Pop Quiz

A man and woman have been married nearly 11 years. They have two children and do not get out much. They do, however, belong to a varied assortment of internet communities.

Their computer dies, right before the weekend. Each pretends to have a lesser addiction than the other. "Oh, I can just get on the 'net at work, no big deal."

"Uh huh! Me too. No big deal!!"

How long before one of them breaks and they go buy a new computer?

Answer:

Around 50 hours

when life hands you lemons, start throwing the damn things at your husband.

Well, tragedy has struck my little household.

Our computer died. It went quietly into that good night. I had just put the kids to bed for the night, and started dialing up as I heated my water for my cappuchino in the microwave. I went and sat down, sipping my drink, and enjoying the peace and quiet in the house. I checked my email, and then was loading up babycenter, and the whole thing went black. The motor stopped humming and there were no lights on the CPU. "Hmmm... I thought. Kids must have unplugged the computer." Our kitchen only has one outlet, so we have to plug it up in the living room and run the cords under the baseboards. Occasionally, one of the kids will run into the end table, which knocks the cord out of the wall.

It wasn't until I got in the living room that I remembered the kids were in bed. Hmmm... wonder if I hit the power cord with my big fat foot??

So I go back to the kitchen, and that is when I notice that the MONITOR has power. It is just the CPU that isn't working. Crap. This can't be good.

I call Marty.

"Hey, honey? I think the computer died."

"What happened?" he asks.

"Well, I was online and then it all went dead. Like the power quit to the CPU. It is just dead."

"Try shutting down and restarting it." Marty says.

Silence... silence... silence, while I think quietly to myself, "Uh... hello?? It is DEAD. There is no shut down and there is no restart. There is a 'prop it in front of the door and use it as a doorstop' option, would you like me to try that? " but instead I say, "Honey? There is no POWER. I can't restart it."

"Have you checked the plug and made sure it is plugged in all the way?"

Thinking: "Oh, check the plug!! The power went off and I never even thought about checking the plug!! Honey, I am so glad I married a big, strong man like you. I wouldn't be able to find my ass with a flashlight if I didn't have you around to help me out. There we go!! All plugged in and ready to run!!"

Saying: "Yes, honey. That is the first thing I checked. The monitor has power, it is just the CPU that has none. It won't do anything."

THEN Marty says, "Well, I will tell you what to try. Go to the file box and get the System Restore disks and run those. That might fix it."

Oh. my. gosh.

He is really not listening to me.

Thinking: "Oh my gosh!! You are not even freaking listening to me!! There. Is. No. Power. I can't run a disk, I can't run a program, I can't shut down, I can't restart. I can't check my email, I can't work offline. There. Is. NO. POWER. Do you see?? No lights. NO POWER."

Unfortunately, I said all that too. And then he got all mad and said, "Well obviously, you know what the problem is and all the solutions, so why did you even call me??"

I have no idea, you manly man.

So, until we get a new CPU, I am going to be computerless. It is going to be a scary experience that is hopefully going to result in me becoming a stronger person through adversity and deprivation. Kind of like the young Indian men who go on missions alone through the country as a rite of passage. Or like the people on Survivor that are dropped off on a desert island and forced to fend for themselves, with no luxuries. (only I won't have a TV crew, and will not come out of this a millionaire.)

I will be alone, in my house with no computer, no virtual contact with the virtual outside world all weekend. It will be scary, but I will survive. (First I was afraid, I was petrified, Kept thinking I could never live without you by my side... ) I will clean house, play with the children, go to bed at a decent hour, possibly even finish painting the cabinets that I started before Christmas.

Shit, it is going to suck.

Taggie waggie!!

My good friend from Texas that I will someday meet up with for margarita's, Kellee, tagged me!!

Four jobs that I have had:
Gas station cashier
daycare teacher - babies for 7 months, then toddlers (my favorite!!) for a year
Bank Teller
Marina Dockhand

Four movies that I can watch over and over again:
Field of Dreams
Beaches
Forrest Gump
Walk the Line (can't wait for DVD, so that I can watch it over and over again, without the $7 fee and crowds of people that I don't know gathered around me!)

