Web Cleaning

I spent much of yesterday and some of this morning cleaning up my favorites files. But that's not the fun part! I cleaned up, sprused up, and freshened HERE!

This is the awesome shot I got from my front porch yesterday morning...while it was -12 degrees F.

Isn't that just too cool? I love it! I just happened to glance out the door when I walked by after getting my 3rd cup of coffee. Thrilled that this actually came out, since I had had 2 cups already, and I had zoomed to 12X on the camera and the little icon alerting me to "shaking" was going nuts.

Back to the task at hand for today. No, I didn't manage to clean out the fridge yesterday. I lost my nerve! Plus my momma was online all day, so I talked to her! HA!

Today the kids are home. Right now the boys are playing Wii, the girls are playing with the ferret, and I'm playing with my computer. The state of the house is, well...not good.

I keep telling myself...ONE more blog, one more page, one more cuppa...one more anything! Cause I'm sure I'll find some motivation somewhere...just gotta search hard enough for it!

Please do check out any and all of my friends' (yes they are my friends, even if they don't know it....) blogs over on the sidebar. They are great! Don't forget to READ all the way to the bottom (if you haven't yet) and see the new TWLOHA thingy down there (which may be moved soon). And don't forget to VOTE on your least-favorite cleaning chore!

I'm off to ruin my children's day off by making them do their chores. Muahahahaa. Well, maybe we'll play the game I made up (see below), they seem to like it...somewhat!

Cleaning Game

1. On small scraps of paper, write down as many house-hold chores that you would allow your children to do. Eg. wash window, sweep, clean toilet, mop, wash chairs, pick up toys, trash pickup (5 items), put away dishes....etc. The list can be as big or as small as you want! Put doubles in to get more of the same thing done!

2. Get two containers

3. Put all scraps in one.

4. Get kids...sometimes they hide under the bed...look there first! *

5. Each kid draws out one piece of paper, then does the chore.

6. When the chore is done, put the scrap in the 2nd container.

7. You can also make this a race, if you have competitive children. Have a container for each kid! Whoever gets the most done in a certain ammount of time WINS!

Check back (maybe monday) for another fun game that allows you to make your children do your chores!

* Really, I PROMISE that my kids do like this game! Once they get into it, they have a blast and it takes them about 45 minutes to get all the way through...and POOF the house is pretty clean!

Whistle while you work

So the kids have learned a new song at school. It goes "I'm a geek, geek, geek. But I don't care, care, care. Cause you're a dork, dork, dork. Wha!"

I think I've heard this 30 times this morning...and they have only been awake for 45 minutes. So, between 3 kids and 45 minutes...that's um...alot. Princess Pout even sang it to the dog.

This leads me to wonder what other gems of crudeness my children are learning in school. There's been a few things that I go "Hey, that's not how it goes...it goes like this"....course, I can't remember what that was now...lol But somewhere in the 20 years since I was in 4th grade...the actual song/saying/thingy has gotten transmutted and they got it all wrong now.

Okay, after that little diversion...it's back to the topic on hand...yup, you guessed it...CLEANING! It's been a few posts since I've actually gotten down and dirty, and it's tiiiime!!!

Recently, I've been dealing with hair...dog hair. It's everywhere! It doesn't help that there's 4 dogs in the house (one of which is mine), and they all do have hair! But the main problem is my dog. For some reason, he's shedding like it just turned 1000 degrees.

I'm no dog phsycologist...but if I had to guess, I'd say it's stress. He wasn't shedding before the other dogs got here. He's in his kennel* for the least ammount of time I can manage...with rotating the dogs' "out time" throughout the day, while I'm home.

So, on to the cleaning of dog hair. I've got a pretty great vacuum cleaner. It sucks good (ha). But I have to vacuum his kennel and around it at least 2 times a day, or the hair finds it's way into the whole house. It's easy, no big...a few seconds time. But it's doing a number on the ammount of vacuum bags I have to use! LOL

Ugh, is this post lame, or is it just me? Um...wait a minute-dont' answer that.

Today's to-do list!!!
Besides the normal day-to-day cleaning, that is!

The FRIDGE! Yup, just that. It's a huge job, believe me. If I'm brave, I'll take pics to post. But I'm not sure....I don't know if I'll want to remember this adventure forever captured in photographs AND in the blogosphere...

Snow removal

If you are as fortunate as I to live in a place where you just might wake up to see oh....8 inches of fluffy white stuff outside-You are familar with snow removal. Here's my take on it all.

If you want to do it the old-fashioned, back-breaking way...

This little beauty, while cheap, aint easy to use. Bend, scoop, lift and toss. It's a device that should only be used to punish children. By making THEM use it...

If you prefer the only slightly less back-breaking and way more noisey way...

This dandy invention must be the wet-dream of nearly every testosterone-driven man in the world. It's not nice, it's the evil dragon of winter. It will eat you up and spit you out, figuretivly & literally..ouch! *check out the last photo* haha

Then of course there's the sane way...

First you use one of these....

To call one of these.....

Then sit back in the comfort of your wam house with your choice of this....

I, on the other hand, am apparently not sane...So I used a combination of the first two to clear out my driveway.

I am, however, going to use some of this once I can move again to get to my favorite store.

Goes great in Hot chocolate...and I'm sure will help me recover my sanity.

*If you are curious just what a snowblower can do to a tin coffee can....

~*~ And I didn't ONCE use the 'c' word! HA!!! ~*~

Tag you're it

Manic Mom tagged everyone (and I do mean everyone) for this meme. And since I consider myself part of "everyone"...here goes.

You answer the questions, but you can only use ONE word to do so.

