Say What?!?

It seems that the older I get, the less I remember about my childhood. Some of the memories I have aren’t even mine really, they are stories that my parents told me about when I was too little to remember. Kids do some pretty funny stuff when they’re young, so I thought it would be kinda fun to tell some stories and have a good laugh.

My parents tell me that when I was around 3yrs old, our silver & black German Shepard saved me from being trampled by a run-away cow. We used to live across from a cow pasture, old Mr. White’s farm, and one day the cows got loose and were running a muck in the neighborhood. All of the adults and the farmer were running around trying to round them up and my parents told us to stay inside. We of course being kids, had to go outside and see what all the fuss was about. I was only 3 and I wandered out into the yard. One of the cows got spooked and ran the opposite direction from the herd, which was straight towards me. From what I hear, Duchess saw this, stood between me and the cow and apparently scared it back to the rest of the herd. Great dog……I miss her…..

On a funnier note, when I was about 5 or 6 and in the care of the babysitter (named Aunt Kay, but not related to us) I stuck a peanut up my nose. I’m not sure why, but apparently this was enough of an emergency for me to be taken to the emergency room. Doctors peered up my nose for what seemed like a very long time, and finally determined that the peanut had gone down my throat and I had swallowed it……we were to “check” my stools just to be sure. Ewww…we just assumed that it had passed and didn’t bother with a close-up. That’s my funny memory.

I saw a commercial the other day that reminded me of a story that Chewie’s Mom told me about when he was a kid. Since it cracks me up, I’ll share it. When Chewie was little his mom took him to church on Christmas. The choir began to sing and Chewie felt so motivated by this that he decided he wanted to sing too. Once the choir stopped singing, Chewie stood up and sang the only song that he could remeber at the time: “She wore and itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini” LOL…I laugh at him every time I hear that commercial!

Soooooooo……the visit with my mom went very well. The dinner was a success despite the fact that there were 3 of us in a 1950’s style kitchen trying to cook. The dogs were being shooed out and then called back in minutes later to clean up what was spilled on the floor due to someones over-zealous arm gestures. I’m not sure if it was the presence of mom’s “special friend” or the fact that I had gone through alot of trouble to bring everyone together for her sake, but my mom was actually very pleasant and thus made the night a smooth one. I hope that after 16yrs, she is finally leaving the past in the past and moving on with her life. It seems as though she may finally be on her way to happy.

On a different and sickly note, I have been on the couch buried under piles of snotty tissues for 4 days. Today is the first day that I am able to sit up and walk without feeling faint. I don’t know where this cold/flu came from, but it’s a doozy. I cannot imagine being a mother, as taking care of 2 dogs and a man when I was ill was almost more than I could bare. To make things worse, in my NyQuil and snot induced stupor, I fell down the stairs (I curse the builder of the house who decided to give it only 1 bathroom and put that bathroom up some slippery stairs). I managed to bruise a rib, my hand (i find that oddly amusing since I have never had a big black bruise on the palm of my hand before), my arm, and my ass (not even my ass was enough to cushion that fall). So I lay there on the floor crying and blowing snot bubbles which apparently was an invitation for the dogs to come over and step all over me in their haste to kiss me and make sure that I knew that even though I had fallen down the stairs, they were ok and still had to go outside……into the 16 degree weather. You would think that my wonderful bf would be falling all over himself to take care of me in my time of need, but…..such was not the case. Instead of feeding the dogs, taking them outside, making me toast and soup for dinner, he came home, laid on the couch and went to sleep……….

Ok, so last week I was informed by my mother that she would be coming down from Michigan for a visit this week.  While other children may be excited at the mention of a visit from their mother that they only see a couple of times a year, my siblings and I remain skeptical.  While we love our mother she sometimes has a …..hmmm…..what’s a good word here……a negative perception of the way things really are.  I guess that’s the best way I can describe her outlook.  The good news for this visit is that we are all off the hook as far as accomodations go.  She is traveling down with a “special friend” that will be paying for hotel accomodations.  Not that we didn’t all jump at the chance to offer her a place to stay………haha.  My mother’s only request for her children was that we have a “family meal” while she is down here.  It seems -to her, of course- that she has been robbed of family meals (e.g. Christmas, Thanksgiving, and whatnot) since my Dad got remarried.  So, as the first sibling to hear the news of her visit, it falls on me to coordinate a dinner party for her – which I don’t think is too much to ask since we are getting a reprieve on the accomdations.  My brother and his wife tried to talk us into going out to a resturant for dinner but there are 3 problems with this.  1) I really do not like being subjected to my mother’s criticism in public since she makes no attempt to not be embarrassing.  2) The last time we went to dinner in public with her, it ended really badly and set me back 5yrs in therapy.  3) I know my mother, and a resturant does not count as a “family meal” and we would never hear the end of it.  So after alot of cajoling, it seems that I am hosting the dinner at my house the day before she is to leave to go home.  I think that my brother-in-law may be the only one not in attendance becuase of his work schedule – and the time he saw her naked may have something to do with it but that’s a whole nother story.