Four places I have lived:
(I am almost as embarrassed to admit this as I am the vacation one coming up...)
Bismarck, Arkansas
Gurdon, Arkansas
Seattle, Washington (one year, saving me from being a complete bore!!)
Arkadelphia, Arkansas

Four TV shows I love to watch:
Extreme Makeover, Home Improvement
Three Wishes (come on, syndication!!!!)
ER
American Idol

Four websites I read daily (or I at least check on daily):
Does my email count as a website???
Babycenter
I check jodyevans.com for updates
too many blogs to mention, I have a whole list
(How am I at such a loss when I spend all day on the internet???)
scotthousehold.com

Four places I have been on vacation:
Honeymoon at Eureka Springs
One week at my mother in law's in Columbia South Carolina
Nashville Tennessee
ummmmm.... I am going to DC in April, can I go ahead and count that one????
(shit, i am a loser)

Four favorite foods:
(OOOOHHH!! OOOHHHHH!!! I am good at this one!!!)
Tacos
Enchiladas
Crab with lots of butter
bread in all forms

Four places I'd rather be:
Hawaii
Cancun
Jamaica
On a cruise ship

Four people to tag:
The absolutely hysterical Mel
The nicest person in the world, Tonya (who has not updated since freaking November!!)
Another girl that cracks me the hell up, Kristi
My real life friend and homebuilder and getting married girl, Misty (Mist, you ain't pissed are ya???)

The horrors of dri-weave protection

I'm baaaackkkkk!!

I had the freaking flu last week. I have never had the flu before, and it is not fun. Actually, I don't know if it was the flu or something worse, because I actually had every sickness symptom there is. Fever, headache, body ache, runny nose, watery eyes, congestion, throwing up, the opposite of throwing up, chills, sweats... I even got my period in the midst of all of that, and did not have any supplies. I told Marty that I was sorry, but he was going to have to make a trip to walmart. This was when my fever was topping out at 103 degrees... and he said, "What if I drove you, could you go in and get them?" He is breaking out in a sweat, and starting to tremble.

I will never understand this fear of sanitary napkins. He is worried to death about what people will think... I keep trying to tell him, if someone at walmart sees him buying Kotex, they will think, "Hmmm. Marty's wife is on the rag. Bet she is a bitch." There are some items that I would never ask him to buy:

1. panties, thongs or otherwise

2. nipple shields

3. KY jelly.

4. pregnancy tests (although it might be fun just to see how many people called to tell me that they saw Marty buying pregnancy tests... it's always fun in a small town to be the one to blow the whistle on the husband.)

5. Vibrators

I try to be accommodating to him, because he does embarrass easily, and I do not. But there was no way I was going to Walmart. He ended up calling my aunt and begging her to go and buy them, and then he went and paid her double for them.

I have black market Kotex. My aunt is a Kotex dealer.

*cough, cough, cough*

Sorry, I haven't been bloggy lately. I have had a bad week. I am sick, and apparently I have an online stalker.

I will try to blog tomorrow if I am feeling better, and if I have not:

1. Literally coughed up my left lung
2. Suffocated on snot and other disgusting bodily fluids
3. Had a wreck from operating heavy machinery (my durango) while taking the medicine that they use to cook meth
4. gotten murdered by my online stalker

the terrible... ohmygoshheisn'teventwoyet!!!

This has been a bad week with my little baby boo.

I used to joke when Elizabeth was small that she was in the terrible two's... or three's or four's.... I had no idea what life had in store for me.

I was so smug. I really was!! All my friends seemed to have boys and secretly I was horrified at their behavior. I would say to Marty, "I don't know that I am going to let Elizabeth play with little Freddy anymore. His mother just lets him run WILD and has absolutely no control over him." Not like I do... my child is an angel and that is because I am a good mother.

To me, Elizabeth's "terrible two's" were when she cried for a toy. And her cry was not an angry, out of control I-am-going-to-hurt-you cry, it was just a little sad cry. "Oh, pardon her. She is two." I would say to passers-by, shaking my head.

Someone decided to show me the light.

Karma's a bitch.

Now I have little Misser Colby. He was such a sweet baby. Just played quietly by himself, slept 16 hours a day, was content to sit in his bouncy chair and look at his hands for as long as you let him, until you started feeling guilty that he was just sitting in his bouncy chair looking at his hands, and you made him play a game with you.