1. Where is your cell phone? purse
2. Where is your significant other? arkansas
3. Your hair color? natural
4. Your mother? teacher
5. Your father? funny
6. Your favorite thing? books
7. Your dream last night? absent
8. Your dream/goal? security
9. The room your in? Den
10. Your hobby? reading
11. Your fear? falling
12. Where do you want to be in six years? warm
13. Where were you last night? home
14. What you’re not? awake
15. One of your wish list items? babysitters
16. Where you grew up? Arizona
17. The last thing you did? eat
18. What are you wearing? pajamas
19. Your TV? on
20. Your pet? some
21. Your computer? running
22. Your mood? lonely
23. Missing someone? honey
24. Your car? frosted
25. Something you’re not wearing? brace (yeah i should be though...bad me)
26. Favorite store? none
27. Your summer? rainy
28. Love someone? many
29. Your favorite color? blue
30. When is the last time you laughed? earlier
31. Last time you cried? saturday

All done...how informative and yet so criptic! Love it. And yes...IF you're reading this, you are tagged! Lucky you!

I'll blame the lack of sleep...or the cold.

I swear I came up with some really great stuff to post last night, while laying in bed trying to goto sleep. I promise it was all really great, funny, and a rare look inside to the "real me". But, of course, I did fall alseep (eventually), and forgot it all.

Except to say that we still have at least one mouse. And the little bugger is either one very picky eater...or it's smarter than the average mouse. Peanut butter failed, as did the jelly (it was even strawberry), so I'll be off to get some spray-cheese to try that on our ONE remaining working mouse trap. Because while this mouse doesn't like our offerings...our doggy does! Aparently he's not much smarter, cause the snap of the trap on his tongue (or nose) isn't enough to stop him from trying to get under EVERYTHING if there's a trap under it.

Seriously...he tried like CRAZY to get under the bookshelf...which has a floor clearance of about 2 inches. I'm just glad it's attached to the walls!

It is offically 'winter' in Sarah Palin's state! Yup, the snow fell and stuck...and all the silly 4x4 drivers went off into the ditches. I'm really trying to have fun this year. I stuck pretty snowflake window clings on my kitchen window...trying to block out the yucky snow that's actually outside the window....it's not really helping.

It might help a little more if I didn't have to air-up a tie on the van at least once a day. I'd even be happy with the old cassette player/radio if that meant I didn't have to air up a tie in the FREEZING wind....but no. Captain decided that I needed a nifty CD player instead. Okay, okay...we didn't know that the tie was going to die when he got the CD player! But, that used our monthly "car money"...so I gotta stand in the wind and snow for a few more days...airing up that blessed tie (see it's blessed, maybe when I go out it will still be full...hahahhaaa)

Can your brain freeze while you are still living--er and maybe airing up a tire? I think I'll blame the cold on my impending insanity. Half-frozen brain trauma...yeah....I hear a vacation to somewhere warm calling me!

And there is still 6 months of this to go.....

Okay, the mouse isn't imaginary. I saw it on Sunday. It skurried from the utility room into the laundry/pantry/junk room then along the wall to behind the freezer then from the other side of the freezer to under the shelf we have for shoes.

So, yeah...there's at least one mouse in the house. Although, the traps are un-touched! Either this is one smart-assed mouse (ew mice?), or there's too much other stuff hidden to entice the mouse to eat of the death-trap peanut butter. Since I refuse to believe that these rodents have evolved or learned enough to know to stay away from traps (i mean we're out in the woods, where would they learn that...) (COULD they learn that?)

Okay, so I'm thinking there's food elsewhere...you know what that means....yup my favorite subject! Cleaning!

So yesterday I O.C.ed (my sis and I's term for detail cleaning) the kitchen/dining/living rooms. As well as the Den. I also rearranged the living room, and we LOVE it! I took every single item out of drawers, cupboards and cubbies and cleaned it all out, cleaned up the bottles etc. Cleaned the floors and the table and chairs...took apart the couch and cleaned all that.

Lemme tell you (should I be ashamed?) that I found a LOT of crumbs. This find lend me to the realization (with the help of Captain) that since December, we've only really been cleaning the surface. Haven't had the time or energy to really clean the place.

Okay, yeah...here and there I've done some major stuff...not even including the kids' rooms! But it really hasn't been enough or often enough to make a difference.

Today my plan was to do the laundry/pantry/junk room and try to hit the kids' rooms again. Yeah...but of course the day dawned mostly sunny and just beautiful. I don't know where my children are. They ate breakfast (eww we only have the apple oatmeal left, mom) and took off to the winds. That's fine by me, they've been driving me up the wall for over a week cause the weather has been horrible!

And so...I'm bravely attacking the laundry etc room today...by myself. I just picked up all the laundry that the kids have thrown on the floor (for fear of entering mouse infested area). If I can do it...I plan to move out the washer and dryer and clean behind/under those. And also try to move the freezer to clean around that area....it's empty so there's a 5% chance that I'll be able to move it.

And yes, I'm prepared to scream as if my life depends on it if I do find that smart little mouse behind anything!

Ps If I somehow have the energy or motivation after all that, I'm going to try to re-organize the shelves in the room too....they seriously need help...

pps. check back later today or tomorrow for a PHOTO post! About what? Well...Cleaning of course!

Real and Imaginary

Yikes! I posted a comment on one of my favorite blogs just now...without thinking that someone out there might read it, and then click on over here! So I thought I might come on over, take down the dust covers and spruce the place up. At least post something...something hopefully not related to cleaning or the weather...

*****40 minutes later******

Um yeah, can't think of anything. Haha, no really, it hasn't been 40 minutes. But I really can't think of anything.

Honetly, my life is consumed by cleaning. Dishes, sweeping, dirty toilets, laundry. With 6 people in the house and several "extras" all the time (neighborhood kids, friends and family), the place can get quite messy. And by messy I don't mean a few toys on the floor. I mean the sort of messy that makes you want to rent a front-end loader to just clear it all out and start over.

