Green Cathedral

As One Wise Family Says, Temporary is the New Permanent

2010-08-10T07:23:00.003-05:00

We are finally in the new place. There are boxes everywhere and most of it finished, just cabinets to fill and odds and ends to find a place for. It is so lovely here, I can not express it enough. The sad thing about it though is that we are without my sister in law and her family (whose house we are living in), and have to survive holidays for two years without them! There is this wonderful familiarity with the house like it is my second home, but there is also a lingering sadness that they are not here in the States. The Prof. is brimming over with glee at the ease of driving only ten minutes to work and working one day a week at home. The savings on gas alone is mind boggling.

When it rains, it pours, I tell you. Not only has my sister died in the last month, but I have moved, done little for my classes that I am teaching in now less than two weeks (scream), and our car is (again) the bane of our existence. A couple months ago we just dropped 1400 on it in some odd repair. Before that insurance covered the deer hitting it, and now we have more maintenance repairs, tires, and whatever giving us a grand total of, oh, I don't know, 1600 bucks. That is ADDED to the 1400, mind you. AND, if we don't get it repaired, it will not pass inspection next month. The joys of American living.

Did I mention that my kids are sick too? Yes, they have been using the nebulizer and going strong with a cough for well over a week now. While I was sitting among boxes setting up utilities, I was getting calls from the coroner and the apartment manager where my sister died, speckled with moans and coughs in the background reminding me to dispense medicine when I finished up.

As soon as August hits I start to hear all this back to school stuff, and I refuse this year to feel guilty that I don't start school up until the first week of September. In fact, I may not start until the third week. My kids are smart, read all the time, and we have had no summer. The excellent thing I really look forward to is that my sister in law is coming the first week for a handful of days, and we get to have them stay with us.

As we were driving yesterday to our permanently temporary new home, the Prof. said, "There are so many people in the world." I was just looking out the window at the sea of houses and thought the same thing. I said, "Hey, I was just thinking that." He grabbed my hand and squeezed it, smiling.

"Of course you both think the same things!" yelled Eraser-Eater, "the Bible says that you are one body!"

Sleep

2010-07-07T07:41:00.003-05:00

I am finding that summer is not what I imagined it would be. I planned to record a couple days a week and that is not getting done. I planned to read more and that is not getting done. What I am getting done is clearing the house up so we can sell it because we are moving about an hour north, closer to the Professor's work, which will be great. I am not complaining. It is just funny how things don't turn out to be what you thought they would. In a strange way, I sort of love that about life. You could have severely dull moments, but in reality it is never truly dull. I can see why contentment in all circumstances is essential to living the good life.

My sister-in-law has taken the kids for a couple of days (minus the Oldest). Boy is it strange. My Oldest is 14 and playing the part well. The Prof. and I waited and waited yesterday morning all morning to see if he would get up. We didn't talk about it at all, but just went about our morning packing and such, until 11:30 hit and I started to wonder: "Is he dead?" Being quite melancholy, my mind goes in those directions in a split second.

Eventually he got up at 1:00. I lost my mind temporarily and ironed for an hour because I had clothes I hadn't worn in a year because of my laziness.

Sorry for the boring post. It is almost nine and he is still going strong. I have to get me on the treadmill before I give up.

New Song

2010-06-21T11:04:00.004-05:00

Those of you that have not heard this song already, tell me what it is about as a sort of game.

This kind of stuff is what has been sucking up my time and keeping me away from blogging and soap-making! Now, off to make soap!

2010-06-16T19:02:00.000-05:00

At some point I will write something on here. Not that anyone is reading it! Ha ha.

Psalm 84 Live

2010-05-25T15:39:00.000-05:00

Feeling Empty When Life is Still Sweet

2010-05-03T08:18:00.003-05:00

This is the time of year when things slow down a bit (at least near the end of the month) and I can take a deep breath and record. Well, I don't anticipate doing that until June, but it takes me a long time to settle into an idea. Seeing as how it is only the beginning of May, I am a little bit premature in my anticipation, but that is ok. School should be done by the beginning of June, Co-op will be finished next week, and a little vacation awaits my family directly after I have a gig in almost three weeks, which I am a little nervous about. No one will probably be there, and it is probably as low key as you could possibly think, but it is the step of doing it, not that actual act itself. I have pushed myself to do this---asked my friend to pray for a fire to light under my rear to get it over and done with. It worked. I sort of blindly called a number and booked myself. Exciting, but I am not incredibly excited about much lately. I am down a lot, surprise, surprise.

You know how you just feel like giving up on all the things you love to do---to sit on the couch and let the TV put your brain on autopilot? I never watch TV. But it sounds good. Reading sounds good too. Just a sort of reality besides the one I have so I can escape for awhile. And not that life is so bad. It really isn't. It is just that spiritually I feel beat up and worn out. Recovery could take a long spell, who knows. I am willing to see it through and roll with the punches. I asked the Professor what he thought of the whole TV idea. He said, "Well, that's classic depression." I guess it is. But I still get up in the morning and run. I still make soap. I still school the kids. I still teach outside home. I still drink all my water for the day. I still get dressed and put make-up on. I even still pick up the guitar about every other day and accompany myself singing. Just inside I have a weariness that does not abate. A sort of spiritual lethargy. Doing the things I love to do are harder to do.

My mother in law is close to leaving this earth. I hear reports of her peaceful countenance and readiness for the next life. I envy that peace, and I envy that wisdom. So I see the importance of doing what you need to do even if you don't take joy in it for a time inside.

Jack the Ripper

2010-04-20T14:02:00.001-05:00

Been thinking about this song a lot and also about the famous London murderer. I am presently reading The Lodger on the Professor's reader thingy, and it is very suspenseful and entertaining. I recommend it. It is free to read on Project Guttenberg. This song I sing on this video is a cover of Morrissey. Great, great song. I think when I realized what it was about (I always listened to it as a teen not knowing what it meant) I fell over while running on the treadmill.

It is from the murderer's point of view---when he sees a harlot he wishes to murder and how he deceives her into getting alone with him, which isn't hard as she is indeed a harlot. Of course, if you don't know about Mr. Ripper then you should read up on him. He was famous for killing harlots late at night and sometimes taking body parts like uteruses from his victims. He was never discovered. I wonder how The Lodger ends.

Sunshine and Rain

2010-03-31T07:50:00.002-05:00

Here is a picture of the "shine sprite" The Oldest made for me in art class. Crazy little sculpture, but it makes me a bit happier for some reason. He knows that the dark, dank weather affects me so he thought of me when he made it and said when he handed it over, "This is for you, Mom, when the weather is bad, you can at least have a little sunshine in your window to cheer you up." So I have the thing on my kitchen window sill where I store some of my soap balls. He was probably thinking of himself too though when he thought of making it for me. I get very down when it is cloudy and rainy (which used to be my favorite weather). He has to deal with a not too happy mother every so often.

Speaking of the rainy weather, I remember back in the archives of my brain one of the times I first met The Professor. When he was only my acquaintance, he used to come over to my parents house as they had a sort of "marriage class" home group sort of thing. He was the only single guy who came as he wanted to learn about how to be a good husband as his goal was to marry eventually. I rarely stayed during those meetings, but since it was raining cats and dogs, I remained indoors while everyone piled in the house one by one.

I don't know what I was thinking. It was indeed true that I loved the rainy weather, but I must have had a confidence with men then that I forget about in my older years now. When The Professor walked through the door, all rainy and in a bright yellow raincoat, I couldn't help but look up at him. One of the elders had opened the door, welcoming him in, saying, "It's terrible weather out there, eh?" The Professor put his hood down and said jovially, "Oh, I LOVE the rain! I wish it would rain more!"

At that moment he looked over at me slightly as I was sitting at a table facing the door and I was shocked. I had never met a person who loved the rain like me. In complete confidence (I only imagine), I said, "You are DEFINITELY scoring some points."

What he took that to mean, I am still not sure, but he turned a little pink and laughed as he took his coat off.

Isolating X

2010-03-29T07:16:00.002-05:00

I think I have lost my ability to write at all. I took off about 8 months on this thing and left it for dead, but decided, why not? Who knows if I want to keep it up regular like I used to.

My brain is entertained elsewhere these days. Mainly it wants to stay indoors and never leave the house, but of course I find that I am taking a kid to soccer a few times a week, running errands, meeting friends for coffee, and teaching at the co-op.

I just survived a very terrible experience worship leading at a local church (I wasn't terrible, the people were a mixed bag). I spent a good year doing that but it was not wasted. In fact, I was still writing on here when I was leading. Well, that's over. The present worship team did not appreciate my efforts much because I was not rock n roll, so here I am. It took me a bit to be fine with it. It feels rather not good when people do not like or accept you. But when you are rock n roll, you are rock n roll.

I am in the throes of teaching my Oldest Algebra. When anyone asks me what I am doing these days, I just say, "Isolating X." They look at me puzzled but if the person is a wise homeschool mom she knows immediately what I mean and chuckles. This, I believe, is why my brain is fried. I literally broke down and cried last week when I couldn't figure out a problem (when I usually can). My son looked at me in horror as if to say, "what is this wetness falling from your cheeks onto my math book?" His lack of "Here, let me solve the problem, dear mother!" or "How can I make this better?!" made me so angry that I didn't know whether to ravenously eat the math book with my retainer on and upturn the coffee table when finished or just calmly sit there and cry a bit more. You know when you are so mad you just look around a bit saying in your head, "what can I do? What can I do?" seeking something to possibly destroy. It is desperation and I don't ever want to feel that again.

But we got through it, you know? And eventually I looked at the problem again and realized that I was looking at it wrong and solved it in a jiffy, which, turned out that the boy could solve it in a jiffy too and the world was right again. I didn't have to eat the math book, I didn't ruin my retainer, I didn't upturn the coffee table in my wrath.

But this has been a year. Next year will be my favorite, I am quite certain: the Oldest enters high school. I will be homeschooling ten years when this one is over and I am not sure I like it. Some of you Anons that hate me in the world like to come on here and comment on how ungrateful and melancholy I am. You are exactly the reason why I exist. While I jokingly complain, you are probably on your angel-bordered template blog talking about tea and pretty little laces and bears and whatnot. Let's not forget your house is full of knick knacks and your closet is full of Christmas sweaters. If only I had a thimble collection I would feel less melancholy. If only. Try isolating X for days on end with an Expo pen until your fingers bleed. So I am exaggerating. But you are not. You are over there with your pink sweat shirt sipping some earl grey as I type.

Psalm 84

2009-07-17T08:05:00.001-05:00

Here is a new song I have been working on since yesterday.

Listen

2009-07-01T08:48:00.002-05:00

I put up a couple of song sketches on my music site. One is called "Recall Unto Me" and it is about how in this life we need God to remind us of pretty much everything.

The next song is called "Side" and it is about death. Those that know me would know exactly what it is about and it was good for me to write it.

It is just me and the guitar and I only did one take----so it is not the best recording, but fun nonetheless.

Enjoy!

Porch

2009-06-10T07:17:00.003-05:00

I just went ahead and turned the water on in the crawl space minus the bug bomb. I had the job of cleaning the moss off the house and in order to do that I needed water! Because I am so good at planning things, I decided to just bite the bullet and go down there to twist the two cobwebbed knobs. I inhaled a lot of bug spray. I am shocked at how much the human body can tolerate. I was hacking and wondering if I had to call the poison control center once I crawled outside, but soon enough fresh air seemed to help and I was righted again.

I also painted the porch this past week, which was a sort of disaster. I painted the floor of it dark blue (like the shutters on our house) and it looks all great and everything, except I should have left a sign for kids to enter through the back. Or "wet paint" or something. A kid came up the porch and pulled the paint up in the print of his foot in several areas, and then somehow he touched the paint and christened my storm door with his finger prints.

I was livid. All I can say is that the kid ran away and his older brother was banned from my property until I could re-paint that madness.

Eraser Eater promptly made a sign for me and stuck it outside. He put "DANGER!" in large capital letters.

To be honest, the porch was depressing me. It looked horrible. And we were having people over for the Girl's eighth birthday party. I painted it days before the event, but because of all the thunderstorms and high humidity, it took a century to dry. I thought since the day before the party was completely sunny, I could do little touch ups in the walk way. I'm an idiot.

The next morning it was fabulously wet so in my Sunday best, I took one of my good rags (I can't think clearly in the morning, you know that) and wiped it all up. But I was barefoot and I got paint all over the bottom of my feet. It covered the bottom of my feet, actually. And I forgot about it. I just put on my heels and went, wondering later why it was a bit hard to take them off.

After the party was over (it was after church) the Prof. and I sat down with our glasses of pop and talked. He was on the couch opposite me. I kicked my feet up on the coffee table. Immobile, he stole a glance at my (I am sure) dark colored blue feet bottoms. But he thought he was being slick and looked at me like it was nothing but I intercepted. "I know what you're thinking," I said,"I stepped on the wet porch this morning...."

"Um, yeah, I was about to say..."

I don't know how many times in my marriage I will feel like Lucy Ricardo, wincing.

Of Late

2009-05-26T08:01:00.002-05:00

I have very little to write about. I mean, I could write about nothing and then I could write about everything.

The Professor is supposed to bomb the crawl space to kill the bugs before I enter in, but that has not happened yet. The cars need to get washed and we need the water turned on. These robins keep perching on the rear view mirrors and pooping on the side of the car. It is pretty gross looking---long streams of white and black poop. The man keeps saying that if he had a gun he would "shoot that thing."

But other than that not too much is going on. Our mailbox that got annihilated a couple years ago has still never gotten fixed by the culprits, our grill has taken to catching on fire (apparently there was a recall we had no clue about) and only works half way, and the Prof. and I killed another pot of herbs I tried to buy again. We set them by the window and watered them but they still biffed it. When I found that there was still a little life yet in each plant, I put it outside once it got warm and what do you know, the next day, the whole pot was upturned.

"Guess I'm not supposed to have herbs," I mumbled to the Prof.

I made an amazing Oreo pie yesterday. I worked hard on it. I imagined exactly what I wanted. An oreo crust, a chocolate ganache layer, Oreo infused ice cream, another thin layer of ganache, and then more ice cream. I drizzled it with chocolate. As we ate it with our guests I heartily complimented myself after I took a bite. "This is awesome!" I yelped. I guess it is not proper to compliment your own pie, but it was the first time I had ever tried it. And I thought it up in Costco. The Prof. looked at me in surprise (I suppose he could not imagine his own mother hollering her own praise) and kept eating. Everyone else ignored me and kept eating---and no one talked about how incredibly wicked it was because I had already crowned myself queen.

But Eraser Eater, who was with me when I was audibly imagining my pie at Costco, said as he was chomping on a piece, "Gee Mom, is this the pie you were envisioning at Costco? It is AWESOME! Thanks! You're the best! You were right, it really WOULD be good!"

I give up on adults who insist on propriety.

Me and the Oldest

2009-05-04T08:07:00.003-05:00

I've been hacking a lot due to the pollen here. I had a word of wisdom from my dear friend Laura about allergies/moving to new areas/honeymoon periods, etc and this spring has been an asthmatic mess. Breathing is an issue. The Oldest has been hacking up a lung too (we call it our TB). He asked me stupidly this spring if he had tuberculosis.

The Prof. and I looked at each other. Of course, the man always jumps at the chance to kid the poor gullible wretch. "Yes. You have it. And you are going to die soon."

The crew and I took a field trip to a local estate with huge grounds to hike and whatnot, and the Oldest and I both were hacking up a lung the whole time. He has been pocketing his inhaler and sometimes I bum it off him when I need to breathe.

"Hey, my mucus, it tastes metal-lick." He coughed again and swallowed it.

"You CAN'T DO THAT! Look. You swallow the junk and then it slides down into your throat again and all you can do is just hack it up---again. It's gross. It's like you're eating your snot. And the word is metallic, dude."

"Oh. But it tastes metal-lick, I mean, metal---how do you say it? It tastes like metal---like blood. Do you think I am coughing up blood? I have to have tumercolasis. This isn't good. Here--" {violent coughing spasm}"...mook," he stuck out his tongue.

"No blood, pal. Just snot. Now don't swallow it."

"But I have been doing that the whole time! I wish I would have known that sooner!"

"Well now you know." I handed him the inhaler, he coughed into his elbow pit and then ran off into the bamboo.

Eventually we reached a place where there was a huge hedge and on the other side of the huge hedge there was a building. The problem with this hedge was that it was some sort of flowering one and there was no way to get around it to the other side except to go through it. I forget the woes of spring and summer just about every year until it hits me for the very first time again. The Oldest did not want to walk through. The reason being: huge bumble bees soaring around the towering hedge and all over in a sort of canopy. He stood at the foot of it.

"I can't do it," he whimpered, "it is not possible. I am going to die, we are never going to get out of here, and there is no way out!" He was steadily backing away and petrified.

I immediately donned my spring/summer coping skills with freshness. My mind was clear even though I was hungry. But I was hungry. We were with friends. The pressure increases for good ideas to get out of the next panic mess. My ulterior motive: to get to food. The only way to get to food was to get through that bee infested canopy. The bee infested canopy was between me and fainting.

He started to cry. Yes, I do admit, my eyes began to roll. I just don't have time for this madness. "I just can't do it...." he was saying over and over in a soft shrill whisper, hands to mouth, eyes wide behind his glasses, looking to and fro from one side of the bee infested canopy to the other. I quickly imagined myself with a huge roll of duct tape. Really, I did. I ripped off a piece and blinded his eyes and then I suddenly got a great idea.

