Older and Wiser?

Today I was retelling an old tale that I thought maybe my blog readers might enjoy.

It happened last year around this time when the river that runs behind our farm became jammed with ice resulting in the river running over its banks in many places. One of the places that it ran over was in the back of our field which then froze and provided a nice little patch of ice to skate on (for a couple of days) before we eventually decided to make our own rink closer to the house (another tale that should be retold).

I used to figure skate. I started at about age 6 which is considered old to start and so my Olympic dreams where already about 3 years behind my peers when I started. Never the less I loved to skate and continued to do so in some capacity up until the point that I became pregnant with Little Bear.

When the ice rink formed in the back field I thought this was an excellent opportunity to strap on the ol' blades and revisit the sport I enjoyed for years (Papa Bear and I have some argument about whether or not it is actually a sport - we won't go there).

The first obstacle that I came across was that both pairs of skates that I own seem to have shrunk? No, that's not right but they sure as heck didn't fit well at all. Oh well I bucked up and tied them up anyway. No pain, no gain right? More like no pain, no blisters but either way I sucked it up. The second obstacle was that my skates had not been sharpened in over 6 years, also a problem but not enough to stop me.

It was a pretty shaky start but eventually it got a little easier and I felt pretty good skating around in circles and testing edges with ease. Stopping resulted in a few near falls but I felt great. So great that I thought what the heck lets try something bigger. I started with a few really simple jumps that didn't require much skill and when they were successfully executed I got a little cocky and decided to go BIGGER. That is where the trouble started.

It was a pretty basic jump (which I am not going to mention the name of because of how basic it is and so it would be that much more embarrassing). I entered the jump not too badly. Even the take off was not terrible but the landing, well the landing didn't really exist. Instead I ended up flat on my back staring up at the sky. I remember laying there and can clearly recall the fluffy white clouds floating in a blue-grey sky. I remember laying there unsure whether or not I was capable of getting up as my body reminded me I was not 18 anymore.

I remember laying there thinking: I hope nobody drove by at that particular time that I made my failed attempt. I have to get up but just not quite yet. If my mother in law looks out her kitchen window right now and sees me laying here like this she is going to panic and think that I am hurt (or possibly dead) and send someone out here. I have to get up.

So I gathered myself (and my dignity) and picked my poor aching body up off the cold ice and stood there for a second thinking about what an idiot I was for trying to launch my older, larger, wimpier body into the air. Was I nuts? Older and wiser? - I think not!

The rest of my skating for the rest of the winter kept both my feet on the ground (except when my butt was). I don't think I will be attempting anything that crazy again at least until I have removed some of the obstacles such as getting skates that fit better and that have nice sharp blades. For now I will have to settle for watching others hurl themselves into skating jumps on TV from the safety of my couch.

Surviving Chesty's Driving

Have you ever been in a vehicle with a straight up wild, crazy, bad (not so much bad as ummmm....manic) driver? I have and her name is Chesty McBreasty (OK, that's not really her name but it is her well deserved alias). She's nuts.

I recently traveled to a meeting an hour and a half or so from home with Chesty. If you follow the blog you know I am a Freak Behind The Wheel and will not/can not drive in busy traffic so my only other choices were to not go or endure Chesty's driving. I know from past experiences that Chesty's driving is not a smooth ride so the thought of taking a Graval before leaving popped into my head almost immediately.

While I am very, very grateful to Chesty for driving I have to say that I am pretty sure I had a brush with death during that round trip.

It started out not too bad with just the usual last minute stops and fast corners and from there got more and more interesting. On the way to the highway a very brave raccoon decided to cross Chesty's path and scampered across the road and actually made it safely to the other side. It must have been his lucky day.

It was when we entered the highway that Chesty's little pink (yes, pink)and black Neon became a little pink and black rocket as she sped through the lanes of traffic. Surprisingly this was the most relaxing part of the trip.

We arrived at our destination in one piece. The ride back was a lot more interesting.

I became the designated texter (thankfully) and had the job of reporting our whereabouts to Mr. Mad-face (also known as Chesty's husband) and our estimated time of arrival back at home. All was fine until Chesty decided it was a good idea to talk to her mother on her cell at the same time as drive. She should know from past experiences that she is not fully capable of driving and talking and doing so usually ends up in a ticket for failing to stop at a red light or stop sign.

The talk and drive resulted in Chesty almost missing our turn off and pulling a super wide frightening crazy turn which thankfully she was able to barely keep out of the path of an oncoming transport truck. I'm pretty sure that little pink hot rod was up on 2 wheels at some point.

