Busy Mama!

With the DH in Miami (still!) it has been a daily struggle to find stuff to keep the kids happy while still getting the house cleaned, and spending the minimum of money. And, y'know. Staying sane myself.

One thing that really really helps is that the boys have a friend who lives just a half a block (y'know, give or take) away. 5 houses to the corner, turn left. Three lots up, turn right. Down 4-ish more houses, and we're there! His dad works from home doing customer service (it's not a dream! But I don't think I would be a good candidate; I'm the type to want to organize sock drawers...) so the kids can pretty much be at either place -- here or there -- & it's all good. They usually choose there, because "there" includes a POOL. Not an in-ground pool, but still a pretty decent one. Apparently, the 2/3 of the Barbarian Horde who go down there are in and out of the pool so much it's not worth the effort to send them with dry clothes. Or towels. & I'm ok with that.

The other thing, that I sadly didn't discover early enough in the summer (I'll know better next year!) is that one of the big theatre chains (I want to say Regal, but I am not absolutely positive) does older movies on Tues/Thurs for $1. I don't have the full list, but this summer they've done all the Harry Potter movies in one auditorium & in another they've had something animated for smaller kids -- we saw Pirates: Band of Misfits last week; this week was Rise of the Guardians, and next week is Hotel Transylvania. It's been fun. Popcorn & drinks are $1.50 each, so we can do the whole theater experience for $4 each. Which, with 3 or 4 kids tagging along, is a HUGE BARGAIN. So.

Rise of the Guardians

Honestly, I thought this was a pretty decent movie. The animation was impressive & I liked the storyline a lot. It wasn't too much for my kids, and I think they took the mild lesson to heart -- belief can be a powerful thing, and fear is a shadow in the face of joy and wonder. Anyway, the very best part was watching my kids' faces as they watched -- VelcroBoy in particular has a very expressive countenance. 

So for now, I'm cleaning because I have a friend who's in the area visiting for a couple of days and, while they probably won't actually come to my house, it's as good an excuse for getting some stuff finally done as any... :D

Happy New Year's Eve!

I feel like the blogs I read are full of looking back at the past year, and looking forward to the next, and part of me wants to do that, but part of me... well, let's just say that there was a lot of crap that went down over the past year that doesn't bear looking back on -- partly because I didn't really share a lot of it with many people, and so it would require too much backstory, and I refuse to infodump on my blog, but mostly because I'm afraid if I bring it all back up again, it'll just upset me and mess up the things that are going right right now.

Which is a most awkward sentence, I'm aware.

I have a couple of things I want to write about, like VelcroBoy's social studies project (we made a wattle-and-daub roundhouse with a thatched roof and I have a TON of pictures) and Christmas presents, and things like that. And I don't really *do* New Year's resolutions -- I have a tendency to kind of overdo and then completely fail before the end of January. So let's just say we're counting a promise to the DH as one (we've got a 3-times-a-week lunch date at the gym for the ellipticals, God help me...) and I really want to make more of an effort to have people over for dinner every once in a while. We had our neighbor and her 18-month old son over the Friday before Christmas for pizza night. I gave kidlet a box of jingle bells to play with and he spent the better part of the evening hanging them off the ears of this cat statue I have, while singing "Jingie bews, jingie bews!" to himself. We cracked up, and I have pictures of the statue on my phone. And later this week, we're having a guy from DH's old unit & his wife & 2YO son over. They're getting the boys' Thomas the Tank Engine stuff that I finally talked DinoBoy & VelcroBoy into getting rid of. I may keep a piece or two around just for old-time's sake, and I like to have a few things around for when we have guests with kids littler than my own, but we don't have space for a LOT of stuff like that, so the trains get to find a new home.

Also, I have some bloggy-ness percolating in my brain on two topics -- both of them are sort-of book reviews, but one is also, and more largely, on the general topic of teacher/student relationships, and all the ways they can go wrong. I'm pretty passionate about this one, since my mom is a professor, and there are plenty of pitfalls in that type of relationship, but there are (surprisingly enough, or not-so-surprisingly, depending on how much attention you pay to little details) other issues that get completely overlooked. Like, for instance, relative ages of the two parties involved. The other one is just mostly about little details that really make a story *work* or not -- even when they're mostly peripheral details (for example, describing a house as "modest" and "average" but then filling the living room with enough furniture for three or four normal living rooms -- or a good-sized furniture showroom -- can really mess with an "average" reader's head. Just sayin'.)

