Google trumps Web MD - Kind of

I had this issue earlier in the week. It lasted a few days and seems to be in the process of going away as I type.

Thank the stars!!


Out of the blue, it tasted like I had a spoon in my mouth. I remember years ago when my dad was going through chemo he had trouble eating. Mostly it was because chemo has a tendency to make one sick to their stomach. But another one of his problems was that everything tasted like metal. I never quite understood this.

Until now.

It was like I was sucking on a spoon like a baby sucks a pacifier!


Like any normal person would do in such a case, I turned to the interwebs. Thinking this issue fell in somewhere in the medical category, my first stop was Web MD.

I've used Web MD in the past. Not only to read about various medical stuff, but to use their symptom checker. It's a pretty cool tool and it really helped me out 2 summers ago when my face blew up like a fucking beach ball.

One of the first in the list of possible diagnoses was, in fact, what I had. A severe sinus infection. Which led to a whole other set of problems I won't go into right now. We'll just say certain antibiotics and Benedryl are not my friend!


Back to my issue at hand... I went right to the symptom checker. I entered my basic info - sex and age. I then clicked on the head of the bizarre looking alien-like person, and then proceeded to zoom in on the mouth. In the list of symptoms I clicked on "metallic taste in mouth".

The resulting answers did not answer my questions. In fact they scared the shit out of me!

In case you can't read the possible conditions, I'll spell it out.

• Medication reaction or side-effect
• Antibiotic use
• Poisoning

I am not currently taking any medication nor any antibiotics. And if I was taking something I am allergic to, a metallic taste is definitely not the side-effect. I still cringe at the effects resulting from my sinus infection! It was ugly. No, I was ugly!

So that leaves poisoning.

I tore apart my kitchen, reading every box and container and I did a mental checklist of everywhere I ate in the past week. Nothing out of the ordinary. That calmed my nerves some but then I started to panic. What if there was something in the house I couldn't see that was making me like this? So I went on a quest for a second opinion. In the form of Google.

I won't lie, some of the same possibilities were listed in my search results. That certainly didn't help with the "Oh shit! I've been poisoned and won't live to eat my kids' Halloween candy!" feeling. But I will say that after my reading I will be brushing the hell out of my teeth, drinking more water, and eating everything in sight. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, but since this nasty taste seems to be fading, I'm sticking with the "unknown reason" answer.

I think I now understand why the real doctors hate when patients turn to the interwebs rather than picking up the phone!

Red hair and vacuums

It's free therapy day over at Kmama's place. Life is never complete without some sarcastic thank you's!





Dear Mother Nature~ Thank you very much for the big disappointment. You gave quite a build up Tuesday causing the weathermen to declare thunderstorm, wind, and tornado warnings. Delivering with nothing but a steady rain all damn night? Not cool! Although you did grant me some pretty good photo ops. Check them out here!

ps. Don't take this the wrong way, Mother Nature. I still love you! My frustration at the moment does not mean you need to turn into a psycho bitch and dump a shit load of snow on us again come winter!


Dear expensive Dyson vacuum~ Thank you very much for breaking. Thankfully we didn't shell out the crazy amount of money to bring you in to this house, as you were a gift (thank you in-laws!), but not lasting a year before you fall apart? Again, not cool! Fortunately we can buy the parts and fix you ourselves, but I'm still not happy about the whole melting/stinking up my house thing!


Dear midgets~ Thank you very much for destroying any hope I had of having grandchildren (in the very distant future!!). The song you were singing last night made me very sympathetic, and down right worried, about any kids you may have. Again, in the VERY distant future!

By the way, the words of the song are not "Hit MY baby one more time".


And finally...


Dear school~ Thank you very much for red ribbon week, aka say no to drugs week. It has been really fun dressing my kids in certain colors or crazy outfits, but why did you have to do crazy hair day? Crazy hat day was just fine with me. I have a feeling the red hair spray will stain my son's head. I don't see a haircut for him any time in the near future! Unless he does it himself. Again. Maybe I should hide all the scissors. Again.

The human race - mummified

I believe this story falls into my human race category. This is the category which shows that while the human race as a whole is intelligent, individuals are just dumb!

If events like my post-its last week and the one I'm about to share keep happening, I might have to turn this into a weekly thing. Halloween is coming up and we all know this is when the real freaks come out to play!

Moving on to my story...

While listening to a morning show on the radio this morning, I happened to catch some interesting stories. The first was about the making of Human Centipede 2. Never heard of the first? Look it up on YouTube. I dare ya!


That story was followed by this lovely gem. Warning~ it's just as fucked up as a human centipede!

