Do I really have to Do Something?

It’s Thursday again, which means that I am currently sitting here, frying bacon for peanut butter and bacon sammiches (yay, heart disease!) and watching the clouds dissipate, which means that instead of sitting around all day in my jammies, I may actually have to Do. Something.

Damn sunny days.

I seriously need to move to Seattle.  I Love cloudy days.  Love. Them.

Because I don’t feel the need to go out and Do Things To Enjoy The Weather.

I never said I was anything remotely like sane.

*****

My summer officially starts tomorrow.

Well, actually Sunday, as we have the last soccer blitz on Saturday, but the last soccer game of the actual season is tonight.

I have no idea what I’m going to do with myself now.

Remember all the craziness I talked about in May and how I didn’t know how I was going to survive?

Huh.

I survived.  (And am Stronger, dammit!)  oi.

But now that I have Nothing on the calendar, I’m trying to figure out what I will do with myself and the urchins.

Hopefully force them to bed again at 8:00.

The Bits had a royal melt-down every day this week at school.  Including yesterday, when I had to accompany her to breakfast so she wouldn’t explode into a massive fountain of tears.  I know that I should have bolted immediately, but I’m not used to this behavior and it’s really the first time she’s done it and I really didn’t want to get to work, anyway.

So I’m blaming it on the ‘I’m not tired!!!’ and us actually letting her stay up past 9:00 every night, combined with soccer and fireworks and on and on.

Sleep is good for the children, boys and girls.

*****

The Pyrotechnic Extravaganza was another success.

With the exception of seven people who had told us they were coming not showing up and another six-to-nine who I tried to force into showing up to eat all the extra food not showing up either.  Luckily, a number of teenagers ended up bringing friends so we did fairly well.

But there is so much crap leftover, I have no idea what to do.  (Except crazily offering to have the end-of-the-year soccer party at our house in order to get rid of the hot dogs and beverages.  Really??)

There were over fifty people at the party.  There were 36 buns in a bag from Sam’s.  So of course, you can’t just get one.

Except we didn’t even go through one full bag of buns.

REALLY?

People don’t eat side dishes or buns anymore, apparently.

And so many people drink so many different things that I may also give up on buying beer, seeing as how I only bought two cases and I’m fairly certain we have a case and a half left.

It’s all just really odd to me and I have no idea how to plan this thing any more.

I just hope that if we do have the soccer party at my house, I can keep myself from going out for ’supplemental fill-ins’.  Which will, of course, defeat the whole purpose for us hosting in the first place.

*****

What else do I have?

The job is winding down and I’m not quite sure how we are going to survive much longer.

The Mentor is out on her normal two-week vacation and will be back next week, so I’m going to have to have a talk to find out if I’m still expected to go back to full time in September.

My bigger concern is whether I will have a job at that point, not exactly whether I will be working 8-2.

But whatever.

I’m going to let Logic get that whole new career thing figured out so I can copy her and we’ll Twitter all day about our transcribing processes.

*****

I desperately need more coffee, but I don’t see any reason to make a new pot for the one cup that I’ll probably end up drinking.

Decisions on days off are Very difficult.

*****
I suppose it’s time to get Mr. Boo started on the thank you notes for birthday presents and then figure out whether to go to the beach. 

It’s pretty cool today, so I’d really rather go to the Arboretum, but that also seems like a lot of work.

I told you about those decisions…

ak

Avoidance and procrastination R Me

I am very effectively putting off all the things I need to do today.

Luckily(?!) I was awakened before 5am this morning and could not manage to go back to sleep.

Luckily, it’s Still cloudy, which erases all need to ‘not’ get things accomplished in order to ‘enjoy the weather’.

And, Luckily, it’s only 8-ish am, so the day is still ahead of me.

Kind of.

*****

I need to get my world ready for The Pyrotechnic Extravaganza that is a mere two days away.

Which includes, but is more than likely not limited to the following:

CLEAN.  The house is, as per normal, a disaster.  I learned last year that there’s really no need to clean deeply, as most people are only in my house to use the bathroom.  However, there is clutter and a month’s worth of dust and just general disaray of having two urchins.  So there should be dusting, straightening and really, an honest attempt to pawn off old toys and clothes on the Toy-Girls, who have a new baby girl to bring to the party (and make sense of pawning off of more toys).

