September 30th

This is my wedding anniversary. 10th, if you were wondering.

There won’t be celebration.

Many reasons.  Work, routine, packing to do.

Annie’s going to Girl Scout Camp this weekend.  I can’t believe that she’s old enough to do this considering she was just born a blink of an eye ago.

There’s also mourning over the Disney trip canceled.

The first fall in recollection that hasn’t been spent in the Happiest Place on Earth.

No Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party, no Food & Wine Festival, no 5K, no Mom’s Panel reunion.

No Darcie.

{Is it totally weird that one of the reasons I’m depressed on my anniversary is that I don’t get to see my friends?}

Today also marks day 2 of hideous migraine from you-know-where.  I’m wearing sunglasses just to type this.  Last night I cried when the kids got overly excited (read: loud) playing Elefun.

I am miserable.

Also there is no Starbucks in this town.  I get migraines very infrequently {knocking on wood} and the last time I did, I lived a block away from Starbucks.  Even a walk in the bright sunshine was worth it for the 2 venti double shots that awaited me.  And mega doses of caffeine help.

The kind of coffee that you make at home does not help.

Today is also busy for me – garden to clear out, house to clean, laundry to do, PTO handouts to prepare, sewing to finish…

There’s really never any end to a mother’s to-do list, is there?

And today marks the end of NaBloPoMo.

I can’t tell you how glad I am.  The last time I did this it was much easier – I had more to say.  This time it’s been like pulling teeth.  I’ll be glad for the break, but I’ll try not to vanish entirely.

Back to the anniversary.  Did you know that 10 years marks the diamond anniversary?  Isn’t that kind of absurd?

Traditionally, the tenth anniversary gifts were aluminum or tin.  But that list was clearly updated after the Baby Boomer generation came along and brought with them sky-high divorce rates.  I think the standards were lowered.  Ten years is now worth diamonds because so few people ever make it to that point.

Really, a lot of them shouldn’t make it to that point.  A lot of them shouldn’t have even gotten married in the first place.  But it still makes me sad that this is our reality.  That ten years of marriage is so remarkable that it’s worth a diamond.

Here’s an interesting summary of a CDC study on marriage, discussing stats on 10 years.  They are grim.

The children are something to consider.  Women are 20% more likely to divorce before 10 years of marriage if they grew up in a single parent home.

I’m sitting here with a pounding head and a mile-long to-do list, reading divorce statistics on my anniversary.  The realization has just hit me.

I think I need to wrap this up.

I am a great woman to be married to for many reasons, one of which is that a diamond would not interest me in the slightest.  I am so not into jewelry.  I didn’t even want an engagement ring.  I’m more practical – down payment on a house is what I saw every time I looked at that ring.  I don’t wear it anymore.

I was thinking about this the other day, what my ideal gift would be, all reality factors aside.  I think it would be a vacation.  Ireland or Greece or maybe Italy.  The problem is that I wouldn’t want to go somewhere really cool without the girls, because they love to travel and I love showing them the world.  Also if they weren’t there, it would be a silent vacation.  With the constant chatter of three little girls, I haven’t had to hold up a proper conversation in years.  I’m out of practice.

Diamonds aren’t this girls best friend.  Anyone who knows me, knows this.

Now.

Would you like to wager on what I will be getting as an anniversary present?

Some things never change.

Happy September 30th.  I hope it’s good for someone, because it’s sure not looking good over here.

Must close my eyes now.

Flawed, I tell ya

It’s been a week.  I can’t say good or bad, necessarily – it’s been typical.  Crazy.  Snafu.

So what have I learned?

~ Don’t ever count on a stomach bug being completely gone.  Sometimes they like to rear their ugly heads a second (or third) time.

Yes, I do realize I just used ‘their’ incorrectly. His/her (or simply ‘his’) just doesn’t seem proper in reference to an illness. ‘Their,’ although wrong, seemed…less so.

Thoughts?

~ Setting your clock ahead 5 or 10 minutes is not a good plan for me.  I can’t handle the stress.  I never know what time it actually is, and I live in a constant state of anxiety thinking I’m late/early/on time.  It does work, though.

Okay I don’t actually feel anxiety over that.  I’m pretty chill.  I’m late and I really don’t care.  If we’re going to be friends, you’re just going to have to accept that and plan on me being 5-10 minutes late for everything. I know it’s rude and I’m very sorry.

