Date Night with Obe Wan

Well, my social J-Bird got invited over to a friend's house to spend the night. Obe Wan WAS not going to sit his bum in front of a computer all night. I decided we should go out for a date. I cleaned up---hard to do as NONE of my clothes fit. I found something and he even said I looked nice. I decided to take him to his favorite restaurant--Texas Roadhouse. We do love the delightful rolls there (and I wonder why I'm a fat butt....) Obe Wan knows this is his Portland Aunt's FAV restaurant, so he decided we needed to send her three pictures of him there!

Clue # 1: What restaurant am I enjoying?

Clue #2: Endless Peanuts

#3: SODIUM overload on cheesy, bacon fries!

After our french fries were delivered Obe Wan proceeded to knock over his COMPLETE DRINK! A guy across the way jumped up and helped pick up all his ice, wiped off Obe Wan's seat with his napkin and was amazing. Needless to say, we bought his dinner. What a great guy. You forgot that nice people are out there. More times than not we see something and turn our backs saying, "Well, that sucks." He came over and gave us money towards our tip as it wasn't necessary for us to buy him dinner. WOW. He still was nice.

We went to Wal-Mart after our dinner and bought us a POOL. A big 10 foot pool. Look at us go. We'll have that pool I want after all. Sweet.

Book Reviews ROCK! (Even if you are a rude cake....)

So, J-Bird and I reviewed a book and the author responded! How cool is that? Ms. Beth is also using his email in a tweet today! I'm so excited to be a part of things in the book world. So blessed to know such talented people!



We read:


You can find the full review at Books & Whatnot....Here is half of my review--or more like J-Birds:

My eight-year-old son approached and asked what I was doing. I told him I was reviewing/reading a book for Ms. Beth at Books & Whatnot. He informed me he would like to read it as well because it looks amazing. He is right. The cover does hook an eight-year-old, especially with the word "Rude" in large letters on it. So I let him read it.

From the eight-year-old after finishing Rude Cakes by Rowboat Watkins:

"This book does a great job of explaining how people can be rude and not have any manners. The cake doesn't even listen to his mom and argues with her at bed time. It has a one-eyed monster who does listen and is very nice. I really liked the one-eyed monster. He looks friendly. Mom, the cake learns to be nice to the crumbs because of the monster's example. Some of the people in my class need to read this book.

I couldn't have said it better. Thanks, Mr. Watkins. I will be sharing Rude Cakes with my son's classroom.

Tasting Cough Syrup aka Kentucky Bourbon Trail

Okay, so I promised the Gym BF when he comes to visit the Knob, Prince Charming and I will take him on the KY Bourbon Trail. Well, unbeknownst to me, this was also a bucket item list for my stepmom. She arrived on Wednesday and has now visited 7/9 of the Bourbon distilleries. Prince Charming and I joined her and my father on Memorial Day. I know where I will take the Gym BF and I know what I will not be drinking after the tour....

It goes down nice and smooth....and then you want to vomit after you have actually swallowed it. YIKES. That stuff is nasty.

We went to Jim Beam and Maker's Mark. My Dad and Step Mom had gone to four other ones as well. There are a total of nine Disterilliers on the tour. I will have to say after just two I am full of knowledge about Bourbons. I also know I don't ever need to drink the stuff again. Did I mention how nasty it was?

The main ingredients of a Bourbon is Rye, Wheat and Corn. It is anywhere between 8-135 PROOF. It is some strong stuff. I will say the Maker's Mark tour was the best of the two. You walk into the room of barrels and, according to our tour guide, it smells like the entrance to heaven. He was not far off. It was the most amazing smell. It was truly heavenly. I could stay in the barns forever. The Bourbon sitting in the charred White Pine barrels is the most heavenly sent this 36 year old has ever smelled!

Happy as a lark on his 43rd Birthday!

One of Prince Charming's favorite Bourbons is the Basil Hayden. It is made by Jim Beam. I think he would have just sat there and drank Basil, but there were so MANY options! At Maker's Mark we were given four glasses of whiskey. We were allowed to try up to 2 ounces of Bourbon. We were given the full proof stuff that hasn't been drowned in water all the way to the aged stuff.

