Jill Wuz Here

Yep, Jill and the girls have been here since Friday afternoon, but I can't say we've spent all that much time together. Ya know, because Facebooking, farming, and spending time with Mikayla seems more alluring to Jill than being in my company.

Okay, so it's probably not really that way, just the way things work out.

From the moment she opened the front door, all sense of quiet ceased to exist in my home. Strudel didn't even have to see Cannoli to know she was here, and boy did she get excited. She turned into a canine pogo stick.



Don't worry, she wasn't left to suffer much longer. As soon as I put the camera down she was released from her kitchen prison.

Three minutes later, Jill plopped down at the kitchen table and opened her computer.

Well hello there sister dear! So glad to see you're more concerned with your crops than paying attention to me!

So I went upstairs and took a nap. So sue me! I'd gotten less than six hours of sleep Thursday night and I had a party to go to at Jimmy's boss's house that night. Without my beauty sleep I'd be hopeless.

While I was schmoozing with the Stellar execs, Jill took the girls to the mall for a few hours. The party was nice, the people were nice, and holy shit, but did I actually behave myself and not embarrass my husband? Yes, I surely did and managed to do so while still being me. Go figure. Who even knew it was possible?

I didn't stay very late, but in fact left Jimmy there at 10:30 to be driven home by a friend. Hey, sister was waiting! Well, sister and my farm. Little did I know that Jill had forgotten to take her brain home from the mall. Boy was I in for some laughing due to her stupidity. Her, Mikayla and I were sitting out here, each of us on a different computer, and just about every single thing that came out of Jill's mouth was either mangled or just plain stupid.

Example:

Hey, did you know that at 20 minutes after the hour and 20 minutes before the hour there's a lull of silence?

Huh? Wha? A lull of silence? Just that sentence alone makes no sense.

But yeah, there's a lull of silence!

Do you mean there's a break in the silence?

No, it becomes silent!

WHAT becomes silent?

The WORLD!

Huh? Wha? Jill, are you on drugs?

No really. It's true. Twenty minutes after the hour and 20 minutes before the hour the entire world gets quiet.

Holy shit. I really do need to disown you. You're an idiot!

Now I don't remember how the topic of worms and their anatomy came up... something about Mikayla and doing dissections, but we rolled with laughter when Jill, stunned, asked, "Worms have butt holes?" Well yes, yes they do. That's how they POOP.

Then, of course, farming came up. Jill was acting all offended when I told her I'd sold off all my farm animals.

Why? What have you got against farm animals? Or have you decided to join PETA?

This could have made some sort of sense until she asked what PETA stands for.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Oh, but I thought it was spelled PITA.

No dumbass, that's the thing you eat. Or it could also stand for Pain in the Ass, which you are. You're making my butt twitch.

At one point, Jill was staring across the table at me. She said:

Your left owl is starting to look a little spermy again.

My owl? Do you mean my eyebrow?

Yeah, what did I say?

I give up!!!

Poor Mikayla could do nothing but shake her head, laugh, and call her aunt an idiot. Which she is, so I didn't smack her upside the head for insolence.

Saturday, the kids had a bit of fun in the tiny kiddie pool. Gianna just loves this thing and the two other not-so-little ones decided to get in on the action.

Um, you'll have to ignore the ripped black plastic bag that's in place of where a screen belongs. It's only been like this for 3 months. We have the screen, we have the tool to fix it, but someone won't let me fix it and keeps saying it will get done. Yeah. Right. So for now? We live as white trailer trash do.









And while they were doing that, Jill, Mikayla and I were doing this.



Look. I caught Jill mid-sentence saying, "Don't you dare!"


We did wind up going to the pool for a couple of hours which was a wonderful respite from the overwhelming heat. I didn't bring my camera because really, do you want to see Jill and I in bathing suits? No, I didn't think so.

Jill insisted the entire day that she was driving home that night. No matter how much begging and cajoling I did, she still wanted to go home. Well sure, just make me feel unloved. Just rip my heart to shreds why don't you.

But then Jimmy brought the girls to the movies and oops, didn't get home till 1:30 a.m. So, Jill is still here.

