I hate laundry. It never ends. Even if a miracle occurred and I finished all the laundry in the house, someone would walk in covered with mud and grass stains, strip off their clothes and toss them in the hamper, thereby creating a new load of laundry to do.
I have not seen the bottom of my hamper since the day I bought it. I don’t even know if it has a bottom. For all I know, it could be a huge tunnel of laundry going clear to the center of the earth, never ending, always half full of smelly socks and mustard stained t-shirts. At least, I hope that’s mustard.
There was a time that I didn’t care about laundry. When I was little, laundry was easy—I didn’t do it. One day I was wearing my last pair of clean underwear, and that afternoon the laundry fairy (also known as mom) magically placed a week’s worth of clean underwear in my drawer. In terms of laundry, this was the best time of my life.
Then I grew up.
But even then, I didn’t notice how much laundry I had. On Sunday afternoons, I would get together with friends at a Laundromat, eat chips and microwave burritos and watch my underwear spin around in the dryer. It was like a party, only better. I didn’t go home hung over and I had clean shirts for the rest of the week.
The best part was that if I went home for a weekend, the laundry fairy still lived with my parents. She’d grab that huge bag of dirty socks the minute I walked in the door and by the time I left Sunday night, the laundry fairy had repacked my entire suitcase with clean clothes, snacks and a couple of twenties. Life was pretty good.
Then one day, the laundry fairy went on strike. So I entered the “fluff and fold” phase of my laundry life. Fluff and fold is the ultimate luxury to twenty-somethings. You dump off your gross, disgusting, and smelly laundry at the Laundromat—and then you leave. A couple days later you pick it up and it’s folded, smells fresh and all the stains are gone. It’s like the laundry fairy moved into the Laundromat. Only in this phase, you leave the twenties with the laundry fairy, instead of finding them in your suitcase.
Then I got married. And I entered the “don’t touch my hand washables” phase. In our house, Hubby did laundry once. He managed to wash (and dry) a gorgeous angora sweater I had just bought for 40% off at Macy’s. When Hubby was finished with the laundry that day, my beautiful angora sweater was too small to fit a Barbie doll. I was horrified. I mean, how could I live with a man who couldn’t read a sweater label? So I took over the laundry duties. Now, to this day, I believe he did this on purpose, but I don’t have enough evidence to convict him.
Of course, even though married laundry involves twice as much washing as single laundry, at least you see the bottom of the hamper from time to time. It’s when you have a child that the laundry never ends.
Who knew that one teenage boy had more cloths than two grown adults and thus, the bottomless hamper appears in your house.
Anyway, my laundry life has come full circle. It’s pretty apparent that I have become the laundry fairy. I’m kind of disappointed, actually. I mean, the laundry fairy title just kind of stuck to me. There wasn’t any ceremony granting me freshly laundered wings. I didn’t get a magic wand equipped with the power to lift any stain. All I got was a bottle of Shout and some bleach.
And the dream that someday I will go back to fluff and fold. Or at least teach Hubby to read labels.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Let sleeping dogs lie. Or lay. Whatever.
You’ll have to excuse me today. I am very grumpy. Really, really grumpy, as a
matter of fact. The problem is I didn’t
get much sleep because I was sharing a bed with a dog!
Not Mike. I mean an actual dog. Mike is normally fine to sleep with, although if we’re being honest here, the man rolls up in the covers, which frankly, is a bit of an issue for me.
But the problem today is the dog and my lack of sleep. I need my sleep. I crave it the way…well, possibly the way Charlie Sheen craves attention and goddesses, only not in a crazy, “look at me, I’m on the internet” kind of way. More in a “if I don’t get enough sleep I’m a witch on wheels” kind of way. Which actually might be the same thing, now that I think about it.
Anyway for the last few nights I haven’t gotten any sleep because when Mike's back is really hurting him he will sleep in the living room which is fine with me. My dog, Milo, enjoys sleeping with me. Normally he doesn’t sleep with anyone but Peyton, because Mike doesn’t like sleeping with dogs. Yeah, I know. He’s the smart one in our family. (lol)
As it turns out, Milo is a bed pig. I don’t know how he does it, but that darned dog manages to kick my butt out of bed all the time. Seriously? he’s like 10 pounds. How the heck does he manage to hog up the entire bed?
