the camera doesn't lie... or does it...

so today . . . i am on diandra's blog...

i have mixed feelings about this.  i have come to the conclusion that i am not photogenic, so being featured on a photography blog makes me a little uneasy.  however, the photography blog belongs to my daughter, who thinks i am "cute."  i think she is blinded by love.  but, whatever, there i am...

i don't think the pictures are horrible.  the dress was beautiful, the light was gorgeous, the shoes were unexpected--yet sparkly!  and the photographer was amazing!  the problem was my hair...

...my hair.  the bane of my existence.  my hair has always been an issue for me.  until a few years ago, i was never happy with how it looked.  i tried it long and straight.  i tried it short and curly.  i tried it short and straight, and long and curly.  when it was straight, my ears would stick out.  to get it curly, i had to perm it.  my life has been a constant battle with my hair.  until a few years ago...

a few years ago, my hair got long--longer than it had ever been before.  i didn't plan it that way, i just neglected to go in and have it cut.  for months!  and as it got longer, rollie and diandra really liked it.  even now, when i talk about cutting it short again, they both say, "NOOOOOO!"  of course, they have both seen me with short hair--they know it is not going to be good.  i always have great hope that this time will be different.  this time the short hair cut will look good.  but it never does.

but long hair has it's own issues.  like when do i get it cut?  i just tend to sort of ignore it until one day i decide it is driving me crazy and must be cut immediately!  (these are the days when it is good that i live in a big city and can just walk into super cuts and get my hair cut.  diandra is horrified that i trust my hair to super cuts, but then, she has the patience to wait for an appointment at a better salon.  i do not.  and if i can't get in somewhere for a haircut immediately, i have been known to do it myself...  usually that is not the best decsion.  usually.)  and so, there are days when i walk around with witchy hair... those in between days when it is really too long, but i haven't noticed it yet.

this was the sort of day when we decided to take pictures in my wedding dress.  a witchy hair day.

sadly, i did not know it was a witchy hair day.  i was too focused on diandra's upcoming wedding and the fact that it was only a few days away, and i had said i was going to make her a bolero-type jacket out of my wedding dress for her to wear with her wedding dress.  we had been planning this for several months, so it isn't like i just suddenly had this great idea at the last minute.  and yet, there we were, at the last minute.  but i wanted to take photos first, and between my schedule and diandra's schedule, and the weather (winter, you know,) we hadn't been able to make it happen...

... until just a few days before her wedding.  i suddenly realized that if i didn't get started on making the jacket immediately, i would not have time to finish it before the wedding.  so when i got home from school, i threw the dress on, we walked down to the park, and took some pictures.

it was a beautiful day.  the light was warm and golden.  i loved wearing my dress, realizing that this would be the last time i would wear it...  and then, there i was, looking into the camera without a clue as to what to do next.  diandra tried to help me.  she put me different places and gave me ideas of what to do with myself, but i just felt awkward.  i sooo wanted the pictures to be beautiful and perfect, but people were looking at me (ok, there were only a couple of dog walkers, but they LOOKED at me, like "what the heck is she doing?!?!)  and the wind was blowing.  hard.  my hair kept blowing in my face.  but diandra just kept snapping pictures...

and then we went home, and i cut up my dress.  diandra showed me the pictures she had taken, and to be honest, i was disappointed.  all i could see was my unruly hair.  why hadn't i taken a few minutes to curl it or straighten it or something?  why hadn't i planned ahead and at least had my bangs cut so you could see my face??  why hadn't i done something besides twirl around???

oh well...  it was too late to do anything about it.  my dress was in pieces, just waiting to be sewn into a jacket for diandra...  there were no "do overs."

i didn't give the photos much thought after that.  diandra got married.  we moved.  i went back to school in the fall...  and then last week i got a text from diandra.  "guess who is going to be on my blog this week?"  yep, it was me.  in my wedding dress.  with my witchy hair. 

i protested.  "mom, stop!" she said, "you look cute!"  as i said, she was blinded by love... and so, i waited for the blog with both dread and hope.  and waited.  and waited.  because although she had planned to post the blog last week, i got bumped.  to monday!  what a way to start the week...

this morning diandra sent me this text, "you are on my blog."  "AAACCCKKKKK!"  i replied.  "i guess i'd better go look."  and so i did.  and again, all i could see was my witchy hair.  i texted diandra, "i was right.  my hair was awful!  i wish we had taken a few more minutes to fix it better.  and my nose always looks so big in pictures.  does it look that big in person?  i did love the pictures that didn't have my face in them."

and then diandra texted me these words, "um... no.  you look happy and beautiful.  stop it."

well, you know, she is my daughter.  that is how i look through her filters.  i just hoped i wouldn't scare people away from visiting her blog again...

later in the day i went back and looked at the pictures a second time.  and i liked them a little better.  and then i looked at them again before i started blogging, and you know what?  i don't know about beautiful, but i do look happy.

in diandra's blog, she said i hated being in front of the camera.  that isn't completely true.  i like having my picture taken, because i am always hopeful that the results will be good.  but they rarely are, which is why i also hate having my picture taken.  i'm always worried about my bangs or my posture or that weird smile i get when i'm forced to hold a smile.  and i never think i look like myself.  i mean, i look at myself every day when i get ready for work, so i think i know what i look like.  but then i look at pictures of myself and they don't really look like me, or at least what i think i look like.  and so then i wonder, what do i really look like?

i take pictures all the time.  of diandra.  of rollie.  of the dogs.  they all look great in my pictures--probably because they are used to having their pictures taken.  i am not.  i am always the one taking the pictures, not the one getting my picture taken.  and so i think i am just not comfortable in front of the camera, and that's why i don't think i look like myself.  i look like a flat, two dimensional caricature of myself.  at least, that's what i think.

but i've also been thinking about diandra's words today.  it doesn't matter if i looked cute or beautiful.  cute and beautiful are just a matter of someone's opinion.  clearly!  what does matter is that i looked happy.  whether i like it or not, i looked like myself, on that day, witchy hair and all.  it was a beautiful day, i was out in the park with my darling daughter, and we were laughing.  i was happy.  even though my hair was trying to swallow my face...

so i think i'm going to stop avoiding the camera.  i think i'm going to step in front of it once in a while, even if i have to put my camera in someone else's hands and say, "take a picture of me."  i'm not going to worry about my bangs being perfect.  (well, that's a lie.  i will worry about my bangs until the day i die.  but if they aren't perfect, i'm going to try not to let it ruin my picture.)  diandra has said that she doesn't always take her good camera with her, because she finds that if she is focused on taking pictures, then she isn't really experiencing the moment.  i think that is probably true.  i think i haven't really been a part of a lot of moments, because i have been busy taking pictures.  but i need to have pictures to remind me of the fun times we have had...

i guess it comes down to this.  pictures document our moments.  and all of our moments aren't perfect, so neither are our pictures.  but perfection shouldn't be the goal!  the goal should be documenting a memory, imperfections and messy hair and all.  it doesn't matter if i look beautiful.  what matters is if i look happy.  or contemplative.  or tired.  or whatever the moment brings.

so thank you, diandra, for documenting my wedding dress's last day.  thank you for taking the time to take those pictures.  and blogging them.  thank you for making me laugh.  and thank you for reminding me today that although beauty may be in the eye of the beholder,  happiness can be seen by everyone.

