It was 12 years ago.

Honey,

It was twelve years ago on a somewhat cold and snowy Friday that we were married.

Nevermind that snowstorm the night before that sent your mom into a panic. She swore that all the family from Cleveland weren't going to come. They all made it and seemed to have a great time!

Nevermind that my grandpa was in the hospital, having had emergency eye surgery and he might not make it. He did make it though, with 45 minutes to get to the church on time. Just enough to get home, get in his suit and go! I was so surprised that he was there.

Nevermind that you burned the top of your foot earlier that week and thought that you wouldn't be able to wear shoes. I told you to go barefoot. I told you to wear rollerskates. I told you to do whatever you had to do to get to the end of that aisle. You were at the end of the aisle, smiling so wide that I think that for a brief time, you forgot about your excruciating pain.

Nevermind that my mom and dad were in a horrible accident about a week and a half before the wedding. Nevermind that the dumb guy at the hospital told me that my parents had been "Life Flighted" even though they were taken by "Life Line," the ambulance service that they have in Medina. Nevermind that though they were both feeling like they were smacked by a huge truck (because they were), mom still did the flowers and my dad still came to the university to try to fix my ailing windshield wipers that decided to quit working during a snowstorm that wedding week. Mom and Dad were both well enough to get themselves turned around and had a great time at the wedding. You would have never known by their joy that they were still a little stiff around the edges.

Nevermind that my sister's idiot husband who was separated from her decided to come to their home a week before our wedding, beat her senselessly which broke the blood vessels in her eyes, bruised her and made her look a wreck. She was more concerned about the wedding and the fact that she would not walk down the aisle with glasses on. She came out fine, pressed charges against him and was thinking about tick-tick-ticking down the aisle with a blind man cane to make her way. My sister looked beautiful. Her eyes cleared so that she could wear her contacts. She came to the house, did my hair and make-up, lied to the people on the phone that self-invited (of course we assumed that they got the invitation, never responded but knew they were coming so we put them on the list) and got that all handled. She took me to the car wash to get our car all sparkling. She threatened to hold me down and give me something to calm my nerves.

You see, I wasn't nervous about marrying you. Shoot, we knew that we were done with the dating bit after a week of having been together. We had talked about adoption then. Neither one of us found dating a pleasurable experience. We were happy to have found each other. What I had been nervous about was that the weeks before the wedding, I was still in school. I had gone through all the nerve-racking stuff on auto-pilot. It was my first moment to sit and fully take in the magnitude of all the crud.

I spent the morning of our wedding vomiting. My little brother held my hair back. I called you crying. You were worried. Again, it wasn't you. It was everything else. You were the one sure thing that I knew was good.

Our wedding was wonderful. It was everything that we wanted it to be. We were married in an historic old church in the middle of the traffic circle in the town where I grew up. The church was constructed such that the bride got dressed in the front room, exited and re-entered from the back. I still remember the girls carrying the train to my dress-- what ended up being an extended cathedral length train due to the fact that I'm so short that I had to have 11" cut off the length. The cars drove by and beeped. It was so much fun.

And yes, I wore tennis shoes. Mom and Dad know my gracefulness. They were concerned that I would fall in the snow and ice.

We had a candlelight service with my friend playing the pipe organ and my great aunt singing. My aunt had stepped forward only a week previous to the wedding to inform us that she would be singing. When Aunt Donna, a world trained opera singer, tells you that she will be singing at your wedding you tell her thank you and fit her in.

I still laugh thinking about how you nodded your head the entire time. So many people commented about how they were so touched that you were so much in agreement. Little do they know that you didn't pay attention to anything and that you nod your head when you are nervous.

You almost dropped the wedding band. Out of nervousness, you twirled it around on your shirt and I can only think what the look on my face was. I was chanting in my head, "DON'T DROP IT! DON'T DROP IT!" You didn't.

We didn't even light the place on fire when we did the unity candle. Oh the stories that would have come from that.