Oh pooh...I've already gone and wrote about cleaning twice!

Monkey Man came running up to me this morning in tears. He said that a spider stole his bouncy ball. I laughed and he glared. My first thought was something like a Dung Beetle rolling a ball of turds...only this being a large spider rolling away on his bouncy ball.* Funny to me, but not so much to a five year old scared of spiders (all my kids are scared of spiders, I think I did it to them when we lived in Georgia and told them to RUN SCREAMING if they saw one-um yeah). So anyway, I got ahold of myself and followed him to the ball-stealing spider.

He asked me what I was going to do. "Well, I'm going to go beat up that ball-stealing spider!" He cheered.

Sure enough, there was his bouncy ball, just under the stove, and when I rolled it away with my shoe (ew I'm not scared of spiders, but I don't like them much either), there was a rather large spider. And in true ball-stealing bulliness, once it fell off the ball, it ran AT me. AHHIEEEE!

Squish!** All is better! No bully spider is gunna get away with stealing my baby's play-things! Ha!

Of course, a few minutes later....M.M. uses said bouncy ball as a progectile weapon against his brother. Good thing he has bad aim!

In other "pest" tales...two of my children have reportedly seen mice in the house...in two different places. I dutifully bought a few traps ***, and wonderful Captain set them up. In the search for the best places to put them, we found zero signs of mice in the house. NONE at all. Not even in the crawl space...where we did find a half-eaten bag of stale cheetos, a pizza crust and a soda can...but not even one mouse turd! We did set the traps, though, just in case. Although, I'm pretty sure that the trap in the garage is um, full, the ones in the house are un-touched.

I'm starting to think that I've caused this pest scare as well. See...about a week ago, I helped the girls to clean their room (oh no more about cleaning!). And was totally disgusted. Needless to say, they are grounded from sweets/yummies for a little while. We found packaging for soda, chips, cookies, ice cream, candy and crackers. And several cups, spoons and two plates. Yeah. And no, they aren't allowed to eat in their rooms. Allowed being the key word here.

All of this was hidden quite well...jambed way under the bed, in between the bed and the wall, in drawers and even an empty bag in between the mattress and the box.

Where was I going with this? Oh yeah!

While sweeping up tons of food crumbs off the floor, I laid it on thick. "I'm surprised you don't have bugs and mice in here!" Bugs and mice love this sort of stuff...lots of food and great places to hide! The girls looked dutifully ashamed (but didn't stop Princess Pout from stealing the rest of Daddy's Triple Strawberry Ice Cream a few days later and hiding the carton in her dresser).

So, yeah, I think with all of that, they got it in their heads that since they are the little pigs **** that they are, there must be mice in the house. Ha ha ha...jokes on me-who's out the $ spent on the traps we probably don't need.

* Interestingly gross...in searching for a pic of a spider on a ball (bug circus style), I ran across this rather disturbing site. I guess this guy's got talent, but who'd want these things?

** Yes, I squished the spider...I have no problems with that at all. Don't tell me it's animal cruelty, or bad luck or any of that. I love all of God's creatures, but Spiders are gross!

*** Yes, they are KILL traps...see above

**** Yes, I know pigs are actually very clean! And I love pigs. I don't love food all over the place!

Need foot products?

Okay...just a quick note to ask google ads WHY my blog gets foot stuff ads?

I don't think I've even written the word FOOT in the time I've been writing! Foot doesn't cross my daily vocabulary as much as one might think...unless you ask me about all the times that I've been sitting on the couch and someone sticks a foot in my face, telling me to smell it. Unless you ask about the time that someone stepped on a nail, I'd guess I would have to say the word foot. Unless you ask what's at the foot of my bed (um nothing). Unless you ask what's on my foot, duh, shoes. Unless you ask me what a footer is...which is a thingy at the end of an essay or something like that...I know what it is, just can't explain it. ha, so don't ask.

So, foot, to my knowledge, has never been written in this blog...until today...and I write this foot post in hopes that Google ads will put different ads on my blog. Hmm...may I suggest something else totally un-realted like....hmm condoms.

I don't know how, but my flowers are blooming

Do you rememer your 7th birthday? I don't. Well, maybe I could if I talked to my sister. She seems to have a perfect memory...or maybe it's just that she remembers some odd things that I don't remember. Like the fact that Dad drove a water delivery truck for like THREE YEARS...I didn't remeber that at all....so yeah, maybe she'd remember my 7th birthday...although she was only 5. lol

So.....#3 (Shorty) is turning 7 tomorrow. I'd thought about writing one of those touching, from-the-heart letters to her...one she'll probably never read, but speaks about how much I love her and can't wait to see the woman she's becomeing....yeah, um....Probably not.

There's just too much to do. Like usuall. Today is falling under the "ugh it's how late" catagory. Not that I've spent a lot of time goofing off this morning...at least it didn't feel like a lot of time. But it's already noon, and the list of things done is agonizingly short. Although I have already ticked off Monkey Man THREE whole times today. Whoohooo go me! Oh and I have gotten coffee (of course), although I'm not sure if one cup is gunna cut it...I may have to make more.

OH my! Bone Head got his hair done on Saturday! His hair was rapidly changing from baby blonde to darker blonde...and he badly needed a haircut. So, Captain took him and MM to the hair place. They came back with an adorable bowl cut for M.M. Shaved underneath and long on top :) And my eldest child came home with what I can only describe as a "Jonas Brothers" do. Yea...his hair is now dark brown (chocolate to be exact), with a blonde-blonde area above his forehead. He LOVES it. Shocked the heck outta me...but looks good. At least it looks like it's supposed to be messy.

