It happens…blogger burnout coupled with a new venture that turns out to be pretty successful.  How many times have a swore that I would keep posting here, only to once again drop off the face of the Earth?  By my count, at least 5 times in the last year.

But things change and I find myself with a need to unwind.  You see, I’ve built up a persona on my other site.  It’s not a fake one…it’s just “nice Mindi”…..and “evil Mindi” and “not-so-nice Mindi” are itching to get out.  I can do it on Facebook and Twitter a bit, but at the risk of alienating some of my loyal readers on Moms Need To Know (AKA:  the people who are paying many bills in my house these days).  I realize how horrible that sounds, but the truth is…I finally created something that I enjoy and that makes money.  But there aren’t many frugal bloggers who can get away with saying “Fucking Superfresh ad fucking sucks again this week”.  I don’t think I want to be the one to test those waters!

And so I’m back with an “I don’t know how often I’ll be posting” schedule…..where I can talk about that thing that I let Brad do to me one night when we I was hammered on cheap box wine, how I’m not sure what I believe any longer, bitchy neighbors (yes – JeepBitch and BMWBitch are back), honest product reviews (including which razor is best for shaving your crotch) and whatever thoughts pop in to my head.

My other site is a filtered version of me.  Facebook is a tamer version of me (if you can believe that).  This site is me. 

I miss me.

I’m getting me back.

But there was one problem…it was just like a sorority.

Then I started blogging on the old site and I had a ball.  I was able to talk to the Internets in a way that I couldn’t talk to real people.  I could write about the things that pissed me off and not have to worry about appearances or hurt feelings.  I was just one of many women on the Interwebs who were fed up with the falseness that seems to always accompany Suburbia….like the moms who you KNOW have a secret stash of Reeses Whipps (don’t we all?), but in public will only admit to having a single Green & Black’s Organic chocolate bar…that they have slowly been eating for a month.

And so I continued to write, until that one fateful evening when another member of “the club” took me aside and told me that she found my blog and wasn’t happy about it and that I should watch out or I could piss off the people in the club.

I was dutifully cowed…and pretty much gave up blogging for the last 6 months.  I switched all my energies to my other site.  After a few weeks, I convinced myself that I didn’t miss the “mommy blog scene” at all…I was now a “Frugal Blogger”.  I was hanging out with the nice people…not the ”bad” people who will call a spade a spade and admit to feeding their kids Cookie Crisp for dinner.

Except that I do sometimes feed my kids Cookie Crisp for dinner.  With a glass of chocolate milk.  And a brownie for dessert.

And I’m tired of hiding it.  I miss my mommy blogger friends (even if they don’t want to be called a mommy blogger).  I miss being able to get shit off my chest.

I miss typing the word “fuck”.

My old blog has been made private, although the contents have been transferred here.  It is my hope that it makes me a little less “findable”.  But the truth is?  I no longer care.  I have all but dropped out of my moms club.  I am not pretending to be friends with people whose company I don’t truly enjoy.  Life is just too damn short.  The people from that club who I am still friends with (and there are many) are not people that I will be bitching about anyway.

I’m done hiding.  I’m done caring about what people think.

And if they find me here and don’t like what they read?

Fuck ‘em!

there was a little girl named Mindi….

…and she dreamed of meeting The One

…and she thought that she met him at the age of 19

…And The One didn’t love her the way that she thought that she loved him

…And Mindi made a fool of herself chasing after him

…And The One was amused, but remained very good friends with Mindi.  One of her Best Friends, actually.

…And Mindi and The One fell out of touch for 2 years

…And Mindi and The One reunited in great friendship and in a few nights of Hot Sweaty (and REALLY good) sex

…And The One moved away without telling Mindi

…And Mindi was heartbroken

…And 12 years went by during which  Mindi met the man who would become her husband

…And The One made contact and Mindi went out for a drink with him after she had been married several years

…And The One was now well-off and Mindi felt those old feelings coming back.  And Mindi started thinking about “better dealing” her husband.

…And Mindi continued to talk to The One via phone and email for several years, with the occasional meeting for a drink (with the knowledge of her husband)

….And the more Mindi talked to a grown-up The One, the more she realized something

She was already married to The Real One.

And that is the story of how I finally grew up.

So let’s see…..what’s been happening since I stormed out of here in a huff?

