Awwwww, Shucks.

My homegirl Bev has bestowed upon me this prestigious title. Thank you Bev. I'm milking this thing at home but I doubt however, it's gonna get me any perks.

But here's the deal:
1. List seven things that make you awe-summm.
2. Pass the award on to seven bloggers you love.
3. Tag those bloggers to let them know that they are now Queens of All Things Awe-Summm.
4. Don't forget to link to the queen that tagged you.
5. If you would like, copy the pic and put it on your sidebar so everyone knows that you're a queen.

To fulfill my queenly duties. 'er goes.

1. Despite strong urges, I've never beat the tar out of anyone.... well, not lately. Including the asshat Sear's repairman who gave me a 6 HOUR WINDOW (!!!) to wait for his arse today (because I have nothing better to do donchaknow!) and he PULLED A NO SHOW!!!! Yes, I'm awe-summm because I'm a peace-loving chick. I even saved my husband's life 4 times! Once I saved him from drowning, the other 3 times I just changed my mind.

2. I'm adventurous! Wanna jump on a plane, fly cross-country to stalk celebrities? Count me in! Jump off a galloping horse onto a moving pirate ship-shaped bus? Why Not!
Shoot me if I ever grow up.

3. I keep my friends forever! And no, I'm not talking about tied and gagged in my basement. The overwhelming majority of my friends have been rollin' with me for more than 10 years, some for more than 20. I still write to the man who lived down the road from us when I was 10 years old,living in TN. Haven't seen him since, but we still write. Once you're my friend, it's for the long haul.

4. I have a constant inner monologue going on. It keeps me endlessly entertained. Wish you guys could hear it. Good stuff.

5. I didn't let a stroke stop me. Sure, that little bugger wiped out some files on my hard drive but I clearly remember a moment in the ambulance that I decided this would NOT be the end.

6. I drink wine for a living. Yeah, ya heard me! I get paid for learning a lot about wine and for drinking lots of wine. Yeah, that's awesome.

7. I have two ridiculously fabulous kids. Sure, there's moments that they're lucky there's no gypsies nearby to sell them to, but overall they rock! And being their Mom is the best. I know that doesn't actually make me awesome, just lucky.

Now for my 7 awesome fellow bloggers to whom I pass forth this honor.

Janiece - who's awesome-ly caring for her post-op little girl right now.

Hilary - If you're ever stuck having to sleep on a nasty airport floor, this is the chick you want on the cardboard beside you!

Jackie - Super Mommy to Little Squirt (who just gets cuter every. single. day!!!)

Cary - Who's incredibly funny (and I'm pretty certain, HOT, although he refuses to post any pictures since 1989)

Lori - She's super funny and preggers - the complete package!

Maria - Who never has a dull moment!

Michelle - She's a Doc, a Mommy to an ever growing family and a newlywed... and she's awe-summm!

A Little RoundUp

Is it sad that I have all these little mental sticky notes in my head for blog posts? You know, ideas, incomplete thoughts, stuff I want to someday get around to writing... all just clogging up space on my little brain's RAM.
So I'm doing a little mental house cleaning, so bare with me for today's hodgepodge of blogism.
First on the agenda: The Facebook Mystery Lady (or better known as 'My Baby's Mama Drama'). No word from her and she hasn't accepted my plead... errr, I mean my request for friend status. What? Is it me? Oh, wait. Yeah it probably is. BUT even though I haven't made the grade with FML (Facebook Mystery Lady), Bev has had her friendship request granted by FML Friend (hereon known as FOFML). They've made no further contact but we do at least know that FML and FOFML have written on each others' walls in the not so long ago and that it was written in English and Russian. Hmmmmm????? Also, there seems to be that beauty product connection again which is where I originally found FML. Double hmmmmm??? I wish I had more info but until this chick deems me more agreeable for friendship status, it's all I got. Until then, I guess I'll be taking lessons from Bev on how to make friends. Damn.

In other news, Princess Snaggle Tooth is now Princess No-Front-Teeth. I must say, it's a better look for her, but no less trailer-parky. Shame.
(This is where I insert her toothless picture but that requires hunting for my camera and, well, I ain't up for it right now. Deal.)

