'Tato Bug

I have a lovely window treatment on my front room window, used to be nicer than it is now. We got it the second year we were in this house, and I had schemed, planned and scoured the fabric and discount stores for just the right thing. But five years or so of kids, wear and and such has taken it's toll, and done a job on the smaller cafe style rod that the sheers had hung from. The third rod they have hung from.

This time when Pearl ripped the sheers down, I gave up. The wall has holes in it where the hardware was yanked, the sheers had snags and small snips taken out of them from plastic handles scissors, plus various stains and fingerprints that no longer wash out. I threw out the bent rod, mangled hardware and small bits of wall that had crumbled out. I gave the girls the partially shredded sheers to use for dress-ups. But the rest of the curtains and the scarf that drapes over them still hang relatively nicely... for now.

Yesterday LaLa and Birdie were flitting about the house flapping and trailing the sheers behind them, proclaiming themselves "butterflies." And then there was Pearl who came up to me in the kitchen with a blanket over her head, laughing and saying, "Mama, I a 'tato bug, a 'tato bug!"

Yes, baby... you are a cute little rolly poly bug-a-boo.

Gestating

I had thought that being in pretty good shape and losing some weight would really count for something pregnancy-wise this time around, maybe help with the fatigue, maybe help me feel a little less like crap.

La tee da! Not so.

In fact, I have never felt so heinous in my life. Is by far and away my sickest and tiredest pregnancy to date, and I keep waiting for a change in the weather.

La tee da! Twelve weeks. Still sick. Still tired.

Before this pregnancy, I had kept some idea that there could be the outside-iest, outside chance of just one more after this. The answer is No. Nope. Nada. No way in H-E double toothpicks. This body cannot, not and keep up with the continuing demands of the previously born offspring.

When this is done, it is done.

I will go crawl back in bed now, or wish I was as I prepare for the tea-party gala being held here in two hours. Shoot me in the head.

Sunday Pic: Plus

1) I tried to get the girls signed up for some art classes that the city is hosting for kids; it was pretty good deal, just thirty to forty dollars a kid for an hour long class a day, for two weeks. Go figure, it'd fill up within the first two days of registration, and I was nowhere near the first two days. Instead, I decided that I will be doing one class a week for the girls all summer. We have invited three cousins who live a half hour north of us to join in. That way we get to see them once a week, and they can justify the trip. Seriously, with gas prices what they are nowadays, it's hard to just hop in the van and go a-visiting for visitings sake. I think that for the first two weeks we will be making paper mache masks and then decorate them. I haven't thought further than that, and am open to suggestions. The ages of the kids range from seven to four, Pearl will probably just be-bop around, and maybe help me slap a few hunks of slop on a mask, or whatever project we end up doing. I'm thinking about keeping it to a budget of no more than $20 a kid. I'm thinking we will have approximately ten classes.

2) It rained like a beast earlier this week, for two days in a row. On Thursday morning (the second day) we awoke to WATER IN THE BASEMENT!! I found it first as I went down before anyone else was up to turn the laundry over. I freaked out a little, cried a little and then went upstairs to tell Dadguy who literally leaped from bed saying "Oh S*T!" And if you know Dadguy.... he never, as in never-ever swears. I asked him about it later, and he replied that it was the only applicable thing to be said at a time like that. Can't argue with that.

2a) Long story short, the follow-up to this occurrence has reminded me that there are good companies that hire intelligent, competent people and like to do good business and keep customers by treating them right. Short story long, because of the appearance of the leak, we thought that we had a foundation leak behind the sheet rock and called Intermountain Foundation Repair. I use the name of the company because they are one of the companies I'd like to give props to. The repair guy the showed up just four hours after I called and looked at the basement, what was left of the puddle (we had shop-vac'ed it up), inspected the window well, and then explained to me why he was pretty sure that we did NOT have a foundation leak. He then took about twenty minutes explaining to me how to keep water from ever coming in the window well again, how to then test to make absolutely sure that he was right about the foundation, and then he took me outside to make some other recommendations as to how to keep the water away from the house altogether. He then left me his card and did not charge me a dime for the visit and the advice. When was the last time that happened to YOU!?