We had such a great time at the reception, but ended up a little late. Mom and Dad took my coat with my car keys. Pastor Henry went to the reception hall, got the keys and came back. Too bad they were the wrong set. The twins AKA the best men, decided to do a "Big Ben, Parliament Kids" around the circle and found us with NO way to the reception. They loaded you, me and my overly large dress into the Jeep Wrangler and got us off and on our way. You know what? I didn't even intend to get that big ole dress. I just loved it in the picture. It made me cry. The good tears, that is.

Did I say what a great time we had? My dad had the people at the reception leave the Star Wars cut-out's out. And yes, we still think that Eddie Michael got out with Yoda. (It's been the joke for years, Janeen. He probably didn't, but it's the joke that sticks, ya'know? It would be even funnier if he really did!) We had so much fun that we didn't even leave the reception until about 1 AM. I remember going back to our apartment with a cart load of wedding gifts and pushing them down the hall at nearly 2 AM, with a guy looking out of his door to see what was going on. Again, I was in my big ole gown and you were in your tux. I think that it didn't take long for the guy to figure it out.

Over the years, we've been through thick and thin. We've trudged through some things and happily skipped through fields of flowers on others. But as we had on our wedding invite:

If the sun refused to shine,
I would still be loving you.
When mountains crumble to the sea,
There will still be you and me.

Still is darlin'. Forever.

Love,

Amy

Silly Labels: A Post in Pictures

Yesterday I was cleaning my bathroom, pulled out the broom and realized something. My broom has customer support. Just look: It started me thinking. What other odd things might I find on everyday items in our home? I started to look. Here are more that I found.
Put your deodorant under your arms only. Now, I know that I do have one friend who uses deodorant under her bre*asts. I can only imagine the other places people have put deodorant. I've also heard of the feet, but I'm sure it goes farther. Oh, let us not forget the "external use only" statement. Are people trying to do some internal deodorizing? They are! Look! Don't eat it!
Make sure that you take the plastic overwrap off the soap. You'll know that you haven't done this if it isn't bubbling when you add water.
Disposal of ladies feminine supplies. Loved the illustrations.
Don't put Vick's up your nose. Can I tell you something? That is something that I grew up doing. I still do it if I can't breathe. I mean, I don't cram it up my nose, but I do put some on a Q-Tip and put it in that way. Who knew? Apparently, they put that one on there for me.
Don't ingest lip goo, kiddies. And yikes. I just noticed that it is Made in China. That ranks up there with the soap that my friend has in a make-up kit that says not to use it around your eyes. That, too, was made in China. She doesn't use the soap at all. I'm laughing at "Apply smoothy and evenly to lips." Do they know who this glittery princess lip goo is marked to? I mean, is it possible to get all those glittery hunks even?
Throw the bottle away when you are done with it. I would have never figured that out had they not told me.
Hard to read on this one, but this is my bottle of cleaner telling you in the caution section to make certain that you clean your hands before eating, drinking, chewing gum and smoking tobacco. Now if you smoke anything else, it doesn't matter.

Any good labels at your house?

The Thursday Report

I sit at the end of the day tired. No wonder. It was kind of a big day. It started out with K- having school this morning. We got her up and out the door. I skipped the car line so that I could take her Valentines treats in. They liquored the children up with a ton of sugar and gave them back.

While K- was at school, I ran by Walmart (I know, I just told you the other day that I'm not a fan and I'm not) so that I could pick up the new Pet Pals Leapster game for K- with her Valentines money from Grandma and Grandpa. I picked up some cookies for Grandma and my mom, a package of Whoppers for my dad and some fruit for my aunt. I spun by The Exchange, my husband's version of Bath and Body Works, to pick a gift certificate up for him. I drove by the Dollar Tree to get a balloon for Grandma because at 91, she really loves nothing else but sugary cookies and the balloon to go with. I had enough time to fly by home, drop off the packages that I got, scoop up the library books and shuttle onward to get K-.

That's when I got a very sugared K- from school.

We flew by the book drop, avoiding going into the library due to the high levels of sugar running through K-'s system. We drove by to see Grandma and Aunt Donna and forgot that Grandma had her Thursday morning Bible Study. We hung out, Grandma came back up. Everyone was happy.

