A Long Overdue Milestone

We have been working on a big project with #2 all summer long. It is a project that we avoided for a very long time, hoping against hope that the project would take care of itself. Alas it did not take care of itself...so we were left to deal with it.

The project has been to help #2 stop sucking her thumb.

Yes my 7 year old daughter sucked her thumb up until a few weeks ago.

When she was a baby the thumb sucking was a blessed thing. She would not take a pacifier, and at first often used my pinkie to soothe her self and satisfy her needs. Since I could not always be there to offer a pinkie, she eventually found solace in her own thumb. We vowed at that time that we would let her give it up on her own, and not do foolish things like paint her thumb with foul tasting stuff to deter her. We naively assumed that she would give it up by the time she entered school, much as her sister gave up her beloved blankie.

Ohhh how wrong we were.

We did put some limits on thumb sucking. Once preschool started we instituted the no thumb sucking at school rule. Not too hard for her, as she relied on it mainly for when she was very upset, sleepy, or at times when she was inactive. We then moved from there that there was no thumb sucking outside the home. That was tougher, but still not too bad. Still we assumed she would give it up herself.

A few years in to school and she was still at it. Now our avoidance had everything to do with total dread of the hell we knew was going to come from trying to make her quit. So we put it off.

Then last spring she was invited to a slumber party at her best friend's house. This activity was NOT met with the enthusiasm I expected. Of course being the mom that I am I starting asking, "whassa goin' on???" Finally #2 confesses that she does not want to go because she does not want the other kids to see her sucking her thumb at night when she is going to sleep.

Now at this point my therapist red flags start going up. We are now broaching the "behavior interfering with participating in life activities" range. I had a conference with BH immediately and it was decided that we could put off addressing the issue no longer. (OK we decided to wait until summer break, but you get the idea!)

So it was decided that we would take things slowly. We began by giving up thumb sucking during times that she was really not engaging in the behavior that much. We took things in increments of a few hours. Rewarded her for each successful day with a dime, and every three weeks the no thumb sucking time was increased. The end reward for giving up the thumb altogether was a slumber party with her friends.

I have to say this all went MUCH MUCH MUCH better than I ever anticipated. She was very edgy about the idea, but really motivated by the rewards. In the end she took the initiative to make the increases sooner than we had stated and moved things along at a good clip. There were some tough moments, particularly as she was figuring out new coping skills, but all in all I was shocked at how easily this went and kicked myself for not trying it sooner.

The last time to go was night time. Boy did we dread that. The time to move on to that one came just as we were going on vacation, so we put it off. Then when we got home it was time to start school...so we put it off again. Also we had no f'ing idea how to go about this one. This was the mother of all.....

Then.......

Two weeks ago at bedtime #2 asks when it is time to give up the thumb at night. We told her we could start in a few weeks once she was good and settled in to school. #2 says I think I would like to start tonight. BIG PAUSE. "Okkkaaaayyy" we said cautiously, "if you are sure...." She was definitely sure. So on we went. I fully expected her to come out in about 5 minutes completely distraught and saying she had changed her mind and couldn't do it. No such thing. We checked on her and she went to sleep with very little trouble NO THUMB.

WOW.

She had one night where she was wavering, but it was an up too late overtired moment that a solid bout of snuggling helped her through. She has come up with some good ways to help cope when she wants to suck her thumb and we have now gone almost three weeks thumb free at night and recently we were able for the first time to put nailpolish on all 10 fingers!

HOOORRAAAYYY!!! Mission accomplished!!!

Tomorrow....Slumber Party! Complete with two good friends, pizza, popsicles, popcorn, much giggling, games and likely little sleeping. She is so excited that she is having trouble sleeping tonight and has reminded me no less than 50 times since I got home from work at 5 that,

"TOMORROW IS THE DAY!!!"

Indeed it is.

Living Like the Quimby's

Here at Chez Babble we all gather on the Big Bed to read together right before the children go to Dreamland.

In the past couple of months we have read a few of the Ramona books by Beverly Cleary. Can I say how much I am enjoying the girls being old enough to appreciate some of my favorites from when I was their age. Little House, Ramona, The Boxcar Children. It is F-U-N.

For those of you for have never had the pleasure of reading one of the Ramona books, or if it has been so long that you can't remember let me refresh your memory.

The books begin when Ramona is about 5 years old. She is a rather precocious, funny, and some times annoying child. She lives at home with her parents and older sister Beezus, whom she annoys greatly.

As we have read these books, I have been surprised at the amount of conversation that has been generated among the four of us as we compare the "life" of the Quimby's to our own. There are some pretty major differences. A major theme in the books is the fact that the Quimby's are not a family that has a lot of money. They are not living in poverty by any means, but the words scrimping and saving are present with some frequency and there is often mention made of the fact that the family can not afford many things. For the Quimby's a bag of chips or Gummy Bears from the store is a treat that only happens on payday. A trip out to eat at a restaurant is almost unheard of. At one point in the series Mr. Quimby loses his job and is out of work for several months and treats of any kind are stopped altogether.

The life of Ramona and her sister is pretty different from the life my girls lead where what are considered treats for the Quimby's happen on nearly a daily basis. We think nothing of throwing a bag of chips in the grocery cart, my kids get candy FAR more than they should. Trips to get ice cream are commonplace and don't get me started on how often we go out to eat in a single week. It is disgraceful really. My children take piano, violin, tennis, and dance lessons (that is two activities per kid, not all four for each child!) They get to spend at least three weeks at a fun day camp in the summer.

We had a good discussion one evening (walking home from DQ funnily enough) about the differences between our family and the fictional Quimby's. I have to say that what my kids likely consider to be a treat, would be considered out of the question were they a Quimby.

This month as the bills rolled in for vacation, we had a tough decision to make, pay them all off now, or later. Knowing the right and smart thing to do was to pay them off now, we bit the bullet and did it. That means a skintight budget for the rest of the month. No eating out, no trips for ice cream, all those extras are G-O-N-E. I am also giving up my yoga class for this month. So we sat the kiddoes down and explained that this month we were going to live like the Quimby's. We expected wails, whining, and gnashing of teeth.

Surprise!

We got none of that. They were totally cool with the idea, and we have heard nary a complaint. #2 was worried that we would have to postpone her slumber party that was already in the works BEFORE we paid the bills and saw that we needed to be frugal because the plan had been to order her favorite pizza for it. We were smart enough to make sure that was covered to reassure her worried little head.

So here we are three days in to it and so far so good. I hope that this will maybe....MAYBE be the start of something new and better for us.

Living a little less large will benefit us all I think.

Muh-muh-muh My PIANO

Back at the end of the school year a colleague of BH's asked if he would be interested in a piano. A FREE PIANO.

Never being one to pass up a good bargain BH said, "Yes!"

BH and I are champeen procrastinators so we just got around to getting that piano today.
Boy is #2 excited. Her first words upon waking up this morning were, "Hoooray!! Today is piano day!!"

We had to purge the playroom and make toy sacrifices to make room for the new addition.
#2 was not at all happy with my procrastinating ways on Saturday when it came to making the playroom piano ready. At one point when I had told her for the 12 millionth time that I was not quite ready to start the purge she stomped off to her room in a huff. She found me a short time later in the laundry dungeon and said, "While I was being mad in my room I figured out that if I want to do what I want then I am going to have to help get other stuff done, so what can I do to help?" That very loud chorus of angels you heard singing about 2:00 CST last Saturday? That was coming from my house. That is what happens when your child has such an epiphany.
So she helped. We purged and now we have this:

It is older obviously and has some character, but it works. It needs to be tuned, but for now it is not painfully out of tune. It also goes well with our woodwork. Which is important you know!

Now #1 can tune her violin (praise Jesus!) and soon #2 will be plunking out tunes. As soon as we get her started on lessons.

A task which I hope won't fall victim to my procrastination disease.

Not likely. Persistent 7 year olds are a good antidote to that problem.

Hello, My Name is Missy and I Suffer From Low Blog-Esteem

I seem to once again been in the throes of to blog or not to blog angst.
This is an affliction I suffer from on a fairly regular basis.

My angst involves many questions:

• Why exactly am I blogging?
• Is anybody reading this damn thing?
• Should I be more focused in what I blog about?
• Are my posts too negative too frequently?
• Am I as boring as I think I am?
• Would having a regular feature be a good thing?
• What would my regular feature be about?
• Are my kids going to hate me some day because I put embarassing stories out there for the whole world to see?
• Man I wish I could write about stuff that happens at work. THAT would be some good reading.
• Why exactly am I blogging?
• See above

There are more thoughts and questions, but I don't feel like writing them down.

