Vacation!!

Do you know what happens when you have a vacation? Not necessarily a time when you travel away from home, but simply a time in which you are not required to go to work. I'll tell you what happens...

You get even further behind than you have been! How does that happen?? I guess things aren't that bad. The kids are out of school for the summer, so if I'm stuck in the throes of paperwork, it's my own, not theirs. They are begging every single day to have so-and-so over, or to go over to so-and-so's house to play, but that's no biggie, and not atypical for them (they would ask that after homework was done during the school year anyway).

I at least had a handle on laundry, sorta kinda, at the beginning of the vacation. Now it's backed up again, but I've started on it early this morning in the hopes that we might actually be getting out of here for a few days. Later today, I plan on going around the house with trash can in hand, to collect "stuff". How said stuff accumulates without actually going anywhere or doing anything is Beyond. Me.

So what have we done? Well, I've begged my older son to let me cut his hair (just a trim!), to no avail. I've watched Jacob get very angry at a V.I.D.E.O. G.A.M.E. because it won't move fast enough. I've seen GinaGina not only begin to actually *crawl*, but to pull up on her knees as well (sigh). I've gotten to watch my entire DVR collection of Burn Notice, or at least start watching it. I've got today to finish, as tonight is the season premiere for the third season. I told Patrick that's what I want for Christmas - seasons 1 and 2 on DVD.

Still haven't gotten the electricity wired to my sewing machine downstairs - that might be a later summer thing. My garden is in full swing as well! My corn has popped up, the tomatoes look terrific, and yesterday a friend brought over another plant for it - he said "It's either an eggplant or brussel sprouts, but I'm not sure which". Then he said he hoped it was eggplant because he doesn't like brussel sprouts. I said I'm the opposite - I was hoping for brussel sprouts because I don't like eggplant. This, of course, led to an entire discussion on how to prepare each veggie. I don't think I convinced him, but he didn't quite convince me either!

My dryer calls!

Spring has Sprung!!

...and yes, so has my belly! I'm 22 weeks pregnant now, and showing like a freaking bowling ball (or at least I feel like there's a bowling ball in there!) So so much has happened since I last blogged, I can't even fathom where to begin.

First, let me share with you the mother...MOTHER, I tell you, of all things chocolate chip. I found this website whilst Stumbling (imagine your surprise), and I think I've visited the site at least once a day since then, just to gaze upon this mound of chocolately, chippy, cookie-y goodness. And although you can order them for shipment, you can also feel free to pay a hefty price tag (uhm, like $65 worth of hefty), and my hips really don't need them that badly. So...as long as I don't absorb any calories from licking my screen (I'm sorry), then I'll be fine. And this website will have a daily visitor from now on.

The NY Levain Cookie

After viewing that website, I felt the need to make a cake (didn't have cookie stuff on hand). But I did, by God, have a cake mix and a couple cans of frosting in my pantry (hey, I'm not completely all natural and homemade...not yet anyway). So I prepare mentally for the task of mixing oil, water, and cake mix, and I open the frosting to help it achieve room tempurature status. Lo and behold, Big Boss Man has struck again. How one man could possibly eat as much frosting as mine does, I'll never know. (Although truth be told, I seem to remember sneaking frosting from my fridge when I was younger...ahem). Anyhoo.

So...now I have less chocolate icing than I originally thought I had, and the only other kind I've got is a white cream cheese frosting (oh, to die for!). BBM, however, doesn't like cream cheese frosting, and threatened to never take the trash out again if I used it on this cake. But I really didn't think we had enough chocolate left over from his frosting OD to ice the cake. So I convinced him to let me sprinkle chocolate chips into the top of the cake batter before baking it, then using the chocolate frosting on top of that. He agreed, although it turns out that I had plenty of chocolate frosting for the cake anyway. That cake has since been eaten.

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And now, on to the baby. Since discovering that our little Junior Mint has girlie parts instead of boy parts, there's been a whirlwind of clothes-cleaning mahem and foolishness going on around here. I first discovered a couple boxes of The Boys' older, smaller clothes, which I promptly washed and have taken to our local resale shop. I've not gotten the results of that outing yet, but I figure it'll give us a little cash, and what they don't take for resale I can either A) yard sale at my mom's ucoming sale, or B) use for beginning sewing expeditions. God only know what will become of those things, but if it comes down to it, I'll practice sewing a straight line on them!

