Rough Draft

Random Recent Photos

 
 My silly little girl on St. Patrick's day.

 Harrison playing basketball.

 The kids playing in the snow.

Heading South

 

It's been a long day.

Shoving four peoples crap inside a very large suitcase.  And because not everything fit I have to carry two books (I know, I am the last person on earth without a Nook or a Kindle) AND my camera.  Dammit.

I had to deal with last minute change of doggie plans which caused me so much stress today that I had that stress-sleepy-warm feeling for half the day...like I was walking on a heating blanket lined cloud as fifty hungry tigers chase me.

Making sure the kids had their chargers for all their stuff.  Arguing with Harrison that he needs to pack his DS games NOW and not at 4am.  Showers.  Dinner at McDonalds (we NEVER but I honestly didn't want to cook or make a mess in the house).  Preparing items for the dog.  Packing that last bit of something into an already bulging suitcase (gawd, I hope it isn't over fifty pounds!!! I bet if I am not over fifty I am pretty damn close).

And I still have ten lousy pages to read in my book that I haven't finished yet!!! Ugh.

Okay, we are off to Sunny Southern California Where The Palm Trees Blow And The Sea Breezes Kiss Your Face.  While I love-love-love my home and living here I am kinda excited about 82 degrees in late March.  The trip isn't only about sea breezes and sleeping in.  We have a great deal of sadness as we visit my brother who just lost his wife to a long battle with cancer.

I'll write from there.

So Much

I have SO MUCH I want to say but my mind is currently on loan down the street and around the corner in Crazyville.

We are getting ready to head down to Southern California primarily because my sister-in-law just passed away but because her services won't be for another two weeks and we leave, like, tomorrow, there will be some inevitable downtime and sun-enjoying. 

Today I am frantically trying to find a replacement (and thought "sure bet") to watch our dog for 41/2 days before my friend Darcie can come and pick her up for the week.  I have already broke down three times today over stupid, stupid things because my head, well, hurts.  I'm tired and I'm stressed and I'm by myself and I just wanna cry.  Oh, yeah, I already did and could at a drop of a hat again at any moment.  Oh the fun being me.

I have the house clean (or clean enough) so we don't come back to three inches of dust and dirty floors.  The laundry is finished.  The clothes...and everything else we are bringing...are all piled and ready to be put into our suitcase...which we ended up borrowing from Darcie because when I got mine down yesterday I realized the handle was broken and couldn't be pushed down and she offered me her huge red one. (Thanks friend!!!)

I'm on my entirely-too-many-cups of coffee and I'm jittery and shaky and my plan was to sit here and write up a few days worth of posts for all three blogs to publish as in my absence.  Yeah, not going to happen at the moment.  It is now noon and I need to run out and do a few little bitty things like get my brows waxed, buy deodorant because I forgot on Saturday, and go to the library to take a few books back.  Oh, and I gotta figure out what to do about dinner since our refrigerator is bare, and the dog still needs a sitter, and finish the very last of my chapter of the book I'm currently reading but not taking with me.

Sigh.

If I don't get to writing posts to publish later I will definitely find some time at my mom's house to update from there.  Does that set your mind at ease? Now, you can sit back and relax again because, by golly, I will write on these blogs come hell or high water, dammit.  (Wouldn't there be worse things than high water in comparison to the absolute awfulness of hell?  Or, am I being politically incorrect and insensitive because of recent events in Japan?)

Anyway.  I'll either be back soon from here or I'll be back soon from there.  Either way, you can't get rid of me that fast.  Well, I guess you could hit delete.  Or you could click off the screen altogehter.  Either way, I won't really know.  I may be a bit heartbroken but I'll be okay...

In the meantime, I'm heading back home to the state we left where at least there will be some warm sunshine and a kick-ass Italian bakery.  Oh, and a funeral.  Yeah, I'm a barrel of good times.

Adios.  (I would say "ciao" but my oldest informed me that no one says "ciao" and I said, "people in Italy say ciao" and I was greeted with a roll of the eyes at how lame and old I am.)

On Children And Errands

 

I just don't have the right amount of patience needed to take three children out on errands.  I am secretly irritated with slow cart drivers.  Pissed at people in the parking lot.  Anxious in line.  Annoyed when people just stop mid aisle.

Beware: Crazy Woman Snaps.

