Michelle's Madness

There is simply too much going on with life right now. First of all, we found out that the owner of our house is selling it (got a nice big “for sale” sign in our lawn to prove it) and we have to move around the beginning of September. Fuck. I don’t want to move. Do you know how much crap we have that we now need to pack? Not to mention making the house look presentable, and not embarrassingly cluttered, whenever someone wants to do a walk through. And praying nobody steals our shit while on said walk through. On the plus side, the house we are moving to is close by and is bigger, supposedly nicer and has a custom kitchen. Why only supposedly nicer? Because we can’t see the inside until the end of August, when the current tenants move out. So we have no idea what the inside looks like or what the layout is. That is driving me nuts because we can’t plan out in our heads where our stuff is going to fit. I mean, how big are the bedrooms? How big are the living and family rooms? Plus we have no idea how much storage space, closet space, or cabinet and counter space there is. I did have a dream last night that we snuck into the house to check out the layout while the current tenants were gone. I wasn’t impressed. I’m sure the layout looks nothing like in my dream though. It was a pretty strange layout. At least the new house will be the same rent. It would be nice though if the property manager paid for our moving truck, since this isn’t exactly a move we’ve planned or saved for, but that will never happen.

Right around the same time as the move, soccer starts for Jacob. Of course I have no idea when his games or practices are, let alone where they are. I won’t find that out until the end of August (see a theme here?). Plus I’m supposed to start school at, you guessed it, the end of August, but the thought of doing it now makes me want to hyperventilate. There’s just too much going on.

To make matters worse, work wants me to start the 4:50 shift on Monday. That’s 4:50 AM for those of you not in the know. Yes, as in oh-dark-fifty. Fuckadoodledoo. As if I’m not already a walking zombie from doing the 5:50 shift.

On top of all that, pretty much all of our weekends in August are booked with some activity or another. Brian is going to be taking some days off the week before we move to do a lot of the packing, but I don’t want to leave it all up to him. It’s too early to pack right now, but I feel anxious because I’m not doing anything. I guess I can start packing up stuff we really don’t need out, like yearbooks. Though I’d rather just burn those and dispose of the ashes. That will be one less thing to move and I fucking hate them anyway. I suppose I can start weeding out stuff that we don’t want anymore, but I don’t think I’m organized enough or have the energy to do a yard sale. Being at work makes me feel all stressed because I have tons of things to do at home but can’t do them. Then when I’m at home I want to avoid all the stuff I need to do. And the cycle continues. Also, the quantity of coffee consumed this morning probably has something to do with my antsy feeling.

Calgon, take me away! I know that's so cliche. Maybe it should be "Ativan, take me away!" or "Rum and coke, take me away!". How about "Big fucking rubber mallet, take me away!"? Yeah, that sounds good.

...that when I finally have a day to myself, I end up just doing nothing? I have tons of stuff to do around the house, but of course I don't want to spend my day doing chores. But there are many projects and hobby-type stuff that I would like to do, and I dream about doing but never have time for, and then when I have time I just want to sit on my ass and do nothing.

Ah, the plight of the working mom.

So last night I’m sitting at the dining room table with the boys, and I started thinking about some of their differences. Sure, they have many similarities; they both love Star Wars, superheroes and Transformers. They love to play outside with their friends and go to the park. They love the same movies. And of course, everything Jacob does, Logan has to do too, because Jacob is the coolest person Logan has ever met.

But it’s their differences that are very interesting. Logan wakes up smiling; Jacob wakes up grumbling, once you finally get him to wake up. Jacob is a picky eater, whom we must convince to try new things; Logan is game to try just about anything. He even loves broccoli. Jacob is a little negotiator (I told him if my company ever wants to buy another company that I would tell them to give him a call; he asked if I was kidding him); when asked to do something, Logan will usually just say, “Okay!” and do it. (Usually.) When doing anything that is considered a competition, Logan cheers when anyone wins, while Jacob gets annoyed when he isn’t the winner. We’ve been working on this by playing Chutes and Ladders. It’s actually a great way to show him that just because he is last, it’s not impossible for him to win. Someone might land on a chute, or he might land on a ladder. His sportsmanship has been so much better this week, even last night when he did come in last. He knows that there will be another game and another chance to win. This is a huge breakthrough for him.

I remember the first time we ever played Chutes and Ladders with Jacob. Logan was too little to play, so it was just the three of us. Jacob won the first game, but when he lost the second game, he got all kinds of pissed off. To the point where we put the game away and didn’t play again for a long, long time. We played this weekend and he started to do the same thing: he won the first game, but when he was behind on the second game, he started to complain that he didn’t want to play anymore. He didn’t get too angry though, so that was a nice change from the little beast he became when he was younger. Hopefully it will just continue to get better.

The next task: teaching him to win gracefully!

I’m sitting at work and just thinking up haiku as a way to keep myself somewhat sane. Enjoy!

Today is Friday
Yay, pizza and movie night!
I love being home

I need more coffee
Fuzzy thoughts and can’t think straight
and cranky as hell

Silly girls babble
Blah Blah Blah, shut the fuck up
Really annoying

I crave Chinese food
It’s been calling out to me
More potstickers please!

