Eh, I don't feel like blogging right now. But it's been a few days, plus I usually try to blog on Wednesdays although I don't have any weird news for you today. So go create your own weird news instead.

We're gonnna go slightly stream-of-consciousness here if y'all are up for it.

You ever feel like you have a million projects going but you're never going to be able to finish any of them? Yeah, me too. It's a normal feeling that y'all understand, like the dishes/laundry/fixing the house/car maintenance blah blah blah ain't never gonna be done. Seriously, 3 loads a day of dishes and laundry each gets old real fast. But since being naked and hungry isn't really an option...OK, so the hungry thing isn't really an option...

Since I'm not at school all day every day anymore, I have more time. So I'm creating awesome space for the kids in their rooms. Bud wants a science-space room, Sass wants an underwater room, Pickles wants a "Dojo" room (he means Zen/meditation), and the Hamster wants a castle/dragon room. I know it sounds a little overwhelming, but if you didn't know yet, I'm an artist so it's not that difficult for me. I sound a little full of myself, but that's cause I am. I'm actually quite good. I hope that you all have a talent or skill that you are confident in because it's nice to be able to start something that you know will turn out well.

So here we are again. Now to finish those projects. My brain doesn't work that way. I work better when I have lots of things going on. Working on one thing at a time, from start to finish, is really hard for me. I used to fight it, but now I just roll with it. What gets me is when I'm out of balance with how many I have going compared to how many are close to completion. I suppose I should actually go work on some of them instead of blogging/whining about them, huh?
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One more thing before I go~

Sassafras as we drive through Illinois: Mom! They had Lincoln's head on that billboard.
me: That's disgusting!!!
Sass: Moooooommmmm, it was a PICTURE of his head.

I love warping them...

Anybody else ever feel the need to see, smell, be near, be in... big water?
A river, a lake, an ocean?

yeah, me too.

I'm sort of landlocked out here in the Midwest. Luckily there's quite a large river running through town. It's dirty. Like too dirty to eat anything out of it.

But it's there.

Rushing and powerful at its heart. Slow moving eddies at the periphery. Winding and swirling. Dark shadows and a bottomless belly. A belly that holds rusty refrigerators, a car or two, giant man-eating catfish, maybe a body or twenty.

It's not ideal water for me, but I do need to drive miles along its length at times. Surrounded by snow all winter has me feeling a feverish for something other than white and gray. I'm ready for Spring. I want to smell green things. At the grocery store, I push my cart through the flower section. I walk past my baby chives on the window sill at home and inhale deeply. I touch the leaves of the pea plant that Pickles tucked into the soil a month ago.

I need to go camping. I need to go hiking. I need. I need. I need.

Why is water so cleansing? I believe Heavenly Father made our need for water part of the great plan. We can immerse ourselves in this life-giving force and feel the weight, quite literally, removed from our shoulders. We begin our existence in water. We are born in a flood of fluid.

My sign is Cancer. Is that a sign? Ah, astrology, I'll save you for another post.

For now, I'm gonna go take a bath...

Random...

the Hamster uses the excuse that his bum hurts whenever he doesn't want to do something.

Go clean your room Hamster. "I can't, my bottom hurts."
Go play outside Hamster. "My buns are tired, I don't want to."
Come eat Hamster. "I had a cookie. I don't like what we're having. That looks yucky. And my butt hurts."

You get the idea.

I'm not sure where this came from, and I'm sure a psychologist could write a killer piece for a journal about it, but there it is. I don't think it would work for me though.

I can't pay the electric bill because I have sore buns.

Yep, it's much cuter coming from a 4 year-old.

Lemme give you a twopic.
Twalk amongst ya-selves.


*Why does the busiest airport in the world have chicken bones on the floor in Baggage Claim?

*Why does my 3.5 yr-old have no interest in potty-training unless it involves bribery? Perhaps I'm being played?

*Why would a old gross smoker ask me if any of us darlin's have a cigarette when it was me and 2 of my KIDS standing there?

*Why have my children been obsessed with the fattest-man-in-the-world?

*Why have I wanted to send them a postcard "from" the fattest-man-in-the-world (asking them to bring him more food and if they don't he'll eat them) as a joke?

*Who told my kindergartner that we live in the nostril of the state we live in? (If you know what state we live in, look, we live right at the nose)

*What in the world did the dog eat, because the hork on the carpet is unidentifiable? (just so you know, I cleaned it up BEFORE I blogged)

*Why did I just break my own I-don't-post-about-vomit rule?

*Why have I decided to up my school hours from 18 to virtually 30?

*When did the kids going to high school become closer in age to my daughter than to me?

*Why are there popcorn kernels all over the living room floor, when I don't buy popcorn?

*Why am I blogging about them instead of vacuuming them up?

*Why are you still reading this post?

Buh-bye!

Warning: A highly gritty post

This is an article about a movement. A movement where black families decide to only buy products from black-owned businesses. It's slanted as a feel-good human interest story.

It actually really pisses me off.

Lemme 'splain.

