Dr. Pepper Plague

So BD bought me 8 Diet Dr. Ks at Kroger yesterday, cause that's how we roll. I am addicted to diet soda, but at least I buy the cheap stuff.

Only the crappy Diet Dr. K's he bought me yesterday are all flat and weird tasting and I was oh, so pissed. This is a serious addiction we have going on.

So BD went to Target this evening and got me the good stuff, Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper, and can you believe that that crap was flat and weird tasting, too? I mean, it's like we live in some cosmic carbonation sucking force field or something.

I'm off to QT tomorrow morning, to get me an icy cold Diet Cherry DP, and it better kiss me on the cheek, because I have been needing it for oh, so long.

I'll keep you posted.

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Countess-Palatine Lori the Lush of Larkhill under Porton Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

E-mail to a friend

Hey, I just happened to find the flap that I tore off of my haircolor, and it's Revlon ColorSilk, and it's Dark Ash Blonde, 60, 6A.

And I keep forgetting to tell you that I saw L'oreal Preference on sale at Target in two-packs. That's what you use, right?

Also, I am coming down with the creeping crud, so will not be venturing out of the house to go to Wal-Mart today. I'm just going to lay low and drink lots of fluids, even though the Diet Dr. K that BD got at Kroger yesterday tastes like crap and I am so pissed off.

I couldn't even go to QT this morning to get a lovely fountain drink, because Miss Scooter McDifficult decided to lose her shoes, and didn't have any on when we took her sisters to school. I know I'm a mean mommy, but she is responsible for her shoes, and if they're lost, it's because she lost them. And she was just standing in her room crying, so I put the big girls in the car, and then came back and got her and took her out in 32 degree weather, without shoes or coat. She did have on socks, and the car was warm. So report me to CPS.

When we came home, I told her she couldn't watch TV until she found them, and I couldn't even find them. BD finally suggested under my bed, and so I told her to look there, and finally, she found them.

How's that for some rambling?

Lori

Note to Tink's teacher

Hey, I just wanted to check in with you this morning about Tinkerbell's tardiness. She was a little upset about being late again today, because she said you were displeased about her being late yesterday. I can't believe I got them there late again. I explained to her that you probably weren't mad, but just, as we call it, "very serious."

(FYI, I have a chronic illness that is fairly well managed, except that sometimes I have a hard time in the mornings. Crohn's Disease, no joke. Too much information, I know, but I wanted to let you know the most common reason for her tardiness is me.)

Also, Abby kept asking me last night to call you or e-mail you so that you could wear your glasses today, too, and I tried to explain to her that we don't call teachers at home, and that you probably wouldn't get my e-mail until you were at school.

So. Hope you and my crazy, beautiful, obsessive, brilliant 5-year-old have a great day.

Lori

Roof

Praise God!

We have assumed that we needed to get a new roof ever since we found out we don't have some kind of tar paper up there that's supposed to be up there. Today we had a guy come give us an estimate, and he says our roof is fine, but he sealed up around some vents and thingamajigs and whatchamacallits, and charged us $200.00. Far cry from the $2750 that the last guy quoted us. And we even got a one-year warranty with it!

Now we can spend our tax return on energy efficiency, like we originally planned. We're getting a radiant barrier sprayed inside the roof, and additional insulation in the attic. Hopefully this will save us some money on electricity, especially in the dog days of summer (what does dog days mean, and why did I use it if I don't know?).

You know you're an old fuddy-duddy when you're excited about putting insulation in your attic!

Karaoke Geeks

Big Daddy and I were sitting in bed watching TV tonight. We finished watching a movie and were looking around at On Demand on cable. Did you know they have Karaoke On Demand? Oh, yeah, they do.

Now, up until three hours ago, we had never sung karaoke, but now we have sung half of the songs in the karaoke universe. Badly. In our bed.

Ask Poo. And Tink. And Scoot. And the dogs. Maybe even the neighbors.

Cute Scoot

Big Daddy fixed Scooter's hair, and did a beautiful job. She came in and told me, "Now I am beautiful!" I told her she was beautiful, and did just a little tune up to her 'do, with a letter opener that was sitting next to me.

She then said, "And now I am a card!"

