Distracted

You may have noticed that I didn't blog yesterday. Heck, you may not have! I have no idea if people check this blog or not. Yesterday, I was completely distracted by the "TwiSluts" over at Twitarded. JJ and STY are my new bad influences.

Instead of posting my daily blog, I was GLUED to the computer screen, mouth hanging open, reading R-rated Twilight fan fiction. I knew fan fiction existed, but I had never really been that interested. Thanks to JJ and STY... I AM NOW!!! To quote Bella, "Holy crow!" Some of these authors should really write for Harlequin... or Hustler.

We all were frustrated when the Mormon mom skipped over the juicy stuff we'd been waiting for three books to read. We all were eagerly anticipating the wedding night scene to see if having sex with Edward was like boinking a Popsicle (Oh, come on! Just admit it. You KNOW you were!). From what I read last night, well, actually... I still don't know. The stories I read didn't address that part. Not really. But, they did fill in some of the blanks SM left! After one particular story, I felt like I needed a shower... or a cigarette (and I don't smoke).

After reading Twitarded this morning, I'm here to warn you that there will be at least one day a month that there will be no blogging from me. It would seem that there are lots of "Twinkies" (My husband came up with that one. Clever, huh? I was impressed and told him I was going to steal it.) who have dirty minds just like me. So, they are going to instigate a Twirotic Thursday once a month to satisfy our "needs." That's so thoughtful of them, isn't it? And really, it benefits everyone, especially our significant others. "Finally!" they'll say. "I'm getting something out of this Twilight obsession of yours!"

Me too, Honey. Me too. ;)

The water got higher than we thought

It's beautiful outside again. If you were to walk outside my house now, you would probably never guess what the weather was earlier. That is until you walk down the driveway, turn around and look at my husband's car.

We're out of dog food. The dogs are hungry. Ergo, my husband needs to get in the big truck and go to the Katy Feed Store and get dog food. I really don't relish being on the hungry end of a 180 lb. Great Dane. I don't care how cute he is.

He goes out the garage door and then I hear him start up the truck. It's a diesel, so it's not hard to hear it. Then the phone rings.

"Come outside."

OK. What did I do now? I walk down the driveway out to the middle of the cul-de-sac where he is parked, idling.

"Look at my car."

This is what I see (highlighted because it's hard to see on an iPhone photo):


Wow. Apparently, the water got pretty high whilst we slept. It also appears that we got pretty lucky. The water crested a millimeter beneath his door. Any higher and poor Bettie (His car. His baby.) would have had water damage inside. Any higher than that, we could have lost poor Bacon, our resident garden gnome and Florida Gator fan (you can just spot him in front of the tree behind the cars). I got the keys, took the picture and got inside. Nope. No water damage. Whew! She started up with no sputtering or anything. She did, however, blow a load of gunk and debris out of her tail pipes. Bettie is now up the driveway on the other side of my car. She was only behind my car overnight because we had the truck in her spot.

To get a better idea of just how high the water came up last night, here's a picture of our neighbor's yard:


After looking at this picture, I'm pretty glad the truck was in Bettie's spot. That would have been disastrous!

For you locals, here's Clay Rd past Fry, sign stating the obvious:


I don't recommend going down Clay for a while. Even in a big-ass truck.

Coconut? Really?

Someone somewhere has come up with Edible Edward tea. Seriously. I sh** you not. Being a tea drinker myself (I don't like coffee. I know, I'm weird like that.), I clicked. I was curious. Even intrigued, if you will. This is what I found:

"Edward is not the only one who's thirsty around here... if you crave a taste of his deliciousness, this tea is for you. The provocative aroma, like his sweet breath, will arouse your senses... and as the delicious flavor passes over your tongue and through your body from head to toe, you'll think you've experienced the vampire's kiss.

Contains: caramel, coconut, irish breakfast"

Caramel and Irish Breakfast actually sounds pretty tasty. But coconut? And where did this person come up with this combination that made her think, "Hey! This reminds me of Edward's breath!" SM describes him smelling of honey, liliac and sun. I know this because I looked it up. (SIDE: God, I love my Kindle. Even looking up THAT was very easy. All I had to do was open Breaking Dawn, do a search on the word "smell" and it led me right to it! Awesome. If you don't have one, you should get one. If you can't, well, then... you can just be jealous of mine, I guess.)

