Trucks

I am horribly confused by the whole food truck thing.

Since when has it become socially acceptable to consume anything other than hot dogs or soft pretzels, perhaps cotton candy, from a vehicle?  Who the fuck thought it would be a good idea to pack an entire restaurant kitchen into a vehicle so you can serve food from it? Not only that...but who the fuck thought that this would be a good idea to do in Ohio?  You know, land of all four seasons in one day...where it is not uncommon to have to wear snow boots, a rain coat, and a cardigan you could take off if needed over a short sleeved shirt all in the same work day?

Does the fumes from the gasoline or diesel add some kind of exotic flavor to the food?  Is THAT why carnival food tastes so good?  (I'm still asserting that it is because they never ever clean those kitchens, and you can't get that kind of seasoning with having served funnel cakes and Italian sausage for 30 years straight  from a kitchen with a good scrub down on a regular basis, I tell you what...)

How the fuck do they get their deliveries?  Like, truck to truck?  And I'm a little skeptical that there is enough storage in those bad boys for a full week's worth of cooking...therefore necessitating a brick and mortar building, and also therefore negating the need for the fucking truck to begin with.  Why do Americans think that we need to consume food that is basically gypsy in nature.  I mean, I have nothing against gypsies per se...but I don't want to have to chase my food.  I leave my hunting to my husband and just go to the fucking grocery store.

And even if the truck never moves...WHAT IS THE POINT?  Why not just get a building?  Why do you have to confuse and vex me so, food trucks?  Why do you have to go and give me an existential crisis?  Why am I so horribly confused by this concept?

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

Reggie II

This hamster is making me increasingly paranoid.

First off, she's hoarding food in her cage.  Like she has it stored strategically around under her bedding.  What the fuck for?  It figures that I would get the hamster that is some sort of a crazy prepper.  She's probably going to vote for Trump and is a fan of Ted Nugent, too.  If I find out that she's hoarding ammo too the next time I change her bedding, I'm moving out of the house.

Second, she's got some kind of intricate tunnel system set up underneath her bedding.  Three fourths of the time, she is not above ground; rather she is doing who the fuck knows what in her bunker under the bedding.  Seriously, they are tunnels like the Viet Cong or something.  She even has them leading up to her little house thing, so she does not have to come above ground to even go into her  home.

I fully expect to hear the banjos from Deliverance every time I check this fucker's food and water.  Look at those suspicious, beady eyes...

Third, she seems to be perfecting her Matrix-like ninja skills.  She is getting increasingly adept at avoiding anyone handling her...it's like she has some fear of being contaminated or something if she is touched by us Human Infidels.  It appears that biological warfare is the only thing that she is not prepared for, so I guess that makes sense as it is her only vulnerability.

WHAT THE FUCK AM I EVEN TALKING ABOUT???  Her only vulnerability?  This fucking midget rodent has ME plotting HER downfall!  The psychological torture here is almost unbearable!  

I used to think that it would be the children that sent me to the insane asylum.  It appears that the hamster is a close contender to be the reason as well.  

Enough

I've been a bad blogger again, bitchez.

I've got all kinds of excuses.  Two jobs.  Three children who consistently demand things like nutrition, healthcare, and education. (Assholes.)  A house that, let's face it, is not going to be as clean as I would like it until we move out of it and into another bigger one we can trash. Just maybe a little more spread out will the trashing be. (And Yoda I am channeling.)  And of course, I'm constantly looking for new things to occupy my time stress myself out over, such as contemplating opening my Etsy store for business and expanding my gardens and training for a marathon.

Ha ha.  I can't even find time to read a goddamned book.  Or even a fucking short story or poem.  A marathon is totally out of the question.  I'm lucky to find time to exercise at all (as evidenced by all of the weight I have gained back...:/ )  Everything just keeps getting pushed off to the future.  When I have only one job.  When the kids are in school full time.  When we finally move out to the country.

Everything seems like it has been getting postponed lately.  I wanted to have a bigger house for Elizabeth's grad party.  She graduates this June, and we are still in the same house.  I wanted to start running again.  I still have not gone out to buy new running shoes.  I wanted to have Alexis take violin lessons.  Her violin has not been touched in forever.  I signed Charlie up for 1,000 books before kindergarden.  She's probably read that many already, but we don't get to the library to turn her papers in.  Hell, I've been wanting to go on a date with my husband.  It's been way too long.

I feel like I have been such a failure in so many ways.  I judge myself way more harshly than anyone else.  The perfectionism that I lecture my clients about runs rampant in myself, and I always seem to be slacking.

