Some things I have realized..

yes, even in I have deep moments.

1. My children are teaching me tolerance ~ I can tolerate them running and screaming through the house for about 3 hrs.
2. My tolerance is not yet perfect ~ after about 3 hrs, I am forced to find them each separate jobs so that they will be quiet and stop running.
3. Knitting is teaching me patience ~ I can wait almost forever when I have my knitting with me.
4. My patience seems  conditional ~ if the kids are with me, or if I don’t have my knitting, my patience is apparently absent.
5. Knitting has also taught me that time is relative ~ when knitting a sock, those first 8 inches seem to just fly by, but that last inch, though worked at the same pace, can take hours.
6. There is no such thing as too much yarn ~ just trust me on this one. And don’t ask how much yarn I own.
7. I love my extended family, and sometimes I love them more the further away they are from me.
8. In some ways, I am a very old fashioned woman ~ I love cooking, canning, putting up food, making things “from scratch” as in not using mixes, taking care of my family (though the whole washing dishes by hand thing, it is for the birds)  and just in general being a homemaker.
9. In other ways, I am very modern ~ I love my computer and internet, and I am not willing to give them, or my cell phone up. (mind you, cell phone is our only phone, we gave up a land line years ago)
10. Knitting has taught me to plan ahead ~ it is easier to use up extra yarn than to find more of the same color and dye lot to finish a project.
11. I have learned that beauty is relative ~ I have a red circular shawl pinned to one wall, I knitted the shawl, and dyed it myself, I am very proud of it and I thin it is beautiful, I have had people ask me why I have a huge doily on the wall.
12. I have learned that by the age of 3 children can no longer hear the sound of their mother’s voice.
13. A child who loves to read is a gift, though sometimes you may wish that she reads slower, so that it is easier to keep her in reading material.
14. A child who doesn’t love to read, sometimes just hasn’t yet found something she enjoys reading.
15. Time spent reading is never wasted. Trust me on this one, ignore the rest of my family.

Catching up…

I have been working hard at unpacking and getting us settled in. The day after Independence Day, my niece, and my mother, came and spent a week with us, we had a really great time. We painted the girls faces, had pictures taken, played in the pool in the back yard (small blow up pool, but it is water!,) we even took them to the beach one day, it was a blast.

We spent the next week getting things ready for the Hubster to go away fro his annual training, this year in Germany. Gathering up the assload of military crap that had been scattered all over the house and garage in the move. (I swear, that shit breeds in dark corners!) Sorting out what he would need to take, making sure it was all clean, and then packing it. That was a chore! Thankfully not one of mine.

Hubby has been gone for 11 days now, and will be home in just 12 more, we are surviving. The kids are doing well, not seeming to have any adverse effects… my 3 yo was worried that he wouldn’t be able to get Daddy kisses at bed time, but I told him that Daddy left lots of kisses with mommy just to give to him at bedtime, and that satisfies him. My girls plot out dinner each night, meals that Dad doesn’t like, or they come up with some really odd ball game to play with their brother that really drives me up the wall.

I on the other hand… well.. I am surviving. Simply put, I miss him. Sure, we bicker, and we fight, but I miss being cuddled up to in bed, the sometimes so annoying, wait till the lights are out to hold a conversation. I miss someone to watch tv with, I miss the affection. And yes, I actually miss him walking up behind me and grabbing my boobs. (And no, the occasional hot-wheels shoved down my shirt does not make up for this loss, it has an appeal all it’s own.)  I am not sleeping well. I rarely get to sleep before 1am, usually it is closer to 2 or 3 before I finally fall asleep, and then, of course, the kids are up with the sun (I actually heard my 3 yo yesterday waking his sisters up with “The sun is coming up!! The sun is coming up!!”) Someday it will all catch up to me, and I will pass out as soon as I get monsters kids into bed, and I will sleep until they wake me again in the morning. Until then, you may see more late night ramblings.

Kids Games

I am sitting here eating brunch (ok, it was after noon, but it was my first meal) and I hear  my 2 year old yelling “Help!! Help!! ‘pider!! Help!! and I look over and he is rolled up in a quilt off one of the girls beds… so my oldest tells him “I’ll help you!” and unrolls him. then she rolls up in it.. aparently they are pretending that there is a giant spider who has caught them and wrapped them in web and is getting ready to eat them. All I could do was laugh, it was funny!

A friend emailed this

to me, and I was struck by how true it is, so I thought I would share

A young man in a hot air balloon realizes he is lost. He lowers his altitude and spots a man fishing from a boat below. He shouts to him, ‘Excuse me, can you help me?  I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago and give him this balloon as a gift, but I don’t know where I am.’ The man consults his portable GPS and replies, ‘You’re in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above a ground elevation of 2346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.0 9 minutes west longitude. He shakes his head and says, ‘You must have voted for John McCain!’ ‘Yes,’ replies the fisherman. ‘How did you know?’ ‘Well,’ answers the balloonist, ‘everything you tell me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to do with your information, and I’m still lost. In fact, I feel more lost now than I did before I asked you. The man in the boat smiles and responds, ‘You must have voted for Obama.’ ‘You’re right’ replies the balloonist. ‘How did you know?’ ‘Well,’ he replies, You think just like Obama.  You don’t know where you are or where you’re going. You’ve risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air. You made promises that you have no idea how to keep, and now you expect me to solve your problem. You’re in exactly the same position you were in

before we met, but somehow, now it’s my fault.’

silly child…

This morning I decided it was time to go through my linen closet and sort out towels, placemats, sheets, etc. and put them in the proper stacks, not just where my kids have shoved them, so that we can locate the things I know should be in there. This took me about 20 minutes, as I had to refold several items. Then I moved on to the next job on my list, and did that..

