Good Friday wasn’t very good in the city of Murfreesboro, TN.

The first picture was taken literally less than a block from our house.  I had the girls in the basement 15 minutes before this tornado touched the ground.  That is all thanks to the early warning from our news channels and the weather radio.  And let me just tell you how fun it is to be stuck in a dirt basement with an 18 month old baby.  Addison just curled up and covered her ears.  Alivia just didn’t understand why she had to stay on my lap.

It was traumatic to say the least but we are truly blessed to have no damage to our house.  I just kept repeating in my head “God please protect us”.

I was watching the weather all morning and I knew it was going to be bad.  I just didn’t expect our city to experience this much devastation.

I got all of these pictures from our county newspaper’s website.

This is a very interesting video from that day.  I have never heard our news anchors sound so frantic and scared.

We were very blessed because our house has no damage and we walked away from the ordeal with nothing more than anxious minds and exhausted bodies.

My mom’s sister Karen’s house was hit badly (with her teenage son inside!)

He got into a closet downstairs and when he came out the house was torn apart.

My mom’s  good friend Judy is having a 6-8 hour surgery on her spine today because of injuries from the tornado.

Here is a picture of Judy’s house…or where Judy’s house used to be.  From what I hear she and her family are in good spirits.  Losing the house is devastating but the fact that everyone inside survived is a miracle.  Judy was inside her house with her teenage daughter and 2 other teenage girls.  She threw herself on top of them!  What a brave woman!

Not very far from Judy’s house a 30 yr old mom and her 9 week old baby didn’t make it.  I am not sure of the details but the woman’s husband is still in critical condition.  Their house is gone.  I just can’t wrap my mind around it.

We are under a tornado watch in our area as I type this so please say a prayer that we don’t get any more severe weather.  Our community has had enough I think!

Feeling a bit better today.  The weather is awesome and the house isn’t a total disaster.  I opened the windows and it just finally feels like Spring!  Since it’s Wordless Wednesday here are some pics I have taken  the past couple weeks.

This is where I want to be. right .now.

I am all caught up in my own head lately.  I have been trying to talk myself out of being in this perpetual bad mood.

I cleaned the entire house and washed every stitch of laundry.  And that helped for about as long as it lasted with the dog and kids plotting against me.

The weather has been nice and that helped too.  But then it rained yesterday….all day long.  I want to blame someone else.  I want to dodge responsibility.  But it’s me.  And no one can help me but me.

The bottom line is I am unhappy with myself right now.  I have a plan on how to fix it but digging out of the hole I am in is harder than I thought.  Especially since I have been the one throwing the dirt in on top of myself.

Don’t get me wrong I haven’t been staying in bed all day or moping around.   I have good moments and I am taking care of my family. I even showered on Monday.

Kidding kidding…I have bathed every single day.

I think the weight and responsibility of life just become overwhelming sometimes.  Does anyone else feel like you could use a vacation?  It’s been too long since my toes were in the sand.  What I wouldn’t give to have a week alone with Adam, plentiful sunshine, beach chairs and frozen margaritas.  I would miss my kids but we would comeback refreshed and sporting a reddish brown freckly glow.

Ahhh bask in the fantasy….bask in it.    Ok stop basking…this is my fantasy! Hey stop looking at Adam’s butt!  You too Grandma!

By the way if you left me a comment or emailed me and I haven’t responded I am really sorry….I am WAY behind in my inbox!

I will get out of this funk eventually.  In the meantime I am getting back to my beach fantasy.  Can’t you just hear Jimmy Buffett in the background?

I haven’t had much to say this week.  Actually that’s not really true.   I have quite a lot in my head it’s just a little less than coherent.  I am in a place where I am feeling irritable and busy and tired and hot and cold and hungry and fat and basically I am just a JOY to be around right now.   About once a month I enter into some alternate reality where my emotional instability makes no sense to anyone and least of all myself.  If I try to explain how I am feeling it just makes me sound crazy.

Yes yes I am crazy.  Soooo what do we do when we are feeling crazy?  We write a list of random stuff so our brain can feel better.

Oh and when I say we I mean you and me not me and me.  I am not THAT crazy.  Yet.

1. I am still expecting my monthly nemesis any day…no really?  shocking isn’t it?
2. I feel really FAT…and I am going to an outdoor wedding this weekend….nothing to wear with pale white skin…yay.
3. I went to the ENT and had some horrifying stuff sprayed up my nose in order to numb my throat.  THEN the Dr. stuck this long skinny thing with a light in my nose and down into my throat. It was a lovely experience.
4. Alivia screamed almost the entire time and clung to me through the whole procedure
5. I don’t know which one of us was more traumatized
6. Did I mention I am having intense PMS?
7. Max ate an entire package of Pita bread …including some of the plastic
8. I really wanted to make hummus and eat it with warm Pita bread for lunch but instead I spent 2.65 cents for Max to have a snack.  BAH!
9. I could really use some chocolate  but I don’t need it because see #2
10. There is no number 10 but since we are here what do you do when you are feeling overwhelmed and crazy?  Any and all ideas would be appreciated.

I lost my best friend last year.

