The Queen's Rambles

If there’s an award for crankiest person on the planet, I am the current top contender. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I want to yell at every person who crosses my line of sight. Be glad you are no where near me.

I went to the gym today, which should have filled me with happy endorphins. Why the crankiness?

Elsa was good! She was only hysterical for 10 minutes, then she mellowed out and played so I was able to get in a real workout. Too bad I was only planning on a 20 minute arc trainer run. I was sort of at loose ends for the next 40 minutes, but did quite a lot of weight training.

There are two types of personal trainers at the gym–private professionals and gym hired workers. If you can afford a private trainer you’ll get a much better workout, but a lot of new people get trained by the gym trainers for a few weeks. That’s how I learned to use all the machines and set up a workout routine when I started a few years back. I have never had an issue with any of the trainers. Not that I know them all well, or anything, but in general they seem to do their job as far as I care.

Today?

Not so much.

There was this woman who was a total nightmare. She was working with a shy, obese girl who was probably in her very early 20s. She was totally rude to her and wouldn’t do any of the things that a normal trainer would do. The girl didn’t know what one of the exercises was and the lady told her “I’ve already demo’d for you. I’m not demo’ing again.” WTF???

Even though I had nothing to do with this whole thing, I was seriously contemplating saying something to the manager. It was that ridiculous.

Later I went to get on one of the machines and they were on the machine next to it. The trainer told me they were going to use the machine I was getting on and asked/told me to get on a different machine.

If she would have asked nicely, like any of the other trainers or people usually do, I would have been totally fine with it.

Instead, I copped a major attitude. I am not usually one to cop an attitude in public, but did I mention that I’m in the running for crankiest human on the planet today?

I did let them have the machine, but I was not gracious or kind about it. I said “Fine” in a rude way and made sour faces.

You know how it seems like people always cater to bitchy people? I need to be bitchy more often.

Suddenly this lady was my best friend. She was acting fake nice to me, wanting to know my name, telling me she was here to help me, blah blah blah. She asked my name and wanted to shake my hand. I just stared at her for about 20 seconds before answering and shaking her hand. The meaner I was, the nicer she was. It was some sort of magic. I guess people really don’t like it when others are mean to them.

After the gym, I continued on the cranky streak. I finally completely blew a gasket at my car pool kid. He is not a nice child. I don’t believe he has many boundaries at home, but who knows? All I know is, he requires a lot of correction and determination when he’s in my car.

Normally I turn the radio up really loud (because he usually demands I change the radio station, which isn’t going to happen), but the radio was off today so I was actually listening to the boys’ conversation.

Big mistake.

Carpool kid: Johnny is so awesome! Johnny is my best friend! He’s so awesome! Johnny is so awesome!

Erik: Am I awesome?

Carpool kid: No, you’re hateful.

Whoa Nelly. Erik is many things, but hateful isn’t one of them. I assume this kid has heard the word hateful because he is hateful.

I slammed on the brakes, pulled the car over to the side, and lit into that kid like nobody’s business. “You do not talk that way in my car! You do not talk that way about my son! I will not have a rude child sitting in my car, saying rude things about members of my family!”

I was all ready to tell his mother that I was through carpooling, but when we arrived at her house she was in a hurry and I wasn’t able to continue my cranky pants routine with her. I only have to pick him up five more times and we will be through forever, so I guess I can handle it. I will not be sad if I hear from her and she wants to cancel the last two weeks of car pool because of my outburst. Frankly, I’m amazed I lasted as long as I did without going off on him.

And now I’m just sitting here, cranking away. Erik went to a movie night at his karate place and Mike has Elsa downstairs. I am trying to destress on the computer. After I write this entry I will go work on my Harry Potter quilt project and hope that takes away even more of the stress. I am very much looking forward to a weekend with Mike home and some help around the house. It has just been a long, long week of constant demands and I’m done.

Mike is home! Mike is home! He’s been in AZ since Tuesday. I know I was only on solo parent duty about 60 hours, but it was a l-o-n-g sixty hours. No way could I ever be a military wife. It’s physically exhausting carting around/keeping up with a 26 pound toddler and her overly affectionate brother. I swear that child is going to knock up a girl when he’s 12 just because he can’t keep his hands off other people.

After almost 8 years of marriage, I learned a new fact about Mike tonight. He doesn’t like coconut.

How can we get through so many years of marriage without the coconut question being addressed? Probably because I loathe coconut so we never had to fight over a coconut based dessert.