Anyway, I have been going over my responses to my mothers comments, trying to brace myself for the worst.  The “fat” comment will be thrown around quite alot, I’m sure……but I can deal with that.  I fear there will be many others, but I can only hope for the best.  The thing is, when I told a friend of mine that I have already prepared rebuttals to the comments that in my mind I am sure will be thrown out there, she said that sometimes when you have a conversation with another person in your head so many times, you can subconciously make the conversations happen even if they weren’t going in that direction to begin with.  Basically, if I go into this visit with negative thoughts then I will create a negative atmosphere.  I am going to listen to her and go into this visit with a positive attitude and forget that my mother has a condesending attitude.  I can only hope that I don’t have to say out loud what I’ve been thinking in my head, which is “Mom, those are your issues and I am old enough now that you cannot and willnot make them my issues.”

So, cross your fingers with me and we’ll hope that all goes well and this will be a happily memorable visit!

I really haven’t had much to say lately (suprising) so here is another little fun thing that will make you laugh.  Google “(your name) looks like” and get a good laugh!  Here are a few good ones for my name.  Don’t forget to use the quotes or it won’t work.  Pick the best ones and post em, so I can laugh at you! 

Amy looks like a bouncer at a drag bar.

Amy looks like she was hit by a train.

Amy looks like a Tesco checkout girl with a drinking problem.

 AHAHHAHA

I took the quiz and………

You Are a German Shepherd Puppy

Intelligent, quick witted, and a bit aggressive. You’ve got the jaw power to take a bite out of anyone you choose.

What breed of puppy are you??

http://www.blogthings.com/whatbreedofpuppyareyouquiz/

What are dreams?  Are they the door to our soul?  Are they a map of our humanity?  Everyone has different ideas about what dreams are and what they mean.  Based on my experience, I believe that dreams are a manifestation of our subconcious.  I remember my dreams quite often and they are usually pretty vivid.  Most of the time the meanings are obvious, though they don’t always make sense.  Sometimes dreams are manifestations of fears that I have on a subconcious level and it brings them to a concious level.  I have dreamt of people that have passed on where when I woke up, I felt a closure that I had not felt before. 

I had a dream the other night, actually it was a nightmare, that made me have to shower once I woke up.  Yep, it was that bad.  It was so bad that I can’t even regurgitate the details again.  For the last couple of days I have been trying to figure out what it means, and I am getting no where.  Maybe I’m trying too hard to understand that which can’t be understood.  If dreams are a manifestation of our subconcious, then this dream means that I have repressed some seriously disturbing memories.  If that is the case, then I am better off not knowing and I hope like hell that I don’t have a dream like that again! 

I firmly believe that everyone needs a best friend to experience life with.  I thank God everyday for bringing mine into my life.  My best friend Jeanine lives in Myrtle Beach and even though we are separated by many miles, she still has the ability to make me laugh like she is right here with me.  While I am sypathetic to her plight, I have to laugh at the directions that she chooses to take in life.  I admire her spunk and her faith that everything will work out……eventually.  In the contest of “who’s day is going worse” she usually takes the cake but explaining it leaves us both laughing.

Thanksgiving day comes to mind as one of those days where she wins the prize.  When I called her to wish her a happy day and tell her that mine was not starting out too good, she lifted my mood right up with her story.  She was on her way to Cape Hattaras for Thanksgiving and a fishing trip with her family.  When they got down to the bridge, they discovered that the Noreaster that passed through had washed out the roads and closed the bridge.  They had to sit in line for hours and hours and wait.  While I was eating turkey and stuffing, she was eating pringles and drinking gatorade between the periodic naps in the back of her truck.  At one point, while she was inside a store talking to someone, the console in her truck caught on fire from a cigarette that she had put out in a coffee cup that she thought was empty.  She put the fire out and hid the damage from her Dad, afraid he would see the idiot that he has for a daughter.  It was too late to eat when she finally got to her destination, so Thanksgiving was postponed for a day.  That was just day one, I can’t wait to hear about the actual fishing part.

I have been working on quitting smoking for 3 weeks and 2 days now and it has been the hardest thing that I have ever had to do in my life.  I wish that when I was sixteen and started smoking, someone older and wiser would have shared their infinite wisdom about the dangers of smoking with me; maybe I would have listened.  No, who am I kidding.  I was sixteen and didn’t listen to anybody.  The point is, if I knew then what I know now I would never have started smoking in the first place.  I mean c’mon, cigarettes KILL people. 

I started smoking when I was sixteen as a stress relief and yes, because I thought it made me cool.  Little did I know that I was actually losing friends because they associated smoking with other “bad influence” behaviors.  How cool is that?  Here I am 11 years later trying to quit the nastiest, dirtiest, filthiest, most expensive habit that I have ever picked up.  I thought I was cool then and now, I regret every minute of it.

I don’t have any children to pass my wisdom onto, but if I did I would make sure to tell them that it is alot easier to not try a cigarette to begin with then it is to quit later down the road.  I have yet to meet a person that says “quitting was easy”.  People who have quit 20 years ago, still say that they crave for a smoke every once in awhile.

No offense meant to smokers.  After everything I just wrote, I still want one!