Mimi has two addictions. The first is her grandkids. She loves her grandkids with such a passion. She spoils them rotten and caters to their every need. My kids would gladly move in with her if I let them. I thought Ella’s first word was Momma…but I think she was actually saying Mimi.
Mimi’s second addiction is Wal-mart. She is the reason Sam Walton became a billionaire. If she stops going to Wal-mart, the economy will spiral out of control.
My husband decided this weekend that when it’s Mimi’s time to meet her maker, he’s gonna sprinkle her ashes all over our local Wal-mart. She can shop for eternity!

When spring arrives, I can’t wait to get hanging baskets for my front porch. We have a large front porch and I usually put up seven to eight hanging baskets…ferns and wave petunias. They’re beautiful…for awhile.
Then the new starts wearing off and I get busy with other things…like yard work and taking care of kids. Little by little…I forget to water them. My husband actually built me a watering system…all I have to do is turn it on. But sooner or later, I kill the love ferns.
I really should go ahead and take them down. They look so pathetic.
I guess I’m off to Lowe’s to buy more love ferns.

Farm Chick came out Sunday afternoon to do a little cookin’ and a little chattin’. She needed an afternoon away from the kids cause Secret Agent Man (a.k.a. Rooster) is going out of town next week on important secret business. He’s a big shot like that.
Anyway, we got to cooking, laughing and talking. We covered all kinds of topics… lactose intolerance, my stinky oven, ways to win the lotto…you name it, we talked about it.
This peach pie is good. Real good. I would’ve showed you a picture of the finished product…but I ate it before I thought about it. Sorry. Just picture it in your mind.

Fresh Peach Pie

1 large container of Cool Whip
1 can Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk
1/3 cup lemon juice
5 peaches-sliced
1 cup of sugar
2 graham cracker pie shells

In a bowl place sliced peaches with sugar. Stir and let set for 15 minutes til sugar dissolves.
In another bowl, mix lemon juice, milk and cool whip. Drain peaches and fold in Cool Whip mixture. Place into graham cracker pie shells and refrigerate.

This is Rico Suave. He’s trying to impress me and get me in bed.
Here he is doing his “Sexy Time” pose.
Gets me every time…

I’ve always heard it said, “You can pick your seat…you can pick your nose…but you can’t pick your relatives.” In this family, we celebrate our heritage…the good, bad and the ugly.
Ella Carrington is named after one of her great grandfathers many years back. Carrington Simpson has been remembered in Green County history as the supposed illigitmate son of Judge Carrington from Virginia as well as committing one of the most horrendous murders this area has ever witnessed.
In July of 1838, Carrington Simpson and two other men murdered Lucinda White, her sons John and Lewis, Lewis’s wife Matilda and their baby William. They were bludgened to death and placed in a old outhouse and covered with a dead horse to disguise the smell of rotting flesh. Their motive was money and property.
Carrington Simpson was hung on September 21, 1841 in the community we live. The headstone is surrounded with a simple white gate and sits out in the middle of a pasture.
Simpson’s story has become a prominent part of history in this area. It has been featured in William B. Allen’s “History of Kentucky” as well as “History Among Us” by Lanny Tucker.
When I was pregnant with Ella, we wanted names to reflect both sides of our families. The name Ella is after Todd’s paternal grandmother and my paternal great-grandmother. I couldn’t bypass the name Carrington. For one thing, it’s a beautiful name. Second, the story is fabulous. You can’t make that stuff up.
Can you imagine the look on her boyfriends face when she tells him that story. He will think twice before mistreating her.
So, for all you people out there that think your family is a little loony…We got you all beat.

As of today, I am now an employee of Baywatch.
That is all.

Ray-Ray turned 10 Friday. We celebrated by having a big pool party with lots of friends and family.
Rachel thinks she is now a “pre-teen” and with that title comes lots of perks…like a cell phone. Why would my 10 year old NEED a cell phone?
The only time she is away from me, she is with other responsible adults who have cell phones. Thus, the reason is peer pressure and the need to talk to boys.
Well, it ain’t gonna happen.

