Better late than never

Well, I suppose it's been some time since my last post. Embarrassingly, not much has happened since then. I'm still doing the same old thing. I'm coming to work each day, wishing i was somewhere else, and obviously not winning the wishing battle.

I did get an adventure in August. I'll call it my Hippie Adventure.

My husband has always been a fan of a band previously unknown to me. Band's name: Phish. Said band never floated my boat. I listened occasionally to an album now and then when we were travelling, just not getting it. I went to a concert clear back in 2003 with him, but having had the brilliant idea of bringing my month old son along (hey, he's a month old and my first! i wasn't ready to leave him just yet!!), i spent the entire evening moving around the grass as needed to avoid the various type of smoke that were floating around the venue. I had fun, but still didn't' get it.

Ladies and gentlemen. I attended a concert this August--most beautiful venue i can imagine for a concert (the Gorge Amphitheatre up in Washington!)--and I GET IT. I like Phish! I can put up with the vast numbers of hippies to attend another show, should we ever win the lottery and can afford another trip! It was SO much fun!

First of all, it was beautiful to get away from work--where i had been pulling full weeks AND on calls during the weekends, and was completely emotionally and physically exhausted. So maybe it was partly due to that. As much as i hate to say it, it was a nice break from the kids, too. I love my kids. I would do anything for my kids. And believe me when i say this, it was in THEIR best interest that i took a break from them as well. Ü

I love a man--live with a man, share a kitchen, a bedroom, and a bathroom with a man--that i don't see very often. He works swings, i work days, so that we don't have to have the kids in daycare for long. This leads to us seeing each other on weekends, and an average of 25 minutes a day during the week. So i REALLY enjoyed being able to spend time with him.

So, we get going on the trip--drop the kids off, drop the pooch off, fill up on gas, and head out. We were about 45 minutes into a 10 hour drive when we hit a wall. Road block. No one knows why, thus, no one knows how long. We sat there, studied maps--no where else to go, so sat there in a stupid little line BARELY into our trip for a little over an hour. We finally got going, and it begin to rain. And rain. Texas-type rain, where you can barely see and occasionally have to pull over to the side of the road and wait it out because there is so much coming down at once. It rains the next 9 hours of our 10 hour drive. I was nervous, because we were set to be camping at the venue, AND we were going to be spending the next two evenings in an outdoor-grass-amphitheatre concert (with people that this rain was the most of a shower that they've had for a while, no less!). But, about an hour from our destination it quit raining, and was actually really nice for the rest of the weekend.

So...we met up with our friends who we were sharing a camping pass with (and so we had to leave our vehicle in Moses Lake unattended so we only had the allowed-1 vehicle) and headed out. We went to the grocery store, stocked up, and headed to the venue. Where we were herded like cattle for the next hour into a tiny little section of a field that they proclaimed would be our "camping spot". We were around 5 feet from the vehicle on each side of us, and were given another 15 feet in front of our car for our tent/gazebo. You're not allowed to drive in and out of the campground once you're there, so during the day--this little area is where we get to "chill". It wasn't so bad. We got to walk around a lot and check out all of the...characters...we were surrounded by. I was even (unfortunately!) able to notice that there is actually a new trend in female armpit hair --kind of like a Brazilian bikini wax, except for the armpit. Apparently, this is quite fashionable in the armpit-hair-wearing-hippie-folk we were camping with. Ü

The concert was a LOT of fun. I fell in love with the band. Maybe i fell in love with the enthusiasm my dear husband has for the band. Either way, it was good stuff. I was able to relax and dance a little (badly--but that's the great thing about hippie-concerts--EVERYONE looks good dancing compared to a hippie!), and get my fill of people watching. I was able to hold hands under the stars and listen to a ballad with my husband. I was able to buy a bottle of $6.00 water that the venue owners couldn't have paid more than .75 for. I was able to find an empty outhouse in the maze-of-a-hundred-outhouses with my poor pregnant friend on more occasions than i wished. But it was really fun!!

The concert went two great nights, and aside from someone breaking into our tent and going through our stuff, it was a really great time. I had a lot of fun continuing to get to know Josh and Mindie, and getting to know why my husband got sucked in in the first place.

