Whenever I think of limericks, I think of Data when he tried to recite the woman from Venus…
An ADD Limerick by the Sadder But Wiser Girl
Oh Attention Deficit Disorder
You make me feel like I am from Mordor
You make me forget
The things I must get
And therefore my life lacks order
I had two things happen to me that were kind of interesting this past week.
My husband read one of my blog posts. He liked it. He liked it so much he shared it with people at work. And they loved it. This was nice.
The other thing was a conversation I had with our librarian. Somehow we got on the subject of preschool and the fact that I used to teach it. She asked if I had ever considered starting my own. Why yes I have, but I don’t have any space in my house for such a thing. When I shared this with her, she motioned to the empty building across the street and said, “There’s a whole empty building over there. You should look into it.”
For the first time in quite a while I was actually a little excited. Might be something worth looking into. I loved teaching preschool. Then I opened my mouth to my husband, who shot me down. He was just being his usual, honest self. But I felt a little like I’d been shot in the heart. I crawled back into my hopeless hole of despair and unemployment.
Oh come on, you gotta know the song. “Gloom, despair, and agony on me. Deep dark depression, excessive misery. If it ain’t for bad luck I got no luck at all. Gloom, despair, and agony on me. They just don’t make good quality shows like Hee Haw anymore…
A couple of nights ago I basically tried to sell my soul for a job at a major bank. It was a teller position. After I applied I was told I had to take a test. I was told I had to take it in a quiet place, and have pen and paper handy. So I did what they said. It was ridiculous. There was ONE question on it that had anything to do with money. The rest were questions about how comfortable I felt selling products to people, and what kind of sales awards I had received, etcetera. Needless to say, I’m sure they won’t be calling me. What ever happened to just dealing with money? Why does everything have to be SALES? Why DID I spend five years in college again?
I am forming a theory about some of the places that I have applied and who looks at the stuff that comes in. I have to, because if I don’t laugh at it I really am going to start to cry. Queen Bavmorda is out today in a baaaaaaad way. I think she may have killed my cheerleaders, or they are just very, very sick.
This is who I think might be reading my resumes…
I think that Statler and Waldorf are in charge at some of the places I apply at. Or somebody like that. I have this whole imagined scenario in my head of each place I have applied of what happens when they receive my stuff.
The Clinic-There is one particular medical clinic n my area that I have applied for several positions now. Here’s what I think went down recently:
Person #1: “Hey, this person has applied for close to twenty jobs with us now. We’re running out of people to fill all of these positions that we always have open, should we give her a call for an interview?”
Person #2: “Nah, I am really, really liking this monkey. He can fling his poo and everything.”
Maybe the monkey is the one reading the resume?
The University-The Lab School
University Hiring Person: “This girl is perfectly qualified for this substitute preschool position we have open!”
Unpaid Intern Person: “There’s purple on her resume. I HATE PURPLE!” Then he tosses the resume into the incinerator.
The University-Secretary and Coordinator Positions
Resume Reader Person: “BWAH HA HA! How dare this person think she is even worthy of applying to our sacred school of perfection. She is like a flaming bag of dog poop!” Then he tosses my resume into the, well, flaming pile of dog poop that just happens to be there.
Why thank you, I rather liked that one myself.
The Library-There was a wonderful position open at, yes, a public library. I really thought I might have had a shot at this one.
Librarian: “I sense a disturbance in the force. I feel…yes, this person has a blog. I hate blogs.” Makes a paper airplane out of my resume and flies it into the chandelier.
The City-I admit this one was stretching it a bit, but I really was qualified for the position.
City Person A: “It says here in several previous positions she worked with children.”
City Person B: “Ewww! I bet she smells like children! Into the shredder!”
The Community College-There were two very interesting jobs here. I’m sad.
Resume Expert: “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! My eyes! My eyes!” Eyes catch on fire as she looks at my resume. Medical attention is required. As she receives medical help, the resume is dropped on the floor and swept up by the janitor.
The Place Where My Husband Works–
Human Resources Person: “As impressive as this resume is, I can’t hire this person because we have already hired her husband. If we hire her, the degree of awesomeness this company will experience will cause the END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT.” Puts my resume far, far, far back into the drawer of the file cabinet.
