Monkeys @ MindSay

We decided to go shopping before the zoo, my sister and I!  What a great day we had planned.  And it was going so well!  Out of the six major Thrift World Stores in the Metro area of Omaha, we hit two.  The two nicest ones with the Brand Name clothes!  One on the Northwest side of Omaha and one on the Southeast side of Omaha near the Zoo.

 

What a great way to end our mini camping trip that just turned in to being a mini stay at my sister's house due to the varying weather that kept popping up!  Instead of staying at the really nice free camp grounds we stayed at my sister's house for a few days, I wasn't going to chance being caught near a big man made lake that had extermly high levels near the banks of the camp ground!

 

Anyway, after a GREAT haul of a summer woredrobe for both kids from two different thrift shops and then treating the kids to lunch, we headed to Henery Dooley (sp?) Zoo for a nice afternoon.  It started out great!  We hit the Jungle, the Sea Lions, the Garden of Senses, the Cat House, part of the Avaiary, the Gorrila House, the Cat Complex, the feeding time for the smaller tropical birds, the Desert Dome, and the Giaraff House.  With smaller enclousers along the way of course!  Of course pictures are on here!  Enjoy!

 

While we were just ouside of the New Butterfly House and the Aquareme deciding which one we were going to go in first before we started heading to the town were my van was sitting so the kids and I could head home and my sister and her kids could head home, we heard the tornado sirins go off!  Now I know why so many ppl get killed in public places during storms!  The tornado sirns go off and the majority of the Zoo visitors head for the Goddess Dayum parking lots!  I kid you not!  Well being country girls, my sister and I herd the kids to the aquarememe (sp?) house under the canapoy and bust out our cell phones.  Each of us respectively calling our hubby's, asking them why the hell neither one of them called to tell us there was a storm system heading straight at Omaha!  We informed both of them that we were heading for the storm shelters in the Fish house and we would call once the storm passed.  Then we hearded the kids towards one of the Zoo Workers holding a door open to the basement of the complex leading to the exective offices and we were one of the first groups down. 

 

There were a few other ppl down there already but what we found the most funny out of this was that everyone single person down there including us, were NOT from Omaha persay but from the surrounding communities and areas!  We are NOT fools!  While the main secruity guy was telling us and the few zoo workers what the plan was, he was getting reports from the weather radio and the few of us that stopped and made calls.  Then he asked us to sit tight, while he and his other crew went outside to go round up the rest of the Zoo visitors and get them inside various zoo complexes till the storm passed.

 

We had a couple of upset kids of course, my daughter being one of them, and a lot of upset ppl, including ball players that stuck around after the College World Series before they went home.  Those of us from the midwest were laughing and joking and calming the kids down.  We kept telling everyone that we are in one of the safest buildings and don't worry about the animals they know what to do and the zoo workers were making sure they were safe also.  Once all the zoo workers got in the main secruity guy came back in to our basement and said it was pitch black out and winds up to 90-100 miles per hour and they would not know if a tornado hit till after it was clear out.  The lights did go out and thankfull the generator kicked on right away.

 

After we got the okay to clear out and leave the zoo, we got some pictures of the damage done in side the zoo.  Down trees and one of the heavy glass safety entrance doors to the Wild Kingdom Palliviallion was completely blown off and laid gently down in front of the Pavillion!  I missed that picture! There was hail everywhere!  We had to make our way out of the Eastern Side of Omaha back towards the I-10 exit so we could head to Freemont NE which is an hour Northeast of Omaha, where my van was sitting!  Damage everywhere!  While driving the news said, the Art Festival got hit hard downtown Omaha, there was a boat taken off of a dock in the Missiouri and was dropped on the roof of a house, trees blocking roads, and down electrical poles all over Omaha downtown/metro area!  We stopped on the outskirts of town to feed the kids and the Taco Johns we hit had running TVS.  The area heading to Fremont NE was hit hard also and a semi rig was entangled in electrical wires!  Cars of the road, rigs off the road, and major damage.  This system worked its way into IA and massive damage and two killed on the IA side.

