Good mood restored!
I don't know about you but sometimes I get in these little funks and everything is waa waa, whine, grumble, mope. And then I'm out of it. *shrugs* No idea where Kyle gets his Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde act...
The kids are out of school today because the teachers are already tired of them. Or there's a Maryland law that says you can't go a full week of school until the end of September. (I'm not joking, next week Monday is Labor Day of course and then for some reason the following Thursday there's no school. It's bizarre.) But it's no big deal, I think maybe having the kids at home and dealing with them picking on each other and losing every spoon I own is better than fielding calls from teachers and trying to find lunch boxes.
Any one have great Labor Day weekend plans? We're driving up to Erie PA to hang out with some family. Yay, change of scenery and people! Only I just realized I need to pack now...
Have a good weekend!
Want more? I have new posts up at both Larger Families and the BKD blog.
Orc Skeleton versus Plot Ninja, continued...
Crap, it looks like Orc Skeleton is winning.
Basically we're having the issues with Kyle that we knew we'd eventually have. He and some other kids were messing around and were reminded of the rules but Kyle went nuts because he hates being disciplined. So he was extremely uncooperative and angry the rest of the day and punched a kid in the stomach on the bus (I know the mom well and she's not upset but she wanted to let me know what happened). I've already given the green light for the school guidance counselor to talk to Kyle and I plan to give him a call as well next week. I knew all day kindergarten was going to be rough on him and I'm really hoping that once he gets used to everything, he'll be okay. I *know* how to handle him when he's in those moods but he needs to learn how to handle himself because I can't expect everyone who comes in contact with him to tip toe around his feelings. And he can't expect that either.
Which reminds me, I need to follow up with Emily's teacher and make sure she's not crying and throwing "I can't do it" fits. I'm afraid she is prime for one today because we said no to her playing the violin and refused to sign the parent permission slip. Because Emily, the perfectionist, taking up one of the hardest instruments is all sorts of hell that I do not want to put anyone through. (Strings class is completely optional and we've already told her she can play any band instrument she wants in 4th grade. I have a bit of knowledge about both wind and brass instruments so I can help her at home but no clue about strings.)
I was really hoping to make it through the first week of school before I had to start doing all this...
You know how I said I had a migraine about nine days ago? It's never really went away. Which means I should probably go to the doctor or find some stronger drugs or less stressful schedule/children. But... I don't have a doctor here and the one I found in May for a physical in July (earliest appointment then) isn't taking new patients and I'm considered a new patient since I sorta kinda skipped the physical in July. And that doctor was about eight down on the approved insurance list with all the above doctors also not taking new patients. It may be easier to drive back to Ohio to see my old doctor (although they probably don't take my new insurance)...
It's just been a roller coaster of a day (down: fights at breakfast, up: running errands with only Kelly, down: can't talk about it, up: fabric order arriving soon, down: call from Kyle's teacher, down: missing a Girl Scout thing tonight, down: neighbor kid driving me insane). My to do list is killing me because I'm an idiot and thought hey, I have all this all free time now that the kids are in school, I can do more stuff! But I still only have 24 hours in the day and all the same normal crap to do, just with less kids to drag around. So there really isn't any "free time" and now I'm feeling rather over extended. And my head hurts.
I'd throw a pity party but I don't have time because Zach has ice hockey practice in an hour and I need to make dinner, fold the towels, finish some sewing, send some emails, change the guinea pig litter, and pray my head stops aching. I'm putting "find a doctor" off until tomorrow's to do list (sorry Greg).
I want to end on something cheery...
Um...
A 12 pack of Mountain Dew?
Yesterday, wow... Life is so easy with one child. Seriously why did I have 5 children again? Although that's kinda mean to say because I love all my kids and can't imagine only having Zach. So a better way to put it is that I would like to have all my children but only one at a time. How to do that, I have no idea but it would be the best way now that I think about it. Maybe a time share plan? Or closets when it's not their turn... (Just kidding!)
Today I'm swamped with emails. And laundry. And a couple of BKD orders to sew. I need to go grocery shopping. And to the post office. And the pet store for guinea pig litter. The bills also need paid. Tonight the twins have their first soccer practice of the season so I really should find their stuff to avoid at 4:55 me running around screaming, "Where is your stuff, practice begins in 5 minutes, we're going to be late!" Cause I've already done that twice with Zach's hockey practices last week and it's not that much fun.
