MamaJulep Awakes from Hibernation

Mamajulep has been in hibernation for about a month now.  I know you stopped living your lives because I haven't written!  I can feel the collective "whew" in the air now that I'm back.  My absence was not because I was lying on some beach in Maui, under a straw hat, sipping a coconut margarita, and having my back rubbed by Maleko, the local island stud.

...eh, sorry, I got lost in thought.  Where was I?

Oh, my reality.

What I have been doing is moving so fast I needed skates, been knee deep in the nonsense of community theatre, survived the baby chicken infestation of 2011, and trying to run my new business as "growed-up" acting as I can with the sounds of "Wild Kingdom" as my background music.  And I've done something else.  Something unthinkable.  Something that has rocked my family to its core.  Something that has my six pack shaking in their chicken poo infused sketchers.  Are you ready?

I've quit homeschooling the six pack (gasp!).  I've chucked the whole she'bang!
They're enrolled in a Catholic school umpteen miles away in the big city. 
Don't believe me?

I know.  I'm shocked too!  The first day of school I woke up and felt like someone else had taken over my body and was running my life, the wreck that it is -my life, not my body, although that's a different kind of wreck.  Remember I was supposed to be the administrator of our homeschool group this year?  Well, I let all those folks down, told them I was spent and needed to shift gears a bit and stretch my kids' boundaries and gain back just a crumb of my sanity or what's left of it after five years of homeschooling a six pack of sweathogs.  Five years of being with all of my children, 24/7.  Five years of teaching long division while listening to Dora and her stupid monkey in the background.  Five years of screaming like a mad woman settling debates over the last bowl of Cheerios while trying to begin morning prayers.  Five years of hearing my regular-schooled pals laughing over the phone while they were childless from 8-3, as I'm hunkered down in my closet, whispering so my kids couldn't find me. 

And Baby-Screams-A-Lot didn't get off the hook either!  Baby is now three!  She's a big kid.  So she's getting dropped at the same Mom's Day Out program all my other sweathogs attended a few days a week.  So for twelve hours a week, I will have no sweathogs.  No Mr. Green Jeans.  No interruptions. No conversations about chickens.  No nonsense, except by the other zillion knuckleheads who follow me around! And for the first time in five years, I will be on my own for some chunks of time.  I will drink hot unreheated coffee and I will...(wait for it)...go to the bathroom alone!

And the angels sang.

And Mamajulep toasted them.

And proceeded to stop, drop and roll at the nearest school forty five minutes away!

As I type this, I am sitting in Panera Bread, eating a toasted panini with turkey, warm artichoke and spinach, and listening to nothing but the hum of a few nearby grown-up conversations and the occasional cappuccino maker.  I think I will adjust to this just fine.  At least until carpool!

And the school folks asked me how I planned to "volunteer" at the school because apparently all the parents do it, on top of tuition.  So I told them I would do anything except watch any amount of children, I get that job full time at my own address, I'm sure I don't want to watch other folks' bad children, and that it would be a cold day in a biblically heated location before I would subject myself to that!  And I wouldn't be begging for money for any fundraisers because I have to do that in my real life too !  Alabama Power gets an earful of my begging this time of year.  So far they've just asked me if I can work a copier.  I can always get fired from that job if it gets too involved for my life.

But back to my baby, she needs a new pen name.  She's not Ms. Screams-a-lot so much anymore.  I need to come up with a new persona for her.  She IS the baby, but she's not "a baby" and will tell you that.  Help me come up with something.  She is still the boss, as any youngest child will tell you!  I even thought of giving her that name, "Little Boss" but I don't know.  I do know that if she wants something, she's bullheaded and will get it.  Like if she wants to sit in the recliner and you have the nerve to be in it already, you may as well plan on getting up because she will nag the everlivin' mess out of you to get that chair.  Yesterday I was holding her in her favorite chair and she demanded I put on my shoes for no good reason other than she just wanted my feet covered.  Finally I gave in.  She will probably run some small country by the time she's twenty-seven.  Or be a religious icon.  Or run a mafia ring, the only one in Alabama.

