A Little Piece of Heaven

God's been on my mind lately... and this is what my little piece of heaven looks like:

When I show up God is wearing his flip flops, sitting in a rickety ol' lawn chair listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd and smoking a fattie that he rolled himself reflecting on the simple pleasures of his great creation. And he says to me, "Welcome Sister! Take a load off cuz I know you're plum wore out. Thought you might need to rest a spell after all that ass-kickin' you've been doing. I think you're gonna like how boring it gets around here." And we sit in silence tapping our toes, nodding our heads, humming "Sweet Home Alabama" under our breaths as we gaze into that peaceful wide wonder called eternity...

Please let the Big Guy have a sense of humor...

Introducing: Thistle Bell!!!

Isn't she a cute lil scrap of fur??? Lil brother adores her! And let me tell you what: sister lulu is a good match for him. Both of them can think up some schemes that no one else in his right mind woulda thought of in a million years...curtain climbin' and all... gotta love even God's bad creatures...

BTW-naming a cat is serious business (as T.S. Elliott can attest to!), so I encouraged lil brother to name his kitten from his favorite monster book MIDNIGHT SNACK. Looks like she'll live up to her name.

Oh, and as you might imagine, the Good Child (Sweet Murph-best dog ever) thinks that we have made a serious error in judgement and doesn't think any of her antics are cute...or appropriate.

Once in a Lifetime!

Lil brother and his pal Millie Pebbles had a BIG weekend! They were chosen as junior Homecoming escorts for our local high school. Which meant they got to ride in the convertible and throw candy in the school parade, dress up in fancy clothes, and walk onto the field with a REAL queen! Lil brother had the important job of carrying the crown-and he assured me-it had REAL diamonds!

Both of them agreed that the parade was the best though. Maybe it was because 900 elementary kids were screaming their names while Mr B blared the lastest Justin Beiber song. Of course seeing their teacher & classmates-while they got to skip school-was pretty awesome too.

The only tricky part of the ordeal was keeping lil brother and Millie Pebbles clean between formal pictures and the Homecoming presentation. Ya'll know how s'riously lil brother takes his 1$ trip to the football "confession" stand to get his sugar coated worms (best part of the entire game for lil brother). We also had to keep them outta the cupcakes. And that took a whole lotta 'splaining... and bribes for afterwards.

I hope you enjoyed the pics above of these two friends-who both informed me they HATE to have their pics taken-this said as Millie Pebbles was digging her panties from her butt and lil brother was pulling on his collar complaining about how tight his neck was feeling as his eyes rolled back in his head. But they sucked it up and survived. And Millie Pebbles's mom & I agreed (as we mopped our sweaty faces)-this is a once in a lifetime kinda moment!

Project Manager

OK-I confess. I procrastinated on lil brother's 3rd grade zoology project. Little did I know that I would have an appointment on the eve prior to our deadline (one worse than being project manager, actually). So knowing that Mr B would have to take over this honored position, I began nagging and threatening 24 hours prior to deadline in hopes that this project would be done before I got home from my dreaded appointment. No dice. They hadn't even started. And all (un)involved parties seemed to have this deadpan, quizzical look (who me? project? what project?) as I began barking orders. As I left them to their business, I overheard Mr B say to lil brother, "Here read this 10 page report on pandas. It'll tell you everything you need to know."

So I'm trying to relax-but all I can think about is the panda project-and lil brother trying to decipher that 10 page report from the Internet. So I drag myself outta bed and go dig out color paper, glue, markers, and a glossy picture of a panda eating bamboo from the art cart. And when I hand over these supplies (with a few well intentioned suggestions for improvement), I notice that the only supply lil brother and Mr B are using....is the good ol' pencil. And Mr B does not look happy AT ALL about the art supplies I provide and seems to get irritated when I remind them that the poster actually needs to look good as well as be informative.

