Don't eat the Yellow Snow and other random bits of knowledge

Barf-a-rama!

2010-04-02T09:05:00.000-07:00

Woke up this morning to the sound of Little J barfing in the hallway. Poor kid didn't make it to the bathroom in time but he sure tried, bless his little heart.

I have issues with barf. Seeing barf, hearing barf, smelling barf and even thinking about barf makes me dry heave and gag.

So there we are, little J lying on the hallway floor barfing and me trying vainly to clean it up without barfing myself.

Not the best way to start Good Friday but he still wants to colour Easter eggs so he can't be feeling that bad right?

Going to be interesting showing up for family dinner today with our very own barf-bucket :)

About Last Night

2010-03-31T06:55:00.000-07:00

Dear Ass-hat

You are lucky that I need your pay cheque to pay the bills because you came
this.close to being smothered by a pillow last night for the following reasons.

1. Your snoring. Good grief! The sounds produced by your 'breathing' could inspire
another Exorcist movie. How does a human being even produce such demonic sounds? It is so loud and obnoxious that you wake yourself up then you scratch your ass, roll over and promptly start snoring again. You snore so loudly that you have startled the damn dog who sleeps in an entirely different room. You suck.

2. Your farting. The smell emanating from your nether regions could choke a maggot. Seriously, you should get that checked out. You smell like rancid monkey poo. Must I sleep with a gas mask too?

3. Your bed hogging. You are not a big man. You should be perfectly fine on your half of the bed. I already share MY half with the 2 cats and that's ok because they are warm, fuzzy, purr and sleep around me. You however, do not. You instead roll over on me, smothering me and making my limbs fall asleep. You refuse to move even after many hissed "get the hell off Me's", vicious pokes, pinches and punches. What the hell is wrong with you??

And you wonder why I am so cranky??

Why is this so damn hard?

2010-03-29T12:22:00.000-07:00

I hate Little J's teacher for insisting that something is wrong with him. (Even if she may be right)

I hate our medical system that sends me running in circles.

I hate doctors who are quick to prescribe a pill without actually evaluating the patient.

I hate 12 month waiting lists for testing and therapy.

I hate that I have to even figure all of this out.

I hate that I feel like I've failed my child.

I hate not having all the answers.

Dear Crazy People

2010-03-27T19:59:00.000-07:00

So there is a gym right beside my work. I drive by it twice a day. It's always packed. It's open when I leave work at 10:30pm and it's open when I get to work at
6am. I will admit to a momentary crazy thought of "Gee, I should get back to the gym" and then I start laughing and end up coughing up a lung.

What kind of crazy people work out at 6am?? How dedicated must one be to drag themselves out of bed so insanely early, punish their bodies for an hour and then put in a full day of work. What kind of drugs are they one? I can barely get through my work day before needing a nap.

Back in the day when I was young and actually had time and energy to care about what I looked liked, I did go to the gym. Several of them in fact.

My first experience was Golds Gym. Full of steroid monkeys and perfect plastic barbie dolls prancing round in teeny tiny spandex with not a glimmer of sweat. I however, wore my brother's sweats, hair in ponytail and no make-up. I sweat like a greased pig. I had no idea people didn't go to the gym to exercise but instead to find their next Friday night hook up. My room mate at the time was very fit and was a certified aerobics instructor and convinced me to take one of her classes. So there I am in a big baggy sweatshirt and my scrawny chicken legs clad in black spandex. Not my best look. I apparently have zero coordination and zero rhythm. I was usually 3 moves behind and looked more like a seizing monkey than a cool chick exercising. So, me not looking like a perfect plastic barbie doll only lasted about 3 weeks before quitting.

My next attempt started out good, Just Ladies Fitness. Nuthin but ladies and it was right beside my work. I could work out and keep an eye on the restaurant at the same time. I convinced another employee to join with me so I had some motivation to go. And yes, we would go at 6am, I was her ride so I HAD to get up and go. Clever of me huh...
I actually enjoyed it for a while but would have been much happier if I could have smoked while riding the exercise bike. (crazy, I know but I've got pretty good cardio for a smoker). I then decided to try circuit training. That my friends, was my downfall. The day I had to follow grandma on the circuit proved that the gym was no place for me. How sad is it that me, a 26 year old, had to adjust the weights DOWN to use a machine after a 70 year old woman. Not only did I have to drop the weight, I could only go half the reps. My self esteem couldn't handle it.

So kudo's to you who manage to go to the gym and workout while normal people are either sleeping or having sex. I applaud and admire your commitment and motivation and I salute you with a smoke in one hand and my 1000 calorie Starbucks Frappe in the other.

But please do me a favour....park around the back so I don't see your car. I don't need the reminder of how much I suck at 6am.

Thank you for your consideration.

Olympics!

2010-02-16T19:34:00.000-08:00

Hello!

Yes I know I haven't posted since last year *gasp* but well, life got in my way.

I am back long enough to post some Olympic pictures. The Vancouver 2010 games are here and we are close enough to the city to enjoy the action!! It is such an exciting time and Little J is having so much fun going into the city to see the sights and of course, going to watch a couple of hockey games.

The boy has Olympic fever big time. Today he told me he wants to be speed skater or the guy who drives the luge. As long as he doesn't try to ski jump off my roof, it's all good. Heck, we all have Olympic fever. :)

I have no idea what order the pictures loaded in but they are random shots of downtown Vancouver and the hockey game we went to.

Enjoy!

2009-12-08T21:19:00.001-08:00

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

To Flu or not to Flu.....

2009-12-03T22:05:00.000-08:00

I have a dilemma in my head.....well one of many but that's beside the point here.

Get the swine flu shot or not, and more importantly, do I get it for Little J.

A month ago when the vaccine rolled into clinics across this great land of ours *cough* *cough* and multitudes of panicked folk lined up for hours to get their shot but if and only if you fell into a high risk group. Clinics quickly ran out and shut their doors, professional and semi-professional sports teams jumped the line and people freaked out that they would not be able to get their shot.

Now according to the head health dude there is enough vaccine available for every God fearing, law abiding Canadian to get a shot.

My reason for not getting it and having to make the decision has been yanked out from under me. Damn it all to hell.

I have never had the flu shot and given the fact that I will get any illness circulating around, I have not had the flu in several years *knock on wood*. Having worked with the public for the last 22 years *gasp* I am amazed I haven't contracted Ebola. I've seen what people do to their money and where they put it *shudders*.
I don't care what people think when I spray Lysol on the debit machine as soon as they put it down. :P Last week our store received a shipment of PERSONAL FLU KITS.
I shit you not people..the Personal Flu Kit contains a face mask, one-time use thermometer and not one but two antiseptic wipes. All this can be yours for only
$2.98CAN. Hurry! At this price they won't last long. Give me a freakin break.....

It's the kid I'm really waffling about. While I want to give him any chance I can to keep him healthy do I really want to inject him with a virus? What if he's the one of the few who have an adverse reaction? I was the mom at the Dr's freaking out during their kids vaccinations. I delayed the MMR and held my breath and prayed like crazy that nothing would go wrong. (told you I had issues) Little J is a very healthy kid, he has his daddy's immune system and I can count on one hand how many times he's been sick. Do I do more harm than good by vaccinating or not vaccinating?

With so many other concerns out there: HFCS, Red Dye #40, BPE, MSG and who knows what other 'cancer causing' ingredients will be uncovered in Little J's favorite foods, do I want to inject more chemicals into him??

This parenting gig is hard. I should be worrying about Little J's Christmas list...the little stinker wants a DSi but will accept a regular DS if he has too. WTF?? He's 5...what does he know about hand held video games?? The whole school thing is a bad influence on him :) See...yet another dilemna....

I should just stop thinking so hard.

Boobies

2009-11-20T18:29:00.000-08:00

Now that the almost crisis with the growth on my neck has been averted..{turns out it was just a 2 day sore throat and probably a swollen gland and still no flu...} I can turn my attention to other obsessions.

My current fixation is BOOBIES. Yes, I realize that's a weird obsession to have as a woman but I can't help it. I think it stems from jealousy. See, I don't have boobies. Really I don't. If I am not wearing a bra...there are no bumpies under my tshirt. nothing. nada. zip. zilch. zero.

The one and only time I had a half decent rack was when I was breast feeding. I think I was a solid A cup. Unfortunately, the boobies could not be looked at or touched at this point in time or they would immediately start shooting out milk. If Little J so much as whimpered my milk would let down and I'd be sporting giant wet spots on my shirt. This only lasted about 2 months and then the booby milk factory shut down, packed up and headed out of town leaving me with um....nothing

Boobies amuse me. Even the word 'booby' makes me giggle like a naughty school boy looking at the underwear ads in the flyers. I check out other women's cleavage all the time. I'm not creepy about it, just a tad jealous that I can't wear strapless tops and if I drop food down my top it only stops when it hits my waist. Is it so wrong to want bouncy, jiggly boobies. I want to live my life like the slow motion beach running scenes from Baywatch. I want something to squeeze.

I'm not vain or rich enough to go under the knife and get implants and knowing my luck, mine would shift and slide down to my belly button or squawk at high altitude.

So I guess for now I'll just wear the water bras and heavy sweaters and yearn for the day the Bobby Fairy comes to visit.

I have a tumour.......

2009-11-18T18:08:00.000-08:00

No, seriously I do. The side of my neck is swollen and it hurts to swallow. The alternative {flu} is nore horrible to contemplate.

Trust me..... I'd rather have a tumour than catch the flu.

Damn germs. Apparently the hourly dosing of hand sanitizer and the avoiding of all personal conduct {including *cough* marital relations *cough*} has not done me any good. I suppose this means I can go back to licking random people??

Maybe it's just a giant pimple gone astray??

Anything but the flu........

Freud would love this....

2009-11-13T08:13:00.000-08:00

My child watches too much TV. Or rather, too much inappropriate TV. I figured he was too young to get some the more adult content of some of the shows I watch after 8pm. I was wrong.

Today I am sitting on the couch minding my own business when up comes demon child with a twinkle in his eye. I know I'm getting buttered up for something, most likely for more Halloween candy or a pair of scissors.

He climbs on my lap, gently places his hands on either side of my face, tells me I'm pretty, proceeds to push me down on the couch and give me a loooong kiss on the lips while licking my face. Stunned, I sit up and ask him what the heck he was doing.

demon child: "Mommy I love you and this is how you kiss people you love"

me: "Uh...how do you figure that?" trying to think of where he has seen kissing like that before cause his father sure doesn't kiss me like that in front of the kid

demon child: "I saw it on TV Mommy, they loved each other."

me: "Oh sweetie, that's 2 grown ups! You can't kiss your Mommy like that, I'll get arrested!"

demon child: "What's arrested?"

me: "Nevermind,I'll show you how you can kiss Mommy"

So I proceed to demonstrate an appropriate kiss, with ones lips closed and on the cheek.

After practicing a few, he nods in satisfaction and asks "So now that you've had so many kisses Mommy can I have an Oreo cookie and stay up for another 5mins?" while batting his big blue eyes.

I should start putting away money now for his future therapy.

Life and death.

2009-11-09T21:41:00.000-08:00

Remembrance Day is on Wednesday and I have spent the last week or so trying to explain what it is and it's significance to Little J in terms that a 5year old can grasp. I didn't want to freak him out too much by talking about war and death in detail so I tried to gloss things over and be somewhat vague and general.
I'm going to take him to one of the ceremonies so he can see what I've been talking about.
I talked about how the brave men and women fought wars and lots died so that we could live in the free country that we do. He now thinks they fought for the right to watch Johnny Test on Sat morning.
Somewhere I have failed.
I talked about the poppy I wear and took him to buy one. He proceeded to poke me with it and lose it before we even got to the car.
Somewhere I have failed.
I talked about how Mommy's grandpa and uncle died in the war and Daddy's grandpa was wounded and sent back home. Little J looks at me in all seriousness and asks "If Daddy dies in a war, will we get a new Daddy? Mommy...you need to get a baby before that happens. We need to put one in your stomach. How do babies get there Mommy?" Now that was a pretty loaded set of questions and somehow I managed to avoid answering any of them by shouting "Oh look at the rainbow over there!" in a happy sing-songy voice while frantically gesticulating out the window. {Did I mention I was driving at the time?}
Somewhere I have failed.

Please take a minute to stop and remember those who served and died and the families who were left behind, at 11am Nov 11th.

Lest We Forget.

Take 2 Tuesdays

2009-11-03T06:49:00.000-08:00

I have decreed that henceforth Tuesdays will be a recycle day. I am too lazy-er-busy to write a post so I shall breathe new life into a post done long long ago when I had no 'people'. Do I still have 'people'? I dunno. It's been so long....

Anyways, I digress....

This was originally posted in February.

Cheers
schmooch.

Monday, February 23, 2009
Angry Mommy plays Drunken Wii

We had a fun-filled action packed weekend with a little bit of everything thrown in.

Started the day at a nephews b-day party. No place I'd rather be than trapped in a room full of kids running around hopped up on cheezies and cupcake and hanging out with moms I don't know. That would be PHUN with a 'PH' my friends. This is why God created Xanax. My nephews are fabulous boys and they are so well behaved. I want to send Little J to live with them for a few months. Is that bad of me? I only want the best for my boy. ;)

Saturday night we had friends over to eat a little, drink a little and play a little Wii. I understood 'drink a little' to mean 'drink any and all remotely alcoholic beverages in the house. Lucky for me I couldn't find the anti-freeze.

So we are setting up the Wii and picking Mii's {for those that may not know, you create a 'me' that you use to play the games. You can get very detailed and get them to look like you} Anyhowdywho, we're flipping though Mii and I see 'ANGRY MOMMY'.
Apparently my sweet child and positive-role-model husband had created a Mii in my image. Angry Mommy? Is this how my kid really sees me? Am I angry all the time?
{ok so now I'm singing that Tim Mcgraw song with the line 'why you gotta be angry all the time?}

Of course, my 'friends' thought this was the cats-ass and now I don't hear the end of it. They leave voice mails and ask "Is Angry Mommy there?" BASTURDS!!

Drunken Wii kicked ass and it was so worth the hangover the next morning.

So Big J lets me sleep in until NOON on Sunday. Yes I said it...NOON! I'm almost embarrassed to admit that but F-it! I deserve it. I should have been suspicious regarding this demonstration of compassion and goodwill but I was still feeling all warm and fuzzy from the alcohol the night before. At 2pm Big J disappeared into the bedroom and I did not see him until 5:30pm when he wandered back out and informed me that he had invited his parents over for dinner and they would be here at 6:30pm!

WHAT IN HOLY HELL!?!?!!!!

He fed Little J friggin PopTarts for lunch and now I have to cook for his parents?

It's a darn good thing I like his parents, and more importantly they like me and have low expectations. They are well aware of my domestic shortcomings. I have provided them with the only male heir. I can do no wrong. I'm golden baby, golden.

Good thing they like spaghetti.

Now, the father in law is a crazy old man and he is the kind of person who talks AT you and doesn't really listen to what you reply. We think he may be getting senile but's it's always good for a laugh. {that is soo mean!}

So we're watching the Oscars and Hugh Jackman and Beyonce are singing....this is the following conversation he and I have:

Dad: Who is that?
Me: Beyonce.
Dad: Whose?
Me: What
Dad: Whose?
Me: Beyonce!
Dad: Ya but whose?!
Me: Not Fiance you batshyte crazy old man..Beyonce!!
Dad: Well why didn't you say so?

This is the gene pool my child had to pick from, I'm praying that all Little J inherited from that side of the family is his fabulous blue eyes.

Off to put the Little One to bed.

Nitey Nite!

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-30T21:39:00.000-07:00

Have a safe and sugar-loaded day!

This is why I don't travel....

2009-10-27T15:51:00.000-07:00

I am back from my business trip relatively unscathed which I consider to be a minor miracle. It was a most interesting trip and while the entire experience has helped me grow as a person, I do not wish to repeat it anytime in the future.

The first sign that this was not going to be 'smooth sailing', happened before even leaving the house. We usually fly West-Jet who I love love love but we were booked on Air Canada *patooie*. I attempted to check-in online to avoid some of the Saturday afternoon line ups. Not really familiar with their web check in set up I stumbled around a bit and after searching their entire database I eventually determined that I was already checked in. Somehow, someone in our group booking had checked EVERYONE in and now were screwed because obviously, we did not have the luggage tag or boarding pass. Why is that a big deal you may ask? Well, it now involved 4 different line ups and 6 different people to get my luggage checked and my pass printed. I was not confident at this point that my luggage would end up on the same plane as me.

Thinking that I was free and clear for trouble, I kissed my family good bye and headed through security. I was immediately cut from the herd and sent though a booth at the very end. Put my bag on the rolling thing and took off my jacket. "Laptop, liquid,gels?" barked Helga the heavy set East German woman. "Uh no" I reply. "What you have under sweater?" growls my buddy Helga in her heavy accent". "Pardon?" I ask not quite understanding. "Sweater! Take it off!" she says pointing her finger at me.
Uh..ok whatever.. I had a tank top under my zip up cardigan. So I strip down and wait my turn through the metal detector. Of course I light the scanner up like Christmas. Dude waves me over and starts running the wand over me and it sounds like he's playing space invaders. He then has to wave Helga over for a 'physical search'.
Oh sweet jebus. Helga waddles over snapping her rubber gloves with an evil grin. Now, I usually get dinner and a movie before I allow someone down my pants but I didn't have much choice in the matter. I'm not a big person, 100lbs soaking wet with my shoes on and my clothing was form fitting so I'm really not sure what exactly they thought I was trying to smuggle on the plane, or where. At this point I'm half dressed and being felt up and sadly, it was the most action I'd seen in a while. The Gestapo finally clear me to go through and I head to my boarding area dragging my carry-on and clothing behind me. {Note to self..do not wear the boots with the buckles ever again.}

The flight out is uneventfully as is the trip to the hotel. Luckily I know my roommate and get along with her so I thought I was golden. No such luck.

I'm a smoker, in a non-smoking room. No biggie, I just open the sliding door and smoke outside the room. Easy peasy right? Well...... I got the door open, stepped outside and went to close the door. It didn't budge. So I pulled some more. Nada. Put my meager body weight behind it and puuuuuuushed. Suddenly the door unsticks, slams shut and my face hits the wall. Fabulous..now I have a scrape and goose-egg right above my eyebrow. *sigh* good thing the ice machine was just down the hall....

Got up on time, no small feat considering it was 6am their time, 3am my time. Ugh.
Navigate my way down to the conference area, grab my coffee, head out for a smoke and walk right into a crime scene. Oh Goody! Apparently someone was stabbed in the parking lot the night before. There were little yellow evidence markers everywhere and the knife was still lying in the ground. I did not fly across country to be a part of an episode of COPS.

The meetings were long, boring and we were herded like cattle. I worked really hard at looking and sounding like I knew what the hell I was talking about and I think I pulled it off.

In a cost cutting measure, we are kicked out and have to fly home the same day the meetings end. It makes for a long day but admittedly, it is nice to sleep in your own bed. Not knowing how long it will take with city rush hour traffic we head out as soon as we can. We got to the airport at 5pm and didn't fly out until 8:30pm.
Being the keeners that we are, we went through security right away. Given the experience on the way out and knowing that Toronto security is 'tougher' I was gearing up for a raping. I bagged and doubled bag my lighter, stripped down and prayed. Cranky dude waves me through and holding my breath and sweat running down my back I step through the metal detector and nothing happens. Absolutely nothing. Trying really hard to be nonchalant I pick up my bags and saunter away still half convinced that any second someone is going to run up and scream..."Quick get her! I think she has a nail file in her carry-on!" It wasn't until we were in and through security that I realized..... there was no place for me to smoke. I twitched a little but figured I could muddle my way through by chewing gum or gnawing on the arm of my seat.

Having birthed a child who spent the majority of his gestational time hanging out on my bladder, I have peeing issues. No matter how little I try to drink or how many times I make myself go, I will have to pee at the most inconvenient time.

I had a middle seat for the flight. In the window seat was a Crackberry addicted woman who was still texting as the plane was taking off! I stared at her while my inside voice was screaming "OMG YOU STUPID WOMAN! They said to turn it off! Are you trying to kill us all!! You can go 5 hours without texting dammit!" Seriously, she checked it while we were in the air too. On the aisle side of me was an um ,er, ah, 'fluffy' gentleman who promptly fell asleep while hogging the armrest. He snored.

All was well until 30mins into the flight when the flight attendant came on to request the assistance of any medical doctor who may be on board. That is never a good sign.
Sure enough, the pilot came on a short time later to announce that we were landing in Winnipeg due to an emergency medical situation on board. I would like to think I'm a sympathetic person but oh...my...god.... with my wonderful seat mates, and lack of nicotine I was close to snapping. It was the worst landing I have ever been through. We hit the runway with a jolt hard enough to snap my head back and wake up Sleepy Beauty beside me. The plane veered sharply to the right before straightening out again. Luckily no one was hurt. One of the overhead luggage thingies popped open spilling out suitcases. This was getting better and better.

