Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Contemplating...

This is the contemplative me.

I was contemplating heading to the gym this morning.

Instead, I made waffles and dipped Nilla wafers in cream cheese frosting.

And wondered why my toothpaste has suddenly started giving me heartburn.  

Contemplating how much I want a nap.    It is so gray outside and my pillows are so fluffy.

Thinking how the dress I ordered from J Crew for a wedding in November doesn't fit.  Not even close.

I am going to have to haul arse to GET it to fit by then.  Because it is silk and is  the color of milk chocolate truffles and is so darn PRETTY.

Contemplating how there are toys strewn everywhere.  Dishes in the sink.  Laundry to be put away.

Rain makes for contemplative days, I suppose.  And since there is a tropical storm headed towards us, I guess I will have more rainy days to come.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

The Time When a Bird Pooped on My Face and It was $19.99!!!!!!

It's smiling a litte bit to be in my closet!
I'm hiding in my closet,  taking pictures of this fabulous new handbag I bought.  

Why the closet, you ask?

Well, Chris may go ballistic if I tell him I bought another purse.

I need another handbag like a hole in my head, especially a Hobo style bag.   Hobo bags are like the abyss of  all handbags.  Lip glosses, pens, cell phones, keys are dropped into them never to be found again.

But I walked into the Tuesday Morning today and this particular Hobo bag screamed my name.

Love the bling!
It didn't whisper.  It didn't call.  It SCREAMED.

It was a Sak.  I have an affinity for Saks.  Not the small ones, but the large ones.  They are silky smooth and I like how they feel.   It had a little bling.   One bling was a little bird.  The inner lining was super adorable and has birds on it.

I have an affinity for birds, something you may not know about me.

I like to to watch birds from afar, but up close or when they fly over me they freak me out because once, when I was seventeen, I had a bird shit on my face.  I'm not making that up.

The part that pisses me off, thinking back about the whole incident, is that NO ONE TOLD ME.

Love the lining!
 It was a cloudy day and I thought that I felt a little sprinkle.  But alas, a bird had shat on me.  I talked to several people before I went to a restroom and saw the streak of poop that started on my head, hit my nose, cheek and chin.  

Of course, as a teenager I was mortified and probably cried.

But now looking back as an a adult I am still upset.  That is why I tell people when they have a booger in their nose ~ "Hey, you have a little something on your nose there, hon,"  or in their teeth ~ "Hey, you have a little something right there," and then I point to my own teeth to give them an idea where to start on their own.

Granted, bird shit is a little more sensitive, but I imagine the conversation would go a little like this: "Hey," I would say as I fished a tissue and a compact with a mirror out of my amazing Hobo style bag that screamed my name  at Tuesday Morning because it is totally MEEEEE!

"You have a little something on your face.  No sorry, I'm not sure what it is.  Here is a tissue and a mirror.  But I thought you would like to know,"

As in, instead of  letting you walk around and chat everybody up before noticing the train wreck of bird crap on your face, I thought I would be a good citizen and give you a heads up and do my good deed for the day.

There is always a tactful way of telling someone something uncomfortable, and in the long run, people always appreciate knowing.  It is only polite.
It was 50% off of the $39.99! Wheee!  
I took some pictures of my adorable new Sak, including the price tag.  

I would never had paid over $100.00 for this handbag, although I know some people would have, I suppose.

I paid an exorbitant amount for a handbag once when I could least afford it.

 I was in college and have no idea what I was thinking.

It was a beautiful Kate Spade bag, green and brown, (again, it SCREAMED my name) and it was over $200.00.

 I immediately turned into a neurotic mess  about my bag, so when I got a pen mark on the outside, I almost had an aneurysm.   I still own the Kate Spade bag, as you can see.   It is no longer beautiful, but I'm never letting go of it.  Never.   It's too banged up to use.

I decided that I am not an expensive handbag type gal;  I'm the "I will immediately make a beeline to the 75% rack" gal.   And if I find nothing, I find nothing.      

But yesterday I wandered into Tuesday Morning.  That green Sak must have had quite a journey to end up on the clearance table immediately inside the door to greet ME and scream MY name.

It had met  markdown upon markdown upon markdown, until it was sold to a discount store that I happened upon.

  It made me very happy.    Obviously, it doesn't take much to make me happy, but bargains are right up there with truffles, bubble baths and pina coladas.     And coffee frappucinos at Starbucks.   And garage sales...ahhhh.

