What The BLEEP Just Happened?...A Blog On Parenting...Kinda.

What. The. Crap.

Life can suck sometimes.

First off, let me just say that I don't normally use my blog as a place to vent my frustration about my family life. If you want to read a really good, really juicy novel about, "The Life of Whitney", then some poor bastard is going to have to pay me a lot of money to get me to puke out all of my secrets, and information. In other words, my autobiography won't be out for a very long time (never).

Did any of you see that TLC show, "Sarah Palin's Alaska"? I watched it. My boyfriend lives like 5 miles away from her house up there, so just being able to see the footage of Alaska was worth my time--all sites I know and love. 

I'm not a huge Sarah Palin fan. I was pretty happy that a hockey mom from Alaska wasn't going to be bunking up with that white haired guy in the White House after the 2008 elections. And, YES, last March when I was up in Wasilla I really was so bored that I did go on a Sarah Palin scavenger hunt. I sat in her pedicure chair at Alaska Nails, found her hair salon (The Beehive), saw the lake that she lives on, and located her ammo shop (Chimo Guns).

I wasn't stalking her by any means. First of all, I'm a registered democrat. We'll see if that actually holds up through the next election, but it's true. Second--I really was just bored out of my gourd. It was about 20 degrees and winds were blowing 100 mph during my trip up there. It sucked serious butt. However, my point of bringing up Mrs. Palin has nothing to do with Alaska, or the Republican Party.

See...in that show on TLC there was this frickin' weirdo book author who literally moved in right next door to Sarah Palin on the lake up in Wasilla, Alaska. I get that it's normal to have neighbors, but this guy was out on his deck 24/7, looking into her yard, listening in on all conversations he possibly could, and then he wrote a book about her, exploiting every deep dark secret that he could conjure up about her by scrounging up dirt talking to people in the small, rumor mongering town of Wasilla, Alaska.

Prior to the D-bag doing this, she was actually considering running for president. As happy as I am that she decided not to do this, it was still a giant D-bag move on his part as far as I'm concerned.

Now I'm going to come full circle and tell you that THIS IS THE VERY REASON WHY I WOULD NEVER COMPLETELY EXPLOIT MYSELF, OR MY FAMILY ON MY BLOG. I don't want to become known as Ms. Massengill.

That being said, and as much as I respect my family's privacy, I will confess that I've really been struggling lately in the parenting department. I know how awesome some of the stuff in my life looks, either on Facebook, or on my blog. I mean, COME ON!...who wouldn't want to go surfing for 10 days in Kauai! But it's also amazing how well I can put on my game face in public, throw on some awesome makeup job, a pair of sassy stilettos, and BAM!...no one would ever know that I actually periodically have REAL PROBLEMS IN MY LIFE. How could I? Nobody with cute heels has problems, right?

Oh holy crap...I said the P word (problems). I also said D-bag a few times so I should probably repent for that later. And please don't sit there and tell me that you're looking up D-bag in the dictionary. It's not in Webster's. You have to google it if you lack the knowledge of that which I speak.

Moving on.

I was really looking forward to the four days off that I just had. I had all sorts of plans--all sorts of things to do. Some of my goals were accomplished. Some?...not so much. It's ok. As luck would have it, they took my Superwoman tee shirt away from me a long time ago. Something about me not being willing to wear a red Speedo/Spankies/Cheerleader Skirt in public. That and I look like complete crap in a cape (they are so bulky!). They also rejected the idea of putting a 4-inch platform lift on my glittered boots. Stupid monkey fluffers. Their loss...

Anyway...

I have cried EVERY SINGLE DAY of my days off this week. I'm not going to go into all the details of why. It's just been one of those weeks where I've been hammertimed in every direction with respect to my family. There have been a couple of times where I've crawled into my big bed, pulled the covers up, and cried for hours. No amount of chocolate, Diet Pepsi, or champagne has helped. I'm also not PMSing so BITE ME, people! Sorry--that was overly sassy. You didn't deserve that.

Here...

Do you forgive me?

I get that some of you are probably like, "Dude, you might need some Prozac!" but I really don't think that is the case. In my opinion, it is a very overused drug. Sometimes LIFE just happens, and spirals down the crapper, and you just have to hold on to your toilet bowl boogie board and try not to get hit too hard with all of the sh*t on the way down the U-bend. And don't squeeze the Charmin--it will disintegrate on you. You can't count on it.

I once had an English teacher in college who was one of those total literary weirdos that you want to smack upside the head with a bundle of yarn (or something harder if that's how you roll). She was WAY too into her job. We had to write so much crap that semester--I thought I was going to die. I'd go to class and some people would go all "coffee shop poetry open mic night" on us. She thought it was frickin' fantastic. People would start crying while they were reading what they wrote. They wrote about deep emotions, love, sorrow, hurt, and pain.

