Summertime

I kicked off the first day of summer yesterday with some day drinking which led to some water slide fun which led to night drinking, which led to tequila shots, which led to my hangover this morning.

Even my straight laced Chinese neighbors came over. The husband speaks perfect english, but the wife Minh understands more than she can speak. She looks a little lost if you ask her a question as she searches her brain for the words, but if she is just listening to conversation she is laughing and enjoying herself. Me and the girls talked Minh into drinking a tequila shot which she sipped! We were like, "no! drink if fast!" and she tossed that shot back like a champ! I also dug up some of the plants in my garden and gave them to her. She probably woke up this morning like, I love my crazy neighbors that give me plants and tequila shots! :D

I also gave some of my elephant ears to Keikicakes after she commented that my garden looks more Hawaiian than hers...and she's from Hawaii! Oh, and Laurie if you want more plants just say the word. You can pay me for them with letting me borrow L-Boy for the day! I love that little boy. Almost makes me want another baby, but yeah...not so much! I'll just borrow yours.

Ugh, Wine and Tequila are not good combinations. At least it was Patron or I would be feeling really rough this morning. I need coffee. Peace.

Last day of school

Today I put Kimberly on the bus for the last time of her Kindergarten year. I'm so glad...I am definitely ready for a change. I am finding it harder and harder to wake up in the morning and manage time efficiently to get her out the door with everything on time. We have been rushing around like crazy ladies with me barking orders,

"Are your teeth brushed? Do it now! No not my toothbrush! Upstairs to use your own! You have two minutes!"

And then Kimberly, "Mom where's my snack? No, I don't want a baggie of cheerios again. That is baby food. I need a SNACK!" this is where I am supposed to come up with something wonderfully delicious, amazingly nutritious and of course in a brand name wrapper with NO PEANUTBUTTER! It is necessary for me to do this to keep up with the rest of the Moms in the land of suburban bliss.

I'm so over it. I'm ready for sleeping in, going swimming, going on playdates, waiting until the shade hits the sidewalk in the evenings when all the neighbor kids come out to play. I want to be able to pack the kids into my car and drive to Arizona. Or take an overnight camping trip. Or tag along with Jeff on his business trips to fascinating places like Midland, TX and Baton Rouge, LA.

Here is the scary thing though. If I feel overwhelmed of being a stay at home mom with one kid at school all day ever day, and one kid at preschool 2 half days a week, how am I ever going to handle a full time job? I feel like the biggest mental moron right now and I don't know if I could handle being organized. I forget so many details! I'm always pulling things together at the last second but I generally have a lackadaisical attitude about things. I think it is just a coping mechanism of staying home with two young children. You really cannot sweat the small stuff because you will have a nervous breakdown.

Kids are tyrranical and primitive and in the quest to give them a happy childhood, I just let a lot go. Like remembering to buy cool snacks. Or doing laundry. Or brushing my hair. I'm rockin mermaid hair most of the time. I do remember to pay bills on time, but if something like a doctors bill or a jury duty summons comes in the mail, it just falls off my radar. Or if my house is dirty, I get in the car and spend the day at IKEA instead of dealing with the work I need to do.

This sahm gig is really pretty luxurious I must admit. But in two years I get to put on fancy clothes and have a paid job. That sounds like heaven. I'm excited. But scared.

Oh well, I have 2 1/2 more years until Kennen goes to kindergarten. Hopefully I will get my shit together before then.

jackpot

Kennen just found some old easter candy. He had two packs of Starbursts and asked me to open it for him. I told him I would open it as long as I could have one. :D

I opened it and he dove for the red piece. Being the smart Mom that I am, I told him that I should get the red one. "Red is for girls, and yellow is for boys."

"Ohhhhhhh man! Red for gewls and yeddo for boys! Ok Mommy, here you go."

Mmmmmm. Red starbursts rocks. Not like the yellow that tastes like lysol smells. We open the next pack of starbusts and this one it decorated with cutesy easter colors. As I tore the wrapper open, he started shouting with glee! Two blue wrapped starbursts fell onto the table.

