organized chaos

Every 6 or 8 weeks, people require hair cuts around here. And like many other frugal *read ‘poor’* mothers, I perform the dirty deed. Since I just had my third boy, I see no end in sight, unless My Man gets a really big raise and then FINALLY I can send them on their merry way to the barber.

Can you tell I loathe this task? A couple weeks ago My Man proclaimed it time for another cut. We planned on a night, then it came and we planned on another night, and it came. Then we planned on another week. See a pattern? His procrastination issues coupled with my obvious loathing for this chore prolongs the inevitable. The hair must be cut.

By now, you’re probably like, “Stop your griping, woman! Suck it up and cut the hair already!” And I would usually agree with you. But I have to ask the question: Have you ever cut Hispanic Hair?

My Man is 3/4 hispanic. That means not only is his hair Super Extra Way Beyond Breck Girl Thick, but it repels water like a dog or a duck. So do my boys’ hair. GOOD TIMES!

Did I mention my tools for the job are inferior, to say the least?

Not helpful.

So My Man started a quaint little tradition a few years ago. One night as I was preparing my inferior tools with oil and sweet talking them into another rigorous workout, My Man popped a CD in the player. Which he usually does. To silence my anguished cries of torture.

As I began the futile task of wetting his water repellent hair, a song, familiar to my childhood blared through the speakers of our CD player. I don’t have a clip but here are a couple pictures to jog your memory.

Can you hear the music? The Barber of Seville? Did I mention My Man is almost as looney as I am?

He thought it was so funny, to mock my anguish in such a way, that now, years later he still insists on playing that crazy tune every time he gets his hair cut.

And by the time I’m done and the whole movement plays, it eventually gets to William Tell, aka The Lone Ranger Song while I get to clean up this:

And this:

It’s scary I know. And I’m sorry to have to show you such horror. But don’t feel bad for me. I’m still alive. I did get it cleaned up. I did have to rent a street cleaner, though.

Just in case you read this feed through a feed thinger, and didn’t notice some new links I had down on my sidebar, and maybe you don’t get around much here in blogville, so you didn’t already know about the totally kickin’ contest for an HDtv over here.

Thanks to Best Buy! 

Now back to regularly scheduled programming.

So I was getting ready for my shower and I flipped on my local 80’s weekend radio station. They do alright. A lot of stations with the All 80’s! All Weekend! really only play Phil Collins and Madonna, which by the way makes me want to gag.

Just as the hot water started to wash my stray hairs down the drain, a song came on. Not just any song, mind you. But a song that when it really gets rolling produces such a feeling of victory in me, that I feel like I could actually get through the day with success!

By the time they hit the second chorus I felt like if I could have some cool earbuds and play this song continuously whilst at work, I could even deal with the punk kids who come in and throw bean bags all over the place and kick empty boxes out of the stockers carts.

I felt like pumping my fist into the air and walking with purpose down my sidewalk, grabbing people as I go, so we could take on my city and change it for the better; for the sake of all mankind.

I felt like I could plunge any toilet and it would come unclogged the first time!

I felt like if I ran somewhere, anywhere, I wouldn’t end up in a heap of old and sore limbs all tangled in a mass.

You get the idea?

Then I found the video to this song. And watched it.

And laughed my ever-lovin’ head off. Because these people are the epitome of cheese.

I don’t know that I ever listened to the words of this song when I was a kid, and I don’t think I ever have as an adult. Not that the lyrics even make much sense.

But if you watch this, and really you should, you will delight in the huge hair, the serious stares meant to drill holes through other 80’s inhabitants, the succinct pronunciation of lyrics that won’t make any sense to you.

But darn it! You might feel like you could build a city when you’re done.

edit: here it is several weeks later, and the link I had here didn’t work. Thanks alot Youtube! I found another one. Let’s see if it works.

Have you seen that Ice Cream in a Bag recipe? I got one in my email and I saw one on another blog. I don’t usually do these types of things.

A. I don’t have what I need to do it.

B. I don’t have the cold hard cash to get what I need to do it.

C. I have an eccentric breed of gremlins.

Allow me to demonstrate with some caught-in-the-act photography.

