Southern girl plowing her way through life making the rules up as she goes. Warning: likes to bake, curse, quote movies/literature, is tattooed, married to The Man and mother of two girls. We bring new meaning to the "griswald way of life". Come along for the ride!



Life is My Highway

Montana and North Dakota have become home.... dang it lol.

These Girls

Lord help me but these babies wear me out.... they are just perfect!

Superheroes

Yes, it's from last winter but I adore this shot...so us....

Duchess

This kid glows from the inside out... my almost 11 year old!

We are so smexy!

Favorite sport: embarrassing our kids in public

Princess

My mini-me is finding her own way in life

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Band Names

Living in San Diego for a long time, Dave and I became huge fans of the morning talkshow Dave, Shelly and Chainsaw. One of their catchphrases was "that's the name of my new band" anytime there was a funny weird phrase. Dave and I have at least one of these moments a month when one of us will say it.

I've decided to keep a running list.... so on boring nights we can run through them and laugh at the memories of those conversations. Frankly, also because Dave and I share a sense of humor that most don't.... but we don't judge y'all.

So without further ado:
1. Pop and Fresh Poodle Fat

(short version: little Murphy has a crush on this black poodle that gets walked by our house each night. She's an extremely fat little poodle that is STUFFED into her little walking harness by her folks.... girlfriend has junk in the trunk! lol)

*** Side note: reminding myself each night to start each day with a thank to you the Lord for my time with my entire family together. Will figure out how to make this place home! Although in conversation today, referred to Texas as home, that went over like a fart in church.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Staying busy, not smoking

Fighting the blahs

Derailed, Damn

So I didn't get my comfort food. What I did get was a laughing waitress as soon as I walked into the only place in town to eat, the Mexican food place. Seems I am there ALOT, lol. Anyway, the sink decided to die. The plumber came just in time for dinner. Damnit. Sooooo I have a new facet set up and those sweet steaks will continue to marinade until dinner tomorrow. Yummy! Those are gonna be some tender shicken fried steaks.

However, I think I will attempt some homemade by hand bread tomorrow too. Stick around, I should gain at least 14 more lbs this week. (okay, smartass aside, I'm down 2 lbs. Woohoo!)

Now, I have to go have a glass of wine while working on lesson plans for the rest of the week.

Laters, Baby

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Comfort Food

Ignore the fact that I've gained weight......... I am cooking. Cause it makes me happy. I also have music blaring.... cause it makes me happy.

And chicken fried steak... obviously makes everyone happy.

I'm playing around so I threw some milk, egg, worchesester (sp duh) sauce, garlic, cracked pepper and a dash of mommas secret cajun seasoning into a big ole bowl.... whipped it into a frenzy. Then dropped some pounded within an inch of their life cubed steaks. Stuck in fridge.

Plan is to simply dreg them through some GF flour and fry swiftly for dinner.

There will be gravy. I have three different GF recipes to try, I'm trying all three tonight.

I need comfort food to drag my fat ass from my blahs.

Which is why I'm heading out now to go bike riding with my kids. Gonna burn them calories now, in preparation for dinner. :)

Challenge

I think I'm not so much in love with this town. Cause 'dear diary', I will be honest and say that for whatever reason.... (cough-could be the quit smoking part honestly-cough) . Okay I'm miserable. The kids are happy cause we see daddy every night. I'm happy about that too, just the rest....... BLAH. And without my ciggies, well I kinda wanta say kiss my ass and hide out in my bed all day.

But I'm not.

I'm gonna take my babies out and keep myself busy chasing after them. We hit the pool tonight, I sat by and watched them play together while studying. This week we start karate and next week is tennis camp. Hopefully they will make some friends and settle in for the time being.

Me?

I'm gonna keep texting my friends and try not to go "radio silent" .... I usually do that when I'm miserable. So heads up...... I'm honest.

Oh and I'm still not losing the weight I've gained from quitting smoking.

That sucks ass.

I'm all suzy sunshine tonight huh?

I need a glass of cheap as shit fruity wine.

Laters baby. (yeah, I totally read that book)

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Supporting the Dave

Now that he's the boss, he has chances to do more community involvement. So we were recently in the local parade, riding the pilot trucks on either side of a huuuuuge crane. It was fun watching Dave in his business hat! Smexy, too.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Watch This....

So what do you have once you have unpacked your house......all the boxes are put into the scary ass grisley body-hiding basement (really, what is it with these people and their creepy ass basements) and the schedule we are currently on is getting a little boring. You can only sleep till noon so often before you get bored.

