Thanks to my MIL

So I'm driving to work this morning and this dick in a pickup truck pulls right in front of me!

Best Positions in Bed

Occasionally, more than occasionally, I run across a nonsense article in a magazine.

What your favorite kind of chocolate says about you.

What the shape of your lipstick end says about you.

What your sleep position says about you.

I read the sleep position one not long ago.

I can't remember what the different positions said, but here is what my sleep position(s) say about me.

Sleep position #1. This is when I sprawl across the bed facing to my left. This position says, “There’s no husband or kids in here. I’m taking up the whole bed.”

Sleep position #2. That’s when I lay on my right side. It says, “The husband is in bed. He puts out more body heat than Satan lying under an electric blanket. Face the other way and you can occasionally lift up the covers and get some cool air.”

Sleep position #3. That’s when I lay on my back. This one says, “That right shoulder that aches all the time is hurting. Time to switch position.”

Sleep position #4. That’s when I’m curled in a ball falling off the edge. That position states, “SJ made it into the bed. Between him and husband there is no room. Please enjoy the lack of covers and the draft on your backside.” (Pajama-clad backside, that is.)

Tell me, what does your sleep position say about you?
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And does anybody else do this?

Be honest with me now.

When you started blogging, maybe there was somebody who commented almost all the time.

Then their comments got fewer and farther between.

Then they quit coming.

You wondered if they were too busy to blog. But then you saw their comments on other blogs, many other blogs.

Then you wondered do I bore them? Or worse, maybe they don’t like me anymore?

Oh my gosh, is this high school stuff? Am I reverting? If anybody else does this, fess up.

Else I will feel stupid for putting it out there. You wouldn’t want me to think I’m stupid AND boring now would you?

And yes, this post is supposed to be funny. Really, I’m not having a pity party here. You have to keep clicking on the "next blog" button to find one of those.

It's Been A While

Ha, the title of this post makes me think of a song by Staind, at least I think it's by Staind.

I navigated to Napster this week for the first time in my life. It looks as if you can join for 10.00 a month, excuse me 9.99 and get unlimited downloads. I'm not sure how it works.

Otherwise you pay 1.00, excuse me .99 per download.

But wait, you could listen to songs online at Napster FOR FREE.

My inner cheap-ass was intrigued. Couldn't I just listen to a song until I got sick of it? This is assuming the radio station hadn't already peformed that service for me like they did with the last Green Day hit.

So I played the song I liked. Then I played it again. Then I tried to play it again and I couldn't. The bastards! They had anticipated people like me.

So I begrudgingly paid 3.00, excuse me 2.97, to download three songs.

I downloaded Through Glass, by Stone Sour. Then since the word "glass" was on my mind, I downloaded Heart of Glass by Blondie. Then I started thinking about an old Billy Joel album called Glass Houses, but I downloaded Fergelicious instead.

On a side note, my favorite "ice cream" is Soy Delicious. Fergie should be hawking it. She could sing "It's Soy Delicious!"

But then maybe all the young people would buy it up and geezers like me couldn't find it. So nix that thought.
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When "J" moved out, she took her PS2 with her.

Santa missed that memo and gave "A" three games for Christmas. In order for her to play those games, we needed a new PS2.

A new one is around one-hundred thirty dollars. A used one is around eighty dollars.

If a used one had been around sixty-dollars, I would have purchased used.

But a fifty dollar difference isn't enough of a price difference to induce my inner cheap-ass to buy a piece of electronic equipment without a warranty.

I checked Game Crazy in town. They were out of new ones. I checked Kmart. They were out too. That left, dum dum dum, WAL-MART!

I haven't been to Wal-mart in months. If I need cheap toilet paper, Kmart is right down the road. They're never crowded because most people go to Wal-mart.

Now I was faced with going to Wal-mart ON A SATURDAY!

Ugh.

I think Wal-mart pays people to come in their store and act like morons. This is the top-secret swearing-in process.

"I, Ima B Yotch, do solemnly swear to uphold the Walmart rules of conduct. I will park my cart on the right side of the aisle and block the left side of the aisle with my overstuffed body. I will project an air of bewilderment as I gaze at all the different kinds of sanitary products. I will pretend not to notice all the people waiting impatiently behind me trying to pass. I will stand in at least each spot for ten minutes, only moving when the aisle is empty because everyone has given up trying to get through. I will then go block another aisle. Periodically, I will scratch my polyester-clad backside."

