Blah, blah, blah.

It's Fat Tuesday; I feel as though my shape (or lack of) is acceptable today.

Tired. Kids aren't sleeping past 5 a.m. and it's killing me. All the "experts" say to put them to bed earlier and they'll sleep later. I say PSHAW! Short of taping them to their beds, I don't see how to fix this problem.

Two-thirds of my children are teething. One is losing teeth and another is attempting to grow them. They are both whiny and cantankerous today. Brodie is following me around, asking me to wiggle his tooth. To be honest, it kind of grosses me out - his tooth is very wiggly and I think if he pushed on it hard enough with his tongue, he could probably pop it out. I kind of hope Nick is home when this happens, I'm not that good with blood.

Tate is nine months old. I have yet to take his eight-month pictures. I should probably do that today. I should have done it a few weeks ago, but whatever.

I need some coffee. This mindless babble is putting me to sleep.

Does school lunch still suck? Also, I'm getting old.

Sunday. As of late, we've been attending church on Sundays. I really liked it, too. Laid back, casual, entertaining, and the kids loved the nursery, too. We could choose our level of interaction - we could be as involved or uninvolved as we wanted to be, no questions asked. And then a few weeks ago, there was no sermon, just a report on the state of the church. And they started asking for money. Not in any subtle form, just a flat out request for about $800 from each family over the course of the year - not including our normal tithing. Ummm.... really? This was my first true involvement with a church since I was a kid, and back then I didn't pay attention to anything that was said, so I don't know if this is standard operating procedure. But it hit us the wrong way. And we haven't been back since. I don't feel good about this decision; church is good for all of us. And we were really enjoying it. But something about that whole thing just felt odd. And still feels odd. And so here we are, Sunday morning, no showers and still in our pajamas.

I register Zachary for preschool tomorrow evening. It's an online registration and it opens at 6pm sharp. Last year, I was late in getting Brodie's information turned in. Same kind of thing, opened at 6pm, and I forgot until bedtime. We ended up getting waitlisted (number 75 on the wait list, actually) and it was by the grace of God that we got a phone call a week before the school year started, asking if we wanted to enroll him in the public program. We were all ready to enroll him in the private Christian preschool here in town (for a hefty monthly sum, let me tell you) so it really was a blessing to get a phone call. But this time around, I am determined to make the enrollment list. De-ter-mined, I tell you.

It's kind of mind-boggling that Zachary is registering for preschool already. That means Brodie will be in kindergarten, and that apparently can't come soon enough. Once he found out that while in preschool he still has to eat lunch at home, he's been begging to be in a "grade" and go to "real school." Just wait until he eats school food; he'll be begging to come home. Or maybe school food has gotten better and they don't serve mystery meat and soggy vegetables anymore. It ought to be some damn fine cuisine for the price; school lunch is crazy expensive. Back in my day, school lunch cost a nickel but we had to go out and get the milk straight from the cow. Of course, that counted as participation in FFA, so it really was a win-win. Plus, the boys loved a girl that knew her way around the farm so all the really good milk maids were betrothed by the age of 15. The joys of going to school in Hickville. (Except for the nickel thing, all of that is based in some sort of reality. Sad.)

Back in my day... whatever. I'm getting old. That's depressing and I don't want to talk about it. I'm going to go take my Centrum and my Metamucil and count my grey hairs. Maybe the 700 Club is on.

Peas and bananas... gross.

Two days in a row. Get up off the floor, fool!

Eating lunch with Tate at the moment. Well, he's eating. I'm not. He's scarfing down peas and bananas like it's nobody's business. Gross is an understatement. Watching Tate eat is actually a good appetite suppressant. I ought to market him as a diet tool. Even though most of it ends up in his lap he does get an "A" for effort. I will have to dock points for peas in his nose, though. That's just not cool.

It's the end of another term. (Yup, still in college.) I have a week off from classes and already, I'm bored. Nothing to stress me out, nothing to (not) read, nothing to procrastinate. I can't be made happy. I submitted my financial aid paperwork last week for next term and I think I may have emptied the financial aid bucket. If I read the information right, I will have reached the end of the government's generosity with regard to student loans. I never knew there was such a thing, honestly. But it makes sense. So my plan to never graduate, therefore never having to pay back my student loans, has been foiled. I guess I'm going to have to follow through on that moving to Fiji thing.

