Photos by JFo

So I know that you all were expecting this much sooner, but , well, I just didn’t feel like it!  I would like to say though, that if there ever was a weekend in my life where I wish I would have been followed by a camera crew, this was it.  Between threatening to ration how many cigarettes the kids each got, to being told to be quiet so someone could hear what the bison were “saying”, the amount of awesome phases I hope were overheard out of context, is quite long and includes the following:

• Why doesn’t the head’s up display also offer song lyrics, karaoke style?
• You did kind of lick it, I saw- this was in reference to a root beer barrel I needed help opening while driving.
• This car is tits.
• Man, these bitches know how to treat a kid right! ( obviously, referring to ourselves)
• 9,980 more lakes to pass in Minnesota ( sung to the tune of 99 bottles of beer)
• Sorry, I have to Google with my right arm.
• I’d rather live a perfect life than have Instagram views.  Mom, I need to charge my phone.
• How do we know this isn’t some kind of zoo set up?
• You grabbed it in the wrong spot, you’re on your own.  Now just use your teeth to scrape it off the cardboard.
• Where my back seaters at?  ( This is extra hilarious after midnight, on the way home, over caffeinated, listening to sweet 90’s style rap)

Our trip was quite eventful.  We pulled out Thursday about 1 pm and made it the twin cities without incident.  It was there that the navigation system, in an attempt to avoid a backup, routed us off the interstate and onto surface street.  It was also at the time that a pretty awesome thunderstorm rolled through.  Having, some nervous riders, we had to pull over and let the rain pass and to be honest, it’s always a good idea to be able to see when you are driving.  We got moving again and were rewarded for our surface street detour with the appearance of a White Castle.  We had sit down dinner and then got serious about getting to Fargo.  We made it to the hotel in Fargo without incident and there was even time for the kids to do some swimming  in the fancy pool with the slide before bed.

It would probably not to surprise you to know that we slept later than planned Friday morning.  We got everyone together and were those people who went to breakfast in the pajamas.  We also used this as an opportunity to teach the kids to stock up on condiments for the rest of day.  They were not amused at this nor the fast the grown ups had the giggles and started laughing so hard, we couldn’t even breathe.  It was a great way to start the day.

We headed out for Theodore Roosevelt National Park and everyone was excited.  I knew that the park had peaks about 3,000 feet above sea level and you could tell as we were getting into the higher elevation ( we live at about 860 feet above sea level) because there was a lot of ear popping going on, so I suggested to my co-pilot that she could get an app on her phone to check our current  altitude.  Let’s just say she really took her duties as the human altimeter seriously.  It was amazing.  We finally made it to park about 4 pm and little did we know, the things we would see.

 

So because I do not have the complete understanding of WordPress I should, I don’t have the spam filters for the comments set up correctly on blog.  This means on any given post I get to delete about 50 spam comments to find the one precious good one.  They have got to be coming from bots and if not bots, at least foreigners.

What happens with these comments, is that I will get the same spam comment many different times – some actually look legit – looking for RSS feed ( don’t know how to do that) – saying there is great info -I should monetize etc but there is a new one that has been appearing lately from posters whose name appears to be some grouping of, what like to me, to be Asian language symbols.  I do not enough to know if it’s Chinese, or Japan, but definitely looks the symbols people get tattooed.

I know that English is a fickle language and there are many things that don’t translate well to other languages – like for example – I still remember learning in high school Spanish that the translation for “it’s a small world” technically says “the world is a handkerchief” or something along those lines.  Many of us have received emails from call centers in India at work asking us to “do the needful thing”.  So I’ve been racking my brain to try to figure out what the actual message is in the latest spam posts – brace yourselves for this one- “Don’t wear seat belts lest you drown in you own urine?”  Your guess is as good as mine trying to figure out what the original idea was in that sentence.  The funny thing is, this has just started in the last week or so, so who even knows what will be the next popular spam comment.

I’ve kind of been skirting the deep soul bearing stuff lately because I feel like early summer might have been the eye of the storm.  The quiet time where everything seems to have settled down and be ok – you can go out, access the damage and maybe brace a little harder for the next wave.

More times that I like to admit, I’ve been reminding myself that somethings you don’t get over, you just get through because as soon as you are foolish enough to think you are over it, you realize you are not.

