mamajulep.com

MamaJulep Awakes from Hibernation

2011-08-17T14:58:00.003-05:00

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

2011-07-11T05:45:00.001-05:00

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

2011-07-05T10:56:00.001-05:00

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

2011-06-23T09:45:00.000-05:00

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...

2011-06-20T09:20:00.000-05:00

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

2011-06-16T10:38:00.000-05:00

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

2011-06-13T10:31:00.000-05:00

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,

Advice

2011-06-09T09:23:00.000-05:00

Remember this?

My boy busted out his PERMANENT teeth last month and MamaJulep kinda lost what was left of her mind. And Mr. Green Jeans was so upset that night ~~he slept through the whole thing, even~~ while I was out in the middle of the night getting my boy taken care of.

Well, my boy got him some new teef yesterday. We're so proud. We're just like regular folks now!

Feel free to play the theme from "The Jeffersons" in your head because my family all has a full set of teeth at the same time again and we're definitely "movin' on up"! For us, having all our teeth is cause for celebration. Even if it will cost me the equivalent of two mortgage payments! I just paid off the new teeth I had to get for my toddler back in the fall, the ones that are gonna fall out in a few years, and I'm still paying on mine because I can't stay away from my dentist. Let's just say, I've learned my lesson about passing up dental insurance because I didn't think I could afford it. My dentist, meanwhile, LOVES it when I call!

All this nonsense, along with other life stuff I'm going through, reminded me of this little diddy that came out many years ago. I found it this morning and want to share it with you today. I hope you share it with someone you like too!

Peace,

The Real World

2011-06-07T10:39:00.000-05:00

This past weekend as I was loving my time off, eating bon-bons and forgetting my middle name, I realized I needed to make a run. To dagum Walmart. Even on vacation you can't escape the Walmart run! So I got out my GPS and found the nearest one, thinking all of them are the same, right? That would be a "Oh, No, Ma'am...~~get your gun!"~~

This Walmart was located somewhere in the Republic of Hell and the people were especially creepy. I thought I'd gone through some parallel universe and found myself inside a Tim Burton movie. It didn't even look like I was in the same country. I was worried for a minute I'd be taken down and find myself in a motel bathroom missing both kidneys. But I managed to grab my necessities and get back to my car still intact but a little freaked out from the experience.

When did this happen, that it became acceptable for folks to dress like they want and think nothing of how they look to the rest of us? Anyone? Because you know what they look like? They look like freaks! And it is, frankly, a little unsettling to be around so many of them at once. But if you treat them like the freaks they want to be, they have the nerve to act like you have the problem and you are not tolerant of other folks' way of life. Well guess what? I ain't! I can't be tolerant when I have to share this world with them, and I have to explain to my babies why that woman is wearing pajamas out in the world and why that man has to hold his pants up. Even children have sense enough to know that is just bat$h*t crazy!

And I was dressed for dinner that afternoon and believe me when I tell you that people were looking at ME like I was the freak. It was an Alice in Wonderland experience. And the behavior that has become "normal" is just as "twilight zone" as the way some people dress. When did it become okay to scream obscenities across a parking lot, or fill your tank up with gas while making the whole block listen to your loud, obnoxious music?! When did men stop treating women with courtesy and respect? Maybe about the time women started dressing like street walkers!

And I'd like to know how it is that I can raise up my six pack in this fallen world- that has fallen much deeper since I was a kid (which wasn't that long ago) and instill in my children the virtues and character building traits they need to rise above all this nonsense. Anyone? Because to me, the freaks are winning. Because the rest of us have manners.

This fall, I'll be putting my six pack back in traditional school. Have I told you that yet? It's just something that has become necessary to do right now. I've always told you I would homeschool as long as it worked for us. It still works but it doesn't fit into some new areas of my life that are unfolding, and seeing as my crew have been in school before and thrived, I have no problems with putting them back in that environment. I've never been the kind to shelter them from "the real world" because they're gonna see it at some point, and I'd like to be the one to show it to them, so they can see it through my eyes and not someone else's. Someone who may not tell them in the loving way they need to hear it. Someone who may need duct tape! And my children will see more of the world's nonsense in the coming year, but they'll also get there equipped with all I've given them over the years, and will continue to have my arms around them as they grow in their independence. And if there is a problem, if someone messes with my babies, Mama's gonna show up and open a can of "Oh No You Didn't" and take care of business.

Please be careful out there. Especially at Walmart. You need your kidneys, or at least one!

Peace,

My Reality

2011-06-06T08:35:00.001-05:00

I'm back.

Back from my long weekend of wonderfulness. A weekend where I wasn't a mommy, a cook, a walking laundromat, the woman with all the answers, or a poultry investigator. I was totally kept out of the loop on all the chicken nonsense for four glorious days! So guess where half my knuckleheads were when I pulled in the driveway yesterday...in the dagum chicken yard! Apparently, new chickens were being made. Schizzle!

So I now have some baby chickens in my house again. Reality bites.

And I now have ten hundred bags of luggage and other nonsense to unpack and deal with. Where did all this crap come from? And I now have a six pack of sweathogs running my life again. How did I get here? How did I get to a place in life where it was okay to wear peanut butter? And it got me thinking.

Remember my Summer Boot Camp from last year? The one where I slammed my kids into a reality where they had to do actual chores and become responsible little people rather than pursuing their dreams of becoming heathens by the age of fourteen? Well, it's time for our annual retreat into responsibility again. And guess what? Mama needs some boot camp herself.

I've gotten just as lazy as my sweathogs. I've been so busy trying to make dinners ~~they don't like~~ and keep up with my crime scene of a house, to the point that I've neglected stuff that Mama needs to get done for Mama. Like you, I have dreams and plans and hopes to make my life become the life I thought I would eventually live. But you know what I haven't done? I haven't actually made my plan. And I'm old! I'm just moving along in my reality, trying to tread water, trying to move forward in baby steps, and getting to my dreams by only hoping it will all work out. And that just ain't gonna cut it anymore.

So today I'm gonna sit down and write up a plan to get to some goals I want to reach before I'm too old and stove up to enjoy them. And then I'm actually gonna get started on making a plan and moving forward to that life I want. And I'm gonna include my six pack and have them write down some goals they have for the summer, and we're gonna do more than just tread water over here at this address.

A couple of months ago, I wrote a letter to myself in ten years. I do nonsense like that, but I don't expect a response...just so you know! It helps keep me real in where I am and where I want to be. And it puts fire under me so I don't become the sloth I really want to be sometimes.

So this morning, when I saw this quote on my FB page, it came at just the right time for me.

If you don't design your life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you?....not much. -- Jim Rohn

We plan our meals, our chores, our children's futures, our budgets and even our vacations. I put in a lot of time planning my little trip I just took, and you know what? It was so worth the planning. It made my trip wonderful because I had thought of everything and I just enjoyed it. And my life is so much more than a vacation, so it makes sense to plan my life a little better than I've done so far, right? Because if I think of everything I can and plan to make things actually happen then I get to sit back and just enjoy that too. And that makes me even more excited and joyful about the future I hope to have and the real possibility that I may actually get the life I really want to live. And I really hope you are living that life too!

Peace,

Working Girl

2011-06-02T05:07:00.000-05:00

MamaJulep's about to be a working girl again.

No Honey, not that kind!

But I am going back into the world of getting paid again. Of eating lunch with grown ups again. Of wearing something besides jeans and Gap t-shirts laced with peanut butter. Of using words with more than one syllable. Of no dagum chickens. At least during my working hours. My other hours will be saturated with family nonsense. And sketchers covered in chicken poo.

And I'm a little excited, so bear with me, because like every other detail in this mama's life, I have to share, okay? And I'm not going back into my career as a speech therapist. If you've been around here for more than a few trips, you know how I like to try new things, stretch my neurons to their full capacity, right? And something special came into my life recently, just when I needed it.

I was at my hairdresser's awhile back ~~covering up the grey~~ and met an adorable but dynamic woman who reminded me of bit of myself, who works for a relatively new company and is living a dream job as far as I can see. We've since become friends and she's shared with me how her life has been improved by saying "yes" to something in the unknown. Something I embrace myself as I always take the attitude "nothing ventured, nothing gained" and because of that, I rarely feel the need to look back and say "what if I..." or "if only I..." and that philosophy has brought me fruits in my life tenfold. And it all happened in such a way that I feel I have God's hand on this. I love it when that happens!

Ever heard of a product called "Proactive"? Well, unless you live under a rock, you have! Well those two docs who came up with that awesomesauce also did some research and created a line of skin care products that work for everyone, just like Proactive works for acne. There's a line for every skin issue from rosacea, to anti-aging, to skin damage, and typical acne. And it works! After all this research, this product has proven itself! If you remember, I told you I did my own skin care "study" a couple of years ago. I put in hours upon hours of reading on the internet, spent hours at the skin care aisle in Target to compare labels, and did some trial and error. So when this fell in my lap, I felt I was already half way home.

My friend has only been doing this full time since January and is bringing in an impressive income every month, and she doesn't even put in a ton of time, and from what she says, her income is about to explode! I recently met another speech therapist who did this only ten hours a week at first, and she made more than we do in the first month, and then kept growing from there! Now she is going at full speed. These women inspired me that I can be a business woman just like they are, and still be a mommy and still make dinner, and that I can improve my life just as they have. I mean, what do they have that I don't?

And the thing is, I'm in a place in my life where this skin care thing is real to me. I am passionate about this and I'm excited about doing something I think I will actually love. And to top it off, I can do it as it works for my schedule and I can be there for my sweathogs and can adjust my time as it suits me and not someone else. And I have absolutely nothing to lose and I can make of it whatever I want.

Check out the docs who came up with this stuff!

Guess how old they are. 30's? 40's? Try late fifties! I think they know what they're doing! And I hope I find out!

I even have a new website, actually a couple of them, because I didn't have enough internet in my life!
http://www.kathykennedy.myrandf.com/
http://www.kathykennedy.myrandf.biz/

Lord help us all, because MamaJulep's about to become a powerhouse! But don't think this changes anything we do here, oh that would be a "No!". I still have sweathogs, still have ten hundred loads of laundry to do, still get interrupted sixty times while taking a shower, and still expect to hide in the closet with my necessities of life (ie: adult beverage with Orange Milano cookies). This will always be a place for all of us to run to and scream when the quicksand gets too deep. So don't expect to hear a lot about my new career except for how it plays into my regular nonsense, but do expect to continue to hear the usual mess I step in. But, if you do want to know more about it, feel free to shoot me an email at mamajulep@bellsouth.net and I will ~~try to remember to~~ check my email and I'll let you in on all the details, because we all deserve to make our lives the best they can be, and because I love ya more than my luggage!

But I need my luggage right now, because tomorrow I'll be driving away from my crime scene of a house to get away for some time off. So next time you hear from me, I'll tell you about what it's like to eat a warm meal, and take an uninterrupted shower, and sleep when I feel like it!

Peace,

Mama's Running Away from Home...Again!

2011-05-31T08:05:00.000-05:00

There should be a support group for this.
Oh, right. This is that place...shizzle!
My six pack has driven me absolutely bat$h*t crazy.

I thought I had my crew under control. That I'd finally grown my kids up to the point where I could breathe a little and maybe take a ten minute shower without being interviewed in the process about where the tv remote control is.

Hell will be finding the tv remote.
And putting in car seats.
In the third row of an SUV.

And Mr. Green Jeans has joined my crew in trying to drive my neurons into overload so I just end up back in my dagum closet, hiding from them, eating my orange milano cookies ~~laced with vodka~~. Yesterday, I was MIA for a few hours and left my sweathogs with Mr. Green Jeans. All I said was that they had mixed up their dirty laundry with their clean and something needed to be done about it. Thanks, Honey! See you in a few!

At least God gave me the capacity to learn, because I will never leave such general directions again. I got home and they'd all emptied all of their clothing, clean, dirty, unknown, in a giant pile in my family room and they were washing every stitch of clothing in the dagum house! And guess who is still working on this project at this very moment? Guess who will retire one day while still washing clothes that were already clean? All I could do when I got home and saw the destruction was look at all of them like this:

Thank you Maude. I couldn't have said it better.

Snitches!

So today, MamaJulep's gonna buy some matches. And the next time they get the bright idea to "help" me out. I'm gonna strike a match on this place.
Know any good nudist colonies? Or boarding schools? Or liquor stores?

And my plate was already overfilled with nonsense and "to-do" lists and all these knuckleheads care about is who ate the last bowl of ~~crack~~ cereal, as if they might stop making the stuff! And this week there's not enough booze or antiperspirant to keep me from going Eunice on all of them.

Watch it family.

But I've gotten another hall pass. A reprieve. Time off for good behavior. Or maybe it's just that Mama's finally lost her schmidt and the family needs to ship her off to get fixed again! So Thursday, I'm leaving town for four glorious days of no kids, no stray dogs, no chickens or chicken poo infused jeans to wash, no crazy relatives to feed and water, no kid going number two while I'm a hostage in the shower, and no coffee that's been reheated twenty seven hundred times because I can't stop long enough to finish it.

So you may not see many posts from me this week, but know I'm doing this for all of us. I will be thinking of you ~~no, not really~~ while I'm enjoying myself. I won't even think about my heathens and what they might be doing to my house. And I am leaving no instructions. I figure it's a 50/50 probability I'll come home to a battle scene from Braveheart. But today, I don't care. For today, I pack!

Peace,

The Weather then The News

2011-05-27T09:25:00.000-05:00

It has not rained much in my neck of the woods in about two thousand years. Our pond dried up completely and is now just a bowl full of dirt. So when it rained yesterday, I got excited and thankful. Then five minutes later, it stopped. So we now have a puddle in the pond, at least until it evaporates. Which should be by lunchtime. yippee.

I was up doing usual nonsense this morning, when the six pack ran in the house screaming *something about dagum chickens* and I tuned them out ~~and started daydreaming about solitary confinement~~. Apparently some chicks were hatching, and I could hardly contain my excitement.

This one looks pretty good. I wonder if it will live through the weekend.

This one's still trying to hatch, maybe he'll make it.

But I ain't holding my breath.
My biggest regret at this point, is that I didn't make my boy wash his hands before I took this picture.
I just can't get worried about the chickens. I find it easier not to get emotionally involved with chickens.

I find it very easy!

The other day, my young niece was visiting and decided to gather some eggs and bring them to her Nana's house to cook. Only she didn't get the eggs left by the chickens. She got the ones they were sitting on. The ones they had been sitting on for many days. So when my mom saw that she'd delivered a whole bunch of eggs, she began to get concerned. But still, they cracked the eggs, and then partially created baby chicks emerged.
I missed the episode. But I imagine it was grosser than gross. And my bet is she will never make that mistake again! I almost had to call a grief counselor, but found out she wasn't that bothered. She's not emotionally involved with chickens either.

Judging my the new chicks, I'd say the rooster is doing his job.

And the turkeys are as ugly and useless as ever.

The boys, however, are as cute as ever. But I may be biased.

The stray dogs remain abundant.

And my crew is not helping me make them feel unwelcome.

And today I have fifty hundred things on my to-do list. And worrying about newly hatched chicks and playing with stray dogs is not anywhere near the top 100! I have a kazillion loads of laundry to do and have to wash enough dishes to make a soup kitchen blush. And my checkbook hasn't been balanced since Bush was in the White House. And I can't remember if I showered in the last couple of days, but I think I remember brushing my teeth because I was interrupted about ninety times so my kids could go number two while I was trapped in there with my mouth open.

And my phone has not stopped ringing this morning. Mostly from people who want something from me. Like a payment.

Have a great weekend!

Peace,

Yes, They're All Mine!

2011-05-26T09:00:00.000-05:00

Folks get real curious when they find out I have a six pack of children and that I am not dependent on street drugs! Know that I didn't plan it this way, but I figure I'm where God wants me. Yea, I get that I have a big family, but for me, it's just normal. My definition of "normal" is just a little to the side of the bell curve than most. And I see how we are entertainment for the public, even at the expense of my sanity.

I recently became acquainted with a fella who's about my age but is single and lives a-l-o-n-e!! He owns a jewelry store and is working on some gifts for my girls, so I've had several opportunities to chat with him. He is completely amazed that I have all these kids and he cannot imagine such a life. I am equally amazed that he gets to go home every night and do whatever he wants, eats dinner in peace, and goes to the bathroom without being interviewed. We are living opposite lives, and both are just a little envious of the others' lifestyle. Perhaps I can talk him into taking on the six pack for a long weekend?! I think that would last about fifteen minutes.

And when we started planning our family, we had no idea what we were doing. I was working and making a good living and Mr. Green Jeans was in school. At some point we realized we weren't very good at making babies (I thought I was really good at Natural Family Planning!). And after several months of fertility testing, we found out I had endometriosis, among other things. And I had a severe case. The doctor told me I should be in terrible pain, so I thought I had a really high pain tolerance. I would find out later, during this thing called "labor", that I was wrong. Dead wrong! Wrong infinity!

So after another year or so, with some help from our fertility doctor, we had Marsha Brady. And we were told it was a miracle that we even got her. I knew that the best cure for endometriosis is pregnancy, so just six months after we had her, we began seeing the doc again, so our chances of having two children would be better. And over the next two years, we had three failed attempts. I knew the doc was right, and that Marsha was indeed our miracle baby. But I wanted to try just one more time, and then I'd give up, and we'd continue the adoption process we had begun.

The day he told me we were having triplets, is burned into my mind forever. And the phrase "be careful for what you ask for" permeated my brain. And I still have blacked out the memories of those early months of taking care of those babies because I stayed on auto-pilot, lived on sleep fumes, and hardly had any form of hygiene for myself. Or nutrition. Or will-power. I was just a milk machine and a diaper changer, baby carrier, and I cried. A lot!

I cried so much, that now, I have no more tears. It really takes a lot to make me cry, because I've been in holes so deep that most things just don't seem that bad. But when you are in a place where you are needed, literally 24/7, and can never sleep or bathe, or eat, or just be a person in your own right, you will go bat$h*t crazy in a way that is not funny. So about six months into this, I stopped nursing the babies and started propping bottles up for them (and they lived to tell about it!). I was in survival mode. And I got my cycle back.

But what I had forgotten, is that the absence of cycles temporarily fixes endometriosis and makes it where you are like other folks and can get pregnant. I was used to not having to worry about birth control, because I couldn't get pregnant, after all! I was wrong. Again. So when the triplets were nine months old, I found out I was pregnant with Mini-Me. And we didn't even see a fertility doctor this time.

I freaked!

Within that year, I'd not had the second child I had planned, but had three more babies and with yet another one on the way. We are not the poster family for NFP! We are an epic fail! So when the triplets were a year and a half, I had our fifth baby, nursed her for a year, got my cycle back, and two months after that, was pregnant with Sean. I was pregnant with my sixth child, but my oldest was just barely starting kindergarten.

I freaked!

Only much worse this time.

Of course Sean only lived for two hours and was an incredible gift to our family. And we were completely blessed to have him. So we said our goodbyes and mourned for some time. And we thought that was the end to our baby days.

I had several miscarriages over the next three years, eager not to end my family with the death of a baby, but no baby would come. I assumed the endometriosis had fully returned and decided I was finished and had the family God wanted for me. And I was at peace. I had gone back to work, had the kids in school and was settled in my life. Then I found out I was pregnant with Baby-Screams-a-Lot.

And I freaked!

I just knew I'd have another miscarriage and I knew my heart couldn't take it, but miraculously it never happened, and at forty-one, I delivered the last of my six pack. I was the only one on the maternity ward who got Geritol instead of prenatal vitamins, the only one who had to use bifocals to nurse their baby, and the only one who had enough experience at this to tell the nurses to "shove off" when they were getting a little too bossy!

