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Why do I see this as a crystal ball view into my own future with my smarty pants daughter? And how long is suitable grounding time for this offense?

Rubes

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Brings the general household curse of “Oh Shit!” to a whole nutha’ level doesn’t it?

Dog eat Doug

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It’s amazing how true this is.

Heathcliff

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I think I’m suddenly in the mood for tacos.

HaPPy WEEkEnd EverYoNe!

*Thanks to Comics.com for making all these great comic strips available to the public for the world to love!

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But then there are the other days.  The ones where I’m lucky if I feel brave enough to get out of bed. The days where I feel like if I look at my daughter or my husband I’m going to scream. The days where I feel like I could just go completely insane.  Days where I’m bored out of my mind with my life wondering where mine went.  Days where I wake up wishing I had somewhere to go something to do and someone else besides a kid to do it with.  Those are the days where I make up something I need to do.  An errand I need to run just to escape the entrapment I feel in my own home.  When does a home become a prison? When does my own sense of humor and use of it as a denial tactic become more than just a way to deal with my life and becomes more of burden?  I’ve found that here, that’s for sure.  I use my humor as a way to hide what is really going on in my head sometimes.

Don’t get me wrong. I loves me some funny!  I wouldn’t promote the funny if I didn’t.  I love giving the world and what few readers I have a snicker for the day.  There’s a pride in that that I will never get tired of and will never stop doing.  If making one person snort coffee out their nose is all I get to accomplish when I wake up then I’ve done my job.  But that doesn’t mean that I’ve let out the primal scream that I feel welling in my heart. It’s still there ready to swallow me. But how do I do that without turning this website into something it’s not?  A place where I complain about rather then celebrate my day to day life.  Where do I, the mom who blogs, vent? Where do you let it all hang out? Sure I can go knock the fuzz of a tennis ball to let off some steam.  Or I can make a few snarky comments on Twitter about the irritating things people do.  But lets face it 140 characters do not a true bitch session make. I know, I know… get a friend. That’s what my husband would tell me.  And I have friends.  With their own problems and own complications of which I choose not to complicate further. And again, when I’m sitting in front of someone I’d much rather make them smile and laugh then frown and look unhappy because I’m unloading all my shadows.

So back to my original question, should I truly open up to you, my bloggy friends?  Mythical unicorns whom I trust are out there but I can never see? Do I take the humor down a notch and bring up the reality? I’m seeing some changes happeing but I’m not sure what they are yet.  I’m not sure how much to unveil myself or how much you want to see. I guess, as all things do, time will tell me where that fine line is between sharing and dumping. And I guess all I can hope for is that you all hang on because it might be a bumpy ride.

For now though lets keep some of the funny shall we?  In all my ponderings I promise I’ll never take that away from you.  How else would I stay Mommy’s Joy? Joy is happy! Even when she’ in a funk.

I’ll find my way… Until then… lets all just eat some cake…

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Love and Kisses!

This website, and my sense of humor that you’ve gotten to know in it, is an extension of me.  It’s how I look at daily life. I have live a life like everyone else. Full of stress and unhappy moments that I could dwell on and, if I let them, could suck me down into a pit of despair.  But I try to find the humor in things.  Even the smallest things I can find some sort of snort-able character in.  My dad taught me this and I’ll never be more grateful for adopting another personality trait from a parent. And while this ability to find humor in all circumstances can get me in trouble at times, like laughing at funerals, I’ll stick to my guns that it’s the best way to view the world!  Sometimes I’ve been criticized for wearing rose colored glasses.  Well, to that I’ve always said its better to own a pair of rose colored sun glasses, and to know when to wear them, then to own a black umbrella to hide from that rain cloud that follows others around all day. I recommend that everyone should get a pair.

So, with out further blah, blah, blah… I had to pick three things off the top of my head… And that’s a hard thing to do with my sunny outlook… To ONLY pick three…

Obviously my darling daughter!
Everyday she makes me laugh. Even on the hardest of days she can do something silly or sweet that will make that hard outer crust I’ve worn all day crack. Some days she is the only reason I would get out bed. I lay there wondering what it would be like to just stay all warm and tucked in and not face the day and then she starts chattering and playing in her crib. I can hear her talking to herself in her nonsense vocabulary only understanding a word now and then. She will say Mommy or Dada and then “talk” to us for a while. In pretend conversations I imagine. Then during the day, usually when I’m upset she will come running up to me and wrap her little twig arms around my legs and squeeze. She’s so little but can squeeze so tight that she just squeezes the bad feelings right out. While I’d love to say that everyone needs one of these little creatures I would be lying, because I still feel that parents should be screened before being allowed to procreate, but maybe those who are having bad days could just borrow one of these wonder squeezers once in a while.