Poor Elsa has the most sensitive butt skin in the history of butt skin. I would love to blame the cloth diapers and throw them all out (just to have something to blame), but when I put her in disposables it only gets worse. I have tried all kinds of cures, all promising to be the ONE THING that will help ANY baby with super sensitive skin. Most of it just makes it worse and I’ve yet to find anything that makes it better.

Some people in the cloth diapering community have recommended pure coconut oil, so I went on a search for the stuff today. Thanks to FB and people at preschool I was able to find a jar at Whole Foods. I didn’t have the first clue where to look so was very grateful for the input. We shall see if it works.

People on FB mentioned it tastes good in food, so I told Mike he could put some in his oatmeal because it is supposed to be insanely good for cholesterol.

And that’s how I found out a new fact about my man of mystery. I live such a life of excitement.

Hee. My mom told me I should write a book about all the weird people I know. It could be like a diary that documents all the weird shit they do.

Hmmmmm.

Ha ha ha ha ha.

Ok, I am done amusing myself.

Want to hear something that made me cry?

After karate one of the students came up to me and asked me why I’m so fat. I tried to ignore him but he just kept asking and his mom was just standing there. She didn’t shush him or grab him away or make him apologize or anything. If Erik ever tried something like that I would sink through the floor, then I would make him apologize for being rude and make it a lesson. Maybe that would have embarrassed the mom even more. I don’t have a problem disciplining my kid in public, but I know some people do.

I finally told the kid I was fat because I ate too much ice cream and ice cream is delicious. I wish I would have said something a little different. I mean, I KNOW I am fat and I KNOW I eat too much ice cream, but even when I was eating no sugar, no fat, and exercising a minimum of 2 hours a day I was still fat.

I am not at all happy with my body these days, mainly because I am short of breath sometimes and I hate that. I also hate my hurty back and I am sure taking some weight off would help that, but being on my feet makes it worse.

You guys know me. You KNOW I used to be obsessed with exercise. You KNOW I would love to be doing something. As it is, all I can do is walk 1.31 miles on days it’s not raining. I suppose I could walk further, but we like to walk around the lake because it is safe and child friendly.

Now that I’m not nursing so much I am not starving so I’m getting back into more healthy eating habits. I just need the excercise component. I try not to make excuses, but it is really difficult to find time to excercise at the moment.

Reasons:

1) Baby cries hysterically when left at the gym daycare. Even if I was ok with her crying hysterically, they are not ok with her being in there for longer than 20 minutes. I keep going, and it keeps being futile.

2) When would I exercise at home? I’ve tried doing some DVDs but it is impossible to do with the kids in the house. Mike doesn’t get home until around 7 most nights. I can’t really cook dinner until he gets home (I can’t cook with a baby screaming and grabbing at my legs). By the time we eat dinner and get the kitchen cleaned, it’s time to put the kids to bed and I’m flat out exhausted by the time that’s done.

3) Walking. I can do walking. I do walk. There are some issues. It was an insanely rainy spring so there were a lot of days we were stuck inside. Now my allergies are kicking in and it’s miserable to be outside. Wetness + heat = pollen covering everything. I literally have to take a shower at the end of the day to wash all the pollen away just so I can sleep.

4) Going early in the morning before Mike leaves for work. I have been seriously considering this, but I really doubt I’m going to be able to drag my fat ass out of bed at 5:30 am. I’m already sleep deprived. My sweet sleep time is between 5-8 when the kids are deeply asleep.

So now I get to deal with little kids wanting to know why I am fat. It hit me pretty hard. Even though I KNOW I am fat. I have never denied it. It’s just hard to hear from someone so innocent, you know? I guess part of the reason I am sometimes at peace with being fat (or at least at peace enough not to do anything about it) is because I’ve always viewed myself as invisible. I know this sounds kind of nuts, but I always feel like people can’t really see me. I’m not noticeable. I blend in. I’m. . . nothing. Who cares if I’m fat? As long as I’m clean, wear half-way decent clothes and put some effort into my hair, who will even notice I exist, let alone care enough about me to make snarky remarks about my fat?

Thinking about people looking at me and noticing me and caring about my appearance makes it a lot harder to be vivacious. Not that I’ve been vivacious lately. I think I lost all my vivaciousness about 18 months ago. Maybe I’ll find it again when I’m not so tired, fat and back hurty.