Then my OB came to me and said my uterus essentially exploded during delivery due to all the old c-section cuts and being thinned out so much with the triplets, and basically said if I got pregnant again, it might cost me my life and that of the baby I'd carry. So, my husband and I spent the next year or so living like brother and sister, until I had my baby maker taken out.

I thought I'd regret it, that I wouldn't feel like a woman anymore. I was way, way, wrong! I felt so much better. I have zero regrets about it. And I am still a woman and still feel very much like one. I do not miss any of that nonsense and I feel like a weight was lifted from me.

So my family came about somewhat accidentally, but I was always open to whatever God had in mind for me. I don't think I would have planned it this way. I would have loved to have had my children when I was younger, but I couldn't make babies back then, it just wasn't in the cards for me. I would have loved to have had them one at a freakin' time. But speaking as someone who was once told that I'd never have children, and seeing as I desperately wanted them, I consider myself remarkably blessed by God and am thankful for each of my babies.

Even though I'll be eligible for AARP in about six years.

Peace,

No More Pretty Things

2011-05-25T09:09:00.000-05:00

I used to have nice things.

I used to wear pretty dresses ~~without jelly stains~~ and had my nails done and wore my hair just so.

I used to have a spotless home with a sofa that didn't resemble one from a crime scene.

I used to have a nicely decorated family room with no scratches or crayon drawings or drink rings burned into the wood.

It used to be so nice for me, in my pretty world.

Then, I had children.

Lots of children.

Now, I don't recognize this place. They've taken over.

And it's so much work to get it back and keep it where I'd like it, that I've just given up.

So now, I live with peanut butter in my hair.

And I wear blue jeans and t-shirts, for days on end. I may as well work on a construction site for the way I dress. And when folks come over, I have to cover the furniture to the point that I just tell them we're about to paint the walls. They're starting to get suspicious though. We've been getting ready to paint for three years.

Okay, so they're dressed for a play they're in,
but this ain't too far off the mark of
how they look- especially when it involves chickens!

And my kids look like vagrants. Once upon a time I kept them in clean clothes that ~~fit them~~ coordinated with their shoes, and my girls never left the house without a bow in their hair -one I made myself (I'm told that's a southern thing?!). But now, I'm just happy if they pass enough to keep me off Child Protective Services' radar.

I used to spend my evenings reading a book, curled up on the sofa, enjoying a glass of tea or wine.

Now I spend them playing "drill sergeant" as I ~~beg, cry, beat~~ get my children to bed. Then I get to face my kitchen. After feeding a mob of sweathogs. And the only books I read now usually have a cartoon character on the cover.

And laundry. Please don't ask me about laundry.

Last night I was sitting in my family room, alone, because midnight is the only time I have to myself, and I noticed the last one of my pretties I had out on a table, was sitting there, in pieces. At the time, I was too tired to care that much, but this morning, seeing its absence left me kinda sad. It's my fault. And I'm so outnumbered that I'll never find out what really happened. But I suspect a toddler found it. And she ain't talkin'!

And I have to remember what season in life I'm in. I'm in the trenches with young children. And little pretties and clean dresses and painted fingernails don't mesh well with a six pack of sweathogs. And I know my time in this season is gonna end soon. And I can wear white again. And I can have nice things around me. And I'm told I'll miss this time. I'm not so sure about that. But I'm sure I'll miss some things about it.

Last night, my -almost three year old- got up and came to me in the hallway, rubbing her sleepy eyes. As I grabbed her up in my arms, she snuggled her little body around me and wrapped her tiny arms tightly around my neck, and nestled her little head against my shoulder. That is what I will miss. The unconditional love of a small child, who can be made right again simply by being in Mama's arms. And it makes Mama feel better too. And it's a way better feeling than I get from my former "pretty life".

Peace,

Too Much "To-Do" and Too Little Brain

2011-05-23T08:24:00.000-05:00

My husband leaves every morning with his three things he has to do for the day.
1. Go to work.
2. Work.
3. Drive home.

Sometimes he might have to do something else, like get a haircut or maybe fill up his car with six hundred dollars worth of gas. When he comes home, he might have to hold a toddler while he has a beer or waters the garden. I feel sorry for him. Well, not exactly. I kinda wanna knock him out sometimes. And take his beer.

My daily "To-Do" list is a little bigger ~~pain in the a$$~~. You know why? Because God made me the Mommy! I wake up with one foot already on the floor and half my brain running through the day ahead. Everything I do is done with a dozen other things floating in my sleep-deprived brain, while trying to figure out what I'm trying to do in that moment. I frequently find myself standing in the middle of the kitchen, trying to remember what it was I was doing and why I'm standing there holding some object that I have no memory of grabbing. Like a needle and thread, or the toilet plunger, ~~or someone's throat~~.

Yesterday, I was on the computer, working on one of fifty hundred projects I have going, and was called to the girls' room because they couldn't get online. They had been using the boys' computer to get online and it caused a ruckus with the boys, and Daddy had to get involved and nobody wants that nonsense! Mama had taken the wireless device away from the girls last week when they kept getting online without permission. So I had to stop what I was doing, climb under the table where the trolls live, and hook it back up. That's when my mom called. She needed steri-strips. (glorified tape you put on your skin when you cut yourself and it won't stop bleeding) But all I heard was "bring me something I need", but I went on with the computer stuff. Then I was called away to deal with a toddler issue. About that time, I decided I needed a snack since I hadn't eaten in a few days. So I'm walking down the hall, trying to remember what project I had going on the computer and I passed by the bathroom thinking I was supposed to get something from there -like steri-strips, you idiot! As my behind hit the chair (it always happens that way, right?), I remembered the strips. I grabbed them, sent them to my mom through some kid and phoned her. It had been about twenty minutes. And she was still bleeding. And I'm an awesome daughter! She'd cut her hand on some broken glass and I was too distracted to remember my maiden name.

But if you're like me, you know this happens every. stinkin'. day! Even many times a day. And I hate it. I hate never getting anything completely done the right way. Everything's kinda halfway done. I know I'm distracted. But I'm in survival mode. And at least it got done part of the way rather than not at all. Because on top of the regular "take care of the family- feed them- wash, dry, fold- get a bandaid- call a plumber- referee a fight- reprogram the remote- put out the dog- empty the dishwasher- bring kids to another freaking activity- call 911- send your husband's mom a birthday card- clean out the refrigerator- get your kid some new teeth- find the mystery smell- and buy groceries and clothes and shoes for the Hobbits", you also have to keep your sanity so you don't go bat$h*t crazy in the process.

And you can hurt your brain and your heart, if you aren't careful. Because it's easy for everyone to forget, including yourself, that while your body's engaged in going and doing, your brain is often engaged in thoughts, dreams, and worries. So when Mama finally loses it, and it's all a big surprise, it shouldn't be. And you are responsible for your happiness and no one else. So pull people around you that bring you joy and remember to give them joy right back! And when you need to, hide in the closet with your cookies and adult beverage or take a day off, or whatever it is that brings you back to your real self.

Then fire your husband. Or at least put a few more things on his list!

Peace,

What Not to Wear

2011-05-18T10:13:00.000-05:00

Dear Fashion Industry,

You are fired!

Shopping for clothes for myself is a tedious task and I'm sick of it. Thanks to you! And I know we do not have a shortage of folks who work on this 24/7, so where the heck are some decent clothes for me to wear, huh? I know most women love, love, to shop for clothes. Me? Not so much. It's not so fun when they don't really make stuff for women who are short, stumpy, and built like a ninety year old man. There is nothing in the regular stores for me. I am frustrated. And it is all your fault.

First off, everything is either sexed up or geriatric. Why can't we have some middle ground? Swim suits for example are just a stupid waste of time. Here's my options:

And I don't think I'm asking too much to make something I can wear both in front of my children and not feel like I'm doing time at a nursing home. I'm in my forties, have put my body through the ridiculous to have a slew of kids, but I do not work at Hooters, and I also am not a member of AARP! And you know what? There's like a kazillion other moms just like me who also want the same thing. So why is this so hard?

And I love dresses. Because I'm a girl. Sweet, romantic, feminine dresses. Please tell me where you find these, okay? Here again are my options...

Gee, thanks! And this is why, every day of my life, I live in jeans and a t-shirt. Because I've basically given up. And don't get me started on jeans. Please. Can I just find a nice pair of flattering jeans that do not give away all my secrets? Please. They've been making jeans for a long time. I would think you'd have this down by now. Nobody needs or wants to see the junk in my trunk, and I certainly don't want them to see it either, and most days I don't want to see it myself! But I also don't want to live in a pair of overhauls that fit me like a thirteen year old boy. I am a girl. And I'd like to look like one without having to actually show people my girl parts, okay?

Plus, my proportions are not in the same places they were twenty years ago! And I know I ain't alone there. So please stop making clothes to exaggerate the young twenty something figure and remember that us mamas need to look nice too! And being 5'1, my pants always, always, hang way past my feet. I look like Shaggy, only I'm not supposed to be in bell-bottoms! Petites are supposed to be for 4'11-5'4, so please get with the program. And when you do make a decent pair of nice fitting pants, can we please leave off the studs and fake diamonds and tattoos and rips and tears and skull prints, okay? Not all of us want to bring even more attention to our backsides. Mother Nature has taken care of that already!

And don't get me started on what you're doing to my teenager! And I don't have time to spend six hundred hours at the mall trying to figure out what fits me and what doesn't and how you've screwed it all up for me. Because you are fired! And you're wasting my time. Now I have to go and find my yoga pants and t-shirt. It's the only thing I own that fits me.

Irritated and undressed,

Pee or Get off the Pot!

2011-05-17T10:10:00.000-05:00

It is 54 degrees this morning in south Alabama. That is just "alter universe" stuff for the middle of May. It should be 8000 degrees by now and we should all be wearing tube tops and complaining about the power bill by now. But, thankfully, we're not... yet. But the forecast for the weekend is in the upper eighties. And the humidity in south Alabama is much like wearing a wet, wool coat while sunbathing. These few days of cool temps have been nice, but I know the heat is coming.

In more ways than one.

MamaJulep has been making some changes. Change can be exciting, but it can also invoke fear. I've mentioned "Dancing with the Devil" before, but in case you missed it, that has to do with giving into "The Fear", whatever that may be. A couple of my gal pals and I share stories of how we like to dance with the devil in the middle of the night, when no one else can help us out of our holes (we've made for ourselves) and when "The Fear" is at its strongest. That is when he comes to call my name and when I feel most helpless and when every issue in my life is weighing on me, all at once, like an elephant holding another elephant, and it seems so much worse when I'm alone with my ~~insanity~~ thoughts.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Oh, I know...because all mamas are nutcases. Because along with "The Fear" we also get "The Guilt". The guilt that every decision we make has the potential to destroy the spirits of the folks around us who love us the most...our babies.

Here's a small sample of my dance card...

how am I gonna pay some bill? ~~or buy my kid some new teeth?~~
how am I gonna get my learning disabled kid to understand division?
how can I afford the car I need? Do they buy kidneys on ebay?
how can I get Rainman to relax a little and not develop a personality disorder...because THAT would also be all.my.fault!
how am I gonna get Mini-me to stop thinking she is running this house and not her mother? I really need to start praying for the man God has in mind for her, cause he's gonna need it!
how am I gonna make the most of the time I have left with my babies at home and how am I ruining their childhoods by being all screwed up and not perfect?
how am I gonna make Mr. Green Jeans understand things that he will never understand? What if I just can't?
where am I gonna be in five years? or ten? or eighty?
HOW CAN I MAKE EVERYONE IN MY LIFE HAPPY AND NOT SACRIFICE MY OWN HAPPINESS IN THE PROCESS??

But you know what? That is a load of hooey! All that nonsense is not from me, it's from the enemy. And we all need to recognize that.

Yes, our decisions impact others but you know what else impacts them? Doing nothing. Being paralyzed. Sitting there and waiting for life to happen to you, hoping the solution to problems will just show up at your door. And in the meantime those problems just sit and fester and make you sick. Taking chances is scary, but it can also be liberating and let you feel in control of your life, rather than a spectator. For me, fear and change have always been motivating and not paralyzing, but that doesn't mean it isn't a little intimidating.

Like you I bet, I've had a number of times in my life where things went terribly wrong and bad decisions were made, by me or someone who impacted me. Some of them, life changing. But through those decisions I grew a little, either spiritually or emotionally, and I was able to take the good parts out of a bad situation and use them. And it will be the same for our babies when we make decisions that impact them. We don't have to own all the bad stuff and let it define who we are. And we shouldn't spend the rest of our lives living with regret and pain. That is not what God wants for us. And our babies will thrive. Even if we don't always measure up like we want to. And we need to remember the pressure we feel about being perfect for our babies comes from just one person. Ourselves.

So maybe you made a bad decision once. Guess what? I've made a career out of it! But you make decisions everyday and you take for granted all the ones that didn't kill you. And for the most part, none of them will do that. I hate to sit still with an issue. I hate treading water. Living in stagnant waters. I like to feel that I'm moving forward, on to goals I've set for myself. That motivates me and takes out the fear. Because at least I tried!

There's a thousand decisions you'll make in raising up your babies. Do not make all of them monumental. And don't let what people think dictate how you live, because they will go on living their own lives, and you will be sitting there, holding a bag, filled with the life others want you to live, wishing for something better.

Peace,

Doin' Time

2011-05-16T10:08:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I was driving in my old neighborhood on the very street I had lived on. I was as familiar with that road as I am the varicose veins on my thighs. That's when it happened. Two words...

Speed Trap!

Guess how fast I was going? Okay, first let me tell you that it was a twenty-five mph zone, but I thought it was a thirty, okay? And I really think it was a thirty when I lived there. Wanna know how fast I was going?

33 mph!!

Yes, I'm a daredevil.

In the history of ever, I don't think I've heard of such an unworthy ticket as this one. Really Officer?

So I didn't want it to go on my driving record, especially seeing as I'll have a teenage driver soon, followed by a whole bunch more, and I need a squeaky clean record. Did I mention it's been about twenty years since my last ticket? This just blows! So in an attempt to avoid selling one of my kidneys to afford car insurance, I signed up for Traffic School.

Traffic School = four hours of your life you will never get back + 115 bucks you'll also never see again.

Goodbye new shoes. Goodbye milk and bread. Goodbye Alabama Power. It was nice to have electricity for awhile.

And it's not like I can say, "Well, lesson learned, slow down, be careful!"

I was going freakin' 33 mph on a street where that is completely normal!

And I still got the dagum ticket.

And when I lived there, I was one of those people who used to complain about the speedway in front of my house. But they don't care. "Sit down lady, we own you for the next four hours, so deal with it."

And it really wasn't that bad. Most of the folks in there were semi-normal and just wanted to get through it like I did. When I got in the room, I surveyed the group, saw a few women who sorta looked like my kinda folks and joined them. We immediately clicked and started making fun of everyone else. It wasn't difficult.

There was a large, young woman seated at the front of the room. She had just arrived and it hadn't started and it was early in the morning so most folks would have taken care of their hunger issues by this point. I guess she missed breakfast, because she reached in her purse and pulled out a can of processed cheese and began squirting in on her fingers and eating it like she hadn't eaten in a month of Sundays. It was a little gross. And awkward. It was kinda like watching a train wreck. You just couldn't take your eyes off her because there was so much wrong with that picture. I had a Fiber One bar in my purse in case I needed it. It never occurred to me to bring my stash of processed canned cheese to take the edge off. Not that I own a can of cheese but hey, maybe she knows something I don't!

Then there was this little old lady who looked to be Methuselah's mother. My group of cronies and I placed bets on how she got there. My money was on "driving through a pre-school", but I happened to get behind her in line to give them my ~~mother's maiden name, urine sample, last tax return~~ slew of personal information that was really none of their business, and I found out she was there on a flippin' voluntary basis!

I think it gives her like ten bucks off her insurance. I'd rather pay the ten bucks. I'd rather have a colonoscopy. I'd rather be forced to watch the season finale of "Survivor". She didn't even get out of her chair when we got a break. Me? Not only did I get up, but I left! I drove to the coffee shop. And ordered a large, flavored coffee. With Kahlua. And extra Kahlua. Then I drove back to Traffic School. And I was on time. I am timely if nothing else.

Then there was the "Suck-up" gal. This is the person in every lecture you've ever been to, who asks all the questions ~~that nobody gives a crap about~~ and makes all the comments and knows every dang thing about the subject, yet she was there just like the rest of us, right? And folks like that just make the class last longer so the folks behind her were plotting to take her out at the break. Only the instructor finally nipped it in the bud and said he wanted to get out of there too! Good man. Really good man.

So when the class finally ended and we all had done our time, I headed out to my car in no hurry to go pick up my six pack, and noticed all these model drivers were peeling out of there like the place was on fire. Awesome!

And what did I get out of the class? Absolutely nothing. Well, maybe I saved myself a kidney. And now I know how my kids feel when I'm trying to make them do something they think is completely useless. Like algebra. Or putting away dishes. Or flushing the dagum toilet. I guess it's all relative. Speaking of...I had not one relative show up at my house this whole weekend.

And the angels sang.

Peace,

The Talk

2011-05-11T09:45:00.000-05:00

I have this awesome pal whose been with me so long, she's part of my DNA. She knows my secrets and she still hangs with me. We used to get into trouble, but now we just share our ~~failed attempts at motherhood~~ nonsense together. She's like me in that she screws up all the time and wants to run away and never seems to get a break from her own nonsense. But she has these little nuggets of wisdom that just come out of her sometimes and she makes me think. I once told her how worn out I was from telling my kids the same thing over and over and over and I'd may as well make a recording of myself and just play it everyday and save my breath, because it never changes. And she said, "That must be how God feels about us sometimes" and it made sense to me. And I told her she was a genius. And then I knocked her out of her chair for buzz-killing my rant.

But that stuck with me, because everything I do that involves my kids, has to be repeated a billion times. And as they grow into more mature, and hopefully independent little creatures, I have to elaborate further on my lessons. It is exhausting.

When Marsha Brady was about ten, I began having "The Talk" with her. At that time it was mostly about becoming a modest little girl and about how her body was about to change into some weird and sometimes gross ways, and how a whole line of creepy products was about to enter her world and she would have to get to know some parts of her body a little more intimately than she'd like, and I had to explain to her about these things called "hormones". And that there would be times when she just felt like crying and didn't understand it and how it was okay and not to freak, but also not to use it as an excuse to become a selfish little whiny baby just because she wasn't happy every second of the day. That was still my job!

She was a model child.
Until hormones came into view.
She still is, but with a side of "crazy" sometimes.
She is, after all, her mother's kid.

As she got older and developed into the beautiful young girl I see now, I've had several little talks with her to bring her to a full understanding of just what she's got to face, while trying to give her the right perspective. It wasn't until last fall when I finally told her about "the deed". She was totally freaked out! I was kinda surprised she hadn't figured that one out on her own. But I will always remember that I was the one who told her about it and I was there when she learned about that and I got to see her reaction and answer her questions. Even if it was a little "shock and awe" for her. And maybe for me too.

"You put what, where?, oh, Mom, you are totally grossing me out! Why would anyone want to do THAT on purpose?" And all I could tell her was that God changes your heart and makes you want things like that in your life and that time will come, and when it does, to take control over those feelings and reserve them for her husband. Like everything else I've told her, she just accepted it and believed me. But for now, she has no interest in even thinking about what she has to face in the future, just so she can have the family she wants. And for that I am thankful, seeing as she's just thirteen and has a pure heart. But she knows the deal. She knows, because I told her!

But she has to know about these things. She's in a circle of folks from different places in life. She's met pals her age who live differently from us. She recently had to deal with a new peer who claimed to be atheist. And recently a boy she suspects is gay. Thankfully, I had recently given her another talk on that subject so she wasn't shocked by his behavior. I love the fact that she's friends to anyone who will have her and doesn't make blanket judgments, but that she doesn't let the beliefs of others form her own beliefs. I hope that magic somehow seeps down into the rest of my crew, because I'm having a little trouble in that area.

