mom rocks

i feel like i'm having a mini epiphany lately. it involves moms.

remember when you were a teenage girl (unless you were a boy, then i hope you don't remember that) and you thought your mom was so freaking annoying and dumb? remember when you looked at her clothes or shoes or hair or car and scoffed at the absurdity that was her? do you remember thinking how massively superior you were to her?

i do. i remember wondering why she had to be so embarrassing and thinking that with myself being so utterly cool, i should have had a much cooler mother so that we could match.

i wrote rude things about her in my diary. some days i was sure that my destiny would take me on a much more epic journey in life than hers had.

i was very foolish.

in the past few years, i've been realizing that my mom looks fantastic. she's fashionable and always fixed and looking good when she goes anywhere. she's thin and in shape and gets hit on by men all the time because, dang, you don't see a woman in her 60's looking like that very often.

my mom does interesting and lively things like climb trees with the grandkids and even hangs upside down from a branch from time to time. she takes mission trips around the globe because her faith is important to her and she lives it out in her life every day. she has girlfriends who she exercises, parties, and lunches with. she takes care of people who are sick or old or injured. she reads and writes and works out while still taking care of her family at home.

when i look at pictures of my mom before she had kids, i see a foxy lady. she wore super short mini skirts and even some crocheted hot pants she made for herself in her early twenties. and she didn't just wear them, she rocked them!

so where did that lady go while i was growing up? how could i not see the hot chick while i was busy considering myself to be a hot chick?

i finally realized that she was still there, but she was too busy taking care of me to take care of herself. she had four kids and a busy life filled with good things, but very few of them involved doing things for herself just because she wanted to do them. she didn't spend money to buy nice clothes for herself because she was spending it all to keep her children dressed and fed. she didn't bother much with makeup because she didn't have enough time for such things with so many other more important things on her plate.

for a few years i've been joking that my mom has a reverse aging gene going on, making her look younger as she ages. maybe that's not it though. maybe my eyes are just learning how to see her finally. maybe i'm just discovering that the phase of a mom's life where she's taking care of her young family isn't who she is. it's just a period of time, a step on her ladder of life.

mom, i'm thankful for you. you've set an amazing example for me all my life. i'm sorry for all the times i made fun of your clothes or shoes. i hope someday brooke will appreciate me as much as i appreciate you.

a ranch filled with bunnies

once again, i'm in the process of figuring out Brooke. she's definitely growing up and showing signs of entering into the next phase of kid-hood. as soon as i think i've got things under control, she up and changes the game and i've got to work out a whole new set of rules.

she had a sleepover recently and the girls who were here brought nail polish. brooke has always shunned nail polish and won't ever cave to my desire to paint her nails, even if i offer her bribes. but guess what - she painted her own nails! granted, it was clear paint that glows in the dark, but still, she painted her nails. that's new territory.

she has decided that i'm no longer free to read her journal. previously she's always welcomed and encouraged me to read it and check out her drawings. no more. i'm pretty sure she's writing mean things about me. that's okay. i wrote mean things about my mom too, and it doesn't at all affect my feelings for her now.

last week i was trying to figure out what top i could wear with a pair of pretty chocolately brown dress pants that i inherited and hemmed so that they fit perfectly. i was struggling because i'm not very good at fashion unless it's really obvious and simple. brooke saw me struggling and decided to help me make an outfit. she went to google and pulled up a picture of a color wheel that included browns and from there decided which colors were most complimentary to my pants. then she went to my closet and made some suggestions, leading me to pick a shirt that looks great with them. who'd have guessed that a clueless fashion girl could help her clueless fashion mom by using the color wheel that i'd taught her about recently during an art class on contrasting colors.

we're also still working on acceptable words. it's hard for me to limit her vocabulary on words that i say. i never swear around her, but the words crap and suck are common place around here. however, some of her friends parents are less than thrilled to have her teaching such words to their own kids. i want to increase her chances of having good friendships, so we're working on that.