REFRIGERATOR. I have managed to buy a ton of fruit and crap for urchins’ lunches.  However, my refrigerator is oddly Full and cluttered.  Which is a problem because…

SHOP.  Food and beverages are needed for the aforementioned Pyrotechnic Extravaganza party.  And I really thought today was a good day to shop to avoid what I am thinking will be crowds tomorrow, given it’s a ‘holiday’ for most.  Except that means my full and cluttered refrigerator will in no way hold all the food that will need to be stored for two days.  And will the Sam’s bulk fruit not go crazy-fuzzy if stored for two days????  ARGH.

Um.

Not that these aren’t monumental things that need to be taken care of but is that it?  Is that All I’m avoiding???

I do need to weed the garden.  Not that I have more than three ‘real’ plants, but people don’t need to be reminded that weeds are not exactly what I am trying to grow in my garden.  Luckily, I managed to attack the pasta (hosta to those of you unfamiliar folks) garden in the front last weekend and it will be sufficient for our purposes this weekend.

Other than the whole shopping/how am I going to fit stuff in this house issue, it’s the cleaning that is probably my biggest bane, but if I can somehow get The Mom to help me motivate the urchins to help, we really could bust through this relatively painlessly.

We’ll see how that goes, as I’m sure that as soon as I get myself up and running, the sun will come out and the beach will call.

It’s so not easy, boys and girls.

*****

My house is somewhat cleaner due to the lack of an un-taken-care-of-via-brushing evil rat-mutt.

The whole thing was so horrid and I am truly the worst mom Ever.

From the date, you can see that I couldn’t bear to put him down last Thursday, either and he received his last pardon.  We really had every intention of probably putting him down this week, but when he is able to come out and try to steal food from the bbq, one puts out of one’s mind the issues that are going on invisibly inside.

Friday night, he was a bit erratic, but as I said, he was out going from person to person on the patio looking for food.

Saturday, he couldn’t stand up.

*sigh*

His front legs worked, but his back legs wouldn’t hold him, no matter how we tried to stand him up.  Don’t know if he had a stroke, or what.

By that evening, things were not good.

By 10:00 things were Bad.  His breathing was very labored and very fast.

By 11:15-ish, the Ba came in and woke me up and showed me how he was convulsing and really couldn’t get air.  He wondered if we should take him to urgent care, but the thought of a couple hundred dollar bill IF we could get him there in time worried me as much as ‘WHY didn’t I just do this Thursday???’

I went back to bed and right before midnight I heard a yelp and ran out to be with him for his last few minutes.

There’s a very small part of me that is glad he was at home, rather than taken to a very sterile room and injected with something.

The rest of me is so sad that I didn’t have the strength to end his life before he had to go through whatever it was that he went through.  The whole point was to Avoid that, and even though I hope and hope and hope that it wasn’t painful or horrible for him…

I skipped church Sunday and the Ba dug a grave in the side woods before anyone could see us and give us any slack for what we were doing.  I had no problem watching my dad be buried (although I guess I didn’t actually watch the dirt being put over the casket, but it still seems very different to me.  Why, I wonder?), but it was hard for me to put the evil rat-mutt in a hole and watch the Ba put the dirt back over him.  It’s still hard for me to walk by, but the Ba did put a ‘headstone’ there and that helps for some unknown reason.

It’s so odd the feelings, given that I never took the best care of him, and yet all the early years of running and going to the beach and all the later years of cleaning up countless accidents makes me think that maybe I did like him more than I thought of him as a big ol’ pain in my butt.

We spent Sunday hearing dogs barking and stopping ourselves from yelling at him to hush and looking around with the ‘Oh, crap! He’s gone again…did he wander off/is he eating garbage/pooping in the neighbors’ yards/being picked up by the police?”

I still get home, expecting him to bowl over the urchins to go to the bathroom when we get home, or thinking we need to get home from wherever so we can let him out.

Darned evil rat-mutt.

*****

So.

It’s now mid-8-ish, so I suppose it’s Time.

Must get as much accomplished as possible, as I am camping out with Logic and Lap tonight.

I’m not sure how long the ‘has this strip mall restaurant really been there for 20 years and we’re just now going to it’ is open, but I have the feeling that we’ll be closing the joint.

Or finding someplace to continue once it closes and we’re not done.

Hurrah for friends!

ak

R. I. P.

Bogart

aka  Bogie

aka  Evil Rat-Mutt

aka  Evil Rat-Dog

aka  Booger-Stink

aka  Stinkerdoodle

aka  Stinky

December 14, 1997 – Midnight, June 27, 2009

Hot Hot Hot!