What did I do yesterday? A lot of wandering around the house thinking, "wow, it's really quiet here and this is nice."
Quote of the Day: "If there were no schools to take the children away from home part of the time, the insane asylums would be filled with mothers." -Edgar W. Howe
First Day of School
Oops, Kelly jumped into the picture even though she has one more year. Kyle was very excited to be in kindergarten and wanted to be at the bus stop about half an hour early. New shirts (we picked them out yesterday at Target), new shoes, new backpack for Kyle, I love new stuff. (Ally in blue, Emily in green)
Okay so what am I suppose to do until 3:30 again?
I'm as ready as I'll ever be.
We have everything on the list. I know who the kids' teachers are. Sort of. Having been at this school district for 2 years you'd think I'd have met all the teachers. My kids have the only 4 teachers I don't know. I've even gone so far as to back up all the files on my computer to CDs. (Hey, it needed to be done.) So now we wait.
Is it too early to send them to the bus stop?
Kyle
Kyle starts kindergarten in 4 days. I hate to sound all cliche but I'm seriously not ready for him to go.
Both Zach and the twins had at least a year of preschool, Kyle didn't because of costs (Seriously, $8000 a year for preschool? I'm still not over the shock.) Our school district switched over to all day kindergarten this year too. So neither of us has had the adjustment period of him being gone a few hours a day a few times a week. It's bam(!) 7 hours, 5 days a week from the start (well 4 days a week for a few weeks but that's another story).
And Kyle... Well I feel more protective towards Kyle than the other kids. Don't give me that line about treating your kids all the same, they aren't all the same so a responsible parent can't possibly treat them all the same. It may stem from his birth date. I don't know. I just feel more protective of him. He's not the oldest or the first boy. He's not the youngest. He gets picked on from both sides (that Kelly, she can be a terror, a cute one but a terror none the less). He favors my side of the family while the other kids all look more like Greg (although his size is all Greg) which makes him different. And different isn't easy.
And I'll admit it, Kyle has a rough personality to deal with occasionally. He can be really, really sweet but there are other times when he's the most stubborn and frustrating kid alive. Over the last (almost) 6 years, I've learned to handle him (most of the time) but what if his teachers can't? What if he's labeled a problem child immediately? He's a bright kid but can be bored easily. And he doesn't like to follow directions. That's going to be an issue.
I'm not ready to let him go. He's my Kyle. We run errands together, I've said and typed "Kyle, Kelly and I" so many times I don't know if I can handle it being just "Kelly and I". He helps me at lunch time and keeps Kelly in line (as mean as she can be to him, he's always nice to her, a good big brother). He keeps me company and tells me all about Pokemon and the funny little thoughts he has ("Remember when we picked Kelly out at the baby store?") What if the teachers don't see what a great kid he is? What if the other kids pick on him? Why am I going through this teary-eyed serious emotional crap for the first time with my 4th child?
This sucks. I'm not ready for Kyle to go to kindergarten. Pass the tissues.
I'm in one of those annoying "waiting" modes.
I'm waiting on school to start so I can begin some projects in relative peace (some BKD, some household stuff like deep cleaning the closets).
I'm waiting on email replies before I can go forward with Girl Scouts and BKD orders.
I'm waiting on the weather to warm up again so I can put away all the kids long sleeve stuff and clean up the mess they made dragging it all out.
I'm waiting on Amazon.com to deliver an order of spoons so I can quit washing the same 6 over and over again. (Where the original spoons went I have no idea.)
I'm waiting on the dryer to buzz so I can continue pushing through the laundry.
I'm waiting on a wholesale fabric order (going to be waiting awhile unfortunately).
I'm waiting to hear from the girls' new soccer coach about the fall season.
I'm waiting for chocolate to actually help you lose weight instead of gain it.
Did I mention I hate waiting?
Who decided it was fall already?
The weather here has been wonky. Saturday sure, the lower 70's was a great change from the mid 90's. (20 and 35 for you Celsius folks.) But then it stayed that way. And dropped into the lower 60's. In August. I'm not ready to pull out the long sleeve shirts and jeans yet. It's August! I'm not tired and annoyed with the heat yet. The goofy thing is that the humidity didn't go away. So it's 65 degrees and sticky humid still. It's bizarre. I was really hoping to spend the last few days of the kids' summer break at the pool. I guess we could go in sweaters...
