Sows?

Deck the halls with sows and jolly! La-la-la-la La La La LA!

That's what Super Girl is belting out at the top of her lungs right now. I had to stop her and ask exactly what she was decking the halls with, then after she sang it again for me I asked 'Sows?' uh-hu, 'And Jolly?' uh-huh. OK. I let her keep singing. Hubby stopped her and corrected her for some reason - I thought 'Sows and Jolly' worked just fine. Oink.

MOGU Loves You!

D - Mogu loves me more than you. :oP

My sister left her Mogu here yesterday by accident. I don't know if I'll be able to give it back to her now that I like it so much. Although after looking at the website and seeing how many different kinds of Mogu there are, I probably will. I want a Mogu. I want many Mogu.

D- I'm thinking the pink Mogu square pillow will be JUST like that pink pillow that I loved so much and lost in the fire... Now I have something new to obsess about.

Back to cleaning.

New Years Crazies

New Years is going to be crazy as well. Today is our nephew's birthday so this evening we are heading to Chucky Cheese for his birthday then to their house for the evening. Tomorrow we are hosting a New Years day party so I have to finish cleaning my house - and it looks like a freaking disaster area right now - of course, I have kids how else would it look after I spend half the day cleaning? *sigh* If my kids were super mutant super heroes (villains maybe?) their super powers would be chaos and disaster. I'm so lucky. Despite the fact that I'll be cleaning and cooking until the moment we leave for nephew's birthday and cooking and cleaning until people show up (1:10 or 1:30 pm - Hubby sent out the invite with a little typo hehehe), I'm looking forward to people being over tomorrow.

One More Thing That Pisses Me Off

People who make the comment that they wish they could claim their dog/cat/bird/pet as a tax deduction. And people who say that their 'PET' is 'just like a child to me'. I worked with a psychotic cat woman (she was my age, not some 60+ year old mostly recluse which was kind of odd). I love my pets but they are NOT like children, never have been and never will be. Only people who have never had children could say such absurd bullshit. I'm sorry that single childless people feel they get screwed over on taxes. Have these people ever stopped to consider all that goes into raising a child? Not just the money but the hours of effort. The reason that people with children get tax breaks is because WE NEED them, maybe not every single person NEEDS the breaks as much as some do, but the fact is that it takes money to raise children.

Pets are not children, so just deal with it. I swear I will bitch slap anyone who has the balls to tell me to my face how Fluffy is 'just like a child' to them. Fuck, get some therapy. Until I meet the person who had to endure 36 painful, grueling and exhausting hours to get said pet then have their pet taken to ICU for a week while you wait and watch hoping that every day is the lucky day you get to take your new bundle of joy home, have sleepless nights as you worry that they will die from SIDS the first few months, then have to get up with your new one every night for the first year, pay several hundred a month to have someone watch your little one while you are at work, have to take time off when your little one gets sick and have to take them to the Dr to spend even more money, get up several times at night just to make sure they are 'still breathing' because they have a cold, spend more money on clothes for them than you ever imagined spending on yourself... (OK Judy... Take a deep breath... ) Anyway... When I meet the pet owner who has done all that - I'll say "Yes, your pet is like your child." And even at that, they still won't be JUST like a child. I mean if my child gets sick, I sure as hell won't EVER consider putting them to sleep. If I get tired of my child I won't EVER consider taking them to the pound. And BEST of all, my KIDS love me much more than my cats will EVER have the capacity to. Kids are better than pets anyday. Not like Fluffy and Rover are going to take care of you when you get old.

OK, enough... I'm just ranting...

STARS Game

Hot Damn! That was so much fun! The game ended in a tie, but watching from a suite ROCKS! Hubby's company had catering in the suite, food, drinks, cookies and BEER. Fuckers who take tickets to events like this and don't show up suck. Several people took tickets and didn't show up to the game. Assholes. My sister could have gone with us. My brother in law would have sold his left nut to go with us.

Anyway - I HAD FUN!

Sick Again

WTF? I'm sick again. I've been having this stomach thing on and off since Friday night. I ended up not getting much sleep that night and thought it was just my reflux. I went to work on Saturday but felt not so great by the end of my work day. Hubby ordered us the BEST Chinese food on Saturday night because I didn't want to cook - he got me EXTRA spicy garlic chicken. Not the smartest thing for me to order, but I LOVE spicy Chinese food, I mean LOVE IT. This was so spicy hubby just tasted some of the sauce and absolutely refused to even touch the chicken. I was sweating just three bites into the dish, but it was soooo good. I had a glass of milk with me so I could cool down my mouth every so often then eat some more. I know it's crazy but it's like an addiction once I get this stuff. I ate all I wanted that night then had some for breakfast - it's even good cold! I had the rest for lunch yesterday. Ahhh it was good. I felt icky yesterday morning after I headed to work, but it passed and I worked the whole day. Later yesterday evening I started feeling tired then not feeling well so I didn't finish my dinner (chicken and shrimp gumbo for hubby). Now I'm tired again and didn't get a good nights sleep. My sister is an angel of mercy today, she happends to be in the area for work and came by with donuts for my kids for breakfast and has them with her for about an hour right now. Ahhh... Blessed peace. So I'm going to go nap so I feel good for tonight's hockey game.

DALLAS STARS
Guess who's going to a hockey game tonight? I'm so excited! I LOVE hockey! I even canceled a date to go to this game.

The funny part of this is that when hubby told me that he had hockey tickets I didn't think they were for the Dallas Stars, I thought they were for the Frisco Tornados since one of his boss's has season tickets to the Frisco minor league baseball and hockey teams and we occasionally would get tickets to the games. I didn't even ask who the tickets were for, I didn't care, I enjoyed the last Tornados game. So I go ahead and cancel my date and we schedule for a babysitter. Then yesterday while hubby was talking to his sister-in-law about his nephew's upcoming birthday I hear him say we are going to the Stars game tonight. After he got off the phone I said to him that I didn't realize the tickets were for the Stars and not the Tornados. Then he tells me that not only are they Stars tickets, but that we will be in a suite watching the game! Woohoooo! Hell I would have taken tickets in the nose bleed section but this ROCKS! I'm so excited!!!!

Denmark???

Read This story on Denmark the worlds largest sperm bank! Ya know what that tells me? There are a LOT of lonely Danes just whacking off! What struck me as funny is that the donors "are paid $40.50 for each donation." $40.50 to whack off! Yikes! Here in Dallas a guy has to pay for his own trip to the porn shop 'viewing room' and get's no compensation for his *ahem* donation.

Actually it's a pretty cool article once you get past the snickering and giggling of picturing Danish college boys going into booths with naughty magazines to make 'donations'. Sadly lack of anonymity in many countries is killing this fertility solution for many people.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
So Let Someone Else Do It For You!

Go HERE to check out this hilarious e-bay listing (it has bids too!)! D I thought of you when I read this - I could have charged you when I told your ex-hubby you wanted a divorce! ;o)

My Garden

My retarded tomato plant has finally bore me fruit!

Tiny but tasty fruit.

Holiday Rush

Everything has been insane around here. That's why I hate the holidays. Yes I'm a Scrooge, a humbug, a Grinch the closer to Christmas it gets. I despise shopping among the crazy feeding frenzy of gift buying that happens at the malls. Don't get me wrong, I love shopping, just not when the malls are packed with the holiday lunacy. I dislike standing in lines that stretch all the way back to the other side of the store, the decorations loose their luster and just look tacky and the holiday music most stores play continually from Halloween until New Years day make me want to buy a gun. Even with all that I still must venture out and endure the torture of the holiday mania (no one delivers groceries in my area any more!)... But I digress.

Unexpectedly to me, hubby had the day before Christmas off. I did not find this out until Tuesday so I was sorely unprepared for him being home that day. He assured me that him being home the day before Christmas meant that I would have the rare and sweet opportunity to sleep in on Wednesday morning. This is something I took to heart and made plans for. Hubby got off work early on Tuesday then headed off to visit a friend, the little people and I had a nice quiet, uneventful evening full of holiday specials. They went to bed with only one trip up the stairs for me to make threats of great awfulness to get them to go on to sleep. Hubby got home around 1 am and I chuckled to my self as I heard him lock the door and head upstairs to bed. I thought "and you will be getting up early with the little people... hehehe..." Bright and early as usual the little people burst into my room to wake me. Cabbage Patch yelling "Wake up mamma! Wake up!" I told them to go wake their daddy and close my door. The door closed and my eye lids followed shortly there after. About an hour and a half later I hear hubby being upset with the kids, the kids being relegated to the sofa for time outs and him grumbling about something, I figure it's time for me to get up and see what damage has been done as I figured the little people had ignored my command to wake their father. Now I want you to for just a moment remember that wireless commercial where the woman is saying "Why would I say 'Flour the children'?" and you see the aunt/babysitter/caretaker/warden sitting on the sofa with two children covered in flour. Something similar to this is what I see when I enter the living room. The little people are sitting on the couch leaving large white powder marks on my navy blue sofa. Cabbage Patch is so white she looks like a ghoul. The little people were in the living room with a bag of powdered sugar. Luckily the mess on them and the tracks on the carpet and sofa were about the worst of it all. Most of the sugar was in two bowls. *sigh* After vacuuming the living room and sweeping the kitchen it was off to the bath for the kids for scrub.

