Testing, testing!

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>> Hey y'all! I've set up blogger on my cell phone and this is just a test post to see if I know what in Sam's hill I'm doing. Next week while I'm in Texas this may be the only way I can blog. I've been told there will barely be room for my suitcase in the car driving out there so I may not be able to take my laptop nor do I know what the Internet situation will be at my mom's new house.
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>> If I have to blog from my phone, they will be short posts or maybe just pictures.
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>> Here is a screen shot of the weather here in Atlanta for the next few days. What on earth did we do to deserve this?
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>> Okay, tired of typing on my phone. Talk at ya' later!
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Edited:  Y'all, it kind of took me a while to figure this out so I kept forwarding my email instead of retyping it every single time.  Hopefully future mobile posts won't have those arrow things (what are those called?  Carats?).  But quite frankly, technology normally hates me so I'm as shocked as anyone that this worked.  Yay me!

If one more thing breaks I'm going to seriously consider selling my house.

Okay, first off is a confession:  today is not turning out any less crazy than yesterday but I’m typing this in a Word document so that it looks like I’m doing, you know, actual work, because I don’t foresee being able to blog tonight after I get home from PT.   And then I’m going to copy and paste it all into my blog. 

You know how I told y’all I cut my grass on Saturday and sweated buckets?  I honestly only cut my backyard and then I almost died I was so hot, so the yard work I referred to in last night’s post was cutting my front yard.  And as I was almost finished, do y’all want to know what happened?  The handle fell off of my mower.  It just fell right off!  I have a reel mower (retro, human powered with no gas or electric if you don’t know what that is) because my yard is small and I know how dangerous I might be if I was storing gas somewhere in my garage.  So after the handle fell off, I had to pick it up and carry it back to my garage because I couldn’t push it.  Not unless I bent over almost to ground level and squatted all the way down my driveway and I’m pretty sure my neighbors already think I’m crazy.  I cannot find the nuts and bolts and screws in my grass so yes - I have a lawn mower that I just bought two or three months ago sitting in pieces in my garage because my house is cursed and keeps breaking everything. 

I also mentioned that my non-crackhead neighbors will be at the party on July 14^th.  There is one couple who have parties and get togethers quite often and they have invited me over to their house approximately 5 times in the last 3 months.  I have not invited any of the neighbors to my house.  And I figured the more the merrier so I asked them if they wanted to come.  I just said I was having some people over when I texted them all.  I didn’t tell them that I am throwing a birthday party for someone I’ve never met and who won’t be there.  So we will have to explain all of that craziness the day of the party.  But I think those of y’all coming will like them all a lot. 

I mentioned this last night and I’ll tell you the story now so you will know just how cool they are.  About 4 days after I broke my arm, an orthotics guy came to my house and put me in a body brace.  And I had to cut my shirts in half to wear clothes and it weighed a ton and it is now kind of hilarious, but that day I was miserable.  I had barely slept for 4 days because I was in so much pain so I had dark circles under my eyes, and I had not showered, washed my hair, put on makeup, etc. for 4 days.  I had on a monstrosity body brace, a heavy plaster cast from my neck to my elbow, my clothes were cut up, I had on a hat, and let me tell you that that is the evening my neighbors decided to walk up to my house and meet me for the very first time.  Thankfully, the husband was kind of drunk.  They invited me down for drinks and I thought, “what the hell” and went down there about an hour later.  But I didn’t drink because I was on Percocet every 4 hours and I didn’t want to, you know, die or anything.  I met some guys who were friends of theirs, their young daughter cried because she was walking past me and whacked her head on my stupid brace, and I made quite the first impression I imagine. 

But then two weeks later the wife texted me and asked me to come over on a Friday evening to eat pizza and have wine.  I explained that I had just gotten home from work and was already in my pajamas and it took me way too long and exhausted me to change clothes with that stupid brace on and asked if I could stop by later in the weekend.  We texted back and forth and then she called and said, “I’m standing at your front gate.  Come over in your pajamas.  Do you think we care?”  So I walked outside and there she was.  She grabbed me by the arm, walked me back to my front door, told me to turn my alarm on and come relax.  So I did.  I pranced right down the street in my pajamas and ate pizza and drank wine with almost total strangers.  And some more neighbors were there so I ate dinner with them in my pajamas and felt like a complete idiot but they honestly didn’t act like it was weird at all.  Okay, so now you know I have cool neighbors as well as crazy ones.  The 14th is going to be fun y'all!  I cannot wait!  And if you want to wear your pajamas, I will not care either.

Let’s move on to the Music Monday winners!  Heather, I’m so sorry but something is weird in your links and I couldn’t get them to work.  Am I the only one who couldn’t get them to work?  I have no idea what you submitted to be honest.  But thanks for playing this week!  Try again next Monday please!!!

Y'all had some great submissions again this week!  I'm sure Heather's were both winners and I HATE that I don't know what they were.  I had a difficult time choosing again.  Y'all are really awesome at this.  And to clarify, yes....you can submit as many songs as you want for now.  If by some miracle this contest gets super popular I may limit it down the road just because I may not have time, but for now submit to your heart's content! 

This is one of those weeks when the judge is going to tie for first place.

First place:

Amish Annie - Avett Brothers "I and Love and You"

Me - Frank Sinatra "Love and Marriage"  Come on y'all....how did none of you come up with that one?

Second Place goes to Just Paula - Barry White "My First, My Last, My Everything"

You cannot talk about relationships without including a little Barry White, am I right?



Third Place is another tie:

Helen for David Guetta featuring Usher "Without You"

And also to Lisa Pie for one of the most awesome things I've seen in a while:

And I have to give Just Paula an Honorable Mention for I am My Own Grandpa because it cracked me the heck up!



Okay, gotta run.  I have PT again tonight.  Mr. Google Maps was there with me again on Monday so I'll have to tell y'all about him again soon.

Cranky McCrankypants coming at ya'.

Oh goodness y'all.  I was slammed all day at work, worked late, didn't get home until about 7:30, had some yard work to do, then my next door neighbor chatted me up in the yard until after 9:00.  I took a shower and as soon as I got out, my phone started going off with text messages and phone calls from two different friends who have some major pooh happening in their lives.

It's 10:50 pm and I have not even had dinner.

I'm going to have to choose and announce Music Monday winners tomorrow because I'm getting cranky from lack of food.  And I can't think anymore.