Bummer.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

So tired... Can't keep my eyes open... Coffee... Must have coffee...

Don't know what's up; Tate was awake for HOURS last night. Seriously, hours. He's never been like that before. He's either realized that all the good TV comes on after he goes to bed or he had a bit of a tummy ache. Considering we were watching Mission Impossible III, which hardly fits the definition of good TV, he must have had a tummy ache. Poor kid. But, like a good mommy (or at least a resourceful one), I headed out to Walgreens at midnight to get the stuff to fix him. An hour and $30 later, it didn't work. So I really don't know what the issue was. He's still a little off this morning. As am I. If he keeps it up we'll have to go to the doctor. Or sell him. Whatever.

Today is pajama day at preschool. I have to try to convince Brodie that pajama day means wearing clean pajamas to school; he's under the impression that he shouldn't have to change out of the pajamas he's wearing. Patience, grasshopper. That privilege is extended once you enroll in college.

That's all I've got this morning. I'm going to go chew on some coffee grounds or eat some sugar straight from the bag.

Are you listening to me?

I'm back. I need an outlet. I could dump all this on the hubs, but he'd probably just give me that look - that blank look he gets when I'm talking and I know he's either not paying attention or sleeping with his eyes open again. So here I am, dumping on you guys. It's probably more pleasurable for all involved if I don't call it dumping; there is sort of a negative connotation with that. Venting? Ranting? I'm not necessarily angry, at least not all the time. How about conversing? Let's converse, folks. Oooh, take it one step further - let's Chuck Taylor. Get it? No? Damn it. Don't look at me like that. Are you even awake?

So it's been a while. It has been a while. Where am I in life? Geographically speaking, I haven't moved a damn inch. Semi-frustrating at times; we've embraced the game of "how much furniture can we cram into a two-bedroom apartment" and so far, it appears that we're winning. Or maybe we're losing, I'm not sure. In either case, we have a lot of stuff in a little space. At least we're comfortable in our crowdedness; we got new furniture today. It's comfy. It's calling my name but I'm resisting the siren song, for the moment anyway. It's funny how furniture never looks as big in the store as it does when the delivery guys are trying to stuff your sofa through the front door. They saved the sofa and the wall, but we had to console a delivery guy with bloody knuckles with homemade oatmeal raisin cookies. Or maybe that was just the hubs' way of getting rid of some of my mediocre baking, I don't know. I guess it's better than him throwing them in the ditch. (Inside joke. Sorry.)

I probably don't weigh as much as the last time I wrote, and hallelujah for that. Birthing a 10-pound, four-ounce chubster helps in that department. Our kid count has risen to three and three is good. We are outnumbered. And somedays I think we're being outsmarted. We've taken to calling them by numbers instead of names; I thought I would be spared the dreaded "mommy brain" by continuing my education, but alas, the power of a constant barrage of cartoons and superheroes has turned my brain to mush. See? I'm way off topic. I was talking about my weight and now I'm all off on mushy brains and I suppose those things can be connected, because post-babies, I'm just sort of mushy all over, but it's not the direction I was going. So yeah, now that's out there - three babies has turned me into a giant blob. I'm not happy about it and I try to embrace that "love your body, it's given life" attitude bullshit but so far I'm not fooling myself. Mush is mush is mush and I is mush, people. It's not pretty. But here's the thing - I'm mushy, right? So I get upset that I'm mushy and what do I do when I'm upset? I eat. And I don't eat little bits of bad stuff, I eat ALL the bad stuff in a four-block radius. And then it only makes me mushier, which makes me more upset, which makes me eat more... You can see where this is going. So what do I fix first - the mush or the head? Some might say that a little bit of healthiness would fix both at the same time but those people probably like people like Jillian Michaels or they are Jillian Michaels and if Jillian Michaels ever preached her BS to my face I'd have to smack her in her big horse mouth. And then I'd have to run away really fast, or at least as fast as a giant blob of mush could run, which let's face it, isn't that fast at all. And then I'd probably get my ass kicked because I've seen what happens when Jillian gets mad, I've seen the Biggest Loser, she's a bat shit crazy bizzo when she wants to be. So after all that, I'd be a big bruised mushy blob, making it even more difficult to partake in any form of exercise and increasing the likelihood of stuffing my face full of junk food and you see where I am? I'm right back to square one, people. Only I've gained six pounds and I've got a black eye.

