Do NOT...

The saga of the shed continues...

Friday, gutters are installed, doors hung, trim applied (quit for dinner with friends - a microbrewery - yum). Saturday, more trim is applied, gutter screens slid on, (quit to go buy trees for me - 2 redbuds, a dogwood, and an azalea, plant them all) further home improvment is called due to severe thunderstorms, and this morning Tater is shut up inside the shed with a paint-sprayer-thing, painting the inside white.

I think I see an end in sight.

At least a slow-down. He has to take a nap this evening because he starts his 2200-0600 shift tonight.

Oh, and by the way, if your husband is on day 7 of building a shed and wearing a painters jumpsuit, do not. I repeat, DO NOT go up to him and tell him that he looks "cute". "Like a Teletubbie".

He does NOT think it's funny.

Construction: Not My Thing

Here's what I didn't do yesterday:



Here's what I helped do today:



For 11 hours.

We (and when I say "we", I really mean Tater - my main function has been sunscreen application, drink refreshing, holder of 2x4's, and general fetch-it-bitch) have been rebuilding this shed since Monday. It is NOT fun. It turns out that I don't like building things at all. First of all, there is lots of sawdust that flies around and gets in my eyes. The power tools are scary. The wood is heavy, and I have to touch it. (I don't like to touch wood and wet wood is the worst. I don't like the way it feels to my fingers - it's like nails on a chalkboard to me. I don't know why. It's just weird.) The parts never fit together properly, and you always have to cuss while constructing. Then there's the filler that you have to use when you leave a gap, followed by sanding (and I don't like to touch sandpaper either - ewww).

So. When Tater sent me to Home Depot yesterday, I came home with an armload of plants and did what I LIKE to do. Dig in the dirt.

Now, it's looking like this:



And this:

It's All About Me!

So. Today was Mother's Day.

When I went downstairs to make my coffee, Noodle had placed, on the counter, a little clay pot of flowers (marigolds), an astoundingly beautiful picture she drew of dahlias (suitable for framing), and a lovely note telling me how much she loves me (a lot).

Next to all that was the pink & black-wrapped box of Kate Spade perfume that I bought for myself a few weeks ago, but really Tater bought and the very sneaky Nordstrom lady wrapped and then gave to Noodle, so I couldn't cheat and use it early. I've been waiting for 3 weeks to break into that! I ripped the paper off and enveloped myself in Kate's bouquet of honeysuckle, gardenia, and jasmine...

I still had my jammies on but I smelled Great!

Then, Noodle and I went out to the garden (the garden that the kids and I worked in for 7 hours yesterday - hostas and lilies and fern, oh my!) and drank our coffee and tea, then visited Dillon in his room for about an hour (because if you have a teenager and you want to see them, even if it's Mother's Day, you have to go hang out in their room), and then we got some cards and played Skip-Bo in the garden for another hour or so while catching some rays, and then my son FINALLY brought me my present from him.

He had made me a big, frosty, sweet, infused with coconutty-goodness, Pina Colada. With rum.

I have the BEST kids.

Oh yeah. And then we went out to dinner. To Austin Grill, where they have the "Swirly" Margarita. Mmmmmmmmmm.

Dirty-Word Scrabble

So. This morning. Tater was at work and the kids still sleeping, so I made myself some coffee and sat down to check my email. There was one from our reunion website (I'm an admin on it) saying that there was a flagged profile to check. I did. As happened with my profile, it flagged the word "psychology"....

So I go to the flagged words list, thinking maybe "psycho" was flagged. Nooooooooo....... looked up and down the list, trying to find the offending word.......nothing.

Then I sat, for the longest time, staring at the word "psychology", trying to find the dirty word in it.....

"Cholo"! That was it!

So I edited it to be a full-word only flag. And decided that "Dirty Word Scrabble" is a lovely way to spend a quiet Saturday morning.

House Hunting With JB

I've been house hunting with our friend JB. I was a little nervous that it would make me have second thoughts about the house that I chose last November. I love this house and I know it was by far the best house, in our price range, on the market at the time.

My experience on Monday confirmed what I already knew.

Mrs. JB

Happy May Day!

So busy...

T's on a 4-day-off rotation and OCD-ing on home renovations, our friend JB came in this weekend to stay with us for 7 days, causing me to OCD on cleaning (he's a neat-freak), and starting tomorrow I play surrogate wife to JB while he househunts all week.

Spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of someone else's money. I could professionalize that.

Who Is Cooler? You or I?

I've had a lot of time to re-think the HS experience for the past 2 years while watching Dillon go through it. At first it was hard because he is different than I. He thinks the popular kids and "Jocks" are jerks and in general, stupid, and purposely will not wear the "preppie" clothes I buy him because he doesn't want to be that guy. He wears jeans and concert T's, Chuck Taylor's, and has long hair (as long as his dad will allow). He is an artist and hangs out with girls with black fingernails, heavy eyeliner, multiple piercings...you know, the works. (But he brings home all A's, gets his homework done, and is serious about going to college and being a vet. So it all balances out.) I see what his perceptions are about the kids who were like me in HS and I know that he is wrong about those kids. If I had known him in HS I might have thought he was a stoner or just a slacker and I would have been wrong. No matter what "group" or "clique" they fall into, no matter their strengths or weaknesses, all HS kids have doubts about themselves and think that they look wrong, say the wrong things, aren't smart/skinny/pretty/buff/athletic/handsome enough. And it's too bad that it takes 20 years after graduation to figure that out.

