May your soda always be fizzy and may your Doritos never be soggy.

Confessions of a 7 year old. (sorry mom) ;-)

When I was little my mom and dad told me I was not allowed to eat my father's Doritos or drink his Coca Cola because it would ruin my dinner and my teeth.

They used to buy the Coca-Cola by the suitcase full, so every now and then I would sneak one out of the fridge in the middle of the night and hide it under my bed. Sometimes I would even take two.

Eventually I had quite the stockpile of soda squirreled away. I would drink the sugary and caffeinated goodness while everyone else in the house were sleeping. Then I would sneak into the kitchen and steal the giant bag of chips. I would eat as many as I thought I could get away with without being noticed and then I would suck the cheese off more of them one chip at a time and carefully line them up on a plate to dry.

When I had my fill of nacho cheese goodness I would dump the cheeseless chips back into the bag and shake the bag to "recoat" the chips with the cheese from the other chips. Then I would put it back where I found it, no one the wiser.

True story.

So, the burning question is: Do you really know what your kids are doing while you're sleeping?

A dream unusual of its kind

The nightmares have started again. I was blissfully without them for a blessed few months but they came back full force this weekend. Last night's dream was so scary I woke up at 4AM clutching the blankets around me and shivering. I had to put my glasses on and turn on the lamp before I could calm down. I almost went and crawled into bed with Darian, but decided against it. Instead I curled up with Buddy who always seems to be right there when I wake up like that. It is like he knows.

That is the hardest part about sleeping alone. Most of the time it is a bit of a luxury. You can sprawl across the bed, leave the TV on whatever channel you want, arrange the pillows just right and roll all over in your sleep without disturbing anyone. I don't sleep well, so it is a challenge to sleep next to me. The big downside comes when you wake up from a nightmare and you are not sure if it was a dream or if it was real and you don't have someone to grab ahold of who will whisper that it was just a dream and it is OK to go back to sleep.

Saturday's dream was full of Zombies. These zombies would turn you into one if you looked directly at them. I was walking through the dream with my eyes closed, bumping into things, hearing awful things going on around me. It was a strange dream because it was completely audio. The most frightening part was the blackness and the fear of opening my eyes. I could hear people poking out their own eyes just to avoid accidentally looking at the zombies. Totally freaky and horrible.

Last night was just a whole new level of dark and still too fresh to even try to describe because, frankly, I am still a little afraid of it. It was scary because it was a lot more believable and realistic than zombies. It's theme was something that could really happen.

I want to beat up Cancer

Growing up in a house full of boys, we solved a lot of our problems with our fists. As far as I know my brothers would never hit a girl now that they are adults, but as children, I don’t think they ever considered their sister a girl. I was an equal to them and that meant I was fair game.
My brothers are also both over 6’3” tall, so I was pretty small next to them. The only advantage of being the middle child in this situation was, by nature, I became a pretty strong negotiator.
These skills have come in handy as an adult. When faced with a crisis I can both negotiate and I can take a punch (literally and figuratively)

As far as girls go, I am a pretty tough cookie. I am a fighter through and through.

The only thing that I can’t figure out how to take on is disease. It seems that everywhere I turn right now someone is being taken down by some sort of horrible disease. I know three people who have started some form of Chemo in the last month. The youngest is only 11 years old. Cancer is such a sneaky horrible disease and when you are watching it attack someone you care about all you can do is sit there and hope and pray that it will go away. It makes one feel helpless.

Simply put, I wish I could beat up Cancer. I think it really deserves a major ass kicking.