Thursday, December 23, 2010

Airing of Grievances...

Per the tradition of Festivus, I will be airing my grievances.

Grievance #1 - I'm tired of being a sick person.   RA really kicked my ass in 2010 and I don't see an end in site.  My family is tired of it to the  point where the kids actually roll their eyes when I say I'm going to lie down.  Bronchitis has been living in my lungs for the past month.  I'm actually tired of the act of coughing.  Can 2011 bring me some good health oh pretty pretty please?

Grievance #2 - this one is petty but it's stuck in my craw.  Have you noticed that bags of Nestle toll house chocolate chips have gone down from 12oz to 11oz.  Oh yes they have.  I was wondering what they did with the traditional recipe on the outside of the package and found that the sneaky bastards just adjusted the recipe measurements too.  I use one full bag to make Amanda Rocks (if you don't know what these are you are sorry and don't even know it) and if we're going to keep wacking an ounce off the package size I'm going to have to start using more than one package per batch and that's just bullshit.

Grievance #3 - I'm still battling the hold that soda has on me.  I'm doing okay but I certainly haven't kicked it.  I can't imagine what kicking crack would be like.

Grievance #4 - My house continues to refuse to clean itself.

I think that's good for now.  I feel better already.  Do you have any grievances to air?





I'd Like to Use a Mobil Shout-Out...

One night last week we had a whole bunch of errands to run with the kids in tow and Zack was in desperate need of a study session of the capitals of the south-eastern states.  As the evening got later, Zack got more fidgety and whiny that he wasn't going to have time to study.  All of a sudden, Matt stops the car, flashes the inside lights and booms "Welcome to CASH CAB".  He then created an entire game show centered around trivia of the southern states.  We all had so much fun and learned a whole bunch.  The kids and I won $1800.  Sometimes you've got to get creative to get in all the things you have to do!!



Tuesday, December 07, 2010

Thoughtful or Future Stalker...

I need to hear from my teacher friends today.  Skyler loves her new teacher.  Love loves loves her.  Not enough to not talk during class, but she loves her.  We've been a bit craft crazy at our house this month.  Everything that I make, Skyler makes one too and she brings it in to her teacher.  If I have candy canes, or special Holiday treats out she brings one to her teacher.  If we have flowers blooming on the trees, she brings one for her teacher.  She asked me to email her teacher while we were on vacation to tell her that she missed her.  It's all really sweet and well-intentioned but I have to wonder if teachers start to get overwhelmed with an over-enthusiastic student like Skyler.  Am I raising a future stalker here?



Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Christmas Card Dilemma...

I wasn't in the mood for Christmas cards this year. I had no ideas and no pictures that I felt were going to make the cut. I had decided to scrap the whole thing for the first time EVER!

When I packed for our Thanksgiving trip I must have had something in the back of my mind because on Thanksgiving Day we were all dressed in similar colors. I called an emergency Christmas Card Picture Taking Time Out and forced my family to smile nice for the camera. One person in the family who shall not be named was less than cooperative and forced me to have to hunt the internet for software to swap heads on pictures. Can I just tell you how awesome and easy Microsoft Cloud is? You just choose the two pictures you want, it asks you which heads you like best and it does all the work for you. AWE.SOME.

SO. There will be Christmas Cards. I had them designed and ordered within an hour of taking the picture. It didn't hurt that Zazzle was having a 70% off Thanksgiving sale.  I hated to cheat on my old favorite Shutterfly but it was a difference of about $40.  That pays for postage.  We'll see how long it takes me to send them out.  I'm seriously up to my eyeballs in baby hats.

In other Christmas Card news, my friend Tammy won my annual race for First Christmas Card Received.  Ashley of Peters Party of 5 usually wins but Tammy was local and on the ball this year.  If only there were a prize.  Hmmm.  I'll think of something.   Also, this is a good idea for next year.  Someone remind me in November huh?


TSA Makes My Day...

We traveled over Thanksgiving and I won't tell you that I wasn't worried about the whole TSA pat-down bs.  I personally do not care if an x-ray type pic of me is plastered in Times Square.  My main concerns were, dickheads who made a big deal about it, the kids, and me being exposed to high radiation.  I'm immuno-compromised so extra radiation is a no-no. 

On the trip up we had nothing to worry about.  Our local airport doesn't use the big new scanning machines and we flew so early in the morning that there were hardly any other people to make a big deal about anything.  There was the usual excitement of travel and getting to see family.