I actually had a little cash, so we high tailed it to Walmart for the few ingredients it takes to make ice cream in a bag. The trip in and out was quick. I don’t mess around with shopping. I hate it. I hate it so much that I forgot the ice.

I tried to bribe Socrates the almost 10 yr old to go back in and get the ice, but he wouldn’t have it. “Not at Walmart!”

“Ok. How about the gas station?” Apparently that was worth $1.

By the time we made it home, we were burnin’ up from the Kansas heat, but we proceeded with the madness of novelty snack experiments.

‘A happy start!’ you might be tempted to think. There’s my girl with all the stuff you need, and a printed off recipe, and some empty bags. You can’t make novelty snacks without total disorganization all around.

Then they started the ice cream shake exercise. Because if you have no idea what this snack is all about, the short version is you put ice and rock salt in a big bag and the ice cream stuff in a little bag, seal them both up and shake for 5 minutes. Jackelope looks skeptical that this will work.

At first he thought you put the half & half right in there with the ice and rock salt and he was really skeptical then. But I was too busy dropping every blessed piece of ice on the floor and trying really hard not to say naughty words to take a picture.

After exactly 47 seconds of shaking her bag, Zoe looked like this:

And then the whining commenced.

“How much longer?” “Is is done YET?” “Can’t you shake it for me?”

I lost track of time, whining throws me into a worm hole usually. So when I got back from wherever the worm hole took me, I told them to stop shaking and open their bags. It wasn’t Blue Bell, but they liked it.

I had made a bag for myself, and I took my turn to shake. Man, was I going to show those gremlins how to REALLY shake that bag and make some KILLER ice cream.

About 47 seconds into the shake fest, my hands were so cold, I wondered if that worm hole had taken me to the North Pole. I gained some perspective on the gremlin’s plight.

But I shook it for the required five minutes. With vigor.

And I opened my bag and found soup.

And that’s why I don’t do fun things.

What we see depends mainly on what we look for. –John Lubbock

I’ve been thinking about how important it is to see things in the right perspective. For example here’s a photo of the flooding we had in a local park and a picture of what it’s supposed to look like.

That tree you see in the foreground of the first photo is the same tree you see a little further back in the second photo. There was so much water. And then a couple day’s heat and poof! it’s gone.

My life is like that and I’m sure everyone’s is. We’re flooded with trouble, depression, overwhelming feelings of inadequacy, and maybe we pray and plead with God to make it better. Then one day runs into the next and we didn’t even realize that whatever plagued us eventually evaporated while we weren’t looking. And maybe this only applies to small annoyances. But I’ve noticed some pretty big ones taking their sweet time to exit my life in a subtle way, too.

Either way, it helps to see the things in life as passing moments that will look so different further down the line.

And then you have these kind of moments.

When you finally discover what it was clogging your kids’ bathroom sink. You expect the black muck to come up, and the bits of cardboard and paper. And maybe an occasional hairball tangled up in a rubber band.

But when you pull that plunger up one last hard time in reverse, because sometimes it works!, and you move it out of the way to run the water and see if it will finally drain, you never expect to find that pink mangled toothbrush lying there at the bottom of your sink.

So what’s the lesson on perspective here? This might be a stretch.

If that sink had a nice stopper in the drain, this toothbrush would’ve never been poked down there. But finding that toothbrush after plunging my heart out really jazzed me up!

My effort was not in vain. I plunged a TOOTHBRUSH out of the drain! I can glean one of two things from this.

1. Even small victories are the BOMB

2. I need to talk with other adults more often

So it’s been awhile since I posted any dysfunctional headlines, and really it’s because it got kind of busy at work and/or there just wasn’t anything that sparked my interest. Well last weekend Oprah’s mag had a bold headline that I thought, “If Wally World weren’t taping me right now with their security cameras, I’d totally read that article!”

Oprah’s cool and all, but I don’t really watch her show. Every time I have and she’s had some Cool Idea show theme, it’s usually stuff I can’t afford to do, so I avoid her stuff.

Since I did not read O’s fabulous article, I thought I’d do what I always do. Come up with my own.

Chill!

