Proper Apologies

I get that texting has become the norm for communicating with friends. Hey let's grab drinks. On my way. Running late. It's quick, efficient, and lets people respond in their own time.

And sometimes people hide behind it.

I was recently involved in a huge blowout with another parent. She handled an incident completely inappropriately and flipped her shit. There was screaming, flailing of arms, and threats which resulted in terrified sobs from my son who was one of the targets of her wrath. This was all done very publicly, and it took a lot of clean up on my part for my child to feel better.

I received a text message from the woman later on that same afternoon explaining that she'd been having a bad day, and that she realized she had reacted poorly. I appreciated her candor, but things have been insanely awkward since that incident. Now, I did not expect her to apologize over and over and beg to make things right. However, her freak out was of epic proportions, and one text message pawning it off on a bad day and PMS does not cut it. We teach our kids to look the person they wronged in the eye and say they are sorry. All I wanted was for the next time this mother and I were in the same space for her to say to me, in person, Hey, I'm sorry about went down the last time.

Didn't happen. Not by a long shot. And I can see the attraction. Fuck something up? Fire off a quick SMS and never actually have to face the person you hurt. I am probably in the minority here, but I think that kind of sucks. I make an ass of myself? You'll probably get a text, eventually an actual in-person apology and probably a hug. I don't think this makes me an awesome person, I think it makes me accountable for my actions. And that's one of the examples I want to set. I hope my kids pay close attention because I want them to know that when their words hurt another person, part of the forgiveness process is to allow the other person to express that hurt. Not hide behind a phone and pretend like it never happened.

I'm Happy, Damn It!!

I think that most people don't reflect on the fact that they are happy until something awful befalls them. It usually takes an episode of grief and heartache to realize, damn, things were really good. How important to come to that realization before the other shoe falls. While you are in the moment.

Because guess what? I am happy. As a clam. Like a pig in shit. I am happy, and it feels so damned good. We've been in our new digs for nearly a year now, and it is the first time in long time I've felt this way. As in twenty-two years long time. For the first time since my parents first moved me out of my home state, I love where and how I live. I've got a fantastic circle of friends who want to hang and listen to my stupid stories. They can match, and often trump them. My kids are well-adjusted, and every now and then I even get to see my husband.

Life certainly hasn't been smooth these past eleven months, but I've had love and support from amazing people I never thought I'd meet. I am having fun, and I love it. I mean, how many people do you know will pick you up a couple of bottles of margarita mix from Costco just for the hell of it?

Food Bandit

So, here we are. Everyone has been on their best behavior. Polite and smiley and overly concerned for each other's feelings. Fuck that shit. The cracks are already forming.

In the two days they have been here, I have heard about how unsafe our swingset is. Yes, I know it's rickety. Yes, I know we need to re-anchor it. My husband, your son, actually has to be home to do it.

Yes, I know the cats have scratched the hell out of our couches. Yes, I know they are ten years old. Yes, I do know they look ugly when we have company. No, I don't agree (or care) that people will not like our couches and judge us for it. Yes, I've heard of slipcovers. Your son doesn't like them and doesn't want to pay for any. Yes, I will discuss it again with him.

Yes, I would love it if you made a salad for dinner. No, I did not mean just for yourself. I did not give you our single, last tomato only for you to put it on your own plate and not share it with any of the rest of us. Same goes for the cucumber at breakfast this morning. When I come back from morning school drop-off, starving for breakfast and coffee to cheerfully have you announce that you have finished off the remainder the breakfast food, damn. That's just not right.

Looks like I need to start hoarding food under my bed.

In-Law Olympics

After quite a long hiatus, here I am. We've survived four months in the high desert, and life is finally settling into a good routine. We've have bumps along the way, but most issues have been resolved and put behind us.

Which means the universe wants to throw me a curve ball before I become too complacent.

My in-laws arrive tomorrow. That's right, you know the ones. They haven't darkened our door in four years, and whatever the reason, they have decided to come and stay with us. For a month. We're not even done unpacking our crap, and we're now repacking to make room for two more adults in our household. We've moved the kids into one room in order to create a guest room and are now trying to consolidate all the things I just found space for in their rooms. I knew settling for three bedrooms would bite us in the ass.

So I will spend the day today continuing to purge vestiges of my daughter's existence from "their" room so there will be no issues of not feeling welcome. I have tried to cook and freeze meals so that we are stocked up in order to lessen the tension as to what to make for dinner. For Lent, I promised myself that I would not speak ill of my MIL. It has been very, very hard. I have not always been successful. If nothing else, it has made me much more conscious of what I am saying and how.

