Tales of a Shoebox Princess

We got our missionary emails today and that leaves JUST ONE MORE FROM EJ. Only one more mission email EVER from him! And at that time, he will probably be finished with normal missionary work because it will be Pday and he will most likely be going to the mission office and staying there until Tues morning when his flight leaves. HIS FLIGHT TO MINNEAPOLIS! I went to the dentist today (not the one that I work for) and got my teeth cleaned. I like going to my local dentist because the hygienist and the dentist spend the whole time telling me how great my teeth are. It's a half-an-hour love-fest. Today we added another hygienist to the party, because my regular one had carpal tunnel surgery. Whenever I need a self-esteem boost, I get my teeth cleaned. I can hardly leave without feeling like I've won a beauty pageant. Anyway, yes, my teeth are still beautiful, but I was worried about one thing: they like to take my blood pressure. I was concerned because certain members of my f...

In a good way. I was actually motivated to do housework. I also actually had time to do it. I had the whole day yesterday to get things accomplished. Too bad my quadriceps felt like dogs had shredded them, thanks to an overzealous personal trainer who "just wanted to see where I was at fitness-wise." Never trust personal trainers! after three sets of walking lunges, I wanted to chop my legs off. And then his. (I signed up at a little fitness club and with the sign-up I got two free sessions with a personal trainer. First they get you to sign up, then they try to kill you for free) But I kept going--squat/jumps, squats on a half-ball thing, a wall sit, and then the trainer said, "Last one, burpees." I said, "Nope. I'm not going to do them." I would have put my foot down, but everything from my hips downward seemed to be possessed by Jell-O. So anyway, my legs hurt. But I did housework anyway. In 15 minute increments. I love the 15 minute plan. I set...

17 points if you can tell me where the post title came from. -2 points if you googled it to get the answer. Just because I'm about to complain does not mean that I want consolation. First of all, you don't know what I'm going to complain about yet, and second of all, I'm complaining in more of a I-wanna-blog-about-something-but-this-is-all-I-came-up-with kind of way. I'm going to complain about a facial feature. Because I once poked fun at myself in a very early blog post and people thought I was either depressed or they didn't like the tone I used to do it, I'm going to say early on that if you think I am hating on myself, keep your comments to yourself. Laugh at me if you will, complain about things you find annoying about your own physical appearance, etc, but I'll thank you not to assume that I need therapy and/or hugs. (I might need therapy, but not about my personal appearance)(as for the hugs, unless you're Jim or unless you have issued fo...

It's Saturday, I slept in a little bit. I got up, I had breakfast. After breakfast, I decided to check the status of the pudding I made last night (and ate some of). No one else was interested in it last night so I was thinking there would be plenty to use as a good Cheerios chaser. So I open the door to the fridge. I see the pudding bowl. I take it out. I look in the bowl. Someone had cleaned out the pudding leaving only a spoon-sized glob at the bottom of the bowl. No, I'm not mad that whoever ate it ate it (well, yes I am actually. I wanted that pudding). I'm mad that he or she ate only enough to leave that little smidgen of something that meant he or she technically didn't have to put the bowl in the sink (which, by the way would have required MUCH less work than opening the fridge door, leaning over, squishing the moldifying mushrooms out of the way and setting the bowl in the cleared space) because there was still "some" left in the bowl. And the firs...

I had it all worked out. Three presents per child this Christmas. One, two, three. Fifteen total. Katie's were shipped; everyone else's gifts are waiting patiently in the closet for wrapping time. And then Jim had to go and mess it up. He bought a fourth present for one of the children (I won't say which one, but I will give you a hint. This child looks like his dad and is named like his dad) without consulting the LIST. It's a big present too; granted, it is something he will need for his upcoming future (which isn't all that futurous. Very very soon this future will become the now) but the addition of a fourth present has thrown me off. I don't like unfairness. I am able to set aside the lack of fairness with regard to price, but I don't like that one child has four presents to open, and the others have only three (although Katie may have gotten four, but she doesn't quite count because she won't be opening them here). Now I gotta go out and get...

