So, without further ado – here is my list:

“MY TOP SIX YUMMIEST GUYS WHO I’D TOTALLY GET WITH IF I DIDN’T ALREADY HAVE THE MOST WONDERFUL HUSBAND IN THE WORLD”:

1. JOHN CUSACK

I don’t care if he is not the prettiest boy toy around, I love him.  He always holds the leading ladies face in his hands when he kisses them, he is usually ”The sweet guy”, his sister is hilarious, and he has beautiful brown eyes. I’d let him stand outside my window blaring Peter Gabriel any damn day.

2. GERARD BUTLER

This man knocks the lace right offa my panties. Holy moly. He is the most beautiful of all male specimens… and he is SCOTTISH. Not only will looking at him make your body liquify, but hearing him talk does too. Hot damn.

3. THOMAS JANE

I declare him to be the SECOND most beautiful of all male specimens. He is the definition of hunky. And he married a curvy, quirky blonde (Patricia Arquette) so that put him on the “Hot guy who marries REAL women list.”

4.  CHRIS KIRKPATRICK

Yes, he is the guy from NSYNC. Yes, he is the one with the reeeeally high voice. Yes, he is the one that used to have the awful pineapple looking hair.  Don’t you DARE make fun of me. He looks mucho better now, and he is the epitomy of my “type” with his brown eyes, dark hair, and thicker body. I think he is the cutest of all cutie patooties, and I love him. So bugger off.

5. JAMES GARNER CIRCA 1958-1965

James Garner was a beautiful man. Had I been around, or had I got to spend one day living vicariously through my beloved Doris Day, I would have kissed that mans face off. Yowza.

6. MICHAEL BUBLE

I love Michael Buble with my whole heart. I believe this man could sing ANYTHING and it would sound beautiful. He is very, very cute….but my true attraction to him is that voice.  Okay, so he is really sexy.

 And that is my list of 6… because I just had to be different and do 6 and not 10!

To start things off, I fixed my hair today the way I wanted it – and even though I found where a few strands had bled, and on the tips it looks a little pinkish – it still didn’t spoil it for me. My hair stood up, poofed up and I had a rockstar worthy coif going by the time I was done. So, I find a cute outfit, and I leave the house.

Then I speak to darling husband.. he offers to let me come by and get his Lexus demo and drive it for the day. Let me explain a bit here, I drive a 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan. It is dirty – inside and out. The outside hasn’t been washed since I don’t know when, and the inside is full of crumbs, wrappers, school papers, DVD’s and just your general crap from hauling kids around. Recently, my stupid automatic locks stopped working, and my driver’s side window also stopped working… I cannot go to Starbucks anymore because I am too embarrassed to go through the drive thru. Bastard minivan.

Anyway, on with the story - I went and picked up the Lexus, and spent my day speeding around town with my radio blaring feeling all hoity-toity. Driving a luxury car sure does give you a mighty attitude… I felt very special. I’m not a materialistic or shallow person at all.. it was a once in a lifetime experience, and I just thought I’d really do it up right. The PTA mom in disguise… the mutton dressed as lamb. It was fun while it lasted.

During said “speeding around town” I did some shopping. I went to Borders, and found the exact books I was looking for. I then went to Old Navy and found 2 pairs of jeans I loved… not just one, TWO! Then, feeling like I had the world on a string, I decided to blow into TJMaxx, where I found 2 fabulous shirts to go with my two new pairs of jeans. Kick ass!

My husband calls me. He tells me that he was listening to our local Top 40 station here in KC, and he won two tickets to go to see the KC Chiefs play the Raiders this Sunday! We bought two more tickets so the boys can go, and we are surprising them tonight with the tickets and the brand new Chiefs sweatshirts and hats that I bought on yet another shopping spree of the day, this time at Marshalls. (Where I also found one more fabulous shirt AND a Yankee Candle plug in that smells divine.)

I came home, put on one of the super cute new outfits and went with a neighbor of mine who is all in like Flynn with the PTA, and got to meet the big wigs in my son’s school district. I had a couple of suggestions for them, and a few ideas – and they liked them all! Victory is mine! 

