Oh Susannah, Don’t you cry for me.

I was unpacking my suitcase fifteen minutes after we arrived in Branson. The phone rang and I answered thinking it was my in-laws down the hall. “Hi, Mrs. Hackablag?” “It is Huckablog.” “Sorry, Mrs. Huckablog, this is Candy with guest services. How is your condo?” “Everything is great so far, thanks.” “Mrs. Huckablog, we were wondering if you would like to come to an orientation for Whinedamn resorts, it is just 90 minutes long, and we will give you 120 dollars, in cash, for attending.” “No, thank you. Have a nice afternoon.” Click.

I went about my afternoon, sort of thinking about that sales call. I ate dinner, visited some dinosaurs, met Elvis….still thinking about that call. I figured it out: 90 minutes, 120 dollars. That is what, 80 dollars an hour? That is pretty good. Hum. If I had 120 dollars I could pay for my little er, indiscretion. Everyone could go ride the train and I could sit and smile for an hour and a half and then meet them in time for lunch. I did not really want to ride the train anyway, and it would be ninety minutes free of toddler wrangling. I called Candy back, and she was THRILLED to talk to me. She asked how old I was, if we were above a certain income bracket (barely Candy, but you do not need to know that.) and what The Husband and I did for a living. She informed me that she had a spot for us to be “orientated” on Saturday morning, but my husband would have to come with me because of my age and since he is the “main bread winner” (and old.) Great, now I had to convince The Husband that listening to a sales pitch would be better than riding a scenic railway. It did take some time, but finally I talked him into it, on the one condition that I would do all of the talking and the saying no. (Remind me to tell you sometime about our crazy expensive cookware.)

Saturday morning we got up early so we had time to pack, check out, and get The Son settled with MMiL and FFiL. We walked in to this lounge type thing and saw dozens of couples sitting on cheap furniture. Half of them looked like rich, old retirees and the other half looked like middle class working people. We applied our sticky name tags with our names spelled wrong, and watched as various salespeople poured through the doors. A woman named Susannah came smiling to us, and lead us up into a hot, crowded room filled with lots of tiny tables. She spent a good five minutes pumping us for information, or getting to know us—you decide. What do we do, where did we meet, where did we go on our honeymoon, how often do we vacation, where did you go to school, where are you from? “Oh, I grew up twenty minutes away!” (I chose to ignore the fact her name tag said she was from Fairbanks AK). “Oh, I went to school at insert Alma Mater” (Really? You have a degree? Does selling timeshares really pay that well? ((then again, I have several degrees and I spend my days wiping applesauce off chins and singing songs about spiders. Never mind.))

After several minutes this little, overly tan guy walked in. His name rhymed with Fake-o. You could see the gray roots of his dyed black hair. He looked like he was either wearing heavy foundation or tanned daily. He went into this whole spiel about the links between health, vacations and living longer and working too much and blah blah blah. Every other sentence he would insert a….dramatic pause. He had so many…..dramatic pauses that I briefly wondered if he was having a series of small strokes. When he was done talking and pausing he showed us a video of lovely suites filled with average Americans singing the praises of Whinedam resorts. (none of the suites looked remotely like the ones that we stayed in that week), it was full of phony sounding statistics, and I could read the fine print from my spot. The organization responsible for these “facts”? The World Vacation Institute. Oooh, that sounds official. Then Fake-o told us how he had a heart attack “a year ago this month” and just fourteen days after quadruple bypass surgery he was on a beach in California, with his small son, at a Whinedam resort. He showed us a framed photo of the silhouette of a small boy holding hands with some guy running down the beach. He quickly waved it in front of our faces and then put it back on a shelf. Since we were at the front table, I could see the picture fairly well. I am pretty darn sure it was not Fake-o in the picture. It really, really looked like the picture that came in the frame. Also? FFiL had a quadruple bypass this time last year and spent some of his recovery time at our house. He sure as hell was not in any shape to be gallivanting on a beach fourteen days later. I call BS on Fake-o.