Thank Goddess for tennis balls!
If it wasn’t for these little fuzzy yellow balls I think I would be a homicidal maniac by now. With all the stresses of daily life, from the economy to finding time to go by bread, it’s nice to be able to go out and smack the crap out of a cute little fuzzy yellow tennis ball. (Ha! Aggressive much?) I love to be able to knock the cute right off that stinkin’ ball. Whacking it so hard the fuzz on the ball shears off and flies through the air. I love to smack it so hard it hits the fence on the other side of the court, sometimes sticking in between the chain links. And I love the feeling of release when I do that. Unfortunately this release of tension isn’t so great for playing actual tennis games because most of the time these fuzzy yellow balls, when hit with such force, won’t behave and land inside the lines, but sometimes we just need to hit outside the lines to feel better. I recommend it to all!

My cat.
She purrs. She snuggles. She demands attention. She gets annoyed when that attention is ignored. She ignores. She gets irritated. She finds happiness in puddles of sunshine on the floor. She makes me smile because she’s the furry four legged version of me.

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Love and Kisses!

 First, we took EJ to the doctor yesterday for her 6 month well baby check and her shots.  She was fine last night so we thought we were going to get out of the “I feel icky” screaming that she’s done in the past.   We were wrong.  She was saving it all up for today.  Running a little fever and a whole lot of cranky she was a very hard baby to cope with.   It’s a terribly stressful thing when you know your baby doesn’t feel good and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.  But that wasn’t the only thing that made our day rough. Oh no, there’s more!

Since we are hosting Thanksgiving for our clan I needed to spend some time today getting things ready around the house.  I’ll be pre-cooking on Wednesday so today is cleaning day.  Mission one, mop floors.  Our entire downstairs floor plan is tile.  Beautiful  gray tile with a hint of brown.  It’s a really nice floor but with along with really nice tile comes really horrible grout.  Now I know why linoleum was invented.  All the look of tile and no grout.  I’ve been on a mission lately to get our grout cleaner.  EJ will be crawling soon and the idea of her wiggling around and touching these collection centers and breeding grounds  for every little creepy crawly, bacteria laden, gross little nastiness that you could imagine, makes me sweat.  So a scrubbin’ I went.  Dear Hubby had the cranky baby and I was cleaning the floor.  

I was half way done, and 2 hours and one blister later, I realized that if I didn’t stop to eat I would pass out so I took a break and had some lunch. Once done, and after I finished procrastinating, I persuaded myself to get back to work.  I was looking forward to checking out the now dry areas, that I worked so hard on, and I was expecting to see a nice clean floor.  What I saw was a floor that was covered in some weird dusty film.  When you ran your foot over an area it looked like I was dusting a layer off it.  WTF!?!?   

Up until about two months ago we had a house keeper/professional duster who came over every two weeks to help our household get back to a “normal” state, before we messed it up again.  She didn’t do things like laundry or dishes so it wasn’t as great as it sounds.  But it was a nice luxury to not have to clean my own toilets, I won’t deny.  Ana came with my husband.  When I met him she had already been working for him for a couple years.  I’m sure you’re wanting to throw rocks at me now but let me at least say this much.  While she was a really nice lady, and did a wonderful job on everything else, she sucked at keeping the floor and grout clean.  Ana, if you’re reading this please don’t hate me.  My shower always sparkled bright and you were the best at dog hair removal and that makes up for it all.  Anyways, she would swish the mop water around and that was it.  I never put much thought into it at the time because we never walk around downstairs without shoes on.  We also have little mutant dogs that make it even less bare foot friendly.  But now that we have a baby you know my mind went right to the idea that if my child even touches the floor with her big toe she’s going get the hee-b-gee-bee’s and I’ll be to blame for it.   

This is why I found myself scrubbing the tiles to no avail.  My question to Ana is, how could you ignore the directions on the bottle of tile floor cleaner that said “rinse with water” and the floor looked cleaner than when I scrubbed it with a brush, then a mop, rinsed it and then dried it with a towel?  HuH!!!  Ya!  I went above and beyond the call of duty and my floor should be cleaner then my kitchen counter and it turned out like crap!   UGG!

