because I really can't get enough of myself

It is really no secret that I am not a fan of old houses.  (I'm pretty sure I complained enough about it when I was moving, yes?) And while some people would adore to live in a charming, character-filled, and possibly haunted, old house I have never had that particular desire. But it's surprising how quickly one can acclimate.  Even when one was absolutely positive that one would undoubtedly die if one was forced to live here even for one second.  It has been 8 weeks since I moved here, and I am not even slightly dead.  AND, I sort of, almost, semi like-ish my house a little bit.  Maybe.  EVEN THOUGH IT'S OLD. The vents don't even seem as scary now.  Sometimes. And we sprayed for spiders. But here's the thing - someday we need to eventually BUY a house.  Like real grown-ups do.  Our landlord is also a real estate agent and upon hearing that we want to someday eventually buy a house took us to see two properties today.  And then ...

Today was the first day of school for us. I had my whole morning all planned out.    It was to go like this: 1. We all get tremendous amounts of sleep the night before and are fully, absolutely, happily rested. 2. I wake up early and start a special breakfast filled with love. 3. Listening to the birds chirp gaily, I tiptoe to the children's room and wake up just the two older kids (letting the little kids sleep in). 4. They wake up with smiles and get dressed while I finish the love-filled breakfast. 5. I sing about butterflies until robins land on my outstretched fingertips while unicorns prance over rainbows. 6. The kids eat. 7. I do a spectacular first day of school hairdo on Two Bits while discussing philosophical topics such as the existential realm of avocados. 8. We take first day of school pictures and give hugs and maybe a high five or two. 9. Husband takes the kids to school on time, with no stress, and maybe the unicorns could follow the car...

I keep remodeling my house.....in my head. I even drew up floorplans and elevations and landscape diagrams. Except that I'm ignoring a couple of crucial details. 1. It costs a lot of money to remodel. Especially when I use the word "remodel" when referring to adding an entire second floor. AND 2. We don't own this house. Yeah, landlords kind of look down on the concept of tenant wall removal. But still, I have big plans for this house. BIG PLANS. But like most of my plans, they will never ever, EVER, E.V.E.R. actually happen. Which really blows. The landlords have, however, given us permission to improve the yard in anyway we desire.  Which is why I threw in the landscaping diagrams.  But when I approached Husband on the subject, he gave me a big lecture on Exception Number One (the costing money thing) and then went on ignoring the jungle that is our back yard. Until today, when he said, "We should get chickens!"  And I said, "Where wo...

Well, his name might not actually be Cereal, because there was a big debate and nothing was decided.  The options were between: Pointy, Praying Mantis, and Cereal (of course).  And since the other names were so boring, I decided that I can say his name is Cereal, because WHY NOT?  Even though mostly we just call it, IT. (My kids are never very creative when it comes to naming things.  This sort of annoys me.  For example, say they have a stuffed animal that is a black kitten.  They'll name it either Kitty or Blackie.  Even though I'm right there saying, "Why not name it Biscotti?  Or Cleopatra?  Or Flappy-Doodle?"  And the kids all look at me like I'm stupid and go on calling things Kitty and Blackie.  It's kind of sad.) The whole idea of having a pet praying mantis is, in my opinion, extremely stupid .  What with my tremendous dislike of the entire bugdom, and the fact that my children are even afraid of things like fruit ...

I decided to make myself a real live schedule. I've tried them in the past, but I'm kind of a schedule quitter. But it's been sort of stressful around here what with all I have to do and the kids taking full advantage of my busyness. So I wrote down all the meals we would be eating, and snacks. I wrote down a time table of activities for our day. I wrote down everyone's chores and everyone's punishments (like for when the kids decide to kick each other in the teeth or something). I wrote on multiple white erase boards in coordinating colors, and I even drew a few pictures. Organization people, organ I zation. But then the same thing happened that always happens. I hate the schedule just because IT'S THERE. I look at it and think, "ok, it's time to do laundry now. It's Monday, so I have to do the white load.". But then I think about how much I don't want to do the white load. Because who ever WANTS to do the white load any...

Let's talk about my kids for a minute.  Because they kind of rule my entire life. The past couple weeks I attempted to potty train both of my younger kids.  Monkey is 4 1/2 and Number Four is 3, so I was like, "It's about time, yeah?" (I was going to potty train in the spring, but then we found out we were moving, and blah blah blah, at least I got around to it.) Except that Number Four refuses to pee in the toilet.  She'll sit there.  She'll get her potty candy after that.  And then she'll hop off and pee in her pull-up.  And I have this strict "I will not potty train a child who is not ready" policy (this policy kicked in after it took me over 3 painful and smelly years to potty train Opie).  So she's back in diapers. Monkey though - he's like a potty training pro.  Sort of.  He tries really hard. He really tries not to poop more than halfway in his pull-up. He really tries not to smear poop on more than 3 body parts and 7 bat...