Back Away From the Computer

As of late, I've really struggled with blogging. It became a minor addiction really. Perhaps I believed it was the only way I was 'heard' anymore. One of the prices I've paid as a SAHM is lack of intellectual stimulation on any sort of regular basis. If the brain isn't exercised, it atrophies. Pregnancy voided me of enough brain cells, I want to keep the ones I have. I suppose I could have just as easily picked up some novels or kept the tv on CNN but that would not have satisfied the interactive aspect of intellectual stimulation that I really craved. So I delved into the internet. This isn't something new, ever since I discovered the joys of surfing, I've been hooked. I love the ability to learn about anything in .034 seconds. I have connected with people halfway around the world, made great friends, and even learned a new language. Too much of a good thing? Yeah, I think so. I knew it was bad when I was writing blog entries in my head when I should have been sleeping, or spending every free (and sometimes not really free) moments blogsurfing or redesigning my site. I was compelled to be online, I could always come up with an excuse, "oh, I need to pay some bills" or "check my email" or "look up the price of grain in China. I oft chose writing over wrestling; surfing before sweeping; and perusing instead of playing. At least I lived up to my moniker, right? I was just so desperate to stay connected to not only the outside world, but also to a part of me that was now gone. The part that had the luxury of sitting on the computer all day, calling it work and picking up a paycheck to boot. Now, there are these children who rely on me, just me, I'm finally accountable, truly accountable, for what I do in a day. It's good. I need it. I am a slacker.

These past few days, when I do sit at the computer, I don't find it as magnetic as I once did. A reformed computer junkie? Let's not go too far, but in all honesty, I don't feel the compulsion to get online like I did even two weeks ago. It's a bittersweet victory. It's sad that I had to hide online for so many months fighting the reality of my new life. That my boys, mostly DB, suffered the consequences of my selfish actions. But, I'm happier, not just on the surface but in the core. It just took a shift in perspective and a dose of patience (a REALLY BIG DOSE OF PATIENCE) to start walking the path on which I want to be.

I can already see the trickle down effects on my family. We find more joy than pain in toddlerhood these days, and in each other. My stoic don't-show-emotions-at-all cost husband and I even had a great talk last night followed by a little convening of the procedure. Life is good, and getting better.

I might have found my ticket!

Scene: Out on the deck with the boys. GB is sitting in my lap and DB is scooping up something imaginary and pretending to dump it on GB's head.

Me: DB, what are you doing?
DB: Dumping water on his head!

Took a moment to sink in, but apparently I'm raising myself a future man of the cloth, DB was baptizing GB. I might get into heaven after all.

Are you ready for some football?

Yeah, me too, now if only I had a team that played some football, I'd be happy. I know HG is happy (I won't remind her that her precious Eagles never seem to make it happen where it counts) and my husband is happy because he has a certain Eagles quarterback on his fantasy football team. Dammit I want some football happiness, but alas it was a weekend full of grid iron disappointment. First the rabid Penn State football family was in town this weekend and coincidentally the Penn State game aired here. That was a sight NOT to behold, not only did the Nittany Lions look pitiful, the announcing was God Awful. Then my hometown Rams played--of whom I'm not a great fan, but it's football and I love football. They allowed the tying field goal in the last 17 seconds of the game and lost in overtime. But that's ok, because Mike Martz is a jackass and deserves to lose. But Sunday night is what truly wounded me. I waited all week to see my beloved Bucs play the Sunday night game, it's a rare treat since they don't air many games here in St. Louis with the division switch a few years back, and damn, just damn.

I've been a Bucs fan ever since they wore orange and had a gay pirate mascot. They were losers, oh yeah, no denying. Then, a ray of light, hope, a new coach, a new team, a new uniform (Thank God). We had defense, one hell of a defense, the best in the league. Offense, um not so much, but glorious defense. I rode the wave of great red zone coverage, of making it to the playoffs for the first time in DECADES, of watching them win more than they lost. AND THEN, if that weren't wonderful, we got Chuckie. Oh Chuckie how I loved you. I watched you coach the Raiders and dreamed of you, yum, so delicious...Um oops, I mean you're a great coach and you came to Tampa and got us a RING, a SUPERBOWL RING. Oh happy day. On top of the world I was.