Then it was my turn to read my literary masterpiece--which incidentally looked a lot like my blog. My teacher said that she was worried about me--that my humor was my way of dealing with my pain, and that I should try to just RELEASE it by expressing my real feelings.

Ok, so first of all, this teacher chick knew jack diddly squat about me. She had no information about my past--how could she? I wrote comedy about anything, and everything. Most of it had nothing to do with me--it was just funny stuff in everyday life.

I became so disenchanted with my English class that I actually missed a couple of classes (I swear I had the flu...*hack*cough*sneeze*puke*). Ok, I didn't really have the flu--I ditched. Because of this, one time I had to go to a make up session for credit--and listen to lesbian poetry all night. That was a barrel of frickin' monkeys, I'm tellin' ya. I had a lot of questions that I never felt compelled to ask before that were answered that night--and they all rhymed. It was super impressive.

I started thinking about what my teacher had said though. She was kind of right I suppose. If I couldn't laugh my way through my life, and find humor in all of the chaos/disappointment I would probably die much sooner than I actually will.

I don't like lying in bed in "eating bon bon" mode. That's not normally how I roll. However, life sometimes does give me the smack down, and I have to fight my way back up. And regardless of what my ridiculous English teacher said, I don't feel like doing all of that, and having to make it rhyme at the same frickin' time (crap--that rhymed) to a bunch of uber caffeinated coffee house English poetry "for sobbing out loud" literature loving dorks (I missed a few commas--and that was a run on sentence...a gift to Professor WhateverYourNameWas). Screw that. At the very least I would write it all into a Haiku so it was just structured babbling.

Cute Alaskan Man has been assisting me through my horrible week. He's still on the east coast on business. It feels just like college--I sit there telling him my problems, and he listens to me, while simultaneously offering way more sound advice than I could ever come up with myself.

Tristan actually told me tonight that I should stand on my head and eat a spoonful of peanut butter to turn my frown upside down. This is ironically how he used to cure my hiccups in college. He used to pin me up against the wall, upside down, and scoop a metric boatload of peanut butter into my mouth while I was laughing/hiccuping hysterically. As a matter of fact, when we were up in Juneau, Alaska, November of last year there was a night after going out on the town that my BFF, Lindsey, had acquired a case of the hiccups. Tristan also inverted her, and did the same thing in order to make them go away. It was so funny that we almost all fell over laughing (but we had been drinking--so it was probably exponentially funnier--there were some balance issues. I have photos but would never post them.).

Eat (bon bons). Pray (always...for everything). Love (Thank God for that).

This, too, shall pass.

Peace.

The Theme Song of my LIFE!!! Kelly Clarkson, "STRONGER"

I know that it may be hard for some women to understand, but I could seriously live the rest of my life by myself, without a man, and be perfectly happy. I find it sad that women think they actually need to have a man in their life so badly that they will settle for ANYONE.

Not this girl.

This song kicks some serious booty. I LOVE IT! :)

You Did What? To Who? For How Many Jellybeans? An Extension Blog About My Adventures In Selling On eBay

"OMG, Whitney...YOU DID NOT just put Ms. Capital Boobs as your first picture for this blog!"

Indeed I did. This blog is about fashion.

 Were you expecting a cuter picture? You should know by now that if I wanted you to see cute pictures of puppies, rainbows, and kitty cats that instead I would deliver a shocker photo of a Madonna wannabe after a brawl with a can of Reddi Whip. BTW someone should feed her a sandwich before her collarbones pop through her skin. And she looks like she has a white McRib bodice on that dress. *Fashion Fail!! *SHIVER*

Fine...grrrr...

Awwww!!!!... (puke)

Ooooooh!!!!..... (hack, gag)

WOW!!!!! (splutter...yawn...stretching...patting mouth with open hand)

There ya go. Oh, and BTW, there's nothing pervy about the title of my blog this week. As the old song used to say, "It's all about the money. It's all about the nah nah nah-nah-nah-nah." This week's blog is about my new conquest to add money more quickly to my savings account. I continue to do this through my new hobby--posting higher end, to high end fashion items up for sale on eBay.

It's not that money is the center of my entire life--it just happens to (again) be the topic of this blog. Oh crap...maybe money IS the center of my life!!!

Not really true. Money is dull, boring, and a good place for people to wipe their hands after they use the loo before they hand it over to some poor, unsuspecting cashier. *blech*

Money is good for some things. I'm a fan of having some of it. I don't need to go all "Kim Kardashian" about it though. Not that I could anyway--as luck would have it I actually EARN my money instead of living off a trust fund from mommy and daddy. This has saved me from being exploited on reality TV, and having my body parts smeared all over People magazine. You're welcome.