We just got back from vacation on Sunday.  Yes, we left the oppressive-95-fucking-thousand-degree-heat of PA to visit the oppressive-98-fucking-thousand-degree heat of Savannah, GA.  If I ever decide to homeschool my children, it will be because I don’t want to have to confine our vacation trips to the summer in order to see the in-laws. 

But considering I have really great in-laws, one would think that it would have been a nice relaxing vacation, no?  But one does tend to tense up when your children are 2, 5 and 7 and you find out that the only fatal attack by an alligator in 30 years in Georgia took place just 2 blocks away from your bedroom!  It sort of puts a damper on that whole “hey kids – why don’t you go out and play” idea! 

The best part of the trip?  I snagged a copy of Photoshop Elements from my father-in-law…the one I have been meaning to buy but have just been too damn cheap to do so (and Picasa just isn’t cutting it).  What’s that?  Of COURSE I’ll send Adobe a check for a “licensing fee”…why wouldn’t I?

After 4 days of sweating my ass off having a great time we loaded everyone BACK in the car and took off back up I-95 to spend the rest of the week at my father’s house at the shore.

Public Service Annoucement:  If you ever find yourself in need of a bathroom at 3:00am along I-95 in North Carolina….just go ahead and pee your pants.  You’ll stay cleaner that way!

The beach was fun…except that little thing about a hangover from 4 days of cards, wine and Hpnotiq Blue Breezes that I still haven’t fully recovered from yet.  And the food poisoning from bad crab dip.  Oh yeah – and losing Prince #2 on the beach for a full 20 minutes (he was found 4 lifeguard stands up-beach…he said he just wanted to go for a walk.  There were 4 adults standing around him at the time but he wanted to show us what a big boy he was by sneaking away.  Crafty little fucker nearly gave me a heart attack)

But the worst part of everything?  After all that sun, my hair has bleached out to a color not seen since the late 80s when I used Frost & Tip and yet my skin is freakishly tan.  I look like some sort of Pamela Anderson-clone….well – if Pamela Anderson was fat and had small tits…

Meanwhile on the homefront…..BestFriendMommy is in Germany for 2 more weeks, the fucking hermit crab STILL won’t die, The Queen is about to be renamed LittleMissAttitude, my house is STILL a mess and my MOMS Club duties are finally over (I’m still writing the newsletter, but there is a new President and Board and NONE of them are me for the first time in 3 years!).  My frugal blog is really taking off…it already gets 3x the daily hits as my highest day on this blog ever did!

And now I have to go visit all of my old bloggy friends, play with my Photoshop and try to come up with a photo essay of my vacation (but if you think my fat freakishly-colored ass will be in any photos – think again!).

Anyway - back to business…

I present the next installment in the Series That Never Fucking Ends “100 Things About Me”