"2 blue for boys Mama! ME! I'm a boy, ME! Not you...nuh-uh! Blue not for gewls! Blue for boys! Yeah! Me! Two!"

Then he snatched them up and ran away. I guess today is Kennen's lucky day.

6th Birthday party!

It's official. My little girl is 6! Jeff set up the water slide while I took the kids to the store and he snapped this picture of them when they first saw it. I love the WTF?!!?!?!! look on their faces!


Kennen is thinking, "Sweet! I have permission to spray my sister?"


Happy girl on her maiden voyage down the slide


I think she likes it...


Everything is ready for the part girl


Happy birthday to Kim.ber.ly.


I hope she made a good wish!


oh wait, she forgot a few!


Time for presents!


Party time. Excellent.

bah. sorry for my lack of words but I am a sick girl. My froat hurts. I skipped over a lot of the other fun parts of our celebration, like the super soaker water gun with an ice chamber, the 400 water balloons, and the pink and green hair spray that we decorated Kimmy's 12 little friends with.

More on my Kimmy-girl

Last night Kimberly was chattering on about school and I was half listening and half watching the finale of Grey's Anatomy.

"Chatterchatterchatter, playing soccer at recess, chatterchatterchatter, and then i cried!"

What? I hit mute on the tv and listened to Kimberly's story. Apparently there were kids in the class that were playing soccer at recess and they kept yelling at Kimberly because she tried to play soccer with them. And she once kicked the ball the wrong way. oops!

My heart went out to my Kimmy-girl. I always sucked at sports. Not because I am not athletic, but because I am lazy and I never was involved in team sports as a child. I was raised by a single Mom then I watched my Dad die of brain cancer and then I got busy smoking pot and stuff.

Whew, anyway there was one little boy that was yelling at her the most. This is the same little shit that HITS her hand in class. I told her that he was a candy ass mama's boy and that he is a loser because he doesn't know that boys don't hit girls. Yes I'm serious, except for the swearing. I was picked on in elementary school and I never thought it was my 'place' to stick up for myself. I don't want her to live my childhood. I want her to know that if she does open up to me about her problems, that I will offer real world solutions. I wont tell her that she needs to be the good one and just walk away from the meanies. She has a natural fire in her soul that I didn't find in myself until I was an adult. She is a self starter and a 'do-er' like her father.

Today i equipped her to have a better day than yesterday. I put a soccer ball in her backpack and I put on her shirt that says, "Anything boys can do girls can do better!" It also has a picture of a soccer ball on it. She was happy and pumped up this morning. She was high fiveing me and smiling.

I really hope she has a better day today. I hope she is better and stronger than I ever was.

Party planning...again

It seems like there is always grounds for celebrating something in my life. Between my family and my neighbors and all of their kids, there is always a birthday party to go to. I am so so so excited to have Kimberly's 6th birthday party tomorrow! Her big gift is a 10 foot inflatable water slide...shhhhhhh, it is a secret! Don't tell Kimmy-girl!

Our original plan was to just rent one, but then Jeff realized that it is the same price to rent one vs buying on that we can keep forever. It is hot as hell in Houston and we aren't getting an in ground pool (ever! if it is up to me. Jeff would like one but I do not!) so I'm hoping that we can get a few summers out of our new super duper slide.

Doesn't it look fun? I almost want to give it to her today after school so we can set it up, but I will wait. I cannot wait to see her little face though!The one bad thing is that it is totally going to ruin our grass. Well, our grass looks like shit this year anyway so it can't possibly get any worse. We had the kids playhouse set up right in front of the sprinkler head and the middle of my yard didn't get watered for the entire summer so far. Oh, and I only had the zone on 2 minutes of watering time. I pumped it up to 7 minutes and moved the playhouse so I hope my poor grass will survive.