I have had this blog up and running for almost three years now, and it seems a shame to abandon the ship. I probably won't. If nothing else this blog is the only documentation I have of many things that have happened with me and the family, and having it does encourage me to keep that up which is probably a good thing I suppose.

I go through periods where I think that I want to do something to increase readership, but I hold back. To get more readers means reading more blogs, commenting on them and all that stuff. I am not sure that I have nor want to invest that kind of time. Also I am quite shy about all that. There are many blogs that I lurk about with nary a peep, and my site meter tells me that I have lurkers on this blog too.

However just as often I feel no need to increase readership and stand firm that this blog is for friends and family...(well maybe not so much family, I don't believe any of my family know this thing exists which may not be such a bad thing....then again if I am in my increase readership frame of mind what better way than to inform all 8 million of my family members....oops rambling!) and that those who are interested visit here on a regular basis, which is enough.

Sooo.....that is what I have been thinking about recently. Among other things. Like songs that would be good for Rockband, my level of disappointment that Sebelius did not get the VP nod (minimal as it turns out), what has my dad seen at the Democratic National Convention (his bus company was hired to drive people there and around there), will he tell him that he is a Republican?

Apparently there is a lot of thoughts rolling around my pointed little head.

Playing Catch Up

I am still behind with blog posting. School started for my young ones last Tuesday and I am just now getting around to talking about it here. I know that all three of you have been waiting with bated breath to hear about our first day of school.

I am just now feeling sort of caught up from being on vacation. We got back late on a Saturday afternoon and Monday BH and I both had to return to work, I had a big training presentation to make at work the following week and we had to get the kids ready for school. So I been busy!

I don't know what posessed me to agree to present a training at work, since I really hate doing that kind of thing. Well....I hate writing up the powerpoint and all that crap. Getting up and talking about it is ok. I really just want someone to give me the script, I don't wanna write it. The presentation went over well. I got my evaluations back and they were all really good and complimentary. It was like getting an academy award. I wanted to run down the halls with that stack of positive evaluations and get all Sally Field on everyone...shouting, "You like me!!! You really like me!!!!" I controlled myself. For a building full of people who deal with crazy children all day there is a noticeable lack of humor at my place of employment.

So the first day of school. Since we did not have the starting a new school challenge this year, the children were in quite a positive frame of mind about going back. I now live with a 5th grader and a 2nd grader. Apparently once you hit this age it is no longer acceptable for your mother to walk you in to the school building. I was not allowed. This was very difficult for me. So I just sat there in my car, waving like a crazed woman until they could no longer see me. The first day went well, and positive school attitudes continue. Less than a week in to the new school year BOTH children came down with colds. I hope this is not a sign of things to come. I can not bear a repeat of last year's repeated illness.

So on to the pictures!!

#1's annual show us how you really feel about pictures pose

#2 giving us her "picture face" We cut her hair off at the beginning of summer and she decided to grow her bangs out, thus the interesting headband look. We are about halfway there with the bangs. Now....she has decided to grow her hair out and cut her bangs.
*bangs head against a strong concrete surface*

Happy together!

What I did on my Summer Vacation

It has only been about a month since our not so little vay-cay, so I thought y'all might wanna hear about it now. If you don't too damn bad. This blog is for me too ya know. I am getting old. I will forget about this soon if I don't put it in writing.

The first leg of the trip involved a short stop in Delaware, Ohio so that we could attend a celebration for BH's grandparents who were celebrating their 60th Wedding Anniversary. 60 years is no joke people. I would post a few pictures, but I am hesitant to put pictures out here on the WWW without the person's permission. (Husband and children are excluded obviously.) Gaining permission is going to involve telling extended family about this blog, which I am not too keen on and it would also mean explaining the term blog to the elderly and I am even less excited about that.

We were only in Ohio for a couple of days, but much fun was had by children playing in the creek ,(which apparently my husband and his brother were never allowed to do as children, so great-grandchildren get away with more than grandchildren did much in the same way grandchildren get away with more than children. At least that is how things roll in our families.)
swimming at the hotel pool, taking walks across town and other activities.

We left for the next leg of the trip which was Tennessee. We spent four lovely days in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. My in-laws put us up in one of their fancy condo-time share thingys. I was so excited to be in a King size bed again. I found it very difficult to go from my oh so comfy king size tempurpedic bed, to full size uncomfortable hotel mattresses that have springs! Springs are bad now, and at one point a full size AIR MATTRESS...but more on that later. The condo was lovely...large bed, jacuzzi tub big enough for two, huge shower, full kitchen, washer and dryer in the unit, FOUR pools. We swam every day we were there.

The first day in Tennessee was spent in a leisurely manner, outlet mall shopping in the morning, where I found lovely Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic, and Children's Place bargains for me and the girls. My MIL had a coupon for a lovely store called the Fudgery. If there is a coupon then you must buy. ridiculous. amounts. of. fudge. Like almost three pounds. Because that is what it said to buy on the coupon. And because you have a coupon that says buy three get one free, it means that you don't have to check the price of the fudge per half pound. Let's just say that when the total came up MIL and I both had to go to the Hanes Outlet to buy new underwear. Of course when I got home new pants were in order because I consumed ridiculous amounts of fudge. By God every last crumb of that gold laden fudge was going to be eaten. The rest of our day was spent swimming and reading. Lovely lovely day.

Day two we headed to Smoky Mountain National Park. BH did a great job finding interesting spots o see. The first day did a 1.5 mile hike to Laurel Falls. I adore waterfalls. This one was gorgeous. It was amazing how it felt about 20 degrees cooler right by the fall. Honestly I would have been perfectly content to have set up a lawn chair and spent the rest of my day listening to that water, and occassionally dipping my feet in it. After the hike we found a great little picnic spot right next to a creek that was perfect for wading in. The girls loved it and I had to join in on some of the fun too. The rest of the day was spent on an auto-tour that was quite nice too. Some lovely turn offs, and we spotted some wildlife along the way!

Day three we went back to the National Park and hiked to the top of Old Smoky. Everyone was really disappointed that it was not covered with cheese. This is supposedly the highest point in the park. The hike to the top of the mountain was only .5 miles, but it was pretty much a straight-up vertical hike, at about an elevation of 6500 feet. It wasn't too bad really. Maybe I am in better shape than I think. Once at the top of the mountain, if you choose you can walk an additional distance to the observation deck that takes you above the treeline. I sucked it up and did it but only stayed a few minutes because I thought that people would not be very receptive to my screaming at them to step away from the rail before they fell to their death. (I don't do heights so well.) We went on to a lovely picnic lunch and a hike along a Quiet Walk trail. It was a beautiful hike along a creek. It was very woodsy and there was a lot to see. The coolest thing was this HUGE clutch of butterflies just sitting at the trailhead. I have never seen so many butterflies just sitting on the ground before. #1 the butterfly enthsiast was in sheer heaven! We then went on to do another hiking trail that apparently used to lead to an old ranger training station or something of that sort. It was a looong hike, and not as interesting as the others we had done. Me, MIL, and the girls decided to call it quits at the halfway point. We were tired, it was getting hot, and I myself was pretty much over hiking for the day. We drove down the road to a wading creek and spent a good hour and a half soaking our feet while the girls splashed around. I had a nice cat nap on a rock while the water ran over my feet. It was like a spa! BH and his dad finished the hike....they think.

The next day we left for Jackson, Missouri to visit BH's aunt and so the kids could play with their cousins. I didn't do jack shit except for take advantage of Missouri's tax free day and read. By now I was tired (because our bed here was a full size air mattress thus sleep was not quality. I promise you the first thing I did when we got home was lay down on my bed and tell it how much I loved and missed it,) and ready to go home. The kids were well occupied with their cousins, so little was required of me and BH much to our happiness.

That is the story. Now the pictures. I took a lot more, but blogger just takes too long to upload so here are some of my favorites from the Smokies.

This sign made me laugh and I also had a strong urge to stage a protest..

Laurel Falls.. so worth the hike

A snail near the falls

Splashing in the creek!

I would love to wake up to the view outside the window of this cabin every morning

A deer right outside my car window on the auto tour

A BEAR!! Don't you see it? It's right there see? There?

(actually there was a bear in there, but all we saw were ears and a paw)

Cute bunny on the trailhead on the way to the top of old smoky

The fam on top of Old Smoky. All covered in fog.