(although, it could be seen more easily if i could remember to get my hair cut...)

a new collection?

so today . . . i cleaned out my closet. again.

i'm sure you are getting tired of hearing about my closet. i've blogged about it before. more than once. i really thought that when we moved, i had finally cleaned it out for the last time. i got rid of bags and bags of stuff. and then i unpacked into my new closet and realized that i still didn't have enough room for everything...

well, i had enough room for everything, but only if i squished the hangers together so tightly that i couldn't get anything out. and i use skinny velvet covered hangers, so it isn't like those hefty plastic hangers were hogging all the room. i had things stacked so high that i couldn't remove anything without fear of an avalanche. this is not the way i wanted to live! so i cleaned my closet out again. and then a couple of weeks later i did it again.

we have only lived in this house for two and a half months, and i've cleaned out my closet three times...

it seems like i spent my whole summer packing and moving and unpacking. which, mostly i did. but it still wasn't enough time to get completely settled. even though the majority of our stuff had found a place, there were still random boxes and piles of stuff here and there. and where did it bug me the most? in our bedroom! (ok, that's a lie. actually the garage bugs me the most, but there isn't a lot i can do about it right now. it's day is coming, but it isn't today...) so today i decided it was time to get it under control!

i'm sure it is not a coincidence that this happened today, because we are going to be out of town for a couple of days, and you know what that means... yep, clean all night! only this time i can't do that. because this time rollie and i are speaking at this retreat, which means i can't just skip the sessions and sleep. which is what i usually do :-) AND i'm going to need my brain, especially when it is my turn to speak. so i can't stay up all night. i just can't. so everything isn't going to get done to my satisfaction. but the closet is!

i started in on the closet earlier today, but you know my attention span... so i would work for a bit, eat a snack, watch some hgtv (which, btw, is giving me waaay too many ideas, now that i have a house!) rotate the laundry, check facebook (yeah, it's saturday. i can check it all day long. sadly, all my friends apparently have lives, so not much was happening online today...) move some furniture around, move it back, work in the closet some more, play with the dogs... you get the idea.

really, working in our bedroom was a bigger job than just the closet, because our bedroom is really big. so when we moved, i put all the easy stuff away and sort of stacked the rest in the empty half of the room. but then i needed stuff in those boxes full of stuff that i didn't know where to put, and so i would open a box, take something out, see something else and think, "oh, that's where that is," and take something else out, and then leave the box open, because i might need something else in there... i'm sure a picture is forming in your mind... it isn't pretty, is it...

so clearly i had to tackle that stuff too. which i did. but this complicated my closet project, because i kept finding more clothes. that i liked. that i didn't want to get rid of. that i didn't really have room for in my closet.

part of my problem is that i am trying to get by without buying a dresser. we have this big closet (at least it looked big when it was empty!) and so i am convinced that we should be able to get all our clothes in there. really! if we can't get all our clothes in there, then we have too many clothes!

apparently we have too many clothes. actually, apparently i have too many clothes, because i am hogging over half of the closet and still don't have enough room. rollie, on the other hand, seems to be fine. of course, all he has are shirts and pants. he doesn't have shirts and pants and dresses and skirts and vests and sweaters and jackets...

but i am determined. so i moved things around. i refolded stuff so that no space would be wasted. i put two pairs of boots in one box (i know, shocking isn't it!) and i finally got everything in, organized in such a way that i could also get stuff out too. i was feeling pretty happy!

and then, as i continued to put stuff away from the messy side of the room, i found a stack of jeans. five pairs of jeans, to be exact, neatly folded, hiding under some pillows. this was not good, not good at all... i went back into my closet to see what could be done. sadly, nothing could be done. i was out of space. i sorted through my jeans again to see if there were any that didn't fit or were too ratty to wear or that i just didn't like any more. but that didn't work either--they were all perfectly wearable. i should be glad! i had 34 pairs of jeans that i liked, that fit, that were already paid for. but the problem is, I HAVE 34 PAIRS OF JEANS!!!

sigh. when did i turn into my daughter?

because diandra is the queen of jeans. i do not even want to guess how many pairs of jeans that girl has. and when she goes shopping, what does she buy? more jeans.

maybe it is a reaction to her earlier jeans issues. because when she was a teenager, living at home, and i was buying her jeans, we had issues. she wanted jeans that sat below her waist, and i did not want her to have them. tops were shorter then, and my daughter was not going to run around with even the tiniest gap between her top and her jeans! we spent hours in dressing rooms! hours!! she would choose some jeans and try them on. i would say they were too low. she would say moo-oom! i would say you are not wearing those out of the house. she would say but i like them. i would say no. and eventually we would find a pair that we could both tolerate. and then we would go to another store, and it would start all over again. neither one of us would be happy, but at least she would be clothed.

and then she became an adult and started buying her own jeans. amazingly, she still took me along! "want to go to the mall?" she would say. "i need to get some jeans." inwardly i would groan, but since it would mean an afternoon with diandra, i would go. she didn't say moo-ooom anymore, but she still didn't always like my opinion. which didn't stop me from giving it, even though i no longer had the power to just say "no." which turned out ok, because instead of rolling her eyes at me, she started listening to me. and sometimes she even agreed with me. occasionally :-)

jeans shopping was always such an ordeal. and yet still we did it. diandra was always on the search for that perfect pair of jeans... which seemed to be just out of our grasp. we found lots of nearly perfect jeans, seemingly perfect jeans, or but the price is right jeans. but perfect jeans? highly elusive. and so, even though she always had a drawer full, or two, or three, she always seemed to need just one more pair...

i, on the other hand, only had five or six pair total--light blue, dark blue, black, short (to wear with flat shoes,) and longer (to wear with boots.) really. i thought six pair should be perfectly adequate. and it was.

until today. because today i couldn't fit all of my jeans into my closet. i had several stacks of jeans, sorted by style--skinny jeans, "jeggings" (which is the dumbest word ever. i hate to even write it, but it's what they are called,) boot cut, cargo, and capri. (don't worry, i only had one pair of capris.) i tried rearranging them. i tried folding them differently. i tried to get rid of just a few more pair. it didn't help. i still couldn't get them all in the closet. i finally had to put a few pair on top of some shoes...

when did this happen?!? where did all these jeans come from?!?! i hate to buy jeans. hate. it! and yet apparently i have bought them, because they didn't just materialize on their own, and i'm pretty sure denim hasn't figured out how to procreate. and i never purposely go shopping for jeans. if i happen across a pair, while shopping with diandra, i will get them, but i never say to myself, "i need a new pair of jeans. i think i will go to the mall." never. but i also apparently never get rid of a pair either, and so their numbers increase...

i don't know what i'm going to do. it seems ridiculous to get rid of perfectly good jeans that are already paid for that fit me. and i'm certainly not going to give up going to the mall with my daughter (which, let's face it, is really the issue here. because when i go with her, jeans just seem to follow me home...) so i guess there is only one thing to do...

... start planning my takeover strategy for rollie's side of the closet.

:-)

a shift...

so today . . . is diandra's birthday. and father's day. and sunday. i am experiencing a blogging dilemma.

first of all, usually i don't even blog on sundays. my sundays tend to be very predictable. they go something like this: church, lunch, nap, dinner, a little tv, bedtime. my sundays are not fertile ground for blogging material. even for my overactive brain.

but at lunch today, diandra informed me that she would be looking forward to her birthday blog, since today was her birthday. she said this in the presence of her father, who reminded her that it was also father's day. but since diandra has had the dubious distinction of being an only child, she is of the opinion that her birthday trumps everything else. and although she graciously took her dad to a movie today to celebrate father's day, she is right. her birthday usually wins.

(and i love you dad, but you are fishing today. which is one of the things you love to do most, so i am glad that is how you are spending your special day. but you aren't home to read a blog about yourself anyway, so i guess i will wait until YOUR birthday to write a blog for you. happy father's day!)

since birthdays come around only once a year, it has been twelve months since diandra's last birthday blog. i couldn't remember what i had written--probably you can't remember either! but in my continuing quest to keep from repeating myself, i went back and read her birthday blogs from 2009 and 2010. they were pretty good. if you missed them, you should go read them now.

as i read, i realized how much i admire my daughter. she is an amazing woman! and i use the word "woman" here for the first time when referring to her (i think,) because this last year is the year diandra turned into an adult...

some people think that when their children turn 18, they become adults. i have heard more than one parent say, "well, what can i do? they are 18, you know. legally they are an adult..." (this usually comes at the end of a sad story about their child making some poor decisions, as 18 year olds sometimes do.) this always perplexes me. just because a child can legally vote, they do not magically turn into an adult on the eve of their 18th birthday. being an adult is not about one's age--it is about one's maturity. it is about losing that self-serving, self-centered focus and starting to realize the world does not revolve around them. it is about being responsible, making good decisions, owning up to bad ones, and having a broader perspective than "it's all about me, me, me!!!"

some people never turn into adults...

but this year, diandra did. i have blogged about her enough that you all know i think she is the most perfect daughter on planet earth. is she always perfect? no. do i agree with every decision she makes? no, (just ask her belly button.) does she still roll her eyes at me? maybe occasionally... but her perspective is different. she isn't looking at things like a kid anymore. she is thinking more like an adult.

today diandra turns 26 years old. she has faced some very difficult things since her 18th birthday. she has not always been in control of her life, but she has taken responsibility for it. she has made hard choices, unpopular choices, maybe even a bad choice or two, but she has learned from all of those choices. she is able to deal with her emotional ups and downs, rather than being ruled by them. she is being who she is, not who she thinks everyone else wants her to be. she knows she is just a part of the world, not the center of the universe...