You see, my triplets are now ten. And Buttercup is still beating up the boys when they mess with her. She's super-hyper-crazy modest, but she really needs to stop attacking folks and start being a little more feminine in her responses to them. And the boys? Well, they just stink. It's time for them to be introduced to Mr. Deodorant. So I'm gonna have to start this all over again with my trio. And there's not enough alcohol in my house to get me through that motley crew! I have no idea what all I need to say to the boys. I've told them from the beginning about all the things that made them boys. When we are in public for instance, they always hold the door for us and for other women, without being told, and I love that they do that! They give up their seats in a waiting room if they see a woman come in. And do you know why they do that? Because I taught them. And it's great when something sticks.

But I never had brothers. And some of this is really uncharted territory for me. I remember when they were little and learning to bathe themselves, I had to tell them fifty hundred times to do a better job at cleaning their "boy parts" because they were neglecting the little thing. And I remember telling them if they didn't get all their "business" clean, then Mama would come in and do it for them, and then we could all go on Dr. Phil and they could tell him how I psychologically damaged them for life.

And I'm obviously gonna have to do this individually with each of them. And whoever is last might just have to get the Cliffs Notes because I know they are no more ready to hear all this than I am to tell them. But I know it's time to get started. And Mr. Green Jeans will be absolutely no help in this department. Intimate talks with the kids about things of this nature just ain't in him. The thought of having to tell the boys about how girls get a monthly visitor is not something I want to do, at all. But they are dying to know what those things are under the bathroom cabinet. And I know when I tell them, they will look at their sisters like they have two heads!

But I want my boys to know everything, just like my girls. I want them to have knowledge so they will be comfortable in their own skin and not feel like freaks, and when they make decisions in the future, they are equipped to make them, so if they make the wrong decision, it won't be because I failed to explain to them how girl parts worked too! And I also want them to understand that when I tell them not to interrupt me in the bathroom, it's more about saving their corneas more than my dignity, and it's really for their own good, and maybe they will finally believe me.

If you are smarter than I am and have figured out an easy way to do this, please shout it out from the rooftops because I am putting this off like a colonoscopy! Why does everything have to be so hard? Meanwhile, Baby-Screams-a-Lot is refusing to toilet train for me and she will be three in a couple of months and I am a huge, giant mommy-failure because by now all my others were self sufficient by this time. But before I know it, it'll be she and I having this "talk". Unless I can bribe Marsha Brady into doing it for me!

Peace,

Mother's Day Weekend Re-Cap

2011-05-09T13:13:00.001-05:00

Friday evening I was looking at a monster of a weekend of activities. Marsha Brady had church nonsense early Saturday morning, four of my crew had a vocal concert Saturday evening, and then, well, we had Mother's Day to deal with. So as I tried to get my six pack in bed Friday night, I heard a blood curdling scream from the back bedroom.

I don't know about you, but blood curdling screams usually mean nothing, just that someone lost their little mind for a sec, but then there's that off chance that something really went terribly wrong.

And this was one of those times.

Slick had tripped while getting into bed and had bashed his face against the side of his bed rail. Most of his face escaped without harm, but we did have casualties.

He broke off big chunks of his two PERMANENT front teeth.

And Mama may have had a small aneurysm.

So I phoned my dentist. He'd never met my kids, probably wasn't sure if I even had any. Miraculously he returned the call I made to his private residence. Then he tells me how he's going out of town in the morning so he was gonna have to see Slick right now! Did I tell you it was about 9:00? On a Friday night? And he wanted to take care of my boy?! Who is this angel of a man? He also lived in another town about forty-five minutes from his office. Oh, and I live in another town on the opposite side, about a half hour from his office.

So we meet there about a quarter of ten and he works on my boy because he's worried about things I don't understand, like nerve damage and sensitivity issues and tooth death and pain control, and all I can think of is "how much is this gonna cost?" ~~and where's the closest liquor store?~~ and the man was just awesome. The man is a saint. Well, actually, he's Jewish, but I guess he can be both, right?

But Slick is gonna have to look like a stray dog for about three weeks because of the treatment plan, but he's playing a street orphan in the upcoming community theatre play "Oliver!" so I'm thinking he's gonna absolutely look the part.

And I'm thinking folks will be calling Child Protective Services on me following each performance.

I already have my bags packed...a vacation is a vacation, right?

And luckily he wasn't one of my crew singing in the concert Saturday night. And they did a fantastic job. Rainman had a couple of solo parts and he nailed them. And my girls were fantastic too. It's so rare that we get to enjoy the fruits of our labors. I've spent all year trekking them to vocal rehearsals and back, so it's nice to know they actually learned something other than "The Itsy Bitsy Spider".

And Marsha Brady is being confirmed this week. And after Communion- during Mass, she and a boy pal of hers will sing the "Ave Maria" for the congregation. And Mama might cry in front of the bishop.

So Sunday morning got here and it was Mother's Day. My crew knows me well. As we were getting ready for church, they called me in the kitchen for this...

I got a box from each sweathog. I am shallow. And they know it. The only thing they could have added was maybe a box of wine. Or a set of ear plugs. And maybe a CD of every song played on the radio from 1978-1988. Except for rap.

Then after church, I got home to feed a thousand people and made some gifts for the moms on the property.

"M" might be for "Mother" but it's also is for "MARGARITAS!!!!"

So give me a shout out and let me know how the weekend was for you. I hope you survived another Mother's Day, with only a few bumps. I hope your crew enjoyed your company. And I hope no one in your household got their teeth knocked out!

Peace,

Oh Shizzle...Mother's Day!

2011-05-06T15:10:00.000-05:00

Wanna hear a great, feel-good story about Mother's Day? Me too. I'll wait here while you find one, okay? Because this ain't the place for Norman Rockwell. Eunice lives here, remember?

Let me tell you about my first Mother's Day. It was a disaster. One of Titanic proportions. Mr. Green Jeans was oblivious. I was a new mother of a three month old. I had bought gifts for my mom, his mom, his step-mom, my grandmother, his grandmother, and anyone else who was a mother. Except for myself. I figured he had that one taken care of. I was so wrong, so out of bounds, that I was in a different zip code.

So we spent that Sunday going to Mass, then visiting with my family, then seeing his mom, and continued making the rounds until all the moms were taken care of. Except for me. We got home about 2:00 that afternoon and I started making a little noise about wanting to do something for MY Mother's Day, at which time Mr. Green Jeans committed the unforgivable sin of saying "well, you aren't MY mother, are you?" (Oh yes he did! And he still walks with a limp!) and I ranted to him about how he is supposed to teach our children how to treat me, even when they are just three months old and how I bought gifts for everyone I knew, including a long line of women who weren't my mother either, but I did it anyway. Because THAT is what you do!

The next year, I got a picture frame.

Thanks, Dear. I think I'll just go back to being ignored.

But by the time you've hit my place in life, and you have a slew of kids to manage, and a crowd of relatives to feed, and a house to clean for the crazy a$$ relatives, all you want for Mother's Day is just a a bedroom closet, a bottle of Vodka, and a bag of Orange Milano Cookies. And ironically, you do not want to deal with your kids. Crazy? Yes. Normal? Yes.

I know I can be cynical about Mother's Day, but let me tell you, if you think you are the only mom who gets the shaft on Mother's Day, you'd be wrong. Your family loves you, really! They just can kinda stink at making a whole day just about you, because they are used to you being... well, YOU! And you do kinda have to remember your own mom and his mom and anyone else who remotely has a right to you, so at the end of the day you get celebrated for about five minutes and then your family asks you something routine like, "What's for dinner?" and maybe you come unglued or maybe you go find your bottle...the one you left in your closet.

So I just wanna tell you, I hope you have a decent day this Sunday. I hope you get to eat food that wasn't reheated. I hope you get to eat it sitting down. I hope you don't have to stop your meal long enough to change a nasty diaper.

Please raise your hands if your meal has been interrupted with poo?

(Raising both hands here folks!)

I hope you forgive your family when they screw things up and I hope you remember that if you weren't around to make life awesome for them, it would change who they are in a terrible way. You make life special for a bunch of folks and you may not get to see your rewards right now, but believe me, in this thankless job of yours, you are the one who is shaping who they are now and who they'll become one day.

So hold up your glass of vodka or diet coke or sweet tea or whatever your poison is, and celebrate that you've made it to one more Mother's Day with your sanity and you haven't made it on the national news yet.

At least for this year.

Peace,

Foxhole Friends

2011-05-03T10:51:00.000-05:00

I've said it before here, "Friends are God's apology for family", and seeing as I got an extra helping of lunacy in my bloodline, God has doubly blessed me with friends. Friendship is one of the most fulfilling relationships I know of. Friendship is what loves you through the Groundhog days, what shields you from the unbearable, and what makes the good times sweeter.

Like you I bet, God has placed at least one good soul in every corner of my world, so when I have a need, I have someone there who understands, helps me get back on my feet, and holds my purse while I ~~re-load my clip~~ take care of business.

I remember when I came home from the hospital, after my newborn son died in my arms just two days before. I walked in the house, loved on my babies for a minute, took my broken-hearted, c-sectioned body to my bedroom and lied on my bed trying to figure out what "normal" felt like again. Within an hour, two of my best mommy pals were lying in that bed with me just so I wouldn't have to lie there alone. I later told them they were my Foxhole Friends, because few folks would volunteer to jump in a foxhole with you and suffer right along with you, just so you won't be alone. But they did.

It made me realize the value in real, true-to God friendship. A few years later, a mom at our church tragically lost her baby while on a family vacation. I didn't know her, but just after the funeral I phoned her and jumped in that foxhole with her. With me, she could say anything she felt and was validated in her feelings and had hope, because after all, I survived the same kind of loss. I stayed close to her every day and we formed a special friendship over those weeks and months, and remain friends to this day. And in my willingness to be there for her, I got an unexpected surprise. I found meaning in the loss of my own son. It helped me make sense of it because if I hadn't experienced my own tragedy, I couldn't have helped minister to hers. It gave a purpose to my son's short life. God is so dang smart!

But most of the time, it's not the life changing events of death or tragedy that reminds us of who it is in our lives that we can count on. Most times, it is that person in your daily life, who just frankly gives a damn. The one who calls just to see how your day is, to let you rant about anything that's bugging you- even the stupid stuff- heck, especially the stupid stuff! and the one who will cheer you on when you are about to climb an uphill battle or open a can of "Oh No you didn't!" And the one who will make you laugh so unexpectedly that you snort your wine out your nose and neither of you will even care.

Finding that person for you, shouldn't be hard. They're probably programmed in your cell phone and probably is one of the last numbers to show up on caller ID. You've probably already heard from them today, or at least recently. And you know that you can get them at the drop of a hat, if your world was suddenly shaken. And they'd be the one you'd call if you got supersized ticked off and needed someone to cheer you on!

I've had a number of foxhole moments lately and I have found something beautiful. Instead of sitting here wailing and gnashing my teeth, wondering how I'm gonna get myself out of this one, I'm comforted to know I'm loved through it, and I'm not alone, and I now have deeper, more meaningful friendships, and I know the next time I face a battle, that it won't be alone, because I wasn't this time. And I wouldn't trade that feeling for anything. Even an unlimited supply of wine with Orange Milano Cookies!

And the friends I have are the ones I have chosen for me, the ones I feel a connection with, the ones who get me and my nonsense and like me anyway. They get my sarcastic humor but also expect for me to bring my special brownies with raspberry sauce the next time I see them. And I will do just that because I love them too! And we make fun of the same things and embrace the same priorities, so it's okay that I just found out the day before THE wedding that it was taking place then, because I just don't keep up with anything. I am happy for the the royal couple and I hope they have a wonderful life together but I am just too busy cleaning chicken poo off blue jeans to pay attention to anything for that long. I'm really sorry. I hardly have enough attention span to make a pot of coffee, let alone keep up with the guest list of a wedding ten hundred thousand miles from my little fifteen acre stretch.

I hope you're not having any foxhole moments right now, but if you are, shout out for some help and don't try and do it alone. You will gain a better friendship with those around you and have more faith that you are never completely alone.

Peace,

Mama Needs A Hobby

2011-05-02T11:10:00.000-05:00

If you've ever been here before, you know my crew is a little interested in animals, particularly chickens. But Mama? Not so much. Mostly because dealing with the chickens invades on my life and I have a pretty full plate of nonsense to chew up every day as it is. To me, chickens should be eaten and not heard. Or smelled.

The Rhode Island Red is one of my kids'
favorite kinds of chickens.

And it never stops.

This weekend, my mom took my crew to the most happening place in my neck of the woods...the feed store! There, along with ten hundred bags of chicken feed, they purchased an incubator and all sorts of accessories for hatching more dagum chickens! Chickens that will probably be hatched on the inside of my house. Hey kids! How 'bout you just put 'em all in Mommy's bed?

These people really are in a chicken cult and if I never saw another chicken again, it would be really okay with me. I've dealt with baby chickens and turkeys in my house. I've dealt with chicken-poo infused mud coming off every shoe that darkens my backdoor. Every morning my crew gets up before me and obsesses over making life grand for the chickens everyday. These are the same folks who I can't get to flush the toilet! or take out the trash. My mom has a chicken living in her house like a pet. Yes, dear. A flippin' pet. It's a small variety and looks like a baby, but it's not. I think it's called a "bannie"?? And it has been domesticated so much, it follows my kids around and perches on their shoulders and gets tours of the outdoors. And guess what I think? It's still a dagum chicken!

Roasted chicken with vegetables is
MamaJulep's favorite kind of chicken!

And maybe with you, it's sports or something like that, where you think "Don't you people have a life?". So I decided that at least I do, so I'm ditching my peeps and I'm gonna pursue stuff that ~~is non-poultry related~~ gets me through life. And I always say that every good mother gets away from her family sometimes, and it's good to remember who you are. Because there is more to me than my ability to bake brownies or fold a hundred pairs of chicken-poo stained blue jeans.

I don't know what it is that lights you on fire and makes you breathe in life a little more, but for me, it's always been some form of laughter. I love to laugh. I love to make others laugh. And laughing with your kids is quite different than laughing with your grown up pals. It gets me through the quicksand. Sometimes- most times- all I can get is a quick phone call with another soul going through the same nonsense, and then sometimes I actually get to leave the house and be with folks over the age of thirteen and I remember that I like me, and I can be fun when I'm not shouting out orders of daily chores or complaining about the price of gas. And I don't want to ever betray who I really am, just because I also happen to be raising up a crew of slackers.

This past weekend for instance, I met a few friends at one of our favorite places that some mutual pals own, and we had grown up talk and grown up drinks and grown up laughs, and even though I was only there for a couple of hours, it helped me remember who I am, and it was so nice to get that reminder, seeing as most Saturday nights consist of the kids' bedtime rituals and ironing clothes for church and watching the same dagum tv shows over and over and slowly forgetting that I am an interesting person.

And I can't really do that kind of thing a lot, and I wouldn't want to. I love my kids and my life but sometimes you just gotta step outside of the chicken coop to see what you have covered yourself in, right? And it really is okay if you don't like all the things your family likes, as long as you remember to like some things for yourself, too!

Peace,

What I Thought

2011-04-27T09:06:00.000-05:00

When folks first get to know me and find out I have six kids, they often think I am some sort of saint, or think I have some incredible form of patience or that I just love having babies.

Please check the box "none of the above".

I do not know why I have six kids, okay? I guess that is the number God had in mind for me. Honestly, I was just open to whatever He wanted for me and I tried to cooperate with His will, somehow!? And to think that I must be June Cleaver all the time and I must be able to "handle" six kids and I must make homemade brownies everyday and pray twenty decades of the rosary at lunchtime, simply because I have that many, is just wrong. Like "Charlie Sheen" wrong. The exact opposite is true. I'm not even sure if the toddler ate dinner last night. So please stop looking at me like that when you see me, okay? It's embarrassing. Plus, if you hang around long enough, you'll see the real thing, and you'll wonder how it is I haven't made it on the national news yet.

I frequently hear from my other pals who have lots of kids about the joys and blessings of a large family. And there are those things, but you know what else there is? There's lots of freaking noise! And arguments. And confusion. And at least if you just have one kid or maybe two, you have an idea of who is guilty about something, but with six, you may as well throw in the towel, because every body's got an alibi or a story to tell, and I just don't care enough to listen to several different versions of "How the chicken got in the house".

I remember early in my parenting years, how I had it all figured out. How I was gonna be the best parent I could be ~~because I already knew everything~~ and how I was gonna get my kids raised in the most perfect of circumstances, and how I'd train up my children to be model adults. Now I'm just hopeful to avoid any phone calls like, "Ma'am, we need you to come down here and get your kid...oh, and bring your checkbook!".

Don't get me wrong, despite my rants, I have pretty good kids. And I'd like to think they'll be okay in spite of their screwy mom, but I parent them way differently than I thought I would. And I parent each of them differently too, if that makes any sense. And as our family evolves and changes, I have to change my ideas about being a mom and turn them into what works, rather than what is ideal. And each of my kids have some screwy personality disorder that I just will never be able to fix. But that is what makes them who they are.

I took my boys to Target last week to get them some jeans. Slick is built like Don Knotts and has issues with pants. They slide off him like he's a popsicle stick, because he pretty much is! But the boy found some he could live with, tried them on, and had 'em in my buggy in about five minutes. And then it was time to deal with Rainman. He agonized over the right size, how it felt on his waist, how the length felt against his shoes, and even how the zipper worked. Twenty or so minutes later, we left with jeans for both of them, but Rainman was not a happy camper, because his jeans were not perfect in his mind. But guess what? He's wearing them and he's over it now. But I had to deal with him differently so he wouldn't lose his ten year old mind. And I found out that even though they sell wine at Target, they're not so keen on you opening a bottle in the dressing rooms.

And Mommy-guilt is tough. And I see stuff in my kids everyday that I can't fix and I decide it's my fault for not being perfect. Then I remember how screwy I am, and how that's not necessarily the fault of my parents either! And all those plans I made to be the best parent are just that...plans. Things change. Families change. The unexpected shows up. And my kids are gonna grow up and be who they are in spite of my failures but also because I adapted for them.

And I taught them how to adapt.

And I look back at my early trials of parenting and see that I did a pretty good job, but I could have never kept up the pace I had set for myself. And none of us can. And I watch my kids and I can see that time is flying by and they are turning into interesting little people. My oldest has only five years left at home, and the triplets are just three years behind her, and Mini-Me is only a year out from them. Of course my little surprise baby will be with me for a lot longer, but even she is becoming a little big kid now.

And all of them have a love of God. And it bothers them when they see wrong (unless they are the ones doing it!). And even though they want to kill each other every day, when we are out with other folks, all of them treat people with respect and fairness. And I can see they really are living the morals I've taught them. And none of that happens by accident.

So if you feel like a failure, as all of us moms tend to do, and the guilt is weighing you down into the quicksand, remember how tough this is, and that every parent feels like a screw up sometimes, but with every screw up, we do a dozen things right.

And you could be like me, and have even more critters in your life than you did yesterday. Because right now, I have about fourteen buckets of pond water on my back porch, each with various stages of frogs and toads going from tadpole to adult. And the kids treat them like they do the chickens. And Rainman has another pet crawfish. And there's a make-shift fence off the porch with a turtle in it -one who'd like to escape! And every time we leave the house we have to check on every critter we own, and some who just think they live here.
And today I'm going to the dentist, and for almost an hour I will leave my six pack unattended in the waiting room. And if someone told me I would do that one day, I'd call 'em a liar. But I know my kids and I know they'll behave and they'll tend to one another, because I've taught them to do so.

Peace,

Blog Award

2011-04-25T09:56:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Mary Kate at Why Yes I am Crazy Thank You for Asking, who gave me this award, by including me in her list of favorite blogs.

