A few months ago Willie Nelson came to town.  I didn’t go.  Afterwards I was livid.  I knew I would never forgive myself for that so when I heard Merle Haggard was coming I was dying to go.  Unfortunately the tickets were nearly $80.00 so I kept holding out buying them.  The next thing I knew it was the day before the concert and I had no tickets.  I resigned myself to the fact that I wasn’t going.  I set about baking a cake for my grandpa and when I had just put the finishing touches on it the girl in my office called and said, “I know how bad you wanted to go, so I called in a favor and got the tickets can you be here in 40 minutes.”

I’ve never moved so fast in my life.  I showered, shaved, dressed and arrived in 28 minutes.  

I arrived just in time to get in line at the bar and use the free drink tickets she got

Two Old Fashioned please. (Which quickly turned into six..or eight.  I’m not really sure)

This was right about the time the bartender asked me how old I was because I looked too young to be ordering this drink.

Then they came out.

It was beautiful.  They took turns singing and playing the back up guitar for each other.  Something about old men and guitars had me all revved up to dance.

After the show we headed to the club in the casino that had a country DJ where I proceeded to dance like a fucking honky tonk queen (Unless you were sober….then I looked like a drunk white girl shaking her ass like a dork on the floor).

We took a break and went up to her room.  Room 1911.  She told me I had to behave because 911 was already in our door number..when I was drunk that made total sense.

This sign however made no sense…look hard

Then we went back and danced.  Around 12pm I declared that I must have mashed potatoes.  So she left her son in charge of me and went in search of mashed potatoes.  If you are wondering what kind of person does that, it’s the kind of person who says, “I know you’ve had a rough few weeks, and if you want to get drunk, dance and eat mashed potatoes you totally deserve it,”  Her son did a terrible job watching me though because before I knew it some big burly older cowboy grabbed me on the dance floor and started twirling me around and tossing me around like a ragdoll.  I will be honest, as much as I wish I knew how to do all those awesome country dances the most I can do is move my knees in and out while shuffling side to side like Gwenyth Paltrow does in Country Strong.  After that all the older cowboys thought it was kind of funny and took a turn trying to teach me to two step or five step or….I dunno it felt a lot like being flung around like a yo yo but it was oooooh so fun.  I danced by myself for an hour probably.  Finally one guy got brave enough to come up and slow dance with me.  It was cute.  He had been watching all night and I saw him talk to the person he was with and I saw the moment he made the choice to just walk up to me, grab me and start dancing.  I loved every minute of it.  Sometimes a girl just needs to feel sexy, dance, and have a good time.

This was right about the time we decided to have dinner (2:00 am).  I think I looked pretty damn cute considering I was sweating my face off.  I was thankful that night I don’t ever wear makeup because all that dancing would have had it running down my face like a hot mess.

I’m kind of cute if I do say so myself.

Finally I decided I needed some water.  I spied an unopened bottle at the bar, sneakily grabbed it, opened it, took a long drink and then stuck it back trying to sneak away.  I turned face to face with an old cowboy who was just grinning ear to ear at what this girl in front of him had just done.  I blushed and said sorry, but he just picked up the bottle of HIS water, handed it to me and said, “I think you forgot something.”  At this point we met three other guys at the bar one of them looked just like Zach Galifianakis.  Dammit I wish I took a picture…but it was exactly like this ONLY WITH A SCARF TOO!  Fucking hilarious.

Those guys were super sweet and had the bartender get me water in a fancy drink glass so I looked like I was still sipping something fabulous when it was really just water.

We were getting ready to leave when I noticed the cabaret was playing music.  The DJ had left a long time ago so I ran over there.  There was about 7 black girls and a bunch of guys.  Oblivious I ran down and started shaking my groove thing.  The girls just started cracking up.  Two of them ran up to me and adopted me like I was a little sister or a little doll or something.  They were just hell bent on teaching me to dance.  They made the DJ turn on the electric slide and tried so hard to teach me.  I failed.  They were cracking up at this poor white girl trying to have some rhythm.  I had NONE.  The guys were their husbands and friends from a basketball tourney and they came running over to get a group shot of the seven girls with rhythm and the silly little white girl in her boots and faded jeans.  Comical.

