Archives for September 2007

They Say the Mind is the First Thing to GO

Actual conversation with Hubby yesterday:

Me: Hey, your dad called while you were out. He said he’d call back in about 30 minutes.
Hubby: Did he say what he wanted?
Me: No, but I’m quite sure he was just calling to wish you a happy birthday.
Hubby: Oh yeah. It’s my birthday today, isn’t it?

Why The Princess LOVES Her Daddy

This morning, Hubby and his friend ventured out to brave the throngs of soccer moms at Ticketmaster to get tickets for The Princess and her best bud, L (who is the friend’s daughter) to go see HANNAH MONTANA in two months.

As soon as I heard tickets would be going on sale, I started reading about it – how it’s like this major frenzy for tickets – how Hannah is selling out arenas in seven minutes. Sheesh. So, Hubby and Friend would go in person, and I would stay at home and try to buy tickets online. We read in the paper last night that they would be doing a lottery for tickets (for inperson sales), to discourage people from camping out. Fine by me – can’t think of any singer or band I would camp out for. When Hubby and Friend got there, they got their numbers, and when the Ticketmaster folks drew the starting number – It was Friend’s! Yeah, first in line.

Which rocked – because they were able to get four tickets – and by 10:02 Ticketmaster online was already showing no seats at any price available. Sheesh.

The Princess is rather excited, and I know she’s going to have a blast. It might be somewhat painful for me and the other mom (dads buy tickets, moms go to the show) – especially since she really doesn’t like Hannah Montana, but it will definitely be a special night for the girls. So, yay for Hubby for being a good dad!!

A Little Reality Check

Nothing like a slap in the face to remind me to be grateful for all the good in my life, and for the health of my family and loved ones. I’ve been in a funk the past few days, and I have been forgetting all the good that I have in my life. Someone I know is going through something so very difficult, and compared to his pain, I have nothing to complain about. I hate that it took someone else’s struggles to make me open my eyes a bit.

When Forgetful is Good

This afternoon, while I was baking my (first ever) cheesecake, I started smelling smoke. Then I got to looking and realized there was smoke coming from the oven. I bake quite a bit – I am not one who burns stuff, so I was quite disappointed to see and smell the smoke. I checked the oven and realized it wasn’t the cheesecake burning, but rather something on the bottom of the oven (likely something that had dripped from the Springform pan, I’m guessing). I took the cheesecake out, I turned the oven off, I opened all the windows and the slider, and then I turned on the fan over the stove.

And then it hit me.

Why weren’t my smoke alarms going off?

I strolled around the main floor. No batteries.

I strolled upstairs. One detector missing its batteries.

UGH!

When Hubby got home, I asked him, “Why aren’t the smoke detectors hooked up?” He’s apparently forgotten for the past few weeks to pick up batteries at the store. Oy. So, I made sure to write it on the grocery list so he’d get them on Friday. Makes me nervous knowing that so many of the smoke detectors aren’t working. Buuuuuut… had they been working, it would have woken Pumpkin up from her nap seriously early – and THAT woulda been a bad thing.

Sugar Therapy

I have been in a funky mood the past few days and I’m not sure why, and I’m not sure how to fix it. I don’t have many vices – by and large, I’m a pretty healthy gal: I work out daily, I don’t each much junk, rarely drink, don’t smoke. I have no vices to turn to when I’m feeling BLAH. The past few days, I have treated myself to capuccinos in the morning, which somewhat pick me up, but frankly, it doesn’t quite do the trick.

Last night, I sent Hubby out to pick up ice cream. Desperate times clearly call for desperate measures. He came home with some vanilla with chocolate chunk ice cream – the kids were all quite enthusiastic about it. Me? Not so much. Don’t get me wrong, I ate it anyway. For a while there, I was almost chipper.

Right now, there is an Oreo cheesecake in my oven. I’m baking it for Hubby’s office tomorrow, and I have to admit, I kinda sorta ate quite a bit of batter while I was making it. I realize that because of the four raw eggs in the cheesecake batter, I’m probably gonna be coming down with salmonella (though I think that’s just a crappy oldwives tale designed to steal joy from children who want to lick the bowl when mom is baking), but I DON’T CARE. It was sooo good. Really really good. There was NOTHING healthy about that cheesecake I was making, and the sugar has clearly gone straight to my head. And I like it.

