It's a Miracle

This weekend was filled with more yard work (did I ever mention that we have a massive yard?) and relaxing. I actually made biscuits and tea and Dear Sir and I sat outside and had a Southern evening. Suddenly all the leaves have popped out on the trees and now we are unable to see anything outside of our own yard.

Upon moving to good ol' Dixie, I could not find a store or anything because I could not see anything but trees from the road. They put a green blanket over everything and a person coming from desolate Idaho has no chance of getting that 2% milk or half and half (Dear Sir and the kids put it in their cereal so it is a staple) without stopping someone to ask where in tarnation is the stinkin' grocery store? In Idaho, however, I could see Albertson's from ten miles away on a country road. Well, that is an exaggeration, but it is close to true.

Here is a little racer car that the Oldest made for Awana. The wheels have these tiny hubcaps that mysteriously got lost during the day. When the Oldest figured out where they last were, he realized that they had been on the kitchen table. Problem was, Eraser Eater already vacuumed under the table, swept up the floor, and someone had already wiped the table itself up and disposed of crumbs. Those stupid hubcaps were as small as crumbs.

The look on the Oldest's face when he found that he would miss out on the whole race at Awana after he worked so hard on his car was all I needed to help him out. I was pretty pissed off though because I had already battled the stupid gelatinous mass earlier, and then the sink was leaking. In fact, I started digging through the trash to find the sink leaking. I dug through the trash. I found one. I heard footsteps upstairs and the Oldest found the spare (he got five with the car and had only four out---so he only had one to begin with before our search, which means, we needed to find three hubcaps so he could have a complete set.). I heard Mickey Mouse raise his voice in triumph. Then, in a rush, all three kids came down while I was putting slop back into the trash can. "We found another one in the hamper!" Eraser-Eater chirped.

The wonders never cease.

Someone said something about a hubcap probably in the vacuum bag because Eraser Eater so faithfully sucked everything up, so I left my body, turned off my brain, and obeyed them by grabbing the vacuum bag and attempting to cut it with my kitchen shears. They broke. Just broke like they protested. "My kitchen shears broke!" I said in desperation.

The kids looked a bit fearful because they know how I am about my kitchen shears. All hell breaks loose if anyone touches them or they are gone when I need them.

The Oldest grabbed a flimsy and worthless pair of scissors from the school cabinet and somehow it cut through the stupid bag. "Those are some big dust bunnies!" the Oldest said.

"Dust bunnies? Cute!" said the Girl.

"No, they are not cute," I snapped. I took the tip of the scissors and sifted through the grey mass of matted hair and gross dust. Mite-like unmentionables forming a cloudy clump. I could tell that the Oldest was hot with anticipation. He almost gets fearful at these moments because he knows that he is not the one in control and I could decide at any moment to abort mission and he would lose a hubcap, lose the race, lose a chance at getting a badge. I could tell he was thinking, just one more, mom, c'mon! He was jolting around in one place like he was getting ready to hear the gunshot and run. Truthfully, the whole task looked impossible. It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack, literally. I kept shaking my head as I searched through the grey mass. Finally I saw something black and I took it up with my fingers.

"That was miraculous!" Eraser-Eater yelled as I held up the stinking hubcap. The Oldest, chirping like Mickey Mouse, took the cap from me and jumped up and down like he won a car on the Price is Right. "Now I can enter the race, win the race, and get a badge!!!!! Thank you, Mom, you saved me from certain loss!!"

So this is what I do all day. I search for things my kids lose, I fix stuff, I do yard work, I grill chicken.

End of story. Why do you read this? Good grief...

I Fix Stuff.

A day always comes with work of its own. I am seriously thinking about how to discard of Tolstoy, the fish. We have him in a 2.5 gallon tank and he is getting bigger and bigger and I really don't want to buy another tank. He is the invincible fish. Last summer they were dropping like flies and now this time Tolstoy comes along and lives forever. It's not that I want him to die. I just hate cleaning his disgusting tank. It is a see-through rectangle of rankness.

So I had "Clean the Tank" on the fridge for a week or so and the tank was getting cloudy. Real cloudy. Tolstoy's eyes were getting a little woosey and I could tell he wasn't happy in there. But he was otherwise healthy. I decided as I was waiting for my chicken to grill on low I would clean the tank. It is just a little tank. And the filter didn't work at all, so it would get down right nasty in there. I carried the stupid thing to the sink and did the job. The amount of gelatinous substance that smelled like a sea demon straight from the depths of a watery hell was a bit staggering. I actually pulled the filter out and unscrewed it to see if it was clogged. I hadn't done that before. And it showed, baby, cause black stinky jello plopped out and wobbled down the drain. It is the kind of stuff that would seep out of an ork if you had a mind to slit him open in the stomach. Vile, stinky, stuff.

I looked at Tolstoy in the bucket. I wished I could flush him down the toilet or dangle him before one of the tomcats outside, but I refrained. How would I explain that to the kids? Now I know what it feels like to be a farmer who thinks an animal is too much work and he goes out in the field to shoot it in the head. Tolstoy is pretty much just a parasite now living in a transparent box in my kitchen.

