Saturday, April 28, 2012

I LUV my Saturdays

Woke up early this morning and motored over to Watergate Marina so the hubby could help some friends out.  I packed up the car and drove to a studio near Downtown Houston for a photoshoot with the talented Tommy Lyles.  There were 3 different concepts that he was wanting to shoot and shooting with him was a pleasure, as always.  I am eagerly waiting to see the edited shots.  Notice I said eager and not patiently!  lol

Then it was back to the marina for lunch and a little paddleboard practice.  I'm getting much better and don't fear falling off as much as I have in the past.  The wind was blowing today and I did find it a tad hard to paddle against the wind.  At one point the wind blew me into an empty slip.  While this in itself was not the most graceful move, I was VERY proud that I didn't fall off or freak out.  I protected my board (and myself) from the docks and stayed calm.  Paddleboarding is a lot harder than it looks!

After paddleboarding I used the excuse of the board already being in the water to lay out on it for about 20 minutes.  The hubby mentioned something about being lazy, but I just said it was hard work tanning.  We have a going away party tonight for some friends and today will finish out with another reason why I LUV my Saturdays.

Friday, April 27, 2012

You are Brave

That is the single comment I hear the most when I tell people I have permanent eyeliner.  If you're not sure exactly what that is, it's basically where they tattoo on your eyeliner. 
 
Oh the pain!  Oh the agony!  Will this torture ever stop?!?!?
Ok, so really, it's not that bad.  But I have to give you readers a hard time every now and then. 
 
So when we decided to go cruising all I could think about was how I still wanted to look like a girl.  I didn't want to be one of those women who let themselves go because they live on a boat (you've all met a women like this before).  I've been lucky to run into a lot of women who still pride themselves on looking good.  Yes, it's a different version of good than an evening dress and updo, but didn't we all partially choose cruising to get away from that pretentiousness?  The boat women I know look healthy, happy, and beautiful. 
 
I realized that makeup was probably not something that I would spend a lot of time on out anchoring, but I didn't want to give it up completely.  So I started researching permanent makeup.  And I did A LOT of research.  I'd seen some friends with really good makeup, and I'd seen some friends who had spent thousands getting their first session corrected. 
 
Upon deciding on an artist I rushed directly to the Salon on my day off.  I didn't want to chicken out because I was sure if I had to wait too long I would find an excuse to miss the appointment.  So Chicken Little, drove straight over and made an appointment.  They couldn't get me in for a few hours so I went next door and had my nails and toes done.  Nothing like a few hours of people rubbing on your legs and feet to relax you. 
 
It was honestly a lot different than I expected.  The first 30 minutes are spent with them numbing you.  The technician applies a gel and sits a steamer right over the area.  The steam opens up the pores and makes the numbing more effective.  After 20-30 minutes they come in and open up the skin in several dots w/ the tattoo gun, apply more gel and you wait about 10 more minutes. 
 
Then it begins....
 
So it's not that painful, there are only a few time when you feel the prick of the needles.  Instead there is an uncomfortable pressure and vibration.  I think because it's right on top of your eyeballs that it makes it a tad worse.  I'm thinking eyebrows would be pretty darn easy.  The tattooing itself didn't last that long, maybe 20-30 minutes.  And my technician used saline to rinse off the area instead of rubbing (which is what causes most of the swelling and bruising).  I was lucky and she kept me talking the entire time, so it passed by fairly quickly.  I was a little afraid that I was going to have to have my eyes open for the bottom liner to be done, but I didn't so I was super happy. 
 
Here's my eye an hour after she finished
 
I was a little sore and swollen afterwards, but not that much.  The soreness only lasted a few hours.  The color is much darker and looks wet the first few days, then it starts to flake off and you can see the actual tattoo underneath.  You can go back in for a touch up at 3 weeks and I did to even out and darken a few places.  The touch up doesn't take near as long and is pretty easy.
 
