Happy Halloween!

Dead leaves, seaweed, rotten eggs too.
Stir them in my witches brew.
I've got magic alakazoo.
Oooh, my witch's brew
Ooh what's it going to do to you?

.... BOO!

I'm a witch today. A witch with purple hair.

Happy haunting!

Spread Love

I am often surprised at how defensive and angry I get when dealing with doctors' offices. I just took a call from a man who says, “I just received a ‘second request’ (he emphasized this heavily because the subject line of the letter he is referring to says, “second request” in bold font) for a…(blah blah blah)…and I assure you it is not.”

In an instant, my blood pressure sky rockets and the hairs on my arms and neck stand up. I think to myself:

Like hell you say, old man, I sent you THREE request! Tell me I didn’t send it…I mailed it to (blah blah blah) on September 6, then I called your office and spoke to blah blah blah. Then I faxed it to blah. After another 15 days, I STILL didn’t have it so I mailed it AGAIN. And you have the balls to call me and tell me I didn’t do it. That’s all I’ve done for 2 months! I mailed 376 requests, then sorted through and researched dozens of returned letters. I’ve spent the better part of the last 3 weeks listening to you tell me, “If this is a life threatening emergency, please hang up and dial NINE ONE ONE.” I’ve been put on eternal hold and I’ve had it up to here with your stupid-ass Musak recordings.

But you know what? The world is full of angry people because anger is contagious, so I make a special point to say NO to anger and instead, spread love. Instead of biting off this man’s head, I simply replied, “What can we do to make this better?”

This happy ending is brought to you by the makers of Lexipro (anti-depressant medication).

The Girl Scout Promise

On my honor, I will try:
To serve God and my country,
To help people at all times,
And to live by the Girl Scout Law.

I signed my daughter up for Brownie Scouts. She needs to memorize the Girl Scout Promise and the Girl Scout Law. The Promise is only 4 lines, so we started working on it yesterday.

I read the entire promise to her, then asked that she repeat after me. “On my honor, I will try”. We recited that line a few times, then added “To serve God and my country”. Over and over—about a dozen times. Next comes “To help people at all times,”

My daughter (MD): “But what if they’re mean boys?”
Me: Just say the line.
MD: But I don’t want to help the mean boys.
Me: Okay—so you don’t have so help the mean boys, but you have to say the line.
MD: But the lines says ALL people.
Me: No it doesn’t. It says, all TIMES.
MD: Even when they’re mean?
Me: That’s enough for today. We’ll work on this again tomorrow.

I never imagined that my 6-year-old would take a conscientious objection to the Girl Scout Promise. Mean boys ruin everything!

Appliance Update

Yesterday afternoon was rather hectic. My daughter has religious education (RE) class on Wednesdays from 6 until 7:15, so we go straight from daycare to RE (I give her a snack to eat in the car). After I dropped her off, I swung by the house to pick up the credit card so I could go purchase the appliances before I had to be back to the church to pick my daughter up.

I think I told you earlier that Mark agreed to all three purchases. And dispite the fact the Home Depot guy swears that dishwasher installation is a two-beer job, my husband would rather pay Home Depot $50 to install it.

So I race from the church to the house to grab the credit card. I have one hour. As an afterthought I say, "Give me the tape measure, how big is that space?" Ugh...my choice chiller is two inches too tall. I just stood there with the saddest look of defeat on my face. That, my friends, jacked up everything.

The same man that less than 24 hours before refused to do the two-beer, three-connection dishwasher installation has offered to demo the kitchen cupboards to make room for the new refrigerator (can any man say no to a demolition job?).

So, do I go with the 18 cubic-foot refrigerator, or do I let Mark demo the kitchen cupboards to make room for the 22 cubic-foot refrigerator?

Every woman's life should be this hard.

How embarrassing…

I had a rather embarrassing moment yesterday. I say moment, but I’m pretty sure this “incident” is going to stick with me for a few years.

I’m at my girlfriend’s house and I sit down on one of the kid chairs at the kitchen table. (No, the chair didn’t break.) As soon as my ass touched the chair, I stood straight up and said, “Woah.” My girlfriend comments that, yeah, the chairs are small. I say, “no, it’s wet.” I grab a napkin off the table, wipe the chair and sit again. More wet. So I reach my hand around and touch my bare ass. Wait a minute---BARE ASS! OH MY GOD, I just grabbed my BARE ASS! My day flashes before my eyes like a near death experience. I see myself volunteering with the vision testing at my daughter’s school, parading around the 5-10 year olds with my ass hanging out. Oh, it gets better! Next, I’m at Home flippin’ Depot flashing my ass all over the appliance department. But I don’t stop there—it’s on to Best Buy before I return to my daughter’s school. I paraded around town for 4 and a half HOURS with my bare ass peeking through a three-inch-long rip in my jeans.

