Diary Of An Insomniac

11:30pm: Climb into bed and even though I'm incredibly tired I lay there and stare at the ceiling.

12:01am: I swear at this point I can hear a Mourning Dove just outside my window...I realize it's just the Detective breathing through is nose as he slumbers. Elbow Detective to try and shut him up. He grunts and rolls over. I continue to stare at the ceiling.

2:30am: I look at the clock and realize that I got a bit of sleep...I think. Feeling proud, I close my eyes and...nothing. I'm awake again.

2:45am: SLEEPSLEEPSLEEPSLEEPSLEEPSLEEP...the chant running through my head. Toss, turn...my arm goes numb...I move that and realize that my legs have been moving so much that I might as well be running laps laying down. The Detective starts snoring...loudly as if to mock my inability to fall asleep...I kick him. Hard. He snores louder.

3:30am: OH MY GOSH I HAVE TO WORK IN THE MORNING. GO TO SLEEP! Ponder what needs to be done at work...think about blog subjects...immediately forget everything that I was thinking about because I'm delirious from lack of sleep.

6:30am: I must have blacked out for a while. The sun is coming up. I stand up and go to the bathroom. I look at my reflection in the mirror and realize that I could pack my entire wardrobe in the bags under my eyes. Sexy.

7:00am: Alarm. Snooze.

7:10am: Alarm. Snooze.

7:20am: Alarm. Snooze.

7:30am: The Detective gets up, gets ready for work. As he's leaving he says to me: "Make sure you wake up for the next alarm!" Consider locking him a room with an angry weasel. Grin evilly.

9:00am: Arrive at work. Co-worker says: "You look tired!" Picture co-worker falling into a hole.

If I don't get some sleep soon I'm probably going to end up in jail.

I Can Now Officially Say: "When I Was Your Age..." And Be Completely Serious

My stepdaughter just graduated from high school. It's funny to see the look on people's faces when we let it slide that she's my biological daughter. I'm a little more than 8 years younger than her father so I would have had to be velly, velly young to have actually birthed her.

They look at me with slight revulsion that practically screams: "You must have been a real skank as a kid."

Then they look at her with an expression of something like sympathy, because of her trampy "mom",

Good times. *smirk*

It's better than the multiple times people have mistaken me for their nanny but that can wait for another time. You don't think I'm serious but I am. My family, including my actual biological daughter are all very light and blond and I am not light nor blond at all. I guess when I eventually snap and run screaming: "Who are these kids and why are they calling me mom?!?!"...then people will actually believe me. BONUS!

So, this leads me to the oldest woman-child that is living under my roof.

SHE. GRADUATED. HIGH SCHOOL.

She is beautiful and driven and amazing. I met her for the very first time when she was 7 years old. She was beautiful and driven and amazing then, too. I have witnessed her go through the stages that we all go through as we grow and adjust.

She tested me as a young child when she was torn in between being loyal to her mother and loving me...she didn't grasp back then that she could love both of us. She grew into a feisty teenager that at times made me want to rip my hair out as she stomped up the stairs and slammed her door to her room. She brought tears of joy to my eyes as I watched that same young woman walk across a stage not 2 weeks ago and accept her high school diploma. I continue to watch her test her wings on a daily basis. I adore this girl. She makes me laugh and think and pray every single day.

She is going to give this world a run for it's money and I love it.

I also love the fact that I can look at her and say: "When I was your age..." and I see the same expression in her eyes that I gave my mom so many years ago.

Thank you for sharing your love with me, Nicole. Always remember who you are.

You Love Me! You REALLY Love Me!

Thank you, April, from A Writer's Ramblings for the award! 

Thanks also to Tabitha from Tales of a Tubby Tabby!

Now, here's the fine print yada, yada, yada....

1. Thank and link back to the person who gave you this award.

2. Share 7 things about yourself.

3. Pass the award along to 15 bloggers who you have recently discovered and who you think are fantastic  for whatever reason! (In no particular order...)

4. Contact the bloggers you've picked and let them know about the award.

It's on like donkey kong! Here are 7 things about me that you may or may not wish to know.

1. I'm obsessed with books. If books were people then they would get a protection order against me, I swear.

2. My favorite ice cream is Superman...I don't even know what flavor it is. I think that if heaven was flavored then it would be Superman flavor.

