From Inmates to Playdates

Posts Tagged ‘Math’

Earlier this week, I received a coupon code by e-mail giving me $10. off at CJ Banks. That same day while visiting their site, I discovered that their sweaters were buy-one-get-one-free. Because I am a math genius, there is no way that I ordered two sweaters at BOGO and then an additional sweater to use my $10. off coupon. Once the sweaters arrived, it dawned on me that I should have ordered four sweaters, getting two for free, and then ordered a cheaper accessory to use the $10. coupon.

Dang.

It also wasn’t me who found herself sweating it out while driving toward the gas station, with the youneedgas light shining and two miles showing on the *DTE meter.

*Distance to empty

Double dang.

After hauling them around in the console of my van for three months, three months people, I did not pick the windiest day of the year to change the number stickers on our mailbox after being assigned a new house number by our 911 system back in October. Rather, I am one of those people who do things in a timely fashion.

Ahem!

Nope, I am not guilty of routinely calling my cell phone from our house phone just to locate it. No way do I do that because I always keep up with my phone and could tell you where it is at any point during the day.

Nor do I ever check Facebook/e-mail/blogfeed from my iPhone while in my office the bathroom because who does that?

As if that weren’t enough, I did not accidentally switch the alarm to the “on” position on the iPod radio alarm clock thingie and I did not wake up from a deep sleep at 4:51am trying to figure out why I was hearing Natasha Bedingfield belting out the lyrics to These Words. I DID HOWEVER make sure that didn’t happen the next night, though.

Indeed, I did. I unplugged the thing.

That’s a wrap for this week!

Head over to MckMama’s place for more things people did not do!

I’m sitting in my BBB chair watching The View on the DVR, and my mind is full of stuff.

I know y’all are probably sick to death of hearing about the blood pressure, so I’ll do us all a favor and not mention that today. I will say though, that I am seeing a kidney specialist today, so hopefully I’ll at least know if McDaddy needs to offer up a kidney or not.

Thanks for your prayers! I appreciate it so much!

—–

McDaddy’s sister is an Arbonne consultant and when she was visiting West Virginia over Thanksgiving, she was shocked to hear that I do did not use a daily moisturizer. Or a monthly moisturizer for that matter. Because, you know, it never dawned on me that the reason my jaws felt so dry during wintertime was because a I needed a moisturizer. I have two words for you.

BIG & MISTAKE

By the looks of the two inch wrinkle between my eyes, I probably should have began using the moisturizer years ago. And, for the record I am also a fan of their facial masque, concealer, and mineral powder which says a lot because in years past, I bought whatever product was in the prettiest case, or whichever mascara had the big, fat orange tube because orange is my favorite color. Or whatever was on sale, buy-one-get-one-free.

Which proves there is a Science to my madness.

—–

Is it just me, or have the execs at NBC lost their minds?

First Jay has the show. Then Conan. Then Jay gets offered 1/2 hour and Conan gets offered an hour. Jay accepts the half-hour. Conan does not accept the later hour. Conan is out. Jay gets the show back.

Crazy talk, I tell you. For the life of me, I can’t understand why NBC would mess with two top-ranked shows. They should have left well-enough alone.

—–

I am not a sports fan, but I am a huge fan of the Olympics. Especially this cat.

Shh, don’t tell Phelpsie. It will our little secret!

My excitement meter is rising and I’m gearing up for Vancouver 2010.

—–

Dang. Another rerun on Grey’s Anatomy? It seems like every other week, Grey’s and Desperate Housewives show a stinkin’ rerun. Enough already. Or just bring on American Idol and I can be in my DVR glory until May. Oh, and speaking of the DVR I think I’m all in on Survivor this year. I haven’t watched the past three or four seasons because my television viewing was getting out of control and I had to take charge. Something had to go and between Survivor, DWTS, American Idol and Amazing Race – Survivor got the boot. But this season? Its heroes vs. villains which means some of my favorites will be back *coughColbycough*

—–

Remember the post about hair products where I asked  y’all to offer up your best hair product advice? I made a trip to Target and spent about 30 minutes in the hair product aisle with Alex and my iPhone scouring the shelves for the products that y’all suggested. Between 217 questions from Alex about what this spelled and what that was for, I purchased four products – 2 hairsprays and 2 round tubs of styling product. Every morning I feel like a school girl doing an experiment for her science project. I will present the results shortly although if you’re expecting some fancy schmancy colored charts with bullet points, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. Statistics is a long lost cousin of the math family and if you’ve spent any time here at all, you know that math is not my strong suit.

