Just Like Rock Stars

It's been about 24 hours since we first became homeless. Sure, 24 hours ago we predicted that this morning we would be waking up in our new house, making coffee in our new kitchen, surrounded by boxes, but life never works out as planned. Instead we left our sweet little baby at grandma's (this is only the second night she's spent without us) and we headed to the big city to seek out sleeping accomodations.

We found a "decent" hotel close to the airport. Not that we needed easy access to the airport, but that's a good place to find a room. Then we headed out to find some food. We chose Busters, a little sports bar, which was nearby. I think it might be similar to Hooters, but I haven't been to Hooters yet. Anyway, Brian and I use to frequent this place pre-baby. We ordered two huge beers and shared an order of finger steaks. Delicious finger steaks. (You see how well my stay fit plan is working?) Afterwards we grabbed a couple of beers, headed back to the room and watched cable. Then we passed out.

You might think we passed out from all the crazy time we just had and the alcohol, but it was purely from exhaustion. And it was like 9:30.

This morning we were able to sleep in since we were so close to work. We didn't have to wake up until 6 am! It was awesome! We ate a free bagel and drank some really nasty coffee. Then we left for work. It was all so scandalous. Okay, maybe not, but it could have been.

Here's your Star

Even for Marguerite, who was doing her darndest to make excuses for me not to work out. :) And especially for Serendipity who gave me a cheer. That was awesome. Lass, you did great with the song! And even Truck Driver gets a piece of the star, even though you questioned my beerlessness and have me completely convinced I shouldn't not have beer.

Pudgy Wudgy

This is what I have secretly nicknamed myself. This name has been racing through my mind all weekend because I am such a slacker!!! The guilt of not working out is unbearable and I can feel my body turn to mush. Someone help! Please! Someone motivate me. I'll motivate you if you motivate me. That is, if you want motivation. I know some of you have been working out and if you have turned into a slacker I am here for you.

I can feel my ass slowly molding into the shape of my chair at work. And the love handles are forming. And the jeans aren't fitting like I want them to fit. And this is what happens when you do nothing all day and eat junk food morning, noon and night. And I'm so sad.

So, this is the week that I work out. I have a goal of at least 3 days a week, which usually means that I don't do anymore than 3 days a week, but that is my goal. Three lousy days. I should be able to do this. But for some reason, I became comfortable. I was doing well and lost some weight and thought "I don't need to work out. I look fine. I'm at a good weight." And then a few weeks went by and I hadn't worked out. And now it has turned into months. Bossy the Cow is starting to ring in my head. Bossy the Cow. But, I'm not bossy so Pudgy Wudgy fits much better.

Since school has started I will need to cut back on the beer drinking anyway. At night, when kids are asleep, the time reserved for relaxing in the summertime turns into packing lunches, laying out clothes, and making sure the diaper bag is adequately supplied. Eating junk food will also be kept to a minimum as I usually try and keep us healthy but with the move and everything going on, there has been a lot of unhealthiness going on. Starting tomorrow. No more unhealthiness. Meals will be planned, snacks will be low fat and low calorie. No more rushing to the store for hotdogs and macaroni and cheese because we have nothing to eat.

Now, if I could only stick to the plan. Any takers on motivating me? If you guys stay healthy I could do something like send you a gold star. I know how tempting that sounds. Whose going to send me my star? I made up a little song, "Pudgy wudgy was a bear..." That's all I have. If you can finish the song I will also give you a gold star.

Well...

I don't have much to discuss. Not much happening. The move is still in process. Right now the kids are sleeping on matresses, which they love! Because they are completely silly. Work is the same. We have our department party scheduled on Monday. We get to leave early and then go to Boondocks, which offers miniature golf, laser tag, games, and bumper boats. I'm excited. This will be our third year going and our first year taking the kids. They will have such a blast. Other than that I'm looking forward to the weekend. Hope everyone has a good one!

Go here to see a silly video of some silly little kids.

Nothing As Sweet...

As sitting on the family room floor eating ice cream and fries and watching an episode of The West Wing, while the kids are sleeping soundly. Ahhh.

Too. Busy. To. Post.

Ahh! I'm so busy this week. Boxing. Cleaning. Scrubbing. Vacuuming. Mopping. Did I mention cleaning? Getting the kids ready for the first day of school. Move out of a house by Friday? Work. Keep up with a very active baby. Cleaning.