And she's become obsessed with Spiderman.  This summer, the kids watched all the Spiderman movies over and over and over and she decided that she is Peter Parker!  She springs all over the house sneaking up on the rest of us and "webbing" us.  She wears a knit hat on the surface of her face so we can't see it's her, because really, it's Peter Parker!  She's already had a bloody lip and chipped a tooth.  Child Protective Services have me on their satellite.  Guess what backpack she picked out for her new school?  Yep!  She's the only three year old GIRL who will be sporting around with a Spiderman backpack.  She thinks it's awesome.  It goes particularly well with her Dora lunchbox.  As I've said before, I have weird kids.  Just pay attention... 

Because I have to tell you about school.  Like I said...world rocking for my crew! And me too, a little.  Maybe a lot.  So we had to go "real school shopping" which meant we had to buy stuff other people thought we should have to learn.  Stuff that never occurred to us before, which apparently included things like paper towels, baby wipes, and mesh gym bags.  Stuff I've never associated with my homeschool stash.  Some things I didn't even know how to buy!  Some I thought would be no-brainers, like lunchboxes.  Six of them!  So we're in Walmart of course and checking out the lunchbox collection when Rainman does one of his freakouts over the inadequate size of the lunchboxes.  Apparently he was worried his dagwood sandwiches wouldn't fit in the standard sizes.  Homeboy makes his way over to the dagum IGLOO soft coolers and tells me that is more like it!  I can just see my boy, aka: Jethro Bodine, arriving at school with his five gallon cooler filled with five sandwiches, a gallon of tea, three apples, a box of raisinettes and a family-sized package of oreos.  "Honey, we ain't at home anymore.  The days of nonstop eating and home lunches is over".  Jethro's gonna have to adjust to eating like the rest of us.  Maybe I'll be able to afford that van now!

The prison bus is a bit of a tight fit with a six pack, backpacks, lunchboxes, and separate bags for P.E!  This morning as we're skidding down the highway trying to make the bell, my kids asked what people do in this thing called "P.E." and really got stressed over it.  In case I haven't shared their ages, I have an eighth grader, three fifth graders and a fourth grader who thinks she has been put in the wrong grade because she is smarter than that!  And these half grown geniuses have asked nothing about math or social studies or core subjects.  They are wiggin' out about this foreign world of physical education.  If this is what does us in, I'm screwed to the wall!

Getting a half dozen comatose sloths ready for school at five AM ain't exactly an easy thing.  Remember, we still have chickens to deal with every freakin' morning, along with a band of stray dogs living on my back porch.   And Mr. Green Jeans is "hands off" anything to do with our morning routine, so MamaJulep is adding some stuff from the state store to the coffee.  And my crew each have their little personality disorders they bring to the breakfast table.  And it's all migraine-inducing nonsense.  This morning Rainman had a meltdown over his hair because I tried to comb it to the side like we do every other day, but somehow today was different.  He decided it was much, much better combed straight forward toward his eyes.  He looked like Lurch from the Addams Family.  I told him to fix it or he'd get beat up by lunchtime. 

I barely mentioned that we had a baby chicken infestation this summer.  My crew found a few chickens who love to sit on eggs all the time.  So we have dozens of eggs in the works waiting to become more chickens for Mama.  I've put the kibosh on this and hope it all settles down soon, but meanwhile we have a ton of baby chickens.  Baby chickens who have to stay inside my house because they can't hang with the big boys yet.  And as soon as I graduate some outta there, a new crew of babies needing daycare show up in my laundry room.  If I find anymore in there, we're having chicken nuggets for dinner.

We just finished up a play and the kids had a blast!  Mama is ready for a hiatus from plays for a while.  We may do a Christmas play but the next big thing they want to do is in the spring.  It is "Titanic: The Musical".  Whose brainchild was this?  I thought they were kidding!  Let's all drown at sea while singing and dancing and being choreographed at that!  We have to do this just so I can see how it's done.  I'll put in a video for you. Thank me later.

Slick has decided when he grows up he wants to be Johnny Cash.  He hooked up with a musician friend while doing the play and has wormed his way into some guitar lessons.  The only problem is he has no money for guitar lessons.  Oh, and he doesn't own a guitar.  And never asked Mama about this.  His first lesson is tomorrow.

I have so much more nonsense to share but I think the Panera Bread people want their table back!  I promise to share more nonsense. There will definitely be a "part two" of the "Hibernation" post, probably by Friday *crosses fingers* so come back real soon!  I hope to get back in the groove of posting daily.  Or at least a few times a week!  Let me hear from y'all!