3. I have 2 pet rats; Chunk and Dale. Why not Chip and Dale, you ask? Because my 7 year old named them and she didn't think 'Chip' flowed well. Que sera.

4. I was 2 weeks overdue with my daughter. I thought she was going to walk out of my womb she was in there so long.

5. I hate go-carting. If I wanted to strap myself onto a sweat scented sheet of metal with wheels and drive around in circles then I'd call a cab and let someone else do the driving at least.

6. My all time favorite movie is Tommy Boy and I'm able to quote it in it's entirety. No matter how many times I see it, I laugh until I cry. Since having my daughter 7 years ago, sometimes I pee a little too.

7. I told you that you may or may NOT want to know these things. Don't say you weren't warned...

I bestow this humble award to the following Lords and Ladies:

This Complicated Life

Sarah Cunningham

The Meanest Mom

Vodka Mom

I Hate So Much...

More Is Better

Swan White Curtain

Strength of a Rose

Carolyn...Online

Life Just Keeps Getting Weirder

I'm Not Benny

Classy Chaos

Scary Mommy

Undomestic Diva

Smacksy

The Beginning of the End

I haven't updated about my HCG journey lately and I'm almost DONE. I started off thinking that I'd do this for 20 days or so and I ended up doing 40. I cheated here and there so I probably could have lost more and as of late I feel myself being sucked into the whole "I want to eat like a normal person again or I'm going to cook my children and devour them" mode. Get my drift?

That being said, I did pretty darn good. I lost, as of today, 17 pounds and I'm trying to squeak out another 4-5 pounds before this week ends and I'm finished with this round. I'll then take 6 weeks off to recover and exercise and then I'll do another round...probably 20 days. At that point I should be so stinking hot that Heidi Klum will be jealous. *wink*

I'm glad that I decided to take my chances on this diet. I'm so happy with the results. Even though I wanted to kill and eat my family several times during this...it was all worth it. I have been wearing shorts this summer. SHORTS. I haven't worn shorts in about oh, 2 or 3 years. I do need a tan though.

Desperately.

I'm positively day-glo.

I also found some confidence that I had lost right around the time I gained all that extra weight. People have been commenting that I look better and asking if I've lost weight. That's always helpful but I'm glad that I'll be taking a break to focus on maintaining the weight loss and building some muscle.

You'll have to excuse me while I go tell my family that it's ok to come out of the panic room now...I'll be eating normally in just a few days...

No, That's Just Wrong

I love chocolate just as much...if not MORE...than the next person.

But this?

This is just gross.

Conversations

Me: What’s up? How’s your spider man band aid holding up?

Tab: fine. I fell a week ago and scraped up my ankle. I was using normal band aids, but I upgraded to Spider man last night!

Me: Was it a random fall or a purposeful fall?

Tab: wtf PURPOSEFUL FALL? Who does that? I was wearing flip flops the day after it rained and fell down some stairs that had water on them because I'm slightly stupid.

Me: DIDN’T YOU READ THE ARTICLE I SENT EVERYONE ABOUT HOW FLIP FLOPS ARE GOING TO KILL US ALL?!?

Here: Killer Flip Flops

I don’t know, I guess you could purposely fall if there was an explosion and you were trying to save someone from falling debris by throwing yourself on top of them. Was there an explosion of some sort? What? Don’t judge me.

Tab: *silence*

Has Anyone Else Ever Felt This Way?

The Cabinets Will Give Me a Nervous Breakdown~Natalie Dee

Lucky

Tornado's ripped through the corner of the world that most of my family and friends live in early Sunday morning. I spent most of late Saturday night through early Sunday morning in my basement with my husband, children, and pets watching the local news channel and praying that a funnel cloud would not touch down in our area. Watching the weather radar flash across the television screen was an eerie reminder of how fragile day to day life can be.

Around 2:00 in the morning, the news station declared that the danger had passed by our area and we went back upstairs and fell into a fitful sleep.

The next morning, we woke up to the news that the city of Dundee, Michigan, which is just south of us, had been devastated by a tornado. It tore through the small area ripping off roofs and tearing trees up by the roots like they were nothing but bits of paper. The government has declared the area in a state of emergency.

My parents, sister, nephew, and several close friends live just minutes away from Dundee. The small farming community where I grew up...just miles from the damage.