That child snuck away one night, and I don't know if he will ever come back.

Instead, the aliens have dropped off this ... well, hell. It's my blog and I can say what I want. They dropped off this wild animal. With rabies. I believe that the dog that played "Cujo" in the Stephen King movie has been reborn into my son.

God knows I love him to pieces. But God also knows that I sink to my knees gratefully at 8:31pm every night and say, "Thank you God for sending me this baby boy that I yearned so desperately for, and thank you God that it is his bedtime. And thank you God for making it possible to make Vodka out of potatoes. Thank you God for potatoes."

I dread even having to leave the house with him.

A perfect example - Elizabeth's school hosted a "Donuts for Dads" breakfast this morning, and moms and mean baby brothers were not invited. So, instead of wandering walmart and trying to keep Colby from pitching a fit in the store, I decided just to take him to McDonalds and get him a McGriddle (yes, I know. They aren't healthy. That was the point. It was supposed to be a bribe.) and take him back to my office.

He was happy for the 10 minutes that it took for him to inhale the McGriddle. When he was finished, he promptly threw the remaining breakfast sandwich on the floor. While I was on my hands and knees picking that up, he threw his sippy cup down and hit me in the head. That, and my abrupt, "Ow! Shit!" broke him into hysterics. Real funny.

Now I am cleaning splattered milk off the wall, (who the hell makes these damn things LEAKPROOF any damn way?? They should be fired.) and he climbs out of the chair and answers the phone. (We share office space with a real estate office.) "Heh woah?" he says, cute as a button.

"Who is on the phone in the conference room?" one of the realtors yells out.

"Oops. It's me! I knocked it off the hook!" I yell. I take the phone away from Colby who begins screaming and banging his head on the floor.

I am now trying to wipe the grease of the handset, while picking him up with the other arm, and he pulls his latest trick. He headbutts me in the nose.

I see stars and wonder if I can take off with a broken nose or if my boss will bitch about how much work I am missing.

I haul Colby to my office, unplug my phone and give him my chair. "Have at it Colby. Do some filing while you are here. Earn your damn keep."

"Heh woah?" he says into my phone, punching buttons and then laughing uproariously at something whoever he was pretending to talk to said.

I run back to the conference room, to clean up the rest of the mess before someone headed in there and started bitching.

I swear to you, not two minutes later, one of the realtors (the same one bitching about the phone) says, "Hey Nat? Your kid is about to be electrocuted." and then in a lower voice, he says, "Hey bud, don't do that. Those things can bite you." I run back to the main office and Colby is sticking his fingers in the outlets that some contractor stupidly put in the floor in the middle of the room.

I pick him up, and he starts screaming and bucking again. I move my head as far to the opposite side of my body as it will go, without looking like the girl in The Exorcist to protect my throbbing nose, and any other part of my face that he might hit. I try to play "The Distraction Game" that works so well for my mother, and carry him over the the picture boards where they showcase the houses that are for sale.

"Look here Colby! Look at this house!! It has a pool. See the pool? That pool is an inground pool. Ohhh! and this house has cathedral ceilings and costs two hundred and fifty-seven thousand dollars! That is more than mommy and daddy makes in five years! Isn't that something?"

It's not working. He is still pissed. He is trying to slap the picture boards down from the wall. Maybe he is pissed at the fact that his parents are poor and will never have a house with a pool or cathedral ceilings.

I take him over to the front door and show him the mail slot. He stops crying at least. Then I show him how to take ink pens and push them out the mail slot. This is fun for about two minutes. Then that gets boring too.

I take him back to my office, but he doesn't want to go there. I shut the door to keep him in, and he starts in with the screaming and the banging of the head again.

We have been at my office approximately 22 minutes.

This was not an "off" day for him. This is typical everyday Colby.

He is mostly fine at home. If he is surrounded by his things, and everything is going his way, he can be a doll.

However, he is starting to show jealousy over me and his sister. Last night, Elizabeth and I tried to get him to play Lego's with us, and he refused. He just wanted to play cars. So we decided to use all the square lego's and see how high of a tower we could make. The minute he saw that we were having fun without him, he came over and deliberately crashed the tower. Not for fun, he didn't laugh. He immediately went back to his cars. His mission was complete.

