The evilness of hiding veggies in your kids' food

I am way too excited about this, quite frankly. This week, my kids have eaten pumpkin and spinach and didn't complain. Of course they didn't know they were eating it, but still.

The pumpkin was pureed and went into mac and cheese. Disgusting, you say? Not at all. I swear to your favorite deity that you could not taste it. This was fresh pumpkin, steamed and pureed, so it was the same bright orange as Kraft Mac and Cheese. Yes, I suck doubly because I not only fed my kids mac and cheese out of a box, with the powdered cheese no less, I put pumpkin in it. They ate it, though.
The suggestion I have seen for that calls for butternut squash, and if you wanted to go with canned (or liked jarred baby food squash) I would say that would work better, because canned pumpkin is dark and not bright powdered cheese orange.

In a slightly less sneaky meal, I made stuffed shells and put chopped, cooked spinach in the cheese stuffing. The snarfed it up. Especially Ellie, and she is usually my pickier eater. And since the manwhore has a hate on for cheese, he got his stuffed with sausage and spinach and he liked it, too.

Sneaky and evil or not, I am delighted to see my children getting a vitamin or two that didn't come in the form of a gummy vite. I wonder what else I can puree?

Houston, we have frost

The low last night was something like 27F. The computer says it is currently only 28F. The average date for a first frost here is Oct 20. So, two weeks later isn't too extreme. But it went from 78F on Mon to barely 48F yesterday and all nice and frosty last night. Brrrr!

I like it though. I like having seasons. It would be boring if it were the same all the time. So, bring on the chilly weather and drag out the sweaters. (No snow yet, though. I'm not ready for snow! lol)

Tornado warnings, what fun!

Last night I was yapping on the phone to my dad and noticed that there was a storm approaching lots of lightening. So, I think I should go and turn the TV on to see what the weather is doing. I turn it on and Holy Hell there was a tornado warning for a storm only about 15 miles away from me, and heading in our direction. So, I run to grab the HAM radio and I can't get it to work, thanks to my dear brother locking the keypad on it.
It was a stressful very minutes, as tornado warnings are (we were never actually under a warning, but the warning box ended very near us and would have been over us if it had been extended). In true sucktastic mothering style, I apparently scared the crap out of the girls. I didn't mean to, and I wasn't really scared myself, just getting ticked off at the radio and trying to shush them so I could hear the TV.
El had a nightmare last night, so apparently I scared her pretty badly. Le sigh.

National Novel Writing Month

Apparently, November is National Novel Writing Month.
http://www.nanowrimo.org/

So, I'm am putting the historical romance on the back burner for the month and going to try to write like mad on a contemporary romance set on the Gulf Coast. The goal is 50,000 words by the end of the month. We'll see.

Why, yes, I actually do have a life.

Surprising, I know, but really I don't sit on my ass all day every day. My life is not all writing and romance or romance writing. I get busy, and I get *gasp* tired. I was complaining to my mother about being tired and ready to drop earlier this week and she actually asked me what I could possibly have been doing to get so tired. Um, having a life?

Start the day with a walk, feed yourself and the buddy boy, get clean, dress both of you, fix his lunch, haul him to school, come home and slap some lunch together for yourself to go eat with your other two kids at 10:15am, then spend until 12:30 in their classroom doing their fall party, take them to the park and clean out the van while you are there, go get little boy, come home and throw some laundry in and feed some snacks, run to Tractor Supply, then to riding lessons where you can't sit down because there are 1000lbs animals running around and your 2 yr old is running around, too, come home cook dinner, eat dinner, clean kitchen. Just try it and tell me you wouldn't be ready to drop.

That was Tuesday. I ran all day yesterday, too. Today, I'm house cleaning because for some reason Halloween destroyed my house.

Hell yes I get tired and I have every fucking right to. So, pppphhhhbbbbbtttttt!

Having a wife around could be a really good thing

And I don't mean for the manwhore. I wouldn't mind having an extra wife around here myself, at times. Case in point: There is a woman who post on my mommy board that just had a baby and just so happens to be a lesbian. Her partner spent the last 9 months (not really, but at least 3 or 4) taking hormones and using a breast pump on a daily basis to induce lactation. Baby can now breastfeed from both moms, although at least right now, the bio-mom is making a bunch more milk than the non-bio-mom. Still, her supply will likely catch up if they keep this up.

I'm thinking that has to be like the coolest damned thing evah. It would totally rock to be able to hand the baby to your wife and say "I need a nap, to pee, to eat, to do something besides have this demanding creature suck on me for the next hour." Yeah sure, you could pump and hand the baby to dad, or grandma or someone with a bottle and make a run for it, but lots of women don't get much output when they pump. You could do formula, too, but that shit is expensive and stinks and lots of women just don't want to use it.

So, you could have a wife that is also lactating and share the duties. I would have killed to have had another woman, that I trusted, to help me nurse the girls. They were preemies and had trouble nursing, and with some time to devote one on one to each of them, we could have gotten over the hump. As it was, we ended up supplementing and then fully on formula. Not the end of the world, but it caused me a lot of stress and anguish at the time. Unfortunately none of the women I would ever consider trusting to nurse one of my children, and not be squicked out by nursing one of theirs happened to be lactating when I was, and it won't ever happen. Ce la vie.

I'm bored

I've done laundry, supper is simmering on the stove (chili for a chilly day) and while I could be cleaning something or writing, I don't wanna. I wan to be entertained, but I don't know what with. And the kids are whining and fussing. Wah.

I nominate myself Queen Hover Mother Supreme

There is a little boy in the girls' class that apparently raised a shitpot of money for the school fundraiser (yay for his parents' hard work). His prize is that he gets lunch with the principal at Chili's, a limo ride to get there, and he gets to invite a friend. That friend is my daughter Em. (The manwhore says she has her first date, at 5 yrs old. lol)

Queen Hover Mother Supreme realizes that her precious baby big girl daughter is going to be riding in a car. Must. Have. Carseat. So, I call the school. Um. They've never had to deal with carseats before, because no one has ever said their kid had to ride in one. WTF? Like I'm going to let my 32 lbs 5 yr old ride in a regular seat belt, or no seat belt. (Polishes crown.)

So, I will be schlepping a booster seat to school and fetching it back again tomorrow. Yay me. See my pretty crown?

I feel more like a real writer now

I went to my very first Romance Writers of America, Music City Chapter, meeting today. The women there were all very nice, and it was lots of fun. They had someone to give a little talk on using setting in your writing, and lots of chitchat about this and that in their lives and the romance industry. I will definitely be back next month. Eventually, I'll fork over the mulah to join. You have to join the national group as well as the local group, all of which costs about $100, so not this week. You get three free meetings before you have to pay up.

Someone give me a hole to crawl in.

And make it big enough for me to take my children. Today, amidst the fun of their first field trip and returning library books and practicing their letters, my children had a lockdown drill at school. A threat drill, they said.
What do you do during a threat drill? asked I.
Everybody goes into the bathroom and you leave the light off and stay completely quiet. Mrs. D stands with the door cracked just a little bit so she can see, Em told me.
Why do you do this? I ask.
If there is a stranger in the school that might hurt us, was the horrifying response.

My babies are practicing lockdown drills. I want to weep that our society has reached the point where this is even necessary. I mean, I'm glad they are doing it, I think. But I wish it weren't needed. I wish that no one had ever walked into a school with a gun or a bomb and hurt people and that schools were still thought of as a safe place for children to be. They are safe, I think, still, but we have to face the possibility that at some point, it might not be. And I have to trust their teacher and other adults that I don't know to keep my children safe from gunmen and bombers or other psychos that might take a notion to roam around their school.

Fortunately their school seems fairly safe in terms of people being able to get in, and the classrooms on the kindy wing all have doors to the outside, so they at least have an escape route.
But bloody fucking hell, lockdown drills.

Donuts are not breakfast.

Candy corn is not a snack. Donuts can be breakfast and candy corn can be snack, but they aren't healthy ones. They are not the ones you are going to feed our children. Yes, I'm talking to you, oh manwhore of mine. We pack lunches instead of buying lunches because of the crap they serve in the cafeteria. And you send them to school with a donut and candy corn. WTF? I had two girls complaining that daddy forgot to pack them a snack.

And puh-lease do not give me that line about there not being anything here to send. There is tons of food here, most of it bought with them in mind. Apples and cheese and peanut butter and crackers and cereal bars and yogurt and and and....


And yes, I know that candy and donuts won't hurt them occasionally, but they need something remotely nutritious to start the day and something filling for a snack. Besides, they were hungry! Our skinny little, bottom of the growth chart, kids were hungry at school, all because they had candy corn for a snack.

I bet the teacher was hating on you a bit, too.

A bit of self therapy

So, I'm readying the Intuitive Eating book and one of the things they talk about in giving up the diet mentality is giving up your scale, and I'm just not ready to do that. I think that I don't yet trust that I will actually lose weight this way, so I keep the scale and weigh myself to see if the process actually works.
I remind myself that it is all about little steps. Right now it is enough that I am doing well with my eating, and most of the time choosing stuff that is healthy and stopping when I am full, etc. I actually threw away some cake tonight. It just wasn't that good, so I didn't eat it. That is like a major break through for me.