Back in town, we had one more stop to make before bidding ado and heading our separate ways. A block from that last stop there was a stop sign that Chesty SLOWED at and while looking around at her surroundings stomped back on the accelerator without noticing the poor kitty trying to make his way across the street. RUN KITTY! I'm pretty sure he used up one of his 9 lives right there and was probably searching for the nearest litter box (I know I was).

In the end my nerves were frazzled. My pants were slightly soiled (not really but close) and my heart had stopped a total of half a dozen times but I was still alive and kicking. Really when I think about it, it was really just one really long roller coaster without a track and I love roller coasters! I had survived Chesty's driving - Let's do it again!

Mama Long Legs

I have long legs, like really long legs. Long legs are great for all kinds of things. They give me extra height (so I can reach things on the top shelf in my kitchen cabinets) and help to make me appear thinner (always a good thing). They look great with high heels (now that I can walk in them) and look nicer with capris (though my legs are long they are very skinny and chickeny so shorts are out of the question). They are not however great or good for one thing for this Mama Long Legs and that is buying pants.

Who gets to decide what is considered average leg length? A midget (sorry, little person to be politically correct)? Have they lost sight of the fact that pants can be hemmed but they can not be lengthened? Short people get petite sizing which is available just about anywhere and the rest of us get average. I know there are tall sizes but you can’t just walk into your local Walmart and find them and when you do find them they are usual higher priced. What’s the deal with that? They make shorter pants so shrimps don’t have to pay to have their pants tailored but I have to pay more if I want pants to fit.

I’m cheap. I mean frugal so I don’t spend a lot on my clothes (which may or may not be obvious by my wardrobe). Most of my apparel was purchased at the Walmart Boutique where I frequently shop. I have 4 pairs of jeans that I have purchased there and all of them supposedly the same size. They all fit when I tried them on in the change room (where on one trip Fuzzy was adamant that he was going to eat a mint he found on the floor). However, only one pair fits after a trip through the dryer. None of them are the same length, not one pair. They all say on the tag that they are the same but in reality that is a big fat lie.

One pair is just completely out of question for me to wear in public. My ankles are cold when I wear them so, with a big roll of the hem they have become a pair of capris and now belong in my summer wardrobe. Two of the other pairs are close to the same length, neither of which are the proper length to wear with any kind of shoes and therefore I’m not comfortable sitting down while wearing them especially if my routine leg shaving has been neglected for a few days or if my socks don’t match (it happens. In fact it has happened today). The fourth pair are great and even long enough to wear with a pair of low heels. Unfortunately I have not been able to find a pair that long since for under $25.

Then at Christmas time my mother in law bought me some long sleeve shirts from a higher class boutique (higher class than Walmart anyway) that where unfortunately too short in the sleeves. (I have freakishly long arms to match my long legs making it difficult to buy long sleeved shirts as well). When I took the shirts back I was given a store credit. I went directly to the jeans. They didn’t really have a lot to choose from and a lot of what they did have was kind of…grandma-ish and then I picked up a crazy long pair that looked like something a person in their (late) twenties could wear.

When I put them I didn’t know if the pant legs actually had an end they were so incredibly long. Impressed, I did the regular check. Ass looks good, check. Waist does not create a muffin top (the roll of fat that falls over the top of a pair of pants that don’t fit properly in the waist and makes you look the same shape as a muffin), check. There was no need to check the length to make sure I wasn’t waiting for heavy rains since I was standing on the pant legs. Since I was using my store credit I only briefly glanced at the price tag - $95 reduced to $55. Holy crap! Thank god for Christmas gifts that don’t fit!

After a trip to the tailor – yes the freaking tailor – Mama Long Legs has a pair of jeans that fit just like I like them in the length and my super long fabulous jeans where ready to be worn like nobody’s business. I have never in my life had to have a pair of pants hemmed until now and it is great to be able to pick how long I want my pants. I am now so envious of short legged people who get to enjoy this luxury on a regular basis. I want pants that are too long from now on. If anyone knows where I can get some (cheap) let me know.

Stoup's On

I am a big fan of soup. I like most soups with the exception of just about any soup with noodles. Noodles belong on a plate and for me that's where they shall stay not in my bowl of steamy, delicious soup. I am a fan of soup but have never made my own unless you count the soup I prepare with help from the people at Campbell's or at the Donut Shack where I add the water. Papa Bear must have been feeling in a festive mood or something and decided to make a turkey for dinner the other night and I thought it was a great opportunity to make some fresh, homemade turkey soup.