The funny part is that I remember when these same children were little and how truly difficult they were to run errands with.  Diapers, bags, snacks, bottles, tantrums.  Oy.  And while these children are old enough to actually help (find items in the store, load the car, take the cart away, and unload once home.  I admit, that part rocks) they just never shut up.

My Head! My Head!  Why must they talk so much?

"Mom, can we buy this..."
"Mom, have you heard this song?"
"Mom, when we get to San Diego..."
"Mom, I'm going to call..."
"Mom, I wonder if..."
"Mom, where do you think..."
"Mom, what is the weather like in California?"
"Mom, is it still raining?"
"Mom, where else do we need to go?"
"Mom, I'm hungry."
"Mom, how much more do you need off your list?"
"Mom, I can't walk anymore, I'm so tired!"

Oh for the love of Gawd, all of you shut the hell up already.

One woman was observing my conversation with my boy children as they were picking out jeans so they have some acceptable ones for our trip to southern California, which went a little something like this...

Boy one: "Can I not wear a belt?"
Me: "You either wear a belt or I take your IPod."
Boy one:  "But, the belt is uncomfortable."
Me: "Then drop down a notch."
Boy one: "But..."
Me: "I'm done looking at your droopy drawers."
Boy one: "Mom, you say some pretty funny things."

Moments later, Boy two shows up with his new pair of jeans to try on...

Me: "You need to get a number from the lady before you go into the dressing room."
Boy two: "I don't want to.  You do it."
Me: "No. You are a big boy, just tell her you have one item."
Boy two (i.e. stubborn): "Forget it then."
Me: "Okay, then I'm not buying you jeans. Go put them back."
Boy two begins to walk away and the saleslady stops him and hands him a ticket with a number one on it.
Me: "Wow, son, that was sooooo HARD."
Boy two tries on a pair of pants:
Me: "Those look too tight, try on the bigger size."
Boy two: "No! I like these!"
Me: (O.M.G. Help ME!) "They look too tight."
Boy one: "Hey, do you have your shorts under those pants?"
Me: "Why are you wearing your shorts??"
Boy two: "I don't know."
Me: (are we done yet?) "Take off your shorts and THEN try on the jeans." (Dear Lord.)

Woman sitting and watching all this loveliness: "Aren't children a blessing?"
Me: "Yeah, a total blessing.  Such a blessing that I decided I needed to be (fucking*) blessed THREE TIMES." 

* That is for You Know Who You Are, who, I believe, has a notebook with tally marks every time I use bad language.  I don't cuss that much, do I? ;)

Am I The Only One?

 

I admit that sometimes I think of crazy things.  Things that maybe other people don't really think about.  Like, when a cook/chef goes to the bathroom, does he/she really wash their hands?  Or, are they using the same finger that helped hold up their ding-dong to touch my steak to see if it is cooked properly?

Okay, bad example.  I haven't been out to a restaurant for a steak in I-Don't-Know-How-Long.

Sometimes when I buy a used book I am slightly grossed out over where the book once lived.  Was the previous owner a ball scratcher? (I seem to be unintentionally picking on men. My bad.) Was she a smoker? Did she chew with her mouth open as she read the book at her dirty table and food particles flew out of her mouth and onto the pages of the book I now own?  I have often wiped a used book with a damp cloth before I could even think about reading it.

Does anyone else think about that?  Anyone?  Hello?

Did the gal at the coffee place just sneeze as she was making my coffee? If the guy at the cell phone company is using my phone and he returns it with his paw prints all over my screen, I can't touch it until I wipe it because it totally grosses me out.

You're thinking I'm totally bat-shit, aren't you?

Last weekend I was scrapbooking with some friends at a hotel and inside the public bathroom the box of tissues on the counter were folded to create a pretty fan-like display.

I instantly thought how often that one tissue was touched by the housecleaning staff.  Do you know how much you would have to touch a tissue in order to create a fan?  A LOT.  Ew. 

Now, normally this kind of crazy stays in my head but the tissue I felt I was surely NOT the only one thinking how gross that is...until I mentioned it to my friend Darcie and she looked at me as if I had just fallen off this side of batty and left of nutville.

Oh.  I guess maybe it is just me.

Life And Other Crazy Raindrops

So I realized that I have sort of fallen off writing on my blogs.

