Honest Scrap Award

So Penny from Back to Basic Living sent me an email about the Honest Scrap Award a few days ago. I have been going back and forth on if I should do this or not. I can tell my secrets thats fine but the whole pass it on to other bloggers is another story. This is kinda in the realm of forwarded emails; which I hate with a white hot passion!! So I will break the rules and list my ten things but not pass it on. I know that's not the purpose and this could increase the "traffic" to my blog, but I don't care. It's my party and I will do what I want too! (Sorry Penny; love you mean it). So to make up for breaking the rules I will give some of my more scandalous secrets. My sister also got this and decided because our mom reads our stuff, she kept somethings to herself. I have a nice streak of I don't care this morning (I think it came in my cup of morning coffee) so lets begin.

1 I am jealous of my sister. First she has a whopping SEVEN followers and I have four. Also she has naturally curly hair and mine is flat straight. She has a great rack and always has a waist. I have a pregnancy gut and I had my last kid five years ago. I use to have boobs but breast feeding three kids deflated them. Jocelyn also has grown a pair and can deal with all kinds of things that would make me fall into a ball and cry. Sometimes she just makes me sick.

2 OK mom you might want to look away. When Chris and I were dating I told my mom I was going to spend the night at my best friend Brandy's house and instead Chris and I stayed the night at one of his friend's house. Oh crap! I gasped in shock writing that.

3 I got drunk for the first time in eighth grade. For the life of me I can't remember the name of the girl who gave me the alcohol. She also use to hang out with Chris's sister Shannon in high school and she use to flirt with Chris to the point that I told her I would break her legs but dude, still can't remember her name!

4 I got drunk for the last time on our first Thanksgiving married. We had a fight and I thought it would be smart to ride back home with Shannon and Benji. As a group we thought liquid courage was needed, it was also a 45 minute ride home; so I had plenty of time to grease my wheels. I was as sick as a dog and had extreme guilt when my Dad had to help me with a hangover. You think my mom is the queen of guilt trips; mere amateur next to the Master.

5 My junior year of high school I was drum major. A really sucky one but one none the less. One fateful football night while directing the band from atop the conducting stand, I fell off. My skirt caught the wind, billowed up and I mooned the WHOLE crowd in the home bleachers. Then at the end of the half time show the announcer just had to announce that the band was under the direction of Nicole StumblingBear! The one time I cursed my name. StumblingBear!!

6 I am in love with bugs. I can pick them up and handle them with no problems. I even let the kids keep them as pets and we have fun finding food for them.

7 I have an overwhelming fear of parasites. Once some goofy snake oil salesman sent out flyers to the people in my neighborhood about how different parasites cause your many health problems. Have asthma, than you have worms! Worms caused your weight gain and your bad breath! If you snore at night you have worms. Dyslexia is caused by worms! I had an insane amount of nightmares after getting that thing in the mail. "shudders"

8 I may be afraid of parasites but this one takes the cake. The Pipa Pipa otherwise known as the Surnim toad makes me feel nauseas. Really it makes me physically ill. I saw a video of it years ago on one of those animal shows and I was freaked. Something about your babies growing in your skin and can leave and come back when they want to is so wrong. I am sure its a whole subconscious fear thing over my kids finally moving out but what ever its freaky. I hope you people are happy I found a YouTube video for you.

9 Spanx I am in love with my Spanx! I wear them every chance I can. They make my pregnancy gut look less pregnancy-ey.

10 Right now I am highly annoyed with my mom. "Cue dramatic music!!" She has been churning out all kinds of lovely jewelry to sale and make some extra cash and woman won't set up a website to sell the stuff. Lady get a blog its free!! As soon as she sets one up I want to do a giveaway on my blog to give one of her jewelry pieces to a lucky reader. Can't do it if I don't have a place to send interested buyers to get more jewelry.

So there you go some drinking, debauchery, fears, my underwear and my mom is ticking me off! I live a strange life. So here is a list of ten blogs that I highly recommend.

Cool Mom
Angry Chicken
Not Made of Money
Sew, Mama, Sew!
celebrate CREATIVITY in all its forms
Jessica Claire
Attack of the Redneck Mommy
Wide Lawns and Narrow Minds
beard revue
Tartelette

Where are the clowns and elephants? It's just not a proper circus with out them!!

Or other wise known as so many crazy things in so little time!