We sat on the tarmac for 2 hours in Winnipeg. Crackberry chick was texting away like a madwoman and Mr Fluffy went back to sleep when he realized we were not being fed while waiting. I had to pee something fierce by this point and was trapped in my seat. I tried climbing over Mt Creepy but just couldn't get past his knees and he was not responding the my repeated pokes and hissed "Excuse me's" I undid the top button of my pants to give my bladder some breathing room and tried not to think about waterfalls and rivers. I'm pretty sure I damaged a kidney.

By the time we landed at home we were 2 hours late, my bladder had exploded, I was frothing at the mouth and twitching from lack of nicotine and caffeine. As soon as the doors opened on the plane I was off like a bat out of hell. I vaulted small chidren and suitcases as I ran though the airport to the nearest bathroom.

I just don't' have the mental wherewithal to be a traveller.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to finish sanitizing all my belongings cause the only thing I didn't get on this trip was 'sick'

Leaving on a jet plane

2009-10-23T19:34:00.000-07:00

So I am heading East for a business trip on Saturday. Have I mentioned how much I loathe flying!?!?? Ugh.

I get to spend the next 3 days surrounded my people. People in the airport, people on the plane, people at the hotel, people at the conference. Don't get me wrong, I generally like people, just not that much people at once. I'd like to be able to pick my nose or remove a wedgie without being watched. :)

I am leaving Ass-Hat in charge of the household and it's occupants. How much damage can he do in 3 days?? I've taped a big note to the computer,"FEED THE CATS" and a note on the fridge, "FEED THE CHILD SOME FRUIT" I'm not convinced either will happen more than once during my absence.

I think the time away from home may do me some good. Little J was diagnosed with ADHD this week and I have a lot of information to absorb. Ass-Hat is not dealing very well. We are exploring all the options and have some decisions to make about medicating or not medicating. It just breaks my heart because Little J is such a smart little boy but his inability to sit still, pay attention and concentrate is getting in his way. Perhaps now his Battle Ax teacher will get off my back about his "disruptive behaviour' while giving me the 'you suck as a parent' hairy eyeball.

Anybody out there with some experience about ADHD???

I leave you with a recent pic {August} of the demon child and the 'damn dog'.

cheers!

Murphy and his minions

2009-10-21T16:21:00.000-07:00

I swear, everytime I have plopped my arse down to write a dang post, something has come up and blown that little plan right out of the water.

My loving, supportive *snort* husband must have paid some voo-doo priestess a lot of dinero to get a hex put on me. No really, I'm half believing at this point. I got some bad ju-ju goin on. I fully expect to open a closet or drawer to find a little doll that looks just like me, full of pins. :)

life keeps getting in my way dammit!!!!

I hope ya'll are doing well and I can't wait to get caught up!

In closing, I'd like to thank all the stupid people who make me look smart. Fear not, it's not you..trust me, the people I'm talking are not out surfing Blogs.

Anybody out there?

2009-09-21T20:25:00.000-07:00

Helloooooo? Anyone still around?

I can't believe I've been gone so long. With back to school crazyness, my birthday, my wedding anniversary, Little J starting kindergarten and getting the new truck engine built and in the 'Burbon, life has been pretty hectic.

I am currently in the middle of a 2 day hangover from hell. I got my drink on hot tubbin at girls night at my boss' house. I keep forgetting that I'm 39 not 29 and I don't bounce back as quick as I used to. On the bright side, putting a hot tub soaked pack of smokes in the oven on the lowest setting for 15mins dries them out like new. :)

Little J started kindergarten. It's not going to well. I don't like his teacher and I'm sure she feels the same about me and the kid. I know that he has the attention span of a fruit fly and can't sit still but come on, he's 5 years old! Cranky old battle-ax is what she is. It's going to be a long year. :(
OK honestly, I am more worried than I let on but I'm not convinced I'm not overly paranoid. Ya know? Everyone wants to their child to show in a good light and I'm no different. What if I've messed him up and didn't do enough to prepare him for school?
*sigh* I'll wait a few weeks to see if there is improvement before I I really start to worry.

So hopefully you will see more of me stopping by and commenting on your Blogs and getting back into the swing of things!

I've missed you all. Not in a creepy stalker kinda way but in a "hey I wonder.." kinda way. ;)

cheers!

I'm getting too old for this....

2009-09-03T11:25:00.001-07:00

Holy crap this Back to School Season is going to kill me. I have been go go go for the last 2 weeks and finally get some downtime.

BTS season and a full moon do not play well together. Yesterday was one of the oddest/most stressful days I have had in a loooong time. A few highlights....

911 had to be called because Customer A blocked in Customer B in the parking lot. Customer B comes back into store and asks Customer A to move his car.{Following so far?} Customer A freaks the hell out and starts cursing and threatening Customer B in the store in front of customers and children. The Po-po come and deal with crazy Customer A.

While the police are finishing up with the above situation a lady at the copy centre passed out and hits the floor. 911 is called back. Not sure what happened exactly but she was carried out on a stretcher.

Network crashes causing all the registers to go down and are unable to use them. You ever tried to tell 100 people that we can't ring through their purchases and no, we don't know how long it will take to get the system back up and running.

And from the rest of the week......

Our local meth addict was in helping himself to hard-drives again and was tackled by security at the front door. He managed to get away but we got his backpack with not only our merchandise but stuff from next door as well.

A child rammed another customer with a shopping cart causing her shoe heel to break and making her ankle bleed.

Someone wanted a particular colour of plastic pencil case which was at the very bottom of the stacked out display. Instead of asking one of us to get it for them, they decided to remove it themselves. Ever played Jenga?? The laws of physics do apply here and the entire display of several hundred pencils boxes went skittering across the floor.

Someone decided to CLIMB IN in one of our bin displays. It being made of cardboard and already overloaded with thousands of erasers, promptly split at the seams and shot erasers all over.

2 kids were 'racing' chairs along the back of the store, one wiped out and crashed into a bookcase breaking it. {and the chair}

This is just a small sampling of the crazy shit that goes down tis time of year.

And people wonder why I twitch???

Is it October yet???

It's The Most Wonderful Time of The Year

2009-08-22T09:27:00.001-07:00

Yes folks it's Back To School Time once again!!!!

What this means for me running the number 1 school supply destination is 3 weeks of complete and un-ending horror. I don't have time to pee let alone eat, sleep or Blog. :(

I will spend the next 3 weeks drunk on lack of sleep and RedBull. You may not hear from me again until mid Sept. :)

School supplies are pretty basic. A pencil is a pencil, a notebook is a notebook and a crayon is a crayon. Yes? Well apparently not. Thousands of stressed out parents freaking out because the school list says "Dixon Pencils" and I carry "Papermate Pencils" Don't worry dude, you child will NOT fail grade1 because of a dixon pencil!

We've made it very EASY to find supplies...dumped everything you need in giant green bins clearly labeled. We have copies of the school lists. We have put giant signs on the bins. Yet people still walk up to me and ask "Where are your school supplies?"
I turn 360degrees, arms out-stretched and reply "Uh, you're standing in the middle of them"

Seriously people, you make school supplies far more complicated than it needs to be and we pay the price.

I will no doubt have some hilarious stories to tell as the days go by, like last year when some one's dog crapped in one of the aisles {they must have snuck it in their bag} So there I am, crouched on the floor cleaning up dog poop and people are STILL asking me to show them where stuff is!!! I so wanted to say say "Ok here, hold this paper towel full of dog crap and I'll show you where the 5 stacks of binders are..."

So my public service announcement today is: When you are out school supply shopping, please be patient with the people who work there. You are the 100th person to ask the exact same question, the cashiers cannot ring through items any faster, there are only 6 registers in the store, we can't walk you around and do your list for you, if your class list is not in the file I was unable to get it from the school district or the website and I can't magically pull one out of my ass, if the sales floor associate is wearing a sweater and holding their lunch please do not ask them to help you find the pencil sharpeners {which you happen to be standing right in front of} and a THANK YOU goes a long way to the people who are working their butts off for you.

It's off to work I go. Got my body armour and Depends on. Wish me luck!!

Sorry if it's jummbled and stuff, I skipped making breakfast to post before running out the door. :)

I will survive...

2009-08-15T11:45:00.000-07:00

Dysfunctional Family ‘We’re Having Fun Dammit’ Trip 2009.

I’m getting old and soft. For some reason the thought of spending more than a few days languishing shore side watching Ass-hat fish from dawn till feakin dusk while keeping an eye on the roaming 5 year old , making sure the damn dog doesn’t hang herself with her 50ft tether line, cooking 3 square meals a day, washing dishes in dish pans, conserving every last precious drop of water, huddling under the covers with a tshirt of my head at night while braving blistering heat, ferocious winds and bone chilling cold just doesn’t seem like a lot of fun anymore. And did I mention the dust? Dust, dust everywhere. The kind of insidious dust that works its way into your teeth and other small orifices you weren’t even aware of until they had dust in them.
I’m sucking the last battery power in the trailer to power the laptop. I would sell my first born and only child for some Wi-Fi at this point. Or a shower, or a microwave.

Things I leaned while Camping.

1. Damn Dog likes to eat Poo. Duck poo, goose poo, cow poo, horse poo and kind of poo will do. {funny but poo shows up on my spell check as incorrect!}

2. My child is damn annoying. We are spending far too much ‘quality time’ together. Are all 5 year olds like this? The sound of his plaintive ‘wuhyyyyyyyyyyyy!’ grates on my last nerve. Love him to death but damn, we are not meant to spend this much time together without benefit of time out space for both of us.

3. Damn Dog loves to swim as evidenced by her dragging me into the lake. {she was still on leash}

4. After 6 days I don’t care if I never shower again.

5. Fire bans suck. Camping with no campfires sucks goat-ass. Gathered around a lantern huddled together for warmth just isn’t the same.

6. The upside of no campfires is no smelling like a burnt hotdog, downside is we smell like the bacon we had for breakfast. Everything smells like bacon. It’s too windy to cook outside.

7. Next year we’re going to Disneyland dammit.

8. Ass-hat would rather sleep with the dog than me. And you know what…that’s A-OK. He sleeps with the dog, I get the top bunk all to myself. It’s the best part of the trip.

9. Little J managed to pee and poop in every trailer in our group. That’s 9 trailers. I shudder to think about how much toilet paper is now in those black water tanks. Sorry ‘bout that folks….

10. Blueberry ring pops + fruit roll ups + gummy bears = green poop. This is what my child was depositing in everyone’s trailers. Again, sorry about that folks……

11. A sunburn/windburn really does keep you warm at night.

12. I read waaay too fast and ran out of reading material on day 5. I may have to resort to reading the backs of cereal boxes.

13.

14. I skipped 13 because it’s an unlucky number.

15. I am almost desperate enough to take the truck and drive into ‘town’ I use the word ‘town’ loosely as really town is nothing more than a sani-station,a liquour store and a Dairy Queen.

16. I am insanely jealous of the folks who are leaving for home,Day 5. Ass-hat and I are currently in negotiations as to whether we leave on Day 6 {my vote} or Day 7 {his vote}. As much as I hate to say it, he may win. And he did. We left on Day 7.

So now that we are home, I have about a million loads of laundry to do, not to mention the damn dog needs a bath in the worst way. She's an entirely different colour right now..brownish/gray. And she stinks to high heaven.

Pictures to follow in a day or two, I have to find the dang camera.

Leavin town and headin west.

2009-08-06T16:50:00.000-07:00

Well more like north-west but close enough.

We are leaving on our annual Dysfunctional Family 'We're Having Fun Dammit' Camping Trip. This year should be extra fun as the dog is coming with us. Ass-hat will do his best to drink his weight in beer while out on the lake from sun-up till sun-down while I entertain the child, cook the food and wrestle the dog. {and drink vodka from my coffee cup}. Hopefully it's been too hot and dry for the skeeters because no one wants skeeter bites in their nether regions from peeing outside in the bush. :)

I'm sorry I haven't been around much commenting in the last week but I had to get us ready and packed, tie up loose ends at work, work on my FB farm {ack!} and sleep.

I will be back next weekend....I hope you all have a wonderfull week and I'll be catching up with you all then.

TTFN!

It's the thought that counts.

2009-08-04T21:00:00.000-07:00

I just messaged Ass-hat on Facebook. It was about an act on America's Got Talent.
What's wrong with that you might be thinking......

Well, we are both IN the house watching it. I'm in the living room on the laptop, he is in the office on the desktop. Now my house is not that large, it's not like one of us is hanging out in the west wing or anything. He is close enough that I can hear him crunching his chips. {that's a whole 'nother post}

Have I become so technologically reliant and complacent that I no longer have the will to get my arse off the couch, shuffle the 100ft or so down the hallway, poke my head into his office, make eye contact and say "Hey that act was pretty neat huh!"

God forbid we actually watch the same show on the same TV in the same room, together.

The 25lb kitty sprawled on my lap would tear me to shreds if I dare disturb him so I think I will just continue to send my little messages of love through the worldwide web, bouncing signals from earth to space and back again. It appears as though I put much more thought and effort into my communication instead of simply bellowing "Did you take the garbage out?!" at the top of my lungs. Right?

Only her hairdresser knows for sure.

2009-08-02T09:12:00.000-07:00

My name is Schmoochie and I am a compulsive hair colourer.

My confession: I have no idea what my natural hair colour is.

Pretty bad huh.....

It all started in 1984 when I was in 8th grade. I grabbed a pair of scissors and a bottle of peroxide and *VIOLA* I looked like Billy Idol.

I eventually moved on from the peroxide to hair colour in a box and through the years have been almost every shade of blonde from platinum to champagne to strawberry.

I've been medium reddish blonde and my last known colour was Deep Cranberry Auburn.
This was what led to my downfall. Never ever ever go darker after you've spent the better part of 25 years lightening your hair. {Are you playing attention and taking notes?}

After I broke my hair in February, I promised Ass-hat that I would not colour it at home anymore. He was quite alarmed at the amount of hair he was pulling out of the drain and was afraid I would become bald sooner rather than later.

It has been months since hair colour has touched my hair. And while the blonde high-lighting has softened the edge of re-growth it has become apparent that I am indeed, turning gray. My 'new' hair is a non-colour. I don't recall seeing "colourless" as an option on my drivers license. The gray hair should not surprise me, my mom went gray at 18 years old, so did my grandmother. I can't fight the gene pool.

I really miss my blonde hair. :(

Actually at this point I miss having a hair colour of any sort.

Word Verification

2009-07-31T11:02:00.000-07:00

I am dragging myself away from Facebook to write about those stupid word verifications.

These are not words. These are what 4 year olds write when they are learning the alphabet and declaring "Look Mommy I wrote my name!"

I have issues with spelling and it hurts my head to spell words that aren't really words at all.

Here are some gems I came across while commenting around BlogbVille

PILES
SOMPHO
PABINGL
GOAXIMO this one I may use in my every day vocabulary in place of a curse word!
PROCDEN
NOLOL
SKAPOD
CODUL
SQUECT
RICATERM
PAKEBEG

Now you see, some of these could potentially means something so then I am compelled to google them to find out for sure.

Some have shown up as a foreign language, and some of the "did you mean Xyz" options have been downright funny.

I just want them to use real words. Is that too much to ask??

I'm not going to bother spell checking this post because it will be a mass of red. :)

Save me....

2009-07-30T10:57:00.000-07:00

.....from myself!

I've gotten myself into a heap o' trouble.

After avoiding countless invitations on Facebook I caved in a moment of weakness and started playing the following

Farm Town
Farmville
Barn Buddy
Farm Pals
Garden Hood.

Sweet baby Geebus. This is sucking up ALL my time!!! I'm visiting farms, doing manual labour for pennies, hanging out at the marketplace pimping myself out for work, going bankrupt, obsessively checking every couple of hours to see if I have bugs or weeds, shuffling fields, chasing cows, debating seed planting choices based on when they will harvest and my work schedule, salivating at the level 30's and so on and so on and so on.

Someone please help me! I can't stop. I don't want to stop.

We leave on vacation is 10 days so I have to plan all my harvests to happen by them or they will go to waste. Who will water my crops? Pull weeds? Kill bugs? Someone could steal my entire crop!

If I put this much thought, planning and effort into my REAL life who knows how successful [or compulsively insane} I would be?

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Sorry, had to go check my crops. :) I need to level up so I can start growing peppers and cotton dammit. Maybe buy a fence to keep the cows out or a house would be nice....pond? gazeebo? some pretty flowers?

I'm losing control of my life. The laundry is piling up, I burned dinner last night because I got a good harvesting job, I think my kid had a bath this week. I was late for work and I believe Ass-hat may have packed up and left but I haven't taken the time to check.

I'm contemplating buying another computer so I can have multiple windows up at all times, it would save some time and make me more efficient.

Oh I am a mess, :)

Please help me.........

How do I??

2009-07-29T07:27:00.000-07:00

Schmoochie needs your expertise!

I would like to be able to reply in email to commenters on my Blog. Some Blogs I comment on do this and I like it. How do I set it up so that I can respond to comments in email? I just can't figure out how to do it. :(

Thanks!

ps.. It's still stupidly hot here. I sold out ALL my fans at work last night. People would walk in, look at me and ask "do you.." and I would shake my head and reply "No, we don't sell A/C units and I'm sold out of fans. So is every retailer in a 40km radius. But would you like to buy a computer or some school supplies?" :)

At least it's air conditioned at work so there is an upside to being employed this week. It's been busy with people in and out but no one is buying..they just wander around in the cold air to cool off and then head out on their merry way. I should start charging a cover fee to get in.

Happy Wednesday all!

My bleeding eyes!

2009-07-27T23:26:00.000-07:00

The bad part about a heat wave? People shed clothing. Sometimes too much.

We were at the gas station and this woman about 40ish hops out of her car IN AN ITSY BITSY YELLOW POLKA DOT BIKINI {ok, it was blue but I digress} and bounces her way into the store.

Uh.....ok. I could understand this if the gas station was located say- near the beach or ocean or obvious tourist-town-like water attraction but this was in the middle of the suburbs. Closest beach is about 30mins away.

Now seriously, you couldn't throw on a shirt and shorts? I don't need to see you and the cute tattoo on your butt jiggling in front of me in the store.

Ass-Hat: "That's just not right"
Schmoochie: "Wow..."
Little J: "Holy schmoley!" {his new phrase de jour}
Schmoochie: "Close your eyes honey or they will burn"
Little J: "Mommy she forgot to get dressed! She's in her underwear!"
Ass-Hat: "That's just not right"

If this is what she wears to pick up milk, I'd be very afraid of what she wears to the actual beach.

I need to go bleach my brain.

Monday Random Musings

2009-07-27T11:35:00.000-07:00

Ah Mondays. That dreadfull event that shows up every 7 days like clockwork.

I'm far too lazy to string together a coherent post but I think I can manage bullet points. I should actually be cleaning the house, going to the vet to pick up tick medicine, playing with the kid, going grocery shopping and getting dressed but hey, It's Monday and I don't care. Besides, the thought of climbing into my oven-er-car at the moment is not so appealing.

It is stupidly hot here! It's 11am and in the shade it's 32C. Which is 90F. Did I mention that was in the shade?? We are in for at least a week of record breaking temps. That is not good for forest fire season. It seems as though most of the province is ablaze. :( That means campfire bans. That means no entertainment in the evenings for our trip in 2 weeks :( That's the best part about camping...
sitting by the fire in the dark, kids running around with glow-sticks, a nice rum and coke in hand, igniting marshmallows, telling stories and having a few laughs.

So ya anyways, it's hot. We had my grandmother's 90th bday party on Sat in my parents backyard. Stupid hot. Then a fabulous thunderstorm rolled through. We don't get thunderstorms here. I've lived here since 1979 and have not seen one around these parts. It was freakin AWESOME! Sheet lightning, fork lightning, those big booming rumbles. Not to mention hail and monsoon-like rain which we desperately needed. Best part was the temp dropped about 10 degrees to be comfortable. It went on for hours. Ass-hat and I sat on the hood of the truck, in the rain, just watching.
Then we realized "hey....we have the tallest trees in the neighbourhood" Our pine/fir/evergreen trees are at least 60 years old and they are tall tall tall.
I suggested to Ass-hat that he put some tinfoil on his head and climb one of them but he didn't think it was such a great idea. {hey, he's insured!}

Tahoe is dong well. We cut down her Bell-Express-Vue cone so she can at least plop in over her dish to eat. She looks absolutely ridiculous but she has accepted the fact that the cone is staying on. We have to keep her face wound dry so poor puupy can'r even run through the sprinkler to get some relief from the heat. She is lying on the cool kitchen tile. I might join her...

Oh, it's 39C or 103F in the sun. CRAAAAAAAAZY!