And there you are. Or there I am. Whatever.

So yeah. See? Time away doesn't mean that I've become more normal; it's only given me more time to fester in my craziness. 

Fester. That is such a great word.

All I could say was "Hello"

Hellooo?

Is anyone out there?

Just in case anyone stops by, I'm still alive. Apparently, I'm a year older, but I'm still here. (A year?! For reals?! That's cray.)

I called my mom and apologized today. I finally realized what a pain in the ass it is to have sick and DRAMATIC kids. Like having sick kids isn't bad enough, but sick and DRAMATIC kids is enough to make me start kicking puppies.

And I like puppies.

I woke up this morning when Nick was getting ready to go. Before we even said our good mornings, I told him that if he ever left me to go live with Ryan Dungey and his girlfriend because "it's better for the boys" I was going to kick his ass; that was the dream I was having when I woke. He just laughed and said we must be a couple of Supercross freaks because he was just dreaming about having a picnic with Chad Reed. (That should have been my dream, ahem.)

Does anyone even blog anymore? All my favorite blogs have either stopped writing or have gotten published. I've thought about writing before today, and then I get freaked out at the idea of being one of those mommy bloggers that's perpetually on a diet and creating home school worksheets and making homemade laundry soap. I think that leads to excessive couponing and then too many over-processed wannabe professional photographer closeup pictures of my kids doing mundane everyday things.

Oh wait... Well, I'm not creating home school worksheets. Because if I decide to home school these hooligans, I want someone to come and kick me in the shins.Hard. Repeatedly. Because I don't possibly see how that could be a good idea for anyone.

Anyway. Then I remembered that it's my blog and you don't have to read if I bore you. So there. I might just start being a couponing, laundry soap making, dieting, wannabe-photographer mommy blogger and there's nothing you can do about it.

Pbbbbbbt.

Blessed, bitter, bacon and bellies.

I can't think when my house is dirty. And my house is dirrrrr-ty, like four-letter word dirty. Filth, I tell you. My floors need mopped and my bathrooms are gross. It would be the kind of thing that would keep me awake at night, if I weren't already awake at night with a screeching, wailing, teething baby. In fact, there have been moments that I've considered mopping or scrubbing at 4:23 in the blessed morning - since I'm already awake and all. But then Zachary starts in again and I get all sidetracked trying to remember if he had Motrin or Tylenol most recently and swearing at the company that made teething tablets that is no longer making teething tablets that I'm just too busy to mop or scrub.

Busy at 4:23 in the (blessed) morning doing anything other than sleeping ought to be illegal. In fact, it is illegal in about 19 states, Iowa not being one of them. Son of a bitch.

Just another reason we need to move.

Tomorrow is Father's Day. Do you know where your Dad is? I'm pretty sure mine is out to pasture, not like, "gone to the farm" like Misty's dog Freddy, but like, living on the farm. Not that I'd know for sure - I haven't talked to him in months. Does that sound bitter? Eh, I guess it shouldn't. My phone dials out, too. It's a conscious choice that I'm making but it still stings a little every now and then.

I'm over it.

We went to the Farmer's Market this morning. I think the boys were a little overwhelmed; lots of people, lots of dogs, lots of radishes. (Radishes can be scary in large numbers, man.) However, Nick and I were too busy consuming massive amounts of chocolate covered bacon to notice. No, not entirely true - we were taking turns, eating bacon and paying attention to the boys.

That was some good bacon.

Anyway, I've decided that the Farmer's Market is kind of like the State Fair, but almost better. Really crowded, super hot, and best for people watching. But instead of paying $8 for a cup of beer, you can wander from wine vendor to wine vendor and "sample" for free. Nice. Some of those vendors "sample" with a heavy hand. More than once I've left the Farmer's Market with a serious buzz. (That actually makes for a pretty crappy day, drunk by 9am with a wine hangover at noon. Sucky.) My little brother claims that the best time to visit the farmer's market is dawn, but that's only because he and his clan haven't been to bed yet and they're walking off their massive alcohol consumption. He may be on to something, though. It was so packed today, there were people everywhere - you couldn't really see anything, at least that you wanted to see.