Also, in other bits of self therapy, I was thinking about why I get so mad when the manwhore has to work late. I mean, I realize that he doesn't like being there until 6 or 7pm anymore than I dislike it. So why the hate on? I've realized that part of it is I just flat out miss him. He has changed his schedule from 7am-4pm to 8am-5pm so he can take the girls to school. So, he's home an hour later in the evenings than he used to be. That is less time that we have together in the evenings, and I miss him.
The other realization that I've had is that I sometimes wonder if he's having an affair (I've actually thought to myself that it's a good thing he's calling from his desk phone and I can see it on the caller id). Sad, huh? But, it has occurred me that I've been with two other men that were cheaters.
My first real boyfriend in high school, James, was dating someone else and I was "the other woman." In retrospect, I wonder what the hell my mother was thinking, because it wasn't a good thing for a 15 yr old girl. Then there was Chad. He was the last guy I dated before I met the manwhore. I thought he was so shy and whatnot that he would never cheat on me, even though we lived in different cities. I was IN LOVE with him, and thought I was going to marry him. He dumped me in an ugly, painful way and I found out later that he had been cheating on me.
So, two guys that I was in love with, both cheaters. And now, even though I have no reason to ever think that the manwhore would ever cheat, I have a fear of him cheating on me. He's shy and a bit nerdy like James and Chad, and they both cheated, so I've transfered that fear to him. Hence, the anger when he has to work late, I think.

The psyche is an odd thing, I do believe.

22 miles

That is how far I have walked and biked this week. 3 walks averaging 3 miles per walk and 2 times on the bike at 7 and 5 miles. And I'm in a groove with my eating and just generally feeling good.

I'm reading a book called Intuitive Eating, and it's all about listening to your body, etc, and giving up the diet mentality. I'm finding that rather hard to do, and hard to trust that when I listen to my body, I will actually lose weight. I haven't given up my scale, yet. I can't quite bring myself to go there. But, I'm doing really well with eating when I'm hungry, eating what appeals to me, and stopping when I am full.

People who have never been overweight sometimes don't understand the difficulty of stopping when you are full, but it can be really hard to do. I am an emotional/waste-not eater, so I eat when stressed and have a problem throwing food away. I also feel guilty about spending "too much money" at the grocery store, even though I am not the only one to eat the groceries. Odd, I know.

So, I'm working on my eating habits and trying to develop normal relationship with food. While this is not a diet, the idea is of course that once you do so, you should return to a normal weight. Yay. Except it is a slow and frustrating process, because I want to be skinny like yesterday.

Patience, my dear self, patience.

I should add

that it did have a nervous breakdown. It got a paper jam and when I cleared it, it started printing in a gigantic font on only half the page. Stupid thing.


Also, my sister in law, who I think reads this, will be happy to know that El quite gleefully told me that after they went swimming, Aunt D put her shorts on over her wet swimsuit and it looked like she peed in her pants. Followed by gales of laughter from both girls. lol

They had a blast, though and are looking forward to visiting again.

My printer is going to have a nervous breakdown

I'm printing off a copy of my book so I can attack it with a pen. A red one if I have one.

221 pages to be printed. I don't think the poor printed has ever done more than 2 or 3 pages at a time before. I think I hear it cursing me.

7 years of wedded bliss

Yesterday was our 7th wedding anniversary. In some ways, it seems like just yesterday. In others, it seems like we've been together forever and I can't even remember what my life was like before the manwhore and the kids and all of this.

We celebrated on Sat, and had lunch and saw a movie. Nothing special, just a few hours with just the two of us.

Buddy Boy stayed with his grandma, and the girls were all the way in Athens, GA with their aunt, the manwhore's sister.

They stayed with her for 3 nights, and I think they wore each other completely out. We met halfway to pick them up yesterday, and all three looked exhausted. The girls told me they wanted to ride with us this time instead of Aunt D.

But, they had fun, and Aunt D wants to have them down again sometime. I think she wants to continue brainwashing them to be UGA fans. Apparently, a highlight of the visit was taking the girls to the multitude of bulldog statues around town and taking pictures with Uga.

Today, the girls are back to school, and I have to email their teacher, because I totally forgot they had a little bit of homework. Whoops. Bad mom.

See what happens when you try and be healthy?

We went to the park today, and I decided we should walk. It is 1.5 miles down there, so 3 miles round trip. I put 2 in the wagon and one on a tricycle and figured they could switch up. I expected whining, and I got plenty of it.

What I didn't count on was forgetting to bring any blasted diapers or wipes. Which pretty much guaranteed that the Buddy Boy would crap in his diaper. He did. So much so that he had a blow out. Yum. Smell of rank poop for the 1.5 mile trip home.

I can't wait for this kid to potty train.

A sad little confession

My dad makes better cornbread than me. There I said it. Dad's is moist and yummy in all its just-rightness. Mine is always too dry and crumbly and lacking in flavor.

What a sad thing for a daughter to admit, that her dad can cook something better than she can. Unless of course Anthony Bourdin or Emeril Lagasse is your father.



PS. That is not my cornbread pic. I got it from some Wikipedia page.

Don't you just hate it

I was wiped out yesterday. Wiped. Out. Told the manwhore we were eating out because I wasn't cooking. I fully intended to order some booze with my meal, and I was so tired I forgot. Who the hell forgets booze?

So, I thought I would just fall into bed and be out like a light. I did fall into bed. And then I laid there. And laid there. And. Laid. There. Then I finally dozed off, and the buddy boy started crying. Manwhore was dead to the world, so off I went to settle the buddy back down. Crawled back to bed to lay there for a long time again before finally drifting off.

Then buddy boy climbed in bed with us about 5:30am and never went back to sleep. I managed to doze until about 6:30, and then I was up.

I skipped my walk today, and I'm just all around tired on whiny. I am going to sit on my chair-shaped ass today. Yay me!

I'm tired of being hot!

Its too hot. It is 95F here. That is too hot. I am ready for cool weather. That is all.

Dammit, I'm tired of being hot

I think that is my theme lately. I'm ready for fall, for the cooler weather, since it is technically fall now.

Saturday was the manwhore's company picnic. This year it was at the zoo, so we got in the zoo for free and got tokens for the carousel. It was so hot that I told the manwhore that we would see the elephants and giraffes and then stay in the historic farm, because it is all in the shade (These two areas are next to each other. It is like a half mile walk to get to the next nearest animal.The Nashville Zoo is lovely, for animals. It is big and spread out and too much walking for little kids.) It worked out well because they were having a Harvest Days festival in the historic farm. There were lots of crafty things for the kids to do. Candlemaking, churning butter, an old style washboard, painting "quilt squares" and all sorts of stuff. It was fun and a bit educational, too.

I got to talking to one of the women doing needlecrafts and apparently I know enough about them that she thought I was working the festival, too. You would think the lack of costume would have clued her in. In a way, it is a sad commentary, because I really don't know that much about needlecrafts. I am only an expert at crochet. Despite the revival of interest in knitting, I think too many other skills are falling by the wayside. Tatting is one that very few people seem to do these days. And the lady I was talking to was making a bed rug (pre-quilting era bed covering) and that is another fading art.

I am glad there are groups of people with enough interest in these things to be involved in reenactment or even just in preserving history arts and sciences.

Ramblings about a wanna be writer

My house is trashed, and I haven't even written that much this week. Not in a OMG somebody call CPS trashed sense. Just in a piles of laundry to do, haven't washed sheets in way too long, toys in the floor, need to run the vacuum sense. And, I haven't tidied my room if forever.

Oddly enough, having kids in school sometimes results in more running around. Trips to the grocery store and Target are so much easier without them underfoot. And so is writing. So, do I run errands, clean my house or try to write? I have not yet achieved balance in these three areas.


Also, I ran across something in an MSN romance writing tips group that gave a breakdown of the publishers that handle romance and the average first advance, subsequent advance, etc. There are a good handful that pretty much give you squat, e-publishers mostly. The Harlequin lines run in the $5000 range. Avon and a couple of other publishers run more like $13,000 for a first advance. *swoons* I want to be published by Avon!* There was even one that had first advances averaging something like $50,000 but it had a sample size of only about 5 or 6 authors, so who knows who and what they were.





*I realize that this info came from the internets and could totally be the workings of some freak, but a girl can dream, can't she?

If you can't marry a man with money,

marry one with Mr. Fix-it skills. Otherwise, you will find yourself having to do all the little things like fixing leaky faucets and replacing shower heads and stripping wallpaper and all that fun stuff.

I love my manwhore, truly, madly, deeply I do, but I do wish he had a smidgen of handyman skills. Just a few. Or, I wish that he could cook.

Thank you so much for telling me the shower was broken.

What a considerate manwhore I have. He broke the showerhead, and instead of telling me that he broke it and just shoved it back up there, he just shoved it back up there. I got a face full of water and a showerhead flying at my face this morning when I went to adjust the thing.

And what does the manwhore say when I call him to tell him about it? Oh just stick it back up there. No, no I will not. I will go and buy a new one and most likely install said new one, too.

The force of gravity exerted by a freshly mopped floor.

There is something about mopping a floor. Running a mop over a floor seems to enact a subtle change in the force of gravity. It can't be measured and it can't be felt my mere humans. In fact, witnesses claim that it even seems to fluctuate.
But, there is no denying that the force of gravity exerted by a freshly mopped floor is not the same as it was before it was mopped. You could go without mopping for days and days, leaving spots and splatters, or wiping them up with a sponge and would be unable to observe this phenomenon.

