Yahoo Readers (Again)

***For all my regular readers, there was a different new post today so don't miss it!***

Wow, and just when things had calmed down, here comes another wave of new Yahoo readers.

Welcome!

If you are new to the blog I would encourage you to start where I started, at the beginning. I will warn you, the issues and content can be a little hard to handle.

If you're not in the mood for such a heavy beginning, then you might want to pop over to these topic categories for a good laugh;

I Swear This Stuff Happened

Why?

*****

An Entire Relationship From Beginning To End, In Text Messages!

**In this new kind of post, the majority of it will take place in text messages. If it seems a bit choppy, look at the time stamp on the messages because it may not have been a series of conversations. I tried to put asterisks where I could in order to separate them.**

A couple months ago a well meaning friend gave my phone number to a guy she thought I should date. She showed him a picture of me, gave him my number, and the guy came at the whole idea with gusto.

It was a bit intense. 

After my attempts to ignore him failed, I finally responded that yes, he could call me, and thus started the beginning of our "relationship," which I am about to let you view through a series of text messages.

To start you off, we are at the point where I finally agreed to talk to him on the phone. We talked on the phone after the 9:11pm text and during that (phone) conversation I told him about my awful 1st (and last) dates with "1 percentor" and Sparkles, the head massager. After the phone conversation we pick up talking again via text.

Please note that I am the peach speech bubble.

Things That Make You Ask Why, Part 10

I love these "why" posts. You guys rarely comment on them, but I love them so we are  going to keep doing them anyway!

Why am I so amazed at this diorama? Because it was in the 1st grade science fair. "Everyone can just go home now, this kid wins science. Thanks for coming out today."

 Look closely. There are sculpted animals in there, WITH DETAILS.

Why was I tempted to buy a chair I have no need for?

Because who could pass up a deal like that!? Look at the price when it's not on sale!

SO. FREAKING. BUSY!

It's funny how everyone waits for summer to get here so that they can kick back and relax, but then the minute it gets here we all take off running and throw relaxation to the side!

Here's just a snapshot of what the Strong family has been up to:

As I said before, someone graduated 1st grade.

Girl Child and her Teacher
Funny story, Mr. Attorney Man texted me as I was walking to the school to pick her up, and I replied back telling him not to text me again until I gave him the all clear. I wanted to take a video and incoming texts stop the recording!

Which of course meant we had to celebrate that they let us stay until the end of the year.

What better way to kick off summer than with a silly string fight?

You Get What You Get And You Don't Throw A Fit!

When my daughter first started taking ballet classes at 3yrs old, her teacher would do this thing at the end of class where each child could pick a wand, sparkly necklace, fairy wings, or some other kind of super-girly item out of a treasure chest. Then the child could wear that item for the last few minutes during free dance.

The girls LOVED it.

Except when someone took the item that they wanted.

Hell hath no fury like 3yr old girls fighting over a tiara.

The teacher, in her infinite patience, would simply say "you get what you get and you don't throw a fit!

After a couple months the girls knew the rule and when the treasure chest would come out, they would quietly line up to pick their items.

Oh you could tell when a little girl didn't get the fairy wings that she had her eyes on, it was hard to miss the disappointed face and audible sigh as she took her supplementary magic wand and trudged back to her spot on the floor, but she knew the rules so she never complained.

Then the music would start and soon she would be leaping across the room; happy that she had a wand that could make everyone fly, instead of the fairy wings that would have only been able to make her fly.

For 3yr old girls they adapted quite well.

My life, it's been weird. It is literally what Lifetime Channel TV movies are made out of. The stuff that happens to me, it's just not stuff you hear about everyday. It's my own life, and yet it never ceases to amaze me.

That Time My Ex Tried To Start A Business

It was four years into our marriage, our daughter had just been born, and we were broke. My ex (husband still at the time), unbeknownst to me was not only blowing all our money on drugs, but he was also stealing money from the family business that he worked for and was blowing through that as well. No pun intended.

He was disappearing for days at a time and when he would come home, he would stumble through the door only to pass out in the middle of the wood floor, where I would find him in the morning when my alarm clock went off; the alarm clock that I would set so that I could get up and try to get him up for work. Most days “get him up for work” meant literally shoving him towards his truck after I had lost the battle of trying to get him to take a shower. Many days he would be sent home from work for “inappropriate attire” (aka, he was a filthy, disgusting, mess of a human being), and yet he wouldn’t actually come home, he would just simply disappear again and the cycle would continue.

Eventually my family decided to stage an intervention with him. Like an actual intervention.

Yahoo Readers

Wow.

So apparently an article of mine ran on Yahoo yesterday with a direct link to my blog.

Neat.

And...wow.

