Friday, November 03, 2006

Weird Craft Site

Because I am a 40-something, bored, lonely housewife whose husband's idea of a great Friday night is to be prone on the couch watching Numbers and then fall asleep, I found myself yet again, with nothing to do. All right, I'm doing laundry, but still. Thomas is no fun either, he is completely absorbed in a book.

Internet to the rescue. I decide to Google craft sites. Thomas likes making things (what I affectionately refer to as messes) and I like to find fun, creative things for him to make.

Before I share the website, I just need to share this. I have a wicked sense of humor. I find some things funny that most people don't. I'm warped and I admit it. Well, maybe not that warped, but I laugh at things my husband shakes his head at.

So this is the site I found. Crafts. I've set the stage, you know I have a crazy sense of humor, right? I've actually just been redeemed. My sense of humor is not crazy, wicked or gross. Someone out there is much sicker than I am.

For the record, I find these tampon crafts gross and disgusting and not funny at all. I do, however, applaud their out-of-the-box thinking. Those earrings -- just GROSS.

I think this made my Friday night. Perhaps the next time I'm PMSing and my husband does everything all wrong, which is always the case when I'm PMSing, I'll join the Menstrual Militia, make myself a special blowgun (and hope Thomas doesn't get it confused with his PVC blowgun that he made) and shoot my husband in the behind with tampons.

Seriously, what are people thinking???

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

I'm getting old

Thomas and I recovered from our traumatic lunch. We finished school and ran errands.

The wind is blowing from 25-32 mph. It is 33, but with the wind chill, it feels like 21. I am just not ready for the wind and cold. It makes me cranky.

We picked up his school photos at the studio. This year we went to the photography studio that does photos for the schools and had his homeschool photos done. I am so disappointed. The background is a horrible color for his skin and he looks washed out. I should have just taken him to Walmart.

We then had to stop at city hall to drop some scouts forms off to a gal that works there. We had a very nice visit with the gal. She is the nicest lady, but every time I see her I just immediately feel guilty. She's also the Weight Watchers leader. Yes, I used to attend Weight Watchers. Yes, I lost tons of weight and put it back on. Ugh.

Back into the cold and wind, we went to the grocery store for milk and bread.

Final stop: Kmart. I wanted to check out the Halloween sales. Nothing was left but junk, sadly. I should have gone out at 8am because there were some cool decorations I would have liked to have had. Oh well.

While there, we decided to look for a pair of slippers for Thomas. He felt that would be safer than being barefoot after his splinter episode this morning. The shoe aisle is right next to the sporting goods aisle. At the end of the sporting goods aisle was an entire endcap of hideously obnoxious musical decorations. Remember that stupid fish that you pushed a button and it wiggled and sang? Well, these decorations were along the same vein.

So we're shopping for slippers, Thomas is being picky and taking his time, I'm already cold and cranky, and along come two 20-something men. Boys, I should say. They hit every #$%#@ button and turned every single one of those obnoxious things on. The sound just really annoyed me. It annoyed Thomas, too.

So we continued our shopping, listening to that cacophony of mind-numbing, canned, so-called music. There were many playing, but none were in synch, so it was like listening to 50 kids singing a song one word off from the next.

Finally, the music stopped, and I felt better instantly. Thomas decided he needed to try every single pair of slippers on that were his size, and many that weren't. He had about two pair to left to try on and then make his decision. Along come two teenaged boys. Just guess what those two boys did? GUESS?

They hit EVERY single button and turned all those %&*#!! things on again.

Now this is why I'm getting old. I snapped. Really, I did. I stepped out into the aisle close to them and yelled, "Damn it, you try shopping listening to that crap. Knock it off!" It was a mean tone, too. Their laughter stopped immediately and they stood with their mouths hanging open, staring at the crazy lady.

It was then I woke up out of my trance and realized what I had done. That is SO not like me. Before I could say I'm sorry, they shot out of there. I think the crazy lady scared them. I know the crazy lady scared herself.

Thomas and I shot out of there, too. Without slippers. I was so embarrassed!

Thomas couldn't wait to tell his dad what I had done. They had a good laugh about it.

I think it's time to become a hermit again. I don't have to leave the house until Saturday and I'm not going to. I don't need to scare any more teenage boys. I don't need to scare myself or Thomas. (Thomas didn't get scared, he thought it was funny.)

Years ago, as a young girl, I would have hit all the buttons and giggled, too.

Sigh.

It was not on my agenda today to teach Thomas that his mom can easily go postal at Kmart.

Never a dull moment

We got up, started school and I was able to get some picking up done. Thomas was having a great "on" morning so I was free to move around here and there.

Thomas was sitting at the table, doing his writing, and kicking his bare feet. He stubbed his big toe on the underside of the table leg and aquired a huge splinter. The splinter went very deep into his toenail. It was highly painful.

As luck would have it (luck for me, that is) it happened two minutes before my husband would arrive home for lunch. So we iced the splinter and waited the longest two minutes. DH got home, and started to dig that splinter out. I was about to pass out. Thomas was screaming bloody murder.

DH was unable to get the entirety of the splinter out. He called his mom, who was an RN for 40 years for advice. We called the doctor's office to make sure his shots were updated. And now we're just going to watch it and hope it works itself out. We applied antibiotic cream to it and Thomas made himself a very cool bandage.

I have a headache now. His screaming, plus the fact that he was hurting SO bad, just did me in. He's fine now, but mom is worn out.

I hate it when things happen to him. I told him it hurts me worse, or at least as bad -- emotionally. I want to wipe any pain he may have to endure away. Then reality clicks in my brain and I know he can't grow without ups and downs -- and splinters -- in his life.

