Picture taken by Levi at the time, after stealing Mommy’s phone… There comes a time when your toddler starts to leave behind the days of being gullible and begins to call a parent’s bluff. My husband and I found ourselves in such a position with our 4 year old a while back. We had been trying to motivate him to clean his room. Positive reinforcement – Failed; Sitting in the room and bossing him into it, keeping him focused – Failed; Punishing him – Failed; Time limits and a w

To be fair, I posted about the husband’s time being wasted so now it’s my turn to share one about me. That’s right, she who rarely drinks has gotten WASTED once. If you’ve been reading these, you can rule out my 21st birthday as the culprit. Instead, it was my 23rd birthday that got me. It was Wednesday, and I was officially 23. I decided to meet up with my friend Alisha for a Chocolate Shot and then call it a day. What I did not know, was my husband found out and well, when

Everyone has drunk stories about a time they got wasted and had to piece together what happened via what your friends tell you. Granted, I rarely drink and even then it’s a one mixed drink and I’m good ordeal. It is this fact that makes me the ultimate Designated Driver for my husband, friends and family. One of the best moments with my now husband, was back in the days where we were just dating and had moved in together. “Hello?” It wasn’t a number I recognized as I answered

I love to go fishing, so there will be plenty of fishing stories to share. If you have no clue what a manatee or dugong is, pretty much they are big grey underwater cows that graze freely in the waters around Florida’s coast. We often fish the brackish waters of the intracoastal where estuaries house manatees and dolphins with their newborn babies. Where am I going with this? Well, being the lucky person I am, without fail one thing usually happens while cast out my line…. I

As a parent, it can be fun to feign ignorance to your four year old or ask a series of questions that will reward you with comedic gold. In this case, it was not what I expected to happen. “Mom! Linky pooped his pants!” Exclaimed my 4-year old. “He’s stinky!” Grinning, I decided to act as if I had not heard him, “You mean the Dog pooped his pants?!” “No..” He giggled, “Dudley doesn’t have pants! It was-“ “DADDY!” I gave my best shocked face, the husband unaware as he perused

If you have been pregnant, or know someone that was in their last trimester, you will know what it means to have Baby Brain. I can dive into the medical complications that cause one to be “spacey” and absent-minded, but trust me, its for real. It was during my first pregnancy that I got a really scary taste of how MUCH of my brain had decided to just stop functioning. I was sitting there, relaxing on the couch when I heard the sliding glass door open. My husband was aiming to

There I was, standing in the kitchen when a wolf spider crawled out from its hiding spot and stood in the middle of the floor. It makes my skin crawl, but I caught my black and white maine coon mix sitting in the kitchen entry way staring at the bug. “Quick, Charmander! Get it!” His yellow eyes looked up at me with an unamused expression. “Kill it, buddy!” Slowly, he stood to his feet and casually walked up to the spider. It shifted away a few inches and the cat snorted. Look

Being in Central Florida has its benefits, including going to a theme park to celebrate my twenty-first birthday. Unlike most of my peers, I had no interest in drinking so it was a great plan to have an above average celebration without the alcohol. I had chosen to go to Universal’s Islands of Adventure with my two best friends, Martin and Karly, and boyfriend Justin (Now husband). Hours had gone by at this point, Karly had headed home, and now we were waiting in line to get

One of the most precious memories my husband and I have of our first niece was the time we were taking her to Grandma’s house. She was about 4 at the time, and this was before we had kids ourselves. Most of the time at this age she was relatively quiet, very neat and clean in behavior. Suddenly she started conversation with us, “I like that place. You know, that place, with that song?” It was as vague as a question could possibly be as my husband and I glanced to one another.