But yet...our house feels like home and Elizabeth is having fun planning her graduation party with me.  Alexis has found her true love in dance.  Charlie is as smart as a whip.  My husband puts up with my crazy.  It just never feels like I am doing enough.

Not pretty enough.  Not skinny enough.  Not smart enough.  Not enough money.  Not taking the kids to enough activities.  Not spending enough quality time with them.  Not spending enough time on my career.  Not spending enough time on housework.  On reading.  On hobbies.  On exercise, fitness, and/or health.  On beauty.  On pop culture.  On learning about social media.

When does it become enough?  When you are too old to remember?  When you die?  When you wake up one day and realize that all the voices that were on the outside, or so you thought, were really coming from within, but with help from external sources?  When you realize perfection is an unrealistic standard sold by marketing companies to promote products for the almighty dollar?

I know most of  that logically.  Yet I can understand why most people don't feel it in their hearts.  I tell people,  "Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday."  But you can't rationalize with anxiety (believe me, I've tried.)

I just have to hope that it is enough.  And keep contributing to the children's therapy funds in case it is not.

Suburbia

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Random IX

Charles and I were pretending to be adults last night and were talking about our wishes after we died.  I told him that in no way was I to be cremated because if there is a zombie apocalypse, I fully intend to participate to the best of my abilities.  Charles then remarked that he limps around anyways due to his knees, so really it was not going to be too much of a stretch for him to be a zombie anyways, at least movement-wise.  I then also told him to be sure to part me out as well, though given my health it is unlikely that they would use any of my spare parts unless the doctor really hated the patient and wanted to kill them.  And if that is the case, I'm pretty sure you have bigger problems than just needing my organs.  Like probably you should find a new doctor.


Getting a new iPhone: Well, it was free since I traded my old one in and this was when Verizon still let you get one for fairly cheap.

Downloading the Amazon Music app:  Also free, though if you want to get technical I do pay for Amazon Prime, so maybe the app really cost like $99 but I'm deluding myself that it is free.

Downloading Air Supply's "I'm All Out of Love":  Well....also free, but possibly $99.  See above.

Rocking out to "I'm All Out of Love" at the top of your lungs and totally embarrassing your 9 year old even though you were alone in the house:  Priceless, bitchez.  Isn't that why we had kids?


I've been hiding at work lately.  Mostly because of our accrediting body doing their visit and everyone being all cranky.  And because we have to have all of the doors shut in the hallways, so now I am firmly convinced that someone is going to jump out and murder me.  And because I am in a back hallway pretty much by myself since my supervisor is on maternity leave, no one would hear me getting murdered.  I've got too much stuff to do at home, people, for me to get murdered at work.  So I will stay in my office, thankyouverymuch.

Dresses

One thing that no one mentions when you sign up for this thing called parenting is that the pain does not stop after the child has exited the vagina (or, as in the case of Charlie, the abdominal incision).  No one tells you about things like molars.  Orthodontia.  Caillou and Dora.  Prom.

That's right, bitchez.  Your child, will, at some point, be statistically likely to go to a formal dance.  And if your kid does not, PLEASE share your secrets with me so I can put them into play for the next two.  Unless it involves things such as bullying or severe social anxiety.  I'm pretty much not a fan of those kinds of things.

When your child goes to said formal dance, they will  need clothes for it as it is generally frowned upon to go in your birthday suit.  And not just any clothes...dear sweet mother of God, it has to be a dress.  And one usually finds dresses in a store, which is in a mall.  I fucking hate the mall with all the fiery passion I usually reserve for such things as Katy Perry's singing, food touching, and spring.  This is where having boys would come in handy, cause I could just totally punt that off to Charles as being in his domain.  I'm pretty sure, though, that as tolerant as that man is and despite the number of tea parties he has attended, wearing a crown no less, prom dress shopping is where he draws the line.

You know how I shopped for my prom dress?  I put Elizabeth in her stroller, walked into JC Penny's, and found a cream colored plain dress within 10 minutes.  It fit, was simple, and I did not have to venture any further into the mall for it.  Plus it was like $30.  The entire ordeal took me less than 45 minutes.

I'm not what you would call a girly girl.

It has never been that simple with Elizabeth.  Now mind you, she has attended prom every year of high school so far.  I try not to think about that fact too hard, but I figure her prom dresses are cheaper than the dance I pay for for her sisters, so it's really hard to complain.  (Word of advice...encourage your child to play the less expensive sports.)  That and I tend to be a sucker for my children...not that they are spoiled, as they most definitely are not, but I do try to make special occasions, well, special for them.  So I begrudgingly get in the car and take her dress shopping.

