Toasted

...Burnt and fried. We have had this HITACHI TV for 11 years. We bought it with our first income tax refund after we had Katherine. That was the best tax refund we ever got. WOW. I argued with the salesman at CIRCUIT CITY for over an hour. I bought this TV, a TV stand, and a video camera. I got them to give me a great deal because I BUGGED them. Did you know that you can bargain with sales people? I didn't either but the man who was buying a TV set a head of me bought a very expensive set and told them he wasn't buying ANYTHING unless he got the stand for free. It worked. Just like buying a car. I remember when we bought it, Roger taking it out of the box at the store so he could get it in the car, he then carried it up 2 flights of stairs to our apartment. We argued the whole time he was putting the stand together (if you know us, you'll know that's normal) because I always follow directions and Roger is total anarchy with them. Of course he put it together wrong and he had to take it all apart and start over while I gloated.
Katherine was about 6 months old then. I remember thinking what a great mom I was for giving my daughter such a large TV. You know, those feelings you have that you never share. "I like cool music, my kids are so lucky!" (I don't like cool music...) Anyway, I remember waking up in the morning with Katherine and passing the TV and thinking what a great TV! OH how LARGE you are!
"Betsy" is nothing now. Dead. Spit on, smacked, hit. Gabriel joined WWF wrestling and our TV was his opponent. We had a replacement for her. Gabriel will NOT go through withdrawal. But looking to the future, I want the cool flat frame 42 inch plasma. I want to really SEE the wrinkles on all those overaged stars. I want to feel like I am in the ocean when Gabriel watches NEMO. But how does one rid ones self of a 32 inch toasted TV? The garbage men won't take it. Roger suggested to put it out by the road and put a sign on it... FREE!

Miracles never cease...

I still don't know what to call this post. Dumbfounded, Blownaway, Shocked... All my Nagging, complaining and whining finally paid off. Or maybe it was because I prayed one night when I was really mad at Roger about some things and asked God if he would show me some action on Roger's part. I got a pedicure AND he started on the floors. Plus the puppies spent the night at their DADDIES house last night so I didn't wake up with the regular AROMA. Life would be grand right now but even though Roger did the floors... he complained about it the whole time. I guess Roger just has to be Roger. But still, AREN'T my floors looking lovely!!! Oh OH OH, I have the perfect title, read above...

Robbin (not Oprah's) favorite things

I AM NOT Oprah. I don't have Oprah's money. SHE doesn't live with Gabriel. So my list will be different. AND NO, you don't get any freeby's here. But all donations and volunteers will gladly be accepted by me...

ROBBIN'S FAVORITE THINGS:
Sleeping past 6:30am (not happened in 11 1/2 years) (Katherine's age!)

People Magazine issue due out next week with picture's of Britney Spears baby

Getting photo jobs with happy people

Maurico Faedo Bakery when their HOT NOW sign is on for Cuban bread

Lana and Teresa answering their phone

Katherine and Matthew enjoying each other's company

Wood floors that are finished

Gabriel not spitting, hitting, or pinching me because I told him "NO"

Chocolate pudding "cook & serve" by JELLO

Westshore Mall's KIDS GAP, LIMITED 2, and OLD NAVY clearance racks

Roger giving me a pedicure

Bennigan's Country Chicken Salad

When Right Wing Republicans get elected to office
(Sorry Demmy buddies!)

The smell of Eva's house (vanilla & fresh linen)

Aunt Brenda's CORNBREAD SALAD recipe

... you know I should just name this "Robbin's Favorite Food". Then my next blog can be a 12 month series on going to JENNY CRAIG. Then I could do a SLIMFAST photo shoot and get my picture on the front of PEOPLE and go on OPRAH and before I went, Roger could give me a pedicure while I eat JELLO and talk to Lana & Teresa's answering Machine...
Nahhh!
Donations can be excepted thru PAYPAL. Gift cards gladly excepted...

Giving Thanks

Had a great Thanksgiving... Hope all of you did too!