Having kids is both a blessing and a curse. I love my kids, but I have to admit, until they came along, I remember having far more patience and way fewer blow up sessions. Regardless, they give us some of the most awesome and mind-blowing moments of comedy that I can’t even fathom or create on my own. This particular memory was while I was pregnant with “baby brodder” and amazingly my toddler had mastered potty training. He was so proud of his new underwear. I had bought him

As a recap, I had a cat named Charmander who was a black and white Maine Coon mix. He was a huge 35 pound monster that was bigger than most small dogs who made amazing facial expressions and super smart. I’ve already shared my husband’s first meeting with him Val Tell me a Story No. 13 so I will share another epic moment with you all. I was about 2 months pregnant with my first kid and some awesome friends of mine got me a automatic scooping kitty litter box. Charmander watch

At some point in my high school career I took a Creative Writing course. We were a small mix of students from different backgrounds, different grades, and most definitely each unique in the term “creative”. Many stories came out of this class but it was that first day that we all found ourselves sitting there thinking, For the love of mankind, do not ask about the hole in the teacher’s neck, Jenny… Our teacher, who I absolutely enjoyed and it’s so hard to find a creative wri

It’s always an anxious ordeal when you meet the boyfriend’s parents for the first time. I had met them a few times since our “Spicy Valentine’s Day” but here we were verging into November… and we are driving 7 hours in the same car as them to Miami from Orlando for the NASCAR race. As expected, my now-husband Justin starts giving me the rundown of what might happen, as well as what I should and should not do. One of these was to order food within my means and I looked at him

Oh, my first Valentine’s Day with my husband was definitely interesting. We had started seeing each other the last week of January, more or less the first week of February. Me being the not-so-romantic type, I didn’t think anything of it with Valentine’s Day right around the corner. Poor Justin calls me to see if I was working, but instead discovered I had a horrible sinus infection. I could barely breathe, let alone talk. So, feeling sort of bad about it, I invited him over

Traffic. Ugh, we’ve all dreaded driving to that one part of town because there is no avoided that stop and go, bumper-to-bumper traffic jams. On this particular day I was trying to get to my work to pick up something I had forgot. Unfortunately, it was in the heart of tourist-ville in Orlando, Florida and well, it was 5:00 PM ~ The PEAK of Traffic Hell. By the third round of the full cycle from the light still twenty cars ahead of me, I started people watching those in cars a

Blind dates. Oh man, I have been on more than I want to ever really reveal…. but I will share this one odd phone call. My best pal Karly was trying to hook me up with someone, and it seemed anyone was viable enough to get my cellphone number. “Hi, my name is Steve! Your friend Karly gave em your number!” There was nothing but silence on my end as I absorbed this information. “I work with her?” “Oh… hi… Steve…” My mind was going through a list of let-down and refusals, preppin

I don’t know about you guys, but I have lived in some dives. This is a story about a very special dump that I lived in for a while. This house was broken, decaying without a doubt. The only level floor was the closed in front porch that I had claimed as my room. But for $200 a month, I couldn’t afford to go anywhere else at the time. The one bedroom had a crack that went from the center of the floor, up the outer wall, around the window and all the way across the ceiling. No

Borders and the cattle yard were my two favorite places to go. I stayed away from home where so much conflict was common. Like I was expressing before, it wasn’t uncommon to find me sitting at Borders and it was awesome martin and April were known to show. Occasionally, I would find myself alone… I had pulled up in my famous 1992 Blue Yukon, and had entered the Border’s cafe area and began drawing. Sadly, no one I knew was there, even after perusing through the aisleways hopi

If anyone here knows me very well, they could confirm I have a love for fishing. Living in Florida is awesome since I have access to several realms of fishing from Freshwater, Brackish (Mixed), and Saltwater fishing. As a young girl, I mainly did the freshwater fishing with the occasional deep sea trip. Nowadays, my husband and I indulge in brackish fishing where Salt meets Fresh. Anyhow, many awkward and weird things can go down and so I have MANY fishing stories. This one i

In high school, after I acquired the ability to drive and my own vehicle, I would spend many nights and weekends at the Border’s Book store at our local mall. The nice part about this ritual was that I had an assortment of activities I was involved in, such as the insane Chess club where I never won on Tuesdays while on Thursdays I indulged in playing round of Magic the Gathering. It was the NON-CLUB nights or days that the strange or funny would happen. Thankfully there was