Fold My Laundry Please

Our yard is becoming a mess.  The grass could use a trim and the weeds are getting out of hand.  I thought about hiring one of the teenagers from church, but today we had lovely weather so I decided that I would get out there and take care of it myself.  Our yard is not that big; it would take 2 hours, tops.  And besides, I’m not one of those people who thinks they can save the nation and the economy by paying some 19 year old sap $8 an hour to do my dirty work for me.  I pay $5 an hour.  With a $20 cap.  No negotiations.

But here’s the thing.  I don’t like to do yard work.  So now I’m faced with the dilemma of how to get out of it.  You know, without looking lazy.  I believe I began formulating my master plan while I was upstairs changing the baby’s diaper, though I didn’t know it at the time.  I finished up diaper duty, picked up the baby, and then headed downstairs.  I was about halfway down when I put my plan into action.  I proceeded to slip and fall down the steps…1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.  Get it?  Getting out of yard work in six steps?  I am incredibly clever!

Pain makes me giddy.

Heroically enough, I managed to keep the baby safe.  Sadly, I broke my big toe.  OH, SNAP!  Get it?  Snap?  HAHA!  HAHA! Hahahahaha!  Heh…

I’m dizzy. 

At first I thought I might have broken my foot and would have to go to the emergency room.  The pain was terrible and was radiating all the way up to my knee.  I was forced to lay back in the La-Z-Boy with my feet up and read a good book.  Fortunately, it felt almost completely better after about 4 hours of intense resting.  Unfortunately, my children sensed this and proceeded to conduct a series of stomping, kicking, jumping moves on my poor little piggy.  All it wanted to do was go to market.  Is that so wrong?

The children were put to bed with much haste and as little spanking as possible.  

Now that I think of it, I must have been planning this out hours ahead of time.  In case you forgot, I was a boyscout in my youth, and I live by the boy scout motto, "When in doubt, eat chocolate!"  Or is it, "Be prepared"?  Whatever.  Anyway, I had made sure to go grocery shopping without eating anything first earlier in the day.  That way I could blame my hunger for the fact that I came home with a tube of chocolate chip cookie dough and no intention whatsoever of baking any cookies.  And we all know that cookie dough is one of the main staples of food therapy.

So you guys don’t have to worry about me.  I’m sitting around with my feet up, avoiding housework, and eating some raw cookie dough.  Don’t worry, Ma.  I’m drinking milk with it.

Excellent.  All is going according to plan……

You can help me manage my pain by clicking here.

Before our second child was born, Andrew and I spent a lot of time throwing name ideas at each other.  Our conversations on the topic went something like this:

"How about Manheim?"

"Uhhh, no.  How about Frederick?"

"Hahahaha!  No."

It wasn’t until we were reading our scriptures one night and came to the Book of Judges (Old Testament) chapters 6 and 7 that we saw the name Gideon.  Something sparked and we knew it was THE name.  We had varied reactions from people when they heard our choice of names, from the not-so-subtle, "Well that’s…..unique.", to the enthusiastic, "What a fantastic name!"  But it didn’t matter what anyone else thought, our boy hadn’t even been born yet and we knew his name was definitely Gideon.  When we looked up the name in the baby book, it said that Gideon means "warrior".  Now that we’ve had some time to get to know his personality, it’s as though this name was invented just for him.  Warrior is putting it mildly!

So today in church we listened to a youth speaker.  She stood up to the podium and nervously adjusted the microphone.  "Today I would like to talk to you about my favorite prophet.  Gideon."

As soon as she said that, my little warrior looked at me, his eyes opened wide with wonder, and asked me, "I’m a prophet, too?"

Then he looked at his feet, shook his head and said to himself, "I am REALLY busy!" 

Humor-Blogs.com is more interested in profits than prophets! 

We got a bit of bad news today.  Andrew was let go from his job.  They had been talking about letting some people go from their project, but Andrew was told that his job would be there until the project’s end sometime in 2011.  I guess they changed their minds.  So he came home from work today with a final paycheck and a letter informing us when our insurance would end.