The tornado's also hit an area in Ohio that was very near the area that many of my other family and friends live. It was like the storms were playing hopscotch with these communities. Images like this haunt the news:

Dundee, Michigan McDonald's sign

Dundee, Michigan home damage

My heart and soul ache for those that have been impacted by these storms. When things happen like this, it makes everything else seem very trivial. I watched video of some of the damage and the entire time my stomach was in knots.

If there is one thing that I know, these towns will come back stronger than ever. Why do I know this? Because I grew up in a town just like the ones that were hit by these storms. They have heart and guts. They don't ever give up hope. They will pull themselves up by the bootstraps, do what needs to be done, and go on. That's just the way it is in a small town.

"Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.”~Thich Nhat Hanh

The Bok Choy Is Going To Kill Me

No, I'm not speaking in code.

The bok choy is LITERALLY going to kill me if I ever eat it again.

As it turns out, I may have an allergy to bok choy.

What is bok choy, you ask? It's Chinese cabbage and it's pretty yummy. I bought some for the first time yesterday and I decided to add it to a soup I was making. I nibbled a bit on it then. Not an hour later I was clawing and scratching at my skin...covered in hives. My arms, legs, back, and neck looked like Freddy Kruger had just given me an all over exfoliation with his razor fingernails.

At the time, I made no connection to the itchiness and the bok choy. Today, I ate the soup with the bok choy in it and my skin is crawling with burning itch. Attractive, no?

Apparently, bok choy is toxic to humans in large quantities which makes me think that some people may have a sensitivity to it even in small quantities. Like maybe, ME. How completely random is that? It's CABBAGE for pete's sake!

Bok choy = EVIL.

"I Don't Understand A Word You Jist Said..."

This is the regal Liger...bred for it's skills in magic.

I love learning new things. Now, what I mean by that is I enjoy soaking up useless and trivial information so that I can spew it back at the unsuspecting people that I call my friends. I'm not all that interested in every minute detail when it comes to politics or global warming or who's posturing for what position on a sports team...I like to walk on the less obvious and more eccentric side of things during my quest of knowledge.

Did you know that:

• Your body is creating and killing 15 million red blood cells per second? Intelllesting...

• The king of hearts is the only king without a moustache on a standard playing card? You can go look...I'll wait here.

• The names of Popeye's four nephews are Pipeye, Peepeye, Pupeye, and Poopeye? Poor Poopeye. *giggle*

• It's illegal to drink beer out of a bucket while you're sitting on a curb in St. Louis? Note to self: Leave beer bucket at home if traveling to St. Louis...

Some people would say that this is useless knowledge. I say that this is cutting edge conversation material. 

This brings me back to the reason that I started writing this post. I ask questions, I ask a lot of questions. I am not the type of person to sit quietly in the middle of a conversation while someone goes on and on about something I have no clue how to pronounce while I nod my head and smile politely. If I don't get what you're talking about, I'm going to ask you about it until I do. Aren't you lucky?!?

When I was younger, I used to keep my trap shut and my head 'a noddin' in situations like that. I was embarrassed that I wasn't as "worldly" as the person talking seemed to be. I mellowed in that sense as I got older...I haven't mellowed in many other areas as I aged...Can you say Chihuahua on acid with an extra shot of espresso? *waving wildly* THAT'S ME!

Asking questions makes you sound smart.

I am all about sounding smart, people. So, you'll have to excuse me if I yawn through the debate about which renewable source of energy is better: Windmill or Waterwheel?

However, I will perk up to ask you exactly how many legs does the Giant Millipede Spider Bat from Guatemala have; just in case I need material for my next BBQ with the neighbors.

Hello, My Name Is: Eeyore

There are days like to day where I don't want to laugh or enjoy the sun or daydream. I want to hide inside myself and hope that my heart stops hurting. I should be thankful for my life, what I have, my health, and my job...I am thankful most days. Today is one of those days where I want to retreat from the world and just go numb. I question my self-worth to myself and to those around me. I question why I even bother to try at times.

So, I'm sorry if you came here to read my blog for some humor. It's a very bad no good day for me. If you want a laugh then I recommend you go here or here. Those links go to 2 of my very favorite, very funny blog sites.  One of those links goes to a post about a chicken foot. Yes, you read that right.

You can't beat a post about a chicken foot. It's just plain funny.

In the meantime, I will try to kick the black mood I'm in to the curb and come back with more of the familiar sarcastic and self-deprecating humor that you all (Mom?) are familiar with.