Burst Of Freshness!

I never post about products, but today I'm going to, because I have found my new favorite thing.

~You can consider me the white trash Oprah, but I'm not going to give you anything, just show you some pictures I jacked off Google.~

Ever since it came out I have been a Crest Pro Health girl.

Thats all I have in the house and I have it in travel sizes too so we can take it on the road.

That sounds so adventurous and glamorous doesn't it?

Taking toothpaste on the road.

I wonder what toothpaste James Bond or Indiana Jones packed in their travel bag.

Anyway...

The other day we were at the store and I told Y it was his lucky day and he could pick his own paste.

He chose Aqua Fresh Iso-Active.

I thought it was dumb and kind of gimicky but figured oh well, his teeth only belong to me for another seven or eight years and then their his problem, and really, what could it hurt.

So I fork out the almost five bucks for it, get it home, and as I'm putting it away I look at it and think to myself, "this stuff looks like shaving cream." "Weird, I think I'll try it."

I looked around to make sure no one was watching, and then I put some on my brush.

It even came out of the can(?) like shaving cream and that really heebed me out and made me very apprehensive about putting this stuff in my mouth, but I figured hey, I've put worse stuff in there and the shaving cream toothpaste is at least FDA approved.

Oh. My. Gawd.

It was the BEST toothpaste EVER.

It started out like a gel and then you get this foamy minty explosion in your mouth.

The longer you brush the better it gets.

Wyatt is brushing his teeth just for the foam filled fun!

I'm telling you, this sh!t is amazing.

That wraps up this shameful unpaid endorsement.

But really, go buy some and see for yourself.

Four Legged Friends

I just got back from reading one of my favorite bloggers (Click Here) post on dogs and that got me thinking about my own dogs and their outstanding personalities.

First there is Pooter.

Pooter is our more than obese, thirty-five pound Shih-Tzu.

We got Poo when he was just a pup from a breeder who's house was so dirty and stunk so bad that we went back and bought his brother just to spring him from the stink.

His brother, Samson ended up going to a great home with a good friend while Poo grew into the laid back loving lump that he is.

The only thing that gets Poo worked up is a treat and I swear you can see the sweat beads form as he runs to the sound of my hand in the jar!

Here are a few pics of Poo.

This is Poo and Pearl...

This is solo Poo..

Next we have Bart.

Bart came to our home via Craigslist and he was a perfect fit from the moment he he set foot on the farm.

Bart also has A.D.D.

He will not go outside alone.

He hates having his picture taken and he will never ever give up hope that you might throw the ball, bucket, frisbee, shoe, stick, pine cone, pop can etc, just ONE more time.

Bart is loving and loyal and seldom leaves my side.

He also herds sheep with his head out the window of the backseat of the truck.

This is Barty at the beach, hoping we will throw the stick... Again.



Then we have the baby Buddy, who I lovingly refer to as our "Hot Dog" because I'm fairly sure he was paid for with stolen funds during the summer of 09'.

Buddy is a wonderful fun filled bundle of joy who only listens to the voices in his head.

Nothing is a good idea unless it's Buddy's idea.

He can herd and position the sheep from the other side of the fence and is always keeping the chickens in line.

Literally.

He keeps them in a line.

Thats Buddy in front.

Last but not least, we have Kobe, AKA Sparky.

Sparky was an unexpected souvenir from our last trip to Washington.

He belonged to a very good friend who got him as a used dog from someone else.

He was in an abusive relationship with an older woman (a three year old shepard mix) and was having to live in the doghouse to avoid her aggression.

So, we loaded him up with the rest of our baggage and headed South.

Sparky has truly found love and friendship on the farm and enjoys eating whip cream out of the can and going on long walks to the mail box.

His favorite things include sleeping with me and staring at me.

Seriously, I think he's obsessed.

So that's it for the get to know a dog blog, hav a great day!

Lights Out

What a day.

Already I have worked on solving half of the worlds problems, finished my blog design, drank an entire pot of coffee and survived an hour long power outage.

