What's wrong with your face?

My throat is sick. Throat and lungs. Nowhere else in my body is sick.

I woke up this morning and when I went to talk I sounded awful. But isn't that always the case in the morning. We just sound a little off. Then add the throatsick and it sounds monstrous.
Well this morning, as always happens, my children file into my bed one by one. I croaked my "Good Morning!"s and gave them a cuddle.

My oldest asked me, "Are you sick?"

"A little," was my reply, hoping for some sympathy. "How could you tell?"

"By your voice. It sounds weird," was his answer.

He started to walk away, stopped, turned around and walked back to my bedside.

"Also your looks." He turned and left the room.

Huh.

Okay, so my sickness is not simply in my throat.

It has apparently spread, not to my face, but to my looks.

Heaven help me!

Justice and Mercy

I love my third child.

He is the child who forces me to my knees every morning and every night. And several time in between.

He is wonderful...in a strong willed, extremely passionate, intense kind of way.

It's how he came. See what I mean, wonderful!

The other day, he comes down the stairs in his PJ's otherwise known as my T-shirt. He plunks himself down in the middle of the floor and announces, "I'm not going to school today."

"No? Really? Are you sure?"

"Nope. I'm not gonna. I won't go."

I could lie and say that I was very patient and took the time to sit next to him and find out why he was feeling like he hated school. Unfortunately, I had worked until midnight the previous night and had woken up with two little boys who were more interested in eating goldfish at 2am than sleeping. I slept in...by 20 minutes.

Needless to say we were running a little late. Quite late, actually, which may or may not have caused me to be somewhat of a meanie.

"Son, you are going to school. Now, you can either go mad and in your pj's and then have to explain to your friends and you teacher why you are wearing your mom's clothes, OR you can go to  school angry if you like or happy if you choose, but in your clothes. It is up to you. But you will go to school today."

I thought those were good options.

In walks Mercy. My kids call him Daddy.

He calls said son into the other room and comes up with a plan. More like a conspiracy.

The next thing I know Mr. T-shirt is running upstairs getting his clothes on. I could have sworn he was smiling, too. Hubs comes to me with a paper and his plan.

"If he gets up, gets dressed, and goes to school for 3 days in a row, then on Saturday you get to take him to Dairy Queen. Alone."

What the... What are we teaching here?

1. He learns refusing to go to school will result in a blizzard at the end of the week.

2. Daddy wants to sabotage Mommy's diet.

3. Mommy is a meanie. Daddy rocks!

3. Protesting kids will be rewarded. So next Monday, all my kids will be standing outside my garage holding up a big sign with big red letters saying, "Shame on Mommy! She makes us go to school...every day...in our clothes!!!"

But the lesson that was really learned that day?

Sometimes it is worth taking the time to sit down with your child and find out why they don't want to go to school.

They may just want some time with Meanie Mommy.

Whoever said Hubs couldn't hear never checked out his heart.

Mercy indeed.

Giveaway!!

Okay, not really. But kinda.

This post is my 200th post. Who knew I had so much to say? Okay, maybe my family, my friends, people in the grocery line, the bell ringers....

But more importantly, who knew that there were people who would actually listen and then come back for more. Thanks for doing that for me. Really. I love you guys.

And because I love you, everyone who reads this post today will get a little piece of me. (or tomorrow or the next day or...well, as long as you want, actually.)

You see, I would totally have a giveaway...a real one...only I am horrible at getting things out to people. I don't. So if I had a real giveaway, one that required me to buy something, package it, go to the post office and send it, you would probably get it by Valentine's Day.

Instead, my giveaway is going to be a list of things I would give away if I had a giveaway.

1. This is my second most favorite Christmas story. The first is the real one and it is in your Bible, Luke 2, in case you didn't remember. It makes me cry every time I read it. I would totally give it to you.

2. I would send you some of my really yummy, delicious, make-you-gain-five-pounds-just-looking-at-it English Toffee. But instead, here's the recipe. (No secrets here. Just use a candy thermometer. That's the trick.)

This isn't my toffee. Mine is gone before I can charge the camera battery to take the shot.

3. I would send you The Carpenter's Christmas album, but most of you probably already have it. So instead, I would send you a burned copy of the Glee Christmas Album. I have never watched the show, but I heard this album the other day. It is fun, upbeat and fantastic!

4. This is what I usually watch Christmas Eve night, way late when I am wrapping presents and Hubs is putting things together. It is the best rendition by far, in my opinion.

5. Finally, I would send you a little something to keep you warm at night. This tastes just like what my mom called "Tang Tea". Most people just call it "Wassail". I call it Delicious!

I know. I know. Someday I will have a real drive-to-the-PO-and-show-you-the-love giveaway. But this way everyone wins. Everyone wins nothing and everything.

