tagged and stuff....

1. What is your funniest childhood story?
Must have been the time when I was about 8 or 9 and I was out playing on a low roof of a stairway to a basement house. I was using as a slide even thought the shingles were rough. Well they sand-papered my behind and I ended up with abrasions to my bum and back of my legs and sitting was horrid for the next day or so. That isn't the worst though--the cute guy in my class, Ronnie E, and my cute neighbor boy, Brian J, saw me walking back home rather stiff legged with my jogging pants shredded in the back and my orange clock underwear hanging out. Embarrassing enough, but I was wearing the last pair of clean undies in my drawer and I absolutely loathed my blue, pink and orange underwear with a clock print on them. I never wanted to go to school again, lol!


2. What would your dream dress look like if you could design it?
This is the base of my dress that I will wear for our American wedding/blessing ceremony/vow renewal. I am going to have a shawl or something over my arms.

My friend, T., borrowed it for her wedding 2 years ago and she looked lovely in it.

3. What weird habit does your other half have? Bruxism--he grinds his teeth in his sleep.

4. How many cookbooks are in your kitchen? 3, one Marks & Spencers British foods and 2 Gordon Ramsey cook books


5. Granny panties or loyal Victoria Secret girl? sexy drawers in my drawers no longer exist--heck I only have 4 pair of underpants (I am always doing laundry)


6. My favorite memory from 2008 so far is? Duh, birth of Alex


7. I secretly... check the toilet paper. every. time. Gross I know, but I have done it ever since I was 10 and my 12 year old friend told me what a period was, as she was having hers and I was horrified. I had thought a period was the punctuation mark at the end of a sentence. So I started obsessively checking. A 22 year old habit is hard to break.


8. I could really go for... Pumpkin pie with cool whip


9. We are going to have a big snowstorm and you will find me... In the states-finding a safe place to mess around driving in the snow. I used to spin cookies with my 1964 Ford in the snow--I loved it!

Here in the UK-bwahahaha! A mere dusting of snow and everyone panics and car pileups are common. Think of Florida getting snow then replace the bright warm sunny weather with dark dreary grey misty rainy weather.

10. I knew s/he was the one...
I have 2 life-partners:

My Beloved Husband--Almost right away when he talked about loving to hug and cuddle and I announced on the other side of my monitor "Awww He's a cuddler, aww, I could love him." 10 days later I wrote "I love you!" and that I love you changed our lives. No regrets, *Sigh* He makes me happy and all warm and fuzzy. We are mushballs!

My best friend--Ha honestly, ready for this K? I knew that we'd be friends back in high school because she was a "smoker", I knew her family had very little money like mine, and she was cool enough to be dating the guy that I had a crush on. Birds of a feather flock together, right? Added bonus that she was artistic and we shared having the hots for our Art teacher. We weren't super close friends in high school, it was after, like June 2nd, that I knew that we'd be forever friends and then the night she and her 1st hubby left for Cali and stopped to see me and my roomie before they left. I gave them all my money and my blessings as they started their new life together. When she came back from Cali and her hubby was stationed overseas was when even though we were far apart, we were and are inseparable.

Now to tag 3 more people. I choose...

I hate choosing so if you read this and feel like you want to do it, leave a comment and a link back to your blog. Thanks!

I blew it

I missed a day blogging, but honestly people, with the haywire that is going on in my family right now that I really cannot blog about, blogging is the last thing on my mind. so if I am quiet or don't say much, I hope that you understand that real life is priority right now.

so no mo' nablopomo :(

Motrin no Mo', Wear Your Baby Proudly for International Babywearing Week!

Thanks to a babywearing group I belong to near where my folks' live, I was alerted to a craptacular intelligence insulting advertizement by Motrin and directed to Moms who wear their babies. Ugh, *sarcastic note here* I am sooooo gah-laaaaaad that Motrin was there to swoop in to relieve the pain in the neck, shoulders, and back from my "schwing". I am sooooo glad that you called me on being "trendy". blech!

If you search on youtube I am sure that you will find the motrin ad and the HUGE backlash of pissed off PARENTS that wear their babies and children. Twitter is in an uproar, nay the Internet is in an uproar!