~ Even at thirty-something, I still laugh at the same juvenile things that would have cracked me up in junior high.  Big. Dork.

~Speaking of Thirtysomething, it’s on Netflix Instant Streaming.  As soon as I wrap this up I’m off to watch [again] and see what I remember from the first go-round.  Which, incidentally, was in 1987. How old does that make you feel?  Weird that I am now one of those thirty-somethings.  I wonder how it will seem different as a mature responsible adult.

~ Even though I have no neighbors that live behind me, and in fact I have trees directly behind the fence line, and even though there is no way that someone would be behind my house, I should probably just assume that someone might be there and wear a shirt at all times anyway, just in case. Because if I were to, say, rush to catch the ringing  phone fresh out of the shower with no regard to my shirtless state, there is a chance I could [awkwardly] discover someone behind my house.

~ Just FYI, when the power company decides to trim trees on your property, they don’t give you any advance notice.

~ I don’t do well without my phone, and I hate this about myself.

~ You should always check out your daughter’s brand-new Brownie uniform out in advance.  And by ‘in advance’ I mean more than 24 hours out from a big event.  Because if someone ordered her the wrong one, you might discover that Girl Scout stores are not open on Saturdays, and then you might find yourself scrambling to make one the night before said event.  Which is even less fun that it sounds, if that’s possible.

~ I am also one of those jerks that checks football scores from her [then-functioning] phone during her child’s big event, which was unfortunately scheduled smack in the middle of the game.  It didn’t stop me from doing it, but I did feel bad about it, for whatever that’s worth.  And I only checked twice.  The game was a blowout anyway.

~ Come to think of it, I did this in Disney last year, too, while we were enjoying the Hoop-De-Doo with Darcie and family.  Maybe my jerkiness is not new this week.

Bygones.

~ And just because I really hate to have a post without a picture…

I love that man.

3-0 Baby. Go Stillers!

In which my right hand is empty

Meet my Blackberry.

<sigh>

It’s giving me fits.  Just over a year old and everything has been fine…until Saturday morning, when it randomly quit working.  The trackball moves up and down, but I couldn’t click on anything.  Keyboard broken?  Yet just as inexplicably, it started working again on Saturday night.

But guess what happened on this lovely Monday morning?

Yup.  Dead.

As a doornail.

I’m so bummed.

Of course I don’t have insurance (because who ever needs that? I never have before!)

And of course I don’t have a pile of cash laying around to buy a new one.

Which if I did, I think I might make the HTC Evo my own.

I love Sprint.

For now, though, I’ve posted in the crackberry forums hoping that someone can enlighten me with a solution.  (And I’m all ‘refresh-refresh-refresh’ waiting on an answer, too)  If you could provide an answer I’d be ever-so-grateful.  I feel as though I’ve lost an appendage.

Yes. I am one of those obnoxious people who always has her phone in hand.

I get business email sent to it.

I’m never home.  I live with that phone.  It contains my schedule, my meetings, my alarms…my whole world is stored inside.

Well ok, not the real, important-stuff world, but the world of information that holds the important stuff together.

<sigh>

In the meantime, you’ll have to call my house phone <gasp!> or send an email which I will have to check on the computer <gasp!>

It’s like I’m living in the dark ages, I tell ya.

Oh and did I mention that Catie clogged a toilet before she left for school?

Happy Monday to me.

Things that make me cry

Sad cry?


1) Easter

2) Stories about the soldiers trapped in submarines after Pearl Harbor was bombed

3) Technical stuff going wrong on my website


Things that make me happy cry?


1) Easter

2) Football movies

3) People who help me fix technical problems on my website.


Oh yeah Eric, I’m talkin’ about you.

Mwah.

Tomorrow I am going to write about something that doesn’t involve Eric or football.

Eric because I don’t want to go overboard with my gratitude and scare off the fixer of all broken links.

Football because I know most of you really don’t care.

Which, incidentally, saddens me tremendously.

You have no idea what you’re missing.

Back to the crying, though.  I really don’t do it often.  I don’t know why, it’s just not my thing.