After my husband left for work, Thomas said to me: Thank you, mom, for taking care of me. You helped me a lot trying to get my mind off it and talking to me about last night while dad was digging. It still hurt a lot, but you made it better.

I guess a little love goes a long way.

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

I need to go to bed

But instead here I sit. Staring at this glowing box. Reading boards, blogs and more. I learned a very popular costume this year was Steve Irwin with a stingray barb in his chest. Now, I found that funny. Really funny. I guess many people didn't. I think humor helps people get over things when they hurt, so perhaps that's why I found it so funny. I didn't tell Thomas, though. I also was reading the message boards at Snopes.com and about peed my pants laughing so hard. Seems some college student in Boulder somewhere in time dressed up as a priest and he also had a cabbage patch doll attached to his outfit. To keep this G rated, I won't tell where. But it just struck me funny.

I couldn't come up with a creative, clever or unusual costume if I tried. Thomas desperately wanted to be a chameleon this year. We bought green sheets (no fabric store here) and I just ran out of steam, willpower or desire to attempt it. Actually I had no vision. So he went to a party as a green ghost, and he went trick or treating tonight with a Scream? mask on and a black cape. He was happy. I'm not. I let him down this year.

On my defense, my husband had been out of town for two weeks. I don't do well when he's gone. It's not that I miss him, I usually love it when he travels for a week. Longer than that, I do miss him. It's just that I let our routine get so out of whack that everything is a mess.

This past weekend, while I was worrying about the cat, I went on a rampage through this house. I must have done 20 loads of laundry. I washed anything cloth. All my lace curtains got washed and hung. Pillows, bedding, blankets, drapes, table skirts, rags, clothes -- you name it. So the night DH got home we were going into the bedroom ready to sleep when what do we see on the clean comforter/sheets/mattress pad? Our other cat, who was not sick, had hacked up a huge hairball right on the bed. Pulling the bed apart, it soaked all the way through to the mattress pad. I almost wanted to cry. In fact, I think I did shed a tear. Note to self, buy another mattress pad cover. We stayed up an hour and a half later so I could wash the mattress pad. Used our other sheets.

Well, my husband arrived to a spotless home (except the bed) and he exploded. He always explodes when he gets home. Yes, he's always grumpy, but that's not what I mean. His stuff explodes. His suitcase has been in the living room, in our bedroom, and now is in the hall. His gloves and hat are sitting on my kitchen counter. His glasses are there, too. His plane tickets and receipts he needs for work are laying on another counter. His dirty dishes are stacked in the sink. That man goes through more dishes than anyone I know. His dirty clothes are piled on the bedroom floor. His books -- this man reads two paperbacks in one evening -- are scattered everywhere.

My spotless house from Monday is a complete and utter disaster on Tuesday. See, that's one of the things I like about him travelling. My house stays clean.

I need to go to bed, but instead I sit because I am dreading tomorrow. My kitchen is trashed, although the dishes are done. His books, our school books, a garbage sack full of pumpkin guts, three huge pumpkins -- there's no where to turn. I entered Thomas's room tonight and it is a filthy mess! What happened? It was just so clean. I told him tonight as he got in bed that if we had a fire tonight and a fire fighter had to get in to save him, they'd trip and break their neck. I was just making a lame and crude comment, but I think that scared him. He got up and cleared a path to his bed. I didn't mean to scare him, but if he cleans the room tomorrow, I guess it would have worked.

Now that DH is home there are probably five loads of laundry awaiting. He actually expects me to cook supper -- or at least get food at the store so he can cook it. Sheesh, he just expects so much from me! ;-)

Okay, so when he gets home I get cranky, too. Because it means there's always tons of work for me to do.

I have a gazillion errands to run tomorrow, too.

What is bothering me the most, though, is how are we going to do school with everything such a mess! Thomas has attention problems and I pretty much have to be at the table with him, or at least in the same room. Table works better, though.

It's going to be a sucky day tomorrow. Either school will suffer or the house will. Either way, I will definitely suffer.

Calgon, take me away.

Finally, blogger let me upload a photo.

Please, ignore the mess -- although, what homeschooler hasn't seen piles of books everywhere, pumpkins, etc.

This picture was taken this morning. Snowball hopped on our kitchen table and started attacking Thomas's pencil.

I almost cried, it made me so happy. Things are back to normal. We love our kitty!

And one further thing -- Thomas's hair is not greasy, he just got out of the shower. When I saw the photo I was hesitant to post it due to that! lol

Happy Halloween

I hope everyone has a fantastic day. We will be carving pumpkins this afternoon, hitting the local haunted house late in the afternoon, then Thomas and his dad will hit the streets and I'll stay home handing out candy.

I love Halloween.

It has turned out to be a happy day aside from the holiday aspect. Yesterday I called the vet's office. I was not given an update, but told the vet would call me. Four hours later I called them again, right before the lunch hour, assuming I would get through -- and I did.

Snowball's body temp was back to normal, he had quit throwing up and he was well hydrated. He told me to come bring him hope as he'd get better faster at home.

His prognosis was very good if Snowball would eat. He gave me two types of special food, which literally stunk. Snowball turned his nose up at it, but being the persistent mom that I am, I spoon fed him. He must have thought he was getting something special because he wouldn't touch the stuff in his bowl, but on my spoon, he ate. He ate again this morning, too. Everything else is working. ;-)

The vet told me he would probably be lethargic yesterday. Well, he wasn't himself, but he was anything but lethargic. He bounced between Thomas and me. He followed us everywhere we went. He wasn't lacking energy. He slept with Thomas last night.

This morning, when we started doing math, I almost cried. Up jumped the cat, laid across Thomas's book, and started batting his pencil.

Sniff, sniff. Our beloved cat is back.

Thank you for all the well wishes.