The Parrot

A young man named John received a parrot as a gift. The parrot had a bad attitude and an even worse vocabulary. Every word out of the bird's mouth was rude, obnoxious and laced with profanity. John tried and tried to change the bird's attitude by consistently saying only polite words, playing soft music and anything else he could think of to 'clean up' the bird's vocabulary. Finally, John was fed up and he yelled at the parrot. The parrot yelled back. John shook the parrot and the parrot got angrier and even ruder. John, in desperation, threw up his hand, grabbed the bird and put him in the freezer. For a few minutes the parrot squawked and kicked and screamed. Then suddenly there was total quiet. Not a peep, was heard for over a minute. Fearing that he'd hurt the parrot, John quickly opened the door to the Freezer. The parrot calmly stepped out onto John's outstretched arms and said "I believe I may have offended you with my rude language and actions. I'm sincerely remorseful for my inappropriate transgressions and I fully intend to do everything I can to correct my rude and unforgivable behavior."
John was stunned at the change in the bird's attitude. As he was about to ask the parrot what had made such a dramatic change in his behavior, when the bird continued, "May I ask what the turkey did?"

I'll be out of town through the weekend, I'm going to visit my family in SC (yay!). I hope you all have a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Crazy Life

This past week (and the coming week) has been pretty crazy and hectic. First, Abbey had several appointments last week (all on different days). She's started speech therapy to help her with some of the consonant sounds that's she's not developing on her own. She has it at her school that she'll be starting next fall, which has introduced me to the madhouse it is around the time school lets out. Parents line up 45 minutes before school even lets out! What ever happened to just driving up, pick up your kid, and driving off? I guess she'll just be one of the last ones to be picked up because there is no way I'm sitting out there 45 minutes ahead of time. And no, she's not riding the bus (don't even get me started on the buses).
Also, this past week, Shawn and Abbey have both been sick (thank goodness I haven't caught it!). We've pretty much been hermits this weekend because of that, and hoping they'll rest up and get over it before the holidays next week!
Friday night, I went with some girlfriends to see Twilight (based on the book). While I had a good time because of the company, I must say I was disappointed in the movie. While I had expected that some parts from the book would be left out (which they were), I had not expected the horrible acting! It was almost like a B rated movie! I will see the sequels, but I hope they will send those people to acting classes or something.
Next week will be hectic, but I'm looking forward to it. My mom and I have this tradition of going to the after thanksgiving sales which start at midnight at the Gaffney Prime outlets. They have Pottery barn, Gymboree, and other name brand stores which have HUGE discounts that night. We pretty much stay up all night (thanks to Starbucks on the way) and then, on the way home, swing by the local walmart to catch the remaining deals. We always have a blast, and it's the only time I can really get away with coming home with tons of stuff and Shawn tell me not to tell him how much I spent. It's awesome.

Here.... fishy, fishy.....

I'm not usually a big video game person, I leave that to Shawn and Abbey. However, I make an exception when it comes to Animal Crossing. It's a cute, all age encompassing, violence/vulgar language free game that Abbey and I can both play.

I was playing this Sunday night after we came back from SC and Abbey was watching (she had a tummy ache and couldn't sleep). I was fishing in the game.

Abbey: "what kind of fish did you catch?"

April: "It says it's a barbel steed."

I catch another fish.

Abbey: "what kind of fish is that one?"

April: "Bluegill"

I catch another fish.

Abbey: "Oohh, a seahorse!"

Still fishing.

Abbey: "You know what kind of fish I want to catch, Mommy?"

April: "what kind?"

Abbey: "fish sticks!" (she says happily)

Save the ???

At 4 years old, my daughter has a passion. She gathers each one carefully and faithfully to keep them safe from harm. She's not saving whales, dolphins, or trees. Her mantra........SAVE THE BALLOONS!

Haiku Friday

I saw on a few blogs "Haiku Friday" and thought it would be fun to participate. This Haiku is inspired from my 4 year old asking if the trees dropped their leaves because they wanted to be naked.

the leaves are falling
bright colors float all around
the trees are naked

Tag....You're it!