10 Things About my Husband and Kids 

1. Brad has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from BigBasketballCatholicUniversity….and is a retail manager.  He got a job stocking shelves right after graduation to have an income while he looked for a “real job”.  The problem?  He decided that he really didn’t want to go in to Engineering.  Soon he was asked to enter the Management Training Program and has been in retail ever since.  He switched companies about 4 years ago to a much larger and more stable company and loves his current job.  People have asked me if it bothers me that he is “just” a retail manager.  Those people can kiss my ass.  My husband works his very-cute-butt off for his family and will do whatever he has to do in order to provide for his family while keeping me home with the kids.
2. So now that I’ve made Brad out to be this wonderful man/great provider/saint, let me tell you that it pisses me off that he seems incapable of pronouncing the letter “K” when it is in the middle or end of a word….he eats “brexfast” and “axes” me questions all the time.
3. I am also the envy of many of my neighbors because of him.  While other husbands come home from work and flop on the sofa or refuse to help with the kids, Brad comes in, gets changed and plays with the kids so that I can get stuff done.  He is completely whipped truly believes that I am working all day as well and always gives me a break as soon as he gets home.
4. Prince #1 has Autism.  I don’t talk about it often because he is high-functioning (thanks to a WHOLE lot of therapies that he gets 4 times per week).   In 4 years he has gone from a boy who used to throw such fits that I ended up with a bloody nose at least once a day and only communicated in sign language, to a fully-integrated-in-to-the-public-school-system little boy who just has some “quirks”.  Luckily we have a fabulous school system and they provide all of his services and solicit my input on every step of his education (which actually gets annoying after a while)
5. Prince #1 has an extremely high tolerance for pain and will never complain.  Because of this, I often won’t realize that he has an (all-to-frequent-but-not-frequent-enough-for-tubes) ear infection until the puss is running out of his ear.
6. Prince #1 is a genius.  I don’t say that in a “my child’s shit smells like a botanical garden” way.  I say that because he has been spelling and doing math problems since he was 1-year old.  When he was 4 years old and out playing with chalk, he was writing out and solving math problems in the street while other kids were drawing pictures of flowers.  He plays piano by ear (and not just “mary had a little lamb”…he has taught himself songs by Queen and Foreigner, just by hearing them on my iPod).  If he wasn’t so socially stunted, he would easily be able to skip two grades.  This isn’t me puffing up my kid, this is the 3-times-per-year discussion I have with his teachers and therapists (they actually recommended having him skip a year or two….I declined because of the social issues)
7. Prince #2 is both my “cuddle bunny” and my “drama queen”.  I haven’t yet decided if he is suffering from serious middle-child-syndrome, if he is just a master manipulator, or both.  One of his favorite things to do these days is to let me know, while I am yelling at Prince #1 for some infraction, that he certainly didn’t do that horrible thing!
8. Prince # 2 has absolutely no concept of time.  Ask him when he went to InfernoBoy’s house, for example (they’re now best friends) and he will tell you it was last Tuesday…even if it was that morning.  He loves to tell me “Mommy – I love you forever, and sometimes on Tuesdays!”
9. The Queen loves to clean.  Hand her a paper towel and she starts dusting everything in sight.  I’m thinking that this is really going to come in handy in a few years.
10. The Queen put to rest any residual doubts I may have had on that “nature vs. nurture” argument.  Sure, she wore a bunch of pink when she was a baby…but she also ran around in a grey “I’m the Big Brother” t-shirt.  And yet she has no interest in boy-stuff.  She’s all girl, complete with her own shoe fetish!

Shit – do I really have four more of these installments left? 

I am so behind on my memes, but the truth is I save them for days when I just need to bang out a post ’cause I got shit to do I put so much thought in to them that it can sometimes take me a while to catch up!

(sidenote:  Fun With Search Engines is not a meme post or a filler…it’s something that I love to do because it seriously cracks me up when I look at my stats and see what searches bring people here.  Please remember this if you check back tomorrow!)

The Planner tagged me 6 fucking weeks ago just the other day with her Fluff Five Meme.  At this point I would like to say that I don’t think that I really like The Planner that much.  A large portion of her blog involves tracking her diet….and the bitch has actually lost a bunch of weight.  Twenty-five pounds since the beginning of the year to be exact.  I admire envy want to feed an entire Friendly’s Reeses Pieces Sundae to hate people like that!

ramblerambleramble, bitchbitchbitch….on the to Fluff Five Meme!

Five Things In My Bag

1. 8 lipsticks, although I use the same color every day, 3 times a day for the past 2 years.  I just didn’t want him to be lonely in there so I threw some lipstick friends in for him to talk to.
2. Marlboro Ultra Lights, but no lighter and 27 empty packs of matches
3. Haribo Gummy Bears in individual packs (these are flown in from Germany for me whenever BestFriendMommy or her husband travel home…you can’t find the indivdual packs anywhere within 200 miles of here!).   The Queen and Prince #2′s favorite treat.  I save these for checkout lines or any time there is imminent danger of a melt down.
4. 6 Bic pens, none of which work
5. Werther’s Original Sugar Free drops (but only until See’s Candies comes out with their own sugar-free butterscotch, because See’s Candies Butterscotch pops  are THE shit!)