Also, I have NO IDEA when my Christmas stuff is going to get packed away. I need to get one more storage container this year, and before I do anything else I want to work on the boys' bedroom (which will probably require *several* new storage containers) and honestly, I would *LOVE* to keep my houses out year-round. I just don't think that the hearth is the best place for that. Maybe I'll keep the Victorian house out; it's not all snowy or Dickensian, and kind of looks like it was made for year-round admiration. I'll have to do some furniture juggling and/or get a console table for my record player. Oh, and after 2 years, I'm finally going to break down and see about getting my dishwasher either fixed or replaced. Either one works for me, I'm not really all in to "features" or whatever. I'm just a little overwhelmed by the volume of dishes that generally need washing, and I want to wash my pretties but can't because day-to-day dishes take up so much room in my sink and on my counter.

And I love my Mommy and my Daddy. They are the absolute BEST. *blows kisses in their direction*

Food for Thought

I know there are a lot of jokes about Chinese food, but the truth is, I kind of love the fortune cookie part of going out for Chinese. The Horde and I went out to the local buffet at the request of DinoBoy (his party was today, although his actual birthday is Monday). The Girl-child and I got some pretty basic pabulum, nothing special, but the boys both got "Food for thought" fortunes. I love those -- some random bit of truth that forces you to think about yourself and the people around you. You especially get that effect when there's a smallish child self-aware enough to ask, "What does that even MEAN?" and you have to try to explain this concept of philosophy or ethics or culture or whatever to them.

DinoBoy's fortune read "We judge others by actions; we judge ourselves by intentions." I really really love this one. It's a concept I sometimes struggle to get across to others -- my kids or my DH -- that when someone is hurting because of your words, or because your words don't match your actions, or simply don't SEEM to to this person outside of you, it really doesn't matter what you THINK or FEEL or think you're putting out there. Intentions are well and good, but we are the only ones who can really know our own intentions. I might *think* I understand my husband's, but I can't really know for sure; all I can do is judge to the best of my ability.

That's a hard concept to teach a kid: the idea that sometimes, you can say or do something intending it as a kindness, but that it doesn't always appear that way to the person you're trying to help. What to you may seem a simple offer of help or support may rub the wrong way or play on fears you don't know about and come across to the other person as a judgment on them, or an attempt on your part to show them up and make them feel inferior.

It's easy to assume that because WE know what we intend, that others will, as well. It's much harder to remember that they're not seeing those intentions; and that everyone filters other people's words and actions through a lens built on their own experiences and insecurities.

VelcroBoy's fortune was "The best way to succeed in life is to act on the advice you give to others." I like that. It's fairly simple and straightforward. If you tell someone X is the way to get to what you want, and you're not doing X, then why should they listen to you? And if X is the path then why are you not on it yourself? Although I think it's more simple than that, even. It's the antithesis of the old saw, "Do as I say, not as I do." That one's a particular trap for parents, I've found; one I'm trying not to fall into. There's a part of me that wants to avoid chores on weekends, while telling the kids to do theirs, and I recognize that that's a form of hypocrisy. Of course, at the same time, if I'm doing my chores, I can't make sure they do theirs. And goodness knows when they're at school I have a hard time following my stated household rule of "Do the things that NEED to be done before doing the things we WANT to do." Especially when there are new books to read.

And on that note...I have books to read! Catch you later!

Morning ramble

Yesterday, my DH left for a nine-month deployment. If you don't know where the bulk of the fighting is happening right now, I'm sorry. I don't feel up to educating you. I'm busy trying on my new normal. Yes, I've done this deployment stuff before, but each time is different. This time, there's a tiny puppy who woke me up whining, desperate to go outside to do his tiny business. So today, we have a list:

Things Which Would Have Made The Morning SO Much More Pleasant:

1. Time to use the bathroom.
2. Time to make some tea.
3. NOT discovering the Reader had no charge (C'mon, Sony, what's up with that? I'm charging my reader every couple of days or so. I know I read a lot, but that seems excessive!)
4. Fewer mosquitoes. Or not being allergic to all the effective bug sprays.

On the other hand:

Things That Were Pretty Awesome:

1. I had time to just sit in my chairs, which I love but hardly get to use because of heat/bugs.
2. The bugs really weren't that bad (I'm just the skeeters' favorite meal)
3. The temperature was gorgeous, and the sun was lovely (if on the other side of the house) and there was that sort of greeny-gold glow to everything that comes after a storm.
4. I think the puppy is finally starting to sort of maybe get the hang of this potty-training business. Although he apparently has a bladder the size of a pea. Wonder if I could litterbox-train him? LOL

Anyway, now I'm ensconced on the sofa with a big dog at my feet and a little dog snoozing beside me (he claws his way up on to the sofa; good job the cats have already damaged the upholstery, huh?). The reader is charging (maybe I should just spring for Sony's special converter-dealie to plug the USB cord into that then plugs into the electrical outlet.) The boys are happily settled under a blanket in the playroom watching some random movie or other and the girl is, apparently, still asleep. I have tea. The only thing I don't have is my husband next to me watching the highlights from last night's hockey.