This happened about 57 times before we gave up. If Elizabeth and I are laying on the couch together, he will crawl up and sit on her chest and start beating her in the head, while trying to shove her off. If we are reading a book, he will rip it from our hands and throw it across the room.

I don't know what I am doing wrong. I feel like the absolute most pathetic, horrible, mean mother in the whole world. I don't know what to do to make my son happy, to make him love me. I feel like a failure, like someone is going to come and get him and tell me, "You have really fucked this up," and take him away. At this point if someone told me that the only way he was going to behave was if I slathered my naked body in peanut butter and ran down the street, I would do it. Joyfully.

Marty laughs and says it was born into him. Marty was, by all accounts, The World's Most Bratty Child. I have talked to many older ladies who laughed and told me that they babysat my husband ONCE when he was a child. By the time he was 4, no one would keep him. He also banged his head on the floor, on occasion so hard that he knocked himself out. His mother said to never believe those doctors that say they only do it hard enough to get attention, not to hurt themselves. She kept a glass of water right under the blower in the fridge so that when he started the pitching-of-the-fit, she could just reach in and throw it in his face.

And now Marty is the sweetest, calmest, most loving, even-tempered guy I have ever met. So maybe he got all his evil out as a small child and there is still hope for Misser Colby.

Thank God for potatoes, in the meantime, though.

Marty

Goodness knows, I have bitched about my husband relentlessly here. But tonight, I am doing a brag on him. He would be mad if he knew, so it's a good thing this blog is now saved under favorites with the title, "Becky's Birth Blog"...

Two years ago, an old friend of ours called him and asked if he was free for the weekend. It just so happened that he was. Our friend told him that he had started a program taking physically handicapped guys duck hunting, and they had more signed up this time than they could handle, and he really needed another hand.

Marty was a bit apprehensive, having never been around anyone in a wheelchair. Our friend told him, "There is only one rule. Don't fucking help them unless they ask you to." and he laughed.

Marty gets to the meetup spot before daybreak the next morning. All the guys are getting unloaded and into their chairs, and getting their guns and their ammo ready and they head slowly for the wheelchair accessible blind. If I remember correctly, Marty got his head bit off within the first 10 minutes for trying to help a guy get his wheelchair out of the mud. The sentiment was something like, "I made it 20 years without your help, don't touch my chair."

But as the morning went on, he started to have a ball. When the guys missed ducks, they called each other nasty names. When they hit them, they called each other nasty names.

When Marty got home, he was elated. I remember him telling me that he saw handicapped people in a whole new light. They were just guys, in wheelchairs.

Since that weekend, Marty has worked with our friend to expand the program. They now have two duck hunts a year, a deer hunt, and in the summer, they have a huge fishing tournament. Marty has also started asking local businesses for donations, and having a big meal after each hunt.

This weekend was his last disabled duck hunt for the season. He spent all day Friday smoking meat, and yesterday and today they killed 14 ducks, and had a huge barbecue lunch.

He is on cloud nine.

my poor little exorcist baby

Last night, for the first time since the day I started taking the Lexapro three weeks ago, I was in the mood for a bit of love. I dropped hints left and right to Marty, and after we were sure the kids were asleep, we went to bed... about five minutes later, we hear Elizabeth's door creak open. (Thank goodness for rusty hinges!) She climbs up in our bed and Marty tries to tell her she needs to go back to her bed.

"But my stomach hurts!" she whines.

This is not a new phrase in our house. In fact, it probably comes a close second to, "Colby has something in his mouth!" Anytime we have any sort of green vegetable, meat, potato... anything that is not coated in sugar, her stomach hurts too much to eat. So really we can't be blamed for not paying enough attention to our baby. Really.

Marty turns on the light and is about to commence to getting Elizabeth out of our bed, but suddenly stops. "Natalie, look how pale she is..."

Then he says, "Elizabeth, does your stomach hurt like you are hungry, or like you are going to throw up?"

"Yes, " she replies, and commences to barfing all in my bed. Lovely. I am officially back out of the mood.