You know Mary Kate, because she comments on here frequently. And she's been known to talk me off a ledge with her no-nonsense attitude about really living life and dealing with nonsense herself. And when that doesn't work, she can suggest a great bottle of wine!

One day, she and I are gonna either meet up in Chicago or Alabama or who knows where, and we're gonna pull a "Thelma and Louise" on our families and run away and live big. Or maybe we'll just fantasize about it while cleaning dirty underwear!

So here's the way this award works, okay?!

The rules of the award are:

1.Link back to the person/s that gave you the award (like I just did!).

2.Award other bloggers the award-- 15 recently discovered bloggers. Obviously big time names like Pioneer Woman aren't included!).

3.Contact the bloggers that you have awarded to let them know that they have won.

4.Tell 7 things about yourself.

So here's seven things about myself that maybe you didn't know, don't care about, or would like to forget.

1. I do not like to be told I can't do something. I like to figure out solutions to any problem in my life and don't like leaving things to chance. It's the uptight, Type A in me, okay? I can be pretty determined when pushed against a wall. I was once old by a fertility specialist that I would never have children. The end.

2. When I was in college I spent a year apprenticing at a nail salon and became a licensed cosmetologist. I ended up working as a "nail technician" for several years. I made enough money to support myself while getting all educated. And today, I am in desperate need of a manicure. My hands look like an episode of "Dirty Jobs".

3. Remember the movie "When Harry Met Sally" and how Meg Ryan's character always ordered her food differently, like something was on the side, or the water had to have no lemon, and it just had to be tweaked every time? Well, I do that. I've decided it is cute and not obnoxious and people should love me for it. And I've never worked as a waitress. Except for at my home.

4. I think that being in love, fully, with another person who is fully in love with you, is the absolute best human experience in this world. Never take it for granted and never compromise when it comes to love. Grab it with both hands and don't let it go!

5. One of my favorite books is "The Screwtape Letters" by C. S. Lewis, because it combines two of my favorite themes, comedy and spirituality. And when you read it, you feel like you've left with something valuable and it makes you think, but not in a way your head will hurt.

6. I love a good thunderstorm late at night.

7. If I could have whatever I wanted for my last meal in this world, I'd have a bowl of shrimp bisque, then a filet mignon, medium rare, with a potato and salad and crusty french bread. Then I'd have chocolate ice cream with thin, gooey marshmallow sauce drizzled over it and covered with pecans. And then I'd need a gurney to roll me out of there!

Okay, enough about me...

Bloggers I love, pages I check out, and stuff I hope you like too...Here's my award list for "The Versatile Blogger". Be sure to keep this going folks! And mine are in no particular order!

1. The Lettered Cottage by Layla Palmer. Layla is a little big time, mostly because she's been on PW's website, but I have to mention her because of this...I love her cottage style of decorating and I have been to a LOT of cottage styled blogs, but when I went to Layla's site, it was like we were separated at birth and her style is exactly my style. I have never seen anything she's done that I don't like. Plus she has incredibly easy fix ups and tutorials and do-it-yourself ideas that anyone can do, but it took her smart and savvy mind to come up with them. Thanks Layla for sharing your incredible gifts with us.

2. Mabel's House is one of the first blogs I got into because it's author somehow found me and commented on my nonsense. Mabel is the dog. I like her blog because she takes nostalgic things and turns them into beautiful things to put in her home. She has a passion for really old, unique things. And she just had her first baby, so her focus is a little different these days.

3. Jane Coslick is another cottage site. Lord help me, but that is my dream style home (emphasize the word "dream"-like fantasy- because my sweathogs are not compatible with "dream home"!).

4. The Snarky Mom is a little like my site here. Jessica and I met through Rantsfrommommyland as we both have been honored by Kate and Lydia by guest posting there. Jess writes about nonsense as well only her catch phrase is "snarky" and I love her sarcasm and wit. I see a glass of wine between the two of us one day, even if only while chatting on FB!

5. Cindy Downes writes a couple of blogs for homeschooling resources such as How do I teach and Oklahoma Homeschool. I like her site because of the free resources and because I am too lazy to figure things out for myself. I "fanned" her on FB and frequently come across nuggets that help with my homeschooling issues. One of my favorite finds lately is her free transcript creator. If you live in this nutty homeschool world like me, check her out!

Okay, I love all of you and I know many of you have blogs. I know that because I visit them! But instead of writing a long list of blogs for you to check out, what I'd like, is for you to leave a comment about your own blog and what you write about, or you can just share a blog that feeds you in some way. I do go to other blogs but they are big time and that ain't the purpose of this post. I told you about thepioneerwoman and rantsfrommommyland, but I also like bakerella and a few other cooking sites. I also go to a number of do-it-yourself sites, but mainly for specific ideas. But I have to police myself or the chair at my computer would be permanently fixed to my backside, making it really difficult to get to my orange milano cookies! Or maybe the cookies are affecting how I sit in this chair? Hmm.

Peace,

How I Will NOT Spend My Tax Refund

2011-04-21T12:15:00.000-05:00

Every morning I check my bank account to see if my tax refund has finally made it to me. One thing that comes, at least for now, in having a half dozen kids is the "child allowance" that usually gives me a little cash to play with this time of year.

Note to self:

"Play" isn't exactly the word to use when you are using tax refund money to pay bills, fix broken stuff, and get yourself out of financial holes you've dug for the past year!

I have more places to throw my refund than I have actual refund! But I can tell you, there's even more places where I won't be throwing any money. Here's my list of "How I will not be spending my refund money this year".

1. I will not be purchasing one of these...

There is something really wrong with this! Who buys this stuff? Better yet, who sells this stuff? This just makes me a little sad. I wish I could find this gal. I'd give her my bottle of Disaronno, a copy of "While you Were Sleeping" or "Sweet Home Alabama", a plate of brownies and the remote and tell her to have a great night!

Wanna feel really empty? Then grab a stuffed, fake, fella and feel really good about yourself! I think if this were my option, I'd feel just a little emptier that I'd gotten to the point of needing a man-pillow to feel love. Throw the pillow out, honey! Because when you see Bill Pullman's character climb inside that tollbooth, lean in and desperately say to his love, "Marry Me!?" you will feel better than anything that stuffed pillow can do for you. And then perhaps you need to go live your life and find real, actual people who love you and can give you more than microfibers. P.S. Ever heard of a phone?

2. Chickens. I will not spend a penny on anything to do with chickens.

Enough said.

3. Farm equipment, tractor parts, gardening shears, seeds or fertilizer.

(please see above...not one penny!)

4. Kid Nonsense...no Nintendo DS games, no videos of any kind, no movies, no nothing that makes any noise that kids crave. No ipods, no nothing that costs money! I'm going back to homemade toys, like the military outfits I made my boys when they were little. The ones they lived in for two years! The ones where I even had to order the name badges and dog tags because I wanted them to love the gift...and they did! They both wanted to be soldiers and decided they could always be together if they joined the military. I don't know where they got that? Now I can hardly keep them from wrestling themselves to a bloody nose over the last Ding-Dong! Where are those boys now? All I see is the back of a DS when I look for their cute little faces!

Oh! And now...they smell. I realized yesterday, that ten year old boys really need deodorant!

5. Unfortunately, I won't be spending any money on this kind of thing...

It will be another year before I can swing the down payment on a vehicle that actually holds us all comfortably. Another year of "Rainman took his shoes off...and his feet stink!" and "Slick pooted Mama, and he's laughing about it!" and "Marsha Brady is touching me!" all while I try and drive my prison bus to some destination that I probably don't want to actually get to anyway. All while we're packed in that car like a bunch of sardines. A bunch of rowdy, stinky sardines!

6. Anything sold by Victoria's Secret! I know what Victoria's Secret is...it's to make forty-something year old mamas feel like they don't quite measure up. Their clothes are made to accentuate natural curves-beautiful, young, upright kinds of natural curves, and well, there ain't much natural about my curves anymore. I'm not sure if I even have curves, I think I'm more slanted now! My geography has shifted so much in the last ten years, I'm feeling like a Picasso painting. I took my girls out to dinner last night, just the girls, and it was a special time, but then we went on a side trip and looked at swimsuits. One of 'em asked me, "Mom, you're not gonna buy a two piece, are you? Because that would be a bad idea, I mean, to show YOUR tummy!" Thanks, Honey! Mommy's feeling really special right now, so why don't you go find a swimsuit while Mommy takes some more ibuprofen. And a shot of vodka!

7. Exercise equipment.

Look at me!

Keeping up with the big dogs!

I have not exercised in two weeks. I know! People in my house are starting to talk. I've just been in a rut, but I need to shake it. And I have no reason to not exercise. I have the time. And a perfect walking course in my backyard. I own a treadmill, a weight bench complete with weights, a bike, a video collection of nazi exercise snitches, but better yet, I own a pair of Spanx, so no one really knows my issues if I just learn how to dress right ~~and maybe start wearing a burka in public~~. But exercise was always important to me, even growing up. When I was in middle school, I started running, and I loved it! I came home everyday from school and ran several miles a day. It was the only time I could spend alone. And I started running in local races and marathons and I loved it. I maintained it for years, but eventually my interest in boys overcame my interest in running. Looking at some of my choices back then, I should have really stuck with the running!

8. More animals.

My mom wants a cow, and a horse. They're also talking about goats. And bees. And they'd like to build a barn. And you may come to mamajulep.com one day and find that I have run away and you will never see me again! I could be anywhere. I hear Alaska is nice this time of year!

Ain't it enough that we now gather stray dogs around here like head lice? One of 'em likes to sleep just outside my bedroom window, and then howl anytime a truck drives by on the highway, or if a flea farts.

9. AM Radios

Mr. Green Jeans has a fetish for AM Radio. He keeps a radio in his bathroom, on his bedside table and in our kitchen. Not to mention they are all on at the same time, and if you go outside, you will hear the radio playing in his vehicle. He listens to all the gardening shows, the talk shows, and the Catholic channel. But mostly, he listens to the political shows. The man even sleeps with the radio on, but with earbuds because I insisted on NOT listening to that nonsense at night. Ever heard talk radio at night? All that's really on-besides static- is Coast to Coast AM which is a creepy show about conspiracy theories and real life vampires and shadow people who stalk us and alien abductions. Sorry honey, I just can't take the talk radio any more! But I'm glad you have a hobby, just please leave me out of it ~~before I throw one at you!~~

10. Food

Sorry family, but food is way too expensive right now, so no food for awhile, okay? I hope y'all planted some awesome stuff back in the winter because that's what we're having for dinner. And breakfast. And lunch. And when that stuff's gone, we'll eat up all the eggs and chickens we can stand, and then we'll choke down those brim that've been swimming in the pond. There'll be no more cereal, or hamburger or chicken sandwiches. No chips or cookies or pop-tarts. Plus I can't afford the gas to get to the store to buy all this nonsense for you, so y'all need to get really creative about all the ways you can eat turnip greens because they are on the menu every.stinking.day! And I wouldn't get too fond of the animals if I were you!

Peace,

Reluctantly Rural

2011-04-18T11:06:00.000-05:00

When our crew moved out here ~~to the seventh level of hell~~ in the middle of nowhere, three years ago, I thought it would be a great way to raise up our crew. They'd have the great outdoors as their playground, would learn valuable skills in raising our own veggies, tending to animals, and making our own fun in being best friends with one another. I thought it would be a simple, laid back life.

I was so wrong, that if you could measure "wrongness", I'd beat out everyone in my failed decision making. Except for maybe Brittney Spears. And Charlie Sheen. And of course, Congress.

But I'm here now, and I'm making the best of it. I know you haven't heard much about our homestead nonsense lately, mostly because I ain't exactly passionate about chickens and stray dogs, but I'd like to give you an idea of how much ibuprofen I've ingested lately, and why.

The baby chickens and turkeys are thriving ~~dangit~~. The turkeys are now living in the chicken yard. When we bought them, the lady at the feed store said to make sure we put them in with the chickens because turkeys are so stupid, they need the chickens to guide them. I can only say, that I've learned that chickens are pretty darn stupid themselves, so I'm wondering how it is that domestic turkeys aren't extinct?! And they are so ugly. So very ugly. And not the "so ugly they're cute" kind of ugly. They're just ugly. And I can't wait til Thanksgiving.

The baby chickens are nearly big enough to go in the main yard, but they're still in a separate pen. The kids go out there sixty hundred times a day to read them bedtime stories and carry them like babies and throw one another in chicken poop so I can do eighty hundred more loads of laundry and I love it when my pink Gap tshirt gets mixed in with a load of chicken poop-infused blue jeans.

And they ain't exactly "Beauty Queens" either!

And yesterday morning, an egg hatched with the mama chicken who didn't like for us to take her eggs. It was a sweet moment. Literally...a moment. Because not long after that, the poor thing died. And then my crew turned it into a science experiment and I had to say things like, "If y'all don't quit carrying around that dead chicken and dispose of it RIGHT NOW, I'm gonna ban you all from the chickens for a week!". Is there a psychosis for "chicken obsession" because my kids have it and I think we need professional help!?

And the domineering dominecker rooster is history. He was supposed to be our easter meal, however, he flew out of the coop one morning while we were away and when we got back, one of the strays was "playing" with him.

I drove up and said, "What is that thing Bama has...what the...how...OH MY GOSH...BAMA HAS THE ROOSTER!!" The kids flew out of the car like it was on fire. The dominecker lasted the rest of the day, but he finally gave in. And Bama has since had a few other "toys" and I vacillate between being concerned and wanting to do something about it and also hoping Bama gets better at it. So the Rhode Island Red is now the king of the chicken yard and he's really, really happy about it!

The gardens are doing well, but Mr. Green Jeans tells me everyday how I need to spend six million hours a day weeding through the gardens so the veggies will all survive. Meanwhile, they sell five pound bags of potatoes at the fruit stand for ninety-nine cents a bag. I'm thinking I ain't weeding the garden. Why does he think I had all these kids to begin with? And I really don't like messing with my manicure.

Potatoes. And more potatoes. And I'm felling a little Scarlet O'Hara about tending to them!

The blackberries are back! We have so many blackberries that I need me some migrant workers to help me out. My kids have already eaten buckets of them and I'm wondering if ~~Crest makes white strips for kids~~ I have the stamina for another year of picking and jam making. You can't pick much without serious gloves or you look like you got your hand caught in a meat grinder from all the bristles. I haven't had a giveaway here in a long time and I thought about giving away some jam, but I'd probably be breaking about a dozen food handling laws, plus word might get out that I actually don't know what I'm doing. And that press release has already been made public in other areas. Like homeschooling. And housekeeping. And decision making.

But there's a sweetness to some of this nonsense. This morning, for instance, I went out took these shots and picked a few berries. So Marsha Brady made pancakes and infused them with the berries and my kids drizzled syrup on them and we had a little Norman ~~Bates~~ Rockwell moment. And I've heard blackberries are awesome in vanilla yogurt!
And this past Saturday morning, my son Rainman went out to the chicken yard, grabbed some eggs, stopped off at the garden and got him some green onion, then mixed up his concoction and made him some delicious gourmet scrambled eggs without my help!

Please close your eyes and imagine a hand with a recent manicure holding these berries, okay?

Oh! And after three years of being here, we finally have fish in our pond! We have eighty thousand brim living there. And apparently brim are smarter than chickens because they've gotten used to us throwing bread and other mess in there, so when you walk to the edge of the pond, they come up to us like stray dogs.

But don't get me started on stray dogs.

So the kids have had several afternoons of "catch and release" games with the brim.

This dude looks a little different. He's probably the trouble maker.

And in my family, as well as in Mr. Green Jeans, we grew up learning about firearms. Don't write me hate mail! But there's a lot of values you can instill in your children, through their training in the use, care and respect of having guns. And it's not like we leave them out like M&M's for them to grab! I've handled guns my whole life and have no problems with it, given the fact that we're extremely safety minded, but I also know that my kids will grow up the same way, and have the proper respect for this hobby, if they choose to continue it.

All that being said, my kids enjoy special time with their dad, when they can target practice with him. And they have had practical times to put their skills to good use, like when we had some snakes around the pond recently. It was like a public lynching! No snakes have ever been shot so many times.

And MamaJulep got to target practice too. But you won't see those here, or anywhere else in public, because I don't look so glamorous with safety headgear on. I don't know how those "Charlie's Angels" girls pulled it off. I think it had something to do with their twenty-something figures and white smiles. And designer jeans.

Blackberries don't give you white smiles.
And chicken poop doesn't do much for designer jeans.
And don't get me started on what twenty something feels like. I have stretch marks older than that!

Peace,

Hey! Sorry I haven't posted much lately. I need a new computer. I'm buying a laptop next week...anyone have any suggestions? I've never had one. I'm also curious if any of you use Skype and if it works well and if I need to buy anything special for that. Oh! And if any of you know of a way I can be in two places at once, I'd really love it! Thanks!

Seasonal Friendships

2011-04-14T08:10:00.000-05:00

You've heard the saying that some people are in your life for only a season, but their influence touches your life forever. Today I want to share with you about such a friend of mine. Her name is Lisa and I've written before about how much she has brought into my life. I hope it makes you think of someone whose done the same for you.

Almost four years ago, Lisa and her husband Pete and their young family, showed up at our homeschool registration day. I think I was one of the first folks to talk to them and remember how easy it was to talk to her. No nonsense, no fake smiles, just genuine friendship. She was just beginning her homeschool journey and making new friends in a new town. Pete, a helicopter pilot in the Coast Guard, had just been sent to Mobile for a four year assignment.

I became friends with her over the next several months, and honestly, I remember thinking "How can I pour myself into a friend who will only leave my world in four years, and possibly leave me sad in her absence?". That's because basically, I am a fraidy cat, selfish kind of person. But she was so easy to be with and we had so very much in common, that all my reservations went out the window and I am so blessed to have become her friend, if even for a short time in our lives. I remember being so inspired by her willingness to be friends, knowing she had to do this every four years! She had to start over and leave her old world behind and begin again. Inspiring. She has inspired me in many ways.

I had always wanted to start a blog but could never quite make myself do it. She and I talked about it and then one day, she just did it! She started "The Little House That Grew". About a week later, I started mine. We loved taking pictures, so at some point later, she got herself an awesome camera, and being the copycat I am, I got mine too. We started shooting our kids, our lives, and took some horrible shots, but also learned from each other. We supported one another in all of our nonsense. She cheered me on when my blog did well, and when I got to guest post on a popular blog. And she was the only person in my life then, who read my blog and also got what a big deal it was to guest post. She cheered me on when my pic was on PW's website because only she got what a big deal it was too. And I cheered her on when her blog grew and when she had her victories.

And I also called her when I was down, in a hole, and she'd remind me I wasn't alone. And I did the same for her.

She would pull me out of my routine when I needed it. One time she called and said, "I'm bringing my kids over to take pictures of them on the property, and you and I are gonna each bake this pie on the front of Southern Living, and we're gonna have fun." And all I could say was "okay" ... and I'll never forget that day or those dagum pies!

She and I have both shared our joys and sorrows in homeschooling and in raising a bunch of kids. We both absolutely love cottage style furniture, have enjoyed shopping for it and refinishing it, and she has inspired me to do more of that and not just sit and wait until "someday" to buy pieces I love.

When she came into my life, I had only recently moved out here in the middle of nowhere. Many of my friends, just a twenty minute drive away, would not make the drive to see me, and I was feeling alone and forgotten and was having daily pity parties on this fifteen acre stretch. Lisa thought nothing of making the drive regularly to come see me and would always bring food and fun and we'd make memories I wouldn't have if I had been too afraid to say "yes" to a friendship that I knew might be temporary.

theletteredcottage.net

Lisa is moving away in the beginning of June, to Pete's new assignment. My heart is sad that I won't have her company the next time I want to try some new photography, or a new recipe, or need a medicating hug from my friend, the one who gets so many things about my world. But I am so enriched by her presence in my life and am a better person for knowing her. I'm sure we'll keep up in little ways, but I know it's likely we'll never visit and so I focus on what we've given to one another over these four years that have flown by.

