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Life in fast forward

If I hadn't lost my camera cable (temporarily, I hope) during the move, I'd be posting some fabulous photos of the new house. Its beautiful. It's also full of people and animals. And laundry. and projects. My new daily routine is something like this:

6:00 am. Wake up relucatantly

Drink a lot of coffee

Switch over a load of laundry and unload the dishwasher

Wake up however many kids are home

Head downstairs to prepare breakfast while they dress

About half the time, load up the crockpot for dinner

Feed kids, do their hair, remind them to get bookbags packed etc

Sign permission forms and hand out checks for school fees etc

Pack lunches

Gauge middle child for asthma severity

Critique kids' clothing for school appropriateness

Breakfast cleanup, load dishwasher

Feed dog & cats/ take dog out if husband hasn't or if dog looks especially interested in going out again

Get myself ready for work

Round up stray kids and their belongings and herd everyone to the van

Drop off kids at school on my way to work

Use lunch break to pick up kids and drive them home, let dog out, and give them snacks

Finish workday. May hit store on the way home for a dinner ingredient or household necessity.

Walk in, heave deep sigh and begin repairing damage wrought by children.

If it's Monday, load girls in van and drive to riding for an hour and a half.

Clean up for 30-45 minutes, vaccuum, sweep, take out trash, switch laundry over.

Prepare dinner or complete meal begun in crockpot.

Set table, serve meal.

Shoo kids to shower, switch laundry over.

Clean up kitchen, load dishwasher, help with homework questions.

Read to kids for 30 minutes before bed.

Fold laundry.

Retire to bedroom for 30 minutes or so before passing out to do it all over again.

Glamorous isnt it?

Remember me?

Dear Blog,

I have missed you. And I pledge to be more faithful in tending to you. As soon as this damn move is done.

But allow me a moment here, to say the house is totally worth moving for. It is vast and dreamy with literally every beautiful feature I ever wanted.

So. In between cooking meals in my gorgeous gourmet kitchen with granite and Corian and Viking range and casement windows overlooking the pasture, and soaks in my huge garden tub under a chandelier, I promise to find time to write.

Maybe. ;)

Loose lips sink ships. With a side order of snow, and extra shopping.

Its been a really snowy winter here in Central Virginia, insanely so. As in, we have had several storms approaching a foot of snow each time. They have all hit on weekends, and the kids have missed over a week of school. They're calling for more today even. Ugh. I haven't missed any work (yet) but I have had to leave the kids alone a few days, which obviously isn't my preference.

I had bought good heavy snow gear early this year for all the kids, spending a lot of money I didn't have at the time, but OMG I am SO glad I did, because I have been looking for boots for myself for weeks now with no luck...you can't find ANYTHING here right now. I broke down and ordered these online, after trying them on in bright yellow at the local shoe store. They will work in all kinds of crappy weather and they are tall and skinny enough not to gape and flap unbecomingly around my scrawny calves. Why is it easier to buy a bikini in a blizzard than a pair of boots?? They better get here before the next storm, or ELSE.

My old phone having become decrepit and increasingly unreliable due to old age, I had to get a new BlackBerry last week. I got the same phone I've been using for years but they finally updated the Operating System to be compatible with iTunes- YAY, for music on my phone!! It was also cheaper than anything else I have seen, so if you haven't shopped some of the new pay-as-you-go plans lately, they are really worth a look. This is $50/ mo unlimited talk and web access, which is unbelievably great. I loaded it up with apps, it's been awesome. I'm still looking for a leopard case for it, but I found a black patent one that is really cute. LOVE!

Also, due to some crazy bad insomnia coupled with a few bucks leftover from Christmas I did some online shopping in the middle of the night and am anxiously awaiting a set of Hidalgo stack rings (similar to those, but in black) to go with my new watch and necklace. I am kind of a jewelry whore, heh.

One of the crappier aspects of having the "forces of evil" lurking about the outskirts of my life is that I have to censor myself so much. Even the really great stuff, the exciting stuff and some hysterically funny occurrences (and ok, maybe it's just funny as shit to me, but still...) have to go unsaid. There have been some "developments" over the past few weeks that I wish I could blog about, because I am excited about the direction my life is taking, but I don't care to give *ahem* certain individuals any material. Until the time is right, that is. Sadly, I have to keep a lot of this information secret even from my kids, so Jackass doesn't get wind of it that way.