"Close your eyes," I said. I pulled out a stick of gum from my purse.

"What? Gum? Close my eyes? Are you nuts?" he wailed faintly, Mickey Mouse fashion.

"Please just close your eyes. Then when you are done closing your eyes, you can have this gum. But you have to keep them closed. We are going to walk through that walkway and you are going to hold my hand. But you can't open your eyes. And the bees won't get you because I will guard you. I am best at it. And when we are through walking, you can open your eyes and have the gum. Let's go. No choice."

He very reluctantly obeyed. Half way across, he stopped with his eyes shut tight and said, "I can't do it! They are going to get me!" I jerked his hand slightly and said, "You are half way there, man, and then it's over."

With eyes tight shut, he floated his head around like he could see in all that blackness. He timidly went forward, shaking. When over the threshold of bee-less air, he popped open his eyes, hastily grabbed the gum, threw it in his mouth, chewed it with violent relish and ran like the dickens to the field beyond.

Hast Thou Bedecked Thyself With Humor

2009-03-19T20:38:00.000-05:00

I was reclining on the bed reading the torturous Merry Adventures of Robin Hood when Eraser Eater ran toward me to kiss me goodnight.

"Have you brushed your teeth?"

"No."

"Get in there."

He went to the bathroom and got going with the brush. He has one of those firefly toothbrushes that blinks a flashing red light until a whole minute is up. In the dark hall where he was peeking his head out to spy on me from time to time, he looked a bit strange----all dim yet glowing red about the mouth.

The Oldest was sitting in a chair, talking to me as this was going on. When I pointed out how "trippy" Eraser Eater looked, the Oldest decided he had his own bit to say (as usual). "Hey, that does look a bit odd. How bout you send that toothbrush to a lighthouse so they can bring in the ships with it!"

I tell you, he is a bright boy, but so not good at cracking jokes. He was laughing in a hearty, lusty manner at his own jest, sitting there in the chair, slapping his knee. He gets this genuine, actual smile that I love when he does this.

Eraser Eater saw this great deal of mirth and cried out with toothbrush smashed against his cheek, "Why don't you send your brain to science!?" At this, the fountain burst into a flowing stream and my Oldest was almost on the floor laughing his sides off.

"Oh Mom, that boy, oh, that boy, he kills me every time. He always has one up his sleeve!"

"Yeah, so Mom...." He just stood there waiting for a response.

Try reading in this house. It is impossible.

"Yes?"

"I did inform Dad today that you don't really get crackin' until around 7:30. Well, sometimes it is more like eight....."

"Is that so?" I put the book mark in my book and set it down.

"Yeah," he was really grinning now,"in fact, I think you only really start getting going by 9:00, but if I truly thought about it, you are only rolling by noon." At this he was nearly on the floor again. My smile wasn't helping. "In fact, because you can be so lazy, forget paying the bills anymore or even bothering to get out of bed...." he was gasping for air...

"Me? Lazy? You flinch every time I tell you to do the dishes!" He rolled his eyes in playful vengeance.

"Yeah? And you just stand there when I ask if I can play games and say, 'uh, I don't know. Uh, not now.' And then I ask later and you say, 'maybe later' and then I ask later and you say, 'it's time for bed now! why would you want to play games now?' And then what do you know, POW! the whole idea is shot because you delayed it so long!" Now them's fightin' words.

"My plan has worked successfully." I picked my book back up.

"You mean you have been doing this on purpose all along?"

"Perhaps."

"You are craftier than I thought!" he bellowed in complete belief.

Sad Song (Noel Gallagher-Oasis)

2009-03-19T06:58:00.001-05:00

I LOVE this song. Noel is amazing. I want a recording of this terribly bad.

New Batch

2009-03-18T09:35:00.004-05:00

I made lavender soap the other day and it looks like blueberry. Oh well. It is pretty though! I got a little too heavy on the blue, I think. Argh. It smells great.

Hello World, Here Comes a Great Typist.

2009-03-16T16:52:00.003-05:00

Uh, long time no see.

I am about to delete this thing. I will turn moderation off. Bee convinced me.

Not that there is much to moderate. I am just ridiculously busy. I have recently taken up a worship leader/coordinator role at my church so that is taking some time. I am having quite a great time arranging old hymns and making them spunky. My next project is "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent" and "Christ the Lord is Risen Today". We will see how that all pans out.

And it looks like I may teach three literature classes this fall, so the intense reading and note-taking will ensue.

My Girl just got over pneumonia, and Eraser Eater had a major asthma attack on Friday, resulting in his oxygen level being severely low and his lung capacity even lower. When they finally got him to 75% capacity level they allowed us to step out of the office and toward home with a hefty prescription and instructions. When I didn't have the flu, I was taking care of ailing people. Heck, when I had the flu I was taking care of people.

"What does that mean?" The Oldest said.

We were listening to "Eight Days a Week" on the radio.

"It's a Beatles song. You know, the guy loves the girl so much that he loves her MORE than just seven days a week, see, it's pretty clever," I said, stepping on the gas.

"I don't see what's so clever about that. There aren't eight days in a week. It makes them look dumb. I don't get it."

"Forget it then."

"Yeah, ok. Hey Eraser Eater, this kid in class told me about a game you can play online that you can design yourself. He designed a stupid game where a bear catches hamburgers for points!"

Anything with design and Eraser Eater is ON IT.

"What is this game?!" he hollered.

"It is just a game where you can design your own game if you want," answered the Oldest.

"Where do you find it?"

"On the internet! You go on the internet! Do I have to keep saying it!?"

"WHERE ON THE INTERNET, OLDEST? HUH? I WANT ANSWERS HERE!" He made sure that he growled and laughed all at the same time as he said this.

I burst out laughing against the steering wheel.

"How's he so funny?" the Oldest gave me a half-grin that meant he barely got the humor.

"The boy is just clever," I confessed.

But he doesn't get clever or humor. Poor old sap.

New Song

2009-03-08T17:24:00.000-05:00

Here is a new song I put up on my new music site. Give it a listen for me.

Listings and Dialogue

2009-02-18T16:44:00.002-05:00

When shopping for a birthday gift today the Girl and I found Smurf stuffed animals. Incredible.

I usually wake up in the morning wanting to go to bed already and then proceed to long for that step into bed all day long. Is that normal?

I ate two pieces of cheesecake yesterday but don't feel fat. I mean, I was sure to get on the treadmill, but I don't feel fat. That's good, people.

Once the election was over, Obama sent me a letter thanking me for voting for him. Wait. I think I already told you that before. Like I have also told you before, I am getting very old and forget stuff.

I did not vote for Obama.

My teeth are getting closer together and so the braces will be off in a few months. YES! No more eating on one side!

Today I thought for some reason I was very wise when I said to my Oldest: "You will never control people; you can only control yourself." Then I shortly realized that I am an idiot.

I almost slipped and fell at a bowling alley today wearing my 12 year old boots. Well, I didn't have them when I was twelve, I've just had them for that long.

I think chocolate makes people very happy.

I love Titus Two's version of "Fly" by Sara Groves.

Yesterday I got raw chicken juice on my running shoes.

I have a guitar that is bigger and better than me.

I broke a humidifier a couple of weeks ago. It MELTED. I must say that I have broken many and that has never happened before.

I heard a sweet girl today get so excited about a Webkinz that she squealed so high-pitched she sounded just like a boiling tea kettle. Amazing. I did a double take.

My Oldest, when corrected nearly the whole car trip home long, whimpered and put his head down in shame and despair.

"This day is over," he said piteously.

"Oh but you will have chicken tacos for dinner!" I bellowed.

"We shouldn't have chicken tacos for dinner! Good endings to bad days just isn't right!"

I rolled my eyes.

"I just like bad endings to bad days. Can't we eat something else?!"

Like what, a death cake? A dead body? A burnt up hog within a funeral pyre? Chilled monkey brains?

"I'm sorry, that's just really weird. We're having tacos, pal."

Of Late

2009-02-12T10:51:00.002-05:00

On Tuesday we went to see the sights in D.C. with our niece from Idaho. That was interesting. We went to see the National Archives and saw The Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and a copy of the Magna Carta (one of the four) some colonist had. I hate to sound ignorant, but it was pretty boring. The place was so dimly lit (for preservation purposes, I am sure) that to read anything was nearly impossible. You could practically take a nap in there. In fact, the security guard standing next to the Declaration was doing just that.

Next we looked at the White House and then went up into the Washington Monument. You know, that big masonic spear just smack in the middle of the city. It was pretty high up. I enjoyed seeing the National Cathedral (one of my favorite places) in the distance, northwest. The Professor did not go up as he is afraid of heights. I am a little afraid of heights, I guess. Once up on the top I felt pretty dizzy and wanted to go down. My sister in law already bolted so I was left with the kids and my niece, who was doing just fine. Eraser Eater started to pull stuff because he hadn't seen the north side of the monument and I was ready to puke and go to the elevator. "You get to see the north side and you get barf in your pocket," I said. He obeyed reluctantly.

We were going to go to the National Gallery of Art (where we frequent whenever we are in the city) but we happened to be walking by the Museum of Natural History and just went in there as time was running out. The Girl held all the available live insects in the insect section. The boys sort of ran the other direction and watched her from behind an exhibit. Even my niece held a worm, which is one of my room 101s.

On a lighter note, this past week the Girl has been sick and I have been trying to avoid the germ, as Howard Hughes as I can get at times. At one point, my brain was so lacking one morning while waiting for my coffee to brew, that I accidentally drank from her pill-taking glass. In great panic I quickly gathered my wits and tried to think of a way to kill the now ingested germ. "Liquid disinfectant," I thought,"Rubbing alcohol---what can I drink? I can't drink that." My brain was only half functioning.

Like lightning, I remembered that I had hard liquor in the upper cabinet above my head. I grabbed the first bottle I saw: bourbon from the sangrias I made at Christmas. I swiftly uncapped it and chugged. Ok, so it was in the morning and I almost puked. It burned slowly all the way down, and I imagine it would have burned all the way back up too! Foul stuff.

So far, I am fine. I guess that works, eh?

2009-02-04T13:01:00.002-05:00

Just one more thing.

For most of my life I have let others run me. And I mean, the kind of people who prey on people like me because I have been a people pleaser. In many ways I could say that I have been my own problem, I just have gotten myself into the trap too many times to not find the common thread.

But God changed it. He removed me from a particular situation into a new one. A fresh one.

And I could assess.

And a couple of years ago I ran into the same problem but with a different person. I cut it off. I let that "friendship" go. For good reason too.

And now I have another right now. And each time I run into this type of person (manipulators), I can smell them from a mile off and I know that they are going to pull their tricks once they get an inch closer.

And so it has happened. The ground, again, had to be stood. And they are pissed because they can't control me like they thought they could, because, I don't know, there is some spiritual sign on my head that says, "please control me, I like it."

Until I can get the sign off my head, I will not be able to ward off the manipulators. They like me A LOT. Instead, I have to keep telling them no, and they do not like that. AT ALL.

Have I ever told you that I have probably had the telephone hung up on me about a thousand times? I don't even think I am exaggerating.

Language

2009-01-28T08:42:00.003-05:00

Eraser Eater finally got to go to Ikea to spend his gift card last weekend. Yes, he got an Ikea gift card. Is that not wild? He was so thrilled it was ridiculous. Yes, he is ten. He especially likes the modern design of home items. He got a rug to put under his modern chair (that I assembled with half a brain in tact, remember), a shelf to put his things on (the side table he really wanted was discontinued), and a pillow to put on his chair. A modern one.

During morning prayer the kids and I use the BCP and then say our own petitions in the middle. After that, we go around and thank God for a few things each. Yesterday Eraser Eater said "Ikea."

The kids think it is fun because I always thank God for things like chocolate and Nutella.

I have been teaching Fahrenheit 451 in my upper level lit class at the co-op. It has been a little bit of an issue since the book has a lot of mild language. I tried my best not to make it too much of an issue though. In class on Monday I went over the fact that people in this world use bad language and we as Christians are called not to do so. I quoted scripture and left it at that.

The rest of the class went great---until I asked the kids what they thought of the society in the book. My son, the Oldest, raised his hand (yes, he is in my class).

"I thought it was a hellish nightmare!" he hollered.

You Are As Big As Me

2009-01-20T16:03:00.002-05:00

I just have to do something about my lazy kids. I HAVE to. Not only do they argue all day when put together, they intentionally annoy one another. Yesterday at Co-op I was in the quiet church office making copies for my classes. Eraser-Eater comes storming into the quiet room, silently weeping.

"The Girl told me that I am in love with Avery."

"So?"

He retreats to the corner of the little cramped room where he sticks his nose in the corner and weeps some more. A muffled "but I don't! And it's not funny! She's making fun of me!" comes out in a blurry wail.

In comes the culprit.

"What!?" she says with long eyes.

"Get in my classroom RIGHT NOW!" I whisper.

Then the Girl wants to push the cart at Costco today and when I refuse to let her and the Oldest chides her about it, she whimpers, "I just don't feel a part of this family!"

To make myself feel better I mentally grab an economy pack of duct tape, rip it open, and start taping. Hands bound together, feet---maybe just one big tape to the cart. But, the most important detail is the major slab of tape over the mouth. That is a MUST. Oh how stupid I was, I would think. I tried so hard to get them to talk and now all I want is for them to silence themselves.

I clogged a toilet. Forget that. They don't admit fault. More like: the toilet's clogged!

I'm really hungry. I know I just ate. I am starving!

You keep sitting in the middle seat! I want ROOM!

They even keep each other in line and then argue about that!

You are supposed to do the dishes!

You ate all those chips! I thought you said yesterday you were going to watch what you ate!

Your room is a mess!

Stop sitting in that bathroom forever and a day! You know you are going to clog it!

Quit banging the glasses!

You promised Mom you would time yourself when playing games! That's it...I'm setting the timer!

Mom said TWO HOURS of playing piano, you're playing it whether you like it or not!

Drink all your milk right now!

You are not getting dessert!

The list goes on and on. Then someone wails (usually the one being bossed around) and then I am the one, bound by the wrists, brought to the scene of the crime with my head all a muddle.

It is the same song and dance every time and it doesn't stop. And it is all because they talk.

On our way out of Costco this afternoon the kids and I battled our way to the car in the freezing air with frozen yogurts in our hands. I have Raynaud's disease, for those of you that don't know, and when I touch frozen stuff for too long or when I am just plain cold, my digits go numb and it can be painful and very uncomfortable. By the time we reached the car I was spent but I had to get those stupid purchases in the trunk.

My twelve year old son, avoiding the whipping wind, stuck out his hand to jerk the door handle.

"Can I get some help?!" I yelped, an icicle hanging from my nose as I was struggling to drop a big box of Costco junk in the trunk.

"Are you crazy? It's freezing outside!" And he opened the car door went inside.

He of course, had the advantage as I did not want to leave the cart there (a big SUV was waiting for me to leave too) and get in the car and chew the boy out. I was so cold I was starting to burn but I knew I had to finish the whole job so I could get in the car and chase him down.

First, I got in the car and rubbed my hands together as I winced and almost cried, head down on the steering wheel for a few moments.

"I am starting to wish I helped you," he began.

I put on my gloves. (It would have helped if they had been on before, what a dork I am)

My beginning sentence started with, "You are as big as me...you are HUGE..........!!!!!"

This is Funny

2009-01-15T08:04:00.001-05:00

I have never heard an animal sound like this before! What a riot!

School Last Week

2009-01-12T17:59:00.000-05:00

Last week I had one horrendous day with school (the first day) and then it was better after that. Suddenly the Oldest knew how to isolate X and the Girl knew how to stay on task, and Eraser Eater stopped whimpering from the floor. There were a few times I almost wept openly, crying out to the homeschool gods to release me of this painful task, but because I have a pea brain, I forget about my sorrows once I go to the bathroom or get myself a drink of water, and I start all this malarkey up again, like it is brand spankin' new.

Like things could not have gotten worse, Eraser Eater's chair came in the mail. The smallish sort of box was placed in his chubby hands and he hastily ripped the thing open. It was nearly five o'clock in the evening and I was sitting next to the Oldest at the table, helping him isolate X and gingerly pulling out my teeth, one by one, and pelting them at his nose when things got a bit difficult.

"Mom! Can you help me put this chair together?!" yelped Eraser Eater in an over-excited manner. The Girl and the Neighbor Girl were sitting on the floor helping him rip open the box. The whole idea of putting a chair together was a bit too much for me at that moment. You see, when the mind is freshest it can think clearly and work as expected. But as the day goes on and pressure is applied, soon the brain gives way and soon you have soup once you hit exactly five o' clock. I had about two brain cells left to use floating in that boiled mass of liquid thinking material, and I didn't want to use it on putting a chair together. But then the pieces....

The pieces the girls decided to scatter about in their great haste----it seemed that they were scattering all over the walls and hair and everything scatterable. It was a wretched thought. The next thing you know, I have gathered up all my teeth, put them back in their sockets, and high-tailed it to the scattered pieces. Screws and little do-hickeys. Two arm rests. A pad. Various other pieces of chair like material. I grabbed the instructions. They were unreadable, and they didn't even have any words. Pictures of nonsense. Nothing made sense. Pounding the skull does not work, it just rattles the soup.

When the brain is freshest it can take two seconds to figure out how to put four pieces of chair together. It took me probably forty minutes. I read the instructions backwards, sideways, then finally not at all. I studied the pieces. I put it together wrong then I put it together right. Eventually a very smaller-than-I-thought-it-would-be chair emerged before my eyes.

