Life After the Kids Graduate College: Surviving the Empty Nest Syndrome

The last ten years have been a bit of a marathon, filled with family challenges, serious injuries, illnesses, and the loss of my father. For a while, laughter and everyday joy felt like they had packed up and gone on vacation without me. But the good Lord never stopped nudging me forward. Well... "nudging" might be giving Him too much credit. It was probably more like a well-aimed boot to the backside. Either way, I'm finally starting to laugh more, find joy in the little things again, and rediscover my voice. Apparently, God wasn't accepting "maybe later" as an answer.

 **Life After the Kids Graduate College: Surviving the Empty Nest Syndrome** 

Ah, the moment every parent dreams about: the day your child(ren) graduate from college, get a job, spread their wings, and fly the nest. They say life after your kids graduate from college is a golden era filled with blissful peace and quiet, but let’s be real: it’s more like a rollercoaster of emotions coated with a hefty dose of confusion. 

**The Sudden Silence** 

The first thing you notice after your kids move out is the deafening silence. Gone are the days of “Mom! Where’s my other sock?” or “Dad, can you help me build this ridiculously complex science project that requires twelve different kinds of glue? It's due tomorrow!” Instead, you find yourself hearing every creak and noise through the house, convinced that someone might pop out at any moment. You might even start talking to the dog—no judgment here; it’s a real adjustment! 

**Rediscovering Your Grocery Bill** 

With your once-teenage food vacuums now college grads, you’ll notice your grocery bill is suddenly half of what it used to be. You’ll stand in the grocery aisle, holding a family-sized box of Hot Fudge Sundae Pop-tarts, wondering, “Do I still need this?” Your fridge will go from “What’s for dinner?” chaos to “Is a leftover container of queso with chips considered a meal?” panic. Welcome to the new normal, where you find joy in whatever random leftovers make it to your plate! 

**Your Home Is Now a Museum** 

As soon as your kids graduate and head out into the world, your humble abode becomes a glorified museum. “Here lie the bedrooms of a once-aspiring pilot and model,” you muse as you dust their empty room, looking at the blank spaces on the walls that were once adorned with favorite posters and trophies from their youth sports and activities. Every now and then, you find yourself reminiscing about the days when you had to step over a minefield of Legos, Matchbox cars, and dolls to get to the bathroom—those were the days of real adventure! 

**The Parenting Callback** 

After graduation, just when you think your parenting responsibilities are winding down, you realize you are now on call 24/7 for what I like to call *emergency consultations*. “Mom, how do I place a grocery pickup order?” is the frantic call when they realize adulting is far harder than it sounds. “Dad, how much life insurance should I sign up for? And what's AD&D?” becomes a new family quandary. Who knew post-college life would resemble a series of phone interviews to discuss the world’s most confusing concepts?

**The Unexpected Side Effects** 

You may also find yourself suddenly subjected to side effects such as “Hobby Overload.” With all this newfound free time, you might experiment with gardening, quilting, shopping for a wardrobe that isn't based on whether it is socially acceptable for both sleeping and early morning school car-line drop-offs, or maybe you take it a step further and tackle the real monster: organizing the craft/junk room using suggestions from Pinterest or Marie Kondo that are guaranteed to make you the star of the neighborhood. Spoiler: those rooms rarely get completed.

**The Reunion Moment** 

And just when you’re starting to get used to the quiet, you get the call: “Hey Mom, can I come home for a few days?” Your heart does a happy dance as you picture family dinner and saying goodbye to your newfound solitude - even if it's only for a day or two. Before you know it, they roll back in with a suitcase full of laundry and want to take over your Netflix account with their latest binge-worthy series. Suddenly, you’re dodging awkward questions like, “Where's the last slice of cake?” and, "What happened to the Pop-tarts?" 

In the end, while we cherish the memories and lessons learned through parenting, the journey continues, albeit in a different way. Here’s to the empty nest—may it be filled with joy, laughter, and maybe a dog or two to keep you company!

Frozen Food Aisle Capers

Before I was married, the frozen dinner aisle at my local grocery store was a pretty happening place to hang out.  I know many people find the produce section of the grocery store to be a much bigger draw, but I found the selection of fruits and vegetables to be a bit........ awkward.....when socializing.  In the frozen food aisle, single women stood in solidarity as we discussed whether a particular meal met our calorie limitations and was (hopefully) filling and tasted like something other than glue. 

Standing there among the hungry single women, I'd make a good show of trying to decide between the Weight Watcher's grilled chicken with vegetables and the Lean Cuisine chicken piccata, while secretly eyeballing the mouthwatering photos on the boxes of Marie Callender's fried chicken or Stouffer's lasagna with meat sauce.  As we all stood before the freezers' insulated glass doors, many hours were spent discussing the merits of fewer calories versus flavor, while we cast longing, surreptitious glances at the "full flavor" (aka meals with 1,000 calories and 40 grams of fat) meals.

I would chat and wait patiently as everyone made their meal selections and slowly departed the frozen food aisle.  Looking up and down the aisle to make sure the coast was clear, I would quickly pounce on my favorite meal.  With speed reminiscent of Jackie Joyner-Kersee, I'd sprint to those luscious looking fat and calorie-laden frozen meals and quickly stuff one in my cart.

After leaving the aisle, I took great care to make sure the contraband was hidden under something large enough that no part of it was visible.  Knowing that when I reached the cash register to check out, there would inevitably be another female in line who would scrutinize my purchases.

Having been questioned by the cart police on a previous calorie-laden purchase, I made sure to hide my meal well.  Being subjected to the raised eyebrow of shame from the cart police once was enough to make most females never step foot near that part of the freezer section again.

Oh, but not this redhead.  Whether I ate the divine ooey-gooeyness of a chicken pot pie, or let it sit in my freezer so long it built up a frost so thick it could have been mistaken for the iceberg that sunk the Titanic, it did not matter.  It became a challenge to see whether I could make it all the way through the store and through the check-out lane without getting caught.

I started going through the same cashier's line every week after she saw the meal's location on the conveyor belt (hidden between the toilet paper and the multi-pack of facial tissues) and, with a sly grin, distracted shoppers in her lane.  She quickly scanned the meal and shoved it to the bottom of the grocery bag before anyone was the wiser.

She wasn't a redhead, but she was feisty enough that I'm pretty sure it must have been in her bloodline.  Together, we foiled the calorie-counting cart police for a good year before I met my husband and we started dating and got married. 

With having a significant other, I was no longer subjected to the cart police's scrutiny.............. until I had children.........