He's just cute.  Nothing to do with the post.  :)

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Death to All Arachnids, But Spiderman is Cool (& Bob&Larry)

The first one was perched on my garden tub not quite two weeks ago.  

They sneak up on you, that way.   Suddenly they are there...so creepy . 

"Oh, my gosh!  Frack,"  I yelled.  

The two year old skidded in to investigate, as she usually does.  

She hates spiders, bugs or anything that resembles the former.  Such as hair, or fuzzies.  

All of the above give her uncontrollable shudders and shivers. 
The spectacle in front of her was no different. 

 She shuddered and shivered and screamed "Ohhh, nooooooooo,"  over and over again, whilst I stood there, wrapped in a towel, trying to efficiently get ready for church so we wouldn't be late.  Again.  This damn spider had thrown a wrench into my morning.

I found a flip flop.  The larger ones seem to have brains, and when I went after it, it ran away from me and hid behind a vase.   

The creepy thing was that it was SO BIG, that I could here the "click, click" of its legs on the tub's porcelain finish. 

(Okay, the tub is plastic.  All of our tubs are plastic, bought in bulk, probably at Lowe's by the general contractor in those one piece el cheapo tub/shower combos.  I thought I would impress you with the porcelain comment, but my conscience got the best of me.)

I finally found my Aussie Freeze hairspray and sprayed it until it was barely able to move.  I used about a half a roll of toilet paper to pick it up, then flushed the vile thing down the toilet. 


 I made a mental note to tell Chris about this, because we had just had the bug guy come in to spray our house (inside and outside) for bugs, SPECIFICALLY SPIDERS, the previous week.  

Fast forward not even one week later.  Chris' mother was visiting from Minnesota.  She was upstairs but hustled her butt down to the first floor (as fast as she could so soon after a knee replacement) when I started screaming bloody murder.  


There was yet ANOTHER spider on the wall by the master bedroom.  I did not think it could be possible, but it was LARGER than the first spider.  She quickly took charge and sprayed Fantastik on it, knocked it down and beat it with a shoe screaming "DIE, DIE, DIE.".

The puppy hid from her in the powder room for a good hour.  

Several days later, I happened to turn on the light when I went to get a drink in the middle of the night.  You guessed it.  Another spider.  I got a Ball jar and placed it on top of it so Chris could take a gander.  

Although it was smaller than the others, he got the idea and called the pest control company, because among lots of other things, I don't do phone calls.

And...this morning, while going through the laundry from our bedroom, a fourth creature from HELL jumped out at me, then eluded me for quite a while.  


However, I was PERSISTENT and PISSED OFF and claimed VICTORY over the eight-legged FREAK.  Now, I have two spiders in the Ball jar.  

I have named them Bob and Larry.  And they hate each other.  They pretty much stay away from each other as much as they can, except every once in a while if one gets in the other's "territory" they get a little punchy.  A bit of a scuffle follows.

 I'm pretty sure they are just wolf spiders on steroids and they are fine outside, but I don't want them in my house, for the love of Margaret Thatcher.   

The bug guy is showing his face here tomorrow at 9 a.m.   I want no more spiders.  Death to them all.



Friday, September 10, 2010

Recoveries and Excessive Sweating

We are having a great time with my mother in law visiting.
We are dragging her around Florida and showing her everything we can within a week.  

I can't believe it is already Friday; she will be leaving on Sunday.

She recently had a knee replaced and is recovering from surgery. I feel sort of bad.  She is not a complainer ~ I worry that we are wearing her down.   She'll probably need to go home to recover after we are finished with her.  

She watched Maggie the other day as I went to the doctor (it is SOOOO helpful to have one more person around here).  I had X-rays done on my back, hip and chest last week and I needed to go over them.  I was also scheduled for a in-office breathing test.    

The chest x-rays were for the cough I have been messing around with for months and months.  I was convinced I had cancer because, well, my mother introduced that thought into my mind and I ran with it.

Instead, it was a rather ordinary little bout of asthma...something brought on possibly by  Florida allergies.  I have never had allergies before.  

I picked up the inhaler last night at Publix pharmacy.  

I looked on the front of the prescription bag and apparently my insurance "saved me $189.03."  That's out of freaking control.   

 I had a bad attitude about the asthma diagnosis all along, like, "This is stupid.  I don't have asthma.  I just need some more of that wonderful cough medicine that makes me clean my house until it shines!"  

I took three puffs from the inhaler, however, and within ten minutes I didn't feel like I was choking anymore.  It was sort of amazing.  I could breathe.   I turned to my mother-in-law.  "I can breathe," I exclaimed, like a complete geek.   

