I prefer to catalog this under multi-tasking

Oh dear reader(s).

I am sad sad pathetic pathetic person.

I have reached a new low.

I...I know they say confession is good for the soul so here it goes.

My story begins at about 1:00 yesterday afternoon. I go in to work later on Thursdays and thus take my lunch hour a wee bit later as well.

On with the story.

When I got home I was hungry. VERY HUNGRY. Mind consuming hungry. Need food immediately hungry.

You get the picture.

I also needed to clock some exercise time. I don't like to exercise immediately after eating for obvious reasons, but today I just could NOT wait that long. I needed a snack.

There were many options, apples, carrots, a little juice perhaps to boost the ol' blood sugar.

OR

the men who come in second to my husband for my love...Ben and Jerry.

Now you don't know me at all if you think I did not grab that little carton of heaven here on earth.

I did.

Here comes the pathetic part.

I am pretty tight on time if I am going to exercise and eat lunch, so I decided to do a little multi-tasking.

You can probably guess what I did but I am going to tell you anyway.

Lady(ies) and Gentleman(men) I proceeded to polish off the 1/4 pint of ice cream WHILE I WAS RIDING MY RECUMBANT BIKE. And it was GOOD. Ohh so so good.

It is true. I wouldn't make this shit up even for my blog.

I think that I need to write some kind of manual or book on the art of multi-tasking 'cause baby I got it DOWN.

It's National Pie Day

Woo Hoo!

At Chez Us we will be celebrating with a Marie Callender Chocolate Satin Pie, to be consumed post-exercise whilst viewing season 2 of The Office.

What better way to honor something we all love.

We are choosing to ignore the bad for us part of this experience.

It has a cookie crust! A COOKIE CRUST! Health be damned!

Didja notice the whipped cream and chocolate curls????

What kinda pie did you/would you eat?

File Under Stuff I Did Not Envision Including My Participation

So I find myself doing another show.

Had no plans to participate in any shows in the near future.

BUT a local director called and asked if I would audition, and when a director calls and asks me to audition or offers a part I automatically turn in to The Girl Who Can't Say No.

So I said yes I would audition, I followed through and now I find myself with a role.

IN. A. MUSICAL.

Y'see those who know me know that I don't do musicals. Until now apparently.

I should probably mention one more thing about the show.

It is all about a dead country music star.....
and I play his wife.

That's right folks not only is it a musical, but a whole entire show dealing with country music.

Y'see I don't "do" country music either. Until now apparently.

So beware children..these are the things that can bappen when you become the girl/boy who cain't say no.

Where can I find Cat Barf Barbie?

Tonight we had to do some grocery shopping at The Place I Most Hate to Shop.

Whilst on our quest to get groceries we had to make a detour to the toy department to get a birthday present for #2's bestest friend who is having a big birthday bash on Friday.

#2 has decided that her bestest friend would like nothing more than a Barbie.

Not my favorite gift idea, but...

So #2 picks out the Barbie she thinks Bestest Friend will like best.

I gave it a rather cursory glance and made a comment along the lines of, "oh look Barbie has a dog." and tossed it in the basket.

You see whenever I have to shop at The Place I Most Hate to Shop it is my goal to get out of there ASAP because..I HATE IT.

On with my story.

The checker handed #2 the bag with the Barbie in it and #2 starts talking about how when she gets in the car she is going to take the Barbie box out of the bag and tell us what it can do.

Now you see that should have been my first inkling that sumpin' warn't quite right.

However.. the checkout line at TPIMHTS is surely one of the gates to hell and again I was not giving my full attention seeing as we had been in line checking out for AT LEAST the same amount of time we spent filling our cart throughout the store. For at this place you must pass an exam and skill test proving that you are the slowest and most annoying person on earth but I digress again.....

So after 8 or so hours we are finally in the car on the way home and #2 begins to tell us what the Barbie and her dog do.

What they do is doo doo to be precise. (The dog anyway not Barbie.)

Yes dear readers we have purchased Dog Shit Barbie.

Barbie's pooch eats a little snack and then..

Oh-Oh! Poochie does a doodie.

THANK GOD as #2 pointed out, Barbie is provided with the appropriate tools to clean up the dog doo doo.

THIS is the gift my child will be giving to her Bestest Friend and she is SURE it will be considered the best present at the party.

I have managed to rein in my compulsion to call the parent ahead of time and explain the whole story. I imagine that compulsion will happen at either drop off or pick up at the party.

