An Impromptu Project

After a perfectly peaceful evening of family fun in the backyard, we all tumbled in the house and got into our "calming down for bed" routines. Chris took the baby up to the bath and Jordan and I were just laying around in the living room.

About 8:20, the doorbell rings. It's hand-in-the-pants boy (with both hands in view today) and his older (like, I'm thinking 14) brother. They want to know if Jordan can come out and play. Uh, no. I don't even know you. Plus, bedtime at my house is 9:00.

Five minutes later it rings again. This time it's little dude (who I'm grudgingly starting to like), wanting to borrow Jordan's bike. Uh, no. That's just not something we lend out.

So I go in the kitchen to make my evening cup of tea and glance out the window to find hand-in-the-pants boy and his brother rolling around in our yard.

I walked out on the porch and said "Um, you boys need to go home. You can't play out here when we aren't in the yard" (Or, like, even when we are because I don't like you)

Blank Stares. Nothing.

"Seriously, go home. You can't play in here when we aren't out. It's not proper!"

This is met with the exaggerated sighs and arms in the air as they huff out of my yard. I'm sorry, I don't put up with that attitude from my own kids who I know and love....much less some random brats who think I'm running a public playground.

Then I realize they have drug out a bunch of our toys and looped the swings around the playset.

So now I'm heated. Furious. I make Chris empty out the Honda and find a Lowes that's open late. I retrieve some fence sections and other gate making materials in short order. Those poor Lowes guys. They're trying to close up shop and I'm making them shove fence sections into our tiny CRV. They did it with a smile though.

So here's our weekend project. Saturday all that got done was Chris drilling a hole in the concrete of the driveway, filling it with epoxy, and sticking a threaded rod in it. (The epoxy hat to set up for 12 hours) Then we played in the yard.

Jordan and I decorated the swingset with chalk and he practiced his ninja/monkey moves.



Celia didn't sleep well and was in an all around great mood!



I weeded a bunch. Here's the current state of my garden. I was inspired by Barbie Girl and my Turkey Mama friend Lee and planted tomatoes and basil in some of the driveway pots last week.

Then Jordan banged his hip on a beam and we retired to the house.

Oh yeah. Here's another reason for the gate. Hand-in-the-pants boy had a big, mean, barking dog that they leave tied up outside all of the time. Why would you get a dog and do that to him? Anyway, he is not a happy camper and I'm just waiting for the day he breaks loose and goes on a mauling the neighbors frenzy. Not in my yard puppy.


Plus he barks. All. Day. Long. Unfortunately my gate isn't going to do crap for that.

Sunday, after we got Celia down for her nap, the real work started. We got one section of fence hung, then Chris had to cut the top of the rod off at the right height.



Yow. Those sparks were hot and I had to move. How do you like my hubby's work face? Home improvement makes him crabby.



Then we got the other section up and put the latches on it. But we messed up and couldn't close the gate, so we had to take them off and start again. Re-do!



Oh, and my friend Heather made me this super cute tool-belt. Isn't it the greatest thing ever? The only tools I keep in it are the phone and a pair of scissors, but I feel very domestic and handy when wearing it. Hubby suggested once that I lose my pants and just wear the toolbelt....but I think he was under the influence of the ghetto rap blaring from hand-in-the-pants boy's house. I let him know in no uncertain terms that wasn't going to happen.



There is is. A finished gate. Take that you miscreant punks.


Stay outta my yard!

What Dreams May Come....and Why I Can't Watch The Daily Show.

I've always been prone to having hilariously weird, non-sensical dreams. I think it's because I eat junk food right before going to bed (also why I'm getting chubby).

Anyway, I had a conversation with my best friend about dreams yesterday and have decided to share with you some of the most memorable ones.

First, the one I called her to chat about, a dream I had Thursday night. I called her about it, because her kid was in it and I thought she ought to know.

We were getting ready for a soccer game. Only the soccer complex was out behind the new Super Walmart (you know, home of my recent identity crisis?). And Chris worked at Walmart, he was like a regional manager or something. Help us all.

