day by day, by day

I feel like I've been productive today, I mean maybe not compared to other people's standards but I don't generally care about other people's standards now do I?

6:15 am - awake to blaring baby monitor with a Nub on the other end sort of crying but sort of not

6:15-7:30 am- ignore the sort of crying, flop around alone in my giant bed with a hump in the middle because neither me nor my spouse enjoy any sort of physical contact during the sleeping hours.  No touchie!

7:30 am- drag myself out of bed and hit up the bathroom for a good toothbrushing and whatnot

7:40 am- pick my kid up out of his crib, snuggle and rock for a few minutes as the wanton toddler will allow.  Change diaper, find his onesie is pee soaked up the front.  That makes it 2 for 3 mornings this week.  I think his ding ding points straight up or something, he's like a fountain of urine.

7:40-8:40 am- breakfast consisting of pancakes.  Kalli=2, Nub=0.  I love getting denied in my food offerings, or not.  Fine kid, more pancakes for me.  Also, orange juice from concentrate with a frothy top makes me feel like a kid again, wheeee!

8:40-10:30 am- scrub bathrooms, get high off of enclosed rooms with no windows.  Why do they even build bathrooms with no windows?  Staved off multiple attempts for the toilet brush wand by the 18 month old.  Also, it is blizzarding outside and as a deep and ponderous thought I have this: I don't think hell is hot, I think it is an arctic tundra wasteland where people go to freeze to death and slowly lose their minds, like here where I live, or Alaska.  Guess we're not leaving the house today after all...

10:30-11:00am- finish cleaning bathrooms, tear bed apart for the weekly washing of the linens, finish putting away midget laundry, load washer, fold dryer, ad nauseam.

11:00 am - 1:20 pm: put the Nublet down for a nap, without protest.  What a gem.  Make granola.  Eat granola.  Fiddle with tax crap.  I hate tax crap.  Pay car payment, woo hoo only like 2 years left on that mofo (SARCASM).  Spend wasted time on the phone with stupid benefit people trying to figure out who to yell at for screwing up our flex spending stuff.  Call shorter half and yell at him instead.  Call back and apologize for being a righteous B with an itch.  Call HR lady, leave voicemail and send strongly worded email.  Someone has to take the hit and I've deemed her likely.

1:20-2:44- chase child around again in an attempt to feed him lunch, mild success with white chicken chili, don't worry kid, I'll eat the rest.  Roll around on floor with child, get ridden like a donkey and not in the good way.  Type this blog post, send grandparents text message of adorable child sitting next to you reading a book, hit send, child rips out page, I sniff poo...

DIAPER CHANGE #4566

2.5 more hours till Daddy comes home...

  

you live and you learn, right?

I am not a normal girl.  

My tender years were surprisingly normal, I mean as normal as one can get growing up in rural Wyoming. I rode horses, played barrel racer (lofty dreams I tell you), had a best friend or two (Jolyn I still hate you for moving), went tubing down the crick, was forced into garden slavery during summers, went camping all the time, learned to drive a stick shift on a tractor, ate some serious bugs tooling around on Big Red the 3 wheeler (remember those?), played nursemaid to the bunnies orphaned by my dad's swather (POOR BUNNIES THEY ALL DIEEEEEED because I am a terrible nursemaid that's why), mauling litters of kittens and giving them all rhyming names like Milo and Shiloh, dodging cows while walking up the lane to meet the school bus.  I mean you get the drift here right?

Then I hit puberty and the proverbial shizz hit the fan.  My teeth went all snarly, my eyebrows were like two furry caterpillars gone rogue, who knows what my hair was doing!  Adolescence was a real kick in the face I tell you.  But the worst part about it was my friends.  Adolescence for them meant high school boys and getting.it.on.  I mean gross, small towns I get it, there's not a lot to do except each other, but honestly people, they took it to an entirely new level and I wasn't going anywhere near that hot soup of ew.