Maybe I can just give them the blog address. It would be easier.

Haaaapppyyy Biiirrrtthhhddaaay toooo...

My most beloved husband. He is now as old as moi. So for the next two months and one day he can not make jokes about his wife being older than he is.

Because now we are the SAME AGE.

I don't care what all you math minded people out there say.

Since it was cold and very sleety out we opted to stay in most of the day. I am trying not to complain about the weather as I am somewhat relieved to see that we are actually experiencing a little bit of winter. Disappointed that we did not get the snow they had predicted as it would have been fun to play in over this three-day weekend.

Not too much happening. It always seems that we hit a lull in activity after winter break. I don't mind much really, as it seemed that since school started we have been crazy making busy.

Stuff I have been thinking about:

The environment, and personal changes me and my family need to make in regard to reducing our negative impact. Mostly in the thinking stages now. We have been doing a few things such as buying more organic products. Being conscious of shutting off lights. (This may not seem like much but we got a lotta rooms in this house and we have not been so good about keeping unoccupied rooms unlit.) Like I said..still in the thinking stages here's hoping for more action soon.

Goals. I have set some and so far I am making progress. Woo Hoo.

Brownies. There are some downstairs and I want one with a glass of milk.

What exactly

IS a Nymphomania Saber?

12 Years and Counting

The Mister and I have been married for TWELVE YEARS as of today.

T-W-E-L-V-E

Our marriage is entering adolescence.

We still have an awfully good time together and I must say that Beloved is still my favorite person to hang out with.

Our usual celebratory dinner and movie took place last night. (Oh yeah we admired our living room area rug too as anniversary was part of the package justification for buying it deal.)

Am I really old enough for all of this?

I ask that question A LOT lately.

But more on that another time.

Here's to another twelve years (plus many MANY more of course) with my SB.

With an incredible abundace of love,

NP

It gets better from here on out I am sure

I have to say that our New Year is not off to the most fantastic start.

It started off on New Year's Eve with a sickly child.

The first and second days were fine enough.

Today or more specifically tonight not so good.

Car accident.

Everyone is ok obviously or I would not be writing this entry, but I have to say it was the worst accident I have been in since high school.

We were going down a fairly busy street here in town when a young man in a SUV got confused and thought that he was at a four way stop sign and it was his turn to go. Problem is, it was a two way stop and he did not have a clear intersection because we were in it. So he slammed in to the driver's side of the car.

Driver's door is smashed in totally and it broke the window on the driver's door. It was dark so there may be more damage we weren't able to see. Frankly what was visible was enough for me. The car was driveable, but it was a chilly ride home for my honey. Grandma and Grandpa came and took me and the littles home. Beloved was driving so took the brunt of the impact and he is fine thank the Good Lord. The girls are fine. They were a little shaken up, but have handled it very well.

I suspect there may be some stiff muscles tomorrow, but that is ok. Better that than something else.

Now I am off to recouperate from our trauma with a little Office (American version, we just finished the BBC version. HI-Larious. Check it out if you haven't yet.) and something that resembles dessert.

Happy New Year Etc..Etc..

Yeah I might be more enthusiastic if I had not had to return to work today.

That is the thing about vay-cay. You hafta go back and that is just wrong.

Spent the day trying to get back in the swing of things, it may take me a couple days. Maybe when everyone else in da house is back at school and work it will be better.

Had a good time over the past week. It was a very good balance of fun stuff and being really productive. Got several projects completed. The most embarassing being the three years worth of school pictures we finally hung on the wall last night. Three years. That is some kind of lazy.

Got to see our good friend Ali while she was home, and she brought her husband too as an added bonus. We had a lovely visit with them and there were cookies!

Our New Year was low-key. Unfortunately there was some illness back with #2, but she seems to be better now. We ate too much food and played with friends and family which is always a good thing.

No resolutions this year. We have decided to go with goals. Measurable outcomes. I will keep you posted as I know all three of you are on the edge of your seats.

Hmmm....what else.....

Heard on NPR today that there are new regulations being put in place for people looking to adopt children from China. Apparently if you are a single parent, obese (BMI of 40+), are currently taking or have taken anti-depressants in the past two years you will not be eligible to adopt.

Don't seem quite right to me.

G'night.

Do Not Enter. Coyote Working.

