It's like this...

Hubby went to work this morning after the great OPEN DOOR POLICY we didn't know we were having during the night and promptly returned home. He has no sick time left, which is why he tried to go to work in the first place, but couldn't stomach light, movement, sound, anything. The visit to the doctor diagnosed him as having a case of Occipital Neuralgia Very painful, especially since they shot him in the neck three times with Lydocaine and that helpd a little but not enough. Now he's floating on percocet. Hopefully the meds will kick in and he'll feel better soon. Kitty Update: One cat has returned. The other baby is still missing.

Yesterday, a mere four hours ago, was my birthday. No, I won't tell you how old I am, stop asking. It ranks right up there with the Worst Birthdays Ever , in terms of...well, Birthday Experiences. I did get breakfast in bed by my son, which was sweet, and then it all went downhill from there. Oh boy did it. In my bright frame of mind, I thought I'd drive down by Mt. Rainier to deliver two of our kittens to their new home. Not quite halfway there, and having fishtailed the suburban twice on the ice and snow covered roads, I turned tail and came back home. It was stupid of me to have even attempted to go, but I'd just wanted to DO something, GO somewhere on my birthday. Alas it was not to be. Then I dealt with SURLY TEENAGER all day. SURLY TEENAGER was unhappy because all week had been snow days, with actual snow only the first day. The remaining days were Boring. There Was Nothing To Do. That was fun for me. Then came The Sick Husband . He arrived home looking like deat...

As the anniversary of my birth has drawn near, my children keep reminding me by yelling at odd intervals, "It's your birthday this month!" or "It's your birthday next week!" and my all time favorite, "You're getting older!" My response was always, "I don't have birthdays anymore" Last night I spent a great deal of time cleaning the downstairs bathroom where the kittens have been spending most of their time while learning to use the litter box. I also cleaned the entire main floor and needed to take a muscle relaxant before bedtime for my back. These pills make me groggy in the morning, so the kids were all up before I was and they were happy to have yet another snow day due to our inclement weather . Around 8:30 in the morning, my son Christopher came into my bedroom bearing a tray with breakfast on it. He'd made French toast, scrambled eggs, toast, yogurt and milk. How sweet of him. They all helped me eat it. It's ...

It's a winter wonderland here. It started last night, then disappeared by mid-day and now it's back. We're not sure what to think of this, it's a bit early in the year for us to see snow here below the mountains. The children, of course, love it. School was two hours late today and may not even open tomorrow. I have no pictures of the stuff to show you. I may tomorrow. Or not. Meh. I made this wonderful turkey soup for dinner tonight. It was just right for a cold night like this... Everyone loved it. However, I'm feeling queasy and icky right now. The rest of the family is fine. Me..not so much.

Last night Lance and I drove to Poulsbo to have dinner at Aunt Judy's house. Doug, Lance's dad, was up from Oregon and he was the chef. Kathy (Lance's sister) came as well. She took a ferry boat, we drove around. Sitting around, talking, laughing. It was a delightful evening. When we get together we always have such a good time and say that we should get together more often throughout the year. Perhaps this will happen now that Doug is planning on moving to Judy's house mid-January. Doug is a fantastic cook. He made lamb tetrazinni. I apologize for the following picture, in that some eyes are closed, but it's the only picture I took. Left to right, Lance, Aunt Judy, Doug and Kathy. On the drive back we listened to music, we talked, we sang, we talked some more. We realized that it's been an awful long time since we took the time for a date. The time driving home was punctuated by phone calls from the kids of course. "Mom? We're bored" ...

Thanksgiving has come and gone. I got up early that morning to stuff the turkey and pop it in the oven to cook. Six hours later we drove through the pouring rain to Seattle and the family gathering at the ward buillding. My niece Heather brought her turkey to be cooked there. We first began having our Thanksgiving at the church the last one that mom was with us. We didn't know she had cancer at the time, but we knew something wasn't right. We've been having it there ever since. The kids lining up for the food. My nephew Chad has a hard time at family gatherings because he misses his Nanny (my mom) so much. My sister Julie tried to comfort him. My father fed my sister Cheri her dessert, as she has trouble feeding it to herself at times. Here he was teasing her with the bite of pie. My nephew Cody and my sister Cheri have a special relationship. He teases her and she loves it. At times that day he'd come behind her, shake her wheelchair up and down and she'...