I love you Lisa! I will miss you, but mostly I'm thankful to call you my friend.

Peace,

Road Rage

2011-04-07T08:35:00.000-05:00

I have Road Rage.

And probably a hormone imbalance. Or some other imbalance. But that's a separate issue.

I've decided most people do not remember anything from Driver's Ed. And they apparently cannot read road signs or see traffic lights the way the rest of us do. Of course I am a perfect driver and never make a mistake and am never distracted by the inmates in my prison bus! But I've noticed a few things on the road that make me question the intelligence of most folks who managed to pass their driver's test. And I've seen some patterns.

Mr. Wrong Lane

If I do nothing today but let one person know this important information it is this....the left lane is the fast lane, the passing lane, and is not for turtles or Sunday drivers! If you have no place to be, please get your tail over to the right lane and live there like you are under house arrest! Do not get in the left lane because I am trying to get around your nonsense and I do have someplace to be and I probably have a barrel of monkeys trying to copilot my vehicle and I'd just like to get to my destination as soon as I can! It's nothing against you. You obviously don't know how this works or you wouldn't be annoying the rest of us and it must be that you are afraid to go the speed limit, because you are just idling over here in the left lane and you can't see that you have a mile long row of cars behind you, waiting until you get a clue! So trust me, you will be much happier on the right side of traffic. It's safe over there. Usually.

Mr. Indianapolis 500

I like to get where I need to be as soon as I can, every bit as much as the next person (please see above!), but unless I'm having a medical emergency or my kids have driven me to 'there's a man on the wing of this plane' bat$h*t crazy, I will never drive like you do! There will never be a need for me to drive in a way that puts my knuckleheads at risk and it really chaps my backside that you have such little regard for the safety of my babies, and yes...I take it personally when you drive near me like your car is on fire! If you want to live out your fantasies of running from the police, pretending you are in the movie "Thelma and Louise", do it on some backroad stretch of dirt and not on the interstate at 5:00 pm when the rest of us are just trying to get our tails home in one piece. It's already a butt-tightening experience as it is, and we really don't need your extra helping of lunacy, while weaving in and out of other cars, as folks like this mama, navigate a two and a half ton vehicle through a maze of self-centered drivers who won't let you over, as if they own that part of the highway and you may as well be invisible because they ain't letting you merge into "their" lane, because most folks don't even know what "merge" means. And they certainly don't care that you are trying not to teach your kids new words while driving home from the fifty extra curricular activities you foolishly agreed to do while obviously high on some street drug.

Mr. Stove-up-broke-a$$ car Man

Please get off the road. Or at least get out from in front of me! I sympathize with your car problems, I promise I do, and I know it costs money to fix your train-wreck of a car, and you still have places to be, but if you know your car is a menace to the rest of us, at least have the courtesy to pull over for a minute when you know the rest of us are trying to avoid you. We'd like to not wreck with you, mostly because it can pretty much be guaranteed that you have no insurance and if we pair up with you, we're screwed to the wall! And if you have more exhaust coming from your car and into mine, than the papermill, then perhaps you should find alternative transportation. And when you have the nerve to move furniture and mattresses and whatever else you need to move, in the back of your car, on top of it, or dragged behind it, know that they make bungee cords and tail gates and all sorts of devices to safely transport things without inducing fear in other drivers that their car will be wearing that furniture if you hit a pothole or swerve while opening your beer can.

And speaking of bad drivers, have you seen this? My six pack absolutely loves it!

And Mr. Green Jeans, who should have totally joined the military, and is asked if he's in it all the time, because he loves order and discipline and routine and no-nonsense, and he laughs at anyone who shows emotion or sheds a tear, sort of, is always called in the room when this one comes on, because my kids know their dad, and even their dad knows (and laughs) that this is who he is. And he would make the absolute worst therapist you'd ever want to meet. Sorry honey!

And I could do this all day, but I can't. Because tomorrow I'm taking my mental health day, and I have six thousand things to do today. So tomorrow, you won't find a post here, and I hope you all have a glorious weekend.

Peace,

Nonsense at the Local Schools

2011-04-06T06:00:00.000-05:00

I homeschool a six pack of sweathogs. In case you didn't know. Have you ever wondered why in the world I would choose to stay with my kids 24/7 and never, ever, have a minute's break from their nonsense of "The dog threw up on my bed" and "Rainman won't let me in the kitchen because he said I might breathe on his food" and "The chickens need a radio to keep them company". I'll tell you why...I'm lazy!

I did the traditional school thing. Twice. And I never was good at falling in line with the other moms. I was always a bug in the bonnet of all those teachers and I never, ever, have done well with just doing what everyone else did. Conformity has never been my strong suit! I don't have any qualms about traditional schooling and I might be back there any given day. My issues were more about having time with my family and not wanting the school to raise them and form their belief systems. But I did have some issues with school that made me snatch them outta there. And put me in purgatory. For a life sentence.

I have many issues. One of them is carpool. Carpool is hard. It's like synchronized swimming at the Olympics, and when you screw up your part and take too long or someone forgets their backpack, or starts crying, the whole line of moms look at you like you are the girl who came to prom without a date! LOSER! And we had a teacher who I was totally intimidated by, who would stand there with a loudspeaker, and when you screwed up or did something against the rules, like get out of your car for a sec, she would scream at you- by name, to get your hiney back in your car and do what you're told! I don't like that. Did I mention she was my kid's teacher?

Now the second school we tried was much more laid back, but still, it was carpool. No blow-horns, but I had to wait everyday in my steaming hot car, for them to let my babies out. I liked to be one of the first ones there because I felt like it told my kids they were so important to me that I would be there, ready and waiting as soon as they got out. I was a total idiot back then! So I would be in the carpool holding lock for a half hour.
One day, at this laid back school, I was feeling especially stove up and worn out, so I put my head back on my seat. And fell asleep. This was super unusual for me, because for me to sleep even at home, the moon has to be in the right alignment with Venus and Jupiter. I must have really been tired, because I slept through the dismissal bell. And remember, I was the first one in line. And cars were lined up behind me all the way to the entrance. And apparently teachers and kids were yelling at me, but my windows were up, and it looked like ~~a case of carbon monoxide poisoning~~ I wasn't getting up!

So the comical teacher who had my Mini-me that year, came over to the driver's side and banged on my window. I remember jolting out of my sleep, confused and ugly-faced, the way you get when you wake up in a strange place, and I think there was an obscenity that came out of me. And I looked over at her, and she was bent over with laughter- because they all knew me. Knew I could be a comic, but also knew I was this hyper-organized, type-A, got-it-all-together mama, who fell asleep in carpool! And then I caught sight of the other side of my car, and noticed the whole school was howling at me. I'm so glad I could give 'em a laugh. And my kids reluctantly got in the car and asked if we needed to call Nana.

And homework drove me crazy! I kinda felt like those peeps had my kids for eight hours a day and it put ants on me that I had to spend my evenings with my babies going over nonsense they had just done at school all day! It was my turn to do what I wanted with my babies! I understood spelling words and math practice, but not ten hours of it! In kindergarten! So I told the teacher that kindergarten was not mandatory and that my three in her class would not be returning some assignments because at night we are a family and not a sweat shop for her handouts!

Every morning was work for the school. Work getting backpacks ready and lunches assembled and uniforms ironed and socks located and it was all very exhausting work. Then every afternoon we had the homework to do, then it was dinner and baths and bedtime and getting things washed and prepared for the next day of school, and I just felt like the school owned our souls and I'd never get to do the things I wanted for us because of the dagum school!

And I realize I was part of the problem because I can be pretty uptight and worked up sometimes over things that do not matter! But I will admit that being home with my peeps is a much more laid back kind of lifestyle. It allows us to start school late if we were at the theatre the night before. It allows us to spend time with Nana if she takes a day off. And it lets me teach them in the moments that work for me, especially when I need to decompress before I face improper fractions or a dirty diaper! And we may go back to the schools again, but I will have had this time with my babies and I wouldn't trade that for anything. I know them and they know me- which may not always be a good thing! And whatever world you live in, be it traditional school or homeschool, there are trade-off's and nothing is perfect. That much I have learned. And it's all what you make of it. And I've decided sometimes, what you need to make, is a glass of wine.

Peace,

Holes I Fall In Sometimes

2011-04-04T08:46:00.000-05:00

My thirteen year old will be confirmed in our church next month. It's a relatively small parish but the church itself is beautiful and traditional and so is our pastor, and we love it there. We also have a hispanic community who shares our parish and they will celebrate confirmation with us. It's gonna be a really big deal. And the Archbishop will be there. Which means there will also be a reception, one with food and treats and cakes and all sorts of nonsense, including hispanic dishes as well. Oh! and it's my pastor's birthday so we have to plan something for him that night, including a giant chocolate cake, because it's his favorite! And the bishop likes ice cream, so we're having a local ice cream parlor show up and serve it to him. I'm guessing that night, I'll be back in the kitchen eating cold leftovers while I scrape plates and mop the floor! So I got a phone call about a week ago that went something like this.

Pal: "Hey Kathy! I wanted to ask you what you wanted us to do to help with the reception."

Me: "I don't know. I guess we each need to bring food and get it where ever it needs to be before the Mass."

Pal: "Well, how do you want to coordinate that?"

Me: "I don't know? I just joined this parish last summer! How is this usually done? Who is supposed to be over all this confirmation reception nonsense?"

Pal: "Oh, I'm sorry, I asked who was in charge of the reception and Father said YOU WERE!"

Me: @!%@!!#!....."Wha??"

Pal: "Yea, he said you were taking care of the whole thing. He even told the ladies who volunteer for events to not even worry with helping, that you had it all under control. Even the decorations!"

Me: "Well, we need to get those bitties on board because I sure ain't over this thing, and I'm not interested in doing it, and I don't have time and I don't know what he was smoking when he said that, so let me go give Father a little ring so I can set this straight, because no, ...just NO!".

So MamaJulep, who is not in charge of anything, had to make fifty dozen phone calls to make sure everyone else was doing something to help get the decorations done and the food organized and email the hispanic priest and see if someone knew about the ice cream stuff .....and oh! someone emailed me about a photographer?? ....and do we have a way to keep the food warm and what time is the rehearsal and will there be alcohol served....wait! that was my question, ....but this chic here who was not organizing this thing, ended up organizing who needed to be where and do what, just so I could avoid having to organize it! Does this make any sense? Oh! And I now have to make fifty pounds of Chicken Fettucini Alfredo to bring with me that night! While I get my whole family dressed in clean and not cuban refugee collection clothes, so the bishop can confirm my girl.

Did I mention we began our new play rehearsals last week? My five big kids are in the play and I was supposed to be, but I told the director my bucket was full and so please let me off the hook and just let my crew do it without me. He completely understood. But my grown up pals who I told I would be in the play and now I'm not, do not understand! And ~~as I tried to sneak out the door~~ Mr. Director told me he'd need me to help make the costumes. For a cast of about fifty. In my spare time. No problem. Sleep is overrated!

Speaking of theatre nonsense, there's a new theatre company in town. A family theatre company. One where the whole family is involved and mom and dad also acts on stage or does the lighting and makes the sets and it is a wonderful thing to have this in my community! And the folks who started it asked me to be on their board of directors because they have faith in me and actually think I have something to contribute. And since I so love the idea, I jumped on board before they could change their minds.
But this board is not one of those who just sits and makes decisions. We have to actually work! So MamaJulep has to get her act together soon and work on grant writing! Really? Like, do you guys actually want folks to give us money, because you may want to re-think who's doing this for you!? But before that gets started, they asked me to do some data entry to send a letter to every freaking business in the county and keep up with it all and be all organized and good about it. I have about four hundred letters to do. And I've done about three. And it was supposed to be done three weeks ago. And I think there might be a secret meeting because I'm completely screwing this simple thing up that a monkey could do. I think the gig is up for me, but I may be safe because no one else wants the job.

Sidebar: I had an old, irish pastor once who said "If you ever need to get something done, hand it over to a busy mom." There's a lot of truth in that.

This summer I will take over being Administrator of my homeschool covering. This was something I couldn't avoid...I promise you! And it's a four year ~~prison sentence~~ term. I still have a few months before that actually happens, but it became news last fall. And since then, I've gotten about ten hundred nonsense issues tossed onto my plate. Issues from stupid to super-important. And now my time is coming and I need to put in about six thousand hours so I can get to July and not have to wing it and end up doing all the work myself. I have to go through the bylaws and revise them and decide who I can count on to help me and who I need to put a house-arrest-ankle-bracelet on so I can keep up with their nonsense, and how I can simplify this organization of about a hundred families that cross several counties, and all of them have something to say to me and no one agrees. And I am screwed to the wall.

Did I mention I'm also trying to educate a six pack of sweathogs everyday? And wash skidmarks! And deal with psychotic chickens! And stray dogs! And plant corn! And entertain relatives! And look up phone numbers for my mom! And potty train the little one before she gets to college! And cook a meal for my family every night so they can all snub their noses at it and say "Do we have to eat this?" and that sometimes includes Mr. Green Jeans!

And I'm thinking that joining a circus would be easier. I'll do anything. Shoot me out of a canon. Put me in a tiger's mouth. Saw me in half. Because it can't be any crazier than the circus life I live in now!

Peace,

The MamaJulep Reference Book

2011-04-01T10:32:00.000-05:00

In the last year and a half of writing this "nonsense blog of mine" as I always say, some new vocabulary words have come into my life and to those of you, who've come to hang here a time or two. Motherhood and family life can cause us all to have out of body experiences, hide in our closets, and pretend sometimes that we really don't know these people who call out for "Mama" fifteen hundred times a day! So today, I wanna review some things we've learned from the handbook of mamajulep.com.

Nonsense: used as a G-rated term for a not-G rated term, means the equivalent of "BS" but in a Sunday School version of the word. "Y'all take your nonsense outside and let Mama finish her vodka!", "If I have to deal with anymore nonsense from my crazya$$ relatives, I'm getting a restraining order...and changing my name...~~and loading my gun~~!", "If Walmart gives me any nonsense about returning this, you're gonna see me on the national news, in an orange jumpsuit!".

GroundHog Day: refers to the awesome movie "GroundHog Day" with Bill Murray, where he lives the same exact day over and over and over until he finally gets it right. And he does finally get it right, but we never will! Mamas live out the movie in real life. We wake up every, single, dagum day and do the exact same chores and deal with the same nonsense we did the day before, only to wake up the next morning as if nothing was ever accomplished the previous day! We start all over, every morning, and it never, ever changes! And nothing ever gets finished. The laundry is still there even though we did mountains the day before! The dishes are still there. Dirty, stinky kids are still there, asking us why they have to make up their beds if they're only gonna sleep in them again?!

We have to tell our children to flush the toilet every single day, ten hundred times a day, as if they just met us for the first time. And they're gross and think the bathroom should resemble a port-o-let at Mardi Gras. And they never, ever, learn anything useful. They do know all the words to the theme from Spongebob and where they keep the crap cereal at the grocery store and how many times they can interrupt mommy in the shower to interview her for the ten dozenth time, only to ask her where the remote is for the Wii- because we have to know right this dang second!
And we are just caught in this comic vortex in time where we never, ever get a break from all the daily nonsense of GroundHog Day. But, it is a national holiday at Mamajulep.com, where we celebrate the insanity together, just so you know, it ain't just you!

Sweathogs: referring to the 1970's sitcom "Welcome Back Kotter" and if you're too young to know anything about that show, I have nothing for you. Because that means you also don't have to use wrinkle cream and have never heard your doctor use the word "menopause" and you probably still have your body parts positioned the way God originally made them, and not sliding down your body like a melted creamsicle in August.
Any kid can be a sweathog at times, especially my six pack! This phenomenon happens every time I need for them to be responsible and do their chores and get their dagum school work done, just once, please, for all that is holy and good! But instead, they lie around, scheming against me, sneaking onto youtube to watch movies with obnoxious cartoon characters, talking about boogers and playing fart games, and feeding the stray dogs the leftovers I had planned for dinner. A sweathog is basically a sloth with a bad attitude and a sneaky disposition, or better put, the nemesis of every mama, every where.

And you've heard some of my favorite terms, like the Chuck Norris roundhouse I fantasize about giving to my crazya$$ relatives and the folks who want to dress my girls like Bratz dolls like Miley Cyrus. You've heard about my prison bus, the one that became a little famous when I shared that term with the rants girls and they posted it with their mommy desk reference definitions! Driving a real prison bus might be actually better than what I drive because my crew ain't as intimidated as the fellas who ride the real thing, ~~even though they also make shanks and conspire against me~~ and driving the prison bus usually precedes my getting home and opening a bottle of wine, and sucking my thumb and lying in my bed. in the fetal position. for three hours.

Motherhood has also given me multiple personality disorder, but then all mommies have this! I have to be many people to way too many people so I need help from all the people who live inside my head. When my family drives me to the brink of bat$h*t crazy and I have just had all I can take, I turn into Carol Burnett's "Eunice" from Mama's Family. And there is just no more berserk you can go, once you've gone Eunice on your peeps! And you can only do this at home or people will call the authorities. But your family will absolutely leave you alone for damn sure once you've pulled out the "Eunice" card. And you will finally be heard. And they will talk about you and make plans for an intervention. But for that moment, you were heard!

And when you need them, you can also be The Church Lady or June Cleaver or "The Hand that Rocks the Cradle-bat$h*t crazy mama! And there are good times and reasons to pull out those girls. But when you need to take care of business and open a can of "Oh No You Didn't", you can turn into Joy and scare the hell out of everyone with your bad a$$ self. And let them know they messed with the wrong mama on that day!

Unfortunately, I also turn into Sergeant Carter. Because I am a Type A, uptight, list-making, rigid mama. And if I'd been a man, I would have been the best drill sergeant you ever met! But I'm not. And I have sweathogs. So no matter what I do and how many lists I make and chore charts I print, I cannot win. Just like Sergeant Carter. I am the only sergeant in the world who yells and makes demands but can't seem to get anyone to listen. It probably has to do with my inability to follow through because I'm too tired to bother because your kids make you that way!

I know I've left a few things out. And maybe you have a few terms and such to add to this. So please do so. Because I am a wreck today and am just thankful I was able to form sentences at all! And the people in my life are giving me no mercy. So when you feel the quicksand shifting beneath you, know you've been there before, and you can pull yourself out. Just laugh at the nonsense, because all of it, is nonsense!

Peace,

Gratitude

2011-03-31T09:51:00.000-05:00

Today I am filled with gratitude. And I have a list of reasons why. You, my wonderful companions in this cyberspace of mine, are among those things for which I am thankful today! But first, the nonsense...

I am thankful that I no longer have baby chickens and turkeys living inside my house, making noise, stinking up the joint, and causing me to up my dosage of ibuprofen. Like I need even more drugs to kept this body going!

I am thankful that my eight year old knows how to make a pot of coffee.

I am thankful that my mother finally moved into her house after living here for nearly three years. "I love you Mom! Please don't let the door hit you in the backside.".

I am thankful that Mr. Green Jeans is enjoying his new hobby of making homebrewed beer. I just wish he wouldn't ferment it in my bedroom!

I am thankful I don't have neighbors near me, so when my kids dress like Cuban refugees, I don't get any visits from Child Protective Services.

I am thankful that most of my crazya$$ relatives live far, far away. And that my number is not published.

I am thankful that even though I am short and stumpy, that I've finally found a pair of jeans that fit and don't have to be altered and don't show my business to the whole world when I bend over, and I'll be bummed out when they wear out! Because when you are short and stumpy it's either the Juniors department or the Seniors department and neither is flattering on a stove up forty something year old mama!

