Seven! Seven Things To Count! HA HA HA HA HA! (Insert Crashes of Thunder)

It's been AGES since I've done something as spontaneous and yet meme-ish as a Seven Quick Takes Friday, as originated over at Conversion Diary, but something bloggish in me woke up and said, Today! Write today! So I am. Except I can't get Count von Count's voice out of my head, for some odd reason, so we'll be doing this his way.

--One! One Quick Take! Ha ha ha ha ha!--

This morning I pulled on new jeans purchased on sale from Old Navy yesterday. They're the same style that I always wear (I am, apparently, The Flirt), but one size up. It was rather marvelous to pull on jeans that don't feel like sausage casings. I am sad to report that MTL's birthday gift to me is still sitting in the corner of the living room. I've used it about four times, which means that each seven minute ride cost about $50. Damn, but I'm out of shape. I keep swearing I'm going to do something about it, and then the siren song of the couch drowns out everything else.

On a positive note, MTL appreciated being able to actually grab my butt this morning as he walked by on his way out the door, rather than encountering the immovable force of straining denim. There's always a silver lining.

--Two! Two Quick Takes! Ha ha ha ha ha!--

Upon arriving at daycare this morning, The Widget informed me that he felt like throwing up. He then proceeded to do exactly that. All over his shirt and the floor, with a bonus splattering on one of my shoes. Although he did have a nasty stomach bug last weekend, I have a strong suspicion that this morning's gift was the product of too much sinus drainage (thank you, environmental allergens!) and his refusal to swallow the chewed-up Claritin chewable pill that ended up on the floor along with the semi-digested remains of last night's tacos.

News flash: I have apparently lost the cast-iron stomach I developed during those early years of parenting. I was unabashedly grateful that he threw up on the daycare's floor rather than mine. All I had to do was wipe him down and get him back into the car. God bless the heroic and plastic-gloved daycare teacher who tackled the floor.

--Three! Three Quick Takes! Ha ha ha ha ha!--

I can't say I'm thrilled about how often The Ex's girlfriend is at the house. This has nothing to do with her--I rather like her, truth be told, and I'm relieved he's moving on and I'm happy she's good with the kids. I do, however, resent that I'm still paying almost half of the mortgage on a house I don't live in, and that I'm essentially paying for them to live there. Trust me, I only agreed to this in the settlement for the kids' sake (plus she wasn't staying there back then). And yes, there is a time limit, but still. Don't even get MTL started on that, either.

However, I did find myself rather grateful to discover that she was there this morning and doesn't have work today, because she's able to watch the Widget. For some reason daycare centers don't let vomiting children stick around.

--Four! Four Quick Takes! Ha ha ha ha ha!--

I love my coworkers.

Thanks to one of them, my students were able to enter my classroom, be made aware of the situation, and get started on their work for the day. I was only ten minutes late to work, but mine is not a job with flexible start times. Thanks to another, those kids also had a watchful pair of eyes during those ten minutes. You'd be amazed what a bunch of juniors will try to do during ten minutes' unsupervised time.

Sometimes I wonder how much of a difference there really is between my job and a kindergarten teacher's.

Oh, right. We don't have recess.

--Five! Five Quick Takes! Ha ha ha ha ha!--

Speaking of kindergarten, DramaBoy is currently going through a phase of Marvelous! Wonderful! Near-perfect behavior! both at school and at home, which is a lovely respite from phone calls about how many kids he's hit on a given day and battles over how many bites of that horrible healthy food he'll have to eat tonight. I'd enjoy it more if I didn't keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Also, since children learn how to tag-team at birth, The Widget is In A Mood almost every day right now. I'm fairly certain he was flung into a maelstrom of jealousy, insecurity, and angst by having his eight-month-old cousin around for a few days and having to Share Attention--particularly from my parents, whom he views as his personal attendants. I mean, how DARE they?

Not that I would know anything about how that feels, or ever tormented The Widget's cousin's mother for coming along and dispelling my belief that the universe revolved around my three-year-old self. Nah. I wouldn't have done that. Ahem.

(Sorry, SoccerSister. Again.)

--Six! Six Quick Takes! Ha ha ha ha ha!--

I hate politics.

I know this isn't news, but I think it deserves restating.

