You Be the Jishin

Ibe sooooooo stuffed ub...my head is going to explode. I'll catch up tomorrow. Aaaaaaaachoooooooooo!

Fall Has Arrived

Monday - Bingo - won twice
Tuesday - Supper at Mom and Dad's, 30th Blood Donation
Wednesday - Fabulous pizza
Thursday - Kids playing in the leaves, KFC, Earl & ER

Holy Crap! 20,000!

I was just rereading and correcting typos and stuff and noticed my site counter in the right column. I can't believe there have been 20,000 hits here. Unbelievable! Somebody from Seattle, Washington was my 20,000th visitor. I think this calls for a new freebie. I'll make something new this week. How very fun!

Mean? No. Sadistic? Yep.

Let's see...Thursday...

Fairly uneventful. Took Carter to school (this is becoming such a highlight in my day). Thursday night we all went to bed very early. Like nine o'clock-ish.

Friday was a hoot. Before I took Carter to school, I killed a bit of time at the dollar store. I picked up a couple things then at the counter I was curiously looking at all the "shocking" items, one of which was a very realistic looking cigarette lighter. I was tempted yet scared to try one, but the ladies at the counter encouraged me to do so. HOLY CRAP. That sucker zinged me all the way up my arm into my neck! I jokingly asked them if they thought it would deter my husband from smoking and decided I had just enough time to go zing Chris before taking Carter to school.

OMGYOUSHOULDHAVESEENTHELOOKONHISFACE. I can still break into a fit of giggling when I picture it. I told him I found this nice lighter on the street but you have to really click it to make it work. He clicked it alright...and loudly and amusingly shouted an obscenity. (And quite rightfully so, I'd say!) I laughed 'til I cried. Once the surprise wore off a little he was laughing too, calling me cruel. Yeah, okay. He has since passed the torch, so to speak to a couple others.

I took Carter to school as usual. Ironically, that afternoon I took my CPR recertification at work. It was a good week at work, though it seemed a bit long. I guess it's due to the weather starting to go downhill (toward winter) and all those short weeks I worked in August.

Chris worked Saturday morning as usual then had plans to go to a poker derby with his four-wheeler. Cindy was in her hunter's safety course near Mom & Dad's house and planned to go there for lunch. Mom invited me to bring the boys out, so I packed them up and headed out. It was a pretty nice day out. We had fresh salmon that Auntie Lurdes and Uncle Cliff had caught and canned on their trip to B.C. Made for some delicious salmon salad sandwiches. We hung out for most of the afternoon then headed back to town.

I did a run to Tim Horton's and took the back way through a little muddy trail. The Jeep was already dirty anyway, so we went to the carwash and I gave it a good scrub. I took the boys for a happy meal and stopped in to see how Chris's ride went. He had no shoes on and was wearing some borrowed pants. Everyone there was covered in mud from head to toe. I don't think I've ever seen Chris that dirty! The festivities weren't over yet so I ran home to get him a clean sweater and shoes.

I brought the boys home and they played outside for a bit. I took this picture of Carter and made this layout using Christy's new Chocolate Romance kit from Butternug Squash Designs.

Chris came home at a decent hour and I finally got the boys to wind down and go to sleep. Cooper had me up a couple times in the night and closer to morning he was ready to party. That was not fun. I had hoped to go to church but I bailed because I kept trying to go back to sleep after the boys got up, which in itself is an exercise in futility.

I spent the day stripping all the beds and washing everything. I hung out all the sheets and duvet covers and blankets and pillowcases on the clothesline. It was such a gorgeous day for it. Clear and sunny and warm with just the perfect breeze for drying laundry.

I made a lovely supper of salmon fillets and steamed potatoes and asparagus. Even the boys ate some. I did a few more loads of laundry so we all have something to wear this week. and it is so HOT in here, because it is such a surprisingly warm day following all the cold weather we've had that Chris had already covered the air conditioner for the winter. Which...sucks. Don't get me wrong, I'd love for summer to last forever, but it's so much more comfortable with the air conditioner.

My last major task of the evening is to dye my hair but I'm too hot and sticky at the moment.