Brilliance

Scooter was doing her evening "bathroom business," and called me to come wipe her butt. She hopped down off the toilet, looked in, and said, "Look, mom, it like ice cream!" And it was. In the perfect shape of an ice cream cone.

I'm so proud.

Friday ~

I'm trying to get in the habit of writing more often, even if I don't feel I have anything interesting to say.

This morning was spent typing while Scooter watched Noggin. Makes me feel guilty, but I need to have her contained while I'm working.

I work part-time from home, transcribing interviews for insurance claims. It is sometimes interesting, sometimes easy, sometimes horribly difficult and sometimes just annoying. I honestly hit both ends of the emotion scale, depending on what kind of tape I'm transcribing. If my tape is easy to understand, and interesting, I Am In Heaven. Because it's just like watching a soap opera, only I'm getting paid to do it! Alternatively, if I get a tape that's of bad quality, or with a person who has annoying speech patterns, I just want to buy a plane ticket to wherever they are, and slap them in the face. Very hard.

My house is a pit, and we're having company tonight. Here's what I need to get done by 6:00 today:

• Take a Bath (Done! yeah, me!)
• Clean hall bath
• Clean kitchen
• Vacuum entire house
• Dust Living room
• Pick up girls at school
• Pick up work
• At least one load of laundry
• Cook a desert for tonight
• Get dinner started
• Get some of the crap out of the black hole that used to be my work space in the corner of the living room.

So I guess I'd better get to it, huh? Later ~

Let's try this again . . .

Okay. So it's been what, three or four months since I've posted? No big deal, right?

Honestly, I haven't posted for a couple of reasons. One is that I feel like a geek compared to some of the great bloggers I read out there. Who am I trying to kid? I am not a writer. I'm hilarious in my head, but when I write it down, it just sounds like a bunch of bitching. Second reason is that I'm just a lazy ass, and can never think of anything "writable" to write.

So there.

But I'm trying this again, and if it sucks, it sucks. Nobody reads it but me and Big Daddy, anyway.

You wanna know more?

I'm a young 40-something wife and mother who at times thought I would never be either. In the early part of 1996, God brought this diamond in the rough named Big Daddy into my life, and with my eyes wide shut, I married him before that year ended. I broke every rule in "my relationship rule book," and God blessed us anyway.

It's been a rough road for us. We've survived fire, miscarriage, and other great losses. We've also been blessed far above what we ever could have hoped or imagined.

Big Daddy and I are parents to three beautiful, spirited, brilliant girls. They were born to someone else, but they're our children. We adopted them in the fall of 2005, and our life has never been the same. You can read more about our family story here.

Get to know Pooh here.
Get to know Tinkerbell here and here.
Get to know Scooter Pie here and here.

Thanks for coming to visit. I hope you take some time to look around and get to know me. I love God, I love my family, and I am not perfect.

Sweet Saturday

I've loved my day today. Mostly.

The morning started off with Big Daddy having to go in to work for a couple of hours, which did not make me happy. But I got over it.

The girls came and got in bed with me around 7:30, and watched TV for awhile. But first, I had Tink and Poo put on their T-ball uniforms. One thing marked off the to-do list.

I got up about 8:00, and decided to be domestic and make muffins for breakfast. It's amazing how easy it is to wow everyone in the house just by making some muffins. Even BD was excited. I just used a very simple recipe from http://hillbillyhousewife.com (sorry my link is ugly), plopped peanut butter on some of them, and strawberry preserves on some others. Big hit.

We were on schedule to leave the house in plenty of time to get to the ball fields, but somehow we left just in the nick of time instead. But I got over it. And we got there five minutes later than scheduled, but ten minutes before the game started.

T-ball is a whole 'nother post. Moving on...

BD got paged just as the last game was over (he's on call this weekend) and so he left the field in his work truck. The girls and I went to the bank, and then to pick up a special lunch treat (Taco Hell/Pizza Hut) and came home.

After lunch, they rested while I typed (insurance transcription). I was so sleepy that I decided to go get in my bed, where Poo and Tink were watching TV. I flipped through the channels and found The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, which I LOVE. Wasn't sure whether they would like it or not, but they were enthralled! Alternately crying and cheering, we watched almost the entire movie. BD came in from work and watched the end of it with us.

