The Texas Mama

You know how I love lists, ’cause I am weird like that and just love everything to be well thought out, with every detail described and planned?  You know how I love to read until I have a head ache and my eyes feel like they are bagging at the bottoms?  No, you didn’t?  Well, now you do.

Why am a going on about this, you ask?

Well, I have found something.  Something that I have fallen in deep, deep, lust with.  And that thing is…..

Library Thing

Yes.  It. Is. AWESOME!!!

I can put together a whole catalogue of my books.  I had just been thinking to myself how nice it would be if I could put together a list of all the books I own, and all those I have read.  So, while I am sure that Library Thing’s purpose is solely for keeping track of the books you own, I am going to take it further, after I finish inputting all my books, I am going to start listing ones that I have read. 

I think I may be able to get some kind of list from the local library, where Hali and I frequently check out books.  I am crossing my fingers.  We have story time tommorow morning so I will ask then.  Plus, possibly get the library in Idaho Falls where we used to go all the time to send me something, or have my wonderful mom get it for me. 

This all sounds very dull and boring to you, but to me, this is very, very exciting.  I can’t wait to put it all together and then sit back and see all that I have read in the past, say three or four years.  When I finish, I will surely be posting about my boundless joy, as I will undoubtedly be unable to contain myself.

I have just a few on there right now that I could think of off the top of my head.  I am hoping to do some more later this week.  For now, I am going to sit here and contemplate how it is that the high was freaking 80!!! degrees today, and the low a mere 65, and tommorow, after the storm blows in, it will be a high of 64 and I low of 29.  That’s Texas for ya…

                                                         
This is Hali’s first photograph of her mom.  She loves playing with the camera.  She actually got in something other than her face, tummy, or crotch* in- she got my lap as I was sitting on the floor playing blocks by myself with my daughter like a good mommy.  For some reason my jeans came out looking psycadellic (sp?).  And yes, those are sweat socks.  I wear them with everything.  See, I told you I am one classy gal! 

I tried to stretch the picture, thus making myself thinner, but I don’t think I could get it to work properly.  So I appear to have thighs that are so huge it doesn’t seem to be possible for me to actually be sitting “Indian style” (how racist is that anyways? Jeremy is 1/16 Cherokee, so I feel I can use the phrase without too much guilt, for some reason- as if my husband’s and daughter’s blood allows me to use racist phrases…).  SO only part of that statement is true, as obviously I am sitting in said style.  Which means my thighs must be what we shall call “thunder thighs”.  Doesn’t that just sound lovely?!  I mean who doesn’t want to relate their thighs to something that is loud and frightens children (and adults- who am I kidding)?!

* I was going to have a nice little linkage here to point out another entry where I featured her self portraits, but I just noticed that my archives are not so great. Apparently, most of the pictures aren’t there. I think this may be my fault- I deleted them, trying to clear away old pictures.  Also, the left side seems to hang over into the brownish/reddish/purple/maroon color that is the boarder.  Why is it that blogs can never behave?!

Random person that I can be, I decided to have a few odd lists of posts that I have done in the past year of blogging.  They are not great.  They are not well writtenm or even all that cognetive for that matter.  But, they are basically me at my worst.  So if you can stick with me through these, then I consider you a friend, because you have seem me at (nearly) my worst. Happy One Year Blogging to me!

 Too Much Information:

Gotta Go, Gotta Go, Gotta Go Right Now

Reasons Why I Am Gross



Get Off Your Soapbox!:

I Hate Forwards That Lie

Bookmarks, Yet Another Addiction

R.I.P.

Good Morting!



You sure you’re not just a little bit crazy?:

The Voices In My Head Won’t Be Quiet

Why I Am The Epitamy Of Style, Class, and Sophistication

Charli’s Ponderings On The Universe #1

Addictive Personality?

Random Thoughts, Part Two

M.O.M.s



Guess Who’s A B&^%#?!

Why People Don’t Like Us

Nursery, aka A Breeding Ground For Germs

I don’t have gas.  And this is not a good thing.  We have no natural gas.  Our hot water heater, heater/ac, and stove/oven all use gas.  So it is actually going to be a cold night (of course this would happen on one of the ten cold days we have had this year).  Also, I got to re use Hali’s luke warm bath water to quickly bath in.  Great. 

Apparently, when we called to have the gas switched over into our name from the owners, it didn’t take.  What happened when Jeremy called a few weeks ago, was that we would have to go without gas for a few days if we wanted to go ahead and have it set up in our name first off.  But, if we just had it turned on for a few days in the owner’s name (he had it turned on once, and had an account set up at the gas company already) and then they could switch it over into our name with no interruption in service.  That would have worked out well.  Except that they forgot to switch it over to our names and it got shut off today- that’s all the owner had stipulated for.  So I am sure that he is not happy either, seeing as he has just gotten to pay for our gas the past month.  This has all been very fun.

Just a moment ago, when Jeremy walked in to the office and asked me if I was blogging.

ME:        Yes, I have to every day this month, it’s nablopomo.

HIM:      Uh, okay.  So what happens if you don’t?

ME:        Well, you have to live with the disappointment in yourself, I guess. 

