the time toilet {AKA Pinterest}

I am not your typical bloggie.  I have no earth shattering specialty knowledge or skills, don't homeschool, have no culinary skills to really speak of, have no mantle much less an OCD habit of decorating it and redecorating it every fifteen seconds to reflect the weather, upcoming holidays or my stage of PMS ... so really if someone were to ask me what this blog is about I'd probably have a real genius looking moment where I sound as intelligent as Homer Simpson ... uuuuuuhhhhhhh ...

But I try.  Really I do.  Between swear words, bottles of wine or beer, and continued therapy fodder for my children I do try.  And like all mama's in the blog world I eventually had to cave and try crack.  Er, I mean Pinterest, I had to try Pinterest.  Haven't actually tried crack, but I imagine its similar only illegal.

So I have like seventy gajillion pins already and not a lot to show for it.  If I could become organized, cook well, or make cool shit via osmosis it would have happened already so I guess my virtual pin board is one part foolish hope and one part failure beacon.  At anyrate, I have never in all my thousands of pins jumped up from the computer and said "ohmigowsh I am so doing that now."  I have on the contrary said "ohmigowsh I so wanna do that ... someday ... eventually ... maybe ... better pin it JIC."

Then 20 minutes ago happened.

Yup, I pinned, did, then blogged.  This has to be some sort of freaking productivity record for me. (Note: St Paul has Thing 1 and they are grunting and being men looking at camouflage at Bass Pro while Thing 2 still miraculously snoozes in his car seat following a horrible, horrible trip to Walmart that had Mommy wanting to drink.  Not entering a store until February.)  Enough babble, we're on a time limit:

I can't get a picture of the original on here, so you have to go to a content housewife's blog post in order to see it.  Simple, yet all the cushy goodness that makes me keep up the pretenses!  The original is adorable of course, and no, I don't have any flowers and the yet-to-be-posted-tutorial has zilch to do with their absence.  They'd wind up looking like burlap poop in all likelihood if I tried, and with the boys and the dogs I can't help but develop nervous twitches at the thought of non-cloroxable-easy-to-dust-surfaces actually being present in my home.  I only had an 11 x 14 frame on hand, so mine is bigger ... but so is my family, so I am up for pretending that was planned and intentional! Shhh ...

I know, I know, you are just awed by the picture quality.
Camera phone.  Awesome.

Yes, I even happened to have the same exact scrapbook paper on hand.

So, there it is, finished product. Except that in my zeal to finally do something on Pinterest so I could pretend I am cool like that I forgot that St Paul made me get rid of all my teacher stuff in la purga (but no one can force me to part with my Sharpies dammit) so I have no vis-a-vis pens in the house.

Oh and I also have no idea where in the sam hick I am hanging this beast.

At least I have good intentions, right?  Right?!  {Sigh}

10 Mad Skillz

In my previous life, I was a teacher, and I loved it. But, I found myself annually praying for a job because adequate funding for education is about as likely as eating one pop tart and leaving the other one in the silver wrapper. Not happening. This meant that my resume was updated on an annual basis for a while.

But I always found that there were things that I just couldn't incorporate into my resume, stuff I am quite skilled at, stuff that can be dayum useful ... but really has no place in a “professional,” hoity toity resume. So here are ten of my top non-professional resume worthy skills so I can get my awesomeness out of my system. In no particular order ...

1. Skilled at creating new and much more amusing (though not always child-appropriate) lyrics for children’s songs.

2. Able to complete a wide array of tasks adequately and on time while concurrently winning several games of Words With Friends.

3. Competent in instant bathroom location at any locale, even when I have never been there before and the signs are in a language other than my own.

4. Able to covertly obtain an entire bed's-worth of blankets onto my half without waking sleeping partner. (Please contact my husband for confirmation and at least 5 minutes of whining on his part.)

5. While playing basketball with garbage I will almost never hit the can, but I am optimistic and hopeful enough to try every time.

6. My Momdar (mom-radar) enables me to know when a child in a five mile radius climbs on a surface higher than 2 feet from the ground, is in possession of a permanent marker, or utters the phrase, “this will be sooo awesome!”

7. Able to make dee-lish Mac n' Cheese without reading the directions on the box.

8. Loves reading historical romance novels but ruthlessly judges others for enjoying such drivel.

9. Able to make working models of things like motors and flashlights out of styrofoam, popsicle sticks and glue. Give me glitter and paint and they will look good too. (Remember – former teacher and a mom)

10. Knows all the words to “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” and can still fold M.A.S.H. notes.

There are so many other things I can do that fall flat on resume judgment day, but this small smattering gives you a glimpse into the amazingness that is me.