 

We got detoured outside of a town between Omaha and Fremont due to massive damage and accidents.  Where I got a phone call from Randy when he got home.  My dog Spud died during the day yesterday!  Randy was upset and of course the kids and I were very upset also, but we also knew the dog was going to end up dying on us.  Spud was the dog with the unknown seizures.  At first Randy thought he somehow choked while he was outside on the chain but when he went up to examine Spud, there was plenty of slack in the chain and the collar would have slipped right off of his neck (we made sure that it could slip off if he was caught up when running or on the chain if something would have happened).  The way Spud was laying and his facial features, you could tell he had a massive siezure.  So trying to find our way on back country roads and county paved hiways we didn't know to get back into Fremont, we had upset kids and nobody was out directing the traffic.  My sister and I again being country girls said fuck it and got on a country road and started heading towards the sun because Northwest was where we wanted to head.  We picked up a truck in front of us from our home area just a different county and he had the same idea.  We got rerouted via the roads with no help from anyone due to big trees, silos, fencing, and other debries in the mushy gravel roads!  A normal 1 hour drive from Omaha to Fremont took 2 hours!

 

Once we got to a lil town Southeast of Fremont which would have been the quickest route we got denied by a State Trooper directing traffic.  Nobody was allowed into town where a small lake was surrounded wiht houses and such due to the damage!  They weren't letting anyone through not even family members of the town or land owners with no houses.  Ambulances and Fire trucks were all over the town and two of the rural fire trucks were making their way towards the other road leading to Fremont.  We just turned around and followed the fire trucks into Fremont.  Finally!  Fremont NE had no major damage.  Some trees down and some windows broken but no major damage.  Then we pull up into the truck stop where we left my van.  I got a lovely suprise!  My rear windsheild was blown out or a rock got kicked up in the storm!  I have no rear windshield now!  Nothing was stolen.  But everything was glass covered clear up to the front seat and everything was water logged!  Thank GODS I had what ever paperwork I did have in there in sacks and covered up!  My Leadership Manual alone would have cost me 100 some dollars to replace if it got water logged or damaged somehow!

 

So I called Randy yet again and told him we FINALLY made it into Fremont but I would be still a lot later because we had to clean up the glass and find places for the kdis to sit with out getting cut up!  Thankfull we were able to pull a couple of the pillows from underneith my tent that dind't have glass on it and give those to the kids to sit on.  My sister handed over one of her towels so I could sit on it while driving.  And then we rearrange the back so none of my Thrift shop finds, my tents, sleeping bags, blankets, pillows, or other camping gear would go flying out for my hour drive home!  I ended up pulling over twice on the way home to rearrange my back but FINALLY my normal two hour drive ended up being a 4 hour and 45 minute drive and we made it home at 8:45pm.  where we promptly unloaded the van and shop vaccued it out so I could get some plastic on the windshield due to more storms coming this weekend.

 

After we got that done, we gave Spud my Fat Man Dog a burial worthy of a King.  See we couldn't bury him.  The ground is too wet and his smell would draw the local wild dog pack and the local coyote pack.  Not to mention all the other wild critters int he area.  So we took my lovely burn pile Randy made up for me this weekend and gave Spud a Funeral Pry.  We didn't want any other anmals digging him up and eating on him.  Randy loaded him on the bonfire and I threw some sage, cedar chips, and sweet grass all over Spud and we said a lil blessing for him and said our goodbyes.

 

Now today, I get to call his old family and inform them that he is gone.  I am doing laundry from the back of my van and going to take the kids down to my girl's house because they are still stressed from last night.  A lil fun down at Aunties house and coming home about the time Daddy gets home from work will do them good. 

 

Now I am off to throw another sleeping bag into the wash!  Pictures to come after this post!

not sex, yo.
surgery.

i'm getting my wisdom teeth out today at 10 am.
they wouldn't let me eat or drink anything from 10 pm last night till when the surgery's over and my throat hurts like a motherfucker.
but hopefully after the surgery we'll get something to eat.
i'm basically starving here.

i'm getting all four out at once.
not because we want to, because we need to.
i went to the dentist about 3 months ago and he looked at my xrays and said that if i don't get my wisdom teeth out within the next 4 months i'm going to have serious problems. and he meant all four.
my bottom right wisdom tooth is already out and causing pain.
and sometimes the bottom left hurts as well.
my dentist said that the bottom two would be most devastating if i don't get them out soon, but with time the top two will cause damage as well if i don't get them out also.

my sisters both still have their wisdom teeth and have no need to take it out.
basically what was said to them was just something like "oh you can if you want or if they start hurting or whatever. but there's really no need".
with me he said "you need to get all four of these out within the next 4-5 months or you will have serious problems".

so here i am.
getting my wisdom teeth out.



why do we have wisdom teeth anyways? did monkeys have them? because we have no use for them because our mouths are too small for the most part. but monkeys have bigger mouths, right? would they have a use and it just carried on?