This "trendy" way of taking care of babies and young children has been around since parents' wore leathers and cleverly figured out a way to put their baby back on their body with the realization that baby was very portable when baby was in utero, baby can be portable outside of the womb. They did this out of practicality, not some desire to fit in to the "trendy crowd". As it was then, is now today, babies are tied on mothers, fathers, grandparents, guardians and other carers around the WORLD. The "western" world has just started getting its' collective head out of its' bum-hole and realized just because non-western countries do things differently isn't wrong, just different and that western society can and IS learning that babywearing is beneficial other than transportation.

Babywearing promotes a bonding between baby and parents, helps extend and increase successful breastfeeding, helps baby's physical, mental and emotional growth, and surprisingly to the naysayers, promotes the much western idealized characteristic of independence! There are many other benifits that are too numerous to put here in my mini-rant, but those are a few to give you an idea of good this "trendy" thing is :)

here are 2 places to go to learn more about babywearing.
http://www.mamatoto.org/
http://www.thebabywearer.com/

As for me and my house, we will continue to babywear!

I love this picture of the moon. I took it from the top deck of a double decker on 11-11-08 on the 11 bus.


And who doesn't love a happy baby playing on his own and being sweet? Awwww!

the interview...dun dun duuuuuhhh.....

Actually went fairly well. Although we don't have the full ok for M's visa for us to move back to the States, we are (hopefully) 98% there. We need a document signed by my mother and another piece of paper scanned and emailed to us, then those couriered to the Embassy and then if we pass, they'll courier the passport with the visa in it. So we are chasing paperwork around some more, BUT it looks like we'll (hopefully) be home for the solstice and/or Christmas!

Bwahahaha!

And as I read my guest blog post, I was sitting topless, nursing my baby, on my couch and laughing that *I* was half nude!!!


Thank you ever so much Hillbilly Duhn!

*raises coffee cup for a ~*~clink~*~* Here's to another 15 years, and another 15 years and another 15 years and another 15 years.....

15 years and counting...

Have you ever had that dream in which you've showed up somewhere naked?

That's how I feel today. Hello, my name is Hillbilly Duhn, Lizzardbits is out today and I'm filling in. I am honored to be her guest, excited even. However, feeling a little exposed.

I've went outside my hillbilly world today, and forgot to put on my clothes. That's how I feel.

I've known for days I would come here; flipped through 15 years of Brain files, trying to find something to talk about and in the end all I can think about is, "Great! Lizzardbits is gonna come home and find me naked on the couch!"

And my simple hillbilly mind will reply, "What?? I forgot my clothes." And because she's classy, has the grace of a well mannered Queen, she'll stand there silently for a moment, looking at me. Then, she'll laugh.

And laugh and laugh and laugh, and because her laugh makes me laugh, I'll have forgotten the fact I had not been clothed, which will make her jiggle instead of laugh out loud, cause I'm sure you can imagine a naked person laughing, it'll be that silent laugh. The one in which causes your eyes to tear up, no sound to escape past your lips, leaving your body convulsing on the inside, the outside left to do nothing but jiggle... In the end, between choked sobs and laughter, her only words will be, "You're naked -" Jiggle "-On my couch."

Oh yeah-so I am. And so, with all my dignity left behind, I get up and leave in search for some clothes. "I love you K" I say, as I walked naked from the room.

Now, as you can imagine, because she is my best friend, going on 15 years of a friendship that I couldn't for one moment live without, we've had plenty of times like these, where we've done nothing but jiggle and laugh.

Here's to you, K, for many more years of being friends, and now an image of me naked. :) (On your couch.)

Tomorrow---

Tomorrow we finally have our visa interview!!! I am so excited and nervous at the same time--like butterflies the size of boeing 747 airplane big!

wish us luck!

Alex says:

/ m0 nhhjnn ttrrgyr 000 m ...]0
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000y08hhkjyu52251 45

I was going to blog a long meaningful blog, but as I sat down to write alex wanted to type so I let him. He was so happy and filled with joy to do what I do. I wish you could hear him laugh.