On the way up to the observation deck

The view from the deck. Photo courtesy of BH.

Clutch of Butterflies at the trailhead for the Quiet Walk

They even crawled up on your hand!

More creek splashing after a long day of hiking

Drying off a wet butt

Last view before we left the park

I know I know...I said no more pets BUT....

Last night the tiny kitty was going crazy in the office meowing and really wanting our attention. Of course we go in to see what she is all worked up about.

Turns out she wanted to introduce us to her new friend:

Seems that a bat has taken up residence between the screen and window in our office.

If you think I wasn't freaking out then you don't know me a'tall.

Mittens the Wonder Kitten is on the JOB!

Of course my children are ready to name it, adopt it, make a bat cave, you name it... and check often to see that it is still there. I have heard "OOOOOHHHHH!! It is so tiny and cuuuuuuuttteee!" numerous times.

I have had several people tell me how fortunate we are because bats eat mosquitoes and other annoying bugs. Pardon me...but this lil' fella/gal is going to have to provide me with a nightly tally of his/her spoils before I will be convinced that we are "lucky."

Now I must be off to make some garlic garlands and check necks for puncture wounds.

Home again home again jiggety-jig

Hi y'all! I am BACK y'all!

(full disclosure: We got back home late in the afternoon on Saturday)

Why so long in posting?

Because I had big ideas that my first post once we returned was going to be a photo-laden expose on our trip to the south.

Well that takes a long time, and once we got back home we had one day to recover before being thrust full throttle back in to real life. BH and I BOTH had to return to work on Monday. So between playing catch up, adjusting to phase one of Real-life with the Babble Crew, and of course my chronic case of laziness have all been playing a part in the little drama that has been my lack of blogging.

And maybe....maybeeeee...my ever increasing fixation with Faceboook. That MIGHT be a factor too.

Soooo. Soon..a long post about our trip complete with a display of my not so mad photography skillz.

TENNESSEE Y'ALL

We are now arrived for the second, third, forty-fifth??? leg of Boyer Vay-Cay 2008.

I have seen lovely woodsy mountains and the Best Water Tower Ever. (no that isn't a typo)

Shortly after we crossed the Tennesse (or maybe it was Kentuckey, long car rides affect my memory) at any rate we saw this huuuuge water tower that was apparently in at town called Florence. Painted in very large bold letters on the water tower was: FLORENCE Y'ALL!!

Unfortunately I could not grab my camera fast enough to get a picture.

So naturally after that we had to address everything with y'all tacked on. I think we threw in a few Flo kiss my grits jokes in for good measure too.

This is how BH and I entertain ourselves on a long car ride.

Trip stats so far:

Driving time: 20 hours
Fast food meals consumed: Blearrrghhhh!
States driven through: 7
States with references to Lincoln on their welcome sign: 3
Nights children have gone to bed ridiculously late: how many have we been gone?
Children who are overtired and grumpy today: 2
Arguments between children in the back seat: 0!!! (there are things to be said about portable DVD players and travelling with grandma and grandpa)
Time spent shopping: 1 hour, but watch out tomorrow...Tanger Outlet here I come! I am looking for some bargains and then I am headed out to one of...
Number of pools at resort: 4!!!

Ciao babies!

On the road with the Babble Crew

The very first leg of Babble Vay-Cay 2008 is complete!

It was the shortest of all the legs, but who am I to discriminate?

We got on the road EARLIER THAN PLANNED.

Let me say that one more time.

WE GOT ON THE ROAD EARLIER THAN PLANNED!!!!!!

Lemme tell you that N-E-V-E-R happens.

Our first stop Collinsville, Illinois.

Why there? Because it is just past St. Louis and we won't have to deal with that traffic when we hit the road for the second leg which would be the rest of the way to Ohio.

We got here with just enough time to have a shower, story and get the kids into bed on time...ish.

We are spending the night in the always "posh" Super-8 Motel. Clean, cheap, and free wi-fi.

I just wish our bed was larger.

By about two sizes.

We have a king size bed at home and tonight will be spending the night in a full size bed.

Hope BH doesn't get too upset if I accidentally send him flying in the middle of the night.

I tend to be a little wild in my sleep.

I am not sure what kind of beds await us for the rest of the trip.

Hopefully larger.

I think I am road weary and need to go to sleep. Long car ride ahead.

I'll try and find something to take picture of for the next post.

I MUST CHILL

It is no wonder that we so seldom take vacations. If we took more of them I would likely have an ulcer roughly the size of Tennessee.

Preparing/Packing for a long vacation seems to make me terribly anxious. Because in my crazy little head I seem to have the idea that if anything is forgotten once we are AWAY FROM HOME it is lost to me forever. No place else has grocery/drug/department stores where I can purchase any item that is left behind.

See....I can go to the crazy place oh so very very easily.

What is really dumb is that truly the only thing we could possibly leave behind that we can not find a replacement for if we needed it is my glasses. And really the worst that would happen if I left my glasses at home....well it might mean that I leave my contacts in longer if I want to read before bed. OOOHHHhhh the horror!

Still I get all kinds of crazy uptight as we prepare to leave our home for 10 days. Leaving work is a bit anxiety provoking too....I want to make sure that I leave as clean a slate as possible because just like I hate coming home to a dirty house after vacation the LAST thing I want is to come back to work and face a pile of unfinished tasks. Catching up on all that has gone on with my clients during my absence is enough thankyouverymuch.

Oh to add salt to the gaping wound of anxiety I carry around these last two days before we leave....today the dishwasher started making a terrible sound when we turned it on. SPECTACULAR! Because there is nothing more I want to do than spend a few hundred bucks on dishwasher repair right as I am about to leave on a VERRRRYYY long car ride with gas prices hovering around 4.00 a gallon.

Also I do not want to wash/dry/put away two loads of dishes. That is why they are neatly stacked on the counter until all is fixed (Oh lord please please let it be fixed. I will make all kinds of ridiculous promises to see that this dishwasher is fixed before we leave) tomorrow.

Have I mentioned that I REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY hate washing dishes?

Please prepare for a slight digression here......

As soon as I was tall enough to reach the sink while standing on a stool (not as young as you might think because I was a skinny shrimpy thing as a child) it was my chore to wash dishes every evening. We had no dishwasher (other than me) and there were five of us in the family, so there were a pretty fair number of dishes to be washed every evening. Every evening without fail I would make many attempts to get out of the dreaded chore. EVERY EVENING I put my parents through this. I am nothing if not persistant.

At one point not too long in to my dish washing career I developed an allergy to the dish soap. Oh I wish we had owned a video camera so that I could post right here for you the dance of joy I did upon discovery of this allergy. It was inspired I tell you. The finest Prima Ballerina could not have equalled the glory of this dance of pure unadulterated joy.

However my joy bubble was burst by my ever resourceful mother who promptly went out and bought me my very own pair of yellow Playtex rubber gloves to wear while doing dishes. No amount of complaining about the gloves being too big could make her see my way. (Even as an adult the small size rubber gloves are a tad too large. I have teeny tiny baby sized hands.)

I did not come to know the bliss that is having a dishwasher until well into adulthood. Once I had a hit of the DW I was gone, and have vowed in my dress made of living room drapes, "AS GOD IS MY WITNESS I SHALL NEVER BE WITHOUT A DISHWASHER AGAIN!!!!!"

And that my friends is why those dishes sit on my counter until repairs are made.

Amen.

We just need to let Harmonix know where to send the check

Last week on two different evenings we had friends over for dinner.

Both evenings we spent time after dinner introducing our friends to the kick-assedness that is Rockband on our Playstation.

Within a week both had gone out and purchased their own game.

Never let it be said that we don't influence others to spend money like we do.

Rock on my friends.

Rock. On.

Nope....no titles in me today

I don't have a well organized post in my head so let's have an installment of things Missy has been thinking about....

