The time has come my best friend said to talk of many things i choose smokers, lights, babies and kings. Ok, not kings but it rymed. It was mentioned to me that i need to blog more for some quality reading... yea right. You know how when you get to that point where so much is happening that your mind feels about to explode? Is that just a January thing? I swear it's always like this... then come March we are all whining about how cold and bored we are. Here's the tip of the iceburg... So the past few weeks have been the best and the worst for my dear friend Lori. She removed from her life, shall we say, dead weight. I couldn't be more thrilled. Adios and don't come back. Of course when removing a fixture of our lives there is always a process. Some would say this process isn't all that important when said fixture was a complete waste of humanity to begin with... however I think that the process is important and should be tailored to the situation and the individual. I'm doing what I can to help, which as usual is pretty much nothing but it's made life a little more fun for me! Haha! Last weekend she came up to stay with us which meant we took her out to dinner- it was nice to have someone new around, changes the conversation a little you know? Of course Lori's afraid of nothing so she brought up the dredded preschool issue... i must report we are not closer to any decision on the matter but it was nice to get her insight. Gary and the kids left and we forged on to the Mall. That's right folks! No kids! No diaper bag, no cheerios, no strollers, no "if you don't walk right I'm going to spank your butt". I remember on the way to eat (i rode with her) thinking how nice it was to talk to someone who's voice isn't so high pitched only cats can hear it and how weird it was to just listen and nod and not have to repeat each sentance back to assure I was listening. :) You mothers won't be surprised to learn I kind of missed it. What is it about kids? We ache for a moments peace and quiet and we get it and all we can think about is the kids! Will I grow out of that? So we went to Anne Taylor which I love. I tried on jeans and was thrilled to be down a size however they didn't have my size in petites so i passed. Lori got some really cute jeans and a beautiful dress. They have the nicest clothes and when stuff is on sale it's such a great deal! It was fun to just walk around and look- i made some special purchases in the Disney store- they had stuff an extra 50% off so I had to get these adorable bowls for the kids- tigger for Tyler and princess for Grace. Then I just picked some up for Jenn's kids. Jason can get over it. Besides, I see him like thrice a year. Is it realy worth his time to beat me up over a couple plates? I think not! See, he hates when existing kids get gifts at any time a new or expected baby gets gifts. I see his point but EXTRA 50% off! I even left the tags on in case they wanted to take them back. They don't. Her kids love them just as I knew they would. I also got Grace a Christmas dress iwth Mickey and Minnie on it for next year. It was 5$. She doesn't evne have to wear it for Christmas though it is red and black plaid. It said 1-2 years and it's sleeveless so as is if it fits in the summer, with a top if it fits in the winter. Couldn't pass it up. Saturday brought Lori observing a typical Saturday at our house. Awake for 6 hours, got nothing done before we left for the baby shower. It was great of Lori to come along and I knew Jen would be understanding. Again with the no kids! There were 10 of us there, most of us with no kids! It was like a glitch in the matrix... Jen, of course, got some great great stuff. I was especially impressed with the gallons of Garlic-Garlic her friend Amy got her. I think next time i'm over there i'll request we do veggies and dip. We headed out to my mom's that night which was fun. No matter how little I pack we manage to fill up the car. Thankfully Tyler was pretty quiet the whole trip so Gary and I got to converse like normal people a bit. Sunday we went to see my brother's new apartment. HIS. CLOSET. IS. HUGE. I think it's actually larger than his kitchen. I could stand in the middle stretching out my hands and not touch any walls. In fact Gary probably couldn't and his wing span is a good 2 feet more than mine. Joshua's TV is about a quarter the size of a real live theatre screen so i thought it'd be funny to watch Little People Big World on it. It was. I really do love that show but we didn't have to watch so much of it. Joshua was trying to be all polite and let us pick, mom slept on the couch, and Gary acts like he's not a remote hog when we are out in public. When we came home it was overdue baths time which was fun. I've given up on the baby tub so Grace sits on a washcloth in the water to keep from sliding and it's SO much easier to wash her... i wish I'd have tried it before Christmas rather than waiting till after. She's been doing it a month now and that little girl is just like me. She's a water baby. I love baths and swimming and the ocean... Grace just LOVES baths. She splashes and makes all these crazy noises. She makes noises in her mouth with her lips, tonge and in her throat that I can't even figure out how to copy and she's even louder in the bathroom. It's adorable. Plus you can see all her baby fat which I love. She's so short. I realized today when I was dressing her that she's in 12 month onsies and the 9 month pants are a bit long. I think she might just have short legs so far but she may be doomed to a life like mine- never having pants you don't walk on... This week was pretty typical- keep the kids alive all day and night and start over in the morning. I"m re-reading the second half of th Harry Potter series b/c I read the last book so fast last year I forget most of it and i'm reading the books leading up to refresh my memory. It's funny what you'll make time for when you want to. haha! Tuesday we went to visit Mary which turned out to be a blast. i wasn't sure she really wanted us over but we stayed till almost 9! Then we came home and fought about the stupid DVR which stopped recording biggest loser as soon as Gary touched the remote. I wanted to just listen to what was on but he wanted to scream and swear at it. I'm like SHUT UP I"M WATCHING TIHS! Thta's really my only show I care about. So we watched the second half first and the first half second. Yesterday i babysat. Tyler woke up