Don't count on me to call 911.

Tag! You're It!

So when I was a kid we played your typical childhood games especially outside in decent weather. I am reminded of this one time my brother, Jason, and cousin, Kristy, were all playing outside hide-n-go seek/tag.

The person hunting would count, the other two hide, then the hiders had to make it back to a previously established SAFE place before being tagged.

The garage doors were safe during this game. This would not have been a problem with the exception that the garage doors had windows. As my brother ran to be safe as I'm pursuing him to tag him, you guessed it...he put his arm straight through the window.

Hmm, I do believe I'll save you the gory details (unless you want them), but he had quite the gash in his arm. We went in the house and while my step-father was getting a towel to wrap my brother's arm, I was supposed to call 911. I picked up the phone, then fainted.

I know a lot of good I was!

I came to shortly after because I was awake before the ambulance got there. My brother ended up with 104 stitches up and down his arm. It took a long time to heal, but in the end, nothing permanently debilitating.

Puffs Plus with lotion...

I'm a simple girl with simple tastes. I like the ins and outs of ordinary things.

So here it is, my favorite tissue for many years standing now.

why you ask? I'll tell you why. Every time one of these tissues inevitably ends up in my laundry, it comes out in 2 pieces because it's 2 ply and that's it. The others end up in 15 billion pieces.

I swear I check all my pockets before laundry...I have no idea where the tissues hide, but boy do they hide in the midst of illness!

Thank goodness I was at target the other day when I didn't have any tissues on my person, I picked some up, but at that time I wondered if there is proper ettiquette when you NEED a tissue and there is not one available. There was NO STOPPING this waterworks and no tissues or napkins on me of any kind! Sleeve? the inside of the top of the shirt. I know I have used both at one point or another. Or a glove when outside in the cold...I hate that though, hurts your nose!

cheers!

Anxiety is setting in....

For the move... I'm absolutely unprepared. Thank goodness I'm moving in with my dad to start off, but I'm even nervous about that. I think it'll be good though...it'll be nice to not have so much time alone to let my thoughts get the best of me hopefully.

I'm worried about not having a job lined up, but then also worried that if I DO have a job lined up I won't have enough time to get things all together down here in maryland. I know I don't have to worry because I called the local temp agency and they have openings, so I can always fall back on temping, but I'm still worried. I'm a worrier, what can I say.

They allow smoking in Pa bars, it sucks. I forgot how much i hated that! I don't plan on becoming a regular at the bars though, so it's all good.

I hope I'm making the right decision by moving back. I'm pretty sure I am and I'll be able to have the house I've always wanted....eventually. housing is another thing I have to figure out! LOL.

The Golden Girls

I felt I needed to follow that one up with a happier note!

So my mom and dad were divorced since I was 1. I only remember them being divorced.

Well, my dad had me minimally every other weekend growing up and we were like clockwork on friday nights after he picked me up. We would sit on his brown leather recliner and watch the friday night sitcom line up! He would sit in the seat and I was probably like 8, so I'd sit on the arm to the right of him and prop my feet on the foot thingy too. We would eat popcorn with LOTS of butter or ritz crackers with cheese. If it was cream cheese, a lot of the time I would eat the cheese off the cracker and hand back the cracker asking for "more please" Otherwise he bought one of those large blocks of cheddar cheese and cut off pieces with pressing the butter knife into the block towards his thumb.

We watched The Golden Girls, Empty Nest, and Threes Company. I loved it! I think that's kind of funny since I was only like 8ish. I miss it......

I'll bite your armpit

As I was driving back to Maryland from my weekend in Pennsylvania today, I was of course reflecting upon life. Just be warned this reflection is not one of my more happier ones and while I don't dwell on it and don't think of it often, I did today so I thought I'd write about it.

I grew up in a blended family. I have 2 older step brothers, 1 older half brother (same mother), and 2 younger half brothers (same mother). My older half brother was abusive. He's 4 years older than myself and really would beat me up.