Intermittent Signals

I have tried to blog. Seriously. But I'm a night-blogger. And my internet seems to go wonky at night since Sunday. The ever-so-awesome cable guy came over yesterday. We have theeeeee coolest cable guys here in Dryden (Woohoo Cary & Brad!). However, my internet still unfortunately went wonky as soon as it got dark out. He had changed a splitter in the basement and changed something on the pole outside but it still died.

Today it worked fine, as usual, and surprisingly this evening it's still working. I'm hoping to get through this blog post!

Monday was Carter's first 'regular' day of school, and now he goes every day. He is just so dang cute when he wants to wear his backpack. I have some nice school clothes I've been dressing him in and he's so handsome I could just squish him with hugs all day. And now I'm going to have to find a backpack for Cooper too. He just keeps yelling "Backpack!" when he sees Carter with his. Cooper can say ANYTHING now. And he always wants to use the toilet. Yeah, toilet. We skipped the potty with this child completely. How awesome is that?

Today was picture day (already) at school for Carter. I should have taken his picture in his handsome clothes, but oh well; we'll have pictures soon enough! I took him to the bathroom and put some gel in his hair and spiked it a bit before I left to go back to work. Cyuuuuuute.

Here is a picture of him yesterday...my handsome little man...

I can't believe September is more than half over. Time is flying so quickly. Unbelievable. Tonight I went to Bingo with Mom and Kelly. Kelly, my lucky Bingo cohort, won not once but twice and since we always split the winnings it was just as fun for me!

Before we left I took this cute (and grumpy-looking) picture of Cooper on Daddy's four-wheeler. He was ticked at me for not giving him my drink of Coke before I left. But it still made for a cute picture!

Well, looks like I made it through the blog post. Internet is still working. Maybe Cable Guy came back and fixed something else. Either that or it's not that cold out; the cold seems to be related to the connection. We'll see. Winter is practically here now. Next month is Thanksgiving then I'm going to hibernate as soon as I fill up on turkey and mashed potatoes.

Parentally Accepted Target

Yesterday Chris worked later than usual since they were working on inventory. They must have really hauled ass because he was home at one-thirty. I didn't expect him home for many hours after that. Carter was having his usual pooping standoff since Friday night when he first started exhibiting symptoms of needing to go. He fights it as long as possible, but the new me doesn't let him have a pull-up anymore. The only option is the toilet now. It's not pleasant, but it's working. A few skidmarks won't kill me.

Everyone napped in the afternoon. That was delish. After we all got up from napping I went to the grocery store to pick up hamburger buns. The hamburger buns were about thirty-six bucks. Next I did a quick Wal-Mart run for peanut butter and snacks, which were about seventy-nine bucks. Yikes. Of course I strayed from my mental list that I had made, but I shouldn't need to go to the store for the rest of the week. When I got home Carter had finally pooped on the toilet, unlike his little brother who had missed the 'parentally accepted target'. (Thanks to Jennifer's Facebook message for inspiring today's post title!)

We had barbecued hamburgers for supper. I love barbecuing so much; minimal mess and Chris goes outside to do the grilling. I mean, I love to grill, but hey, if it's a way to get my husband to cook I'm all for it! In the evening the internet connection was wonky again. Seems as soon as the sun drops over the horizon, which is getting so early already, the internet connection goes out the window.

Carter was asleep by nine. Cooper was still up for at least another hour; his marathon nap was the direct reason for the late bedtime. And I went to bed around eleven I think, but couldn't sleep right away and resorted to my Sudoku book to make me sleepy.

This morning Chris went fishing bright (er...still dark) and early. Getting an early start so he can be home early too, so he says! I'm going to try to tackle some more basement-dwelling junk again and get everything ready for Carter's next day of school.

It's Been a Long Week

After taking Carter to school on Monday, and seeing his enthusiasm for it, I was really excited about taking him on Wednesday. And I think the practice run kept me from turning into a sobbing mess when we actually had to go. I just grinned from ear to ear when I took him for real. He jumped right in and started playing. Sooooo cute.

All week I went to sleep between nine and ten each night. It's amazing what a full night's sleep can do for a person. I don't think I've yawned in a week! It's a good thing I did get an early start on a couple of those nights since Cooper did his best to keep me awake a few times in the middle of the night.

