Growing WarriorsJust your typical family…

so earlier tonight the girls were hunting fireflies with a friend – Lydia tells her friend that they light up so that they can attract a mate. Then she says, “So they are all just looking for the hot girls” – she totally meant the “hot” as the “fire” part of “fire-flies” – the lighting up part of the mate attraction process, but her phrasing of “so they are all just looking for the hot girls” cracks me up.

I have been watching season one of Arrested Development, and the itty bitty Fonzie things are cracking me up! Just now he did the “ayyy” thing as he went to comb his hair, only to realize that his hair was already perfect.

And look at this…

Fonzie jumps the shark:

http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=MDthMGtZKa4&feature=related

Clearly this was back in the day when water skiers knew how to dress. Ok, ok, look beyond the leather jacket (really fonzie? I mean really….perhaps its a variation of nevernude syndrome?) – those short shorts are…well…awesome!

And on Arrested Development, again, jumping the shark:

Oh fronzie, you still got it…ayyyyyy

http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=3NxGO2lx-A0&feature=related

I really really screwed up big tonight. I tried, for the first time ever, gelato. And now I can’t get that creamy yummy bit of bliss out of my head. It seems so worth the weight gain – ANY weight gain, just to eat it all the time! Like 24/7 – for every meal! In my crazed mind, gelato for breakfast makes perfect sense now. Why I haven’t been eating gelato for every meal and snack before now is a complete mystery. Its like my eyes have been opened to the wonders of the world for the first time ever! What have I done??????????

I wish I could get this to embed into the post, but its not working. Ah well. You’ll just have to click I guess. If you are on my facebook friend list, you may have already seen this – Meredith and her friend Gavin performing “My New Philosophy” at the talent show. Man oh man, I love this SO much:

My New Philosophy

Ever since moving into this house I’ve often wondered why the previous owners left. And different times of the year, I have different theories. Is it because this house is so difficult to heat? Is it because this house is always so hot and impossible to cool? Is it because of the roof? Is it because of the yard upkeep? Is it because they didn’t want to redo the dated kitchen? Is it because there is no bathroom in the basement? Perhaps the drafty windows? Time to replace all the carpeting?

I’m pretty sure I know now. I know why they left. Its the Bradford Pear Tree that grows right outside the living room windows.

We get a few weeks in the spring where its comfortable enough to open the windows. Its lovely. Nice gentle breeze. Not too hot, not too cold (both of these are very serious conditions for this house) – just lovely. A few weeks to air out the house. But wait! What is that STENCH??? Its HORRIBLE.

Yup. You guessed it. The tree. The few weeks we get of pleasant window-opening weather are also the few weeks that stupid tree flowers and smells. Like I imagine rotting flesh would smell. Rotting flesh covered in feces. Yeah. Like that. Right outside our window.

Oh I know why they moved….and why, nearly five years later, I am sure they are still laughing at us. Oh, and why they didn’t list their house in the spring…

But we avoided it.

So I thought she was taking a really long time to brush her hair today. That isn’t like her. Usually does a quick and sloppy job. In and out…that’s her motto. Well today she decided to get creative.

She decided to try a different brush…You can tell that she really worked at getting this thing about before she sheepishly (and not without tears) resorted to asking for help. I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or yell. I opted to grab the camera.

After about 30 mins, I was able to extract the brush and was left with:

Its a good look, right?

So not how I planned to spend my afternoon, but nearly 2 hours, 3 hershey’s kisses, and 2 episodes of glee later, we were left with NO bald spot (this was not a given going into the process), and a big wad of hair that  didn’t survive.

She was not pleased with my desire to capture a photographic record of how we spent the afternoon

So I accidentally bought too much candy for the kids’ Easter baskets (shut-up, it was so an accident! Those aisles at Target are tiny, and crowded..you find yourself just tossing stuff in your cart so you can get out of there!). So in order to save my children from too much candy, I stashed the two bags of Hershey’s kisses away – I will now make the ultimate sacrifice for my kids’ well-being. I will eat the extra candy while they are asleep. Yes, that is just how awesome of a mom I am. Always making sacrifices for the children.

Gather round all you new mommies…you could learn a lot from a seasoned veteran such as myself.

Lydia’s older sisters were gone at friends’  houses all afternoon. When we went to pick up Meredith, she and Lydia started talking about what they did while they were apart. Here is Lydia’s account.

“I didn’t do much of anything. I played the wii, and then I complained about there being nothing to do, then I watched tv and drank some water. That’s about all I did.”

Glad she remembered to mention the complaining part of the afternoon’s festivities. That was my favorite part.

so I am trying to find simplicity in my life – I’ve been inspired by my buddy’s newest endeavor. She’s trying to find a minimalistic zen-like peace in her life and is doing so by clearing out exactly 50% of her stuff. As one who is drowning in clutter and chaos and stress, this idea certainly has its appeal. I’m definitely planning on clearing out stuff myself! Maybe not 50% (my family of packrats would Fah-Reak!) but I could make a dent in things.. I may not be as driven as my friend and it may take me a year or so to clear out 10% of my stuff (that’s just how I roll), but I’ll do it! Baby steps, right? So the other day, I saw this article in my rss feed about how to deal with your email and I realized that my inbox is a metaphor for my life. My inbox was full of crap. Sometimes I’d revisit email from years ago and pontificate on how eloquent I am in email (and lament on that lack of the same wit in real-life conversations..ah well)… And not only that, I do everything via email, and then I sit around feeling lonely and unloved. Well why the heck not? I’ve totally removed myself from the real world! So inspired by this article and my pal’s 50% off project, I emptied my inbox. Days ago actually, and so far, its still empty! I’m doing it. I go through my inbox quickly and efficiently, either shooting off a quick response, deleting, or moving an email to an action file to deal with later. It feels good. A bit unsettling, but good. I’ve also vowed to make more of a human connection when it makes sense. Call people rather than send an email…that type of thing.

So today. the girls need a ride somewhere, so I call a friend to see if they could ride with her. Yay me! I totally could have sent an email, but I called instead. I rock. But wait. She wasn’t home and I was forced to leave a voice mail. And now I’m nervous because maybe I should send her an email suggesting she check her voice mail.

Like the title of this post, one step forward…….

My husband of 15 years just called me a housewife. I will be formally posting an opening for the position of Mr. Deanna on Monday. Please submit your applications to HR.