i'm also finding myself needing to teach her bad words. she would never use truly bad ones intentionally if she knows they're bad, but she's great at deciphering the right way to say something even if she's not clear on the exact meaning. she told me once, "don't be a pussy, mom." i had to explain that one and she was pretty embarrassed. thankfully she said it only to me and she thought she was just calling me a scaredy cat.

we watched an animal planet show recently that showed some dude who was raising tigers on his property. he was a total dunce who liked to walk them on leashes even when they were too big to be handled and could easily kill him with a quick swipe or bite. he gets famous people who like to live dangerously who come and visit his tigers, including heidi flys (spelled wrong intentionally), the madam who runs the bunny ranch prostitution ring. her name was written on screen and under it the words "Bunny Ranch Owner" and brooke latched right onto that. "ooh, mom, a bunny ranch! that must be such a cool place! i want to work on a bunny ranch someday."

i was left with the dilemma of deciding if i should let it fly right over her head or if i should correct her and set her straight to avoid her possibly telling someone at church (or the grocery store or anywhere else) that someday she wants to work at the bunny ranch. she'd be mortified later if that happened. i don't believe in telling kids not to say or do something without giving them an honest answer for why. i hate the mystery and intrigue that creates and with a kid like Brooke, if i didn't give a satisfactory answer, she's likely to google it and get way more than either of us bargained before.

so of course i told her what the bunny ranch was. yet again i was oversharing with my child in an attempt to save her from potential future embarrassment.

as we cross over into the place in life where there are rarely howling, head-banging, skin-scratching episodes, we've come to a place of too much information and uncomfortable conversations. i don't know if i'm doing it right, but i'm doing the best i can. she made me a christmas present, so i must be doing something right.

Padiddle

"Padiddle!" i yelled excitedly as we drove home tonight. my husband looked at me strangely and smiled slightly, wondering what the heck made me yell out gibberish.

i repeated it again. "padiddle. puh-diddle. don't you know what that means? didn't you see it? don't you want to kiss me?!"

he looked at me even more strangely, no longer smiling, as if i'd lost my mind. obviously he grew up with an incomplete childhood because no one should grow up without the padiddle game.

when you're driving at night and you see a car coming toward you with one head light burned out, you yell "padiddle" at the top of your lungs and then you get to kiss the person of your choice in the car where you're riding.

as a kid, i think i learned this game from my aunts who were young and hip and cool and knew about things like kissing boys. i spent many nights as a young teenager riding in cars where boys were present and hoping that we'd run across one of those lovely padiddles so i'd have a perfect and legitimate opportunity to smooch a boy. i'd see a solo headlight coming our way and i'd hold my breath, hoping it was an elusive single lighted car and not another stupid motorcycle out to trick me and spoil my fun.

years went by and i never saw one of those buggers at the right time. i was always with my parents or maybe my brother when i'd catch a glimpse of one.

finally, one night i was riding in a car with several friends on our way to a youth group activity with our church. i was probably 15 years old. along the road toward us came a padiddle, unmistakable, definitely not a motorcycle. i yelled it out gleefully and then started looking around, thinking of who i was going to kiss.

it wasn't going quite the way i'd imagined in my head. i wasn't crowded into a backseat with several cute boys to choose from. there was one cute boy driving, one not cute boy in the passenger seat and then 3 or 4 girls crammed into the backseat together. i quickly decided the driver wasn't a good option because of the potential crashing factor. i had no interest in kissing the un-cute boy in front of me.

i couldn't bear to let the opportunity pass me by altogether, so i turned to my best friend who was sitting beside me and gave her a big smooch right on the lips.

all the other passengers started squawking and yelling about what had just happened. they couldn't believe i'd kissed her.

in my mind, it wasn't sexual, it was just funny. i'm not sure i'd ever even heard of lesb!ans (trying to trick the naughty google searches) before so i didn't think much of it or understand the dramatic reaction of my friends.

looking back on it now, i guess it shows just how naive i was at that time. i thought i was a lady of the world, but clearly i was wrong. it makes me smile to remember those times and the innocence of hoping for a chance to give someone a quick peck on the mouth. childhood is a wonderful thing.

i like it HOT

i've told you guys that i started doing yoga a few months ago. i was surprised to discover that i like doing it with my little videos at home. i do yoga usually a couple times every week and i've discovered that, in my own estimation, i'm pretty decent at the physical part.