Anyway, the game was getting to start to I ran across all the field to try and get Chris to come out and watch. He would not, and I ran all the way back out there. By the time I got to the field, I found the game was starting, but we only had 5 players. (U-10 plays with 6 on the field) so my friend had put her 3 year old in so that we didn't have to forfeit.

Oh, and this team we were playing, they were high school boys. Big high school boys.

So I'm just watching the game in shock and panic. Right before the 3 year old has to do a throw in, another one of my kids gets there so I'm standing on the sidelines with him screaming "Sub! Sub!" at the red because I KNOW she can't keep both her feet down for that throw in.

Anyway, half time rolls around and the boys come over and I wildly congratulate them because the other team has only scored once, and I say "Good job boys, I though we were going to get CRUSHED". What a stupid thing to say to a bunch of little boys. Thank goodness this is where I woke up.

Then she told me about her crazy dream Thursday night. It made her a little uncomfortable, so to make her feel better I told her about one of the worst, most mortifying dreams I've ever had.

See, I was having.....ummm.....relations............... with Jon Stewart. And he was totally not into it. And in his very clear, to the point but still sarcastic way, he was telling me just how I was NOT doing anything for him. A most certainly "It's not ME, it's YOU moment." But I just kept well.....doing what we were doing......determined to change his mind. Jon eventually got really angry, because frankly, I was wasting his time.

I used to love watching The Daily Show. It's news....but it's funny. What could be better than that?

But now every time I turn it on, I see nothing but the stern judgement of Jon Stewart.

To make matters worse, that man has a really irritating habit of showing up in other places. Things I want to be watching.

Like the Grammys.

And to make it worse, the very first thing he did was participate in a skit that ended with him standing on stage in his underwear.



That one right there sent me screaming from the room until everyone obliged me and turned the channel.

Can someone please tell Jon to keep his dang clothes on and stay off of network tv?

A Pain in my Neck!

Stress does weird things to you as you get older. This week I have a new one (for me). It is quite literally a pain in my neck.

It was fine all day yesterday (you know, when I had the opportunity for a free massage). And it felt fine this morning.

Then I had to hang a shelf. I think I've mentioned before that I am shelf hanging impaired. I have a real problem with the whole "straight and level" thing.

I may have also mentioned that the very pretty shelf I had hanging over the desk upstairs fell (the cheap bracket broke right in half!) two weeks ago....about 2 second after Jordan walked under it. Half a step slower and the kid would have had a concussion. But he was having a lucky day and made it out alive....though terribly frightened.

This shelf had been home to everything I didn't want Celia to have: pens, pencils, markers, scissors, envelopes, the few paper bills we still get, paper cutter. All that fun stuff. Luckily, I had an extra shelf just sitting around, looking for a home.

I've been asking Chris to hang it for me, but he hasn't gotten around to it. This morning I took the phone bill and markers away from Celia for the millionth time and had had enough. I decided to try and hang the shelf myself.

Target made the whole "straight and level" thing really easy for me. This is a floating shelf. You screw a long internal bracket to the wall, then put the shelf on. So all I had to do was hold the bracket up, with a level on top, and screw the thing in.

Easy as pie.

But then I couldn't get the danged shelf to hook on. And you can't see back there to figure out WHY it wouldn't hook on. I may not have uttered any swear words, but I sure was thinking them!

About the 47th time that dang shelf slipped off the bracket and almost crashed into the computer monitor and printer, that pain in my neck decided to show up.

Dang it.

Anyway, I finally got the up, just in time for a friend to come over and play. I abandoned all housework and took the girls outside.

First, we had to check out the pink flowery bush thing .



Then we had to swing a little. First, like mature ladies.


Then Celia had to swing on her belly like a crazed monkey. Not that you can tell it from this picture.....but I like it anyway.


Then we had to get out some chalk and color on the playset. Now, last year I painted some plywood with chalkboard paint and hung it in there. The boys have decorated it with sweet sentiments like "Stay Out" and such. The girls are happy to just scribble all over the playset.


Finally it's time to come in and eat. She's getting tired. I just love those little wisps of hair on her face!

My Husband, the Psychic.

At least he told my therapist he is.

Not really, but that's totally what it sounded like, and after that I could NOT stop laughing. I just sat in my chair snickering and giggling. For the rest of the appointment.

