Happy Easter!

Check out my adorable "bunnies"!

On teenagers and cleaning

Last week, I held a family meeting. I am (once again) getting really frustrated with being the only member of my family who actually cleans. My husband is a terrific guy who does dishes and laundry, but he wouldn't even SEE dirt unless it jumped up and bit him on the butt. And our 2 teenagers are even worse...

So at our meeting, I layed down the LAW. Every Saturday, from 10 until noon ALL family members are going to clean. Yeah....right. We tried it this past weekend. Phil finally managed to lug the Christmas totes down cellar but never cleaned anything. Kenny vacuumed the family room with a vacuum cleaner that was clogged and then locked himself in the bathroom!

Oh....the excuses I heard:

I just woke up.
I'm too tired.
I'm hungry.
I'm thirsty.
Mom, Kenny's not helping.
Mom, Kenny locked himself in the bathroom.
Mom I can't clean, the supplies are locked in the bathroom with Kenny!

And my personal favorite: it will just get dirty again, so why bother?

Aargghh! The next sound heard was my head hitting the wall. THUMP....OUCH!

My husband makes a really UGLY woman!

The hospital where we both work had a fund raiser for the American Heart Association yesterday. 9 prominent male employees agreed to wear red dresses (the symbol for the Heart Association's Go Red for Women campaign). For $5 you could have punch and cookies with them. For $5 more you could get your picture take with them. It was a screaming riot and a huge success! I think most of the hospital laughed themselves sick. It was a really big success too. In 3 hours, over $4500 was raised. It was all in good fun and the guys were really great sports. However....its a really good thing that Phil is male. Because as a female....he is SCARY!

P.S. I love you honey....as a GUY that is!

Mamma's Fur Children

Gertrude, aka Trudy. My first fur baby. The fact that I now have 5 is all her fault....if she hadn't been so wonderful, she would have stayed an only dog!

Louella aka Ella Bella. Ella has issues: she is nervous, she leaks, she licks and isn't exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer. In fact, Kenny says she's a spoon! But everybody LOVES Ella!

Mildred aka Millie. She's a Yorkie, she's a Mamma's girl and she's a bitch. What more can I say?!

Paco the Taco. He's my first fur boy and is really sweet! (But he's camera shy. Its really hard to get a good picture of him!)

And last but not least......

Bubba the Bow Legged Chihuahua! He's a Mamma's boy! But he doesn't hesitate to speak his mind...and his bark is incredibly LOUD for a 4.75 pound dog!

The Tooth Fairy

My friend Jennifer has a daughter, Sarah, who is 6 years old. She told me the following story today at lunch and it was so funny, I just had to share it:

Jennifer: Sarah, you have to clean your room today while I am at work.
Sarah: OK Mom

Jennifer comes home from work and Sarah meets her at the door.

"Mom, I have decided that I like my room the way it is. It does not bother me if it is messy, so I am leaving it this way." To this, Jennifer replies, "But Sarah, the Tooth Fairy is supposed to come tonight. How will she be able to leave you anything if she can't even get into your room?"

Without even missing a beat, Sarah followed that up with, "Mom. The Tooth Fairy has WINGS. It won't matter to her if my floor is clean or not!" After I stopped laughing, I asked Jennifer what her response to THAT was and she said, " The Tooth Fairy nearly broke her neck last night!"

Ya just gotta luv kids!!!

The Purple Dress

Teenagers are a never ending adventure. Take, for example, the purple dress.

Its thursday evening at 7 pm when my 13 year old daughter wanders into the room to remind me that she is participating in the All County Music Festival this weekend. Reminders are good. I have alot to keep track of. "And what is concert dress?" I ask. "Gee...I don't remember" she replies "let me go find that paper". Papers are good. They help be sure that what I remember is actually correct. As she returns with the all important paper, she informs me that she needs either a long gown or long black skirt, neither of which she owns, for a concert that is less than 48 hours away. Oh goody.

"Get your shoes on" I said. And off to the mall we go. Just what I wanted to do at 7 o'clock on a thursday evening...NOT! Now, you need to understand that even though she is 13, Laura still only wears a girls size 12 or 14 due to her diminutive size. Really - how many 8th graders do YOU know that only weigh 75 pounds? Needless to say, anything we found in a girls size looked, well, like a little girl. Not the way a 13 year old wants to look. We did find a size zero in the teens department that I could have taken in for her but it was $80 and neither of us was very happy with it. So we moved on to store #2 where we found a lovely purple dress that was nothing short of a miracle: it pretty much fit and it was on sale for $39! Woo Hoo!

Saga over? No way! Ten minutes after purchasing the gown, she started "what iffing". What if no one else wears a gown? What if everyone wears black or white? What if I stick out like a sore thumb?

Thinking I was being clever, I then suggested she take the really cute black dress and silver grey shrug we bought for the LAST concert with her, just in case. She liked the idea, but by the next morning was texting me with "so and so is wearing black" and "so and so is wearing black and white". By the time I picked her up from rehearsal she had wound back around to it being OK to wear purple. At this point, I needed a score card.

The day of the concert arrives and she has reverted back to the black and silver outfit. Off she goes at 8am with these clothes in her bag. By noon, the phone was ringing: "Mom, I really want to wear the purple dress, but I need it before 1:15. Can you bring it?" Seriously - I should have sent her entire closet with her!

Well - crazy mom that I am, I grab the purple dress and head out. She did wear the purple dress and looked absolutely beautiful among all the black and white, short skirted outfits in the choir! But she was happy. Whew! Crisis concluded.....for now!

Drafting and Enlisting

Phil and I spent some more time going over house plans. We narrowed it down from 7 to 5. Next step: print the 5 out and pick the best pieces out of each one. Then we are going to put together a rough sketch of all the pieces together. We'll give this draft to whomever our NEXT architect will be. Perhaps this will result in a floor plan that looks something like what we actually want!