"It's perfect!" squealed Eraser Eater. "It's modern and perfect!" He sat in it. The Girl sat in it. The Neighbor Girl sat in it.

I turned around. No Oldest at the table. "Oldest!" I yelled.

He peeped from around the corner. "I took a little break...."

Ejected soup on the floor.

Doozie Was Almost Right

2009-01-07T12:34:00.000-05:00

Putting the smack down is a bit tiring. That is what I have had to do since the Professor went back to work after his two week vacation.

This past year:

Wrinkles have developed on my forehead
a number of things have died or given up years of service including my ghetto oven and my coffee maker
And the rest is a blur.

The Girl was caught last week eating the contents of her nose while I was reading a book to her out loud. I could not believe it. In fact, it made me so angry because I remember the countless times I have struggled to get her to eat something she doesn't like the taste or texture of. Granted, she is not overly picky, but to be semi-picky and then to be PICKY (if you catch my drift) on top of it sent me over the edge.

I made her oatmeal, her meal of non-choice.
"Why did you put a banana in it?" she winced, holding a spoonful of her punishment at bay.
"To make it extra gooey---like a booger!" I hollered.
"Mom!!!"she gasped, surprised at me.
"What?" I said, "you can't eat actual food, but you can eat the taint from your nose---the accumulation of various germs piled on one another over and over...."
"Mom! Please!" she begged, looking helplessly at her spoonful of gooey, booger-like stuff.

It took her two hours to eat it. Aren't I wretched?

And now I must go get tires on my car. Ugh. Perhaps that is my "toll house" of purgatory-like punishment. Perhaps.

Ok So Maybe I Died

2008-12-28T19:04:00.002-05:00

I am so sick of blogging because since church people and general public people don't care about me and those I love (wah-wah-wah) I think my blog is a bloody failure and I am tired of attempting to write on it. Nonsense. It is all nonsense.

My Girl is going pee and playing her DS at the same time. Cool.

I took all the Christmas festivity garb down today and felt a twinge of sadness. What am I saying? I always feel a twinge of sadness! What is the flipping difference! I need meds! Must have meds!

Not only am I sad, I am insane. Just like I put the tree up on my own, I took it down on my own. My dearly beloved watched the Vikings game and was happy that they won. I gave him a kiss and congratulated him after closing up an ornament box. The man is from Minnesota and believe me, did we have lefse and meatballs for Christmas dinner! Thankfully I did not have to make it. My poor SIL pretty much made everything while I mixed up terrible drinks and made people drink them. I also skewered up little rolls of pb&j sandwiches and cheese with those little sword toothpicks so the kids would eat them. I also chopped up some fruit and whatnot and put that out there.

The Professor looked at me gravely for a moment as he put away the vacuum (that I didn't use).

"Did you buy M&Ms?!"

I stared at him. I thought about how little time we had left until our guests would arrive. I dumbly looked at him straight in the face and I said, "Uh, I forgot."

"You FORGOT!? WHY YOU LITTLE...."

No. He actually just shook his head, turned down the hall, got his coat on, and went to the store. "We need more snacks," he said flatly in that Minnesotan voice of his.

This is what I DID do:

Learned how to make paper snowflakes

Taught children how to do it

Made paper snowflakes

Glittered them up

Suspended them from the ceiling

Created two centerpieces

Strung lights and garlands

Put out a tablecloth

made meatballs

made cookies

made deviled eggs no one ate (and threw away today)

made mulling spice packets

cleaned up

did endless dishes

set up plates and silverware

and I can't remember what else

BTW----No one at the M&Ms either.

The Sick Dysfunctional Church

2008-12-17T12:00:00.003-05:00

I have discovered once again that not many people care about anyone else but themselves. I can tend to do this myself, so I understand.

What I don't understand is how the Church can be so unfriendly. So I sit next to you or behind you in the building. But you just sort of nod your head when you see me or you just scowl at me. Same difference. You don't want to talk to ME, the new person. In fact, it is not even so much as intimidation, which is more admirable. It is INDIFFERENCE. NO INTEREST:

I pretty much don't care about you, I have no clue what you do, I have no clue where you have been, and I don't want to know. Sure, we worship the same God, but you know, I am just glad He cares about you because I certainly don't worry about it. To me, you don't exist. You are just a warm body that sits in the seat behind me and because you make contact with my eyes I must nod at you slightly because you are in fact, a human. I even wave at my neighbor when they drive by. That's sort of the same thing.

Now I know what some of you may think. Why the heck do I not put myself forward? I don't know. Maybe it is some sick fascination with the whole lot of it. I want to see if anyone eventually will ignore the sign on my forehead that says don't talk to me, I am not worth it. I have actually thought about putting the sign on my forehead for fun. It would be perfect. I would walk into the building and there I would be, the sign on my head shining in the glow of the multi-purpose Christian bookstore-smelling room. I wonder what people would do. I have the guts to do it but my Minnesota born husband would be too polite to allow it.

One of the ladies at church asked me if I ever went to the Sunday School (she is actually in a small group with me, so she talks to me--she is one of the only people who does). She mentioned that the Sunday School teacher is so gifted, I would really love it. She described the man and seemed shocked that I could not place his face, or even know who he was.

"He sits in the back," she said to further my knowledge.

"Oh, in the back of the whole building---over by the soundboard and all that---" I said, thinking of the blur of people that sit there and how weird it always seemed to me. "Well, I can't place him really," I continued, "In fact, I have never heard of him probably because no one talks to us."

She slightly jerked back, a little surprised at what I had said, but pulled it in just quickly enough so that I questioned my own thoughts on this. Maybe she wasn't surprised.

"Oh," she said.

I don't know what the mature thing would be to do in this situation. Maybe ignore it or approach everyone and say, "Hello, I have been going here for four months or more now and I have never gotten to know you." You know, blame it on myself.

But that is easy for a person like me to do. Blame it on myself. I cut my teeth on horrendous emotions like that. I am sick of blaming things on myself all the time. For awhile it seems ok to do, but then again, it is unhealthy. Just as unhealthy as having no interest in people who seem like they must be nice, and hey, they are going to heaven where I am going and maybe I will get to know them there. How comforting.

We went to a Christmas Party on Sunday to get to know people as a sort of last effort before we decide to do something drastic (like use signs) or perhaps just resort into our own selves. We sat at a table. No one sat next to us except the pastor and his wife who probably discovered that no one would sit next to us.

When I went to the bathroom half-way through the thing I prayed to myself for something to happen where we would feel welcome. I am going to sound very charismatic right now but who cares at this point, I am not a looney tune, I just heard this or at least the thought, independent from myself: "Just enjoy your husband."

I did.

I encourage you all who feel lonely in a church full of people to enjoy your spouse especially in those things because by golly, that may be the only fellowship you ever get. Amen and amen.

Over-extending

2008-12-15T15:26:00.002-05:00

I totally almost threw up. I put my treadmill on the incline of 11% and then ran that way for four minutes. That was a really bad idea and entirely awful. What was I thinking?

Seriously, that is the first time that I have ever felt like lying on the floor and simply dying. Please promise me you all will never do that. I wouldn't wish that on Satan.

The other night I was talking to an acquaintance about Christmas. We were talking about what we had to get done before the big day and I was telling her I had some baking to do. "Do you have any baking left to do?"

She looked at me a little blankly and shook her head like she thought I was crazy. She barely shook her head, actually. She lazily said, "No, I have no baking to do. I just...don't ever bake on Christmas...." she said it like that was a normal thing, like baking was the weirdo thing to do. I don't know, maybe it was just me. She continued, "But...I do other things like write a Christmas letter and mail it out to family..."

Oh WOW, really? I almost blurted. That is so intense. A Christmas letter.

What the heck is wrong with ladies in my generation? They can't cook, they don't clean, they don't have any kids (although this lady does have kids). It is like bringing a batch of brownies to a cookie exchange. ---Or worse, bringing Chips Ahoy.

My mixer broke on Thanksgiving. I had forgotten about it, so yesterday when I needed it to whip up some whipped cream, I had to do it by hand. Most of these ladies would never know how to whip some cream by hand.

I am not boasting here though. I really am not. I SHOULD know what I know. I've done my research, I have done my homework. It's my job, baby. I am just ashamed of all my fellow thirty-something year olds who don't know how to do squat in the house. AND---

I am tired of older ladies who have kids that are YOUNGER than mine thinking that I don't know what I am talking about when it comes to motherhood because I am younger. Um, hello, mine are older and in ONE PIECE so I have done SOMETHING right. Right? And um, I have them with me 24-7 so that gives me a heck of a lot more experience so the woman knows what she is talking about.

I think 31 {gasp!} has newly given me some attitude. Stand back, I bite.

No One Will Eat My Chocolates

2008-12-11T09:07:00.002-05:00

I just halfway finished my batch of chocolate covered cherries. I am making sixty of them. Who will eat them? I am not sure. The Professor's side of the family has an aversion to chocolate and fruit mixed together (I am probably the opposite---chocolate and chicken doesn't sound half bad, so I completely don't understand this madness), so I guess I will bring a good bit of them to the church Christmas party on Sunday, my dreaded day of all days, the day I become an old hag.

Moving on....

I have made some truffles, buckeyes, fudge, and I just don't feel in the mood for cookies. I like making candy. But no one eats it except the kids, but they would be happy with Palmer chocolate, if you catch my drift, so that doesn't count much. Chocolate with 75% wax is not chocolate, it is most likely wax, and if my children can tolerate it, they can tolerate just about anything with sugar in it.

A customer a couple of weeks ago approached me and asked my opinion about two sets of boots. He wanted to know which ones I thought were better. He had one pair of tall black spike-heeled boots and another pair of ugly camel brown, chunky tall boots.

"Black," I said, "they don't shout out at you as much."

He opened his eyes wide and jerked his head back in surprise. "I would think that the black spikey heel would be a bit of an attention-getter, if you ask me."

"Really?" I said, "I just assume black is pretty tame."

"But the heel...I bet you money if you walk around in these things every guy would turn his head. Now THESE" he held up the camel brown ones, "these won't get you one bit of attention."

I thought about how I rarely dress to get attention. I thought about how the Professor always thinks that I am ignorant about men and what they notice. I responded:

"I wouldn't ask me, I am an odd person. My opinion doesn't count."

"Odd as in how?"

"As in not usual."

He bellowed out a hearty laugh and put the black boots down.

I Love Them But I Hate Them

2008-12-08T11:28:00.002-05:00

I put the tree up myself this year. I was at the store picking up a prescription and I saw that they were selling Christmas trees for thirty bucks. I don't know about you, but around here, that is a flippin' steal. I paid for it, refused the hauling help, and carried that gargantuan thing to the trunk of my Jetta rental car. Yes, I have a rental car but that is a long story. Someone smashed into me last week. No more heated seats for me. Boo-hoo.

Anyway, yes, I took the massive tree and hauled it to the trunk of my rental car. The kids were with me. The Girl got some plastic tie stuff from the ground. I used it to tie the lid of the trunk down.

I had to be at work in forty-five minutes.

I called the Professor when I got home.

"I got a tree," I said.

"What the heck?! Wow. How'd you do that?"

"I paid for it and got it in the trunk somehow and took it home."

"Cool," he said.

"So---my question is this---I have to be at work in less than an hour. I am not sure if I have enough time to get the thing in the stand AND serve dinner before it gets dark. I will work tomorrow all day long. When you are home with the kids do you think you would put the tree up?"

"Fat chance," he said.

"That's what I thought."

"Better do it now," he said, "if you want us to decorate the thing when you get home. Just get the Oldest to hold the tree up although he will complain the whole time."

"Yep."

I went out to the shed and got the saw. I got the stand. I sawed that stupid trunk until my muscles got horrendously sore. I prayed it would be over soon. I thought freakishly for a split second how much I hated Christmas. I put it up and I take it down every ridiculous year. For what? The delight of untangling lights and then taking them down again? So it will look all pretty in a window? I want Christmas to be every other year. I want Christmas to be over already. I hate shopping for presents and I hate how people act when they shop for presents and I hate the little drummer boy and I hate the Jackson Five seeing Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, and I hate Santa Claus.

Meanwhile, the neighbor boy ran up. Eraser Eater bolted out of the house ready to meet him.

"Can the Oldest and Eraser Eater play?" He looked rough. Really rough. One eye was about five times its usual size.

"Did you get in a fight?" I asked him, looking up from my sawing work.

"No, I just came home like this, I don't know what's wrong with my eye."

I looked up at him again. Yep. Sure enough, his eye was oozing yellow crud.

"You have conjunctivitis and you are highly contagious. You must get off my property and go on home."

He moaned in disappointment.

I just wanted to get this dumb tree hacked. Gee whiz.

Eraser Eater moved forward. "But Mom, we can just play a little ball outside, it won't hurt!"

He grabbed a football from the yard and threw it at the oozing eye kid. The oozing eye kid threw it at him and pelted him straight in the nose. Eraser Eater bellowed out in pain, crying piteously and ran inside on the spot.

"See ya later!" I said to the oozing eye kid. The kid turned and went home.

Finally the saw met the ground and declared it finished the job. For a split second I imagined my finger sawn off just for a stupid Christmas tree. I imagined rushing into an emergency room holding my severed finger in my hand begging them to put it back on. But then I halted in mid sentence and embraced my handicap. Perhaps if I lost a finger over this stupid Christmas tree the Professor would do it from now on.

I stood the thing up. It was fairly tall. My Oldest tapped on his window to say hello from upstairs. I was freezing my ever-living butt off. With a cold nose and a hoarse voice I hollered,

"Get down here!"

He scrambled down and stood on the porch with no shoes on, only socks. This proved to me that he is as much of a twit as me.

"I need you to hold this thing up."

He stepped down from the porch and grabbed the tree trunk.

"How long do I have to do this?!" He had one hand on his hip.

"Until I am done."

"But my feet are cold! You have to hurry! How many screws do you have to twist in?"

"Four."

"Four? How am I going to do this! I will have to endure frost bite! I am getting colder by the second, I just don't know how this will work, Mom. How straight do you want this? Are you sure you know what you are doing? It is not twisting fast enough for me...I just, I have no coat on, I have no shoes on, my feet are blocks of ice..."

"Shut up."

He gasped. I am sure he clutched his chest in horror.

Soon the tree was up and I moved it into the house. I put dinner on the table, got dressed and ran out the door.

Out of Words (The Ancient Song)

2008-12-05T08:09:00.001-05:00

This way I don't have to post any text if I don't want to. This song only takes a little above a minute. Well, almost two, but it is fun---if you can call anything I write fun.

I hope you all have a splendid weekend!!!!

Plugs

2008-12-04T08:13:00.003-05:00

How many clogged toilets can you unclog during one week? I mean, I unclog one at least once a day. I greatly encourage the roughage, but gee whiz, I don't think it helps at all. I think my kids all hold it in until it turns into a baseball thus ending in the result of a clogged toilet. I did indeed use my specialized unclogging skills by using a plastic knife to slice the offending plugger in the past, but alas, I have run out of knives, and thankfully, the excreted matter has shrunk to a manageable size of just getting stuck in the pipes and I can not see it to wield my knife anyway if I had one. I need some serious plastic knives for future use.

This morning I had to unclog a toilet. It was 6:30. I knew it was clogged because I had been jolted awake by my daughter who declared that her bed was wet and I needed to change her sheets at 4:30. In my half-asleep state, I made her a new bed and went to her bathroom to empty my bladder. Upon turning around, I noticed that a gift was left there, possibly ignored for a good handful of hours. It was lurking and quite murky. In my unbalanced state of wretched sleepiness, I vowed that I would take care of it first thing in the morning and didn't flush.

Six-thirty did indeed roll around quickly and I did not anticipate it. It seems that everyone woke up before me, using the bathroom. I jumped up with a start to prevent overflows, but someone went in the bathroom and flushed. Crap. I mean, no pun, uh, holy cow. I hurriedly put on my pajama bottoms and got the plunger. The turbo one that is blue. Thankfully the overflow did not occur and I just needed to fix it.

First thing in the morning is not my forte. I almost threw up.

Because I was half asleep I left the offending comet-doused plunger in the bucket I allotted for it next to the shower. I had to get out of the room otherwise I would be christening my just clean toilet (I clean it after I pump it) with whatever I did not finish digesting from dinner.

And so once the morning really got rolling and I ordered all the crazies about, the Oldest declared from the bowels of the bathroom, "The plunger! It is in my way! What should I do with this thing!" He wandered around with it, holding the bucket handle, walking around in circles and ranting at the top of his lungs. He almost put the offensive thing on my bed. " I can't even get into the shower!" he hollered in great distress.

"You can't even get in the shower, " I repeated.

"Yes!!!!" he flamed, holding the bucket aloft, the blue plunger tilting slightly.

"Put that thing down!" I pointed, "In the hall!"

He circled around the little rug in the hall and decided to lean it against the door frame. He went back into the bathroom to start his shower. "And WHO is the one that keeps putting the inner curtain OUT of the shower because I have to remove it EVERYDAY and it is getting really annoying! I mean, what is this madness?"

"Someone took a bath, DUH!" shouted Eraser-Eater from the room down the hall.

"Well people should be taking SHOWERS!" he blasted.

"You are not a parent!" I called through the closed bathroom door.

"Yes, Mom," he murmured.

Project Spectrum

2008-12-02T17:50:00.001-05:00

This is from a local boy.