She has learned from past experiences, I think, and did not attempt to drag me to the mall.  For which I am eternally grateful because I don't think I could have handled that today as I had dress rehearsal for competition with the little girls and I was already high on the fumes from hairspray and whatever chemicals sequins and feathers emit.  I would have put this off, but a.) I work 7 days/week, and b.) I completely get the anxiety she would have had because prom is almost two months away and dear GOD, what if she did not find a dress?  I can appreciate that kind of anxiety cause I live it myself daily.  However, she did drag me to a store 2 hours away.  That had literally thousands of dresses.

Holy fucking shit, my ADHD kicked in big time.  I was like a 10 month old baby who was completely overstimulated and just did not know what to do and was running on fumes and completely unable to be soothed.  There were so many dresses.  They started looking alike after a while.  Thankfully, we brought her date, a friend, and my sister with us because had it just been the two of us, this might have been a disaster rivaling the decision to allow me to be on the Internet unsupervised.

We decided against the $700 dress.  Seven.  Hundred.   Fucking. Dollars.  For a prom dress.  My wedding dress cost half that.  That's almost my fucking mortgage.  Just...FUCK.  That being said, we did not spend anywhere near that amount.  But it was still painful.  Maybe not to the point of requiring an epidural, but damn.  Some Xanax would have been nice.  Or a shot at least.  A bullet to bite on perhaps?

Village

One of the greatest joys I have in this journey of parenting, aside from passing down functional knowledge of how to appropriately use fuck as pretty much all parts of speech, is watching my children develop their talents and interests.

Elizabeth, for instance, is a pretty kickass softball player.  She definitely gets that from her dad's side of the family as I have never been able to get the hang of any sport that required a ball.  Or athletic talent, really.  If wine bottle opening was a sport, I'd be a fucking Olympian, however. I did run cross country in high school but I'm pretty sure that since most of us looked like we were dying out there I blended right in...that and back in the day before children and poor life choices destroyed them, I had a pretty nice rack so most of the teenage boys were likely fixated on that.  

I love getting out to her games, even when it is cold.  If you know me, you know that I hate Spring.  One year I swear to God every single game was below freezing.  Because Spring is an asshole.  But by God, every game I could get to I was there.  Unfortunately I usually forgot my coat, so I also have likely done some frostbite damage...but I was there.  Why?

Because that's what good parents do, and I like to pretend that is what I am.  And also, because those young women worked their asses off, most days of the week.  They came back, game after game, and played their best every time.  Despite losing most games.  Despite being down a ridiculous amount of runs.  It was a pleasure and a joy to watch them grow throughout the season.  It was a pleasure to watch a coach of a team that previously won against them pitch a fit like a two year old when, at the end of the season, they beat his team and he couldn't get it overruled.  Those players EARNED that victory.  Elizabeth was part of a team and was learning important life lessons and shit.  Totally worth frostbite and having to be out in Spring weather.

Charlie and Alexis are on the competition dance team, which thankfully is an indoor sport and does not require me to be outside in weather below 50* for long periods of time.  It does, however, require travel to dance competitions and fun shit like putting fake eyelashes on and learning the best way to bobby pin a hat to your child's head so it won't fall off (the answer, just in case you are wondering, does not involve a staple gun.  I am neither going to confirm nor deny if I ever contemplated that.)  Alexis had started out dance at the age of two and a half and cried.  Every.Fucking,Class.  She then soon got over her hatred of people and public and socializing and realized that she loves it.  She is now getting ready to do her solo.  Charlie...well, it's her first year on competition so we shall see if she decides to continue it or not.  I'm not sure how much of her being on the team is related to her wanting to be like her big sister; however at this point I am just grateful that it is keeping her from hiring herself out for murder or espionage or other devious deeds so I'll take it.

I recently watched the two of them dance at an informal performance.  I still get choked up watching them, just as I do when I see Elizabeth doing her thing on the softball field as well.  All of the work, the injuries, the practices, the tears...all culminating in a performance where they make it look so easy.  These girls go out there and dance despite injuries.  Despite life happening, like cancer or the death of a parent or being bullied at school.  The cost is well worth it, for a variety of reasons.  The life lessons that they learn.  The importance of  hard work.  Or camaraderie, especially with other females.  The sting of losing along side the joys of winning.  The importance of being a part of a team, but also of doing your part and improving yourself.