In other news, I've finally updated the Blue Kitty Designs website. The product page actually lists the products! I'm also working on updating the blog, I'm kinda back posting a bunch of stuff so I don't have this huge gap between April and now. Feel free to pop over and leave comments. Oh and I do have a shopping cart for my store but... (Thanks Ian!) I'm waiting on a wholesale fabric order to stock the store in those fabrics and it's due in mid-September. So then I'll have another website redo, hopefully finished by October.
So weird weather, website updates. Sounds like the perfect time to go organize your knitting/crochet supplies. *winks*
Ow. It's been quite awhile since I've had a migraine and they always come at the worst times, don't they? I woke up hoping it was just a headache since I didn't sleep very well last night because Greg's in Cleveland (he'll be back tonight) and some one's car alarm kept going off. Which is really usual for our neighborhood (imagine Wisteria Lane without all the drama).
But I'm starting to feel very light and sound sensitive so I'm going for the migraine meds. Which make me loopy. It's a trade off, cringe each time a child steps into the room or feel like a space cadet. Gotta go with the meds since I have to go to the post office (important letter needs overnighted) and grocery store (no milk) and Zach has his first ice hockey practice tonight. His team must be trying to keep up with the NHL's crazy long season this year. Therefore I need to drag out the coats and gloves. In August. Is it any wonder my head hurts?
New post up at Larger Families by me. It's called Back to School, Back to Insanity.
I swear I just wrote the Summer time! post yesterday...
I woke up in a good mood.
I'm now in a bad mood.
Give me a few minutes, I'm sure I'll be in a good mood again soon.
For the record, I am now officially PMSing. You're welcomed for the warning.
*****************
Happy Birthday to my dear sister Sarah!
See? Good mood again!
(Only not really, I'm still pissed/frustrated by the thing that put me in the bad mood in the first place.)
And the week of living under Murphy's Law continues...
I locked my keys in the van yesterday.
The things I will do to have good blog fodder.
So where we left off, I was dragging all the kids around on my errand running. First stop, paying thousands of dollars so the twins will have nice smiles. Eventually. We were there for 45 minutes, about thirty minutes longer than Kyle and Kelly can tolerant so things were a bit hairy towards the end as I signed papers without really reading them. I probably agreed to neon braces and giving up Tooth Fairy rights and restraining orders to never bring Kyle and Kelly within 50 feet of the orthodontist office again.
The bank, the post office, and movie rental drop offs went well.
Next stop, the fabric store. As you know, I like to make lists. Because otherwise I forget what I'm doing or what I'm buying and I may end up trading a child for a giraffe at a flea market in New Jersey. After parking and unloading, I noticed I had forgotten my list in the van (maybe I need to write another list and include "don't forget original list in van"). The kids however continued running around the parking lot and generally trying to get themselves killed while I quickly climbed back into the van. I hit the lock button on the door and closed it while yelling at the kids to not run into any moving mini-vans (which Kyle has done by the way).
And then I realized the van keys were sitting on the front seat of the locked van. Oops...
But no problem, Greg has a van key with him. His office was 25 minutes away from our current location. I sent him a text message from my cell phone ("Locked keys in van. Help!") and we went fabric shopping. (Mostly zipper shopping but that's neither here nor there.) He called back and said he couldn't get away from the MAN PARTY. Or maybe something about being in all day training classes that he was personally giving. Did I have my AAA membership card? I did! It's a miracle! So I called them and after two phone number changes on their part, I told my sob story while trying to find size 3 sneakers for Emily (at that point, we were at the shoe store) and they said they'd have someone call and be out to help us within 75 minutes. Okay dokey!
75 minutes later and sitting in the children's section of a bookstore wasting time, I realized no one had called me. I called AAA back. There's no work order on my account. Huh? The computers had been down when I originally called and it seemed the manual ticket was lost. They'd send out another request and reset my 75 minute waiting clock.
To put this all in a time line, we left the house at 1pm. I locked the keys in the van around 2:30, I called AAA the first time at 3:15, and now at 4:30 they were saying the earliest I'd be back in the van was 5:45. Oy...