At this point my traffic counter has pretty much exploded.

So... welcome!!

I know that many of you have made your way over here to find out exactly what happened to my daughter's father.

Well, that story is a bit crazy and doesn't make me look real great, but it is what it is. As you have may have noticed by the title of this blog, I'm no longer ashamed to share what happened.

So if you are looking for the back story, start here.

Then after that, I hope you will stick around! We have a lot of fun over here :)

***If you are an email subscriber, you should be getting two emails this morning. Make sure to look for the other email with the "real" post for the day!**

Photo Credit

My Mother Texted Me

My mother texted me.

I deleted it so fast that later that night I actually sat back and wondered if I had imagined the whole thing.

But I hadn't.

The screen shot is burned into my brain like artwork that you despise hanging above your bed.

I can't not look at it, and yet it bothers me every time I give it any attention.

"Eden, we would like to sit down with you and give you a chance to talk. We want to really listen and hear what you have to say. We care about you."

To really listen to me and hear what I have to say. We care about you.

It's what I've always wanted.

It's what I've always needed.

It's what I always should have had.

But it's too late now.

I Require Adult Supervision

Last month as my Platonic Hubby and I were trying to figure out something to do for my birthday, the conversation took a turn that looked like this:

I'm the orange-ish bubble

So Saturday night my Platonic Husband, two other friends, and I, spent the night in the city.

There was a lot of planning involved because not only do we have wildly different schedules, but also due to the simple fact that we are chicks.

First, I needed a dress and it needed to fit the kind of budget that a 6th grader might have after getting paid an allowance; meaning that it had to cost less than the $30 that I had left on a gift card that I received for my birthday (I'd like to point out to my real-life friends who read this blog, while you are overly generous, I know what you are up to. Giving me gift cards to places that don't sell children's items or groceries, I'm onto you). Also, I was shopping in between meetings for work, which meant that I only had 30 minutes to find a dress that cheap.

Sounds like fun.

NOT.

And yet miraculously...

But then I couldn't figure out how to get a strapless bra to stay up, and the dress really needed one. I know, at 32 yrs old I probably should have figured this out by now, but when your bra size is "almost," you can usually get away with just using the built in dress-bra, but this time, not so much. So there I was— clueless and bra-less— so I asked The Platonic Hubby for help.

She wasn't much help.

Own It, It's What You Were Made For

I had this great idea that for every single day this week, that I was going to say or do at least one thing that would leave someone wondering "what the hell?"

I had no real reason for doing this (like many of my stupid creative plans), I just thought it would be funny, and also, why the hell not?

On Monday I went to the bank to get something out of my safety deposit box. My box contains not much more than important documents and printed photo doubles that I do not have a digital copy of, but all that paper weighs a ton!

Do you know what 50lbs of paper feels like?

It feels like 50 lbs.

So anyway, I needed to put something in there and as the bank teller pulled the box out he exclaimed "good gosh your box is heavy!"

I simply replied back "seriously, isn't gold heavy? I mean I know it's a metal, but it weighs a ton!" I then turned and took my box back to the privacy room, where I attempted to stifle my laughter at his shocked expression.

On Tuesday I was supposed to have a chiropractor appointment, but at the last minute my schedule changed and I had to cancel. I called up the office and because I work there on Monday's, and they have caller ID, the secretary answered the phone with "what up bitch?"

"My ego." I replied back. "But unfortunately you won't get to experience any of my awesomeness today because I need to cancel, I hurt my back."

"Oh gosh" said the secretary, actually sounding concerned. "How did you do that?"

***Can we pause for a second here to take note of the fact that I just canceled a chiropractic appointment using the reason that I hurt my back, and it did not even phase her?***

"Too much sex" I stated.

There was a pause.

"For real?" she said, clearly trying to figure out if I were joking or actually serious.

"Yep" I said, offering up no other details.

"What the hell girl, what on earth were you doing?" she whisper-shrieked into the phone.

Trying not to laugh, I shot back very seriously and completely void of any emotion, "Oh, you know me, the bumping and the grinding, the bumping and the grinding."

Guess What I'm Cooking!

Ugh, so remember how excited I was that the computer error in my child support case got fixed? 

Well as it turns out, IT'S NOT FIXED. 

They are now intercepting 40% of it and have yet to be able to tell either myself or Mr. Attorney Man where it's going. So frustrating!!! I'm all over it, but in the meantime guess who at least got their food stamps reinstated!?!

I know, I realize that makes me sound like white trash, but whatever, I'm past caring at this point. But anyway, yes, we are pretty happy. The kids and I have been cooking/baking/eating up a storm over here and so I figured that this would be as good a time as any to answer one of the questions that I get asked most often in real life and on this blog.