Mind you the power outage put a real hitch in my giddy-up, because it meant cooling coffee and no internet.

I kept mindlessly switching on and off all the light switches, repeatedly thought I could just use the microwave since the stove wouldn't work and more than once sat down to play solitaire on the computer since I didn't have internet.

I also seriously considered eating all the food in the fridge on the off chance that we would never have power again.

It would have been a sad day had all that food gone to waste.

Lucky for my ever expanding waistline the power was back on within an hour or so, just before I had to make the ultimate sacrifice of eating all the contents of our two refrigerators and one upright freezer.

So now I have the rest of the day to relax, fold clothes and do dishes.

I think I'll have a little something to eat first.

Lazy...

It's 2010.

Where is my self cleaning kitchen, flying car and jet pack?

Where is my Rosie who will clean the house and press my clothes and keep me fit and trim like Jane?

I made the best chili last night.*

Really, it was out of this world and I plan on having some for breakfast and some for lunch too.

Here's the deal though, before I have chili for breakfast I have to clean the kitchen from last night which is usually something I do at night because I can't stand filth in the morning but last night I just had a second bowl of chili and watched Rosie on Oprah and then went to bed because I was to stuffed to stay awake.

So, what do I get?

Thats right, a mess in the morning.

I need to watch Hoarders.

That is always a hardcore dose of what we could ALL become if we don't watch ourselves.

I truly think hoarding is a disease of our society.

Remember the story our parents and grandparents told about walking to school uphill both ways in the snow carrying their shoes?

About eating mustard sandwiches and potato soup?

Now look at us.

I'm no hoarder, but I don't think I'd pass a white glove inspection either.

Ok, enough procrastinating, I have to go put on my new shoes and do the dishes.

*For the BEST chili in the WORLD check out John Deere Moms award winning recipe.

http://johndeeremom.blogspot.com/2010/01/award-winning-chili-recipe.html

Freash Air and Smelly Dogs

I have all the doors open today.

Not because it's so warm mind you, but because I need the fresh air.

Winter makes me claustrophobic, I hate used air.

You know how some people like to snuggle?

Not me.

I need my own space, my own blankets and please don't breathe on me or in my direction.

Would you believe that as I'm writing this, at this very minute, my dogs just came in and laid down at my feet after rolling in something I would have to guess has been dead for quite some time.

Right now as I'm writing about needing clean fresh air.

Gag.

So anyway, houses in winter AND airplanes make me very uneasy.

I just think about #6 being on an airplane to Iraq and I need a nerve pill.

Not only do you have the used air issue to contend with on airplanes, but you also have the cinema seat dilemma.

You know, how when you go to the cinema to watch a movie and your stuck not being able to stretch out your legs for two hours...

Well on an airplane it's even worse because you have cinema seat and used air and you can't get up and leave even if you wanted to.

Oh my gawd, I'm starting to sweat.

My dogs stink and I need air, see ya later.

Shipping Out

Remember the 30,000 dollar calamity of 09' with #6?

Remember I decided the best way for him to pay the money back and make amends for what he did would be to go to Afghanistan and drive truck and make buckets of money?

Well, he's going.

He got the call, he's done all the paper work and he leaves for training in Houston on the 31st of this month and then it's off to Iraq for a year.

I am excited for this to be behind us and hope that maybe we can salvage some type of normalcy in our relationship, but really, how do you do that after your trust has been trashed.

I mean this guy looked me straight in the eye for eight months as he was cleaning out my Grandfathers bank account.

Who does that?

How does someone do that?

I don't get it.

I really don't want a divorce, I mean divorce is easy, I have the routine down pat, it's just I don't want to go through the hassle and emotions and expense of a divorce.

I'm older, fatter and tired and not the least bit interested in moving on to greener pastures.

I was happy with how things were, even though #6 was never the one big true love in my life.

I never saw fireworks, my heart never skipped a beat when he walked in the room, but he was my friend.