By the way, if you're coming to June's Satellite Birthday Party on July 14th, you'll get to meet several of my neighbors.  But they are the super cool and normal ones and not the crackheads, kidnappers and thieves.  These are the neighbors who didn't blink an eye when I went to their house in my pajamas for dinner the second time I met them.  A story for another day......

Home ownership. You kind of suck.

Oh y’all.  What a weekend.  And I don’t mean that in the good “what a weekend” way.  But it ended in a good way.  In a very sappy kind of good way. 

On Friday morning, guess what I did?  I paid for another house repair!  Awesome!  Because I just have all of this extra money that I need to spend.  I’m going to be taking a rather long road trip next week (don’t bother robbers and thieves…I have a house sitter, a great security system, neighbors who will be looking after things, and security bars on all of my doors - not to mention a vicious attack cat) and I’ve mentioned approximately 46468798 times that I’ve planted a bunch of flowers and spent a small fortune on my yard.  So I spent another chunk of money getting my sprinkler system repaired so that I don’t have to pray my house sitter remembers to water every other day while I’m gone and I don’t come back to dead plants. 

Actually, I couldn’t figure out how to turn my sprinkler system on if I’m being honest. 

My brother and I had gotten into the lock box with the controls for the sprinkler system (he busted the lock with a screwdriver is what we did since I was not given a key when I bought the house.  My brother is a police officer and he said he was going to bring his lock pick kit but he forgot it so he did it in the common criminal kind of way) and we found one “box” thingie in the ground with a bunch of wires.  And we turned some knobs and acted like we had some idea of what we were doing. 

(Note:  I had no idea what I was doing as I've never used a sprinkler system in my life.)

Turns out there was another box “thingie” in the ground someplace else that we didn’t know about which has the valve in it that actually turns the water on.  Helpful to do that it turns out.  It was kind of like the blind leading the blind as much as either of us knows about sprinkler systems.  So the system works and yet I had called a repairman out at $80/hour to tell me that I had to turn the dadgum water on.  Sometimes I think I’m kind of smart, but then a sprinkler system tells me otherwise. 

He did replace a few things and cap some sprinklers that were basically watering the back of my garage so I paid him WAY more than $80.  I'm not sure, but I think I felt better having him do some more stuff even though it was more money just so he couldn't tell people a lady paid him $80 to come turn on the water faucet.

After he had been there for about an hour and a half and we had been chatting and he realized I’m a pretty laid back person, I suppose he felt comfortable criticizing my choice of neighborhoods.  I say that because he just came right out and asked me, “so what in the world made you buy a house in this neighborhood?”  And I really didn't have a very good answer because the God's honest truth is that I had never even been in my neighborhood until the week before I made the offer on my house.  It's really just because I got a very good deal in the 'hood.

Then he said, “I was driving down your street and kept thinking I must be on the wrong road.  I’m pretty sure you own the only house on this street that would have a sprinkler system.”  And he’s probably right about that.  But I still love my ‘hood and it’s crazy people. 

I then got needled again in physical therapy on Friday night.  Ooh.  Aah.  Exciting weekend starting out, huh?  Criticizing sprinkler system dudes and physical therapy. 

Don’t worry.  It gets even worse. 

You will all be jealous of  how I spent my Saturday.  I spent almost 13 hours unpacking nine more boxes from my move, sorting and organizing photos, office stuff and paperwork, and staying inside to avoid the 93 degree day.  I suppose it’s a good thing I spent a fortune and got my air repaired two weekends ago, huh? 

And if my Saturday rocked your world, just wait until you hear about Sunday!  I mowed the grass at 9:00 a.m. since it was only 80 degrees at that point, and I still sweated buckets.  Then I spent 4.5 hours scraping plastic film covered in paint off of 120 french door panes.  If you’re friends with me on the face, I said I cleaned 110 panes.  It was actually 120.  And I want credit for every blasted one.  

I’ve never done a more sucky job in my life. 

The doors were new and still had the plastic film on them when I moved in.  My painters took them down, sprayed them with paint and put them back up.  They charge extra to remove the plastic and I thought it wouldn’t be that big of a deal so I didn’t pay them to do it.  Ha!  I am the biggest fool I know.  I now know I would have paid them a thousand dollars at least to have done that horrid, horrid task.  Have any of you had to do this before?  If not, pay someone.  But not me.  Because I will never do it again. 

I was covered literally from head to toe in a bazillion flakes of white paint.  I had them in my hair, on my eyelids, all over my face, down my shirt, all over my arms, hands, legs, feet, etc.  I was pouring sweat which made the paint stick to me even more, two of my fingers are so effin’ sore today from peeling, and I stabbed my finger with the razor blade.  Twice.  I took a shower when I was finished and another one this morning and I’m still finding paint flakes on my arm.  I’m pretty sure it will take me months or years to get all of the paint flakes scraped off my tile and hardwood.  And then I organized more paperwork. 

Oh, it was such a fun filled weekend!  I never left my house and yet I finally sat down to relax at 10:00 last night.  When I did sit down, I checked my emails and Hot Brazilian had sent me one of the sweetest emails I’ve ever gotten.  It was full of sap and he linked to a You Tube video of a super romantic song and he told me how much he misses me and I sat there and cried like a fool.  They were happy tears but I could not stop crying.  I think it was partly because I probably still had a paint flake or two in my eyes.  No really, it was one of the sweetest and most meaningful notes I’ve ever gotten from anyone and it kind of made me forget about how much my weekend had sucked. 

So if you’ve read June today, you know that she and Marvin will be officially divorced in less than 30 minutes.  And I’m all sickly in love and missing my guy.  So today’s Music Monday is going to be a rather broad theme.  Let’s make it about relationships.  You can pick songs that have any word in the title having to do with relationships:  love, divorce, engagement, marriage, beginning, end, missing someone, etc.  As always, I have a few songs in mind but let’s see what y’all can come up with!

And I hope each and every person reading had a weekend better than mine.  If you spent half the weekend cleaning toilets you had a better weekend than me.

I'm never going to water my lawn without a bra on again. And maybe I'll wear pearls and heels when I do it from now on.

Last night I went to physical therapy (and don't worry, this isn't really another one of my boring posts about physical therapy).  When I go, there tends to be the same patients and I rarely see anyone I haven't seen before.