When Fake-o was finished with his brief work of fiction, Susannah took us on a tour of the compound, and it was lovely. I would definitely enjoy staying there as I vacationed. As we were walking she casually said, “I will be up front with you, it costs sixty-two nine.” That is exactly how she said it, sixty-two nine. I guess I was confused by what it was exactly that she wanted us to buy (it is a deed ((um, huh?)) for the rights to use Whinedam condos for a certain amount of “points” a year. Confused yet?), because I kept trying to figure out what dollar amount sixty-two nine was (that would be $62,900). I heard The Husband choke behind me. We should have just left right then and asked for our $120 while admitting that we were never going to spend that much money on a condo we could only use three weeks a year. Instead we continued the tour. I asked intelligent questions, oohed and aahed at the appropriate times, and then saw a clock. Our 90 minute “orientation” had been going on for over two hours. I told Susannah we needed to hurry this along, we had to meet our family, she rushed us into a VERY LOUD room, crammed with people. (When I brought up this detail to The Husband later on he said he noticed the same thing, and thinks they do that on purpose to overload people’s senses. They get nervous and hot and are more likely to rush and say “Yes” without giving it the thought 63 grand deserves.)

I told her we were interested but not ready to commit today. (I was trying to be nice Susannah!) She had to go get her manager to talk to us before we left. This anorexic looking girl, a few years older than me, came up with her eyes all bulging out. The first words out of her mouth were, “So how much can you put down today?” Er. I might have been playing along a little to well. The Husband looked panicked. (He told me when we got in the car I was lying so well he even believed me, that is amazing because usually I am a HORRIBLE liar.) I said we were not prepared to make a commitment right away. (Please let me leave scary lady, I just came to pay for my ticket!) She said, “Well you have to make a commitment today or you lose this good deal.” “Well, I am sorry, with the economy the way it is, it would be foolhardy of me to agree to spend this much on a non-necessity.” “You are looking at it the wrong way, instead of thinking about saving to spend for your vacations, you have to spend to save.” I could not suppress the giggles escaping my lips on that one. I think it ticked her off, because next she said, “You know, financially savvy people never have to think about it. They just say yes right away,”. Great. First you make me late, then you scare me with your eyes, and now you are insulting me? Does that really work on anybody? I chose to negate telling her about all of those financial tests that I studied for (and mostly passed), and just gave her a firm. “No, thank you. We are not interested.” She flipped over her piece of paper and then proceeded to give us a BETTER DEAL on something called the “VIP” package. Oh, so this is like buying a used car? You thought I was just trying to negotiate? I just want to leave, and never speed through a certain county again! “No, Thank You. We cannot commit to that much money. Especially not with your seventeen percent (!!!) interest rate.” “But, you can get financing on your own with a lower interest rate.” “How can we do that if you want us to agree right now?” “You just pay the $6,000 down and figure out the payments later.” “No, thank you. We cannot commit that much money.” (Dear God, let me out of here!) Scary eye lady huffed off without even saying “Bye”.

I looked over at Susannah, she had tears welling up in her eyes. Was she faking? Maybe, probably even, but I believe she was really upset. She saw her big fat commission fly away. I patted her on the shoulder and told her that she did a good job, that scary eye lady ruined it for her by pressuring us so hard. She gave me her personal email and cell number in case we changed our mind. She then had to bring over some old guy with a bulbous nose, blood shot eyes, and smelling vaguely of stale Bud Light to “check us out.” As soon as Susannah left, he sat down and said, “I understand why you said no. Here let me tell you a better deal.” He brought out more papers and gave us yet another price discount. I was amazed at the sheer tenacity of these people. I no longer had the patience for tact at this point. Our ninety minute “orientation” had turned into a three hour interrogation session. “No. We have to go now, can I keep these papers to think about it (and by think about I mean broadcast it all over the internet)?” “Oh, No, we can’t let you take the inventory.” Whatever dude. “Fine, we really need to leave.” He sighed, led us to the front desk. A weary looking lady counted out $120 in twenties into my hand, I turned on my heel and marched out, relieved to finally be free.

When we were outside, the first words out of The Husband’s mouth were, “How much do you think the timeshare would cost if they stopped giving $120 to people like us?” Good point darling. Oh well, we were $120 richer and had at least gotten some good blog fodder from our morning not riding the train.

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You want to know more? Um, sure. Okay. I guess.