Why can’t I just run to a plastic surgeon and have lipo? I saw a few minutes of Real Housewives of Somewhere the other day and one of those skinny little bitches was having her pooch removed. Her pooch was probably not even 2 pounds worth of fat. It was absurd. At least we now know how all those rich skinny women stay impossibly thing. When am I going to win the lottery?

It was Mike’s birthday today, so I slaved away on a special Swedish cake last night. Why do I wait until the last minute? I always forget that it needs to sit over night to achieve optimal moist goodness, then I am slaving over the stove at 9 pm, trying to get the pudding and fruit gel to thicken. At least this year I remembered that I wrote the recipes down in English so I didn’t have to re-translate the pudding recipe and re-create the fruit gel recipe. The fruit gel is not really a part of the Swedish recipe, but it makes it more moist.

All that to say: cake, good. Mike, good. I got him a Color Nook. Probably way too extravagent, but our local library supports the Nook format and the color screen was way too cool to pass up. I think it will really help Erik with his reading.

Erik!

Reading!

Yay!!!!!

He is not reading a lot or well, but he is reading. It feels magical to me, but I know it is the result of a lot of hard work on the part of his pre-K teacher.

At the moment he will read me a couple of pages of sound-out words and then say he’s tired and ask me to read the rest. I don’t blame him a bit. It is very tiring to sound out every word and for some reason he doesn’t really have the confidence in himself to try to read a word without sounding it out. It will all come, though.

I found a whole stash of excellent boy books at B&N that are right up his alley. I hate to talk about boy books vs girl books. I wanted to keep things as ungendered as possible when he was little so he would learn that things are for everyone, not just boys and girls. And so he would be comfortable if he decided he liked pink or whatever. Turns out, he is very clearly a stereotypical boy and he is not interested in Target’s selection of leveled readers. Fancy Nancy, Oliva, and little fuzzy animals don’t interest him. B&N had a section with a bunch of Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and other boyish level 1 books, so that’s what I bought. It’s great to be idealistic, but sometimes reality gets in the way.

We went to a house warming party today and some crazy lady asked Mike if he was American. She was asking what Elsa’s name was and didn’t understand “Elsa” so after Mike spelled it she gave him this look and said “Are you American?”

I was standing behind Mike, talking to another guest that I sort of know. The other guest and I just about choked, we were laughing so hard. It was just so rude! And improper!

Then the crazy lady told Mike she had met the queen of Sweden when she [crazy lady] was at a Nobel Prize party.

When our hosts heard us talking about it later they immediately identified the crazy lady and said she was completely nuts.

Dang. Here comes Erik. Time for me to take him to bed. I guess that means this disjointed entry is over.

Also, Erik has named his private part “Squirty.” Someone please send help.

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.

When I last wrote, Elsa has just puked in my mouth. You got to miss the part about Erik puking all over my mom and other wonderful things along those lines. Let’s not dwell.

I was hoping like mad that the adults would avoid the whole thing, but no. You don’t get puked in the mouth and somehow manage to avoid the germs. I do believe I’m going to die.

I shouldn’t be so blase with that word, should I? There are too many terrible tragedies, both personal and on a wide scale.

Because of the flu, I’ve missed two fun times. I totally could have went and had lunch with Tora because I wasn’t sick and my mom volunteered to keep the kids, but I am not comfortable going out in the world when I know I am exuding flu germs. I don’t know about you, but I think I’d rather a petty criminal steal something small (as long as there is no violence involved) than have a person knowingly expose me to flu germs. Perhaps I’m crazy. My mom thought so.

Then, tomorrow I was supposed to go to a fancy brunch in downtown DC. Doesn’t that sound fun and grown-up and not at all like me? I was very much looking forward to it, but right now the thought of any food other than rice with milk and sugar makes me want to hurl.

Did I forget to talk about the picture at the top? That’s Erik on the school bus. We had a long enough break in our sickness to take him to Kindergarten orientation and watch him get his purple stripe belt in karate. I thought the bus ride was supposed to be a five minute jaunt around the block, but holy hell! The bus driver took us on a half-hour excursion through every neighborhood that serves the school. I should have had him drop me off when we passed our street.

Erik was first on the bus, the only kid (of maybe 8) who got on without parental prodding, and went straight for the back. How did I grow a “cool kid”? I was bus sick almost immediately.

To be fair and equal, here’s a picture of Elsa looking like herself. Not the best pic in the world, but this is her happy face and she looks like this 90% of the time. I love my little chunky monkey roly poly baby.

I took my mom to the airport this morning. So sad. So very sad. We are all going to miss her.