Five Things In My Room

1. My bed:  we finally went to a King-size when I was pregnant with The Queen and spent a small fortune on the most wonderful mattress.  If I could move the kitchen, bathroom and Wawa in to my bed, I’d never get out of it!
2. Seven years worth of family pictures:  we get a family picture taken each November to use as our Christmas card.  We have each one hanging up and I just love to see how much our family has changed between each one
3. My computer:  although I spend too much time on it (if someone would just be so kind as to get me a laptop, preferably a Mac, I would be quite a happy gal!)
4. My jewelry armoire:  seeing as I make my own jewelry and have a great deal of affection for ‘da bling, Brad bought me my own jewelry armoire a few years ago.  It stands 5′ tall and is overloaded with everything from Majorica pearls to my grandmother’s diamond earring to the $1.99 snowman earrings I bought at Target, none of which I can ever bear to part with.
5. My “special” box:  figure it out

Five Things You Always Wanted to Do:

1. Finish college
2. Take an Alaskan Cruise: the luxury kind, not the “Deadliest Catch”-type one
3. Not be petrified to step on an airplane:the last time was 9 years ago and I held Brad’s hand so tight my fingernails drew blood.  The only reason I was on the plane was because my brother-in-law was getting married in the Dominican Republic and they haven’t quite finished the highway connecting all the Caribbean islands to the US
4. Be able to go to the bathroom by myself :this has only been a problem for roughly 7 years and 18 days
5. Meet and screw Brendan Fraser:  I believe that this desire makes me an honorary gay man.  Hey – wanna know who looked quite a bit like Brendan Fraser when he was in high school?  Yep – that guy! 

Five Things You Are In To:

1. Photography, although I suck at it.  I love my new camera, I just haven’t had that much time to play with it. 
2. Baking/Cooking:  which explains the excess 20 pounds
3. Being Frugal/Couponing:  I love bargains so much that (as I’ve mentioned before), I practically had an orgasm one day at Coldwater Creek when I walked out with 8 outfits for under $100.  Yesterday I went to Acme and got 4 pizzas, 6 bags of tortellini, a loaf of bread, 1 Rice A Roni and 2 boxes of granola bars for $7.10.  If I didn’t buy the tortellini it would have been $0.52.  Just pray you never get caught behind me in a supermarket!
4. Making jewelry:  please buy some so that Brad can stop bitching at me about how much I spend on beads (yes – I know I haven’t updated the site in a while!)
5. Blogging:  I know that is a cop-out answer, but I really am enjoying it.  Prior to starting this, I thought only self-absorbed losers blogged.  That may still be true but now that I am one of “them”, I maintain that only super-cool and sexy chicks/guys blog.  It’s kind of like in high school when the band-geeks thought they were the shit, but everyone knew they were just geeks (although from what I now understand, they were the ones doing the most fucking, so I guess the joke was on us!)

Five people to tag

• you, you, you, you and you (stop trying to click – there’s no links there!  If you want to do it then just tag yourself!)

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Something has to give, and I don’t know what it is…nor is there anything that I want to give up (aside from scrubbing toilets, but that isn’t really an option).

I don’t know what has happened recently.  My children are still wonderful and I love my husband….I just can’t figure out why any of them tolerate me any longer.  There just don’t seem to be enough hours in the day to get everything done and I find myself fantasizing about finding Martha Stewart and Mary Poppins and wringing their scrawny necks for setting the bar so high. 

Yes – it’s my own doing and I should just get over it.  But that isn’t going to happen.  It’s not in my personality.  I guess that is why Bree VanDeKamp is my favorite TV character….I understand her completely (aside from the part about the string of murderous lovers….at least I’m pretty sure about that part)

What’s strange is that the last two weeks have seen a decrease in my obligations.  My role as President of my mother’s club is all but over (nothing left but the end-of-year paperwork due by the 30th), pre-school is over so I have one less child to shuttle around, CCD is over, Prince #1 stopped having homework two weeks ago and the countdown to no longer having to deal with Satan’s Spawn is in single digits.

And I find myself praying for rain. 

Why?  Because when it rains the kids can stay inside and I can get shit done.  But with the weather being annoyingly beautiful the last few weeks (aside from the random one-day-monsoon), the kids want to be outside playing with their friends which means I need to be out there with them.

And how do I react to this incredible gift that I have been given of being allowed to stay at home and chalk in the driveway, swing on the swings and have water-gun fights with my children?  With resentment, a short temper and perpetual distraction.

I have 3 loads of laundry constantly sitting in my room that need to be folded with another 2 loads daily behind them that need to be done (especially now that they are playing outside and literally rolling in dirt). 

The thank-you notes still haven’t been sent from the Prince’s birthday party two weeks ago, the living room floor hasn’t been mopped in two weeks. 

