Where Are My Crayons?

I had a great weekend, dear readers and loyal subjects.  MPH (My Poor Husband) and I went away for the weekend, just the two of us.  And by just the two of us I mean really..... just the two of us!  There were no kids.  There were no pets.  There was no family.  It was him.... and me.  Well it was mostly me.  MPH is pretty good about just going along for the ride when I get a plan in my head.  This was definitely one of those times.  But since we were truly away for the weekend without any children, it occurred to me that I needed to make the most of the time. There were things I figured I should do before the inevitable happened and I missed them and wanted to go home again.  I am proud to say that I got a lot done on my list.  And because I know that so many of you have children as well, I thought it would be good to let you in on the sort of list that you really should make in case you find yourself with child-free time as well.  So here it is!

1.  Stay in a hotel that is fancy enough that you can NOT expect to hear children running up and down the halls screaming and laughing while they work off some energy.  If you DO hear that sort of thing, you should probably call and complain. I mean really!  Who lets their kids do that when you don't have yours doing it already?!

2.  Go out to dinner.... without asking for crayons from the hostess!  Well, I did okay on this one, but I will admit that while I was waiting for my entree, it did occur to me that having some crayons might be nice.  Or maybe it wouldn't since I didn't have a coloring sheet on the back of my menu and the table cloth really was that.... cloth!

3.  Go to Ben and Jerry's for ice cream then EAT YOUR OWN ice cream.  Do NOT share.  MPH tried to get a bit of mine but that turned out badly for him.  I was totally serious about this one.

This kid totally gets it.

4.  Go to an outdoor festival and walk through the shops without having to hear "Mom!  Mom! Mom!!! Did you see that?!  Can I have it?!  I want one!" etc.  You should, however, mention to your spouse every few minutes that you just KNOW that's what the kids would be yelling if they were there to see this hella-cool stuff!  Then proceed to ask your significant other if you can have something about once every 2.3 minutes.  That'll make them not miss the kids so badly.  You're helping, really.

5.  Play with the kittens and puppies that the animal shelter brought to the festival without also having to hear anyone beg to be allowed to keep them all.... other than you, of course.  Again, MPH can deal with some whining or he'd feel like he'd missed the totally experience.  I was doing him a favor.

6.  Sleep late.  Wake up and realize you've slept late, then roll over, close your eyes and try your darndest to sleep even later!  Who knows when you'll have this chance again.

7.  Drink and entire bottle of wine with dinner.  Do NOT explain to any children that it's okay for Mommy to have an adult beverage every now and then and that no it does not stink.

8.  When your spouse asks what the heck he's doing in such a fancy hotel, tell him he's with you... welcome to some freakin' class!

9.  Walk past the toy store.  Do not pause.  Do not stop.  Do not go in... unless you see something really cool in the window that it occurs to you that YOU might want, now that you think about it!

10.  Buy yourself a surprise.  Don't buy one for anyone else.  Be selfish!  You deserve it.  You totally rock!

11.  Dance around your hotel room mid-morning after sleeping late while singing the "It's all about ME" song because who knows when that will be the truth again!

12.  Use every swear word you know as often as possible because there are no kids to a) fuss at you for swearing or b) save that particular word and it's appropriate usage for later when you least expect it!

13.  Eventually realize that you've had a great time but wouldn't it be fun if we could do it all again and bring the kids?  No?  Fine then.  I miss them.  Let's go home.  

The Weekly Random Wrap-Up

I hope you are all enjoying the fact that the seasons are changing just now.  It's going from summer to the cooler days of early fall here in the northern hemisphere.  Hopefully for all our southern hemisphere readers, the days are warming up for you.  Honestly, this is one of my very favorite times of the year.  I've always loved all the "in-between" times.  And in honor of those, I am spending a lot of time outside just enjoying... which means a little less time writing right now.  Since I don't want to leave all of you hanging with nothing to enjoy, dear readers and loyal subjects, I've decided it's time for another Weekly (or not so weekly) Random Wrap-Up!  Yup, it's time for me to be lazy and just share some of my favorite funnies with you.  So strap yourselves in.  Please keep hands, feet, arms and legs inside the ride at all times.  And don't, for any reason, leave your space until the ride has come to a complete stop.  The Queen thanks you!  And off we go!

