we just want our lives back

So it seems the plagued fog has lifted from our house. Instead of going into specifics, I’ll give a brief update of the awfulness that went on.

WEDNESDAY:

Matt left for Dallas for his yearly company meeting.

THURSDAY:

9:00 a.m. – The kids and I met at the halfway meeting point for breakfast with my Mom. Claire was going to stay with her for the night.

3ish p.m. – Mom calls and says it isn’t going to work. Claire just isn’t herself and probably is getting sick. So we plan on meeting at our halfway meeting point again and then disconnect.

4:30ish p.m. – While driving to the halfway meeting point I pull over and throw up. Yum.

5:30ish p.m. – Claire is sound asleep in the backseat, when all of a sudden as we’re pulling off onto our exit, she throws up. A lot. (At this point I have called my inlaws and begged for them to come rescue me.)

5:45ish p.m. – I parked in the driveway and ran over to my neighbor’s house. Carrie happens to be a nurse, too, plus a Mom of 4 and I doubted she would mind all the vomit. She quickly came over and saved the day by helping me with the kids and the barf.

7 ish p.m. – My inlaws show up just in time so I can go and die a little upstairs in my room. They took over everything and all I had to do was throw up.

11 p.m. – Matt comes home from Dallas to find me sitting up in my papasean chair looking half way alive and his parents sitting on the couch. (because of the impending doom of the blizzard, they came home a day early from the meeting.)

FRIDAY

I laid on the couch all day being completely useless and feeling a lot like death warmed over. Claire insisted on a peanutbutter sandwich. Not a good idea, however, being indisposed, Matt was in charge. It smelled lovely the second time around…

SATURDAY

The snow storm of doom hit and it took us 1 1/2 hours to dig out of our driveway so I could go to work. I got there an  hour late but that was much better than half the other staff.

12:30 p.m. – Matt calls and says he’s not feeling so good.

1:15 p.m. – Matt calls again and says he’s feeling like death.

2:00 p.m. – I get home to find Matt laying on the couch looking absolutely terrible. I helped him upstairs and got him the bucket and the phone and told him to use the intercom if he needed me.

Every 20 minutes for the next several hours, Matt is throwing up. Yum, again.

7:30 p.m. – While Diego is on, I relapse and feel like death again. Super.

SUNDAY

Both Matt and I are equally pathetic and call in the troops. I asked Carly if she’d watch the kids for me so I could go grocery shopping, but she said she’d go shopping for me and drop it off. Who wants to set foot in the plague house, anyways?!? Matt’s parents showed up again and again, quickly took over. Frank (the FIL) and I went to pick up my neighbor’s snow blower and Julia stayed with the kids while Matt tried to sleep upstairs.

MONDAY

Well, back up, I threw up again on Sunday. Just when I thought I was safe…sigh.

So Monday morning, I step on the scale. I lost 5 pounds since Thursday. While losing weight is usually idyllic, especially for a woman who just had a baby, this isn’t the way!

Matt took off of work and attempted to clean up the house. Everything that could, went into the washing machine. All surfaces were scrubbed or vacuumed. (Everything except for the bathrooms. Matt doesn’t touch those. That’s left for me, I suppose.)

TUESDAY

That’s today. I feel normal again, with the exception of feeling petrified that I can’t eat anything. Fun times.

So here we are. Waiting for the next wave of snowfall to come this afternoon and are extra pathetic. Matt’s upstairs laying in bed with his work laptop on his lap and a heating pad on his neck. Pathetic.

pardon the interruption

However, it seems the plague has hit our house in full force.

Bachman-Turner Overdrive

Yes. It was a BTO kind of morning.

After making breakfast for the family I started to marinade chicken for dinner. Then I got out the old trusty food processor and started to make the next batch of Luca’s baby food. See, I’m on this I’m-going-to-make-all-of-Luca’s-baby-food binge. In fact, it’s really cheap and easy (spread that around would you?) Today I made:

1. Beets-applesauce (sounds gross, I know, but Luca loves it…so does Claire)

2. Sweet potatoes and Oikos yogurt

3. Peas and edamame

4. Avocados and bananas

After making all these delicious foods for the Little Dude, I went on a search for an ice cube tray. Our freezer has an automatic ice maker, so we haven’t had an ice tray in years. But, conveniently enough for me, Carly has her stuff in storage in our basement, including, but NOT limited to, kitchen supplies. I searched and searched…thinking, I KNOW there’s an ice cube tray down here, I know it! But, alas, there wasn’t. But wait! What’s this? Voila! Ikea!!! Sure, it’s in the shape of bottles of some sort…but I’ll just tell Luca they’re old style milk bottles.

OK, so it’s not quite the ice cube tray I was hoping to find, but it’s working.