I did have a bit of a clue about all of that when I was in HS. Stella (whose name has been changed to protect the innocent) and I became friends in Jr. High and as we became closer and started talking, we each realized that we had been ambivalent about the other and our preconceptions were all wrong. I remember thinking she was so cool but probably wouldn't want to be my friend. And I distinctly remember, having a sleepover, and she and I laying in my bed one night in HS having a girl-talk. She told me how she thought I was aloof at first (she didn't use the word "aloof" but I don't remember the exact word - same general meaning) but once she got to know me she realized she was wrong. I've been fighting that perception my whole life. What comes off as aloof is actually an almost debilitating shyness that I have yet to grow out of. It drives my Type-A husband crazy! With people I don't know so well I present as prickly and totally don't mean to. Once I warm up, though, I hardly shut up.

Hehehe. Now I've gone on and practically forgotten the point.

Oh yeah, point is:

High School kids always think that the person seated next to them is cooler than they are and they are all wrong. The end.

Gardening On the Back Burner. Again.

So yesterday was a perfectly beautiful Mid-Atlantic Spring Day.

I spent it in the emergency room with Noodle.

I don't mean to be rude here, but these kids are really cutting into my free time. I was planning on ripping up all the plants in my backyard and putting new ones in with my name on them. The overgrown shrubs are history and will be replaced by an ornamental tree, jasmine, a rose bush or two, hostas, callas, impatiens, ferns, daylillies...I can't wait!

Well, actually, I guess I can. HRH went to a birthday party Saturday night in which they went roller skating. Long story short - she got up, then went down. And broke her fall with her left wrist. She was still favoring it and it was purpley and bumpy on Sunday morning so OFF to the Emergency room we went. Four and a half hours, 3 x-rays, Motrin and a splint later, we were home and the day was over. She was almost disappointed after all that time to only have strained it. I think she was actually hoping it was broken after wasting her entire afternoon at the hospital!

Anyway, she's still a bit sore but in a week or so she'll be good as new.

And my garden will keep.

Twenty-Year Legacy

I haven't been writing because I've been reading. I picked up "The Time Traveler's Wife" a couple of days ago and barely did anything until I put it down this afternoon. It was different. Different in a good way. The end left me yearning for more and wondering...Is that the sign of a good writer? Or a writer that dropped the ball?

Anyway, except for a lingering cough I'm all better.

Well, except for the fact that I've had my steadily advancing age thrown in my face this week...I got an email from my HS class president. Apparently, it's time for my 20th Reunion.

There is NO WAY that 20 years have passed. Just last Friday I was at a mixer with my girlfriends. We were dancing to Springsteen and REO Speedwagon...we TP'd the football players houses before the big game...we got Connie's brother to buy us beer then drove to the new construction site to drink it and talk about boys. I was skinny. And unlined. I had made few mistakes, but had few experiences. I could see my whole world from my front porch and I was content with that. When I think if the road I have traveled for the past 20 years, I am exhausted but wonder: why have I not gone further? Twenty years is sufficient to discover penicillin. Or gravity. To create a nuclear warhead. And what have I done? I've cleaned countless bathtubs. I've emptied thousands of dishwashers; made a zillion beds. But I get up every day and the same chores need to be finished again. Just so I can go to bed and start over tomorrow.

But twenty years is also enough time to instill values...morals...ethics in my children. Dillon will be an adult in less than 2 years. I've worked 16 years toward the goal of making him an independent human being. One that can be trusted on his own to make the right choices. To choose the high road. To perservere. It was almost too easy. Did I do it right? Is there something I missed? I don't think so.

Twenty years has passed in the blink of an eye and a new generation is dancing to Usher and Bowling for Soup. They know to wear their seatbelts and not drink and drive. They are the legacy that moms like me will leave behind. They are not successful because they grew up with clean floors and gourmet dinners. They are successful because we have taught them to be.

I'm OK!

Ok. It's been a week that I've laid in bed and FINALLY, today, I feel human again. My legs are weak, and my voice is froggy, but I was awake for most of the day, which is a big switch from last week.

I went to the doctor on Friday and it turns out I had a massive sinus infection gone awry. He put me on some antibiotics, and while I'm still hacking up a lung, I am awake and mobile. Yay!

Unfortunately, I was too sick this weekend to get out in the yard in the gorgeous weather we've had. I have plans... Big Plans that are aching to be executed.

Ahhhh, it will have to wait.

Sick

Sooooooooooooo sick.......

More Crap

Cough... headache... sore joints... ears hurt... fever... eyes blurry... sore throat... skin hurts to touch.

Didn't sleep last night - everytime I fell asleep, I coughed myself awake within 20 minutes.

Oh yeah, and I started my period yesterday too.

Bring it on!

This Is Crap

Warmest day this year.

Sick again.

Cough like a seal.

Simple Prayers

Nothing profound.

The simplest of simple...

...just sending out prayers for Pope John Paul II and the College of Cardinals.

Educational Multitasking

So here's what you do:

You turn on the TV to the History Channel. Then you start cleaning:

~laundry
~Windexing
~vacuuming
~dusting
~ironing
~etcetera, etcetera.

Oh, and:

~Painting your toenails is good too. But do it first so they can dry while you're doing all that other crap.

The result is that you learn all sorts of incredibly cool and terribly useless information! I've learned about Count Dracula, Werewolves, Three Mile Island, and Mary Shelly just today (which shows you how much in need of a good wipe-down my house was).

The only real drawback is that you pick up lots of Half-Facts. Because you're not REALLY paying attention. So later, if you want to work some of your newfound knowledge into dinner conversation, you need to remember to keep your contribution short so as to not look like an idiot for only half-knowing what you're talking about. (This admission, I'm sure, will explain a lot to my friends.)

But back on the bonus side, if you have enough to do, the History Channel repeats itself after a couple of hours and you can pick up the missing bits here and there.

I'm already on my second round of Dracula...