Fold My Laundry Please

Ah, Christmas!  A time of love.  A time of charity.  A time to turn to your fellow man and say, "Whad’ya get me?  Whad’ya get me?"  I know, I know, it’s called the season of giving, but there’s one thing few people admit.  Yes, Christmastime is magical what with all the gatherings of family and friends, the warm greetings exchanged between strangers, and the colorful decorations everywhere.  But also?  There’s presents!  Bright, shiny PRESENTS!!  Who doesn’t feel warm fuzzies when someone hands them a lovingly wrapped gift donned with sparkly bows?  NO ONE, THAT’S WHO!! 

One of the wonderful things about getting presents is that it gives you a little insight into what kind of person you are.  Especially the ones from close family and friends.  For example.  Say someone gets you jewelry.  Perhaps they’re telling you that you’re beautiful or (in the case of the not so beautiful people) that you’re highly valued by the giver.  Or say someone buys you an outfit that is two sizes too big.  It’s likely they’re telling you that they think you’re fat and a bad dresser so just admit it.  True story.  Note to potential gift givers…if you are unsure what size an article of clothing should be, always guess low.  ALWAYS! 

So now let’s review the presents I unwrapped this Christmas Day and see what they say about me, shall we?

I present to you, Exhibit 1:

It’s a little known fact that I am a HUGE Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan.  Also, I find musicals highly enjoyable.  DO NOT JUDGE ME!!  So when I first saw this episode of Buffy, I fell in love with it!  In fact, I have it saved to my computer so that I can watch it any old time I feel like it.  Needless to say, when I unwrapped this CD of the original cast recording of Once More, With Feeling, I may have actually squeed with joy!

Exhibits 2 and 3:

I’ve spoken about Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog before.  It is another Joss Whedon musical masterpiece.  I love this story.  My family loves this story.  We sing the songs all. the. time.  My children even correct me if I say the wrong words.  (And Neil Patrick Harris is just yummy!  But that’s all I have to say about that.)  We must have watched it online about a billion fajillion times.  Well, now I am the proud owner of the Dr. Horrible soundtrack on CD and the DVD complete with not only a commentary, but also an additional musical commentary.  SQUEE!  But don’t get jealous just yet, because now we have…

Exhibit 4:

Another little known fact about me is that I kind of collect odd cookbooks.  I have both Star Wars cookbooks and the Green Eggs and Ham cookbook, to mention a few, and I’ve got my eye on the Twinkie cookbook.  *coughcough* hint *cough*  What was I saying?  Yes!  The Star Trek cookbook!  (Thank you, Jason & Stephanie!)  This thing is really cool!  I mean, it has recipes submitted from members of the crews of Voyager, the USS Enterprise, the Enterprise-D, and Deep Space Nine.  And who isn’t itching to try Q’parol or Gagh?  (Or maybe I should say try Q’parol AND Gagh!)

After tearing into each of these gifts and tossing the wrapping paper aside with wreckless abandon, I immediately loaded the CD’s onto my iPhone, pushed play on the DVD’s musical commentary, and began perusing my new cookbook and planning next week’s menu.  I then sat back and looked at my little pile of loot and was struck by a realization.  "You guys think I’m a dork!"

To which my husband lovingly answered, "Yes."

And then I said, "By the way, I was thinking of something with a Klingon theme for dinner tonight."

Everyone at Humor-Blogs.com is invited for dinner at my house!

Christmas Eve is when our family sits the kids down to pose in their brand new Christmas jammies!

Not every attempt is a successful one.

Here is my method for getting a good Christmas jammies photo.

Everyone jump in the air!

Higher!  Much, much higher!

Everyone sit down and make a funny face!

Everyone put their fingers in their ears!

Everyone pick their nose!

Aha!  Success!  I hope everyone had a fun and safe Christmas! 

Contest!  I’ll give 20 free laundry points* to the first person who can tell me what classic Christmas carol I urbanized a line from for the title of this post!

Bonus Contest!!  40 free laundry points given to all who go to Humor-Blogs.com and smiley me!

*Laundry points can be redeemed for the chance to come to my house and fold my laundry.   50 points gets you one basket worth of laundry to fold (approximately 2 loads).  Points can also be redeemed for opportunities to wash my dishes and clean my kitchen.  Only 15 points for each sinkful or 200 points for a full kitchen scrub.

I had just closed all the window blinds for the evening.  Five or ten minutes later we heard a knock on the door to find two shivering young girls collecting cans for a local food drive.  During the time it took me to go into the kitchen and fill a bag full of canned food for them, it had started snowing.  So when I opened the door to hand the bag out to the girls, I was pleasantly surprised.  The girls left and I stood there in the doorway alone watching the snow fall for a few minutes.  Everything was silent and big fat snowflakes were blanketing the front lawn.  It was one of those perfect winter moments.  Then Gideon came up beside me and stood with me.

"HOLY CRAP!  ICE IS FALLING FROM THE SKY, MOM!"