• If it is said that increasing domestic oil drilling will not have an immediate impact on gas prices (No Shit???) but all these damn politicians keep making a huge deal about it...then why are we not making a bigger deal about finding energy alternatives, increasing public transportation and things like that. None of those things will have an immediate impact on gas prices either, but they sure seem important to me. Perhaps I am just comparing apples and oranges here...but it is what I have been thinking about so it needs to be here.
• What can I do to truly make myself go to bed at a decent hour and wake up when I am supposed to on a regular basis. Is this a futile dream?
• Is my current fascination with Facebook an easy way to feel like I am "socializing" so that I can avoid the effort involved with true socializing?
• I could really go for some ice cream.
• I need to spend less time on the computer and more time on those nagging little tasks that I keep meaning to take care of...mending clothes, organizing photos from my Disney World vacation 4 years ago, take up crocheting again...oh how the list goes on.
• I need my tomatoes to get ripe right now.
• When did it become so difficult to choose presents for my parents?
• I allowed #2 to cut her hair short, and to try and grow out her bangs. She looks a lot like a very young Meg Ryan now. I wish that we had not taken her hair quite so short, and I hope those bangs grow out fast or she tires of having them in her face quickly....
• Sometimes you have to make a very concerted effort to draw out your child who likes to hole up in her room and read for hours.

I think that is enough for now.

Now YOU tell me what YOU have been thinking about.

I made peach cobbler!

Should be going to bed, but our quilt is still damp in the dryer so I may as well blog if I am going to be up for awhile.

I know that you want to know the story of our dirty quilt so let me tell it to you.

We kept noticing these odd...spots I guess you would call them all over our quilt. It is black so the spots had to be funky if they were visible. We were quite perplexed about what was causing these odd stains.

That is until we watched tiny kitty sneeze and blow snot on said quilt. Mystery solved and eeeww!

Can a cat have seasonal allergies? Because this cat sneezes all the damn time and we clean up a lot of cat snot. Perhaps it is time to take her to the vet again. This cat is gonna have to find work soon if this shit keeps up.

On to more pleasant topics.

I made a peach cobbler tonight! It was very good for a first cobbler I thought. I have been eyeing the baskets of fresh peaches at the Farmers Market for a few weeks now and decided last Saturday to buy some. I have had a craving for peach pie like my grandma makes, but pie is a lot of effort when you insist on making the crust from scratch, so I opted for the slightly less labor intensive cobbler. I think peeling and slicing four cups of peaches counts as laboring, hence the use of slightly here. Totally worth the effort I must say.

Made it through

Whew.

Made it.

No dramatic events.

Perhaps next year my outlook for the 4th will be better now that I have had a positive experience.

So tonight we are off to KC to go to the Drive-in movie!!

I am pretty darn excited as are the children. When I was a kid we went to the drive-in faithfully every Saturday. It was like our church.

Maybe that is why we never were regular churchgoers.

Up too late the night before.

I think maybe it was worth it.

(Did anyone else see that lightning??)

May you too have a drama-free Forfin July

Things are laid back here at Chez Us on this very fine Forfin July Day. We have slept in, exercised, baked cookies, and generally had a nice time.

Now I hope this trend continues until the day is done.

I was NOT looking forward to the holiday this year. In fact I ignored it until forced to deal with it by needing to accept an invitation for some holiday activities.

I was dreading it because the past two have in a word...sucked.

Two years ago the day was spent attending BH's grandmother's funeral.

Last year...we arrived at my brother's house for some fireworks fun only to find that my parents had just left the gathering to take my dad to the hospital because they believed (and were right) that he was having a heart attack.

So yeah....not so much fun happening.

This year will be different I tell you!

I demand it!!

Nothing but fun and happiness.

I will stand for nothing less.

So Very Lazy

Because I am a lazy lazy girl I am totally stealing this from my good friend Ali over at Flabbypants. If you have not checked out her blog I urge you to go there this instant! (OK I urge you to go once you have finished reading this blog!) Ali never fails to be funny and I assure that you will be glad you stopped by. I would promise money or something, but I haven't any so you will just have to trust me.



Anyway here is the post I totally stole from Ali:



Because I'm both narcissistic and bored, I've come up with a little get-to-know-you quiz. Feel free to answer these in the comment section provided.



1. What did you have for breakfast this morning?

A Quaker all natuaral dark chocoloate chunk granola bar, banana, skim milk(from the Iwig Family Dairy of course!) BH and I are completely addicted to these damn granola bars.



2. Favorite reality show?

Rock of Love. Sometimes Jon and Kate plus 8. I am totally addicted to those damn baby birthing shows they have on TLC and Discovery Health.



3. Obama: President or SuperPresident?

I really need him to be SuperPresident so that I can start sleeping better.



4. Is Katherine Heigl ballsy or a bitch for calling out the Grey's Anatomy writers?

Ballsy. More people (especially women) should say what they truly think.



4 1/2. Would you refuse an Emmy nod?

Hmm...I would like to think that I would have the integrity to say no if I thought it was truly not earned, but since I can't say no to a damn offer to audition in a community theater production due the immense flattery I experience I would have to guess that I would totally fold in the face of such recognition.



5. Imaginary boyfriend/girlfriend

Gael Garcia Bernal.



6. College major you wish you'd chosen

The one that someone else paid for.



7. Do you ever consider moving back to your hometown?

I did so 10 years ago.



8. Favorite word (even if you're not sure what it means exactly)

That is a tough one. I sometimes get a lot of pleasure from saying Fuck.



8 1/2: Most overused word

No-brainer



9. Most guilty guilty pleasure

Chick-lit with a side of Ben and Jerry's



10. When you were a kid, did you wish you had a different name?

For awhile when I was in ohhh the first grade I believe, I thought I would have enjoyed being named Lori or Candy. For the most part I have been ok with my name.



There you have it. My totally ripped off post. Feel free to respond.

From My Garden

Cilantro!!!

Girls with cilantro!

Serious business

Salsa!!!!!

Uhh...before the cilantro was added. Somehow I failed to get a picture of the final product.

Next time I hope the tomatoes will be from my garden too.

BH made some delicious angel hair pasta with basil tomato sauce a few days ago with basil from our garden too. The oregano is about ready for use, but we have not settled on the first use for that delicious herb. We have tons of cilantro. Anyone know the best way to go about drying herbs for later use? Cause we have lots. If you live nearby and could use some basil or cilantro...lemme know!

If this blog were a child I would be turned in to SRS for neglect

Y'know somehow I seem to think or at the very least mistakenly recall that once the school year ends life slows down at Chez Us.

That just doesn't seem to be the case this summer, or maybe I am just delusional, addled, or suffering from some other similar condition when thinking back on past summer vacations.

Perhaps things will slow down after this next week is over. Camps will be done, BH will be finished with his class, and the musical he got drafted to participate in last week will be over.

That will give us just a few weeks before our trip to the Smoky Mountains. Just a few days after we get back from that trip it will be time for BH to return to teaching and a week after that time for the children to return to school.

Yeesh. I can't think about all of that or my head will go funny.

We have accomplished none of the things we set out to do this summer to the house and other areas of our lives.

Well I take that back, we did manage to plant flowers, herbs, and veggies. That is the only thing on our list so far that has gotten any attention.


We have been so busy that the thought of taking such a long trip is beginning to seem daunting to me, and I am having bad thoughts about scrapping it and staying home. We won't and shouldn't do that of course, but it has crossed my mind, which is a sad thing especially when I take in to account the fact that it has been something like 4 years since we had a vacation. We'll go it will be fun, and I will be glad we went in the end.

Well kids, it is getting late and tomorrow is the day for the monthly family dinner. This month it is simple. Oh so gloriously simple. We are ordering pizza and making homemade ice cream. Then we can sit outside and play and play and play, as #1 used to say when she was a wee one.

The "DONE WITH" files

Here is an entry for things I am ALL DONE WITH THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

C'mon dude. It's Sunday. Father's Day! We are supposed to be outside playing, not hunkered down in the basement soothing freaked out children and pets.

OY!

Recovering

From the two day bonanza that is #2's dance recital.

Maybe some pictures or an interesting post tomorrow.

No promises.

Irony

As we walked home from our weekly trek to the Farmer's Market today, the children were leading us home and pretending that we were on an Indiana Jones type adventure. We all had to hold our water bottles upside down as they were "torches" that led us through the dark and dense forest.

As the humidity was at about 1000% there was a fair amount of condensation on my water bottle so I shook it over the girls and said, "Oh no! Now it is raining! What will we do?"

#2 turns around, gives me a very stern look and says, "Stop playing mommy! This is not a time to play around!"

So sorry, apparently I forgot myself.

Craptastic

That about sums up this week.

It has just been one long string of small annoyances that have built up with each day that has passed.

It started off with my car being the victim of a flash flood in the parking lot at work and has ended with a mysterious illness in one of my in-law's cats.

Now I am sure a couple of you are wondering why the in-law kitty thing would be upsetting.

