No Help from the Girl Scouts

The cookies arrived today.

I have to ask...

What are they thinking selling cookies around Halloween? I think my scale will be "broken" for the next 2 months.

The Weekend of Chocolate

The party was not FAIL.

YAY! Fun was had by all. Children were kept out of trouble. A few grownups got into trouble or at least drank too much. (Although, I was not one of them. As I was too focused on the children. Although, I did miss when the sheriff stopped to speak to the 12 year old and his best friend for LYING IN THE MIDDLE OF A DARK ROAD AT 9:30 at NIGHT. The husband was on the front porch "watching" the boys play football in the road while I supervised smaller children play ping pong and get hopped up on sugar in the garage. End of extremely long parenthetical side.)

I realized this morning while I read from my feeder that I did not take one single photo of the event. Seriously, WTF? Does it not say photographer on my degree? So I guess I still get a big FAIL on that.

I am proud to announce I only ate 2 pieces of candy on Halloween. And 2 brownies. And 1 slice of pizza. However, the rest of the weekend I ate my body weight in chocolate. It was to save the children. Really. All that chocolate isn't good for them. No really, that's what I'm told. To be fair, they ate their body weights in chocolate also. Fortunately their body weights are considerably less then mine.

And now I must get back to work...

FAIL

I'm kinda feeling like I get a big FAIL on life right now. Dinners not made. House not clean. Laundry needing to be done. Blog not updated. Ever.

Life is kicking my ass and yet it's all good. I'm happy. It's amazing how the people in my life make all the difference. When they're happy? I'm happy. That and my job. Love the new job. That alone makes life so much better.

In other news which is starting to look like another possible FAIL...

I told the kids we'd have a Halloween party. Yeah, not sure what I was thinking. Actually, I do. I was thinking that instead of the jr. high kids out on the streets getting into trouble, they could hang out in our garage. Then the oldest informed me all his friends wanted to go trick-or-treating. So the party became a sort of after-party. A get-off-the-streets-and-into-my-garage-where-I-can-keep-an-eye-on-you party.

We made the guest list. I bought some decorations. We cleaned the garage. I bought food. The kids told me they invited more people. We cleaned the garage. We decorated. I bought more decorations. The kids ran out of invites and invited more kids. We brought the air hockey table into the garage to put near the ping pong table. I bought more decorations. I now have no idea who or how many kids are coming, how many families or what the hell is going on.

The deal is suppose to be that once they come to the house they can't leave until a parent picks them up. (I live in a very heavily trick or treating trafficked neighborhood.) NOW my oldest tells me that a bunch of them are meeting up BEFORE trick or treating at our house. NOT part of the plan. Also, it was suppose to be mostly for his friends with a couple of the youngers' thrown in. Now the other three each have a handful of kids invited.

What to do? I think I may be going with the whole wing it thing. What happens happens and if we run out of food they can eat their candy. That and I'm locking them all in the garage so no one escapes.

What say you? FAIL? I say I agree, FAIL.

Arrrr, It's Talk Like A Pirate Day!

Glad I didn't miss it this year.
Blimey, I really need to work on my pirate speak.
Off to swab the deck!

Earth Day

So Earth Day. Yes, I know it was yesterday and I’m writing about it today. No, I’m not sure why I waited until today. Ok, maybe because of time constraints. Maybe because I needed time to collect my thoughts. Maybe just because I was lazy yesterday and needed something to write about today. The world will never know.

I read many posts and articles yesterday complaining about having an Earth Day holiday. They all spoke of doing things every day and not just one day a year. I actually felt like I was reading about Valentine’s Day. Show the special person in your life every day that you care. Blah, blah, blah. Amazingly, I’m able to articulate my feelings on this subject more clearly when focused on Earth Day but really, they sort of apply to both.

I like Earth Day. I think it is a fabulous holiday. I think everyone should celebrate it. We might not all have a special love in our lives but the Earth is important to us all. (Even if you don’t agree – it is still important because without it WE WOULD NOT BE HERE.) Anyway…

As for the whole “do things to help the earth all the time not just on one day” thing, I do try to do things all the time. Shall I list a few? Because I will. And I actually like it when other people do too. Why? Does it make me feel good about myself to say, “see, see all I do,” sometimes. But most often I feel like, “That’s it? I really should be doing more.” I’m going to list what I do because when I read about what other people do it gives me IDEAS. Maybe they do something I’ve never thought of. Maybe they do something I had previously rejected but now that I think about it again I realize I too could try it.

The whole one day a year thing gives us a day to reflect on what we are doing and what still needs to be done. That is a good thing. That does not mean we can forget about it for the rest of the year but if we’ve pushed those efforts to the side to focus on other things (as we all do) it reminds us to pull the issue back out and reexamine it. It is a day to talk about and share ideas.