2b) Next company is Woodstuff, a rock, mulch and bark supply company. I called them Saturday morning to see when they could deliver a yard or so of one inch rock. Dadguy had just dug out a huge amount of muck, silt and peagravel from the window well, and after I dumped it against the side of our house in bucket after sodden bucket, we realized that our plan "A" of picking up a few bags of rock from Home Despot was just not gonna cut it. The guy I talked to said that they did indeed have one delivery spot open that day. I told him I would be right there, and when I showed up to pick out and pay for the rock, I discovered that he had actually held the delivery place for me. Pretty sure he had picked up on the desperation in my voice. A simple thing perhaps, but a very powerful message to me as a customer.

2c) Next stop: Jones Paint and Glass. I needed to purchase a couple of five dollar tubes of exterior caulking. Hardly a big ticket sale, but I didn't have to break my back to find an employee who was willing to listen to me describe what it was that I needed, and then direct me to the right thing. Seriously. Nowadays that's a pretty big deal. Listening, thinking, assisting; I was in and out within five minutes.

2d) I had to get some groceries afterwards, and Wa!-m@rt was on the way home, but I was fairly sure that the shock of going from customer service to dis-service would kill me, so I opted for Macey's instead. I like Macey's, it's clean, there are always carts, the employees know where things are, and when they don't they will drop what they are doing and go look. This was Memorial Day weekend, so the shoppers were out in force baby... this store's answer? All the checkout stands were open and I didn't even wait for thirty seconds. As a matter of fact, in all the times that I have gone to Macey's, there was only once that I had to actually wait for any significant amount of time in a check out line. It was Christmastime, and while every single register was open, they were each at least four overburdened, groaning carts deep. The management sent two employees around with boxes of full sized candybars, offering them to the folks who were waiting, and their kids. Add on top of this the fact that they close for Sunday, and I am a lock as a customer except for when I am forced into a pilgrimage to the land Hell-Mart.

3) Pearl calls Mickey Mouse and all of his friends "Munk-a-saurs." Near as I can tell this is a cross between the Disney Playhouse's "Mouse-kateer" and the Mickey/Goofy/Donald version of the "Three Muskateers."

4) I had to go back and change the actual name of my old city to "Albooboo, Noo Moo" in an older post, as my Christmas Stories got picked up by a roboblogger for a news site. Seriously, my rather horrific and personal tale up there with all the other real-news stories from Albooboo. So much for sliding under the radar! They kindly took it down when I asked pretty please, but YIKES!

5) It is past time for me to quit piffling around and go finish preparing to teach my RS lesson in church today. SSSsssssslacker!

Movie Review: Juno

I don't get it.... I kept hearing how sweet and great the movie Juno was, but then I also kept hearing, and from multiple sources, how it glorified unwed pregnancy and made it seem all nicey-nicey-happy-ending-la-la. So a while back Mama D mentioned somewhere how much she loved the movie, and that was the kicker for me. I just couldn't see Mama D glossing over a big glamorization of teen pregnancy, so I put it in my Netflix queue. A solid month later I finally watched it... having a hard time staying up after the kids go down lately, but Dadguy was out for the evening with the guys and their Magic cards, and even when I am bone tired fatigued I have a hard time sleeping when he's not home.