I've been feeling a little crazy about cleaning our house before the new owners move in. I don't know why, but I don't want them to think we were complete and total slobs. We are. But I don't want someone coming in and seeing the handprints on the wall or the dirty floors or crumbs under the stove or wine spilled in the fridge and think, "these people are disgusting". I don't know these people, nor will I probably ever know them, but I just couldn't stand them thinking that. Ugh!

I couldn't figure out which picture to post, because I had to post a picture here. This is the one I decided on. The other's can be viewed here.

Tonight, possibly, as long as everything works out, I'm going to go to Alive After Five with some girls from work. And not my usual girls either. Different girls from different departments. Completely outside of my comfort zone. But I've known one of the girls since I started working here. It won't be uncomfortable or awkward, but still different. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Another Weekly Update

-I took the pictures. I dressed everyone and snapped over 100 photos. I don't think any came out. I still have to sift through them. We'll see. Why is it you can't get a decent photo of four kids? When they baby is looking at the camera the other kids are looking at the baby. In most cases, the baby was playing with the grass or looking in the other direction.

-Yesterday was Jordan's first day of school. And not just any first day of school. It was the first day of Kindergarten. Very big deal. He had a great day except for an incident after school. They weren't sure whether he was suppose to take the school bus home. He was sure that he was, but the school had a mix up. It was all sorted out and today he will be taking the bus to and from school. No problems. And of course, there will be photos coming soon.

-I have boxes packed. Several boxes have been packed. (Brian is giggling at these sentences, I just know it.) The girls' room is practically ready to go except for the necessities. The boys' room needs some work. Tonight we start on our room. Ugh! I'm not looking forward to this. We visited our soon to be home the other night. I'm so excited. I can't wait to take a million pictures and show them off for you. It's so exciting. I have never lived in a house so nice. Which is why I will be profusely bragging to you. I apologize in advance.

-I've been reading Cosmo during my work outs. I'm embarrassed to admit that I enjoy reading most of the magazine. Some of it feels a little juvenile, but some articles are actually pretty good. And they have interesting little tips about various subjects. I don't subscribe to it or anything, but it's a nice read when someone leaves it for me. (The someone being a co-worker. She leaves me magazines in my locker. I love it!)

Snap Shots

So, sometime around April, or whatever month Easter happens to fall in, was it March this year? Crap, I don’t know and it’s completely unimportant. Sometime at the beginning of the year I had this bright idea that I was going to buy the kids Easter outfits and take them to have professional photos shot. At Kiddie Kandids. Calling Kiddie Kandids professional photography doesn’t sound right, but you pay a decent (I mean large) sum to have your kids photos taken by someone probably much, much younger than myself, who works part time, in a mall. So, I guess it’s professional, but not really. Anyway! I had that idea, so I bought the Easter outfits. Guess where they are? In the closet, tags still on. Including the baby’s dress which is a size 6-9 months. Guess how old little princess will be on Tuesday? That’s right, 9 months.

I’m giving up this little dream of professional pictures. I have procrastinated and procrastinated to a point that all the clothes I’ve bought are probably too small for any of them to wear. My solution is to take my own damn photos. Go ahead. Judge me. I’m a horrible person. Not only did I not take them as planned, but I have never had Jillian’s photos taken. Not once have I dressed her in one of her many cute outfits and headed to the mall so that strangers could wave silly toys in her face. I think it has something to do with my fear of her screaming, because there are strangers waving silly toys in her face. That and the fact that all the photos I have of the kids, including baby, are better than any photos they have had taken at the mall or school.

Even the ones we have framed and hanging up are perfectly sweet and perfectly them. Meaning, it’s as if you can see their personalities looking back at you. And I don’t want to buy pictures of my kids in some goofy pose with a background of trees or the sea shore behind them. It just seems silly. And yes, the props and poses are cute, but I think they’re cute without them. Maybe I’m making excuses to not get them dressed up to go to the mall, which is 30-40 minutes from our house and wait in line, did I mention we would have to go the mall? Wait in line at the mall for God knows how many hours so that the baby can cry and be frightened. I don’t want to do it. And I can’t afford to have them all shot at a professional studio where they schedule a time for you to come in and take photos of them in goofy poses with real backgrounds of trees and I’m sure the sea shore, but we don’t have a sea shore.

