Two Days And Three Thanksgiving Dinners.

So it’s Sunday, my “recovery” day. I’ve had two days were I’ve done nothing but laugh and stuff my face. Not exactly a bad thing honestly. My mom worked on Thanksgiving and my sister came home Wednesday night, so I thought I’d go over to my nana’s and help her out with whatever needed to be done, but I think it was just better to stay at home. I taped Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade for three hours and I never got passed the second hour. I think last year I never got past the first half hour, this time I actually tried to get a little further than last year. I still didn’t last very long though. Despite for the sucky parade, my Thanksgiving day was actually relaxing. When my mom got home that night, the cats came inside when she tried to get through the door. I got down on the floor and went into the living room. Since we got some snow the day before, the temperate down there was freaking cold! I had my sister put me on the couch. My mom made us tune noodle casserole because Blondie and I were hungry. Dad ended up breaking up the bread for us, we never got to watch our movie we had planned on watching for basically two weeks. I did get to hear my sister just talk her head off though so that made up for it.

The next day, I woke up fairly early. I was anxious and worried all at the same time. My sister’s boyfriend Batman came over at 3am and don’t worry he had dad’s permission to come over at that time. So when I got up, he was there in the living room trying to get ChiChi up to him. She actually surprised me, right before we left the house. He sat on the couch and she just casually jumped up on his lap. She hardly barks/growls at him now. When we got to my nana’s, we got there first before my uncle, aunt and my cousin Kristi. So we had to take our winning selfie and brag about it. Since we had our Thanksgiving feast on Friday, the stores were open. My sister had to get the fruit and vegetable trays. It was the first time in a while were we got to have both and it was the best thing ever. Even though my mom did eat all of the green peppers before everybody got there. I was still surprised Kristi didn’t devour the strawberries in one setting. I went over in my big wheelchair so I felt like I was in the way, but since I showed my nana how to play Bubble Shooter I was allowed to leave the room and play the game on her laptop. So that’s when this picture was captured. I watched my mom and Batman make the stuffing we always have too much of every year. My mom makes two different kinds of stuffing: one with oysters and the other without. Batman had the best job of all, he was mom’s taste tester even though it was his first year with us he still volunteered himself to be the taste tester, especially when he said he loved oysters. Brave soul.

Everybody was good about taking pictures, since everybody knows they’re just not going on Facebook and Instagram. They’re going on here too. So I tried to only take less suspecting pictures were I can’t get in trouble with, that’s why everybody is looking down.  Like I said the other day, my dad does the turkey every year. My nana broke down the gilbets for the gravy which were disgusting at the ending stages. When my uncle, aunt and cousin Kristi got there everybody got hotter in the kitchen really fast, I definitely kept myself out of the kitchen and away from the fruit tray the best I could  My mom knew everybody wasn’t going to leave until the next day, so she got this idea that we should have a game to play. She sent out Blondie, Batman and Kricket to the dollar store to figure out what game to get for us. It was between Family Feud and Scattergories. My Uncle David didn’t think we needed to play Family Feud, getting into teams would be bad for us. So they got Scattergories, and since it was Black Friday, it was only $7.

We had planned to have everything done by 1:30pm and honestly we needed that next half hour because when Dad got there and the turkey was finished cooking it was like we were rushing, we had croissant rolls and it took three people, including my sister and it was first time ever doing that. They baked, along with my uncle’s infamous mac and cheese that took the longest to bake. When the rolls everybody forgot about the egg wash on top of them, but honestly they were better without it. We had to have two tables and that meant three adults, including myself sat at our notorious kid’s table. I definitely felt like an adult considering in my electric wheelchair I’m higher than I am in my push chair, we had to use four books to lift it up for me. It worked though! You know when everybody’s enjoying the food when everybody’s extra quiet. I only ate turkey, green bean casserole, mac and cheese, and four rolls. Plus the two plate full of veggies and fruit before and after I finished. Since I don’t like pie, I thought fruit could be my dessert then I remembered my nana had Twinkies in her fridge. I think I owe her like two of them now.