Wow. I'm talking about growing grass. How fucking fascinating. Just like my life, ha ha!

Anyway, here's to a great birthday party celebration for my 6 year old girl!

Dear Gulf of Mexico...

Could you please be a dear and give my husband some fish? As you know, he has gone on about 8 midnight fishing excursions with only a few sandtrout to show for the lack of sleep, cost of gas, and not to mention how it affects me. I don't especially mind when he is gone all night long, but when he is sleeping all day...well that just pisses me off. It throws off my schedule. I feel the need to take advantage of him laying still and I can't help but cozy up to him and watch tv instead of getting my house ready for the birthday party this weekend.

So I'm thinking in just a few days he will be back out, on some pier at midnight. Please give him a shark. Or a redfish. Or a huge speckled trout. He has an itch that needs to be scratched. And things around here wont go back to normal until that happens.

Much appreciated!

-Stella

Dontcha hate it...

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Dog pile

You have heard me moan and whine about my laundry monster but I really don't think you understand how grave my plight is. You read my posts and think, "yeah yeah, laundry sucks!" but you never realized that I couldn't see the floor of my closet. And sometimes my bedroom. Everyone has something they are ashamed of. My inability to control the sheer volume of laundry I have to wash is haunting me. Today I decided that enough is enough. I pulled pile after pile out of my closet until I had this mass on my living room floor. Then I wanted to cry and move it all back but then I decided to take a picture and blog about it. It is helping me to stay accountable. This is so fucking ridiculous.


loor


by the way...the first person to tell me what is different in these two pics gets...um. I dunno. Tell me what you want, lol.

Coming soon is a picture of my closet floor...that is as long as I actually do all nine piles that are waiting to be washed, dried, folded, hung and put away. Laundry is evil.

myspace date

Playdate that is! :D

A few months ago I got a myspace message from a girl that lives in my town saying that she was looking for 'Mom friends' for her and her little girl to hang out with. We have talked back and forth a few times and made a few feeble attempts to get together, but we just sort of stopped talking to each other.

I know what you are thinking. Someone randomly sends you a, 'hey lets hang out with our KIDS,' message and I'm all, 'Okie dokie!' It could be dangerous! She might hit you over the head with a frying pan and steal your kidney or coach purse! Or even your child!

Well. Here's the thing. I was actually thrilled. This is seriously the type of thing that I've done in the past. When I lived in Illinois, I would troll through yahoo online playgroups to find friends. I would go to McDonalds and scope out the tables to find the Mom that was going to be my new best friend for the day. I guess I don't like to be lonely. The thing is though is that I spent a few years really putting myself out there only to get rejected over and over again. I was that cling-on girl from out of state that kept calling and leaving messages without a return call. So I stopped doing it. It also helped that Jeff and I bought a house in the best neighborhood ever and I have friends all up and down and around the corner from my house. It's very convienient on Friday nights to be able to just walk outside and talk to your friends and let your kids run wild. It is the hilight of my week actually. I call it Fun Friday. With my new friends. You complete me. :D

Anyway yesterday I was in the mood to go out to lunch with a girlfriend but I didn't know who to call. Everyone I know was busy so I decided to email my myspace friend and we actually made real true blue plans for lunch today. You know what? She is such a sweetheart! Her little girl is Kennen's age and she is my age. She is easy to talk to and seems fun. I'm happy.

Who has a new friend? This girl!

p.s. Sara you are next...bwahahahaha!

Happy Mothers Day!

Right now I am laying in bed practicing my 'surprised' face because Daddy and the kids are making me breakfast in bed. Kim just came in and was whispering to Jeff and off they went into the kitchen.

Kim saw that my eyes were open and looked worried and said, "Mommy you can just relax awhile."

I stretched and yawned and closed my eyes and told her, "Shhhhhhh, I need to sleep a little longer." She looked relieved and ran off to help Daddy. too cute!

Oh, and I get some Kimmy-girl coffee today. Yum!

