One for the moms (and dads, but...mostly the moms)

There comes a point in every winter, in our house it seems to be February, where everyone is over it, but especially the moms.

I'm sitting here in my messy kitchen and I'm writing a blog instead of cleaning it, because I'm over it.  I'm over coats, socks, boots, gloves, hats, and after this week, I'm certainly over germs!  It seems every summer, fall, and even spring, I develop momnesia on what it is like to have 3 kids couped up in the house during a week off from school for snow days sharing germs.  And then once I hear one of them cough a deep horrible cough, or worse yet, see them lose all color in their face and go purple around the eyes right before they explode everywhere like that kid on the Exorcist, it all comes crashing back to me.  If one of them is gonna puke, they're all gonna puke.  And even though after 10 years of being a mom I can wipe a butt with one hand and clean up puke with the other, it is really, never fun, From the first gag my heart turns black like the Grinch's heart, and I turn into a zombie until it's over.  I spray lysol on everything from the couch to the light switches, I wash everything that will fit into the washer, I line beds with towels and buckets with trash bags to try to save myself the tiniest bit of trouble, but it rarely matters.  They've been contagious for days before this, swapping germs as they rudely spit into each other's faces or give each other wet willies, and the germs have already taken a firm grip on their digestive tracts.  They're gonna puke.  They're all gonna puke, and it doesn't even matter what you do to try to make sure at least one of them escapes.  Us moms, we can only hope and pray that we remain the last man standing. That we can keep the stamina and stave off the exhaustion long enough to do one more load, bleach one more toilet, provide one more cracker and hope it stays put.

So, to all my othah muthahs out there.  I salute you, and I salute me.  We are going to make it through this long, germy, icy, freezing cold, cloudy, but beautiful winter, and soon we will be sitting at the pool having a chat and our biggest worry will be sunburns.  We can do this ladies!  We will persevere!  We will rise to the occasion wearing freshly washed (because someone puked on them) yoga pants and our favorite hoodie. Find something to get you there!  I'm looking at you March Madness.  I am looking at you.  Pull me through to the end!

Go Cats! If (when) Kentucky goes 40-0 the puke fest will be forgotten and I'll just remember this as the best winter ever. 

What started all the moving?

We get asked all the time "Why on earth have you moved so many times?"  I usually say that we are in witness protection and we're terrible at it, so they have to keep relocating us.  That confuses people so I've stopped using that line.

 It wasn't something we set out to do purposefully.  We moved to Hendersonville, TN from Louisville, KY a year after we got married.  TJ was working in a job at that time that had him traveling to Nashville for several days every week, so it just seemed like the logical thing to do at the time.  We bought our first little house, and Sydney was born in Hendersonville.  During the 3 years we spent there, TJ decided to get his MBA at Belmont University.  He wanted to work in healthcare administration.  Once he finished up his degree, you would think that it would be easy to get a job here in the health care mecca of the Earth.  Not so.  After an exhaustive job hunt, we landed in...Monroe, GA.

When I describe Monroe, I tell people it's like Mayberry on the Andy Griffith show.  There was one restaurant, one grocery store, a McDonalds, and that was about it.  It was also as if civil rights had never arrived.  Black people and white people literally lived on opposite sides of the train tracks.  People were happy on the outside, but it was almost like there was an undercurrent of something more volatile just beneath the surface.  In order to pay our rent, we had to walk into the bank and give a check to the teller and just tell her to put it into our landlord's account.  We could also pay in cash if we wanted. Once I even left the rent in the bathroom drawer because we were going to be out of town, and my landlord just came over and got it and locked up after herself.

We rented a house directly across the street from the hospital, Walton Regional Medical Center.  (Regional was an understatement.)  After a few months there, we decided that I was going to go back to work too.  So, 18 month old Sydney went off to a wonderful day care, and I went to work at the hospital as well, in the Human Resources Department.  I loved my job.  