After baths and getting the little people dressed we fed them breakfast which we realized was a bad idea since it was far to close to nap time by then. Oh well. Hubby and I discussed gifts for his brother and father and made a list of things to get at the stores. Yes we would have to venture out into the shopping frenzy. We decided on making baskets of Mexican yummies for both and headed off to the stores. The first store was like a mad house. There were people everywhere. We got a giggle at one man who had obviously waited until that day to do ALL of his holiday shopping and had decide that he wasn't going to go to ANY other stores for it. His cart was so full he was having trouble seeing over it to push - he even had things stacked below the cart as well. It was comical. It took us an hour to get $5 worth of things and head to the grocery store. Somehow I managed to misplace the list in the car and after hubby made an initial search that was fruitless we continued to shop with out. We got everything and got out of the store in another hour - and we managed to get everything on the list save two things, one I chose to not get and one we forgot.

Back home and naps for little people. The cooking began. It was much easier than I had anticipated. Even the donuts for Chanukkah (which were the hits of the evening). We lit the candles that night (although I was a bit afraid I would spontaneously combust while lighting them I felt so greasy from frying all the donuts and stuff - yuck). The little people got Barbies for gifts that night, which they enjoyed quite a bit - then started fighting over the shoes and the dresses until I threatened to throw the dolls in the garbage if I heard more fighting... ahhh the holidays are so special.

When the little people finally were asleep, hubby brought in the Christmas presents and we sat on the floor wrapping them, I gave some of the Chanukkah presents up to be wrapped as well. I knew we wouldn't do Chanukkah presents on Christmas (hubby and I had an agreement, no Christmas stuff on the first and last days of Chanukkah and no Chanukkah on Christmas) and since the little people have worked very hard to be EEEEEVIL this holiday season, I ended up with more presents than days of Chanukkah left. He filled their stockings with stuff.

Christmas morning, I got up at 6:30 AM to get ready for work. I got showered and dressed (I ended up spraying to much curl stuff on my hair so it looked nasty) then waited for the little people to wake. The came scampering down the stairs around 7:45 AM. I sent them back up to wake daddy so he wouldn't miss the frightening toy frenzy soon to come. Hubby let them have their stockings while I got the camera ready (had to clear the photos off my card) - in the time it took me to upload the photos they had emptied their stockings and eaten half the chocolate - the area where they were looked like a trash heap! On to the presents. I sat in my recliner and took photos as they tore through the wrappings. It's kind of funny now that they are 4 (almost 5) and 2 and a half. Both of them KNOW that things in brightly colored wrappings are PRESENTS and they LOVE know PRESENTS much be for THEM. We did all of the presents (they didn't get all that much) in about 10 minutes as I had to head off to work.

Work on Christmas. My first hospital didn't have any babies to photo - I hoped this would be a trend and I would have an opportunity to get a nap before we all headed over to the inlaws to do Christmas with them. My second hospital was FULL of babies! Unbelievable! I got there at 9 AM and worked straight through until 3:30 PM. My commission for that day sucked - people just don't buy on Christmas. I got several sympathetic comments from nurses about having to work Christmas - this I found a bit amusing as I really didn't mind being Jewish. I volunteered to work and I got holiday pay, so the sucky commission isn't such a big deal. I got home a little after 4 pm after checking my 3rd hospital - which had no babies either.

At home hubby had expected me home by lunch time and had prepared a lovely lunch of smoked turkey, sweet potatoes, green beans, brussle sprouts and rolls. Yum! He had held off feeding the little people or eating as well in the thought that we would all have a nice lunch together. I felt bad that he had waited. I had declined eating at the hospital for free as I knew hubby would have a nice meal waiting (which is not normal for him, he generally 'cooks' a pizza for lunch on Saturdays). I ate lunch then headed for a short (much too short) nap as I was dragging.

Off to the inlaws for Christmas. The little people were thrilled to see their cousin. They were mesmerized by the Christmas tree and had to be told several times to keep their little hands off the ornaments. After about an hour of the kids playing we called them into the living room for presents. Cabbage Patch had the whole concept of presents down by now. She came running into the room and slid on her knees right up to the tree (wood floors) - it was hysterical. Sister-in-law sorted out the presents for each kid then they tore into them like old-ladies at a 75% off sale in Wal-Mart. I was amused for the first 30 seconds but started getting pissed with the little people as they tore paper from a package, looked at the package for 30 seconds then dropped for the next thing in line. Grrr... I swear it took less than 2 minutes for them to get through everything - I couldn't even keep track of everything that was there! At that moment, I was really wishing someone had given me the kid-sized dog kennels I had on my wish list. Then they all headed off to play again. In the aftermath I realized that father-in-law had ignored my please to not get the kids much and had in fact gotten them everything I had suggested as examples and more - DVDs (3 in all), several books, a Leap Pad Jr for Super Girl. He also gets the prize this year for getting the two gifts I would gladly douse with gasoline and light I hate them that much but the kids love dearly. These dastardly items are masquerading as books for Cabbage Patch. They in fact are toddler toys made by Satan! One is a Barney music book with a guitar attached that plays music - which is nefarious enough, but it does more. It plays the catchy little kid tunes in what sounds like electric guitar, it has a little button so they can play them note by note and a whaaa-whaa bar that is kind of funny the first few times. I believe this item has already 'disappeared' . The next is a 'book' - The Cat In The Hat book with buttons that make noise. This wouldn't be so bad if not for the voice of Mike Myers. Ugh.

We made it home extremely late (for the little people) after watching my pressie from hubby - The Pirates of The Caribbean! I love this movie! Johnny Depp *pant* *pant*. The little people slept until almost 9 am the next day - something I truly appreciated.

OK, enough for now... Bed time for me.

State Of Texas Insanity

It still puzzles me that this kind of crap goes on here in Texas. Yes I know Texas is full of uptight, prude, hypocritical bible thumping, biggots who are desperatly in need of a blow job - but not many people I know share the same narrow mideset of the Texas Supreme Court. I don't even know what the rational is behind making vibrators illegal! (I do know what the REAL reason is, just to be able to crack down on all of the places that sell sex paraphanalia because uptight folks hate to think of people having fun with sex). It's rediculous to go to a sex store and buy $100 worth of hardcore porn DVD's but to have to buy a 'back massager' to enjoy your movies with. Sheesh. Why oh why does Texas care what people do in the bedroom?

Man Troubles

What the hell? Am I giving off pheremones lately? I mean STRONG pheremones. I've been on the quest for a real boyfriend and have been going through the interview process with several men. So far the guy with the horse is the front runner. But I've also suddenly had my phone ringing all the time with men from my past! Sheesh if they don't want to be my 'boyfriend' then they want me to be their mistress! Yes I really did have one tell me that he wanted me to be his mistress! Have another guy who wants me to be his girlfriend - yet I can't remember his first name! It's far to late to ask now - no matter, I don't want to be his girlfriend anyway - he's married! I did a short interview before shopping on Friday and realized that although the guy was very nice he just wasn't my type and never would be. Well today he sends me a message telling me how I was so beautiful and exactly what he hoped for and all that he expected and he had so much fun in our short meeting, hoped I did also, wanted to kiss me but didn't think that was appropriate (damn right he was!) yadda, yadda, yadda... Eh... No... Not going to happen. I also get a call from someone from way back who is the tortured soul guy - he's telling me how he misses me but that it's best if we don't talk now because he has so much he wants to tell me but now is not the time... That he loves me and that scares him but since we can't be together right now this is best, yadda, yadda, yadda. He's a nice guy, but very dark and brooding - very 1986-89 Breakfast Club-almost Goth-The Cure fan type of guy. Someone I would have definitely hooked up with in high school, but since I'm well past High School, this whole deep- depressing-brooding-tortured soul persona is a major turn off. I've dated my share of suicidal psychos - no more! See... This is why it's just easier for me to just hook up with my sancho - it's just sex, there is none of the rest of this shit. Ugh! Someone give me strength.

Holiday Letters

I've been getting a trickle of Holiday cards this year (yes Jayne I did get yours - LOVED it! Yours will be late, my apologies). In some there are these letters that summarize the year. I've considered doing this but have thought better of it... Why? Well why don't I just show you - this is how my letter would read:

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

2003 started with some of the major issues from 2002 having been resolved - thank G*d for good lawyers! In February Super Girl turned 4 - wow, where does the time fly? We planned a small party here at the town house, it was originally planned for the kids to feed the ducks at the lake but the weather was unexpectedly COLD so it was cupcakes at home with us. March brought more changes as Hubby was laid off from his job. Woohoo. Gotta love the economy. April was tense as hubby searched for work - thankfully he got a severance package and could collect unemployment. We celebrated Passover and for the FIRST time ever the kids made it through the ENTIRE Haggadah! We took the kids over to hubby's brother's house for Easter. Whew! It's a lot of work having a multi-cultural family - we seem to celebrate every possible holiday. Super Girl stepped in dog doo while searching for eggs. This made the EEEEEVIL adults laugh hard. May brought hubby's 38th birthday and guess what he got for his birthday? He got a contract job! Yes he actually started his job on his birthday - We all breathed a sigh of relief as his severance package had just ended. In June we celebrated our 9th anniversary - can't believe we made it this far! I bought myself a cool plate, Blue Willow - it's actually one of THE 9th anniversary gifts on the anniversary list. It's lovely, now I want a whole set of Blue Willow stuff. July we went to hubby's brother's house for the 4th. The little people and their cousin enjoyed the sparklers in the back yard - hubby set his brother's lawn on fire though hehehe... that must be karma balancing from way back - luckily bro-in-law was prepared for such an event and had the hose out. We also celebrated Cabbage Patch's 2nd Birthday here! It was hot as hell so the plans to feed the ducks were once again put on hold as hubby's father and step-mother were planning to attend the party and I knew they couldn't handle the heat. We had great fun as the kids ran up and down the stairs and ate lots of cake - which meant, lots of red velvet cake crumbs on the carpet... What the hell was I thinking? The next day I had the great task of scrubbing red spots off the carpet - what fun (shit I hate carpeting). Hubby's job went permanent. Woohoo! That was kind of an interesting turn of events, he was working payroll while someone was on leave, then when his contract was set to end he got offered the other job because the had JUST fired that person! HAHAHAHA! August I turned 32 - hubby surprised me with some lovely flowers. I didn't do a fucking thing though. I'm not even sure I talked to my sancho around then... I think that was during the 4 months that we didn't talk... Doesn't matter, I turned 32 - I think hubby had a cake for me at the next game night - got some cute cards, that's all. September - two of our dear friends got married. They make a cute couple. The little people loved the wedding - Cabbage Patch babbled through the ceremony, loudly at that. Thankfully it was a short ceremony. Then they ran around the reception like wild animals. Lucky for them they were dressed so darn cute that no one - save me and hubby, seemed to mind that they couldn't manage to sit for more than 5 minutes at a time (can we say ADD?). We also celebrate Rosh Hashanna and Yom Kippur, it was a lot of fun - and a lot of work! I didn't get a chance to go to the lake and throw crumbs into the lake though. October was boring, nothing happened, I know I was seeing my Sancho by then and the little people did Halloween, but nothing memorable happened, so let's skip it. November just started the holiday madness. We did Thanksgiving twice - once with hubby's brother and sister in law and other family and friends - I made the turkey which was the best part of the dinner and sister-in-law made the inedible stuff. We did that get together the Saturday before Thanksgiving, then we did it all over again at our town house on Thanksgiving - just had hubby's father and step mother over and I made all of the food, needless to say it was all FABULOUS. December - well that's this month, I've had SARS for two freaking weeks and that has really put my schedule off as I haven't been able to get much done. *sigh* I had planned to make several things for people - ya know, use all my creative energies to make heart felt gifts, but now that it's almost Christmas and I haven't even gotten Holiday cards out, well fuck that - if it's not done by the time I see you, you are not getting a pressie from me! But I thought about it, and as we all know 'It's the thought that counts' - at least that the bullshit people who get good gifts tell people who get shitty gifts. :o) Super Girl had her first dance recital the beginning of December. It was super cute. Some of my family came to see it - even my Grandmother who I haven't talked to since my car got totaled last year. So I guess the family has gotten over the whole car thing... Well almost everyone. My uncle still won't speak to me. Don't care really, he's an ass. My grandmother and aunt let it go because they wanted to see my kids. Ahhhh... Nothing like the disfunctional family get together to make the holidays special. We started lighting our Chanukkah candles on the 19th - the girls are LOVING this, Super Girl now wants to say the candle lighting prayer with me each night. Sooo cute. We only did the latkes one night as only half of the freaking family liked my efforts. I absolutely hate frying things and was pissed with the half who hated the latkes after all the trouble I went through (I cut my thumb on the grater!). Anyway - no more latkes for us, we'll celebrate the miracle of the oil in other ways... Chips... Chips are made with oil and they come in a bag already cooked! Woohoo!

Things that happened but I can't remember when... We got a new car, had to really, the Taurus just fucking died on the toll road. I had to get towed home late at night after work one day. Sucked. We now have a cute little Chevrolet Prism - love it. Unfortunately we now have a car payment - boo! My sancho and I have been seeing each other now for what will be 2 years soon. Woohoo! Since I'm his mistress, do I have to give him a present? Eh, who knows. My sister got a new vehicle - a pimped out Ford SUV - it's very nice. When she comes to the hood to visit me, she's the most popular person in the parking lot as all the project kids come out to gawk at her ride. My nephew joined the army, worked hard to find a way to get a medical discharge from the army before he even finished boot camp, came home, got thrown out of the house by his mother, lived with a friend for a bit, got thrown out by him, lived with his (useless) sister for a short while before she told him to hit the bricks and... Well I think you have the idea of what's going on with him. We are all VERY proud of the choices he has made recently, VERY proud. I stopped taking Zoloft sometime this year. I can't remember exactly when. I'm fine without it, I hardly ever threaten people's lives these days... I mean not a REAL threat that is... Ya know it's kind of weird getting off something like that, after you stop you really feel like "Holy shit! I'm a nut! I need that!" Then as time goes by you feel fine without it - I don't know it it's that you truly don't need it or your own psychosis just fools you into thinking that you just don't need it. At any rate, I'm fine to be out in public these days. And of course we are still broke dicks here in this house. Even though hubby got another job fairly quick, he's making quite a bit less - although MORE than what he would be making with unemployment. I can't complain to much, we have everything we need.

Happy holidays.
Love
Judy

See... Who the hell would want to read about that? Depressing not festive. *sigh*

SARS UPDATE!!

I'm feeling better FINALLY! It's about damn time too! I've fallen so far behind in just about EVERYTHING. Now I need to bust my ass and get things finished. *sigh*

Work Crap
This past weekend was our gaming weekend. We played about an hour or so past when we usually did and that left me freaking tired on Sunday when I had to go to work. I was supposed to meet my boss at work at 7:45 am to go over some 'training' materials (been there 2 and a half years and all of the sudden it's important for me to get trained???). I was there at 7:45 am but my boss didn't show up - the bitch. Sunday was just as busy if not more so than Saturday so I was not the least bit understanding of this. She called later that evening saying that she was *cough* *cough* sick and was sorry she didn't make it up to the hospital - let me correct myself - she called after I sent her an e-mail wanting to know why she didn't show up. Waste of carbon...

Happy Chanukkah!

Tonight started the festival of lights! And everything went off without a hitch! Well not really... Let me tell you about the day.

I couldn't locate my menorah last night so I knew I would have to go get one for tonight. I had planned to head to a local place this morning with the little people but they were Pure EEEEEVIL today so I gave them time outs, threatened to take down their Christmas tree and made them clean up all the paper they scattered around the living room instead of take the trip to the store. I knew that hubby would be home early today as he has something going on in his sinus and half of his face is swelled up like the elephant man ("I'm not an animal!"), so I figured I would have time to head out to procure the menorah and a few other things for tonight when he got home. I was also expecting a phone call from a friend around 12:30 PM so I put the little people down for naps at noon and sat down to read my e-mail. 12:30 PM came and went with no call from said friend. A guy wanting to be my boyfriend did call though and we chatted for a bit then decided that we would meet for a few minutes before I did my shopping. This is a great way to meet someone without it being a 'date' - see if you meet and this person is a LOSER you can always say "Well I really do need to get going, I have to get 'fill in the blank' done before 6 pm" and leave, and if you do hit it off well then having a time limit will keep you (me really) from being a complete slut and going right to sex - there by making you (me) look less slutty as you can count the first meeting as a 'DATE' and when you skip the movie, skip dinner and head right for 'desert' you can at least say you didn't do it on your FIRST date - at least that's my rationalization. Anyway - I'm glad I didn't actually set up a real 'DATE' because this guy is just NOT for me. I had a feeling he wasn't from a few comments he made about my hubby - just a hint to prospective boyfriends - it's all good to tell me how beautiful you think I am and fawn over me, but when you insult my hubby for being gay your just pissing me off, hubby may not be my lover and we may only be 'husband & wife' in a technical sense but he's my best friend, my room mate and the father of my children and I'll kick so ass before I let someone bash him for being gay. But anyway, this guy made a couple of comments that came off wrong to me - but only a couple, I figured I'd give him the benefit of the doubt since he had put so much effort into this - no chemistry, no sparks, not going to work. Oh well, too bad for him. Luckily that didn't take long, then I headed over to the store to look for a menorah - the store was FREAKING PACKED. I did some shopping for the little people and headed to another store - also packed. I did not find a menorah but I did find some nice candle holders that were pretty damn cheap and would work fine for tonight. I ended up picking up some stuff to make latkes as well - I figured that I would be pressed for time so I got stuff to make them quick. When I get home the little people had been EEEEEEVIL. They had gotten a hold of the India ink AGAIN! AAAAHHHH! I had that hidden! Anyway this time they poured it on the floor in my bedroom. Hubby was very unhappy with the little people. I was down right pissed and started yelling at them right away. They spent quite a while in time outs tonight while I went to clean my carpet. I managed to get almost all of the ink out of my carpet - a miracle on Chanukkah! (and what a coincidence that a woman named Judith was there to help it along... This Judith didn't have to lop off someone's head though!) After some intense carpet scrubbing, I headed to the kitchen to make latkes. I grated some zucchini and managed to cut my thumb knuckle pretty bad in the process. Then I fried the latkes. After all the work to make them, Super Girl didn't try them, she claimed they were to 'spicy' (they were far from spicy) - what a gentile she is, Cabbage Patch ate hers up (of course the one with the good Hebrew name likes Jewish food) and hubby didn't like them (gentile) - so only half of us appreciated the trouble I went to to make the traditional food to celebrate the miracle of the oil. If I had made donuts they would have eaten them... Maybe next year. Because the little people were PURE EEEEVIL today they didn't get any Chanukkah presents today nor did they get any gelt - ah well, they have 7 more days, I'm sure at least one day they will be GOOD. ;o) At least the evening ended well for me, my Sancho called and since I am finally OVER my SARS(cold) I made time for a booty call - mmmm, mmmm, good.

