It's the most wonderful time of the year....

Well, I don't know about that, because it's DAMN cold outside. Bone-chilling cold. Can't shake it cold. I hate cold.

BUT

I did take a "mental health day" off yesterday and go shopping with the girls. We took off to the premium outlets lighthouse edition or whatever they're calling it these days. We started the day off right with mimosa's in my girlfriend's kitchen. Hooray mimosa's! And then off to MC. There were 8 of us altogether, and once we got there it was a frenzy of shopping to be sure. We all had places we wanted to go, so we separated and met up at various places...talked about deals here, deals there - stopped for coffee. We loaded up the cars several times over...I got a lot of people knocked off my list. Hooray shopping!

And because we were in MC, some of the girls wanted to go try their luck on the Blue Chip. Now I am not a gambler, by any stretch of the imagination. If I have money to burn, I'd rather burn it on shoes, or good wine, or a cocktail...not risking it to *maybe* win something. But off to the boat we went. The brilliant part? We signed up for their card and got a free lunch buffet - a $12 value!! Ummm, free food? Yes please. It was good, too.

I had $20 to waste, and I put $10 in video poker...I was up, I was down...and ultimately...I stayed down. Boo poker.

I moved on to slots and put in $5 - I ended up with $16.25, so overall, I was up a whopping $1.25. Hooray winning! But I forgot to get cash before I got there, so I had to pay a $3 fee to their ATM. Boo fees! So I guess I ended up down $1.75. Boooo!

But I got a lot of shopping done!
And free lunch!!
And I think a good time was had by all....

Hitting a little close to home....

OMG - so the hubby and Julie and Tiffany and Amy and Tony and I all went to a wine tasting on Sunday. It was in Chesterton, so I suspected I might run into a few old classmates. I did.

One of them was a bit freaky.

Do you remember when I mentioned way back when last year that I was raising a drummer? And that I said it must have been karmic payback for breaking up too many times with my high school drummer boyfriend? Bill Trowbridge? Well, Bill was there on Sunday. And he said "I've got a bone to pick with you." Umm, you do? I haven't seen you in like 5 years...and then he says "I googled my name and found myself on your blog."

GULP.

You did. Oh. I must have looked panic-stricken because he quickly said it was nothing bad. I was mortified. Holy crap. Was it bad? I didn't think so. I didn't ever remember typing anything truly bad about anyone (save for Festivus) and certainly not about Bill. But my brain was spinning. Did you guys know that my blog is on the INTERNET and therefore ANYONE can read it? Did you? And I want to all to know that I purposely put his full name in the blog again so that if he ever googles himself and finds this he'll know that he totally freaked me out! (Hi Bill!!)

Julie just laughed at me. "Maybe you should just say Bill T. or Julie B. when you refer to people"

Maybe I should.

I very quickly started thinking about everyone I've ever blogged about and whether or not they could have stumbled onto it and thought I was horrible. I guess if I do blog badly about people I don't really care if they stumble onto it...do I?

OY. It makes my head hurt.

So it's Thanksgiving Eve...biggest party night of the year. I'm gigging with Jon&Laura&Bob&Cousin David and who knows who else...good times. I'll wake up with mimosas and cinnamon rolls...mmmmmm...cinnamon rolls.

Happy Thanksgiving bloggers!

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall...

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall...
And all the great surgeons
and all the great nurses
had to put humpty dumpty back together again...

So my dad was cleaning the gutters and fell off the ladder. He probably free fell about 9 feet straight onto the asphalt driveway. He broke his femur. Way up high by where it connects into his pelvis. Two hours of surgery later and he's the bionic man. Well, not bionic...but titanium. I wonder if he'll have to carry one of those cards to get through the airport?

It's going to be a long recovery for the man. That is not a good bone to break, what with it being large and weight-bearing and all.

We're very fortunate that that's all that happened. A man went hunting the other day in Valpo and never came home. They found him at the bottom of a tree. He fell out of his stand and broke his neck. I'm so grateful he was able to somehow, army crawling, get himself into the house to call 911.

I had other things to blog about, I know I did...but for the life of me I can't remember what they were. It'll come to me.

In the meantime, think good thoughts for my pops. He's in the hospital now until at least Thursday.

Supastar!!!

So, Lordy hasn't posted a review yet...but there are pics out on his Chicagobluesbeat.com website to be seen:

Go check out pics of me and Delores and the boys at Blues Island!

Good times...