Papa Jeff and Myra sampling
 at Maker's Mark

We were not given the Pappy kind. A bottle of that goes for upward of $60! WOW.  Prince Charming turned 43 the day we toured, so I let him dip his own bottle into wax at Maker's Mark. He thought he was pretty cool stuff!

We were allowed to stick our finger in the mix of yeast and grain. We could taste it. (It was still nasty!) It is a cool process of heating, vaporizing and aging this horrible tasting stuff. I have discovered I am a lone ranger. Most people enjoy drinking this stuff.
Okay, whatever works.

A self dispensing Bourbon machine! 

Cheers! Prince Charming drinking with the Father-in-law

The next tour gave us a credit card and allowed us to select whatever Bourbon we wanted. It was kinda cool.

I will complete the KY Bourbon Trail! You get a FREE t-shirt when you go to all nine distilleries. I do love a free t-shirt!

Memorial Day Visitors

THEY'RE HERE....I couldn't help but post a YouTube video from Poltergeist. It sums it up. The Wichita Nephew turned two, but he is still a hand full. (I believe all 2 year olds are hand-fulls, he just happens to be related to me!) 

The four cousins at dinner on Saturday!
I had a reason to use the dining room! WOO-HOO!

Wichita Niece

Wichita Nephew

My Dad and his wife arrived on Wednesday and left on Friday. (They would return on Saturday and leave for Kansas on Tuesday.) My Wichita Sister and fam showed up Friday evening and left early Monday morning. It was so wonderful to have my house full of my people. It was just like old times minus my other two siblings. The same, but different! Right?

We had fun showing them around the new house, the new town and the overall life on the Knob. It seems pretty boring most of the time, but with a house full of people it was wonderful!

I even talked my sister into giving my boys a haircut. The weather in KS was rainy ALL weekend, but up here in the Knobs it was beautiful. We couldn't have asked for better weather. It was so beautiful outside we couldn't keep little nephew inside.

Just last week Obe Wan was telling me he was moving back to KS after high school because his nose hasn't stopped running or not running since we got here. The allergies in the Knob are horrible.

So....what happens to the little nephew? Yep, a strong allergic reaction to who knows what in the air/grass up here that landed his his happy buns in the ER on Saturday night for a breathing treatment, a prescription for Zyrtec and steroids. I don't believe my sister will EVER travel anywhere again without an inhaler and the little guy's breathing treatment AGAIN. (DUH!)

Visitors to the Knob over Memorial Day weekend....

There's No Crying in Baseball!

Wichita Nephew is saying "Cheese"

Wichita Sister and Wichita Nephew
He was double dipping his nacho and trying to feed it to his Mommy.

YEAH! Visitors to the Knob is the best part of moving far away. It is like a little piece of Kansas floats my way. Wichita Nephew was back at my house and it was like the kid hadn't missed a beat. For adults time passes, but when you are two, February to May is just like it was yesterday! Little Wichita Nephew ran around here like it was yesterday! Too much fun. I had plenty of activities planned and all they wanted to do was HANG OUT at my house. HA! I will always be a tour guide to however comes to the Knob, but if all the guest wants to do is hang out, who am I to stop them?!?!?

I knew my brother-in-law was a huge Chicago Cubs fan and adores baseball, so I had to take him to see the home of the Louisville Slugger bat and to a baseball game at the Louisville Slugger Field. It was a great game! There was tons of good food, fireworks and awesome people!

Prince Charming had to be drug to the game.

Papa Jeff and Myra

The kids enjoyed going to the bouncy houses! On Sundays kids eat for FREE and they provide FREE entertainment. We brought my neighbor who is at my house more than his now....These four kiddos had a blast jumping around! 

Before the game, we did go to the Louisville Slugger Museum where Wichita Niece became her own baseball card. She enjoyed being the only kid on the tour. The two Jedi Knights didn't want any part of doing the tour again. It doesn't have a lot of glammar to it if you don't know any of the players. In this household they only know Colts football, so the Slugger Museum went amiss on my two. 