TJ and I didn't advertise that we were married, just because it was a little odd to both be in administration at the same hospital.  Sometimes we would drop Sydney off at day care and then drive to work, rather than walking across the street.  On one particular day after we did this, a new girl from TJ's office came to my office, closed the door behind her and said "I saw you driving in with TJ.  You do know he's married?!?!?" Ha!  She thought TJ and I had "pulled an all nighter".

The house we lived in had two apartments under it.  The entrances to the apartments were around the back of the house, so we never saw the people that lived there.  Shortly after we moved in, the people in one apartment moved out, and new tenants moved in.  A girl and her boyfriend.  One day, I was sitting in my office and I could see a police car in my driveway!  I walked over and asked the officer what was going on (as he was using a flashlight and peering into my car), and he said they were looking for the new girl that lived in the apartment, and he wouldn't tell me why.  Ummmm.  Oookay.  After work another officer showed up at our house and asked "Are you April?"  When I said no, he made me get my drivers license to prove it.  After I was established as Ellen, he said if we see or hear the new tenants come home, we should call 911.  Say what?!?!!  A couple of days later, we did see her come home, and we called 911 as directed.  The dispatcher acted like we had just fallen off the turnip truck and claimed she had no idea what I was talking about.  About an hour later the cop shows up again, asks for my proof of ID and then tells me to call 911 of I see her again.  Oh Lordy podunk Georgia.  Get it together!

Two days later a friend comes to my office and says "Is everything okay?  Your stuff is all over the lawn."  I look out the window of my office, and my landlord has apparently decided to evict April the convict.  My rental was the only one with a lawn, so there was her stuff sitting all over it.  Everyone that we worked with thought we were getting evicted.  We moved to Orlando shortly after that, but Monroe (pronounced Mun-row) will always have some interesting memories associated with it for us!

Monroe, GA came back to haunt visit me last year.  I got a call on my answering machine from the Monroe police department's evidence unit.  I lost my wallet once in Monroe in an abandoned parking lot when I stopped to help baby Sydney do something in the back seat.  Apparently, 8 years later, they finally decided to call me and tell me that someone had turned my wallet in.  Did I want them to mail it back?

I wore Uggs to Whole Foods...and lived to tell about it.

As many of you know, TJ and I have decided to do a 30 day "cleanse" this month, and several of you have asked me to blog about it.  Thank you for being interested!  There is a timeline included on their website which describes how you may feel each day of your detox.  So far, it has been dead on for me, and on Day 4 when they said I was going to wake up and just want to "kill all the things"?  Well, let's just say that at one point TJ was hysterically laughing at how grumpy I was.  And I think it was because he was trying to keep from killing ME.  Apparently "kill all the things" day didn't hit him as hard as it did me.  Someone had to be there for the children...

We both felt the need to do something drastic to get healthy, and hey, as they say, bathing suit bodies are made in the winter!  We are horrible at "healthy eating".  Mostly because, we just don't know what to eat!  There are so many things out there that seem healthy, but are they?  Will it really do anything if we start eating whole grain bread instead of honey wheat?  Also, all cleanses seem to want you to eat a ton of beans and eggs to make up for all the other stuff that you're NOT allowed to eat. This has always been one of the huge issues for me when trying to get into a more healthy eating habit.  I hate beans and eggs.  And I have to eat something!  I finally stumbled upon the Whole30 cleanse.  In a small nut shell, it is your basic Paleo diet, commonly known as the way cave men probable ate, with a few more restrictions.  In this cleanse we are not allowed to have beans, grains, dairy, sugar, or alcohol.  None.  At all.  Even as an ingredient in other things.  Even vanilla extract to sweeten my black, dead coffee.  And boy, let me tell you, sugar is in EVERYTHING.  It has a lot of different names that you get to memorize in order to avoid it, but it's even in things like frozen hash brown potatoes, lunch meat, even bacon!  Follow this link if you would like to learn more about the Whole30 plan.  We are not hungry, and it has helped me get very creative in the kitchen.

