Sunday Quickie

The Bellagio Fountains were the most beautiful thing in Vegas. I love classical music, I love water, so combine the two together and I had tears rolling down my face. Just a few...very embarassing.

I'll bet you read this thinking I was gonna be dirty.

Pass The Pepah'. The Cayenne Pepah'?

I heard on the radio today that the average American household spends $140 on toilet paper a year. $140. That doesn't really surprise me, it seems like a good figure.

I spend about $10 a month on toilet paper. I buy the cheap brand, but believe you me, I get irritated at having to pay that $10. It used to be cheaper. Dammit.
So we know that $10 a month for a year is $120. And you know those two extra months out of the year when you get an "extra" biweekly paycheck? Like that. One must have to buy an extra package of paper. Easy, $140.

I'm driving home from work thinking to myself after hearing this on the radio. i could do that all in one swoop I think. $140 is not that much at a time for a whole year of shopping! I would never have to worry about running out again. Why hadn't I thought of this before?!

I share my news with Husband, what a great plan! He brings me back to reality with thoughtless questions such as:

"How are you going to get all of that toilet paper home?"

and

"Where are you going to keep all of it?"

Hmm..... I buy 24 roll packs. (Packs? Packs of toilet paper? Packages? Units?) They are pretty cumbersome.

Dammit. The toilet pepah'.

J2 Was Singing and I Wrote It Down

Ok, while you're reading this you must kind of hum the words along to a tune...but what tune? That wasn't really reflected in the song to me either, so just kind of hum any ol' thing that's not too busy. Think three or four different notes.

"Deep down...where I found your schooooool..
and where you make room for yoooouuuuuu...
In your house I find your poooool,
In your pool I find yoooouuuu...
You ask me if I want to come innnnnn
I say no but I would if I could
and you ask me whyyyyy
and I say because my mom doesn't let me go into poooools...
You say 'why not just this once?' and I say noooo
because I don't want to disapoint my mooooooom...."

I Take Pictures Of Bathrooms, Part II

I am intoxicated after a long night/morning of Vegas. Here is the hotel bathroom. ...don't judge me. I am not a drinker.







The lady in the middle is innocent. She just happened to sit in between Crazy One and Crazy Two while on the bus. Crazy One looks thrilled that Innocent is there. Crazy Two keeps fishing things out of her bag and saying things like. "Welcome to Las Vegas, plant a tree, duh! Over and out!" and "It was hash I tell you". The people-watching was the best part of Vegas.

We are on the top of a doubledecker bus called The Deuce. Here's the picture, I proved it. I take dumb pictures of stupid shit when I'm drinking, apparently.

The buffet had a Dessert area. I have been on a strict calorie diet since January. I took one bite of each dessert. The creme brulee was the best. I might have had five bites of the creme brulee, come to think of it.

The Other Bar. The Second Night. Those bottles were gone.

I Went To Vegas And All You Got Were Photos, Part I

We walked a lot in Vegas. A lot. Here are my feet, at some mall in some hotel.








This is the bathroom in the Bellagio Hotel.

The view from the Stratosphere Tower. I went on the rides on the top and didn't poop my pants.

This was an ugly bathroom. I didn't even get all of the ugliness. I was worried about taking pictures in the bathroom. I didn't want to be the strange woman photographing the toilet fixtures.

The Bar for Husband. Ghetto Fabulous.

Just As Things Were Calming Down...

This last year has been difficult, to say the least.

It has been a year since we moved in to our place. One dent in the wall, one broken window-blind, and some spray paint on the garage floor, all done within the last month. Pretty good for us, actually. I expected holes in the walls long before now.

Messy turns a year old at the end of the month. He has grown from a teeny-tiny (six lbs!) baby into a 25lb walking talking destroying almost-toddler. Learning to be parents together was difficult for Husband and I. We have been together for three years and are just now "figuring things out". We still yell and argue, but we know that it won't be absolutely detrimental to our relationship to slam some doors and talk some trash. We have grown closer as we coparent our son together.

J1 has a cell phone. I know it doesn't seem like a big deal or something to write about, but I was very very against it at first...until I really needed to get ahold of her one day and I couldn't. So I let her call up her dad and turn on the charm...and voila! Cell phone that mom doesn't have to pay for. Even better!

J2 has been on meds for ADD. I have waaaaaaaaaaay mixed feeling about giving my child prescription drugs for something like this. I was very very against it. (Wow, I seem to be against a lot of things, huh?) She was not doing well in school, and trying to have a conversation with her and answer the same question over and over again was affecting our everyday lives, my marriage, her social life...so I filled the prescription. I started her on Ritalin. I watched and waited and had the teacher fill out assessments each week on different doses. Guess what happened? She did better in school. She could concentrate. She could focus and sit in her chair and not blurt out things in class. She still says embarassing things while at the grocery store, but it' s not at the top of her lungs anymore. I don't give her the meds on weekends, because, well, I HATE giving my child drugs, hate it hate it hate it. She doesn't have to sit still on a weekend, so I let her be herself, and wonder if she can tell the difference inside when she's not on Ritalin.