Target-Yes I applied at Target. Don’t judge me. I’m desperate.
Professional resume reader with a large target tattooed on her head: “Oh look, another Target shopper thinks she can work here. WRONG!” Hits delete.
I think I’m going to be like Noah Wyle on “The Librarian”. I am going to go back to school and major in every possible thing I can. At least maybe someday I’ll have a shot at a job!
DISCLAIMER: I have a wonderful cousin who works in Human Resources for her job. She is nothing like these people. I’m sure she doesn’t keep a pile of flaming dog poo in her office, either.
No IPads at our house. Just library cards. All the humans in our house have one.
One of the perks of having kids is having an excuse to visit the library on a semi-regular basis. It’s not that I didn’t visit the place before I had kids, but it’s nice having a legitimate reason to go there. When I was a child, the library was a magical place. It still is, but when you are an adult, life tends to get in the way of doing things, like going to the library. So having kids to insist on going there is a very good thing.
The other day we missed Preschool Story Time. We didn’t go because my husband had taken the day off to spend with me. That happens about as often as a solar eclipse. We don’t exactly get to see much of each other, so library was an afterthought that week. You would have thought that I had forgotten to give my daughter a life saving medication or something. She was HORRIFIED, not so much because she had just missed the story time, but because her brother had got to go to his story time that week and SHE didn’t.
My kids live for the library. That’s good. Their grandma is a librarian, so they kind of get it honest. What a wonderful place-all of those books, and they can borrow them FOR FREE! The Professor has been reading since he was three. Maybe even earlier than that, but we weren’t sure if he was really reading or just had a really good memory. The Princess has just begun to admit that she can read. Only she would deny that she could do such a thing. Now that the secret is out she is reading everything. Every sign, every random word placed anywhere, she tries to read it.
I finally took her to the library the next day to make up the fact that I had deprived her of the Story Time. She walked in, returned her books, and proceeded to the kids section where she very loudly asked, “Where are the GIRL books?” Apparently “Girl” books are any book that has 1) a princess on the cover 2) a girl on the cover 3) has a cute animal on the cover 4) is pink or purple. The next ten minutes were spent with me pulling books off the shelf and her approving or vetoing the selections. We ended up with: Unicorn Races by Stephen J Brooks; Splat the Cat and Love, Splat by Rob Scotton; Mind Your Manners by Diane Goode; Halloweena by Miriam Glassman; Anklet For A Princess, A Cinderella Story From India by Lila Mehta and Meredith Brucker; Hippos Go Berserk by Sandra Boynton; and Go Away, Big Green Monster by Ed Emberley (this one was sparkly, apparently I missed that criteria).
Everybody loves a good princess story.
We also had to keep Olivia and the Fairy Princesses by Ian Falconer by which we had checked out the week before, because it had Olivia in it. And Princesses.
It has been rather refreshing to have some different criteria to choose books. Her brother will choose books if they have a popular character on them. If Spongebob is on the cover, he’s probably going to check it out. This is the child who reads far above his grade level, and books with Spongebob aren’t exactly high level material. It’s difficult to get him interested in much else outside of the house, but yet at home he will read pretty much anything. Though often he isn’t really “reading” these books, though. He sits and turns the pages, but I’m not sure what he’s really taking in. We pretty much know if it’s factual, because later on he will start reciting the facts back to us at random times. I don’t know why I worry about what he picks at the library, because owns more books than most libraries have!
He has. My son, not the dog.
I myself enjoy picking out the more warped books for my children. These are usually their favorites. Tedd Arnold has three such books that we love: Parts, More Parts, and Even More Parts. My daughter loves the Olivia series and the Pinkalicious books by Elizabeth and Victoria Kann. I regret a little getting her started on the Pinkalicious series, because I feel like I’m fueling the pink and princess craze. But hey, they are fun to read. I especially enjoy Purplicious, because of the snotty girls in the book. I give most characters voices, and I get to totally read the snotty girls lines using my very best valley girl voices. What is really funny is listening to her read the book and using the very same voices as I did. We also recently checked out The Princess and the Pizza by Mary Jane Auch. It’s a fractured fairy tale based on the Princess and the Pea and it is FUNNY! I didn’t think either of us wanted to ever take that one back. My personal favorite is Gregory the Terrible Eater by Mitchell Sharmat. Having kids is fun. I probably wouldn’t get to read any of these otherwise.