For the past three or four months, every other or day or so, I get an email asking personal questions about thehuckablog family. It seems we may be interesting or something. Sweet! I have been saving them all to do an ask Hey You post, so here they are in no particular order.

What color are TheSon’s eyes? Excellent question. He has two different colored eyes. His right eye is a lovely bluish grey, it looks very much like MMiL’s. His left eye is blue as well, but about a third of it is a hazely-greenish color. It reminds me of JHJ.

What kind of job does TheHusband have that lets you stay at home? He is a computer geek who moonlights as a computer geek. His official titles are umm….hold on. “Honey, what are your official job titles?” “Computer Systems Administrator, and Product Support Engineer.  Why does the Internet need to know that?” “Never mind. Keep reading political blogs and getting mad.”  Yes, The Husband does have two jobs, but he sorta does them simultaneously. He is also in school. (He rarely sleeps, so I try to take an extra nap on his behalf.)

Are you one of those ultra conservative fundamentalist Christians? I am a Christian, and in someways I am very conservative, and in other ways I am pretty liberal. I think that Christianity is all about Grace, and I wince when I hear hate disguised as Christianity.   That is just so, so, so wrong.  I am a Methodist, in fact I am a sixth generation Methodist.  My great something or the other was a circuit rider, and we used his travel sized baptismal font when The Son was baptized.  Being Methodist was a deal breaker for The Husband and I, it was my way or the highway. Luckily, he felt very disenfranchised with his church, and will now quote to you out of the book of discipline to make his point.

I want to be a Stay at Home Mom, do you have any tips on how to afford it? I have been reading this blog lately which is all about a farm family, I was in awe of how she did it all, and then did a little research and it turns out they have oil wells, and are one of the wealthiest families in the Midwest. I felt a little cheated. Y’all, there is no oil well in our back yard. The Husband works very hard, and we are blessed, but we just plain do not spend much money. As for tips…well, I can just tell you what we do. We do not have cable TV, we gave it up for Lent one year and never turned it back on. We just recently turned off our home phone because we never used it, and did not even have our answering machine plugged in. We get our hair cut at the barber college. I get The Husband’s clothes on super sale clearance, and most of The Son’s clothes are from children’s consignment sales. We try to double up errands to save on gas, we never turn down a free meal at someone else’s house, we limit things like Christmas and birthday gifts….that is all I can think of right now, but you get the point. We have everything we need, and some things we want. It could all change tomorrow, but for now we are just having faith.

Are you really still breastfeeding? Yes. Next question.

Why do you never email me or call me back? Because I am a horribly lazy person? I do not have a good excuse, I just do not like talking on the phone, and only have a very limited amount of internet time between naps and snacks. Sorry, but I DO read every singe email and comment, so keep those coming.

What did you want to be when you grew up? In chronological order: The Princess of France, an actress, a veterinarian, a psychologist, a pediatrician, an actress, a speech and theater teacher, a political speech writer, a missionary, an NGO worker, a SAHM/writer.

What is your real name? Welcome new person! See the blue sentence at the top of the screen that says, “It’s my blog and I can dictate if I want to”? You can click on it and see why we use alter egos. I chose Hey You after thinking about it for all of three seconds, and now I kinda hate it, but it is all over my site and I am too lazy to change it.

Did you know that you were the next of kin for a wealthy Nigerian businessman and he left you millions in his will? Really?! Wow, let me email you my bank account information so that you can deposit it for me.

Keep the questions coming guys, I will be back on Sunday.

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Holy War

Thanks for today’s post goes to Cat, our resident youth minister.

Maybe it is photo shopped, maybe it was just a planned joke between the churches, either way, yay for a sense of humor!  Unless they are serious, in which case, the Presbyterians are right, dogs do not go to heaven– but shame on them for starting a holy war.  I am calling the UN.

Now I am off to pack for a weekend camping trip with four generations worth of campers. Oh, and Shoeshe for a night, she is an honorary member of the family so she counts (I am unsure of her camping skills however. I will report back and let you know.)

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Not Political, I swear.

