My readymade magazine just arrived, and the crafty urges I’ve been telling you about have grown about 10-fold. And a few of them, I might actually just do!

This sounds really dorky, but I think I’m going to embark on a little art(y) project of a diorama in the box-out above my fireplace. I’ve been thinking alot about my lack of decorativeness and really, I think a lot of it is NOT actually me being decoratively challenged. It is because I AM FICKLE. And I know this about myself. So I think sub consciously, I don’t do much because I’m not sure I’ll like it in six months. Also, I really don’t know what sort of style is really me. I think I’m contemporary with some traditional tossed in. I know I’m not country, but I do fancy some french country sometimes. And what I REALLY know about me is I like to be a bit original. I don’t need 100% originality, but I think I’d like the whole look of a room to be all me, and not look like it could be someone elses. I’m not sure that makes sense, but I think it really means that someone else might HATE it and therefore, it will be all me and could never be someone else – LOL. Maybe (let’s hope this is the real one) it’s actually that it came out of my head and it couldn’t come out of someone else’s, and therefore it is all me. that sounds nicer 🙂
But really, I’m fickle. I know I’m likely to change my mind many many times. So, here’s my goal = EMBRACE THE FICKLENESS! Maybe just do things temporary 🙂 Thus, a diarama that will no doubt be fun to construct and do, even if it looks weird and like crap – hey, I’m fickle anyway, I can always just take the damn thing down.

Oh, and remember when I told you about my big plans for my brother’s photo of my mother’s piano? I was going to get it framed for myself at christmas. Well, it was going to cost over $500, so I scrapped that idea. I have a new one idea for it though. Pixelate it, blow it up huge, print it out and pin it up in my entry way. Or maybe the guest room. Other ideas is to make my own frame. Not sure yet.

I’m feeling so GOOD today, I hope it lasts. Tomorrow I am going to de-clutter and toss a crapload of shit. This mood however, does not mirror my mouth’s health. Specifically, my tongue. I thought about just putting the picture of this heinous canker sore that is decorating my TONGUE (seriously, on the TONGUE? how RUDE.) but it really is disgusting. I mean, it would just BE.. RIGHT THERE. You’d have no choice in your seeing it, because it’d be right there, to see, unless you’re visually impaired, and if you are, you’re in luck, because it’s gross. The rest of you, can click here if you want to see the grossness.*
I also felt domestic today. BEHOLD! these cookies were actually made with a minimal of kid-fussing over who gets to stir/pour/dip/scrape/mix/etc.

* Don’t you love how I spare you the sight of my cankerous tongue, and yet I have no problem TAKING A PICTURE and POSTING IT ON THE INTERNET in the FIRST PLACE. I truly am whack, yo.**

** (Actually, not so much whack, as, addicted to taking pictures of every itty bitty thing in my life, including my cankerous, painful, throbbing, breathing-heavy, sweaty (– oh, no wait, that’s something else. ahem.) erm, where was I? NASTY OWIE TONGUE! I did show you cookies, so hopefully that makes up for at least part of my dementia.

– amy

1. Sneaking food into movie theatres. I LOVE to do it. Sometimes I’m disappointed when we go to dinner before a movie, because then there’s really no excuse to sneak in some snacks. And what fun is a movie if you can’t sneak in snacks?
2. Not cleaning up dog vomit.
3. Having cleaning ladies come to our house on a regular basis.
   Oh yes. This has occured, people. Our first visit was last Friday.
   Oh, I know I should feel guilty. How much of a yuppie could we be with our living in the suburbs and blatently wasting money on cleaning ladies when we could just scrub our toilets OURSELVES, but the truth is, it just doesn’t happen and when you have cleaning ladies you have to run around and pick up all the clutter and that’s just the kind of motivation I need to keep this place cleaned up. We have the, “people coming over” motivation, and the “relatives coming to visit”, and then there’s the “let’s pick up because we deserve to have a clean house and it will make us feel better” motivation, and guess which one always loses? (We promise to stop talking as if we are royalty.)
4. Eating bananas. Nope, nothing shameful about eating a banana! Totally guilt-free, there! Seeeeeee??? I don’t feel guilty about LOTS of things.
5. Yeah, I’m running out of items.