While making all this stuff I had Luca hanging off my leg, Claire demanding some peas, me trying to walk with a leech attached to my leg and the dog staring at me. I decided enough was enough. I put on BTO “Let it Ride” and cranked it up. And if you’re wondering, yes, singing at the top of my lungs and dancing around the kitchen works. Luca sat on his butt and bopped up and down, Claire started dancing and spinning and I used a spatula as a microphone. When that song was done, what on earth could top BTO? MEATLOAF. “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” to be exact.

“Though it’s cold and lonely in the deep dark night
I can see paradise by the dashboard light!!!!!”

Now, don’t judge me by my music taste. This is merely a small sample of all the random stuff I listen to. It’s a small change from Claire demanding we listen to “Poker Face” by Lady GaGa or “Paparazzi”. (Rather, she demands it by saying, “Ma ma ma ma, Poker face, POKER FACE!”) However I do love those songs, too.

I suppose it depends on the day or what I’m doing to spark my musical preferences. When driving home and both the kids are screaming or I had a long, hard day at work I prefer the Pops or Symphony station on Sirius. If I’m in the car alone I usually enjoy Sublime, The Roots, My Chemical Romance or 30 Seconds to Mars. When Claire has her way, it’s Bob Marley, Jack Johnson or The Frey.

The Sirius channels programed in my car are as such:

1. 90’s on 9

2. The Pulse

3. Hits 1

4. Symphony

5. CNN Headline News

6. Lithium

7. 80’s on 8

8. Coffee House

9. The Blend (blech)

10. Alt Nation

11. Kids Place Live (double blech)

12. Highway (Super duper extra blech…for Matt)

I can safely say there’s always something for me to listen to on Alt Nation and Lithium. I’m usually never stuck finding stuff on other stations. Thank God for SiriusXM!

In conclusion, I’m a music slut. “She spreads her lovin’ all over and when she’s all done, there’s none left for me…” <— Sublime.

forward

a new book

So in absence of my Janet Evanovich novels, my step-dad gave me several mystery/thriller books to enjoy. I started with Karin Slaughter’s Blindsighted. It wasn’t bad. I’m not sure if it was the fact that I am partial towards writing in the first person sense or the fact that it had multiple stories going on that made it slow for me to get into, however, once I did, it was good. It’s quite a difference going from quirky-thriller to blood-and-guts-thriller.

I used to be a huge fan of Lawrence Block and his Matthew Scudder mysteries. A favorite being, The Devil Knows You’re Dead. However, I think too much seriousness was beginning to take it’s toll and I switched gears to funny autobiographies and fluff books like Baby Proof by Emily Griffin. I think those books are good for the soul, you know? Like a trashy romance novel.

Lately, Claire has been hooked on Suess. She requests Hop on Pop or The Cat in the Hat pretty much every night. I recently reintroduced Baily Goes Camping by Kevin Henke and I even read from my original copy from when I was 3. It includes some drawings by yours truly. Claire will say, “Mama, you drew that? I like the nose and eyes.” That’s a pretty huge compliment coming from Claire, master artiste.

Speaking of drawings, Carly drew in Mom’s first wedding album with crayon. Nothing like a memory of a lifetime. And there’s that red crayon…

Anyways, back to books. I do enjoy to read. It’s a guilty pleasure. In March the 4th installment of The Spellman Files will be out and I am super looking forward to that. In high school I wouldn’t have been caught dead reading for pleasure. At least not in the later years. Who woulda thunk it?

woah

My husband was sitting on the couch across from me this evening. We were talking about his day and then he stopped and said, “Did I ever tell you what Z*** told me last week at work?”

“No. You didn’t.” I responded.

“He came into our office all serious and started talking about when he was 9 or so he thought he had heard rain outside, but when he looked it wasn’t rain. He was hearing gun shots. Apparently he had to stay in his house for 2 or 3 days because there were so many bodies on the ground. Women, children…anyone who was out on the street. He said when he was finally allowed by his parents to go outside, his street was covered with flowers from where all the bodies had laid.”

Then he paused and said, “I didn’t know whether to believe him or not. I mean, that was heavy stuff. But I wouldn’t think he’d ever joke about something like this, so I wikipediaed it.”

Here’s what he’s talking about.

Now I’m sitting here feeling totally unsettled. This is what stuck out to me the most:

“According to Serge Sarkisian, long-time Defense Minister and Chairman of Security Council of Armenia who is the current president of Armenia, “A lot was exaggerated” in the casualties, and the fleeing Azerbaijanis had put up armed resistance. At the same time he stated: “Before Khojali, the Azerbaijanis thought that they were joking with us, they thought that the Armenians were people who could not raise their hand against the civilian population. We were able to break that [stereotype]. And that’s what happened.”

Wow. So I guess [the Armenians] proved me wrong. They weren’t joking. Those women, children, men…maybe they had put up armed resistance, and I am by no means an expert, but what 4 year old would be shooting? What woman would be doing this as well? On a street where they live and were supposed to feel safe?

