Book Report
So, at work, I don't have a lot to do anymore. To fill in the time, I read books and magazines, walk around and talk to people, even organize dance parties. Well, kind of. On our last snow day, only 1 store manager showed up, so people just did whatever they wanted. I organized an 80's dance party, complete with the Michael Jackson Thriller soundtrack. People were dancing like monsters, it was crazy hilarious.
Anyways, I have read 3 books in the past 2 weeks. That's the most I've read at one time since I was pregnant with Annabelle. Today, I finished The Time Traveler's Wife. It did not disappoint. I was standing there, trying to finish the last 4 pages, taking small breaks to try to mask my tears and calm down enough to finish the book. It was really sad and beautiful and wonderful. (although I don't recommend it to anyone that might get offended by a little rough language or a little sex talk....now you all want to read it, don'tcha? hee hee)
So I started getting a little mad. Because my department is Soooooooo slow, and all of a sudden, I am flooded with customers. I am bawling my eyes out, mascara down the face, snot everywhere, and I just want to finish my last 2 pages, and people have the nerve to see me in this condition and STILL ask me to find them a stupid size 8W Stride Rite. UGH. The nerve of people that expect me to stop reading and actually do my job. Double ugh.
I started "
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West" It looks interesting, but a little less captivating than my last book. I think it is supposed to be the story of the Wizard of Oz, through the eyes of the Wicked Witch, but I may be wrong. I'm still in the first chapter. I'll let ya know.
More pee...
My house smells like Mexico. Dustin has been cooking all day, homemade salsa, pitas and black bean burritoes. Delicious. or delicioso. When Bella got her little plate of burritoes and limes, she said, "Oh, Mama, just like Mexico."
Oh yeah, and it snowed. I have been driving in it to work. Very tense and stressful, especially since I have skidded out of control about 8 times. But somehow, I've avoided wrecks and ditches everytime. So happy days. Here's a pic of Juju that Dustin got yesterday. Can you tell I had to clone out two really snotty areas from this picture? Snot city. yuk.
Anyways, I have another pee story for you. My brother CJ had bladder issues as a kid. (he's so gonna kill me for sharing this with you) but he had a hard time holding "it" for any length of time, so when he had to go, he HAD TO GO! CJ was on a little league baseball team in the summer, and he was really good. He liked to win. He liked to "work hard" and get dirty and slide into every possible base. He was a typical little boy.
Well, one field that they played on, "The Motors field", had no bathroom. Not even a portapotty. If you had to go, you had to walk up the hill, across the street and use the bathroom at the hospital. It was a big to-do, so you just tried to hold it.
One day, CJ had been playing outfield, and was looking pretty antsy. He was trying so hard to hold "it". But eventually, the need to pee won out, and he had an accident. He just couldn't break away from the game to pee, and it was too embarrassing to pause the game so he could go pee in the honeysuckle bushes behind the field.
He came running up to the dugout, after the game and Mom saw CJ's wet stain, covering his crotch area. Mom said, "CJ, are you okay?"
CJ, with his sweaty spider-monkey looking hair (this was pre-afro) just kept wiping his forehead and trying to cover his area with his glove, said really non-chalantly, "Yeah Mom. Man, I'm hot. It's so hot out there."
Mom, discreetly tried to ask him, "CJ, did you have an accident?"
CJ shrugged off the question, "No way Mom, it's just so hot. I've just been sveatin. Sveatin and Sveatin." (CJ didn't pronounce his w's very well either)
Sweet CJ. Mom didn't bother him with it anymore. We took it as truth that he was just "sveatin" that's all. And apparently he only sweats across his forehead and crotch.
Sleepwalking
I was talking earlier today on a message board that I visit about sleepwalking children. I was reminded of several incidents that we had as children at one particular house we lived in, on Buddy Lane. (all of my childhood houses have names, we had two houses on a road called "Buddy Lane", this is the second of the two houses, also referred to as the "Barrett's old house")
At Buddy Lane, we had several misfortunate pee induced sleepwalking events.
The first that I remember had to do with strawberries. Lots and lots of strawberries. My Mom used to get huge flats of fruit from our friend Larry, mostly peaches and strawberries. She would spend hours cleaning and cutting this fruit up, and freezing it, although I don't know why. She never baked anything with them. We ended up eating tupperware containers full of frozen fruit through the summer months, just because we didn't know what else to eat. Anyways, one night she had a huge flat of strawberries in the bottom shelf of our fridge, waiting for the opportunity to cut it all up and freeze it after we had gone to bed. I woke up from a dead sleep on the couch, walked into the kitchen (where she and possibly my Aunt Melinda) had just started on the first small container of strawberries. I opened the fridge, dropped my shorts and just peed all over the flat of strawberries. I remember it very clearly, but I obviously wasn't awake. I was just confused as to why they were staring at me when I was trying to go to the bathroom.