HIM:      So… why are you doing this noblo thing?

ME:        It’s for the children, Jeremy.  Children with cancer.

HIM:      Ohhhh!

ME:       (trying to hide my smirk)

HIM:      You’re not for real, are you.

ME:         Nope.

HIM:      silently leaves room, probably thinking “what an odd, sadistic, crazy person I have married” for like, the umpteenth time… today


What really just went on here:


HIM:   So, why aren’t you falling all over yourself to shower your love and affection on me now that Hali is asleep and I am not.  Why aren’t you trying desperately to get me to talk to you to no avail?

ME:   I have given up, do not want to talk about it and have moved on to better things that I do not want to be interrupted from now.

HIM:   Aren’t I more important to you that your blog?

ME:     Sure.  Where else would I be able to find an endless supply of blog fodder over which we women can cackle about how pathetic and stupid men are?

HIM:   ???????? Say what with the what in the what?

ME:      I love you honey, now go to bed like you were about to anyways.

  
I have just passed my one hundredth blog entry mark!   Yay!  Happy First Centinal to me.  Oh, wait.  I haven’t been doing this for a hundred years.  So, happy One Hundred Posts to me.  Coincidentally, I have been blogging for just over a year now.  I am putting together a list of some of my favorite entries or which ones seem to be the most popular.  But, my IE keeps shutting down on me when I click too much, and I am not ready to switch laptops just yet- the other one gets really hot and needs to be checked over.  So that can wait until tomorrow or this weekend sometime. 

For now, you will have to be happy with the joke that I shared with my parents, grandparents, new in-laws, and various friends and family just minutes after our wedding as we were posing for pictures.  Our faces were becoming tired, checks and jaws aching from the muscle strain of smiling so much.  We needed some “real” smiles. So I craked a joke.  What we got were some faces of shock, some faces of confusion, and some laughing.  Stop me if you’ve heard it:

How do you know when a blond has had a bad day?




Her tampon is behind her ear and she can’t find her cigarette.

Apparently, this was a highly inappropriate joke to tell after the ceremony we had just had, and while standing just outside of the temple.  Hmm.  It did make for a great memory.

And yes, I am cheesing out on you.  I really just want to go take a bath- its ten thirty at night.

I just realized that my entries haven’t been posting until a day later.  So hopefully the problem is fixed now and this will post on Tuesday night, which is when I am writing this, and not Wednesday night. 

I hadn’t caught it until now, because I have been freaking busy this week.  The weekend was just one of those that didn’t even feel like a weekend.  We were running errands, at the new shop, shopping, picking our noses, scratching our butts, wetting ourselves… okay, so we all did the first five, and only Hali and I did the last one.  I can’t believe I wet my pants.  I haven’t done that since Hali was just a few months old.  And I had an emergency c-section!  Apparently it is time to step up the kcal’s or w/e those dang exercise were that I used to do when I was pregnant.  Dang it, I hate doing any kind of exercise!  Then again, peeing your pants ain’t no bed ‘o roses either. 

Ugh, I am so disgusted with myself.  Someone, please comment and tell me that you have done it as an adult too!  After a baby, its like you lose control down there!  I can’t believe I am telling random strangers that I peed myself.  I am gross.  I should just get some plastic underpants and buck up and put a call in to the nearest “home”.  At this rate, I will be defecating on myself by the time I am forty, and uncontrollably drooling at fifty-five or so.  Wait- I have been known to drool in my sleep.  Dang!  Good news, though.  I haven’t pooped myself in the past couple decades!  Wish I could say the same for Hali…

You know when you sneeze, or cough, or laugh, or bend over, or wake up, or squat down, or turn water on, and you have to make a run for the toilet?  Wait.  That list was waaaaay too long.  I may have to see about getting on some medication for this. 

Dang it all, I have to pee now.  Just talking writing about it makes me have to go.  Also, I have to quit drinking so much water at night.  When I get up in the morning, my lower stomach is killing me, I have such a full bladder.  I swear, I can pee for a minute straight. 

Happy Birthday, Jeremy!  Today Yesterday was my pookie’s twenty-seventh birthday.  May I just say for the record, that he is only getting better looking?  Isn’t unfair how that happens for men?  Seriously.  Un. Fair.

Jeremy doesn’t really like to celebrate his birthday.  He doesn’t like to make a big deal of it.  He doesn’t like the fact that he IS getting older, and that on this day, the number that signifies how many years he has reeked havock blessed this earth grows by one.  However, I don’t think he will be refusing any birthday presents any time soon.  Every year, he gets it into his head that the age he is about to turn is a truely “old” age.  I have to remind him that he is still VERY young.  Also, for the next two months, his loving wife is four years younger than him.  If men can’t be young again, don’t they get a young wife to make them feel young? Or a hot rod?

Hi- uh, my name is Charli Stout.  I blog here.  This is my blog (and the award for stating the obvious goes to…).  Google my name, and Mom and Me is first on the list.  I do it for the fame and notoriety, ya know.  It occurred to me after reading Loralee’s recent entry that it may not be clear how to say my name.  Ya, that’s right, you like that?! Say my name! Oohhh, sorry, still some remnants of my last entry hanging around…  I’ll behave now. 

