Reason I Haven't Been Blogging

1. spending to much time seeking safety in the basement

2. drawing up plans to build an arc...5 days of rain and the mote around my house is about to overflow

3. menu planning: tea sandwiches, scones and English tea for the royal wedding watching party

4. busy mowing grass between rain drops while wearing wellies
(come to think of it I should probably think about planting a rice field on the side of my house)

5. can probably be found steaming the wrinkles from a prom gown and bedazzling an umbrella to match

I'll be back Sunday with fun prom picks and stories. Till then...  

In the Dark

Friday I was in the shower getting all clean smelling for work when pow--the power went out.

I felt like this:

Because as I stood in the pitch dark bathroom, home alone, I began to let my mind wander to horror films. I began to think someone must have broke into the house, turned off the power and was coming to get me.  It wasn't Norman Bates after me. So who?  Who was coming to get me but this guy:

I recovered quickly.  Except for the fact that I now had a wet head and no blow dryer.  My hair for work pretty much looked like this:

I was afraid to open the frig to make my lunch; being by the time I left for work the power had been out an hour.  I wanted to keep all the cold in the box in case the power stayed out all day.  I brought microwave popcorn from the pantry for lunch. Yuck.  Then I burnt it in the hundred year old office microwave with it's turn dial timer.  I stunk the office up something terrible. I ate Fiber One Cinnamon Toasty O's I keep on my desk to snack on instead.  What a lunch that was!   

That was my Friday.

King Ralph and I are now on a quest to see every Oscar nominated film before the big award show.

Here's our viewing record to date:
X  Black Swan
X  The Fighter
X  Inception
__The Kids Are All Right
X  127 Hours
X The King's Speech
X  The Social Network
X  Toy Story 3
__ Winter's Bone
__ True Grit

Yep, It's Fall

It's Fall.  I know this because the thermometer read 44* when I woke at 430am.  I don't think I am ready for layers of clothes and shoes that hide my toes.  No, please, don't let it be!

Although we had a change in calendar this weekend that caused an elimination of something really fun I thought we'd doing Friday night...it was okay to just sit back and chillax. 

It was a three day weekend for us so the house was bustling with girls galore on Thursday.  The color guard came over to tye-dye their section shirts, eat pizza and ice creams, roast marshmallows and enjoy a backyard fire.  When the color guard cleared house D and her possy took over the fire.  Girls, girls, girls.

Friday was M getting her senior pictures taken. While D and King Ralph went apple picking.  Princess A worked before scurrying off to SEMO for String Day...I think the saying was "we love live birth."  String Day, the day the sorority girls take a "daughter."  Even though Princess A is no longer at SEMO she still loves the AXO sisters. Evident as her dear friend arrived at our house and they hugged, smiled and loaded in the car.  They made me smile.         

Saturday we shopped for D's homecoming dress and took M's to the tailor for a nick and tuck. Then M celebrated friends' 18th birthdays at the apple orchard, D baby-sat and King Ralph and I sat in the leather recliners with nothing to say to each other...we just soaked the calm and silence of a teenagerless house for the evening while starring at the TV.  I liked it.  A weekend of no band. No football games. No competitions.  

Sunday I cooked a meal of comfort foods for a Fall day.  King Ralph and D made the dessert--apple pie, crust from scratch, filling from the apples they picked.  Once we filled our bellies with beef roast, carrots, corn, smashed potatoes smothered in gravy...warm apple pie ala' mode was a perfect Fall finale. 

This week, homecoming week, brings a calendar of obligations that stretch the entire week.  The clock hands will tap M awake early and bring her home late.  The one week I think I may say I HATE marching band. 

Well I suppose I should go dig through the mound of shoes at the bottom of my closest to find closed toe shoes.  UHG!                     

Funny Things Get Heard on the Way Through Parenthood

The girls like to keep us laughing and turning our hairs grey...of course we wouldn't have it any other way.

