Item not sold

When your item doesn't sell on eBay, they send a helpful little email telling you. Like you didn't know and didn't refresh your auction page every second.

The helpful email says: eBay Item Not Sold, blah, blah, blah.

It should say: eBay Item Not Sold You Loser. Who are you kidding? You thought someone would want that? Ha, Ha, Ha. You can relist it and give us even more of your money thereby draining your bank account and wrecking your day.

Okay - off to get my kids ready for a walk. At least they like me. ;)

Tact? What's that?

Home Depot/Lowe's get lots of our money now. Fixing up an old home is expensive and we would much prefer to shop at say Restoration Hardware, SchoolHouse Electric and such but we don't have the $$$.

We were going to Home Depot/Lowe's every night after Brian got home from work. (Lowe's built a store right next door to Home Depot. They share the same huge parking lot). Ava dreads going to Home Depot but likes Lowe's. Go figure. Lauren and Maddie could take it or leave it but Elllie loves it. She is our little shopping girl.

So on a recent trip Ellie and I were walking down the plumbing isle waiting for Brian to pick out some plumbing stuff. I saw two men looking at parts and one of them had long hair that was in a braid. I really didn't think anything of it until Ellie (2 years old), yells out "Boys don't have braids." I looked at her and she repeated herself. The men were really close to us but didn't seem to notice Ellie's admonishment. She started to say it again but I threw her in the cart and jogged over to Brian. She was still shaking her head and saying "they don't."

I gently explained to her that some boys do have braids, why I don't know, but they do. She still is not convinced.

Happy Birthday G-man!

This year has been a long one. It's been all about getting to the next day, week, month...

Imagine our happiness at finding out we were expecting you, a boy, after 4 girls. I had so much fun shopping for new boys clothes, blankets and toys. You decided to make your appearance only 2 hours after I knew I was in labor, 52 minutes after arriving at the hospital and only 2 pushes.

2 weeks old

You've been such a blessing but also such a frustration. Unless you were being held or nursed you were so fussy. Not colic fussy but "why aren't you holding me" fussy. So hold you I did. And walked. And bounced on the balls of my feet until my calf muscles rivaled any body builder.

The reason why I was the most frustrated was because I had so much to get done during the day. Not only did I homeschool your sisters, do 3 loads of laundry a day, make meals, clean the house but I also had two websites going which involved lots of my time.

6 weeks

Through all of this though, I have always called you My Sweet Boy. Your one redeeming quality was that you were so cute that I had to snuggle with you. Your soft breath on my neck as you nuzzled in for a nap. I loved you sleeping beside me and waking up to your smiles every morning.

Now you are a year and walking, talking and making trouble for your sisters and their lego creations. You say "gook" or "this" when you want something to eat. You can say Ellie "eda" and banana "nana". Of course "Mama" and "Dada", "bye bye", and "hi". You will dance to anything. The blender humming, the vacuum cleaner or simply Ava tapping her pencil on the table or when you see the Wiggles DVD. You yell out "dance" and then start rocking back and forth. It's really cute.

13 weeks

So happy birthday G-man. You have been worth all the trouble.

Pictures from his birthday party.

My keyboard is driving me crazypp!!!

For some reason my laptop kepyboard types "Pps"Pp randomly. I haven't edited this post at all to show you what I'm dealing with. If I press the upp arrow, "p's" show up. If I do a capitol P a small Pp sometimes shows upp. PIf I typpe a lopwercase pp then sometimes it doubles it. See.

Hard to read? I wrote a press release for Journal Modiste and sppent almost as much time editing out the p's as I did writing it.

I want to find an answer to this. We bought this laptop one year ago at Costco so it shouldn't be dead yet. My husband's answer is to buy a new one ;)P, however my life is on this lapptopp and I don't want to transfer it all over to a new one.

If anyone has a solution to this pproblem, it would be greatly apppreciated. We have a Compaq Presario V4000.

Thank you and Namaste.P

Uh-oh

Uh-oh, I'm starting to have that feeling again. It's been happening more frequently and the idea isn't so abhorrent to me anymore. I look at those sweet pictures and those tiny clothes and think - just maybe. When all the kids are in the room with me I still look around for the missing child. Brian admitted he did it too.

Up until a few weeks ago I didn't want another child. Graedon has been a hard kid to deal with. Very needy and whiney. I didn't have as much time to just devote to him as I had home-schooling, housework and three websites to keep up. So I felt a little resentful everytime he wanted me to carry him around. Yes - I do feel guilty about it. Now that he crawls off to play and squirms when I pick him up to smother him with kisses.

So I'm working out again and trying to lose the last 15lbs so I can be a my pre-pregnancy weight. I always gain 50lbs with each pregnancy and always lose it within the first year. Not this time, lol. Maybe it's because I'm in my 30's. At least that is what I tell myself.

So maybe one of these days our "phantom child" will be a reality and we will be the proud parents of 6 kids. Better start saving for a new bus van.

If bugs aren't your thing - DON'T LOOK

Brian, my darling husband, decided it would be cool to get our 8 year old daughter a pair of praying mantis cocoons for her birthday. I thought he had flipped. I can think of nicer things to get our daughter than that. She however was delighted and started planning on how she would house them upstairs in her bedroom. Um - no. Maddie wasn't going for it and neither was I.

Well, hatched they did this week. I was wholly unprepared for how many of them came out of that little cocoon. It was fascinating in a totally disgusting way.

Here they are - don't look if you are squeamish.

The proud mama.

Just saying...

Have you ever tripped your child so they would fall down and cry so you could have an excuse to end a never-ending phone conversation? You haven't. Oh, neither have I.