Then, there was last season, not impressive by any means, but hey, still glowing from the RING. Then, the offseason, you broke my heart, you dumped my boy--God NO I'm not talking about Keshawn "fuckface" Johnson or Warren "I'mtoocoolforeveryoneand don'tdoshitonthefield" Sapp--I'm talking Lynch. My boy in the back, my strong strong safety, my boy. I loved Lynch--I own an Alstott jersey, but that was a moment of foolhardy lust--Lynch was the man. *weeps for lynch* Sigh, now there's this season, what a way to start, 0-3, no TDs in the first two games, no offense again and worse NO FUCKING DEFENSE. Oh Chuckie, why hast thou forsaken me?

A yard of linen and a wooden cross

It's official, the GB is a child of God. Woohoo? Personally, I just loved dressing him up in a purty christening gown and bonnet.


GB with his Godparents

Yes, I'm a heathen, I don't have any problem raising kids in the church, I think it's a good moral base, but I still can't get excited about religion myself. The service was lovely, our pastor is really fantastic and lends a personal and often humorous touch to whatever he does. But, standing up there reciting the words, I felt like a fraud.

"Do you promise to raise your child in the church, if so say we do." We do. "Do you promise to free yourself from sin, blah blah blah, if so say we do." We do. *blink blink* Did I just agree to *free* myself of sin? Um, what exactly does that entail? How about if I just lighten myself of sin or only sin when the kids aren't around, will that work? Free and sin just don't work for me...well unless we're talking free sin, now that I could get into, might go nicely with my new career as a professional spanker.

Not quite what you were searching for

"finding a professional spanker"

but, I could be convinced to switch professions for the right price...

Blah blah blah

I got nothing, so I'll post some pics from our boating excursion on Sunday.


Survivor: The Next Generation 


Beer is a GREAT mood enhancer 


BWB and the Golden Child 


White trash beach 


Sunset means mosquitos, time to go! 

Took the Weekend Off

Been feeling a bit unmotivated to blog, mostly because I don't have much to say at the moment, but also I'm kind of going through that uncomfortable period that you experience after admitting something embarrassing or weird about yourself. Like telling a boy you have a crush on him and he doesn't reciprocate. Yeah, sorta like that.

Honestly though, laying it out there has helped. It's given me a sort of accountability. People know *gasp* I can't hide behind this shell anymore. It was somewhat akin to what I felt after my miscarriages, not shame, but this intense need to keep them a secret. I didn't want the pity or the looks or the 'I'm sorrys'. I wanted it to be gone and past and not burden anyone else with it. Then, I started talking about it one day because someone on a discussion board was going through what I did, and if my experience could help her, then I should talk about it. It was therapy for me, and as I became more open, I became aware of just how common it actually was, not just with people online, but people I knew, had known for years.

Anyway, I've started really thinking about the steps *I* need to take to help make my situation more tolerable for me. Because really, I think that I have the potential to enjoy SAHMotherhood once I change my expectations and mindset. First, I have to plan and plan and then plan some more. Plan what? Outings, lots and lots of outings, I want to be somewhere every day of the week--ok, that might not be feasible, but I'd like to have something going on three days a week that forces me to get dressed and leave the house. It can be as simple as taking a walk around the neighborhood or a trip to Tarjay (but not WalMart, because that would NOT be stress relief). Next, and this is much harder, I need to limit my time on the computer to nap times, evenings when BWB is home or when kids are otherwise occupied/sleeping. See, I've been using the computer as a crutch--it keeps me connected to the outside world when I'm feeling trapped. Not to mention that I was at a computer all day when I was working and old habits die hard. Last, in addition to that precious personal time I also need to be much more vigilant about planning a date night with the husband. We had one on Saturday and it was wonderful. I need to test out the new babysitter whose number I got two weeks ago. She lives five houses away--no excuse not to call her.

