I Ran Out Of Mustard

I know, you can hardly fathom why this is a problem, right?

Last summer, our local grocery store ran a promotion where you spend $50 and get a coupon for a free picnic- complete with hot dogs, buns, katsup, amd mustard. Well, if you split your order into $50 chunks, you get that many coupons. You follow? That means that I got at least 16 bottles of mustard last summer. One bottle of mustard is not needed for each pack of hot dogs. I had mustard for a long time. Sadly, I don't anymore. My hamburger was kind of plain at dinner time....

What A Weekend

Sometimes, you count your lucky stars when you finish a weekend like this.

Saturday we went to the funeral of my best friend's dad.
After the funeral we drove for an hour to see a friend. He is a quadriplegic. We went bowling. I lost to him.... When we got home at 1 am, I sighed, glad my drowsy self had made the drive safely. I went into my 370* bedroom and decided to open my window. The thing with wood windows is that they are usually hard to open. Other times, though, they may just fly open at the slightest pressure, nearly shearing the top of your finger off completely. OWWWIE! I cried for a long time- loudly.

Sunday we got up early and drove 2 hours to go river rafting. The river is LOW. and there were a lot of rocks to get stuck on.
At one point Sebastian got out to push us off a rock and didn't make it back in. We actually ended up running him over when the raft went over another rock and he had no choice but to go under the raft. The view from the inside of the raft was scary. He swears he was no more hurt than the scratch on his arm. Sometimes he's just macho, but maybe he is telling the truth. Just after that we got hung up sideways on a rock and dumped my 19 year old niece. She floated a long time before she was able to make it to the river bank- and waited even longer for us to get off the rock. Some of us were a little traumatized.
Again, I was glad when my sleepy self made it safely to our driveway.

I may just stay in my pj's all day and refuse to go anywhere or do anything. I need some time to recover.

What They Don't Tell You

When you birth a child, "they" tell you lots of things.
They tell you about putting your baby on a schedule.
They tell you that you should let your child eat and sleep on demand.
They say you should co-sleep.
They say NEVER co-sleep.
They tell you that breast feeding is the only way to go.
They say that you may not be able to breast feed for any number of reasons.
They tell you about sibling rivalry.
They tell you about hormones.

BUT THEY NEVER TOLD ME WHEN I FIRST HELD THOSE TINY PINK BUNDLES THAT I WOULD BE PULLING CHEWBACCA OUT OF THE BATHROOM DRAINS FOR THE NEXT 20 YEARS.

It should be on a list somewhere.

The New Mullet

Business in the front,

Party in the back!

My First REAL Day Of Summer Vacation

Here I sit in my pajamas, having just eaten a bowl of corn flakes. I need a shower, the kids are running amok. Ah, heaven.

Up to this point it has been "Go, go, go." The first week that school was out is always VBS. No sleeping in, schlepping kids back and forth, home for lunch. Not real relaxing. The next two weeks, the girls and I went to Disneyland with my mom. We had a lot of fun, but I was awake at 6 am everyday because I wasn't sleeping at home. We dropped into bed around midnight each night. We got home and had another week of VBS- the ones my kids count on in a neighboring town. I drove the kids there and then found something to do for 2 hours. By the time we got home and had lunch, the day was shot.

So, even thought I do have a ton of stuff to do today, I think I'll sit for a while in my pajamas and savor the slow.


Enjoy my very favorite summer time song.

First Things First

So, while it wasn't THE first thing we did on our trip to LA, in my book it was the most important. I got to meet my blogging buddy, Julie (whom I refer to as Julieinthepurplehouse), her husband Marshall and her 3 cute kids, and also Frizzy, Bird, and Yaya. Who I only read occasionally, but who will be a regular now.

On the night of the now infamous "Couch in the Road" we met up with Frizzy at her mama's house. Thank goodness for mama's. Actually, we had suggested dinner out- you know, to make a clean escape if it was weird- but Frizzy had us come over for pizza and a swim in her mama's pool. Smart woman. She knew the girls really needed that break. The Central Valley had been over 100* all day, and according to me, "Anything over a hundred is just stupid."

So while I chatted merrily away with the adults, my children swam gleefully around in the pool hovered nervously around the edge of the pool and tried to follow the conversation, my children kept taking insane risks in 8 foot deep water. I finally put my suit on and got in the water with them. Believe it or not, I was better able to focus on conversation from inside the pool than outside.

Of course we had the requisite "Blog Buddy" picture. Princess Kat has some rules- and number 1 is, "NO HIPS". I think I would aim a little higher still.... (For me, ladies). We were laughing and being silly about who should stand in the middle. My mom, since she was the oldest, me since I was the only brunette, or Frizzy. we decided on Frizzy.

Later in the week we were graced by Julieinthepurplehouse.

We hung out at the pool and watched her children drown in the regular pool
splash around in the kiddie pool. Marshall was great. He played with the kids so we could hang out and talk while my girls drowned in the regular pool swam like little fish in the 4 foot water, surprising even me.

Then we went upstairs to our unit and had some Linner- you know, not quite lunch, not quite dinner- and hung out some more while the children tried to play hide and go seek in all three of our rooms.

It was all going well until Pocket Edward made his appearance. He got a little rowdy and we had to actually threaten to call security to have them removed from the premises a lot of fun until they decided it was time to get back on the crazy LA freeway system and head for home.

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E! (And Shamu, too.)

And, you should look at the pictures of my dad's car. My mom did always say that I got my sick humor from my dad. And he did laugh.

A Disneyland Vocabulary Primer

Courtesy (n)
1.excellence of manners or social conduct; polite behavior.
2. a courteous, respectful, or considerate act or expression.

You should not, for example, push your way through the line- even while saying "Excuse me"- to get to the other 2 people you were with who couldn't be bothered to wait for you while you went to the bathroom.
And, more subtly, you should not crowd around my 2 little girls standing alone in the kiddy ride line until you are in front of them.

Integrity (n)
adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty.
A prime example of integrity is when you see a digital cameralying on the pool deck, you take it to the hotel's lost and found and buy your own instead of taking mine.

This world would be such a nice place if it wasn't for all the damn people in it

A Funny Thing Happened On My Way To Disneyland

Actually, It was pretty scary.
It was late, I was tired. It had been my day to drive- my mom had taken the afternoon shift, but I had had the morning and night shifts.
We were on our way from Sacramento to San Francisco- because that's totally on the way to Disney (look on a map), and it was really late. We were driving on a really dark stretch of freeway and we were the only car in the area. I was scanning the overhead signs to make sure I didn't miss the freeway interchange I needed.
Suddenly, my mom started gasping-
And I screamed. Because right in front of me was a HUGE white thing. And I had no time to miss it. And I hit it. And it was loud. And big. And scary.
I pulled to the side of the freeway, turned off my car, and promptly began to hyperventilate.
Turns out the police knew it was there.
Turns out they knew it was a couch.
Turns out that when we left 15 minutes later, the police still had not arrived to remove the tattered remains of the white sofa.
There is minimal damage to my dad's newish car. Sorry, dad.


Here's where it gets funny.
The next night we were driving into LA when my mom suddenly changed lanes.
"Why are you driving like there's a couch on the road?!"
"Slow down, you never know when a couch is going to jump out at you...."
"Wow! Your car looks like sh*t! What did you do? Hit a couch in the road?"
We had the WORST case of giggles as the ridiculousness of hitting a couch on the road hit us.

Next Thanksgiving when someone starts talking about some freeway incident, I'm going to blurt out, "Couch in the road!" And watch while mashed potatoes come spewing out of my mom's mouth while the company scratches their head and tries to figure out why that is so funny.