So, I won’t. And I will do my best to pose them goofy and put them in front of trees and maybe a fence or something. Or we could go on location-to a park. Because honestly with the money it would cost to gas up the car and take them to the mall (did I mention we would have to go to the mall?) where we will probably have to eat a little snack while waiting and then pay for the many packages of pictures, I could probably buy them a new outfit, new shoes, and have their hair done. And then I would end up taking a million pics of them anyway. And these pictures would be neatly filed away on the computer, so neatly that at the drop of a hat I would be able to find these photos, save them to a disk and get them printed in various sizes at the local Fred Meyer for practically nothing instead of thrown in a cupboard with a million other pictures waiting to be put in a photo album. Which will never happen.

Many Thanks and Other Hoopla

I just wanted to thank everyone for they're birthday wishes and congrats on the new house. I try to respond to my comments, but sometimes I can't get to it and then by the time I want to it's been days and then it's all old news. But I love when you all leave me sweet messages.

My little Stitch Jr. ( I call her this because she destroys everything in her path. In the last 12 hours she has managed to break a bottle of fingernail polish on the carpet, throw a bowl to the floor and breaking said bowl leaving me with an incomplete set, and shredding a box of tissue.) Anyway, my little Stitch has taken her first steps. No, they were not graceful steps and there were only one or two steps before she fell, but they were steps. I love my little princess.

In two weeks, almost to the day, we will need to be out of our house. Two weeks!!! Guess how many boxes I have packed? That's right. Not one. I don't know what's wrong with me.

We're moving and I recently noticed that our house has never looked so good. It's relatively clean most of the time. Much of the clutter is gone. All of the unfinished projects are finished. What is up with that?

I have been the grouchiest office worker in the history of office workers. Okay, that isn't true. I'm not grouchier than those ones that shoot up their office. But I'm grouchy. I think I just get fed up dealing with people who are difficult. I'm not difficult. I never have to be dealt with. I just don't understand why I'm being tortured. And I have PMS so the two aren't mixing well.

I wanted to steal some crackers from a co-worker who certainly wouldn't care if I stole her crackers, but she didn't have any of those yummy crackers left and I had to go with out.

The other day I was walking out to the truck and twisted my ankle. In the process I broke the thong part of my sandal. I was so distraught. I like those sandles. I'm having it repaired. Brian thinks I'm a loser, but there's no where to buy new ones of the same sandal. I like that sandal. I want to wear that sandal for the rest of the summer. Besides, wouldn't it be silly to buy new sandals when I could have the old ones repaired? Yes, it would.

Have a great Wednesday. Muah!

"It's Getting Hot in Here. So Take Off All Your Clothes"

Brian took me to a concert last night. No! Not Nelly. Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. It was hot and I literally felt like stripping off my clothes. However, I was 100% sober, so luckily for the other concert goers I did not.

The concert was spectacular. I can’t even describe it. I do know I have told Brian probably hundreds of times that the Tim and Faith concert I went to about six years ago was the best concert I have ever been to in my life. It was even better this time. Faith was good six years ago. She is amazing now. Simply amazing. She is also the prettiest person I have ever seen in real life. Brian of course agrees, but the funny thing is he mentioned that she is prettier in person. And it’s true. Isn’t it hard to imagine that Faith Hill could be anymore gorgeous than she is on screen? I know, but it’s absolutely true. She is beautiful in person. And Tim is just hot. He came out on stage for the first song and chills ran up and down my spine. Yummy.

It was an awesome birthday present. Brian pulled his usual “your not really going to get anything this year for your birthday. We’re on a tight budget and you are getting a new house,” routine. I never fall for it at first. I wave him off. Whatever, I don’t believe you. Then after a couple of weeks of hearing it I start to get angry. “What do you mean I don’t get anything for my birthday? This is my 30th birthday, jerk! I better get something! You can give me the credit card and I’ll get my own present then!” (Of course, it varies slightly each year and it also happens on holidays.) And yes, I sound like a spoiled brat. I don’t care. I want gifts, damn it! And it’s mean.

On Thursday evening, the night before my birthday, my birthday eve if you will, he tells me I should open my gifts. (By the way he told me the kids bought me a card. I said the card better have something in it. He said it didn’t.) He presents me with a pretty pink gift bag, with cute girly pictures (by girly I mean shoes and whatnot. Pervs!) and a very big and very fake diamond on the front. “Nice bag,” I tell him. He nods. I open my card from the kids because it’s little and looks very similar to a gift card. It is! I knew the card would have something in it. Next I open my card from Brian, which is very sweet and makes me very happy. I then open the gift bag. Inside was the sixth season of The West Wing. I have the previous seasons and get a new one each year. This is nice. Thanks sweetie! Nothing else is in the bag.

