Post #170....Eh...I'm Running Out of Catchy Blog Titles

I FOUND THE REMOTE!!!!

I am once again a happy camper here. I don't know how I didn't see it before. I looked for it in vain for the past week, checked under the couch what felt like fifty times and never saw it. However, it's black so very hard to see under a large couch with a black cloth that drapes a bit in the middle bottom of the couch.

I also found my kitchen and my living room. My daughter found her bedroom.  I was so proud of her I didn't even have to ask her to do it, she just did it. Cleaned and organized her closet, floor and even vacuumed. I was so happy to see her enthusiasm with cleaning around here. Any cleaning is highly appreciated in this place.  Especially when I don't have to grovel and beg to have it done.

I'm still waiting on my oldest twin to do the bathroom that he said he'd do for me hours ago.  Thinking I may have to cave and just do it myself.

Today wasn't a bad day. I dread tomorrow though. I always hate Mondays.  This is how I pretty much feel on any given Monday:

I'll take a Tuesday any day, or better yet eternal Fridays. That would be lovely.

I love these graphics on this website I use. It's called MagickalGraphics and I have a button for it located on my main blog page.  Check the site out. I'm not sure if new graphics are posted anymore, because I found this site back in the Myspace Days of long ago. (Yes, Myspace, Remember that site?)  I use to love changing the backgrounds and images on my profile page to either a) suit my mood for the week or b) the season we were in. I had a crap load of graphics and playlists and I just had a fun time on there.  Then they changed the format. Tried to be more like Facebook and less like Myspace. Whatever happened to not succumbing to peer pressure, being unique, like the formula in Coca-Cola?  

I left as in I never went back.

Sure I still have all my photos and blogs and what not over there. But I have not graced the pages of Myspace in at least six months, when I went to look for some photos of my kids that I wanted to view again.  Haven't been there since.

This whole social media thing has gotten out of hand anyway. Personal interaction is being replaced with texts and instant messages. I am not a big fan of that at all as I know you are aware if you read my blog on a daily basis. This blog *HERE* explains it more in detail.  I won't rehash what has already been hashed around here.  

I've said my peace on the topic.

My kids and I had the most delicious dinner.  They said it was better than a Thanksgiving feast.  We had cheesy chicken and rice casserole with broccoli in it, green bean casserole, salad with ranch and crackers sprinkled in it, and my all time favorite dinner item....Pillsbury Buttery Crescent Rolls. Yum, Yum, Yum!!!!

I could eat the whole roll of those crescents myself they are so yummy!

We watched the Detroit/Philly game today. Goodness, it was like watching the Bad News Bears(not the ones from Chicago, the baseball kids from the movie). Those grown men were out there, in at least six inches of snow(probably more)out there on the field, sliding and skidding around that field. At one point I saw the quarterback throw the ball and hit someone in the head. I was cracking up, as were my boys, when that happened. It looked hysterical. All the fumbles, all the guys falling into that snow, it looked like fun. My boys kept saying they wished they could play football in that snow too. 

Hate to break it to ya boys, but that won't happen here in Vegas.

Then we played some Sorry! and I swear that was the longest game of Sorry! I ever played. We kept sending each other back to start and I thought I'd never get anything done around this place. I didn't care really, because whenever the game ended the mess would still be in the apartment anyway. I also played a few games with my daughter before the boys woke up. That was fun spending time with just her. I love my boys, but it's nice to have some mommy daughter time together once in a while. 

She asked me if we could go get our nails done sometime. I said "Sweetie, when mommy can afford an actual manicure we'll BOTH go."

She smiled.

Breaks my heart. Would love to do something like that once a year, but right now in my life, it's not gonna happen anytime soon.


It's Monday Morning here. I didn't get to finish my blog last night because the kids and I baked some cookies and played some Sorry! and a couple of games of Rummy.  We were laughing so hard at one point the boys and I had tears in our eyes. They made a comment somehow using the planet Uranus in whatever they said and the look on my youngest twins face, the seriousness of it just made me lose it. You know all little kids seem to have fun with that word at least once in their lifetime.  We didn't get to bed until well after midnight as we started watching some episodes of Friends on TV. I sure hope my kids wake up this morning. I also hope my van starts. The wind chill out here was 17 degrees this morning according to one of our local meteorolgist's Facebook page. I have a feeling I may be a tiny bit late this morning. Let's hope not as I already lost two days worth of pay due to the Thanksgiving day 4-day weekend.