At 5:30 while letting the kids watch movies at an electronics store and contemplating buying a laptop, I called to check. Sorry Ma'am, we can't get to you until 6:15. At 6:10, I called. Sorry Ma'am, 6:30.
Finally at 6:25, a AAA truck pulled up. The kids were laying on the sidewalk amongst bags of shoes, books, and fabric (no laptop though) and looking as if they were victims of a war torn country. (My kids, the drama!) The guy wisely didn't ask any questions, popped open the van door within a minute, and didn't even have me sign any papers.
Today to be on the safe side, I'm declaring it PJ Day. Nothing can go wrong if we just stay home, right?
Never mind, don't answer that.
And yet it gets worse...
(Thanks for all the comments yesterday. I'd like to say it's very helpful that I'm not alone but I'd really rather my kids just behave than know everyone else's kids are rotten too.)
Zach knocked out one of Kyle's baby teeth (it was slightly loose) yesterday afternoon while in room punishment. And then I had to clean blood out of the carpet.
Kyle and Emily fought over breakfast this morning which involved hair pulling, pinching, and split cereal. Yay, more messes!
Before going to work (I don't care what he says, it's the "MAN PARTY"), Greg asked if I was PMSing. Because yeah, that time of the month for me makes the kids insane. (Although he had a slightly valid reason to ask because it maybe affects how I react to the children just a tiny itty bitty bit. Maybe.)
I'm torn on the issue of hiring a babysitter for the afternoon to run errands. First it's too much of a "reward" for the children because they love babysitters and it encourages "let's act up and then we never have to go out with Mom again!" Plus it's a bunch of money that I'd rather spend on something, I don't know, trivial like food and electricity (our last bill was $450 *faints*).
Cheapness wins out and the kids will have to go out with me today. But if they misbehave, I'm sending myself to my room for the rest of the day.
12 days, 9 minutes and 24 seconds until school starts. But who's counting?
Not.A.Good.Day.
The children are in their rooms for the rest of the day. That's how badly this morning went.
I am pissed and frustrated and sad and mad. There aren't even words to describe how dreadful they were.
I'm pissed because they fought and whined and picked on each other and touched things and screamed and argued and knocked things off shelves and accidentally kicked other people when trying to kick each other.
I'm frustrated because all of that happened in the 20 minutes it took to purchase business cards from Staples (and I don't even like the cards which makes me more frustrated because I was rushed through the purchase due the behavior of the children and I feel I wasted $30 now). I'm frustrated because I had a couple of more quick important errands to run (i.e. bank and post office) and I had promised them a trip to the gym and lunch out if they behaved. They screwed everything up during the first stop. Now I'm stuck at home and can't get anything done because I can't take them anywhere with them acting like insane rabid animals.
I'm sad because why the hell can't they just get along for 20 freaking minutes? Why do they have to pick on each other? Why do they have to touch everything while I am constantly saying "don't touch anything"? Am I that crappy of a mom that my kids are growing up to be absolute terrors who can't be out in public?
They are in their rooms for the rest of the day. And I can't get any errands done now. I'm mad because I feel like I'm the one being punished for their crappy behavior.
I wish it was Wednesday already.
Survived.Sleep.Over...
The kids' School Supply List 2007:
4 eight count boxes of markers
4 scissors
1 sixteen count crayons
2 twenty-four count crayons
1 forty-eight count crayons
6 glue sticks
1 four ounce glue bottle
2 triangular pencil grips
3 plastic rulers
100 pencils
1 plastic box
3 soft canvas bags with grommets
4 blue pens
5 two hundred count wide ruled filler paper
4 magic rub erasers
1 pink eraser
11 composition books
2 blue folders
2 red folders
2 green folders
2 yellow folders
1 blue folder with brads
1 red folder with brads
2 rolls of tape
1 twenty-four count colored pencils
1 seventy count spiral notebook
4 fifty sheet post-it notes, 3x3"
1 eight tab binder index divider
1 2" blue binder
1 pink highlighter
1 yellow highlighter
7 boxes of Kleenex tissues
I have almost everything except the pencil grips (store was out), the post-it notes, tape, and 100 pencils. I haven't bought the pencils yet because I need 100 of them and I refuse to purchase them full price. And Staples hasn't had them cheaply since I missed out on the 1 cent deals in July. (I should check another office store's ad...) And yes, the school is so darn picky about the colors of the folders because the teachers color code subjects. Although the 16 count crayons is going to be 24 because 24 were on sale for $.15 and I'm not paying more for less crayons. If the teacher fusses, I'll keep the extra 8 at home.
