I spent 7.5 hours in a Cardiologist’s office today.

I am spent.

Which makes no sense because I spent 94% of that time waiting.

The worst part is that I won’t know any results for several days.

I’ll devote a whole post to my Stress Test experience later, but today, I thought I’d write a few letters to crazy people.

——

Dear Bully-Kid in the Chick-Fil-A play place:

You should thank your lucky stars that my sweet boy didn’t unload on you. Bullies like you eventually end up in jail. Trust me, I should know. Oh, and when you get there, you’ll find out there is always someone meaner and bigger than you.

Signed,

Alex’s mommy (aka: A ‘retired’ inmate counselor who spent many an hour talking to young punks who should have been taught better)

—–

Dear Bully-Kid’s Mama,

I understand that kids will be kids, HOWEVER, when you said nothing to your bully brat when he was shoving my sweet boy, I thought maybe you just didn’t see what happened. But when you entered the playpark and your bully brat admitted to punching my son repeatedly, you said NOTHING to my sweet boy or me by way of an apology. You need to get control of your kid.

Sincerely,

A MAD MAMA

—–

Dear  Caffeine,

Fifty-four hours is a LONG time to be without you. My life just wasn’t conplete without you. I’m glad you’re back in my arms hands.

Love,

Your biggest fan

—–

Dear Facebook Friend Who Complains About Something Every Single Day,

If it weren’t for my nosy tendencies, I would’ve hidden your statuses a long time ago. With that being said, PLEASE give. it. a. friggin. rest. Oh, and quotation marks are for quoting someone, not for personal rant marks.

Thank you in advance,

A Concerned Facebook Friend

—–

Dear girl in the bathroom,

Look. I don’t usually get involved in people’s business, but its tough not to when you are sitting in the stall next to me talking loudly on your cell phone. Honey, you deserve better than that jerk. Move yourself along and find a man who will treat you right. He IS out there. Don’t waste your time on that crazy cat. Why would you even ask him where he was all night? If he wasn’t in a hospital, does it really matter?

Do yourself a favor and save yourself some heartache,

The girl in the next stall.

—–

Dear Julie,

The next time you make a special trip into town at 6 PM to attend a memorial service, you *might* consider actually looking at the date when you read the obituary. Otherwise, you might show up at the funeral home and be the ONLY person there. You are such a dork.

Pay Attention Crazy Girl,

Your Silly Self

—–

Dear Mr. Mailman,

Yesterday, every piece of mail that we received actually belonged to our neighbor. I can’t help but wonder where our mail ended up. Any ideas?

Pay Attention,

The folks in the brown house

—–

Dear Kohls,

I love y’all. I really do. I consider Kohl’s one of my favorite stores. For that reason, it is NOT necessary to send a daily e-mail reminding me that I can save up to 30% (which by the way I NEVER draw the 30% card) on everything in the store. I always hesitate to provide my e-mail address to retail establishments and this is why.

Enough Already,

A [soon to be not so] loyal patron

—–

Dear ADT Home Security People,

I am NOT interested in your FREE home security system that will cost me $30. per month. How many times do I have to demand to be removed from your calling list before you actually remove me? I’m about to call the Attorney General on you jokers.

Not playing around,

The girl you call every four days

—-

Who would you write to today?

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We are having an unusually warm January here in West Virginia (NOT western Virginia), which is absolutely fine with me seeing as how I am not a fan of heavy coats or snow. Or cold.

I am also not a fan of being on a 55-hour “no caffeine order” yet, here I sit. I have a stress test today as a result of the bundle branch blockage and I can’t wait to ‘throw one back’ as soon as the test is done. I am prayerfully hopeful that I will hear good news today about my ticker. Ever since the bundle branch blockage (try saying that three times real fast) was discovered, it has felt like a black cloud hanging over me. That might have something to do with my decision to type “bundle branch blockage” into the Google window, because after reading that mess, I’m quite sure I’ll be needing a pacemaker before all of this is said and done.

But enough about the black cloud and the cold.

Let’s put some color in this conversation, shall we?

This week’s You Capture challenge is colorful.