And the Doctor Says…

The Princess has bronchitis.

Poor little pooh-bear. She’s been coughing since Friday with that same low grade fever. Last night, after she fell asleep at the dinner table, and then fell asleep on the couch (well before 7 p.m.), I knew that she’d probably have to go to the doctor’s. As I had an appointment this morning, it was up to Hubby to take her in. Knowing, as I do, that his memory is useless (or nonfunctional, rather), I wrote a list of her symptoms: what symptoms she has or had, when they started, and so forth.

Apparently, from looking at her record, the PA determined that The Princess will likely ALWAYS be susceptible to getting bronchitis. That next time she gets that horrible cough (which he referred to as “spastic”), that she needs to come in ASAP if we don’t have any liquid albuterol. He prescribed a monster bottle of it, as well as some chewable amoxicillin. Of course, for those of you who have no experience with albuterol (lucky lucky lucky) you may not know that it tends to pep kids up a bit. The Princess is pretty darn perky right now, and so it’s going to be a long afternoon.

I’m hoping that this germy mess cleans up soon.

Fun Stuff in the Mail Today!

Today, I received my Table Topics cards that I ordered for the trip I have in two weeks. I ordered the Girls Night Out edition, and there are over a hundred crazy random questions to spark conversation – awesome on a long car ride.

I’m putting three sample questions below – answer one if you want!

* What hobby would you love to pursue if you had more time?

* What do you love most about your partner?

* Would you get plastic surgery and what kind?

One Down, Four To Go

This week is insanely busy. Seems like I overbooked myself, and I keep wondering how I’ll still be standing come Friday. Today started with a to-do list of about seven things – the first one being to call my dentist for an unexpected appointment. Somehow, most likely due to Pumpkin head butting me yesterday, I chipped a tooth. In itself, this is odd because I had just been talking to a friend about his tooth getting chipped (though I totally didn’t chip mine in that same way!)… and then… sheesh. It wasn’t visible unless you really stared and were looking for it – even the dentist had a hard time finding it – but I like my teeth, I knew it was there, and I wanted it fixed by golly. Today, we also had a playdate scheduled and I had dinner plans with a friend for her birthday.

I have never taken both of my kids with me to the dentist. I’m pretty sure I may never do it again. My dentist recruited a hygienist to baby sit my kids while he checked things out. I felt horrible that the poor hygienist ended up taking Pumpkin down the elevator three times, and then sat in the waiting room play area with my kids – but, I have to say, it was a quiet time for me.

Dinner was fantastic – my friend had a margarita bigger than her head, we ate yummy enchiladas, and then we went to the mall to shop while she was metabolizing some of her drink before she would drive home (I got two super cute shirts! Yay me).

Tomorrow continues the streak. The Princess has school, but I have (fun stuff) my yearly physical. Boooooooooooooooo. Then a conference call. Double boooooooo. Wednesday is another appointment. Thursday is soccer for The Princess, softball for Hubby (so here’s hoping I’m able to wrangle the girls in bed without his help in time for the new Grey’s Anatomy!). Friday is my eye exam (I hate having my eyes checked – I really get skeeved out with the eye doc getting so close to my face. I must have boundary issues). Also Friday, I want to try to smuggle some treats into Hubby’s office so his co-workers can celebrate his birthday with him, a day early.

(Oh, I have to buy him a card and gift too… When? Shuuuuuuucks).

This week is freakin’ insane.

Mystery Solved

Way back in the day, I shared a hundred random facts about myself. Number eight on that list was that plucking my eye brows makes me sneeze. I’m happy to report that October’s O Magazine answers the question about why that happens:

The facial nerves include the trigeminal, which has a branch that extends from the brow down into the tip of the nose. Sometimes when plucking your eyebrows, that nerve is stimulated: Aaachoo!

So. Now we know.

Wanna Help Me Out?

In a few weeks, I’ll be on a mini road trip with some friends, and I’m currently loading up the iPod and making a road trip play list. I’ve got a few must-haves and I’ve gotten a few requests from a friend who is going. What songs do we need for our trip?