She just smiled politely.  She has been smiling politiely a lot this week.  

It has just happened that she has visited during a week that I have PMS and has seen me at my absolute worst.  I know she feels a lot of pity for her poor son probably regrets his choice in marrying a raging bitch.  

As I have gotten older,  the PMS has gotten worse, I swear.  I feel like my skin is crawling and I just want to scratch  someone's face off.  That person is usually Chris.   

Every month, I am usually confused about my increasingly crazy  behavior until I get the email notfication from http://monthlyinfo.com/

It is such a sweet little email, too.  It says something like,  "This is a friendly reminder that your period is due in two days."  And I am, like,  "Oooooh....THAT is why I want to stab someone."  

Chris asked if I could add him to that email list, too, so he could stay away from me.  Just to be safe.  

Anywho, I digress.

I also discussed my x-rays, which could be classified up there with one of the most unhelpful conversations I have had in quite a while.  

I have degenerations in the lower back (lumbar region, upper sacrum).  I thought so.   I have some arthritis in my hip.  Yeah, duh.  Oh,  ...I also have quite a bit of degeneration in my thoracic region.  Yes, I KNEW that, too.  I slept on the FLOOR for nine months while Chris was in Iraq because my back was so jacked up.  I went to physical therapy  finally so I could sleep in a real bed.

Let me tell you something:  When you have slept on the floor for 9 months and you finally crawl into a "real" bed for your first night's sleep between soft sheets, a down comforter and soft pillows?  It is the most luxurious, most fabulous feeling ever.  It felt like a cloud.

So, the doctor suggested physical therapy.   I think I'll try chiropractic, first, because I think that scheduling recurring, long-term PT appointments at the moment seems like a nightmare.    And I'll just take a lot of ibuprofen. 

I was also told that yoga helps a lot...so I'll do that too.  At home.  I've seen those yoga chicks coming out of the gym.  And I'm soooo not one of them.  

I am signing up for the Disney Princess 1/2 marathon with a group in February.  It's actually on my birthday, so I think it might be fun.  

I am going to opt out of the Ragnar race in January because I think that might be too much for me and my jacked up body, due to the nature of the whole thing.

So, today we are dragging my mother in law to the Bulow Sugar Mill Ruins and possibly the Washington Oaks Gardens State Parks.

She is a Minnesotan and is not acclimated to the oppressive air of Florida.   We are taking her to everything outdoors and watching her wilt daily.   We are ultra-sensitive that way.  She hasn't put her foot down and said "no" yet, so we  just keep going.

It's all really beautiful and are "can't miss"things to do when one is in the area.  Or at least we think so.

Hopefully I'll have some super-beautiful pics to post later.



  

Monday, September 6, 2010

O.M.G.

When I was little, I believed that my dolls would  come alive at night.

I would tuck them in and make sure they were happy and cozy.   There was a part of me that thought that perhaps they would come after me if they were unhappy.

I think of my baby dolls, so sweet and innocent-looking.   A sweet and innocent doll wouldn't do something like that.

But THESE DOLLS??  <<<<<<--------- CLICK HERE.  These dolls would take your eyeballs out with toothpicks and do horrible things to you at night.

I'm SURE of it.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Fascinating Stuff.

My mother in law is coming into town tonight.

I love her to pieces and I can't wait. I wish she would live with us, but I think she would miss her husband.

My problem is that when people come to visit me I go bananas and clean for days and days.

I've been cleaning my ass off and am currently burned out. I am checked out and practically drooling on my recliner in front of the television and I still have the downstairs sinks and bathtub/showers to do.

I was doing really well for a while with maintaining a clean house. I would clean sinks and toilets weekly, even when they didn't need to be cleaned. Then I stopped; it seemed like a really silly thing to do. Really.

Yesterday, as I picked up the ten zillion Legos in the upstairs playroom, I tried to tell myself that I would miss the spawn they went away to college. At least, that is what everybody tells me.

It took me twenty minutes to pick up all those Legos, though, and I cursed each and every Lego by the end.

It was a huge BIN that someone had dumped out. For some reason ~ on that day ~ it infuriated me. It was a big speed bump in my cleaning groove.

I had been cleaning bathtubs, toilets, sinks, picking up books, toys, stuffed animals, then bah-BOOOM! It all came to a halt when I turned the corner and saw that bin completely emptied of its contents on the playroom floor.

The Legos were the tiny little hands, heads, bits and pieces. I had to drop to my knees and pick them up individually. I put in an appropriate amount of time, then vacuumed up the rest.