I'm going to work hard on these things and see if it helps. If after making a concerted effort I see no improvement, then I promise (ANG)that I'll go to the doc at talk about meds. I want so much for my family to be happy, they deserve a centered, level-headed mom rather than the moody, temperamental she-beast that I often am.

Wish me luck!

Midnight Confessions

I've noticed (as I'm sure have you) that my entries of late have been a tad arachnid rich and content poor. I've merely been tapping out some mundane surface shit and not what's really been on my mind. Because, what's on my mind, isn't funny or entertaining, it's a big tangled mess of emotional garbage.

My good friend, we'll call her V, once told me that she admired the way I could take a shitty situation and still find humor in it. I laughed and thought, yeah, I'm plenty good at cracking jokes and making snide remarks when I don't really want to feel. Laughter is good medicine, but it's just a band-aid for what ails, and band-aids tend to fall off and then you have that white icky scab because it hasn't gotten any air, and it's soft so it usually falls off and then it itches as the healing process starts all over again, wait, what was I talking about?

Oh yeah, I'm fucking unhappy and I don't know what to do about it. I've found myself living for the next thing on the calendar: the trip to Florida, my photo class, my in-laws upcoming visit, a trip to Chicago...I arrive at each one thinking THIS is going to be it, this is going to turn things around and make me happy again. None of it does. Oh, I'm temporarily bolstered, but it's not sustaining, because it's not things that are going to make me happy long term, it's me that has to. Only I can't seem to figure out exactly how to do that. Most of this surrounds my (not so) recent career switch to being a stay at home mom. I'm still feeling quite smothered by the sameness of it all.

I do have good days, days where I take true joy at being home with my boys. It's cool that I get to watch their personalities evolve, share their firsts, and foster their development. But, there are the other days, days where I feel like DB's asking, "mommy, wanna play cars?" is likened to someone asking me to spit polish the Eiffel Tower. How dare he want my attention when I'm so engrossed in something that *I* want to be doing. Fuck, I hate that I feel like that. I know that I'm still adjusting to the unstructured, no deadline, no free time, no sick days life of stay home momdom, but it's been five months and I don't know if I'm really improving at all. I'm constantly struggling with the questions: Am I cut out for this? And if not, what the hell should I be doing if not raising my children? Sigh, so melodramatic. I really don't want to go back to work, I'm sure due in large part to the fact that I never *loved* any job I had. Had I found my career, perhaps, but it makes no sense to me to go back and do something I couldn't care less about and put my kids in daycare to boot.

I could go on meds to improve my mood, but no, I couldn't. I know it works for a lot of people, but I have two problems. 1) Meds and me, we don't do so well together--the sides effects tend overshadow the healing properties. 2) I feel like it's just another band-aid and not fixing what's wrong. This, of course, is my totally uninformed opinion, but it's the only one I got.

I'm tired, tired of feeling down, tired of making my husband frustrated with his inability to help me, tired of being pissy with my two truly great kids, tired of bouncing back and forth among all the excuses I've made for myself as to why I can't.

It's time to do something, but what...

The BWB is occasionally VERY funny

Upon emailing the BWB the news that I had just vacuumed up 20 spiders from the floorboards around the basement and to not be surprised if their friends and relatives plan a sneak attack in our bed tonight, he asked if they were the dust spiders and NOT the orb spinners from the other night. I told him they were all black widows. He resonds, that's fine, it was the spiny legs that really got me... When I suggested some other types of spiders they COULD have been, he replied:

How about aggressive super-fast hairy jumping spiders the size
of a dinner plate? How about you just run my man parts through a rusted century-old planer before giving me a salty alcohol bath?

Heee, poor boy really doesn't like spiders.