Dammit.  I mean to.  Really I do.  Even today, I thought I should.  Grabbed my notes.  Moved them from one side of my desk to the other.  Uncovered them from the bottom of random sheets of paper.  And until I clicked onto my dashboard here at lovely Typepad I wasn't even sure I was ready to write again.  But, alas, here I am.

What a couple of months.  There seems to be three million different things that need attention.  Larry and I are going back and forth on the phone from everything from paperwork we need to file for problems with our move to resolving issues with Verizon to kids school projects to finding flights to head to Los Angeles and everything in between.

I will say that I have been so tired the last six or eight weeks that I feel I'm taking sugar pills instead of my Thyroid meds.  My sleep pattern is erratic at best and the dog who decides randomly to wake up and MUST. PEE. RIGHT. NOW. at 3am isn't helping in the beauty sleep department.

Meanwhile, the forecast is showing rain for days, which I do love, and I am happy to finally see some green appear in my yard...thank you God for spring. 

In other news, parenting has had its challenges, friends are going through extremely difficult times in their lives, and my sister-in-law is losing her battle with cancer, hence the planned trip next week to Los Angeles, and my husband is still working in Pennsylvania.

All I seem to be doing lately is laundry, cooking, letting the dog out, and reading.  Maybe a little trip to southern California will rejuvinate me a bit.  Give us all a break from our normal routine, the house, the cleaning, the cooking, the shopping, the homework, the making lunches, and waking up to an alarm clock.

Random Sights

 

Here are some random sights over the past few days in and around my house...the shots were taken at random and nothing was touched up or straightened before I snapped the photo...(as will soon be obvious to you.)

  Harrison playing basketball on the driveway as nighttime begins to fall.

 A section of the laundry room ("mud area") where the kids (don't) hang their backpacks and jackets; where a basket full of gloves, hats, and scarves occupy the corner of the bench for at least another few weeks; and where their shoes are placed.

 Jennifer discovering a book she absolutely LOVES to read.

 Harrison's incredibly messy bedroom.  There used to be a time when he was SO neat! What happened?!

 And Jennifer's room...Lord help me.

 The kitchen immediately after doing the dishes.

 Feeding the dog in the laundry room.

 Standing near the doorway of the laundry room looking down the hall towards the office and guest room part of the house.

 I love how the east looks when the sun is setting in the west...gorgeous.

 Standing near my front door and just peeking through my bannister...

 The "kids" bathroom.  I will say one thing: when the time comes and my children (okay, BOYS) are grown and out of the house and I will clean this extra-seldom-used bathroom and it will remain clean (and, gawd, clean SMELLING!) and sparkly and tidy I will never, ever think back fondly to THESE days.  

Heart Butter

Those people at "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" are full of shit. I CAN believe it's NOT butter.  Have the makers of this stuff even TASTED butter? Because if you haven't tasted butter then perhaps you can be fooled into thinking that the creamy yellow stuff inside a plastic tub is actually butter.

This morning I made some toast and because my butter was frozen I decided to microwave the butter for just a few seconds.

Well, my butter melted a wee bit.  But, no worries, I poured the melted butter on my homemade French bread.

Oh. Dear. Lord.

Save me.

Butter.  I love you and I want to be yours forever and ever.

Okay, I might have perhaps put too much melted butter onto my glorious toast because when I took a bite my lips were glistening with the taste of butter.

Excuse me as I enter heaven.  You think there is butter in heaven?  Mounds of melted butter on warm toast floating on clouds of peanut butter ice cream and raindrops of chocolate?

Oh.  Sorry.

I ate the toast.  I even sponged up any butter on my plate that had dripped off my toast before it had a chance to seep in.  I knew the butter would run off and I took extra care to make sure the butter was given the proper time to absorb into the bread.

I'm sick, right?

I so cannot do this again.  I will have to not melt the butter anymore because I'm pretty sure I ate 1/4 cup of butter.  Gawd.

For The Love Of Water

 

Nothing pisses me off faster than wanting hot water (or at the very least, warm) and having the water run nothing but cold.

We have a large water heater here in Idaho.  So big that I can wash a load of whites in hot, run the dishwasher, wash dishes, have one kid in the shower downstairs and another in the upstairs shower...all at the same time...and no one will run out of hot water.

Gawd almighty, it is absolutely heavenly.

Heavenly.

I think I sort of took it for granted because when we moved to Pennsylvania our landlord put in the smallest possible water heater imaginable.  So, so, so damn tiny that it was meant for a family of two. 

Two.