This is the newest sign #2 has designed for her door. Just so you know ...he will be out working tonight. That information is also on the sign along with a picture of the coyote howling. I believe that is his job. Howling.

The coyotes have been working like mad here at Chez Us. The basement and garage have been cleaned out and look migh-T fine. We have found some time for fun, and soon will be off to KC for a little jaunt to Dave and Buster's with the grandparents.

So many famous deaths this week. So if Sadaam is to be executed tomorrow and the rule is that deaths of famous people happen in threes, does his count as #3? I didn't know if it really counted since it is a planned event. According to my ever accurate internet news sources the TV networks plan "tasteful coverage" of the event.

Now maybe I am just being picky here, but to me the mere fact that there will actually be TV coverage of the event automatically cancels the idea of tasteful. Tasteful and watching an execution on TV just don't go together in my book.

The only other musing I have is WHERE THE HELL IS THE SNOW?

Call me crazy but I could really go for a serious snow event the likes of what is happening west of here. I need it just to affirm that winter is a season that still exists. I am having my doubts these days. If I could request that the giant snowstorm happen just in time for me to get a few more days off work at the agency's expense. So it could hit Monday...that should work well.

That's all I'm asking.

I AM ON

VACATION BABY!!!

First time I have taken more than a day or two off in a year and a half.

My plans you may wonder.


Uhhh...

clean the basement and garage.

Also at some point hang out with some cool friends who are home for the holidays.

I would like to print a retraction please

Today I said something that in retrospect I can not believe the words came out of my mouth.

I don't even have any kind of excuse either.

I am sure many of you will likely feel that I am over reacting once I finally get around to telling you what I said that I want to retract. That is ok. You are more than willing to think what you will because I can not stop you.

So on with the story.

My mother called as she was out Christmas shopping for our two little darlings, and had some questions about gifts for them. As we conversed we both commented on the fact that their lists were pretty short this year. About 3 or 4 things each. After that these words came out of my mouth, "You know they don't watch a lot of TV and what they do watch is for the most part commercial free, so they don't have the exposure that leads to a long list of wants. I guess this time of year that is kind of a disadvantage."

Good. God.

You know what is worse? I repeated this conversation to my husband and it was shortly after I told him that it dawned on me what I had really said. I took it back while I was talking to him, immediately after I pulled my head out of my ass. The crazy in me nearly called my mother back and retracted the statement with her. I did manage to hold myself in check.

I can't believe I said that! One big part of our strict TV rules is totally due to the blatant targeting of young children by advertisers. The fact that my kids do not have a raging case of the "I want that's" should be celebrated, not apologized for.

Therefore let it be known that I do not find it a disadvantage that my children do not have a huge Christmas List, and have not been exposed to the constant barrage of ads for all things toys and whatnot on TV. I am proud to say that their lists were small and relatively simple.

I vow from here on out to check my ass for the presence of my head prior to making any such observations in the future.

I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas

I figure at some point I would need to comment on the holidays, so let's get it out of the way.

I am one gift and a couple of stocking stuffers away from being done with shopping. As I have done in the past couple of years I did almost all of my shopping online. This year I did my shopping a bit earlier after my close call last Christmas. I guess Amazon was having some issues last year. I did my shopping within the first few days of December and was sweating Christmas Eve morning until the last of the gifts arrived.

This is looking to be a pretty boring Christmas under the tree for Beloved and I.

Why I am sure you are asking?

Well let me tell you.

It all started with a silent auction. My in-laws and I attended a fundraiser for my job and there was a silent auction. There was an item I very much wanted to bid on, but ran out of time to go do it. My in-laws decided they would give it a go and give the item to us for Christmas if they won, and in all honesty they did not expect to win.

Well they did. The item was a large gift certificate to a local store that sells Oriental Rugs. What we did not know is that the store is closing and the certificate had to be claimed by December 31. Not wanting us to be rushed or have a poor selection to choose from my in-laws gave us the certificate at Thanksgiving.

It was a large certificate, but not large enough to get the rug we really wanted and truly needed. So we ended up paying a large amount out of our own pocket and decided that was Christmas and Anniversary gift for us this year. We got a gorgeous rug at a really good price, and I am quite happy with it. Just means that there won't be much happening around the tree.

However we do have a purty rug to admire while the girlies open their gifts.

Not sure how we will incorporate it into celebrating our anniversary, but hey we are creative people so I am sure we will think of something.