*Guest blog by the Jimmer: Opinions expressed here and in any corresponding comments are the personal opinions of the original author, and do not necessarily represent that of the blog owner. So there. This is a GUEST blog written by the Jimmer. Not Rebecca. The Jimmer. Got it? K.

It’s been so long since I started this that I’m not sure where I left off. So, here I go. I’m heading North on Hwy 49 and it’s about 5:45pm. 1 hour and 45 minutes till womanhood. The entire drive I am breathing like a mother prior to birth. Not to mention that I smoked 4 cigarettes during a 15 minute drive. That would be a cigarette every 3 minutes and 45 seconds. I get to the Church – yes, St. Patrick’s Catholic Church – and pop the trunk. I retrieve my dress and wig and head down to the dressing room. I walk in to the dressing room and there are about 7 of the 15 already there getting ready. However, even stranger, all of their wives were there. Now, I’m thinking, I’ve got to put a dress on in front of these ladies? I don’t want them seeing my little package rolled up into a super ball. But then I saw my savior. Oh yes, a wash of relief rolled across my mind. There, in the corner of the room were 4 coolers. I walked over to them and my expectations were confirmed – The Miller Lite, Coors Light and MGD were all whispering Pick Me Pick Me. Naturally, I chose the Miller Lite. I drank that first beer in 7 minutes. Before I knew it, I was standing in front of a mirror brushing my wig and actually worrying about how I looked. After I was satisfied with my hair I began concentrating on my boobs. I blew up two balloons to what I thought was an acceptable size. I would estimate them being somewhere in between Calista Flockhart’s and Rebecca’s. I was not wearing a bra because the dress was so snug so I placed them inside making sure they were not too high up. I then began to glitter my “cleavage.” The glitter got a little out of hand and I think I looked like a disco ball by the time I was done. Mind you, at this point I’ve had 6 or 7 beers and 3 Jager Bombs. Oh, did I mention there was liquor there too? In fact, one of the participants brought his own moonshine, Mason jar and all. I put my pink lipstick on and I was ready to go. However, the event was running way behind because people were running late (attendees) and the ones that were there had congregated around the two bars. So, this meant more time to drink beer. By the time we got ready to go, I asked the Emcee 5 times if my lipstick looked ok. The fifth time he said, “Bitch, your lipstick looks fine!” All in jest of course – I think. Anyhow, the night moved pretty quickly from there. We all walked the runway individually and I really worked it. I was blowing kisses to the crowd and making my “oops did I do that” face. On the walk back to the dressing room tragedy was avoided, barely. I must have started walking a little faster but my heel slipped out of the wedge heels I was wearing and I did that side step thing that people do when they can’t walk in heels. I felt like Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality. As for the swimsuit competition, I was saved because I was able to borrow a sarong. I wore Nicole’s bikini and stuffed my balloon ta-ta’s back in. I even sprinkled more glitter for good measure. Went to the mirror and fixed my hair and asked one of the other guys if my lipstick was good. We were then lining back up and I decided I needed one more beer in me, which, I grabbed and drank while waiting for my turn. I guess I was a little quick on the stage because I began walking back before they were finished talking about me. Also, there were a few other guys wearing sarongs and they decided to strip them off and prance around in bikini bottoms. Not yours truly. The sarong stayed firmly tied around my waist. You know, didn’t want to show the little Jim and the twins…

I didn’t win anything but overall it was fun. We rose between $20,000 and $25,000 for the YMCA. Again, it was fun, but I’ll never do it again….Well, not in public anyway.

Jim

5 years of wedded bliss?

Okay, so maybe not every minute of every day is bliss...but we rewarded ourselves anyway.

We celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary at the Herrington Inn & Spa. And lemme tell ya - this place rocks. I mean ROCKS. The room was gorgeous, the bathtub was huge, the champagne was cold. What else could a girl need? Oh, a spa on the floor below ours? Perfect...I'll take it. It's always fun to go somewhere new and have it actually be better than you imagined. Sometimes you look at something on the web and you think "could it possibly be that awesome?" And in this case the answer is yes. Double yes. Triple yes. I highly recommend this for anyone celebrating an anniversary, birthday, or absolutely nothing...just go...now...GO. But make reservations early. The inn only has 61 rooms. We stayed a river premiere room, so we had a view, and that was great. We also had a fireplace, which was nice, and the king size bed was fantastic.