  http://whole30.com/

In this past week, I have done things I have never even considered before.  I made my own mayonnaise!  If you have never done that, you should try it.  It is delicious! I made up several side dishes so that we wouldn't get bored with your basic green beans.  I'm nightly telling TJ "I'm nailing this."  I didn't know I could cook that way!  Several of the ingredients and sugar free things that I felt would make cooking and preparing dishes that we would actually enjoy easier, forced me to go to Whole Foods. Now, I have always been a fan of Whole Foods, but it's not a one stop shop for me, and with limited kid free time in the week, I just don't usually have time to go to two stores.  The one very big draw back from eating this way, is the amount of planning, preparation, and shopping it takes.  It is extremely time consuming.  However, I am committed to this, and I have just completed my second weekly trip to Whole Foods...I caution you, if you are going to shop at this crunchy fine establishment, wear Uggs at your own risk.

It is pretty cold here for Nashville, and when it gets chilly out I like to wear my favorite Ugg boots to keep my toes nice and warm.  Today was one of those days.  As I walk up to Whole Foods, I am looking forward to hunting down Japanese sweet potatoes, and some red palm oil, and adding some good old fashioned tamarind paste to the cart.  I was really in search of what was apparently the holy grail of dijon mustard, made without sugar or white wine, so I could make some salad dressing that my friend Autumn posted about on Facebook, and eat a salad again.  I'm deep in thought on where this mustard might be when I was accosted by a lady coming out of Whole Foods.  She gave me a good tongue lashing about how terrible it is to skin sheep just to keep my feet warm, and was it really worth it to me to cruelly take the life of an animal just to wear something on my feet?  I have no idea what my face looked like, but if you know me, you can imagine.  I stared at her for a few seconds, and then I said, "Well, I'm Paleo.  I think I recently read somewhere that cave men wore sheep skin boots, so I guess it just goes along with my diet.", spun on my heel, and walked purposefully toward the Japanese sweet potatoes as if I was getting paid to do so.

Me in my very very offensive Uggs.

If you have any questions about the cleanse I'm doing or how it's going, feel free to message me on Facebook or shoot me an e-mail.  I'm sure I will post about it again before it's all over.  Follow the link if you'd like to learn more about it yourself.  It's been a very doable cleanse so far.  We are focusing on all the yummy things we can eat, (HELLO! I can have steak for breakfast!), instead of what we can't.  So far so good from the cavemen on day 7.

How did you get to be so funny?

I am so excited that Allen is letting me join in on the blogging fun.  As he puts it "I have these thoughts that I have to get out somewhere or I'll explode.  It's like holding in a sneeze!"  I couldn't have said it better.  Most of the time you are all subject to my random one or two liners on Facebook.  I'll just be fleshing that out a bit here, and I'm sure you'll all just chuckle and roll your eyes as usual, if you even bother to read it.

After moving 10 times in my married life, it has become quite clear to me that people think I'm funny.  I am asked all the time "Have you always been this funny?" and "Where in the world do you come up with this stuff?"  The answer is no, I have not always been funny.  I have always been LOUD.  And when you are loud and not funny, what you usually get is obnoxious.  And that's what I was.  Obnoxious. I was also...well, ugly.  I was not an attractive child by any sense of the word.  I'm not sure how or when, but somewhere along the way loud and ugly turned into something else.  Or maybe when you are not butt ugly people think you are less obnoxious and more funny?  Not sure.  And I do know that even now, some people find me obnoxious and not funny.  I don't know what to do with those people.  If they don't think I'm funny I find myself filling awkward silences with more dibble dabble that they do not think is funny, thus making them dislike me even more.  Slippery slope there my friends.  Now, I'm also by no means saying that I'm a super model now, and I know you're thinking "We all had our awkward phases."  No.  This was way more than that.  My "awkward phase" lasted about 12 years.  And I will prove it to you:

Mullet

Shorter more curly mullet with large neck bow.

The perm era and my attempt at big bangs.

A tiny bit better in 9th grade. Maybe?