But last night there was a guy I had not seen.  We're all in one big open room so you know what body parts people are having issues with and you hear all of the conversations going on around you.  It turns out this guy is not a brand new patient, but he had not been in about a month.  The last thing that you do at each appointment is lay on a table and get iced down.

Last night all three of us who were in there all ended up being iced at the same time.  So there we were.  Lined up side by side on tables, on our backs staring at the ceiling.  Staring.  Staring.  Staring some more.  You stare at the ceiling while turning into a popsicle for the longest 10 minutes you can imagine. 

Stare.

Stare.

Ceiling.

Stare.

Ceiling.

Freeze.

Stare.

Shiver.

Stare.

Stare.

Suddenly, the "new" guy says, "Hey.  I'm going to tell all of you a story."  And I got all excited and liked this guy because he was going to entertain us.   While we stared.  And froze.

He wasn't a huge, obese guy, but he wasn't skinny either.  He was a very manly guy though.  And this was his story:

"I'm not on Facebook.  I'm not on LinkedIn.  And I don't tweet people.  I don't want anything embarrassing out there on the internet about me so I stay away from all of that stuff.  Well, I am on Pinterest." 

I instantly loved him for that.  I could picture his manly self sitting around pinning recipes and home decor ideas and it made me laugh inside.

He continued. 

"I took a couple of days off work last week and my dad came over.  We were going to build some bookcases for my house."

He probably pinned some he liked and decided to build them.

"So I put on an old, worn out pair of shorts.  And I threw on a t-shirt.  It was a light gray shirt.  Then I got serious and I strapped my gigantic tool belt around my waist because we were going to be building stuff."

"And to top everything off, I stuck an Elliot Sadler NASCAR hat on my head.  I looked awesome!"

The part with the hat?  I was already laughing out loud and could not stop.  And he started laughing at me.

He continued.

"I opened up the garage door and my dad and I started working on stuff.  It was pretty hot outside that day and I was sweatin' pretty good after a little while.  And remember I said I was wearing a light gray t-shirt?"

Someone said, "yes."

"Well, it was really hot.  So I had wet sweat marks all under my pits and under my boobs."

And I was about to roll off the table laughing because he said he has boobs.  He started laughing at me.  And neither of us could stop for a minute.

Finally he continued.

"So I was standing there right at the door of the garage with my light gray shirt, wet sweat marks all up under my pits and boobs, big ol' tool belt around my waist, and my Elliot Sadler NASCAR hat on and I looked up because I heard a car."

Pause.

"Y'all aren't going to believe this....."

Pause.

"It was the Google maps car taking pictures."

And I laughed so hard I almost had tears running down my legs.  Oh holy carp, I could not stop laughing.

"So I've made all this effort not to have anything humiliating out there online about me, and now I'm going to be on Google maps with sweat stains and a NASCAR hat on for years and years."

And now he's going to have this story on a blog.

We're going to party like it's 2012. Not 1999. Because honestly, that year turned out not to be as exciting as I'd hoped.

11:25 p.m. and I'm finally finding time to post today.  It was a killer day if I'm being honest.

Before I start rambling on and on about Music Monday winners, let's talk about the Second Annual Atlanta Satellite Party for June's Birthday (that's way too long of a name).  It will be on Saturday, July 14 at my house.  It honestly doesn't matter to me what time we start, but I was thinking maybe around 2:00.  Would that work?  I have to pick up one of the guests from the airport (YES!  Someone is flying to Atlanta to party with us and I don't know if they want everyone to know so I won't say who it is and they can tell you in the comments if they want) and I'm not exactly sure what time the flight arrives.  I think 2:00 should be safe to start the party though.  You can show up at 8:00 a.m. if you want but I may leave you sitting on the porch.  Or I may be at the airport.  Or I'll let you in and you can fix all of the food while I sit and watch.  Or you can climb up on my roof and clean the gutters since that crackhead never showed up to work.  I have no idea what will be happening at what time to be honest.

And y'all can stay as late as you want.  I'll have some finger foods and if anyone has a favorite thing they can't possibly party without eating feel free to bring it, but please don't feel like you have to bring anything.  If you want to bring party props that would be awesome:  last year Sadie and Letha brought funny glasses full of bling, tiaras, boas, blow thingies, horns, etc. to the restaurant where we met.  I showed up empty handed because I'm awesome.  And then we had to ask our server to take pictures of us and she asked us which one of us was the birthday girl and, um, yeah.  That was awkward. 

"Well you see.  None of us is the birthday girl.  In fact, we just met each other 3 minutes ago and we're celebrating the birthday of someone who is not here and who we've never met in our entire lives.  She is in our computer.  And doesn't this sound like something totally normal people do?"

Actually, either Letha or Sadie kept it simple and said we were celebrating for a friend who was out of town and the server thought we were so sweet instead of certifiably insane and ready to be checked in somewhere.

If y'all stay late and we're hungry for something more substantial, we'll order pizza and watch my crazy neighbors.  Or go to the Mexican place right up the street that I've heard has a most excellent drag show on Saturday nights (I've never been to a drag show so I'm not sure what makes one excellent and another one not good).  Or we can go wander around Little 5 Points and find a plethora of crazy stuff to get involved in.  I live about a mile from there.  Or whatever else y'all can think of.

So that's the deal for the party.  I would love it if y'all will let me know if you're coming though so I don't buy a cake that will serve 84 people if only 3 of you are coming.  We MUST have cake.  If you're on facebook with me, you can send me a message there and I'll give you my address.  If you're not, send me an email at creativemoxie@gmail.com. 

Well, I guess it's time to move on to the winners of the Music Monday Contest.  And could y'all have made it a little more difficult for me to choose a winner?  Geez.  This was SO SO hard to choose.  And there is no need for me to share with you some of the ones I had in mind because they weren't nearly as good.

But this is what I decided:

FIRST PLACE:  It's a tie! 

Laurie for Stairway to Heaven (because how could that one not  win?)

Look what I found when searching for Stairway to Heaven.  Dolly Parton's version of it.  Who knew Dolly was singing Led Zeppelin?!  Did everyone else know about this except me?  I'm going to just say this:  I'll stick with Led Zeppelin and be happier.

And also Patti for Another Brick in the Wall

SECOND PLACE:  Another tie (seriously you guys were too good this week)!

Lisa Pie for Brick House by the Commodores

Laurie again for House of the Rising Sun

THIRD PLACE:

Scraps for Ring My Bell

 And I am not ever going to mail the winners an inflatable trophy as their prize!

