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.