How to Paste Suntan Lotion Onto Your Skin

HOT today. Dripping hot here in Virginia. I slathered suntan lotion on my face, neck, and arms before I ventured out with three of my grandchildren, but when we got to the park, I realized that I had forgotten to lotion my feet and legs. Robyn said, that's OK, I have some in the diaper bag.

So I reached into the diaper bag, found a tube, rubbed it all over the top of my feet, and noticed that the consistency was much thicker than was mine. Hmm, I thought to myself, I guess stronger baby lotions are thicker to better protect new skin from the sun, so I continued to grease up my legs.

As I put the cap on the tube and returned it to the diaper bag, I realized that I had just lathered myself in butt paste.

After dinner, all I wanted to do was shower, but my son had showered and so had his kids, so I asked if he thought I would have enough water to take a shower. Oh, yeah! he  said.

So I got in the shower and just after I lathered my hair in shampoo and just before I wiped off all the butt paste, the hot water ran out. My legs, however, now feel like a baby's butt.

Want to Buy a House? Join the Military!

Buying a home is both exhilarating and exhausting, and it's difficult enough to purchase a home when you go with a conventional loan, but when you have to go with an FHA (Federal Housing Authority) loan, you are in for some serious trouble. 

Once upon a time, when you found a home that allowed you to go through FHA, you knew you were getting a good deal, because the home had to pass all kinds of inspections and the house was move-in ready. Today, those inspections are lacking in too many respects and not everything is move-in worthy, as one of my daughters recently discovered.

She had been performing circus acts, jumping through all kinds of legal hoops in her attempt to purchase a home with an FHA loan. She most definitely makes enough money to afford the home, but the loan, through FHA, is nearly impossible to obtain, and pleasing the people responsible for approving it is remarkably complicated.

VA loans, on the other hand, might be easier to obtain. VA stands for Veterans Affairs. Unfortunately, my daughter cannot get a VA loan, because she has never been in the military – her brother, however, can, so I'm using this blog as a big "shout out" to my son, in the hopes that he will get the hint. He loves his sister, so he may be willing to help. 

VA home loan rates are so much lower than conventional rates, so it would be silly not to ask him if he would be willing to cosign, right? Or – he could purchase the home for his sister and put it in her name! I really have raised some amazingly generous kids – I really have (hint hint).

Try Wells Fargo to start ;)

The Ants Go Marching Down – And OUT!

Four generations live in my home. I am the eldest, the matriarch. Like all matriarchs, I am the most influential person in the family.

OW! Sorry, I just choked on that last comment.

Anyway, what I find curious about our "situation" is that we all have different styles of handling things. 

Ants, for instance. I buy ant traps that draw ants by the millions. They drink in the poison, return to their homes, share the poison with their ant family, Jim Jones style, and voila, no more ants.

My oldest daughter has a different approach – grits –apparently the more humane approach to ridding the home of ants. Because by using grits instead of poison, the ants can watch each other EXPLODE!

The Private Life

Picture for a moment nasty women wearing combat boots. Suddenly images of Goldie Hawn in Private Benjamin pop into your head (not that Goldie Hawn is nasty – quite the contrary), but if you haven't seen that movie, please treat yourself to it, especially if you need a good laugh (as opposed to a bad laugh, which nobody needs). 

At one time, in my desperate need for money, I had considered joining the Navy (go ahead – laugh – but you'll laugh even more when you discover that the reason I would have chosen the Navy was because I liked the way their uniforms looked). I couldn't leave my baby, though, (at the time I had only one child) so I had to consider other options.

Just recently one of my granddaughters, in contemplating a way to financially help her family, considered joining the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marines, but decided instead to work at my youngest daughter's upscale consignment boutique and to sell Scentsy. Perhaps we all give joining the service a thought at some point during our lives, and many actually join.

I was not one of them. I would never have made good naval material due to the physical exertion the Navy would have required of me. With absolutely no upper body strength whatsoever, I would have whined like Goldie Hawn's character, Pvt. Judy Benjamin. I doubt seriously that I would have made it through basic training anyway – convertible handbags to backpack, comfortable beds to bunk – or maybe even ground – no thank you – I'd have been begging to go home.

IF (big IF) I had somehow made it through basic training, I might have improved physically, and I might have earned the right to retire as a high-ranking officer. Today I would be sitting on the back porch of a beautiful home, high on a hill, overlooking a lake, and typing this blog.

I admire our service men and women who stay the course and rise above the grueling, never ending work (special thank you to my Marine son, Greg). 

From my car, as I look upon my console cup holder, my lightweight cooler, and a trunk filled with luggage, I contemplate the life I did not live and thank God that I am not living out of my car – though it looks as if I do while I prepare for a drive across the country with my grandchildren to visit my Marine son (their father). 

When we arrive in Virginia, I might suggest we watch Private Benjamin. I think we all would get a kick out of watching it.

Little Things

Posted by Gaylord Campbell I learned something new today! I was surfing the internet and landed uponshopelectricityratestexas.com. I didn't even know this was an option in Texas. I have lived here for thirteen years and never heard anything about it. I asked my neighbor about it and she was all surprised that I hadn't heard anything about it. She said she had had a fixed rate for years now. Have you ever been doing laundry or put on a jacket for the first time in the winter and reached into the pocket to find a twenty dollar bill? That is what this was like! Some people get excited over the big things like a vacation to Disney Worldor a new car; I get so giddy about little things like a new shower curtain or a low rate or a drawer full of new shiny silver ware. Does that make me crazy? I'm telling you, I can buy new silver ware and will open the silver ware drawer just to look at it! Does anyone else do this?