If I had been smart I would have taken an ibuprofen before my first appointment.  And being relaxed really helps, but don't drink alcohol because it thins the blood. 

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Line Maintenance

If we haven't noticed I'm a person who has a lot of harmless addictions - sundresses, following blogs to name a couple.  Another addiction you may say I have is to make sure that all the lines are neat.  I'm not sure if this was born from it being the first thing I could do boat related (didn't really take a rocket scientist to figure out how to do it, and know when it needed to be done).  Or if it's because I'm a tad bit OCD when it comes to things like this.  (I'm betting you can tell which line belongs to me.)


What I mean by that is many moons ago I was a personal banker.  I had a pretty lil office and we were always selling these March of Dimes Chocolate Covered Almond Boxes.  Now they set on the corner of my desk and I was very particular about my boxes.  They either had to be organized to be parallel to each other, or I would build a sort of log cabin out of them so that they were perpendicular to each other.  If a box was moved I would stop what I was doing to "straighten" them back out. 

My coworkers knew about my slight obsession of keeping my boxes straight and would take turns coming into my office, talking to me about something important, and moving the Almond boxes as they talked.  KNOWING that I was too polite to interrupt the very important conversation going on to straighten the boxes.  But it would drive me crazy.  Pretty much the second a box was moved ALL I could think about is how much longer it would take them to tell their story and get out of my office so I could move things back to their proper place.  One coworker said I even had a slight twitch when this was happening.  Some of them would make bets on how long it would take me to straighten the boxes after the person left my office. 

I told that story to tell this one.  When we moved over here to the Boardwalk I noticed that the docks were littered with unkempt lines!!!  Oh the travesty of it all.  I walked down the dock with my hubby one day and told him that he was going to awake in them middle of the night one night and I would be missing.  He would go out into the cockpit and see the "Line Fairy" going down the docks straightening everyones lines.  I literally made this comment for 3 or 4 days.  (Come to find out another live aboard couple had actually done this once because it drove them crazy too.) 

But then one day I'm walking down the docks and start noticing that everyone on the docks had started taking care of their lines!  I'm not sure if it was a pride thing and everyone started doing it after we did, if people overheard my comments and didn't want the "crazy lady" coming by touching their stuff, or if my hubby actually did it to placate me.  But whichever way, I can walk down the docks in peace now :P

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

In Search of a Solar Shower

I'm one of those people that requires hot water.  I have this feeling that whatever you're cleaning just doesn't get clean without hot water.  This could be your face, your dishes, or your head (that's what we call a bathroom on a boat).  Now our boat has a fairly large water heater - 11 gallons.  But unfortunately it's not hooked up to the engine quite yet, and even when it is I'd like to have the ability to have hot water at other times during the day. 

So this sent us out on the hunt for a solar shower to one of my favorite places.

Maybe it's because I grew up in the country, but I freakin LOVE this place.  Where else do you get to see all these neat little set ups as you walk around a store?



They even have an aquarium with a gar inside.  I'm particularily facinated with gar because we have aligator gar in our marina and they are big incentive for me learning to not fall off my paddleboard. 


My hubby made fun of me as we walked through the store and all of a sudden I yelled out "Puppy Down", then made him wait as I took a picture of it.  If you can't act silly in a place that contains this much fun, where can you act silly?


On the way out they had this old truck set up as decoration, I thought it was pretty darn neat.

Oh, and we did obtain my solar shower.  I like it so much I'm thinking about acquiring another one just for backup.  They have a simple one at Walmart for about half as much.  I'll probably pick it up next week.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Solar Panels are UP and I'm off to buy a 12V hairdryer

We are officially off grid!!! 

One thing that has earned me my spoiled Princess title would be my need for electricity.  I don't necessarily know how much will be necessary once we're out there, but I would rather have more that we need.....than less.  Especially if I'm expected to keep blogging, I need electricity to blog!