21 Things to Stop Worrying About Right Now

(give or take)

1. Are the managers at work going to catch me wearing open heeled shoes when it’s clearly not allowed per the new dress code?

2. Will they let me get a dr.’s note since the last time I wore closed heel shoes and was on my feet for a long time, my toenails got so bruised they turned black?

3. Since I’m so tall, do people ever notice the little white chin hairs that grow on the scar from a bike accident when I was a kid?

4. If I drink my coffee through a straw, will it prevent my teeth from turning brown?

5. Why are there so many little toads in my back yard this year? Is it the beginning of the end?

6. Is my daughter going to grow up resenting me because I didn’t make it to the Barbie Ballet scheduled at 6 pm in her room the other night?

7. If my microcephalic dog takes off down the street after a motorcycle, am I expected to retrieve him, or can I just pretend he never existed and get on with my pet free life?

8. Will I ever stop having recurring dreams about finishing high school? I graduated early Dream Maker! That doesn’t mean I still have one year left! Leave me be, already!

9. What would I do if I drove over a bridge and a support beam cracked off? Or some evil mutant or Lex Luthor showed up causing mayhem to everyone driving over the bridge that day?

10. And will I ever be content with my hair color? Or is it actually a creative outlet I just need to accept?

That’s not 21, I did say give or take. I have a feeling Oprah wouldn’t approve my list for her astute publication. I crying a river over that. Really.

a footnote: worry is actually a struggle for me and many things that consume my thoughts just aren’t fodder for my joking around. i’m thankful the lord has given me a sense of humor to lighten my load and laugh at myself, and hopefully someday i’ll laugh at all the things i’ve wasted so much time thinking on.

Sorry for the interruption of your reading all my madness.

I don’t have a nature blog anymore. If you liked it—sorry. If you didn’t know about it—-forget it.

If you thought it was a stupid idea—I don’t really want to hear it.

Now scroll down for the regular madness that happens here on a semi-normal basis.

My Man has this friend who is so eccentric that when you take his picture, he doesn’t show up on film. We’ve tried. He’s lived with his father up to this point in his life, which is somewhere between 40 and 70 years of age. He also has that ageless quality that makes it hard to pinpoint. And we’ve asked, but he’s not tellin’.

So his father is moving somewhere, I’m sure My Man told me, and I wasn’t listening or something. And his friend, whom we’ll call Mark is rifling through thirty plus years of junk they’ve accumulated in their house. Stuff like magazines from 1976, and old videos of Star Trek episodes on tv from 1996, with the commercials! which are really the best part. There were some old paintings and a whole lot of other eccentricities.

And the best part is, he wasn’t giving any of it away! Yep, he put a price tag on everything in that house. Whatever, dude. Whatever thickens your gravy.

My Man being the vintage hound that he is, did manage to nab one item for free. And what a find.

Meet the Traveler Tumbler. It’s groovy, it’s fun, and man does it smell like the 80’s. At least that’s what My Man claims. He brought this bad boy home and all kinds of nostalgia washed right over me. I could actually hear Hall and Oats singing in my ear as I inspected the box.

So you’re probably wondering, “What exactly does the 80’s smell like?” Or maybe you’re wondering, “Why in God’s green earth is that girl smelling the inside of old coffee mugs?”

Or maybe you’re just wondering, “What in the name of Mike am I even doing on this blog?”

My Man and I are real smell oriented. We can watch an old 70’s or 80’s movie and one of us will always make a comment on how we can just smell the Bud on that guy, or I bet the lady smells like Windsong.

So of course one of the first things he said to me when I was drooling over those happy 80’s inhabitants on the box was, “IT EVEN SMELLS LIKE THE 80′S!”

Ok, maybe he didn’t yell it, but I could tell he was brimming with excitement.

So I smelled inside.

Because this thing was brand spankin’ new, relatively speaking, mint in the box, there was no coffee odor to interrupt my sniffing in the scent of my childhood.

And really, there’s just no way to describe to you what the 80’s smelled like via this cup. It was musty and stale, with a distinct flavor of groove. The kind of smell that reminds you of polyester bell bottoms on the way out of fashion because hey! it’s the 80’s.