The second time, I think (and this is all my perception, it could have gone way differently than this, but this is how I remember it) I had been asleep on the couch watching a movie, and it seems like my Aunt Sheila was making that ham/potato/cheese bake thing (I used to hate that stuff) or she may have been making cinnamon rolls, I can't remember exactly, but my Mom was sitting at our huge wooden kitchen table, and I walked to the corner where our trash can was. There was a bag of garbage that was full and waiting to be taken outside. I pulled down my pants, sat on top of it and started peeing everywhere. I clearly remember yelling at them to "GET OUTTA HERE!!! I'M TRYING TO PEE!!!" I was very frustrated that they wouldn't stop watching me and saying my name over and over. Let a girl pee in peace, sheesh.
The last time was possibly the most tragic. My Mom was our girl scout leader, and we had a huge year of cookie selling. All of the boxes had arrived and were stacked neatly in a corner of our living room. She had been working hard, getting all of our orders pulled and put together, ready to be delivered. One night, my brother woke up and walked into the living room, dropped his pants and peed all over several boxes of girl scout cookies. Needless to say, we purchased several boxes of urine-soaked samoas that night and they promptly went into the trash can (where I probably peed on them again later)
So, what about you? Do you have any embarrassing pee or sleepwalking stories to tell? I have a few more, but I'll share them tomorrow.
Love Love Love!!
Mindi
Train. A word I hear about 50,000 times a day. Julian loves trains. We have a Magna Doodle that I draw trains on for him. Mine are way better than the trains Dustin draws. Julian brings me the Magna Doodle with Dustin's train on it and thrusts it into my hands and says, "Draw a GOOD train." (though not as clearly expressed as that. more like "draagudTWAIN")
Today we are in the living room watching PBS. The previews tell us (with no music or pictures indicating to my kids) that Thomas the Train is coming up next. Dustin says, "I bet we will hear the word "T-R-A-I-N" in the next 10 seconds." We stare at Julian and as the theme music for Thomas comes on, Julian glances at us and tries so hard to hold it in. But he can't. "twain", he whispers, very quietly to himself. We laugh. I continue counting the seconds. "8,9,10...." When I hit eleven, Julian throws his tiny fists into the air and screams "TWAIN!!!!! TWAIN!!!! TWAIN!!!!"
Edited to add: I forgot to add Bella's response. She looked at me after Julian yelled Train, and said, "Mama, he can say Pee Pee too."
oh yeah, a few more things...
I LOVE
Grey's Anatomy. I was advised to watch last weeks show, and I hate to start new shows, mid-season. But it was amazing. And luckily, Season 1 came out on DVD Feb. 14th....so I'm at least caught up with some of the background. And I hate medical shows. They usually gross me out. But this one has just enough medical garb, and doesn't show too much blood/guts stuff.
Secondly, I am finally reading
The Time Traveler's Wife. Crazy and intriguing and fascinating. Lovely story to be reading in this month of LOVE. :)
Bella had so much fun on Balentime's Day, that she has been telling me Happy Balentime's Day like a hundred times this week. It's precious. We watched Charlie Brown's Valentine special, made cookies, got new books, and a fun Lovey package from Tata, including a little moola. We're going to take it and go see the new
Curious George movie at the theater and have a family date night. :) I hope it is great. We love Will Ferrell, Drew Barrymore (the voices) and Jack Johnson does most (if not all) of the soundtrack. How great is that???
Watched Elizabethtown at Mom's. Very cute movie. And watched In Her Shoes. Other than the first 30 minutes of depressing storyline, it turned out to be really really good. (did I already review this one for you guys? I can't remember)
Stopped by Hobby Lobby yesterday to buy a new pen, and found that they had 50% off ALL rub-ons, rubber stamps and ink pads, Albums, paper punches, paper packs....oh man, it was hard to resist. So i didn't!!! Dustin's probably going to be mad when our tax return comes back and it all goes to pay the credit card bill from this weeks "retail therapy". :) ooopsie.
UPDATE: I just got back from taking the kids to the movie. Dustin is sick and yucky in bed, and since who knows when i'll get another day off, I took them alone, which was quite a daring feat. Julian is so unpredictable, but it turned out really well. Julian kept yelling "Mun-key!!!!" loudly enough to be heard, but not embarrassing. Bella almost cried when George got separated from the man in the yellow hat. I did too... to tell the truth. Those sad little brown monkey eyes.