with a froggy throat and some congestion in his chest which only flared up when he ran which is like all day when Matthew is here. I let them go pretty much because the more he runs in the house with Matthew, the less he runs in the house with me. I get dizzy running that circle! Samantha is either sick or teething or both but she was miserable. Grace just sat on the floor all day and played with herself b/c I was tending to Samantha quite a bit and trying to keep the boys entertained/away from the babies. My dad was over in the evening and we attempted to hit the new Quaker Steak and Lube... however it was 6:30 by the time we got there and all of Stark County was there. We'll try again when it's been open a little longer... I told dad we need to come early on a Tuesday- all you can eat wings- we make money back on that with Gary... Today was a pretty typical day. I'm so emotional that this roller coaster lori's on has been affecting me too. Today I was just ill for her because i just hate to see someone go through pain you know? I just hate it. I also know that the tone of emails can be decieving and i was desperate to know how she REALLY was. Thankfully tonight was our get together night so I got to go out AGAIN with no kids! whoo hooo!! Kudo's to Gary for watching them all these times so I can do these things. We met over in Salem and got to do a bit of chatting, eating and shopping. All great things in life. I figure in a few months she'll have a man and we can take the men with us to be the DD's and we can really have good time!! Long Island Iced Tea for her, Margaritaville for me! I always think it would be fun to go out to dinner and have a drink and then go dancing... you know I missed that whole scene in life but bars and clubs seem so trashy to me for the most part... Lori, should we do it before we turn 30?!?! Anyways on the way home I had to stop to pee, of course, so i hit wally-world which was fun b/c I was BY MYSELF but turned into a giant fiasco. I have a real love-hate relationship with walmart. I've discussed that here before... you know, the fun of being able to buy spinach, supper glue, clothes, makeup, light bulbs and paint in the same store is just facinating to me and so it's fun to jsut go walk around... plus about 90% of gary and I's dates in our 10 years of love have included walking around walmart or k.mart in the early days. I picked up a few items and headed to check out. My theory on the 10 items or less by the cigarette aisle being the fastest has completely been blown out of the water. We are talking Atomic Bomb here. I admit it, i have issues with smokers. It's nothing personal I just can't stand it. It's gross. It stinks and you make me wait around in the damn line. This guy is up there, gets off his little go-cart-mobile and limps over to where is son has the cart in line and proceeds to ask for a certain ciggy. Fine. Either the lady had never seen a cigarette before in her life or this guy had no idea what he wanted b/c it took FOREVER. he ended up with 2 cartons of Marlboro reds and about 10 individual packs of greens. Don't ask my why. What the hell do I know? He's got his vetran hat on all stooped over mumbling something to the lady and taking his sweet time... then they proceed to unload the cart of 12 tshirts that I counted (there were more) 2 gallons of milk, a pair of shoes and a few small things I coudln't quite make out --aforementioned son (# 5 of 6 kids mind you) was embarassed enough to attempt to hid the cart from the crabby lady behind me who said ever so quietly that it "F-ing sure doesn't look like no G-D 10 items" to her. I'm sure the guy with the adorable toddler girl (in her pink jammies on his shoulders aww!) in the lane next to us really appreaciate it. So 15 minutes later (no he did not know how to use his bank card and yes he checked the recipt and put it in his wallet folded neatly, in his inside coat pocket BEFORE he put the bags into his cart and shuffled away) it was my turn. Now I'm a sucker for great little gifts right? So valentines day is coming up so the world is full of random odds and ends colored pink, red and purple. I love those colors! SO I found a couple pink spatula's and thought that might be a cute gift to brighten the kitchen of some friends. Of course they were not marked with a price and I could nto find the price on teh shelf anywhere and the "FIND THE PRICE HERE" scannres wouldn't read it so I asked the cashier to tell me the price before I purchased. (Very audible sigh escapes lips of woman behind me.) She scans them- Freaking 4.97$! Who pays $5 for a freaking spatual at WALMART?!?!? I mean if this was Williams Sonoma I'd have bought them bu thtis was WALMART! I had watched the flat screen TV for that whole 15 minutes tell me about the millions of dollars walmart has saved Ohioans in 2008 (averages aobut 300$ a second best i could tell). You know how walmart saved me money? I did NOT buy those spatulas! Sorry. I said thank you but i don't want them and the cashier agreed with me that it was pretty expensive and she usually paid about a dollar for hers. I said "yea, i figured if they were a buck or two they'd be fun for me and my friends but not for 5. I can't pay that much- that's why I'm here." The lady behind me MIGHT have actually cracked a smile....err... grin. The guy with her (these ppl were in there 50's I'd guess) smiled kindly to me. I wonder if he was bright enough to be embarassed that the lady had ealier yelled/cussed in my ear about the ppl in front of me which I have no control over thank-you-very-much. Ok, that covers smokers, babies and the last week-in-the-life updates... lights... aahhh.. (Don't read this part grandma!!) So driving today I must have gone under at least 100 lights. At least 20 of them yellow and one red by the time i was under it. Sometimes idiots tail you so badly you just can't stop you know? Plus the momentary panic goes away when you see 2 idiots followed you making you less of an idiot. Anyways Gary told me ages ago that if you go under a yellow light and hit the ceiling as you go under you get 5 years great sex. 10 years for a red. I don't hit the ceiling but I'd say we're set for life. God bless the lights every 50 yards in Alliance (I'm mentally passing on the blessing to a friend- you know who you are). I will say though if you hit one red you hit at least 6 as was my fate earlier tonight.... PS edited to add that Gary is incredibly cool.