And more importantly, why do I keep letting this happen?
I mean, it’s not like I could say it starts off well. It doesn’t. While I am in the bathroom washing my face and brushing my teeth, Milo jumps up onto the bed and rolls himself up into a ball on my pillow. So when I’m done and ready for bed, I walk over and ask him to move.
And he pretends very convincingly to be deaf.
So I try to move him over. At this point, Milo makes himself completely immobile. It’s like trying to move a 1,200 lb boulder. He literally will not move and stays tight in his little ball shape so I end up kind of rolling him to the side like one of those roly-poly bugs.
When I finally move him off my pillow (which by the way does not smell so fresh and clean and un-Milo like at this point) Milo huffs, rolls himself into another ball and stares at me like I am the worst person on earth because I have just taken his spot on the bed. Really? Really? I thought it was my spot, but obviously, I’m the spot stealer here.
And then we go to sleep. Or at least I go to sleep. Milo goes into I’m-going-to-hog-the-entire-bed mode, which means he spends the next eight hours of prime sleeping time trying to push me off the bed.
And he’s shockingly good at it, too.
I wake up several times during the night and find the entire right side of my body dangling off the side of the bed. And there is a little, furry dog curled up into my back pushing at me with his little legs.
So I roll him over to the other side of the bed. And fifteen minutes later, I wake up with hands and feet dangling and a dog in my back again. I seriously don’t know how he does it. I roll him back again and he takes over my side of the bed again.
This goes on for hours and hours! And the entire time, Milo acts like he is fast asleep. His eyes don’t even open. He snores through this whole thing. And by the way, when I say Milo snores, I mean he snores. Loud. Which also is not conducive to me getting my required hours of happy sleep!
So by morning, when the alarm clock from Hell wakes me up from my completely un-refreshing night of sleep, I am grumpy! Also, my back hurts and there is no feeling in the entire right side of my body because it dangled into space for most of the night.
You know, at this point, I’m happy that Mike is sleeping in the bed with me tonight and I know he will be taking all the covers as well. At least I can get some sleep!
Not Mike. I mean an actual dog. Mike is normally fine to sleep with, although if we’re being honest here, the man rolls up in the covers, which frankly, is a bit of an issue for me.
But the problem today is the dog and my lack of sleep. I need my sleep. I crave it the way…well, possibly the way Charlie Sheen craves attention and goddesses, only not in a crazy, “look at me, I’m on the internet” kind of way. More in a “if I don’t get enough sleep I’m a witch on wheels” kind of way. Which actually might be the same thing, now that I think about it.
Anyway for the last few nights I haven’t gotten any sleep because when Mike's back is really hurting him he will sleep in the living room which is fine with me. My dog, Milo, enjoys sleeping with me. Normally he doesn’t sleep with anyone but Peyton, because Mike doesn’t like sleeping with dogs. Yeah, I know. He’s the smart one in our family. (lol)
As it turns out, Milo is a bed pig. I don’t know how he does it, but that darned dog manages to kick my butt out of bed all the time. Seriously? he’s like 10 pounds. How the heck does he manage to hog up the entire bed?
And more importantly, why do I keep letting this happen?
I mean, it’s not like I could say it starts off well. It doesn’t. While I am in the bathroom washing my face and brushing my teeth, Milo jumps up onto the bed and rolls himself up into a ball on my pillow. So when I’m done and ready for bed, I walk over and ask him to move.
And he pretends very convincingly to be deaf.
So I try to move him over. At this point, Milo makes himself completely immobile. It’s like trying to move a 1,200 lb boulder. He literally will not move and stays tight in his little ball shape so I end up kind of rolling him to the side like one of those roly-poly bugs.
When I finally move him off my pillow (which by the way does not smell so fresh and clean and un-Milo like at this point) Milo huffs, rolls himself into another ball and stares at me like I am the worst person on earth because I have just taken his spot on the bed. Really? Really? I thought it was my spot, but obviously, I’m the spot stealer here.
And then we go to sleep. Or at least I go to sleep. Milo goes into I’m-going-to-hog-the-entire-bed mode, which means he spends the next eight hours of prime sleeping time trying to push me off the bed.