While I was out here on the lanai doing my thing, this little sucker crawled right up to me. He was squished to death soon after I took the picture.



Jill at this very moment. Why does she always look pissed at me?



And Gianna. Why is this child always nekkid?



Well, she's got one kid dressed now, and one still naked and she's packing up to go. I'll miss her, I'll miss the girls, but I think I will embrace the sweet silence for a while. And then will have to scrub and deodorize my house. Why is it that when she's here everything gets filthy?

*Stay tuned for my next episode of farming on Facebook. In this episode Picket will be spotlighted as the current blogger to have been bitten by the farming bug. Another ho with a hoe? You betchya! If you hear incredibly loud sissy-girl screaming? It's just Dot, making it known that her corn is ready for harvest.




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!

Remember Me? The Fanatic Farmer?

While farming certainly has me in its grips, I’ve also had a bit of other stuff going on here, though nothing exciting, unfortunately. Let’s see what I can find to tell you.

Well, Madison started swimming lessons last week. She’s just doing two 4-day weeks and really, I think that may be all she needs. She’s only had 3 lessons so far and already she’s getting really good at the strokes the instructor taught her. She knew how to doggy paddle and float already, but it was time to get her learning how to actually swim.

Here are a couple of pics of her at the pool up at our amenities center.

I took a short video on her first day of lessons so Jimmy could see how well she was already doing.

Also snapped some pics of our amenity center to show how nice it is. This is the view of the clubhouse from where I was sitting.

Under the pergola is where the kiddie pool is.

View from the other side of the pool, looking past to the golf course.

A special treat was in store for the girls this past week because my in-laws took them for a 2-night stay on St. Simons island in GA. They picked them up on Thursday and for the next two days they boogie board-ed in the surf, swam in the hotel pool, shopped, ate at cool country restaurants and just had a great time with Mom-Mom and Pa. They both came back tanned and not burned, which is always a good thing!

But before they left cool mom (that's me) got out the pink hair dye and put streaks in their hair. I didn’t get any pictures of Mikayla but here’s Madison.

Unfortunately, with all the swimming they did the dye didn’t last long. Guess I’ll have to go buy something a bit more permanent so my girls can be hip and trendy.

Last week also turned out to be the week of the falling teeth, as both Madison and Mikayla each lost two teeth within 3 days. The Tooth Fairy really had to hustle let me tell you. Well, not for Mikayla as she’s past that age.

Yep, I see a lot of cosmetic dentistry in Madison’s immediate future. She’s really got the funkiest tooth arrangement. And you see that one small, pointed tooth on top? That’s an adult tooth! It came in in the shape of an upside-down candy corn and will definitely need to be capped. We affectionately call it her snaggletooth.

Last week we brought Strudel to a dog park for the very first time. I hated the place. It was dirty and muddy and not at all what I had hoped for. There were also only two dogs there for her to play with and they were both huge! One, a white pitbull (and oh how I hate those dogs) thought it was super fun to tackle Strudel Doo and put her head in his mouth like a furry squeak toy.





Then, when this beast was too hot and tired to eat my puppy anymore, he decided to lay down in a mud puddle. I thought it was rather cute, but his owner? Not so much. So, great guy that he was, he started smacking the poor thing with its leash and yelling at him to get out of the puddle. See how I got a shot of the leash going at the dog? I was PISSED and really wanted to say something. Nothing like taking a known aggressive breed of dog and disciplining in an aggressive way. Idiot.

The other dog there was a ginormous chocolate lab named Cooper. Now, as soon as I laid eyes on him I knew there was something not quite right with him. Sure, labs can get big and boxy but I have never seen one as tall as Cooper. When I asked his human about it he told me that the vet (same as mine) said it looks like Cooper got an extra Y chromosome and that’s why he’s so huge. Thank goodness he was sweet.

By the time we left Strudel was panting like crazy and covered in mud. Because she was so dirty Jimmy made her sit way in the back of the truck, where she commenced to give us doleful, pitiful looks. But dang, look at how cute she is! Could her tongue be any bigger?

