Can I be Your Hero

Last night when I arrived home the "pseudo" stepdaughter says to me, "MJ you might find a surprise upstairs on your bed."

Curious to what she has created for me I walk into my room and find a hand made card. The "pseudo" stepdaughter is always making cards or pictures for me but this one caught my attention.

Check it out she thinks I am a Hero. I have been called lots of thinks Angel, Cheerleader, Sister, Daughter, along with some not so nice names but no one has ever called me a hero. I was so touched, I almost cried.

So I opened my card and on the inside I find this list:

Look a list of my wonderful qualities...I think. Although I find it odd that she thinks being on time is such a good quality. She is 8 should she be so concerned with being on time? On the other hand I am excited that she thinks I am cool...I always thought I was cool but it's good to have confirmation.

This was the back of the card. Which to be honest I found to be the most interesting (after the hero and cool part). Doesn't it remind you of an album cover/tattoo from the mid 80's? Should we worry that this is what she drew? We like to rock an 80's time from time to time but we don't have any albums lying around the house for to get inspiration from....possibly because we don't have any albums. Looking at the picture I can hear the electric guitar and mournful lyrics from my youth.

Look Mom I went Outside...Willingly.

Now that I am almost all moved in and ready to upgrade my cable. I decide that I need to plant flowers at my soon to be new home. Every home needs pretty flowers in the front yards, doesn't it? And we already have a nice stone flower bed all I need to do was pick some flowers to plant.

Being me I wanted a little of every color for my flower bed. And for once in my life I decided to go small. I am very good at starting projects but very bad about finishing them. I didn't want to sink a lot of money into something I was probably going to neglect once I planted them.

After all we have a sprinkler system its not like I have to water the flowers. And if I am honest this is not the first flower bed I have planted.

And a miracle may occur and I decide to weed and care for this flower garden. I wouldn't hold my breath if I was you but it could happen.

If I was a betting woman and I love to gamble, I would bet that this flower bed will end up the responsibility of my 13 year old pseudo step-son. Being the good pseudo step-mom that I am I will pay him to weed and take care of the garden. And since he has a video game addiction I'm betting he will do it.

After all I don't like going outside. No matter what I do I end up sunburned if I go outside in the daylight hours. Although I have found this great organic/homeopathic remedy for sunburns. It really took away the pain and I am not peeling like I normally would.

Is therapeutic grade essential lavender oil. I mix a little with fractionated coconut oil and rub all over the sunburned area and it felt so good. So much better that aloe vera and its not gooey. If you want to know where to get some good stuff let me know I have contacts.

What is the going hourly rate for 13 year old labor? Or do you think I should pay him a fixed rate? He is a teenager and moves at the speed of molasses in January I would hate to be taken to the cleaners just because I like pretty flowers.

I bet I could talk the 6 year old pseudo step-daughter into doing it for free. She loved playing the garden when we planted them. Although she might not be as happy with the project if she has to do it. Maybe for a minimal fee!!!

Now I sounding like the evil pseudo step-mom. That's cool. Just in case I need a back up plan...I wonder what it would take to get The BF to dedicate 10 to 15 minutes a week to weeding my flower bed? It might be best to not ask those kinds of questions, I am sure the answer is not something I want to hear.

 In a moment of true insanity I decided I wanted to plane a small vegetable garden (really small).The kids wanted to plant strawberries, The BF wanted to plant squash and I wanted tomatoes. So we also have a few of each of them. I then ran to the store and bought a book on gardening. I am pretty sure the dogs will end up killing them all so I am not as stressed about taking care of them as I am the flowers.

Wicked Step-Dad and Evil Step-Monster

My parents divorced when I was quite young, so young I don’t remember them ever being married.

This post is not about them being divorced well at least not directly.

This post is about the 2 people my respected parents married after they got divorced.....MY STEP-PARENTS!!!!!!

I will start with my Evil Step-Monster, even though she is not evil or a monster. But she likes me to call her that especially in public. She thinks it enhances her reputation around town. She has always embraced me as her daughter even though she calls me her evil step-brat. She lets me be me, introduced me to my all time favorite TV show X-Files (which is weird because unlike others in my family I don’t believe in aliens) and bought me my 1st Stephen King book. For my 21st birthday she got me (from her and dad) 6 very cool margarita glasses, a bottle of tequila, limes, salt, margarita mix and a bottle of tequila rose. Now that’s a good step-mom. And once when I was in a pretty bad car accident outside their hometown (rolled my car 3 times on the interstate) she took care of me until my mom could get me the next day. I have never felt left out where she is concerned.

Now on to my Wicked Step-dad, the man who married my mom despite my mom having a teenage daughter and I was a horrible teenager. He attended school functions, drove carpool, looked mean and intimating when my boyfriends were around, took us to Drs appointment, hung shelves, flew to Las Vegas (he doesn’t like to fly) to help me pack up and move back to Utah, helped me be mobile whenever I hurt my knee in school, constantly tells me how proud he is that I am his daughter, never calls me or my siblings his step-kids just his kids. Recently he was driving my car and despite having worked the graveyard shift all that night and being tired took the time to fix my windshield wipers that have not been working properly for months ( I had a screw or two loose, like that’s a shocker).

As you can see my Wicked Step-Dad and Evil Step-Monster are not so wicked or evil. They are the standard all other step-parents should be graded by.

I would like to thank my parents for having the good sense to divorce each other and marry such awesome people.