I am really looking foward to holiday baking which I plan to commence with next week. I am really hungry for frosted sugar cookies. I am going to try and be fancy and detailed with my icing this year.

Yum!

A Jinx of an update

I know this is gonna kill it but I am gonna do it anyway.

We are on day 5 of no waking at night due to bad dreams. Woo Hoo!

I am the only one in the house who has not fallen victim to the barfing bug.

So in other news....

I was thinking about music this morning while I was drying my hair. I have some of my best thinks whilst drying my curly locks.

Moving on...I was thinking about how growing up here in T-town I was not exactly exposed to a lot of different types of music. Top 40 or (gag, yak, ergh) country music were about the only options around here. We had MTV I guess, but I wasn't allowed to stay up late enough to watch the shows that featured more alternative-type bands.

These thoughts led me to think about what was my initial foray in to music that was not Top-40 and at least around here you had to dig a little to find. I think my answer to this question is that my first foray was the Violent Femmes. If I recall correctly my good friend Kayla had a tape of a tape that we listened to on a very small tape player that she had in her car as I don't think it had a working radio. My friend Jennifer also had a copy that we listened to on a boom box while driving around in her parent's ancient and gargantuan station wagon that she could paralell park without blinking an eye. I was always jealous of that skill.....but I digress. Upon my first listen I was not overly impressed. But in a remarkably short time I had to go find my own personal copy.

(Saw 'em live too in the Ballroom at KU during my VERY brief stint as a student there. GOOD TIMES.)

That took me to recall how very little my parents censored what I listened to. There was profanity on that particular Violent Femmes recording. I turned it down around my mom at first but that didn't last long, especially since I cursed around them with fair regularity it seemed kinda silly. When I was in the fifth grade I believe it was, I recall my family listening to the soundtrack from Purple Rain with it's wholesome ditty Darling Nikki on a pretty regular basis. It was one of my favorites to listen to while doing the dishes for a long time. I think my parents were just banking on my not getting the sexual references in the song. (They were right. I was 11 for God's sake.) You can bet your sweet bippy that won't be happening with my kids. I run a tight ship when it comes to the inappropriate material for children.

So these are the thoughts I had today 'bout music. All that thought took about 10 minutes. I do run on a slow clock in the morning.

Crap

We seem to have a barfing virus making it's way through our family.

Beloved was the first to fall...this morning it was #2.

So I am home today, running wee ones to the bathroom at lightning speed, holding back hair, and generally trying to soothe barfing beasts.

I HATE the barfing illnesses. HATE THEM. Hate sitting around wondering when the next victim will succumb, being afraid to eat due to the certainty that sometime over the next few days it will be me making the vomit sprint.

At least the kids are old enough now to actually make it to the toilet.

Damn flu season.

Hopefully this will mean we get to have an illness free Christmas Break for once.

I gotta go find some wood to knock.

Nightmarish Experiences

We are having some bad dream issues here at Chez Us.

#2 is on a bad dream tear these days.

Common themes: Bad guys, dinsoaurs, harm to loved ones, and our favorite lovey being torn apart.

There are a lot of theories about dreams out there ranging from dreams have absolutely no meaning/significance to every single thing in a dream being significant and having deep subconscious meaning.

I think the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.

She almost always gets up and lets us know she has had a bad dream, and rarely does she seem overly upset. She will usually come in and tell us, and then we send her back to bed. We used to let her get in to bed with us, but that is more disturbing to everyone's sleep so we have stopped that in the past year or so.

As she seems to go through little episodes from time to time where the dreams are frequent we have at times out of sleepiness been less nurturing than we could have been. I particuarly struggle with the middle of the night nurturing as I have always been very slow to wake up and am at my least pleasant when first awakened.

Right now as we work are trying to work through the latest episodes we are trying a few new things. First instead of just sending her back to bed one of us goes in and reassures her and stays with her a few minutes until she feels better. My research has shown that we were right not to continue letting her get in to bed with us. We did that for a long time and it is biting us on the butt now I think.

Today I had her draw pictures of her dreams, and then we talked about what we could do to "fix" the dream and then draw that. We talked about real life application to, (i.e. if "bad guys" are around we call the police and things of that sort.) This really seemed to be empowering to #2 and she totally got in to it. When she was done with her drawings she tore up the pictures, threw them away and said, "take that you bad dreams!" She made plans about what she would say to those bad guys if they showed up in her dreams again.

