4th of July weekend, Michael Jackson came to Missouri....well...not the real one of course. An impersonator.....from a distance he did look like Michael Jackson.....




but up close...zoomed in....not so much

he started out pretty good.....he actually singed...no lip-syncing here...considering its Missouri weather along the humid Missouri River...he did a pretty good job of the singing.

and even had a couple of Michaels...signature moves and dances down pat....

but after awhile you start to noticing that lyrics were just not coming out right....

and at one point he actually messed up a lyric and then said 'HEY! I"m sorry...I"m hot and hungry!' It was hot and I was hungry too so I forgave him.....

and everyone, young and old forgave him and just danced and didnt stop to we got enough to the Michael Jackson tribute.....

New Year's Eve...some shots that made me...sad. It ended my party early....

Jessiah, Angela, Brylie and Syncere.....Angela is my niece...the younger ones are my great niece's and nephews.....Jessiah and Brylie are sister and brother and this is the first time I've seen them in about 9 months even though we all live within 20 minutes of each other. Jessiah is very quiet and withdrawn. Brylie is loud and loves attention. Oh , Jessiah and Brylie are Angela's niece and nephew....

Jessiah again. When he walked in he grabbed my hand and I tell you what we never let go of each other for the rest of the night. Here he's laying down because he didnt feel good. The toy is his and the leaf he found in my living room and he asked if he could have it. When I told him he could he said that it needed to go to sleep on the pillow with him.

Jessiah again. He has the cutest cowlick!! Red curls and a cowlick...But really, I know women who would KILL for those eyelashes....

And these are pictures that made me very happy. Black and white pictures always do.....

Jalil is a Packer fan all the way............

Here he's explaining to me how hard it is to kick a football....like I"m going to let him play football next year.....

As you can see...he kicked the ball almost through the goal....I was shocked my damn self....can you see the ball on the left side of the pole, near the top of it?

I really like this shot of Jalil and his dad...

*WTF....some idiot sent me an invitation to a website called The Booty Call...... I cant...I cant get my words together. Maybe that's better because right now I want to cuss him dafuq out.....

*Sometimes I wish I could just beat my kids. Really and truly beat them. Starve them. Give them only one pair of jeans, a shirt, underwear, I pair of socks, and tennis shoes to wear. Everyday. Day in and day out. The same shit. Just so that they could actually see how damn good they have it. They have NO clue. That is a resolution for this year. To give my children’s reality back to them. They are the most overpriviledged underpriviliged kids I know. They feel like their life is sooooooooooooooo freakin' bad yet they each have $300 TOTAL cash, clothes galore, new games, they got their xbox's and xbox 360's back, dvd players back...I know I'm forgetting something yet they want to argue with me about being bored driving in the freaking car!!! WTF??? Are they insane?! I was nearly in tears at how crazy it is.

* My car breaking down on Christmas Day....is NOT a good sign. Driving on the highway my power steering went out, then a few hundred feet later...my battery light came on...and then another few feet my thermostat went all the way to the other side, in the red. My first thought was the serpintine belt. The boys called Kerry, who came to get us, and I called Lawrence and he said he agreed ( Have I said how much I love him?) that it sounded like the serpintine belt and it should be okay to drive back to the house. So we parked and waited for Kerry and then he followed me home. Well today my dad worked on it and it wasnt the belt but a pulley but it is fixed for $20 instead of the $100 for the belt and the $3000 for labor. I exaggerate but not by much....

*Dare I jinx it and say how much I love having 70 degree weather THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS?!!!! YEAAAAAAAAAAAH BABY....

* I am officially 21! Yeah....my birthday was Saturday and truth be told, I dont really mind getting older. Birthday's dont phase me too much. I just tend to ignore them. Well, I ignore them on the outside. I like to consider my birthday My New Year and that is when I start thinking about what I want to do differently in regards to ME. I'm inspired to get back on my organization bandwagon, getting back on my strict diet, and cutting clutter out of my life, that includes people. I dislike classifying human's as clutter but just because its my clutter doesnt mean it has to be someone else's clutter. Hell, I'm probably someone else's clutter. And I'm okay with that.