The heat index is going to be 105 today.

We broke down and turned on the air last night.

And then watched the urchins run through the sprinkler.

And then went to the beach.

There’s something oddly decadent about going to the beach at 7:45pm on a weeknight.

And stoopid, as the urchins have been staying up Way too late this summer and the Bits, especially, has a heck of a time getting up in the morning, so we have cranky kids at night and cranky kids in the morning.  Hurrah.

But tell me if we don’t have the wrong situation:  The urchins are in the summer program through the school system.  Last week was the first week and they had a dance party/ice cream social last Wednesday.  Yesterday, Mr. Boo had Chinese Club.  (For an extra fee.)  Today?  They get to go to the beach.  (Bussed.  Because it’s so hot.  Um.  Ok.  And the Bits is sad, as she’s not old enough to go to the beach, but they do get sprinklers and the like at school.)  And they have art class today.  (For an extra fee.)  Tomorrow?  Piano lessons.  (Mr. Boo’s in Chinese.  And for an extra fee.)  And?  Ice cream.  Which will be a weekly thing that they can bring money from home for, but for tomorrow, will be a treat from the program.  (Like, Really.   What parent is going to NOT give their kids ice cream money when you know Every Other Kid is getting ice cream?  It’s an Evil Plot, people!)

So.  Seriously.

The beach?  Ice cream?  Field trips?

Sign. Me. Up.

*****

I took the evil rat-mutt in to be put to sleep yesterday.

He went blind out of nowhere about two weeks ago.

And yesterday morning, he looked like he had a stroke and I couldn’t bear to have him lay around the house all day and Theen take him in, so I made a 9:30 appointment.

And that damn evil rat-mutt, who wouldn’t even walk past the end of the alley and seemed to be laboring with every breath was so damned excited to be in the car and perky at the vet and God dammit if I couldn’t do it.

But I made an appointment for Thursday morning.

Which I don’t know if I can keep, either.

Took him to the beach with us last night and he went in the water and seemed quite fine.

As I was rescheduling yesterday I asked the receptionist if a lot of people did what I was doing and couldn’t go through with it.

“No, not really.”

Thanks, receptionist-lady.  Make me feel like a total tool.

I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing.  I know that whatever has been eating at him for the past year is really beginning to take its toll, but is he bad enough that I have to put him down?  Is he ready?

Fricken-fracken.

Drives me nuts.

*****

I have not talked about the Bits and her soccer prowess.

Because most of the other kindergarten girls don’t have a soccer background (ie–brothers or sisters who play), she routinely scores at least two goals per game.  And in her very first game, we stopped counting at eight.  A couple games later, the score was 14-4.  And the Bits scored nine.

The players on her team mostly suck.  The coach is a dad who stepped up at the last minute and really hasn’t taught them much of anything.  (Could it be because there are maybe five or six girls who actually show up for practice each week?)  So, now that other girls are figuring out how to play, she’s not learning any new skills to fend them off and isn’t dominating as she was and since she’s not scoring as many goals, she’s not quite as motivated.

Fricken-fracken.

I keep thinking I have to pay my niece to come over and play with her to teach her some more skills.

College isn’t going to pay for itself, people!

*****

So, yes.  My summer is almost over.

Last baseball game was last Saturday.

So now we only have two soccer games and two soccer practices a week.  And nothing on the weekends.

It’s so crazy, I almost don’t know what I’m going to do with myself.

*****

I got the urgent bat-signal request for a girls’ night from one Logic woman, and now I’ve heard Nothing.

Sheesh.

I realize that the whole soccer thing is crazy, but we all know that the urgent bat-signal for a girls’ night trumps All.

Let’s make it happen, people!

ak

Summer hours

Hi!

Yeah, it’s me.  Yeah, I’ve been gone for a Really. Long.  Time.

I’ve debated about how to head back here, but decided I should at least make an attempt.

So.

School is out.  I’m on my first ‘Thursday/Friday off for the summer’ day.  (And got up before 6:30, fricken-fracken.)  It’s cloudy, but looks like it’s trying to be sunny.  Which makes me somewhat cranky, although there are tentative plans to hit the Arboretum so the Bits can take pictures (must clean off her card and charge the batteries in her camera), so the sunshine is really a better idea.

Somehow made it through May.  With exactly three days where we didn’t have Some form of activity.  (And that included Memorial Day weekend.)