Little Bubbles of Gold

2008-11-19T11:50:00.004-05:00

Here they are, the crazy little rubber toys at the local Dollar General dispenser for a quarter each. I was an idiot. For months my kids have been begging to go to Dollar General for various things and lo and behold, they have been using ALL their freakin' quarters to buy these things. They have a small army. When the dispenser was once full, now it is almost empty not only because they have bought some, they have also gotten the neighborhood kids into them. I mean, the kidz in da `hood.

They have made up their own names for them (because they have never seen THIS actual packaging) and have no idea that they are sort of ghetto Gumbys, so to speak. So they asked for more of these guys for Christmas. I could not picture myself going to the stupid Dollar General and wasting my quarters. Would I not look like a total RETARD getting ghetto rubber toys out of a dispenser? A grown woman?

Loser Dollar General Guy to Loser Dollar General Gal: "Hey, check out that chick over there at the dispenser. Weird."

No way, man.

So I had the grand idea that they had to be purchased by some vender somewhere. I looked them up on our glorious net. They were listed as "Blockheadz: eight urban style figurines." I almost fell out of my chair laughing.

Apparently you can buy them in bulk.

So I did.

I got two hundred fifty of them in little bubble packaging, just like I were going to waltz over to Dollar General myself and put them IN the dispenser. YES.

Yesterday we were driving to the doctor. Stick with me, and bear with me here.

"Mom, can we stop at Dollar General?! I mean, I am getting that beetle poison on my rash again, so I should get a treat!" shouted Eraser Eater from the back seat. (I will fill you in on beetle poison later for those who are especially curious)

I thought about the Blockheadz just marinating in my closet, still in the box. I thought about the jingling quarters in their pockets and the $27.50 plus shipping I paid for the dang things. I thought for a second about charging them from my own stockpile but then thought better of it. I wanted to wow them. I wanted them to be in awe of my motherly power.

"So Oldest, " I said slyly, "if you could have any Blockhead you wanted, which one would it be?"

"Definitely a red "dude"," he said wide-eyed. He pulled out a spare blockhead from a pocket and showed me what it looked like.

"Huh," I uttered, "What about you, Eraser-Eater?"

"I want a green "smiley" and I can show you what he looks like!" He pulled a blue one out to show me but I already knew what that one looked like.

"And you, Girl?" I asked.

"I want a blue 'robot'!"

We went to the doctor.

On the way home they asked to go to Dollar General.

"Out of the way guys, sorry."

They all whimpered and sighed.

When we got home I went upstairs. I got the EXACT things they said they wanted and pulled them out of my stash. I put them in my pockets.

I put one in the Oldest's pocket. He pulled it out and squealed with delight. "How did you DO this mom?! It's a miracle!"

Eraser Eater knew that he was next so he ran directly to me like he was on fire. "I don't care where you put it, put it in my pocket, put it anywhere you want," he stuck out his hand. I put it in his pocket as his eyes were closed ready to receive. He almost pooped his pants when it was the EXACT one he wanted.

The Girl knew better. She just looked at me and stuck her hand out, eyes open. "Thanks, Mom," she said. She yelled above them and declared how great it was they got what they wanted.

"Mom, how did you do that?" She asked, the wheels turning. I could see she knew the answer before she finished her question.

"J-j-j-ust don't ask questions, Girl, you know when you do that she will change it...." the Oldest whispered.

This morning I wrote on the board that if they finished school diligently without ONE complaint, they can have another Blockhead for FREE.

School was finished by 10:00 a.m. And I mean, EVERYTHING, plus piano, chores, and co-op homework.

I took a bath.

The Girl asked me earlier this morning, "Mom, you got a box last week from the UPS guy. Can't you buy Blockheadz online?"

I put my finger over my lips. "Don't ask questions," I said, "and quit being so smart. They can't know."

The Oldest, the Drama King

2008-11-17T09:32:00.003-05:00

Have I ever told you all that the Oldest is a fabulous pianist? Well, at least I think so. He's been playing for a long time and he also has an excellent teacher.

I have decided, well, the Professor and I have decided to take all games away from the Oldest. In his heart, that is all he has been living for, no joke. It would be all he would think about. He has been off games for a good spell (a few weeks now) and he is doing better behaviorally.

It is sad though because he is playing Mario and Sonic music on the piano as I type. Desperation. I guess he is still thinking about it. Wait. He has moved on to classical. Now the Girl and Eraser Eater are trying to throw out songs for him to play.

When we were at the grocery store the other day I went in to buy some ice cream. "Are we ready to go yet?" pleaded the Oldest.

"No, I still have to go and get some waffles," I said.

"Waffles? What? You NEVER buy waffles!"

"Can you grab those marshmallows?" I asked him.

"Are you kidding me? I LOVE marshmallows!!"

"Get two bags, please," I walked down the aisle.

"This is crazy," the Oldest said incredulously.

"And I think I want some Twinkies," I grabbed a box as I passed the bread aisle.

"What!!!??? I am in shock and I am going nuts here, Mom. Twinkies?!"

I guess I never buy them.

"At this rate Mom, my luck is so great that I KNOW you are going to buy me an Archie when we get to the check out!" he cried in utter shock and drama.

"There's NO ARCHIE!!!!" the Oldest whispered in a faint yelp over the gum display.

I snapped my fingers in disappointment. "Missed your chance, dude."

2008-11-14T07:59:00.002-05:00

The boys keep fighting.

Eraser Eater just screamed. I mean, screamed at the top of his lungs. He roared out something like, "I am NOT A BABY!!!!"

I lost my mind trying to reason with them. Not only is it impossible to reason with them when reason comes to mind, it is impossible to grapple this task when it is 7:30 in the morning. The Professor said to me when I exited the bathroom from washing my face, "Why are you such a morning person?" Then he hugged me.

As much as I love him I felt like slugging him. I just wake up full of hatred. The man wakes me up in the morning so I don't have to use the alarm clock. I am afraid of it. I wake up all night when I use it. Just the idea that sometime eventually it will start to make horrendous noise to wake me up keeps me awake. What usually happens is my body jolts awake a literal minute before it goes off so I can save myself the struggle of hearing the noise.

A much better alarm clock is the Professor who hugs me awake and says not a word because he fears for his very life.

I have had coffee but I am still struggling with constructing a sentence that starts with a capital letter, makes sense, and is finished with an end mark.

And I have only run 12 miles this week. I am pathetic. I just don't feel like it lately. I don't know what it is.

I make myself crazy.

Ten Things

2008-11-12T12:56:00.000-05:00

I just don't have time to blog. Sorry.
So I will list.

Things learned and/or encountered this week:

1. Time lost by not saying "no" to people that want to talk my ear off.

2. I can homeschool four kids at one time but it takes awhile! :) My niece and nephew are here and the kids have had a great time. It has been fun combining school too.

3. Oobleck

4. Egyptians mummified insects.

5. I make great homemade pizza.

6. I was suffering indigestion but acidophilus took care of it.

7. My daughter has this swing she loves that is a yellow rope over a branch in the front yard. In his anger, my Oldest broke the little nubby branch to make my daughter mad. She came inside like her arm broke declaring, "I wish this day never came!" It truly was her main delight of going outside every day. I could have tied my Oldest to said tree and fed him sardines and put a dunce cap on his head, but instead I made him sit in the sunroom and read the Bible. I was so angry I did not want to truly torture the boy. I mean, I did, but I knew that it would be bad of me. So---while he sat in the sunroom, I went to the shed and CUT a new branch down and CARVED a groove into the thing so the Girl could have her swing back. I could think of nothing else to do.

8. Adulthood is thinking every bad name in the book to call someone you are angry at, but not doing it.

9. Skinny people can feel fat even when they hear that Tara Reid is only 105 pounds.

10. Conservatives don't gloat like Liberals, and that's a fact. Um, no offense.

Nothing is Perfect

2008-11-06T10:57:00.001-05:00

Sadly, I think the eagles could have flown Frodo into Mordor to drop the Ring of Power in the cracks of Mt. Doom.

We are What Jeremiah Lamented

2008-11-05T10:12:00.003-05:00

I am bummed about the election. Not because I didn't think Obama would win; I did think he would. It is just sad when it finally happens. Not that I don't think about this regularly, but I am tired of the fact that no one talks about the unborn of our country. Having legal abortion is condoning it before God. This is a scary position that we have been in for a long time. And it looks as if nothing will be remedied at least as far as we can see.

Sex without consequences. Instead of honoring and respecting the fruits of our love, we kill them so we don't have to be burdened with parenthood. And parenthood is burdensome because we value money and success over children. And we don't discipline our children because we don't want to obey the Bible, so we view them as hassles because we allow them to run wild. The best solution for us in America's estimation is to just chop our children up in the womb instead of letting them live and then disciplining them and loving them as God ordained.

We will at some point really feel this loss of life that we are taking into our own hands now.

And I am tired of hearing about how people worry so much about animals and preserving them and their natural habitats and malarkey like that when we slaughter our own children so we can have the pleasure of sex and not worry about remaining pregnant. I was pregnant in high school. I had my baby because abortion is not an option. And I hate to even use the word consequence when I speak of pregnancy. It is no consequence. It is a blessing. And I was one of the blessed girls who, in my sin, God chose to give me a child despite my disobedience. The grace of God is abundant!

I am sickened that we have a country that will send a fire squad to rescue a dog drowning in a rapid river but will not rescue a child from being diced up within her mother's womb. I say God is giving us over to our sin as a country. If we so desire to be wretched, we will be and God will allow it. People have lost their minds.

Ode to Obama (It really sucks, but I am no poet)

2008-11-04T13:34:00.002-05:00

My back hurts really bad. I don't know why.

Obama is probably going to win and we will be socialists.

The lines at the polls were crazy long.

I was yelping out in pain and scaring all the localists.

I am unorganized.

Homeschoolers are not socialized.

Forced public school

and money free

Obama won't you marry me

Starbucks, Chick-fil-a, and Ben and Jerry's

Give you free stuff if you vote

free ice cream, free coffee, free chicken burgs

is just the precursor

to lots of free stuff. Lots of it.

Chores and Talk

2008-10-29T08:05:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I did all manner of chores and laborious tasks. As Dear Sir, I mean, the Professor sat at the computer or read his B&C magazine, I scowled at him.

"I need to go to bed," he said, as he was lying down on the bed, magazine in hand. I was folding clothes still and it was 10 o'clock.

"Really?!" I said sharply, "please don't talk." I put down a folded washcloth. I was hoping to play maybe ONE chord on my guitar before hitting the pillow.

"What?!" he said behind his retro-cool glasses.

I mumbled to myself.

"I got a running commentary on my songs today," I said, putting two socks together.

"Yeah?"

"Yep."

"And?"

"Well, apparently I shriek when I sing, but that is probably good because apparently Sarah McLachlan does the same thing in her estimation."

"What?! How do you shriek?" He nearly jumped out of the bed.

"Gee, I don't know. I sing high sometimes."

"Huh."

"And that one song she doesn't like because she thought it was annoying how I repeated stuff over and over. It is a liturgical song, so that's the point. You do that, you know? But I expected her to not like it---I mean, the music itself, because.... she has questionable taste in music."

"What does she like?"

"Rod Stewart, Celtic Woman, Celine Dion, Michael Bolton..." I bent down to grab more lovely socks.

"So you rest your case then," he said, opening back up his Books and Culture then wiping his eyes behind his retro-cool glasses.

Break The Night With Colour /Richard Ashcroft

2008-10-28T08:12:00.001-05:00

I love this song! Richard is crazy, but I love his voice. I think he is more tolerable when he is not on drugs. :)

This Past Week and Other Mumblings

2008-10-27T16:03:00.002-05:00

My Oldest weighs about as much as me. It is tripping me out.

He eats more than me.

This Friday they are all going to dress up like clone troopers. Yes, even the Girl. But you knew this was not something abnormal for her.

The Oldest looks RIDICULOUS in his clone trooper garb. He is HUGE and he wears a little mask.

Thankfully this time if Eraser Eater has to go to the bathroom in the woods, I don't have to get his peter out for him. Gee whiz, that masking tape mummy costume last year was a bit high maintenance.

And to top things off this past week, Eraser Eater's October issue of Architectural Record was late. Instead of whining about it for the entire month he eventually forgot about it, so he was especially delighted when I hollered that it came in the mail on Friday. He ran down the gravel drive way with a look of pure haste and pleasure all mixed up as he stretched out his hands in anticipant greed. He looked at the cover and said in a loud voice, "A residential issue! My dream!!!"

I Am the Queen

2008-10-22T12:49:00.002-05:00

I must say that I am addicted to the Professor since he got back. He did eventually call me on Sunday and I thought for a second about not answering the phone, but I decided to be nice and pick up. Whatever it was that he did wrong, he didn't mean to do it.

Since he got back I:

1. Don't have to worry about the plants dying.

2. Don't have to monitor the temperature or worry about how to use the thermostat.

3. Don't have to drive to church.

4. Don't have to freeze in bed at night.

5. Don't have to worry about who is going to hand me a flashlight when I go back into the crawl space.

The only thing that I did not enjoy when he got home was that he smelled like his mother. Everything he had smelled like her; sort of pastel, if that can describe it in any fashion worth mentioning. Finally I could not stand it a moment longer and I said:

"Yeah, you're going to have to get in the shower..."

"Yeah, really?" The Prof. said, jovial as ever.

"Yep. And I am taking your clothes from your suitcase and putting them directly into the hamper," I winced and turned around with the clothes piled on my arm.

By the time I turned around he was running the shower water in the bathroom.

She (who must be obeyed), I thought. Girl power. Who can resist me? In the place of a Dark Lord you would have a Queen! Not dark but beautiful and terrible as the Morn! Treacherous as the Seas! Stronger than the foundations of the Earth! All will love me and despair!

I Used Bug Spray

2008-10-19T14:15:00.003-05:00

So I just went into the crawl space. I put on my hoodie with sweats and socks and shoes, carrying bug spray. I anointed every cobweb in my path. I got to the first water knob in good time, but realized that it was really dark on the way corner of the house where I had to turn the other knob. I forgot the stupid flashlight.

I went back in the house and got it. The kids thought I was done and were thankful that I made it alive. I told them that I still had to go down there AGAIN. Gee whiz, if one time wasn't enough! So I turned the flash light on, doused the cobweb beside me with more spray, and entered. I had to duck down once I got to the middle of the house, almost to my knees, but it was ok. No snakes. No little critters like mice or rats or anything. That stupid sink was still setting there like it was last year. I finally made it to the far beam in the corner but found a huge web with all manner of plump eggs dangling from it. I sprayed that sucker down and killed the mother spider. Spray got in my face a bit. I coughed. I got a little heavy on the spray, I think.

Finally once that was looking good, I inched my way in a squatting fashion to the way corner of the house past the final beam I was talking about. I found the mother of all spiders, Shelob herself. I whipped out my spray of Elendil. This spider was about as big as my hand, it was so huge. Just crawling up the wall like it ain't no thang. When I saw it was affected by the poison, I went forward and whispered, "righty, tighty" and turned the water off. I sprayed all the eggs I could find in my path.

And I am alive.

Today and OK

2008-10-19T13:16:00.002-05:00

So it's only 2:20 in the afternoon and the day has been sort of eventful. I am merely contemplating the horrendous trip to the underground with a stick or two and some Raid, and I just got back from church.

Listen to me here. We all know that I am a tad bit moronic at times, but clearly I have a reason for my moronic behavior. If I had been able to talk to my husband last night instead of never getting ahold of him PERIOD I would have asked him how to get to church. The freeway way. He always takes some crazy back road way that is windy and consists of many roads that lead to I don't know where, but eventually we get to church. I know we pass something the kids call "the wrecked up house" and we pass many pastures and patches of trees and forest. I imagined myself trying to do this route but I found in my brain that I would get lost, run into a tree and kill myself because I would be so boiling mad that I have ended up in West Virginia. By that time it would be dark, I would run out of gas AGAIN, and I wouldn't be able to see because of my what? You guessed it, my cataracts. Yep, I actually have cataracts. Let's not get into it.

So---I went the freeway way to get to church thinking I KNEW where it was, how to get there, etc. Of course, I made the wrong exit, went up the street I THOUGHT it was on, and then had to turn around and go where my second gut instinct was telling me. That made us miss the whole entirety of the music, once we got there, and I had to go to the bathroom really bad because I drank lots of coffee on the way and then I spilled it on myself.

When finished with church I realized my kidneys hurt, or else just my lower back does and I sort of wished that I had kidney stones and I had to go to the doctor so that maybe the Prof. would feel really bad for ignoring me and not even giving me directions to church and then the house was so cold this morning because it was cold outside and I don't know how to run the thermostat and he talked about calling me to instruct me but he never did and I think I am going to restrict football for my men today because he is not home and I can do what I want. So I bought the boys a game and now they are on it.

But---I had to stop at the store first. Boy was it busy. Apparently they had crazy store coupons given in the mail that saved you a million dollars if you bought half the store and I must have missed out on that. No one had spares, nothing was given to poor me. Coupons, shmoupons.

So I bought the silent children some gum. Extra (classic bubble) and the Oldest flipped his open on the spot. He looked at what it said inside and yelped aloud in the parking lot, "'Fifteen sticks of unadulterated, mind numbing, euphoria-inducing, earth-shattering, long-lasting, and humble enjoyment!' Wow! Flashy!!"

Then when we got into the car he asked, "Mom, what's a leisure suit?"

30 Things I'd Say If Given the Chance

2008-10-18T20:16:00.003-05:00

The Professor is not home. He hasn't been home since Thursday morning (4 a.m.) when I took him to the DC airport. We are never usually apart. And he is never usually the one leaving. The last time I talked to him was Thursday afternoon when he arrived.