I am thinking to myself that it’s possible there’s more. I’m not going to throw a tantrum. This is a nice gift and if he takes me to dinner and a movie this weekend it’s perfectly acceptable. He tells me we should watch an episode. “Really? Why? Dinner is going to be ready in about 2 minutes. You want me to put in an episode?” He tells me yes. I take the shrink wrap of the boxed set and slowly open it. Inside were my tickets to Tim and Faith. Woohoo! This is way better than just the season 6. This is perfect!!! I was very pleased.

My entire 30th birthday experience was actually pretty great, making me forget for about 4 days that 30 is old. (I say 4 days because I still don’t feel old today. I expect I might tomorrow.)

On Friday I came into work to find my cube completely trashed with birthday décor and Barbie balloons and horrible pictures of myself with captions such as “I’m 30 & I’m Flirty”. My friends took me to lunch and made me my favorite treats, brownies and lemon bars. (Brian can be thanked for the horrible pictures and the treats too!) We went out for a few drinks after work where I tried some shot, I forget the name somethig having to do with a cake, a cosmo martini (I finally had my martini and it was good), and a beer. We drove over (Brian drove) to get Jillian where I had a couple more birthday beers and headed home. We started to watch a movie, but when we got home I had another beer and pretty much was done for the night. The next day I went shopping with my mom and spent the money on my gift card. And Sunday was the concert. Everything was perfect.

I turn 30 tomorrow!

Birthday Wishes

Well, it's my birthday week. So far I have not received gifts, but I went to a movie and dinner. Which weren't exactly for my birthday but Brian seems to think they should count towards birthday activities.

Um, I'm not so sure I agree. The movie we saw? Monster House. Sure it was cute and funny and slightly creepy but we also shared our popcorn with two little kids. And it was Monster House. Maybe if it were Pirates or The Lake House or Superman it would pass for the birthday movie, but it was Monster House. However, I am told that possibly we will go to see Pirates on Sunday. Possibly. If everything works out.

The dinner we attended was a lot of fun and delicious. However, it was a dinner provided by Brian's department at work. We went to the race track and had prime rib, salmon and chicken cordon bleu. I bet on horses with cute names and lost and we drank as much as we wanted. It was a perfect dinner. But, it was for work. And work is work no matter how fun it might be. You can't count it as a birthday dinner. You just can't!

Now, earlier in July I made my birthday wish. I wished for a community gift. A gift that will be shared by the entire family, including the dog. And it seems that I am going to get my wish, which is so exciting and stressful all at the same time. Someone (Serendipity!) tried to guess my wish: a baby. No! No more babies for me. I love my baby, but she is certainly enough to go along with the other three. My wish was that we would sell our house and get the house we have been drooling over since we put our house up for sale. And so far, barring any kinks in the closing process, my wish is coming true. We are moving in about three weeks. Into a house twice the size of our current house (which is pretty small and remember, there are six of us. And a dog.) And it is in a great neighborhood, in a great location (for us) and it is beautiful. And big. And I know size isn't suppose to matter, but I really love the size of the house. And I have turned into this person who is impressed by kitchens. The kitchen is perfect and big and has more cupboards than I'll be able to fill and the pantry has an electrical outlet. Actually that's weird and we have no idea what we're going to plug in, but it's there. And it has the granite counters and hardwood floors and stainless steel appliances which means we have to buy a stainless steel refigerator to match.

And I could ramble on and on about it's greatness, but I'm a little embarrassed by the entire thing. I never imagined we would be moving this soon. I think we had this five year plan or something Brian had put together. And when we did decide we wanted to move I did not imagine us getting into this type of house. I imagined something bigger than our house now, but more subtle, I suppose. I had no idea we would be able to live in the house we have chosen.

The thought of inviting people over is exciting but I feel a little weird. Like I shouldn't show people. Like I will invite people in and feel like I should make excuses for it being so large and having so many rooms. "Well, we do have four kids and a dog." But I shouldn't feel like that. I should feel happy and proud. Which I do, but it's still a bit overwhelming. I also have a feeling I'll get over that. Especially since Brian is insisting that we keep the six year old Chrysler that is nothing too fancy, to park out front. Blah.

And I know that there are people that live in bigger, more expensive houses, but I never actually let myself imagine we would be able to get this one. And now that it's reality, it's very fricking exciting. And I'm happy about it. And so I share with you my happiness and giddiness and try not to sound pretentious or ungrateful.