Random Story #5

 Would you believe that I am typing these all on the same day? I am just scheduling them to come out later. 

BOOM magic ruined. 

I should be doing more productive things like getting paper work together for our house purchase but I cant do all of the things I need to do for that so I am just going to wait until I can. 

I am sort of using this as a distraction because lately I keep getting sad. 

But we are not here to talk about the sad things we are here to talk about the random story I am going to tell you. Which is...

hold on I am trying t think of one. 

Oh I have a scar that has an interesting story. 

I mean its kind of interesting because well I think it is so...I am going to tell you about it. 

I have a scar on my knuckles because I was in a fight. 

Ok I wasnt in a fight

I was trying to stop a fight...

Not a people fight...

A dog fight...vicous killer dog fight...ok it wasnt exactly a dog fight it was a puppy fight. 

My childhood dog Molly had puppies. They were Chow/Lab mix. So basically they were tiny grizzly bears. 

I want to say the fight happened just before they were 8 weeks old because we still had all of them and we werent planning on keeping any (My parents were famous for saying that by the way) 

I dont remember which puppy started the fight but I knew I had to save my favorite puppy who before this still wasnt named. My smart brain thought it was a good idea to try to stop this fight by grabbing the puppies by the mouth. One of them bit me and hurt my hand...fingers specifically pretty bad. So bad that I still have the battle scares. 

Its really not that big of a scar actually but you cant hardly see it unless you look at it in the right lighting. BUT I KNOW ITS THERE. 

The puppy I saved was the puppy we ended up keeping and because he fought so bravely we decided to name him Killer. 

He was the coolest dog in the world. I was the only kid he liked. Any of my nieces and nephews, when they came over he would just hide from them. But not like in I am scared of you kind of way more like a "you tick me off so i am going to avoid you so I dont kill you" kind of way. Which is something I can really relate to as an adult. 

He was so big and fluffy he was the best dog to hug. 

He got sick one time and didnt really do much but he still would walk around the yard with me just to hang out. I remember I kept a box of the neat things we found on our yard adventures. I buried it next to his grave when he died a year later. 

He was well known around the neighborhood. Killer had puppies all over the place. 

(By the way I do not support outside dogs and I do not support not getting your dogs spayed /neutered this was just how things were when I was a kid. )

 And my favorite story about this dog was, we were coming home and we still had Molly to (His mom) and our yard was fenced in so we had this big gate we had to open each time we left/came home. It was usually my job to go open the gate and close it after my parents got the car in. I took my job seriously. 

Well my mom and I were coming home and I started to get out of the car to get the gate like I always did but then my mom noticed that one of our neighbors dogs were out. They were not friendly dogs. My mom was getting ready to start honking the horn or something to get our neighbors attention so they could get the dogs inside. but Instead out come Killer and Molly to the rescue. Killer was the muscle naturally and he pinned the dog up against his fence holding him there while Molly stood guard. It seriously looked like something out of a cartoon. My mom told me to go get the gate quickly while the dogs were distracted (I swear I am not making this up this is an actual story lol) So i went and got the gate, my mom pulled in and I closed the gate. Just as I closed it Killer released the neighbor dog and Molly walked away like nothing happened. 

It was the greatest thing ever. 

Random Story #4

 This one is a collective randomness of when my niece and I were kids. 

My niece is a year younger than me so we grew up together. 

Back in the days where we had to play outside. No matter what the weather was like. If it was sunny (in Florida) We played in the yard. If it was raining we played in the screened in porch. If it was dinner time we ate outside of the screened in porch while our parents ate in there. 

I am starting to realize our parents just didnt want us around them. HA. 

Anyways... My niece and I had crazy imaginations. We always invented these weird games to play. Almost all of them invovled us getting into an argument because we would get stuck on who had more powers, or who was stronger...faster...smarter...prettier...blah blah blah you get the point. 

Well one night we were convinced the sky was brains. It was a cloudy day and the clouds just looked like a giant brain to us. It didn't help the spooky factor that it was also summer which "heat" lighting was apparently a thing. We had ourselves so freaked out that we begged...literally begged our parents if we could come inside because we were scared. 