The girls don't usually watch so much television in one day, but it's been mostly quality programming, and no commercials. Plus, I needed the peace. They're currently in my bed watching The Incredibles after eating hot ham and cheese sandwiches (also in my bed). They took turns taking their showers, I didn't have to yell at anyone, and all is good.

Boring but good.

Notes for Tinkerbell

To my darling Tinkerbell,

You are five years old.

You are supposed to pee in the toilet, no matter what your circumstances.

If you are in time-out, you should ask to go to the toilet.

You will always be allowed to go the toilet, no matter what.

If you choose to pee in your clothes, I can not stop you.

What I can do is put you in a pull-up until I am sure that you are big enough to pee in the toilet.

I am sorry that I yelled, but I do not apologize for spanking you.

You got a spanking because you walked around the house in wet pants, and did not tell anyone that you had peed on yourself.

You had to wait in the laundry room, because you are not allowed to sit on furniture or carpet in wet clothes.

You will take a shower and put on your pajamas, including a pull-up, now.

I still love you very much.

Mommy

All My Children revisited

I am so about to break up with this show. The writers are ridiculous, and there is seriously not one single relationship that I can get on board with right now.

I've just read the recaps for the last two weeks because actually watching the show makes me mad. The Zach and Dixie thing is still gagging me.

I loved Kendall and Zach. Loved them. Loved them. And they got to be happy for what, 8 days? Ridiculous. And are the writers so retarded that they can't come up with anything else for Kendall, but to keep running back to Ryan? They are SO not a super couple. He bites his lips too much to be part of a super couple.

I don't love Babe and JR, but even with them, the stupid-ass writers have them fall back in love, and then 36 hours later trouble is a brewin' again. This has happened like four times. No imagination. Do they not know how to write stories about happy people?

But, can someone tell me what's going on with Jamie and Julia? Because the recaps are not clear, but I imagine that they've already HAD THEM BREAK UP, because that's the frickin' formula on AMC these days!

Abrupt ending...
Later ~

Music

Feeling a little nostalgic tonight, partly about old music that is sort of obscure and very hard to find. Country, Christian, and so forth. For example?

Dave and Sugar. Sort of like a country Tony Orlando and Dawn. I saw them once as the opening act for Kenny Rogers. Shut up, yes I went to a Kenny Rogers concert. And enjoyed it. A lot. This is true.

DeGarmo and Key.
Reba Rambo.
Larry Norman.
Steve Taylor.

I have extremely varied taste in music. I like almost every kind of music, except for maybe very current Top 40 and opera, but I haven't been exposed to those very much, either.

You can not just download this stuff. Back in the old Napster days, you could find all this obscure sort of stuff, but these days? Not so much.

Any suggestions?

Aarrghh! Kids!

Seems like I bitch a lot. Oh well....

I have asked my girls to please let me know when one of our phones rings and I'm not in the room. Like if I've left my cell phone in the kitchen, and I'm in the bedroom. Or if I'm in the bedroom and the phone's in the living room. Hopefully you get the idea. They don't.

So here's how it goes.

When I'm sitting at my desk and my cell phone is AT MY ELBOW, and it starts ringing, I get, "Mom, phone."

When I'm in the kitchen, and the phone is on the counter, and it starts ringing, I get, "Mommy, the phone's ringing."

When I'm in the bathroom, and the bedroom phone rings RIGHT NEXT TO THEIR HEADS, I get NOTHING!

So, to recap, if we're in a room together and the phone is two feet away from me, they notify me EVERY TIME. But if they're in a room with a phone, and I'm on the other side of the house, NO NOTIFICATION.

Carry on.

Whining

I'm not posting as much as I thought I would, but continue to hope that I'll get inspired and rock the blog. In the meantime, I'm just going to whine. So here are some lovely bullets:

• I don't know how to do anything in Blogger except post, and I'm too scared to try and figure it out. Including making fricking bullets.
• Bear keeps peeing in his kennel, which really grosses me out and makes me mad. Contrary to popular opinion, I do not like being mad. Especially at people and dogs that I love.
• Pooh (6-year-old) keeps on lying. And I'm tired of giving people consequences.
• Scooter (3-year-old) keeps on crying and throwing fits. Typical, you say? Well, I still hate it.
• We're broke.
• Big Daddy's aunt sent us $100, which really blessed us, but I feel a little embarrassed that people know what a hard time we're having. So not so much a whine as an I don't know what.
• We have two girls playing T-ball on two different teams, and literally have something scheduled for every night of the week.