Still have to make it through two more weeks of baseball before we’re down to just two days of soccer games and two days of soccer practice a week.  And that ends mid-July and then it’s SUMMER FREE.

huh.

Job is still limping along, although there’s another fricken-fracken manna-from-heaven opportunity that has dropped into tptb lap.  That could help save the company and our jobs.  Except, Dammit, it once again reinforced the fact that they don’t have to do a damned thing to keep this company going and amazing opportunities just keep appearing.  Double-edged sword, I tell you.

So.

Realistically, I will be working Monday through Wednesday, but will try to get stuff up here Thursday and Friday.  Seems workable at this point.

Hurrah.

ak

A day off before a day off

Mr. Boo complained of an upset stomach this morning and seeing as how I have to take tomorrow off for no school, I pretty much told him to suck it up and go to school.

He proceeded to turn pasty white as we were backing down the driveway and was nice enough to wait until I drove back up the driveway and get out of the car before throwing up in the driveway.

And, of course, I still took him to school.

Yes.  This will go in my Mom of the Year file.

/shrug.  After he threw up, he seemed to bounce back and told me he felt Much better.  The boy is hardly Ever sick.

And I’m a Bad Mom.

9:30-ish the nurse calls and tells me Mr. Boo is there, not feeling well and had said he threw up this morning.

Weeeelllllllll, yes. But he said he was fine afterwards!

You know we have a 24 hour policy, right?

Weellllllllll….

You’re going to have to come get him.

Yeah, yeah.  Can you give me a half hour?

So, I go pick him up and as we’re walking out of the school, before we even get half-way to the car….”What are we having for lunch????”

See, Nurse???  SEE?  This is Exactly why I took him to school.

He hasn’t thrown up since (although…he did apparently throw up three times at school) and has eaten and is currently outside playing with the Bits.

You decide.

*****

Here is what happens in Minnesota when things aren’t happening quite as fast as we expect them to:

Yes, indeed.  Someone gets up and gives ol’ Mother Nature the finger.

“What??  You’re not going to give us an ice-out date in the next week?  I’ll show YOU.  I’ll take this boat and get caught up on the ice trying to break it up.  What?  The fact that the main part of the lake still has inches of ice all the way to the Ritzy Lake Town?  PSHAW!  At least My bay will be open!!”

Crazy-ass Minnesotans.

This was Monday.  Tuesday, there was another little boat out and yesterday the bay was open, with the exception that there is still plenty of broken up ice around the periphery.

I don’t know why this bugs the hell out of me, but it does.

Let things go their natural course.  What good does it do for you to go out there and bust things (including your boat) up?

The only thing I can think of is that they are somehow affiliated with the marinas or the charter boats and want to get things opened up so they can start getting boats prepped.

But considering this is the first day it’s been respectably nice and it’s still only 50 degrees, I still find it utterly Stoopid.

*****

Mr. Boo made the local worthless for any reason other than advertising magazine!

For some reason, we haven’t received a copy yet and I’m getting angry.

But it’s quite cool to see his little picture ‘up in lights’!

*****

I finally received information for Mr. Boo’s little league.

Good God, I am NOT ready for this.

First of all, I’m pissed that we know No One on the team.  I’m pissed that the ‘buddy system’ they have in place isn’t so effective.  And I’m pissed that we didn’t sign up for Mr. Boo’s good friend down the street whose dad is also coaching.  Cuz I really wanted him on That team.  Fricken-fracken.

The field clean up is….Saturday.

Seriously?  And you’re letting me know on Wednesday?  (And I love the fact that the coach won’t be there.  “SORRY”.  What. Ever.)

Practices on Wednesdays and Sundays and games on Sundays.  Wasn’t expecting that.  Necessarily.

So.

So far, we have tennis on Tuesdays from 5-5:30.  Soccer games for the Bits on Tuesdays.  Baseball practice on Wednesdays at 5:30.  Soccer games for Mr. Boo on Thursdays.  Baseball games and swimming on Sundays.

No idea as of yet as to when soccer practices are.

This is the look of a Very Disgruntled ak.

Remind me that I will get over this, as it will all end in two months.

*****

I think that’s it for now.

There’s drama at work, but I don’t want to get into that now.  That may be a post for tomorrow morning.

Before we hit the Arboretum.

HEY!  Logic-woman?  Wanna go wander the Arboretum tomorrow with me and the urchins?  In case you aren’t doing something fantabulous with Thing 2, just thought I’d throw it out there.  Let me know!