I simply don't know that as a parent, I can teach these lessons as well as others can.  I am too involved.  Too attached.  Too protective.  Too anxious.  Would I make them take risks?  Would I push them to their limits, even as they groan and protest?  Would I stand by and let them fail when they don't do that hard work?  As hard as it is to admit, the answer to all of those is probably no.  I can't be that for my kids, for a number of reasons (and the first is likely that I am bat shit crazy...)  I freely give them to other adults, professionals in their fields, to shape and to mold.  To make them what I cannot, to say the things to them that need to be said.  To shape them into the young women they will be (or are, in Elizabeth's case).

It does take a village.  So to all of those coaches out there...the dance teachers...the school teachers..., baby sitters... daycare providers...4H leaders...thank you.  Thank you for giving my child, and many others, a chance to grow and learn.  Thank you for believing in my child.  Thank you for seeing worth in my child participating, and for seeing potential.  Thank you for putting my child in their place when they need it, and lifting them up when they are down.  Thank you for taking your time, whether volunteer or paid, to invest in my kid, even knowing that she may not become a professional dancer, or softball player, or whatever.  Thank you for seeing value in children's activities.

Thank you.

Stoned

Not the kind that people are trying to legalize.  Sorry.

My sister Alicia was recently in the hospital for kidney stones.  She had a pretty sizable one gumming up the works so the doctor had to go in and shoot the little fucker up in a urology drive-by, then place a stent.  She has the strings for the stent taped to her legs, which resulted in the following text conversation:

Me:  Little girls and I might come out so they can leave more shit at ur house

Alicia: OK sounds good lol. I can't put on real pants because there are these strings and they pull so I will be stuck in the house tomorrow.  Shorts are the only things that do not pull them in.

Me:  Sweet.  Is that your pull string like Woody?  What do you say?

A: Ha ha ha you pull them and you will hear an adult version of Woody.  It would probably start with a little prayer like Jesus Christ and then Mother fucker would soon follow.

Me:  So a religious Woody?  Great.  My kids need a little Satan beaten out of them and what better way to do that than a demented Woody.  Religion AND turning them away from the Disney brainwashing machine?  WINNING.

A: Kind of, I would be like the toys you see on the news that people are all up in arms because it sounds like it's saying fuck but I would really be saying fuck.


As you can see, crazy runs in the family.  So what better way to celebrate kidney stones than with baked goods?  Of course I went there.  She baked me a fucking cake.  Why wouldn't I make cake ball kidney stones?

Enlarged to show details, and sparkly, of course.  Again, why is there not a business to make these?  There appears to be a pretty solid, wide-open market for this kind of thing...

So to make these cake balls, I was Googling pictures of kidney stones because I had no fucking clue what they looked like.  Charlie was looking over my shoulder and saw them, so I explained what little I knew about them and that Alicia had had surgery because she was having problems peeing (simplest explanation I could come up with).  Charlie got very serious then and leaned over and told me, "I have to whisper this so Daddy can't hear."

Me: Um, OK.  

C, leaning in to whisper: You know how when you get older and sometimes you bleed when you are going potty?  Maybe that is what was happening.  Maybe she doesn't need surgery and you just need to tell her about that.

Me: You mean her period?  This was definitely not her period, Charlie.  And I'm pretty sure Daddy knows about periods.  It's OK for him to hear about them.

Bless her little heart.  As much as that child makes me want to tear my hair out, she has a heart of gold.  She and her sister even "let" Aunt Alicia win at Connect Four, because she just had surgery and all.  Baked goods to celebrate surgical procedures aside, I must be doing something right here.

Random VIII

I'm a little worried about what happens when I start to get a lot of Random posts and it goes beyond my comprehension of Roman Numerals. Or maybe I will go ahead and just start using actual numerals, not of the Roman persuasion.  I can do that, bitchez...ya know why?  It's my fucking blog.  Better watch out, it's gonna get all crazy up in here.

I'm talking about the blog titles, not my head.  Ahem.


Alexis is starting to move into the fun preteen years, which means that my alcohol and/or Xanax consumption will increase proportionally as well.  So far the extent of her rebellion has been NOT having me check her math homework for errors and dawdling before bed, but I am totally bracing myself for a full out rebellion in a few years.  I anticipate her advocating for a Trump/Palin presidency here soon, because really that would be the best way to rebel against me.  That and starting to mix her food on her plate.  I don't care what people say, if that shit was meant to go together it would be cooked together or be a food thing, like mashed potatoes and gravy.  Mashed potatoes and corn is not a food thing, and nothing you say can convince me otherwise.  Might as well make a bread sandwich for all the carbs and starches you are getting there.  It's just gluttonous.  And glutinous.  Well, the bread sandwich that is.  Potatoes and corn are gluten free I believe.  But don't fucking quote me on that shit.  I'm not a doctor.  Possibly need one for my head, but not because I am delusional.  There's many other reasons.