I was floored by this movie, it was so touching and honest and beautiful. Glorifying? If it glorified anything, it was touting teens giving up their babies for adoption. I believe the step mom character put it best when she said something along the lines of Juno putting her baby up for adoption was akin to making a miracle out of a garbage dump of a situation. Very inaccurate quote, but you get the picture. And the job that Jennifer Garner, as the adoptive mom to be, was genius. You think you are getting one kind of character, a super-controlling and tightly wound perfectionist... that you end up loving and rooting for. My sister put it best when she pointed out that this was a woman who felt that motherhood was her calling, and was physically denied her dream; she was just trying to stay afloat. Sometimes we, as women, think that if we could just be perfect enough, just keep everything just freaking perfectly right, that your dream of motherhood will come true. Sometimes when one of the most important thing in our lives is out of our control, we clamp down with a vengeance on what we can control. Knowing what I went through for the fifteen months or so that our fourth pregnancy was denied me? Well, I can only imagine what five years and a definite "never," would do to me.

Yeah. I think the problem that this movies detractors had, was that the main character, Juno, was unapologetic, relatively unashamed, and pulled the whole thing off with a good deal of personal style. She paid a steep price, but her life did go on. And I think that may have offended the snot out of some folks. Of course, some folks are looking to be offended, and would be unsatisfied with anything less than a groveling, shamefaced Juno whining and crying through the whole show. Plus, it was funny. How dare anyone find humor in this sort of a situation?

Personally, I would rather a girl watch a movie like this than listen to her fabulously idiotic girlfriends rave about how wonderful it is to be a cute little mommy of a cute little baby who loves them SO MUCH!

There is a bit of language, crude humor and such... but I give it solids all the way around!

Summer Grump: Now With more Booby Rant!

It's the end of the school year, and while I am scurrying around getting all the last minute things taken care of, and attending the end-of-the-year programs for pre-school and kindergarten, there is an as yet unspoken "OH CRAP!" in the back of my mind. The "OH CRAP, I have to figure out what three little girls and I are going to do over this long hot summer." Because, oh CRAP! One of the three is a solidly contrary, and tantrum-ing two year old. Plus the next door neighbor girl thinks she is an honorary Chaos Girl, to the point of her asking me when are we going to invite some other friends over, and what are we having for snack? We may have to sell off one of the kids to be able to afford driving any place this summer, and besides which, the AC in the van is busted, so who would survive the trip anyway? And? I am still feeling pretty lousy.

Could I have the self-pity chorus girls give me a round? Doot da doot da dooty doot dooooooo. If you were wondering what the self-pity Chorus girls look like, why that's easy... they look like my breasts. Because they ARE my breasts! Seriously, they have returned after a brief reduction brought on by work-outs and running... and they are back with a vengeance. Like an additional, vengeful two pounds per girl, and it HURTS. You know those dreams that you have, that you have to pee really bad? And you get to a bathroom and pee, only you don't get any relief, and you still have to pee? So you find another dream-bathroom etc... then you finally wake up and realize that, for reals, you really need to pee! Well I am having dreams that I really need to breast feed, only when I wake up still feeling like I really need to breast feed... I still cannot do anything about it. Still not quite in the second trimester yet either.

And I want to know... does the grabbing and usage of my breasts to leverage up or steady her balance by the two year old get exponentially worse when tender and pregnant... or has this been going on all this time and I JUST DID NOT NOTICE!? Because, YEOWCH! How have I NOT noticed?

Cristmas Eve part 2

Hey, sorry. This took longer to write than I thought it would, plus it was not nearly as fun as I thought it would be. But trust me... you'll be glad you have this story as reference when I tell the story of Dom and Thatguy on the fourth of July two years later. No one was hurt in the making of that one. Except for the richly deserved goat heads in Thatguys naked bum.


So after re-reading the first part of this story, I realized that I left out one last major player in the festivities of the evening. So ubiquitous to the ex, the crowd we hung out with, and every single blessed day and night of my existence at that time; I completely forgot to mention the pot. It was always there, in the before, the during and the after of everything.