I thought he was the guy who had my back, the guy who was there beside me when the going got tough, and I always thought I could depended on him to be my partner as I continued to get even older and fatter then I already am.

Our marriage was easy, we didn't fight, we seldom even argued.

We just had that one big problem...

He was a lying, thieving piece of shit pretending to be a great guy.

So how do you believe someone when they tell you who they are and then turn out to be someone totally different, and can people really change or will he always be a lying , stealing rat?

I don't know, I guess only time will tell.

Time and 30,000 dollars

Bubbles!

Enough about Wyatt, I have a new love!

I've wanted to make soap for about a year.

I love homemade soap.

I love all the different sizes and smells of homemade soap.

I love everything about homemade soap except the making homemade soap for the first time part of homemade soap.

Then I went to Washington during the holidays and my friend Kenna made soap with me.

She showed me all the tricks and went over every step with me so I wouldn't be scared to do it by myself.

I came home and bought the oils, the scale, the lye, the fragrance, and all the other soap stuff I needed and stared at all of it sitting on my counter because I was still a little scared.

I re-read my books.

I re-watched the videos.

I re-scoured the blogs.

I re-went over my notes from Kenna.

I was ready.

I did it.

ALLBYMYSELF!

I. Made. My. Own. Soap.

It wasn't near as scary as I thought it was going to be and now I'm hooked.

Hello, my name is Marilyn and I'm a cold process soap junkie.

I wake up thinking about soap and I go to bed thinking about soap.

My house smells so fabulous you wouldn't even believe it.

I think we will be the cleanest family in Beavercreek and have the cleanest friends and family in three states.

I will have the freshest smelling dogs, pig, goats and donkeys.

No one will escape the soap.

I will give it as gifts for birthdays, weddings, baby showers, graduation, Christmas and Hanukkah .

(if I ever meet anyone Jewish...)

The problem is, I don't know how much time my new addiction will leave for parenting, facebook and blogging.

I may need to work on my time management skills.

Anyway, I would love to stick around and talk more about this, but I have soap to make!

Wy 2

So I made myself an appointment with Dr Bob to see if the cheapo test was right.

I still had doubt, five dollars can't buy you big news with any reliability.

Dr Bob assured me it was five dollars well spent and it was true, I was "expecting."

O.M.G.

Wendy was fifteen.

This was NOT in my plans.

When I told Wendy she thought I was kidding, because of course it WAS the most ridiculous thing I had ever said to her. After I convinced her I was telling the truth, all she could say was "I'm not babysitting and I'm NOT getting bunk beds." Then it was just a bunch of incoherent babbling.

Thats kind of what Jack did too. Wait, I guess I should clarify that, more incoherent babbling than usual.

This news was bigger than all of us and it was going to take some getting used to.

I think telling my family was the hardest. No, telling them I was pregnant with Wendy was the hardest, but trust me, this was no walk in the park.

As it turned out everyone seemed to be ok with our news and some even excited.

My friends were super excited and very encouraging, especially Trina who turned out to be my life coach and biggest support of all.

Trina would handle all the important details of my pregnancy for me like scheduling doctor appointments and keeping my smoking to under a pack a day.

She also took care of things like bringing me Milk Duds in the middle of the night, planning the BEST baby shower EVER and even bought and assembled the crib.*

She would read to me week by week from the What to Expect When You're Expecting book and reassured me it was ok when my ankles disappeared but that maybe a little exercise was a good idea.

Jack informed me early on that he was in charge of naming our little bundle, which to be truthful, looking back I should have known was a bad idea, but at the time I thought it was just something I needed to roll with, even though his names were not ones that I would have chosen.

If the baby was a girl, her name would be Kitty.

Not Katherine, Kitty.

If the baby was a boy, his name would be Wyatt.

I prayed for a boy.

The time came for the ultrasound.

Did we want to know the sex?

Are you kidding?

I had to know so I could mentally prepare.

The room was dark and silent.