Written by Christie Bielss

Christmas Spirit

"Patience is a virtue".  How I hate that phrase.  Whenever someone says it, all I want to do is scream "HELLO?!! I'm a redhead!  I have ZERO patience!".  There have been so many times in my life when I have wished God had gifted me with patience, but, for whatever reason, He didn't. 

Since patience seems like it could be something you can pattern into your psyche, I made the decision to try and practice it when I'd rather scream and rant.  I figured it may not take completely but if I could knock my stress level down a notch or two, that could be considered a moral victory.  I'm pretty sure God, having a great sense of humor, said "Yeah, right!  Let's see how committed you really are!" and immediately tested my level of commitment within moments of me making that proclamation.

My daughter and I were in the car headed up to the grocery store to restock my pantry since my son has been eating us out of house and home.  Driving around our city on a good day can be aggravating with our great diversity of horrendously bad drivers on the road, but during the holidays it seems like these people drive even worse (if that's even possible) and there seem to be lots more of them.  When you combine these terrible drivers with all of the out-of-town drivers who don't know their way around, it's a recipe for serious aggravation and road rage.

So, as we were making our way down a multi-lane road, we kept having to go around drivers who were doing 25mph in 40mph+ speed zones.  My jaw was set as I was determined to just go about my errand and not be cranky.  Apparently I wasn't doing that great of a job controlling my aggravation since my daughter patted my hand and said "Hmmmm, there seem to be a lot of slow drivers out today Mom.  We'll get there".

Not sure how many times I've said those last 3 words to my daughter when she's running full-tilt to get to something she's excited about, but it sure does stink having it spit back at you.  I inhaled deeply and forced myself to relax.  We finally made it to the stoplight where we turn right.......... and sitting smack-dab in front of me is an out-of-stater who is wanting to go straight....... in the right turn only lane.

Grrrrrrrrr!!!!!  I started thinking "Christmas spirit........... Christmas spirit............ Christmas spirit.........".  I guess I was thinking it so hard, I actually said it out loud.  My daughter looked at me and started cracking up.  She then leaned over and kissed my hand and started rubbing my shoulder as she said "That's right Mom!  Smile and get the Christmas spirit!  At some point the light will change and then somebody from the other lane will run him off the road as he tries to weasel his way in from the wrong lane.  See!  Happy place!".

Now she had me laughing since that was pretty darn close to what I was thinking!  The light finally changed and as we (and 20 cars stuck behind us) turned right, we could hear the cars honking with great gusto at the person who had been in front of us as they did the bumper shuffle to see who would let the out-of-stater into their lane.  We giggled to ourselves as we made our way up to the next stop light so we could turn into the grocery store.  This time though we were turning left.

As the light changed and we started turning, out of nowhere the car from the middle lane decides that he needs to grocery shop and nearly side-swipes us in his zeal to replenish his milk and bread reserves.  As I laid on my car's horn and expertly dodged this moron's vehicle, my daughter yells at the other driver "Hey!  You can't turn from there!  Can't you read?!"

Laughing hysterically, I looked over at my daughter and patted her hand as I said "Christmas spirit, dear!  Christmas spirit!".  She smiled broadly as she said "Not when it's on my side, Mom!"........

Christie Bielss

Giddy-Up!

When I was a kid I was so excited for the day I would finally learn to drive.  Driving would give me the freedom to get to where I needed to be on time, with the added benefit of being able to hang out with my friends whenever, and wherever, I wanted.  Oh how the elation and sheer excitement coursed through my body when I was legally able to register for Driver's Ed!



Photo copyright:  Ildar Sagdejev

My Driver's Ed course was taught through my high school.  My instructor was the incredibly fabulous and famous, Mr. Pursel.  He had the greatest sense of humor and was, quite honestly, one of the bravest men I've known.  Considering the number of cars he got in which were being driven by scores of horrendously awful and grossly over-eager 15 year olds, the man probably should've received the Medal of Honor. 

Of course, Mr. Pursel did have a chicken break and extra steering wheel, so in the event he started to see his life flash before his eyes, he could retake control and prevent his own premature demise.  He never had to use either of those when I was driving though.  I was a very good driver........ for the most part.  Now the other 2 young ladies I was paired up with (who were also very good friends)...... well, let's just say they gave us memories to cherish for a lifetime, although I think  psychologists would say the clinical definition of these memories are "flashbacks".

I was wishing I had my own chicken brake and steering wheel in the backseat when my friends drove.  One of my friends liked to get to her destination early.............. very, very early.  My other girlfriend and I would be sitting quietly in the backseat with eyes as big as saucers and holding onto anything we could grab hold of as we'd hear Mr. Pursell speak in progressively louder tones "Now, you're going a bit too fast and need to slow down here.  Ok, it's time to slow down.  Slow it down.......SLOW DOWN!!!!!!!!  And that's when Mr. Pursel would pull the chicken brake sending us into a fishtailing slide.

My other friend didn't have a speeding problem, it was more of a directional issue.  She liked to drive straight........... even when the road curved.  Yeah, apologies sent to the many homeowner's yards and landscapes which were rearranged by her great desire to make her own path through the bends in the road.

As for me, well, my problem was always the same:  a manual transmission car at a stoplight.........on a big hill.  I am pretty darn sure Mr. Pursell had a clicker which changed a certain blasted stoplight to red EVERY.SINGLE.TIME I got anywhere near it.  I'm not quite sure how many hours we spent on that hill, but suffice it to say there were many drivers who had to back up and go around us at that blasted stoplight.  Heck, we spent so much time on that hill my friends were asking Mr. Pursel if they could get out and walk over to the Jack in the Box to get us all a soda and walk back.  They were that sure we weren't going anywhere any time soon.

Looking back on these experiences though isn't really much different than what my Great-Grandmother experienced the very first time she got behind the wheel of a car.  She grew up with a horse and buggy and that's what she "drove" for most of her life.  Then one day in the early 1900's, one of my Great Uncles came home with their first car.  He put her behind the wheel and my Grandmother said you could see the excitement all over her face.

She courageously got behind the wheel of the car and they showed her how to make it go.  As she stepped on the gas pedal, she yelled "Giddy-Up!" and wouldn't you know, the horses under that hood got going!  They said you could hear her giggling and laughing all the way down the drive and out onto the street.

What they forgot to show her was how to stop.  As she went down the street and was ready for this contraption to stop, she couldn't figure out what to do.  In a panic she did what she'd been taught to do all her life:  she pulled back hard on that steering wheel and started screaming "WHOA!  WHOA, I SAID!".  After my Great Uncles picked themselves up off the ground from laughing themselves silly, they chased her down and showed her how to stop.  I'm guessing this is when the chicken brake was invented.........