Want to read the full story? Go here


After that, hop over to Only Parent Chronicles for more post-its!

I have a pretty face

And sometimes that's all I have.








If looks could have gotten me through the end of last week, I would have been gold.

Or maybe it's kick ass hair that gets me by.
Of course, sometimes I'm just
up shit creek without a paddle!

Let's start with my dumbass moment #1, shall we?

I met a few friends for breakfast last Wednesday. Since I had no where to be after, I decided to walk around the mall. A little voice told me to check my phone. So I did. 1 missed call. I look to see who called. It was the PTA president. I should have known better than to call her back, but my dumbass did.

There was a seminar for the teachers Thursday and Friday about a new bully prevention program. They wanted a parent representative there. I guess I was first on the list of suckers to call because I don't work and I don't have little ones at home. Makes me wish I did. Have a little one, that is!

I agreed to go. So Thursday and Friday I had to pleasure of sitting in the art room from 8:30-3. At first everything was extremely repetitive, and then someone decided to shut the lights off so we could watch a movie. I would like to call dumbass on whoever thought that was a good idea!

There's a lot of work that needs to go into implementing this program, but after that's done, this program should kick ass. Hmm... not sure if "kick ass" is a good term to use for an anti-bully program, but whatever!


And now for dumbass moment #2.

My midgets are in 3rd grade and Kindergarten. I only started getting involved in the school within the past year or so. That means that there are still a lot of staff that I haven't put a name to the face yet. And I'm horrible at names to begin with! If I had to guess, I would say it was a good 4 hours into the first day before I realized who the hell Bob was.

All the teachers kept talking about Bob - he said this or we have to ask him about that. Who the hell is Bob! Suddenly my dumbass self turned around to face the principal. That's when the light bulb got a little brighter. His name was Bob!

This is the kind of person they want on a committee? Oh Lord, help me! Or help them.

Now let's just hope I don't take the kids to school tomorrow and start calling all the teachers by their first names!


*Because of the length of this seminar, I have been really busy playing catch up around my house. I also haven't had time to read some of my favorite blogs. If you have a post that needs some love, feel free to leave me the link. I refuse to add anything to my schedule for the first half of the week. I pinky swear to read any links that are left here!*

Fingers and a tight squeeze

The husband and I have had quite a few, shall we say, discussions about stickers on the car. In the end, I won. I always win. Or at least I think so.

I only put 2 on the back window. And they're small. Being a Pittsburgh girl who bleeds black and gold, naturally those stickers are for the Steelers and the Penguins.

Or so I thought.



Today I realized that those stickers must be some sort of beacon calling all dumbass drivers to my vicinity. I swear I crossed paths with every dumbass driver in the tri-state area today. But the worst was the idiot who ran me off the road.

Yes, you read that right. I think some poor soul has my tire marks in their yard now.


I just picked the midgets up from school and we were on our way to get the husband from work. To avoid the over abundance of unnecessary stop lights and traffic, I took the back streets. One of these streets is not very long, but it is narrow. Two cars can fit, but it's tight.

I'm halfway down when this fool in his pick-up whips around the corner at the bottom. I stop because I can't move until he does. He stops because he can't move until I do. I sure as shit wasn't backing up that narrow street. So there I sat. He must have looked in every direction but out the front windshield and fiddled with every gadget before he finally stared me down.

I continued to sit. He had more room to maneuver than I did anyway. I finally backed up a bit so I could move my car over for him. There may or may not have been a few flip-offs on my part in that process.




No sooner do I put the car in drive to move closer to the side does he start to barrel up the road. The fucker came within inches of my car. Had I not driven into some person's yard, I would have been missing a headlight. If not more.

As if simultaneously scaring the shit out of me and pissing me off wasn't enough, he thinks it's a good idea to stop right next to me, roll down his window, and give me a good "Fuck you". My Irish temper is overflowing by this point, so naturally, I gave him one back.


Let's just hope the midgets don't go to school tomorrow and tell all their friends "Fuck you"! In my defense he said it first!

Work of the devil

I was sitting at a red light on my way to pick the husband up from work. I swear, I was stopped. I'm lucky I can figure out the camera on my phone standing still, let alone driving!

I happened to look down and see this....





I've seen one too many movies to know that 6 is not a happy number. Five of those suckers certainly can't be a good thing. Seeing all of those, I was tempted to get out and walk the rest of the way.

Well, that is if the husband worked a little closer to home. Ok, a lot!



Wordful Wednesday~ parenting by dummies

The human race

Many of these individuals can be found on Facebook.

Don't try to deny it! You know exactly who I'm talking about.


For example, there's the one friend I have who wants to sew her ass together because her gas pains are killing her.

