Middle age and movies

So last night was another sleepless night. Since middle age hit me, I have insomnia about once a week, or I might skip a week and then not sleep for 2 nights (by not sleeping, I mean maybe a total of 3 hours over 2 nights). Since I didn't have to teach today, I gave in, got up, poured myself some oj, grabbed the TV remote and the Sudoku book, and settled into my recliner. What did I happen upon on channel 33? "A Walk to Remember." It's a movie I've never seen, although my step-daughter owns it and has seen it 20+ times. Boy, was I glad my hubs wasn't there as I sat with tears streaming down my face. What a wuss I am.

This has been the movie vacation for me. My eldest stepdaughter, whom I love like she was my own (and wish she was), asks each evening, "So what are we watching tonight?" And then we laugh and cry together and DON'T think the other a wuss for doing so. So far we've watched Walk the Line, Phantom of the Opera (of course with subtitles so we could sing along!! :), Pirates of the Carribean III, Shrek the Third, and Pride and Prejudice. I will miss my dear Babs when she returns to college. I may have to raid her movie stash and watch and cry alone and think of her.

Honey, I'm home!

In most middle class American families, the husband and wife find a few minutes at the end of a long workday to rehash the critical events of said day. The husband may recount issues at work, the wife may also tell of day at work, whether that workplace be the home or outside the home.
My hubs tells me that my stories are so much more interesting than his. No, really? I mean, he IS an accountant! Surely there are all sorts of cool stories about how accounts didn't balance, or that some report was off by $1,000,000. Surely my stories about the 400+ kids in my school can't compare to THAT!
But I digress. This week, since I've been off (okay, so TC might say I've always been a little off- I could see that one coming), my kid stories have been replaced by dog stories. I mean, we even have 3 kids home from college and we STILL prefer dog conversation to kid conversation. So here's a sample:

Me: Oh honey, you should have seen what Heidi did today! (She's the corgie/shepherd mix at the top of my blog... aka: the Princess).

Him: Hmm?

Me: Well, you know how Jen-i-fur Lowpaws (our other corgi/shepherd/chow mutant dog) takes her sheepie outside? (I must post a picture of Sheepie, otherwise affectionately called That Nasty Sheep)

Him: Yeah.

Me: Well, when Heidi went out, I put her Bear on the ground to see if she would bring it in like Jen does when she takes Sheepie outside. And when Heidi came in, she walked right past it. Before I let her in I said, "Go get your Beary!" And she turned around and went and got her bear and brought it in the house!!!!"

Him: Hmmm.

And it hit me. How sad that that was the highlight of my day. I desperately need a life. Or to go back to my 400+ kids at my school. I miss Supreme Idea.

I thought of you, Gremlin Wrangler

With my camera in hand, I turned around to this... my son as Wolverine (although I couldn't get him to hold knives between his knuckles). I thought Gremlin Wrangler's pics were so funny of her hubs as Wolverine and then- POW! I had my very own mutant in my very own house.

My retro dollhouse

I was just on another blog where a woman had a picture posted of an older dollhouse that her girls love to play with. I remembered my "modern" dollhouse that my mom bought me and so I "googled" it to see what came up. And here it is:

All I can say is that I find the furniture strangely fascinating, but I'm not sure I'd want it in my house today. Maybe in different colors...

My mom has long since discarded of my old dollhouse. Probably wiser that way... I'm not sure my hubby would approve of a plastic olive/pea green hutch in our dining room, complete with matching dishes.

The "Bite" before Christmas

T'was the night before Christmas
When all through the house
A chocolate chip cookie was calling out
To my mouth ("Eat me!")
I couldn't resist
But went straight to work
I bit on that cookie
Then yelped with a jerk.
When what to my wondering
Eyes should appear
But a piece of my tooth
The size of 8 tiny reindeer.
So after tomorrow
When all is calmed down
I'll call the dentist
And run into town.