Here lets start with Laney. We attended a wedding for July 4th and had a wonderful time. It was at a friends house; Susan. Susan is such a sweet and smart lady. She has three boys and when her and her husband had the bathroom redone they added a urinal. Really a very smart move. During the wedding and its festivities Laney had to go to the bathroom. (The kid goes so much I think she just likes to mark her territory) So off to the bathroom and of course Laney and I had to bicker over which toilet to use. You just haven't lived until you had to firmly tell your sweet daughter that under no circumstances is she to use the stand up potty; its for boys. Two trips to the bathroom and two times we have the same argument. So of course when Laney goes to the bathroom on her own for her third trip and without her mother she just had to use the urinal. Who would stop her now? What keeps her from forbidden fruit of the bathroom? Nothing; so of course she tries it and pees all over herself. We left early and missed the post wedding fireworks. :(

Sunday morning we are all tired and we all overslept and wound up racing around the house like madmen getting ready for church. Chris left first with Andrea and CJ in tow. Laney stayed with me and well I forgot to give her breakfast. Laney got down a bag of Doritos and decided that was good enough for her. I walk past her enjoying her morning fest and I even snagged a chip myself. I then paused, my chip tasted funny. "Laney did you do something to the Doritos?", "No I didn't", and she then proceeded to lick all the dust off of her chip and placed it in the pile I just got mine from. I ate a licked Dorito!! I couldn't drink enough coffee fast enough to wash the thing down with!

Now lets come to today. As some but not all know CJ was expelled from school last October. Long story, honest mistake he ain't a criminal; he just ain't that bright. (Love ya kiddo) So we home schooled because I could not send the kid to the alternative school. Those kids would eat him alive! Today I go to the high school armed with as much paperwork as I can find and thats it; to be told that they just might not let him back in school. He did not serve his time at the alternative school so there for he has not earned the right to come back.

TMI, TMI, TMI!!!!!!!
Now its that time of the month and when the sweet secretary lady told me that my uterus almost burst out of my body to attack her. I had to turn away from her and talk the ragging beast down. Nothing say normal mommy like talking her crotch into submission baby!!

So now I am waiting for a call from the principal informing me of his decision. Dude I thought expulsion was the punishment! I thought the alternative school was just that an alternative. A schooling option. So now it strongly looks like CJ just may be getting his GED and then taking classes at the community college. When his friends graduate high school he could be graduating with a two year degree. We have already talked over this possibility with him, he understands but he wants to go to high school.

So this is my freak show and like I said all I am missing is the clowns and the elephants.

Nicole........... Angry Much?

Well I have had to answer to a few folks since my last post. Mostly people want to know just how angry I am; apprantly that post was disturbing. Really its not, the truly disturbing stuff is in a composition notebook I keep on a bedside table. Its my personal list of emotional demons and oddly enough a couple of recipes too.

The reason why it has been such a rough time is because of the switching around of bedrooms. Andrea and Laney are doing an insane amount of fighting; as a way to deal with it we are moving Laney into Robbie's room. It is sooner than I am ready for. I still need to go sit in my little boy's room from time to time. Oh well I also need to hear less threats of bodily harm between those stink girls too.

So I gave away more of Robbie's stuff, rearranged the furniture, and hung prissy girl stuff from the ceiling. Laney does not want to sleep in there until all of Robbie's stuff it gone. She says it will scare her but the reality is she has never been alone. She has always shared a room with Andrea and she is scared to sleep alone at night.

Andrea on the other hand is highly anxious for Laney to GO!! As in she will emotionally torture her little sister until she does finally catch a hint. Andrea even decorated little tags and labeled what items she will be keeping and which ones Laney can take with her. Andrea also gave Laney a speech on how happy she will be when she has a room all to herself. Needless to say Andrea has had a couple of butt whippings here lately too.

So its been rough, a few crying fits, a couple of brawls, and a long frustrated tirade. I am shocked I have not taken up drinking or pro-wrestling.

Things that are bothering me. . . . . ALOT!

Besides the obvious there have been a few other things that have been irritating me.

*God will never give you more than you can bear.

What a bunch of crock!! If I hear that again I will scream.

1 Corinthians 10:13 "No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it."

Here in this verse Paul is talking about temptation and sin. See it even starts with "No temptation". Some very well meaning souls have said this to me and I have brought blood to my mouth, biting my tongue to not correct them. They are trying to comfort me but really it bothers me. I am sorry but losing a child is more than I can bear. Plan and simple and I don't want to meet the mom who can bear losing a child. To me that is a cold woman. It is a gut wrenching, painful and soul killing thing. When God gave Paul this verse it was to show that what ever sin is tempting to you, God will not allow it to be more tempting than you can handle. As in you have what it takes to say "NO"! Capisce?, and better yet He even gives you a way out, a way to say no to the temptation if you chose to take it. God, the originator of the "Just say NO" campaign. This is also a very good verse to teach your teenager for when you aren't there to keep them from being stupid!

*"It was God's plan"

You are telling me that from the beginning of time God planned for my son to die? Here try this one on. Lets play a word game. To me God's plan is good. Good gives but death takes away. Death is not good and is not in God's plan.

Ezekiel 18:32 "For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies". You can even skip back to verse 23 when God says He gets no pleasure from the death of the wicked. Why would Robbie's death be part of His plan?