...unless it is june 19th. because june 19th is her birthday. and so on june 19th it IS all about her--even if june 19th falls on a sunday... which is also father's day...

i love you, diandra! you are an amazing woman! i think your 27th year is going to be awesome!!!

you are still my favorite daughter :-)

mother's day meals

***disclaimer***

although there is some humor in today's blog, it is NOT going to measure up to the cock roach story. i'm sorry, but that kind of hilarity doesn't happen every day. however, that doesn't mean you won't smile once or twice...

so today . . . was mother's day. normally mother's day for me is all about a day spent shopping with my daughter. but not this year. this year all the drama revolved around food...

it started at lunch. diandra was busy until later in the day, so rollie and i had lunch at tgifriday's. although we eat out a lot, we rarely go to tgifriday's. i don't know why--i love the food there, and we go right past it on our way to rubios... but since today was mother's day, i got to choose the restaurant. this meant we were NOT eating at rubios--we were going to eat someplace where you got to actually hold a menu, and you didn't have to order standing up.

i am not averse to eating holiday meals at fast food places, but i just wanted to go someplace different today. when i got to the restaurant, rollie was already sitting at a table. yes, i said table. i looked around. there were empty booths, but for some reason they made him sit at a table... and it was noisy in that part of the restaurant--no cushy booths to soak up the sound, i guess. i sat with him for a couple of minutes and realized that if we stayed there, i was not going to hear a word he said. and more importantly, he was not going to hear a word i said!! so we asked if we could move to a booth, and were quickly moved... into the bar.

although we don't drink, i don't usually mind sitting in the bar. usually it is dark and quiet there, and you get pretty good service. i thought it might be an especially good idea today, since it was mother's day and the restaurant was probably soon going to be swarming with children and dads taking mom out to lunch. but not in the bar. in the bar, it was going to be nice and quiet and child-free...

we perused our menus and made our lunch selections. the waitress brought us our cokes with lemon wedges. and then a funny thing happened... suddenly i was surrounded by basketball players wearing purple and gold! yes, the evil lakers had invaded my mother's day lunch!!

i don't know why i hadn't noticed the giant tv screens when we sat down. (this is rollie, making an "L" with his fingers. i always thought this was the universal symbol for "loser," but he tells me it is for "lakers." today, as it turns out, it meant both...) i guess, since they were mounted high on the walls and were each showing something different, they just didn't register with my brain. but when they were all suddenly tuned to the same station, and the volume was cranked up, my brain sat up and took notice.

somebody, somewhere, who probably lives thousands of miles away from their mother, had scheduled game 4 of the second round of playoff games for mother's day, and the evil lakers were down 0-3.

just my luck! mother's day, and everyone in that restaurant was trying to get a look at that game! because this was not just another game. this was big. this was "win it now or go home" time. and we had the best seat in the house--well, the best seat if you are a laker fan. which i am not. we were surrounded by eight big screen tvs, all playing the game simultaneously. on mother's day!!!

i weighed my options. oh, i had options, all right... i could pick up my diet coke and move as far away from those tvs as i could get, but then i would be back to the noisy, child-filled part of the restaurant. i could demand that rollie totally ignore the game and focus on ME--after all, it was mother's day! but realistically there was no way he could avoid those eight giant tv screens. i could politely ask if they could turn just ONE giant screen to shopping tv :-) yeah, i'm sure they would do that...

i opted to stay where i was, eat my delicious food, and ignore the evil lakers. which i did.

shortly after we got home i got a text from diandra. she was going to be gone longer than she had thought, which was ok with me--i found i was pretty sleepy (probably from staying up too late the night before,) and a nap sounded like a great idea! which it was.

by the time diandra got home, we had decided to hang out in the family room with our computers and the tv and the big bag of snacks that she had brought home! yes, it was going to be a goooood mother's day! but after decimating the contents of the bag from 7-11 (which had a few surprises in it,) we thought maybe we should eat some real food. you know, to kind of dilute the amount of sugar we had just eaten... this meant a trip somewhere...

i wanted jack in the box. diandra didn't know what she wanted--all she knew was that she didn't want jack in the box. she finally settled on el pollo loco, and off we went. and everything was fine, until we were sitting in the drive-thru lane at el pollo loco. because the car ahead of us had a wienerschnitzel hotdog on it's antenna, and that's when diandra said, "we never think of wienerschnitzel when we are deciding where to eat!" "do you want wienerschnitzel?" i asked her. "yes, i think i do!" she said.

well, this was just great! there we were, boxed in at the drive through at el pollo loco, and neither of us wanted to eat there! i thought we might just refuse to order and then drive right on out the other side, but that seemed sort of rude. and yet, neither of us wanted their food!! so when it was my turn to order, i found myself ordering a diet coke. and that is all.

we drove back past our house to wienerschnitzel. i thought. until diandra said, "where are you going?!?!?" "to wienerschitzel! isn't that where you wanted to go?" "yes," she said, "but you are going the wrong way!!" "no i'm not! it is just up here a little further, by the gas station." "NO," she said, "it is over by target!"

ok, there is a wienerschnitzel over by target, but i had forgotten about that one. and now we were almost to the other one. but the one by target is closer to jack in the box, so we ended up turning around and going back, again, the way we had just come...

you would think gas didn't cost almost $4.50...

there was some discussion as to how we were going to get to that wienerschnitzel, but after a couple of nearly wrong turns we found ourselves in the drive-thru lane.

i've only eaten at wienerschnitzel a couple of times. i mean, i can make a chili dog at home! i don't need to go out for that. but by now we had been gone for over half an hour, and i was getting hungry! so i just decided to get my food from wienerschnitzel and save jack in the box for another day.

as diandra pulled out her debit card, she said, "you are a cheap date." i took this to mean that it wasn't expensive to feed me. "well," i said, "cheap dates get asked out again." this is my way of thinking--i would rather eat at jack in the box (or wienerschnitzel or el pollo loco or even mcdonald's) several times than at a really swanky restaurant once. so i guess i am a cheap date.

not that i don't like to eat at nice restaurants, but it is a lot of money to spend if it turns out you don't like it...

or if a whole basketball team shows up to try to ruin your mother's day lunch!!

an uninvited "guest"

so today . . . the cock roach is dead. rollie must be home.

rollie left on tuesday for kansas city. he had to attend some meetings with all the other new guys doing the same job he is doing, but in different parts of the country. now that he has actually been doing the job for three months, i guess it was finally time for some training...

and so, diandra and i were home alone.

i don't mind being home alone. i never really feel like i am alone anyway, because of our two pups. and this time i had the added advantage of having diandra living with us--which is a situation that i am not going to be able to enjoy much longer. because at the end of the summer her husband will come home from kuwait, and then i am pretty sure she isn't going to be living with me any more! so i was looking forward to having some fun with my daughter while rollie was gone...

...and then i heard the scream. "MOM!!!!! THERE'S A COCK ROACH IN MY ROOM!!!!!!!" (believe me, the uppercase letters and exclamation points are not an exaggeration!)

this is not the first time we have found a cock roach in her room. this is the second time. in a month.

the last time we found one, rollie was gone too. diandra saw it on her dresser, behind a box, among some envelopes. and that's when she screamed. i went running up to her room, but when she showed me where she had seen it, i did not know how we were going to trap it, because it wasn't on a flat surface. and those things are hard to trap even when they are on the floor! then i remembered how our preschool director had sprayed a spider with an aerosol substance to kill it, so i said to diandra, "go get some hairspray!" she looked at me like i had lost my mind! i explained what we were going to do with the hairspray, but she said, "what if it doesn't kill it--what if it just makes it mad!!" an interesting idea. i wasn't sure i wanted to deal with an angry cock roach. what would an angry cock roach do? it occurred to me that it might resort to flying to escape. i said to diandra, "ok, maybe we shouldn't do that. it might try to fly away." "IT MIGHT TRY TO FLY AWAY?!?!?! COCK ROACHES CAN FLY?!?!?!?"

oops. perhaps i should not have mentioned that to her, because this resulted in some hysterical crying. now she had one more thing to worry about. "GET IT, MOM, GET IT!!!" i was trying to get it. but i didn't want it to get me! and it was not cooperating!

i finally decided that we were going to have to get it off the dresser and out into the hall, where we could trap it, (because it didn't look like killing it was going to be an option for us if we couldn't hairspray it to death,) but we were going to have to accomplish this without losing visual contact--which is not that easy, when you remember that cock roaches prefer the dark and will just keep trying to move out of the light. and they are fast! i thought about it for a minute and formulated a plan.

