Dear Honey, this is your Mother speaking.

I was just looking over this Bucket List thing that you have going on, and I have to tell you something… why would you wait till you had children to get a new car? Really darling, speaking from experience this is the wrong time to get anything new or nice. Let me tell you why….

From the moment you and your sisters were born, it seems that you were on a mission to destroy anything good or decent thing that we had in our home – especially the car.

The day we brought you home from the hospital – your father was trying to get the obscenely huge car seat into the back of our four door Dodge Dart. It was an exercise in Geometry and he was losing. He got so mad that he yanked the door back to hard and over extended something inside – it never closed right again. Wind noise came through this door in a shrill whistle any time you went over 45 mph till the day we sold it.

Then there was the time you started to choke in your back facing car seat. I was in the front and could not see that you had just jammed four of your little fingers down your own throat. I was sure that you were seconds from death. So, with your father driving, in an amazing show of agility, I threw myself over the center padded armrest that came down in the middle of the front seat. Unfortunately, I kicked your father in the head and knocked off the rear view mirror with my foot. I had not lost enough of the baby weight that I had been carrying around since you were born either, and I managed to break that armrest thing right off. It just hung limply into the back seat for the life of the car.

Withing the year you were in a front facing seat, and managed to projectile vomit a mixture of organic peas and squash all over the back of the drivers seat. I have no idea why this combination of vegetables would stain beige cloth upholstery like it did – that is a puzzle that keeps me wondering even today.

We thought about replacing the headliner of your dads work car after we ripped it taking your partially compacted stroller in and out of the two door compact. But we duck taped it instead.

Then there was the summer trip down south. New boxes of sparkle crayons and coloring books were the winner of the day for keeping you busy on the long drive. Unfortunate that I forgot to take them out of the car when we stopped for the night in a hotel. I have never heard your father make the noises, to this day, that he did when he found them all melted into puddles of sparkling wax all over the upholstered back seat. Note to self: The interior of a dark green Dodge Dart, when it sitting in a southern Arizona parking lot, in August, produces more heat then my kitchen stove.

Then there was the time we cleaned the entire car out! Off we drove to McDonald’s for a celebratory meal, on the way realizing that one of the three usual car seats was not back in the car, hmm. When I stopped at the first stop sign it bounced off the top of the car, hit the front hood with amazing power and denting it. It then ricocheted off our front bumper and hit the back end of the car stopped in front of us. NO, YOU WERE NOT IN IT! Your father wanted to know what happened when we came home – I told him it was a freak accident – we got hit by a Meteor! I think he went for it, he just turned and walked away mumbling.

Lest you think you limited or destruction the our own cars, let me share some of the special ways we treated our friends and families cars that had made the mistake of parking near our children.

Your Grandfather had to have the gas tank pumped out and cleaned after you and your sister filled it with sand off the gravel driveway when you were playing gas station. How did you get the cap off, we will never know.

Your Uncle had to buy a new tire after running over, an obviously sharper than we knew, Barbie trike you parked under his new sports car. You were hiding it from him.

My friend had to have a partial repaint after you and her son discovered a large stash of fermented cat poo on the corner of an old shed. Somehow you two thought it was appropriate to rub it all over her passenger side doors. Oh, to know what goes on in the minds of a child.

I don’t even want to get into the teenage years …. “I was practicing parallel parking in the garage …” , “I thought I should take the car out to check the mail in the box, in reverse. “, “…(name) told me to do it!”.

Well all that to say, I think that you should remove the new car from the bucket list and go out and buy the ugliest, cheapest, biggest, safest thing that you can find. Maybe some sort of tank. Save the new car for the Retirement Bucket List.

No you can’t borrow my car, love you!
Queen B.

Negativity on the blogosphere. And the Mommy Huns.

I think I might go the non-snark route from here on out. But will I survive?

More on the topic ver at Our Mommyhood today, check it out…

There is no better way to test a company’s customer service than by having a short-notice trip across the country. So without further ado, the Golden Cookie Awards!

The Stale Flaxseed and Prune Cookie with Anchovy Frosting Award goes to…Wells Fargo! After sneaking in a little ‘fee’ that turned out to be a program we didn’t agree to (and only reimbursing us one month, and then trying to sell us the same program at a reduced rate), Wells Fargo was really on thin ice with us anyway. The final straw was, three days prior to Marmot’s grandfather passing away, the reduction of our credit card limit from $7,000 to $1,700 leaving us with $150 of available credit. So glad we had them to rely on in case of emergency, like the sudden death of a family member! According to Wells Fargo customer service, the Obama administration is responsible for the credit limit reduction, although the ‘official letter’ said no such thing. Too many strikes Wells Fargo! After opening my first account with Wells Fargo in 1990, we’ll be banking with the local credit union from now on.