Tuesday I did a grocery run and grabbed hot dogs and steaks. We opted for hot dogs and invited Mom and Dad for supper Wednesday night. Dad had his golf night on Wednesday so they didn't come. I marinated two gorgeous tenderloin steaks and Dave and Heather stopped by. I didn't want to freeze the other steaks so we asked them to stay for supper. I marinated all the steaks and made a Caesar salad and baked potatoes and corn. Deeeeeeeeeeeeeelicious. I'm so glad I finally picked up some propane last weekend so we can finally barbecue again.

Yesterday we went to Mom and Dad's for supper. Mom made an awesome stew, similar to one her mom used to make. It was a ginormous pot of stew but we almost made it all disappear, along with Cindy and the kids.

My internet has been acting up again. Seems like when the weather gets cool and damp (by the way it SNOWED here yesterday) my internet goes kerflooey. I tried off and on for two hours to get through to technical support. They're supposed to send someone on Tuesday. In the meantime it's working again but it keeps cutting out.

This morning I got to 'sleep in' until about seven. I started organizing things in the basement a little in anticipation that the cable guy is going to need to totally reinstall our cable lines into the house. It's a jungle down there! I hope to tackle it some more if these little monkeys take a nap. I'm doubting it. This morning Cooper removed his diaper...this is a recent trick he pulls if I don't keep pants on him! He came up to the couch and wiped something on the couch and said Poop. It was poop. Oy. I grabbed him and put him on the toilet (he's been doing a good job lately going on the toilet) and he finished the job. But I wasn't convinced that was the whole job. I found the remainder of it on the kitchen floor. Yeah, it was gross. Note to self...keep the diaper AND pants on this kid. Fortunately the toxic mess was easy to contain.

Right now Carter and Cooper are running in circles in the living room with buckets on their heads pretending to be astronauts...I think I need to go find them a spacecraft.

Carter's REAL First Day of School

Carter's First Day of School...NOT!!!

Honestly, I thought about blogging every day since Friday...let's recap, shall we?

Saturday...Chris worked until noon. Since we had no sitter so that we could attend the wedding, we made plans to have Seija and Ian over for supper so I needed to run to the store for a few things. I bought some food stuff, a furnace filter, and a new pair of shoes for Chris.

Seija and Ian came over about five. We started preparing our awesome feast. Seija brought a gorgeous salad with mandarin orange slices and pecans and an awesome homemade dressing. She also brought the dessert...mmmmmmmm. Kind of a blueberry cheesecake thing. I wanted to have dessert first.

I prepared the batter for our fish fry and peeled potatoes. Seija did more of the preparation than I did; apparently I was a bit to involved with my glass of Baja Rose. Way too yummy. And after one glass I was a little dizzy. We somehow conned the guys into frying the fish outside and the potatoes. We also had asparagus and hollandaise sauce. Everything was AWESOME and it was so great to catch up with Seija and Ian...this visit has been a long-time-coming!

After supper we moaned and groaned about how full we all were then surprisingly the kids fell asleep and we attacked the dessert. Fabulous. We watched the movie "Delta Farce" with Larry the Cable Guy in it. Well, we sort of did. Of course it was a silly movie.

Sunday morning Chris was supposed to go out hunting but he slept in. So he went out to Cindy's with coffees to visit and did some trail riding. I stayed home with the boys and hung out. I did a little tidying but the evidence of my big clean has greatly disappeared.

Sunday evening we had leftovers, including the leftover dessert that Seija left behind...silly girl! I had a monstrous piece of it after eating some delicious leftover pieces of fish. Mom and Dad stopped by and Dave and Heather came over to watch a movie. We watched "Hot Fuzz". Bizarre movie.

Now, cut to today...which I THOUGHT was Carter's first day of school. I had his backpack ready, school clothes packed for the sitter's house so he could put new clean school clothes on for his first day... his snack packed in his bag. Indoor shoes in the packsack. I think I had it all. EXCEPT FOR THE RIGHT DAY. I scarfed a quick Chinese lunch buffet downtown with Donna and Laurel from work and went to pick up Carter. I took him to the school and realized that if it's always like this, taking him in the afternoons will rock because parking is a breeze at that time. Carter wore his backpack and loves it. He was happy to get there and posed for some cute pictures for me. We got to the classroom and just the teacher was in the room. I said, "Oh, are we the first ones here?" To which the teacher replied with a puzzled look and said, "Uh, maybe on Wednesday?" I said, "OMG don't tell me I brought him on the WRONG DAY?"