recently, i started wondering if i was any good or if i was butchering the poses and motions. sometimes you feel like you're doing something correctly, but it's hard to see yourself and if no one else is watching to point you in the right direction, it's impossible to know how you're really doing.

i worked out in front of a mirror and sometimes had brooke take my picture when i was in a really awkward pose so that i could see myself and try to gauge my level of accuracy.

my sister started doing hot yoga recently. she's a high stress, high achieving, high intensity kind of person, so this is right up her alley. i, however, am none of those things. when she invited me to join her for a 90 minute class of hot (100+ degrees) power yoga, i reluctantly agreed, but i was sort of terrified. and excited. let me not forget my excitement.

i kept waking up at night with visions of myself falling over with rubbery bones in the middle of a class where everyone else was perfectly posed. i imagined my crotch being exposed to the people behind me as i bent forward in downward dog split. i imagined tears and rivers of sweat and puking straight down onto my mat while trying to get into crow pose.

instead of letting those fears and dreams deter me, i watched a bunch of power yoga videos on youtube. then i went out and bought some tight shorts so that my bits would be adequately covered, no matter my pose. i researched the best way to stay hydrated during an extended super hot strenuous workout and followed all the directions. then i signed up and paid online so i couldn't chicken out.

i showed up early and was very happy to have my sister with me to hold my hand. sometimes i'm a big baby and need my little sister to tell me that i'll be okay.

i was very surprised to find that the heat in the room was delicious. i'm almost constantly cold these days, so it was a wonderful change to be wearing very little clothes and still be toasty warm. i also discovered very quickly that the heat made my muscles extremely flexible. while sitting on the ground with my legs out straight, i could lay my whole face flat down onto my shins.

the teachers came along and made little adjustments on me periodically. one actually gave me a little back massage while i was in forward bend and i almost fell asleep standing up with my palms on the floor. i was able to perform right along with the rest of the class and i didn't feel like i stuck out as a newbie. best of all, i didn't fart once. i've read too many things about the gas passing that goes on during these hot classes and i was resigned to the possibility, but thankfully i was tootless.

all in all, i loved it. i was sad when it ended and didn't feel like it could possibly have been 90 minutes already. i'm glad to have stepped out of my comfort zone and tried something new and i can't wait to go again in three days.

might be time for a fanny pack

i've been pondering a question for quite a while now. it perplexes me daily and annoys me often. it makes me furrow my brow and snark into the air at the stupidity of this situation.

what are women's clothing designers thinking when they don't give women pockets?! so many of my clothes (and brooke's) have either no pockets or tiny little snips of pockets that aren't big enough to hold anything but a stick of gum and an earring.

i realize that it probably appears smoother when looking at a woman's silhouette with no pockets, but honestly, i don't give a rip about that. i want to be able to stuff my phone and keys into my pocket rather than always having to carry a purse which i have to zip and unzip constantly to get things that i use often. if i feel the need for smooth lines, i can chose to keep my pockets empty, but i'd really like to be able to make that decision for myself.

i've also discovered that all workout clothes are pocketless. wait, let me take that back and revise it slightly. ALMOST all workout clothes are pocket-free except for the few that have an itty bitty credit card sized slice of a pocket with no form of closure. i wouldn't even trust a single key to stay put in that pocket and my phone certainly won't fit.

how are we supposed to go safely out into the world to exercise when we have no keys, phone, or ID on our bodies? or is it our jobs, as female exercisers, to creatively solve this dilemma ourselves? i've been stuffing my phone and key into my bra, but when i get up any speed jogging, the phone slides around and is at risk of getting sloshy in the sweatiness that is a sports bra. i usually stuff it between two of my bras to keep it from direct skin contact, but that just makes it slide more.

a couple days ago i found a little mesh necklace bag, so i put my key and phone into that and tied the strings into the drawstring of my stretchy pocketless pants. i was rather pleased with myself for my clever solution, but i caught a glimpse of myself walking past a glass door and and it looked like i had a sparkly loin cloth dangling from my groin. not exactly the look i was going for.