After it was over, we walked outside to LOTS of sleet. We ran to our car (ALL the way across the parking lot to the spillover parking lot) and after we got in, we had to clean the ice out of our hair. The roads were dangerously slick (we slid a couple of times, and drove 45 the rest of the way home) but we made it safe and sound. All in all, a pretty nice day off.
Retail Therapy
so i'm feeling a bit better. I've downgraded from flu to sinus headaches or something like that. i feel like nothing but screwdrivers through my eyes will make me feel better, but the body ache and nausea is virtually over.
so i have a theory as to what helped me get better so much more quickly than normal.
Retail Therapy.
I'm not a big shopper. It's hard to be when you have no money. But with the prospect of a income tax return coming my way in a week or so...I've become a "self healer". Target and I have become reacquainted and I've discovered a new lovely little place called
Pac Sun. It's a surf wear store, and although I'm not a surfer, or anything close (i live in freaking Arkansas) I LOVE this store. I shopped on my lunch break the other day, dreaming of my Florida trip. (actually I was mourning my Hawaii trip that I won't be taking come April, but also dreaming of my Florida trip) I ended up buying two totally sensible purchases. Well, I've justified them as sensible, because my zipper partially broke on my purse/dayplanner thingy. And I just HAD to have these.
So I got this
(new bag and closeup of fabric)
and then I got this cute Roxy wallet to go with it
All I need now is a new pair of flip flops and I should be set for Florida. Speaking of which, I booked my flight today!!! :) Wooo hoo! I'm looking at the flying thing as a fun adventure that I never get to do and I am going to be fine. I mean, I am one of the safest people to fly with, right? What are the odds of getting into TWO plane accidents? Huge odds, right? So I'm going to be fine. So, where do I get GOOD drugs? Like the kind that knock you out so that if the plane did blow up, I would never know? I would just wake up in Heaven and think, "wow, why have I not visited Florida earlier? It's awesome here"
Sooooo, stepping away from the plane crash images....I also shopped a bit for Bella at Target. She is the funnest person to shop for. She loves ANYTHING that I buy for her to wear, she has the perfect little girl body, and everything looks adorable on her. So I got her a little peach dress with pink polka dots and a pink cardigan to wear over it, and this other outfit that is too adorable to describe. I will post a pic later. She is napping, and it would be terribly rude to wake her for my selfish purposes. But Juju is awake....he would look ridiculously cute in her new dress...he did wear her yellow flowery pj pants to bed last night. Poor boy...
I better go... I need more Benadryl.
Love Love Love
i have the flu.
i feel like pooh.
and so does juju.
but he doesn't have to work tomorrow.
poor mommy.
i miss you guys. hope to talk soon :)
Julian and CJ
Julian greeted every customer that walked in the doors with a loud, "HI!!" In this photo, he is trying to open the doors (my sister and brother in law are sitting on the bench on the other side of the door)
Bella at Olive Garden, just waiting. and waiting. and waiting.
And after 5 measly minutes, my battery died. :( grrrrr....
And since it is after midnight......Happy Birthday MOM!!! :)
Here are two pictures, one of my Mom with 2 of her sisters (Aunt Sharon and Aunt Teri) and one of my Mom with her Mom (Grandma Toni) at Thanksgiving last year. She is so beautiful, isn't she? :)
what excites me today...
so i think i'm going to Florida.
i've never been.
one of my best girlfriends lives there.
one of my favorite family members and his family live there.
i am a fan of the ocean (which she lives close to)
i need some fun independent girl time.
dustin is excited for me.
part of our tax return will fund my trip.
i hope to come back inspired, refreshed, and motivated to start my photography business.
i'm turning taxes in this week (fingers crossed) and hopefully it will all fall into place.
the only nervousness i have is in regards to possibly flying there (as opposed to driving there alone) ugh. this is the hard part.
IN OTHER NEWS*
My Mom's birthday is Feb. 7th. We are meeting today for a yummy dinner at the Olive Garden, some shopping, and possibly a movie ("Hoodwinked"? It's the only cartoon we can find. We need to check age appropriateness first)
Sooooo, I better go get ready.
Bubbles
Julian and Bella are about to take a bath. Julian gets in first but Bella is complaining to me that I forgot to buy bubbles for their baths. Dustin says, "Julian is making his own bubbles." Which means that Julian is farting in the bathtub and laughing.
Bella runs into the bathroom and says, "Julian! You're making bubbles!! That's wonderful! I'll help."
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