Okay, okay...going to get busy on my list of adventures today. Yeah...adventures sounds WAY more interesting then chores. Hm...I may be on to something here. I'll test it out on the kids and get back to ya. "Hey kids...we need to start our adventures today". Hey, might work!

ps. Oh and yeah...the flowers are blooming...the ones that I didn't plant, and haven't touched are doing splendidly....the stuff I planted or take care of...isn't.

pps Okay...the tomato and the squash are doing good...but that's because Captain took those over. hahahahahahaaaa

Yes, another cleaning post!

You know that you really, really need to get some cleaning done when it takes you 5 minutes to locate the broom and dust pan...and you need to call in the search hounds to find the cleaner. It eludes me as to why these items were not in their homes, even though they haven't been used in over a week.

My wonderful Captain will be home from school in just eight days, and I just realized that I haven't gotten anything don that I said I was going to. On that list was...

1. Kill weeds and level out the area for the "secret garden" decking
2. Clean out green house and plant plants
3. Till garden area and plant plants
4. Clean up garage and have a yard sale

On the lit contributing to the fact that I haven't done a single one of these things...

1. Too tired at the end of the day to do much else than make dinner and pass out
2. I don't wanna
3. Overwhelmed by the ammount of yuck and (ew) spiders in the green house
4. RAIN! And yucky weather
5. I don't wanna
6. I searched for the "round-to-it", but it must have run away with my motivation, I'll be calling the dairy to post their pictures on milk cartons as soon as I find some motivation....maybe I can borrow some one else's
7. When I walk into the garage....well it's not a pretty picture at all. Between the cardboard space ship (waycool), MIL's stuff from moving that we haven't gotten around to taking to her house, the gear for Captain's job, and various other things that "belong" in a garage, oh and the garage sale stuff, stuffed into every little hole I could find... UGH...........I DON'T WANNA!

Okay, so it's Saturday, and I'm really supposed to be at WORK (the paying kind) right now, but my sitter is sick..so I'm not. Whew! I really didn't want to work today.

I DID find some motivation (prolly stolen, not borrowed), and am cleaning. The house. I must. I do this massive "oh crap" cleaning just about every Saturday. Because I wake up in the morning, look around and wonder what oh...Child Protective Services would think about my house. I worry that they would whisk my children away on the spot when they see the ring in the tub, or the 6 loads of laundry waiting to be either washed, folded or put away.

Okay, Okay....my house really isn't all that bad. No CPS agent would take kids away because of the state of my house. But that still doesn't mean that I LIKE the state my house gets into after all week of just barely doing anything.

It has just occured to me that a lot of my posts have been about cleaning. Maybe because when I take a break from cleaning I think...hmmm good time to blog and what's on my mind...cleaning. Maybe because I really know cleaning...I clean alot. Despite the fact that I barely clean during the week.

Maybe because it's a nice, safe topic to write about because I don't feel open enough to talk about things like my underware, bra shopping, details of my past and/or sex life.

Yup, I think that's probably the best reason...err excuse!

Okay I'm off to do another 15 minuts...as directed by the wonderful FlyLady....her system/method/rules really does work....as long as you do them! Check her out!* She's much funnier than I am.

* There's a LOT on her site! Take it slow and have fun! ;)

Ranting...cause I'm ticked and I can.

I need to rant. About work...once again.

I've spoken to the Manager and Assistant Manager several times now about them finding me a new job to do in the store so that I can give my arm a chance to heal. Early this week (I think it was Monday), they said that today was going to be my last day being a cashier, and that I'd do "something" else. They said that they'd tell the person in charge of the cashiers, so that she wouldn't schedule me.

Um...Yeah....I'm scheduled for the coming week...as a cashier. The manager has NO IDEA what I'm going to be doing, but thinks that the assistant manager has something in mind...and can I finish out the next week as cashier? GRRR NO! What part of "I need to stop" dont' you understand?

Okay, since I'm not ticked at my fellow cashiers or the person in charge of us, I'll work the next week...just so that they aren't short. But, if they dont' have something new for me starting the next Monday, I'm quitting on the spot. I already told the cashier's manager to not put me on the next schedule...so that's covered. We'll see.....right now I feel like they are just leading me on....dicking me around-so to speak.

In other news....ummm.....There is no other news....I don't have any cute stories about what the kids did today....I barely know what they did today. I hate working and not being the central part in their lives. Hell...I don't even know what they had for lunch today. I hate this....

Summer Gripes...

The last day of school is the 20th. This leaves us just 6 days until the children of the Valley run amock in every corner, hill, dale and road.

This post is about all the things that I don't like about children being out of school for the summer....(by children, I mean in general, not mine, that post will have to wait, it's too long)

The kids up the road will get honked at, I guarentee it. The other day, on the way out, I drove up the road to find three little boys riding their bikes in the road. No biggie, it's a rural road, and where else do you ride a bike? Well, I slowed down even further (speed limit is 20), and waited for them to get off the road to let me pass. Two of them did, the other looked at me, and proceeded to ride in circles in the middle of the road. He finally moved, and I wen ton my fuming way....after I told my kids that if I ever caught them acting stupid like that in the road I'd do all sorts of un-lovely things...top of the list would be taking bikes away.

They all swore, and I admitted they are all very well-behaved when it comes to giving vehicles their space to pass. They all get OFF the road and STOP until the vehicle is past. Hurray! I taught them something right!

On the other hand, they aren't getting themselves ready for school.

The other thing I'm not ready to handle during the summer....the loads of kids coming into the store buying all the candy and engery drinks (OMG, parents do you know your kids are getting energy drinks at the age of 10?), and paying with all their hard-earned (or found) change.

Okay that shouldn't be as bad for me this year, since I'm at the grocery store, and not the gas station like last year. Hopefully.