i tucked the whole shebang down inside my pants and then felt like a dude with a package. when i jogged i was distracted by it and i felt like i needed a cigarette afterwards. when i slowed to a walk, i almost expected to hear a throaty chuckle coming from my pants, followed by the never-classy "wham, bam, thank you, ma'am."

as much as i resist it, i think the time has come for a fanny pack. dang it.

chinuvla

since we've been taking some strange pictures around here recently, i thought i'd show some fun ones i got of brooke as well. she's usually up for a photo shoot, particularly if it's a weird one and she doesn't have to smile pretty or hold still.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

1. cute little toe-ies.

2. sole of food.

3. palm.

4. ankle. (just kidding)

5. side of knee with leg bent. funny how many of our parts can look like bo0ties if taken out of context.

6. shrivelly chin.

7. oh that girl and her faces.

8. nostrils.

9. the whole package.

after taking the pic of the chin, she decided we needed a video of her chin singing and dancing. this makes me laugh every time i watch it.

external shell

i posted a photo collage of pictures that brooke has taken super up close to me. details that she looks at and observes and feels the need to study. she likes small things and details and she has a strange affinity for lines. she doodles lines and even tries to draw lines on everything with her eyes so that all the world is connected. she's got a very artistic eye and observes things differently than most people do.

when she stares at my parts and then takes a picture so i can see why it's so interesting, i've learned not to be offended. not even when it's a picture of one of my least attractive bits. i've learned that brooke doesn't show interest in very many people. she doesn't look at people very much. she prefers toys and animals, so when she shows an interest in me, i'm pleased. when she sees art in life, even if it's on me, it makes me happy.

i posted those pictures on my blog here because i thought it was interesting. i know that some of them didn't paint me in a very pretty light, but they made me happy and they made me laugh and they made me cringe.

what i didn't expect was the reaction that it got when i posted a link on facebook. some of my close friends and family members commented with things along the lines of how brave i was or how i was crazy and that the images were disturbing.

it sort of caught me off guard. i went back and looked at each picture again, trying to see it through someone else's eyes. i guess i can see it. there's that one by my eye that i was told looks like a nipple or a cat butt.

however, i like that you can't tell exactly what some of them are. that some of the pics seem a little bit questionable and odd. i even like the ones that show my stretch marks. brooke says they look like roots and she traces her finger over them and smiles, knowing that's the one part of my body that she created. they're the physical reminder of when i overcame my fight with infertility.

let's be honest here. most women don't see much of other women's bare bodies as we age. once we're past college age, we're generally no longer getting changed in a room with other women or hanging out in our underwear putting our makeup on before heading out for a late night on the town. even if we are in a situation around other bare women, like a locker room at the gym, we're doing our best to go as fast as we can while averting our eyes so as to keep from making anyone uncomfortable. the only time you make eye contact in a situation like that is to give the stink eye to the little boy across from you who's paying way too much attention while you try to wrangle your wet clothes off and your bra back on.

for most of us married ladies and mommies, the only bare bodies we see are our own and the airbrushed ones on magazine covers. if the truth be told, there are very few women over the age of thirty in the real world, who have magazine cover bodies. so as we age and our skin stretches or sags or wrinkles, we don't think about the fact that the same thing is happening to all our friends. we might make jokes about it, but we don't let even our sisters or girlfriends have a look at what the years and babies have done to certain parts of our bodies. we stop going out without makeup because we don't want anyone to see the dark circles or crows feet around our eyes. our shorts get longer to cover the veins that pop out. we stop wearing bikinis even if we're at a healthy weight because our stomachs are wrecked from pregnancies.

i guess what i'm saying is that maybe the reason people were alarmed or disgusted by my pictures was because they never see body parts in public that look like that. their own might look that way too, but they try not to look because it makes them feel unattractive.

i don't think we all need to go out showing off our ugliest parts, but i think it would be good if more women could feel less self conscious about those things.

we are more than our external shells.

photo collage of awkwardness

you know how sometimes a photographer will do a collage of photos of a baby or little kid where they focus on individual body parts rather than the whole? those are so cute. the sweet little toes. the darling round cheeks.

brooke likes to take photos like that too; but they're not of sweet, plump babies, they're of me. she likes to stare at me, or more accurately, pieces of me. her eyebrows furrow as she stares intently at some portion of my body, and when i ask her what she's looking at, she runs for the camera to photograph exactly what she's looking at so i too can see why it's so interesting.

here are some of those photos.

let's start at the bottom and work our way up, shall we?