In any event, it looks like MIL Monday will be up in full force again. I'm hanging on to the hope that this visit won't be a repeat of the last. For insurance, I've got my Guadalupe candles lit. That's what you do around here when you need a miracle.

Let's Get Together, Yeah Yeah Yeah

We are into our final two-week countdown to our move, and the past two months have taught me two lessons I didn't really want to learn.

The first lesson involved dropping the we're moving bomb. This was universally followed with the We gotta get together before you go! response. With all the enthusiasm and promises of help, I had hope that maybe this process wouldn't be too bad. Well, I've been on my own with the kids since the middle of September, and until this past Saturday I had zero dinner invitations. Zero. I understand families are busy, but this has been ridiculous. Any adult company, no matter how brief, would have been a much needed breath of fresh air. Now that we are into our final two weeks, I've had offers to take the kids so I can get things accomplished. I am deeply grateful for these offers and am taking advantage of them when I can.

I've come out of this phase realizing that if and when I have a friend that is going through a move, if I promise help I need to follow through. I will go to my friend's house and help with the bedtime routine so she doesn't have to go it alone, if even just for one night. I will bring her a bottle of wine and help her fold laundry while we watch some bullshit prime time television show. I will ask her how she is managing. I will give her a hug and let her know it's okay to be sad. That now that the kids are in bed she doesn't have to be strong.

The second lesson is that adults handle a move very differently. Now that we've found a house and the move is officially under way, my closest friend here has not asked a thing about it. Not the house, not the kids, not me. I have come to realize that in some way she needs to distance herself. It hurts, but I get it. We all have our coping mechanisms, and I do not begrudge her the way in which she needs to deal. I've been surprised, sad, and now resigned. I've realized that all the while I worried about how my children would cope, I never dreamed that the adults wouldn't be able to handle it. I don't love her any less, it just makes the journey a lot more lonely.

Paint Your Wagon

The day has finally come. Hubbie has gotten transferred and has started a phenomenal new position in...Albuquerque. So it's back out West for us. High elevation, dry heat and the beautiful Sandias. Pretty exciting stuff!

I'm hanging on every day while Hubbie tries to find us a place to live. I'd actually prefer to stay here in DC as long as possible as the kids are incredibly happy with their school, and frankly so am I. There are a lot of things I am looking forward to the move, but I'm rather enjoying aspects of this limbo. Hubbie is getting settled into his new job, the kids and I are fine.

Of course, there is drama because nothing normal ever happens around here, but for now we're getting settled into our temporary autumn routine and saving our strength for the changes to come.

Through the Door

This weekend was a blur of birthday parties. Three in one day, to be precise. Our party marathon went well despite the potential for meltdowns and ugly sugar high crashes. We'd made it through two, and the third and final party of the day was a pool party followed by dinner. The adults joined the kids in the pool, and having my husband present meant I didn't have to haul both kids into the ladies change room.

I'd already gotten my daughter rinsed, changed and out the door when one of the older girls came in with her clothes. She looked around, then just stood there. We made eye contact, and she explained that there weren't any changing cubicles to give her privacy. I offered to stand at the door so that no one would come in. That seemed to satisfy her until two more of the party-goers came in and started showering. She was clearly uncomfortable, so I told her I would be happy to hold her things so she could change in the toilet stall instead.

That was the process. She cracked the door and handed me her wet bathing clothes, I handed the towel through. She called out what she needed, and I discreetly gave her the clothes as she stuck her hand though the door frame.

As I pushed the items through, my eyes stung and I was happy for the privacy she had behind that grimy swim hall door. This little girl is beginning elementary school this year. She seems so big compared to the other kids at the party, but she is still just a little girl. I know her dad sent her into the ladies change room because she is old enough to dress herself. He had to contend with her little brother on the other side of the wall, and a seven year-old needs much less help than a four year-old. Except this is the little girl who lost her mother this past spring. Her mother died in January, and here it is August and she is so big and so little all at the same time. It hurt my head to think about the unfairness of it all. Her mom should have been helping her at this party, not me. She should have had the comfort of knowing that while her father was wrangling her spirited little brother, her mommy was making her warm and dry and safe and ready to hold her hand crossing the busy street to go back for balloons and too much cake. But there was no one. Just me and my stupid stinging eyes. I didn't want her to see any of those thoughts flashing across my face. And so the door stayed shut and I was so, so grateful for that.

