Finally Friday!

This has been one of those weeks that I thought would never end. I have already told you how my Tuesday started, but I had a repeat performance from the dog on Wed. morning also. She's slept barricaded in the kitchen every night since then. I also had a nail in one of my brand new tires, a dead skunk on the street by my house, a van and house that smelled like a dead skunk, a sick husband, and the nightmare of trying to find all of the receipts and information for our taxes. This isn't usually a problem, but since we moved twice in the last year and I don't have a desk to organize my life in, it was quite a challenge to find everything we needed.

And just so you won't think I'm being a total crab today, some good things from this week--I got a raise at work that I totally was not expecting, I finally ordered a desk, and it's a beautiful 65 degrees outside. I also have a Friday night with nowhere to go and to quote Kevin's brother (aka Uncle Weve)--"I have some serious laying on the couch to do" with a good book!

That Darn Dog!

Warning: This post is not for the squeamish.
I went upstairs this morning to make sure the little ones were up and moving, only to discover that the dog had thrown up in multiple places, covering approximately a 3x5 foot area. One spot was smeared into a stripe about 2 ft. long which led to the realization that Zac had stepped in it. He doesn't turn any lights on upstairs in the morning so he somehow didn't see these blobs of dark green goo. How he didn't smell it is a bigger mystery!

As I'm going downstairs to begrudgingly get the cleaning supplies, I notice that Zac has left a trail of green spots--all down the stairs, through the living room, through the dining room, in the kitchen, and down the hall. AAAAAAAGH! I have just spent 45 minutes cleaning up this atrocity, trying not to lose my apple cinnamon oatmeal in the process. Now my poor children will not receive a proper education before I go to work today because my whole morning has gone, literally, to the dog.

You might be wondering, if I'm so far behind now, why am I taking the time to blog about it? To make me feel better. I tried whining to Kevin, but that just wasn't enough. I needed a few more people to share in my pain and frustration. If I knew any bad words, I would use them today. Okay, I know some, but I'm choosing not to use them. I feel a little better now that I have griped to the world (translation: the 5 people who will stop by here today).

Random thoughts for the day

I couldn't decide what to blog about but felt compelled to write something since I haven't posted since Friday. That's eons of time in the blog world so you are being subjected to my random thoughts today.

*I wish I had a windometer on my van so I could look at it and think, "Wow! the wind really is blowing as hard as I think it is." I just put gas in my van and I almost couldn't open my van door to get out. I hope no one I know drove by because my hair was forced into a straight up do by the gale force winds. By the way, if you know the real word for an instrument that measures wind speed, please tell me so I can learn my new word for the day.

*Zac started track today. Instead of having practice at his school, all of the jr. highs are bussed to the South High school. There are no bus rides home or back to your own school so I have to go pick him now everyday at 4:30 at the South High school. I live in the northern part of town. I am not happy about this arrangement. This is cutting into my gourmet dinner cooking time. (Immediate family members: you are not allowed to comment here.)

*Nathan bought a wii game and a board game today with money he made playing basketball. (More to come on this later.) Alyssa was helping him pay for his purchases in the electronics dept. while I took care of some sneaky birthday shopping elsewhere in the store. As I joined them, the cashier was offering Alyssa the option of saving 10% on her purchase by applying for a Target card. I mentioned that I didn't think a 15 yr. old would get approved. At this moment, the cashier realized that Alyssa was not Nate's mother. Alyssa does look older than 15 but I don't think old enough to have a 7 yr. old.

*I shopped for a desk again today. I found one I liked for $700. I'll keep looking. I'll probably order one through my work (Direct Buy). I just needed to shop today to prove to myself that that was my best option. I already knew it, but for some reason before I make any purchase, I have to know all my options to be convinced I'm getting the best deal possible. And since I can order a similar desk for about half the amount of the one I found today, I now just need to find another day when I can sit and look through catalogs all afternoon. This random story to be continued.....

Comments 101/ New feature

I realize that most of my readers are not of the 'blog generation'. You come here occasionally because you want to know what my crazy family is up to or to make you fell better about the calmness of your own family. So I want to encourage you to use the 'comment' feature at the end of each blog. Let me know what you think or if you have a question. I will usually respond back to you, also in the comments area. The kids love to see your comments, and I do too. Somehow it validates the time I'm sitting here at my computer, ignoring my family, attempting to bring a smile to your day.

I've also added a new feature that shows who is visiting. Don't be scared off by this little window on the right. It just shows what city the reader is from or what link was followed to get here. It's fun to see all the different places people show up from, especially from other blogs which I enjoy reading IF they are interesting and well written. My favorite at the moment, which I have become addicted to, is thepioneerwoman.com. Warning: Do NOT go to this blog unless you want to commit to reading it everyday. It is hilarious and entertaining. She is a homeschooling mom of 4 who is a city transplant to a ranch somewhere here in Oklahoma. She has about 25,000 readers a day. You cannot however, use your blog reading time to go over there instead of here. You must commit to both!