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

i'm lovely, aren't i?

in case you're wondering just what parts of me were chosen for inspection and photography, in case you couldn't tell, they are as follows.

1. the top of my toes.

2. the sole of my foot.

3. the back of my calf.

4. my hip.

5. my hip while doing a side crunch. it looks sort of like bread rolls at subway.

6. obviously my stretch marks on my hip. 

7. my sewer rat peeking at her over the edge of my pants.

8. lower case "i" in the middle of my stomach. clearly there's an infatuation with my stretch marks. she keeps telling me that she wants to chew on my skin now that i've lost weight and it's looser than before. awkward.

9. my collarbone.

10. the side of my neck and chin.

11. smile line beside my nose and above my lip.

12. furrowed brows.

13. the side of my eye when squinting.

14. my forehead while making a shocked face.

here is a picture she drew of me today. it's really the icing on the cake.

i decided to return the favor a bit and take some lovely shots of her, but this post is already too long, so i think i'll save those for next time.

protecting our kids

i'm reading a book called "Protecting the Gift" by gavin debecker. i saw it recommended on some parenting page and thought i'd check it out. the main subject is how we, as parents, can keep our kids safe and teach them to keep themselves safe as they get older. i've read various versions of these sorts of books in the past, but this one was a different flavor. it was very practical and i appreciated that.

one of the big things it teaches is how to keep kids safe from sexual predators. that's a subject that makes most of us uncomfortable and some of us queasy. we don't like to think about it very much because there's so much shame and secrecy surrounding it. we think that it can't happen to our kids because we love them so much and we do everything we can to keep them safe. we are good parents, so everything should turn out fine.

i remember hearing as a young teenager that 1 in 4 girls would be molested before she reached the age of 18. i was horrified and would look around at my friends and wonder which ones it would be.

at the time i first heard that statistic, i didn't realize that it was me. even stranger, in hindsight, is that it had already happened, but i had suppressed it and wouldn't even remember for a few more years.

my family was great. my parents were protective and careful about where and how we spent our time. they were careful about who we could be around without close adult supervision. they did everything they could think of correctly.

unfortunately, what happened was something they never would have thought of.

the summer that i turned 5, my mom was babysitting for another girl who was about 10. we were often left to play by ourselves or with siblings or other neighbor kids without a whole lot of supervision. shortly after she started coming over, that girl made me perform sexual acts with the other kids. she would tell us that we were married, even going so far as to perform a "marriage ceremony" to legitimize the whole thing. then she'd give step by step instructions on what we needed to do to each other. we didn't like it, but she was way bigger than the rest of us and when we complained, she threatened to tell our parents what we were doing to each other and we knew we'd get in trouble for that.

thankfully, she didn't need my mom to watch her for very long and soon she was out of my life. looking back, i wonder what must have happened to her to cause her to be acting out in that way. she was clearly a very troubled little girl.

when i was about 12 years old, i got touched inappropriately by my orthodontist. it happened a few different times while my mom was sitting in the waiting room and the doctor was leaned over my chair, pretending to adjust my paper drool bib. or if he couldn't get enough privacy in the exam room, he'd find a reason why i needed more x-rays and he'd back me into a corner in that tiny room and grope me where no one could see. he never said a word to me that wasn't about teeth or my retainer. he just silently found opportunities to touch me when no one was looking.

i don't know why i didn't tell my mom about the orthodontist. i felt all skeavy and disgusting each time i went. maybe i just wanted to pretend it didn't happen because addressing it would have made me look directly at it and deal with it when i really just wanted to forget it ever happened.