So between journalling, homeschooling some math, and watching HGTV, the kids and I need some activities. So I set out to see what I can get my girls involved in... since there is literally no work options here for me except house wife, mother and occasional love slave (I bet my mother just spewed food all over her screen on that one, lmao, sorry mom..... I couldn't resist, been reading 50 shades). And there is the fact that I'm really spoiled and Dave likes me not working.......so there you have it.

So tonight Dave took Prin to check out the Taekwondo place in town. The master is a chick and she is badass, so heck yeah Princess wasted NO time signing up for a twice week class for the summer.

Now Duchess is pissed cause she was the one orginally wanting to take... but she'll have to wait for a new class to form in Septemeber. :( Until then, I'm looking for something I can get her into....

And apparently I need to join the little city club cause I'm signing this kid up for gymnastics including a seperate tumbling class. Both kids will work through tennis camps in July. AND there is a beautiful pool where I can work out in their gym and watch the kids in the pool through the windows. Score........

Now, if all this activity doesn't help me drop this efffing 10 lbs I've packed on by not smoking, then I'm buying a pack. I have till the end of summer to be back down to normal size. Or I'm kicking my own ass.

Now I'm leaving to go for a walk, with my husband. Cause we can't have talks about kids stuff like this without kid input unless we leave the house. Damn super kid hearing. Ease droppers.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Chillin in Montana

Somebody send me some yarn, I'm gonna take up knittin

Sunday, June 17, 2012

My Ass is on Notice!

This is my keeping this life of mine real post: I have gained 12 lbs in the month since I quit smoking. Yeah, you read that right. 12 murtha effing lbs........

Since smoking ain't a weight-maintenance option: here we go.

I'm back in the saddle baby.

I just did my mile on the treadmill. It took effffffffing FOREVER to do too. My knees are stiff, my new running shoes rubbed a little on the backs of my ankles cause my socks are too short. And I have serious gas from dinner so it was a little uncomfortable, but I did it.

My new goal: 1 mile in the morning and 1 mile in the evenings for the next two weeks. 5 days a week.

Then we'll start on the real running goals.

Followed up with my arm weights: time to get my arms back in hawt order.

After two weeks, I'll start back on the crunches and really sucky parts of this crap.

Time to take back control and stop being a whiny bitch cause I made the choice to give up my crutch.

Damn I miss that crutch.

Yuummmmy yummy crutch.

Balls!

Fathers Day....

I smell gunpowder, that's just hawt

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Interesting Day

So I know I am behind on here, but amusing note from my day. It was a rainy day, so the girls and I did our errands in the morning and then took a big ole nap. We woke up and started moving boxes into the basement when I heard the roar of the familiar truck. Dave was home like 3 hours early. He was a Friday work bandit. So in the pouring rain, the two of us escaped the kids to run up to the store to order the girlies their dressers and bookshelves. Then it was off to pick up his Father's Day gift.

Can you guess what it is?

A gun you say?

How did you know? Yeah, so we went to the little gun shop in town where he got the gun he's been drooling over for some time for almost 100 bucks less than we can find it anywhere else.

It might have been me. :) Cheesy grin!

See, I was giving him the usual amount of poop and sass while he was trying to talk me into a new gun too. I like my guns thank you. So, NO. And finally when we rang out, I noticed a huge discount on the gun and ammo. The old guy running the place tells us to please come back. We apparently amused the hell out of him.

So if we managed that while I was in greasy hair, had three zits on my chin, no makeup and sorta in pjs, I can't wait till our next visit. I might make some kind of effort.

Might.

But my man is happy.

And clutching a new handgun. Bless his heart.

(And as I type this, he is moving all those boxes into the basement HAPPILY. I'm gonna milk this new gun for a weekend worth of work baby, yeah!)

Thursday, June 14, 2012

The Mule Deer Factor

Man, I can move. I can also having an entertaining and unexpected move. This one was both. First off, considering that our last set of packer/movers damn near ruined everything I owned we decided to pack and move ourselves. It went well. Dave came home one weekend, and helped me packed most of what we own room-by-room then I wrapped all the furniture in shrink wrap. Boom, it wasnt' too bad. I had some help with the final push and cleaning (thanks Momma).

So move morning came, Dave had flew in the night before to drive the uhaul and I was driving my truck behind. We are so blessed as we go to church with the defensive line coach for the local university so I had some d-line boys loading my uhaul. Started at 9m finished at 1 and you could not have added a cracker to that bad boy. :) It was impressive. We did checkout with the realtor and turned over the keys to the next tenant and off we went.

What should have been a straight through drive didn't turn out so straight through. See the further north and east we got, the more daylight we had. So it was twilight at about 940 when out of nowhere in the middle of nowhere western Montana that a big ole purty mule deer died on the front of Dave's uhaul. He, Murphy and Duchess was tooling along in front of me and Princess when it happened. It was raining also. We both pulled over. He to check the uhaul and me to check the deer. It was dead. Which was good because nothing good comes from me standing in the rain on the side of a narrow Montana road holding a handgun.