She didn’t die and she didn’t move away but in June it will be a year since we have spoken.  In a way I feel a grief similar to when someone dies but obviously I know she is alive and well so it’s not exactly the same.

I haven’t talked about it at all on my blog because I didn’t want to cross certain lines but I think I can talk about my feelings without hurting anyone involved.  That is my hope anyway.

My anger has faded and while I used to think I would be hurt and mad forever I find myself just now actually grieving the relationship.  It’s weird to have these feelings now 9 months after the fact.

She was truly like a sister to me and we had been friends since sophomore year in high school.  We were both there for each other when our children were born, we talked several times a day and we knew pretty much everything about each other.  I probably could have told you what she ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner any day of the week.

We were a part of a group of six girls from high school and I always thought it was so special that we had all managed to stay close over the last 10 years since we graduated.  We were still there for each other and we still made time for our friendships even though we all had such different lives.  It’s so beautiful to be able to pick up right where you leave off every time.  We had all grown and changed and we weren’t the same people anymore but our differences never seemed to affect the love we had for each other.

We have this history that no one else but the six of us really understands.  And now it is changed forever.  Our other 4 friends didn’t ask to be involved in our problem but they were unavoidably affected by it’s outcome.

We are all adults and there hasn’t been any crazy stupid drama happening but the reality is that everything is different now.  It’s not a repairable problem.  Forgiveness has long since happened because I am not a grudge holder.  But we can never be friends again and it sucks.  I hate it.  I miss how hilarious she is.  I miss her awesome children and I am so sad that I have to watch her kids grow up by reading her blog.

(I still read her blog is that weird ya’ll?  I just have this need to know that they are all doing ok.  That life is moving right along and they are happy. )

So yeah there it is.  I miss my ex best friend and she just lives like 5 miles across town.

Can you tell my monthly nemesis is getting close to visiting me?  I always get a little sappy and pathetic around this time of the month.

We just updated our bathroom. Woot Woot!

We only have one bathroom and I was always embarrassed to let people go in there.  It wasn’t the ugliest bathroom in the world but I pretty much hated everything about it. I could go on and on about all the things that I disliked but I know the pictures are what you really want to see.  So here are the before pics:

I am pretty sure this light was here  in 1962 when the house was built.  Bleck

These pictures were taken after we had already started working on it.  We had thrown away the shower curtain and taken down the decorations.  Then we got the bright idea to take before and after photos.  Yeah because we are quick like that.  Note the hairdryer cord on the floor.  It always looked like that.

This is after Adam took the sink out.  Um Ew!

Ok now let’s see it after!  Are you excited? Yay!

I think I am most excited about the new floor.  We couldn’t put tile in there because you have to step up to get in the bathroom and it just wasn’t going to work.  But I think we picked a really good vinyl and I am very happy with the way it turned out.  The old floor never looked clean and it showed up every little thing.

Do you like the new light fixture?  We have a lot of these types of lights around the house. We think they look like boobs.  Come on you know they do.

We also didn’t have any under sink storage and even though this vanity cabinet is not very deep I am just happy to have a place to put my hairdryer.

It’s always fun to get a new shower curtain!  I found this one at TJ Maxx for $12.99 and the hooks for $4.00!  I looked at Target and all the shower curtains I liked there were like 40 bucks.  No thank you.  Target did have the new rod and liner for $10 each.  That I can handle.

I am so happy to have an updated space that actually feels clean after I clean it!  I would like to get a fresh coat of paint on the quarter round but for now I am loving the new space.

Now I need your opinion.  This iron thingy is hanging in my living room above a doorway.  I have another one exactly like it.

Do you think it would look good above the mirror in the bathroom?

When I was younger I never really thought about what I wanted to be when I grew up.  I talked A LOT.  I didn’t listen well and although I was a smart girl, common sense was not one of my strong points.

I hear people say things like ” I have no regrets because everything I have done in my life made me who I am today”

I  can understand that perspective but I see things a little differently.  I do have regrets.  Like a about a crap TON of them.

I want to believe that everything happens for a reason, even as cliche as it sounds.  I just get confused when I really start unpacking that idea in my head.

I believe in God’s plan wholeheartedly but God also gave us free will to make the wrong decisions.  And we mess up.  We make the wrong choices.  Some of us make more mistakes than others but we all screw something up eventually. And it does make an impact on who we become.

So should we regret those things?  Or should we just think of our mistakes as the paving stones that make up the road of life?

I don’t know the answer.  Do you?

In case anyone was wondering the flu knocked me on my arse.

Last Friday I woke up with a sore throat and by lunchtime I knew I needed to go to the Dr.  so I called to see if they could fit me in at my general practitioner’s office.  She had already left for the day so I went to one of those Minute Clinic thingies where even without running a test I was informed that I had the flu.

I had just finished a 10 day round of antibiotics for that sinus infection/double ear infection I had so it was pretty obvious that it was an angry virus attackeling my already weakened immune system.  She offered me antiviral medicine but told me that I would have to wean the baby because it wasn’t really safe for lactation.

At that point I was only experiencing mild  symptoms and I was pretty sure I could tough it out without being forced to wean Alivia.  So I went home and took some Aleve.  Yeah in hindsight that was a TERRIBLE MISTAKE.