K- and I came home, I started to clean the house but got all distracted by writing a Valentine's post to the Hubs. I got cleaning some more, cruised over to my parents house for "Valentines Tea" and a good bowl of soup. My dad decided to borrow my truck then came back to tell me that I had speakers blown. Hmmm. He told me that he had adjusted my stereo for me. (A big pet peeve.) When I got in, I re-adjusted my stereo, then called my dad from the driveway to tell him that I didn't have blown speakers, but that he had turned the sound all to the right and he turned the ASL on. I don't know what ASL stands for, but I'm guessing Automatic Sound Lightening, because that is what it does. You hit the brakes, the music gets softer. I understand that it is a safety feature, but when we first got the truck, I insisted that my Rusted Root CD was trashed. I told my dad that if he wants to run to the gas station in my truck again to KEEP HIS FINGERS OFF THE STEREO SETTINGS. Please. All he could do was laugh.

I came home, managed to finish cleaning the house (except for that stack on the kitchen table that appears to be multiplying faster than the stomach flu through a preschool) all the while Hubs was following me, being the peanut gallery. I threatened to beat him with the mop if he didn't step away. K- took him downstairs to play with Polly Pockets. She saw my need. That, and I called her to intervene. He said that he was teasing, but I'm tired. I'm cleaning and cleaning is not my number one favorite thing to do. I clean different than he does. If it drives him crazy, step away. You live in a clean house. Step off, dear love of my life.

Oh, I'm tired because of the freakin' howling winds last night. To say that I didn't sleep that well is an understatement. We had 150 MPH jet winds high up (according to Dick Goddard), so as they weren't ground level, they were very loud. What we did have were wind gusts upwards to 60 MPH, but we did have fairly decent sustained winds. I think that I was the only one who didn't really sleep. K- reported a good nights sleep. Hubs didn't complain. I ended up sleeping on the couch, as Hubs had the chills and I didn't want them. (He was busy fighting something off.) He's better now.

It brings me to now. I did have a discovery this morning after my night on the couch. I learned that eating with the Lipitor and not sleeping under an electric blanket helped with my not feeling jittery/dizzy this morning. I only had a slight bit of the jitters this AM. It was brief. While the jitters and dizziness that I had were not bad, I still had them and didn't like having them. Let's hope that I've figured their trigger out.

With that, a toasty bed awaits me.

Night!

The 25 Worst on TV

How many shows on this list did you watch? What shows are you surprised that you didn't see? The Bachelor, perhaps? (Because of the MOST DRAMATIC ROSE CEREMONY EVER!) I admit that there are several that I've watched! There are also a few that I never heard of, but thank goodness they didn't put Gilmore Girls on there. I love that show!

So take a walk down TV list lane! Laugh at how many things on there you may have watched!

Enjoy!

Works for Me Wednesday: Heirloom Seeds & Seed Starting

It's that time of year! It's almost that time where I clean out my garden window, dust off my mini greenhouse containers, hydrate my little peet pellets and get to planting. We do have a 10' x 10' garden plot in our backyard and I like to grow as many heirloom varieties of vegetables (and flowers sometimes) as I can. The kids know that they can come over, reach on in and eat as much as they'd like. Our green iguana stays outside during the hot summer days and the kids like to toss some garden offerings in for him to dine on, as well.

Over the years, I've learned one thing, I love my seed company. I purchase seeds through Baker Creek Seeds. From their website they say, "Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company's 2009 catalog offers 1275 unique heirloom varieties. We only offer open-pollinated seeds: pure, natural and non-GMO! [Genetically Modified] We offer heirloom seeds from 70 countries, including many that we collected ourselves. Started in 1998 by Jere Gettle, as a means to preserve rare seeds. We are located in the beautiful Ozark Mountains of Southern Missouri."

On January 31, 2009 I ordered (Eeek! With much excitement!!!)
Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Co.
- Old Homestead (Kentucky Wonder Pole)-- Green beans that you'll see below
- Danvers 126 Half Long-- Carrots
- Pink Surprise-- Pink flowers for the butterfly garden
- Evening Sun-- Brownish/burgundy sunflowers for the butterfly garden
- Genovese Basil-- To companion plant with tomatoes
- Bee Balm - Lemon-- for the butterfly garden and the herb garden
- Chives - Common-- for the butterfly garden and the herb garden
- Parsley Brayour-- for the butterfly garden as a host plant and in the herb garden as an edible
- Collards - Georgia Southern (Creole)-- for Spike, our green iguana
- Arkansas Traveler-- A nice, round pink tomato
- Royal Chico-- A paste tomato

Let me take you on a trip from seed starting to picking here at the land of Bailey's Leaf.

