The Best Girl in All the World

"Yes," said Winnie-the-Pooh. "I see now. I have been Foolish and Deluded," said he, "and am a Bear of No Brain at All."

"You're the Best Bear in All the World," Christopher Robin said soothingly.

"Am I?" said Pooh hopefully. And then he brightened up suddenly. "Anyhow," he said, "it is nearly Luncheon Time."

And he went home for it.

Pooh and I have a lot in common. First of all, he is blonde. (If bears can be blonde.) Second, he keeps track of mealtimes and is sure to never miss them. Third, he is loved, despite all the silly things he says, by Someone. For me, that someone is Mr. Robotface Shumway. And I often feel like Pooh...wishing hopefully for the Someone's approval.

When I get nervous, I say silly things. Like how much the jeans I'm wearing cost, how much my babies weighed at birth, how I felt towards my sister in high school, or how much Mr. Shumway makes per year. I just babble on, saying random obscure things, wishing someone would put me out of my misery, but everyone is too busy trying to figure out what is wrong with me to do anything. All too often these incidents lead to embarrassment for all concerned.

Sunday, I talked Mr. Shumway into going into the furniture store where they sold the sectional I dearly wanted. Mr. Shumway had agreed we could purchase said sectional "sometime in the future." Knowing that future would never arrive unless I helped it along, I encouraged him to stop at the store.

Now, I was thinking of two things going in:
Mr. Shumway did NOT like going into furniture stores
AND
he said to me as we went in, "I don't want to be followed around by a salesperson the whole time like we were on our last visit."

Those two things were on my mind, people, when Michelle walked up.

She smiled. I broke out in a cold sweat. She held out her hand. My eyes rolled back in my head. (Well, not really, but in my imagination they were.) I have no idea what Mr. Shumway was doing. I was just too concerned about making sure Michelle didn't follow us around because then maybe Mr. Shumway would want to leave and this whole trip would be for nothing. So me, being me, jumped in and started babbling.

I told Michelle that we were just looking. But oh no, I didn't stop there. I told her that we'd been there before, but were back, just looking. I said that we couldn't remember the name of the lady who'd helped us but that she'd followed us around. I told her that we didn't want to be followed around. WE JUST WANTED TO BE LEFT ALONE! DON'T FOLLOW US! (pant, pant)

Michelle blinked. She just stood there and blinked. "Well, I HAVE to greet you."

Of course. How stupid of me. Excuse my dorkiness, really. I just run off at the mouth sometimes, I thought.

"Well, that was awkward," Mr. Shumway said as we walked away. "Maybe next time, you should let me talk."

I deflated. I felt the fool. I started wondering if I could corner Michelle later and explain that even though I can be a dork, I'm not really that mean and weird and will she please be my friend?

The whole time I was there, I kept seeing her from the corner of my eye. When she talked to a co-worker and he laughed, I was sure she was telling him about the crazy lady with the blonde hair. When she walked in the other direction from us, I was sure she was avoiding us on purpose.

But despite my paranoid imagination, she approached us later. It seems the other saleslady was with a customer and the manager was unavailable, so would be OK for her to help us? To my surprise, Mr. Shumway said it was OK with us if it was square with the other lady and if so, we were ready to order.

He patiently endured filling out endless paperwork and thirty minutes later, we walked out, the owners of a new sectional. Since we've only actually purchased 3-4 furniture items in our whole lives, (the rest are hand-me-downs) this was a significant moment.

He hugged me as we walked out into the cold, misty winter's night. "That turned out well for Michelle," he said. He could have brought up my ineptness at the beginning of our visit. He could have talked about how awkward I'd been. But instead he just hugged me. And I knew that, despite my babbling, despite my awkwardness, he thought I was the Best Girl in All the World.

Rejuvenation

Warning: REAL LIFE PHOTOS AHEAD (as opposed to magazine photos of homes no one really lives in.)

Last week I had the idea to totally rearrange things upstairs. Mr. Shumway loves it when I have ideas like that!

About halfway through our day, our son said, "I thought you'd just talk about moving everything around. I didn't think you'd actually DO it."

