A few junking treasures...

Lately I have been junking less. It has a lot to do both with the great junk purge of Spring 2011 and the sorry state of my checking account. Getting my house in order has made keeping up with it a lot easier and I am loathe to bring in more stuff unless it is six kinds of total awesome.

Last week I found myself with a few kid free hours so I went to Urban Renewals. I enjoyed browsing and scored a few things which were simply too good to pass up.

For Rebecca, I found a brand new North Face Denali Fleece in turquoise for $25. Now $25 is far more than I am usually willing to spend for anything at a junk store, but in this case I made an exception. This jacket is "the thing" for tweens and teens in our part of the country. Truthfully, I don't get it, but as someone who lusted mightily for Guess jeans and Coca-Cola shirts in the eighties, I understand the longing. At least these jackets are practical. They are super warm and comfy which they should be considering they retail for about $100.

For both girls I scored a Polly Pockets sized Hogwarts Castle for .99. It has secret passages, compartments, and is seriously cool for the Potter fans in my house. As a matter of fact, this blog post was written while Lily played with it next to me. That my friends is called a win.

In other news, we have returned from five days in the cape with my folks who fed us, spoiled us and got us through our last weekend without David. He arrives home on Thursday and our excitement is almost too much to contain. If you hear shrieks of joy on Thursday, it's just us, celebrating the return of our long lost love.

Ants, Tornadoes, Hair and Guilt or My Week...

So the ants are gone. I wanted to let you guys know that right at the start so you could stop worrying. I did have to kill a big spider today that had chosen to hang out on the ceiling right above my bed, but I am pretty sure that he is unrelated to the ants.

This week kind of felt like a week of trials. There were the ants. Then there was some extremely hot and humid weather, which was then followed oddly enough, by a couple of F3 tornadoes about 60 miles west of here. Yup. Tornadoes. In Massachusetts.

You know, here in Massachusetts we have nine months of soul crushing winter followed by three months of heat and humidity. I have always felt like the humidity and cold were the trade off against natural disasters like tornadoes and earthquakes. What is the point of stoically enduring all of that misery if we are going to have tornadoes?

I suspect that this logic comes from my years of being educated by nuns for whom punishment and discomfort were just another way to show Jesus your love.

"Stop complaining and offer your suffering to Jesus!" the nuns would intone. Sure. What Jesus would do with my suffering is beyond me.

Where was I? Oh yes, the trials of the week. The ants, the heat, the tornadoes, the spider on my ceiling- it all got to me. That's why this morning I offered the girls a choice: do schoolwork or go to the mall.

It was tough for them to decide, but somehow they choose the mall. I had an ulterior motive for going to the mall. I wanted a haircut badly and I wanted to Lily to get one too. My hair has been suffering from self inflicted hair cuts about a year. Lily's crazy short haircut has been growing out into an extreme shag that has gone from looking "cute and spunky" to "Does that mother ever brush her kid's hair?".

We arrived at the mall and snagged appointments with Toni our hairdo guru. You know what I like about Toni? She does not berate me for cutting my own hair. She just smiles nicely and makes me look like a grown-up again. She made me look pretty and made Lily look like a regular child and not a street urchin.

We are about to start week four of the David's eight week film shoot. In general it's going well. I have to say this, I just do, but I could not do this unless my kids weren't so awesome. They are not perfect. They whine and argue, but mostly they are great friends with each other. They laugh and play in all of the ways that make childhood wonderful.

Being with them is the greatest gift of my life. I think it's also why I feel so guilty that I have moments of desperately wanting to be alone. When David is home I usually disappear for a few hours on the weekend and recharge. With David gone and all of the kid's classes over, I don't have any regular chunks of time to myself.  While I know that I can leave my kids home alone together, I feel guilty and rushed when I do. I worry that if I am gone too long they will feel my leaving as a statement about them.

I ask them sometimes, "Don't you guys ever get tired of me?"

"No mommy! Never! Do you get tired of us?" they ask.

I tell them the truth. Sometimes I need quiet when no one is talking to me or needing anything from me. They'll understand some day.

In the meantime, I count my blessings, endure my trials and offer nothing up to Jesus.

Good news and bad news...

Regular readers might remember that the two previous summers of my life were marked by the deaths of infant birds in the exhaust vent of my bathroom. It would start with the smell, continue on with the flies and then I'd cook the rotting corpse by running the bathroom heater for 24 hours a day. It was great fun each time it happened.

This fall we thought we'd be very clever and have the entire vent covered in mesh wire. No birds, no maggots. Win!

Well, at lest  it seemed like a win at the time and indeed, until Thursday it was. Thursday while out urging my dogs to piddle already, I noticed big black ants crawling up the side of my house and on the drain pipe which leads to the roof of the former bird death trap. I thought, "Huh. Ants."

That's as far as I went with that thought, because people? I did not want to know.