Another thing Little Miss Junior Mint has done is made Mama Bear extraordinarily tired. T.I.R.E.D. I can't seem to sleep enough, and instead of being sort of sleepy at the end of the work day, I'm completely exhausted. I feel like doing nothing but falling into my bed when I walk in the door. I have a doctor's appointment this Thursday, and I'm going to ask them to do some bloodwork, just to make sure levels are as they should be. My mom, God love her, likes to tell me that "I'm not as young as I used to be" (raspberries to you, Mom!!!), and I understand that I'm supposed to be tired. But exhaustion is another animal completely. It's all I can do to cook dinner every night without having to take a break after operating the can opener. And that just ain't right!

Little Miss Junior Mint has decided that she likes to wake up early in the morning, just like The Boys do, and that my bladder makes for the best punching bag of all her surrounding choices. She likes orange juice and milk (thankfully, not mixed together), LaChoy chicken chow mein, and Twix bars. Luckily, she does enjoy other things too, and nothing that I don't usually like. I have had a few of those late night "Oooooooh, does that sound good" cravings, but I've either been shot down by a sleeping Big Boss Man, or kept them to myself to keep from being shot down by a sleeping Big Boss Man.

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Finally, my youngest son surprised us the other day when he came into the house, after a hard day's worth of playing, running around, digging, and other such boy stuff. He walked in, like nobody's business, and proudly held up a bone. Now this was no t-bone from last night's dinner, oh no. And it was no remnant of doggie bone that we sell at The Greens, 2 for $3. This was a huge, very real, very femur-looking BONE. Lookie, I've got pictures to prove it.


See? Ew.


Can I get another "Ew"?


Sorry about the blurriness.




In case you can't tell, that's a normal-sized paper towel that the bone is sitting on, corner to corner...that's how big this bone was. It was real enough to warrant a call to the non-emergency St. Louis County police line. The woman taking my phone call politely listened to the beginning of my story (because, you know, I can't tell someone something without leading up to it with a story), and when I got to the words "dug up bone", she interrupted and asked for my name and address. Let me tell you. A few days prior to this incident, a woman got hit by a car on my street, and I think the officer may have shown up quicker to our house than to that incident. He was a nice guy hailing from Hanover, Mass. He rather quickly decided (after chatting with Little Linebacker for a few minutes about where he'd found the bone, if there were any dug up or "fresh" looking areas near it, or any other bones that he'd left there for later) that this was probably a leg bone of a deer. We spent the rest of his time here small talking about his time in the Marines and where it took him around the world (many places where Big Boss Man had lived as well, so they had plenty to talk about), and how cops are distributed around this area, since we never seem to see any in Pleasant Ghetto unless they're called (and then it takes awhile to get them there). He then got called just around the corner for some unknown reason (dispatcher-speak, I suppose), and left, although he took his time and didn't use sirens when pulling out, so I guess it was muy importante. Methinks he'd much rather have stuck around and reminisced with BBM for awhile.

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And last, but definitely not least, we have the maiden voyage of Artorius Surveillance Drone. We've waited a long time for that moment, as the plane arrived way before our Florida Escape. BBM assembled it, and we finally took it out last night to watch it soar. Of course, we had an audience, albeit a small one consisting of a couple neighbor kids. God knows we couldn't do this with the comfort of just our family members there.



And that's about how that went. Now we didn't just leave it at that though...we obviously had to try it again. So we thought maybe we didn't have enough runway, and made a minor adjustment in takeoff direction, giving us approximately 25 more feet of play room.



And that was that. Obviously we hadn't notice some structural damage suffered in the first attempt, which caused the drone to taxi in one direction only...to the left. After Part Dos of our surveillance drone's flight, or lack thereof, we decided to give up the ghost for the time being. Of course, this had nothing to do with the fact that 2 of the props had been sheared off and 2 of the cowlings had detached. And let's not talk about the fuselage. Let's just thank the sweet Lord above that this was not a manned flight. The drone made its way back to the Hangar, however, and repairs are being made as I type this out. Rest assured, you'll see more of that thing.

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And now...I think I've touched upon all the things, important things, at least, that have happened in the past two weeks. I realize fully that I haven't posted pictures of our Florida Escape. You can sleep easy tonight, knowing that I still have plans for those. They were deleted, however, from the camera before I could get them onto my computer. And sending them from one computer to another proves much more difficult than just uploading them from the camera. Wait patiently, dears, they will come.

How is this possible???

We've been back at home now for a total of 24 hours. I'm as fed up with stuff now as I was before we ever even left!! We had an EXCELLENT time, but sometimes it's just so hard to come home and go back to the way things were...things that will never change. Never.

I'm moody, can ya tell?