Speaking of things we didn't want to see... I don't know if we were fortunate or unfortunate enough to see a local belly dancing troupe. Don't get excited there, children. These were literally bellies dancing - big, fat, stretch-marked, naked jiggly bellies wiggling and gyrating. Thankfully Brodie was paying more attention to the dogs otherwise I would have covered his eyes. And don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking big, fat, stretch-marked covered bellies - I've got one myself. (Boo.) I'm knocking jiggly naked bellies wiggling in public. Because that was gross.

But I'm over that too.

But I'm still not hungry.

Cookies, 1. Homework, 0.

Shit, what isn't better than homework? Nick asked me why I was making cookies today and the only thing I could come up with was that cookies are better than homework. Which is to say that I have a lot of homework to do and I have zero motivation to do it. Tomorrow night, at about 1130, I'll be kicking myself for wasting the day today. However, I'll be kicking myself as I enjoy some homemade chocolate chip cookies.

I haven't blogged for a while. If you used to be a regular reader, you're probably aware of this. I don't have anything specifically entertaining or purposeful to write this evening. But blogging, even about nothing, is better than homework. At least for me. Maybe not for you.

I'm just checking in. Nothing fun to say. Maybe tomorrow.

Completely uninspired

We're going to look at houses this afternoon. Do you know how hard it is to find a house for four people and a dog? Most of the time, finding housing for the people isn't the problem - although, I did speak with a man today who told me that four people was just way too many for the THREE bedroom home he was advertising. Um, okay. The majority of the issue is the dog. People just aren't that excited to meet Kingsley. And I can't understand why. Who doesn't like a big, lazy, barking, licking, kissing, slobbering, drooly mess of a dog? He doesn't chew things up (unless you count that entire purse that he ate one time), he doesn't bite (hard), he doesn't make a lot of noise (unless barking counts) and he's not hard on anything (unless you're looking at the yard). Really, people, must you all be dog haters?

Poor Pootie.

His feelings are hurt.

I'm making buffalo chicken nachos for dinner and I have the chicken and the buffalo sauce in the crock pot. It's making my eyes water; it literally smells like gasoline to me. But that's how the hubs likes it, so that's how I'll make it.

Today is the end of my first class in my third attempt at grad school. It's also the final day for all assignments, of which I have a few to complete, and instead of homework, I'm blogging. I could teach Procrastination 101 but....

Exactly.

How to not win

I'm like the Charlie Sheen of the blogging world. Out of nowhere, in your face, with a big ass rant. Except my rant isn't about million dollar contracts or the producer of my television show. So really, I can't be Charlie Sheen. Plus, I'd use the word "winning" but if I use it in a Charlie Sheen-esque context I'm pretty sure he'd send me a bill for at least $17. That and the only one "winning" around here is my damn landlord.

(Here comes the rant...)
I knew she was flaky. I knew she was flaky the first time I met her. Flaky and unstable. But when she called yesterday to give us the news that we need to move, pretty much, right now, I had no idea she was a lunatic, too. She said, and I quote, "I have to give you a 30-day notice because [insert fiancee's name] gave me a 30-day notice." She followed that up with, "I waited as long as I could to tell you."

I waited as long as I could to tell you?! How is that helpful? If you're going to kick us out, damn it, a little advance notice is appreciated. And so it begins. We're now in search of a place to live, ASAP. Did we have any intention of moving prior to her notice? Nope. Are we at all prepared to move? Nope. Do we even have any idea where to look? Nope.

Awesome. This is not winning, right here.

You're killing your father, Larry.

Except my child is not named Larry and I am not Larry's, er, well, Zachary's, father.

I could also title this, "Damnit, child, for the love of all things holy, please, just take a nap!"

I have never known a child more fickle when it comes to napping (and eating and playing and enjoying the company of others besides that of his momma, but for the purpose of this post, we're only going to be discussing napping) than my Baby Z. He has days where he naps like a champ. Clockwork - you could nearly set a watch by it. But those days are few and very, very far between. Because Baby Z., for all intents and purposes, is a catnapper. I don't know where he picked up this trait; I don't know if it's a genetic thing (and if it is, I am tracking down the developer of this particular gene and we are going to have words) or if it's a learned thing, but I can tell you it's a super freaking annoying thing.

Baby Z's catnaps last about 14 minutes. And it just so happens that 14 minutes is how long it takes to shower but not dry off, prepare a lunch but not eat it, complete the warm-up portion of a workout but not the workout itself. Do you see where I'm going with this? I get nothing done.

Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada. From start to end, my day is a laundry list of unfinished tasks, showers, lunches, workouts, blog posts and chores. However, I do get a lot of Baby Z time.

(I'd tell you more about it but I'm on minute 12 right now and he's starting to stir. Not even kidding. I knew I should have eaten while I had the chance.)

The obligatory resolutions post

I've spent all day thinking about resolutions and what I'm going to write here. It began as a short list, manageable, both in writing and in life, and then like most things, I started to overthink it. It began to grow and soon I was giving it categories and planning a multi-day post about how this year was going to be my year. It dawned on me that I'd probably spend the entire month of January writing about how I was going to change my life and I wouldn't actually be starting until February.

Oh dear.

I want the same things most people want: I want to be a better mom, wife, daughter, friend, person. I want to cook more and eat in restaurants less. I want to put my new stand-up mixer to good use. I want to be more patient, more organized, less forgetful, less stressed. I want to spend less, save more, and still have the things we need on a daily basis. I want to lose weight. I'd like to read more, watch better movies (but still watch Twilight two or three times a week for my Robert Pattinson fix), hear new music, hear live music, get out of the house regularly, grow out my hair (or maybe cut it even shorter, I'm undecided on this one), take more (and better) pictures, clip my toenails more often, clip my boys' toenails more often, clean more but have to do it less often, win the lottery...

Wait, this is resolutions not wishes. Sorry.

But you can see where I'm going with this. So this year, I resolve to make no official resolutions. I'm just going to be me, only better.

As if that's even possible. (Heheheh...)

The most wonderful time of the year...

...has come and gone and all that's left are a bunch of toys that defy organization and a big ass can of Lysol. The tree came down as soon as I was able to stand upright after the holiday; Santa left us a big ol' stomach virus in our stockings this year and in addition to zapping my holiday appetite (Wha?! For realz, that happened, folks.) it also zapped my holiday spirit. I couldn't get that thing down fast enough. Brodie was kind enough to help - on Christmas night I hear he finally attempted scaling the tree. I have no proof of this event; Nick and Zach were sleeping on the sofa, I was curled up in the fetal position on the bathroom floor after heaving my guts and then some and Brodie was left to his own maniacal devices with the tree. Nick said he woke up to find it sort of leaning on the sofa with our monkey of a son covered in glitter and candy canes on the floor. I would have liked to have had photographic evidence of this but alas, there is none.

Bummer, dude.

Our holidays (pre-stomach virus) were great - food, family, gifts and fun. I love that time of year and usually I'm the one wanting to keep the decorations and the spirit going into early summer. But not this time. The tree was looking sad and taking up space in the living room. Valuable space we need for toys. I am seriously going to have to find some sort of toy organization system. Because the giant bucket things we have going at present are just not cutting it. Suggestions? Anyone? Anyone?

Bueller?

It's New Year's Eve Eve. Yesterday was Nick's birthday, he's officially entered his mid- to upper-20s - he's 26. He likes to tell me (almost daily) that he'll never be as old as I am. But at least for the next few months I don't feel like quite the cradle robber; our age gap is just four years instead of five.

I'm working on my New Year's resolutions. Last year I tried to set resolutions for everyone else to avoid disappointment in myself when they fell to the wayside by the beginning of February. That just resulted in a lot of arguing and yelling and disappointment in others so I'm back to the old standby.

Post to come later. (Hopefully before spring.)

Everybody say "Cheese!"

Ahh, the holidays are soon upon us. Trees and lights and cookies and turkeys and cards. Lots and lots of cards. I have a horrible time picking Christmas cards - mostly because I want to do a really nice photo Christmas card of our family and I can never get all of us, with clean clothes and clean teeth, in the same room as a capable adult with a camera. (And don't bother to point out that my camera has a timer; that also requires a capable adult.) I think photo Christmas cards and I think portraits. Boo to that.


I'm ordering from Shutterfly this year. I'll be using one of their totally informal, colorful and fun designs that matches our completely informal, colorful and fun lifestyle. (If you're reading through the lines, you know that for us, that means pajamas, jelly on our faces and funny weird, not really funny hahaha.)

For example, I kind of like this one:

I'd like it more if that were my family with an ocean breeze in our hair, riding horses in the clear blue water, but you know - I'll take what I can get.

