Hello! I Didn't Die!

That's it. The business of summer is behind me! I'm so happy I could cry! I've been working at least an extra half hour every day, if not an hour. Although I did get a free breakfast out of it, I'm wiped. But! Only a few more days until school starts and I get my afternoons back to myself! And this weekend is not busy! I'm going to Reba tomorrow night. And that is our only plans. Saturday will be spent catching up on the cleaning that is in dire need in this house!

The birthday party was awesome. Probably the easiest one we've done so far. Slime cake was deliciously disgusting:



So disgusting, in fact, that there were a couple kids who just couldn't bring themselves to eat it! And now my little man is 8 years old. Doesn't seem like it should be possible, but at the same time, it kind of seems like I've had him my whole life.

On Saturday we went fishing, and I caught a HUGE fish. Not eatable by my standards, but a ginormous one at any rate:


And speaking of this picture, it's disgusted me to the point that once school starts and I get my me time back, I'm hitting the diet thing HARD. So I've started another
blog called "Glamorous Redneck does Body by Glamour". I've been looking at the info about it in my magazine every month, and it seems like the most viable. More of a lifestyle change than actual diet. And I know we need to eat better, so it just makes sense.

There's nothing there yet, but starting next Tuesday, I'll be blogging over there too. And it'll be very honest. This will certainly not be the worst picture ever taken of me. So, if you feel like you could stand to lose a few, and you want to come along for the ride, check it out! I could always use a little moral support! Plus, the more the merrier, right?

Disappearing GR

Hey, so I kind of disappeared again there, didn't I? It's that time of year where I'm busy at work, busy at home, and just plain busy.

This weekend one of my very best friends (and the last of my bridesmaids) got married. Diva was her flower girl and I was one of her personal attendants. And it poured rain for the better part of the day. Thank GOD I had a huge golf umbrella to transport girls with fancy hair from the vehicle to the church completely unscathed! Diva looked like royalty, as did the bride. It was such a hurried day, and before I knew it, I was sufficiently pissed off at CB (he will not dance. Ever. I threatened bodily harm at our wedding if he didn't dance. Evidently I need to do this at every dancing opportunity.) and the day was over.

Sunday I was exhausted, but we still managed to get to my mom's house and get the children back from her. Then I napped.

Today I'm having lunch with my favorite cousin and then watching the finale of America's Got Talent. Because the guy with the puppets is related to someone that goes to my church. And holy Hannah, he's MEGA talented. If he doesn't win this thing, my lack of faith in the American voting society will be cemented. Because, seriously, anyone can sing. And there's another ridiculous show for that. You three AGT singers will probably get recording contracts anyway, so why not give the $1 million to the guy who really IS the most talented? There, I've plead my case.

This weekend CJ will be turning 8 years old. We're having a Dirty Jobs themed party, complete with slime cake (a la the Nickelodeon Magazine commercials of the early 90's) and swamp sludge punch. I'm excited because I'm a big old nerd who would plan parties professionally if there were a market for it out here!

So I promise I'll get back to all of your blogs again this week. I just can't promise that posting will be anymore than sporadic until school starts.

A Fair to Remember

So, the tractor pull was just as I had suspected--sucky. The modified ones that looked like drag racers were cool, but since there was only 4 of them and it was a 4 hour show, I didn't really think it was worth the sore arse that came along with sitting on wooden bleachers for that long.

Saturday was super fun, though! Diva and I started off at a tea party where we ate divine food and had wonderful company. Then we picked up our four extra kids and headed off to the fair again. It's really cool because Home Depot always sets up a booth there on Saturday where the kids can build things like pencil boxes, butterfly houses, and race cars for free. My kids love it and the other four did too. The only thing that really sucked was the weather. It rained in the middle of the night, so it was steamy. 90 with 90% humidity at least. It was one of those days that you start dripping sweat as soon as you walk out of the air conditioning. Sucked.

Anyway, we wandered around looking at stuff, watched some lumberjacks race against each other, then we headed down to look at the Belgian horses. Belgians are big like Clydesdales. I think the smallest one was 1500 pounds. Diva usually loves this part because she's a huge horse fan. But the poor thing got BITTEN by one of the horses:
I took the pic this morning, so it looks lots better. But if you look, you can see the freaking TEETH MARKS the thing left on my baby. She was shaking and screaming and so scared. I hated it because I didn't know what to do for her! Plus I hadn't been right there (this was on CB's watch, of course!) so there was no way I could have stopped it.

Granted, the horse was blind in one eye and she came up to him on that side with her arm in the air, but still! She got BITTEN by a HORSE! We're just lucky she didn't get her shoulder broken.

