Sacred Family Saturday and a bonus!

Happy Birthday, Notorious #5!!

and now......

See you tomorrow! Have fun with your family!

pictures and animations by photobucket

A Round Toit

I used to have a bad habit of saying I will do (__fill in the blank__) when I get around to it. That worked well for me for quite a while, until some smart a. creative person started marketing the Round Toit. The problem with this..creative person... was that they effectively shut down a perfectly acceptable method of putting a child or the Daddy on hold for more than a minute and a half.

So, because I now HAVE a Round Toit, I have caught up on my email, corresponded with some people, realized how hideously behind I am with the laundry and that I am also out of laundry soap, discovered that my cupboards and Mother Hubbard's are amazingly similar, tossed a load of dishes in the dishwasher and discovered that the twinnies had stood on the door of it a few too many times, came to the conclusion that monster bedrooms should not require hazmat gear when trying to walk around in them, and totally spaced the fact that Fridays are piano lesson days.

I think I was much happier, though admittedly more clueless, BEFORE I had a Round Toit. Can I interest anyone in a gently used, like new, Round Toit?

Image by photobucket, of COURSE!

Drops in the bucket

The last couple of weeks have been an expensive, stressful ride, for the Monster House. We've had car damages that are costing over a thousand dollars in parts alone, we've had an emergency visit to an Opthalmic Specialist for #6, Easter weekend found us with a house guest that we weren't expecting, and last night, the Daddy's work computer decided this would be a good time to die. 

With every new thing, another drop is added to the bucket. Stressors are compounded with every drip. Emotions run high. You find yourself becoming irritable and tense. Eventually, you outgrow the bucket intended for all those evil little drops, and you get the equivalent of a natural disaster in your brain. You are now at overload. This is not good.

How then, do you quiet the flood waters and calm yourself, while still taking care of daily responsibilities that cannot be put off? Children must still be fed, clothed, and nurtured. The house must still be kept in some semblance of order, lest the meanies at Child Services come for a visit.

It's always a plus when your personal hygiene is under control, which means you have to carve out 15 minutes somewhere in your day to allow for washing your hair, shaving your legs, and brushing your teeth. That may be the hardest task to accomplish, as many parents I know have a rough time just getting to the commode unescorted. Oh, and by the way... if you do manage to carve out that 15 minutes, that also means that at some point, you've had to wash (and remember to dry) towels. Otherwise, you're stuck with the last threadbare washcloth in the linen cupboard, and I'm here to tell ya that it won't be all that satisfying to dry off with, as it's 15 years old and now the size and thickness of a postage stamp.

How can you take all those drops from your bucket, dry out, and start with a fresh out look, a better attitude, and a willingness to keep trying? 

Well. As much as I would love to be able to answer that question intelligently, I got nuthin'. Also, I'm being distracted by that picture up there  ... it's making me laugh, and that's probably bad, right? Oh, well. At least I can still laugh.. and that's a step in the right direction. 

If YOU have any helpful hints about calming the flood waters, I would love to read them! Please put them in the comment section below. Please refrain from spamming me with self help seminars, a book on 12 easy steps to financial freedom, or parenting magazines. Now is not a good time. The likelihood of extreme profanity from the direction of The Momma hurled in the direction of the spammer, is extremely great. I'm just sayin'.

Awesome photos provided by Photobucket, of COURSE!