By the way, Strudel has a new passion. Dogsters peanut butter ice cream for pups. Oh how she loves it!

So there. Now that you’re totally bored out of your mind my work is done and I can go forth and farm some more. I happen to be in good company though. Krista, from Grand Pooba; Sister Jill, from Jill’s Believe it or Not; BJ, from Sweet Nothings; (if you can believe it!) Terrie from Terrie’s Little Piece of Serenity; Cathy from As the World Flops; Ginger, from The Gingerbread Shed; Michele, from Country Vintage ; Rachelle, from Joey’s Walk; Becky, from Beckie’s Blurbs; Jill, from Jill Jill Bo Bill; and, drum roll please… Miss Crumpet herself, from the Blah Blah Blah Blog. They’re all farmers! We all wear the same overalls and we all spend way too much time plowing, planting, harvesting, and planting trees and flowers.

So here’s my question: Which of you are next?

So! The next time you dare to call me insane for my farming addiction, just keep in mind that I’m in very good company.

I'm a ho with a hoe and I'm damn proud of it! So much so that I took a screen shot of what my farm currently looks like. That's right. I rock the farm world!





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!

Jill and Her Cleavage are Having a Giveaway!

Yep, Jill has finally gotten her act together and is having a giveaway! She's got a million different ways for you all to get entries, so have fun with that. I know Jill will when she realizes how hard it's going to be keeping it all sorted out. Who did what to get how many entries, etc. What an idiot. But haven't I said that many times before?

*Side note* Ugh, I hope none of my readers use Safari. I'm on Madison's laptop right now and on this sucker my layout is alllllllllllll wrong!*

Okay, so click on Jill's link below and enter yourself into her bloggy giveaway!



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!

Dinner at My House

 

Spending time with my family is always interesting.

I’m not saying they never bore me, but it’s a rare occurrence.   Even when they’re being boring I can usually look at one or more family members and find stuff about them to make fun of.  So yeah, that keeps me entertained.

Earlier this week, Mom invited herself and Dad over for Sunday dinner.  Then Jill invited herself, but in an oh-so-innocent way.

Aw, Mom and Dad are coming over?  Wow, I really could use a day out with family.  (As if the witch doesn’t spend at least 3 days a week with our parents as it is)

So, you and the girls come too!

Yeah, but I don’t want you to feel like you have to invite me.  You shouldn’t feel obligated.

You know I always want you around me, so come!

Are you sure?  ‘Cause I don’t have to come.  What are you making for dinner?  Can we go to the pool?

Shut up Jill.  I’ll see you on Sunday at 1:00.

So, I haven’t had my parents over in a while and wanted to cook something fairly nice for them.  Jimmy had recently bought some roasts from Costco and I wanted to do something different with them.  Beef Wellington!  That’ll be impressive, right?

It would have been if my damn meat thermometer was working properly.  Not so impressive when the meat is well done when it’s supposed to be medium rare.  I was so disappointed.  Thank goodness for the horseradish sauce I made, ‘cause that stuff was yummy and actually gave the meat a boost.

So they got here, I fed them lunch (some kick-ass tuna salad if I do say so myself), then we spent a while up at the pool, where the kids had a great time swimming and the rest of us fatties just floated around on noodles.

After that, dinner prep was in full swing and Jimmy decided the rest of them should play washers, a game he’d just bought yesterday.

Jill was really bad at it.  I think she almost knocked Gianna out a couple of times.

She sets up her throw.

And misses by a mile.

Mom and Mikayla wait for their turn, while making fun of Jill.

I tried a couple of times, but I guess my arm is just too mighty for the washers.  I threw the damn thing all the way into the woods.  I may have decapitated a squirrel.  It’s anyone’s guess.

Now poor Dad was out there too, but the skeeters are bad here this year.  And when I say bad, I mean swarming bad.  So we spray him down with bug juice, but he’s out on the lawn dancing around like he’s got a bug up his butt, which in hindsight (pun intended) he probably did.  All he kept saying was, “Justine, my legs feel like raw hamburger meat.”  Okay, I don’t know how itchiness equates to raw beef, but whatever.  If you know my father, you just accept these things.  At one point he said, “This will be the first ever game called because of mosquitoes.”