She finished up, and I brought her out to the parking lot where everyone was waiting for us. All the parents helped herd the kids out to the intersection to walk back to the party. I announced in my usual, no bullshit mommy voice that we hold hands crossing the street. My kids grabbed my husband's hand, the little girl looked around for her dad. Her father was too far away and too busy with her brother, and so I held out my hand to her. And she took it. She only held my pinky and ring fingers. Too grown up to hold me tightly, young enough to not realize she could have just walked next to me. My face burned and my heart nearly burst on that walk across the street. I thanked her on the other side and told her that she'd done a good job being such a good listener. She flashed a smile at me and skipped to catch up to her dad.

At Your Service

I thought I'd start with a few teasers, some of the small stuff my MIL pulled while on our trip. Whet the appetite a little bit.

Like my daughter puking the first day we were there. I sent the in-laws to the store for crackers to settle her stomach. They came back bearing cookies for my girl and a present for her brother. No present for the puker, and apparently cookies are supposed to help with nausea.

Or my MIL telling me all about the time she visited us for Christmas when our daughter was three. Um...they've never been to the US for Christmas, and the last time they were here girl child was 19mo old. This incident prompted me to email my husband telling him I'd fallen down the rabbit hole and not being able to find my way out.

I can tell you about how my MIL never read to my children, bathed them or made them a meal. FIL brought her breakfast in bed, on a tray, every morning we were there. I didn't get coffee unless he made it for her, one morning being told that if I wanted a cup of coffee there was leftover coffee in the thermos from yesterday.

I'm sure I'll remember more to tell in a future post, but let's cut straight to the finale. Hubbie was only able to come for two weeks Read: I was alone with inlaws for one week, he was to join us for the final two. The entire last week we were in their home my MIL did not speak to my husband. This woman, who had not seen her son in a year and a half, got mad and did not speak to him for an entire week.

For real.

What egregious error had my husband committed to warrant that silent treatment? While I took my parents on an errand, my husband had the task of checking out of the hotel and packing our week's worth of luggage into the car, all the while watching our two preschool children. Mother-in-law, whose baggage was next to the reception desk, wheeled said baggage to the front door to be loaded into her car when it was returned from the train station.

Apparently, my husband should have moved it for her.

He only found this out later that night when we couldn't figure out why his mom was avoiding us. When he asked his father, the response was that she was upset that Hubbie hadn't helped her move her luggage.

For real.

Let me elucidate:


There were no stairs involved. She did not ask my husband to help her (which he would have been glad to do if he even knew that she needed help). All he knew was that sometime during the time frame of packing our car and chasing after our kids, the suitcases were wheeled 25 feet from Point A to Point B. This generated seven days of silence from his mother.

One would think the story ends there, but here we sit two weeks later. We on our side of the ocean, they on theirs. Husband Skyped with his parents yesterday; or, as he corrected me, parent. FIL talked on camera to Hubbie and the kids. MIL? Refused to come on the screen, much less talk. Translation: She did not talk to her grandchildren. She "said hello" through my FIL, but sat there with her elbow in view but sat in stubborn silence the entire conversation.

I told Hubbie I was going to buy him a t-shirt with a bellhop on it that said "At Your Service" just to be an asshole. When I asked him how to say bellhop in Swedish*, he said he didn't know. And that, I told him, was the reason he was in this mess. If he were the dutiful, prescient son he was supposed to be she wouldn't have to be upset with him. Or maybe, she's just a grumpy old bitch.

*It's piccolo, fwiw.

Back to Good

We've just come back from nearly a month abroad. Sleeping on the floor for three weeks and calling it "camping" works well when you are five and three. Not so much when you are on the slide toward forty.

We survived lying gate agents, Scandinavian heatwaves, and a family wedding. We had a great time, and it has made the post-vacation jetlag worth it. Mostly.

Needles and Pins

I'm catching up on all my medical appointments now that I have a few days with my dad to help out. The eye appointment went just fine. My dental appointment today? I thought it was going great, until the dentist walked in and cheerfully announced I had a cavity.