There isn’t really a bad aspect about any of this, except maybe their forgetful mother. We do have some issues. It’s called overdue library books. It’s better now because the one who remembers things is now old enough to know what days we go to the library, and is excited enough to remember to return her books. Previously her mother would go weeks, sometimes months, and in one case over a year before returning books. The last one wasn’t really my fault. There was a purple bag that was full of books, apparently they were never returned. It hung quietly behind the other bags that were innocently placed in front of it on the back porch. When we rearranged the storage for the dog stuff, I discovered it. I checked the due dates on the books, and to my horror they were over a year overdue. Thank goodness our library isn’t real demanding about fees. I sneakily returned them very early one morning before the library opened. I don’t know why, it’s not like our librarians are mean or anything. I don’t check out books for myself anymore, since it seems to take me forever to get them read, and even longer to remember to return them. I do however, frequent the free magazine bin. No returning after reading…
Guilty. Again and again.
We’ve got a few library stories. We’ve returned a few damaged books. There was one time I had to march my son over there to explain why a book had teethmarks on it. He had it while watching TV, and absentmindedly started chewing on it. I wish I could say it was the only time that ever happened. If nothing else, I’m sure it gave the librarian a good story. I’m sure she just added to the secret list they have of why our family is overly weird.
Who can be upset by the fact that my kids love reading so much? I’m certainly not. The only time it really gets to be an issue is at bedtime. Princess Ready to Read wants every book in her room read to her, and her brother would stay up until the cows came home reading if we let him (of course we don’t, but we do have to remind him when it’s time for bed.) I can think of far, far worse ways for him to spend his evening.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go read my daughter a book!
My crown, custom made just for me.
This week I became queen.
I’m not really sure what I’m queen of. I am unsure of what I am actually ruling over. One fact that I do know is that I have a crown. It’s very sparkly (made of sparkly bulletin board borders from Dollar Tree) and is covered with beautiful jewels (the sticky ones).
I’m sure you can guess who made it for me. There were ulterior motives involved. She knows that if I am queen, then she is a princess. I know this because she told me so. You’ve got to love that blunt honesty.
I wonder if anyone has bothered to inform the cat that she has been dethroned?
That being said, I started thinking what I would do if I were queen? And what would I like to be the queen OF? I mean besides my house. That obviously isn’t working, even with the crown.
When we were kids there was always the “Land of Dairy Queen” commercial on. We would all stop whatever we were doing and oooo and ahhhh over the wonderful treats. If I were to be a queen, I would think that would be my kind of place to rule. People would be free to eat whatever they wanted and none of it would make them gain any weight. No tricks, and no Oompa Loompas, because they really creep me out.
Sadly I could not find an image from that wonderful commercial. However, I will post this delicious image that has me drooling all over my laptop instead. Did I eat lunch today?
Or maybe I’d be more at home ruling a place like Naboo. Not sure I’d like the headwear-some of it looks pretty heavy. But she had a REALLY cool ship.
Hey, I didn’t know Queen Amidala had a cat! Cat Amidala…
Most of the Disney queens were evil, the famous ones anyway. Ever notice that? Noone cares about the non evil ones.
Oh come on, even the queen has to go sometime… What a very functional throne! I think I may request one.
What would I do as queen? I’m glad you asked! Even if you didn’t, I’m going to tell you anyway. Naptime in my kingdom would be mandatory. EVERYONE must nap! I would require a constant supply of Diet Sunkist Lemonade, because if the queen ain’t happy… Walks would also be mandatory. My royal subjects must walk with me and keep a consistent pace, or risk banishment from the kingdom. Football would only be viewed in the dungeon (our basement kind of resembles a dungeon, I could sooooo put a TV down there). My castle would be automated, it would be like Fantasia except with better results. I’d have a washer that retrieves the dirty laundry, loads itself, washes it, and then would load the dryer. The dryer would dry the laundry AND fold it. It would be really, really cool. And the rest of the house would follow suit. My favorite part of course would be the self cleaning toilet. A self-cleaning castle. How nice! I really COULD lay around and eat bon bons all day. I’ve never had a bon bon. I’m thinking it would be something like a dark chocolate kiss on crack.