OK, so there’s many more things I feel guilty about then I do not guilty about. Oh! Writing on this webspace! No guilt there!

That’s all. Short post. THE END!

Laying the laminate floor in the basement was work – the good kind, where you feel so accomplished and glowing when you’re done. You look at it and think, “I DID THAT!” Well, I did, James did, Chris did, Kurt did, and Ann did. Thanks guys 🙂

Click to see the set, and sorry about the dimmness of some of them. I suck 🙁

First off, happy first (ok, today is his second) day of new job, James!

2. We didn’t go see the panda. The tickets I had procured were pretty early. We live a fair ways away from the national zoo (hello northern Virginia suburbs!) We would have had to get up crazy early. So when all of a sudden I realized that WE WERE GOING TO GET SNOW last weekend, the conversation went something like this:

me: so. the panda. we’re going to have to get up early.
james: yeah. very early.
me: yup. early early early.
both of us: ….
me: so you know, it is supposed to snow this weekend!
james: SNOW! wow, gee, we wouldn’t want to go out and get caught in the snow.
me: nope, we definitely wouldn’t. and you know we have to wait in line to see the panda, we wouldn’t want our kids waiting in line outside in the freezing cold snow.
james: nope, wouldn’t want that.
both of us: we’d better not go.

Yeah. So, maybe next time. When it’s not so early. And so freaking cold.

3. We DID get SNOW! YAY! And did you know that Target has SWIMMING SUITS ON DISPLAY and have had them on display since JANUARY? I’ve been meaning to post a big ???!&#$*#&@???? about that and have forgotten. We don’t need short sleeve craziness YET, Target, so just CHILL OUT with your swimming suits and your pool toys and your sidewalk chalk and your bubbles and beach balls. JEEPERS!

So yeah, I’m bitter, because I can’t find my kids snow boots anywhere. Grrrr. Anyway, it started snowing late Saturday afternoon, snowed all night, and we had about a foot, or maybe a bit more, Sunday morning. It was all done snowing by then, which is what I call a PERFECT SNOW STORM! I took the kids out and we all played/ shoveled in the snow, then James came out, and I went in and he kept shoveling and the kids kept playing. I popped my head out to ask the kids if they wanted to come in, but they were having a blast. Despite the icicles wedged in between their soaking wet socks and their sneakers, because they don’t have snow boots. Jocelyn loved to gingerly lay herself down in the snow and make snow angels, though it took a few times of showing her how to move her arms and legs for her to catch on. Ethan loved to climb up the snow hills all the shoveling created and slide down them. I loved sitting inside with a cup of tea watching from the couch with my feet in slippers. Yesterday, I was in serious pain from the shoveling, the “you didn’t lift with your knees” sort of aching sore back muscles pain. Thankfully, it seems to be all gone today.

Oh, the back/ neck muscles weren’t just sore from the shoveling (i am a wuss, but not that much of a wuss). Ethan threw a tantrum at one point on Friday and as I was handing him off to his father, he punched me in the side OF THE NECK. I mean he really got me. DAMN it hurt, and DAMN it totally wonkified my whole spinal column. So yesterday, I was still dealing with the weird neck issues (I haven’t wanted to go see a chiropractic so badly in my life*) and then with the back muscles it was just too much. Again – today, feels like everything is spit-spot.

* Actually not true, I was probably in much more pain after I was rear-ended many many years ago. But nothing fades the past like the present!

4. Ethan did have a couple of punching, kicking, head butting tantrums over the weekend. He got tossed in his room and ignored for them, and his Geotrax train went into timeout until the next day. He seemed to get over them much quicker however, and James said that he could see the pause, in his mind, before he just let loose. The pause was non-existent before, so he is definitely making progress. He often will inform me, after he does something, “That was a good choice, mommy! I make good choices!” Yesterday he had a good day at school as well, no notes, no visits to the office, and his afternoon teachers said he did great. Nothing like bribery and rewards, so he got 2 M&Ms when we got home.