As a matter of fact on Facebook (If we are not facebook friends we should be- follow the button at the top.) I posted: There are ants crawling on my house. What does this mean? Feel free to lie to me. 


I went to bed Thursday night determined to ignore what was now becoming a gnawing concern. I woke up Friday morning blissfully unaware of the army of heave-ho's moving in.

I got into the shower. I found that I was not alone in the shower. There were two ants in the shower with me and I think we can agree that this is not the sort of shower company a girl wants. I slugged them a bottle of shampoo and tried not to panic. A coincidence! It was just a coincidence. The rest of the house would be ant free!!

That was the lie I told myself until I got downstairs and saw dozens of ants on the walls, the windows and the floor. First I panicked and called my husband who is conveniently away for six weeks.

"Come home right now!" I demanded. "There are ants everywhere and I am freaking out!"

Reader, he did not come home.

I did the only thing a defenseless housewife could do. I went to the hardware store and got enough ant traps to kill every ant in my town. I set them all over the house and tried to comfort the children.

"We want to move!" cried Rebecca.

"Who would want to buy our ant filled house?" I wailed back.

We spent the day out of the house, leaving the ants to have at their poison. Saturday morning there were fewer ants, but enough to have me worried that the traps weren't working. Sunday morning we only saw three and then this morning I saw one- and nothing since.

I think I won the battle. I imagine somewhere in the hot dry earth around my house is a bunker of insect death. A pile of ants defeated by $50 worth of ant poison. I miss winter already.

Bran, needles, and retching...

This week David took our cat Stanley to the vet. Stanley has been trying to hork up a hairball for about a month. I'd been giving him hairball medicine every few days when the sound of him horking became too loud to ignore. I was loathe to spend money on sending the cat to the vet with something like a hairball, but the google warned that untreated hairballs lead to death and I did not want to be the woman whose cat died of an untreated hairball.

I love our vet. He is quirky and interesting.

I made David take Stanley to the vet because I did not want to be the one to truthfully answer the questions of just how long this cat has been gagging on his own fur. Since Rebecca, AKA The Informer was going along, I knew that she would spare no details of Stanley's pathetic retching and tell Dr. K that I have been ignoring his hairball distress for weeks.

So David and Rebecca brought Stan to the vet where the following things happened.

Stan was weighed. Verdict: Morbidly obese.

Stan was diagnosed with a hairball. Verdict: Add bran to his diet

Dr. K gave Stan an anti-inflammatory to soothe his inflammations.

Dr. K gave Stan acupuncture to realign his kitty energy.

Dr. K gave David acupuncture because Dr. K and David are kindred kooky spirits.

Results: Stan continues to retch, I am trying to figure out how to get my cat to eat more bran and David wants to make weekly visits to the vet for acupuncture.

Well...

Here we are, an entire week has gone by with nary a shiny red peep.

I was not blogging because I was planning a surprise, a surprise which was both thrilling, exhausting, and time consuming.

My husband turned forty yesterday and I threw him a surprise party. This has been a tough year for many people. The economic uncertainty made for a real roller coaster of a year and I wanted to do something special for David for having weathered it and for our friends who have been in so many ways the backbone of our survival. Since money is tight I knew that this party would require some ninja party planning skills to create an event which was both thrifty and totally crazy fun.

First, I spent a lot of time worrying about where to have the party.

Once I was done worrying and decided to have it at our house, I got to do what I do best- find creative solutions to tricky problems.

Yesterday, Rebecca and I sent Lily and David out to the movies and dinner. We didn't tell Lily about the party because she has a poor record with secret keeping. Rebecca, you will not be surprised to know, is a champion secret keeper and I could not have thrown this party without her.

David and Lily left the house at about 4pm yesterday. As soon as they left I got out my screwdrivers.

We took apart the dining room table and then proceeded to move it and all of the rest of the dining room furniture into the backyard.

Once the room was cleared out...

We got busy with lighting!

We put up one of these...

And some of these...

Add some food...

 

 And you've got a dance party!

I dressed for dancing. Also David likes trashy women. Happy Birthday honey!

David did a great job of acting surprised, but mostly he was happy to have our friends together for some crazy dancing!

 

Lily and Rebecca hate to be left out of a party so we invited them downstairs for some dancing.

Why is Lily dancing with Incredible Hulk boxing gloves? I have no idea. She is a strange child.

 

I have never in my entire life been able to do a split and yet my child makes it look easy.

David and Lily brought down the house with a synchronized worm.

The craziest dancers of the night were David and Amy. Holy cow- those two danced for hours!

Happy 40th birthday honey!

 

Make sure you check in tomorrow to hear the story behind this gift...

How not to junk...

Yesterday was one of those crazy days where David and I found ourselves with about four kid free hours in the afternoon. He had just finished up a huge deadline and wanted to spend time with me.

"What do you want to do?" he asked. "You choose!"

Well, I did a crazy thing. I took him junking.