Total spent so far: $60 (And that includes extra crayons, pencil sharpers, extra glue sticks, extra paper, extra erasers)
Too bad the kids don't start school for another 2 full weeks. hehe
Dear Zach,
Today you are 10.
I suck at these sappy letters.
Love you!
Mom
Okay now with that out of the way... Happy Birthday Zach Zach! I forgot how cute he was as a baby. Awww...
And then this morning with his birthday gift, a Gameboy DS Lite.
Which I totally wasn't ready to buy for him but he is such a darn good kid that it's hard to say no. Cause seriously who needs a $130 toy? Sheesh. I want a laptop. Oh right, this is about Zach, being his birthday and all.
Greg's out at a business thing tonight and Greg's sister is flying in tomorrow so we're postponing Zach's birthday dinner until Friday night. And then Saturday night we'll have 4 of his friends here for a sleep over. I'm trying not to think about that though. I'm afraid my brain will explode if I realize how insane it's probably going to be. The things we do for our children. (And now Greg's sister is rescheduling her flight for next week...)
Anyway, happy birthday Zach. It's been a great 10 years, I'm looking forward to the next 10.
The heat is melting my brain.
We went to the library yesterday and I check out a book that I've already read. But like 6 years ago. And Laurell K. Hamilton's books
are pretty much all the same, I forgot where I had left off in the series. Six years ago.I'm back to 4 stock phrases: "Go play." "Don't hit your brother/sister." "Shut the door, you're letting all the cold air out." "No."
We need to go to the store for milk. Wanna take bets on how much $7 of milk actually ends up costing me? ("Mom, we need more cereal!" "We're out of jelly!" "Can we have popsicles?")
Last night the kids left the garage door open and the door from the house to the garage unlocked. 99% of the time I check these things. Last night? The heat melted my brain. Good thing our neighborhood vandals only hit on the weekends. I did check to make sure I still had 5 children this morning. (I do. Your guess on whether that's a good thing or not.)
Green Day's song really should be "Wake Me Up When August Ends."
10 years ago, I was 19, pregnant, not married, working at a flower shop, attending college as a biology marriage, and living in a trailer (it was a brand new double wide modular type place but still a trailer).
This all seriously could have gone really wrong, huh?
Now I'm 29, have 5 children, married, own my own business (hehe), still don't have that college degree, and living in a nice 4 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath with a finished basement.
I'm not saying it's all been uphill. I've made some stupid mistakes (sorry, Greg), he's made some stupid mistakes (love you!), and generally 5 kids in 5 years isn't something I'd suggest to anyone. (How about 2 kids in 10 years? Or none ever?) Being a stay at home mom is also the hardest thing I've ever done. Harder than in college when I had 2 jobs, was training in Army ROTC, and had a full course load with over 9 hours of lab time. (Back then I thought 4 hours of chem lab on Friday afternoons were going to be the death of me.)
I suppose it's good to reflect sometimes. Most people wouldn't look at me today and see the pregnant girl at 19. Should I have worried more back then? Maybe. But I didn't know any better. I had faith that it would all work out.
Staring into the next decade, I am a little worried. In a few years, the kids will be teenagers. (By the way when I turn 40, I will have 3 high school graduates, a 10th grader, and a 9th grader. *hopefully*) I don't have that blind faith like I did when I was 19. Things can go wrong, really wrong. There's a big difference between caring for a newborn while juggling a job and college courses compared to dealing with the big scary world out there for pre-teens and teenagers. There's peer pressure, drugs, sex, driving, alcohol, to name a few. Give me the whole nursing vs bottle, cloth vs disposable debates again. I think I'd rather change 3 diapers again daily than experience that first moment when Zach drives off by himself.
I know, that's 6 years away. But the last 10 years just flew right past. It'll be like tomorrow when Kelly's off to college. And I know the the kids are good kids and I generally think Greg and I are decent parents. I still have enough faith that it'll all work out.
But sometimes, just sometimes, I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then.