I have to finish my Christmas shopping. It's times like this I wish I had a special someone. A special someone who could load all the toys into my van and help me carry them up a flight of stairs to my apartment. A special someone who could even wrap them with me. But I don't have a special someone other than myself, so fighting crowds, standing in line for an hour and carrying the toys up the steps will belong to me only. I don't want a special someone, I have a few guy friends, but none that I want to date. Either they are married or simply not my type.  After all the failed relationships I have been in I am very, very picky about who I would choose to date and those specifications are the reason I am still single...and for the most part happy.

Stupid Hallmark movies are the reason I get all weepy around this time of year and realize just how alone I am. Actually those movies aren't stupid just the happy couples in them are.  Of course, as usual, I watch them, I miss being a "couple" with someone and then it passes after that stupid New Year's Kiss moment goes by and the new year starts over.

Then I'm fine again.

Well, it's almost time for me to get ready for work and wake the kids. Sure hope they are cooperative this morning. They hate Mondays as much as I do.

I hope whomever stops by my page has a lovely Monday. Have a lovely week in the event you don't come back here. Have a lovely life as well I suppose. (hee hee)

Okay time to scoot here. I have lots to do before 9 a.m. starting out with bracing for that windy chill outside and motivating myself to go out there to begin with.

Magickal Graphics

Good Morning!

There is nothing more "Christmas-Like" than snow.

I'm hoping we get some this morning. The winds are picking up and the mountains briefly disappeared under a cloud of white blowing snow about an hour ago, but it hasn't reached us yet. Sure hope it does, the wind is wickedly whipping around the trees out there and the clouds are that grey/white color they usually get before a good snow comes about.

My son keeps looking out the window to see if it is snowing yet.

This is Vegas, we know all about the odds out here. I doubt very highly we'll get a dusting let alone a single flake of snow.

But I don't want to quash my son's hopes.

So instead I just continue to engage in the conversation about the snow with the hopes that Mother Nature decides since I'm so damn broke this year for Christmas and will have maybe a spittle of gifts under the tree, perhaps she can smile down on my son and grace him with the gift of snow along with a little accumulation.

It's possible.

Highly unlikely, but possible.

I have so much to do today I don't know where to begin.

I started with blogging.

That's always a good start to any day.

Even if only one soul reads my daily/weekly posts it's nice to know someone has the time of day to peruse my daily/weekly banter.  I do have one faithful follower, and I have often thought that maybe he should do a guest blog and we'd be like Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon, or Jimmy Kimmel and Guillermo. That's what it feels like around here on my porch these days. This is a compliment by the way and not a complaint. 

I know this blog will never get me a gig in some fancy magazine, or allow a book publisher to offer me a book deal, but I find my blogging to be most therapeutic and some day, as I told my son last week, the opportunity for he and his siblings to re-live some day all the silliness and daily events that happened with their mom...and between him and his siblings too long ago.

This is like an online diary of sorts I guess.

My son is out in the living room watching that movie "UP".  That's a cute movie. The little boy in this movie is hilarious.

It's not exactly my choice movie to sit and watch from beginning to end though. It's cute, but not cute enough for me to sit and watch for two hours.

So yesterday I'm at work and we are doing expressive art. Basically that is letting the kids run free on paper with a crayon or two.  So I'm sitting at the table and one little boy says out loud "Look at my fart!" He is scribbling away on his "fart" and it took everything in me not to lose it when he said that. With the most serious face I had to offer, I asked him "What is that?" He says "A fart Miss Barbie".

"Oh." I nodded.

Then the boy to the left of him says "I have a fart too!" And he is scribbling furiously on his paper with an orange crayon on his fart. 

I couldn't with every muster of seriousness tell him "That's a beautiful fart Joey."

So I just said, "Nice."

Because I knew if I lost it and said "Fart?! You're drawing a fart?!" The whole morning would be consumed with many 2 and 3 year olds chanting the word fart.

And we didn't need that kind of craziness in the classroom, that's for sure.

These kids say the most hilarious things. I really should write a book about the things these kids say.

My coworker and Friend, D, asked one of the kids which one of us is funny. Right away the little boy points to me(imagine that). "Miss Barb is funny," he says with this cute little grin on his face.

I start dancing and saying "Yippee, I'm the funniest, yippie."  I told D that I was glad that he didn't say I was funny looking but just funny.

Made my day.

I do get silly in there. We both do for the most part, we have to with all those little kids in there. They'd get bored to death if all we did was color papers, learn letters and numbers and recite the song of the day. We have to make it exciting and fun for these kids. They have a very, very short attention span.

So I do things like using theatrical voices when reading books, or if I drop my pen/pointer on the floor I'll say "Boink!" and they all giggle. Or I'll dance around to a song I make up to get them to listen.