Can I just say right now that I hate marijuana? I hate the smell of it, I hate what it does, I hate smoking it, and I reeeeeee-hee-hee-heeeely hate eating it (way bad hash brownie experiment), and I for sure can NEVER mix it with booze; I get the spins. I can say with certainty that I was not smoking that night, because all my memories of it include a relatively stable videography, if slightly suspect in the exact order of how it all went down...

On closer inspection I also suspect that only the guys were smoking. Dom's wife, G had a baby to go home to at the end of the evening and Dave's girlfriend, who's name I cannot remember, was a fairly prissy club-girl and also had a kid to face at the end of the evening. But all the guys were doing bong hits and drinking, and since they had the run of the house, they had set up the kit, amps, and mics in the front room. In Dave's room there was a little more room to maneuver, and that's where Dom was seeding his pot for the next round of bong hits. He was using a magazine, slightly tilted and curled to let the seeds, which are heavier than the leaves and stems, funnel down into an ashtray, and then he was starting in on removing the stems. There was some sort of distraction and he got up and left the magazine sitting on the bed with a palm-full of stemmy pot sitting on top. I don't even recall who knocked the magazine off, but Dom just lost his business altogether. He started in shrieking swear words and flailing his arms; a potentially humorous situation with a not so humorous big guy with a long record of violence. Dwight just cut his losses and staggered out right then, his coke bottle thick glasses flashing in the light as he headed out the front door. He was perhaps the one who tipped over the magazine in the first place. One way or the other, he was the smartest one of the bunch when it came to one drunk pissed-off Mexican. It also means that he missed Dom kicking in the heads of his bass drum, and some fairly standard, if slurred obscenities.

Dave's girlfriend lost her patience with this crap as soon as Dom started in kicking over all the amps. She was also either the bravest or the dumbest of us all.... because she started to get into Doms face; she was screaming something about getting his sh!t together, and setting down before she called the cops. It was a scene from off the stages of any fine Jerry Springer show, and it did not help. All the guys hated Dave's girlfriend. She was very pretty and very uptown, and they figured if Dave wanted to sleep with her, then fine, so long as she keeps her perfectly orthodontia-ed mouth shut. As in, shut it NOW!

The screaming was going on in the short hallway that led to Dave's room, but I guess he figured he'd had enough, because he let out a strange honking sound and then he charged her like a bull, head down and broad shoulders coming at her. She easily side-stepped his charge by backing up into the open doorway into the bathroom, and holy crap! This sounds a little funny the way I am telling it, and in truth I haven't even gotten to the part that was lifted straight from a Keystone Kops gag... but at the time there was nothing funny about it at all. This guy had lost his mind. He was big, drunk, and had already given himself permission to do something to prove how pissed-off a pissed-off Mexican could be.

Dave quickly hustled his girlfriend out the door, and that seemed to ease Dom back a little. At first it seemed like the show was over, and G had talked him down, and back into the kitchen for a beer. But it wasn't long before he howled that same odd, honking bray and charged Dave, Thatguy and myself. Again, he couldn't quite grasp the maneuver of a target simply stepping out of the way, or else I wasn't the target, because as I stepped to the side he plowed right into Dave and Thatguy, shoving them back until the back of Thatguy's thighs hit the edge of a large, lidless metal trashcan... and then alley-oops! He was dumped right in, arms and legs sticking straight up in the air, Dave shoved in side ways on top . Thankfully this move took more grace than a profoundly drunk man possesses, and Dom ricocheted hard off the wall the trash was standing next to, and landed hard, face first in the kitchen floor. I think he may have knocked himself breathless; one way or another he lay there long enough for us to scramble Dave and Thatguy out of the trash, grab our jackets and bolt for the door. It was as we were running that we saw what initially looked like a golden frisbee go sailing past us, missing Dave's calf by about a foot. It wasn't until it hit the wall and embedded itself six inches into the solid adobe exterior wall that I realized that Dom had just chucked an 18" Zildjian crash cymbal at us as a parting gift. There was still the high hat left in the kit; we ran faster.