Wichita Niece

Obe Wan's Doctors Appointment

We went to Kosair Children's Hospital Thursday--six weeks after our initial visit to the Nephrologist. (This is a Kidney doctor.) We were told to change our diet to a no/low sodium diet, complete a 24 hour urine analysis, have some ultrasounds, some X-rays and blah, blah, blah. I had taken both
boys out of school for the day as my Dad and StepMom were coming into town and we were going to spend the day with them after our doctors/hospital visit. Easy as pie. I had simple plans. They were going to go on the Louisville portion of the Bourbon tour and we would go to the doctor/hospital. We would meet up later at Churchill Downs for some horse racing. I called the nurse on Tuesday to double check the times of all the appointments and get the address for the hospital. She told me she was glad I called because the doctor wanted to leave town for Memorial Day weekend and asked if I could move my appointment up an hour. We were the only appointment he had after lunch and if we could come as soon as our "stuff" at Kosair was done it would really help the doctor! SUPER. We could enjoy the family that was in town AND the boys were already out of school for the day. A-W-E-S-O-M-E!

If only it were that easy. It started out swell. We got to Kosair--a really cool children's hospital with interactive Kid stuff!

 The boys had with the mirrors! It was amusing to watch them.

We get to do a sonogram. I asked Obe Wan if he was having a boy or girl. He did not think I was funny. At the same time Aunt Ree texts me asking the exact same question. I read Obe Wan the text message. He starts crying. He does not think this is funny. I apologize as I don't want him upset as we still have several more tests to run and we haven't even seen the doctor yet.

We get everything done the doctor asked me to do. We go to the doctor's office. Mind you these places are two blocks away. We parked where I thought we would end up. He makes us wait--for ONE HOUR AND 36 MINUTES. After an hour I walked back out and reminded the nurse we were in the room. Man, was I hot to trot. I had rushed the boys through a snack because we didn't have time for lunch. I wanted to help the doctor get out of town and help us get on with our day. WHY, oh why, was he making us wait? I would have stuck to our original 2 o'clock appointment instead of arriving at his office at 12:50. I will have to say the boys were super. At one time they asked me to read the books in the office. I read all three--even the princess one. LOL!!!

So, he finally comes into the room. The first thing the doctor asks me is where are the test results for the blood work? What?!? I pull out ALL my paperwork and show him this is what I gave Kosair. Sure enough. There was the script for blood work. Well, darn it! He spends less than five minutes with us. He presses on Obe Wan's belly and back to have him tell him, Yes, In FACT it does hurt. The doctor tells me there is no calcium and no protein. Kidneys are working fine. You need to see a urologist as there is still a significant amount of blood in his urine. He tells me we need to go back over to Kosair and have the blood work done and another urine sample. (He had us give one at 12:50 when we arrived as well....) And you need to come back in 8 weeks. WHAT?!? Why the heck am I coming back to you--Mr. let us sit and wait for-e-ver. If my kiddo's kidneys are working fine, than no, we will not be back. Thanks, but no thanks. 

We went back to Kosair to have Obe Wan give another urine sample. (His 6th one since December.) He also had the blood work done. This will be put in the system so the Urologist will know the results. I have yet to hear from the Urologist (it is Monday, appointment was Thursday) and it is up to them to refer me on. 

Sigh. 

1. We will go see a Urology soon. (This Mama bear will be calling and reminding them to refer us on....)

2. We still don't have definitive answers.

3. Obe Wan was very upset as he doesn't know why it hurts to potty and he is ready to eat sodium!

4. I'm glad there is nothing seriously wrong with Obe Wan's kidneys.

5. We still made it to the race track.

Kansas girl gets to review a new spin on Wizard of OZ---Spelled by Besty Schow

I was born and raised in Kansas, the ‘Land of Oz.’ When you tell people you are from Kansas, even when they too live in Kansas, they will make a crack about red shoes, a dog named Toto or tell you “You aren’t in Kansas anymore….” I have seen the movie; I have read the book; I was given the part of the Lion in the play; I have seen the musical Wicked; I have read the series of Oz books by Frank Baum. I have been there and done that with the infamous tale of Kansas. I was a bit apprehensive as I started reading this book. Could this new author ,whose fame started from a nonfictional book, rewrite an old tale to a YA audience? This curious and apprehensive Kansas girl answers her own question with a resounding YES! Betsy Schow could hook this Kansas girl in a new and refreshing version of the Wizard of Oz with her book Spelled.

