STOPLIGHT PILLOWS?

My kid is sooo funny but aren't they all! Ok so this morning he was watching cartoons and starts screaming for me to come in his room. There was a Kia Sedona commercial on but he was entranced. Here's how it went:

"Mom you have GOT to get that car!"

"No son mommy doesn't want a mini van!"

"But mom that car is awesome. When you push the brakes, huge fluffy white pillows pop out for everyone in the car so you can rest while waiting at the stoplight!"

"Our truck has them too Elijah."

"Well they need to be fixed because they never pop out and sometimes I get really tired of waiting at the stoplight!"

I thought that was soooo cute but I had to explain the "pillows" were actually airbags to protect us during car wrecks because he insisted ours were broke!! He's just so cute!!

POOP EATERS

Imagine going to work and having to answer this question about twice a week: Why does my dog eat its poop? Welcome to my world! Thank God I am trapped in the office the majority of the time! I think my dad did that on purpose because after years of dealing with the public I was becoming quite bitter and rude towards customer. I get sick of answering the customers questions and they always have a rebuttal or just don't believe you. If you don't want to hear the answer, then don't ask!! So here is the proper business answer to the ever so popular question: Dogs eat their poop for many reasons such as hiding an accident, an internal parasite, boredom, a disgusting habit but mainly because they lack nutrients in their diet. Cheap foods aren't for the most part nutritious. Go look at your dog food since I know most of you aren't feeding a premium dog food and see if one of the first three ingredients is corn. Corn is indigestible. Have you ever looked at your poop after you've eaten corn? I know that sounds nasty but you all now it looks just the same coming out as it did going in. They use corn and rice in dog foods as a filler - it will fill the dog up but supply no nutritional value. Dogs can smell the undigested food in the dog poop so they will eat the poop too. If they eat proper food that is highly digestible they won't need to eat the poop to satisfy their nutritional needs. However if it has been eating poop for awhile it has just become a nasty habit but there are pills to help stop that! Cheap foods are simply that cheap but not inexpensive because you will feed twice as much of it to meet the dogs needs. Buy a premium food for 60 days and feed according to the instructions and you will see your dog will eat less, look better, and poop less. So in the long run the premium food will save you money and the dog will be healthier! NOW the answer I really want to say is: YOUR DOG WILL STOP EATING CRAP AS SOON AS YOU STOP FEEDING IT CRAP!! If you don't want to buy healthy food for your dog, then when it eats its poop turn your head and then thank the dog because now you at least have less poop in the yard!! Guess you are saving money on a pooper scooper if the dog eats crap! Have you ever heard the saying just because it tastes good, doesn't make it good for you? The same goes for your animals. Lets face it most dogs will eat anything but that doesn't mean you have to feed them junk food. Do you feed your kids candy and fries for every single meal every single day of their lives? No so why do it to your pet!! And don't feed canned food unless as a treat or unless the dog won't eat ANYTHING else - it is 70% water and not good for their teeth!! Thank you and have a nice day!! Lovely topic a!! If you couldn't tell I got asked this question AGAIN today and I've given up on why the dog really eats poop like stated above and just handed them the pills to help stop but their dogs will still be under nourished and probably still eat poop! They never really care though much like most of you reading this wondering what screw is loose in my head!! They all are!! Sorry I am climbing down my soapbox now!! love ya'll