5. Work is a lot busier lately. And worse, it’s the kind of busy where I have to pro-actively do stuff, rather than just passively do what is handed to me. I have to put on the grown-up hat and make calls and act like I know what I’m doing, and convince people to spend the money in their budget by giving me work. The calls have turned into meetings, where I will again, have to act like I know what I’m doing, and use words like, strategy, goals, focus, standards, accessibility, etc. I DO know what I’m doing, but it’s much easier to do the passive thing than the proactive thing. I do get to ride on the metro train to DC tomorrow though, which I always enjoy, and of course, that also means there’s a Perfect Pita in my future as well. Yummilicious.

6. Birthday parties. Jocelyn is turning 2 in March, and it seems like we should be at the stage in our parenting to have a real children’s party, instead of just inviting our friends over for a get-together and make a cake and call it good. However, she IS 2, which is still pretty young, and have YOU had a house full of kids over? I haven’t, and I smell disaster. I am thinking of inviting our neighbor kids, the other kids in her daycare, setting up kid tables with butcher paper and crayons on them, making a cake, getting pizza delivered, and calling it good. I should think of it as like a trial run to Ethan’s birthday in May, when we’ll invite his class for some sort of party function. Eek. I’m scared just thinking about it.

7. Home improvement. I don’t know if you know, but Costco has a coupon for $5 off their laminate flooring. We have a room in the basement that we’ve just got finished by a contractor, and we’ve decided to lay the floor ourselves. I have vast dreams in my head of how we’ll become pros at laying this floor and then we’ll move on to bigger and better things. We’ll floor our bedroom and closets! We’ll floor the other bedrooms! Then the HALLWAY! THEN THE WORLD!!!! MUAHAHAHAHAHA! I’m actually pretty excited, we were originally going to have our contractor do the flooring, but after looking at the instructions, we thought, “Oh we can do THIS.”

I’m sure you’ll hear about the divorce from “irreconcilable differences” soon, all stemming from arguments on the proper way to lay laminate flooring.

That’s it for now.

– amy walks the walk, but never talks the talk

I’m going to be whiney now, just so you’re forewarned. If you don’t feel like nodding your head, muttering “uh-huh .. that sucks..” and pretending to play the world’s smallest violin behind your back, then feel free to move on.

I have to totally sympathize with my friend Chris about the suckage that is auto repairs. James’ car went into the shop yesterday because the window doesn’t roll down, and his engine light (according to him) has been going on and off for years. We knew the damage wasn’t going to be good, and yes, saying goodby to $850, while it isn’t the say as sticking a hot poker in your eye socket, I think that it may come close. This coming on the tail of spending $450 on MY vehicle earlier this month. Fuckity fuck.

It’ll be nice to actually roll the window up in his car, though. Comes in handy in the brisk wintery air. Also when you’re toodling through a drive-through window be it food or bank related.

So, remember the big thug of illness that was waiting to take me out last week? I managed to keep him at bay, never really getting sick. Instead, I just got a canker sore in my mouth that started out ok, because it’s WAY up where my gums meet the inside of my cheek, and really, it’s so far up that it doesn’t really hurt much, until THIS week, when it feels like all my teeth are going to fall out, and when I run my tongue along the cankery cankerness, it feels like it’s 1/4 of an inch long. I remember when I was a kid, my brother used to take rock salt and hold it RIGHT ON his canker sores to make them go away. Yes, it does help make them go away, BUT IT’S PUTTING SALT ON A WOUND AND IT KILLS. I’ve been gargling with hot salt water to help make it go away, and the first night I did it, James thought the noise I made was the death-gasp of a rapid beast.

Still, on the scale of illness, it is just a canker sore. So really, I’m not doing too badly. Except that I wrenched something in my back and it seems to affect every other muscle in my body including my ARM WHEN I TYPE. I type a lot, people. Sit at my desk at work and typity type type click click. That’s what I do. That’s a lot of pain. I’m glad I have the merciful muscle relaxers.

And now, here is the part where I really get all scroogey. You are all going to hate me and think I’m a heartless bitch who will deserve her place in hell when her time comes, and you’d probably be right. James and his sister have a black labrador that they have had since they were both in college. Sometimes my sister-in-law has her, and sometimes we have her. We have a dog-share, really. As the S-I-L is going to have a baby any minute now, we currently have the dog. Her name is Cydney. She’s getting on in years now, and she’s a very sweet, very obedient dog. She really is.

However, due to the single cup of food she gets each morning and again at night, she feels she has to scavenge for food on her own in between these times. She has this insatiable hunger which causes her to do things that no sane dog would do.