Ben tagged me for this MeMe ages ago so I'm finally getting around to it. (Don't ask Greg about any ongoing "lists" at the moment, he might explode at how slowly I'm "getting around to it, it's on the list" lately.)
The Rules:Um...
1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write on their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don't forget to leave them a comment on their blog telling them they're tagged, and you read their blog.
1. I can't say "good-bye." The actual words. I say "see you later" instead and occasionally "bye". It's a thing I picked up from my grandma, she refused to say "good-bye", it was too final, like you'd never ever see that person again. I'm not even a terribly superstitious person but I wince every time someone says "good-bye" to me. Like I'm going to fall off the face of the earth in the next second.
2. I have these ears that stick out and are a bit pointy at the top. I was called "Dumbo" a few times during grade school and then never ever (seriously) wore my hair up for about 10 years. I'm over it now.
3. I like to do laundry. I don't have a good explanation for this but it's my favorite household chore.
4. I bought the first wedding dress I tried on. I tried on one more at the dress shop lady's insistence but went with the first.
5. I was my high school class salutatorian. Which is a perfectly worthless honor other than I learned how to spell "salutatorian." And therefore I don't know how to spell valedictorian without looking it up. (Thanks spell check!)
6. MySpace pages creep me out. (No, I do not have a MySpace page.)
7. I really did want 5 children. Although maybe it would have been better not to have them so close in age... (Zach was 5 years and 3 months old when Kelly was born.)
8. I totally suck at MeMe's because at the very end I refuse to tag anyone else. So feel free to do this if you want, otherwise consider my #8 a "Happy Monday to You" gift.
Happy Monday!
(Now back to the laundry...)
I guess being crabby also means big savings while shopping.
On Friday, at Target we bought a bunch of school supplies for a measly $15 (5 24 pack crayons, 5 glue bottles, 5 boxes of Kleenex, 4 rulers, 12 glue sticks, 5 packs of filler paper, 10 spiral notebooks, 1 48 pack crayons). A dent in the crazy long list of stuff my kids need this year.
At Staples, that was where the real savings were. First I bought 4 pairs of scissors and 10 folders for $3. Then I needed more printer ink. The printer I have (HP Photosmart D7160) has 6 printer cartridges. Staples sells them all in one package with 150 4x6" sheets of photo paper for $35. There was a special going on where you also received a $10 gift card when buying HP ink. 6 ink cartridges and a ton of photo paper for $25, that's less than one printer cartridge for my old printer!
Next I needed paper. And I hate buying the little packages of paper all the time so I usually suck it up once a year and buy a box. Their current special was $20 off. So 5000 sheets of paper for $32. Or $3.20 per 500 sheet package. Now if only I can keep the twins out of it.
All top of all that, I had a Staples "12% associate discount" coupon so the ink was really only $22 and the paper $28.
At the grocery store I saved $105 on my $250 grocery bill.
Last week I also ordered 10 pairs of The Children's Place jeans for $83 with tax and shipping. Their jeans are currently $9.99 and I used coupon code FMR77 for another 25% off.
I may be on a roll, what should I buy next? hehe
I've hit that overwhelmed feeling where I can't seem to begin anything.
I'm trying to do the little steps forward but I feel like I'm going backwards.
And it's just stupid stuff in the whole scheme of things anyways which annoys me (and everyone around me) for feeling so "unable" and "stuck".
The best example is the filing cabinet. My BKD paperwork has finally outgrown the plastic filing folder I bought back in April. A new filing cabinet is like $60 and after recently spending $400 on fabric, I'd really like to keep the unnecessary costs down (my goal at the end of the year is to break even). But there's no need for a new one, Greg had an old empty metal two drawer model out in the garage. I lugged it into the house and tried to put it in its new home under the small IKEA table I use as a printer stand. It didn't fit, it's an inch too tall. Backwards...
At JoAnns yesterday, I bought 4 $.50 small wood discs that raise the table up enough for the filing cabinet to work. There was even a box of hanging file folders in the filing cabinet. More savings, perfect! Except the metal side thingies that hold the hanging files are missing. Go to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200...