Also, he still walks for food, lol


/[htrtvg;.,ye.;y.lye';./p tygujhnmn ygtygn x

I now have the movie "High Fidelity" on my brain So here have a Meme of my top Fives

Top 5 favorite towns
5. Stratford-upon-Avon, England. Ol' Willie Shakespeare's home town. Touristy, but beautiful.
4. Hot Springs, South Dakota. Beautiful Black Hills little jewel in the touristy trade, but also a nice place to live.
3. Sioux Falls, South Dakota. South Dakota's largest city, but small enough to find one's way around. One of my many "home towns"
2. Kalona, Iowa. Those who know me know why.
1. Sheldon, Iowa, will always be home no matter where in the world I travel.

Top 5 things that give me the creeps
5. zits/blackheads
4. maggots
3. Kanawha
2. Darkness after watching a scary film
1. Bridges-Seriously, I have a phobia.

Top 5 all time favorite songs
5. Reptile, by Nine Inch Nails
4. Du Hast, by Rammstein
3. Gravity, by A Perfect Circle
2. Christian Woman/Black No. 1, by Type O Negative
1. Heart of Glass, by Blondie

Top 5 favorite scents
5. cut grass/watermelon rind
4. Aspen for women (which they no longer make like back in the day)
3. coffee--smells like a warm welcoming house
2. My husband's neck-right after he gets home from work. I joke that he smells like work, but he also has an underlying scent that is subtle in a clean human odor kind of way.
1. breastfed baby's breath

Top 5 things and/or people that help me to be happy
5. my Aripiprozole
4. my friends
3. my family
2. my husband
1. my children

Top 5 things I'd like to be doing right now
5. I am happy to blog, so what I am doing now is what I would like to be doing now.
4. drinking coffee with my friends and laughing at each other laughing and trying hard not to spray coffee out of our noses.
3. driving. anywhere. just driving, even for my driving test to get my USA DL back.
2. arriving back in the States--if the telleporter was fixed I'd zap there now.
1. Hugging all of my children at once

Top 5 Worst recording artists/bands evah
5. tom petty--ugh loathe his voice
4. stevie nicks--she sounds like a billy goat
3. Vanilla Ice--need I say more?
2. the tom and stevie duet--blargh
1. new kids on the block--the epitome of boy bands-yuck!

Top 5 places I'd like to visit
5. egypt--pyramids dude!
4. oregon--portland and corvallis area to be specific
3. Utah--the salt flats with my hot rodded 64 Ford Galaxie 500
2. Highlands of Scotland--or just a loch or two
1. Norway-ja sure ja betcha doncha know!

So if you decided that you want to do a top 5 meme too, leave me a comment so I can look at your blog too! Feel free to add more categories!

Socks

Anyone know what to do with about 30 non holey non matching mens socks? We went through M's socks and have about 30 socks without pairs, but I feel bad about just throwing them away.

Ideas besides sock puppets? would there a be a sock sans pair good-will out there?

Five things I miss about America

At Noble Savage, she wrote a post that sings to this American expat's heart. It also smacks of a top 5 list a la High Fidelity

Here is her list that she did expand on, but you will need to go to her blog to read expansions:
1.My family and friends
2. Wide open spaces
3. Autumn
4. Good, affordable food
5. That wondrous, zany American outlook on life

Mine actually follows closely:

1. I miss Miss MISS my family and friends. Although I call my mom just about every weekday, and my Hillbilly Duhn several times a week, hugging phones is NOTHING like hugging the real live human being on the other end of the line. I crave the day we all are reunited.

2. Driving. I love driving long distances and driving at night. I have been driving since I was 12 mminus the year between moving from the acreage and drivers Ed and the 2 years I have been in the UK making it 17 years in total I have been driving and loving it. I am such a car buff and as much as I am trying to be eco-friendly, I just can not stop loving cars, driving and driving long straight wide roads. Motor oil runs in these veins.

