What a great way to spend the day. I’m the luckiest auntie EVER.

Looking for cheap ways to entertain your children during the summer?

1. Take them to Walmart and let them use the free blood pressure machine. My children ask to use it every single time we shop. I have always said no in the past so when I announced that we were making a special trip JUST to use the machine, all the children were ecstatic. I’m happy to announce that my young’uns are hypertension-free.

2. Buy a gross of paperclips and tell the children that once they are all linked together, everyone gets a paperclip jump rope for the jump roping contest. The winner gets to control the hose in the next water fight. If they complain of sore fingers, suggest they soak them in the sink as they wash dishes.

3. Challenge the children that if they can remove the stale french fry smell from the minivan and make it look like it’s owned by a family with only two children rather than a family with seven, everyone gets a Happy Meal to be eaten INSIDE the restaurant! If there is fighting or complaining, they get an Unhappy Meal–PB&J on Pumpernickel bread.

4. Have a weed pulling contest. The child with the greenest hands in the end gets all the root beer flavored Popsicles in the box. Anyone caught with a green magic marker is immediately in charge of unhooking the paperclips.

5. Give each child a bucket of sudsy water and a paintbrush. Have them “paint” the woodwork on the front porch. The child who won the jump rope contest gets to wash the “paint” away.

Feel free to share your ideas. A mother can never have too many.

Working in a salon was not good for my hair. My thought process was “Why go a little blond when you can have it all?” So I went blond in a big way. Every few weeks I would just get a little touch up with bleach and then I was all good again. The salon, however, has become very busy in the past few months which makes it difficult for a mere employee to get an appointment.

Because I never seem to be at a loss for putting myself in precarious
positions, I decided that before going to church in the morning, I would just touch up my roots myself.

I HAD to!

Nothing says Trailer Park Queen like platinum hair with dark roots. Since today was my last day at the salon, I purchased the necessary chemicals to maintain my lovely locks and went on my merry way.

“You’ve seen them do it a hundred times. It will be a piece of cake!” I
assured myself. “Just mix the bleach and developer, apply to the roots and in the last 15 minutes, apply the remaining mixture on the already bleached hair.”

I mixed with confidence. I added the necessary blue pigment which prevents too much goldness and I applied with confidence.

Forty-five minutes later I rinsed and with God as my witness, this is how it turned out:

Yeah.

I’m smurfalicious.

Here I was trying to avoid looking like a Trailer Park Queen and ended up looking like a circus freak.

My face is so red, my hair so blue

If I wasn’t so tired

I’d cut it off in a crew.

Someone please tell me why whenever I set out to take a hot soak in the tub someone in this family suddenly has to poop.

I was outside having a conversation with Darren when a bug flew into my shirt. I pulled my shirt away from my body and peered down into my bra where the insect was desperately trying to find its way to freedom.

“Darren! It’s a bee!!” I screamed.

“Just stay calm” he said. “If it stings you, I’ll suck the poison out.”

I can’t help but wished it had stung my armpit as it flew out of my sleeve.