absolutely ridiculous and was completely done with me complaining about my bum leg, I took a dose of the meds and they worked like a champ and I didn’t die.

Aaaand…
I was feeling so much better, in fact, that I went for a run with Kait tonight which, as it turns out, wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had in my entire life.  The run was great. It was after I was done that I realized my leg had caught on fire. 
I’m rebellious. And apparently I enjoy torturing myself.

So, yeah.

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I’m a big fan of toddler beds and I really do not like cribs. I cannot really pin down a reason for not liking cribs, I just don’t, and I’ve always tried to move my babies into toddler beds as early as possible. Usually by a year and a half I have them sleeping quite comfortably in one of those adorable miniature beds.
Lucy is 16 months old now and has figured out how to turn around and back off feet first from things so I decided to let her nap in her big girl bed today for the first time just to see how she might like it.

It was a success.

I have the most adorable baby girl, y’all.
I’m so happy about this.

While she napped I went out into the garage and did some serious organizing. Rabbit went through it a couple of weeks ago and did a nice clean up job so it was really easy for me to see what kind of space I had to work with. 2 big 30 gallon bags of thrift store donations and a full 30 gallon trash can… The place is starting to look almost nice.

But really, nothing interesting has happened today at all. It’s been a really slow and boring day.

I did eat a tuna fish sandwich earlier. And my neighbor borrowed less than a third cup of sugar. And all my kids are unusually whiny because I let them stay up past their bedtimes last night.

Yeah. Nothing interesting at all.

I go now.

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