It gets the job done.

They are, for the most part, good kids.

They make me smile. They make my job worth going to in the morning.  And as much as I'd rather be spending my days with my own kids in their own classrooms, for now these kids are my kids when my kids aren't there with me to hang with.

I do love these kids like they were my own anyway.

Well, I need to get going. My son isn't feeling too good this morning. He smacked his head on the arm of the couch last night when he was horsing around with his brother. I told them to stop it. I was on the love seat with my daughter we were drawing with our toes and a pencil(don't ask) on her paper and trying to make words because that is what our silly selves do with our free time together. We were just cracking up at some of the things we made with our feet.

The boys were being totally rambunctious and I asked them to stop. I asked once and told them twice. Then I heard the loud thud and looked up and my youngest twin is holding his head lying on the couch in a fetal position.

"I told you to stop," I said in that raised mommy-tone voice with "I told ya so" attached to it.

He slithered off the couch and onto the floor whimpering. Okay, life lesson over, time to assess the wound and cuddle with him.

I got him back on the couch and we got under the blanket and I tried to rub the Ow-ee out of him. Kissed his forehead and he finally felt a little better; still sore, but better.

You would think that this would be a learning moment for him, but my boys ever so much the gluttons for punishment will surely be back again, on that same couch, doing that same thing with me saying the exact same things I said to them last night.  Guaranteed.

Now I'm really going to go.

My son fell back asleep and I need to find my kitchen. It's in there somewhere.

Will be back later. My other son just woke up.

Thursday....That's My Fancy Title For This One

I'm sitting here eating a Banana Creme pudding...you know..the good kind from that Jello line of lunch box goodies.

Of course it isn't lunchtime here, it's well past dinner now and I had a real craving for something sweet. So my happy self went digging through my freshly stocked pantry and low and behold I decided on this sweet little cup of delight.

Boy is it tasty too!

I had a much better day at work.  It ended with me chatting with one of the kids in our class and his parents.  This kid really is a cutie. He's got lots of energy, but I tried reassuring mom over the course of his time with us that she needn't worry, I have two just like him at home....and they are 10. She laughed and I said that ONE is a piece of cake.

She laughed even more.

They are very nice people.  When they were leaving he took my hand and a little girl who was waiting for her parents  as though we were going home with him.  I said "Are we going home?" He nodded and looked up at me with this hopeful look on his face. I told him I had to stay and he needed to go home with his parents.

He leaned towards me and hugged my leg, and I bent down and gave him a big squishy hug.

Days like this where these kids simply make your heart melt make me appreciate my job even more.


We are in for a deep freeze here in the desert. Just hoping my van starts in the morning and gets me to work and back. It was 36 degrees this morning and it barely ran but got me to where I needed to be which was my job that pays the bills. I'm loving the cold weather, but there better be a good amount of snow dumped upon us if we are going to be this stinkin' cold.  It's almost like having a swimming pool, but no water in it. You love the pool...when the water is inside it.  Know what I mean?

I managed to stock up this evening on some food for the kids and I this weekend. I think I may head back tomorrow after I pick up the kids and get some water and a few more essentials in case the deep freeze causes the power to go out. It hasn't happened before, but doesn't mean it won't this time.

Always be prepared....or be prepared...isn't that either the boy scouts or the Army's motto?

So I'm preparing.

Well, it's 8 minutes until Grey's Anatomy is on. I'm not really impressed with this season's episodes lately. I'm watching the live rendition of the Sound of Music, it's more like background noise, than me actually WATCHING it. I loved the movie with Julie Andrews. One of my all-time faves of this lifetime.  Not sure I have any other lifetimes to go, I'm not a cat. I'm just saying that it's a good movie...the original one is anyway...and the music is pretty good too.

I need to buy the soundtrack is what I really need to do one day....when I'm rich...or not poor, whichever comes first.


It's now 10:45 p.m.

I missed Grey's and the rest of the Sound of Music.

My friend called me from back home in the great Hoosier state.

She is well.

Freezing her ass off too.

We chatted for almost an hour and a half, just enough time for me not to catch any of the shows I had on my list this evening.

Do I care that I missed them?

Not really.

She probably did me a favor in the long run.

I'll find out just as soon as I find my damn remote control to the TV and can watch this stuff on Demand.

Until then, I'll just keep posting random blogs and do the usual things that keep me entertained on a long, lonely night.

Actually my long, lonely nights will be ending come tomorrow night.

My kids are back again for the week.

YAYYYY!!!

I had a lot more to talk about but for the moment I'm too damn tired to remember what they were.