In-room bath you say? YES! The spa delivered the relaxing bath essentials to our door, and it was a great way to start our weekend getaway. The people in the spa were wonderful - I had a body polish...and I'm pretty sure my skin is better than the day I was born. My massage on Sunday morning was just what the doctor ordered, and considering I literally crawled out of bed, into my robe and slippers and hopped the elevator down for my treatment...brilliant. I was greeted with smiles and herbal tea.

The town of Geneva has great shopping...and a winery outlet for the Galena winery. They actually had some great offerings. (and we purchased some of them to share!) I also picked up one of these, because, well, you know I had to have one!

And then when we went down the street to find some Fat Tire, the Savway was having a special 18-hour sale and wine tasting. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? Who has this kind of luck. We tasted only a few as we did have to drive home and pick up the kids, who were eating my parents out of house and home. I called to check in a couple of times, every time I did Alex was sleeping and Owen was eating. Do you all know what this means? Yep, I'll be buying them both new pants and shoes soon. Damn kids will not stop growing no matter what I do!

We had dinner at Foxfire, and not only was the food yummy, but the service was amazing. My husband and I have been in love with St. Charles for a long time, but now that we've found Geneva? I think we may be looking at weekend getaways there.

How was YOUR weekend?Happy couple after a weekend at the Herrington

Getting in touch with my feminine side, part 1

*ETA: Per Sugar Snap Pea. The following is a guest blog by the Jimmer. I do not possess a "twig and berries", unless you count the set on my husband.

As most of you already know, I did in fact participate in the WomanLESS Beauty Pageant. This was a fundraiser for the Duneland Family YMCA and I’m proud to say that we raised some where between $20,000 and $30,000. I was approached about this approximately 2 months ago because our Father (me, Jbrave, and Eggo) threw me under the bus and nominated me. I didn’t think much of it at the time but Saturday afternoon I was a wreck. There where a couple of times where my girlfriend Nicole that I was going to puke but it was just the nerves. Enough about that stuff though and on to the “meat” of this blog. It was rather interesting preparing to be a woman. I borrowed a cocktail type dress from a woman in our office and it was very tight, black velvet dress; very form fitting if you know what I mean. At 4:30pm, after watching the Irish lose to Navy (oui vey) I jumped into the shower. I then shaved cuz I had day old stubble. I preceded to cut myself a number of times so that wasn’t good. Then, I put on the bikini bottoms. Yes, there was an evening gown portion AND a swimsuit competition. They were so tight on me that there was no room for underwear. (Not that you would wear them with a suit.) I looked at my ass in the mirror and then said to Nicole, “why didn’t you tell me my ass was so big?” She laughed and replied that I was really on my way to being a woman. Then it was time for the panty hose. Yes, I said panty hose. Jet black, Queen Plus. Well, let me tell you that is not an easy thing. It took me every bit of 10 minutes to put those suckers on. Not to mention how tight everything was on my twig and berries…Very tight and very constricting. So, I’ve got these things at my waist and Nicole tells me that they have to go higher. What, what are you talking about? She said that they were control tops. I don’t know even know what that means. Anyhow, I rolled them all the way up and then went up to my nipples. I left them at my waist…Anyhow, it was very difficult turning into a girl. I know have a little taste of what most of you go through on a daily basis.

More to come later about the actual event…
Jim

*sniff* oh honey, look! Our baby is all grown up and doesn't he look so beautiful in drag??

Ahhhhhh, yes, bloggers...this weekend is a very special weekend for none other than our very own JIMMER.

Yes...for charity, the Jimmer will be donning a wig, makeup, ball gown and heels and walking the catwalk. That's right...our baby will be in drag. Isn't just the sweetest thing you've ever heard?? The saddest part is that because I didn't mark the charity event on my calendar, I'm not going to be there...I'll be in Chicago dining on some fabulous food here, and then going to see this. I had a friend say she liked Shear Madness...and then someone else told me it was dreadful. Two very different opinions, from two very different people. I hope it's at least entertaining, or my hubby will kill me. The last time we went to the city, the performance was less than satisfying for him. Oy.

So that means I get to drink great wine, have great conversation, hopefully see a fun show, and stay overnight in an overpriced downtown hotel. YIPPEE. But still, Jimmer will be dressed up like a woman, toes painted, makeup on, wig in place...and I won't be there.

I told him yesterday that there should be before/after pics...and pics of him getting ready, like a bride on her wedding day. He didn't seem to think this was necessary. I clearly need to have a conversation with Nicole.

Jimmer -you know I'll need pics for the blog on this one...I'm just sayin. Do you have a name? A chick name picked out for your debut?? What should his girl name be, bloggers?