Because you can never go wrong with cat funnies...

This is totally how I'm getting the kids to their grandparents' house.  It's gotta be cheaper than plane tickets and they're small!

This should easily explain the lack of blinds in my house.  There's no escape from Ninja Assassin Cat!

And frankly, this one should surprise no one.

This one is in honor of my children... may they always be funny... as in funny, ha ha, not funny.... well, you know!  Oh face it.  My kids don't stand a chance at "normal!"

This one will never be one of my girls, but frankly I can't help but just love it!  You go, girl!

But this woman.... this woman is my freakin' hero!  I laughed so hard I cried!

And because I can't NOT do a few in honor of the men...

Kind of makes you look at PeeWee a little differently, doesn't it?!

Ah wine.... I mean men... bless them both!

This one is in honor of my diet... the one that I have had difficulty with ever since I decided it was a GOOD idea to make my grandmother's pound cake... just because.  Yeah, sometimes I shock myself with my own stupidity.  This was one of those times.

And this one was just because it was funny!!!  I promise I was thinking of none of you!

And with that, I hope you all have a fabulous day!  I'm thinking of you and enjoying my time outside.  Yes, I may have locked the kids in the closet so that time would be peaceful, but would you REALLY have done it differently?  

Oh and don't tell DSS, okies?  Thanks!

Sabrina, Ninja Cat

Just a quick post tonight.  I'm too paranoid to write a lot.  I'm busy making sure that my cat, Sabrina, isn't trying to kill me.  Actually, I'm really spending the evening having a staring contest with her because I'm pretty sure that if I look away first, it will be considered weakness, then she's liable to take me out in my sleep.  My cat doesn't look like a killer.  In fact, she's really very cute and sweet, as most cats are... unless she's being  psycho ninja cat, which unfortunately today... she was!

Sabrina came to me when she was 3 weeks old.  Here she is before she became homicidal.  I had to bottle feed her for the first 3 weeks.

You'd think that you could trust something this cute, wouldn't you?!  Yeah, but then you'd probably think you could trust my daughters too, and I can assure that that's NOT the case!  Apparently cute and trustworthy isn't a theory that holds for cats either.

Anyway, this is Sabrina now. She's a bit rounder around the middle than she used to be and a lot bigger in general.  Here she is pretending to not be lying on my table.  She'd never do that!  She's a good girl.... right?  Yeah, maybe not.  But here comes the attempt on my life!

This is it, people.   This is Sabrina in ninja cat assassin mode!  She looks sweet and innocent enough, but no!  She may look like she's just lying there, but she's lying in wait!  Eventually someone will try to go down the stairs and fall right over her.... and it'll probably be me!

So anyway, I'd write more and tell you all about my awesome time with my first piano lesson since I was 7 years old which I had tonight, but I'm busy trying to stare down my cat.  I'm really hopeful she'll blink first and I'll establish superiority.  At least that way maybe I can sic her on MPH and sleep easy tonight.  I'll let you know how it goes.  In the meantime, I leave you with this handy little quiz to see if your cat is plotting to kill you, too!  You're welcome!

You Know You're In Trouble When...

It's going to be one of those posts tonight where I talk about my children, dear readers and loyal subjects.  Actually I'm going to talk about one of my children because she makes me laugh... even though I realize this same child will likely be the death of me before it's all over.  Yes, my youngest (the one who learned to use the F word a week or so ago (Click here if you missed it) has been at it again this weekend.  Thankfully she was profanity free but somehow that doesn't stop her from getting some rather pointed comments in.  And she's only 6!!!  I am dooooooooooomed!