Sorry… I really must be hungry. There goes my mind wandering again. What was I talking about? Ah yes…
The dress in my kingdom would be casual. None of that fancy frou frou princessy stuff, except the crown. This Queen shops at Eddie Bauer (the clearance rack) and Bass Pro. No really, I do! And we’d eat pasta. LOTS of pasta. Because I really, really like pasta. And veggie pizza with whole wheat crust. Of course I wouldn’t have to make any of it. The oven would do that, because remember it’s an automated castle. And everyone will eat it and LIKE IT! Or else they can take another mandatory nap. There will be dessert every night, some sort of chocolate or ice cream related dessert, and it will have no calories because I said so. That won’t matter anyway. Since I will be Queen I will get to have a gym membership again, except that it will be MY gym. Complete with a personal trainer who looks like Thor. Oh heck, why not two personal trainers, the other one can look like Tony Stark. Oh yes, and my carriage shall be a purple prius with a trunk that goes on forever. That way I can go to Pier 1 and be able to put furniture in it. And I won’t flush my keys down the toilet while I’m there.
No I meant without the suits. No they’d still be wearing clothes. I mean, oh never mind…
One final thing, no one shall interrupt the Queen on her phone… that could quite possibly result in me yelling “OFF WITH HER HEAD!”
What would you do if you were Queen or King? Come on over, I’m sure my daughter would gladly make you a crown. Except you may have to supply your own jewels, I’m all out!
Ah, my little princess. Don’t grow up too fast. Being a grown up isn’t much fun a lot of the time.
A couple of times recently Princess Confident has announced, “When I grow up, I will get to do whatever I want!”
I replied to this, “Ok honey, you just keep thinking that.” And maybe she will, being the confident little thing that she is.
I sure can’t say that’s necessarily true for me. In the last year with all of this unemployment stuff, I had several people ask me what I really wanted to do. The truth is I don’t know. I have no idea what I really want to do when I grow up. I’m 38 years old, and let’s face it, I don’t feel like a grown-up.
I wanted to be a teacher most of my life. That didn’t pan out well, now did it? I guess being a published writer is my next goal. HA HA.
She has told me on several occasions that she wants to be a doctor when she grows up. Or a cowgirl. They’re so close, don’t you think? The Professor thinks he wants to be a baseball player. This is new, because up until this announcement he has wanted to be a racecar driver. But then again, he has also informed me that he will take over for one of the school’s fourth grade teachers when she gets too old to teach. Hmmmm… that easy, huh? I must admit that I admire my husband in the fact that he has always known he wanted to be an engineer, even though it took him a long time to get there. I guess that’s how you know you’re a grown up, you know what you want to do?
A lot of grown-ups have bucket lists. Someone recently asked me about my bucket list. I guess I really don’t have one. I have joked about taking pictures of different buckets and putting them on here. I guess I don’t really have one because the things that I really want to do seem so out of reach. I’m horribly, horribly practical. Lack of money can really do that to a person. No wonder I have been depressed. If you can’t have dreams, then what is worth reaching for?
Isn’t the bucket list what you want to do before you kick the bucket. Well I don’t necessarily have a bucket list. I just have some things that I would someday would like to do. Horribly impractical and probably will never happen. But here goes.
So that’s really it. I don’t want much, do I? I’m hoping that once our little situation gets straightened out that perhaps we can start going places. Right now, I’d just like to be able to occasionally buy myself a frapuccino.
Ah yes, the Starbucks coconut mocha frappucino. It rates an honorable mention on my list of faves. I may have to start that list for a future post…
*Sob* You just don’t *sob* know how much this *snort* means to me! *Sniff* I’d like to thank the *Snort* little people for this *Sob* Mom of the Year Award…
HA HA HA. The above picture? Not me. I don’t look like Gwyneth Paltrow-I’ve actually eaten food that isn’t supernatural organic and casts a shadow. And I certainly won’t be receiving any sort of mothering awards any time soon.
I do believe I have pointed out the scary reality of being an ADD parent of an ADD child. Or just me being a parent in general is a pretty scary thing. I really try. I do. But more often than not I miss things. Things that I probably shouldn’t miss. The fact that I am largely the brains of the operation here really freaks me out sometimes.