And he’s shockingly good at it, too.
I wake up several times during the night and find the entire right side of my body dangling off the side of the bed. And there is a little, furry dog curled up into my back pushing at me with his little legs.
So I roll him over to the other side of the bed. And fifteen minutes later, I wake up with hands and feet dangling and a dog in my back again. I seriously don’t know how he does it. I roll him back again and he takes over my side of the bed again.
This goes on for hours and hours! And the entire time, Milo acts like he is fast asleep. His eyes don’t even open. He snores through this whole thing. And by the way, when I say Milo snores, I mean he snores. Loud. Which also is not conducive to me getting my required hours of happy sleep!
So by morning, when the alarm clock from Hell wakes me up from my completely un-refreshing night of sleep, I am grumpy! Also, my back hurts and there is no feeling in the entire right side of my body because it dangled into space for most of the night.
You know, at this point, I’m happy that Mike is sleeping in the bed with me tonight and I know he will be taking all the covers as well. At least I can get some sleep!
Friday, January 27, 2012
Flashback Friday: Sunday drives with Dad
My dad is genetically programmed to never ask for directions. Ever. To
anywhere. And unfortunately for dad, he’s not exactly a Magellan, either–which
means that my brothers and I spent years of our childhood on Dad’s drives.
Dad’s drives went like this. On Sunday, after church, we all got into the car and Dad would pull out and just pick a direction—any direction—and drive for hours. He called it “exploring.” We called it “getting lost and refusing to stop and ask for directions.” After a few hours of nonstop “exploration,” Dad would need to get gas and Mom would sneak out, consult a map and get us back home in time for school on Monday.
So it was kind of a surprise when we were visiting my parents and Dad took Mike, Mom and I out for one of his drives and a woman’s voice suddenly started telling Dad were to go. And that woman wasn’t my mom!!
In fact, it was a little device called a GPS. Dad’s GPS is pretty cool. It can take you anywhere in America and—get this—it knows where all the Wal-Mart’s are. So you just tell it your destination and it tells you how to get there and lets you stop on the way to stock up on snack food and Sam’s Choice soda.
All of this would be great, of course, if Dad actually had a destination in mind. You see, Dad’s drives don’t have an end point—they are literally journeys to nowhere.
Unfortunately the GPS didn’t know that, so it kept telling Dad to get off the freeway and take another road. We got off the main three-lane highway and onto a bumpy road the GPS kept nattering on about. Now you’d think that once we got onto the bumpy road the GPS lady would be happy. But no. She kept interrupting our conversations to tell Dad to get back on the highway.
So we did.
And for about 45 minutes we got off the highway, returned to the bumpy road and then got back on the highway and started the cycle all over again. We tried to resist. We argued with Dad. We argued with the GPS. We called both of them insane. But Dad wouldn’t listen.
And then we got onto the highway and the GPS started yelling at my dad to get on the highway. You know—the one he was already on. And Dad started yelling right back at it. I’ll be honest here. Dad wasn’t being nice to the stupid voice in the box.
And then my mom said something so awful, so heinous it startled all of us into stunned silence. She said, “stop at the next gas station, I’m going to ask for directions.” Well, you could have heard a pin drop in the car. Even the GPS chick was quiet.
For a second. Then she began demanding that we get off the freeway RIGHT NOW and pull into Wal-Mart.
In fact, she was downright insistent that we go to Wal-Mart. The GPS started screaming, “turn right for Wal-Mart.” And “you have passed the Wal-Mart, exit now to return to Wal-Mart.” I was starting to get scared. What was next? Would the GPS demand that we give Target equal time? Would she insist we call her “Hal” and then dump us off in space somewhere?
Mike tried to help. I mean, he’s a pretty modern guy, plus he’s great with anything that is electrontic. So he summoned all his technical knowledge and did what any other person would do.
He unplugged the dame GPS.
And the voice was silent. So was everyone else. I think we were all holding our breath. And then very slowly, Mike plugged the GPS back in. It made some kind of nosie and a bunch of stuff flashed on its tiny screen. And the lady said, “destination, please.
And my mother turned to my father and said, “if you don’t tell it to take us home on the main highway this instant, I will leave you at Wal-Mart!”