But, as soon as you pull out the mop and clean from one side of the floor to the other, scrubbing all the dirt off, the gravity field changes. Children sitting at the table with food and drinks will suddenly find themselves dropping utensils full of food. Messy bites of food will leap off of forks before they make it to mouths and splatter on the floor. Cups full of sticky lemonade or chocolate milk will be pulled from little hands to land with a splash to spreads sticky liquids all under the table. Even sippy cups with a lid are not immune. Just this morning I watched as the lid was pulled from a sippy cup upturned in mid-drink, and orange juice spilled down the front of my child, down the stool, on the table, but mostly all over the floor. All because I had mopped the floor after supper last night.


Mopping the floor pulls the ice cream right out of an ice cream sandwich and straight to the floor. Sometimes it takes some of the cookie part, too. I have seen with my own eyes that the pull of gravity from a clean floor will cause popsicles to break in half, leaving a sticky puddle of melted goo to be cleaned up.

Strangely, this phenomenon can be stopped, or at least greatly reduced by allowing the floor to become sufficiently dirty. If I make a mess cooking supper and leave a few splatters on the floor to be cleaned up after supper, like magic, no one will spill their drink at dinner. No child will drop his or her fork full of spaghetti. No sippy cups will lose their tops. Ice cream will not drip from its sandwich and popsicles will not break before being consumed.

It doesn't take much. Just a few little splatters, maybe even a dropped bit of tomato or onion. A drift of lettuce that escaped from a salad. That's enough to break the spell on the floor and the force of gravity will return to normal. Even sweeping or wiping up the mess with a cloth doesn't restore the spell. All will be well.

That is, until the mop is pulled out once more, and pushed across the floor, cleaning the dirt from all the corners and leaving the floor shiny clean in its wake. Only then will the force of gravity once more begin to fluctuate and once again forks and cups will fall, popsicles will snap in two until enough dirt has accumulated on the floor to break the spell yet again.

This I truly believe.

A great day in the Piece household!

So, Ellie has vesicouretareal reflux, or urinary reflux. Her pee flows back up towards her kidney on one side when she pees. She had her yearly test to see if it is improving today. There were much tears on her part, since the test involves a cath and radioactive stuff in the bladder, etc. I would probably cry, too. Hell, it makes me want to cry when she had to have these tests. But, today will probably be the last one, because the urologist told us he sees no sign of reflux in her films from today! Yay!
I was blinking back tears in the office. No more tests, no more daily antibiotics, and hopefully just one more trip to Children's Hospital to see him in 6 months. I am over the moon, and so glad that my child no longer has a "condition."

Also, we were able to walk right into the Dept of Vital Records and get the kids' birth certificates in less than 10 mins. 3 months waiting on them in the mail and calling the office to be told they aren't in the system, blah blah blah, and today the lady said it must have gotten lost in the mail. Why she couldn't have told me that over the phone, I have no clue, but now we have them, the school has copies and all it good with that.

And, on Sunday last, we dropped by J and L's house to see if they had any money for it. It was an awkward visit, (on the manwhore's and my part, they seemed oblivious) but we walked away with $150. Not much, but it is better than nothing. And, it restored some good feelings on my part.

One more and, the manwhore left his first "sample" to see if he's shooting blanks yet. Hot and heavy baby batter free loving might be in my near future.

Pissants and Fattybelle

The ants are back. The ants go in, the ants go out, the ants go marching round about.
Now, I don't mind them so much. Mostly they are just a hassle. But, I have two delicate daughters that freak the fuck out over bugs, so we have to get out the bug spray and soak the floors and all.
This time, they were after a half of a peanut butter bagel that Em must have dropped on the floor on Sat.
We've been gone since Sat. You can imagine the swarm of ants we discovered this morning in the kitchen floor.
So, the kitchen as been de-anted, at least temporarily. Who knows how long they will stay gone.

Several months ago, my parents' neighbors had a house/trailer fire. They are still living in a hotel and the burned out shell of a trailer is still sitting there. Supposedly they are waiting on the insurance people.

When they left, they went off and left their cat. Somehow she figured out that mother and dad have food and would feed her. She showed up at the door asking to be fed. So, mother and dad have a new cat.

We think she is a sweet little thing, and all she does is eat, eat, sleep, eat, sleep, sleep, have a snack, sleep, snack, nap, eat. You get the idea. She doesn't even get up to go potty. She does that when she gets put out at night. And she loves to be petted. Very sweet.

My young cousin is friends with the cat's teenager former owner, and told mother and dad the cat's name is Tinkerbell. Well, as you can imagine, all that eating and sleeping and sleeping and eating has had an effect on the cat, and I said, "She isn't a Tinkerbelle, she's a Fattybelle!" So, that's what I've been calling her, and she actually responds to Fattybelle. lol

Now, cousin K and her friend have said that Fattybelle is mean and they hate her and she scratches and stuff. When mother told me this I went WTF? "Fattybelle? That cat right there laying on the floor in a food coma?"

Because let me tell you, this cat would have to wake up long enough to be mean, and it's just not happening. When she does actually wake up, she will come up to you and ask to be petted, if she's not eating.

So, I'm thinking that maybe they weren't feeding poor Fattybelle enough and she was mean because she was hungry. I'd be mean too if I didn't get fed on a regular basis. Come to think of it, I'm a bit of a Fattybelle, myself.

My husband is clearly not a man.

In all the consignment sale madness, we took one of the cribs to try and sell it (the other one is at my parents' house). The sale people make you put it together, which is a good idea. They can make sure all the parts and pieces are there.

So, the manwhore loads the crib up in the truck, along with some other stuff, then says to me, "Where are my tools?" Now, no self respecting man has to ask where his tools are. He should know these things at all times. But, my manwhore doesn't know where his tools are since he tends to leave them laying around when he gets done with them. So, I have to look at them laying on the dresser or whatnot until I'm sick of looking at them, and I put them up myself.

So, the tools are in the toolbox or the tool drawer and the manwhore doesn't know where they are, and I have to go and find his tools for him. Clearly, he is not a man.

Consignment sale madness

I have a love/hate relationship with consignment sales. I mean, on the one hand, who doesn't mind getting rid of old and outgrown kid clothes and toys and getting some money for them in return? On the other hand, it's a buttload of work to sort and tag stuff. And then you have to haul it to the sale and stand there while some chick goes through it all and decides if it's good enough to put in the sale. I mean, I totally understand that they have to have standards, and they did find a few stains that I had missed. But they sent back a toy because it was missing part of a sticker. I mean WTF? If they want it to look new, maybe they should buy something new.

I still have stuff to sort, too. I ran out of hangers and have some baby clothes to get gone, too. Plus, if I want to put forth the effort, I can try and de-stain the stuff they rejected.

I get to go pick up everything that didn't sell in a week. Then, I will resort and retag anything that needs it and put it in another sale a week later. There is usually one more sale in November for Xmas crap, too. yay.

But, I do usually make money, sometimes over $100 at them.

Luciano Pavoratti

Died today at the age of 71 of pancreatic cancer. I was fortunate enough to see him in concert one time, in 2000. A fabulous tenor and a great loss to the musical world. Peace to him and to his family.

His last performance in 2006 at the Olympics in Turin:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZaufjDVYivc

The sound of silence

My house is strangely quiet today. The tv is off, no one is asking me for a snack. The only sound I hear is the typing of the my fingers on the keyboard. It's amazing. It's a bit disconcerting.

Today is Buddy Boy's first day of Mother's Day Out (MDO) or preschool or what ever they call it for 2 yr olds. He was totally fine. We walked right in, and he started to go downstairs where the girls went last year, and I told him "No, your class is this way," and away we went. He totally ignored the one kid that was screaming bloody murder (in what was quite clearly a tantrum, since he wasn't actually crying, just screaming) and the little girl that was sympathy crying. He had a truck, and he was set.

They have the oddest tables for the little ones. It is a big, dark brown table with seats built into it for little kids, like a group high chair. Very odd. I wish I had thought to take a picture of it. I'll have to do that at some point.

But, at the same time, a genius idea for kids that little, because that way they can make them all sit when they need to, like at lunch time.

My silence will be short lived today, though, because the manwhore called and asked me to come have lunch with him. I don't know if we will know how to act without the kids underfoot.

150 pgs, 15 chapters and 44,000 words

That's how far along I am in my trashy romance novel, and I just wrote one entire chapter that was nothing but sex. SEX Actually, it is the first time my characters have had sex. Up until now, they've been making out occasionally, but no sessytime.

Also, the manwhore has found that he is liking being married to a romance writer. I write big, long, hot sex scene, get my self all hot and bothered in the process and drag him off to bed to make him all hot and bothered.

Here is the URL for my draft on gather.com. I don't know if it will take you to it, or not, though.
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977100385
It might not be available for the masses yet, since it seems the forum is moderated.

On a totally unrelated note, we went to the Meet the Teacher night at Tues/Thurs School for Sam. When I signed him up last spring, I was having lots of doubts about sending him to Mother's Day Out/preschool. He is only 2, after all. But, since El and Em have started school, he has been lonely and bored. He misses them immensely and wears his little backpack all day long. So, I think that it will be a good thing for him to go.

Fortunately the money issues are starting to even out a bit, so we can afford to send him.

The money issues have caused me to download some budgeting software, though, because I dislike being caught without a safety net. What if that $1000 had had to go to some major repair, instead of my sil's bounced check?

So, a budgeting we will go. I don't intend for us to end up in debt every time we have some unexpected expenses.

I've taken my writing to the masses

The online masses, anyway. I've joined an online critique group. If any of you would like to and read my trashy romance novel, at least th first chapter, you can.

Go to http://romancewriting.gather.com/ You will have to join gather.com and then join the group, it's free to do so.

Please, be gentle with me. I'm a crit group virgin.