3. American food. I like an indian take away now and again, fish and chips and the tradional English sunday roast, but gosh darn it I want me a valasic dill pickle without any sugar, a corn dog, a miller genuine draft, a root beer float that doesn't cost $3 a can to make, as well as flavored coffees that you don't have to go to a specialty tea shop to buy, and tex mex foods. I would love an apple and a pumpkin pie, and a bone-in wood smoked ham. (I am hungry now, lol)

4. Halloween. Halloween is my fah-vorite holiday evah! I look forwards to Halloween like a little kid looks forwards to his birthday. Where I am at Halloween is barely celebrated and is more of a time where people hide away from trouble youth "yobs and hoodies", lock their doors, turn off their lights and pretend to not be home. Well crap, no wonder the youth are pissy, the candy that they sell to give out sucks. "Here have a packet of pink and white marshmallows!" bleeeh. So as another Halloween passed by like a much anticipated birthday that no one could be bothered to remember--I yearn for a fun filled Halloween with all the kids next year back in the USA.

5. Hearing my own Accent. Something about being able to not translate things in my head from British to American and back again is so nice. A trunk is a trunk, not a boot. Chips are chips, not fries, and toe-may-toe not toe-maah-oh for tomato.

I am going to be cheeky and put a sixth because it is actually a tie between number 5 and this one.
6. Affordable clothing that fits Plus size. I needn't say more than that.

Dude! He can Sing!

My younger brother recently was on the radio. Here is the show the band and he were on.

http://michaelromkey.typepad.com/the_bucktown_revue/files/OctAct2.mp3

Cue up to 3:39 to 5:16 to hear the intro, cue to 5:17 to 10:42 for the first song, and cue to 10:50 to 14:07 to hear the second song.

I am impressed!

Happy Hawking Castle Walking Fabulous Pre-Birthday Dearest M!

For M's birthday present we went to Warwick Castle so that he could attend a falconeering class, as he has always been a HUGE fan of Owls, Hawks and Eagles and, well, ALL birds of prey. He had a "fabulous time!" Turns out he was the only student that day so his teacher was able to focus all her attention on to both the birds and to M. Due to M's wish to remain anon at this time, I'll post the pictures without him in them, but there are some great pictures of him with Woody a Harris Hawk, Louis the Eagle Owl, and Mouse the Golden Eagle.

http://www.warwick-castle.co.uk/

Wow! Voter turnout was Fantastic!

Wow! I am impressed!

* In Minnesota, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said that nearly 80 percent of the state’s registered voters cast ballots (of 3.7 million eligible voters in Minnesota);

• Turnout was so high in the Nebraska 1st Congressional District that some polling places had run out of “I Voted” stickers by early afternoon.

above was found at http://www.america.gov/st/elections08-english/2008/November/20081104195842esnamfuak7.772464e-02.html&distid=ucs

80 Percent!!! That is fantastic!

For all of you who went out and did your civic and patriotic duty of voting--Thank you!

My Fellow Americans

VOTE!!!

Thousands of men, women. and yes, children throughout our nation 232+ year history have fought and died for the right to vote, to let their and your right to vote and the freedom to choose who to vote for. Please vote!

Alex loves the BIG kitties--edited-Now with promised pictures!

I love this picture as it looks like Alex is trying to eat the antler.






Today we went to a drive through it type safari park, and there were several enclosures with Lions, Lionesses both yellow and white, Tigers both yellow and white, and Cheetahs and Alex love Love LOVED them. He slapped the car window and hollered "kitty, kitty!" We'll have to upload our pictures to the pc so you can see how happy the little dude was. (btw, yes he was out of his carseat to snap the pictures, and travel around the parks but we didn't go any faster than three [3] mph)


As you can now see he loved it :D

tired and typing 1 handed

i have lots to say, but only one hand to type with as the other is holding a nursing Alex.

so in the next few days please look forwards to:

*walking baby
*top 5 things i miss about America (thank you noble savage)
*playing with hawks/playing at a ginormous castle
*safari park

good night *yawn* sleep well!

NaBloPoMo National Blog Posting Month

NaBloPoMo

It is that time of year where bloggers all over the blogosphere take part in NaBloPoMo. To make the chioce to post to your blog or blog at NaBloPoMo everyday for a month. Most choose to do it in November, so have I. Perhaps it will get me in the feel for writing whatever tickles my fancy reather than composing long drawn out posts in my head and then never posting them.

today I had 2 posts, however that doesn't mean that I can skip a day, I must post every day. Eek, I'll have to see if I can blog via my cell (I don't think my twitter feed counts) for the 3 days we are gone to London.

See you tomorrow!