My dad was the first to leave, then my mom took home the twins as I called them so they could take a nap. Our original plan was to take a nap too and then wake up to play our game. We didn’t even make it to the freaking living room! We just stayed in the kitchen the entire time, except for when everybody to go outside to take a smoke break. After that first break they took, my mom broke open the game box and read the rules, but since we don’t normally read the rules we did things a little differently, instead of reading off the extra categories and using the timer that they provided us with, we just went in a line around the room with only five seconds to answer the questions. That first game I did win it but Kricket and Katt were tied so they went up against each other to end the game. It was the best thing we could have done in those five or six hours we spent in that kitchen as a family. We laughed and groaned at everybody’s answers, but nobody’s answers were as bad as my nana and I’s answers were while David, Katt, and Kricket were outside visiting a friend. The question was: Things that kids play with and the dice landed on the letter “M” and the only thing my nana and I thought of were bad. She said machine guns and I said matches. While we played the game, my papaw did play a little bit of it too. It was so cute! He didn’t do too bad either.

My mom had to work the next day, so we had to head home around 8pm. I was a little bummed, but I was hoping to go over to the next day as my other uncle and aunt were going to come over. Dad had to wake me up at 11:30am, I had a hard time going to bed that night. When we got there, there was two cars in the driveway. I didn’t know who the second car belonged to until I saw up by the mirror and I realized it was Kristi’s car. We went inside and everybody was everywhere. Kristi had put up my nana’s Christmas tree for her. I honestly don’t have any energy yet to put up ours. Maybe by the end of the week I can talk my mom into it. Anyways, it was great to see my Uncle Rick and Aunt Linda finally! David and Katt hadn’t left then either. They were looking at old pictures from the 80’s and later. David found a picture of my papaw with some bell bottoms and it was dated 1980. Oh lord! My Aunt Katt kept this old notebook/diary from 1986 and it was really interesting, even though I felt really wrong for reading it! I could not stop reading it though, after we got done eating and thankfully we had ham, which had cinnamon on it. It was amazing! I want cinnamon on my ham for now on! Linda is going to try to bring Louisiana Crunch Cake the next time she comes down for me!

When my dad came to pick me up, I got home and relaxed before going over to the garage for my third and final Thanksgiving dinner. Ever have a thought come back to bite you in the ass? I sure as hell did! I’ve always wanted to experience more than one Thanksgiving dinner but only because everybody else I know has more than one. I had three and by the end of the second I started to understand the meaning of food coma better.

My dad came to bring me over to the garage around 5:30pm, surprisingly I was getting hungry again and I had lunch (a lot of food too) just three hours before. I went into the garage and compared to yesterday’s temperature it was like a normal Thanksgiving weather, had to been around 45 degrees outside. I definitely didn’t need my socks when I first went out there. My dad was deep-frying the last turkey. If this was to be my last Thanksgiving I sure as hell ate a LOT! Dad and I shared a plate. He got both turkey and ham, I just ate the turkey this time around. Ju-Ju and Theresa made the sides along with the desserts. All three dinners and I never had a proper dessert. That NEVER happens! Like, ever. Dad got us green beans, dumplings, mashed potatoes with gravy, and little rolls that he made. I didn’t want the dumplings at first but Ju-Ju said that she made them and they were amazing! I’m glad I changed my mind at the last minute. I definitely enjoyed that meal too and watched the boys play a couple of rounds of pool too. I think I only stayed there for like two and a half hours before my dad took me home because I was so exhausted. Which didn’t matter because I didn’t get much sleep last night and I didn’t even blog either. If you celebrated Thanksgiving, I hope you had a great time! If you didn’t, I hope you enjoyed this post and I’m REALLY sorry if you’re hungry right now too!

Will Travel

I am following over 700 different accounts on Twitter, they range from fans of bands, celebrities, and TV shows. If you want the whole story of how I really got into the whole Twitter phase of my life. Blame it on Mike Shinoda from Linkin Park. In the fall of 2008, I had created my first ever account but I was so confused on how to use it that I lost my will to use it, that is until the summer of 2009 were I was following the guys of Linkin Park and their fans like crazy. I got to release some thoughts that I felt were trapped deep inside my head. It was a great idea until I started to have old classmates and family members creeping up on me and seeing my tweets. Is it bad that in the beginning that I actually blocked a few people I knew? In 2010, I deleted my original account and got a new one a week later. Trust me, my break from Facebook was longer. Now I follow different bloggers and several contestants of Dancing With The Stars.