He has not called me or talked to me for two whole days. Actually, it has been longer. 53 hours.

But I am glad he is having fun and all, I just wanted to tell him that:

1. I had a nervous breakdown last night when I saw how messy the boys' room was.

2. I threw a fit.

3. I had another nervous breakdown when I saw how messy the Girl's room was.

4. I threw a fit.

5. I threw away half of her toys.

6. I am not joking about #5. I really did it.

7. I was up until midnight last night having a nervous breakdown and throwing away toys and bits of paper, beads, unneeded bags, broken plastic things, ripped cards, boxes, trinkets, stuffed animals, puzzle pieces, boxes, broken crayons, naked barbies, McDonald's toys, rusty pennies, crusty whatnots, strings, dishes, dolphin harnessed chariots, and other various bits of rubbish that ruined my life and caused me to become unglued.

8. I went to a couple vineyards with my friends today.

9. I had a great time.

10. I bought wine.

11. I saw a woman feeding a muffin to a horse.

12. When driving home I almost ran out of gas.

13. I had to pump gas at a really weird backwoods gas station and it was dark and I was scared and they didn't have a card swiper thingy so I had to go IN the stupid station and tell them I wanted a couple gallons of gas but the lady kept asking me how much I wanted to pay and I kept telling her I just wanted two gallons so I could get home and she kept suggesting prices and I didn't get it because I guess I'm dumb and I barely ever pump gas and so I just gave her ten bucks and she looked relieved to be rid of me and then I pumped the gas and it stopped when the dollar amount hit ten and I thought that a very novel invention and then I got in the car and drove home.

14. I ate really good peanut butter and chocolate frozen custard on my way out of town for dinner.

15. It was really cold in the house this morning because I don't know how to turn on the heat and am not sure if I should or not even if I could turn it on.

16. I watered the plants.

17. I'm glad you are having fun.

18. I wish I was there.

19. I am feeling selfish because I wish I was there A LOT.

20. I'm jealous a bit.

21. But I am happy for you.

22. The kids miss you and wonder why you haven't called.

23. John McCain winked at me.

24. Everyone wants to be my friend.

25. I have so many friends over here right now eating pizza and drinking wine with me, I can't believe it. In fact, it is getting a bit loud in here so I can't think too properly because I am busy with them and frankly, I just can't keep writing on here.

26. Just joking. I am actually alone with nothing to do. And I'm writing on my stupid blog and there's probably nothing on tv and the kids are in bed.

27. But even though you are a total blackguard for not calling me or probably not even thinking about me, I will let it slide this one time because I know you are having fun. And it ain't about me.

28. But it is a little.

29. I love you and I had a good day, did you?

30. Good night.

Getting Out

2008-10-18T19:45:00.002-05:00

I just got back from visiting two vineyards in a semi-local college town. There was supposed to be a chocolate festival going on but it was relatively uninteresting as it seemed more like a bake sale than a CHOCOLATE festival. I was pretty disappointed. Plus, the music was so horrific (think Lawrence Welk but more boring) that leaving and going to a landfill sounded more interesting. Anything. My ears were bleeding.

So the five of us (I being the only married gal there---single women are just so cool) went on our little trip to the country vineyards instead. At the first one I ran into Eraser Eater's geography teacher (WHAT?!) and as I was tasting my cab she started asking me how I was liking the class.

Finally we went to the last vineyard and walked the grounds for a bit to see the ruins there. It was a perfect day and quite beautiful. I almost fell over on the ground and laughed myself into a hole when a high-strung rich lady tried to feed a muffin to a country horse begging at the gate, but I muffled it and laughed at the picture one of the gals took of the scene instead. Wow, it's a real horse! I think I will feed it the rest of my muffin! I think some of the girls lost respect for me after that or thought I was drunk because I was the only one laughing. What made it more funny is that the muffin rolled to the ground, the horse sniffed it, and walked away. And this was after it pooped right there when we tried to pet it.

Back to the hayride scenes though. I forgot to mention something particularly amazing about it. And you didn't think there could possibly be anything more amazing, did you? I had forgotten that at the semi-beginning of the ride we approached these two space ships. They were size-y enough, I guess, to fit a couple kids each. Suddenly we stopped and music started blaring. Loud Star Wars esque music.

"That's fake Star Wars music!" shouted the Oldest.

And shortly a guy, dressed up as an alien, came swooping out toward us with a cape on. He was purply-grey colored. The tractor started moving us along again and he followed us and gave us high-fives. He swirled from side to side and shook hands and waved until we were out of his reach, then as he stood far in the distance, a mere speck of an alien, he waved faintly as if to bid us a beautiful journey.

"His hand felt weird," said the Oldest. I imagined how many germs could be on that weird hand. Here, touch my bacteria-infested hand! I was just disturbed slightly by this whole let's entertain the kids with an alien guy that jumps out to fake Star Wars music. No one looked at the beauty of the scenery; they just looked at the various random garbage displayed behind bushes and whatnot.

And they had free apple cider. In oak barrels. And it was hotter than blazes outside. The kids wanted the cider, but bees were crawling all up in the spouts so I had to battle the insects. When the Oldest approached he immediately saw the issue and jumped back. I shot a look at him, daggers in my eyes as if to say, "Don't you dare scream!" Instead, a weak, fluty little chirp came out from behind his teeth. His face was so ruddy and damp as he grabbed the cup I handed to him.

Unlicensed Hayrides

2008-10-17T09:27:00.002-05:00

I am avoiding my run. I shouldn't. It would help me out, I think. We dropped off the Professor yesterday morning at 4 a.m. in DC to fly to see his parents. To say the least, we were grumpy and tired all day, but it went well. I made us all go to bed at 8 and we woke up this morning at 8. Nice.

And I am not doing school today because I don't feel like it.

The day before I took the kids to a pumpkin patch on crack. They had slides and rides and rope swings and anything you can think of besides Disneyland. It was a bit insane. The Oldest was obsessed with the rope swing. He could not straddle the thing at first (well, the first twenty times he got in line to do it) but he was determined to accomplish this task and eventually he could do it in some strange robotic way.

They fed goats and went on a hayride that was unlike any hayride I have ever been on. We went through mud and lakes and a forest of trees and wooden characters from various movies and television shows. My Oldest even spotted "Waldo" by the lake, lurking around. He just hollered the entire time, declaring that he doubted this farm had the licensing to put up all these characters. We even passed George Bush at one point (behind a bush) and my Oldest yelped, "George Bush is even here! I doubt he would be very happy they have used his image without permission!!! Would YOU be happy about this law-breaking outrage?!"

I tried to shut his mouth. Duct tape, dude, duct tape! I even said it. My sister in law, who was with us, laughed. She knew what I meant. So did he. Eventually he shut it.

Eraser Eater said, "I would be very pleased if I were President, at seeing my image while going on a hayride. I think it's perfectly fine."

We did go to a corn maze, which was sort of fun.

Goat City was not my style just because goats make me think of Satan, and then they also remind me of when I ate goat at an Indian restaurant and the bite didn't make it past the base of my tongue. It would not go down! My stomach jerked in rebellion. I had to spew it out. Thankfully, at the time, there was a piece of chocolate in my purse. I ate it happily. So--when at Goat City I started to sniffle. I think I am allergic. Which means, I could possibly be allergic to Satan. Goat meat is of the devil.

Aspergian Child

2008-10-14T16:27:00.003-05:00

It has been a bit tough lately dealing with my Aspergian boy, the Oldest (he is 12). I think it is because he is bigger than me, has a high energy level at times, and has increased hormone levels. I remember as a girl his age, crying at the drop of a hat over everything. My oldest brother used to tell me that I acted like I had a video camera following me around. Trust me, I didn't like that comment. But this is what I imagine he is feeling except that he is not necessarily crying, he just gets angry, I suppose.

And I am indecisive, which is bad for an Aspergian boy to have to handle. It takes me awhile to come to a decision because hey, I just want to get away from any thoughts of conflict and turmoil. I just don't want to deal with it. But I do. And I hate the outcome. Fussing, crying over a lost gameboy or game system, weeping while sentences like "I will not hit my brother" are being written fifty times on a page. Like I have said before, I frequently just say the words "duct tape" to indicate that I want him to just shut his mouth because he doesn't have to comment on every single thing in this here United States of America!

The day he scaled a wall at Co-op I found out that he chased a friend's van ( as it was driving away) to say goodbye. Maybe like the movies? Like a dog? This is also the same day he decided that it would be great fun to jump up and down and clap between jumps in a moving elevator. And then I found out that in his science class he refused that day to do his experiment because, I suppose, it was not working the way he anticipated.

There are days I think this an easy task and then there are days I just want to cry uncle and clock out and go home. I am not complaining. He is a brilliant child. It would be just so easy to stick him in front of a television his whole life and let him just play video games. He would be fine then. Seriously. That is the element his brain wants to focus on. That is what he lives for right now and I don't allow him to have it---I push him hard to conform to this life, to the normalcy of his surroundings---to something that is in many ways alien to him---society. I've had to fight hard and work hard to get him where he is today. At one point in his life as he was in Kindergarten I thought that he would never live a normal life and probably work fast food if that. I grabbed everything I could to fight for him, the Professor and I both.

And now I am tired. An Asperger's person is like a male times 100. What I mean by that is take a normal male and the way they think, and multiply that male by 100 and put it into one person. That is my kid. Hey, even just the other day the Oldest was sitting on the rocking chair in the living room saying to the Professor, "I will never understand 'woman.'"

"What do you mean, you will never understand woman?"

"THE WOMAN. I will never understand THE WOMAN in my life. They are way too complicated. All they care about is fashion and the latest styles. Life is more than styles, you know!"

"And all you care about is a gameboy. I could dress you in underwear out in public and you wouldn't give a rip---you'd play a gameboy naked. How are you going to ever understand fashion? Of course you don't!" I roared pleasantly from the couch.

He looked at me in a sort of shocked manner, rocking back and forth in the chair, "Well that's true!" He started laughing when the Professor couldn't hold it in any longer.

At least he got the joke! Gee whiz.

Rings

2008-10-13T16:04:00.002-05:00

I found a guitar pick in the shower today when I was lathering up. That was interesting.

My ring is in better shape now. I mean, my wedding rings. Remember the betadine solution tarnished the gold? Yeah, well, I took some Comet like Doozie suggested and scrubbed them shiny and new. Thanks. I went for weeks "unmarried." The kids were worried I wasn't hitched to the Professor anymore. The Professor was deeply concerned about my loyalties.

Before putting on my rings, I asked the Professor if he would like to put them on me. I gave him a fleeting look of romance, eyebrows raised slightly. We were standing in the stair way; he was trying to get by.

He put up his hand. "Did it once and once only." He swept by me to go watch his football game. The blackguard.

"You need to get bit!" I hollered, still standing on the stairs.

Why is it 'anathema' to put tomatoes in chili? Just thought I would ask. I've always wondered. I make rockin' chili and I put tomatoes in it.

Daily Grind

2008-10-10T08:01:00.002-05:00

The Girl's new self-deprecating thing she says now is "I'm a pile of dust."

When I ask, "How are you a pile of dust?"

"I just am," she says," I am truly just a pile of dust!" She says this with a smile.

Age seven is a very random age, I think. I could be sitting down drinking coffee and reading a novel and my daughter could approach me and sing out of the blue, at the top of her lungs, "We can change the world, together!" She always has a look of glee on her face.

And on another note, I know I have been all tough in the past and have gone and fixed things and battled the underground, but for some reason this year I am dreading going into the crawl space where I saw all those spider eggs this past spring, waiting to hatch. I thought all summer how I should have brought some Raid down there with me and sprayed it all down, just while I was down there, you know, turning the water on. Now I have to turn it off, and I just don't want to deal with spiders. I really hate them. I told the Professor I was not looking forward to it, hoping he would gird his loins and be a cowboy just for me.

"Rach, we can just hire someone," he said.

Here we go again. Hire someone.

Hey, I'll pay you thirty bucks if you go down into my crawl space and turn the water off.

I just can't have that. So---I guess I will do it. I will bring Raid and a few sticks. The sticks in case I run into a few snakes, which I am not too afraid of. Just the spiders. Do you think sticks would help me? I don't know. I blame it all on Shelob.

I am a wimp and I have been forced to turn into a nag. A nag. From this time forth I am going to be rewarded with the deeds of getting on my Oldest's back about the dishes. Every time I order it he acts surprised. Just now I remembered. I have called the order just now. The response?

"Dishes?!" The incredulousness! (spell check is saying that is not a word. Hmm.)

I should try that out at lunch time and wait until two o'clock when they are all grabbing their bellies in hunger. "I want lunch mom," the Oldest would say. In fact, he would have said it at eleven o'clock, what am I thinking. That boy loves to eat.

"Lunch?! What???!!! You expect me to make you lunch? Why ever would you think that?! I'm sick of making lunch, I ain't got no food, so go catch a squirrel and eat it."

This would be expected of a kid who has stood and eaten a truffle I have handed him and declared after one nibble, "Scandalous!"

Running and Sugar

2008-10-08T08:08:00.002-05:00

For about a year and a half now I have been running solidly 30 miles a week. Lately I have been running close to forty, but this past week have slowed down. It is not that I am tired of it, I just think my legs have gotten bored. So I have been making myself run a little less. When I do run, I am doing running programs on my treadmill so I am going up and down, up and down. On other days I just speed it up and run a short distance---about three miles. I think a year and a half of running the same bland distances has hurt my back (in addition to the strange way I sit when I play guitar) so I have started doing pilates two times a week. We'll see how that goes.

And I have stopped eating sugar. I eat whole grains, but that is the only real "sugar" besides what I get from an apple or something. Everything tastes so much better this way! You should try it! Last night I rewarded myself and had half a glass of red wine and oh my goodness it was wonderful! The flavor was tremendous. I think sugar annihilates your taste buds. Plus, for the past two days(after overcoming the sugar withdrawal symptoms for several) and I have felt GREAT. Not tired at all.

How's this for a boring post?

I am feeling quite dank underneath my shirt (I just finished a run that whipped my rear end), so I better get this going. The kids don't sound like they are doing school either.

2008-10-06T21:44:00.002-05:00

I'm having the hardest time writing lately. Well, I have been just way too busy to write. Even to check email. The Professor thinks that's marvelous. He wants the computer to himself.

Today the Oldest:

--scaled a wall

--jumped up and down and clapped his hands while an elevator was descending and he was in it

--ate hordes of candy (including Lemonheads)

--talked incessantly during my Lit class (he is in it)

--organized a football game in the yard and was so bossy and controlling that Eraser Eater ran in and wept

I am going to bed.

Noel of Oasis ---Wonderwall

2008-10-01T11:11:00.001-05:00

I can not WAIT to see Oasis in December! The Professor got us tickets---he rocks.

And Noel is my favourite guitarist. Love him, love him, love him.

Things Learned This Week

2008-09-28T09:50:00.003-05:00

*I have discovered that Joseph Smith sort of scares me. His plaster face mask doesn't help matters.

*I am disappointed I guess that Palin is a fumbler and doesn't quite know what she is talking about. I guess I don't really care if people have enough experience to do the presidential job; I am sure Obama would do a great job (I just think he would make some horrible decisions that would change this country not for the good). I don't worry about his inexperience. I don't worry about Palin's either, although it does help that McCain seems to know what he is talking about. And it also helps that he winked at me in the Capitol Building.

*I have been so tired in the middle of the day each day no matter what I do to change it that it worries me. Does every thirty year old mother get like this? I expected this to happen maybe when I was forty or fifty, but thirty?

*I really like mineral make-up.

*I freeze up under pressure.

*I can tolerate college football.

*My coffee pot just biffed it today after nine years of service. Guess I am using the french press from now on! Things keep breaking down this year. I mean, seriously. It is depressing. I could name about twenty but won't bore you.

*Claritin is better than Zyrtec.

*People like to ignore me.

*It is really great when your car passes inspection.

*God loves me with a love untainted and strong.

Ramblings of an Old Woman

2008-09-26T06:35:00.002-05:00

It's really sad, but the past few weeks, especially this week, all I can think about during the day is going to bed at night. I have been so tired!

And I have been walking around in public minus my wedding rings because I stained them with that stupid betadine solution (the red stuff) I have been washing myself with (doctor's orders) every day. I put the rings in some warm water with dish soap, but I don't think it helped too much. Any ideas? I guess I could buy jewelry cleaner. Nevermind, I'll call my neighbor. She knows everything. I would still welcome advice though. I am not a jewelry person. I do need to get this fixed though because the kids are afraid I am not married to the Professor anymore.

I went to the doctor for my cold intolerance issue the other day. Apparently I have Raynaud's or something like it. If any of you follow this blog at all you know that during the winter my fingers and toes go numb. Not all of them, just some random one.

"This medicine would lower the blood pressure enough to get the blood to those extremities."

"What is my blood pressure now?"

She spouted off some number from my chart. I had no idea what it meant.

"Is that low already?"

"Well, it is normal. " She rolled her eyes in a sort of non-committal way like a typical doctor.

"Is it on the high side, or the low side of normal?"

"The low side."

"That is what I thought. I am a runner."

"Yes, that is common for runners to have lower blood pressure."

"Um, I don't want my blood pressure so low from the medicine I will die or something."

"Yes, that is what I am afraid of. We will try low doses at first. But---I need to see a picture of a cold attack on your feet before I am comfortable prescribing you medication for this. When do you start getting really cold?"