My father in law got the cats as a "birthday present" to himself a couple of years ago. He chose this birthday present mainly, nay entirely because my children had spotted some kittens up for adoption at Petsmart and could.not.stop.talking.about.them.

Grandpa is the man who cain't say no to his grandchildren and so he wound up adopting both kittens.

My children consider these cats to be their pets, and they help care for the cats as much as possible. We have made many trips to grandma and grandpa's for the sole purpose of visiting/playing with the kitties.

This week one of the kitties stopped eating and is having a lot of difficulty getting around. They took her to the vet and many tests have been run and they are having a very difficult time figuring out what is wrong. They could spend about a grand and make a trip out of town to get a kitty MRI, that may or may not help the diagnosis. At this point they are opting against the MRI. For today the kitty is at the vet for observation and medication. The vet is fairly sure the problem is located in the spinal column, but he is not sure what exactly the problem is.

In short, things do not look good for this cat.

#2 has burst in to tears about 3 times this evening over the issue. She considers this cat to be hers. (Each of them claimed one of the kitties as their own.)

We have not experienced a pet loss of this magnitude. If you read this blog with any regularity you are well aware of the passion my children have for pets. So if this cat dies, you can rest assured there will be mass amounts of grief.

So please readers who make themselves known and readers who lurk silently...please send positive healing kitty thoughts our way.

Perhaps an ark is in order

So we got a big ole nasty storm here Monday. Dumped over 2 inches of rain in less than two hours.

Apparently this much rain in such a short time was too much for the parking lot at my place of employment, seeing as how a portion of it filled up with about three feet of water. Or so they tell me. I was busy working and didn't find out what had happened until it was all over.

Too bad for me, because my car was parked in the portion where the water gathered to party.

By the time I got to my car there was about a 1/4 inch of water on the floorboards. It didn't get any higher than that luckily. It was still enough for the insurance company to write an estimate for $750 dollars to get it cleaned and repaired. I was really surprised by the amount. I figured a couple hundred bucks for a good and thorough cleaning. Apparently a good and thorough cleaning post flooding in your car is a lot of damn work. Seats taken out, carpet removed, pad replaced. Possible seat belt replacement. Who knew? Not me. I do now!

I have to give credit to my insurance company they came out the next day and had check in hand. Pretty impressive given the amount of storm damage in these parts after Monday. I count myself darn lucky.

So now I leave you all with a question.

What is the best way to keep squirrels away from my garden? Besides shooting them. Which would be hard seeing as I neither own nor ever intend to own a gun.

I am going to change the title and focus of my blog

I think I will call it The Sick Room and it will be a chronicle of the massive amounts of illness my family members go through.

Why the change, you might be asking?

Because apparently that is what the people in this house do. They get sick, get well for two days and then get something else. The sister blog will be titled Why I am a Cranky Bitch. That will be a forum for me to rant and rave about how F-U-C-K-I-N-G tired I am of the illness that seems to abound around here.

So to give you the run down....a few weeks ago we had one down with strep, quickly followed by some kind of hideous rash. That was only a few weeks after #2 had a sinus infection, and BH had some kind of plague that left him practically bedridden for 10 days. Since about October I would be willing to bet that we have not gone for more than a month without someone coming down with some illness. #2 has really more than surpassed her quota this year. I plan to have a LONG and DETAILED disucssion about her what feel like chronic sinus issues at her upcoming "well child" visit. I only hope it's well child.

#2 has yet another sinus thing going on that leaves her with a hacking cough and constant sniffles. BH has spent the better part of this weekend down with some kind of stomach ailment.

#1 and I have been fairly illness free, except for her bout of strep and rashickiness. Me....just a cold here and there. Of course now I have jinxed myself and will likely end up with some vile thing by tomorrow morning.

So that is why I am making changes...because this apparently is what consumes me and makes me a cranky bitch.

Enjoy.

Is it better to say nothing at all?

If you really don't have a blog post in mind, is it better not to post at all if the only thing you can write about is how you don't know what to post today?

These are the things that make me lie awake at night.

Sign of a good day

It is 10:13 AM and I have been up for just about 1 hour.

Sleeping in....GOOOOOODDD.

Now if someone would just take me out for a yummy breakfast...err..brunch I would REALLY be off to a good start.

It doesn't take that much to make me happy.

The weather man apparently has BH's back

So about 3 AM today we had a very long and loud storm roll through.

BH got up to reassure the dog and decided to check the TV to make sure a trip to the basement was not imminent.

When he got back to bed I asked him what the weather man had said.

He informed me that it was just a severe thunderstorm AND the weatherman said that BH and I should have sex.

I laughed and laughed....OH how I laughed!!

A Good Tired.....I think

House cleaned...check

Extra tables and chairs procured....check

Veggies purchased.....check

Yard made to look MUCH less ugly than it did before...check sort of, still some de-junglefying to do in the back yard.

TWO Mayonnaise cakes made and frosted.....Nope, but here is hubby back from the store with the mayo. Shhhh!!!!! I made him get fat free mayo. No one but us will ever know....the frosting from a can will make up for the fat free mayo. I said f-you to making frosting this time. I have spent the entire day trimming, pulling, digging, and planting. I am beginning to hurt and people are lucky I didn't buy a damn chocoloate cake from the store and try to pass it off as the real deal.

Crabby and tired...check

Another chapter of "Tales From the Nurses Office"

Both of my children have had a fascination at some point during their school career with going to the nurse's office. #1 has outgrown it. #2 is doing better. #2 is having Far fewer incidents than last year, but still more than I deem acceptable.

Last year she would often go because of the ever popular "tummy ache." In truth she did have tummy aches. Because #2 is picky about where she poops. Meaning she only likes to go on her own throne in the palace so to speak. So when the issue would arise at school, she would plead a tummy ache, go to the nurse and try to get me to come and get her. We have pretty strict rules at our house about what designates a sick day. That is a fever, throwing up, diarrhea, or other communicable disease. If those ain't happening you ain't coming or staying home. Besides that, I knew what the deal was and I told her in no uncertain terms that I was not picking her up from school so that she could come home and poop. Everyone has to draw the line somewhere and that is mine.

Today I took #2 to the nurse before shcool to explain what was going on with this allergic reaction/itchy rash deal. I told her that if the rash became more (emphasis on the MORE here) bothersome, or she was getting much worse to call me. Well sure enough about noon my phone is ringing. #1 is itchy. Only on one leg I come to find out. This does not meet criteria for much worse, and we only have 2 hours till the doctor.

My verdict:
If I refuse to bring your sister home to poop, then I can't justify bringing you home to scratch your leg. Request to come home is denied.

You will all be relieved to know that she made it through and is still around to tell us about it.

I'd Like to place an order for some convenience please

Add on a side order of Enough Already too.

If I have from 9-11 and 3-4 free why can't it be that the doctor can see us during one of those times?

If my child has an illness that requires antibiotics, can she please not be allergic to the medication? If she is can we just stop it and give her something else without the doctor's appointment?

I think I am done whining now.

How 'bout some good news? Good news for me any way!

Remember those Coldplay tickets I was coveting?

I am so going.

Yippee!

How 'bout some HOLY SHIT news?

This Sunday...the date for the monthly family dinner...head count for attendance so far....

OVER 40 PEOPLE.

Dessert on the menu this time???

Mayonnaise Cake.

'Cause if it ain't full o'fat and sugar my kin AIN'T interested.

Anyone got a good recipe for cream cheese frosting? (I'm looking at you Hatchet!)

Now I want tickets to see Coldplay

Perhaps signing up for that Live Nation e-mail alert thing was not such a good idea.

On the very heels of the Elvis Costello and The Police, I get a notice that tickets for Coldplay go on sale this Saturday. I skipped out last time they came around and moaned about it for a long time.

I just need someone willing to shell out the big (but not as big as they were for the Police) bucks to go with me. BH likes Coldplay, but not as much as I do and ain't too interested in spending that kind of money for a band he just likes, but doesn't Lu-HOVE. He however is not protesting at the thought of me spending that kind of money so I can go. I just don't fancy attending concerts by myself. That is no fun. I am old enough now that I don't want the cheapy nosebleeding seats either. I am not going for top price range, but mid-range which is still pricey. Ridiculously pricey really, but I guess we all have things that we are willing to spend amounts of money that seem ridiculous to others. Live music happens to be that item for me. I don't go nearly as often as I would like. The Police was the first concert I have been to in at least 5 years.

