Dang!

Yep, I'm workin' and it's consuming more of my time and brainpower than I thought. Hence, the several-week gap in blog posts once again. Well, that, and the new Sims 3 expansion pack that my husband bought for me. Gotta quit playin' that stupid game!

I really enjoy my job at the school, and it's a nice break from home (hee hee - it's a guilty pleasure). However, I am still unsure of the permanency of the job, since Mr. Principal won't make a final decision until August. Until then, I'm trying to figure out how to balance home, work, and blogging life! Actually, the kids have been doing a fabulous job keeping up with house chores - with the babysitter's help, no doubt - so that hasn't been too stressful. But I have been fielding a variety of questions about when I have to work again and how long and will I be doing this forever? It's a bit of a challenge when I don't have regular work hours yet, so the kids are feeling a bit apprehensive about the whole situation.

So, just another quick check-in. In the meantime, I've been reading up on my favorite funny guy, Dave Barry, just to inspire myself to get back into the blogging groove - he's the one who makes me laugh more than anyone else on the planet. And I, in turn, want to make others laugh. Sorry I haven't been doing that much lately though.

WeepFest 2010

I've been a little more weepy than usual. It probably has something to do with the fact that I have been thrust into a whole new stage of life in a somewhat short period of time. I'm adjusting. And for me, adjustment usually means tears. It's not like I'm sad or even stressed out (OK, maybe just a little stressed out), but tears are cathartic. They're part of the stress management process for me.

Last night was my little guy's kindergarten graduation. In the flurry of activity involved between school and the ceremony, I didn't have much time to think about it. Even over the past few weeks, I haven't thought about much except what was right in front of me at the moment. But as we drove to the school last night, Mr. Grad pulled out a little diary that his teacher gave him, and she wrote a poem to him inside of it. One of the girls began to read it, and of course, it gave my heart a good tug. It was something along the lines of "don't grow up too fast and make sure to always do your best", so naturally the tears started flowing. My eyes clouded up while I was driving down 496 through rush-hour traffic. In a typically sentimental mom fashion, I yelled, "Quit reading that, dammit! I can't see the road!"

But as we arrived at school (in one piece, thankfully), I was still a weepy mess and had to head off to find some kleenex, stat. It hit me all at once: my baby was graduating from kindergarten. I no longer had a baby in the house. I hadn't had one for quite some time, but he was still my little guy, and now he was becoming my big, grown-up boy who knows how to read and write and has a bunch of new friends, and a whole new life ahead of him.

I navigated the ceremony with minimal tears. But I suspect that in the coming days, there will be more to come.

I Love My Hubby, But Sometimes I Want to Kick His Butt

I love my husband dearly. And most people who know me can attest to the fact that I don't bash my husband. I'm not into men-bashing of any kind, but especially not of my beloved hubby. He's too good to me, and I love him too much to speak badly of him. Of course he has his flaws, but *NEWS FLASH* so do I.

That being said, I'm going to poke a little fun at him in this post. I told him I was going to, and he laughed, so it's all in good fun.

Here is the scenario. I've wanted to buy a lawn edger for a long time, because I really like a neatly manicured lawn. We've never had one, (a neatly manicured lawn, that is) but by gosh, I decided this was the year I was going to make it happen, so I started by purchasing a manual edger and some "weed & feed".

I started using my edger on Mother's Day - what can I say? I was in the mood for gardening I guess. I managed to make it down one side of the front sidewalk and then practically collapsed in agony. I've also been nursing a sore shoulder for a few years now and that little gardening spree made it worse.

I mentioned to my husband that I needed his upper body strength to get the job done - yes, I used a little shameless flattery, but he is indeed quite strong in the upper body department, while my muscles resemble a limp rubber band.

One morning, I went off to a meeting and I came back to find this. I seriously thought that some neighborhood dog, or perhaps a rodent, had dug up our yard. Then it dawned on me. My husband had tried to do some edging. However, I made the natural assumption that he actually knew how to do it. I had made the mistake of thinking he had noticed many other nicely edged lawns, and was salivating to have his very own neatly trimmed yard. But I was wrong. I was so wrong.



I went inside and tried to casually ask my husband how the lawn had come to look this way. In my mind, I was wanting to yell, "What the hell did you do???" But I managed to maintain control and simply asked what was going on in the front yard. He flatly answered, "I started the edging". OK. . . .So, I waited for the rest of the explanation, perhaps something along the lines of, "but then aliens came and started to control me with their mind powers so that I ended up flinging dirt every which way". I would have understood then, but there was no further explanation. And he clearly expected some gratitude.