Ok, breathing…  Lets go back to what started this rehashing of a perfectly terrible day. With my frustrations flaring and Dear Hubbies ears bleeding from EJ crying so much we both finally snapped over the dishwasher and how to load it.  I’m not going to go into details about exactly what we were both saying.  That’s for our own ears, but I will say this, we both needed a good “snap out of it” slap.  

This is when I left him with a crying baby and ran an errand.  Better to flee for a little while and cool off and give him some time too.  On my way home we sent a couple messages to each other:

Hubby:  I’m sorry I said you were “_____”

Me:  Forgiven, I bought you a chicken.

Hubby:  You read my mind.

I won’t interpret what this meant.  Only Dear Hubby and I understand it and that is how it should be.  As I said at the beginning of this rant, couples can be very annoying in their communications with each other. Sometimes couples have a way of communicating that is on a whole different planet.  It’s when Mars and Venus finally combine and create a new world named Marven.  After I got home it was all love and roses again.  EJ suddenly started feeling better so all the demons that made our day kinda sucky crawled back under the rug.  Except for my tile floor.  That’s going to be a battle for a different day.  I just thought I would share with you a little of my awful day…I’m sorry, OUR awful day, and let you have a peek at the sweetness that came about in the end.

Smiles!

The next challenge I faced was when I had the site all ready to start adding content. I discovered writing is the hardest part.  Duh!  Like I thought that part was going to be a breeze.  In the past when I would write in my journals it was hit and miss when I would have something to put on paper.  I’ve always known that the words flow out of me easily.  Ask anyone who’s been around me when I’ve had a glass or two or three of wine.  Yikes!  Even I know I don’t shut up then, but I can’t help it!! “I’m soooooo happy!  Who’s going to be happy with me?  Hey I know, lets all go play tennis in the dark and see if the balls glow.”   So I just assumed it would be the same for the blog.  Surprise to me!   There’s not enough wine in the world to keep the words flowing like that.  

 As I was preparing for the opening day of my website I was also writing things and storing them up for rainy days when I had nothing to say.  And I’ll admit I’ve used a couple of those.  I mean, come on, I’m a mom and moms don’t always have time to sit down and compose great literary works.  There for we cheat and paste pictures on our sites to take up a little space on the days that we don’t have much to say.   But yes, I made the rookie mistake.  I thought writing would be the easiest part because, when I have  the time and inspiration, I could sit down and write all day long. However, that’s not reality.  An example of a real situation in my life is,  I’ll be driving and reciting in my mind what I would like to write down.  That’s about the time EJ will start screaming from the back seat because I took a left turn instead of a right and she didn’t like it, and everything will scramble out of my head.  Hello, Good bye!  Just like that! Poof, gone!  Life just took a left turn with my car and now I have to tend to it.  The subject that I was just reciting in my head  is just gone.  Bummer.  It was probably a Pulitzer prize winner. 

I had to find a way to make it all work out.  That’s when I decided to draw back on the time when I was creating this site and learn from that experience.  So what is the secret to my success you might ask? (At least until life decides to turn left again)  I simply sit down at night after I’ve put EJ and the hubby to bed and I start to tap, tap, tap words onto my screen.  Sometimes they make sense and sometimes they just ramble on like me on vino.   But that’s the way my head works. And since this is a blog about my life and how I function, you my loyal reader will have to learn my moods and go with the flow.  Somedays I will have loads of exciting words to give you.  Words full of meaning and humor.  Words that you can’t help but giggle over.  Other days I’ll have you scratching your heads wondering what in the world made me go there?  That’s the fun of it.  How often have you had a friend or relative in your life that you wondered how their brain works?  What makes them think the way they do?  I can’t say I’m a great example of normal America but I can say I’m a great example of normal human.  One day I’m happy, one day I’m sad, and the next I’ll just be annoyed with something stupid someone did at the stoplight near my house.  And you get to hear about it all.  Aren’t you excited?  I know I am.  

So again, I’d like to thank all of you out there for taking time to read this everyday.   I don’t usually make promises because I’m afraid that the world will change around me and make it impossible to follow up, but in this case I’ll take a chance.  Keep reading and I’ll promise that I’ll keep writing.  The more excited I get about pleasing you the more I’ll be INSPIRED BY YOU.

Smiles!

