Amy J. Bennett

This week has been a heavy week for me so I have to have a little fun with this one.  Last night I was trying to lay out clothes for school today and Emma had no pants to wear.  Lexi still had a few good outfits for the week but I realized Emma’s winter clothes just weren’t stretching long enough between washes.

So off to Wal-Mart I went.  It was 9pm by this time and the store was not busy at all.  I put on my NKOTB music and headed for the clothes singing “Dirty Dancing” along with Donnie.  I may have turned red when a lady about my age spotted me lip-synching and head bopping holding up a pair of little girls’ jeans.   I still wonder who she thought I was listening to.  I had fun picking Emma three outfits out, picking up the most pink and sparkly stuff I could find that she would like.

I then headed to the ladies’ section hoping to extend my little jam session.  I haven’t bought clothes there in years, taking up Ann Taylor Loft as my clothing homebase.  It’s not the cheapest thing but things fit me so well there.  Well. I was so happy to find several great sweaters!  And oh my, I found this entire upper ensemble for less that $35 for all three pieces!  I feel like Oprah on her first visit ever to Wal-Mart shocked that places actually sell bras for $4.99!  It’s not like I’ve never shopped at Wal-Mart but maybe it’s been too long.

The cream undershirt was $8.  The very soft orange sweater was only $13 and the “leather” jacket was only $14.92!  I also got two more sweaters but maybe that will be another post.

OK, I’m not a political junkie.  Not even close.  I don’t blog about it and really don’t talk much about it.  Honestly, I just don’t pay attention and feel idiotic trying to give my two cents.  Probably no surprise I’m Republican down the line.  But still being less than informed than I should and probably unenthusiastic, I still am one that exercised my vote and stood in line for an hour and 40 minutes yesterday and still felt like I voted for the right guy.  And I still watched a lot of the coverage last night and had a sinking feeling settle in as the night went on. I even stayed up to watch Obama’s soon famous YES WE CAN speech.  So I feel almost required to make a post on it.  It IS historic and I AM living through it.  And honestly?  I am proud that America has gotten to a place that we have a black President.  We would be ignorant to say it doesn’t matter or it’s not important or to gloss over the fact.  I’m proud of that.  But I didn’t vote on skin color and I feel ashamed of those that did.  His skin color won’t matter when he’s making decisions about our children or economy or the war.  And that’s what has me feeling numb and a little more than worried this morning.  Yes, change has come that is good but there’s more change coming that I’m not sure we’re going to be so proud of.

The past few days have been quite the rollercoaster. Friday night we found out a six week old daughter of a couple we know from church passed away due to issues with her heart. No matter the circumstances that is heartbreaking. The weekend was pretty easy going as Scott worked most of it and we stuck close to home or church.

Yesterday morning though we awoke to horrible news that a 41 yo man in our church passed away unexpectedly. He is a guy that we know from church but Scott also worked with him in a past job and we have also worked with him with the children’s and youth ministries at church. He has a daughter in our youth group now as well as a son that is about 9.

Yesterday I tried to work and also make Lexi’s birthday special. I took the girls to see HSM3 which was amazing. I think my favorite. After that high we had to go to the baby’s visitation. The viewing was open casket which was quite sobering although she looked like a sweet baby angel. And then we came home and had a cake for Lexi and a few presents.

This morning I was up extra early to vote and stood in line for nearly two hours. After that I headed up to the office for most of the day. By 3:30 though I was just done. And now I’m not surprised to be lounging in my silk pj’s watching the election coverage which could be one of the biggest events in history.

So you can see we’ve had a lot of ups and downs the past few days and mostly downs. I’m guessing it won’t really slow down until after the funeral on Thursday and I hope this weekend we can take the time to celebrate the girls’ birthdays and enjoy family as much as possible.

Last night we went to a Halloween Party over at my Mom’s neighbors. They had these big boulders in their back yard with a built-in fire pit. I’ve always thought I’d want a flat, big backyard but I really liked it. The kids loved climbing on it.

