Get into the act with Spanky Pants

I must apologize for the quality (or complete lack thereof) of these photos - they were done in a bathroom stall with my cell phone. :P

I need some Spanky Pants.

I could rock the Spanky Pants.

Totally.

Can we talk about toilet paper?

For fuck's sake, department stores, could you get us girls some toilet paper that doesn't feel like we're shredding our bits on a cheese grater? Or how bout some that doesn't disintegrate the moment one drop of pee hits it?

And while we're on the subject, you cheap bastards, do you think you could get some that you can't fucking SEE THROUGH? In this case, less is more if you buy the good kind. We'll use less and shop at your cheap-ass stores more.

Fuckers.

Quitting

Have you ever known deep down that you really need to stop something, but equally strong is the instinct not to quit? Because if you quit, you give it up; and if you give it up, it might be gone forever?

I'm kind of feeling that way right now. About a few things in my life. It's like I'm at one of those cartoon signs with arrows that point a hundred different ways. If you go that way, you may end up here; if you go the other way, maybe you'll end up there, but you might end up somewhere completely different.

It's the mystery of life, I suppose, not knowing what's ahead of us and only being able to look behind with some certainty. In the right now, it's the swirling mist of choices and where they may lead.

My heart is heavy right now...with these choices and decisions that need to be made. And that little voice in my head whispering "how did you get here?"

Just because I can...

...shameless plug for my bike jewelry!

Click HERE to go to my website!

Some men can totally rock the lycra...

some can't.

It's the whole crotch thing. Really. I have a hell of a time not looking at a man's junk when he's wearing lycra bike stuff. Not because I want to, but because I have to. It's like a train wreck. You don't want to look, but you can't help yourself.

And god forbid his junk looks interesting. Lord help you...or me. LOL

Aside from the junk issue, I have no problem with men wearing lycra...if they have those nice mountain biking leg/ass combos. Girls, you know I speak the truth when I use the term "eye candy."

Shit. Now I feel like a lecherous old man...er...woman.

But I can admit that I look at the junk. If you wear lycra around me, be prepared. I'm jus' sayin'.

Or, protect us all and just wear baggies.

Wal Mart, oh Wal Mart, where hath thou found thy employees?

Walking around the Holly Springs Wal Mart and came across this piece of Wal-Mart-y goodness:

Sometimes I have to laugh at myself

Last night I attempted to make a Christmas ornament from bike parts. I worked on it for a couple hours. When I showed it to my husband, he said "that's odd." LOL

Ok...I don't celebrate Christmas...I'm not Christian, thus never celebrated it. Now I'm wondering if I'm behind the curve on making Christmas ornaments. Does being around them every year afford someone the knowledge of how to make them? LOL

I KNOW! Let's call it my Tim Burton-inspired ornament! Yeah....that'll work. :D

Here's a pic:

I might have gone a little far today

The principal called me today to say that M was suspended for 1 day for the stealing incident from last week. I kinda freaked. Surprising, isn't it? Sadly, it's not. I called the hubs and told him what was going on and as usual, he is much more prepared to deal with things as they come than I am. Gimme an hour or 2 and I'll stop freaking and start thinking, but he lives this shit every day at work, so he can just spew stuff out like it's air.

So I go to pick M up and I ask to talk to the principal. Ok...if you know me, then you know when I get really stressed or really angry, I cry. Crying seems to bother people, and I hate that. Today it was just stress boiling over the top and out through my eyes in the form of tears. The principal (who I really do love - she's been awesome) looks at me and says "Bless your heart." LOL I stopped crying and explained to her that I've been really stressed about school lately because things seem to be so negative with M. I went on to say that I think we need to change the way we deal with M, both at school and at home - to catch him doing good things instead of always highlighting the bad things. He has started to internalize that shit and feels like he can't do anything right.

She told me that 3rd grade can be a challenge for most kids, but then add on M's issues on top and it can be explosive. Yeah...ya think? I told her, kind of bluntly, that the reality of the situation is that while being in 3rd grade may mean one thing for the majority of kids, for MY kid, we may need to slow the roll and get him on a positive note before we try to transition him to being more of a 3rd grader. We talked about social stories, talking to the counselor to find positive things about himself, "community service" for when he does have inappropriate behavior, not getting to go see a favorite teacher as a consequence for inappropriate behavior....lots of stuff.

I kind of unloaded on her.

On another note, I feel badly for his teacher that she has to deal not only with him and his IEP, but other "different" kids and their quirks. I cannot imagine that she has an easy job, and I really hate to push this issue. But I have to be an advocate for my kids - nobody else is going to do it. And when I see my kid coming home with so-so days fairly consistently, that tells me that the system we have in place isn't working. I need for my kid to come home with good days so that he can feel positive about both himself and school. Being the kind of kid that he is, it's important to foster a pleasant feeling about school in general.

I hope I didn't go too far, but I fear I might have.

When reality comes slamming home

I've spent the past 3.5 days in sort of a fun-induced haze. My friend Daniel, from northern Canada, has been here since Friday and he's been spoiling me with good company, good food and lots of movies and photo taking.

So today it was back to reality as I really haven't spent time with the family (read: the kids) this weekend. I went to pick up the kids from school and the lady calling numbers at carpool stops me and says M got written up 2x today, but our administrators are out sick, so you will get the papers tomorrow.

What did he get written up for? Well, I think one was something from last week that I already knew about. But the other one was for saying "son of a bitch" in the hall. He swears up and down that he didn't say it, that he said "son of a GUN" not the other. So I have an email in to his teacher to see what she says.