"ok," i said, "here's what we are going to do. i am going to try to flick the cock roach off your dresser toward the door. hopefully he will ricochet off the door and out into the hallway. then hopefully i can get out there and trap him under the cup before he scuttles away." "BUT WHAT IF HE STARTS FLYING?!?!?!" she said. and then the hysterical crying began again.

this was not going well. i was not all that confident in my abilities, but somebody had to be brave here, and it was clearly not going to be diandra. it was time to be the mom! "diandra, get on the bed! you should be safe there!" the bed was behind me, the exact opposite direction i was hoping to fling the cock roach. she was not reassured. "BUT WHAT IF IT GETS ME?!?!?!?" she said. and so i said, "put that blanket over your head. then if it does fly, it can't get you." i said it couldn't get her, and technically it couldn't, but i'm telling you... if that thing flew into the blanket she now had over her head she would feel it, and i did not think there were enough sedatives in the world to calm her down if that happened!

i carefully positioned myself between diandra and the cock roach, and prepared to fling it against the door and into the hallway. i just prayed it wouldn't fly and land on me. because if that happened, i was pretty sure i would scream or faint or something, and if that happened, i would probably just die, because there was no way diandra was coming out from under that blanket to save me! she would probably run screaming from the room and leave me there, passed out, at the mercy of the giant cock roach...

the cock roach climbed up on an envelope. i lifted it, (the envelope, NOT the cock roach,) ready to fling, but it just sat there. so i slowly moved toward the hallway (yes, i had the heebie-jeebies--i could just feel it crawing on me...) and then it moved! i screamed and threw the envelope out into the hall. diandra screamed, and started crying again. i yelled at her, "GIVE ME THE CUP, GIVE ME THE CUP!" i was trying to maintain visual contact so that it wouldn't crawl under something and escape. she practically threw the cup at me, ran back into her bedroom, and closed the door--leaving me alone in the hallway with the cock roach...

clearly, we were not in this together. it was sink or swim. do or die. i was on my own...

i zeroed in on the cock roach. it attempted an escape--it headed for the bookcase and tried to crawl behind it. had it been successful, it would have evaded capture. but i did NOT want that thing loose in the house. if i didn't catch it, we were going to have to load up the dogs and head to the motel 6! so i kept pursuing it, until i finally managed to trap it under the cup.

and there it waited until rollie got home the next day.

which brings us to last tuesday night. again, rollie was out of town. and again, i heard the scream, "MOM!! THERE IS A COCK ROACH IN MY ROOM! AGAIN!! COME AND GET IT!!!" i grabbed the cock roach cup and headed up the stairs. diandra was on the bed crying. she was crying, because she had LOST visual contact and didn't know where the cock roach was.

i wanted to cry too. this was serious, people!! that thing could ambush us at any moment!!!

but i couldn't cry--i'm the mom. so i talked to her in soothing tones, moved her away from the danger zone, and started slowly moving things around, sort of hoping i would find it. (and sort of hoping i wouldn't! because if i found it, i was going to have to try to trap it again. but if i didn't find it, it would be loose in the house! talk about being between a rock and a hard place...) and then diandra screamed, "THERE IT IS!" which resulted in me screaming, "WHERE?!?!?!" as i jumped up onto the bed with her. ( which, let's be honest here, was not going to save either one of us. this was a cock roach, not a mouse. and as we both now knew, cock roaches can fly!!!) she pointed, "RIGHT THERE!!" i slammed the cup down over the cock roach. i didn't even think, or gauge distances, or take into account the size and position of it's ridiculously long and creepily roving antenne--i just slammed that cup down and trapped it. it started running around and around and around the inside perimeter of the cup. this creeped us both out, so we ran out of the room and closed the door.

and left the cock roach there for three days until rollie came home.

i sort of figured it might just suffocate before rollie got to it. but it didn't. those things are tough! diandra, of course, had to occasionally go back into her room to get stuff, but there was NO WAY she was going to sleep in there. the cock roach was trapped on her dresser, right next to her bed! she said that every time she went in there, it was trying to dig it's way out!! now i had a whole new nightmare to deal with... because not only can cock roaches fly, they apparently can also dig!

i'm not sure we are ever letting rollie go out of town again. ever.

randomness

so today . . . has been quite a day...

9:30 a.m.

it started at school when we were doing calendar time. the kids were sitting on the rug, and we were talking about going from april to may. the cutout that said "april" had raindrops on it, and the cutout that said "may" had daisies on it. so i decided it was time to teach my students a joke, a real joke. you know, the kind where the punchline is actually related to the rest of it!

first we talked about the saying "april showers bring may flowers." and then i said, "so, if april showers bring may flowers, what do mayflowers bring?" i knew they would probably not guess the correct answer, but their responses were so serious! i guess they thought we were doing science, because their answers ranged from more flowers to sunshine to bees. i finally said, "ok, but this is going to be a joke. so the answer is going to be funny." they were clearly lost. (i was just glad no one said "poop," because they seem to find that hilarious!) so i finally just told them the answer. and they just looked at me blankly. then i explained why it was funny. they still didn't laugh. i said, "it's a joke!" but apparently when you are six, it is not...

however, apparently when you are six, a lot of other stuff is--like "if you mix pink and red you get orange." and then, just in case i didn't "get" it, "that's a joke!" yes, they may not have understood the joke i tried to teach them, but they understood the part where you clarify at the end by saying, "it's a joke!" i'll bet i heard that phrase 85 times today--and it ALWAYS followed some random, nonsensical group of sentences. always.

10:45 a.m.

later in the morning, i had a few free minutes, so i decided to check my email. of course, my computer would not connect to the internet... but never fear! my iphone4 was near!! so i hit the email button, and it promptly informed me that my username or password were incorrect...

... oh yeah... probably because yesterday when i was trying to log in to hotmail on my new computer (which doesn't know any of my passwords yet!) i was desperate to get my email, so i reset my password. which meant now i couldn't access it on either my old netbook or my phone, unless i knew the new password. which, of course, i didn't. because when i was resetting the password, i told the new computer to remember it, not realizing that now my other electronics would be locked out...

ok, no problem. i would just wait until i got home to check my email. i need to get used to using the new computer anyway. (for some reason when i get new electronic equipment, it takes me a while to actually USE it. i get so impatient waiting for it to get here, and then when it finally arrives, i don't want to use it, for fear of messing it up.)

11:45 a.m.

there were birthday cupcakes in the kitchen. i knew this, because it was nicholas's birthday, and his mom told me she had brought two trays of cupcakes (that's 24 for those of you who never buy cupcakes.) we usually have our birthday parties in the afternoon after naptime, but i was thinking about what i was going to have for lunch, and wondering if maybe i should have a salad since birthday cupcakes were on the agenda. but you never know what the birthday cupcakes are going to be like. sometimes parents buy white cupcakes with white frosting, thinking it won't be quite so bad for the kids. i think, at least chocolate cupcakes have cocoa in them. which comes from a bean. which makes it a vegetable. but clearly many people do not share my view...

i decided that while i was on my break, i should check out the cupcake situation. so i went into the kitchen to see if we were going to have delicious chocolate cupcakes or icky white ones, only to find out that we might not have any cupcakes at all...

...because there had been a communication mix up, and the birthday cupcakes had already been mostly eaten by the classmates of nicholas's younger sister! there were only nine cupcakes left, and we have 14-16 children in the afternoon! thankfully the remaining cupcakes were chocolate, but there weren't enough! as we sorted out the incident, it quickly became clear that we needed more cupcakes. so during lunch, ms. amy went to the store... and she brought back RED VELVET CUPCAKES!!

(can i just say, i was pretty sure the kids were going to be eating the chocolate cupcakes, because i was pretty sure i was going to be eating a red velvet one!)

