Tales from a Phobic

Do you want to hear the scariest stories ever? Well, do you? It seems fitting with the chilling holiday this weekend. By the way, I don't like Halloween. It's dark and scary and kids ask for candy from strangers. Just look at the kind of movies that come out this time of year. Frightening.

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I had a frightening experience once. The most terrifying of my LIFE! No, it wasn't when I married KT. I know what you're thinking. No it was when I awoke in the middle of the night to have a spider crawling on my face. No joke! I am truly afraid of creepy, crawly spiders. I don't know what it is, maybe it is my mom's influence. Thanks mom! But I woke to a tickling on my face. When I reached up to scratch it, it was a spider that I quickly pinched between my fingers, shot out of bed and ran screaming to the bathroom where I promptly flushed it down the toilet. Let's just say I lost it. I couldn't sleep in my bed for several nights after that. Talk about paranoid!

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I am also afraid of slithery, slimy snakes. I can handle a toad or frog. For crying out loud, I married one. But, snakes...oh dear God...My chest is getting tight just thinking of it. I can hardly walk through the snake house at the zoo. When I was in Oregon recently, Ladybug had a run in with a snake. Gratefully, I had run back to the RV for my sunglasses. I missed the whole episode. I might have made the situation worse with my screaming and hyperventilating. Ladybug and my mom were taking the nature trail to the beach. A little snake wrapped itself around her sneaker while she looked at my mom for help in what to do. Lifting her foot the thing slithered away. It was really just an instant, but if I had been there I probably would have caused her to be bitten or something horrendous.  We don't even know if it was poisonous.  Needless to say, if I had seen it I would have been finding an alternate route to the beach even if it meant climbing down a cliff or something. 

I'm just saying there are somethings more terrifying than others.

Light bulb Moments

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Amidst a brain fog of literary blocks, I make my way to the gym. Something happens while I am on the treadmill. All the oxygen and blood flowing through my brain seems to sweep out the cobwebs to make room for an influx of ideas. It is then that I get in my best thinking. A continuous flow of ideas leaves me overwhelmed and perplexed with what to do with them. It's not like I can whip out my handy dandy notebook and take notes and jot ideas...Not while running, I can't even sip water and run, I don't want to get thrown off of that machine. (I've seen that happen to someone once, it wasn't pretty.) My quandary is then trying to make a mental note of said ideas so that I won't forget later.

When you're 41, it's easy to forget...But at least I'm running again.... 

Winner, Winner Chicken Dinner

I'm a winner! Don't you just love words of affirmation? Well, I am a winner in the literal sense. Being the contest junkie that I am, I was bound to win something sooner or later. I actually have won a bunch in the past, just not the lotto. Bummer!

I wanted to give some props to a couple of websites that drew my name for prizes over the past year...Thanks!

 Better Homes & Gardens Pots & Pans

From Our Best Bites

a custom basket weave pillow made by Marie's Cozy Corner

From Everyday Mom Ideas

Pocket Full of Posies Meal Planning from

Fabulessly Frugal

Soap made by Messes and Mud Pies 

Kristina at Pulsipher Predilections

Laziness and Fall

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I know how I have mentioned before my love of running and yoga. It's what sustains me and makes me feel alive. Come fall, though, my body wants to hibernate and nest inside my comfy, cozy home while the sun sets earlier and earlier. I have become complacent with my exercise and thus a pesky 7 pounds have added back on to my mere 5'3" frame. 7 pounds people! I guess I need to start wearing this little guy again.  I love him!

It is ironic...I become stressed in the early fall when school starts, and I let things go. The VERY things that help keep me sane and clear and stress free. KT drug me back to the gym last week. Almost kicking and screaming, I might add. I didn't want to go...But, I am glad I did.

Once I get back into the habit, I crave it. My body and brain need it, and my blogging gets better and more frequent, too. 

Ta ta my peeps...I'm off to the gym °Ü°

A Kept Woman

1995

Several years ago, like too many to count, I was watching a talk show...I used to watch them while folding laundry or making cookies or any number of mundane home jobs that sometimes seem boring in and of themselves. The talk shows helped keep me entertained. But, this one day, I saw the mother of all talk shows, and I have never watched one again. The people on the show were totally dogging on the stay at home mom. Saying how they didn't carry their weight in a marriage, we were lazy and someone even had the audacity to compare a stay at home mom to a "kept woman". Are you kidding me? Isn't a kept woman someone who doesn't do a dang thing? Someone who lays around eating bonbons and is there for her husbands every sexual whim? Like I need to be paid for sex! Not me! Nope...This show was totally demeaning, and I actually let it get to me for a while. But, then I remembered my job as a stay at home mom was akin to a sacred calling.

I LOVED being a stay at home mom. I worked hard, too! My home was always clean, the kids were happy and KT always had a dinner to come home to even if at times it was mac n cheese from a box. I felt good about my accomplishments throughout the day. KT used to have people ask him what his wife did, after he told them I was a stay at home mom, it was like I was suddenly not interesting anymore. "Oh," they would say. Bless his heart, I love him for this, he would tell them "Well, she probably works harder than me most days." Fo sho!

Five years ago I went back to work. The kids were all going to be in school, and I was just darn afraid of being home by myself after all those years. I think I was afraid I would become that bonbon eating kept woman. But you know what? I now long for the days of staying home. Even if I only work part time, they were days of far less stress and a far less stressed wife makes for a happier husband. I'm just sayin'. But it's not so easy to just stay home anymore. We've become accustomed to the extra money. I have a son in college right now and another who is a senior in high school. So, really, staying home again is not in the near future. I guess I just long for the days of being a "kept woman" again...Those days of more simplicity...

