Thank you, Wal-Mart

If you know me well enough, you know I carry a black cloud above me - particularly at restaurants - regarding various customer service experiences. Maybe you all do, too, and you just don't complain as much. However, Wal-Mart has been at the center of some real doozies out there. Remember that crop night? I think it took the full 6 hours of scrapbooking for me to calm down that night. I would even just not develop my pictures if I saw the lady with the Farrah Faucett hair working that day.

Wal-Mart is now on its way to redeeming itself. (Can't say that phrase without thinking of "Dumb & Dumber"). Last night was a frenzie of rush out to the construction site to see the windows, a dinner with friends at Rib Crib**, an 80 mph dash to gymnastics, then a 'quick' trip to the mall to get L a new winter coat, since he had his growth spurt late in the season. All this knowing I also had to hit W-M for the essentials due to the oncoming storm, thinking I'd be joining everyone else within the three counties.

Once there, I realized I'd obviously beat the rush - oh, yeah! No coats at mall or W-M, but plenty of helpful people. It was almost like the oncoming snow put everyone in a fantastic mood. No Jack Frost here. Then, thinking I'd bypass the huge line in the (two) regular lines, opted for the self-check out. Those people, when they see they are covering the self-check out lanes, must think of calling in sick or faking a migraine to go home, although give them 1 hour on the job, they'll have a real migraine. Everything I ran through and placed in the bag came up as 'skip bagging - see clerk for authorization'. Everything. She was so amazingly patient with me, and never stopped smiling.

Then, it was finally over. I could go home...except, where was my wallet? I had 'simplified' and put it in my coat pocket, no purse, but then took off the coat. It could have fallen out anywhere. I also quickly said, "I'm not gonna panic," to C. Then realized, if it had been found (and turnd in), I would have already been paged.

Thankfully, I'd thrown it in my Dillard's bag from earlier, and found it in the car. Walk in, pay with red face, unload car in freezing cold, realize I didn't pay for all the items up in the seat part of the cart. C looks at me like, "Oh my gosh. My mom is going to jail." We rush in, as I'm hoping my i.d. isn't being run through the FBI, and pay, again.

Thank you also, Wal-Mart, for taking all the bad words out of Fergie's "Dutchess" album. Now, we can listen to Glamourous again, until C figures out what all the silent pauses might be someday. If only I could edit my daughter's moves, now.

**Funny at dinner: I found out my friend's kindergarten son has informed her that his music teacher is the most beautiful woman in the world - and mommy is almost as pretty. I think he realized that might be backward and said they were the SAME amount of beautiful or something to that effect. The funny part is, his mom is a very attractive lady and reports that the music teacher is about 15 years older and has eighties hair. I'm sure his tastes will change!

Triple Blog Day

So I had to write this before I forgot. My sister, who lives about 3 1/2 hours away, recently called with excitement and urgency in her voice: "Hey! I am eating lunch in a parking lot across from an apartment complex and you will not believe what is parked there!" --- "What??" --- "A NEW van from the _____ Baptist Church down there!!" (meaning where I live). Then she begins her CSI - inspired speculations: "I mean, WHY would they have a church van up HERE?? You've got to call them tomorrow and find out if they've had a van stolen - doesn't your friend Ginger go to that church?" --- "Yeah - her whole family goes." --- "Well, then call her and see - she'll probably know." --- "I will. Wow! You might be a hero!"

Well, I forgot all about it until she called me later last week asking whatever became of the stolen van. So, I called the church right after we hung up. Here's how the conversation went:
"Hi - This may sound very weird, but my sister, who lives 3 1/2 hours away, called me and said that there was a new-looking church van of your church's up there in a parking lot. I talked to her again today and when she drove by, it's in the same spot. I guess I'm asking if you all have had a van stolen?"
"Ohhhhhhhh......that's my husband. Yeah, he's at a leadership conference he flew out of that city for and has a brother who lives there and said he could park there for free rather than the airport."
"Oh."
"Wow, your sister is very observant! Thank her for looking out for us."
"Oh, yeah - I will. Sorry."

So, tonight, I relayed the message to my sister, who has been waiting for the Fox News special report on how her expert detective work uncovered the stolen van operation. Through deep belly laughs and a little humble snorting on both of our parts, we kissed goodbye the appearances she had envisioned for her collecting her citizen of the year award. She now admits she might back off the late-night detective shows, but probably not.

One more, before I go to bed. This might gross you out, but when we first moved in to our glorious rental house, I hit up the local dollar store for a few items - which still seems weird, because it's not like I just got my own place or something, but it seemed I needed new rubbermaid items, etc. Anyway, I grabbed some very yummy-looking fig newton bars thinking, "Great breakfast on the go!" Congratulations to me. The appeal of those bars quickly dissipated when J pulled on of the cellophane wrapped snacks from the box - LOADED WITH WORMS, MOTHS, TOO MUCH TO GATHER IN THE SECOND I ALLOWED MY EYES TO SEE IT.