There are so many instances where I miss stuff. Take the other night. We had my son’s open house for school. Remarkably, we got out of the house, all four of us, and arrived not at the last minute but with time to spare. As we exited the car, I noticed my son’s shoes were untied, and on the wrong feet. As he sat down to swap shoes and then tie them, I noticed he was also missing socks. And his pants were presentable but definitely had paint from Art, his special for that day. His glasses were probably all smeared up too, but I didn’t think to check, seeing as that I was so horrified by what else I had already missed regarding his appearance. And here we were going up to the school behind impeccably dressed children and their even more well dressed parents.
Once again, I lose the Mom of the Year award. Not even close to runner up. Might I also mention that my daughter had a light layer of glitter glue all over her shirt. I was thankful that I at least remembered to brush her hair and get her a headband to put in it. She was wearing it like Rambo, but at least she had something in her hair.
Having one that doesn’t notice the things and one that fights everything is a losing battle. Sometimes I don’t know why I even try.
I’m trying to teach them the basics of picking out their clothes. The Professor often will try to leave the house dressed in Christmas colors-usually a green shirt and red pants. Why any child has that many pairs of red pants is beyond me. He gets very aggravated with me when I ask him to please pick out a different (insert clothing item here). He also is famous for somehow finding pants in his room that are way too big. He will walk around the house, grabbing his pants and hiking them up to his chin every three steps until I ask him to go find something that fits. In addition he somehow gets his sister’s pants mixed in with his and tries to wear them-he doesn’t notice that they are five inches too short. These things, thankfully, I tend to notice. He does, however, go to school at least twice a week wearing his pants backwards. He has a love affair with athletic pants, so this isn’t very noticeable.
Sometimes he gets away with stuff that, well, I should notice. One time we went down to the state capital to do some shopping. We had just come out of a store when I noticed him hiking up his jeans. That was because they weren’t buttoned. It was also because they were on backwards. We asked him if he noticed something very wrong about his clothing. He just looked at us and shrugged.
The Princess loves wild prints, especially two different ones together. A flowered shirt and rainbow striped pants, for example. And the color matching thing is lost on her to a point as well. She manages to find the green flowered pants and the red shirt. And then there’s the pink. If she wears pink, it has to be ALL PINK. Often three different shades of pink that really clash. And the shoes must not match the outfit in any way whatsoever. Someone gave us a pair of dark pink slip on shoes that look like ballet flats. I made the mistake of putting these in with the rest of the shoes. She only wants to wear those. Nothing else. Sometimes I can persuade her to put on her pepto-bismol pink sandals, which she thinks go with EVERYTHING.
The other fight we have is her hair. She has long hair. This is partly because it is like mine. The shorter it is, the harder it is to manage. I’m not kidding. When I cut my hair short, I look like some sort of mutated Little Orphan Annie, only it’s not curly, it’s just wavy and very thick. Occasionally I make the mistake of thinking I will like it short. Then I regret it. I’m currently growing it out until I’m like Rapunzel. Princess too has the hair, and she WANTS to be Rapunzel. But unlike Rapunzel, she will not brush her hair. She often looks like a little orphan girl, partly because she doesn’t like her hair brushed, partly because I forget until we’re out. We do ponytails, when I can catch her. But nothing stays in her hair either. Nothing. Barrettes just slide right out. The only thing I have found that really works are the little clips they sell at Hobby Lobby. I have made her some pretty hair things. She thinks they are so beautiful that she takes them in her room and hides them.
I’m lucky if I remember to brush my own hair, let alone hers. Heck, if I remember to put a bra on, it’s a good day.
This hasn’t happened, yet…
The guys in the family at least are a bit lower maintenance. Short hair, wearing baseball hats. It’s all good. One less thing to remember. In our house, that’s a very good thing.
So if you see two somewhat unkempt but very cute children wandering around with two unkempt and not as cute parents, it might be our family. Just remember that I try. Sometimes that’s all I can do.
Today is WITLESS WEDNESDAY!
And for your reading displeasure, another awful poem by The Sadder But Wiser Girl:
Ode To Unemployment
(I got tired of looking at jobs, so I wrote a poem)
Unemployment, unemployment, you’re sucking my brain.
If this continues, I may go insane.