Once outside, it dawned on Dave that he was standing, freezing and terrified in his own front yard while a destruct-o boy was loose in his brother's house. He had just determined there was no help for it, he'd have to go over to our house and call the cops when we all heard a crash and the tinkling of broken glass and watched a shadow stagger out of the front of the house, across the rocks and down the street. The rest of the night was spent cleaning up Dave's house, and then driving up and down every street until we found a cold, and pathetically penitent Dominic zigzagging down a side street holding a badly cut and bleeding hand. There was a lot of back thumping Abrazos, slurred "I love you maaaan's" and a renewing of high testasterone buddy-buddy crap that I didn't understand at the time. Still don't. Thatguy was thrilled with the evening, and seemed to think that it was some sort of right of passage, going so far as to say something along the lines of "you know you are friends when you can beat on each other a little and still be bro's."

Dom got twelve stitches in his hand, Dave's brother pooped a brick when he saw the lousy patch job Dave did on the wall, and we all paid much closer attention to what flavor of booze Dom was drink after that. Merry Christmas, and I believe this tale lands squarely in the "this is stupid, don't do this" category. Fa la-freaking -LA-la-la-la-la.

The End

Cristmas Eve part 1

It wasn't that last Christmas Eve in '95. That year was it's own unlovely tale of violence and loss, and a game my ex used to like to play called "Read My Mind You Fat, Nasty, Whore." It wasn't the Christmas Eve of '94; that was the Christmas Eve that the ex spent in a Crown Royal haze, trying to hook up with a girl wearing a short skirt and a vest while I left the party and went home to finish his Christmas gift of artwork for his next tattoo. It still makes me feel a little odd that Mr. Thatguy is running around with my artwork on his shoulder. The artwork that I completed that night, with my teeth clenched and tears burning hot tracks down my cheeks. Humorously enough, I suspect that the man rarely, if ever managed to cheat on me. Not enough social skills and too many drugs will kill that sort of philandering like a ... I dunno, but it makes it hard to imagine he'd managed it it much.

Pretty sure that it was the Christmas Eve of '93 that my story takes place. We were living in the house in the student ghetto of UNM in Albooboo Noo Moo, the house that his parents had purchased thinking that they were helping him get his college education by letting him live there for free. Across the street from us lived a very nice man, his young wife and his younger brother whom we were acquainted with in a druggy culture sort of a way. The brothers name was Dave, and he worked at the pet store where we got the feeder rabbits for the Burmese Python, and sundry other animals and pet food to feed everybody else in the menagerie. He was also the guitarist for a punk band that went by the same name as a book by Charles Bukowski, and for the purpose of anonymity, that's all you need to know. Except, perhaps for the purposes of giving you a better idea of the guys we were dealing with, that I'm pretty sure they did NOT get their name from a Charles Bukowski novel, but rather they pulled a fairly obscure name for an employee or servant out of the dictionary, and named their band that, because the word sounded kinda cool.

The band usually used Dave's room to practice, and that was a pretty tight fit even though at the time this story takes place they didn't actually have a vocalist. The roster included Dave the guitarist, Dwight the drummer, and Dominic the bassist. Huh, and until I just typed in their names I never realized that they all had names that started with "D".

But a drum kit takes up a lot of room, and so does a bassist like Dom. He was a very large, and very mean former skinhead who had literary pretensions; he's the reason that I cannot say that I am POSITIVE that the name of the band isn't from a novel. He's also a key player in this story, so I'll give you a bit more back story. In Albooboo NM, being a skinhead is way more about the music, the fashion of Doc Martin steel toe boots, flight jackets, shaven heads, intimidation and violence than about race. As a matter of fact, I was aware of only three racist skins who even tried to make their home in Albq, sadly one who was a quarter American Indian and tried to hide the fact. Near as I can tell these three white power boys spent much of their time in NM hiding and/or getting the crap kicked out of them by the rest of the skins. Most of whom were all or part Hispanic. There was even a black skinhead named Tommy, and that was something see! Dom was one of those full Hispanic skins, and additionally was part of a fairly exclusive crowd with a clever name and and a tattoo on his forearm. These boys were the uberviolent of the scene, but he had since then grown his hair and married the girl he'd gotten pregnant at age sixteen. I think he may have been a whopping nineteen at the time himself, but they were Catholic, and he was not stupid... the girl he got knocked up was beautiful and smart, and better than he deserved.