To all...

...pieces of me.

Just forget it

My wedding day. The birth of my first child. Graduation. Losing 10 pounds. All great days that are worthy of a scrapbook page. Too bad I don't do that.

However, today I thought I would mention the un-memories. You know, moments I do not wish relive.  Ever.

"I'm sorry. You aren't going to be able to get an epidural this time."

The time I went to change lanes on that 6 lane freeway and got hit by a semi, and did a 360 right into the divider.

Pretty much the whole year after my 4th child was born. Depression hurts everyone. Really.

The time I was in the sun all day and got burned so bad my skin felt like leather and I felt like a lizard. And itchy itchy lizard.  

Last week when my middle child told me he hated me. Sigh.

Sitting on that curling iron.

Falling down and scraping off a layer of skin from both my shins and knees and forearms the morning our softball team left for state. What's worse is that I was the catcher. Ouch!!

That first year of marriage. Don't misunderstand. I loved being in love. But men are so different. Learning to live with one was tough. Lots of tears. Glad we made it through. Still married. But you couldn't pay me to go back.

The time my son threw up 15 times, in the car, on the 6 hour drive to my parents' house. Then had acidic diarrhea the whole way back. Could have done without that trip for sure.

This morning at 2am when my 2 year old son called me "Meanie!" for not giving him Goldfish. It was 2AM!!!

The 2 hours that we thought Mom was lost on the side of the road somewhere. But really she was asleep in her room.

Seeing my child under our fallen piano. Please, never again!

Some things are only meant to be experienced once.

Because once is enough.


Thanks Mama Kat and Jenny. Check 'em out.

So I Married a Deaf Man: Like a rock

I think I have mentioned how Hubs sleeps. Like a rock

This is because he is Deaf. Stone Deaf. Meaning, he hears nothing.

Can you imagine what that is like? Closing your eyes and hearing nothing. Heavenly. No annoying crickets. No heater/AC. No coughing, crying, screaming children. No snoring spouse. (That is because I do not snore. Ever! Tree falling in the forest, my friends. If there is no-one there to hear it, it doesn't happen.) Just silence. Complete and utter silence.

That is why when Hubs closes his eyes at night or in the middle of the day for that matter, he is O-U-T. There really is no waking him. At. All.

When we were newly married, we lived in a small, one bedroom apartment. It was perfect for the two of us.

One weekend, my sister and her family, consisting of 6 children, were driving through our town and needed a place to stay. We love having family and so of course we offered to have them stay with us. However, they didn't get in until really late.

We left the door unlocked (this was before the incident) for them and sometime during the night I heard them try and sneak in. As you can imagine, with six young children there is no sneaking anywhere. Kids will wake up in the transition. And then you are left with grouchy, groggy children who now have to sleep in the same room with 7 other people on the blue turf we called carpet. Needless to say, no-one was sleeping.

Except Hubs.

The funny thing is, I could hear my sister whispering loudly to her children, "Shhhhh. You have to be quiet or you are going to wake Uncle Hubs."  "You are being too loud. Uncle Hubs has class tomorrow. You need to whisper."

Ummm, yeah. He's deaf. Not gonna hear you. No matter how loud.

He sleeps like a Chevy...

...like a rock!

Coming clean

Are there places you don't want people to see?

Not those places. We all have those places. Okay, so maybe not those Victoria Secret models. But let me remind you, we hate them. They don't count. I'm not talking about those places!

You know the places I am talking about. The places where every time you go to that place you say to yourself, "Ugh! Why me?!?"

Surely you have some of those? If not, then I hate you too!! Okay, not really. Yeah, maybe just a little. But not Victoria Secret model hate. No. Just envious dislike.

I thought that I would put mine out for the world to see. I thought about having before and after pictures. Except then you all would stop reading my blog. But really I decided not to take pictures because then I would actually have to clean these places.  Enough to brag. That's a lot of cleaning.

What I am really looking for is validation. Maybe some consolation.

So without further ado...

My front coat closet:

It is supposed to hold coats and maybe gloves. What it really homes is coats, shoes, our flag, my husband's linguistic books and papers that may or may not be important now but were at one time, racket ball equipment, an extra backpack or two, some weekly readers and dirt...quite a bit of it.

If you come to my house on a cold night, I probably won't offer to take your coat because if I do, I will have to open the closet at which point everything will come spilling out. Awkward. Yeah, just leave your coat in the car. 

My spice cabinet.

This one is really a nightmare. I made an attempt to organize it with a lazy Susan thingy. Only I went with the cheap one and the top tier is now laying on the bottom. This means if I take the nutmeg on the bottom the whole thing will be off kilter. This means either the cookie sprinkles will fall backwards and spill all over the cupboard OR the cream of tartar and Italian spices will come crashing down onto my counter.

