The Queen B

Mimi has arrived.

The cooking has begun.

The Princess is running laps around the house.  (Long story...don't ask.)

Happy Thanksgiving to each of you.  

One Letter Can Mean So Much

The Palace went Christmas shopping over the weekend.  My mother-in-law and JJ went with us.  

Shopping with JJ is always, um, interesting.  I never knew there were so many things to touch inside the mall.  

Upon entering the mall, The Princess immediately found a display of Webkinz Christmas ornaments.  

(Oh, you Webkinz people.  We were just about over the animals and WHAM! You introduce Christmas ornaments.  Of course you do.)

She had already decided that her New Ornament Of The Year would be a Webkinz. I told her that she could choose one and I told JJ that he could choose one, too.

Yeah.  He really wasn't into the ornaments, but he really wanted the Webkinz Lil' Kinz Chickadee.  

Seeing as how I am an amazing sucker aunt, I caved.  He named the chickadee Fly Guy.

JJ and The King soon found an arcade area in the mall that had one of those huge motion simulator ride things.  In this particular version, you could choose your death ride.  JJ asked the attendant (after asking her name and telling her his and telling her that he was spending Thanksgiving in Oklahoma) which ride was the scariest.  That is the one he chose.

I watched The King's face to see if there were any signs of stress or fear, but he seemed good.

They were in the rocking and diving capsule for 35  5 minutes. The emerged unscathed.

Fly Guy was, not surprisingly, left in the motion simulator.

Fly Guy was also left in the mens' bathroom, the Build-A-Bear store (twice), a bench in the mall and a restaurant.  The King's primary purpose of this trip was Chickadee Retrieval.

After church on Sunday, we noticed that JJ had left Fly Guy in the sanctuary.  We sent him back in to get the bird while we waited in the foyer.  I was standing with a group of ladies.  I briefly told them how JJ had gotten this bird the day before and had left him several times throughout the day.

After a brief pause, The Princess piped up.

"Hey Mom.  Tell them about Daddy and that Stimulator yesterday."

I was confused and couldn't figure out what she was talking about.  Apparently my confusion was misinterpreted as embarrassment.  A lady let out a small chuckle.

Then I realized what The Princess was talking about. 

"You mean the SIMULATOR?"

"Whatever", she innocently shrugged.

I began over-explaining to all the church ladies that we were not, in fact, playing with a stimulator.  We were, in fact, playing IN a SIMULATOR.  Where the bird was left.  Which is where this whole mess of a story began.

Who knew the importance of the letter T?

Almost Paradise

There are certain times in life when not having a camera can be really devastating.

A few that come to mind...

• Baby's First Christmas
• Your Child's First Day of Kindergarten 
• The Day Your 16-Year-Old Drives Alone 
• The Night Your Husband Gets Stuck Under Your Bed  

I hesitate to even write this post without pictures.  I'm not sure that I can properly express the drama of the evening with words alone.

Saturday night, while I was taking a bath, The King decided to surprise me with a little gesture.  I have occasionally been frustrated by the lack of outlets on my side of the bed.  With the phone, lamp, noise machine and defective electric blanket plugged in, there is just no room for my laptop.

He kindly found a power strip thing and was going to put it under the bed so that I could have all kinds of power at my disposal.

Ok.  I think that I love saying, "all kinds of power at my disposal".  But this is not about me.

Setting the scene:  I am in the bath.  The Princess is sitting in the floor of my bedroom reading a book.  The King begins his foray into regions previously unexplored.

The first muffled words that I heard were, "Princess?  Are you sitting on the bed?"

The Princess replied that she was not.

The King responded with a dejected, "Oh".

Some time passed.

He calls to me in the muffled voice.

I come into the bedroom to find his feet sticking out from under the bed.

He informed me that the area under the middle of the bed seemed to get much narrower, and he was now unable to move.

I'm no furniture engineer, but I am pretty certain that the bed frame is flat.  There is no dip.  I'm also reasonably sure that the floor under the bed is even.

Having no idea why he was under the bed in the first place, I suggested he just come back out the way he went in.

"I can't", he replied.  "My shoulder blades are stuck.  Could you lift the bed?"

Did y'all catch that?

He asked if I could lift the bed.