"When it gets cold outside." Duh

"How about we schedule an appointment for the middle of winter?"

"You don't understand. This ruins my life. All I can think about is staying warm."

"When you have an attack, take a picture, and we will bump your appointment up."

There are lots of things that I think could possibly be in my mind. Crazy is one of them. But this I know is real. I used to panic when a toe went numb and I could not feel it for hours, but now I know what to do. Forget playing guitar or doing any task that requires fine motor skills. My digits are constantly cold. The second the thermostat hits seventy I am toast. There are times in the middle of the day when I am so cold I have to sit in bed fully clothed and the Professor has to come and hold me until I stop shaking from head to foot.

I dread winter.

Infected

2008-09-24T16:05:00.002-05:00

Somehow last week I got a staph infection. What fun. Joy of joys.

Don't ask me how, good grief, I don't know how. All I know is that it appeared like I had a bug bite on my ankle, right next to my little patch of perpetual athlete's foot. Yes, I always have a small patch of athlete's foot. I run and sweat too much.

So---my nurse/neighbor/friend stopped by for a little visit outside one of those days last week right after I decided to squeeze that "bug bite" to get all that poison out that was causing so much pain and stiffness underneath it. I about screamed as I did this. I poured alcohol on it and bandaged it up. My friend took a look at it. Well, my whole ankle and foot was turning beet red and blanching when touched. "Uh, I would stick that foot in a bucket of hot salt water, as hot as you can stand it," she said with a twinge of fear in her face.

"I'd watch it with all that staph going around."

Oh great, I thought. Just great.

She left and I called the kids in to finish up school. I sat at the table, scalding hot bucket of water at my feet, ready to put the wounded ankle in. The water was hot. She said to soak the foot for, gee whiz, I don't know, ten-fifteen minutes? I put my foot in. I almost screamed. I kept it in there though because by golly, I think I could withstand this hot of water. Yes, I can stand it. I'll live. I put my head on the school table and beat down with my fists.

"It hurts Mom," the Girl said.

"She's in pain," Eraser Eater said.

I could hear pencils moving when I ceased pounding. The clock could not tick fast enough.

"How long do you have to do that?" Eraser Eater asked.

"I think ten minutes, but I'm going to do fifteen!" I almost yelled. I felt like a burn victim. I could see my foot in the bucket, beet red.

"Your foot is red."

"Yeah, I know, I know."

Eventually I did go to the doctor that day because my calf started tingling, and when that madness starts happening, I don't mess with my legs. They have to run the next morning!

So---for a good few hours I was cherry red from the ankle down.

The doctor: "I don't know if this culture is going to come back positive or not because you did some great homeopathic care!"

Deep Thoughts During School

2008-09-23T10:21:00.002-05:00

My kids got deep today and realized that if other things had not happened to me (in the past) they would not be alive. At least, Eraser Eater and the Girl were talking about it. The Oldest was doing a math problem and listening in.

"I mean, if you hadn't met Dad, we wouldn't even exist!" Eraser Eater scratched his head, "That's pretty scary!"

"Yeah," mouthed the Girl, dotting an "i".

The Oldest looked up, "It's not too scary. I would still exist and that is what's most important."

"Oh good grief," I said.

"What?! It wouldn't be scary. Eraser Eater and the Girl would not even exist, so I would have no knowledge of them to mourn!"

We all rolled our eyes.

"Just get back to work."

Crashes

2008-09-22T08:48:00.003-05:00

The second time this year our iMac has biffed it. I may have lost pretty much everything, who knows. Well, I am sure the Professor has lost more, but pretty much all of my songs could be gone, so that is a great batch of loveliness. Not that your listening pleasure is lessened by this---I don't think anyone else cares too much, I just worked hard on that crap. Oh well. What I have is probably what is on my podcast, that's it.

I got an infection over the weekend (maybe the computer caught it) so that was a fun ride.

I also have athlete's foot. Of course.

And I am ready to bite. Anyone want to try to tackle me? You would be totally up the river. I mean, up the creek. Those blasted idioms.

Walkie Talkies

2008-09-19T09:04:00.003-05:00

I think I got bit by something a couple of days ago. When at the apple orchard, I wanted to scratch my ankle and noticed a blushed spot on it and a zit looking thing. It really hurts, but has not really changed much.

We went to an apple orchard in a college town about an hour away on Wednesday. I went with the friend who went with me to the pumpkin patch last year and the Girl broke her boy's arm. No arms were broken this time, thankfully. My friend has four kids (she is also the one I went to the Renwick Gallery with---Smithsonian) and does so well with them. I am always impressed. I about lose my top whenever the Oldest and I are in the same enclosed space, but it helped that we were out in the open picking apples with a huge pole with a net on it. Eraser Eater kept whining too. At one point he stomped away and whimpered something, I can't remember, and I almost took a huge apple and pelted him with it. If I could aim. If I could actually hit my target, which is never something I am so fortunate to accomplish.

But the coolest thing EVER was that my friend just deals with the fact that I don't have a cell phone. I know. Aren't I just totally not with it? I feel like a baby boomer staring at an ipod whenever I put a cell phone in my hands. "Here," someone says to me, "just use my cell phone."

Just use your cell phone? You are assuming I know how to use it? I don't know how to use squat. So---imagine my hearty laughter when my friend pulls out her walkie-talkies. "Here," she said without flinching, "we can use them up to five miles apart." Roger.

During the hour drive I followed her van all the way to the orchard. I had the walkie talkie on my passenger's seat. We passed a winery. "We may need to stop there," the walkie-talkie croaked from the seat.

I picked it up. "Why?" I said, while pushing the button I was supposed to push if I wanted to talk, feeling highly ridiculous.

"On the way back," it said back to me surrounded in distortion,"they would have to give us a lot of samples!"

The other day my friend was telling me that only white people wear New Balance shoes (which is my sneaker of choice for running) and it struck me suddenly when we drove by a New Balance store. I had never seen one before. I picked up the walkie-talkie to tell her that we just passed a white people store but the stupid contraption just kept beeping at me so I threw it away from me in horror, back on to the passenger's seat. I felt like a caveman struck by the fear of seeing fire for the first time. It is a flipping walkie-talkie. I picked it up. I threw it in the back seat.

"Here," I shouted at the Oldest, playing his intendo, "you figure this thing out."

Phil Wickham - True Love

2008-09-17T07:22:00.001-05:00

Here is the best male singer on the planet----listen and love it!

I Will Post Something Later

2008-09-16T07:32:00.003-05:00

If your computers allow it, give my music site a try again---I have "finished" "You Watch Me" and "Come by Hasting". I think they sound decent. I added more stuff. I wish I had real strings and cellos, which are what plays in my head, but I can't have everything when I am just a piddly musician. If you enjoy the songs for what they are, great, but in my mind they are bigger than what they sound like, more that I could do and am capable of, but have no means to do.

---Anyone rich and want to donate money so that I can hire studio musicians? Or just lots of studio time so that I could get friends and friends of friends to do it? :)

Thank you ahead of time.

Enough is Enough

2008-09-13T14:31:00.004-05:00

I have a new recorded song to share. This song is like a raw wound. A dear friend has been badgering me to put this one together for months and I have been avoiding it. Strangely, it has helped me heal. Or cope, I am not sure what. So, here's to you, Laura.

We are Eccentric Now

2008-09-13T09:59:00.002-05:00

Last night for Family Fun Night we had a poetry reading. The Professor got so sick of watching movies every time, so I suggested I have the kids write poems and read them instead. The prospect was presented during school yesterday morning, but no one was enthused.

"That's stupid," said the Oldest.

So finally when the time came, I sat us all down and had the kids pick out poems instead. The boys chose Shel Silverstein poems (of course), and the Girl chose a few poems from her little primer for school. I chose Sonnet 56 by Michael Drayton, and the Professor bored us all with "Kublah Khan." Then he pulled out some other story/poem thing that had to do with a warrior who lost his king. The kids were interested, but didn't understand the story.

The Professor and I watched a movie from Netflix last night; Mountains of the Moon, or something like that. It was about Sir Richard Burton and John Speke (who originally discovered Lake Victoria, the Nile's source). The Professor just finished a biography about Burton and was unsatisfied at the many liberties in the plot of the movie, as is the usual dilemma with films.

Since school started I have been feeling better about life. During the summer I typically lament not having a reason for living, but then once fall hits I realize my reason. Come winter I am freezing so badly (you know my condition) that it ruins my life and keeping warm is all I can think about.

So, on a lighter note, when you die, do you want to be in a pine box or a coffin? I think it would make the miracle of resurrection greater if the worm eats me and I have truly merged into the dust. What do you all think about that?

Halloween Costumes

2008-09-09T11:54:00.002-05:00

Halloween, in a way, is just around the corner. The Girl has been thinking about her costume already. Sadly, I will refrain from putting photos on my blog (I deleted some already) because a creep from the northwest has decided to take that liberty from me. Yes, it is either delete my blog or just simply stop putting pictures up. I don't really want to delete my blog, but we will see what happens.

Anyway, Halloween. Oh yes. As I was saying. The Girl. She said, "I want to be a unicorn!"

"How are you going to be a unicorn?" I asked her.

"You will make the costume, like you made Eraser Eater's last year!" {Remember the mummy made out of masking tape?}

"Oh, I know," piped in Eraser Eater, "you could just use a party hat and cover it up with paper for the horn!"

"I already just thought of that," I said in a mumble.

I can't make costumes. I can't sew.

"You'd need hooves," I said to the Girl, "think of something else."

"How about a tree? You could cut a tree down, hollow it out, and wrap it around me!"

For goodness' sake, who does she think I am? She has seen me cut wood, check, she has seen me kill a mole brutally, check, she has seen me make Eraser Eater into a mummy out of masking tape, check.

"There's no way," I said.

"She could be an egg," Eraser Eater said.

"That doesn't help much," I said.

"I know what I could be!" yelped the Oldest in his high-pitched Mickey Mouse voice.

Oh here it comes, I thought.

"I could be a jack-o-lantern guy. What you would do, mom, is you would hollow out a pumpkin, cut out the jack-o-lantern eyes and mouth, and put it on my head!"

"That would be heavier than sin!" I spat.

"I'd be fine. I'd bear it well---I would be the envy of all the people who never thought of it. No plastic for me! I would have the real thing! And I would wear a black cape and say, 'ah-ha-ha-ha!' No one would stop me! I would never buy a costume ever again!"

I swallowed hard.

"I can't even hollow out pumpkins anymore," I said, "they make me break out."

"You could totally do it," said the Oldest.

No more minimum requirement of a plastic toy gun to be an army man third year in a row. No more princess or Batgirl or whatever it is she used to aspire to. Now it is this idea of impossible things to wow everyone like the mummy costume. That was the greatest, grandest thing I could think of, and the only thing I could think of.

"How about a couple of white sheets so you can be ghosts?" I asked.

"Someone on Charlie Brown thought of that already," they all said in defense.

I'm doomed.

I Didn't Get a Ticket

2008-09-08T09:25:00.001-05:00

Somehow I got out of it.

My Girl is Seven

2008-09-05T16:28:00.005-05:00

So I walked out the front door to take the Girl and her friend to the library. They had been playing outside like usual. As I was holding a gargantuan stack of books, the Girl bounds over to me and says, "I just ate DIRT!"

"What?!"

This was too much bad information for me to process while holding a large stack of books. I forgot about it soon after but she approached the subject again:

"I ate dirt and it was bitter."

"Why would you eat dirt? You know, there's something wrong there," I said. Thinking pica.

"Why would something be wrong, Mom?"

"No one just goes out and eats dirt. Do you need minerals or something? More vitamins? You even wet yourself a little today. Are you ok?"

"What Mom, do you think I am retarded or something? Do you think I am crazy?"

I looked at her with one eye (I was driving) and one eyebrow raised. "Well..."

"Well what? You just called me a retarded child! "

"I didn't."

"Yes, you did!"

"I didn't."

"Mom!"

"Really, she didn't," said the friend.

"What?!" my daughter yelped.

"I tried dirt too," said the friend, "but I spit it out. It was icky. But {Girl}, didn't you actually eat it?"

The Girl lamented and went prostrate on the instant.

On the way home she remained this way. I played "Bridge Over Troubled Water" as loud as I could, sang as loud as I could with Mr. Garfunkel, and reached my hand behind my seat to grasp my Girl's leg. A cop pulled me over.

After I handed him my license and registration and he walked off, the Girl said, "Do you think he will give you a ticket?"

"I don't know," I said, annoyed that I just blew $150.

"You know," the Girl said knowingly to her friend, "last time Mom got out of it because she cri--"

"Hey, enough!"

Incarnation

2008-09-04T14:48:00.003-05:00

Here is my new song. I have labored greatly on this so don't make me labor for naught. My guilt trips always sound like a chain letter! I crack myself up. No---this song is a lot of multi-layered fun in minor keys. Go for it.

Fear of Man

2008-09-03T11:54:00.002-05:00

In my greatly adventurous life, I find that going to the grocery store with all three kids can be the most trying to my patience (even over schooling). About a year ago I used to sort of scoff at the poor mothers who had to deal with whining, crying kids clutching a Dorito bag or a box of Trix cereal, but now I dare not. Things have changed for me. God has His little (or big) ways of teaching me a lesson.

They don't run down the aisles. They don't beg for stuff continually. They don't jump in one place or two places and make tons of noise. They argue. No longer is the strain physical like when they were two, but the strain is mental. "No, I wanna push the cart!" "No, Mom said that I can get the romaine lettuce!" "He won't stop antagonizing me!" "She keeps poking me to get me in trouble! See! Now I AM in trouble!" "He ate the last sample!" "Here! He can have the last sample, I saved it for him! See, he doesn't even want it! He is seeking some sort of revenge on me! I can see it in his eyes!"

The quotes go on and on.

And I will admit there is a sort of begging that happens with Eraser Eater at times. Every time we pass a sugar cane or a coconut, he wants me to buy it. When I just ignore his request, he wanders behind the oranges and sort of sulks, but he tries not to look like he is sulking because he is petrified at what people think of him.

I remember during the summer months he was under water when the lifeguard blew the whistle for "adult swim." When this happens, all the kids have to file out of the pool. Eraser Eater did not hear the whistle so he kept swimming once his head popped up to the surface. Once he saw that I was calling him and asking him what in 'tarnation' he was doing disobeying "adult swim" he looked at me wide-eyed, about to cry. He suppresses it well, I must say. Once in the car he wept silently at how mortified he was. Whenever it was mentioned he cried openly.

When at the beach and digging that huge sand hole a mentally challenged boy (who could use a few meals missed) jumped right on in and his fist landed in Eraser Eaters side. Eraser Eater barely made a sound but his face looked like he was about to poop his pants. He crawled out of the hole the best he could and scrambled behind the Professor's beach chair. And you know the rest. He wept silently. That kid rammed into him good. The big kid in the hole had no idea any of this happened.

So here's to my second day of school, successfully done, and another coming tomorrow and the next day. Ok, I will not think that far ahead, I am getting depressed.

Whatnots

2008-09-02T12:39:00.003-05:00

I successfully completed the first day of school with the kids. It was pulling teeth when the Oldest pulled out the math book, but other than that, it went well.

All night I dreamed of hobbits and Mordor. I remember some time in the night the Professor said to me, "Are you ok?"

In addition to reading the Letters of Tolkien and The Hobbit, I read a chapter in a book on Lincoln I bought the Professor. It was about why Lincoln didn't join a church. It was relatively uninteresting. I think Lincoln's reasons for not liking the Church as a whole were immature, but that is just me. I am just not a big fan of Lincoln. But I could stand to learn more about him.

And, by the way, I forgot "F x of = is" today and made a complete fool of myself.

Let There Be Love

2008-08-27T16:33:00.001-05:00

This is for the Professor who is turning 35 tomorrow. What better than to sing and play an Oasis song?

Note to Professor: I love you.

I Am More Machine Than Man Now

2008-08-27T07:22:00.002-05:00

I got all manner of springs and tightening tools in my mouth. It feels GREAT. To those who have criticized me for my complaints about how bad it felt to have my mouth practically sawn in half with that screw thing, you can eat this for lunch: apparently I had a bad reaction to the numbing medication they gave me and it unnaturally tore up my mouth. In addition to that, the immense pain of the screw they "screwed" in there made it all worse. For days. So I wasn't insane. The orthodontist thought I was nuts for not tearing down the house for pain medication.

But now I am fine. It hurts a little because of tightening issues, but it is nothing like the last painful bout of orthodontic care.

I am happy to report I can play guitar now and my sliced up finger is painless too.

I sound like an old woman!!!

Tomorrow is the Professor's birthday. Any ideas on what to get him? Come on, I know you have some ideas!!!!

ABBA Zabba

2008-08-25T07:27:00.003-05:00

My sister in law brought ABBA into my house about a month ago after she saw Mama Mia at the theater. She made me suffer through it as I made dinner. She would totally laugh at this-- I guess it is not so bad. Well, I am trying to be nice, but I hate any type of disco-esque stuff---the Bee Gees are worse. I tend to think that if a guy sounds like a high-pitched alien when he sings, it is unnatural and should not be played. As for ABBA, I just have a slight aversion, although I can understand the attraction. Like rap. I really do not like rap at all, but I can understand how attractive it can be when I hear some decent artists mix a good beat with some fun loops.

Well, every time I get off the treadmill ABBA is blasting in the house. The Girl puts it on nearly every day and listens to particular songs over and over. "Chiquitita?" Don't make me blow chunks.