Here's a few weekend moments. 

-I love it when King Ralph is doing something so neandrathal like and M says
"you married that, I was born into it."  Either way you look at it we are stuck with it.


-I love it when I am in a deep parent/teenager conversation of lesson taught/learned and D walks in and immediately looks at me, interrupts by saying, "ooooo mom you need to color your hair."  Everyone of these grey hairs is like a badge I earned. Some nearly scream Olympic gold medal. 

-I love getting in Princess A's car to find her latest musical selection is the late Frank Sinatra. Listening to what comes out of her car speakers is like a Cracker Jack surprise--one day it is disgusting rap, the next great classic rock and then today....   

Just a few reasons I absolutely love being a mom, their mom.

Fact or Fiction

I struck a deal with the kids in third grade that we could be best friends for some Milky Ways. I even promised one kid a trade-- Milky Ways for one of my orange soda pops. Several came through with the Halloween treat goodness. Gotta love'm! FACT

I finally broke down called the doctor for this lingering sickness that seems to be sucking the life from me and causing my co-worker to nickname me "Judy Iron Lung". That I am now highly medicated, sleep all day and still not exactly feeling better. FACT

That I am totally burnt out on marching band for the season and, washing and ironing performance grey suit pants for fourteen. FACT!

The lights dimmed for the Flyers "Friday Night Lights". That the boys tried like hell to continue on in the state play-offs but that it was hard to recover from that first touch down that was pulled back on the call of an illegal block in the start of the game. That is well worth my five dollars to see the nail biting game, yet so hard to watch grown boys cry in defeat after an undefeated regular season...that in time they will be able to hold their heads high and know they have much to be proud of. FACT

My mother-in-law had bugs removed from her head during one of her two brain surgeries...two large bugs that were three inches long with lots of legs and faces that smiled like Jim Carey. FICTION (It's gonna take some time for this vivid anesthetic dream to leave my mother-in-law's healing memory and accept it truly was, just a dream).

Finding out that a transformer blew on the SEMO campus--that her sorority sisters sit in darkness in Building F-- makes Princess A happy that she chose to come home this week for home cooked meals and going to movies with her sister to see "Paranormal Activity". FACT

There is nothing more glorious than sunshine and an 82* November Saturday with a repeat on Sunday. FACT!

That I can't wait to start raking, blowing and bagging leaves. FICTION

I watched the movie "The Holiday" for about the millionth time like it was the first because I am a sucker for a great love story. FACT

Am FREAKING because the desk top kitchen computer crashed--it holds my Thanksgiving dinner recipes and Christmas card list with address. FACT

Let the Week Begin

I'm just plain tuckered. This is my state of being till zero hour (marching band) comes to an end the first of November. I can't hardly stay awake till 10pm. Friday night I slipped on my pajama bottoms and laid down on the bed, I woke in the morning with the shirt I wore to work still on. I think I dozed around 930pm. The celebratory margarita I drank just intensified my inflated exhaustion.

What were King Ralph and I out celebrating? We were celebrating that my mother-in-law was released from the ICU step-down and moved to the acute rehab center at the hospital across the street from my house. I can now stop planning on owning the parking garage at St. Louis University Hospital and now plan on walking some fat off my rear. My mother-in-law has a long way to go still but in terms of running a marathon I say she is at mile 14. She shows a will to get up and move forward. Her jumbled thoughts have an element of not-intended-humor...it is good to laugh at the troubles of life, it some how makes it easier to deal with.

I am so tuckered out, and it is just Monday, that I don't think I drag my body for a walk across the street this evening...I am instead driving across the street to see my mother-in-law.

Yesterday I traded doing laundry for making gumbo. Today I trade making dinner for doing laundry. Besides left over gumbo is better than when it's fresh in the pot. So while I am in the business of trading I don't feel so bad trading exercise for a car ride.

And, so, I say, let the week begin!