Holy hell.

Maybe I should say Holy Terror! That's what the Buddy Boy is being this AM. He just came up and slapped me. WTF? Time out for you!

Bless his heart, though, he's having a rough morning. He wanted to go to school, too, and had a meltdown when he couldn't go. Then I decided to do yoga and not walk today, so he was mad about that.

I'm glad we signed him up for preschool. (Preschool. Haha! It's Mother's Day out when you are 2.)
If he hates it, we won't make him go, but I think he will enjoy it, and it will make it easier on him when the girls are gone if he gets to "go to school" twice a week, too.

Water + electronics = not a good thing

I was a yapping on the phone to my mommy today and not paying much attention to the Buddy Boy. Whilst I paid not attention, he dumped my cup of water out on the keyboard. When I picked it up, water poured out of it. Pbbtt, sizzle, phhtt.
The manwhore went to WalHell and bought me a spiffy new one. (On a credit card, which I hate, but it will be paid for post haste.)
This one curves in the middle, which is taking a bit to get used to. But, I am back in the typing business after a very long day of not being able to type. lol

I don't think I've ever been this glad to see a check in the mail.

Vanderbilt has this annoying habit of over billing us for stuff, and we occasionally get checks in the mail from them. We got one yesterday.

Normally, I don't open the manwhore's mail. I leave that privilege to him, since one of life's little pleasures is getting mail with your name on the envelope. Besides, when I saw this one was from Vandy, I assumed at first it was a bill for something. God knows what, since they have a habit of sending us bills months, and at least once, more than a year, after the visit to their hallowed halls.

But, I spied the little words payable to next to the manwhore's name (this was one of those envelopes with a window in it), and I was so excited at the thought it might be a check, I opened it. It was a check for $76.30. I seriously almost cried. I don't think I've been that happy over $76 since I was a broke grad student, and probably not even then because I didn't have children to feed.

So now, thanks to Vanderbilt, we have about $250 to get us through until the next paycheck. Such a little thing, to cause such joy.


Now, before all of my friends and family get the impression that we are on the verge of starvation, we aren't. The bills are paid, and we have groceries and we have gas in the cars. It's just really, really tight. We can even still afford for the girls to keep riding, but can't afford for me to, right now. If it were bad enough, we could cancel Netflix and my cell phone and the riding lessons, and what not, but we don't even have to do that, so far.

So, in my absolute fury at my brother and his cunt of a wife, I remind myself that we are fortunate indeed that the manwhore has a job that pays well enough that we can be shorted $1000 and still make it work. For many, many people, that amount of money would be a catastrophe. It isn't a walk in the park for us, but we won't starve and the lights won't be cut off. Hell, we can still watch as many movies as we want through Netflix.

We are fortunate, indeed.

I'm still pissed at them about the money, though.

I'm ruining the neighbor's notions about me.

So I was told by one of my neighbors this morning. I had already been for a walk and then was out pulling weeds from the flower beds. She told me to go inside and eat some bon bons. lol

In my defense (like I need one), this was the first walk I've taken in months, and I haven't exactly been earning a green thumb with the flower beds. The weeds like me, though.

The girls are off to school, since no one else is puking, and even though I've not been well with a mild case of the stomach yuck and a cold, I want to get off my blubbery ass, so off I went. I realized that I've rather missed exercise. I like the high afterwards.

But good fuck, it was already yucky hot at 7:30 am. I was dripping. And I wasn't even pushing myself hard since I know I'm still a bit sick.

Also, I was dismayed at how fast some of the people were driving through our neighborhood. There are lots of middle schoolers that walk, since the school is less than a mile away, plus exercise walkers. One fuckwad in a BMW severed around another walker and passed so close to me and the Buddy Boy that I could have touched the car. Then he gunned it. So, if your middle school age daughter goes home and tells you about the crazy lady yelling at the car, I offer my apologies. Under the circumstances, I don't think "Hey asshole, slow down!" was too uncalled for.

The germs are coming, the germs are coming!

Run for the hills!! AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!

So, El is home from her second day of kindergarten with a stomach virus. Fever Sat, puked once yesterday, thought she was better and got her ready for school this morning, and she puked again. She at least tried to make it to the bathroom, though, instead of puking on the kitchen table. Bless her heart.
And, now it seems the other end has it, too.

And the manwhore and I are both feeling a little bit queasy. Blech. Toast and bananas for all, today. I rather stupidly started the day off with a cup of coffee. I know realize that coffee and queasy stomach are not a good combination, and I have a cup of lemon ginger tea in front of me.

Plus, I'm getting stuffy, so apparently what the manwhore thought was an allergy attack was really a cold.

I think I'm going to flood the house with Lysol.

The couch again?

The manwhore has a cold/allergy attack or something causing him to hork and sniff copious amounts of mucus. Yummy. And, of course, since he snores, being all stopped up with 10lbs of snot in his head, he is snoring even more and even louder.

Last night, I gave up and slept on the couch. I'm betting I will again tonight.

Why is it that the victim of the snoring is the one to sleep on the couch and not the perpetrator of the snoring?

And they're off.

Off to kindergarten. Today is El's and Em's first day of kindergarten. The fact that they are doing kindergarten readiness (2 planned years of kindy, basically) has not really made this any easier. They will still be gone from 7:15 or so, when the manwhore takes them, until 2:45 when I pick them up. Well, not today, today is a half day. But still, my babies are growing up.

I was having terrible doubts last night about putting them in KR instead of regular kindy. You know, we're basically planning to hold them back, what if they regret it at some point, etc. But, this morning, when I saw that they are the smallest ones in this class of children with late summer/early fall birthdays, I felt better. Hopefully they won't be so small that they are targets for teasing and such. If they had gone to reg kindy, there would have been kids in their class that were almost a whole year older, like the little girl next door. She is Dec to Aug older, and outweighs them by 15 or more lbs and is a whole head taller. So, being little in a class of other mostly littles isn't such a bad thing.

As for me, I've shed a few tears. I was doing ok until Sam started walking around calling them. "EEEEyyyeeee! EEEEEmmmmmmmaaaaa! Where are you? Come home now!"
I burst into tears at that.

Musings

So, the birthday party was lovely, and we weren't inundated with toys. One giant Barbie horse and carriage was the worst. They love it, though.

We started the day with our first riding lesson, and I was so proud of Emma for deciding to ride. She was worried that the horse was a bit big, and she is, but it's all that's available right now. Belle, the horse, is a total sweetie, though. And frankly, she is more interested in taking a nap than in walking around in circles. The only way the girls could fall off this horse is if the horse falls over asleep.

I hate the aftermath of parties, though. We still haven't managed to get the kitchen completely pulled back together.

Oh! But my lovely sister in law (the manwhore's sister, not my brother's bitch of a wife) told me she thought the cakes were store bought. High praise indeed for my mad cake decorating skills!

Speaking of my slack jawed excuse for a brother and sil, they didn't show, and thus we still haven't seen any money out of them. Assholes.

As for me, I am ready for fall. 104* temps day after day is too much. I want cool mornings with gently warm afternoons. I want the smell of woodsmoke and the crunch of leaves underfoot. I want October's bright blue skies. I'm sick of summer!

5 yrs ago this night

I was being prepped for an emergency c-section, and more terrified than I had ever been in my life. I was 30 weeks pg, and after 6 weeks of bedrest, PTL and PROM, I was in labor and contracting every minute.

El was born at 12:41 am, Aug 8, weighing 2 lbs, 8 oz.
Em was born at 12:44 am, weighing 2 lbs, 14 oz.


Tomorrow, they will be 5, and they are 36 and 34 lbs, and beautiful and smart and normal! (Em has had to deal with PT, but she's overcome so much this year.)


So,the pics are Ellie, Emma, Emma's feet when she was about a week old, and the day we brought them home.

Happy 5th birthday to my precious girls!

Fun at the Fair!

The manwhore's company sponsors the county fair in the next county over (it's where the company headquarters is located) and employees get in for free on Sat. So, we went to the fair.

Only, the manwhore forgot that the ride passes were only good until 5pm, and we got there about 4:15 or so. By the time we wondered around a bit, it was almost 5pm, and the kids only got to ride 2 rides. But, there was plenty of other fun stuff to do, like finger painting in the science tent, and painting in the art tent, and playing farm in the Children's farm. We fed camels and goats and sheep and a horse in the petting zoo, petted bunnies and goats in the 4H shed. (Bunnies are really cute and most of them were for sale for $20 or less. I was very tempted to come home with a bunny, but want a dog, so no bunny.)

Then we went inside to the gloriously air conditioned main hall, and spent $30 on arm bands for the kids to play on the inflatables for as long as they wanted. We finally drug them out at 10pm. They were all asleep long before we got home, and we were able to shift the girls to bed without waking them up. The buddy boy had to have a diaper and a dry shirt, so he got woken up briefly, but conked back out. The little turd was awake at 6:30 or so this morning, too. *Yawn!*

But, we had a blast, so it was all good.

And, I have to brag on my Em. This child, who a year ago couldn't run, was climbing a climbing wall, going through a tire obstacle course and climbing the ladders for the slides on the inflatables just as well as El. If I can figure out how to download pictures from my phone, I'll post some.

I can't believe they will be 5 in 3 days. Time flies, and I wish it didn't. I wish I could have back some of that time to enjoy it again. Hell, I wish I remembered more of their first few months. We were so tired that it's all a blur. I wish I could live it again and have sense enough to ask for help, because we needed it and weren't getting it. But, we can't. Time moves forward, and life goes on. And on Friday, they have their testing for kindergarten, and in a week, they start kindergarten.