Peace,

Varmints

It is about 9000 degrees here in lower Alabama.  It feels like it hasn't rained since Noah took off.  My pond was just a bowl full of dirt as the drought began, but now it's morphing into some other ecosystem.  I cannot believe just a few months ago we were catching brim in this little basin.

The heat is ridiculous.  I'm starting to hallucinate from lack of rain.  And seeing as my washer and dryer are just about useless these days, I'm glad I have my Olympic sized clothesline!  These days it takes about ten minutes to dehydrate all my laundry.  But it does take about ten hundred hours to beg, bribe, beat into submission get my knuckleheads to hang the stuff out there to get the effects of the sun, making it rather useless most of the time. 

Raise your hands if you love bokeh.
*raises hands*
*raises whole household's hands*

In this shot, I especially love that it hides the crapwagon full of nonsense my sweathogs like to leave out for the redneck effect.  Bokeh is good in that way.
I wish I could make this work when my mother-in-law drops by. 

Her son whose name I will not speak,  is in hot water.  Steaming.  He came home Friday sporting a box of  "more work for me".

Why?  Why?  WHY?

We have two chicken pens, PLUS baby chickens that live perpetually in my laundry room- constantly squawking like satan's hounds, along with stray dogs that think I'm some kinda half way house for wayward animals or an escape hatch for useless pet owners!  The other night I'm sitting in bed, minding my own mess, and I hear a cat under the house, screaming as if its entrails were being taken out by some other animal that does not belong to me!  I own one little dog, a dog that thankfully has been trained to get after mice.  Guess what I've been saying to her since this little beast has come to stay with us?  "Get the mouse Hazel!"  I don't know what came over Mr. Green Jeans, but I'll be seeking an attourney some time this week.  He gets to keep the animals.  I get all the adult beverages.  The kids are a toss up.  Let's see how they behave today.

Peace,

In Quicksand

Last week I had a birthday.

I'm another year stove-up.

Okay.  I'm 44 and I could be doing worse.  But not by much.  Not if my sweathogs have anything to do with it.  Or my washing machine.  Or Alabama Power.  All of them induce stress and cause me to assume the fetal position.

I know some of you have wondered if I was abducted by aliens since I haven't posted in a week.  Or maybe that I'd finally lost it altogether and was now living in the Witness Protection Progarm.  Just know that the quicksand was pretty deep around here and I was wishing I could crawl through some wormhole and steal some time to get my life in order and maybe wake up and find myself living in a Jane Austen novel.  Now I know that ain't gonna happen, so be patient with me and I'll try to give you the low-down, the 411, the "skinny" on some of my nonsense. 

I'm working hard at my new "Work from home with a six pack of sweathogs underfoot" job.  Did I mention I'm throwing their arses back in traditional school in six weeks?  They're embracing that idea as much as getting influenza.  Ask me if I'm sad about this.  That would be a "no".  I'm an independant consultant for Rodan and Fields Dermatology.  Independent = I only get paid if I work!  And I like to get paid, and I like the work, but not with knuckleheads. These are the docs who invented Proactiv and now they've come up with an awesome skin repair line that's getting lots of attention.  The anti-age line is my new crack.  If you have a wrinkle you'd like to chuck off your face, let me know.  I can help.  But I can't do it with my crew holding a mob-lynching outside my bedroom door while I'm on the phone trying to act like I've got my act together.   And it's all an act.

I get help where I can.

But even these guys betrayed me the other night.  Raspberry Absolute is the devil himself.  Do not listen to his lies when he tries to seduce you with his delicious concoctions.  It took me three days to get over three drinks.  Twenty years ago, all it would have taken was a can of coke and a BC powder.  But back then, I didn't wake up to a house full of degenerates.  Or at least they weren't my responsibility!



Hey Kids!  Dinner's ready!!

And my crew is a little miffed with mom.  Mom hasn't made brownies in a month of Sundays.  Mom has thrown out a little too many "leftover" dinners lately and they are starting to talk about a rebellion.  The dog that actually is our dog, ran away to a better life, only to return with a baby rabbit she'd hunted down.  The kids were jealous.  Leftover night at my house has come to be called "Snatch and Grab" night.  With eight folks scrambling for leftovers, if you don't get in the kitchen real quick-like and in a hurry, you're enjoying a meal of canned sardines and stale crackers.  Alongside a diet grape Faygo from last year's Christmas party.