Drugs, so many drugs
Can’t imagine swallowing
all those freakin’ pills!

Damn work is cutting
into my sudoku time
Stop calling me, jerks!

Yes, I finally
figured out sudoku. Yeah!
No more confusion

Bitchy people call
So mad! Not my fault that you
faxed to wrong number

The boys are at Camp Gramma's and Brian went to a friend's house last night to stay and watch the game today (his friend lives an hour away). So I've been alone since about 5 PM yesterday evening. I had all these things planned to do while I was alone: work on some play lists for my Zune, pick some pictures to have printed at Longs, do laundry, clean the kitchen, make some stuff for lunches this week and some chicken for salads, watch a movie, work out. Yeah, so much for plans. I loaded the dishwasher and threw in some laundry. I forced myself to work out this morning because I really need to get back on track after being sick. I am not at 100% yet, which was quickly realized when I was trying to do crunches and could barely manage 10 because I'm still so tired. I suppose I should really work on the food for the week. What I actually got done: watched a bunch of episodes of Untold Stories of the E.R. on TLC, plus a couple of movies, played on the computer for a while, and took a nice long nap. Hey, who the hell wants to actually do something when the kids are away and you have quiet time to yourself???

It's certainly been a crazy month. The first week was spent preparing for Logan's 4th birthday party, which was on the 7th, which is the day before his birthday. Once the party was over I felt about a gazillion times better, and I could focus on preparing for Christmas and for our trip to the snow right before New Years. Or at least I could focus on sharpening my procrastination skills by avoiding preparing for, well, anything.



But then the Christmas shopping had to be done, which always sucks in December. Usually I try to do most of it in October and November, but really, I just didn't give a crap this year. Grinchy, I know, but tough shit, it still got done. The weekend after Logan's birthday party, the boys spent the weekend at Camp Gramma's, and Brian and I took that opportunity to do most of the shopping for the boys, as well as put up the tree, wrap their presents, and make a crapload of yummy, death-by-chocolate fudge to share with our co-workers and the boys' daycare center staff, who apparently devoured it all that day, much like years past. Oh, the sugar high! The indigestion! The Maalox chaser!



And speaking of Grinchy:





So now Christmas Eve is finally upon us. The boys and I baked cookies for Santa today, chocolate chip M&M and chocolate chip with toffee chips. I just know my husband Santa will love them. Tonight my dad will be here to spend the night, and in the morning, the present opening melee will begin, (not so) bright and early I'm sure.

I finally got around to elfing the boys. Actually, I've tried many times over the course of the month, but whenever I finished editing Jacob's picture and tried to save it, I would get an error message, something along the line of the server sucking ass and "fuck you, try again another time, sucka!". The boys think it's hilarious, though not quite as charming as last year, when they asked me to repeat it over and over and over and... well, you get the idea.

Besides the gift shopping adventures (um, hello, bitches in Target, when you are walking directly at me, why don't you at least pretend someone else exists on the planet and move a little, mkay?), we kicked off our holiday celebrations with Jacob's holiday show at school. All the first grade classes did a nice little program with songs and little skits. Jacob's class did the ABC's in portions throughout the show. Jacob and two of his classmates had the letter G and their line was, "G is for the goose, which you all know is fat." When I asked him to say his line for me the day before the show, he got all exasperated and said he was tired of practicing it. He sounded just like a teenager. Yeah, I can't wait for that shit on a daily basis.



He was super excited to have us both there, and he was actually singing and participating for most of the show, though he wasn't doing the arm motions along with the rest of the kids. He got bored toward the end, with about 2 or 3 songs left to go, and he stopped singing altogether. But all in all it was a huge success, considering past performances. Case in point, Pre-K graduation:



We were the only parents there whose child flat out refused to participate, choosing instead to sit in a chair behind the rest of his classmates, looking grouchy. Oh yeah, it was a very proud moment indeed. I felt like yanking him out of that chair and selling him to the gypsies. Or leaving him there, going home, moving, changing our name, and letting wild dogs raise him. But alas, we didn't, and we were richly rewarded more than 18 months later with almost full, though not always enthusiastic, participation in the holiday show. Score!

Then came the Hanukkah celebration at my mother in law's house on the first day of Hanukkah. It was a fun filled day of latkes and presents for the kids. Brian and I cooked all the latkes. I smelled like latkes for 2 days. Seriously. It was making me freakin' hungry!


Some rum and coke to enjoy while cooking. Hey, it was almost noon!










Utter freakin' deliciousness

The family descended upon the 3 big batches of latkes and sucked them all down, without too much grunting and belching. All of the kids (ours and their cousins) were less impressed by them, which leads me to wonder who the hell do all these kids belong to? But that just meant more for the grown ups. Yay!

Present opening time was less joyful, as Jacob was not pleased with what he received. Actually he was downright pissed off that he didn't receive the Star Wars Clone Trooper Voice Changing Helmet and the Star Wars Clone Trooper Blaster. (Shhhh, don't tell him, but Santa got it for him. And he may actually get it if he's not a total little shit again. He'll be fucking stoked!)