A long long time ago at an elementary school about 25 miles from here, I busted up my left big toe somethin' fierce. The story is legendary among people that are me, so I won't go into it here. Suffice to say that it took the whole summer to heal and it was all my fault, not Jason's. Lesson I learned: Pay attention to the teacher, not to your neighbor who you think isn't doing what he is supposed to be doing. And don't get all self-righteous on your neighbor. Toes get broken, even smashed, as a result. And now this same toe, thirty years later, is starting to give me fits. As in today marks the third time in the last few months that a blood vessel (perhaps the very same one because it always occurs in the same place) in this toe has broken for unknown reasons. I was sitting in church, minding lots of people's business--particularly Jim's business of making sure my back was being rubbed--JUST SITTING THERE, when I felt an odd but familiar pressure on the ...

Paul had a mole removed for the second time two weeks ago because it grew back. The doctor removed a bigger chunk of skin than she did the first time and stitched the gap closed. She said come back in two weeks to get the stitches removed. So I set an appointment for removal of said stitches. For today. I picked Paul up early from school and hauled his (and my) butt up to Edina (dr wasn't in Burnsville office this week so we had to take two freeways to get to the office). We go into the office and check in. I sat down with Paul, and the receptionist calls out, "You have a $25 copay." "What?" I said, "Isn't this a follow-up? He's having stitches removed that one of your doctors put in." She said that depending on the procedure sometimes the followup doesn't count as a follow-up, but as a regular office visit. What the aitch? I told her that I was going to call the insurance company before I paid to see what they said about it. So I went...

Children bring things home from school for me to sign/look at/remember/participate in. If I don't have the papers right out in the open, I forget and the children get all disappointed in me. I should sign things right away, I know, but sometimes I'm not home when they put things for me to sign on the counter. Pens and pencils reproduce like bunnies. I leave two of them out on the counter and pretty soon, they have baby pencils and pens that scamper around and eat the papers that are supposed to remind me to do things. There is always that ONE thing sitting on the counter that I can't decide where it goes. Right now it's a squat canning jar. All my canning jar hidey holes are full. Where do I put this little orphan. Heaven forbid I should trash it. Also, Christmas cards with pictures. I have nowhere to put them! Projects that need my attention get put on the kitchen counter as well. I borrowed my mother's genealogy binder and have yet to do anything with it...

All my married life I've wanted a lovely table. I'm not talking about the actual table, I'm talking about having a nice centerpiece on a clean tablecloth or runner in a clean dining room--the kind of thing you see in interior decorating magazines. Most of the years I've been married, I thought that the reason that I didn't have a nice table because I didn't have a centerpiece. I realized now that I was wrong. The reason that I don't have a lovely table is because we are a family of messy pigs. I cannot keep a table clean for 5 minutes. I wash all the crumbs and spills off the table (once a week if we're lucky and I have the time) and change the tablecloth, and within mere minutes, someone has dirtied the table again: they've used it as a craft table and left bits of colored paper, tape, scissors, stickers, very small rocks, (etc.) out, used it as a place to dump books, school papers, and newspapers for lack of anywhere else to put them, or eate...

Nearly a year ago, we hosted a pasta dinner for the high school cross country team. When sign-ups rolled around for this year's pasta dinners, I signed right up. Paul initially said that he'd rather not host a pasta dinner, but I wore him down finally and made him come to terms with it. He never did say why he was loathe to have everyone over. So tomorrow is the day that I signed up to host the dinner. I've been busy grating cheese, browning mild Italian sausage for four pans' worth of lasagna. And just for a lark, I thought I'd look up last year's post about our first turn as CC parents hosting a dinner. Apparently I forgot that my head nearly imploded because of things that did not go right . I totally blanked on how they came early and the house was still a mess, and the lasagna wasn't cooked all the way through, and I had no bread, and the salad came REALLY late, and we didn't have enough food so I had to have Jim run to the store for more spag...