I took him to Urban Renewals first. The last time we were there together, Lily was a baby. I think that David had blocked it out because somehow he had forgotten that junking includes shopping for clothes.

"I didn't know that junking meant clothes." he said as he filled a cart with jeans and shirts.

"Don't you read my blog?" I asked rather pointedly.

Silence.

He then tried to convince me that he absolutely would wear the pleather pants he picked out and look, they only cost 7.99! Some men handle turning 40 by buying a convertible. My husband wanted $8 black pleather pants.

After prying the pleather out of his hands David announced that he was hungry, so we finished up our purchases and went to the restaurant next door.

He ordered a cocktail and a cobb salad. I stuck with seltzer and nachos because I know that mixing alcohol with junk is not a good idea.

After lunch we went to the Goodwill store down the street. David went off in search of jeans and I made my way through the store. After about 15 minutes he appeared in the dressing room. Five minutes later he announced that he was tired, he was done shopping and he had a headache.

Unless I wanted to go make out in the fitting room.

Which I did not.

David found a chair and sat himself down in it while I finished shopping.


We learned so much from our outing together.

1. David can only go to one junk store in a day.

2. Never have a cocktail halfway through junking.

3. Pleather is not the answer to 40.

There's no business like show business except when there is a sniper!

Before I get into the whole story of love, loss, redemption, snipers and too much left over food, I have to tell you that yes, I am a freak.

As you may or may not know, David is a Television Producer. I used capital letters which makes it even more official. I am not a Television Producer, though I like to read celebrity gossip rags on line at the grocery store sometimes so that gives us a lot in common.

Yesterday David had a Big Shoot in which he cast Lily and Rebecca. Generally, I avoid Big Shoots because they can be Very Boring, with lots of people imploring you TO PLEASE HURRY UP TO WARDROBE AND MAKEUP only to then tell you that the light isn't quite right or the director is removing a dead bird from a vent or that the stars are not perfectly aligned. Acting is 10% acting and 90% standing around trying not to eat too much food while you wait.

Anyway, yesterday was much better than most shoots. It had lots of space outside for the children to frolic and there was a sniper.

Now you know that I harbor a not so secret love of anything FBI/CIA detective law enforcement related. When David told me that the security detail on the set was an ex-marine sniper, well, I got a little excited. I watched him scan the perimeter always on alert for serial killers, international spies and dog nappers.

Nothing would get past him. When he came in for water he told us about a murder case he worked on. Murder, lust, jealously and greed- it was all there. It was the best shoot I have ever been on.

The kids were good and patient actors and no one was surprised when Lily talked the make-up artist into giving her a fake black eye. She's a weirdo.

The girls and I gratefully left the shoot at around 11:00 last night. The rest of the cast and crew still had hours to go before they wrapped. David made his way home at about 6:30am. When the kids and I woke up and went downstairs for breakfast I found a very disturbing sight.

No sniper. Just lots and lots of left over junk food. My diet is doomed.

Why I had ice cream for dinner...

It's been a rough couple of days here at Shiny Red Houses.

The cranky factor had reached eleven by Friday when the children asked me to look at "things" about four hundred times an hour. What "things" you ask? Dance moves, barbie outfits, drawings, rocks, melted crayons, dog scabs, stuffed animals, freckles, and dogs.

Sometimes a mother does not want to look at one more thing.

Sometimes a mother would rather not hear about the cool new Webkinz maze or the new episode of Danny Phantom or why you think your room is not messy even though all evidence suggests otherwise.

Sometimes a mother needs a day off and so Sunday morning I left my house with plans to be out all day long.

I junked and meandered and had a lovely time. Finally, around 3:30 I began my journey home. All was peaceful.

Until.

Until the Volvo in front of me stopped when I thought they would go and I rear ended it.

I was okay. The kind woman in the Volvo was okay. My car... a little bit crumpled. The hood, the bumpers and the Toyota symbol on the front are not looking so hot. The kind lady in the Volvo had a bit of damage to her bumper, but not too bad. We exchanged information and drove away.

The problem with spending twelve years in the company of nuns is that when something bad happens the only explanation is that you are being punished by God. It's true. This was my indoctrination and it stuck, completely and utterly.

When I got home after my automobile accident I was despondent. I was being punished for being sick of my children by an angry god who has obviously never been a mother.

While I was being despondent in the kitchen, contemplating my new life as a woman who rear ended a Volvo, I smelled something. The something I smelled was not a good smell, though I am sorry to say, it was a familiar smell.

Reader, thank you for sticking with me. I am so, so, so very sorry that I have to tell you this.

THERE IS ANOTHER DEAD BABY BIRD IN THE EXHAUST VENT!

Dear lord, why have you forsaken me??!!!

Today has been great. I called in my accident claim. I killed flies. Then, I killed more flies.

David seems to have recovered from his pro-bird stance and is now ready to wage full on war against the offending avian death stench. Our handyman friend will be coming by this week to remove the corpse and cover the vent with wire.