The moral of this story?

Stick your diet
or your teeth might make you pay
$500 to the dentist
after a Merry Christmas day.

Elf Yourself

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1474766944

I love this thing. The funnier the faces, the funnier the result. Here are my 3 girls on the left, me on the right. We cracked ourselves up making all sorts of these with our pets' faces, grandparents' pics, and even my little 7 year old nephew. Go try it out!

What's in a name?

My daughter and I went to get haircuts this weekend. On the counter at the salon was a basket with a note: "Joanne (hairstylist) has a little boy with a unique name and is now due to have her second. If you contribute a name to the basket, you'll receive $1 off your services today."

I teach at an inner city school. Boy, do we have unique names. So I offered a name, a true name, and truly unique, that one of my students claims ownership to:

Supreme Idea.

Those are his first and middle names. I don't know if I received my $1 discount. I guess since someone actually has that name, it's no longer unique. Drats. Then I guess "Devine" wouldn't work either (actual spelling of a 10 year old boy's name). I'm just all run out of uniqueness.

No wait! I've got one! "Spam." I mean, if Noah can name a kid Ham, Spam can't be all that bad. No kid in our school has that one, and I don't know any person that has that on their birth certificate...

unless it was on the nurse's hands after lunch when she handled the document.

Ice, Ice, Baby

No, not that kind of ice. That one has long since melted away.

I'm talking about THIS kind...

It took out at least one our trees, but it's still so beautiful!

I got a SHOWER for Christmas!

Yeah, that's right. A shower! And I'm ecstatic about it! Truly!

Let us go back to a previous century, ie, the 20th Century. The year is 1996. My husband has recently realized he can't live without me and makes an honest woman out of me and blesses my 2 children with an excellent example of what a husband and father should look like... procrastination tendencies aside. We immediately build onto his little abode: 2 more bedrooms and a bathroom.

Thank God we built another bathroom. Seems it would house our only shower for 11 years.
But I'm jumping ahead. The Hubs decides to install a new faucet, etc. into the "old" shower and promptly disassembles the old knobs, faucet, etc. And there it sat. And sat. and sat. And sat (repeat for 11 years).

It doesn't matter to the Hubs. He showers at the YMCA in a curtainless shower room with 90 year old men every morning. But I have to share my shower with... brace yourself... teenagers!!!! We have more scrubbies hanging on my shower head than there are people in my house. To whom do the extra ones belong? My dogs are too short to reach them. Maybe the neighbors only have one shower and Marge comes over and uses ours while I'm at work. Anyway, I digress.

After making a zillion requests to youngest stepdaughter to clean hair out of the drain, wipe water off the floor, put the shower hooks back on the rod, bring towels up to restock, take her bobby pins out of the shower (you get the idea), I pleaded with Hubs to finish the "old" shower as a Christmas present for me! And, less than one week later, it's done. Man, does that guy love me.

Or maybe he figured he'd rather live the next 40 years with a sane woman.

So, I got my own shower for Christmas. And I washed happily ever after.

I should win an award

I'M STILL SICK! After getting out of bed this a.m. to go to school, I thought, "That's interesting. I've never seen the walls lean like that." Good thing I had one hand on the bed so I didn't fall over. Needless to say, I didn't go to work. And the house is STILL not fully decorated for Christmas. I told my hubby I should win an award for taking the longest amount of time ever to decorate, but he optimistically (or was it "sarcastically?") pointed out that if I wait a little longer, I won't have to finish it. I know some of you think your husbands are related to, or possibly ARE, the Grinch. But I'm here to tell you my theory. ALL men are born with a "grinchy" gene. Scientists have yet to find where it's located, but I think it's attached to the same gene that produces excessive nose and ear hair.

