What I learned in 2010

1.  I don't like moving.  I don't like Uhauls.  They wiggle.  It freaks me out.  They're really loud and bumpy.  They make my jowls shake when you are on a rocky road.  They eat my possessions. They're ridiculously expensive and that's before you do the math for their gas guzzling habit.

2.  I secretly enjoyed the government benefits of food stamps for a few months.  I should feel ashamed but we have never eaten so well in our lives.  I now miss medium rare steak more than I miss the size 4 I used to be.

3.  Going through difficult times in life, it's very helpful and recommended to have a life partner with a sense of humor.

4.  It's very helpful and recommended to have a sense of humor when going through difficult times in life.

5.  It is possible to live out of one half of a suitcase for 6 months.  Not screamingly thrilling, but possible.

6.  If you're low on furniture or things to do, nekked drumming is always an alternative to the humdrums.

7.  My dog is neurotic, but I learned to love the mutt more.

8.  It's 2,013 miles from Nampa, Idaho, to St Louis, MI.

9.  Approximately 1,013 miles of it is corn.

10.  Homeschooling is so the way to go if you're unemployed and traveling!

11.  I can drive a huge van like a bad mambajamba.  I don't know what a bad mambajamba is actually.  I think it might be a Star Wars term. 

12.   Gianni likes the ladies.  The ladies like Gianni.  And she didn't even get to witness the nekked drum show!

13.  You can sell my bed.  You can sell my couch.  You can give endless boxes of my very own stuff away to Goodwill.  But if you lay a hand on my book collection I will come at you like a spider monkey.

14.  Goodbyes stink.

This one stinks.

This one was rotten.

This one was tear ridden.

This one was-

well-

I don't miss this nut all too terribly.

It's his wife I miss.

But she won't sit still for pictures.

Like me.

So we've known each other for eleventy seven years and have like, no photos of each other because we each duck and yell and take cover when someone takes out their camera.  And if I do get a photo of her she complains about her hair, or her shirt and makes me delete it.  And if she does get a picture of me I complain about my jowls.  And she deletes it.  At least she tells me she deletes it.

I suspect she lies.

                                 I miss her.  I had a picture of the two of us, but I looked jowl-y. 

There are others I miss (Jen, Anna) who evidently hide from cameras as well.


15.  Gianni grew hair.

16.  Michigan is humid.  Speaking of hair reminded me of that, thank you very much.

17.  I'm not ashamed to say I heart texting, emails, Facebook, and phones, so I can keep in touch with all my fruitloops.

18.  The first three weeks of being a mom to teenagers I did not sleep at all.  We're talking full-on zombie, night of the living dead.  Can you say, anxious? 

19.    Baptists are just Christians.  Shhh.

20.  It is not advisable to do Pilates on the floor when your toddler is perched precariously above you on the tip of the recliner.

21.  Public schools make me nervous.  They're full of oversized toddlers.  I want to put my fingers in my ears and shout at the top of my lungs, 'I'm a homeschooler!'  But I don't think this would do much for the reputation of homeschoolers in general.  Especially if I'm wearing my Star Trek shirt tucked into my sweat pants tucked into my moon boots at the time.

22.  If nekked drumming isn't your thing, due to a lack of musical ability, there's always nekked biking.  A few scant seconds after I took this shot, he ate the geranium.

23.  This picture has nothing to do with anything and wasn't taken in 2010, but it somehow seemed appropriate for this blog.  I want him back.  I want to chew on his nose cuz back then he let me chew on his nose.

I'm ending there, partly because dinner is about to boil over, and partly because I like ending my list on #23 for all you OCD people who will not be able to sleep at night because I didn't end on an even number. 

Love,
me and my jowls. 

update

It's official and the bags are packed! Check out our new employment/digs here:

http://www.baptistchildrenshome.org/

After you're done checking that out, come back and show me some love and support. I am feeling needy. Here's how you leave a comment and tell me you still love me:

scroll down to the end of a post...