Concerts are almost always interesting experiences and this was no exception. I did not feel like I was the oldie at this particular show. People were on their feet, but there was little dancing, in part I think because the seats and aisles are close together. This was the first concert I have been to (with the exception of Harry Connick Jr. )where there was no pot aroma in the air. Maybe the ventillation is just really good or something at the Sprint Center, but I tell ya I am always seated next to the big toker at nearly every show I have gone to. But not this one. For which I was grateful. The smell of weed makes me quite nauseous. While we were by no means bored, by about 10:00 both BH and I were stifling yawns. Which was a little sad, and a testament to the fact that we are old.

I have learned that having the aisle seat at the Sprint Center is not a good thing. For whatever reason people did not arrive on time to see Elvis Costello. Which I can't understand. I did not feel he was getting enough love in KC. His set was far too short in my opinion, I think his repetoire of material is just too vast for an opening act. Hopefully he will come around and headline in a smaller venue sometime. I will be there if he does. Anyway back to the aisle seat thing...people were constantly coming, going, stopping on the steps to talk to their friends and rather effectively blocking my view. I kept my temper in check, but I was dying to yell rude and passive aggressive things at these people. BH was upset at the lack of turnout for EC, very surprising to say the least.

All right. I guess I have rattled on about the show long enough. There are lunches to be made and other chores to do. Only 5 more lunches to make after today. Thank GOD. I am ready for school to be over so that children will settle down. Not my own this time. They are doing fine. The children I work with however are not doing so hot and my phone at work is constantly ringing, kids are flipping out all over. Yeesh. SED children DO NOT take major schedule changes well as a general rule. The end of the school year sets many of them off. Makes for a tired me. And a busy and behind me too.

Oy.

Hold on EC we're comin to the station!

Tonight is the night!

At long long last I will be in the company of my man Sting and his law enforcement counterparts, and to top it off I will get to listen to the gentle croonings of the only Elvis I am interested in listening to. That Elvis being Elvis Costello of course.

This promises to be a most excellent show and no doubt well worth the fatigue and voicelessness I will experience tomorrow.

Worth. It.

Will excessive sweat hamper the therapeutic process?

I have been pondering something lately.

Riding my bike to work this summer.

There are a lot of reasons that it would be a good thing:

• Exercise exercise exercise
• better for my checking account
• better for the environment
• exercise
• more exercise

There are also a few things keeping me from comitting at this point:

• Kansas is fucking ridiculously humid in the summer. This equals sweat and B.O.
• I would have helmet hair
• Nobody wants to be in a small office with a stinky therapist
• I probably wouldn't be able to come home for lunch anymore
• Helmet hair

Yes most of my reasons not to are vain and selfish.

But come on people. I have curly hair...between the humidity and the helmut I will look like a sad drowned poodle.

Let's hear it for Downward Dog

So I did it.

Followed through.

Started that Yoga class that I have been talking about doing for quite a while now.

I came thisclose to not following through. I am pretty famous for that these days. I had all kinds of excuses about why I couldn't shouldn't go:

• No yoga mat
• I wouldn't be home until 7
• I'm too tired
• It cost money
• blah blah
• whine whine

My downfall came when I mentioned to my BH that I had pretty much decided against it. Now BH is not one to be forceful, or tell me what to do but this time he decided he was going to put his foot down so to speak. Basically he told me I was full of crap, had pathetic excuses, and needed to just take the damn class already. (He said it in a kind and loving way, but I got the subtext.) He then proceeded to march my hiney to Target knowing full well that I am powerless against the siren's call of my beloved red bullseye mecca, and suggested again in a kind and loving way that I not return to the car until I had purchased a yoga mat. So I did.

Then the next day I went to class and guess what????

The world didn't end, my family did not feel neglected nor did they hate me, AND I felt more relaxed than I have in months.

I have to battle tremendous guilt when it comes to doing things that are strictly for my own enjoyment and benefit. Seriously. It is bad. This yoga class? One hour a week, AT MY PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT right after my last appointment on Thursdays, and I had 10 excuses why this was a bad idea. All because of the guilt. It is nothing short of amazing that I have actually been in community theater productions at all. When I do finally audition, I almost immediately start hoping that I won't be cast because I hate dealing with the guilt. For that kind of commitment it is almost crippling. It takes me weeks to stop thinking that I need to quit the show. Since I work all day and have only a precious few waking hours with my children in the evenings I feel that they should have me all of the time that I am not at work. Not exactly reasonable or healthy. Unfortunately this apparently is how I operate. There are reasons behind this and I am very aware of them. Doesn't seem to stop me from experiencing ridiculous amounts of guilt however.

So if I actually manage to follow through with that cake decorating class......I might be on the road to recovery.

Missy is a graduation girl

Whew!

Today officially marks the end of my monthly weekend sacrifice.

Today I graduated from my Play Therapy Certification Program!

Hooooorrrraaayyyyy!!!!

Soon there will be more initials to add after my name.

You can't have too many initials you know!

On the good side:

So no more weekends sacrificed for class time!

No more expensive payments to pay for the classes!

On the not so good side:

No more time with all the great people in my class.

Not to be a Negative Nancy here, but it has been my experience that when one participates in classes for adult professionals there is almost ALWAYS one person who is really fucking annoying. They ask a million questions that are not pertinent, stress out over things that are not important and take up class time about it, if you have ever been involved in a continuing education class I bet you know what I am talking about.

This class was exceptional in that there was no one who was irritating or annoying, and we all got to know each other really well and have a good time each LOOOOONNNGGG weekend we spent together. So I am a little sad about that tonight.

I have sucumbed to Facebook now, in an attempt to keep in touch with my classmates. It is kind of fun. If you have a Facebook account let me know and we can be friends!

I also have a Myspace account too, but I don't do much with it. Really my initial purpose in joining Myspace was to be able to see Zach Braff's myspace page. He is one of my friends. So it makes me look cool. Or maybe pathetic, probably a loser, hopefully not a stalker. 20 or so messages a day professing my undying love doesn't make me a stalker..... right?

So what will I do with all of my spare time and money?

I think I am going to start taking a Yoga class. They have one once a week where I work. I have wanted to try yoga for a long time now. May as well do it while I am at work!

I also hope to take a cake decorating class. Hopefully some instruction will lessen my frustration twice a year when I attempt to make fancy decorated cakes. At the very least I hope it will lessen my use of vile and profane language while attempted said cakes.

The money gets to go to BH's graduate classes that we hope will begin this summer.

Maybe if I am feeling brave later I will post a picture of me in a gold crown and lei with my play therapy classmates getting silly stringed by the instructors.

Why did they do that?

Because that's how we play therapists roll.

A not so Harry Potter moment

I think I will give up the Harry Potter title thing soon. It still makes me giggle a little tho...

Right now I am fantasizing about just not going back to work for the rest of the day.

I do that when I am home at lunch sometimes...come up with elaborate lies about why I didn't return, or call.

Today if I were to stay home I would take a nice long nap.

Anybody else have weird fantasies like this?

Wizard Hat Cupcakes! I need one more day

Oy.

I still feel like I am playing catch-up 'round here, and thus follows a request for one more day before I have to go back to work.

Unfortunately it is not to be.

So on to other stuff.

I can't remember if I mentioned starting up a monthly have the family over for dinner thing. And by family I mean all 800 of us who live in the area, aunts uncles, cousins, hangers on..

So this monthly family dinner thing was my idea. When I was a kid we ate Sunday dinner every week at my grandma's house. There were far fewer of us then, and the meal did not seem like such a production. Maybe it was, and I was just too young to get it.

At any rate, after I made my suggestion we decided it would be fun to drag out all the old recipes my grandma used to make.

I have been taking on the desserts. There are recipes, because at some point my grandmother got a recipe from someone, or attempted to write down her own. Y'see my grandmother does not really cook by a recipe. Which is fine, and a talent I wish I had, however when one is trying to recreate one of these recipes to suit the memories of AN ENTIRE FAMILY, it is a little stressful when the RECIPE IS NOT RIGHT AND BY THE TIME YOU DISCOVER IT.....TOO LATE TO FIX.

Today marked the third dessert that I had difficulty with. I am no master chef, but I certainly do not consider myself to be a slouch in the kitchen either. These recipes are not complicated. But I dearly wish my grandmother could remember how she doctored these damn recipes. She remembers after I have already finished the dessert usually.