Over the past few months my hubby has been buying solar panels, aquiring a wind generator, and a few other neat gadgets that I've been super excited about.  Today they are finally installed and we are COOKIN!  Ok, so not cooking food, but we're creating awesome amounts of electricity :) 

This nifty lil guy tells us our voltage in the house bank, how many amps we're drawing, and (the best part) how many hours we have until our battery bank reaches 50%.  How cool is that?!?!?!?!


I'm a little giddy about this if you can't tell.  There's been an ongoing joke onboard about how I'm having to come up with a hairstyle that requires no electricity to fix :/  Well that's a little difficult once you consider the type of hair I have.  It's fine, barely any body, and isn't quite straight but not quite curly either.  Most days I "grrrrrrrrrr" at it very loudly and stick it up in a clip.  But there are occassions that I want to look a lil nice.  So I started looking for 12 V hair dryers so that on special days I could at least use a roll brush and fix my bangs.  He caved eventually and now that I have solar panels I can go out an buy one :)

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Bunny in the Bluebonnets

Not sure how it's happened, but I've grown up having quite possibly the most unoriginal nicknames known to man.  It started my sophmore year in high school at the State FFA Convention.  I was running around the hotel with some other girls and when a cute group of boys asked me my name I replied "Barbie".  They didn't believe me, so I made up this entire about how my parents had been crazy hippies and my name in fact was Barbie, not Barbara, and I had a big brother named Ken and a little sister named Skipper.  The nickname stuck and I was called Barbie for years after that.  In fact when I visit home I still have a few friends that call me that.

The next one isn't anymore original, but has had staying power of 13 years now.  Bunny......  When I was about 19 I had a friend who got in the habit of calling her boyfriend Honey Bunny.  I became Sugar Bunny.  And another guy she dated was The Great Big Bunny.  Every Easter she used to buy the bag of Sweet Tarts Chicks, Ducks, and Bunnies and give them to me because they contained Sugar Bunnies.  Honey Bunny and The Great Big Bunny lost their novelty over time but because she had so many friends name Amanda my nickname got shortened to Bunny and everyone in that group of friends calls me Bunny to this day.

So I've also mentioned that I model on occassion.  About two weekends ago I headed out to see the Texas Bluebonnets with two of my favorite photogs to see what we could come up with.  This entire set was called A Beautiful Bunny in the Bluebonnets.  So I had to tell you the backstory of Bunny to make this post make sense.

The absolutely fabulously talented Tommy Lyles took the following pics of me.  If you want to see more of his work check out his FB page   https://www.facebook.com/signal2noisephotography






Thursday, April 19, 2012

Dinner in the cockpit

There's something about springtime and dinner in the cockpit.  The weather has been absolutely gorgeous lately.  Not too hot, not too chilly.  The perfect time to join hands with that special someone and go dock walking. 
 
Last night we ran to the grocery store and picked up Tilapia, yellow squash, & asparagus.  The hubby prepared the fish with seasoning, some fresh garlic, and a twist of lemon.  All while I made foil packages of veggies, seasoning, and butter to put on the grill.  Oh I almost forgot to mention that we snacked on crab legs w/ some extra hot cocktail sauce.  This is a girl that would do almost anything for crab legs.  I do believe they are my favorite food of all time, followed closely by shrimp and scallops. 
 
It was all grilled up and accompanied by the boat music Pandora station.  Then it was up in the cockpit for dinner, relaxing, music, and conversation about boat projects.  Dinner in a house never felt like this.  Even dinner outside on a patio or by a pool doesn't quite have the same feel.  Dinner outside when you live in house always seems like a lot of work to enjoy 30 minutes to an hour.  Dinner in the cockpit or out on the aft deck is a simple as taking your plate up the companionway.  There's no big preparation, no sense of needing to hurry up so you can clean everything up and get back inside. 
 
The closest feeling to this type of peace on land I ever had, was vacationing up in Tennessee.  We would spend every evening sitting on the front porch with nothing to do.  Nothing besides watching the grass grow and enjoying the breeze bring along the smells of the outdoors. 
 