Dr. Bob looked at us and spoke those dreaded words.

It's. A. Girl.

Cries rang out and tears fell as we embraced each other in support of the terrible news we had been given.

How could God play such a cruel cruel joke on us?

Kitty?

Kitty Swafford?

It was a curse bestowed upon our little girl before she even took her first breath.

But wait.

As Dr Bob ran the jelly laden ball across my giant belly again, he saw it.

There it was, bigger than life....

A WEENIS!

It was a boy!

It was Wyatt!

The angels sang and our tears turned to big wet happy drops of joy.

Now all we had to do was get him out.

*Trina and her husband Michael went to Sears to buy me a crib as a surprise.

When they went to the parking lot to get the car and drive around to will-call to pick it up, the REAL surprise was that someone had STOLEN their car!

Can you even believe that!

The Story of Wy

It was the backside of Memorial Day weekend 1998.

It also just happened to be my Birthday weekend which is always cause for celebration.

The party started on Friday night after work, bonfire at the beach with friends and Jacks crazy family.

Saturday was spent digging clams, crabbing and drinking beer getting ready for the big dinner on Monday. Sunday was a repeat of Saturday with the bonus of a good friends Birthday thrown in and that meant a party and dancing downtown that lasted into early morning Monday.

You can imagine the shape I was in Monday afternoon as I sat at the kitchen table with Jacks Mother cracking crab for dinner that night.

Now mind you, Jacks family was without a doubt a formative factor in what went into making Jack the scoundrel he is.

Lets just say the entire family was "a little rough around the edges."

His Mother was no exception

As I sat there at the table with her, cigarette smoke bouncing off the walls and forming weather patterns above us, she looked at me and with the rasp that only a lifetime smoker can claim said in no uncertain terms, "Little Girl , you look like shit," and she was right.

Not only did I look that way, I felt that way too.

After three days of sunshine, beer and general debauchery I was definitely feeling the effects.

I felt so bad I couldn't even smoke my own cigarettes let alone stand the constant smell that was wafting through the kitchen, and the smell of the crab was more than I could take, and trust me, that alone told me the situation was serious. I was the one who always ate more than I cracked and usually wasn't even welcome at the cracking table.

I leaned in towards my Mother -in-law and quietly confessed to her my fear of having a brain tumor.

I had never felt this way.

The sickness, the dizziness, I was so tired.

There was a moments silence before she stood up on her short little legs and started stomping her feet in her best pair of worn out slippers and bellered in my face...

Little Girl! Yer knocked up!

No.

I wasn't.

I was on the pill.

I took the pill every day.

Every day.

These were the thoughts that were going through my head as the old woman danced around the kitchen singing "Yer knocked up, Yer knocked up!"

I got in my car, drove straight to the drugstore, bought a bargain test, drove back to the house, peed on the stick and watched as the + sign appeared before my eyes.

This. Could. Not. Be. True.

I was on the pill.

Here's a fact about me that those who know me are well aware.

I will do anything to save a buck, so on reflection I have an idea that this may have happened because I was taking the pills that Val had left over after her husband had a vasectomy.

I figured that they WERE doctor prescribed, just not by my doctor.

I also figured that the expiration date didn't really matter and since they were bubble wrapped they would last forever.

As it turned out, I figured wrong

Even the pill I took that morning wasn't going to help me.

I was knocked up.

Sunshine and Rainbows

Yesterday I ...

Fought with the neighbor who won't pay his rent.

Fought with the complicated spouse who acts like a baby.

Fought with Ex #4&5 who has drunk dialed me three days in a row.

Stepped on a tack strip before going to bed.

Today should be a walk in the park :)

Facebook Love Connections

So last night on the eleven o' clock news there was a spot on how facebook is breaking up marriages.

I can't stay awake past ten so I missed what it said, but it got me to thinking.

I know someone RIGHT NOW who's *wife has left him for her high school sweetheart that she reconnected with on facebook.

This leads me to ponder...

