Piggie Fun!

I am super excited about tomorrow! I'm a person who doesn't like "routine", so I really don't hold fast to traditions. I can't stand it when someone freaks out because "we always do it this way...." I'm really easy going and I don't really mind when things change, or happen differently than they used to. But tomorrow.....

Tomorrow we are going to do some fun stuff that we try to do with our kids every year during the holidays. Things that just make our holiday so much more fun, and I can't imagine not getting to do them every year!! First we are going to ride the PINK PIG! Granted, my legs go numb from being crammed into the ultra small seats, but the Pink Pig is an Atlanta legend and it's in a big tent outside of Macy's and they project pink lights everywhere and it is just a Pepto Bismol explosion of awesome!! After the Pink Pig, we will be spending the night downtown and then we will go to The Fabulous Fox Theatre to see The Nutcracker, performed by the Atlanta Ballet. Nothing puts me in the mood of Christmas quite like watching the Nutcracker!

I'm really looking forward to getting away from the house (even if only for one night) and just having FUN! I had visions of taking my little girl to the Nutcracker before she was even conceived, and now that we have TWO girls (though they aren't ballerinas, or even very girlie) this is such a fun thing to look forward to every year. I hope they will look back someday, when they have their own little girls, and have wonderful memories of this "tradition" with their not so traditional mom (and dad)!

Hope you all have a Merry Christmas!!

Your kid annoys me...

I have kids. Like most parents, I think my kids are pretty amazing. There is a distinct difference in me and many parents (that I encounter) - I live in REALITY. You see, even though I think my kids are pretty amazing, I also think that my kids can be really annoying. Every kid on earth has the opportunity to be really annoying, on many levels, on many occasions and it is up to me, and others as parents, to STOP THAT SHIT, immediately.

We went to see Santa last night. This year, the mall did this wonderful new trick where they no longer take reservations to see Santa - you just have to wait in line, for an hour and a half. With no benches. No wi-fi. No fountain to drown yourself in......


We had the option to go see a different Santa, however, THIS is OUR Santa. We've sat on this man's lap for the past 12 years, there was no chance I wanted to find a new Santa. It would totally mess up our entire photo collection. So, we waited.

Hunk offered to let me take the kids to dinner and he would hold our spot. I didn't take him up on that offer because I feared for the kid behind us. In the 1 and a half minutes that they had been behind us in line, the kid had bumped, rammed or otherwise touched me 5 times. I DO NOT like to be touched. I was on the verge of losing my cool, and let's just say that when it comes to obnoxious kids I am about 8 million times more patient than Hunk. I stayed for the safety of that kid.

When I get in a line, I strategically stop well before I get close to the folks in front of me. I don't like to be crowed, I don't like to be touched by strangers and I have limited patience for ignoramous people. I compensate for my known issues and I leave a buffer zone. The people behind us were reasonably buffered, for about 10 minutes, then they began to "inch". I have no earthly idea why people in a line must "inch" - especially when the line is NOT moving. See, Santa was away on his dinner break so we were just standing there, and yet people continued to "inch" forward as if it were going to help them get to Santa faster. By the time we reached the 45 minute mark the people behind us were literally rubbing up against me with every breath they took. I was seriously on the verge of a break down. But, I had my buffer in the front. I saved at least 3 feet between me and the people before me......so I scooted up a little. They CONTINUED to "inch". There was no escaping these people behind me and their obnoxious kid.

And it wasn't just them - it was a myriad of obnoxious kids. I don't understand how people let their children act so utterly annoying in public. There was a kiosk next to use where you could print off a coupon for your photos, well since there wasn't any entertainment for those kids waiting in line lots of kids thought the kiosk was a great thing to play with. In an hour and a half we waited there were about 6-8 kids who managed to print off about 856 coupons, and only to leave them in a pile on the floor. WTH? I realize that little kids need to be occupied, but here's a newsflash - you are going to WAIT IN LINE for Santa, what part of that shit does a parent not understand? Hello?! Bring a bag of tricks, a DS, a book, WHATEVER it takes. There has never been a Santa without a line, do you people not watch movies??????? Have you ever been to see Santa?????? There is ALWAYS a line!

The icing on the cake is that the obnoxious kids have such pathetic parents. It literally makes me ill to hear a parent giving their child exactly what they want when the kid is being a total douche. I want to kick the parents in the shins who have no balls to tell their kid to cool it.

But, hey, we got to see Santa. And the 30 seconds we spent with him were totally worth the 90 minutes of excruciating agony spent with your annoying kid shoving his face in my crack. And then we were treated to a wallet assassination by the photo people. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Alive and Kicking

We had a successful thanksgiving dinner at my house last week, we had 13 people to feed and I hardly had enough leftovers to send a plate over to my grandmother's house (she hates people and won't come over).

Prior to everyone coming over we did the usual scrubbing of the house. I don't really know why, but I feel like we have to do this crazy cleaning ritual before having a party. Are people really going to look in the closets? After the house was sparkling I decided to work on the outdoor entry area. I had the typical fall decorations up, but it had been awhile since I had refreshed the flower bed mulch. It was looking faded and thin. I typically pay someone to deliver truckloads of cypress mulch, or pecan shells (yes, they work great!) to spread around our many beds. This gets pretty pricey since it really should be refreshed twice a year. I've gone a full year before adding to them, but they look really ragged if I wait.

I was walking around the property admiring the trees, etc. and just taking note that we have eleventy four bazillion pine trees around, which are constantly dropping pine needles on every surface around. In fact, I had spent Monday of last week blowing off the yard and driveway only to find on Thanksgiving Thursday that everything was completely recovered as if I had not lifted a finger! Anyway, on Monday I figured if I was blowing and piling all this pinestraw I should try to put it to use. In a matter of minutes I had filled the entire back of our truck with clean pinestraw. It took 2-3 truckloads to fill all our beds, but this was EASY. The pinestraw was mostly clean (a few leaves to pick out) and it was in abundance all along our driveway. I basically just drove up and down the driveway and piled it into the truck. We have a REALLY long drive so I was able to get enough pinestraw to cover ALL of our beds and it took me a grand total of about an hour to gather it all. It was much easier to spread than mulch because pinestraw weighs practically nothing.

So, for the past 1o years I've spent countless amounts of money on mulch, plus delivery when I could have just spent a few hours time and gotten it all done for free!

Unrelated, but pertaining to pinestraw.....we got two hermit crabs in November of 2008, FINALLY they both kicked the bucket last week. One of them was clearly dead and halfway out of his shell, the other was tucked really far down inside and was unresponsive. My daughter took them outside and buried them under pinestraw, not in a hole. This was because she wanted to go back and see what happened after a few days. I sent her out to take a look and Mr. Crab #2 was GONE!! Apparently, he was not dead after all and had been prancing around our yard for 4 days. She found him not far from the 'grave' and he was alive and kicking. He has since been returned to the cage (and warmth). I am amazed that he did not freeze to death out there. But it also gives a new appreciation to the reason that folks used to hold 'wakes', in case someone thought to be dead were to wake up! It happens!!!