And that’s how we got home. Without the lady yelling at us. But I’ll tell you; I don’t think Dad’s learned his lesson. Just before Mike and I left, I overheard him in his car, talking to the GPS lady. And I swear I heard him say, “Don’t tell my wife, but I think for the next trip we should take only country roads!”
Dad’s drives went like this. On Sunday, after church, we all got into the car and Dad would pull out and just pick a direction—any direction—and drive for hours. He called it “exploring.” We called it “getting lost and refusing to stop and ask for directions.” After a few hours of nonstop “exploration,” Dad would need to get gas and Mom would sneak out, consult a map and get us back home in time for school on Monday.
So it was kind of a surprise when we were visiting my parents and Dad took Mike, Mom and I out for one of his drives and a woman’s voice suddenly started telling Dad were to go. And that woman wasn’t my mom!!
In fact, it was a little device called a GPS. Dad’s GPS is pretty cool. It can take you anywhere in America and—get this—it knows where all the Wal-Mart’s are. So you just tell it your destination and it tells you how to get there and lets you stop on the way to stock up on snack food and Sam’s Choice soda.
All of this would be great, of course, if Dad actually had a destination in mind. You see, Dad’s drives don’t have an end point—they are literally journeys to nowhere.
Unfortunately the GPS didn’t know that, so it kept telling Dad to get off the freeway and take another road. We got off the main three-lane highway and onto a bumpy road the GPS kept nattering on about. Now you’d think that once we got onto the bumpy road the GPS lady would be happy. But no. She kept interrupting our conversations to tell Dad to get back on the highway.
So we did.
And for about 45 minutes we got off the highway, returned to the bumpy road and then got back on the highway and started the cycle all over again. We tried to resist. We argued with Dad. We argued with the GPS. We called both of them insane. But Dad wouldn’t listen.
And then we got onto the highway and the GPS started yelling at my dad to get on the highway. You know—the one he was already on. And Dad started yelling right back at it. I’ll be honest here. Dad wasn’t being nice to the stupid voice in the box.
And then my mom said something so awful, so heinous it startled all of us into stunned silence. She said, “stop at the next gas station, I’m going to ask for directions.” Well, you could have heard a pin drop in the car. Even the GPS chick was quiet.
For a second. Then she began demanding that we get off the freeway RIGHT NOW and pull into Wal-Mart.
In fact, she was downright insistent that we go to Wal-Mart. The GPS started screaming, “turn right for Wal-Mart.” And “you have passed the Wal-Mart, exit now to return to Wal-Mart.” I was starting to get scared. What was next? Would the GPS demand that we give Target equal time? Would she insist we call her “Hal” and then dump us off in space somewhere?
Mike tried to help. I mean, he’s a pretty modern guy, plus he’s great with anything that is electrontic. So he summoned all his technical knowledge and did what any other person would do.
He unplugged the dame GPS.
And the voice was silent. So was everyone else. I think we were all holding our breath. And then very slowly, Mike plugged the GPS back in. It made some kind of nosie and a bunch of stuff flashed on its tiny screen. And the lady said, “destination, please.
And my mother turned to my father and said, “if you don’t tell it to take us home on the main highway this instant, I will leave you at Wal-Mart!”
And that’s how we got home. Without the lady yelling at us. But I’ll tell you; I don’t think Dad’s learned his lesson. Just before Mike and I left, I overheard him in his car, talking to the GPS lady. And I swear I heard him say, “Don’t tell my wife, but I think for the next trip we should take only country roads!”
For my country fans
For all my friends that like country music here is a women who can sang. She is one of my friends on FB and she is from my home town Scottsville KY. She is just now getting start with a record deal but she has been sanging her whole life!! If you want to buy this song you can go to itunes and buy it!
Thursday, January 26, 2012
The art of Nagging!!
I read a survey that found that children use nagging to get what they want.
Well, duh. I mean, let’s be honest—did they really need to conduct a survey on
this? Was there nothing else on earth that they could have used as subject
matter for a survey?
Please—this is a no brainer. Every parent on earth knows that kids nag to get what they want. If there is a parent out there who does not think kids nag, that parent needs to get his or her butt enrolled in parenting classes, because that mom or dad is in serious denial.