I semi-cleaned our bathroom, too, so when my husband suggested that we go to the beach today I sort of felt like clawing his eyes out.

"What's wrong," he asked.

It was hard to put in to words because I felt SO psychotic. Women take things like cleaning terribly personally. I could feel my brain boil and my eyeball twitch.

"Oh, I don't know," I said. Twitch. "I've been cleaning for three days, and now you are going to bring SAND into my clean house?"

While Chris took the boys to the beach, Maggie and I went through the McDonald's drive through. I ordered a 1/3# Angus Burger, large size fries and finished off Maggie's leftovers.

I cleaned the toilets, then moved on to the outdoors and watered my sad looking flowers and plants. I swept the sidewalk and driveway.

I finished up as a crack of thunder and a flash of lightening ruined the fabulous day of golf and/or the day at the beach for many folks on this Labor Day weekend. Within five minutes it was pouring, and continued to pour buckets for the next hour.

I am still stalled out with the cleaning. The floors need to vacuumed, the master bedroom bathtub/shower need to be cleaned (my mother-in-law probably won't be spending too much time in there, though...), the guest bed needs to be finished up.

She won't arrive until about midnight and I haven't decided whether or not if I will wait up. Midnight is atrociously late for those with two year olds who won't sleep in. My 36-year-old body can't handle the strain of those late nights like it used to. And with all of these four mile runs I have been doing, and all of this cleaning?

And add in all of the flipping out I have been doing at the kids, too? Whew. My body has been through some awfully crazy wild strains lately. I think a normal bedtime is in order.

After I finish cleaning, that is.







Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Graduation and Clothing Choice Fails


Ragnar the Viking dog officially passed puppy kindergarten yesterday. By observing him, you would never be able to tell; he is still full of "piss and vinegar."

Last night instead of humping all of the other dogs, he changed his tactic to chewing on their ears and hip checking them to push them down. The vet had to separate him, yet again, because he couldn't play nice.

He passed, I believe, because of his ability to learn quickly. I attribute this to the Shepherd half of his mix.

I'm definitely relieved that the class is over.

As much as I tried to be my charming self, the vet didn't like me. I have a feeling about these sorts of things. I could just tell.

I suppose it is fairly understandable because I was the largest disruption to the puppy kindergarten this session.

I honestly think that she was one of those "I like animals better than people" type individuals. So when I showed up at the first class after taking a dose of my cough medicine that made me zingy and chatty (I was in the throes of those coughing fits that made me piss my pants), I'll admit I probably was a little too much. Not a great first impression.

I was excited about having a new puppy, and between a hacking a lung out, motored on about Ragnar, the process of buying a new puppy, how good he was, our family, the kids, our house, our neighborhood, our friends, our extended family, our church...etc.

Even I was a little too much for me.

Between the first week and the second week, my husband made the decision to start coaching our youngest son's tackle football team and I had no babysitter for the two year old. So, with the wild puppy and two year old in tow, we showed up at the second week of puppy training class. On that particular night most of the puppies were better behaved than Maggie.

Maggie promptly found the toy area set out for children. However, she wound up with the most damaging of all toys ~ crayons ~ and when I had my back turned scribbled a Picasso on the wall.

A few weeks ago, we couldn't make it to class because of scheduling conflicts. The vet SOUNDED disappointeded, but I KNOW she was doing a happy jig on the other end of the phone because we weren't coming.

Last night, I had to bring Maggie again, and Ragnar was in full freak out mode. I think he takes his aggressions about the wildness of our home life out on the puppies at kindergarten class.

His match was a Mexican Presa Canario. They wrestled, knocked over chairs, plants and small children. His sensed sweetness as a source of weakness in a Golden Retriever/Border Collie mix and gnawed on her ears and, at times, wouldn't allow her to drag herself up off the floor (hence the separation).

Maggie fed off the craziness of the room and wanted to be held the entire time, which was no easy feat. YOU try to hold a 32 pound kid in one arm, a dog treat in your other hand, yell "come" to a German Shepherd mix, then proceed to do a "Sit, Down, Up, Down" command IN A SKIRT. Yea, I was a dumb ass last night; clothing choice FAIL.

So, I am happy that this is over and that I have a few weeks to figure out babysitting until first grade starts. Someone asked when first grade would start and she said "in a few weeks because I need a break." And I swear ~ I SWEAR ~ she glanced at me when she said this.


There is also going to be fly training this fall. I think that Ragnar would kick ass with that.

The vet will probably weep when she sees us show up again.