Building an ark

I'm writing this post today from home. "Why," you ask, "since it's Tuesday? Shouldn't you be at work? (Not that being at work would matter. I blog from there too. Shhhh!) Shouldn't your kids be in school?" Why, yes! We should! However.... this is the state of my hood right now:

Check out the sign... priceless! [OK, it's hard to read.
Someone taped some paper to a For Sale sign saying:
"Lake Front Property for sale"]

It's the last week of April. Anyone that has ever lived in Tornado Alley knows what that means. Super. Sucky. Weather. This is the week every year when you get craptastic and usually tornadic weather. It's usually payback for fabulous weather the week before. Of course (and if you've been reading my blog, you already know this), last week was awesome. 80 degrees and sunshine everyday.

This stuff started last night (see blog below). After I posted, we were all pretty hungry. Usually in times of bad weather, I do something horrible, like, make some poor minimum-wage schmo deliver us pizza. It would have been cruel and unusual punishment to do this to someone last night, so we went to one of the local Japanese sushi/steak houses (they're practically on every corner around here. Just like Starbucks). This was going to be great as it provided lots of Pocket Edward picture-taking potential!

We began to get a little worried on the way there when we noticed that most of the traffic lights, and everything else around them, were out of power. Luckily, one block away from the restaurant, they came back on. When we arrived, it looked like we'd have the place to ourselves! No one was there except the workers, who were watching the big screen tv in the bar. Exxxxcellent! I reached in my purse and got my iPhone and PE out. We ordered and waited for the hibachi cook guy to come feed us.

As we were sipping our soup, the waitress sat four more people at our table. Rats. My husband knew what the look on my face meant. He whispered that it didn't matter and to take pictures anyway. Sheeah, right! Maybe I can be covert about this? Maybe I'll sneak a picture when they're not looking? So I place PE and my phone in my lap and cover him with my napkin.

I decided to take a "test" photo without PE of the guy cooking our food.


Yeah, they stared. So, ok. No PE pics tonight. That's ok. My daughter took a "vampire stand-in" picture for me instead.


We came home, tucked the kids in and went to bed. Then the rains started again. It rained loud enough last night that I was dreaming about it! This morning, my daughter got up early ( I know! Kids DON'T get up early on school days!) and turned on the tv in the living room. That sound opened my eyes. Then the guy on the tv said that Cy-Fair ISD was closed for the day due to flooding. That made me sit upright. Did he just say schools were closed due to flooding? No way. I was shocked they closed for Hurricane Ike! So my husband and I jump out of bed and go to the living room to see for ourselves. Yup. Closed, but only the school district in our area. This left us wondering. Why? Because our kids don't go to public school. They go to the local Catholic school (Which is awesome. Which is also why they go there and not public school.). Usually our school does what Cy-Fair does. Better call into work.

Like I've said before, work is a LONG way away. Work is generally a long commute for anyone who lives in the Houston area. We like to sit in traffic in our cars. It's what we do, like riding the subway in NYC (which is where my sister lives, so I know). Anyway, I have a 9am meeting. If they've deemed flooding to be bad enough to close schools, there's no way I'm going to be able to get to work. As I'm on the phone with them, the school's automated hotline calls my cell, my husband's cell and the home phone. All at the same time. If there was any question about me trying to make it in to work, there isn't any more. No school.

We go back to bed, but switch on the tv in our bedroom. Love it. All channels, all news, no commercials until 12pm. It appears that my area of town was the worst hit by the torrential rains. I got 11 inches of rain just from midnight to 7am.! Our street is fine. We never flood. The thing is that this area never floods! Our streets fill up pretty fast, but as fast as they fill up with water, the water drains away. I've lived in this area of Houston on and off my entire life. We have drainage creeks everywhere. They might look pretty full time to time, but they have NEVER over-flowed their banks. Not once. NEVER... until today. Neighborhoods all around us are flooded. Cars are under water. W-T-F!

Our old subdivision, Bear Creek, has been on tv a lot this morning. It went under. My aunt is there. My god parents are there. My aunt says she's fine; although, it's her part of the subdivision that now resembles a scene from Deliverance. SIDE: Why is it whenever there's flooding, there are always rednecks with no shirts, blue jean cut-offs, trucker hats and no teeth standing in the water smoking a cigarette? Probably because they are the ones with bass boats. My cousin was only upset because the news chopper was right outside her window and it woke her up. My god parents are, in fact, flooded out. Water got in the backseats of both cars. This really sucks because they only just got their house finished two weeks ago repairing the damage from Hurricane Ike .