The reluctantly let us in. 

Another time we scared ourselves stupid was, during one night we were outside playing, we wandered into the front yard...this is weird because we werent allowed to play by the cars so I am not sure how we managed that but we were there. Well by one of the cars was a pile of blankets (maybe?) and we were convinced it was a dead body. We kept daring each other to go look closer. Neither one of us would move. We stood frozen there in the driveway for hours (Ok maybe it was more like five minutes) Crying for someone to save us when eventually my brother moved the blankets and told us we were dumb. 

We also used to ride our bikes a lot. We would go around the block and go inside tell our moms we were ok and go ride around again...go inside tell our moms we were all right and go out again...you get the idea. well  as we were riding we saw a snake crossing the road. I lived out in a swampy area so this wasnt an unusual thing. Well we didnt want to get bitten obviously so we turned around to go back.... but we got a little ways down the road and there was another snake... except it was bigger... We stood in the middle of the road because we thought we were going to die. We finally got the courage to try to go back the other way because we figured the snake would be gone, and it was but man it was still scary. We went right back into my yard and stayed there. It was a while before we went back on our bikes again. 

The last scary story was when we were riding our bikes again and the house behind mine had three big dogs. They were always outside behind the fence so we never really had to worry about them. Until one day one of them decided he wanted to chase us. He jumped on his dog house jumped over his fence and started going after us. We peddled so hard that day. I was of course slower because I didnt get the banana seat bike which was obviously the faster bike so I basically almost died that day (Not really.) I screamed at the dogs to go away and apparently I speak dog because he listened. Or just got tired of chasing us. EIther way we tried to avoid going past that house after that....

Random Story #3

 Once Upon a Time

I wanted to be a country music singer. 

I swore I was going to be the next Leanne Rimes. 

You will be shocked to know that this didnt happen. But I am ok with it. 

I wanted so badly to learn how to play the guitar because what kind of country music singer would I be if I didnt play guitar? 

My mom bought me my first guitar. It was blue and I was so excited about it. She even signed me up for lessons. Score! I was on my way to becoming famous. 

Oh I also wrote songs. Some of them...most of them were terrible. But I did it a lot. Any time something would inspire me I wrote a song. Most of them didnt' make sense. I think if I remember correctly I had one called Boomerang love. I don't know... I was like ten. ANYWAYS. 

But before I could write my own music to go with my songs, I had to learn to play other songs first. Thats when the lessons came into play. Friends of my parents had a side business where they did all sorts of music lessons. It worked out. 

However... not only did I not put in the time I also had no musical abilities to begin with. I still cant carry a tune in a bucket. 

OF course no one would tell me this they all encouraged me and told me I'd be the next Dolly Parton. I wish I came to the realization that i couldn't sing before I embarrassed myself. 

The music teacher would hold a concert type thing at the end of the year to show the parents everyone's progress. 

People with ACTUAL talent and who actually put in the work....and me. 

I had to perform two songs. I was supposed to sing these songs. I sang part of the first one before I lost what little nerve I had. 

Would you believe that I was once a person who had confidence? 

The song I sang part of...was Jingle Bells. 

Easy song. Should have been no problem. I remember hearing my voice like it was the first time and hearing my terrible guitar playing. I am not even exaggerating. I saw a video of it later and started crying again. (I was in my 20's when I saw the video) 

I dont even think I finished the second song. I think I just stopped playing and walked off stage. I wanted to run away. 

No one was mean to me about. Everyone again told me I did great. 

Liars. 

One of the girls who performed ended up being a camp counselor that summer. I remembered her immediately and told her that I thought she did a great job on piano. She remembered me to... I told her I did an awful job and didnt' put in the work. She smiled and said but you still tried. It still took a lot of courage to stand up there and try. 

Which she was right. It did. I still never got my confidence back... Not sure if I ever will. But I did play a guitar and sing in front of a bunch of people when i was 12 years old. Maybe not a famous country singer...but I did try HA. 

 

Random Story 2

 So this story is kind of relevant to what is going on in the world. 

Masks.