But I think I'll take every day out on the water vs. a week's vacation in TN once every 3 years!!!

Monday, April 16, 2012

Chain Chain Chaaaaaaaaain

Chain of Fools























or is it the other way around?
No just joking, it was definately a LOT of chain.  A lot of heavy chain.  Our entire finger pier was listing to the side that they had it laid down on.  It even made the dock cart tire look flat!





 I helped too.  Yep, sure did :)  Or I at least moved the dock cart out of the way as they lifted all the chain out of it.  It's a tough job, but someone had to do it.





















Saturday, April 14, 2012

It's been said that I'm spoiled

But my Pawpaw used to always say that I wasn't spoiled, if I was he could have smelled me.  Instead, I was overly loved. 

But sometimes you just have to live up to what people call you and buy a bumper sticker to match.

After Thursday night and my all day Friday hangover, we decided to go over to the Boardwalk and have a nice dinner.  The Tilapia Bianca was delicious and I'm considering having my leftovers for breakfast this morning.  And I am happy to report that the only drinks being consumed were Cokes with fresh lime.  I think the rest of the marina was feeling my hangover too because the docks were still and silent last night by 11:30. 

Walking the Boardwalk is always fun.  There's a colonial style inn at the center, restaurants galore, rides, games, and live music constantly.  They even have a place where water shoots up from the ground at timed intervals and you can watch or play around and get wet.  We got to see a bird catch his dinner.  It was a ribbon fish and I had never seen one before.  It looked like a small eel and I was told they have 2 very nasty teeth up front.  It was quite a show and several people gathered around to take pictures.  We watched a second bird try and catch the same fish but alas his efforts were thwarted by the twisty fish.  These scary looking fish can grow up to 50 ft in length!!!  I can see how in the pictures of sea serpents on old maps appear to be based off of these guys.  But no mythical creatures for us, the ones we saw were only about a foot long.  But before we headed back to the boat I did take a picture with a shark! 


Heehee, or kinda something like that.


Friday, April 13, 2012

We're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat......

 to hold all the Ibuprofen I'm going to need while out cruising.
 
Ohhhhhhhh you think I would learn.  You think I would learn enough to at least not do it on a work night.  But no, time and time again I do it. 
 
Last night we had some friends come over with a bottle of rum.  Then there were Bloody Marys, then red wine.  We did eat shrimp cocktail and then pizza, but I think the damage had been done by then.  And yes, pepperoni and black olive pizza is a perfect pairing with shrimp cocktail......when you're tipsy. 
 
I may have mentioned my plan to slip into something with black lace and pink satin trim.  And by "may" I mean I'm pretty certain I did, and a tad embarrassed by it.  Although I shouldn't be, and that's why I love cruising friends.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

5 Minute Fabulous


On the boat, I have learned the true need of "5 minute makeup".  I cannot tell you how many time I have been in the middle of cooking dinner and the hubby will ask if we have enough for 4 people.  Of course, I say, b/c I come from a family with a hoss of a father and 3 brothers.  My Mama could cook for an army and not break a sweat.  Now you think I would learn....but nope.  Inevitably I will ask how much time till (enter couple's name here) will be over and the response is always - 10 minutes. 
10 minutes?  Yes, 10 minutes and possibly even shorter than that.  BC in the world outside of a marina, friends are a drive away.  They have to lock up their homes, get in the car, and drive over.  But not in a marina.  Nope, they're a short walk away.  Oh joy!
Sooooooo panic breaks out.  Women, wives, girlfriends, and hostesses..... you KNOW what I'm talking about.  All while finishing up dinner you make a mad dash to pick up and put up the boat.  Which is always in a messy state.  Then you try to make yourself look slightly better than embarrassing, and put on a smile to greet the guests as you pour the first round of sundowners.  Ok, so some people may not do this.  But I'm from Texas and we call it being hospitable.  In the cruising community - do your guests actually care if your boat and you are a mess?  Of course not :)  But this is Texas and some things are just sacred.
So in emergency situations like the one above, I have the ultimate 5 minute makeup routine.  Note this is for a "clean face", b/c if you already have makeup on then you can just touch up and we all know how to do that. 
Wet a rag w/ hot water and rinse off face - this will get all the icky oil off your face, freshen you up, and get some blood flowing
Apply some Vit C brightening cream on those dark circles under your eyes - not a lot, just enough to moisten the area for what's next.  Merle Norman's is to die for
Apply concealor to your dark circles and any red spots you may have - blot, don't rub
Use a foundation brush to apply a loose mineral foundation - Bare Minerals is my personal favorite, but I've been using Mary Kay lately and it's pretty good too
With your blush brush apply blush to cheeks and eyelids - it's amazing the difference adding it to your eyelids makes
Mascara, Lip Gloss and you're done
You may have noticed that I did not mention eyeliner.  Well that's b/c I have permanent eyeliner and have started to believe it's a necessity for any female cruiser.  But you can hear the story of how my eyeballs got tattooed at a later date.