That being said, I've found some great blogs since I've been home, and although I've saved most of the trip pictures to my hard drive, I still haven't uploaded them to photobucket to post. I've also taken a picture of my desk (gasp!!!)...it's awful. It's a catch-all, and I hate it...it makes me unable to think when I'm sitting here (ahhh, so that's why her posts are so scatterbrained!). It's my first major project. The second will be the van and truck (and no, I'm not copying you, 50's Housewife, I promise!). An excellent point has been made, that many of our vehicles are, sadly, our second homes. Cluttered homes mean cluttered minds, cluttered minds mean cluttered hearts. And I can't live like that. So, Biblical Womanhood is hosting a Clear Out the Clutter Challenge, and although I'm frightened, I feel the need to participate.

Now...kudos to a great friend, Diana. She's not a blogger so I can't link her, but I work with her at The Greens. She cat-sit Dexter for us while we were away. Not only did she come over daily to feed, water, and pet Dexter, but she Spoiled. Him. Rotten. And I didn't think he could get any more spoiled. We came home to cat toys scattered in all the important places in our home, and one whiney "Where-the-H/E/DoubleHockeySticks-did-you-all-go-and-why-did-you-leave-me-here?" cat...but he was happy. AND. AND this woman did my dishes. I couldn't believe it. I'd had so much stuff to get done before we left, and the dishes ended up being last on the list. She also cleaned my kitchen floor. She's an angel, and I'm proud and lucky to call her friend.

We're having a barbecue this Friday...which seems odd to me, since I have to work, but I guess I'll join in the festivities whenever I get home. This means that we (read: I) will have to put the new barbecue grill together sometime before then. I have no idea when that's going to happen, but I guess tomorrow after work is about my only choice. Not only that, but I'm starting to realize that we don't have a patio, or a back porch, or a patio set, or, I don't know, extra chairs for people to sit in. And we've got 4, 8, 12 people coming, I think? This is wonderful.

Now I am off to bed, since tomorrow is my early day. I'm dead tired, which makes no sense, since I've just had a week off. But my dogs are barking...I got too used to not being on my feet for 8 hours a day. I promise you all that not only will I post trip pictures, but I'll post before and afters of the desk (and maybe, just maybe, the van and truck too...but don't hold me to that). Perhaps my mood will improve dramatically, but Thursdays at work usually bite the big one, so I won't promise that.

We're alive!!

Okay, so I'm just here to let everyone know that yes, I am in fact still a member of the living! I've been checking the blog almost every day, but it wouldn't let me sign in!!! You have no idea how frusrating it is to see people coming to visit your blog, and not be able to let them know that you're here, you're reading, and you're longing to talk!!!

Quick update: we've been having a BLAST. Plain and simple, this has been one of the best vacations I've had in a long time, and I'm having trouble grasping the idea that we'll be back home in no time at all. We've been swimming, seen alligators, seen LOTS of other wildlife, been to the beach (I think we're going again this evening), seen family (we'll see more this afternoon at the party)...it's just been an excellent time. And let me tell you...after our freakishly crazy weather in St. Louis, the weather here has been absolutely perfect...it makes me believe that I might actually be able to live in Florida (which would make Big Boss Man and the Boys just pleased as punch). The first night was actually chilly...it's amazing how quickly one acclimates to change in climate. We'd planned on eating dinner out on the back porch, but the wind was just chilly-willy, although we did go out and sit a bit later, albeit with blankets wrapped around our shoulders (who brings a sweatshirt to Florida?!?!)

I have about ten gazillion pitures and videos to share, but this computer has not been cooperative thus far...so I'll wait for our return to do a full trip story. I hope that everyone has had a fantastic week, and I'll see you soon!!

And we're off!!!!

Well folks, in 23 minutes, we'll be on our way to Lambert International Airport, heading off to see my in-laws (who are two of the most wonderful people on this Earth, so 'in-laws' can't be said with that scrunched-face nasally voice). I'm just a tad schedule-oriented, so hopefully this trip will be pleasant, as we actually have tickets and seats and everything. We got an email from Grandpa last night letting us know the manu for our arrival feast (I know there was other stuff...but all I read was baked chicken....mmmmmmmmm), and I'm just as excited as can be. The Boys woke up this morning around 6am...early even by their standards...so I think they might be a little excited too.

As I've mentioned before, we will try to get on and update at least a couple times while we're there, but if that doesn't happen (it is a vacation, after all), then I'll be bringing home lots of pictures to share! Hopefully the face in those pictures will be a much more relaxed, not-so-worried-about-everything-she-can't-control face. I feel like falling in love with my husband all over again. I feel like enjoying my children. I feel like visiting and catching up with family, some of which I haven't seen since our wedding. It feels like vacation time, baby!!!

When is a waste of time not really a waste of time?

I completely blame Big Boss Man.

Completely.

He has introduced me to the world of StumbleUpon. Now for those of you that don't know what this is, it's basically a random search engine in which you choose your interests, and then you hit a button and it automatically goes to a website that has to do with one of your interests. It's really cool, and you can either thumbs up a site (which is about the same as saving it in your favorites), or thumbs down a site, and they won't show you any more like that.