I am thankful that I get to see Colin Firth play Mr. Darcy anytime I want through the magic of my dvd player.

I am thankful that I have made a lifestyle change and am sticking to it and living with a healthier diet and weight than I did last year at this time...when I was sharing with you the joys of white bean chicken chili and the absolute best chocolate sheet cake ever and how it had changed my life! And Pioneer Woman was absolutely no help in that department.

I am thankful I can call my best friend late at night and have conversations that feed my soul.

I am thankful that, thanks in part to my readers, I am not going to be sick after all. And that all my many drugs and regimens are working on this body and I feel great and am enjoying my days with no nonsense from the pollen and allergens.

I am thankful that my six pack goes out every morning to feed the animals and tend to them and let me stay inside and have coffee and write to you, and that they've learned that Mama doesn't really care how the chickens are feeling today. And I've gotten over needing a head count of stray dogs in my yard.

But I am especially thankful to you who read these scribblings everyday. I've never been one to beg for comments, but when they come, I treasure each one of them. Some of them are silly and make me smile and I get to learn your personalities by the words you choose. And then there are those, mostly from anonymous souls whom I cannot reach to tell them of my gratitude, who leave me heartfelt and thoughtful comments and advice and support. To you, you know who you are, know that you warm my heart and I am grateful for your friendship.

I'll be back here tomorrow to write more nonsense, but always feel free to let me know what you'd like to hear about. Because if I don't know, then you'll probably hear more about chickens, or stray dogs, or toilets that never get flushed, or how many times I hid in the closet, ~~doing vodka shots~~ eating cookies and listening to Elton John. And waiting for Ashton Kutcher! Because this can't really be real, and it must be that I'm just being punked!

Peace,

Mama's Support Group

2011-03-30T10:04:00.000-05:00

There's a few basic rules I live by, in trying to stay sane while raising up a bunch of wanna-be-degenerates. One of my sanity rules, is to get away from my kids sometimes and remember who I was before I landed in the middle of Green Acres. And that sometimes includes time off from Mr. Green Jeans. I've also shared with you about the importance of not standing still in life, just because you are all wife and mother-ey. Try new things! Do things that bring you joy, not just those under your roof. I've learned the hard way, how easy it is to blame everyone in your house when you are fed up, and have had no break from the monotony, only to realize later that you are the one who set things up for your own destruction!

So one of my recent adventures has been my involvement in community theatre. And not for the reasons you think! I love a lot about community theatre and I've told you about all that, and I especially love all that it has given to my six pack. But for me, as a person in my own right, I have grown ten feet by my new relationship with my theatre peeps. And it has made me remember who I used to be, and who I still am, but had just forgotten.

I missed me. Even though I love my life as a wife and mother, and embrace that 99% of the time, I know that every day, my crew is one day closer to moving out and living their own lives, and when that time comes, I'll still be me and I'll have to live with the "me" I've taken care of all these years. And I want "me" to be able to say that I never forgot who I was and that I lived my life completely.

Are you getting this?

Do you need some boots to wade through this nonsense?

Good! You need to hear this!

I've been privileged to meet and become friends with some of the most genuine and loving folks I've ever known, through theatre. And what I love most about them, is that I can be my real self with them and they still love me! And when I screw up and do something stupid-which happens a lot! there's no gossip, or judgement. "Mamajulep just got stupid for a minute, but since we love her, it's okay!"
I love my other pals, my church pals, my homeschool pals, and old friends, and they feed me and love me in areas where I need it too, but you know how it is, right? With the church gang, you are the Church Lady, and I have to "be" her at all times. Same goes for the homeschool pals, or whatever group it is you have in your life. I have my close pals in each circle, and enjoy their company, but still, you have to always keep that frame of reference of commonality with the folks you are with. You can still be fun and interesting, but you kinda have to remember to be sensitive to the kind of peeps you spend time with. It is like that in any group, but when you find a base group of peeps that let you be you, and love you where you are, without judgement, it's like falling in love.

In some ways, this group of misfits demonstrates christian charity like no church group I've known. There's a place where some of us go sometimes to reconnect and let our hair down. One of them owns a piano bar, and it is unlike any bar I've seen. It's fun and friendly and you laugh and dance and are pulled in to the entertainment and can be whoever you want to be, and you are loved while doing so. I usually only have a drink or two when I go there, because my endorphins are already high from the joy I get from these wonderful people! I got to go there this past Friday night, and being with them, singing and dancing, was like a shot in the arm for this stove up mama of a six pack of sweathogs. And when one of us gets a little crazy, and it might be me next time, all is forgiven. and forgotten.

So when I get one of those "religious retreats", I get back home and am a better wife and mother, because I got to recharge my batteries and not flush the toilet eighty-three times while I was gone! And it helps me when I'm living my real vocation and doing so much for so many.

I don't know how long I'll have these people in my life, but for today I am grateful, because God is showing me His love through these wonderful friends, at a time when I really needed to hear it. He is smart like that! And my hope for you, is that you embrace those in your life who feed your soul and love you without judgement, and will smile at you while you dance.

Peace,

Is There a Pill for That?

2011-03-29T09:20:00.001-05:00

I got up yesterday morning ~~aching~~, ~~moaning~~, ~~swearing~~ like any other Monday morning, ate a Fiber One bar, took my ten dozen rounds of morning vitamins, washed the damn night cream off my face, put on the day cream, brushed my teeth, put on a new coat of chap stick and miraculously got this body into some clothes that actually fit! It gets exhausting trying to keep up. Twenty years ago, I just slid into my clothes and brushed my teeth, and probably ate a ten hundred calorie breakfast from a drive through. But that ship has sailed! ~~and crashed.~~ ~~and burned!~~

And I was about to find out, that I was gonna need even more pharmaceutical intervention before the day was barely started. Awesome!  Just after I got the six pack going for the day, I got off the phone with my BFF and it hit me...that feeling of "Am I getting sick? Again? Crapity Crap Crap!!"

But I've done my share of "sick" lately! Remember? I had the great pneumonia of 2010 just a few months ago!  Along with thrush. And a chronic attitude problem. And I even missed Christmas and New Year and blacked out the entire months of December and January. The year apparently began for me some time around February 6th!
And "sick" can take a freakin' dive off the nearest bridge, cause Mama has better things to do.  Even though I knew this was coming. The pollen and allergens where I live is flippin' ridonkulous, and my body + pollen = sinus hellfire and brimstone. And it always lands me in sinus infection purgatory. So, I immediately speed dialed my ENT and was there within an hour.

I've told you how fun it is to take the six pack everywhere with me, and thankfully, they are used to being hauled off at a moment's notice. So they sat with me in the waiting room for ~~eternity~~ an hour and I got to hang out with the AARP convention that was assigned to the waiting room, and get looks of disapproval and shock, seeing as it was a school day and all, and "Lady, what the hell are you doing here with all those kids and don't tell me they're all yours?! and to what cult do you belong anyway?". So I get back there with the doc and leave the knuckleheads in sub-waiting.

PS: Who the hell came up with the sub-waiting room? It had to be a sadistic nurse someplace in history who enjoyed teasing patients with the hope of actually seeing a doctor! You sit in the mass waiting room, exposing you and your sweathogs to even more germs, in the hope that the next woman with the charts will be calling your name, as if you've won the grand prize. And what happens when she finally does so? Does she take you to the doc? No, she sticks your arse in yet another dagum waiting room? WHY?

So we finally get out of the doc's office and head for (you guessed it), the drugstore. Antibiotics are coming on board. At least I can have the hope now of not getting major sick again, like I do every year at this time. The doc's crew allergy tested me ages ago. And I'm not allergic to anything exotic. I'm allergic to a bunch of stuff you can't possibly avoid where I live! Like grass. And sawdust. Did I mention I live on fifteen acres and grass is pretty much all around me? Oh, and I'm married to a carpenter! It only gets funnier. Just not to my sinuses.

Holy Crap Batman! I have yet one more pill to take every dagum day, but it doesn't stop there. The doc suggested I try this stuff. I asked him if it worked and he said "Well, it might work...but it might not work, but if it works, you'll get over this thing faster....and if it doesn't, you haven't really lost anything, and at least you tried...so Good Luck!".

Thanks for the science lesson, doc. And for being no actual help.

So I'm taking the damn Zicam. And the antibiotic. Oh, and thanks to the antibiotic, since I've learned the hard way, I'm also taking this stuff:

Because when you take antibiotics, they will rip apart your digestive system and reek havoc on your girl parts, but taking probiotics help keep that monster at bay. Because I'm taking so many pills right now that even Charlie Sheen is looking at me like I need to find a good rehab facility! And I would just rather not deal with more nonsense in two weeks! And antibiotics can also cause thrush. Thrush does not like to go away either, trust me! So, I'll also be gargling with peroxide and warm salt water ~~and gasoline~~ to prevent that nonsense.

So if you take a probiotic with an antibiotic, do they cancel each other out?

No. The probiotic helps restore the balance that the antibiotic snatches from your body, so you don't get all those snitchy side effects ~~and want to return to the doc's office and stab him in the eye~~! But you should be prepared. Just in case. Because my science, ain't exact. And God has a sense of humor!

And I'll take any mommy advice you have for me because I need to be well! Rehearsals have begun on the upcoming play the six pack is in, and I'm in charge of six hundred extra curricular activities in the next several weeks. And remember that mental health day I was planning on taking? Well, that's gonna happen some time next week and I'd really rather NOT be stove up and damaged when I run away for the day!

So gimme some feedback or maybe just drop me a line and let me know all about your own sick nonsense because, like most of us, sick doesn't take much time off!

Peace,

Three Men Down

2011-03-25T07:59:00.000-05:00

Wednesday evening, the kids and I were checking on the baby chickens and turkeys ~~and stray dog~~s and noticed a little gimpy chick that needed some help. The six pack put the little fella in his own box so he'd survive and not be attacked by the others. That act sealed his fate.

Somehow, some dagum dog, maybe my own, got to the box and had a snack. We wouldn't find this out until later, and also, several of the chicks had gotten loose at one point and had to be rounded up. And it was just another day of me getting more wrinkles over baby farm animals and my six pack's nonsense, and I just don't have an ounce of the passion for these creatures that every single other person who lives here apparently does! And I am just wrong. And mean. And can't be dealt with.

So about 7:30 that evening, I get a phone call from my mom next door:

Nana: "Hey, I think that stray dog that lives here now... ate a baby chick".

Me: "Oh, no..(secretly smiles, one less bird!) how do you know?"

Nana: "I found the sick one just outside the garage, on the ground"

Me: "Well, it's not the first time, we'll have to be more careful"

Nana: "And I counted the chicks and we are missing two more. We're gonna have to do something with that dog!".

Me: "So we're down three chicks?" trying to sound concerned, but I'm not in this chicken cult my family seems to have joined, and I'm scared if I'm not concerned enough there will be an intervention.

So we get off the phone and I have to gather the crew and let them know. There's great sadness and I have to call in grief counselors and set our flags to half staff and plan a ceremony and remind my knuckleheads that they are chickens and not people.

And then I have to tell Mr. Green Jeans.

And I would rather be any place else. Because he l-o-v-e-s details! He wants all the insignificant nonsense of how something played out and I'd just rather open some wine and watch Food Network and not talk about freakin chickens...but I ~~am a hostage~~ live here.

Me: "Hey, Mom called, we're missing three chicks and at least one has been found, very dead."

Mr. GJ: "WHAT?? How did that happen?" and the fun part begins for me.

So I explain to him what I knew, and kinda made up the stuff I didn't, because he is in this chicken cult with my mom and kids and if I don't show enough enthusiasm, I have to drink the kool-aid.

And after I've shown sufficient enthusiasm, I tell him, I have had enough chicken talk for the night!

Me: "Look, Mr. Green Jeans..." (We always call each other by our proper names, we don't use sissy words like "Honey, Baby, or "Darling". We're a very serious people.) "What's done is done, and it's late, and they're chickens, and we have more, and we know where to buy even more, which I am sure you all will do the next time I turn my back, but I've really cared as much as I can, and I'd just like to go to bed because I have to get up at ridiculous o'clock tomorrow and let out the dagum chickens!"

Mr. GJ:  "I'm gonna go tell the kids how irresponsible it was for them to leave those animals where the dogs could get them."

Me: "Yes, please go tell your children, at bedtime, how their baby chicks that they care for everyday, are now dead and how it's all their fault".

And it kinda went downhill from there.   But he finally saw how unaffected I was, and that we will live through this dramatic time and overcome this tragedy. And so he grabbed a beer and settled in his recliner. And I got ready for bed and was done with chicken nonsense. Until....

"MAMA!!!!"

Me: "What's going on?"

Marsha Brady: "Hazel just threw up!". Lovely. It never, ever ends! Our dachshund had thrown up at bedtime before. She sometimes gets into the garbage or eats a pound of roots from the yard and I'm always the one on clean up duty. So I head in her room.

And what I saw then, will be burned in my memory for the rest of my days. She certainly had gotten sick, and rightly so.  My sweet little ten pound doggie had thrown up two young chicks! On Marsha Brady's bed. Right in front of Baby-Screams-a-Lot.   And not only did I get to clean up the carnage and change the bedding, ~~and wish I had joined a convent at age nineteen~~, but immediately I knew I would have to tell Mr. Green Jeans- and my mom. And I wondered if there would be a dog sentencing the next day. I just didn't think Hazel had it in her. But I think I love her even more now!

That being said, I don't know the exact point where I lost control over my life and woke up here, in this chaotic chicken cult, filled with stray dogs and dirty kids. and vomit. But something went terribly wrong. I must have zigged when I should have zagged. And now I'm stuck in the land of Oz and am the Wizard of Nonsense and I'm the only one who can clean up regurgitated baby chicks and shoo off the stray dogs and the next time anyone at this address asks me to start any more projects, I'm giving them a choice between the animals or MamaJulep. And I'm not real confident I'd be the winner.

Peace,

Getting Back on Track

2011-03-23T09:00:00.000-05:00

I gave birth to a bunch of wonderful, beautiful, darling slackers. They love to perform at the least common denominator and do just a little below what's expected of them. And I have to say, lately, their mama's kinda been there too. I'm tired. And out of wine. And I'd rather get in my time machine and ditch my long list of mommy chores for something more fun!

Today, a huge dumpster is being delivered to my address. I will be throwing ~~my kids in it~~ anything away that ain't fastened down. There will be tears and fits to be pitched. And the kids will complain too. But I am sick of looking at all this nonsense and I am sick of the daily beg-fest of asking them to not be sweathogs and not be disgusting. And not make me open a can of "Oh no you didn't!".

Remember my "Summer Boot Camp"? Well, we've all kinda fallen off the wagon, so before I set this place on fire, we're gonna roll up our sleeves and set things right. Or die trying. I have a few obstacles in my way...

My kids are slackers.
see number one.
I'd rather not do any of this.

But I have to get order. I have to get back on track. We begin rehearsals on our next play in five days! And when we do plays, there's just no down time. And when that play ends, we'll go right into another one we're already obligated to, and then, my oldest will be in still -another one beginning in late summer. So we're pretty decked out with play nonsense through September. And will have a two month break before the Christmas play starts up. "Hello. My name is Mamajulep. And my last name is Von Trapp".

Oh, and I homeschool. Remember that, Mamajulep? And homeschooling is not as romantic as it sounds and most days I'd just rather chuck them all in the nearest public school and go back home and take a nap.
And in just a few months, I'll become administrator of our local homeschool covering...awesome! And if you've ever been in charge of anything, like say- a hundred other crazy a$$ homeschooling families, you know that people can be bat$h*t crazy...especially homeschoolers. And the complaint calls have already started and the long list of nonsense has already made it to my plate, and I'm thinking I must have been on crystal meth when I agreed to that, and just needed a fix at the time.

Speaking of "needing a fix"...

Do not buy these.

They are as addictive as black tar heroin. And it is a complete joke that you can only eat thirteen of these in one serving. Someone who is supposed to love me, ~~tried to get me hooked~~ suggested I try these and I almost ate the whole bag in a matter of hours. Dear Mr. Quaker, get behind me satan- and take your wicked crisps with you! And I'm trying to stay on track and eat a little healthier and these things might not be bad for you-- if you only eat thirteen, but that just ain't gonna happen!

And watching what you eat and exercising is for the dagum birds!

And clearing out bedroom closets of mismatched socks and dried up play-doh, and matchbox cars is not where I want to be today. And sorting through weeks of mail flyers and credit card offers and bills, and more bills, ~~and disconnect notices~~ is not my idea of fun, but I know, hopefully, that when I'm done, I'll feel better about living in this crime scene of a house.

Until next month.

And April begins in nine days, so I've made it my mission to get back on track by then or else I'm running away from home. or joining a cult. or changing my name and joining the Witness Protection Program.

Peace,

Quietude

2011-03-22T09:47:00.001-05:00

Some years ago I came across this paint color called "Quietude", and a new word came into my vocabulary. It's kinda like "quiet" married "solitude" and sometimes when I really need peace, it's this word "Quietude" that always comes to mind.

Today was such a day.

Some time after breakfast I went for a "quietude" kind of walk, camera in hand. My world was spinning a little too fast and I needed to see beauty. And not hear Spongebob. Or fish anything out of the toilet. Or hear the word "chicken". I found out my little lilly garden was blooming.

How did I almost miss this? Spinning...spinning...spinning.

But not everything I found was beautiful...

Every dagum time I go in the chicken yard, those dingbats go after my shoestrings. And try to kill me. And make me fall in....well, you can imagine.
Have I told you I no longer have any baby birds in my house? They're in my mom's garage.

And the angels sang.

Quietude.

As I said, not everything I found this morning was beautiful, at least not to me.

My son, Rainman, has a "pet" crawfish living in a basin on my back porch. But he thinks it's beautiful, so I do too. I'm not sure what the crawfish thinks.

And I have a decaying deer head on my outdoor table...the table we eat on! But I didn't think you wanted a picture of it, just wanted to share.

Before I checked back in with the sweathogs, I walked down to our brown pond. And from a distance I could see one lovely piece of color, and it drew me in. And I stumbled upon this beauty...

And the world wasn't spinning so much.

So when the rooms are closing in a bit, and the laundry has more skidmarks than the Indianapolis 500, and you have to come up with something for dinner, again- that no one will like, find you some quietude in whatever form works for you....a phone call, a retreat, or maybe even a day away from the routine nonsense.

Because when you come back, if you're like me, your kids will likely resemble something like the seagulls from "Finding Nemo".

Wishing you quietude,

Living at the Movies

2011-03-21T08:23:00.000-05:00

This weekend my triplets had a birthday, which meant I had relatives falling out of the woodwork to visit. And since I wanted to keep everyone out of my dagum house, I made outside stuff to do. And got sunburned. Only on my front. The back of me still looks like a chalk drawing.

But it was gorgeous outside. So I took nine hundred shots of the sky.

And then I made a homemade Slip-n-Slide from some plastic sheeting and told the kids to "have at it".
Which they immediately did.

And I grabbed the first aid kit.
And double-checked the margarita supplies.

But while I was hangin' out with my sister Karen, we found out we both do something weird, and I'm guessing it ain't just us, so today, I'm sharing more nonsense here about how very weird I am. And how my kids have inherited it from me. But I'm pretty confident you do this too, and I'd love to hear your stories.

Here's the deal...

My kids and I love movies, have favorites, and love to quote from them. After awhile, you kinda start putting movie quotes in your real life because you can't separate nonsense from nonsense, so when we have a situation that needs it, rather than coming up with our own comeback, we use movie lines. So when my kids ask me something they already know I'm gonna say "NO" to, or if they do something super smart, like put the toddler in the chicken yard like it's a dang Pack-n-Play, I say, "Are you HIGH Clairee?" and they get it.