As you may know, I really enjoyed seeing Amy Purdy on DWTS this past year. She was my idol on that show for season 18, as she is a double amputee snowboarder that decided to join the cast two days after she won a bronze medal at the Paralympics in Russia last winter. She was partnered with my mom’s favorite Derek Hough. This week on DWTS Derek was having a bad week finding creative ideas for his and partner for this season, Bethany Mota. The next day, I saw a tweet that I didn’t think would inspire me in any shape or form, but it did. Amy posted a tweet of a link she had him watch on the week he wasn’t getting any ideas of what to do for their routines. The video at the bottom was the link she included in the tweet. It was 11:30am and my mom was just getting up, I had been up for a few hours. I decided to watch the video of author of the book, Eat, Pray, Love Elizabeth Gilbert talk about finding ideas and describing them as “geniuses” and how to turn off those doubts of after you’ve done something amazing.

In the middle of the 19 minute video of Elizabeth’s speech, my mom came in with one of our kittens: Stormy. I didn’t get the chance to pause the video while she was in my room, so it kept playing and she talked and soothed Stormy to stay up on my bed. After she left, I quickly figured out how to rewind it just a tad after I found the place I missed hearing, I continued on and different things she was saying were really revealing to me. Without giving too much away, I’ll just skip to the parts were it really made me think. When I get ideas, I have trouble getting them and having them last for a long period of time. When I was in high school, I used to write songs and I did this for nine or ten years, by the end of it though my ideas would only last for a good ten minutes before they float away. Now I have the problem of getting an idea and the words to write it out from my brain down to my feet to type it out so it’s real. Apparently it’s a slow process going down to my feet and that’s the reason why it takes a few days for ideas to be let out.

If you have 20 minutes to yourself and have a headphones set with you, I think you should watch this and maybe you’ll learn something about yourself. I did…

Road To Thanksgiving

I think this is my first week of Thanksgiving were I am actually paying attention to what is going on around me. I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting older and I’d like to take over the reign of getting things ready for Thanksgiving in our family, but it’s just drastic change from last year and the years before. My only concern is that we have fun and I have my celery and dip. That’s basically all I want honestly! As I get older, I was wonder about if somebody would allow me to make something, but by the time I find something it’s too late to get everything ready to make it. Since I can’t use the stove/oven by myself because of the use of my feet, my courage of cooking or baking anything for my family or friends in the neighborhood just freak me out. I’ve never done it before. Even in our Cooking Ed class or whatever it was called by then, I never got to do anything that the students got to do because I couldn’t reach the countertops. I got left in charge of putting the rags that they used in the washer. Oh boy! In my last year of that class, since I got sick I missed their whole week of cooking/baking and I got left with memorizing different types of cookies and what are in them. I failed that damn test. I knew I was going to fail it, I just did it because I wanted it over. I’m pretty sure I could pass it now though!

My family is celebrating our Thanksgiving on Friday. So I’m making my “road to Thanksgiving” a bit early but it’s okay. We thought everybody in our family had heard of my mom’s schedule enough over the weekend that we’d all knew what days she was off work and when we were going to celebrate it. Well, my poor dad has been a little bit backwards. We’ve had to tell him at least twice now. This is the first time I think we’ve ever had to celebrate a holiday on another day than the actual day. I thought I’d be the one doing this or at least my papaw, but nope it’s my dad instead. My week really started on Saturday when my mom began getting things from the store. I still remember most of the stuff we needed that we had on our trustee list my mom had stuffed in her purse. On Monday and Tuesday, my mom and I had our finale of Dancing With The Stars to watch, you know? She didn’t have to work on Tuesday or Wednesday, so she could stay up and watch it with me. An hour before it all started, she went to McDonald’s to get herself a milkshake. I already had a dessert product from there like two days before, my dad got us a hot fudge sundae to share. I didn’t end up with nothing though, they’re still selling smoothies here, so she got me a strawberry and banana smoothie. I finished it within an hour while Wren laid on my bed next to me.