Over dinner I talked to Dear Sir about terminating him. He suggested that we take him to the lake down the street (we actually have a lake in our subdivision, believe it or not) and drop him in. But of course, I don't know if it is healthy. Dang, he is so hardy that I bet he would swim to shore, walk back home and knock on the door and demand that I clean his gelatinous mess until he dies naturally. Please no.

I'll tell you what though, the filter works now like a charm and I suppose that is what got the tank so dang cloudy and nasty in the first place. I need to unscrew the dealy from time to time to get the blubbery sickness outta there so it won't clog.

I guess I'll keep him.

But then I changed my mind again last night because I think one of the tank pebbles fell in the garbage disposer and when I ran it maybe it jostled something loose, I don't know. So when I opened up the cabinet underneath the sink to dig through the trash (another story for tomorrow---and we did not lose the allergy pills this time) I found a nasty, gelatinous puddle. Oh for Pete's sake, I cried. It reeked too, of course, and I had to pull out all sorts of stuff I store down there to see the problem.

I thought of calling the plumber, but then I thought, I can do this. Apparently the screws to put pressure on the gasket right underneath the bowl of the sink were either lose or gone. How that passed inspection last year, I have no clue, but it seems lots of things did. I tightened the two I could since they were there, but the third has vanished and I suppose I need to go to Lowe's once again to make a fool of myself and ask for some part I don't know the name of. It is some special screw, not a normal one. A bolt. But a special bolt, ok?

So I took some towels and wiped up the large puddle of fishy nastiness and now everything from under the sink is out and in the kitchen. Dear Sir turned around from his time on the computer and said, "You're fixing everything around here!" with a smile.

I have to say that I have never encountered a gasket before in my life. I have always heard the word gasket and never knew what it was until the piano tuner came on Wednesday and opened the pupper up and found a gasket. He chuckled, handed it to me still in its wrapping and said, "in all my years tuning pianos, that is a first. Need a gasket?"

Long Days Journey Into the Underworld

In the spring you find all sorts of things that you need to fix or dally with. Dear Sir kept mentioning how we need to hire someone to go down in the crawl space to turn on the water spickets so we can start using the hose (we have to turn them off during the winter or they will freeze). A crawl space never sounds appealing to a city boy. Or a city girl. I really don't care for little spaces to crawl into where possible spiders and their little friends are lurking around, waiting to bite and nibble. Who knows as well if there is not a snake or two coiling in the corner of the dank area under the house.

"So maybe we can get the lawn boy down the street to go down there," Dear Sir said. I imagined the lawn boy last summer picking up leaves in our neighbor's yard and hearing of him jumping back in fear when he found what he thought was a copperhead. I think now it was a black snake or something sort of harmless. I did not think the lawn boy would do it. "It has to get done this week," he continued, "It was nice because when the heater guy came to fix the heat pump, I had him turn the water off once he was down there already." Got out of that one.

I felt the urgency of it because whenever Dear Sir gets something like this on his mind (like lawn work) he doesn't stop until it gets done (I mean, he doesn't stop talking about it). I don't like this. I imagined the years that he would say back in Idaho, "I have to trim the hedge. I have to trim the hedge this weekend. Yes, this weekend." And then finally I would do it because he would be so dead on his feet once the weekend came he could not muster the strength to do it. Besides, I am home all week and can squeeze in a little hedge trimming. (*archive The Hard Way)

"Maybe we can get that guy on the homeschool list to do it that does odd jobs," he began.

I imagined having the guy come over to turn on some faucet in the crawl space. I imagined my shame while Dear Sir was at work, trying to explain that we can't handle going down there because of lions, tigers and bears, oh my.

"I'll take a flashlight and see if it looks daunting in a bit," I offered, "if it looks ok, I will just do it. If I can kill a mole, I can kill a snake or a few spiders." (*archive Mole Murder) I thought about this. No jabbing room in a crawl space if I bring Darlene.* (my beloved mole whacking shovel with masking tape on it to keep it together---came with the shed). My shoes will have to do. I have strong legs. I am a runner, right? With my New Balance shoes I could penetrate the scaly skin of any creeping thing on this earth.

I got up and went to my closet to get dressed. I put on a sweat shirt, jeans, no socks (what was I thinking?), and my old New Balance shoes. I grabbed the flashlight and went outside to get to the crawl space. I opened up the little door and walah! a little light came on. A freaking light was down there, just like a basement. The floor was all covered with plastic, so this was good. No holes in the plastic either. Looked nice. Lots of goodies right by the door. A ceiling fan, a ceiling light, a sink, a few cabinet doors, a pantry door, some left over hard wood from the new floor they put in before we got here, some bags of cement, a bag of fertilizer, a set of blinds, a sterilite box full of Christmas lights. Score. Even a bag of limestone.

I went to the back corner of the house where I knew there was an outside spicket. Turned it on. Beautiful. Heard water pouring from it outside. Good. Good.