Ok a little background on death (I am no theologian but this is a crash course Nicole style, any other comments or insights are more than welcomed) In the beginning God made Adam and Eve and he put them in a perfect garden. God said you can eat everything, have dominion over everything but this of one tree or you will die. While they were in the garden with God they had a perfect relationship with Him. All three would go for walks, chew the fat, have jokes, sing some songs, and just enjoyed a fantastic friendship together. See it was all perfect but God wanted all this but he wanted it to come from us willingly. He couldn't just makes us love him it had to be our choice and he gave us a choice with that dang blasted tree. What happens? An overgrown lizard talked them into eating it. What the crap Eve? If you friends jumped off a bridge........? And Adam, dude, when I see you in heaven I will give you such a slap on the back of the head. Adam you were right there, right there when a lizard was talking your wife into eating from the tree and you didn't say a word. Then you blamed Eve for giving the fruit to you.
If CJ ever used that excuse on me for something stupid one of his "friends" talked him into I would use his butt as a drum to ring in the New Year!!

Ok back on to the death thing. It was not part of the original plan. God's original plan was to hang out with those He loves in a perfect relationship but for them to do it freely. He gave us the choice and when we took the other offered the consequence came with it. Not His original plan but God the original Boy Scout had a back up plan with Jesus. Ok so why did God allow the consequence to be so severe? I read a book about death from Rick Taylor, When Life isChanged Forever , here is a quote from it. "God did not want a mediocre relationship with His special creations. He wanted the deepest relationship possible. That requires very meaningful choices on man's part. And heavy rewards and consequences that go with choices."

Big stuff to mull over and not easy to handle but I think I understand it. Its like my marriage. Chris gave up a lot of great opportunities to marry me. He gave up the chance to join a well known college praise and worship group. Giving up a strong possibility of launching a musical career. A few years later when our marriage was very young he passed up the chance to train with a tennis couch that wanted to start him in a competitive tennis career. Two of his passions he just passed by without a thought to have a family and a life with me. Needless to say those choice said great things to me about his love to me. A very deep relationship that grew out of some heavy choices.

God's original plan did not include Robbie's death but He knew it would come and He knows how to make it work towards His good.

There are some other things that chaps my hide but those two things are just a slap in the face. I know that the people that said them meant well but those are some cruel words.

So what do I do with this grief? Here is the neat thing, you do what is best for you and your family at the time. What ever works for today the key thing is to keep yourself and those around you focused on the right thing. I am not saying to just get over it, don't stop praying and worrying over your loved ones. You just can't stop and God knows you can't just up and quit worrying, it is part of the process. I am saying cover yourself and your family with prayer and hold on to God.

I don't understand why this happened. It happened. I have chosen to do what ever it takes to continue on with honor and respect. The truth is this is a hard thing. This more than I can handle and Robbie's death is not a good thing. The only way for me to survive is to rely on God and let Him make the outcome of Robbie's death into a great thing!

Little Traitors!

So Neighbor Dawn invited us over to go swimming but I must make dinner first. You know trying to be normal and what not. So I make something fast, SPAM and mac & cheese. I said I was trying to be normal I did not say I was getting it right.

So my lovely daughters finish first, grab a towel and race out the door. I am ticked! They did not wait for me to clean up the dinner mess. They did not wait for me to put on my bathing suit. They did not wait for me period. Little life sucking scamps!

But wait I am home alone. Its quiet. No one is giving me crap! I think I hear angels, yes angels!!

But its is the pool and I still have "Over protective mom" issues.

Well shot the moon and kick the pooch, I guess I have to go swimming.

The Firehouse Inn

Last weekend Chris and I celebrated our 1 4th wedding anniversary. This is the first real trip we have been on together since we have been married. You would think we would really live it up, see lots of sights, but no we did lots of sleeping and resting. It was wonderful!


Chris surprised me with a room at the Firehouse Inn. A wonderful and nicely priced bed and breakfast. The Firehouse Inn use to be a fire station and city hall in downtown Rutherfordton, NC. It has been renovated into one of the nicest B&B's I have ever seen.

David Robinson the innkeeper is a real gem. A funny English chap making his way in the deep south. He has wonderful stories (we got to hear about the guest and his rifle!) and makes a fantastic breakfast. I knew if I did not drag my butt out of bed and make an appearance in the dinning room by 8:30 am than I would miss out on a great breakfast.
We did some shopping at the Village by Chimney Rock and had lunch as a local restaurant. We then decided we hated ourselves and went to hike on Chimney Rock. Lets just say Chris and I could use a little exercise. We so should of gone on a boat tour instead! After a shower and another nap we went our to dinner at Point of View restaurant on Lake Lure. Yup some seriously great steaks!!



On the drive back home we played in Charlotte's Bass Pro shop and stopped at Ben's Produce on 211 to score REAL homemade ice cream and a half bushel of peaches! Thats right REAL homemade ice cream made with REAL peaches, not some of that poser crap from down the road. Thats right Gillis Hill I am calling you out.