I know... I know... Apparently its a touchy subject. So much hate over a piece of cloth. BUT ANY WHO

I have an irrational fear of mask...not the cloth kind specifically. Just mostly Halloween masks. 

Weird since I LOVE Halloween. 

This fear started after I watched "The Man in the Iron Mask" 

Older movie. I dont remember much of the movie other than its a story of twin brothers who were born of royalty and apparently they weren't supposed to have twins so they hid one of the brothers away and the one that was allowed to be prince was kind of a jerk so he locked his brother away and made him wear an iron mask for his whole life. And it was a scary looking mask and the process of putting it on him was... well.. I still have nightmares. 

But I remember watching this movie at around 13 and I am such a wimp anyways that it stuck with me. I remember exactly why I watched this movie. 

My dog was having puppies and I couldn't go in my room until she was done. So I stayed up watching movies and apparently that one was on and it seemed like a good idea at the time. 

I watched scooby doo after it because I was so scared. 

But ever since then the thought of putting a mask over my face has freaked me out. Even stupid cleansing masks. 

HOWEVER because I am a kind and considerate person who wants this Covid crap to go away I wear a mask when I go out in public. Which thankfully isnt very often because well I panic when I put the mask on. It has helped me get over my fear a little bit because I was able to use one of those face cleansing masks and it didnt completely freak me out. 

So I am going to call that a win. 

Hope you enjoyed this random story!

Random Story

I made a promise to myself I would blog more this year.

SO... I guess I am going to do some random blogs like I used to back in the day. 

Doesn't matter no one reads them anyways. 

So today I thought I would share some random story with you that you might not know. 

One of my favorite Pokemon is Squirtle. Pokemon was pretty popular when I was a kid. My nieces and nephews (who are around the same age as me) All collected the cards. 

I wish I still had those cards but there is one card I wish I kept just because of the story. 

You see when I was a kid I wasnt allowed to listen to the popular music that everyone else my age was listening to. I had to listen to what my parents listened to. Which wasnt a bad thing I didnt mind back then. 

There was one tape my parents used to play a lot. It was a Hank WIlliams Jr Tape that I had every single song memorized. 

The point of telling you about the tape was for this part of the story...

My nephew won a Squirtle card in a crane game. A game I kept trying to play and win this specific card but I didn't. He did... And he only kept it because he knew I wanted it....Isn't family great? Anyways. So I kept asking him for this card over and over and he said look I will make a bet with you. If you win you can have the card. 

I dont remember who's idea it was for the bet to be for me to sing every song on the tape but that was the bet and i CRUSHED IT. We didnt even get to side two before he just handed me the card and said "Here just stop singing" 

But did i stop? OF COURSE NOT! I was so happy to have my squirtle card I had to sing more!

I didn't keep that card unfortunately. It was probably with all my other cards I sold. 

But fast forward to my life as an "Adult" where I told my husband this story and he set out to find me that card. It was really nothing special...but do you think he could find a squirtle card in his travels? Nope... So instead he got me a Squirtle Stuffed animal. 

I forgot I told him that story and when he surprised me with the stuffed animal I was all teary eyed and surprised that I called it a squishy. Now... we call Pokemon squishys 

And now I have shared this random story I have to do some more boring adult things. 

I swear buying a house has to be one of the most stressful things I have dealt with...

Hope everyone is having a great day. I will see you tomorrow with another random story 

What does Christmas Mean to you?

 Good morning Blog world. 

I keep trying to type up a new blog to post but it either doesn't flow right or I get distracted. So lets see if this one will make it to the publish button. 

I guess you can say I have a bit of writers block. It happens sometimes. And its not because I don't have Ideas or I am not inspired to write. 

I am just sad I guess and I hate when the sadness comes out in my writing. 

It is Christmas time and I am doing my hardest not to be a ba-hum-bug like normal but this year is weird to say the least. 

This is my first Christmas with my baby girl and Covid is kind of putting a damper on it. LET ME BE CLEAR... I am grateful that my family is healthy and I would like to keep it that way. And I know some families have it worse than I do but I am also aloud to be a little selfish and say this year has sucked. 