Dorothea is a young princess from the Emerald Isle. Her family has been cursed and she can never leave her home for fear of unleashing fire upon the earth destroying everything she encounters. Dorothea can no longer endure this hardship! She is forever trying to figure a way out of the castle, her curse and the life she has to live.

The evil witch Griz entraps Dorothea into making a wish to undo the happily ever afters of all stories forever. Dorothea, and her amazing Ruby shoes, must discover how her curse of Emerald flames can help save herself, her Prince charming and the people of the Stories. The fun doesn’t end with the conclusion of the book. Schow nicely sets up the end to continue into a series of more “glammed” fun with Dorothea in upcoming books.

The story is good, but the thing that got me, was at the end of every chapter was a quote from another Princess or story book character. There were snippets from their stories in relationship to advice Dorothea should take. The wit and humor of Schow was amazing. She uses explicit adult language twisted into fairy tale language. It is extremely clever and made for a truly enjoyable new spin on an over done story.  

Lookie what came in the Mail!

My UPS, FedEx and Mail person dislike me. Ever since I have moved to the Knob I have had a package of some sort delivered EVERY WEEK. Portland Sister sent me this pin from Pinterest. It sums it all up!!!

So, thanks to financial prompting, I got my hubby off his duff and made him do some online shopping for our Movie Room Theater chairs. Now, you would think since I moved to the Knob I would have ALL these great stores at the end of the crazy highway system here. HA! Yep, this is what I thought too. Boy was I so wrong. I went to SEVEN, yep, seven furniture stores and couldn't find a simple theater chair to save my life. I went to Best Buy and HH Gregg--two electronic stores who SPECIALIZE in said products--yeah, get this?!?! They don't sell theater chairs. What's up with that? Now, you can get loveseats that recline, massage your back and even come with a COOLER  in between the seats, but this is not a stream-lined simple recliner like you would find in a movie theater. I don't want a massage while watching a movie with my family. I have a bar within 10 feet of my theater room, so I don't need a cooler attached to the chair. I do not need to sit next to someone. I want a divider. I want my own cup holder. I want the person next to me to have their own cup holder. Such simple requests. SO EXPENSIVE TO find. Okay, so at this point, I was thinking WE CAN FINANCE. Who cares the cost? I just want to find simple, reclining black leather chairs with cup holders. I found some! YEP! At Nebraska Furniture Mart. They will even ship them for ONLY $6,000. Interest free for 18 months. WOOT. My Prince Charming about had a heart attack. WHAT? For Chairs. No way.

You know what this did? Yep, it prompted him to get off his bum and do his own research. Mind you, he never got in his car and had to deal with the big city traffic, but he did manage to find a place that had chairs at a GREAT price and they shipped them within a week. How is that for wonderful? Simple theater chairs at a great price and they came to me.

Movie Theater chairs 

Now the funny part---I wasn't home for the delivery. I had to get my hair done. My neighbor works from home, so he said that would be fine. He came over, opened my garage door and signed the sales receipt. You know how he signed it, "Billy Boob Thornton." I really think I'm starting to like my neighbor's smart-alec sense of humor. LOL! Too much fun!

Nice, beautiful colored up the gray hairdoo!

The treasure at the end of the Rainbow!

Isn't that beautiful? I have been doing a TON of yard work lately. On Friday it rained. It rained a lot. We needed it. I had just received another box in the mail from Breck's Nursery and needed to get the plants in the ground. I did...in the rain. I'm sure (if I could understand Spanish) I would have heard the workers next door laughing their rear ends off at my expense. I'm so tired of having people outside my front door each and every day. There is no peace. I find it is best to garden at 9 p.m. but this just isn't feasible. In the midst of feeling angry I looked up in the sky to discover a FULL rainbow. At the end of the rainbow was my lovely new home on the Knob. It takes more energy to be hateful and mean. It makes me stew and brewed and make a small problem into a huge mountain. I get so mad and play out different ANGRY scenarios in my head. My Wichita BF just put a quote up on her wall by Theodore Roosevelt, "Comparison is the thief of joy." Well said Mr. Roosevelt. How often we compare ourselves to others. How often we get ticked off about things that have NOTHING to do with us. How often we stew and brewed over things we don't need to be concerned about. I was glad God put that rainbow above my house. Keep it real. Keep it simple. The people at the end of that rainbow are the best things in my life. I need to be grateful and appreciate the here and now. I need to thank the Lord above for all that I have and I have everything I could possibly need...and so much more! I was glad I had a glimpse of the promise. His promise to us. What a beautiful sight.