I was in the middle of this blog, remember?, when my friend called me.

She probably did me another favor there too, because I'm sure whatever it was I was going to blog about probably wasn't all that interesting anyway.

Not that what I've written thus far this evening is Pulitzer Prize winning material either.

It's late, I'm tired and I just want to get tomorrow over with so I can be with my kids.

I miss them.

It's been quiet around here.  Too quiet.

And the sea monkeys will need to be fed.

And the birds need some one on one time with the kidlets here.

Yeah, kidlets, like niblets only...well...kids.

I really need to go.

Not making much sense here am I?

But I'm still gonna post this regardless.

Told my son(Youngest Twin) "One day you will look back on these blogs and have a good giggle or think about your own kids or gain a new perspective on something." He wanted me to read the blog post from two days ago to him while he sat on the toilet in my bathroom here while I was editing it before posting.

So I did.

He enjoyed it by the way. Said it was a good one.

That kid's gonna make a fortune some day.

Have a lovely Friday and an awesome weekend.

May or may not be back...we'll see.

My Day in a Nutshell

So Roberta Lynn Finklestein still has my remote*(See yesterday's blog post for the clarification on the name).

Haven't found it yet.

Haven't found my nail clippers either. That was the other thing I couldn't think of that was missing the other day. My feet will look like reindeer hooves if I wait another week to trim them...the nails that is, not my feet...wait to trim my nails.

Okay maybe not that bad, I can go a week or so but I get really OCD'ish about my nails even though nobody ever sees them except for me.

Weird huh?

I had a fairly decent morning. Went outside and saw teeny weenie flakes floating around out there. At first I thought it was just my eyes playing tricks on me, but nope, it was indeed snow.

I smiled.

Nobody around to see me smile, but I didn't care. Because I knew it would be a good day.
For the most part it was a good day, until the end of my shift.  The last half hour was ungodly long and painful. My pained self was trying so hard to make it without shedding a tear. I have these little ones who need me to be strong.

I couldn't do it.

The pain won out. Top that off with some very energetic children and forget trying to keep it together when your insides feel like they are coming out of your body twisting and jarring and just hurting so badly.

I felt like Santa in this photo here:

I lived to tell about it.

Thought about calling in sick tomorrow, but it was a passing thought, nothing more. I have bills to pay. I can't afford to call in sick.  I remember last  year having the actual flu; aches so bad that I couldn't move at all, my lower back hurt so bad even when I  had to sneeze, vomiting , fever, chills the whole nine yards, and my sorry ass went to work for 2 days with that shit. I even went to a work related class on that Saturday. I had some pizza, thought my flu was over, hell no, it was waiting for me to have some really tasty stuff to give back to the porcelain throne apparently.  I spent the weekend on my couch and basically in a sleep-induced coma pretty much. I remember snippets of my life that weekend, and returning to work that following Monday, still hurling my cookies, only for my boss to finally allow me the opportunity to leave an hour and a half earlier than my end of shift.

I thanked her so much then headed home where I slept the rest of that flu away from 5:30 that night until 6:00 the following morning...uninterrupted.

I felt like a new person when I returned to work that Tuesday morning.

I couldn't remember the last time I was that sick. I think I was drunk when I was that sick and it only lasted a day and that was back in my twenties. I haven't been "drunk" in years. I still don't understand why people drink to the point of near-death intoxication just to have fun.  What kind of fun is hugging the toilet or laying on a ice cold bathroom floor waiting for the next round of "What did I drink tonight?" to appear.

*shivers*

Enough about that.

So we are suppose to get some snow this weekend. I smiled again to myself in the van on the way to work this morning when they gave that weather report. "Snow in the valley on Saturday"(insert big grin). Gee, I miss that stuff.

I think I'm going to go to bed.

It's been a long, long day.  I took a shower and feel a little more relaxed, but the pain is coming and going here and there.

For now the pain is "there" and not "here" thank Goodness.

I still have to clean out the bird cage and check on the boys sea monkeys.  Oh yeah, they got sea monkeys for their birthday. I felt bad for my oldest because his didn't hatch...at all...the first 13 days. My other son had like fifty of those little suckers swimming around in there by day five.  Okay, not fifty, but about 11 or so of those little critters in his tank.

I remember the week they went to their dads. I sat there and talked to that tank. I said "Come on, there has to be at least one of you in there. Just hatch pleeeeease." Like some kind of miracle in a kid's tv movie, the kids came back from their dad's a few days later, and I heard the excitement in my son's voice when he said "MOM! ONE HATCHED!!!"  I ran over to see, and there inside his tank was this teeny tiny little guy jsut floating around in there.

