Crisis: Laundry!!

I'm pretty good at my job, I like to think. I like to clean and keep a tidy house, so housewifing isn't all that difficult or unpleasant for me. But everyone has small struggles in their field, I guess, and mine would be laundry. I cannot stay on top of laundry. And I trrrrrry. And I faaaaail.

We just got our spring/summer stuff down from the attic. And by "just", I do mean 3 weeks ago. The boxes sat in the hall for about a week and a half. Then I moved them into a closet for a couple days - I figured that if I wasn't going to do anything about them, I should probably just move them out of sight so I could stop talking about them, too.

But, then I remembered them. Or, Nate reminded me of them because he found and wanted to wear the too small Phillies jammies that I saved for Mattie. That was a whole different crisis.

So, last night before I went to sleep, I dumped all of the boxes of clothes onto the floor so that they would be in my way big time and I'd HAVE to do something about them. Kinda pathetic that it has to reach this drastic extreme, don'tcha think?

Well, it's working. When I woke up, I threw a load in before I even started the coffee pot. As of right now, I have about five loads washed, dried and folded and three more loads to wash, four to fold. Of spring/summer boxed up shit. Then I have a load or two of our regular clothes. Then towels. And the sheets I never washed on Sunday when I changed everyone's bedding.

And then there's the new problem of piles of folded clothes that are all over my house... on the coffee table, on one of the sofa's in the living room, in baskets all around the place... little piles of everyone's stuff, separated and ready to be put away. Putting away is hard for me, too.

Housewifery is tough work, yo.

This bag!

I covet it! I want, need and have to have it for spring. It. is. awesome. So ugly... it's lovely.

I don't carry a diaper bag, or a purse even, all that often, really. I'm more of a "jam it in my pockets" kind of girl. Or I just carry my wallet into stores and let my kids look after it for me. But, this bag, this bag could get carried.

I think I could use it as a diaper bag-slash-purse, as it's big enough to hold lots of junk that probably doesn't need to be toted around, anyway. And then, in the middle of the summer, when I get real sick of it, I'll make it my beach bag.

Sold! I will be it's proud owner in just 3-4 short business days.

If Momma Ain't Happy...

I've "gone green". It's been years for us, actually. I was using fabric grocery sacks back when people still stared at people who used fabric grocery sacks like they were bizarre. I started cleaning greener when I had my kids; I was a Bleach Freak before and found that with a little extra elbow grease & a squirt of Dr. Bronner’s, I can clean just as effectively without it. We've always recycled, even back in the day when all we had to fill our bin were empty beer cans and wine & liquor bottles. We’ve changed our light bulbs and we’ve changed our ways. We’re putting forth extra effort every day to conserve energy, gas, waste... we're doing our part.

Are you?

To show Mother Earth that you’re on her side, participate in this year’s annual Earth Hour. Earth Hour began in 2007 and this will be our family’s second year participating. How can you join in, you wonder? It’s easy! From 8:30-9:30PM (your local time) on Saturday, March 28, 2009, just turn off all the lights, TVs, appliances, all of it; just turn everything off and unplug stuff and whatnot.

What to do with a whole hour without modern technology or, gasp! lights? The Daily Green had some pretty hot ideas. We’re thinking of getting drunk and playing games. If the kids are still awake, which they best not be, and it’s not raining/too cold, we’re thinking of taking a moonlit stroll and then having a picnic-snack on a blanket in the family room.

It’s only ONE hour. (But don't miss the point: this is your way of telling the world that you're doing a part to help with climate change and you really shouldn't do it for JUST one hour a year, you should just do your damn part every day. Just sayin'.)

I’m sure you can find something to do for one hour. Grab a flashlight and make a list of all the things you HAVE to do once the lights, the washing machine, and the telephone all get turned back on. You’ll probably appreciate the calm, dark, quiet hour you’re giving back to Mother Earth.

Katie-Katie

This is our dog, Katie.

She goes by Katherine in more formal situations.

We got Katie last September. She kind of found us, I like to think. I’d been looking for a dog to adopt, and a friend of my sister-in-law’s had a dog they needed to get rid of. They have four kids, and their youngest was allergic to Katie. So, she came to live with us.

Her official breed is Redbone Coonhound Attention Hound. She came from a breeder who bred dogs for show. If the dogs weren’t of show quality (AKA Katie), they would see if they could be sold as a hunting dog, which her breed generally is. If not, as I suspect Katie wasn’t, they were sold as regular family pets.

Now, I don’t know Katie’s entire past, in the year before she moved in with us, she very well may have gone hunting. She may have gone strawberry picking or shoe shopping, or maybe even to Charleston to try out for American Idol, I simply do not know. And she doesn’t like to talk about it.

Coming from a family of four kids, she fits in very well here. My two kids roll all over her, they open her mouth and put food and toys inside. When they’re playing in the backyard, she’s laying right there with them. When they come inside, the three of them lie down, and watch TV, my boys using her as a pillow. She’s their playmate, their buddy, their companion; she really is the dog I’ve always wanted. Plus she’s very fancy as far as hound dogs go; she gets her nails painted and she crosses her paws like the lady she wants to be. And for all of that, I love her.