Addison had to go to work with Adam for the rest of the day while Livie and I napped.  As  bad luck would have it Addison was out of school Friday and Monday so Adam also had to stay home on Monday to man the household responsibilities.

(Otherwise known as make sure the kids don’t starve or wander out into the street while mommy has fever induced hallucinogenic dreams.  Only dude…there was nothing groovy about it.)

I literally stayed in bed for days.  At one point I convinced my-hypochondriac-self that I was dying of meningitis because my neck and my head hurt so bad.  I might have had a little help with these delusions thanks to my best friend Aimee and my sweet mother in law.  My  mother in law told me yesterday that when I told her my neck was hurting and I had a fever her heart dropped to the pit of her stomach.

So I wasn’t the only one worried about my fate of dying from the evil virus that consumed and tormented my body for days.  Ok I might be a tad dramatic…but it really was a horrible few days.

I went to my real Dr. on Monday because I was still bedridden and still convinced I was dying and even though we have fabulous life insurance I would like to live long enough to at least see who makes it to the top 12 on AhhhMERican Idol.

At the Dr.’s office they gave me a shot of some flu medicine in my booty and a prescription for medicine that would make me feel better sooner.  The only catch was that I had to stop nursing.  And at that moment I was willing to do whatever it took to feel better.  So I got the prescription filled and nursed Livie for the last time before I took my first dose that night.  It was sad to know that was the last time, but I think she was ready too because the transition has been so much easier than I imagined.

They also they gave me  a shot of B-12 in my arm to boost my immune system.  But let me tell you a quick little side story on that.  I was in the little room waiting for my Dr to come in trying not to notice how dirty the baseboards were ( I know gross right?) when I overheard the following conversation outside my door.

Dr:  “I might stick my head in and check to see how you do with the injections”

Regular Nurse:  “Are you ready to do it?”

Nervous Nurse: ” No not really”

Regular Nurse: “You will do fine”

Nervous Nurse:  “nervous silence…..”

Then they walk in to my room.  So I asked the incredibly flushed Nervous Nurse if she was in fact nervous.   She smiled nervously and told me “no”.

That didn’t make me feel better about the situation.  I told her confidently that I have birthed 2 children and I have a high tolerance for pain.  I don’t know who I was trying to convince of this…. the nervous nurse or myself.

Well as it turned out she WAS nervous.  She hit the muscle in my arm and made me bleed and as soon as I saw a drop of blood hit the white paper on the exam table I felt things go really wonky. She had me stand up for these shots to make it easier for her so when the nurses started talking about hitting muscles and stuff dripping down my arm I sort of lost my composure.

Regular Nurse asked me “Are you alright Mrs. Bond? you look very pale”

Me (trying to play it off and be all cool) : ” oh yeah I am fiiiiine….wait actually I am feeling like I am going to be sick….I think I need to sit down”

Nervous Nurse: “I am soooo sorry….are you ok?”

The regular nurse got me a cold compress for my face and a bottle of water to sip while I recovered.

It was the highlight of my flu experience let me tell you.

Adam couldn’t get back to work fast enough on Tuesday….he practically ran out the door that morning.  I can’t say I blame him.  It’s a hard job being me.  Ok I am kidding he did a great job with the kids and he did about 3 tons of laundry too.

I am just glad to be feeling a little better.  Although I am not at 100 % quite yet I was at least able to rattle on to ya’ll about my latest death bed situation illness.

Does this mean I am getting old?  Next thing you know I will be telling ya’ll about some humongo bunion or how my arthritis is flaring up.

Will ya’ll still visit me here when I have nothing to blog about but my latest hemorrhoid flare-up?

No?  Ok let’s just pretend I never even asked that last question.

oooh look over here something shiny!  I am finally announcing my Lands End bag giveaway winner!

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

8

Timestamp: 2009-02-20 02:37:27 UTC

Commenter number 8 is my friend Tammy from Greek GRITS! Congratulations Tammy!

I wish I had a bag for everyone!  Thank you for participating and leaving me all the great ideas for my blog!

I seriously need one of these contraptions!

Just checking in real quick.  I have the flu and it sucks and I won’t go into all of the gory details, but that is why I have been MIA for a few days.  I was going to announce the giveaway winner on Saturday but I have been in bed ALL weekend.  I can’t even believe that I dragged myself up the stairs to write this.

I have had some whackadoodle feverish dreams about my blog and so I thought I would just let you know that I am alive….but just barely.  I got 2 shots today so hopefully I will be feeling better tomorrow.  I will announce the giveaway winner soon I promise.  Until then I am going back to bed with my toilet paper and my cough drops.  It’s a glamorous life let me tell you.

I have never had so many comments!

I know it was because of Bloggy Giveaways, but I am sooo just going to pretend it’s because I am just THAT awesome!

I am definitely planning on doing more giveaways in the future!  It was so fun to participate.

We do have a winner!

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

293

Timestamp: 2009-01-30 17:36:51 UTC

Lucky number 293 is Hillary!

Congratulations!

Thank you to all who participated!

Ya’ll have a great weekend!