What else?

Oh, we found out why you can’t use regular diaper cream in a cloth diaper. Butt Paste is made with fish oil, I guess. You know what happens when you wash it? The fish oil lingers in your diaper laundry and makes the whole thing smell like you’ve just opened a can of surstromming (rotten Swedish fish delicacy). Oh. My. God. If the stomach flu doesn’t kill us, the stench from that will. I am hoping I can strip with Dawn and call it good, but we shall see. I would hate to throw out my whole stash of diapers because of the smell.

Of course, I won’t need them long because I’m going to start potty training next week.

NOT!

My mom kept telling us that I was potty trained by 15 months and we need to get started with Elsa. I think she was smoking the serious crack. She said she always potty trained in the summer. I was a March baby. I think she must have trained me after I turned two.

Also, her method of potty training was really simple. She just told my sister and I to start using the potty and we did. So easy! Why is she the only person in the history of the world to think of that?

I have so much to do lately that I’ve resorted to list making. I’ve never been a list maker. I used to have an excellent memory and was able to mentally keep track of everything. I was a straight A student through college so I guess my system worked.

Not so much these days.

I never realized how satisfying a physical list is. I can cross things off!

I don’t know if I will become a list maker, but I just might do it. Especially if my memory continues to fail me. I need to start doing crosswords so I don’t get Alzheimer’s (I realize it is not that simple, but crosswords are supposed to keep your brain sharp.)

My sister has been calling and harassing for the past few days, wanting to make sure we go to church today. Ha. That’s really going to happen. She’s concerned for our souls because Jesus is returning in 2012 and the Earth is going to fall apart. She saw it in a John Cusack movie.

Funny, I don’t recall any Jesus talk in 2012. Does she really not get the total hypocrisy of telling us to go to church when she lies, steals, drinks, drugs, sleeps around and doesn’t take care of her own children? “What do you mean? I just have to ask Jesus to forgive me. He loves me.” She goes to a Baptist church. They must do things a lot differently than the Wesleyan church I grew up in. Not saying Baptists would approve of her lifestyle, but I don’t believe they have quite the emphasis on guilt and holy living that the Wesleyans have. Honestly, I have no idea about any of the Baptist theology and don’t really care to be schooled on it. Suffice it to say, I don’t think my sister understands or really even cares about their theology.

We had a pretty nice Easter around here except for the not nice parts. Erik loved hunting eggs and was pretty upset that Elsa wouldn’t find any because it “wasn’t fair.” He is such a good big brother–so loving and always watching out for her.

The Easter bunny made too much noise last night and woke Elsa up around 10 pm. She was awake! Wide, wide AWAKE! And ready to have fun! She discovered her belly and kept rubbing it and trying to pinch it off, then she started playing telephone and was creeping us out. We’d say “Hello” and she’d say “heh-wo.” We’d say “How are you?” and it sounded like she said “How are you” as clear as day. Same with “I love you.” Then she came over, handed me her pretend phone and started having a complete hissy fit until I handed her the camera. We’ve taught Erik to trade things with her to keep her from getting upset so I guess she’s learned her lesson well. I forget that 1 year olds aren’t little, lumps of flesh. They know and do and want and plan.

After lunch I was going to take a nap with Elsa. She started choking in her sleep, then all of a sudden she started puking and puking and puking. She even puked in my mouth. Gag. Ugh.

I hope I never repeat that.

Mike has been working his butt off this weekend and even managed to get up our new-to-us trampoline. He put the last tie in place and Erik was just about to start bouncing when the heavens opened and rain started coming down in buckets. I later found out that we had a tornado warning right then as well, but we didn’t have a radio, TV, or computer on at the time. Guess it’s a good thing we didn’t get blown away.

We took my mom to Bucca de Beppo yesterday and Erik discovered a little statue of David. He kept going over and looking under the grape leaf and fondling what he found. It was just a weeeeeee bit embarrassing. He won’t quit grabbing his own private parts either. I told him I’m going to cut it off if he doesn’t quit but he just looked at me like I was stupid. “You won’t do that mommy. I’d die.” I was breaking the all important “say what you mean and mean what you say” rule. I need to think of something else. Time outs, hand slaps, growling. . . it doesn’t work. My mom said to get him a jock strap. Do they make jock straps for 5 year olds?

I guess that’s all I’ve got. My stupid WordPress is not e-mailing me my comments and I have no idea what to do about it. I can reply to the comments, but I think it just publishes them on my site and not in an e-mail to the person. Does anyone really go back and check the comments? I know I don’t.