I have written and deleted so many political posts recently.  I am really hesitant to post much about this election because I am feeling so put off by many of MY favorite bloggers.  It seems that if you don’t agree with the blogger, then you are stupid, or uneducated.  I have been made to feel defensive and just plain pissed off at many blogs who I used to check everyday.  It has gotten so bad, that I am getting ready to do some major editing on my blog roll.

This does not mean that I have no political opinion, and I probably will post something at some point, but that is not going to happen today.   Instead we have a post about baby names–sure they are the baby names of a potential Vice President, but this is not about the person or her beliefs but her choice of monikers for her five kids.  Track (named because of the whole family’s involvement in track and field sports), Bristol, (named for commercial fishing area, Bristol Bay),  Willow (a community in Alaska), Piper, (because “It’s a cool name.”), and finally little Trig (a Norse name meaning strength.).

Presenting the Sarah Palin Baby Name generator.  My name is Drill Swollen Palin, The Husband is Shank Piston Palin, and The Son is Rock Crane Palin.  Post your Palin name in the comments section, The Drill commands you!

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Paperwork

Alternate title: Hey You cannot make up her mind. Do it for her, please.

I have a new company interested in doing some advertising here, maybe even one that pays more than half a rupee per click of an ad..also maybe I will have more ads that pertain to my readers instead of how to get a 13yr old Asian Bride FedEx’d to you. (I think I got that one deleted finally. Watch it pop back up now.) This new company wants me to pick my FIVE best posts to be used to spread the word of TheHuckablog to other blogs they advertise with. Hmm. Well, that is kinda subjective, don’t ya think?

Most blogs have a tone. They are either all hilarity with some snark thrown in, or a run of the mill, here-is-what-we-did-today diary type blog, or they could be all let-me-vent-my-raw-weeping-emotional- wounds all over the Internet. Some are political. Some focus just on pop culture. Mine? Has ADD. Would you pretty please tell me what five posts in the past nine months you have liked the most? Have you liked any? Do you come just to see cute pictures of The Son? That is okay, just let me know so I can get an idea of how I should spin this to the new guys.

Now for something more fun. Not that reading my archives isn’t fun. It is super-duper fun (*waving* Hi Nice Advertising Ladies!). I am a planner. I usually have things like birthday parties (pictures are coming soon, I promise), and Christmas presents planned months in advance. Something I have not been planning? The Annual Halloween bash. We have had a Huckablog Halloween Party every year for six years. (Before I was even a Huckablog yet!), and this year….I am thinking seriously about skipping it. Last year’s was kinda lame, and no one wanted to play my Halloween inspired games (a party MUST have GAMES people! They are to a party like what the five jars of pickles are to your fridge. Unnecessary, but it would be empty without them.) Also, the day I had kinda thought about having it is the same day as the birthday party of one of our good friend’s son, and I do not want to miss that, or make our mutual friends choose who’s party to attend. If we are partyless then that means I get to take The Son to all of the cool hayrides, and carnivals, and Boo at the Zoo, and all of the other wonderful seasonal stuff without worrying about when I am going to find time to clean, and cook, and come up with costumes for everybody. Just he will need a costume. (I will probably throw on an old one to take him Trick-or-Treating). The theme for his costume this year is free! So I have scavenged around looking for him a creative costume that just also happens to be free, and I have come up with FOUR possibilities. Please, dear Internet, make a decision for me.

1. A cave boy. I have the fabric to make him a little cave boy dress thing, already own a rubber squeaky cave man club, and this would be easy to add clothes to or take away layers to prepare for our capricious weather. Also? I already have a cavewoman dress from a past Halloween that I could wear to take him out. Cons: I must make his dress, he would be wearing a dress.

2. A cowboy. He has an old fringed leather vest that was his daddy’s from his old Halloween costume. He has jeans, a cowboy hat, a plaid shirt, and a hobby horse. I think I could borrow some boots from someone. Cons: It might be hot, I would end up carrying around the horse, he has a poor track record with wearing hats.

3. An engineer (train, not mechanical). He loves Thomas. He has an engineer’s hat, overalls, and a bandanna, and some plastic tools. Cons: If it was cold and he had to wear a coat and then took off his hat, no one would be able to tell what he was supposed to be. I am sick of Thomas.