What I remembered today was this specific event in particular:

My mom was always good at helping me study, so we were sitting at the kitchen table and she was quizzing me on my school knowledge for an upcoming exam. A study technique that worked well for me all throughout my school days. I was about 11 or 12 at this time.

My brother was being punished for something at the time, it was always something...it made no sense to me why he was always getting into trouble. It was like he was looking for it half the time. Well, my mother was making him do his own laundry as part of his punishment. So, my mother's back is to him and I'm facing him when he comes out and declares all his whites are now pink while holding up one of his t-shirts that is indeed a very nice shade of light pink. I giggle because I think it's funny that he made that classic mistake. He FLYS across the kitchen, wraps his arm around me and puts me in what is called "choke hold" in wrestling. Everyone has at one time or another choked on something and felt that panic of not being able to breathe. It's scary! My mother is sitting across from this, gets up and is trying to get him off of me and yelling at him to stop! He's about 15 or 16 nowadays, so he's too strong for either of us! I pass out from him choking and thankfully my step father was upstairs and runs down to the kitchen to see what all the commotion is about and pulls my brother off of me! I giggled at his damn t-shirt being pink.

It was shortly after this that he was permanently put into foster care because the medical professionals couldn't find any mental illness to treat when he'd be at the hospital, but mom was afraid he'd kill one of my younger brothers or me.

We had a lock on the outside of his bedroom door to lock him in there sometimes until my step father got home...a chain lock, not just a door lock. I remember times I was about to call 911 because he was trying to throw mom down the stairs.

I think I have a fear of being under water because mom recalls a story about my brother trying to drown me before in the pool we used to have at the old house, which had to be before I was 8. She came out and same thing...I was passed out from him holding me underwater. Who knows what I did to deserve that. It was a daily occurence to get hit, kicked, punched and you know as a child you don't understand. He'd convince me to not even tell mom because then he'd be grounded and I'd be bored with no one to play with. He'd also tell me how sorry he was he did it. I actually looked up to him.

One time he did something to me and he was holding my arms, so I used my teeth and I bite a HUGE chunk of his armpit out! Haha, that was awesome and thankfully I already had escaped his hand over my mouth and called for mom when I did that!!!

What really sucks, is you'd think that today he would have guilt for all the crap he put me through, but he claims he doesn't even remember. I'm not sure I believe him or not, it's possible, he's done a lot of drugs, but I just keep my distance either way.

Go Fetch the Chicken Eggs!

You may or may not know this about me, but I had a lot of responsibility from a very young age growing up. We always had A LOT of animals growing up. Not really a farm per se (my new favorite phrase to thrown in lately) because it's not like these animals or most of them were useful. We had so many cats and dogs I can't even remember them all. I remember we raised ginea pigs, rabbits, Mice (to feed the snake, mind you, ICK!), hamsters, cats, birds.

You guessed it, we had a chicken coup growing up when I lived in Etters, Pa. We lived in the house in Etters until I was 8 years old. So every morning either myself or my brother had to go outside into the chicken coup and collect the eggs laid. The chicken coup was partly a large crate covered in chicken wire and that was connected to another part that looked similar to a shed, however, on both sides when you entered the door, little hay beds were made for the chickens to lay their eggs.

I remember one chicken in particular that was my favorite. It looked similar to the one I imported, fluffy like that. However, It was mostly white with like blue highlights. I couldn't find a photo or maybe my memory is just not correct, but I swear that's how I remember it!

I know, little did you know I'm a crazy country girl at heart.

Talking to Fans...I'm not crazy

My mother reminded me of this today.

My friend and I used to set up shop, but I guess growing up in the 80's we were pretty familiar with McDonald's. We used to save the packaging of our stuff from McDonald's and conduct a drive thru process. One of us would talk in the fan while the other would "drive" our box/ car.

Then the other side of the fan we'd hand out the food out the "window"

The fan totally made the drive through a success!