What I Learned in Photo Class Was...

nothing. Ok, I learned a little, but that was only because a very nice girl who'd already done some developing/printing helped me out. Our teacher is interesting to say the least. I'll paint you a picture, her outfit consisted of black jeans, a black shortsleeved button down shirt with flames, a black ball cap with flames, chili pepper earrings and black shoes also sporting...you guessed it...flames. I'd say she's in her 40s, and such the stereotypical artist--you know, kind of out there. She's the type of person, that if you ask a question, won't actually answer it, but rather spend the next 15 minutes relating a personal story that she was reminded of by your question. Also, she talked about her own photography, a LOT. Not that it wasn't cool stuff, but this was SUPPOSED to be a learning experience not an exhibition. She had no paperwork for us, we had no idea what we were supposed to bring the first class. I guess we're supposed to learn by osmosis.

I'm not worried though, I'm a kinetic learner by nature and tend to do best when left to my own to my own devices (or get my ass in a shitload of trouble). Hopefully by next week, I'll have some cool prints to scan in and share with the class. That is, if the osmosis works.

The Professional Slacker's Brand New Easy Weight Loss Program

Being a slacker is not conducive to practicing standard methods of weight loss, so I have devised a fool proof and effortless method of slimming down. I'm not trying to sell you a miracle pill and you won't have to count a single calorie under my plan.

Before discussing the program itself, let's first examine the factors involved in weight loss. There is the obvious reduction of caloric intake--eat less, lose weight, easy right? Wrong! That takes willpower, egad. Then, there is painful and time consuming cardiovascular exercise, really, who wants to run around and get all sweaty? Finally we have controlled stimulation of various muscle groups achieved by activities like situps and weight lifting. You won't need any expensive gadgets or space taking equipment with TPSBNEWLP! All you need is a TV!

First, having expanded cable or satellite is a big help, but if you don't, we can work around that. Check your guide for the National Geographic Channel, then find a show called "Taboo". I have watched many episodes and the ones you really want to look for are the culinary delight episodes. This evening, for instance, I watched an entire hour of people eating things like, duck fetus along with drinking duck fetus juice straight from the eggshell, raw bat meat, shish kabobbed fried tarantulas, and live octopus! Yum yum--NOT! Now, I'm sure you're asking what this has to do with weight loss, right? Well, I'm about to tell you.

After watching minute after minute of people around the world eating grotesque "delicacies", you'll find your stomach starts to sour and food becomes quite unappealing. See, you've already conquered the first factor of losing weight--eating less! See how easy that was? As you continue to watch-- this might be the hard part for some of you, but hang in there!-- you'll notice your heart rate begins to rise. The anticipation alone of knowing what these people are going to put in their mouth gets your ticker going faster and faster. It's your own personal adrenaline rush! There, we've already achieved step number two--raising that heart rate, don't stop now!! Throughout the episode many will find their gag reflex going wild, even to the point of dry heaving. This is great for you abs, without all the concerted effort of doing crunches. If you've found yourself grossed out to the point of reverse peristalsis, give yourself bonus points! You're taking care of all three factors in one fell swoop: purging extra calories, exercising your abs, and running to the bathroom sure can raise that heart rate!

See how easy that was, all the benefits of expensive fitness programs without ever leaving your couch. Now, for those of you without cable, you can always catch reruns of Fear Factor. They have some incredibly unpleasant challenges in which the contestants partake. You can tape several episodes and play as many as you need to to tap into your fullest level of disgust.

I hope TPSBNEWLP can you help you as much as it's helped me. No cookies and cream ice cream for me tonight! See, it really works!

More Fun with Poop and Unrelated Tales of Ickiness

Last night, the Slacker family experienced a series of completely unrelated nightmarish events whose only commonality was a big time ick factor.