 

By Samantha L. Quigley

American Forces Press Service

 

April 19, 2007 – About 1,000 sock monkeys are preparing to deploy to the Middle East with the mission of reminding servicemembers that the American public still supports them.  "I feel that sometimes our soldiers kind of get forgotten," Beth VanSickle, the founder of Sock Monkey Ministries, said. "We're just trying to let everyone know, we need to kind of forget about the political and just remember that our soldiers are still there."

 

Each monkey, created from socks that are stuffed and hand sewn by one of more than 1,500 volunteers, also carries with it the thoughts and prayers of its creator in the form a small foam heart, VanSickle said.

 

To help her get the monkeys ready for "Operation Monkey Drop," the effort to send the monkeys to the troops, she enlisted the help of 322 fourth- and fifth-grade students from Chelsea Intermediate School in Chelsea, Ala., who stuffed 425 monkeys in one afternoon.

 

"That's about 800 pounds of stuffing," VanSickle said. She added that the students held a contest to see who could bring in the most "monkey making" supplies. The winning class got a pizza party.

 

In addition to stuffing the monkeys, the students completed more than 1,000 personal messages to accompany them, she said. The front of the message card explains the monkey's purpose and encourages servicemembers to pass it on to a child who could use a lift.

 

"We understand that the Iraqi people may not have a very good view of us," VanSickle said. "We're hoping with this little act of encouragement ... that it gives the (servicemembers) the opportunity to kind of befriend the (Iraqis)."

 

Fort Benning, Ga., has requested some monkeys to send to their soldiers for that very purpose, she said.

 

The organization, which has applied for nonprofit status, began in February 2005 in VanSickle's Sunday school class of first and second graders in Texas. She was looking for a way to teach them about service as well as maintain her participation in church activities while fighting with metastatic breast cancer.

 

The project, which she said helps keep her going, is now based in Alabama and has had a much greater impact than originally intended. VanSickle approaches community groups to help with the project.

 

"We try to go to those individuals that are in a situation where they don't feel like they're able to provide a service," VanSickle said. "So, by us going into the nursing homes or going to the hospitals to help people stuff monkeys, it kind of gives them a renewed sense of purpose as well."

 

VanSickle's group also reaches out to the families of fallen servicemembers, she said.

 

The "Fallen Hero" sock monkey has a U.S. flag embroidered on its chest and carries a special note for its recipient. Simply stated, it offers appreciation and gratitude for the family's sacrifice.

 

Nearly 4,800 sock monkeys have been created since 2005, far surpassing the original goal of 100. The monkeys have inspired hope in the lives of orphaned children, cancer patients, AIDS patients, homeless families, and anyone in need of encouragement as far away as Israel, or in their own backyard, VanSickle said.

 

They won't head off to the Middle East without a proper send off, though. Chelsea Intermediate School will hold its "Monkey March" on May 1, before shipping the monkeys out.

 

"We've invited the community leaders and we are going to march around the school to let everyone know that we support our troops and that we're not going to forget them," VanSickle said.

 

The students will also take the opportunity to present monkeys to several military family members who have been invited.

 

Those sock monkeys that are shipped overseas will get a lift from America Supports You home-front group Operation Homefront, which has offered to help with the shipping.

 

America Supports You is a Defense Department program connecting citizens and corporations with members of the military and their families at home and abroad.

 

Article sponsored by Criminal Justice online leadership as well as police and military personnel who have authored books.

 

This is completely random.

We were at a tattoo shop tonight, and Tyler was explaining what he wanted..

The guy told him there were 1,000's of combinations..

Then he mentioned that if he wanted a monkey screwing a football, he would do it.

I laughed for like, 5 minutes.

Oh, and Tyler and I are paying for Matt to get a tattoo of a Skoal can on his back.

He's actually going to do it too.

That will make a good story to tell the kids.

:D

Man.. life is great..

>I haven't seen Mike (well I have.. but I don't give two flying shits).

>I'm in     LUV   with a wonderful italian boy. (who speaks italian.. *sigh* so hot) Which makes me seem like I fall in love too easily..crap. *shrugs* oh well.

>anyone that has a deviantart account tell me.. I have some of my artwork up (its the sucky stuff right now but I'll post better later.) My name is fullmetal-babe2424

>My mom thinks I'm depressed.. or bipolar, I think I might be too, but no worrys. Shes say that would explain my lack of sleep, not eating, and not being able to concentrate.

>I still want people to review on my friends story.. she has new chapters up and everything.

>I want a cookie.. *grabs cookie*.. now I'm good

 

 

hope everyone is satisfied. ^_^