Thanks for playing along again this week.  It's kind of dorky but fun, right?!

Yes, I'm going to mention sister wives again in a post

My weekend was not nearly as exciting as June's.  I didn't have a huge man threaten me, nor did I see any celebrities.

I did get together with a friend of mine that I've known since first grade.  We lost touch when my family moved out of our neighborhood just before I went into seventh grade, and then we reconnected on facebook several years ago.  Reconnecting with people from your past is one of the most awesome things about facebook.  Although sometimes it's the worst part of it. 

I knew my friend had a motorcycle, but everytime we've gotten together so far she has been in her regular car.  My friend is so not the type you would imagine to be a biker and, therefore, I had always imagined she had some super girly motorcycle and probably had a pink helmet or something.  Imagine my surprise when she pulled in my driveway wearing a black helmet, on a black bike, and it was one of those loud, manly sounding things with leather bags on the side.  She parked it in my garage while we went to bum around an area of Atlanta called Oakhurst, and she was all distraught when we got back and she discovered her bike had leaked some oil in my garage.  Y'all, it was a spot about the size of a quarter and she was going on like my garage had been flooded in black oil.  I'm a little more upset about the white paint that has been in my backyard grass from the contractors that worked on my house 6 months ago than a quarter sized spot of oil in my garage.

Yesterday I had some of my family over for Father's Day.  While he was there, my older brother broke into the lock box where the controls for my sprinkler system are located because I didn't get a key for it when I bought the house.  And then he was trying to get my sprinkler system working and guess what?  It won't come on.  I'm so glad because I needed something else to get fixed at my house.  I mean it had been a whole week since I spent $1,200 on a new air conditioner coil and freon.  I was kind of missing paying for something to be repaired.  Gah.  This house is going to kill me.  But then I think my niece felt sorry for me or maybe she was super bored sitting with all of us old people on the front porch eating dessert so she offered to water all of my flowers.  And obviously I took her up on it.  When she was about half done I could tell she was regretting her offer so I told her I would finish it later.  But she said she had to finish what she had started.  I got a little tear in my eye because she's finally growing up.  Then she squirted me with the hose a little bit and I realized she really hasn't. 

See?  My weekend.  Full of not very exciting things.  Oh yeah, I went to the grocery store too because I'm wild and crazy.  And I had a very bizarre dream that I went to Vegas while wearing a wedding gown on the airplane and a girl in our marketing department and I both married my boss and became sister wives and we spent our wedding night in a hotel room with a young family of 3 while our new husband was out having his bachelor party (after we were all married) and I laid in bed in my wedding dress with the father of the family and we watched tv while his wife laid in bed with my sister wife.  I'm pretty sure I should not take Advil PM ever again.  And I realize this is the second time the whole sister wives thing has come up in the short life of this blog, but I promise I have zero interest in pursuing any such thing.

Tomorrow evening I have a college student coming by that may rent a room from me this Fall.  See:  paying for house repairs is killing me dead.  And there is a VERY slight possibilty that HB's son may be coming and staying with me soon.  So if I have a teenage Brazilian soccer player and a nursing grad-student staying with me I will hopefully have more exciting things happen to tell y'all about than having dreams that I marry my boss and become a sister wife.

But let's move on to the Music Monday Contest because one of my bosses just got back from a week's vacation in Mexico and we have a ton of work to do today and I need to get on it.  I'm sure he's jealous that he didn't spend his vacation the way I spent my dream time in Vegas, but too bad for him. 

My life has been completely consumed with home repairs for the past 6 months (well, other than being consumed by a broken arm - did I tell y'all my doctor told me that even though I'm already 4 months into this ordeal that they consider me to be at the very beginning of the healing process because my break was so bad?  OMG).  So this week's songs must contain a word in the title associated with a house.  It can be anything - floors, walls, paint, a refrigerator, the house itself.  As always, I have a few songs in mind already. 

Let's see what y'all come up with!

Sick people, firefighters and birthday parties. It's one of those mixed up kind of days......

Geez.  I have tried to get on here and write something for the past two days.  I started one post and it was so boring I deleted it.  But honestly, nothing interesting has happened - a doctor's appointment where I got mixed news on my arm, more physical therapy, and, shockingly, 165 more overnight packages.  Don't y'all want to hear the nitty gritty on all of that?

Since y'all seem to enjoy the stories about my crazy 'hood, I'll tell y'all about the girl diagonally across the street from me.  Well, it's kind of about me being a big ol' scaredy cat mostly, but she plays into the story.

The house I bought was a foreclosure.  A same-sex couple owned it (which really has nothing to do with the story, but I've told y'all I am wordy and give too many details when I tell y'all stuff).  One was a real estate agent and the other was a designer so when the housing market crashed, they were both kind of screwed.  According to my next door neighbor, they had top-of-the-line everything in this house.  And in the middle of losing their house, they also lost their love for each other and their relationship ended rather badly from what I understand.

They stripped the house and took a lot of it with them.

They took the kitchen counters, the backsplash, every single appliance in the house, a portion of the kitchen floors (I don't get that either, but the tile down one side of the kitchen was gone), a bathroom vanity, toilet handles in 3 of the 4 bathrooms, faucets in 2 of the bathrooms, 15 lighting fixtures, and a few other miscellaneous things.  My move was a complete and utter pain and did not go very smoothly.  My movers pulled out of my driveway at 10 minutes before midnight and you can imagine how much we all loved each other by that point.  The night I moved in, my mom (who came from Texas to help me move) and I had to squat over the toilet because my bank was an absolute nightmare to deal with and I know that doesn't make sense, but trust me....it's my bank's fault the toilet wasn't clean and that we had to squat and I will tell y'all that story at some point.  So there we were squatting over the dirty toilet and we had to pee by flashlight because I had no light fixture in the only bathroom that had hardware on it to flush the toilet.  My mom and I had to use only that bathroom for showers, etc. because of the condition the other bathrooms were in, and four days later my contractors discovered that the entire bathroom was being held up by God himself because the entire subfloor was rotted out from water damage and they didn't understand how my mom and I had not ended up falling through into the crawl space while taking our morning showers at some point.  Fun is what the first few weeks in my house was full of.

In other words, I had to have a lot of work done to the house when I moved in.  And I lived in it through the construction and never plan to repeat that mistake as long as I live.  So I hired a contractor.  He is my sister-in-law's niece's husband.  Keep up.  He and his business partner are both part-time contractors and a full-time firefighters for the City of Atlanta. 