People have been asking me for the last year why I was sad and not angry.  The truth is sad is comfortable and familiar for me.  I know how it feels, I know how to ride the wave of it, I know how to deal with it.  But now, as if from nowhere, this anger has emerged.  Definitely what Holly Golightly referred to as the mean reds.  I don’t know what to do with it.  It is not a familiar and comfortable emotion for me and I don’t know how to get past it and just “let it go”.   I’m hopeful that if just sit here long enough with it, the small, still voice that tells you to try again tomorrow, will get me to the other side of the storm.

On a completely different note – going camping in North Dakota this weekend at Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Cross your fingers we see bison, but not in our campsite holding us hostage so we can’t get to the bathroom.

There should be pictures early next week.

 

In no random order, some actual thoughts based on the events from the last 24 hours of my life:

A car that smokes when you are alone will not repeat it’s behavior in front of the person who can fix it.

It takes a really long time to sharpen a brand new pencil to a sharp tip in an electric pencil sharpener.

What in the world could cause Target to be out of rubbing alcohol on the fourth of July?  Is everyone making glitter ice packs for their joints today?

When your printer doesn’t print, think ink, not re-install drivers and changing settings for two days.

When did binders get so expensive?

Sunburn is itchiest when you are home alone.

If you pay for something with Paypal and then it is immediately refunded, don’t assume Paypal is smart enough to handle that for you – no, you still have to wait like 3-5 days for the refund even though the two transactions happened literally 37 minutes apart and then transfer the money back to your bank account to offset the money they already took out.

Turkey burgers are surprisingly delicious.

Once you break down and turn your AC on, you will never want to turn it off again.

I can hardly believe it, it’s almost July already.  Where does the time go?

I feel like life has just been moving and kind of just happening. I was thinking about how this time last year, I was in Florida, in the middle of my big adventure and how different everything was.  I was so sad and the hurt was so fresh and Steve still had to move out and I had no idea how the dust was going to settle.  I knew if I could just wait through the ups and downs, I would get to the other side and feel whole again, but just because you know something, doesn’t make it easy to do.

When I get stuck, I always think of my friend/freshman college roommate Nancy.  I remember there were times in college when I would just be so overwhelmed and I would say to her, “I wish I could just go to sleep for like 2 years and wake up and this all would be better.”   and she would say something nice.  So fast forward a few years, now we’re like 21, and again, overwhelmed, I say to her “I wish I could just go to sleep for like 2 years and wake up and this all would be better.” and she looked at me and reminded me of how I had said the same thing years ago and sure enough, now, all those things I had worried about were better and this new trouble would too pass.  Time really is an important part of healing – whether you get over something or even just through it, time helps you gain the grace and wisdom you need to move forward – one tiny step at a time.

I’ve given up on the online dating for now.  I mean, some guy called me a flake because I did not instantly respond to his messages.  Also, he was unable to participate in small talk.  He had like 3 sentences – “can you send me more pictures?”, “when are going to meet?” and some other random one word response to any question I asked. And the truth is, I don’t even want to to date right now because I don’t want to share my space.  I don’t mean just physically – although sleeping in the middle of the bed and always holding the remote is pretty awesome – I mean, it’s nice to not be accountable to anyone but me.  My sister’s little one got sick and couldn’t go to daycare – no problem, I packed up and was there.  I can be as cranky as I want, as outgoing as I want – I don’t have to worry about walking on eggshells and it’s actually pretty awesome.

I have noticed that people around me, at times say some pretty awesome stuff, so I’ve been trying to jot it down so I can share it – these are two most recent favorites:

A friend telling me the story of him and his wife: “I knew where she was going that night, I went to the bar, we hooked up and we’ve been together ever since” – I just like how simple it was because love always seems to be so messy.

I’m iming with a friend one day and we were talking about a bunch of different things –

Me: (complaining about PMS): my boobs hurt

Her: Because of the chicken?

Obviously two different conversations overlapped there, but just the same, it was hilarious at the time.

Look at me, laughing about chicken making boobs hurt.  Who ever thought I would get back here?