I responded, "Uh, thanks, honey. Do you want me to help you pick up the clumps of dirt lying all over the yard?" His response, "Nah, I'll just leave them there and let the mower chop them up when I mow the lawn again."

Naturally, I thought he was kidding, but when I asked him again (a little more impatiently, I might add), to pick up the dirt clumps when he went to mow the lawn the next day, he asked, "Why? The mower will get them." That's when I lost my temper, furiously went outside and picked up the stupid clumps myself, and ended up saying something a little snippy to him about how I know a little more about yard management and gardening than he does, so he should just do what I ask him to do.

Sadly, so sadly, those very words came back to haunt me. After the declumping and the mowing, I set out to apply the weed & feed. I carefully set the spreader according to the directions. However, I guess I didn't realize that I wasn't supposed to go back and forth over the same area 3 or 4 times. (I'm going to blame that on my 5-year-old helper, who really did insist on going over the same spots time and time again.)

Two weeks later, I have a nicely mown, nicely edged lawn, with nice big patches of burned, brown and dead grass. I was going to take a picture of that, too, but you get the idea. No reason to humiliate anyone else in our family.

Am I Crazy?

Reader's Digest has an annual feature called "Normal or Nuts?" It explores a variety of odd behaviors and then determines whether or not they fall within the realm of "normal". (I'm not sure what standards they use: Normal is just relative, anyway, isn't it?) Well, I haven't seen too many of my personal quirks covered in these articles, so I'm going to make up my own list. However, I have yet to determine whether some of these would be considered typical behavior, or whether they would signify the need for therapy or, say, anti-psychotic drugs.

So, here's my list. If any of you join me in my bizarre or unusual behaviors, then I will consider myself among the "normals" of the world. If not, I will create a new normal.

1. Sometimes when I'm driving, I will crank up the music and pretend I'm in a music video. And then I'll strut into the grocery store, imagining that some guy is singing about how beautiful I am. And then I'll flip my hair provocatively while thumping melons.

2. I love sleep and I hate being inconvenienced by the call of nature. However, I do the civilized thing and drag myself to the bathroom. But sometimes I fall asleep on the toilet.

3. On a regular basis, everyday words will completely escape my mind. I realize that this is probably just a sign of aging, but my brain takes it one step further and substitutes an entirely different - and often unrelated - word into a sentence. For example, Child A may ask, "Mom have you seen my new shirt?" And I will answer, "Yes, dear, I just put it in the microwave." Of course, I actually put it in the dryer, so at least my brain was thinking of appliances. But what troubles me is that I don't even miss a beat when I say these things - the words tumble out as if I wasn't having any trouble thinking of the correct word at all.

4. I also forget people's names. Not the names of people I've met once or twice, but people I've known for years. I will say to my husband, "I talked to that lady across the street today; you know, the one with 8 kids." And he'll respond, "You mean Jane? Your dear friend whom you've known for 20 years, whose kids play with our kids, whose house you walk into without knocking, whose baby's birth you witnessed just because you asked to be there in the delivery room?" And I simply reply, "Yeah, that's the one."

5. I realize that a lot of people talk to themselves. I talk to myself incessantly. I guess I really like my own company. When I'm home alone, I talk to myself out loud all the time, and sometimes I will direct some of the conversation to the cats, just so it seems like I'm talking to someone else instead of myself. But when I'm in public, even, I will mumble to myself. People passing me in the bread aisle at Meijer will hear something like this, "So, if this one is 3 for $5, then it's $1.67 for one, but then the Meijer brand is cheaper and has more in the package, but my kids like this other brand better." I'm not at all trying to talk to someone else, I'm just babbling under my breath to try to figure out what I'm going to buy. It's like it's easier for me to think if it's not all jumbled up inside my head, so I have to say it out loud, but as quietly as possible.

That's enough craziness for one day. I'm sure I can create another post on this topic. But for now, I have to get ready for work.

I think I'll crank up the music.

Pig Butt

Growing up on the farm, I got used to a lot of things that most people might consider repulsive: walking barefoot in the "mud", scraping cow poop off the milking parlor walls, having our freezer routinely stocked with beef, pork, and chicken from the farm, as well as venison, bear, squirrel, rabbit, and a variety of other wild game (and sometimes road kill - come to think of it, sometimes the venison was road kill).

Remember my post, Fragrant Memories? There were lots of "delicious" smells on the farm, too, that I still consider comforting, even though they may cause others to vomit.



