Nada

My family is trying to stifle my creativity.

I heard twice this week "please don't blog about that". 

WHY DO THEY WANT MY BLOG TO BE BORING?

So do you know what you get today?

A big fat nothing.  Because they are giving me so much fodder yet not allowing me to use it. 

Well fine. 

You get a picture of this.  Because the Internet does not censer me.

And that's just funny.  

I think plug in converters offer false hope

Hubby and I leave for Egypt in four days and I have exactly zero things packed. 

But on the upside, I'm re-watching Lost and almost done!

Priorities are very important.

I'm also experimenting with alternative ways to make my hair curly because the last time I took my hair straightener to another country it started smoking and almost burst into flames.  And died.  I was very sad. 

Since discovering the magical powers of a hair straightener, I can no longer do my hair without one.  It's actually how I curl it too.  I'm telling you it's magical people.  Picture a rainbow that ends in a pool of sparkly diamonds with unicorns prancing around that pool and tiny little fairies riding those unicorns while chocolate rains down from the sky.  That is what a hair straightener is like for me.

So this is how my hair turned out the first time I tried my new method. 

Um.  Yeah. 

Experiment is ongoing. 

I'll keep you posted because frankly I know you're dying to know how I will cope.  There is a reason I don't show pictures of my last trip to Egypt.  That time I accidentally knocked out the power to the entire hostel trying to plug in my blow dryer.  It was not pretty. 

And clearly worrying about my hair is completely lame but if I don't focus on that I'll focus on how much I'm going to miss my kids and how weird it is to fill out a will just in case something happens.  And as much as I love Lost, I don't really wish to live it out.  I like shaving and being sweat free and not dying from the smoke monster way too much.

So. . . hair it is.

Two choices, not just one

My children have this unspoken rule that it makes perfect sense to wake me up no matter the time or purpose.  But to wake up hubby for any reason at all, even if the house is on fire and is inching it's way closer and closer to a pile of dynamite, he must not be bothered. 

I promise you that he has never woken up and starting beating our children mercilessly with pillows or threatened to hang them upside down in the coat closet by their toes.  But this is what they must assume will happen.  Thus they always wake me up. 

Maybe it just stems from their infancy in which they knew that it would always be my face they would see first due to the fact that hubby simply does not gain consciousness until the tenth or eleventh blow to the kidneys. He does try really hard, he's just nocturnal.  So when the kids want to build a fort in the living room on the weekends and stay up until two am giggling and learning about why the stars seem brighter some nights or go get ice cream at midnight in their jammies because why not,  he's the guy. 

So Aliya likes to text me while I'm at work in the mornings rather than wake hubby. 

But. . .I'm at work.  Which means there is nothing I can do if you can't find your brush or your brother is bugging you or there is a birthday party you want to attend at noon and it's ten and can I please go? 

By the time she decided that the party out weighed any negative of waking daddy, it was late and they had no time to run to the store for a gift. 

So they put some money in a card and took off.

But because hubby views giving cash or gift cards as very impersonal he wrote a little poem on the outside of the envelope:

"Sorry this envelope is so lame
I've been thinking all morning of who to blame,
We could blame my mom
or maybe my dad,
but they might just end up getting mad.
I know we should have gone to the store
but it ended up feeling like a big chore
So I'm hoping to make up for it by writing something funny,
coming to your party and giving you some money."

Take that Hallmark.  You wish you could be as cool as hubby.

And I guess being nocturnal does have its advantages.  The dog isn't going to shave himself.

Tale of survival. Alternatly titled: stupid hamster woke me up

It's a miracle people.  One of the hamsters survived and has been living in our couch for about two weeks with I'm assuming no food or water, and then meanders into the living room last night and crawled over hubby where he fell asleep with the kids. 

I don't think that couch stuffing can be that nutritious but hey, what do I know. 

Hubby was not amused at all as he does like him some sleep.  He wandered around the house for a while looking for the cage {hubby not the hamster} and then woke me up when he couldn't find it.  He got it all settled or maybe just plopped it in and then Aliya commented on the sucking sound the pool was making, meaning it needed more water, so hubby turned that on for an hour and by the time he stumbled into our room and I told him that the hamster water thing was still outside he commented "I don't really care right now" and since I'm super observant to body language, I took his falling into the bed flat on his face as confirmation that maybe I should just do it. 

So Hannah the hamster is back and if she could write a book I'm pretty sure the title would be "Thirteen days lost in the space between: how I survived on old Cheerios, upholstery and hidden gogurt tubes". 

Hey if this lady can do it, I guess anyone can. 