My heart aches to know that Z*** had to see that at such a young age. He lived a full life before he was a teenager. How sad.

I’m glad to know, though, that he is raising his kids to be well respecting individuals who would never harm another person. He is a good man and I’m so glad he told Matt his story so that I can send it on to you.

It was a sad, sad day

I finished number 15. And there aren’t any more…

In other news, I’m not at work today. I get a two day weekend with my husband. I’m not sure if it’s a good thing yet or not. Talk to me Sunday night.

The dog got a bath this morning. Claire apparently helped. I was too busy swearing at our POS vacuum cleaner and attempting to suck up dog fur. It’s amazing, I tell you. I kept on going back and forth past the SAME PIECE OF FUR and it WOULDN’T SUCK UP INTO THE VACUUM. So I took it apart. And you know what I found?

1. A barette

2. A paint brush

3. A Santa ring

4. A twizzler

5. Lots and lots of fuzz

What went from 10 minutes of hopelessly trying to clean the rug turned into a treasure hunt of mass proportions and I don’t wish to go back to that. Needless to say, our rug is very clean and now black as it should be, not black with a bunch of white fuzz all over it.

Anywho, I went to the gym today, and I love people watching. Have I mentioned how much I love people watching? OK, I do. There are people that I watch in complete awe and amazement and instantly become green with envy. Then there are people that I watch that just annoy the ever living piss out of me. I will always have love for the 80 year old women who can lift more than me. But again, there was that personal trainer with the beer gut. I mean c’mon. Get a clue! The lady he was working with looked slightly annoyed, as well. I know they pay by the hour, and when the Personal Trainer was busy chatting with someone else that wasn’t paying him, I could just tell she was pissed. As would I be. If it’s your JOB to be in shape and healthy, then do your job.

OK, I’ll step off my soap box now.

HAPPY SATURDAY!

Ew, ew, ew…

Ok, I’d just like to take a second to say that I win a gold star for the day. No, better yet, I should win Best Aunt and Sister of the year. Let me explain…

I’m at Cassie’s right now babysitting Claire and Luca like I always do on Fridays. At about 9:00 this morning we were in the playroom coloring and carrying on. I started to smell something foul and figured it was Luca, so I checked but he was clean. So I went to investigate and made the rounds on the first floor. When I came back into the playroom, Luca had found the source of the smell and had it all over his hands. Sure enough the cat had crapped on the floor and Luca dove in hands first. I immediately scooped him up and gave him a thorough scrub-down. I then confined both kids into one room while I cleaned up the mess. But it wasn’t just one mess. No, no. That stupid cat crapped in ten different spots all throughout the house. At least I only found ten, so help me God if there are more! The cat is currently confined to the basement and totally pissed at me. Like I care, cat.

Just a few minutes ago, I let the dog out to do her business. Upon opening the front door, there was the source of the cat’s (and my) misery. The bottom half of a very dead mouse. So, not only had I cleaned up nasty, not-so-solid cat crap, but it was full of dead mouse. Ew. Ew. Ew.

And that is why I win Aunt/Sister of the year.

easy target

It’s…he’s….just…such an easy target.

These are the moments in life where you can say, “My Mom is the shit.” Because she is. Oh, she really is.

Well played www.someecards.com, well played.

UPDATE:

Boy… the same card, twice in one day. What does that say about me?

dishwasher blues

Yesterday I had Claire sitting on the counter while I was making dinner. I was also unloading the dishwasher and there were multiple times I had my back turned to her.

I had wondered what all that green goo was that covered Luca’s hands. He seemed pleased as punch to play with it, so I just let it go since it seemed to not be toxic.

Anywho…I turned on the dishwasher today and went upstairs to put the kids down for a nap. When I came back downstairs, this is what I saw…

Jealous?

Bubbles! Bubbles everywhere! First, I called Matt to tell him what I saw. He started to calmly flip out and told me to quickly wipe it up otherwise the wood floors will warp and the floors under the linoleum will rot. I was laughing. I went downstairs and got all the car towels and proceeded to wipe up the mess. I then started laughing so hard I was crying. I mean, seriously, when would this EVER happen? To me, of course. So as I’m on all fours, laughing so hard I’m crying, my Mother-in-Law walks in the front door and looks at me very confused. I show her the picture and she starts laughing hysterically, too. I mean, seriously, what are the odds?!?

Not to mention, how often do you see your daughter-in-law on the floor on all fours rocking back and fourth. Her first view of me from the front door had to be of just my butt and feet in a rocking motion. Lord only knows what she thought I was doing….humping the air perhaps?

So the dishwasher is fixed. No new, quiet, state of the art dishwasher for this girl. My sub-par one will have to do until I stick a fork in it. And I’m talking a real fork…”How’d that get there? I have no clue…”

Until next time.