Slipping By In A Blur

That's how my days feel right now. Tomorrow night starts Chanukkah and I'm not prepared. Next week is Christmas and again I'm not prepared. This damn SARS (cold) which I am finally starting to get rid of has really thrown my schedule off. I haven't gotten my holiday cards done, I haven't done much in the way of shopping (not that I'm doing much shopping) and I haven't done much decorating. I broke down and bought some holiday cards to send out since I would not have enough time to make any. They are on the tacky side, but they were really the only holiday cards and not strictly Christmas Cards I could find. I guess I'll stuff a short note into the cards to make up for me not making them myself. I'm disappointed about that as I really did want to make them myself. I have letters I desperately need to get mailed as well and just haven't printed them yet (that is super lame of me). I still have laundry to do, I need to take holiday pictures of the little people and decide what to get who for the holidays (I'm hoping for a Chia pet for me). I'm frustrated. I'm running out of time to get things done. I've spent so much time and energy being sick that I haven't gotten things done like I needed to. *sigh*

Return Of The King

Last night we went to see that! Woohoo! I liked it a lot. The theater was PACKED and everyone in the group had to sit apart. But, I liked the movie. It was intense. One scene made hubby jump. hehehehe...

Pink Christmas Tree

I finally put the Christmas Tree up for the girls. Hubby had purchased a tiny pink Barbie tree for them last weekend. hehehe... They love it. I got some lights for it today. I'll post some pictures of it a little later when it's all decorated.

Lunch With A Hottie

Yesterday I had lunch with an old friend I used to work with. I had not seen him since before I got pregnant with Cabbage Patch. He still looked as HOT as ever. He's probably the hottest man I know in person and he's partnered to an incredibly hot man as well. Sheesh why are all the hot ones gay? I was his new house - which is FAAAABULOUS! I mean really. I've never met anyone other than well off middle aged gay men who have houses as nice as this. The little people were in awe of the Christmas Trees in his house and all the cute decorations his partner had out. The little people adored my friend and he adored them. We had a nice lunch of pizza and he loved the present of the beaded wine glasses. We talked about Winston and how much of a shock it was that he passed so quickly. It was so nice to see him and it made me realized I really missed working with him.

Dead Fish Swimming

Damn it! Looks like another of my fish is having swim bladder issues. I really like this one, she's one of my fancy goldfish. The other fish I got at that same time has already died. This is pissing me off and has made me swear off buying fish from PetSmart anymore. So far most of the fish I have purchased from PetSmart have gone on to the aquarium in the sky, but my Walmart fish have gone fine. For some reason I can't seem to find a store locally that sells many varieties of fancy goldfish so I end up going to PetSmart because they have a slightly larger selection than Walmart. My only hope is that this issue will work it self out because there's nothing that can be done for this.

Speaking of fish, I did get another fish after Aegir died. I got a red and white common goldfish. I haven't announced him yet as I haven't decided on a name for him. He's kind of fancy being that he's read and white, but he's a common goldfish so I'm torn as to whether to give him a Nordic name as all the other fancy goldfish or give him a common name like the other commons I have. I've narrowed down the names to either Balder (The god of light, joy, purity, beauty, innocence, and reconciliation) for a Nordic name - although I'm not keen on the fact that Balder was killed by Lokki - read about it here (hubby had suggested that I call him Aegir II but I don't think it's good to name a fish after the fish he's replacing), and for his common name I've decided on Bubba. It fits with my commons who are Bubbles, Pappa Bear and Mamma Bear. Anyway, Balder-Bubba is the tiniest fish in the tank currently and seems to have figured out that he has to get to the food quick before Thor eats it all. He's not as interesting as some of the others who have odd quirks - like Thor who bangs on the side of the tank with the rocks when he wants food or Bubbles who likes to ride the air pump bubbles like a ride and likes to blow large bubbles at the surface or Valkyrie who likes to sit at the bottom of the tank with her tail fin in the stream of bubbles. Yes I know, I'm a geek, I like my fish... I obsess over my fish. Too bad Spike is gone - he/she was a great psychotic fish.

Torn

Today is the funeral for a dear friend I worked with. I'm not going to the funeral and for that I am feeling more than a little bit guilty. His wake was last night and I just could not make it to that due to the meeting I had to attend. I feel a bit of resentment for that, but what could I do...I guess it really doesn't matter that much anyway since I really dislike wakes. I never know what to do or anything, funerals are much easier as they all pretty much go the same. You come in, sit and listen to the deceased be eulegized, you pay your respects to the family and go. Wakes are harder, I never know how long to stand around and look somber. Well that is except for things for my own family, I know how to handle that - just follow my sister's lead - and if it's family, well I know them and most everyone there so the awkward feeling is not there. Anyway... I digress... I'm sad I can't go to the funeral, I really would like to pay respects to his family and say goodbye. Part of me is glad I can't go though, I don't want my last memories of Winston to be his funeral or worse his body in a box (he died of cancer so I really do fear how he would look - it took me a couple of years to get the images of my mothers last days out of my head). It would just be sad to have my last memories of someone who was so full of life to be of him dead. So I won't go, I'll feel a bit guilty and I'll send a card to his family expressing my sorrow for his passing, although most likely I'll be at a lost for words to express my feelings and sign it with 'Deepest Sympathies' and be done with it. Sadly it won't express what I want to say or how I'll always smile when I remember him ordering dessert before his entree or how when I see Blue Bell ice cream I'll hear his twangy Texas drawl say how it's the only ice cream he'll eat, how coachly looking men in sans-a-belt pants will make me stifle a giggle as I'm reminded of his usual out fit of golf shirt and those pants. He always had a smile for everyone. It's too bad he's gone now.

Brain Pain

Uggh... This evening my sinus' are killing me. I fear that this blasted SARS(cold) is setting up a nasty infection in my sinus. Damn! I dread this so very much. I've been nearly religious with taking the prescription strength decongestant in a vain attempt to avoid a sinus infection. Uggh...

ON top of all that, I had to go to a freaking work meeting tonight. Work meeting = waste of time. I always car-pool with another photographer and we bitch about the meeting all the way there and back. This time we had our cheery little Christmas Party. Bah! I hate these things. We were asked to bring a wrapped $10 gift to exchange. I despise that. I don't purchase holiday gifts for most of my family so I resent purchasing a gift for a complete stranger. I got lucky this time. I found a Mikasa candy dish still in it's box that someone had gifted me several years ago - I remembered this just 15 minutes before I was to leave for afore mentioned meeting. The meeting was a complete waste of time, I think it was just a way for the director to let everyone know she was back from sick leave... I guess that's a good thing, I was betting she was dewing. The actual exchange was not to bad, I got a set of picture frames that got taken from me, then a very nice quad-picture frame that got taken from me, and finally a very nice set of wine glasses with beads around the stems. This lovely gift I will be re-gifting tomorrow when I have lunch with a dear friend. He will love them, he's not married and he has lovely ecletic decor in his home, whereas I have two energetic children and worn out-tore-up-used-up family decor. They just don't match anything I have! That and they are just two more things that I don't have a secure place for (secure as in kids can not reach). These glasses are very very nice, one of the other photographers makes them - I certainly think they were a bit above the $10 gift limit that was set, but hey, I'm not complaining. Now I don't have to show up empty-handed to see my friend. Anyway - the meeting sucked. I didn't learn anything new (which is what these meetings are SUPPOSED to be about) and my boss is still a moronic bitch - apparently that's not what was making her sick.

Off to bed now... I think my medication is kicking in now.

Walk A Mile In My Shoes

Recently my grandmother gave me a lovely gift. She gave me 15 pairs of shoes she no longer wanted. Obviously she and I wear the same size shoe and we share the same taste in many of the shoes. Lucky for me she has a better shoe buying budget than I do, so I now have some fabulous shoes! And best of all - there were 5 pairs of red shoes (my favorite!). Yes I am a shoe hoarder! It's a genetic condition.

Fork It!


I've discovered something that does not go in a washing machine. A fork. One should never throw a fork into the washing machine either with clothing or without. I know, I know, you are probably thinking that this information would be OBVIOUS and I tend to agree, but I did find a FORK in my washer. In the just washed clothing. Apparently this is something I need to explain to The Little People - Forks go in the dish washer, clothes go in the washing machine. Luckily my washer didn't seem to notice the fork thanks to the clothing - but some of the clothes did not fair so well with their fork companion. Ah well, at least it was not anything important.

Flight Of Fancy

Ignore the previous post. This weekend was so incredibly busy! Antonio surprised me Friday night with a spur of the moment trip to Antigua! He wanted to celebrate his newest investment in horses paying off big! Off to Antonio's private jet we went. He's such a romantic, he had roses just everywhere inside the plane. We shared a bottle of wine and snuggled while watching Meet The Parents as we flew. I was a bit tipsy by the time we landed in Antigua. His limo met us at the airport and whisked us away to a little cabin on the beach. We had more to drink in the limo so I was more on the drunk side than tipsy by the time we got to the cabin. The cabin was beautiful! I'll stop writing about Friday evening right here ;o).

