It's only 2:00, but this has been a good day......I scrounged around the yard and cleaned up all of the stuff that seems to gather, cleaned out in the garage up to and around the pile, moved the mattress out and went to the dump. Not real good planning because yesterday I went and vacuumed out the van then today loaded it with crap so I had to go vacuum the back out again. Oh well, came home and wanted to rake and stuff and couldn't find the rake (neighbors have it), bow saw, or hedge thingies....so I went to Lowe's and bought more....ha.....take that tool losers. Cut the lavendar down, raked out the flower beds and yard, filled the compost can plus so I stopped. Let's see......oh the gravel. I moved the remaining pile of gravel, 10 wheel barrow loads, out and spread it by the road. Then I got tired. But the gravel is gone. Oh, back to the mattress.....why don't twin mattresses have handles? Or is mine just a cheap one that doesn't have handles? Because of any of the sizes of mattress that people may be moving by themselves the twin would be the one. Just wondering. And I also really like throwing stuff into the dump abyss....simple pleasures.

I went and saw Men Who Stare at Goats last night.....what an appealingly strange movie. I like it, I think. Oh shoot....I took teeny chickens out of the freezer this morning. Now I have to cook them, I usually try to skip on the complex meals when it's just the kids eating....I guess I can bake them and make mac n cheese.....who am I fooling? I don't make complex meals lol. I have a lot of teeny chickens in the freezer that and scallops. I don't know why. I think I will go and read til the kids come home. EW DOG FART!!!!!! Why, why do they fart underneath my chair? Go away and do that.

Dinner's on, kids are busy, I'm hungry.....no scratch that, I was hungry then I ate some pecans and I don't appear to be hungry anymore. Fascinating. Let's see, our bathtub faucet got its drip fixed yesterday but now hot is cold and cold is hot. Can nothing just work correctly? By now all the kids have tried to take a shower and have all hollored about there only being cold water and have now been educated about the new faucet functioning, so that's all good. Anna is still infatuated with Calvin....this is what......almost a week. Wow, this one must be true love. Until next week. Jeremiah, Patrick, Kenneth/Matthew (for some reason she thought his name was Matthew only to find out months later that it was Kenneth which is not as good a name as Matthew but he's still cute....and exotic...he lives in SILVERTON!!!) Jeremy, Brent, oh a whole bunch more, and of course.....Calvin. I guess I should be happy she just keeps changing her mind lol. Katie's sort of upset because tomorrow at recess her class has to practice lining up and walking around in a line, I guess this class of 5th graders forgot proper line etiquette enough today for the teacher to give up their kid free time teaching them again. What other wonderful things happened today? Ummm....the boys made a phone out of two cans and an eight inch string and when I mentioned they might want a longer string the next thing I know is Isaac is messing with about fifty feet of knotted up string and Jacob is lord knows where. Joe's gone again tonight so it's just me and the kids, and then tomorrow is a friend and I's monthly eat without kids night, actually the kids aren't bad to eat with, it's more of a Mom goes and comes home after everyone is asleep night and the next night I said I'd go to one of those murder mystery things.....hmmmm...my name is Anna Maria Carlotta Sassine and I'm a sultry Jazz singer. Uhhh not. I've never done one of those so I guess I'll get to now. I'm not sure how to be sultry. But that's ok :D. I'm hungry again....nuts. And tired and brain dead. Is it wednesday? I need to, yes NEED, to start baking again. I stopped pretty much when the door finally fell off the death oven but that's been like a year and a half ago and about a year since we got the new oven....I have no excuse. Baking keeps you busy lol. The kids always complain that I put nuts in everything, as their scarfing everything in sight down. I don't pay much attention to them. I like nuts. I really had better go away from this thing before I start talking about our ice maker and how it doesn't work when bags of berries fall into it. Night.