This is my old neighborhood:


This is what it looks like a few streets away from me:


If my friends are out there doing the back stroke and need some help, let me know. You know how to reach me. We have my dad's F-250 at our disposal if you need us to come fish you out.

He had an accomplice!

Watch this post. Details to follow. I'm just too tired right now to blog and I've got an early meeting in the morning. Which is going to suck. 100% chance of suckage.

OK. There is a tornado warning in my IMMEDIATE 5 mile vicinity, so at any moment I may have to abandon this post and hide out in the laundry room (You know it's a good thunder clap when it sets off the neighbor's car alarm).If I hear hail, I'm outta here.

"Accomplice" is apparently not the correct verbiage. Whatever the name is for a person who is IN on it, that's what I should have used. I just can't think of it right now.

The "deed" took place the night before, after I went to bed and while the husband and our friend were editing a video they took earlier of her emotionally disabled really cute and loving dogs for her application to be on the Dog Whisperer. In her defense, according to my husband, she protested what he was doing and told him to keep away from her stuff.

The next afternoon, after I discovered PE on the bookcase, I took a picture (obviously), but LEFT PE where he was. I didn't say anything. I think my husband was waiting for me to say something. It seemed to me like he was trying to bait me when he told me that the Dynamo tickets for a game two weeks away were on the bookcase, as I was standing in the kitchen with my back to it. I said, "OK," and DIDN'T turn around.

Later that evening, our friend came over to eat hamburgers and play some Rock Band (we're like the Partridge Family in my house). As I was walking to the kitchen for a refill on my most tasty "adult beverage," I notice that PE is no longer on the bookcase. There goes the neighbor's car alarm again. LOL, that never gets old. Funny every time! Supposedly the tornado is past us, but the power keeps flickering out. Good thing my laptop is charged... I think. Maybe the husband put PE back in my purse, giving in to the fact that his typically unobservant wife just didn't notice PE was missing?

We continue to rock out for a while longer. The husband takes a short break while our friend and I bust out some Muse and Godsmack. As we are playing, the husband comes back to the living room and whispers something in her ear. After the song is over, they divulge to me that PE had been moved to the living room entertainment center and had been SHAGGING the wooden bulldog statue for the past hour. That is, until he fell down and was now lying beneath it. He had been, basically, in front of me for quite some time and I hadn't even noticed.

It was the Husband, in the kitchen, with the soccer trophy

Today was going to be a busy day: first, girl scouts and then a birthday party. Girl Scouts was going to be fun, in my eyes, because it's full of Twi-moms. We've all been passing the books between each other. One of the moms was even aware of PE and wanted her picture taken with him.

I get to her house, where the meeting is being held at, and ask her if she's ready for her close-up. I reach in to my purse to get Edward out. No Edward. He's gone. I pull out the ENTIRE contents of my purse. Nope. Not there.

Now, I'm racking my brain trying to remember if I left him on the kitchen table when I was looking for nose spray earlier (ugh, allergies). She's disappointed, but there will be other meetings. This still kinda sucked because I was looking forward to having him pose with the girl scouts. I even wore my "La Push Cliff Diving Team" t-shirt. Sucky, sucky. Oh well. Whatcha gonna do? In the back of my mind, however, I was wondering if my husband might have had a hand in this. No, surely not. I mean, I know he was upset with me this morning, but still. No. Not MY awesome, loving husband!

We left girl scouts and went to a tea party for one of my daughter's friends.

We got home and husband had just finished mowing the lawn. Talked to him for a few minutes about my son's soccer coach and how the Dynamo game went this morning. Come inside and put down my purse on the kitchen table. Hmmm. No Edward. Did I leave him at the office on my desk? I didn't think so. Then I turn around.

There, on the bookshelf, with my soccer-coaching trophy, is Edward!



So, it WAS the husband! Suddenly, I feel like Lauren from "Lauren's Bite." Maybe I should email her?

So I have this idea...

I'm totally pulling a Carys here (my 6yr old daughter, for those who don't know), but I'm thinking about what to do for my birthday 7 months ahead of time.

Over the weekend, I was trying to get the New Moon countdown gadget to work with the old template (it wouldn't, which is why it only appeared on the blog last night with the new template). Hmmm. Comes out Nov. 20th. My birthday is Nov. 28th. Hmmm. That means my birthday should land on a Saturday (if the movie is indeed coming out on a traditional Friday). I should probably look at a calendar.

