I’m sitting in the college library- again.  Yes, it’s my home away from home.

It’s been a brutal week as far as weather goes, and I am behind. Yes, as always.

So I put the headphones in, cranked the ipod, opened the laptop and started working.  I am trying to fix my email issues, answer email, take care of 2 things for home school, work out a meeting time with our facilitator, fill out several forms for work, double check some accounting, watching the US stock market collapse after Geithner’s plan gets revealed, texting a neighbor who wants to learn to drive stick shift, and ordering tickets for a play.

And suddenly I realize, the same song has been playing over and over and over on repeat for the last 90 minutes.

This post was rescued from my other blog, dated June 7, 2008.  Since then, N has lost exactly one additional tooth.  He’s almost 8 and has only lost two baby teeth.  Frankly, I think it’s a little odd.  But, with all of  his dental issues, I should probably just be really grateful.

N: Mom! Mom! I lost my very first tooth! But not if you count the one the dentist took out. . .

Mom: Right. You lost the loose one that didn’t rot and have to be pulled because you refused to brush it. Awesome! Go put it under your pillow.

N: Well. . . I already did put it under your pillow.

Mom: Really? Because the tooth fairy will never find it there. She’s going to look under your pillow and see nothing and not leave any money. (might I possibly just maybe get a night without his feet in my back?)

N: Well. . . I can put my pillow in your bed and then she can find me there.

Mom: Nope, no go dude. She’s headed for your bed, so if you want the cash, you’d better be in your bed with the tooth.

7 hours later, still lobbying to sleep in my bed:

N: Mom, why do you think I believe the tooth fairy is real? I think she is a myth. Because fairies aren’t real. So I guess she is a fairy tale.

Mom: Really?

N: Yes, I think it is just a parent that lives in the house with the kids and takes the tooth and sneaks it to the garbage and doesn’t let any of the kids see them and then takes some money from their pocket and leaves it under a pillow. So they don’t have to sleep in their bed. Because your bed is softer and they could sleep better there. And besides, do you remember that fairies don’t exist? So could you just let me put it under your pillow and I can go to sleep?

Mom: Nope. Go to your bed.

N: But why not? Then you don’t even have to get out of bed to be the tooth fairy. You can just wait until I fall asleep and put the tooth in the garbage and give me money. How much money do you think you will give me?

Mom: Hey N. Do I look like the tooth fairy? I don’t know what the going rate is for overused baby teeth and I can’t tell you the tooth fairy can find you in my bed. Go to your bed, pull the covers up and go to sleep, or the tooth fairy ain’t coming and there’s no money for you. Whatever you choose is fine. Except you must be in your room.

N: OHHH KAAAAY. But I bet Dad’s the tooth fairy then.

I can’t wait to tell Dave that N called him a fairy. . .

Mom: T, what is that on your head?

T: It’s a jaw strap.

Mom: Jock strap.  Jock, not  jaw.

T: What’s it for?

Mom:  To protect your hoo-haws while you’re playing baseball.

T: I have to wear this???????

Mom:  Get to.  You get to wear it.  But not on your head.

Seriously.  I’m not sure I can keep this up until March, and I’ve already cheated and picked up pizza one night because the killer baseball schedule threw me off and dinner wasn’t ready. It was Little Cesar’s.  I only spent $10.78 and it was dinner and lunch the next day.

Speaking of which, I totally forgot to put the pork in the crock pot before we left for school this morning.  Sigh.

Anyway. . .

A few questions:

1) If I purchase used baseball cleats and pants, does that count as cheating?  It’s an expedniture, but it’s not a new product while perfectly good used ones go to waste.

2) Does anyone but me actually care if I spend money before March or not?

Our little town has two baseball leagues, Little League and Pony.  Because in So Cal, every kids is going to the majors.

And, even though the entire nation is in recession and homes are still foreclosing left and right in our neighborhood, a record number of kids signed up to play Pony league.  To the tune of 1400.  Which is almost 2% of our total population.  How is that even possible?  Clearly, if you don’t play baseball around here, you’re a nobody.

But my two boys are somebodies.  And when you combine Pony league with Little league, that’s a LOT of somebodies trying to fit on practice fields and hold games every week.  A lot.  So Pony league did the only smart thing they could and left registration open after the drop dead date.  Because in a recession, you can never grab too much of the community’s money before the government sucks it out to the black hole that is the treasury.

