Give me one weiner, give me two

Yes,

The EX hater of all dogs got herself another dog. His name is Sherman. He's in on the husband's lap right now with Charkie. They are adorable together except for the disturbing humping that Charkie is subjecting the poor fella to..... hopefully that will stop. Soon.







The shed is now done-enough-for-winter minus one door, which is in the garage and just needs to be hung. Not bad.
Not bad at all.

Seriously, I've been busy

I am such a drag lately. All of these fun-loving people doing Nablapopog-somethinglikethat and I'm not doing a thing.

I've been working hard at trying not to flip out every night after the sun descends and it's only 5:30, and trying not to snap at the kids for absolutely destroying the house with their toys and crafts and coats and shoes and socks and crayons and empty candy wrappers and the list goes on. It's like a landfill of things that will never, ever decompose and not nearly enough Zoloft to combat the mess.

I can say that the four-year old stage is taking me perilously close to the edge of insanity though.

B is killing me. Absolutely, menacingly, deliriously killing me. Slow and pain-like.

She is in to everything, her ears are on constant plugged mode, she is so naughty, and as sweet and loving as she is for about 5% of the time is not making up for the other 95% = hellish time.

I know five years is no cake walk, but I do remember it being a teensy bit better than four. Like being somewhat rational maybe 10% of the time.

The weather is beautiful in Utah. So very unlike November. I have walked at lunch every day this week and have just reveled in the sights and smells of an actual, real fall. Most of the time we go from ultra-wicked-hot, to one week of 70-60 degree weather and then BAM, it is full-fledged winter with snow, ice and freezing. I mean, my kids got warm in their fleecy halloween costumes this year. B was stripping off her top half of her cat costume. It reminded me of the first year we took S out. It was TWELVE degrees. Hideous!

The husband had received some unsettling news yesterday at work that has us worried. We are okay, but it's the type of news that hits too close and shows you how vunerable we are and how quickly we can be turned upside down. Okay, let me rephrase that. I am okay. I am not sure about the husband. He was upset about it last night. And it's kind of one of those things you just really don't want to talk about in the hopes that maybe the conversation won't have to come up again.

Time will tell.

The shed has a roof and is fully shingled. That husband and I make a good team, we really do, and it makes me smile to know this as a fact and how much fun we have had (along with the pains) in our home projects these past 10 years in this house.

He is making Gin and Tonics and he asked if there was tonic downstairs and I said yes. And then I said "I only want a splash of tonic" He repeated that in a utter disbelief sort of way. "Oh yes" I forgot to say "I want the remainder to be Club Soda"

I am watching those extra calories you know.

fancy myself, doing yardwork

Not much updating going on around here.

Just a lot of shed building, which, in turn, leads to me handling the fall yardwork.
It's honestly not too bad considering I let the husband purchase a Toro leaf blower. BUT, not only does it blow, but the lovely contraption also sucks. (and mulches)

So last week, I blew and sucked and mulched all the leaves in the backyard and yesterday I did it in the front yard. The kids and one neighbor kid were out there while I blew and they thoroughly enjoyed it. I blew leaves and them and they rolled around on the ground, yelled at me (the sucker's loud) to blow them in their faces, had me bury them in blown leaves. I laughed so hard, they were so funny.

And then I helped the husband lift 8 foot pieces of sheathing onto the roof of the shed and we actually got about 1/3 of the roof done in the dark. Woo-hoo!

We are aiming for the remaining of the wood to be on the roof, the drip edging installed and the tar paper/felting be nailed on by noon, so I had better get my butt and my coffee outside since we were being generous to the neighbors and thought we wouldn't start our noise until nine o'clock on this lovely sunday morning.

This is how we decorate in Utah

I love that my kids are so excited for Halloween.



We've had school programs



We've decorated the house



We've decorated the car



We've even decorated some random co-workers' desk



All in all, it's been a beautiful autumn



Just look at those lovely yellow leaves

Reality really does bite. And what is this word, *Brink*?

Do you ever feel like you are at the brink of going mad?

If one more thing gets added to your list of things to do for the day, week, month, year... you might just snap?

I have delightfully reached this milestone and thought I would share my joy and happiness with you while I am being interrupted by the husband who has yet, again, remarkably made it home late for the umpteenth time for the past five years.