Christie Bielss

Faith and Hope

Sometimes, no matter how hard you wish for it not to happen, life falls apart around you. Do you throw your hands up in the air and succumb to the pressures or do you hang on to your faith and hope knowing this time will pass?  

You may be wondering where this crazy redhead went again.  Well, life took a bit of a crazy turn and my husband lost his job.  It's been a very difficult week as we have tried to make sense of it all.

You would think we would be sad, beaten down, and even dismayed at having to be out looking for a job in this job market.  We were.  There was a feeling of loss and anger, but we've picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves off, and are moving forward.  God will put us where He wants us to be and we just have to trust.  So faith and hope is the path we have chosen.

What is it like when your husband is suddenly under foot every minute of every day?  Well, let's just say it's like having a toddler around again.  You can't open the refrigerator without him asking what you're eating.  You can't talk on the phone with your girlfriend because he wants to join in on the conversation and make witty remarks about you both.  And heaven forbid if you should want to quietly use the ladies room.  Having my husband home is similar to having a Royal Herald announcing my every move "The Redhead is now going to the kitchen!  The Redhead is going to vacuum!  The Redhead is hiding in the ladies room!". 

Obviously this underfootedness is not conducive to anything getting done.  My house hasn't been vacuumed or dusted, the laundry is still in the dryer from a few days ago, my bathrooms make roadside rest stop lavatories look clean, and there is really no point in even fluffing the sofa cushions since he's parked his derriere there with the television remote alternating between the many channels that are about restoring old cars.

So what is a poor, beleagured wife to do?  Well let me give you a hint.  Get an inexpensive spiral notebook and a pen and start making a honey-do list.  Put everything you could ever think of and dream of on this list.  A few of mine include: use the Shop-Vac to suck out the alien life form that's clogging our daughter's sink drain, dead-head the geraniums, grease all of the door hinges so every time a door is opened it doesn't sound like the Addam's Family home, spray bug killer around the house so I don't have to share my toothbrush, use the toothpaste the children have so generously left on the bathroom counters and sinks to buff out stains on the bathroom countertop. 

All of the trash cans in our house (as well as the ones that go to the curb) could use a good scrubbing, so I made sure to write those down too.  I have even listed for him to use the extendable feather-duster to dust all of the cobwebs out of every ceiling corner in every room, and tighten all of the toilet bases more securely to the floor. 

We have really big oak trees in our backyard and my husband's pretty handy, so I wrote down an idea for him to make a tree swing.  I figure that will take at least 6 months to complete and it's an outdoor activity.  

I showed my husband the spiral and after reading what I've written down so far, he said he appreciated all of my hard work in creating such a detailed list.  He went so far as to say that my list was "inspiring" .............. inspiring him to check all of the new job postings multiple times a day.  My work here is done........

by:  Christie Bielss

Telemarketer Tango

I have been trying to instill in my children that there is no job which is too menial for them to accept.......... with one exception: telemarketing.  I know telemarketing is a legitimate job which requires a lot of skill in order to meet sales quotas, but those people have a gift for being more annoying than a horsefly at a picnic.

I have employed many tactics trying to get them to quit calling our telephone number.  I have hung up on them, told them ever so politely I'm not interested, asked them to remove my telephone number from their list, demanded they quit calling my telephone number, and griped at them for calling me 30 times a day.

I do admit to veering a little off-course from Miss Manner's guide to mannerly evasion techniques with one particular telemarketer.  This telemarketer made the mistake of calling this redhead every 30 minutes for days on end.  This type of technique will never generate a sale from me, but it will spur me to step outside the bounds of etiquette so that I can entertain myself at that person's expense. 

Soap box moment:  I really miss corded telephones.  Besides the benefits of never having to dial your own home phone number because you can't remember where you left your cordless phone, you also cannot get the same effect that slamming down a corded phone gives you when all you can do is press the cordless phone's "off" button.  Instead of hearing the WHAM of a corded phone, all the telemarketer hears is the softest of clicks.  Without that level of satisfaction, I then resort to hitting the off button 5 times with increasing degrees of force as I yell at the phone "And.don't.call.me.AGAIN.!".    Off my soap box.

So, after my politely worded declinations did nothing to stop this most persistent telemarketer, I decided it was time to get "creative".  Instead of giving my usual "no, thank you" response, I added a bit of a s-s-s-s-s-st-st-stutt-ut-ut-er. When I started stuttering, it threw them off-course and made them st-st-stumble through their spiel.  This strategy, while effective in shutting them up, did not stop them from calling repeatedly.  It was time to go to DEFCON 2.

As soon as the telemarketer's number popped up on Caller ID, I was ready and raring to go.  As soon as I said "Hello?" they began with their typical "May I speak with Mrs. Bee-uh-Bile-ummm-Beelesssss?".  Immediately I started acting as though I was hard of hearing.  After several times of me yelling "I'm sorry hon, but I can't hear you.  You'll have to speak up.", you could hear the frustration growing in the telemarketers voice (from about a block away) as they yelled their spiel even louder. 

When I had succeeded in getting the telemarketer completely exasperated and they had yelled their spiel for the umpteenth time at the top of their lungs, I said with all the indignation I could muster in my redheaded body "Well!  You don't need to yell! I'm not deaf, you know!".  They hung up and I rejoiced as the rest of my day was telemarketer free.  I celebrated too soon though.  About 2 days later they started calling again.

I was prepared though.  If you have to go to DEFCON 2, then you pretty much prepare to go all the way to DEFCON 1, and oh boy! was I prepared.  I had even rehearsed it with my family.  The conversation went like this:

Me: Hello?

Tele-stalker (TS): Hi, may I speak with Ms. B-B-Brills, uh, Ms. Bless, uh....Blise....ummmm...... Ms. Christie?

Me: Speaking.

TS: Well Ms. Christie, I see that you ha...

Me: Do you hear that?

TS: have.....ummm....... I'm sorry Ms. Christie, what?

Me: Can you hear that?

TS: (audible pause as they listened) Hear what?

Me: You can't hear that?

TS: Ummm......no....... hear what ma'am?

Me: People talking.

TS: Oh, well, maybe you're hearing some of my co-workers in the background.

Me: Ok....... ummm......... why are they telling someone to get naked?

TS:  WHAT?!!

Me:  The voices I'm hearing keep saying to get naked.