My lack of money is totally lame.
My lack of skills is causing me shame.
I’ve had no phone calls and no interviews
I lie on my couch and drift off for a snooze.
Sometimes I contemplate having some booze
Some days I don’t even put on my shoes.
Other days I don’t even dare
To think about putting on underwear.
Why are these things that I choose to share?
It all just doesn’t really seem fair.
I wear warm up pants and exercise shorts
(Which is funny because I don’t play any sports)
Most days I feel so out of sorts
I’m longing to network and find some cohorts.
My husband works a million hours a week
While a job I do continue to seek.
I hope that my roof does not start to leak.
For havoc upon my budget it would wreak.
Now hear me whine and moan and sob
(Son, please stop licking that doorknob!)
Please please please please let me find a job.
Before I become a total slob.
It’s not just me. Even the Klingons are having a hard time.
TV relationship most like ours. But my husband is much smarter than Tim Taylor.
“Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love.” -Albert Einstein
We’ve been together awhile. Every so often I want my husband to know that I still like him. I actually wrote him an appreciation letter the other day. It wasn’t a love letter, though I did tell him I loved him a few times in it. It was just more me letting him know how much I appreciate him.
Evil Genius and I will be married for thirteen years today. As I’ve said before, according to tradition it’s the lace anniversary. Whatever. I don’t need doilies. We’re still happily married. I’m not saying it’s been easy. The last few years have been particularly challenging for us due to all kinds of weird work situations, his return to school and subsequent graduation, and difficult children. Lately he has become an excellent zombie due to working long hours, two hours a day on the road for work in addition to those long hours, and a brain full of information and ideas that he can’t ignore. Meanwhile, I am climbing the walls because I’m home all day and sleep until 7 am. Nonetheless, I still love him to pieces. Supposedly he loves me, but it’s hard to show it when you are too tired to move or disseminate information.
How will we be celebrating our anniversary? We went out for a bit the other night. Just the two of us without any children. He’s working today, tonight we’ll probably cook something for dinner and hang out. And hopefully he’ll be able to stay conscious.
Just in a show of appreciation for us, I think the dog tried to chew a red rubbermaid lid in the shape of a heart. I’m going with that and ignoring the 17 other things he chewed up.
I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to write today. In honor of our anniversary, here’s some random thoughts about our relationship:
You really CAN meet someone at a bar. Believe me, I tried other venues.
If we didn’t have each other, I’d never know where I’d seen an actor/actress before and he would never know what their name is.
We’re both ADD, but man does it manifest itself in very different ways.
We’re an interesting couple. Here’s another one of our favorite TV couples. Who doesn’t love Monica and Chandler. They’re dysfunctional like us, I think that’s why I like them.
We both think the same things when we see something, but he usually says it first, and better than I thought it. I tell him to stop.
Opposites can attract, but you have to some similar interests and values. Our personalities are quite different, but we both have an outrageous sense of humor, love movies and music, and appreciate good food. We don’t always want to watch the same movies, or eat the same kind of food, but we try to be flexible.
We’re not perfect. Noooooooooooooo…. I wish he would not be so distracted and he wishes I would relax a little. Ok, a lot.
He reacts to emotional moments in movies. I’m dead inside when it comes to that, but I cry easily at real life…
“You are my sun, my moon, my starlit sky, without you, I dwell in darkness…” Are you puking yet? Don’t worry, our relationship is NOT like that.
I wish football would go on strike. He wishes it was year round.
We both think chocolate is one of the food groups.
He thinks pain is weakness leaving the body, I am a complete and total wuss. Once he had to hold me down and pull a giant splinter out of me because I was too weenieish to take it out myself.
I guess I’m still a romantic at heart. I love watching these two in the Iron Man movies. It works for them, probably because these two people are so full of themselves in real life…
So Happy Anniversary to my husband. I hope he keeps me around for another one.
“All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.” -Charles M Schulz
This looks like a great blog, for me to poop on!
I’m afraid that people are going to think I am obsessed with poop and toilets. I’m not, but it is quite a big subject at our house.
It’s getting cooler out. Therefore I have to start dealing with something I haven’t had to deal with for awhile. You see, I won’t eat chocolate sprinkles. And there’s a big reason for that… chocolate sprinkles look remarkably like mouse poop.
