Ring ring... hello? Is this guitar $59?

We went to Walmart, just got home. Bought a new cordless that tells you who's calling. Actually SPEAKS THE NAME of the person who is calling. Freaky.

Krissy had $45 in Christmas money and she found a guitar for $59. I caved and told her I'd throw in what she didn't have. Her face lit up like a Christmas tree... she was thrilled! I must have heard "thank you Mommy" a dozen times before we went to the check out.
She was all proud to be buying it herself, but her smile literally shattered when the cashier rang it up and it said $109. I looked at Krissy and she was so close to tears. I swear you could hear her heart break.
After explaining to the cashier that the tag [i]said[/i] $59, Jason told me to go back there and check myself (they already called down to the toy dept and they said it was $99). Krissy & I walked back there and right where we got the guitar from it said $59. I pulled the tag out of the shelf - it said it was for an acoustic guitar... I brought the tag up and the tag & the UPC code didn't match. Krissy was so ready to start crying... she wanted this guitar so bad, she's always wanted one since she was probably 4 or 5 years old. We got her one once - just a cheap starter one, but it broke a few years ago.
So anyway, they bring out the manager and you should have seen the smile come back on Krissy's face when they said they were giving us the guitar for $59!
We think the $59 guitar was probably a smaller one that they were sold out of... so the one we brought home really is a $99 one, but thats not what she paid for it!

And now I'm waiting for someone to call me so my phone can tell me who it is.

Make sure you read the instructions!

Here is the box I was talking about.....

Christmas is over

Christmas came and went without any problems... thats all a mom can ask for, right?

The husband & I were awake long before the girls woke up even after Demon #2 announced to us the night before that we were going to open presents when SHE woke up, no matter what time it was - even 3am. The demons finally rolled out of bed at 7am.

Man they are growing up.

After realizing how overboard I went on gifts this year from the cramp in my hand from holding the camcorder for over 1/2 hour, the demons were happy. #1 got her digital camera which she was convinced she wasn't getting and #2 got her Squakers McCaw parrot. By the end of the day I was regretting that purchase. That thing is annoying!

Remind me to take pictures of the box of one of the presents - the warning labels on there are hilarious! As the husband was reading them off I was laughing so hard my stomach hurt! Not good when the only thing in your stomach is coffee.

We hit the movie theater at noon yesterday, too. Went and saw National Treasure 2. Great movie - it got bad reviews from somebody but they must hate movies or something - that was a GREAT movie! But what the hell is on page 47??? Grrrrr Perfect opening for part 3, thats for sure.

At last

I suppose I need to make no excuses why this has been set on the back burner recently? It's that time of year... busy, busy, busy! It's Christmas Eve today and there's just a magic feel to the air. I love Christmas. I love the feeling of giving...

A bunch of people got the feeling of giving this year. I have a friend, one of my best friends, who has been in one bad month after another this year. Her husband had a good job, but the place was screwing him out of commissions, then they closed up. He was out of work. Her dad died and she is a bigger Daddy's Girl than I am! Her husband kept looking for work, but the problem is - he's too qualified. How messed up is that? He applied at low-end jobs such as a cashier at Home Depot - the person that was interviewing him basically laughed at him telling him he was more qualified for his job than he was! He did find a job, but a few days later the owners took off out of the country for work related stuff, but shut the doors while they were gone. So he's left waiting - and still looking for something to feed his family in the meantime. Oh yeah, did I mention they have 5 kids? They went to the food shelf, but they only give food, no necessities and a bunch of the food was either close to expiration or already expired. She got a bag of moldy sweet potatoes! Ewwww.
In the middle of all this her dryer, oven, washer & A/C broke. They live in Arizona. The A/C is sorta important. She's been washing clothes in the bathtub! For 7 people!
So a bunch of us who know her online got together - Saturday she received a gift box from one friend. Some food, toys, hygiene stuff. This week she will be getting at least $200 in Walmart gift cards, at least 3 more gift boxes filled with food, toys & needed things and a box full of frozen steaks and other meat from various people.
Funny thing about it all? They don't celebrate Christmas! They sure are this year though thanks to a bunch of friends that are sending love from all over the country!

It's amazing what the magic of Christmas can make happen!

And to all of you - Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays or whatever you would prefer me to say to you. I prefer Merry Christmas, so thats what you are getting the most of.