The Case of the Attack Weedeater

Spring has sprung! I've noticed people are starting their yardwork this week! This is just a friendly warning to those of you who are attempting yardwork for the first time - it will hurt like hell!!!! It's like I told my husband when he suggested we make yardwork a hobby of ours: THERE IS A REASON IT IS CALLED YARDWORK AND NOT YARDHOBBY!!!! The weedeater is not your friend the first five times out!! My own weedeater tried to eat my legs - no joke! Ask anyone who saw me last summer! You see my VERY dear friend Melanie and my sister FAILED to tell me to wear pants until I got used to using the weedeater and then they made fun of my legs all summer! I think they just liked hearing my stories personally! I had seen my sister mow and use the weedeater time and time again wearing shorts without fail! I had never mowed or used a weedeater before in my life before this past summer! My parents wouldn't let me for fear I would cut a foot off when I was younger. Why would they ever think that? Then both my brothers owned lawn care businesses so I never needed too. But this was my year to learn I wanted to learn it all and I guess I learned the hard way!! DO NOT I REPEAT DO NOT wear shorts until you have become accustomed to the weedeater!!! It is not your friend! The first time it took me forever to keep the stupid thing running and it wouldn't advance the line. This freaking machine spit weeds at my legs going about 10000 mph! It hurt at first then I think my legs just went numb because I no longer felt anything which wasn't a good thing. I would have quit much sooner if I knew how my legs would have looked! It was a bloody mess! The second time- and yes I was an idiot and wore shorts again- the stupid thing spit out the end of the line at my foot at a rate of 10000 mph and did I mention I was a complete idiot and just wore flip flops!! That is all I wear in summer - flip flops. I am addicted to them! Yea if I could have cut my foot off I would have but it would have cost way too much! (That's funny if you read the previous blog!) So Elijah who was 4 at the time sees the bloody mess called my legs and feet and suggests this "Mommy maybe next time you should have someone who knows how to use the weedeater do it!" Out of the mouths of babes! He obviously didn't know how bad my foot hurt and how angry I was at the time so I just said Thanks Elijah go get mommy some towels to wipe the blood. Now I was more determined than ever! I was going to master this thing called yarkwork even if it killed me in the process but I sure prayed it wouldn't! Okay so the third time I wore pants and thought I was getting the hang of all this and getting obsessive about the line between the lawn and the sidewalk. It had to be deep and perfect! It got easier each time until I decided it was entirely too hot to do yardwork in Oklahoma wearing pants (got that idea once I felt like I was going to pass out)! Now that would suck - fainting while weedeating!! Ok so I was a pro now and back to wearing shorts and my faithful flip flops while doing yardwork. I had some grass thrash marks but so far so good. Then the @$@#@%#$ machine decided to hurl a giant rock at my thigh at you guessed it 10000mph! You can only imagine the pain if it has happened to you! So in pain and shock I move the weedeater into the cable line along the fence but released the button at the thought of no cable! LMAO! Needless to say it gets better with each time but be careful it is not a toy! And for all of you who have friends and family that would rather laugh at the outcome than warn you before hand like me - Don't wear shorts or flip flops until you know how to operate the weedeater successfulyl! Oh yeah and on some mowers did you know you have to turn the self propel on it isn't automatic. And a self propelled mower is a lot heavier than a normal mower if the self propel thingy isn't on! Well that's a whole other story! And no one told me that either not even my husband so he does all the mowing now I stick to my trusty friend the weedeater!! Ha! I have learned to enjoy yardwork or at least the pretty outcome! I still love you Mel or should I say Megan because Melanie wouldn't do that right!!