So I did school and sports instead, got made fun of, called a goody-goody suck up, Miss Perfect, snob, self-righteous Mormon girl, blah blah blah.  I was never a trembling wall flower or door mat, that just isn't me, but teenage girls can be cruel.  As if my fragile feminine psyche needed any more weight on it's already too full plate.  I missed my friends,  I didn't like who they'd become.  They were too busy with their boyfriends to make much time for me, too busy doing things I didn't find particularly appealing either.  I mean a standing Saturday night keggar only holds so much appeal for someone like me.  

I get how they saw me.  I was an over achiever, I did try hard, I wasn't the most attractive, I was tall, solid, and horrifically awkward at times (okay always) and most of the time I was unapologetic about it either.  The glaring difference between me and them was that I always knew who I was and what I wanted and that I sure as hell wasn't going to find it in that town or even that state.  I guess at times maybe that sort of attitude does come off as self-righteous or maybe even flavored with a bit of the "I'm better than this" frame of mind, because you know what, by my standards I was.  

So I left, and quick.  Graduation came and 2 weeks later I was out the door.  My parents left soon after and rarely have I gone back since.   I've lost touch with most of my friends from those days, on purpose.  I've seen a few here and there, caught up with a few on facebook (whenever I do facebook that is).  From what I've seen most of them have grown up, have kids of their own, made some big mistakes, learned from them and became adults.  But the weird thing is, I still don't have much of a desire to reconnect.  My 10 year high school reunion is supposed to be this spring and I haven't done much in the way of trying to make that happen (Senior class president, it's supposed to be my job).

I guess the real point of this story is that I should be more grateful towards those old high school friends.  Yes, because they helped shape me into the person I am today and I am generally awesome most of the time, crazy, but awesome.  It's the whole refiner's fire concept I suppose.  

But more of the reason I should be grateful to them is that they helped me appreciate real friends in my life when they finally came a long, and come a long they certainly did. 

Now that I'm 28, a grown woman by any standards, I finally have the friends I've always wanted.  The kind that send you surprise packages in the mail because they know how deep and burning your love of mail is, or better yet the kind that send you cadbury mini eggs in those packages or journals for recording  deep and ponderous thoughts, the kind that spend all summer with you at the pool or going on walks and commiserating with you about how bad it sucks to be so poor, the kind who will gladly babysit your kid or bring you dinner or send you a random text asking how you are.  The kind who will rescue you from the dregs of winter to spend a few days with them in the sun, the kind who find all sorts of owl nonsense to fuel your ridiculous affinity for such things.  

These women are the ones I want in my life for always because they love me, they look past my awkwardness and laugh when I'm being an idiot, which lets be honest, is most of the time....  They're smart, they're funny, they laugh at my jokes, we share treats, runs to Target, children, and lunch at Thai Village.  How much better could it get?  Okay well I'd prefer to be back in my old neighborhood but that's besides the point.  

Really I must thank you high school friends for sucking so bad because you made me appreciate what I've got now so much more.

And now I will end because this is getting seriously sappy.  

girl power, hi-ya

if you're from that town and reading this, don't take it personally, high school just sucked for me in a big way...

my thoughts for Thursday

child labor at it's finest

yes that vacuum really works

like I'd buy a toy vacuum...

Here's a fact:

I rarely edit the pictures I take.  Mostly because I don't have photoshop, I DON'T HAVE PHOTOSHOP (mayhaps you have a copy you'd like to lend me for download purposes hmmm??), but mostly because that would require a lot of effort on my behalf and I just don't care that much. 

Here's another fact:

I've let my kid watch waaay too much t.v. these past few months.  Currently on the que-Berenstien Bears.  I love the Berenstien Bears, bears in clothes who live in a big tree and drive cars will always be awesome to me.  And don't worry, no more Lazytown, like ever.  

Your Baby Can Read! commercials wig me out.  The one little girl who's like 3 reading "Charlotte's Web", it's unnatural I tell you, UNNATURAL!  Though my mom tells me I started reading at 3 so maybe I'm a genius too and that changes everything now doesn't it...  