I ended my super fabulous, Lexus sporting day with a trip to Super Target. I found many good deals on the clearance isles, and many good sales throughout the store – this always makes me happy. I even found the Pumpkin Ale I’ve been wanting to try… I don’t like beer – yes, I know, Irish/Swedish girls are SUPPOSED to like beer but I think it’s bleh – but this one sounds interesting enough to try. I’m still hoping one day I’ll find one I can stand to drink. I stocked up on many kinds of beer for my husband.. he likes beer enough for the both of us.

I reluctantly returned the Lexus to my husband, but not until I had gone through the Starbucks drive thru to finally partake of my beloved Venti Iced Pumpkin Spice Latte… because I could actually ROLL THE WINDOW DOWN.  Ahem.

So, as you can see, this was indeed a fan-friggin’-tastic day. I have cool hair, cool clothes, yumtastic food and beverages, NFL tickets, appreciation from the school district, and I got to pretend to be fancy for awhile.  I think this was a very, very good day.

Tomorrow I take Costco and Bath & Body Works by storm… look out!

I am a very fair lady – your typical Swedish and Irish mix – fair and freckled skin, blue eyes and blonde hair. I was also a tanning bed junkie in my teens, and even into my early twenties off and on. I am now paying for this, as I have many freckles and innocent moles that aren’t looking so innocent. I’ve had to have a couple removed in the past, but I was too young and too stupid to hear the wake up call…. I was more concerned with how much “better” I looked with a golden glow.

It wasn’t until about a year ago that I started getting really conscious of the fact that my skin is entirely too fair to be exposing it to sun and UV rays. I made a decision to embrace my paleness – to step out proudly as a porcelain doll amongst all the bronze goddesses. I am now a “No less that 45 SPF” kind of girl, and wear long sleeves if I am going to be working outside in the yard. I’d rather be pasty than be dead.

About a month ago I made an appointment to go see a dermatologist to be thoroughly examined. Today was my appointment. I am a slightly psychotic worrier, and I had worked myself up to expecting to walk in and be butchered with removals. 

So there I was, in my paper gown with only my boulder-holder and undies on, and in walks Dr. Cutie Patooty. (Side note: Why are the doctors who have got to examine every veiny, stretch marked, and cellulite covered inch of you usually good looking?!)  He turns on the this glaring overhead light and proceeds to examine every inch of yours truly. He finds two places that need to be removed immediately. One on my right shoulder near my collar bone, the other is on my right boob. That’s right folks, I had to whip out one of the girls and let Dr. Cutie Patooty take a scalpel to it.  I didn’t care so much… but it made me extra glad that Darling Husband couldn’t make it, because I imagine seeing needles and knives anywhere near his two favorite things would make him have a panic attack.

Anyway – they numbed both areas and he went to work with a scalpel. The one on the shoulder required no stitches, but the my poor boobala did.  And apparently quite a few, as it left a rather large hole.

So, I have a hole in my shoulder, and stitches in my boob… Why? Because I used to think being tan was so important. It isn’t - this makes the 4th removal I’ve had to have done.  Just so you are informed, here are some facts for you:

Facts about skin cancer:
According to the latest statistics available from the National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):

• Cancer of the skin is the most common of all cancers in the United States.

• More than 1 million cases of non-melanoma skin cancer are diagnosed in the US each year.

• Melanoma represents only 4 percent of all skin cancers in the US, but accounts for more than 75 percent of all skin cancer deaths.

• Although exposure to the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) rays is said to be the most important factor in the cause of skin cancers, about 70 percent of American adults do not use sun-protection measures.

• Most skin cancers appear after age 50, but skin damage from the sun begins at an early age. Therefore, protection should start in childhood to prevent skin cancer later in life.

In addition, consider the following statistics from the American Cancer Society and the American Academy of Dermatology:

• Both basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas have a 95 percent cure rate when detected and treated early.

• Melanoma incidence rates are 20 times higher for Caucasians than for African-Americans. However, people with dark-pigmented skin can also develop melanoma, particularly on the palms of the hands, on the soles of the feet, under the nails, and inside the mouth.

• Melanoma is more common than any non-skin cancer among women between 25 and 29 years old.