But the change doesn't bug me as much as the energy drinks does. Seriously, does an average 10 to 15 year old NEED energy drinks? I don't think so! I've even had parents in my checkout, actually buying cases of these things for their kids! Makes me really want to refuse to let them get the darn things. Am I allowed to do that? Can I seriously ask the customer if they are buying the drinks for themselves (also not a great choice of beverage for an adult), or the kids? Can I follow them home and make sure they aren't allowing Jr. to drink mass quanities of sugar, caffiene and "herbs" so they can stay up all night and keep everyone who has to work in the morning awake?

Living here it isnt' quite so bad. But when we used to live "in town", there would be children up and in the road, or near-by yards playing loudly until all hours of the night. There was even one family that apparently let their children just pass out whenever they felt like it, since the kids were routinly awake at 2 am.

My children will be awoken no later than 8 am during the summer (if they aren't already up), and will be sent to bed no later than 10 pm-but most likely closer to 8:30 or 9:00. A slight change in the schedule, to allow for more playing in the wonderful Alaska Sun.

How does your summertime schedule differ from your school-time schedule? I'll share ours in the next post! Until then....the countdown is on!

Rants and Raves

Okay, maybe a bit more rants than that of raves today, but we'll see what comes to pass....

I offically HATE my printer. Not only is the ink expensive enough that you have to take a second mortgage out to afford it, it does not print if one of those ink containers is out of ink. It will not do anything. It's an "all in one" that doesn't do a thing if there's no ink. I can't even scan, which takes no ink at all.

I also offically hate mornings like this. I woke the kids up just a little bit late this morning, and told them to hurry a little, and was met by Shorty flopping on the floor in a fit of tears, saying that it was all Princess's fault. Um, no, it's Mama's fault, dear, now get your butt dressed. She progressed from this colapsed state into the screaming and crying state through the morning.

Which, as you can imagine, drives everyone in the house up the wall. Monkey is now in a bad mood, and Princess it in her room pouting because I told her (for the millionth time) that she CAN NOT wear the same shirt two days in a row. OMG, she just came upstairs wrapped in a blanket. Wearng the same shirt, but without pants. Breathe, Mama, breathe......

They have to be out of the house in 7 minutes.....and Yuppers, I'm sitting here blogging it instead of dressing my NINE year old daughter. She'll just have to figure it out and get yelled at, cause I told her 40 minutes ago that she had to change.

Work rant.....Every morning,us cashiers have to sign out a counterfit pen from the Cash Audit lady. And in turn we have to return and sign in the pen when our shift is over. I've been signing the paper upside-down every day, because well....because I'm lazy for the most part. But because I dont' see why I should have to take an extra minute to turn it around to sign the right way and turn it back around, when there's customers waiting. ANYWHO....yesterday the Cash Audit Troll was saying my name(I should think of a name for myself) as I was signing. I finished and turned aroung. She told me to turn the paper around and sign the right way. I just looked at her with a blank stare. When my shift was over, I signed upside-down.

Today I'll be signing the right way, but under the name "Samantha Stevens".

Ummm....raves? I love Vanilla-Nut coffee creamer!

This and that - cause I can't think of a catchy title

Thoracic Outlet Syndrome (TOS) is when your nerve and artery gets pinched in between your colar bone and your first rib. (That's WAY layman's terms, I'm in no way professional about explaining things like that) And that's apparently what's wrong with my arm.

How to correct? Push, pull, prod, stretch and strengthen. And a whole lotta painfull crap. And even more of getting "yelled" at to stand and sit up straighter. Fun stuff...where's Mom when I need her...and when the Hell did I start NOT standing and sitting up straight? Seriously, I really thought that my posture was good...if not great, it was at least Okay. Not so. I could stand in for the Hunchback of Notradame when sitting....

Okay, it's not that bad.

The therapy hurts though.

Having TOS explains at least one thing, though. All those times when I went to the Doc for various things and they asked if I've always had low blood pressure....well yeah, if you take the readings in my right arm, I do...the damn artery is pinched!

In other news...Old Man Winter is giving us a reminder that he hates us. Snow every night and sun in the day. My sis-in-law went off the road this morning...and so I sit waiting for her and have a moment to blog. Mixed blessing? Heh heh. She's okay, btw, but going off the road is freaky and basically makes you feel like a dumb-ass. LOL

One a completely strange and off the wall note...why are fingers hairy?

My Fav. Spud recipe...

Crazy Hip Blog Mama's is outta dinner ideas and are desprately asking for recipes using potatoes. So, for everyone's taste buds delight, I give you....

"Food involving potatoes"
(everything is 'food', kids ask "What's for dinner?", I say FOOD)

3 T veg oil (i use safflower)
1 bag frozen diced potatoes with onions and peppers (potatoes o'brian)
1/2 tsp dried oregano or basil
1/2 tsp pepper
2 Cups (or a small bag) broccoli flowerets
1 pound smoked sausage, cut into bite-sized pieces
1-2 cups (to taste) Cheddar Cheese

~Heat oil in 10-inch skillet over medium heat. Add potatoes, oregano and pepper. Cover and cook awhile, stirring so it doesn't burn, until potatoes are done. 8 to 10 minutes (If useing frozen broccoli add this too)

~Stir in broccoli (if fresh); add sausage. Cover and cook until sausage is hot (again, stir so it doesn't burn)

~Cover with cheese and heat until cheese is melty...just the way kids like it.

If you do the cheese just right, kids will barely notice that there's green stuff in it. Even makes husbands happy!

cook time: about 20 minutes
Makes 6 servings

It's not even 9 O'Clock!