Advice

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BAD advice from someone who shall not be named...

1.  You should probably get a separate checking account now so you are covered WHEN you divorce. (Yeah, let's go ahead and plan in advance for failure)

2.  When your husband stops satisfying you, you can sit on the washing machine during the spin cycle. (What the crap?  Really people?)

Now here is some GOOD advice I've received.

3. Even if you are sick, always get up and shower.  You will clean the germs off and always feel better when  you are clean.  I have crawled to the shower with influenza and used all my strength just to shower, but it really does work.

4.  Even if you are a stay at home mom, it is important to always put your make up on and do your hair.  Your husband will always work with women who are made up and beautiful and you don't want him to be disappointed when he comes home to a frumpy wife.  Always put yourself together.  I have heeded this advice unless I was pretty sick, but even then I got my shower as noted above in #3.

What advice, good or bad, have you been given?

Letters from the Coast #5

Dear KT,

The weather was most beautiful today in beach country. I believe we hit 72 degrees. It really was quite lovely. We went to the neatest little shop that did glass blowing demonstrations. What a unique craft, and the pieces were beautiful.

Later, we went whale watching in Depoe Bay. The whales were far out past the breakers, but we could see their occasional spouts when they breached the surface. The only wildlife we got a close up on were seagulls.

When we were sitting on the beach a rogue wave came up and tried to wash away our stuff. Good news! I saved my icy coke, but didn't grab my new camera case. While the wave was kind enough to deposit it back on the sand, the case was still filled with sand. Good thing I was holding the camera when that happened. My Cobian's were safe, too....

As the sun sets on our Oregon Beach vacation, the sun will also rise on coming home to you.  Goopy, yes, I know...

Missing you and wish you were here...

Love,
Me

Letters from the Coast #4

Dear KT,

Today we stuck around the campground and sat at the beach enjoying the gorgeous sunshine. The weather was cool but beautiful.

"I've got my toes in the water,

my ass in the sand,

Not a worry in the world

I've got a Coke Zero in my hand...

Life is good today"

 

Letters from the Coast #3

Dear KT,

Yesterday started out nasty, nasty, nasty. We probably had had at least an inch of rain. But, quite dramatically the clouds parted and there was light. This was the look in the morning, and this was what we saw in the evening.

A trip to World Famous Mo's was in order. I'm not a fish person, 

but I can't resist their clam chowder and prawns. 

Can I just buy a bucket to take home?

Wish you were here...

Letters from the Coast #2

Dear KT,

Today the weather sucked. We stayed in the RV today just relaxing, playing games and reading books. I would much rather have been at the beach, but with 3/4" of rain expected, yeah, no thanks. This was our view all day...Missing you even more...

Letters from the Coast

Dear KT,

Our first day in Oregon was quite pleasant. The whether held out and we did a bit of site seeing. After 12 hours in the car on Thursday, we decided the get in the car AGAIN and head up the coast to Tillamook. You know how I like cheese!

I got to sample bits of cheese and take a tour. The ice cream was delicious. In a state full of Marionberries, I got the Huckleberry to remind me of my beloved Idaho.

Later, we head back down to the outlet mall in Lincoln City for a bit of shopping.  Don't worry, I didn't spend too much money...

Road Trip & Eating Dirt

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Remember when I complained here and here about never getting to go on a trip with my kids? Time for me to eat dirt, because Ladybug and I are going on a 7 day trip to the Oregon Coast minus our guys. I know, right? How wonderful! Tomorrow morning we will be loading up all our stuff into Grandma and Grandpa's RV, (No jokes, now...)and heading to beautiful Depoe Bay, Oregon. It just may rain the whole time, but it's away...and, gosh darn it, I'm going to walk that beach even if it is raining. I need a bit of sand stuck between these toes. I am overdue.

2busy Chronicles Take 5

In all the busy-ness of the past month, I also ran my first 5K.  I didn't run in the competitive wave.  In all the stress of the past few months, I hadn't been keeping up on my running.  I was in no shape to be competitive.

I ran in the Women's Fitness Celebration in Boise, (The largest Women's Fitness run in the Country, so I'm told)

with my good friend Jeni

In the "Purple" Wave

I did it in just about 40 minutes.  When I've been training I can run in 35.  I was just happy to finish.

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I was in disguise you know...Trying to go incognito with my pink BSU visor pulled low and my big sunglasses.  I'm so famous on my blog, that I was afraid of being recognized.  My thighs were eating my shorts.  I just want to give them a tug.  Ugh!

My kids called me a nerd for wearing a running pack, but I had car keys and a license.  What was I supposed to do?  Stuff things in my bra? 

(My husband was busy on the golf course.) 

2busy Chronicles Take 4

I may have mentioned a month ago or so that I won tickets to the Brad Paisley concert. Bragging is more like it...sorry.  On 9/23 KT and I boarded the little Orange Bug for an evening of music and fun.  It was like a mini music festival in and of itself... with three acts outside performing and then later two opening acts then Brad himself.

We saw:

Easton Corban

Steele Magnolia

Josh Turner

Justin Moore

Darius Rucker

and....

wait for it....

Brad Paisley

I think we had a moment ;)