And suddenly I realized that my 2yo is missing… he is WAY to silent to be behaving himself.. so I start looking, I knew he had headed down the hall, so I check the girls room, and his… then PLOP something fell out of the linen closet, it is a table cloth off the second shelf, so I open the cabinet… and there, curled in a ball on the second shelf, is my 2yo.. grinning like the monkey he is. So I pulled him out and told him that was not a play place, if he must crawl into a cabinet use the dirty clothes cabinet, (where he and the girls play regularly) cause there are no shelves in there for him to fall off of or break!

How to get banned from walmart.

I realize this is an email forward, and I normally don’t post these, but I laughed so hard I have to share it.

After I retired, my insisted I accompany her on her trips to Wal-Mart. Unfortunately, like most men, I found shopping boring and preferred to get in and get out. Equally unfortunate, my wife is like most women – she loved to browse.

Yesterday, my dear wife received the following letter from the local Wal-Mart:

Dear Mrs. Samsel, Over the past six months your husband had been causing quite a commotion in our store. We cannot tolerate this behavior and have been forced to ban both of you from the store. Our complaints against Mr. Samsel are listed below and are documented by our video surveillance cameras.

June 15: Took 24 boxes of condoms and randomly put them in people’s carts when they weren’t looking.

July 2: Set all the alarm clocks in Housewares to go off at 5-minute intervals

July 7: Made a trail of tomato juice on the floor leading to the women’s restroom.

July 19: Walked up to an employee and told her in an official voice ‘Code
3 in Housewares. Get on it right away.”

August 4: Went to the Service Desk and tried to put a bag of M&M’s on layaway.

August 14: Moved a ‘CAUTION – WET FLOOR’ sign to a carpeted area.

August 15: Set up a tent in the camping department and told other shoppers he’d invite them in if they would bring pillows and blankets from the bedding department.

August 23: When a clerk asked if they could help him, he began crying and screamed, “Why can’t you people just leave me alone?”

September 4: Looked right into the security camera and used it as a mirror while he picked his nose.

September 10: While handling guns in the hunting department, he asked the clerk repeated ly where the anti-depressants were.

October 3: Darted around the store suspiciously while loudly humming the ‘Mission Impossible’ theme.

October 6: In the auto department, he practiced his ‘Madonna look’ by using different sizes of funnels.

October 18: Hid in a clothing rack and when people browsed through, yelled ‘PICK ME! PICK ME!’

October 21: When an announcement came over the loud speaker, he assumed a fetal position and screamed ‘OH NO! IT’S THOSE VOICES AGAIN!’

October 23: Went into a fitting room, shut the door, waited several minutes, then yelled very loudly, “Hey! There’s no toilet paper in here!”

I have never been accused

of being a fashionista, or the fashion police, but after some of the people I have seen in public recently, I feel the need to make a Public Service Announcement.

• Ruffles do not look good on anyone over the age of 12, or over 98lbs. I will make an exception for a select few prom dresses and wedding gowns, but even with the exception, refer to the 98lb rule above.
• If you are large enough that parts of you jiggle when you walk, skin tight clothes are out. The only people who pull that look off with success are hookers.
• when wearing boots, either tuck your pant legs inside the leg of the boot or pull it down over the leg, do not bunch the jeans up at the top of the boot. That looks stupid.
• when wearing a thin white shirt, do not wear a black or red bra. It is tacky.
• While on the topic of bras. When you get dressed, look in the mirror, if you can see you bra, at all, you either need to change bras, or change shirts. they are called underwear for a reason… they go UNDER your clothes, not peaking out of them.
• thongs, boxer shorts, and all forms of underpants. same as bras.. they shouldn’t show during everyday wear.

someone remind me to stock up on eye-bleach for my next trip out and about.

Note to self….

things NOT to do….

1. legal research on Wikipedia

2. threaten legal action that has no grounds

3. plan to file said legal action for a friend

4. threaten to take revenge on every family if “accusations” are not retracted.

5. let my crazy show.

6. make multiple inflammatory and and physically threatening posts while threatening legal action

7. forget to take my medication that helps with my crazy

8. continue to spew hate and discontent because I am not getting the attention I think I deserve.

if I ever do any of these, please remind me why people point and laugh.

inspiration???  Look here.. crazy starts with comment #9 and follows through all of that poster’s comments.

The Gas Fairy!!!

ok, Hubby is going to have to take his car to work tonight, and the next couple of nights, because he has to work an odd shift, and it doesn’t match the car pool… Thinking ahead, last time I drove his car, it had a quarter of a tank of gas in it, so I was going to fill it while I was out this morning. I get in the car to run my errands and I find almost 3/4 of a tank of gas. Strange, Hubby must have filled it.

After I got home I asked him where he got gas last, cause we try to keep track of where and prices to know where is cheapest to fill up. He says he didn’t fill it, last he saw it had 1/4 of a tank. He thinks I am remembering wrong what the gas gauge said… I know I wasn’t that far off..

So this evening, before he has to go to work I have to run one last errand, and I double check the gas gauge… Yep, almost 3/4 of a tank of gas. So the Gas Fairy has given us half a tank of gas… that is about $20 worth!!

Once upon

a time there was a mom, who didn’t have an outside the house job. She stayed at home with her kiddos, had tea parties with her daughters, played ball with her sons. Kept a perfect house and had time to make a 3 coarse meal every night, and have it on the table when hubby got home from work. The house was always spotless, the kids always immaculate looking. She also had time to do the things she wanted to do, like watching her favorite shows on TV, and the crafts she so enjoyed.

While I am at this I ought to add that there was world peace and no unhappiness in the world.

Hell, if I am gonna write fiction, I might as well make it good.