Welcome to the new 2008 edition of getting to know your family and friends. Here is what you are supposed to do, and try not to be lame and spoil the fun. Change all the answers so that they apply to you. Then post the answers on your blog, make sure you leave a link to your blog in the comments! Have fun and be truthful! I want to see your answers!


1. What is your occupation right now? Stay at home mom, need a raise =)
2. What color are your socks right now? I don't like socks
3. What are you listening to right now? I Carli
4. What was the last thing that you ate? sandwich
5. Can you drive a stick shift? no
6. Last person you spoke to on the phone? Jaime
7. Do you like the person who sent this to you? Hmmm…..let me think……Yes =)
8. How old are you today? 30
9. What is your favorite sport to watch on TV? Reality TV (Survivor is a sport!)
10. What is your favorite drink? Raspberry iced tea
11. Have you ever dyed your hair? No, but have highlighted
12. Favorite food? Italian
13. What is the last movie you watched? Tinkerbell
14. Favorite day of the year? Christmas
15. How do you vent anger? Vent to Hubby
16. What was your favorite toy as a child? Rainbow Brite
17.What is your favorite season? Spring, I love thunderstorms
18. Cherries or Blueberries? blueberry
19. Favorite Color? Aqua/turquoise
20. Who is the most likely to respond? Stephanie
21. Who is least likely to respond? Shelly
22. Living arrangements? What??
23. When was the last time you cried? last night-a little girl almost fell off a cliff on the news
24. What is on the floor of your closet? Not much, my closet's pretty organized
25. Who is the friend you have had the longest that you are sending to? Jessica (since birth)
26. What did you do last night? Worked on my blog, stalked some people
27. What are you most afraid of? Spiders…..eww…yuck!
28. Plain, cheese, or spicy hamburgers? I don't like cow beef, but love turkey burgers with cheese
29. Favorite dog breed? Any dog that I don't have to take home.
30. Favorite day of the week? Thursday (Survivor Addict)
31. How many states have you lived in? 2 - NC, SC
32. Diamonds or pearls? Diamonds, definitely
33. What is your favorite flower? daisy

Hey there, Delilah.......

You've probably heard of Delilah, the relationship guru on the radio late at night to tell you whether to love him or leave him, then gives you a mushy song to make you cry even more. Well, tonight I was watching nightline news and they were interviewing her about her story. She's had several failed marriages and is currently single (with 10 kids, most were adopted which is awesome). This made me think about the people who give you advice and write books about advice. Why is it that most of the so called "educated" advice people REALLY shouldn't be the ones to give the advice? It seems to me that if you don't have kids, you really shouldn't write a book about it. If you aren't having successful relationships/marriages, should you honestly be giving relationship advice? That's not to say that I don't like Delilah, I have found myself listening to her on the long trips back from South Carolina. However, a lot of the advice she gives is common since that I trust my friends would give under the same circumstances. The only difference is I'm sure my friends' answers/advice probably wouldn't be allowed on the air of radios!

I want to live in the White House....

With all the news about Pres. Elect Obama and Michelle going to view the residence of the White House for the first time, it made me curious about what the residence part looked like inside. I have never been able to actually go to the White House, but would love to take a tour one day. Anywho, I Googled it to see if there were any pictures or building plans to see the size of the place. I found this website : http://www.whitehousemuseum.org/Floor2.htm , which shows not only the floor plans for the residence, it also shows pictures of how the previous Presidents' and First Ladys' decorated the rooms, and the history of the rooms. It's the next best thing to actually taking a tour of EVERY room (obviously you can't really tour every room of the White House, so this is really informative). I've decided that I want to move into the White House. Not because I want to do anything politically, just because they have an insanely huge living space that doesn't even include the actual President/job/office part of the building. Surely they wouldn't mind if I only take up a couple of rooms!

Check out this blog...