This girl has a will of iron. She will NOT eat anything given to her by spoon. She will NOT drink anything that has an irony taste. She will not eat treats made with iron. Honestly, the treats I made tasted like the bottom of a cast iron skillet so I don’t blame her. And she most certainly won’t take her medicine like a good girl. Or even a bad girl.

I was so frustrated yesterday that I temporarily lost my mind and decided to just force the iron down her throat. We were able to do it and even able to get her to swallow by blowing in her face.

Of course, the whole reason we don’t force medicine down her is because she forces herself to throw up. Which she did. Spectacularly.

I’m going to call the doctor next week and see if we need to think about getting her shots or something. I am worried. I tried to turn to Doc Google to see how worried I should be, but am not turning up any numbers and nothing worth reading other than lists of iron rich food. I’m totally buying some chicken livers tomorrow and frying them up for her.

I have drastically reduced the amount of nursing during the day and am giving her lots of meatballs and other iron rich foods instead. I don’t know if this is making her cranky or if something else is making her cranky, but she’s been really clingy and crying and just wanting her mommy. Then we have Erik, my dearest son, who also loves his mommy and wants to be IN MY FACE and talking non-stop and fighting and wrestling and just ALL OVER ME. Constantly. It was spring break this week, did you know?

I am one exhausted mother. You’d think it would help that my mom is here. In fact, I’m sure it has helped a lot, but there is not much she can do about Elsa since Elsa is such a mamma’s girl.

I’d had enough this afternoon and ran away to Fashion Bug. I am too old to shop there, but I did manage to find a couple of cute things. They have really good customer service, almost annoyingly so. I thought I was on the set of a make-over show because there was a girl in her early 20s and a mom and they were both crying and crying and thanking the sales girls and the sales girl was crying. The girl hated shopping and could never find anything to wear and was just so relieved to finally find a store like Fashion Bug. Her mom bought her over $700 worth of clothing so I guess they were all having a good day. I wanted to ask where they were from since the Fashion Bug is not exactly new or innovative. The girl wasn’t even all that heavy so I’m sure she could have found stuff elsewhere, but the Fashion Bug is definitely a store she should be shopping at.

Afterward, I walked to K-Mart and asked for zip ties in the garden department because Mike needed some for gardening purposes. They had no clue what I was talking about. My mom said they probably thought I was going to kidnap someone because that’s what you use zip ties for. My mother. Oh that woman. She’s met many of my friends and acquaintances and thinks at least 1/3 of them are abused women based on very scanty evidence. She really needs to stop watching all those Lifetime movies and court shows. They make her think her life is normal and everyone is abused.

Adding to the stress: my sewing machine is broken. I finally had time to baste that baby quilt I made a few weeks (months?) ago and was all set to quilt it. Mike and I have both messed around, but the things is just not working. There’s a problem with the bobbin or the needle or both. The bobbin keeps hitting the foot, which should not be happening. I’ve cleaned the thing out multiple times, tried several different needles, different threads, different bobbins. I guess I am going to have to spring for a real repair. On the plus side, I complained about it on FB and one of my local friends said I can borrow her machine. I “fixed” it for her last year so I know it’s a pretty decent machine. She’d never used it because it wouldn’t work correctly. Turns out the feed dogs were lowered. I fixed that and she’s sewed on it exactly one time since then. I’m sure she won’t mind giving it up for the length of time it will take me to finish off the baby quilt.

I was planning on getting more caught up with my Harry Potter paper piecing project, but who knows when that will happen. I guess I’ll have to find that repair shop first.

Also, we are thinking of buying a new dryer.

And I want a new dining room set. Ours is really old and gross and the chairs hurt my back because they are completely worn out.

While I’m buying new things, maybe I’ll just get a body transplant. I suppose I’m going to have to cancel my gym membership, but I sure do need something to make my giant belly disappear. And my flabby arms. I am so disgusted with myself. My biceps were so awesome when I was doing BodyPump, but now they are more flabby than they’ve ever been before. Stupid weight lifting. Grrrrr. I wish Miss Elsa would stay at the child care and my back wasn’t killing me. Even if I could go to the gym I would be afraid of lifting weights because of my back problem.

Ok, I suppose someone has to go get Easter baskets organized and things like that. I am tired of being a mommy. I love my kids and wouldn’t trade them for anything, but sometimes being the responsible one gets just a weeeeeeee bit old.