My name is actually pronounced Charlie- like you know, the guys’ name?  Charli is not in any name books, not spelled how I spell it, but if you look up Charlie you will see that it means “manly”.  Yes, that’s right, my name means that I am a manly mannish…. uh… woman?  Can you believe it?  Seeing as I have yet to post much of picture of myself, for all you know it could be very fitting. 

I could be what I sound like: a

unibrowed (well, yes, but the wax and tweezers usually keep it under control),
fat (I am pleasantly plump, thank you very much!),
hairy ( ok, so ya, I have hair growing out of weird places, but I shave- I SWEAR!),
sweaty (uh, well, not if it’s cooler than eighty and I am not exerting myself or nervous or stressed),
crude (WTF! You b&%$#! I am so f%$#&*#! NOT!  I have manners coming out my a$$!)  

Crap!  Now you all think I am hideous.  Well, here’s a picture- this should clear things up:

                                                   <IMG style=”WIDTH: 192px; HEIGHT: 174px” height=244 src=”/images/21876-20889/ugly_guyshead.jpg” width=192>

Okay, okay, I know- very lame.  But now, even if I post the worst picture I have of me, you will all think that I am a total hottie. And a babe.
      
                                                <IMG src=”/images/21876-20889/HPIM0221_USE.JPG”>
This is the picture that I have on my, well, here I go, admitting another embarrassing thing, but on my myspace profile.  I think this was taken in June.  What’s that you say?  You can’t see my summer Texas tan either?  After I ran into a friend from high school, she told me to go to the site and I would see a lot of old friends.  I am a horrible, anti-social person, so I hadn’t kept in touch with anyone.  So I did it.  I am glad, even if it does seem lame and juvenile.  I got to catch up with old pals. 

I heart this picture, because it does not show my double chin, my hair is actually done (other than a ponytail) and I sooo do not look like  I weigh somewhere in the lighter side of 1?? pounds.  Everyone from high school who sees it says I haven’t changed.  Everyone who sees me in person, apparently thinks that I am older than my husband, who in fact is three years older than me and turns 27 tomorrow.  My husband loves to remind me of those three times when someone he was talking to assumed I was older.  He really knows how to build a girl’s ego and flatter her.  Of course, he usually follows this up by telling me that it’s only ’cause I’m fat- that usually makes women seem older.  Oh, my Prince Charming.  I am falling in love with you all over again as I am writing this.

Ok, back to what’s important here- me.  There also is apparently an artist by the name of Charli Stout.  He or she is between 55 and 99 and is in the Springfield area.  That is all I could find.  There are a few other Charli’s, but not many. 

So now you know.  Sort of.

I don’t know if ‘happy’ is the right word, but in observance of the holiday, I thought I would post a link to the best tribute I have seen in a while.  Sure, you can consider this cheating- not much of a post here, but I certainly can do no better.  I could tell about my husband’s grandpa, Joseph Saad, who served in WWII, but this is even better.  Go over to Looney Tunes and check out Loralee’s wonderful tribute.  Get a box of tissues- you’ll be needing them.

First of all, what you have to understand, is that I have no life. Our weekly trips to the library for story time and  Walmart for groceries are a big deal for Hali and I.  Like I said- no life.

So yesterday, when we were at the library, sitting there and enjoying our story time, full of fun stories and crafts centered on this week’s theme of food, I found myself judging.  This is something I do.  I know I shouldn’t.  I try to stop myself.  But, I am an imperfect mortal, and seem unable to completely stop myself.

Right in the middle of a cute little book, being read by the even cutesier children’s librarian, a mother stormed up to the front and laid into her little girls behind.  I am not totally sure what her offense was- I think it had something to do with her purposely spilling a handful of animal crackers on the floor.  Loudly, in the middle of the story (even the librarian paused a moment- I think she was a little shocked as well) this mother reprimanded her child then very harshly spanked her bottom.  Repeatedly.

Now I understand that we all have our parenting techniques.  Heck, Jeremy and I have tried the spanking thing and will use it on occasion.  Normally, if Dad is home, all Hali needs is for me to sadly look at her and ask her if I should have Dad come give her a spanking.  She shapes up.  Maybe I was embarrassed myself.  But for whom?  The little girl or the mother?  Why was I sitting here thinking about this?

Then I saw the girl do as she was told, and thought, well, I guess that is what works for them.  I reprimanded myself for judging, and thought about my own parenting. 

I looked down at my beautiful daughter’s beaming face, and thought.  This is the reward for parenting.  To see the joy on our children’s faces as they experience the fun of something that we have taught them is fun.  It’s magic- for both of us.  I hate to see that time taken away or disturbed in any way.  That’s why I was so upset for the mother interrupting and intruding on our magic to discipline.  It broke this trance that we were both in.  We were both caught up in the story.  I was caught up in watching Hali’s face as she was so clearly enjoying herself. 

We must be a sight, the two of us at the library every week.  Huge, cheesy grins plastered on our faces.  Arms full of books.  We are such nerds.  Being a nerd is great.  Admitting to yourself that you are a nerd is so freeing.