Back-pedalling

Thursday we went to the dentist for Ab's regular headgear checkup. Of course, her stupid right band had fallen off of her tooth a week earlier. But gas is so expensive that I just could not see doubling up with a regular appointment that close. And the dentist chided me for not getting her in sooner. Gr. He also chided us both for it coming off again. But what he didn't know was that the assistant had already told me that the band on there is actually too big for her tooth and it gaps so that's why it comes off all the time, no matter how much cement is on there. The next size smaller is too small. Can't win. So then he got onto Abby for sleeping with a binkit after she told him the bar got caught in it once. He seemed to think that the binkit was the root of all evil then. Gr. Again. But the band is back on and she has an appointment for the 28th of July. I'm sure we'll see them before then.

On the way home from Tulsa I called Mom to see if she wanted to go to the Buffalo later, like after my kids went to bed. She said she was having dinner with her British Flyer friends, but yeah, she was available later. I stopped in at Wal*Mart later to ask Paul if I could go. He said I could if he could. So I called the sitter. She was at a rodeo. But, when I called Sis to see if maybe Bub could watch the kids, she said she didn't have any money and Bub was already going out there for the Harley drawing, so she'd watch the kids. Not really how I wanted the evening to pan out. I wanted a girl's night out and what I got was a double date. Because Mom called and said at 7:00 Bub had gotten a key to the Harley. Of course, Sis wanted to go then because her husband had a chance at a freakin' HOG, dude. The whole evening started out as a serious mess. Mom ended up watching the kids and we met Sis and Bub out there. Paul worked till 8 so by the time we left the house it was almost 9:30. We pulled up to Mom's house, she met us on the porch and said, "Go! The drawing's at 10 not 11!!" We flew out there. Okay, actually we didn't really fly . . . we stopped to get Copenhagen and then Paul saw a guy in the store that he used to work with at Eagle Picher years ago and they had to do some manly catching up complete with the taking of a dip, kicking the ground with the toe of your shoe and a studly clap of the hand on the shoulder upon conversation's end, then we took a roadwork detour 'cuz we forgot about the roadwork. We walked in the door at 10:05. I was about to wet my pants because I drank a ginormous Sonic cup of water on the way into town and as I was in the bathroom they hollered out Bub's name over the PA. They drew his name for another durn key! The guy had two chances on that Harley!!

Paul was about to wet his pants because, for one thing, Bub can't ride a motorcycle. If he won, Paulknew he was riding the bike home for him. He's got serious Hog Fever. Plus, he had already decided in his head that he was going to sell the Kawasaki and buy the Harley from Bub. He was like a kid at Christmas.

Bub did not win the Harley. But for each key he got, they gave him $100. He was totally okay with that.

Then we proceded to do much gambling. I walked in the door with $25. My paycheck this week was $75 and I took a third of it to gamble on. How silly of me. Well, you know me - I lost it pretty quick then went off to see what my husband was doing. He had a $100 ticket in his hand and had $75 on a machine. I sat there long enough sighing and looking really pitiful that he just handed me a $20 and told me to go away. I turned that $20 into $30 then turned that $30 into $45. I played awhile on $10, then turned a $20 into $144. (When I won that $140 I was so shocked I yelled really loud. Sis nearly fell out of her chair laughing.) I loaned some to Sis, I played some more. I walked out of there with $125 at 2am. I could've walked out a lot more to the good, but man I had fun while I was playing. I was still up from what I walked in with, so I was happy. And I do not have a gambling problem.

Yesterday Sis and I took the kids to Joplin to get their annual patriotic pictures taken. Usually I buy them all either the Old Navy flag tee or a similar tee from Children's Place. But this year I found the most adorable dressier-type tanks at Kids r Us for the girls, complete with rhinestones. Uhyeah, they quietly scream of Junior Divas. They'd scream louder if there were more rhinestones. If only I had a Bedazzler . . . So anyway, we found navy, red and white oxfords for the boys to go with the girls' tops, put them all in jeanshorts, painted the girls' fingernails and toenails red, red ribbons in the hair, stuck them on the table barefoot and took some adorable pictures. They turned out really good!