And while I will not, out of deference to DraftQueen's sensibilities, say that I hate all politicians or that they are all corrupt and horrible people, I will say that I have very little faith in most politicians.

However, if Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert ever run for office, I'm voting for them.

Just sayin'.

--Seven! Seven Quick Takes! Ha ha ha ha ha!--

The Old Spice commercials are awesome. In fact, an Old Spice ad torn from a magazine is clipped to my inbox where I can see it and be reminded to smile. Not because Isaiah Mustafa is pretty decent eye candy (though he is), but because the sheer over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek ridiculousness of these ads brings a little sunshine into my gloomy days.

I wonder if they'll have any effect on lowering the acceptable age for men to wear Old Spice. MTL can hardly wait until he's allowed to wear it, in fact--and felt that way even before these ads. Fortunately, I'm not allergic to that particular cologne.

In the meantime, I'll just keep enjoying the ads.

You're welcome.

Happy Friday!

I'm Pretty Awesome With Toast, Though

Look, I just don't cook from scratch much these days. Generally speaking, I'm capable of being a damn good cook, but for the last couple of years I've been incredibly reluctant. I'm also far more prone to messing up than I used to be. I even found myself overcooking good old mac 'n' cheese the other day because I wasn't paying close enough attention.

I blame DramaBoy, really, or rather the food sensitivities he had for so long. I had to focus so much on food and what was in it and finding special foods and cooking everything from scratch. It was overwhelming. Couple that with major depression, and I burned out.

You'd think that this would have faded with so much time. It has been two years, after all. Surely I'd have rebounded by now. And in some ways I have. I don't hate being in the kitchen like I did for a while. I find myself quite willing to be part of a cooking team, in fact. But cooking alone and every day? I still dislike it. Strongly.

Nevertheless, when Lauren posted about making Pizza Loaf, a variation on one of the meals I actually loved at boarding school, nostalgia worked its magic. Besides, I thought the recipe looked simple enough.

Ha.

I should have known better. Lauren is one of those women who makes things look easy. I love her, but like my sister, there are times when it's a really good thing I do, because that stupid inferiority complex of mine comes surging to the surface. Just sayin'.

(And I didn't giggle AT ALL over her post the other day confessing that she and her beautiful children are, in fact, human. I'd never do something like that.)

I SWEAR I followed her instructions. But I was all stressed and chaotic and whatnot, like that's anything out of the ordinary, and it took a lot longer than it should have and my pizza loaf was huge and falling apart and had holes where it shouldn't and I forgot the cheese and had to open it back up to put cheese in and it looked like a Huge Mess.

Oy.

I felt like crying. I got crabby with MTL instead, because of course I didn't cook this massive meal for just me and my two kidlets. Oh no, I tried out a completely new recipe involving dough from scratch while cooking for other people in an unfamiliar kitchen. I AM SPECIAL THAT WAY.

I baked the damn thing anyway, and it turned out okay. Just okay, not fabulous, but good enough that I decided that perhaps, with a little tweaking and practice and maybe, oh I don't know, FOCUS, perhaps it would be worth trying again.

In a few months.

Until then, I'm going to practice making mac 'n' cheese.

So Do You Know That Feeling...

So do you know that feeling you get when you look at your naked body in the mirror and realize that the utter lack of decrease in exercise and rampant indulgence increase in snacking has led to a body better described as "jiggly" than "jammin'"?

And do you know that feeling you get when you optimistically take home reams of grading with the full intention of spending most of your weekend (when not playing with/feeding/bathing/cleaning up after your kids) catching up on everything you should have been doing for the last three weeks, and then when you come back in to work on Monday you realize you only got about half of it done and you spent far more time chatting online and creating a mix-CD for a Christmas present?

And do you know that feeling when you write out the check for the house cleaner because she's coming in to clean (duh) and you look around and realize that while you managed to get the kids to clean up the majority of their incredible mess, the house is still way cluttered and messy and there isn't enough time left to clean up before the cleaner comes?*

You know how that feels?

No?

Um...

Yeah, me neither.

-------------------------------------------------
*Woah. I need a thesaurus. Way too many forms of "clean" in that sentence. I'm not doing so well on the writing front either, apparently.

Because I Am Not Crazy Like That

Confession time. MckMama put up one of her Not Me Mondays, and confession being good for the soul blah blah blah, might as well join in. Right? Sure, why not.