...see where it says "comments?"

...lately it says "0 comments?"

...see how insecure and unloved that makes me?

...click on it...

...write me something, anything...

...poetry would be swell...

...tell me you're still reading so I don't feel like a dork writing in my diary...

...obey the word verification thingy...

...you can do it...

...sign in...

...creating a google account is easy - it's just your email and password...no one else will see that part...or you can use the 'open url...'which I do believe is simply your email which everyone can see...but who cares, cuz like, 4 people read this anyway...

...now, publish...

...and imagine my happy smile.

If you want to make me postively giddy with excitement, go to the right of the blog and click on to be a kool-aid drinker, er, I mean, follower. If you don't, I pretty much have terrible photos of all of you just about, so I can make my own with your names on them. Just sayin'.

This is my fifth child: Milo. He's a cocker spaniel mix. Or a crocker spaniel mixed-up, as Anna would say. He's a good doggy. He keeps my feet warm at all times, eats all the toddler messes off the floor, cleans out my car better than a shop vac, allows Gianni to torment him, never lets a ball go unplayed with, and looks at you with those yummy puppy eyes. He also has the worst gas EVER but that's another story for another time.

The crash after the Halloween sugar high. See the six inches of bed space there? That's where I sleep when Mike's on the road. Less like sleeping and more like fighting for my life. Remember the scene in Mission: Impossible 2 where Tom Cruise is hanging off the cliff by his fingernails? Like that. Bonding is precarious work, but on the plus side, they protect me from the bogey man.

Trick or treating with the Pops. One cherry sucker was all this dude needed. The small dude. The larger dude needed a beer.

Want a piece of candy, little kid?

Typical of my children: a masquerade ball princess and a zombie. Just call em Night and Day. They got enough candy to last until Easter, which is of course, the goal of any self-respecting ghoul. Ghouls have goals, don't they? They even got uber cool stuff like microwave popcorn and glow necklaces and organic juice boxes. Me, I don't give out the good stuff. In fact, I forgot to buy candy and ended up sneaking it out of what the girls collected to give to the door knockers. Shhhh! Sort of like taking money out of their allowances in order to be the Tooth Fairy. Not that I would ever do that. Right.

Birthday candles....mmmmm, a pyromaniac's dream! And the dairy free, egg free cupcakes weren't half bad. I'd include the recipe, but something tells me no one wants it...

How'd y'all survive the piggy flu epidemic? We had mild-ish cases ourselves, but it's nice to feel oh so healthy again. Gianni and I were sick on both his birthday and Mike's birthday, Mike had it for several days and the girls got fevers and one night of tossing their cookies. Hopefully, our immune systems will be so strong now that if it comes back, wham bam, thank you ma'am, we'll not even feel it. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it. I try to throw up no more than once a decade, so I'm good till 2019 now.

Other than that, life goes on as normal. I'm starting to get just a tad, just a smidge, just a hair, stressed out about our living/working/surviving situation. In lieu of flowers, please send gifts. Or a large farmhouse with a porch and a happy little tire swing and a nicely paying job for Mr Williams.

In other news, the evil and short one put my cell phone in a glass of ice water for approximately .03 seconds and that was long enough to turn it into toast. Yup. Stick a fork in it. In lieu of phone calls, please send letters.

jobs

A quick update on our whackadoo lives here:

Mike's contract with Eli-Lilly was not renewed for the coming year. This was not a huge surprise as this is how contracts work, but can be stressful if we think about it too hard/much. We will keep everyone in the know, you know, just as soon as we know. You know? In the meantime, we are hoping for his company to come through with another position as they have practically, almost, in a way, promised they will. He is doing well with the company and is well liked by his boss(es) so we are not quite to the stressing and freaking out stage yet. This job here will end December 31st, and with a little bit of luck and prayers, we will be cheerfully settled in a new place by then.