Just when I am ready to just explode, S tells me that she needs a white, 3-ring binder for school all the while the girls are bouncing up and down, jabbering while I'm trying to eat dinner and the husband is teasing S who melts down because he took 2 inches of licorice from her mouth that she was dangling over his plate.

What I really want to do is go upstairs, give myself 20 minutes of heavy, heavy weight lifting, enough to bust out in pouring sweat, take a quick shower with Aveda calming shower gel, get into bed after dosing myself with some Unisom-like drug, a glass of wine and read until I pass out.

What I'm going to do in all reality is go play some princess game with the kids, get mocked, smacked, slobbered on by the dog, and annoyed to high hell and then finally get to bed, late, after the dishes are done, bags are packed, clothes are picked out for school tommorw and all the other millions of things I need to get done.

How square is your shed?

I am again, hiding, in the computer room.

This time it is hiding from the husband.

We started the base of a shed last weekend, because we are having abnormally wonderful Utah weather, and we don't want to spend $4,000 for someone to come build a shed for us.

So instead, we are spending less money for us to possibly rip each other's throats out in arguments about the need for the floor to be absolutely, perfectly, I will take this floor apart until I get it right, square.

He has honestly, taken the floor apart, at least four times now.

I am the type of person where I'm like, hey, if it's a half an inch off, we can put some shims in there since it is the only thing off at this point. Nail that plywood in and let's be DONE with the base already.

S just came in here and said shit. What?
She thinks she's being funny lately by throwing a damn or hell or shit in her sentences.....and seeing if she can get away with it without a parent noticing.

Yeah, I noticed. Thanks for playing, we'll see you later after you've spent some time in your room.

We stopped at Petsmart after soccer to get a toothbrush for the dogs heinous breath and all the foster animals were coming in..... oh my... There was a grey and white, adult male cat, by the name of Dwight. I immediately fell in love with his bright blue eyes and his little card that said he was a lap cat. I desperately want to go back and get him.

That'll put the shed-building-husband in a fantastic mood.

The barf chronicles

I have to admit, I am not sad to be home today. Not sad to not be sitting at my desk trying desperately to act like I am working when I would, most definitely, be sleeping.

B has a tummy issue.

She is curled up on the couch with the estatic-to-have-a-warm-bum-to-sleep-with, dog, watching various cartoons.

I had a hard enough time sleeping without the barfing child last night, so when she woke up around two-ish this morning, I said goodbye to my attempts at sleeping.

I have found that I can sleep through many things lately....the dog, whimpering and scratching from the inside of S's room, the husband, getting up in the middle of the night to shut windows, let said dog out, and also him going outside in the pouring rain to put an extension tube on the downspout. Yep, I sleep through all of that. But, the second I hear one of my children, it is mommy radar on extreme sensitive mode.

B was sick that once, and I assumed it was from her voracious eating throughout the day, and she was sweet enough to talk me into letting her into our bed. A four-year old in a queen-sized bed with two adults is really not the best recipe for sleep. I swear, when I thought she was asleep, she would stretch an arm out and rest it on my chin. And the husband was sweet enough to let her share my half of the bed. Not that he was getting any sleep either, but at least he wasn't giving up any of his space.
We spent about an hour of doing the bed sheet share a pillow tango and she was whisked off to her own bed.

She came back in a while later, not sure how later, but I had just finally fallen off to sleep and was dreaming about forgetting to bring something to work.. ? Or maybe it was something about my refrigerator...yeah, dreams, highly overrated.
There was some complaining about an ear hurting, husband finds tylenol, administers tylenol, tylenol immediately comes back up, the mother groggily remembers there is some sort of ear drop remedy somewhere...gets kid back in bed, drops in the ear gunk, actually finds ear gunk whilst half asleep, mumbles something like she will stay home with sweet B, sets alarm for the husband and falls back in bed.

So, here I am. B is saying her tummy hurts right now, and I'm trying, to get her to eat some Saltines. She will not eat the Saltines, she wants nuts.

I have to go to work tomorrow and the next day for some continuing education classes to keep my insurance license up to date. Yawn.
BIG YAWN.
Thank goodness there will be some fun people going with me so I can pass notes and giggle to keep amused and possibly stay awake.

The husband gets to try the dance practice shuffle tomorrow night, so tune in to see how it goes.