Monday, November 28, 2005

Make it quick

Driving children to various after school activities can easily drive a parent crazy. "Don't touch me!" "Quit singing!!" "Ewwwww, who farted?" Blah blah blah. I had had enough and promptly informed my kids of this, when my son continued torturing his sister.

Mom: "Now you get to go to bed 30 minutes early"
Son: "Why?"
Mom: "Because you are too far away for me to smack at this moment"

At this point I see my sons head out of the corner of my eye with this comment

Son: "Just please smack me, you can reach now"

I almost had to pull the car off the road I was laughing so hard. Not a great point to make to the kids. Humor will get you out of most things.

Saturday, November 26, 2005

Who's Idea?

Who's idea was it to drink? Darn good idea. Drinking is the social lubricant of the world...Can I have some more?

Ahh, truer words may never have been spoken nor a better question asked...

Mother, May I?

Ahhh, holidays are good. Time to spend talking with relatives that you like and that you put up with...

Actually, we're pretty lucky in that we get along very well with all members of both sides of our families, so going home for turkey day wasn't that big of a problem beyond the logistics. Here is a sample of why we like it so much:

Mother-In-Law: Well, we need to get the papers signed for my will and living will and that stuff...
Me: Well, that's a perfect way to bring the party down. "So, in case I end up like the turkey, here's what I want you to do..."
Mother-In-Law:
Me: I have a question...If for some reason you're incapacitated, can I...
Wife: No, you can't flip the switch on her...
Mother-In-Law: (appalled look on face)
Me: No, here's what I wanted...I always wanted to play ER. Do you think, and I mean, I supposed it would work even after she's dead, they'd let me play with the paddles? "We're losing her, clear.... (rubbing paddles) Clear...". I mean, that would just be so much fun...

At this point, I think I was excused from the rest of the conversations which allowed me to just drink without needing to communicate...good times...

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

HAPPY TURKEY DAY!!!

I hope everyone enjoys the food AND the company!!! Us, we're heading North for this holiday as we haven't spent any time with parts of the wife's family since we moved years ago. So, we're long overdue and are looking to correct that. In the meantime, I leave you with each of my children's wishes from kindergarten and first grade projects forever:

gobl gobl gobl.

P.S. - If anyone has some leftover cheesy taters they'd like to send my way, let me know and I'll see about pickup...

(only 32 more shopping days till Christmas...still need a list from me?)

Monday, November 21, 2005

He's the prettiest!

This is a clarification to my hubbies post on Nov. 11th. Here how it really went!!! He pays a bill way wrong, calls me to report the situation and then proceeds to leave town for the next week to hunt down Bambi, see kin, scratch (secondary to lack of bathing I'm sure), fart, and drink excessively. So.......here I am trying to get one kid to gymnastics and pick another one up from orchestra, and make it to the pediatricians office to intercept a very large check for a very small co-pay! After many trips to and from the bank and pediatricians office (I love office politics) starting on Monday, I finally cleared it all up by Friday. All this while doing my usual mom stuff and working. He owes me big!!! However, I won't give him too much crap on this, simply because I really don't want the bill paying job back! I guess we are all human, just be careful with those zeros when paying bills on-line.

Give a little, get a little...

We've changed the kids chores around in the past few weeks and have been working on helping them learn the new tasks. This morning, I critiqued the youngest's job on a bathroom sink, and the middle child's completion of the toilet cleaning. After pointing out what they each had done wrong and what we expected, I gave each of them a compliment on how well they have been doing and how proud I am of what they've done so far.

Moments later, the wife critiques me on cleaning up my breakfast mess:

Wife: Make sure you get that mess cleaned up...
Me: You know, I don't mind the criticism, but at least I gave the kids complements while critiqueing...
Wife: You are absolutely right. You are a slob who needs to clean up your breakfast mess neatly please. Oh, and it's a good thing you are good...

You know, she's probably lying, but I liked the compliment so well that it did get the kitchen mess cleaned up neatly almost immediately...

Sunday, November 20, 2005

More news from the crew...

The youngest had first sleepover ever this weekend. According to rumor, was up until at least 1:30am and then awoke at 6am. Went to a park to play in the morning and got a goose egg on forehead for the trouble. Came home extremely cranky and crashed at 6:30pm. Good times...

The middle went camping overnight with scouts. Slept in the Georgia cold (nearing 32 degrees F) and was one of the few in long underwear. Went hiking, canoeing, and in general had a great time aside from complaining about having to carry stuff. Most excited about learning how to start own fire. Enrolling in pyromaniacs anonymous as we speak...

So, you haven't missed much, but I'm sure I'll start pulling some more gems out as time goes on this week.

Returned from the backwoods...

It's good to be returned from the backwoods, eh? (Sorry, still trying to lose the accent...) Anyway, turns out Bambi wasn't quite as protected as I thought. He showed up this year with an 8 point rack and forced me to have to buy him a plane ticket home. Fortunately, they were very receptive at the airport bar...

