1. This is my 100th blogger entry!
2. My template will change later tonight.
3. A new Halushki is set to be born today!

Happy Birthday Prince Halushki!

I've been tagged by pretzelina.


1 - Four jobs I've had in my life:

Dandelion Picker
Fried Chicken place
Convenience store clerk
SAHM-by and far the hardest, most rewarding ;)

2 - Four of my favorite movies:

Armageddon
Fools Rush In
Ten Things I Hate About You
Summer School.

3 - Four places I have lived:

McComb, OH
Bowling Green, OH
Bradenton, FL
Lebanon, MO

4 - Four TV shows I love to watch:

ER
Big Brother
Friends (repeats)
Sex and the City (repeats)

5 - Four places I have travelled:

Roswell, NM
Sante Fe, NM
Port Clinton, OH
Naples, FL
(pretty boring stuff as I've never been out of the country!)

6 - Four websites I frequent:

NOTI - How can you not like a group of bitchy women who enjoy each others company?? ;)
Sybermoms - I lurk, but don't post. They scare me.
MYP - Another discussion/debate board
Blogger - I heart my blog. I heart everybody elses blogs.

7 - Four of my favorite foods:

Blackberries
Hamburger Helper (I don't want to hear it!)
Avalanche Pizza - There is a reason they have won awards!
Pesto

8 - Four places I'd rather be right now:

In bed sleeping
In bed not sleeping
Alaska (It's way too fucking hot here)
Amsterdam

9 - Four people I am tagging:

Everybody that reads my blog has either already been tagged, or they don't have blog-but should *wink wink. So the ONE person I'm tagging is:

This Rainbow Family

Please think about using my referral link to sign up with freepay. If you search Freepay on google you will find that it is legit. It's a frustrating site to be sure, but in the end, hopefully, worth it. All you need to do is sign up, and complete one offer.

MY REFERRAL LINK

(please, please use my referral link! I will love you forever. Promise!)



Oh, and BTW....The pediatricians and nurses were quite impressed with the size of the paper wad Heathen DD managed to jam up her nose. She was not fazed by the nostril gear and tweezers at all, and is asleep now!

For the love of God, please quit shoving random items up your nose. If for some reason you cannot honor my request, at least don't stick your finger up your nose trying to caress your brain before I get the chance to retrieve it. It doesn't help, and now it's off to the peds we go.

Love,
Your Momma.

No, not a new curse word. The lovely Halushki linked the meyer-briggs test on her blog, and I felt compelled to take it. *Note: this is not the formal m-b test, and thus results may differ from the real thing. I thought I would "score" similarly to her since I could see myself in the characteristics of her letters.

Alas, I am an INFJ. What does that mean? According to Keirsey:

Famous INFJs:
Nathan, prophet of
Israel

Aristophanes

Chaucer

Goethe

Robert Burns, Scottish poet
U.S.
Presidents:
Martin Van Buren
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Fanny Crosby,(blind) hymnist

Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Fred McMurray (My Three Sons)

Shirley Temple Black, child actor, ambassador

Martin Luther King, Jr., civil rights leader, martyr

James Reston, newspaper reporter

Shirley McClain (Sweet Charity, ...)

Piers Anthony, author ("Xanth" series)

Michael Landon (Little House on the Prairie)

Tom Selleck

John Katz, critic, author

Paul Stookey (Peter, Paul and Mary)

U. S. Senator Carol Moseley-Braun (D-IL)

Billy Crystal

Garry Trudeau (Doonesbury)

Nelson Mandela

Mel Gibson

Carrie Fisher

Nicole Kidman

Jamie Foxx

Sela Ward

Mark Harmon

Gary Dourdan

Marg Helgaberger

Evangeline Lilly

Tori May

I have discovered that there is a way to put polls on ones blog. Of course, I set right out and signed up. Then I sat at the keyboard, and stared into space trying to figure out what I would ask in my first poll. As usual I reverted to the juvenile thinker in me.

