Fade to Black --Living to Stuffed-- ***Outdoor Wednesday***

It's time for another Outdoor Wednesday hosted by Susan at A Southern Daydreamer! After you've finished here, make sure to visit Susan and say hello, then visit the other OW participants!

Recently I bought some flowers to use on my now extra patio table. It's a fairly ugly table and having it sit in the corner all naked just wasn't working for me.

While cruising Ace Hardware, I came upon this pretty, interesting looking plant. Love the color of the leaves. And look at those adorable berries!



Does anyone know what this is? Well, I'll tell you. It's a peppercorn plant!

Who doesn't love a Gerbera daisy? Of course, a week after I potted this it stopped flowering. Dammit!



New Guinea impatien...



This next little plant is called a Crossandra "Flame". Love the apricot colored flowers.




This next one has me all verklempt, even though there's nary a sign of a bud on it. A few weeks ago, while reading Kathy's blog, Casa Dolce Casa, she extolled on the virtues of this beautiful flowering plant. She had me at "vanilla", which is what the blooms of the marine heliotrope smell like. According to Kathy and the nice nursery lady at Ace Hardware, the scent from the flowers is quite powerful, and vanilla being my very favorite scent in the whole world, I had to have one! Unfortunately, all of their heliotrope had just been cut back so no blooms for me just yet! I cannot wait until they show up though!



This next plant is one that I planted from seed a few months ago. Ugly as sin, and more than once I've threatened to throw it out if it didn't start perking up. Well, it's still ugly as sin, but just a few minutes ago I noticed it had flower buds on it. I swear, I nearly wet myself! Well excuuuuuuuuuse me, (insert Steve Martin) I'm sucking down coffee here and it doesn't take much to get me to pee!

What had better be a purple zinnia...



Now I'll show you how ugly it is. I guess I could take off those dead leaves, eh? This plant is so ugly (brings to mind Yo Mama jokes, but I don't think there are any that refer to plants) that it just sits on this here chair for now.



But even more than pretty flowers, one of my favorite things about the outdoors is bad weather. Here are some pictures I captured of the angry skies this week.

Saturday, had to stop at our golf course club house to snap these. Amazing.









I snapped this yesterday while at a stop sign in my neighborhood. I probably could have gotten a better shot, but just as I had my camera ready a car pulled up behind me. I didn't want to be rude, so I just snapped real quick and was on my way.

Today (yesterday, by the time you read this) Jill came to bring Madison home after having her for 9 days. As usual, we immediately went out shopping. While Jill and Mikayla were inside a store, I stayed in the car with 3 of the 4 kids. Loved looking at this sky.


Now you may not consider this "outdoors", but what you're about to see used to be outdoors. When they were alive.

We ate dinner at Clark's Fish Camp. The food is basically overpriced crapola, but the atmosphere is wild.


Yes, all of these animals had been alive and kicking at some point. The restaurant owner is an avid collector and has hundreds of taxidermy animals inside the restaurant.





I took this next picture especially for Picket and Ginger.
Once again, animals that used to be alive.

A sampling of what you can order for dinner. (Gulp)

And look who I found floating around beside the restaurant's dock! Look closely or you may miss him. It was Twilight and I've yet to find a setting on my camera that takes a good shot in low light. Click to enlarge!

Yes, Tiney spotted another gator. Two in just over a week! Ooh, the excitement!!!




I hope you enjoyed my Outdoor Wednesday post this week. I'm guessing a lot of you are wiping your brow in gratitude that I'm slightly less "wordy" on Outdoor Wednesdays!

Have a happy hump day (am I the only one that giggles when I say that?) and make sure to visit Susan now!





Pssst! If you love me, you might love my sister more. Go visit her at Jill's Believe it or Not, and tell her I sent you!

Ever Hear the One about the Coach, The Crab, and The Spermatozoa?

In some regards, I consider myself a very lucky woman. I have terrific kids, the best sister on the planet, a wonderful yet insane family and, a husband who, if fails to make me happy is still a great, hard-working provider and a wonderful dad. More than many have, right?

And then comes my bloggy friends. Those men and women I’ve met over the past 14+ months here in blogland.