Our house is 112 years old. We live in front of a cornfield. Therefore, when the weather starts to turn cold we have many unwelcome guests. They are really cute guests, but quite unwelcome. They get into lots of places we don’t want them and either chew something of value up and eat our food. They poop. They poop a lot.
Believe me, we have tried many different things to try to keep the little buggers out of our house. I’ve shoved steel wool in holes and sealed it up with spray insulation. I’ve put anything that might be tempting into containers. My husband swears it’s impossible to keep them out. I’m of the opinion that while we probably can’t eradicate them completely, I’d like to make it as hard as possible for them to get in.
Our mouser died this past Easter, so I am a little worried now that it’s starting to get cooler outside. I haven’t seen any mouse evidence for awhile. All of our food is pretty much in plastic containers, but even then they try to get into them. At least the old Tupperware ones. I couldn’t believe it when I found that a mouse had been trying to eat its way through the tupperware container that we were using to keep our bread in. I replaced it with a different container, and set a trap back where I found all the “chocolate sprinkles”. It didn’t take too long to catch the sucker. Then I spent a day vacuuming all of those sprinkly looking poops out of our pantry shelves. I’m not really looking forward to that. As much as I love this weather, it’s making me a little nervous!
Incidentally, I still like rainbow sprinkles. If our mice start pooping rainbows I’ll really start to worry…
Thank goodness the cat goes in the litter box.
I won’t complain too much, because I know that my parents have their own source of poop frustration at their house. They have BATS! I’ll take mice any day over bats, because mice can’t fly over your head and swoop around you. They poop everywhere too. But getting rid of bats isn’t quite as easy as getting rid of little field mice, because they don’t just have any bats, they have endangered bats! They have to catch them and release them. I’ll stick with my mousies, thank you very much.
This is what would happen if the mice at my house met the bats at my mom’s house.
It’s not just the mice that are the source of my poop predicaments at our house.
Princess Poopypants has had trouble “going” pretty much as long as I can remember. She will hold it in until she is ready to explode, while pooping just a little bit at a time in her panties. One of two things happens, she either goes so much she fills up the potty, or it’s so big that it really hurts her. She has been on medication for quite a while to help her out. It’s just a powdered stool softener that we put in her juice every morning. As long as it dissolves, she can’t even taste it.
This is where we run into issues. We have made sure she knows that this is the stuff that helps her poop easily. She knows that if she waits too long, and I’m talking close to a week, that it’s not going to end well. As long as she is taking this stuff regularly, there isn’t a problem. However, lately she has been fighting us on taking it. She either refuses and puts it back in the refrigerator, drinks a little of it and pours it out, or pours the whole thing out. I realize that since we’ve had to cut some corners we don’t have quite the selection of flavors of juice that we used to. Target brand seems to have the best price, and since they almost always have a coupon that’s what we get. She really loves apple juice, so I didn’t really seem to think it was a problem. But lately she has been wanting some different juices. And she hasn’t always liked what I’ve bought. I’ve tried remedying by mixing the other juice with apple juice, but that girl is really smart-she just knows!
It’s actually a stool softener but I doubt Kirk would know the difference anyway.
So when she gets backed up and has to go, we have the shrieking. Not just crying, SCREAMING! I’m sure our neighbors think I’m absolutely killing her. As well as people in public places. I’m surprised we haven’t been banned from Family Video after one of her screaming incidents. Earlier this week after one such traumatic potty episode I tried explaining to her that this is why she needs to just drink the darn juice and she wouldn’t have such issues. I can relate-I have to eat fiber enriched cereal just so I can go. I regret the days when I decide to have a pop-tart or something less filled with fiber. I’m hoping that she’ll see the light this next week. We have enough screaming from her already.
You could say after viewing this particular blog entry that some things in my life really stink sometimes… I kind of feel like it’s all going in the toilet some days! I’m sure though that this too shall pass. Oh my, the puns just won’t stop!
“I’m the Pah-ty Poo-pah”.
It’s almost my anniversary. Something tells me I won’t be seeing anything like this…
Every Christmas they always have the commercials where the wife or husband gives the husband or wife a new car. It’s sitting in the driveway or the garage, with one of those gigantic bows on it. I always have several thoughts when I see these ads: Where do you get such a big freaking bow? What do you do with the bow afterwards? How the hell can anyone afford to give their spouse a new car? Why would anyone give someone something they have to make payments on for the next several years?