We recovered from that, and the Demo Derby was awesome! We saw a car blow up (drive was safe), another car hop on top of one, and some pretty cool paint jobs on the cars. It was done a lot earlier this year than it was last year, but that was probably a good thing because we had six very hot and very tired children on our hands. I was certainly reminded why we stopped at two.

Yesterday CB had one more request and that was to go to a threshing show. For those of you that have not experienced one of these, let me save you the trouble. Lots of older gentlemen fix up tractors that they used to ride on with their grandpas. Then they drive them around and show how the old wheat threshing machines work. So there, now you can say you know what a threshing show is. Waste of time and cut into my nap time.

Then I did my little co-hosting gig with Mr. Fab and ended up staying up until 3 this morning because evidently it's not a good idea to drink a Rockstar energy drink and a bottle of Coke in the same day. Unless, of course, you're planning to stay up for three days.

I Survived!

The radio show went well and I had lots of fun talking with Mr. Fab, Turnbaby, Turnbaby's DH & Shelli. You can listen here. I don't know how to embed the little player in my post, but if you go to that website and click on the archived shows, mine is August 12th.

So, it was lots of fun, and I'm so glad that I did it! Plus, Mr. Fab says I'm the nicest co-host that he's ever had, so he automatically scored extra cool points.

Glamorous CONTEST!

This is one of the few weekends of the year that I actually embrace the whole "redneck" thing. Semi-Civ has its County Fair this weekend, which means FAIR FOOD! Fried cheese curds, mini donuts, pork chops on a stick (don't knock 'em, they're DELISH!), and various other artery-clogging goodness. It also means it's time for the demo derby.

The first time CB tried to convince me that a demo derby would be fun, I was like psssh, wtf-ever. Please, let me pay money to go watch cars crash together. But I was outnumbered and so we headed up to the racetrack. And it was a blast! I want to go BE a demo driver! We've gone the past three years, and the kids can hardly wait for tomorrow night. Their favorite part? When the cars fishtail towards the crowd and spew mud up at all of us. Ok, so maybe I think that's kinda fun too.

They've outnumbered me again this year, and are making me go to the tractor pull tonight. Again, no interest whatsoever. Do you think I could convince them to just drop me off at the mall while they went and watched loud tractors pull a bunch of weights? Of course not. So, I'm trying to being open-minded. But I don't have my hopes up.

Also, make sure you tune in to Mr. Fab's weekly radio show where Yours Truly will be his guest host. I'm nervous, but excited. But I'll be even more excited if some of you will either call in or IM Mr. Fab with questions. Like, if you're reading this and you have a question asked on the radio show, I'll enter you in a drawing for something that is as yet to be determined because I just thought of this right now. But trust me, it'll be cool. So. Got a question you're just dying to ask? Click on Mr. Fab's website and look for instructions on how to get your voice heard! Then listen, and email me at the address over ---> there with your snail mail address and I'll pick a winner on Monday.

A Case of the Funk

I've been in quite a bit of a rut lately. It sucks because there's like this huge creative tidal wave going on in my head, but none of it can come out. I want to write, but every time I sit down and try to, I'm left with fingers that won't move and ideas that will not come out from underneath the wave.

Maybe it's the late summer blues. While we're booked every weekend until school starts, the weeks are long and boring. Too hard to do anything because I work in the middle of the day. Too hot to do anything because the humidity and I still don't get along so well. So here we sit. Inside. Making the kids do schoolwork (Ha ha! EVIL MOTHER!) so they don't go back and spend the first week of school drooling because they don't remember anything.

In other news, I went to the optometrist a couple of weeks ago and my eyesight had improved so much that he had never seen anything like it. So, of course, I had to get new glasses:
Don't you think they make me look smarter??? OK so maybe not, but I LOVE them! They go along with the whole 50's-60's obsession I've had lately.

Diva and I went to see Hairspray again this weekend with Redneck Sister. Diva said it was the best. movie. ever. She went dancing up the isle at the end of it and can't wait to buy it on video! It's so cute to watch her fall in love with musicals. Does this nerdy mom's heart good!

Hotels

We were going to get out of town for a couple of days this past weekend, but I couldn't find anything that wasn't shady for less than $100 and if I'm going to pay that much, it's going to be downtown Minneapolis.

Anyway, it reminded me of staying at hotels with various people for various reasons. There is always a funny story that happens at the hotel, and I was reminded of one in particular.

It was my birthday weekend and some friends and I had headed up to the cities for a concert. We had gotten a really good deal on a hotel that was pretty decent. My mom was along too (seriously, she's the coolest mom EVAH!), and she had made the reservation, so she got the keys and we headed up to the room.