THE CREEPY CRAWLIES

Hang on this one will probably be long! The only ones who will appreciate this one are Melanie who knows me TOO well and anyone who shares my fear of spiders!! So it was a typical monday at work yesterday. Some freak glitch in the computer screwed up inventory so I have to do the orders by hand, we are shorthanded and two people are at lunch. We have a scorpion at work that had 14 babies that lay on their mothers back. The mom is black and all the little babies are white and it looks really creepy!! I don't like scorpions. So this little girl comes up to me looking all sad saying she thinks the scorpion and the babies are dead. Knowing the scorpion is probably sitting there tired of holding 14 babies on her back - who wouldn't be - I tell the little girl this. Her and her grandmother say they've been watching it for a while and none of them have moved. Well I try to get out of the situation saying I don't have a key to the room while I am pulling the door. As luck would have it, it wasn't locked so I said oh well I'll go check. I searched frantically for something to poke the scorpion with to make it move but knowing I can't hurt the scorpion because for some odd reason the little girl is really concerned. As luck would have it again there wasn't anything in there. So I decided to just stick my hand in there and gently move the piece of wood in the cage. The freaking thing moved all right and raised it's pincher thing. So I jumped out of my skin, screamed and ran out of the room which looked highly professional by the way!! But it made the little girl happy - I don't know which made her happier me running and letting out a little scream of terror or the fact that the scorpion and its babies were alive! This experience reminded me of my "SPIDER NIGHT OF TERROR"! Do do do do!! So here is the real story I intended on telling: I have a great fear of spiders! I don't mind snakes or lizards except tokay geckos but I really have a serious fear of spiders even the tiny ones. Well awhile back we were having a big problem with REALLY big spiders in our house. They were wolf spiders and man were they big. We had the house exterminated and still had big spiders. Man they were big at first I thought they were tarantulas until I learned they were wolf spiders. They jumped at us when we tried to kill them. Talk about terrified!! So I was going out to the garage to do some laundry at about 1am one morning because I never sleep. There was an unusually larger spider sitting on a ledge and I decided instead of killing the spider I was going to trap it in some kind of container to prove to everyone how big our spiders were and to show the exterminator who I was going to have come out again!! Okay so after staring at the nasty thing for a long while trying to get up enough courage to get the spider in the container before it devoured me, I discovered something on its back about an inch tall. I couldn't figure out what it was so I knocked it off the ledge to go into the container and ##$!%!%#$!#. I couldn't believe my eyes there were little tiny tiny baby spiders going everywhere. Hundreds of them literally!! Imagine my terror!! Little did I know momma wolf spiders can carry like 300 babies or something on their back! I threw the lid on the container and shook in fear and disbelief. Then all I could think of was to kill them all. I grabbed every spray I could get my hands on and sprayed it all over the area killing the tiny little demon spawn!! Then all I could think was all these tiny tiny babies were going to escape the container so I had to spray inside the container and the mom jumped I jumped but I reigned!! They all died! I had to take a shower because I felt like they were crawling all over me! I left the container in the garage with a protective barrier of pestisides around the container to catch any escapees. Long long story short the exterminator came out again and I proved how big our spiders really were and that I wasn't exaggerating! Man I hate those creepy crawly critters!! It could be worse though my son used to be afraid of black crickets because my husband once told him they were bad luck! He got over that though when my mom told him they make great pets and now he catches them all and tries to keep them! Thanks mom!! I never realized how many black crickets were around until we had a bunch of cricket pets!! We also have a black cricket cemetary!!

HEALTHCARE IN THE US

I've been talking to my dad about this subject and it is really bothering me. So far the medical bills for my surgery in January have come up to about $44,000!! Yes you read it right! Just Southcrest Hospital was $36,000!! That does not include the anesthesiologist, the surgeon, the radiologist, etc - just the hospital! I was only in the hospital a total of 27 hours and all they did was remove an appendix, a tumor and an ovary! Both my kids were c-section and I stayed in the hospital around 3 or 4 days, together they cost less than that! How exactly is that possible? Luckily we have insurance but I really feel for those who don't. Having appendicitis can be fatal so it isn't like those without insurance could say well I don't have the money right now, I'll save and come back later!! It is medically necessary! Here's my issue: Hospitals of course have a contracted amount for the insurance companies. Now if they can offer the same services for such an astoundingly lower cost to the insurance companies how is it fair that the same servies are so much more for uninsured. I understand there would be a different price but the difference is amazing. For instance my Southcrest Hospital bill was $36,000 but they discounted it $28,000 for the insurance company so they only had to pay $8,000. Now if Southcrest can accept $8000 for the services they performed why are they charging $36,000 to those that don't have insurance. How is that fair? If patients can't afford the insurance how can we expect them to afford the medical costs. Medical bills are outrageous!! So they are punishing those that can't afford insurance in the first place with even higher medical costs so they can make the financial situation even harder! You don't just discount services $28,000 if you are unable to. You and I both know they still profited! Medical bills bankrupt people all the time so why don't they charge the insurance companies the higher rate since they have the money. Yea that will never happen!! How can it be legal to charge people $36,000 for only $8,000 worth of services. Medical costs should be regulated more somehow especially if they are life threatening and the patient has to have the procedure or die! Come on now! This is highway robbery! Oh they'll save your life but you'll have to lose everything you've worked hard for to pay for it! Well can't say I am looking forward to seeing the rest of the claim statements to come but I thank God we have very good insurance and haven't had to pay hardly anything yet!! I guess the insulated 32oz cup I brought home from the hospital is now my $44,000 cup!!