There are the weird ones, like C, Mariah, and the Holy Crappers, #1 and #2. There are the sweet and cuddly ones like Shelia, Picket, Gloria and BJ. There are the hysterically funny ones like Nikki and Robin and Pooba and Yaya. There are the ones that make you think, like Chuck, and the ones who open your world to things you’d not normally think about and in doing so break your heart… like Amelia and Lilly. The quirky, off-beat ones like Jason and Tami. The ones that take you on journeys to places near and far like Donna, Chris, and Xinex. The ones who make your life more colorful with their eye for gardening and design, like Tootsie and Gollum and Artie. And the ones who can cause you to be completely bloggerwhelmed because they tend to post 348 times per week, like Stacy.

I could go on and on because I know I’ve left out so many of the blogger buds I’ve come to love and care about. Like my idiot sister Jill. But I can’t list everyone… there are too many. And do you realize how long it’s going to take me to link all these blogs as it is?

But what the hell am I going on about? This isn’t a sentimental post about those whom I find near and dear to my heart. This is about the coach, the crab and the sperm!

Apparently I need to bitch slap myself back to the reality that is an actual quirky-dirky post.

Anyhoodle, several months ago, for reasons unknown to me, Nikki asked for my address. I gave it to her, I guess in hopes that she’d send Crumpet my way, ya know, give Strudel a reason to mature her ass- and nipple-biting self. (more on that at another time). Nikki, however, had something else in mind.

See, she had done this funny I Wish Wednesday post and she featured these adorable plush toys.

Well, I just got totally excited when I saw these cute little fluffies and left Nikki this message…

Justine said...

Ah, I really miss basements!
OMG, i so want that sperm plush toy!!! I want it I want it I want it!!!!!!
Justine :o )

May 27, 2009 5:24 PM

So she bought me one and had it mailed to me! If only someone could have been there to record my face when I opened the box to find a stuffed sperm with a bow on his head, looking up at me. I think I had a perpetual smile on my face that day.

Unfortunately, I put him up on the kitchen counter, forgetting that my nosy children were going to pick him up and read his tag. It was easy to explain to Mikayla, but afterwards I had to put up with her questions: “Why would your friend send you a stuffed sperm? What are you supposed to do with a stuffed sperm? Sleep with it?” Not even gonna go there!

Madison? I told her it was a pollywog. She believed me too.

Blogger buds? Meet Seamour Sperm.

Now tell me that’s not an adorable face. Wait, do sperm actually have a face? Maybe not, but this one has eyes!

A friend of mine suggested that because of my current situation I should have named him SeaNo Sperm. Sorry Becky, the name sticks. Ew, that could have a double meaning, couldn’t it? Oh yeah, I went there!

And this concludes the sperm portion of our post. Now on to “The Coach”.

A few weeks ago, my friend Cole, over at All The Small Stuff had this really awesome giveaway. This was the second of her giveaways that I entered and the second I won! First time around I won a year subscription to The Bark magazine. It’s now a regular fixture in my powder room.

But this time I won this adorable pale pink Coach wristlet. Go Cole! You da woman! Go Cole! I wanna be your biatchhhhh! Now let me confess something. I have never even touched a Coach bag, let alone walked into a Coach store, so even this little bitty bag put me in a bit of a tizzy.

Look at how damn cute it is!

But wait. What’s that? There, connected to the strap? Holy smokes, it’s a price tag!

That’s right, ding-dong Cole actually forgot to remove the tag before mailing it, but hey, even at that deeply discounted price I now know that Cole is not a tightwad and, apparently enjoys spending copious amounts of cash on people she’s never met. Hey, more power to ya honey, as long as the stuff is coming my way!

When I emailed Cole my thank you and a giggle about knowing how much she paid, she sent me a return email with a *blush* and some embarrassment, knowing I’d point out her faux pas on my blog. How could I resist?

And that concludes “The Coach” portion of this post.

Now we have The Crab.

When I opened the package from Cole, not only was there a cute card and my adorable Coach wristlet in there, but also a toy for Strudel! Cole and her pups sent Strudel a squeaky crab! Oh, how cute! Look!

Cole requested pictures of Strudel tearing him to pieces, but I did one better. I took video of the moment I gave it to her. Here we go!

***Disclaimer: Excuse the dented and uncovered garbage pail. Was just about to empty it. Lying. And that stupid step stool that the kids keep bringing into the kitchen. And the numerous dog toys on the floor. And the leash. And the dirty floor.***

So now you understand the title of this post, eh? The Coach, The Crab, and The Spermatozoa.

Now am I not a lucky girl? Who wouldn’t want a stuffed sperm to call her own? Who would be so stupid to not love a little Coach bag? And the crab? I think I hear Strudel ripping him apart right now. Ah, it’ll be fun while it lasts!