when i was 18 and got to college, i got really sick with a nasty sinus infection that just wouldn't go away. i had to go to a clinic a few miles away from the school several times before i finally kicked it. the worst part of being sick was that each time i went to the clinic, i saw the same, yucky old doctor. even though i only had a sinus infection, he always directed me to strip completely and then put on a paper gown that opened in the front. i didn't realize how strange that was at the time and i was so sick that i hardly had the strength to care, let alone question a medical professional. when he came back into the room for the exam, he always opened the gown fully and took my pulse in my groin. he also handled my breasts to supposedly hear my heartbeat properly.

again, i didn't tell anyone other than some friends. none of us knew what to do about it. we turned it into a joke and made up an obnoxious nickname for him and tried really hard not to get sick enough to need to see a doctor.

my whole point in airing out my skeletons like this is to say that we need to protect our kids. we need to teach them to value themselves and what is right. we need to listen to any little warning bells in our heads, even if they don't make sense on paper. we need to teach our kids not to just obey anyone in an authority position. we need to foster a sense of self worth in them so that they won't be prey to the dirty old men, adults who take advantage of their positions of trust, or even other children. we need to enforce an open door policy, literally and figuratively with our kids. that way, we'll be checking on them often and supervising anyone who's with them. if something does happen, they'll know they can tell us. and if, by any terrible chance something out of line does happen to our kids and they tell us, we need to report it. not just try to stay away from that person, but get them prosecuted. the statistics show that anyone who does such a thing to one kid is likely doing it to lots of kids. it can go on for years and years and wound so many innocents who are too afraid to talk about it. too many of those kids will go on to hurt others in the future.

let's protect the gift of intuition and innocence by giving too much information rather than not enough. kids who are likely to be targeted aren't too young to be told about such things, even if their parents feel uncomfortable talking about it. you aren't protecting them by keeping specific info away from your kids, but you might very well be protecting them by sharing what seems to maybe be too much.

before and after

this is a big week for me.

i reached my goal of losing seventy pounds before the end of this year. i had dreams about it for about a week before the scale actually tipped, and i kept imagining my facebook status that i would write when i reached that magical number.

secondly, i finished P90X today. for those of you who are unfamiliar with what that means, P90X is a heavy duty video workout program that includes 12 different workout routines. you rotate them in a particular order for 13 weeks and hopefully you'll be in the best shape of your life when you finish.

you're encouraged to take BEFORE pictures when you first start P90X, which i did. then you can take AFTER pics to help you really see how far you've come. i wish i'd taken some before pics of me when i first started dieting, like they do on "the biggest loser" show, but i never would have wanted to be seen in a sports bra at the size i was.

i've arranged some before and after pics to show my progress.

2003

april 2011 - weight 205

september 2011

april 2012 after losing about 35 lbs

july 2012
i've been doing some leg workouts and i think it's starting to show.

my winter coat isn't going to work if it's big enough for brooke and i to wear together.

might be time for some new pants.

september 2012. current weight 131.

sept 2012

before - june 2012 before starting P90X
after - september 30, 2012 completed P90X
i had already lost 50 lbs in the before picture. i lost 20 more during the 13 weeks of  doing P90X.

june 2012/sept 2012

this one might be my favorite because until yesterday, i never knew my back and shoulders looked like that. i've never been muscley, so this is pretty exciting for me.

people keep asking me "what's next?" now that i've reached my goals. i guess the answer is that i keep on going. i don't want to be big again and i don't want to be unhealthy again. so i'll keep on eating right and making enough healthy choices to keep my weight under control. i'll keep on working out because, dang it's nice to fit into little clothes and be able to do things i'd had to stop doing for the ten years i was fat. maybe i'll do another round of P90X or maybe i'll switch it up and do lots of different styles of workouts. i know i love yoga and weight training now, so there are possibilities for more of that. maybe one of these days i'll learn how to run for more than 20 feet without being chased by anything scary. 

i don't know. i just know that i'm feeling pretty good about things as they are right now and i want the good to keep going.

naked in public? of course not! except for that one time...

i had a friend many years ago named Kate. we spent a lot of time together my senior year of high school and for a couple years after that. then i got married, moved away and Kate and i mostly lost touch.