It all started innocently enough, we went to a local park hosting a fair and fireworks. We were to meet up with other members of my playgroup, but after several circuits around the entirety of the park with no luck, we gave up and plopped our belongings on the grass. DB was antsy and GB was sleeping so I told the BWB to take him to the little playground over yonder since would were NOT going to wait in the 30 minute lines to ride a pony or go down the inflatable giant slide. I cracked open a Bud and surveyed the crowd in hopes of finding someone, anyone I recognized--I mean God forbid I have to sit and enjoy an evening with JUST my family. Dusk fell, bugs abounded, and the boys returned. I couldn't relax as the urge to navigate through the throngs of people seeking the playgroup was too strong. Call me obsessive. Then of course, the inevitable happened, DB took a giant dump in his diaper and I knew I didn't have a spare--figuring I'd find my neighbor whose son wears the same size and I could have one of hers. BWB said, it doesn't seem to be bothering him, but it was my out, so I suggest we just go. BWB wasn't upset, because the thought of sitting amidst several thousand cars trying to exit the park after the fireworks displays was none too appealing to him anyway.

We get in the car, the stench, it was horrendous and I noticed the matching stains of poo juice on the boys trousers. I placed a towel in his carseat, relieved that we'd chosen to go now and we held our breath for the drive home. Upon arrival, I carefully removed DB from the seat and car, hoping not to disrupt the molten mess further. Once in the laundry room I went to strip the boy when I noticed he was staring at his finger upon which was a glob of mushy poo, and worse? there's a fly buzzing around it. I immediately grab his wrist, so as to prevent spreadage, and asked the boy why he felt the need to stick his finger in his diaper. "I no stick finger in diaper, mommy" and that's when I turn the boy around and notice the flow of feces running down the back of his leg, over his sock and into the back of his shoe. My gag reflex goes nuts and I'm stuck there holding the boys arm with one hand and maneuvering him around so as not to touch anything. Thankfully the BWB walks in with the pumpkin seat and I plead for assistance. Not noticing the shit stream, he's like what's the problem? Upon realization of just how bad this blowout is, he takes over wrist duty while I gather paper towels. We wipe down as much as possible and strip the boy, immediately soaking his clothes in a pail. We transfer him to the tub, where the rest of the story will have to remain untold as I made the BWB have shit shower duty.

After we all disinfected ourselves and the Expedition and the kitchen floor, we got the kids to bed, cracked open a couple more Buds and looked for a movie to watch. We ultimately settled on Monster as we had wanted to see it in the theater, but went to Mystic River instead. I'd heard all the hype about how Charlize Theron only won an award for being so damn ugly, and not because she was all that great. Well, you know what, she earned that award for being ugly, because God Damn if I could focus for one second on anything but how freaking ugly she was. I don't know if it was the lack of discernible eyebrows above those intensely dark eyes, the prosthetic teeth that made her upper lip stick in one place for half the movie, or the skin, ack the skin. I think I would have enjoyed focused on the movie more if they'd just picked some naturally ugly woman to play the part, then I wouldn't have spent the entire movie looking for some semblance of Charlize under all that makeup.

Now as if we'd not had enough disgusting for one night, BWB goes down to check the score of the Penn State game--no, that's not the ugly part. Suddenly, he calls up, "A.K., get down here!" Noting the sense of urgency in his voice I'm thinking, what happened, did Zeus destroy something else, or puke all over the carpet? I yell from the top of the stairs, "What?" "Get down here" and I walk down the stairs and he bids me to follow him to the sliding walkout doors and says look to your right. I'm thinking what kind of bizarre creature is in our backyard that has Jason all amiss...and here's what greets me:


Gack! BWB's like "I know, fuck, fuck FUCK" He's all jumping around, "how do we kill it? Fuck" I'm giggling at this point, I seriously can't help myself. Watching my husband bouncing around like a mexican jumping bean, spewing out a litany of "fucks" has almost removed the ick factor of the silver dollar size spider, sitting on the three foot web right outside my door. The one had I walked out without looking would have been planted squarely on my forehead. Ick.

So, here's my husbands solution to how to kill the spider, he's going to blowtorch it into crispy bits.



As you can see by the lack of flame, that didn't exactly work. I think his utter fear of being 2 feet from a spider with the door OPEN overtook his ability to operate a lighter and aerosol can in unison to create fire. I finally tell him to grab the wasp spray, which he does, which we have no idea if it actually killed the spider since it skittered away pell mell and neither of us were willing to open the door to investigate.