The seeds start out in the little pop-up peet pots under the greenhouse. I raise and lower the lid each day to help vent the little grow house. I also place a heating pad underneath on low to help encourage germination. You can see the cord for the heat pad off to the left.

Look! Success!

When they are big enough, my kitchen table becomes a potting table and I transfer all of the plants into these tall plastic cups. I label the outside with Sharpie so we have no surprises of what it is when vegetables develop. And no, I don't punch a hole at the bottom of the cup. By having the plants in these cups, I can see root development and how much water they need.

The flowers I tend to leave in the flats. These are Soapwort and Flax.

This used to be our compost pile. Being a compost pile has its advantages and disadvantages. First, the soil is so much better now after 5 years. The disadvantage? You get a lot of volunteers. (You'll see those later.) The green box? That would be the leftover flower box from my friends house. It used to have her address on it. It's now a lettuce box. We still had the materials for the fencing from when we did a garden plot here once before, so we didn't have to do anything with that. We put some single pickets around the side to keep the soil from washing out of the garden plot. (By the way, the funky red fence is not ours and we cannot paint it. Believe me, I wish that we could.)

Look! Things were growing!

And growing.

This was one of the tomato plants. I can't recall which one.

The Arkansas Traveler. A nice, round pink tomato.

I decided to do Kentucky Wonder beans instead of bush beans. I really didn't have the space for the bushes. I took an extra large tomato cage, did a bit of zig zagging with some twine, cable tied the tines together and voila! I had my own bean growing trellis. Might I add that it worked very well! I'll be doing it again this year.

Speaking of beans, aren't they beautiful? I also planted them along the back section of garden fence. Gosh how I love green beans!

My baby collards. These were for Spike our green iguana. The kids love to pick tomatoes and collards for him. He loves them for it. In fact, when he is outside, he almost begs like a dog for his treats. It's kind of funny!

See! There he is! He's sunning himself. He's a big boy.

Remember how I told you about volunteers? Um, yes. These would be a ton of them. Next year I'm just going to have to do the Dr. Kervorkian and take 'em out. Live and learn.

Here's another regular delight we find in our gardens. We get some pretty healthy yellow garden spiders. Don't worry. They don't want you. They don't want me. They don't want K-. They just want the bugs that my garden has to offer. Since we grow organic, there are many bugs. Just ask all of the Japanese beetles that feel the need to come live here. They de-foliated my purple plum tree in the front yard and love to eat the living daylights out of my Kiss Me Over the Garden Gate. Yep. Nothing goes hungry out in our gardens. The neighbors pond hatched little frogs that moved into our yard. We would go organic anyhow, but we have a butterfly garden in the back and if we used any chemicals, we risk killing the very butterflies that we are trying to attract.

Here is my herb garden. When we moved in, no flower beds were here at all. The limestone went right up to the house. I think that it is much prettier and much more useful now. I have lavender planted under the windows, chives, onions, sage, a few different types of thyme, dill, chamomile, oregano, pineapple sage, and parsley but the butterflies always get to it first and lay their eggs, so we often don't get to eat it as we are trying to let butterflies do their thing instead. We do spread a net overtop to keep the developing catepillars safe.

Happy gardening! It'll be here before we know it! I can't wait!

Edited to add: Look what came in todays mail! Hooray!

Tales from the Trenches: Adoptive Comments

My husband and I have always been completely open with the details of K-'s adoption. Our feeling was that if there was someone out there that we could help, we would. In fact, we have. Along the way, we've had some really dumb stuff said to us.

"There's no way I could ever adopt." -- I understand this, as adoption is not for everyone. However, we had the husband of a good friend of mine say it to my husband. I had my hair stylist say it to me, all the while she was in the throes of infertility. (Though good to know her limitations.) We also had our Christian tax man tell us that as he was preparing our taxes the first year that we had K-. He was also unaware of the details of the adoption credit-- the largest tax credit available in the United States-- and seemed not interested in finding out what he would need to know. We fired him.

