HM Returns To The Mansion

I am back from my gambling excursion. I would like to report that
I won. And I did...yesterday. But of course I couldn't let well enough
alone. I had to continue. I was ahead by $90 last night. That was fun
while it lasted. I don't know the grand total yet, because I haven't
had time to count up all my sessions. That's what I do. I divide up my
money into sessions. Not sections. Sessions. For instance, I took some
money to Ameristar. That was a mistake, because I left about $40 of
it there. But I still have $90 of the $100 worth of lottery ticket winnings
that I took. Then I had afternoon, nighttime, and morning sessions of
gambling money laid out for Harrah's. Not so much laid out as folded
and stacked in my purse. My new Wal*Mart purse that cost me $9.97.
Just so you know where my priorities lie. And the money was all facing
the same way, in order of highest denomination to lowest. Can you say
OCD? I know you can, Diva. With me it is not about alphabetizing the
canned goods, but about sorting the money. Over and over.

Don't worry about my young 'uns going without Christmas presents...
I only take what I've squirrelled away from years worth of gambling
excursions. I keep it hermetically sealed in Dollar Store fake
Tupperware. HH is not allowed to get into it. HELLOOOO! He had
the same chance to bring back and squirrel away his winnings. Ahem.
If he had winnings. He keeps putting his back into the slots until it's all
gone. I know when to stop. When the session money runs out. You
can't go back and cannibalize your profits. In a perfect world, or with
a little luck, you can come back with 90% of what you started with.
Which was illustrated by my scratch-off ticket money. Go figure!
All you have to do is keep a mental total of what the machine has
paid you, and CASH OUT when you get down to that level. For
instance, if you put $20 into a quarter slot machine, you get 80 credits.
Each time it pays, you think, "That's 10. 15. 17. 22. Whatever, you
keep adding it in your head. If you're at 38, cash out when your credits
go down to 38. You've only got about half your money back, but the
more you play other money in other machines, the more it will even out.
Just don't spend that 38 credits ($9.50). That way, you'll never leave
empty-handed, and you'll always have money to play again.

Wake up! Hillbilly Mom's gambling seminar is now over. That will be
$495, please. And don't let the door hit your a$ on the way out.

I got home around 4:00. I have unpacked. I stopped on the way home
for milk and bread (the store won't sell it to HH, apparently), and left
the milk sitting on the sink for an hour-and-a-half. Do you think it's
still good? I put it in the fridge. I kind of forgot about it. It blended in
with the sink. That never would have happened if HH had given me
my stainless steel sink when he built the Mansion. But nooo...HH had
to have an off-white, almondish-colored ceramic sink. Like he was
the one who was going to spend about 5 years of his life with his
hands in it. So really, it is HH's fault the milk was left out. Oh, well.
I don't like milk. The kids will let me know if it's no good.

HH is gone to Fort Leonard Wood to receive his 2nd oldest boy,
who returned today from his 2nd tour in Iraq. HH says the families
only get them for the night, then Uncle Sam gets them again until
Thursday. That is, unless the boy takes a job training recruits, which
he has been talking about. In that case, supposedly he can come
home until the end of the week. We'll see. I'm not sure on all the
details, because it was a big hush-hush affair, and the little soldiers
could not even call their families to tell them what time they'd be
arriving until they touched down in Maryland. I'm glad he's back.
He said the last two weeks were the worst fighting he's seen in the
two years he was in Iraq. His job was finding and detonating bombs.
He has said he loves his job, because he feels that he has a purpose,
and that at home he's just a regular guy, nothing special. Nope.
Nothing special. Just a 24-year-old sergeant who spent two years
of his life fighting in Iraq. Oops! Hillbilly Mom is about to get
sentimental. With the emphasis on mental.

With HH gone, I plan to relax and do nothing except watch bad
reality television. On the agenda are The Amazing Race (which I
consider GOOD reality television), Girls Next Door, and possibly
Intervention. Some of them are on at the same time, so I have to
catch them later in the evening. I might also make some Boy Scout
popcorn for the young 'uns. They don't know that back in the day,
before microwaves were invented, people actually poured oil and
popcorn into a pan and heated it on the stove!
It was like the Stone Age!

No cracks about Hillbilly Mom being a fossil. Lantern! Stew!
This means YOU!