I also like this one:

But I'm pretty sure I'm just jealous that this mom can get smiling, coordinated photos of her two active children. And check out how she got them to pretend that they like each other? Nice job, momma.

Maybe I'll just go with the old standard: you know, red and green and matching snowman sweaters, antlers on the dog. Anyone want to take our picture?

(Just so you're aware, I don't often dedicate posts to random companies for no good reason. I'm informing you about all the wonderful choices available at Shutterfly so I can get my grubby hands on some free Christmas cards. Woot!)

Titles are overrated.

My children are driving me to drink.

Well, one of them. Baby Z is developing the nasty habit of requiring constant entertainment, especially at bedtime. And when he isn't being entertained, even for the slightest of moments, he is screaming. At the top of his lungs, his tiny little baby lungs, he is screaming. It doesn't matter if I have laid him down because rocking him for hours has given me a cramp in my shoulder or if I have to pee or even if the freaking house is burning down. The entertainment must continue or my ears (and my sanity) will pay the price.

And so now, with a sleeping baby (and toddler and husband and dog), I am having my second glass of wine. Because my nerves can't take that much screaming. And because I had the points to use up this evening, seeing as my dinner was pretty cold and crappy by the time I got around to eating.

Hallelujah! Holy shit! Where's the Tylenol?

Along the lines of Christmas (since that is one my all-time favorite lines from one of my all-time favorite Christmas movies), it flurried in our neighborhood today. Three words: DE-PRESS-ING. Fall is my favorite season (I mean, when I take the time to venture outside) and it doesn't last nearly long enough (eleven months would be good for me, how's about you?). I came across the Christmas tree decorations when the Bee and I were on a purging spree in the garage last weekend and it took all my willpower not to bring them inside and put up the tree. I love my Christmas tree. I would really love to have it in my living room year-round but the Bee gets pissy if it's up before Thanksgiving and after his birthday. He can be such a fun hater sometimes.

Have you seen this?



Hilarious.

Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket

Is there a full moon? Have the planets aligned just so? Is today really my lucky day?

Because I convinced the Bee to partake in some furniture shopping and I know I didn't succeed in that endeavor based on my charm alone.

(Although I can be pretty charming...)

Not that we bought anything. Do you know that Staples commercial, the "Wow! That's a low price!" guy that walks around and screams, "Wow! That's a low price!" at everything in the store. Yeah, see, furniture shopping with the Bee is kind of the same thing, except you have to replace "Wow!" with the "Fuck!" and "That's a low price!" with "They want how much money for one fucking chair? Are they serious? Where's the clearance section? Is it made of freaking gold? Is it going to rub my shoulders and bring me chicken wings and tell me I'm good enough, smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me? No? Well, keep walking then sister. We can't afford that shit."


(This is the Staples commercial. It's sort of like shopping with the Bee but far less obscene.)

I was okay with not buying anything because the only thing I liked was the exact same chair that we currently have in the living room, just in a different color. I think I liked it because it wasn't broken, it wasn't covered in dog slobber and dog hair, and there's not a Hot Wheels car rattling around in the innards. Or maybe I just have a fear of change - that might be. (I have been sporting the same hair cut since the ninth grade - I know I have change issues.)

Anyway. Furniture shopping made us all cranky. Then we took our cranky asses to Perkin's where we indulged in a fantastically abysmal meal while surrounded by two screaming children (our own). Overall, a good night.

How was your day?

What's bugging Janel?

I kid you not, about an hour ago, I committed murder in my living room. My victim was a giant, brown, hairy, scary spider. I would have taken a picture to prove to you how big this thing was - I swear it was as big as a silver dollar pancake with big long nasty legs - but it was chasing the dog across the room and I didn't have time to get the camera. Ugh, I'm giving myself the heebie jeebies just thinking about it. But I talked myself down (literally, like, out loud, said to myself, "Dude, it's just a bug. You're seven million times heavier than this thing. Just kill it.") and grabbed one of the Bee's shoes and smooshed it. After I scared it onto the tile first, I didn't want to have to clean bug guts out of the carpet.

I've still got a nasty case of the shudders. Ick.