We ate a pot luck dinner outside there and then the kids (and me and Scott) got on a hayride which took them throughout their neighborhood for trick or treating. We made 4 stops before getting to my parents’ house.  The kids were satisfied with stopping there and heading to MIL’s house. They wanted to help them hand out candy and were planning to spend the night.

I have to say the hayride was a ton of fun. I hadn’t been trick or treating like that in about 20 years since we didn’t really do that at our house growing up. The kids were so excited to run to each house and Lexi was quick to say Trick or Treat while Emma was more reserved, only taking one piece of candy even when prompted to take more, ensuring them she only wanted one.  I finally convinced her to take more than one after the second house reminding her she could share the extras.

Colleen, Melissa, Lindsey and I ate downtown before heading to to the big NKOTB concert.  To be honest, I had no intentions of going.  I was a HUGE NKOTB fan back in the day.  I even blogged about their return back in April but never really followed through with catching up with them.  However, Colleen got an email about a 4 pack in the nosebleed section for $28 a pop so I couldn’t pass it up.  As the date grew closer this week, I got more excited…even going back and listening to some old songs yesterday to see how much I remembered (a lot!).

First I have to say I noticed that the entire audience were women.  Seriously I only remembered seeing 2 men, one of which was on the screen.  And they weren’t teenagers either.  Actually, I really don’t remember teenagers at all.  I’m pretty sure most of them were in their late 20’s and 30’s.  It was like everyone that was in middle school and high school in the late 80’s/early 90’s all had a reunion in order to stand and scream for 4 hours.  Almost twenty years of fangirl excitement coming out in one loud, four hour screaming session.

Needless to say, we were all surprised about how good they were.  They did a mix of old and new stuff. I hadn’t heard but one of their new songs and have to say they have some great dance songs out.  Dirty Dancing had to be my favorite.  Maybe because they came out into the audience on a revolving stage and danced singing about a girl dirty dancing on them.  You can’t imagine what that did for our temporarily regressed middle school minds.

Oh, one exciting thing was when we went to go get seated, they said our section was getting moved downstairs to some better, empty seats so we got REALLY good seats for what we paid.

And yes, it was all cheese.  Cheesy, choreographed boy band dancing to cheesy songs and cheesy lyrics.  One thing I can say is the guys CAN sing.  I don’t think I realized how well Jordan could sing.  He sang several of the songs, hitting some amazing falsetto notes.  I thought Joe would be featured more than he was but he did really well when he was.  And Donnie did a little rapping, not much but he was definitely the ring leader of the entire show.  He was the best dancer of them all by far and I remembered why I owned that Donnie button back in the day.  Yes, he is still my favorite.  Jordan WAS cute in his scarf or even lack thereof during his solo.  Danny sang a few noteworthy bass notes and did some breakdancing at one point.  Jon firmly stayed in the background the whole time but he looked good.

I don’t know, we had a FABULOUS time.  It was like one huge girls night out and no one cared how or if the person next to them was dancing.  We all had cheesy smiles on our face and squeezed the person’s arms next to us and screamed when they did a pelvic thrust.  It was fangirl heaven for those few hours.  I’m really glad I got to go.

Melissa is supposed to be putting up some pictures but here is a montage of video I caught.  Excuse the hands waving, the screaming and the jostling of the camera as I danced behind it.

I’m sitting at my desk working away and Scott walks from the living room/kitchen area: What do you have in the washer?

Me: Lexi’s blanket.  She wanted it washed.

Lexi, from other room: Mattie licked it and I wanted it washed.

Him: You should go put it in the dryer.

Me: Me? Why? I’m sitting here working and you’re twice as close.

He moves onto the elliptical in the office: Come on, mommy, go dry her blankie for her.

I get up, annoyed: OK, I’m sitting here but yet I have to get up to do this. Whatever.

He follows me into the kitchen into the laundry room.  I open up the lid to the washer and it farts (sorry, I don’t usually use that word, it’s just fitting).  I spot his fart machine sitting on top of the blanket.  He cracks up laughing, lying his head in his arms on the kitchen counter

Me, rolling my eyes and throwing the wet blanket into the dryer: Do you have to be so juvenile?

He’s still laughing.

I’m still rolling my eyes.