What Is Your Favorite/Most Used Curse Word? (any variation counts)
	Fuck
	Damn
	Ass
	Shit
	Bitch
	Dick
	Cunt
	Other (leave a comment!)
	I don't curse. It is not lady-like.
Free polls from Pollhost.com

One thing of note was the user agreement from pollhost. You must be over 18 to use it, but cannot post adult content. Yes, I know what they were going for, but it still made me guffaw.

I'm also not supposed to post offensive material with the poll. I'm positive at least 25% of the world will find those words offensive. I'm taking my chances.

So I have a one of those "wonderful" womanly problems. It begins with Y and ends with an itch. I've been dealing with it for about 5 days with just acidipholus capsules and good diet, but broke down tonight for the nasty OTC medication.

One of the many causes of the Yitch is pregnancy. So before use, I wanted to POAS to confirm that I am not infact with heathen. We have not been TTC, and the odds of DH's spermies storming the fort thru the latex are relatively slim. Yet, I felt the need to make sure just in case.

2 lines showed up clear as day immediately.

As I sat there I start to mutter "no, no, no", and shake my head in the negative. This.cannot.be.happening.

I fly out of the bathroom in a fury to find my partner in crime, who at the time was sleeping peacefully.

I poke him awake and shove the stick in front of his face. He jolts out of bed and stares at it.

"What is that?" He asks.

"That is a positive pregnancy test!"

He grabs it out of my hands, and stares incredilously. I am busy looking for the insert that came with said stick to find out what on earth would create this obvious false positive. My heart is in my throat. I can hear every gushing heartbeat banging in my ears.

I snatch the insert up, and eye the positive results diagram.

Blushing, I must tell DH that the brand we used does not rely on two lines, but rather 3. A control line, and two lines that intersect as a + .

I was in fact an idiot. A very relieved idiot.

Well, when you are the proud mother of two very young heathens you get creative. Whatever works.

"Simon says-Pick up a toy, and put it in the toy box!"

"Simon says-Pick up an item of clothing and put it in the hamper!"

"Simon says-Eat one more bite!"

"Simon says-Brush your hair!"

Yep, Simon and I are tight.

Fisherman Blues

Another lady I "know" from the now defunct TPP. Her husband is deployed in Iraq, and she is raising the sweetest little Bean by herself right now.

Her entries run the gauntlet. From amusing baby and first-time mommy stories, to sentimental musing about her DH. She may just be the sweetest momma on my sidebar.

Fisherman Blues

I was looking thru some of my old photo albums for special someone. Sadly, I didn't find any of the person I was looking for, but I did find 3 of me I'm not too embarrassed to share. Beware they are digital photos of real photos!

Baby Me:


Little Me:


And gosh aweful glamour shots teen me:


Thanks for looking!

and all I got is this lousy magic ink cube blog entry ;)

1. Are DH and I soul mates? (I don't particularly believe in soul mates)
Tru Dat! (Awwww)
2. Will we ever renew our vows?
Could Happen!
3. Is DH going to surprise me with flowers? (I know he isn't LOL)
Tru Dat! (no really, he isn't)
4. Will I get laid tonight?
No Way! (*snort*)
5. Will we ever celebrate our 30th wedding Anniversary?
Tru Dat!
6. or Will DH leave me for his superstar crush Meg Ryan?
Tru Dat! ( I knew I hated that bitch for a reason!)

I swear if I ever hear one more white person go on and on about how affirmative action is/was a bad idea I'm liable to explode into a million shards of white hot fury. Clearly there is so much more that needs to be done as evidenced by this article:

Washington Post Article
Study Finds Bias In Mortgage Process
By Kenneth R. Harney
Saturday, June 17, 2006; Page F01

Does your race or ethnicity affect the interest rate or fees you're quoted on a mortgage? Do mortgage brokers offer the same deals to African American and Hispanic applicants with identical -- or superior -- incomes, credit scores and employment histories compared with white applicants?

Do they treat people of different racial backgrounds differently -- spending less time discussing loan options and features with minorities, and routinely pressing them to reveal credit problems and outstanding debts?