6:15 am...Captain beating up the alarm clock
7:00 am...waking unwakeable children
7:05 am...fighting with pre-teen 9 year old to eat
7:15 am....hair and make up
7:30 am....instructing children to hurry up and get ready
7:35 am....telling pre-teen 9 year old that she may not wear the same shirt two days in a row
7:45 am....Telling 9 year old that she MUST change her clothes
7:50 am....pondering working while on my pain killers.....decided agaisnt
8:00 am...Yelling at uber-slow 6 year old to find her stuff
8:05 am....remembering that I washed her coat, and that's why she's not ready
8:10 am....remembering that I need to make lunches
8:20 am....running out the door to stop pre-teen 9 year old from riding her brand new bike to the bus stop....where it most certainly will get stolen
8:25 am...taking dog out
8:30 am....washing the doggie doo off my shoe that I didn't see on the ground cause the darn dog was being a stupid-ass and freaking out
8:40 am....wishing I could go back to bed

To Wanda!

Oh my! Three posts in one day! I'm going to jamb the blogosphere.

Right now, I'm sitting in a room that's torn up. I've removed all the things on the walls, and taken everything out of the bookcase, and moved said bookcase (found 50 cents too), and now it's down to moving the computer desk away from the wall.

I'm really debating just un-hooking the computer for a lil bit and re-enacting a scene from Fried Green Tomatoes on the desk. TO WANDA!!!! 'Course, then I don't have a clue what we'd put the computer on....but I seriously hate this desk.

Okay, okay...why is the "family room all torn up? Because after 10 months of having the stuff, I'm finally doing the Venitian plaster on the walls! I've got 2/3rds of it done, and I can't go any further due to the desk being in the way.

Right now it looks like I've let some kindergarteners with mud loose in the room. But I'm told that it will look awesome when totally finished. I'll post pics when I'm done! :)

In which I spend 15 minutes on the toilet

No, not like that. Waiting for someone to bring me toilet paper. Oh but it's not as easy as that.

M.M. was using the giant bundle of T.P. as a seat. Shorty went to get it for me, and he proceeded to knock her down (spilling her popcorn-I don't know why she was holding it and getting me t.p. The fight that follows is nothing short of ear-splitting and was probably heard three roads over.

Topping their screaming, I can be heard from upstairs, saying I just need a little, please!

It seriously took 15 minutes to get some toilet paper.

Moral of the day...Check before you go........

Does Hannah Montana wear fast shoes?

Wow, actually two consecutive posts!

Well, this is due to the fact that my sitter has the flu...so she cannot babysit and I cannot goto work. Loads of time on my hands, and lots more time spent with my brood to make funny posts. Also more time to clean and make up blog posts while doing so...

Monster Monkey said just a few moments ago. "Mama, when I was just a kid (holds up 4 fingers), I wasn't so fast." I agree and chuckle; when he was just a kid was only about a month ago. A month must feel like almost an eternity to a five year old.

And he is fast. If he gets more than a 3-second head-start on me I can't catch him. Whichs reminds me of our little outing last Sunday to the dreaded Shoe Store. This special store is famous for it's supposedly low prices, and there's probably one of these great places right in your neighborhood! They are everywhere.

We went, me and all four urchins...who were actually looking more like the angels I keep telling them they've tied up in the basement and replaced with themselves-more like demon-spawn. Unlike anything I could have dreamed I'd give birth to....

Um...where was I? Oh, shoe store! So we went, and we looked, and we tried on. I went looking solely (haha) for dress shoes for the girls, since wearing pretty church dresses and snow boots is just blah. Yeah, Mama, Hannah Montana wouldn't wear snow boots with this dress, I mean come on. We did find nice dress shoes for the girls, and although I told him NO even before we left the truck, M.M. found shoes.

Now, he doesn't pick out shoes by what's on them, nor by the price (yikes), but by how fast they are. He tried out a pair with Power Rangers on them...said they were super fast (and yes he RAN around the store wearing them). I vetoed the Power Rangers right off the bat. I told him to look again. He found Croc knock-offs. They weren't fast at all, and the right one flew off while running and almost hit the store lady in the rear....who then adimently asked me if I needed any assistance in finding what I wanted. I politely told her No, we are just trying out shoes. M.M. tried out some more shoes with the help of Bone Head, while the girls and I finished up finding dress shoes. THREE pairs for Princess Pout and one for Shorty. I then paid all attention to MM and his shoe quest.

I located a pair of fast-looking shoes that were sporting the "sale" sign (Only $12.99), and asked that he try them out. He didn't like them at first, until I reminded him that he didn't try them out. I told him to run around. He looked like I'd just handed him a $50 in a candy store and zoomed out of the isle. After a couple laps around the store he skidded back into the isle I was waiting in, and said "These are the fasterest shoes I've ever runned in!" SOLD!

Fast forward to yesterday, M.M. is getting ready for a quick trip to the store down the road, and he brings me one of his brand-new shoes. The stupid velcro strip on the top is ripped out of it's stitching! WHAT?!?!?!?!!? He'd tried to pull it tight and it just snapped.

I'm ticked. These shoes are going back today. I don't care if they are the fastest shoes ever made for a size 11 kids. I refuse to pay any ammount of money (okay maybe 25 cents) for shoes that fall apart after 4 days of minimal wear! ARUGH!

Difficult Procedures

Do you know how difficult it can be to do anything in a normal and not totally strange fashion when you cannot fully use the hand that you regularly use?

After my trip to the doctor yesterday, I now have a wrist/hand brace that I must wear. This contraption keeps my wrist from moving. And as I said, this makes it difficult to do many things.

From typing this to dressing. Doing dishes (without getting it wet) and brushing my daughters' hair. Even bathroom procedures leave me a little perplexed, sitting on the "Great white round one", trying to figure out how to accomplish things left-handed.

My rationalism tells me that I will get used to the immobility with time. My other half is screaming at me to just rip the thing off and toss it in a deep, dark hole. And it hasn't even been 24 hours yet.

But does the hand/wrist feel any better with the impediments placed upon it? Um...wrist yes, slightly, hand no. I think it's taking even more effort to move fingers to compensate for the wrist not moving. Time will tell, I suppose. Meanwhile, I just may become ambidextrous by force.