I told him he should name it Nemo.

So he did.

Now I have to check on the birds and the sea monkeys and I thought about buying them a Hermit Crab for Christmas. We'll see about that one.  Still on the fence if I will do that or not. Because everything I buy when it comes to the boys has to come in sets of two.

I'm really getting off of this thing now. I need some rest.

I shall leave you all with a graphic that sums up a place where I wish I could truly spend the holidays with my children...

Another Day of Mindless Randomness

Whew!

That was a close one.

I had no computer the entire weekend.

My world practically ended.....

The monitor was shot.  I had to spend twenty of my hard earned dollars on a new monitor. That was really hard to part with, but I figured with this cold snap hitting the desert region here, I'd better be prepared when my kids come back so we all have something to occupy our time if we get a bad case of cabin fever.

I don't even know where to begin here. What shall I start with first?

Let's see...

For starters, my remote control is gone. Poof! Vanished into thin air. I kid you not. My daughter had it the day after she was sick. She was laying on the couch and that was the last I saw of that sucker. I dug my hand into the couch and the love seat like I was diving for gold. It wasn't in there. I moved the furniture, I even checked the trash. I checked her room, the dining room table, chairs and even the boys room. Checked the bathrooms too.

It's gone I tell ya!!! I'm beginning to think I have a little Casper living in here. Why can't Casper take my garbage and lose it(somewhere outside preferably) why does Casper have to take my remote? Or the other sock that has lost it's mate? You know what else was missing? My son's belt. He went on a trip with his dad this past weekend, and was throwing a fit because he didn't have his belt on and left it here. His pants were sagging. They were sagging here, but he had a long T-shirt on so it didn't really matter, nobody saw his drawers hanging out anyway.

His dad called to tell me he(my son) was having a meltdown because he wouldn't wear any other shorts but the ones he had on for their big trip to the mountains.  Uh-huh you heard that right...snow in the mountains, freezing cold snow, and my son's ass is up there in shorts. You explain it to me, because I sure can't.  I couldn't find the belt. Looked in his room, laundry room and living room. Again, the last place I saw it was the living room. It was there because I put it there when I dropped it and took  his shorts to wash them that morning. Where the belt went after that was beyond me.

Next morning, I found it, in the same room I searched in the day before. There it was under the inflated pull raft/chair(don't ask..if you must know...it was for a fort they decided to concoct out of a twin air mattress and this raft thing, and some blankets). I know I checked under there the day before. For whatever reason I didn't see it.

I'm still blaming Casper.  I'm also renaming Casper Roberta Lynn Finklestein. *shrugs* What do you think?

So anyway, Roberta Lynn Finklestein (or whatever name our invisible made up friend is here, for the purpose of this blog post) keeps on taking things and not returning them. Of course, I've also cleaned around here. Ever clean up so good, that you put stuff in places thinking you'll remember where you put them?

Yeah, me too.

However, getting back to Friday,  I never touched the remote that day, because I was in the kitchen all morning and part of the early afternoon baking with the kids. From 11:30 to 2:30 my ass was in the kitchen. Other than pee breaks, I was in there most of the day.

I feel lost without my remote.

Of course it's probably a blessing in disguise, because we can't rent movies without it. Of course, we also can't watch any of our On-demand shows either.  I had no intention of renting any movies.  I rented them for the kid's birthdays. One dollar movie flick and one regular price movie for each birthday. That was $12.00 total for both birthdays.


I suppose I could talk about what I found Friday afternoon when I sat next to my daughter on the couch. Remember how I said that there wasn't anything on the couch after she got sick?  Well, turns out my daughter, in the depths of her mid-REM vomit-induced state of sleep, managed to hunch herself over the back of the couch and hit the wall just behind it, inadvertently hitting the electrical outlet (which explains why the reset button popped out and I couldn't start my mixer in the kitchen) and all of her dinner was behind the couch all over the wall and the floor.

When I saw it I said to her "Oh there's the turkey you ate at grandma's last night!"

She was not amused.

Her brothers were though.

And then they saw it, "Eww, that's gross!"

Relax boys it's just recycled food.


Damn that wind out there is wicked!

We are getting hit with a major cold front from Canada apparently this week.  Canada can keep their weather, unless they plan on sending snow with this system. Lots and lots and lots of snow or I don't want this system.

Take it back.

The wind chimes are going bananas out there. I hear the screens shaking. It's pretty crazy!

Just waiting on Toto to fly by and wave hello with his front paw sitting in his basket.


This day has been insane.

My day started out fairly well.  For the most part I suppose it started out well. I was dressed for work and ready to go by 8:00 which for me on any given day, especially when my kids are here, is basically a miracle.