We're doing Kindy readiness, which is not really pre-K, but more like an extra year of Kindy, which makes me feel a little more emotionally prepared, but they will still be gone from 7:45-2:45, M-F, for the entire school year. My babies are really and truly gone, and I have two beautiful big girls now.

Life's little pleasures.

One of those is eavesdropping. How fun is it to get to listen to some stranger make an ass out of themselves in public? (Even more fun is when people are talking about something juicy, but tonight was ass making time.)

The scene: Red Robin, which is a restaurant that makes yummy hamburgers. You must eat there, if you eat meat. Quick, like a bunny, go eat at Red Robin!

The players: Me, listening. A group of grumpy old men, who look like retired military, bitching and complaining.

So, we order our food and are doing our thing. These guys are sitting at the table behind me and the order their burgers. The waiter is asking them how they want them cooked, and Grumpy Old Man 1 says "Medium rare."
Waiter: "I'm sorry, sir, the rarest we can do is just medium."
GOM1: "Well, I guess it will have to be medium, then."
Waiter leaves.
GOM1, to his friends: "Can you believe that? They won't cook my burger medium rare. What kind of place is this anyway? That sign says gourmet hamburgers! I don't want a bunch of dried up meat (me either, but I suspect that Bill will get old one day. Whoops, wrong kind of meat.) What is the world coming to, the government is telling me how to eat my hamburger. Next they're going to tell me I have to drink my beer at 40 degrees and not at 42 degrees. No way am I leaving this guy a tip. Damned right I won't tip him for it!"

And on and on with various rants about people trying to run his life because he can't have his damned burger cooked half raw.

I was mentally laughing at him until he started saying that he wasn't going to leave the waiter a tip. Then I got mad (the former waiter in me was offended). I mean, it isn't the poor waiter's fault that the company has a policy of not serving up a helping of food poisoning to its customers. I'm sure they prefer not to be sued.

Fortunately, the ordered an appetizer, and the manager brought it out. GOM1 asked him why he couldn't have his med raw burger, and the managed nicely explained about company policy, but said he would personally make sure his burger was as close to med raw as he could make it.

GOM1 was mollified. Food was served. He ate it. When the waiter asked how things were and if they needed anything, Gom1 replied that everything was just fine and everything was good and he didn't need a thing. Big ol' pussy man.

The trouble with people who garden

I have come to realize that gardening is just another form of pissing contest.

People who garden get off on bragging about how much bigger their garden is than so-and-so's, or they have the perfect variety of produce, because so-and-so is growing Silver King corn or bigboy tomatoes and who likes those? And look at how many tomatoes I have, cause I know how to grow tomatoes, yes I do. Or, the gardener grows something he doesn't like to eat because it was requested and makes a big deal out of how magnanimous he is for this act of altruism.


Furthermore, people who garden have problems with their understanding of amounts. You cannot tell a gardener to send you just a few of something, because no one will eat it but you. Oh no, the gardener will hear "Send me..." and that's it. His brain tunes out after that. Or, more likely, he was sprinting towards the garden, bushel basket in hand by that point. The only thing left to do is to prepare yourself to be covered up in fresh produce, and if you don't compost, you might as well start, because unless you want to get into canning and freezing, half of it is likely to rot before you eat it. I don't care how many mozzarella, tomato and basil salads you think you can eat, you will be sick of them before you are out of tomatoes.

Besides, I have better things to do with my time than spend 4 hrs shelling butter peas, merely to end up with only about 1.5 qts of the damned things. Yes, they are good. Yes, they taste better than lima beans (almost anything tastes better than lima beans) but if I wanted to shell peas, I would have my own damned garden. (Yes, I could have tossed them in the compost pile, but I have a thing about wasting food, so I shelled peas and watched all of my netflix dvds.)

On the plus side, I told the family gardener that my side of the family would be glad of some fresh produce, so when you see them on the girls birthday, be sure and load them up. insert evil laugh

It's 5 o'clock somewhere, right? RIGHT?!

Dear lord, it has been a day. Yesterday was a bit of a day, too, but holy shit, today.

Yesterday I took dds to the dentist for the first time (yeah, I know they should have gone long ago. Sue me.) I would have bet money that Ellie would freak and Emma would do fine. I would have lost. Emma clamped her mouth shut and wouldn't let them do x-rays or much cleaning, because hte x-ray didn't look like the one in the Dora book and she had already brushed her teeth and they were clean. lmao
Ellie let them get x-rays and let the hygenist clean them really, really good and let her scrape a bunch of tartar off her bottom teeth, and that took about 10 minutes. I was totally amazed.

Today, they had their 5 yr well checks and it was total chaos. Never again will I take Sam with us when we go. (I swore I wouldn't ever take him again after I took all three of them when he was just a few months old and at one point I was holding two crying girls and the dr was holding a crying baby. Apparently, I lost my mind, again.)
So, they balk about reading the eye chart. Emma balked about peeing in the cup. She balked about putting on the gown. Sam was literally trying to climb the walls because the room was decorated with sports balls and he wanted them.

So, we get all the stuff we need to done and even get them to pee in the cups (Em had to go so bad she couldn't really argue). Then, they had to get shots. 4 of them, each. They cried and cried, but settled down when the nurse brought them a lollipop.
Sam had a meltdown then, because he didn't get a lollipop.

THEN, we had to go downstairs to the lab to get a blood draw. We walked in the lab and Sam started crying. Obviously, he remembered having to get his own finger stuck a month or so ago. We go back to the room with the phlebotomist and I swear to fuck it sounded like a torture chamber with all three of them crying, loudly, the whole time.

Good hell.

But, on the plus side, dds are firmly on the growth charts now. Emma is in about the 13th % for weight and 11% for height. Ellie is about 25% for weight and 20% for height.

Wait, that isn't making sense because Ellie weighs more, but Emma is taller. Oh well, they are both healthy and that is all that matters. lol



Also, the manwhore is a study in what not to do after having a vasectomy. Playing basketball, not that bad of an idea, right? Not until he misses the ball and it hits him square in the nuts.

I'm sad to report that I missed it because I was out taking a walk. He was back to the advil and ice packs last night, though.

This, that and the other.

First off, it seems I have forgotten to mention that the manwhore survived having his nuts violated on Friday. The snip snip went well, although he reports that it hurt quite a bit, despite the anesthetic. But, he was off the loratab by Sat morning and just taking advil, and I don't think he's taken anything today. He went to the bookstore and Target with me yesterday and was fine and dandy. My mother in law has made herself the most wonderful person ever, in my eyes, by taking Em and El with her for the weekend. They just got back a bit ago.

Speaking of the bookstore, I went and bought my copy of Harry Potter, which I'm sure I will end up passing on to my nephew. I'm done with it (and the house is a sty, despite the missing kids because I've done nothing but read for two days), and I must say, I laughed a little, but I cried a lot. Tears of sadness and tears of joy, but lots of tears. Whoever leaked the info about three deaths in the book had obviously not read the book at all, and that's all I'm going to say about that.

Oh, yes! I almost forgot. Apparently the gods love me this week. Lenscrafters called yesterday to tell me my glasses were in, a mere 4 days after I ordered them, instead of the 7-10 days they told me. Yay! And on the way to pick them up, what was left of the hinge on the old pair snapped, so they lasted just long enough (I have prescription sunglasses, too, so I wasn't blinded before getting the new ones).

So, it's been a good weekend. Yay!

The next few days we will be running, as the girls have dentist appointments and well visits with their doctor over the next 2 days.

A rose by any other name

would smell so sweet, yes?

Ok, my few and faithful readers. I need you assistance. As some of you might be aware, I am working on my writing career and attempting to write a trashy romance novel. At almost 100 pgs into, I think I'm not doing too bad, although I foresee some major revisions in some cheesy assed scenes involving bad poetry and temper tantrums on the part of my heroine.

At any rate, I apparently suck at coming up with titles. I used to be good at it, at least in terms of research papers and shit, but I can't come up with a decent working title for this book.

So, help a bitch out, will you?

The time: Elizabethan England.
The plot: The only daughter of a wealthy merchant is given in an arranged marriage, against her will, to a Lord who she thinks needs the cash. He doesn't, but he owes her father a favor, and he is longing for a loving family life and sees that she has that with her parents (at least until she gets pissed at them for making her marry him).
She is slightly more than mildly obsessed with Shakespeare's and other's plays, especially those about trwue wuv, and wants to marry for love, not money or status and lies to the hero to try to get out of marrying him.

There will likely be an antagonist who wants to marry her himself, because his is a gambler and has lost all of his father's money and is about to be run out of town on a rail, or tossed in the Thames with a rock tied to his feet for failing to pay his creditors. He stalks the heroine, even after she is married to the hero, in a mad attempt to get her and her money.

So, eventually the hero and heroine will live HEA (happily ever after) of course, and during all of that there will be SEX! lots and lots of sex!
But I need a title. I'm tired of calling it trashy novel. The only thing I've come up with is A Marriage by Any Other Name, and I don't really love that. It's too long for one thing.

So, toss some ideas my way. KTXBye.

What will J.K. Rowling do now?

Think about it, really. What will she do now? Rowling as accomplished a once in a lifetime feet in creating the Harry Potter phenomenon. 7 books that are runaway bestsellers, movie rights to all of them. Companion books, toys out the wazoo. Shitpots of money for her. At an estimated worth of 1 billion dollars, she the richest woman in Britain now.