Mothers day mostly makes me think of my own Mom. I love that I am 28 years old but I can still rely on my Mom to talk me through any problem I have. She is my soft place to fall. She has clarity and wisdom and a refreshingly fair outlook on life. She teaches me to take responsibility for my actions. When my kids are being crazy or my normally perfect husband is being an ass, she doesn't just let me vent and whine. She helps me realize that I can only control my own behavior and reaction to the people and events in my life.

Aww, Kim just came back in and said, "ummmmm.....don't ever come out because ummmmmm.....Mommy? Just stay sleepy okay? Ummmmm, because Daddy is um helping us....."

This is where I interjected before she spilled the beans. "Baby just let me sleep a little longer, okay?"

She ran back to the kitchen yelling, "It's okay Daddy, she is really tired!"

Okay now she just ran back in here and started taking moving the laundry monster to the laundry room. I told her not to mess with it and that I will get it later. She said, "No you wont! Daddy will because it's MOTHERS DAY!" Then Kennen came in to help her and hugged me and said, "Bappy muh-duhs days mommy!"

Awww, best day ever!

I'm a happy girl...

Isn't she lovely?

The Hunt

Jeff and I have been car shopping today.

We saw the one I wanted at a dealership and they let us test drive it by ourselves. Does anybody else think that is weird? Is that a new thing? Or is it just something they have always done for the married with kids crowd? Do I look more trustworthy than I did 6 years ago when we bought out last car? Maybe it is a successful sales pitch. I told him that I couldn't test drive it but would come back later because I had to pick up Kim and two of her friend off the bus for a playdate. He told me to take it home and take all the time that I needed. At first I thought he was being nice, but really it is a brilliant sales trick.

"Take it home. See how it looks in your driveway." That's what he said. And when we got it home, it looked damn good in my driveway. I agreed to stay home while Jeff took the truck back to the dealership to see if he could get a good price. I had fifty kids running around playing while my mind was buzzing with the thrill of possibly getting a new car.

Jeff called a few hours later and said that they wouldn't come down in price and that the payments were too high. He siad we would talk more about it tomorrow and that he was sick of car shopping. It's okay. I was disappointed at first but whatevs. I poured myself a glass of sympathy wine (instead of celebratory) and sat on my driveway talking to my neighbors.

bummer

Then can you guess what happened next? My baby turned the corner in a beautiful 2007 Tahoe! Holy shitballs, he actually did it! He tricked me...surprised me if you will! Ha ha, and then Kimberly asked him, "Daddy why did you lie?"

"This isn't a lie lovebug, this is a SURPRISE!"

hellz yeah it is!

It's glorious! I know that it's just a machine. A thing. Is it bad that a thing can make my heart race? Oh and what I want to know is that if it is so bad for the environment, why do they make it feel so damn good to drive. I'm in shock. I am so happy and so grateful! I'm giddy! I can't sleep. I want to go and drive my new truck and I'm thinking, 'where can I go at 11pm? How about Walmart! Yes! I think I need more milk!"

Plasma Car

Kennen got a Plasma Car for his birthday from grandma and grandpa this year. It's awesome because you propel it forward by moving the handle bars left and right. The best part is that it can hold up to 250 lbs so my new favorite pastime is giving my kids (and the neighbor kids) plasma car rides down the driveway. It gets going at a surprising and almost treacherous speed. When they were visiting last week, Kennen and I showed Grandma and 'Papa' how we roll:

vroom...


whee (yep I'm all elbows and knees)


giving a boy a helping hand

Critter

This morning Hannah Shazama Hotlant Montana woke me up because she was barking like crazy from her crate. It's was only 6:00am so I yelled for her to shut up and I dozed for another hour or so. When I finally let her out of her crate at 7:00am, she ran to the front door and barked again.

"Shut up dog!" ugh. I threw her out into the backyard.