(Oh, and just so you can see that Princess Aboard does in fact own a tiara and a scepter.  Not on the boat, but at Joe's Crab Shack about to enjoy some seafood.  Notice the pretty drink too!) 

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Under the Boardwalk, Down By the Sea

JusCrewZen has been at her new home in Kemah Boardwalk Marina for a week now.  She likes it here and so do I.  Of course she'd rather be "out there", but we are still in the preparing stages.  So as far as marinas go, this one is pretty cool.  As my friend Attila on a sailboat named Bettie used to say "Yeah, we live in an amusement park".



The first marina we called home was Waterford Harbor Marina where the website boasts "Waterford Harbor Marina offers you all the charm and elegance of a Williamsburg-style". And I won't lie.... I loved it there.  The marina itself is absolutely beautiful and it's like coming home to vacation at a resort every day.  Spoiled???  Heck yeah!  One day I even said "It's like being on permanent vacation....with neighbors".

A word of advice to the men out there trying to get their women aboard: Make it as nice, easy, and pleasant as possible for the first 6 months to a year.  Pick the pretty marina, the one with a lot of extras.  Let her get used to going from a large home or apartment to living on a boat in the most inviting environment possible. 

I almost refuse to speak about it, but for 2 wks we lived in marina hell.  The place I drive by and flip off.  The place I STILL have nightmares about.  Notice I will NOT call this marina our first home.  The previous owner hadn't paid slip rent in almost a year, so 2 wks was spent working thru that mess.  And I won't lie.....as a brand new live aboard, I cried more than once during those 2 weeks b/c I hated living on the boat.  We had to park our cars on gravel, dock carts did not exist, no trees, no shade, and this marina is where everyone comes to have their boats hauled out and put on the hard to be worked on.  The constant noise of sanding and sawing and hammering and nailing was enough to drive a woman insane.  So not only was I trying to acclimate to living in smaller quarters, but I was doing it smack dab in the middle of hell. 

When we moved to Waterford by attitude changed w/in the first 24 hours.  I spent every day at the pool on the weekends and M-F we went for an evening swim at least 3 times a week.  Sittin out on the aft deck and grilling in the evenings w/ a drink in hand was pleasurable.  I fell in love w/ the lifestyle almost immediately.  Moving me into that marina was the smartest thing we ever did. 

But it was a time for a change of pace, so we motored over to the Boardwalk.



It's lively over here, and I'm loving it.  We're walking distance from so many restaurants and little shops.  I'm absolutely dying to go to The Haunted Heel.  It's a shoe store, and even if I can't buy any heels I can still look! 



From the deck we can hear the live music in the evenings.  I can't think of a better way to explain this marina than "just plain fun".



Friday, April 6, 2012

Even a Princess Cooks Sometimes

I giggle a bit at the title b/c honestly I cook most of the time.  While I am learning slowly, I'm not NEAR as handy as my hubby (hmmmmm maybe I meant to say handsey).  So I figure if he's working on boat projects, which really I'm pretty sure never stop, that I may as well cook.  So I figured a share a recipe that the hubby taught me, cause he loves soups.