This has definitely been me this weekend.

It started out innocently enough.  Friday night I looked at this beautiful girl... my baby... and told her, "You are one of the most beautiful children I have ever seen."  It was meant as a compliment.  She truly is a lovely little monster.... I mean child.  I didn't quite get the response I had anticipated, however.  Instead my child looked me straight in the eyes, waited a beat as if to make sure she heard that right and asked me, "One of?"  Yes, people.  She went there!  MPH was next to me and laughing hysterically.  I stared blinking after her as she turned and walked out of the room.  As she was leaving he yelled, "Baby, you're THE most beautiful child I'VE ever seen," which rewarded him with "Yes!" yelled back over her shoulder, and left me wondering where I'd failed as a mother.  Doomed, I tell you!

Today, I got something a bit different.  We're riding in the car and she's behind me blowing raspberries over and over and over again.  I ask her to stop, but she explains that she has stuff coming out of her mouth and she's watching it.  I groan and inform her that she's simply spitting and I'd like for her to stop.  At this point she assures me that she's not spitting because whatever is coming out is floating in the air so it's definitely not spit.  Since I'm driving, I figure it's poor form to bang my head against the steering wheel but after a moment, I call back over my shoulder "What else do you figure it is coming out of your mouth if it's not spit?!"  Well, I should have realized she would have some kind of answer to that question.  What I wasn't prepared for was what it was.  "Maybe it's a superpower!"  Yup, you got it.  My six year old is claiming super power raspberry blowing ability.  On days like today, I'm awfully glad my own super power is awesomeness.  I'd hate to be stuck with the whole super spitting thing.

So that's my six year old in a nutshell.  What I'm left wondering, however, is if these little situations are addressed in all those parenting books that I failed to read.  I'm figuring I'm doing something wrong somewhere.  I'm just hoping that I'm letting her achieve just enough weirdness to be interesting later.  Also, if those parenting books are able to anticipate the things I deal with with this child in particular, I'm betting they're a lot more interesting reading that I ever figured!

Curse You, Joss Whedon!!!

It is official, people.  The Queen is in mourning.  It's been terrible.  It's been awful.  I might not survive this particularly morose period of time.  There's only one thing that I know that will truly, truly help.... MORE FIREFLY!!!!  No, that's NOT like more cowbell.  Cowbell can't cure this.  I realize I've come to the party 10 years late but I have discovered Firefly.  I have loved.... and lost.  And this is just totally not okay!

So for those of you who  know what I'm talking about already. Thank you.  I accept your condolences and share your pain.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's okay to come out from under that rock.  I did it and it was safe enough... unless you count having my guts wrenched out in my current devastation.  Okay, the gut wrenching makes it SOUND like it isn't safe, but truly some things are worth it.  This is one of them.  Just for those of you who really don't know, Firefly was a television show... a GENIUS and BRILLIANT television show that lasted only one season about ten years ago.  Joss Whedon managed to toss this out into the cosmos way before he got around to that whole Avengers thing.  It was fantastic but cancelled after the first season only to find cult fame status with the release of the DVDs.  So large and avid was the fan base that years later a single movie was made, called Serenity.  Yup, there's our background and here's why I'm traumatized.

I blame this on one of my friends.  I'm not speaking to him anymore.  He's been telling me for years that I needed to watch Firefly and somehow he finally convinced me to do it about a week or so ago.  Turns out Netflix has the whole series available for streaming (Run!  Do not walk!  Run and watch this if you haven't!).  Anyway, I started the series, got three quarters of the way through the first episode and pronounced the whole thing crap.  Yup, I hated it.  I didn't like any of the characters.  I didn't like the plot.  I didn't like anything.  So I cut it off and went to bed.  Little did I plan on MPH (My Poor Husband) and one of his insane rules of life.  It's pretty much his favorite rule, now that I think about it. It goes like this.  If you start to watch a movie, you have to watch until the end.  If it's crap, at least you'll know that if you ever come in at any point of the movie ever again and will know to cut it off/change the channel or whatever is appropriate.  I tried to tell him that this was a TV show, but he insisted we finish it anyway.  So really, I could blame him... what have I been thinking?!  Of COURSE this is MPH's fault!!!  Yup, it always is.