I went to the next spicket in the front of the house. I crawled around and sweat like crazy. It was hot and I was wearing all that gear. I flashed the light around to see if any wonders of nature were lurking around to eat me. Nothing. We could live down here. I finally got to the front spicket. I turned the thing on and I heard water jolting around in the pipe like the first one, but then the pipe broke or was broken already, I am not sure, and water cascaded in the corner at my feet. I turned off the spicket to see what the heck was happening. The whole pipe was severed right before going out of the house. Not good. That is Dear Sir's favorite spicket. It worked last year.

I crawled out all hot and sweaty. The bright sun bothered me. My daughter was waiting for me outside. "How is it in there?" she asked. "Really small and cramped," I said, "you are not going in." "Come on!" she wailed, disappointed.

I walked over to Dear Sir to tell him the news. He was watering the petunias he just planted in front of the house. "How was it?" he said.

"I think we need a plumber."

"Why?"

"One of the pipes is broken so the front spicket won't work. Water gushed everywhere inside the crawl space."

"Did you turn it off?!"

"Yeah. I wonder if the pipe can be put back together. I don't know how those things work. I could go down there again and see if it could twist back on. It is a really clean break, so maybe that is what the problem is. I don't know."

"Whatever, you are crazy."

I went down there again to see if I could twist it. I managed to get the thing back on, but the water was too powerful and it burst again. It was a little difficult too because I needed the flashlight to see and yet I needed two hands to put he pipe together and twist. All those times using my shoulder to hold the phone to my ear had paid off.

I emerged from the depths of the house once again, defeated. I could not fix the dumb thing.

"Now we need a plumber---" Dear Sir shook his head.

"It won't be much. I will call him tomorrow."

The plumber came that next morning and looked a little frightened to get in the crawl space. He asked some questions about it. I could tell it freaked him out! Give me a break.

When he got the job done and he emerged, I asked him how it was. "That's a nice crawl space," he said, all relieved.

"Yeah, before I went in there I thought a bunch of snakes would be there for me to fight," I said, laughing.

He stared at me."When I moved the pipe I heard a weird sound from somewhere else and I looked around with the flashlight to see what it was. I didn't see nothin', but who knows."

"You probably moved some other pipe or something."

"Yeah, maybe," he said with a little fear.

Where have all the cowboys gone?

See America

It has been a bit since I have written regularly. How annoying. Yesterday my SIL and I took the kids to the National Zoo. We only got to spend one HOUR there because of the parking regulations at the Metro. It was pretty pathetic. I drove a ton yesterday, no joke. We traveled probably five hours to spend one hour at the zoo. Insane. We are going to do it again next week but plan more so we can be there for at least five hours! Good grief! Let's see you try to get a parking space at any metro station during the week when all the lobbyists who live in the burbs commute to their offices in D.C. Forget it. The kids did well though, and I was proud of them.

We have been waltzing around the sites a little since the cherry blossoms blossomed. Not wise, because that is probably one of my allergic reactive problems, but oh well. A few weeks ago we visited Mt. Vernon (and for anyone who does not know what that is---George Washington lived there) with friends from the potato state and we actually sat down at the cafe there and ate a sort of scrambled, weird, little, cramped lunch. The house was cool and we enjoyed that quite a bit, but our friends wanted to move on and so we forsook the Potomac and the slaves quarters. I regret that a little, but we live close so we can always pay a million dollars and go back. It is like Disneyland, I swear.

So, we sat in this cafe, right? And I bought some nachos and fries for the kids because supposedly when we hit Annapolis later we would have a real meal. I am sorry, but George charged a lot to eat at his cafe. It was insane. Disneyland prices, you know? I brought some fruit snacks or something along with me in my purse and dolled them out to the kids during the nacho/fry meal (real healthy). The girl dropped her red fruit snack. She whimpered in protest. The boys commented on how it is dirty now. I swooped over, obeying the "ten second rule," grabbed the snack, put it on her little tray, and said, "Only George Washington's germs are on this baby, don't worry, his ancient germs won't hurt you."

I went and I sat down (to not eat) next to Dear Sir at the other table. I think I grabbed a nacho chip on the way there.

Apparently the girl put the snack to her lips trusting what I said because Eraser Eater said, "Eww! George Washington's ancient germs are now in her intestinal tract!"

Rant

Being a homeschool mom, I am pretty snooty about sicknesses. Especially since I just got over a nasty one. I don't want my kids to get sick. That is one of the benefits of schooling at home anyway. The neighbor girl is constantly in day care and therefore is constantly sick. Nearly every time I see her she is either sneezing, coughing, or suffering from a green, runny nose. Half the times we are sick, I will safely wager it is from her germs. I realize that the germs are present anyway and all that, and we could probably pick up the same germs at the store. There is probably no escaping it. But wouldn't it make sense to lessen our chances of exposure by telling the girl that since she is sick she must go home? I don't care if she has surpassed the "24 hour antibiotic period" or if she is at the last dregs of her sickness. She is still coughing and sneezing and spreading her germs in my home, poor girl.

The mother of this girl is, I am certain, so pissed off at me because of my assertiveness on this issue. Just yesterday while Dear Sir and I were napping she brought her girl over and when we got up she was here playing. While she was running she was coughing like a seal and I spied gobs of snot cascading down her nostrils. I stopped her and said, "Wait a minute. Are you sick?"
She said, "Yes."
I said, "You need to go home."
She went home and I could tell once she got home she told her mom what I said. I did not go outside much the rest of the day, but Dear Sir was out there and the girl came up to him and said, "I am not contagious! I am not contagious!"