I've thankfully never had my own experience of getting rid of moths, or worms, to my knowledge in 13 years of living on my own. I think it's punishment for the disgust I showed to my parents' pantry when they had their run with them a few years ago. One of those attitudes like, "DO SOMETHING!! It's repulsive!!" As if they are an easy little varmint to get rid of. Not at all the case. We have now thrown out ALL of our pantry goods that were not canned - which were bleached and then replaced with multiple moth bars, bleach-cleaned shelves, anything I could spray in there and left alone for days before replaced. (You'd be amazed what they laid their little maggot eggs in - even COFFEE filters. YUCKYUCKYUCKYUCKYUCKYUCKYUCK!!!!!) Every replacement food we've bought resides in the deep freeze, now.

Well, I didn't know how this had affected my daughter until tonight. As I sat here on the phone with my sister, breaking the news, I noticed that she had been doing some writing. I'm always interested to see what she has written and read:

The food we bot at "Dollar" "Tree"

and then nothing more. It's funny how she put Dollar Tree in quotes, and even individually. Must be the grammatical feature last week at school. She might have gotten distracted - or run out of room. I've noticed sometimes she just stops writing if she runs out of room. More fun to go start something else than get another paper to finish the thought. I wonder where she gets that...

Anyway, I'll let you know later how her story ends.

p.s. my hair appointment got postponed. I get to drag out the suspense of whether or not I will end up looking like Ms. Hollywood below.

Time Discrepancy

Just noticed the last blog (it's 2:13 pm) posted as 11:09, so just like my answering machine that has never kept the actual time, I guess this thing doesn't either. I'm working up the courage to post a picture or short video for your enjoyment, so thanks for being patient on that one. So we'll do a before and after kind of thing, and I'll post a picture of what my friend Chrissi, who is also my haidresser will make me look like tomorrow. HA!!! We'll see about that!

Before I go, gotta tell you about L's statement just now as he comes up to me saying, "There are tentacles in my pants!! Look!! They're gonna grab you!!" He has actually stuck Doc Oct.'s, from a very cool Spiderman toy, tentacles in his britches, like his sister, and is attacking various pieces of furniture. You can imagine what I thought he meant when he first said that! Reminds me of my friend Jennifer's daughter asking her what "Lust" means on the way home the first week of kindergarten.

Pajamas All Day Long

So it's 1:00 in the afternoon and we all still have our pajamas on. Received the very welcome 5:30 am phone call, "No school today!!" and was so excited I couldn't get back to sleep. However, with the lower body workout I did on Sunday afternoon making my legs feel like they'd been bludgeoned and then my muscles put through a medieval torture device, I decided I'd watch the trio of network morning shows until the kids got up. J was kind enough to hang some makeshift, dark curtains up the other day when I told him there were people driving around in the vacant field behind our rental house and that provided me with enough fake darkness to fall back to sleep - I'm embarrassed to say - until 10:00. But the body needs rest, right? The kids were of course jumping all over me from 9:30 - 10:00 playing 'cave' and finally the guilt got me up and making breafast.

I'm amazed that the framers are working today. It's insanely cold and putting on a roof on icy beams doesn't sound too cozy, but we really lucked out with our framers THIS time. Of course, last time, I wouldn't even get C out of the car (she was three then) because they frightened me so much. I think, collectively, they had 7 teeth between them. The 4 weeks, with perfect weather, turned into 9, but in the end, it all got done. Here it's single digit wind chills, and they're putting on a roof! J asked him when we stopped by yesterday if they needed anything and the lead guy said, "Yeah! A big, 'ol space heater the size of your house."

So we've played cave, had a breakfast the kids derived the menu for (scrambled eggs, blueberry waffles & yogurt), skateboarded back and forth in the kitchen, done a few crafts, built a couple of forts under tables and between ottomans, and now we're back to crafts - making signs for the forts. We'll clean it all up at 4:30 so when daddy comes home, we'll look productive.

I did manage to watch an episode of "What Not to Wear" that I couldn't take my eyes off of because the victim of Stacy and Clinton's (or Quentin's?) reminded me so much of my friend Jennifer - http://www.m-mphoto.com/ & her professional website (click 'about' for a pic):her blog: http://m-mphoto.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/01/index.html

Well, at this point, I'm sick of my pajamas, the roads are good, and we're off to pick out a bathtub against the kids' wishes, of course. I think at the end of this if I don't see HGTV for the rest of my life, I'll be fine.