TS: Ma'am?!!! Ummm........ hold on a moment ma'am. (I could hear her whisper to a co-worker: "Did you say something to someone about getting naked?"......... pause....... "This person is saying they hear voices telling them to get naked!".)

Me: There! I heard it again! You'd better look behind you because somebody is standing there naked. You could video it and put it on youtube.

TS: (I could hear the chair squeak as they flipped around in their chair) Nope. (sigh) Nobody here is naked, ma'am. Is there someone else in the house with you? Maybe they said it.

Me: Nope. Nobody here but me and the dog and the dog can't speak............well, she doesn't usually speak. Just every now and again she talks to me.

TS: Ummm........ your dog talks to you?

Me:  Yeppers she sure does! .......ummm.... Why? ........ Doesn't your dog talk to you?

TS: You mean your dog barks and whines, right?

Me: No, she speaks perfect English - just like I'm speaking to you.  Well, not all the time. She really only does it when no one else is around.  I guess she's shy. And she can speak Italian, Scottish, and British, which is just like our English but with a funny sounding accent.  I guess it's because she's a mixed breed.  Pure breeds probably only speak one language. 

TS: Ummm...... you mean she understands all that language, right? (whispers to co-worker) "Oh sh**! This lady's cray-cray! She's hearing voices saying to get naked and her dog talks to her......yeah! like speaking words and sh**....."

Me: No, she talks like you and I are talking.  (sounding anxious) Ma'am? There's that voice again.  Are you sure that's not your co-worker telling someone to get naked? Is this some kind of telephone porn solicitation? Is this 1-800-Hot-Jobs or something like that?  Has the economy gotten so bad that you are looking for "Johns" over the telephone? Oh.My.Gosh! You're a telephone hooker aren't you?! Does your mother know what you do for a living?!

TS: ...........click............(dial tone)

And they've never called back.  And that, my friends, is how you get rid of tele-stalkers.  1 tele-stalker down.......... billions more to go..........

by: Christie Bielss

Oh Mercy! He's Got the Gas Can!!

This summer we had to have an extremely large Bradford pear tree cut down.  Over the past year, portions of the tree had split off and crashed to the ground until only a quarter of the tree was left standing.  With even the lightest breath of wind, the foreboding and alarming sound of the tree trunk cracking alerted us that it was getting ready to separate yet again.

We contracted a tree company who safely brought down what was left of the tree.  In order to save money, we had them cut the stump down to the ground level instead of having the stump ground up.  Once the job was complete, the Arborist gave my husband 2 ways to kill the tree's roots.  One was for us to use a pre-packaged root rot solution which not only kills the tree's roots, but causes them to disintegrate.  The other was to douse the tree in gasoline and set it ablaze.

If you haven't read about my husband's previous experience with gasoline and fire, you'll want to read about that escapade here.  Given my husband's history and the fact that our current house doesn't have a concrete culvert behind it which can handle an exploding gas can, I immediately drove (as fast as I dared) to our local home improvement store and purchased the Arborist's recommended poison for my husband to apply on the tree's roots. 

The next evening my husband went to work drilling holes into what was left of the tree stump and any roots that were above ground, just as he'd been advised.  While he was busy drilling holes, I left to take our kids to my parent's house to swim in their pool.  Something inside of me said I shouldn't leave until he had finished drilling those holes and applied the poison, but with 2 kids whining incessantly about wanting to go swimming and my parents already expecting us, I had to go.

Upon my return several hours later, my husband was sitting in the garage waiting with the "Ummm...... honey?" half-hearted smile on his face.  Before I could so much as groan, both kids saw his face and said in unison "Oh geez! What's Dad done now?!".

Well, after my husband drilled all the holes in the tree stump and roots, he read the directions on the package of tree root poison.  The directions stated that you can pour the poison in the drilled holes and let it sit and over the course of 6 months to a year, it would slowly kill all of the roots; OR for a quicker method, you can pour the poison in the drilled holes, douse the top of the stump with the poison and then set it on fire.  Oh.Dear.Lord.!!!  I should have read the instructions before purchasing the solution!

If there is any chance to play with fire (my husband is drawn like a moth to the flame) he's going to take that chance.  He poured the solution into all of the holes he'd drilled and poured it over the top of the tree stump to ensure the perfect ignition. He located our lighter from where I'd hidden it (Why yes!  Yes, I hid it!  But I obviously need to work on that skill a bit more.) and lit the solution on fire.

Within a few minutes, the fire extinguished itself without having deteriorated the tree's stump or roots one tiny bit.  My husband said it went out so fast, he didn't even have time to get excited about it being lit........ which probably means he didn't get to do some man-dance around the stump.  Well, that was deflating and entirely no fun, so my husband made the executive decision the solution needed a stronger accelerant.  What's the best and strongest accelerant we have at our house?  The gasoline for the lawnmower.

Out he trots with the (new) gas can which he'd just filled with gasoline.  It took a few minutes to fill all of the holes and douse the top of the tree stump with the gasoline.  Remembering his last escapade with the gas can, he was extra cautious not to leave a trail of gas from the tree stump to the can, and even went so far as to move the can far, far away from the stump.

He did have a passing thought that our wrought iron fence sits right next to the tree stump and it could melt if the fire got too hot.  But, throwing caution to the wind, he went ahead and executed his plan.  With a giant "WOOSH" the gasoline ignited.  That tree stump and roots burned for a good 30 minutes.  He was having so much fun with it that he got some marshmellows and roasted a few over the fire.  Much quicker than expected, the fire died down and burned itself out.  Once the fire started dying down, it went out so quickly he hadn't had enough time make an ooey-gooey s'more.

When we arrived home he was so downtrodden, he looked like somebody had just shot his dog. Apparently, because the tree had just been cut down the day before, the stump and roots were still so full of moisture it kept extinguishing the fire.  So despite my husband's best efforts to kill something using fire, the mound still stands and he didn't get to do a man-dance around the fire, he only got 2 roasted marshmellows, and his s'more idea was thwarted.  And, as with the fire ant mound, the tree stump is flourishing since being set ablaze.  Unfortunately, since "Plan A" was an epic fail, stayed tuned because "Plan B" is now in the works.......... I'm hoping his need to make fire like a caveman is now a distant memory........ but I doubt it.

by: Christie Bielss

Oh Yes I Did!

Police officers and security experts tell you it's dangerous to meet people online and it is something you should avoid at all costs.  Even though you hear horror stories of people being robbed and murdered from someone they met online, you still see and hear commercials on the tv and radio espousing the benefits of it.  There have even been songs written about it, comedy skits acted out, movie scripts created, and real life drama that's unfolded on the evening news.