I know it's not summer yet, technically, but darnit if yesterday wasn't an early taste of one thing that I don't like: heat. The temperature got up to 97 degrees, fully 25 degrees hotter than the upper level of my comfort zone. Bleagh. To add to my woes, my serger, Sergei, make a loud metallic clunk and passed out yesterday afternoon, just as a sewing fit came over me. So instead of sewing up some pants for my sister-in-law and some shorts for Hayley (who had to wear jeans in 90+ degree weather), I had to load Mr. Sergei into his stretcher and cart the ailing machine off to the sewing machine doctor in the crippling heat. THEN, my van, who has no name (like the horse in the America song), decided to go into LIMP mode while on my way to the sewing machine doctor. Usually I can pull over somewhere, stop the car, turn it off, wait a few seconds, turn it back on, and it'll work fine. But not yesterday afternoon. I stopped and started it three times and it would not dr...

Yesterday was not for the faint of heart. From 3:30 on, I was away from home with several children in tow. I had to pick up Paul and friends from track, drive friends home, insert Paul into the house, pick up Hayley and Matt immediately and drive to children's choir, play piano at cc, drive straight to the high school for a double band concert (both Hayley's band and Paul's band played) and listen to the concert. It doesn't seem like much written down, but it's a 20 minute drive from home to children's choir and driving kids home from track takes longer than I thought it would. And the band concert was over an hour long. OK I'll stop complaining. But Thursdays are always busy and Jim works so he isn't home to help, although he did manage to get Paul from home to the band concert while he was delivering pizzas. I didn't fix dinner. I left sandwich fixings out but by the time I was home, it was too late to think about a sandwich, so I just had s...

The above is a (probably somewhat mangled) Brian Regan quote from one of his comedy routines about prescription eyewear. I'm not wearing my glasses. Or my contacts. So I can't see very well this morning, which might be a good thing. I won't scare myself in the mirror or I won't get all up in someone's grill about their nonstandard usage (I used to say "bad grammar" until I took the Modern American Usage class and was shown the higher-educated way of saying it, which leaves out the business of calling someone WRONG) in print because I can't read it. (On the other hand, I can't read what I am currently typing either, so if I miss any ugly usage or spelling errors, I claim fuzzy seeing as my excuse. Why am I not wearing glasses this morning? Because it's "one of those days." I don't think I'll get around to exercising today either. I have a whole host of things to accomplish, and since I won't be able to get all of it ...

In other words, I should have stayed at home. Conferences at the middle school are now TEACHER-LESS. I brought Hayley to the school at the appointed time yesterday (8:20 a.m.---arggh! what was I thinking?). Since I'd been given fake child at 6 a.m., she came along too. So the three of us drive the 10 minutes to the school, get out of the van straight into an arctic blast (it's another cold weekend here in the land of 10,000 frozen nosehairs). We can't run on the sidewalk because it's an ice sheet, so it was slow going to the front door, miles away from where we parked. Finally we insert ourselves into the warmth of the foyer of the school and walk the next several miles in relative comfort. I don't see anyone but a few other parent/child combos. I don't see any staff. No one points the way. There is one signpost in the middle of a hallway intersection that wobbles slightly as the ghost of a breeze passes by. The sign says "Boo Fa r." Someo...

I had a checkup today. Good news: blood pressure is significantly lower than when I saw the doctor four years ago. Bad news: She says I still have to lose weight. What does she want from me??? I just can't please my physician! At least I didn't cry this time. People who know me know that I have a very sensitive and fickle waterworks trigger. But I kept it under control this time and I didn't smear my light slathering of eye makeup on the hideous hospital gown. And I didn't relieve them of the every last tissue in the room to blow a drippy nose. The doctor asked me if I had tried a gym membership. I told her that I had but I gained weight over the year that I was a member and then quit. I said I could jolly well gain weight at home without having to pay for it. She chuckled. All is quiet on the kid front. No concerts, no athletic events, no ceremonies to attend. I feel at a loss for blogging material because of the lack of children's activities. And the ...