When the four of us walked in, we were surprised that there was only one bed. My mom and another friend quickly laid claim to the bed of course. But I hopped on it too. I was surprised to find two CDs on the bedside table. So, I started to investigate. I also came across some used chapstick and a book in the drawer. "Hmm," I thought "maybe the maids haven't cleaned yet."

Then someone opened the dresser drawer and discovered men's underwear. And in the bathroom there was an electric shaver and various other sundries.

"Aaah! We're in the WRONG ROOM!" Friend screamed. My mom said that she would go down and get it all squared up. But (stupid us!) we stayed IN THE ROOM. Friend 1 really had to use the bathroom, so we hustled her along so that we could get out of there.

Sure enough, just as we were opening the door, there was the guy who belonged in the room. Imagine his surprise when he saw three strange women in his room! We quickly apologized and continued to as we made our way out of his room. After he shut his door, Mom made her way back up and we got inside the correct room, just in time to collapse in fits of laughter. I have never had anything like that happen and we've stayed in a whole lot of hotels!

Then, the next morning, Mom got up to use the shower, only there was no water. None. It turned out that there was a huge water main break somewhere and the entire hotel was out of water. They offered us bottled water with which to brush our teeth. Or we could hop on a bus and get taken to another hotel to shower there.

We elected to use the bus because all of us use lots of hairspray and when one sleeps on a hairspray'd head, one looks quite similar to the bride of Frankenstein in the morning. So imagine four overtired (some slightly hungover) women with hair going every which way climbing onto a bus in their pajamas just to be able to shower.

Luckily, the hotel we were driven to was a Sheraton--which has the most comfortable beds in the whole hotel industry--so I got a little bit more sleep whilst the others were primping and priming. Because while I wear more makeup and styling products than them, I've got it all nailed down to about 15 minutes on a high-maintenance day. The other girls that were along take AN HOUR to get ready. And that's just hair!

Your turn. . .any crazy hotel stories?

Ladies, Know Your Boobies

Nothing I could ramble about today would be nearly as important as this post on Inflammatory Breast Cancer. So, ladies, go read it now. All of you: forward it on, post it on your blog. Let your mom/sister/grandma/great Aunt Bettie twice removed know about this type of very dangerous breast cancer.

And know your boobies. So you know when something changes.

Wow

So, in case you live under a rock, I'm sure you heard about the tragedy that hit this state today. While I'm two hours away from it all, I have been on that bridge so many times. I'm shocked. I'm worried for the many friends I have up there that haven't posted anything on myspace or anything. I know I'm overreacting and that they're most likely fine, but I won't feel completely OK until I have actually heard from each and every one of them telling me that I'm paranoid and overreacting.

I was just glued to the TV last night. I couldn't get over how big that bridge was and the fact that it's all just a big pile of rubble now. I'm so thankful that more people weren't hurt, but even though they decreased the death toll, I'd be stupid and naive to think that it was going to stay that low.

None of it seems all that real to me. So I just stay glued to the computer, refreshing and checking emails, waiting for them to tell me that they're all OK.

You Can't Stop the Beat!

Evidently it's movie week here at Glamorous Redneck.

Last night I had a very much deserved Girl's night out to see Hairspray! with one of my very dear friends. It was AWESOME! I had seen the original movie, but it was years ago and so it was like seeing it for the first time. Plus, since it was a movie, then Broadway, and now a movie based on the Broadway show, it was probably different from the first movie too.

The songs were so good and the costumes were to DIE for! Friend and I were contemplating how to make dresses of our own. The voices were amazing, as were the actors.

Afterwards we headed to Applebee's for 1/2 price appetizers and I had a perfect margarita that was. . .well. . .perfect. I didn't get home until midnight and couldn't sleep because the songs just kept running through my head! I really COULDN'T stop the beat! lol

Diva was very determined to find out if it was an OK movie for her to see, so she felt it necessary to wake me up not once. not twice. but THREE TIMES to see if I was awake yet and find out if the movie would be OK. And that was after twice coming in my room to get clothes out of the laundry baskets.

The worst part of all of that is that this is an old house. An old house that doesn't have normal doors. The door to my bedroom has some sort of weird spring thing in the doorknob mechanism. The kids have yet to grasp the art of closing this door (turn knob, push door, hold with foot, unturn knob) so instead of doing it, they will slam the door. And when slamming the door just makes it come open again, they slam it again. And again. Until they slam it so hard it sounds like an A-Bomb went off outside my room and I'm awake for the day. Hmmmm. Maybe they do this on purpose. . .