On the way back we had the post-holiday blahs and were starting out in Boston so I just expected there to be trouble.  As we were standing in line I still hadn't decided if I was going to refuse the body scan.  I couldn't decide if the extra radiation was enough of a problem to make a fuss.  There were extra TSA agents giving instructions and making travel seem a lot more serious than ever before.  The one shouting instructions kept saying "You may be asked to go through an additional body scan" and I couldn't actually see that anyone was going through it with their hands up.  We did the usual take everything out of your bag that is electronic and I had so much crap with me (laptop, itouch, phone, kindle, kids' ds) that some guy jumped in front of me thinking he was Mr. Fast and then got yelled at for not taking off his watch and belt.  I just gave him my patented look of disdain as I politely waited for HIM.  And then we were on the other side.  No scan, no body cavity invasion.  I'm not sure what their parameters for using the body scan were but we didn't fit them.  Perhaps harried mother of two traveling like a pack-mule isn't exactly what they are looking for.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

No Longer Looking Like Justin Bieber...

Last evening Zack asked me to check his hair because it's been itchy the past two days.  I thought he probably just needed to use dandruff shampoo because this kid has the thickest hair I've ever seen and he still occasionally gets cradle cap-ish-ness.  So I got him under a good bright light and raked through his hair and just as I was about to declare it dry scalp I saw something teeny move.  I would now call myself a de-lousing expert with PTSD from Skyler's Great Lice Infestation of Spring 2010 and I wasn't happy to see this little guy.  He was small enough that I doubt he had much time to lay eggs and I hadn't seen any while I was checking but Zack and I quickly agreed that a head shaving was the way to go.  He's got very Justin Bieber-esque hair so this was going to be traumatic.  He was more than happy to let it go when he was thinking about bugs but as soon as he looked in the mirror he was more than a little traumatized.  Going from a very very full head of hair to NONE was a shocker.  We added some now-kept-on-hand lice shampoo for good measure and called it done.

WELL, this morning the face in the mirror was another shock for the boy and he was in TEARS at having to go to school and let his friends see such a big change.  I tried to talk him down off the ledge by reminding him that his good friends wouldn't make fun of him for a  hair change.  No go.  I tried telling him that he's had this same haircut before.  He's painted his hair bright cherry red before.  He's had a mohawk before.  No go.  There were rivers of tears running down his face.  Now this child would have let this go on forever so I had to just slap a hat on his head, pull his sweatshirt hood up, and drag him across the lawn to the neighbor's house so I could get to work.

I emailed his teacher and haven't heard back.  I'm thinking they would have called me by now if he'd taken the jump off the ledge.  The thing is that he's got very nice friends and he's very well liked at school, a leader if you will.  I wasn't the least big concerned and he said that HE would never make fun of a friend about their hair, so really I don't think he has anything to worry about.  I'm hoping he comes home without the need for extensive therapy.

Being a Mom is hard sometimes, especially when they tell you that you've ruined their life.  Oh if he only knew, the middle and high school years are ahead of us, I have only just begun to ruin his life.

PS - yay for facebook.  I posted that he had lice and another soccer mom checked her kid, he's got it too.  We may have an epidemic on our hands. 

Tuesday, November 02, 2010

Lots of Warm Little Heads...

I know.  I know.  I'm a total blog slacker.  I've been sort of busy lately.

About a month ago I made an owl hat for my nephew.


And then I made one for a friend:






And then another friend was looking for a monkey sock hat:





Then I found a cute picture of a Very Hungry Caterpillar hat and thought I could make one of those:




So I made two
And then I made my niece an owl hat:





And then someone asked if I could make a lady bug:

And now, I kid you not, I have a list of fifteen other hats to make. I also went to the Rally to Restore Sanity this weekend.  1.  It was awesome.  2. I crocheted on the train.  I'll post pics of that later.  In the meantime, I'm off to make hats.  It's a good thing I spend a ridiculous amount of time at soccer practice!


Wednesday, October 20, 2010

How Was YOUR Day...

Sometimes your kids do something that reflects on you and tells you that you're doing it right and your heart swells and you know that all those arguments and repeating the same thing over and over and over is working. It's getting through.

Last March, for our anniversary, the kids stayed at our friends Rick & Carrie's house overnight while we went away for the weekend. Just this week another mutual friend relayed to me that Zack was so polite and had such a big heart that Carrie shared it with her.

Carrie works crazy hours. Apparently she came in in the evening and Zack asked how her day was, said she looked tired and should sit down, and then complimented her hair. What a love.

This stems from way back when I used to pick the kids up from school/daycare everyday and they would immediately start in on me with the whining and the "I want..." and the begging to be taken somewhere or given some thing. I lost it one afternoon and snapped "You KNOW, it would be NICE if before you start whining at me about things that you want you asked 'Mommy, how was your day?'" This has stuck with both of them. Apparently when your head spins around the kids pay attention. Zack will sometimes run up to me in the afternoon with "Mom, I need to get *abrupt pause* How was your day? Oh good. Mom, I need to get poster board for my project that's due tomorrow".