I get her to the bathroom, and she throws up three more times. I strip her down and get in the tub with her and she throws up twice more.

Meanwhile, Marty is stripping the bed and spraying Lysol like a madman. If Rumplestilskin had sprayed Lysol WHILE screaming about how he had been tricked, that is what Marty would have looked like. We may all still get fume poisoning.

We finally get a bed made on the living room floor with all of our old crappy blankets, and I layed with her until four o'clock this morning, watching Madagascar until the DVD started skipping, and Kim Possible after that. I called in late to work because I felt like I would die if I had to come in on two hours sleep.

Anyway, I am getting ready about 9:00am to come on into work and Elizabeth comes in the bedroom, white as a sheet, eyes blood red, and says "Can you drop me off at school on your way to work?" and I laughed and said "Honey, you can't go to school until you haven't thrown up for 24 hours. You just need to rest today. Eat some yummy noodle soup and watch lots of cartoons!"

To my horror, her pale, wan face starts to tremble and her eyes well up with huge pools of tears.

"But today they are picking the parts for "E-I-E-I-oops" she moans, sadly.

Oh dear heavens. Not today. They told her class on Monday that they have been picked to perform the Spring Musical, about a cow that is the only animal on the farm that can't sing. For some reason, my child went crazy over the part of the pig, and has spent the last two days practicing the song. ("You got to Ham it up! You got to Ham it up!!") I am 100% sure that they will not hold that part for her. In fact, since the music teacher is the one that picks the parts, I am 95% sure that it will be a case of "out of sight, out of mind" and she probably won't end up with a part at all.

These are the days that being a parent really sucks. Vomit and Heartache....

Resolved

I have spent the last 10 years refusing to make new years resolutions. "You are only setting yourself up for failure!" I would proclaim to my resolution making friends. "A week after New Years, you are going to be depressed because you failed. Why do that to yourself?"

But this last year sucked. And it occurred to me a few days before New Years that not making resolutions really didn't make much difference. I am still fat, poor, unorganized, unhealthy, and occasionally mean.

So this year, I am trying something new. Nothing too structured, nothing too hard to stick to, but hopefully a start to a new "me".

1. Lose weight. I don't care how much. Just lose some weight. I am already on the right track, I have been walking with my aunt for 3 or 4 months now, 5 days a week, usually 2 miles a day. Now I just have to cut down on all the junk we eat around here. Which leads me to:

2. Cut down on all the junk we eat around here. My sugar-addict daughter actually CRIED when I told her we were not buying any more poptarts. CRIED. She won't eat hardly anything that is not coated in sugar or dipped in chocolate. She gets this from her sugar-addict father. The two of them can eat a box of Little Debbie's in one sitting. Colby and I are uninterested in sugar, give us a cheeseburger or a pizza. So, mealtimes have got to change. (Anyone have any quick, easy, child-friendly healthy meals they want to share? email them to me at ornamentfairy@yahoo.com)

3. Get organized. This is huge for me. I used to be very anal about a place for everything and everything in its place. 11 years of Marty, 6 years of Elizabeth and 20 months of Colby and I am beaten down. I have given up. I can spend two hours looking for a bra, or a pair of scissors. (only to find the bra in the utensil drawer and the scissors in the cereal box.) I have got to get back on track with organization.

4. No going to bed until all checks and atm withdrawals are posted in my check register. Financially, this year has been The Great Depression. Meaning everytime I subtracted the debits and the checks, I got depressed. No money left to pay bills or buy groceries. So, I counterattacked as any good child of alcoholics would - I just stopped subtracting debits and checks. Denial is not just a river in Egypt.

5. Be a nicer person. Yes, it sounds dorky and all encompassing. But it has occurred to me lately how much the littlest kindness means to people. I have a friend that never ever fails to tell me he loves me every time he sees me or talks to me. And that means a lot to me. I have another friend whom I see nearly everyday, and every day she gives me a big bear hug hello, and another big bear hug goodbye. It sounds so simple, but it is those little things that speak volumes. So, every day, I am going to make it a point to tell someone how much they mean to me. And if I am having a bad day, I will just tell Colby or Elizabeth. HA!

So, those are my puny little resolutions. And the funny thing is, I actually feel good about making them.