Careful, jealousy isn't a slimming trait.   

the turtle, part 2

So We lived through Christmas, I have a ton to post because while I am not a Christmas-crafty person I am a broke-enough-to-need-to-make-Christmas-presents-crafty person and I wanna share ... but before we get to all of that lets revisit the turtle.  You know, the one who has apparently decided she is part monkey?

St Paul came out on Christmas morning and told me "go look at your turtle."  Figuring this was some sort of sadistic way to not have to tell me she had bit the big one and really made Christmas all sorts of special for the kiddos this year I winced the whole walk back to see her.  Then this is what I saw.

I pulled her down, promising that the "season" was almost over and to just hang in there while checking for sharp objects and moving her house so that hopefully she can't climb it again.  I really would love to see her actually do it, no, not jump you sicko.  I would love to see how on earth she actually gets up there, I mean doesn't this like defy about 12 laws of nature???

I suck at Christmas

Lets go ahead and clear the air now: If you are wanting a warm fuzzy I am in the spirit of the holidays BS caked post filled with cute crafts and ideas, go elsewhere.

I groan as Thanksgiving approaches, because this time of year does not happen to awaken a cozy, warm, happy feeling in me.  You could easily confuse me for Ebeneezer were it not for the fact I happen to not be a wildly rich, old, English dude.  Bah.

Since becoming a mom I have really, truly tried.  I can fool my kids.  Most of the time.  I think.  If not its just more therapist-couch-fodder, and I can live that with that.  But between the turtle trying to jump off of her house, the man cold's insistence on re-invading repeatedly, and all this Christmasy cheer I'd consider skipping milk and just make my breakfast cereal with tequila if I thought it wouldn't taste so exceptionally bad with Coco Krispies.

So when it comes to Christmas decor in the mommadeaux house we aren't exactly a regurgitated glitter and garland factory like so many of the blogs I see out there.  Elf on the Shelf?  St. Paul is already developing rules for what I am allowed to do with it because I plan to have one next year and he is scared that we will personally pay for the retirement of the previously mentioned therapist if he gives me free reign.  He's probably right on the money there though.

So there are really only three Christmas-ish things in my house right now, items that suggest the warfare I feel Christmas invokes and items that are manufacturally flawed.  I said I suck at Christmas, but at least I have a sense of humor about the whole thing.

A camouflage Christmas Tree Skirt.
Nuff said.

The applique should, of course, read "Ho Ho Ho"
but when sewn on upside down it says what we all are really thinking:
"Oh Oh Oh"
And yes, we bought the "bad" one on purpose.  So did my mom.

Merry Christmas and a Bah Humbug to boot.  Lets get to New Years, the holiday we all openly admit we have to drink to get through it!

turtles & S.A.D.

the scene of the crime, later that day

Since we have had fairly typical-for-other-parts-of-the-country winter weather here lately we've all been a tad in the downy dumps.  Not being used to cold, grey, dreary weather has made for a miserable mommadeaux clan, and you know my feelings on my menfolk getting sick.  Thing 2 is genuinely sick, Thing 1 had to be picked up early from school this week due to illness, I can't get St Paul out of bed in the mornings without a lot of threats and the promise of coffee brewing and this morning he actually said he was "dying," and I have personally polished off more Christmas cookies than is reasonable for a gal who says she's watching her figure.  So I decided we all had the desert-region-version of Seasonal Affective Disorder, commonly called S.A.D.

But I misjudged the level of seasonal depression in our house apparently.  Why you ask?  Because yesterday morning I had the strangest wake-up-yelling I have had in all ten years of motherhood thus far.

"Mom come quick, the turtle climbed on her log house and jumped off!"

Yes, turtle.  The docile, slow animal typically associated with laziness.  She climbed up on her log tunnel, don't ask how, I can't quite visualize it myself.  This had to require a good amount of effort on her part.  Ultimately I guess she just couldn't take it anymore.  In her misery, she decided to jump off the highest area she could manage in an effort to end it all.  However, the highest area in her aquarium is like 3 inches tall.

As it turns out, she merely got herself stuck and scared the crap out of Thing 1 who awoke to the loud thud that resulted when her shell hit the side of the aquarium.

While this incident may leave you scratching your head don't be alarmed.  If anyone was going to own a turtle that was both acrobatic and klutzy, it would be me.