This was Christmas Eve though, and the nice couple across the road had gone out of town to spend the holiday with her family, leaving a gleeful Dave the run of the house, and he decided that a band practice-party was in order. Thatguy and I were invited, as we were friends with Dom and Dave, and I suppose... by a long stretch of imagination and by default we were "friends" with Dwight too. Dwight was one of those unpeggable floaters in the punk scene. He was a decent drummer, but a raging and unapologetic drunk. The kind of guy you never let crash on your couch to sleep it off, because he would often as not soil the couch. The man was full blood Navajo, and a fairly OK person when he was sober, but the sober times were so rare and his drunks were so vile that it's hard to hard to think of him as anything other than a guy who kept a beat.

So far as I can remember, the guest list that night was Dave and his girlfriend, Dom and his wife, Thatguy and myself, Dwight, and an amazing array of alcohol; most notably a bottle of Jose Cuervo that Dom claimed as his own. A large bottle. THE bottle.

Dom used to say, "if you ever want to see one pissed off drunk Mexican, juts watch me drink tequila." And he would always pronounce "tequila" with an impeccable accent, and I always got the feeling that he felt being pissed off whilst drinking it was his birthright when he said it. This night, I guess, he felt like screwing "peace on earth and goodwill toward men," and he'd just get himself tossed and terrorize everyone awhile.


...to be continued.

Stories to Tell

Last weekend we went up north to enjoy an extended family picnic at Dadguy's grandparents house. It was an especially good time, what with the home cooked food that was not cooked by me, the huge open field behind the house and a couple of dogs to play with, a stream running through and variety of creepy crawly bugs for the kids to collect in old margarine tubs. Plus Dadguy's cousin had a fourwheeler that she brought out and gave rides to all the little kids. All the kids got a huge kick out of that, but the funniest was Pearl who, when it was her turn just hopped aboard and yelled "WHEEEEE" and cackled in glee the entire four times around the field.

It was really good for me to be able to have some adult conversation with all the various relatives, but I do have one regret. One of Dadguy's cousins is a Deputy Sheriff in that county, a hard won position that she has fought and pushed through endless amount of good old boy red tape and bullcrap for. She's one of those amazing women that I admire. Strong- tough even- yet seeming to effortlessly hold on to her essential femininity, and she can tell a great story. Being a cop, she has some real doozies, stories that civilians just don't have, of dealing with violence and some pretty mindbogglingly nasty folks. She was telling a few of these tales, and they got me to mind of some things that I have seen and done. So I told my stories too. But now I'm kind of wishing that I hadn't. I'm thinking that it might have seemed like I was competing with her for telling stories, and that was not my intention. At least I HOPE that was not my intention. One never can know for sure without some heavy introspection that I simply don't feel up to right now.. I just wish that I had been more of an audience, because hey! I love a good story, and if I'd-a kept it shut, I could have heard more of hers.

I'll remember for next time.

These stories that I have... stories of some pretty amazing specimens of humanity and the bizzarro thing some of them do, stories that I don't really think about very much anymore; I don't know if I really want to let them just slip away into the ether of non-telling. But I also don't really have a forum to tell them in the oral tradition. It's not like they are even vaguely inspirational, not uplifting, or even having a moral to the story other than "this stuff will hurt you, don't be stupid," and they often involve pain and stupidity on my part, sometimes illegal activity. But I think I want them told anyway. They are still there, waiting to be told, even begging to be told; trying to slip through my conversations of permission slips, playdates and the dinner menu.