Pranks and Poop

I was looking up something the other night about vomit because Matt was sick and threw-up. It seems the some of it got stuck in his nose and since my children have always been fairly healthy, I didn't know if this was normal. When I googled "vomit + Nose" I found this really cool website with all kinds of cool pranks. I saved it to my favorites and looked at it the next day. I ended up getting a few things but I can't share any of it with you because YOU MIGHT FALL VICTIM to one of them. I wish I had found this site when I was pulling a few on my cousin Eva's crazy boyfriend, Mark. He is one of those people that just begs to be pranked. At this Birthday party a couple of years ago he dumped water all over everyone. I am not talking about a cup either, we are talking 2 liters and coolers full. I ended up super gluing his shoes he left outside to the ground and putting Matt's TEENAGE MUTANT NINGA TURTLE slime in them. I also stuck a dirty diaper and a fish head under the seat of his car and vaseoline on his door handle. Mark said it was WORLD WAR III. But he is like most DEMOCRATS. All talk and no action. (I just can't wait to get all that hate mail on that...) Anyway, I can tell you one thing that I bought. A little pink pig, and when you squeezed him, fake poop came out his rear-end. Notice that "squeezed" is past-tense? Gabriel hid between the leather chair and sofa and "PICKED" the poop out of the pigs rear-end and told me, "Diaper". I really enjoyed my pig that pooped even if it was short lived. I needed some humor about poop when I am getting up at 6:30am to get KNOCKED in the face with the smell of poop. How much can little puppies poop? More than all the pigs that pooped in the house that Robbin lived. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

CALENDAR GIRLS (and boys!)

I swear I love my babies so much! I keep telling myself that over and over as I clean up their POOP several times a day. They really have little personalities now. Casper and Autumn are the biggest complainers. Autumn has one BRIGHT blue eye... don't know what color the other eye will be. Snow and Harvest are twins and if I had to name them after one of the seven dwarfs, they would both be called SLEEPY. Loala is sweet and petite and IN CHARGE. Big attitudes come in small packages! Pumpkin, who will now be known as MAX is staying with us. He is SO sweet. He has a look on his face that can make you laugh. He is the only one that looks like a full grown boxer now, only in mini size. And Bartholomeu... when you look at him he makes you melt AND LAUGH! The saying comes to mind... "He had a broad face and a little round belly that shook, when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly!" This, in a word, is Bartholomeu. If he whines at ALL Katherine is in there picking him up. He IMMEDIATELY stops as she wraps him in a blanket till he falls asleep. I told her that what he learns now will be what he will do for LIFE. Gonna have a 80 plus pound dog wanting to be wrapped in a blanket and lulled to sleep... PLEASE! I am going to make a CALENDAR of the Babies. It will have 13 of the best photo's some collages ect... If anyone is interested, let me know. I am doing them at cost from KINKOS which will be $19.99. I will mail them out at the end of December. Email me at katmatgabe@msn.com if you are interested. This will be a NICE calendar, not a cheap photo-copy! You can also view some new photo's of the babies at www.flickr.com/photos/tenea . WARNING! Don't look at the photo's if you aren't prepared for your heart to MELT! I known this sounds mushy BUT Kiss my GRITS...

The Acrobat

I told you Gabriel was wild. He climbs walls. Kind of. Gabriel likes having NO clothes on. His main routine is jumping from the leather chair, bouncing on to the sofa and doubling backward to make a handstand like you see here. Then usually he jumps down runs to the TV and hits the DVD player as hard as he can and then he runs back to the leather chair and it starts all over again. This DVD player has gone thru a lot and it still works. We have had it for two years AND it was a Wal-Mart special! The brand name is SANYO. I highly recommend it. I got my leather chair and ottoman at AMERICAN SIGNATURE. I bought the insurance on for $57.00 dollars because for seven years it's covered with a full replacement. Gabriel can cut it, put fingernail polish on it, color it with permanent magic markers and it's all good! I got my sofa at STOREHOUSE. The frame and springs are covered for the lifetime of the sofa. You know when I went shopping for these pieces, it was not that fun. I couldn't just GO in a store and pick out something. I had Gabriel in mind with every step I took. The sofa's nice, I love it but notice how there are no pillows/cushions? That's so he can't throw them all over the room like he used too. And the leather chair? It's just like that one from POTTERY BARN that looks like a bomber jacket. When it gets scratched it looks even better... Wow, I've done pretty good here. I blogged about Gabriel AND gave free promotion for several brand names with out getting paid... Now let's see if they would like to advertise with me...