No matter how grown up you think you are, there are certain sights and smells that take you back to that really awful childhood place. The dentist of my childhood was a very nice man. I would have loved him except for the fact that he pulled my teeth. Nearly all of them. For some ungodly reason, when my adult teeth started coming in my baby teeth hung on like some kind of bad joke. They wouldn't even get loose. I'd have two sets of teeth, and so off to the dentist I went and out came the teeth. Over and over again. At one point, because I was getting ready for braces, they pulled six of my teeth to "make room" for the adult teeth. I had gaps for year, with not even a hint of a new tooth in sight.

I know pain technology has gotten better, but as my dentist blathered on and on about fixing my cavity the tears just leaked from the corners of my eyes. I hated it, and I just couldn't stop. The hygienist finally noticed and chided the dentist for making me cry. Then he got upset because I was upset and he hates to make people cry. It was rather comical save for how humiliated I felt over not being able to control my tears.

Just the smell and taste of the numbing gel brought a fresh onslaught, and when it was time for the shot, the taste and smell of the Novocain was awful. But my dentist was right, he said he'd numb me up and he did. After hearing about my experience with not enough Novocain when my wisdom teeth came out, he gave me a double dose. When he said I wouldn't be able to feel my face until after 8pm, the dude was no bullshitter.

I am mostly recovered now, and I kept my story as simplistic as possible for my kids once I got home. They didn't notice that half of my face was paralyzed. Instead, they gave me hugs when they found out I had two shots. They were horrified to learn that my dentist didn't give me a prize. Not even a sticker. And you know what? Now I feel kind of cheated.

Crash Into Me

We quote a lot of TV and film around here. Last week I learned the horrible lesson to never use the quote I'm just one stomach flu away from my goal weight flippantly. I didn't get the flu, but I met some shellfish that didn't like me very much. Lots of vomiting ensued, and a week later I am still not completely recovered.

It's has also been our first week of summer vacation. The kids and I have had a really nice time getting settled into a routine, and it has helped ease me into activity after feeling so badly. We've had a week of crafts and playing and taking it easy, so the last thing on my mind was a car accident. My husband says it's my punishment for taking the kids to the thrift store again. There I was, minding my own business, stopped behind a huge line of traffic waiting for the light to turn green when a guy plowed into the back of me. Thankfully, I did not hit the car in front of me, but my kids were screaming and frightened beyond belief.

The next hour involved standing on the side of the road arguing with an elderly Chinese gentleman who was not carrying insurance in the car. I'd called the police right away, but as we waited and waited no one arrived. I tried every stall tactic I knew because I did not want to drive away from the scene. In my world Call me tonight and I'll give you my insurance information over the phone is just not cool. The man became more and more agitated as it became apparent I did not believe in his integrity. My kids continued to howl in the backseat. I clutched a napkin with the man's information scribbled in blurry ink and tried to decide what the fuck to do.

When the blue light special arrived.

I have never been so happy to see a squad car in my life. The young officer got out, determined who was driving which vehicle, and asked us to turn over our information. Good lord did his expression change when the other driver tried to explain that his insurance was at home and not in the car. At that point, I didn't care what happened because I knew the dude was going to get a ticket, and I was off the hook. To further complicate matters, the sky opened up as only a Southern thundershower can and dumped buckets of water on us. I climbed back in the car and got my kids calmed down while the officer handled things on his end. It turns out my daughter was more worried about our car being smashed (which it wasn't) than anything being actually wrong.

So this week I have learned that when a friend asks me how well I do mussels, I am to answer Not very. That when the elderly Chinese gentleman calls at home to apologize profusely for hitting my car, ask if my children are okay, and give me his insurance information that there actually are people who follow though and aren't lying to save their asses. It's a good lesson to learn.

But I'm still glad I called the cops.

Sly Bitch Recognition

When I studied abroad and stayed with the Dragon Lady and her family, she made fresh-squeezed orange juice every morning. My roommate and I would sit at the little cafe table in her kitchen eating our yogurt and chatting of the day to come. The Dragon Lady would chat with us, squeeze our orange juice and hand each of us a delicious glass of sunshine.

It took me a few weeks to realize that some mornings, the juice tasted awful. There was something...off. Turns out that anytime I left the kitchen during breakfast instead of squeezing my juice she would fill the rest of the glass with water so she wouldn't have to use up her oranges on us. Since my roommate and I shared a bathroom, we were often up and down several times during the course of a meal trying to juggle the application of our morning glam.

One day, I was sitting in the little kitchen when my roomie breezed in and announced the bathroom was free. Relieved, I jumped up to take my turn. My chair was pushed back, I was poised to leave the room when I remembered: The juice. She is going to chince me on my juice.

