The Queen's Rambles

As you know, Alabama has been hit with devastating tornadoes. The scene down there is just unreal. Fuzzi Bunz, a very reputable cloth diaper company that does a lot of charity work, is collecting infant and toddler clothes for the families in need. They will personally be flying loads of clothes out to the people who need them. Here is a message straight from their Facebook page:

“MOMS! Please help Alabama! They have been wiped out of everything due
to tornadoes. We are supplying diapers! They NEED baby clothing! PLEASE
if you have ANY baby clothing to donate for the Alabama tornado victims
we are being asked to help – please send anything you can donate to
FuzziBunz Diapers 315 Weeks St, New Iberia LA 70560 — we will be flying
them in PERSONALLY through Wings of Care”

If any of you out there have clothes to donate, I’m sure they would appreciate it. I will be sending as much as I am able. I don’t have many summer clothes, so am trying to collect clothes from local moms to include in my shipment. Hopefully it will work out.

If you do want to send something, I would suggest getting priority flat rate boxes from the post office. You can then print out postage online and have the post office send a carrier to pick them up from your front porch. I’ve done this many times and it’s fabulous.

Supposedly if I embed this Shutterfly card I’ll get $10 off my next order. I love Shutterfly and use it all the time, so don’t have a problem shilling for them. I hope I really get my money!

5×7 Folded Card

View the entire collection of cards.

I had the stomach flu this weekend, which sucked. I was well yesterday. I even took the kids on a walk around the lake, even though Erik was crying the whole time. He wanted to go to the gym and I agreed, but once we were outside it was such a beautiful day that I decided it would be better to really exercise instead of going to the gym for 20 minutes and letting Elsa have hysterics until they called me. Boy was mad. The only thing that got him around the lake was an offer to let Elsa walk and have him ride in the stroller. He thought that was so hilarious that he managed to finish the walk, even if he did grumble the whole time.

Around 4 am it became very clear I was just having a brief reprieve. I’ve had it all today–stomach issues, sore throat, fever, body aches. Whoo-hoo! The worst bit is my dermoid cyst. It seems that every time I get really sick (like when I had pneumonia or a kidney infection) the cyst decides to spaz out and hurt like hell. I go for months not even thinking about it, then ZING! OWIE! I really can’t even describe what it feels like, but I am hoping I don’t end up in the ER for emergency surgery.

The doctors don’t want to take it out since it doesn’t generally bother me and the surgery is a bear to recover from. Basically it’s having a c-section without a baby. I see their point. I don’t want to go through that again, but I do wish the silly thing wouldn’t act up when I’m sick.

They are having a mother’s day tea at school tomorrow, but I don’t see how I can possibly attend. Mike said he would take a personal day from work tomorrow if I really needed him, so maybe he can go in my place. Sounds like sitting around with a bunch of moms he doesn’t know, drinking tepid Lipton tea would be a total thrill, right?

Did I ever tell you about our encounter with nature last week? I don’t think I did.

You know how I am always posting about people I hang out with and don’t really like? I swear there are plenty of people I like. I just never post about them. I am still in close contact with one of the moms from my original moms group. She is working, but we still manage to get together once a month or so. Erik even thinks her kids are his cousins. I’m really excited because she’s pregnant and won’t be working next year so maybe we’ll get to see them more. We did the co-op preschool with her a couple of years ago.

Anyway, her family moved into the basement of her in-law’s country mansion so we were out there being all countrified. I was watching a herd of at least 10 deer, when they suddenly bolted. We looked over and spotted a fox running full force toward them. It was high noon so we kind of freaked out and tried to hustle the kids inside. No one wants a rabid fox to eat their children.

The fox suddenly came to a halt and we noticed several little baby ground hogs that had caught the fox’s attention.

And then the fox ate one of them.

I’m sure the groundhog mother didn’t approve.

Barf.

Didn’t you love that story?

Thankfully the kids didn’t see anything, but my friend and I were making icky faces at each other as we tried to hustle the kids inside.

This has been a really weird virus for all of us. Twenty four hours of sickness, 24 hours of wellness, 48 hours of sickness. Weird.

I’m on my second round. Someone send me my mommy.

It turns out our progressive gay neighbors aren’t progressive or gay. When we moved in they told us they had been roommates for years and living in that particular townhouse since 2000. They had two teenage boys with them. I just assumed they must be gay. Progressive, because they are from Africa and I think it is really, really hard to be gay in African culture, just from what I’ve seen in the news.

They’re moving out and came over to thank us for being good neighbors. Turns out they are brothers and they finally saved up enough money to each move out on their own and order brides from their home country. So not progressive.

We’ll miss them because they were quiet. You hardly noticed them, even with two teen boys. They’ve had a worker in all day yesterday and it is LOUD. I am hoping he is doing a lot of hammering and the walls aren’t just a lot thinner than I thought.

Do any of you watch The Event? I do, but I don’t recommend it. It’s ok, I guess. Nothing spectacular, but I am curious to see how it plays out. I don’t even care if it gets renewed (I’m thinking it won’t).

One of the characters has seemed so familiar to me ever since I started watching it. I couldn’t place him and I guess I didn’t care enough to google him, but I finally did last night. My jaw just about dropped. Luke Danes! Lorelei’s paramour! Even knowing that’s who it is and that’s why I have a primitive positive response to him, I still have a hard time picturing him as the same guy who played Luke. He’s bulked up, he doesn’t wear a hat, and he plays a competent action-adventure gun-toting kind of guy. My wee little mind is blown.

Speaking of TV shows, here are my recommendations from this season. I know you’ve been dying for them.

1) Terriers was a great little show. Just ten episodes and everything wraps up. It feels a lot like Veronica Mars if she was an old, alcoholic detective.

2) Detroit 1-8-7 was a cop show that knew how to bring it. The acting was superb. The pace and mood, intense. I would be sitting on the edge of my seat the entire time. It never caught on, so has been canceled. The first season has an arc and feels finished so you can watch it as a mini-series.

3) Outsourced is laugh out loud funny every episode. I thought it would be racist or uncomfortable to watch, but it’s just plain funny.

4) Raising Hope is one I just started watching, but I think it’s even funnier than Outsourced. Well worth the watch.

And now I have a crying baby, so I guess that’s it.