I was terrified of becoming a parent because I was afraid I wouldnt be able to do anything fun. So I had all these plans of adventures we were going to do...especially around Christmas time but we cant...Well we could but we dont want to be irresponsible and be part of the problem. 

However, during this time of being a homebody (more than usual) I have had a lot of time to really think about things and how I want my family to celebrate Christmas. 

By the way I want those who know me to count how many times I use the word Christmas with out cringing...ha!

The past few years it seems like Christmas has spiraled into "Things we have to do." And I hate that. With family feuds and crazy schedules, Christmas was miserable last year. I was pregnant, cranky and just over it all. The family was fighting over dumb stuff that still hasn't been resolved but we all forced...well most of us forced ourselves around the dinner table at my parents un- air conditioned house (I live in Florida by the way and most Christmas days are in the 80s...) eating lasagna because thats what we have always had on Christmas....in complete and utter silence. And my dad...I love him dearly but he doesnt get social ques at all... my dad sitting at the head of the table as most men do and he looks around at everyone who isnt making eye contact with each other...and he says... "This is what its all about" Smiling proudly at his family. 

I almost choked on my food. 

I have seen enough Hallmark movies to know that isnt what Christmas is about. 

This year is going to be different. I decided after last year of spending the day going to three houses to make sure everyone is happy wasting a day off with my husband doing things I really didn't want to do...I decided it is going to be different this year. 

I am not sure how its all going to work out just yet but I want to start making Christmas memories that make me smile. 

Like how every year my mom would play the same five Christmas Cd's as loud as she could handle it. 

by the way in case you want to know what Christmas sounded like in my house it was, A very Dolly Christmas, Elvis Christmas Classics, Joe Diffy Christmas, a Bubba Claus Christmas (Yeah don't ask ) And my all time favorite Dr. Elmo's Twisted Christmas (The dude who sings Grandma got run over by a reindeer)

Christmas was opening up my stocking presents with my grandma watching while we waited for my mom to wake up. 

Christmas was watching my oldest sister take 20 minutes to open a present because she kept talking during it and because she had to talk with her hands she stopped unwrapping. 

Christmas was never ending scratch offs just because that's all my dad really likes. 

Those are just some of the memories I have that I can say are good memories of Christmas. But most of them I have are just kind of boring and make me sad. 

This year... will be different. This year I have Alice to spoil. And even though she wont remember any of it. I will remember it all. I will remember that no we didn't have a big traditional tree because I don't have the room in this small house. But I did make sure to have a Tree that she can honestly say no one else had. I took my Halloween tree and Christmas-ified it.  

She is going to know that Christmas is about love and togetherness...but not just having to be together for the sake of family but wanting to be together because you enjoy each others company. 

To me, that is what Christmas used to be and will be again someday. The wanting to wake up early on Christmas morning, the excitement to see family members you haven't seen all year, The good food that someone cooked because they wanted to not because they had to, the music that is played because its fun and makes you smile. The ornaments that are hung on the tree not just because they are pretty but because they mean something to someone.  

I love the idea of having Christmas Traditions but not for the sake of having them. Because they will be fun. I remember hearing someone tell me about their traditions how they do the same exact thing every year. I was able to witness this one year and I asked... do you enjoy this? 

The response was not really but that's just how we have always done it. 

To me that is crazy. 

As Alice grows I'd like to think we will do things each year because they are fun. I dont think I would want to force her to go get a tree to decorate it if thats not what she finds fun. Maybe one year we will just leave our Halloween decorations up and we will have presents under the great pumpkin. 

Whatever we do. I want her to be excited for Christmas even when she is in her 30's. I dont want her to lose the magic of Christmas just because she grew up. 

P.s I Don't think I will ever do Elf on the shelf and for those of you that did... I am sorry and good luck. LOL

I am curious to know what tradition or activity you will be doing this year that is different than normal Christmas (Or whatever Holiday you celebrate) traditions. 

Not too many people really interact with the blogs but I would love to hear some feedback. 

I also want to wish you a Merry Happy Whatever you celebrate. 

Thanks for reading from the Rambling Random Reed. :)