Stay tuned for the first tale: One Nutso Christmas Eve.

La la la la LAAAAA!

Said after finding a bit of untrimmed fat in the beef stew: "Do you know theh ahh globbuth in hee-ah? I hate globbuth!"

In response to having to ride next to a very gooey "Bacterial Rhinitis" suffering Pearl on the way to the doctor's office: " I am thitting nextht to dah buhh-guhh guhl! EW!"

On the way home from church sung loudly and defiantly, and yeah... she really means this: "NO, no-no-no-no-nooooo! NO ith a bettah way of thaying YETH!"

I swear, it's like I have given birth to a lisping New Englander, with an attitude. And if you know many New Englanders, you know that's saying a LOT!

Day o' The Mama

First off.... Happy Mothers Day! Most especially to my own mother.

Today I have been reminiscing about Mother's Days of my past. Two of them really stand out for me. The first was seven years ago, and Dadguy and I had been trying for about six months to get pregnant. I was actually pregnant, but I didn't know it and I was pissed off in the way that a brand new pregnant woman gets pissed off. Most particularly if she doesn't know she is pregnant, but feels crampy and bloaty and her stupid period is LATE and will it just hurry up and get here already so we can try for a baby on this next cycle. Please. Gahh.

I remember crying that day. Several times. Tearing up when the Elder's Quorum handed out the obligatory flower that they hand out to all married women after sacrament on Mothers Day. Crying when I got home. Then a week later I got sick of waiting for my stupid period and got a pee stick. Duh.

The next year on Mother's Day I was still pretty well in sleep deprivation mode, but I am sure it was nice.

Last year was the other Mother's Day that also really stands out in my memory. And I thought that I was going to write some of my memories from then, but I guess that I am either too pregnant and weepy, or it is still too close of a trial for me to address that time of my life. I am glad it is over.

I am so grateful for this Mother's Day. I gotta say, something has clicked for the girls, Birdie taking the lead. I could hear them whispering and giggling this morning, Birdie repeatedly shushing LaLa, as they collected the sweet little gifts and cards they had made for me in school and at home; leaving them arranged pleasingly on my bedstand. When I was sure they had done their bit I made a show of yawning and waking up. Then I got my real shock.. DUDE! It was 8:00 in the morning! Sweeeeeet!

Our whole family rolled around and piffled most of the next hour away, talking and laughing in our king sized bed. It was an amazing morning, one of those times that are like a big mallet banging away at the gong of my heart. Every time the last set of sound waves would start to fade, wham! Again with the sweet feelings of peace and joy, ringing out. I am glad to be here.

Brrrrr!

Holy crap, I'm cold. Seems like nowadays I am always freezing, experiencing chills, looking for a sweater to put on and wearing a jacket when everyone else is stripping down. I'm cold.

Except for when I am not, and that is usually around three o'clock in the morning when I wake up drenched in sweat. This is a big change for me since every minute of all three other pregnancies were spent in sweat-bath like conditions of overheated discomfort. I imagine I'll spent the entire summer in hell, but for now... would you mind heating me up a bed-buddy, and turn on the heater while you're up?

I'm cold.

...and speaking of dead o'clock in the morning, Pearl has this thing that she does, and it's making me CRAZY. About once a week (but up to three times a week) she wakes up at 4:30 in the morning and stays up for over an hour, but under two hours. If she wakes up at this time, and it really is a narrow window of time from 4:20 to 4:35... there is no easy back to sleep solution that I have found. She is just up, and she wants to play. Seriously, I've tried rocking her back to sleep, and she literally twitches and bounces the entire time. And it doesn't seem to make any difference in how much sleep she has recently had or not had. Sick or not sick. What she has or has not eaten. Active or sedentary day. She is just UP, and by extension so am I. She used to do this when she was in a crib, and I kept expecting her to grow out of it. She keeps just... not. I am baffled.