The term is geographically single.

I feel all need-to-blog-y, but I don't know about what, really. Maybe we'll try that whole stream-of-consciousness thing and see where it gets us. Right now, I'm sitting on the sofa on my DH's laptop. In the room with me are two cats: one white, sleeping on the sofa arm beside me, the other grey and sitting in the high-back car booster over by the front door. My cell just beeped, which probably means my DH just texted me from the neighbors' where he went to see what they got our Middle Child for his 8th birthday today. Better go check...

~~~~

Yup, it was him, but to tell me that their puppies are playing with his shoelaces. Those pups are SOOO cute, and I kind of want one, but just can't right now. They're part some sort of terrier (I think) and min-pin, so they're never going to be very big, and we have two large boxer-mixes right now. I just can't think it's a good idea to bring a third dog -- and a small one at that -- into that, especially as the larger of our two is not yet 18 mos old. Also, we just plain can't afford it. But we can't afford much of anything; I hate to admit it bu we're in dire financial straits.  We're hoping to sell the DH's gas-guzzler soon (ad on Craigslist) which would go a long way to making things a lot more comfortable around here, but until that happens, we're hanging on paycheck to paycheck. And just barely managing to keep no more than one month behind on bills and stay on top of the mortgage and all still EAT. And of course, only one vehicle means it's nearly impossible for me to get a job, because I'd be constrained to the maybe half-dozen or so businesses which are within walking distance, all of which would require me to find some sort of childcare for at least the boys -- and none of which would pay anything above the cost of  that childcare.

Life sucks sometimes.  Keep you fingers crossed that the truck sells.

I so need to go back to school eventually. I keep looking at Work-from-home job posting sites, hoping to find something that I can do, but sometimes it just seems hopeless. They want you to have a space with a door you can shut while your kids are home (which makes being home with the kids kind of pointless. They want you to have this degree or that experience, none of which I have. Or to buy special equipment, which I can't afford. There's always something, and for the others, they're scams. Or they might be genuine, but they totally come across as spammy when you click the links. And I'm not going to risk anything on "might be."

The sad thing is, about half the time, I know I have the skills, even if I don't have the piece of paper or the work history. I've spent the last 8 years or so not working at all, just being at home taking care of kids and house and pets. I can organize, I can make phone calls, I can be convincing. I can type, and more importantly, I can WRITE. Not fiction (or I'd be trying to get published instead of looking for a job), but I can write. I can even edit -- Maybe I'm not sure about fictional content editing, but nonfiction almost certainly, and especially looking for errors of spelling, grammar and punctuation. I'm not sure I could sell anything, but I've done customer service before and I was pretty damn good at it.

Here it is almost 5 pm an I've accomplished virtually nothing today. I've folded and put away a couple of loads of laundry, and washed a couple more (one's in the dryer, the other in the washer waiting its turn.) I really need to do dishes and clean the kitchen so that I can help the Darling Daughter with her first foray into birthday-cake-baking -- she wants to make her brother's birthday cake for tomorrow. It's a basic box cake, so not beyond her abilities, but she's never done a cake before, and this is a special silicone dinosaur-shaped pan, so it shall be interesting. I just hate doing dishes. It's not my least favorite thing ever, but it's starting to rank right up there. Less because I don't enjoy the ritual of it, the joy of taking something dirty and making it clean again, and more because I just do it all the time; hardly a day goes by when I'm not doing the freaking dishes. And my hands get all dried out and flaky and itchy and *horrible* and there's nothing that really helps.

*sigh*

Trying to get past this mood, and not sure how well it's working. Will move on from this to some other things; maybe turning on loud, dance-y music will help me get moving and get it all together.

Much love!

Ranty McRantypants

There are some days you just can't seem to get off the ground. Today has been one of them, definitely. Bad weather, bad finances, backache and all kinds of stuff have combined to leave me grumpy and blue. And the DH spending All Day (seriously! All day!!) on the damn XBox with various members of the Barbarian Horde playing various versions of Halo was Not Helpful to my general mood.

So I holed up in bed and I read. The only thing I've eaten today is a handful of M&Ms, a pimiento-cheese sandwich (I have *got* to start making my own; that store-bought stuff is such CRAP!), 5 slices of canned peach, and a grilled cheese sandwich. I know, I know. I'm working on that starting tomorrow. Mostly because we're at the point of only eating what's on hand, and thankfully the fridge is stocked full of fruits and veggies, and I'm gonna have to bake bread for sandwiches (but I don't WANNAaaaaa....)