Time to hit the wine cellar!

ak

Spring Break is officially over

I am finding it incredibly difficult to get back into the swing of things now that Spring Break is over.

Maybe Spring Break is Not such a Good Thing.

Unless maybe if you go somewhere.

Whatever.

I forgot to mention Mr. Boo’s ‘where the hell do they Get this stuff’ comment from a couple weeks ago.  At obligatory coffee/donut hour between church services, he walks up to me and states:  I want to go to Mexico for Spring Break.

Seriously?

You’re SIX.

What the hell do you know about going to Mexico during Spring Break and why are you bringing it up at coffee/donut hour and church??

Crazy child.

*****

I really did get lulled into the ‘not a damn thing to do’ mode.

I’m not sure how I’m going to do with the schedule heatin gup again.

We have tennis this week.  I’m still waiting to find out about teams and schedules for soccer and baseball.  (Seriously!  I’m a Planner!! [So I can effectively procrastinate, dammit!]  I’m pretty sure this all gets underway in the next two to three weeks, so get me Info, people!)

Mr. Boo is ’star of the week’ (do we Really have to conintue with this ‘each child is so very, very special’ routine at school?  Can’t we just teach them stuff?) so I have to begin paging through one gabillion pictures from his life to find those that I will then have to stick to a piece of poster board for him to take to class.

Granted, I guess that’s not All that much…at least until I’m trying to juggle aforementioned tennis, two soccer practices plus two games, plus baseball practice and games in a week.  Oh, and swimming on Sundays.

I think it will be best for all of us if I just stop thinking about it Now.

Sometimes there is such a thing as just doing it and trying t oremain blissfully unaware.

*****

What else?

I only managed two days on the treadmill over Spring Break, and yet managed to gain about three pounds.

Which Pisses me off, so I’m hoping that will entirely motivate me to get my ass back on the treadmill and get those pounds the hell out of here.

Not to mention, get me ready for the right around the corener 10K that I still think I’m going to force myself to run.

I still talk big.  I guess that’s a plus.

*****

Spent almost an hour reading with the urchins last night.

And it was barely a struggle.  That is a Very Good Thing.

We basically took March off, so once I pointed that out to Mr. Boo, not to mention how relatively easy it was to read for almost an hour last night, I’m thinking that we may be able to get back in the habit.

Excellent.

*****

I’m sure there was one other thing that I had, but I can’t for the life of me think of it.

Such is the fuzziness of getting back to work when you haven’t spent the week in Mexico.

ak

Spring Break Days 3 & 4

We’re going to quickly gloss over day three of Spring Break (and not comment on the fact that Spring Break Really started last Friday, when Mr. Boo did not have school, so Technically, we’re really on Spring Break Day SEVEN.  I generally try to avoid technicalities, especially when My week begins on a Monday.  Day FOUR it is.)

Day three was filled with finally getting the Bits back to dayschool for Pajama Day, which, much to my chagrin is actually Today, but this is what happens when there is so much going on in a week and we hadn’t actually Been to dayschool.

Oh.

And the SNOW.

For pete’s flippin’ sake.

And, going into the office, only to have Accountant Clown Boy teach Mr. Boo the joys of the shredder, which caused him to come running over to me for my credit card because it shreds credit cards!!!!!  (Only if it’s your dads, evil child.)  And now, even though I reminded him he is Not a hamster, I have three bags of shredded paper in his bed.  (BAGS.  I told him he would not live to see another day if he actually took the shredded paper Out of the bags.)

Other than that, I attempted to clean more of the house and watched AI and Lost (damn tptb at AI for scheduling these gruelingly gruesome hour-long results shows at 8pm.) and then proceeded to wander TWoP until 10:20.

I have to admit that this whole not working thing is intriguing to me.

I’ve slept in until the alarm went off at 6:30 every day and it’s kind of nice.

However, so is nominally working for a nominal paycheck, so we’ll go ahead and keep that up for as long as we can.

*****

Day 4.

The Bits goes in to dayschool.  I try to get the last bit of cleaning done before the darling appraiser gets here and Mr. Boo becomes chatty-Cathy.  “Look!  This is what we use to clean the cat box!”  “I’ll go ahead and put the towels into the dryer so I can find a pair of my dad’s underwear and show you!”

SERIOUSLY???

Whose child IS. THIS????