Stepson arrived on a train last night to live with us (again). It has been almost a year since he left us from living with us the first time. He is almost 18, and got into some felony trouble back home. He has no motivation and no direction and no high school diploma, but he is a good kid. He just had a shitty mother and stepdad.

Me? I'm the same. I will continue to be the same when I turn thirty years old on the 17th of this month. A little thinner, a lot more exhausted, and some investments in really good skin cream will ensure that my 30th birthday will be nothing special. I don't want to end my twenties, I don't. I am spending my birthday in Vegas with no children. Do you know what I am going to do when I get off the plane in Vegas? I am going to arrive at the hotel and I am going to take a nap. Yes, a nap. And you know what? It's going to be a damn good nap.

Dear Breakfast

Dear Breakfast,

I'm glad you dropped in for a bite to eat. I was bored and lonely, having just woken up from a nice long nap. I attended to my wardrobe and decided to enjoy your company for a bit. It was sometime in my slither toward you in which I realized my true feelings for you. You're pink and white with beady eyes. You have a tail. You are soft and warm and I love you. I'm hoping you feel the same way about what happened as I do. How about you stay over for a few days? Then one night, I'll prepare dinner...

Love,

Copper The Snake

You Don't Bring Me Flowers

I don't write anymore. I don't have any time to write.

I have a 12yo girl who thinks she's waaaaaay older than she actually is. I am hurt at the snotiness sometimes. I almost told her to stop being a bitch one day, can you believe that? I don't talk to my children that way ever, but I came so close. Did I treat my mom this way? Because if so, Mom, I am SORRY. A big truckful of sorry. The time you made me vacuum (sidenote: how does one spell vacuum? Vacume?) the same piece of carpet over and over until it was clean? I understand. I do! When you threw a basket of rocks at me? Okay, that one was fucked up. But holy mackeral is this teenager shit getting old.

My 7yo daughter is a middle child and now you can tell. We are getting her evaluated for ADD and are trying medications. THAT is another tale completely.

The 9mo little boy is the light of my freakin life, I tell you what. I cry at least once a week because he is growing up. I don't know if it's because my tubes are tied and I'll never bear another child, but I want to STOP TIME and just put the past 9 months on rewind/play so I can savor it. Every day I want to just slow down. He's walking now. He's climbing. He gets into everything. He has a personality and gets pissed off when he can't have something he wants, showing his displeasure by screeching at you.

I have a husband who I love, I do. But oh my freakin god can he piss. me. off. Like I've never known pissed off to be. He's the only man who's ever curled my toes and made my heart do that flippy-floppy thing though....and he cooks dinner. So I keep him for now.

I am annoyed to no end at work. I love my job and wouldn't trade it for another, but I work in a building full of bitchy backstabbing women who like to gossip and it irritates the living shit out of me. I put on my ipod and try to drown the world around welfare out, but it doesn't last long.

So I'm sorry Internet, for not being around more. I'm a crappy friend, I know. I don't call, I don't write. I read your diary when you're out. I'm sorry.

Make Up Your Mind

There's a coworker of mine who bugs the everlovin' shit outta' me. She drives me batty. Her laugh even annoys me. You know how sometimes there are just people who rub you the wrong way? She's that person. I've talked about her before, she's the one who doesn't "do" birthdays.

She won't sign the birthday card or chip in for a gift, but she'll attend the birthday lunch.
She apparently also doesn't do potlucks! Guess what? She won't bring a dish, but she'll sure as hell eat at the potluck!

Maybe she can't afford to bring a dish, you say? I can't afford to bring a dish, but I say so. I am not ashamed to say, "Sorry, not this time, no money." And if I don't contribute then I don't eat it, it's that simple.

Economy Woes

The welfare office is biiiiiiizzzzzzzzzeeeeeeee. Nothin' like a recession for job security, right?

Share My Joy

Goth Friday

We went to Walmart today to buy some Tylenol for Messy(J3). He has the unfortunate luck of teething and his first runny nose/cough. I swear, if it's not one orifice it's another.

J2 gets out of the car and adjusts her black jacket against her pants (also black). "Don't look at me and make me laugh in the store, Mom. Don't even make me smile. I want people to think I'm goth."

I'm getting Messy out of his carseat and trying to adjust the shopping-cart cover at the same time. She's completely serious, and I try not to snort with laughter. Is 'goth' even still a term used? I feel old.