Ugh.  And then 10th grade happened. And this is my mom's shirt.

This is sideways, but I had to throw it in somewhere.  Allen of course, looks fine in 1995

Things got better in college.  Spring of 1999.

So there you have it folks.  I grew up in a house with a brother who's name rhymed with mine, and who was handsome, athletic, funny, and popular.  Then, I went to college where barely anyone knew me, got married,moved 10 times, and realized that I have this weird way of thinking about things that some people somehow find funny, and I also have a penchant for attracting very weird and odd situations that somehow involve me in the center of them.  You'll hear alllll about them and random musings from my aforementioned big brother, on this little bitty blog.

Initial thoughts on WWE

The Showoff has been The Highlight so far

There was a time, in the 80s and well into the 90s, where I did not miss a Monday Night Raw or Nitro. And if there was a live event within 300 miles of my house, I was going to do everything in my power to make sure that I made it. Then, for one reason or another, about the time that the "Attitude Era" ended in the WWE and Vince put WCW out of business, I just lost interest. I would check in from time to time and catch a segment of Raw, realize I had no idea who any of these guys were, and click it back off. But, recently, mainly because of the WWE Network (which I signed up for so I could go back and watch some of the archives. And, trust me, it's worth the $9.99), I've gotten back into it. I have several thoughts and feelings about it that I just want to vent, get out there, and maybe start some discussion, so I thought, what better material for my first post? 

The bad thing is, I feel like I missed a lot of good stuff during my hiatus. I missed the rise of Daniel Brian, and now he's hurt. I missed the entirety of CM Punk's stint in the WWE, and, from the sounds of it, he's done. I missed the end and/or demise of the careers of The Rock, Stone Cold, The Undertaker, Hall and Nash, and Rey Mysterio, among many others. The good thing about the Network is that I can go back and catch up, which I'm doing as much as I can. But all I have to go on is from September until now to judge the current state of the WWE, so that's what I'm going to do, and from time to time, I'll probably revise my stance or my thoughts, or I'll have more things to vent about. But for now, let's get the venting under way.

First of all, the face of the WWE right now: John Cena. When I first started watching again, I was kind of amazed of how the crowd is so split on him at these shows. And if it's not 50/50, then crowd is usually mostly against him. So my thought was, "Aren't the WWE higher ups watching this? Why are they resisting it? Just make him a heel. People want to hate him right now." But the more I've watched, the more I've realized that, by letting Cena be Cena and the chips fall where they may, it's actually pretty genius. I've never seen a guy in any sport or form of entertainment more polarizing to a fan base. Not with the passion that WWE fans are towards John. Seems like you either really love him or really hate him, but you have a very strong opinion. But, everybody cares about his matches no matter which side of the fence you're on. And, he gets to just be him. He gets to do the "Loyalty, Hustle, Respect" thing and play the great American hero, and it will garner some reaction. Personally, I really like him. No matter how the crowd reacts to him, he plays off of it perfectly, and he's great on the mic. His actual wrestling is decent, but it seems like he knows his limitations and knows his strengths, and he plays to them both really well. 

My favorite guy so far since I've started watching again has been Dolph Ziggler. Aside from having a horribly awesome name, I haven't seen him have a match where he A) didn't make the other guy look better than I've ever seen him look in a match, or B) didn't do something that made me go "Whoa...". In all the years I've watched wrestling, my favorite guys, whether they were a heel or a baby face, were the guys that could have a great match no matter who they were wrestling. For example, to me, Yokozuna was kind of boring to watch in the ring. He was a spectacle to see live and in person, but 80% of his matches were just slow paced with little action. However, one of my favorite matches ever is when he fought Bret Hart at Wrestlemania 9. Why? Not because Yoko was "on" that night, but because Bret could make any match great, regardless of his opponent. And that's why he's my favorite ever. A couple of other examples of my faves are Mr. Perfect, The Rock, Edge, and, although I've never really liked him personally, I loved watching Shawn Michaels. Dolph belongs on this list. He's good on the mic, and a superstar in the ring. He sells moves as good as anyone, delivers them perfectly, and he's always going 100 miles an hour. He's my favorite guy to watch right now.