So I got all stressed out when the kids got in the car and pretty much grilled M to see what had happened. Then he decided he didn't want to do his homework when I wanted him to do it. But he's doing it now and I guess that's ok. At least he's doing it, right?

What I realized while walking into the house with the kids is that it is REALLY fucking hard to get back into the "work" mindset when you've been in the "fun, no responsibility" mindset for the past almost-4-days.

Parenting the ADHD child

No, this has nothing to do with biking and everything to do with my extreme frustration with trying to parent a child with ADHD, and some other alphabet bullshit.

1. He's different. He's always going to be different, and damn, life would be so much easier if everyone could just accept that instead of trying to force him into some pigeonhole. HE WON'T FIT.

Different isn't bad. It's JUST DIFFERENT.

2. We have some serious parenting changes to make in the next week or so or the headbutting will continue. And yanno what? It's not fucking worth it. It gets us nowhere except really fucking angry at each other. And I don't want to be that person anymore.

3. I refuse REFUSE to put my child on more medication to make him more convenient for society. He, at 8 years old, takes between 3.5 and 4 pills a day. He needs to be able to develop and grow, with our guidance, and learn that he CAN stop and think and make good decisions without depending on more medication.

4. I need to get back into the mindset I used to have...patience, healthy food within our budget, supplements, reading about ways to help him (and me...we can all benefit from this) and putting all that into practice.

5. For my own mental stability, I need to ride more. I need that outlet.

There. That doesn't sound so hard, now does it?

Right.

le Tour de Femme photos

Here are the first 40 photos in a slideshow:

Best. Cake. Ever.

So today is hubs 40th bday. Yep...the big 4-0. Do you know what that means? It means he's known me/been with me for exactly half of his life. He was 19 (almost 20) and I was 16 (almost 17) when we met and started dating.

Anyboob, I'm making him the best. cake. ever. because it's his birthday and I like to treat people special on their birthday.

Why is this the best. cake. ever. you might ask? Well holy shit! Lemme tell ya friend. Better yet, lemme lay the 'cipe on ya.

1 box Swiss Chocolate or Butter Chocolate Cake Mix
1 small box instant vanilla pudding
1 melted Hershey bar
1 1/2 cups milk
1 cup oil
3 eggs

Mix and pour into 3 layers. Bake at 350 for 15 - 20 min; or 2 layers for 30 mintues.

THEN...while the cake is in the oven...

Beat until creamed (heh...I said creamed):
1 8oz package cream cheese, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 c plain sugar
Add 2 8oz containers cool whip (softened, obviously)
Stir with your spatula; add 3 grated Hershey bars (I highly recommend freezing them before you try to grate them).

Ice that bitch and eat.

You can eat it off each other for that special happy birthday or just off a plate is good too. Have some milk available cuz it's chocolatey goodness.

Awesome...the scoop on poop

Please don't ask me how I came across this site. It's certainly not because I was looking for it. It was accidental...seriously.

In any case, anything you've ever wondered about that glorious substance that we humans make tons of can be found here!

BMX Stunt-y Goodness

A few weeks back I was driving around Cary supposedly doing errands...yeah...errands. I ran across some guys doing BMX stunts, so I stuck around for the show.

Here are a few of the hundreds of photos I took. I'm still going through them, but I thought I'd share what I have with ya.

7/22/09 Wed Womens Ride - CSH/GMW

This is a weekly womens ride I shot a few months back. Not sure if it's year round or not. Check out CSH's website for more details.

Slideshow:

Female Riders! Your Chance to Help by Riding

If you don't know about this ride, it's time for you to check it out...it's called le Tour de Femme.

Here's some info about it from the website.

I'm gonna do my best to be out taking awesome and inspiring photos of these ladies giving their time and money to do this ride.

If you haven't signed up already, do it now!

The Ride
le Tour de Femme is a women's only full and half metric century bicycle ride scheduled for October 10, 2009 in Cary, North Carolina. le Tour de Femme is presented this year by Grab My Wheel to Benefit the LAnce Armstrong Foundation and the local Angel Fund of Rex Hospital.
The Event
The mission of our all women's ride is to raise community awareness and funding for Cancer Research and Cancer Survivorship programs. The ride is open to all female cyclist, at all skill levels, to participate in a ride of 15 miles, 31.2 miles or 62.4 miles in length. The post-ride celebration will allow or participants to celebrate their accomplishments while enjoying refreshments and intermingling with one another and sponsors.
Packet Pickup
Packet Pick up will start at 4:00pm this Friday at Cycling Spoken Here in Cary. Packet pick up will go until 10:30pm that night and reopen the following morning at 7:30am.

The Voca People

Have you seen/heard these guys? They're impressive. Take a listen:

Fat Tire Festival

I had a great time at this year's Fat Tire Festival.

I love getting together with my biking friends! Seeing all the kids out there was awesome! And those 3 little guys on the striders...keep it up - y'all will be kickin' our asses on the trails in no time.

Just wanted to say how great a time I had and that I'm glad I got to go again this year. I look forward to next year! :D

4th Annual Fat Tire Festival Photos

I know it's a miracle, but I've processed all my FTF photos already. :D Go me!

Here is the slideshow from flickr. Flickr was having major issues tonight and the photos are out of order. Grrr flickr.

I have no idea how I found these, but....

welcome to shit you'll likely never (I truly hope you never) need....

click

Now, let's define irony.

How about the 10 most fascinating galaxies.

And now the Craziest Wall Hooks. I want the giant push pins and the hippo combo.

The most Creative Holders. I'm liking the human holders.