But, she's a writer, and writing is an itch that begs to be scratched. The more you ignore it, the more it itches. She has to be totally sick of Harry Potter and the Hogwarts world by now, though. After all, she's been at this since 1990, I think. I believe that is when she first had the idea for Harry Potter, anyway.

So, what now? What will she write next? Because I just can't believe that she will be content to sit back and do nothing but spend her shitpots of money. Yes, writers write to make money, and she has accomplished that. But writers have stories buzzing around in their heads, too. Stories that want out. And I fear that unless she writes under a pseudonym that never again will any word she puts to paper be good enough for the masses of fans of HP across the world.

But there is no doubt she is a talented writer, one capable of creating a fabulous new world, and I for one, hope that she continues to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard, as the case may be) and continues to write. Children's books, adult books, mysteries, trashy romance novels. I don't care. Talented writers are always a pleasure to read (except Stephen King, at least for me).

So, JK Rowling, please don't put down your pen!

INFP

That's my score on a Jung personality test.

Introvert Intuitive Feeling Perceptive That's me.


Take it for yourself and see what you are.

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes1.htm

$464.20

That is the price of my new pair of glasses. Ouch. And that was after the nice lady pulled a 25% discount out of her ass for me. They were like $615 or something before the discount. I stopped listening after she said 6....
I knew they were going to be high, because I had to go and pick out a pair of Versace frames. Silly of me, I know. But I really like them, and they have sparkles on the side. Very silly, I know. But, the frames were only $244 of the price. That means the lenses themselves were almost $400. Ack! Me and my damned half blind, astigmatic eyes. And let's not forget the glaucoma. Fuck it for making me unable to wear contacts anymore, which at about $120 for a pair of them (that lasted for years) were much cheaper than the damned glasses.
We can still file them on our insurance, too, so hopefully we'll get part of that back.

Did I mention they were $464.20? Don't forget the $.20.

I need new glasses

I hate buying new glasses. Completely hate it. Well, actually, I hate wearing glasses in general and miss my contacts like crazy. Fuck you, glaucoma.
That said, I have come to realize that glasses can add a bit of character to my otherwise delicate features. But, still, I hate having to buy new ones.
I am forced into because Em smacked me across the face last night (it was a total accident, btw) and it broke part of the hinge on my glasses. No can fixy, so new glasses for you!
The last two pair I've had both came from EyeMasters and they have both broken in the same way, so I'm going to Lenscrafters this time. Besides, they have this nifty 30 day guarantee where you can change them out until you love them. Or get your money back. Lenscrafters it is.

But, I still hate getting new glasses. I've been perusing their website today and I hate 99% of the styles they have. The trends are leaning towards colored frames, big chunky plastic frames ala 1980 and huge, wide arms. Bleck. I just want something simple, but not manish looking. Elegant, I suppose. Also, not costing $400 would be great, since I will be spending about $300 on just the lenses. If I paid $700 for a pair of glasses, I would be afraid to wear them. :lol

So, why do I hate getting new glasses? Well, I feel like they are part of my face and getting new ones means I am changing part of my face and I get all traumatized by it. I feel weird for about a week and feel like people are looking at me oddly because my face has suddenly changed. Of course, most people don't even notice. Hell, the last time I got new glasses, my own mother didn't notice until I pointed them out to her.

More exciting updates as I pick out some fabulous new glasses.

Home sweet home

We are home, at last. We left here 11 days ago, on the 4th of July. We are all pooped and so glad to be back. Its the driving that gets me. It didn't help that I was crammed in the back beside Em with very little leg room. I didn't get out of the van from Foley until we got to Mother's, so my legs were cramped.
I could have happily stayed another week at the beach, though. A week just isn't quite long enough because there is just too much to do and you want to be on the beach but you also want to shop or sightsee and you just can't do it all. One day maybe we can afford 2 weeks.

The last day of vacation

I should be making pancakes for 13 people, but not yet. Ellie just got up, so the kids won't be ready to eat for a bit. So, I will tell you about our vacation. The amazing thing about it is that we are having so much fun. Amazing? Why amazing, you ask? After all, aren't we at the beach? Yes, indeed we are. But prepare yourself to laugh and be horrified.
We started the week on Sunday with Bill taking Sam and Emma to run to the store. Only, he forgot that the driveway wasn't straight and he dropped the driver's side wheels of my van off the concrete and got stuck. Really, really stuck. Like tire buried in the sand stuck. We took lots and lots of pictures. Heh heh. Fortunately, the neighbor had a shovel and there was a random piece of board laying around and between me, Bill, my dad, my brother, my 17 yr old nephew and 2 neighbors, we dug out the front tire and got the board under it enough for Bill to pull forward and get on the concrete. There was much angst on my part about my pretty new van, but it came through unscathed. And, the manwhore has convinced me that he must be the milkman's kid, because he stayed calm and laughed about it through the whole thing. His dad would have had a stroke.
Later that afternoon, we get to the beach and I'm thinking it was just perfect, even though the waves were a bit rough (ie, there were waves, since this is the Gulf Coast and usually has waves about the size of those you'd find on a large lake). It wasn't too hot, the breeze was nice and the water was warm. And apparently full of jelly fish. 2 of my nephews, Bill and I all got stung.
And, I apparently don't know how to apply sunscreen because I missed half of my body and I got sunburned.

Tuesday, oldest nephew was swimming again and got stung again.

Wed, mother asked us what we thought all the little bugs were. Um, don't know, but I'll call the real estate people because I'm not trying to wash comforters. They send the exterminator and the cleaning crew. The exterminator informs us that they are lice. WTF?!?!?! Ew! Yuck! Horrors! Google informs me that they are probably body lice not head lice which means they should be easier to get rid of (hot water and soap should do the trick) but they can carry diseases. Barf.

Later that night, the manwhore and I are out on a date, sans children, when we hear the shopkeeper of the shop we were in talking on the phone saying "Tornado warning." Fuckitall. So, I call mother and sure enough, the county we're in is under a tornado warning and it was heading straight for us. We dithered for a bit and walked down to the theater to buy Harry Potter tickets for the next day. I stood watching the palm trees blowing in the increasing winds, took a look at the 150ft ferris wheel we were standing under and decided it was time to go. Just as we ran for the car, the bottom fell out of it and I looked like I had stepped into a shower. We got back to the house all right and discovered that out here, 30 miles from where we were, it hadn't even rained.

Thursday, we went to the zoo and saw Harry Potter, and got to watch my brother and sil have a white trash fight in front of the movie theater. HP was good, though. Later that night, I picked 3 lice out of Sam's hair. Barf.

So, today is Friday. I wonder what will befall us today, or even tomorrow on the way home. But, in between all of the crisises (how do you spell that? Firefox is stumped lol) we are having a blast. The water is calm now, the jellies are gone, the pool is fun. We've shopped and eaten good food and drunk a bunch of booze. Loads of good times for all.

Is it bedtime yet?

I'm pooped. Totally worn out and want to go to bed. But it is only 8:30 and the kids are still up. We're leaving at 6am, heading for the beach, tomorrow morning. And, for whatever insane reasons (sex) the manwhore and I have been up until about 1am everynight for the last 3 nights. So, the idea of having to crawl out at 5:30 in the am is not a fun one.

On a side note, I think a cat has adopted my parents. Their neighbors had a house fire a few weeks ago and they seem to have just left their cat. She's an outside cat and they left some food out, but she has eaten it all up and no one has been to check on her. So, she came and basically knocked on my parents' door and asked to be fed. She ate non-stop for about 30 mins and then slept for hours. She pretty much hasn't moved from in front of the food bowl all day. She's a sweetie and I named her Patches. lol

Breast reduction surgery

I have wanted a breast reduction for almost as long as I can remember. The new blog I added to my sidebar is a chronicle of someone on my mommy board who has had a reduction. I am watching with fascination.

I do not understand why anyone would want to have breasts this big. They've sagged since I was about 15. When I was in high school, I never had a properly fitting bra because they just didn't sell them that big in stores. They still don't, but at least now I have the internet. They get in the way. I have actually burned a breast trying to reach something and bumping a hot skillet. My back hurts ALL. THE. TIME. If I sleep on my back, I wake up with my chest wall hurting from the weight. Women who get implants larger than a D cup are insane, IMO.

So, since we are sure we are done having kidlets, I am done with the boobs. When we get back from vacation, I will make an appoint to see my gyn and see if she will give me a referral to a surgeon. I do think it is going to be about 6 months before I can have it done because I think they say 6+ months out from weaning, and that has only been about 2 months for me. And, I would like to lose about 30 more lbs before having it done. I'd hate to have it done and then lose the weight and end up with them saggy again.


Do you know the huge irony of a breast reduction, though? You get implants. ROFL They use the implants to hoist the breast back up where it belongs. How funny is that? You want smaller boobs and have to get implants to get them.

Save room for purple!

This was said to me by my eldest by 3 minutes daughter today. I am painting their room. No longer will it be pale yellow with the baby-ish Twinkle Twinkle Little Star border. It is becoming cotton candy pink and dark lavender. I thought the pink was going to be pale, but it went on much brighter than I was expecting. But, they love it and it is their room. So, pink and purple walls, and I am going to hand do a border between the colors of flowers and butterflies. They will be wallpaper cutouts, but I am going to hand paint leaves and steams, too.

But, I am not happy with the speed of my progress. The purple paint is taking two coats and I should be done by now, but I'm not because it's taking two fucking coats of paint. I will be doing good to get the wall behind their bed done and the trim so we can push the bed back so they have somewhere to sleep.