My second favorite, and it's a close second, is Cesaro. The reason he's not equal is not his fault. I don't feel like the WWE knows what to do with him. And, it's a shame because he's awesome. Lately, he's been used to put over guys that are confusing for him to put over because he's better than them. Or, he's in lame tag team matches with partners that don't make any sense. The most interesting thing they've done with him in a month is use him to troll team Cena before Survivor Series. And then he didn't even get on the main card (and lost on the pre-show). The guy has incredible strength (watch the Andre the Giant Invitational Battle Royal at last year's Wrestlemania), and I've never seen him have a bad match against anyone. I don't think I'm alone at being confused by the way he is being used right now, because, in Stone Cold's interview with Vince McMahon on his podcast, he asked him what was going on with Cesaro, and that's the only guy he asked about specifically. 

Cesaro is just one of several guys who I am confused by how they are being used. Or, just confused about in general. Let's go over a couple or a few. First of all, why can't Kofi Kingston get a good push? Is there a more athletic guy working today? Or maybe ever? The guy is pretty solid on the mic, and he's incredible in the ring. But now they've got him as a side show on New Day. And, it's gonna be tough to get people to care about New Day. I THINK I understand the reason behind that stable, and, if I'm right, I understand it. But, you can't make us care about it. And the only parts of it I care about right now is that it's funny when Big E pulls out a handkerchief and wipes down during the match, and I want to see Kofi doing something else. Maybe that'll change...

Another thing I'm super confused about is the break up of the Wyatt gang. For a few weeks, we see all these promos of Bray and Luke Harper and Erik Rowan in a field and a barn being culty and weird. Then the next thing you know, Luke is attacking Dolph to prove he's a team player to Triple H, and Erik Rowan decides he wants to fight with Cena against Luke, and we have absolutely no explanation for any of it. Instead of doing all those promos, which all seemed repetitive and they did like eight of them, they could have come up with a story line as to why these guys don't like each other and why they left Bray Wyatt. You can tell they really want us to like Erik, and I really want to like Erik, but telling us he has a genius level IQ and likes Rubic's Cubes ain't enough of a reason for me to like him. He gets little to no reaction at live shows, and that's WWE's fault.

Why do the powers that be at WWE love Rusev so much? Maybe I'm alone on this one, but I feel like the only reason he is getting good heat as a heel is because he sucks, but they keep shoving him in our face. He is the anti-Ziggler in that his matches are painful to watch. Lots of stomps. Lots of punches. Maybe a generic suplex or two. And then a Camel Clutch (I'm not even going to dignify his finisher with the name they want us to call it in this post. It's a Camel Clutch. Stop it). And, why isn't he wearing shoes? He's not the Superfly. He's not from a tropical island. He's from Bulgaria. Get some boots. The taped up feet look stupid. Nothing to like about Rusev. Even as a heel.

Brock Lesnar should wrestle or don't. I heard Vince's answer to Stone Cold's question "Where is Brock?" and it was as unsatisfying as any answer he gave. If he's going to be the champion, he needs to be on TV. And, if he contractually can't or doesn't have to be on TV, then he shouldn't be the champion. It's probably tough on the writers to come up with story lines that don't or can't involve the title for the main guys, and as a fan, I want to see some title matches. Vince said if Brock is on TV all the time, then it's not special when he is on it. I'm calling BS. It was always special when The Rock was on, or when Stone Cold was on, or Hogan or Sting or Flair. When ratings were at their peak, these guys were on every show, and we couldn't wait to see what they were going to do to each other. Having a champion who's never around sucks for the fans, and I can't imagine that the guys who work their butts off every week are too thrilled that the pinnacle of the business is with a guy who shows up 10-12 times a year. 

