A Hairy Situation

There are few things I hate worse than having to clean. It just seems like an unnecessary waste of time. Now don't get me wrong I like a clean house. Actually I LOVE a clean house. It's just the whole getting clean process that I hate. If I could afford to have a maid come in once a week and clean my house, I would. But, unless I figure out a way to make my kids clothes out of recycled paper, discover an alternate fuel source or win the lottery, I am pretty sure that won't be happening.


Today, I decided it was time to run the vacuum over the carpet. It has actually only been a week since Haley vacuumed but I could see bits of trash on the carpet and since I hate dirty floors, I had to clean it. So I whip out my trusty Hoover vacuum (and it is the mama jama of vacuums in comparison to the ones I have had in the past). Before I started vacuuming, I emptied the debris canister (because I am apparently the only one in the house who knows that there is a debris canister). So with a clean, empty debris canister I start vacuuming the den. When I finished vacuuming, this is what was in my once empty debris canister:

Dog Hair. I know EWWWWW.

This is the culprit. Guilty as Charged!

And as much as I love him, I am thinking that one of these would be nice about now.

Look ma, no hair.

So here are the pictures I promised

Friday afternoon, Holden was at a birthday party and Haley was off spending the night with a friend, so we took Harrison down to the park to try his hand at riding a two-wheeler. I have to say he did awfully good for his first shot at it.

After he tired of the bike riding, we walked over to the playground area and I took a few pictures there.


Saturday was soccer day. Here's our little star in action.


Sunday, we went to the Blessing of the Fleet. I got some good pictures of the kids, but my battery died before I got any of the shrimp boats. Yeah, I know always charge your battery the night before. But, the pictures of the kids were cute and I can always scan the picture of the shrimp boats from the newspaper and pretend it was mine.

So there you have it. The weekend in review. Do you understand why I am so tired by Monday?

It's been a long weekend

It was a really long week last week. Monday and Tuesday I had a sick child home. Granted, he wasn't really whiny but it does throw the whole schedule off. Especially after being gone for four days. So by Wednesday, I needed kid-free time to get some things done around the house. Oddly enough, not much got accomplished though. Between running errands and grocery shopping, there wasn't time for much else. By Friday, I was pretty much fried. I am not sure if I was tired from last weekend, or from having a sick kid, or from my allergies, or maybe just a combination of them all. So when bedtime rolled around Friday, I was ready for a good nights slumber. That unfortunately did not happen.

At 12:15 a.m., I feel a light tap, tap on my arm and hear "Mommy, my tummy hurts". So I jump out of bed, hustle young child to the bathroom just in time for him to throw up. After he's finished, we go to his bathroom, brush his teeth, change his pajamas (he was very sweaty) and put him back to bed. I crawl back into the comfort of my bed (careful not to disturb husband who is either pretending to be asleep or who actually is). Just as I am getting back into a deep sleep, I feel a tap, tap on my arm again and hear "Mommy, it's happening again". So, I jump out of the bed, hurry young child to the bathroom and repeat. This time, I wash his face then put him back to bed. As I get back into bed, I hear husband ask "What's wrong?" This is the point where you really want to be ugly and smack them up side the head. But, I refrained and told him what was going on. To which he replied "Oh".

Fast forward a couple of hours to 3:15 a.m. and again, I feel tap, tap only a bit harder and hear a moaning. I open my eyes and find older son standing at the side of the bed holding his ear. When I ask what is wrong, he tells me his ear is hurting. At this point, husband says to son, "Come get into the bed". I am thinking, "How is this helping his hurting ear?" but again, I refrain from saying anything. So I get out of bed, tromp downstairs and find some Ibuprofen. Back up stairs, I give son the medicine and then try to find the ear drops that numb his ear which were no where to be found. I searched high and lo for a good half an hour. Husband did get out of bed to help but then exasperatedly told me I was searching for a needle in a haystack then crawled back into bed. The ear drops were not found and son did finally go back to sleep.

By Saturday morning, I was less rested than the day before. But, we had a soccer game to go to and a million chores to get done so there was no lying around resting.

Saturday afternoon, my husband suggested we go and have dinner with my parents. So we drove the hour and a half to eat dinner with them, the we drove home.

This morning, we got up and packed lunches, sunscreen, blankets and chairs and headed down to the Annual "Blessing of the Fleet" where a priest blesses each shrimp boat before the start of the season (which is tomorrow). There were games, crafts, food vendors, music, jump castles and arts exhibitions. And lots and lots of people.

So tonight, I am headed up stairs to crawl into the bed and watch a few minutes of television before I try and get some much needed rest. Hopefully I will have no sick children, no snoring husband, and no bout of insomnia.

Tomorrow I will post pictures of the weekend.

A camo shirt and a mannequin

Tonight we ran by Old Navy to find Harrison some camouflage for an Army party he was invited to. I know, you're wondering why my child doesn't own anything camo. Well, I despise the stuff, but that's a whole other story.