I turned back around to sit down and said that I would wait until after I was done eating. As I reseated myself, my eyes met that of my host mother. There was a flash between us. She knew that I knew. Without missing a beat she kept on halving and squeezing the oranges. I sat down and finished my breakfast. That was probably the tastiest glass of orange juice I had that summer.

One Tit Wonder

One of the more recent perks of being a parent is freezing my ass off in swim lessons. We've been teaching the kids on their own, but they haven't made the final leap to swimming independently. Hence, two kids in one class on Friday evenings. Me and ten other dimple-legged moms with 45° headlights in the shallow end of the rec center pool.

At the tender age of three, even after a full swim lesson my son is ready to jump and jump and jump off the side of the pool until we pack it in and call it a day. He doesn't really need me to catch him, it's more that it is fun for him to jump towards me as a target. I think I predicted my own fate when I warned him not to grab at my bathing suit. Wouldn't you know the very next jump his hand snagged the front of my swimsuit. Fabric down, tits up. I sank under the surface when I realized what was happening, but I wasn't fast enough. One of my girls definitely got a little hang time before I hit the water.

I don't think anyone saw, but I didn't look around to take a poll, either. The key to keeping your dignity is to not notice if other people noticed. You can't be embarrassed if you don't see the stares, right?

End of the Ninth Life

There are few aspects of parenthood worse than having to explain death.

One of my cats has not been herself lately, and over the weekend I had contacted a mom here in town who is also a veterinarian. We went to her clinic this afternoon hoping to get some answers. I have watched the decline in my cat's health over the past two weeks, and while I didn't expect the prognosis to be good it's hard not to hold onto a shred of hope.

Her lungs were filled with fluid, so much so that we couldn't even see her heart in the x-ray. Anything we could have done for her would have been stopgap. She might have lingered for weeks. She might have made it to the weekend. While I thought the news would be grim, I don't know that I had realized that this was it. I've had this cat ten years. I fought to adopt her when my husband-then-boyfriend traveled during the week, and I was alone in a country with no friends. We nursed her back to health from the abuse she had suffered at the hands of her previous owners, and we dragged her furry ass across two continents, an ocean, and three states.

To compound the news, it's spring break this week for our school system which meant I had to drag both kids with me. My five and three year old. What the fuck was I supposed to say to them? Bring the cat home and tell them they have until the weekend until mommy plays the harbinger of death and takes the cat away?

So, I lied.

I told them the doctor was going to keep her for a few days and give some medicine to make her feel better. That the doctor was going to call me or email me to let me know how she was doing but that she was very very sick. That she couldn't breathe very well and that there was a good chance she was going to join the other kitties living with God. So they kissed her head, told her they loved her, and got stickers in the waiting room while I stayed behind to talk about the medicine.

Being a parent sucks. And how to handle listening to tiny prayers hoping their kitty gets better is not in the manual.

The Big Cement Mixer In the Sky

And so it has happened. While my dad was visiting us this weekend, the cat finally shuffled his mortal coil. While I am completely and inappropriately relieved, my ire over two points has me seeing red.

My mom is devastated and still will not talk about it. Apparently, when she woke up Tuesday morning, the cat was "completely incapacitated". Then, and only then, did she take him to the vet to be put down. I am irked because the poor thing had been suffering for weeks, and my parents refused to do anything to ease his pain. Why in the world she had to wait until he was incapacitated to do anything proactive is beyond the scope of my comprehension.

Horror of horrors, I am completely disgusted by the second point. My father, having come home the same afternoon as the trip to the feline death panel, sunk the poor thing in concrete. Just like he promised. Right now, somewhere in my parents' garage is a macabre geode waiting for strategic burial in the backyard. There is not enough coffee in the world to get me through a morning phone call bearing this kind of news.

Spanish Dancer Turn All Around

Still here. Life has been an alternating game of hopscotch and jump rope for us lately. I've been dealing with some health issues that masses of blood work still haven't seemed to sort out. In between nasty bouts of nausea we've been ducking drama slung by my family and jumping over issues of personal responsibility that my husband and I can't seem to agree upon. All this bobbing and weaving has left me in desperate need of an attitude adjustment. And while not being afraid to use it can be fun, when snark isn't balanced with smiles it becomes just one big whine-fest. For now, I'm a bit tapped out on my blog mojo. When something strikes me, I'll post. For now, I am on the hunt to yank that jump rope out of life's hands and beat her ass with it.