Mr. Shumway grinned wryly. "Believe me, I tried to get out of it, son. But your mother was INSISTENT."

Regardless of how it began, we DID get things done. We moved this loveseat from the loft
(isn't it lovely?)...

to our bedroom where there had been a desk...

It its place, we put part of my scrapbooking stuff...


We moved the desk from our room to the loft to begin its new life as my scrapbooking area...

We moved the dressers in our daughters' room and put the computer desk that had been in the loft in their room...

In the process, we discovered, among other things,:

-LOTS of dust bunnies, their babies, and other unidentifiable creatures
-two library books and a Pooh CD that had been missing for over a month
-several electronic cords that were hooked up to nothing
-old school papers
-several missing CDs and DVDs
-countless pencils and pens
-miscellaneous playing cards and game pieces
-several bits and pieces of broken toys
-too many loose batteries to count
-three remote controls
-the owners manual to my cellular phone
-Lots of candy and food wrappers although we don't allow eating up there
-did I mention LOTS of dust????

Oh, and we also discovered that we are the owners of THREE of those decorative silk ficus trees. I knew we had at least two because they were always in the way (a throwback to when we HAD space to just sit a decorative silk plant that took up an entire corner) although I have no idea when we acquired them. But it wasn't until we lined them up to get rid of them that we realized we had THREE. Where did the third one come from and when? Were these things reproducing when we weren't looking? We may never know.

It's amazing how rearranging and really cleaning things can be so rejuvenating. Our kids are so excited and our middle daughter has been dancing around non-stop saying over and over how much she loves our house. I can only imagine their excitement when OUR NEW SECTIONAL IS DELIVERED!

poop and jellybeans - A post from May 19th, 2007

When I was a kid, we had Baby Alive. I remember when it was first advertised...it's mechanical jaw went up and down with a motorized sound while you fed it. Then it would go potty in real diapers! For some reason, the idea of cleaning up poopy diapers was, back then, fascinating, so I wanted one more than anything. Imagine my joy when it was under the tree that Christmas morning in 1974. Unfortunately, it didn't last very long because after I ran out of the powdered food provided, I thought marshmallow creme would be a good, soft thing to feed her. I was wrong.

Anyway, it seems the idea of something going to the bathroom still holds fascination to today's kids, but I had no idea how far the world of toy "number two" had come. My education in the matter occured in the car on the way home from the park. I'm watching my sister's kids for the day and I had a van-load of four girls in the back. I heard one say to the other, "Did you know Lydia has a reindeer that poops jelly beans?"
Now, this was a startling announcement, not to mention I had never thought to hear the words "poop" and "jelly beans" in the same sentence.
Apparently, one of the girls didn't hear because she asked, "What did you say?"
The speaker repeated it, and my other daughter interjected that it pooped brown jelly beans. This led to a discussion about Barbie's dog who poops brown turds that look like beans. (My daughter's words.)
At this point, I could barely speak for laughing, but I asked as normally as I could, "What are you girls talking about back there?"
My daughter explained that she saw an advertisement for Barbie's dog that teaches kids how to take care of a pet. Barbie is supposed to scoop up the "bean turds" and put them in a bag. Somehow this will lead to the responsibility required to have a real pet. Nevermind that a real animal's turds are slightly bigger and smellier than the little brown plastic poop of Barbie's dog, or that I can't imagine a kid learning anything worthwhile from Barbie. So it's nice to know Barbie manufacturers are so concerned about today's youth.

messin' with the wrong home-schoolin' mama!

Once upon a time, the Shumway family bought a house with a basement. Over the years, the basement flooded twice and the dishwasher/garbage disposal had a leak that had to be serviced. Each time the plumber was called, the service call alone cost 80 dollars and sometimes more. But the plumber was honest and fixed their problems lickety-split.

Then came the day Mr. and Mrs. Shumway realized they had a low-water pressure problem in their shower despite the fact that their fixtures had been an expensive upgrade. Perhaps there was merely a mineral build-up on the large shower-head. Although not mechanically inclined, Mr. Shumway tried to fix it himself. He took off the low-flow do-dad, he took off the shower-head, cleaned it, and put it back on. But alas, nothing worked.