I’ve made it this far.

—–

There is snow in our forecast and that makes me sad because I am supposed to spend this evening with the girls. I’m praying that it heads north, or south, or anywhere but here.

And that, as they say, it that.

I do hope you have a lovely weekend.

2009 was a tough year for me.

Ten days into the year, a good friend of mine lost his life in a head-on collision. Three weeks later, the McFamily embarked on a six-month journey that would test my emotional stability limits.

So yeah, it started out rough. In fact, just thinking about it is making me tired. (Brace yourselves people, this could get lengthy!)

*************

After a three-hour ski lesson during our annual McFamily ski trip, Stevie hit the slopes with McDaddy.

NBA hopeful, Stevie learned a few things on the court this year. (he is the one with his arms up in the air and his eyes closed!)

Instead of eating M&Ms, our boys were counting them. 185 M&Ms in each of three bowls. The boys (and their daddy) would eat one everyday signifying that another day of deployment was OVER.

On a cold, snowy January morning in Charleston, WV, the WV Air National Guard Engineering Squadron headed to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for a six-month sentence deployment.

After six years of supporting the Huggies Empire with two boys (and a really long run at potty training with the youngest), the McFamily is finally finished with diapers.

Hallelujah. And Amen.

The McFamily is thankful for SKYPE and the web-cam which allowed them to be in contact almost daily with Daddy.

Truly, a blessed girl! Mother’s Day – 2009 

After a failed attempt at visiting McDaddy, finally, the boys and I boarded a military rotator plane in Baltimore in route to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Pictured here at the Baltimore Airport, the local time was 4:10 am.

After 108 days (and a search by some pretty alert drug dogs), the McBoys are reunited with McDaddy at the GTMO airport.

U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay is the oldest U.S. base overseas and the only one in a Communist country. Located on the southeast corner of Cuba, the base is about 400 air miles from Miami, Florida. The terrain and climate of Guantanamo Bay make it a haven for iguanas and banana rats.

Thanks to a cheap flight, the boys and I headed North to visit McDaddy’s sister and her family. The boys enjoyed two weeks with their cousins.

After months of whining and begging, I screamed with delight as I opened my anniversary gift from McDaddy.

Hello, My Precious!

After a very l-o-n-g six-months, our boys made welcome home posters for McDaddy’s return.

While in church one evening, Stevie began to cry as he asked questions about salvation. An hour or so later, while talking to McDaddy on the web-cam, he made the decision to ask Jesus into his heart. His daddy and I were so proud and so happy that he made the decision to worship and live for Jesus.

With tears in my eyes, I watched as McDaddy’s plane arrived from Cuba.

Shortly after, The McFamily headed out in their Summer home camper and did not return for two weeks.

And if by some chance, y’all are still reading, bless your souls.

After seven years of constant mothering and homemaking, I found myself wondering what in the heck I would do with myself 2.5 hours a day, three days each week, while my sweet Alex attends Pre-School.

My favorite Superheroes!

Alex turns 1,460 days (give or take a day because y’all know that my math skills stink!)

The newest Jimmie Johnson fan celebrates his seventh birthday vowing that seven will make him stronger and faster.

And finally, (after this extremely long post) the McFamily celebrates Christmas.

Head over (if you haven’t abandoned this post) to I Should Be Folding Laundry for more You Capture – Favorite Picture posts.

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! A place where we can share things that we did not do with people that we do not know!

Or something like that.

First, it was not me who actually had to write out twelve times seven on a piece of paper to figure up how many cookies I needed for the cookie exchange tonight. Because anyone with any sense whatsoever would know their multiplication facts without having to figurem’ up.

Whatever. I stink at math.

Next, it wasn’t me who called my mama and daddy to ask if indeed I could substitute Country Crock for ‘butter’ in my second batch of cookies because I figured up the wrong amount of sticks of butter and only had enough for the first batch.

Seriously, the whole ’stick of butter measuring thing’ is goofy anyway!

It also wasn’t me who dumped three packets of instant oatmeal into the second batch of cookies after realizing that I HAD RUN OUT OF OATS FOR HEAVENS SAKE because who runs out of oats in the middle of a cookie-fest?

Obviously someone who is not so great at math.

I wasn’t the one shaking her head in disbelief when the second batch of cookies came out of the oven looking very different from the first batch. Especially seeing as though they pretty much taste the same. 