We are five.  FIVE.  Plus one pain in the ass dog.

That water heater got COLD before I even finished the dinner dishes.  Forget trying to do a load of laundry or wash the dishes and have someone take a bath...which is what we attempted to do ONCE and then realized we had to have Jennifer take a bath quickly, wait at least an hour, and THEN do the dishes or run the washing machine.  In the morning, Larry was always the first to get into the shower because he left for work early and then it was a race for me to get up and in the shower BEFORE Josh got up to take his shower because if I was number three I might as well wait a good thirty minutes before heading into the shower unless I wanted an icy experience. (And, I could always tell...if I was number three...if Josh took a minute-too-long shower because my water got cold before I could rinse the conditioner out of my hair!)

It was ALWAYS a delicate balance of timing and trial and error.  And it drove me absolutely bat shit.  Okay, MORE bat shit, shut it.

I'm so glad to be out of that place (for more than ONE reason, I assure you) because it was a daily struggle to keep the hot/warm water running between the five of us.  Now that I'm back in Idaho a day doesn't go by that I don't secretly thank my ginormous water heater.  Even when my mom is visiting and Larry is here we could all six be in the shower (different showers, you sickos) at the same time, run the dishwasher, run the washing machine, and fill the sink with hot water...and we would still not run out of hot water. I will never take that for granted again because I love-love my water heater.

So, thank you Mr. Water Heater (yes, I'm positive my water heater is a male just like I know without a shadow of a doubt that my microwave is a bitchy woman) for making my heart warm and cozy...and all fuzzy inside.

The Almighty Dollar

There are many nights we sit around the table and I have to stop the conversation and announce, "for the love of God, can we stop talking about all the things you all want and more importantly, what I NEED to BUY you?"

It's exhausting.

I know they are teens (well, two out of three) and this is all a part of life, but it drains me.  They drain me.  Literally and figuratively.

My kids don't receive allowances.  They have chores: setting and clearing the table, emptying the dishwasher, mowing (in the right seasons), cleaning house (dusting, vacuuming, sweeping, bathrooms, etc.), taking out the trash, feeding the dog, and anything else I can think up on the fly.

In return, I feed them (well) and I give them warm beds in their own rooms housed with heating blankets, big windows, and televisions. They get free transportation to and from school and they have access to any four bathrooms in the house.   It's not a bad life.

And, they aren't deprived.

But don't say that to them because then the whole argument will begin over cell phones, laptops, and musical devices. (note: Josh did just get an Ipod but that was after 18+ months of saving his own money and buying it himself.  I would never, ever, spend two hundred+ on something for a fifteen year old.)

Sigh.

Only rarely do I offer hard cold cash in return for work around the house.  I'm not saying I haven't ever (I recently gave Josh five bucks to clear out the MESS behind the shed in the backyard) offered money in return for work...because sometimes it is easier for me to pay a few bucks or a trip to the coffeehouse in return for the kind of help teen boys can provide...but I don't regularly do it.

I can't really control, however, when they receive money from other people in return for simple chores.  Take for example my thirteen year old (dear God, help me) who came home yesterday and announced he earned money for washing a car for the mother of his best friend.

And got paid ten bucks.

Ten. Bucks.

What the hell?  You can drive it through the car wash for almost half that.  But, I am not complaining.  It gave my kid something to do, outside, working, and was rewarded handsomely for it.

My biggest issue is that I can't compete with that.  And you may say, YOU DON'T NEED TO.  And you're right.  Except I must live with these children.  There is a fine line, that is sometimes not understood by children/teens, between the responsibilities of belonging to a family and the advantages of being in the right place at the right time when someone is willing to help a kid/teen out and pay for their strength, help, etc.

Believe me, I REMIND my kids OVER AND OVER (and holy hell, OVER AGAIN!) that they are not going to receive money for washing my car or cleaning bathrooms or sweeping the floors.  Or feeding the dog, emptying the dishwasher, taking out the trash, or vacuuming the stairs.  I think they get it, more or less, but it doesn't help my cause when my kid comes home with ten bucks for washing a car.  Especially when my car in the garage is filthy and wish I had asked him to wash it sooner.  

  (Josh was not happy to be photographed emptying the dishwasher, as you can clearly see here.)

 
 (Teen #2 also did not necessarily delight in my picture taking of him clearing the table.  Ah, sometimes I miss those happy little toddlers...)