Yep. Wrong day. When I got the letter from the school I read it and thought I committed all the arrangements to memory. The meeting with the teacher, the first day with part of the class and the first real day that he starts going all the time. Nope. Either my memory, my eyesight or my reading ability failed me (or any or all of the above). So I had to tell Carter I made a mistake and that he couldn't stay there. He was pumped about the backpack still, which was a bonus and he took it in to the sitter's house. I had also arranged for the sitter's son to walk him home and had to call the school to cancel that. A message he never received...ahem.

I went back to work and showed the girls the cute pictures of my son on his first NON-day of school. What a dork I am. Oh well, I was prepared, and very early! Days early! After work I picked up both boys and we came home. The weather was crappy. It was blowing and raining and very cold. It was fifty degrees this evening and is supposed to go below freezing tonight. Yuck.

Chris came home and I got ready to go to Bingo with Mom and Kelly and Auntie Josie. I got down to one number a bunch of times, but couldn't win. However, Mom did and went home with a hundred bucks. Yay! We came home and I checked all my messages and finally did my blog catch up. I have no new scrapbook pages. I've started at least a dozen and deleted them. Gotta get my mojo back and get scrapping!

Unbridled enthusiasm on our way in to the school...

Vindicated!

Vindicated, exonerated, exculpated...this is me.

synonyms EXCULPATE, ABSOLVE, EXONERATE, ACQUIT, VINDICATE mean to free from a charge. EXCULPATE implies a clearing from blame or fault often in a matter of small importance <exculpating himself from the charge of overenthusiasm>. ABSOLVE implies a release either from an obligation that binds the conscience or from the consequences of disobeying the law or committing a sin absolved of blame>. EXONERATE implies a complete clearance from an accusation or charge and from any attendant suspicion of blame or guilt <exonerated by the investigation>. ACQUIT implies a formal decision in one's favor with respect to a definite charge acquit the defendant>. VINDICATE may refer to things as well as persons that have been subjected to critical attack or imputation of guilt, weakness, or folly, and implies a clearing effected by proving the unfairness of such criticism or blame vindicated.

My thought process for the day centered around feeling like crap about my movie store incident yesterday. I pretty much bitched about it incessantly any chance I got. I was very tempted to go the video store today but didn't have the inner strength rebuilt to deal with the movie nazi again (yet). She really drained me and I hate feeling that way. I picked up the boys and came home.

After Chris came home I did a McDonald's run. We had a picnic in the living room. Last week when I was off with the kids I decided it was way past time to fight the battle with Carter for pooping on the toilet. I stopped giving him pull-ups, even at night because he would just poop in it if given the chance. I had some extra bedding to wash over the week but the little turkey would not poop. It's been OVER A WEEK. So FINALLY he was exhibiting signs of dumpage. I put him on the toilet and was not going to give in until he pooped there. He sat for quite awhile but wasn't ready.

I had planned on renting movies this weekend but was too chicken to go back to the video store. I was going to see if that woman was working and if so I would keep driving and rent a movie at the grocery store. I saw that her car wasn't there so I went in. Now yesterday I was accused of being mean, which I honestly didn't think I was...but this was a tad...

I walked in and there were two employees at the counter. As I walked past them I muttered to them, "Is the rotten troll here?" Yeah, it was mean but for some reason I didn't care anymore. The girl behind the counter sort of got a puzzled look on her face and just said no. I went to get two movies and brought them to the counter. The girl asked if I was referring to the movie nazi. I said yes and proceeded to advise her of the events of my brief encounter yesterday, so there was another staff member aware of my conflict. I was served very politely and helpfully by the girl at the counter and went on my way.

I came home and Carter was still on the toilet. It was Chris's turn to hang out with him and encourage him to poop. I was chatting with Jill and I was on the phone a bit with Kelly and my Mom. Then the phone rang...I answered and it was...the movie nazi herself! I was floored. She said she had calls in to two district managers to find out why the automated calls were coming to me, and found out it was through Chris's account (which is the same as mine but in his name I guess.) Regardless, neither of us has had any late movies, or any movies at all for at least a week and a half. Anyhoo, she said that when I was in I was supposed to get a free rental credit on my account. I guess she must have shown up right after I was there or saw me leave or something so she found out my name since I had just rented, and decided to call me.