WOW, just WOW.

2009-07-25T08:00:00.000-07:00

This is an article I spied the other day.....

Now being a Canadian, where we have stricter gun laws, this kinda freaks me out. I'm all for people exercising their Second Amendment Rights but really, is this the best way to sell a car?

Having lived as an illegal alien in the US for several months in the great state of Michigan, during hunting season, where everyone had a gun rack and a dead deer slung over the hood, I can see the appeal- but an AK-47? Isn't that over-kill? {pun intended}

Discuss amongst yourselves :)

"Talk about riding shotgun …

Myriad automakers over the years have offered freebies with the purchase of an automobile, from bicycles to barbecues.

But Butler, Mo.-based car dealer Mark Muller has truly upped the ante: if you purchase a truck at Max Motors, he’ll throw in a free AK-47 assault rifle on the house.

The promotion is completely legal… well, at least in Missouri it is.

If anything, Muller is garnering global attention to his scheme. He was recently interviewed in-depth on CNN, where he staunchly defended the AK-47 promotion. Muller noted there’s a “bunch of evil in the world” and that he’s a “firm believer in the Second Amendment.”

When informed that there’s a bit of a difference between giving away, say, a hunting rifle and an AK-47, Muller remained unfazed. Next time your vehicle is swarmed by seven thugs, he told the journalist, “You’ll wish you had an AK-47.” (Methinks simply sporting a “Max Motors” decal on the rear bumper would be sufficient warning to scare off the criminal element – assuming they’ve heard about Muller’s promotion.)

To clarify, buyers won’t actually be driving off the lot in a Silverado with an AK-47 occupying the passenger seat. Rather, a new truck purchaser will receive a voucher worth about US$450 that can be redeemed at his friendly neighbourhood gun boutique.

The promotion is also hailed on the dealership's website, www.max71.com. A photo of an AK-47 is perched next to an illustration of a cowboy sporting a couple of six-shooters. The dealership’s slogan is, “Our prices even blow us away!”

Regardless where one stands on guns, the AK-47 promotion is generating publicity faster than an AK-47 fires bullets. The dealership – which sells Chrysler, Ford and GM products – has been featured on Fox News, CNBC and even the BBC.

According to the website, feedback regarding the gun giveaway has been overwhelmingly positive. “We want to thank everyone who has emailed us and commented about our latest promotion,” notes the site. “Your support has been tremendous!”

My hunch: Muller knows full well that giving away an assault rifle is a slam-dunk way of getting noticed (and it’s far more effective that erecting the de rigueur inflatable dinosaur upon the dealership rooftop.)

Or perhaps he’s truly bought into the stereotype that pickup truck drivers in certain regions love the idea of driving around with weaponry.

Either way, Canadian consumers can forget about taking advantage of this particular scheme. While you can indeed license a vehicle purchased at Max Motors in this country, just try registering a freebie that is strictly prohibited in these parts."

It's tough to be Tahoe

2009-07-23T20:55:00.000-07:00

All my creatures small and hairy made it home in one piece for the most part.

Little J had a great time learning about bees and honey. He hasn't stopped talking about it for one single second. Is it bedtime yet?

My poor puppy on the other hand is slightly worse for wear. Not only did she get spayed but turns out she had a bad infection lurking under her fur on the side of her face. How could we not have noticed it? I feel soooo bad. We also got her tattooed. So belly is shaved, her head is shaved and that damn cone is not staying on. Somehow she Houdini's her way out of it. She's lying in her crate whimpering right now and it breaks my heart. It's going to be a long night.

Here are some pics of my hot mess of a dog.

GAK!

2009-07-23T09:45:00.000-07:00

I took Tahoe to the vet today to get spayed. When I first enquired about the cost I was told $90. This was substantially less than what other vets were charging and that's why we chose to use this particular vet. Other quotes we got were upwards of $200. What a bargain we thought......

So I drop the dog off this morning on my way to work and of course have to fill out the obligatory paperwork. Then comes page 2 and the list of 'extra' charges.

OH SWEET BABY JEEBUS! Now I know how he stays in business!

Blood work panel $70-140{I'm pretty sure that it's not necessary but it sounded good}
IV $40
Antibiotics $40
Pain relief $20/$15 for take home
Cone $15
Ear Tattoo {optional} $10
Spay $90
Random charge that I can't remember what it is $40

Worrying all day because your puppy is under the knife $Priceless

So that is $400 before taxes. Ouchie.

Plus she also has some sort of weeping wound on her cheek that started seeping last night that he needs to look at that too..... there's another chunk o' change.

Getting the dog fixed is costing me more than it did for me to birth a small human child. {and even then I *ahem* 'liberated' *ahem* extra supplies from my room to take home.}

Did I mention that Little J is all over town today on a field trip with his daycare?
Riding in a car. Did they install his carseat correctly? Is he going to wander off and they don't notice? Will he not touch the bees at the Honey Farm?

My anxiety is working on over-drive right now and I will not relax until all my creatures small and/or hairy are home tonight safe and sound. Then I will drink a very large rum and coke while I stare at the vet bill clutched in my hand and listen to a blow by blow account of how bees make honey. All will be right in my world again.

How do they expect me to get any work done today??

Wordless Wednesday

2009-07-21T22:16:00.000-07:00

Some of the Blogs I follow do this thing called 'Wordless Wednesdays' where they just post pics on Wednesdays. I have nothing really interesting to Blog about and it IS Wednesday in most parts of the world right now so what the hell huh... I am a sheep, I am a lemming {show me the cliff!} and I will follow.

Random pics of my favorite animals, vegatables and minerals from the last week or so.

Get out of my head!

2009-07-20T21:20:00.000-07:00

There is this woman that I keep seeing in my travels around town. She's actually kinda hard to miss.

She's got this jet-black beehive hairdo. She must be at least 60 years old so I'm guessing it's not her real colour and the incredible heights this beehive reaches defies gravity {think Marge Simpson}. She always wears bold coloured/garish caftans and her make up is clown like in it's application and appearance.

This woman fascinates me. How does she get into her car with hair that high? How long does her makeup take? What does she look like without all that crap on? Who in the world lets her out of the house looking like that?

I'm sure she's a very nice woman but wowsa.....I think she took a wrong turn at the Burlesque Parlour.

Have you ever come across someone 'interesting' and you can't get them out of your head or am I borderline stalker material? Is it wrong that once in a while I start thinking about what she's doing, where I might see her next, does she work, is she retired, why in heck no one buys her a mirror and so on. I think I need to find myself a better hobby.

Farting is funny.

2009-07-17T18:35:00.000-07:00

So little J just farted.

He called it a Blow-Fart

It's when you fart a little bubble.

Curious I asked if he named all his farts.

:rolling eyes: "Yes Mommy. It's the rule."

Rule? Whose rule?

"Daddy's"

So of course I had to know all his fart names and what I got was..

Daddy Fart... when it goes pfft..pfft..pfft.

Real/Normal Fart... no bubbles, one pfft.

Poo Fart... when you poo yourself a little

Sneaky Fart... when you can't hear it.

Dog Fart... when it smells so bad you have to cry

Little J is going to be quite the catch for some lucky lady in the future.

Play me a song Mr. Piano Man

2009-07-15T23:00:00.000-07:00

Little J is fascinated with Ipods and MP3 players. He can amuse himself for hours listening to Ass-hats Ipod. I didn't think anything of letting him have at it until the other day when he came up to me and said "Mommy, the man singing just said ass and another word that I'm sure is bad." Uh oh. A light went off in my head and I started to really think about what kind of music was on that Ipod.

We have pretty eclectic tastes so everything from Paul Anka to Limp Bizkit is on there. OOPS! Some is of is definitely not kid appropriate!

So for Little J's birthday, I got him a cheap $10 mp3 player. We've been loading songs that are rated PG. He really likes country music and dance tunes. And bass, lots and lots of bass. Not a single 'kiddie tune' on it at all.

He has not stopped listening for days. It is permanently attached to his head. He tries to wear it into the bathtub. I fear it may fall into the toilet one day. It's so damn cute to watch him bopping around, toes tapping and trying to sing along. The kids got pipes.

The downside...he never hears me when I call him. So now I'm shrieking like a fish-wife. It's summer, the doors and windows are open. I'm sure the neighbours are calling me the crazy-lady who yells a lot.

Now if I could somehow figure out how to get the theme music for Bakugan onto the MP3 player, I'd be the coolest mom ever!

All seeing or just plain nosey?

2009-07-14T11:00:00.000-07:00

I have eyes in the back of my head. Seriously, I do. Just ask my kid. Or any of my employees. I seem to have a knack for knowing exactly what is happening out of sight.

I call is my 'up-to-no-good sense'.

I suppose my associates view me as the old woman/mom/manager and forget that I used to be young and did all the same tricks to goof off and screw around. I'm sure I have a few that they haven't even thought of yet. :) Little do they realize that while I'm in the back office I've got the security cameras up to watch the sales floor. Every once in a while every single sales floor associate will end up at the service desk. Which means no one is actually helping customers. That's when I do the 'Big Brother is Watching' page over the PA and get them scrambling back to the sales floor. They call it creepy, I call it effective managing. :) It creeps out my fellow managers too. The boss-man asked if I watched everybody. My reply was "You should stop picking your nose in the front cash office." *evil grin*

Little J is completely freaked out by the eyes in the back of my head. How I've managed to keep him convinced for so long I don't know. He once asked me how I always knew what he was doing,
"Because Mommies have eyes in the back of their head so they can keep track of naughty little boys"
"OOOH" he says, "Can I see them?"
"One day when you're old enough I'll show you sweetie".
"How do you not get shampoo in them Mommy?"
"Same as you, I close them really tight."

Could it really be that easy?

Poor kid had no idea that he is so loud I could hear what he was up to and he also tends to talk to his toys about what he was doing. Throw in the rear view mirror in the car and I've got all by bases covered. LOL!

Every once in a while I catch him staring intently at the back of my head.
"What are you looking at?" I ask.
He blushes and mumbles under his breath "Nuthin".
I know he's trying to spot those eyes.

I'm workin this angle as long as he believes. Wonder if it will still work when he's in high school????

Why yes, I am a freak.

2009-07-12T09:30:00.000-07:00

We are in the middle of a heat wave. High 80's, mid 90's. I love it! This is the only time of year that I am comfortable. Everyone else is sweating, hot and grumpy. I am as happy as a pig in shit. I may even break out the shorts.

As the temperatures rise and more clothes are shed, my weirdness becomes so much more obvious. I am the only person wearing pants, long sleeves and a fleece vest.

The freakin air conditioning at work is set for 65F. WTF! Isn't that Artic temperature? I am in my office frozen solid, nose running, hands and feet numb.
Customers come in and look at me shivering and ask what the hell is wrong with me.
"The air conditioning is great!" they say. Ya buddy, you try standing here for 9 hours and try not to freeze to death.

Granted, I am nothing more than a skeleton wrapped in skin and one can find me in temperatures as hot as Hades wearing a sweater and clutching a cup of hot tea.

I wear my flannel pj's {sexy I know!} and cocoon myself under my down blankets all damn year. It does get chilly at night. When camping I have been known to wear a touque to bed because I am too cold to sleep.

I would love to live somewhere tropical or at least closer to the equator.

Am I the only freak that's always cold out there?

Bloody hell........

2009-07-08T18:26:00.000-07:00

So I made it 11.2 days before getting the Mother of All Migraines. It is the Perfect Storm of weather/hormones/stress and lemme tell ya.... it's a doozy.

I don't remember much of work today. I know I went there in the morning and at some point came home because I found myself heaving in my own bathroom. {Good thing I cleaned it yesterday} How and when I got here remains a mystery. I certainly hope I didn't mow anyone down in my car on the way home. Pretty sure the cops would have been here by now right? I did remember to pick up the little one which is amazing because I don't normally do pick up.

It feels like someone is jamming a red hot poker in my left eye and my face is numb so I am drooling.

Figures it would happen while Ass-hat is fishing. Poor Little J is on his own tonight. I'm opening the pantry and he can eat whatever he can reach. Cold Pop Tarts and Goldfish? Chocolate Pudding and a can of tuna? Sliced cheese and Nutella? Have at it kid..this is your chance to eat anything you want! Makes me want to hurl just thinking about it.

I just have to make it until bedtime.

I have doubled the daily dosage for Tylenol/Advil/Aspirin already so I'm tapped out. I'm sure the ringing in my ears is perfectly normal. Right?

I can't take any of the good stuff because I am alone with the kidlet.

If you don't hear from me in 3 days, it means my head imploded and my brain is seeping out my ears.

In search of Oncorhynchus mykiss

2009-07-06T11:04:00.000-07:00

My mighty hunter has once again left home and hearth to locate and conquer the elusive Oncorhynchus mykiss.

Yep, Ass-hat has left for another week of fishing, drinking, sleeping with men and peeing off boats. Just don't ask me where he is.

Fishermen are a strange breed and very secretive. They only share information with a select few. Befriend a fisherman and you're as good as gold. Become one of the 'inner circle' and tap into a wealth of knowledge. What's the best fly to use on this lake, what's hatching now, what depth you should fish, what line you should cast, which lake is producing, which lake didn't survive the winter etc.

Piss off a fisherman and you will meet a stone cold wall of silence.

NEVER EVER post on a public forum information on a 'hot' lake. I kid you not. Some idiot posted a Youtube video of this huge trout he caught and mentioned what lake it was. Not 20 minutes after it was posted our phone was ringing off the hook with fellow fishing freaks calling to talk about what an idiot that guy was. He broke the cardinal rule "We do not talk about the lake in public" The video was subsequently removed, but the damage was done. He will never be able to join a reputable fly fishing forum. The saddest part? Even if he hadn't mentioned that name of the lake, most of the guys recognized it from the video. These boys have too much time on their hands.

Us women cannot be trusted to keep their current location a secret. God forbid word gets out to the un-educated masses as to which lake exactly they are fishing. My letting it slip in general conversation may cause a stampede of folks heading to that lake. Not that anyone I happen to meet gives a flying jelly donut, word may get around. People talk.

Despite much pleading {You're a parent dammit! What if there is an emergency?} and demanding {You can't go until I know where you are!} I still have no idea where he went. I have a general idea- North.

To shut me up, Ass-hat has provided his location to me in case of emergency. He gave me a SEALED envelope outlining his itinerary. I am to open it in an EMERGENCY ONLY.

An emergency is defined as:

The house has burned down
One of us has lost a limb
I have lost the child or the dog
He has not returned home by Sunday night and I need to call search and rescue.

They are so far into bush that I believe him when he says they can't get cell reception but he must check in when he goes int town. There is never enough beer or ice so I KNOW they re-stock midweek.

It's gonna be a tough go doing it all by myself with work,picking up from daycare on time, kid activities, housework {ha ha ha h like that's going to happen} dog walking etc. I make no guarantee that everyone will be fed, walked, bathed or brushed on schedule.

Ripped off

2009-07-04T13:00:00.000-07:00

I was in the drug store next door to work this week and saw a wicked deal on 'KIMCHI' noodle bowls. .79cents a piece. So what the heck, I buy 2 beef, 2 chicken, 2 vegetable and 2 pork flavour for lunches.

Monday I tried chicken. It was reddish brown and very spicy.
Tuesday I tried vegetable. It was reddish brown and very spicy
Wednesday I tried beef. It was reddish brown and very spicy.
Thursday I tried pork. It was reddish brown and very spicy.

I'm beginning to think they are actually.all.the.same.flavour.

Now that's just mean.

Family Time

2009-07-02T11:00:00.001-07:00

For some reason I really have nothing of value to say today. This almost never happens.

I'm just killing time until I go to work. Sitting out back, watering the flower beds and watching the dog bring me treats. She's living up to the 'retriever' part of her heritage. So far she has brought me:

3 pine cones
1 piece of particle board
1 unidentifiable lump of something organic
2 different gardening gloves
4 sticks
1 plastic bucket
2 balls
1 snout full of dirt that I'm sure she dug out of the garden

She's now happily noshing on a 2by4. I think we are past the explosive pooping stage. Of course she stopped right after the $200 vet visit. Grrrr! So while I'm not cleaning up after HER poo, my child has picked up the reins and is continuing the um, family tradition.

We went for a lovely walk in a local park last night {it's a protected Bog} and we're seriously off trail in the middle of nowhere when Little J announces that he has to pee. Well, we are in nature so find a good 'pee bush' and have at er kid!
Suddenly he looks up at me and says "Oh Mommy I have to poo!" Before I could even say "Can you wait till we get home", green poo is shooting from my kids arse.

Oh my good Lord! We just stood there stunned while my poor child shat all over himself and his underwear/shorts. After a moment of shocked silence I looked at Ass-hat and burst into laughter. What else could I do? We were in the woods, no wipes, no supplies, nothin. So there I am, trying to wipe runny crap off my kid with leaves without making more of a mess. I used one of the doggie poop baggies to hold his soiled clothes and tried to figure out how to get a half nekkid, poo covered child back to the truck without further incident. Thank goodness I was smart enough to have put a jacket on Little J so I wrapped that around his waist and off we went.

Did I mention the awesome dry-heaving that occurred during the clean-up process? I somehow managed NOT to puke, but it took every fiber of my being. I too, was covered in green goo and no amount of leaves, twigs and berries was gonna get me cleaned off.
Ass-hat was of no help at all. He was quote "Busy holding the dog". Glad to know I can count on him in a time of crisis. He threatened to not let us in the truck. I threatened to smear the baggie of clothes all over his dashboard. :)

I made the poor kid stand outside while I ran a quick bath and then picked him up straight armed and plopped him in the tub still somewhat clothed and wearing his crocs. A major hosing off amidst loud screaming followed.

Now that my friends, was the perfect example of non-quality family time.

Huh, so I guess I did have something to say after all

Below are some pics of our 'fabulous' time in the Bog. I thought about posting a pic of the 'exploding bum' incident {cause yes, I took pictures!} but really, no one needs to see that. :)

HAPPY CANADA DAY!

2009-07-01T09:00:00.000-07:00

Happy Canada Day to all my fellow Canadians!!!!! {and Canadian wanna-be's}

Enjoy a video from my favorite Canuck.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Edited to add the My Name is Joe and I am Canadian Rant.

Hey, I'm not a lumberjack, or a fur trader....
I don't live in an igloo or eat blubber, or own a dogsled....
and I don't know Jimmy, Sally or Suzy from Canada,
although I'm certain they're really really nice.

I have a Prime Minister, not a president.
I speak English and French, not American.
And I pronounce it 'about', not 'a boot'.

I can proudly sew my country's flag on my backpack.
I believe in peace keeping, not policing,
diversity, not assimilation,
and that the beaver is a truly proud and noble animal.
A toque is a hat, a chesterfield is a couch,
and it is pronounced 'zed' not 'zee', 'zed' !!!!

Canada is the second largest landmass!
The first nation of hockey!
and the best part of North America

My name is Joe!!
And I am Canadian!!!

Survivor Schmoochie style

2009-06-30T09:11:00.000-07:00

My name is Schmoochiepoo and I am a neglectful Blogger. It has been 3 days since my last Blog and I have not read anyone elses either. I know! I suck!

Little J's party was a success! {or at least in my mine it was} Everyone showed up! The weather gods pulled through for me and we had sunny weather even if it was a tad chilly in the shade. All the food was eaten. Ass-hat was a BBQing machine. I was fairly tipsy and refrained from beating any of the sugar-laden demon spawn tearing though my house.

We started late. I was starting to panic at 2:05pm when there were only about 5 people here. I'm really anal about punctuality and just assume the rest of the population is as well. Apparently not. It was almost 2:30 by the time all his school friends arrived. One poor parent calls "I'm at your address and it's a farm, I'm staring at a greenhouse with aluminum siding. Is this the place?" He had put 'avenue' instead of 'street' into his GPS and ended up in farm country! Poor guy. He was so frazzled when they arrived. I just handed him a beer. He's my friend for life now. :)

Of course, no Schmoochie party is complete without some dysfunctional family drama. My friends come just to see what my mother pulls out of her hat. I told her to be here at 1pm. Party starts at 2pm. She has some of the food. We waited until 2:45 to start eating. She arrived at 3:15pm. Not willing to accept that everyone is done eating, she proceeds to run around slapping potato salad on every ones plate whether they wanted it or not.

Then she closes the glass patio doors, {there are 2} which have been open so people could move freely inside/outside, because she was getting a draft. Not 2 mins later 3kids go crashing into the closed doors. Way to go Mom!

She anointed herself official cake cutter and I was too busy running around monitor her. I kid you not, she cut the cake that feeds 20 into about 50 pieces. Each piece was about an inch long and a quarter inch wide. Are you kidding me!?!? I started putting 3 pieces on plates to give to the adults. I just kept mumbling "my mom cut it, don't ask' as I was handing out plates.