J1 is behind me with the diaper bag. I turn to her and question with my eyebrows and my best is your sister on something, you can tell me look.

"Mom, I asked her today why she wanted to be goth, and you know what she told me?"

My oldest child look at me, not waiting for me to answer. "She told me, 'It's my passion'. Yeah, her passion."

Our eyes roll at almost the same time, and with Messy secure in the cart, we walk with Goth Girl into the store, making sure that we make her smile.

My Son, The Sissy La La

My son is eight months old. Maybe it's because he's sheltered, spending his days with his daddy (who is a great daddy). Or is it interacting with his older sisters, who, while way cool and funny these tweens are to him, are just sisters. Not like Real People.

Real People freak my son out. I know that this is the time where fear of strangers and seperation anxiety come in blah blahbety blah. But he gets really shy and wide-eyed. That's not all, I know that isn't even much!

My son is afraid of a book. He is afraid of Millie the Cow. On the first pages you meet Millie's Friends, and then you meet Millie, and she "moos" in greeting and Sissy La La FREAKS and doesn't cry, just gets really tense and doe-eyed and SAD and ohmygod I broke my baby's heart.

J2 and I tried to convince him that Millie was an OK Cow, but he wouldn't have it, even after our various cow noises (to get him used to wierd mechanical cow moos ).

Goodbye Millie the Cow.

Liar Liar Pants On Fire

Dear Internet,

I am living one big fat lie. Sure, I pretend to be happy and satisfied with my life, but the opposite is true. I am miserable.

Husband is a jerk. He's an addict (tobacco, weed, alcohol) and does not know how to communicate effectively. At all. He's critical and thinks he knows it all. He doesn't trust me (for no reason whatsoever because I have never violated that trust). He throws a fit when I want to go have Girl's Night. We argue CONSTANTLY ABOUT STUPID SHIT. I have tried holding my own. I have tried giving in and being a doormat. I don't know what in the FUCK to do.

Money is tight, and he refuses to look for a job. Yeah, the bills are all paid, but extras? Not likely. Don't get me wrong, there's enough, but not enough. Does that make sense?

I hate his guts. I definently do. I don't regret my son, never ever, but I certainly regret who I picked for his father. I regret not ending this sooner. I regret being selfish and entering into a relationship straight out of another horrible relationship. Fuck my life!

I love where I live, I love my kids, my job, my car. The only thing I have a problem with is HIM. But I am seeing that it might be more than I can handle to get rid of him. He's just such an asshole, it seems easier to stay.

How sad is that. That was a statement, and not a question.

Those Canadian Boys, Eh?

J2 was talking about a boy in her class and how he had nice penmanship. Oldest J interupts her to ask, "Is he cute?"

J2 looks apalled. "What?!" she replies. "He's from Canada!"

It Never Mattered So Much

I have never cried over a presidential election.

Sure, I've bitched and whined and complained.

But I have never felt such relief before over an election. I'm crying now.

My daughters want to know why I'm crying because the man I voted for won. Okay, now I'm giggling. Must look pretty silly to an 11 and 7 year old. I tell them they are witnessing history...I hope they remember...

What's Not To Love?

J2 informed me today that she can burp the alphabet. Her latest accomplishment?

She can finally make fart noises with her armpit. (Apparently this is something she's aspired to?)

I'm so...proud.

I Fucking Forgot Haiku Sunday Again

Knife stabs my pickles

Forks in the dishwasher

Too lazy to wash

I Am The Bad Influence

One day, the floor is clean, shiny mopped and empty of everything but the bathmat. Same with the next day. And the next. But then the day after that? That day is different. That's when Brokemom meanders throughout the day doing whatever it is she does, and then...leaves an article of her own clothing....on THE FLOOR! It obscures the bathmat. You can't see the shiny mopped floor! Brokemom promises herself that she will pick it up later. "It's only a shirt/panties/pants/skirt/whatever in the hell else ends up there" she thinks.

Something strange happens over the next two days. The clothing article on the floor where you used to see the bathmat seemes to be...multiptying. Breeding. Making little dirty-laundry babies. Soon there's a pair of panties and two dirty children's socks. A belt. A towel. These things are not Brokemom's, she only dropped one item for later. These forgotten items belong to someone else. Two someone else's!

Brokemom has to put down the law. "No more dirty shirt/panties/pants/skirt/whatever in the hell else ends up there" she says to the two. Brokemom will take away privileges if she has to!

Over the last day, the floor emerges triumphant. Shiny mopped and empty of everything but the bathmat, the floor will, for the next few days, be a new chance to live like a dirty slob.

Baby Brothers CAN Be Fun

J1: "Look, I can put you in this box and pretend like you're a puppy!"