It took a village to feed this crew

Here's Mom and Dad with 9 of their 13 grandkids on Thanksgiving. The Boy (my boy) is the oldest at 22 (far back left). He's also currently the tallest at 6'5", but my nephew to the right of my dad is only a smidge shorter and he's only 15! The youngest up front is 7. They're all smiling because they're full of turkey, taters, and Grammie's yum-a-licious pies! Hey TC, you gotta git yer youngins to PA next year so we can complete the picture!!

Don't blame my hubby..

I any of you finds my headless, and therefore DEAD, body laying in my backyard, please don't arrest my husband. I asked him to do it. I have a cold. I want the whole upper third of my body removed, then maybe I'll feel better.

Cute, or delicious?

My brother would look at these beautiful deer in my backyard and say, "Yum, sloppy does!" (his version of sloppy joes). I prefer to look at them and say, "Aw, how cute!" I guess that's why they came to visit me and not him.

Mix together one ex-husband, two m-i-l's, and what do you have?

"Our God, is an awesome God!"
And I say, "Holla!"
Yesterday at our house the company consisted of (take deep breath here):

my most-excellent-hubby and 3 of our 4 kids, my ex-husband, my ex-father-in-law and mother-in-law, who have been long divorced, my f-i-l's new wife, my first husband's brother's mother-in-law, my own parents, my mother-in-law, my husband's first wife's parents and sisters, my brother and wife and their 5 boys, plus my son's friends from the Christian high school, public middle school, and church youth group. Plus toss in an aunt and uncle and various others and you have.....

Gosh, I don't know what you have, except God's grace in action. Amazing that all of these people can come together under one roof to celebrate one person's graduation from college. They can put all issues away for a few hours and unite because of LOVE for My Boy. He is blessed, and so am I. Lord, I truly am in awe of You.

Spelling...

My word! I always felt I was a good speller. But somewhere in my body's electrical system, the spelling signal gets lost between my brain and my fingers as they type. Every time I post, I look back at it the next day and there's some word spelled all cattywompus. BTW, how DO you spell cattywompus? And is it a real word?

When did the Chinese take over Holland?

My aunt, God bless her, always sends me e-mails, ie: chain-mail, about angels, jokes, and odd little stories. Well, she sent me one today that if I send it to 7 others, good luck will come my way. Not believing this, but curious anyway, I clicked on the link and read this proverb about how money can't buy happiness, or true joy, or health, etc. At the end of the proverb was where the WEIRDNESS came in.

It read, "This Chinese proverb originated in the Netherlands."

Hmmm. I guess the author himself didn't have the good luck to take a geography class.

So I actually went knitting on Monday night. I'm 45 and I was the "youngster" of the group. I soon found out knitting knoweth no age. Vaughn (70-something) refreshed my aging mind on how to do a basic chain stitch, and then reviewed the directions with me on how to knit a dish cloth.
2 rows and 10 minutes later:
Me: Vaughn, something doesn't look right!
Vaughn: Here, you're holding the left hook wrong.

10 rows and 45 minutes later:
Me: Vaughn, something doesn't look right!
Vaughn: Hmmm. I'm not sure what you did (proceeds to rip out a row and re-knit it for me in 10 seconds flat).

15 rows and 1 hour later:
Me: Vaughn, something doesn't look right!
Vaughn: Maybe you dropped a stitch. That hole shouldn't be there (proceeds to rip out 3 rows and re-knit a row in another 10 seconds flat).

0 rows and 1 minute later:
Me: (relieved to be put out of my misery) Oh look! It's 9:00 already and I have a 30 minute drive home! Thank you SO much for all your help!
Vaughn: Yes, we'll have another knitting night soon!!

I can hardly wait....

Through it all I've come to realize why God placed me in the 21st century. If He had placed me back just 2 centuries ago, I'd be scrubbing dried gunk off my pans with my fingernails, and my children would be running around naked. I thank Him for WalMart and the mall. I WILL finish my dishcloth. I will try another. But if I get anymore holes, I'm leavin' them in to have a place to hang the dang thing on the hook to dry.