As of today I have killed seventeen flies and that my friends is why I had ice cream for dinner.

EDITED TO ADD: It was Edy's French Silk Slow Churned yummy lowfat blah blah yum yum.

Sale meat, pustules and poison ivy...

When I started this blog just a little over a year ago I imagined that I would blog a lot about home decorating and thrift stores. I had no idea how much of this blog would be about pus and misery.

First the good news:

I haven't used the dryer in over a week! Take that NStar! My umbrella clothes line has completely revolutionized my life. I can now do all of the wash in one day. I just wait for a day of sun and start washing and hanging. By the end of the day everything is dry. The children have been complaining about stiff towels, but I am teaching them to appreciate the exfoliating benefits of towels which have a faintly cardboard consistency to them.

In other news I have become a little old lady in my grocery shopping habits. Each week I scour the grocery ads for which store has the best sales on meat and produce. Lately I have been going to the Stop and Shop, which is generally a store I hate because the employees all seem to be suffering from major depression. I avoided the store for years, but have recently returned because they have personal scanner guns. I love these little machines. You scan each item and bag it right in your cart. Easy peasy and no getting sucked into a conversion with the grocery checker about why life is futile. Anyway, the Stop and Shop also puts $2 off coupons on meat the day before the "sell by" date. That is how I bought six chickens for $12 and twelve pork chops for $8. That's right recession! Who's laughing now?

The bad news:

David spent about a week in complete poison ivy induced misery. He was nearly completely covered. I say nearly, because I know that you are all wondering if the poison ivy affected his other injury. It did not, thank you gods of scrotal sanctity. David's poison ivy did provide us with some entertainment in the form of a rousing game of "Would You Rather?"

"Would you rather lose a testicle or have poison ivy for a month?"
"Would you rather have poison ivy for year or be impotent?"
"Would you agree to a year of poison ivy in exchange for one million dollars?"

Once he started a prescription for steroids we had to stop playing "Would You Rather?" because the roid rage set in and we just avoided him until it wore off.

Now that you know all about David's agony, we can play "Who's Got Pus?" Usually you can bet on Lily because she likes to play in dirt, however this time the bad boy of bacteria is Pugsley who has acute dermatitis. His little arms, legs and belly are covered in weepy pus filled blisters. Bless his sweet pug heart, he is now getting daily baths and an antibiotic. No roid rage though, and so for that I am grateful.

Country Living, you complete me...

A few weeks ago David was in New York filming something. I say "something" because I'll be perfectly honest with you. I do not always pay attention to the details of where David is going and when he will be there. I have learned a few things about David's job over the past decade. Plans change all the time- until he's on a train or a plane I don't consider them real plans.

When he told me that he was going to New York City to shoot New World Home constructing a modular "green" house at the World Financial Center, I listened with half an ear.

"That's nice sweetie. Will you take care of the dead bird in the air vent before you go?" I asked.

Then I checked Facebook on the day of his trip and read this:

Country Living Magazine Our 2010 House of the Year is being put together in NYC right now!! Are you going to come check it out, June 4 to 17?

I immediately called David. "You didn't tell me that this was with Country Living!!!! I love Country Living- how could you not mention this to me??!!!"

"I didn't tell you?" he replied, "I thought you knew."

"If I had known it involved Country Living, I would have come with you!" I answered.

Sheesh. Anyway, ever since I missed my opportunity to rub elbows with the magazine which inspires me every single month and whose ideas can be seen in every room of my house the shoot, I have been following the progress of the brilliant marriage between Country Living Magazine and New World Home.

New World Home is an amazing company. They have created a series of modular homes based on a green model, but which also maintain historical and architectural beauty and integrity. You know how sometimes in magazines there are pictures of green homes which are ultra modern and mega sleek? I love the energy savings, but hate the steel and cold angles. The Country Living New World Home is completely different.

It arrived on a truck and was positioned with a crane. A  crane!

A week later David went back to film the finished product.

Look at that! It is completely built in a warehouse- everything including the plumbing, electricity- even the cabinets are installed before the house is shipped. Once it arrives in its location the house is reassembled and the finish work is done in just a few weeks.

Over at the New World Home website I have found my new dream home. It's the Portland design and would be quite perfect for our family.  It has a huge porch, plenty of space and no dead birds in the exhaust vents.

Something else I need to confess to you, my patient readers, is that I keep getting distracted while writing this post. Whenever I go over to Country Living website to find links about the house, I find myself clicking over to Sears to look at the Country Living bedding. I think I may have fallen in love with the Joylyn quilt, though I also find the Capitola quilt captivating.

So there you have it. While I was hanging out of the window trying to extract a dead bird from the air vent, David was hanging out with Country Living and watching my dream house get built.

The truth about cement...

You will not be surprised to learn that I gave into my longing.