"Um.  No."

"Well, I can't seem to move forward and I don't think I can go backwards without dislocating my shoulder."

Here's my thoughts at this point...somewhere before the only option became dislocating one's shoulder, wouldn't one recognize that one might need to reconsider one's path?

Apparently not.

The Muffled King started telling me that he was only stuck because he was trying to do something nice for me.  

I am really appreciative of his thoughtfulness, but I didn't cram him under the bed. 

He was insinuating that I'd crammed him under the bed.

He mentioned that he was beginning to get a little claustrophobic.

I asked him if I should get the canola oil.  I thought we might be able to lube him up and pull him out.

He declined.  He felt he could give it one more try. 

(You think?)

He scooted back out the way he'd gone in.  With lots of sighing and grunting. His back was red and chafed.  His tummy was tattooed with carpet pattern.

But he'd survived.  

And I've got to tell you that it was touch and go there for a while.

I am very grateful for the power strip thing under the bed.  Though it would be nice if he could go back in to fix my electric blanket.

I'll keep the camera close by just in case.

We Have A Winner

The winner of the Warren Barfield CD is

Tiffany!

Congrats, Tiffany.  

Thanks to all who entered!

Bring On The Turkey

Yesterday, I mentioned that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I am so excited that it is less than a week away.  I truly love it. 

I love the food preparation. 

I love the parade.

I love the snacking. 

I love the family sitting around the table. 

I love the sale papers. 

I love the football. 

I love the thankfulness. 

Especially the thankfulness. 

And if your family is anything like mine, this will be very familiar...

She's Making A List And Checking It Twice Or Thirty-two Times

Here's the deal.  I am blogging about Christmas and toys and gifts and all of the worldly things that Christmas has become.

That is not the center of our Christmas. We totally love Jesus and love celebrating His birth.  It is our priority.  

I'm just mentioning the gifts today.

I'm wondering about those of you that buy for kids.  Especially parents.  

My daughter is a marketer's dream.  She is sucked into each and every "Toy of 2009".  She even added a "Toy of 2009" that was for preschoolers to her list.

She's 11.

What in the world do you do about the 4 bazillion commercials and catalogs and store displays?  Especially in times of financial strain?

Do you have your kiddos make a list?  Do you decide what they receive without their input?  

What in the world do you do with a list that is 57 toys long?  

And has a weekly update.

I love the thought of 3 gifts (like Jesus received).  I've heard of the twist of a need, want and surprise for those 3 gifts.  One gift?  10 gifts?  

Do you try to get them their entire list?

What about when you know their BIG, MOST AMAZING WANT is something that you know that they'll play with for only 2 days?

You might have noticed that I'm struggling with the gifts this year.  

As my daughter gets older, her list is smaller but more expensive.  She MUST have a Flip Camera and I'm not sure that she's ever even seen one...

Are you cutting back this year? Are you explaining this to your kids?  

Is Santa suffering from the recession?

We are certainly cutting back this year.  We needed to anyway.  With grandparents and great-grandparents it all gets to be too much.  The gifts begin to make me nervous.

Which is why Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.

Shake What Your Mama Gave Ya

I never thought those words would enter my mind, much less my blog.

And I think it should have actually been "What Yo Mama Gave Ya".

But that would have been too much, I think.

Anyway.

My mama gave me an award thing.  

Isn't that sweet of her?  

She thinks I'm Kreativ.

Mom, if I'm kreativ it is all because of you.

(Dad thinks it is all because of him.)

(Heh heh heh.)

Of course, there are stings attached.  I have to tell 6 things that make me happy.

This could possibly be Mom's way of figuring out what I want for Christmas.

1.  I know that I am in the minority here, but I really like it when Daylight Savings Time ends.  I love when it gets darker earlier because it seems to give us more family time...and I am in bed sooner.

2.  A new magazine and a hot bath.  Fantastic combo.

3.  I am fluctuating between my love for Sonic Diet Cokes and my love for Diet Mountain Dews.  If Sonic provided me with DMDs, there would be no competition.

4.  Baking.  I love baking.  I'm just about to enter Pecan Pie Season.  Delightful.

5.  Friday nights when Monk & Psych have new shows.

6.  Car trips with The Palace.  I especially love spending time talking with The King on car trips.  We have some of our best conversations when The Princess is fully involved in a movie with headphones. 