They're also in another dagum play, so evenings are filled with running to rehearsals and I get to hear non-stop singing again.  Ever heard the "Ed Sullivan" song from "Bye Bye Birdie"?  They really should play a continuous loop of it at Guantanamo Bay.  They'd have a slew of folks giving up all sorts of secret information just to get that dang song off of them.  It is burned into what's left of my mind.  Thanks kids.  Why can't they do a play about great rock bands of the eighties?



I've decided my Whirlpool Cabrio washing machine is the love child of the devil and the ghost of Joan Crawford.  It cost me more than my mortgage payment and has been nothing but a clothes shredder.  But at least I had something.  Lately it works about half the time, and my budget for a new washing machine is somewhere around $7.45.  I'm thinking a wash board and some lye soap are in my future.  As well as blistered, peeling hands that will grow to look like claws for as much as I have to face in my laundry room.  And my refrigerator started leaking, and my dishwasher...my NEW dishwasher, has decided to fall out of my broken kitchen cabinet.  Did I ever tell you I'm married to a carpenter?  Does the phrase "the shoemaker's children have no shoes" come to mind.  Mr. Green Jeans is about to be fired!  And I may go on an extended vacation. After I find me a carpenter.

But I can't.  I have to get my behind in gear.  I have to put out fires and make hay while the sun shines and put my nose to the grindstone and all that.  Even though I'd rather be lying in a porch swing, drinking a margarita and listening to "Unchained Melody" and pretending I'm somewhere else.  Somewhere that doesn't involve satanic appliances or obnoxious musical numbers.  Perhaps one day.  But today ain't that day!

Peace,

Lose-Lose Situation

I've done it all.
When it comes to motherhood that is.
There's a lot left to do in other areas of my life.  But I won't be skydiving or base jumping anytime soon. 
Or ever!

I've had my kids in school, homeschooled them, put them back in school, went back to homeschooling, and now, I'm getting ready to throw them back in school again and forget about them and throw away the key!

I've had babies, one at a time... had babies, three at a time, had a baby who I only got to hold for two hours, and before all that, I got to experience the purgatory that is infertility, where you bargain with God if He will only let you have just one baby and you promise you will never ask for anything else!  Then I got a six pack!  Be careful what you wish for, God has a great sense of humor!

I've been the church lady, led the womens bible studies, been on the church council, been the room mother, made forty hundred cupcakes for a bunch of screaming hooligans who just dropped them all over the classroom floor, and I've volunteered for everything from my church to my homeschool organization and back.  I've sewn costumes for plays, baked a thousand pot-luck dinners, and have found that anything can be fixed with either a glue gun or duct tape.  I've bandaged baby dolls, fed stray dogs, and have cleaned enough skidmarks that I'm qualified to work the clean up crew for Nascar!  I've been a SAHM, worked part-time, worked full-time, and now I'm working from my home. 

This may be the most challenging thing I've done yet!

The thing I've learned from all this is, there's no perfect set up.  If you're a mom, work is just plain work, and there's no easy fix, no escape hatch, no perfect lifestyle.  And as your babies just keep growing and evolving, their needs change, your needs change, and there are just gonna be days that involve adult beverages. 

And ibuprofen.  Lots of ibuprofen!

One of the deals with working from home is that I actually, occasionally, have to talk to another person on the phone.  This person likely does not have a crew of sweathogs in the background.  Or has a live cage fight going on at the same time. Ever try and talk to the utility company while your little knuckleheads are around?  It's kinda like making a 911 call from the inside of the primate house at the zoo!  Now imagine you have to actually sound like you have your act together, because you don't want folks to know the insanity that is your home, then two of your darlins come in while you're being a grown-up on the phone, and they reenact a scene from Braveheart right as the person answers your call.  The only thing you can do then is say, "Sorry, wrong number" and hope they don't have caller ID.  Otherwise, you stand a fifty-fifty chance of getting a visit from Child Protective Services.  And there are days, I feel like making the call myself.

Ring!  Ring!

CPS:  Hello?

MJ:  Is this Child Protective Services?

CPS: Yes.  Can I help you?
MJ:  Oh, yes ma'am!  I'd like to make a delivery.  What time is good for you?

CPS: I'm sorry, did you say "delivery"?