The point of this story:

Getting cut on and stitched up, and waiting for 2 weeks to find out whether or not that something that was just cut off of your body is CANCER, is not cool. Sure, you think you look hot with your summer tan… Will you look hot with scars from removals? Will you look hot with no hair, eyebrows, or eyelashes, puking your guts out from chemo? Will you look hot DEAD from skin cancer? Nope, didn’t think so. And even if you manage to escape skin cancer.. have you ever really looked up close at women who tan all the time – I have seen girls in their twenties that already have wrinkles around their eyes and mouth from sun damage. Do you want to look old and wrinkled before your time? Is that hot.. being “leather lady”?

So here is a personal message from me..

Stay out of the tanning beds, do not be laying out in the sun to get a tan, wear no less than 30 SPF sunscreen, and cover up if you are going to be outside for awhile… or I will personally come slice open YOUR boob just for being  dumb!

The cashier at Wal-Mart today didn’t take to me very well, as a matter of fact – I’m pretty sure she was cursing the moment I decided to come to her line.

First thing I did to ruin the cashier/customer experience was hand her my brand spankin’ new, big ass canvas bag to put my groceries in.  I’m ATTEMPTING to go green. I’m more of a poser really. They had this large and very cute bag for $5 at Bath & Body Works when I went there this morning to stock up on fabulous soap. I did, however, buy the bag specifically for grocery shopping, so kudos to me.  Anyway, as I was saying – I handed her my canvas bag. She raised her eyebrow at me and said “Oookay.”  I’m pretty sure that qualified as a scoff.

So, she starts loading my bag, and with every “BEEP!” of the scanner, she sighs as she leans down to put something in the bag. This happens about five times until I finally say “Is the bag being a pain?”.. she replies “YES! I HATE these bags, they’re stupid and you can’t fill them up as easily as the plastic ones.”  I’m pretty sure if she wouldn’t have been afraid of them walking over and pulling her gold star right off of her name tag, she would have told me flat out how much I sucked for being Earth friendly.

As she is ringing up items, something strikes me as funny…. half of what I had bought was items that are “Live Active”, the ones that help promote regularity. Not that I owe anyone an explanation, but both me and my little boy have IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome), so I’d like to hug the geniuses that have come up with Live Active products. They even make CHEESE!  I always load my groceries in order, so all of my “poopy products” were clustered there together. Ms. Cashy McCashierton raised her eyebrow at me again. After the last of those particular items were scanned she let out a “Hmmp!” Apparently my constipation offends her.  I think maybe SHE was constipated.  She finished up, I paid, and I walked out with my big ass canvas bag full of goodies, leaving a cashier disgruntled in my wake. My work there was done.

**Originally posted to Seriouslydessie on July 25th

I have decided to try and pull myself up out of the funk. Even if it means ignoring all the bad things going on around me right now, and focusing on what I DO have, and what makes me happy.  The last week has taken a toll on me, and I had sunk pretty low… but I have made a decision to reclaim my positive attitude and press on.  If we don’t have hope, what do we have?

I have decided to include my Top 10 Happy Thoughts for today….

1. I’m alive.

2. I have a wonderful, loving, affectionate, caring, supportive, attentive, devoted and adoring husband, whom I love with every fiber of my being.

3. I have a beautiful, smart, funny, and loving little boy who brings sunshine into my life every single day.

4. We have a beautiful home, in a nice neighborhood, in the place I’ve always wanted to live.

5. We have plenty of food to eat – including ice cream in the freezer!

6. We have enough movies in this house, that there could be a days-long, chocolate-binging, giggle-inducing, girly romantic comedy movie fest taking place anytime I feel like it.  Bring on Serendipity, The Wedding Date, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, The Holiday, Love Actually…. sigh…. and lots of chocolate!

7. I just found out today that our state is one in 12 that participates in a tax-exempt day/days, for school clothes and supplies shopping. Seriously, how awesome is that?! NO TAXES TO GO BUY SCHOOL STUFF!