I’ll never know if its the Country Crock butter’s fault of the instant oatmeal’s fault. Dang. It’s no wonder I don’t spend much time in the kitchen!

And finally, it’s not me who secretly hopes she wins the cookie crown even though she is a culinary dork because who doesn’t like to win?

I’m off to clean my kitchen.

Which is something that I can do because it does not require math.

Enjoy your Monday, y’all!

And head over to MckMama’s place for other Not Me! Monday posts.

I have no idea when or where I was when I decided that I “needed” an iPhone.

I just know that the thought was in my head a long time before I ever whined about mentioned it to anyone.  And once something gets into my head people, well, lets just say, it’s not usually pretty. I start by dropping subtle hints to McDaddy and when that doesn’t work, I kick it into high hear mentioning that our church prayer chain could benefit from my access to the internet at all times, even when I’m wandering aimlessly around Wal-Mart or sitting in the pick-up line at the school. Not to mention its usefulness to me and this bloggy empire I’m building because the iPhone would allow me to link up to a blog carnival whether I’m at home or out and about spreading my fabulosity throughout the city and because I can get your comments immediately!

Heck, iCould blog from the iPhone!

Oh, and if I’m being honest the iPhone commercial about the CheckPlease app appealed to me because it would mean that I would never ever as long as we both shall live would have to struggle to figure up 15% of my restaurant bill to leave a tip.

Sometimes, the pressure of that is more than I can take because me and the math are not good friends. If the percentage I am trying to figure has nothing to do with a great sale on some new shoes, you can pretty much forget about it.

If I had only known how much easier math life would be with an iPhone in it, I would have stepped up my iPhone campaign months ago. The last time I checked (with my trusty friend Google from my beloved iPhone, of course) there were over 50,000 apps although I suspect that number increases everyday as people with too much time on their hands from all around the world write (design?) apps for anything you can think of. I’m waiting for an app to wipe my hind-end, but a quick trip to the app store in search of that very thing surprisingly does not exist.

Of the thousands of apps available, I currently have 65 which seems a bit excessive until my brother-in-law who has had his iPhone all of four days informed me he has well over two hundred.

Sucker.

It’s so easy to get sucked into this thing.

Moderation is important.

But sometimes when you are dealing with the best gadget of your time (sorry TiVo!) you want to learn all there is to learn about the new love in your life.

A few days ago I hopped up on my bed to put my make-up on as I do every morning. (I know, I know, I should be in front of a well-lit mirror so that I can see the best angle of my cheek bones, blah, blah, blah!) anyway, as I was saying, I was on my bed getting ready to apply a long list of pure, safe and beneficial product that I purchased from my sister-in-law the Arbonne consultant when I clicked the KLOVE app. Only the KLOVE app wouldn’t play.

Nor would Pandora.

As I slid my fingers across the screens, I was desperate for the phone to make a noise. I worried that the audio output (it almost sounds as if I know what I’m talking about!) was done. I worried that I had dropped it one too many times and I worried that my sweet Alex had hit something the day before that caused the silence I was hearing. The phone wouldn’t even make the little click that it makes when you ‘unlock’ the screen.

I just knew my beloved iPhone had suffered some sort of chronic problem.

I headed to the AT&T store and was surprised to find out that I only needed to turn it off and back on to “reboot” the sound problem. I was so relieved that my precious was okay, I bought one of these… (on the left!)

It is an otterbox and I had no idea what an otterbox was until I pled my case at the AT&T store and complained about the danger of a fatal drop on concrete.  It makes the phone a little bulkier, but I feel at ease now because the thing is like a super-duper shock absorber.

The iPhone and its Otterbox works for me!

And, if you happen to be looking for a great Christmas gift to give, the iPhone would be a fabulous gift for anyone especially those needing help with their math.

Check out We Are THAT Family for more things that work for people.

While the McFamily was enjoying the camping trip that I keep rambling on about, I had the chance to ask Stevie if he was getting excited about starting the first grade. We talked about how it would be different from Kindergarten and how much fun it would be meeting new people and having a new teacher.

As he began telling me about things he learned in Kindergarten, it struck me that a blog post was being born.  Because as you can imagine, I am always on the lookout for a good blog post. Especially one including thirteen of something. 

I waited until this week to post this one because school for our county started yesterday.

It was fun hearing about all the things he learned in Kindergarten. I’m sure his Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. F. will be pleased that he retained such useful information.

1. You should not bring a knife, bow, arrow or gun to school. (Ahem!)

2. Killer whales hunt fish and are friendly to humans. (I had no idea about the friendly part. Nothing with the word Killer in their name sounds friendly to me, but what do I know?)