One Sunday morning a couple of weeks after moving in, I was awake pretty early and around 6:30 a.m. I heard sirens coming down my street.  There were two firetrucks and an ambulance, and I watched out the window as they stopped at the house diagonally across the street from me and took someone off on a stretcher.  I said a prayer for my new neighbor I had not met that she would be okay.

What I didn't know early that Sunday morning is that ambulances and firetrucks would be stopping by and taking her off on a stretcher on a fairly regular basis.  I didn't know there would be times they came by and I would be so accustomed to the noise that I would stop noticing it completely.  I did say a quick little prayer for her each time I did notice though.

One night I was in the living room working on my computer, the TV was on, Bailey was flopped out on top of me, and I was chilled.  But then instead of chilled, I was scared.  A white light started scanning the front of my house.  It kept going back and forth across the bay window in my living room and I honestly thought someone was in my front yard with a flashlight and they were about to try and break in.  I whispered to Bailey to get off me, and I slowly got up from the sofa.  I then got down on my hands and knees and crawled across the living room, through the entry way, and into the dining room so I could peek out the leaded glass window and see where the person was. 

I slowly crept up until my eyes were just above the bottom edge of the window and that's when I saw the scary person!

My contractor was driving the firetruck which had stopped at the house diagonally across the street for the girl over there, and he had a spotlight which he was scanning slowly back and forth across the front of my house.  He was grinning from ear to ear and waving.

I ran outside (in my pajamas, sock feet, hair up in a bun, no bra) and started yelling at him how bad he had scared me.  And he was cracking up.

.....Imagine I have a great segue here.....

For the first 2 months in my cast, I was under doctor's orders not to drive.  When I finally could drive once he had me just in a cast and no sling, I was running errands every spare minute of my life because I was behind on everything.  And my hippie friend was starting to help me in my yard.  So one Friday night after work, I stopped to get some flowers and other things for yardwork, and then went grocery shopping.  As I drove up to my house, the ambulances and firetrucks were across the street.  I got out of my car and began unloading my groceries and flowers and I heard a man whistling.  He wasn't whistling a song, he was whistling like men whistle at hot women.  So I didn't look up because I assumed some hot girl must be walking up the street or something.  Then I heard someone right behind me in my driveway say, "Hey girl!  I'm whistling at you!"  And it was my contractor again.

He said he can't possibly come on a call right across the street from me and not try to mess with me somehow.  Sadly, the girl across the street is fairly young (in her 20's) but very sickly and has been picked up by ambulance at least 9 times that I'm aware of in the 6 months I've lived across the street from her.  Even though some guy who lives there (there are a variety of people living there and I don't know the relationships of them all) drives a medical transport van, they always call 911 when she gets ill.  So my contractor will probably have plenty of opportunities to mess with me.

Which all leads me to this question:  don't some of you want to come over and experience all of the nonsense in my 'hood?  Last year Letha, Sadie and I met for the first time and took silly pictures and had a great time getting to know each other.  I was thinking we should have a satellite birthday party for June again this year and I'm offering up my house for the party location.  Do the Atlanta peeps (or anyone who feels like driving to Atlanta) want to do this?  If we do just snacks, etc. I can handle it all.  If y'all want a meal, we could to a pot luck because I'm going to be honest....I don't cook entire meals for parties.  I barely cook meals for myself.  Anyone interested?  If so, leave a date suggestion in the comments and let's get this celebration in the works!

Winning!

Wow, y'all had some great suggestions for the Music Monday Contest!

Here are a few other songs I came up with:

Cee Lo - Forget You (I've linked to the clean version)

Simple Minds - Don't You Forget About Me

Pearl Jam - Daughter

Aerosmith - Last Child

Supremes - Love Child.  Mostly I included this one because Diana Ross appears to be wearing an outfit created by a second grader.

AC/DC - Problem Child.  Because I think every day should include a little AC/DC.

But on to the winners!

First Place:  Mary Lou for The Who - Behind Blue Eyes 

Second Place:  Mary Lou again!  Guns N' Roses - Sweet Child O Mine

Third Place:  Scraps for Paul Simon - Mother and Child Reunion

Way to go, y'all!  Mary Lou, don't go stampeding to your mailbox for your prize because it's never going to show up in there.

Okay, gotta run.  I know y'all won't believe this, but I've got MORE overnight packages to get out today.  We sent over 300 total last week, and it's only Tuesday and this will make 110 already for this week.  But I'm grateful to have a job so I'm trying not to, you know, whine.

Also, I spent an hour in a training class this morning for a new computer program we will be using and you know how people always say, "There's no such thing as a dumb question"?  SO NOT TRUE.  I didn't ask any questions so it wasn't me, but wow.

Gotta go inhale a salad at my desk and get back to work.

Congratulations again to this week's winners!  (Winners of nothing!)

Kids. They're kind of easy to lose.

Guess what?

Crackhead did not show up to clean my gutters yesterday.  I know....shocking.  Not.

Guess what else?

I get to mail out more overnight packages today.  I know....exciting.  Not. 

Guess what else, part 2?

My 13 pound cat jumped off the back of the sofa right onto my face last night, back claws out, and sliced my cheek.  I know....attractive.  Not.  One of those times it's good I have the crazy curly hair to cover up my face.

Let's get straight to the Music Monday Contest since I have to mail out more packages and I have a high school intern coming to help me in a few minutes with cleaning up some files in my office space (because I've been deemed a "special project" by my firm - I know.....shocking again.  Not.  It's because my doctor won't let me lift heavy things yet so I can't move boxes full of files).

It came out in the news this weekend that recently the British Prime Minister and his wife drove home and left their 8-year-old daughter behind at a pub.  They forgot one of their kids, y'all.  So that's our theme this week!  The songs you submit must contain one of the following words (or a variation of these words) in the title:  Britain, Prime, Minister, left, behind, forgot, daughter/child, or pub/bar.  As a reminder, you can submit as many songs as you wish, link to a video of it if you want, etc.

I have a few songs in mind, but let's see what y'all come up with.

I will never mail this week's winner the following prize:  a blood bath - bath mat.  Y'all, I kind of want one of these to put in my guest bathroom to freak people out.  Don't you think it would be hilarious? 

Needles in my arm and crackheads on my roof.