Talk about taking us by surprise.

So now our future will happen much sooner than we thought.  We knew we weren’t going to stay in Salem forever.  There are just too many crazy people here.  But I was hoping that we could hang out one more school year, at least.  

*sigh*

I’ve been sighing a lot today.

But things aren’t totally bleak.  Andrew has already spoken with some of his friends who have been begging him to apply with their company for one of the many Project Manager positions they have open.  He’s gotten in contact with the company that did his resume last year so that they can revamp it with his latest accomplishments.  I’ve already filed our unemployment claim with the state.  Things are going to be tight, but there are places we can cut back that will help.

What upsets me the most is that I really, really, REALLY, didn’t want to move again.  Not yet anyway.  Ethan is old enough to get upset about leaving friends behind now.  When we moved out of our apartment in Wilsonville to come here, I was a crying wreck watching as Ethan said goodbye to friends we lived near, unable to stop tears from coming each time one of his friends would disappear, only to reappear with some memento or other for him to remember them by.  He still asks if we can move back there someday.  He’s about to become a first grader.  He needs some stability now.  I need some stability now.

*sigh* 

To cheer ourselves up, we turned on a funny movie.  We figured a few laughs were in order.  Is it sad that I can still recite Spaceballs line for line despite not having watched it for at least 5 years? 

Humor-Blogs.com…sometimes the people listed on there write about depressing stuff. 

Our local library, in my humble opinion, has a major problem.  Parking.  Not that there’s not enough.  No, no, no.  There’s plenty.  In fact, the designated parking garage is rarely filled beyond 10% of capacity at any given time.  For starters, the entire garage is metered parking.  And all other places to park nearby all have signs posted saying "No Library Parking".  So they’re pretty much extorting money from you, 50 cents at a time. 

But an even bigger problem is the size of the parking spots.  They are tiny.  Infinitesimally so.  Actually, the whole state of Oregon seems to think that everyone drives a compact vehicle.  And the spaces at the library are small, even for compact cars.  And I drive a minivan.  As a result, I have to squeeze myself out of my door every time we go.  I try to make sure to leave a bit of space for the person to my right to get out, but some days that’s difficult at best.  Today was one of those days.  Only this time, someone took offense.

I found it stuck under my windshield wiper.  At first I thought, "Great!  Someone hit my car trying to get into/out of these miserably small spots and they left their insurance info."  Then I actually read the note.  For those of you who can’t read Crazy, allow me to interpret.  I’m fairly fluent, you see.  It says, "Next time watch how u park.  Someones Anger might get the best of of them and take it out on your van Badly  Have a nice Day" 

I can only assume the public school system failed this person miserably as the grammar in this note is atrocious, at best.  Also, if they had taken it out on my van badly, what would have happened?  I would have called the police, filed an insurance claim, and either gotten the car fixed or pocketed a nice little check depending on how the insurance handled it.  So really, the threat is poorly thought out.  I’m just glad we (Yes, we.  I had three of my precious little younglings with me at the time.) didn’t happen to come out while this charming little missive was being written.  Something tells me they would not have been shy about making a scene, whether or not there were children present. 

After we arrived at our next destination, I did a quick inspection of the van.  I did find a small scratch on the side that looks like someone hit me with their car door.  I wonder who could’ve done that? 

Humor-Blogs.com…I got nothin’ today. 

I have been tagged a few times lately for different memes.  I like to do memes because it’s like having a blog post handed to you.  However, when I do take the time to sit down and write, I actually have something to write about, and so memes get set aside for those days when words cease to flow and I need a little bit of inspiration.  Unfortunately, that means they start to pile up, and people think I don’t like being tagged because I don’t respond right away.  Okay.  To be honest, I don’t respond within the same month usually.  Perhaps I need to get myself a meme wraith like Diesel has.  Right now, I’ve only got three memes in my queue, but they all essentially have the same request.  "Tell us a few unusual things about yourself."  So Allanna, Claudia, and MereCat, these five stories are for you.