 

So this past weekend, I gathered up some of my favorite bitches for our annual camping trip.  I use the term camping loosely because, just like last year, we did not like what we saw in the weather forecast, cancelled the camp site and made it a slumber party at my house. Both nights, it thunder stormed and it rained most of Sunday so ditching the camping was really a great call.  See actual Doppler screen shots below.

I had been really looking forward to this weekend pulled out some of my best party tricks including grown- up Jell-O, a table of cups/plastic silverware/paper plates and the disco ball.  As you can see from the picture above, I made 2 tone jell-o – orange on the bottom, strawberry banana on the top and Malibu spiked through out.  MMMMMMMMM

Did I mention we also had a little bit to drink?  Now, if you know me at all, you know that I am not much of a drinker anymore.  Well, I’ll save you all the gory details but let’s just say, I should be good for another decade.

Much like what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, I don’t want to share too much, but I will however share the following things, taken 100% out of context, by different people through out the weekend.

“I can’t squat and clench! Help me”

“You hurt me with a spoon.”

“When I caught him cheating online, I secretly wished she was really a big ugly man with no teeth.”

” I thought we were going swimming”

“I thought we were going swimming”

“I thought we were going to the pool”

” I didn’t put makeup on, I AM this pretty”

“I’ve got $9.75 in quarters…”

” We need liquor for coffee, can I wear my nightgown to the liquor store?”

” Doesn’t this Amaretto smell so good, it could be perfume?”

“Did you get the buns in the oven yet?”

“I thought we were going swimming”

“Can you keep on eye on that one?”

“Is that all the Captain left?”

I think that pretty much gives you an accurate picture.  I’m not going to lie, there are some videos, but those are not for public consumption.  But seriously, after such a weird up and down year, it was nice to let go and have some fun with my friends, maybe drink a tiny bit too much, enjoy the disco ball and be silly.  I would highly recommend it.  Also, we take bribes if you want to try to get in with our group for next year.

 

 

 

 

 

So I have this friend who has the cutest conversations with her husband and she often shares them with us on Facebook in what I like to call a Me/Not Me style.

When putting one’s self on the internet for dating, you can not be naive enough to believe that everything you  read is real.  I mean, MTV has a whole TV show about the fakers called Catfish.  ( It’s great by the way)  For those of you who are not subjected to dating in this cyber age, catfishing is when you pretend to be someone else on the internet, usually to hide something or try to scam people.

A lot of catfishers are foreigners and they are getting pretty easy to spot – usually their English is a no good or they trip up.  I would now like to share with you two of my favorite conversations this week.  I decided to just say whatever I wanted, and completely disengaged my filter.  It was amazing.

Player 1’s profile: nice ,love the life and love to make the others happy,I love to exercise, try new things, to be adventurous……I can’t see it when you like me…so send me a message!

Player 1: Hi Jennifer, I’m glad we like each other

Player 1: U have a such cute face

Player 1: Your profile doesn’t give me much to go off of. How do your like to spend your time? What you like in your partner’s life?

Player 1: Good morning 🌞🌞

Me: Good afternoon

Player 1: Hi 👋,How is your day?

Me: Better now that sun has decided cooperate.

Player 1: Nice, are you working now?

Me: Allegedly. I work from home. The sun came out. I need to get like a solid 45 minutes in and then I’ll go back to work. How about you?

Player 1: I’m not? What you do for work? And can you tell me a little bit about you please

Me: I manage a service company that is out of state. and more about me – well, what do you want to know. My blond hair and big boobs attract all the players who already have wives who don’t put out or who are just looking to hook up – you know- hit it and quit style and seem to be put off by my desire for , what I like to call, “the boyfriend experience” or the fact that I don’t look like Pamela Anderson from top to bottom. I’m all for keeping things causal in the right situation, but I’ve kind of outgrown the straight up booty call and would at least appreciate the effort of some conversation during a mid-grade movie. Also, I’m a republican, I eat meat, I only recycle like 80% of the time, I think tea is nasty, coffee is good, I like to spend time in the pool at the gym, I bought a list book off Amazon today that says on the front “people I want to punch in the throat” in gold, I drink diet coke like it’s going out of style and I actually like tent camping

Player 1: So are you interested to meet together?

Me: let’s meet separate

Player 1: I don’t catch what you mean?