Water
Chicken (i like raw chicken breasts, but canned will work as well)
Veggies (you can add or take out as you wish)
     Yellow Squash
     Zuchinni
     Jalepenos (3 is how many I use)
Cajun Seasoning
Garlic Powder
Onion Powder
Salt
Lime Juice
Rice
Avocados
Shredded Cheese


Take a decent sized stock pot and fill up 1/2 to 2/3rd of the way w/ water depending on how decently sized your pot is.  As it warms to a boil start chopping your chicken if it's raw, and season it w/ the Cajun Seasoning.  Once the water boils drop in your raw chicken.  Now start to chopping your veggies.  I like to slice up mine like you would put cucumber on a salad.  If you like your soup milder, you want to core out the seeds from your peppers.  If you like it spicy like I do, slice em up!  Reduce your head to Medium.  Drop in your veggies and start to season the soup w/ your Cajun Seasoning, Garlic Powder, Onion Powder, and Salt.  At this point you will cook till your veggies are ALMOST as soft as you want them.  Add a few squirts of Lime Juice and a little more seasoning if you want.  Drop in your uncooked Rice, I use 2 cups, and cook according to the package.  For me this is normally 7-10 minutes. 

Remove from heat and serve into bowls (or cups).  Slice up your Avocados for topping and sprinkle on your cheese.  If you like your soup extra cheesy try adding the cheese to the bottom of the bowl as well. 

If you use canned chicken you can season it w/ the Cajun Seasoning and drop in w/ your veggies. 

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Ode to Waxing

So you have to forgive me a little bit.  But waxing has been on my mind A LOT lately.  You may find this odd.  Or say "what in the heck does this have to do with living aboard?" 
 
I need to start this by explaining that from about 14 years old to my mid twenties I produced a very large amount of testosterone. Lots of blood tests were run, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it was basically just me, and they figured that I'd grown out of it. Now if you know me, this explains a lot. I have a temper, I'm one of those people that "see red". Now as I've gotten older, it has decreased and I no longer have to beat the ever living crud out of punching bags or save up empty pickle jars so that I can break them on the driveway whenever I'm trying to let out my frustration. I rarely ever feel the need to rip someone’s head off, spit down their neck, and then shove the head upside down as far south as I can. Rarely ever ;)
 
But the side effect that I hate the most, has been the man beard hair that lived on my legs. I'm not kidding. My leg hair used to scare small children, large children, heck large adults. I've been known to make a tire go flat by accidentally brushing against it on a summer day after not having shaved for 2 days. It used to be bad, ask anyone.
 


 
"So you have thick and dark leg hair, so what?"
 
Well the "so what?" is that I want to go cruising!  I'm planning for a life of swimsuits, sundresses, and shorts.  (We are completely dismissing my husband's want to sail up to Alaska.)  And my once weekly shaving routine just isn't going to cut it.  Never mind the fact that I really don't want to shave on a boat every day.  I just don't trust myself w/ a razor at anchor.  I'm a tad accident prone.  I'll tell you later about the time I shaved off my fingernail.  (I'll give you a second to cringe and shudder for a second.)
 
I've thought about Nair, which I do love...  But again, it's something that I would have to do once a week and I also think that the chemicals in Nair probably (and by probably I mean definitely) not good for the environment. 
 
And then I discovered the joys of regular waxing. I used to get my legs waxed in the summers, once a month, but I always did it at a salon and it just got too expensive. And then I was introduced to the wonderful - at home - New Surgi Wax roll on system. **sigh of relief**.
I've tried at home waxing before, and it never worked. This stuff is fabulous, it works like a dream. Ok, so yeah, the first few times hurt. But after that, the hair grows back only 1/4 to 1/2 as thick (I'm killing off hair follicles by the thousands, mwaaa haa haa ha). And it's lighter and softer. I've decided that if I wax enough, I may possibly kill off every hair on the entire lower half of my body. Don't you dare go ruining my dream by telling me it's not going to happen. I have dreams, I have hopes, I have goals!!!!
 