Dear Sir just shrugged his shoulders. We just got over a horrible sickness (that I am certain that I did not get from the poor girl) and I just do not want anyone to be sick again. I say that if you are snotting green/yellow stuff and sneezing and coughing horrendously, you are contagious and spreading germs. I don't care if the germ is on my table before she got there, the chances are higher if she comes with more!

Last summer I specified with the mother that if the kids are to play together at all we need to set a standard for illnesses. I said that if any of our kids are sick, we will not let them play together to cut down on contracting sickness. She completely disregards me and says every time her girl is sick that it is either allergies, or she has been on anti-biotics for 24 hours. It drives me nuts. I know that my standard pissed her off but I don't care. My first priority is the health of my own children, not whether she can have a break from her girl and send her over here for a few hours to play because little lassie is bored. I am all for helping her out and giving the woman a break---but not when the girl is sick!

Am I nuts?

Big Bunch of Nothing

I have five kids no more and life is simpler, I have found. I did not know that it was even chaotic. I think the only chaotic thing about it was the knowledge that when two or more of them went upstairs a mess would ensue, and then there was always a couple downstairs to make a mess there too. Thankfully I have had my voice during this period because I don't know what I would have done. I have also been working on not yelling, and I think I only had two outbursts in the whole four days!

Just a few minutes ago I saw that the girl left un-drunk milk from breakfast at the table. Since milk costs a quart of blood, I always insist everyone finish it. There's nothing more wasteful to me than pouring milk down the sink. That is literally my biggest grocery expense. So, I called the girl from the depths of the couch---I called her forth to partake of her unfinished milk. I stood there waiting and then gathered a few bowls from breakfast as I stood there. She ran to get to the milk apologetically and I headed toward the sink. I heard a yelp and a cry and I turned to see what was the matter. She was on the floor, crying, all hair and limbs round about her in an awkward splay. I picked her up and kissed her hair and asked what happened.

"I tell you, I HATE wearing socks!"she wailed. Dear Sir always makes them wear socks. Not my fault.

So, as you can see, things are pretty calm around here, not much to report.

I am very happy that the weather is finally warming up. I have been so intolerant to cold that it is a growing concern. It is 68 in the house and I feel like I need a sweater. My hands get so frigid I can barely use them, my toes go numb. My dad has hypothyroidism and I remember thinking it strange that he would go into the living room where there is a window and sit in the streaming sunshine. The really weird thing is that I find myself going in my sunroom so I can sit in the streaming sunshine there. Every time I get tested for hypothyroidism though I always have "normal" results. I never used to be this intolerant to cold though. It is almost ruining my life in some ways. Instead of running to be healthy, I find that I am running so I can get warm. I have constant goosebumps. I crave hot baths. I dread getting out to dry myself. When we go anywhere Dear Sir immediately turns on the heated seats in the car (even when it is not so cold) just for me. Last night before falling asleep I was shivering while he held me and he said, "This is not normal. It's not even cold." I am falling apart!

Thinking in the Heath

JRH is pretty cool to place upon me the Thinking Blogger Award. (Not that it is real, but I have never won anything before but a Bubblicious skateboard in the eighties, so I will act like it is real for fun).


"The rules for accepting said award, according to Jennifer's amazingly thoughtful site, are as follows (I copy this from JRH's blog, Turkey on Whole Wheat):

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think;
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme
3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote. "

So I am not worthy of this at all. All I make you people think about is unmentionables---my Room 101's and the maddening life of a woman who is playing house. It was only last year or the year before that I was continually drenched in urine and up to my ears in excrement. Life has gotten better. The kids have grown older and I am a big woman. Thank you, JRH, you never cease to crack me up and make me remember my old Southern California life. You people do live quite differently. But you are amazing, because you get that crisp, cool California breeze wafting through your windows in a path from the ocean when the sun goes down. And man, you must elaborate on the "chaotic writing style." What, in tarnation, does that mean? I am by no means insulted, if you are wondering.

So, here are the bloggers that make me think:

1. Shealyisnottheantichrist. Her dry and ridiculous wit confuses me and cracks me up. When she talks politics she gets the wheels turning in my head and I am not sure what I just read. She definitely is a unique individual and I wish she lived next door to me. She reads all the stuff I don't read and I read all the stuff she doesn't read. In short, she is a genius and I want her to rub off on me. She is also a very godly woman with a submission and godliness that I honor.

2. KingJaymz. I think that any guy that has a blog address of "life outside the bathroom" has to be up my alley. I love how in his writing he integrates godly principles and thoughts right alongside the humor of daily life. He is like the brother universal. The brother in the blog. I try to set a time just like with JRH's blog entries, to read his writing and enjoy it rather than skim it. This man will make an exceptional counselor.

3. As I See it Now. I have to say that this woman is a great example to me (as is Shealy). She is an empty nester who is so comfortable with it and glorifies God in all she does. I love reading about her life and I too will one day be an empty nester and see through her what it will be like. She reminds me of what I wish to be (as I am being sanctified)---a woman with a gentle and quiet spirit, as Saint Peter says. Ok, I don't know her very well, but what she writes is very keen and I have much to learn being a stupid twenty-nine year old.