She asked me if that was satisfactory to me and my short reply was yes. There was a long pause and I don't recall what she said next but I very nicely and calmly told her I wanted her to know that I didn't appreciate her calling me "mean" yesterday when I was just asking her a question. We conversed and I told her I'm just one customer but I find she comes across as rude and if she would slow down a bit and deal with customers and staff it would be a more pleasant place. I said a video store should be a fun place for people to work. She said it is and she spoils "her kids". Meaning the staff, I presume.

She said it's taking a few years for people to realize this is "the way she is and the way she always has been". I said something about how it makes me feel uncomfortable and she said there are two sides to every story or something and I said something like I'm not trying to be mean or picking on her but I wanted her to know that is how she makes me feel when I'm there.

The conversation ended nicely, with my thanks for the free rental and my wish for her to have a good weekend. I could feel my blood pressure returning to normal almost immediately. I think that went well. I think I'll sleep much better tonight.

Snotly Snottington (aka the Movie Nazi)

Hmmm. It's Thursday. What did I do yesterday? Went to work and had another of those crazy-busy days. Because I'm a dork I forgot my eyebrow appointment during my lunch hour. We didn't go to Bingo in the evening.

Chris played outside with the boys after work for awhile. I was tiiiiiiiiiiired. Chris's cousin Janet is in town and came over to visit. We had a great visit! Her niece is getting married this weekend and if all goes well we'll be there.

There was a crazy-wicked thunderstorm during and after Janet's visit. I chatted with Angie and Jill a little but the storm was starting to flicker the computer a bit so I shut it down.

Today was a little less chaotic than the past couple days around the office. I took a late lunch hour so Chris and I could take Carter to MEET HIS TEACHER! Yes, my baby is starting school! I really didn't think I was going to, but as soon as we walked in the classroom and the teacher and Carter started interacting, my eyes welled up. I didn't outright bawl, but I surprisingly was all misty. We had a fantastic visit and the teacher asked Carter and us some questions and got him to draw a picture to put on her bulletin board. He even wrote his name on the paper (well sort of...I've never gotten him to do it before but the teacher asked him to and he tried!) You could definitely identify the letters he wrote! ::tear:: So next week he goes for his first real day. Wow.

I took Carter back to the sitter and went back to work. After work I stopped at Chris's shop and he was planning to go fishing after work and Mom had invited us for supper. I stopped in at home to change and there was a message on the answering machine from the video store. It was an automated message that said I have one or more titles that are past due. This was the second time in a week I'd received a message like this. The first time I phoned and talked to a nice guy that assured me that I did not in fact have any movies out. So when I got the message again today, I figured I'd stop in to ask about it.

I explained the message to the woman at the counter who also happens to be the manager. She instantly seemed defensive and stated the call did not come from her. Which I knew. So then I asked why I would receive such a call when I hadn't returned any movies late and it had been over a week since I rented any movies? She said the call comes from 'headquarters' and sometimes their computers are a few days behind. So I asked again, "But why would I get such a call if I hadn't rented a movie in over a week?" Her reply was, "Well you don't have to be MEAN." Huh? What? Exqueeeeeeeeze me? I said, "Mean? I was just asking you a question." And she said, "But you should hear how you sounded". My next reply was likely my last words to her EVER. I said, "You should hear yourself sometimes. Do you ever wonder why your employees keep leaving? And customers?" And I bolted out the door. OMG I felt like crap. I don't think I've ever been MEAN to anyone working in a store, restaurant, whatever. I've never confronted anyone like that before. But she is AWFUL. There. I said it. Ask anyone. She is...the movie nazi. End of story.

So I left all agitated and upset and called my sister. She has had some issues at the same place so I didn't feel so badly. We had an AWESOME supper at Mom and Dad's...a Portuguese meat dish made with fresh venison, fresh garden beans, carrots, and potatoes and deep-fried French fries. Awesome. The boys ate a bit and we visited for awhile and watched a show called "The Lost Room". I've never seen it before but it's very intriguing; now I'd like to rent the series but I'm wondering if I'll be banned from the video store for "being mean". Oy.