5:45 p.m.

after dinner i went to walmart to "pick up a few things." you know how that goes. mostly i needed toilet paper and small milk bones, but walmart was out of small milk bones. we need small milk bones at our house, because our dogs have trained me that if i am leaving to go anywhere, they get a milk bone...

it started out as sort of comfort food when they were left home alone--whoever was the last one out of the house would give them each a milk bone. but it seemed as though i was almost always the last one out of the house (i'm sure this has nothing to do with the fact that i am almost always running late!) so usually i was the one handing out the treat. and now things have evolved... now, rollie and diandra can both be home, but if i head toward the garage door, i will find at least one pup standing there, wagging their tail, looking up at me with big bright eyes, just hoping for a treat.

i cannot resist. i'm sure that is why they do it!

and so, we go through a lot of milk bones. but today i had to settle for liver snaps. the dogs will probably be thrilled!

6:30 p.m.

i got this text: "are you ever coming home?" i got this text from diandra just as i was pulling into the driveway, so i didn't bother to respond. i had told her i wouldn't be coming straight home from work today, but she had forgotten. we talked for a few minutes and then i changed my clothes--into my flannel pajama pants...

my flannel pajama pants are a leftover from a christmas present 5 or 6 years ago. they are navy blue with dogs wearing santa hats all over them. and they are a men's size large. i wear them at home sometimes because they are soooo comfortable, but only my family gets the dubious "pleasure" of seeing them. they are perfect for an evening of sitting on the couch and working on computer stuff. which is what i was doing when diandra said she didn't feel so good, but she thought a soda might help...

well, that's just great, but we didn't have any soda, because i still am trying to drink less of it by not keeping it in the house! she thought maybe we could go to 7-11, but in case you didn't know it, 7-11 does not have drive thru window, and i had just put on my flannel pajama pants! i thought that maybe if i ignored her, she would forget about it. but she didn't.

"so, when are we going," she said.

"i don't want to go," i replied. " i don't want to put on pants." she just looked at me.

"how about this," i said, "you can go in, and i'll drive the getaway car."

"are you suggesting we rob the 7-11," she asked?

"no," i said, "i don't think i drive well enough--we would get caught."

we went to 7-11. i waited in the car while diandra went in. she came out and got back into the car, and i was going to show her how i could drive a getaway car (you know, just in case she ever needed me to,) but i was thwarted by traffic--i couldn't even get out of the parking lot!

i suddenly realized that i didn't feel all that great either. i said, "i have a headache. it's all the pressure of driving the getaway car."

diandra said, "you're going 30 miles an hour!!"

"hey!" i said, "i am not! i'm going 38!" and then my precious darling daughter, the one who i was driving around with $4.29 gas in my tank said, "you're the worst getaway car driver ever."

i thought maybe she was still fixated on my speed. "well," i said, "we could put the top down--then it would feel like we were going faster! and anyway, i can't be the worst getaway car driver ever, because i've never been caught!"

"NO ONE IS CHASING US!!!" she said. technically true, but still...

8:00 p.m.

when we got home, i finally got settled in with my computer. it was time to check my email. i went to hotmail... and it asked me for my password... the password i just changed yesterday... that i can't remember... (yeah, i guess i didn't tell the new computer to remember it either.) so i look at my options, and the first one offers to email me my password.

who writes these things!?!?! how am i going to get an email with my password in it, when i can't check my email, because i don't know my password!!! i am ranting about this to diandra, when she says, "don't you have another email address?"

oh. i didn't think of that...

but it doesn't matter anyway, because my other electronics don't know it, so i need to reset it anyway. i click the "reset password" button, answer the security question (which thankfully i CAN remember the answer to,) and proceed to try to think of yet another password...

and btw, if i can reset the password by answering the security question, why can't they just tell me the password if i answer the security question correctly?? what's the difference?!?!?

11:51 p.m.

my headache is worse. i still don't have a house (oh, you don't even want to know what is happening there--although, as i am sure i will eventually blog it, you will eventually find out...) it is going to be HOT tomorrow. and the next day. and i still have seven weeks of school left. and i still can't get into my email...

but the good news is, if any of you need a getaway car driver, i might be available. i might even put the top down...

if only i didn't need a paycheck...

so today . . . i am thinking about quitting my job and becoming diandra's photography assistant.

diandra had a big photo shoot today. it was a styled shoot, and as she was telling me about all the vendors involved, i asked her how many photographers would be there, and she said... just one. it sounded like a very complicated shoot, and it soon became clear that it would be good if she had some help. so i sent some text messages and talked to some people, and was able to take the afternoon off work and rearrange an appointment so that i could go with her.

i dashed home at noon, changed my clothes, grabbed an extra sweater and a coat (because we were going to be at the beach and it was cool today,) and we headed south to san clemente.

it was a beautiful day! we were right by the beach, but we spent most of the day at the venue, which was beautiful!! it was an old casino, built in 1937, that had gone through several transformations during the last century. in world war 2 it was a naval lookout station, it was a moose lodge for a while, and was also used as an entertainment venue. it has recently been remodeled to host weddings and events, and it was a gorgeous place! there are beautiful outdoor areas with fireplaces and native vegetation, a ballroom with a domed lighted ceiling, terracotta tiled floors in the large meeting rooms, and details, details, details. it was so unique, it made me want to plan a huge party! i'm sure all five of my friends would come ;-)

we met the other people who were going to be involved today, and then diandra started shooting details. i babysat her lenses, held the diffusion shield, kept track of what the client wanted, moved stuff around and put it back, and generally did what i could to help diandra so that she could focus on getting the shots she wanted. and i loved every minute of it!

and then she asked me for her wide angle lens...

uh oh. i looked into her shoot sac. i saw four lenses. apparently one of them was a wide angle lens, but i had no idea which one. i surreptitiously took one out and looked at it. nope, it didn't say "wide angle" anywhere. i checked the next one. it said 50mm. hmmm, it didn't say wide angle either. i picked up another one. still no words, just numbers, numbers, numbers. after checking the last lens, i knew i was in trouble. i did not know which one was the wide angle lens. i didn't want to hand her the wrong one, and i was trying to act like i assisted her all the time, so i didn't really want to have to ask her. i quickly checked them all again, but it became clear that i was going to have to get some help. i walked over to diandra and quietly said, "um, it doesn't say wide angle on any of the lenses."

she is still laughing about it.

she explained the numbers to me, AGAIN, and soon i had it figured out. in fact, i learned a lot of things today, so i was thinking that maybe it was time for a top ten list...

TOP TEN THINGS I LEARNED ABOUT BEING A PHOTOGRAPHER'S ASSISTANT TODAY...

10. wait to take a bathroom break until the photographer is ready to take a bathroom break. it isn't good if the photographer is standing around, wasting their valuable time, because the assistant drank a huge diet soda on the way to the shoot and had to go use the facilities. even if your excuse was that you were scoping out locations...

9. don't drink more than the photographer. why? see #10...

8. remember where the shootsac is. the shootsac is the most valuable item at the shoot--except for the camera. it is filled with lenses, batteries, memory cards, business cards... in other words, it needs to be available to the photographer at all times. i tried to keep the shootsac with me, but sometimes i had to put it down to shade the details diandra was shooting. and then we would move on to something else. and then i would turn around to get a lens and the shootsac would be gone! and i would have to try to remember where i had left it and go get it. it seemed like no matter where we were, the shootsac would be hiding the lenses at the other side of the venue. i think the shootsac thinks i am after it's job! it's pretty smart, because i might be :-)

7. the food is just there to look beautiful. don't eat it--at least not until the photographer says she is done shooting it! a styled shoot is all about the photographs. sometimes that means the food isn't exactly real. but today, the food from sweet cream bakery in san clemente was real. and beautiful. and delicious. i know it was delicious, because after looking at it all afternoon, we finally got to eat it. i ate a red velvet cake pop. and then i ate another one. i was really, really glad that the food was real at this shoot! so was everyone else. everyone who was involved today was standing just out of camera range, waiting for diandra to say, "ok, i'm done shooting the desserts." those biblical locusts had nothing on us!!!

6. don't put a small point and shoot camera into the top of the shootsac. i was carrying so much stuff back and forth that it seemed like a good idea at the time, and maybe it was... right up until the moment that it fell out of the shootsac onto the ceramic tiles... which brings me to...

5. don't drop my camera. of course i had my camera with me! it was a day full of photo ops!! i looooove to take pictures of diandra taking pictures. but i had to squeeze that in between juggling her lenses and the diffusion shield and tweeting about how much fun i was having. i've dropped my camera before, and it has always survived, so i wasn't really worried. but then, the next photo i took looked like this:suddenly i was thinking maybe i should have stayed at work and earned my paycheck this afternoon, because it looked like i might be replacing a camera... thankfully it was just a lens cover malfunction. i fixed it, and then took some more pictures of diandra shooting pictures.4. keep extra ponytail bands in the shootsac. it was a bit windy yesterday, and we were outside most of the time. i spent a lot of time with my arms fully extended above my head holding a diffuser shade. which was fine, until the wind blew my hair across my face, and i couldn't breathe--or move to brush it away!! it was kind of like having a bug crawling up your arm or a tiny rock in your shoe. it drove me crazy!!! thankfully, diandra had an extra ponytail band in the shootsac...