Well, that was a weird day, weird but overall good. It felt really good to just take off and go to the beach, definitely will be doing that more often, unfortunately there's a downside backlash too it but I can deal with that....besides downside backlashes can be a good thing. There was about a good hour of nice weather, got in a walk and sat for awhile....I was sitting, eyes closed enjoying the sun on my face when the sky started spitting at me....hmmmmm. I sat for awhile and formulated plans for how to stay there and remain dry, my beach blanket is water proof and has been used in just such occasions before but since the sky had turned ominous I decided I really didn't want to get soaked if I didn't have to. Nothing wrong with a good soaking if you can't help it or there's a good reason but I'm too old to get soaked when my car is just a dune away. So I packed up and left....minutes before the heavens opened up and forgot about the spitting and outright relieved itself. So I ran away for a few hours, came home finished the ironing, swept yet again, did laundry blah blah blah. I guess I won't complain about the sweeping.....if I wasn't sweeping floor we'd be living with really nasty carpet....it is really hard to believe the amount of stuff swept up everyday. OK, I won't complain about any of it, it's what I do. Kids came home, Anthony came over for a few hours, had trouble with the concept of "take your shoes off by the door" but learned. Made dinner...... salmon, salad, rice, a spinach mushroom deal.....not many complaints. Actually three kids liked it....woohoo. Always one out of the bunch has to complain....I think they get together before the meal to decide who is going to gripe for the night. Joe just asked who reads this lol....ummmm...I think Tasia does, even though I don't write in dog, but she's commented on it so I guess she does. Other than that I don't really care, it's mostly for me. It just clears the head a bit, kind of hard when you can't say what you really want to say. That's what the kooky status updates are for, surrogate what you really want to says lol. That's not totally true but sometimes it is. Sometimes it feels like my head really is going to explode, for a time, then it goes away. Sometimes I think, why am I telling people I'm sweeping the floor? Then I figure well, really I'm not....they choose to read it or not, hide it or not.....I read something once but of course I can't put it here so tough. Blast it all lol, that's why therapists stay in business. You know when you're going along fine and then WHAM!!! something knocks you back a step or two? That's where I'm at, reconfiguring and putting wheels back on. Unfortunately tomorrow I'm assigned the duty of waiting for the Fedex guy to deliver something.....long day. Maybe I'll pull out the big ball and work on my abs. Who am I fooling? I don't have any abs. I used to have a six-pack, now I have a Shar-pei. Who am I fooling? I never had a six-pack. And I have schnauzers now. I'm torn between staying up late or going to bed, I really don't feel like either. Going to bed means a 30 some year old romance novel and staying up means facebook. Hmmm.....once I took a night like this and went to the coast, ended up sleeping in the car with the windows cracked and woke up with a six-pack ring next to me. hmmmmm.....maybe not the safest choice of sleeping locations lol. And kind of creepy to boot. Oh well, regardless I guess I'm done here. Toodles.

hello

I think I slept rather horribly last night, but we did the bowling thing and I actually did reasonably well, 168...ok that one was good, the other two were 98 and 113....I think there's a rule in bowling that you don't have to mention the bad ones, right? So I bowled a 168!!! Let's see....we all went to brunch/lunch with a Jeff but gave up on the possibility of a walk.....dang weather, actually I love this weather for the most part. The world was pink outside a few minutes ago, I guess the sun was making it's way through the gloom as it was sitting for the night. I finally got all the stuff on the calendar, I make myself nervous when I let all the little reminders and notes pile up without writing them down....speaking of which I don't think I have Cub Scouts written down. Just a sec....... ok, fixed. Finally filled out Isaac's smart kid form.....I'm not sure how I feel about those.....according to someone he's "definitely above average in intellectual capacity", well duh.....just talk to the kid. I wonder how much goes into those tests? I didn't fill in the info sheet this year though, questions like what happened to your child as a child that would possibly have made him this way? Um.....well I dropped him on his head when he was 1 and a 1/2, then when he was 3 aliens done swooped down and flew off with him for a time....don't know what they did to him but found sleepin' under the berry bushes some time later......or I could just write, yes....he is bright isn't he, takes after his Mother. Instead I feel like saying well, the other one is as smart...just with a different specialty. Oh well, hopefully they will think he's just not quite smart enough again this year. He's only seven. I got all bases covered tonight on dinner, so when they complain about the first option I can say "ha ha....I have a second option.....complain about that!" Joe's sleeping, has been for about 3 hours lol, thinking about waking him up so he can sleep tonight....I'll think on that some more. Yeah I should. I'm going to go do that, or at least turn lights on and open doors so he's bothered by all the life going on out here.