I wonder if I could possibly time it so that I will never have two females getting their periods at the same time again?  Two females who live here full time, that is.  If the two little girls get it at the same time, my fictional prescription for benzodiazapines might become a reality.  I'm not getting mine anymore, as we all celebrated with cake last year.  If I can get Charlie to hold off until she's like 14, Alexis will be getting ready to graduate and go off to college...so how could I make this happen?  I took my magic wand to work so I could use it there, but it might be worth me bringing back home so I can arrange this.

About that doctor...


Elizabeth cleaned the hamster's cages out a few days ago.  Bean was all nice and sweet when I held her while she was doing this, even if she did try to burrow into my boobs.  Must be talking to the Baby Daddy 2.0 cause he tends to try to do that too.  Reggie, however, was her psychotic self and further traumatized me by squealing loudly while staring me directly in the eye from her hamster ball.  I'm glad I am not fluent in hamster because I'm pretty sure she was detailing my future dismemberment.  I never thought I would be afraid of something that is less than three inches long, but her tiny little hamster squeaks are similar to the howls of demons from hell.  And her cold, beady eyes are dead inside.  I had nightmares that night.  No joke.


I'm going to relive a bit of my childhood after work with the little girls and dust off the most ridiculous of toys, the EZ Bake oven.  The name is really fucking misleading...who the fuck thought it would be easy to bake with a goddamned lightbulb?  Like, I wonder how many fuckheads out there tried to make like actual food in them, and not just the nasty bags of chemicals they give you that are supposed to pass for desserts (for the record, I bought a bag of sugar cookie mix from the store vs the ones strictly for the oven.  If we are going to eat crap, by God it is going to be somewhat good tasting crap.)  Do people try to make meatloaves in this?  How about Shepherd's Pie?  And also, I can't believe that Shepherd's Pie is a food thing.  I certainly won't eat that.  Good thing we won freedom from the British all those years back if this is what they come up with for their food things.

Relaxation

So we completed the gingerbread houses.  With minimal bickering and whining.  The girls did great too.

They tasted delicious, too.  Or at least the scraps did.  Can you guess which on is which girl's?

I was pleasantly surprised at how well the girls got along while doing these.  They shared the icing bags with the frosting in them and were generally pleasant about the whole ordeal.  I kinda want to make one for myself to decorate next year.

After they were done, I set to cleaning the house. Scrubbing floors, the bathroom walls, the counters in the kitchen.  Putting away all of my baking stuff that had overrun my counters.  Dusting.  Because that is what one does on one's first day of vacation, right?

Apparently not, according to my middle child.  Alexis questioned me as to why I felt the need to clean everything.  Why it was important to scrub the toilets, the walls, to get down on my hands and knees and scrub the floors.  Why I  had to do this in between decorating the houses and coloring with the girls and watching a movie.

(OK, I didn't actually watch the whole movie.  That almost never happens.  But I did sit down for a bit.)

I explained to her how it is very distressing to me to have a messy house.  How I don't like it when we have clutter.  How I really wasn't doing all that much.  How it was a lazy day.  I stayed in bed until almost 10, after all.

Alexis then looked at me and said, "Mom.  You have cleaned the kitchen, bathroom, and living room.  You threw clothes in the washer and dryer.  You cleaned the bathroom walls.  You put away all of the cookie stuff.  And you also decorated gingerbread houses, colored pictures, cleaned out the van, and helped me and Charlie get dressed.  How is that a lazy day?"

She has a point.  When did I stop recognizing what I did during a day?  When did having my self-sufficient girls allow me to lay in bed for a bit make me all of a sudden have a "lazy day?"  When did the idea of having to stop and actually, RELAX, become such an anxiety provoking idea anyways?  What am I trying to run away from?  And who the hell is telling me that I am not good enough if I am not constantly producing?

Tomorrow....tomorrow I am going to just chill.  Charlie had a cousin sleepover tonight.  Tomorrow, I will make them some cinnamon roll waffles.  I will play Angry Birds in bed.  I will drink a lot of coffee (wait, that's every day...) and stay in jammies until we have to leave for my sister's for Christmas Eve.  Hell, since the weather is closer to the actual time of Jesus's birth than to winter, I might even take the kids outside and go to the park with the dogs.  Don't worry; if we do that I will put on actual clothes vs my jammies. 

I took this time off from both jobs for a reason.  I need to refresh.  I need to reconnect with my family.  I'd better damn well use it.

But not until the house is clean.