As I said, we understand that adoption is not for everyone, but everyone knew the pain and the details of what we went through and the final joy of where we were at. They just needed to keep their big fat pie holes shut.

"I could never imagine raising someone else's child." -- Don't worry. They aren't someone else's child, that is unless that is how you treat it. We view K- as a complete and utter gift from God. Truly, that child was held and kept safe only by Heavenly hands themselves. With everything that her birth mom had been involved in, there was major Heavenly protection. K- has been with us since she was a day and a half old. We are the only parents that she has ever known.

"Oh! You adopted! Where did you get your baby from?!" "The county south of us." "Oh." -- I understand that I am going to offend some people with this statement. Just hear me out. We did not adopt to be viewed as heroic. We adopted to be a family. I doubt that there are many adoptive parents that do adopt for a title of being heroic. We adopted because it was our hearts calling. Our hearts calling was to domestic adoption. We knew that we specifically wanted a county adoption, as we felt that those children were those most left behind. However, so many times we were given the unexcited "oh" when we said that we adopted a county kid. People want to hear stories of how you trudged out to far off lands, went by boat, Jeep, and critter caravan to get out to some remote location. It's like we disappointed people by saying that we were "in and out of labor and delivery in an hour."

"It's so much harder to adopt here than it is internationally." -- Untrue. Totally and completely untrue. We had friends that started their road to international adoption about three weeks after we started on our domestic, county adoption. Initially, they chose to adopt from China. They were both under the age of 30, which was too young for Chinese adoption standards. Then they chose Haiti. They flew to Haiti to pick out a daughter from an orphanage. They went through the adoptive coursework through an adoption agency, had all of their shots, home inspections, passports and the whole nine yards all together. The daughter that they chose? W- is still in Haiti. They couldn't get her out. Political unrest makes it far too dangerous for the director of the orphanage that W- resides in to be able to take the paperwork into Port Au Prince. Then they chose Ethiopia. They got an e-mail about their son L-. They were given 2 weeks to go to get him. They pulled everything around and successfully got there and back. He was 22 months old. He and K- are one week apart in birthdays. He was sick. He had worms. He had Giardia. He had Latent TB that caused him to be on medications for 9 months. He was tiny. His teeth will be a continued project for them, as they show that his nutrition in utero was less than wonderful. He came with baggage. L- is a good kid. He is friends with K-. He has a great family that is supportive, but he has some issues to work through. We are fortunate to have an adoptive health center at our local children's hospital that has helped our friends to work through the health issues that L- has had. He is well and developing right on target.

[While standing in line at funeral calling hours, a church member turned to me and started speaking about the daughter's of the gentleman who passed away. One had adopted two children and one had one child by birth.] "You know, B- was the ONLY daughter to give him a grandchild by birth." My response? "Yes, and what does that matter?" Her response? "Oh, look who I'm talking to." -- In other words, she forgot that I was an adoptive parent. I could see how that could happen as K- has just been with us for all but 36 hours of her life. However in forgetting that little fact, she was honest in how her heart felt. How so sad.

"Oh, you can have more children!" -- Um, no. When the doctor tells you after you say, "God forbid, should I get pregnant again what do we do?" Her response was, "We'll take care of you the best that we can and pray." I was given a 90% chance of severe pre-eclampsia reoccurring. Nothing is going to make my blood clotting disorders-- which caused all of the problems that lead to Bailey's death-- go away. We could have attempted heroic measures, but again-- we always knew we would adopt. To us, it wasn't a last ditch. We knew that we would always adopt, period. It took 11 1/2 months for me to get pregnant with Bailey. We had already decided that if it was a tweak with vitamins here or there, it would all be good. We would not take fertility treatments. For us, there were plenty of children that needed good homes and it wasn't a requirement that they have our genes. Again, no offense to those who have gone the fertility drug route. It is not the route for everyone, though.