Well, when I was finished with my smoothie. My mom asked me if I wanted to watch DWTS with her in the living room. I told her yes. So she took me in there and Wren in there, along with my Transformers blanket because I was freezing my toes off! I stayed in there on the smaller couch for three hours. Wren only lasted a good ten minutes on the couch before she got down and went back to my room on my bed. After the first break, mom went in there to bring her back out in the living room. She led her for a bit and then put her back on me and there she stayed for the next hours. I loved how this season ended even though I wasn’t too sure if I’d be so pumped for it like last season. I was worried that even though we didn’t have Amy Purdy on there anymore, I’d lose my interest in the show. I didn’t though, I was very much Team Sadie, Tommy, and Alfonso. My mom on the other hand switched on me. She’s usually on Team Derek, but she went on Team Val this season. You should have seen her on Tuesday when Sadie and Mark got those tens from the judges’ scores  for their fusion dances. She was NOT happy, but I was! I loved it! She was also not happy about Janel and Val getting booted first too. After that, she didn’t care about who won which ruined my outlook of the night. I would have been fine with anyone, but she’s just mad that her favorites didn’t win, but she always tells me if you don’t vote you can get mad at who wins. Karma’s a bitch! And I say that in the nicest way possible!

Wednesday, I went over to my nana’s for the second time. I’m not complaining but I think after the third hour being there the day before, we kind of ran out of things to talk about which ended up being a very good thing because something happened that neither one of us was expecting at all. Our family is notorious for surprising different family members. My uncle Dave is the king of this and his son Chris has been in second for years! One year we were having our Thanksgiving lunch, we all just got done eating and we were having our infamous food fight at the end and I remember “running” from everybody’s whip cream fingers as fast as I could. We all ended up in the kitchen because that year we had so many people that we had to put the kitchen table into the living room. We got into the kitchen, we were shouting and pointing at each other. All of a sudden, we heard this knock which freaked us out because we were all there. Nobody we knew was going to be there was there. So then when my cousin Chris came through that door our entire family kind of exploded with joy, then he got on the food fight by dropping a cupcake on the floor.

Just like that year, my nana and I were in the kitchen, we just got done eating and were trying to figure out what we were going to discuss next. She was facing towards the door and windows, I was facing the opposite direction so when she started to freak out on me, I didn’t know what was going on. She totally scared me until she said “you’re never going to believe who’s here.” I thought it was my sister at first until she went to the door and I turned out and looked out the window. They said they heard somebody scream, I’m pretty that was me. I even scared my papaw that once everybody was inside I went to get him and I think he was surprised too! It was such a fun time to be around Chris, Amber, and the kids again after almost four years. The kids had grown a lot! I showed Lynnie majority of the house, even my nana’s dollhouse. She’s got such a tiny voice. She had her hair up in the Elsa braid. I actually talked to her about Frozen and what teams we were on. She like Elsa the most, I told her I was on Team Olaf. We established that her daddy could be Kristoff especially since we explained he talks to a moose named Sven, then Chris said that he talks to his cars which doesn’t surprise me one bit.

My mom and dad got to see them after they came back from getting a head start at Christmas shopping. Neither one didn’t stay very long, but were glad they came down finally! Of course we can’t have a family visit without taking pictures. I felt bad for my sister, she was stuck at work while they were down here. She definitely wanted to be home then and that night as our older kittens from Bootsie’s first litter, Tubby decided to turn up after a year. Dad had always he got hit by a car because apparently there was a cat like him at the side of the street. He just didn’t tell us because he didn’t want to upset us. Blondie texted my mom after she continued to send pictures to her that he was home to never him go back outside, but after having my mom and ChiChi follow him around throughout the house, he meowed and mom put him back outside. Dad thinks somebody else has been taking care of him as good and calm he was being to us and other cats too.

 Now that it’s actually Thanksgiving, it’s a bit weird. I taped Macy’s Day Parade and I tried to watch a bit of it after I woke up, but I’m starting to understand why I don’t usually watch it. I loved it as a kid because of the giant balloons, but now they’ve got performers that you know they’re all lip-syncing to their music. Especially those broadway sections, but I like those I always have. I know, I know! I’m being weird again. Anyways, the parts I did watch it I only saw at least 3 balloon characters. Really? So I’m thinking now that setting it up to tape was a bad idea. I did this last year too, you’d think I’d remember it! However, one thing that my family and I always say we’re going to do is watch the Thanksgiving episode of Mad About You, called “Giblets For Murray” its were their dog Murray eats their turkey after they just told their family that it was their year hosting Thanksgiving and they were going to do things their way, well then they walk into the kitchen and find the dog going to town on the turkey. They spend the last part of the episode trying to sneak in another turkey into the kitchen without anybody noticing. It’s honestly a great episode, probably the best! I know every word of it because I’ve watched it so many times.