I absolutely love color. Especially bright colors. If I could choose to be any crayon in the box, I’d be bright pink because that one’s my favorite. I also love orange, lime green and turquoise too!

Even though I hate snow, I adore snowmen. I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to paint one of these at The Pottery Place. [Note: Have you been to The Pottery Place? If you haven't, you should, because it is loads of fun whether you are with your girlfriends or your kids. The only difference is, one requires help with the paint and the brushes and I need more water, and can I try out that pen paint thing and mom can I paint another piece because I'm done and I'm bored, and the other, well? Just laughter and fun.]

And even though we haven’t had much snow this winter, we are expecting lots and lots of rain today, so I’ll be busting this bad boy out when the time comes to get some lunch AND AN ICE COLD DR. PEPPER thankyouverymuch.

And speaking of one of my favorite colors – aren’t these pretty?

Now y’all know I rarely ever post a You Capture post without including one of these bad boys. Obviously, this is an old picture because Saturn took its toys and went home. That makes me very sad because there are few things that excited me more than a CAR LOT PLUM FULL of Saturn Skys.

Color.

It doesn’t get much better than chili pepper red and sunburst yellow.

But don’t tell midnight blue, black onyx, or ruby red that, k?

*sigh*

Happy Thursday y’all!

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I don’t consider myself a crafty person. Well, that is unless you count the fact that I scrapbook.

But since I haven’t scrapbooked for well over two years, do I really still qualify as a scrapbooker? I’m thinking that maybe I should say I used to be a scrapbooker. A little over a year ago I set up a fancy new scrapbooking work station in one of our spare bedrooms (which is all I whined about since we moved here ten years ago, well maybe not all I whined about, but you get the idea, right?) and I vowed to scrapbook at least one day a week while the boys were at school.

That idea lasted about four minutes.

I recently jumped on the Pinterest bandwagon, and I’m hopeful that one day I’ll have the time to sit and try all of the great craft ideas I’ve seen on the site. 

You know, sometime before I’m 80 and in a nursing home and at the mercy of one of my daughters-in-law to feed me applesauce.

A few weeks ago, I came across a really cute idea for a fun birthday gift, and thought that maybe I’d try that someday. Not more than two days later, my friend Katheryn mentioned that she was turning forty on Monday.

Oh shoot, the BIG 4 – 0!

I knew I had to do something.

The picture that I originally saw used a small decorative box (which thinking back on it would have been much easier just based on the size of the opening), but I decided to use a coffee mug, mostly because I am a rebel.

With a cause.

I started with a mug, a styrofoam ring, and two bags of suckers.

For this project you will need an X-Acto knife (or if you’re a red-neck like me, you can just bust out the box-cutter), some fancy paper or cardstock, a straw, and some glue.

I suppose this is the point in the post where I should be demonstrating how I turned the mug upside down on the styrofoam and used the box-cutter to trace and cut four rings that I then shoved down into the mug, one on top of the other.

But alas, I took no pictures of that step.

Or the next step where I attempted to shove forty suckers into the styrofoam in some sort of organized fashion. 

Nor did I get a picture of pulling all the suckers out of the styrofoam and starting over.

THREE. TIMES.

After (FINALLY!) placing all of the suckers in a nice round circle, I turned the mug upside down just to see if all of the suckers would stay in place. And much to my surprise, they did! I then cut a piece of the cardstock with fancy scrapbook stickers in the shape of a square, mostly because I suck at cutting nice round circles. Then, I cut another square just a tad smaller and glued the smaller piece onto the larger piece.

Next, I used a silver Sharpie to write ”40 SUCKS!” on the smaller square, but really you could use any of the following phrases,

  • Enjoy this cheap gift sucker!
  • I’m cheap, sucker! Happy Birthday!
  • It sucks to be you cause you’re 32!
  • Divorce Sucks! (I know, I know, I couldn’t help myself!)

I then glued the squares onto a straw and shoved the straw into the styrofoam.

Thankfully, I remembered to get a picture of the finished product.

 I love it!

And my friend, Katheryn did too!

This post is linked to WFMW.

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Before we get started on this week’s edition of What I Learned This Week, can I just take one second to say,

“SQUEAL!”