So they did what anyone else would do---they started taking showers in the kids' bathroom.

Time passed. Mr. Shumway finally decided he would no longer be taken hostage by the shower-head and its mysteries.

But there was a problem. Most plumbers, including the company they'd used before, charged extra for evenings, weekends, and emergency calls. That left the DAY-TIME---the no-man's land where servicemen claim they'll arrive sometime between the hours of 8:00 and 5:00 or perhaps the next day, and believe housewives are easy prey, that "the little woman" is easily fooled and taken advantage of.

The doorbell rang at 1:30. Miss Sniz let him in. His name was L---; the rest of it was missing from his shirt. She had never seen him before. He didn't say much and wouldn't look her in the eye. His boots were muddy, but he made no attempt to put footies on over them, something the other men from that company had always done. She informed him where the bathroom was, then returned to the schoolroom where she continued to teach math to her three children.

After 30 minutes, he came downstairs and said he needed to go get a new shower-head. She nodded, assuming he would get one from his van. This was a reasonable assumption. Not only was his van large enough to hold many plumbing necessities, but this had not been an emergency call so the company knew what the issue was before they showed up. Why shouldn't she think he had a shower-head in his van?

So she was surprised when he drove away. She went up to the bathroom. The shiny fixtures had been taken apart and were strewn on the ground. She looked at the floor. It was covered in muddy footprints. She looked at her carpet. Muddy footprints. On the stairs as well.

When he returned, she was waiting for him. She pointed out the muddy footprints. He put footies on but did not apologize. He returned to the bathroom. She followed a few minutes later. On her showerhead was the cheapest, ugliest, tiniest aluminum shower-head she had ever seen. He proudly demonstrated how it worked. She was not impressed with its half-hearted, droopy flow. In fact, her heart started beating faster and her chest felt prickly and hot, all things that happened to her when she was extremely nervous or angry.

She looked him square in the eye. "Have you noticed the other fixtures in this bathroom? This matches nothing. Why would you think it is all right to choose something without asking the customer?"

His eyes slid to the side.

She did not recall the exact words that were exchanged at this point, only that they were terse. L--- ended up putting the original shower-head back on which now worked, which is what he'd been hired for in the first place. Then he presented her with the bill.

There was the expected 80 dollar visit fee. There was the expected hour's labor fee. But after that, things got messy.

There were fees for driving to purchase the cheap shower-head.

There was a miscellaneous fee of 50 dollars.

And at the bottom was the fee for the cheap shower-head (which was no longer being used) and a higher hourly rate for installing it, then un-installing it. He had rounded that one up to an hour, even though the whole thing had taken 10 minutes and was HIS MISTAKE. He had charged them 58 dollars and 89 cents for the shower-head, plus an extra hour's labor at a higher rate.

She turned to look at the plastic shopping bag on the counter with the cheap shower-head in it. She asked him as calmly as she could where he got it. He reluctantly admitted he had purchased it from Lowes. Then she asked him how much it cost. His gaze fell to the floor and he mumbled something she couldn't understand. She asked if he had the receipt. He slowly pulled it out of his pocket.

She stared at it in amazement. By this time she was trembling. And not with nervousness. With his contractor's discount, the shower-head cost 2 dollars and 51 cents!

She turned to him, speechless. He knew he was caught. He couldn't wait to get away from this woman who wasn't easily fooled and who couldn't be taken advantage of.

He quickly made a hasty exit. She hadn't even signed the bill.

Miss Sniz called Mr. Shumway and related the story. He was not pleased. He immediately called the owner of the company.

Time passed and they got a check in the mail for 75 dollars plus a handwritten apology from the company's owner. Turns out the man was a hasty fill-in until a permanent person could be hired. I guess it's hard to find good help these days.

I'm so kind! (Oh wait, did I say that outloud?)

Mo at Un-Mainstream Mom gave me this wonderful award. Mo is a new friend and I can already tell she rocks!! Thanks so much, Mo!

I pass it on to Toni
Hunny Bee
Rebekah
Kristen
Shay
Claire
Wani
Penguins and Ladybugs
EE

Sausages again!