3. know when to shut up. it isn't as easy as it sounds! when i look at pictures, i always see the messy background or the hair that is out of place. i see the scrap of paper that has blown under the adirondack chair, or the four yellow dandelions in the yard full of beautiful green grass, or the sprinkler head in the middle of the picture, and so i want to make sure they don't get in the shot. but i also don't want to break diandra's train of thought as she moves through her shoot. sometimes i see a shot from a different angle that i think would be a great picture, so i suggest it. but i also don't want to sound like i am trying to tell her what to do, so sometimes i don't. it is a fine line to walk...2. don't leave the lenses at the location. this seems somewhat unnecessary to say. and yet, i walked off to the car at the end of the day without the shootsac. thankfully i remembered before we got out of the parking lot.

and the number one thing i learned about being a photographer's assistant today...

1. if they borrow your diamond ring for the shoot, make sure to get it back! yeah, we were sitting in the car, ready to leave, when travis--the groom model--came running across the parking lot with my ring in his hand. several times during the day i had thought, "don't forget to get your ring... don't forget to get your ring..." but by the end of the day, it was dark and we were tired, and i just forgot... luckily we were working with honest people!

on the way home, i told diandra how much i had enjoyed the day. i even offered to quit my job if i could be her assistant. she said it had been a big help to have me there today, but that usually she didn't really need an assistant. i tried to convince her that she did! she told me that she probably couldn't match my paycheck. this is probably true... ...but my paycheck doesn't buy days spent in the sunshine watching my daughter do what she loves best, and getting to be a part of it!

diandra--my enabler :-)

so today . . . my name is julie and i'm a social media-aholic.

i am not even going to give you all the pathetic details of my condition. let me just say, if i were in a support group, i would have to go tonight and say, "it has only been a few hours since i joined a new social media platform..." say hello to tumblr.

i spend plenty of time on facebook, probably more than is good for me. i blog, and when i blog, it usually takes a couple of hours out of my already full day. i also tweet, but mostly as a quick way to post something to facebook.

and then, last night, diandra discovered tumblr.

i'm not quite sure how it happened, but she spent all evening working on her page layout and posting stuff. i was curious about what she was doing, so she said, "just go on and follow me." so, of course i did.

i was surprised to learn that i already had a tumblr account. i have no idea how that happened. i do not remember signing up for tumblr. i didn't even know what it was!!! but i was following one person. one. this was a surprise to me! but anyway, now that i had an account, i decided i should start to use it. diandra said it was very user friendly (meaning, "even you could probably figure it out, mom,") so this afternoon i tried to get it working...

first i had to get over the forgotten password hurdle. since i didn't even know i had an account, i sure didn't know the password! i tried every password i could remember ever using for anything. nothing worked. i finally had to give in and have them send me the "don't you keep a list of your passwords somewhere?" email that told me how to reset it. which i did. this allowed me to finally access the account.

and then the trouble really began, because i was suddenly faced with choices, choices, choices. layouts, colors, fonts, oh my! after viewing several free ones (because you could pay up to $49 for one! seriously?? i mean, i know designers should be paid for their work, but my page is just for fun. and probably only two people will ever bother to go look at it, so i don't think i'll be paying anything for a layout template,) i chose one that was very simple but colorful. i was pretty happy with it, but then my lunch break was over so i had to wait to finish it up...

when i got home, diandra said she had posted about 20 things to her tumblr page over the last two days. i thought that sounded like a lot. i'm pretty sure i won't be posting nearly that much, but i thought i should go finish figuring the thing out. but first, diandra went to look at it. and that is when the mocking began... because since i hadn't posted anything, my page was just blocks of color--no words, no pictures, nothing. well, that isn't technically true. because in setting the page up, it wanted me to give it a title. sheesh. i didn't know what to call it. i didn't know what kind of stuff i was going to post, so how could i know what to call it. "hmmmm, mom? really?? that's what you are going to call your page? hmmmm??" that was diandra's response. this was not encouraging to me. i had thought it was a decent title. that is the sound of thinking... it seemed like a good idea at the time...

ok, fine! i needed words. but i didn't know what to write. i'm not quite sure what to do with tumblr. i use twitter if i have an amusing thought to share. facebook is where i interact with my family and friends. (i even have two facebook pages now--one for family, one for friends. although, some friends are on the family one, because i haven't had the friend one for very long. so it is a little confusing, even to me.) and this blog is where i write, since i have discovered i love to write. (actually i'm not sure if i love to write or if i just love to tell stories, writing being the easiest way to do that...) so i don't really know where tumblr fits in...

i thought maybe it should address a particular area of my life. my blog is just about random stuff that happens to me that i think might make you laugh. facebook is mostly a response to the people who are or have been a part of my life. so tumblr... maybe it should be inspirational. i could write inspirational. i think. or maybe it should be opinionated. i certainly have opinions, but i rarely share them. or maybe it should just consist of reposting stuff i find that interests me. but would any of that be interesting to anyone else? and will anyone else ever see it? and does it matter if they do or not???

i don't know. but i kind of wanted my first post to set the tone for what was to come. how could i do that if i didn't know what was to come. i was sitting on the couch, unable to write anything. diandra was sitting next to me, whining about needing food. "we can't go until i write something," i said. "you made fun of my empty page. what if people stumble across it and it says nothing!" "we are going to be here all night, mom, just write something!!!" she said, (that was the hunger talking...) but i couldn't. i was paralyzed. but she was hungry. so she leaned over my computer, and in the title space she wrote "paralized," while i tried to push her fingers off my keyboard. "ACK! DON'T POST THAT!! I AM NOT GOING TO HAVE MISSPELLED WORDS ON MY PAGE!!!" she proceeded to write a pretty cute entry, which was quite a feat considering i was trying to prevent her. but i read it, corrected the spelling, and thought, ok, that is a good start. and then i wrote some more. and then some more. and then i decided to post hers first, and then mine. but i am still learning how to use tumblr, and i accidentally deleted hers. which is too bad, because it was cute...

and then i started my blog for today. because if i can't blog on tumblr (which technically i can, but i don't have time for two blogs,) then i needed to blog about tumblr--just this once. and then diandra said, "if you blog about tumblr, then maybe people who read your blog will come to your tumblr page. and if they come to your tumblr page, they might see MY tumblr page. and what if they follow me?" "that will be good, won't it? don't you want people to read your page?" i asked. "no," she said, "this is just my personal page." "then maybe you should make it private," i said. "well," she paused, "i want people to read it, but maybe not people i know. what if i want to post something inappropriate?!?"

ok, that made me laugh. i am following her on tumblr. she knows that. i am her mother. i doubt she is going to post something inappropriate. but i understand what she is saying. i am sort of feeling the need to have a place where i can write it all--the good, the bad, and the ugly (the ugly would probably be a gallery of photos of my bangs...)

so. tumblr. i'm not sure exactly what it is going to become. but it might not be for everyone. maybe i should call it "julie. unplugged." you know, just in case i decide to post something inappropriate.