i decided i wanted to get my group of friends together for a little reunion after about 12 years apart and as a chance for us to meet each others' husbands and wives. invitations were sent out, rsvp's arrived and as it turned out, only two of my girlfriends who were invited were able to make it and neither brought a spouse.

that was fine and i was secretly glad because they were the two i was closest to and sometimes less is more when it comes to having a good time of remembering the good ole days.

during the evening of chatting, Kate mentioned that her husband wasn't there because she didn't want him to meet me. i was temporarily speechless. my feelings were kind of hurt. i think i did the head tip and brow furrow as i tried to process what she'd said and figure out what she meant. she elaborated. "every bad thing i ever did, i did with you. i don't want him to know that part of me."

it was interesting how the memories i had of our time together didn't fall into the "bad things" category. i've got another friend who shared most of those times with me, but she still loves me and doesn't mind a bit if her husband knows me and we laugh over those stupid memories.

since that night, (i chose to disregard that comment and still have fun with my girls) i've thought about it a lot. i've trolled through my stash of brain files. am i remembering things wrong? i don't think so. we hung out before i started drinking and she never had a drink in her life. we didn't smoke or fool around with boys or any of the things i usually associate with being bad.

then i remembered the night. i'm pretty sure there was only one that might land in both of our "bad things" mental files.

we went to visit a friend at their apartment. it was summer and we were about twenty. we were silly and lively and always looking for something fun to do. our friend had to leave, but we decided to use their apartment's community pool without the friend. unfortunately, we didn't have bathing suits. so we went into the pool fully clothed and had a grand old time hopping back and forth between the pool and hot tub. it was late, no one else was there and we giggled up a storm while splashing around merrily.

we sloshed back to my car and then stood there in the parking lot debating what to do next. we dripped rivers onto the pavement because we didn't even have a towel, wash cloth, or tissue to blot ourselves with. after some discussion, we decided that the best course of action would be to strip off our clothes, throw them on the floor in the backseat and drive home naked.

yes, completely naked.

it was around midnight and we had a fifteen drive back to my house. the house where i lived as a nanny and had a nice place to park in the garage. we screamed and laughed like it was the funniest thing we'd ever done in our lives. i drove really fast whenever i passed anyone, but not so fast as to attract potential police attention. if we'd been stopped, there was no way we'd have even been able to scramble into our clothing because it was in a twisted, soaking heap on the floor behind me.

we arrived home, incident free and filled with the adrenaline rush that comes from doing something outrageous and getting away with it. we snuck up to my bedroom, clutching our dripping clothes and found some comfy jammies to curl up in as we laughed over our nudie dash through town.

looking back now, i guess i can see how she might not want her husband to hear such tales. she's a pretty prim and proper kind of person and her husband probably likes that about her. it might spoil his image of his wife if he knew about the night she drove through town, bare as the day she was born.

the oddities delight me

i love taking pictures. i'd never dare to call myself a photographer, but i like to keep my camera handy in order to catch as many interesting or funny moments as possible. i've been collecting some for a few months now that i haven't posted until today. there are no dead animals in this set. you're welcome.

 this made me laugh every time i saw the box of dog treats.

one of these things is not like the other...

the sign in the window says, "volume discount." i think the pimps bring all their girls in to get them spruced up.

mmm... pizza...

sign in a bookstore.

Bubba the bear is so hungry!

she wants to participate in everything i do and then bite me if my feet touch her. she was messing up my form.

this is our pet window spider. we named him spike and we love to watch him eat bees.

somebody likes noodles.

is she an angel? she's got a halo.

holy guacamole- look at those nails on the chick in the bright yellow!

not funny or interesting, but since i eat some variation of this every day and it's always so pretty and colorful, i thought i'd take a picture.

lol!

i think this belongs to a drag queen.

Brooke was very amused by the shirts in this store.

probably worn by the guy driving the eyelash car.

yeah, what the shirt says.

this would be a funny gift for an obnoxious guy.

there are so many funny lines in this sign that's beside the fountain at our local park. my favorite rule is the one about diarrhea.

Tony Horton - superman or banana?

so much tired and back achiness. must relieve with ball.