SPEED RACER

Want to know one of the things I look forward to in the afternoon? RACING!!!
On the day we moved in our new home in March I met my new neighbor. They had a Volvo wagon parked in their driveway so I just assumed they were normal people... until she came out to introduce herself. CH (initials) had her arms covered in tattoos. Normal+Volvo=tattoos? This equation doesn't work folks... or so I thought. CH was great fun! For the next few days we talked like crazy. Turns out her husband is a well known tattoo artist ie; her arms. Her husband was some where over in Europe making $$$ doing art, tattoos ect... They had 3 kids, the oldest was Matt's age. I was just so excited! I envisioned us having them over for dinner and getting to know them. Then all of a sudden NOTHING. After her husband came home she hardly spoke. WHY? I don't know. We can be out in the yard at the same time and be less than 6 feet from one another and unless I say hi first, NADA! Roger and I have cut their yard, trimmed their trees, I took them cake... we can't seem to get a connection. This is so frustrating. You guys KNOW I am a very friendly person. I get paranoid about crap...worry to the point of NO RETURN. They have a small baby and I wondered if they had baby monitors and could hear my aggravation with them when I talk on the phone...HELLO???
Anyway, in the afternoons CH and I leave at the same time to pick up our boys at school. It is comical how we ALWAYS seem to leave at the same time. Like if their are alarms in both our houses that go off when we get ready to go. SHE'S LEAVING!!!!! If she gets in her car before me and pulls out I act casual like I am in no hurry. When she disappears I SLAM ON THE GAS to get caught up with her. When she can possibly see me I slow down HUM DE DUM slow. Most days I beat her. We come out of the house at the same time but I have the advantage because she has 2 small children with her...HA! She has got me a few time before though. We were at a light and I was behind the BOZO who was turning so she cut around me. Or she cut in line one time at the school and got 2 cars ahead of me. WHO DOES THAT??? When she does these things I say things in the car I shouldn't. Ha-Ha I wonder if she knows this game is going on? Is she in on it? Or am I just really needing some excitement... you know the mind has a way of giving the body what it needs...

Consider Your Blessings!

Yesterday Katherine got pretty upset with me. Matthew always gets 2 cookies in his lunch box and she asked me to make her a couple when it was near time for him to come home. I got the stuff out and then she said, "Please don't make any for Matt." I asked her why? She told me it wasn't fair that she would only get 2 for the whole day and Matt would get 4. I made some for Matt anyway and told her not to worry about what other people got as long as she was getting some herself. While the cookies where baking she asked me again not to give Matt any and I told her not to ask again or she wouldn't get any. Then she asked again! I couldn't believe her. This is so unlike Katherine to keep on. I said, "Katherine, I am not being unfair. I would never be that way with either of you. Understand that I see a bigger picture than you do. Matt has lunch at 10:30 in the morning. He is very hungry when he comes home. He runs around all day while you sit here doing book work."
We are all just ants on a canvas. All we see is what is right in front of us. We are not viewing our lives the way God does. All the things that happen in our lives are occuring because God is leading us in a direction. If we could just see the "MONA LISA" He is creating, maybe we wouldn't resist so much. It's funny when you teach your children because sometimes you teach yourself. Don't worry what "so and so" has. God may have given them that for a reason that we don't see. I just thought this morning on the way to take Matthew to school what a wonderful blessing he gave us with the puppies. Everything went so well that it couldn't have gone better. They were all born healthy, all lived and thrived, Patch did fine. What a wonderful experience and memory to look back on. Stop and think about the blessing you have, even the little ones. Did your checkbook balance this week? Did that bug spray work? Did your car start this morning? Did you have a good day at work? These all matter! Thank God for this day! If it turns out bad, so what! It's a swirl or a new color in your canvas of life!