I just got home awhile ago. Cooper is asleep and hopefully Carter isn't too far behind. By the way, after I shut down the computer because of the storm last night, my computer was OFF for TWENTY-TWO and A HALF hours. I didn't even check my email yet. Wow the computer junkie left it off for almost a whole day. But I'm back...!

Hit the Ground Running

Happy Birthday Marnie!

Wow what a busy day today! And oh crap, I haven't blogged since Saturday. For supper on Saturday, we went to Dave and Heather's place. Dave is the "new guy" where Chris works and they are like giddy little school girls when they get together. Hilarious. I call him Chris's new boyfriend. Carter and Cooper had a great time there too, and Cooper had his first try on a trampoline. (1) No, I didn't have the camera handy, and (2) I would have been too busy freaking out about them falling off if I didn't have both hands ready to dive and catch them in case they fell off.

We had an awesome supper of beer chicken...this is where you put a beer can "up" the chicken and barbecue it. No, and thankfully, it didn't taste like beer. But it was very good. I brought the usual oriental salad and we had mashed potatoes and steamed veggies. We hung out for awhile visiting after supper then it was time to get the kiddies home.

Sunday...duh...did I do ANYTHING? Well at this point I can't recall. Obviously I didn't go to church. Monday...yesterday...another lazy day. I didn't do any more major cleaning, but I did a tad more organizing.

This morning was my first day back to work after being off for those fabulous eleven days. I felt a sense of accomplishment for the time I spent off, and had a great week with my boys too. I'm far from being stay-at-home-mom material on a regular basis, but it really was fun.

Work was INSANELY busy today. Donna and I were so busy covering all the departments that were away that when she said, "Melany, would you believe it's lunchtime?" I didn't believe her at first! We totally both missed our coffee breaks but it was a great morning. I somehow managed to get caught up on most of the month-end stuff from Friday. The afternoon breezed by just like the morning did. Made for an awesome day.

I picked up the boys and came home. When Chris came home I ran out to get a couple grocery items for supper and made a yummy spaghetti dinner with Caesar salad and garlic bread. Mmmm. It's been a long time since we had spaghetti (refer to Mr. Spaghetti below), and I'm pretty sure the leftovers will make for a good lunch for Chris or supper tomorrow. After supper I did a Wal-Mart run for pullups and wipes for the babysitter for Cooper. I picked up about forty bucks' worth of other stuff too including milk and gripe water and assorted other items that were not on the list. It was a veritable MADHOUSE in there; I'm guessing because (1) yesterday was a national holiday and people go NUTS when they can't go to Wal-Mart for one whole day, and (2) school starts at most of our local schools tomorrow so I'm thinkin' all the last-minute school shopping was getting done.

Tonight it was hilariously rocking at NDISB's forum. There were so many of us online that our posts were overlapping each other and it's such a fun bunch over there. I finally posted a few layouts that I worked on over the long weekend. Two from LaWanna's kits and one from Peppermint Creative. Here they are:




Now it's wayyyyyyyy past my bedtime at almost one-thirty! (I had a very big glass of strong iced tea at supper and a FVC after my Wal-Mart run) so I'm still burning the post-midnight oil from all the sugar and caffeine!

Scrubby Scrubbington

I'm at it again. The other day I made my kitchen gleam (starting with the kitchen sink à la Fly Lady!) Even the floor is shiny. It's so nice to walk across the floor and feel its clean smoothness, without bits of castaway food or sand/gravel here and there. You could have done the "white sock" test to ensure I swept, mopped, mopped and hand-waxed that sucker.

I cleared off the top of the fridge, including moving the microwave from its lofty perch up there to my teensy weensy countertop. I have even less counter space now but the microwave is much more easily accessible now. I took apart my stovetop and used various cleaners to scrub the elements and the drip pans and chrome ring thingies. I rearranged some cupboards and chucked out mismatched plastic containers.

I moved some seldom-used appliances to the basement and made room for my pots and pans, which have been residing in the oven for ages. It sucks every time I need to use the oven because I've had to empty it first and put all the pots and pans somewhere else so I can cook something! Seriously, I have a good-sized kitchen, but with very minimal cupboard space so this is quite a big deal!