This last week I most certainly Did Not pack a lovely picnic lunch for myself and the kidlets, with tuna sandwiches and dried fruit and cookies, to nosh while hanging out with friends, only to buy McDonalds chicken nuggets for the boys instead because the friends were getting MickeyD's and the boys would be jealous. Because I don't worry about peer pressure or whether my children will have temper tantrums over silly things, nor do I cheerfully feed them with fast food on a regular basis. Definitely Not Me. Never.

Then the next day, when the boys refused to eat very much of their cheese and turkey sandwiches their uncle had made for lunch, I Did Not pack them up for their afternoon snack (If that's all you're going to eat, then no other snacks until you finish them!) only to leave the sandwiches in a very hot car all afternoon until even thrifty me decided to consign them to the garbage bag. Because I don't have such a sad memory, not to mention insufficient mothering willpower to stand by my original word. Definitely Not Me. Never.

On the personal front, I Did Not stay up past midnight on multiple occasions this week, twice in order to get on World of Warcraft and complete some daily quests so that I could make sure I got the A Simple Re-Quest achievement (complete dailies for 5 days in a row) because I wasn't sure I'd be able to get on during the day. Because I don't stay up so late that I'm grouchy in the morning, nor do I worry over meaningless achievements in a game I may or may not be playing much longer. Definitely Not Me. Never.

I Did Not sleep in way too late to work out or make my promised Millet Delight breakfast two days in a row, not to mention have to hightail it out the door to make it to church on time because of the earlier summer hours. Because, as I mentioned, I of course never stay up so late that I oversleep my alarm when the kidlets aren't around to wake me up. Definitely Not Me. Never.

And finally, when I hung out with my dear friend Annie by the pool yesterday, I Did Not slather sunscreen all over my tattoo and then neglect to put it anywhere else on my body so that I ended up looking like this:

Because I never risk myself by exposing my skin to the sun's rays without protection. Or lie out by a pool for an hour or so without considering the consequences. Especially since I spent so much of my early life in the tropical sun and therefore have had way too much exposure to the sun already. Definitely Not Me. Never.

All The Things I Did(n't?) Do Last Week: A Tragedy In Ten Parts

This last week was a symphony of perfection and grace on my part. I was an angel of kindness and a joy to have in my family's life. I was a shining example of God's love to all those around me.

Therefore, I Did Not "forget" to call my therapist about my appointment on Tuesday night and the need to reschedule, instead using the excuse of a missing cell phone and a sniffling child to let it go until it was too late. Because I Did Not simply want an excuse to avoid talking about difficult things. Of course not. Not Me.

I then Did Not get all ostrich-like about the presence of swine flu (or H1N1 for those of you who like to be all PC about it) in our area and simply shrug when I showed up to daycare on Wednesday with an under-5-year-old who has asthma and a history of respiratory illness (with resultant hospital stays), discovering that there was a confirmed case in the daycare. I then Did Not leave my child at his daycare and go to work, simply mentioning the news casually to my husband in an email an hour later. When (1) he was already home caring for The Widget, who was sick, and (2) I have first hour prep, so DramaBoy could have been taken home no problem. And then when my husband called the doctor, and she said we should all get tested (since 3 out of 4 of us had symptoms), I Did Not do a complete switch and freak out and tell people to stay away from me and ask the doctor if we should go to the ER and if I should leave work early. Of course not. Not Me.

And then when the 3 out of 4 of us (minus DramaBoy, very oddly and miraculously) were diagnosed with sinus infections instead and were given antibiotics, I Did Not get fed up with The Widget's ongoing Issues With Taking Medicine and simply hold him down on the floor like a cat and say Open your mouth. Swallow. Open your mouth. Swallow. over and over until he complied. Of course not. Not Me.

With illness in the house, including in myself, I also Did Not stay up late (way too late) at least twice in order to watch the auditions for So You Think You Can Dance? simply because they were sitting there on the DVR and taunting me with their presence. So of course I Did Not end up with too little sleep, contributing to my ongoing absolute fatigue and irritability. Of course not. Not Me.

