Blech

I had a super crappy weekend and have been feeling pretty down. Here are a few things that I've come up with to make myself feel better tonight after the kids are in bed:

1. Lay's Potato Chips.
2. Haagen-Dazs Chocolate Chocolate Chip ice cream. And a lot of it.
3. Us Weekly Magazine.
4. Lime-flavored Perrier, extra cold.
5. Tivo and bad televison. Fortunately, I think I have an episode of Real Chance of Love waiting on my Tivo list right now. I know that I've said this before, but thank you VH1 for producing some truly awful television. I love you.
6. Pajama pants, a comfy t-shirt, and socks with Adidas flip flops.
7. My bed and goose down comforter.

Any other suggestions?

This makes me laugh every time

With the current state of affairs in this country, it's pretty easy to wake up depressed most days. Bill Maher's comedic spin on things at least gets me laughing once a week - I love "New Rules." This clip is almost six months old, but it's one of my favorites and I think it says a lot.

Thanks George W. Bush, AKA Dream Killer

Um, they didn't get that from ME...

I must confess something: sometimes I curse. A lot. Mostly while driving. And sometimes the children have been witness to this cursing. When Bear and Miss were younger, I used to blame my husband for any curse words they happened to repeat, which fortunately was never that often anyway. He curses a lot too, so that didn't seem that far-fetched - even to him. But now that they're older, the children are fully capable of implicating me as the person who called the moron who cut us off in traffic a "jack-ass" or "asshole," (I do manage to refrain from the preferred albeit slightly more colorful terms "fuck stick" and "douche bag"). So the days of shirking responsibility are pretty much over.

Which leads me to the point of this story. My husband and I get on each other's nerves as much as any other married couple I know, but rarely do these annoyances ever escalate into full-blown arguments. This however was not the case a few nights ago, and our disagreement led to me storming out of the kitchen and into our bedroom where I proceeded to slam the door - but only after calling Carl a "big baby" (very adult of me, I know - but he really was being one just so you know). Miss happened to be in my bedroom just then, and when she inquired as to what was going on and why I was mad, I did tell her that mommy and daddy were cranky and that sometimes married people argue, but that there's nothing to worry about - to which she responded knowingly and with a fair amount of sympathy, "Dad's a jack-ass?" And as much as I wanted to say "YES!" and laugh my ass off and commiserate about what a big baby he was being, I did tell her that "jack-ass" is not an appropriate word for a young lady, particularly in regard to her father. Miss seemed to understand this already and I could tell that she had thought this was finally her moment to successfully incorporate the word "jack ass" into her vocabulary without any objections on my part.

Ten minutes later, Carl and I had laughed it off, happily proceeding with our usual evening of chips, ice cream, and bad television. And cursing aside, I'd like to think that maybe Miss learned something from this, because arguments happen - particularly in relationships. Sometimes people get mad at each other, and sometimes people yell. That's not necessarily unhealthy. But the important thing is that you try to find a way to compromise and don't sweat the small stuff.

Have a rockin' weekend!

I've always appreciated the fact that Miss seems to have an innate understanding of "disco fingers" (she gets it from me, no doubt - her father wouldn't be caught dead with disco fingers). Here's to doing things your own way and havin' a rockin' weekend!

You Can Catch More Flies With Honey Than Vinegar...

Bear just passed me this note from underneath his bedroom door after being sent to his room for a minor infraction (namely, fighting with his sister which they've been doing all morning long). I've gotta hand it to him, the boy knows how to work me - he's no longer in time-out.

Eek!

I just found another huge, scary-ass spider - this time in the pool. At least this one was dead already. That makes seven of these spiders now - seven! After much research courtesy of my trusty friend the internet, I've determined that this is the closest approximation of what they look like:

A Wolf Spider

I'm not the sort of wife that calls her husband all day at work, but the day I found one of these things in the garage, I A) killed the bastard with a phone book. I then, B) found a means (a very tricky maneuver) of moving the spider's carcass into a zip lock bag so it could be preserved as a sample for the exterminator. After performing this brave feat, I C) called Carl (more than once) to inform him that he had better fix this situation now because I'm going to die! DIE! if something isn't done. He calmly assured me many, many, many times that the bug guy would arrive by noon the next day. And while this did assuage my fears to some degree, it did not reassure the part of me that was certain that at any moment, the children and I might be spontaneously attacked by the spiders that had no doubt infested our home (although thankfully we 've only found one inside the house so far - knock on wood - and it was by a door that opens to the outside). Therefore I D) began what would become hours of research on the computer, utilizing the zip locked spider's preserved carcass as a means of identification. I was hopeful that this was not the dreaded, lethal Brown Recluse Spider. Instead I reached the conclusion that this might be a Wolf Spider - somewhat less threatening near as I can tell. Of course the bug guy told me it could be either (dumb-ass). Why do you always have to figure everything out for yourself?

We've had the bug guy come a bunch of times now, but I've heard from multiple sources that this is a particularly bad year for spiders because the weather has been out of whack. We also have a vacant lot behind us where they've started and stopped construction on another house multiple times over the last two years or so. This continually disturbs whatever insects are living back there (or at least I believe that it does) - yet another thing I can blame on this crappy economy: freaky-ass insects that make me want to pass out whenever I see them. Of course, I'm the only one that ever does see them, and therefore I'm the one that's forced to kill them. Although, my fear is that Carl has seen and killed a few (or more -eek!) and refuses to tell me because he's knows that I'll completely freak out and insist we move or something. I tagged and bagged the one I found in the pool. I'll leave that as a little gift for Carl when he gets home with another note that says, "Fix this!" Now I need to go make that creepy-crawly feeling to go away before I end up in a fetal position somehwere.