Like,

• root through my purse because she can smell the pack of gum in it, get it out, gnaw off the outside wrapper, and eat the gum (paper wrapper still on).
• Eat food off the table that I’d just prepared, while I am in the bathroom, NOT FIVE FEET AWAY.
• Eat any food, or anything resembling food off the counter if it is left out. Including bananas, with most of the peel.
• Eat cat shit out of the litter box. (!!!)
• Eat used diapers. (!!!)
• Eat used sanitary napkins. (!!!!!!!!!)

Of course, when she eats all this random shit, like the diaper innards that she consumed on Tuesday, she gets sick and vomits it back up. I tell my husband that we’re never getting new carpet because what would be the point? It would just get ruined by either vomit, piss, or cat scratching. Last night she stealth vomited. I was sitting on the couch working all day long, I got up and went to the bathroom and when I came back there was vomit under the table next to the couch. James cleaned it up because at this point, unless it’s going to be hours until James can do it, I am not cleaning up vomit. He tried to use his super forensic powers to determine WHAT she ate THIS TIME, because there was no tale tell evidence to give us any clues, but to no avail. Mystery vomit. Yay.
The cats also drive me crazy. All they do is hang around all day, pee in the laundry, or my bathroom rugs, or on my son’s backpack, or anywhere that there is material/cloth on the floor, and meow and get RIGHT IN MY WAY as I’m trying to get something done. Trinity is the primary antagonist. Friday scratches the shit out of the carpets, especially on the stairs where they are essentially ruined, though Trinity helps out in that area also. I think Agfa is the only kitty innocent of these crimes in my household, and for that, I love her. The others are free to a good home. Or not so good home. Just get them out of mine. Sometimes I dream of what it would be like to have a laundry room floor that’s nice and clean and not ALWAYS skittered all over with litter. I dream of not having to scoop someone elses’ shit out of a gravelly box. I dream of not having to COVER UP someone elses’ shit because instead of covering it up, they throw litter over the side of the cat box instead.

I remember when I was little and I or my siblings would beg my parents for a cat or dog. My father of course, would always say, “Ask your mother.” and my mother would always say no. She must have caved in sometimes, because we did have 2 kittens when I was little, and an older cat (one of the kittens) and various dogs when I was older, but I still remember her reasoning, when we’d beg her. They make a mess, they ruin furniture and carpeting, and she will end up being the one who takes care of them.

It sounds familiar. I didn’t realize she was right, back then, but she was right all along. Oh yes. When our house is finally rid of animals.. I promise, there won’t be any others coming in in a long, long time.

The dog doesn’t belong to me, but anyone care for a cat or two?

I’m actually in a fairly good mood today, but I just had to get all that out.

– grumpy ms. grumperstein hollers at you to STAY OFF HER LAWN, DAMMIT.

So, there has been an odd smell floating around our living room for a while now. For a while I thought there was an old, wet diaper hiding somewhere, like under the couch. Close inspection proved that to be wrong.

Then I decided it wasn’t a “diaper” smell, just a “old wet” smell. I disassembled our cool mist humidifier, pitched the filter thinking it was mildewy, and emptied out the base. Still, the smell hovered.

Usually, I’m the one to complain of weird smells. I inherited my mother’s keen sense of smell, who can sniff out ANYTHING as if it were a wet St. Bernard. But even James’s nose was with me on this weird wet smell. I started to worry about leaking pipes in the walls, but there aren’t any water pipes where the smell was eminating. Maybe the outside hose spigot? Nope, it was closer to the front door.

Finally, last night we figured it out. PLANTS!!! In the fall, I took cuttings from the impatiens in my garden cultivated them in pots indoors. I’ve also forced quite a few bulbs (which are really doing spectacularly). I’ve taken pictures, but haven’t gotten them off the camera yet (maybe I’ll have to do that before posting this post). Anyway, one of the forcing methods I tried out was using those glass marble things that you use in floral arrangements, stuffing a bulb or two down in them, and then adding water juuuuuust to the tippy rooty bottom of the bulb. I had 2 glasses done up this way. They were not doing nearly as well as the ones I had planted in actual pots. With dirt. Anyway, I had actually THOUGHT maybe it was these bulbs, but when I stuck my nose in there, I could NOT SMELL THE SMELL! So I figured it wasn’t that, and moved on.