Which is not the best thing to do when you're talking to a therapist about your marriage. In my defense, the therapy session was pretty much a mute point anyway. We have already made it through the past two month's were he accidentally (sort of...I told him that it would suck, but it didn't think it would suck THAT bad, so he went ahead and scheduled everything. Halfway through he realized I was right, he scheduled too much and it really DID suck, but was already committed) scheduled an amazing amount of crap one after another. Needless to say his presense in the home (both physically AND emotionally, the latter being the part that irked me) was a little lacking. So we're done with all that, he's once again the present and helpful husband that I married (though I'm still a crazy loon and will continue therapy for some time on my own).

So going into this meeting, we were kind of relaxed because...well, everything had already been fixed.

So when she started asking Chris about his work , he started explaining the constantly changing aspect of it and how he likes it that way because he is "psyc-lik" like that. He meant cyclic. I totally got that.

She didn't though....just raised her eyebrows and asked him to explain what that meant, serious as can be.

Which is when I lost it. And never regained control. I hope we don't have to talk about that when I'm in next week.

In other news, it was spa day at MOPS. I got my eyebrows waxed (for the first time ever.....but don't go thinking I was a big uni-brow mess before today, I can assure you I was not!) a massage and did a yoga-ish stretching session with some sports therapist guy.

Which led me to another bout of uncontrollable snickering and giggling. Most of the moves he demonstrated were followed by an "advanced level" of the move. You know, something fast and wild looking. And they were all kind of funny...wild arms flapping around thing.

But then we got to stretching the umm...pelvic region. As we're all standing on one leg trying to stretch our pelvic muscles, trying desparately not to fall over, I joke with the mom next to me about the advance move for that one, thinking surely.....surely there would be none.

Oh but there was. There was. Gyration like I have never seen before (in a church no less!). I had to turn my back and fake a coughing fit as to not reveal myself as the immature goofball that I really am. After all, I don't know these ladies very well yet.

I'm pretty sure that no one was fooled.

Peepee Paranioa

AKA Rolling Up the Rugs.

I can't get past with aliteration thing this week for some reason.

Sometime in the 30 seconds while I ran upstairs to use the bathroom, Celia peed in her little potty (in the living room) and tried to empty it all by herself. Needless to say, a mess was made.

Since the floor has to be mopped again anyway, I decided to roll the rugs up and take them outside. I'm terrified of the house smelling...well....like we have semi-pottytrained toddler getting pee everywhere. So I got the one rolled up and out (we have two side by side...a bargain trick I learned from HGTV....sometimes two 5x8 rugs are less expensive than a big one, and if you lay them side by side you can't really tell it's two rugs) onto the porch. I wrestled the thing until I had it neatly draped over the porch rail and came back for the other.

I discover that mommy's little helper is working hard to get the job done without me!



Anyway, I finally got both rugs out, sprayed them down good (front and back) with some lysol. Then I figured while they were out there I should beat on them a little.

I mean, that's what people so with rugs outside anyway. Not like we have an actual rug beater or anything (does anyone have those anymore?) so I used a golf club. I think it was a wedge. (Hon, it was that one you took to the football field weekend before last....it's still outside. What kind of club is that?) You'd be amazed what came out of that thing. I'm not even going to tell you. It's appalling.

But if you have area rugs, you should really give it a try and see just how ineffective your vacuum really is!

Blogger Blowouts and Bargain Brags.

Nice Alliteration, huh?

Alright, so most of my day was wasted by me playing around with my blogger template. I know, a complete waste of time as I had a perfectly fine template, but I'm tired of it. Last night I fought with a 3 column template, unsuccessfully. This morning I changed up my color scheme to my favorites (pink and brown). This afternoon I got the 3 column thing to work with a hack template, fixed all my links, then tried to change my color scheme. Nope, can't do it. But I'm learning...it'll get there. And I have a really great idea to give my page some individuality, but I need Chris to help me out a little on that one. He knows my MacBook better than I do.