Did the world really need to know that? Come on now! That kind of stuff should be between you and your doctor, not your URL friends.

No, I have never met this woman, but I already know more about her than I care to, thank you very much!



Moving on. URL friends are ones you can sometimes avoid when they post embarrassing or just plain stupid shit. It's the IRL life ones you have to worry about. Some day, when you least expect it you will run in to them. Thus coming to the crossroads of do you correct their mistake if they bring it up or simply play along with their stupidity?

Last Sunday my baby bro turned 21. That right there may have been the hardest thing I have ever had to type!

AnyIfeelold, as with most people I wished him a happy birthday. Some of my friends also did the same. After all, most of them watched him grow up.

Before I go any further, let me just clue you in on my age. I am 10 years older than my brother. Simple math will tell you that I was 10 when he was born.


I posted something on my wall about not wanting to admit that my brother is now of legal drinking age. Not that he drinks, but that's irrelevant. What the hell was my friend thinking when she replied with this...

oh-my-wow! I remember when he was born!!! we were twelve years old!!! :o)

This is the friend who is trying to get a job as a teacher. Lord help our education system if she does!

Ignorance is bliss

TGIF!!!

I can't emphasize that anymore than that. Basically because after making something bold, you can only increase the font so much. But anyway, it's been yet another long, long week. Why is it that both of my midgets are in school and I still don't have any time to do anything?

Anylackofsleep, it's been a long week. So naturally that means I have some things to dish out via

Boobies, Babies, & A Blog

To my crazy "aunt"~

Fawk you for calling my Grandma at 4 in the morning because you want to "start a new page" and "fix the relationship". In my opinion you've pulled you crazy shit 1 too many times to be able to fix anything. Not that there was really any relationship to begin with. We're only nice to you because you were married into this family (twice). And by the way, you didn't realize the time when you called? Bullshit! It was well past midnight in your little home in Texas-might-as-well-be-Mexico. Why would it be any different up here in Pennsylvania?


To my husband~

Fawk you for slacking! Yes, that may be harsh, but coming home from a stressful meeting and seeing the kids still glued to the tv instead of in bed? I was anything but happy! I almost don't want to go to the meeting next month. Sadly I kinda have to. Fawk you to that, too!


To my knee~

Fawk you! A year without pain was pure bliss. What the hell happened? And don't try to blame my new boots! I refuse... REFUSE to let the doctor stick you with another cortisone shot! In the long run, I suppose it did it's job. But almost passing out from the shot itself and then barely being able to walk for a month due to the pain from said shot is not my idea of a good time. And by the way, I didn't have any drugs while birthing my last 2 kids (not by choice, by the way) so I know damn well what true pain feels like.


And finally, to Google~

Fawk you and your search results! Maybe it's ignorance on my part, but I'm still blaming you, Google!

Purple monkey balls is one of the funniest things I've heard all day. I had every intention of finding some image to go along with it so I could include that awesome phrase in here. The last thing I expected to see was a ton of pictures of weed. Ignorance, maybe, but whatever. I'm still throwing purple monkey balls out there.

Wait, maybe I don't want to throw that stuff around? Whatever! Just go check out CB's Blog Stalk Friday. If you link up, please make sure you follow the rules. The last thing you want to do is piss off CB! Oh, and if you do link up, tell her that I sent you, k?

Have a great weekend! Purple monkey balls and all!

Tuesday Top Ten

Good gravy, what are these people going to do when it snows? *Shudder*

Really, who do I have to talk to to get my own lane so I can't avoid all the dumbasses out there?!

My baby story - part 3

Part 1

Part 2


When I ended Part 2, I led you to believe that this part would be about the day I delivered a baby girl. And while it is, there is a funny story that I must share before I jump into that.

I was approaching my due date. While I wasn't huge by any means, you could definitely tell I was pregnant. Every morning I waddled my ass down the street to my sister from another mister's house. We would then proceed to go to our bus stop - her walking all nice and normal. Me? Not so much.

We took the bus every day and we had the same driver every day. As much as I hated the man for making us listen to Howard Stern every morning, I did appreciate the fact that he seemed to look out for his precious cargo.

One morning in particular, we boarded the bus. He stopped me at the top of the steps and informed me that he was a volunteer fireman. If anything were to happen, he would know exactly what to do. That was not exactly the man I wanted to deliver my baby, or any baby for that matter. But I did appreciate his words.

Shortly after that, not sure when, but maybe a week, 2 at the most, I woke up in pain. Nothing severe, but enough to be annoying. The fact that it was 5 in the morning only added to the annoying factor. I am not a morning person by any means!