Well, folks, check out the famed 'sausages' commercial from my last post here. I promise it's good for a laugh.

Sausages!

Mr. Shumway was looking up "tiny little queen-head" on his search engine to find out if anyone had posted that clip from Don't Forget the Lyrics I talked about a few days ago. Guess what was the first thing that came up? MY blog entry! I have arrived, people. Ok, ok, since "Tiny little queen-head" is kind of a bizarre blog entry that no normal person would have, I guess it's not that big of a deal. But let me have my fantasies.

Anyway, Mr. Shumway posted it today on his blog. Check it out here for a good laugh.

To Mr. Shumway (AKA Big Doofus), there is little in this world as funny or entertaining as talking animals. In fact, I think the only movie he's ever cried at is Homeward Bound, about two talking dogs and a cat that travel alone across the country to find their "family". He documented this love, as well as one of his favorite commercials of all time here. When that commercial came out in September or October, I started hearing it in my dreams because he watched it so many times. Well as of last night, there's a new contender in town. He discovered it while watching the NY/ Green Bay championship game. This one also features a talking dog and is therefore one of the funniest ever made. I'll post it if I can, but for now, images of a dog shouting "sausages" over and over are dancing through my head, courtesy of the numerous times Mr. Shumway rewound our DVR and watched it, laughing uproariously each time, calling each of the kids in, one at a time, to watch it too and be awed by it's hilariousness. He kept saying through his laughter, "You just know that's what a dog is really thinking!" Smiling, I agreed that hearing a dog's thoughts IS really funny, but the whole time I was writing this blog entry in my mind. Is that wrong?

Ants, Worms, and Rotting Lunchmeat - A Scrolling Saturday post from May 8th, 2007

My 10 yr-old daughter has inherited her grandmother's nose. Not the shape of it--the fact that if there is one stray scent molecule in the air, she will smell it even though others can't. Kinda like a bloodhound. As a regular occurence in our school day, my daughter will smell something and begin to gag. I sniff as hard as I can, but smell nothing. My other daugther has a deathly fear of vomit. If someone even says their stomach hurts, she will hide behind an armchair or cower in the corner. So when my middle child starts to gag, my youngest starts to panic, sure she is about to witness a horrifying vomiting event. I start to giggle because my gagging ten year old is so dramatic, insisting the house is filled with a terrible odor. My son starts to guffaw. My middle child is gagging and laughing and crying and telling me through angry tears that it's not funny. Eventually, she and my son start sniffing and snooping and searching for the scent. (My youngest daughter has already fled upstairs to hide.) They track it to a general area, but are never able to pinpoint the smell that is like "a trash can full of all the garbage in the world with a bunch of ants on top". Oh, and worms. We can't forget the worms because they are really smelly. She is convinced there is rotting salami under the fridge and is mad at me because we won't keep our kitchen trash can in the garage. Yeah...um...I'm gonna say no to that one. But at least our school day is never boring.

Tiny little queen-head

OK, OK, I am laughing so hard right now. I GOTTA share this.

Here in the Shumway household, we like to watch a show called Don't Forget the Lyrics, only we like to tape it on our DVR so we can fast forward through all the stupid commercials and the drawn-out, artificial suspense. That's just the way we roll.

One of the contestants was a young woman. When the host, Wayne Brady, asked her what she was going to do with the money if she won 25K, she said,

"Go to England to meet the queen, 'cause she's so tiny, I just want to squeeze her little queen-head and put her in my pocket!"

We must have rewound and watched that over and over until tears were streaming down our faces. But I guess it won't be so funny when there's an international incident involving a tiny American woman and an even tinier queen with a misshapen head.

a GOOD cry

Mr. Shumway is in Orlando for business. He called me yesterday and said it wasn't really warm there...ONLY 60 degrees. Since it is 20 degrees and cloudy here, I found myself wishing passionately that I were there instead of here, driving down a sunny highway with no one to bother me, all by myself .

