The Thumper Rule

So any of you born before the year 1990 should at least be familiar with this happy foot tapping bunny named Thumper from Bambi, he said, "if you ain't got nothin' nice to say, don't say nothin' at all."

I am of the opinion that a lot of bloggers try their best to follow this "rule" in regard to talking about themselves or their lives. This is the "safest" way to go, because then you don't get the ridicule of perhaps being told that you 'deserve' all the misfortune that has been falling on your head as of late... I have been waiting for some SUPER GOOD day to take place to write a warm "fuzzy" post about and give everyone a warm blog reading glow, but in the past week, I haven't had a whole lot of those days, so I am going to DISOBEY dear old Thumper's rule and say it like it is :)

So You all got my great Easter post. It was Easter, it was great, and I love my fam. Monday Morning rolled around, and our power was turned off. Yep, off. No, this was not a mistake... apparently those meanies don't even let you get an entire MONTH behind on your bill, only like 3 weeks, so a word to the wise, if you don't want to get raped by outlandish fees, pay your electric bill for SRP in a timely manner. So I scraped together my pennies and paid the bill. Only had to go about 40 minutes without power. (image from here) Scarlett colored once she got over the DISTURBING realization that all of the TV's were BROKEN!! She didnt notice all the lights were out but it was daytime, so we had plenty of sunlight..

Wednesday my Cell phone turned off, mostly. This again, was no fluke incident :) It allowed me to get incoming calls, but they had decided that they wanted a payment from me so the only person I would have the luxury of calling was them, good old Tmobile. And i also couldn't send responses to the text messages that would come in. It was an isolating couple of days before we could come up with some more money to reactivate my phone. (image from here. I love how disturbed she looks and how you can almost make out a Hitchcock profile behind her)

Friday was a silver lining day. After dreaming of Enchiladas all night long, my friend Brookie -- or as Scarlett calls her, "Spooky", came over and brought the ingredients I didnt have, (which were a lot) and even bought me a 3 dollar pan and made me a bunch of chicken Enchiladas. She even bought all the garnishes and chopped them up so that Joe could decorate his enchiladas, and she didnt even help us eat them, she left us that Entire pan for ourselves. It was awesome and SO TASTY. It doesn't even end here. She watched Scooby for us for free so that we could go see a movie and actually have a "Date night" we saw the 'Date Night' Movie. We are so cliche like that. We saw the Valentine move on Valentines Day we are so not very original these days :). But it was wonderful to spend some time together just the two of us, and that was great.

Saturday, Scarlett and I ate at YC's Mongolian Barbecue for lunch, and that is one of my all time fave places to eat, and Scarlett's too. I have a couple pictures from there.

Scarlett friendly said "Goodbye" and waved to all the exiting YC customers, and continued with a "Have a Nice day!"

 We had a great time... then I got a reminder from my calendar (I have started setting these to help with my absent mindedness and as a result absenteeism to all events I had desired to participate in) that cousin Michael Chappel's fiancee's Bridal shower was happening in 20 minutes! I was wearing a muumuu, so I made a quick dash home, grabbed some clothes, and a card that I made, Darn I should have taken a picture of it, it was pretty... threw some makeup in my pocket and headed over to my Mom's to pick up her gift offering. Then Scarlett and I attempted to trek out to the shower. It wouldn't have been so bad were there not a huge accident on the 60. I didnt really mind though, because Scarlett napped the entire way there, and I thought "Score! she will be in a good mood!"

Well we were almost there, and I was searching for this "Orchid" street, when I noticed my air conditioning was blowing warm all the sudden. Oh, the thermostat was showing the needle all the way to the big H for hot.. :( I, being very familiar with cars that like to blow up and get hot on me, turned the A/C off, and coasted more or less to my destination. I turned off the car and it sounded like a sprinkler system had gone off under my hood. I knew that was a bad sign, but non-chilantly joined the shower without drawing attention to my situation. The shower was nice, even if Scarlett was in a rotten mood, nap or no.. anyway. My cousin Rachel saved the day, producing a little purse full of "pretties" for Scarlett to play with and even let her keep it! She was in heaven with her very first personal Chapstick!