So here is what has happened since Thursday afternoon when I last wrote:

I got dry needled.

I mailed out overnight packages until I wanted to cry.

I possibly hired the neighborhood crackhead to climb on my roof and clean my gutters.  Oh wait....what I meant to say is that I hired ONE of the neighborhood crackheads to climb on my roof and clean my gutters. 

I almost had a family dinner and home repairs happening simultaneously.  Instead, I just had family over here sweating like I run a whore house.  And I've had an a/c guy here for 7 hours today because he had to reschedule from last night.

I may go to a pool party tonight.  Except I don't know how to lose 50 pounds and buy a flattering bathing suit in the next 2 hours.

The dry needling was.....interesting.  She stuck 3 needles in the front of my shoulder.  I felt the first one and it burned quite a bit.  And it made me bleed.  The second two?  I didn't even feel them go in my arm.

Then she stuck 3 needles in the back of my shoulder.  They all hurt.  It's not excruciating pain, it's more like, well a needle sticking in your arm.  But it burns a little more.  She kept them all in for about a minute and then pulled them all out, wrapped me in a heating blanket that made me want to stay overnight, and then sent me home.

I didn't feel any different really.  But then I got home and watered my plants while the a/c repair guy was at my house checking to see why my downstairs air isn't working.  Answer:  because a VERY expensive part (a $1,000 part) decided to die and make all the freon leak out.  (I actually just wrote the check for the part, labor and freon a few minutes ago and it made me want to cry and throw up all at the same time.)  Then I went inside and had to clean since I was having company last night and I went to put my hair up since it was so hot in my house.  I haven't been able to lift my arm higher than shoulder height so I bend over at the waist and try not to cry lifting my arm enough to reach my head.  After the needling, it hurt way less to do that.  I still can't lift my arm very high, but it's less painful for sure.  I talked to my therapist yesterday and said, "Let's do lots more needle poking, please!" and she said okay.

So that's the very anti-climatic story about needling:  a little painful, a little successful and a little bleedy.

I got home last night 10 minutes before my company was supposed to be at my house because traffic was trying to kill me with frustration.  9 mile commute equaled 70 minutes (oh Atlanta, how I love you).  I was walking up my driveway to grab my mail and a guy walking by on the sidewalk hollers to me, "EXCUSE ME.  CAN I ASK YOU SOMETHING?"  He had on somewhat raggedy clothes and was missing some teeth.

"Yes."

"Can I cut your grass for you or do some yard work.  I need some money real bad."

"Um, my grass is short because I JUST CUT IT four days ago.  Thanks anyway!"

"Can I do anything for you?  Can I trim the trees.  I really need to make a few bucks.  I'm going to do some work for your next door neighbors but I need a few bucks to get gas for my mower so I can cut their grass."

"No, thank you.  I have a friend with a landscaping business and she's helping me in my yard.  She needs a few bucks too."

"Well, m'am, your roof needs swept off.  There's a lot of stuff blown up there.  Can I clean your roof off and clean out your gutters?"

And it's true.  My roof does have stuff blown on it and my gutters do need cleaned.  I have no desire to climb up there and do it, especially with a somewhat bum arm, and I don't think my 60+ year old hippie landscaper friend would want to do that either.  She'd rather take me out and get me drunk on margaritas than climb on my roof and sweep.  So that's how I found myself asking this:

"How much would you charge me?"

And y'all, this is what he said and it kind of made me want to cry.  Mostly because I have "SUCKER" tattooed on my forehead:

"Whatever your heart tells you to offer me, m'am."

I explained to him that I have never had my gutters cleaned out and had no clue what to offer him but he just kept saying to offer whatever my heart told me to.

"Thirty bucks.  Does that sound good?" thinking he was going to laugh at me even though I honestly don't know what it normally costs.

"Yes m'am.  Thirty bucks sounds real good.  Can you give me a deposit and I'll come back on Sunday morning?"

"Um, no.  No deposit. Can you come tomorrow because it's supposed to rain all day Sunday."

"No, it's okay if it rains.  I'll be here Sunday.  But are you sure you can't give me a small deposit?"

I then told him that my dad once tried cleaning the gutters in the rain, fell off the ladder and broke his back.  (I should tell y'all that story sometime.  How my dad broke his back and just sat at home and didn't call anyone or try to get help and how a police officer called him about a car accident he had been in the day before and could tell something was not quite right with my dad and sent an ambulance to his house.  Then the hospital called my mom at work and said a police officer had an ambulance go to your house and get your husband and now he's  here with a broken back.  True story.  Or the time he sat at home and bled for 8 hours when he fell off the porch and split his eyebrow open and ended up getting 17 stitches but he didn't want to go because he hates the ER.  Or the time he had a heart attack last year but said he was fine and didn't want to go to the ER, went to bed, had a second heart attack the next morning and almost died, and spent a month in the hospital.  My dad.  He's a blog of his own.  An ER hating blog.)

"No, I'll be fine.  I'll see you Sunday morning.  Thirty bucks.  Thank you m'am."

Remember how he needed a deposit to get gas for his mower so he could do my next door neighbor's yard?  My next door neighbor was out a while ago MOWING HIS OWN YARD.

I don't know what to expect tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be interesting if he shows up.

Earlier today I had a random lady asking me for change for a hundred dollar bill.  Then she stopped the ice cream man and asked him for change.  He didn't have it either.

So if any of you ever get bored, come sit on my front porch for a while and hang out with me.  You won't be bored for too long.  There may be someone begging for money, wanting to exchange money, a kidnapper, a convicted thief, or the lady walking by last weekend with blue hair and the legs of a mannequin to entertain you.  Who needs to go to a movie?  I prefer to sit on my front porch and watch life on my street.  And get all in the middle of it from time to time.

Probably talk at 'ya again on Saturday......

Here's the deal.  Between this afternoon and tomorrow, a paralegal and I have to send out 275 overnight packages.  275.  SO MUCH FUN.

And that provides very little blogging material unless y'all want to hear the details of how we had to stuff 275 envelopes, and print 275 letters, and print and copy the enclosures for 275 packages, and prepare 275 labels.  Can y'all imagine what a yawn fest that would be to read?  Yes, you probably can because I've been yammering on about it for 2 paragraphs already.

Tonight I have PT (hopefully a needling story....finally) and then I have to go home and water my needy flowers. 

"I'm thirsty!" said Ms. Shasta Daisy as I was leaving for work this morning.