Saturday morning I woke to the most beautiful sunrise! Absolutely breath taking! We shared a lovely breakfast on the front porch of the cabin. After a shower we went exploring the area and took some pictures. I'll post them soon! Need to go for now, it's nap time here - more later on the amazing trip to Antigua.

Better Living Through Chemistry

My SARS(cold) is hanging on - I know, I know, you are tired of hearing my whining about this fucking SARS, and believe me I'm tired of it also, if there was anything more interesting to write about in my life currently I wouldn't be whining about this fucking SARS.

I thought I was nearing the end of my bout with SARS but it took a nasty turn on Friday night and got worse. I woke Saturday morning feeling awful. I dosed myself up with prescription strength decongestion and a dose of robotussin. The effect was something akin to washing down crack cookies with a double-shot of esspresso - at least that's what I imagine since I don't do either of those - which was not entirely unwelcome on a busy day. I got through all my appointments fairly quickly and headed home to get some lunch and take a nap. I called a friend before nap and he gave me such crap about taking a nap late in the day I ended up not able to sleep (either that or the linger crack cookie/espresso effect hanging on), I then got the kids ready to head over to my Aunts house to see my other Aunt for a little get together. I would have actually been dreading it had I not been dealing with a headache. The family thing went well, the one family member who can't stand me and refuses to speak to me since my car got hit (after all it WAS just something I did to piss him off ya know) kept his distance and that helped to make the evening go well. My decongestant had worn off shortly after I arrived at my Aunts house and I was miserable. Luckily she had some Sudafed that helped for the duration of the visit. ...

Shit... I was just reading over all this crap I've just written and realized no one wants to read about this horribly boring shit... OK, something much more entertaining to come. It's been a while since I've written about Antonio my hot, super sexy (imaginary) boyfriend.

Early Risers

Well I was going to post yesterday about how I was getting over my SARS(cold) quickly and feeling much better, but that would have been a premature and erroneous post as I woke this morning feeling as though I had been stepped on my an elephant in my sleeping hours. I neglected to take the prescription strength decongestant yesterday as I mistakenly thought I was improving, also I had difficulty sleeping Wednesday night and I chalked that up to the decongestant. I should have suffered the ill sleep and taken the medication. My throat feels as though I've gargled with sand and Listerine. My sinus have that all to wet feeling of being in between being totally stuffed up and having a constantly running nose. And of course the little people got up far to early this morning. *sigh* OK, enough whining - I'll survive.

yesterday was a busy day and the little people were in rare form. The tsunami of toys I had been working so hard to keep from over taking my living room finally descended with a crash. It took less than 10 minutes - just long enough for me to gather the laundry from upstairs. The little people had broken into my bedroom closet like a couple of expert burglars. They found a forgotten box of party things from Super Girl's first birthday. Between spreading forgotten party items around the room and torturing my cat, they had a full day. I'm ready for a day off...

Take the What High School
Stereotype Are You? quiz.


Is ANYONE surprised? Anyone? Anyone?.... And yeah this is quite accurate about my high school days.

Time Travel

The other night I was having a discussion with hubby... Let me rephrase it, I was TRYING to have a discussion with hubby, and I asked him this question "If you could go back in time for one day, go to any time and talk to someone - and only that one person, no one else could see you or hear you, who would that be?" His answer was Jesus. No discussion. Grr... Men. He was desperately trying to NOT have a discussion with me - which is odd because we usually have the best discussions about the oddest things (we read comic books and watch sci-fi, what do you expect) - once we had a very animated, indepth discussion of what animals we would be if we were to devolve (this came about from a Star Trek episode) - we even discussed what animals our friends would also become, and... Well never mind about that... But the discussion came in handy at a couples wedding shower when there was a question on one of the games about what animal your spouse would be - we were the ONLY ones to nail that one (the host of the party was very impressed by this, especially since our answers were quite specific - three toed tree sloth (him) and pack rat (me), which only made us giggle) We know so damn much about each other it's frightening (I know, I know, your thinking "if you freaking knew so much about this man, how come you DIDN'T know he was GAY when you married him?" Yeah, yeah, well fuck you, he didn't know either)... But I digress... As his answer wasn't all that interesting or original (mine was!). I continued (in vain) to engage him in thoughtful discussion by saying "Well... Don't you want to know my answer?" (In a rather irritated tone after he had turned back to the computer for a few minutes... )

My answer - myself. I would go back in time to my young High School aged self and tell myself that yes my family sucks but I'm a lot tougher than I think. I also tell myself that my suspicions that my family is almost completely full of assholes is completely true and to keep that in mind when any of them start spouting of ridiculous bullshit, also don't take them to seriously. I'd tell me that I'm a pretty amazing person and to stop discounting my talents and abilities, that the people who should be encouraging me never will but I need to believe in myself - don't quit college and follow my dreams - my real dreams of being an artist. I'd say that many people will be critical but often their criticism is based on their own unrealized hopes and dreams and is their way of dragging people down to make themselves feel better. Also stop being so hard on myself - I need to tell myself how great I really am, there are plenty of people in this world who are more than willing to point out my flaws, but not too many who will give a sincere compliment - and when they do, don't discount it just accept it gracefully. And I'd end by saying to myself that I'm a lot stronger than I think, there's a lot to come where this strength will carry me through, take time to appreciate my own talent and beauty, believe in myself and... Stop skipping school and do the work - Sheesh! You can do the damn work, just do it! You manage a 3.67 GPA in college while working full time, WTF is the problem in High School? You barely graduate! Get with the program! Then I'd give myself a big hug and leave.

Of course I didn't finish all that when I was talking to hubby - he was working very hard to not have a discussion that night and quite honestly I don't' think he was even listening to me anyway. *sheesh* men.

Update From The House Of Biohazards! (my house)
Thanks Jacob for that one!

I didn't manage to achieve any of my goals (all two of them!). I didn't get to do NOTHING or to sit and knit. My feeble attempt to play videos/DVD to lull my children into a zombie like calm state did not work. My cat is an idiot when she's in heat and didn't run to hide from the little people. They spent most of the day torturing the cat. They put her under a plastic storage box and beat on the box, they tied scarves around the middle of her like a skirt, they squished her with hugs, they shoved her in gym bags and back packs and zipped them up and they held her down and covered her with my hair conditioner. Never once did my cat meow to be let go, let out or have a small child stop squashing her. Never did she scratch either of the little people (though they both most certainly deserved it!) nor did she try to nip or bite either (again they did deserve that). The day was filled with giggles and squeals of the little people as they subjected my poor stupid cat to one test of endurance after another. And yet after all she was put through today, she shows her moronic devotion to those who victimized her all day - she is sleeping in their room snuggled up next to one of them.

As for me, I'm still coughing, have a slight fever and I managed to finish my knitting after the little people were herded off to bed. I'm off to bed now, early in hopes that a few extra hours of sleep will bring relief and healing.

It Just Keeps Getting Better and Better
My Day, That Is...

Super Girl has the runs now. Had an accident in her pants, no clean panties so laundry is in order. Uggh.

Cabbage Patch has had several pee-pee accidents in her pants - this whole trying to teach her to pull down her pants and go potty is not going so well.

The upside is that all this has at least distracted me from my SARS.

The Cat Is Out Of The Bag
Literally

This exchange just happened:
Me: Come on downstairs girls!
few minutes pass
Super Girl: (standing at bottom of stairs with gym bag on like a back pack) The cat disappeared.
Me: She's probably hiding...(*getting suspicious of back pack) Is the cat in there?
Super Girl: She won't meow.
Me: Get my cat out of there! (*removing back pack and unzipping to free aforementioned cat)
Super Girl: No! No! (*reaching for cat even though being restrained)
Me: Get in the time-out chair!
Super Girl: But she didn't meow!
Me: NOW!
....
Is it time for naps yet?

SARS Update

Well my objectives of doing NOTHING today are not being accomplished. I got a shower - with the kids. We are all clean and dressed. I've straightened the living room again. Not quite the Tsunami of toys, but it was puddling in here. Now the little people are busy torturing my cat under the plastic box. I'm torn as to whether I should interrupt this game as it is quite absorbing of them, but there is the question of the ethical treatment of my cat... eh, she's in heat right now and seems to be enjoying the extra attention... She'll run and hide under the recliner when she's had enough (at least that's the rational I'm sticking with for now).

Looks like SOUP is still on the menu for dinner being that my teeth are still tender AND I'm not in full blown SARS (cold).

Insanity Reigns

Well I guess I've already lost the fight to keep things calm and normal. Cabbage Patch is currently wearing a pair of striped capri pants on her head chasing the cat so she can put the cat under a large plastic box for safe keeping. Hmmm... Is it wrong to give them Benedryl and put them down for naps now?

Naughty Or Nice?