3. I learned how to plus and minus.

You need to pay specific attention to these math lessons, Stevie. If your dad is working out of town, I’m afraid I will be of little help once you get to the really complicated math, say, around third grade.

4. If you do not milk a cow 2 -3 times each day, it will get sore and swollen.

I cannot speak for the cow, but I know this to be true. After breastfeeding, the girls will NEVER be the same.

5. One of our Rainbow rules was, “Respect All Property”

6. The counselor taught us about worrying and the opposite of worrying and why we shouldn’t worry.

7. The art teacher taught us how make really big snowflakes.

8. We learned that you should always turn off a computer when you are finished using it.

9. You can tell how old a tree is by the number of circles in the middle of the trunk.

10. Sharing is always good.

11. Coloring nice makes the teacher happy.

12. Always try your best to write good sentences in your journal.

13. No yelling in the lunchroom.

Sweet boy, I hope you have a wonderful time in the first grade!

Learn lots of great stuff and don’t yell in the lunchroom.

And be sure to leave your bow and arrow home too!

Enjoy your Thursday, y’all.

It’s been exactly 180 days since McDaddy left for the incredibly long 6-month deployment. Remember the M&M bowls? The bowls that Stevie and Alex made for themeselves and McDaddy that were filled with 182 M&Ms. One M&M for every day that they would be apart?

So much has happened since that day. Y’all know that numbers are not my strong suit, so please be easy on me as I break the figures down.

1 – Number of embalmings I’ve watched.

1 – Number of nieces born into our family

2 – The number of pregnancies in our family that have been announced as of 11:52 pm ET. The time is of importance because at any given minute another sister-in-law could announce. Seriously, there are 12 babies under the age of 7 on McDaddy’s side with two more on the way. That could change at any minute.

2 - The number of times I’ve threatened to use my wooden majorette rifle to protect our household – against hose nozzle thieves and mice.

2.4 – Number of times I’ve taken the iRobot Roomba apart because of erratic behavior.

3 – The number of times I have successfully resuscitated the laptop.

5 – The number of times I’ve taken pictures of our checkbook register, scanned them in and e-mailed them to McDaddy so that he could balance our household finances. Sweet mercy, I’ve done pretty good keeping it all straight.

6 – The number of remodeling projects I’ve started or completed

11 – The number of Doctor’s Appointments our boys have had

12 – The number of times McDaddy’s friend, Justin has cut our grass.

14 – Visits made to the McResidence by the Suddenlink man to fix our supposed faster, more reliable internet service.

36 – Approximate number of cards I’ve received from friends letting me know I was being prayed for or thought about

42 – Approximate number of times I’ve cooked  (Oh, I kid!)

70 – Approximate number of times I’ve cried

78 – The approximate number of church services we’ve attended without McDaddy.

82 – Approximate number of days it has rained. Seriously.

180 – The number of nights I’ve crawled into bed thinking I had no idea how I would make it through.

302 – Approximate number of times I’ve seriously considered heading to the Saturn dealership to purchase a new Sky to help ease the stress.

546 – The number of M&Ms consumed by Stevie, Alex and McDaddy as they counted down the days!

583 - Approximate number of e-mails exchanged between McDaddy and Me

1,440 – Approximate number of hours I’ve slept

4,837 – Number of times I have whined about deployment.

Seriously, its been a L-O-N-G six-months, but we are almost there!

Almost… as in less than 48 hours.

Or 2,880 minutes, but who’s counting?

Enjoy your weekend internets. I know I will!!!

I had an exciting day.

I have been on the go from the minute my feet hit the floor and now I am draggin’ my wagon.

The morning started out like every other one this week. Stevie is attending a week-long music camp and that means I drag myself out of bed before draggin’ him out of bed and preparing some sort of breakfast which may or may not be totally nutritional depending on whether he chooses a poptart or a bowl of oatmeal.

Once he left, Alex and I had to make a trip into town (I say that as if we live 50 miles from town) to get his glasses fixed. Apparently when a three year old who wears glasses is running full throttle across the yard, trips and falls face first, there’s a pretty good chance that his glasses will probably not survive fit properly. Thankfully, my dad was able to use a pair of pliers from McDaddy’s toolbox to bend them enough so that they would stay on his sweet, scratched-up face. I thought it best that we have them checked out because the nose piece appeared to be slightly bent and on top of that it seemed like the proper thing for a mother in my shoes to do.