I need to go grocery shopping. But first I need to make a list. And check the sales ad. And find coupons. And plan meals. But lately everyone complains about everything I make so what's the point of planning if every one is going to eat PB&J anyways? And the thought of taking the 5 kids to the store scares me (they have not been behaving well in public, yesterday I about left JoAnns mid fabric cutting). But I don't want to go after the kids are in bed because I'm tired. And I really don't have any good excuse for not ordering online other than I don't really like to sit at my desk because it's overwhelmed with paperwork because of the filing cabinet issue.
Feel free to tell me what an idiot I am for complaining about such stupid stuff. And I know it's trivial, I just can't seem to get past it at the moment.
Although the grocery shopping is going to have to happen sooner than later because we're out of milk and I can't stand drinking hot tea without a dash of milk.
Anyone have a spare bottle of motivation?
I've decided I can never become Famous.
It's a bit of a sad realization but after watching Victoria Beckham coming to America yesterday (I was uploading files to my server, so not wasting time "surfing the internet"!) and then reading several old issues of US Weekly and People during one and a half hours this morning at the dentist's office waiting room while the kids' teeth were cleaned, I just couldn't hack it as a Famous person.
(For those in the back laughing at how silly it is that I could ever even think there's a remote chance of me being Famous, shush! Cause I can write a killer run on sentence without dangling participles. So there.)
Point one on why I can never be Famous with photo evidence at Flickr (and also why I will no longer be uploading pictures of myself) is I have a wardrobe of like 4 outfits. Now I own more clothes than that, I just wear about 4 outfits. I can see an E! Daily News blurb on it now: "Katie Fleck wears the pink polo with white skirt again! Will she wear the sleeveless navy blue polo with her olive green capris or red & white tanks with running shorts tomorrow?" (My fourth outfit is black & white tank tops with any of the above bottoms.) Basically I have no fashion sense. If I ever accidentally become Famous I'm hiring a stylist before I call my mom to tell her that I'm Famous. Seriously I don't want to be on the Worst Dress list every week because I look like a blind 2 year old dressed me from the clown's reject store.
Point two, I wear underwear. (Or as Victoria Beckham calls them, "knickers." Those British are so adorable!) 'Nuff said.
Point three, I can totally see why Famous people are always attacking photographers with umbrellas and spit. Cause dude, if I had people following me when I took the kids' to the dentist, I'd be pissed off too. I'd probably be brought up on charges within a week of becoming Famous because I had kicked a paparazzi after being annoyed with them taking pictures of me as I tried to buy a 20oz Mountain Dew at the 7/11.
Point four, I accidentally make goofy faces a lot. I totally get why Famous people always have that blank stony look on their faces. They can't chance a photograph with a weird expression pasted all over the next Enquirer.
Point five, only God's knows why I'd end up Famous, because I'm really a boring person. Heck I don't even know why anyone besides my dad reads here. So I'd be interviewed by Barbara Walters and the only interesting part of the whole thing would be the part where I cry (because she always makes people cry). The rest? You might as well go read the back of your shampoo bottle instead. (Lather, rinse, repeat. There, I saved you the trip.)
Point six, along the same lines as being boring, I'm also really crappy at meeting new people and talking. Especially talking. I never have any idea how to start a conversation and then what to say next and I also laugh at inappropriate things ("My dog died last week" "Oh that's so sad, hehe!"). I think I would have to give up talking or pay a PR person gobs of overtime clearing up stupid things I said but didn't mean.
The one thing I do have going for me in the Famous person department is that I'm a bit of a goofy driver (but not DUI's or illegal drugs so that diminishes my potential a little bit). The press loves dumb stuff like hitting fire hydrants. Or school buses. Or breaking things on the vehicle itself. Maybe I should look into hiring a driver along with the stylist and PR person.
Basically I'd be an awful Famous person. So don't vote for me, vote for the other guy. And keep that camera out of my face, I have a 12 passenger van and I'm not afraid to use it. (Also? Maybe I really should think about going clothes shopping...)
Random questions:
Why do the kids only make their beds right before I wash their sheets and blankets?
What's the best way to raise a small table up about 2 inches?
Where can I find a deal on a case of 97 bright, 24lb printing paper?
Why did I decide to start a new quilt in the middle of my Blue Kitty sewing madness?
Is it better to order business cards or keep printing my own?
What's the best way to invite five 10 year old boys to a sleep over?
Why does ordering $400 worth of fabric all at once make me sick to my stomach?
Is it too early to start thinking about Christmas presents?
Where did the summer go?
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