And as an added bonus, here’s the bottom of the box. It’s Spillproof! and it only releases liquids when you’re ready to drink. All the qualities one needs for a really groovy cup of joe. And who wouldn’t want to sip their java from plaid cup. My Man can’t wait! to take it to work.

And now a word from our host,

Rod Serling.

Good evening. On tonight’s episode we ask the question, “Is there any merit to the old stories about the mysteries surrounding cats?” We’ll explore the old superstition that you just can’t get rid of a cat.

We’ll meet a nice girl

who like any nice girl, just wants a clean smelling house.

So imagine her disgust when she finds out her jerk of a cat has urinated in and around various places in her humble abode.

We’ll surely find out if that old adage is true when she throws that jerk of a cat outside once and for all and starts to unassumingly enjoy the smell of a clean laundry room instead of a laundry room that stinks of cat box and feces.

It’s a gruesome tale we have to spin tonight, folks.

Because imagine this nice girl’s surprise to find this jerk of a cat lurking around the house every time she turns around. She knows she threw him out. Several times, she’s sure of it.

So we beg to ask the question, “How is it, that the cat is napping in luxury right by the computer desk where she types?” or “How is it, that the cat is lazily walking through the kitchen like he owns the joint, when surely he must know by now that he will be an outside cat?”

Is it magic? Voo doo of the blackest sort? A secret cat door that only appears in 95 degree weather? An ability that only the jerkiest of cats possess to walk through walls?

But wait! Could it be the gremlins that reside with the nice girl? The ones who stand in the 95 degree heat with the screen door wide open?

We’ll let you decide if we have indeed, entered

The Twilight Zone

For the blog carnival hosted over at Owlhaven.

This is an excerpt from a series I posted on my childhood days down in East Texas.

I may have only lived in the East Texas area for five or six years, but they were formative years, coming of age years. That must be why, when I really press myself to be honest, most of my opinions can be traced back to something that happened there. It was a bittersweet time, really, a strange mix of horrible memories and some of my fondest. Much like finding a few morsels of the finest dark chocolate still wrapped, swirling around in the creamed corn your mother is forcing you to eat. You pluck them out, hide them in your pocket, swallow down as much as that mushy corn as you possibly can, because you’re a good kid, and savor those chocolates later when you are utterly alone and can finally think.

It was the summer before third grade when we moved down to the lake. At eight years, I recall feeling very grown up. I’m the oldest of three, and I think the oldest always feels more grown up at an earlier age. When I look at my eight year old son now, and compare, it shocks me to know how young I actually was. My step dad, Donnie had gotten discharged from the Navy and wanted to move back to his roots. I would later learn that meant the place where the largest number of his drug buddies resided.

His dad got him a sweet job for one of the largest grocery stores in Texas. But thankfully for us, it wasn’t playing cashier. This particular company owned a large section of land next to Lake Palestine, one of the largest lakes in the area. Of course everything’s bigger in Texas. They used this land as a Recreation Center for company employees. Most called it a campground. I called it paradise. It turned out to be the missing piece of my puzzle.

Donnie was employed as a kind of grounds-keeper; mowing, picking up trash, schmoozing the guests and CEOs, getting really drunk, organizing company parties where other people could get really drunk. We lived in a good sized trailer smack in the middle of the grounds, within running distance of the lake. I guess it would’ve been walking distance, but we kids ran everywhere, as if our butts were on fire or something. We had a fenced yard, and directly behind was a grand playground. What kid isn’t excited about her own industrial strength playground right in the back yard?

The rest of the park included such luxuries as a fishing pier, a long rickety boathouse where people checked out motorboats for free, a boat dock, an orchard with more fig trees than I cared for, and more stomping ground than I knew what to do with. Behind the house a ways was a creek that eventually poured into the lake, and it ran through a sort of nature trail. It was one of my favorite places. Not many campers went back in there, and it’s shady, fairylike presence hid me like a womb.

An exciting time to be sure. Especially for a kid, and we were pretty much given freedom to roam. Maybe not my younger brother and sister, who were four and five years younger than me. Kristi and Mitch were required to slow me down at regular intervals. Although Kristi rebelled frequently and roamed off on her own. I thought she did just fine on her own. She would spend the better part of the next five years tormenting me in every way possible, so time away from her was sweet relief. We are the best of friends now, so she did outgrow some of that.