So anyway, I found a shirt on clearance for $2.99 (YES!) and am heading to the front to pay for it. Harrison runs ahead of me and as I round the corner to get in line, I see him shimming up to a mannequin. He starts swinging his hips and moving like he is slow dancing with this mannequin. I quickly look around to see who is watching and thankfully the only other person in site was David. So we pretend that he isn't our child and crouch behind the rack of clothes nearest him. When Harrison finally caught us watching him and realized that he was the center of attention, he kicked it up a notch and went into a full fledged gyrating motion.

I regretfully did not have my camera with me although I am not sure that even a still photo would have given an accurate depiction of the "dance". Let's just say that Dirty Dancing didn't have a thing on Harrison and his lady friend.

I am not a big television person. At the most I watch 3 hours a week. Due to the writers strike, my favorite show, Grey's Anatomy has been off the air for months now which left me watching next to no television. Enter American Idol. Now I am almost embarrassed to confess that I watch this show religiously. I am not sure what exactly appeals to me about the show. Maybe it's that regular people have a chance to make their dreams come true.

While I love the show, here's what gripes me. Rather than a talent competition, it has turned into a popularity contest. Last week, one of my favorite performers, Michale Johns was voted off the show. This week, 38 million Americans cast their votes and the two worst performers from Tuesday night, Brooke White and Jason Castro, somehow managed to avoid even being in the bottom two. Instead, the two strongest female performers, Carly Smithson and Syesha Mercado, ended up at the bottom.

Now I will be the first to admit that I don't have a clue what makes a good performing artist (I'll leave that up to Simon who is usually on the money even if he does come across as a jerk). And I am tone deaf and couldn't sing in tune if my life depended on it. However, I do know what I like and what sounds good to me. And the performance by Jason (who has been one of my favorites) was horrible. He was off key and the song just flat out didn't cut it. And Brooke. She is such a likeable person which is about the only reason I believe she made it through after forgetting the lyrics to the song and having to start over.

Syesha has never been in my top 5. She is a good singer but I have always felt like she was a much better theatrical singer than a pop star. But her performance of the Broadway song on Tuesday was outstanding. I am sure that in the end she will end up becoming a Broadway performer.

And Carly. To me she just had it. Her big voice could adapt to whatever theme the producers chose. She has an incredible talent, and she was a leading contender from the beginning of the season. So what can I say? I know in the end, Carly will end up with a contract because she is good enough to make a go of it.

Here's Carly singing Jesus Christ Superstar from Tuesday night.



Unfortunately, America goofed up on voting this season. And Carly Smithson was voted off the show last night. “It must be a bit of a popularity vote this week,” Randy said. And I believe he was right. Carly should have ended up in the Top 3.

We'll have to wait another week to see if America gets back on track or if the popularity contest is still going strong. In the meantime, don't bother me tonight because I will be watching the first NEW episode of Grey's Anatomy. At least no one gets to vote Dr. McDreamy off.

A medical emergency

I got a call Friday from David while I was away at my retreat. He said that he was sorry to call but there had been a slight medical emergency that he needed to talk to me about. I could tell from the tone of his voice that it was nothing serious so I didn't panic. It seems that while Harrison was at school, he injured himself. A note came home from his teacher. Here's what it said:

Well, I am not real sure how you hurt your neck playing a board game but I am glad to report that there seems to be no long term problems and his neck is feeling better.

Catching up is hard to do

I left on Thursday morning for a weekend away to do my favorite of all favorite things - SCRAPBOOK. It seems like I never get to scrapbook when I am at home so I have to go away to actually produce pages. I got around 40 pages so it was a very productive weekend. There were 9 of us staying at a small resort near Hilton Head. I don't think I even left the house Friday or Saturday. Those creative juices were flowing and I was bound and determined to take full advantage.

So, since I left Thursday, I didn't get a chance to post pictures of Holden at his Terrific Kids ceremony from Wednesday. The teacher nominates 2 students each 9 weeks and Holden was the Terrific Kid for his class this past 9 weeks. Terrific Kids is a student recognition program sponsored by the Kiwanis Club that promotes character development, self-esteem, and perseverance. Yeah to Holden, our Terrific Kid!

Now that I am home, things are getting back to "normal", if there is such a thing in our household. Holden stayed home from school today with a sore throat, ear ache and headache. He had to tag along with me to a doctor's appointment this morning so I took him to the video store on the way home. He has been planted in front of the television for a couple of hours now. Poor guy is trying to watch a video while Harrison wrestles with the dog on the floor, which just means Harrison is his usual self. A few minutes ago, as I am typing this, Harrison starts yelling my name over and over from the other room to get my attention. When I answer he says "Mom, you forgot to brush Sullivan's teeth this morning." Geez, send me to time out. PLEASE.