Now imagine if you will, two women walking down the mall with six children in tow - three boys, three girls. Of the six children, five of them are wearing matching/coordinating outfits. The two big boys look enough alike to be brothers, perhaps twins. The two littlest look alike to be a set of of boy/girl twins. But the littlest boy is wearing a blue tanktop and doesn't match. Totally does not match. I felt horrible that Chandler didn't match the rest of the group! He's got the most adorable shock of red hair, but I told Sis yesterday that he really did look like the proverbial "red headed stepchild." Poor kid. The photographer said something about photographing six children and when I said, "No, just five," she gave me a dirty look and said, "Well! Why doesn't this one get to be in the picture?" like I was making him sit out on a family picture because he was grounded or something. Geesh.

For some reason unbeknownst to us - I'm going to blame it on hereditary insanity - Sis and I let the kids wear flip flops yesterday. We knew full well we were going to the mall, but we let them anyway. You take off on a fast clip down the mall and someone's shoes are going to flip or flop right off. Sure enough, Kady was throwing shoes faster than an ol' plow horse. (Farm colloquialism there for ya.) Then TotTwo started throwing 'em, too. At one point he just stepped right out of one, then hopped on one foot so as not to let his bare foot touch the ground. Sis just about stepped right on him. It was nearly a nasty pileup. She said, "Enough with the shoes!! Do you WANT a big fat woman to fall on top of you and squish you to death? Because THAT is just about what happened to you, young man!" An older woman was walking right in front of us and had been admiring the kids before she fell in step ahead of the tribe of patrioticism (Remember they're wearing patriotic clothes. Keep up here.) travelling noisily down the mall. Upon hearing Sis' proclamation she stopped in her tracks, busted out laughing and had to actually step over out of traffic because she was laughing so hard. It really was pretty funny.

After the mall adventure we loaded up and Sis asked if I could drive her to a cabinet shop because Bub had called and said it was "Right down Rangeline, north of the mall, in Webb City." Sounded simple enough. Thank God he gave her the phone number as well. Because as we drove north on Rangeline we saw nothing. Webb City city limits - nothing. We even back tracked. Nothing. I finally told her to call because gas is expensive ya know. The guy started rattling off the most messed up directions ever. We ended up nearly to Carthage, MO, before it was all said and done. When we hit highway 71 again right before Carthage we knew we'd done something wrong. We drove down into the bowels of Missouri and I think I heard banjos at one point. Oronogo was where we ended up. Then, of course, they could give her an estimate right there! 'Cept we had 6 kids in the van, remember. It was nearly 100' outside. You do not sit in a vehicle in the summer around here. You just don't do it. You will surely die. But you also don't let the van sit and idle in the summer around here either. So we robbed Sis' billfold, hit the convenience store and went driving. We drove. And drove. On and on we drove. Driving and driving and driving. Oh the driving. We finally got bored with the driving and went back to Kabinet Korner (Quaint name eh) to force her out, estimate or not. Fortunately we didn't have to get rough, she was done. Then we had to drive out of the boondocks, past the banjos and on home to Oklahoma once more.

I bought a WW cookbook at the mall yesterday and we spent the drive home planning what we're going to fix for the 4th's cookout. We found a cucumber with buttermilk dressing thing for ZERO points. Zero!! We are SO making that one. We have an uncle who is diabetic and we're hoping we can make some of the recipes to work for him as well. WW uses a lot of carbohydrates, but I think we can make it work.

Speaking of WW - I weighed yesterday. The day after I started, I weighed in at Mrs. Coach's workplace. She has a medical scale there and they're the most accurate. I do not own a scale, nor will I. (Mrs. Coach - you will see me once a week from now on. Whether you like it or not.) So I dropped in and said hi to her then went back out to weigh. So it's been about a week and a half since I weighed last. A week and a half of working really hard to change the way I eat and think about food. A week and a half of wondering if I was going to see a difference any time soon. My pants fit better around my waist, but I wondered if I was going to be able to see any weight loss at all. I did. THREE POUNDS!!! Three whole pounds!!!! I was so happy I nearly waltzed back out to my van. That's three pounds closer to my boob job. Woot!!