I like the idea of it.  I like that line from Steel Magnolias – ‘I have a strict policy that nobody cries alone in my presence.’  Sounds good to me… but.  If you cry in my presence, you might well be crying alone.  My body just doesn’t seem to form tears like other women do.  {More on this another day}

Generally if I shed a tear, it comes as a complete surprise to me, too – always at an unexpected moment, or for an unexpected reason.

Annie made me cry this past weekend, with a surprising and insightful comment that caught me off guard.  She does that to me a lot.

I love that kid.

Oh, and by the way – her luck?  Ran out.  In the wee hours of yesterday morning she, too, succumbed to the barfing.

It was inevitable.

Here’s hoping for a vomit-free rest of the week!

Errors

So.

On Saturday I told you about my techie blog online/offline situation.  [Man, I rock the descriptives!]

I googled extensively, did some behind-the-scenes mambo-jambo, and poof! the words reappear. Cue me prematurely patting myself on the back for not being as tech stupid as I thought.

Ahem.

Turns out I am, in fact, as tech stupid as I had previously thought.

As you may have noticed, although the words are now visible, no other pages can say the same thing.

They are…not. Not visible.  Not existing.  Not anything.

So today and for the forseeable future, my blog has gone silent.  No reading individual posts, no leaving comments, no, um, well… Not much of anything.

But NaBloPoMo, I soldier on.  You are way too much of a pain in the butt for me to give up when I’m more than halfway through.

This whole ordeal has caused me to reflect, once again, on how I married the wrong man.

A computer man would really be so much more useful.

I’ve added that to my list.  I have one, you know.

Oh stop judging. Like you’ve never thought anything similar.

My list also includes things like ‘should have married a man who isn’t afraid of bugs’ or ‘who doesn’t make me dispose of all dead animals found on property’ or ‘wouldn’t make his pregnant wife go up on an extension ladder to hang Christmas lights by herself’.

Not even joking about those things.

The list just continues to grow, people.

It also includes ‘should have married the ex-boyfriend with the $500k salary’ and ‘should have said yes instead of laughing when the younger guy asked me out, since he turned out to be a pro football player.’

Bad. Judgment.

I don’t know why I even bothered to link you to that post since it won’t open.

Which would not be the case if I had only married a computer whiz.

<sigh>

Full. Circle.

And PS, for those of you with no sense of humor – Of course I am joking about this list.

Because my actual list is much longer and contains far more serious points than ‘Should have married someone who understands hockey’ or ‘someone who replaces the trash bag when he takes out the garbage’ or ‘someone who can spell.’

The real list focuses more on important things, like ‘I cannot believe that I married a Bears fan’

<sigh>

And today I learned…

How to do some techie stuff on the blog.

Grrrrrr….so annoyed that I had an idea and everything, and yet I still couldn’t get on here to put words to screen.  Appears to be a random issue with my auto-backup plugin.

It would be more impressive if I could give this an actual name, instead of ‘techie stuff’.

But I didn’t learn an actual name for it.  I only learned how to take myself from ‘offline’ to ‘online’.  And this in the midst of cleaning up many, many throw-up messes made by many two children.

But it felt like more than two.

So after dealing with the sickies and figuring out the techie stuff that didImentionIhate? I sorta lost my enthusiasm for blogging today.

Fail.

Let’s hope child #3 doesn’t get sick as well, and maybe I’ll have something more in the future.

Annie is the lucky one, by the way.

So far.

Working overtime. Sorta.

Have you noticed what a posting roll I have been on?  So unlike me!  I’m trying to improve myself.  In a really easy, lazy kind of way.

I have ‘friends’ who are also trying to improve themselves.  Four of them are doing P90x.  Four!  What are the odds that I would have four such insane highly motivated friends all at the same time?  I think a couple of them are gonna have to go.  Especially since they’re posting pictures of their sculpted abs on Facebook, demoralizing me while I’m trying to goof off and eat a donut.

Just kidding of course. Anyone who knows me knows that I wouldn’t really be eating a donut.

Maybe a bowl of pasta.  With pesto.  And garlic bread.

And any other carbs I can scrounge up on my way back to the couch.

So yeah – my version of self-improvement involves ramping up the amount of time I spend sitting on my butt in front of the computer.  Yey me!

I’m not full-fledged committing, but I am aspiring to NaBloPoMo this month.

Don’t hold me to it.

But we’ll see.

Have a good holiday weekend!