Don’t you love my new header?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how quickly my boys are changing their looks, and it dawned on me that I really needed to update their pictures here on the blog. (Only, we all know what happens when I try to do something on this blog that I have no business doing.) So, what I was really thinking was that I needed to have Jo-Lynne update their pictures here on the blog. It seems like every few months they are totally changing their looks, and I can’t tell you how much sadness that brings to me. It is also interesting to note that collectively, they gained 13 pounds, and grew 5 1/2 inches last year. It simpy baffles me.

And makes me cry.

ANYway, I am so pleased with the way the header turned out. Even though I am not pleased that the boys look so much older than they did just ONE SHORT YEAR AGO, I think the new header is gorgeous.

And no, Lulu did not make the header cut. Before you go and get yourself in an uproar though, you should know that I did add her to my About Me (which should really be the about US) page.

I know y’all didn’t come here to talk about my boys or my hamster, so I’ll just get on with what I learned this week.

Sound good?

1. Just because there are 24 people sitting in a Cardiologist’s office when you enter, that doesn’t mean (GASP!) that you will be there all day. It might mean that you’ll be there all day, but maybe not.

2.  A 24-hour heart monitor gig isn’t as big a deal as I thought it would be.

3. The whole HIPAA thing is a joke when you stop to consider that exam room walls are paper-thin.

YIKES.

4. Scramble With Friends is much easier to play on an iPad, than it is the iPhone.

5. If you like Words With Friends, you’ll probably LOVE Scramble With Friends.

6. There are some of the oddest things on the Pinterest. I think this coffin couch proves it.

7. When attending a scheduling meeting, it is best to take the one calendar that has all of your appointments and activities on it, or else you might realize that the Pinewood Derby race that you helped to schedule is the same weekend as a romantic FREE! marriage retreat FREE! weekend you signed up for over a month ago at a fancy resort.

Oh, and did I mention it was free?

Danggit.

8. Danggit doesn’t sound bad until your six-year-old says it.

OOPS!

9. Sausage has no place in a lasagna. (YUCK!)

10. I like nice, round lists. (Okay, so I didn’t actually learn that just this week.)

Now it’s YOUR turn. What did YOU learn this week?

If this is your first time linking, you can go here to learn how.

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I am a stay at home mom who rarely stays home.

January 23, 2012

We had a crazy busy, enjoyable, relaxing weekend. After dinner here at my favorite place with 19 girlfriends, complete with chips and salsa (OH MY WORD, I LOVE THEIR CHIPS AND SALSA) and lots of laughs, we headed out for even more laughs as we watched Queen Latifah and Dolly go head-to-head in and if [...]

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One Day At A Time

January 20, 2012

On January 2, 2012, I wrote a blog post titled, Letting Your Life Speak. In that post, I reflected on some changes I wanted to make in my life. Specifically, I want my life to speak this year. And I’m not referring to the wild, loud and crazy words that fly out of this mouth daily. Surprising, I [...]

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You Capture – Cold

January 19, 2012

West Virginia is known for its very COLD winters and very HOT summers. I guess you could say our motto around here is “Go big or go home!” I’m not a huge fan of either extreme if I’m being honest. My ideal temperature is 80 degrees in the heat of the day with little or [...]

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A great tip with a side of bad photography

January 18, 2012

I recently told Stevie we would not be buying one more Lego because the Legos are taking over our house. His dresser is covered with Legos. He and Alex both have tables in their rooms that display “their creations.” And we won’t even talk about the ”mini figures” that are all over this house. When I said, “No [...]

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What I Learned This Week

January 17, 2012

I absolutely love a four-day weekend. The staying up late. The sleeping late. The NOT answering to an alarm clock. It’s been a glorious long weekend, complete with a birthday party, lots of time on Pinterest planning my new mud room, a visit with cousins, a 20 year reunion planning meeting (yes, I am THAT [...]

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Sweet Success

January 16, 2012

About two months ago, I made the unfortunate decision to go in the back door of the blog and change some fonts. Yes, I said change some fonts. Because that’s what I do. At the click of a button, the entire text of my blog disappeared into cyberspace. After several hours of work, my technical [...]

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