Federal law is absolutely clear on the subject: Race and ethnicity should have no bearing on the cost of your mortgage or the quality of service rendered to you as you shop for a loan. But a new, two-year investigation in six metropolitan areas suggests that mortgage quotes are not always colorblind.

To the contrary, the study, which used "paired" mystery shoppers, documented what its sponsors call "pervasive discriminatory and predatory practices by mortgage brokers" in all six markets. The paired testing was conducted by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition with funding assistance from the Department of Housing and Urban Development from February 2004 to early June 2006.

The six markets tested were Baltimore, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, St. Louis and Atlanta. In each area, African American and Hispanic couples or individuals visited the same mortgage brokerage firms as white shoppers, all purporting to apply for home loans of similar amounts. All the applicants were assigned specific income, credit and employment profiles to present to loan officers. African American and Hispanic applicants had slightly higher incomes, better credit scores and longer employment backgrounds than their paired white colleagues making separate applications at the same brokerage firms.
The minority applicants should have received the same -- if not better -- mortgage quotes as the white testers. But they often received less favorable treatment. For example, according to the study sponsors:

· Brokers discussed loan fees with 74 percent of the white shoppers but only 31 percent of the minority shoppers. Yet loan fees -- "points" and a variety of other charges -- can add significantly to the out-of-pocket costs of one mortgage compared with another, even if the interest rates are the same.

· White applicants were presented twice the number of loan options -- different rates, fees and structures -- than were presented to African American and Hispanic shoppers, who were often steered toward high-cost subprime mortgages.

· Brokers discussed fixed-rate first mortgages with 90 percent of the white applicants but just 56 percent of the minority applicants.

· Seven percent of white applicants were "referred up" -- told that they could get a better mortgage deal elsewhere -- but not one African American or Hispanic shopper with superior credit profiles was told the same.

· Only 9 percent of whites were pressed for details on possible credit problems, late payments, outstanding debts or prior foreclosures compared with nearly 40 percent of all minority applicants.

· Brokers spent more time discussing loan options with white applicants -- an average 39 minutes -- than they did with African American or Hispanic applicants, who got an average 27 minutes.

In an interview, David Berenbaum, executive vice president of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, called the investigation results "deeply disturbing." When minority applicants simply walked into a brokerage office, he said, sometimes "there appeared to be a working assumption" that they were not as good credit risks as whites, no matter what their actual profile.

As a result of the study, the coalition has begun filing a series of complaints with HUD's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. The first complaint filed was against Allied Home Mortgage Capital Corp. of Houston, which has brokerage branch offices around the country.
The complaint alleges that Allied brokers are "quoting different interest rates and fees on the basis of race" and steering African American borrowers to higher-cost subprime mortgages even when they are fully qualified for lower-cost, prime-rate products.

Allied brokers "did not treat African American mortgage applicants as seriously as their white counterparts," Berenbaum said in testimony June 9 to a Federal Reserve fair-lending hearing in Philadelphia. They were given less time, less exposure to important loan alternatives and rates -- "all of which resulted in limited access to credit products."

Tony Musgrave, general counsel for Allied, said the company had not yet received a copy of the coalition's complaint, and therefore could not comment on it. However, Musgrave said, "any such discriminatory practices would be an absolute violation of company policy."
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Ugh, I'm speechless.

Since I'm not personally in a "bloggy place" right now, I figured I would highlight those on my sidebar once a week or so, when I have nothing to talk about. LOL! I'm just going to go right down the list!

All Hail Suburbia
I "met" AHS at a now defunct website called TPP. I had seen her screenname around, but that was about it. One night I decided to venture into the nightly chat, and she was there. She was immediately friendly, and made me feel completely welcomed. She even told me her real life nickname. Turns out she had been drinking, and was a tad bit tipsy! The next time I saw her in chat she was a little freaked out I knew her name! She probably doesn't remember those exchanges, but they make me smile.