Anyway, the moral of this seemingly endless story is--sometimes, something that you don't think you want to do is a lot of fun. And sometimes, you'll find yourself trying to catch up obsession-wise with your husband in his love of something you feel like you missed out on for years. And always, seeing your kids faces after you've been away for a few days is priceless.

Thanks for reading. Ü

The Meddlesome Tele

Why i can't do chores, scrapbooking, facebooking,or anything else for that matter without background noise is an interesting question. Some would argue that i don't care to be alone with my thoughts, and i'd rather have distractions from being around myself. Maybe true. Maybe. Some would say that i live vicariously through others,andthat'swhy i enjoy the excitementof tv. hmmm.

I just think i like being entertained.I love agood book. i am always reading at least one good book. on top of that, i followa few blogs, read goofy satire (thanks,Onion!) online, read the newspaper a few times a week,andusually havea few magazinesas well. I loveto read.

but something about the quiet,i just can't handle,and as soon as i'm able,on goes the tele. right now,there is not much on,and i am still finding things to watch! that's the most annoying thing!! the season for most things i watch is over,and here i am excited to watch a bunch of celebrities living in "misery" for a few days for charity.because its on.

anyway, i'd love to chat, but i'm missing a greatshow...any show...

The Joys of Home-Ownership

Quite honestly, I'm just typing this because i feel like i should have said SOMETHING at this point--after all. I have now been an official home-owner-type for a week!

Now, don't get me wrong--the joys abound. But there is a lot of work involved! A lot!!

My daughter wants a pink bedroom. I tried to paint some shelves pink. Not good enough. I tried to pain a toy box pink. Not quite! I painted a window alcove pink... getting there! I know, i know. I shouldn't be doing what SHE wants. But it IS her room. Up to this point, she's been sharing her pink room decor with her brother--and beleive you me, there is no way no how that Sponge Bob and pink flowers are cute together.

Andrew is another story. Now, pink i can buy. I know that Maddie has had a love-affair with pink since the day she was born. Andrew suprised me. He wants orange. What's that,you say?? that can't be right. You betcha it's right. He wants orange. And apparently, orange bedrooms don't exist for boys unless you're talking Nascar. Which we are most definitely NOT.

My mother in law doesn't beleive that my having a map hanging in the front room makes it "Grown Up" enough. And, I just plain don't care. I like the map.

I've shifted glassware and plates around a few times, and think i finally have it right--of course, any time anyone but me cleans out the dishwasher (yup! dishwasher! praise the housekeeping gods!), i have to re-shift,because apparently,what makes senseto me does NOT make sense to anyone else.Luckily, i think it'll turn into only me doing dishes again after the fun of having a dishwasher rubs off.

Anyway, I'm happy. Completely exhausted, and falling asleep nightly with a big smile on my face. :D

My last three-day-weekend. It was fun! I wish i had more of them! I love my kids!! :)

The Whine Flu

So. It appears that there is a new epidemic going around.

This isn't the famous and ever-so-popular-to-discuss-around-the-water-cooler Swine Flu. I'm talking about the whine flu.

While I can appreciate that people get sick, and sometimes aren't able to work or go about their daily activities as energetically as they normally would, it disturbs me that somehow the most popular time for these sicknesses HAPPEN to come around on Fridays. Isn't that odd? it sounds more like a i-wish-i-had-a-three-day-weekend disease than something that actually is keeping you down. It's especially comical when you see them spring in and make you listen to nonsense about their eventful weekend the following Monday! Of course, remembering to fake a cough every once in a while, so that we'll all remember how gravely ill they were on Friday.