I am passing the award to Nicole.  You are kreativ, girl!

Thanks, Mom.  You are definitely one of the things that makes me the happiest!

The King Fell Down And Broke His Crown

I'm totally not talking about all that again today, but wouldn't that have been the perfect title for yesterday's post?

Karen thought of it, and it was just too good not to use. 

So I'm using it today.

Moving on.

Are you ready to hear about the giveaway that I promised??

Hold on to your computers...

It's The King's crown!!

I'm totally kidding.  He never "found" it.  And I can promise you he was looking.

I'm just sayin'.

Here's the story on the real giveaway.

Assuming you are still reading and not throwing up.

Where was I?

So we went to this fundraiser thing for The Princess' school on Saturday night.  To be honest, I was dreading it a little bit.  Each ticket was $75.  There was a silent auction, which I knew would be a huge temptation to spend money that I am supposed to be not spending.

I must say that I was quite impressed with the silent auction.  There were some great items.  I scored 4 house cleaning sessions for not too much money.  And dog boarding at the place where we usually board our dogs. 

So that was just plain being responsible.

Oh. And I got in a tiny bidding war with a certain someone over a Cold Stone Creamery cake.  (You know who you are, TG.)  But I didn't win the cake because I was showing fiscal discipline.

Or was I hovering over the housecleaning bid sheet?  I can't recall....

My favorite part of the night, however, was the entertainment.

Warren Barfield was kind enough to bless our small school fundraiser with his incredible talent.

I was familiar with a few of his songs, but I didn't really know much about him.

Y'all.  He's a really cool guy.  

His song, Love Is Not A Fight, is THE song from the movie, Fireproof.  He shared his story of how that song came about, and it was very powerful.

Did I mention that he's a really cool guy?

The concert was very intimate and personal.  He just sat on a stool with his guitar and his drummer and blessed us for an hour.  And the most amazing part?

He drove himself 8 hours (one way!) from Nashville.  In his car.  To our little event.

How un-rock-star-like is that?

See?  Cool guy.  

And he signed a copy of his latest CD, Worth Fighting For, for me to give to one of you.

It is a phenomenal CD.  If you don't win this copy, you should buy one for yourself and several for Christmas gifts.

Oh.  And his first baby is due in about (his words) 50 days.

How sweet is that?

Just leave me a comment with a way to contact you, and I'll randomly pick a winner on Friday.

Happy Tuesday.

The King's Horrible-No-Good-Very-Bad Weekend

You know how they (men) say if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy?

Whatever.

Let me share a bit of our weekend.

The King is a little bit obsessive and a teensy bit compulsive when it comes to his electronics.

Crackberry, computer, ipod...anything with buttons and a screen.

Well.  Friday night we had a mini disaster.

And by mini, I mean the entire weekend was ruined because of a 2 second event.

Here's the story.

I am asleep.  

I hear a huge crash followed by a loud grunt/scream.

The King was coming upstairs to bed.  He was using the wooden staircase that we never use.

He was climbing the stairs in sock feet.

Precariously balancing his computer, Crackberry and his computer charging cord thing.

Which may or may not have been dragging between his feet.

Something in that plan went awry.  I know...hard to imagine.

Anyway.  When I got to him--and I've got to admit it took me a few seconds to wake up, process and be sure he was for real--he was all sweaty and pale and nauseous. 

And unable to move his knee.

Or be nice to his wife.  But I digress.

I asked him if we needed to call 911.  He said he could drag himself to the car if he needed a doctor.  

But then...his eyes became huge.  He realized that he'd thrown his laptop in the fall.

He crawled up a few stairs to the little MacBook.

He hit the button and the little apple started spinning.  And spinning.  And spinning.

We called Apple and they were closed.  

The King took some ibuprofen and went to bed.  

Oh yeah.  After he took off the bottom of his computer and pulled out the hard drive to see how it looked.

Which seems like an excellent idea, don't you think?

First thing Saturday morning, he called Apple. They felt an emergency trip to the Apple ICU was in order.

Problem:  We live in Arkansas.  The state that Apple forgot.