Dad is weird, in a funny, badabing kinda way.

Later in the day when he noticed how big Mikayla’s earrings were he started with, “Hey Mikayla, did I ever tell you the story about the woman I knew who wore heavy earrings?  Yeah, her ears got so long she had to roll them up and wear them under a turban.”  Of course there’s more to this story, and I’ve been hearing it since I’m a kid, and still to this day my dad swears it’s true.

What I’d love to do is get my dad on video relating some of his stories from throughout the years.  Like the time he was cutting branches off a tree when he was a kid and accidentally sawed off the branch he was sitting on.  According to him, he fell out of the tree, stood up and then his grandfather beat the crap out of him for being stupid.

Or the time he was nearly mauled by a lion at the Bronx Zoo.

Or about the time he and my uncle were taking a stroll while on vacation in PA and a mean dog chased them down the trail, forcing them to jump hedges.

Yeah, I need to get these stories on tape for sure.

Anyway, back to our day.  I thought dinner basically sucked and let me tell you, the conversation was no better.  At once point I said, “Wow, this is some scintillating conversation we’ve got going on here.  Mom looks at me with a blank gaze and says, “What’s scintillating?”  Oh brother.

After dinner I cleaned the kitchen, with no help from Jill I might add.  She’ll probably try to tell you otherwise, but if you take a look at her updates on Facebook for Sunday you’d see an entry of “Jill is avoiding helping Justine in the kitchen.”  That’s right.  I’m scouring pots and pans and she’s taken over my computer.

Mom cut up a whole watermelon and the lot of them descended on it like a buzzard to road kill.  It’s actually scary to see how much watermelon little Gianna can pack away.  Forget scary.  It’s disgusting.

Coffee was then served with the pumpkin pie I’d made the night before.  I know, I know, pumpkin pie in June?  Well hell, I had all the ingredients and I was in the mood.

You’d think after consuming 893 pounds of melon that they’d be too stuffed for pie, but you couldn’t be more wrong.   Wedges were drowned in squirts of whipped cream while moans of, “I’m too full to eat this” were heard as they stuffed their faces with it.

Jill, being the bitch she is, said to me at one point, “Ya know, I’d just love to take this pie and smash it right in your face.  Yeah, I really would.”

Well see, this got the wheels turning in my twisted head.  And I waited.  A good five minutes until she’d forgotten what she;d said.  Then, while she wasn’t looking, I sliced a piece, grabbed it in my fist and smooshed it alllllllll over her face.

Ah, victory!

Kind of looks like a baby took a crap on her face, huh?  Heeheehee.

But the joke was on me.  Because this time Jill waited. 

And waited.

And then, while I was walking out to the screen room, she followed me.  Then she started coming at me faster and faster and I couldn’t imagine what she was doing.  Her evil snickers gave it away though and I waddle/ran until she had me cornered at the window.

I crouched there, trying to cover my face while Mom sat on a chair howling like a monkey in heat.

She got me.  And she got me good.  (What the hell is that pink stuff on my face?)

And then she peed herself.

Totally.  Not just a dribble, but total wet-down, need-to-take-a-shower-and-borrow-some panties, please.

Now you’ll have to forgive the quality of this video.  Mikayla needs some lessons on keeping the camera still.  It looks like there’s an earthquake in my house.  Turn up your volume.  You may hear Jill requesting the panties as I’m washing pumpkin out of my hair at the kitchen sink.  And, because I had no clue Mikayla was taking video, you may also hear me let out a ginormous burp.  Or two.

Yeah, as you can see, Jill got Mom in the face too.  And yuck, but Jill and I had no makeup on.  It’s so fun to have your picture taken all day long while looking completely gross.  And that’s before you were smeared with pumpkin.

Yeah.  Lovely.

And the fire?  Uh huh, great idea when it’s 95 degrees out, don’t you think?  We were roasting even though we were sitting 8 feet away from it.