This story contains Wal-Mart bashing so feel free to take my side.

Employee: Yeah, do you need something?

Me: yes, I need a new battery but I can't get it out by myself, is there someone who can help me?

Lame employee: Well the thing is. . .not really.

Me: um, okay, but the thing is I can't hold the hood up and take the battery out at the same time, so you really won't help me?

Stupid employee: Maybe in an hour or something, we're busy.

Me: Is that guy busy? He seems to be hanging out.

Jerk: why can't you do it yourself?

Me: you know what? Forget it.

I stomped out to my car only I'm stuck, you know, the pesky dead battery, so I did the only logical thing I could think of. I cried. By the time the man who would be my rescuer showed up, I was a crying, blubbering mess of a girl. And that's exactly how I felt, like a stupid stranded girl not capable of figuring this out myself.

He put on "car" gloves and grabbed his bag and began to very competently pull out the battery.
All this while reassuring me and letting me know he would take care of it. I'm pretty sure I looked ridiculous as I stood there wiping my eyes while Attempting to thank him. He told me that God puts people in places at just the right time. Of that I have no doubt.

I exchanged the battery, which had a warranty, or else I would have slowly picked up my 60 pound merchandise and would have awkwardly yet deliberately left that store and gone someplace
else. As it was I didn't have pay a dime.

The man spent the next 30 minutes of his time installing the new battery and telling me all about his two teenage kids and how proud he is of them. And then he left. I didn't even get his name, but God had him come to the Wal-Mart parking lot at 8:00 at night to help a stranded crying girl and renew her faith in humanity.

And Wal-Mart sucks.

The end.

Mom time

My kids take turns sleeping with me when hubby is gone.

We have late night meaningful conversations that include topics about being a sniper for the FBI, to how a video game was defeated using a laser gun, to will I or will I not let my daughter ride the public bus with her friends to a mall during a birthday party.  The answer is no in case you were wondering. 

I cherish these times with them.  Even if I do have to doll out a back rub, it's so worth the quiet whispers of things that weigh on their hearts or giggles as we think about something funny from the day before or even tears over hurt feelings. 

They are still small-ish and although I have big dreams for them, I dread them growing up and leaving.  I think about things like what if my future-daughter-in-law's don't like me and vent to their friends over walnut salad about how crazy I am and why can't I just leave her alone.  I am that listening friend and it scares me. 

I assume that my daughter will want me there when she welcomes her own child into the world, but what if her hubby doesn't?  Will I be able to miss seeing the unfathomable joy as it seeps into her heart and etches it's way on to her face like a permanent mask? 

I know that worrying about these things now is pointless.  Because the tighter I hold the harder they will push away.  But just when it's too much for my heart to handle Dylan will remark as we walk home from school:

"I don't get why some fifth grade boys are embarrassed to hug their moms in front of people." 

And I can breathe a little easier as he wraps himself around my waist without a hint of hesitation. 

Because, for now, I still hold the magic of healing scrapes with a kiss, I still make the best food ever and no matter how hard you try, you will not outdo me in starting the perfect shower water. 

I don't even really mind that they argue over who's turn it is for our sleepover.  Stolen covers and all.

I didn't really know I had muscles there

Apparently P90x does not work through osmosis.

Which is a real bummer because I work really hard at not working really hard. 
My bestie, TJ, bought it for me and it has sat in my room for oh, approximately a year. 

Just looking at me all judgmental and giving me dirty looks.  I finally had enough and took the challenge and did it. 

Aliya laughed at me the whole time.  Especially the part where I laid on the floor afterwords panting and mom cursing and sweating up the place.  For those of you just tuning in Mom Cursing is like "Oh, holy tomatoes, in the name of all things good and decent, I cannot do this!  What do I look like, Jane Fonda? For fried chicken's sake just make the pain go away!"   

But no one in my house knows who Jane Fonda is so that reference is lost on them. 

And then I couldn't walk for two days.  Or at least not without wanting to jam a pencil in my eye. 

But, by Jane Fonda, I will do it.  I will keep it up.  Hubby and I will be in Cairo for two weeks in September and will be walking like 10 miles a day, and because passing out in public is super embarrassing, I think I'd better start moving around now. 

Plus, I have to prove the P90x guy wrong.  He keeps telling me to do the "modified version" if I feel shaky or tired, but he says it all sarcastically like he doesn't believe in me.  I'll show him. 

Even if I do have to do the awkward walk/hobble for a week because I can't remember how to walk normally through the pain.  I just pretend I'm gangster strolling.  Or gangsta strollin'.  I totally pull it off. 



Jane Fonda {for those under 30}