I haven’t made a really nice (AKA “from scratch”) meal in over 3 weeks…it’s been frozen pizza, hot dogs, chicken nuggets or chicken on the grill with side dishes of chemicals straight from the box/mix. While this may be what the other four members of this house prefer eating, loading them up with high fructose corn syrup, salt, fat and powdered cheese is something I swore I would never do.

And let’s not even talk about the dining room…the “dumping ground” for everything that I need to get out of my way, but don’t want to take the time to run it upstairs, downstairs or out to the garage.

And as for sex?  There are Buddhist monks getting laid more often than me….and it certainly isn’t Brad’s fault or for lack of trying on his part.  It’s just that he often goes to bed with the kids (he has to be up and at work by 5:30am most days) and I usually need the time after the kids go to bed to straighten the kitchen or just have the first “me time” of the day.  The result?  I end up falling asleep on the sofa and not waking up until Brad is leaving for work.

I know what you are thinking (aside from “could this chick possibly whine a bit more?”).  You are thinking “Why doesn’t she give up the blog?  Why doesn’t she step away from the computer and fold that laundry or put away the dishes in the dishwasher?”

The answer is simple….I love you guys.  I really do.

Since I started this blog I have met so many people that I consider kindred spirits.  Not just from you people who read my ramblings, but especially from the wonderful blogs that I have found (click on links in the last sentence…I didn’t think this whole “link to other blogs” things out too well and I got shit to do as soon as I hit “publish”).  You people are just so fucking REAL, and there is such safety in the (not very) anonymous world of MommyBlogging (yes BusyDad – you’re a MommyBlog as far as I am concerned).  Sit at a playground with local woman and confess to not being a SuperMom and you get a bunch of looks that say “what’s wrong with you?”

Say the same thing on a blog (or read it on someone elses)  and you find yourself with more support and similar tales than anyone (including yourself) will admit to in real life.  I place a great deal of value on the informal support group that can be found in the MommyBlog world.

And I know that these feelings of inadequecy and frustration will pass.  They always do and I find myself back on track and happily scrubbing the tops of the door mouldings once again.

But for now, I will continue my wallowing….

I’ve been putting this one off because…well – it’s about my fat ass body.  Once I get through this, I should be able to burn through the remaining, and JoeTaxPayer gave me some good ideas for the final twenty.  Why didn’t I just skip over this one and do another? 

If you can ask that question, then you must not have been reading very long….there is a list and this topic was next!  I must go in order (I believe that’s actually a law).  Oh – and rearranging the list would have been cheating!

Aren’t I just becoming the master of the long-winded introduction?

10 Things About My Body:

1.  My height:  there ain’t much of it!  I stand at 5’2″, allowing me tower over my own children, but very few other people.    This is only really a problem when I go to parties and inevitably some drunk asshole (or my nephew) decides to use my head as an armrest.  Oh yeah – or when I want to do about 50% of the stuff in my kitchen.  Having 10′ ceilings with kitchen cabinets that go almost all the way up isn’t as glamorous as it sounds!  I have become quite the connoisseur of step-stools!

2.  My hair:  Many a fool woman has complimented me on my hair.  It is really thick with just the right amount of curl that makes it look great…9 months of the year.  In the summer (or when it rains), it tends to poof out and look like Monica from the episode of Friends when they went to the Barbados.  It used to be really blond.  It still is though, just not naturally!

3.  My toes:  are long enough to wrap around and perch with.  Yeah – thanks a whole lot Dad! 

4.  My eyes:  are blue.  Those I can thank my father for as well.  They are probably my best feature…at least that is what everyone has always told me

5.  My ass:  is fat.  ’nuff said

6.  My chin:  I have two of them (thanks Mom!).  It’s actually ok unless I smile, then my face looks about twice as big as it is (especially when you combine it with what my husband calls my “chipmunk cheeks”) .  Every woman on my mother’s side of the family has the same thing…even my really-skinny-former-beauty-pageant-winning cousin!

7.  My boobs:  are flat deflated not at all perky small.  After bearing and nursing 3 children, they are now on a first-name-basis with the Victoria’s Secret Angels Collection (although those stupid twits never want to believe me when I say I need a C-cup).  My older sister got all the boobs in the family.  Matter of fact - she has enough boobs for 4 families.  I believe that she owes me something for clearly stealing all the boob-genes from my mother before I was born!