I'm off to a women's retreat, 2 hours away! Woo Hoo! Priscilla Shirer, girl time, and shopping--I think I'm heaven!

Vote for Alaina!

If you're an American Idol fan, you may have noticed that Alaina Whitaker is from our town. Our family has been idol fans since about Season 2, mainly because it's one of the few shows on now that we can all watch together. Everyone, especially Nate, loves to choose their faves. Nathan gets so attached, he will cry when one of them gets sent home.

I usually don't get that excited about who stays and who goes but I'm rallying everyone to vote for Alaina. She goes to the same private Christian school as a lot of Alyssa's friends. I've been told by some of those parents that she is a sweet girl who is well grounded and will be able to handle the Hollywood pressures. So watch tonight (or DVR while you're at church), then vote for Alaina,who has the potential to be a good role model for American girls. (I could get on my soapbox about all the damage that's been done by the recent newsmakers, but I don't feel good today and don't have the energy for it.)

Word of the Day

I love words! I love learning new ones and writing with them and reading them. I was the nerdy kid in high school English who actually learned all the vocabulary words and used them in a sentence 7 times that week so they became part of my normal speech. I had to set up my homepage again recently thanks to some updates at Yahoo. (Don't they know I hate change and want everything to stay the same? I beg you techies to leave my home page alone!) I saw an option to add 'Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day'. Oh, my little brain cells, ready to learn new words, could not resist. (Maybe a little change is good?)

To my dismay, these words have been featured over the last few weeks: albeit, beholden, prudent, audition, brusque, conciliate, glean, whodunit---Are you kidding me? Is the general population really unfamiliar with these words or are the college interns choosing the word of the day just trying to make us feel smarter than we really are? I hope it is the latter, because if it is the first option then this country is worse off than I thought.

My choice to add the 'Word of the Day' feature on my home page has not been completely unrewarded. I love to read the word, then guess what the meaning is before looking at the actual definition. And because I want you to be enlightened and rewarded for your time spent here on my blog, I'm going to teach you three new words today.

Immutable--I guessed this meant Nathan (the kid who can't stop talking) during all of his waking hours, but it means unsusceptible to change so it describes me instead!

Afflatus--should describe what my hair looks like all the time since moving to windy Oklahoma, but it is a divine imparting of knowledge--what I am trying to do for you today.

Pogonip--a dense winter fog with frozen particles; We've been having a lot of pogonip in OK lately, but I sure thought it was the sound a pogo stick makes. (Just for you Catherine: Nathan asked for a pobo stick for Christmas a couple of years ago.)

Loyal Belle

AKA: Disposable pets, continued
I never thought it would take me 5 days to get back to the pet story, but life's just crazy sometimes.
So for years we told our kids 'no' to getting a dog under the veil of being excellent parents and wanting our kids to assume the responsibility of caring for the dog. Yada, yada, yada--I was just procrastinating the inevitable agreement. I finally gave into those cute little faces and said 'yes'. Kevin insisted we needed a golden retriever, so, Belle enters our lives and $300 exits our wallets.

I'm glad my kids have a dog. They all love her, all minus Alyssa. I just see her as something else to clean up after. We always have hair in the carpet. Even if Zac brushes her everyday which just makes our backyard look like a ghost town. Instead of tumbleweed, we have these giant balls of hair blowing around. I wonder what the neighbors think when one of those things blows into their yard. She also has epilepsy, and when she has seizures, she throws up. Guess who gets to clean that up.

So what I can't figure out is, why is this dog loyal to me? I do not pet her. I do not brush her. I rarely talk to her and I do not feed her. I used to feed her but that was before she ate my quilt--the one I hand quilted! (I'm still a little bitter about this incident. Okay, I'll be honest: I'm still a lot bitter about this incident. I don't know if I'm ever going to get over it.) The closest I get to doing anything for this dog is yelling at my kids to let her out or feed her. So why does she follow me around? If I go upstairs, she goes upstairs. Doesn't matter where the kids are.

If I go downstairs, she goes downstairs. Doesn't matter if the kids are all still up there in the playroom; she follows me. Why? I do not get it.

If I were her, I'd be hanging out with these people who will scratch her ears and rub her belly and give her treats. Maybe some of you pet people can solve my doggy mystery.

Disposable Pets

I'll just go ahead and acknowledge that I'm probably going to offend some people with this post because I am not a pet person. But, I felt the need to explain why I am not a pet person because it is not for lack of trying to like pets. I grew up in the country and I had lots of kittens and dogs. There were no leash laws or fenced in yards, so pets were...ummmm....how do I say this delicately....disposable. Animals roamed free and you just hoped they came home at night because you were the one with the food. It was quite common for them not to come home and you would assume they were on the road somewhere or got lost and found a new person who had the food. I learned early to not get emotionally attached.