When she wasn't chasing after Little J to put some socks on him she spent her time lecturing to my poor sister-in-law about how she's failing as a parent. My niece is 2months old. She went on and on about how she raised 2 kids and doctors don't know anything yada yada yada. I had to intervene as my SIL was near tears and I actually told my Mom "Shut the hell up and leave her alone. She's doing just fine and shoving your advice down her throat is not helping. How dare you lecture her on how to breast feed correctly when you bottle fed us!" Sadly, my mother didn't even blink and just kept right on talking. Brick, meet wall.

I used paper/plastic plates and cutlery for a reason. Not very environmentally friendly but EASY for me to clean up. I recycle. :) Anyways, my Mom pulled all the plastic stuff out of the bin and started to wash them. OUT OF THE RECYCLING BIN PEOPLE!! I'm all for renew, re use and recycle but geez, did you have to pull crap out of the garbage in front of company??

Little J received so many awesome presents, the kid got spoiled. My mom of course was horrified at the amount and started taking toys aside so we wouldn't open them. Her thought was to re gift them at a later date because LJ has toys already. She also carefully folded up all the tissue paper, which was fine but God forbid a piece got ripped in the opening of the gift.

One of Little J's favorite gifts was a super duper water gun. He gleefully filled it up and egged on by all the kids and some of the *cough* grown ups, went on a water gun rampage soaking anyone who stood still long enough. Mass panic and hysteria followed as people scrambled for cover.

One of the kids broke the ice dispenser in the fridge and it was spitting out ice all by itself at an alarming rate. I had 2 pans full of ice before we got it stopped. We couldn't let the ice go to waste now could we.....ICE CUBE FIGHT! Ass-hat got half a pan dumped down his back. hee hee. I chose this point in time to hide in the house. :)

I think the last of the guests left around 8pm. I really should be cleaning up the toy shrapnel that stretches from one side of the house to the other but hey, I got important blogging to do :)

It was fun, but a hell of a lot of work. Little J had a blast and that was all that mattered.

I have a few pictures, not in any particular order and avideo of J and his water gun at the end.

Dare I dream a Little Dream?

2009-06-26T09:31:00.000-07:00

I'm gonna say this very quietly in case some vengeful deity is listening in on me...

Theweathernetwork is calling for....... partly cloudy on Sunday! 20% chance of rain. Oh dear sweet jebus....don't let it change!!

On the party front, most of the housecleaning is on a roll amidst much cracking the whip and threats of garbage bags full of toys getting tossed out the front door. The final clean should be done by Saturday night and I'm sending Ass-hat, the kids, the cats and dog to my In-laws for the night so it stays clean. Just kidding, but it's a great idea.

The last 10 people RSVP'd so I have to go back to the store to buy crap for more goody bags. I should have just assumed that everyone would come and buy it all in the first place. But no.... I'm an idiot. I decided not to get a pinata. They are crazy expensive and 15 kids 2-12 years old running around swinging a baseball bat is probably not a good idea anyways.

Little J has decided that no girls are allowed to see his bedroom. He is quite adamant about it and is feverishly working on a sign that says "Boys Only". He doesn't want any help writing it so that sign actually says something like "WLAPSHRNC S SUIGD" with some of the letters backwards. Meh, it keeps him out of my hair for a few minutes. I'm going to remind him of his no girls policy when he's 16. :)

Is it a little anal that I have created a spreadsheet and time plan for the party? I have every detail down..when to start the BBQ, what game we're going to play and how long it will take, when we eat and for how long etc. I'm running a tight ship here people. The volume of wine I consume during the party will ultimately determine how close we stick to the schedule.

Princess Poopy Pants is heading to the vet today. I spotted some worms in her latest poo extravaganza in the kitchen this morning. She has never pooped in the house and now she's having these HUGE accidents every day and/or night. Something is not right. She's teething like a bastard and I have picked a few baby teeth out of my slippers. {she attacks them when I walk by her wearing them} I have my baggie of poo to take with me in case they want a sample. I'm tired of poo. I thought I never had to think about poo ever again once Little J was potty trained but no, we decide to get a puppy. A large puppy. A large puppy that poos a lot.

I suppose I should actually get back to work before someone notices that I've disappeared.

Have a great weekend everyone. I'll be back on Monday.

Is she insane?

2009-06-24T18:34:00.000-07:00

The Crazy Old German Lady {my mom} calls me last night, once again at 11:30pm when she knows damn well that I'm up at 5am to go to a meeting out of town. We call her crazy for a reason.

Anyways, she asks if I know that's it's supposed to rain on the weekend. DUH! I have been stalking the weather network every hour for the last 3 days. I've offered sacrifices to the rain gods and done some weird voo-doo stuff that I'm not allowed to talk about. ;) I will do almost anything to get sunshine on Sunday.

So ya, she asks. I answer with a few select phrases best not repeated in polite company.

She then says "Why don't you call everyone to cancel and reschedule it next weekend when the weather is supposed to be nice?"

Is she freakin insane??? Just up and reschedule 45 people? A casual "Hey why don't you come out next weekend instead?" Did she forget I'll be AT WORK the following weekend? Oh ya, she said that was not a problem, she would run the party. Damn near choked on my tea when she said that. Seriously, the woman has a screw or two rattling around.

Once I stopped laughing at the utter stupidity of that idea I really had no response. She was absolutely dead serious.

I wonder how I turned out as 'normal as I did.

Well I just had to share that moment of insanity and now it's back to scrubbing.

The upside to all of this? My house will get it's twice annual rafter to floor boards clean. I'll be off the hook until Christmas.

*Sigh* I will get through this right?

Oh ya... the dog has explosive diarrhea and has been shitting in the kitchen during the day. Just flippin lovely.

I wonder if THIS made her sick? Freaky huge mushroom under the slide.

Princess Poopy Pants the Puppy waiting for some lovin

Freakin Out!!!

2009-06-22T10:34:00.000-07:00

Ahhhh... I need to be talked off the roof. I have this insane urge to hurl myself off of it. Granted, I live in a 1 storey rancher and I would probably only break the shrubbery when I landed, but none the less, the thought exists.

I am in full out Birthday Party Panic Mode. Little J's party is on Sunday. We're having his party at our house. Crazy I know! This is the first year we are inviting his classmates, so I have strangers to impress. We usually have a friends/family BBQ in the huge backyard, BBQ, rent a big-ass bouncy castle and let the kids have at er.
We have been rained out 3 out of 4 years and it looks like this year will be no different. One would think I've learned my lesson but I remain stupidly optimistic that 'this year' will be better. 2 years ago it rained so hard it flooded. Sunny the day before, sunny the day after, monsoon the day of. I can't catch a break.

It hasn't rained in 6 bloody weeks but the forecast calls for rain this weekend. FUCK ME UP THE GOAT ASS!!!!!!!!

I have scheduled his party on almost every weekend throughout the month of June over the last 5 years and have been screwed over. Every weekend so far this year in June has been fabulous.

I went completely overboard on inviting folks. Confirmed guests at the moment stands at 10 kids/21 adults and potentially 15 kids/30 adults. I can't fit 31 to 45 people IN my house! It's a small rancher, I'll have to stack them up in the hallways. All the games/activities are for OUTSIDE. There's not enough seating. People will be bored and the party will suck and no one will ever come to a party for Little J again. And don't even get me started on the whole RSVP thing.....really how hard is it to pick up the phone and say "Yes thank you we'll be there" or "No sorry we can't make it". Arrgggg!

NOW IS THE TIME TO PANIC!!!!

I spent the last 3 weekends getting the yard ready, working on the landscaping, power washing the deck, making pretty. I want it to look great! I don't want people to think we're trash. Well, we are kinda, but we're closet trash :)

I have no idea when I'm going to get to the house cleaning. With the 2 and 4 legged creatures in this house messing stuff up faster than I can clean it, I'll be cleaning at 3am Sat morning. My work schedule sucks ass this week. I still have to do the food shopping, decorations, balloons, pinata, goody bags, supplies etc.

Why did I think this was a good idea?

Next year we're going bowling.

//END RANT.

I now return you to your regularily scheduled programming. Carry on. :)

Hey you!

2009-06-20T14:58:00.000-07:00

Ya You.....stranger reading this post. Please take a second and leave a comment.

I'm such a nosey Nancy. I love checking out my map to see where people have come from to land on my tiny spot in the Blogisphere. Canada, United States, UK, Australia, Malaysia, India and Nepal are some of the most recent. How cool is that!

I wonder how you ended up here. Did you end up here by mistake? A google search gone horribly wrong? Did you come here on purpose?

Please take a minute of your time to leave a comment or say Hi from 'XYZ'. You can be anonymous. I promise not to stalk you.

Thanks for humouring the crazy lady. :)

Dear Family Part Deux

2009-06-18T18:25:00.000-07:00

Open letter to all living creatures residing in my household.

Dear Ass-hat: I understand that this is nasty allergy season for you and I feel bad for you , I really do. However, after 5 nights of not sleeping because you are wheezing, coughing, choking and snoring like a freight train gone wrong, my severely sleep deprived mind is plotting to bring a shiv to bed and slide it between your ribs tonight. If you loved me even a tiny bit, you would gallantly offer to sleep on the couch so at least one of us is rested. Two tired, cranky and bitchy adults in the house is not safe for anyone. For the love of all that is holy, be a man, suck it up and take some freakin medicine. I don't care that it makes you feel 'dopey' all day. I have enough sleep issues without you adding to the mix.

Dear Child: Please stop begging and crying to go out and play with the dog after I tell you "No, she's too hyper, you'll get hurt". Throwing your 5 year old self onto the floor and convulsing is not the best way to convince me to listen to you. It makes me want to video it so I can show it to your girlfriends when you're 16. And when you do sneak out to play with the dog and she bowls you over and tries to eat you, don't scream loud enough for the neighbours to hear. I told you so.

Dear Dog: Please calm down. I get that you're still a puppy but you're 45 freakin pounds! Stop trying to eat the boy. He is NOT a squeeky toy. He may sound like one but I promise you, he's not. Please stop peeing the second I touch you when I get home. I've been gone for 10mins, what is so damn exciting about me coming back? Please stop mauling me on my way out the door to work. My uniform is black. You are blonde and shedding like a mo-fo. Your hair is strangely lint-brush resistant.

Dear Fat Kitty. Stop sleeping on my head! I do not enjoy rolling over in the middle of the night only to be suffocated by 20lbs of fur. Sleep on Ass-hats pillow. Thank you for continuing to pee on Ass hats laundry pile. It makes me happy in a vindictive sort of way. Don't worry, I'll protect you. :)

Dear Freaky Kitty: See note above about peeing only on Ass-hats laundry. Same goes for barfing. No barfing on my pj's. Stop trying to escape when the door is open for the dog. You have no idea what it's like in the Outdoor Woods. I expect that from the fat one, not you. You will freak out and your heart will explode if you make it off the deck.

To All: Why can't you keep the house clean for longer than 10mins? I swear it's clean when I leave for work every day and when I get home it looks like a hurricane went through. I know you eat nothing but fast food the nights I am not home for dinner so how do you explain the piles of dishes on the counter? Did I miss a party?
Did you forget where the 4 laundry baskets are? Is the closet door too hard to open to put your shoes away? Did you really play with every single toy in the house? How come the kid ate 8 granola bars but the grapes and carrots are un-touched? 8 FREAKIN GRANOLA BARS!!!! Now I have to go back to the store because those were for snacks after ball hockey...did you forget that we are snack parents tomorrow? How hard is it to pick up the phone and call me at work to ask me to pick up milk on the way home? Did you think I wouldn't notice the empty jug in the fridge when I made my tea this morning {without milk!} If you use the last of the toilet paper, get a new roll. I do not like drip-drying at 4am. Next time I'll use your bath towel. {which is on the floor anyways}

Ya'll may want to shape up because one day Mommy won't come home from work. I'll run off and live by myself in a cabin in the woods and leave you to fend for yourselves.

Good luck with that eh?

Failure to communicate

2009-06-17T11:10:00.000-07:00

The following exchange occurred at work last night while I was at the front to the store

Customer enters, looks around, spots me and walks over

Me: Hello! Welcome to "Big Box Office Supply Store"
Customer looking confused "Pants?"
Me eyebrow raised: "Pardon me?"
Customer loudly: "PANTS!"
Me trying to distinguish his heavy accent "Paint? Paper?"
Customer hopping up and down "No Pants! Need Pants!"
Me really confused: "You want pants?" pointing to my own legs
Customer excited and peering over my shoulder into the store: "Yes! Pants! Where?"
Me: "Uh you're in 'Big Box Office Supply Store'. We sell electronics and office stuff"
Customer looking very sad: "No pants?"
Me: "No sorry, all out of pants"
Customer: "No pants?"
Me: "NO PANTS! GO NEXT DOOR!"
Customer takes one last look over my shoulder: "OK No pants." stares at me for a moment to determine if I might be lying to him, sighs heavily and leaves.

I sent him to the drugstore next door. Let them have fun with that.

This is what I get paid the big bucks for folks. :) I should have told him to head down aisle 15 {which doesn't exist just to see what happened}.

Sadly that was the highlight of my evening.

Da-yam!

2009-06-16T09:30:00.000-07:00

You know you've messed up your back when you can't reach around to wipe your own arse.

Even worse, there's no one home to help you.

FML.

He's so damn cute

2009-06-13T21:48:00.000-07:00

It took me 3 months of daily kvetching to finally convince Ass-hat to crate train the damn dog. I even brought a crate home, plopped it in the kitchen and said "It says or I go!" I want my kitchen back! Tahoe will soon be big enough to jump over the baby gate which is the only thing keeping her confined in the kitchen. Ass-hat still doesn't want her outside when we're not home or overnight. GAH! I think the dog is old enough. She's 45lbs now and is still a puppy who likes to jump up, nip and tackle. I've been bowled over more than once by the over-exuberant beast.

I need to be able to put her somewhere when we have people over and are in/out of the house. Little J's party is in 2 weeks and with 40 people/children running around in and out of the house through the kitchen we need her crated.

It's taken a few days but she did sleep inside it last night {with the doors off} and hopefully we can work up to closing the door and not have her freak out and try to chew her own leg off trying to escape.

So Little J has taken great interest in this process. He's been peppering me with a million "whys" and "how comes". I'm trying to explain that it's not to punish the dog but to give her a safe place to be when she can't run around free.

Earlier tonight he asked me how to spell "Puppy" and then how to spell "only". I didn't think anything of it as the child tends to ask the oddest questions. He shut his bedroom door with a stern "Don't come in!" and I was just happy to get a few minutes of slience. At bedtime I walk into his room to read stories and discover that he has made Puppy his own crate!

Puppy is a stuffed dog that my Aunt gave him for Valentines day when he was 2. Puppy goes EVERYWHERE with Little J. There is much strife and trauma in the Schmoochie household when Puppy goes MIA. Poor Puppy has lost his tongue several times, his tail is sewed on backwards {oops] and his hind leg is held together with a safety pin. Puupy is Little J's most prized posession.

Little J took one of my 'junk' tote-thingies, decorated it and drew a sign that says "Puppy Only" on it. "Now Puppy can be safe when I'm not here too Mommy" And he did it all by himself.

He makes my heart happy. :)

Now to find out where he put the stuff that used to be in the crate.....

What will they think of next?

2009-06-13T20:58:00.000-07:00

I'm at work today unpacking some of the stock that's come in during the week that has no home. Meaning it's a promo product and it's usually something we throw up at the till as an add-on. IE: Hand sanitizer, hand cream etc. We're getting some cool stuff in for Back to School already so for me, going through stock is like a Carnival Christmas.

I notice a product called 'Just a Drop' in a little tiny bottle. "Oh neat" I think assuming it's a mini breath freshener and plop it by the main cash register.

Later in the day one of my regular customers comes in and we are standing at the till chit chatting and he picks up a pack of 'Just a drop', reads it and bursts out laughing. "Have you seen this" he chokes out between guffaws. I, for the life of me can't figure out what's so damn hilarious about breath freshener and start to wonder if he perhaps is indicating that MY breath may not be very fresh and that I should try this product.

I politely give him 'The Eyebrow' and patiently wait for him to catch his breath to explain. He tosses me the package to read.

OH MY WORD! It IS a freshener but not for your breath.... it's for the um, other end. It's A PERSONAL FRESHENER!

And I quote..."Just a Drop is as easy to use as the name suggests. Put a drop or two into the toilet bowl BEFORE use. Just A Drop creates a deodorizing layer that effectively blocks and eliminates embarrassing personal bathroom odours. One Drop after keeps your bathroom smelling fresh."

It's for stinky poos!!! No more lighting matches, no more spraying perfume, no more slinking out of the bathroom stall after a particularly nasty dump.

Now both the customer and I are laughing like hyenas. Why is it that people bond over
bathroom humour?

I so want to buy for my general manager who does make it a habit at 9:30am every morning to leave the sales floor and spend some quality time in the mens room. I'll wrap it up nice and pretty and leave it on his desk when he comes back from vacation next week. Maybe I'll get a raise?! Last time I was sick the man sprayed ME with Lysol so this is only fair right? *evil grin*

The sad part? Someone somewhere getting paid a shit-load of money (pun intended) developed, produced and marketed this product because obviously, there was a need for it.

I really want to know what it smells like!! Is it minty? flowery? Sun-dried laundry?
Garden breeze? Ocean Delight? I just don't want to spend $6.49 to find out. Maybe I'll accidentally on purpose run it over with the pallet jack and pop it open.

Any guesses?

So wow... and entire post about personal toilet freshener. Aren't you glad you stopped by?

I so need to find me a hobby!

Busy week at the Schoochie House

2009-06-12T12:06:00.000-07:00

Haven't had a lot of time to post this week. It's been a busy week with Little J turning 5, Pre-school graduation and a ball hockey tournament on the weekend. Work has also been hellishly hectic and we're getting the house/yard ready for the big party in 2 weeks.

But I just had to stop and post pics of Little J's Pre-school graduation. I am sooo proud of him. And yes I teared up as he walked in and and got his diploma. I'm a dork. :)

These will be out of order and I have no time to organize so I apologize in advance.

As a special treat.. a photo of the elusive Schoochie with her off-spring.

The First Day of The Rest of My Life

2009-06-09T23:21:00.001-07:00

5 years ago tonight I was lying in a hospital bed, tired, cranky and swollen from 3 days on IV fluids. I hadn't felt my legs in 8 hours and hadn't eaten or seen the outside world in 3 days. I was apparently having a baby. Too bad someone had forgotten to let the kid know it was his show now.

Monday June 7/04 was my due date. I waddled my fat ass to my dr's only to be told after being groped that nope, nothing happening. Not dilated, not effaced. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zippo. "See you in a week" said my OB on his way out the door for his Italian vacation. Depressed, I head home and eat a pint of ice cream.

That night we went to bed and all of a sudden at 2am I felt a pop and GUSH! My damn water broke! I jump out of bed so I don't ruin my expensive mattress {ever practical} and go to the bathroom to leak. Wrapping up in a towel I decide to go back to bed and get some more sleep as I didn't have contractions yet. I was oddly calm..I think it was shock, I had been in denial about the whole birth part of this baby making process.

Tuesday morning at around 9 I call L&D explain that my water broke 8 hours ago but no contractions yet. They tell me to come in. When they check me, still no dilation or effacement. They give me Cervidal to soften my cervix. I am not a stick of butter!
By 4pm Tuesday with still no progress they start me on the evil fluid otherwise known as Pitocin. Holy shit! By 5:30pm the contractions were taking my breath away and I couldn't walk through them. The numbers were going off the scale.

They did not want to give me an EPI in case that stalled any progress. I got as far as 4cm. My stubborn boy was just not cooperating in his eviction proceedings.

It was now 4pm on Wednesday, I had been in heavy labour for 24 hours with no pain medication. I was exhausted. Nothing was happening. It was decided that I would be scheduled for a c-section 8am on Thursday morning. I got my blessed EPI. Nothing ever felt as good as when that needle went in my back and the pain dulled. I amused myself for a few hours jabbing my legs with a pen to see if I could feel them.

I managed to keep my sense of humour during the 54 hour ordeal. The nurses said I was their favorite and snuck me cups of tea when the doctors wasn't looking. Because my OB had flown the coop to Italy, I was taken care of by whoever the on-call was.
I even had med students come in. I was there for countless shift changes, other women had come, birthed and left. Friends and family had stopped calling because every time they did, there was no news.

Thursday June 10 I was wheeled into the OR. The gas dude asked how I was doing, just making polite conversation I guess. I gave him the eyebrow as that was the only part of me NOT numb at the point and said....

"I have been leaking bodily fluids for 3 days, I have been poked, prodded and felt up by more people than I can count, I've been shaved by a stranger and now I'm buck naked, spead eagled strapped to a table in a room full of people and am about to be cut open and a human being pulled from my insides. I'm doing pretty damn good considering"

That got around the L&D floor and people were stopping by afterwards to see me and the baby. If you can't be smart, be funny.