We arrived at the eye Doctor’s office to discover a sign on the door that said, “Insert name of eye place here will be closed July 3 – July 10, 2009 for staff vacations.”

Nice.

I had a gyno appointment scheduled in less than an hour and had made arrangements to drop Alex off with my favorite Mother-In-Law. We drove to MIL’s house and I tried to mentally prepare myself for the party that was being planned in my honor at Dr. D’s office.

Lucky me.

I won’t go into detail but I will say that I had no idea the gyno used a dump truck in certain medical procedures but I’m sure it had to be a dump truck because OHMYGOSHITHURTSOBAD!

Wow.

Just wow.

After that, I headed home to pack a bag so that I could accompany Stevie to fun-day at the water park with all of his new music camp friends.

Folks, can I just pause right here to assure you there is nothing like leaving the gyno after a dump-truck procedure and heading to the pool.

Nothing, I say.

Within minutes of arriving at the pool, I was following Stevie up the stairs to the water slides.

Which would have been great fun except for the fact that the slides required me to climb 42 stairs.

And catch him as he came down the slide before he went under the water in the three-foot pool.

Multiply the 41 steps by the 317 times we climbed the stairs.

And that equals something like one million.

Or a million and one.

I’ve never been good at math.

Suffice it to say, I am worn out.

But we had a marvelous time in spite of the dump-truck procedure I had just endured.

The loud speaker blared the whole day and it didn’t dawn on me until an hour into the gig that every song that played reminded me of a time “back in the day!”

It was like I was in high school riding in McDaddy’s vintage Buick Electra or my vintage Buick Regal all over again.

It’s been years since I’ve heard Mariah Carey belt out “Emotions,” Bell Biv DeVoe sing “Poison!” or Meatloaf sing “I’d Do Anything For Love!” Fun times, folks.

Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures from the day because I wasn’t willing to sacrifice the integrity of McDaddy’s fathers day my camera in the case that the camera was accidentally dropped or you know, splashed. And to be honest, the camera was the last thing on my mind after the dump-truck procedure.

And as if that wasn’t enough excitement for one day, I found a treasure on my DVR.

Big Brother Season 11 premiered tonight, AND, I discovered that while I was in New Hampshire, ABC decided to rerun the Top 13 night of American Idol in honor of MJ. My boyfriend, Kris Allen is rockin’ out to “Remember the Time!” and I’m thrilled to be reunited with Simon’s smirk and Adam’s guyliner.

Yee-Friggin-Haw!  What a way to end the night.

In the words of Randy Jackson, enjoy your Friday, dawg!

I had hoped I would be composing this week’s Thursday Thirteen from an international location. Instead, I am home in my big, blue, bloggy chair. For reasons unknown, I was not able to make the trip to see McDaddy, but I am happy to report it has been rescheduled for two weeks from now.

Nevertheless, we are half-way through the alphabet this week.

That makes me happy because that means we are also half-way through this stinkin’ deployment.

This week’s letter is “M”

Here we go!

1. Marquis – The shape of my engagement ring – which I happen to love!!!

2. McDaddy – My sweet hubby who I miss so badly. I am praying that we can be together in nine short days.

3. MySpace – I started blogging on mySpace in June, 2007. “A Piece Of My Mind” was home to my first 264 posts and a very small community of readers that seemed to enjoy my daily dose of crazy over there. After a few weeks, I started sending my blog out via hotmail to a hand-full of family members who asked me to share them. From there, my “readership” grew and so did my love for writing. In November, 2008 I unveiled From Inmates To Playdates and I love my new digs. (I have no idea why I would have taken a picture of my laptop with my MySpace page pulled up, but here it is! I might mention that the picture was taken just weeks before LASIK surgery.)

4. Motorcycle – McDaddy has had a motorcycle ever since I knew him.

For all of you motorcycle fans, that is a Suzuki Intruder. Apparently our boys will love motorcycles too.

For all of you motorcycle fans, that is Alex on his Step 2 motorcycle.

5. Michael Phelps – If you’ve spent any time around the hallowed halls of Inmates, you know that I often refer to Michael Phelps as my boyfriend.

The man. The machine. Phelps.

6. Mathematics – Not my strong suit. It’s a wonder I can even spell it. Don’t ask me to do anything with numbers because it is a pretty safe bet I’ll get it wrong.