I could not withstand the siren call of the laundry umbrella a moment longer and that is why after I dropped Rebecca off at school for a field trip, Lily and I made our way to The Home Depot in search of an umbrella and a bag of cement. The umbrella was only 39.99, which was ten dollars less than I had planned on spending and so, like a good housewife, I was pleased.

I brought home my supplies and with Lily by my side, we unwrapped my new toy. The reason for the low price became obvious. The clothesline was completely tangled and needed to be restrung. I don't know why, but this didn't bother me. I untied it and unstrung it and then began to restring it.

Lily wanted to help and it was so lovely to work with her. She was truly useful and thoughtful and I enjoyed the moments of our work. It sounds goofy and overly sentimental, but there it is. She was charming and sweet and I loved her more tenderly than ever as she carefully pushed the plastic coated string through the holes and pulled it through to the other side.

Once the lines were restrung and the unit was assembled, it was time to dig a hole. Lily hopped into the pool and chattered happily about rocks and dirt and shovels and bugs and dogs and, and, and. Her monologue went on in that way that children have when they are happy and they want to tell you things, but more than that, they want to be connected with you, and their words are an endless stream linking them to you and it pleases them. It pleased me too.

Before long it was time to mix the cement. This is what I learned about cement: It is dirty and it is heavy. You should not mix it with your bare hands. I did anyway and ended up with cement rocks underneath my wedding ring, which got me thinking about my wedding ring in general and messes in particular.

Over the past 13 years I have embarked on all sorts of messy projects. My ring has been muddy, wet, paint splattered and dust covered. It has not complained.

It is quite something to go through each of these projects, these messes, with such a constant symbol of my life's companion. Some husbands are fussy about things. They don't let their wives paint the woodwork white, or rearrange the furniture or write blog posts about their scrotal injuries. They want the mixing of cement to be well ordered and precise. My technique is messy, but it holds tight. My ring bears the marks of my work and the mark of a husband who has never, not ever, given me a moment of regret.

The line is up. The cement is solid. The laundry was hung. My family is my treasure. There is nothing more that I can ask for in this day.

I'm back and obsessed!

Well, hello there! I have returned from the land of fun, which as you know, makes me twitchy.

My mom and her beau were here for the week and it was chock full of Fun! Fun! Fun!

There was junking and food, and the American Girl store and food, and then visiting Cheryl and food, and finally the beach and yes, you guessed it- food! Was a delicious and wonderful visit, but you know I find it difficult to stop being a hermit disrupt my routine of housework and home school.

One thing that did find its way into my mind and dig its little claws into my heart is possibly the most pathetic thing which I have ever coveted.

A laundry umbrella.



My mom had one of these when I was growing up. The reason I find myself wanting one of these sleek babies is that it currently takes about three dryer cycles for my towels to dry. Not only is it costing a fortune in electricity, it also slows down my laundry washing output. Everything backs up and I get crabby.

When we got home from the beach yesterday with a trunk full of damp and sandy towels, I could picture myself hanging the towels on the line. An apron full of clothes pegs, puppies playing at my feet, the birds happily tweeting... The warm breeze drying the towels and shaking the sand out of them... If any of you have experience with this sort of product can you tell which one you have and whether is made all of your laundry dreams come true?

So there you have it. I leave the internet for a week and when I return I tell you my laundry fantasies.

I do feel that I would be remiss, even negligent, if I did not update you on a few things.

The birds are rebuilding their nest in the bathroom vent. I hate them.

David's injury has healed, though now he has poison ivy. Based upon his current level of misery I think that I can tell you that a lacerated scrotum is better than poison ivy. Who knew?

Not a dirty word...

When I posted my story about David's injured scrotum, I expected plenty of responses, because I ask you, is there anything funnier than a story about torn testicles as the result of hair removal gone wrong?

No, dear Internet, there is not.

I was surprised however, to find that a small group of readers were offended by my post.

No, it wasn't because of the slightly blue subject matter, it was because of one word.

"Housewives."

Several of the women with whom David dances were upset that I referred to them as housewives.

I was kind of shocked.

I am housewife. Most of my best friends are housewives. I love being a housewife!

I had no idea that being called a housewife was an insult. One woman wanted me to change the language. I tried explaining that when I used the term "housewives" it was in a story that had nothing to do with the women with whom he was dancing. It was a story about my husband being a idiot.

My point, I suppose, when I used the term "housewives" was that this is not a group of professional dancers, nor a group of young dancers (Not that they're old! I swear!). This a group of women, most of whom are wives and mothers, many of whom work outside of their homes, who get together for a dance class once a week and have a blast.

None of them have injured themselves because they are far too sensible for that. They dance, they have fun, they go home. They do not require ice packs and daily chiropractic care after their class.

Furthermore, the point which I was trying to humorously convey, is that my husband has managed to injure his favorite body parts, repeatedly and painfully, to appear in what should be a "fun" performance, not a "destroy your reproductive organs" performance.