 As most of you know I am a single mom on a mission. Each day that passes by is a day that is closer to me/my family peacing out to our new life on the Hawaiian islands. Our future will be filled with  days of sun, surf, and periodic pina coladas (the pina coladas will be for me). As awesome as this future sounds, it comes with a fairly large price tag. As a matter of fact, my ideal house is up on a bluff in Princeville, overlooking the pacific ocean, on the north shore of Kauai. It comes cheap at a mere $775,000. I'm on the 7-year plan to move to Hawaii, so I calculated it all out, and found out that I only have to save $35K/year to make an adequate down payment. It's in the bag.

Ok, fine, not really...I'll probably start out with a slightly smaller place in Hawaii. However, there are no more excuses for me not saving as much money as possible right now so that I can get there. Hence, the topic of this blog.

So what did I do? I started dressing people--really frickin' well (hence the title, "You did what? To who? For how many jellybeans (money)?"). And I did it all for next to nothing--for ALL OF US. I'm going to add "personal shopper/stylist" to my resume.

 I love love love fashion, but I also love shopping for great fashion. For years now I have cleaned out my closet on an annual basis. My rule is that if something hangs in there for more than a year and remains untouched that it has to go. I've taken numerous, higher end, to high end things to Goodwill that still have a flipping price tag on them--NEVER WORN.

A month or so ago I decided to try a new technique with these things that I had no use for. I decided to take their photo, and then posted them on eBay. By doing this, in a matter of one month, I brought in approximately $500. It went right into savings. However, since I lack a never ending abundance of useless crap in my house, I had to seek out to find other people's never ending abundance of useless crap--but I needed it cheap!!!! *DILEMMA*

Goodwill.

OMG...I didn't know if I could do it. I thought only poor people shopped there. I am sad to say I had "image" issues, and anxiety leading up to my first store visit. But I overcame that, and I went in the sliding glass doors. For years, Goodwill was MY crap dump. Whatever I didn't want got dumped on their doorstep (ok fine...I took it to the back of the store where they took donations). Now it was my turn to experience the "buyer" side--if for no other reason than to just poke around and see what I could find on the off chance it might sell for more money on eBay.

My goal? Add $150-300 worth of additional profit savings to my savings account each month. As I walked through the store, and started thumbing through the racks, I noticed something. Sure...there were many, many, many things that were torn, tattered, and looked like something that only a desperate person would buy. As I fought through the hangers I smelled Camel, Marlbaro, Jim Beam, Captain Morgan, Aunt Mae's moth balls, and Grandpa Billy Bob's armpits. I wondered again why I was there. However, by the time I got ready to checkout, I had a basket full of Steve Madden, Ann Taylor, Ralph Lauren, Guess, The Limited, Anne Klein, Coach, and many many other designers--most, or all of which had their original price tags still on them. If they did not, they appeared to have been worn/used once. I had a chance to be on the inside of the store and see what happens when people like me donate brand new things. What happens is that regardless of how much they cost in real life, you get to buy them for next to nothing--and then you can turn around to sell them for 2-4 times as much as you bought them for on eBay.

I have now spent a total of 3 hours in 3 weeks in the Goodwill store. I have sifted through some things that made me want to have a hot date with hand sanitizer, and Lever 2000. I've also scored some majorly cool things that I posted on eBay, they sold, and now I have my profit in my bank account.

I have suddenly become your worst nightmare at the post office--I show up with 7-10 packages at a time. I have, however, become pretty dang fast on that self checker touchscreen thingymabobber that they have there at the good old USPS.

Part of the way I got over my "image" issues with shopping at Goodwill was to put on what I consider my "AMMO"--a beautiful pair of stiletto heels make you feel like a million bucks regardless of where you are (same thing I do when I clean my loo so I can feel like Victoria Beckham). I also realized that there are a ton of people who shop at Goodwill, and from all different socioeconomic backgrounds. A good lesson for me to get over myself. ;)

Taking it all the way to the bank, baby. It is worth it. :)

**Ka-CHING**

Dedicated To The Love of My Life. Happy Easter!

You did it.

You did what I couldn't do for myself.

In a world that is uncertain, and full of temporal things that are undependable,

You continue to remind me that I do not walk through it alone, and that Your dependability is worthy of my faithfulness.

You are the ultimate example of love.

There is  nothing that cannot be overcome with You by my side to guide me though it.

You did this for me.

I will continue to wonder why for the rest of my life,

but I want You to know that I love You, too.

Thank You, Jesus.