"I could never trust someone else's genes." My response? "Yes, well sometimes your own genes aren't an option. Besides, your own genes are a crap-shoot as well." -- In the book, The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren there is Chapter 2. I called it K-'s adoption chapter. It is entitled "You are not an accident." It talked about how God knew exactly who your parents would be, regardless of whether those would be the actual people God meant to raise you. I cried so hard when I read that chapter. When I read it aloud to Hubs, I couldn't even see the words on the page. I have an absolutely wonderful, albeit cranky kid sometimes, that is beautiful and surprisingly looks like my husband. She has big green eyes, long light brown hair, is tall, a solid build and athletic. We laugh and say that breaking away from the gene pool was a good thing for her. (Neither my husband or I are particularly athletic. Okay, Hubs isn't that bad. Me? I'm dreadful. I can hammer a volleyball really well, but outside of that-- I've got nuthin'.)

"Aren't you so glad that she is white? I mean, it makes your life so much easier." -- I could have absolutely fallen over when I was told this. It was a family member who said this and it was the first time that she was holding K-. K- was a few months old at this time and I did about die. "No. It made no difference to us." It did make a difference to family members though. We made no bones about telling people that we did not care what the race of the child was that we would have placed with us. We also made no gender specification. In the beginning, we had family members give us brochures on international adoption because to adopt an African-American baby, "What would the family think?" "I don't care. If they have an issue with it, that is their own problem. If we have a child of a different race and they are treated differently, we will not be in attendance at family functions." Oh, this flew like a giant lead balloon. My mother had a concern, but I appreciated her asking it. We wanted to have anyone ask anything that they wanted so that we could be forthright and honest with our answers. We wanted to lay everything out that we could on the line so that there were few surprises to family members when our bundle of adopted, lovin' goodness arrived. Mom asked, "If you adopt a biracial baby, then who would they marry? I mean, what if they married into an African-American family?" "We could care less. Just as we don't care about what race our child is, we do not care about the race of who they marry. What we do care about is that whomever it is that they marry, that person treats them wonderfully. Besides, they wouldn't be the only biracial child out there anyhow." At least with my mother asking, we were able to have a conversation bringing up how we want to raise our child. By the way, my mother was the same one who encouraged us to take K-'s biracial brother on a temporary foster basis when K- was only 18 months old. He was born a preemie and had some health issues. She had changed her ideas quickly and wanted us to take him for even just a few weeks, so that K- would have the opportunity to have a sibling in home. Family was interested in having him, which is where he is now. My mom and dad got over their prejudice nature very quick, which needed to be done quite some time ago.

I had the father of a friend pull me aside as we were visiting his daughter-in-law at the hospital to give me his opinion of telling K- that she was adopted. He thought that it was insane and not necessary. "Why would I not tell her? It is a part of the story of how she came to us." He told me about how he felt that it was unnecessary and would make her feel different. "How do I explain the siblings that we have a relationship with?" Oh, he was not in favor of the open family/sibling relationship, either. For us, it is K-'s family. They are their own hodge-podge of kids, but she can look at someone-- particularly her sister J--- and know that there is someone out there that she looks like. She knows that they are her family. The kids have a unique bond. The siblings of sibs are treated just like blood brothers and sisters, as well. To us, brothers and sisters don't come in halves-- they are whole. K-'s whole family is a different structure than what the general most have, but we are thrilled that she has biological family ties.

Please don't think that all the feedback on adoption we've received is negative. This is just a small example of things that I beg everyone not to say. We love our babies. Our parts may be broken. Our parts may not be broken. However, it was all of our hearts desire to adopt a child, bring them into our homes and give them a wonderful life. They are our children. They've always been our children. We just needed the court of law to give us the legal paperwork that says that.

My Mama: The Diagnosis

Mom will be okay! Turns out that she is Anemic and has a Urinary Tract Infection. The doctor also told her that her blood work showed that she was having an allergic reaction to something. He said, "What's with that?" She said that she told him that she was going to wait until he was done, but since he asked she pulled out the paper of information that I told her and started reading. He said that I was very right and that she had "a very rare and serious allergic reaction to Tetracycline." Um, HOW DID HE NOT KNOW?! What he did say was that my mother's blood pressure of 140/110 was very, very concerning on Friday. But, her cholesterol after having had egg pie last week? A solid 130. God bless her. She at least has me on that.

