Tonight when I came home, I asked Tink to get ready for bed.
She came out all upset…

Tink: Momma, my puppy is missing, he fell off my pj’s! Is he in the washer? or Drying machine?

FG: Is your shirt on inside out?

Tink: No, it’s not – see the fuzzy side is out.

And then she turned around….

FG: Sweetie – you have your shirt on backwards.

Tink: Oh no, if I lay down I’ll squish him!

Bet you are wondering why those numbers are my title.

They are the winning numbers for tonight’s Powerball drawing.

Why am I telling you?

Because if I were to ever buy a ticket,
those numbers listed above – 2, 17, 41, 54, 55 and the big red number – 17

(yeah, those numbers)

That particular combination of numbers are ones I would never have picked.

So I just saved myself a whole $1.

Whooo Hooo!

(Yeah, the cold weather has frozen my brain, I’ve got nothing…. nada, zilch, Thought I found Mr. Incredible’s birthday present – but I’m afraid adding another dog to our house really isn’t going to help NoSammyNo with her little problem, and it probably isn’t going to help train the new puppy – but they are sooo cute!)

Kids do silly things:

• Tonight for supper I made chicken noodle soup for the kids – after Pan ate his, he had a little broth left in the bowl – he stuck his hands inside the bowl – when I asked him why – he said “My hands were cold.” WTH?

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I woke up this morning, and told myself – “Self, this is going to be a Fantastic Day!” (See, I’m really trying to have a better attitude!)

I turned on the news, and slowly, one by one every school in our part of the state started canceling school. Except for ours. We were under a winter weather advisory – between the wind, the temps and the expected snow fall it was going to be a nasty day. Still I said to myself – “Self, this is still going to be a Fantastic Day!”

I got the kids up and slowly but surely they got dressed, ate some cereal, fed the dog, let her out and we got ready to leave for daycare/school and work. The morning is going pretty well – and I say to myself – “Fantastic day this is!”

I drop the kids off at daycare, find out that school will be getting out at noon – still a great day – as it will still count as a school day.

I sat down at my desk, started on my stack of work, emails etc. and then the wind picked up, the snow came (sorta), and the temperatures dropped. So I made some tea, and thought to myself – “Self, This positive thinking stuff is for the birds, I’m cold, no amount of Tea is going to warm up my hands and feet” – So would someone please turn the heat back on, and turn off the fan.

Okay – I’m thinking that I need a different job, one that would allow me to spend time in this location.

So if you have any employment opportunities that would allow for this to happen. Let me know…

BUT – if you are the person that gave my name and phone number and email to the work from home and earn $58K a year, no training needed, only give us your credit card number. (Now, why do they need my credit card number – I can see no good coming from that!) I’ll pass.

In less than a month – my baby, my Tink will be going to Kindergarten Round-up, I’ll be signing her up for Kindergarten…

Oh.MY. GOSH….

My Baby will be in Kindergarten….

She’s no longer a baby….

I need to breathe…

and then as I am almost tearing up over this knowledge, Mr. Incredible says two words to me

“Daycare. Bill.”

and I smiled.

Right now, we pay around $160 per week, when Pan is in school all day everyday, and Tink is there full time. This summer? it will be close to $250 a week.

So when I get all teary-eyed again in February, and then again in the fall -someone please say – those two words – DAYCARE. BILL.

I keep telling myself, that what goes around comes around.

I’m just wondering when we will get a break, or when will something ‘good’ happen to us? Not that we are any more deserving than anyone else, but when does the “comes around” part happen?

Will it be in this lifetime?

Yeah, I didn’t think so either.

I’m only guessing this is true – as I’ve never been rich & miserable. Seeing this reminds me of when I was younger.

Every other summer – all of us (7 people) would pile into the van and drive to Ohio to visit my Dad’s army buddy. Would be in in the van for 18 hours (I think?) only stopping to fill up with gas and bathroom breaks. Mom would pack a cooler with bologna & Cheese & BUTTER sandwiches (I don’t know why -but that’s how it was done.) We were left to our own imaginations to entertain ourselves… reading, drawing, or playing car games (the alphabet game, license plate game etc.) and you can imagine the torture that went on – I’m not touching you – MOOOMM she’s touching me, she’s looking at me, he’s breathing on me …. type crap. Good times people, good times.

Anyway, we drove past this very well-to-do neighborhood in the Chicago area, and I made a comment about all the houses with pools in their backyard, and how they must be “rich”. And one of my sisters made the comment – “But they probably aren’t happy”. (SMARTASS)

The thought running through my head – “I’d risk being unhappy if I could be rich.” Because I seriously doubted that rich people were un-happy.

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Too bad I’ve always been happy, I’ve never gotten to test this theory…

Looking at the forecast this week -

Wed – snow
Thursday – Frigid
Friday – Snow
Saturday – Warmer -
Sunday – Snow
Monday – Snow
Tuesday – Snow

Anyone want some snow? We seem to have an abundance here!