If Walmart is the indication of how the average American acts, is it any wonder we are hated far and wide?

So I did get my PS2. The electronics section looked like a movie representation of the floor of the New York Stock Exchange only everybody was dressed poorly. I probably fit right in.

I felt guilty using the credit card as I had sworn NO MORE, but the tax refund is coming soon, so hey.

Mission accompished, I headed out the door. But I held on to my receipt because I knew what was going to happen.

Sure enough, the alarm went off. I pulled out the receipt to show to the octogenarian at the door. I left the store being careful to dodge the Indie 500 drivers in the parking lot.

"A" has been enjoying herself immensely, with one exception. She came up to me crying because she forgot to save her Spyro game before she pulled the disc out. Life is so unfair, isn't it?

Calgon Take Me the Hell Away

During the past few weeks, SJ has:

Shoved grapes down the drain in the front sink

Pulled out kid's scissors and tried to "cut the dog's butt."

Used my garlic press to press a taco

Painted parts of my treadmill white

Spilled his juice in my lap just as I sat down to eat breakfast

Had several tantrums, some of them in the car. He sits right behind me and conveniently kicks me in the shoulder while he's having them.

Poured my coconut-scented body wash, the WHOLE BOTTLE, in his bath water.

Acted so awful in the grocery store that I took him home, left him with his Dad and continued shopping without him

Is there a full moon or something?

The Downfall of a Diet

Unlike most everybody else on planet earth, I didn't make a New Year's resolution to lose weight.

In fact, I didn't make a single resolution. It feels like I am failing at something in my life on a daily basis. Why muck up the pot even worse?

Another big reason I didn't make a resolution to lose weight, was I had started back in 2006. I was bumping along more or less successfully until October, the beginning of the holiday season or in other words the "eat like you're going to hibernate all winter" season.

It started out innocently enough. My youngest daughter was off track from school. I could no longer push my son to pre-school in his stroller. Even though his sister is seven, and should be able to stay in the ditch, she has an inability to do so. It's as if there is a huge magnet in the middle of the road and she is made of metal. She naturally gravitates toward that center line.

So my main form of exercise ended.

Then the candy began going on sale, sweet sweet candy.

Bags of Reeses were two-dollars and fifty cents. How could I pass that up?

I purchased them weeks before Halloween, smug with the realization that I could keep out of them. After all, I had been doing great on the diet up to that point.

After I went through the first few bags, I purchased more Reeses. I was sick of Reeses. Surely I couldn't eat more.

After I went through the next few bags, I purchased more. After all, HALLOWEEN WAS RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER. Maybe we would even get trick or treaters this year. We didn't.

I rolled into November (literally) promising myself to do better and I did, for about a week. But my goodness, the food is everywhere. All the magazines have new recipes to try. The food section of the paper is brimming with ideas.

And it was cold outside. Is there anything like pigging out on a hearty soup (and everything else in sight) when it's cold outside?

Plus I was extremely busy. Who has time to measure their food protions when they are so busy?

By the time I was feeling more stuffed than the turkey, Christmas blew in.

I promised myself I wasn't going to bake this year. I always feel overwhelmed at Christmas anyway without baking for my husband's co-workers and the local postal worker and the person who delivers the newspaper and...

But guilt got the best of me and I baked. Then I remembered some more people who needed to be baked for so I did it again. Then I was invited to a cookie exchange party so I did it again. And I had to sample all the goodies to make sure they were safe for human consumption!

Before I knew it December was over. I was miserable and lumpy and vowed to do better in January.

Only I didn't realize that I had established a pattern. I have turned into a cow; I'm grazing all damn day long and I resemble one too.

Aargh!

Tomorrow is a new day. Tomorrow is a new day.

Please, oh please let me not blow it any more.

Else I will begin an acting career. Maybe there's room for one more in those "Great Cheese Comes from Happy Cows. Happy Cows Come from California" commercials.

MOO!