I hope everybody in the US is having a wonderful Thanksgiving. I am thankful for everything I have, my family and friends, this blog and ever-growing amount of music I can consume in a week. This is my road to Thanksgiving, if I can get myself to do anything tomorrow evening I’ll be posting my day with my crazy family that I am so stoked to seeing. I waited up for my sister last night as she came home from work in the snow. Yeah, I’m pretty sure we won’t be getting any snow for Christmas. That’s just my guess since it’s here on Thanksgiving. Dad said we didn’t get much though. I hope you’ve enjoy this post.

Tune Tuesday: Backstreet’s Back!

Over the weekend, I joined in the ever popular #lbloggers chat. One of my favorites Jasmin Charlotte hosted it and the topic was about “favorite things” and I had opened with I was listening to Backstreet Boys and they were getting me in a good mood, I was hoping the chat would top me off! From pressing the “tweet” button, I got four favorites and my new friend fellow blogger Jadirah and I started to have our own little chat about our favorite BSB songs and music videos. I had to leave early because my mom came in with my lunch and I was worried I wouldn’t make back in time and everybody would stop chatting with one another. I got back just in time though and I got to finish the chat. The chat as a whole was great, but I made a new friend while we fangirled about Backstreet Boys.

We both had some agreements on what songs we definitely liked the most, but of course all of the old singles are the best. Over the years, I have actually tried to listen to the rest of the albums because I’ve never been one to like a whole album, especially a pop, boy band album. After the chat ended, a normal person would just stop listening to them. I’m not normal and I might as well not try to become one now. I ended up listening to both “Black & Blue” which just had a birthday I think last week and “Millenium.” I have the first two albums, I’m STILL surprised they play after all these years honestly! Especially that first album, it’s the oldest one in my big CD case. I take extra care in my BSB CDs. The day it breaks on me, I’ll probably cry all over myself. Before I got my new iPod last winter, I had “Black & Blue” on my old iPod because I borrowed CDs from the library and when I switched over I lost that album and the rest, but I have 2 albums that I know for sure. I’ve just haven’t been in a mood for them in months! I know, it’s so sad! Out of all the weeks for me to want to listen to them though, it’s the week I’m devoted for One Direction. It was just a boy band kind of week, because at the end of the whole week. Nick Jonas joined the party and I don’t regret a single thing.

We established that we both are addicted to “The Call” and “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” and you have to! They were the first songs that opened the albums. Once she put “The Call” I had to switch my freaking Spotify onto that album and I just lost it. I think I even squealed like a little girl. Our second favorites are “All I Have To Give” and “As Long As You Love Me” both songs are amazing! Both can definitely make me cry on a sad/bad day. My third favorite is “Bigger” though. I also love the music video for it too. Jadirah likes the “Everybody” video because of the Halloween theme. That video used to scare the crap out of me as a kid!  Our second favorites as far music videos go, we both agreed “Quit Playing Games With My Heart” and the fact I took a Facebook quiz a while back about what BSB song was written for you? Or something like that. That was my answer and they played the music video.

She hasn’t listened to the album that came out last year, but then again neither have I. I’ve been too distracted, but I gotta say I wasn’t too distracted to watch their music video for “Show ‘Em (What You’re Made Of)” the day it came out. Brian Littrell is shirtless, how can you ignore that? I definitely couldn’t. I swear the man is a damn vampire, he never ages and I’m perfectly fine with that. What are your favorite Backstreet Boys songs and music video?

and just for fun…

Autumn’s Paradise

My family is really understanding and I think accepting my life as a blogger. I never thought I’d ever say those words but it is definitely true. One day out of the blue, I guess I was just finished with editing a bunch of pictures and I decided to show my dad and I ended up just showing him the whole lot. Ever since he’s been real accepting any kind of pictures, even pictures of his bike. My mom and sister takes pictures of different things and places for me and sometimes I don’t even have to ask. It just happens, which is what happened yesterday with my sister. She and Batman were supposed to come down yesterday for the day, but they couldn’t. So instead they went out and adventured out of their dorms into the George Rogers Clark memorial. There’s nothing like sitting in the garage with your dad and his friends and your sister texts you out of the blue and tells you she’s posted pictures on her Facebook of their day out for me. To me, that’s like the best thing ever.