We L-O-V-E the movie "Signs", but we don't see it as a science fiction, scary, alien movie. For us, it's a comedy. After you've seen it a kazillion times, that happens. Remember the scene in the car with the baby monitor, where Joaquin Phoenix's character tells the little girl how this is a hoax because of a bunch of nerds -who can't get girlfriends- and goes on to explain his theory of the hoax, and all the little girl says at the end is "Why can't they get girlfriends?"....so anytime someone ain't exactly following along, they get this one. It's in our every day conversation. Here's some others we like to use...

"I'm insane with anger!" (Signs)

"I am Gandalf and you shall not pass!" (Lord of the Rings)

"You've ruined it, you stupid hobbit!" (Lord of the Rings)

"Run Forrest, RUN!" (Forrest Gump)

So you get the idea. And if you do this, or some other weirdness, put it in the comments section so we can all get through another Monday!

But before you do, I wanted to share a quick dish with you. You know I rarely do recipes here, it's just not necessary when you have folks like Pioneer Woman who does it all for you! But I made one of my favorite salads yesterday when my relatives came back over, and it's easy and not bad for you and I just felt like sharing.

My pal Lisa brought her crew over one day last summer and she made this salad and I made homemade pizzas. If you like asian flavors, check it out.

Get you some greens, whatever you like. All I had was iceberg yesterday, but I love spinach and other stuff in it when my hobbits haven't eaten all my groceries. Put in some cooked chicken breast chunks. Fried is tasty but it doesn't help you stay in your skinny jeans, so I like baked. I keep cold, baked chicken in my fridge almost all the time. Now, grab a pack of ramen noodles and break 'em up all over because you'll love the crunchiness later.

If you have no aversion to fruit in a salad, grab some mandarin oranges, smaller is best, and chunk'em in there to your liking. Then, if you're like me and like to take things a bit too far, throw in some sliced almonds. And get a manicure before you take pictures of your hand!

And grab something that resembles this...

And keep it handy when the plates come out. And you will not be sorry.

Mama did not eat the country-style buffet my mom made for lunch. But I did eat three helpings of this stuff over the course of the day. And miraculously, I had zero margaritas.

And I can't help myself...

From The Addams Family....

Uncle Fester: Dementia, what a beautiful name.
Dementia: It means "insanity."
Uncle Fester: My name is Fester. It means "to rot".

Joel: Wednesday, do you think that maybe someday you might want to get married and have kids? Wednesday: No.
Joel: But what if you met the right man, who worshiped and adored you? Who'd do anything for you? Who'd be your devoted slave? Then what would you do?
Wednesday: I'd pity him.

I hope you have a great start to the week...I'm off to blow off my list of responsibilities and watch The Addams Family. Again.

Peace,

Born Crazy

2011-03-16T10:08:00.000-05:00

Today, I was awakened, at ridiculous o'clock, by the sound of a pack of squeaking baby turkeys.

Turkey pot pie just got put on the lunch menu.

And while it was still dark, I had two girls out in the chicken yard. With flashlights. They were getting them out of their coop and feeding them and probably rocking them back to sleep and covering them with little chicken sized blankets and reading them stories.

"Girls, please get a life. Mommy's worried. Oh, and they're damned chickens...not puppies. I love you, Mama"

I hope my six pack have avoided the nonsense in my gene pool. They already have so much stacked against them! I don't need more crazy. I have some relatives who are not normal folks. The "normal" setting doesn't even register on the radar. If you knew me in the real world, you would ask yourself, how in the world did I not end up on the Jerry Springer show?! or Oprah. Or CNN ~~in an orange jumpsuit~~. Close friends who know my mess have already tried and failed to figure it out. I cannot explain how one bloodline can be so whacked out, it just happens around me. And it ain't the garden variety "crazy" like the uncle who keeps a stash of fast food ketchup packs in his pockets and talks to himself in the mirror. It's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" kinda crazy!

For instance, I have an uncle who doesn't believe we have been to the moon. You know, the place we first visited over forty years ago, have footage of and soil samples and moon rocks and documentaries about and everything. You can even read about it in actual history books! I don't know how he explains that we have live feeds from the space station (that I guess doesn't exist in his world) but we can't seem to make it to the moon, which orbits pretty dang nearby! I'm not sure what he thinks NASA does with all its time and who those folks are we keep seeing in the control tower and what those guys in the jumpsuits do, but there's no telling him differently. It's all a big hoax, because the government is so dang smart...right? And has nothing better to do. But I can't seem to get a replacement copy of my social security card without going through ten different people, and using several languages. But the government can handle this moon thing.

When I was in high school, I was invited to a bay house with a nice family for a weekend. That Sunday evening I visited my whacked out relatives, and told a cousin about how I much fun I had watching sunsets and sailing. The next day, my mom came and yanked me out of school and drove me straight to my grandmother's house. We needed to chat. Apparently another crazy uncle just made up a story for fun and told my grandmother I'd spent the weekend partying with a bunch of frat boys and getting loaded...I was fourteen at the time! And was a proper Catholic school girl. Who didn't even know what a frat boy was. or how to properly get "loaded". It was 1981. This kind of storytelling was rampant in my world. Still is. After awhile, you kinda overlook it. and pretend you're adopted. or were taken hostage.

So after my grandmother died a few months ago, it was no surprise the storytelling would commence. Since then, I've been accused of killing her "prematurely" (she was in her nineties, had advanced dementia, was wheelchair bound in a nursing home, and died a natural death-an obvious fact for normal folks, right?...but we ain't talkin' normal here!). Several of us apparently also robbed her of her assets (four years of nursing home care equals no money left in the bank folks!), and now, apparently, three of her offspring are not even really siblings. Two of her offspring have decided the other three offspring are not actually products of the marriage of my grandparents (grandma was apparently used to pay off debts--WHA?? Who makes this crap up about their own mama?). This is all because Dumb and Dumber decided we're hoarding a bunch of money and should have no right to any assets of her estate, seeing as we aren't related, really... (which if you remember right, her estate value equals zero, which divided by five, still equals zero!). And they've even contacted the FBI about the matter. Oh yes, these folks are that crazy! Because the FBI apparently cares about the genealogy of our family.

I hope you get that I'm not being snitchy and airing dirty laundry. These folks are not part of my life. I keep a serious distance from them ~~so I don't catch whatever it is they have!~~  I'm telling you this so you know people like this really exist and you should be afraid because they vote and drive and live among us like normal people. And because I think it's pretty damned funny! But I'm not that interested in hearing all the tales of the next chapter of "Dumb and Dumber Plan a Lawsuit". And some of my family wants to know why I'm not interested in discussing this nonsense. Perhaps it's because I live in reality and not inside an episode of "Real Housewives of the Whacked-Out and Disturbed".

And there are times, when this part of my family gets together because we have to-like at a funeral! and it's like watching an episode of COPS where you get a front row seat and cover your babies' ears and wish you could go back in time and not show up for the third wedding of your uncle's wife's stepson's daughter and do I even know you? And suddenly, staying home and spending the day cleaning chicken pens and turning compost piles ain't lookin' too bad!   And there's little, stupid nonsense, where grown folks act like they're thirteen and you look at them and sorta see a grown person but then talk to them and realize they ain't right in the head and you tell your kids to stay in the car and don't ask Mommy any questions "why" right now.

I told you before, at the funeral, a cousin would not speak to me. I tried to be polite and be normal so she can see what that looks like. It's not like we had a falling out. We're nothing to each other. She just decided not to speak to me and ignore me when I spoke to her. And remember the storytelling? So she goes around and tells folks that I won't speak to her...????  And I'm forty-three, and so is she, and I'm not in study hall passing notes about who kissed my boyfriend. I'm at our grandmother's funeral!  It doesn't help her case that she always dresses like Johnny Cash. Even my knuckleheads are like "What in the hell is she wearing Mama?". "I don't know babies, just look the other way, it might be catching!".

And this week I've heard way too much about these bat$h*t crazy folks- even when I cover my ears and sing "They're Coming to Take Me Away" because my family thinks I need to know this and will not shut up about it. Even Mr. Green Jeans is fascinated. So I just sit and look at them all, like this...

And my brain hurts and I wish I could bleach them out of my memory or take that dagum pill of Morpheus' and go back to before I knew the stuff I know. And the turkey squawking is stamped in my brain.
And I did something really, really stupid this week that has taken a toll on me.

I have a thing for kerosene lamps. I collect them. I love their ambient light and I'm a romantic and the nostalgia makes me smile. When you live with turkeys, you take beauty where you can find it! But I don't have eighty hundred of them. I have like a dozen. And they have to be old and real and not from Walmart! And we do have hurricanes in my world so they actually get used. So I had one in my laundry room with the dagum chicks and fifty thousand loads of laundry. And apparently, the kerosene spilled on something of mine, something tiny, okay? And I made the monumental mistake of washing it in my machine with a load of towels...which all now smells like kerosene. And my next load of laundry also smelled like kerosene. And I don't know what to do about this. My last attempt was to run the washer with just detergent and vinegar, but I'm scared to wash anything in it. I wonder if the turkeys want a bath?

If your relatives are as insane as mine, know you aren't the only Marilyn Munster in the world. I've already decided that if my peeps come home today and worry about this nonsense, I'm plugging into my ipod and going for a long walk ~~and I may never come back~~. Now I have to go shoo fifteen dogs that don't belong to me off my back porch so I can get the squawkers out of my freakin' house for a few hours. And clean kerosene out of everything I own. And find my ibuprofen. And explain again to my girls that chickens are ugly and not puppies.

Peace,

Monday

2011-03-14T09:54:00.001-05:00

The weekend left me a little whipped. I never write about Mondays because when you're doin' what us mama's do, everyday can feel like a Monday! Yesterday was rough for many reasons, one of them being that my toddler redecorated one of our sofas. I especially like the blue outline of the trim, don't you? She has hidden talents. I'm just not sure if art is one of them! Or interior design. But honestly, this didn't do me in. It's an old sofa and I just don't care. So I'll throw an old quilt on it until my kids go to college ~~or until I set it on fire~~, because I ain't buying any more furniture for them to destroy. And they don't care. These are the same folks who will leave the dog's accident sitting by the back door like it's some kinda damn keepsake!

Just keep it up fellas.
Thanksgiving is in 255 days!

And the baby chickens and turkeys are still living in my house. And I'm thinking of moving out! Anyone have a room to rent? The baby chicks are not so loud, but they stink, like a septic tank. The turkeys are in a separate cage because they step all over the little chicks even though there are only four of them, but those four ~~horsemen of the apocalypse~~ make ten times the noise the chicks make and they never, ever shut-up! Think of those squeak toys you give little dogs to play with- the high pitched kind...now think about squeaking them non-stop! Now think about doing this with four of them at once! This is what my house sounds like every minute of the dagum day. All while smelling like a septic tank. Mama is getting done with the baby animals!

But Saturday I got a hall pass and got to run away for a few hours! I have a cousin who's like a brother to me. We both grew up in the same neighborhood and with the same whacked out hostage situation, because his mom and my dad were siblings and let's just say I'm glad their parents stopped at the two of them because they were both bat$h*t crazy! (God love 'em). So he and I got together and had a photo shoot of he and his kids and of us and of anyone who wanted to join in. And it was a big pile of grown up nonsense and my ribs still hurt today from laughing!

And it made me realize I need to get away from my six pack more than I do, and even from Mr. Green Jeans a bit, because I've lost connections from people in my life that I love more than I can say, and it does all of us good to remember we have a slew of people who will love us if we just let them.

But today...today I have to figure out how to disguise my sofa, and get the stink out of my laundry room, and make teeny-tiny muzzles the size of baby turkey beaks, and do ten hundred sit-ups. Because I was reminded today that summer is coming and I still have to wear a swimsuit this year! But I also found out that Spanx now makes swimsuits, oh, even yesser!

Peace,

And I was also reminded that unlike Saturday, I am not off today!

Me and Mother Nature

2011-03-11T10:15:00.002-06:00

Classic example of ageless beauty,
Diane Keaton

I always thought I'd be one of those women who age gracefully, who embraces where she is in life and doesn't get worked up about getting older, and having a few wrinkles or some geographic landmarks heading south! And I'd like to think I am such a woman. Of course I thought that when I was in my twenties! It's not an age thing. I'm forty-three. I never mind telling folks my age. And forty-four is just a few months away. I kinda feel like I'm in pretty good shape considering what this body has done. And I hate it when I get a compliment that sounds like a backdoor apology at a compliment, like this..."You look great!....considering...." Considering? Considering what? Then they continue..."considering how old you are...considering you have six kids...considering you had triplets". What's with the considering? So do I have some hall pass on my appearance because of where I am in life? Why can't they ever leave it at "You look great!"? Dumb oxes!
But, like you I bet, I'm heading into the future geared up with an arsenal of products, interventions and bifocals! I'm not taking this lying down, but it is dagum ridiculous the stuff we have to go through just to keep up! So seeing as we're all in this boat together, I wanna share my routine here, just so ya know, it ain't just you. And if you're not there yet, go take some pictures of you ~~without bifocals and support hose~~, and enjoy it now, then get a notepad and pen and come back here and take notes because you will be here, eventually.

I have a whole arsenal of products to keep my skin from resembling a shedding desert reptile. I did my own research a couple of years ago. I watched a program on public tv one night and decided I needed to get with the program or I'd wake up looking like Betty Davis before I knew it. I got online and researched what everything was, from Coenzyme Q-10 to Vitamin B-3, what they were, what they did, what proportions were needed, what products to find them in and how to make them all work for me. I did the same with my vitamins. I found that there's not a simple "take this pill" fix, so I am forever tweaking my routine, and I fall off the wagon more than I don't. I will tell you that anything by Olay is one of your best bets in skin care for the money.
And that if you still have good hair, enjoy it! Because mine is held together by my awesome hair stylist who I only see twice a year because he likes to get paid, so when I see him this April 13th *I won't miss because he is always booked for three months* I will make the most of it. Grey hairs may be able to be covered up with a hundred dollar foil job, but it still acts like grey hair and wants to dance on top of the rest of your hair and mock you and have a mind of its own and never be still without endless more products you never thought you'd use!

All this means that I am forever applying something to my body and I am always looking for my products on sale because they ain't cheap, and the six pack wants things like bread and milk and Nintendo games. And I am addicted to chapstick. I have a whole slew of lipcare nonsense within armshot at any given time.
I'll take the regular chapstick when nothing else is around. It's kinda like eating generic corn flakes. It gets the job done but it's not the same! I like the medicated Blistex because it feels like it's actually doing something for you and not just sitting there like it's black and white friend. The flavored crap is at the bottom of my list and only used when I can't find my other ten hundred tubes, because Baby-Screams-A-Lot enjoys taking the tops off my chapstick and leaving the tube to get all nasty and gross with pieces of trash and garbage to collect in it. And the flavored stuff is only around because my crew use it, and I hate it. Carmex in the jar is for emergency use only because it's rather greasy but it takes care of business. Now, the Blistex Deep Renewal is the bomb! I found it when I was doing my research because it actually has stuff you need in it, but also, it feels like heaven on your lips! It's the last thing I do before I go to bed. I live the life you only dream of, right?

I don't think you will find a more passionate blog post about chapstick...aren't you glad you came by today? Moving on!

I have to take vitamins at different times of the day because of how they work together. This doesn't always work out because I also have a bunch of kids, baby farm animals living in my house, a neighborhood of stray dogs lined up at my back door to trip over, three gardens of vegetables to plant and keep up with, a chicken yard of manic chickens that untie your shoes every time you gather eggs, and I have ten hundred loads of laundry and dishes to do. Everyday.
I'm a little distracted.
But I found out since I'm a short and stumpy white girl, I need a little more of this and a little less of that, and apparently my bones will snap in two in a few years, and a multi-vitamin is a joke and will never keep me going. But I do take one everyday. Along with a baby aspirin. And extra calcuim. And more magnesium. And a vitamin D supplement. And fish oil. Am I leaving anything out?

When I was young and didn't appreciate what I had, I was one of those snitches who could eat anything I wanted and never gain a pound. That all came crashing down about seven years ago. And when you're only about five feet tall, a few pounds gained will change your dress size. And make you reach for more wine, which will also change your dress size -damn it all! So I have to change how I look at food and I have to move my body in some way to exercise and I am supposed to be using weights because I'm told petite folks break when they're older if they don't tend to their bones. And it is all very exhausting.

So we do all this, and still...we get dressed and can't seem to make it work sometimes. My idea of getting ready to go out in the world involves an infrastructure any engineer would be impressed with. After having my triplets I kissed my flat stomach goodbye, coupled with the fact that all seven of my kids came out pop-up toaster style and after awhile the doc considered just putting a zipper there. I have to hide this with my Spanx ~~and duct tape~~. and use a wonderbra that really does need to work like magic. The doc told me last week I could do all the sit ups in the world but nothing would fix my midline-or anything else, like plastic surgery. And that is not an option in my universe. And I kinda don't want it to be. But knowing I'm doing everything I can to take care of myself sorta makes all that okay. It could be a whole. lot. worse!

Raise your hands if you've had a c-section.
Or nursed a litter of kids.
Raise your hands if you remember wearing swimsuits.
I have to wear one in a few months...in public...and I'm sweating a little.

But as we deal with Mother Nature and all her snitchiness, we also have to remember what we've accomplished with these ragged, stove up, mommy-bodies and know that each c-section scar means you have a baby (or three) to hold and love. Each wrinkle is another year you've lived your life and loved and made memories. Each grey hair means you've lived long enough to actually use the wisdom you've gained, which is a peace in itself.
So keep fighting the battle of wrinkles and pounds, but keep the big picture in mind too, that none of it matters if you aren't living the life you want that brings you joy. And really, all this body image stuff is really nonsense. Because the people who love you will never say that you look great....considering...

Peace,

Nonsense At The Wholesale Club

2011-03-10T12:01:00.000-06:00

Sam's trip from way back. Don't ask when or how.
My brain went into fight or flight mode on those days.

About every two weeks I make a trip to Sam's Club, where I buy things like twenty-five pound bags of rice, jars of pickles as big as my toddler, and a kazillion loaves of bread. Maybe there's no Sam's where you live, maybe it's Costco or one of those other ginormous stores that houses vats of supplies for the end of the world. And whenever I go, I always take the whole crew, always have- as I've said here before, because it's just easier than dealing with all the questions.

"Why can't I go?", "How come he gets to go?", "How long is this gonna take?" (Mr. Green Jeans- who doesn't want to babysit his own kids sometimes-can't really blame him!). So I've kinda got myself to blame. But my kids aren't the biggest hemorrhoid when it comes to shopping at Sams. It's mostly the ~~jackholes~~ patrons that cause me to ~~want to kill~~, ~~need a tranquilizer~~, have some elevated stress on my shopping trips. Here's the skinny...

The Check-In (or Gestapo Check Point #1)

After you've wrestled and loosened your buggies and your kids have all ~~fought~~ decided who is driving which one, you get stopped at the door by the gestapo wanting to see fifteen forms of ID- as if only celebrities are allowed in this special place and not just anyone who pays a thirty-five dollar fee! And they finally decide to let you pass, you enter the land of Oz, where you can see just about anything, so you aren't surprised when there's a show in the middle of the store between the chicken wings and the Colon Blow.

The Bumper Car Game

Once you do get to fill your buggies, you better not need anything or have a question or need to deal with anyone with a blue vest because they are all busy closing off aisles you can't shop in so they can fill them with more toilet paper and antifreeze and they could care less if you need to check out an ipod. And if you think you see one of them, it won't be for long, as they get all cloaked like Frodo in "Lord of the Rings" and you wonder if you're dreaming or actually having a nightmare-where you are stuck in Sams and can't get out. and you brought all your kids along with you.