I finally made it home (I hadn’t had a drink for about 5 hours) and I was dead tired.  But the worst part was the next day.  Holy shit dancing is a work out.  My thighs are still protesting.

If you spend the afternoon chasing your baby chickens through the rose bushes trying to get them back in their coop and then spend your evening with your arms in bleach water cleaning a kitchen your arms will hurt for hours.

If you chop 5 cups of red onions and then wipe your eyes YOU WILL CRY.

If your boss has a can opener smarter then you, you will end up with aluminum shards lodged in your hands. (see bleach reference above)

If you grow your nails out really long and pretty you will slice every one of them off no matter how hard you try to tuck them in. You may even slice a cute little hole in one.

But what will for sure will happen is that you will slice a whole finger nail off and bleed all over your bell peppers.

If your boss asks you to MINCE 65 mini mini teeny bell peppers you will become a little stabby by the end of the night.

You can spend over five hours at a kitchen cooking and still not eat dinner.

I can't wait to do it all again tomorrow.

Right before I went to Mexico my husband was doing a few loads of laundry and some how three of my shirts and two bras got broken.  I found out later that the lint trap had a little build up in it so one side was sticking out causing all of straps to twist around until it snapped.  I purchased two more bras before going but since I'm a DD I can never find bras my size, and on the rare occasion I do they are big ugly utilitarian looking things.   So off I went to Mexico with my ugly ill fitting bras.  

Did I mention that in Mexico they did my laundry for me?  So imagine my sadness when they brought me back my one and only bra BROKEN.  But never fear there was a Walmart down the street I would just buy more. Off I go to Walmart.  But I found myself in what must have been the little kid section because there was not a single bra bigger then a B cup.  I searched high and low and my husband even came digging through bras with me.  Finally I gave up and went to the dressing room to ask for help.  But there is one small problem.  I don't speak Spanish. 

The conversation went like this:

Me: Do you have any bigger bras, like D cups?

Girl: *Blank stare* Doesn't understand English

Me: *Points to bra and says, "mas bigger?"

Girl: Noooo 

Me: Giving up, grabs my boobs, squeezes them upwards and says, MUCHO GRANDE BOOBIES, NEED MAS BIGGER BRA"

Right about the time I'm shaking my boobs around yelling MUCHO GRANDE BOOBIES three other employees walk by and begin staring at me.  At this point I've lost all dignity so I repeat the boob jiggling MAS BOOBIE shouting in hopes of getting help.  No such luck.

Later my mom went to a flea market and proudly came back with a hot pink and neon purple bra in a C cup.  I put them on and I'm pretty sure they were mislabeled because they fit more like a -A.  

I gave up on bras for the rest of the trip.

When I got back to Reno I went all around to find Bras.  I went to "secret" places, and Big Red Dot  places and no one made a DD bra that didn't look like an 80 year old womens bra.  

But then I remembered I had a gift card to Eden Fantasys and I decided to start browsing their bras.

HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS. They have so many.  And AND they carry DD AND plus size.  I was in heaven.  They offered all of their beautiful bras in my size, plus size, every size.  All of their lingerie in fact.  I was hooked.  But then I had a problem.  I wanted to know what my husband would like.  So the next thing I know I'm pulling up pictures of women in bras on my computer and taking photos of them, then texting them to my husband to get his approval.  Which would have been fine if later in the night when I was working and showing my boss photos of the present I made my sons teacher I didn't suddenly open up a picture gallery FULL OF WOMEN IN BRAS, PANTIES, CORSETS AND SEXY STOCKINGS.

OH. MY. GOD. KILL. ME. NOW.  I stuttered on trying to find out what in the hell to say to her. She just started laughing at me.  

Anyway here are a few of the beauties I have a crush on currently that come IN MY SIZE IN DD!  

Y'all if you are in the market for incredible good priced bras (the price even includes panties) you need to be shopping here.  I can't wait for my first order to arrive.  I can't wait to place my second order because I realllly need this.

All of the sets I listed above aren't over $40.00 and some as low as $28.00 and it includes EVERYTHING shown (but the stockings)  That is an amazing deal don't you think.  I can't wait to finally stock up on well fitting bras that are also hot as hell for my husband.