Anyway, it was a good time at the hunting camp this year. There were only 7 of us as some people weren't able to make it this year (Mike, Jeff, Nate - you were missed). I got to see some friends I haven't seen for ages, along with their kids. Kinda fun thinking about the last time I'd seen them being when we were playing army dodge ball one summer...wow, time does fly. Best of all, we had a good time enjoying each others company and seeing lots of our relatives up there.

Camp hunting run down:

Cousin Lynn shot an 8 point out of Dad's Tin Shack North (AKA Taj Mahal due to the heater, windows and wall to wall carpeting)
Cousin Troy shot a "4, 6 or 8 point" (nothing like hedging your bet) from Jeff Bartz's blind just Northeast of the Taj Mahal
Uncle Larry missed a large antlered deer due east of the Taj Mahal
Uncle Bud shot a large 6 point in his blind to the southwest of the Taj Mahal (borderlining our property and state land)
I shot a nice 8 point from the Taj Mahal

Other notables:

Dad saw (but couldn't shoot at) my buck and the one Uncle Larry missed, so we still think there is a large buck in the woods.
Troy's deer was the largest he's ever shot.

A good time was had by all and this is likely the largest collection of deer we've shot for a long while. Along with these, several spikes and 4 points were passed on. So, now it is back to life and technology for another year.

Friday, November 11, 2005

He's sooo pretty...

I pay all of my bills through my bank online. This is good because I have no checks and need no stamps to pay my bills. It also is very fast. There was this bill this month however, which for some reason I knew I shouldn't pay but I did anyway. Today, I found out that either I screwed up or the bank software, for the first time ever screwed up. The bill I shouldn't have paid, got paid, but with a factor of 10 or two over. Yep, I'm so pretty....

In the meantime, I'm taking this as a sign that it is time for me to leave technology behind, so as of tomorrow I will become stone age equivalent. I will be out in the woods with no water, no electricity and most importantly, no cell phone. So, while I'll miss blogging and staying current with my fantasy hockey league and my wife will be cursing me for the major techno screwup, I'll be communing with nature or drinking very heavily in preparation for communing with nature...

See you in a week!

Now we're cooking with gas...

Ahhh, it is good to have a grill. For those of you that know me, you know I love to grill. A few years ago, my family bought me a big Jenn-Air grill so I could cook our entire families food (and even guests at times) without having to do it in shifts. Unfortunately, about 4 months ago, we started having problems and needed to have warrantied parts replaced. Well, without getting in to that drama, it took considerably longer to get everything here that I needed. Finally, the day came when all of the parts were here and I finally had time to fix everything.

This not only includes the broken parts, but it was time to fully hard line the natural gas (prior to this I was using tubing that leaked horribly, forcing us to have to go downstairs, drag the ladder outside, climb the ladder to turn on/off the gas for the grill - not fun). So, if you didn't already know, I'm happy doing lots of things on my own - plumbing and gas lines are not typically part of that list though. This time, I had no choice as I had to solder serveral parts. So, with few troubles (suffice to say that I too am pretty), I finally got the whole thing done. Now, I again have a nice, big, new grill. No ladders, no leaks; now pass me some ribs...

It is the little things in life...

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

On the search for Panthers...

Since the story broke about the two Carolina Panther cheerleaders and their wonderfully unique bar hopping habits, I've been trying to track down their cheerleader bios just for fun. Not an easy task given the amount of hits the Carolina Panther servers were taking. I did eventually find them late last night (after the webmaster had pulled them out of the standard lists). Feeling confident that I'd be able to get back to the pages without incident, I went to bed. Alas, the webmaster came back this morning and deleted/renamed/moved the pages. Hmm, shoulda/woulda/coulda saved the pages offline.

Dagnabbit... ;)

Update: I knew somebody would have grabbed what I was looking for...

Monday, November 07, 2005

Heading to the great white north...

So, it is time for the yearly pilgrammage back home to drink, visit relatives, drink, freeze my behind off in the woods, drink, shoot guns, drink...in general, prove to ourselves we are manly men (if only for a week). Yep, time for deer season. I think I might even take a gun with me this year...hmm, nope. It's good meat, but it sure isn't worth the plane ticket to get the dang thing home. I guess it'll be another year of just killing brain cells...

Alas, Bambi is safe from me for yet another year.

Words of Wisdom...

Neighbor: Ummm....(THWAP!!!) You had a Daddy Long Legs on you...

Oldest: Are you sure you're OK to drive? You've been drinking quite a bit and you're getting kind of silly...
Mom: That's why we brought Daddy...

Middle: And we're going camping, and all. And while we're there, we're gonna carve sticks and all. And then, we're gonna sleep outside if the weather is nice...
Me: And all.
Middle: Dad, please stop, that is not what I sounded like
Youngest: And all...
Middle: Ugggh. DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU'VE STARTED. I JUST DON'T NEED THIS!!!
Youngest and Me: And All...(Yep, gonna get in trouble for that one)