I do have to share a Celia picture and story. While making beds this morning I discovered that sometime she has peed in her bed. Ew. How this escaped my notice yesterday or whatever day she did it I don't know. So we took the sheets of and threw those in the wash. But her mattress was a little.....unpleasant smelling. So I threw a layer of baking soda on it, got some fresh air circulating in there (yes, baking soda really does work that well. And if it doesn't, spritz the mattress with vinegar. I know, you're thinking vinegar is stinky stuff...but when it dries, the stink goes away and it takes all other stink with it.) We got dressed, went outside to play.

A little later we come in for lunch. She finishes, says "I'm done" and leaves the kitchen. I was still eating, so I sat there reading a magazine and eating my sandwich when I realised it was really quiet.

Quiet is not good.

So I call her name. No answer.

I walk around the downstairs, looking in all her favorite spots. Nope.

I start to get hysterical and check to be sure the doors are locked (I know she would run if she could get out. I never even had to shut a door when Jordan was a toddler, but this one is a runner. I live in fear of forgetting to lock a door and having her run away). I'm running around, screaming her name.

I know she didn't go upstairs, I didn't hear her to that. But as a last ditch before I call the police effort I run up there.

Sure enough, that little booger had tiptoed up the steps. She knew I would stop her, so she got sneaky and quiet. I found her just rolling in baking soda on her mattress, patting it on her face like powder, using her little butt (our house has apparently become a clothing optional resort for toddlers) as a powder puff to dust everything with baking soda.




I decided to her the shopping done tonight while I could leave the kids with Chris. To my delight I found that I felt fine at Target and Giant Eagle. No identity crisis there. I guess I'm just not a Walmart shopper.

Anyway, I feel like I did great, so I'm going to brag on my shopping a bit. First, for $50 at Target I got:

32 Rolls of paper towels ( I know this seems a little excessive, but you had to get this many to get the deal...they ended up being .40 a roll. I may never need to buy them again)

10 tin plant labels (just because they were cute)

3 Ribbon headbands (same darn reason)

2 Polos for Jordan

3 Doorknob covers (the socks and rubber bands looked a little ghetto, but I'm not sure these things will keep the little escapee in)

1 Polo for Chris

1 Pair of Jeans for Chris (they actually fit him, yay!)

A buttload of Star Wars stuff for my son's upcoming big birthday party...he's hitting double digits this year!

Okay, so not too bad a Target. Now on to Giant Eagle. Here's where it gets good. For my $50 there I got:

10 boxes Eggo waffles

5 Boxes Cap'n Crunch (How retro is that! I used to love that stuff)

10 bottles of relish

3 gallons milk

3 loaves of bread and a bunch of hot dog buns

2 things squeezable jelly

A monster bottle of ketchup,

Some more baking soda!

A bunch of really yummy looking produce, I even sprung for the good lettuce this time!

A ton of other stuff to piddly to list. I just love the totals on the bottom of my receipt..

Total Due: $49.53
Total Saved: $43.51

The bargain high I get....priceless.

Sorry if these past few posts have become a little too blahg and boring for some of you. Thanks to my favorite verbotomist (okay, so I only know one, but still favorite!) for giving me a new label to obsess over. Keep in mind, I'm writing this more for me than for you!

Changing things around.

Alright guys, I think I have the blogging thing down pat. If you're one of my readers that I know in real life and you've visited my home, I'm sure it has not escaped your notice that every time you visit, the furniture is re-arranged. There will generally be at least one room under construction and another that looks completely different from the last time you were here. I can almost guarantee I'll have a different rug in my living room.

Well, it's time for the same thing to happen to my blog. I've been doing this for a few months and have figured out some things, now I need my page to have it's own look. The look I have now is one that 5 gazillion other bloggers are using, and I just can't stand it.

So for the next month, I'm going to probably be playing with the look of the place. I'm an html idiot, so it will probable take that long for me to get the look I want. You'll probably see a few transitional looks somewhere in there while I'm learning about changing things around. I have a BIG IDEA for my new, improved, original and totally unique blogger look, I just have to figure out how to get it up here.

Please be patient. Don't take it personally if the link to your blog (or the other blogs you like to read) disappears from my sidebar for awhile. I promise to put them back......it will just take me a little time.