I'm sure you're all wondering what crazy antics that little freakish tooth fairy pulled last night, aren't you?
Well, the tooth fairy had a realllyyyyy long day yesterday and was WAY too tired to even try to pull off a search and rescue of a tooth, so she made up some lame ass excuse about not being able to open her door and just left $2 outside her bedroom without taking the tooth. I'm wondering how long before Morgan schemes so "resell" the chomper.

And in an absolutely, positively unrelated story: I took my Morgan horse, Storm to a barrel racing clinic yesterday and we had a BLAST! I've been racing my Arab (the famous Mr. Dee) for 10 years now, but now that he's in his 30's (and doesn't look a day older then 10), I need to slow down his racing career. So I took my sweet, 2-speed (walk and trot), carriage driving horse. Yeah, I know, what was I thinking!
Well, he surprised us all and kicked it into warp speed around the barrels! Yee-haw! Yeah, may have found a new niche for him.

Doesn't look like a carriage horse anymore, does he? His best time was 24 seconds. The national wining pro barrel racer there did the pattern in 19. I'd say that's pretty darn good for a first time out.
Great day but man was I exhausted! Totally worn out! Which of course had absolutely, positively NOTHING to do with the tooth fairy's lackluster visit.

What The Heck Am I Doing?!

Well if you're asking yourself that too, just trot on over to Bev's blog to find out because I'm far to slackerific to write a post myself when the lovely Bev has already done such a swell job. Plus she's all good with the English and grammar and stuff like that.

Google Search Term Awards

I always get a laugh over the search terms that unsuspecting (and often perverted) folks google that land them right here on my little bloggy-poo. Really, it's one thing to google, but another thing to actually click on a result, that really has nothing to do with your search. Sometime Google is just a crackhead.
So welcome to the first annual BHB Google Search Term Awards.

First, in the category of Longest search term: Immediately you received the payment get back to me so that i can send to you the shipper info to reimburse the balance to them today.So get back to me asap.. which of course brought them to my lengthy but amusing retelling of a scammer getting scammed. I love it when asshats get what they deserve!

For most common search term we have a tie between "sexylegs" (yes, one word!) and "pictures of wounds". I don't know what to say, but, why? Who's looking up these terms and WHY do they actually click on my page? Scary. A few pervs out there googled "nothing but sexy legs" and google sent 'em my way! HA! SUCKA! oh, wait, crap I just gave them one more hit for sexylegs and pictures of wounds!!!!
*Third place goes to the search term "weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" (yes, that's with 19 'e"s). Again, what the hell are they looking for? But I must admit, I'm just a wee (with 2 "e"s) bit proud that google associates such a fun exclamation to me! But before I get all giddy, another popular search term that brings people to my little corner of the blogosphere is "boooooooooo". sigh.*

Now for a few "What The Hell Does That Have To Do With Me?" awards
1958 general electric freezer value huh? I don't recall every mentioning any thing like that? Oh, but the answer would be: NOTHING! Throw it out already!
"kid sipped champagne" What?! Huh?! It was sparkling cider, I SWEAR!
"report about a house was stolen" actually I get a lot of hits from variations of this term. Apparently it's an issue somewhere. I don't remember it an issue with me however.


Top searches related to Bev... on not:
bev kyrgyzstan
bev back (kinda like Sexy Back, eh?)
is bev back?
Bev's one popular chick! Thanks for the traffic!


The winner (err, loser) for "You should probably turn yourself in" award would go to the perv surfer who happened upon my little blog by searching for "movies where kids are being patted". Ewwwwwww....

"SEXY" search terms:
Besides "sexylegs"... and of course the occasional "sexy legs", here are some award winners that wanted a bunch of sexy... but got me instead.
"Sexy legs from home" - I have no idea...
"Sexy leg" - I can't believe they weren't sent to Heather Mills site.
"Sexyleggs" - leave no stone unturned in the hunt for hot legs.
"Sexy medical terminology" - really? Is there such a thing?
"Sexy Clot" - ugh, I think I just threw up a little.

Here are the recipients for the "Right Church, Wrong Pew" awards:
Mala mama - Ugh, hope my kids don't start calling me that!
mala humiliation blogspot - WHAT?!! Really? I never thought of it that way... but now that you mention it.
Mala needs - hey! That means there's another Mala out there, somewhere, playing that same cheestastic game!