With a record number of players, we have to be creative about field distribution.  The female solution would be to rotate on a monthly schedule.  The male solution is to rotate weekly.  Even before games start, the teams practice on different fields, at different times, on different days each week.  I’m not saying different from each other.  I’m saying that this week  T practiced on Monday and Saturday.  Next week, it will be Tuesday and Thursday. And N practices Tues and Fri, right during the time I have to drive other kids to piano and dance.

And some of the fields are 20+ minutes away. If they had told me this up front, I NEVER would have signed them up.  If you ask me, it is not a good idea to pay for the privilege of going nuts.  Clearly, I am already talented at driving myself insane for FREE.

But nobody ever asks me!!!!

I am!  I swear!  Except that when I logged onto the blog today, I noticed that people found me by googling the term, “Parents who cheated by building the Pinewood Derby Car”  And I wonder if the cub master was trolling for my confession so he can come over and rescind the trophy.  Or maybe the Council enforcers caught wind and I will be banned from Pinewood Derby for life.  Or better yet, banned from scouts for life. (Don’t throw me in the brier patch, massah!  Not there!) (And if you don’t get that reference, you’re probably too young.  Shut up.)

In and of itself, that would not have been enough to make me question if I’m a good person or not.  All parents are forced to cheat to put their kids in first at some point.  I can live with the Pinewood derby.

Rather, I have to convince myself I’m a good person because not only am I willing to pay for a 1st place, I also laugh at blind people. OK, blind person, but still!  Who laughs at blind person?

I was leaving the school library today, and I was a little past cranky from lack of food or server access.  I probably had a giant scowl on my face from the 20 minute wait for the elevator, and was walking through the sliding doors to freedom when the poor guy tripped.  It was no ordinary trip, but more of a launch. I still have no idea what he tripped on, but the height his legs reached was equaled only by the flight I took when I slipped on water during a massive multi-apartment water fight in college.  Serious air.

And watching people eat it always brings joy and horror to my face in equal measures.

Then, I saw the white cane with the red tip splayed out beside him and I felt about a centimeter high for grinning at his disaster.  Until I remembered he’s BLIND!  He can’t see me grinning!

It was all I could do to keep from whistling all the way to the car.

Which is exactly the time it takes for one to realize that this not buying anything is not quite as fun as it seems when you romanticize it.

That might have something to do with the 2 batches of bread I meesed up today. Note to self:  This is not the time to try out new bread recipes.

And I have had a couple of work-related issues that must absolutely completely and entirely be resolved no later than yesterday.  But since I’m waiting on other people for the resolutions, I have to content myself with fretting.  And fretting is much easier on a full stomach and I’m craving a club sandwich with avocado from a local fast food place, and since I’m waiting anyway, I could just run over there, you know get out of the house for a minute, take a break, clear my head, ignore my offspring. . . Except oh yeah, this not eating out was going to be so awesome!

And WHY does the gasoline pump have to taunt me with visions of ice cold coke?  Is that really necessary?

On the upside, we did score a DVD player off of Freecycle, so no dillema there.The can opener is still a novelty that they all beg to use.  And most importantly, assigned dinner nights have worked exceptionally well, with dinner being served before 7pm every night this week.  And other than bread and fresh fruit and veggies, we have plenty of food.  I think even the milk will hold out another week at least, maybe two.

And there’s always ingredients for muffins!

When I was a teenager, I lived in a college town in Utah.  My dad had died when I was 8 and my mom moved there to go back to school.  I was 16 when she graduated and started applying for jobs.  She began traveling around Utah training as an agent for Farm Services, and I spent the weeks alone in our house, with her coming home on weekends.

Surprisingly, I did not get into a lot of trouble.  I’m not actually sure I got into any trouble.  I had good neighbors, good friends, and lots of homework to keep me busy.  Although my mother’s memory of events might be different.

In October of my junior year, when I was 17, she accepted a full time position in a smaller community more centrally located in Utah.  It was 3+ hours from where I was attending high school, and there wasn’t much of an option except for me to move with her.

Needless to say, I wasn’t happy about it.  I like my friends and mostly my classes and my vice principle who let me ditch school a lot, and my neighbors and a lot of other things about the college town I was living in.  But at Thanksgiving time, I moved with her.