So, here's what I'm thinking: if my Twitarded friends can hold off seeing the movie opening weekend... ok, that's probably not a reasonable request. I should be more realistic: if my friends can arrange to have the following Saturday night free, we're totally going to see New Moon (again). We're going all Twi-out here. I've got seven months to figure this out, but afterward, we'll go and have apple martinis or something (Get it? GET IT?)

You guys can help me figure out fun Twilight related stuff to do. Oh, and no stinky boys. Unless you're friends with Rob Pattinson, but rumor has it he can't stand to watch himself on screen, so that might be a hard sell. Also, if you haven't read the series (and this might alienate some of my friends), please, if you love me, you have seven months to get cracking. It only took me a week to read all four and I'm a slow reader. I really don't want someone there who has no idea what's going on or who thinks the whole thing is dumb. Don't rain on my birthday parade.

Stay tuned for more details.

Just HAD to post this... so true

Fun with HTML

Yep. Changed the layout again. The old template had too many problems (coding errors, not user errors).

Also, I've added some sidebar stuff. There's a New Moon countdown clock and a message posting whats-it. You can leave messages, comments, insults... what have you.

Made a quickie banner for the blog. Thoughts?

Ridin' dirty

Another beautiful day (I'm lovin this weather!) AND I got my car back! Yay me!

The dealership is by my work, which is in The Woodlands (the dealership, not my work. Work is even farther) and at least 45 minutes away from home. This means I need to take the Sam Houston Tollway to get there. Normally, no biggie. I have an EZ Tag (which work pays for... vehree nahhhhissss!) so I just blow right by the poor schmucks that are sitting in line, waiting their turn to throw coins into the net thingy. SIDE: Ever notice when you actually have to do this, you start thinking about how much it would suck if you missed? And then you DO, totally pissing off everyone in line behind you? Today, however, I'm in the crappy Clubman with no EZ Tag. I had it on my account as a temporary car, but that expired yesterday at 5pm. I tried calling to extend it, but the wait time on hold was almost 14 minutes! Eff that. So, this morning I needed $1.50 in change. While at a stop light, PE was kind enough to go fishing for me.


The machine takes those gold dollar coins, FYI.

I return the Clubman to the rightful owner and get my car. AMAZINGLY, the seat is done correctly and it matches everything else. If you know anything about the on-going seat struggle, you know that "AMAZING" was totally the right word to use here. If you don't know, don't ask. You don't want to know. Seriously.

The replaced leather. It's now black.

Now, I'm a happy camper. Sunroof open. Hysteria by Muse blarring on the stereo. Ray Bans ON.

There will always be a need for proctologists

This regularly scheduled Twilight doll-based (sort-of) blog will be temporarily interrupted for a lunch-time rant that I need to get off my chest.

I had to run out and get some office building key-duplicates made. It was lunch time, so I intended on picking up lunch for everyone while I was out. There's a craptastic Subway next door to the key place, so that seemed the easiest thing to do. I really don't like this Subway. The parking lot is tiny and they don't carry fresh spinach (unlike the Subway I normally go to in the huge Kroger parking lot).

I guess they don't carry a lot of things anymore, like wraps, apples or normal (non-sweet) tea. So, I get flat bread for the person who wanted a wrap, strawberry yogurt for the already grouchy my-wife-kept-me-up-late-watching-Deadliest-Catch-and-Ghost-Hunters husband that wants apples and nothing to drink for the diabetic, wrap person.

I come out to get in the Clubman and what do I find? Some A-Hole has parked his big honkin', long-bed, Dodge truck sideways behind me... still running. Did I mention no one was even in it?! What were they trying to say? "Oh, sorry for blocking you in and everything, but see? I left it running! That means I plan on coming back soon, right?" Insert irony here: IT'S FREAKIN' EARTH DAY, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! Really? Leaving a big-ass diesel truck running for 15+ minutes while you go inside Subway and have lunch is soooooo eco-conscience!

Tempted as I was to move the land yacht myself (keys WERE in it, obviously), I decided to wait a few minutes for the idiot to come out and move. A few minutes later, I was still waiting. OK, I'm hungry. The people at work are, I'm sure, hungry. I can a.) go inside Subway and yell, "Can the mentally-challenged person in the green Dodge truck please come move his vehicle so he'll quit blocking the other cars from leaving?" or b.) inch back and forth until I can gradually get my car out. The first one had one major drawback: there's a liquor store next door and he could be in there instead of Subway. Yelling in two stores is more effort than I want to spend. So, plan B it was. I was lucky that I was parked next to handicap space, so it was more viable. However, I'm in a Clubman which is like driving an SUV compared to my normal-sized MINI. It wasn't easy, but I did manage to get out.