****Warning for future posts****

My favorite time of year is rapidly making it's way here! In most other parts of the country this time of year is called Spring. Here we call it "Break Up"...cause the ice is breaking up. It's when all the lovely Springy things happen and it's when I start getting all mushy and poetic and garden-crazed. So look for (or watch out for) upcoming posts including me waxing poetic about green things and critter babies and updates on what is growing in my guest-room-turned garden starting room.

Blogger wish: Why don't we have underline and strike-out?
Blogger rant: I can't make the labels thing say JUST spring...it's inserting BREAK all on it's own. grrrrr

Don't forget the coffee in the dryer

Hurray! Spring Break is over! I'll just do a quick happy dance here, feel free to join in.

I did not, nor did Captain, take Spring Break off of work. Captain could not as his boss did, and I did not because, well...because I didn't remember it was Spring Break until the Sunday before....when the kids informed me that they shouldn't have to goto bed at the normal time because they didn't have to goto school the next day. How's that for a run-on sentence? I should fix it....naw....don't think I will.

I'm sitting here, drinking blah regular creamer coffee cause i ran outta the good stuff. It sucks. My jeans are also still half wet. In the seams and waist. I do have time to redry them...I should or I'll freeze...okay they're back in the dryer.

Also ticked this a.m. cause when I pulled one of my fav tops out of the dyer (I forgot to throw clothes in dryer last night), it's missing its zipper! It's one of those cropped (shorter) hoody, mirco fleece things. I like it alot for work. Still looks great under the awful vest I have to wear, and keeps me warm(ish) while at my register right in front of the doors.

It's also St. Paddy's Day. No, I'm not Irish...not even a bit (that I know of), but I love this "holiday" anyways. Not really into the parades or parties or anything like that, but I think that's why I like it. You can celebrate this day without doing much. Or you can go all out. I used to make sure I was wearing green...this year I'm getting pinched cause I'm wearing pink. I once had a pair of really cute Shamrock earrings...they're lost...either grew legs or got lost in a move...or one of my sisters "borrowed" them. I think the latter is the most probable.

Do I think we'll get crazy Irish revelers in the store today? Hmm...50/50 chance. I'll bet we get at least one person that is all decked out for the Greenest day of the year. Probably will be an older lady, buying organic soy milk, bananas (cause how can you not at 75 cents a pound), some various Easter swag and $80 worth of vitamins.

Now I've got totally dry pants, a touch of green (the logo on my eww vest), and still drinking yuck coffee. Yup, it'll be an alright day...I hope!

Sunday...Funday...Shmunday

Another Sunday and another day that's totally nuts. Although today is starting out a bit better than most. I actually woke up before my alarm clock (which Captain so thoughtfully set for me), and there was already coffee made. The children have been nice to eachother (if a bit loud), and I only had one set-back so far....forgetting to put the clothes in the dryer the night before, I'm now running a few items so that Shorty can have clean pants to wear to church....

I even did my nails! Which is a good thing, NOT Martha-style, cause they were looking ratty. While not salon perfection, at least there's no weird edges anymore (a hazzard of work), and the polish is all there once again.

We need to be out of the house no later than 20 minutes from now. Because I didn't go anywhere yesterday, and did not get gas before actually having to be somewhere...I now have to leave to somewhere early to get gas. And since I'll have all four moochers on-board for the gas trip, I'll have to leave extra early to argue with the kids and get them all back into the truck after I cave and purchase something for them.

We'll be leaving the house (hopefully) at 10:05 to make it to church by 11:00, and it's only about 15 minutes away.

And as my children are at various stages of readiness, I'm here at the computer. Dressed, pressed, ironed and painted...

Princess Pout has yet to brush her hair, although I told her to do so 10 minutes ago and I did see her with brush in hand....Shorty is still waiting on her pants....Monkey is 1/2 dressed-he's cowboyed up today...including bright red long underware-cowboy style like in Lonesome Dove. Bone Head is probably dressed, although I don't know if he actually changed his clothes...I should go check. AH HA! He is dressed, and to the nines! Dress pants, button-down shirt and suit top. Spiffy.

Me, other than spending too much time on my hair and makeup, I'm just wearing jeans and a nice-ish top. I'll probably be working in the nursary today, and refuse to subject my really nice clothes to drool, spit-up and all the other hazzards of playing with and careing for babies.

As for the rest of my day...we'll arrive home from church and stuff our faces, I'll start dinner (potato soup tonight), do some more cleaning and laundry (maybe I'll remember to DRY the clothes) and then it'll be BACK to church for Truth Project and more baby watching for me.

I sorta miss the old days when Sunday was a day of rest....

TV Dinners

Today is the first of the month. Have you ever gone grocery shopping on the first of the month? Well stop it! Your cashier hates you.

Okay, okay...not hate; but most definately not love. Not even like. Maybe tollerate. If you get under $200 worth, it's tollerance. Over that, it just might be hate. Just a warning.

My kids are running amock again. I think one of them has eaten their dinner...he did ask for more. And I just gave them all their dessert. Frozen strawberry ice cream something. Don't ask me, it's frozen and says it's strawberry. Came in individual cups...I'm not sure what it is.

I've decided for the maybe 1 millionth time that Captain Morgan is my best friend ever.

MY Captain is working tonight. Allllll night. I'm a single mom until sometime tomorrow when he's ready to wake up. Makes for a fun morning/early afternoon of keeping the children quiet while Captain sleeps.

Monster Monkey was riding his skateboard (yes in the house) during dinner. While the others were eating on the floor in front of the TV. While I was on here catching up on my favorite blogs. Yeah, I didn't care much. Told them to eat at the table. He's just got the hang of going straight on the darn thing without falling. Props to the Monkey! That's better than me.