• I have actually seen a stuck pig bleed.  We lived in Reifenberg, Germany when I was in 1st through 3rd grade.  The house we rented was nestled between three farms.  On the left was a dairy farmer, behind us a huge apple orchard (Did you know you can spoil a cow’s milk while simultaneously ticking off the farmer by feeding the cows copious quantities of apples?  It’s true!), and to the right a butcher.  Every so often I had the opportunity to watch a pig be slaughtered.  It wasn’t like I had a special invite or anything; the farmer did it in a courtyard that was essentially his front yard.  My little brother loved watching them and would provide vivid play-by-plays for us if we couldn’t be there.  (*making wild slashing motions with his hands*  HE TOOK THE PIG AND HUNG HIM UP BY HIS FEET AND THEN GOT THIS HUUUUUUGE KNIFE AND JUST WENT SWOOSH DOWN LIKE THAT AND THE PIG FELL OPEN AND THERE WAS BLOOD AND GUTS AND I’LL BE RIGHT BACK!)  Without getting too deep in the grossness, the pig was quickly and humanely dispatched before the slicing and dicing began.  Somehow the farmer missed one morning.  The result was a rather comical chase involving an intensely fierce and incredibly loud pig and three or four farmers who were equally loud.  They thundered up and down the cobblestones of our little street, squealing and shouting, running here and there, and were it not for the fact that the whole time the pig was spraying a rather gruesome fountain of blood, it would have seemed like something out of a tv sitcom.  Instead it was more like something out of an independent film.  It lasted about an hour before the pig finally got weak from blood loss and gave up.  It. Was. AWESOME!

• I have devised an inventory sheet for our household non-grocery supplies.  You know, things like shampoo, toilet cleaner, dish soap, etc.  The chart is even organized as to what section each item can be found in at the store when I go shopping.  Once a month, I go to Walmart, follow the path my list has mapped out for me (with a small detour to watch the fish with the children), and Bingo! Bango!, I’ve spent $160 on toilet paper, deodorant, and laundry detergent in under an hour!  I actually have several checklists and spreadsheets that I’ve devised to help manage my household.  It’s kind of a work dorkier, not harder, principle. 
• When I was in high school, I joined the boyscouts.  I was of the mindset that I was going to become a surgeon when I grew up, despite the fact that I can’t even clean out cuts and scrapes without feeling all gooey inside.  Anyway, the Boyscouts of America have these clubs called the [Insert Future Career of Your Choice Here] Explorers.  I joined the Medical Explorers and we got to go on tours of hospitals, watch operations (ewww!), watch med students play around with actual cadavers (double ewww!), talk with doctors about their careers (enough with the gory stuff already!), etc.  Something I wasn’t aware of when I joined was that in order to be an Explorer, you had to become an official boyscout.  There were no merit badge ceremonies and I didn’t have to wear the uniform (How cute would that have been?), but according to the BSA records, I was a boyscout.  I even got invited to jamborees and camporees.  The only time it ever became a problem was when I turned 18.  Apparently, the government keeps track of the BSA files to make sure that all young men sign up with the Civil Service.  These records don’t seem to have any documentation about gender (it is, after all, the boyscouts), because I and my family were harrased about me signing up for several months.  There were many official threats letters and phone calls exchanged before someone official arrived at our door one day to verify with their own eyes that Melissa Victoria Meserve was, in fact, female…as we had claimed.  They introduced themselves, spoke with me a bit, noticed I HAD BREASTS, and then went on their merry way, never to bother me or my family again.
• Don’t tell anyone, but I don’t actually want anyone to fold my laundry for me.  In order for someone else to fold my laundry, I would have to sit there with them and tell them which drawers everything goes into, how to fold it so that you can fit more in, whose underwear is whose, etc.  It’s just less work to fold it myself.  Maybe the name of my blog should be changed to Wash My Dishes Please, because that I hate doing so much that I don’t even care what method you use to get it done, as long as the pots and pans are clean and off of my counter!
• I used to be a competitive ice-skater.  I was young, and thin, and covered in muscles.  My favorite moves all involved skating at top speed and jumping, because I was what they referred to as a "power skater".  That’s really just a nice way of saying that I wasn’t very graceful, but I could jump four feet off the ground without even trying.  "Power skaters", such as myself, are perpetually covered in bruises, because jumping really high means you fall really hard.  One time I fell in such a way as to drive the back of one of the blades on my skates a full inch deep into my calf muscle.  It hurt like the dickens, but didn’t cut through my tights.  Fashion faux pas avoided!  Also, it didn’t bleed until about 20 minutes after I left the ice rink and had time to thaw out a bit.  Apparently, when you spend 5+ hours on the ice, not even constant physical exertion will keep you warm enough to bleed.  Other injuries incurred during my skating career include a sprained wrist, a dislocated hip (Don’t worry, it was relocated once I tried to stand up and then fell over on it!), and ice burn on the entire left side of my face.  It was good times.  Good and expensive.