Childhood nagging is nothing new. It’s not like today’s kids just started a fad called “Nag Your Parents Until They Give in to Your Every Whim.” No, even cavemen had this problem. Drawings on cave walls indicate that when cave dad came home from a long day re-inventing the wheel, his kids immediately nagged him to get a new wooly mammoth or to take them to Saber Tooth Tiger Land to ride the roller coaster.
Look, even if you aren’t a parent, you know that kids nag. Everybody starts out as a kid. And therefore, everybody has been a nagging child. Except my husband. Mike maintains that he never nagged his parents for anything because he was the perfect child. Yeah, like I believe that. He nags me constantly, so he must have learned it somewhere.
But if you, like Mike, don’t think you nagged, just ask your mother. She’ll tell you the truth. Do you honestly believe that your mother would have bought you those Mickey Mouse ears if you hadn’t nagged her into it? And what about all those Duran Duran albums you collected? No mother wants her child to listen to Duran Duran while wearing Mickey Mouse ears. But any one of us could have been nagged to the point that we would have willingly bought them.
And if you need further proof that all children nag, just go to the grocery store. Find a woman with a couple of kids—one kid gnawing on her carefully written list, the other racing up and down the aisles, coming back to the cart every minute or so to demand strawberry pop tarts. Follow this woman through her entire grocery shopping experience. Ten bucks says the kid has the pop tarts in his mouth by the time they all arrive at the check stand.
The worst part is our kids learn to nag from us. By the time a child has passed through the whole toilet training thing, he has been nagged to the point of insanity. I mean, what kid wouldn’t? For at least two years, the question most asked of 2 – 4 year olds is “Do you need to make pee-pee?” Children would willingly sit on the toilet all day long so their mothers would just shut up. And thus, an entire generation of nagging kids is created.
Ad agencies take a page out of the great book of nagging as well. Look, if nagging didn’t work, all the stations that carry children’s shows would be commercial free. There would be no SpongeBob, no Superman, and no toys with Happy Meals. Because if we weren’t nagged, we wouldn’t buy useless stuff that the kids play with for an hour, then toss into the toy box. So you might say that nagging is very good for the economy.
And do you remember Pokemon cards? Every kid had to have them. Look, if it weren’t for nagging, Pokemon cards would never have been sold or traded. No parent would have bought any if they could have just said “no” and never have their kid ask again. Parents aren’t that stupid. We knew that when the craze was over, the $200 Pokemon card was going to be used as a scratch pad. Hello? Look at your desk. Does the scratch pad have something that resembles Picachu on the front? Yeah, mine too.
EBay would not be nearly as successful if children did not nag. There would be no reason to be the high bidder on a Ke$ha concert 400 miles from your hometown unless you had a teenage girl in your house nagging you for tickets.
So I don’t know why these people needed a survey. I mean, I could rant and rave about nagging forever, and still not know why these people felt the need to call a bunch of kids and asked if they nagged.
I guess I’ll keep asking those survey people until they tell me. Not that I’m nagging them about it, of course.
Like me on Facebook – or I will nag you till you can’t see straight
LOL
Please—this is a no brainer. Every parent on earth knows that kids nag to get what they want. If there is a parent out there who does not think kids nag, that parent needs to get his or her butt enrolled in parenting classes, because that mom or dad is in serious denial.
Childhood nagging is nothing new. It’s not like today’s kids just started a fad called “Nag Your Parents Until They Give in to Your Every Whim.” No, even cavemen had this problem. Drawings on cave walls indicate that when cave dad came home from a long day re-inventing the wheel, his kids immediately nagged him to get a new wooly mammoth or to take them to Saber Tooth Tiger Land to ride the roller coaster.
Look, even if you aren’t a parent, you know that kids nag. Everybody starts out as a kid. And therefore, everybody has been a nagging child. Except my husband. Mike maintains that he never nagged his parents for anything because he was the perfect child. Yeah, like I believe that. He nags me constantly, so he must have learned it somewhere.