And then, of course, that led me to think about the fact that I have always been an emotional person. Or as my husband says, I'm a passionate person. As in I'm passionate about winning arguments. I'm passionate about the fact I rarely get "me" time. Or sometimes I'm passionately upset that I seldom get to go out to eat or hang out with adults (sans children) or that so many things need fixed around here. Other times I'm passionately upset that we lack the money to go on vacation or buy a new sofa. In fact, there is little I'm not passionate about. My head tells me that these passionate thoughts are shallow or materialistic, but sometimes my hormones don't cooperate with my head. I imagine some of you know what I'm talking about. :-) Mr. Shumway tells me that my passionate nature is one of the reasons he loves me. Or maybe he's secretly scared of that side of my personality. Either way.

So yesterday I had to go to the store. My mom was kind enough to let me drop my kids off at her house, then I drove to the new Aldi's down the road. But oddly, I felt welling within me the overwhelming urge to have, as it were, a good cry. Men and non-passionate people will think this odd, but I'm sure there are many ladies out there who will understand. Sometimes I cry merely because my hormones are out of whack. But the fact that I had a reason this time made it slightly easier for Mr. Shumway to deal with while he was driving down a sunny highway in Florida and his wife called him from the Aldi's parking lot in Indiana in hysterical tears. He is so patient with me at times like that. He's a good man.

I cried hard for 20 minutes. And I had an epiphany. Even though I have never been one to "keep things inside" and have been known to blurt out the most embarrassing and/or private things to the four winds, I've been keeping something inside for over a year. Shoving it down, refusing to acknowledge it. "I should be above being hurt by this," I would subconsciously tell myself. "No good will come of these feelings...nothing will change, and if you acknowledge it, things will get worse." Sometimes I even thought about how stupid I was to feel hurt in the first place. What I was hurt over seemed so trivial.

How ironic. My father told me all the time growing up that God wanted me to bring everything to Him--all my hopes and dreams and wishes no matter how trivial. But for some reason, that was easier to accept when I was 9 than it is now. But maybe, just maybe, I am beginning to learn a balance. I don't need to tell everyone everything, but that doesn't mean I should keep them inside to fester. I can talk to my husband. And I can talk to my God. And it's OK to feel and be human. I seem to forget that more and more because the older I get, the more responsible I feel and the more people depend on me.

And you know what? I felt better for my cry. And my talk with Mr. Shumway. And my talk with God. The problem was still there, but I had acknowledged it instead of stuffing it inside where it'd been living for a while. And acknowledging it, bringing it into the light, gave me something to face, something to deal with. And when I finally pulled myself together, got out of the car, and went into the store, I didn't care that my eyes were bloodshot or that my make-up was smeared. That's the price I pay for my good cries. They are worth it.

My twin nephews

I have 16 mo. old twin nephews, the sons of my brother who's in Iraq. I'm babysitting them today and I just wanted to jot some things down about them while it's fresh in my memory. I know I'll enjoy reading this again someday when they're older.

First of all, they are the most mild-mannered toddlers I've ever seen and they always have been. They never cry when they go somewhere new. They are pleasant to everyone they meet. They look nothing alike: Jake is blond with light blue eyes and Josh has dark brown hair and eyes.

Josh has always used his feet like hands to feel the world around him--like each one was a hand-foot. Now that he is walking, he still uses his feet to explore the texture of things. When he is walking over carpet and makes the transition to a wood floor, he will stop and stamp on the new floor with his 'hand-foot' several times to get the "feel" of it. He walks like an old man, sticking his belly out in front of him as if it is leading the way. He loves to stick his lips out in a kind of hooting gesture. It's one of the cutest things I've ever seen. Whenever he feels tired, or threatened, or unsure, he sucks his thumb and feels the tiny hairs on the back of his head...this soothes him immediately.

Jake is more energetic than his laid-back brother. He loves to give kisses (with a wide, open mouth) and wave to people. He is always busy and his electric blue eyes are so bright and alert and curious. They always look "smiley" to me. When Josh came down sick a couple of days ago and just wanted to be held because his fever was so high, Jake didn't know what to do. So he stood, just staring at his brother for an hour. Occasionally he would lean forward and kiss Josh's toe with his open-mouthed kiss, then pull back and look at Josh expectantly as if he thought that would make his brother get down and play.