Okay, I'm stepping off my soapbox.

Remember what Mr. Roosevelt said. 

Book Review: Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

I’m a fan of The Hunger Series, The Mortal Instruments Series and The Divergent Series….thanks to Victoria Aveyard’s debut series I have a combination of all the above. Due to the responsibilities of life, I usually can finish a book in a week—not this week. By chapter three of the Red Queen I threw heed to the wind (and all responsibilities!) and read all day and night to finish this book. From the nasty trenches of the ‘Stilts’ where our young protagonist, Mare Barrow, lives and her family is trying to survive, I was entranced. She is a member of the Reds; a group of impoverished slaves fighting for the eilte Silvers. She is a pickpocket lacking any skills to get her out of going to war—conscription as it is called in our story. Her father lost a leg and a lung from the war; her three older brothers were conscripted at age 18 and went to the war front to continue fighting for the Silvers. Her younger sister, Gisa, is an amazing seamstress who is saved from conscription due to her talent. Kilorn, her friend, was safe from conscription as he was apprenticed to a fisherman. As fate would have it, Kilorn loses his apprenticeship, leaving Mare to beg his freedom from Farley, a woman in charge of the Scarlet Guard—a secret group determined to fight for the freedom of the Reds. The characters are larger than life and hooked me!

Mare goes out to procure the funds for Kilorn’s freedom when she pickpockets a young man who catchers her in the act. This short encounter leads Mare to a job being a servant girl at the Palace- forever changing her destiny! During Queenstrial, a long standing tradition for Silvers to determine who will be the next queen, Mare is serving the elite when the floor shifts, and she falls to her assumed death on electrical wires. BUT she doesn’t! To her amazement, and the shock of the watching Silvers, she consumes the electricity making her all powerful. A Red cannot have powers! Only the elite Silvers can have unique powers and this low-life Red has shown she also has them. The King and Queen must explain this phenomenon and create an alias for Mare; she is the long lost Princess, Mareena Titanos to whom will be betrothed to Maven, one of the Silver Princes.  Mare is given a gift. She is now to be a Princess in the Silver family with power and fame: giving her inside secrets to help the Scarlet Guard overcome the Silvers.

Yogi visits FKE Spring Fling!

Who is Yogi? What is FKE? Okay, so FKE = Floyds Knobs Elementary. This is where the two Jedi Knights go to school. Who is Yogi? This guy:

 He is a Indiana University Basketball star! Now to us Kansas people, this didn't mean a whole heck of a lot, but to those who know him THIS WAS AMAZING! I had been on the planning committee for the 3rd & 4th grade Winter Social, but we were in Kansas for that party, so I missed out on this one. BUT we were here for the K-2 Spring Fling! It was awesome to be a part of something so amazing. Another Mom and I made table decorations and put pinwheels all over the place. It was a great event. I'm super glad to be meeting moms and being a part of an elementary school again! I'm trying to figure out how to get a picture of my banners to the blog, but I'm so "SMART" phone DUM....

The Haunting of Sunshine Girl is on the shelves and I REVIEWED IT. Sweetness.

I was at Target the other day and check this out....on the shelf a book I reviewed and got to read before half the population!

I was pretty stoked. I am enjoying reviewing books and the best part my boss had an author respond to one of my reviews. I'm not going to lie---it made my whole day! My last book to read was The Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard. It was out in February, but I still enjoyed reading it!

The Haunting of Sunshine Girl by Paige McKenzie Review by Ms. America:  (Taken from BooksandWhatnot.com)

I have a love/hate relationship with books that I know are going to be a series. You make me love you, but then you make me wait. This new series is a page turner from beginning to end, and Paige McKenzie brilliantly hooks the reader with Sunshine. The protagonist, duly named Sunshine, is a teenager who is uprooted from her life in Texas before she is to start her junior year in high school. The stage is set from the beginning of the novel by a voice telling the reader of Sunshine’s 16th birthday party and the moment when she blows out the candles by the slight chill she receives and the racing of her heart—momentarily there, but so slight that even Sunshine questions if she felt it.