So what have I learned from this experience?

That you should never call someone a housewife and that the removal of band-aid's from testicles causes swearing and weeping.

Live and learn.

In which David injures his manly bits or When manscaping goes bad...

Those of you who are David's friends on Facebook know that he suffered a dance related injury this week. He has been rehearsing like mad, the only man among a group of housewives, for the big recital this weekend. He has never been very good about holding back, or pacing himself and so during one of his rehearsals this week he pulled his groin.





I don't completely understand what this means, except that it results in copious swearing and the need to hold an ice pack in his lap. Kind of like his response to his vasectomy, actually.

Not one to let the show go on without him, he has been wearing an elaborate system of Ace bandages and surgical tape in order to protect his groin.

There is a problem with the use of surgical tape in such a delicate and hairy region of one's body. The tape kept getting stuck in certain hairs, certain hairs which I will not describe, but suffice it to say that these are private hairs.

David decided that shaving these hairs would solve the problem. Why he chose to solve this problem without the aid of a mirror is a mystery to me and a deep regret of David's.

While I was getting the girls' ready for the dress rehearsal today I asked him, "Are you ready to take the dogs for a walk?"

"Well, " he replied, "I can't stop bleeding."

And that is when I looked up and saw my naked husband holding a wad of toilet paper to his most delicate and vulnerable bits.

With one look I knew exactly what had happened.

Reader, I laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed.

He got a bit teste (Sorry. Could not resist.)

Dejectedly, he sat upon the bed and ministered to his wound. Closer inspection revealed a half inch long laceration which would not stop bleeding.

I tried to use first aid, but my help only increased the blood flow.

Finally, I had to leave. It was time to take Rebecca and Lily to their dress rehearsal. I left David home, lying in bed, with his wound elevated and his soul depressed.

Dance is a cruel mistress, but manscaping wants blood.

I am an idiot: Exhibit A

This weekend is arguably one of the busiest weekends in recent memory. It is dance recital weekend and I am the only person in my family who is not dancing in this years show.

Rebecca had a dance team dress rehearsal tonight at 5:00.

Tomorrow, David, Rebecca, and Lily all have dress rehearsals during the day. Rebecca is dancing in the 4:00 show and both David and Rebecca are dancing in the 7:00 show. On Sunday the fun continues when all three of them dance at 3:00.

My head is spinning. So many places to be! At so many different times! I need my chocolate!

None of this stopped me from being a complete idiot today and completely rearranging all of the furniture in Rebecca's room. I also roasted a chicken and made a batch of chili so that we'd have food available throughout this crazy weekend.

The compulsion to rearrange Rebecca's furniture has been mounting all week. When I am trying to fall asleep at night I don't count sheep. I lay awake and redecorate my house. I imagine the lovely parts of my house made even more charming with a slightly altered arrangement of knick-knacks. I silently scorn the areas of my house which for whatever reason are driving me crazy.

This week all of that energy has been directed at Rebecca's rat hole room. I knew that it could be ignored no longer- the room needed me, and I, it.

I took it apart. The books were piled on the floor. All of the furniture was moved. The girls and I enjoyed a few lovely hours sitting among the books, sorting them and listening to the Harry Potter audio book. The windows were open and the warm breezes wafted through the room.

It would have continued to be loveliness had Lily not attempted to play in Rebecca's newly created American Girl nook, triggering a litany of injustice and misery being perpetrated upon her by the world in general and her family in particular. Eleven, I think I hate you. Please return my sensible child, our crazy child position is already filled.

Calming Rebecca took some time and before long it was time to take Lily to gymnastics. While Rebecca's room was finished, the rest of the house was utter squalor. There was overflow from Rebecca's room all over the floor of the hallway. Lily's room was a disaster. All of the blankets and pillows were on the floor, covered in sleeping animals who enjoyed finding cozy spots among the piles of books and stuffed animals.

My room was covered in things which needed to be taken to the attic and laundry which needed to be put away.

Meanwhile, the rest of the house noticed that I was occupied with the upstairs and took that as a sign to party. The dust bunnies tripled in size, shoes multiplied and the dirty dishes in the sink committed unspeakable acts. I cannot describe these acts here. Trust me.

After Lily and I returned from gymnastics I shifted into high gear and somehow put the house back together. The laundry is away, the dishwasher is full and the kitchen floor is mopped.

I can go to bed knowing that the house is clean, but that I am an idiot. On a day when I should have been buying bobby pins and hair nets, I trashed my house and put it back together.

Still....Wanna see some pictures of Rebecca's room?

Have you ever noticed that in home magazines you never see any toys in childrens rooms? Maybe an antique rocking horse in an empty corner or some vintage blocks stacked just so. Where the heck are the toys? Where are the stacks of books- not to mention all of the crap treasures which children accumulate and cannot part with? I see those pictures and imagine a huge pile of plastic Little Tikes toys stacked up in another room while the photo shoot is going on. Big colored bins of legos, clashing horribly with the tasteful and muted designer colors of Pottery Barn Kids.