Being a typical redhead, I ignored those warnings and spent part of the weekend with a friend I'd made online. But this case was different (isn't that what the person always says in a movie before their online "friend" either robs them blind or kills them with an axe?).  Yes, you heard me right, it was different.  This wasn't from an online dating site, or some I'm a loser and need a friend site.  No, this was a much different orchestration and can only be described as us having been put together by God.

I know it sounds crazy but sometimes that's how God orchestrates our lives.  You see, I had known this person for a few years from a photography website I am a member of.  Photographers can be a very close-knit society and when one of our members suffered an unthinkable tragedy a couple of years ago, without even so much as a backward glance, we all came together and formed a bond which has become unbreakable.

Since that time, our group has met several times around the United States but unfortunately I've been unable to attend each gathering for one reason or another.  When the opportunity presented itself to meet one of the members of our group while she and her family were travelling on vacation this summer, well, being the crazy impetuous  redhead I can sometimes be, I jumped at the chance and invited them to stay at our house.

My husband was sure I'd lost my mind, but he went along with it.  The morning my friend was to arrive, my husband said "you realize this is something police tell you never to do, right?  We could end up on the news looking like a couple of idiots".  I laughed, but I was a bit nervous as well.

My friend and her family arrived and she told me about the first time our photography group got together and she had to explain the excursion plans to her family.  She has a great sense of humor and explained it to them as: one of the males in our group would pick her up in a white unmarked van at the airport.  He'd then take her to the hotel where he'd made her room accommodation to drop off her luggage.  They would then head several hours out to the desert for a photoshoot.  Ummm........ yeah.  Maybe I'm wrong, but it sure sounded like the makings of a Stephen King novel.

After that description, I think our visit sounded quite tame.  It was, after all, just bbq, relaxing, and church.  We had a great time and introduced them to some good old-fashioned Texas staples like fried okra (she'd never even heard of okra, much less fried okra) and corn dogs.  I could not believe her children had never had the cornbreaded, deep fried mystery meat yumminess on a stick we call a corn dog. 

All in all it was a fantastic weekend and we look forward to spending time with them, and the rest of the photography group, in the near future.  And thankfully, none of us made the evening news' headline story and no Amber Alert was issued for our disappearance.  Was this crazy?  In today's world, yes it was, but it was a crazy wonderful blessing as well, but not something I recommend anyone else doing.

by: Christie Bielss

Beating the Summer Heat

It's summer and the temperatures have risen to the point that outdoor play has become untenable (105° outside temperature), so the kids are now having to play indoors.  The kids are getting restless and school doesn't start for another two and half weeks.  What's a mom to do if she wants to maintain her sanity?

As a mom who is desperate, you figure out what the kids like playing outside and then figure out a way to recreate those activities for safe indoor play - meaning they don't break everything in your house.  My kids love having Nerf gun wars.  We only use the Nerf guns that have a spongy bullet with the suction cup on the end so it should be safe for indoor use, right?

When my son purchased these guns, I "oo'd and aah'd" over their purported 75 foot shooting distance.  I figured that it would wear my kids out having to retrieve "bullets" which were shot that kind of distance.  Never even gave it a thought about how these guns might perform indoors.

So what did I do when the "it's too hot to play outside, can we have a Nerf war inside?" is so sweetly and politely requested.  Of course I agreed to it. I mean, it is Nerf, it should be fine, right? 

Of course, I didn't really think about that 75 foot shooting distance capability, I was just hoping to not have to hear 4 kids whine anymore about the heat.  Within a few short minutes I heard the scampering of feet as the kids ran through the house at lightning speed taking up positions, the giggles of kids who'd dodged a Nerf bullet, and the sounds of boys pretending they'd been shot.

Within minutes the battle had expanded and before I knew it, I had bullets whizzing past my head, bouncing off the walls in my "home office" (ok, it's currently my formal dining room but I have hopes and dreams of it one day becoming my home office), sticking to my computer monitor, hitting the dog in the behind, and bouncing off all the framed wall art in my living areas.

Before I could get out a "Hey! Keep it in your rooms!", I felt the unmistakable suction of a Nerf dart stick itself to the back of my neck............ and that's when the tides of the summer blues turned.  Without taking the time to remove the dart stuck to the back of my neck, I got up from my desk, grabbed 2 of the Nerf machine gun pistols and reloaded them with the stray Nerf darts laying all over my office floor.  I walked into their battle zone with the machine guns in my hands and with the Mom look of "are you kidding me?!".

My children and their friends looked on with fear in their eyes as my son said "Ummm..... Mom?  Mom? Uhhh...... Mom?".  I looked up as he gestured to the back of his neck and said "ummm...... you have a...... ummm....uhhhh...".  With both pistols loaded and ready, I looked at him innocently as I said as though oblivious to his gesturing "I have ....... what???". 

My son cleared his throat while my daughter and their friends examined the floor tiles trying to stifle their giggles.  Gesturing to the back of his neck, my son tried again "You .... ummmm....... have a ......... uhhh........".  Ever so carefully lifting the pistols so as not to draw attention to them, I said "I have a??? ..........." and started unleashing a torrent of machine gunned Nerfs at them  while I yelled "a Nerf stuck to the back of my neck??!!!!  This means WAR!!!!!!!  Free-dom!!!!!!".  (You can't have a good Nerf battle without interjecting a little bit of Braveheart.)

Once the kids got over the initial shock of my surprise attack, they were jumping behind furniture, behind each other, around hall corners, anything to get out of the line of my bullets that were meeting their mark more often than not.  There was squealing, laughter, and lots of yelling for backup and reinforcements.

In the end, I was able to win the day when my husband came in the door from work, saw the war being waged and grabbed a gun and helped me hold off the gang of riff-raff until all of us were out of bullets.  That was lots of fun and not only helped entertain the kiddos, but burned off a lot of their energy reserves to where they were all ready to kick back and relax for a bit.

Of course, we are still finding stray Nerf bullets between the furniture cushions and in the window blinds.  And that's how we beat the heat on a hot summer day in Texas.  What do you do to beat the heat?

by: Christie Bielss

It Does WHAT?!!!!

When you have picked up a prescription from your doctor or pharmacy, have you ever read the package insert which lists all of the common, uncommon, and rare side effects?  Or maybe you haven't read the packaging, but you've watched one the many pharmaceutical company commercials and have heard the announcer reel off a list of the side effects.