Lordy, what a long day....but now, now it's the bliss of hearing the boys read to each other, nothing out of the girls room, the faint whisperings of Rescue Heroes coming from the living room because I'm guessing someone didn't bother to turn the TV off.....Joe's out in the garage and a dog has been farting at my feet. What more can a girl ask for? Oh, and a glass of that "good" wine I bought because well, why not? Today bright and early....actually it was still sort of dark, Anna and I headed off on the college excursion...seems strange to have a kid close enough to going to college that we're like going on feild trips to them.....she's got a ways but still. I did get the tuition question answered once again positively :D.......gotta love the rainbow......and had time on the bus to draw another um....whatever they are. One of Anna's friends said she'd pay money for it, I asked her how much and she said "um....I dunno" lol. I guess that settles that. Anyway, it had four naked ladies on it. But none of them had any heads so is that bad? I bought a book about someones mothers answering machine messages.....it's a bit off beat to say the least. It's got the message and then why or why not the author bothered to respond to the message. or not. Immediately after that was the boys Pinewood Derby thing.......Jake, well his car had problems he came in 4th an awful lot (out of 4) but he did win the most General Lee like for his great paint job. Isaac faired a tad bit better with lots of third places a couple seconds and I think one first place and also got the award for most prepared because he had put a spare tire on his. Jake took defeat quite well I would say. If you call blaming me for his cars failures taking it well lol. I love "lol", it kind of takes the ambiguity out of sarcasm. I think. Tomorrow morning is bowling....by the end of this year I will break 200! At least once.....it shouldn't bee too hard since I bowl somewhere in the very low 100's now I'm halfway there. And since the bowling alley guy gave me a tip that seemed to be working last time we bowled I will have confidence. And if nothing else maybe my boyfriend from the group home will be there.....that's always a confidence booster.....pure unadulterated fanli-ness. Ok, the "good" wine is starting to put me to sleep. It wasn't supposed to do that, especially before 9:00....geesh. I think I also had a shortage of caffeine today also. Me and my drugs. Hmmmm.......curling up in bed and falling asleep with my face in a book only to wake up by biting my tongue later on sure does sound good though. Goodnight. I'm going to go do that.

Aack....45 minutes til kids come home, it's friday so that means lots and lots of papers....I get so confused, especially with the boys stuff......if I don't mark it I have to try and remember whose is whose. I have been wrong before and they do each other's homework and turn it in. I wonder if that happens a lot with twins? I would guess by now their teachers have figured out why they get strange work from my kids. So let's see.....I walked, swept everything (except kid rooms, the girls because they finally do it themselves and the boys because.....yeah, like I can get in there with a broom), finished normal laundry and got Joe's in the wash, cleaned the bathroom, took/trash recycle out, dusted, cleaned up the kitchen and made the living room pretty. OK, I confess.....I did a lousy job in the bathroom....but so what, it's good enough. I really need to find out how many miles around the park three times is....it's a mystery. I tried to use my pedometer yesterday but I guess sitting around for 2 years without use kills a battery, oh well. Dinner, dinner, dinner.......hmmmmm....tonight is Family Film Night.....Ooooohhhh.....get to sit on the floor and watch a usually inane kids movie....though I usually quickly retreat to a folding chair....but the movie is still eh, nm....IT WILL BE FUN!!!!!!! I am so going to the beach on the next nice day, don't tell anyone....at least til I get back, then it will be an adventure. I'm looking for it, you know why? Because my hair is now just long enough to blow around but not long enough to drive me totally batty....simple pleasures. :) Maybe I'll just make mac n cheese tonight, I have a ton of cheese. I think I even have a ham in the freezer too...bit too late for that I guess. That's what cans of Spam are for lol, I never tried Spam til I married Joe....mmmmmmm.....meat in a can. I'd love to visist a Spam factory...I imagine squishy meat sounds.....phfblllllt ptupht.....like that. And lots of steam, and sweaty little men running around in chef's hats.....singing songs and dancing. Oh wait, that's kinda Willy Wonka isn't it? Anna doesn't like my hair because she says it looks like Johnny Depp as Willy's hair.....if anyone I think I look more like Violets mom....especially if I ever wear my bubble gum Barbie outfit. I've got to get up early tomorrow, Anna and I are spending the day on a school trip up to U of O. I guess they want to get the kids psyched about college. Anna has it all figured out, she's going to live at home and go to Chemeketa for two years first because she wants to do well and doesn't think a bunch of 18 yo's living together would be a good environment....lmao, see the effect of early brainwashing? I've told them all they can live at home as long as they are going to school....I wish the neighbors would tell their kid that lol.....anyway. Ooooohhh! OOps....I was supposed to pay bills today, hmmmm.....oh well. Maybe I still will. Nah. Monday, Monday's a good day. I like paying bills, and ......I'm getting excited......TAXES!!!! My Mom says I should have been an accountant....ick, and according to Mr. Magorium that would make me a counting mutant. OK, well that might be a reason to become one....too late. I wonder what the market is for magical toy stores is. Because If I had a toy store I would want it to be magical....OK, now I'm just bored. bye.