4. A park ranger: My dad bought him a really, really cute outfit at a local state park. It is a khaki shirt that says park ranger on it, and has a patch from our state parks system on the arm. It also has olive pleated shorts with a ranger’s belt. I thought I could stick rubber snakes, frogs, and lizards in his pockets, or pin them to his shirt. I also think I could find him a pith helmet somewhere. One more pro: It would make my dad really happy to know he picked out The Son’s costume. Cons: If it is cold, then all I could do without covering up the costume is to put long johns on underneath it, I have not actually tried this on him yet, and it may be a little big still.

Okay, what do you think? For his first Halloween he was a monkey, and last year he was a spider if that makes a difference to you for some reason.

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I am the Walrus. Coo-Coo, KaZOO!

I am not really a walrus.  In fact there are no walruses (walrusi?), or any kind of sea mammals anywhere in this post, I just like the title.  You know me, anything for a Beatles reference.   We had been planning on going to the zoo for several weeks, and the day we had planned to go dawned cool (for August in the South anyway), cloudy, and gloomy.  We decided to go anyway and were joined by the last minute addition of MMIL and BIL!  It was awesome because the zoo was practically empty of annoying people. (Although there was this one lady who kept screaming at her kids and was not wearing a bra, and she REALLY needed a bra.  She could have tripped on those things.  Did I ever tell you about the waitress at the restaurant we always went to in college who never wore a bra?  We had to duck when she passed out our food.  Remember her Cat? Tark?) What was I talking about again? Oh yeah, the zoo.

So anyway, I have been holding on to the pictures that we took the day we went to the Capital City Zoo for three weeks now just waiting to be inspired to write a post about them.  It turns out that looking at other people’s zoo pictures is boring.   So I made a silent, short film instead.  Cannes here I come!
Enjoy.

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Birthday Rewind

I love planning parties.  I know it is overkill for a toddler’s party, but he will never remember them so really they are parties for ME!  We are in full party planning tilt at TheHuckablog World Headquarters as we get ready for the big 2.  I did not have a blog this time last year, apart from the imaginary one in my head, so I thought we would have a little time warp back to last year.

The theme (I love themes, lame I realize but they make planning so much easier) was Rubber Ducky, look who’s one.  To say I had a few ducks at the party would be somewhat of an understatement.   I used turquoise blue linens with white accents, plus, of course, yellow ducks. In the background you can see the ducky cupcakes “swimming” around in a galvanized tub.  For food we had cheese and quackers, fresh fruit, ducky cookies, little weenie thingies, spinach AND cheese dips, “mallard”mars, and ducky cupcakes.  I always only serve tea, lemonade, and water at parties because they are inexpensive, and look pretty in glass pitchers (are you NOW convinced of the OCD?) There were blue and clear balloons everywhere to look like soap bubbles.

This is the “smash” cake, made by my mom.

Cupcakes made by Cakes by Stacey, (ask for info and I will send it to you).  She hand made those little almond bark ducks on top.

In the back yard I took blue tarps and made a canopy to cover the whole back porch, and then had tons of blue and clear helium filled balloons trapped underneath.  I took more blue tarps,  put them over blankets spread over the bricks, to create a soft surface, then added three blue kiddie pools with MORE rubber ducks.   Do you see all of the children who attended his party?  All ONE of them?  We are hoping the kid to adult ratio at this year’s party is a little better.

More pools and balloons and slides and neighbors.

You can’t see it very well but his onesie says Lucky Ducky, I am One! From The Gap.  I had the I am One added.

I could not find party favors I liked, so I made my own.  I spray painted party hats turquoise, found stuff to make ducks in the scrapbook aisle at Hobby Lobby, and used stickers to put different sayings on each hat, then topped it all off with a shimmer top coat.  Time consuming, but they turned out cute.

I was bummed at the lack of kids, so my Mom was a good sport and donned one.

I made the banner for his high chair, with construction paper, ribbon and more stickers.   I can’t show you the front of the house for security reasons, but I painted big yellow duck feet prints coming up the drive, and had a sign on the door that said “Welcome to the Huckablog Tub!”

We had a good time and all the adults had a blast.  I am not telling what all to expect for this year so you will be surprised, but I will give you a hint.   I hope you like dogs.

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