Poking My Head Out

I've added two more blogs to my reading list. They're not at the end of my list though. Since I had some blogs in the middle I wasn't getting to, and I was too lazy to re-write the HTML I put the new blogs in place of the old ones.

I really stink at the whole HTML thing, quite badly.

I added "I am the Bookworm". She's my fourth librarian. I'm a librarian collector now! Go check her out and say hi. That's an order.

I also added My Float. I know many of you know who she is and knew long before I did. If you don't know her, she's a Mom of an almost three-year old boy. And he says some funny stuff.

I enjoy every blog that I have linked. They are all so varied and all of them have something to offer. I've never met a blog I didn't like. Well there was that one with naked people doing things best left in the bedroom, but other than that...


Warning - Mundane Post Ahead

My husband and I had our 11th anniversary on the 7th, but we couldn't get a sitter until the 13th. So last weekend was our belated anniversary dinner/movie.

Back in 1995, when we were so eager to get married, I wish I had realized that we would always be broke on our anniversary due to CHRISTMAS!

The end of April would have been a good time to get hitched. Ah, of course hindsight is 20/20.

But I digress.

We ate dinner first at a Mexican restaurant. It has become our restaurant of choice. The food is exceptional but the restaurant is never overcrowded. The lack of crowds is probably because it isn't in the "cool" part of town where all the nightlife migrates. Sometimes it's great not to be cool, a point I would have argued in high school.

We had strawberry margaritas with dinner. They were so good that I could barely taste the alcohol, but was already buzzed by the time the glass was half empty. (Half-empty, I must be a pessimist.)

We then went to the movie theater. The movie showing the soonest was Alpha Dog, so we chose that. The last time I saw an adult movie at the theater was Matrix III, big piece of crap that it was. It figures that by the time we get to go again, nothing good is playing.

Alpha Dog was surprisingly funny in parts, but it was overall a very disturbing movie (to me) and I had nightmares for two nights after seeing it.

This is why I generally don't review books or movies. My reviews suck!

On Sunday I finished reading Water for Elephants, which was reccomended by the lovely Babelbabe at Behind the Stove. READ IT! You won't regret it.

I am also trying to find a health club that doesn't want (cough, wheeze) at least fifty bucks a month. Good golly Miss Molly.

I don't want to go to Curves again. That's where I developed tennis elbow.

And now I think I will sneak to bed, my gloriously empty bed with nobody else in it, FOR NOW!

Well I'll Be Bloggered

I tried to switch to new blogger and they wouldn't let me because my blog is too big.

Well excuuuuuuse me.

I thought they were making it mandatory. I'm sure I read somewhere that if I didn't switch over, they were going to make me blog with the fishes.
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While waiting in the checkout line, I was reading magazine covers.

One magazine said, "Is Your Diet Making You Psycho?"

Come now, my diet is not taking the credit. I'm psycho all on my own, thank you very much.

There IS one part of dieting that makes me more psycho than usual.

I always feed the kids first. By the time I'm done serving them, I'm starving.

I measure out my boring, bland diet food. This is food my kids wouldn't eat on a bet.

I sit down to eat it and SJ comes up and starts helping himself.

I only have a certain amount of MEASURED food. This is MY portion.

Back off buster or you may be pulling back a bloody stump!

My eye is twitching from thinking about it.
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My husband and I have our first counseling appointment the 25th.

The girl from our insurance said, "Maam I have to ask you if you have had thoughts of hurting yourself or others."

I said, WHILE LAUGHING, "Well, I have wanted to whack my husband on the head a time or two with a frying pan. That's why we're making the appointment."

DEAD SILENCE.

"Maam, I have to know if you're joking because we have to take those kind of comments seriously."

Oh geez.
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Cecil peed on the rug a few days ago. The strange thing was it went in a long squiggly line across the rug.

It looked like a two-year old tried to write his name in cursive.

My husband said it is like a Charlotte's web thing. He's trying to spell "good dog" or something.
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My son now has an official autism diagnosis.

The first psychiatrist to see him said it was PDD-NOS, which I think basically means she wasn't positive he was autistic.

The UC Davis Mind Center has tested him extensively. We have been participating in a sleep study.

The paperwork came today confirming what I've known for a while.

Now if we should ever go to Disneyland, we have the paperwork to take with us, and we get to go to the head of the line.