So, my internet detective work wins today. I'm glad it helped my Mom out. I was so worried about her and am so very thankful that all of you belted out a prayer for her.

Thanks for the love!

I Was Googled and I Didn't Feel a Thing!

(Title credit to the artist who made the found object pin that we have at work. I knew that I could use that saying one day! I'm sorry, I have no idea of who the artist is right at the moment.)

My patrol runner on the blog tells me some funny things. I have people who have popped in from all over the world. Hey! I'm glad that you are here! I thought that I would share with you a few searches that made me giggle.

1. How the Amish remove blood from clothes? My WFMW post on laundry touched on removing blood from laundry, but not Amish blood!
2. Bailey Leafs -- poor person. I think that they were hunting for the spice, bay leaves.
3. Bailey's [a contest for drinking Bailey's]-- Ooo, rude awakening since we are an alcohol-free blog. I was definitely not what they wanted.
4. Vick's Cough Remedy-- I did a post on the internet Vicks cough thing on feet. Hopefully, I'm trying to save the world from slathering their children's feet in Vicks because it doesn't work.
5. Eating Snow-- I've gotten a ton of people hunting to see if eating snow is okay. I did a post on that. My findings? Inconclusive. Personally, I say no thank you.
6. "Story fell asleep snowed slid down on leaf"- Honestly, I have no idea why I came up.
7. "Place cupcake in cello bag and tie with ribbon"- I'm thinking that with the description that they put in, they pretty much have it as long as they have the cupcake, cellophane bag and ribbon.
8. "Dye lot lazy boy"- Ah yes. This would be about the couch that wanted to stay at my house forever even though it was delivered brand new, but damaged.
9. "Woman skates narrow-heel high-arch"- Other than reading about my child with freakishly difficult-to-fit feet-- narrow foot, narrow heel and high arch-- I don't think that I was of help at all. Well, maybe they felt better that there was a mommy who is running around NE Ohio trying to find decent shoes to fit AND stay on her child's feet. Maybe it made them feel better.
10. "Tercel snow"- Hubs has a Tercel and drives it in the snow. It's drives well when it has good tires on it.
11. "Collar bone big"-- Haven't a clue. My collar bone isn't big. I'm more of a petite build.
12. "Non baking cookie balls with bailey's cream"- Not me.
13. "How do you clean the newer polly pocket clothes"- I can tell you how to store them. How to clean them? Just don't get them dirty! :)
14. "Walmart fabric"- Actually, I hear that Walmart will stop selling fabric (which I believe since I saw all the fabric on clearance) but I'm more of a Joann's kind of girl.
15. "Pudding skin singles exacto knife"- Seinfeld. Who knew that other people would want to read about it, too?
16. "Doggie bag"- How did I come up?
17. "Best organizer hair bow"- Why yes, thank you! I do make the Best Hair Bow Organizers!
18. "tennis racquet"Blogroll" inurl:blogspot.com site:blogspot.com"- Other than saying that I bought K- a tennis racquet to put in her Easter basket, I really don't know why I would pop up. Oh well. Hopefully my post gave them a giggle.
19. "Is amish friendship bread safe"- Ewww. I say no, but I'm outnumbered. Plenty of people eat it all the time, live to tell the tale and say it is delicious. It just defies all laws of food keeping. I'm sorry. It is just wrong.
20. "Recipe with devils food cake, mini marshmallows, chocolate chips, brown sugar, butter"- Sounds delicious. I hope that they found it, because that recipe isn't here!

So, what is the weirdest search that has come up on your patrol?

Sunday Miscellany

Hodge-podge day here at Bailey's Leaf.
1. Praise out for Harper's family. She's home!
2. I've taken a few Lipitor and didn't have my liver fall out. Is it wrong that I chased my first dose with a small bowl of ice cream? I mean, Rome wasn't built in a day people.
3. I'm getting the swing of this thumb splint, again. It's been about 9 years since I was saddled up with 2 months worth of hitch-hiker thumb. (I lacerated a tendon when cutting glass when I was tired. A surgeon had to whip-stitch it back together and I was not permitted to bend my thumb for 2 months, for fear that I would rip everything apart.)