The "Beck" awards go to:
beck bloodless blogspot - *cringe*
beck home get those - BACK OFF YODA! He's MINE!!!!
beck rugrats
Go beck yourself - Woo, hey now, that's not necessary.
princess beck - OK, Morgan, no more dressing Beck! You got a brother, not a sister. deal.
tally beck - I have no idea. hold on, I gotta google it.

And finally, the "this really bums me out that you googled this term and found me" award goes to:
obese humiliation in public forum - oh man... I think I liked sexyleg better!

Princess Snaggle Tooth

Poor Morgan. She's been on a roll with her loose teeth and now that one of her front teeth has gone the way of the tooth fairy, her remaining front chomper has taken the opportunity to stretch out and occupy front and center! Seriously, the girl's gone all trailer park on us.

She's gonna hate me someday for posting that... but it's worth it.

In other news, there is no news. Just a rainy, raw craptastic day. And what do we all do on a dreary evening....



Even the dog is vegging out watching the boob-tube.

Like Watched Water...

You know, like, watched water never boils. No word yet from the mystery lady on Facebook. But we're still going forward with the investigator and hopefully he'll be in KG in June. So until there's some sort of news, moving on.

And what better way to move on than with a little unbridled retarded-ness.

Today I had a voicemail message from the bank that we're refinancing with. It went something like this:

"Hello Mr and Mrs _____, this is Cindy from (Bank of Craptasticness). I just wanted to give you a status update if you could call me at (800)555-5555. At the prompt please pick option 1, then option 1 again (at this point I stop writing down the message). At the next prompt please select option 3 and then number 2. Then enter 65288646 and hit the pound key. I look forward to hearing back from you at your earliest convenience."

Yes, I'm sure you do. But let's face it, that's WAY too labor intensive. What the hell is that?! If she was calling me to tell me I won a million dollars and absolutely needed me to call her immediately, I still probably wouldn't call her back. Seriously, GET A DIRECT LINE!!!

And now for something less crap-tastic, look who went riding today.

For those who don't know, Morgan loves horses... but only as much as she loves bugs and mud, which is still a lot but, you know. I practically have to beg her to ride. Granted, she's allergic, but so aren't I. Suck it up, kid! Seriously, I think there was a mix up at the hospital - this can't be my kid. She just couldn't care less. But today my niece Courtney was practicing for her up coming show and I asked Morgan, in passing, if she would like to ride Mr. Dee and she said yes. Shocking! She did awesome though! Even did some barrels. So I'll hold my breathe and quietly hope she finally gets the 'horse bug'.

What ARE The Chances?

OK, I've kept you waiting long enough...

The other day I was online chatting with a fellow AP (Adoptive Parent) regarding our search for Beck's Birth Mother and she jokingly said, "Don't you wish you could just Google her?"

I laughed. And then realized... I hadn't actually tried that. Hmmmmm....

So of course I immediately Googled her name and BAM! one hit! Some woman from... wait for it.... Kyrgyzstan who received some sort of sales award. No picture. No additional info. But still, my heart was pounding out of my chest! Could this be her? I mean, her name isn't Jane Smith. It's quite a specific name. How many woman from KG have the same name? One of my other friends, who also has a daughter from Kyrgyzstan, told me that it's common that a person's middle name is her Father's name with the suffix "kova". So this Google match has the same first name and apparently, the same Father's name as well.... What are the chances? Probably the same chance of having that hottie Ralph Fiennes showing up at the Tokmok orphanage... oh, wait.

I quickly get in a 3-way chat now with Hilary and tell her about my discovery. Within a few minutes Hilary types, "She's on Facebook"

What?!

I clicked on the Facebook link and the good news she actually has a profile picture... the bad news is Facebook makes it too wee to get a good looksie. DAMN!!!!! But you can tell at least, she's female, she's probably around the correct age and she appears to be Asian. Could this really be her? Could it be this easy to find her?!

So I sent a friend request with a note asking her if she's from Kyrgyzstan. I didn't know what else to do. And then I sat at my computer, refreshing my Facebook page... Hoping she'd at least just accept my friend request.

I'm still waiting.


And waiting.