20 minutes later

Player 1 :I’m free tonight if you wanna to meet?

 

Poor player 1 – I’m never gonna wanna to meet together or separate

So then there are these other guys that try to hit you up all over Facebook, Instagram and dating sites to be your “friend” and they say they are in the military.  Now, anyone who knows anything about the US Military and the rivalry between the branches will clearly see the red flag in this next conversation.

Player 2’s profile: humble and gentle man to the call

Player 2: Are you as beautiful on the inside as you are on the outside? I would like to know more about you and how do you feel about a uniform man?

Me: By uniform do you mean exactly perfect or a UPS man?

Player 2: army…how are you doing today?

Me: Well, its not the marines but its better than the coast guard

Player 2:  where are you from originally and how long have you been on this site?  <–  Big red flag – he should have been all over me dissing the Army and immediately made a crack about the Air Force

Now I know that you might think that some of this is mean and you know, could I just ignore them, sure, but then you wouldn’t get to enjoy this too!  And just for the record, I am nice to the nice ones who seem real because you never know who you might meet.

My poor sister on the other hand has a special “dating” situation of her own.  Many years ago, like I want to say at least 10 years ago, she went out on like 3 dates, maybe 4 or 5 with this guy she met through my dad.  We’ll call him Larry Buscar ( not his real name) and he has a local business and did some work for the my dad and then at my sisters house and asked her out.  In poor Larry’s defense, my sister tried to ghost him before it was even a thing and he just couldn’t take a hint.  She really should have just said, “hey – this ain’t gonna happen” but whatever – to each their own.  So like this guy would ask people who kind of knew my sister at work about her if he knew they worked in the same place – he would call from time to time etc.  So fast forward to June 2018 and my dad, who has continued to use Larry for work from time to time, has him take care of something and while he’s at my parent’s house, Larry tells my dad he never got over my sister.  Larry, it’s been 10 years, let it go!  But here’s the thing, so now, he wants to help my dad with all this shit around the yard because he is hoping to run into my sister because he thinks he is in love with her – so this is working out great for my folks, not so good for Larry.  So as my mom is telling me this story, I say, someone needs to tell him that “somethings you don’t get over, you just get through and move on.”

I know what you’re thinking, maybe we could just pull a sister swap and I could become the object of Larry’s affection since I am clearly interested in dating.  Yeah, we’re not twins and he’s not my type so I don’t think that will work.  It’s not a bad idea though.

Oh and just one more thing – if you do consider internet dating – here is a list of things that do not belong in your profile pictures:

1. Your childern
2. Your ex- wife
3. Other random women without an explanation
4. Your parents
5. Farm animals
6. Cartoon characters

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, it’s been nearly 18 hours and I have not heard from John Cena’s people yet.  I’m not going lie, it’s a little disheartening, but it is the weekend so I suppose I should be patient.  I just had a thought though – maybe I’m going about this all wrong – he is a spokesperson for Hefty – maybe I try to get to him through them.  I will ponder that later today in the pool.  The inside pool because suddenly we’re having season appropriate weather and it is not warm enough to swim outside.

So just for fun, last week, I thought it might be ok to re-activate my profile on OKCupid. (slapping self in forehead right now)  As you will recall from last time, it is not really the cream of the crop out there,what do you expect, it’s free.  People who have communicated with me include a guy who had a picture of himself with a goat and could only reply using less than 4 words at a time; a guy who is a truck driver and when I told him I’ve already seen that show and explained about all the time I spent in the truck with Steve, the lunch packing etc, he proceeded to ask me if I wanted to come with him and when I said no, I’m done packing lunches, he responded with “I don’t need a lunch, I have a microwave” – totally missing my bigger point (rolling eyes all the way back into my head); a guy was clearly only interested in sex and asked repeatedly for a picture of my boobs, to which I responded, “you know what, why don’t I send you a picture and you have to guess if it’s my boobs or my ass?” and he was all excited – not getting my sarcasm and then like half an hour later sends me a message saying ” so I guess you were joking about the pics?” – you think?