Everyone will think we're special or something. That's right. I gave birth to my own fast pass.

And I'm enjoying almost every minute of the ride.

A Meeting of TPA (Toilet Paperholics Anonymous)

"Good evening everyone, My name is Cecil."

"HELLO, CECIL."

"I am a toilet paperholic. Let me tell my story."

"It started innocently enough. Somebody threw a piece of toilet paper at the trash and missed. It was just sitting there on the floor. I didn't think there could be any harm in one little nibble."

"I was wrong. It was so good. I loved the way it felt in my mouth and the taste as it slid down my throat. Soon I was stealing toilet paper out of the trash can. I couldn't get enough!"

"My humans caught me and they put the trash can on the counter where I couldn't reach it. What was I going to do?"

"Then I saw IT! It was hanging on the wall, A WHOLE ROLL, just hanging there. It was even better than the crumbled stuff. It was pure, man, pure!"

"That's right, I was chewing paper RIGHT OFF THE ROLL! I would do anything for my fix. That's why I'm here. I'm so ashamed, so ashamed."

(Note from human living in the house: When you go to use the toilet paper and there are bite marks in it, that's just wrong.)
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So last week was a lot crazy and this coming week will be too.

For J to start in her new high school Monday, she has to have her shot records, official transcripts, certified birth certificate and the drop paper from her old high school.

She starts Monday. I found this out Thursday and the mail takes two days to get from here to there.

I had already left a voice mail with her high school that she was dropping and I would be down. I went down and filled out one small paper that said she was dropping.

Now her old HS can mail the transcripts to her new HS when they request them.

I dug and dug and dug some more and found her shot records BUT NO BIRTH CERTIFICATE.

The last time we had it was in May for her driver's permit. I have torn this house up and looked in every crevice and cranny. I CAN NOT find it.

I copied the shot records and mailed them to her along with the business card of the contact at her old school. I had to check three places before I found a working copy machine.

All of this took up a whole morning, my time that I usually use for my regular errands because SJ is at school.

Now here is the part where you will realize how naive and stupid I am.

I stupidly assumed that since she was transferring from a CA high school TO a CA high school, that she wouldn't need all this stuff.

I can see if we were leaving the state, but my God, can't these people share records?

What a pain in the arse.

I also sent her Dad her new insurance card, the list of some doctors in his city and the information on our co-pays.

She needed contact lenses. I had to order those from her eye doctor here.

Her Dad has to find her an eye doctor and pediatrician in his town.

He's not even sure what high school he is sending her to.

I am STRESSING.

He doesn't have a landline in his house. I can rarely get her on her cell phone. ACK!

I miss her too, not the times when she was being mean, but HER.
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Last night I had a dream that I was climbing the stairs in my childhood house.

Only in the dream, they were kind of like those long bridges that you see in movies, the ones that go across canyons in the middle of nowhere.

I made it to the top and the stairs/bridge broke so I was dangling yelling for help. Somebody came and gave me a chair so I could step down instead of falling.

Then some show-off guy told me that he could just pull himself up to the top, and he did.

Dream analysis anyone?

All I can think is that the bridge represents my life which is going to crap.

Maybe the guy with the ability to pull himself up means that if I want to pull myself up, I need to become more like a guy.

So I am going to be shaving my face every day and also start peeing standing up.

Whatchya think?
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Today, I spent the majority of the day cleaning my bedroom.

The sheets are changed. The surfaces, most of them anyway, are dusted.

The floor is vacuumed. I did about four loads of laundry, washed and dried, not folded and put away.

It looks great.

I should feel a sense of accomplishement, but all I can really think is that it will look the same in a week.

Housework sucks. It truly does. Sigh.
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SJ's teacher received a grant for some of the kids at his pre-school. He now goes to the next door kid's gym every Wednesday morning for his occupational therapy.

I go to help out. I help mostly with him, but with some of the other kids too.

He loves it. How often is something fun AND good for you?

Not much is coming to my mind, unless you're one of those people who enjoys exercise. Freaks, all of you! Yeah, I'm kidding. I'm just jealous.

Still Here

I am around, just swamped right now.

I'm hoping that next week will lighten up.

It HAS to, good grief.