So there you have it.  Five stories about me that you may, or may not, have known.  I will be answering any questions you may have in the comments.  Autographed photos will be mailed directly to your house and you can expect them in 6-8 weeks, or whenever I get around to it!

Humor-Blogs.com has stories that would curl your toes! 

…sat through all of church, nearly three whole hours, only to realize in the last five minutes that, because you were running late that morning, you got dressed far too quickly and FORGOT TO PUT ON a rather vital component of your ladies undergarments and then spent those last five mintues trying to remember every single person you came into contact with and deciding whether or not those people noticed anything missing?

Yeah, me neither. 

My rating are slipping!  Show me some love and click on Humor-Blogs.com!   

Sloppy Joes!  They’re so meaty, and tomatoey, and sloppy!  I love ‘em!  Unfortunately, my husband is not their biggest fan.  Because of this, we compromise and only eat them on rare occassions.  Tonight was just such an occassion.  I’m not sure what Andrew doesn’t like about them.  I always toss a can of corn into the mix to sneak in a bit of veggie.  Perhaps he’s bothered by the deception.  It fools me every time!  But, plop a scoop of that on a bun with a slice of cheese and you’ve got a great big Mmmm-Mmmm Sandwich right there!

The way I see it, Sloppy Joes are the perfect balance of taste and nutrition.  On the taste side, they are delicious.  On the nutrition side, they’re made of beef (meat and fish food group), tomato sauce and corn (fruit and veggie group), cheese (dairy group), and a hamburger bun (bread and grain group).  It’s practically a food pyramid in a meal! 

So tell me, where do you stand on this issue?  Are you Pro-Sloppy?  Or are you a neat-a-tarian?

Humor-Blogs.com wants the Lunch Lady all to itself! 

Mother’s Day:  A Poem

by Lady Laundry

*ahem*

M, is for the many things you gave me.

O, is for the other things you gave me.

T, is for the terrific things you gave me.

H, is for the hundreds of things you gave me.

E, is for everything you gave me.

R, is for the rotten things you gave me.

Put them all together and they spell MOTHER!

Thank you!  Thank you!  Poetry is something that just comes very naturally to me.  It’s a gift that I simply must share with the world. 

This Mother’s Day I did something I love to do.  I stuffed my face with pancakes that someone else made, served, and cleaned up after!  We decided to break the Sabbath (I know! Didn’t I learn anything the last time I did that and was smited with food poisoning?) and try out a pancake house here in town that has been calling my name everytime I drive past it.

The kids were very well behaved the entire time.  They played quietly as we waited for our table.  They sat and drew lovely works of art on those magnetic drawing thingys while we waited for our food.  And they demolished their meals nearly the instant they were set down in front of them.  It was great!  

See?  Look at how happy I am that I get to have delicious blueberry pancakes!  With freshly made blueberry syrup!  