But more importantly I have legs that I don't have to shave every day. I waxed 2 weeks ago, and unless you get very close and look - you can't tell I have any leg hair. I keep saying that it's the little things in life that bring us joy. Ahhhh, no leg hair, what joy!
 

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Roach Encounters of the Third Kind

The hubby is very strict about cardboard on the boat.  Shipping boxes he won't even let come on board, and anything else cardboard gets taken to the trash almost immediately.  The first few times he mentioned this, I was like "ok, i get it, the cardboard gets wet and mildewy and just plain gross."  He quickly correctly me and informed me it was because of the roaches.
 
Roaches?  What?  Excuse me, I need you to say that again. 
 
I hate roaches.  I've never been lucky enough to encounter one of those small German roaches.  No, not me.  the roaches that I've always come into contact with have been the HUMOUNGOUS flying kind.  Palmetto bugs, tree roaches, whatever you want to call them.  They're the type that Raid doesn't even phase.  Instead, they're waking you up in the middle of the night like a meth addict hissing, "Hey, hey you, you got anymore of that spray?"
 
You may think I'm overreacting a tad, so let me share you a small story I wrote 3 years ago after such an encounter.
========================================================================
 
I've looked deep inside myself. I've mustered up the courage. And now, after many hours of deep breathing and near panic attacks, I feel that I can share w/ you........ my encounter w/ the Roach.
 
On Wednesday night I went to bed like any normal 29 year old female would. At 2:10am I woke up to use the bathroom. When I came back to bed Bella (my 20 lb Persian cat) had started crying. I tried petting her - didn't work. I got up to make sure she had food - food bowl full. I even turned on the bathtub faucet so that she could get a drink if she wanted - no luck. At about 2:45am I am at my whit's end and have resorted to throwing pillows. (Yeah, get off you high horse and be glad I didn't have a shoe.)
 
I felt myself drift off shortly before 3am. When! All of a sudden! I felt something "crawl" down my back. I leapt up in bed, threw my shirt off, and frantically starting trying to get whatever was on me, OFF!!!!! Once I felt secure that the perpetrator was no longer on my person, I put my glasses on and started searching in the bed. I searched for a good 30 seconds and then a MASSIVE roach sped along beside me. Using my pillow as a weapon I swept him of the bed.  (This was a feat of pure courage and athleticism on my part.)
 
Now in hindsight I probably should have turned on the light before I started looking for the "crawly thing", but I didn't. So I've decided to do it now. The roach on the floor is long gone by now, but had left a very odd looking pod in the bed w/ me. Internet research the next day led me to identify said pod as an egg sack. (Yes, you may go throw up now.)
 
Well it's not like i can sleep in my bed any longer, so at 3:15am I make my way to the couch. Fifteen minutes later and I have to pee...... again. So I go to the front bathroom and no sooner than I have started, the roach comes from behind the toilet and runs at my feet. So I am now, sitting on the toilet w/ my feet up in the air, trying to squish him w/ a plunger. He finally crawled under the bathmat, and I left him there so that I could finish what I was doing and go find the roach spray (feet still in the air).
 
Apparently, someone else had used all the ant and roach spray and all I could find was wasp and hornet killer. **sigh** So I bravely went back into the bathroom w/ the wasp and hornet killer in one hand and a plunger in the other. My exceptionally impressive roach herding skills came into play as I flushed him out from under the bathmat, sprayed him w/ the spray, and trapped him under the plunger. Yes.... I am THAT good.
 
And I left him there till the next morning for my little brother to dispose. This has nothing to do w/ me being deathly afraid of roaches and wanting to throw up every time I think of one. I just figured that I had done all of the hard work and he should pull his share of the weight. Really!!!!