Rise of the Mullet

We have been getting slammed in DC with crazy snowstorms. I have to admit I have loved nearly every minute of it. Not the fact that my kids are in their third week off of school. Or the fact that my husband had to take a suitcase to work and shack up in his office. But I love the heavy white blanket of snow that just keeps piling on. We've got heat. We've got food. We've got internet. I can't think of anything better.

Sadly, our idyllic Currier & Ives postcard was shattered Saturday morning after my daughter struck a pose for us in the living room. She had been instructed to brush her teeth and comb her hair after breakfast. Having been in the back of the house for a significant period of time, she returned to the living room, clasped her hands together and waited.

I stopped sipping my coffee. There was something not quite right. The light from the window filtered through her hair. Or shall I say, what was left of it.

My daughter had cut off all her hair.

She had found my hair-cutting shears, and as my husband and I luxuriated with our Swedish coffee and snugly bathrobes she decided to give herself trim. A mullet, no less.

First off, I am so grateful that she did not slice her cheek open or cut her finger off. Those scissors are sharp, and even I have nicked myself on occasion. We took her into the bathroom to survey the damage, and the closest approximation I can come up with is that I am now the proud mother of a Hayley Mills look-a-like.

We salvaged what we could by taking off nearly four inches from the back. We are hoping that we can even things out as it grows. With a headband on, it almost looks layered. Almost. She could have cut it off at the skull, but thankfully she must have pulled it around to her cheek to see what she was doing. My five year old now looks like she has mutton chops, but I can live with that.

On a side note, my sister wanted to know if I had spanked my daughter for doing this. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that she asked, but I told her no way. The appearance of deep, racking sobs when my daughter realized she didn't have long princess hair was punishment enough.

When Passive and Aggressive Meet At a Party

We had LittleBird's birthday party this weekend. My mom flew into town on Friday to help out. We always love having her here, but she and I do not see eye to eye on many issues.

During the party, a small cluster of parents were standing chatting. I don't even remember what we were talking about when my mom turned to me and told me that I needed to get a job.

(Insert blind-side sound effect here)

I stammered something to the effect of Yeah, well, who is going to watch the kids? Her response to which was that they were soon in school, and that I needed to get a job so we could buy a house and get on with our lives.

I have blacked out the rest of anything she said at that point.

We talked about it later, and supposedly my interpretation was not her intention. Even so, why not wait until after the party? Who the fuck says something like that in front of other people?

No one warned me that my daughter's unicorn party would include a skewering of my ego by my mother.

Too Much Perspective

I could blather on about my ear infection this weekend. Or the shite weather we've been having. Or the high-pitch timbre of my children's whines.

But I won't.

Because one of the moms at our preschool died over the weekend. Her son is in my daughter's class. She was sick, but it is still awful. A shock to the senses. Our weekend has been filled with furtive conversations out of little-kid earshot. Those poor kids. That poor man. How we bust our asses to do right by our children. Give them nutritious food. Take them to dance lessons. Teach them sports. And just like that, one parent is gone. How much will this little boy remember in a year? In two?

The dad came in behind me this morning at drop-off. He brought his son to class. Normalcy, I suppose. Our eyes met, we said good morning. And the chasm of grief in his eyes was so deep I was afraid I might never climb out. And if that is how I feel, I cannot fathom the depths of his pain. His loss.

Happy Monday, everyone.

What's In Your Wallet?

After hearing my friends were on a 21-day financial diet, I thought that sounded like a great idea. Purchase nothing but essentials like milk and bread for a three week period.

I thought about it on the way home from her house this morning. And I resolved to do it.

Until I remembered LittleBird turns five this week. I am all about creating my own party supplies, but there needs to be a balance between homemade and homely. Then I remembered my father and husband also have January birthdays. Hmmmm. This wasn't going to be so easy.

Then, in the hour and a half period of freedom I had while the kids were in school, I did a little online window shopping. Fuck it. I bought a new laptop. Since we got back to DC, my poor little Compaq has died about every twenty minutes or so. I think I rebooted 30 times yesterday. No lie. When my grandmother died last year, she left me a small sum of money with strict instructions that under no circumstance was the money to be used to pay bills.

That was nine months ago. I have hemmed and hawed and eked every last bit of usage out of my laptop. One day it is going to crash and will never turn back on. So, there it is folks. A friend inspires me to cut the spending, and I go blow a big wad of cash instead.

Apparently, the diet starts next week.