At 8:10am June 10, 2004 my beautiful baby boy finally arrived. Stubborn baby.
7lbs 15oz with a huuuuge head. Makes me glad he didn't come out the hoo-hoo.

I didn't know then but his reluctance to leave the womb was just an indicator to how he would conduct himself in the years to come. He is stubborn. Willful. Painfully slow. Wants it his way or no way. He is also incredibly sweet, clever and funny.

He is the beat of my heart and the air in my lungs.

I am blessed every day I have with him.

And now of course... the pictures :)

7 months. Look I have boobies!

3 weeks old

In the sink...look at that smile!

First Birthday

Second Birthday

Around 2 years old. He had the most beautiful curls

He still looks like this when he eats!

Third Birthday..wearing his new raincoat

<

Fourth Birthday..trying on his new fishing hat

2 weeks ago...My big boy.

HAPPY FIFTH BIRTHDAY MY DARLING BOY!

Now off to ice his brirthday cake for pre-school tomorrow. It's after midnight, talk about leaving things to the last minute......

Random thoughts from Schmoochie's brain

2009-06-08T10:11:00.000-07:00

It's Monday morning, Little J is at daycare and I don't work until 2pm. Why am I not napping?

Why does the Fat Kitty AKA Fatty McButter Pants insist on sleeping on my head lately? If I dare attempt to move him ie: shove him forcibly off the pillow, I get thwacked across the nose?

Why does it take my kid an HOUR to eat his damn oatmeal?

Why is it that the kid can't tell time but can look up in the sky, squint at the sun and announce "Bakugan is on, we have to go home". And damn if he isn't right?

Why does my dog eat shingle bits she digs up in the yard instead of chewing on the plethora of expensive doggy toys I have mortgaged the house for?

Why do I not notice my eyebrows becoming Sasquatch-like until I'm getting ready to out to a party? It's not like they sprout overnight...

Why is it that my kid can repeat the entire dialogue of 17 different commercials but can't remember his last name?

Why is my cable guy not hot? Can't he pull up his pants before climbing under my computer desk to check the modem? SAY NO TO CRACK!

Why is it that my weeds grow better than my plants/flowers. I pretend to garden but really, all the neighbours know it's my Mom who does the real work.

Why is it that I get company at the door when the house looks like ass and I am in my housecoat? No one visits when the house is clean and I look good.

Why am I so awkward with the other Moms at kids' bday parties? Our kids are friends and I'll be seeing these women for the next 7 years.

Why is it that my kid has decided no girls at his b-day party but I'm allowed because I live here? Serious meltdown when I told him that girls are coming. He loves girls, I don't get it.

Why does my house stay clean for all of 2.4 seconds and then someone moves?

Why does Ass Hat sweat so much when he's sleeping? GAG! Separate beds may save this marriage during the summer months.

Why can't Ass Hat remember to open the blinds in the morning and close them at dark. It's pretty simple yet I come home from work at midnight to find lights blazing and blinds open for all the thieving little bastards to see how big our TV is. On the other hand, I come home from work at 3pm to find the house shut up tighter than King Tut's tomb.

Again, why is it that I'm not napping?

Because......

Why is it that the mornings I can sneak a nap in someone in the neighbourhood decides to use heavy machinery.

Why is it that the nights I MUST sleep or get up early I can't sleep? My hips hurt, the cats and dogs fight all night, sweaty Ass Hat is all over the bed and I can't turn my brain off?

Why is it that I spend 3 hours power washing and cleaning the deck and the dog makes a mess within the hour? She can shred an empty Pepsi box in 2mins flat.

Why is my family always at least an hour late for everything? I swear my mother will be late for her own funeral.

Why did Ass Hat spend $72 on a dog bed when she sleeps under the kitchen table anyways?

Why does the dog LIKE the No-Chew spray I got to stop her from eating my baseboards?

Why does the dog have to pee on the ball before she brings it back when I play 'fetch' with her. EEEWWWWW!

Why is cat and dog hair lint-brush-resistant?

Why can't my kid pee IN the toilet bowl and not AROUND it?

Why do I have 14 pairs of black work socks all with a hole in the left heel?

Why is it that my kid remembers words like 'metamorphosis','cornucopia','chrysalis','buttocks' and what they mean but can't remember where he left his shoes? {yes, I had to spell-check all of those}

Why do birds shit on my car right after I wash it? In the middle of the windshield so that it smears all over when you turn the wipers on.

Ah screw it, my brain is empty. I'm having a nap!!!

Home on the Range

2009-06-07T10:11:00.000-07:00

I'm outside this morning at 8am drinking my morning cup of tea, enjoying the silence, listening to the birdies chirp and generally relaxing in the oasis of my backyard. Suddenly, the red-neck neighbours behind and to one side of us CRANK the stereo! I'm transported into the middle of a honky-tonk bar! WTH?

Don't get me wrong here, I love country music and can be as red-neck as a cowboy from Texas myself but not at 8am on Sunday morning! I can't see into their backyard because it's heavily treed and hedged but the sound clearly travels. I can also hear them screaming at their kids and dog all the time.

They've also built a fire pit that they light up most nights {so illegal here in the city} and they have loud parties on the weekends until the wee hours of the morning. Those nights they play stuff like Kid Rock, Limp Biskit etc. Again, great tunes when I don't have to cringe when my kid hears the F-bomb dropped. We've walked by the front of their house on our nightly jaunts with the dog and wow, what a mess. Kids toys and junk all over the yard, weeds as high as my waist, dog crap everywhere, broken chain link fence and 2 dead rusted out cars. How can people live like that?

No matter where I have lived and some of the places were pretty sketchy, I've always taken care of my property, kept it clean and picked up, mowed the lawn etc. My house isn't the snazzyist on the street but it looks 'kept up'. It's a pride thing I guess.

So in other news. Tahoe had her vet appointment and the 5 month old dog weighs 42lbs! The kid weighs 36lbs. YIKES! How big is the damn dog going to get!?!? She is so strong that when she pulls on her leash my arm damn near gets ripped out of it's socket. I have blisters on my hand from the leash pulling. We had a child/dog collision yesterday the was pretty spectacular. Little J was running in one direction, Tahoe was running full blast for the ball I threw for her and well, someone should have zigged or zagged but they didn't and BLAMO! Houston we have a problem. Kid went flying through the air and the dog landed on top of him. Once it was determined that Little J was indeed not injured I laughed so hard, tears were streaming down my face. I only wish I had videoed it. I'm such a mean mommy. :)

Tahoe has discovered the wonder of The Sprinkler. She loves it! I worry about how much water she actually drinks! No way in heck does she get to come into the house until she's peed several times. The kitchen floor is covered in mud. After the dog got nice and wet, she decided to hang out in the freshly turned garden. MUD MUD MUD from snout to tail. My golden lab was now chocolate brown. She won't stand still long enough for me to hose her off and no way can I lift a wriggling 40lb dog into my bathtub, nor do I want to! The bathtub gets dirty enough with just the kid. I'm hoping that as she dries it will just flake off. Does this work?

Ass-hat went fishing for the weekend so I was left to do the outside chores. Little J's birthday party is at the end of the month and we need to get the backyard into shape. I power washed the deck, planted the garden, washed the outside windows and oh so thoughtfully moved the bags of shingles to the front of the gate so Ass-hat gets the hint to take them to the dump. It takes me twice as long to get anything done with the dog and kid 'helping' me. Why are my gardening tools so damn interesting to both boy and beast? I was constantly retrieving a tool from one of them.

I am way to pretty to work this hard!

I leave you now to continue my day of cleaning, I hope ya'll had a funner weekend than me!

'Happy' hurts.

2009-06-05T09:30:00.000-07:00

To combat the persuasive smell of "wet-dog" that has permeated my house due to the dog running through the sprinklers, I decided we would get an air freshener.

Little J and I head down to the store to check them out. It was almost as confusing as buying sunscreen. I, or rather Little J, ended up selecting one of those new fandangled motion detecting air-fresheners. OK truth be told, the kid talked me into it because he saw it on a commercial and well, if he saw it on TV it must be great. Life is pretty simple when you're 5.

The tough decision came to what scent to pick. We had about 4 of them in our hands, frantically scratching the 'sniff me' stickers arguing about which one was the best. I think they were about to call store security when Little J finally agreed to 'Island Paradise'. Who comes up with these names anyways? Plumeria Passion? Ocean Breeze {does it smell like dead fish and seaweed?} Mystical Mountain? See there I go off tangent again. Anyways.....

So we get home and LJ is sooo excited to show Daddy our new purchase. He even showed the dog, the cats and Kevin from next door who was in his driveway polishing his Harley. {why I felt the need to mention that I don't know}

Then came the task of opening the package. Um ya......WTH! Something is terribly wrong with the world when power tools and WWE wrestling moves are required to open ones purchase. For the love of Pete, it's an air freshener not radioactive plutonium!!!! Damn near lost a finger and a pint of blood but dammit all to hell, I got the bastard open.

Now where to put it? It releases a burst of fragrance when someone walks by so it had to be someplace fairly travelled. This house does not have an abundance of available outlets so the options were limited. The kitchen was out..too close to food for my liking. My morning cup of tea does not need a burst of Island Paradise. No outlets in the hallway, nothing free in the living room. Egads! We have a dilemma my friends.

We ended up putting it in the tiny alcove in the hallway/entryway. It's doing it's job and in the words of Little J it smells like "happy". I didn't realize 'happy' had a smell but I'm willing to go with it.

Problem is......It's giving me migraines. I've had one ever since we plugged it in.
So while the house no longer smells like a kennel gone wrong, I am too ill to care. And it took me a week to figure out out.

"Happy" now lives in Joshua's bedroom and the rest of the house smells like dog again.

Back to the drawing board.

Dear Job Hunter

2009-06-03T07:00:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure what they are teaching young folks these days but How to Apply For A Job is apparently not a life skill anymore.

This is the time of year when I am inundated with teenagers looking for summer work. I think I stopped counting at 250 resumes/applications. With the downturn in the economy and this being our slow time of year, the only positions I will be hiring for this year are seasonal part time for back to school,Aug-Sept.

As you can imagine, with so many applications to choose from, first impressions really do matter so here is a handy DO's and DONT's guide when applying for a job

DO dress up in nice clothes.

DON'T wear flip flops, short shorts and loudly smack your gum.

DO ask to speak to the manager if available.

DON'T mumble under your breath and hand your resume to my cashier and walk away.

DO have your parents drive you.

DON'T have your parents do all the talking while you stand there smacking your gum and rolling your eyes.

DO use proper English when speaking with me.

DON'T use slang and Ebonics. 'Dude' does not work for me and good gravy, is that how you would talk to my customers?

DO come for your interview a few mins early. I like that.

DON'T stroll in 5 mins late like it's no big deal and shrug your shoulders when I ask if you can tell time.

DO follow up once or twice about your application.

DON'T call me twice a week for 3 months asking why I haven't interviewed you yet.

DO show up for your first orientation shift if I hire you.

DON'T not show up for your orientation, never to be seen again. It's rude.

DO stick the the availability you gave when I interviewed you.

DON'T come to me 2 shifts in and ask to have 3 weeks off to go on vacation during our black out period.

DO take your job seriously, you may be asked to stay on permanently.

DON'T treat you job as a major social event for you to pick up chicks/guys and have your friends come in and hang out while you are working.

//end rant.

Can you tell how frustrated I am hiring this year??

Lets talk about sex.

2009-05-31T15:00:00.000-07:00

Howz that for a catchy title. Got your attention didn't it. I hate to disappoint you but today's post will NOT be about sex. {at least it won't start out that way, I make no guarantees}

But since you're here anyways, why don't you stay and read the post. It will make me feel good. And that is what is important here.

Today's post is brought to you by the letter S. Specifically SUNSCREEN.

Yes folks, the sun is out and summer has started and that means another season of searching for 'The Perfect Sunscreen'.

Back in my days as a child/teenager, sunscreen was not widely used except by my mother. Us kids would spend all day running around outside and come in for dinner a nice golden brown. As a teenager we'd hit the beach with baby oil and iodine and bake ourselves for a full 8 hours, coming home slightly reddish and smelling like a cooked ham. Now? I walk outside for 5 mins and get fried to a crisp. My poor boy has inherited my ghastly pale white skin. I'm not opposed to him getting a bit of colour but there is no need for him to come home from daycare looking like someone from Out of Africa.

So there I stand in front of the 16 foot sunscreen section at the local drugstore with several other equally confused women. The selection is intimidating to say the least. Lotion? Spray lotion? Clear spray? Waterproof? SPF 30? 45? and new this year, SPF 60. Prices range from $9.99 to an astronomical $36.99. What makes one brand better than another? I also made the mistake of reading up on sunscreen on the internets and was surprised to see all the 'cancer causing' additives and chemicals in the ingredients. Why would I spray my kid with something that may cause cancer and infertility when I am trying to protect him from skin cancer? It blows my mind. But I digress.......

Once the ideal SPF and delivery method are selected, comes the all important smell test. Who wants to run around smelling like a giant pina colada gone wrong or worse, a chemical plant engineer.{no offence to any chemical plant people who may be reading this, I just don't want to smell like fertilizer.} So there we are, half a dozen women spraying and sniffing, asking each other "How does this one smell?" The aisle was a haze of sprayed sunscreen and arms were used as visual texture testers.

Throw a fussy child into the mix, "No Mommy it's too cold" "No Mommy it's too greasy and feels funny" "No Mommy it smells like feet" "No Mommy it tastes funny!" "Mommy my eyes are burning!", and it makes for quite the conundrum.

So I select a clear spray for arms and legs in a water-proof SPF 60 {you can't be too careful now} and a rub-in lotion in SPF 45 for babies to put on my darlings face. He will have a brimmed hat stapled to his head all summer so I figured I could lower the SPF. Both passed the smell test and appear to be safe enough.

Now I have to get up 10mins earlier in the morning to administer said sunscreen. One would think it would be a simple process.

1. Stand up nekkid child
2. Instruct child to close eyes and hold breath
3. Circle child while spraying in an up and down motion
4. Allow child to dry before dressing.
5. Repeat after heavy exercise or swimming.

In reality?

1. Cover furniture to avoid over spray
2. Move to a place far away from food
3. Close all windows so neighbours won't hear the screaming and call CPS
4. Hold protesting child immobile on the floor with one knee
5. Spray screaming child with one hand while turning child with other
6. Chase escaping greased piglet-er-child around the house to finish spraying front.
7. Trap child's head between your legs to apply face lotion.
8. Get more lotion between ones own fingers than on child face
9. Carefully apply to cheeks, nose and around eyes while child is flailing like a trout.
10. Say "screw it" and put child in long sleeved shirt and long pants.
11. Keep child inside until sundown.

Isn't summer fun?

Out on the Town

2009-05-29T18:07:00.000-07:00

Today was my day off and I had big plans to sleep in and do absolutely nothing.

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions and for me it was a friends Facebook status update about going to the local Children's Festival. DING! DING! I had totally forgotten about it.

It was a beautiful sunny day, Little J was in a great mood so why the heck not lets go!

Now I don't usually do well in large crowds of other peoples children but today was noT too bad. There were only a few children that I gave the Evil Eye to, and they were at least 12 years old.

We had so much fun! Face-painting, clay station, colouring, making puppets, getting mendhi done, nature walk and then playing in the park nearby. Little J was having so much fun he didn't even mind the 20 min walk to and from the car because we had to park so far away.

I'm ready for a rum&coke and a good nights sleep.

And just because I'm a picture whore...

ENJOY!

Have a great weekend everyone!

ETA: Dammit Jim! I can never get my pictures in the right order. I suck

Satan's Minion has arrived.

2009-05-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

IE8 is the Debil in disguise. Beware of it's seductive call. It may look all sexy and blinged out but it.will.take.over.your.computer.

My browser has not been the same since Lappy has come back from the shop and I figured a different version than what I had been running was restored. I no likey and decided to throw caution to the wind and download the snazzy, sexy IE8.

All went well at first, it had all sorts of cool apps and features and soon my internet was blinged out.

Then I tried to access some of my favorite pages. I lost count of how many times I was aborted upon loading a page. Half of my favorite bogs were down for the count.

WTF? This was so not acceptable and I immediately went to un-install the offending IE8. While I momentarily mourned the loss of my sexy internet I needed my damn blogs to load.

I went back to plain Jane IE7. It was dark, dingy and not very sexy but if I could read my blogs it was all worth it. Tested out a few webpages and all was good. Made
me a cup o'tea and settled down to read my blog-roll. Wouldn't ya know it. The damn pages would still not load. IE8 infected my internet dammit! I gave it the opportunity to take over and it was not letting me slip away so easily.

I admited defeat and with a shamed and heavy heart I re-installed IE8.

Guess what..... it was like I never removed it in the first place. BLASPHEMY! It had a memory! Freaky shit I tell you. I needed several rum and cokes before I could continue.

So I am making do with what I have, I did discover the 'page compatability' button which seams to help on some pages. But some of my favorite blogs won't load on my laptop. I either have to read at work {a no-no} or get hooked up on Ass-hats desktop.

Bottom line is if I appear to have been ignoring your Blog, you are on the list of Blogs That Do Not Load. Fear not friends, I will get to you in time.

IE8 is evil. Do not be seduced by lightening fast downloads, sparkly tool bars and optimal organization. JUST.DON'T.DO.IT.

Sometimes, older really is better.

Off to download Google Chrome... it looks nice and shiny. :)

Bake me a cake!

2009-05-26T16:30:00.000-07:00

Seeing as how Little J is not so good at sports I figured we'd see how well he does in the kitchen. A board I lurk-er-post on, had a thread regarding rainbow coloured cupcakes. The drama the ensued was quite entertaining but I digress.....
I thought they were so cool. I wanted to make them dammit. I don't give a rats ass about red #40 dye.

I have not baked in oh, about 23 years. Grade 11 home-ec class to be exact. *blush*
Knowing cupcakes were probably beyond my limited skills, we went for a simple cake.
Amazingly enough, I actually had a couple of cake pans. {Thanks Mom!}

Little J and I had so much fun! He really got into it to. Who knew baking could be so educational. We talked about measuring, how a mixer works, how to mix colours and timing. I edumacated my child.

We measured, we mixed, we poured, we baked, we decorated, we ate.

And it was good. No one has suffered any gastro-intestinal distress. Yeah us!

ETA: DANG IT! All the pictures are out of order and well, I'm just do damn lazy to move them all around.

Never a dull day

2009-05-24T21:15:00.000-07:00

I suppose I can now add "Wildlife Rescue and Refuge" to my already impressive resume.
Apparently, the word is out amongst the wild woodland creatures in the neighbourhood that my backyard is a good place to hang out. I suppose when you have a dog, 2 cats {who escape into the 'outdoor woods' at every opportunity}, a child who runs amok, lots of crows, small birds, a skunk or 2, oodles of squirrels and the raccoon family living under my shed it was only a matter of time before more free-loaders showed up.

I discovered them this morning as I was taking the compost out

A mama duck and her 8 ducklings were hanging out in my flower bed. Word got out into the neighbourhood and soon almost everyone was in the backyard checking out my new guests.I met more of my neighbours today than I have in the last 5 years we've been here. Nothing like baby animals to bring folks together huh.

Word on the street was that the ducks were from the creek down the block and had been seen wandering the road earlier in the morning. Guess they detoured into my yard for a pit-stop. Problem is, I'm not set up for ducks. I'm very surprised the dog didn't get to them first. To her, those teeny tiny ducklings would be live squeeky toys.

So we all hemmed and hawed and tried to figure out what to do. We put out bird seed to coax them into a box {mama was too smart for that} left pans of water out etc.
Mama just kept moving from one side of the yard to the other.

Ass-hat finally got the brilliant idea of herding them out the gate and down the road back to the creek. Brilliant I say, bloody brilliant! Worked like a charm.

Maybe he really can talk to animals.......

And that folks, was the highlight of my weekend.

Peeing, poking and penis'

2009-05-20T21:23:00.000-07:00

When we were house shopping 5 years ago, we narrowed the field to 2 choices.

Choice 1... 4 bedroom rancher,garage was converted into a master bedroom with en-suite and walk in closet. Ugly-ass open kitchen, big living room, tiny cramped bathroom and postage stamp sized yard.

Choice 2... 3 bedroom rancher, small bedrooms, 1 decent sized bathroom, carport cover ted into 'bonus room', reno'd kitchen, big deck and a huuuuge yard.

We went with option 2 strictly for the big yard, big bathroom {even though it was the only one} and reno'd kitchen. I thought I could live with only 1 bathroom.

I was wrong.

Dumb-Ass spends most of his morning 'dropping the kids off at the pool'. He then proceeds to take his 20 min shower. This shower must include cascading. Cascading is when Dumb-Ass lays down in the bathtub and catches a few more winks of sleep under the shower spray. Sounds lovely doesn't it?