This post is going to be brutally honest (and long) – Keep in mind – I am human, I make mistakes, and part of making mistakes is learning from them. Part of becoming a better person is to admit your mistakes, and move on.

Criticize me, tell me to use the fly lady – tell me to get an organizational chart… I already know this stuff – I’m that girl in my office. I keep track of 3 boss’s and their schedules, their meetings etc. I am Miss Organization – I have them color coded, schedule their vacations, and make things “Happen”.

Slowly, I am regaining control. Slowly, my house is getting back to an acceptable level of disorder. You know – the lived in look. Sunday Morning ? – I could have called in the Hazmat team, it was that bad.

Disaster zone 1- Computer Desk Area

Seriously. Ever since we got back from Vegas in October, I have not been able to catch up. I should say – The weekend we got back it was fine, that week we played catch up with the kids, and that weekend it was all about the kids.

Ever since it’s been the bare minimum to keep our heads above water. Depressed? Maybe, but I really think I was just overwhelmed with working 45+ hours, running the kids here there and everywhere, and Mr. Incredible working a lot of OT – he is just exhausted by the time he gets home. There was some family B.S going on, and I just dealt with it by not. I kept the kids in clean clothes, they were fed, bathed, etc. So basically to the outside world – life in our house was fine.

On the inside? The desk was buried (literally) in paperwork – which spilled over onto the chair, the bookshelf, and end table, (I found that and the desktop computer on Sunday) – you think I am kidding? I’m not. I sorta found the living room on Sunday as well. How does it get this way? It’s one of those things, if I don’t pick up/put away everything every day, it gets to be too much, and then I just say f*ck it. and there are days, when I am exhausted, and I can’t/don’t want to – so I don’t. I need to get to the point of making the kids put away their items, and then it wouldn’t be so bad, but there are days when I chose my battles, and I make the choice to not have that battle.

I think it would be safe to say I haven’t had Kitchen counters since November. I don’t know why – but everything ends up in two places – the kitchen counter, or the computer desk.

My Kitchen was a disaster zone, because I didn’t care, seriously – i just didn’t care – cereal box on the counter – oh, well. The kids will need cereal tomorrow, why put it away. Medicine on the counter? They just have to take it tomorrow, or later tonight. I kept opening the cupboard doors, seeing them “full” of food, but we never have anything to eat…no longer organized, no longer labels out. If things were put back – they were shoved in there. and stuff that was put back – were boxes with less than a serving left (crackers, cereal etc.)

(Yeah, Meritt – I know – you are having a heart attack – breathe woman, breathe. – my sister K and my mom would die if they knew my house got to this point )

I love having everything organized. I do. But it just got to a point where I couldn’t keep up, because if I can’t have it this way, I don’t want it – I gave up. And then Sunday – I snapped….

Monday – I had to do some laundry, so I just did that.

So tonight instead of blogging, *gasp* I reclaimed my kitchen. The cupboards are clean, organized (and OMGosh – I have to go grocery shopping), and I have my counters back.

Rooms left to tackle – (in no particular order)

1. The kids’ room – this will wait until this weekend.
2. our room – this will be one of the last items.
3. the bathroom – tomorrow – thinking of getting some bins for tink’s hair items, and brushes so she stays out of mine, time to clean out the make-up / lotions, toss old tooth-brushes and put out new. etc.
4. the basement – Probably Friday night after the kids go to bed – I want to do a major overhaul – I’m not sure what will happen, as we have too much stuff – but I’m thinking getting rid of a few things might not be a bad thing.

A few things I have learned from cleaning my kitchen:

1. Flour, Sugar, and Brown sugar can and do go bad – those pretty canisters, really don’t “seal” for long periods of time.
2. Tequila doesn’t.
3. Jello – has an expiration date
4. We have three packages to make “Homemade” Ice Cream – although I’m not sure where one piece of the ice cream maker is. I think it’s in the one cupboard I didn’t get to.
5. We do have snow-cone flavoring – strawberry.
6. I do have an electric knife – I just couldn’t find it at Thanksgiving.
7. I also have a smoothie maker (but I don’t think we have ever used it.)
8. I found the Halloween plates and napkins I bought for Pan’s class party, and then couldn’t find, so I had to buy more.
9. I have enough mixes to make fresh muffins in the morning every day for the next 10 days (these also have an expiration date – who knew?)
10. I have two boxes of mix for our bread machine – which we haven’t used in who knows when.

I’ll be back to my regular blogging, commenting on blogs, etc when I have regained total control of the house. I’m on a mission…. (It’s as if I sub-conscientiously know that something bad is going to happen, and I know that I have to have everything in place before it does… but I don’t know what the “bad” is.)