Today they are wearing matching shirts that say My daddy loves me more than flying. (My brother is a helicopter pilot). I love them so much and feel so privileged to be a part of their life and I hope I always have this blessing.

A Scrolling Saturday meme from April 24th

I have three children and a husband. After doing laundry for fourteen years and folding it carefully into respective piles to be put away, I have discovered some alarming trends.
1. The kids' special beach towels show up in the laundry about once a month in the winter.
2. Even after extensive lectur...I mean encouragement to make sure socks go into the laundry together, there are always several unmatched socks that multiply by intervals of 5 each week. You do the math.
3. For a seven day week, one daughter will have ten pairs of underwear, another will have 5-6, and my son will have 1-2.
4. Often, unfamiliar clothes that no one recognizes will materialize.
5. Once there was strange underwear in there too--sized 2T. (that was spooky)
6. Several fruit snack wrappers generally appear and yet everyone claims they "are positive" they always throw those away as soon as the fruit snacks are eaten. They PROMISE. (so it must be true.)

Thanks to my husband for mentioning our dirty laundry in his blog today although I think he was using it in a different context.

Mother of the Year

Many of you already know that Mr. Shumway (aka Robotface or Big Doofus) and I are exemplary parents. I could site many, many incidents that would testify to that fact, but tonight I want to write about one such stellar incident.

Our 8 year old daughter is what you might call pokey. Meaning she has no concept of time and the words hurry up or we're going to be late mean nothing to her. She has her own world going on, people, thank you very much.

Well, it rained yesterday. Rain is something we here in Indiana are getting a little bit of. We had to go to the store. As usual, I gave the kids a ten minute warning. Then five minutes. Then I yelled that I would be waiting in the car. After only five more minutes of waiting, my youngest (9) came running out of the house. Wearing flip-flops. In winter. In the rain. At that point, I could choose to wait another ten minutes while my daughter changed her shoes, or be entered forever into memory as "the mother that lets her daughter wear those in the winter.". I choose the latter. But lecturing said daughter extensively as we were driving down the road to never wear those things again in the winter...for heaven's sake, they were SUMMER shoes, did not quite soothe the feeling of "you're a bad mother" that was nagging me. I ducked my head, hoping no one looked at her feet as we entered the store.

When we were through, she grabbed my hand as we ran through the rain to the car, jumping over puddles, getting her toes wet with freezing water. She said in her sweet little voice, "Mommy, you were right. I really wish I didn't wear flip-flops."

For some reason, I didn't feel as vindicated as I'd hoped.

I'm a weirdo

Rebekah, over at Diagonally Parked in a Parallel Universe, and KC at Mindless Chatter of a Busy Mom have tagged me for this WEIRD meme!

List 7 Weird things about me! I know I just did a meme, but I like writing stuff about myself (who doesn't?) so here goes:

The rules are as follows: Simply link to the person who tagged you. SHARE SEVEN WEIRD things about yourself. Tag SEVEN bloggers to do the same AND include a link to their blog. Let each person know that they have been tagged and finally post the rules on your blog.

1) The smell of soap is my favorite smell in the world. I once went through a phase where I stuffed my bra with fabric softener sheets in the hopes that I would smell fresh as a summer breeze.
2) I get hives and babble when I'm nervous or when I lie. Wait, did I just admit that? Um, I have never lied in my life. (Oooops! I'm getting hives right now!)
3) I'm a little bit of a flake. I hate this about myself, but it's true. :-(
4) I am a total Lord of The Rings nerd and can whip anyone in Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit. Except maybe my 14 year old son.
5) I actually like my gynecologist.
6) I'm a LCT.
7 )I like so much cream in my coffee, it's almost white, and people who know me joke that I like a little coffee with my cream.

Now, let's hear from some other weirdos out there....Frogponds Rock, one of my friends down under, Heidi, Shay, Elisa, Claire, Becky, (huff, huff, all these links are hard work...almost done!) AND Kristine!!! (Whew, I did it!) I hope everyone plays along. Have fun, ladies!