4. C Outside the Box. Um, I just adore Carolanne. I love what she writes and I think it so awesome how encouraging her husband is to her on her blog. I love to read his comments. Their relationship is a great example to me of caring for one another. I love how she is this amazing teacher with faults just like everyone else and she just gives it all to the Lord. I am encouraged by how good her son is to her. Again, I want this godliness to seep into me and influence me greatly! She writes long posts (like every one I am mentioning) but you will find once you read them they are worth the read.

5. I want to say Dear Sir but he hates this stuff because he is too much of a thinker. Someone once asked me in stupefied wonderment, "How did you get him? I mean, he is so, like, smart, and I mean, you are smart, sort of, but he is like, really smart and uh, I mean, you read books, so that is good, but he.....?" I did not know whether to be insulted or to be complimented. I mean, if I were to try to talk theology with this man it would be sort of hard. I am intelligent enough to understand that I would have to know a lot of terms in order to know what the heck another term means. That is why we don't discuss it. C.S. Lewis is as far as it gets. Ok, the man is intimidating to me, I confess. It used to bother me, but now it doesn't. He is always kind about my lack of articulation. I always biff up idioms and I always say sentences inverted and twisted around. I am like a female Yoda that lacks a lot of sense. When I read, most of what I read leaves my brain within the hour. When Dear Sir reads, it stays in the brain. It swirls around in there making him ten times as smart. His kryptonite, however, is manual labor that involves some sort of mechanical usage, and this is where I step in. I am not at my full potential in this area by any means, but I am capable.

And so here is to all of you who make me think. I lift my Wonder Woman mug to you.

BTW--Happy Anniversary to my Clym Yeobright; I am forever your Eustacia watching for you from Rainbarrow with the heath poking in her dress. These nine years have been the only nine years.

Foof

At present I have five kids. They are all running around with swords, slashing things and calling out to one another. I have pledged to myself not to go insane, and so far it is working. Don't go insane, don't go insane, don't go insane. I think later they may be able to go outside even though it is windy like Chicago.

My little three year old nephew is a riot. I asked him if he liked macaroni and cheese and perhaps I would make that for lunch and he said to me, "I don't like macaroni and cheese you make. Only macaroni and cheese my mommy or daddy makes." I think it is funny his daddy makes anything. What a man.

I made him sit and finish his milk at breakfast because the price of milk is like four bucks a gallon, and he complained. "I will have a tummy ache if you make me drink this!" I dug my heels in and handed him a straw and said, "Keep drinking!" He tried to tell me it was terrible milk, but I would have none of it. The kid is terrified of beans so I used that. I told him that in a few minutes the rule in the house is that we put beans in the milk. He sipped pretty fast after that and smiled and let out a little whimper.

The kid keeps me on my toes because every time he goes to the bathroom he takes all of his clothes off from the waist down. He soon comes running at me saying, "Aunt Wachel! Aunt Wachel!" dangling his undies and pants in front of him. As I put on his undies for him, he says, "I wove tese tundies. Tey too toft." He's so particular, it cracks me up.

Today the Oldest turns eleven, and I quote him as he sat drinking his coffee, "I know, my turning eleven freaks you out. You don't have to say it."

"Yeah, it freaks me out! Your clothes fit me! Your shoes fit me!"

"You're a big woman."

"What?"

"You're a big woman."

"No."

"You are taller than the average woman."

"Well, sort of. I am slightly taller than the average woman, but in reality, I am a small woman. People say I'm small."

His eyes bugged out.

"You're a big strong woman."

"Whatever, a lot of women are taller than me."

His eyes bugged out. I really don't know what he is thinking.

I got a ticket last year for my inspection being expired and the cop wrote down that I have brown hair and brown eyes. This was when I had obvious blonde hair. When I got a ticket last week for speeding (cough, cough), I was pleased as punch that the cop still recorded that I had blonde hair and green eyes. FINALLY! He had my weight wrong though.

By the way, my nephew just passed some serious gas. He calls that "foof." If I think about that too much I will laugh until I cry.

Don't Waste Yer Time Reading This

I have not posted in a little bit and I am sorry I have not commented on many blogs. I have read most of your posts last night (I was really behind) on Dear Sir's little laptop, but he cut me off from commenting because I have a different account from him and I would biff up his whole system. Really, he told me I was welcome to, but then I did not want to trespass.

So---here I am again.

I have turned into a mediocre little woman with little to say. I may as well be truly mute. I am a bit sad because my friend that visited me this past week is gone and now I am left with a slight feeling of emptiness. I am not depressed by any means. "Life hurries on and the leaves that are green turn to brown. "

The highlight of her visit with me is when we decided once we got to my house (minus my children---my dear SIL watched them) to have a pot of coffee on my blessed patio. I topped it off with insisting that she eat a Cadbury Egg with me while out there---except she HAD to eat it with a spoon. She hugged me and hopped a little bit as she giggled and said, "Anything for you! I would love to!"