Shawn White.  I love you.  And I love the Olympicos.  And I love the team U.S.A. snowboard outfits by Burton.  Are they jeans?  NO, THEY'RE SNOWBOARD PANTS THAT LOOK LIKE JEANS!  

Do you want to buy a jeep with a brand new engine (finally!)?  Lucky you, I have one for sale.  

Is nice.  Very manly, roof rack, lifted!   You like.  Please buy.  

Less than a month to warm San Diego weather.  I'm going to make a paper chain.  If you'd like to donate to my trip funds than please, send me an email, tax write-off!!

I miss you, do you miss me too?  When can we hang out?  Will you make me food (WHITNEY)?  

THE END

Lazytown

And we're back...

from the glorious sun shiny, red rocked, small-freewayed, one Wal-Mart land of St. George.

I'm sold.  Find my man a job, heck, find me a job and we are THERE!

Currently Nick Jr. is on the telly with some show called "Lazytown" featuring these weirdo puppets/plastic people, real people with pink hair, a French guy named Spartacus sporting a totally not stereotypical French pointy mustache who does flips and twists flying through the air and also dresses like a member of N'Sync.  Oh and some other completely freaky bad guy who wears a unitard of some sort with cuff links and has a facial deformity.  

Have you seen this show?  The Nub is enraptured with it right now.  

I should be concerned, right?

road warriors

Tomorrow the Nub and I, along with my Connie, are headed South and then yonder to St. George.  Mostly to get the hell out of dodge, but otherwise she has some church meeting and we're just along for the ride.   St. George is not near the summer wonderland I've been fantasizing about, not at this point in the year, but with temperature in the upper 50's and maybe even 60's (gasp!!) it'll do for now.

Pretty much this is the first road trip I've ever taken with my spawn.   The DVD player is set, movies are ready to go, snacks (mostly for me) packed, sedatives prepared...I KEED.

And now it's time for Lost and my brain again to be filled with many questions and wonderings.  Like how does Kate manage to look so attractive while sweat stained and smelly?  Also, there are a lot of people who are supposed to be dead on this show but somehow are not.  Also,  why do the all the Asians on this show speak no Engrish?  Jin?  Crazy bearded Samuri guy holding everyone hostage with his magic river water?

Sayid is about to get his nipples shocked.  I must go.      

3 year olds scare the crap out of me

What?  

Kalli's gone MIA?  

Pretty much I feel like I should have been locked up in the loony bin pumped full of psychotropic drugs cluelessly under the impression that I'm vacationing in the Bahamas with my swimsuit model physique instead of suffering through the dregs of post-Christmas-wait-until-April-stay-away-from-sharp-knives-and-steep-cliffs sort of mind fog of the last and next few months.  

It will end.  I know this.  

But dudes, I seriously am having issues.

To make matters worse, at church my shorter half and I got called to teach the 3 year olds.  An hour.  Alone.  With 5 to 6 midget sized harbingers of panic and feelings of inadequacy (on my part).  Today was our first day and after about 20 minutes our bag of tricks (snacks included) was fully depleted and we resorted to handing over the chalk and letting them fight over who got to draw on which section of the board.  Fail.  

This is where I ask you for help.  I've never taught 3 year olds.  I don't have one, yet.  I'm not a natural game creator or entertainer of children, pretty much at this point they just scare me.  I'm good at basic needs, you know, food, education, coloring.  Apparently  I need games, I need stories, I NEED A BETTER BAG OF FREAKING TRICKS!

Oh you who are wiser than me and meccas of knowledge in the ways of taming the 3 year old mystery... impart upon me your knowledge.  

And be specific.  

This is serious.  

Groundhog Day

I feel

like I'm losing my mind.

How is it only February? And Tuesday?

It's like these last few months of winter are slowly sucking the very life force from my body in an attempt to ensure that I really do make good on all those dramatic threats to jump ship and move to freaking Mexico when I don't even speak Spanish or drink beer.  Clearly this is a serious situation.

Punxsatawney Phil can suck it