I love catering.  More then catering I love cooking.  And some how I've become my bosses baker, which I thought I would hate but turns out I LOVE TO BAKE!  Let me give you a look into my life the past few days.

Last Thursday: Wake up, get kids ready for school, go to work for thirty minutes, leave work, take kids to school, rush back to work.  Work until 3pm then run to get Brandon from school.  Go back to work.  Work until 4:30 pm.  This is normally when I go home.  But last week I left the office and went to the kitchen and baked until 10:30 at night.

Friday.  Same stuff as above but get off work and go to Brandons baseball game from 5-6:30.  Then have a play date with a friend at ball park until 7:00 pm.  Make dinner.  Don't fall asleep till midnight.  

Saturday: Wake up, go to a baseball game at 8:45-11:00.  Leave game and drive straight to kitchen.  Work until 8:03 at night.  I had a list of stuff to finish.  While there the boss called and added a pan of brownies and a pan of pecan bars.  Most people would be mad to get more work but I was excited she wanted me to do more, it means she trusts me.  Later she showed up and added two pans of baked french toast, three pans of breakfast strata and then dice 45 potatoes and bake them off for mothers day breakfast potatoes the next morning, oh and DON'T BURN THE BACON SHE PUT IN THE OVEN. 

Today was my only day off. My mom and I went to the spa for mothers day and it was amazing.  We got pedicures, went in the steam room, a relaxation room, a hot tub, etc.  Then played in the shower with all of the sugar polish and 6 shower heads.  It was great.  I spent the rest of tonight up making the gift for my kids teacher from the whole class.  It's now 11:30 at night and I'm still awake.  I don't know why.

Here is my next 8 days.

Monday: Work at normal job leave and go straight to kitchen till 10pm.

Tuesday: Work, find a way to cook the snack for baseball that night because it's our turn, then go to baseball game and try and fit in a play date.

Wednesday: Work then go to kitchen until 10pm.

Thursday: Work then kitchen until 10pm.

Friday: Work then go to kitchen to finish up the stuff for a catering that night.  Leave kitchen and go to a large catering event until ….whenever it ends.

Saturday: Head to kitchen at 10am and prep all food for even that day.  Mid day leave kitchen and head to huge catering that will go until really late.

Sunday: Wake up at crack of dawn and head to San Francisco for a Giants game. Then drive home the same night.

Monday: Wake up dead tired from SF trip, go to work, take kids to school, go back to work, pick up kids, come back to work finish the day and head back to kitchen.

So if you guys don't hear from me this week there is a reason I'LL BE DEAD DOG TIRED AND OVER WORKED…But loving every minute of that cooking.

PS here is the teacher gift I'm working on.  

The little yellow cards will house gift cards for the teacher to the local mall here so she spends it ALL ON HERSELF.  The crayons are tied on loosely so they can be removed and donated to the class.  The pencils holding her name can be donated to the class.  The gift cards are held on by colored pencils.  The crayon box to the right has all of the extra crayons, pencils, colored pencils and sharpeners to donate to her class.  The big pink container can be reused to store all of the crayons or other supplies in next year.  Now I'm just hoping I get the other moms to donate toward the gift.  I'm tired now, tonight was my only free night to create it.  What do y'all think?

I have been back in the dugout every game since this post. Things have been better.  The coach had a talk with the kids about listening to me and I had a talk with a lot of the parents letting them know I would sit their kid out if they didn't straighten up.  I think it was a good idea to have me go in there because now there is a familiar face in their at all times that they know they need to listen to.

I wanted to share with you my favorite comment from that post, it comes from Steph who I read and love to pieces.  I'll be honest when I started to read her comment I got a little sad.  I was worried you guys thought ill of me…but then I read on and remembered exactly why I love all of my readers so much.  Steph, thank you a million times for making my day with this comment:

"I can't even believe you're asking about drinking beer in a dugout filled with little kids. WAAAAAY inappropriate. This is clearly a case of "fill the aquafina bottle with vodka." Or add some to your coke. Or gatorade if you want to be sporty:) Besides… it sounds like you're gonna need the hard stuff to be able to handle the kids haha"

We started rookie ball a few weeks ago.  This year was a lot different then T-ball for one basic reason.  The kids on my sons team are ROTTEN!  Not just a little bit either.  They are just full on bad.  There are four of them.  Last week I got fed up and elected myself dugout mom.  The first game was terrible.  In one hour I had kids climbing the gate separating the dugout from the field, dangling from the hooks on the walls, calling other kids stupid, punching other kids, trying to break other kids bags, kicking kids, calling me stupid, pushing and shoving all over, and screaming mean things to their friends and the other team.  