Save Me

2008-08-22T08:49:00.004-05:00

Go listen to my song here. I know, it is just what you have been searching for all your life.

Post Traumatic Stress & Kissing Serious Butt

2008-08-21T10:47:00.003-05:00

Yesterday the kids down the street decided to all pile in my house. I almost wept openly when I saw that they were in my bedroom jumping on my bed. Someone had picked up my guitar and carelessly placed it over my night stand. I completely became unglued.

So I went downstairs, made more sugar scrub and drank some wine. Well, first I banished all the children from my house and made my own kids read.

The Oldest is really milking it lately. The other day he discovered that I am the reason he is not getting his gameboy back just yet. His eyes widened upon the news.

"Are you serious? Usually it is the other way around!" He was shocked.

"Yeah, well Dad was just saying to me that he thinks you could get your gameboy back but I told him I was not so sure and so he said for me to make the final decision."

He turned to me (we were in the car and he was in the passenger's seat) and said, "Mom, do you know how much I love you?"

"Nice try," I said flatly.

"No, really. And if I didn't have to come with you to the post office like you ordered I would have done the dishes without your telling me! Really! It was on my mind to do!"

"Yep, I bet."

The rest of the day he decided to help me with everything. Oh here let me get this for you, and let me handle that, kind of stuff. As he was putting cut potatoes in a bowl for me he said, "You know, if you give me my gameboy now you know I will lose it in a matter of days and I will do your bidding for it again anyway."

"True," I said.

He doesn't realize that I take it away because he is obsessed with it, not because I want him to do things for me. He has to do that anyway whether he likes it or not.

The Professor and I should give it back to him soon though so that we can now quit rolling our eyes whenever he says, "I love you!!!!"

Almost Severed Fingers and Some Linkage

2008-08-19T09:14:00.006-05:00

have not been able to post lately because I severely cut my finger like a total nimrod. I was cutting up cilantro and don't ask me how, but I sliced my index fingernail. I mean, I CUT it. If my fingernail had not been there I would have cut off my finger. So typing has been a complete joke the past few days. Until today I could only type a few sentences at a time.

And contrary to popular belief, I know how to cut up stuff. I think I got distracted or something. It is all a blur.

I went over to my neighbor's house (who is a nurse) and she took care of me pronto. She gave me salt flushes, wrapping, tape, you name it, she had it and administered her care. And it hurts like crazy. Heaven forbid I become an old woman and have aches and pains. I get sort of mean when I am in pain.

I am not geared up for school this year at all either. I am teaching a couple classes and no matter what I do I just never feel prepared. Thankfully the Professor is going to take on teaching the Oldest logic this year so I don't have to wrap my brain around that. I've already done enough voco, vocas, vocamus, vocatis, vocant but I guess I will have to do that again this year although I foresee that Latin will be only a good vocabulary help.

I ran seven miles this morning and I feel really great. I even could still focus when the Girl kept coming to the window and making silly faces. Yesterday I almost lost it and fell off the treadmill she had me laughing so hard. She is such a freak. She was taking a stick and twisting it back and forth into the glass with an evil look on her face. She makes no sense.

I am sure Eraser Eater (9) would not mind if you all looked at this for him. He is very enthusiastic about it. His idea of fun is going on that site and pretty much taking notes.The Oldest also wants you all to listen to his song on my podcast (for a time) that he created. It sounds like Neo is going to bust through the wall and whip some agent butt.

Have Mercy

2008-08-15T16:33:00.004-05:00

I have a new song on my site, so go take a listen. I worked on it for a long time so I expect that if you have the capability you will do me a favor! :) I got the Oldest to tweak with a few things for me (he refused to play the piano, but I have a song coming up that he is going to play on, so I am excited----he is actually an excellent player, believe it or not). Ok, enough begging.

Groundhog Day

2008-08-15T08:29:00.002-05:00

The Professor kept me up last night watching Groundhog Day on "demand" (you guys know what that is, right, because I don't) and I suppose when you press any other button on the channel changer you can biff the whole thing up. Well, the man changed the channel instead of the volume at the very end, right when Bill Murray (Phil) finishes up his piano solo at that party, and we lost the whole movie. I was up well past midnight to watch most of a movie that I can't remember the ending to. "Oh well," smiled the man.
"Yeah, 'oh well.'"
Well, I had a little "oh well" this morning when I woke up at 9:16. Eraser Eater, I suppose, tired of waiting for me to get up, opened my bedroom door and it creaked really loud. That needs W-D40, I thought.

"I've been waiting all morning to tell you how excited I am!" He jumped on my bed, hugged me, and smiled directly in my face.

"Clone Wars?" I stretched.

"Yes! Last night when you left for the teacher meeting it was a few hours until Friday but now it IS Friday! And we were all really hungry so {the Oldest} made his own eggs, but they burned a little on the edges, and he made toast, and {the Girl}..."

Holy Crap.

Eraser Eater exited when I started to get up. I collapsed back onto my pillow. The Oldest soon boomed up the stairs and entered my room, paper in hand. He placed it on the Professors empty pillow. "Just though you would need that," he said. The smell of tart Sharpie entered my nose.

His note said, "Dear Mom, I would very much wish to have my game boy back and I made my own breakfast. Love, {the Oldest}"

It was a trick. He wanted to do the dishes without my telling him because he wants gameboy back! Gamecube has been kicked and banished to the closet (and still has not resurrected), then gameboy ended up in my drawer because the boy decided to hit his sister and play without following the rules (again). He is supposed to read five chapters of the Bible before he can play per day. That boy knows the Bible. He has read it four or five times cover to cover.

And what happened to me? Anesthesia? Groundhog Day?

Not Fair

2008-08-14T16:04:00.002-05:00

I am sad no one really read my prior brilliance, but no matter.

The ONE day the Oldest marches downstairs and declares, "Mom, I am here to let you know," (we were in the kitchen)" that I will now do the dishes without you telling me!"

I thought it was a trick of some sort. I was waiting for a hammer to come down on my head, a bucket of slime to dump on me, a Nerf bullet to dart me in the eye----but no. I looked at him blankly.

He stood there with a smile on his face. You know, he smiles in a way that makes him look like he is holding his breath or forcing it a little.

I had just looked at the dishes in the dishwasher before he came down and what do you know, they were dirty.

"The day you decide to do something when you are not told and there is nothing for you to do."

"What?! Oh well." He jumped upstairs.

I found a jellied orange slice and called him downstairs. "Here is a reward for your nice gesture," I said.

"Wow! Thanks!" he yelped as he turned around, popped the entirety of the slice in his mouth and bounded up the stairs. I could hear him from the corner of the house yelling out demands to his imaginary army, orange on his breath.

Anesthesia

2008-08-13T09:50:00.003-05:00

Yesterday the Professor had to get a medical procedure done. He had to get put out, so he doesn't remember squat. All he knew was that he was being wheeled into a room and some nurses were talking---then he woke up. This is the first time he has ever had anesthesia.
"It's sort of nice, isn't it?" I said to him, having had anesthesia several times for a few minor procedures myself.

"Yeah, it's like a miracle. One minute you are awake and you want to partake in a conversation, the next you wake up."

"And it had been two hours or something like that."

"That's just nuts," he said, shaking his head, "besides enduring starvation the day before in order to get this done, I rather enjoyed myself. I think I am looking forward to the next time I have to get that done. It's incredible. It's great. The best sleep I ever had..."

He already gets good sleep, the scoundrel.

And he discovered this while he was lying around in bed all day because the doctor said he needed bed rest, his favorite prescription.

"Isn't this incredible!!!????" he yelped from the sheets, laptop on his immobile legs.

I looked over his shoulder, music blaring. John Coltrane. Oasis. They kept playing his stuff. Over and over. He shook his head in unbelief. "How is this legal?!" he said wondrously.

I rolled my eyes. "I told you about this MONTHS ago."

"What? You did?"

"Yep. I told you about it and you didn't care then!"

"Are you sure?!"

"Yeah, I'm real sure." I remembered how I entered Eisley in my account and they starting playing endless tunes similar to them. Pretty soon I got sick of it and turned it all off. I am not that impressed with it.

Then, he got the notion to look on Google Maps. Oh man, he started showing me real live road pictures of the school he went to as a kid, the church, the gym, the dorms people lived in. The list goes on and on. The dude remembered EVERYTHING. No anesthesia there. He decided to be "fair" I think in his mind, although I know he has absolutely no interest, and look at the house I grew up in in Chino Hills. Perfect roads emerged with palm trees on either side. The house I once knew looked nothing like the house I lived in. In fact, it looked like an impostor house. It even had a palm tree in the yard.

"This isn't the house," I said, slightly annoyed.

"You mean you don't remember any of this?!" the Professor said, shocked and disappointed by my failure of a memory.

"No, none of it. It doesn't even look like the same house."

"Are you sure you have the address right?"

"Yeah. That's it. Gotta make dinner. Why don't you come down with me?"

"Doctor's orders. He said I should get plenty of rest, remember?" he shot me a smile. He was LOVING this.

"You already got plenty of rest. You have been in bed all day. You even got a nap---"

"Yeah, and it was a great nap. I don't remember anything. I was lying there staring at the ceiling wondering if I would fall asleep and then the next thing I remember I woke up and was in the same exact position, two hours later. Was it two hours? How long exactly was it?"

I lovingly rolled my eyes again. In some ways he was like King Peter, fresh from Narnia and all his adventures, back in England again to tell me, his wife, about it. The scoundrel. I want some anesthesia.

This Is Music

2008-08-11T13:19:00.002-05:00

I can't believe it is the afternoon already! I have a lot to do---I need to clean my house. I find that as a mother who is home a lot of the time, I am cleaning every time I turn around.

For Bee, I will list all the bands on my ipod (currently) that I run to (in alphabetical order):

The Beatles
Blur
Caedmon's Call
Coldplay
Eisley
Fields
The Good, the Bad and the Queen (some stupid band the Blur guy threw together for the Herculean and who knows what else)
Gorillaz (I have the song Dare)
Grant Lee Phillips
Jars of Clay
Jeff Buckley
Led Zeppelin
Morrissey
Oasis
Paul McCartney
The Perishers
Phil Wickham
Radiohead (only the Body Snatchers)
Richard Ashcroft
Sarah Masen
Sarah McLachlan
Starsailor
Tears for Fears
Travis
The Verve

No, I don't only listen to Zep when running, I just tend not to skip any Zep song when it pops up on shuffle. I also feel the same way toward Oasis, except not as much lately.

And I am not really impressed with Coldplay's new album. I think it is what the Professor would say, "underwhelming". I really don't like the Viva La Vida song at all---I think it is sort of blah. I HATE the Death and All His Friends song.

Man, I hope the Verve's new album is good. I have my doubts because once people get older, they just don't have it anymore. Like, U2 should just quit. Most of the stuff they do now sucks. I don't even bother buying it. I think Beautiful Day is ordinary. That All That You Can't Leave Behind album and the Bomb one after it is so bland that I never play them and couldn't tell you the tune of hardly a song on either of them. The only reason why I own them is because the Professor bought them for me. Surprisingly enough I have enjoyed Oasis' recent stuff so I am hoping their upcoming album is a good one. I wouldn't mind seeing them again if only to see Noel Gallagher.

I want Grant Lee to put out another Virginia Creeper (when are you going to come to Alexandria, man?) and Travis just never puts anything out EVER that is bad. Every time I hear a new album I wonder when the terrible song is going to play.

And I am really, really impressed with that Fields album.

And we all know if we have a brain in our head, that when Phil Wickham comes out with his new album that it is going to be beyond stellar. He is just incredibly amazing.

You all have no idea who I am talking about do you?

Home

2008-08-07T18:48:00.002-05:00

I am home, yes, it is so nice. In a way vacations are so great but then I miss home so much I find that I wake up in the wee hours of the morning on some foreign pillow pining away for it. Home is that special place where you leave all your stuff, sleep, and feel at ease.

I ran only one time while there. I think once was enough. I ran my usual seven plus mile route, but it was hot and grueling when I decided to take it. Well, it was morning, so it wasn't incredibly hot. I think the main blunder of the trip was that in my haste I forgot my ipod. Even over forgetting the kids' toothbrushes. Those were easily replaced, but the ipod? No way. That was rough, running all those miles with no audible help. I forget how much I depend on it. So far this week I have only run seven miles when normally I would have already had, oh, maybe 27 or so. I feel like a failure and I feel unhealthy (especially because I had a steady diet of ice cream every stinking day), but that is no matter. My reward smack in the middle of the run was the view of the ocean, and then I turned directly around and went back to the hotel. During my run I saw: huge dragonflies, a deer, a turtle, a dead snake, and some ponies, the usual.

The Professor dug the world's hugest hole and recruited me into helping him for a spell so I have a really sore back, just like an old woman. The Girl and I took our beach chairs and chilled down there for awhile. People thought we were nuts. I will post pictures perhaps if I get less lazy.

During every visit to the beach the man and I could hear our child, the Oldest, yelping and yelling (in usual Mickey Mouse fashion) over the many crashing waves and the usual din of a well-crowded beach.

I tried to read a lot but got very little accomplished because I was convinced that at least one of my children would get sucked into the abyss and never come back. I suppose that if game cube were around while they were in the waves and perhaps if they were playing it at the same time and say, fighting, I would welcome the whole idea of abyss sinking. But I was petrified every two minutes, actually, and kept putting that bookmark back into the book. So I read during the two hour traffic jam (we were at a complete stop right before the Wilson Bridge) and read more then than I did the two solid days at the beach combined.

The Oldest was just recently reading a Garfield comic. "What's impressionable?" he asked.
The Professor replied, "a person who is easily influenced by something---a person who believes anything another person says to them, something like that."

"You!" I said.
He looked at me and folded his arms in fake anger. "I am not impressionable!"
"You believed the tooth fairy," chimed the Professor.
"I never believed it!"he roared.
"Oh, come on!" we practically said in unison.
I walked over to the cupboard to get a few things to set up for dinner. I could hear the Professor telling him about how he overheard a conversation with the Girl and him about proving the tooth fairy was real or not.
"You both have lied to me. You were the culprits. You and Mom. And I never believed it."
I rolled my eyes as I pulled the potatoes out of the oven.
"What about the note?" asked the Professor.
"I knew that wasn't real!" shrieked Mickey Mouse.
"Then why did you look up the Elvish characters in the Lord of the Rings book?"
"I was trying to prove it!"
"But you believed it for a second didn't you?"
"Maybe I believed it when I was three..." he muttered, sort of defeated.

Still Here, Just Putting Up Some Pics

2008-08-06T19:48:00.006-05:00

My neck is presently burned, I have eaten too much beach food, and the kids are all semi-whiny. I can not WAIT to get home tomorrow. I don't know how people do week long vacations. I don't think I could ever do it, seriously. I am a homebody.

See you all perhaps tomorrow!

Leaving, Will Be Back in a Few

2008-08-03T17:54:00.000-05:00

We are leaving for the beach in the morning and I am not sure if the Professor will bring his macbook or not. We will see. Sometimes he surprises me. He will, however, bring a New Yorker and I will bring Return of the King. Blogger is sort of wigging out so I better get off here. Maybe I will have some photos to post from the trip.

Be back on Thursday.

The Girl and I were listening to "Ramble On" by Led Zep on the way home from grocery shopping and since the lyric said "Mordor" and "Gollum" she said, "You need to play this song for your literature class, Mom!"

I had a huge laugh. I told her that I didn't think the Moms would appreciate that very much. Jimmy Paige was a Satanist, you know. He may be sort of ugly but he sure can play guitar.

And I have Robert Plant hair, don't you think?

This and That (2)

2008-08-01T10:41:00.002-05:00

The Professor told me that I was the model wife yesterday because I ironed (gasp!) and vacuumed in the same day. Those are the two chores I hate the most. I would rather clean toilets, wipe up excrement, you name it. I would even rather go down in the crawl space where there are spiders aplenty.

Which reminds me. Remember this post? On Wednesday morning when waiting for the exterminator (we have had issues with carpenter ants---I guess that is normal for living in the forest) I realized that I would have to ask the guy to go into the crawl space to see if they are emerging from there. He was a little afraid! He said crawl spaces were not his thing and asked me how it looked down there. I told him that I have gone down there several times to get things out and to turn water on and off during the season changes and it is pretty clean. Some spider eggs and whatnot, but clean. He told me spiders are what he fears. And exterminator? What?!

When entering my crawl space, you have to open up a little latched door on the side of my house by the patio. Once the wooden door is swung open it kicks on a light switch above. In order to turn off the light you have to reach over and switch the light off once out of the crawl space and you have to manually shut the door and lock it in place again. It is a nice little operation, but not so nice if you are deathly afraid of the crawl space, I would imagine.

What did I find once I was outside again cooking dinner later that evening? The crawl space door swung wide open (still) and the light on. I suppose the guy was so afraid that he just ran out of there and did not dare to reach his arm in again to flip the switch and grab at the door to lock it. What a wimp.

I am heading to the pool. I am losing my tan, so I have to get out there again. I have so much to read and so little time.

Wait

2008-07-30T15:37:00.004-05:00

Here is a recording of a song I wrote called "Wait". Check it out and tell me what you think if you have the capability. I sort of did the vocals in one take so I got a little lazy. I guess they could be better, but when you have kids coming in and out when you are recording and making noise, you take what you can get and think, "maybe I will re-do that later, just not now."

When It Rains, It Pours

2008-07-30T08:36:00.003-05:00

Before I get on that treadmill, I have to write about my day yesterday.