(blatantly stolen off Sasoozie's page)
Well Santa has proclaimed that I am: Nicer than nice. A real champ! I was really proud of all the hard work that went towards changing those "naughty" habits of last year. Treated friends nicely and was exceptionally honest (which happens to be one of my favorite traits!) It's amazing what a good old fashioned "I'm sorry!" can do for a rating. Keep up the good work! (I checked with Santahere)

heh... Me nice... Go figure. I guess I get the nice list because I'm a Jew! HAHAHAHAHA! Santa's putting anyone he doesn't have to bring pressies to on the NICE list. :o)

In other areas... My SARS (Cold) has moved to my chest quickly - this sucks as the only thing I like to move quickly to my chest is a date. No dates for me though, not with this nasty cough. I have a bit of nasal drainage but I've been taking the last of hubby's prescription strength decongestant so that I won't be blowing my nose all freaking day. I'm hoping this all blows over pretty quick as hubby's did. Unlike him, I don't have a fever. And also unlike him I can't take a day off to sleep on the couch oblivious to the little people as my doting spouse makes sure I don't develop a searing brain cooking fever. Instead I've been taking industrial doses of vitamin C washed down with oj (yuck) and filtching his prescription decongestant and trying to placate the little people with holiday programming on Nick and children's videos. Yes I know, that's going to throw my "Mother Of The Year" nomination in question (Damn that Kathy Lee, she'll get it again this year!), but I'm really just thinking selfishly as I really don't want the usual tsunami of toys covering my living room today. I really don't feel like picking up toys and vacuuming - I did that yesterday - that and since I'm drinking oj and I don't have any more anti-reflux pills and crunching TUMS is out of the question due to my tender teeth, I really don't want to have to bend over all that much and cause the caustic stomach acids to start their process of eating away at my esophagus. My plans today are as followed: Sit on couch and knit occasionally getting up to get more oj or pudding... No wait.. I'm out of pudding!!!! D! Emergency Pudding Run! Bring Pudding and donuts (well I do have to feed the little people ya know)! Let little people watch as many videos/DVD's as they want (as I can possibly get them to sit and watch) so as to not have to lock them in dog kennels to keep my house clean and give me some rest - just kidding on the kennel thing (hubby won't let me get the big ones that they could fit in - bastard). That's my plan, hope I get all my objectives accomplished.

Oh one last thing. The little people can be so sweet some times (especially while sleeping). This morning I got out of bed croaking. I sat on the couch and Super Girl went to the fridge and got a pudding for me - she came in and handed it to me with her special spoon saying "Here you go sweetie, I even got you my green yellow spoon." Ahhh... Melted my heart.

Still In Pain

Well the pain has increased - as it should I suppose. I'm down to eating nothing hard like - chips or nuts or pizza or bread - hell water is almost to hard right now! Tylenol helps as does eating pudding. My sister brought me some, and she brought donuts for my kids. I'm also coming down with SARS (a cold) so I'm not feeling very good. I'm not going to do much here today (although I've already cleaned the livingroom and vacuumed)... and I'm certainly not cooking today (why cook when I can't eat it!)

But aside from that things in a certain area of my life are looking up. I'm not going to go into detail because I don't want to jinx it! (I know that just sounds stupid)

Well I'm off to go wallow in my own misery (and contemplate the good things happening).

Increasing Tension

Yikes, I just got back from my orthodontist appointment... Well about an hour ago. I'm already starting to get sore - all the way up through my sinus! I got everything all tightened up and got some rubberbands to wear now! Whoo-hoo!

The dental assistant who did my wires this time took forever and was stretching the hell out of my lips - ouch. While I was there one of the nose grip pads came off my glasses. Fuck. I can still wear them until I get that fixed. Still, it's a pain in the ass.

eh... I hurt.

Dancing Queen

I went into work early Saturday so that I could finish early for Super Girl's holiday dance recital. I got home by 2:30 pm to get her dressed and her hair fixed. I knew my grandmother and aunt would be showing up and right before we left my sister called and said she was almost at the center. I knew Super Girl would be delighted to see all of them.

The whole recital was about an hour, each class had two performances. Super Girl looked adorable in her pink dance outfit and matching pink bow in her hair. Her class did the last performance (I'm not counting the Jr. Dance teacher's tap routine at the end as part of the performances). They sang Must Have Been A Beautiful Baby. Super Girl was so Loud you could hear her over the rest of the kids and to my delight and surprise she actually did most of the dance moves. On her way out she slipped and fell right on her butt - that's my kid for you. My grandmother had brought a red rose for Super Girl since this was her first recital - that thrilled her so very much. My little Super Girl is a natural performer, she really loves being the center of attention.

Mommy Time

This is going to be a sappy post about mom stuff - skip it if you don't want to hear about it.

Early in the morning on Saturday - nearly 4 AM, my oldest came into my bedroom and informed me she wanted to sleep with me. Being that I work on Saturdays and have to be up at 6:30 AM I asked her to go back upstairs and get in bed with her daddy. Her answer "No, I want you." I tried one more time to convince her to go to her father, she said "But I want you mamma." How could I argue with that? I pulled the covers back and let her crawl in.

I didn't get much sleep. Having a 4 year old in one's bed is not the way to get a restful sleep. There is always a elbow poking or a knee bumping, little cold feet wiggling or a little cover hog cocooning in the blanket (I blame her father for passing this gene to her). 6:30 AM came much to quickly for me... Or maybe not.. It wasn't as if I was sleeping much. I got out of bed right when my alarm went off (which I normally don't) so as to not wake my baby. I looked back at her when I turned on the bathroom light and looked at her all snuggled down between the pillows with the blanket pulled up over her head. I couldn't see her at all, but I knew that lump was my girl. I took my shower thinking how I didn't really mind her interrupting my sleep. When she said "But I want you mamma." all irritation from being woken at the bleak hour of 4 am evaporated, I know that I only have a short number of years where she will want me to snuggle her to sleep when she can't sleep. Just a short time until she'll be utterly embarrassed by me, not long until she'll be way too cool to get a hug or kiss from mommy in public. My days of making everything 'all better' with a kiss are numbered. I know all this and guard these things jealously. The sands of time stop for no one... Not even a mom.

She woke when I started drying my hair. She sleepily crawled out of bed and headed upstairs to wake her daddy. Ahhh how soon I'm replaced.

Pumpkin Notes

L, you most certainly can use canned pumpkin. I know getting a fresh pumpkin this time of year won't be easy, and to be honest getting the pumpkin cut up and boiled can be a bit labor intensive. (You have to clean out said pumpkin, but into pieces, put in pot with a bit of salt and water and simmer until tender, then let cool and slice the outer rind off - which is easy because the pumpkin is soft - then you can either mash the pumpkin pieces or puree them. And to get the pumpkin to the canned hard-pack consistency you must put your pumpkin puree in a paper towel lined strainer over a bowl in the fridge for a day or two. See... Not hard, just a bit labor intensive). I've made pumpkin soup with canned pumpkin and it was very good.

Moron Found Guilty

Stories like this make women look stupid. She deserves jail time just for that! The judge should have ordered her Bitch Slapped! I'm shocked that she DIDN'T get found guilty of child-endangerment - the action she took was CLEARLY endangering her baby. Idiots should NOT breed!

Worlds Oldest Penis

Just go read the story. My favorite line, "In this case we clearly have a male," he said.

For The Love Of Mayo

Truly rediculous story here. All over getting mayonnaise on her cheeseburger! Stupid.

Wow... I just got an e-mail from someone I used to work with. I was shocked to learn that someone we worked with has cancer that has spread to his brain. This guy was always a really nice person and it is just a shock for me to imagine him gravely ill - he was always so full of energy. A you may know him as well - Winston. He and I weren't best buddies or anything but we worked together for the whole time I was at Nortel.

you are deeppink #FF1493

Your dominant hues are red and magenta. You love doing your own thing and going on your own adventures, but there are close friends you know you just can't leave behind. You can influence others on days when you're patient, but most times you just want to go out, have fun, and do your own thing. Your saturation level is high - you get into life and have a strong personality. Everyone you meet will either love you or hate you - either way, your goal is to get them to change the world with you. You are very hard working and don't have much patience for people without your initiative. Your outlook on life is very bright. You are sunny and optimistic about life and others find it very encouraging, but remember to tone it down if you sense irritation.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

I know another silly quiz.... kind of acurate though.

Panda Booty Call

Sheesh and I thought it was hard for me to arrange a booty call - at least I'm not poor Shuan Shuan - I sure hope Ling Ling bought her flowers or something to eat. Read all about this Long Distance Romance... or Going The Distance For Panda Booty *sigh* I bet she would have better luck with a dating service. ;o)

Better Moms

What the hell? Is this supposed to make me feel better? Ya know what? It does.

Holiday Cards

I'm going to make my own holiday cards this year. I'm trying to decide which would be better - an adorable picture of the little people or a humiliating picture of my cats dressed in holiday garb. What do you think? Cute kids or humiliated cats?

Tired and Such

Sheesh... I'm tired today. I have so much to do and I'm freaking tired. I spent most of yesterday doing laundry - laundry I had let myself get behind on with Thanksgiving, now I'm regretting it. I only have two more loads to wash... But... I'm tired.

I need to start decorating for the holidays - I say holidays because we are celebrating Chanukkah and Christmas this year. I generally don't do the Chanukkah stuff as it's not a major holiday - it's on the same level as Purim (which is actually a lot more fun - hey you're supposed to drink a lot on Purim) and certainly not as important as Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur. So this year we will be lightening the candles for me and putting up the tree for the rest of the family. Actually the kids get the best of both - they will get to celebrate and get presents for both. It should be a LOT of fun. I'm hoping to have the opportunity to make a menorah with the kids - if not I still have a couple around her somewhere.