Shorty has the hiccups, and I don't care. I've got the #1 bestest cure of hiccups, though. If you can lift the person....lift them up upside down and shake them. If they laugh, they are cured of the hiccups...if you can't lift the person, you're on you're own...and if they don't laugh when shaken upside down, you're on your own. I guess crying while upside down would work too....

I really don't feel like writing anymore. So I'll leave you with this thought.

I let my kids run amock, but they still aren't allowed to watch Sponge Bob. Which, I think, is the downfall of all Americans in this century, both children and adults. They aren't allowed to watch a whole lot of other things, either. All of which I think should be taken off the airways all together, not just saved to "adult viewing". There's just too much crap on TV these days to be truely helpfull as a babysitter anymore. Damnitall!

What do you think about while you're cleaning? I think blog posts. Yup, I compose blog posts while I clean. Mostly it's about what I'm doing, what I find, and what I find disgusting. Call it a mental play-by-play, or a voice over in one of those weird documentaries.

The mom is then overjoyed after almost breaking her back moving the couch to clean under it. The agony of the shove and the thoughts of disapearing sanity are whisked away by the discovery of the long-lost (enter item(s) here

This inner blog is usually what keeps me going, as well. I tell myself, "Keep it up, just finish this room and you can go post all this neat-o stuff you're thinking". Most of this mental blogging never makes it to the keyboard, and what does often doesn't get past the edit stage, and what does make it far enough to be posted...well it's just much better when it's in my head.

Something must get lost between the point where I think it and the point when I allow myself to sit and type. Probably got swept up and tossed in the trash with a bunch of other things that I probably shouldn't have thrown away, but didn't care about at the moment. Like the perfectly good pencil I didn't see hiding under a piece of paper until it was in the trash. I didn't fish it out.
It'll soon be on it's way to a trash-heap grave yard to someday be decomposed into dirt. In essence, it's dead. So it goes. (and if you know what book that came from, you win 10 big smacks on the back).

While I was being a lazy slacker this morning, catching up on blogs I've missed...while M.M. watched Dukes of Hazzard on DVD, I found out that one of the blogging mom's whose blog I *heart* is 29 years old just like me! The only difference is that she has seven kids, and I have four (okay there's more differences, but hey...if you didn't know that, there's more wrong with you than not being bored enough desprately click off my page (which is a dig on ME, not you, silly))

I lost my point. OH! She's really cool, kooky, has losta kids and is 29. I got 1/2 of a losta kids and I'm 29. Hahahaaa. Okay sounded better in my head....

I seriously could go on for like pages, but I think that's just a by-product of not having anyone adult to talk to today. I'm seriously thinking of calling the operator just to talk to someone who doesn't call me "Mama".....

Cleaning party

Rather than bore you with tales of what has happened in the space of time that I've apparently fallen off the blogoshere (holidays--were good!), I'll just bore you with tales of today's happenings.

I set the kids on chores. We're trying it differently, and it's working well for the most part. I put slips of paper with chores on them in a bowl, and each kid draws out a slip of paper and then does the chore. It's having amazing success! Except for MM, who did 2 chores, then refused to do any more. That's okay I still have 3/4 of my slaves...errr I mean children....working at full speed.

While they started this new chore/cleaning/cheap labor endevour, I decided to clean off my desk. I plead temporary insanity. Cleaning off my desk doesn't just mean clearing a working area on the top. It also means pulling things out of the cubbies and tossing, filing, or putting away everything that has accumulated.

But about an hour later, I'm done (except for dusting it off and polishing it) and I found some amuzing items. First, right on the top of my desk....a piece of dog food. I have no clue how long it's been there, nor how it got there, but it's now back in the dog's dish (hey nothing waisted here).

The second item isn't so strange, except if you consider that it's January and I have cleaned off my desk at least (at most?) once since summer.....a dried up dandilion.

Also in the dark caves of said cubbies, I found 1/2 of a dollar bill. Not a hint of an idea on that one. No signs of the other half.

The most amuzing thing (IMO). I found a panty liner! No not used, you're gross! I remember when MM brought it to me, asking what it was. And I took it away and tossed it in my desk. Hahahaa, memories....guess you had to be there.

After I polish my desk, I just might attack the bookshelf. No telling what I'll find there!

The pile of junk on the other side of the desk is haunting me. I might just unfold one of the table clothes on that pile and drape it prettily over the mess.

As for the kids...they are well through the bowl of "to do" chores! And the house is rapidly getting cleaner. I like this! No need to tell them what to do, and they aren't getting burned out by doing 'their' chores. Although the thought of Shorty trying to take out the trash makes me chuckle. And the look on Bone Head's face when he drew "bathroom trash" almost made me fall off my chair laughing.

They don't know it, but I've a half gallon of yummy ice cream waiting them when they are finished. I think such great effort deserves a reward! Don't you? I mean, the whole house (minus bedrooms) is getting cleaned! Even the pets fed and the dog brushed! And all I did was write some things down! Seriously...we started about an hour and half ago, and there's only THREE chores left to do!

Oh and the desk...the horrible desk. I might have nightmares....seriously....then again maybe not cause of the nice, clean family areas that I now have!

Okay, okay. The reason that we're doing all this cleaning today, and it's so bad...I got a job cashiering at a local whare-house type store. It's a pretty good job, the people I work with are really cool. But, working leaves me so pooped at the end of the day that I can barely get myself home, let alone make dinner, spend time with kids and hubby AND clean house.

*Tales from the kids*

MM found out today that the first 3 letters of his name spells BRA. Everyone had a good laugh on that one. And I must say that I am QUITE proud of my almost 5 year old! He can recognize and WRITE the first three letters of his name and recogizes when the rest of his name isn't right. I'm such a proud mama!

School startes back up on Monday! Shall we all jump up and do the "Go Back to School" dance? I'm gunna!