Or there are ten billion commercials for jewelry, because apparently jewelry makes women happy. I own a couple of pieces of actual jewelry, and one of them is my wedding ring. Which I found, by the way. It was under my bed.
My husband and I have never been traditional gift givers. We tend to gravitate towards things that are less conventional. Often if we actually have money at the time, we go shopping or get something that we kind of need and enjoy. Our anniversary is coming up in two days. It’s #13-the “lace” anniversary. I suppose I’m supposed to give him a doily. The #13 to me is very superstitious, so I tend to refer to it as the Superstitious Anniversary.
I’m not one of those high maintenance girls. I honestly don’t really like jewelry all that much. I do make my own stuff, but it’s not diamond jewelry type stuff. It’s glass, wood, and metal beads. So no diamonds to shut me up. Which is good for him. What is annoying to him is that I am practical. I’d be much more likely to ask for something I can use when it comes to gifts. He is a typical guy in that he has kind of expensive tastes in some respects.
We’ve kind of already gone out. My Mom stayed with the kids, and we went out. We people watched, had a couple of drinks, tried out a couple of places we hadn’t been before, rented movies and came home. We’ve hoping to go to another football game this coming weekend as well. We’re not really exciting these days.
We got out without kids the other night. First of course we had to do the dance…
He tends to go either way on occasions. He won’t do anything, or he will do something pretty cool. For Valentine’s Day one year he gave me a Starbuck’s gift card and a gift card to the chocolate place downtown. Another time he gave me a gift certificate for a massage at the local spa. One year when we were strapped for cash he wrote me a very sweet letter, which of course I have kept and will keep forever.
What I WISH I could give my husband for our anniversary if money were no object:
1) A brand new motocross bike.
2) Tickets to an NFL game.
3) A man cave
4) A romantic weekend getaway
5) All of the Star Trek series, all six Star Wars movies, MASH, and Home Improvement on Blu-Ray.
What I am probably going to end up doing instead:
1) A card-maybe even storebought
2) A nice note
3) Dinner-as in home cooked. Not Kraft macaroni and cheese.
4) And it he’s really nice to me, maybe we’ll go buy the Avengers movie. It is meant to be, considering it comes out on Blu-Ray on our anniversary.
I honestly WOULD like him to be nice to me, and maybe coherent. And try not to insult me… He was trying to be funny and told me how he was comparing marriage to a wound. He didn’t understand why I was a little offended. He doesn’t do subtle, but I wasn’t going to yell at him right then… I hope he figures it out.
But really if money were no object, besides him being nice to me, what would I want?
1) Dinner at a restaurant. A not McDonald’s restaurant. But nothing too swanky or pretentious. My favorite restaurant is “Macaroni Grill”. Yummy.
2) Tickets to a musical. Do you know how badly I want to see another musical? We saw “Phantom of the Opera” before we had children. It was magical. I still don’t know why I didn’t take pictures. This was before digital cameras, and cell phone cameras.
3) An overnight stay at a hotel. I don’t think I need to elaborate much on why I want this one. We have only had a couple of overnights without children, and one of them was in a tent.
On the other hand there is what I am wanting that is realistic. As I said, I am not high maintenance. But most likely with his busy schedule, it’s probably all asking a lot.
1) My husband to hold me, hug me, kiss me, and tell me he loves me without acting like he was going to die.
2) A card-homemade or storebought.
3) A note detailing how much he loves me. It can be in Klingon. No wait, it can’t.
4) Dinner, with candles, and maybe the kids tied up in the basement. HA HA. How about just dinner…
5) A nice bottle of wine. Nothing expensive. A bottle of Relax riesling would be just fine.
6) Dessert. Chocolate.
7) Did I mention I want him to be nice to me?
So honey, I know you aren’t reading my blog. And that’s ok. But if you did take a little peek today… you can’t say you don’t know what I want. Not the actual product that is featured in the picture below. Even though I do like toilet paper.
As much as this made me laugh, if you get this for me honey, I’ll kill you.
The Sadder But Wiser Girl 