Anyway... I digress... I'm tired and I'm too busy to be tired. I have to decorate and work on holiday presents - I have a list of things I'm making for presents. I've made a decision that until my craft pile (which is about half of my walk in closet) is seriously depleted I won't be buying presents for anyone. This is also because we are broke dicks in this house. I'm looking forward to it though... hopefully I won't run out of good ideas and start crocheting those awful cookie magnets!

Out Of The Mouth Of Babes

Ok, enough about tit on to other words I've managed to introduce into my daughters vocabulary and now I regret it. Saturday night I was sewing her jacket and Super Girl was in my bedroom watching (bugging me). She says her tummy hurts and goes into the bathroom to sit on the toilet where she passes gas and says she feels better. I say that's good, she must have just had gas and sometimes having gas will make your tummy hurt. She looks at me like I'm crazy and says "I didn't drink gas. I pooted." I stifle my laugh and explain that having gas means she had to fart, then she asked what a fart was, so I had to explain that it was when you pooted. Then she asked about burping and I told her that was also gas, the kind in your stomach. Then she gives me a big smile and says "I have to go tell daddy!" she runs into the livingroom and yells "Daddy! I farted!" I'm laughing uncontrollably.

Puttin' A Contract Out On Somebody

Yesterday hubby informed of an incident with Super Girl. She was looking at her daddy and said "Is that your tit?" WHAT??? Tit???? After my initial reaction to laugh I was horrified that my 4 year old would be saying TIT. This is not something I want her saying or going around asking people. Hell this is not a word I use! My sancho doesn't even say it to me. Now what makes me want to cringe is that the only place her daddy took her yesterday where she might have heard the word was church or lunch - but I doubt lunch because he had no clue where she heard it from. It's bad enough that I contribute to my child's vulgar vocabulary, I really don't need anyone else contributing...

Manly Accomplishments...

Hubby was exceedingly impressed with himself last night because he programmed the remote for the DVD player to turn off the television. Rah, rah. Men...

Cookin' Pumpkin

At the request of L (quite a bit ago) here is the recipe I used for the pumpkin soup

1/2 cup onion
3 tbsp. butter
2 cups mashed cooked pumpkin
1 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ground pepper
3 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup half and half or fat free half and half.

Chop the onions and gently brown in the butter in a pan. Put mashed pumpkin into onions in pan with the salt, sugar, nutmeg and pepper. Slowly add chicken broth and heat thoroughly, but do not boil. To serve, pour into a tureen and add the cream. Makes 4 to 6 small servings.
*****
I had chicken pieces in my broth so my soup was really nice and chunky - also I omited the sugar and nutmeg as I'm not a fan of sweetish soups. There are tons of recipes for pumpkin soup - this is just the one I tried (and liked a LOT). My soup came out really thick because I added more pumpkin than the recipe called for and it made a delightful pasta sauce the next day.

*****

The prize winner for Thanksgiving
Marbled Pumpkin Cheesecake

1 1/2 cups crushed gingersnap cookies
1/2 cup finely chopped pecans
1/3 cup butter, melted
2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup white sugar, divided
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 eggs
1 cup canned pumpkin
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg


1 Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). In a medium bowl, mix together the crushed gingersnap cookies, pecans, and butter. Press into the bottom, and about 1 inch up the sides of a 9 inch springform pan. Bake crust 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Set aside to cool.
2 In a medium bowl, mix together the cream cheese, 1/2 cup sugar, and vanilla just until smooth. Mix in eggs one at a time, blending well after each. Set aside 1 cup of the mixture. Blend 1/4 cup sugar, pumpkin, cinnamon, and nutmeg into the remaining mixture.
3 Spread the pumpkin flavored batter into the crust, and drop the plain batter by spoonfuls onto the top. Swirl with a knife to create a marbled effect.
4 Bake 55 minutes in the preheated oven, or until filling is set. Run a knife around the edge of the pan. Allow to cool before removing pan rim. Chill for at least 4 hours before serving.
Makes 12 servings
*******
Things I did a little differently - I put a pan of boiling water in the oven with the cheese cake - something I had heard you are supposed to do. Also when the cake was done I turned off the oven and left the cake in there to cool.

Things I would do differently next time - I would not make the crust like the recipe - mine didn't turn out exactly like it was supposed to. I really didn't think the gingersnap crust added to the cheesecake either, so I'll use something else next time.

******
One more recipe -

Pumpkin Cookies
2 cups shortening
2 cups white sugar
2 cups canned pumpkin
2 eggs
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
4 cups all-purpose flour
6 tablespoons butter
8 tablespoons milk
2 cups confectioners' sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup packed brown sugar


1 Cream shortening, white sugar and pumpkin. Add eggs and mix well. Sift together the baking soda, ground cinnamon, salt and flour. Add to pumpkin mixture and mix well.
2 Drop from spoon to cookie sheet. Bake 10 minutes at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
3 To Make Frosting: Cook butter, milk, and brown sugar until dissolved. Cool and add confectioners' sugar and vanilla. Spread over warm cookies.
*****
These were soooo darn good. I didn't use the carmel frosting, I just made a simple glaze for them. I think I needed to add a bit more flour to thes and they had to cook a bit longer, but they were really really good.

This was quite funny... and rather nasty!

Your Ultimate Purity Score Is...
Category	Your Score	Average
Self-Lovin'	43.3% When I think about you - or anyone - I touch myself	65%
Shamelessness	33.3% Puts 'em on the glass	79.3%
Sex Drive	39.5% I got needs, baby, you gotta unnastan'!	77.7%
Straightness	3.6% Knows the other body type like a map	45%
Gayness	92.9% Repressed, are we?	83.3%
Fucking Sick	77.9% Refreshingly normal	89.9%
You are 51.41% pure Average Score: 72.6%
Take The Ultimate Purity Test and see how you match up!

Thanksgiving Dinner Part 2

Today was just a small dinner with hubby's dad and his wife. So I didn't have to cook much. Dinner (actually lunch) was lovely

We had mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potato casserole, freshly baked rolls, peas, cranberry sauce (ick) and of course turkey (and veggie trays)

Everything was wonderful and we topped it all off with pumpkin pie and marbled pumpkin cheesecake (which was to DIE for!)


Hope everyone had a wonderful (and tasty) Thanksgiving!!

Almost Turkey Day

Sheesh... this is the first day before Thanksgiving I've had in a while where I haven't been consumed with cooking things. Everything is done on will do best being cooked tomorrow morning. Damn... I don't know what to do! I feel like I need to be cooking!

Movie Review
Life Is A Cabaret - but this movie sucks!



This is a Bob Fosse movie staring Liza Minnelli which pretty much means you will spend plenty of time saying "what the fuck?" through out this movie and while the credits are rolling. I have no idea WHY we sat and watch this movie except that it came on after something and we were just to damn lazy to find the remote to change the channel. Well that was my reason - hubby had seen this movie on television when he was a child and every so often he will make the mistake of having to rewatch something he found profoundly entertaining when he was just a wee lad. One of the first times he drug me down one of these deluded trips down his memory lane it was some dog of a movie staring Barbara Striesand that we both promptly fell asleep watching! The part that sucks is that he RENTED the movie - so he PAID for us to be profoundly bored. Anyway back to Life Is A Cabaret... I won't get into the plot of this movie as it seems to have only the faintest hint of a plot and was mostly about seeing how much camera time Liza could get while sober. She plays this drunken over sexed cabaret girl who meets and falls into ... um.. bed with a straight laced English guy (Michael York) and things that happen around them. YAWN. Sorry, but I find Liza playing a drunken whore (ohhh what a stretch for her) to be painful to watch and not really entertaining. The most entertainment I had was making sarcastic comments about the movie and being frightened by the enormous spider legs that were masquerading as her eyelashes. I went to bed part way through the movie as I was obviously not drunk enough to make much sense of this movie. Hubby stayed up and watched the rest of the movie and said not much else changed. Liza's character was a drunken slut and the Nazi's were coming into power - end of movie.

Don't watch this movie - it sucks.

Movie Review

I actually have several movies to review so that's pretty much what today will have.


Laputa: Castle in the Sky

This is another Hayao Miyazaki film. As with all of his movies I have seen this one doesn't disappoint visually. The story is kind of an odd one that flows along pretty easily with the beautiful animation. Sadly the ending is kind of bizarre and left me feeling like part of the movie was missing. The official synopsis of the movie says "Pazu rescues an unconscious girl descending from the night sky with a glowing pendant around her neck. He helps the girl, Sheeta, to escape from the air pirates and the military who are obsessed with Laputa, a legendary kingdom on a floating island in the sky with which Sheeta is suspected of being connected. - that pretty much sums it up.

I don't like this movie nearly as well as his other works. This would have to be my least favorite of Miyazaki's films. Although the little people have asked to watch this movie several times, they tend to not watch it all the way through as they do with Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke. The upside is that this movie has absolutly no swear words or capitations. Not that the other movies did but Princess Mononoke did have the memorable phrase "Smells like super donkey piss" which is not something you really want a 4 year old repeating.

It's a good movie, just not as good as his others.