And then, in order to get rid of some of that slowly simmering insane energy, we walk to the post office and on the way home, find the following:

This is about the coolest thing I can possibly imagine and I wish I had seen the folks actually build it because I want to give them a big, sloppy kiss for making me and my crazy child giggle like kids and smile great big smiles.

*****

And then we had to stop for lunch before heading to the park.

Because it’s Spring Break and Sunny, dammit.  Even if the wind chill is below freezing with the water off the lake.  We’re going to the PARK!

 

Yes.  The evil rat-mutt is back to being relatively healthy.  (Copious quanitites of goose poop eaten at the beach, notwithstanding.)

As I walked around the yard after all the snow melted, I found a number of horrid things, such as parts of plastic bags and an intestine-shaped wad of netting.

The not-so-bright vet never bothered to do an x-ray, so my astute diagnosis is that, indeed, the evil rat-mutt was basically being poisoned.  By the garbage that he has been eating.

I have busted my butt to keep him in the house (or at least not wandering the neighborhood in search of garbage) and have not been exactly consistent with the predinose and lo and behold!  No hourly potty breaks throughout the night, no nasty poo in the house and the gums and tongue are back to pink/red.

Mr. Not-So-Brilliant vet?  I believe that ‘mass’ that you were feeling in the abdomen was Not a soon-to-burst tumor, but loads of fucking garbage that it was taking the garbage-dog’s every last red blood cell to try to fight and get out of his system.

Damn dog.

He’s still gonna live to be fifteen, just to pee and shed in the house as long as he can annoy me.

*****

Our neighbor across the alley is making maple syrup.

He gave us some that he made last year from his trees in New York.  And it was lovely!

So, he has a bunch of trees in the neighborhood with bags attached to them (nothing like the two house on Minnetonka Boulevard that have at least three hoses in every single tree on their property emptying into buckets…I need to get pictures, as it is SO. COOL.) and the Ba told him that he could put a couple on the massive maple in our yard.

It’s amazing to watch these bags fill up with the sap.  And he has a little ’still’ that he’s been keeping burning in his yard for the past couple of days.  I’m still not sure what he has to do with the sap before he puts it over the fire, but there’s something completely awesome about someone making syrup.

All Little House on the Prairie or something.

I’ll get pictures…

*****

But for now, we are off to hit Target and pick up the Bits and finish the rest of this lovely day.

I just wish we could break fifty.

Really, I do…

ak

Spring Break: Day 2

This weather is not helping me the way that it should.  (Although maybe it’s trying to help me into napping, which is exactly what a day like this calls for, except I’d be too full of guilt to do that.  Not to mention, the urchins would never allow it.)

I have to get my house cleaned for the appraiser that’s coming on Thursday morning.

And the house is, once again, a pit.

So I’m trying to take it in sections…mopping one area, dusting, straightening…

And then Mr. Boo comes and grabs the toys which he has not touched for six months and takes them from the spot where I have stacked them and proceeds to drag them to another area of the house.  And leaves them there.

It’s really no wonder that he screams at his sister.

*****

There is really nothing that I can do to actually ‘clean’ the house.  I have to take loads and loads of stuff out for that to happen.

I just hope that this person will understand that it is winter and there are two urchins and a kitchen that is still in limbo and it’s just clutter, rather than digusting dirty stuff.

Um.  That is, if I can get all of that clenaed up by Thursday am…

*****

I was running around the house, doing this and that yesterday, so left the urchins in front of the tv for most of the day.  Damn tv.

They wanted me to do puzzles, but I was cleaning here and there and then wanted to get on the treadmill, then needed to get dinner going…The Bits is pretty good at finding stuff to do and Mr. Boo will go outside for a while here and there, but I can’t get them to go downstairs and keep themselves occupied without the tv on.

So, this morning, after catching up on my AI mindlessness, I went downstairs to tackle this puzzle with them.

Which lasted about five minutes for the Bits before she was off playing with her doll house and about eight minutes for Mr. Boo before he was trying to turn on the tv and jumping all over the furniture.

SERIOUSLY.

Which make me cranky and makes me think that two days is going to disappear awfully quickly and will I just have to be super-embarrassed when the appraiser is here, so I bust into mini-clean mode while the urchins go upstairs to watch Journey to the Center of the Earth.  (I always feel a bit less horrible if their watching a movie as opposed to ‘Total Drama Island’.)

