To the news media

Clay Aiken is gay, really! COME ON!

I don't give a rat's ass about him whatsoever, so shut the hell up already!

At that age

I have arrived at the age along with other friends where our parents are aging and some better than others. I know of at least 4 people whose parents are not doing well, all of them are in and out of the hospital and another friend who just lost her dad.

My dad has suffered from depression for years and goes up and down, and by down, I mean down, in bed, not eating. He had a doctors appointment today and when the nurse took his vitals, she immediately took him to emergency where they put him in a bed and started hydrating him as he was severely dehydrated and his blood pressure was down to 45. He doesn't believe that his depression puts him in bed and unable (unwilling?) to eat. He thinks he has stomach problems, of which they NEVER find anything wrong.

In the last couple of weeks he had a CAT Scan, MRI and Endoscopic Ultrasound. They saw something on his pancreas and was told he had pancreatic cancer before they even did any biopsies. WTF? Guess what, all six biopsies came back cancer free. Yahoo. But who in their right mind would tell someone they were 99% sure he had pancreatic cancer BEFORE doing a biopsy? I'm no medical expert, but that just doesn't seem right. Anyway, no cancer. His depression needs new medication which he should be getting soon and I hope they find something that works. It's hard living so far away and not knowing what is going on so I can intervene and say, Hey, something is not working here people! I'll be going home to MI for a visit when my dad turns 73 and mom turns 70. So, I'll be checking up on him!

Tooth Fairy, Part Deux

The Princess lost her second tooth in 14 days. She now has two open spaces on her bottom front teeth. So cute! Of course, I was grossly unprepared as usual for this event. I decided I would give her a dollar for her first tooth and then add a dollar for each additional, so I needed two dollars, except I only had twenties...
I figured she wouldn't know or notice that it was a $20 and then I could switch it out later. First thing she says is, "The tooth fairy gave me a 20 dollar bill!" DAMN! I'll figure out a way to fix it and get back on track, you watch!

Birthday Blowout

Last Saturday (July 26) was supposed to be the birthday party for The Princess' 6th birthday, but it all fell completely apart by 11:30am on the day of. It started the day before when I got a call from the mother of girl one that she had an ear infection. That was one out of three kids. Saturday morning I got the call that girl two (whose house we were supposed to be going to for the second half of the party) had been throwing up all morning. That left my friend's son. The entire plan was to meet at Chuck E. Cheese at noon for pizza and fun and then go to girl two's house for swimming, cake and gifts. Now that we were down to one friend and only Chuck E. Cheese, I was not interested in spending the next few hours at Chuck E. Cheese. Without the swimming and being at a friend's house afterward it suddenly seemed very tedious. So, by the time I got a hold of my friend to tell her that it was just the three of us (my friend was just dropping her son off so it was the two kids and me) it was 11:30am. Her only reaction was, "but I have plans, what are you going to do now, maybe you should just cancel". I was a little upset to say the least and it's hard to explain the whole conversation here, but suffice it to say, The Princess and I had a fun time on her birthday, sans "friends".

Tooth Fairy

The Princess turned 6 on July 23 and lost her first tooth today. She is so excited about the tooth fairy. She commented that her tooth is really small, "will the tooth fairy be able to find it"? she asked. So cute. I know it's a little overdue, but I haven't figured out exactly what I want to do. And leave it to Thomas to tell her (without discussing with me) "That's $2!" I was thinking of going out and buying a bunch of $2 bills. She already has one that I can use for tonight that she doesn't even know she has. I'm such a cheater! You have to in order to stay sane!

To Eat or Not to Eat

Most of us would choose eat! Not the Princess. Dad picked her up today for their weekly trip to Chuck E. Cheese only to leave after 30 minutes to go to McDonald's because she didn't eat her lunch. When Dad called and told me that I said no way, she didn't eat her lunch, she doesn't get to eat McDonald's for dinner. So he took her home (she cried the whole way) and she ate chicken noodle soup, crackers with butter and now we're having a battle over an apple that she is only choking down because she wants the brownie in the end.

I am at my wits end with her and food. There is barely anything left that she wants in her lunch everyday and breakfast and dinner are not much better. My biggest fear is that she'll end up with some eating disorder over all the constant battles we have over food. She has already made comments about people being fat and how she doesn't ever want to be fat! She's not even six! They say that kids will eat when they are hungry. The problem is we didn't handle things well when she was younger and we are already paying the price. Whenever she gets hungry she always wants junk.
The other mistake we made was giving her choices for her meals instead of telling her what she would be eating like when we were kids. We were asking our parents what was for dinner, not the other way around. I tried holding off sweets and junk food for as long as I could, but lost the battle to my husband after awhile.

I know there are many people in the same boat as I am. I need to find an online group to be able to get ideas...

Impulse Buyer

I am the worst when it comes to impulse purchases, especially ANYTHING having to do with facial products and makeup. I've spent hundreds of dollars in the last year on products that I really didn't need or could afford. Someone was watching out for me the other day at Sephora. I went in to get two things, the Laura Mercier lipstick that I love (even though it's $20 for a small tube~I spent about $150 at Laura Mercier when we got our make-up done for my friend's wedding) and an eye shadow by Bare Minerals. I told the girl what I was looking for and she said, "oh sit down, I think you need an update for summer". Sixty dollars later (I turned down the "crease brush" for another $22), I was at the register, but oops, my wallet was in the car. So I offered to write a check, but I couldn't do that either because my I.D. was in my wallet and the cashier told me she would need to see it in order to accept the check. Phew, that was a narrow escape, but I didn't get what I actually needed either!

Two other major purchases in the last year:

1. Seacret: Supposedly all the products are made from some aspect of the Dead Sea. They were selling it at a kiosk at The Paseo. They get you first by showing you this nail buffer that makes your nails look like they are coated with glass, so shiny...and comes with cuticle oil and a body lotion, ONLY $20. Three hundred + later, I had a salt scrub, facial soap, mud mask, eye gel, blah, blah, blah. I told myself after spending all that money I was definitely going to use these products. RIGHT! I do, but no where near as often as I should for them to actually work. Oh, and I have never been able to make my nails as shiny with that buffer as the salesman did.

2. Lancome: I spent almost all of my $500 Nordstrom gift card at the Lancome counter. I got a complete makeover. I purposely picked this woman who looked around my age so she would have some kind of clue as to the issues we have with make-up at mid-40's. It was great, I loved what she did, but damn that shit is expensive. Plus I got schmoozed into buying two eye products that I didn't need because I have the one from Seacret that was expensive as hell and I have a ton left!

SUCKER!!!