Yo Martha

It's the year of the Chinese Christmas. I have 3 parties (and counting) that I have to find a man and woman gift $25 or less. This sounds like a great idea until you have to start shopping for it. It wouldn't be so bad if I had a nose for perfume or any fashion sense but what I think smells o.k. really stinks and I still wear the same clothes I bought 5 years ago. I don't know what a cute purse looks like. The one I carry is hanging on by a thread. Partly because it is so old that I don't even remember when or where I got it and partly because my dog chewed on the strap and it's hanging on by a thread but I don't care for I think purses are just another something I have to keep up with.

I could go with the standard candle, picture frame or warm cozy blanket but that isn't a ton of fun.

So, I'm searching for ideas. I need someone with Martha Stewart Super Hero Powers to come to my rescue and share some cool ideas with me.

Hmmm

Would this be an inappropriate gift for a lady at our annual Christmas Deacon Dinner? Shouldn't everyone own a belly dancer coin wrap?

Black Friday Haze

It's all a blur. I guess I should recap Thanksgiving since I didn't even mention it. I was going to take some fabulous pictures of the get together but my kid stole the batteries out of my camera. In short, the food was great...Sandy's hair is really long...Kayla pulled out into traffic and cut someone off and Toby almost wet himself (don't ask me again why my kid doesn't have her license yet ;) Football, Pumpkin Pie, Heath is tubby, filling your plate to overflowing always seems like a good idea at the time...grandmother...and mom deleted her blog? whew.

So, I woke up early on Thanksgiving because I knew that I needed to go to bed early for Black Friday Shopping! The problem: we didn't get home until after 10 p.m. and I wasn't sleepy. Talked to Casey and we decided we would leave my house at 3:30 A.M. We made this decision around 11:30 p.m. Do the math people. That is not enough sleep even if we had been in bed 3 hours earlier.

Now, at 3:30 in the morning, pulling your hair in a ponytail, wearing little to no make-up and dressing like a bum seems reasonable. Who dresses up at 3:30 in the morning? exactly. The problem arises around 8 a.m. when the people who waited a little longer and spent more time making themselves presentable start to show up. I'm not saying they were judging me but I was more than a little relieved when I saw others like me who were roaming around in their pre-4 a.m. fashions.

If you add all that together: very little sleep, no makeup, bad clothes and being old...come 11 a.m. or so it all starts to melt together and you don't have to look in the mirror to know what you look like. I do not do well without my sleep. I could feel the skin sliding off my face. I knew that I was starting to zone out while standing in those long lines and my jaw was starting to sag, my eyes were closing and I was hoping that I wasn't drooling but at that point didn't really care. Casey of course was still looking great with her 20 something year old self. Whatever.

I did get some great deals.

There is just something about not getting enough sleep that makes you sleepy/tired but unable to sleep. I walked around in a daze for the rest of the day yesterday. It was fun though. Fun in that I saved some money kinda way.

I do need to give a shout out to my new friend John at Walmart. He went above and beyond the call of duty and made sure I got something for free. Good job John. There may be a Christmas card in your future.

Turn It Up!

I have added a medley of fabulous Christmas tunes to this blog so turn up your volume and you're welcome.

Did You Hear That?

That loud groaning wailing panicing noise of sheer helplessness, fear, and distress that just broke the sound barrier was me...a mom...who just found out that instead of the customary 3 day Thanksgiving break from school, her kids will be home for the entire week of Thanksgiving. THE ENTIRE WEEK?! What happened to advance notice? Shouldn't parents get to vote on this stuff? Yes, I know you sent home a calendar at the beginning of the school year but who really reads it?

Now I love the idea of sleeping late...it's the getting up and finding something for 3 bored kids to do to pass the time that is not my favorite.

I'm bored
I'm hungry
Can we go somewhere
I don't want to clean
She isn't cleaning as much as me
I had t.v. first
It's too cold to play outside
I'm bored
Can we go to the mall
Can we go to the park
I'm bored
I said it was my turn to use the computer next
Shut up, no, you shut up, no you shut up
WHY CAN'T YOU ALL JUST SHUT UP
I'm bored
Why do we have to go to bed...there is no school tomorrow...and it's only 6:00
There is nothing to do

Did you hear that? It was me again.

You Know You Watch Too Much CSI When...

You see a shoe in the middle of the road and think:

Maybe I should go back and make sure someone hasn't been hit by a car and is lying in the ditch waiting to be rescued

You spit your gum out the window and think:

I sure hope that doesn't end up being some kind of crime scene. They will find my gum and I will be a prime suspect!

You are cooking dinner and pour blood from the meat down the sink and think:

If I disappear today they will find that blood and think I was murdered. But then they will take it to the lab and figure out it is just bovine blood.

Yes, I have really thought all of these things. :D

The Traveling Pants

First of all I would like to say that if you have 3 kids a dog and a husband it is probably not the best idea in the world to have your kids do their own laundry. Why you ask? Well, the amount of laundry that flows through this house is enormous and kids who are only willing to wash what they wear the next day do not get very much accomplished...leaving piles of unwashed and neglected/rejected laundry lying everywhere...waiting.

So, in an effort to regain some sort of control over the mess that is threatening to bury my dog alive, I have been trying to get laundry done today.

Now...a few posts back I mentioned the khaki pant crusade. We are past that but we still have the old pants that were too small. Well, every time I have done laundry for the past month, these too small khaki pants have been in the laundry pile. I have washed them and put them back up and I have just hung them back up and stuck them in the closet (because I know that noone has worn them). So I'm starting on my laundry again today and what is in the pile? Yeah, those crazy khaki pants! What is going on? I keep putting them up and they keep reappearing in the laundry. Are my kids messing with me? Are the pants haunted?

I think I will probably give them away since they were barely worn but should I give someone a pair of haunted pants? Will I be under the "full disclosure" law and have to attach a warning to the pants for the next owner...just so they will know that the pants can and will walk themselves back into the laundry pile when you aren't looking? I could burn them and just rid the world of the scariness of it all but then what if I find them in the laundry again the next day...like 'Christine' the scary car movie that fixed itself everytime someone tried to destroy it. I just don't think I could handle that much creepy.

Or maybe, I'm just imagining it all because my brain is rejecting the idea of cleaning.