So, now I have vacuumed the porch furniture (while they were eating lunch) and put a bunch more stuff into bags for Goodwill and am thinking that I need to get on the treadmill (even though my back hurts and I’d rather get into bed) and then maybe I’ll have another burst of energy to tackle the next thing…Which you never know what it might be.

Last night, while I was cooking rice for dinner, I went out and straightened the summer porch (where the aforementioned toy situation happened) and mopped the darned floor.

Funny, how I could probably get the entire house pretty spotless in a day If I were to spend the entire day doing it.  As it is, I’d rather spend twenty-five minutes going crazy and get one little part Done.  /shrug  Works for me.

*****

I do have to say, dear Logic, that fb is not what gives me trauma.  That would be Everything.

I can make trauma out of a trip to the park.

I love the fact that my friends keep me up-to-date on techno-stuff so that I look like a techno-wizard to my Other technologicall challenged (or just slow) friends.

However, sometimes there is just so much to keep up with that I let certain things fall by the wayside.  Kind of like reading other people’s blogs.

Which leads me to wonder (after catching up on Ms. Logic)…

Did you notice how many females are basically saying the same thing?

The fact that our mothers are becoming more awful with age?

(God knows I’m becoming more awful, but at least I realize it.  Even if I can’t seem to do anything about it.)

I know that your mom has been awful most of your life, Logic, but I’d have to say that mine Hasn’t. 

Other than the oft-mentioned me taking everything she says as criticism.

Do we, as daughters, misread these comments as criticism (as The Mom would have me think) or is it some switch as we age that we will lose the ability to see the way we say things and therefore are unable to understand how venomous (which is too strong a word, but I’m tired) it comes across to others.  How passive-agressive.  When it really Was meant as a harmless ‘comment’?  Or are we daughters so predisposed to our mothers that we take these comments too personally, no matter what the intention was?

Who is at fault?

I know that my situation is a little different and I am becoming more and more defensive because The Mom will NOT get it through her head that I do NOT want her help and there is Nothing that she can do to help and that my problems are My Own.  It is Not what she would do, were she in my shoes and even though she can clearly see what the answer is, it’s not necessarily that black and white on the inside.

This does tend to color the way that I treat many, many aspects of my life and, while I would love to spend thousands of dollars for someone to try to tweak my attitudes, I’m also stubborn enough to not believe that’s really going to work at this moment.  (see:  Stubborn)

So, yes, this makes little to no sense, because I am wandering in my comments and arguments and situations, but I found myself noticing a pattern in comments and it struck a chord as to where the problems lie as we get older.

Did our mothers face similar issues with Their mothers as they grew older?  Did they find them out of touch and royally annoying and oddly vicious as they got older?

If I can manage to to take that on some day, I might just have to breach That particular topic with The Mom and see if that can shed any light and allow me to shine the light back on The Mom in a way that maybe she can see why I treat her the way that I do.

*****

And on that note, it’s time to find out what the urchins are doing and see if I can get them to annoy the hell out of me while they wait for me to get off the treadmill so they can continue to wear out the motor.

I wonder if I can sucker them into cleaning something….

HA!

ahem

ak

The first day of Spring (cleaning) Break

I have let the urchins loose with a roll of paper towels and a bottle of Windex.

With the exception of needing to go buy paper towels (as there is no concept of ‘conservation’) this is a decent trade-off that I must embrace more often, rather than worrying about waste.  It’s either clean windows or more dysfunction from the tv.

Clean wins almost every time.

*****

It is Spring Break.

I am celebrating by keeping the Bits home from school (as the car castle is in the shop due to the motor that runs the back seat window falling apart and the window itself sliding down every time the car is run…can’t wait for This bill) and have scrubbed the bathroom, dusted the living room and am selectively mopping the floors.

I have gone here before, but I would like to reiterate that, as much as I appreciate the Swiffer, it pains me to go back over the Swiffer-ed area with a regular mop to keep my slippers from sticking to the floor.  I would offer that I wish I had more carpet, except the evil rat-mutt continues to find reasons to sneak a pee into various parts of the floor where I can’t always see it.  Better ruined wood floors than carpet.

I think.

*****

I’m also doing the laundry that I couldn’t get done yesterday, only to find out that I’m almost out of detergent and the new box of detergent is…

in the car castle.

Fricken-fracken.

The Ba has taken to muttering about the state of the laundry and has decided to again do his part to show me how it’s done…

By doing his own laundry.

Gee!  Wow!

That is Such a help!