In addition to the grandeur of living on the lake, we now had Donnie’s relatives to be reacquainted with. I think most of them had lived somewhere in that area, south of Dallas, west of the Louisiana border, their whole lives. They certainly exhibited a pride over their heritage and ways of life. And believe me, they did do things a little differently. This book of essays is in no way meant to be an insult to them or anyone else residing in East Texas. It’s just one girl’s look back at her past, writing stuff down to make myself laugh, even if no one else thinks it’s that funny.

To read this post in it’s entirety, you’ll find it here.

To check out all the posts in this series, you’ll find them here.

Remember this? I don’t personally, but sure I’ve heard of the ol’ vibrating belt exercise machine of the 50’s. Looks like swell fun. Maybe afterward they gussied up for a sock hop or something. Those were the days. At least they look like the days.

I’m hoping that contraption up there was effective, because I’ve found myself in a similar position lately.

Our old washer broke down a couple months ago, so I hiked it up to Main Street to purchase a new-old one. We only buy used appliances. It’s a religious preference.

Not really. I drool over those really nice front loaders that probably make nary a sound when spinning out or agitating. Because it wasn’t too long after we got our new-old washer, that supposedly is industrial size, when we found out it couldn’t handle a full load of sheets or towels.

You can always tell when it’s going to start. The spinning starts slowly. Thump-thump-thump. And you hope once it starts full throttle that it will even out and just work right already. And sometimes it does.

But then you have the knocking-turned-walking washer issue and you go in there, flip the darned lid open and rearrange some towels. When you close the lid again you pray to the heavens above and chew on the inside of your lip while you wait for the momentum to gain to see if the earth shattering vibration will begin again.

If it does, and you’re a novice at this, you might try rearranging a few more times. Each time getting more and more agitated that your new-old industrial size washer cannot handle a freakin’ load of towels. Even a small load.

Once you’ve had some experience at this, you might try going outside while it spins out. Because if you can’t hear it, then it doesn’t exist. Besides, you’re tired of worrying that the contraption is going to shake it’s way through the old floor and land smack dab on the sump pump in the basement. But then a gremlin usually comes out and interrupts a nice daydream about caramel mocha frappacinos and he’s really freaked out by all the banging and whatnot, so you go inside cause you’re a nice mom.

And when you’re back inside and the monster of a machine starts in again you know the only thing left to do is to sit on it.

If you’re a big girl like me, sitting on it will, in fact, calm the booger down a tad. Oh, rearrange to your heart’s content, but while I was sitting on my washer just this morning I realized that I am probably just shaking off those pounds at warp speed.

At this point, you might be tempted to think that I’m just trying to be funny and ha ha wouldn’t that just be a hoot to sit on one’s washer while it shakes profusely! But do not give it one more thought! At least twice a week, I can be found, at some point in my day, perched atop my vibrating washer waiting out the spin cycle. This is my true life. I don’t have to make this stuff up.

I was going to give Tae Bo a try, but I think this might just be a wee bit more effective.

The other day, I was laying in my bed with one of my arms up, hand behind the head style.  You know, just chillin’ and all.  So Jackelope came and laid his big ol’ head on me.  A second later, he said:

“I can feel your heart beating all the way to your armpit.”

Ah. What every mother longs to hear.

Jackelope might be 6 yrs old, but he is still capable of doing some very unexpected things.

Maybe that’s why I continue to have dreams about him getting into peril and having to rescue him.

Take last night’s episode, for example. At some point in the dream I was loading the kids into the van. Then Jackelope dashes across the very busy street because he just has to, HAS TO, do a one-footed jump onto the opposite curb and see how high he can bounce himself off.

The only problem with this, is that there is a red pick up truck barreling straight for him now, as he is standing right in the line of traffic, no doubt contemplating the thrust of that last jump.

I watch in horror for about 1/8th of a second as the blonde lady driver laughs at something the male passenger is saying, paying no attention to my little Jackelope contemplating physics out in the middle of her lane.