I'm having to take breaks to give my aching back a break and to let paint dry. But, back to the trenches I go.

Snip snip

So, the manwhore has an appointment to get snipped. It will be 3 weeks from tomorrow, and I admit to having mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, I am ecstatic about it. No more keeping up with cycles or remembering bc. Yay! On the other hand I want to run after him screaming "Noooooo!! Don't do it!"
I know that he is done, he doesn't want any more kids, ever. He is 41, nine years older than my tender 32, and he's done. Besides, I think he has felt a huge amount of guilt over me spending 6 weeks in the hospital, having 2 c-sections, being huge and uncomfortable and then in lots of pain. He told me before Sam was even 6 hours old that this was it, he wasn't going to do this to me again.

And, I know that not having any more children is the right decision for us. We have plenty of time and money for the 3 we have. Another baby would mean we would probably need a bigger house sooner rather than later, and there would be less money for dance, soccer, horses, etc.

Yet, I still can't help but feel sad that I will never again know that thrill/terror that comes from seeing a + on a pregnancy test. I will never again grow a baby in my body, a miraculous event, and one I treasured both times. Never again will I snuggle a baby up to my breast and nurse it. Never again will I experience the magic of watching a child of mine learn to walk and talk and tell knock knock jokes.

But, I know that another baby would most likely mean another c-section, and I just can't do it again. After the last one, the morphine pump wasn't cutting it, and when the nurse had to massage my uterus, I was screaming. I sobbed when they moved me from the stretcher to my bed (this was what had Bill saying never again). In retrospect, I'm wondering why it took them so long to bring me different drugs. WTF?

I turn into a spineless bag of mush after having a baby, and I cry over every fucking thing. I don't want to put my kids or my self or my husband through that again.

Besides, we finally have our bed back (mostly) and our sex life is better than ever, and I feel like I am finding ME again after being nothing but a mommy for the last (almost) 5 years. And I'm finding myself looking forward to school starting in August, because the three kids I have are getting on my nerves.

But dammit, I still want another baby. Even though I don't. Fuckitall.

Too many toys!

My children have too many toys. WAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYY too many. And, I've sold/ thrown away/ packed away a bunch of stuff. They just get more faster than I can get rid of the old stuff. Part of the problem is that my in-laws have to give presents to the non-birthday child. WTF? Since I know that they have already bought the boychild a present for his sisters' birthday, I will wait until after then, but then I am going to ask them (read: tell them) not to do it anymore. I don't care that Great Aunt Moppy did it for Bill and Dede. My kids have more toys than they can play with in a week thanks to birthday's that look like Xmas and Xmases that look like a fucking toy store.

And, when they have too many toys, they can't/won't help put them away after they drag them all out because they are tired from all the playing. So, tonight, I have a dress up box full of pretty dresses in time out in my closet because they wouldn't help pick them up.

The den is scattered with puzzles and animals and a pirate ship, too, that I will get to put up because apparently I am the only one bothered by a messy house. And we're going to be away from home for 10 days, starting July 3rd, and I would really like to just keep things tidy until then and not have to clean like mad next week so we don't come home to a messy house. Le sigh.

I almost forgot

Happy Solstice to all!

Man titty and condom ads

I am totally just taking these from one of the blogs I read, the Smart Bitches over there in the list. But they are so fucking funny I want to share them with the world.

Condom ads:

http://yuxt.com/kisa/Best_condom_ads

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWUqfM9VaB8

Too bad they don't show these on US television. lol

Man titty:

http://www.bestweekever.tv/2007/06/19/unemployment-check-move-over-hulk-hogan-theres-a-new-peck-flexor-in-town/

Let me flap my man titty at you!

Go, watch and laugh, grasshopper. Ohm!

Birthdays and Father's Day

Friday was the boychild's birthday. He is now 2 and I have no more babies. He is so wonderful and special that sometimes I want to have another baby just so I can do the toddler years one more time. Dds were wonderful and special at this age, too. They still are, but have added smart mouths and eyerolls to the mix.

But, my sweet boy had a lovely birthday. After singing "Happy birthday" to him all day, he was trying to sing it to himself. And he got a pile of presents and the only one he doesn't like is the tricycle that we bought for him. lol

On the down side, half of the invited guests didn't show up and didn't bother to call and tell me they weren't showing up, so we have so many leftover, it's just ridiculous. I made fajitas and we're going to be sick of them before we use them all up. I've been making salads for lunch with the chicken and tonight will be quesadillas. But still.

And, I'm a little peeved at the lack of phone calls. At least some people told my mother they weren't coming. But my brother and sil told us they were coming. In fact, we had the party on Friday night instead of Sat just so they could come. And I spoke to him on Thur and no indication they weren't coming. Asshole.

Mother and dad stayed over and went home Sat evening. The girls went with them, and will be staying until Tues, when the boy and I will join them. So far, they are having a blast.

But, I think that the manwhore misses them. Yesterday, he looked a bit sad and commented that maybe we shouldn't have sent them to Camp Grandma on Father's Day. Poor guy.

But he had a good day. We went out to eat for supper (instead of noshing on more leftovers). Dinner was marred by the family of 6 seated next to us with the screaming baby, though. I say baby, she was as big as my son. She screamed the entire time we were there, and the only thing they did was send the teenager out with her a few times and spank her once. Oh yeah, spanking an already screaming kid is really going to help with that. Not. Idiots.

At one point, all three of their little ones were crying. twitch They should have skipped the nice restaurant and gone to MickeyD's.

No more PT!

Yay! Em finished up her physical therapy today. She may need more in the future, but we are going to take the summer off and work with her at home. And her therapist expects that the Dr will want to give her some time in school to see how she does before deciding if she needs more therapy. I am so proud of my girl. She has worked hard, and the difference is amazing. Of course, her therapist has been great, and Em hasn't realized how hard she has been working because it all seemed like fun and games. She looked forward to going to therapy most of the time.

We celebrated with a batch of cupcakes. I took them to therapy for her and her therapist and her student and anyone else who needed a cupcake. They were quite yummy, and I've finished off several that the kids didn't finish today. Oink oink.

I've been quite the cake baking fool lately, and I've got another one to do tomorrow. I've done a soccer cake, and the cupcakes and tomorrow is a baseball cake for the little boychild. He is turning 2 on Fri. I can't believe that I won't have any more babies after Fri. I am a bit trist over it. But not enough to want to have another baby.

Did I mention that the manwhore has an appointment for the ol' snip snip? Not for the actual procedure, yet, just a consult. But maybe he can get snipped before we go away on vacation. We won't be having sperm free sex by then, though. Too bad.


Speaking of sex (cause I just gotta tell someone) we were doing the deed last night and I got a leg cramp. Actually, I got a cramp in both legs. Right at the exact wrong moment, if you know what I mean. Oh, OH, OH! OW! OW! OW! Let me up!!! My right leg cramped first, and then when I moved try and straighten it, the other leg cramped. So, I was hobbling around trying to get the cramps to stop and the manwhore was all bewildered because I jumped out of bed. lol
Talk about ruining the moment. lol

I love toddlers

So far, with all of my children, the toddler years have been my favorite. You aren't totally exhausted as a parent by this point because you are getting more sleep. And kids are just exploding with development. It is amazing to watch their little brains. It is almost like they are growing right before your eyes. The boychild is coming out with words, phrases and sentences left and right. Things we've never heard him say before, and he will say them plain as day. Friday night, MIL came and babysat and he ran up to her and said "Hi Grandma!" He's never even tried to say Grandma before, and out it came, plain as day. Also appearing this week have been "all gone," "I don't know," "watch this!" and countless others. It is so much fun!

Speaking of Fri, the manwhore surprised me with tickets to Cirque du Soleil. We went downtown to eat and just picked a place. The was Morton's Steakhouse, and dh knew it was expensive, but I was totally unprepared for the $$. It cost us $150, with the tip. I was about to choke as I signed the CC slip. They had bottles of wine on their wine list that were $1000+. Needless to say, we laughed and passed on those.
Even worse than the prices were the portion sizes. The smallest steak on their menu was 16 oz. Oh, wait, I forgot about the 8oz, $28 filet. I made dh split a steak with me, though, because I refused to pay that much for a hunk of meat. They even have a 48 oz steak, at a price of $90. The waitress said that was the steak that people generally split, but that is still 1.5 lbs of meat per person. Waaaaaaaaay more than anyone needs to eat.
But, it was good. Just shockingly expensive.

And, I will confess to being a bit disappointed by Cirque du Soleil. I have seen them before, in Vegas 11 yrs ago and sat through that show with my mouth hanging open. This one was boring in places. It had a lot of singing, and some of the singers weren't that good. I know people who aren't pros and getting paid who knows what to sing who can sing better than that. You know who you are.
So, too much singing, and not enough acrobatics. But the people around me were saying that the show was amazing.

I know I wasn't the only one that wasn't overwhelmingly impressed, because someone booed them after one act. I was shocked and embarrassed because they weren't that bad. Just polite applause bad. I felt like they would think Nashville is nothing but a bunch of rednecks because they got booed. Oh well, maybe they'll improve their next show.

Still, it was a date and a night out without kids, so it was all good.

Birth is a pissing contest among women

So says someone on my mommy message board. This discussion came about because someone posted some link to a homebirth vbac story and people were talking about it. The woman in the story was ecstatic to have a vaginal birth after 2 (or was it 3?) c-sections, and several people just couldn't understand why anyone really cared how their baby got into the world.