The 2 Big T's

The other day I went to TACO BELL on Armenia Ave. You know, the one with the KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN and PIZZA HUT all in one. My mom used to refer to this place as 3 AMIGO'S. When she was living down here and at work one day, somebody in the office she worked offered to bring back lunch for her. She told him she wanted a taco salad from 3 AMIGO'S. Well he had never heard of 3 AMIGO'S, so he drove up and down Armenia Ave looking and looking. He finally stopped and went in a hole in the wall Mexican restaurant and ordered her a taco salad. Anyway back to my experience there... I haven't been inside that TACO BELL in a long time. I usually hit the drive-thru. That place was soooo nasty! All the workers moved about as fast as dead lice do. I went up to the counter to complain and they wanted to blame the girl that worked behind the counter taking orders. She was ALSO responsible for cleaning all the tables. HOWEVER, this was not a lunch rush mess. This was a "Dirt in the crevices" filth. There was this large metal basket behind the counter and it's wheels looked like it had been dragged thru a swamp and then a Barber Shop and it was filled with clean dishes! Everywhere you looked it was a sticky, slimy mess. I asked to speak to the manager (who's name I think was FONG) and when they told her why I wanted to speak to her she said very loudly, "WELL IF SHE DOESN'T WANT TO EAT HERE BECAUSE IT'S TOO DIRTY THEN SHE CAN GO SOMEWHERE ELSE!" I am sure that was meant for me.
These places that start with "T" are really getting on my last nerve. Roger's brother Anthony had me to pay his TECO bill (TAMPA ELECTRIC) for him on my debit card thru speed pay on the phone. They messed the whole thing up. Anthony called me pretty up-set from his job because he had no time to deal with this. I told him no problem, I would call. YEAHHHH,I called. When you call TECO you sit on the phone for 20 minutes AT LEAST waiting to talk to a REAL person. After I explained the situation to the real person they transferred me to another real person who listened to the same story. This person put me on hold and then disconnected me! I called back and it happened AGAIN! I called back AGAIN and I told the man on the other line, "DO NOT PUT ME ON HOLD! IF YOU DON'T WANT TO TALK TO ME, PUT THE PHONE DOWN! They FINALLY fixed THEIR error. As of right now I am boycotting all businesses that start with "T". Except T.J. MAXX. Wild horses couldn't keep me from that place!

Cool Hair! Beat this Ashton Kutcher...

Yep! This is Matt and Gabriel on the sofa. Cool hair huh? When I first saw this style last year I thought it looked awful. I didn't really even know it was "a style". I just though somebody's Mama didn't care how their child looked or didn't have the money for a hair-cut. Then I started noticing the "Gap Kid" ads. They all had boys with 70's hair styles too. Then my cousin Amy sent me a photo of her son Jacob with this style. It was so cute! Another friend called it the "surfer cut" but all I can think of is THAT 70'S SHOW. Roger even had that style!Well duh! His was in the 70's.(see photo above) I have been tempted a few times to SHAVE it off with the clippers, but I closed my eyes tight and kept repeating "Wait til' Christmas, Wait til' Christmas... I HAVE to take the kids pictures with a 70's style theme in our Christmas photo's. Afterwards maybe "www.locksofLove.org will get a donation... Or maybe we'll grow dreadlocks... By the way, ANYONE can comment on my blogs now. You don't have to register with BLOGGER! Comment away... OH OH OH, did you notice I have ads now! "I coming out! I want the world to know..."!

No puppies were harmed in the making of this photo

No puppies were harmed in the making of this photo
Originally uploaded by Rockin Robbin.

No puppies were harmed in the making of this photo

...except maybe the mother's (patch) attitude. This dog of mine is driving me crazy! At first I thought she was getting all stressed out having puppies sucking and climbing all over her 24 hours a day. She has been going under Katherine's bed and she has NEVER done this before. Katherine also informed me that Patch tore up quite a bit of notebook paper under there too. We don't even know where her paper source is coming from. I though, "BOY, is SHE stressssssed out!" It made me paranoid that she would hurt the puppies. Monday night when we went out, I put her in the kitchen with the puppies and put up the gate so she wouldn't get more stressed out barking at trick or treaters knocking on the door. The puppies were all fine when we got home and I praised her for being such a good Mama. I went to bed with Roger for the first time since the puppies were born. (yes, I know I am anal and over protective) Ten minutes after being in bed I hear one of the puppies cry and go running towards the kitchen only to meet up with Patch in the diningroom. She had Pumpkin under the table and was taking him SOMEWHERE! This scared me to death. I checked him all over and carried him back in the kitchen to the pool. WHY? WHAT was she thinking??? I called my friends that have helped me through this whole ordeal. Their names are Tom and Tracey and they breed Beagles in Tennessee. You can see their website here at www.soundsofthesouthbeagles.com . Tom informed me that Patch was most likely moving the puppies to "THE NEST" she made under Katherine's bed with all that notebook paper. I grabbed a flashlight and went in Katherine's room. I couldn't believe the mess Patch had made under the bed. It looked to be about 2 packs of paper shredded up in a big oval shape. I WISH I could have let her do it. Just take them in there and forgetaboutit. But I have to draw the line at stinking up the room and carpet with pregnancy discharge and puppy pee-pee. I wish we could talk, Patch and I. I wish I could tell her what a great Mom she is, how much I love her and her babies, but I can't. So she will have to continue being moody and mad at me. Get over it dog... THERE IS ONLY ONE CONTROL FREAK ALLOWED PER HOUSEHOLD AND I HOLD THAT TITLE!