Here's a roll call of my pets as an adult to prove to you I should not own pets.(If I was a serious blogger I would provide pictures of all the creatures, but quite frankly I don't have time for all that. I am 'slackinoff' of the things I actually need to do today.)

Snuggles the bunny--Snuggles was our substitute child till we had a baby, and once that first baby arrived, Snuggles was pretty much ignored. We woke up one morning and Snuggles was quite stiff in her cage. My mother says she died of a broken heart from being ignored. Personally, I think it was a delayed reaction to the time she bit the lamp cord and flew across the room from the shock.

Leroy the goldfish--Leroy lived in style. He had a whole 10 gallon tank to himself. One morning, I walked in the living room and there was no fish in the tank. I looked everywhere and could not find the fish. Kevin then joined the search. Somehow the thing ended up under the recliner and thus in the toilet.

Blues, Tweety, and Pickles the parakeets--Kevin had the idea that we should have one bird for each kid we had at the time and being the loving wife that I am, I went along with it. What was I thinking? If I could have only seen into the future to know that I would be cleaning poop off the miniblinds, I would have argued with this idea. Pickles also had the unusual ability to open the cage and escape, even with a twist tie wrapped around the door. One night around midnight, I was walking down the hall, in the dark, half asleep, to check on a sick kid, when Pickles buzzed my head. Gave me the closest thing to a heart attack I've experienced yet. The whole house was awake in the middle of the night trying to catch the stupid bird. When we moved to another state shortly after that, we passed them on to another family under the guise that we couldn't take them with us. I have since heard that the birds have all gone to birdie heaven and these people are no longer my friends.

Pokey the turtle--Pokey had the unfortunate demise of wandering into our backyard and being adopted by Zac. Pokey was actually an easy pet until we discovered bugs in his/her cage. I banned him/her outside and he/she passed away shortly after.

Squirmy the gerbil--The saddest part of Squirmy's story is that Zac saved up $35 to buy her and the cage. That's a lot of money when you're 9. He knew I would never spend any of my own money on a rodent, and it was also made very clear that I would never touch the rodent, even if I found it hanging out of the side of the dog's mouth. And I didn't. Not even when it lived for a week under my stove and behind my sewing desk. Squirmy was mean. The kids couldn't play with her or hold her because she would bite. Again, we were moving out of state and we passed her on to another unsuspecting family.

Belle the golden retriever--Belle was the reason I began this whole stupid post, but I'm running out of time so I'll have to continue this story another day.

Today's lesson: If I'm moving and I try to give you something--don't take it!

Round trip to Nowhere

I drove 5 hours today and went nowhere. Okay, I went somewhere, but came right back. Alyssa's friend, Caitlin, came for the weekend to join her at a youth retreat; so today I had to drive 2 1/2 hours south to meet her dad and give her back. Before we left town, we decided Caitlin needed to experience our new discovery--Merritt's Bakery. Oh I knew it was there, had heard it was wonderful, but was trying to avoid actual knowledge of how wonderful so I wouldn't face glaring temptation every time I drove by it which is several times a day since it's just around the corner from my neighborhood. This is the kind of place that is a little taste of heaven, a place that can make you break every new year's resolution you've made or will make in the past and future decades, a place that can probably make you gain weight just by sniffing the aromas. I bought Alyssa's birthday cake there (see birthday post below) and we discovered the cinnamon rolls....

Alyssa is eating a fried cinnamon roll covered with chocolate and pecans. She's very serious about this cinnamon roll and daring me not to touch it.

Look at the size of these things!

Katie had the regular fried cinnamon roll. It's almost as big as her face and all for the bargain price of $1.30!

The trip down was quite entertaining. We listened to Alyssa's Itunes downloads which is an interesting conglomeration (is that a word?)of Journey, Carrie Underwood, and Corinne Bailey Rae and tracts from movies like 'Music and Lyrics'. There was also an exciting game of Catch Phrase where I overheard fax machines and checks being referred to as old fashioned. We met Caitlin's dad at Mickey D's, because all small towns have one. Why is that? Can someone please tell me? Why does every person who wants to buy a franchise in a small town pick McDonald's? If you can explain this strange phenomenon to me, please do. Anyway, the drive back was uneventful and seemed longer than the way down although I know that's impossible, but I did get to look at this cutie in my rear view mirror while I was driving. And don't ask how this picture was taken because you don't want to know.

This blog has been approved by.....

You will be happy to know my blog has been rated "G", by whom I'm not really sure. I just followed the link from my friend's blog to get my rating. She was quite upset for getting an 'R' based on the fact that she had used the word 'poop' a couple of times. Ooops! I probably just messed up my rating. Oh well, that will make all you daredevils that want to read something controversial feel better. Besides, with 4 kids and a dog, I was bound to use that word eventually.