Now...I've narrowed down my interests to a few (as opposed to many, like when I first started), because I kept getting websites that, although I was interested in the content, I'd never find myself sitting and reading.

Some of my interests? Pregnancy (obviously), children (double obviously), crafts, knitting/crocheting, gardening, home improvement, homemaking and cooking. I'm starting to feel much more Suzie Homemaker than I was 5 days ago.

Now comes the guilt...I've spent more time in front of this computer in the last few days than I ever have!! I mean it's been absolutely gorgeous outside, and I've been in here. Now granted, I've been going back and forth between the computer and my household chores, but still. So I get to blame BBM for it...for introducing me to the wonderful world of SU.

That being said, I've come across some really, really cool websites that have a lot of information about my current "hopeful hobbies", such as sewing and gardening, that I would have never come across if not for SU. And the result is even more interest in these things!! So hopeful hobbies? Look out!! I'll be mastering you in no time!

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In other news, we've got 8, count them, 8 days until our Florida trip. {sigh} I'm not sure I've ever looked so forward to a vacation in my adult life. My back hurts, my feet hurt, and I'm just tired (even with the copious amounts of sleep I've been getting). I've promised BBM that I won't nag him about anything concerning the readying of our home for Junior Mint until after we return from vacation...but after that, it's on, baby! I can't believe how quickly the 4½ months have gone by, so the rest of it is sure to follow suit!

And speaking of JM, could I have any more heartburn? I've recently started eating again (Burger King was my friend a few nights in a row, and right now I'd KILL for a Slurpie), but after feeling the effects those things have on my GI tract, I think I'll stick with cereal and milk, thankyouverymuch. Heartburn = lots of hair, right? I've also started feeling "flutters" or "quickening"...yippee!!! And in just a few short days, we'll be seeing JM on The Big Screen again, as the technician checks out his/her internal organs and spine and other such important stuff. Pictures will most definitely follow that appointment!!

Counting down the days.

We've got a vacation planned for next month. A real vacation.

Since I've met Big Boss Man, we've gone places. in fact, I worked at the airport for a year before I met him, and I'd never, ever used my flight benefits...not once! But when he picked me up and we became a couple, I actually started going places with him. Working for an airline has some perks, one being flight benefits. This means that we arrive at the airport, try to get on a flight, (standby), and if there are no leftover, empty seats, we smile politely, try to shmooze the gate agents so they'll remember us, and sit and wait for the next flight to come along...then we try again. This makes for some really interesting, if not longer than planned, vacations (see The Great Denver Incident, as BBM calls it).

But this time, we're not flying standby. We've got real live tickets (okay, they're not alive, but we've still got 'em). Thanks to Grandpa and Grandma, we've got honest-to-God seat assignments and everything for our upcoming trip to Florida to spend lots of time with the Florida family. This means that we don't have to get all gussied up to step foot on the plane. This means that when they call our section, not only will we know it's our section, but we can get on right then too! And, we know we're sitting together!! Once we arrive in sunny Florida, I, for one, plan on spending lots of time sitting out on their back porch, sipping milk or diet sierra mist or whatever baby-approved drink makes its way to my hand at the moment. If I can find a cute (read: not too skimpy and not too teeny-bopper) maternity swimsuit, I might actually even venture over to the pool once in awhile.

All I know is that I'll be maxxin' and relaxin', chillin' with the family, and having a grand ol' time catching up and settling down. This is the calm before the storm, so to speak, as the time between getting back home and Junior Mint's arrival will fly by faster than time normally flies here on Whirlwind Lodge.

Now this also means that I'm {this} close to having my sex-of-the-baby-telling ultrasound. That is scheduled for April 11th, the Friday before we leave. I even took off work that day, because NOTHING will mess this appointment up. I'm going to stuff myself silly with water so they have the best view possible, and I've already been telling Junior Mint how important it is that he/she cooperates and lets the U/S tech see whatever they need to see. Now this means, of course, that I'll wake up late that morning, not have enough time to drink the required amounts of water, and the tech will be able to see that there is, in fact, a baby in there, and nothing else. Truly, that would be okay too...if we can't find out whether I'm carrying a boy Junior Mint or a girl Junior Mint, that'll be alright...as long as it's a healthy Junior Mint.

So, let the countdown begin. We've got a backwards calendar up on the wall, and each day The Boys alternate crossing one more day off so we know exactly how long we've got until we leave. We're down to 16 days now, and I'm practically trembling with excitement!! I'm hoping we're able to get online there so I can update with pictures of the family, but if we can't, then I'll have plenty of uploads to share once we get back!