;-)

procrastinating again. it must be tax time...

so today . . . i spent the day avoiding doing my taxes.

i hate taxes. it isn't that i mind paying them--i know it costs money to run our government (although i have some choice words for the games currently being played...) and i don't mind paying my share. what i hate is figuring out how much of the tax burden is mine.

i've actually spent the last couple of weeks avoiding doing my taxes--i'm quite good at it--but rollie has an appointment with h&r block on monday. this means that my time is almost up. soon, avoiding this odious task will no longer be an option. soon, i am going to have to wade my way through mountains of receipts and stacks of file folders and put my calculator to work.

every year when i get the stuff ready for taxes, i say to myself, "next year i am not going to wait until the last minute to do this. next year, i am going to organize the receipts and paperwork each month during the year. next year, doing the taxes will merely be a matter of adding up the monthly totals that i have carefully calculated all year long." which might work, except for one thing--since i never get the taxes done until the last minute, i am already three and a half months behind when this brilliant revelation comes to me...

my plan for this weekend was to do the taxes on friday afternoon. then i could goof off the rest of the weekend. that was my plan. and it was a good plan! rollie was out of town and wasn't scheduled to be home until about 8:00 p.m. friday night. diandra had a youth event and would be gone friday afternoon and evening. so, my plan was to drag all the paperwork to the family room floor when i got home from school, get a large soda, watch some tivo, and get organized.

i was somewhat successful. i got a large soda, and watched some tivo...

when i went to bed, late late late last night, i had a new plan. i would get up first thing this morning, drag all the paperwork to the family room floor, get a large soda, watch some more tivo (have i told you lately how much i love tivo?) and get organized. once again, my plan was not totally successful.

i tried... kind of. i had a large soda. i had the tivo on. i was thinking about dragging out all those papers. i was mentally organizing. and then diandra came into the room. it was lunch time, so we discussed options, and she agreed to come with me to do an errand. at ulta. and then have lunch. (can you say, "reprieve?")

i had to go to ulta today, because i had a 20% off coupon. i get coupons from ulta all the time, so i have become somewhat immune to their charms. but this coupon said i could use it on some products that are never discounted. ever. products that i use every single day. so the deal was too good to pass up. i got my products, and diandra looked at hair stuff. i picked up some clearance items (that were almost free!) and diandra looked at make-up. i paid for my stuff, and we headed for el pollo loco.

yes, back to the crazy chicken. they have recently added sweet potato fries to their menu, and diandra is in loooove. sweet potato fries at a drive-thru just five minutes from our house! i'm pretty sure she thinks it is a preview of heaven...

as we left el pollo loco's drive thru, i looked at the clock on my dashboard. "we haven't been gone very long at all," i said. i was feeling pretty good. i knew i still had to do the tax stuff, but it was only 2:00. i had plenty of time...

...that is, until i remembered that i haven't yet changed the time on my dashboard clock to reflect daylight savings time. it isn't a big deal. usually i just mentally add an hour to the time on my clock. but that only works on normal work days when i am on a schedule and already sort of know what hour it is. it does not work quite so well on saturdays.

when we got home, i started the laundry. i should have started it sooner, but as i said, diandra was at an overnighter last night, and i thought she had probably been too tired to get her laundry together. (and before any of you get all worked up about me doing her laundry, i don't fold it or put it away--i just throw it into the machines with our clothes. it saves water and electricity. i'm just trying to be earth friendly here...) i checked my email. i looked longingly at the red wii on buy.com. i put the clean sheets back on the bed. and then rollie wanted to eat...

you see, this is our problem. on saturday, we are all sort of on different schedules...

we ate dinner, watched last week's survivor, and then i dragged the receipts and paperwork out to the floor of the family room.

i was making progress...

then i looked for some pictures diandra wanted that we thought might be on my computer. of course, we didn't find them, because the picture files on my computer are still a big mess. and it just keeps getting worse! because now, not only do i have the photos i take with my camera to organize, but also the pictures i take with my phone. and all the old pictures i have been scanning into my computer. my picture files are a nightmare!!

finally diandra went to bed. rollie went to bed. i did a couple more loads of laundry, and virtually purchased some stuff on pet society (that's a facebook game, in case you didn't know. my poor pet, penelope has been sadly neglected the last few weeks...) and then i remembered that i hadn't blogged yet.

i've been trying to get back into the habit of blogging after being off for a couple of weeks, but it isn't as easy as you might think. my brain has not wanted to get back into blogging mode. and we continue to have internet issues, which make me a little hesitant to spend hours writing a blog only to possibly lose it if the network goes down. and sometimes i can't stay connected long enough to get something posted, even if i write it off line! but i need to try anyway...

i looked at the pile of stuff on the floor in the family room. and then i picked it up and moved it back to the kitchen counter. because it is late and i am tired. and i can't leave it on the floor while i go to church tomorrow, because of the dogs. and i can't deal with it tonight, because i need to blog.

but tomorrow i have to do the taxes. i have to. i can either do it during the afternoon and go to bed at a decent hour, or i can spend the day avoiding it and then stay up most of the night to get it done. i'd like to say that i know i am going to make a good choice and get a good night's sleep. that is what i would like to say. but i know myself. i know the odds are not in my favor. if you were going to bet on my behavior tomorrow, the smart money would be on avoidance and a late night. because i am a world class procrastinator. if procrastination was an olympic sport, i would be the gold medal winner. every time. no one else would even be close!

sigh. tomorrow is another day... yippee...

march 2011. the month i will eventually forget.

so today . . . is the last day of march. this means my self-imposed exile from the land of blogging is almost over...

it has been quite a month. i have had ideas for blogs rolling around in my head, but i never seemed able to sit down and write...

there was the day rollie took me to the outlet mall to choose a birthday present, and the result was me sitting in a chair in the corner of the coach store with an armful of handbags, paralyzed with indecision...

there was the day i sent my pre-k kids across the hall to an empty classroom with a huge piece of butcher paper, toy cars, and paint... oh yes, and my teaching assistant... and paint shirts, which were of no help at all...

there was the day diandra and i zipped to the outlet mall after school and experienced deja'vu...

there was the day i discovered the top on my beloved convertible was 'letting the sun shine in'--even when it was closed...

there was the day my future son-in-law came straight to our house from kuwait... well, actually he went to germany and georgia and lax first... but then he came straight to our house!

and then there was the wedding...

and my wedding dress... which was nearly a catastrophe, but turned out to be something really special... and las vegas on st. patrick's day... and purple christmas balls, silver christmas balls, and clear, lucite jewels... and terrible wind... and a beautiful bride with a sparkly bouquet... and a groom with a temperature... and a dad who loved his daughter enough to step waaaay out of his comfort zone...

there was the day i took my mom to the las vegas outlet mall... and made her go into the juicy couture store... and the guess store... and the coach store... and she made me go into chico's... and the store with the elusive hush puppy shoes... and then i made her go back to the coach store... (and before you think someone should take all our credit cards away, we did not actually make purchases in all those stores...)

there was the day my brother called to tattle on my mom... which was also the day my dad had some kind of major surgery... which is why my brother felt the need to tattle on my mom... yes, some days we are still children!

there was the day i started walking the dogs again... and decided to walk them both at the same time... (let's just say, we survived, but it wasn't pretty...)

there were the days that rollie left the house at 8:00 a.m. and didn't get home until 10:30 p.m... and the hunt for the perfect couch for his new office... and the chairs that almost got away...

there was a whole week of rain... and not one single weather blog! (count your blessings!!)

there was the day i tried to play music on my iphone and couldn't figure out where the ipod icon was... (anyone with an iphone is now saying to themselves, "what?!?!? how could she not see it???" all i have to say is, you just don't understand how my brain works...)

there were days i laughed, and days i cried, and days i just felt like crying while wishing i could laugh...

and there were pink shoes with flowers that unexpectedly appeared...

and once in a lifetime moments.

yes, march was quite a month. and as i read back over this list, i am really sad that i missed all that blogging! because while i remember these incidents happening, i don't remember the small details, or who said what, or how i felt... because i didn't write it down.

i blog so that i can remember the small, funny things that happen to me... just in case, you know, my brain ever fails me. (EVER fails me?!?!? please. my brain fails me every. single. day.)

you thought i blogged to entertain you, didn't you. but i don't. i blog so i can remember my life.

april fool's to you!

;-)

a forgotton blog...

so today . . . i wanted to blog. i really did. but it was a very average monday. my school kids were wild. i was tired. (why am i always more tired on monday after my weekend, than on friday after my work week?) so i looked in my "blogs i started, but for some reason never finished" file to see if there was anything in there worth salvaging. and there was. in fact, i found a complete blog that i had never posted.

that is unusual. there are times when i start a blog, and then it just doesn't work out. so i start over. or i give it up and go to bed, blogless. in fact, my "blogs i started, but for some reason never finished" file has 53 unfinished blogs in it...

...and one totally, completely finished one.

why didn't i post it? because it happened on august 2, 2010, which is also my mom's birthday, and i wanted to write a birthday blog about my mom. and then i wrote about how the cosmos hates me. and somehow, as i wrote blog after blog, i sort of forgot about this one. so here it is--a brand new old blog...

so today . . . i had a lunch meeting. with my daughter.

i love lunch meetings, mostly because it means i get to go out to lunch. diandra is the youth pastor at our church, and since i lead worship in the alternative service (which is her responsibility) we occasionally need to get together and work stuff out.

we met at chick-fil-a. i love chick-fil-a. you know why . . . we ate, we discussed important issues, and then . . .