When I finally went out the front door to put Kimberly on the bus, this is what I saw! WTF? At first I thought it was an angry neighbor sending a message. People kind of hate my house around these parts because me and my neighbors yell at the speeding cars. We are kind of obnoxious and I can understand someone not liking me and counting the days until we put our house up for sale (like when hell freezes over). I never thought though that I would become victim of a sand dumping hate crime.


It turns out though that it is just a regular old Texas critter that is trying to squat on my property.


See? There's the hole!


Wait...boys! Could you tell Miss. Stella where the hole is? Oh! There it is!


So I have a friend living amongst the roots of my front garden. You can't really blame a critter...it's a lovely garden. I got a little camera happy this morning so have a look-see.

A month ago, almost everything was half the size. Miracle-Gro really does work apparently.


See? Look how big my elephant ears are! My feet are huge. Like literally a foot long. And they almost look dainty next to my elephant ears. Almost.

This is not a big pot leaf. It's Plumeria! Yes like the flowers they use to make Hawaiian leis.
These are my lantana's under my baby oak tree. They were literally 3 inch sticks poking out of the ground just a month ago.


Hibiscus...


Geraniums...



On another note, today was day one of car shopping. I went by myself to do some leg work and played the whole 'kept woman' role. You know, where I take the pressure off myself by saying things like, "I need to ask my husband,". It kind of backfired though. The guy helping me was an ASSHOLE. Well, I guess he just treated me like an idiot wife that was wasting his time. But honestly would a woman pound the pavement in heels in the rain if she wasn't going to buy a car in the next week or so. Or a month at least?

Now I'm in a bad mood. I wish Jeff would just go buy me the damn car and put a bow on it and park it in the garage. Do you hear that baby? Just surprise me! :D

Yeah right. He rarely reads my blog so i will have to *tell* him to surprise me, therein voiding all aspects of the 'surprise'. Oh well.

Thank you Dub-ya

Kaching! Our president is a moron and I know that there are a lot of people that say the stimulus package is a bad idea, but I would like to extend a personal thank you our commander in chief for the $1800 that I found in my checking account this morning. Oh, and I would like to thank the social security random number gods for giving my husband a ssn that ends in a number between 00 and 20.

Now I'm off to take Hannah off to the groomers to get her furrr did.

p.s As long as I am talking politics, I would like to please ask Reverend White to STFU! You are blowing it for your boy Obama. Don't you realize that your words are poison and that if Obama doesn't make it then the choices will be McCain (dinosaur) and Hillary (evil).

I think it's already too late though.

The carpet doesn't match the drapes...

Tonight I drew a scorching hot bath for myself. Why scorching hot? It's the only way to keep the kids out of my tub! :D I'm smart.

It didn't keep Kim from hanging out with me in the bathroom while I was reading 'Lipstick Jungle' (thanks for loaning it to me Tara!). I caught her staring down into the water...then she asked a few questions about *ahem* hair *ahem* on bodies. I told her that's just what Mommies look like.

"So...then...do black Mommies have white hair down there?"

l.m.a.o.

swimsuit shopping

I think this is the only kind of shopping that all women hate. The lighting is always terrible but the mirrors are everywhere and you end up seeing angles of yourself that you wish you could erase from memory.

And I didn't have anyone but Kennen with me so I took pictures on my camera phone...I highly recommend it! Then I got dressed and sat down and made my decision off of how the pictures looked. It gave me much more insight on what styles/colors look best on me.

I tried on about 10 different swimsuits and basically chose the one that sucked the least. Well, there was one other one that I really liked but it was yellow and my pasty white ass looks nasty in yellow. I can't believe that I stopped exercising 2 months before summer. We are having a crawfish boil/pool party at Jeff's boss's house this weekend and there is really nothing I can do to make my cellulite go away in 2 days. Oh well.

Kennen has been a huge brat the last few days. I think he is going through grandparent withdrawals. And he wants nothing to do with me. Aww, right as I typed that, Kennen just came over and layed his head on my shoulder. Okay...I guess he still loves me a little.