Of course, I'm online looking up what kind of spider this is--I know it's not a recluse or widow, so I'm fairly certain it's not venomous, but with kids around, I like being sure. Ends up it's only an Orb Spinner, just a harmless Garden Spider. Who of course invaded my dreams last night where I found my self in this small closet completely entrenched in spider web and the little web dwellers in a multitude of shapes and sizes. That's what I get for researching creepy crawlies before hitting the sack.

9/11

This, I'm sure, is the subject of many a blog today. I don't have anything inherently deep or interesting to say, just that I have not forgotten.

Prayers to families of the victims, prayers to our soldiers still fighting this war.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Slowly, haphazardly, but surely I'm teaching myself HTML and getting brave enough to rummage through my template and make some changes. I've snatched a little coding help from Tavia (thank you) since we started from the same original template. I created a masthead that's not even close to my vision of what I'd like it to be, but with limited resources and talent it'll do for now. So, bare with me, as I slop through this world of brackets, slashes and codes to try and personalize my blog.

Why?

Why is it that the one grocery bag that falls off the kitchen counter is always the one containing the eggs?

Why is it that big dumb dogs decide that the day you throw the broken eggs in the kitchen trash is the day he is going to use the hour you spent out of the house shredding said trash?

Why is it that the day you find shredded egg-gooed trash all over your kitchen and dining area is a day when the baby is already way pissed off about sitting in his car seat and shrieks the entire time you clean up slimy eggy garbage?

Why is it that when faced with horrendous mess and shrieky baby is the day you run out of Swiffer wetjet fluid?

Why, huh? Why?

...fucking eggs, fucking dog, fucking shrieking, fucking swiffer...

Ivan the Terrible

What did you Floridians do to piss off Mother Nature this much? Is she cleaning house for the upcoming election? Perhaps just removing Florida from the Electoral College, couldn't stand to hear another word about dangling chads, perhaps? Maybe someone inland bitched long and hard enough about the 20 minute ride to the beach, and will now be graced with waterfront property? Or did all those Florida idiots finally go to far? Maybe it was this, or this.

Regardless of the reason, it's not looking good for Florida. Ivan, now a category 5 hurricane, smashed through Grenada, damaging 90% of homes and killing 12 people. It's about to run over Jamaica, then Cuba and is projected to hit Florida's west coast. The coast that is still recovering from Charley, the coast that just got smacked around by Frances. The coast my mom lives on. You're killin' mama nature, flat out killin' me.

I called my mom this morning demanding that she move to MO immediately. I was met with laughter. I'm not laughing, did you hear me laughing, no I'm serious, move here now please you stubborn German broad. Or at least let me fly you up here until hurricane season is over, I mean it's kind of hard to teach tennis in 140 mph winds and torrential rain anyway, right? Does she listen, no. She snickers at her ancy child, claims she'll be hiding under the mattress with her 18 yr old bottle of scotch, a box of Godiva chocolates and her cigarettes. Well, at least when she sets her house on fire there will be plenty of wind and rain to put it out.

Frances, Fireants and the Fiffikus

Well that was one heckuva vacation! Frances being the slow ass bitch she was took forever to actually arrive giving us a few days of sunshine of which we took full advantage. We made it to the beach to swim and build sandcastles and discovered that an infant's tolerance for the sun and sand (even under an umbrella) is about 27 minutes. That's ok, BWB (big WHITE boy's) tolerance is only about 18 minutes. Day two we played it safer and went to a little playground on the bayfront (there's the Gulf and the Bay in St. Pete). Much better, there was a great breeze and shaded pavilions. Saturday we took it even further and went to an AIR CONDITIONED children's museum with some friends of ours. After that it was all about Frances, there was never-ending news coverage, constant wind and bouts of rain for 36 hours straight--did I mention she was slow? She stalled and hung out over Florida forever. Worst part, when the eye finally headed out over the Gulf, we got our ass kicked by the tail of the storm, which incidentally was much worse that the front. Amazingly through it all, we never lost power, truly a miracle since my mom's neighborhood is criss-crossed with about a gazillion power, phone and cable lines. We did regularly hear the gunfire-like sounds of tree branches hitting the transformers, but they held fast and didn't blow. After all was said and done, the streets were strewn with branches, pine needles and palm fronds; several trees fell and one street down had lost power. Not bad, not bad at all.