The poor Uhaul? Spewing fluids and a busted up front. So he called Uhaul and we both took a minute to thank God that we had purchased insurance for the uhaul. They told us to try and drive it to the nearest town. Well when that didn't work. They told us to find a hotel for the night cause it would be morning before they could send a tow truck and mechanic our way. So we found two Bates motels that the kids and I voted to sleep in the truck before stepping foot in the door. Then we found a Super 8 that was kinda decent in a "sleep with your clothes on and above the covers and don't think about showering" kind of way.

We woke up to a call letting us know that even though we'd left the hazzards on and the little hazzard signs out, the state troopers had towed my effffing uhaul. Cause it was broke down dead in the middle of the lane and it was "heavy farm equipment season and they need that lane". Ooooookay. Well by this point, Uhaul regional pressy was our handler so they bailed out the truck and got us to a mechanic. Luckily we had my truck to run around and site see western Montana some while waiting for the truck to be repaired. One radiator and one tranny cooler later, we were on the road at 6:30pm. Yeah, three hours later we pulled it over again cause we were just exhausted. Got some good sleep and then drove in to the new Griswald hometown the next day around noon.

The Montana adventures have started with a bang. Pics to come soon. ;) I'm unpacking!

Saturday, June 9, 2012

Move in progress...

Currently somewhere between the old house and the new house. Uhaul is in for repair, we hit a mule deer. We r sight seeing to occupy our time.... Say it with me.... Griswalds

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Still Kicking

I'm back from Yellowstone and I'm exhausted. However, I have two days before MOVE day so I have to get busy finalizing this house. :) Except, tomorrow I have plans. I have to get my ass back on that river. Conquering fears over here. That and frankly I'm turning into an adventure junkie! Don't tell my husband!

So soon I'll have Yellowstone pics and family fun updates, okay... those will come tomorrow. :)

Peace, love and don't catch crabs.

Monday, June 4, 2012

Life & Death Experience 14

So last week, my mom showed up and the kids/I decided that while it was still pretty chilly we wanted to at least get one river run in before our move. So we grabbed my C girl and her teen daughter, my mom and off we went. We had the entire river to ourselves. The river runs through town, literally. So we suited up, sorta. Everyone wore some combination of swim wear and shorts with most in flip flops while I was the only one in sneakers. I am a genius!

So we hit the river and got a double and a quad tube then walked it to the first entry point. The teens went first in the double while the rest of us took the quad. The water was freezing but after the first run, you didn't notice it anymore. It was insane. Fun fun fun.

At the end of the run, you carry your raft back through town to the entry point. We did that ONCE. Then C called her sweet hubby who brought his big ole truck up and would ferry us from exit point to entry point. We made 7 runs in 3 hours.

Duchess was the bomb.com. That kid was all in, squelling with laughter and loving every bit of it. She made every single run. Even after losing both flip flops and having to tip toe between runs. I was so impressed with her.

Princess was hysterical. She was the play it safe girl.

My mom was in her element.

C and I .... well we about died. Seriously. We were the only ones not smart enough to wear life jackets. We had no problems until we took the triple out following my mom and the kids in the quad. As soon as we got back in the river we noticed that it was way rougher. We later found out that they opened the dam upstream causing the rapids to surge.

It went fine until we hit a really rough spot and a quad full of people behind hit it right after us, sending another surge up to flip us. They went right over the top of us. The water was deep enough that I couldn't stand so I was holding the raft with one hand being drug downstream while trying to catch my breath. C was screwed cause she let go of the raft to hold her $500 sunglasses. After I got my footing, I was being drug along in the current while using one hand to hold the raft and the other to search around for C. I found her and got her between me and the raft. Somehow, the clumsiest person on the river wound up being useful and helpful. lol. Seriously, we finally made it downstream. Covered in bruises and scratches. I blew my knee, she busted her foot. We lost hats, glasses and shoes (except my sneakers which saved us cause I was able to shove my feet under some rocks to hold us in place).

Luckily mom had gotten the girls on the quad safely down the river with no problem and they were already out on the bank when they saw our stuff start to float by, so they knew we'd hit trouble.
By the end, I learned that not only do my children have to wear life jackets but mommy has too as well. Overall, I loved it. It was such an adventure and I def learned something valueable from it. ;)


This was right before the "incident"...


Entry points....


Beautiful scenery!


Our taxi ;)


She's having a blast and I'm barely staying in my boat behind her, lol.

Sunday, June 3, 2012

We on vacation...

Be back Wed.....