So you grab all your loot and shush your kids and tell them "No, you can't have that!" about eighty hundred times and you spend much of your trip standing still because Berta and Sharon are having a high school reunion in the middle of the coffee aisle. And it all gets maddening until you get to the wine department.

And here is where I get serious for a minute...

There is a winery I found called "Kathryn Kennedy Winery" and their wine is sold in Sams. I won't be purchasing any wine from them, because it's a little above my budget for wine.

But, for my fortieth birthday a few years back, I thought it would be fun to get me a bottle.

The signature wine called "Kathryn Kennedy" sold at Sams for $119 a bottle! "No, thank you" can't justify that expense, even for my birthday. So, I contacted the winery and asked if I could purchase just an empty bottle, in remembrance of my big day, to keep as a novelty in my kitchen-pretty please?!

Those wonderful souls sent me my empty bottle as I asked,

but after they labeled it, they even corked it, and sent it to me, free. Compliments of the winery.

If it is within your means, I enthusiastically recommend them to you!

Back to the rant...

The Moochers

While shopping for groceries and shampoo and bug repellent, you also get to work through a maze of giveaways, especially on a Friday afternoon. Not only do they cram the place with mini stations of samples of all kinds of nonsense you probably would never have bought otherwise, but they even have whole meals set up for you to sample. And crazy a$$ people line up at these things like they are giving away damn money! So they wait twenty minutes to get a taste of a Mrs. Paul's fishstick or a granola snack or a sausage ball. Wha?? Because it's free? I cannot get past this folks. And of course all six of my kids are screaming at these stations like it's freakin' Mardi Gras and they will miss out if they don't get that tiny sample cup of cheese crackers and tuna. But if I actually brought home and made the cheese crackers and tuna, they'd all say "bleh".

The Check-Out (or Gestapo Check Point #2)

Once you have your fifteen buggies of nonsense, you get to unload everything and reload it at the check out. The thing is, there's a football field length of check outs but only three of them are open and no one is interested in you getting in their line with all your buggies and sweathogs and food samples dripping off your toddler. But you finally snag one and bust three of your vertebrae getting all your junk out of the buggy, but before you can check out, she wants to see your Sam's ID- again! Because you may have slipped past the first check point and may be trying to pull something over on Mr. Sam! Groceries are groceries. They really do not need to know who buys what. It's just one more thing to do and it seems like I will never get out of this store. But I finally get checked out and we magically push several heavy buggies the length of a football field to the magic doors to get our arses out of there. Only to be stopped. Again.

Check Point #3

These folks are hard core about making sure you don't pull one over on them. They act like they have the golden cow and you are trying to steal it- piece by piece. So they stop you at the door, demanding to see a receipt, one that will cover several buggies and they look over your receipt, and look over your loot as if they're from the Department of Immigration and you might have some illegals in your vehicle and we're just not gonna have any of that at the Sam's Club!

And when you finally get you and your crew out of the store, you still ain't done with their nonsense, because I'll bet you ten holes in a doughnut some jackhole is parked right in front of the store because they're too special to walk to their dagum car-like you have to, so you have to maneuver four enormously heavy buggies, a six pack of knuckleheads, and your sanity around their ginormous pick-up, careful not to let your crew bash into it as they round the corner. And our Sams has a little hill, which makes it super fun when you have two hundred pound buggies comin' down a hill, toward your car and those of strangers-who actually like their cars, being steered by a bunch of ten year olds, who think it'd be fun to race.

And there's no gentlemen left in the world, and everyone is out for himself, and no one cares about the short, stumpy woman with ~~the pack of wild animals~~ six kids trying to get everyone and everything loaded in the prison bus. They only care if they can get your parking spot if you'd just move it a little faster lady! Oh, and would you move those buggies first? And just when I get in the driver's seat, start my car, put me in some Journey or Elton John, I hear the same thing every time..."I'm hungry...can we get something to eat?".

And tomorrow, I'm due for a Sam's trip. And I'd pretty much rather have a root canal. Or a colonoscopy.

Peace,

Gloom, Despair, Agony and Dora

2011-03-09T09:42:00.000-06:00

It is a gloomy day here at my address. "Gloomy" is a bit of an understatement. I have to face things I don't want to face, and it's like the weather is playing with my head. "Gloom, despair, and agony on me..." (Can you name that show?).

Don't believe me? Here's a shot from my coffee time this morning.

And this shot was taken before the hell and brimstone started playing its game with me. And Lent begins today.

For you heathens out there, that means I have to sacrifice things I love and embrace things that are hard and give up pleasures that bring me joy. And Mama's pleasures are pretty slim as it goes! And it's just not the best place to begin forty days of doing without.

Today's "Happy-Fun Day" in Mamajulep's house.

Can you feel the love? (Can you name that artist?)

Apparently, it's also trivia day around here too.

But I will be distracted by the usual nonsense.

Like having ten hundred cut up potatoes strewn across my dining room table.

Potatoes that were supposed to make it in the ground yesterday, but still take up residence in my house ~~like everything else around here!~~ I have a super-sized dining room table, but you cannot see the surface for all the cut up spuds, which Mr. Green Jeans placed there yesterday. Apparently they have to live there until they are dry enough to plant. And they kinda stink. Or maybe it's this other thing...

Because I still have these jokers living in the next room.

Just multiply these fellas times ten, or twenty, or six million- because it feels more like that! Anyone else hungry for dumplings? (and forgive my gnarly man hands--holding wiggly farm animals ain't my speed!)

In an effort to de-funk my house, I tried to clean out the fireplace this morning, and found this.

Apparently, someone in the "Loving Family" household, wasn't so "loving". I don't know if this was a suicide pact or mob hit, but just know, the man was only a few inches away. No more "Sopranos" for the six pack!

So on this thunder-ey day, when I'd much rather be in bed because that is the only thing to do when it thunders!-- I'll be pushing through all that is homeschool-ey and housewif-ey, and I'm gonna have to get intimate with this fella to make it. Mr. Bunn, I hope you're up to it! And I hope I didn't give up coffee for Lent because I may already be in the hole. Great!

As I sit here, rain is beating against my window like crazy, and I'm waiting on that damn tree from Poltergeist to barge in and get me even more worked up. Sheets of wind and rain are racing across the fields outside my clouded window, and I think I saw a cow flying across the road.

Oh! And the dagum stray dogs are scared to death and are howling at the back door, so every time one of my knuckleheads open the door to check on them, they barge in...oh yes sir! Right up to the box holding a batch of baby chicks and turkeys, lying in wait, saying "Are you my Mother?".

So this Ash Wednesday is gonna be a tough one, at least for me. But I'll make it, like always. I'll fight the temptation to join the gal in the fireplace and will get me some joy and make the day better than its beginning.

And I'll do so, in spite of the fact that Baby Screams-A-Lot has become infatuated with Dora - mega-infatuated! and Mama is getting really sick of sitting and dealing with Dora and all her nonsense. Why can't that stupid girl ever find anything all by herself?

Dora: "Help me find the puffy flowers! Do YOU see the puffy flowers? Where?"

"Oh, No! Do you see Swiper? Where?"

They're right freakin next to you, you dumb@$$!! I hope that freakin fox steals your voicebox! And gives you a Chuck Norris roundhouse while he's at it! And where the hell is your mother? Cause she ain't never around when $h*t is going down. Is she a crackhead?

But I have a new therapy to deal with Dora. Last night, while six hundred episodes of Dora played in my bedroom, I lied down all snuggly with my babe and patiently let her get her Dora fix, while I was plugged into my ipod and listened to some really beautiful music that fed my soul. And we were both happy.

And I'm thankful today for my lifelines of Mr. Bunn and my ipod and all that keeps me sane in the face of nonsense. Because I'm gonna need it, especially since I was just informed that Baby-Screams-a-Lot just peed...in Mr. Green Jeans' favorite chair!

Peace,

Outnumbered

2011-03-07T08:46:00.001-06:00

Saturday, another dagum stray dog showed up here. That makes umpteen that I now have sleeping on my back porch, running through my gardens and dirty'ing up my six pack. But the dogs have taken a back seat to "critters that outnumber me", because on Saturday, while I was innocently out to lunch with my oldest babe, my family conspired against me, to challenge my sanity even more.

I got back from lunch and found this in my family room.

It's a giant box of nonsense!

Sixteen baby chickens came home with them from the feed store, along with four baby turkeys (the spotted ones). And I was informed they have to live inside my house until they get big enough to live with the adults. Wha?? All I did was go to Olive Garden for one hot meal and I come home to this?

And they tell me I won't have to do a thing, but let me tell you...it's Monday, and those blankety-blank adults who purchased these creatures have gone to work for the day, and Mama's here to deal with nineteen baby birds! And six kids. And umpteen stray dogs. And the wine is all gone. And let me tell you, nineteen baby birds can be pretty freakin' loud! Nineteen chirping, pooping, baby birds! Inside my house. Did I mention they are in my house?

I was up late Saturday night, watching a romance movie...alone. It was my anniversary. Please don't gush. I can feel the jealousy from here. Mr. Green Jeans was wiped out. So I'm up, getting all wrapped up in Keanu Reeves and his nonsense, when every. five. minutes. I have to stop my time with Keanu to try and shut up the squawking chicks in the next room. I like peace and quiet ~~and being able to watch a movie uninterrupted~~, especially during my "me" time. You'd think I would have adjusted to noise by now. But I'm stubborn and I don't learn well.

And some body's got to change the paper today. And if you've ever changed the paper in a birdcage, please don't complain to me because you ain't seen nothin' until you've done this diaper duty! I did not sign up for this, and if I could stand it, I'd hold out til tomorrow.

Because, where I live, tomorrow is a major holiday. The city will be shut down. No mail. Most people close up shop. It's Mardi Gras day tomorrow. And Mr. Green Jeans will be home all day. He's already asked for a bullet list of all the wonderful chores we get to do tomorrow. And I'm thinking of sleeping in. So if you don't hear from me tomorrow, know that it's probably because I'm knee deep in compost. Or something much, much grosser.

Peace,
The Chicken Whisperer

Reasons I Need to Go Back To Bed

2011-03-04T12:19:00.001-06:00

Is there a full moon right now?

Have hallucinogens been released in the atmosphere?

Am I in some real version of "The Twilight Zone"?

My kids are absolute apeshack today! They've lost what little sense they have and Mama's about to have a great big adult beverage ~~for~~ with lunch! We had plans to go out in the world today and be around real people and act like we have social skills. And I was gonna actually talk to another adult during the daylight hours! I have not left this house in three days! That's three days of just me and the inmates. Three days of "Can I have a snack?", "It's not fair" and "He pooted on me!". And keeping them on task and in the house is like putting the ants back in the ant bed.

They keep sneaking outside to play with all the godforsaken stray dogs that have taken up residence with me. I wish their owners would come get them ~~and keep them~~! Is there some kind of doggy child support I can get from this? Because they are here more than they are gone. And I just own the one dog and my mom just has her one, because we do not want to start a pound. And my kids would love nothing more.

And if there's not a dog, there's the baby turtle nonsense and the constant badgering to tell some kid to get out of the chicken coop for the ten hundredth time, because they are also not pets! And no one is hearing me today because they are all Mr. Magoo and living in their own worlds. And I am just stupid Mommy.

As I said, we were supposed to go out into the world. But Mama had enough of telling everyone forty ten hundred times to do what I said, so I went Eunice on all of them and now we are staying put. Now they all think I'm a snitch because I had the nerve to put my foot down and told them what for and how it's gonna be and they're probably all in their rooms making dolls of me and sticking big pins in them. But at least they stopped. And I can breathe again. Even Baby Screams a Lot joined in. She refuses to wear clothes today, or a diaper, or behave. And her favorite thing to say is "I don't want to do dat!".

And the day has been a wash out since my feet hit the floor and I'd like to hit CTRL/ALT/DEL on the whole morning and give my kids to gypsies and get a taser gun for the canines and maybe run away and hide or at least go back to bed. Here's a sample. I'm guessing you've visited this episode of "The Twilight Zone".

I could not find my favorite pair of jeans today. The ones I wear as a uniform almost every day. I spent half my morning routine tearing up my house trying to find them, until I finally did. Mr. Green Jeans had put them in his laundry. The day my jeans also fit him is the day I get me some good antidepressants. And a case of diet pills.
Baby Screams a Lot performed a great scene from "One Flew Over The Cukoos Nest" as five of us tried to dress her and couldn't manage to get one leg inside a pair of pants. PS: She won. Clothing is overrated.
I have gotten no less than twelve text messages today, letting me know I have won something or have the opportunity of a lifetime if I will only text them back. I don't know what list in hell I have gotten on, but the random texts are starting to work my nerves and I'm thinking maybe I don't need that phone anymore. And if I knew who was sending them, I'd bring out Joy to help me out!

But I am hopeful that with the weekend comes some peace. Or at least with other adults around, I'll have a little support. But not soon enough. I still have to survive the next few hours. Until then I'll continue my Sergeant Carter act. And try and focus on the fact that just like every other day, bedtime will eventually come. Eventually. Did I say "eventually"?

Peace,

Mental Health Day

2011-03-03T09:51:00.000-06:00

By the time I became a teenager, I had this deal with my mom. I could occasionally skip school and stay home alone, eat a box of oreos, watch Luke and Laura make-out on "General Hospital" and play my Foreigner Four album as loud as I wanted, because everyone else would be at school or work. I was the oldest of three girls and I had more responsibility than the typical oldest kid, and she knew that. It's just how we were. So when I needed one of those days off, I'd tell my mom I needed a "Mental Health Day" and she totally got it! It would be a regular thing for us throughout my teen years and beyond. And I L-O-V-E my MHD's! It's like the complete opposite of GroundHog Day, but comes much less often! Damn Groundhog! And Ferris Beuler's got nothin' on me, because I know how to do it right!

I very enthusiastically suggest you incorporate this into your life. Basically, you get a free pass from all that is mommy and wife and church lady and raffle ticket queen and math equations and potty training and peeling potatoes and wiping boogers. And you just get to be with you (and anyone else you think might make your day!). And there's no questions asked, no checking in. You just disappear. And you can't run errands or have the car serviced or bring home dinner.

As far as having a boatload of responsibilities, like you, I live life daily between can and can't do, and I add more things to my list than I cross off. And lately my boat is so full, it's about to sink. So my mom and I devised a plan, and I'm gonna have a Mental Health Day sometime next month, because life wouldn't let me schedule it sooner. But that just means I have time to plan. So I'm gonna disappear for the day ~~and I may never come back~~.

And I'm so excited, I don't think it will ever get here! I love my sweathogs like crazy, but if I don't shed them for a few hours, they're gonna have a broken mama to deal with. And I ain't cheap to fix! And I kinda feel the same way about Mr. Green Jeans, because he decompresses much differently that I do. His idea of recharging involves actual work! Like, digging holes in the ground and dropping potato seeds and running tillers and tractors all over the place, and then watering freshly plowed dirt patches for ten hundred hours. By hand! "No thank you Honey", I think I'll just slip off somewhere and have a manicure and a massage and maybe sit in a sauna until my sweat glands dry up. For lunch, I'll eat something I actually want to eat, and it will only be served at room temperature if it is supposed to be, and not because I had to let it sit there while I wiped up something stinky and nasty or put out a dog fight between my kids, who are not actual dogs!

My last MHD was --count 'em - four years ago! When I went shopping for a day with some of my favorite gal pals. And it was fun and I never thought about my knuckleheads and I had a hot meal and a late afternoon adult beverage and I laughed so hard my face hurt. And it rejuvenated my soul and reminded me that I have things I enjoy doing, even if I don't get to do them very often.

I don't really have my day planned yet. There's something exciting and fun about not planning, but I will be doing things I enjoy that day...I assure you! But if you have any ideas, any suggestions, any warnings, send them my way. Because after my MHD, I probably won't get to bust outta this joint again for a very, long time. So I gotta make the most of it.

And I want you to figure out your own MHD and take off and relax and remember who you are and what you like and get you some peace and put a smile on your face because if you don't do it, no one else will!

And as much as I love ya, this is what you'll see on my day off...

Peace,

Day Number 4,253

2011-03-02T10:02:00.000-06:00

Good Morning Folks.

Happy Groundhog Day!

It's not Groundhog Day?

Are you sure?

Shizzle!

I woke up to day number 4,253 where I do the exact same thing I did the day before. I got up, surveyed this crime scene of a house, and started looking for matches. The thought of picking through all the nonsense spread out in this place, makes me want to crawl in bed and suck my thumb. I just can't face it. I'm thinking of going out to the shop, grabbing a heavy duty rake, the Shop-Vac, and a torch. Or call the "Hoarders" folks. And my mommy. Here are my issues:

Laundry

I've told you before, we have a system for laundry where Mama is NOT supposed to do her children's laundry. I spent last summer teaching them how to do all that is laundry, but the thing is, I still have to actually tell them they need to do it. I've met my kids, I know they are capable of understanding the concept of "full" and "empty" when it comes to their laundry bins-they certainly get it when it comes to dinner plates, yet they don't seem to follow the next logical step and wash their @*#! laundry!! I would think they would get tired of looking at overflowing baskets of stinky socks and dirty underwear. And I'd also think they'd like it, if they could leave the house in clean clothes that fit them, and were appropriate for the temperature. Because who wants to go to Walmart in a swimsuit, pajama bottoms and rain boots? (because we can't find mates to shoes either). Well, I guess that's a stupid question seeing as Walmart is exactly where you go to dress that way!

Land Mines

My dream is to walk across just one room, without the fear of having permanent damage to my feet. Just once I'd like to not trip, or get impaled, or slide across the floor, from something my sweathogs have left for me to get killed on. And I'm not young and spry like some of you may be, so falling will definitely involve some pain ~~and swearing~~. And I'm likely to lose my schmidt about it because whatever was in my path absolutely should not have been there because I tell them ten hundred times to clear the dagum aisle folks! And I make lists and chore charts and throw fits and cry and beg and do everything I can think of, yet they keep all their $h*t scattered throughout the floor, waiting on my bare, naked, feet and my tired, stove-up body, to take the hit.

And by the way, if you've never had the pleasure of stepping bare footed on plastic B-B pellets in the dark of the night, then you don't know what pain is! I think when women are in labor they should stand the dads upright and have them stomp barefooted on those dagum little pellets every time Mama has a contraction. Go get you some, see if I'm right! It beats the heck out of a Lego or Barbie shoe!

Crapity Crap Crap

I'd love nothing more than to take a fire hose to the kids' bedrooms to free myself of all the Crapity Crap Crap they have hoarded up in there, like the end times are a' comin' and we'll never have access to toys and crayons and video games and plastic B-B pellets ever. ever. again! We have a routine of cleaning their rooms and keeping the floor clear but it usually all goes south within hours, so we really never can keep it up. And the eclectic collection of barbies, hair brushes, markers, stickers, doll bottles and teeny-tiny army men with their pointy guns and packs of bubble gum and rocks from the back yard and probably live critters smuggled in secrecy, all add to the crap that takes up residence in what should be MY house. But I just live here. Like a hostage.

So I figure, it can't be me. Lord, please don't let it be me! I think it must be them. They are always here and are constantly working against me. So I've made a decision that they can't help it and that they aren't intentionally trying to drive me into the special wing of the hospital. I think their brains are wired differently. Probably something like this:

And there's no medicine to give them. No antidote. No fix. The only thing I can do is hold up here with them and hope they grow out of it and that I will survive this mayhem of repeating myself sixteen hundred times a day and that I'll have enough energy when this is all over with that I can have some revenge. And I dream about that everyday! But today, today is Groundhog Day, and I guess I have to live through February 2nd, if I'm gonna appreciate February 3rd-if it will ever get here! So just know I'm here with ya in the trenches, pulling out my hair and crying at my broken feet and watching the clock for that date to change.

Peace,