For him.

I, on the other hand have to plan my morning around his shit n' shower routine. There are times I have to get up 45mins EARLIER to get into the bathroom before him. BASTARD. While pregnant and going through the joys of 'all-day sickness' I did have to barf into the kitchen sink many a time because the only toilet was already occupied.

Now there is another person in the house to work around. Little J is getting to the age where *I* would like some privacy in the bathroom. Sometimes that just doesn't happen. Sometimes like tonight.

Little J was in the bath tonight and I had to use the facilities. I could not wait.
So I go in and hang the towel on the shower doors to at get some measure of privacy and instruct the tiny terrorist to turn his back. There is a few mins of silence before the following conversation occurs..

J: {in a tiny voice} Mommy did that hurt?
Me: {confused} Did what hurt?
J: When your penis fell off.
Me: {eyebrow shooting up into my hairline} Pardon?
J: You don't have a penis. Did you lose yours?
Me: Honey, I'm a girl, I don't have one.
J: {nodding} Oh ok, are you sad you don't have a penis?
Me: I'm perfectly happy without one honey.
J: Is that why you have the bum-stickers*?
Me: {sighing} I told you not to watch me!
J: But mommy I want to know why you put those sticks up your bum!!!!
Me: I'll tell you when you turn 6 ok?
J: {wailing} Why? I want to know now!!
Me: If you stop asking me questions I'll buy you a new Bakugan. Deal?
J: {grinning} Deal!
....short silence...
J: So really Mommy, what happened to your penis?
Me: {Banging head against counter} It fell off because I didn't listen to my mother!!!
J: {giggle} That's funny Mommy. Can you leave now, I want some 'pivacy'.

WTH happened there? I'll tell you what happened. My epiphany. Ass-Hat will build an outhouse in the large backyard.
He's handy, he could totaly do it.
If he loved me.
The boys can use it and I will finally have a bathroom all to myself. I think it's a fabulous idea and I can avoid having to answer questions that shouldn't be asked for another 10 years. :)

Too much testosterone in this house I tell you. The dog doesn't really count because although she may be female, she licks herself.

I am alone.

Maybe I should get me a penis, I must be missing out on something.

*bumstickers are tampons as explained in a previous post some months ago.

Holiday Rant

2009-05-18T12:28:00.000-07:00

Oh dear sweet jebus. What the Fluck is wrong with people? I didn't wake up this morning and think "Geez, how can I be a complete ass to a stranger today?". Cause let me tell you dear customer..if I had done that, you'd get an earful and I would be unemployed.

It's a long weekend here in Canada-land. Historically a slow sales period, coupled with half the staff booking off the weekend leaves me with a very tight schedule. Not my fault either that staff have phoned in sick. Have you ever tried to call someone in on a holiday Mr Holier-than-thou Customer?

Yes I will answer the phone before we open. That does not mean we are open for business. I don't care if you are standing at the front door. We are not open for another 45mins. I will not let you in. I am not willing to get pillaged, robbed and fired because you can't wait 45 mins to buy that pen.

I'm sorry I am not the computer expert, my job is to manage the expert, not be one. If you wait 5 mins for him you can ask him what kind of ram you need in your desktop.

Yes, I am aware that we are VERY busy at times and you are waiting for help. I only have 2 people on the sales floor. No I cannot help you at this exact minute because I am the cashier and I'm trying to keep my eye on the guy stuffing ink down his pants.

When you see me holding a black thing up to my ear and talking into it, I am on the phone. It does not mean you can come up to me and start talking. I help people one at a time and do not butt in line, you are not more important.

Sorry but you need to know the model number of your printer to buy ink for it. I can't read minds and I can't guess which one you need. You can't just buy the cheapest one. I will not return your opened ink cartridge because you are a cheapskate.

Just because I wear a name tag and uniform does not give you the right to treat me like shit. I'm not here for you to yell at, insult, degrade, insult. Go home and do it to your family. Oh and that discount you wanted...lick my balls.

Thank you for you suggestions on how I should make my schedule. My psychic abilities
are apparently seriously lacking as I did not foresee how busy it would be at 1:37pm.

When I am standing at the front greeting you when you enter, the correct response is to return my greeting, or smile or even nod. The incorrect response is to completely ignore me or start demanding to know where stuff is. How hard is it to say "Hi"?

Thank you for returning the laser printer and binding machine right at 30 days. You did not return the 3 cases of paper or the binding combs and covers. I know damn well that toner is empty and you were 'renting' the product to complete a presentation. Bastard. It will cost me $90 to replace the toner to re-sell that machine.

If my copy centre tells you it will be 30 mins to get your copying completed do not come to me and demand that I do it for you now. It is first come first serve, They are completing print jobs that came in before you. Please see notes above that you are not more important than any other customer.

If we don't carry a product, it's not part of my job description to know who would sell it. Don't yell at me when I can't tell you exactly where to get it and how much it will be.

Stop stealing my PSP and Playstation games you punk-ass teenagers. Do not give me attitude when I am all over your ass like a fat kid on a smartie. I know what you're up to and I will follow you until you leave empty handed.

No, I can't call the courier to pick up your package today. It's a holiday, they are not working today. You will have to wait until Tuesday. It's not my fault you need it across the country by tomorrow morning. No one is open today! So again, why are you yelling at me?

To the customer with the exploding shit all over my bathroom stall.. are you freakin kidding me!?!? I get to clean that up and I will puke.

When I make the closing announcement that we are closed and to bring your merchandise up to the tills it does mean YOU. Do not feel free to wander the store chit chatting on your phone for another 15mins. At 15mins after close, my registers
are pulled and cashed out. You will not be able to pay. We paged it several times that the registers would be closing and that you had to leave. You chose to ignore it. Not my fault.

And to my associates...do NOT call in sick and then post pictures of yourself at a party on Facebook..did you forget I am on your friends list? You are so busted and in deep trouble when I see you on your next shift.

When I tell you to go on your break now. I really do mean NOW. If you don't take it NOW you won't get one because it will be someone elses turn. You taking your friggin break 45mins late screws up the entire break schedule. And when that happens *I* don't get my break. You try working 10 hours without eating.

And finally, to those wonderful fabulous customers who have a soul, a smile and a kind word today.. THANK YOU. I will bend ass over tea-kettle to help you out if you treat me with respect.

Just sayin.....

Now thats a relief....

2009-05-14T21:10:00.000-07:00

I found the missing battery.

It was under the fridge waaaay at the back.

Now I can stop following the dog to see if she would shit one out.

I took my kidney off Craigslist {to pay for the vet bill if she didn't shit one out.}

It's been a good day.

Damn dog.

She did this in the time it took me to write this post. There used to be flowers in that spot. Not any more.

Hockey Night in my town

2009-05-11T16:33:00.000-07:00

So tonight is Game 6 in this playoff round. Canucks are up against the wall and MUST win this game to continue.

I am at work. Ask me how happy I am about that..go ahead...ask me....

IT FREAKIN BLOODY-WELL SUCKS GOAT-ASS!!!!!

A} I am missing the game and this is enough to turn me into 'Angry Manager' {a version of Angry Mommy..both equally scary when riled up}

B} If the Canucks win..riot on the street in front of the store. Won't be able to go home until God knows when cause the street gets shut down with all the people cruising and running around 'celebrating'{and I use the term loosely}

C} If the Canucks lose..angry riot on the street in front of the store. Angry drunk pissed off hooligans milling about causing trouble.

Either way, the SWAT team will be rolling into position at about 8pm tonight. I'm not kidding. They need the SWAT team to keep the peace. I will have a front row seat to whatever happens tonight and brought my sleeping bag cause it will be a while before I can leave the parking lot. I only wish I had brought my camera.

Instead of managing the floor tonight I will either be sneaking into the lunchroom to watch or hanging out at the computer wall watching streaming video on the laptops.
Instead of swigging beer I'll be drinking water but it's the thought the counts right?

GO CANUCKS GO!!!!!!

Another one bites the dust...

2009-05-10T20:29:00.000-07:00

Another Mother's Day done. I honestly don't get the hoopla. Maybe it's because we don't do anything special for the day. Ass-hat's heart is 2 sizes to small so it would not occur to him to do something nice, like breakfast in bed or help Demon Spawn make a card, or give me 'the day off'. I suppose if I told him exactly what he should do for me on Mothers Day it might happen but really, if I have to tell someone to be 'nice' to me is it really worth it? I'd be lying if I said that it doesn't hurt my feelings a little. Doesn't everyone want to feel special for a day?
His theory is that 'You are not my Mother? What do you want from me?" I just have to remember not to expect too much, lower the expectation and maybe I won't be so disappointed next time.

Ok wow, that was a downer. I didn't expect that to all come out. Didn't mean to drag you un-suspecting folk down into the dumps with me. :)

I hope you all had fabulous Mothers Days! I shall live vicariously through you. {kinda creepy ain't I?}

So taking the Mothers Day aspect out of things, today was a pretty good day. I was off from work and the weather was nice.

First on the list was cleaning the house and I recruited a little helper. I had to bribe him with chocolate but at least he helped....

After the house cleaning I got the crazy idea of trying to take pictures of the kid and dog. I know! What the hell was I thinking??? It would have been less painful to jab a fork in my eye. After much crying, yelling, begging and pleading I think I managed to get a few great shots. And yes, I will share far too many of them. After all, it is MY blog and I'll do what I want to.

Well, 3 loads of laundry await me and seeing as how I did not receive a house-boy named Sven as a Mothers Day gift, I guess I have to go fold it.

If anyone has an extra Sven, please send him my way.

Oh and a little voice just yelled out "You're a jerk!" from the bedroom. Someone is not happy to be going to bed. He's going to be even un-happier when he gets his toys taken away for that little outburst. Hold on to your shorts...WW3 is about to start at my house.......

All is right with the world again

2009-05-07T12:28:00.001-07:00

Ass-hat has returned home!

And yes, for those who requested, he shall henceforth be referred to as 'Ass-hat'.

He came home early because he was tired and stinky. Or so he says. I would like to think it was my 'Angry Mommy' voicemail that I left at 2:30am Tuesday morning threatening divorce, death and dismemberment {not necessarily in that order} if he did not return home post-haste.

He did stink sky-high but put on his tech-support hat and went to work fixing my laptop and getting me back on the Internet wirelessly. I think he may have been afraid of the crazed look in my eyes. He was right be be afraid.

I got a full nights sleep, my headache is gone and I no longer want to sell my family on Craigslist. I have happy thoughts again and they are not the result of alcohol consumption or illegal narcotics.

I even got my pictures uploaded so I can show off my new niece!

Little J and Auntie Schmoochie with Ava

Baby Ava

4 generations of the Schmoochie Family... me, Little J, my brother, mom, grandmother and of course....Ava :)

My kitchen still smells like a vet's office. I bought some enzyme odour cleaner and am letting it soak into the grout. I fear we may have to re-do the grout and seal it.
Bloody hell. I also bought some bitter pray stuff to discourage her chewing on my baseboards etc...damn dog LIKES it! Starts to chew and comes back for more. WTF??

Speaking of the Mighty Pee Machine... today is her 3 month birthday! She has no idea how lucky she is to have survived this long with her behaviour lately. {I'd never actually hurt the dog..don't be calling PETA on me now...}

May 05, 3 months old

March 21, 7 weeks old

She's going to be a big girl. She better get leash trained soon or I will get dragged down the street on my ass. The neighbours already laugh as they see me 'walking' {I use term loosely} the dog and trying to corral the kid on his bike. All 3 of us heading in different directions, my head on a swivel a la Poltergeist trying to figure out where everyone is. Little J drives into the leash, Tahoe jumps up on kid, mommy gets dragged to the ground locked onto the leash. Great fun is had by all. By the end of our pleasant sojourn down the street I am randomly yelling at both the kid and the dog.. STOP! HEEL! SLOW DOWN! NOT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET! WATCH WHERE YOU ARE GOING! DON'T EAT THAT! BAD DOG! GOOD GIRL! BAD BOY! GOOD BOY!
They become inter-changeable like Lego. It doesn't matter much as neither of them listens to me.

If I sound a tad distracted during this post it's because the Canucks are playing game 3 vs the Blackhawks. I love this time of year..Hockey hockey and more damn hockey. A few Sundays ago I spent 9.5hrs watching hockey. And I liked it.If the Canucks score I have to remember the Lappy on my lap before I jump up cheering and screaming. We have our Canucks gear on and Tahoe is happily chewing on her Canucks towel. I would put a car flag on the Zoom Zoom but last time I did 2 years ago, some dumb-fuck kids tried to steal it and broke my damn window. $300 for me to fix the broken window. Bastards. We will settle for waving flags in the house.

I completely forgot it was Mothers Day this Sunday until Little J asked "Mommy, do I have to be extra nice to you on Mothers Day?" Nice kid huh.... I told him that Mommy would like to go to the Planetarium for Mothers Day and now I'm the coolest again. :) Really, I do want to go to the Planetarium- it's da bomb! And maybe Ass-hat and I can make out in the dark like the good ole days.

I miss the good ole days.....when you made out every chance you got in every place possible. When you would arrive at a party and head to the bathroom for 10mins first, steaming up the car windows, anchoring the boat in the middle of the lake and to hell with the mosquitoes, while the washer was draining, waiting for dinner to finish cooking, well you get the point. Now? Sheesh..the moon needs to be full, the wind right, the kid asleep, not too late in the evening, my legs shaved, not too hot and not too cold, no headache, nothing kinky that will throw out my back and no more than twice a week. Man I hate getting old and boring. Am I the only one?

Yesterday Little J asked me what it was like to be a girl. I answered "It's good because I get to be your Mommy" to which he replied "No Mommy I meant when you have your happy period". Damn this kid watches too much TV.

Little J also asked "Where do babies come from?" after seeing his new cousin. I told him that when a mommy and daddy love each other very much a baby grows in the mommy's tummy. {a cop-out I know but I was not ready for the whole Daddy's penis and Mommy's vagina explanation} So anyways he then asks "How does the baby get there?"
Thinking fast I replied "God puts it there". Seemed to satisfy him until today when he asked "Will God find another baby under a bush for us?" Wha-huh? "Mommy, I want a sister so can you ask God to put a girl under the bush for you". Oh dear sweet child. How do I answer that one seeing as how this oven is closed.

Angry Mommy

2009-05-05T19:38:00.000-07:00

*sigh*

Wow my week is sucking big time. Nothing major, but lots of little annoying things that add up to one giant head-ache.

In no particular order:

1. Laptop is back, I hate it. EVERYTHING has to be reset and changed. I don't like change. I can't get on wireless cause I don't know what the stinkin passwork is to our network. Ass-hat didn't write it down. So I am still stuck in the office where the modem is. He is out of cell phone range and won't be home until Friday

2. I have pictures to post. Using the spare camera, have no idea where the usb cable is to uplaod to the desktop and the compact flash card does not fit into the laptop. Have to wait for Ass-hat to come home to find the damn cable.

3. Dog is driving me insane. I get that she's a hyper puppy but F*CK! Do you have to shit and pee in my kitchen every.damn.day and night? I do not enjoy mopping the f*cking floor at 2am. My kitchen smells like pee because it's soaked into the grout and the grout is bleached from me scrubbing it. Taking the dog for a walk is ridiculous, she fights me the whole way and spends the 30mins choking herself. When Ass-hat comes home he has to make a choice...dog gets a crate during the day/overnight or she goes outside. One or the other.

4. Little J is sleeping with me. Meaning he sleeps and I get pushed, kicked and generally woken up every hour. For a little person he's hell to sleep with.

5. I gouged a hole in my hand at work yesterday. I probably should have had stitches and a tetanus shot but couldn't leave the store.

6. I have had a headache for 3 days. I just want to go to bed but I can't because if I go to bed too early the dog will pee all over the kitchen. sense the theme here?

7. The desktop computer is making some weird noise and it won't stop. Can't turn it off as it is entertaining my child. God forbid he talks to me.

8. I missed garbage day.

9. I broke my hairdryer this morning. I looked like a homeless person all fuzzed out and unruly.

10 Lappy is making some clicking noises....would not be surprised if it explodes and I have to send it in again.

I hope to be cheerier soon as being this cranky takes a lot of effort.

Stick a fork in me folks for I am done.

Dear Family

2009-05-03T13:02:00.000-07:00

Dear Child: Please stop peeing beside the toilet. I will make you sit down like a girl if you don't learn to aim. Mama is tired of cleaning the bathroom twice a day.
Please stop booby-trapping your bedroom. When I come in during the night to cover you up, I trip over the multitude of matchbox cars littering the floor. They were not there when you went to bed. Chasing me around the house with a giant booger stuck to your finger is not my idea of a good time. Do it to your father.

Dear Fat Kitty: While it amuses me to no end that you choose to pee on Ass-Hat's laundry pile, please don't do it when I am not home all day and it has time to really start to stink. What the hell are you eating that your pee smells like black death? Stop howling to go outside. Yes, I realize that it is so unfair that the dog gets to go outside yet you have to stay in. Do I need to remind you of the skunk incident?

Dear Freaky Kitty: Learn to tolerate the dog. She's not leaving no matter how long you sit at the gate and taunt her. One day she will escape and you will be sorry. I will not hide you. Standing on my head and biting my ears will not encourage me to get up and feed you at 3am. It will however get you tossed across the room. Do it again and I will lock you in the kitchen with the dog.

Dear Dog: Stop peeing on the kitchen floor when I come home. Can't you wait 15 more seconds for me to get the outside door open? Stop chewing my shoes and eating my baseboards. I have spent a small fortune on chewy/squeaky toys for you...USE THEM!
3AM is not the best time to want to play. I am not going outside in the pouring rain to chase you down and bring you back in from a potty trip. Ask Fat Kitty what happens to pets who stay outside overnight..hint: it involves a skunk. You won't like it.

Dear Ass-hat: Thank you for the flowers but they no-where near even us up. You owe me big time for leaving for a week to go fishing. I curse you every time I have to deal with the unruly creatures who inhabit this house. I should have stayed single. No that does not mean you get to leave on another trip. Nice try.....

Mama is going to have a hot bath and a few glasses of wine, do not attempt to open the bathroom door for any reason. If you are on fire or have lost a limb, please turn around, find the phone and call 911. Mama is clocking out.

Pee your pants excited!

2009-05-01T11:11:00.000-07:00

Shh.... posting from work. Very dangerous. My boss will beat me with a stapler if I am caught. {no real worries, I can run faster scared than he can mad}

Just HAD to post the following...

GO CANUCKS GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Kicked Blackhawk ass last night! 3 more to go...

Lappy is still awaiting it's new brain but hubby has left town for 9 days and I will actually be able to use{or should I say allowed} the desktop. However slowly it runs.

Yes ladies, Fishing Season opens this weekend. I will be widowed until late October.

Fishing is just an excuse for grown men to get together, drink themselves stupid, use chain saws, tell stories, drink some more, not shower for a week, pee on trees, drink some more, drive a boat in circles, use their penis' as reference guides to measure the fish they catch, drink some more and generally behave like asses. Sounds like fun doesn't it?

At least I get the bed to myself. :)

I'm baaaaaack.....

2009-04-28T04:33:00.000-07:00

.......kinda..............

I am back from my trip safe,sound and full of new knowledge. Ok, maybe not the new knowledge part. :)

I hate flying, I hate turbulence and I hate people who hog the arm-rests. I am not a big person but that doesn't mean there is room for both you and I in MY seat! I believe it's a scientific fact that as soon as the drink cart gets half-way up the aisle that there will be major turbulence, the seat belt light comes on, the cart goes away, the flight crew straps down and I am left juggling a boiling hot cup of tea. The person in front of me will constantly put their seat back and forward, back and forward at least 15 times during the flight and the person behind me will continuously kick the back of my seat. Every time I have a window seat the people beside me will fall asleep and I will need to pee. I will then sit there clenching, trying not to think about how bad I have to pee and wait for them to wake up so I can climb out of my seat. I will arrive at my destination, disheveled, wrinkled, extremely cranky and sporting a fabulous migraine. I do not travel well.

Big J managed not to burn the house down while I was gone. He claims to be exhausted and traumatised from being a single parent for 3 days plus taking care of the cats/dog. Is he freakin kidding me!?!? He did not one stitch of housework while I was gone! When he goes fishing for a week at a time I manage just fine AND he comes home to a spotless house. Little J probably did not eat a single fruit or vegetable while I was gone. One would think that he would appreciate what I do around here and give me some sort of props for being awesome but no, I have boobies which makes domestication my job and he has a penis so he builds stuff.

So my biggest news is I AM AN AUNTIE!!!! My brother had his first child yesterday. A little girl named Ava. I am sooo excited! Now I can satisfy my big-ass bow cravings without having to make a girl of my own. I will see my new niece tonight and will post pictures. My mom and I bought their car seat and some supplies as they have ZERO clue on what they're doing. My SIL has 4 older sisters so I figured they would be helping her out but this is not the case. It was nice to finally unload the pack-n-play, fuzzy blankets, swing, bassinet, activity mat etc out of my attic. I've got some room up there now!