Hello, I'm lazy. Not in a bad way I don't think....more in a pleasure seeking way, I mean really, some decisions should be no brainers, do you want to do the uhhhhhh choice or the ooooooooohhh choice? Regardless of my laziness though I enjoy when years long quests come through as originally planned.....years ago. Like in the past few days My 14 yo decided that it was nice to have a clean room and has done it. She has cleaned the thing out thoroughly and all by herself.......the past 10 years or so of ick is over. I hope. But I knew it would be and took the stance of fine and would have shut the door......if she had one, if she wanted a door she really shouldn't have broken the one she had. Right? Anyway, my own housekeeping being somewhat lacking..... and I'm ok with that.....the problem is a lot of it is an attitude of that can just sit there til I'm ready, and that's not really ok. I don't like things that are the results of bad attitudes.......but hey.....sometimes a bad attitude's all a girls got.

It's raining....my hororscope said it would be a good day to clean house or a closet....and to dress glamorously. I guess I could wear my lady coat.....I have a coat and one of the girls I babysat told me I looked like a lady and I said well I am a lady and she said no, a lady who lives in a mansion.....so I guess I have a glamorous lady coat. Perfect for my minivan. I wonder if when they first came out with minivans they had a brainstorming meeting on what to call them? Teeny vans, itty bitty vans, micro vans, like-a-big-van-but-smaller-vans, big boxy cars, no-more-station-wagon-vans??? So many names possible, I think it would be fun to tell the kids to go get in the ittybitty van. I guess I could but then I'd be weird. Where does all this stuff on the floor come from? I severly dislike sweeping, I would never go back to carpet but I still hate sweeping. I like my idea of grate floors...no floors, just grates, everything just falls right through. I never have considered what that would mean in a 2 story house? I guess stuff just falls all the way through. Don't wear skirts upstairs. I'm cold. I'm going to go do something.....maybe the dreaded sweeping.

I'm waiting. I went out and did what I was supposed to do and topped in at the house that has the salon sign outside of it.....I've been meaning to call for a year or so but driving by is not the most oportune time to jot down a number......and no, I can't remember a measly 7 numbers for any length of time. Joe can....he can like look up a number then go dial it. I have to look it up, underline it and check as I dial. Anyway, I decided to just stop in and she is the cutest little lady....with an accent.....and I made an appointment for 2:00. So wait I must. The other day, yesterday I guess, I got a wild hair...hee, wild hair....and cut off about 6 inches. I did a pretty good job of it too if I just want to straight across one length look....aka "the triangle". Which I don't. I guess people with totally straight hair don't experience that phenomenon but I have just enough poof that it's a from top of head to shoulder geometric form. Doesn't really matter since it's always clipped on top of my head in a sumo do but eh....I need something to think about all day besides "ooooh....look the egg is really stuck on this plate!" I'm eating an orange, it's rather good, trying to counteract the after effects of this mornings breakfast fiasco.....sometimes you shouldn't listen to the little voice that encourages iffy situations. I'm not going to say what I had for breakfast because I'm embarrassed and I don't embarass easily, how do you spell embarrass? One R or two? Maybe I'll put it in the forty confessions of Lent I'm eagerly awaiting......I like confessions. Except the real ones.....dude, nunya business. Yes, for Lent I'm going to give up what's left of my pride. But that's a ways off so now I need to consider dinner, I bought salmon but I forgot it's one of those activity at dinner time nights so I need to aim for more of a scoop into a bowl meal.....I'm thinking beef broccoli of some sort....that's easy and quick and tastes good later. I guess salmon does too.....hmmmmmm. I still think there is something inherently wrong with eating dinner before 6 pm and really prefer eating around 8 pm but that would get too messy in the kids beds. I think embarrass has 2 R's. I'm going to have to make a dump run, which means I'm going to clean out the garage and take full advantage of the trip, right now I have a mattress to get rid of....I could do the dismantle and put in the trash can thing but I don't think Joe has the patience for that. Now that I think everyone is pretty well past the bedwetting stage I'm going to start replacing mattresses, none were great to start with, so that's something to look forward to.....I'm almost giddy with anticipation. BTW....Joe and I don't need a new mattress, we've never either of us wet the bed. At least not like in the past decade. Before that I'm not sure. I haven't, but I would need to ask Joe. Because one never knows unless asks.