Here's what so shocking about the dad-project-manager: they actually let the kid do (or not) the work himself (messy handwriting and all), and they don't even care what it looks like-or that there will be stiff competition for "best poster"-a coveted award in mom circles. Take little Suzie's mother, for example. She's a professional scrapbooker who has won global awards in the third grade category, spent $132.59 on the project, took it to Kinkos for laminating, interviewed scientists from the local zoo, made cupcakes in the shape of her animal for the entire class, and has been perfecting Suzie's delivery for two weeks. Getting it done is the man-mission objective. Screw the art supplies. And lil Suzie's scrapbooking mama.

I might just email Ms N and tell her I was out of the country for this project. Maybe that'll earn us a few sympathy points...we are sooooooo screwed.

Cub Scout Camping

NEVER. AGAIN.

This mantra kept running through my brain like fire ants on crack the entire hellish 16 hours. I guess it didn't help that as soon as we unloaded all our camping gear, the torrential rains came down and sleeping bags, pillows, tents, mattresses, etc., were soaking wet in under 10 seconds. All I wanted to do was throw every soggy piece of it down the f'in mountain and get my inside-girl-butt outta there. Have ya'll ever slept in a tent where droplets of water pinged! on your forehead intermittently??? Well, let's just say, the Chinese are certainly on to something there... I basically wore a wet bra and panties the entire time I was there. At one point during the soggy set up, Mr B comes to check on me and he finds me lying on my wet mattress spread eagle with my arm flung over over my head, "What are you doing?" he asks. My mumbled reply," Pretending this is happening to someone else." Eventually a damp, smoky campfire is lit, and I made sure that I sat in the path of the heaviest smoke. And yes, I inhaled. Anything to numb the reality, folks. Don't judge a desperate woman, k?

Ya'll, Mr B is a true stoic. He never uttered a single negative word or grunt the entire time we suffered. He carried on. However, once we were in those canoes heading down the river, he paddled like a man determined to get the hell outta Dodge. At one point, he outpaced the leader of the canoe pack by an entire river bend. When I questioned him about this, he tersely responded, "It's not my job to be behind the leader. It's his job to be in front of me...either lead, follow, or get out of my way!" Well-OK then. BTW-we were the first to dock and make it back to camp. Mr B wasn't playin, ya'll. And we stayed outta his way while he loaded up all our wet crap into the mini van.

Well...the rain did eventually quit and as you might imagine, it certainly didn't wet the eight-year-old crowd's enthusiasm for the wild outdoors. We even had sunny skies for Saturday canoeing. And all those boys ran and played and swam and fished the entire time. And most importantly lil brother said it was "de best birthday ever!" What more can you ask for???

Stay tuned!!! Pics of our new family member will be posted soon!!!

Labor Free Monday-yeah, right...

Dammit! Now why didn't I think of this?!? This is exactly the kinda book I shoulda wrote... Half-assin' motherhood and getting by with it is an art form especially when you're running ragged 9 days out of the week. But enough bellachin'... It's Labor Day!!! Mr B and the boys don't know it yet, but we're gonna be putting some Labor back in Labor Day. Laundry, dishes, trash, beds, dust, dirty floors....There is no rest for the weary.

However, at this moment I am still in my infamous bathrobe (that all the neighbors and more strangers than I care to admit have seen me in), big kid is playing video games, and lil brother is running around in his boxers bothering the dog while Mr B is getting his last few minutes of undisturbed sleep before Labor Day begins.

Gotta crack that whip. Hope ya'll have a good one!

ALERT: Ya'll don't forget now that those Jesey housewives are gonna be cat fightin' tonight on BRAVO!!! It's like watchin' your neighbor's house burn down. You gotta watch!

Fantasy Camping-the best kind...

Mr B and I are having quite a few camping conversations lately. With lil brother's camping & caneoing cub scout b-day weekend fast approaching, Mr B has been ransacking the garage to get out all his gear. There's also been some rumblings about buying a pop-up camper for our next vacay... Not sure what Mr B is visualizing as we have these camping convos (as I comfortably lounge in my air conditioned digs-sans poison ivy & bugs), but my camping fantasy looks a lot like this-just add two frosty drinks with umbrellas. Don't ya'll just love all that coordinated matchey-matchey?!?

I'm afraid camping reality is gonna be a slap in the face...