The Amazing Krissy

... and here we have the amazing Krissy!

Amazing Taryn

Our first video camera was purchased yesterday... now we must get the silly videos out of the way before we move onto more serious videos (like engines).

Scared of what I do

So if you come to this blog regularly, you are aware that I have my own shops. I have no problem talking about it here, because I figure if you don't want to hear about it you won't be here in the first place or you will just skip over that stuff, right?
Thats really the only place you will hear *me* talk about my designs. Occasionally on my forums, but nowhere else. I'm afraid of what people will think. How dumb is that?
The other day the husband asked me to make him a t-shirt for an upcoming snowmobile ride that he's going to with a bunch of people from vintagesleds.com. Fine, I did it. Then he wanted to post it there... oh good god. Why? Why did he have to do that? Now I'm sitting here worried that people are thinking I'm just bragging or something. So stupid. It's my job! I'm supposed to talk about what I do, otherwise how will I make money, right? I can tell strangers - but I can't tell friends. That is the most backasswards thing I've ever heard of and it's coming out of my own brain. Dumb. When the husband tells someone about one of my designs I just cringe. Just shut up already! I want people to know, but I don't want them to know.
I think my brain needs some new wires or something.

Happy Birthday to me

Did you know it was my birthday? Not that I really care anymore... I mean, do you really care after 21 anyway?

I always get a kick out of how people ask you if you feel older - exactly how much older are you supposed to feel from yesterday? Seriously - I don't feel any older today than I did yesterday.

Anyway, I'm 35 if anyone cares. I sure don't. And I sure don't feel 35 either. Ok, a few joints and muscles do, but overall I still feel like I'm 20-something - and occasionally, on a good day, you might catch me feeling like a teenager.

So yeah, what did I get? That's the other question I hear. Shouldn't my MOM be getting presents today? Considering she passed away years ago, I can't get her a present, but why do the people who were born on a certain day get the presents? They didn't do any work - the moms did! Get the moms presents... it's all so backwards.

But I did get presents. My daughters got home from school and ran up to their dad and said "give me money" and then ran out the door to buy me presents. I got a shoe necklace (it's beautiful - for a 10 year old.) that I proudly wore to dinner tonight at a steakhouse, a birthday balloon starring Garfield (Demon #2's favorite comic), 5 Reeses' Peanut Butter cups from Demon #1 (she knows me soooooo well) all wrapped up in a leopard print gift bag (again, they know me well!). So 2 out of 4 is really good for the demons.

I also went and got my drivers' license renewed today. Tomorrow I would have been driving illegal.

That was my day. Pretty average, really. Just another day... and just one day older and not feeling any different.

Updated again

Ok, ok I updated the new section at SledderWear again. I'm slow, I know. I'm even slower at InsanityWear. Maybe in spring. LOL

Go see the rest yourself. I'm realllly lazy today.

Threaten them and you shall get...

I decided to say hell with the outside picture idea... our Christmas cards are going to consist of the cropped picture of the husband & I and 2 pictures of the girls by the tree.

It was -10 below outside, I didn't think I'd get anyone outside so I didn't even try.

I threatened them. For every picture that they didn't smile - I would take away a Christmas present.

I should have tried that last weekend.

And this, my friends, is the true Demon Spawns showing through. I wasn't kidding when I say they are demons...

A Memory of Sex

A couple years ago I was giving Demon #1 the sex talk. I think she was a little disgusted at the whole concept of intercourse... maybe she was a little confused, I don't know. This is the same "brain dead" brain I am talking about - the one in my previous post, but this was before we knew of her brain dead disorder. But, of course, she wasn't a teenager quite yet when this talk was given. Anyway, I'm explaining, pretty simply to her what goes where when a woman gets pregnant. Then this happens, which really threw me for a loop;

"Does it hurt the first time you have sex?"

"Yes, it can and it usually does. But only the first time usually."

"So it hurt when you got pregnant with me?"

*insert a blank stare of a blank mom mind*

"Um... yeah it did"

What else do you say? I didn't need to go into details that I had sex before, right? Then she throws me for another loop;

"So then when you got pregnant with Krissy it didn't hurt that time, right?"

Oh good God!!! This child thought I'd only had sex twice in my life! Keep it simple, Mom, keep it simple....

"Um... nope. Didn't hurt that time"

Teenagers and Walmart!