Now at this point, the smart, rational person would have said fuck this shit and given up, but oh, not this foolish girl.  And I was rewarded for my stick-it-out-ness, with Andy 2.0, a smart, witty, carb eating non-vegan, cute 45 year old single man who is fluent in GIF,which is totally compatible with my native languages of sarcasm and meme.  We proceeded to have a lovely, witty online communication with the proper use of capitalization, spelling and punctuation.  We had such a nice time, we decided to talk on the telephone and after about an hour and half, we made plans for Saturday night.  ( now, I know “The Rules” say I shouldn’t be available on short notice, but I thought it was going to be fun)  So I wake up, super excited Saturday morning, thinking about getting out the hedge trimmer to properly shave my legs and stuff, and I receive an electronic communication letting me know that since we had last spoke, some lady friend of his that has been a bit of a grey  area, expressed a desire for a romantic relationship over breakfast, which I like to imagine included flavored pancakes- probably fruity, and since this caused him some inner turmoil, he thought it was best to not meet me.  Being the classy lady I am, I wished him well – specifically, “an ending better than a Netflix movie” and when he thanked me for understanding, I disclosed that he was now blog material but I promised to shield his real identity from the public.

The thing is, I’m not desperate to find someone.  I’m perfectly happy with the way things are 97.3% of the time.  I just thought dating might be fun because Lori brainwashed me. I’m going to call my sister for some de-programming now, I’m done with this cult.

 

I like to consider myself a pretty practical, grounded person for the most part.  I remember in third grade, Maya and Lisa having all these Michael Jackson pictures in their desk because they had crushes on him.  Bailey went through a Keisha/Selena Gomez phase and I’m pretty sure my friend Lori still has a picture of either Tom Selleck or Mark Harmon on her fridge.

I do not know what has come over me, but I can not get enough John Cena.  Yes, he’s a wrestler, but he’s a person too!  And I don’t even watch the wrestling.  I love him in movies and on talk shows.  He has such personality and I’m not going lie, the final straw was the other day.  I was scrolling through Facebook, and there he was smiling at me from a Hefty ad.  That was it, I was hit bad by the hard core celebrity crush.  Like I screen shot the ad.  It’s on my desktop now and my phone.  So every time I unlock my phone, it’s like he’s smiling at me and I like to imagine him saying, “how you doin’?”  and I can’t help but smile back at him.

So then, totally not in a creepy way, I went on Pinterest and apparently there are some people out there crushing on him hard in a creepy way, like they have whole Pinterest boards dedicated to him.  He is so pretty,but I think it’s best to keep our one sided love affair private, so I just copied some of the best pictures to my phone for my personal viewing.

My friend sent me this today – 3 whole minutes of him – enjoy:

Now, before his people catch wind of this and think I am stalker – I’m not going to lie, I would love to have dinner with him, AS FRIENDS.  He’s been through a lot lately, I’ve been through a lot, I could probably give him some sage advice.  I have no idea where he lives.  I have no plan on finding out.  I also do not think he is talking directly to me via television, social media or directly in my head.  So basically, I am not mentally ill and not stalking him.  I just think he’s funny and so pretty and wouldn’t mind chatting.  Seriously though – if his people could contact me – that would be great.

 

Couple of things to bring you up to speed on:

1.  Did you know Zac Efron sings songs?  While listening to Pandora this morning, a pretty song came on I hadn’t heard before – turns out it was Mr.  Efron and someone else from the circus movie – now I kind of think I want to see it – It’s called the Greatest Showman or something like that and many people have said it was good.
2. I have finished the first 6 seasons of Call the Midwife on Netflix.  I know feel sad and can’t wait to watch season 7 as soon as I figure out how.  It really is a great show and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
3. I ended things with Andy this week.  I know you were all wondering how it was going.  I did it.  In an email ( hey – don’t judge – at least it wasn’t a text) because I wanted to say somethings and didn’t want to get flustered or put him in an uncomfortable situation.  He really is a sweet guy, just not the right one for me.  And like I always tell Bailey, the whole point of dating is to get to know someone to see if they could be your forever person.  I had known that for a little while that Andy wasn’t going to be that person and didn’t want to waste his time just so I could have “someone”.

It’s funny though, the ink on the email is hardly dry and people are all like, “get back out there!” and I’m like hold on.  Just because I broke up with Andy doesn’t mean I don’t have some sadness about it too.  I hurt someone, and I don’t take that lightly.  Plus summer is here and let’s be honest, I don’t really need anyone interfering with my travel and pool time.