I think I am a wee bit crabby and should probably go to bed before I start ranting about laundry rooms so full of decorative "laundry" items that there is no actual laundry.

Have a good weekend and do not be an idiot. Love, Your Most Idiotic Blogger

My boots and the truth about "running errands"...

For the past three nights I have been having dreams of junking. What does this mean? What kind of freak actually dreams of going to stores filled with the things that other people have thrown out?  What does that say about me?

This morning I got up early, at least by homeschool standards, and exercised. Then I showered and ate and woke David to tell him that I was going to "run some errands".

"Running errands." Sounds mysterious and important doesn't it?  It could mean anything. I could be going to the post office or the hardware store or negotiating peace in the Middle East.

When I say that I am running errands it usually means one thing- that I am sneaking out junking but want to sound like I am doing important housewifely duties.

That is exactly what I did when I told David that I was running errands. I made it sound like I had a very important grocery store trip to make. Then I just happened to go to a grocery store in another town that just happens to be near Global Thrift.

Junk needs me.

I found eight of these lovely Corelle plates. They are so cheery!

I snapped this up as soon as I saw it. Butter yellow Fiestaware mug.

Check out the price!

I also found some cute Oilily clogs, J.Crew polka dot flip flops and a Free People skirt. I spent two hours leisurely shopping while my family thought I was slaving over coupons at the grocery store.

There are not enough Hail Mary's to absolve me of my sin.

My friend Edwidge has been asking me for a photo of the boots that I found on Mother's Day. I wish you could hear her ask. She is French (and very skinny of course) and has the sexiest French accent. She cannot be denied, so I am posting some pictures of the boots.

One more thing, for those of you keeping track. I have now lost 33 pounds and for the first time in a year, Wii Fit called my weight normal.

I've never been normal in my entire life. Wii should say, "Freak, at a healthy weight". For now my appetite for junk and chocolate has been satiated and I can go to bed content.

Unless I have the junk dream again...

In which I anger birds and emasculate my husband.

This morning David called me from New York.

"Thanks a lot dear. Now the entire internet is laughing at me because I went to my dance class and didn't get rid of the bird," he grouched.

"Do not," he continued, "Try to remove it yourself. I am going to do it. Saturday morning. Because I have a dance class tonight."

I had no desire to remove the bird myself.

But.

He told me not to do it.

And because I am an idiot, I could not resist attempting this project myself.

I armed myself with a flat head extra long screw driver, a plastic bag, some rags and all the spunk I could muster. Then I got to work.

Victory 1: Removing the air conditioner from the window without dropping it onto the roof.

Victory 2: Not falling out of the window. The children were holding my legs, which became more of a hazard then a help as they kept forgetting their job and would let go at key moments.

Victory 3: Poking out bits of nest and the wire screening that the previous owners put in to prevent birds from nesting in there.

Victory 4: Not being intimidated by the angry wrens who were making threatening gestures at me. Bird thugs, but I was tough.

Fail 1: Calling down to my children to bring me a salad fork and a serving fork. The salad fork was initially helpful in pulling out more bits of nest. It was also a fork that I was sad to see fall into the gutter when I dropped it.

Fail 2: Using the serving fork to pull out nest and in the process startle a young bird who was still in the vent and very much alive. I would describe the experience of having a terrified bird shoot out of a nest as unsettling. Sort of in the same way The Birds was unsettling.

Fail 3: Failing to see the second young bird coming out of the vent which caused me to swear in front of my children.

Fail 4: My failure to produce a carcass. It's in there somewhere, but not in a place where a housewife armed with kitchen utensils and whose legs are being secured by her children can reach.

Having failed to achieve the removal of the dead bird I went back into the bathroom and took apart the light again. I thought that maybe, just maybe, I had dislodged the bird and its maggot friends into the light. Nope. The bird continued to mock me.

Finally I decided to run the heat in the light fixture and the exhaust at the same time, and just dry the hell out of whatever is in there. After a few hours of running those and having the window open I am happy to report that the smell is nearly gone.

After I was done I called David to tell him that I had done it myself.

Unfortunately I had to leave him a message. It was time for his dance class.

Recap: I hung out of the window and was nearly attacked by birds. David went to ballet class.

Marriage is a quirky beast.

Dead bird detention...

Before I begin this post I need to give you a dead bird update.

It's still in the vent. It still stinks. Not only did David leave town without removing it, he went to his dance class instead. Tomorrow when he gets home he going to directly from the train to, yes, you guessed it, his dance class.

I could not make this stuff up.

I may have to do it myself tomorrow, though I'm still not over the last time I removed a dead bird.

I have some more bird news for you- though happily these birds are not dead, well, not yet anyway. Nature can be a cruel mistress, as I know all too well.