So here's the deal.  I have now finished watching all 14 episodes of sheer goodness.  I have fallen madly in love with each and every main character.  These people are REAL, I tell you!  They are fabulous, and I NEED them!  I was sustained for a few days there by the fact that I still had the movie to watch so it would be better.... but I finished that tonight too.  I am currently typing this from the floor where I have decided to wallow until someone brings back Firefly which will give me the will to get up and live again.  Send help!  I did, however, decide to enlist a few of my little friends to help show you how wonderful this show is and how important it is to BRING IT BACK!!!  So ready?  (Warning: This is going to be a lot more fun for those of you who already share my pain.  So for the rest of you... go watch the series then come back!  You'll thank me.)

You can really always count on Inigo in a fight.  I'm just sayin'.

*sniffle* This is TOTALLY the truth!  

I am so not getting over this.

This, too, is just simple truth.  Where's a Reaver when you need one?!!!  Oh wait, River beat them all up!

This, dear readers and loyal subjects, is how you know you're AWESOME!  (Well you read the blog so you get honorary awesome status even if you don't know what I'm babbling on about tonight.  You're welcome.)

Yup, even kids shows are dying without their Firefly!  This is from The Fairly Odd Parents (Yeah, it's a fave.  No one is shocked by this).

No, Early.  No, it doesn't!  I'm so glad you get me.

And this one is just for me... because the quote makes me smile!

So anyway, I'll spend the weekend eating cupcakes and lying around moaning and things to get some much needed sympathy.  If any of you need me, feel free to bring chocolate and I'll consider perking up.  Just so ya know.  *big sigh*  Alas, I suspect I will really survive.  No fears.  Another couple of days, another Firefly marathon and everything will be SHINY!

My Masochistic Tendencies

Well, it's official, my dear readers and loyal subjects.  The Queen has a masochistic streak that's apparently a mile wide!  And what has fed this streak lately, you ask?  (Of course you do.  You might not have realized you did but trust me.  Would the Queen lie to you?)  It's that current addiction of mine, that evil time consumer, the bane of my little ADHD mind.... Pinterest!

Okay, so here's how this went down.  I spent the last weekend of the summer at the beach this past weekend.  Having spent the last two years working from home... online.... sitting at a desk all day instead of running around a large facility like I used to, I've noticed that I MIGHT have picked up an extra pound or two... or thirty.  Whatever.  Anyway, now that summer is over, I finally decided that it was time to get rid of those pesky pounds.  Honestly, it's not so much that I need to diet as that I need make some generally healthier choices about what I do eat and getting exercise.  So anywho.... I've actually been doing very well with this and being much more responsible... you know, for the three days or so that I've been working on it.  It's the small victories that count, people.  But somehow something caught my attention today on Pinterest and well... the Queen went wild.  Yes, people!  I give you my most masochistic pin board ever!  I give you... CUPCAKE GOODNESS!!!

That's right.  I admit it.  In my sugar deprived state, I found a picture of this amazing cake!  I stared at it a few times then finally pinned it because it was simply beautiful.  But I really didn't have an appropriate board for it.  So what does that mean?  It means I make one!  And once I had a board with a cake on it OBVIOUSLY I had to take the next step!  And there's one thing the Queen does dearly love, and that is a cupcake!  So Cupcake Goodness was born and I spent the next hour or so tormenting  my responsible, healthy, determined to get rid of this extra weight, dying for a cupcake self!  But check this out!  How could I really NOT pin this stuff?!