My Mother’s Response Mechanism kicks in and I move at an impossible speed to move him out of the way. But I grab him a fraction of a nano-second too late and the left tire, THEIR LEFT, is about to mow us down.

I nimbly roll me and my boy toward the middle of the truck, between the wheels, so we can lay unharmed as the truck passes over us.

When we get up, I give Jackelope a good verbal thrashing.

But really. I do think these intricate dreams are trying to tell me something.

A. Jackelope will be accident prone for the rest of his life and spend many an hour passed in the ER.

B. I seriously need to keep my eyes peeled for laughing blonde women driving red pick ups.

C. I seriously need to invest in one of those child leashes and keep Jackelope on it until the age of 32.

D. I do, in fact, have super powers and it’s only a matter of time before I discover my true identity. Really, it would explain so much.

See this?

Socrates found it on the end of our block on one of his little bike rides. He came home all a twitter that he had found some torn up pieces of paper and maybe we could tape it back together and see what it says.

And you know? I got all a twitter too. I’ve told My Man for awhile now that I’d be so good at that CSI stuff. Piecing puzzles together, analyzing handwriting, matching fingerprints, quipping witticisms to my fellow CSI co-workers whilst passing them in the dusky hallway, doing the slow-motion-cool-walk down the middle of a highway; crime-scene kit in one hand, a plate of nachos in the other.

But I digress.

I would hardly call piecing together an old note found on 4th street worthy of CSI, but one never knows what kind of sordid details might be found. I’m not the kind of person to go nosing around in other people’s business in an outward way. In fact, most people who know me would never guess how closely I pay attention to the littlest of details around me wherever I am, because I am always fascinated by the goings on of people’s lives.

Well, Socrates had to make a few trips back to the scene in order to get what I needed, and lucky for me we had some tape stashed away somewhere. The thing went together fairly well, in fact there was two original sheets. But I only got one put together.

Now after all this build up, you’re probably as a twitter as I was to know what it said. Admit it.
In the end it was nothing special. Just a bunch of mumbo jumbo about this girl, (the writer), having feelings for the guy she’s writing to and the age difference doesn’t mean anything to her. She’ll gladly buy his cigarettes any time he needs them. And isn’t that what love is all about?

Buying cigarettes for your underage lover?

I was welling up. Really.

My Man wasn’t impressed. He was actually rather disgusted. Not by my curiosity, but at the fact that we don’t know who owned the note. He’s a germaphobe, God bless him.

Ok, so by now you recognize this little dude. The Cuteness, aka Xavier. And you’re probably getting ready to exit my blog because you’re sick of hearing me sing his praises.

But here’s the deal. This guy has really caught me by surprise.

After Jackelope, we were, for all practical purposes, done having gremlins. Then a couple years later, I had two pregnancies that ended in miscarriage within two months of each other. Even though they were unexpected, they threw me for a loop. You know how it goes: you get over the initial shock, then you get used to the whole idea. It was hard.

Then we bought our first house and moved and the gremlins were getting to some really good ages. Good ages to permit me some freedoms I hadn’t had in so many years. Like baths. And sleep. And we could walk in the door from somewhere without every one of them screaming bloody murder over their hunger pangs. And no diapers. Luxuries like that.

So imagine my surprise when I turned up pregnant last year. Well, not really surprise in a good way. I’ll be honest. I was freaked. How would I work my crazy night hours without my medication? How could I possibly start all the way over with all the baby stuff? And speaking of baby stuff, I’d already gotten rid of just about all of it.

But as you know, things have a way of working themselves out. Or as I like to give credit to God, because He does care about so many little things. Like keeping me awake at work without the meds, and even opening a door of a different shift so it would be easier on me. Oh, and let’s not forget the whole timing thing of when Xavier was due. Right at tax return time, allowing me to have a nice long 12 week maternity leave.

And one of the things that’s surprised me about all my gremlins, is how much I love them. I know that sounds funny. But I’ve never been a “kid” person, or a very affectionate person either. But I am with them.

Which brings me to the title of this post. Many, many times I’ll just get an overwhelming sense of joy and happiness when I think about my littlest guy. I anticipate all the milestones he’s rapidly heading toward. Simple things like sitting up and even crawling. Babbling and sitting at the dinner table with us.