But it WAS THE BULBS! AND NOT JUST THEM! I beleive I have over-watered my potted impatiens and they have developed root rot. First, last night, in an effort to determine whether or not it WAS the plant items that had the smell, we moved them from the windows in the family room to the top of the fridge (this was to prevent forest fires kitty damage). It become evident that it was definitely the plants, as minutes after they were moved, the smell was in the kitchen!

So I took the bulbs out of the marbles/beady/glass/water thingee and oh boy did it stink. Rinsed out the marbles well, though I see a bath in cloroxy water in their future. This morning, I thought, “hey, I’m going to take some of these into my office!” and picked out an impatiens pot that I had stuck some tulip bulbs in as well.

All day long, that nasty wet ROTTING ROOTS smell has been plaguing me. We all already know that my delicate little nose can’t seem to take any instrusive smells, and now after smelling this damn plant all day, my nose is all stuffed up and red from the constant blowing. I even relegated the plant to the top of my little hutch/shelves thingee on my desk, but the web diaper smell drifts down anyway.

So I spent some time at lunch looking up root rot and proper soil and watering techniques and tonight when I go home, I shall re-pot my plants using proper potting soil (I think most of what I used was just from the ground outside, a big no-no) that has been pasteurized (Pasteurization! Not Just For Dairy!) in clean, sterilized containers and hopefully my plants will be happy and healthy and the nasty wet-smell will GO AWAY BECAUSE I JUST CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!

Seriously. At least James could smell it this time. Sometimes I’m afraid I’m going crazy with the things I smell and rant about only to hear him say, “What? I don’t smell anything.” *honks as he inhales* “What? There isn’t any smell.” Grrrr.

It could be worse.

OR EVEN WORSE!

OK, I’ll stop with the links, lest I get all mimi smartypants on your ass.

AHHH! I LINKED AGAIN!

Ok, done now.

So, while I’m talking about plants, one of the handy things I did when I was home with Jocelyn in all her sickness, was put up a shelf in her closet. However, I didn’t have enough brackets that the back of the bracket packet called for so that called for a trip to Lowes.

Well.. RIGHT in front of the entrance… was a beautiful standup of SEEDS. My eyes glazed over, my tongue started hanging out, the drool machine started that would put any teething 4 month old to shame. Jocelyn, Ethan and I had such fun picking out some seeds to plant that now I just can’t wait until I can GET GOING! I have grand plans for the garden this year. We bought some green bean, cherry tomato, rosemary, and BROCOLI seeds! On arriving home, I discovered that I already had rosemary, what I need is SAGE! My basil seeds have also gone AWOL, so I need some of those as well. I also bought two pots designed to be the final living space for the herbs – I’ll start them out in smaller thingees* though.

* I’m still learning all this farmer of the earth lingo. You knew what I meant.

The outside is going to be fun, though I need to figure out what is going to go where. We have a deck now and that means I can put in some more beds, which means some grass is going to need to come up, and some soil is going to need amending, and aerating, and some plants in front need to be moved in back and I have to decide where to put the vegetables and where to put the flowers and I want to get a raspberry bush too, because won’t the jam be oh so yummy? and I sure would like a rototiller but that’s probably overkill but OH I JUST CAN’T WAIT!

Luckily, I don’t have to wait until spring, I can start indoors with my little seeds in flats.

As long as I don’t overwater them and use the right media*!

* Look. I used the term “media.” Bet you were impressed. Really, that just means whatever it’s growing in. Me learn gooooood.

It is going to be busy this weekend. I have Bunko tonight, a date with my husband Saturday night, with just the two of us, and poker with this guy and some of his work buddies on Sunday.

SHOE MONEY TO-NIGHT! (or, ahem.. sunday night)

– amy lines up angels on a head of a pin

My brother Joseph is quite a talented photographer. Or at least, as he says, if you expose enough film, eventually something good will turn up. Well, this photo is one of my favorites. Like, ever, out of everything in the world. I’m going to get a print made, frame it, and put it in my front hall.

This is my brother Joseph.

This is the photo that I love. It is of my mother’s piano.

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