Look at this!!! It's a cupcake.... ON A CUPCAKE!!!  How could it possibly get better than this?!  (To be fair, MPH just came up with a way.  It involves putting two mirrors on either side to make an unending series of mirror images, but honestly after about a hundred or so, that's just getting greedy.) 

But wait!  That's not all!!!

Now as far as I'm concerned, these were just made for ME!  Look!!!! They're Queenly cupcakes!  All the sugar but with a CROWN!  Life is good.  I am about willing to just lick the screen for these babies!

And just when you thought it couldn't get any better.... I give you leopard print cupcakes!  Yes, people, it's true!  These cupcakes match my favorite shoes!  These would be to die for even without the sugar.  Well, okay. Who am I kidding.  I love that sugar!

It turns out that if you look hard enough, though, you can find more than just the cupcakes themselves.  So for the piece de resistance, I now give you a combination so fabulous, so awesome that these can only serve one purpose!  I give you...

Super Queen's SHOES!!!  Yup! These are them!  When the Queen dresses up in that most stylish of superhero costumes and transforms into her alter ego, Super Queen, THESE are the shoes she wears.  In fact, I am sending the ever fabulous and ever helpful Butlette on a mission to purchase a pair for me. So Tammie, wherever you are right now, you get out there and bring me back some shoes!!!

Kiss kiss, everyone!  I'm now going to go stare at the healthy dining choices in my refrigerator and cry. *sniff sniff*

Blue Moon Gone Wrong

This past Friday was a blue moon.  It was the second full moon of the month of August and it was something I was looking forward to seeing from the beach where we were headed for the weekend.  I love a full moon. I always have.  What I didn't love was the complete chaos that seemed to follow me around on this particular full moon!  Have you ever had one of those days that you figured could only be righted by a do-over?  Well Friday was that day for me.  Oh blue moon... how could you do me like that?!!!

Isn't this moon pretty?  Well no. It turns out it isn't!  Okay, it is, but my day wasn't!

It was one of those days that I simply shouldn't have left bed.  Or maybe it was one of those days where I simply should have hidden under my desk.  By the end, it was so filled with chaos that the people who work with me were all willing to hide under THEIR desks had there been any chance that I would accidently walk past and infect them with my blue moon luck!  Honestly, it really started out fine.  I was being nice to my daughters and after they begged the night before, I'd relented and said they could stay out of school on Friday to go with MPH (My Poor Husband) on down to the beach early on Friday morning to start on their weekend early.  That should have gotten me some good karma points, right?  I'm the cool mom!  I'm the one who lets the kids play hookey on a rare occasion!  I totally rock, right?!  Well.... apparently not that much.

It started out with all of the family but me getting ready to leave for the beach so I'd be alone to work for the rest of the day.  That's when it began to fall apart.  MPH came upstairs and told me they were delayed.  Apparently his car battery was dead.  That was no big deal.  A quick run to the auto parts store would get him a new one.  Then came his second visit.  This time the tire on the trailer that holds the jetski that our kids love so much was flat... despite it being fine when he'd checked it the night before.  Okay, now we needed to refill the tire too and see if it held.  One trip to the car part store and one inflation later, things looked good.  We had a battery and a tire that seemed fine now.  They were off!... or not.

This one has nothing at all to do with my story but isn't it cool!!!  I should have tossed Sabrina, my cat, up into the air and taken her picture with the full moon too.  I'm betting that would have brought me something, but it probably wouldn't have been better luck.

Anyway, they'd been gone about 10 minutes when I got a call from him.  I figured it was to tell me that all was well... what a fool I can be sometimes.  All was definitely NOT well, unless you consider them pulled over onto the side of the road because of that tire again.  

Queen:  Did it go flat again?

MPH:  Not exactly.  I'm unhooking the trailer now.

Queen: On the side of the road?!

MPH: Yup.

Queen:  Ummm, why?

MPH:  Because the tire disintegrated.

Queen:  Disintegrated?