Oh yeah! I also won a fab giveaway at Shannon’s blog, Welcome to the Nuthouse. It was sponsored by Madison Reese Designs and is the cutest handmade pendant. Lookie! Thank you Shannon!

Go visit Jill, yada yada yada. Love me, love her, yada yada yada.

It’s All About Me Ya Know

Six things about me you may or may not already know…

That’s what my good friend Chuck wants me to write about. I haven’t done one of these tags in a long time, because A) I generally hate them, and B) No one really likes to be tagged, and C) I never ever follow the rules for them and who knows what kind of trouble that may eventually get me in. I’ve also done so many of these that it’s going to take a while to come up with even 6 lousy things you guys don’t already know.

Hmmmm… let me see.

1) Months ago I told you that my friend Sinead and I used to pretend we were dogs and squat in my backyard to poop. In that same context, I remember once peeing in my garage with a boy friend named Walter. I believe we peed on the steps leading down to my basement. And if memory serves correct, there was carpet on those stairs. Ewwww. I really was a freakish child, wasn’t I?

2) My earliest memory was having the chicken pox at the age of 2-1/2. I still remember wearing my pink Dr. Denton footy pajamas while laying on the couch in the house we rented around the corner from my mom’s parents. I distinctly remember the layout of the house too.

Now ask me what I had for lunch today and I won’t be able to tell you.

This isn’t me, but those are the exact same jammies, I believe. Thanks Google!

3) I once met Darryl Strawberry at a circus and asked him to sign an autograph for me. This, even though I’m not a baseball fan and don’t give a shit about some snotty-ass has-been player. But, he had been a bit of a hero to Jimmy as a boy, so I sucked it up and walked up to him.

“Mr. Strawberry, would you mind signing an autograph for my husband?”

“Well, I guess not. Do you have a piece of paper?”

“No, I don’t, but I do have this diaper. It’s clean and unused.”

(Darryl, with a very confused and somewhat supercilious expression on his face)

“I ain’t never signed no diaper. Got a piece of paper? I ain’t signin’ no diaper.”

Dick!!! If I had known you were a wife beater I never would have given you the privilege of breathing the same air as me!

4) When I was 4 years old, my brother was giving me a ride on the back of his 10-speed bike. Do you remember how the old bikes had book racks on the back? Kind of like this one…

Well, I was loving my ride and asked my brother to go faster. He did, but just then hit a big pot hole. My foot somehow got tangled in the spokes of the tire and before it stopped the bike, a nice huge chunk of my ankle was chopped off.

I clearly remember my brother, Jeff, carrying me, running back to grandma and grandpa’s house. The adults immediately sat me on the kitchen counter and started running water over my ankle in the kitchen sink. When they saw what had happened off we went to the ER.

Would you believe I actually remember sitting in the x-ray room, terrified that they were going to hurt me. I even remember asking the tech, “Are you going to put a needle in my ankle?”

For several weeks after, Jeff carried me up and down stairs and such, as my ankle was tightly wrapped. It then became infected, but I won’t go into that. Ick.

Here’s a picture of what it looks like today. The surrounding area is still puffy and swollen-looking and is numb in some areas.

5) During labor with Mikayla I was so delirious with pain (thanks to a dumbass midwife who didn’t want me to have an epidural) that at one point, when the doctor came in the room, I just screamed out, “Doc, my hoo hoo HURTSssssssssssssss!”

Jill and Mom were both in the room and the first to really lay eyes on Mikayla. It was such a special time, one I’ll always remember, especially since they were also there while I was having my episiotomy sewn up, and got to hear Jimmy say to the doctor, “Doc, make sure you sew her up real tight, okay?”

6) I enjoy farting. I think it’s fun, funny and funtastic. I will however not fart in front of Jimmy, or for that matter, anyone except Jill, my mom, Alexa, Gianna, Madison, and Mikayla. So, the rest of you are completely safe. Unless you make me laugh too hard. Then I might let one rip. Or if I cough. Or sneeze. Or bend over. Or blink. Okay, maybe you’re not as safe as I’d previously thought.

Thank you, Chuck, for forcing me to do another tag filled with worthless and boring crap about myself. I’m sure everyone is thrilled that I took you up on the challenge. Not! But I love you, so how could I refuse? To the rest of you? I’m going to refuse if you tag me!

Go visit Jill, yada yada yada. Love me, love her, yada yada yada.