I didn't know what to do.  I had to separate two kids with a water bottle, move one kid all the way to another side of the bench and more then five times remove one kids hands off of another player. 

I talked to the coach and let him know that the next game I would be talking to parents if the behavior persisted.  He laughed and informed me that the week before the person helping in the dugout got spit on by one of the kids.  He told me that the parents of these four boys don't care at all about their kids behavior.  

I went back in the dugout during the next game and the coach came in and made it known that the kids had to listen to me as if I was a coach.  Things were going really good until I looked over and found A KID IN THE TRASH CAN!  He thought it was funny to hide in the trash and try and scare me.  I only had to pull one kid off the wall and only had to separate kids one time.  At the end of the game I went and talked to the kids parents.  I let them know about the trash, the hitting, spitting, calling stupid, and all around BEING ROTTENNESS!  I also informed the parent that at the next game if I have to talk to the kid more then once I will be removing them from the dugout and they will have to sit with their parents for the rest of the game. 

I felt bad for the dad.  You could tell he's dealt with this a lot and that he has heard this often about his son.  He swears the next game will be better.

We have a game tomorrow too….I'm wondering though, can I drink beer in the dugout?  Might make dealing with these boys easier.

I just want my son to have a fun experience without dealing with all the shenanigans.

Go outside and look on the patio because obviously your dumb ass dog would drag them out there to chew up.  Because that is where they belong right?

I went to the doctor today about my broken finger (don’t ask). While there we got to talking about how my iron is low AGAIN. Then I casually mentioned I had quit eating gluten. The doctor said that was good. Then I mentioned that I cut down my dairy intake a lot. This made her ears perk up. Knowing that I’m a vegetarian and now I’ve cut down dairy she was worried. I thought that would be a perfect time to tell her I quit eggs too. And coffee.

Now I was in trouble.

She started raving about B12 and iron and holy shit why did I open my mouth? I have been losing feeling in my hands for months now and had paid a shit ton of money to see an orthopedic doctor. My physician today informed me that the lack of B12 is what was causing that. She started writing up a prescription for iron and asked why I quit eating eggs. I had to tell her the truth.

It was Google’s fault.

I told her about Googling to find out when my chickens would lay eggs and how I then saw a picture of a chicken uterus and then my whole entire head exploded and I haven’t ingested an egg in any form since (chocolate cake I miss you). She was really laughing at me then.

But it got worse.

Because then the nurse walked in with a B12 shot. But the liquid was red. Natural the first thing I said was,

“Wait, you want to inject beetles in my butt?”

That stopped the whole office. Of course I had to explain to them how I found out that often red dye is made up of crushed beetles and that being a vegetarian and A SANE HUMAN BEAN I didn’t like eating beetles which meant I haven’t had anything red from Starbucks or Snapple in a year or so. They started laughing so hard. They couldn’t believe that I was really asking if my vitamin shot had beetles in it.

Here I just told them Google ruined me on eggs, and I had already told her about my visual freak out with hot dogs and burgers, and how I had sweet little baby chickens and because of that I could never eat a chicken again because they are my friends and then I just had to pop off and open my mouth about the beetles.

They didn’t know what to do. It’s not like the shot came with an ingredients list. They were torn between laughing really hard at me and worrying that they were going to inject a vegetarian with meat. In the end I said I would suck it up and take the beetles this one time….they were still giggling when I walked out.

I will never learn will I?

A couple weeks ago I decided to give up gluten, dairy and coffee in an effort to cleanse my body of toxins. It’s funny that this story comes from me attempting to rid myself of toxic things. I stumbled upon almond milk and got the idea one morning to mix chocolate almond milk with soy peanut butter (my son is allergic to peanuts so I can’t use the real thing). I blended it with ice for breakfast and took the first drink. I was instantly transported back in time. I was nine years old in the kitchen with my biological dad getting a life lesson on how to make a chocolate peanut butter milk shake.