Last week David announced that a family of wrens had built a nest in our shed, right behind the bottle of RoundUp. He found four little eggs and one uneasy mama who watched his every move while he took out the lawn mower. By yesterday they had hatched! Today I took my camera in for a peek.

When I first walked in the babies were camouflaged in the shadows. Then I said, "Tweet! Tweet!" and they poked their little heads up hoping for lunch.

Birds are so sweet when they are not dead and rotting in my exhaust vent.

Anyway, we can move past the birds. Well, you can. I am stuck in dead bird detention.

I was going to blog about homeschooling and our new homeschooling project, but this bird situation has me too dejected. The smell, have I mentioned the smell? The dogs keep staring up at the vent. They know that there is something in there which they would love to either roll in or eat. Hell, who am I kidding- they'd roll in it and then eat it.

So here I am, a homeschooling mom who spends her days trying to educate her babies, train her dogs, write television pitch books and rid the house of animal hair. As if that is not pathetic enough, I now find myself laying awake at night worried about the inevitable moment of folly when I dare to hold my breath and pee in the downstairs bathroom only to discover too late that the maggots have made their way through the vent and are landing on my head.


Please send Brad Pitt, chocolate and a babysitter. Mama's gone a bit crazy.

The saga of the death continues...

So, there continues to be the smell of death in the downstairs bathroom. Some of you may remember last years dead bird incident. The last time that Death made a deposit of stinking rot in the bathroom David was away. I was forced to remove a foul baby bird carcass from the light fixture by myself.

I have still not recovered.

When I noticed the smell two days ago I was elated because Readers, David was home and would have to deal with it this time!

Last night after copious nagging, he finally headed into the bathroom.

"It doesn't smell that bad!" he lied.

I gave him my "I-know-exactly-what-you-are-up-to-and-don't-even-try-getting-out-of-dead-bird-removal" look and he got back to work.

First he removed the glass that covers the bulb.

"See?" he asked, "There's nothing there."

"You have to remove the housing completely!" I responded.

I'm not going to say that my husband was being a wuss. Because that would be unkind, even though it might be true.

Anyway, he removed the housing and the smell was stronger- only no carcass.

This is very bad. This means that the dead bird is stuck on the outside of the vent- the part of the house which previously had an air conditioner dropped on it. Fishing out the dead bird is going to require:

a. Removing Rebecca's air conditioner
b. Removing the top of the exhaust vent
c. Hanging out of the window while trying to remove a dead bird
d. Not falling out of the window

My husband has managed to avoid this today and he is traveling tomorrow into Friday.

Saturday is Rebecca's birthday party and Sunday in Mother's Day.

I have a very bad feeling that there is a dead bird extraction in my future.

Someone will pay...

Nothing that some duct tape couldn't fix...

Oh the fun of yesterday! There was cake! There were presents! There was joy!

And for about ten minutes my house was clean.

And then it wasn't.

I know. This is truly the hallmark of being a completely boring middle-aged woman. I obsess over the state of my kitchen floor. I wash it and for a few brief moments I am happy.

And then the people and animals who live here track the planet in with them and I am back in squalor.

I'm also a bit cranky because sleeping with my husband has become like sharing a bed with a restless toddler. The past week he's been coming into bed late. First he stomps up the stairs. He swears he's trying to be quiet, but really, it's like a heard of pugs who just heard a dog treat hit the floor.

Then he comes over to my side of the bed while using his iphone as a flashlight. Sometimes he rummages around my nightstand drawer for motrin. Other times it's some mystery item that only he knows about.

After he has flung his clothes on the floor and gotten into bed he begins to adjust his CPAP mask. He puts it on. He takes it off. He fiddles with the clasps. On. Off. On. Off.

Then he goes to sleep and for a little while all is quiet. I drift back to sleep.

Then it begins. A sound that can be best described as Darth Vader in a wind tunnel. In his sleep he has unclasped one side of his mask. This creates a sound which I am incapable of sleeping through.

By now Lily has made her way into bed between us. I do not mind this. Truth be told I like it. She's small. She's snuggly. She usually smells good. The only problem is that I can't just reach over and nudge David without waking Lily up. It's a king size bed and he is far away on the other side. My legs don't reach him, otherwise I'd kick him.

First, I try to reinsert my ear plugs. Then I turn my white noise machine up louder. This never works.

Finally, I get out of bed and walk around to his side.

"Fix your mask!" I whisper furiously.

"Wha?" he says.

"Fix. Your. Mask!" I repeat.

"Huh?' he asks.

"Your mask!!!" I seethe.

"Why are you yelling at me?" he asks pitifully.

Sometimes he is awake enough to fix the mask. Sometimes he is not. I have suggested that he use duct tape to keep it to his face.

This does not seem unreasonable to me.

He is away for the next few days and reader, I am so happy to know I will not be woken up by that man's breathing.

There is a time for romance and there is a time for sleep, and truly, there is a time for duct tape.