The Oreos (But No Milk) Award goes to…Hampton Inn! We reserved a room for four nights, and got to enjoy the unbelievably comfortable Hampton beds, the amazing free breakfast every morning, and the friendly staff. However, we also got to enjoy a 6hr power outage, which then resulted in no internet for the rest of our stay, a desk clerk who told my husband she had no idea when or if the internet was going to be fixed, another desk clerk that almost canceled our reservation because someone else with the same name checked in the day after we did (Marmot’s Dad), and we had to get our key cards re-activated after being locked out of our room. Twice. So it was a good pretty good stay, but not stellar.

And finally, the Sugar Cookie with Frosting and Sprinkles Award goes to…Hertz Car Rental! We called at 5pm on Tuesday for a rental to pick-up at 7pm, and the price started at $268 for a one-week rental of a compact car. She asked about corporate affiliations and memberships and we found two of them, added in another coupon she gave us for $35 off, and a free upgrade- bringing the total for a full-size car to $189 for the week. And she said she’d be praying for us to have a safe trip and blessings to the family during this sad time! And it gets even better- the guy at the rental desk gave us another free upgrade, so we got a 2010 GMC Acadia (with 4500 miles) for a week. For $189. I am officially a loyal Hertz customer.

And thank you everyone for your kind words to Marmot and I. While it was for a very sad reason, we did have a great trip to the Deep South, visiting with extended family from far-off places (or in my case, meeting them for the first time!), and reliving lots of good memories of Papaw! I read your Twitter and blog comments to Marmot on the way down, and it made us both teary. Thank you!!

Marmot’s grandfather passed away this morning, so we are headed to the Deep South first thing tomorrow.

Please say a prayer for his family, they’ve lost a very kind and goodhearted man.

Be back soon!

~HB

Its a dilemma.

Wear the bra that has the broken underwire that pinches the underside of your boob approximately every hour.

OR

Wear the bra with intact underwires that your boobs fall out the bottom.

Tip for the Day: Don’t buy all your bras at the same time. Because there is a very specific timeframe that bras are good for, and having all your bras die in the same week ranks right up there on the misery scale with a bad haircut.

Marmot and I have had ‘clean the basement’ on our massive to-do list since we moved into the house in June…but its been the type of project that seemed so mammoth, its hard to even think about starting it but once you do, the momentum picks up. So yesterday, I decided to move some things around on the shelving in the basement and seven hours later, the basement didn’t know what had hit it!

So I was working in the corner with the shelving, had the Shop-Vac and was sucking up the dust and dead bugs when I saw it. This thing:

The biggest spider known to man. And it was LOOKING AT ME!!

The following text message transcript began:

Me: I just vacuumed the biggest f-ing spider I’ve ever seen. My hands are still shaking! Holy bejeezus I need a drink. How long do I need to run the Shop-Vac until we can reasonably assume its dead?

Marmot: Might still be alive, who knows.

Me: Eff, are you serious??

Marmot: Google it.

Me: This is NOT a time to joke, when will it be dead?!

Marmot: The sucking action should have killed it, I’ll clean the Shop-Vac out when I get home. You don’t have to keep the vacuum running.

Me: Ok, the vacuum will be waiting for you. Running.

So I kept using the Shop-Vac, but didn’t turn it off until I was pretty sure that I had sucked up enough particles to pummel the spider to death. You can’t be too careful with giant spiders, and this one was mean looking.

But by the time I got done with the basement, I had sucked up seven spiders, and had stomped on at least twelve. As it went on, there was less screaming and swearing with each kill.

And Brewer stayed close, ready to bark everytime I screamed and threw the Shop-Vac hose. He’s my bud.

And the basement? Much improved, de-junked and swept and sorted and the spider population has been significantly thinned. Before and After pics coming as soon as Marmot hauls away the garbage pile. But the psychological trauma lives on, last night I had nightmares about spiders.

Anyone know of a spider-repellent I can douse the basement in??

One of my favorite sites of all time, SpearmintBaby, chose the Honey B blog to be in their baby blog directory!

I found Spearmint Baby one afternoon by Googling baby nursery decor, and was thrilled to see that she posts baby nurseries every day, spanning all manner of styles and budgets. I’m regularly on her site drooling over the latest posts (nurseries and decor, and other little things of interest) and have bookmarked more than a few pictures as inspiration for future decorating!

So if you’re in to looking at the best of baby nurseries, check out SpearmintBaby! And thank you Shari for the mention, I’m flattered!