Now, before I delve into that, I will say there is something about women that tends to make them share birth stories with each other, and often it seems to be a contest to see whose is the worst, longest labor, most interventions, most drugs, fewest drugs, biggest tear, most stitches, and on and on. They are women's war stories, stories of their survival and their entrance into womanhood (let's not get into the fact that you don't have to incubate another person in your body to be a woman, the instinct for telling these stories is probably as old as humanity, and open adoption and a chosen child free life are new to societal acceptance).

So, war stories, passage into womanhood. Yes, birthing a baby is a life event. A life changing event at that. It is up there with marriage and death and coming of age. And like coming of age and marriage, how many women fantasize about giving birth and how it is going to be and how they are going to greet this new person and how special it is going to be. I know I did. I know other women do too. If we didn't, there would be no need for Lamaze and hypnobirthing and Bradley and birth plans, etc. We would go into birthing with no expectations and just let things flow and what will be will be.

Now, of course, some women are like that, and that is fine. But for those of us who had dreams of singing Happy Birthday Baby! and counting fingers and toes and dreams of claiming our womanhood by pushing out a baby with our own bodies, having things go differently than we'd hoped is a loss. Healthy mom, healthy baby. You hear this mantra, and yes, that is the utmost importance. But it doesn't mean the loss and grief felt by some women who end up with unwanted interventions or unwanted c-sections is any less real.

Imagine, if you will, your wedding day. Did you have the fluffy white dress, and tons of flowers and the tall white cake and an orchestra? No? Did you want them and not get them? Was it planned and fell apart at the last minute? You still got married, so what's the big deal? The wedding is just one day, right?
What if you just wanted a small ceremony with the JoP and a handful of friends and your mother steamrolled you into a huge event with 12 bridesmaids and and 400 guests? You're still married, right?

But it does matter when the big day doesn't go as planned. You get angry and you cry and you grieve. Sometimes for a lifetime. Sometimes for just a day. But the feelings are there and you are entitled to them.

Birth is the same way, I think. Only, we have pushed the focus (or maybe it has always been there) on nothing matters but a healthy mom and healthy baby and claim it doesn't matter how the baby gets into the world. But, for many women, it does matter, and for some, it matters a great deal. The feeling that they have lost control of their own body, or that their body has failed them can be there. They may mourn the lost time spent with their new baby. Sure, the baby doesn't remember those minutes or hours, but mom does.

So, there is loss and grief and mourning, and if things were traumatic enough, there is depression and even PTSD. And sadly, in our society, this is all too often ignored and pushed under the rug and women are made to feel alone or even a little bit crazy for how they feel. Because, all that matters is that mom and baby are healthy, right? Maybe. But maybe not. I choose to believe that baby's arrival into the world is an important event and how she gets here has at least a measure of importance that should not be overlooked.

So, if you've had a disappointing or even traumatic birth, know that you are not alone, and that the feelings you may be feeling are real and normal and you have every right to them, even if it is months or even years after.

Only, if you aren't moving through the grief process and dealing with them or if it is overwhelming your life, then I would suggest you need some help, either counseling or drugs, because you do have to process the emotions and deal with them, just like with any loss.

Wow, how long has it been?

I've been neglecting this lately. So, let's catch up. The girls graduated from preschool last week and are on summer vacation. Em has already asked once if they were going to school that day, so I think she's going to miss it over the summer. But, fall will be here all too soon and with it, pre-kindy (if they get in that program).

The boy has a birthday coming up. He will be 2 in 3 weeks and I will officially no longer have a baby.
And, I've weaned him from the boob. Surprisingly I occasionally find myself a little sad about it, but overall I'm overjoyed. And he made the transition easily. Naps were the hardest to get down, but we seem to have a routine, now. And, I'm planning to send him to Mother's day out next fall, and he had to be able to go to sleep without a boob.

What else?

Oh yes, the reason I haven't been on here too much. One of my dear friends encouraged me to stop thinking about being a writer and to actually be a writer, so, I've been writing. In less than three weeks I have written 56 pages of trashy romance novel. If I had been this prolific of a writer for my master's thesis, I would have finished the damned thing and would have an MA in hand instead of crapping out on it like I did.

I am actually starting to think of myself as a writer and I am writing a couple of pages almost every day. And I have plans to join Romance Writers of America and the local chapter here in N'ville so I can get support and access to a critique group. Good times!

Perhaps I will be accepting my first advance sometime in the foreseeable future!

Mother's Day

We had a lovely day. I actually got my goodies last week, as we were at my parents' house this weekend.
I got a new light for the kitchen and a wicker chaise lounge for the patio and a bunch of plants for the garden.
Yesterday, I got some sweet cards from the kids and the manwhore and got to take a lovely nap.

I had my lovely friend Autumn Zephyr make my mother a watch that was just beautiful. Mother actually gasped when she saw it.

We stayed too late and didn't get home until almost midnight, so now all are tired and cranky.

But, in other exciting news, the boy child has not nursed since Thursday! Yay! At 23 months old, I am quite ready to be done. He's been asking for it this morning, but as been ok without it.

100 years

I'm 15 for a moment
Caught in between 10 and 20
And I'm just dreaming
Counting the ways to where you are
I'm 22 for a moment
She feels better than ever
And we're on fire
Making our way back from Mars
15 there's still time for you
Time to buy and time to lose
15, there's never a wish better than this
When you only got 100 years to live
I'm 33 for a moment
Still the man, but you see I'm a they
A kid on the way
A family on my mind
I'm 45 for a moment
The sea is high
And I'm heading into a crisis
Chasing the years of my life
15 there's still time for you
Time to buy, Time to lose yourself
Within a morning star
15 I'm all right with you
15, there's never a wish better than this
When you only got 100 years to live
Half time goes by
Suddenly you’re wise
Another blink of an eye
67 is gone
The sun is getting high
We're moving on...
I'm 99 for a moment
Dying for just another moment
And I'm just dreaming
Counting the ways to where you are
15 there's still time for you
22 I feel her too
33 you’re on your way
Every day's a new day...
15 there's still time for you
Time to buy and time to choose
Hey 15, there's never a wish better than this
When you only got 100 years to live.
-Five for Fighting

I don't know why, but this song makes me cry. I've listened to it like 5 times tonight.

I'm tired.

I've been gardening over the last few days. Sunday, we went to Home Depot and dh bought me a lounge chair to match my outdoor wicker and a bunch of plants for the flower beds. I've planted 4 window boxes, 5 pots, transplanted several things from one place to another, planted 9 things in the front and 8 pots of mondo grass around the patio. I need about 16 more pots of it, but I don't have the mojo to plant that much at once. :lol I've done all this over several days, not just today. Oh, and also I've been weeding. Fun. Nice exercise, though. And, I'm not done, I want more plants in front and more pots and some herbs and tomatoes and stuff. And more mondo grass (it's like thin, very green monkey grass.

I was going to wax philosophical about this happy place I am in right now. But, I'm too tired. lol So, I'm going to bed.

The quirks of women

Last night I went to my yoga class, and Dawn, the chick that teaches the class before (kickboxing, I believe) was packing up. Her, my yoga teacher, and one classmate were talking about last weekend's Music City Marathon, and the 5K fun run at the Y the week before. The classmate made some disparaging remarks about her time and whatnot, so Dawn fusses at her for it. You ran 26 miles! That kind of thing.
They got to talking about women who do stupid things like not eat the day before (Hello, how are you supposed to run with no fuel in your body), and about how women who work out and are amateur athletes are too obsessed with number on a scale and not with how fit they are.

This is so true. When I was a skinny thing, I was totally upset by the fact that I outweighed friends by 20, 30 or even 40 lbs (when your best friend weighs 95 lbs, this isn't hard to do). Through most of my teen years, I lifted weights and rode an exercise bike multiple times a week, plus marching band and show choir and shit. I was in pretty good shape and had pretty good muscle mass.

As an adult, I know people who are like this, too. One woman I know, S, has run marathons and runs on a regular basis and works out a lot. She looks good, thin and fit. Especially when you take into consideration her 4 yr old twins and 9 month old baby girl. Yet, she is upset that she weighs about 160 lbs. But she has to be 160 lbs of muscle, because she is not fat.

C, another woman in the multiples group where I know S, is actually in therapy for her food issues. Not that I think this is a bad idea, since I think I could use some, too, but still, therapy over food. Men would scoff at the idea. I can't even get my man to consider a nutritionist.

Another good friend, T, has put away her scale and is focusing on being healthy and not on a number, which is an awesome thing to do. She itty bitty and very fit and I think was getting upset that the number wasn't what she would like it to be. Remember that the same volume of muscle weighs more than an equal volume of fat. ;)

So, women are strange creatures with our relationships to food and scales and dieting. I do realize that men have their problems, too, otherwise there wouldn't be any fat men, and there are plenty of those. But women do seem to have the larger share of food issues.

I wish all of us could be like my sil, who eats whatever the hell she wants, but knows to stop when she's full, and so far as I've seen, once full, doesn't take another bite and she is a normal, healthy weight. Somehow or other, she has totally managed to avoid having food issues.

The odd thing is that the manwhore does have food issues. How he ended up with them and not his sister is a mystery. I am envious of her food freedom, though. I hope to be there, one day.

Oh, I am a SPOILED wife.

Spoiled, I say! The manwhore sold some stock (not that we have that much, but some) so we could afford to buy the white van. The one I lurve! The one with leather seats. He actually made me cry, I was so surprised. Lovely man.