Just a Little Chatter

Since Memorial Day weekend I have been trying to fight off a sinus aliment. I have gone days in a row with headaches that are lodged behind my eyes and pan up to my forehead while I wait for my head to explode. My nasal cavity so full of sinus gunk putting pressure on my eyes that I would swear my eyes resembled that of a basset hound's. When I went to pick my ring up at the jewelers on Tuesday I had Princess A drive me; as I reached my tolerance level. I walked in wearing part of my "summer uniform"--sunglasses and a STL Cardinal ball cap. It was suggested by my jeweler that I was incognito, when really I was attempting to keep the glare of some wonderful warm sunshine from crippling me further.

Yesterday I laid around all day-- unshowered and in bed, on the couch, anywhere I felt I could drop. Then I watched TV and ate...eating suddenly out of sheer boredom instead of hunger. I napped, unnecessarily-- a lot.

This morning I woke at 6am did my daily ritual of morning meditation, then realized a lazy day cannot be repeated and so I rose, dressed and went for a long walk. The Saint Louis suburban morning air was cool and fresh; like mountain air. I popped my ear buds in and started up my iPod...Supertramp Breakfast in America and I walked. I let my soul talk to me. I listened. Then Peter Frampton sang to me over the chirp of the birds . A morning walk, fresh air, owning the sidewalks...it's all so very cleansing.

Then I drug the trash cans to the curb, because Thursday is trash day and forgetting trash day...well one is pretty much screwed if trash day is forgotten.

Now I begin my other ritual, the summer break ritual--doctor visits. We will start with the eyes and work our way down the body. It is off to see Princess A and M's "BFFs Andy and Rose." This moniker Princess A has given to her eye doctor/surgeon and his assistant is a sure sign that the girls spend entirely too much time there. Of course for good reason and cause. One of these days I am going to walk in with a new eye examination tool for "BFF Andy". I have told him for years now that he needs a more adult [female] friendly tongue depressor thingy with a picture attached to it for eye tracking-- one with a hot shirtless dude flexing his six pack, not that ridiculous bird. The thing is if I did bring "BFF Andy" a present of such nature he would laugh at me and love it. A matter of fact I should ask ole' Andy, who happens to be Jewish, for his mother's matzah ball soup recipe. I forgot to mention to you all that Princess A has been dating a Jewish boy. That is a story for another day, blog.


*****

So we made it through our double doctor appointment without having to schedule a surgery. This is always a prize--for us. It is not to say we are not in the running for a fourth M surgery. I can always tell just by looking at her when her eye is not functioning in the manner and fashion an eye should. Even M could tell--a signal she is maturing and learning her own body rather well--and she mentioned it before I had a chance to express my motherly concerns. She realized during her exam that she should have asked for a discount when she went to see the movie Up and Away. Being she has no depth perception she got no benefit of the 3D effects the film offered up. We also realize why driving is such a challenge for her. (It is kinda a scary experience for me as the instructor passenger.) We are off to get new lenses in her frames and a refill of contacts. Which brings me to this question: why do we to have our same contact prescriptions renewed? Why do they expire? I mean it isn't like I am asking for a prescription of narcotic drugs, it isn't like M is going to overdose on contact lenses. We laughed about this all the way home. M was giggling in the car saying "man mom I'm on my fifth pair of contacts lenses today, send me to rehab." But it never fails that when I drag myself into the Walmart eye center to offer my blood, sweat and a kidney for a 12 month supply plastic pliable discs and solutions; I hear "Mrs. Avery that prescription is expired." Not this time, no this time I come armed with the wanted ammunition... and patience. For the love of God why do they ever only have one person working in the vision center? I aged ten years waiting to order. I was almost being to wonder if I should consider a seeing eye dog for M--that the child would go blind before we got our turn with the guy in the white coat.

Well now I have more exciting and pressing things to attend to. I will surely let you know soon what we are up to. It's gonna be fun, really fun.