No this is not a post about our wannabe Senator's sofa. Can you say "cheap couch?" I can. Even through gritted teeth. Remember when I blogged about the stupid broken couch ? (and by the way, this is the second time it has broken) Jim fixed it on Saturday. And then reinforced it yesterday. Wanna see what the underside of my couch looks like? Sure you do. This is where it broke the first time. Sandwiched in all that wood, metal, and duct tape mess is a 1 x 4 that served as the support for the back of the couch--where the couch receives the most stress from hefty backsides. A 1 x 4. CHEAP STUPID (but oh so comfortable ) COUCH. This is the most recent break. See Jim. See Jim fix the couch. See Jim not get frustrated like his wife at the cheap manufacturers of furniture. And now our couch is cobbled together with bits and parts of past projects. One more section to break. You would think paying as much as we did for this couch that it would be well-made. But I gue...

Let the sewing room receive her stuff! Oof, it's 6:20 in the a. of m. I'm not going to try to rewrite a whole Christmas carol around the finishing of the painting of the sewing room (enough gerunds for you?) at this early hour (I'm only up because fake child arrived at 6:10 and is at present sleeping in my bed). So Jim finished the room. Again, I would have helped but someone had to procure groceries for the family and, in doing so, had to fight crowds and wait in line for long periods of time. Bleagh. Who had the harder time, I ask you? He painted at a leisurely pace, with no one to bother him, and music he likes played in the background. I had to constantly herd a small child around and say no to requests for cookies, toys, candy, snacks, treats, sugar, more toys, and chocolate both from the fake child and from my infantile brain. And I had to brave the below zero temps and park in a crowded lot and jostle and maneuver in a crowded store and wait in line til my ear...

Ten things I want to complain about in a light-hearted manner, realizing that many people have it worse than I do. 1. Fake child came at 6 a.m. today. Didn't sleep well, so getting up this early is a bummer. 2. Jimmy skipped seminary today and then MISSED THE BUS. 3. Had to load up fake child in her parka, hat, and mittens and demand that Jimmy wear a coat. 4. Had to fight student traffic at the school. 5. Eyebrows stuck in angry-eyes mode, either that or the cold froze them that way. 6. I have nothing to blog about. 7. Brain is still fuzzy. 8. Can't believe I drove with a fuzzy brain. 9. I have a cold. 10. Angry-eyes unfroze finally, leaving me with Drippy-eyes cuz I'm still TIRED. Thankfulability (yes, even though I grumbled my way through a post, I'm still able to find something to be happy about): Today I am thankful for my vehicle. I haven't always had a vehicle for my own use before. As a teenager, I always had to share a car with my sister. Not...

First off, I have a story to tell. It won't be like my ghost story. This is just a plain old recounting of a particularly stupid cat problem, and my solution that doesn't involve getting rid of the cats. I bought two decorative pillows at Target for incredibly cheap. They were 75% off. AND I had a 10% off coupon. The pillows were originally $25 a piece, and I got them for less than $6 each. I love them. Problem: they have tassels around the edge. You can't really see the tassels well in this picture, but you can in the next. Here are the tassels. And you'll notice there is some uneven spacing. Guess why? That's right, Magic, the fatter and dumber of our two cats, likes to CHEW THE TASSELS OFF AND EAT THEM. And then he likes to vomit them up. I found a very large pile of cat bile mixed with pillow tassels on the floor this morning. Not wanting to see what I saw this morning anymore, I cut the tassels off both pillows. And you're very welcome in r...

My bit of Halloween cheer for you today is my sweet sweet Halloween purse. Believe it or not I have two--the other one might be featured later on. This purse was made by another friend of mine who gave it to me for my birthday (which is in December, but she knows I am a Halloween-aholic and that I would not find it inappropriate for a December birthday gift). I get so many compliments on both my pumpkin purses. Last night I thought I was going to have to sleep in the car. I drove Jimmy to work at 3, drove Matt and Hayley (and fake child) to children's choir at 5:30, drove fake child home (took a wrong turn so ended up driving farther than I needed to), tried to drive home from fake child's house but all the streets that connect to Cty 42 from the south and west of Cty 5 WERE BARRICADED and afforded me NO ACCESS. I had to drive all the way BACK to Cty 5 and head home from there--an extra several miles. Then I dropped my two wee ones at home, went to get Jimmy from work, dro...