On Thursday I Did Not get all prideful and hurt and refuse to pray and ask God for help in changing my attitude, even though I knew that's what I have to do before our marriage counseling sessions if I want them to go decently. So I Did Not instead go through a session full of anger and bitterness on both sides, sobbing almost the entire time, only to discover that the husband with whom I was so angry was capable of greater grace than I when he pulled me into his arms for a hug as we left the building. Of course not. Not Me.

I then Did Not try to satisfy that little ache inside by buying a new dress, with the excuse that I needed something decent in red for Pentecoste. And justifying it with the bargains I found. Of course not. Not Me.

And I Did Not then spend even more than I spent on the dress ($15 at H & M--I DO love that store!) for a little white crocheted "sweater" thingie ($24 at Charlotte Russe, if you're keeping track) because the dress I found was a little skimpier up top than seemed prudent for church. Of course not. Not Me.

Meanwhile, on the Home Front, I Did Not end up feeding my kidlets hot dogs three meals in a row (disregarding the intervening breakfast) because they're easy to make and it was decent grilling weather and we didn't have enough hamburgers for everyone. Of course not. Not Me.

Of course, I also Did Not lose track of how many snacks DramaBoy was begging/filching/doubling up on throughout the day during the weekend, to the point where he basically refused to eat his lunches and dinners (a.k.a. Real Food). And I then Did Not threaten to take away all snacks, even at school (which I'm pretty sure would be impossible) if he didn't finish his dinner. Of course not. Not Me.

And finally, I Did Not carefully plan Sunday afternoon and evening around my attendance to graduation, which was scheduled for 4 p.m., even carefully running directions to the place it is every year (over an hour away) so I wouldn't miss my exits, and then make a complete error in my thinking and plan to leave at 3:30 (see distance away above), and then realize as I pulled out of the driveway that the ceremony was starting in just over 15 minutes and would be halfway over by the time I even arrived. Of course not. Not Me.

Never.

Would I Do THAT?

When I stayed over at a friend's house on Friday night because we would be getting up early in the morning to get to the massive department-store style Mom-to-Mom sale at her church, and I realized that in my hurry to get out of the house before the kidlets trapped me forever that I had forgotten to pack any clean underwear, I did not simply wear the same underwear two days in a row. And I did not skip a shower in the morning so I could sleep in an extra fifteen minutes. And I did not borrow both toothpaste and deodorant because I'd forgotten those too. *Ahem. Sorry, K!*

And I did not delay cleaning out my car for so long that when I finally tackled it on Friday afternoon, the process was more like clearing out an archeological dig than picking up some trash.

And when one of my students asked a particularly idiotic question, I did not simply stare at him in disbelief and then walk over and actually bang my head on the dry erase board rather than explain why he was wrong.

I also did not then print out an appropriate lolcat and put it up on my board with a magnet. Next to the magnet that says There's nothing wrong with teenagers that trying to reason with them won't AGGRAVATE and another that says Never underestimate the power of a seriously pissed off woman.

Would I do something like that?

For more Not-Me Mondays, check out MckMama's post.

Not Me Monday #1

Before I get around to posting that GIST that dang Eric has guilted me into, I'm going to do a Not Me Monday, inspired by MckMama. Just because it's fun. Feel free to do your own and link back there.

This last week, I most definitely did not feed my kidlets blueberry Eggo waffles for dinner (with syrup) because I felt too lazy to cook and too weak-willed to deny their pleas. Not me. No way. I always feed my children healthful, balanced, nutritious home-cooked meals.

This last week, I did not ditch work early and cancel my therapy appointment to go home and take a two-hour nap. And I most definitely did not then stay up until midnight that night playing World of Warcraft instead of getting to bed on time.

This last week, I did not purchase a cupful of chocolate-covered raspberries, fresh-dipped that morning, and then consume them all in one sitting. I also did not eat half a bag of Twizzlers during the same long drive with a friend. And I did not resist eating the other half of the bag only because said friend ate the other half. Not me!

This morning, I did not trade a confiscated hat to its owner student in exchange for a Ziploc baggie of Cheetos. And when his girlfriend did not text a friend in class who I did not permit to text back, I did not bargain forgiveness for coming to class late in exchange for a Cherry Coke and a bag of Doritos.

I did not completely fall off the healthy-eating lifestyle the last several weeks. I did not stop exercising, either. And I have not gained back some of my flab. Of course not. Not me.

Never me.