I purposely only post photographs of myself where I am in my DMV pose, sucked in and chin out.

Seldom do I post a below the shoulders shot and never, EVER would I post a full body in bathrobe with my hair in a top of the head pony photo which is how I look 8o% of the time.

The other 20% I am in spandex underpants, stretch jeans, a low cut ass covering shirt (to draw attention up yet away from my face all at the same time) and hair that is at the very least combed.

I highly doubt that anyone from my high school years looks at me and thinks, "wow I really missed out that twenty some years ago, but here's my chance!"

I'm sure that having four dogs who sleep in their own twin bed next to mine and the fact that I have a petting zoo in my front yard that includes a marshmallow eating pig is mighty attractive too.

Top all that off with two kids fifteen years apart in age and six ex husbands I can pretty much assume my love life is facebook proof.

So I wonder, do you know anyone who has reconnected on facebook and "hooked up?"

Did the fact that they had aged, gained weight, lost hair, been divorced, never married, had kids in prison or still lived with their parents have any affect on their love connection?

Or, did they find that the other person had only become more desirable?

A great job, no kids, no psycho ex, good credit, didn't snore, loved dogs and their parents lived in another state?

I'm just curious.

* the couple in question are actually first cousins who reconected at a family reunion after they both had children. The whole situation made me uncomfortable and she's a sloppy drunk, so really the breakup is a-ok in my book and with luck, they will both find love outside of the family.

Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow...

Here's a news flash... For Christmas I got fat.

For my Birthday in May I got less fat and that gift kept on giving right up through October When I got the news that I was married to a felon

( he would have been a felon if my sister had let me call the police.)

That's when all the fat started coming back to me.

Entire pies longingly whispered my name, half gallons of rocky road reached out for me in the night and cookies and brownies began greeting me for breakfast and making standing dates for lunch and dinner.

Oh they made me feel good, there's no arguing that, they embraced me in their sweet and satisfying goodness throughout my days and late into my nights, and what they gave me was real.

I REALLY have a huge ass, thunder thighs and front butt.

As obsessed as I am about the food industry, you'd think I would be a harder fish for bad food to fry.

I know how our beef is raised, I know how pigs are slaughtered and I can recite to you chapter and verse the crime that is high fructose corn syrup.

The problem is, I'm a junkie.

An easy mark.

I'm weak.

So as of yesterday, (I'm at the big ONE day mark) I'm off the junk again.

No sugar and this time no dairy.

From what I read, it seems that most of us are allergic to dairy anyway.

Research says there is no reason for us to consume another mammals milk.

Eew. Saying that out loud just grossed me out.

Now I just need to find some research and literature telling me how gross it is to sit on the couch watching daytime stories and Lifetime movies.

Welcome 2010!

Ok, it's a new year.

Lets see what I can do about this business of blogging. I wish I could be more disciplined about this whole blog thing because looking back on posts past I realize how many memories I keep here.

2009 was without a doubt an interesting year.

My fourth and fifth ex husband Jack surprised us with a visit that seemed without end, my sixth husband stole (literally) the farm and my daughter and I made it through the roughest year of our extended history together.

But, surprise surprise, we all lived to tell about it. Maybe what they say about what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, this too shall pass or life sucks and then you die really is true.

I just wish I could be tall thin and rich as I experience it all.

Perhaps that's the reason I didn't take out an ex husband or two last summer, I didn't want to have a double chin in my mug shots.

All I can say is pay attention if I get thin and suddenly Texas comes up short a Jackass.

2010 seems to be off to a great start though.

The house is mother in law clean (if your mother in law happens to be a hoarder), all four dogs are washed and my complicated spouse has been working overtime. So to sum things up, nothing stinks and the bill collectors have quit calling.

We have been devoting our spare time to various white trash crafts that go loads in keeping up the attractive decor of our home, much to dismay of our neighbors and guests.

Our motto is, "Our treasure is someone else's trash at our house."

So thats all for now, but I will try and see you here or over at the never blog a bit more often this year.