The George Rogers Clark National Historical Park is located in Vincennes, Indiana. Frederic Charles Hirons designed the memorial and in 1936 President Franklin Roosevelt signed it as a National Park. Murals inside the building were designed by Ezra Winter. She got quite a few good pictures of different structures, but sadly I don’t know what some of them are called, except one and it’s the statue of Francis Vigo, he was Italian-American who assisted General Clark and it was built in 1934 by John Angel. Another part she got was the Lincoln Memorial Bridge, it is located in between Vincennes, IN and Lawrence County, IL. As for the rest of her pictures, even with the editing process it was still difficult to figure out what some of the structures had written on them. I’m sorry I can’t find anymore information about them.

While my sister stayed in her normal area, my Uncle Dave and Aunt Katt had to take a load down south. They went to Biloxi Beach where it was 70 degrees and sunny. Definitely not the cold ass weather we have in the Midwest right now. Everytime they visit the beach, they like to write different messages in the sand, take pictures, and post them on Facebook for whoever they were for, my sister and I finally got a beach message! You wouldn’t think it would be that BIG of a deal but I’ve always gotten a little jealous of everybody else, it was a nice surprise finding that on my aunt’s Facebook. They went to a mustang show, that my mom told me while we were in the car on our way to nana’s house yesterday, she literally said “motorcycle show” instead of “mustang show.” Sounds like my mom is still reeling the fact that dad put his bike in his building for the winter. That was a sad day for all of us. I know it’ll be back out in April, but that’s a long time from now! I don’t know if my mom and I can wait that long! It’s even longer for a bike rally! We’re not going to even go there.

I tried to edit the picture the best I could so you could read it clearly but I didn’t want to ruin the picture entirely, so this is what you got. The sand there is like really white and shiny, the best example I could give is Edward Cullen’s skin when he goes out in the sunlight. No hate! My aunt has brought my nana like a big cup full of sand from different beaches they’ve been to, she honestly doesn’t care, well I take that back she’s a got a deep love for California so I’m pretty sure she’d rather have Cali sand more, but it’s sand. This weekend it was just my mom and I at my nana’s house. I got to take my big wheelchair again. I’ve got a good idea of what we’re going to do to my nana’s kitchen table for our Thanksgiving dinner/lunch whatever you want to call it. My sister comes home Tuesday night and according to our mom, we have the job of breaking bread apart. I don’t know if my mom remembers me having to do it last year, but I do because it wasn’t pretty and I did it wrong a couple of times but I kept getting distracted by Major Crimes episodes we missed so we decided to watch it in my room at that moment. It was a bad idea!

I still have no clue how this week is going to go, as I was told one thing and everything might be messed up just a tad. It’s okay though, I can wait. Last night I went over to the garage, it was so beautiful outside yesterday afternoon and evening. We went over kind of early than we normally do, because we got back home at like 9pm. I was hurting and I don’t honestly know how or why I was hurting so much as I didn’t do that much yesterday that would make my hips hurt so much. I watched everybody play pool, sing and dance along to the radio. My mom let me try some of her southern comfort last night before we left, it wasn’t so bad but I hated that after burn! Rex brought over a bottle of whiskey that according to my mother tasted like cotton candy fireball. She’s been listening to too much Pitbull in the last couple days. I had my Dr. Thunder the rest of the night, I was a bit jealous I didn’t get to taste the fireball stuff but after eating two bread sticks and two slices of pizza, I’m thinking that’s the last thing I needed. I might be taking my iPod and headphones along with me tonight if I have to listen to country and classic rock again tonight. I doubt the guys will switch it on our pop “junk” tonight like they did last night, it was only supposed to be for a joke but it ended up staying on longer than they wanted it to. I think they should have changed it after my mom started dancing and singing to it. Apparently my mom can still embarrass the living shit out of me. Who knew?