So we had to make an emergency run to Tulsa.  The King wanted to turn on his emergency lights.  I thought that might be overkill.

We called Tulsa Apple as soon as we knew their services were necessary.  We had an appointment for 2:20.

Problem:  The Princess' school had a fundraiser scheduled for Saturday night at 6:30.  For which we had to pay $75 per ticket.  And had a babysitter scheduled.

So we get to Tulsa Apple and guess what?  They have no scheduled appointment for us.  Fabulous.

A really nice Apple Genius Guy heard The King's pitiful, if not a bit whiny, story and squeezed him in.

He tried really hard to revive The Hard Drive, but, sadly, it was fatal.

The computer died.

With all of The King's files for all of his random businesses.  

All of the files that had not been backed up in a month or six.

So sad.  The King had to buy a new computer.  So expensive.

We raced home and arrived just after the babysitter.  (Shout out to Rachel!)

We hurried to the school event.  It was rather enjoyable.  

We were eating our small & tiny finger foods and listening to some great music when The King's problems multiplied.

The temporary crown on his tooth (from a dentist's appointment earlier in the week) came off.  

And he swallowed it.

Then the poor fella took a drink of ice cold water.  

I thought he was going to fly out of his seat.

Apparently, the tooth without the crown was a little bit sensitive.

Our weekend became less eventful after that.  

Which is good, because I don't think my poor King could have handled much more.

I'll tell you more about the fundraiser tomorrow and I even have a prize for one of you!

For those of you who might be wondering, The King's knee is fine...it is sore and funky looking, but he can walk.  His tooth is still a problem.  He'll be heading back to the dentist today.  I think The Palace has returned to its normal state of chaos.

Also, we have 2 house showings scheduled for this week to people that don't have a house to sell.  If you think about it, we would appreciate your prayers!!

Spillin' It

Back to the questions that you asked... (aka:  I've got nothin'.)

Jeni asked:

If you could take a month-long vacation anywhere in the world, where would you go? What would you see? Who would you take?

Oh, Jeni.  Sweet, sweet Jeni.  The thought of traveling anywhere that I might have to fly in an airplane causes me to break out in hives.  And itch badly.  And get a little short of breath.  While lying flat on the floor.  

So.  

Let's all realize that my dreams are limited significantly by my access to road.

If I could take a month long vacation anywhere?  I would hop IN MY CAR and drive wherever I wanted.  Just take off and go.  With no destination in mind.  (This, by the way, goes against my entire Type A being.  I may be bordering on a nervous breakdown/midlife crisis.)

(But at least that would give me something to blog about.)

A few things that I would like to see?  I would love to spend some time in the northeastern states.  I would love to visit Connecticut, Vermont and Maine.  And Rhode Island.  

I have a mental image of me on the coast by a lighthouse making jelly.

I would also love to vacation in Canada.  I can drive to Canada.  

I would love to drive to Montana, Idaho and Oregon.

Who would I take?  I would, of course, take The Palace.  The King and The Princess are excellent traveling companions. Plus, they are used to my neuroses and won't give me any crap about them.  

A few of my traveling issues:

• I can't stand to have only one window rolled down.  It does something to the pressure in the car and makes me want to beat my head against the dash. 
• I can't stand to talk over the radio. 
• If I say I don't want any candy at a convenience store, I don't really mean it. Buy me a Snickers and insist that I eat it.
• All trash must be placed in the little trash sacks that I carry in my glove compartment. 
• I cannot sleep in a moving vehicle. 
• I really need to stop at most, if not all, Sonic locations.  And most Books-A-Million locations.
• I have no depth perception and get really nervous when The King is right on somebody's bumper.  I have a tendency to ask if he's going to make the rest of the trip in their backseat.  He has a tendency to ask me if I'd like to drive.
• The King has no issues with sleeping in a moving vehicle. 
• I have an amazingly large bladder.  Which is good, because... 
• I don't do external bathrooms. 
• I must buy something in the store with the internal bathroom. 
• I must have exact change at toll roads.   

So when do you want to leave on a trip with me?

Hey... I never said I was normal.

Leave me the month long vacation of your dreams in the comments.  Oh, and one travel issue of your own.

I'm not the only freak, right?

Right?