Now, you are probably wondering about the rest of the title, yeah yeah Frances, we all had to hear about Frances all weekend. Hundreds of people died in Russia, but Frances was the top story. So, fireants, ok, I'm not sure if it was fireants, but I liked the alliteration. Something bit the hell out of DB. Not just a couple of time, but 30, yes 3-0. If you look at DB's arms and legs you can see some of the bites here:


These bites were HUGE and everywhere. Poor kid was an itchy, bumpy mess, but, to his credit, he complained little even when he looked like a pink leopard from all the caladryl.

Now we'll chat about my mom for a bit. She is a wonderfully lively German woman. She is often called Hilde, or Brunhilde though that's not even close to her name, so that's how I'll refer to her. She loves her grandsons even though she'll smack you upside the head for calling her Grandma (though the boys can call her Oma). When DB was born, he instantly became the Krohnensohn, The Crown Prince. See DB is the first grandchild on either side and a MALE grandchild, thus he is forever the crown prince. When my mom saw pictures of GB, she instantly named him the Golden Boy. But, no longer, he has been officially dubbed the Fiffikus by Oma. Apparently a fiffikus is an imp, or little devil--she couldn't translate it exactly--and GB has the fiffikus look. And impish grin that she says means I'm in a world of trouble with this one. I'm not surprised, first, um he's a Aries--like mom--shit. Second, he's a redhead, double shit. Thank God above he's not a she or I might have to jump off a cliff.

So, there's the story of Frances, Fireants and the Fiffikus. I'm happy to be home, even though I miss my mom terribly and once again solely responsible for the care and entertainment of two energetic young boys--at least the old boy is at the office and I don't have to entertain him anymore.

Adieu, Auf Wiedersehen, Ciao...

I'm off to sunny windy Florida. Maybe if everyone blows East really really hard, Frances will turn and miss us. I'd be much obliged. See you in a week!

Busted!

So, sort of indirectly I discovered a friend (the wife of one of BWB's friends) was reading my blog. This isn't abnormal, as I've sent the link to a lot of people, but this one actually looked me up having overheard me speaking of it to someone else. She was finally brave enough to leave a comment--but didn't include an email or link to a blog so I wasn't initially sure it was her. I forgot about it until scrolling down through the Recent Referrers yesterday. I generally click on unfamiliar links, and now that 75% of them are not searches for nekked (K)horkina pictures, I'm generally led to other blogs. I started reading this one and was like HEY, this has to be Mel. See, my friend(hi mel) never told me she read my blog, and I had no idea she'd started her own, but it's quite unmistakable as she's one of our triplet laden friends. I had to snicker when I read her post about how she was reading my blog and whether it was kosher since I didn't know she was doing it--kind of felt like spying or at least a glance into the fishbowl of the Slacker family. I have to admit that initially I was a little edgy about it, wondering what I might have said or what personal issue I might have addressed that would have made me uncomfortable if our real life friends knew. Does she look at me differently now? I'm sure she does, but that's ok, actually it's good. See, Mel and I had a rocky start, we were definitely the wives of our husband's friends more than friends ourselves. I think we've made great strides in the last couple of years, even found ourselves bonding over fertility issues and motherhood. Reading her blog, I've discovered that we're a lot alike. It's funny that despite knowing someone for five years doesn't mean you really KNOW them. So Mel, I'm glad you decided to sneak a peak, and I'll be sure to reserve all that bitching about you for my private discussion board. ;)