General Observations:

It would take a garden rake and a blow torch to exfoliate me. I question if bathing in a tub of advanced healing lotion could hydrate and heal my extra dry skin. Don't take me to the zoo I could be mistaken for an alligator.

Letting my hair grow out causes mood alterations. This is a time when I should consider hair extensions for the sake of, not only my marriage but the love of my daughters. Do you think it appropriate to wear my pink World Series ball cap 7 days a week? Even to church?

My tread mill has a thick layer of cob webs formed on it--sitting idle since December. This is a situation that requires immediate intervention.

Question:

Should I take my Grateful Dead or my Woodstock CD as I make my whirl wind drive to Indy to retrieve my eBay winning bid item? There is something about the spouse's big blue van required transportation for this trip) that makes me feel so 70's. If the kids were older I might be tempted to put a bumper sticker on it that says "if this van is a rockin don't come a knockin".

...for those of you dying to know what my bid got me, well you'll just have wait to see!

What does one do to celebrate they weren't the lucky son of a bitch who bought the $254 million Power Ball Lottery ticket at the grocery store at the top of the street?

A. They have a rootbeer float for breakfast

B. They make homemade spaghetti sauce and meatballs seasoned with Emeril's "baby B-A-M! seasoning"

C. All of the Above

If you don't mind, I'll resume my day dreaming exercise of "if I had only won how would I have spent that money".

Hold your applause till the end...

SHE WASHED THE KITCHEN FLOOR.

...Applaude

Weekend Recap

Friday: Laid on couch for 13.5 hours balled up with a stomach ache--while I managed to bring Maddi her forgotten clarinet to middle school, pick her up from color guard practice and deliver her to the youth convention at a hotel 30 minutes from home, all while I precisely placed a plastic bag and Alee (my back up permitted driver) in the front seat for safeguard. Finally after the wafting smell of Kevin's take-out Imo's pizza filled the room the toilet and I became one.

Saturday: Laid on couch wondering when my headache would subside. Let's see...after applying a thin layer of "Head On" (which I believe melted the skin off my forehead leaving me with exposed skull) and a few Tylenol, along with a bowl of (lukewarm) Campbell's goldfish noodle soup and a some Gatorade I began to feel better.

Sunday: Watched from the side line as Kevin helped Demi and her friend build the best snowman on the street (sorry neighbors but it's true) from the freshly fallen snow.

Monday: Digging out from under a mess of a house that no one tended to while I lay dying

Turn your brain on.

That is what I heard, yep, those were his exact words--not exactly wise choice of words from a husband's mouth at 635am. Not to mention I was in my car wearing a t-shirt that resembled something Charlie Brown would wear, snow flake patterned flannel PJ bottoms, white socks and cheetah print over fluffed slippers while sporting bed head and bad breath.

Turn your brain on. Me turn my brain on, I'm not the one who left my flute in daddy's car, who took it to work with him, only realizing seconds before zero hour started. The fact I retrieved the flute should warrant some type of honor. So just because I didn't pull up to the squad car window the "proper-cop-way" I got a "turn your brain on".

H-E-L-L-O spouse, the brain only turns on at 635am enough to stop at red lights, go on green and drop kick a 16 year old musician at the band building door of the high school.

So by the time I pulled into the garage at 641am (making not one trip to the high school but two) I was wishing it was five o'clock because I could have used a glass a wine--instead I had a Diet Coke and two Chips Ahoy cookies.

So remember husbands of the world the phrase "turn your brain on" spoken at 635am--well them are fighting words!

The Weather Forecast

To put it simply...

It is colder than a polar bear's ass!

I should have read the puppy's mind today because this is what I would have heard her singing a Paul McCartney song...

Stuck inside these four walls, sent inside forever,
Never seeing no one nice again like you,
Mama you, mama you.
If I ever get out of here,
Thought of giving it all away
To a registered charity.
All I need is a pint a day
If I ever get out of here.

Well, the rain exploded with a mighty crash as we fell into the sun,
And the first one said to the second one there I hope you're having fun.
Dog on the run, Dog on the run...

So the girls hurried to find shoes, bolted out the door, jogging up and down and across the street-- like a bullet Uli comes from the yard across the street. In true Stooge form the girls were trying to catch the little shit eater.

Never a dull moment with a puppy in the house.

And I sing now...

the dog's in the cage, the dog's in the cage

Well I am able to relax a bit now that night one of Demi's contribution to the school play--Beauty and the Beast--has taken to the stage. Here she is (the girl in bright pink) as a "silly girl" swooning for Gaston. Next weeks performance moves from the middle school's Little Theater to the big stage at the high school auditorium.

Yesterday when I dressed realizing that my shirt was on not only inside out but backwards I knew it was a sign--that the day was going to be bad and only get worse.

So this morning I am reporting my clothes went on exactly as they should.

Good day sunshine!

Last night the spouse and I experienced a first in our near 17 years of parenting...we were home alone.

The girls all had somewhere or something to do. Alee had a date. Maddi was baby-sitting. Demi at a slumber party.

So one would think this would be cause for romanticism--a quiet dinner out with glimmering candles or say even an unmentionable activity...

Oh no, not us. Which leads me to think we are aged before our years. This adoring couple threw on sweats, had a couple of diet Cokes, ate homemade bruschettta and played Scrabble.

Nineteen and a half years of marriage at this is romance at its best.

Spending the day in solitude, listening to Janis Joplin, while denudating the house of all presence that it was once Christmas. True I always wait till Epiphany but this year the muscle of the house will be at work and I need to have that muscle to carry the beast of a tree to the basement, load her in the colossal size box that is home for the next 11 months. Striped are the twinkling lights of the eves. Lonely hangs the pine wreaths on the front windows. Still standing proud is my snowman collection--January the month of the snowman.

...puppy is being chased in circle while feasting a Christmas candle.

...puppy being chased in a circle while eating the foot of the snowman on the hearth.

...puppy trapped peacefully in the cage.

ssssshhhhhh! I'm doing this in my usual post Christmas attire--my PJ's :-)

At the end is a pot-o-gold...

A sign that 2007 is going to be a blessed year is when 2006 ends on a rainbow--stretched east to west in my front yard (first shared photo taken with my new Canon Rebel XTi)