If we put all of that aside, she truly drives me insane. She is ALL up in my dance space, all effin’ day long. She follows us everywhere; wherever we are... there she is. With her old family, she was confined to the laundry room often, but here, oh no no, she sprawls out on the furniture. She eats food right off the table. She barks to come in 2 seconds after she cries to be let out. She thinks she deserves treats for merely existing. She’s extremely obnoxious when she eats. She hates the rain, refuses to go out in it unless I go with her.

So, a few weeks ago, I had an “A-ha” moment, and decided to use her extreme fear of water to my direct advantage. A squirt bottle. It didn’t take long. I hold that sucker up, say “Katie, go lay down” in my most convincing voice and she hauls ass like her tail is on fire to lay on… the… family room sofa. Hey. I’m working on it.

Smooth

Spring is here, and before we know it, it's going to be time for shorts and skirts and tanks and other articles of clothing that show off the body parts we've been trying to hide all winter long. Which is great! Who doesn't love warm weather and skirts?

I have one teensy problem. I like to snack. At night. When I'm watching my shows. Like, tonight, I have The Biggest Loser, and I'll want to snack while I watch people work-out and weigh-in. I've been doing Jillian's 30 Day Shred and I've been liking it, but it's not enough. I'd love to pretend I'll never snack at night ever again, but let's just face it, that's never going to happen.

So. I've been making smoothies.

They are so good! And lower in calories and fat than, let's say, molten chocolate lava cake, or pound cake, or any kind of cake, really. And they're fun, so I enjoy my snack ten times more simply because there's a straw involved. Win-Win. Win.

I use a bit of V-8 Splash Tropical Blend juice, a couple dollops of non-fat organic vanilla yogurt and some fresh or frozen peaches, pineapples, sometimes a half of a banana, always about a cup of ice, and then I blend it up. And I always drink it with a straw.

Twilight

This weekend, we watched Twilight. I read the books after half the world read them, and it wasn't in the movies after I finished them, so I had to wait for DVD. Which is fine... this is what I do.

So, my review: I liked it. Didn't love it, didn't hate it. If I hadn't read the book, I think I would have thought it was a stupid tweener vampire movie, but since I had read the book, I enjoyed it. Too much probably.

I do heart me some Edward. He's so hot, it shouldn't be allowed. Plus, he's sweet and romantical. And fictional. Heh.

Things You Should Know About Me

You should know that the last birthday I celebrated was my thirtieth. Admittedly, as the months crept closer and closer to B-Day, I was completely, totally, absolutely, certifiably terrified because OMG, 30 is all old and shit. But. If I'm being honest here, I'm really, really, really, truly, madly, deeply loving 30 thus far.

See, here's the thing... the thing is that I know who I am now. That's the thing. Like, I really k-n-o-w and accept who I am, and more importantly, I like who I am. There's always room for improvement, of course, hence Jillian Michaels coming into my life, but, I'm happy 93% of the time, and I'm content 100% of the time. Okay, maybe 99% of the time, but 99 is still a real good number.

I do worry that I'm no longer allowed to think that John Travolta looked good in Grease? High school student? Yes or no?

As I may mention them from time to time, you should note that I am married with two children. I met my husband, Tim, during our senior year of high school and seven short years later, he proposed. We married in 2004; we'll be celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary this May. As adorable as that might sound (and as adorable as it sometimes is) we have our marital troubles just like everyone else, but we're still on twelve years strong now. We got pregnant with our first child, a son, just six months after our wedding. Nathan arrived in the summer of 2005, and his brother, Matthew, followed in the summer of 2007. Two cats and a dog complete our little family.

I make up new words, you should know. Well, I don't so much create new words, I more or less combine existing words (synonyms, mostly) to form new words (primarily adjectives). It's so easy and fun! And, beware: they can be catchy.

I LOVE mini's. Like, the miniature version of just about anything --- toiletries, notebooks, candies, juices, spoons, cups, cards, literally anything that is a smaller version of the real thing. The exception here would be diamonds. And um, well... you know. And if you don't know, bless your innocent little heart.

I love music. Classic Rock, Alternative, Blues, Jazz, 80s hair bands. Country. We have music on at our house all.day.long. I prefer music to TV as background noise. I have dinner music, workout music, cleaning music, rainy day music and summertime music... I just love music.

Having said that, you should assume that if it's new, current or "now", I do not know about it. This applies to music, movies, books, fashion... pretty much anything aside from Reality TV. The awesome part? I don't give a tiny rat's ass. I don’t care if I’m “cool”. Because I’m 30 now. And I am sooooo cool.

Sun City Carnival

My mother-in-law was able to score me some bomb ass seats for Kenny Chesney's Sun City Carnival Tour, which will be here in Philly, this June, at Lincoln Financial Field. My friend Amanda is going to be joining me; she's probably the only person I know who realizes that country music is exactly where it's at.

Our seats are on the floor... like, Kenny Chesney will be right there and we'll be really close to him because we'll be right over here. *points all around*

WOOOOO-hooooo! I could not be more excited! Couldn't! Because, you see, Sugarland, my most favorite, is coming with Kenny. They're also bringing Montgomery Gentry, Lady Antebellum and Miranda Lambert along for the show. Duuuuuuuudes. It's gonna be cray-zee.

You can get your own tickets here. And you should.

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