I broke the chair in our living room today. Well, I was the one that was sitting in it when it broke. I'd hate to think that I'm paying for all this Weight Watchers hullabaloo and still weighing enough to break furniture. Truthfully, it was a cheap chair when it was purchased four years ago and I'm kind of surprised it's lasted as long as it has - I've hauled it across the state and back again, it serves as a trampoline for Brodie after I tell him to stop jumping on the sofa or for the dog when he's in the throes of one of his "boxer blitzes." Anyway, I'm sitting here, trying to feed Baby Z when this spring apparently pops out of place and after I figure out that I have not been bit on the ass my something under the chair, I find that I'm sitting basically on the chair frame and leaning about 45 degrees to the left. Neat-o burrito, baby. So I flipped it over and thought maybe I could "fix" it - me, being as mechanically inclined as I am and all, I had visions of fishing line and duct tape and a MacGuyver-like scheme to hold that spring back in place - but when I got up in the innards I saw there is no fixing to be done; it's toast, it's trash, it's junk. Plus, I wasn't too excited to poke my eye out on that giant piece of metal poking through the fabric - wouldn't I feel like a big horse's patooty? My butt can vouch for the velocity of a sprung spring; I've probably got a bruise. I think I'll save face (ha!) and stop playing Dr. Quinn, Furniture Fixer.

My ESP(N) is buzzing... I see furniture shopping my future. Or at least chair shopping. I doubt I can talk the Bee into purchasing multiple pieces of furniture... unless I can manage to break the sofa, too. :)

What's your excuse?

I have a case of blogger's block. It's not that interesting, bloggable events aren't taking place in my life every day - I just have zero motivation to write anything about it. It probably has something to do with the fact that I'm living on five hours of sleep a night, every night. Baby Z is a demanding little thing: "Feed me, change me, hold me... ME, ME, ME..." It's the Baby Z show, all day every day. It's Baby Z's world and we're all just walking around in it. Well, except for him. He's still lying down and letting us all tend to him.

Babies are so selfish. Good thing he's so cute.

The Bee is out of town this weekend, working, working, working. It's sort of disrupted all the plans I had set up for the next couple days. Well, that and I discovered that I forgot to pay the electric bill this month. I was rudely reminded of that when the electricity went off this yesterday. Not because we didn't pay the bill, it was for a squirrel that met an untimely death at the substation. But my first thought was "OMG, did I pay the bill?" and my second thought was, "Oh shit." But the power came back on. Now I just feel sorry for the squirrel.

I'm bored. I think I'll go to bed.

Settle down, I'm breaking a sweat

Um, what the heck happened to September? Was the whole month unworthy and unbloggable? No, probably not. I'm just that unfocused lately. I have all these projects going and things I want to do and can't seem to finish anything. I have a bookcase in the boys' room that I want to paint and a pantry I'd love to organize (all the cabinets actually; I threw them together pretty haphazardly and even though we've lived here for nearly four months I still can't remember where I put the cutting boards without opening two or three cabinets - but maybe that's premature dementia and not a lack of organization) and a garage to clean (OMG, that's making me crazy, there are boxes stacked everywhere and toys and loads and loads of crap) and about 14 books that I'm the middle of reading and an entire season of True Blood to catch up on. Not to mention, a constant barrage of laundry and diapers and dishes and cooking and cleaning and kids to chase after and a dog to let outside...

I've officially exhausted myself and I haven't even moved.

And that's good enough for today.

Schedules are for wimps

My day, for the last 19 or so days, begins early. So early that it's practically still the day before. I mean, it's definitely dark and most normal people are sleeping. But Baby Z. has zero concept of time and therefore when he's hungry, wet or bored, he wants attention and he wants it now. Combine that with a Big Man B. who believes the world revolves around him (and only because we've led him to believe that that is actually the case) and it makes for one tired momma.

I keep looking for the routine in our day to day lives and so far I'm not finding it. If not having a routine can actually be our routine then we are succeeding on a daily basis but that's really not the scenario I'm looking for. I'd like to sit down with both babies and have a discussion about expectations and responsibilties but I don't think they're ready to commit to chores/self-bathing/conforming to normal business hours just yet. Crap, I'd buy them a freaking pony if I could get them to conform to regular daylight hours, but I don't think that at the ages of 16 months and 22 days that I'm going to get anywhere with that idea.

Damn.

So for the time being, our non-routine will continue to be our routine and I'll keep working on becoming one of those people that doesn't have to have control/a clean house/a daily shower/matching socks.