I know there have been several memes going around, so if you are burnt out don't feel obligated

Exemplary Parenting

After 14 years of parenting, I have it all figured out. My secret is yelling for no good reason - it makes me feel better and keeps the children confused.

For example, I come downstairs in the morning, my socks stick to the floor. I glare at the place and move toward the sink. My foot finds another sticky stain. I yell, "Who spilled something on the floor and didn't clean it up?"

My kids look at me like I'm crazy. Or retarded. Or crazily retarded.

"That's always been there," they say. I look at the spot again. Gee, that particular sticky-spill pattern looks familiar. Could it have been there yesterday? Or any day since last summer when I mopped?

But the yelling makes me feel better. I crawl around on my hands and knees and spray floor cleaner and wipe the stain with a paper towel. I do this for a long time (the sticky spots have lots of relatives). I don't mind. I'm relaxed 'cause I yelled earlier.

Or say I trip over a shoe in front of my kids. I yell, "Who left these here?" And then for good measure, I say, "And here's a pad of paper and some socks! Why is the tape out? This build-a-bear doesn't belong here!" See? I've distracted them from my dorkiness. I feel better. I sit down and read them a book.

Or I open the freezer and the frozen block of turkey broth from Thanksgiving drops on my toe. I know it's my fault I shoved the frozen waffle box, the hamburger, the frozen peas, the black bananas for banana bread I never make, and that bag of teriaki chicken stir-fry we've had in there for a year together on the top shelf, then pushed the door closed. I was the one who heard crashes inside afterwards. I was the one who thought, "I'll deal with it later." But crimeny, it hurts! I can't really think of a reason to yell, so I make one up. "Why hasn't anyone eaten these frozen hamburger-mac meals? We spent good money on those!" I yell, pointing to a different shelf.
They look at each other in bemusement. "Um, we told you we don't like those."
But I won't be denied my yelling. "Well, did you brush your teeth this morning?"

They are confused but I feel better.

I am shameless

FINALLY someone recognizes my talent!!

TKT of Tappity Tappity gave me this award because not only is he an awesome writer who entertains me daily with his blog, but also because he recognizes talent when he sees it. Either that or he feels sorry for me because

A: I'm married to someone who knows how to play Halo and does so often instead of coming to bed at a normal time like regular people OR
B: he feels sorry for my pitiful attempts at humor here on this blog OR
C: he thinks maybe I might, possibly, some day, actually finish the novel I'm claiming to write OR
D: he just awarded it to me as a consolation prize for having such a dorky blog.

BUT I choose to believe he gave it to me because I'm a good writer. I mean, nothing says "TALENT" like a big, hot-pink plastic lion! And I'll fight anyone who says different. And I'm tougher than I look so watch out. Mr. Shumway claims he won it too, but folks, he won't share the love. So you tell me if he deserves it or not!

I award this special pink award to the following people:

Toni, my BFF who I will give any and all awards I receive. Here ya go, Toni. You're a great writer and your blog is entertaining to boot!
Kristen, my good friend in the Northern Lands. You are awesome, my friend!
Hunny Bee. You deserve a pink lion if anyone does, my dear!
Leeann. You make me smile.
Barb. You rawk for so many reasons.
Enjoy ladies. And have fun fitting this hot pink beauty into your decor! It ain't easy but it's oh-so-worth it, I promise ya!

Thanks, Tappity. You're the best!

To Sofa or Not to Sofa, that is the question.

OK, folks, time for some honesty. As if I didn't share TMI all the time here! Anyway, does anyone out there ever struggle with something that to someone else might not seem like a big deal, but to you, it is HUGE? That's how I feel about my sofa.

We've had our dear sofa for almost 11 years, purchased with our tax refund the year our second child was born. It is a cream-colored hide-a-bed. It has served us well.

Here it is in all it's glory:

Doesn't look too bad, does it? (At least it doesn't if you ignore the black stains on the right-hand seat. BTW, Oxyclean doesn't work...it only makes big white stains around the stains you're trying to get out---but my hatred for Oxyclean is best saved for another post.)