Hindsight being 20/20, I should have asked Edward to shove it out of the way for me.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog....

A day late again.

Man, finding time to blog at night is harder than I thought! After work, I had a busy afternoon of running around like a headless chicken. Considering this is normal operating procedure, you'd think I'd be better adjusted. Ha ha... "better adjusted." Ohhh, THAT has sooooo many meanings....

Anyway, Tuesdays (and Thursdays for that matter) are soccer practice days for the oldest. Usually, my husband and I have to leave work early (we carpool like good eco-friendly people. <--- obligatory Earth Day reference) on practice days because my office is no where near my kids' school or the practice field. I mean, like, 45 miles away!

Yesterday, however, we had to split up for a while because I needed to run some errands. Important stuff, like getting my daily medication refilled. For me, "Better living through chemistry" isn't just a motto, it's a way of life. I'm not thrilled about it, but there you go. We get back to the house to pick up soccer gear and split up: He takes Connor and his friend to practice while I get my meds, our daughter and then meet him at practice.

The day was bee-you-tif-ful! I rolled down the windows on my loaner car (mine is at the dealership... again) and put on my fave Tues. afternoon radio program, "Sound Awake" (90.1 FM: 3-5pm). All Cure music from 4-5 celebrating Robert Smith's 50th b-day. Side: I'm having a hard time dealing with the fact that R. Smith turned 50 yesterday.

Edward and I share a common interest: cars. Since I'm in a loaner Clubman, PE was curious as to how it drove.


We both agree it sucks. Crappy automatics. Turns out, PE and my husband also have something in common: they both think that base Coopers are too slow. While PE was checking his mirrors (like a good driver), he pointed at that there was a much faster, WAY cooler car behind us.


You don't really see too many Aston Martins in my hood. PE points out that he has one in his garage back in Forks and that it drives much better than the crappy Clubman we are in.

We pull in to Kinkos and drop off a package for my sister. She was in town over the weekend for work-related stuff and forgot her power cord. PE was happy to help send it back to her. I emailed her the picture to let her know it was on its way.


Next stop, Tar-jay pharmacy. My "automatic refill" wasn't automatically refilled, so I had to wait 15 minutes. We decided to check out the book section. PE got bored while I was checking out new releases and books by Miss Piggy, so he wandered off to find books that interested him.


I also came across a CD of a guy that I think looks remarkably like my friend Larry.




As we were coming back to the pharmacy, PE pointed out that the Clif Corp. has gotten over their Peanut Butter-Salmonella scare and put my fave Luna Bar back on the market!

We buy two and pick up my 'scrip.

By now, I've missed a good 25 minutes of quality Cure music and there's only time for one song left. :( We pick up my daughter and head to practice where PE helps cheer Connor on.


By the time practice lets out at 6:30, the kids are understandably hungry. We stop at a place called Clay's. It's good kid-friendly dining as they have, basically, a petting zoo in the play area. They also have lots of soap and hand sanitizer, so no worries. This excites PE because, apparently, he's hungry too.

Clay's needs a new peacock. PE said it tasted like chicken.

We order our monthly quotient of fried food, but when I tried to squirt out some ketchup for my fries, the plastic lid thingy blows off and ketchup went EVERYWHERE!

PE tried to help clean-up, but it was too late for Connor.

Enjoy the eye-candy!

Look what my sweet husband sent me today via IM!

He didn't know that this was a fan-made poster or that it is several months old, but still! He sent it! That actually means that he willingly looked at something Twilight related AND thought enough of me to send it (all together now... AWWWWWWWW!). It IS my fave New Moon poster/image so far.

Yesterday... meh.

Yesterday wasn't particularly awesome. It was basically a marathon day in hell... er, I mean "at work." So, I didn't get home until almost 9pm and couldn't be bothered to blog. PE didn't even make it out of my purse to see the light of day (and I hear it was beautiful yesterday).

So, instead, I'm posting Mute Math's new Spotlight video that they debuted Friday. Enjoy!

MUTEMATH - Spotlight


The guitar player reminds me of Charlie the hobbit from Lost. Opinions?