8. I can listen to Michael Buble any time I want to. Mmhmm.

9. We are already into the end of July… Fall will be here before I know it – Oh bliss! My FAVORITE time of year!

10. I have wonderful friends who have made it a point to ask how I’m doing and offer an ear to vent to, and a shoulder to cry on while things have been tough lately.  I am so grateful for you girlies – I love ya!

I would like to hunt down the (rich) sociopath that came up with idea behind places like Chuck-E-Cheese, Power Play, Playworld… you know, the places where you pay eleventy thousand dollars for 20 coins/points, and some cardboard pizza?  I mean, seriously,  is their corporate slogan “Let those little snots laugh all they want while they’re playing Ski-ball.. but when they find out a Twizzler costs them 30,000 tickets… MUH-AH-AH! No more laughing, but too late, your mommy and daddy just spent half your college fund to bring you here”??  Okay, so that is pretty long for a slogan, but still, you get my point.

We attended my niece’s birthday party today, and it was held at Power Play.  Don’t get me wrong, they are pretty cool. They even had a freaking Tilt-a-Whirl carnival ride RIGHT THERE!  My son, 6 1/2, was trying to win all the tickets he could… with help from me, my mom, and from my dad as well. (“Ever Elusive Dream Guy” husband was at work, as always.. therefore, not in attendance.)  Still, we managed to fill up my purse with pink tickets, and when we decided to call it a day, we proudly marched to the “Ticket Eater” machine to feed to it the pink morsels of victory and claim prizes in the shop.  This was, as they say, when things started to go terribly, terribly wrong….

The machine was a thing of horror.  Only Satan himself could have devised this one.  As you are feeding this thing tickets, this ANNOYING, high pitched little voice SCREAMS “THAT’S NOT ENOUGH TICKETS, FEED ME! FEED ME!”.. “I WANT MORE TICKETS, GIVE ME MORE TICKETS!”..”WHY ARE YOU SO SLOW? FEEEEEEEEEDDDD MEEEEEEE!!!!”  I stopped at one point and looked up at my son and my dad, both staring at this demonic monstrosity with a look of horror.. and I say to my son, “I think Mr. Machine needs a time-out for being so demanding!”  To which he replies “Mom, you can’t put a ticket machine in time out… but you can, maybe, hit it or something!”  Score one for kiddo.

We won over 300 tickets, and I think to myself – “Okay, these places always rip you off, but maybe he can at least get something semi-cool… not uber-cool, but still.”  Yeah, not so much. A freaking pencil topper the size of a piece of popcorn was 60 tickets!  WTF?!  Are you serious?  A stuffed animal, that was exactly the size of a cell phone was 800 tickets!  My poor son looked all over that little “store” (see, SHOP OF CRUSHING CHILDREN’S SPIRITS in the Yellow pages) 4 times, before finally looking at me with a look of pure defeat. We then decided that we would save our receipt, and come back for more “fun” some other time. This time, with the “Ever Elusive Dream Guy” husband in tow… that man can PLAY some Ski-Ball!

My point is this, these folks are already making a killing off of what they are charging for coins/points, cardboard pizza, and soft drinks, why the ridiculous mark up on prizes?  At Power Play, you can get up to the register and buy more tickets at $5.00 per 100 tickets… so that means that if the aforementioned cell phone size stuffed animal was 800 tickets, then if you were to BUY it, it would be $40??  Is this a joke?

So, in short, we got ripped off today. By a place that is for kids…

That is seriously wrong.

I do not care to read anymore about how drunk or stoned she is. I do not care to read anymore about how she beat someones garage door in and then walked around with bloody fists and was seen then licking her hands.. which does make me wonder further if she is some sort of vampire, or if she just merely believes that going out in public looking like the Bride of Frankenstein means she should drink blood… but I digress.  My point is, I do not care. 

 Please, for the love ‘a Pete, stop clogging up my homepage with stories and photos about the same bullshit over and over again.  We’ve gone way past redundancy and now it is just pissing me off. Leave her drunk, bi-polar, cracked out bony ass in an alley somewhere.  Just make sure you leave her with a bottle of vodka, a crack pipe, some gauze for her bloody hands, and a couple of tubes of black eyeliner, and a free week pass to a local rehab. (even though she’ll say “Nooo nooo nooo”.)  Oh, and some food for the small vermin living inside of her bee-hive.