She takes gorgeous photos, and often features them in her blog entries. I have been reading her since she started writing it, and she is most often the persons blog I click first when I'm in a reading mood.
All Hail Suburbia

Oh, the annual outlaw camping trip. Love the outlaws, hate the trip. I have a very bad record with this trip that goes something like this:

• 
  First time we went it was June, and I was 6mo pregnant with my DD. I was walking to the outhouse without a flashlight when I fell over one of those fire pits made out of hard heavy metal. Belly flop onto the ground. Broke my first bone/toe, and had a pretty sore leg the entire trip.
• 
  Second trip it was July 4th weekend. It was so hot, and the campgrounds were packed! Heathen son was wild. Heathen daughter was 9mo, and still BF. Course the outlaws would have been disturbed by anyone NIP, so I nursed at least 3x a day in a overheated tent. Fireworks idiots kept lighting them off right over our tent where our kids were sleeping, and we had to keep shaking off the tent. I begged Heathen Partner to let us go a hotel for the next night, which we saved up for, but he declined. Really was just no fun for me at all.

This time we opted to only go for one night, and stay in a hotel because we thought the campground would be jammin again. It wasn't. It was supposed to be hot as hades. It was. MIL and FIL convinced us not to bring any food because they would "take care of all that", but when we got there they had nothing but soda! Luckily, we had an awesome breakfast with them at a local diner beforehand so we weren't too worried about food. We went later that afternoon to check into our hotel, and fed the kids some cheezits. We were gone for about an hour and a half. When we got back the IL's were gone. Grocery shopping we were told. Well, 4 hours after they left they came back with minimal groceries. My young children had subsisted on more crackers and chips, but by 6:30pm we realized that nobody planned on cooking family dinner until 7-8pmish, and we had nothing for the kiddos.

So we left for the night, and got our kids a meal. I'm not pissed pissed, but DH was. They had him convinced that we shouldn't bring a cooler for food or anything, but really had we thought about it, we should have. That is just the way they are. Heck, we didn't even want to go. We told them we would prefer not to have to travel on 4th of July weekend, but they really enjoy camping that weekend, and BIL had come up from MO, and they made DH feel guilty for not wanting to come. He's a sucker for his family ;)

Next morning it was raining hard. We told them we were just going to go home from the hotel, but they said it wasn't raining hard, and besides "You can hang out in our camper if it rains!" So we went out to the campground. There was absolutely no room for our family in the camper or under the screened tents. It was POURING. We stood around in.the.rain. for about 15 minutes and then left. Sigh.

Again, that is just the way they are. It really isn't a big deal, but we sure could have saved our money, stayed home, and relaxed. I really would have prefered it.
I'm just saying "no" to next years trip.

This may have to become a weekly/bi-weekly routine blog entry. Tonights questions are brought to you by two incidents that happened today. A) Falling all over myself, and spraining my ankle (same foot as my broken toe no less), and B) Part of our Kitchen ceiling falling in before we discovered our toilet had a leak.

(The magical ink cube is similar to the Magic 8 Ball ™ for those that don't remember my previous entry. I pose the questions first, then ask the magic cube for the answers after.)
1. Will we move by the end of August?Allrighty then.
May I just suggest to the alien population that reads here, that Queen Effervescent Life needs her weekly nap, and prefers Black Cherry Vanilla Coke rather than plain ole Cherry Coke. Just saying.....

There is an expression that makes me feel old. Oh snap! from wikipedia. I use it mentally a lot, but would be way too embarrassed to say it IRL. I'm hurdling across the divide from young'un to old lady I'm afraid.
I just know I'm going to be tragically unhip when my kids get older because I will still be saying "cool" and "awesome", and my personal favorite: "duh". Really, that's a requirement of parenting, I suppose.

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Few more blog links I plan to add to the new blog.
Sea. She is totally (totally? Wow, that is uncool) clickable!
Somewhere over the Rainbow. Somehow I don't already have her on my sidebar even though I used to read her regularly. I happened to click on her link last week, and realized I really miss reading her, and I have no idea how I lost her link.
Pie Is The New Toast. The name is a sort of inside joke, but the blogs focus is on recipes.

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Well, we went to the annual Fourth of July outlaw camping trip. That blog entry will have to wait though. I'm not done processing the incredible suck factor of those 36 hours I will never get back. LOL!