They were every bit as yummy as I had imagined they would be!

Seeing as how she has no teeth yet (And honestly, where are those teeth anyway?  She’s eight months old now.  I’m kind of tired of the flash fevers and cranky attitude!), Aubrey sat in the high chair and happily played with a spoon the entire time.

She also did what she does best, which is flash those non-existent pearly whites and charm the pants off of strangers.  All the children were exceptionally, charming that day.  So charming that I came off as the perfect mother, and really, isn’t that the best Mother’s Day gift? 

How charming were they, you ask? 

One woman eating there at the restaurant was so impressed with my children that she walked up to our table as she was leaving, patted me on the back, and said, "Are ALL THESE CHILDREN yours?  I only have one and I can barely manage with that!  I would like to buy your drink for you.  Happy Mother’s Day!"  Then she slipped me a five dollar bill and walked out of the building. 

I sat there, stunned, staring at the money for a minute.  "Was I just tipped?  Did she…  Did she just tip me for being a mom?"  Andrew was just as baffled by it as I was.  I suddenly felt like I should give the money back.  Five dollars was much too much to accept from some stranger, but she was long gone by the time I got over my shock enough to do anything.  

And so, I’m now five dollars richer than I was before Mother’s Day rolled around.  Jealous much?  I’m thinking that maybe I’ll start carrying around a tip jar wherever I go.  Perhaps I’ll put one of those "Donate" buttons up on my blog.  I wouldn’t want to alienate those of you intent on throwing money at me, but sadly unable to get to my tip jar. 

Motherhood.  It’s just one of the many services I perform for my adoring public. 

If you don’t want to tip cash, you could at least click on Humor-Blogs.com to help my ratings out a bit!  Jeez! 

It was dark and stormy that Saturday morning.  I was on a stake-out at the Silverton Hospital. I’d been working a case for a broad who wanted photographic evidence that some fella was stealing from her.  I’m not only a gumshoe, I’m also a bit of a shutterbug. I’d been sitting around, waiting for the palooka to make a wrong move so that I could get this job over with and head back to my office for a slug of eel juice.  That’s when I saw…Her.  She was about five foot six with dark hair and curves that could make a highway jealous.  No longer caring about some sticky-fingered chump, I turned my camera in her direction.

Dressed like she was in her orange sleeves, yoga pants, and running shoes, she looked like one fast dame. 

At about 8:45 am, the crowd drew in like bums to a soup kitchen.

That’s when some wise-guy decided to throw lead and the doll took air along with the rest of the mob. 

 I didn’t catch sight of that dish for another 41 minutes and 22 seconds.

And when I did see her again, she just walked on by like duck soup.

She looked tired, limping a bit on her getaway sticks, but she was still hittin’ on all eight. 

I thought about saying hello, but I’d bet a C-note that a classy chick like that wouldn’t have any words for a regular Joe like me.  So I decided to scram.  Besides, I was a professional peeper and I still had a job to do.

They call me Rusty Shovel, private eye.

Humor-Blogs.com is nuttin’ but a buncha bindle punks gunnin’ for dutch!

Twists, Slugs, and Roscoes:  A Glossary of Hardboiled Slang

So.  Tomorrow is the big day.  At 8:45 am Pacific Time, I’ll be standing at the starting line of my very first 5K run.  All of the appropriate preparations have been taken care of.  I took the last few days off from the gym this week to make sure my legs are all rested up.  I’ll be eating spaghetti for dinner to get my carbs in tonight.  Andrew has been instructed to take copious amounts of photographs and the double stroller is already in the back of the van.  And perhaps most importantly, I picked out what clothes I was going to run in and made sure they were clean a few days ago.  Now comes the hard part, getting the kids to bed early so that I can go to bed early. 

Oh, and did I mention that I signed up for another 5K next Saturday?  The Keizer Iris Festival 5K!  I think I done lost my mind! 

Humor-Blogs.com can eat my dust!