I went shopping with my kids the other day. When they were little, they lived under the innocent delusion that beef, pork & chicken came from the Meat Fairy and not real animals, despite the fact that chicken doesn't have a nice euphemism for the meat that comes from the animal, like "pork" or "beef". But they gradually started asking questions, and I answered them as delicately as I could, so as not to force my children to become immediate vegetarians. (I could NOT support that habit, since I personally am a meat-a-holic.)

Anyway, when I took the kiddos shopping, I picked up a ham that was reduced in price. My children took no time in noticing that the ham came from the "butt portion". When they asked why it said, "butt", I'm sure they were hoping for a nice, reasonable explanation that didn't involve pig anatomy, but I bluntly told them, "because it's the butt of the pig." There was no more delicate way to explain it, so I left it at that.

A few days later, 5-year-old asked me, "Mom, when are you going to cook Pig Butt for dinner? Because I don't think I'm going to eat dinner that day."

Exercise and Energy

You know the exercise gurus who say exercise gives you energy? They're full of it.

Well, I'm sure it will happen e-v-e-n-t-u-a-l-l-y. But I started walking this week, and I ain't feelin' no energy yet. All I'm feeling is *yawn* the struggle to stay awake. Literally. My son has the day off of school today and he has his friend over. I had dozed off on the couch and he came to me and said, "Mom, can we have some graham crackers and milk?" I mumbled something resembling "yes" and dozed off again. I finally woke enough to check on them and found out they had eaten a whole package of graham crackers (not a whole box, just a pack), half a jar of peanut butter, and they polished off the rest of the milk. And it's not even lunch time yet.

I'm glad they didn't ask me for the keys to the car.

You'd think maybe this has something to do with the fact that I'm taking a 30-minute power walk at 6 AM. But, I usually get up at 6:15 or 6:30 anyway, so what's the big deal? And I'm usually in bed by 9:30 or 10?

But yet, I ain't feelin' that fabulous energy you're supposed to get from exercise. I hope it happens soon or I might be sending some hate mail to Jillian Michaels.

Jaywalkers

I'm used to jaywalkers. I encounter them every day. I have even jaywalked myself, on occasion. I don't think it's exceptionally wrong to jaywalk. But obviously, you have to be careful. And the woman I saw today, who was attempting to cross a busy street with her baby in a stroller, was being less than careful.

I live near the large and ever-growing Sparrow Hospital. I drive by it every day, at least twice a day, bringing my children to and from school. The hospital sprawls down an entire city block, and across Michigan Avenue is Sparrow Professional Building, another sizable institution. The two are connected by a skywalk. Behind Sparrow Hospital is Eastern High School which serves 1300 students. Michigan Avenue is a main street that ends at the Capitol building. It is a busy, 5-lane thoroughfare.

It is not unusual to encounter jaywalkers while driving down this particular stretch of Michigan Avenue. In other words, it would be unusual not to see jaywalkers, especially at the beginning and end of school hours, when hoards of kids are weaving in and out through stop-and-go traffic.
Once in a while, I wonder why people don't go the extra few feet to cross Michigan at a crosswalk, or why medical personnel don't just go up the 3 floors to the skywalk. They can even use an elevator, for heaven's sake.

But today, I felt downright indignant to see a mother, with her toddler in a stroller, edging out onto Michigan Avenue and then retreating until traffic cleared. Seriously. She could have easily walked the 20 or 30 yards to a crosswalk in order to much more safely traverse the bustling street.

I'm not a judgmental person. I try to mind my own business. But, twelve years ago, I had the unfortunate experience of seeing a pedestrian get hit by a car, on that very same stretch of Michigan Ave. In that case, it was a grown man who was trying to cross amidst stopped traffic. As he was waiting in the center lane, a car unexpectedly pulled into the center lane and hit him, sending him somersaulting over the top of car, which then sped off. (Luckily, someone else had the presence of mind to follow that car and get the license plate number. Meanwhile, I was sitting there, stunned and wondering what to do. I eventually pulled over to tell a police officer what I had seen, but the driver of the car that had followed came back to give him all the information he needed.) That man got up and hobbled over to the curb, most likely with a broken arm, since he was cradling it and whimpering as he made his way to the ER staff that was already rushing outside.

But I shudder to think what would have happened if it had been that baby in a stroller who had gotten struck. That is why I feel somewhat incensed at the carelessness of that woman crossing the street with her baby. That is all I have to say.