We were so excited to finally be together unhindered. I am just so thankful that God provided this for me. I really needed it.

We have the next couple of weeks of school off, which is nice. I don't know what I will do with myself. I have pretty much finished every stinking project. I even finished the horrid ironing that I let sit again in normal "R" fashion.

Now I just wasted your time. I wouldn't give this post to a monkey on a rock.

Furlough

I have a friend visiting so I am really busy. More on all that later. Check with me perhaps on Sunday or Monday (my ninth anniversary with Dear Sir is coming up, and then The Oldest's birthday is right before). April is full of chaos always.

I will be back in a bit.

Ridiculous Meme

LIST FOUR SENTENCES YOU'VE NEVER SAID BEFORE:
1. I think I'll have a baby by this time next year....
2. Ironing is the best
3. I think I will eat some cheese with coins on it (hack, hack, I can't believe I wrote that!)
4. I dunno (I HATE that)

LIST ANY NUMBER OF SONG TITLES THAT DESCRIBE HOW YOU'VE FELT THIS WEEK:
1. I'm So Tired by the Beatles
2. Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want by the Smiths
3. The More You Ignore Me, the Closer I Get by Morrissey
4. Silence is Easy by Starsailor (remember, I have been mute)

IMAGINE YOU'RE HAVING THE IDEAL PERFECT DAY. WHAT FOUR THINGS WOULD YOU BE DOING?
1. Eating a Cadbury Egg
2. Sitting on my patio with a glass of wine in perfectly sunny, WARM weather
3. Cuddling with Dear Sir for at least four hours
4. Eating a big Caesar Salad with purple onions, cucumbers and the like on top without the reaction

MAKE UP FIVE CREATIVE NAMES FOR A NEW ROCK BAND:
1. Coinage and Cheese
2. Fight For Yer Life
3. Gobblygook
4. The Pink Brains
5. The Einsteins of Love


CONGRATULATIONS! YOU GET TO GO BACK IN TIME AND ENSURE THAT THREE SONGS WERE NEVER WRITTEN, THUS SPARING HUMANITY FROM EVER HAVING TO HEAR THEM. WHAT THREE SONGS WOULD GET THE AXE?
1. I Love You by Paul Mc Cartney
2. Anything by Michael Bolton
3. I Love You by Martina McBride

(I really had a brain freeze over this one because I hate a lot of songs)

Better

I think the Oldest will eventually have some weird complex when he is older. My older brother convinced me that I had horribly ugly feet and if I touched him (on accident, or if he saw my bare feet at all) he would shudder and punch me saying in a high-pitched and disgusted voice, "Your feet are disgusting! If you value your life and do not want to lose the ability to walk, you will refrain from touching me!" He was at least 17 or 18 at the time. I have just discovered though that my feet are not ugly (thanks to Badoozer who values the beauty of her feet and they look somewhat similar to mine, to my utter shock) but have suffered my whole life thinking that my feet were the most ugliest on the planet (and I was ok with it).

Eraser Eater has this ridiculous aversion to my Oldest when he is masticating his food at the breakfast table. Not only is the shirt off a no-no, but just the way the kid chews gets on his nerves and he plugs his ears in front of him and lets his cereal remain untouched until the Oldest is finished with his food. I do understand this problem, but I had a couple of gross brothers who did nasty things when eating or maybe even when not eating (like my oldest brother chasing us around the house with his toe jam) that one has to bear. Seeing your brother chew or hearing it, is the least of his petty little worries, but I do not wish to explain to him the vile things that I ever saw. Change was ever-present on every table in extra large piles in my childhood home, and I would make a point to find many receipts or various sheets of paper to cover it up so I could adequately stomach my morning or dinner fare. You know, you avert your eyes, pretend you can not hear, go to your happy place.

Gotta do something about that.

My voice is back, although the past few days I have continued to imagine myself yelling out, "Clark!" in a crackly, slightly sexy but annoying Lois Lane voice (and I mean Christopher Reeve Lois Lane). Yesterday was the ultimate Lois Lane day. My own voice was insulting to me. I hate watching Superman to this day (we own a copy for the boys) or even hearing it because it gets on my nerves, her voice. Like Melanie Griffith. But today is a little better. I only had a little bit of green stuff to hack up after I drank my coffee and now there is only a little bit of *something* preventing my voice box from getting out my true voice. Sadly, Dear Sir is contracting my disease, which I thought was allergies, and I feel terrible about it.

It was really sad yesterday when I was at church with my family. I could not sing worth a lick, and thankfully the music was loud enough so I could not hear myself crack and shamefully lack the ability to hit high notes at all. I could barely hit low notes. I now know how it feels to have no control over a singing voice, and I feel sorry for those who have no ability to sing well. It just comes naturally to me and I have always been able to do it. It is a little frightening when I can't, but I know it will pass. I hope. My Oldest sat next to me during the service and graced me with his solo-sounding Catholic Choir Boy voice (which shocked me) and he harmonized, when up and down octaves, and pretty much sang incredibly well in a classical sort of way. I was totally impressed. I have never heard him sing because he ALWAYS sits next to Dear Sir, his favorite parent. I just eventually gave up on singing and quit.