Anyway, I went inside to grab the camera out of Mikayla’s dastardly hands, not realizing it was still running on record.  I came outside to talk to Mom, put the camera down on the table, and sat myself down.  Funny that the camera was facing my reflection in the window.

My conversation  with Mom.

Listen to what my mother said to me at the very end of the tape. 

 

That's what prompted this next picture. Mom told me to snap a pic of myself so I could see just how ridiculous I looked.

So I did.

Uh huh.  What a proud moment.

Thank goodness the family left soon after.  I love being around them, but I swear they suck the life’s blood right out of me.  In a good way, but still.

 

 

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

Dear John

***If you haven’t been by in a while and missed my earlier toilet post, please go here first, so the following will make sense.***

My Dearest John,

I know you think you have the upper hand(le)in this relationship, but that’s about to end.

You see John, I refuse to be your ho any longer.  You can take that thought and let it flow right out of your tanked- up imagination.  I’m through with you and your constant running.

You have not been good to me, John.  You’ve clogged up my life long enough.  I’m putting my foot down and taking the plunge(r).  I’m ready to show you who the head of this household is.

I’m scared.  I’m not afraid to admit that, even to you. But in loo of sitting back and watching you drain the very sanity (if not my poo) out of me, I’m going to take a stand.  A stand (but not while peeing) against the atrocity of your substandard performance.

No longer will I take the injustice of not being able to lean like a queen upon my throne whilst I take my hourly daily ablutions.  You are officially in the outdoghouse.

This, John, is what is in your very near future.

Don’t give me that heavy- lidded, innocent gaze! 

I’m privy to your wily ways, so can it!

And John?  When I do finally find the courage to look deep into the bowels of your dank interior? I can promise you this.  You’re going down, baby.  Down in a flood of humiliation, while I?  Will be flush with pride.

 

 

 

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

 

Outdoor Wednesday -- New Life

Okay, I'm still feeling deep guilt for my Farm Town addiction and lack of blogging lately, so I decided I'd better at least do Susan's Outdoor Wednesday. I'm hoping this will keep me in your good graces. Please make sure to visit Susan at A Southern Daydreamer because there are lots of OW participants!


Recently I bought some peach sunrise lantana, and boy are they beautiful when they're in their prime. Just look at those unique buds. Are they not exquisite? You can click to make the pics larger.



There's something so precious about a rose not yet opened to the sun...



The life of a magnolia blossom is so fleeting, that if you don't enjoy it while it's there, it will probably be withered and gone tomorrow.



I love watching a fern reaching out its curled-up arm, unfurling itself to grasp the sun's light...



And at the end of the day, when the sun dips below the horizon, it's time for the plants to rest and rejuvenate for the next day.








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!

Don’t Forget to Flush…

…Or maybe you should just skip that.

I hate my powder room toilet.  You can’t lean back on it (and I’m a leaner) because if you do, the tank leaks.  You can’t flush more than two little pieces of toilet paper without it getting stopped up.  When you flush it runs incessantly until you lift the lid and poke at the floater thingamabob.

Jill was going to fix it for me recently, but you know what ultimately happens when she comes to visit.  We shop, we eat out and we nap.  So, she had no time to tend to my toilet issues, of which there are many apparently.

So instead, I began nagging Jimmy to fix it.  Nope, he was having none of it.  He rarely uses the powder room so for him it’s a non-issue.  Asshole.  I was told to just keep lifting the tank lid and doing my thing with the thingy.  Well gross.  I don’t like sticking my hand in there even on rare occasions.  If you think I want to do it every time I pee (which is often) you’ve got another think coming.

So I resorted to something you may find disgusting.  Not flushing every time I pee.  Now yeah, this could be gross, but with the amount of water I drink the pee is almost, well, non-pee.

So I did this yesterday.  After tinkle number 3 I flushed and ran out of the house to get Madison from the bus stop.  When I pulled back onto my street I see Mikayla in the driveway, waving frantically at me.  What the hell?  Is Publisher’s Clearinghouse here?  Did I win something fabulous and she couldn’t wait till I got in the house to tell me?