Guess it’s been a while since we’ve seen real snow.

CLICK!  REGISTER!  SMILEY ME!  Humor-Blogs.com!

I just LOVE Sheldon!  Hop on over and check out Dave’s daily webcomic…if you dare!

And then go vote for me on Humor-Blogs.com!  I double dog dare ya!

Happy Halloween!

Alright, alright, so I’m a little behind on this.  But I have a good excuse.  I’ll give you a hint.  It starts with an "S" and it rhymes with "trep throat".  Give it a minute.  You’ll get it.  Well, you won’t GET IT get it, because BELIEVE ME, you should be so glad you don’t have it…unless you do have it, then I extend to you my sympathy…what I mean to say is that you’ll…under…stand…

Nevermind.

What was I talking about again?

Oh yeah!  Halloween!  And my precious little Pumpkin Princess, my tiny Bat Princess, and my two Clone Troopers!  We tricked, we treated, we retured home victorious!  Yay, candy!  We did a circle around about half of our little neighborhood.   A.  Very.  Very.  Slow.  Circle.  Indeed.  I had Aubrey walk the whole way so that I wouldn’t kill my back carrying her around all night and she only has tiny little legs and there was sooooo very much to stop and look at.  Luckily, the older kids were incredibly patient with her as we moseyed our way along our route.  Of course, by the time we got near the end, she was so tired and her pumpkin bucket had gotten so heavy that she left it in somebody’s driveway and I had to run back and grab it.  (We’re taking on water fast!  Throw the cargo overboard!)  But she did great.  She smiled at everyone and burbled incessantly at anyone who would listen.  Of course, the instant we got back in the house she reached for her daddy and went limp in his arms, face full of tears.  Because mom TOOOORTURRRRRRED HERRRRR!!!!

Don’t worry.  A mini bag of M&M’s made everything allllll better.

And then the sickness took me.  Within about an hour.  And I spent the weekend either in bed or in the La-Z-Boy because being vertical was just WAY too much for me.  Fevers and sore throats and migraines…oh my!  Fortunately for me, Andrew didn’t catch it until I was feeling much better on Monday and so far the kids haven’t shown any signs of it.  Phew!  I’ll breathe a little easier once I finish sanitizing the house, though!

UPDATE!  Our original dianosis was arrived at through a few minutes spent with Dr. Google.  After visiting with an actual real life doctor, it turns out we did not have strep throat.  I’ll give you a hint what we did have, though.  It starts with an "S" and rhymes with "omething Viral".  So basically we were told to quit our whining and suck it up.   Oh, and drink plenty of fluids.

HUMOR-BLOGS.COM!!  CLICK!!  REGISTER!!  SMILEY ME!!

Dear Andrew,

On the day Ethan was born, you instantly turned into his biggest advocate.  You held his tiny hand while the nurses cleaned him up and stood by his side as they put that oxygen mask over his little face.  As he grew up, you played with him and protected him.  You taught him about all the important things like church and Star Wars.  Then Gideon came along and suddenly you had two little boys looking up to you.  You taught Gideon how to run and jump and about what it means to be a good man.

When I was pregnant the third time, we found out that it was going to be a girl.  You thought of the perfect name for her and enthusiastically helped me pick out pink frilly outfits for her.  As Aurora got older, you spoiled her mercilessly!  You taught her that she was beautiful and smart and completely capable of doing whatever she wants to do.  Now we have Aubrey, too.  She takes such joy in cuddling up with you.  Whenever you walk in the door, she crawls over to you as fast as her little knees will take her.   

You are such a wonderful father and our children are lucky to have you!

I love you, Andrew!  Happy Father’s Day!

And Happy Father’s Day to all the dads over at Humor-Blogs.com, too! 

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! 

What are my plans for this extra day off, you ask?  Well, I thought I’d head off to the gym with my husband for a relaxing workout.

Then maybe the family and I will have dinner out at a nice restaurant.

Or maybe we’ll just eat at home. 

What did you guys do with your weekend?

I noticed that so many of us here on the internets had a difficult time really feeling the Christmas spirit this year.  Most likely it had something to do with the fact that almost every single friend of mine, myself included, ended up spending the holidays sick as dogs!  Nothing fills you with holiday cheer like that week or two where the germs are settling in before the sickness rears up and slaps you silly!

Anyway…I’ve recently discovered a way to keep up the warmth you feel during the Season of Giving all year long.  And no, I’m not referring to the recent bout of fevers.  Elfin magic led me to find Santa’s blog.  Yes indeedy!  A daily posting from The Man In Red himself!  We’ve only been reading it for a week or so, but our family is totally hooked!  It has quickly become a nightly read for our household. 

So if you’re worried about having a cheerless repeat of this past holiday next December, hop on over and give Santa a read.  And remember…warm, fuzzy, holiday feelings keep germs at bay!  So read Santa’s blog and never get sick again!