Well, lately (in the last year or so), our sofa has begun to look a little squidgey around the edges. Here is a picture of the best side of one of the cushions close up:


That's right--the fabric is disintegrating. I have tried rotating the 2 cushions (which only gives me four sides). Now they are all in terrible shape.

The arm is ripping:The back is tearing. (The springs are popping out where the back cushions are attached to the back). And did I say the fabric on the cushions is DISINTEGRATING? As in big holes that can't be fixed?

Not to mention that although it's comfortable for things like parties where several people sit on it, it is darn uncomfortable for lounging and the two cushions have started sloping into the middle so you always feel like you're at a slant. (Never buy a sofa with only two large cushions as seats.)

We COULD slip-cover it. But since it's the only sofa in the living room (all the other seating is chairs), it gets lots of use, so it would need to be a serious slip-cover. That would cost almost as much as a new couch and be a huge hassle time-wise.

We COULD take the hand-me-down 20 year old love seat from the loft and put it there. But it's gold. And it's small. And it's in worse shape than this one.

We COULD just live with it. (Which is the most likely scenario since that's what we've been doing for so long now).

Now here's my dilemma.

I want a new sofa. Notice, I said WANT. I do not NEED a new sofa. My life will continue without a new sofa. Not having a new sofa will not scar my kids for life, nor will it make them resent me forever.

But I WANT one. Herein lies the problem.

I think about Nate Saint from The End of the Spear. I think about people living all over the world in one-room huts without plumbing, or worse, not having a place to live at all. I know we don't have to buy something. As Mr. Shumway said, what if the water heater went out or the car needed replaced or, God forbid, someone gets hospitalized and we needed the money? Or what if our furnace went out? I KNOW these things are possible. And yet. And yet. I still want it! How's that for honesty? Do any of you struggle with stuff like this?

You gotta read this; it's riveting, I tell ya. Riveting!!!

Sarah at Sassyfrazz has tagged me to list 8 Random Facts About Me! (I added two...does that make me narcissistic?)

1. While home from college for Christmas vacation, my good friend Jimmy came to visit and brought Mike---the cute, popular football player who'd been a year older than me in high school and way out of my league. He had become a Christian the previous year at school (he was pre-med) and suddenly was very attracted to "Preacher's-kid-Sniz". While in remission, he asked me to marry him, then retracted his offer, saying it was unfair to ask me to commit to someone who may not "make it". He died less than a year later.
2. When I became a flight attendant in 1991, we had "weigh-ins", where we lined up in one big room and our weight was shouted out for everyone to hear. That's been labeled as "weight-discrimination" now, and done away with. It's a good thing too, because if that doesn't give someone anorexia, I don't know what will.
   
3. On a layover in Saudi Arabia, the hotel desk clerk gave me an "abaya" when I checked in (a black, sack-like garment that covers women from head to toe), and was informed I must wear the garment whenever I went outside.
   
4. My father is a pastor and I still attend his church.
   
5. When I'd been blogging a few weeks, my sister told me to check out Toni's blog, In the Midst of This Season, because she thought she wrote kinda like me. Over the next several weeks, Toni and I began commenting on each other's blogs and began narrowing it down until we realized we lived less than 2 miles apart and now she attends my church! Can you believe that?
   
6. I am the oldest of four kids...two girls and two boys. My sister and her family, my brother and his family, my dad's mom, my parents, and I all live within ten miles of each other. My other brother is serving in Iraq and his wife and twin baby boys live in Germany.
7. Thanks to Mr.Shumway, I am a coffee and beer snob. He makes me French-press coffee every morning with half-and-half and I will only drink import beers. I hope you can all still be my friend!
   
8. Mr. Shumway was a stand-in date when my original date couldn't make it. Boy am I glad.
   
9. I'm writing a novel. I never seem to have time to finish it.
   
10. I am hardly ever tempted by dessert. In fact, the only sweet I really like is cheesecake. And candy is worthless unless it's chocolate or Nerds. BBQ chips, on the other hand....
    

Thanks for giving me blogging-fodder, Sarah. I've been so busy lately, I've been neglecting my blog. This was fun! (At least for me!)