My friend Ashley would call this a paycheck.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

We'll Get You Out...

Matt and I came upon something interesting while sitting in our local Starbucks this past Sunday morning. We fully admit that we have trouble minding our own business and usually spend more time eavesdropping on other conversations than having our own.

At the table next to us were three men. One of them was attempting to sell the other two on prepaid legal services. Now, many corporations offer this for their employees. The sell is usually encouraging people to prepare a legal Will, a Power of Attorney, maybe help with an adoption. Not here, oh no. THIS guy was selling prepaid attorney services for thugs. I don't want to judge, but the two guys he was speaking to looked like they might have been in the position to need a lawyer in the middle of the night and that's just the sell this guy was using "When you get arrested in the middle of the night, and you've got your lawyer on call, you're going to spend less time in jail. We'll get you out right away, sometimes all it takes is a phone call."

At first I was all hanging mouth open at the fact that there is a market for this, and then I was impressed at Mr. Legal Services that he's just getting in there before the other guy. I mean if two thugs are going to pay a lawyer, he might as well get them before they do the crime. Then he can be sure they'll call HIM when they get arrested.

How disturbing is it that this is a thing?

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Aware of the Pink...

This past Sunday I happened into the living room while Matt was watching some football game.  I'm not certain which one but I vaguely remember Skyler speaking of Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders so maybe it was Dallas.  I looked at the television for a minute and said to Matt "Hey, I think something is wrong with the color on the tv.  Everything red looks pink."  He rolled his eyes at me like he always does if I bother to attempt to understand anything on television during a sporting event and pointed out that it WAS pink and that they were supporting Breast Cancer Awareness month.  I watched for a minute more, looking at all the things that were pink, cleats, gloves, hats, t-shirts, cups, towels.  You name an item on the sideline of a football game and they had it in pink.

Here's where I'm going to get on a soapbox.  Just think for a moment about all the money that they spent this month to change all of those items to pink.  Everything had to be purchased/created anew, in pink.  And then they claimed that they were supporting breast cancer.  Really?  I'm just guessing but I'd estimate that most people are aware of breast cancer and all of the money spent on all those pink cleats would have been better spent as a donation to breast cancer research.  Maybe someone is going to come here and argue that the NFL DOES donate to breast cancer research.  It's possible.  They could have.  I didn't research it.  But they could have donated even more.  Much much more.



Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Retail Therapy...

The wife of one of my coworkers works for Gymboree. Once in awhile she'll give me a coupon with a really great discount. This weekend it was 50% off which was so good that I went to the mall twice.

Skyler is now looking super cute in the following:

And Zack got this shirt to match his sister's dress (look for it in winter pictures coming your way soon)   
 
I get ridiculously excited when buying cute clothes for my kiddos!

Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Gone Crazy...

Do you ever get home in the afternoon, take one look at your child and think "oh, 8:00 cannot get here fast enough"? Skyler had that look about her yesterday afternoon. I was on the phone when I pulled in the driveway. I was talking to my mother. I said "hey kids, do you want to say 'hi' to Grammy?" Zack said yes and had a nice chat. Then he made the gross mistake of asking Skyler if she wanted to talk to Grammy. The little banshee starting screaming "No. NOoooo. I don't WANT to talk to Grammy!!" as though Grammy were going to poison her through the phone or some such nonsense. Zack and I looked at each other and I'm sure both decided that it was going to be a long night. As I was hanging up the phone she started screeching from the kitchen "MOMMY I'm SORRY I didn't mean to drop it." She was in a way oversensitive mood and I was sure it was spilled milk but nope, it was a bottle of nail polish. Long night indeed.

I got that cleaned up and went upstairs to call Matt and inform him that since I got three hours of sleep the night before and his daughter had gone crazy that I was going to bed and that he'd better be home quickly. He says "are you about to get your period?" I said "I'M not the one that's crazy here" and he made some complaint that she acts crazy and emotional when I do. Lovely. That's just what we need, two crazy women in the house.

Hopefully things will be better today!

Monday, October 04, 2010

Do You See All Those Pigs Flying Around Out There...

Skyler: Mom! This big girl on the bus said I was so sweet that she wanted to adopt me as her little sister.

*quietly from the other room*
Zack: I would be sad.

Still Missing...


Are you looking for a good book that is full of suspense and has a good twist at the end?  Here you go.  I read it yesterday while I was fostering this chest cold.  I'm itching to tell you more, but that will ruin it.  You've got to just read it on your own.  Let me know what you think when you do read it!

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