I don't yell too much, contrary to what I wrote before. I was only kidding. I got a lot of posters telling me not to yell so much; I am not doing my children any good. Let me defend myself. I hope some of you know that I am kidding on this blog. A LOT. So I am perfect, that's settled.

Well, I hope you all had a refreshing Easter. Ours was nice. The church we visited was small but kind and accommodating and it was cool to finally get the Eucharist (no offense to other protestant churches, but you just don't provide the Lord's Supper but once a quarter or something---whatever that means). And it was nice to have the Anglican liturgy.

This Easter I saw more the value of the Resurrection. As much as the Cross is important and the center of our faith because of what happened there, the Resurrection is the victory of conquering death. Without it, Jesus just would have died and there would be no hope. The emptiness of Holy Saturday makes us anticipate the new life and hope the Resurrection of our Lord brings.

Attack of the Mute

Once a dear friend told me that I ought to keep a pair of old sneakers in the trunk of the car cause you never know when you gotta run. One day the thought frightened me so badly that I decided that I had enough left over running shoes that I would put a pair in every trunk. You just never know, right?

I complain a lot. I have a screaming headache. Not only is it laborious to talk, I have this aching behind my eyes that will not dissipate.

I just got back from the library with the kids, hence the headache. It is hard enough to get them all rounded up when I do have a voice. Think of if you have hardly a voice and you have to go all Joan Rivers on them. A sick Joan Rivers. I find that my facial expressions have more meaning now, my pleading more involved because my voice can not keep up. Me, you. We have talk. There aren't very many words that can be said when you have to work so hard to say them, so you have to make it short and to the point.

In the scramble to get to the stinking library the headache started. I ran around the house searching for books to return and yelped at Eraser Eater a few times to get his butt in gear. That boy really does it to me, I tell ya. Once in the car he says to me, "Mom, it makes me so sad when you yell at me!" I reply in broken utterances and whispers, "I can't yell at you if I wanted to." The drive there was ok. We were cruising right along like normal. We were almost at the parking lot of the library and it hit me. I am wearing my slippers. I panicked for a split moment and then I thought, hey, I'll be thirty this year and I shouldn't care if people see me out in my slippers. I seriously was going to do it and then I remembered my "out." I sent the Oldest to the trunk to get my sneakers and I took off my first slipper. I almost retched when I saw a smashed Craisin at the bottom of it. I don't like thinking about stuff like that.

The Oldest said that I was saved from eternal embarrassment or something like that because of the sneakers in the trunk. I swear man, always keep a spare. (Thanks, Ann) That is a lesson learned for you.

So, being mute is not so bad. I mean, it is kind of bad. Last night Dear Sir and I just stared at each other over dinner. I think he can not bear to hear me talk. He kept making weird eyes whenever I would say something. He kept saying stuff like, "Can't you take medicine for that?!"
"That's messed up. You need to see a doctor or something." "Just don't talk." "It has to be more than allergies." I had him order our food. You know, I can't talk. I wanted some dessert once I was done eating and I went up to the counter to order an ice cream cone and the lady had me repeat it again because she could not hear me. Then she gave me the wrong thing. I guess she still couldn't hear me. Dear Sir was not enjoying his satanic shake because I guess it was just too good for him. Man, it was good. We ended up switching desserts and I woke up this morning, got on the scale and almost screamed when I gained a pound. Except a scream could not, still, come from my lips.

All lessons in life can be learned from The Little Mermaid (as my daughter clearly points out), so when I must answer 'yes' or 'no', I should just "nod 'yes' and shake 'no.' Just like Ariel." I do find that when communicating with no words the person who understands and can translate is my daughter. Boys, men, and the like can not figure a darn thing out (no offense). The Oldest can't ever hear a word I say as it is. For example"

"Get in the car." I even point to the car.

"Get in the char? What's a char? What did you say, mom?"
I know you would think that the kid is pulling my leg, but trust me, he is not. He sincerely does not understand and then comes up with the most ridiculous translation all on his own. Imagine not having a voice as it is and then trying to translate the right thing to the kid when he gets it wrong. Again and again. Our math lesson lasted about an hour (that is very bad) and I was about to take the Expo pen and eat it, I was so stinking frustrated.

Thankfully the girl understands me because, gee whiz, I would just melt down. Eraser Eater looks at me in terror as I approach speaking like a Rachael Ray mutated freak job. Please don't cook for me.

Pray I retrieve my voice tomorrow so screaming and yelling can again commence.

Mute

I just saw someone destroy a Mac.

Ok, moving on, I have lost my voice. It is completely gone. I get down to pick something up and a little hoarse squeak comes out, unlike my own voice, and it is driving me nuts. I can't speak to my kids so I have resorted to smacking my hand as hard as I can on the table. When I try to speak nothing comes. At times I am lucky and I am able to eek out a really bizarre sound like Joan Rivers and Rachael Ray combined. It is not pretty.

I keep having thoughts of The Piano, Harvey Kietel dusting a piano with no britches on, and stepping up to a microphone with no voice to back it up. I have called Dear Sir twice at work today and all I have for him is a ferocious whisper and he says, "Quit talking. You're scaring me." In other words, quit calling me. I actually got up the nerve to still do school this morning with the boys. We skipped dictation, but that is ok. When I would want one boy's attention I would slam my palm against the table and stare at him. They were a little freaked out. School went well.