Lucky

How we missed any damage with last night's multiple tornadoes, I don't know, but I am more than grateful. Our built - in - thirty - minutes rental does not have a truly adequate place to take shelter, but we settled with the laundry room, hoping we wouldn't end up underneath a washer or dryer! Both bathrooms are on the ends of the house. We laid piles of pillows and blankets and beloved stuffed animals on the floor, and brought L's twin mattress with us and pretty much made that bed for the night. J is too cool to take shelter from tornadoes. He likes to stand on the front porch and greet them. The kids were so calm and brave (even though they made references to the little bit of Desperate Housewives I was watching the night before with Wysteria Lane obliterated by a tornado - NOT the primetime to watch this week!) How we missed our basement!!

We got through two rough pass-by ?tornadoes? and then at about 2:00 things calmed down enough to return to the bedroom. Next thing I knew, J was waking me and said to get back to the laundry room - you all know what your houses sounded like then. Like the bricks were going to fly off one by one and head to the next town. The windows were rattling as if they were loose in their framing. We are fortunate enough to live very close to the siren pole - so there was that kid-friendly music for added effect. Cleared us again. I don't know how we kept dodging the bullet - but I'm so thankful we did.

Through it all, there was that gut feeling of our 90% framed house blowing away. "Uninsurable until able to be locked and enclosed" was what the insurance man had just said when recently asked. We would have been ruined - about $50,000 in labor and framing gone in an instant, with no return. But God is good, and heard my prayers, and protected our partial home over there. J went as soon as soon as he could this morning to assess it all only to meet the 84 lumber guy with a huge load for the decking. I guess it's business as usual for them!

One last thought was how sweet L was with his prayers last night. He was saying "Jesus" so often and thanked Him for our cars, repeatedly. We tried not to frighten them, but it was all very real and unavoidable. With weather like this, we have no power than to pray, duck, and cover.

(Another old draft. I think I was delirious.)

4:33 am was the last time I looked at the clock this morning. I remember the lesson I didn't learn from back in grade school with the Science Fair experiment I hadn't completed, due the next day: procastination gets you nothing but stressed. I honestly didn't know I could still pull an all nighter - and it's weird how this has actually been a really great teaching day, too. It's that energy that comes out of nowhere. Being in a kitchen table chair from 9:30 to 4:30 has its residual effects. I need a donut pillow if I'm gonna do that again. Then Murphy's Law struck: the site was down where we load our grades onto from about 10:45 - 2:00. I just checked and checked over and over and it finally uploaded. You're probably thinking I will learn my lesson and that this won't happen again, but just wait until the end of 3rd quarter!

It was the weather's fault, of course it wasn't mine. We had beautiful weather after what seemed like a month of indoor recess style days - going from a 2 degree wind chill last week to a record high in the 70's yesterday. I couldn't work with all of that good air.

My sister said I shouldn't blog late at night. I might put something in here that would offend someone (already happened). So, since I'm sleep deprived, I'm just gonna keep it safe and show a video of D opening her new American Girl at H's family Christmas. Grandma Peggy hit a grand slam with that one!

I love lists (I hear it's a first-born thing)

Today I'm going to list a few things I'm especially thankful for. There will be many, many things left off the list, because I need to get home to my crock pot dinner I'm dreaming of...

1. How S crawls into bed with me in the mornings and says, "Mommy, you're warmie," and falls back to sleep.
2. D's endless 'good days' and how I have the privilege of walking over to pick her up each day from school.
3. H's patience and seeming to telepathically know when an already-produced meal or drawn bath will be needed when I get home.
4. My 25 bright, shiny faces and little minds to mold.
5. Unexpected emails from friends with exciting and juicy info.
6. Champagne breakfast on New Year's Day - and every single thing on that buffet (ahhhh...the prime rib.)
7. Trees. I just love trees.
8. Low-fat cheese sticks with marinara sauce.
9. Christmas Break
10. Second Chances
11. Chart paper and colored sharpies
12. Country music songs that tell stories like, "I love this bar" or "John Deere Green".
13. Leftovers for lunch.
14. The gift of teaching American History & getting kids excited about it.
15. Scrapbooking stores (and gift certificates to those stores ; ) )
16. That the liquor law was lifted and our town will get some REAL restaurants now.
17. Christmas decorations and how they add magic to the house. (Yesterday S gasped with horror when I said, "We probably need to take down the tree." He thought it was a permanent fixture, I guess).
18. Email.
19. Heated seats.
20. Loving family and friends.

Like I said, this list could continue until next June (ahhh...June. warmie.) So I'll go check out the progress on the house from today. Another thing to be grateful for.