Last summer I came down with an infection which required a pretty hefty antibiotic.  I had no side effects with the first dose but, after the 2nd dose, my left eyelid started to do that little flutter-twitch which can be pretty annoying.  By the 3rd dose my eyelid was in a full fledged spasm/twitch that made me look like Popeye.  

As I was about to get upset about my squinched up eye, all of the sudden my right leg kicked outward like I was trying to punt a football, while my left arm spasmed up toward my face causing me to nearly punch myself out.  It was at this point that I thought to check what the side effects of this medication were.  Sure enough "muscle spasms" were listed as a common side effect.

I thought that to be a bit ambiguous considering I now looked like I had Tourette's syndrome (God bless anyone who has to deal with this syndrome on a daily basis)........... and sadly, I probably sounded a bit like the girl with Tourette's in the movie Deuce Bigalow with each uncontrolled spasm.  Thankfully I was home alone so my children didn't learn any new words.

I just took an antibiotic in June whose side effect left me a bit bewildered.  The side effects in order were:  constipation, nausea, diarrhea.....  Are they trying to tell me I should wear some "underwear armor" because after my stomach has expanded to the size of the Goodyear Blimp, I'm going to get some rather instanteous relief?

After these latest side effect episodes, I started actually listening to the pharmaceutical companies tv commercials just for the list of side effects.  I've found it rather surprising that some of the most bizarre side effects have been from some of the more common medicines.

If you're a smoker and are trying to kick the habit, your doctor might prescribe Chantix to help you.  One of the side effects is hallucinations.  So, you've got a smoker going through nicotine withdrawal who is having more mood swings than 10 women going through menopause, and you give them a medication which causes hallucinations......... you may want to go ahead and put the SWAT team on stand-by.

Or how about Viagra, the little blue pill for.....well.... um......  you know.  Anyway, this pill must've been manufactured by Willy Wonka's Oompah Loompahs as it can alter your vision to where everything you see is the color blue, just like the little obnoxious girl in the movie who chews the piece of gum and turns into a  gigantic blueberry.  Hopefully all Viagra turns blue is your vision.

One of my favorites was the commercial for Propecia, the hair loss/baldness drug.  It causes gynecomastia.  I had never heard of that condition and just had to Google it to find out.  Gynecomastia is a condition which causes men to grow fully functional mammory glands that actually lactate.  That's right!  Your man can grow hair to cover up that bald spot, as well a fully functioning pair of boobs to nurse your baby with!  Can't afford a wet nurse for that new baby?  Get your significant other on some Propecia and you can trade off breastfeeding the baby so you each can get a full night's rest.

But the beat all, end all drug side effect that has made me cringe and laugh at the same time was for an antibiotic.  Ok, so you go to your doctor and discover you have a respiratory infection and he prescribes you this medication to clear it up.  One morning, several days into taking the medication, you wake up and roll over to say good morning to your spouse only to scare the beejeevies out them because you now have a tongue that's a cross between looking like a Chow and an alien.

Yep!  This one medication which is supposed to cure your respiratory infection has now caused you to get a black, hairy tongue.  But don't worry, the pharmaceutical company says.  When you complete your 14 day dose of the medication, with some regular tongue brushing, the hairs will eventually fall out and your tongue will return to a normal pinkish color.

So, until the hairs fall out, do you part those tongue hairs in the middle or on the side?  Should you use a conditioner to prevent tangles?  Or maybe you could wax your tongue and get rid of all the hairs........ of course, that might be akin to sticking your tongue on a metal pole in the dead of winter...... never a good idea.

All of these drugs have passed the F.D.A.'s rigorous and intensive scrutiny and the F.D.A. has deemed these side effects to be within acceptable limits and guidelines.  Kind of makes you wonder what the side effects are of the drugs that didn't pass and have been denied............

by: Christie Bielss

Where Do Socks Go???

How is it that no matter how much of an effort I make, no matter how many times I look under beds, dressers, and living room furniture, or how thoroughly I count to make sure I have an even number, I always lose at least one sock when I do laundry.  I have checked everywhere in my washer and dryer for these lost socks and yet I still come up empty-handed.

It gets frustrating having to go room-by-room in search of all the socks that were either thrown carelessly on the floor or were used as snowballs in a summer version of a snowball fight.  Add to that frustration another search during the folding phase of laundry, and my head is ready to explode like a Looney Tunes cartoon character. 

I know, I know.  If I would teach my children to put their dirty clothes in the hamper, it would cut my frustration down as I'd only have to search once for missing socks.  I have obviously failed miserably at teaching this task to both of my children, but especially to my son.  All of his clothes can be found laying on the floor directly in front of his hamper.  Not on the hamper, in the hamper, or even thrown carelessly around his room.  No, all of his clothes lay in a heap directly in front of his hamper.

Since he really loves football, maybe I would have better luck getting him to actually put his clothes in the hamper if I were to leave the hamper lid open and attach a cut-out of a wide receiver to it.  That way he could practice his throwing and make a "completion" every time he actually gets his clothes in the hamper.  I might could even take that idea a step further and attach a motion-activated speaker with audio that plays the sound of screaming fans every time an article of clothing actually makes it into the hamper.

But even with that addition to my son's hamper, it still would not solve where our socks go during the laundering process.  Seriously, what happens to our socks?  Are there a bunch of one-footed sock thieves that quietly sneak in our house on laundry day and steal just one sock out of my laundry?  Could there be little sock gremlins or dust bunnies who snatch the socks and hide them out of spite for vacuuming up their friends each week? 

Or maybe they end up down the street in one of the neighbor's washer or dryer.  Maybe what happens is everyone's socks in our neighborhood get sucked out of our washing machines and pushed into someone's at the back of our subdivision.  Heck, maybe that neighbor is scratching their head wondering where in the world this odd assortment of socks are coming from.

They could be a crew sock only family but now they've got ankle socks, knee socks, and socks with little danglies on the ankle.  And even worse would be instead of just having white socks, they've now got a huge influx of socks with stripes, solids, neons and primary colors.  Oh the horror of it all!

The neighbor might even be worried that one of their kids has a sock fetish.  Imagine the embarrassment of having to talk about their child getting strung out on bright colors, Looney Tunes characters, fun patterns, and *gasp* the dreaded holiday patterns!  They may be worried someone might see their child wearing socks with Christmas trees and wreaths in July.  Why, they'd be so mortified and they might never live that embarrassment down!

To alleviate their stress, maybe at our next neighborhood picnic, along with potato salad and dessert, we should all bring our odd socks.  We could play "Pin the sock on the owner". 