I got ready, I wanted coffee as I was out of coffee in my house. So I first stopped at a Starbuck's on my way to work and it was near a Subway down the street which was perfect. They have the $2.00 6" sandwich deal going on(free ad for Subway, do I get a free drink or something? hee hee) I suppose for the whole month of December...maybe?  Anyway, the line at Starbucks took an eternity to get through two people in front of me, so  I left. I went to Subway, got my sandwich and figured I would just grab a Frap-like drink from a local coffee shop out here.

Big mistake.

I gave the girl my order, I wanted a peppermint mocha blended frappy drink. Okay, simple enough. She didn't ask if I wanted whip cream, I didn't say I wanted it. I assumed, as I had been at this place before(many moons ago, they are really pricey, pricier than Starbucks I kid you not) that I would get my damn whip cream. Well, I get my drink, NO WHIP CREAM!  What the F*^*&%!!!!

I was not happy.

I looked at her and said "Oh, don't you put whip cream on here?"
She says "We're out."

'Scuse me ma'am but don't you think it's important to tell the customer there is no whip cream BEFORE they pay and you blend the drink, NOT AS YOU ARE HANDING IT TO THEM???!!!

I would have gotten just a regular damn coffee with cream and sugar for the over-priced $3.00 or whatever it is instead of paying almost five bucks for something I was craving all morning that wasn't even what I wanted.  The whip cream makes the drink. It's like an Oreo without the middle, or a chocolate torte with no frosting, or Ben without Jerry.....it's, it's....a tragedy.

So there I was driving to work with my "flat frapp".

Then some idiot decides he is going to try to race me on a merging lane and I simply slowed down, I was like, "dude you want to pass me, pass me, I have a flat frap, my life pretty much has no meaning at this point. Go ahead, pass me."

So the guy gets behind me, I guess he wanted to toy with me or something. I didn't care, me and my flat frap waited for me to be able to turn left up ahead and eventually he just went around me.

Idiot!

Flat frap in hand I go into work.

Had a fairly decent day I suppose.

Went to pay my cable bill at the local grocery store here in town. Turns out they needed a 21 digit number, all I had on the part of the bill I took in was a sixteen digit number. Called the cable company, then I couldn't get my phone off speaker when the guy asked me to give him my security numbers.

I was like "Seriously!??"

I blame the flat frap...damn you flat frap girl!

Ugh, the customer service guy had already taken my money. So then he had to refund it, and all I wanted to do was go home, have some dinner and blog.

Eventually as you can see, I made it home.

I had my dinner.

And now I'm blogging.

It's getting chilly in here though.

Better go turn the heat on.

So there you go my day in a nutshell.

How was yours?

It's Officially Christmas Time Around Here

Our Anorexic Christmas Tree

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...especially around here.  The kids couldn't wait to put up the tree. They were almost as excited as they are on Christmas eve.  I got the tree and all the pretty decorations out of the closet, I carefully unwrapped each figurine that I had wrapped in paper towels, newspaper and even a sock last year and placed them on my kitchen counter.  My daughter decorated the bar in the kitchen with garland and all the Christmas cards I received last year.

Meanwhile, my boys were playing some sort of sword game with each other. I gave them a quick, "Knock it off!" before I got my "Mommy Voice" and snapped at them to "Knock that off right now or we will NOT put up the tree today."  Both boys looked at each other and grinned, then put down their "swords" which were actually just water guns I got on sale end of season this past summer.  They sat on the couch and I told them I would pull the tree out of the box in a minute.

I wasn't in a very good mood by the time we put the tree up. I had been up since a little before six in the morning and I was a little annoyed at someone(not my children) and why they annoyed me wouldn't stop going through my head.

So you can understand why, by the time 9:30 rolled around I was grumpy. I didn't want to be grumpy, I tried so hard not to be grumpy and thankfully my Scrooge-like persona only came in a couple of limited tiny waves during our tree-trimming adventure.

It went fairly smooth for the most part, other than the garland trimming incident where my boys were standing on the left of the tree, my daughter and I on the right and she was pulling the garland so tight before we had any slack to wrap it around the other side. I thought she was going to tear it apart. It's dollar store garland(only the finest in my house right?) and it isn't as sturdy as that name brand stuff.  The garland was finally on, and we were now on the way to placing the angel on the tree. Figuring out who would be the lucky winner of that highly anticipated job almost caused a nervous breakdown in all of us. Finally, the boys agreed my daughter would put it on and they would be the "angel adjusters" if needed.