4. K- found someone's purse in the Target family bathroom. She was excited to be able to have us turn it into the customer service counter. Never once did she ask what was in it. Never once did she think, as I did in the back of my mind, that someone might think that we had stolen something out of it. Turns out that as we were walking down the main aisle, a mommy with a child in the top of the cart were flying through the store towards the service counter. I only hope that it was her purse and that her heart attack of leaving it behind had soon faded.
5. It's another caffeinated day in the neighborhood. (Oh, I'm writing this post on Friday afternoon.) Occasionally, I get the migraine that accompanies-- um-- other portions of life. It's been bouncing around the right side of my noggin and in and out of my eyeball. Oh, I can't tell you how motivating that is.
6. It's supposed to hit 40 or better today, but it is almost noon and 25 F. I'm not completely sold on that whole warm-up. It did warm to 38 or so. Just enough to make that driveway a solid hunk of damp, slick ice.
7. My brother's transmission is in, but not finished. I got up bright and EEE early to drive over, get my niece and drive her to school. Aunt Amy woke up at 6 :20 AM to do it. I was rockin' the jammies and my oh-so-sexy hair wadded up look. Hubs commented later on it. Apparently, I was more attractive than ever. [Insert much much sarcasm here.]
I mean, really-- I have no idea what he is talking about.
I thought it was an incredibly good look.
8. K- took a light saber to school on Monday as a show and tell and one little boy went home and told his mom that "he thought that it was just the coolest! It lights up and makes sounds, Mom!" It was funny to hear her telling me about it while we were waiting for the Kindergarten meeting. Of course I went and told Hubs, who has beamed ear to ear since hearing that.
9. My vehicle is so filthy. It really is red. A really red red. You couldn't tell from this. What you can tell is how gross our weather has been. They have cut back on salt useage, well-- they say that they have. I can tell you, the inside does not look like the outside. Yikes. I think that I might try to resolve that today. (Back to writing on this Saturday morning.) See! I told you that it was red! Only $9.00 for a wash -- eek!-- but I just couldn't stand the filth any longer. The outside faucets are shut off right now, but I don't think that I would have wanted to do it myself anyhow. Well worth the investment, I think!10. At the continued writing of this post, Mom is on her way to have her blood work drawn. She said that the blood pressure medication that the prescribed did help her headache, but she is lightheaded. She wonders if she needs just a little bit more.
11. Now I wonder if my mom has suffered from an allergic reaction to tetracycline. I can't help but to notice that all of the symptoms that she had are on their allergic reaction listing. Just sayin'. By the way, she is beginning to feel a little better now that she has stopped taking it. She did have the ordered work-ups done today (Saturday) and we'll know more on Monday.
12. Do you know that laundry doesn't do itself? Yep. Mine is in a big bucket in the livingroom longing to be folded. K- has asked to watch "Rory Gilmore" which I may very well have to do. (Can you see her twisting my arm?) Must sweep the floor first, though.

13. I'm going to start making those baby items for my sister out of the 10 yards of fabric that I purchased at 7 AM at the day after Thanksgiving Day Sale. We were at Joann's and a few yards here and a few yards there ended up as 10 yards. Babyson thing will have a whole lot of handmade burp cloths, changing pads, nursing pads (for my sister, of course) made out of the tonnage of material. Oh shoot. I'm sure that there are other things I can make, as well.

14. I'm happy to report that I'm absolutely crazy and insane. I have gone through the "gift shelf" and I have nearly all the gifts that I need for kid birthdays and kid Christmas for this next year. Literally, I have 3 more gifts to purchase and I'm good. (I'm doing a WFMW on this in about a week and a half.) 2 are on hold to purchase closer to the birthday since my nieces tend to run in and out of what's in pretty quickly. Don't have a heart attack. I love clearances and follow my rule of 5.00 or less pretty religiously. But again, check back on February 18. I'll give you the scoop then.

15. You can get away with character band-aids when you have a kid in the house. My hands are horribly dry, cracked and now one finger is bleeding. I have Tinkerbell wrapped around my finger. It'll make people giggle. At least I think so!