PSA: Don't forget to put away the glue when you go to the basement.

I went down to do some laundry after dinner, and came back up a few minutes later to see Nigel smearing Nora's glue on construction paper. His hands are a mess. But I remember deliberately smearing Elmers glue on my hands when in elementary school, just so I could dry it and peel it off. So no harm done, right?

Wrong.

It is in his hair. He's got a very punk rock 'do now. But it was nearly bedtime, and he'd had a bath today already, so I need to put off trying to clean him up until the morning. Unfortunately, he really dislikes having his hair washed. Really, really dislikes it. And I think there will be some serious scrubbing involved. That is going to be one sad bathtime. yikes.



For those of you who know me, I took pictures. Let me know if you'd like me to email them to you.)

I should have named my son Harry

Because he's quite the escape artist.

I was out of the house for a couple of hours this morning, and my husband was at home with the kids. Now, our boy Nigel (22 months old) is quite a handful. He's a really fun kid, but he can also scale any wall ond open any door. So we've got baby gates and door locks all over the place. (It's like running the 25-meter hurdles to answer the phone, not to mention the locks on the medicine cabinets, drawers, oven, refrigerator, the list goes on and on.)

So, back to today's story. Daddy's playing with Nora, and all-of-a-sudden he realized that Nigel was absent. So he starts calling for him. No answer. So he looks upstairs. Looking all around, in our closet, the bathroom, etc. Still no Nigel. He eventually goes outside to find our "little" boy, bare feet, and still in jammies walking down the alley towards State Route 24, Half a block from the highway!

!!!

Daddy ran full tilt, and caught the little Houdini and brought him back in.

Turns out, he walked from the living room, climbed over the gate into my office, then through that door to our back door, unlocked that door, and then pushed open the screen door. He figured it was a nice day for a walk. Apparently also a good day to give his father a heart attack.

I hate keeping ourselves locked inside so securely that family and friends cannot just stop by, but we obviously have no choice. So if you want to come over, give me a call first, so I can be ready let you in.

Follow-through is not my strong point.

After all the dirt and grime from yesterday's carpet adventures, I'm not in the mood to work on that room any more today. Unfortunately, I really don't have a choice. I cannot let that grimy floor exist in this house any more. First, there's the odious task of trying various cleaners to figure out which one will do the most cleaning with the least amount of effort. Then, the actual cleaning of 189 square feet of 20-year-old dirt.

I guess I'd better get started...

Wall-to-wall carpet is yucky

I just spent the last couple of hours pulling up old carpet. It was gross under there. I will never *ever* put carpet in my house again. Area rugs? Sure. But if I cannot lift it up every month or two to sweep under there, it won't be in my house. no way.

Now for a late lnch, then on to pulling the hundreds of staples out of the pine floor.

We live in an old house. Thanks to some record-keeping snafus down at the county courthouse, we are not exactly sure how old. The best we can tell, it was built around 1900, then there was a pretty substantial remodel done in the 1930's (or early 40's).

When we moved in to this house last November, we thought the "family room" was a later addition, and didn't have the same wood floors as in the rest of the main floor. So we kept the dark green carpet from the previous owners. I didn't like it, but there really wasn't much money left in the budget to add new flooring in that room. And with such pretty heart pine floors in the other rooms, there 's no way I wanted to lay laminate flooring in the family room.

But then, we had a cat who decided that it was too difficult to go under the baby gate to the basement for her bathroom needs. So she peed in front of my daughter's play kitchen. ew. And then off to the side, by the toy box. double ew. So we shampooed the carpet. I swear it smells worse. I think that the previous owners had had an animal or two, and the carpet cleaning jut reacitvated old smell. {insert gagging sensation here}

So I said to myself "That's it!" and pulled up a larger section of the carpet last night, trying to figure out how much money I was looking at to replace the carpet with hardwood. My husband just got a bit of a quarterly bonus this week, and I could use that for the flooring instead of sticking it in the kitchen renovation budget. But, alas, I found that the spot I originally looked at (near the basement stairs) was not indicative of the whole room. Read: we have hardwood under there! I am ecstatic. I cannot wait until Monday to call some local refinishers and get quotes. There's some sort of adhesive on the boards, but I am sure that it's nothing a professional floor guy couldn't handle.

So today's mission is to avoid the temptation to attempt ripping the old carpet out of that room by myself, with my two kids underfoot. I don't know if I am strong enough to resist that temptation. I really really really want that stinky, ugly carpet gone.

I'll let you know tomorrow if I managed to hold off on the room destruction...