....and cold, did you turn up the heat yet?

Spring

In the spirit of my old Sunday pic.... but with a sense of urgency.

A desire to make up for lost time.

Things are really popping around these parts! The bleeding heart, sweet vetch and iris are all poised to make an appearance.

A new experience, my first tulips ever. An old standby in the background: the flox.

Year For It

We have been getting more serious about finishing the basement.... this is the Year For It.

Unlike 2007 that we thought was the Year For It, but turned into the Year of Medical Expenses instead. So last month Dadguy finished off the electrical, and we paid a friend a few $$ to insulate, and we were ready for sheet rock.

We hired that out.

Yes, yes... I know. Hanging sheet rock is SO EASY, so SIMPLE, it's a total DIY! Yup. Not in Chaos. We never even once considered it. We got hold a company that comes highly recommended, and is quite cheap, and invited them into our home to make some money. They are not completely done, just a few details to hit before I write out the check... but here are some snaps. The texture we chose is what is being called "holey/smooth" around here, and some companies charge extra for it, because it is the look that many of the high-end homes are sporting nowadays. But the fact is, it's easier to do than the standard "orange peel" look. I like it, and since it costs the same, I opted for it even though the basement will not match the upstairs of our little rambler.

I think from these pictures you can tell that we are especially proud of that archway in the main room. Too bad it's unfinished state is one of the "details" that need finishing. We also need to rehang the lights before I can snap anything of the bathroom or laundry room. Need to hook back up the washer and dryer too, for that matter. The pile of dirties is, as LaLa says, "HUMONGOUS!" Also not shown, are the two bedrooms. They are rooms. Not nearly as fun as this room. And the cold storage room... we didn't bother to rock that. Is storage, and with no windows, that is all it will ever be.

Right now I am operating under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, it never once having occurred to me to find out up front, if this company only hires legal workers. But the first day that the rockers showed up after the delivery of sheet rock was made, it belatedly dawned on me that perhaps the reason why the estimate was so low, was that maybe, everything was not entirely above board. Of the different crews that have been here over the past week and some, each batch of gentlemen has had a total of one worker that speaks English, and most of the conversations I have had with that one speaker seem to involve lots of nods, what pittance of Spanish I recall, and vague hand waving.

What can I say. Questionable ethics aside, they are doing a bang-up job. Sigh.

Also, belatedly, it has occurred to me that I have lost some prime blogging time where Birdie is concerned. At six years old she seems to have entered into that age of self-awareness... and exceptional reading ability, that requires me to think hard about whether she would be embarrassed if I happened to blog about this, that, or the other thing that she does or says.

The following may be redacted:

The first crew was a two man crew who sheet rocked our entire basement in less than nine hours. They wore tool belts with various sharp instruments on them, and handled their tools with the panache of a Japanese performing chef... everything but the volcano made of onion rings, I swear! For a while as they worked in the main room off the stairs, I let the girls sit on the stairs to watch as they did their magic. The guy who spoke no English started in singing a soulful tune that stopped just short of the "Ayyyye yiiiiie yi yiiiiiiE" that my Pa (grandfather) used to sing, that will always remind me of the Rio Grande for some unknowable reason.

Birdie watched and listened for a few minutes with the rest of us, then leaned forward to whisper to me, "Mama! I think that I am falling in love! With him!"

Shocked. My six year old girl with her first crush??!! GAGHK! I could only smile and nod and say something profound like "oh."

A minute later she leaned forward again, glowing and said "I am! I am in love with him!"

Thinking about it for a moment, I guess I would rather she have a first crush on a tune singing, competent, hard working man.. better than imagining up feelings for some effete and questionable rock star to my thinking. Still. Six. Years. Old.

Thinking over, I decided it was time for everyone to go back upstairs for drawing time.