MPH:  Disintegrated... shredded... fell totally apart.

*about this time I hear my middle daughter yell from the background "Daddy said a bad word!!!!"*

Queen, sighing:  She said you said a bad word.

MPH:  Yes.  I did.

Queen:  After the whole situation with the baby saying the F word last week?!

MPH: The situation sort of called for it.

You know, I was hard pressed to tell him he was wrong there.  Later my daughter told me what he'd said.  She said "Daddy yelled 'Who made this piece of BEEP?'"  And when I use the word BEEP here... that's actually what she said, bless her heart.  Then she spelled the word for me.  Apparently spelling is okay. Who knew?  Anyway, at this point it seemed that most of the bad luck was really MPH's, doesn't it?!  Yeah well that was about to change.

A few minutes later the blue moon finally came for me too.  My internet went out.  I know!  I know!  Horrors!!!!  Well, actually it was.  I work from home and online so no internet... no work!  Definitely not good.  I had people doing who knows what without me there to supervise!!! Alright, they were sitting there contentedly doing their jobs without me cyber staring over their shoulders, but they could have needed me!!!  They could have!!  So that was when I sighed, wondered what else could go wrong, and went to work on this new problem.  It seemed to be the logical step to call up my cable company's customer service department.  And miracle of miracles.... they immediately admitted that there was some kind of problem.  They NEVER do that!!!  They always spend a half an hour trying to make me feel like an idiot for not realizing that my internet WANTS to connect but that something I'm subconsciously doing is interfering with its ability to.  Yeah, if you ever want to feel completely stupid, try telling my cable company that the internet is out while they insist it isn't.  But it looked like my luck was turning with this call!  Too bad it wasn't.

The girl I spoke to was very nice.  She told me something was wrong and was running tests from her end to figure out what it was.  She was helpful and nice and clear and competent and that's when I should have realized it was just too good to be true.  And yup!  That's when it happened. 

Nice girl on the phone:  Oh my God...

Queen:  What's wrong?

Nice girl on the phone:  We're having a very strong earth quake here.

Queen:  Earthquake (while I looked around to make sure I wasn't having one too)

Nice girl on the phone:  Yes... it's... very strong!

*shockingly she was really pretty calm while telling me this, or at least she was very professional*

Queen becoming a bit concerned and wondering if it was coming for me in a moment:  Ummm, where are you exactly?

Nice girl on the phone:  The Philippines.  Can I put you on hold for a moment?

Queen:  Ummm, sure!  (You know, I did briefly wonder what she would have said if I'd said no.  At this point I figured she had enough going on without me deciding to be funny about it, though.)

Nice girl on the phone:  Okay, I'll be right back.

Queen... fill in this space with a few bad words and beep them all for me while I was on hold, thanks!

Nice girl on the phone, coming back:  They say I need to evacuate this building.  Could you call back in a little while?

Queen:  Yes.  Yes, I can.  You stay safe and thanks.

(See?!  I can be nice and considerate!)

I never did call back.  I figured an evacuated customer support center was likely an empty customer support center.  I called IT at my company and we figured a work around that ended up looking exactly like my set up before anyone ever started trying to fix it and left me with no clue what had happened to my internet!  I still blame the blue moon.

Needless to say, I drove to the beach veeeeeeery caaaaaaarefully!  Luckily, I got there in one piece!  So the moral of the story here is.... well frankly I have no idea what the moral is.  I guess I really just wanted someone to pat me on the back and tell me it's over... until 2015.  I plan to definitely stay in bed that day!

Addendum:  I should mention that several of the people who work with me really did decide that Friday was not the day to call, email, or deal with me if at all possible.  In fact, I think I was told at least once that I should "Stay over there!  I don't want it to rub off on me!"  Interestingly, I did report the 7.9 earthquake in the Philippines to the people at work about 10 minutes before the AP did.  The Queen knows ALL!!!  Yup, I still rock.