Anybody know why the Bella Twins are completely cool and supportive of each other again all of a sudden? No? Me either. Maybe we'll get some explanation sooner or later, but for me, it's already kinda been too long. They spent a lot of time getting them to hate each other, and then Brie's "slave" term was up, and now they both hate AJ and love each other again. Why?

From time to time, I'm going to rank my five favorites, and five guys I could do completely without. These probably won't change too much, but from what I've seen watching some old matches of Daniel Bryan, and knowing that I really like Randy Orton and he'll be back, the favorites list should have some shake up at some point.

Favorites:

1) Dolph Ziggler - I explained this extensively earlier, but, he's the guy I get most excited about watching.

2) Cesaro - The guy I would love to get excited about watching every week because he is as entertaining and freakishly good in the ring as anyone, but, for whatever reason, he has become a jobber lately.

3) John Cena - I just love the heat this guy gets, and he knows how to play off of it from one night to the next, while staying true to his character. Never been another guy that polarizes fans as much as he does without doing anything different than just be who he is.

4) Adrian Neville - I haven't heard him on the mic too much, but this guy is freakishly good in the ring. If you haven't watched any NXT programming, it's worth it just for him. Trust me. Think a perfect combination of everything that was awesome about Chris Benoit and Jeff Hardy combined.

5) Damien San(Miz)dow - I honestly haven't seen too much of him in the ring, but what I have seen, he's pretty good. And he absolutely cracks me up. This whole angle with him being the stunt double may be a big part of it, but he is performing it to the hilt and I love it.

Diva - Naomi - She is the most athletic woman I've ever seen in the ring, and her moves all look great! I've been really confused as to why she hasn't gotten more of a push, but it looks like she might be getting one now.

Can't stand:

1) Rusev - The. Worst.

2) Big Show - Lots of slow, uncoordinated punches and "moves" from a dude who is terribly out of shape and unathletic and old. And it gets tiring seeing every one of his baby face runs end with him whining. His only purpose as far as I'm concerned: to make people look strong when they can do moves to him.

3) Mark Henry - See Big Show.

4) The Usos - Not sure what the appeal is here, other than they have kind of a cool look. They scream 

"Usse" so that the crowd will scream "Oh", and they dive between the ropes at opponents sometimes. And other than that, what do they offer? Is it because they are Rikishi's sons but managed to be not fat? Seriously, tell me, because all I see is that their interviews and promos and ring work are all kinda bad.

5) Bray Wyatt - The only reason he isn't higher on this list is because he has cool entrance music, and I like his finisher, even if it has a stupid name. Again, explain the appeal of Bray Wyatt to me. Do people like his gimmick of being a creepy cult leader? Do they like that he pretends to blow out an LED lit lantern? Is it cool that he can crab walk even though he's fat? Or that he wears Kramer's shirts from Seinfled? Because all of these things get on my nerves, and he doesn't do anything in the ring to make up for them.

Diva - Lana - Solely because she hangs with Rusev.

Also, I have a lot of thoughts on the CM Punk interview that he did on Colt Cabana's podcast. I may do a post dedicated just to that, if time permits.

Hello, friends

What is the purpose of this blog? Well, I have a lot of interests, and a lot of opinions about those interests, so I thought why not just write them all down, share them, and see if anyone else agrees, disagrees, or cares as much about random things as I do? So, let's find out!

I don't know how often I'll post, or what subjects I'll be covering. But I'll guarantee you they will cover movies, pro wrestling, TV shows, pro and college sports, podcasts, theatre, and pretty much anything else I can articulate an opinion on. Ya know, the hard hitting subjects that plague us daily. I may throw some serious subject matter in here every now and then, just to keep things grounded, but for the most part, it'll just be fun and fancy free. Just like God intended blogs to be.

I'll just post things as I go with really no set schedule, so follow me on Twitter @WSF_Allen, and I'll definitely put links up there. Expect a long post on my current feeling on the WWE shortly, because I have a lot to say, and I think pro wrestling is pretty pertinent to our society at this time.