"I want something to drink NOW!" said Mr. Coneflower, because he is whiney is what he is.

And did I tell you I now have my third set of baby birds in my front yard since late March?  I have no clue what kind of bird but let's say it's a titmouse family because that is the funniest bird name I can think of.  Tits and mice have nothing to do with birds.  But apparently word has gotten out that I'm party central for bird baby birthing.  My milkshake brings all the birds to my yard.  And the chipmunks who are digging holes left and right.

After I deal with PT, needles, and nature, I get to clean some toilets and vacuum because whoa, Nellie!  I have an exciting life.  I have company coming over tomorrow night and I thought they might want a clean place to pee.  My cousin from Fargo is in Atlanta this week and no offense if you're from Fargo, but why would anyone move there?  The cold.  Of course I despise hot weather and yet I've been in Atlanta for 43 years shriveling up and dehydrating about 8 months out of the year.  She, my other cousin, an aunt, a husband and a couple of kids are coming over because they all want to see my new house.  I'm serving them pizza delivery because I don't cook.  (Even though I had to buy a stupid stove that cost me $3,000 and was installed by a completely stoned guy.  It only took him seven and a half hours to install it too.  And he told me about some naked guys on the roof of a house in my 'hood.  Story for another day....I've used it about 5 times in 6 months.  The stove, not the naked guys on the roof.)  I'll also show them my needy flowers, baby birds, chipmunks, dead snakes, squirrels, kidnapper neighbors, thieving neighbors, the girl living across the street that I think might be a hooker, and whatever else comes up by tomorrow evening.  My aunt has actually seen it already because she stayed with me for a week to help me when I was all casted up.  And she met the very old lady across the street who I think is allergic to sunlight, bought her some food and was rejected.  Yet another story for another day.

So what I'm saying is, I may not have time to say much tomorrow.  Mary?  Mrs. Oh?  Feel free to post anytime!

But I do want to share another odd thing I've found while cleaning up my office:

A wind up bunny that hops across my desk.  The law does not have enough bunnies in my opinion.

Okay....off to make some FUN, FUN, FUN labels now!  Are y'all sure you don't want to hear all the details of my job today?

Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

I still haven't been dry needled.

I went to PT last night, did my painful exercises, and then the therapist started the massage.  I asked her a few minutes in if she was going to needle me and she said:

"Oh.  I forgot we were going to do that tonight.  I've cranked your arm too much now so we'll do it next time."

Cranked my arm.  That's pretty much what it feels like.  Thursday!  Thursday night I'm supposed to get needled.  And y'all are saying, "yeah right.  I don't think this is ever going to happen" since I've been talking about it since the beginning of time now.

After therapy I went and got completely taken advantage of.

I went to get a pedicure and thankfully made it back home without gracefully tripping on my shoe, falling on my face, breaking my arm and going to the ER for 7 hours first.  I had a basic pedicure like I get at nail salons all over Atlanta.  And I normally pay $20 or $25 unless I get something deluxe, etc.  I did not get a deluxe anything last night and do you know how much they charged me?

Forty effin' dollars.

I know it's my fault that I didn't look at the price list when I walked in, but seriously?  Double the rest of Atlanta?  It was a salon in the Buckhead area which is Snootyville, USA but I've gone to other Buckhead salons and never paid over $20.  Guess where I will not be getting a pedicure ever again? 

I really tried to come on here and announce the Monday Music winners yesterday, but I was crazy busy during the day, and quite frankly, I was just too tired and lazy after I got home last night.  Perhaps because it was 8:45 and I still had not had any dinner.  But my word was I busy yesterday at work.  We are about to remodel our firm's office which means we're going to be in complete chaos from now through at least next March. (YES!  At least 9 months of barcoding files, boxing up files, moving files, moving to a temporary space, moving to our permanent space, etc.  I am excited is what I am.  If you could see my face right now you would know just how flipping happy I am about this nonsense.)  I'm beginning to clean up my office and then I get to help THREE bosses clean up their offices.  So, so awesome.

I've been here for about five and a half years.  I replaced a lady who retired after 20+ years in this office.  I never had time to really clean up stuff after she left and I've acquired some junk too.  I thought I would share with y'all some of the weird stuff I find as I run across it.

I'm pretty sure when I'm completely done cleaning up my space and helping my bosses (which has to be done by October and it will take me that long) this might top the list of weirdest things I find, but who knows:

Yes, y'all.  It's a box of racist "colored" sparklers.  I thought we were being politically correct these days.

I have worked in law firms for the past twelve and a half years and for the life of me I cannot figure out why I would need a box of sparklers.  My former firm was a family law firm where we handled divorces for celebrities and I didn't even need them then.  But I'm in corporate law now and I can assure you we don't do anything around here exciting enough to need sparklers.

"Woo hoo!  I just sent out 100 Fed Ex packages today!  Time to light the building on fire!!"

"Awesome!  I just completed editing a 400 page 10-K!  It's sparkler time!!"

"We're done printing 200 stock certificates?  Time to run down the halls with sparks flying out of our hands!"

Shocking probably to zero of you, I opened the box and all six sparklers are still in the box.  BECAUSE WE DON'T USE SPARKLERS IN THE LAW, Y'ALL.  But I might decide to start.  What do you think they would do if one Friday afternoon I lit up a sparkler and ran down the halls?  Y'all, I'm totally going to do this soon!  I'll report back after I get up the nerve.  Maybe I'll throw a pair of underwear on my head while I'm at it to really get people talking. 

"Oh yes.  Talk quietly around that one.  She has a delicate disposition and sometimes she completely loses it."

I don't know how to successfully segue from sparklers in a law firm to announcing the winners of the Monday Music Contest, so let's pretend I'm holding a sparkler while I announce, okay?

I didn't tell  y'all this part, but sometimes in the Friday Afternoon Song Contest here at work, the judge wins.  Because the judge always has some songs in mind.  I'm not going to do that to y'all this week because you're new here (and because I forgot to tell y'all that part), but next week?  It may or may not happen. 

Here are some songs y'all could have submitted:

Beastie Boys (I love them!) - Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win

Chris Isaak - Wicked Game

Sister Sledge - We are Family.  Ima stampede somewhere to get me a bubble machine and an outfit like these.  I'm not sure where one stampedes for such things though.    Will never again hear this song and not think about The Bird Cage.