Then came the epiphany for me as a parent. I got to thinking about things as I watched her draw one dream involving dinosaurs and her lovey being torn apart, which has been in nearly every dream recently. I explained to her that sometimes people have bad dreams because they are worried about things and those things come up when they dreamed. So I asked if she was worried about her lovey. She said yes that she worried he would be lost forever. I was totally awash in guilt as I thought about how many times we have made comments that to us seemed harmless about how fragile and tattered her lovey has become and joking about not wanting to wash it because we are afraid it will fall apart and things of that nature. To us...comments that are just us joking around and trying to be funny and not meant seriously at all, but to her....awful and anxiety provoking. I reassured her that her lovey will in all likelihood be around until she is a grownup and that we will keep fixing it as long as it needs repaired. I promised to do the repairs I have put off for so long, and that she has asked for more times that I really want to admit this very night. She was willing to give him up at bedtime to allow me the chance to complete repairs, and seemed reassured that we would make every effort to keep the lovey around for a very long time to come.

She is also having to learn to cope with things without using her lovey and that is hard to do, but she is trying hard.

Will all of this take care of the nightmare problems we are having? Weellll...probably not right away.

I hope that at the very least it will help our child know that we value her feelings and take them seriously.

I also hope that I will be more thoughtful of my child's feelings before I make comments about things that are important to her. It is too easy to always look at things like a grownup and forget how the wee ones view the world. Sometimes "small stuff" is a big deal to little people. I guess I needed a boot to the head to remember that.

So I guess we can chalk up one more lesson in this journey that is parenthood. Hard as you try...there are always screw ups made and damage control to be done.

Pleasant Dreams!

Baaad Combination

I am currently suffering from what Beloved and I have decided to call "The Winter Hungries."

Our definition of "The Winter Hungries" is: An onset of cold and winter-like weather coupled with a strong desire to consume larger amounts of food than normal. Desired foods are generally from the category of food commonly known as "crap-ass bad for you." A secondary symptom may be a compulsion to make phrases seem more clever by the over use of quotation marks.

The other side effects of "The Winter Hungries" (I can NOT stop with the quotation marks I only wish you could hear the musical sting that offers further punctuation as I type "The Winter Hungries.") Anyway the other side effect seems to be a general lack of desire to exercise. So there you see where the bad combination comes in.

Truthfully my lack of desire to exercise actually came about two weeks ago after my team kicked some ass and won the office exercise challenge. Yours truly logged the most work outs in said office.

Can you guess what the prize was for each member of the team who had the most workouts during the competition?

Why a $35 gift certificate to Johnny Carino's of course!

I guess I am going to have to come up with some kind of challenge for myself at home.

It will involve prizes you can be sure!

Maybe I should make it a cross country blog wide thing...just to up the anty.

Who's in?

Meemmmoorrriiiiiieessss

9 years ago at this time I was running (well maybe not exactly running) around the house we had just moved in to three days before trying to find all the gear I needed to go to the hospital and have a baby, since my water had conveniently broken a few minutes before.

What were YOU doing December 1, 1997 shortly before 9:00 PM?

Fresh Air

I have been trying to think of fresh new and exciting posting ideas for this blog. I have been inspired by a blog that I secretly read. (Definition of secretly read: I read the blog on a regular basis but never comment because I don't know the person. I have only recently started very tentatively to post comments on blogs of people I don't actually know. Just one of my many nerouses.)

So I think today I will post a fairly easy and somewhat common question then of course answer the question myself. Then if you are so inclined post your very own answer in comments.

So here is the fairly easy and somewhat common question.......(ooh aren't you excited?)

What is your earliest childhood memory?

Mine happened on the way to my parent's wedding when I was about 2 1/2. On the way to the church my Aunt slammed my fingers in the car door. I don't remember the actual slamming, but I remember the pain, and my refusal to let anyone look at my fingers because in my two and half year old mind squeezing them with my good hand made them feel much better. My aunt still has some residual guilt over it too.

Now share yours while I go watch the season premiere of Scrubs that I have been looking forward to for sooooo loooonnnggg. Ah ZB...it has been too TOO long since you have made me belly laugh out loud.

Stuff I Don't Believe

I don't believe:

That we are going to get tons of snow today.

Greg has left the Wiggles.

More than a couple of my clients will show up for appoinments today.

That I have to leave for work in 15 minutes and my husband gets to stay home all day.

I shoulda been a teacha.