And the reading the last couple of days has engendered a mini-rant from me. The words "He said," "She replied," etc., have long gotten old; everyone knows you need more interesting tags than that. BUT. Can we please put a moratorium on the word "coo" and all its variants? Please, God? Please? I'm sure it's a perfectly good word, if you're a pigeon or dove. Or possibly if you're speaking to a baby. But a fully-grown male (or female) speaking to another fully-grown male (or female) Should Not COO. Damnit. I'm sure it's supposed to evoke a sweet, loving, low, sort of sing-songy tone, but it's like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. Let them croon, please. It just sounds more adult -- brings to mind Tony Bennet, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin. NOT a mother trying to calm a screaming child, or a particularly obnoxious and stupid (though quietly lovely) bird. Kthnxbai

Then, today, I read over my blog roll and find some sort-of-serialized posts. They're stories that I'd really love to love, posted in increments regularly for free on blogs. But sadly, I'm not loving a lot of them. The characters are great, but the English? Atrocious. Grammar? Non-existant. Spelling? OMG Let's not *even* go there. Look, I get that these aren't intended to be the most polished thing ever, but seriously! Get thee a beta reader who knows a little about this stuff to at least clear up some of the most egregious errors before you post! And more importantly, when you post excerpts from actual, published (or slated-to-be-published-in-the-near-future) works, make sure they're competently copyedited. Because as a reader, I'm not inclined to want to pay for your work if it's that unprofessional-looking. My book-allowance is slim; since I can't exactly flip through digital books at random down my local Wal-Mart, I really rely on those excerpts and blurbs to help me decide where my money's going. And even a few major foul-ups will make me avoid you like the plague. I have a couple of authors who were at one point on my auto-buy list *despite* many errors who are no longer there, because I can no longer tolerate the missteps, the homophone abuse, the redundancy. At one point, excellent world-building and interesting characters would be sufficient for me to overlook such things, but no more.

Now. The Halo, and the DH fussing at the Girl Child for not being as good at the game as he is (not that, frankly, he's so very great) are NOT helping the headache situation at all, so I'm going to go make some hot, sweet, decaffeinated tea of some sort -- possibly mint, although maybe not -- and go back to bed. And book.

Sometimes, it's hard.

Sometimes, it's hard to be a mom. Summer break, especially. While I love my kids (hereafter known as the Ravening Barbarian Horde), I'm also one of those people who needs solitude. I just need, on occasion, to take a step--or 12--away from the everyday, and focus myself internally (books, TV, a movie--whatever; just as long as it's all about me, Me, ME). And that can be really hard to do when you have kids, especially when at least one of those kids is always needing contact and reassurance. Yes, it's cute when my 6YO comes up to me, cuddles close, and says, "Mommy, I love you!" But it's less cute when it's happened approximately every 15 minutes of every waking moment of every day for the last week. And wait till we hit a month of it! The bickering starts within an hour of waking up, and the whining for more TV time/video games/I wanna go here, do this, buy that! in three. And then the dogs think, Let's join in! and start rough-housing. And the cats find the catnap mice, or decide the laptop where I'm typing or browsing or whatever would be a *perfect* place for a nap (convenient for me to pet them, y'know...) and next thing I know, I'm all but climbing the walls.

And, as much as I love my husband as well, he doesn't exactly help. He usually manages to come home at least once during the day (sometimes as many as 3 times!) and usually manages to interrupt something (sorry, love, but it's the truth!) which throws whatever crazy schedule I've managed to cobble together all to pieces. And he turns on the TV, which just makes the kids *worse* when he's gone, and unless we're watching DVR'ed episodes of NCIS or Castle or The Big Bang Theory, he's watching stuff that I either find revolting (can't handle fishing or horror) or just inappropriate for the kids (true crime) or just plain unappealing (Man vs. Food). And after the Ravening Barbarian Horde is in bed, I want to spend one-on-one time with the Man of the House--but I'd prefer it not be in front of the TV--but that means I have to put me off till after he goes to bed, which means I end up staying up till 2 a.m. And the kids are still getting up at 7. And fighting.

So, yeah. I'm thinking about re-instituting the afternoon nap, even though we're all supposed to be at a stage in our lives where we don't need such a thing. And OMG it's going to be rough when my alarm starts going off at 6 a.m. to get the boys up and out the door for the school bus...