Thank goodness I still lived at home and had my mom to help me. She asked how much pain I was in and if the pains were consistent. Enough and yes. We grabbed my bags and headed for the car. Half way out of the driveway I felt the sudden urge to...


Call my sister from another mister. Did you think I would say push? No, we'll save the story of my 2nd birth for another time! I'm sure she would have figured out what was going on if I wasn't at her house by a certain time. But I still had to call her.


I'll spare you the details of the actual birth itself. It was nothing out of the ordinary. I had my epidural, the only time I had an epidural, and after a few more hours than expected, a baby girl was born. For obvious reasons I can't share any pictures, but trust me when I say she was absolutely perfect. 10 teeny fingers, 10 teeny toes, and a teeny bit of blond hair on her teeny head. Yes she was small, 6 1/2 pounds, but she was healthy and perfect.

I'm not sure if it was hospital policy or if it was my situation, but the baby slept in the nursery at night. The nurse would bring her into my room when I asked and take her back when I asked. I spent those 2 days in the hospital feeding her and changing diapers. I also loved to watch her sleep. The boyfriend (now husband) also came to visit. Watching him hold her broke my heart. I could tell it was hard for him as well. But I think if we didn't spend a little time with her we would regret it for the rest of her lives.

My last day in the hospital was full of so many emotions. I was happy to be going home. I'm the odd one who actually likes hospital beds, but they still don't compare to my own. As happy as I was to go home, I also didn't want to leave. I knew when I was finally wheeled to the entrance of the hospital, there would be people there waiting for me. Not people who were taking me home. They were people waiting to take a baby home.


I was quite capable of walking myself out of the hospital, but I had to follow hospital procedure. I didn't always like to follow the rules, but I really wasn't in the state of mind to argue. On the back of my wheelchair hung my bags. Balloons were tied to the handles. A teeny pink bundle was nestled in my lap. Through the hospital we went.

We came to the front doors and I knew it was time. Time to make the exchange. The smiles on the faces of the new family helped remind me that this was the right thing to do. We were in no position to provide a child with all the opportunities they deserved. This couple could provide what we couldn't. They took their teeny bundle. The balloons, too. There was no reason I need to keep any pink congratulatory balloons.


I have never considered my first baby, now a young lady, mine. She has and always will belong to the people she knows as her parents. But that doesn't always make it easy for me. For years I had good days and bad. It didn't help hearing abortion rumors when I did return to school. Who says that shit? I found out who it was and it took everything I had to not kick his ass. And I wasn't a fighter.

Now that we have 2 of our own children, it can still be difficult. I wish they knew more of their sister. We do have pictures around the house. They are aware of who she is. My son is only 5 so his level of understanding is not all that deep. Through the years we have visited. I'm not sure if I mentioned if before, but we decided on an open adoption.

For the past year or 2 we have only sent cards and pictures to each other. As any parent knows, life happens. I know she is involved in activities, as are the 2 I have at home. Add to that the weather (last winter here was nothing short of brutal!) and family things, and visiting is not as easy as we sometimes hope.

I know she knows who we are and our 2 kids know who she is. Deciding to go the adoption route was a difficult decision, but to this day I still feel we did the best possible thing. I still have my bad days, though not as often as I did in the beginning. But that doesn't mean I regret anything.

My baby story - Part 2

Part 1


When I found out I was pregnant, my brother was in 1st grade. Our dad passed away a few years earlier. With my brother being so young and not yet capable of truly understanding death, he had a difficult time dealing with. I don't think we ever fully understand death, but he had a particularly hard time.

My mom took the next few years after my dad's passing off. She became more involved in my brother's school. Because my brother was not in an emotionally stable place, the news of me might have also been difficult for him to process. I believe my mom had talked about my situation with his teacher.

As a parent, I believe this is an important thing to do. If a teacher is aware of events going on the family, they can be more aware of the child. If the child begins to struggle, they have an awareness of the reasoning behind the actions.

My brother's teacher was a wonderful lady. For years after he left the 1st grade, we would still run into her. She would always stop to chat and ask how all of us were doing. This teacher had some friends. These friends were looking to adopt a baby. The type of adoption they were hoping for was an open adoption. Her and my mom exchanged all the pertinent information with the hopes that it would give me more options.

I don't remember all of the details of how we met. I am fairly certain that I called the agency and they set up a meeting for us. I remember meeting them and thinking that they were wonderful people who would be wonderful parents. I vaguely remember all of the legal mumbo jumbo explained to me. It really didn't matter much. In my heart I felt this was the right thing to do. I fully understood that our legal rights would be terminated. 3 months in we couldn't decide we changed our minds and wanted the baby back. The notion that I would even consider doing something like that just wasn't me. I knew this would be a decision I wouldn't go back on.