Tonight’s tidbit is about my small addiction to shoes.  I can’t get enough.  Heels, flats, boots, tennies.  I’ve got a pair for every occasion.  My favorites are my black Converse tennis shoes.  They seem to fit my personal style the best.  That’s why I’m so crushed right now.  I was warned that when I got pregnant that my feet might grow.  I looked positively on this incredible act of nature vs. body and took it as an opportunity to alter my shoe stash.  But no one warned me about what my feet would do to the shoes that I already had.  To put it bluntly, pregnant women can get stinky feet.  Or shall I say “oh my crap!  What is THAT green odor creeping out of my shoes?”  This was a sad day for me when I realized that the shoes that I still could fit into after the baby were already funk-d-fide so badly that I can’t stand to wear them.

This is what happened to my favorite Converse tennies.  I’ve washed them.  I’ve soaked them.  I’ve sat them in the sun to bake.  Nothing helps.  The minute I wear them the green creature crawls out again.  Unfortunately, I’m having a hard time finding another pair just like the ones I love so much.  The “new” ones (I mean, Converse hasn’t changed much over the years) just don’t seem as comfortable.  IT’S NOT FAIR!!!  Not only do we sacrifice our bodies, our sleep, and our sanity to create life we now lose our favorite shoes.   I want to cry…. but I won’t.  I keep reminding myself that it’s just a pair of shoes.  Deal with it!  So I am in the best way I know how.  I get stubborn and wear them anyways.  So if your ever standing next to a woman who is wearing old looking black Converse tennies and there is something green crawling up her leg trying to bite your knee caps say Hi!

Here are a couple pics of my dear EJ and her first shoes.

Why yes, they are green camouflaged tennies.  Who says a girl has to wear fu fu and lace all the time?  I think they go great with her pink onesie.

I think she kinda likes them!

Smiles!

Gov. Palin made a BIG boo boo today.  She was conducting an interview on a turkey farm in Alaska where she was suppose to pardon a turkey.  But in the back ground of the video there was poor Tom getting his little head lopped off.   The Palin staff said that they asked the camera man to move the interview to a better location but their request was refused.  My question…why not refuse to give the interview if you knew there would be a killen’ goin’ on?  Wouldn’t that just make sense?  Her staff indicated that this was set up to be a publicity stunt, the pardon not the killen’) as all political interviews are.  Well, she got the publicity alright.  She’s slapped all over YouTube.  Here is the link to the video.  PLEASE BE CAUTIOUS WHEN WATCHING THIS!!!!  It’s a little graphic since it shows the turkey meeting it’s maker on it’s way to it’s baker. 

Gov. Palin and Tom the Turkey on YouTube

I’m particularly intrigued by the turkey executioner and how fascinated he is in watching Gov. Palin.  Was his interest planned or was he truly that amazed and fascinated by her?  I question this because of how the camera was set to have Gov. Palin and the poor turkeys in the same frame.  I smell a political staging gone right vs. publicity stunt gone wrong, but that’s just my opinion.  Let me hear yours.  Not about the politics but about the video.  Stunt or staged?

YIKES!

I’ve always felt I could write more than just he various e-mails and checks to pay credit cards.  All my life, ok just off and on, I would keep journals on my thoughts and observations about the strange reality of the world as I saw it.  Musings is the best way I can put it. Never really “dear diary”  type of entries.  I wasn’t writing to spill my guts.  Besides,  I never seemed to be able to keep these musings to myself and that probably wouldn’t have been very productive in my life if my friends and family learned how I really felt about them.   I always felt compelled to read what I wrote to someone to get their input on content and how it made them feel or react.  I would go back and read what I wrote and find myself slightly amused with my own style and I wanted to see what others thought.  I never kidded myself, I knew that there might be someone out there that would find it funny and a bunch who would either find it offensive or just dull.  I can handle offensive but dull and boring would be like death to me.  So I’ve experimented over the years and heard some great feedback.  Mostly negative from my family, but that’s what they are for right, and positive from those who are mostly strangers.  (Thanks to all the strangers I know in my life!) I would send out e-mails to groups of friends with a small story in it and hear back everything from a simple “we love your writing or you should do this for a living”. Got me thinking………

So here I sit, writing my first posting on my first blog.  Scary stuff.  My husband is excited about the idea which is just about the first time he’s gone ga ga over one of my ideas so that’s a nice change and a nice push to accomplish this.  Will my thoughts, ideas, and just general BS get absorbed the way I intend them to be or will they cause a stir? I hope they do both.  I have many plans for this site and if I get more than ten loyal readers I will feel like I’ve done something.  If not than I can look back on this experience and add it to the list of things that I almost did.  

If I had a martini right now I would raise my glass, and ask everyone else to do the same, and say a small toast to what is going to be an interesting enterprise to say the least.  

Smiles!