No.  Oh NO.  The toilet was overflowing and she couldn’t make it stop.  She closed the bathroom door and tried blocking it with towels.  All that did was make a virtual tidal wave when I opened the door.  Little did I know that my 12 year old daughter needed lessons on how to shut off the main water valve.  Stupid me.  This is obviously a skill every ‘tween needs these days.

So, I opened the door to something like this.

 

 

Okay, slight exaggeration, but not by much.

 

 

 

So Mikayla starts running for towels, I run to the garage for the shop vac…. oh crap… where’s the shop vac?  So now I’m frantically getting the steam cleaner ready while frantically dialing Jimmy at work.  No answer!  Typical.

 

Might I just tell you that one of these is not meant to pick up 349,000 gallons of water?  After emptying it 10 times I was finally able to get Jimmy on the phone.

 

 

Ah, relief will be on the way!

NOT!  He refused to leave work to come home and help me with this catastrophe.  I mean, whole-heartedly, I-don’t-give-a-crap-you-can-deal-with-it-yourself, refused.  I clogged it, I didn’t watch my pee flush before I left the house, it’s my fault and now I have to deal with it.  Never mind that I’d been nagging him over and over again about the faulty toilet for over a month.  Nope, it’s my fault.  Of course!  Excuuuuuuuuse me (insert Steve Martin impression) for peeing!

Abundant profanities came forth from my mouth, tears squirted from my eyes and, instead of seeing little bluebirds circling overhead, I had sharp knives twirling a merry dance.  Sharp Bloody Knives.  Yes, visions of husbandacide were first and foremost in my mind.

When I finally snapped out of it, I followed asshole’s Jimmy’s instructions on where to find the shop vac and proceeded to lug it in the house and plug it in.  It didn’t take long to fill that bad boy up and still, I wasn’t making a dent in it and my arms were shaking from pulling it along the sopping wet rug.  Thank goodness Mikayla was there to help.  We kept swapping jobs between the shop vac and the steam cleaner but still we couldn’t get the rug anywhere near dry.

Now I was stuck with visions of water creeping up the drywall and mold setting in to eventually kill us slowly.  I was also still stuck with visions of husbandacide but that’s neither here nor there.

Mikayla and I were exhausted and commenced calling Jimmy’s cell phone over and over again.  After all, it was after 4 p.m., so why couldn’t he just leave work and come home?  Damn Caller I.D.  Asshole Jimmy knew it was us calling so didn’t answer his phone.

I was now at the point where I was ready to turn that bloody knife on myself because I had hit the breaking point.  This was too much for one woman and a 12 year old kid to handle, so I did what any slightly insane woman would do.  I went and worked on my FaceBook farm.  Yeah, you heard me right.  I couldn’t do anymore.  I was done.  Wiped out.  Both physically and emotionally.

I needed stress relief, and I found that in plowing and planting, plus calling Jill to scream in her ear about my sucky lot in life.

It was only at 8 p.m. that Jimmy finally walked in the door, wanting to know why I wasn’t face-down on the carpet sucking the water up through a straw (or something like that) while simultaneously pulling off a Roto Rooter on the faulty toilet.  I’ll spare you the nasty details of the rest of our “conversation”.  These things are sometimes better left unsaid, and left to the imagination of the reader.

I will tell you that I went to bed last night listening to the sound of Jimmy running multiple vacuums and fans and, I didn’t feel the least amount of guilt about it either.

Today the carpet is pulled up from one side of the room, folded over chairs with fans blowing on it.  Luckily, it’s basically dry and this is just a precaution.  The wet padding has been cut out, rolled up and disposed of, and later today I have to trek to Lowe’s to buy some new stuff.  Oh, the joy!

So keep this story in mind the next time you pee and flush, and stupidly think it’s safe to walk away.  Never walk away.  Just don’t.do.it.

*Side note:  Mikayla just clogged the damn toilet!!!!!*

*Side note #2 (pun intended): I’m moving far far away.  Possibly some third world country where it’s not taboo to poop in the woods.

 

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