The shower was fun. I was glad I went. I love spending time with my Chappel Cousins, and my Aunts Laura and Lucy were both there. Joe, my Knight in shining armor came to rescue me. We discovered it was not going to stay cool even with more water in it.. so I called my Brook's dad who is an auto genius. He told me we definitely needed to tow it and NOT try driving it back from Elliot and Higley. So we called my Dad and asked him to help us tow the vehicle to Fred's house. Scarlett and I drove Joe's Jag to my parents and scored a nice steak dinner over there. (image from here)

Fred got the car all fixed up and ready for us to pick up by Sunday night. My car is running like brand new! (that's not my car but it is a cute red hatchback, was the best i could do! image from here) It hasn't run this well in a VERY long time. So again, we have no more pennies, but things could be worse.

We have each other. We have our loving friends and family. We have a place to live, and landlords who are working with us (my wonderful parents). We have food stamps to keep us in food. We have me- a less than mediocre cook... who somehow still manages to get the job done. I've made it into my second trimester now, of my pregnancy without incident. That is a blessing.

We have managed to pull all our information to provide to our Accountant and are still hoping we live through April, but I figure if it hasn't broken me yet, maybe I can make it! Another great photo of Scarlett to characterize my mood:

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Any Questions? Ask away, and if I don't know the answer, I will find someone who does! Hope you all have had a great weekend!

Upon review of Last Year's Finances.....

and looking ahead to the crapstorm of economic misfortune ahead of us, this picture, seems to say it all. Yes, this is a picture of Scarlett, taken by my friend Malia about a year ago....

Please keep us in your prayers. 

Happy Easter!

Scarlett and I at my parent's house coloring Eggs. My Mom makes this silly sound that makes scarlett smile for pictures... its Magic! 

These are a few pictures that I took from the living room while the last session of conference was playing at my parents house Easter Afternoon. 

A drawing Scarlett did of a chicken last week, seemed suitable for an Easter post.

And here is the "Ritzy Chicken" I made for dinner. Wasn't too bad... I think I might add ranch dressing mix in with the crackers and pepper next time to make the breading. I just rolled the chicken breasts in sour cream before putting the ritz crumbs and pepper on them, and baked them for 55 mins at 350... Thank you 4 ingredient Cookbook! (and Mom for giving it to me)

I hope your Easter was everything you hoped it would be and more. I am so very grateful for my Husband who works so hard to help provide for us, even on Easter. 

Lots of love, and white chocolate hugs. 

Thursday.

Today my sister Sarah said that Thursday night TV is like a reward for making it most of the way through the week. I have to agree with her... so very well said.

Today in general has been a pretty good day for us, at the Rawlins Household. Scarlett and I got to go to the Zoo (image from here) with Sarah and Tyson at about 10:45 and arrived back home at around quarter to 2. We love our brief trips to the zoo, and are grateful for Sarah's season pass and her generosity in driving us there with her. Her car has nifty built in car seats in the middle seat. I LURVE that because, I LOATHE moving Scarlett's clunker of a car seat!

Anyway, we loved the zoo, and particularly again the Orangutan Exhibit. Apparently they are building a new one, and I hope it provides as up close a view as the one they have now. (image from here but i think this is an old picture, as baby is now a toddler) There is a Mommy, Daddy, baby and Grandma in the exhibit. The Dad is usually with his back turned ignoring the others and the onlookers. Actually all the Orangutans are good at ignoring the spectators, but they are fun to watch, especially that toddler. She was swinging around on a white sheet that she tied to the top of the ladder.

(image from here) Once she managed to pull it untied she was going to have to find something else fun to do so she went to the bottom left corner to see what Grandma was doing. Grandma looked a bit tired. she could reach her elbow all the way over her head to rest her arm over the top of her head and her hand would still reach her armpit. It would be nice to have such long arms. Scarlett was as fascinated with the scene as I was. We could have watched them for an hour had we the time. I would much rather watch a tv show about Orangutans than Meercats ANY DAY, just sayin....

TONIGHT- Joe is going to come home at a nice time, and I get to go see the easter pageant with my Mom and Sarah and maybe more peeps if they decide to come. I am excited about that, but mostly just the break. We are going to eat Pete's fish and chips too. *drools*

Thats all for now.



PS. My fetus widget is sucking its thumb today, which makes me smile.