If we decided to go ahead with an open adoption, we would cut all legal ties, but that didn't mean other ties would also be cut. We could visit, write letters, call on the phone. The extent of those were up to us to agree upon.

After we met and talked everything over, we left and had some thinking to do. My boyfriend ad I spent many, many nights talking about what the right thing to do would be. We talked about what it would be like if we kept the baby. We tried to think of places we could live and how we would be able to bring in money. At the time, we didn't know about WIC (a government program to help low income families). I still think that if we knew about that program, ti wouldn't have changed our minds.

In our hearts, we knew this couple was where we wanted our baby to go.

As clear as if it happened yesterday, I remember sitting in study hall, hand-writing my letter to them. We had talked it over and we both agreed that we wanted our baby girl to be raised by them.

Over the final months of my pregnancy, we met with the couple a few times. We could see in their eyes how happy they were to finally have the chance at a child of their own. Even though this baby girl was growing inside of me, I thought of her as theirs.

They started the process of getting their house ready for a new baby. We learned that they had chosen a name for her. I will not share it here, but I will say that their choice in names was just perfect.

They were happy to have a baby to look forward. I was happy because I felt like I was doing such a great thing. Everything seemed so perfect.

Until the day I gave birth.

End part 2




I am linking this up
with Shell's Pour Your Heart Out

To continue reading - Part 3

It's raining so don't touch my Oreos!

My baby story - Part 1

I read many blogs. Some of those blogs are very inspiring. The authors tell stories of their life. They tell these stories from the heart.

I feel it's time for me to share one of my stories.

Thank you Shell, Ian, Erin, and Kmama for inspiring me and giving me the courage to share.


This is the story of my birth story.

My first birth story.


The year was 1996. 17 years old, enjoying my senior year in high school. I was dating a wonderful man. The man I would later marry.

We were teenagers and we did what the typical teenage couple does. I'm sure we can all relate. One thing leads to another. In the heat of the moment, we didn't think to grab any kind of protection. It won't happen to us.

But it did.


Telling my mom was one of the scariest things. Still living at home, I would have to deal with the repercussions from her daily. Not only was I scared about what would happen to me, I was also a little ashamed. Another knocked up high school girl. She used to be such a good kid. That's what they would all say.

My mom was very supportive, but she did stress that I needed to step up. She wouldn't be the one to make the doctor appointments for me, nor would she be the grandmother who raised her grandchild.

After I told her, telling my boyfriend, now husband, really wasn't that hard. To say he was shocked would be an understatement. Without even saying it, we both knew that abortion was off the table. We were going through a rough patch in our relationship at the time. We didn't know exactly what path we would take, but we did decide to work on us and make the decisions together. To this day, I am very grateful for that.

In the beginning, no one had to know what we were going through. We both knew other girls in our school in the same situation. We both had heard what others were saying about them. Some of those comments were good, but most were not.

I don't recall any negative comments once I was starting to show. Were things not said? I doubt that. Did my friends keep me from hearing the negative rumors? Most likely. If that is the case, I thank them for that.

I didn't really talk about my pregnancy outside of my close circle of friends, but I did have to tell my teachers. I was due towards the end of the school year. Since I would still be in school, I needed to figure out how to keep up with my work in order to graduate.

As my belly started to grow, it became more and more real that this was really happening to me. We needed to figure out a plan for when the baby was here. Panic was creeping in. We didn't know where we would live. Neither of us had good jobs. I worked at Burger King, and him, cleaning a bakery after school. That kind of money would make it difficult to buy a crib, formula, and god knows what else.

But as this panic started setting in, a plan started to take place.


To continue reading - Part 2

A revelation of sorts

I had a moment.

One of those moments that make you say "Holy shit! What the hell happened?"

It may not have been Earth shattering, but it was a moment.






For quite some time I've been walking around like this...

Ok, maybe not exactly like that. Plain and simple, it is a pain in my ass to straighten my hair. Throw in some humid days or some rainy days and it just doesn't work. So I resort to the infamous ponytail.

I rarely get my hair cut. I do believe it was last August I got a trim. Last August as in 2009 and trim as in 4+ inches. When I do it, I gotta go all out or it's just not right.

Earlier this week I was inspired. Maybe it had something to do with this post. I needed a change. And change is what I got!

Honestly, I didn't realize how much curl my hair has. And the blond, what the hell? Who knew?! I guess all that swimming did my hair some good. At least when it comes to color. I think I'm sticking with the lighter hair. Finding out if blonds really do have more fun could just be the change I need.

Hopefully I don't wait until next August to have this revelation again!