Until then, my weekly search for the lost sock shall continue.  Now I will look a little bit closer for any fierce looking dust bunnies that may be hoarding a sock under a sofa or dresser, and I might even check outside to make sure there aren't any footprints of a one-legged bandit leading to/from the house on laundry day.

I'm sure if we all band together, we will find the culprit of the sock disappearances and laundry day angst will become a thing of the past....... unless the culprits are actually aliens who are weaving all of our socks together in a diabolical plot to take over the world...............

by: Christie Bielss

What A Gas

Our much anticipated summer vacation had finally arrived.  The kids woke up on the first gentle nudge and excitedly sped through their morning routines in an effort to get out the door early.  As I was trying to put the last toiletry items in mine and my children's luggage, my husband was cutting his hair .......... while his suitcase sat on the bed just as empty as it had been the night before.  Typical.  He always packs at the last minute and always ends up forgetting something.  Heck, one year he forgot to pack any pants.  Yep, takes the phrase "going Commando" to a whole new level.

We ended up leaving an hour and half later than I had planned, but it was vacation and we were driving, so our schedule was flexible.  As we were leaving town, we went through the McDonald's drive-thru for breakfast.  My husband ordered his favorite:  sausage biscuits, while the rest of us ate syrup-less hotcakes.  That's right.  We had pancakes without syrup because I don't want sticky gunk all over my car.

My family happily gnoshed on their breakfast while I put the pedal to the metal and tried to make up for lost time due to my husband's primping.  We were about an hour down the road when our senses were assaulted by the smell of a skunk.  We didn't see it, but we sure could smell it.  We rolled the windows down and quickly aired out the car.  I felt sorry for whoever hit that skunk because their car probably had to be fumigated to get rid of that stench.

We continued blazing a trail down the highway barreling towards Amarillo, TX for our lunch break/refueling destination.  When we arrived in Amarillo, we stopped at a truck stop that also had several fast food restaurant choices inside.  The family chose Burger King and while I'd have rather eaten the tail end out of that skunk we'd smelled than something from Burger King, I sucked it up and ordered something that resembled chicken.  My family chose to go with cheeseburgers, fries, and a free ice cream cone.

Little did I know when they chose their lunch at that truck stop, we would be fueling more than the car's gas tank.  We hit the road and cheered when we crossed the Texas/New Mexico state line.  It wasn't long after that border crossing when we started encountering some strange aromas.  There was the older pickup truck in front of us that was emitting an odd smell, an open field where, from the rotten egg smell, someone must've hit a natural gas line while drilling.  We were also certain we drove past either a cattle auction yard or dairy farm due to the overwhelming smell of fresh manure.

This trip was definitely having a very negative effect on my olfactory senses.  We stopped at a rest stop in New Mexico to check out an extinct volcano and stretch our legs for a few minutes before braving the mountain passes through Raton, NM and Trinidad, CO.  I used the break to breathe in some fresh mountain air and settle my senses down a bit.

As we headed down the highway I was again assaulted by odors, but this time it became quite apparent what the source was............ and he was sitting right beside me.  I asked him ever so sweetly and discreetly "Ummm honey?  Did you do that?".  He busted out laughing so hard he was crying and managed to squeak out the words:  skunk, truck smell, cow manure, and natural gas. 

Apparently I hadn't smelled any of those things, I had been smelling his emissions.  As he was cackling like a hyena and I was grumbling about how courtesy dictates at least rolling down a window, we were both hit with the motherload of stench.

"Oh good heavens!" I yelled.  I looked over at my husband ready to tie him to the roof of the car when I noticed that he was clawing at the window trying to get it to roll down faster so he could stick his head out and get a breath of fresh air.  As I put my hand over my nose and mouth in an effort to breathe in air less odiferous, I hear a very quiet and polite "pardon me" and then another voice said "excuse me".  Great.  Now 3 people were battling each other with chemical warfare and I was stuck in the car with them.

Yep.  My great idea of hitting some fast food joints so we could make better time on the road had just backfired........... literally.  I was trapped in the car for another 4 hours with 3 people who were emitting toxic fumes.  Between my eyes watering and nose burning, I was pretty sure I'd been hit with the equivalent of a nuclear bomb or sarin nerve gas. 

By the time we made it to our hotel in Colorado Springs to spend the night, their three tummies had finally calmed down.  Burger King and McDonald's sausage biscuits were permanently banned from their diets for the remainder of the trip.  There was one upside to the whole situation.  Apparently when you have a green haze surrounding your vehicle, it does seem to deter tailgaters or anyone from trying to pass your vehicle on the road.

by: Christie Bielss

Seeing Purple

Giving birth to my children and holding them in my arms for the first time was the greatest joy I have ever experienced.  For 9 months prior to their arrival, I read books like "What to Expect When You're Expecting" and Dr. Spock's guides to raising children from cover to cover.  I knew ahead of time what changes my body was undergoing and how my baby was developing.  From reading those books I knew exactly what to expect from the day I found out I was pregnant all the way into those first few months after birth ........ or did I?

My husband and I were so excited when we brought our first child home.  For the first few weeks my son slept like an angel and was the best baby ever.  Oh, how the books were exactly right.  Then, when he was about 3 months old he started getting sick and was only sleeping for about 30-45 minutes at a time.  By the time he was 4 months old, the bags under my eyes could've been classified as a full set of luggage, and I'd sweat from so many steam showers due to the number of rounds of croup my son had contracted that I could've been hung from a wind chime.

Nowhere in those baby books I'd read so dutifully did it talk about this part of motherhood.  I was ready to rip the pages out of those books and burn them in a bonfire.  When our son was 5 months old he was diagnosed with reactive airway disease (aka asthma).  The doctor ordered a nebulizer kit (a machine that transforms liquid medication into a mist for inhalation).  The kit even came with a cute little child-sized mask that was shaped like a purple dinosaur.  I immediately thought "Awww!  How cute!  My baby's first Barney item!".

The first time I had to give my son a nebulizer treatment, he tolerated the mask being put on his face because he was interested in the dinosaur mask.  When it was time for his next treatment 2 hours later he was done with that mask and wanted nothing to do with it.  That boy may as well have been greased up like a pig and been born with 10 arms for as much as I had to fight to get that mask even remotely near his face.  By the time the nebulizer vial was empty, I was pretty sure I'd ingested more of the medication than he had.

About that time my best friend called and asked how the treatments were going.  As I wiped the sweat from my brow, I told her that it could've gone better.  She suggested putting a kids show on tv to distract him.  What a great idea! 