Dave Barry’s Colonoscopy Journal

I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenterologist, to make an appointment for a colonoscopy. A few days later, in his office, Andy showed me a color diagram of the colon, a lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place, at one point passing briefly through Minneapolis . Then Andy explained the colonoscopy
procedure to me in a thorough, reassuring and patient manner. I nodded thoughtfully, but I didn’t really hear anything he said, because my brain was shrieking, quote, ‘HE’S GOING TO STICK A TUBE 17,000 FEET UP YOUR BEHIND!’
I left Andy’s office with some written instructions, and a prescription for a product called ‘MoviPrep,’ which comes in a box large enough to hold a microwave oven. I will discuss MoviPrep in detail later; for now suffice it to say that we must never allow it to fall into the hands of America ‘s enemies.
I spent the next several days productively si tting around being nervous. Then, on the day before my colonoscopy, I began my preparation. In accordance with my instructions, I didn’t eat any solid food that day; all I had was chicken broth, which is basically water, only with less flavor. Then, in the evening, I took the MoviPrep. You mix two packets of powder together in a one-liter plastic jug, then you fill it with lukewarm water. (For those unfamiliar with the metric system, a liter is about 32 gallons.) Then you have to drink the whole jug. This takes about an hour, because MoviPrep tastes – and here I am being kind – like a
mixture of goat spit and urinal cleanser, with just a hint of lemon.
The instructions for MoviPrep, clearly written by somebody with a great sense of humor, state that after you drink it, ‘a loose watery bowel movement may result.’ This is kind of like saying that after you jump off your roof, you may experience contact with the ground. MoviPrep is a nuclear laxative. I don’t want to be too graphic, here, but: Have you ever seen a space-shuttle launch?
This is pretty much the MoviPrep experience, with you as the shuttle. There are times when you wish the commode had a seat belt. You spend several hours pretty much confined to the bathroom, spurting violently. You eliminate everything. And then, when you figure you must be totally empty, you have to drink another liter of MoviPrep, at which point, as far as I can tell, your bowels travel into the future and start eliminating food that you have not even eaten yet.
After an action-packed evening, I finally got to sleep. The next morning my wife drove me to the clinic. I was very nervous. Not only was I worried about the procedure, but I had been experiencing occasional return bouts of MoviPrep spurtage. I was thinking, ‘What if I spurt on Andy?’ How do you apologize to a friend for something like that? Flowers would not be enough.
At the clinic I had to sign many forms acknowledging that I understood and totally agreed with whatever the heck the forms said. Then they led me to a room full of other colonoscopy people, where I went inside a little curtained space and took off my clothes and put on one of those hospital garments designed
by sadist perverts, the kind that, when you put it on, makes you feel even more naked than when you are actually naked.
Then a nurse named Eddie put a little needle in a vein in my left hand. Ordinarily I would have fainted, but Eddie was very good, and I was already lying down. Eddie also told me that some people put vodka in their MoviPrep. At first I was ticked off that I hadn’t thought of this, but then I pondered what would happen if you got yourself too tipsy to make it to the bathroom, so you were staggering around in full Fire Hose Mode. You would have no choice
but to burn your house. When everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedure room, where Andy was waiting with a nurse and an anesthesiologist. I did not see the 17,000-foot tube, but I knew Andy had it hidden around there somewhere. I was seriously nervous at this point. Andy had me roll over on my left side, and the
anesthesiologist began hooking something up to the needle in my hand. There was music playing in the room, and I realized that the song was ‘Dancing Queen’ by Abba. I remarked to Andy that, of all the songs that could be playing during this particular procedure, ‘Dancing Qu een’ has to be the least
appropriate. ‘You want me to turn it up?’ said Andy, from somewhere behind me. ‘Ha ha,’ I said. And then it was time, the moment I had been dreading for more than decade.
If you are squeamish, prepare yourself, because I am going to tell you, in explicit detail, exactly what it was like. I have no idea. Really. I slept through it. One moment, Abba was shrieking ‘Dancing Queen! Feel the beat from the tambourine …’.. and the next moment, I was back in the other room, waking up in a very mellow mood.
Andy was looking down at me and asking me how I felt. I felt excellent. I felt even more excellent when Andy told me that it was all over, and that my colon had passed with flying colors. I have never been prouder of an internal organ.

ABOUT THE WRITER

Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist.

Dear Kim Kardashian,

I’m sure you are a really nice person. I have no idea why you are famous other than you made a not so nice tape with your ex-boyfriend and it got leaked to the whole world. You should have known better and kept it under lock and key…shame on you.
Anyhoo, I appreciate the fact that you are embracing your body and loving your big booty. It makes all of us women feel good that we don’t have to weigh 98 pounds.
However, when you are showing off your big Judy booty for all the world to see…please wear a big enough bathing suit to cover your crack. That look is cute on my 19 month old when her diaper is sagging…but on you…it’s just wrong.
Here in Kentucky, we keep our crack undercover and I suggest you do the same.
Sincerely,
SFM

I have a confession. I have an aversion to cleaning the toilets. It’s almost a phobia.
I just can’t stand the thought of cleaning something with my hands that my shiney hiney has recently been there doing not so nice things.
I know that some people say that the toilet is cleaner than your kitchen sink. I have no problem with the kitchen sink…my big hiney hasn’t been sitting on it. And besides, who did that study? And if they are the kind of person to WANT to do a study like that…would I trust their judgement? I don’t think so.
What gets me even more is the thought of cleaning some public bathroom. I could do it if I had too…but I would need some serious anxiety medicine and a big Hazmat suit.
Sometimes Todd tries to talk to me about staying home full time with the kids…but then I would have to give up the cleaning lady…and clean my own toilets…I JUST CAN’T DO IT!