8.  My stomach:  is….soft.  And droopy from 3 c-sections.  And yet it is still kinda flat.  I have been told my many people that I could firm it up with just a few million sit-ups, but that sounds like an awful lot of work!  I’m too old for midriff-baring clothes anyway.

9.  My skin:  is remarkably clear and has been all my life.  Aside from a few random pimples when I was pregnant, I’ve never had a problem with acne.  I have quite a few moles all over my body, but the worst have been removed by my friendly neighborhood plastic surgeon.  And despite being an idiot smoking for the last 20+ years, it is still soft supple and firm.  I don’t even have that many stretch marks.

10.  My weight:  is 20 pounds too high.  But I’m finally fine with that.  Sure, I would like to lose weight and have a tight ass and skinny thighs.  That effort remains ongoing.  But as long as I don’t gain any more and until Brad tells me that I am too fat to fuck, I refuse to stress myself out over it (and if Brad were to say that, he would find himself becoming more intimately acquainted with Righty and Lefty anyway!)

Ahhh – it’s finally over!  Now I can move on to more fun lists!

First – the virus: 

On the reccommendation of BlogWhichShallRemainNamelessBecauseItIsn’tHerFault, I signed up for WebsiteThatShallRemainUnNamedBecauseTheyCouldSueMyAssIntoBankruptcy and started taking the surveys.  After filling out registrations, surveys and forms, most of which took 5-10 minutes for a measly $.50 payout, I decided that it wasn’t worth all the effort (especially since I kept spending 10 minutes trying to qualify for a survey and getting rejected.  I guess that married stay-at-home-moms who have a mortgage and good credit and aren’t looking to change their internet service or buy a new dishwasher are pretty much useless in SurveyWorld!). 

But since I am cheap greedy sensible, I decided to stick it out and complete enough surveys/registrations to meet the minimum payout and get somethingfor all the time I wasted.  That was my mistake.  While I can never be sure, the fact that my computer started freezing every time I clicked on one of the offers and then one day just exploded with ads every time I turned on my computer seems a little too much of a coinky-dink to me.  That’ll learn me to try to get something for nothing but a fake email address!

Second:  the grocery store fit……

In the middle of all this, I hit a local grocery store….the one where I get to gaze upon KevinTheHunkySeafoodGuy (I believe that is his full legal name).  This used to be my favorite store until I started paying attention to prices and realized how expensive they are.  Now I do most of my grocery shopping at Giantand just hit Genuardi’s for their “loss leaders”.  And since their business in our neck of the woods seems to be hurting, they sent me a bunch of coupons for free shit.  It was time to go loss-leader-shopping with Brad & the kids in tow.

But you know what really sucks?  When you seem to know more about how their cash register works than the employees do.  When I walked up to that register I knew, within about $1, what my total was going to be ($74 for $17, thankyouverymuch).  And she was doing it wrong.  After 5 minutes of explaining to her that this was on sale, that coupon made this free, etc, Brad took the kids to the car.  And then the fun began.  She kept saying

“well – I’ll add it back in…or maybe I should take it off….or maybe I should just re-ring this.  Or maybe if I stand on one foot while singing the theme to Eight Is Enough it will magically make it all correct” 

At one point, she had my total down to $4 and couldn’t understand why I was arguing with her (because I may frugal and cheap, but I don’t steal…and in my mind, that would be taking things that I didn’t rightfully pay for!)  I kept asking her if she could get a manager and she refused.  Finally after 15 minutes of watching my ice cream melt, I’d had it and screamed

“Could SOMEBODY please find a manager and get her over here because this woman has absolutely no idea how to do her job!”

Oh – did I mention that this lady was probably about 99 years old?  I am nothing if not respectful of my elders!

Manager comes over, I apologize for screaming, ask her if we could just start the whole transaction over.  She agrees and starts to re-ring.  Hey!  What do you know!? The total was $17.04!  This did not please the manager.  As soon as she realized how many bags she was handing over for that amount, her entire demeanor changed.  For the first time in the 17 years I have shopped at that store, I didn’t get the “thank you for shopping with us and come back soon” line.  Ah well – screw ‘em if they don’t like people who actually take them up on their advertised prices!

I guess that’s enough catch-up for today.  Stay tuned tomorrow for the continuing saga of JeepBitch and BMWBitch!