The doc gave me meds to help me sleep----actually, to help me not feel so stiff that I sleep so little at night. Believe me, it does help. Maybe a little too much. I suppose I must be a little person (it is funny to even think of myself that way because I don't feel small) because the lowest dose about runs me over. Heaven forbid if I take the normal dose. I won't be able to get out of bed. That said, yesterday, I woke up drowsy and then throughout the day I remained drowsy until about five o'clock.

My sister in law called me at eleven thirty to remind me that we were supposed to meet at a waterpark later in the afternoon. I had completely forgotten. I felt like a nimrod. I thought all morning I would take the kids to the pool and read The Two Towers. Instead I got them all ready, looked for towels, and drove back home three times once out of my subdivision to get things I had forgotten or things others in my troop forgot. We must make sure we have everything because my sister in law is at least an hour away. We live in the boonies.

"Where are your swim shorts?!" I barked at the Oldest, who went into the bathroom at home to put them on once I told him to. We were presently in the car.

"They are on," he said, face stuffed in a Superman comic.

"No, they are not," I said firmly, trying to keep my eyes on the road. I turned around.

"I went into the bathroom and everything! You are telling me I didn't put them on!!!!????"

Not only am I drowsy, I am irritiable at this point. Not only do I have to remember my own swim suit, I have to remind my Oldest child, who is as big as me, of his. It was pretty much sheer luck that I saw he did not have it on.

Once at my SIL's house, I was too drowsy to even push the departure to the waterpark, just miles down the street. I mooched chocolate off of her hoping that I would wake up a bit. I didn't. The kids played for a spell. Finally we did leave.

The waterpark was fine up until the end. I woke up eventually, as I said, so things got better. The Professor was going to meet us there after work, so I wanted to make sure I knew where the kids were every second so he wouldn't have a heart attack once he arrived. Eventually he did arrive. We went in the lazy river together for about fifteen minutes (the park was almost closing). Once we left the river, we decided to walk on a bridge to get to the lockers to gather our things before herding the kids. Suddenly I heard a yell behind me.

The Oldest was holding an ice pack on the back of his head and a lifeguard was following him with a clip-board. Apparently my boy slipped and fell on the back of his head "just like a cartoon" (as he put it). He literally had an egg popping out. It looked brutal. The lifeguard looked so concerned and apologetic that I shook my head and waved her off.

"Trust me," I said to relieve her, "if he is still mouthing off and talking incessantly like this, he is fine."

All he cared about on the drive home was how to position the ice pack in such a way so as to finish reading his Hardy Boys novel.

Like that wasn't enough, Eraser Eater started to moan in the car. I get on the highway home (thankfully I took back roads) and pretty soon my son says, "My head hurts!" We all know what this means: the boy is going to toss his cookies. The Professor was directly ahead of me in his car so I blinked my lights at him and pulled over. He just kept driving and went home, I guess. I thought, Oh, he'll come back when he sees that I am not behind him. Whatever.

I got out of the car and pulled Eraser Eater out from his side and took him to the grass on the side of the road. He wretched in a little huddle, clean and undramatic.
"I think I am done now," he said faintly.
We drove further.
"Gotta puke again!" he said from the back. At this point in my driving there was nowhere to pull over for about a mile or so. "Hold it in!" I said, worried about the leather seats.

He moaned back there for a spell---just long enough to get to the place where I could get him out of the car again. Instead of immediately tossing his cookies, he just sat there and stewed for a little bit. The Oldest slammed all the car doors shut so he would not have to hear the sound of barfing. The Girl peeped out the windows to see the sight. I was getting a little impatient as I was in my bathing suit holding a Hello Kitty towel the Girl said we could use to wipe his puke mouth.
"It's coming in just a second," he said flatly.
"Are you sure?" I said, looking around.
"Yeah, just another second----now..."
And I think he let loose all the food from yesterday and the day before.
"Man, there's even carrots in there!" he said, surprised, "and it looks like the slop you would get from a cafeteria. Straight from a cafeteria. How do people eat that stuff?!"
"Ok, man, let's go home." I had to pull him away.

He talked about it in the car. The Oldest had had enough. "Please!!!!" he shouted.

Then Eraser Eater continued to talk about what happens when you take in food, and the whole chemical process of digestion. "Now what is that stuff called that is all sticky and sour that helps break the food down?"

"Uh, bile?"

"Yes, bile. It tastes gross."

"Ok! OK!!!!" yelled the Oldest, "I have a pounding head here!"

"Oh Mom, gotta stop again!!!" Eraser Eater yelled from the back. I took him to the battlefield exhibit a mile from our house. I hate being that close yet not being there.

He sat and stewed once again. Finally I informed him that we were a minute from home. An ant crawled on him and he jumped up, wagging his arm. "Something just crawled on me!!!!!" He danced around. He gave an irritated look. "Let's go home then, Mom, I would rather puke in the toilet anyway."

I May Have Killed the Game System

2008-07-28T21:40:00.003-05:00

I went to a friend's house today mainly for my sake, but the kids did get a little play time with her kids. The Oldest hung out with her two oldest and played legos while my friend, Eraser Eater, the Girl and I played croquet outside. Everything goes back to Alice with me. At one point I did really say, "off with your head!" so that was worth the trouble of standing out in the sun and getting mosquito bites.

After croquet was over we went to the common area to pick wild blackberries. My friend got caught in the brambles so I ran over to rescue her. She was sort of twisted up, her shirt about to rip. While I did this a piercing scream rang in my ear. I turned around sharply and saw my daughter freaking out. Apparently something stung her. I had to carry her to the house and nurse her back to health. After she calmed down she said, "thankfully that bee will die now for revenge."

To my shame, this morning I actually kicked the Game Cube. I wasn't throwing a fit really, but I was pretty miffed. Apparently I allowed the kids to play the thing for a few hours and when I told them to turn it off Eraser Eater yelped, "but I didn't get a turn yet!"

That, brothers and sisters, means war. I practically spontaneously combusted at that point. #1 thing to NOT say when I allow you to play for THREE hours. I told them of my utter hatred for the game system. I told them that I think games rot your brain and this is waste. And waste is like poop.

"Do you remember if you beat level 127 of Zelda or some Luigi/Mario thing?" I may as well have said intendo. They almost opened up their mouths to correct me but I shushed them and pointed my finger in the air.

"No," someone said.

"Exactly! And you cry about this! You moan about turns and who whipped you or who beat all your guys. You cry about not having as much time as anyone else and you cry out that it is not fair. Life is not fair! And this is not worth it! I hate game cube! No one cries and whines about books! No one cries that they can't read the fifth Lemony Snickett book because someone else has it!" And this was my cue to kick it, which is what I did.

They all stared.

I put the game cube in the coat closet and walked back to them. "Next time it's a hammer and a smile on my face. Don't think I won't do it either because you know I will."

I think we need to start school tomorrow. It was easier then. The grass is always greener, eh?

Mass Chaos

2008-07-27T13:51:00.002-05:00

I have not died or anything rash like that, so be still. My mouth has made it---it is slowly getting better. Granted, you can not notice a thing on the outside. My mouth is also so small that even when I talk you can not see my "appliances". So it is all not so bad and the pain is minimizing tremendously.

I almost had a hemorrhage the other day when getting rid of our old couch to welcome the new. My brand new wood floors got a gigantic scrape (thanks to my Oldest who pulled instead of "lifted") when I said the word. I took my dining room rug and covered it so I wouldn't throw up at the loss of perfection. We live in houses, don't we? I am still trying to figure out a way to fix a deep scratch about the size of my foot (size seven, mind you). Oh, the sound when it did its thing (the couch). I woke up in the night with blaring sirens in my head. And only in my head. I have gone crazy. I put a pillow over my ear to stifle the high-pitched squeal but it did not help. It was in my head. The floor is making me lose my mind. Any suggestions on what to do with the floor? Any hard wood experts out there? The agony.

I have since done other things to further prove that I have lost my mind, but I won't mention it here because I am too prideful. I am, however, not too prideful to admit that I have burned pancakes a plenty and completely charred chicken wings to where they are ashen. I shed a few tears when the Professor came home (directly after my blunder), completely at a loss since I have lost my brain, and he put his junk down immediately and started the wings over again after throwing the old ones away. The only thing I had to do in return was get him a beer. When this was done I nursed my singed arm hairs. Yes, I did singe them. Seriously. I hate the smell of burning hair.

And that's all for now. How are you guys doing?

The Orthodontist Killed my Jaw

2008-07-24T15:56:00.003-05:00

I am in much pain. No, not much, ALL pain. I feel like a saw went to my gum. I just had an implant in---yes, I am complaining (eat my shorts whoever it is that thinks I complain too much)---a screw that is going in my gum beneath my teeth so some special thing can get done for alignment and braces. Not only do I have a metal screw in my gum, I have heavier wiring, and I feel like death. DEATH I tell you. I am no wimp either. I can fight pain. I am about to puke.

No, I am alive. And this living human feels lots of PAIN.

The Girl was in the room when the doctor screwed the screw in with her tool. I felt it the whole time. Not a pleasant experience, but with my daughter there I decided I would do my best to keep my face and body still.

"Are you using a screwdriver?" she asked the doc.

"Sort of," she said.

"Are you just screwing it in?"

"You could say that," the doc answered.

"Looks like you are about done," the Girl said as I laughed at the oddness of the whole situation. The doctor was trying to make it less traumatic for the Girl while I was trying to keep a good face for the Girl and the doctor. Uh, yeah, it hurts, but uh, lets just get this thing over with, k?

"Can I see the screw?" the Girl asked.

Right then the doc was finished with the job and she allowed the Girl to see my gum.

"That's vile!" Her face went sour and she backed up.

"That's a big word for a little girl," the doc said, "you get that from your brothers?"

"No," I said, "from her mother."

Is the pain supposed to hit my ear? I am so not good. I will so not sleep tonight and I will so not eat food for a long long time.

Excuse me now (seriously) while I go upstairs to die. Heaven help me if I ever get a bullet wound.

It's the Coolest Being a Fan of Phil Wickham

2008-07-22T12:54:00.002-05:00

I am on this album cover!!! All of the biggest Phil Wickham fans are, I guess. I watched his concert on May 9 in Portland (which was awesome) and so he asked all of his devoted fans to send pictures of themselves since they watched from home. See if you can spot me.

And, most important, go download Phil's singalong album for FREE like it says on this banner on the date specified.

Is There Anything the Man Can't Do?

2008-07-21T09:36:00.003-05:00

The Professor is a little happy with himself because he gets more hits than I do, when in the past that was not so. I had to take him through some stuff to prove it to him so then he typed "John Lennon Led Zeppelin" or the other way around on Google and there you go, he is the first hit. He seemed very happy about that.

But he----

*can't clean up puke
*can't mop a floor on his hands and knees
*can't sing
*can't play an instrument (wait---he plays the tambourine---just kidding)
*can't cross his eyes
* can't cook (he can grill though!)
*can't spell the name "Diane" correctly
* can't eat a great number of foods because he would puke and then he *can't clean it up
*can't run
*can't run a mile
*can't kill a mole with a shovel
*can't drink Coors Light
*can't not buy a book
*can't not use his brain
*can't be dumb for once
*can't mow the lawn without dying of allergies
*can't stop thinking everything Oasis does is cool
*can't put things together
*can't kill a plant
*can't be still when flying insects are near
*can't stop the stacks
*can't explain his complicated books to me because it would take too many explanations of different words in order for his wife to understand them.
*can't stop veering to the right when he drives
*can't take the car for an oil change

So I gotta go get that oil change now. See ya.

To Hide

2008-07-17T15:57:00.003-05:00

So go here to listen to a recent addition to my podcast. The crazies did the stomping and clapping on the song. We had a lot of fun with it. If you don't listen to it the chain will be broken and demons will emerge from the depths of the earth and make you eat rotten apples forever. Amen and amen.

Scarlett is only Pretty

2008-07-16T11:22:00.003-05:00

I got an update from itunes and noticed Scarlett Johanssen has an album out. I decided to give it a listen.

It is a kindness for me to say that it was horrid. The girl can not sing. Period. Is this what America has come to? Not only do we have mediocre people singing on American Idol (save Kelly Clarkson or any of the earlier people---Carrie Underwood is good as well), we have actors singing and they completely, totally, utterly stink. Don't get me going on Britney Spears. But Britney is in luck compared to Scarlett. Britney sounds like an angel if we were to do this. It is an insult to music period to give people record deals that lack musical ability. It insults ME to think that the music industry thinks I want to listen to a beautiful actor sing terribly.

Personally, I don't care what musicians look like. I listen to them, I don't look at them.

Broken Glasses

2008-07-15T06:44:00.003-05:00

It seems like I am impatient with this strep. My daughter seems to be getting a little better, I mean, she is not crying all the time, but I thought that she would feel tons better being on antibiotics for two days. Someone tell me that it takes a few and that will be enough for me. I have never dealt with this before.

I started Prince Caspian last night with her. I told her to go down and get "the next book" and she came up with it, reluctant. So, we are not committing a Narnian crime, we are doing the right thing. I feel much better.

The Oldest is addicted to a lotion from Bath and Body Works that I got as a gift years ago (Sandalwood Rose). I put it in the downstairs bathroom to get it used up. Now I smell it everywhere. He keeps rubbing his hands together and telling me that his scent is so nice for stress relief. Give me a break.

Yesterday I heard some booming going on upstairs and pretty soon the Oldest came down with his BRAND NEW pair of glasses, completely bent and the lens popped out. I almost took his hand and bit it. "{Eraser Eater} sat on them!" he yelped in high tones.

"Who took them off to be sat on? Were you rough-housing?"

"Yes...." he winced.

A few weeks ago this happened to Eraser Eater's glasses. You go through it enough (last year the Oldest lost his in some kid's yard) to where you imagine yourself at that moment holding up the damaged frames and screaming into the turning of the day, but then you come to your senses quickly remembering that it only gives you a hoarse voice and a headache. Parents with kids that are as old as mine are tired, people. And if they are older than me, they are more tired. If only you could just give them an Indian burn or something for your trouble of having to get them fixed, but then you realize that is juvenile. You have already taken away game cube. It doesn't work either with Eraser Eater because he could care less about anything but drawing plans and Architectural Record. I can't take that away. That would be plain abuse.

I should have made him write sentences. I made him do it last week. Boy, was that a chore. It was more punishment for me than for him. He just cried a lot and wrote. I had to listen to it and talk him down. Not only was this happening at all, it was happening in public, at the pool. Yes, I made him take his notebook to the pool before he could go in it and write, "I will not hit my brother" fifty times. When half-way through, I found that he did not write "in his best cursive" (he wrote in print) as indicated on the top of the page, so I made him start over. Oh, if hell could rise up and gobble the earth! He immediately wept and lamented, right in the car on the way to the pool.

Sorry pal, you do it right the first time.

And as I read over what I just wrote, I think how ridiculously easy that punishment is. I get so sick of hearing, "my hand hurts!" and all that rot.

So---on the list for today---get the glasses fixed.

This and That

2008-07-14T09:01:00.002-05:00

The Girl has strep throat. When we went to the Smithsonian, I suppose she got it because the boy we were with was carrying it at that time. He woke up with strep the next morning. My Girl was so sore yesterday before church that I decided to take her to the emergency care down the road instead. This weekend is her cousin's birthday too and I am sure that she infected her cousin who was here a few days ago. I feel so bad! How about getting strep on your birthday!

The Professor and I keep clearing our throats. So far so good.

I feel guilty waking up at nine in the morning, but hey, that's the way it goes when you sleep so little the night before. I kept having dreams of Elves and webs. I would pull out sting and cut the webs with it's glowing blade. Orcs are near. Or that big fat spider. I am delving deeply into the Lord of the Rings.

An exterminator is coming today to eliminate the carpenter ants I keep seeing everywhere. I kill about ten a day and ten is just too much.

Last night the Girl and I finished The Horse and His Boy (finally), and found that the next book would be Prince Caspian. "I don't want to read that one," said the Girl sharply, "I just want to move on with The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I have seen the movie!" I almost had a hernia. I looked at the Professor for assistance but he looked at her endearingly with compassion and said, "Of course you can move on to Dawn Treader. You did already see the movie Prince Caspian. Makes sense."

Did legion suddenly take over my husband's brain? What is he thinking?

And now Eraser Eater wants me to get off the computer so he can go on Architecturalrecord.com. That's a hoppin' site for nine year olds.

Nonsense (don't waste your time)

2008-07-13T09:13:00.003-05:00

Last night I was told that I always look "nonplussed."

On another very uncomfortable and negative occasion I was told that I was mean.

I think I need to quit my job. I am smiling as I say this.

At least when I am home people cry and whine when I leave because apparently I am not so mean there. But then I am rather nonplussed at all times because I tend to forget what it is that I truly need to do so I get all confused and walk around in circles.

I have been running a lot this week too. Maybe that adds to my perplexed state. I burn so many calories it burns a hole in my brain or some nonsense like that. The crazy doctor said that I should run every day instead of five times a week, so I am trying that to see if I get less tired the days I don't run. This is causing me to run 36-42 miles a week, which sounds exhausting, but I suppose if you get it done in the morning you are ok. I was more worried about whether or not my knees or legs could do it, but the doctor seemed to think it would be just fine; I only need to have a regular dose of squats and leg lifts, which I started this past week.

I should probably try to run a marathon some day, but I am afraid I would be so confused the whole time that I would run in circles instead of running straight ahead. I would most likely have to use the port-a-potties as well every half hour, so I would be the last to cross the finish line.

It's useless. I am just too mean and nonplussed to exist.