Ok – fine, the real reason I don’t want to hop right back on the horse is because I don’t want to.  I don’t want to be responsible for another person and their feelings.  If I don’t want to answer my phone for 3 days, I don’t have to.  I don’t want to deal with the awkwardness of getting to know someone right now.  I want to swim, sing loudly to the radio, conquer my fear of charcoal grilling, listen to the birds in the morning while drinking coffee, sleep in the middle of the bed and just enjoy feeling joy again in everyday things without having to share it.  I just want to savor it for now, I mean, it’s been a long road back to this place –  the last few years I was with Steve I had lost my joy, so I deserve this time for myself and I’m not giving it up.

I believe in fate and karma, so when the time is right, the next one will come along and how knows, he might be a keeper…

Let me tell you friends, it has been a busy week. First things first – I’m super excited as I finally hung my framed post cards from Florida up in the bathroom and have

that all situated as I want it.  It’s always so amazing how just some little touches can make a whole room seem new and exciting.  See – it’s totally a tropical paradise now.

I also am super excited that outdoor pool season is slowly beginning here in Wisconsin.  I was quite delighted to learn the outside pool at my gym opened this week, where it was warm and sunny almost every day.  The water is heated so it was good to go.  I spent a lovely afternoon there this past week with two creepy old men.  I mean, I didn’t actually talk to them, they were just the only other people there, which was not bad, I would take quiet creepy men at the pool to a pack of loud kids.  Holy shit – that’s something an old lady would say.  Whatever, it is what it is, we all know I’m no spring chicken.

Even though Steve and I broke up, I’ve been trying to keep up my relationship with Bailey because it’s important to both of us.  So long story short – Bailey has decided he wanted to be baptized in his church and this Sunday, today in fact, was the big day and do to my relationship with him, I needed to be there.  This also meant I would be seeing Steve, which, as I am sure you could imagine, caused me quite a bit of anxiousness and apparently, I wasn’t the only one concerned about this because Bailey talked to me a few weeks ago and made me promise his dad and I would not have it out in church.  I assured him we were grown ups, and this would not happen, but told him his dad and I would sit down ahead of time and talk over coffee or something so that the air was clear in church.

SO… Friday night Steve came over and we sat on the porch and over beers, caught up and talked about a laundry list of things. (on a side note, he had on an earring – in 7 years, I had never once seen him use the pre-existing earring hole in his lobe.  I nearly lost beer through my nose when I saw that)  I will spare you all the conversational details but here is the conclusion I have come to – he was a really important part of my life to a long time and we had some really good years together and I think there is part of us that will always care about the other BUT, I’m not the same person I was when I was with him and he is not the same person I fell in love with.  I’m not going to lie, it was nice to see him, he’s familiar, we can talk about things without having to give a back story but it doesn’t hurt anymore to see him.  When he left, it felt right that he left and then I was home and content without him being here.  I didn’t long for him like I had months ago.  I think the best thing to compare this to is the following – we all have our favorite Target Store – we like it because we like the things they offer, we know where things are like the good candy and the hemorrhoid cream, but if it burns to the ground or we move to a different neighborhood, we won’t stop living, we don’t stop eating candy, we find a new store, maybe a Wal-mart, maybe a new Target and we make those places the new normal and familiar places. Because as we discussed more than once, life goes on.

Today turned out to be a wonderful day in spite of the loosey-goosey church service – no disrespect to those of you who appreciate a contemporary non-denominational service but as a girl who’s church experiences during the formative years were Catholic, a service with no Lord’s prayer and a tambourine, was way outside of the box for me.  Bailey was so excited about taking this step and I was so glad to be there to support him.  After church we all  had lunch at Rocky’s with Bailey where Jenny and Mark introduced me to the most delicious pizza I have even eaten.  I would like to formally endorse the motherlode.  So much cheesy goodness.  It was a nice time, and I’m glad we were all able to create a nice family memory for Bailey.

I think that is probably enough happening for one week, who even knows what this week holds. But with that, I will sign off here as I must do some laundry now because I’m currently wearing the last clean pair of underwear I own and all my swimsuits are one pieces.