My laptop is still getting worked on. I sent it in for a dead battery and keyboard. They are replacing my hard-drive. WTF? I was having no trouble with the hard-drive but apparently it failed some sort of HP Smart test. Stupid me did not back anything up either.... pissybuggerbitchshitdamnfuckmeupthegoatass. I have requested that they send the old hard-drive back so I can transfer the data over. I will unfortunately lose my um 'un-authorized' version of Office Ultimate. Crap. I hope to have it back in another week or so. Until then I will be forced to post at un-godly hours such as 4:30am. Like I am now.

So I am banging away on hubby's desktop. I don't know how he uses this thing. It's so dang slow. I'm sure I could send smoke signals or use drums to get this message out faster. There is an unknown sticky substance all over the keyboard which I will assume is apple juice.

I got a whopping 3hrs sleep tonight and now it's time to wake up and get ready for work. Little J has a cold again and was up coughing and blowing his nose. I end up wide awake so of course the cats think it's time for food and they run around howling which gets the dog excited who starts to bark so I throw her outside. Chaos at my house at 3am and of course Mr Ass-hat sleeps through the whole thing. I have to send J to daycare even if he is sick as I can't call in 'sick'. I'm opening the store..who would I call? Yes, I am one of those horrible parents who sends their snotty kid to school to make your kid sick. If I kept J home every time he had a runny nose or cough he'd never leave the house and I would be un-employed.

I gotta go get ready for work...hope you all had a great week while I was gone and I will try to catch up on everyone in the next couple of days.

Pimpin' the Puppy

2009-04-20T09:46:00.000-07:00

This will be my last post until next week. I am leaving on a jet plane for business meetings {and copious amounts of alcohol}. This year I will not fly home for 5hrs hung over. I repeat, I will not fly home for 5hrs hung over. Have you ever tried throwing up in those tiny airplane bathrooms? Ugh. Thank goodness everyone sitting near the bathroom was from our group and they were barfing too. :)

Lappy is going in for warranty repair to fix his battery, mouse pad and keyboard. 5 year olds are hard on the equipment! I should have it back by next week otherwise I will be forced to exchange sexual favours for use of husbands desktop. Not sure I want to go there..... sex makes babies! Did ya know that? I learned the hard way. A lifetime of responstibility for about 2mins of fun. {yep, 2mins including removal of required clothing}

But before I go, I leave you with a few pics of Tahoe pimping out her favorite hockey team. GO CANUCKS GO!!!!!

As I post this, said puppy is busily plotting her escape by digging hole beside the fence. She doesn't know how good she's got it. 3 square meals a day, a warm bed, lots of free slippers to chew and a clean-up crew. Why would she want to leave?

Little J talks to her like she's another playmate. I swear she understands him. She stares up at him, cocks her head to the side and barks when he's done talking. It's the cutest thing. Then Little J gets frustrated when the puppy doesn't do what he's asked her too. He stomps his feet and shouts "Mommy! The Dog isn't listening to me! Put her in time out and take away a toy!"

It works for the kid, why not the dog? :)

Take care and have a safe week!

Riddle me this....

2009-04-18T18:31:00.001-07:00

How bad is your Blog when a Dog's Blog gets more traffic than yours? {and no, it's not my Dog, although I may pimp her out a little more to increase my numbers. Effective? Yes. Ethical? No.}

No laughing people, it could happen to you....

Granted, the Dog is hawt and funny but hell, I can't let a dog kick my blogging arse!

And comments.. the damn canine gets more comments..come on people, don't let me down!

My entire self-worth is depending on YOU leaving a comment. Do you really want to be 'The One' who doesn't comment and I go off the deep end in an itsy bitsy yellow polka dot bikini?

I may not be able to lick my own ass but I do know some cool tricks. With enough alcohol, I just may share them with you *wink wink nudge nudge*

;)

Odds n' Ends

2009-04-17T20:50:00.000-07:00

Just a bunch of well, random bits that don't really mean a dang thing. I go into a hockey coma in the Spring. It's a yearly condition known as NHL Play-offs. There is Hockey Night in Canada on EVERY.SINGLE.NIGHT. This is better than sex. And did I mention the Playoff towels? I have a playoff towel from the last 10 years my team made it to the playoffs. It's one of those weird things that I collect. Don't you feel better knowing that?

We are transferring/backing up the thousands of pictures and videos from our desktop to an external drive because we are buying a new desktop. Oh my goodness. We spent about 2 hours just watching video's of Little J {you know the quick 30 second ones you get from your camera}. What a cute little toddler he was! There is one video of him at about 2.5 y/o and he's still got his big blonde curls and his daddy is asking him to say "Ravioli, Hospital, Oh My Goodness" and a few others. It is sweet enough to make my teeth hurt. Where did my cute little baby go? Why wasn't I paying attention.

Tahoe is getting BIG! She is now 19.4lbs at 10 weeks old. We should have named her 'Hoover' as everything near her gets sucked into her mouth. If she breaks loose from the kitchen she bee-lines it to the playroom, grabs the closest toy and books it back to the kitchen under the table to happily chew/eat her prize. Big J is quite pleased with himself as Tahoe knows several tricks and is still so young.

..and yes, I know I sound like a braying donkey when I laugh.

I've just started cleaning with vinegar and baking soda and I gotta say.. I am impressed! I was hesitant to give up my bleach, especially with a peeing puppy in the house but the bleach was killing the grout in my tile kitchen. And it's non-toxic

Crud...Big J and I just flipped a coin as to who would wash the dishes. I lost. I always lose. Bloody hell.

I will be out of town and without Lappy as he is acting up and his battery is dead so I am sending him in for repair while I am away. {Is it odd that I've named my laptop? What? Doesn't everybody?} So I may not be around for a few weeks. Try to miss me just a little please? Pretty please?

......Don't forget me while I'm gone {my heart will break}.....Guess the song and band and win a prize. The band was the first CD I ever bought, along with Billy Idol and Platinum Blonde. I love the 80's.

Have a good coupla weeks and stay safe.

Anyone want to come over and wash some dishes with me?

Ball Hockey is here!

2009-04-15T21:40:00.000-07:00

Little J has started Ball Hockey. This is our first foray into team sports and well, we may need to adjust our expectations a tad. Band Camp really isn't that bad.....

Is it? I went to Band Camp and look at me.....perfectly phlucked up. Oh dear...

Little J has the attention span of 3.2 seconds {see Easter Post} so he spends most of the hour spinning in circles in the middle of the rink. He will take out someones eye if they stray too close.

He is the smallest player. Period. Even the girls are bigger! The division is for kids born in 2003/2004 so he is playing with 5+ year olds but still, he looks like a midget. {no offence to Little People}

He comes off the rink at least 4 times 'for a drink of water'. Ya-huh..how dumb does Mommy look?

He has no interest in chasing the ball, scoring goals or even stopping the ball when HE's in goal. Kinda defeats the purpose eh?

I'm fairly certain that the other parents are talking behind their hands about the little, un-co-ordinated, non-athletic but very cute kid on the other team. I swear I can feel the pitying stares. Fortunately, Little J doesn't seem to give a hoot that he sucks, so why do I feel bad?

I gotta learn to chill out. So he might not be some sort of athlete. It's not supposed to be about me. I need to support him no matter what he decides to do with his life. Something like becoming a drag-queen may take me some time to adjust though. :)

I just hope to god he's smart. I can't afford to send him to University on my own. I need scholarship $$$.

At least he's cute. If he learns how to use his baby-blues, he may be able to coast though life without a care in the world. {or employable skills}

Oh ya... and his team is the Delta Yellow Bananas. How freakin adorable is that??

Jock-head

In his uniform..it's so big it looks like a dress :)

Rabid Squirrels and The Easter Bunny

2009-04-11T20:28:00.000-07:00

*WARNING* There will be lots of pictures. Deal with it. It's my Blog and I'll do what I want to. :) Sung to the tune of "It's my party (and I'll cry if I want to)

This year for Easter we were all home at the same time. Usually, Big J is off on his first fishing trip of the year, or I am working, but this year the lakes were still
frozen over {yipee} and I started vacation on Friday.

I planned to cram in as much Easter-fun as I could manage. Unfortunately, things never work out the way I plan.

Little J had his first Ball Hockey practice on Friday and um well, that will be a post all unto itself... anyways, we had a limited window of opportunity to colour Easter eggs. I had it all planned out in my head. All of us huddled around the table, taking turns dipping eggs and bonding as a family over a wholesome and fun craft. I apparently had someones elses family in my head.

There were tears, spilled dye, broken eggs, yelling and a child with the attention span of 3.2 seconds. We are not the poster family for Norman Rockwell. We managed to get some of them done before I stabbed myself in the eye with a fork.

On Sat we headed over to the Inlaws for an egg hunt and dinner at their place. Grandma had hidden plastic eggs a few hours earlier for when Cousin Em and Little J came over. Out we go to see what the Easter Bunny left us....

At first it all seemed normal then we got a closer look at the eggs...they were open and EMPTY! Some were cracked open and there were smarties scattered all over the yard. The rabid crazy squirrels had beat us to the eggs! The little bastards stole our dang chocolate!! Oh the horror! You'd think we had the Easter Bunny roasting on a spit over a roaring fire judging by the kids' reaction. Good thing the Easter Bunny had left the good stuff INSIDE the house. :) And the traditional Easter dinner at my Inlaws house in Chinese food. To which Little J asks "How can we eat Chinese food in Canada?". We told him we brought it in from China on a plane. He thought that was pretty cool.

*note the dog attempting to steal the eggs in the basket....

Sunday morning the Easter Bunny came to our house...first we had to find all 22 eggs

{the um, er, Easter Bunny dropped 2 in the hiding process}

Even Mr Fatty-Mc-Butter-Pants got into the action...

Little J mentioned that the EB didn't do a good job hiding because he found all the eggs so easily. "Mommy the Easter Bunny needs a lesson in hiding". Well geez..I had to make them easy to find. I wasn't about to lose any hard-boiled and raw eggs in my living room. It's not a pleasant smell when those babies start to rot. Don't ask me how I know :)

After finding all the eggs we could look for the 'Big Basket'

Found it!

He loved his stickers and sidewalk chalk. He didn't even notice there wasn't a whole heck of a lot of candy in it.

The Easter Bunny even left a present in Little J's room {ok ok, I forgot to put it in the basket the night before but J thought it was 'super-way-cool' that the EB snuck it in his room while he was sleeping. Why aren't kids freaked out by the thought of strangers sneaking into their bedrooms at night?}}

We headed out to my folks for Easter dinner there. We came back with one less person.
We seem to have left our child behind. :) Little J is having a sleepover for a few days so Mommy and Daddy can get some work done. Mostly so Mommy can have a mental health break. I love my child with every breath in my body and soul but dang, he drives me completely bonkers. He can drive Oma and Opa crazy for a few days and I'll head out and pick him up on Wednesday but for now, I am enjoying my kidlessness. I may even sleep in tomorrow. If the hubby lets me, he's a slave driver.

I hope everyone had a happy holiday!

HAPPY {Fill-in-the-blank}

2009-04-10T10:14:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter!

Happy Passover!

Happy Visakhi!

Happy Easter Bunny!

Peace

Really?

2009-04-08T06:56:00.000-07:00

I got nothin to contribute today. Too dang tired. But....

I wanted to post a pic of something I saw on the weekend.

That my friends, is a French Fry Vending machine! Have you ever heard of such a thing? How would one even think of needing a Fry Vending machine?
I can't even fathom how that would work? What kind of person actually BUYS fries out of a vending machine? How do they fry? Are there Leprechauns hanging out by a deep fryer tucked in the back just waiting for the Twoonie to clink? {note: Twoonie is a Canadian $2 coin}

I watched it for a while hoping some schmuck would come up and buy some so I could rubber-neck but alas, no one ventured up to it. And I work too damn hard for my $2 to buy some myself. So um ya, if anyone has tried it let me know!

A little bit of this, a little bit of that.

2009-04-04T16:21:00.001-07:00

I got this fabulous award from Trace, thank you ever so much! So now I have to nominate 5 blogs to share this with. How can I pick just 5? I love all the blogs I read. I also do not want to ruin my so-far-so-good Monday morning by making decisions. {and truth be told, I have no flippin clue how to so the linky thing, you know, where you just click the word and poof! you are at the site? Ya I suck, I know}
You have no idea how long it took me to figure out how to get the pic on my post!

So, I nominate ALL of you! Go on and spread the joy to everyone!!! You can do it!!

It is a balmy 16.7C here this morning. {61F for my non-metric reader}. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping and my flowers are blooming. I love spring. We have had so much rain/snow the last few weeks. I am very sensitive to air pressure changes and when we get back-to-back weather systems of high pressure/low pressure my head feels like it's going to explode. Picture a balloon inside my head inflating and deflating..not fun. Thankfully this weather system will hang out for a few days so I should be headache free to enjoy it!

Popcorn Thought.... Metric vs. Imperial. I am odd and I use both. I speak in terms of distance {kilometres} and temperature {Celsius} but use pounds, inches, feet, height in Imperial. How confusing is that? I could not tell you how far 300 metres is but I can eyeball 300 feet. I weigh 45.5 kilo's. How many Lbs is that? Pop quiz Nurse Julie!

My husband now insists that we call him "The Dog Whisperer" because he can talk to animals. According to him, Tahoe is the brightest puppy to ever walk the earth and he is just the expert to tap into her potential. I'll believe it when she stops peeing in my kitchen. Perhaps he can teach the puppy to do dishes? vacuum? The lack of opposable thumbs may make some tasks quite difficult so we'll keep it simple.
She is showing true to her Retriever heritage. If it's not heavier than her she will bring it. I have quite the assortment of um 'things' up on my deck...tree bark, pine cones, buckets, rocks, a piece of 2by4 lumber and a few balls. She is going to fit right in with this family as I also have the Retriever instinct. I bring lots of stuff INTO the house but not much LEAVES it. :)

Big J has figured out the combination of Little J and Tahoe equals Chick Magnet!
He's taken the 2 of them out together a few times and all sorts of people, including cute young girls, come up to pet the puppy and pinch the kids cheeks. Granted, the kid and dog ARE both cute and somewhat furry. Should I be suspicious now that Little J is more than happy to run errands without ME but with the Dynamic Duo? Hmmm......

From the "They Really Do Pay Attention" Dept... heading out to drop off Little J at school this morning, I stopped to show him the flowers that were starting to bloom.
He sort of nodded and started running at the mouth with his random bits of conversation that I usually tune out as it makes no sense to me but all of a sudden I heard...."Then the bees will come and polnate the flowers to make honey to go to all the little boys who like peanut butter and honey sandwiches" Can you spot the smart part of that sentence? The kid knows about pollination and bees n' shit. I asked him how he knew about bees/flowers making honey and he looked at me like I was stupid, sighed dramatically and said 'Mommy, I watched Bee Movie, weren't you listening when they said how to make honey?" Oh.....! Moral of this story is, parking your kid in front of the TV watching DVD's is educational not neglectful, lazy parenting. :)

The downside to TV is the commercials. I used to hear "Oh Mommy that xyz is sooo cool! I want that! Can I have it?". I think I've managed to convince the child that most of the stuff he sees on TV is only available in the US. "Oh honey, I don't think we can get that here in Canada..let me check the website....Nope, only in the US. Sorry Dude". Will I go to hell for this? Do I care?

We went to a school {daycare} friends party yesterday. It was held at a local playplace we had not been to before and we will never be going back again! It was in an old casino and was, I don't even know how to describe it, um...dirty? cheap? old? creepy? It was dark and dingy. They had about 10 or so ancient arcade games they must have picked up off Free-cycle, bumper cars {which were ok}, lazer tag {cheap} and a bouncy slide. Everything was so freakin expensive. I think it was $15 per kid for 10 tokens {and most games took 2 tokens} and greasy pizza. The guys who worked the bumper cars and lazer tag looked like they were out on parole or hiding out from the law. I didn't take my eyes off the kid and was Mama Bear all over his arse. And of course, Little J LOVED it and we were the last ones to leave after 3 hours. UGH!

Popcorn Thought......kids bday parties. We are going to see the same group of kids/parents over the next few years as 8 of the daycare group are the same age and will be going to the same elementary school and will most likely be in the same classes. What the hell do you do for their Birthday party without breaking the bank?
I don't want to go to Chuck-E-Cheese or other stupidly expensive playplace. I want to do it at our house. We can rent a HUGE bounce house from a buddy for cheap. We set up some games in the backyard like horseshoes/ring toss, badminton etc and the parents can sit and hang out on the deck. This would be perfect if the weather is nice. I can fit 40 people in the backyard/deck. I can fit about 10 IN my house. No way we could have the party inside. See my dilemma? Little J's birthday is in June and we have been rained out 3 out of the last 4 years! But, we only had family parties so it was ok. The adults had beer, the kids ran amok in my house.
Am I crazy for stressing out about this 3 months in advance??

I am off to nap. I am working graveyards this week to finish inventory prep for work.
Inventory happens once a year and it is a BITCH! We have millions of $$ in inventory and every.single pen, file folder, ink cartridge, software, chair, pack of paper etc. must be counted.
Guess who lucked out and booked vacation during inventory week? ME!! SCORE!!
But I have to spend this week making sure my side of the store is clean, tagged and organized for counting. Ask me how happy I am to not have to deal with people this week? So a week of graveyards, then a week of vacation and then I fly out of town for 4 days for a training symposium.
I am off the floor at work for almost 3 glorious weeks. It just may be long enough for the bitterness I feel when dealing with insane customers to subside. Maybe.

I may not be posting as much this week but I'll be reading ya'll at 3am to stay awake on my breaks. I'll be drinking A LOT of RedBull, here's hoping it really does give me wings and not a heart attack. :0

How does your garden grow?

2009-04-03T18:53:00.000-07:00

After reading this post most of you will wonder how in heck I managed to raise a live human being without causing lasting and permanent damage {the jury is still out on that one..}

Little J saw a commercial for Chia Pets just before Christmas and begged me every.dang.day to ask Santa to bring him one. I figured I could use this as a learning opportunity to teach Little J responsibility for caring for something living. Watering, putting in light etc.

I am full of ideas that sound fabulous in theory and make me sound like an intelligent involved creative mom. Dazzle them with Bullshit. :) If only real life worked out as well.....

Chia did very well at first, we kept him watered, moved him around the house to the best windowsill and left the radio on so he wouldn't get lonely. As Chia began to grow we noticed something was terribly wrong. The 'stuff' was growing off it's head. It looked nothing like the full, succulent, happy Chias we saw on TV. I felt ripped off. Could we have screwed it up? A chia pet? Easier than freakin Sea Monkeys?

I dug out the instructions that I had tossed oh so nonchalantly on the table assuming that they were not needed. Come on people, what kind of moron needs directions for a Chia pet? But I digress....
Imagine my surprise to read that there are 3 applications included.

We had shmushed ALL of the seeds onto poor chia's head at once. There was of course no cure or 'fix' for our error and we could only wait and watch.

I tried to fix Chia, pulling off excess seeds, stretching delicate strands of green to even it out {similar to an old man comb-over} but I couldn't fix him.

This is how Chia turned out before all his 'hair' pulled off his head and plopped on the counter.

..................... it's ok, I wait here until you stop laughing............I've got nowhere to be...........did you need some water?............ready?..............

Shortly after this picture was taken, he shriveled up and he got recycled as a planter in my real garden.

Then last week Auntie Bones stops by for a visit and brings a Grass-head. Auntie Bones brings Little J a present every time she visits {Auntie Bones is my BFF} She laughed so hard when she heard about the Chia pet that she just about peed herself {she also birthed a 10lb child with no drugs!} So to torture me, she brings this stupid grass-head. I fear we may be in for another disappointment but so far so good....we have kept Mr.Grass head alive and well for a week now :)

He looks kinda creepy now that I think about it, maybe I'll put him outside tonight.

Lost and Found

2009-04-02T20:30:00.000-07:00

I have become one of 'those' people. You know the ones. The crazy people who drop big bucks on their........animal. The people you silently pity and openly mock.

I actually bought the damn dog freakin reindeer antlers and a jingle collar for Christmas. Ya, the holiday that happens in oh, about 8 months. In my defence, it was 70% off so it was a bargain. Petcetera is going bankrupt so we headed over to pick over the leftovers like rabid vultures. The dog got MORE chewy toys {anything to save my slippers}, and the kitties got catnip and food.

If the puppy would stop peeing on my kitchen floor I would be so happy. There always seemed to be a puddle of pee right in front of the stove, even though the dog was outside and the floors had been mopped and dried. It would just appear. Big J was convinced it was a vision, a sign of Divine Intention like a weeping Madonna or the image of the Virgin Mary burned into a piece of toast.