MJ: Yes.  I need to drop off my kids...like, today!  What would be a good time?
CPS: Ma'am, we don't normally work like that.  No one 'delivers' their children to us willingly!
MJ:  Well then, you haven't met my kids yet!  And if I don't get these sweathogs out of my house right now, and get to make one phone call, uninterrupted, I'm gonna go bat$h*t crazy!

Even prison inmates are allowed a phone call.  Me?  I can't even go to the bathroom without having to settle a debate over the last bowl of Cheerios.  And that "debate" may or may not involve stitches.  This morning, like every morning, I've reheated the same cup of coffee fifty seven times and it now resembles motor oil.  It kinda tastes like it too.  So when I get a little jealous about how other moms get to do this or that, or have time away from their heathens and maybe eat a meal in peace, I remember that I have really tried it all and maybe I'm just stupid, but I ain't found the perfect fit yet.  It's all hard.  It's all quicksand to wade through.   And ninety percent of what I do is manage nonsense from nonsense.  But one day it will end.  One day I'll be able to make a phone call and form a cohesive sentence.  But today ain't that day.

Does anyone have the number for CPS?

Peace,

Why Do I Have To Do It? and other Mommy tantrums...

There's another dagum stray animal that's taken up with us.

Who am I, Dr. Doolittle?

It's a young, stray cat.

Did I mention it's a stray?  That means, it ain't mine folks!

It lives in a basket under our house, but frequently jumps up trees when dogs go after it.  I know I technically only have the one dog, but remember... I am the dog whisperer so I have a slew of dogs in my yard at any given moment.  And they like to chase little black cats and worry my offspring about it all.  And none of them give any thought in all this, that my little dachshund is in heat.  Awesome!  I see mongrel puppies in my future, and that will be my problem!

And every time there is some cause for worry with this little feline, suddenly it becomes my problem.  Why is that?  I didn't ask for the cat.  I don't do a thing for that thing.  I've never shown any interest in even having a cat, let alone an ugly, stray, half-a-tailed version.  But my kids love any creature who's lucky enough to find its way onto our compound.  And it will probably be pregnant within months.  And then it really will be my problem, because baby kittens are as easy to get rid of as a sexually transmitted disease.  Not that I know anything about that, just sayin'!

So how is it that anything that needs to be fixed, loved on, or otherwise made right becomes the sole responsibility of "Mama"?  How did I get here?  To quote Bill Cosby, "I just wanted a few kids I could send to college!"  Plus, it's always stupid, obnoxious, petty things that I get dragged in to.  This morning the toddler came to me and informed me that Slick was in the family room... farting.  She'd had just about enough of it too.  Not my problem folks!!  But guess who had to get up and go make the offensive boy stop his nonsense...you guessed it!  When I was daydreaming about Mr. Right back in the sixth grade, I had no idea that "putting out farts" would be in my future.

Just last night someone dropped a glass and broke it for the ten hundredth time (it's like my family has jello for fingers!) and even though I had nothing to do with it, was no where around when it happened, and was butt-deep in other things I never intended to do, Mama was the one to get her tail in there and get things right again.  Can I just say that I was not the one who broke the dagum glass!  And where is their daddy?  Because he always ends up on the winning end of this mess!  And everything is my fault and I'm responsible for every little problem that all the other souls in this house encounter.

Mama, we don't have any milk.
Mama, I can't find my toothbrush.
Mama, Rainman is looking at me funny.
Mama, I dropped a jar of mayonnaise on the floor because I have jello hands!
Mama, I need a box to put another dang turtle in.
Mama, the chickens might be cold.
Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama!

And don't get me started on the stuff Mr. Green Jeans comes at me with!

It's all work, added to work, added to more work.  And I'm just tired, worn out, stove up.  And dealing with all these added chores is like shoveling clay.  Into large vessels.  And it never, ever, ever, ever ends.  It just keeps going until Mommy loses her schmidt and then everyone wonders why Mama lost her dagum mind over having to find the last roll of toilet paper in the house!

Goodbye forever.  I'm going back to bed to suck my thumb and wonder how this all happened.  That is, after I get all my young'uns outta the dagum chicken yard!

Peace,

Excuses

It's been a couple of days since I've been here.  Sorry.  ATT showed up the other day and dug up all the lines in my neighborhood just to put them back. And since I'm a little addicted to all that is internet, just know, I kinda lost what was left of my mind.  I drove past the trucks about eighteen hundred times, giving them my best "Maude" face.  They weren't bothered.  They don't care about my little blog here, or that I have an online business, or that I need my Facebook status updates.