Now, if there is a genuine disease, i'm all for you staying home--i don't want it!! Please stay away from me. My stash of sanitizing gel just isn't going to cut it if i'm being bombarded on all sides. I just don't think that disease shows up on schedule every friday. I don't think, that as the week progresses, you can feel the symptoms coming on enough that you need to verbalize them if it IS happening for real! Usually, for me, I may start to feel a little sick the day before, and then BAM! in the middle of the night it hits me. Or, right when i'm about to go visit someone, or do something fun! It's NEVER been convenient enough to start to give me symptoms on Wednessday..."Man, I just feel like somethings coming on! I hope I don't have to miss a day this week!"--escalating on Thursday to..."Maybe I shouldn't have come in...I just feel like somethings about to hit!" To Friday's eventual..."cough, cough...Kathy? I can't come in today. I'm so sorry! I just don't want to get everyone there sick!". As i said, if it's real? I don't want that either!

But this fake stuff, that happens for the weekends, BRING IT ON! Maybe I DO want that spring-in-your-step causing illness!!

STEAMROLLER...or...WHY I HATE PEOPLE

My first entry, I'd like to dedicate to my daughter...and the steamroller accident.

Yesterday, we were supposed to close on our house...didn't happen. To ease our depression, we decided to do something wild and crazy...and ate out for lunch. Ü Ok, so it might not seem crazy. But you may not have children. And you may not have ever had the privlidge of dining at what may be the most popular senior-citizen dining establishment (next to, of course, Golden Corral) in Logan. KFC. Weird. I don't get it.

Anyway, I picked up my husband and children and we went off to the healthy dining of KFC just in time for senior-citizen lunch break. Or perhaps, in their case, dinner! Regardless, it was completely overcrowded with what felt like thousands of seniors packed in to the lobby, and even more threatening to enter from all directions. Now, the faint of heart may have given up, and made the sacrifice of not quite as healthy alternative for a less crowded environment. We are NOT the faint of heart, although i would guess that if we kept up this eating plan, we'd have even STRONGER hearts--due to the layers of who knows what that are insulating the walls.

We warily waiting in line--we had to scrunch up behind the oldsters with the oldster smells. We were pushed between the "old man who hasn't showered for at least 4 months" and the "woman who has apparently decided that the more perfume she has poured on, the younger she'll look!". Our kids are actually quite well behaved up til this point, mostly due to the fact that we are so packed in like sardines that it would be nearly impossible for them to run around like the usual athletes they are, and that the senior-"WHAT?" and subsequent "BLAH BLAH BLAH!" at the top of their lungs so that they can avoid wearing the hearing aids that they have sitting on their nightstands at home for the really important things (like Price is Right!) and NOT for everyday conversation makes it unlikely that even if my children were yelling nonsense noises, that they'd stick out in any way (or that anyone would even hear them if they were!)

It was in this state of complete frustration that I finally made it to the front to pay. As i handed the cashier my card, I heard something all parents-who-dine-out abhor...the start of a wail. I have a three year old that can wail with the best of them. It started out slow, and escalated so quickly that i knew that this was no ordinary wail. She was hurt. Ryan was crouching over her, picking her up off of the floor and asking her if she was ok. I quickly grabbed my receipt and joined them (elbowing my way through the frail bones of the people to my left and right). I asked what was wrong, and Ryan, FURIOUS, let me know that she'd been run over by a mighty-senior-monster. Said monster did not even stop (in her desperation for food) to see if said little girl was ok.

Ok. I've heard the Jerry Seinfeld "I've made it this long, let's see if you can!" sketch a few times. I've snickered at the thought of a little 90 year old woman nearly invisible behind her steering wheel trying to peek into the rear view mirror and pulling recklessly into the road. But for some lady; some crazed-kfc-loving-senior to steam roll my little girl?? Here was a problem!

Sigh.

Ok, i'd love to give you a grand ending about how i stood up for my little girl. About how i approached this senior-monster and let her have it for the quickly appearing goose-egg on her head. But really--and sorry to have wasted your time here--I'm just a mom, whose first instinct was to take care of my girl, and make sure she was ok. So, glaring my way to a table--throwing out fierce looks to those that are looking at my crying baby and DARING them to say something to me about her--I hugged and comforted her, got her her food, and went about my day. Oh, and sweetly kept my husband from "laying the smack down" on the rude woman in the brown coat.

Copy Cat!

Because I simply can't resist feeling left out...or something... i decided to join Jenny in a little taste of blogging. (Thanks, Jenny!)