Vanilla ice cream

Chocolate syrup

Peanut butter

Milk

Blend

I remember him telling me that it had to be vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup ONLY, that chocolate ice cream was unacceptable for this.

I stood there in my kitchen happy as I was recalling this memory.

But like always I began to over think it. I started wondering exactly how many positive memories I had of him. I mean, I have millions of good memories of my (step)Dad, and millions of my mom, but of my biological dad, aside from the ice cream I could only come up with two other happy memories and one of them was tainted by what he did right after it.

The second happy memory was sitting at Pyramid Lake eating those wax soda pop candies with him. You bit the top off and squirted the sugary syrup into your mouth, and then on the last one sometimes we would chew the whole thing up to get all of the flavor out.

The third memory was laying in my grandma’s living room with him coloring. He had bought this giant coloring book of vintage ladies in dresses and brought colored pencils and we sat there coloring for what felt like hours.

This is where the happiness of that morning fades.

Because what I actually remember of that day is not coloring pictures with my biological dad, it is what happened next. While coloring he said he needed a break so we went out on the patio. He then proceeded to cut a line of cocaine (crank? Too young to know the difference) and snort it right in front of me. This actually happened a few times through the day. The last time though I wanted to play too. My grandma had this old weird foam mattress outside on her deck. For some reason if you ran your nails down the mattress powdery residue would flake off. So I collected the residue on a little table, found a small piece of cardboard and scraped it all around the table like I had watched him do, then ran into the house to find my own “straw.” I ended up rolling up a small piece of paper and rushing back out to the patio to attempt to suck the dust up my nose. My dad had brought the phone out onto the patio (no cell phones or cordless phones back then) so he wasn’t really watching me.

Luckily I didn’t entire grasp the whole concept and the paper in my nose made me sneeze and all my powder flew everywhere and then I ended up coughing and choking on what I had sucked up. He was so wrapped up in his phone call that he didn’t even flinch at what I was doing.

For years after I would repeat this little procedure. I would grind up Smartie’s candies into a powder and pretend to cut it up and make perfect little lines. I did it with chalk and other things too. I had no idea what I was doing was wrong. In middle school I crushed up the candies on my desk once and a friend looked over to see it. She immediately freaked out thinking I had actual drugs on me. I was kind of baffled. Being more worldly then me she explained exactly what I was doing and I got pretty upset.

I had always known Rick (bio dad) was on drugs, I guess I just hadn’t realized he was doing them right in my face like that. Or maybe I did, but I chose not to entirely accept that. Either way, the memory of that day became forever tainted. I was pissed off. It would be 5 more years before I would drive to the coroner’s office and get his death certificate and find out just how much drugs were in his system when he died. Let me tell you, that day REALLY RUINED my happy memory.

I realize now as a mom that he didn’t pay very good attention to the memories he was making. That it never occurred to him that snorting drugs in front of me would for sure cancel out every good part of that day.

Similarly to the day he got all coked out and we walked to the park with his dog Peetie. I was having such a great time playing fetch with the dog and playing at the park. Until the dog didn’t fetch the ball right and my dad in a drugged out rage hit the dog with the bat.

For my entire life when I think of Rick the first thing that comes into my head (after his death of course) is him hitting that dog. Not milkshakes, not coloring, not driving my go cart into a window the one time I actually got to drive it, nope. The first thing I think of is him hitting that dog.

It’s a shitty memory.

I hate that memory.

That morning standing in my kitchen by the time I had come full circle of the memories and once again my day was ruined by him. It took over a week to get all of that back out of my system. Here I was trying to purge myself of toxins and I turned right around and filled my head with them. I hate that. I get so angry at that his lifestyle choices still affect me 18 years after his death. I am thirty years old I shouldn’t care about all of this. But I guess the memory, the crazy, the obsessive thinking is part of the legacy he handed down to me.

The milkshake hasn’t tasted as good since that first sip. It’s tasted a little bitter each time I’ve made it since. I wonder if he ever stopped to think about the memories he was making for me.

I doubt it.

For those of you with kids do you think before acting? Are you conscious of the memories you are making? I know I am now.

Now if only I could clean out my own head…and purge my own memories. Does anyone know of a cleanse that works for shitty fathers? If so I’d love to hear it.