Where to Begin?

I apologize for my extended absence. I had not forgotten about you, my adoring public, but sometimes bloggers need "vacations" too.

Seriously though, I had to go visit my parents and do lots of manual labor. I have about ten blogs-worth of stories and musings about my time spent there, but I will not bore you with all of the details...just some of them.

Remember the painting incident I mentioned before (about my sister putting a bucket of paint behind me while I wasn't looking and me knocking it over and ruining the carpet). Well, our parents were giving us a hard time about that and saying that we better not do it this time, and this time my OTHER sister knocked over the paint on the carpet all by herself. I was nowhere near her, so I couldn't be blamed. We got it up quickly and it was good as new. Not before there was lots of cursing and screaming though. Unfortunately, my mom peeked her head around the corner as we were cleaning my sister up (she had paint all over her) and my sister yelled, "Oh SHIT, there she is!" when she saw my mom. My mom said, "What?" and my other sister, ever the instigator, said, "She called you an old shit." So it took a certain amount of convincing to get her to realize that's not exactly what was said. She has no sense of humor. I don't know how she's survived as long as she has in my family because you kind of have to have a sense of humor to make it.

Let's see what else? I went prom dress shopping with my niece and her baby grandma and my sisters. That was interesting. There are some truly horrendous prom dresses out there this season. My niece actually modeled one of the worst ones (she said it looks like a Quinceanera dress and I have to agree), but I've cropped her head off the picture so as (maybe)not to be killed by her if she ever found out I posted it.

The level of hatefulness has reached an all time high at the 'rents. I knew it was time to leave when my mom said (in reference to a home video of my nephew when he was little--also me when I was little), "You won't want to watch it because it's got you in it....but you're beautiful NOW." Thanks, mom. Nice backhanded compliment. I told her I was done and packed up my stuff and got out of there at that point.