I Blame Mr. Rogers!!!

hehe... Nipples... Super Girl keeps talking about them. Mr. Rogers was talking about how baby animals drink milk from their mothers and she says "Like how Cabbage Patch sucked your boobies when she was a baby?" Yeah... Then she wanted to know about cats... So I use a visual and humiliate my cat by showing them to her... But I didn't say nipples. Now she wants Sunshine to have kittens and is asking about nipples on everything. Sheesh... I know it's NOT a bad word but it just seems inappropriate coming from a 4 year old, it's like finding your 70 year old grandma's porn stash on her computer - not really bad but just not appropriate!!!

Early Thanksgiving Day

Our turkey dinner was delightful. My turkey was just perfect (as always). Sister-in-law made everything else - and it wasn't so good. She made stuffing (not a favorite of mine), a corn casserole (again, not a favorite), greenbean casserole (bleck), sweet potatoes (didn't like them the way she did them) and a potato casserole (yuck). I brought over the turkey and gravy and pumpkin bars. I completely forgot the pumpkin cheesecake in the chaos that ensued before we left.

Let me tell about that. We were scheduled to be at brother-in-laws house between 6 and 6:30 pm. I worked until 3 pm then came home and napped. I got up about 5:00 pm, told hubby to bathe the little people then stuck the pan of turkey in the oven on low to warm and made the gravy. I discussed with hubby if we should frost the pumpkin bars or not. He said only if we had cream cheese to make cream cheese frosting, we did because I always plan ahead for holiday dinners. So he made that and I cut them up and put them on the try. The little people wanted to try them and I let them. It was nearly 6 pm as we started getting everything covered and ready to go. I dressed the little people and fixed their hair. Hubby took a lightening fast shower and got dressed. As we gathered the diaper bag the kids milled around either playing or whining. I had to reprimand Super Girl several times. About 6:20 pm I see that Cabbage Patch has been helping herself to the pumpkin bars and is now covered from her eyebrows to her knees with frosting. *sigh* I go find another sun dress for her to slip on as hubby wiped her down. Super Girl refused to put on her shoes until I told her that daddy and Cabbage Patch would go on to dinner and we would just stay home. We finally get into the car at 6:50 pm and arrive at 7 pm. I told hubby I wasn't to worried about being late since we were bringing the turkey - it's not like they could start dinner without us.

The kids didn't eat much of dinner - I really couldn't make much of a fuss about that since I only at the turkey and the rolls. After dinner all 5 kids went outside to play with the dog. When the conversation turned to politics I retreated to outside with the kids with sister-in-law. I was lucky enough to be there when Super Girl fell off the top of the slide (small slide) and ended up scraping up her face. She was a real trooper though. She cried for a couple of minutes then just sniffled as I cleaned her up and put ointment on her. She INSISTED on having bandaids though and ended up looking like she had just been in a boxing match what with her big bandaid on her forehead and one under her nose. She's fine now, just scraped on her face (uggh... I just realized she has dance tomorrow... Hate having to take her out looking like that) and a bruise on her hand.

All in all it was a good dinner. We will do it again with just father-in-law and his wife this Thursday - I'll make mashed potatoes and some veggies to go with my dinner as well as dinner rolls or crossants (made by me). Anybody want to join us? All you have to do is wash dishes after. :o)

I Truly Am Crazy...

It's 11:30 pm and I'm sitting here waiting for my baking to be done. Why did I start cooking so late at night? I'm insane that's why. I've been known to stay up until 3 am making things for a holiday dinner.

What really sucks is that I have to work tomorrow. *sigh* I'm insane.

Update Allready!

Ferfucksake! Can you people update your blogs already? Hardly any of you who I read on a regular (daily) basis have updated in a bit. Come on now! (especially A & L!!!)

Your soul is bound to the Burning Rose: The
Rapture.

"I go where my heart beckons me, and I go
with my head high. But sometimes, I get a need
until I bleed so my heart swims above my
head."

The Burning Rose is associated with passion,
intensity, and desire. It is governed by the
god Eros and its sign is The Flame, or Physical
Love.

As a Burning Rose, you can get lost in the moment
if you let yourself. You are a very physical
person, be it in relationships, work, or play.
You may be driven by your hormones sometimes,
but you know it's because you have to follow
your instinct.


What Rose Is Your Soul Bound To?
brought to you by Quizilla

More Potty Talk

It's Friday and I am stunned that Cabbage Patch is using the toilet most of the time (except nap time and bed time when I put a diaper on her). She's had very few accidents and I haven't had to resort to rewards, bribes, begging or forcing her to use the potty. This is VERY different than Super Girl. She was very difficult to potty train (I think it's something that runs in hubby's family, his nephew is 3 and still not totally trained). She found the whole potty thing interesting for a couple of days then wouldn't sit on it unless she felt like it - which was rare. We tried rewards - stickers, but she wasn't impressed enough with the sticker to follow through. Tried switching her to panties so she could feel when she was wet and that would irritate her enough to make her NOT want to go in her panties (that's the theory anyway) but all I ended up with was a lot of laundry to do. Tried the bribes but that didn't work at all, tried to make her sit on the potty, but this kid is far more stubborn than most and that didn't fly at all. She had lots of accidents on the floors and in her pants. When she finally started using the potty (mostly) at 3, she would do things like pee in the dogs water dish or go outside and pee in the grass. She just didn't want to use the toilet all that much.

Now Cabbage Patch seems to LOVE using the potty. I hadn't planned on starting her training until February when she turns 2 and a half (which is supposed to be the magic age for potty training). I'm hoping that by December she will be in panties and out of diapers (except for naps and night time).

Turkey Status



Fresh from the oven.

Turkey Status

One more hour to go...

Here's what the bird looks like now with one hour left.

I've decided to make Marbled Pumpkin Cheesecake instead of Pumpkin Pie. mmm...

Turkey Status

We are now entering hour three for cooking of the turkey.

After the timer went off at the end of hour two I took the turkey out of the oven and turned it over , which was a total bitch to do... I mean when was the last time you turned over a 22 lb turkey in a flimsy tin pan? I could not find my big meat fork - not that it really would have helped - so I had to turn that bird over with my HANDS - yes one bare hand and one oven mit (part of the turkey was not to freaking hot and other parts were freaking hot). I managed to bend said flimsy pan in the process, but I did get the bird over so the breast can start browning. I also seasoned that side of the turkey and started teh gibblets to cooking (ya know, gibblet gravey). Two more hours and this bird should be done.

That's A Bitch

Sometimes parenting can be trying. A was recently writing about how hard it is to instill social graces in your offspring when you yourself seem to have none - something that I identify with quite a bit. I myself have a potty mouth, I do swear in front of my children - I'm not talking an endless stream of obscenities coming out of my mouth 24/7 but I do swear. My mother swore much worse than I did, and the many many disfunctional family members that surrounded me during my formative years swore horribly as well, and somehow I managed to not swear until I was a teenager - and never in front of my mother or other people older than me until I was nearly 20 (I remember the first time I swore in front of my mother I think I said Damn or Shit, then I realized my mother was within earshot so I froze expecting her to reprimand me but ishe didn't. So I waited for it... And it never came. A few days later I decided to sneak in another word - bitch. I said it in front of my mom and waited, again nothing. I think I was almost married when I worked up to FUCK in her presence).

Anyway, as most parents know, children are little sponges that absorb all information around them and then spit out randomly. If you WANT them to spit out a certain piece of information say to impress grandma or to look cute in the Holiday musical, then they will not do it, either intentionally or unintentionally - you have maybe a 20% chance of them actually doing exactly what you want. And as children get older your chances decrease. Conversely you have a 90% chance of that stray swear word or nasty phrase you uttered when you thought the child was out of the room/to busy playing/sleeping being repeated (loudly) in front of grandma/pastor/rabbi/teacher/etc. The first swear word Super Girl learned was 'shit' she heard it from either myself or her father. When she uttered it, she was in CHURCH and she said it LOUDLY. Lucky us. Now that she is nearly 5 we explain to her that certain words are grown up words and little kids are not to say them. This works usually, but not always as it's hard to assess the actually scope of her swear word vocabulary without exposing her to more or worse having her repeat them frequently. So you have to handle each incident as it happens and hope and pray that that particular swear word was the LAST one in her vocabulary... Although probably not. So two weeks ago the little people and I were walking to the post office as a car zoomed past us at far to fast to be going on the small road we were on. As the person passed I muttered something about them needing to slow the hell down and Super Girl said "Is that a bitch?" Words froze in my throat for a second, then I tried to steer the conversation a different direction. Super Girl listened at me with interested eyes then said "Was that a bitch?" So I was forced to confront the WORD head on. I started in with the 'That's a grown up word' schpeel and finished with the every popular comment 'Do you understand?' to which she replied Yes Ma'am then said "Momma, was that a bitch?" *sigh*

Kids. (Super Girl has not said the word since so don't start thinking I'm raising my kids to sound like little sailors)

Turkey Status



One hour of cooking done. Turkey browning nicely, plenty of liquid in pan.

Turkey Update

I got my turkey out of the brine and put it in the roasting pan. I also put a bunch of garlic in the turkey.
Yes the turkey is breast side down - that's how it will cook for at least half of the cooking time so the breast doesn't dry out.

Then it was into the oven for the bird!

Baby Sweater

I'm such a dork, I forgot to take a picture! I made a baby sweater for someone at hubby's work who is having a baby shower this weekend. It was easy, only took me 2 days (and it only took that long because the little people wouldn't let me sit and knit for more than 20 minutes at a time). Anyway it's really cute, hope the mom-to-be likes it.