Okay, so this brings us forward to my rather reluctant admission that I am no stranger to ripped britches. In fact, I’ve lost three pairs in almost as many months (yesterday was number 4). I want to believe that it’s not my fault, but four pairs is more than coincidence. You’ll have to take my word that I’m not that big. I wear a size 10. But then maybe THAT’s the problem. You reckon I oughta shoot for size 12?

The good news out of this is that, so far, none of the parents have pressed charges against me (at least not that I know of) AND I get new jeans. And did you catch that I was at Home Depot? I picked out a sexy new kitchen trio. After I shared my horror with my husband, I whipped out a folder full of fliers covered with my notes. I researched online and picked out what I wanted, then went to the first store to confirm my wishes. Finally, I went to a second store to compare prices. He approved all my choices (he doesn't give a shit, but $2K is a LOT of money and he wants to know that I made educated decisions). Tonight, I get the credit card, and since today is the first game of the World Series, I will be going alone to purchase the appliances—and a new set of stainless steal cookware. Why not?

Bitter Sweet

I complained a few days ago that my refrigerator is on the skids. I’m doing the best I can to jerry rig the damn thing into submission. We’ve adjusted the shelves and rearranged the food and are just taking it all with a grain of salt. At least we have one, right?

I didn’t mention my dishwasher. My husband replaced the floors in our kitchen this summer and noticed that our dishwasher was leaking. The floor under the dishwasher was rotted. He replaced the floor and stuck the lid from a tub of ice cream under the dishwasher to catch the water. We have to empty the lid every couple of washes.

Last night we had chicken enchiladas for dinner. My recipe requires that I cook all the food in a skillet, assemble it, then stick it in the oven to melt the cheese. After 30 minutes of preheating, it was only 250 degrees. The damn thing broke! My oven BROKE! I just used the damn thing 12 hours earlier to bake the egg dish for the teachers. The stupid coil thing in the bottom of the oven literally broke in half. I don't know why I'm surprised. The oven is 20 years old.

As exciting as this moment should be, I have lump in my gut. Every time we get to a point where we have some extra cash to start socking away for vacation, some stupid shit goes wrong and we’re back where we started. Son-of-a-bitch, will you give a girl a break?!?!

Maybe a batch of brownies in my new range will make me feel better—with a glass of cold (but not frozen) milk out of my new refrigerator. If that doesn’t work, I’ll load all the dirty dishes into the new dishwasher and go buy some yarn.

Pajama Day

The weather forecasters started telling us on Wednesday that Sunday would be yucky--cold and wet. Much to my daughter's delight, I declared Sunday would be our first pajama day of the season. We busted butt on Saturday to get all of our chores done so come Sunday, we could stay in our pajamas all day long. Like icing on the cake, we woke to a few inches of snow. It was beautiful.

After a hearty breakfast of sausage gravy and biscuits, Morgan and I ventured outside long enough to shake the snow off our trees. Meanwhile, Daddy stoked a honkin' fire and we drank hot chocolate and watched ET. It's been so long since I've seen that movie, it was like watching it for the first time.

We played a few rounds of Trouble, Candy Land, Connect Four, and Go Fish. The rest of the day was spent crocheting, reading, and napping.

Ahhh--life is good.

Yea Me!

After 15 years as a pack-a-day smoker, one year ago today, I smoked my last cigarette. I had been talking about quitting for more than a year and all my reasons were obvious: unhealthy, stinks, expensive, bad role model for my little girl, blah blah blah. I quit cold turkey and it SUCKED ASS! But I did it. And I’m stronger and healthier because of it.

I can’t believe I have gone an entire YEAR without a smoke. Damn almighty, I’m proud!

To Work or Not To Work

They were playing some silly game on the radio the other morning. The question was something about how many people said they spend more than 92% of their work day actually working. One lady answered 85% and the other lady answered 60%. The host says, “Are you sure you understand the question? How many people think they spend almost 100% of their day doing work-related work?” Both contestants stuck with their answers. They were both wrong. The answer was TWO percent.

I work a standard 40-hour work week (8 to 5 M-F). On a normal work day, I wake at 5:30, shower, then go down stairs and pack lunches, put dinner in the crock pot, clean the kitchen, and/or whatever else I can get done in 15 minutes. I drink a cup of coffee while I watch the weather and then go back upstairs to wake my daughter at 6:15. She crawls into bed with daddy and watches cartoons while I get dressed and made-up. We turn off the TV at 6:45, she potties, gets dressed, brushes teeth and hair while I make beds. God willing, we’re out the door by 7:15. I’m usually home by 6, but then I have to cook dinner, clean kitchen, supervise homework, bathe the child, and it’s bedtime. I’m lucky if I get my daughter to bed by 9.