I drove to Seattle today and I'll do it again tomorrow. I must be insane. (No comments please) I've got two pumpkin pies made, deviled eggs, stuffing done, big spinach dip done and I'm getting up early to stuff the bird and get it baking. Here is a gratuitous kitten picture, taken by my Ashley with my cell phone tonight. Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends!

There are six people in our house. There are eight guitars in our house. You do the math. Hubby took this picture of some of the guitars lined up near our piano for a friend who wanted to see 'em. Today I had two appointments, only one of which I enjoyed. My son drove me to and from one appointment as I was impaired due to meds taken before and during the dental appointment. I have issues with sharp pokey metal things being scraped against my teeth. The dentist I went to was soooooo nice. He explained everything he was doing before he did it. He even called me this evening to see how I was doing. I've never ever had a doctor call me to see how I was doing. That impressed me. My next apppointment was for getting my hair done. I fell asleep under the hot dryer. No, I really did. I've never done that before. I know some of it was the medication I was on earlier. Now I have shorter and darker hair and a future full of sitting in a dentists chair getting extraction...

I was going to drive to Seattle today for a medical apppointment and I'd forgotten what time I was supposed to be there so I called to check. Ahem. My appointment is Wednesday, not today. This is not the first time I've done things like this....once I drove the seventy miles to Seattle only to find that the appointment was for another day entirely. Who says I'm absent minded? This is day four with no cable television in our home and I have some marvelous results to impart. My son's bedroom has an actual carpeted floor! I know this because he deep cleaned his room this weekend and I saw his floor when I walked passed his room. I caught sight of him hauling an enormous black garbage bag outside with arguably half the contents of his bedroom. My eldest daughter sat down at the piano and gifted us with a meddly of Christmas carols, Fur Elise and other hymns. She hasn't tickled the ivories in a very long time. When she finished, the entire family stood up and c...

Today I bundled Chris, two of his pals and my two youngest girls and drove up to Crystal Mountain so the boys could go skiing and snowboarding and the girls could go sliding. The boys got their snow gear on and disappeared up the mountain. The girls and I tried to find a place where they could use their blue disks to slide down the snow. We found a nice little place and the girls were able to go down, squealing with delight at least four times before the powers that be came by to tell us that we couldn't do that there. The girls were sad and we plodded through the snow in search of another place for them to slide. At one point we were up by some small chalets, on an incline. The slow dipped down and there was a drop off of about six feet or more and then the wall of a building. Before I could stop her, Ashley sat down on her plastic disk and took off. Thankfully she was behind me when she did this and I had turned to say something to them and saw her coming towards me, and...

"Mom! Even the poorest people on the planet get more channels that that! People that live in trailers get channel forty!!" This from my eldest when she learned that I'd canceled our cable. I burst out laughing. Oh my, that was funny. I'm still giggling.

I'm happy to report that we're zero for three! Ally, Ash and Chris are cavity free. I took the daring step of making an appointment for myself as well. Yes, I am scared silly a brave, brave woman. Nothing new or earth shattering to report. I did the pool thang this morning and my back was a lot happier for having stretched and swam laps. The jacuzzi didn't hurt either. I made some pizza dough from the California Pizza Kitchen recipe book that I've got and love. It's for dinner tomorrow night. I'm planning on making two garlic chicken zuchini, one sausage and onion and one just plain cheese because plain cheese is what the kids love the most. I had two parent teacher conferences today, one for Ally and one for Ash. Both received glowing and exceptional reports. Both teachers said that my girls are kind and sweet and helpful in class. Ash's teacher said the other students call Ashley 'The Math Queen' and Allison's teacher extolled Ally's pro...

I am so proud of myself that I was able to drag myself out of bed this morning. Of course, the first things I partook of before my banana oatmeal were ibuprofen and a muscle relaxant. I'm sure I'll be able to stand upright soon. I went to the pool yesterday, yay me! No going fetal. I was a good girl, mostly because I'd promised myself I would go. I felt better after the workout, then came home and tackled The House. Trust me, The House needed tackling, but it needed it from a big beefy linebacker with a strong spine, not me with my defective back. Despite the spasms as I bent over to pick up something near the front door (thank goodness the shoe bench was there to catch me as I went down) I kept on going. The House is now clean. It looks wonderful. Just an FYI, we cancelled our home phone service, so if you have that number, let it go. We also cancelled our cable, and the children will be reading more, communicating with us more, going to bed on time, not watching MTV, lear...