Easter MADNESS!!

OK this isn't the blog post I promised would be interesting in my 'It's a Small World' series. But it's Easter and I gotta take care of this bidness.

It's been a sugar-driven, fun-packed day! We had the family over for breakfast and then the annual Easter egg hunt craziness. I'm a bit wiped out (after all the Easter bunny had to get up at 5am to go brave the freakin' cold wind, hunting for places to hid eggs that wouldn't be blown away!) so I'll tell the story of today in pictures and captions.

Last night's egg dying festivities



READY, SET, GO!
We made the kids wait until AFTER breakfast to hunt for the eggs (because I'm the Mom and I can *evil laugh*). Morgan was up at 6am with her nose pressed against the window all morning plotting out her every step in the 'Tour de Egg'. They were freakin' WILD with anticipation!



Ummm, Papa, that's not an Easter egg....






It was pretty hard to get this shot before they ripped into their loot!


Several years ago our dog Trixie barked at the Easter Bunny while he was trying to hide his eggs. The Bunny got the last laugh and painted Trixie like a crazy K-9 Easter Egg every year after. Trixie's been gone a few years, but apparently Benji is now victim to the Easter Bunny's antics.

It's A Small World

Have you ever had a week were tremendous coincidences abound. You know, those moments that find you slackjawed and wondering, "what's the chances of that?!"
I've had one of those weeks.
And seriously, this post isn't the half of it. I've got a real goodie coming your way in the next posting... I'm just waiting, and hoping, for a bit more info before I share it with you.

(yeah I know, don't you hate it when people leave ya hangin' like that?)

But for now, check out this picture...


Right there in the middle is my uber-crush, Ralph Fiennes! That alone, makes it an awesome picture. But look closer. He is standing with Tatiana and the other staff members AT BECK'S ORPHANAGE IN TOKMOK! WHAT?!
Hilary sent me the link to his diary detailing his trip to Kyrgyzstan, and specifically about his visit to the Tokmok Orphanage.
He writes:

This was probably the most distressing place I’d seen, I think. Very young children from a few months old to maybe two or three years old. I get a sense of, well, of the palpable love of the women and the lady who ran it, Tatyana.

Tatyana has been looking after children with disabilities for 11 years. But it was the faces of these tiny children (many of whom were clearly undernourished or psychiatrically disadvantaged) that impressed me the most. When we arrived, we sat down with Tatyana who talked about the principles of the centre. Most of the children have been abandoned because they have some deformity, either physical or mental, or because their parents just can’t cope. Trying to advance them in terms of their disabilities.


They deserve better facilities, better buildings, more equipment. Some of the children were very ill. They had serious mental and motor skill problems and they were housed in a very old building that I recognised as being probably from Tsarist times, which was quite rare. Very old floorboards, woodwork and old windows. Again, the western visitor is stumped for an adequate response in the face of what the women at the centre were trying to achieve, were trying to hold together. They were trying to give these children a life.

It was sobering seeing these tiny faces looking up at us. We must have seemed like weird, strange giants coming in with our camera equipment and books and backpacks and things. And these children reaching out. One little girl grabbed my hand and tried to pull me into the room, and I wondered how long they would be here and what their memories would be of this place when they were older. Will all of them have memories of institutions throughout their life and who would be the ones who would find a home?

Of all the places in the world, how amazing that he came to be at the very same little orphanage, in a tiny relatively unknown country (He admits he knew NOTHING about the country prior to his travel) that Beck came from.

*swoon* It's like we have a cosmic connection. OK, I wish.
So let's see, that makes me, what 1 degree of separation? Or is that 2? Me-Tatiana-Ralph. Hmmm, not sure how that works. But regardless, I think it's super cool.