What if I decided to only buy from white people? What if I called ahead to see who picked up the phone? What if I walked into a store, and asked to who the owner was, and then decided to only shop there if the owner's name "sounded white"?

What kind of reception do you think I would get? A nice news article discussing how I'm supporting other white people?

So it's a wonderful thing for a black family to only shop at black-owned businesses to show pride in their race, huh?

Bullshit.

It's another way to divide the nation.

If you want to build this country,
If you want to support your neighbors,
If you want to put money into the economy so we can stop this recession,

Then spend money in stores based on:
The principles they espouse,
How they present their business' mission statement,
and how they offer customer service.

That being vented said, I also think everyone should have the right to shop wherever they damn well please.

So now I'm off to buy Scout supplies from a white lady, get my dress hemmed by an Asian lady, and get a new phone from a black guy...

I was going to title this post "Things that made my day weird". But then I realized that it's not necessarily the things that were weird (or any weirder than normal), but the overabundance of weirdness. It's Spring, and apparently weird was in bloom today.

Today I had to:

tell Pickles that it's most definitely NOT ok to bring handcuffs to church.

try to explain to my kids why incest was necessary for Adam and Eve's children.

explain patiently that James that playing water balloons with the kids in 40 degree weather with snow on the ground was a bad idea.

explain (not so) patiently to James to stop trying to talk to me while standing next to the computer with a water balloon in his hand.

clean Parmesan cheese out of my bra.

clean blue chalk off a child's face 5 times.

figure out what to take to my x-ray lab tomorrow.

play "What's that smell?" in the truck.

wash my hands like an OCD sufferer on crack after finding what that smell was.


How was your day? Any weirder than normal?

This conversation actually happened.

Let me set the scene for you.

A cold February day in WhereIlive. It's overcast, the wind is blowing. I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of the mailman. It's nearly 2:30PM.

*mailman arrives at my stairs and steps on the pieces of cute ceramic mushrooms he had previously stepped on and broken*

me (not so nicely): Hey!

Mailman: Uh, hi?

me: Did you bring back those letters you took out of the mailbox two days ago?

Mailman: huh?

me (slowly): I said...Did...you...bring...back...the...letters?

Mailman: What letters?

me: I left three letters in the mailbox so I could get them the next day.

Mailman: Why would you do that?

me (rapidly so I could get the whole thing out): Because I have 4 kids. Only 3 Valentines' Day cards came so I was waiting for the 4th one to come so no one would be sad about not getting theirs. I left the 3 in the box. There was a letter paper-clipped to the front of the box, like you told us was the proper way to get things picked up. The others were inside. You should have left them in there.

Mailman: How's a mailman supposed to know that?

me (incredulously and loudly): Are you KIDDING me? There was an address on the front of the envelopes for THIS HOUSE! They had THIS address on them! They were already stamped from having been sent through the mail! How could you not know that?

Mailman: Oh, sorry.

me: OK, well they're all here now, so good.

*scene fades out*


I know the end was pretty anticlimactic, but what do you say after your shroom crushing mailman apologizes? I suspect he didn't entirely understand what the problem was, or why the crazy lady was yelling at him, but sheee-yooooot! It's HIS JOB to know about letters.

I really want to write a political post, but I have to pull my thoughts together a little more. This is just a warning that you may or may not want to read the next one. Sort of a forecast. Snow and political posts may fall tomorrow. This post is just 1 grit, and is just a few cutsie pie apple buns pumby umby umpkins kiddie type stories.

Hamster was eating pomegranate seeds the other day. He had a little bowl of them. When he wandered back into the kitchen without his bowl. "Hamster, where's your pomegranate seeds?" says I. "My Obama seeds?" asked my sweet little rodent. Obama seeds? Super L would probably argue that he's a Dem already, but I think it's amazing that an almost 3-year-old already has politics seeping into his psyche. So now pomegranate seeds will forever be Obama seeds round here. Even Midwestern fruit is to the left of center.

Bud called Pickles a butt crack old fool the other day. After I came back from the bathroom where I could laugh privately, I told him that was very rude indeed.

Pickles thinks in comic book-ese. He illustrates sounds and actions with loud made-up emphasis. I flicked the bottom of a donut (the store spells it that way) box that Sassafras was licking. Pickles yelled "THWOCK!" That's really what it sounded like too! He likes to yell things like "POW!" as he feints a punch at his brother. He's always sort of been like that though. Look for his name in the credits in about 20 years, as he will be a big time director someday. He and Sassafras used to role play with toys. Pickles would always direct the play and tell Sass what to say and what was going to happen. He would insert asides and stage directions. "Now I'm going to walk through the door. walk, walk, walk." Now I'm shrinking. shriiiiiiiiink."


and finally a Sassafras story. I'm not really sure where she picked this up, I've only seen it portrayed in Super Troopers, but she's been saying meow in the middle of talking about other things. "How was your day meow?" "Meow y'all get over here!" That's all I can stand to write about her right now, cause her attitude really been pissing me off lately. I call her Sassafras for a very good reason.

Y'all come back meow, ya hear?