I would like to thank y'all from the bottom of my heart for not submitting Kiss on My List by Hall and Oates.  Kind of hate.

Finally!  On to the winners!  (And y'all realize this is totally dependent on what music I like, right?  Which isn't really fair but it will be hard for me to ever let an ABBA song win because I don't like their music and I really don't know how to take my personal taste out of this contest.  As a hint, I cannot stand opera although I doubt many opera songs would be submitted, I can only listen to country in very small doses, and you will probably figure out some other stuff as we go along each week.)  And yes, sometimes one person could win First, Second and Third.  I've done it twice here at my firm. 

First Place:  Olive for Kiss by Prince.  Apparently Prince hates You Tube so you can't find videos on there for his stuff.  Still love you, Prince or &*#R or Artist Formerly Known As Prince, or whatever name is floating your boat these days.

Second Place:  The mysterious Anonymous for Then He Kissed Me by the Crystals.

Third Place:  Letha for It's in his Kiss by Cher

I like to chat up criminals. I also really like music and men who kiss thousands of women. I'm kind of complicated.

Oh y'all, I almost forgot.  I said I was going to show y'all the dining room furniture I bought from the Southern California Smurf last weekend and it was delivered on Saturday.

The driver called me around 10:15 and said, "we're about 20 minutes from your house."

I said, "okay.  Make sure you have your license and insurance handy because the cops are at the corner of my street doing checks."  And he said something back to me and I realized he did not understand what in the heck I was trying to warn him about so I finally just told them to be careful and I'd see them in 20 minutes.

This is the second time they've done license checks at the corner by my house since I've moved in.  I told y'all I live in the 'hood.  The first time it happened, it was right after a guy attempted to kidnap one lady and actually did kidnap another lady less than a mile or two from my house.  The one he got was sitting on her porch around 2 a.m. minding her own business and he walked right up and snatched her and stuck her in his trunk.  She got the trunk open and jumped out of his moving car right up the street from me.  So I thought the police we're really searching cars looking for that dude but pretending it was a license check.

The week after the kidnapping, I was out at the street watering the flowers at my mailbox (HATE yardwork if I haven't mentioned it once or eleventy-million times) and a man walked by and was looking over his shoulder all suscpicious like.  And I said, "'sup homie?" because I'm trying to fit in like I belong in the 'hood.  Not really.  I actually just said a casual hello.  And do you know what he said back to me?

He said, "Hey!  Be careful.  I think that guy walking behind me is the guy the police are looking for that kidnapped that woman.  We have a sketch of the guy up where I work and it looks just like that guy walking this way."  And I said something eloquent such as, "oh carp."

And then the kidnapper dude walked by, looked me right in the eye and said...wait for it..."'sup?" but he didn't say "homie" at the end.

I acted all stupid and chatty and said, "Hey!  How are you?  Hope you're having a great day!" because I was hoping he didn't like happy, chatty girls.  That happy and chatty girls might bug him so he wouldn't ever come grab me off my porch because he didn't want me to get on his nerves chatting him up and being all cheerful.  I also thought it might be one of those rare times that it's actually a good thing I'm on the chubby side because he might also be thinking, "not only is she all happy and chatty, but I doubt I could drag her anywhere."

I had heard about the kidnapping but for whatever reason, I had not seen the police sketch of the guy.  So the next day I googled it and pulled up the sketch.  Y'all, I'm pretty sure it was him.  I may have chatted up a kidnapper.

Then the very next day a complete stranger rang my doorbell and asked me if I had heard about the apartment fire down the street a few months prior where a guy had gone in and out of the burning building several times and saved 5 kids but got burned up himself in the process.  I told him I had heard about it and he said, "I'm the guy who saved those kids."

Then he said his family lost everything, he was getting a check from the Red Cross within a couple of days, but he needed $5 so his son could go on a field trip with his class the next day to the Georgia Aquarium.  He offered to do anything I needed done for the $5 - he would sweep my porch, rake something, etc. So I asked, "Will you peel me a grape?  French me a fry?  Skin me a peach and save the fuzz for my pillow?  Cut me a rose and make my tea with the petals?"  I honestly had no idea if he was really the guy who saved 5 kids or if he was just using a tragedy to scam me, but I admired the fact that he offered to work for it and wasn't just asking for a handout so I gave him $5 but didn't ask him to do anything.  After I gave him the money, he pulled up his jeans leg and showed me all of the scars from the burns and I wished right then that I had even more to give him.

But......

I googled that story the next day and guess what?  HE STARTED THE FIRE HIMSELF.  His baby was crying, he put a lit cigarette down on the arm of the sofa to go check on the baby and burned his apartment down.  There were also photos of him so I knew it really was the guy who had come begging me for money.  I googled a little more and found out he's also been arrested for violating his parole.  And that he's on parole for being a thief.

So within 24 hours I possibly chatted up a kidnapper and I willingly gave money to a convicted thief.  And I never even left my property.  My talent at finding excitement is truly unbelievable, right?

OMG, all of this because I was telling y'all about the furniture delivery people calling me.  Did y'all forget about that?  Because I almost did.

They gave me a call to say they would be at my house within 20 minutes. 

10 minutes later, Bailey went to her litter box and took the most awful smelling dump of her 13 year life.  My whole house smelled.  It was truly horrid, y'all.  So I ran around spraying air fresheners and lighting candles and asking her if she had taken a newspaper or good book in with her.

Here is my new dining room table and chairs:

I told  y'all it was unique, right?  Here's a close up.  It's supposed to be reclaimed antique wood, but it's probably not and just made to look that way.  I'm a legal assistant, not an antiques expert, so I really have no idea.

It's kind of cool though, right?  I'm the kind of girl who chats up kidnappers and gives money to thieves so I'm definitely not the kind of girl who buys traditional furniture without green squares on it.

Should we do the song contest on Mondays?  Okay!  Let's do!  Here is your theme.....

Sadly, the world lost a game show legend on Saturday:  Richard Dawson passed away.  He was an actor, a game show host, comedian, and a kisser of thousands of women.  This week's songs must contain one or more of the following words in the title:  Richard, Dawson, acting (or act, actor, etc.), joke, game, show, kiss, family, or feud.  You can submit as many songs as you wish.  List the title of the song and the artist, and feel free to link to a video of it if you wish.

The winner will receive a DJ Scratching Pad for your cat.  Hope you have a cat!  Also, please remember I will never actually send you a prize.....