First of all - we, as in the husband & I, have decided that once a body has been alive for 13 years the brain that is located in the head of that body either falls out or temporarily shuts down until ... well, we aren't sure how long. Possibly 21, don't know. I hope not that long. Demon #1 is brain dead. I've come to that conclusion. She walks around with a blank look on her face all the time and if you ask her something - anything - her only response is "huh?". If she was a little bit smarter I would think she was on drugs - but she's just not smart enough to figure out how to buy the stuff, much less figure out what to do with it. She'd be dumb enough to ask me how to use it.

Then there's Walmart.

The husband gets a gift card every year for Christmas from the place he works. This year we were given a $300 one to Walmart. It's always to Walmart. Every year the husband hands it over to me as a birthday/Christmas present (easy out!). This year I had it spent before we got it - I wanted a video camera. We've never had one, so I wanted one.

Did some research on Walmarts website today. Found a nice Sony one, pretty much what I wanted, for $314. Hey, I can handle that. So tonight we loaded us up in the truck and headed to Walmart to buy me that video camera.

It was $348 at the store.

What?

I told the not-so-happy-helper that online it's listed at $314. She looks at me like "so?". After a few comments, phone calls to whoever and a football type huddle between her and this other happy-helper person they inform me that they cannot sell me the camera for $314.

Ok let me get this straight. I can go home, order it online for $314... get it "shipped" to their store for FREE (free in-store pickup, you know), drive back to the store I'm already in and pick up my $314 camera, but I can't just walk in and buy one off the shelf for $314, I have to pay $348 to get it without a computer middle man?

Dumbest thing I've ever heard.

So I came home... ordered my camera and will go back on Tuesday and get my camera.

Anything to save $34.

Tune in next week for videos. I might even show you what a brain dead teenager looks like in real-time.

Sled Porn

Why I didn't think of this design before today, I don't know. Funny how the mind works.

For those of you who will find yourself staring at this thinking "huh?", don't worry - you have to be an avid snowmobiler to really appreciate this one.

Bengal Nurses Piglets Dressed In Tiger-Striped Coats

Bengal Nurses Piglets Dressed In Tiger-Striped Coats
Zoo Exchanges Animals To Amuse Visitors
BANGKOK, Thailand -- What do you get when you mingle piglets with a tiger or tiger cubs with a pig? Motherly love. At least that's what a zoo in Thailand found out after placing several piglets with a 6-year-old bengal tigress. The bengal feeds the piglets, which were dressed by zoo workers in tiger-pattern coats, and across the cage tiger cubs are fed by a sow.

Zoo officials said the animals have been interchanged with parents for the past few years. Officials said the reason for the experiment is to amuse visitors. Watch Local 6 News for more on this story.

This just made me sick. I know they aren't getting harmed, but come on... this is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Great amusement when the tiger realizes her "babies" smell just a little bit more like dinner than a cub and eat one in front of all these amused visitors. It's one thing to do to save the life of the babies...

I love zoos, I love seeing animals, but I hate them at the same time. It's sad when you stop to think about it. To sit and watch any wild animal not react at the sound of a human - they aren't wild anymore, they are a prisoner.

This story is just humiliating to the animals. Do they actually think that the pigs dressed up like tigers tricks the mom? She knows they aren't hers - it's called scent and instinct. She's doing this because she has the wildness drained out of her....

Stupid Monday

My head is all stuffed up, I'm sneezing, I'm out of cigarettes and the girls won't wake up for school. I hate Mondays.

I just had a cold about a month or so ago, why am I getting another one? Felt it coming on Friday and I was hoping it would just go away, but it won't! This sucks. I actually wanted to get a bunch of stuff done today around the house and now I just feel like I could lay in bed all day and hibernate.

I think I just might.

Yeah right. Like that will happen. Especially since I have to go out in this -6 degree cold just to get a pack of cigarettes. Good excuse to get some good flavored coffee though. And a candy bar.

Want 2 kids? Cheap!

My kids are demons from hell. They wouldn't cooperate for the family picture, they were crabby and wouldn't smile. I said we'd try again next week, but with a little cropping & some blurring I think they can just be cut out of the family this year and we'll send a pic of just me & Trucker on our Christmas cards.
I had a killer headache that felt like my head was going to explode... you think they just could have smiled. Grrrr