I gave up walking.  No, I’m not being lazy,  I just can’t do it. Stupid fibromyalgia.  I had been forewarned by my fibro doctor in Arkansas that walking is just NOT a good thing for people with fibro, but I am very hard headed and I don’t give up easily, so I have constantly ignored him and told myself to just do it.  The more I walked (I made it out 4 times) the clearer it became that this was not “out of shape” pain, this was “your muscles and joints cannot take this strain” pain. 

So, I decided to take a different route.  I have taken old doctors advice and taken up yoga and pilates.  Water aerobics was another one he recommended, but I don’t have a pool, and I don’t dare go out in public with a bathing suit on..so that one is out.  I am doing this every day because it is such a low-strain form of exercise that I can actually stand to do it every day.  The object here is to tone, because I am naturally quite stocky and muscular, so I bulk up easily. Don’t get me wrong, this workout gets the heart rate going strong, breaks a really good sweat, and best of all – my butt, legs and arms are feeling strong again.  AND I don’t feel like I am going to die during and after.. which is great.  

I also made another decision – I am going to take up bike riding.  NO, not the Lance Armstrong kind – the low-key, yet still good exercise kind.  Heber and I have already started looking at bikes, he says he wouldn’t mind taking up the hobby along with me. So in other words, we are going to be the uber-cute couple meandering along on our matching bicycles….. sweating profusely and probably from behind looking like our butts are trying to eat the bike seat.. okay, never mind. But still, I’m very excited!

So, that is all for now.  I really actually don’t care if I lose a TON of weight and wear a size 10.. If I can just tone up what I’ve got and slim down, then even staying in a 14 won’t bother me – I’ll just look better in them!  It’s time for us girls to stop being so fricking hard on ourselves. Just be healthy.

They are always hunting for food. We were always amused by the way they would use their little buck teeth and scrape between the cracks in the deck, looking for anything edible that might have fallen from the trees.  Austin kept asking me to put some bread out for them and I decided I would be fancy and put some flavored Snack mix out there. Pub Mix to be exact – any of you who shop at Sam’s Club may know what that is, it’s awesome stuff – pretzels, little cheese flavored sticks, seasoned rye crisps, rice crackers..  but I digress…

We waited awhile, and sure enough, here comes one of our little furry friends.  Austin and I were both plastered against the window, excited that the squirrel was about to partake of our sacred offering of Pub Mix… I don’t know what we were expecting, maybe that the little critter would get himself a bite of a delicious seasoned pretzel and its little eyes would close and it would proceed to do a happy little pee-pee dance of culinary bliss and then go get on one of the high posts of the deck and chirp out to its little friends in squirrel speak “Hey fellas! You gotta come try this stuff, it’s delicious, these people ROCK!”  But we were definitely NOT expecting what happened next…

As I said the squirrel finally got to the little pile, and as Austin and I watched with eyes wide, the squirrel sniffs the food and literally, its little head JERKED back, it turned on it’s little squirrel heel and scurried off to the other side of the deck and went back to scraping the deck cracks.  I seriously felt like that squirrel had just given me the finger. Like it looked at me with a look of pure disgust and said “Hey you, lady with your face smushed up against the window! Was this your idea? You think this is a real treat for me? What the %$& is this crap anyway? Your deck cracks taste better than this trash! Pub Mix indeed!”

To make matters worse, my 6 year old was disgusted with me as well. He looks at me and says “MOM! I told you to put bread out there! That squirrel thinks the snack mix STINKS!!”  He then stomped upstairs in his little Scooby Doo pajamas, embarrassed by his dork of a mother and her inability to properly treat small rodents.

I pondered it for awhile, and decided that I am still not going to stoop to just plain old bread.. I put some Honey Nut Cheerios out there. Let’s see what the pompous squirrels have to say about that.  If they don’t like Honey Nut Cheerios, I will be convinced that there is lead paint down in the cracks of my deck, causing the squirrels to be completely insane. 

So, just for future reference - squirrels don’t care for snack mix..but they do say “YES” to crack… deck cracks that is.