The crawfish boil

I guess the gods decided they wanted crawfish because right at 5pm, the heavens cleared and out popped the sun in the middle of a big, beautiful, blue sky! Unfortunately, because the gods took so damn long to come to this conclusion, the roads were still flooded which resulted in lots of cancellations.

Pocket Edward made his social debut at the party. What a good guest he was! He was the talk of the party too.

When we arrived, there was a big, plastic kiddie pool full of um, still ALIVE crawfish. Now, this wasn't my first boil by any means, but they're usually DEAD when I get there. I have to say, I threw up in my mouth a little when I saw this. I like crawfish, shrimp, lobsters, etc., but I don't want to actually see them before hand, or with their heads still attached. I have this aversion to eating things that are looking at me (I'm working on it, but still!).

I think PE was hungry too because he got right in the pool to try some crawfish out. Mountain lion they are not and I really don't think they have much in the way of blood for a vampire to feast on, so Edward gave up on that and decided to be helpful instead.



Once they were cooked, PE picked out a nice one for me. They were still steaming hot, but he didn't seem to mind.


PE even peeled it for me (he's so thoughtful) so I wouldn't have to look in to its beady black eyes!


Like I said, he was most helpful. He even helped pass out jello shots!


People seemed to appreciate his helpfulness and offered him a beer, not realizing that (DUH!) he's a vampire and doesn't drink. But, being a respectful guest and not wanting to hurt any of his new friends' feelings, he did try a sip.


That's about when my friends (and husband) got carried away. There is a VERY NOT NICE picture that I will NOT be posting here involving the garage door opener cord. PE decided it was best to watch the drunks from a safer vantage point from then on out.

Blogspot is pissing me off

Ya know, I'm not completely ignorant when it comes to this stuff. But, it would be nice if this site was more user-friendly!

1.) Why is it that whenever I add a picture, it only gets added to the very top of what I'm writing, not where the curser is? I have to drag the damn thing all the way down to where I want it, and that takes some doing because you have to drag, drop and THEN scroll down the box some more... repeat.

2.) The templates on here suck. Period. I'm been scouring the web for funky templates and none of them seem to work right. The directions those sites have for adding them to your blog don't seem to apply to BlogSpot. There is NO place ANYWHERE on my "dashboard" to upload a new template. It only lets me paste HTML, which I can't seem to access on most of these templates. Am I missing something?

UPDATE: Finally figured some stuff out.... obviously. Like the new design? Yeah, I'm not sure either, but it's a heck of a lot better than what it was! The template has some design flaws that I'm trying to work out. It'll do for now.

It's started... (and then was abruptly put on hold)

Houston. Rain. Flooding. They go hand-in-hand, just like Forks and, um, rain. Today was supposed to be a super-busy day beginning with my son's "conditioning" training at 10am, a birthday party at 1 and then the crawfish boil at 5.

Training was skipped because a.) Connor went to bed with a migraine last night (probably due to the weather), b.) The weather (nothing like waking up to a huge clap of thunder!) and c.) I really couldn't be bothered to get out of bed.

I decided around 11 to take the kids for lunch at Mission Burrito before we traveled to the party. The party was (I guess "is" would be more correct since I'm sure it's still going on) a science-themed thing. Full of potential opportunities for PE to assist! I mean, he DOES have two degrees in medicine. That involves lots of science courses, right?

PE is all ready to go! Look!
He even found my car keys!

We get to Mission Burrito before the complete monsoon hit. PE is already being very helpful. He points out that Kid's Meals are only $3 on weekends! PE is so economy-conscience!


We take the food to the table and since PE can't eat human food, he decides to help pass out napkins to the kids (not that they'll EVER use them).


That's about when it hit. Full force. The power goes out and everything! Yeah, yeah, it came back on a few seconds later, but the kids freaked-out. Flash flooding starts and I really begin debating internally the intelligence (and sanity) behind attempting the 30-minute drive to this party.

The patio at Mission Burrito.
Notice the water spray on the blurry car.

That's when I check the local radar on my iPhone. Ah, tornado vortex symbol thingy... nice. OK, we'll wait a few minutes and try to head in the direction of the party. Yeah, first major stupid idea of the day (which is saying a lot since it was 12:30pm. My stupid ideas usually start much earlier than that. Must be the weather.) I didn't make it far. For those of you that live in H-town, you know that I-10 and Hwy 6... scratch that. ANY part of I-10 on the Katy side goes under when it rains. Since I needed to get to the beltway to make it over to Westpark (where the party is), I decided to try W. Little York. I made it about 1/2 mile and scared the crap out of myself.