Not potty training. I’d gladly pay someone else to do that little job.

But I’m surprised because the whole thing freaked me out so much at first. And throughout the whole pregnancy. And even after I had him, when it was really hard and I was really tired.

I just consider myself blessed. And I don’t really feel equipped to be anybody’s mother, but apparently God thought I could handle giving love to one more, so I’m honored.

Usually when I bake something in the oven, like this:

Stop looking at my dirty oven! Where was I? Oh yeah. Usually when I cook something like this, I burn myself. It never fails. I use those hot pads, I’m just a spazoid in too much of a hurry most of the time.

So the other day I walked into the kitchen and found Jackelope like this:

I guess I’ve just had it wrong this whole time. Leave it to Jackelope to correct the error of my ways.

By the way, that pizza up there yonder is my chicken alfredo stuffed crust pizza. Homemade crust and all. Are you impressed? Don’t be. I make it once every five years. And the gremlins don’t like it.

And I thought gremlins would eat anything that crossed their paths.

This last weekend I was thrown into the duty of the service desk at work, much like if you were to throw a toddler into a pond and say, “There you go! Now swim!”

Honestly I did ok for not having a clue and people were nice. And that is using the term loosely since I found that people at the service desk are NOT as friendly as the people who usually come through my line as a cashier. I’m sure it has something to do with the fact that they are skeptical if I’m going to refund their money on that cracked toilet seat without a receipt.

So since I was such a busy girl this weekend, I thought this headline was appropriate:

The Busy Girl’s Beauty Guide

1. Sleep is for sissies. The Busy Girl should dupe her doctor into giving her a prescription for Ritalin and then couple that with caffeine. If jitters are a problem, just keep moving at insane speeds. Everything looks better in a blur. And your hair will flow behind you like a model with a wind fan.

2. Who has time to shave? Just let the hair grow for a week and say it’s trendy in Europe.

3. If you want to shorten your time in the shower, have kids. After that, you will never shower or bathe for longer than five minutes. If that. Sometimes Rinse and Repeat is all you need. Soap dries your skin out anyway.

4. Lipstick is only good for writing mean notes on the bathroom mirror to your spouse. You will be much better at making the scary face at your gremlins without it.

5. Worried about those extra pounds? Make sure your baby only sleeps for an hour at a time during the day, and his room is up a flight of stairs. Resist the urge to put him in a pack n play downstairs for your ease. He won’t like it anyway and it’s too noisy for him to sleep. This way, you will get plenty of exercise running to and fro up the stairs all the live long day.

And that’s all. After all, I’m busy!!

Where have all the good men gone? I’ve heard that asked from time to time. Along with, “Why are all the good men gay?” The people that I’ve heard asking this are usually looking in bars and dance clubs. And I’m not really an expert on finding good men. Most of the men through my life’s history have been degenerate. I’m not kidding.

I don’t think good men are born. They are forged through time and circumstance when a boy is forced given the opportunity to grow through trials and hardship. Things like manhood journeys and climbing the Alps is fine. But I thought of a few other things that might grow a boy into a man.

So in honor of My Man and I celebrating our 11th anniversary, I’d like to present for your contemplation:

11 Things That Might Just Mature A Man (or send him packing)

1. Hook up with a chick that brings plenty of dysfunction with her. But make sure she keeps the FUN in dysfunction or it might be a drag.

2. Make sure the pastor that marries you and gives you pre-marital counseling isn’t married. Or has ever had a girlfriend or even kissed a girl. He’ll bring lots of wisdom to the table.

3. If your vehicles are older, you will always have a ready source of stress for learning to harness that temper you learned from your dad.

4. Having gremlins is good. But having them really close together is even better. Three gremlins under the age of five and two in diapers is enough to try any man by fire.

5. Work in downtown Kansas City and ride the bus everyday. That way you can meet lots of colorful people and ensure you are in harm’s way at all times.

6. If your parents hate that they live so far away and they just hate where they live in general, offer to help move them closer. Then listen to them complain for the next eight years that they just can’t move till they fix up their house, but OH! they hate it so much! Every other day get a phone call from them about how much they hate it, but they’ll just have to die there I guess.