Hmmm

I really want to keep this thing going, but my brain has turned to mush. I'll meditate on possible blog topics whilst washing dishes and folding laundry. I am sure that my housekeeping tasks will feed my creative side, and a new thought-provoking post will emerge. Check back tomorrow, kids!

My Personal Dna Report

Benevolent Leader

Confidence 92
Openness 72
Extroversion 72
Empathy 48
Trust in others 76
Agency 56
Masculinity 22
Femininity 64
Spontaneity 62
Attention to style 52
Authoritarianism 52
Earthy/Imaginative 84
Aesthetic/Functional 32

Spring is here.

I am so discouraged. It feels like we are never going to get past this cold late-winter weather. I made the mistake of looking at the forecast for the next two weeks, and it doesn't look like it is going to get warmer any time soon. This has me in such a funk.

Coupled with the fact that all four in ourfamily have colds, to varying degrees, I am really struggling to maintain my composure. Nigel and Nora were both up at 3:30, after waking each other. It took over an hour to get Nigel back to sleep. I haven't slept more than 2 hours straight in 3 days. I snapped at Nora first thing this morning. Great way to start the day, huh?

I soooo need to turn my kids loose outside and just sit and dig my fingers into the grass. And I need sun on my face. And I need to look at flowers blooming. And to open the windows in the house and let the fresh air in. To hang the laundry on a line to dry.

To wear only one layer of clothing.

I know that the air will eventually warm, but I am impatient. I want to act like a 3-year-old and stomp my foot and demand that it be sunny. Ya think that would work?

Celebrity "What were they thinking"??

I don't normally blog about fashion. BUT, Charlize Theron's hairdo (I am not even giong to critique the dress) at the Oscars last night looked like she might have stolen it from Marion Mercer in 1981's TV hit It's a Living. D'ya think her stylist went to the hair people and said, "Hey, here's a thought -- Let's make one of the prettiest women in Hollywood look like a 55-year-old lady."



But then again, wasn't Charlize the one who showed up looking as orange as an Oompa-Loompa at the 2004 Academy Awards, after a horrible spray-on tan incident? Maybe she's just got a whimsical streak.

I don't wanna play today

It's 8:15, I've eaten, had a cup of coffee (another will be had when I am finished with this post), and I don't want to be me today. I want to take a really long shower. I want to "do" my hair. I want to paint my fingernails. And then go buy a pair of shoes. Or a new top. But that isn't me.

That, however, was me 4 years ago. But then I gave birth to my precious daughter. Nora is absolutely the light of my life. She's funny and smart and has a stunning ability to recall past events. She's pretty, too. But there's no fingernail painting when you've got a little one around.

And then came Nigel. Equally the light of my life, he's even more of a handful. If it can be climbed, he'll scale it. If it can overturned or poured on the floor, he'll do that too. And there's that smile. It stops perfect strangers in the grocery store to say 'hi' and smile back.

I've got two fabulous kids, alright. I am thankful every day that they are part of our family. But that doesn't keep me from yearning for the days of makeup and matching clothes and clean cars and candlelight dinners. And try as I might, I have yet to enjoy playing Candyland with a 3-year-old. Or reading The Runaway Orange for the 100th time. So for now, I just have to grin and bear it, and know that someday I'll get to clean myself without hurrying through the steps, for fear of what I'll find when I step out. Or that I'll be able to wear makeup even just to the grocery store.

And I am sure that my husband wouldn't mind it either.

Enh. Not much to write.

I have no divine inspiration, but I really want to start being more consistent with this blogging deal. So I am posting in spite of my lack of inspiration.

The boy is napping, and the girl is running around in shorts and a t-shirt. My teeth chatter just looking at her, but she insists that she isn't cold. She's nearly 4 -- I should trust that she'll add clothes when she feels a chill.

And now the boy is awake again, so I draw this entry to a close. Maybe I'll be back tomorrow.

I don't plan on homeschooling. So there.

I just want to put that out there, and start owning it. So many of my friends Home School, and as wonderful as it is, I am just not equipped for it. We moved to a small town with good public schools, and my kids are going there when it comes time. I know they'd probably get a better edumikation from me. I know that they won't be exposed to untoward influences if they are at home with me. I know all the reasons why I oughta homeschool.

But I don't want to. I want to grocery shop in peace. I want to be able to have coffee with a friend. I want to have a hobby (or 6). Or maybe I'll get a job that pays real money. I want to be able to clean my house with no one bugging me. I want to shower every day.

Of course if one or both of my children do no excell in the public school system for whatever reason, I woudn't hesitate to pull them out. But I hope it doesn't come to that. I really want a life after all these years of Mommydom.