And I've been sick.  And "sick" never comes at a convenient time.  I'm so old and stove up, that the next time I sneeze, I may lose an internal organ. It ain't enough, that at my age, just waking up and getting my behind out of bed is something to get excited about.  If you're still young and cute and wake up actually feeling good, please appreciate it now, because those days will end and you will wonder why it is so difficult to get out of bed when you've done nothing but lie there, effortlessly, for several hours.  I think it must be that my body is resistant to relaxing because the only time I am still is when I fall into a coma from exhaustion.  Then I wake up and feel like I was abducted by aliens, wondering why I'm aching in so many places.  At least, that's what I think.   

My sweathogs do not help me in any of this nonsense.  I had someone recently tell me that it was a good thing for me that I was older when I had my kids because they will keep me young.  Really?  So it's a good idea that when you reach your worn-out phase in life to have a six pack of kidlets you have to roundhouse everyday because they act like criminals if you don't stay on them like a dog on a bone?!  Eh, no!  Today for instance, I'd love nothing more than to lie in bed with my box of tissues and forget my maiden name and sleep for twenty seven hours.  But I can't, because I'm the mom, and I have eighty hundred things on my plate for today, and letting my knuckleheads take over for me is not do-able.  These are the same kids who recently put the toddler in the chicken yard like it was some dang "pack-n-play" so they wouldn't have to keep up with her in the yard.  So clocking out just can't happen.  I've asked them to fold some laundry this morning and I may as well have asked them to hand over their right arm because the whole process of begging, crying and wailing to get them to do their chores resembles a colonoscopy.  And I'm just too tired.

So forgive me if I've been a little absent.  Forgive me if I rant a bit about wanting to run away from home too much.  If it weren't for the little things, like vodka and cookies I may not be able to do this most days.  And I do love my excuses, but I try to not let them keep me from living my life and reaching my goals and making my way through these days full of quicksand.  And chicken-poo!

Peace,

My First Ten Minutes of the Day

As always, my alarm went off at 5 AM this morning and I had to wake up Mr. Green Jeans so he could get his tail off to work.  After having about ninety minutes of sleep for the night, I climbed back in bed and fell into a coma.

Raise your hands if you've ever missed a whole night of sleep and had to face sweathogs the next day.

*Raises hands.  And feet.* 

Then, somewhere around 6:30, my mom calls me.

"I just want you to know your kids are in the woods carrying a large extension ladder and shouting something about a cat in a tree.  And I'm leaving for work.  See ya!" 

Shizzle!  More dagum stray animals to deal with.  And probably an ER visit and an extension ladder accident to explain.

I hit the floor to find my pants.  Oh yea, I washed everything I owned last night, so all I had to wear was a shower curtain.  I made my way to the back porch to find no sign of my crew.  I yelled for them to get their arses back to the house and ducked back inside before the UPS man or Child Protective Services could get sight of me.  One good thing about living in the country is no one notices when you are half naked on your back porch, but if you ever find yourself there, that is exactly when someone will show up unexpectedly.

I ran back inside to get my laundry from the dryer but not before stepping in a puddle of something.  My brain immediately went to *dog pee* but luckily it was a little less gross...just milk.  I'm sure whichever one of my six pack spilled it on the floor, had no intention of leaving it there for Mama to step in.  I'm sure they had some sort of neuron misfiring that took place, because they know the deal on wiping up your own nonsense, and they mind me really well like the monkeys from Jumangi. 

So again, I stop everything to get the milk up, clean myself up, get my laundry together and wait for my not well behaved offspring to make it back in the house.  When they finally did, there was some sort of broo-ha-ha and they were in mid-fight when they made their way in the door.  It was like watching a political debate...on steroids!



I settled the debate, reminded them that I am still the boss, and commanded them to get on with their chores.  I'd been up all of ten minutes, had no caffeine running through my worn out veins yet, and couldn't remember my maiden name, but I was taking control of my house dagum-it!

That's when I glanced over at my sofa.  And saw three baby chickens sitting on it watching Spongebob.  I was in about as much control as the captain of the Titanic.  So I made the only decision I could.  I went back to my room, got in the closet, and hid from them.  I really hope they make it through this day, because it ain't lookin' good so far!

Hope your week has started out a little better!

Peace,