They kept saying she was tilting no matter how many times they adjusted her.  I finally told them "Well, how would you be standing if you had a stick up your hiney?"  They just laughed.

So there is our anorexic tree.  It serves it's purpose and although I would love nothing more than to have one of those big, fancy, fully decorated trees you see in all those Hallmark Holiday Movies, I like our anorexic tree. My kids and I kind of giggled when we stepped back to admire it, then we all applauded at a job well done on a beautiful tree.



Next we went into the kitchen to make some gingerbread cookie dough. That was "fun". I asked my daughter if she wanted to help, she said she would help with the next recipe, which was sugar cookies.  She told me that her stomach hurt, and I thought maybe it was just too much food. She laid down on the couch and shortly after she fell asleep.

My oldest twin wanted to help me so I let him measure out the dry ingredients while I creamed together the other ingredients in the mixing bowl.  I tried to keep an eye on his measuring but at one point I was really into a conversation with my other twin son and when I looked over at the bowl my oldest was mixing in. he had measured out three tablespoons of baking soda instead of three teaspoons.  Then, he had asked me how to get the ginger out of the bottle and I just stared at him for a brief moment, grinned and said, "Umm...I'll let you try and figure it out son."  See, he was the one who took the safety seal off of it for me.  And he really is a pretty smart kid, so I wanted to make sure he learns how to problem solve.

Life has bigger problems he will have to face so I need to start him early on logical thinking.

About thirty seconds after I told him to figure it out...he did.

We finally got the dough together and wrapped it and put it in the fridge, when I look over on the counter and noticed we didn't put the syrup in. My son also informed me we didn't put the two teaspoons of milk in either.

Crap!

So I go back to the fridge, unwrap the dough and lay it back in the bowl. I'm trying to break it up a bit so it's not a big glob of rubber that will make the mixer explode. I hurriedly add the forgotten ingredients and mix for about 20 seconds and throw it back on the foil I had it wrapped in.

I threw it on the bottom shelf.

Shut the fridge door.

Grabbed my soda, sat my tired ass down in front of my computer and began perusing some old photos on  Facebook with my boys.

*warning....this next part of my blog post is not for the squeamish. Being a mom I post about mom things...one of them being sick kids....you've been warned* 

  My son went into the living room about ten minutes later, and said "Mom, she is gone," referring to his sister, I said, "Huh? She is on the couch." He said "No, she isn't." I walk out there and no daughter, only a folded blanket of hers and the other blanket she was lying under. Like a cat in the night, she managed to walk to her room, undress and get under her comforter on her bed.  I saw her lying there on her Hello Kitty pillow. I put my hand on her head and she opened her eyes and told me "I think I threw up in my sleep."  I didn't see anything on the couch. Then the waves of wooziness hit her and I ran as fast as I could to get the bucket from under the bathroom sink. She tried to hold it in until I got there and I told her "You'll choke, hit the carpet!" as I ran to lift her head upright.

Poor baby.

Her brother was getting tired and wanted a blanket. I told him to grab the other blanket that was on the couch his sister slept on. As he goes to lay it down and put his head on top of it, he jumps up rather abruptly and I said "Let me guess, it smells like vomit."

He runs to the bathroom trying desperately to wipe the smell off his arms. I thought for sure he was going in there to toss his cookies too. I took the blanket to the laundry room and came back to sit with my boys in the living room.

Forget relaxing at all this evening...I thought to myself.

My daughter woke up several times during the night. Surprisingly, like a fire alarm in my dead sleep, I could hear her tiny little voice calling me with cries of "Mommy! Mommy!Mommmm!" throughout the night. I remember at one point still half asleep running to her room.

Now she is sleeping. I sure hope she is okay. Her and her brothers have a big road trip they are taking with their daddy tomorrow. I'd hate for her to miss it.

Just got done baking some gingersnaps. My daughter helped me make them. Yes, she is feeling 100% better. She woke up this morning and took a bath, had a few crackers and some hot cocoa.  She is good to go. We made two pans of gingersnaps and I made my traditional Roshky dough so I can roll some out for a batch of some almond and apricot flavored Roshkies to take to my neighbor's house this afternoon.  

I was invited to dinner.

I'm so happy.

I get turkey after all!!!

Yesterday I had a sushi Thanksgiving.  I really wanted one of those individual Turkey and Mashed Potato dinners that are usually found at the front of the store but the warmer wasn't there, only garlic bread.  So I settled on buying sushi. I wonder how many other Americans out there had a sushi Thanksgiving.  Maybe the pilgrims had sushi too, but being that it's not very appealing to most Americans, they wrote that part of the dinner out of the history books. 