7. Just when you think you’re done having gremlins, and life is proceeding at a more peaceful pace, have another one by accident by God’s divine intervention. You know how these things happen. The further from the diaper stage you are, the better. Starting all over will test your limits as a man. Remember, you’re that much older now. And tired.

8. Buy a house. Better yet, buy an old house that will challenge your OCD everytime you notice the shabby paint job the previous owners did.

9. Send your wife to work three nights a week. If you haven’t had that fourth gremlin surprise yet, now is definitely time to do it. A pregnant wife that works crazy night hours is sure to bring you some perspective on your life.

10. With your wife at work three nights a week, you get to babysit an infant gremlin for the first time ever! Because your wife did everything with the previous gremlins!

11. Homeschool your gremlins so your house is never crisp. And by crisp, I mean spotless. To mature properly, you must see this everyday:

and this
and this

Happy Anniversary, Charlie! Here’s to the past.

And here’s to the present.

And here’s to the future.

The socks I knew about.

We were in the mud porch in a mad rush out the door this morning for church when I noticed, as the kids slipped their shoes on, that Jackelope had failed to put on his socks. A heavy Cuteness in one arm, my purse in the other, a Bible and a book in yet another, and the diaper bag hanging from my fifth tentacle.

Socks were not the priority.

Fast forward to lunchtime. Usually after our mad dash to church, we have an equally mad dash home and everyone is in a mad dash to eat. Then everyone gets mad because the stress levels accelerate and my tentacles fly helter skelter trying to accomplish what was once only thought possible by the Greek gods.

So whilst I was frying up some quesadillas, Jackelope’s bladder had apparently reached full capacity and he did the potty dance all the way upstairs to the bathroom. Five minutes later the other gremlins informed me that Jackelope was screaming upstairs that he couldn’t get his pants up. It’s usually the other way around, what with the belt from hell that I bought him that I can’t even unbuckle without working out for 15 minutes prior to unbuckling it.

He finally arrived in the kitchen, pants hanging around his knees, and I bent over to see the belt never even came unbuckled for this bathroom trip. I unbuckled the belt and he insisted on pulling up his own pants, little man that he is, and I noticed the underwears weren’t getting pulled up along with the top of the pants.

I almost ignored it. I figured he would get uncomfortable eventually and fix the problem.

Then it occurred to me.

I hadn’t even seen the underwear band down in the folds of his pants.

After some rapid fire questioning, I discovered that, in fact, there never had been any underwear today. Ever.

Why? Because he couldn’t find any. And if you have boys or a husband, or males of any kind in your house, you’ll know it’s not because there wasn’t any. He couldn’t find any. There’s a difference.

So logically my next question was, “Did anyone help you go to the bathroom at church?”

Because you know, as disturbed as I am that my 6 year old went Commando all day, the thing that would bother me the most is if his dear, sweet Sunday School teacher had found out and would wonder the rest of her blessed days just what kind of hippies are we anyway?

It was that kind of a night. An I-wish-I-could-pry-my-eyes-open-since-I’m-kinda-at-work-and-should-be-alert kind of night. The kind where supposedly someone can say just the wrong thing and SNAP goes my mouth.

Two guys and a girl walk up to my register around 1 am. They look chipper. The one guy looks especially pleased. He looks at my name tag. No biggie.

Pleased Guy: Hey! Were you in that one movie?

Me, aka Friendly Cashier: No. I’ve never been in any movie. (unless you count Gremlins, the movie that is my life)

Pleased Guy points to my name tag: Well I saw your name there.

I look down at it since I kind of forgot it for a second.

Pleased Guy: Yeah, you know that movie with your name!

Me: You mean the one with the blood all over the girl by Stephen King?

Pleased Guy and his chipper friends all nod in astute agreement and laugh.

Me: No. I was not in that movie. I guess it doesn’t matter that there are at least 5 million ‘Carrie’s’ on the face of this earth, but you just happen to think that qualifies me to be in that movie. Nice.

They pay and leave. Not laughing or looking pleased.

But I was.