* I leave you with....PICTURES OF COURSE! LOL....

Jalil isn't even excited about getting his 360 back.....LOL

Ava Rae's first Christmas....you cant tell it by this shot but the whole dining room table is covered COVERED with her Christmas presents....but what is she most interested in???? Yes, the bow's and the wrapping paper.....

My mother....*sigh*....I cant get that woman to just stand and take a picture......that's my daddy....


LOL...one day, she will hate me for this! But 'Mylie has her finger up her nose 90 freaking percent of the time! oh yeah....that's my brother......

siggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggh*** yes the dog got a present.....wasntme....



Okoye and his model pose.... I'll be so glad when he gets his hair cut........his cap is covering the bush that is growing on his head. This just reminds me how much I like him with no hair......

Parking Lot Wars

I work in a government office building with limited parking. Put it this way there is parking but most of the close parking, near the building, is not taken up by the public but by state employees. People will get here an hour early just to get parking close to the building. Get here and then…go to sleep in their car or finish getting dressed or put on makeup...LIKE ME. The closer spots are usually taken up my night personnel such as security officers and maintance so some people will lay in wait, like sharks circling a body in the ocean. Parking in the cut to get that coveted spot. This morning was a little different.

I came around the corner of the lane and I noticed the regular van sitting in wait for a prize spot. Me, I park wherever…which reminds me, I need to park further away so I can get a little exercise. Anywho… I pull into a spot backwards, usually, the way my luck runs, someone in a huge ass truck will park next to me on BOTH sides and I have a heck of a time pulling out backwards so just to nip that…I park with the front end out…Again, I park and I hear a car door slam and look up…

A lady gets out of car and starts heading in but notices a guy getting into his car so she hurriedly turns around hops in her car and tries to pull as he pulls out. You guessed it, it IS the coveted spot that the van has been waiting on…both of them try pull into the spot with half of their ass half out of the spot. Now, I’ve been in a view embarrassing situations and when drama rears its ugly head, I’m do not watch. So I put on my makeup, occasionally glancing over. I have my mix cd playing but I can faintly hear voices…I continue to put on my makeup.

By the time I finish, get out, plug my meter, grab my stuff obviously the sittachawation has been diverted because the girl has backed back into another spot (another money grubber parking spot lot thief took her original spot) and I think all is well in parking lot land. Then I realize I left my vacation planner in the car ( got to have something to do while I’m at work…PLAN MY VACATION) so I turn back towards my car and I see the girl ON HER KNEE’S beside her car. My guess, praying not to kick anyone’s ass. Do I intrude? Do I talk to her? Do I check on her? What do I do???? Hell, here I go and I start to walk over but then I was saved! Someone stops beside her and I seen her nod her head and the
Stoper walked on….

More 4th pictures….HEY! if you look at my fireworks pictures, you will notice the smoke...kinda messes up my shots. If anyone knows how to take those clear shots WITHOUT the smoke tendrils...let a sista know....

The 4th...

Okay...I like the 4th...A liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittttttttttttllllllllllle bit....

The Memorial Service for my aunt went off without a hitch. Sorta. The negatives I don’t want to get into but the positives was seeing a lot of family members I haven’t seen in awhile. Lots of cousins and great aunts and uncles. Lots of older people knew me. I get a kick out of hearing those soft, crackling voices say ‘there’s lil Jakki’. They can barely see but they know its me. Some people hate the smell of older people but the smell always takes me back to when I lived with my grandparents and how safe I felt. How much fun I had BEING a kid and how my kids have never felt that freedom I had growing up. That freedom to actually be a kid.

My 'big city' cousins always use to come and stay with us during the summer. They came during the rest of the year but it was always for maybe a night or two but during the summer it was usually for a week at a time. It was always fun. Lord we were so creative. There was a creek that ran behind my grandparents house at the very far edge of their property and every morning, EARLY we headed there to spend pretty much all day down there finding rocks, making ‘soup’ and mud pies, eating mulberry’s, peeing in the creek. You know, fun stuff until I stepped on a rusty nail and my grandmother told me I couldn’t hang out with my brother and my boy cousins.