The dessert I made today was called a Coke Cake. I have to say that I was more than a little appalled when I read the recipe. TWO cups of sugar, TWO sticks of margarine, TWO cups of minimarshmallows, AND one cup of coke. That is just for the cake. The icing....ONE cup of coke, and ONE POUND OF POWDERED SUGAR...sort of. Here was my issue. I am following the recipe for the icing. Boil remaining coke in bottle, (Here is one of the issues with these recipes. They are 30+ years old. They call for things like using a King Size bottle of Coke. There is no such thing any longer. So I am on the internet trying to figure out how much damn coke would have been left if I had used a King Size bottle. For the record a King Size bottle was 16 oz. Shows how out of whack our portions are now but that is a post for another time.) ANYWAY... boil remaining coke, 3 TB cocoa and one stick of oleo. I do this. I then pour it over the 1 pound of powdered sugar, and mix. This shit is the consistency of water. It is supposed to be a thin icing poured over a hot cake, but not this thin. So I add more sugar, more, more, more, and more. By the time I got it to a reasonable consistency there had to be well over two pounds of powdered sugar in there. BH and I give it a taste test, and surprisingly it isn't too bad, but definitely sugary. I add pecans, pour it over the cake and hope for the best.

Went over well. Seemed to satisfy everyones beloved memory of this dessert.

We are still peeling people off the ceiling though...and trying to rouse the rest from massive sugar comas.

Afterwards my grandma tells me that she is pretty sure she only used half the remaining coke in the bottle and then added the powdered sugar until the consistency was right.

Good to know.

Crazy Cat who's name is not Harry Potter

I need a bionic man/woman camera (better, stronger, faster).

After I get the bionic camera I need to keep it with me posed to shoot all the time, so that I can catch the crazy antics of this kitten we have.

This afternoon she jumped on a table that has a plant on it she likes to try and eat, knock over, have catnip with or something. While on the table she discovered the window, where she could see tree branches blowing in the wind. This cat must attack all moving or perceived to be moving, or maybe has a microscopic chance of moving objects.

She was trying so hard to get those damn trees that she tried to jump on the window sash to get closer. Seeing as there is only about an inch or two for her to stand on she was hanging from the top of the sash by her two front paws.

It was high comedy let me tell you.

If I was cool and talented like The Bloggess, I would take a picture of the window and then do funny drawings to give an actual illustration. But I am not that cool or talented so your imaginations will have to suffice.

From now on I will include Harry Potter in all blog titles

Apparently that is they way to get more readers to my blog. From what I can tell from my site meter, the post I did last December showing the wizard hat cupcakes for #2's party gets at least one or more hits EVERY DAY. I figure if I am more bold about it then I will get bazillions of readers. Disappointed readers, because having not read any of the books nor seen any of the movies I have precious little to say on the topic other than to occasionally rant and rave about #2's fixation. Which thankfully has cooled considerably in recent months. Which is good for my sanity and our relationship.

So here is to more hits on my blog!

Randomocity

I can't seem to come up with a post that involves just one idea, so I have decided to post some random crap that is in my head.

Because this is more fun than cleaning my house.

1. Travel is really expensive. The airline we booked for our summer trip went belly up a few weeks ago. We have gone from flying to Ohio, renting a van for the Ohio-Tennessee portion, and flying back home, to us driving our car, BH's parents driving their car the entire 5,000,000 mile trip. Why? Because to go by the original plan on those other solvent money sucking airlines will cost us $10,000,00. There is no hyperbole here.

2. Have I mentioned that I don't enjoy long-ass drives in the car?

3. Because I hate them.

4. Really. But I am sucking it up to save millions of dollars.

5. One of my suggestions when it became apparent that renting a van to avoid taking two cars was going to be ridiculously expensive? By our own SUV. Because that wouldn't be all that expensive, and I get nutty like that.

6. The next day after my wild suggestion I spent $40 to fill up my Hyundai Elantra (small 4-door, fairly fuel efficient) and declared that I will NEVER own a SUV. (The next time we need to cart both kids and their friends around in our two cars I will change my mind and declare that we must go buy a larger vehicle as soon as we drop off the kids at their destination.) I tend to go back and forth on the issue.

7. Buying a cell phone outside of my "new every two" deal with Verizon is fucking expensive.

8. I am STILL upset about my stupid move that killed my phone.

9. I have a really hard time deciding on ringtones for my phone. Apparently this is a big deal to me. I need songs. I need the songs to be pertinent to me and mine. I need the songs not to be annoying me every time my phone rings. Do my ringtones annoy others? Does it matter? Do other people have this issue? Am I shallow and stupid for being so concerned? Most likely....yes. I guess we all need something to be shallow and stupid about.

10. My house really needs to be cleaned. I really want my cleaning people back. I miss them. More now than ever. We are way behind. It is dirty dirty and making me crazy crazy and avoidant AVOIDANT.

11. I am not so secretly sorry I started this have my entire huge family over for Sunday dinner once a month thing. It turns in to a lot of work for me and mine, and truthfully people...I got a streak of lazy that runs the length of the US.

12. Will my family notice if I don't clean my house before they come over Sunday?

13. The online version of my local newspaper now has a space for comments on each story. The people who comment seem to be well......dumb, and angry. It annoys me to read those comments, yet I continue to do so.....

14. I think this is enough for now.

Business Time

This song is for all of you people out there who have been in a relationship for an extended period of time.

File Under Things to remember

It is important to empty pants pockets prior to putting them in the washing machine.

If you forget to check you just might do something totally moronic....

like washing your cell phone.

They don't work so well after.

So....

don't call me tomorrow until after the Verizon store opens.

Feverish Accusations

Gentle Readers,

I thought it would be prudent of me to check in with you as I have failed miserably in the area of blog posting for the past couple of weeks.

The past two weeks have been long and fraught with fatigue, illness, frustration, impatience, ruminating, and various other unpleasant activities.

I promised that I would not spend too much time complaining and I will do my very best to honor that promise.

BH has been sick for almost two weeks now. I am talking the running a fever for about 10 days, staying home in bed, wife calling during the day to make sure he is still alive kind of sick. He made it to work two days this week, and two days the previous week. He seems to be on the mend now, but as you can probably imagine he gets tired out pretty quickly. A few nights ago he woke up itching terribly, no rash just itching. Apparently he and Mucinex do not get along. In his sleepy and somewhat feverish state he dreamed that I had put itching powder on his side of the bed, and according to him, he very nearly woke me up to let me know what he thought of my actions. I am not sure what this dream could be saying, and truthfully I am not sure that I want to. Probably subconscious anger at me for not being home all last weekend at the height of his illness to take care of him in my usual manner. Or maybe he is just a little weird. Yeah...I think I will vote for weird.

We got moved in to the new building at work. Since I don't believe that it is a good idea to complain about work on the internet, I will leave it at that. My office is still not completely unpacked due to a lack of shelves and that is making me more than a little crazy. Hopefully by the end of this week that issue will be resolved. Between massive dissarray in my office at work, and the massive dissarray at my home I have been holding on to my sanity by a teeny tiny nearly invisible thread. I do not play well when everything feels disorganized and I do not have the time to remedy the situation. It is a pity there were no hidden video cameras in my office on Monday. I think it might have been amusing to watch me make about 50 laps around my office, picking things up and putting them back down, bumping in to furniture and boxes without actually doing anything. I am certain I looked like some kind of derranged video game character. It is what I felt like at any rate.

I apparently have not completely pissed off any higher powers, because my children have been VERY patient and well behaved the past couple of weeks despite the disrupted nature of our household, and by disrupted you know that I mean having to deal with a mother who had all the patience and impusle control of an hyperactive hypoglycemic off her ritalin and guzzling a chocolate bar. I should probably buy them a pony or something.

Ahh...I hear BH playing Rock Band now. Haven't heard that in over two weeks. Must mean he is truly on the mend. It also means that I will likely have to help him down the stairs when he is done and lead him to bed so he can take his second nap of the morning. He would have to choose the drums...maybe I can go convince him to switch to the guitar..less engergy expending required. He is so bored. Would it be inhospitable of me to suggest that if he is up to playing Rock Band drums, then maybe he could help out with a few cleaning chores.......

Speaking of chores I have been idle for over an hour now and should get back to work. I still have a very LARGE bakset that holds about three loads of last week's laundry and one load of this week's too. I should at least vacuum the floors before we have guests over for a meetng this afternoon.

Maybe I will be caught up on household duties by the end of next month.

Can someone explain the math here? How is it that two days of missed household chores takes 10 days to catch up on? Or maybe more for that matter. Anyone?