I didn't know to make turkey soup so I Googled it like I do everything I don't know. I swear I have learned more by Googling than I ever did in school. The results of my Google search were some fantastic sounding recipes but included all kinds of herbs and spices that I do not stock in my very limited pantry. So what do you do when you need some help? Ask for it in a Facebook status of course. I asked and I received some guidance from an old friend.

I wasn't about to call Papa Bear with a grocery list of things like garlic cloves, bay leaves and thyme to pick up on his way home but carrots and onions he can manage so I called his cell phone that rang from the china cabinet behind me... Thankfully Papa Bear is in the habit of calling before he leaves work to see if we need anything. What a good Papa Bear :).

While I waited for Papa Bear to arrive with the rest of my ingredients I started at tearing the turkey carcass apart. For some reason I find turkey joints and tendants really creepy and found myself with a case of heebie jeebies (as my Nana says). Just gross. I'm sure I'm not all that beautiful under my skin but eww.

In no time my house smelled of the delicious smelling concoction even though it looked like swamp water. The broth production was a very successful operation so I strained and chopped up my veggies. I don't really care for dark turkey meat nor does anyone else in the Bear family so I kept a little bit of it in the pot but the dogs got the majority of it. I'm sure they are both going to sleep in their little doggy houses with big smiles on their faces tonight.

The tough decision for the soup was barley, rice or pasta. I already expressed my dislike for noodles in my soup but Papa Bear is pro noodle and tried his best to sway me to the noodle side. The barley I thought was in the cupboard was not so rice won the spot in the soup. Now, deciding how much rice to add is a hard call and I really like rice but I did know that it would absorb the broth and only added 3/4 of a cup. That would turn out to be a poor choice and a big over estimate. Shortly after I started to cook the soup again with the rice and veggies included I looked in the pot to no longer find soup but instead what will be referred to as stoup - not soup, not quite stew but somewhere in between.

Blah Monday...

Monday strikes again! My day probably wouldn't have been so bad if I had gone to bed at a decent time (a decent time being before 1:30am) and if it didn't rain most of the day.

I was awoken at a little after 6am to the sound of my text message alert sounding from my cell phone charging in the kitchen. To prevent the rest of the house being disturbed at such an early hour I did a mad dash to the kitchen tripping over miscellaneous toys along the way. The message was from Papa Bear telling me that the school bus was cancelled...something I could have waited until the alarm clock went off in 45 minutes to find out...

The bus was cancelled due to fog. Fog? I looked out the window and across the fields and beyond. Fog? Not in my world but OK. The bus being cancelled is not the end of the world it just means some juggling of our morning routine and I am definitely going to be late for work (not that big a deal to me at all).

I tried to fall back to sleep but since that didn't seem to be happening I decided to boot up the computer instead. I subscribe to the bus information site and it is supposed to send me emails to let me know when the bus is cancelled or delayed. This morning I got 3 different emails. 1 to say the buses were running. Then, 1 to say that they were cancelled and then 1 to say that they were cancelled for elementary schools and delayed for 2 hours for secondary schools which leads me to believe that the people that are in charge of my sons transportation to school are morons. Not only do they see invisible fog but THEY don't even seem to know if the bus is running or not.

Of course the boys were in Monday mode too and none of them wanted to get up this morning and 2 out of 3 decided that the first thing they needed to do this morning was crap their pants (just to clarify that would be the unpotty-trainable 3 year old and my 1.5 year old - not my 6 year old). When they were all cleaned up and dressed they proceeded to fight and bicker for the next while as I tried to get backpacks ready and locate missing boots and mittens.

Finally Wee One was picked up by my father in law and Little Bear, Fuzzy and I were headed to the school which just happens to be almost 20 minutes in the opposite direction of the daycare and the Donut Shack. Little Bear dropped at school, Fuzzy to daycare and my breakfast of Nutrigrain bars and Crystal Light consumed I arrived at the Donut Shack. I arrived to find I was working with 1 of my least favourite people today. Oh well whatever, I'll survive.