What Google loves about Me

It’s been heavy around here lately – time to lighten up.

One of my favorite things to do in the middle of the night when I’m the only one I know awake is to look at my random blog stats.  Google Analytics both intrigues and horrifies me with the amount of dirt they can glean from our casual web usage.  It’s very 1984 if I think about it too much, which I try not to do.  I’m mainly in it for the fluff.

Amusing discoveries this week:

Certain search terms that lead people here don’t really surprise me.  DIY projects lead the pack far and away, most being people looking for plans to make my kids cubby, washer/dryer pedestals, flower boxes, or dormer desk.

These are followed closely by Handy Manny Birthday Cake seekers.

Also, my “What the heck is going on with Handy Manny” post continues to be a hit, with 137 different search terms leading people to that post.  (Most being fellow parents wondering if Mr. Lopart is gay. My money continues to be on flaming.)  Seriously, I get emails about this one weekly. You’re welcome, fellow frustrated parents.  There are also searches about the disproportionate number of wheelchairs on the show, and even one very odd “Mr. Lopart rifle caliber for long distance” search.  Did Mr. Lopart bust out of the closet wielding a gun?  Not sure what that one’s about, but something tells me we’ve missed an episode.

For the most part I can tell what brought someone here, but occasionally I’m completely baffled. Take, for instance, “head taller spanking boy” I’m at a loss. Complete loss.

“Annoying requests for virtual hearts, hugs, love, etc” – Oh I can see why you were led here. Pull up a chair.

But “Wet white tshirt in the rain”, surely you must be in the wrong place. Oh no, wait – I actually was that stupid.

“scented Heather Roberts in Mississippi” – hmmmm. I’ve never lived in Mississippi – must be a different Heather.  Wonder what she smells like?

“Does Sheetrock Hills use money?” – You’ve come to the right place. And the answer appears to be no.

“Complete failure as a housewife” – I’m going to try not to be offended here and just move down the list.

“Eulogy I could give for my Grams” – OH.MY.GOODNESS. Is there actually someone out there who stole the eulogy I gave my Grama?  I have no words.

“Pochron Rices Landing” – Since my hometown has about 200 people, I can definitely narrow down who Googled this one.

“Honda transmissions suck balls” – HA! Well I wouldn’t have said it quite that way, but yes. Yes they do.

“indische kleuren muren” – I had to Google to find out that this means “Indian colored walls”.  Which apparently people in The Netherlands believe that I have – good to know.

“needle broke off in finger” – oooh, good one! I’d almost forgotten about that!

“messy home pictures with children” – Again, no offense taken. Really.

“thank you for being so thoughtful and remembering my birthday” – Agreed.  Thank you Darcie.

“I can’t do the splits like I used to” – um… yeah honey, me either.  Though to the best of my recollection, I’ve never publicly admitted that. {until now, naturally}

What’s really odd to me is that I can’t even replicate these.  If I Google wet white t-shirts, I get a whoooooole lot of other results, but not moi.  Who, just for the record, has never taken nor posted a picture of herself wearing a wet t-shirt of any color, thankyouverymuch.

Although I did discover last week that Googling my name does bring up an, um, interesting image.  Which is completely and totally not me.  But go ahead, you know you want to.  If you know my married name, you’ll find it in the top row.  Not me.  Not me.

Update: Thanks to my mother, who likes to show off how much more internet savvy she is than I am on a regular basis, I now know that I couldn’t replicate these results because the all-knowing Google machine somehow takes into account who you are and what your internet habits are, and they don’t show everyone the same search results. Thanks mom.  Not only did you clear that up for me, but you also made Google seem infinitely more freaky all-knowing.  Awesome.

The Good Stuff

Sometimes the simplest things bring joy to my heart.  Today, it is this couple.

I want to find them and hug them.

I want to write them a letter to tell them how their simple gesture reached so many people.

And mainly, I’d just like to say thanks.

Thanks for bringing a smile to my heart today, and for being so entertaining that my young daughters and I all clapped when they were done.

Thanks for staying married for 62 years, and loving one another enough to have fun and act silly together.  Such a simple thing that is such a rare find these days.

Life is full of simple pleasures, and something tells me that these two know and appreciate that.

Visiting Uncle Caveman

Be back (with pictures!) tomorrow!