I should have known it wasn't going to be a stellar day when my son opened my bedroom door at 6a.m. It's not unusal that he does this, except he usually opens my door and heads right for my bathroom. His older sister has commandeered the other bathroom, so he uses mine in the morning. He opened the door...and then just stood here. I squinted up at him in the light coming from the loft and asked him what the problem was. "Something really really stinks in here" "I don't smell anything" Which was true, as my nose was stuffed up. "I'm tellin' ya....it's bad" And with that he flipped on the light. Yep, there was a reason it was stinky. The dog had crapped all over the carpet. I got up and cleaned it up. Thank goodness it was the chunky crap variety and not the liquid crap that she'd deposited in nearly the same place a month or so ago. That event woke Lance and I from a deep sleep, each thinking that the other had passed some extrao...

I spent over six hours on the road yesterday. Six hours, in the which I was cut off, tailgated, flipped off and honked at, called 911 to report a poor frightened woman in a dead car in the middle of the freeway and in an hours time at one point on the freeway in the driving rain I did not break 5 miles per hour. I did nothing wrong. Honestly, I didn't. I can just see vicus shaking his head and saying, " riiiight love. You're a woman driver, of course you did something wrong" Wrong, actually I didn't. Despite what my teenagers say , I am a darned good driver. It was pouring rain here as usual, and I was in the fast lane (lane on the left) going the speed limit or just a wee bit above and some neanderthal man behind me was so close to my bumper I thought we were going to be introduced in a fairly awful manner. He went around me, flashing his lights, honking his horn and then flipped me the universal sign of the bird. Lest you continue to believe I was at fa...

Today I drove to Seattle to have a mammogram. I thought it was important enough to take pictures. Here they are. Shame on you for thinking that the pictures I took were of a personal nature. Hang your head and tell yourself that you really need to be a better person. I took pictures of my trip to Seattle and back again. I drove via the freeway for most of the way, but traffic was so bad that I ditched the freeway and cut across Boeing field to highway 99, which takes you on the viaduct through the west side of Seattle, overlooking Puget Sound. I simply held up my camera and clicked, hoping for a good picture. As you can see, we're still having dark clouds and rain. You can see downtown in this one. The Aurora Viaduct, as it's called, passes over the Seattle waterfront, which you can see in the lower left of this photo. Then you pass under Seattle in the Battery Street tunnel and cross the Aurora bridge over the Lake Union, and you come to the Zoo. You don't go in the z...

This is how I am feeling today. Be careful. I'm in no mood for anyone stepping over the line. I'm really not. I think I need to vent a primal scream or something. I really do. It's been far too long. I wanted to get on the road today and just keep on going. I bet I could make it to Romer's by tomorrow. Surely she'd put me in the mother's witness protection program in her apartment and hide me for the next month. Or perhaps I could make it to Carmy's, and since she's a despotic ruler now, she could find some dungeon for me to cower in. Or First Nations could let me sleep in her house by her yummy biker and she could feed me gravy. WW surely has some room for me when his son is not there. I promise to keep things clean. I'm not sure I could make it to Tommy's or to dear vicus or even to ziggi's place as they all live over across the pond. Perhaps Fronty would take me in. Just until the storm clouds pass. I need a break. ...

I'm being treated to my husband and son playing that song on their guitars as I sit upstairs folding laundry. Well, now I'm blogging but I was folding laundry. Hard to blog when you're folding. I'd love to sing along, but my voice isn't up to it today. I spent the day mostly fetal. I wrote a column and sent it off to my editor, then went back to the fetal position and dreamed of driving my vehicle with brakes that didn't function. It was a very calming dream. Oh yes, very. I managed to get up and go vote and then bought myself some Nyquil. Had to charge it, cuz payday isn't until Thursday. I was trying to hold out but I just can't anymore. I need to get some rest tonight. Did I tell you that my father set his kitchen on fire? Yep. He did. He happened to be on the phone with my sister, who lives about fifteen or twenty minutes from him at the time. He was talking to her, then shouted "FIRE!" and the phone went dead. She called ba...

Despite having enormous reasons for going fetal this morning, I did not succumb to the urge. You see, at midnight last night I was up roaming the house in search of Nyquil. I was enjoying the Scratchy Throat Pain that causes you to cough until you toss your cookies. Not fun. I was also the lucky recipient of The Cement Nasal Passages Syndrome which was quickly, and quite unexpectedly followed by The Faucet Nose Attack. I was in desperate need of Nyquil. There was none to be found in the entire house. It's good that I was up though, because I realized I hadn't made Lance's lunch, so I took care of that and put it in the refrigerator where he would find it in the morning before work. He's such a good man. I even made Snickerdoodles last night before bed so I'd have something to put in everyone's lunch today. I crawled back into bed with tissues and waited for dawn. After getting the rug rats off this morning, I went about the deep cleaning of the kitchen. I...