I spent the day working a less than desirable job that made the clock stop moving. All day I looked at the stupid thing that seemed to be laughing at me from way up there on the wall above us all tick, tick, ticking away without ever getting any farther ahead. It seems I was not the only one with a case of the Mondays since customers seemed to be in fine form today also. My day was full conversations similar to the following:
"Welcome to the Donut Shack can I take your order?"
"Give me a green tea with milk"
"What size would you like?"
"Green tea with milk"
"What size would you like?"
"Ggggreeeeennn teeeeeeaaa with millllllk" (you know because they think I am the moron in this situation...)
"So large?"
Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

It wasn't the worst Monday to date but it definitely wasn't great. Just blah. Again I find myself thankful Mondays only come around once a week.

Bejeweled

Freaking Bejeweled. If you don't know what Bejeweled is it is a highly addictive puzzle game most often played online. By highly addictive I mean will take over all your extra seconds of your existence. I hate this silly game. By hate I mean I love it oh so very much, so much that if it were a man I would offer to marry it and have it's babies.

Every night I sit down at my trusty laptop and plan to entertain you with a humorous and witty post but usually decide to just play 1 or 2...or 3..or 4...or 5 games of Bejeweled and before I know it I have lost hours. The game is only 1 minute long and I lose hours!

As if the addiction wasn't bad enough I play on Facebook so it gives you a list up the side of all my friends' scores. If one of my friends has a higher score I can't stop until I have beaten their score and again rein at the top of the leader board. Bejeweled on Facebook also erases the scores every Tuesday afternoon and the competition starts again so regardless of how amazingly high my score is it only secures my top position (not that top position) for a week at the most.

Someone else I know that suffered from a Bejeweled addiction once said to me that when she looks at peoples' faces she wants to move their nose up between their eyes to complete a line. I get it KL,I get it! I Bejewel in the morning, I Bejewel in the afternoon, I Bejewel in the evening and underneath the moon.

Right now I am Bejeweling between paragraphs. What is wrong with me (just a note there is not enough room in the comment section for any of you to actually try to answer that question so please don't bother). I'm sure all my online friends think that I have super slow Internet because I don't answer their instant messages right away when in reality I am Bejeweling between messages and there is no way I'm going to answer them before the full minute of the game is up.

I need help (for lots of things but in this case I am only expressing my need for help with my Bejeweled addiction). At this point my Bejeweled play time out weighs my blogging time and is slowing down my recent cleaning, sorting, purging spree. It is my crack. My name is SlightlyInsaneStacey and I am Bejeweled.

Bitten By A Dust Bunny?

I must be ill. Perhaps I have been bitten by a dust bunny. They run rampant here and can be quite vicious. That is the only explanation for what has been going on at my house for the last 96 hours or so. I, SlightlyInsaneStacey have been doing lots and lots and lots of housework.

You may be thinking, big freaking deal but if you know me or have been reading my blog for any amount of time you know that housework is my enemy. I hate it. I would rather walk on hot coals than scrub a floor or dust a ceiling fan. Don't get me wrong, I would love to have a clean house and might actually have one if I had decided to remain single and childless.

My house would be spotless if Papa Bear helped out with the cleaning more and...the kids moved out.

Little Bear should not have had 1.5 loads of his own dirty clothes the other day when I decided it was time to once again for Climbing Mt. Laundry and Papa Bear had not had 2. I think I did almost 10 loads of laundry including bedding and towels. Far too many in my opinion.

I cleaned my bedroom yesterday. It seems to teenagerish to say that but I did. There are no longer any toys left in my bedroom. It is officially back to being and adult room. It seems so much bigger without the unfolded baskets of clean clothes and the over flowing hampers of dirty ones.

In the last few days I (finally) accepted that I have far too many clothes for my 3 little bears and that I had to let some go. I want to keep it all. Between the 3 boys I have collected enough clothes to clothe 30 little boys. I did a huge (well huge for me) purge of all the baby clothes that I decided I didn't need to keep for the next baby (yes, next baby - I am nuts) and settled with one large tote of everything from birth-24 months. I also went through the totes I had already packed of clothes that are between the sizes my boys are wearing and downsized them too. All in all I got rid of the equivalent of about 3 garbage bags of clothes. A success in my book.

Today I tackled scrubbing floors. Not an easy task when there are 3 sets of feet running all over then or little hands stealing clothes. I managed to get done my bedroom floor, the front entrance way (that no one ever enters through) and the kitchen (the worst of all the floors in our entire house to keep clean). 2.5 out of 10 rooms isn't bad...right? I guess that will be my goal to complete before I run out of this burst of Martha Stewartness.

It should be interesting to see how all my hard work will look when I get home from a full day of work after Papa Bear is here with the 3 boys all day. I told him he should take them for a very, very long drive so they are out all day and don't have a chance to mess the house up.