The reader soon discovers the house Sunshine moved into is haunted by a little girl and the reenactment of her horrendous death. The reader won’t be able to turn the pages fast enough as the death is told in minute details. It was bone chilling. Sunshine has to figure out who has caused the little girls demise, as well as the personality change in her once best friend and mother. Sunshine must learn who she is in order to survive the hauntings of her home and save herself, and those she loves, from going past the light into the dark side.

Iron Man Costume

You want to know what happens when you take an eight year old boy to a new Marvel movie? Yep, he comes home and wants to be one! J-Bird took it upon himself to create an IronMan costume. We went to Wal-Mart (my mistake for taking him with me....) and he found new and improved masks there. My gut and instant reaction was you already have one of those.

No, he informed me, he has two. One is too heavy for his face. (Portland sister bought it and it actually shoots foam bullets from the mask and it is kinda heavy for his little face if worn ALL day, which if you are Iron Man you have to wear it all day, or at least have it ready when evil comes.)

And the other one smells. (Okay, the kid has a point. The other mask we found when exploring Santa Fe Lake once. It was during a really DRY summer in Kansas and the lake was dry. We were walking where 8-10 feet of water normally hangs out and much to our WONDERFUL discovery, was an Iron Man Mask. Some poor soul lost it off their boat, but TAH-DAH, we found it at the bottom of the lake. Bottom of lake = horrible smell)

J-Bird did have birthday money burning a whole in his pocket! Why not? Buy another mask. Well, you just can't have a mask---you have to have the whole costume. Sigh. I do have a new sewing machine and he DID happen to find a brand new with tags still on it white shirt in his closet. It was perfect. He even drew the pattern and brought it home from school. (REALLY?!?! Aren't they supposed to be learning and stuff? Nope, they had free DRAW time. JUST MY LUCK.)

We were off and going. He was measuring and designing. Now, I just had to cut and sew. JUST. What do kids think? J.U.S.T. Yep, let me put on my Super MOM cape and I'll get right on that...


He loves the costume. I hand sewed it so I could take it a part and not have to rip out too many stitches. I don't think it looks like IronMan, but he LIT up! He loved it. It was HIS vision, so whatever works.

My own little Iron Man!

Morning Walks

My Gym BF told me when I get bored to go for a walk. Although this seems like a horrible idea, he is right. I do have a lot of free time and I am constantly complaining about the summer clothes that are not going to fit me, so I'm trying to take a walk about 500 times a day. In the mornings the birds are chirping, the deer are out wandering around and so am I! Off in the distance of the Knobs you can see the skyline of Louisville, KY clear as day. It is a beautiful view. This morning it was rather foggy, but you can still see the tops of the buildings if you squint and look closely! I also have discovered the beautiful, leafy vines trailing up and down the knobs are pretty too look at, but DO NOT
TOUCH. It is poison oak.....

How do I know this you may ask? Well, as luck would have it I was cleaning up around my beautiful White Pine trees in my backyard and discovered trees and vines trying to choke one of them to its death. I could not have that!!! I can't wait to show off my beautiful White Pines to the Christmas Tree Farmer, so I will protect these trees at any cost. Apparently the cost is itching blistering pusses of noxious plant juice! I find Benadryl works for about 10 seconds and then I start doing something and before I know it I am itching while multitasking and realizing, OH NO! You are itching again. STOP. Oh fun times. Just to gross you out and because I had to go look at images on Google to find this and trust me, you don't want to Google this image. WoW. Some people are scary and gross looking. I have it mild compared to what I found on the Internet.

It is a bunch of dots, with several small blisters---they are all pus filled with the nasty oil from the plant. This oil is what causes it to spread. It is now from wrist to shoulder, from ankle to knee and on my face. I'm really trying to stop itching. Really, I am! I believe I will be going to the doctor tomorrow as the ones behind my ear are a mess and I'm sure will be in my hair by tomorrow. For the first time since I moved here I had something EVERY DAY this week. Sigh. No time for this Mama to be sick.

An image of Poison Oak, IVY or something of that noxious family:

Ended up going to the minor Emergency care center at 8:15 this morning. My face looks like this:

 Yep. If you are going to do something, do it to the best of your ability! It is UP MY NOSE. OMG. Steroid shot to the bum.