He’s also somewhat beginning to take over the sheets and such, except we continue to fight about just how much one can put in a front-loading washer.

He doesn’t think he can put all the sheets in there.

He thinks his own shirts and underwear is one load.

Granted, there is a happy medium between me shoving all the sheets and possibly the bedspread in there, but I’ll take less loads any day.

I really, really, REALLY need to be single.  (Possibly with no kids, but then who would clean the windows?)

*****

I also have aspirations to do a major toy clean-out this week.

Problem #85,892 is that I have this intense desire to attempt to get some form of cash for them.  (And the clothes and strollers that have been cluttering up the basement for, um, over two years now?  ahem.)

But deep down, the thought of another garage sale attempt and making a whopping $25 for setting everything up makes me just want to load it all up and get it to Goodwill, Pronto.

Dagnabbit.

*****

Now it’s on to Facebook.

I read an entertaining, yet totally predictable, article about Facebook recently.  Saying that ‘we’ (yes…the eight or so of you who still manage to read here are about my age and therefore, you are also part of ‘we’) have taken over Facebook from the youngsters and therefore they are running over to Twitter.  (Funny.  Logic is the one who got all of us going on Twitter last year and is the one who informed me that we needed to take Facebook back from the kids.  She’s just so crazy-cutting-edge!) 

Yes.

I have caught up with tons of high school friends but am suddenly running into that old ‘high school’ dilemma.

I had a girl friend me who I never really liked in high school and she was part of the popular crowd and I don’t remember even really being her friend, other than she was a cheerleader and I was a pom-pon girl in junior high.  And she sent me a friend request.  And it was the weirdest thing and I really didn’t know what to do about it.  Because, Really?

So, I ended up friending her anyway, so as not to be rude.

There are now four friend requests sitting in my inbox.

One is The Mom.  Leftover from November (or so).  And I still can’t bring myself to friend her, because I am in no mood for the ‘you can make little updates in fb all day long, but you can’t pick up the phone to call me or send me an email or blahblahblahblahblah.

I’m a horrible child.  But, Honestly.  I Know how it will go.

#2 is a guy from college who had a crush on me and was not exactly the most normal person and one of those who you were nice to, (so as not to be rude), but you could tell he had a crush on you and there was no way that you were ever going that route, and really wouldn’t be a ‘friend’ either.  You just bumped into each other on a small college campus and were polite.  I haven’t hit ‘ignore’ yet (because there’s a part of me that thinks that is rude, too.) but I really don’t see why I would be his friend ‘here’ when I don’t want to be in the real world.

#3 is a girl from junior high who was one of those fringe friends.  We fought a lot and I don’t know that I really liked her all the much because she was as much of a know-it-all as I was (but possibly moreso) and we kind of hung out because there weren’t that many other people that were in our area.  She crawled out of the woodwork and friended me and I will more than likely friend her, if for no other reason than to see what she is up to.  Which I guess is what fb is all about anyway.

#4 is someone that I don’t recognize.  A bunch of my friend have friended him and the name is remotely familiar, but I’m going to have to go get a yearbook, because his picture is doing nothing for me.

I’m somewhat entertained by the likes of Show Host  (who has yet another person on her fb page that she’s talking to about the tv job…/snort…I think it may be time to just give up on that one) who basically friends everyone who asks.  She has like 400+ friends and the downside to being someone in the ‘public eye’ is that suddenly you have to monitor what you are doing and saying, because it’s one thing to do crazy or stupid stuff to friends from your past and quite another to let complete strangers into your ‘life’.  I don’t want any of that, thankyouverymuch.

There are also a number of people that I see out there as ‘friends of friends’ who I would love to find out ‘what happened to you’, however, there’s that pathetic junior high part of me that never died that Doesn’t want to be that person that someone else is thinking (or writing) about saying, “I never really liked her anyway, why is she friending me thirty years later?”

And so, I will sit back and wait and see if these people ever get motivated to friend Me and think more about those of us who have embraced the web and those that jumped on board fb but are never on and never update.  You all know that there are very much those two categories of folks out there.

Anyone else have these kind of issues with fb?  Anyone else willing to share so that I don’t have to continue to have these feelings of inadequacy (that I manage to beat down much more easily than when I was in junior high)?

I know have to decide how much more cleaning to do and when to force my butt onto the treadmill.  Because I Will be running the Firecracker Fun Run on July 4th, but if I don’t get myself going, I will be walking most of it and will never even come close to that one hour mark.

rah.

ak