Church bulletin blooper:
Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale. It's a chance to get rid of those things
not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands.

I think I'll hang onto mine a few more years...my husband IS worth keeping! He's one of the best gifts God ever gave me!

Let's see... Fish in My Hair has tagged me to write 7 things about myself. Hum. You might get more dirt, I mean, info, if you ask my hubs to write this. Alas, he doesn't blog. So here are my self-created 7:
1. I once woke up to a police officer standing in my rural PA house, outside my bedroom door, with his gun drawn. I'll comment more on that later.
2. I have 2 kids, my husband has 2. We never had any together. Everytime I get the urge to bear children, we adopt a pet. We currently have 3 dogs and 6 cats. I thank God I did NOT give birth to 9 more children.
3. I LOVE kidney beans, bacon, and syrup, all mixed up together.
4. I own 30 pairs of shoes.
5. I wanted to name my daughter Tara, but then her name would have been Tara Bull.
6. I usually stamp ("create with rubber stamps", not "affix stamps to", although I do that too before I mail them) 100 Christmas cards every fall.
7. I cried at Christmas when I was 6 because I got a small breasted, short-dark-haired "Stacy" Barbie-brand doll and my sister got the big breasted, long-blonde-haired and more beautiful official Barbie. I'm sure some psychologist would have a field day with that one.

Can it be that my "little" boy is almost ready to graduate from college? Everyone says, "Don't blink. They'll grow up." Okay, so now I see that it's true. All those "little things" that you'll think you'll remember, the funny faces, the funny sayings, etc.... I've forgotten so many. One of the greatest inventions that was ever made, I think, is the camera for average consumers. It can't capture it all, but it helps!! I rarely watch the videos, but I hope some day my son will share them with HIS kids! Now that's a weird thought!

My hubby and the princess, Heidi. She is a daddy's girl!

Well, my sister has come on over to blogger.com. I guess maybe I should actually write something on mine instead of always commenting on hers. She's very, very, funny. I'm hoping she writes a book soon before old age kills any more of her brain cells. I mean, she IS almost 50... boy, it's times like this I'm glad she lives half a country away. For her to beat me up, she'd have to fly to PA and I know her fiscal responsibility will restrain her from paying hundreds of dollars just to blacken my eye.

Speaking of injuring me, my daughter about killed me last night. She arrived home at 1 a.m. from a friend's wedding and found herself locked out. Instead of knocking on my sliding bedroom door (to the outside), she slides open the screen and then tries the door handle. As my dog growls, I leap from my bed, imagining that someone it trying to break in (we live about 4 miles from the prison). I throw on the outside light, see no one, then quickly let out my guard dog Jenn and relock the door, afap (as fast as possible). THEN it hit me that Rachael might actually be out there. I go to the side door, and low and behold, there's the near-inheritor of my estate and life insurance, looking forlorn and upset and frustrated and mad all rolled into one. "I was locked out!" she cries. To which I respond, "You FREAKED me out!!!" "I didn't want to wake you up!" she responded. Well, she almost got her wish. If I had had a heart attack like I thought I was going to, she wouldn't have to worry about ever waking me up again!

It's time for the UN-decorating. Am I a bad mother to store Christmas trees in my now somewhat-absent college son's room? I need to convince him that I'm actually enhancing his room by adding natural outdoor (at least outdoor-looking) elements so that he will feel as if he's sleeping under the stars. It will be like camping with the Boy Scouts when he was a kid. Will he buy it? His shower schedule resembles that of a camper, so shouldn't his room also?

And what is up with him and cars? Three times this year, since August, he's killed... okay, maimed, 3 cars... ingitions, batteries, transmissions, oh my! He's on his own now. And the Good Stepfather of the North can't rescue him as our magic green fairy dust ($) that we use to buy parts is now used up.

I guess I should go. I have trees to haul before The Boy finds out.