We weren't there.  Neither was the person who rewrote the story.  So maybe, like Chinese telephone, the facts were distorted a bit over time being retold so often through generations. 

*shrugs*

Who knows?

Okay, time to skee-daddle here(Yes, I said skee-daddle...I say all kinds of things on my porch).  I have gingerbread cookie dough to cut out with my kids and roshkies to make and all kinds of fun stuff to do today. My kids will be leaving with dad later on, so you know more than likely I will return.

Have a wonderful black friday you crazy mall-shopping, bargain hunting crazies. You are much braver than I, that's for damn sure. I have a post on that in the works too here.

Stay tuned....

Magickal Graphics

I Am So Thankful!

For those of you who may stop by my blog, yes, I'm still alive.  For over a month my monitor wasn't working. I blamed Mercury, that tyrant of electrical gadgets on a retrograde day, and I decided that I would give it a last ditch effort this morning after I unplugged it and was ready to throw it all away.

Voila!

It's a Thanksgiving Day Miracle!!!!!

HERE I AM!

This has been a very crazy week. There is so much to share and as much as I'd love to delve into all that has happened the past few weeks, I shall divulge it all at a later date.  I will say that I did try to post a blog from my phone. For 30 minutes my not so good eyes and my fat thumbs typed away a blog post. I went to post it, and dammit wouldn't ya know it, the stupid thing froze on me. Froze up completely that it caused my phone to fizz out on me and I couldn't access the internet at all. I was not a happy camper. That was my only lifeline to Facebook. My only way to know what was going on in the real world, virtually speaking that is.

I called the phone company and after they tried to work their magic, the woman told me they could do a data restore which would erase EVERYTHING.  I told them I would call back.

The next morning, it was working fine again.

I am spending the day solo, as my kids will be with dad today. I was invited to join them, he swore nobody would be "mean" to me, but there is a giant german shepherd who isn't very fond of me(the feeling is mutual) so I declined his offer and thanked him kindly.

Then I was invited to a friend's house for dinner. At first it was going to be just me as originally the kids dad was going to take them. Then I got the invite and called and asked him what his plans were. He had none. Wanted to watch football and said he didn't care if I took the kids to my friends. Then my friend said that her hubby had to work. So dinner was cancelled for today. Then she offered an invite for this Saturday. As my luck would have it, it was at 7 pm. I don't drive after dark, unless it's well lit and I know the road well enough. Call me a "safety first" kind of driver. I may as well be drunk and behind the wheel driving at night in uncharted territories. Because that's how I'd be driving.

So I declined her offer.

Then she explained how much money she had spent on buying items for the dinner expecting us to be there.  An LOL followed her explanation, but I could not help but feel guilty for not being able to come.  This is what happens with lack of communication, not to mention the tone which is why I hate when people don't just pick up a phone once in a while, I hate texting and messaging for that very reason. You never know the real intent behind the words of someone else.

 Maybe I should have asked her when she offered the Saturday dinner what time was the dinner. Or maybe she should have told me first. I don't know. It's one of those tricky...what if scenarios. Ya know? 

Anyway, no harm no foul. It's not like my kids eat a ton of food anyway. My daughter eats like a bird and my boys eat fairly well, but not $100 worth of food on one day. Even for the 4 of us, my shopping is usually 10 bucks per day to feed all of us. And not having more than one child of her own, perhaps she overestimated how much food 3 kids actually can eat.


It just bugged me.
I hate messaging, I hate texting.

You get the point.

I got a third offer to go to a friend's house from work. I was jumping up and down when she invited me. No joke. The kids in my class were laughing at me. I told her "You really DO love me!" ha ha. She was rolling her eyes, and grinning at me. We are a good team. If anything I am thankful for a coworker / friend like her. She even offered to come get me, and she lives in North Las Vegas, which is quite a drive from where she is to me.  She knows my van is crap, she knows I can't drive at night, and she just..well, knows me.

Then she told me she would bring me a plate anyway today. I told her just save me leftovers for Monday. She said she'd figure something out.  Either way, I'm Thankful for her friendship. You rock D.

Was watching the Macy's Parade with my kids and some poor girl fell while doing their little dance routine. I watched her back up during the routine and then her little hat covered ear-muffed self flopped flat on her hiney. But to that young lady, you did a swell recovery and kept up with the rest of your clan there. Good job!

Okay, I had to get a quick post out. More to come...provided my monitor lets me post more.

May you all have a wonderful, fun-filled, family and friend get together on this special day.

Kids and I will be putting the tree up this evening.  I will post some photos of the festivities and our baking that will follow after.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!