I drive a MINI Cooper. I L-O-V-E my car. But, it is pretty low to the ground and not by any means the ideal car to be driving when there is flash flooding potential. Suddenly, I found myself and my car in a whole lotta water! All I could think was, "Please don't flood out. Please don't flood out!" And looking ahead at the big-ass SUV in front of me, it only got deeper. So, like a smart bunny, I turned around and gave up.



RANT: WTF is up with stupid-assed SUV and truck drivers that think it's ok to plow thru flood waters at a high rate of speed sending a tsunami-sized wave of water on top of unsuspecting smaller cars?!

Anyway, we're back home how. My husband tells me this is supposed to clear out by 5 and the crawfish party thrower just called to ask if I can bring salad stuff for her friend from California.

To Be Continued....

OK. I've lost what little of my mind was left.

I bought an Edward "action figure." Yeah, I know. I'm a dork. But that's ok. I've known it for a while, but now, apparently, I'm embracing it whole-heartedly.

Today, I was at the (now bankrupt) Woodlands Mall. I was getting my grey covered up (it's not GREY... it's platinum blonde!) and my hair cut. But, it was threatening to rain of Noah proportions, so I got there 1 1/2 hrs earlier to avoid looking like a drowned rat. I had some serious time to kill. I killed some time trying the expensive samples at Sephora and buying undies at Gap Body... but not enough. This is how I found myself at Spencers.

Ah, Spencers. The gift from the gods for killing copious amounts of time. That's where I saw him: Pocket Edward.


You have to know that I've been following a really funny blog for a while now called Twitarded. The girls who run this blog have a "pocket Edward" that they take with them places and take pictures, etc. I'm incredibly jealous of their creative Edward pictures and the hilarious stories that go with them. So, what did I do when I saw Edward hanging there on the wall in Spencers? I bought him, lied when the sales clerk asked if I was buying it for me, came home and started a blog.

Actually, BEFORE I came home, I did get my hair done. Like the Twitarded girls travel everywhere with their Pocket Edward, I travel everywhere with my Kindle2. It comes in really handy when, say, you're getting your hair done at the mall and the only thing to read while sitting under a dryer is last month's issue of Seventeen (the prom issue, I might add). Katie, the girl who cuts my hair (in non-Mom styles), asked me about my Kindle. I showed her the home screen which lists all the books I have stored on it. I have it set up to list my most recently read books first. Of course, listed right there are the four Twilight books and The Host. She gets all excited because it turns out that Katie is a big Twilight fan. She saw the movie nine times... just in the theater. So, since she appears "circle of Twi-hard trust" worthy, I show her what I had just bought at Spencers. "Oh! I have one! But, I'm not taking mine out of the box." Suddenly, I don't feel so alone in my dork-dom.

I get home (after fighting some horrendous traffic and flood waters) and break the news of my purchase to my husband hoping that he doesn't reach for the phone and dial the nice men in the white coats. We all know that he's known about my lack of mental stability for some time now and probably has a nice padded room on reserve for me. I tell him my wonderful plans to take Pocket Edward to a crawfish boil tomorrow for fun and excitement. Shockingly, he doesn't call the funny farm. He doesn't even get upset at my frivolous purchase. He just continues stirring the dinner he's making on the stove (which was AWESOME btw).

After dinner (and a beer), I get the scissors to release Pocket Edward from his plastic enclosure. I get him out and try to stand him upright. He has to stand up on his own, right? A sense of balance would sure help in composing good (and hopefully funny) pictures. Nope. Just falls backwards. So, I start moving his head and arms to see just how to accomplish this feat.

Uh oh. Crap. I'm holding Edward in one hand and HIS hand in the other. Well, his lower arm and hand actually. Damn it. I've had this thing for two whole minutes and I've already broken it. That's gonna put a damper on pictures. No, wait! That could make for some funny pictures! No, no, no. I'll try to fix him. Hmmm. Won't go back together.

So here is my Edward doll, looking more like Riley after his encounter with Seth in Eclipse. Super-awesome husband to the rescue! With superman-like strength, he popped that vampire's arm right back in to place. I guess he's gotten lots of practice with the kids' toys.

Hindsight being 20/20, I should have taken a picture. I mean, that's what I'm supposed to be doing with him right?