Okay, so by looking up I see that I have topics for at least five posts, but I sure hope something more positive and uplifting comes up, or I'm gonna look like a real downer.

All My Children

Yes, the soap. I can't help it; I've been hooked on that show on and off since Jr. High. Right now it's pissing me off.

First of all, have they gone to a different kind of film or camera, or are they letting monkeys operate the cameras now? Because there's a completely different look to the show, and sometimes the camera wiggles like a new camcorder owner is operating it.

Second of all, I am so MAD at the stupid Kendall/Zach/Dixie/half of Pine Valley story line. I like Kendall, and it was so nice to see her finally find some happiness (all two days of it) with Zach. And nice to see him smile, because yowza is he fine when he smiles. I think brooding is overrated. And most of the guys in Pine Valley brood. A lot. Except for Jamie Martin.

Anyway, I admit that I was a sucker for the Dixie/Tad thing in the past. True love and all that soap hogwash. But after the whole David business, followed by her "death," I am so over Dixie. Can't freaking stand her. At all. I mean it. Especially now that she's set her sights on a married man. Who is obviously not blameless. Who is just so ridiculously chivalrous and stupid and aaaggghhh...

Let me pause right here to say that I KNOW IT'S PRETEND. I KNOW IT'S HOLLYWOOD. So I guess my point is that I can't stand the storyline that the dumb butt writers have come up with. I'm not really mad at Dixie or Zach or Kendall for putting up with the bullcrap. Because there is no Dixie or Zach or Kendall. But it sure is fun to pretend that it's real for a few minutes every now and then. But not when everyone's miserable. So it's the writers that I'm mad at, for making one of my guilty pleasures not so pleasurable any more.

That is all.

Peeved

At times, I can be so irritable, and about the smallest things.

See, I have two dogs, whom I love dearly, who love to eat gross items of a feminine or personal hygiene nature. Anything in that classification of items, they view as delicacies. Gag. For example, dirty Q-tips, used kleenex, and unmentionables of the feminine nature. Used. Gag again. I have a small trash receptacle on my nightstand where I discard Q-tips, otherwise I would wake up with little bald pink sticks all over the floor every morning. No lie.

My major problem is currently the master bathroom trash. Where I discard the unmentionables. Not the monthly unmentionables, just the daily "freshness" unmentionables. With me so far? Okay, so the bathroom door will not close all the way because of I don' t know what, probably foundation issues that I don't even want to think of. Bear sneaks in there in the dark of the night and knocks over my heavy metal with a foot pedal trashcan, and drags unmentionables and ick and yuck all over my bathroom and bedroom. Every night. So I've been putting the trashcan in the closet or the bathtub every night, but it just DRIVES ME CRAZY to have to retrieve it every morning. Because I use that trashcan every day, all day long.

Oh crap, I just figured out the answer, and the now all two of my readers will know that I'm a lazy ass, because I bet my mother-in-law would say, "Why don't you just empty the can every night before you go to bed?" And I guess I should. Except that I'm a lazy ass, as I may have already mentioned. But I guess emptying the stupid trash can every night is not as bad as having ick and yuck all over the place every morning.

Okay, thank you for your attention. Peeve solved.

Long time, no...

I haven't been around much, and I really couldn't say why. I know that the original name of my blog, "Trixie's Rants" didn't float my boat, but I couldn't really think of anything better.

Also, I still haven't decided how much or little of personal details to expose, because of that whole "who might stumble on my blog" question.

And finally, I can be a bit of a lazy ass sometimes, or often, or whatever. And I just didn't feel like I had anything cute or interesting to post. So I didn't.

So last weekend Big Daddy and I were at the Fantasy Football draft at our church. I decided to pick my own team this season instead of just trying to run his team. I was doing great, until it came time to pick the name of my team, and I got stumped. As usual. And BD suggested "Dirty Laundry." Because as all mothers know, my life is consumed with Dirty Laundry.

And so I decided that my little ole journal here would henceforth refer to same Dirty Laundry, and my intention to become the Queen of it. Meaning that I will conquer and rule over it, not that I will sit on top of it regally.

The end.