I ran the dishwasher a couple times, including a few unusual, hard-to-clean items such as the garbage can lid and the bathroom garbage can. This massive project took me most of the day, and I had a sore back to show for it later. The bathroom was the next project and I made it shine too. Mirrors, fixtures, tub, toilet, etc. Emptied all the little shelves and filled them with rolls of toilet paper.

I eradicated the leftover graveyard that was our fridge, as per the photo I enclosed that day. Ol' Mr. Spaghetti is a goner, along with his friends Mr. Coleslaw and his three kids, and various brownish salad items that started to turn to liquid. I took out the crispers and cleaned them in my (already) clean bathtub. It was worth dirtying the tub for. Now the fridge looks so empty!

This is a page I did for the DNTS contest at Peppermint Creative.
We had to scrap something from the point of view of an inanimate object in our home. Mr. Spaghetti had already been mentioned in two of my scrap pages, so I figured he was a good candidate for this one too.

When Chris came home I informed him he was cooking supper. He did a McDonald's run and we ate at the newly repositioned dining room table. It's kind of midway between the kitchen and dining room now, making the dining room look almost like a spare room, because it is empty!

I was tired and sore by this time though I still puttered around a little. I had only begun to tackle the living room (starting with the top of the TV stand) when I finally surrendered. Whew!

Yesterday I was kind of still hungover from the fumes of Thursday's cleaning frenzy, and felt very tired. I didn't do much of anything, basically just tried to keep the things that I cleaned staying clean. Last night we went to Mom and Dad's to watch movies; I rented "Year of the Dog" with Molly Shannon...it was removed shortly after it started. Next we tried out "Perfect Stranger" with Halle Berry and Bruce Willis. Much better. And I'm particularly glad we finally watched it because it was the second time I'd rented it. I was impressed with the twists in it; and that Halle Berry didn't annoy me in this one.

We came home and Cooper was asleep but Carter was still going strong. We had taken a super-long nap so he still had his second wind. I tried to do some scrapping but I chatted a bit with Jill and Vicky and went to sleep.

This morning the boys got up as usual and dragged me from a sweet slumber. We had a fun morning; I even actually let the boys play with play dough in my clean kitchen for awhile. I felt like it was Friday again (a result of being off all week!) and then Chris came home at noon. Oh yeah, it's Saturday! Chris took both boys outside and I did a full-on attack of the living room. I wanted to move the couches and vacuum (well not really) but I did. I unleashed some major dust demons (no, those were NOT bunnies) and the more furniture I moved the deeper the cleaning got.

I moved my computer completely out of the living room for cleaning purposes. I moved the other computer desk and that was another make-work project in itself. I found so much crap and dust behind it. Chris peeked in the window and saw all the furniture askew and wanted to run away from home. I emptied all the shelves on the computer desk and there were piles of photo albums, CDs and cases, paper packages, software boxes, and much much more. Yikes. When I went to move the computer desk back into place (with everything still on it) the base started to come apart. Crap.

Next I emptied the whole desk, computer and all. Wires EVERYWHERE. I got everything cleaned and found many extra cords and wires and cables. I finally put everything back with some modification to the desk (took the monitor stand off it) and put the CPU up on the desk instead of underneath. It looks so tidy now. Then I figured the monitor looked funny so I switched it with my computer. Now I have the 20" monitor! Yay! I'm still not sure what to do with all the crap that was on the shelves but for now I'm resting and looking at my nice big monitor. heehee. Things are looking much better but there is still much more to do. And the more I clean upstairs, the more crap that ends up in the basement. So eventually I'll have to go down and empty things down there. In the meantime, it's out of sight and out of mind.

At some point in the living room upheaval, the kids came in and Chris took off to go fishing. Unfortunately I had to turn down my 80s music I had cranked, but fortunately Cooper curled up on the living room floor in a ray of sunshine and fell asleep. Unfortunately I couldn't do more vacuuming for the duration of the nap, but fortunately I got a lot more done than I would have if he were awake and I had to constantly chase him! I could really use a shower. My hair is really gross and I have no makeup on. As soon as these kids go to sleep I'm going to give myself a makeover!