Last weekend we all got to talking about the old days and I said how embarrassed I became when they used to come stay with us. When I reached,like the Hell Years of 13 and 14, I started to see my life how they must have seen my life. When we used to go stay in the city with them, Lord there was all sorts of stuff going on. I learned at an early age not to claim my family if asked if I knew them. My cousins seemed so cool and did grown up things. There was no crickets chirping or country sounds but there was yelling, cussing and horns honking at all hours of the night. You know, FUUUUUUUUUUN stuff. I was young, forgive me. Anywho…

My cousins looked at me like I had grown another head. Embarrassed??? They loved coming to stay with us…I listened to my cousins talk about my small home town and Lord I felt ashamed of being embarrassed. I seen it through their eyes and it almost seemed like a fairy tale compared to their lives then AND NOW. It was simple but comforting. I’ve always felt like I had a wonderful ‘growing up’ but never thought others seen it that way. Not much has changed and I think that is why my kids love to go stay with Nana and Papa, my parents. My dad doesn’t believe in kids sitting in all day, talking and texting on phones, or sleeping until noon. Sounds like hell doesn’t it but my kids still pack up and go at the drop of a hat.

We made plans for the 4th of July to get together and hang out over the 3 day weekend. I’m sure there will be drinking, eating, volleyball…hanging out. Talking and laughing. I’m sure crying. Sleeping. Relaxing. Enjoying life. And it will be back in my home town again. Just like a long time ago. And it will be a comfort to all of us all over again…

President Trumans Gift to me on his birthday....

I am off today due to a state holiday...President Truman's Birthday. I felt a need to reference that because up until Monday, I had no clue I was off. Checked the calender, nothing there. Checked with other reliable sources and found out hey, we are off so I tried to set something up with my sweetie. Had things set with him but then the very next day Jalil told me that some coach wanted him to do some ball throwing thing in some track meet so we were going to have to plan our day around that. No problem...lazy afternoons are right up my alley.

Last night said sweetie called to blow me off for some Armed Services award thingee...

:-/

I'm very tempermental. Moody even. Lets just say I wasnt happy and by the time we got through...he wuddn't happy either.

Anywho...once people couldnt get me at work, my doorbell, phone, computer has not stopped ringing binging or buzzing. So much for trying to nap until 11:30.

First a neighbor wanted to know if I had jumper cables.

chirp

chirp

chirp

IT IS 7:30 IN THE MORNING!!!!

Second, my oldest son calls DURING class....can I go to the store to get some pizza rolls sometime today??? Oh and one of his friends wanted to say 'hi'. Daniel gets on the phone, says hi and I'm all like WHAT CLASS ARE YOU IN THAT ALLOWS YOU TO CALL AND ASK FOR DAMN PIZZA ROLLS???? To which he promptly gave the phone back to my son and I think I heard the word 'trippin'

Third, my youngest son calls (yet in ANOTHER class) and informs me that the track meet is cancelled (ummm can I get a what what here because this is GREAT news) and proceeds to ask what I've been doing...ummm 'sweetie, you are in class...LEARN something!'

Fourth, my mom calls. Dad wants to know what we are doing for mothers day. This is an hour long conversation full of 'I dont know's and 'I don't care's.' During said conversations...doorbell rings...

Fifth neighbor comes to door asking if my electricity is off.....

:-/

Sixth, Dad calls...makes cracks about State Workers...I laugh half heartedly and ask what he's doing and he said something about trying to make it to my house. 'You know there's all kinds of detours around you neighborhood....you could have told me.' ummm didnt know he was coming over so how could I tell him about detours????

Seventh, while Dad and I are talking about Mother's Day, my dog is farting up a storm. He's a beautiful dog, with deep markings but when he's doing that and then looking at his own butt like 'wow'...you cant really awknowledge the pressence he has....Then he's looking at my dad as if to say 'I didnt hear nothing'. My dad, who hates my dog says...'yeah that's a special dog right there...'