I'm awake. I'm not supposed to be, I'm supposed to be sleeping. I like sleep, it's good. I'm mulling, now that I've decided the babysitting gig must end I need to figure out how to go about it. I'll probably just throw it out there, let it flop around like a fish for a bit and see where it ends. Usually a pretty good way of getting something resolved. After the pool table incident, you could call it the pool table that broke the camels back, I'm all jiminy, I'm done. I'm still not totally sure what exactly happened but it seems three of the girls at the neighbors house and one of the ones I watch were dancing on the pool table and well, it broke. So now the neighbor is saying it's worth $1400, not asking for anything but yeah, I say pay half, Joe says no way in heck......I don't need this stuff. People with kids....teach them how to behave. Besides all the "incidents" it's starting to affect my own kids, Anna is like tofu and picks up the attitude of those around her and I don't care, it's not mine, why should I, and So? are not attitudes I really want her adopting. Her last report card scared her I think, she's never had a bad one before and I think she found out that gee, maybe I should shape up and lose the tude. Katie's crying about something on a regular basis, Jake has become the little informer, Isaac just continues on. I guess the time has just come....and the incidents are getting bigger....and how the heck did I end up doing this anyway? Considering the frustrations and inconveniences up against the absolute lack of any sense of gratitude (they frequently complain to the neighbor about how mean I am and can she babysit them, lol, I told her she was welcome and she said "Oh no"). Besides it's not fair to my girls to have to have 4 kids in their room for their teen years, ok I'll stop before I start a mongo list lol, basically I know myself well enough to say it's time to stop before things get ugly. I guess I have a slow fuse but I eventually do, well I don't want to say blow.....ummm, just get finished? Don't know if that made any sense and I don't care, I want to go to sleep. Goodnight.

Ahhhh.....much better. Since I was starting to sound like a nutcase.....semi-nutcase.......on Facebook I have officially dusted off and re-instated the blog......no more ads though, they took them away for "suspicious clicking". Too bad, I enjoyed seeing what was going to pop up over there....oh well. Apparently my choice of music is freaking out the dogs today, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.....it freaks out Isaac. The kid who professes to hate music really hates the Black-Eyed Peas......but loves I Am the Walrus.....and Fireflies, and what was the other one? Oh yeah, the one, two, three, like a bird I sing one. He's cute, I forgive him.

The mega shed complex project in the backyard is sitting....NEVER let your husband and cousins start building in your backyard....it's scary. Though I guess the shed was in protection of the house and the house remodel project. Have I ever mentioned I love this house? Think positively....The mega shed complex will be great, the mega shed complex will be great.....OK...we're gonna have a great mega shed complex. And it will be. I've got this cool book with pictures of, I don't know, structures of the Northwest or something....I want our shed to look like some of those lol. Bet Frank the builder dude doesn't have a clue of my eclectic tastes hee. Yeah, I know.....it'll be square....with a roof.....but in my mind it will be stunning. Much like in my mind the living room is beautiful. Life is so nice in my mind. Everything is clean and shiny and the dogs are perfectly groomed, and little boys don't pee on the shower curtain.

Dinner? Dinner, dinner, dinner.....let's see.....ummmm......I have scallops, shrimp AND clams, something could probably be done with that, or just one of those lol. But then I'd have to pull out the fishsticks for picky child again.....the one that, ironically, loves cod liver oil. Last night we had Catherine's Spicy Chicken soup....I don't know who Catherine is but her soup was really good....actually Joe finished it up because I had to go off on the Pinewood Derby car building project, so it really was Catherine, Jen and Joe's Spicy Chicken soup. Did you know that tools make any job easier? Hours and days of handworking the things or bzzzzshup bzzzzz on a, I think it was a bandsaw? does that sound right? Anyway, cars shaped. And they are going to WIN!!! Well, 26 minutes til the Flurry gets home, I guess I'd better go run all my piles to where they need to be. Trash, recycle, Goodwill, Christmas stuff ect......in case you were wondering. Tata.