Heavy Talk For 8am

Yesterday when I picked Beck up at pre-school his teacher mentioned to me that one of the students had mentioned the ol' "I came out of my Mommy's belly" announcement and Beck quickly piped up to agree that he had too. His teacher nicely mentioned that Beck had, but that he had TWO Mommys.
Obviously we've never planned on keeping Beck's adoption a secret even though people ask me if we're 'gonna tell him'... Ummm, hello? I think at some point he'd start wondering...
Often Beck will see a picture of our family PB (Pre Beck) and he'll ask where he was and we always explain that he hadn't come home to join our family yet. We've always made it a point that his adoption just be another thread in the fiber of our life; no secrets, no big reveal, just another fact in our every day life.
Well on the way to school this morning Beck and I were talking and I called him 'my Baby' as I always call him (and Morgan for that fact) and he asked me, "Why you call me baby?"
"Because you're my baby." I replied.
"I come out your belly?" He questioned.
"No. You came out your first Mommy's belly and then you came to be with us and I'm your Mommy too."
"What's her name?" he asked
First I'm a bit stunned. He's one bright 4 year old. I tell him her name and he repeats it with a confused look on his face.
"Did Morgan come out another woman's belly?" He continues.
Are you sure you're four???? "No, Morgan came out of my belly."
He's once again puzzled. I went on to tell him that even though they became members of our family in different ways, they are both my babies.
And with that, he ended his line of questioning but I could see that the little wheels inside his head continued to turn.
After our little chat I went home and realized I needed to get going on my quest to find his Birth Mother. I made contact with an investigator (is that the right term?) months ago but it's been put on the back burner since. But I know now more than ever that finding her is the right thing to do. If he wants to know about her at four years old, there will only be more and more questions as he grows. I mentioned it months ago to some people and they responded with a gasp and asked why on Earth I would want to do that. The answer is simply; She will always be important to Beck and I owe it to him to find her. Or at least try.
So I need to compose a letter to her and a list of questions. Where on Earth do I begin?

Extreme MakeOver: The Mala Edition

I don't go to the hair salon very often. I have long hair and I can go months and months without a cut and no one would notice. I consider myself pretty thrifty so it gives me the warm and fuzzies when I think about all the money I haven't spent on my hair. To push frugality even further, I also color my own hair. That's right, I go to the grocery store, check out which hair color is on sale and then pick the box with the prettiest girl. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
Today, it didn't.
Seriously, I would like to meet the jerk that labels the boxes of hair color. To be honest, they need to just put a big question mark on the box and label the color "EffIfYouKnow"! Today I chose "Warm Medium Brown"... what I got was "Gene Simmons Black"! Actually, I think I see hues of midnight blue! THIS IS NOT BROWN! It's Black! This isn't medium brown, this isn't even DARK brown! It's BLACK, people!! BLACK! DAMNIT!
The only silver lining is I messed up and accidentally bought non-permanent rather than permanent so I'm only cursed with my Gene Simmon's 'do for 28 washes. So far I have 24 more to go!

So now this whole hair wreck has got me thinking that maybe it's time to go back to the hair salon. She's accustomed to seeing me only after I've done something rather horrible to my hair. So if I'm going, maybe I should really make it worth my time and (gasp) change my hair style. I mean, I've only been rockin' this general 'do for, oh I don't know, my entire life. At least it seems.
So, while I should have been doing laundry or some other item on my growing 'to do' list, I went online a tried out some new hairstyles.

Halle Berry-licious

Crazy Streaky Red 'Do

The Ashley Simpson

Barbie's Revenge!

This may cost me in years of therapy!



I'm not sure what offense Barbie committed, but her disembodied head was discovered while I was picking up the kids' toys the other night.
And of course, me being the sick and twisted Mother that I am, couldn't stop myself from avenging Barbie's merciless tormentors!

When Morgan awoke to the floating Barbi head dangling above her, she came running to our room excited that the Tooth Fairy had come back!
That's one crazy Tooth Fairy!

Biker Babe

I've been trying to convince Morgan for a couple of years to give up the training wheels on her bike. She's actually outgrown bikes and we've had to transfer the training wheels onto bikes that the training wheels were too small for. Yet she insisted she wasn't ready to learn to ride without them.
Well this weekend she went over to Grammy and Bumpa's house, supposedly to make good on a promise to clean their house. While there (and apparently not cleaning) Morgan and Bumpa spruced up an old bike Bumpa had gotten, this one of course sans training wheels. By the afternoon Bumpa had taught Morgan how to ride a 2-wheeler! She was so proud of her new skills that she came home and insisted on showing me in the rain.

(Just in case, I parked my truck far, far away from the new 2-wheel riding wonder!)

Does she look proud or what?! Thanks Bumpa!