Speaking of Jackass, his latest tactic is to dangle an enticing activity in front of my son, (during non-visitation times, like a ski trip, on a school day) and then sit back and rub his hands together gleefully when Austin approaches me all excited and I have to be the villain and say "no". Which, you know, isn't damaging to the kid or anything. Sigh.

Stay tuned. Things may get very interesting around here in short order.

Whirlwind

This has been a good week so far, despite the plague, and the usual scurrying and fetching. Or maybe it's just that the Prozac's working.

Either way.

It's also been productive.

I met with the school guidance counselor yesterday to discuss my daughter's class selections for middle school next year. I pushed hard for her to be assigned to a more rigorous academic path; (largely because I want her to be surrounded by a higher caliber of classmates, and I am not ashamed to admit it.)

I am sure that any day now I will also be called to do the same for my son, who enters high school (gulp) next fall.

So far this week I have: cleaned the van out. Worked 20 hours. Took myself and my son to the eye doctor's, got haircuts for all three kids, got new jeans and shoes for the kids, and grocery shopped. I have made a couple of great meals, and watched a cute movie while snuggling with an even cuter boy. Tonight I took the kids to PTA night at McDonald's (ugh) then came home, cleaned the bathrooms, filled out field trip forms, did four loads of laundry, two loads of dishes, vacuumed, helped with homework, and read two chapters of my new Dan Brown book.

AND.....it's only Tuesday.

Bitch bitch whine whine

I seem to be dying faster than usual today.

A few weeks ago I had this sinus thing, and finally broke down and took antibiotics for it. I never quite felt great afterwards but, you know, it's been really cold, and I have been super busy, and so on and so forth. I never paid it a lot of attention; except I've been passing out cold at like 8pm for weeks and dragging ass all the time, which was annoying.

Add to the the day last week when I scraped my top gums pretty bad in a klutzy tooth-brushing while multi-tasking incident, which got all gnarly and ulcerated; and my contacts bugging me so I had been wearing my glasses, which are ten years old; and you can sort of see where the fact that my face was throbbing and I was having headaches all day, every day was easy to pass off as something else.

Today, though, was the inauguration of some symptoms even I cannot ignore. This morning my throat was raw, then I tried to draw a deep breath and it felt like my ribs were on fire, followed by a deep and wracking cough, and, oh...hey, is that a FEVER?

2010, I gotta tell you, so far I am Not Impressed.

Still I managed to get to work, and not face-plant at my desk, and my Dr. called in the nuclear offensive of antibiotics for me. In a feverish haze, I hit the drive-thru pharmacy, then stumbled home, and somehow managed to make an actual nutritious dinner for the kids.

I am resisting unconsciousness only long enough to make sure my little winners shower and make it into their own beds. Zythromycin, Mucinex, Ibuprofen, Claritin D and Ativan are waiting on my bedside table to lull me into a pharmaceutical coma and I damn well better wake up feeling amazing.

Or at least not hacking up blood....I'll take what I can get at this point.

True Grit

Tonight I went grocery shopping, because, well...the kids just seem to want to EAT, like, all the time. Which is really irritating in and of itself, but it also means I have to shop, drag shit home and put it all away. After work, too. (I'll try to contain my enthusiasm for that little excursion, we have all been there, done that.)

So, in a fit of idiocy, I bought a 5lb sack of grits. Not the smaller container in the sturdy, oatmeal-style cardboard cannister, no, I bought the giant-sized economy bag. Why not, right? Hell I love me some grits, and anyway I was out. Where I live, grits are even considered a vegetable, they're CORN, aren't they? They practically burn you at the stake here in the Deep South if you don't eat your weight in grits a year. Not that I am complaining, heavens no. I mean, YUM, grits, cheesy, garlicky, buttery, with bacon, next to eggs, topped with shrimp...grits are fabulous, am I right?

Except when you accidentally somehow rip a hole in your stupid, giant, jumbo sack of grits and pour them out like sand all over your floor, not paying attention, and them have to spend hours sweeping and vacuuming your kitchen floor because grits are so, well....gritty.