Not only that. For your extra enjoyment you can look up and find randomness here too: Economy size stapler, vases, checkbooks, thumb tacks. I think there is even a few of those Target $1 popcorn holders.

This may be why I rarely bake. I'm just saying.

Our little car.

Ugh! That thing has so much crap in it. It is the car that Hubs and I use for work and school. It is also the car we take when we go places without the whole fam damily. So it has a little bit of everything.

Lunch bags, shin guards, mountain biking trail maps, several hundred empty water bottles, a few light jackets, a few heavy jackets, a borrowed water jug, Cd's. I can honestly tell you right now that I have about 60 cans of cream of mushroom and cream of chicken in the back....for the past 3 weeks. They were on sale...really good sale...but haven't organized the Harry Potter room where they belong. Shocker, huh.

Harry Potter Room

It's the catch all with a door. Blankets, frames, pull-up bar, toilet paper, diapers, wipes, treasure box. It all in there.

Do you think if I cleaned it out, put a bed and one of my naughty kids in there and locked it, someone could report me? Not if I didn't blog about it.  Of course I would never do that. Like I was saying, definitely don't look in there. Just ignore the loud kicking and screaming. Old pipes.

Oh, dear blogging friends. Please tell me I am not alone in my clutter. Please don't hate me because I am messy. It is my messy-ness that makes me so much fun. Who wants to organize and un-clutter when there are games to be played, people to visit, posts to be blogged?

Not it!!

What's in your closet??


BTW, I'm cleaning out the candy on my other blog. Gulp. It's gonna be a tough week.

Black(eye) Friday

Black Friday.

Up til 3 years ago I swore I would never participate in such a ghastly, mob-like activity. No deal was worth it.

That was until I actually went. Oh. My. Gosh. It was so much fun that I have done it for the past 3 years. I think if you are going to do it, though, you have to have a few rules:

1. Nothing is worth killing over....so just let me have it already. Let go!!

2. Step away from the electronics. Unless you have a death wish. If so, you have come to the right place.

3. The "Sale" PJ's they have really aren't all that great. Definitely not worth the scratching you will get on your hands, arms and quite possibly your eyes. Seriously! Don't!!

4. All aisle traffic rules are out the window. "Stay to the right" becomes "Get out of the way Grandma!! There is no right-of-way. Sorry!" But you know I would never say or do anything like that. Never ever.

5. You have to laugh. I mean, look around you. All these overly tired, overly stuffed people walking around grabbing stuff like there is no tomorrow. They are frantically calling their relative that is either on the other end of the store or in a totally different place altogether. It's humorous to say the least.

6. Don't curse at people who are laughing at you.

7. Be prepared to stand in long checkout lines. Unless you are smart enough to weasel your way through the lingerie department and get to the other end of the store where the lines are super short. Shorter than on any other day of the year. Scoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooore!

Last year when we went, I commented to my husband that stores should have sales throughout the day, rather than one start time. It would cut down on the craziness, plus you would get more people to your stores. At least that is what I thought. But who would listen to little old me?

Wal-Mart, that's who.

So last night, about 9pm, my friend calls me and asks if I wanted to go with her at midnight because that's when their sales started.

"Uhhh, yeah!" was my response.

So I quickly mapped out what I wanted to get and we headed there early. We were one of the first people waiting at the Wii game cases. My friend stayed to guard our place while I ran and got a few of the other items that weren't locked up with the bullet proof clear wrap. There were, however, some people who couldn't wait and had ripped open the wrapping and began grabbing. Can you believe it??

I told them "Thank you" and took a few of my own.

When I got back to my friend, she told me that the game she wanted was across the store. So I stayed, hoping to get that dang Wii game while she knocked people over hustled to get to her gift. I also noticed that there were more and more people crowding in front of me. "Breath in...breath out. It's all good," I told myself.

A few minutes later, the voice from above said, "Customers. Please step away from the merchandise." Then almost immediately I heard a roar and that's when the real crazy started. Lucky for me I was far away from those red boxes. But it caused me some anxiety.

"What if that lady really does like the XBox customers better and never comes down here to us Wii folk?
"What if she helps these cutters before me?"
"What if all those roaring people take all the other things I want while I stand here and wait?"

It was too much for me. I gave up. It wasn't worth the angst I was starting to feel. No game is worth it. Even if it was $20 off and my son would have really loved to have it and Hubs told me I should have gotten it when I got home. Oh well. It was the same with all those really cheap movies. But it was so not worth elbowing my way through the crowds. At least not this year.

Another Black Friday gone. Another day of great deals.

Another busy day for ERs everywhere!

What deals did you get?