The Oldest just looked up laryngitis in his medical manual so he can be assured that my voice comes back. He is a bit concerned, I guess. This has cropped up from allergies. It was all in my ear the other day and I was hating life, and now it is down in my voice box. It is better than pain in my ear, which is unbearable, so I guess I have to live with it for a bit. Dear Sir keeps saying, "Hot drinks, hot drinks."

The daughter told me this morning, "Now dad has a mute wife."

More on this later. I am about to go on a date with Dear Sir and I get to whisper to him the whole time.

I am happy to report that I am the fifth hit on Google for "holy anorexia green sick sickness."

Back-Up

Yesterday my head was a giant cotton ball and my thinking process was not very clear, as you may well imagine. It was one of those days when you know your body is not going to obey you, or if it does at all, it will be a very slow process.

I remember staring at the Oldest's lesson book for math and trying my hardest to find the area of an irregular shaped polygon. I had the answer but I did not have the method of doing it in front of my thick, cotton head. I had to give the Oldest a little break so I could figure the thing out. He was getting the wrong answer and then I was for some odd reason. No, it wasn't an odd reason. I had cotton in my head.

Finally I remembered how to find the area of a triangle (which was my problem) and then combined it with the area of the other shape of the polygon. It's been years since I did algebra and geometry and the rules fly out of my head or get lost in the cotton dwelling there.

I laughed inside when I thought of how I am teaching my son all this math stuff and sometimes I have issues with it! The boy is exceedingly patient with me though and still considers me the best teacher (which I am not, but I will take that)

Eraser Eater is back to writing songs again and making "CDs". When he is not schooling or eating or sleeping, he is writing songs. Dear Sir read off a few this morning that were right up his alley: "Back-up Batteries" and "There is Clutter Everywhere".

Back-up batteries? Dear Sir always emphasizes how important it is (solely to me) to have a "back-up". He has said that since his youthful days with me in our marriage. I remember when he grocery shopped for us when we were first married and thought it was the pits when the last of the toothpaste was used. I think he came up to me with a tube in his hand saying, "always have a back-up." I try now to do that. I fail in some areas because of the cotton in my head.

There is Clutter Everywhere is so very apropos to my Dear Sir. He can't walk into a place without picking up or dusting crumbs off a table carefully with his hand. He even has me doing it and I was sort of good at it before. He is so clean. If there is clutter he clutches his head and almost has a meltdown. I guess that is my reaction to coins and cheese. Unmentionables.

But let me get this straight. There is never coins and cheese. There is just coins. And then there is cheese with fingerprints on it. And then when someone has heard these two phobias they naturally combine them into one gigantic pool of horrendousness and I am left writhing in a vat of sickness. Because it is so odd it becomes quite silly and funny to them.

You could probably show Dear Sir pictures of clutter and he would feel a bit pale and green. You know what? I am getting myself in trouble here. Some of you have rotten minds and would torture me with needless information. I can not bare all to you, reader! You are my enemy. What is probably perfectly fine to you is not well with me and you know it. There. I looked up "coins and cheese" on google. Nothing too disturbing there. ---Except there was a page about "testing the dirtiness of coins" and you somehow use cheese bacteria to do this? Save me from this madness!!!!

How did I get to this subject again? Oh yes, there is clutter everywhere.

That is a profound statement. There is clutter everywhere. Chew on that for awhile.

Absence List

The good thing is that I did not go to D.C. on Friday. I am glad of it because it would have been too hard on my guests to help me entertain my kids during the whole thing. I was glad that they could experience the area unhindered.

I am again recovering from another serious allergy attack, so I am spending a day run-less. I actually got on the treadmill and ran for half a mile and just quit because I just had no energy or strength. What a way to feel like a failure. I am at the moment waiting for my meds to kick in so I can gather the ambition to go upstairs and clean myself up before Dear Sir comes home in a couple hours.

In celebration of a fellow blogger, I will now list a few things that I miss about this world:

1. New York Seltzer
2. Big Sticks (the ones from the eighties)
3. Hagan Daas Irish Cream Ice cream
4. Jello Pudding Pops
5. Three Musketeers when the chocolate was thicker on the outside
6. pre-cell phones
7. when Chuck E. Cheese's didn't taste like government cheese
8. Disneyland before it's 35 year anniversary (the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House)
9. being able to find a hard to find CD at a Best Buy
10. being able to eat a plate of french fries without caring about what it will do to me
11. not having to personally pay the bills! :)
12. Del Taco
13. the frozen yogurt craze of the eighties
14. a mint chocolate chip ice cream cone at Thrifty's
15. Cantaloupe flavored Snapple
16. eating Cadbury Eggs without feeling guilty
17. Trader Joes
18. paying 84 cents for gas
19. customer service people and/or receptionists that are actually nice
20. "the customer is always right"


My mind is a blank. I still feel like I have cotton in my head. And notice that most of my stupid memories and things I miss are either from California or some sort of food! It is very possible that I am hungry.