While surfing through blogspot, I came across this blog:
http://queenofshake-shake.blogspot.com/2008/11/in-laws-assholes-opinions-can-you-tell.html
She talks about her inlaws with quite a bit of humor.
I must say, she should write a book...I find myself intrigued to read more of her blog, as I'm sure you will too.

Also, this one is funny too....
http://queenofshake-shake.blogspot.com/2008/11/my-heroes-were-never-cowboys-my-heroes.html
and if you click on the link "i even raised my hand..." after reading the post, it will take you to miss Britt's blog for you to read her story...It is hilarious!

Another list....

I seem to be in a list mood... so here is another one.

David Letterman's top ten list:
Top Ten Things George W. Bush Wants To Accomplish While Still In Office

10 Finish those little projects he keeps putting off like fixing the economy
9 Get Cheney a "goodbye" defibrillator
8 Challenge Lincoln's ghost to rassle
7 Host farewell mixer for the detainees at Gitmo
6 Now that he's got nothing to lose, nail a hefty intern
5 Cement his legacy with a two month vacation
4 Put Chuck Norris on the nickel
3 See if Obama can take over sooner, like Tuesday
2 Get Condi laid
1 Hasn't he done enough already?

Top 10 most irritating phrases...

I was watching the news and saw that the Oxford University researchers composed a list of the most irritating phrases in the English language. So, here they are....

1 - At the end of the day
2 - Fairly unique
3 - I personally
4 - At this moment in time
5 - With all due respect
6 - Absolutely
7 - It's a nightmare
8 - Shouldn't of
9 - 24/7
10 - It's not rocket science

Snake tries to eat a kangaroo....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boShHwTEl54

I saw this video online and, in my morbid sense of humor, thought it funny to see a snake trying to eat a kangaroo...

I still Heart NKOTB...

For some reasone, it's leaving off my NKOTB pics at the end of the NKOTB blog post. So I'm going to try this again....

Lovely Lady Lumps.....Check it out!

The Power of Pink Relay was on Saturday and our team, Lovely Lady Lumps, didn't do too bad. Our team consisted of myself, Jaime, Melissa, Carol, and Aileen. Each team member had to run 4 miles in what I consider the toughest course yet, for a team total of 20 miles. Our team time was 3:32:25. My time was 45:38, which wasn't too bad considering it was a hard course. They called it "rolling hills", I would call it "mountainous"! There were several steep hills to climb, and it was freezing outside. I normally would be like, "oh, it was a pretty run", but it was so cold my eyeballs were frozen and I really didn't care about anything but getting back to the finish line so I could go inside the warm building! That being said, it was fun competing with a team and I would love to do it again, especially since I now know the course and what to expect. Best of all, it's for a great cause!

I Heart NKOTB!!!

The boys did not dissapoint! After all these years, they are still hot and know how to drive women wild! Jaime and I headed to Charlotte Thursday afternoon, giddy about the concert that night. We checked into our AWESOME Hotel (The Blake Hotel) that Jaime got us at a great price. After taking some pics in our room, and reading the safety sheet that they so graciously left us in our room (such as "don't look/act like a tourist" and "carry a dummy wallet"), we started getting ready.






We took the hotel shuttle to Brixx Pizza and Bar, which was great. It was overflowing with women and we ended up sitting at the bar. We each had two cosmos and one "pint" (as Jaime calls it) each of practically all liqeour. Jaime had a red bull and vodka and I had a blue motorcycle which was a blue tinted drink consisting of I think every liqeour in the place. Needless to say, we stumbled to the concert, about two blocks away, when we were done. Jaime summed it up as we left the Brixx saying, "I can't see straight". The pic below is us walking to the stadium. As you can see, Jaime is quite happy.




Here are some concert pics:



I will post a video or two of the concert later. They sang a lot of their old songs as wells as lots of their new ones. It really was a great concert and I would LOVE to see them again (and maybe get some "face time" with Donnie-- I'm sure Shawn would understand). We got a cab to go back to the hotel, and saw crazy women climbing a fence to try to see NKOTB. I think Jaime has a picture of them. They were nuts! Our hotel bar was closed when we got back, so we had to call it a night.