So, yeah, I dink around at work. I’ve been here for 2 hours today and have checked my email, placed three online orders, called my recycling company to straighten out an invoice error, and I glued my shoes back together. (One shoe is in under my desk with binder clips holding it together until it dries.) Meanwhile, I’m typing my blog entry for the day.

Now, let me ask you this? Am I cheating the company I work for?

Moments that shine

I was driving down this tree-lined road the other day. The trees were large enough that they reach over the road, giving it the appearance of a tunnel. As the sun filtered through the umbrella of reds, golds, oranges, greens, and purples, it cast a psychedelic glow that you could feel. It was so beautiful, so surreal, I wanted to swim in it. The air felt so clean. I forced my lungs to capacity and more—until they burned. I wanted to consume it all. I wanted it inside of me forever.

Dinner (almost) disaster

My refrigerator is jacked up. The top shelf freezes and the bottom shelf rots. It took me a while to recognize that my refrigerator was (is) the problem. I kept taking food back to the store. I let THEM throw it away—don’t need that crap stinking up my garage! After the third week in a row that I returned meat, I told my husband, “NO one buys rotten meat this often—it’s gotta be our problem.” So we placed thermometers in the refrigerator. Top read 40 and the bottom read 53 (can’t believe I just admitted that). YIKES!

So every day I adjust the temperate just a little bit cooler. I thought we were in good shape until yesterday morning. I pulled the chicken to put in the crock pot and it was rotten. DAG NABBIT!! (I assure you that the real-life version was much more colorful than “dag nabbit”.)

I’m one of 11 children. I was 9 or 10 when my mother taught me how to cook—for 13 people at a time. I learned to plan the menu, make the grocery list, and prepare the food so that everything is done at the same time. And now, 22 years later, I sit down on Saturday or Sunday morning and make a list of 6 meals (meat, veggie, starch). Then I make a list of all the ingredients I need to make those meals. My lists are organized in the order they are found in the grocery store. I tape my menu to the refrigerator and everyone knows what we’re having for dinner every night…and whatever we eat for dinner tonight is what you get for lunch tomorrow.

The point is that rotten chicken at 6 a.m. on Thursday morning jacks my day. I’ve had this meal planned since Saturday…and now it’s rotten. The bad news is that I can’t plan meals at 6 a.m. The good news is that, I don’t have to. I always have hot dogs and mac-n-cheese on hand.

We had mummy dogs with mac-n-cheese and apple sauce—but you have to say it real spooky, like “muh-uh-uh-uh-uh meeeee dogs”. I took pizza dough (Friday night’s dinner) and cut it into strips, then wrapped each hot dog and baked at 350 for 15 minutes. Well, every time I said “mummy dogs”, I said it all spooky like. By the end of the night, my daughter (6 years old) says, “Mom, will you please stop doing that. You’re giving me a headache.”

Some day she’ll appreciate me.

Peace

I'm reading a book called, A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Child Soldier. A 12-year-old boy goes with his 16-year-old brother to a neighboring village for the day. While the boys are away, their village is attacked by rebels. Long story short, the 12-year-old ends up enlisted in the “army” to fight the rebels. He eventually makes it out and is rehabilitated.

It is a painful story. My heart hurts when I think of these people whose lives are turned upside down by war. How do you recover from something like that? This 12-year-old child looses his mother, father, and brothers. He is handed a gun and a mountain of drugs and is told, “These are the people who killed your family, you must take revenge!” These children shake with fear when handed weapons, then within 6 months are making games and contests out of how many people they can kill. He is only TWELVE! These are children!

I hope this story will help me learn to better appreciate a hot shower, a cold glass of clean water, a soft bed in a warm house, and that I am able to walk my daughter to school in the morning without fear of attack.

We must practice and teach peace and tolerance. Our lives will be richer and we will be happier.

Pinkie promise.

Welcome

Hi, I'm Rachel.

My girlfriend, 5elementknitr, has referred to me as, "bloggless Rachel" for the last time. I did it...I'm an official member of the blogging community. "What took you so long?" you ask. Well, I often thought, "if you blog, you can't run for public office...ever." At least I couldn't (well, NOW I can't). But I can't let that stop me from an occasional brain dump. This head o' mine fills WAY too quickly for me to keep it all inside.

I am married to one of the greatest unsung heros of all time. I tend to rag on my husband more than what is fair. He's a hell of a guy and I love him with all my heart. We have a daughter that keeps us entertained. She's 6.

I reckon that's all I'm going to say for now. Moving forward, I hope to entertain you with my senseless ramblings and maybe provide you with food for thought...points to ponder if you will. I'm new at this, so bare with me.

...and thanks for stoppin' by! Ya'll come back now, ya hear?