At the next appointed time for the nebulizer, I flicked on the tv and found Sesame Street.  What kid doesn't like a little Burt and Ernie, I thought.  Apparently mine.  He cried louder and fought harder with Sesame Street on than when I'd had nothing on tv.  Determined to find a way to make this easier, I grabbed the tv remote and started flicking through the few kid channels available.  Nothing tamed this wild beast of a child.  I was ready to throw in the towel and check into whether they made straight jackets in my child's size when my friend asked if I had a kid show or movie on tape that I'd bought.

YES!  I had 1 VCR tape (yes, that was before the invention of the DVD) for kids.  I dug that video out of the cabinet, plopped it into the VCR and hit play.  My son was instantly captivated by that strange purple dinosaur dancing across the tv screen.

I turned on the nebulizer, put the mask over his face, and wouldn't you know, he was so captivated he didn't even notice!  V-I-C-T-O-R-Yyyyyyyyyyyy........... why, oh why, did I ever think that was a good idea.  For the next 5 years that blasted, grotesquely purple, dancing dinosaur was the only way my son would take his nebulizer treatment.  And only with that same exact Barney tape playing.  Oh how I tried showing him how neat it would be to see something different by turning the tv to a 30 minute Barney episode.  I even bought a different Barney video.  No, "Barney's Super Singing Circus" had indoctrinated my child into the world of Barney and had immediately performed some kind of mind control over him.  It was the only video he would watch while having a nebulizer treatment. What was working so well for my son just so happened to be the very thing which was now sucking my brains out.

I hear parents talk about how difficult their child was with colic or separation anxiety.  There is nothing that compares to the sheer torture of having to listen to the same Barney video every few hours, 7 days a week, 365 days a year for 5 years straight.  Every time I heard Barney's voice it was like having nails driven up my spine.

If our military used this video instead of other forms of torture, I would bet terrorists would give up every ounce of intelligence information they knew within 5 minutes of that video playing.  I wanted to buy a stuffed Barney just so I could choke the life out of that obnoxious, mind-controlling dinosaur.

Ok, so I know Barney was a phenomenal tool in allowing me to give my son life-saving medication in a relaxed and comforting manner, but I'm pretty sure I lost some of my sanity and quite a number of brain cells to that video.  5 years of the same songs and same characters, day in and and day out, is just wrong on so many levels. 

I have, however, found a great use these days for those songs.  One chorus of a particular song from that video really stuck in my brain.  Now when I'm out in public with my pre-teen children and they start driving me insane with their bickering, or they keep antagnozing each other, all I have to do is break out into song.  Not a Broadway show tune, not Justin Bieber or One Direction.  No, I break out into Barney:

"Boom, boom, ain't it great to be crazy? 
Boom, boom, ain't it great to be crazy?
Giddy and foolish the whole day through,
Boom, boom, ain't it great to be crazy?"

You'll never see 2 children snap-to so fast as when you look at them ever so lovingly, gently stroke their hair and face, and start singing and dancing just like Barney.  Matter of fact, this has become such a good tool and brings me so much enjoyment, just as Barney brought them not so many years ago, that I've thought about trying to find a purple Barney shirt I can carry around in my purse to throw on to go with the song and dance.  I'm sure my kids would really appreciate my singing ever so much more if I just had the shirt.........

by: Christie Bielss

An Independence Day Remembered

“You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.” - Erma Bombeck

Every year in celebration of America's independence, my family always pauses to  thank those who came before us and sacrificed life, limb, and even their own family's safety, in order for us to live freely and to pursue our own dreams.

This celebration almost always consists of bbq, my grandmother's potato salad and deviled egg recipes, baked beans, corn on the cob, and watermelon.  And to finish off the food-fest is homemade ice cream, apple pie, and Texas sheet cake.

As part of our celebration, we always have sparklers to play with.  What would July 4th be without handing our children a 3,000°F fire on the end of the stick and telling them to be careful and not burn themselves after having just taught them not to play with matches or fire.

After the sparklers comes the grown-up's turn to play.  Over the years we've had a few minor mishaps with fireworks which have resulted in us making sure we have a garden hose close by.  We've misjudged how far the firework will shoot and have had to chase a few down.  We've also had to hose down our roof from where our neighbors have misjudged their firework's shooting distance.

But the ultimate year of firework madness came just a few years ago.  A neighbor had travelled to a bordering state and picked up some real fireworks while my husband picked up the kid-friendly ones.  All of the neighbors were standing outside ready for the show we were going to put on.  The neighbor and my husband had made some great finds!  Some shot way up in the air and exploded in a blaze of colorful glory.  Others whirled and zipped around so fast your eyes couldn't make out where the actual firework was.  They had others that sent out little spinning shooters across the ground in every direction and turned different colors.  And the kids loved the firecrackers that exploded when they threw them down on the concrete.

But like any grand finale, they saved the best for last.  They had picked up some rockets.  I moved my children and our neighbor's children into our garage thinking it would be the perfect place to protect everyone but still have a bird's eye view of the show.  My car was in the garage, so if the kids got scared, they could hop in it and look through the windows.  Another Mom decided that was a good, safe place to stand, so the 2 of us stood in the garage with the kids.

The men had to figure out which end was the shooting end of the rocket since it didn't have an arrow pointing "this end up".  They positioned it on our driveway so the fireworks weren't going toward anyone's house and would shoot directly into the center of the street.  With excitement that positively crackled in the air, they lit the rocket launcher's wick. 

The first rocket exploded out of the launcher's canon with lightning speed ........... and went straight into our garage.  "Oh cr*p!" my neighbor said, "those idiots turned the rocket launcher the wrong way!".  The rocket was launching fire balls in rapid succession at all of us in the garage!  We were having to jump as high as we could in the air to avoid getting hit in the legs and shins!

The kids in the garage were standing there screaming as we grabbed them by the arms and flung them bodily out of the garage while hopping over rockets.  My husband and the neighbor had to time grabbing the launcher perfectly in order to flip it around and not have one of the rockets launch directly into themselves, or any of the neighbor's windows, or, heaven forbid, the groups of people standing around. 

Luckily, nothing caught on fire from the fireballs exploding in the garage and no one was injured during the incident.  I can't say that 2 men didn't get a verbal beating when the rocket finally quit firing and we were able to regain our breath. 

Every time I hear our national anthem played and they get to "the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air", it reminds me of having to jump the rockets.  We decided after this experience that we should invite the local fire department to our party every year.  We could feed them some bbq and play some yard games........... before they have to rescue us or put out whatever fire we inevitably start.

by: Christie Bielss