I drove to my sister's house this afternoon after church, seven of us piled into our suburban flying down the road in the misty rain. We were returning my niece and nephew to their home and getting a lovely dinner in the bargain. Lance sat in the far back with our youngest, who kept up a constant stream of conversation with him and our seventeen year old daughter Stephanie sat beside me in the passenger seat as I drove. She'll be eighteen in two months. Eighteen years old and this is her last real full year with us before she spreads her wings and disappears off to college. I'd glance at her once in a while as I manuevered my way through the traffic, her hand was resting on her leg and she was listening to music on her iriver (ipod wannabe). I fought the urge to reach over and take her hand in mine, knowing she probably wouldn't like it. As I looked at her, I had a sudden flashback to when I was her age, riding along in the car with my mother. Mom had a habit of w...

Our most beautiful baby girl was baptized by her father today. Ashley was excited and the service was lovely. I was asked to stand and talk about Ashley for a few minutes. It wasn't difficult, I could talk about my baby angel for a very long time. I kept it as short as I could. Here's Lance, Ashley and my father. Taylor being held by her Great Grandfather. What a beautiful moment. We came back to our home after the service for some snacks and apple crisp and ice ceam.

I went to the pool this morning, instead of going fetal as I did most of the week. Yay me. Felt better for having done so, and then took a dip in the jacuzzi afterwards. It's been pouring down rain here most of the day. Poor hubby, he went to my sister's house after work to pick up my nieces so they can spend the night here. Traffic is a bugger tonight. Ashley is getting baptized tomorrow morning, so my sis and the rest of the fam will be coming out for that and to pester me more about selling our house and moving into my father's house. I feel so overwhelmed about it all. I look around at my house and think about what it would entail to move, and that's when I go fetal. I admit it. I'm a wimp. Total. Unadulterated. Complete wimp. On a brighter note, I'll be making apple crisp for after the baptism tomorrow. I'd planned to do a mini-brunch type thing but that's hard to do with no money. Must.....not.......go.......fetal........must.....be......

I slept this morning. I mean after I got up at five a.m. and made chocolate chip pancakes for The Man Child, and got the girls up and ready for school and made their lunches, brushed their hair and got them on their school bus, I went back to bed. Until noon. I know I shouldn't have, but sometimes I just feel so overwhelmed with life and my response? I go fetal under the blankets and disappear. Everything that was there before is there when wake up, so it's not like it's helping anything. Sometimes it just feels good to be unconscious. Then I had a busy afternoon because I watched my niece's six month old baby girl and her two year old boy. Taylor is the baby and Jared is the two year old wild child. He never sits still, and I do mean never . He smacked his sister on the head and I sternly told him that was a no-no. His lower lip quivered and his eyes filled with tears, but he never cried. He did sit still on the couch after that for a bit. Here's Ashley h...

I've been getting prodded to do a pictorial update on our kittens. Push me enough and I will probably cave in to almost anything. *Almost* Here are three of the four kittens being given the sniff test by their uncle. Here's one of the babies. I know not which one. I'm sure my girls could tell you, as they've named each one of them. In fact they did so as they were born. I know they've named the white one Rosie. And here's the last one. Uncle Daddy is still checking out the new additions. We may have found a home for one of them. I hope.

The candy has been collected into orange plastic pumpkins and they are sitting in my bedroom. So much was eaten last night, I wasn't sure the kids would ever go to sleep. They picked a few pieces out to go in their lunches. Chris came home with a huge sack of goodies from his trick or treating escapades. He wore the most frightening of all costumes ~~The Teenager. He went with his buddies into the gated communities here, where they were given full size bars of chocolate, none of those itsy bitsy *fun* size candy bars for those people. They're rich and they can afford to give out the good stuff. Me? I handed out Reeses miniature peanut butter cups and smarties to the flocks of children that knocked on my door. I gave them handfulls of the stuff, so that's sort of like giving out the big bars, right? Yeah, I think so too. Here's a picture of Ally, Ashley, Dillon, Daniel and Jen. Jen was dressed in her husband's army clothing, right down to the boots. Dillon had...