I lasted almost a week.

In that week, I was lonely and out of sorts, like any new transplant.  That wasn’t really the problem.  The problem was that I had been in the middle of a couple of AP classes and the replacement options in this rural community wasn’t really going to get me any college credit.  So after some negotiating and arranging a place to live with adults present, I was allowed to move back to my original highschool.  Which came as a shock to Dave (my husband) who had felt pretty safe in kissing me good bye even though he had a girlfriend, because he was pretty much positive he would never see me again.  Yeah, it still makes me laugh too.

I finished my junior year, took my AP tests and did well on them, lived in Las Vegas with my cousin for the summer, and started school in the small community my senior year.

I lived there three months and then left for college right before first semester of my senior year ended.

And yet, because of the nature of a small community, I made some good friends.

Being a bad friend, I pretty much left and never looked back.  Unfortunately, I tend to be an out-of-sight, out-of-mind kind of girl.  And I have the 5 kids and the full time job and the driving to college and the homeschool and frankly, as you regulars know, if it wasn’t that, it would be 1000 other things because I’m really really really bad at sitting still.

And then facebook enters the picture, and I start reconnecting with some of the people I hung out with for three months in 1990.  And there’s a web site for all of the alumni to update information.  And technically I do have a diploma from there, although I was 1/4 credit short of reqs and I do believe my mother fought tooth and nail to get it for me.  Not that I’ve ever needed it.  Ever.

So, I updated my info, which included the unfortunate use of my maiden name/last name combo (and I’m intentionally remaining anonymous here due to the stalker so if you need a good laugh, just let me know and I’ll fill you in on all of the great jokes regarding my unfortunate married name) and I mistakenly told people to feel free to visit this blog if they want to know more about me.

In retrospect, it was stupid because this blog isn’t so much about me as it is a disjointed look at my insanity.  And how can they ever find out anything that’s happened to me in the past 20 years by reading about college cops or a refrigerator with an identity crisis or even my inability to digest cinnamon rolls?

And now, the pressure is on again to type something wickedly entertaining.  Because secretly, I know that’s the only reason you guys visit me.

So Hi Friends!  I swear I am entertaining, on occasion.

N: What’s the difference between a garden slug and a 2 inch long live booger?

Me: Nothing.

N:  But if it comes out of your nose, you should be worried!

Also, a recent conversation:

N: Mom!  I had the worst bad dream last night!

Me: You did?  What was it about?

N: Ok, there were all of these pencil monsters and they were just lines all scribbled with pencils and then I had Eraser monsters that could erase them.  And THEN, an Eraser monster tried to erase ME!  And I couldn’t get away, so I locked that Eraser monster in the closet and I used the pencil monster and drew lots of Eraser monsters that would fight on my side and then I let that bad one out of the closet and my monsters ERASED him.

And then there were these triangle monsters that were just straight lines all over. . .

. . . . It just goes to prove that he has a pathological fear of writing.

We’re off to a rough start.  Part of the plan here is to live off of the food we’ve been storing and see just how that goes.  Stored food is often stored in cans.  Last night, I broke the electric can opener.  Sighing mightily, I went to the garage and dug up the hand can opener, only to realize that the one we have barely works.  In fact, I would have to say doesn’t work.

I had Dave come in and put additional muscle behind it, only to realize that the handles weren’t solid.  And once you’ve snapped a handle in half, it’s just another item for the trash can.  So, we’re down to a ghetto can opener which is killer on the arthritis in my hands.  At least I know the kids will be able to open a can after a month of this!

Feeling a little beat up, we sat down to watch a movie, only to realize that our DVD player is having an identity crisis and the xbox has the red ring of death and cannot be used.  The kids immediately started begging me to get a new DVD player.  Considering we do have educational DVD’s for a couple of subjects including math, I may have no choice but to break down and buy one.  Although it won’t kill us to hook a laptop to the TV on occasion (when they aren’t being used for work) or skip movie viewing entirely for a month.

I’ll put a notice up on Freecycle first and see what turns up.

The next thing to give out will be the caffeinated beverages.  That could also be a problem, considering the blinding headache factor of removing caffeine from one’s system.  I’m a bit of a wimp when it comes to the migraines.

Otherwise, I think we would be fine for several months on food we like and are used to.  And for those of you that follow me on facebook, we can have muffins until the eggs run out!