I'm buying the "For Sale" sign today.

I cannot believe it has been over four months since we decided to put our house on the market, to move to a smaller town. We had planned on doing a little work to the house, getting it extra clean, then putting a sign in the yard on May 1st. It is now September 10, and still no sign. How easy it is to forget that cleaning and updating a house with children in it is akin to nailing jello to a wall. The baby is grumpy. Or he wants to play under te kitchen sink, or remove everything from the cupboards. The 3-year-old prefers her toys on the floor. Or she knocks the baby down, causing the aforementioned grumpiness.

It is easy to beat myself up over it all. There was a house that dh and I both really liked, and the price was right. But someone else had just written an offer on it. So back to the home search. And back to the "readying for sale" that we have been doing, albeit half-assed, for nearly five months.

The house still isn't as perfect as I'd like it, but I'm buying the "For Sale by Owner" sign today anyway. If not now, it will probably never get done.

Do you ever wake up feeling gloomy?

I do. And I did this morning. it doesn't help that it is gloomy outside today. And it's going to be hot again this afternoon anyway. But my mood won't keep me from needing to shower, get the kids dressed, go to several stores, and then still manage to work on the basement some more. And it's all so hard with the kids. If Nigel doesn't cry when I walk away, then Nora makes sure that he's crying by the time I get back. She loves so much to play with him, but I think he's sick of being her rag doll.

Nigel's birthday is tomorrow. I cannot believe he is a year already. It really feels like just yesterday that he was so tiny and so helpless. But now he walking, talking a little, and climbing on anything that isn't behind a gate. And people are coming over tomorrow to celebrate. I hate hosting parties. I suck at it. But it's obviously not kosher to just ignore a 1st birthday, so a party we will have. I am thankful that the common areas of the house are pretty clean, so there's no mad-dash to tidy up before people come over.

And gas prices keep going up. DH works 45 miles away. The pay raise he got 4 months ago when he came to the new company is completely eaten up by higher benefits and gas prices.

I could get all philosophical and start counting my blessings, which are many, but I am not going to. Not just yet. I feel like wallowing im my funk for a few more hours. Then I'll go about my day with a grin (or grimace) on my face.

Healthy Egad! You're 29% sociopathic!

Good job! You're within the normal range for the typical human being. As far as sociopathy goes, at least. You might still be clinically depressed, schizophrenic, borderline, obsessive-compulsive or have AIDS. I didn't make tests for those, though. I should mention now that this test is inherently flawed, due to the fact that someone who was a true sociopath or psychopath would not be telling the truth on an online test.

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 5% on sociopathy

Link: The Are You A Sociopath? Test written by oolongy on OkCupid Free Online Dating

Arrrgh, what kind of Pirate am I?

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Readying a house for sale

We're attempting to get our house up for sale so we can move somewhere a little quieter and more family-friendly. I have watched all the "get top dollar for your house" shows, and they usually raise the homes' values by several thousand dollars, with a little paint, some imagination and a weekend. This should be easy, right?

Wrong.

First of all, I have two small children. Anyone who has small children can imagine what that does to one's organizational and packing skills.

Second, I have too much stuff. I have 6 identical Corningware casserole dishes. I've had them since our wedding. They are all in my kitchen cupboards. Have I ever needed 6 casserole dishes at once? No. I also have four large boxes of candles and candle holders leftover from my failed attempt at a fahhbulous career selling Partylite. Most of them do not match my home. Yet, I have been providing them room and board for 3 years. And then there's the growing stack of "ebay" items. I could make a mint if I could just get organized enough to try to sell these things. Maybe next week...

Lastly, those shows don't show you the twenty people and the storage unit that are the real heroes of the whole process. If I had even two or three people packing, wrapping, and carting away all my "extra" unsightly possessions, I could have it done in a weekend too.

But I have 2 dining tables in my half-primed dining room, 8 boxes of books (and 2 empty bookcases) piled in my bedroom, and a spare room full of outgrown children's clothing. Do you thing TLC would send over a few beefy guys and a U-haul to make my house look pretty?

Housecleaning gripe #44

Why on earth does my husband rearrange the dishes in the dishwasher? I may not be a dishwasher "expert" like he is, but I have put the dishes in there like I want them. There is a method to my madness. And even if there weren't, the man works 60 hours a week -- he doesn't really have the time to worry about than where I put the dirty bowls.

That is all.

I'm not normal -- but that's not a surprise.

You Are 40% Normal (Somewhat Normal)

While some of your behavior is quite normal... Other things you do are downright strange You've got a little of your freak going on But you mostly keep your weirdness to yourself

How Normal Are You?