So my admittedly very short list of things we do in our home:

• Change to CFL bulbs as the regular ones burn out. We have been doing this long enough that we are almost regular bulb free.
• Recycle. I still need to get past the once or twice a year I’m too lazy to clean out the peanut butter jar and just toss it. Although, since I read someone else put it in the dishwasher – I have not thrown even one jar away. See what I mean about ideas from other people?
• Walk to run local errands, build time into my schedule to walk to the kids local sporting events. This doesn’t happen as often as I’d like but the more I do it, the easier it seems to get.
• Use reusable bags at the grocery store. This is something that definitely gets easier with time. The biggest road block? Remembering to put the bags back in the car or into my husband’s car when I take it.
• Turn off lights. It’s the kids I’m having trouble training with this one. Anyone have ideas for that?
• Turn off the water when brushing teeth. Since we were kids people. Are there seriously still people who don’t do this?
• Back off on the bottled water. A couple times of year I still do this for convenience. We do reuse the bottles for quite a while and then recycle. Still, MUST STOP.
• We installed low flow toilets a few years ago. Now I have to admit something. HATE. I hate them. The kids clog them almost every damn day. In fact, I need to get a new plunger because I believe we have WORN OUT ours. Who knew that was even possible? Not I.
• When our washer died last year we replaced it with a front loader. Less detergent, less water, less loads because more clothes fit in it. (and I always do full loads because hello! 4 boys)
• Buying more local and organic foods and less processed foods. With the cost of gas and groceries rising and our pay not getting higher, this one has been tough. But, it is one of the most important expenditures in our household. I still haven’t managed to buy organic milk by the gallon because my God, we’d be destitute in a week but we buy local milk and organic eggs. And if I could find someone local to buy eggs from I would. If I could keep a plant alive I might even plant a garden but for now I will take any and all fruits and veggies offered by friends and relatives.

Things I’d like to get back to working on:

• Composting. At our old house we had a compost pile. When we moved into the village with a little yard we did away with it. I have looked at those compost bins you can buy and never could justify the cost. Well, it is time to revisit this. I was amazed at the reduction in our waste when we composted. I actually miss it. It is time.
• Safer cleaning products. The ones I used in the past sucked. But, now I’ll do a little research and try again. I’ve been lazy about this one and there is no good reason why I should be.

I know we need to make major changes but baby steps people. Change takes time. And as much as I would like to get rid of my cars and get more fuel efficient ones or hybrids, that isn’t good either because my cars still run. So I’m saving and hoping they will last for another year or two at which point I will try to get the latest energy-efficient technologically advanced car.

So, now I ask you. What am I missing?

2007

Still not dead.

Just not having a very happy 2007. In fact I have a very bad feeling about this coming year. So, haven't wanted to share a whole lot.

Now don't worry. Nothing terrible has happened. Nothing to fret over. Nothing to pat me on the back and tell me it will all be okay. I just came down with the coughing, stuffy head thing it seems everyone has. Started New Year's eve and has just worn me out.

So. To a wonderful 2007 for you all. May it not be crappy.

Oh, and resolutions? To make it to 2008.

OVER.

The holiday, it is over.

What a huge relief. I'd like to say I pulled it together and got everything done but HA! HAHAHAHAHAHA! No. Not so much. I've thought about doing New Years' baking this year instead of the more traditional Christmas baking but that probably won't happen either. Someone at work suggested Martin Luther King Jr. baking. That may be more realistic. Except, if it doesn't get done by New Years', it won't be getting done at all. Let's at least try to be a little realistic here.

As far as Christmas goes though it was nice. Family, food, fun. Several Christmas miracles occurred and I appreciated them all.

One was the fact that for the first time ever I had to shop on Christmas Eve. Never have I left shopping until then. But the real miracle was the stores were less busy than on your average Sunday afternoon. That and I managed to get everything I set out for. See? CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!

The other was coming home to a clean house. Now I do use this term lightly as it only covers the downstairs but people! The kids and husband cleaned the downstairs and made sure there were clean dishes and utensils for Christmas dinner. MIRACLE!

There was one other miracle but I can't speak of that here. Just know it was a good one.

Can't forget, not a miracle but a surprise none the less, I forgot to drink on Christmas day. Christmas eve I had a couple of peppermint patty martinis (Rumplemintz may be too strong for this drink - just saying) and mmmmm.... tasty. I also played the traditional cards with the husband and my brother. So it was fun and a tradition we've kept.

Speaking of traditions... thank God for the kids. They were kind enough to remind me (before dinner was started) that we always have Chinese food Christmas eve. Not sure how I forgot that one. But it was so, so good and I didn't have to cook. YAY!

We also decorated the tree Christmas eve like tradition (or my laziness) dictates, even though last year we did it earlier.

Honestly? I'm glad it's over. The pressure's off, the kids have new stuff to keep them busy and I get to go back to work which is completely dead right now.

So that was my holiday. How was your's?