But if you, like Mike, don’t think you nagged, just ask your mother. She’ll tell you the truth. Do you honestly believe that your mother would have bought you those Mickey Mouse ears if you hadn’t nagged her into it? And what about all those Duran Duran albums you collected? No mother wants her child to listen to Duran Duran while wearing Mickey Mouse ears. But any one of us could have been nagged to the point that we would have willingly bought them.
And if you need further proof that all children nag, just go to the grocery store. Find a woman with a couple of kids—one kid gnawing on her carefully written list, the other racing up and down the aisles, coming back to the cart every minute or so to demand strawberry pop tarts. Follow this woman through her entire grocery shopping experience. Ten bucks says the kid has the pop tarts in his mouth by the time they all arrive at the check stand.
The worst part is our kids learn to nag from us. By the time a child has passed through the whole toilet training thing, he has been nagged to the point of insanity. I mean, what kid wouldn’t? For at least two years, the question most asked of 2 – 4 year olds is “Do you need to make pee-pee?” Children would willingly sit on the toilet all day long so their mothers would just shut up. And thus, an entire generation of nagging kids is created.
Ad agencies take a page out of the great book of nagging as well. Look, if nagging didn’t work, all the stations that carry children’s shows would be commercial free. There would be no SpongeBob, no Superman, and no toys with Happy Meals. Because if we weren’t nagged, we wouldn’t buy useless stuff that the kids play with for an hour, then toss into the toy box. So you might say that nagging is very good for the economy.
And do you remember Pokemon cards? Every kid had to have them. Look, if it weren’t for nagging, Pokemon cards would never have been sold or traded. No parent would have bought any if they could have just said “no” and never have their kid ask again. Parents aren’t that stupid. We knew that when the craze was over, the $200 Pokemon card was going to be used as a scratch pad. Hello? Look at your desk. Does the scratch pad have something that resembles Picachu on the front? Yeah, mine too.
EBay would not be nearly as successful if children did not nag. There would be no reason to be the high bidder on a Ke$ha concert 400 miles from your hometown unless you had a teenage girl in your house nagging you for tickets.
So I don’t know why these people needed a survey. I mean, I could rant and rave about nagging forever, and still not know why these people felt the need to call a bunch of kids and asked if they nagged.
I guess I’ll keep asking those survey people until they tell me. Not that I’m nagging them about it, of course.
Like me on Facebook – or I will nag you till you can’t see straight
LOL
Getting Caught Up
I know I have not written a blog since last year and I really need to change that, but for now i'm going to get everone caught up on whats going on in my life. I'm still in college and working hard at it, think God I only have two more quarters left then I will be a college grad!! I'm looking forward to be getting back into the work force and making good money as my husband tells me. Speacking of the husband he is doing ok he goes to the Dr. this up coming Monday which is Jan. 30 and we will find out if the dr. wants to do surgery on his back or give him shots into his spine. To tell you the truth i'm scared to death about him getting surgery done on his back. There are so many things that could go wrong and he end up worse than he is or god forbid he died. I try not to think about it as much cause I don't know what I would do if something happen to him.
But anyways lets not think about it on a lighter note Peyton turned 13 on the 17th so that means i'm a mom to a teenager and that really makes me feel really old. I'm only 12yrs older than him but geez i feel like i'm way older than I am. I remember my teen years I was in trouble ever week it seemed like for back talking my parents not doing my school work cause all I would worry about was if a boy liked me or not. They say your kids treat you the same way you treated your parents, oh god please help me lol! Peyton is a really good kid and smart I have very high hopes for him.
Well it seems like I have you caught up on what has been going on in my normale life. I am going to try and post more blogs ever week so all my friends knows whats going on!! see ya soon!
But anyways lets not think about it on a lighter note Peyton turned 13 on the 17th so that means i'm a mom to a teenager and that really makes me feel really old. I'm only 12yrs older than him but geez i feel like i'm way older than I am. I remember my teen years I was in trouble ever week it seemed like for back talking my parents not doing my school work cause all I would worry about was if a boy liked me or not. They say your kids treat you the same way you treated your parents, oh god please help me lol! Peyton is a really good kid and smart I have very high hopes for him.
Well it seems like I have you caught up on what has been going on in my normale life. I am going to try and post more blogs ever week so all my friends knows whats going on!! see ya soon!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