"i need to go to target before i go home," i said. diandra perked right up. she loves target! "want me to come with you?" she graciously offered. that had kind of been my evil plan--i've never known her to turn down a trip to target. "yes," i said. "we can take my car and then come back for yours." chick-fil-a is conveniently located between our house and target.

so off we went. my mission? scissors and folders on sale at back-to-school prices. diandra's mission? keep me company--at least that was her obvious mission. you and i both know that the odds of her leaving target without any money leaving her wallet were slim.

we waded into enemy territory and were immediately met with temptation. why oh why do they put the cute dresses right inside the front door?!?! we looked, but we didn't touch. for at least a minute and a half. diandra kept saying, "why are we here?" oh yeah . . . school supplies. then we would head in that direction, until we got sidetracked once again. by the time we found the scissors and folders, diandra was holding two cute tops. to which i added 12 pairs of school scissors, because i couldn't hold the scissors and pick through the folders with only two hands. and we didn't have a cart, in order to discourage unplanned purchases (which was clearly not working all that well.) i was finding that the cheap 10 cent folders were not in great shape. i wanted unbent ones in a variety of colors, so it took some sorting. diandra kept saying, "why don't you just buy the packages of 10?" it was pure economics--the folders in the package were 15 cents each instead of 10 cents! she stood there trying to keep 12 pairs of scissors from falling out of her arms while i looked for perfect 10 cent folders. but there weren't a lot of color choices, so after several minutes of searching, i just grabbed two packages of the slightly more expensive (but also more colorful) folders and moved on. i ignored the daughterly eye roll . . .

we moved on to the shoe department--not because we were going to actually buy shoes, but because we were in target and you just never know... diandra was moving purposefully toward a pair of boots. i was preparing my motherly speech about how many pairs of boots does one girl really need, when i saw someone with a handbag exactly like mine in the next row! i found this somewhat surprising, in light of the provenance of my bag. i stepped back to get a better look . . . and realized i was looking into a mirror. (ok, in my defense we were in the shoe department and the mirror was short, so my face wasn't visible.)

we escaped from the shoe department and moved on to plastics. can i tell you how much i love plastic containers?!?!?! i have a very specific storage problem i am trying to solve, and i thought ice cube trays and plastic drawers might just do the trick temporarily. i found the plastic drawers, but didn't know if ice cube trays would fit inside. so we went in search of ice cube trays.

target does not appear to stock ice cube trays.

i find this odd. i think it is a little arrogant to assume that everyone has an automatic ice cube maker in their refrigerator. not everyone does, you know. and besides, ice cube trays can be used for many things, not the least of which is making flavored ice cubes!

i decided to take my chances and get the plastic drawers anyway. i already have ice cube trays at home, and if they don't fit, i am sure i can find another use for the drawers.

before checking out, we made a quick trip through the $1 section--or at least, what used to be the $1 section. now it is apparently the $2.50 section, which was somewhat disappointing. especially when you consider that $1 would be a much better price for most of the stuff found there.

we paid for our purchases and drove home. we both had projects we were anxious to begin. i pulled my car into the driveway, and thought, "oh, diandra isn't home . . . " except she was. she was sitting right next to me in my car. which was odd, because her jeep was no where to be seen . . .

. . . because it was still sitting in the chick-fil-a parking lot.

things to do, places to go...

so today . . . we got seriously down to business and found a wedding venue. i think. i am pretty sure...

diandra and i did a lot of internet searching for a venue for her wedding. it is going to be in las vegas, but she doesn't want it to be a "vegas" wedding. that narrows the choices considerably. thank goodness! i am of the opinion that most of the wedding chapels here look more like funeral parlors. they are draped in hundreds of yards of white satin with enough clear twinkle lights to power a third world country, and so many fake flowers and greenery that my allergies feel threatened. let's just say, this is kind of how i picture death.

not a good feel for a wedding.

we had four places to check out. we sat in the car, making a plan. where should we go first...? we decided on the premium outlet mall--which was not on our original plan. our original plan was to GET SERIOUS and do wedding stuff today! but we ALWAYS shop on black friday. so we decided to skip the three venues that were going to charge astronomical fees if we chose NOT to use their photographer, and headed for the premium outlet mall :)

we "shopped" for a bit, ate some lunch, checked out a really great venue, and then found our way to the neon boneyard.

diandra is in love with the neon boneyard. it is the place where old neon signs go to die. it is visually very interesting, and having pictures taken there was the first wedding decision she made. we thought it might be good if we knew where it was before she tried to make a timeline for her wedding day. so we followed the gps... and ended up in an empty abandoned building's parking lot. "this can't be right," she said. um, no, i'm pretty sure it is not right...

so she did something to the gps, it gave us different directions, and soon we were there. of course it was closed, but you could still see through the gate. diandra wanted to look through the gate, but it isn't in the very best part of town. but it was daylight. we looked around, and saw that there was no one close by. and came up with a plan...

i parked on the street as close to the gate as i could get without putting the suv into four-wheel drive and climbing onto the sidewalk. i kept the engine running. diandra left her door open. she ran to the gate and snapped a few pictures. i played lookout, ready to yell in case anyone started our way. diandra was prepared to dive headfirst into the car and hang on tight, if necessary, while i made a fast getaway...

fortunately, it was not necessary.

we were on las vegas blvd, but a long way from the strip. we decided to take the boulevard all the way back to our hotel instead of going on the freeway, and i am so glad we did! yes, there was a lot of traffic. yes, we saw a seedier side of town. but we also got to see some of those places you just see in location shots of las vegas. it was interesting to put all the pieces together into one picture.

we went back to our hotel to meet rollie for dinner, only to find out that the ducks game was on. (i would say oregon ducks, just to be clear, but if you have any knowlege of college football--ANY knowlege--you know who the ducks are!) so diandra and i decided to make good use of the time by going across the street to... shop.

(lest you think all we do is buy stuff, we didn't actually make very many purchases. we went in a lot of stores, picked up a lot of stuff, put it back, and moved on. there are a lot of very exclusive, expensive stores here. we have these same stores at home, but we don't spend much time in them, because they are a bit beyond our pay grade. but it was still fun to look...)

we hadn't been in this particular mall yet, and we didn't have a lot of time. and yet somehow, we got horribly turned around! when it was time to go, we couldn't find our way out of the building. and i don't mean we couldn't find where we came in--we couldn't find any exits at all!!

i tend to get a little claustrophobic from time to time, and this just about did me in! it didn't matter that we were in a huge mall with high ceilings. it didn't matter that it wasn't all that crowded. the problem was, we were trapped! there was no way out!!

it was the elevator all over again...

we finally found a door that led outside, and we took it! we looked around, and knew we were on a different side of the mall than where we came in. we didn't care! at least we had escaped!! i looked above the mall at the names on the tall buildings, and figured out where we were. sort of. and then we started walking. again.

we walked, and we walked, and we walked, until our hotel came into view. when we got on the bridge going across the street where i could look around, i realized we had walked almost all the way around the mall. THE MALL!! and the almost funny thing is, if we had turned left instead of right when we came out, we would have been much closer to finding our way home. much closer.

our feet and legs hate us.

i usually have an exceptionally good sense of direction in shopping malls and their parking lots. but apparently las vegas is oriented differently, because i seem to be having trouble finding my way out of places. for some reason, when we get in these shopping areas, my sense of direction leaves me. completely. i think it is all part of some evil plot...

we did, however, find the world's largest forever 21 store in the world! IN THE WORLD!! and as we found out, the world's largest forever 21 store makes it almost impossible to buy anything! who can even think when surrounded by so many choices. but it was ok--it was only 9:00--we figured we had a couple of hours to navigate the store before closing time. and then we found out that the store closed at 10:00. P.M!!!

are you kidding me?!?!? the forever 21 that is a mile from our house stays open that late. we are on the las vegas strip!! where are the shops that stay open all night?!?! what is the matter with these people!!!

it turned out ok, though. i think i found a dress for diandra's wedding--yes, at forever 21! and when we went in to the mall the second time, we paid closer attention to where we came in, and so we didn't have any trouble finding our way home.

we went over the river and through the woods and back to our room, where we found rollie--still watching football. on espn. a channel that we don't have at home.

i guess las vegas does have something for everyone...