Stay Tuned

I will do a longer post later this week and I promise it will not be filled with massive whining about the crappy, poopy, stinky, mess that has been the last week. I don't anticipte the mess being cleaned up soon either.

In more exciting news....AMBRE is the Rock of Love!!! Bye Bye to massively annoying crybaby Daisy.

Yes friends THAT was the bright spot in this very long week.

Now I must try to go to sleep and stop ruminating about the days ahead.

Creeping closer to that corner

Knowing that I have a tough week going on I decided Sunday that I was going to be proactive and do things to help promote personal well being during a stressful time.

My Plan:

Eat Healthy Meals
Drink Plenty of Water
Take my vitamins every day
Go to sleep at 10:30 every night
Try to get in some exercise every day

Stats so far:
Eat Healthy Meals: 0 for 2
Drink Plenty of Water: 0 for 2
Take my vitamins every day: 1 for 2
Go to sleep at 10:30 every night: 0 for 2
Try to get in some exercise every day: 0 for 2

Yeah I am rockin' the plan!

Now for news that is sending me closer to that corner to rock and talk to myself:

Sunday my leg starts to itch. As I scratch I notice reddish swellings appearing where I am scratching. There appear to be three bug bites of some kind there. Which was odd seeing as how I have not spent significant amounts of time engaged in activities that could lead to bug bites. Later in the shower I notice several other similar spots on my leg, hip, and stomach. Curiouser and curiouser. I have not taken any medications, nor tried any new foods or anything like that. So I put some benadryl cream on them and figure they will go away. Yesterday they were still there. A little itchy, but no new ones. Today, about 10 new spots pop up on my back. I decide it is time to seek medical advice. To shorten this up. I am having some kind of allergic reaction to...something. May be an insect bite. We don't know! So I am given Prednisone and some samples of an antihistamine that won't make me drowsy. The doc then tells me about the big side effects of Predinsone being irritability and insomnia. Hmmmm.......these are two things that I DO NOT NEED THIS WEEK. So for now the prednisone sits on the counter untouched and we will just see what this antihistamine does for me.

Also...
It would appear that BH is coming down with something that involves a fever. Worse for him than for me obviously, but just one more thing to add to the list.

Is it next week yet?

News on the cute front:

#2 has had her magnifying glass, notebooks, and pencils out this evening trying to solve the great mystery about my red itchy bumps. She has scoured the house with her magnifying glass, made notes, and come to the following conclusion:
The red itchy bumps are caused by a bug. This bug is only biting me because I smell so sweet and good all the time, and it likes things that smell good and sweet.

This is why I keep her.

Do you think they are getting overtime?

Glad I am not a foster care case manager in Texas right now.

That is some freaky stuff.

A thought that has percolated for a while

For those who don't know I live in a town that is home to a certain "religious" group that enjoys carrying signs around that have hate messages about homosexuals as well as a few other things.

Last week a march was held here in protest of the above mentioned individuals.

Now please be VERY CLEAR that I in no way appreciate, agree with, condone, and any other similar word you can think of the message shared by the so called "religious" group. I have seen their signs at least once a week for more years than I care to count.

However......

I was in no way really excited about nor did I plan to go out and participate in the march last week.

The reason being is that I believe the only way to shut this group down is to ignore them.

I mean IGNORE THEM COMPLETELY. As in pretend they do not exist, pretend you do not see them, make them invisible.

I know that people say this all the time. I have also read it or heard it said somewhere that ignoring them doesn't work. To this I say, we do not know that ignoring them does not work because they have never TRULY been ignored. Some one somewhere gives them attention constantly, which they openly admit to thriving on regardless of the type of attention it is.

Admittedly this is a hard group to ignore, particularly if you are resident of this fair city. Their signs are bold in color and in statement. There are a lot of them. They are amazingly faithful to their cause. They are fanatical, and I think more than one of them are likely mentally ill. They will yell hateful and disgusting things at you merely because you walk past them on your way in to a venue they have decided is worthy of picketing.These are things that are difficult to ignore because for many of us the above mentioned behaviors fan such a huge roaring fire of anger and outrage that it feels absolutely impossible not to respond in some way, because surely SURELY this time, this report, this comment will put an end to the hate.

Unfortunately your response to them fans their huge hate-filled fire too, and keeps it burning long after your comments and or actions have faded in to the wind.

I know that my hopes for total lack of response are futile at best. Maybe I am wrong and they would continue on anyway. But if at least.. AT LEAST if the local and national media ignored them a few less people would be exposed to their ugly words and not see their sad misguided messages.

For me...I will just continue my own IGNORE! campaign, and pray that someday I no longer have to.

Hang on, it's going to be a bumpy ride

I am not much of one for fantasy or sci-fi, but right now I would gladly offer up (enter something really appealing here) to have a magic remote control that would allow me skip over the next week.

I have been dreading next week for quite some time now. Unfortunately the closer I get to the week's arrival it seems I have more and more reason to increase my dread.

I first was dreading the week because it is what is known to theater folk as production week for BH. As most of you know he is the drama guy at a local high school and the spring play opens next week. I refer to this week as Single Parent Week. During Single Parent Week BH leaves the house before 7 AM and does not return until after 10 PM. That in and of itself is never much fun for the girls and I. We really like having BH/Daddy around, and we are all a little bummed out when he isn't.

A couple of months ago, my dread of this week increased when I realized my 4 day Theraplay Class is this week. That means a two plus hour commute each day, and the training is fairly intense from what I hear. The four days are from Thursday-Sunday. Which means essentially no weekend for me. That always makes for a happy Missy.

Two weeks ago my dread went off the charts when I found out that date for moving in to the brand new building at work was moved from today to next Friday. That means I have to have my office totally packed, labeled, and ready for the movers before I leave work on Wednesday. I also have to make sure all of my paperwork and phone calls are caught up as well. As I am only working in the office three days next week, I did not feel that I could switch around my clients anymore to have packing time and thus will not be able to begin packing until 5:00 Wednesday evening. It is important that a play therapist have toys available for clients, and of course the bulk of what needs to be packed is toys. Moving is stressful no matter what kind or how beneficial. I had really wanted to move all of my toys myself, but given the circumstances I just can't do that without causing myself more stress, so I am letting go and hoping for the best. This is not easy for a person with my...control challenges to do. It all feels very rushed now, and I am concerned about important things getting lost in this rather large move.

I think that is it. Hopefully nothing else will rear it's ugly head. If so you can find me in the nearest corner rocking back and forth and mumbling to myself.

If anyone has a line on magic future jumping remotes, drop me a line.

The Bird

Today my children had dental check-ups. At the end of these appointments the dentist always makes a balloon for each child out of a latex glove and ties it off with dental floss.

As BH was driving the girls home from my parents house this evening they were playing with thier latex glove balloons. He hears one of the girls say, "Let's make it stick up it's middle finger!" and then they worked together oh so nicely to make this happen. If only we always had such cooperation and togetherness!

Now we are perplexed about where they have learned about this gesture, because I make damn sure the kids are no where in sight when I flip the bird to their dad. I have that much control over my impulses at least.

They tell us that apparently on a recent trip with their Poppie to Walgreens, someone apparently disagreed with Poppie's driving, honked their horn and gave him the finger.

Nice.

So they had a discussion about what it meant and how it is just as bad to do that as it is to say a bad word, because it is like sign language for a bad word. He then asked what they thought they should do about the choice they made.

#2 wanted to hunt down the man who flipped Poppie the bird and tell him about how it is wrong to do that.

#1 wanted to pop the balloon.

BH decided they just needed to tell me about what happened.

So they did when I got home. I reiterated what had already been said, and added that it was a sign for a really bad word.

AND thus began the questions.

"Is it worse than the SH word? " asks #2.

"Where did you hear about the SH word?" I exclaim in a remarkably calm tone of voice.

"You know...the Shut Up word." answers #2

"Oh....well....ummm...yes it is worse than the SH word." I stammer.

"Is it worse than the A word?" from #1

"Yes it is worse than the A word." says I fighting back the giggles.

"How about the CR or maybe it is KR word?" again from #2.

"?"

PAUSE

"Oh you mean crap?" I state.

"OOOOOOOOHHHHHhhhhhhh! You said a bad woooooorrrrddddd Mommy!" Chorus #1 and #2.

"It is time for bed now children." I declare.

Good to see that they are still fairly innocent.

Oh yeah, apparently when they got home they popped the balloon AND cut off it's middle finger too, just for good measure.