Logan did an excellent job of lighting the menorah, and I'm thinking next year we should start doing that here at home, so they will become more familiar with the traditions their dad was raised with.



And now we are barbecuing a tri-tip and I'm making (more!) latkes for Christmas Eve dinner. A little schizophrenic, I know, but I don't give a shit. It's my Christmas Eve and I want latkes! It's good to be the grown up sometimes!

Merry Christmas all. I hope you all enjoy your time with your family and that your loot doesn't suck!

I can’t believe it’s November 20 already. Where in the world has the time gone? Halloween seems like it was just yesterday, yet at the same time it feels like it was so long ago. In October we get geared up all month long for Halloween, with the decorating and getting costumes for the kids, buying candy, trips to the pumpkin patch and pumpkin carving. Then November 1 comes and Halloween is quickly put out of mind, for the most part. Of course there is still a mountain of candy to pilfer from the kids as a reminder of the Halloween festivities. But Thanksgiving preparations quickly ensue, and with that comes a little nagging voice in the back of my brain reminding me that Christmas is rapidly approaching as well and it’s time to start some shopping. I am simultaneously planning to have turkey day for 12 at my house, and planning Logan’s birthday party, because his party will be on December 7 and I needed to make sure to get the invitations out early because December is so busy for everyone. Not to mention I need to begin the aforementioned Christmas shopping.

Naturally, there are many things I need to get done in the next week:

1. Clean my freakin’ house. Especially the abysmal expanse of counter top and my desk, both of which are covered in papers and junk. I keep waiting for a black hole to open up on my counter and just suck the entire contents of my house into it. Reminds me of Poltergeist, though I’m pretty sure our house isn’t built on ancient Indian burial ground. I hope.

2. Finish my grocery list and make sure I have everything I need. You know, just enough wine to keep the guests relaxed and happy, but not so much that anyone gets rowdy.

3. Next week I have to make several pies. I was only going to make 2 pies when there was only supposed to be 7 people, but the addition of 5 more guests makes me wonder if that will be enough. The guest list includes 4 teenage boys. FOUR. So there needs to be plenty o’ food to keep them from rioting. And I’m thinking that will have to include 3 pies. I don’t want people stabbing each other with forks over the last piece of pie.

4. Pick up my big ass bird (20 pounds) on Wednesday, because I simply do not have space in my fridge to defrost that sucker for a week.

5. I should probably dust off the china that’s been sitting undisturbed since last Thanksgiving. But if I don’t get around to that, everyone can just eat my dust. HA! Get it?

Now that doesn’t seem like a huge list of things to do, but you haven’t seen my counter and my desk. Scary. Now here is what I have been doing to procrastinate:

1. Surfing the web. There is certainly no shortage of sites to aid me in pissing away my time. Damn you Facebook! It’s not like I need more flair; I have a ton. But it’s just so. damn. addictive.

2. Downloading music. There are tons of songs I would love to download, so I spend my time either actually downloading them or trying to remember what songs I want. Either way, great time waster. And I’ve certainly enjoyed my new tunes on my daily commute.

3. Updating my Amazon wish list, and the one for the boys. I love Amazon! It’s like window shopping without having to go to the mall and fight my way through the masses of self-centered asshole teenagers*. By the time I leave, I feel like a salmon that’s fought it’s way upstream to spawn. Without the actual spawning part. Which is why I haven’t been to the mall in years. Seriously. It’s much more enjoyable to shop in my jammas!

4. Uploading pictures to Flickr to share with family and friends (are you seeing a theme here?)

5. Reading. Book, magazine, whatever. Just as long as I don’t have to think too hard, or do anything.

6. Watching the crap we’ve Tivo’d. I’m quite disappointed about the latest twist on Ghost Whisperer. Yes, I watch that show. It’s goofy but fun. And Brian and I have created a drinking game based on that show. It’s called “Glugs for Jugs”. If we were actually playing, we would have a shot every time there was an obligatory mega-cleavage shot of Jennifer Love Hewitt, which, if you’ve seen the show, you know are quite frequent and gratuitous. With some episodes, we’d be smashed before the opening credits, so we just say “glug glug” instead of actually drinking. But I digress. Or maybe procrastinate…

7. Making to-do lists. I have bunches of them. I even cross things off of them occasionally. Though I don’t think I’ve completed an entire list in quite some time. But basically it’s a list of things that, after procrastinating for days, I have to prioritize last minute and scramble about to get each chore done in time for whatever deadline has been imposed on said chore. Nothing like the final countdown to a big event to get me moving. Working under pressure. Because I won’t totally screw something up or do something half-assed that way, right? Sure.

Now, to just get through the holidays with my sanity and my bank account intact. Won’t that be a mighty feat? I think I’d better stock up on caffeine. And rum. Look out holidays, here I come!




*I would like to note that I am not saying all teenagers are self-centered assholes. But the self-centered asshole teenagers seem to congregate at the mall and act like they own the place. No nastygrams please. Of course if that offends you, my blog might be a bit much for you to handle. Call that good advice or a fair warning.