I burst that bubble pretty quickly when I pulled out the broiler drawer to peek under the stove. Oh sweet mother of pearl.....there were things under there I didn't even know we lost!

2 matchbox cars
1 tennis ball
3 balls of unknown origin
6 pieces of lego
2 fridge magnets
The letters D, X and Q
1 water bottle
2 beercan tabs
Dust Bunnies the size of Okla-by-god-homa.
$4.92 in coins
5 pens
1 broken salt shaker

So I guess the dog would pee and it would run under the stove and then seep back out. The sad part is it took dog pee for me to discover {or care} that the broiler drawer pulled out. :)

And just to prove how crazy my family is, here is a video of Little J dancing and Tahoe in the tub.

Cheers!

April 1st?

2009-03-31T18:13:00.000-07:00

So if I suddenly go *POOF* and cease to exist in cyber-land you know I fell victim
to the nefarious 'Cornficker' worm.

Hide your women, children and laptops folks. Lock your doors and draw the curtains.

I hope to still be here, un-infected on April 02/09.

Fare thee well my friends, and I'll see you on the 'other side'

Thanks for the memories :)

{and if I am infected....I'm stealing all your banking information} Mua-hahaha!

Family Day

2009-03-29T20:57:00.000-07:00

I had my first Sunday off in a while and the weather was beautiful so we headed out to the beach.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words..

Little J and Tahoe in the car

At the beach

Starfish

Starfish

Gooey-duck squirting

Big J caught 'crabs'

Tahoe on the beach

Stop taking my picture Mom!

Tuckered out and heading home

And a treat.. the elusive Mama J caught on camera

Mom Does Not Approve.

2009-03-27T22:23:00.000-07:00

First words out of my Mom's mouth today "What the hell happened to your hair?"

Followed by "Oh my God you got a dog! Are you crazy"? Gee thanks Mom....

And you wonder why months go by before I invite you over? {and drink copious amounts of alcohol when you get here}

Dear Husband Part 3

2009-03-27T12:21:00.000-07:00

Dear Husband,

DO NOT put the dog's shampoo in the same place mine is. I will end up using it.
Should you do this again I will be forced to put the tube of Prep-H in your toothpaste holder.

My coat is nice and shiny and my head smells like a Milk Bone.

Sincerely,

Your Dog-er..Wife.

And this is why.....

2009-03-26T16:01:00.001-07:00

......God makes puppies, kittens and babies so damn cute. It's so you don't try to stuff them in a closet.

Never having had a puppy before I really had no idea what lay in store for me.
It can't be harder than a baby right? Right?

Wrong!!

Holy crapola this little fur-ball has me working hard. Up every 2 hours to let her out to pee. Standing in the dark backyard, plastic bag in hand calling "Go poops Tahoe, go poops" at 5am in the pouring rain is not my idea of a good time.

She gets so excited when let out of the kitchen that she promptly pees on the hardwood floors, even if she was just outside. She does understand that in the kitchen she she pees on the pad...the pads are exactly like the ones they use in the hospital after surgery etc. Sheesh, had I known that 5 years after having my c-section that I might need some of those pads, I would have 'borrowed' some. {yes I am a packrat}

At least I can finally use the baby-gate we got as a shower present 5 years ago. Not having stairs we never needed it till now.

The 2 previous furry rulers of the household are not liking the new addition. The Boys have been bug-eyed and puffed-up for days now. And what is it with cats moving in s.l.o.w. m.o.t.i.o.n. when they are freaked out? Do they think they become invisible? Of course puppy wants to play when she sees them and bounds up, a wriggling bundle of energy, and wonders why the cats are no so receptive. Soon enough she'll get the idea that a hissing kitty does not want to play.

But oh my goodness... she is adorable and sweet. Big J had already taught her to sit. And she does..every single time. My dog is a genius.

We have introduced to the neighbours dogs. One is a 4 month old pittbull who is very nice and the other one is some sort of black dog that looks like a hairy pig. They all play quite well together.

Tahoe also had a half-brother in the neighbourhood who is 6 months older. Same dad different moms. I noticed the other dog at the school yard and started chit-chatting with the owner. Turns out we got the dogs from the same breeder.

If you have made it this far in my puppy-love induced rambling...I will reward you with some pictures. :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My folks do not know about the puppy. I invited them to come over on Friday to help me 'work in the garden/flower beds'. My mom is going to shit her pants. Maybe Tahoe will pee on her. I shoud be so lucky.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I just finished waxing the hardwoods...poor puppy gets ZERO traction now and just sort of collapses on the floor. And then she looks up at you with the "WTF?" look and whimpers. That will teach her for peeing on my floor. :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Little J is 'helping' Big J build a doghouse. I hear yelling {Big J} and crying {Little J}. I think it's going well.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The neighbours pig/dog won't go home. He's been watching me eat dinner for 20mins.
It creeps me out

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am still here.....

2009-03-25T09:22:00.000-07:00

I know I haven't posted in days. And I know you are all anxiously awaiting something new and exciting from me {perhaps not but it makes me feel better to think so!}

Between Tahoe keeping me up all night, working a crazy schedule this week, a session of barfing in the bathroom, and a host of other things, I have had no time. I haven't had a chance to read anyones blog either. Hell, I can't remember if I brushed my teeth lately.

*this is the point where you all say "Oh you poor girl! Go home sick from work today, leave little J at daycare, put the puppy in the shed, take a large amount of Pepto-Bismal and go to bed!*

Did I mention the blinding headache and other 'womanly' ailments?

*sigh*

//end pity-party rant

Have a wonderful Wednesday!

It's a Girl!

2009-03-22T20:12:00.000-07:00

This is why I haven't posted all weekend!

Isn't she just the cutest thing EVER!?!?

Her name is Tahoe-Girl. {Lake} Tahoe is a special place for us as Big J was conceived there, his sister got married there, we got married there and Little J was conceived there during our honeymoon. :)

I know less about puppies than I did about babies so this should be interesting.

Big Kitty and Freaky Kitty are not pleased with the new addition to the family. I'm hoping they'll get over their hissy fit soon.

Free to a Good Home!

2009-03-20T09:51:00.000-07:00

The following items are available. They are 'AS IS' and there is a NO RETURN policy.

Any mis-representation is accidental and is not grounds for returns/lawsuits.

First come, first served. Hurry they will go fast! {I hope}

Item 1: Husband.

Husband is quite handy around the house and can build stuff. {no electrical work please}. He has been housebroken, does his own laundry and loads the dishwasher correctly. Husband is gone from May to October for fishing season. Bad habits include
excessive snoring, stinky feet and he thinks farting is funny. Husband does not talk to strangers.

Item 2: Child

Child is a very sweet and polite young man. He says 'please' and 'thank-you' as he's stealing cookies from the jar. Child can amuse himself for hours with a stick and ball of twine. Child is inquisitive and WILL ask a thousand questions. Child refuses to eat vegetables and can throw the most impressive tantrums. This child is a master manipulator and you will find yourself giving in to his latest Bakugan request. Child suffers from stinky feet {see husband, it's genetic} and thinks farting is funny. When the mood strikes, Child can be a cuddle-bunny. Child will apologize if he barfs all over you. Child will talk to strangers.

Item 3: Big Kitty

Big Kitty is a big lump of furry fun. Big Kitty sleeps approx. 23hrs a day. He is quite tempermental and will either smother you in purring happiness or bite you if feeling cranky. We do not recommend using this kitty for rodent control as he will just sit there and watch the action. Big Kitty must drink out of the bathtub. Big Kitty will try to sleep on your head and he gets beat up a lot by Freaky Kitty. Big Kitty enjoys running through the house howling his damn head off at 4am.

Item 4: Freaky Kitty

Freaky Kitty is the cat you'll never know is there. Freaky Kitty spends most of his time hanging out in the closet. He is very clean and will flip out if you touch him after he has finished his excessive grooming ritual. Freaky Kitty insists on eating people food and will steal anything left un-attended on your plate. He must also have a splash of milk whenever the fridge is opened. Has the un-canny ability to determine if the can on the counter is tuna or soup before you even open it. He will become violent if picked up and cuddled. Does not play well with others.

Item 5: Random Raccoon

This fun, furry guy lives in Husband's hockey bag out in the shed. He is quite tame and has no problems coming up on the deck to tease the Kitties. He enjoys tearing open garbage bags and eating the kitty litter {gross I know}. He does keep our yard free of rodent-type populations. Not afraid of humans as he keeps coming back even after having the garden hose turned on him. Persistant.

I am willing to pay shipping/handling fees for the right offer. I can have any item over-nighted express post. Overseas may take a few days.

Please reply if interested!

~~~~~~~~~I am willing to trade the above items as a package deal for a dog~~~~~~~~~~~

Aahhhh......

2009-03-18T21:05:00.000-07:00

Number of times I heard the word "MOMMY" today...

317.

I'm not kidding, I counted.

No wonder I have a headache

Happy St. Patricks Day!

2009-03-17T09:47:00.000-07:00

This is about a green as this good German boy gets. :)

May the Luck of the Irish bless you this day. And watch out for mischievous Leprechauns laying the beat down with their shillelaghs.

ETA: Best viewed on a 22' monitor to fully experience my kids green cuteness :)

Fun Times!

2009-03-16T19:18:00.000-07:00

As you probably figured out from my Dead Bunnies post, I like to find odd things to amuse me while at work.

My last amusement was Avril Lavigne. For those that may not know Avril is some upstart Canadian Rocker Chick. {Google if you like, go ahead, I’ll wait….}

So anyways, we had a life-size cardboard cutout of Avril for a Rebel Camera promotion we were running. Avril freaked me out all the time as I would catch her out of the corner of my eye on the sales floor. The promotion ends and poor Avril is destined for the cardboard baler until……..

I get an idea

A fantastic, deliciously evil idea.

Every time I worked the closing shift {and that week I closed 3 nights in a row} I was going to leave Avril someplace unexpected to freak the be-jeebus out of the opening manager.

Night 1.. Avril was lying in wait in the GM office, right in front of the door. I turned the lights off so the opening manager would turn on the lights and BAM! There’s Avril.

Night 2 .. Avril was tucked behind the recycling bin in the corner by the lunchroom. As the opening manager {a different one} came down the hall, rounded the corner BAM! There’s Avril

Night 3…Avril was hanging out in our front cash office, sort of tucked between the safe and filing cabinet. BAM! There’s Avril. {got the 3rd manager this time}

On Day 4 I was informed that poor poor Avril was no more. She had been baled. *sob*
I was even shown her flattened cardboard body.

On Day 5 I opened. Walked into the front cash office, opened the safe and ACK! There was Avril’s head sitting in my safe. I damn near peed my pants. I was got good.

I decided to retire Avril and she is now happily hanging out above the whiteboard in the office.

My fellow managers were relieved.

I am once again bored.

I only wish I had pictures.

Give it a minute, it's going to space!

2009-03-15T11:29:00.001-07:00

A good friend sent me a YouTube clip of some guy on a late show program. Sorry but the fine details escape me at this time. Anyhowdywho, the guy was commenting on how impatient, ungrateful and unimpressed we, as people, are.

We live in the ME! ME! ME! instant gratification life. Everything is convenient, everything is NOW.

We live in a time of amazing technological advancements and we can't appreciate the wonder that surrounds us and contributes to our life.

Think back 20 years and try to remember what our everyday goings on were like...

Telephones.... 20 years ago, your phone was not only attached to the wall by a cord but the handset was also attached to the base by.a.cord! You were limited to how far away you could wander by the stretchiness of said cord. I remember many conversations in the hallway closet for privacy. God help ya if you dropped the handset because it would go shooting through the room like a rocket. DUCK!

You had to actually DIAL the number on a big round disc. You hated people with zero's in their number. There was no such thing as call waiting, call display, call forwarding. The phone would ring, you'd take your chances and answer it and if you weren't home, Oh well...they'd call back later. If you were already on the phone your caller would hear a BUSY SIGNAL *GASP*

I remember my first cell phone. It was HUGE! And ridiculously expensive. And all it did was make phone calls. But only if you were standing directly beneath the cell tower.

There was no texting. If you wanted to tell your friend something, you'd pass them a note in class. Or wait until you got home and phoned them {if the line wasn't already busy}

Got a funny picture of your friends barfing up jello shots at the weekend bush-party?
Gee you have to finish the roll of film, take it in for developing and wait a few days to pick it up. No posting to Facebook before the barf stops steaming.

You see people getting pissed off because they haven't got a crystal clear signal when speaking with someone or it take a few minutes to receive a text or message. WTF? You are sitting on a beach in Mexico talking and sending pictures to your Aunt in Cleveland. The damn signal is going to space, give it a minute!

TV...300 channels and nothing on. 20 years ago there were 13 channels. You had to actually walk up to the TV to turn the channel or adjust the volume. If you weren't home to watch a show, you'd miss it and wait for the re-run in about 6 months. TV's were pretty in their fancy consoles and the 12" took up very little room. If you were lucky, you wouldn't have to make geeky Cousin Lily hold the rabbit ears so you could get a good signal for Hockey Night in Canada.

Music...Remember 8 tracks {ok so maybe thats more than 20 years ago}. I sure remember getting my first portable ghetto blaster. It had 2 tape decks so I could tape from one to the other. Now you can download THOUSANDS of songs and video's to Ipods that fit into your pocket.

Computers/Internet. I remember my first computer. It was a Texas Instruments. I'd spend HOURS typing in code to make a coloured blob move across the black screen.
Only big important people had a computer. And only the geeks and freaks took computers in high school. If you had to type something out, you'd borrow your moms typewriter.

Video Games. Ugh remember when Asteroids was Da Bomb? Could you have ever imagined playing something like Wii? I think not.

Screw Google, you want information? You had to go to the library and look it up in the encyclopedia. People actually had to think for themselves.

To communicate with your family overseas you typed a letter and dropped it in the mail. It got there 10 days later.

Air travel. We love to bitch about air travel. Delays, small seats, cheap meals, stinky bathrooms etc. But think about it for a minute.. You are sitting on a chair 40,000 feet in the air and traveling at 400MPH. What a bloody fantastic thing! And all you can think about is that your blanket is scratchy and you've already seen the in-flight movie.

I worry that too much technology is a bad thing. People have stopped thinking for themselves, they've stopped communicating face-to-face, they are fat and out of shape.

If we, God-forbid, had a catastrophic event that forced us to go back to living off the land {think Little House on The Prairie} How many of Generation Me would survive?

Would they be able to catch fish? Hunt game? Build shelter? Start a fire? Milk a cow?
Grow food?

We've done and seen amazing things with technology but what happens when the plug gets pulled and the world goes dark?

Got my head fixed!

2009-03-14T17:49:00.000-07:00

So some may recall the incredibly stupid thing I did about 6 weeks ago when in a fit of PMS madness/depression I decided to colour my hair. Not so unusual as I have coloured my hair for the last 20 years. But this time it went horribly wrong.

First of all, I dye my hair blonde. I used the same colour for many years and then the bastards went and discontinued it. So I was left adrift in a sea of shades and options. My last blonde colour was a platinum blonde.

At Christmas I decided to go light auburn. It turned out ok and I really like it. Which got me thinking..I could do this whole dark funky red thing. It's gotta be easier than keeping up the blonde. WRONG!

In February I picked up a box of beautiful Cinneberry Auburn. It was gorgeous on the box, not so much in my hair.

The first couple of inches of my hair were a fabulous red and the midshaft of my hair was BLACK!!! Oh it was horrible. I cried. Big J cursed. Little J asked "Why Mommy Why?"

It was a semi-permanent colour so it should have washed out in 28 shampoos. HELL NO!
6 weeks later and colour was still staining my towels.

Hubby had bought me a 'hair colour' for Valentines Day and today I used it.

The hairdresser had a good laugh at my story, tears streaming down her face when I asked if I could go straight back to blonde. My only alternative was to hack off what I could and blend in the rest.

I'm quite pleased with the end result. I don't look like "me" yet but its getting better.

BEFORE:

You can clearly see the black sections in my hair

AFTER:

Very short and colourful

So hows that for a post about nothing? Seinfeld would be proud

Dead Bunnies

2009-03-12T21:20:00.000-07:00

I kill Bunnies.

And Reindeer.

And I like it!!!!

Chocolate ones that is. :)

You know the Lindt Gold ones with the bell around the neck that come out at Xmas and Easter. Ya, those are the ones I mutilate and eat.

Of course, I just can't take one off display, shred the tinfoil in a frenzy and chow down. I have to ensure said chocolate is 'un-saleable'.

I try to be creative in my attempt to render the poor chocolate treats un-saleable.

At Xmas I had several Rudolfs attempt to fly off the top of the service register, only to crash to the ground and shatter into tiny bite-size pieces. And by 'fly' I really mean 'hurl violently'.

Still more somehow got run over by wild, out of control shopping carts.

It's a sad sight, it truly is.

So far, 4 bunnies have mysteriously met with an untimely demise and 1 has even been held for ransom. A note was left on the GM desk with the bunnies bell and a demand for 1 million dollars. Unfortunately, the demands of the ransom were not met and the bunny didn't make it.

Today I crushed one in the automatic doors. It was yummy.

Does this make me a bad person, or just someone who plays inappropriately with food?

Leave yer poo at home!

2009-03-11T20:05:00.000-07:00

I thought I had seen it all when it come to poo. I had dogs growing up and I was on doo-doo cleanup. I have cats and do the litter. I've changed diapers and I have a husband who visits his 'throne' several times a day.

Now poo in public is a different story. At work I mean. I've plunged plugged toilets.{and I'm quite good at it} Once I even had to clean up dog crap in my aisles during back to school chaos

But what happened today really really really blows my little mind.

On Sunday morning someone, somehow, broke the toilet in the men's public washroom at work. Really broke. As in broke it off it's base and tilted it onto it's side. Nice huh?

We tape it off with an Out Of Order sign and put in for a service call.

Fast forward to today. Hot Plumber-dude shows up to fix the afore mentioned toilet.

I point him in the direction of the john, stare at his butt as he walks away and go about my duties.

Hot Plumber-dude comes back a few minutes later, ashen faced. He asks "Do you know what's in there?"

I reply "Um a broken toilet?" batting my eyelashes {it's much harder to flirt as a brunette by the way...}

He responds with "Ya, a broken toilet, full of excrement and toilet paper up to the rim and seeping onto the floor."

HOLY SHIT BATMAN! PEOPLE WERE USING THE BROKEN TOILET TO POOP!!!!!!

It's not like they could have used it by accident... the Out of Order sign, the tape across the stall door, the toilet broken off it's base and lying on it's side. The lack of flushing. It could not have been more obvious that that toilet was not ready for pooping!

What the hell is wrong with some people!

LEAVE YOUR POO AT HOME!!!!!!

Kudos to Hot Plumber Dude for not barfing all over the floor as he cleaned that un-holy mess up. $800 later and I have a working, flushing, upright toilet.

Did I mention that Hot Plumber Dude is really cute? As in run-away-together-and-make-beautiful-plumber-babies cute?? Le Sigh.

Yin and Yang my friends. Yin and Yang.

Will you marry us Please?

2009-03-09T22:03:00.000-07:00

I need a wife.

This is the only conclusion I could come to after much contemplation {and beer}.

I am not domesticated. AT.ALL.

I hate cleaning...the house looks good but don't open a closet.

I hate cooking...most of my meals come in a box

I hate laundry...again, don't open the closet door

I hate the 'wife' expectations.

I work longer hours than Mr. Wonderful. He gets home from work earlier than me 80% of the time. He sits on the couch surfing Craigs List looking for the perfect Suburban for the motor sitting in my shed. The Kid is eating cookies and watching cartoons.

I am expected to start dinner, tidy up, prepare lunches/backpacks, serve dinner, clean up after dinner, bath the child, get him ready for bed, read bedtime stories etc. Then I have to take care of the household running- paying bills and whatever else comes up.

Mr. Wonderful goes back to surfing Craigs List.

I need someone who LIKES to do all that stuff so *I* can sit on the couch and surf the internet too. I would do all the fun things like playing with my kid. I might even have the time and energy to shave my legs, wax my eyebrows and shower.

Hubby appears to like the idea too as he seems to think he might get sex on a more regular basis from someone who might actually be awake. :)

I would have someone to girl-talk with. Sitting on the couch in the clean living room, drinking tea and chatting late into the evening.

I'm not the jealous type. I could handle it. I would embrace it.

Now where would I find such a wondeful woman? And how would I have to pay her?

The Gods Must Be Crazy...

2009-03-09T00:02:00.000-07:00

Today we had some wild weather.

At 2pm, I was outside without a jacket, It was about 10C and the sun was shining. I was playing with the macro setting with my camera...

And by 4pm we had this...

And this guy ended up in my backyard...

I can't wait for summer!