I went all day without winning a contest, playing bridge OR garnering a great literary review, so I’ve got nothing to share. It’s hard to blog an ordinary life. How DID my brother do it for so long?

Anyway, with nothing exciting going on, I thought I’d show you one of my favorite websites. Trailer Addict is a site of movie trailers. That’s it – trailers. I rarely get to go to the movies but I do enjoy seeing what’s out there. And then I enjoy NOT going to movies.

There’s a lot of scary movies and I don’t do scary movies. Case 39 looks especially creepy. Here’s how it works – I watch the trailer, don’t go see it, read the review, then after it’s been out, read the whole plot on Wikipedia. I get the whole movie AND save 10.00 in the process. I may be a genius. Or at least cheap.

I think I’m a fairly simple girl. Sure I complain about my house from time to time – it’s too dark, it’s hard to clean, the closets are small – but for the most part I’m satisfied. I don’t really need anything bigger, and I’m pretty sure I’d be in trouble with a Homeowners Association if I lived in a neighborhood.

But how much is a woman supposed to endure? This morning, I packed up my laptop and headed to the basement where our office is located. Only a portion of the basement is finished. It has a playroom for MP, and an office area for me and JD. The rest is behind a door where there’s no sheet-rock and lots of junk. For the most part I stay out of it. I did, HOWEVER, go into the laundry room to iron a dress for MP before school.

So there I sat minding my business when JD went through the door to the laundry room, then quickly came back into the office.

JD: Don’t open this door!

Me: What is it? Is it a dead rat?

JD: Uh, it’s not anything DEAD.

Me, starting to panic: What is it? A opossum, a live RAT?

JD: Wait here.

No biggie, just a 3 foot snake SKIN. Found in the doorway of the laundry room where I had been IRONING.

I’m pretty sure our neighbors heard me scream. My neighbors in TENNESSEE heard me scream. And I might have stood in my chair. It’s all a blur, really.

The good news is that JD has assured me the snake is gone.

Me: I want you to move all of the furniture, every toy away from the walls and find it!

JD: Honey, it’s so darn big, we couldn’t miss it.

It doesn’t make me feel as good as you might think.

*What the Sam Hill?

TaylorTyre

I blame her father.

or this weekend. My mom, Aunt Faye and Aunt Ann are arriving on Thursday with one goal – to find cheap treasures at every yard sale, garage sale, estate sale and moving sale in a forty mile radius. If the truck is not filled to the brim, with Ann riding back to Tennessee straddling a basket of knick knacks, they are not satisfied.

So, if you want to clean out your house, but can’t afford the roll-off dumpster, stick a “HUGE YARD SALE” sign in your front yard. We’ll be there before you roll out of bed. Seriously, we’ll be in your driveway, going through your garage before you even get UP, waving dollar bills.

It’s what we do best.

I’ve made 32 trips to Target, WalMart, Office Max, Justice and Staples to get the MoonPie all of her supplies for school.

I’ve taken her out to a “last day of summer vacation” celebration dinner.

I’ve ENSURED that she’ll have the cutest toes in the entire third grade.

And I’ve talked her father off the roof.

The rest is up to her.

Tania the Mad called the other day. She’d spent the weekend on her yacht and was letting me know that she had skied, on ONE ski, even at the ripe old age of FIFTY. Skiing behind her boat is so easy. It’s one of those fancy kind with a big motor and a pole for your ski rope. ANYBODY can ski behind one of those.

Now, if you want a REAL challenge, you should do what I did today. Yes, I TOO skied on one. True, I’m much, much younger than my sister, but my boat has a tiny motor which means I had to hold on for approximately 22 seconds while my husband lay down on the throttle and I fought my way to the top of the water. My ski was made in 1982 and the rope was dragging in the water but still I managed! Cause I’m a winner.

On a side note, you know that muscle that runs up the back of your thigh and ends smack dab in the middle of your butt cheek? Mine fell out and is now laying on the bottom of Lake Allatoona.

Unfortunately, while I was skiing like a Cypress Garden’s professional, no one thought to take a picture. Whatever, I don’t do it for the glory. I do it for the children.

A lovely day was had by all. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go sit on a bag of ice. I wonder if Tania will loan me her masseuse.

A few weeks ago, my dad’s side of the family held a Family Reunion. Unfortunately, my invitation got lost in the mail. Fortunately, I have spies everywhere.

My grandfather is the one wearing the cool glasses. He’s standing next to his brother, whose name I TOTALLY know, but am not saying out of respect for his privacy.

There’s my Aunt Ann. She’s the one feeling silly that she forgot to wear her matching USA shirt. I have no idea who any of the other people are. How should I know?  Someone ought to arrange a meeting. We could all get together, the whole family, maybe eat some food and connect. I should look into that.

My Aunt Faye is in the purple, next to the AWESOME lady in the orange hat. Go UT! Those other people are no relation, they’re just crashing it for the food.

Oh, this is cool. Every year they bring out my baby pictures. It’s a big hit. I was a BEAUTIFUL baby. My great-uncle, (name withheld INTENTIONALLY) is pointing out one of my many Toddlers and Tiara wins.

The reunion wouldn’t be complete without music from my Uncle Ralph. He’s Cousin Brian’s dad. Hey! There’s Brian, too. You know, I haven’t heard or seen Brian since…hmmm, oh yeah, since my post about him. Darn, I would have liked to have gone. I wonder who was in charge of invites.

Never mind.

It had to happen sooner or later. Years of peacefully coexisting with our neighbors, over in one afternoon.

It began with a phone call, a complaint lodged with the authorities, and before you know it, one of us was questioned, temporarily restrained in the backseat of Johnny Law’s vehicle, and luckily, released with a stern warning.

I’m embarrassed to say that tempers were high. Was alcohol involved? Not to my knowledge. I’d chalk this up as youthful indiscretion but the involved party is old enough to know better. Sigh.

What can I say? The shameful display happened in full view of the entire neighborhood. I think that public humiliation is enough punishment. There’s no real reason to go into any more detail or name names.

Besides, I’m sure she’s learned her lesson.

Since the MoonPie is having horseback riding camp this week, I thought it would be a good time to revamp her room. Before we brought her home from the hospital, we spent a great deal of time decorating it. It has declined steadily ever since.

One of the most time consuming aspects of her room was the hand-painted border.

Yes, I hand-painted the thing. First I sponge-painted the pink background, then I painted the flowers, THEN I painted a gold border at the top and bottom. And it’s the one thing she insisted be changed. We’re surprising her with a very cool border that should be here in a day or two.

Her first room had a crib, then she upgraded to a full, and a couple of months ago she asked if she could switch beds with the spare bedroom. It’s a queen, pillow-top and hers had been mine as a teen, thus 142 years old, so we said okay. But we don’t have any cute queen size comforters and the bed is in the WRONG place. Ugg. We’ve ordered her a new comforter set and we’re moving things around. She has no idea, and she doesn’t read this blog, so hopefully she’ll be surprised.

The desk doesn’t match so it’s being replaced and the dresser is getting a fresh coat of paint. I’m also throwing away all of the junk and taking bags to Goodwill.

Today we moved all of the furniture and repainted the walls. She wanted to keep the green, so it wasn’t a big deal. The pink is where we filled in the nail holes. When it’s dry, it turns white. Clever!

Tomorrow?

Yeah, baby! Prepare to be amazed. Hopefully in a good way.

They decorate your kitchen table with jars of tadpoles.

They make and sell you Kool-aid for a quarter.

They give themselves make-overs. They give YOU a make-over.

Well, it’s never boring around here. It’s also never clean. Ahhh, summer.