7. Magazine- Back in 1988 I was reading a Teen Magazine and noticed an advertisement for pen-pals. For one dollar, the magazine would pair you up with another reader from another state. I chose the West Coast and she chose the East coast. For that dollar, I was paired up with a gal from Winslow, Arizona, Billy Gene. We wrote to each other faithfully for ten years. When I was planning my wedding, I wrote to her to ask if she would be a bridesmaid. She and her mother flew to West Virginia for our wedding. McDaddy and I visited her home during one of our trips to Phoenix and met her entire extended family. Twenty-one years later, we are still good friends. It was the best dollar I ever spent.

8. Maryland – You may recall I spent several hours on Saturday in the emergency room of this hospital, Frederick Memorial Health Systems.

9. MRS. – I got my MRS degree on May 23, 1998. It was one of the best days of my life.

10. Massage – One of my favorite things in the world. If I were to ever hit the lottery, I would have a massage every. single. day. of. my. life.

11. Major- My sweet McDaddy was promoted to the rank of Major last year. I am so glad our last name is not Payne.

12. Milk - We drink 1% in our house. I dunk cookies, poptarts and doughnuts in milk.

13. Movie – My favorite movie of all-time is Dirty Dancing. I could watch it time and time again. I especially love the last dance scene.

If you are one of my eight loyal blog fans, you know that I have a loving relationship with my friend, Google. In fact, since I started blogging, our relationship has blossomed.
 
Today, I consulted Google for some amusing information which will hopefully provide some interesting blog fodder. I typed in ‘Julie Needs.’
 
Here are, according to Google the top 20 things that I need.

1. Julie Needs – Your Help! … Welcome To the World Headquarters for Save Julie: Campaign 2000. … We’ve come to know and love Julie on so many levels.

• ‘know and love Julie on so many levels’ – I love that!

2. Julie Needs – Your opinion.

• You know what they say about opinions. Everybody has one.

3.  Julie Needs - A boyfriend.

• Michael Phelps. Check.

4.  Julie Needs – a new pair of shoes.

• No commentary necessary. (Or 2 or 10 pairs.)

5.   Julie Needs – An Early Start

• Probably could happen if I went to bed sooner. 

6.  Julie Needs – a good home and; she needs it ASAP.

• I already have one. Thanks.

7.   Julie Needs –  coffee

• I’ll pass on the coffee, but if you happen to have an ice-cold Dr. Pepper, you could pass that right to me.

8.  Julie Needs – more friends.

• As a matter of fact, I have plenty of friends. And, they are fabulous.

9.  Julie Needs – one more qualification to complete her Junior AKC hunter title.

• Um hello, what is a Junior AKC hunter thing and why do I need it? The only thing I hunt for is my sanity.

10  Julie Needs – prayers and good vibes.

• Not so sure how much faith I put into good vibes, but I’ll sure take all the prayers I can get.

11. Julie Needs – Your help.

• And a massage too while you’re at it.

12.  Julie Needs – A new camera.

• I actually have a great camera, but I love new stuff.

13.  Julie Needs – to work on her parenting.

•  Because I just couldn’t let this one go, I visited the link. Julie Cooper, whoever you are, you shouldn’t let that sweet little Marissa get to you like that. In the words of a famous author (I can’t think of his name at this moment,) ’There’s no such thing as a strong-willed child, only weak-willed parents.’ Clearly, this author has never met the likes of Marissa. Or my sweet, Alex that matter. Ahem!

14.  Julie Needs – high fiber content

• What?  Believe me, I have no problems in that arena.

15. Julie Needs – a patient family

• Can I get an amen?  At all times, I have at least one little person needing something YESTERDAY.

16.  Julie Needs – to go for cotton styles with a bit of structure rather than anything too flimsy like chiffon, which clings.

• Believe me, with a muffin top like mine, chiffon is the last thing I want to pour myself into.

17.  Julie Needs - your prayers now more than ever.

•  Seriously. I think God Himself is speaking to me through Google. 

18.  Julie Needs – a bath because she is muddy.

• Um, it’s too cold to get muddy today. Could somebody let Mother Nature know its March already.

19.  Julie Needs – to discover “key facts, people, and objects” in her …

• In her what? Go ahead, I’d love to know.

20. Julie Needs –  a breakdown between the VPV and Manufacturing Budget.

• If it involves numbers, you better believe she will need more than a breakdown or there will be a bigger disaster than the one you have now.

If you’d like to head up the Justice for Julie campaign, please apply in the comment section.
 
There you go.
 
A little list of things that Julie Needs.
 
This little walk down ‘Julie Needs’ Lane is proof that no matter what, things could always be worse.