Thirteeners! It’s still Thursday, if my calendar is right. I am not too late to post. I am short on time, however, as my husband just left for a baseball game with his buddy, leaving me in charge of bedtime for two small children.

It’s a shocker, really, having to put my own kids to bed. But since I’ve started back to work (it feels so weird to type that), he’s been totally responsible for getting them out the door in the morning. So it’s only fair.

Here ya go: 13 Things I’d Blog About Right Now if I Could Grab a Minute (or Ten). (And no links, cuz no time. Sorry.)

1) My love for General Hospital and Land of the Lost and their weird correlation in my head.

2) A treatise on the magic of duct tape.

3) Teen Parenthood: Why It’s a Great Idea, as written by frazzled 42-year-old housewife. Oops, working outside of the home wife.

4) My new schedule and why it rocks! (Except for mid-afternoon, when I can barely keep my eyes open cuz I get up so early now. And once we get home, when I survey the chaos around me. Don’t forget the immortal words of Erma Bombeck: It takes wet laundry three days to mold.) How in spite of all this… I love working. I love earning my own money. I love getting a break. I love being around people who don’t chant SPONGEBOB SQUARE PANTS spongebob square pants SPONGE BOB! SQUARE PANTS! all. frickin’. day. long.

5) Dress codes. My office has one and the kids’ school does not. Q&A with myself.

6) Potatoes! Corn! Hollyhocks! And all the wonders of my garden and yard. A photo essay.

7) How I bit my tongue and didn’t scream, “TAKE HER BACK TO THE POUND! QUICK! NOW!!!! BEFORE YOU GET MORE ATTACHED TO HER!” when my co-worker described her sweet lil black Lab pup. Aren’t Labs the best? So well-behaved! Except for when she tore out her stitches after surgery. And destroyed the flower bed. And how she keeps them up all night, because she’s lonely. I just showed her a picture of Wacky Dog and smiled.

8) My husband’s beloved Buffalo Sabres. Will they bite the dust in the series?

9) My intrigue with the book “The Feminine Mistake,” by Leslie Bennetts. Can I blog about it without stoking the fires of the Mommy Wars? Yes, I believe I can.

10) Lice. Are we shut of them for good, pray tell?

11) Kids. Why I’m Thrilled I Have Two and Not More. Would include a sidebar: Must every conversation include one of the following: Butts, underwear (their own and other people’s), people’s butts being set on fire, people who can set other people’s butts on fire, poop, pee, farting, booties, how they are Lords of the Buttfire? (I just read that paragraph aloud to them and they literally crashed onto the floor laughing.)

12) Summer plans. Including a discussion of why I won’t be able to hang out laundry because neighbor’s cherry tree is insane out of control. Includes a brief re-cap of the discussion I had with my tree guy, who advised that we move rather than mess with this tree. Sidebar: Will we ever move? An update.

13) My inability to plan ahead.

Happy Thursday, everyone.

WM

I’d like to say that I got up earlier than usual, just so I could post, but that would be a lie. I’m running late. I haven’t had my coffee. But I know when I go to read my favorite blogs and they haven’t updated, I get grouchy. Grouchy! How lame is that, to let the Information Superhighway dictate your moods? Y’all are great writers and photographers — I need my fix of your art. Oh, yeah — you’re great moms, too. But today, that is third on the list of your accomplishments.

* We’re still planning on moving to Iowa. No job offers yet. In the meantime, maybe I should… (more…)

Happy Mother’s Day, one and all, but especially to my Wacky Mom, my two sweet mother-in-laws (see you this summer!), and my Incredibly Wacky Grandma!

Zip, i love you.

And now, a couple or re-runs worth repeating.

wm

from May, 2006
“This week, Salary.com announced that a stay-at-home mom’s work is worth $134,121 a year. But the check is not in the mail.”
– Ellen Goodman

…………………………………

Mother’s Day was originally started after the Civil War, as a protest to the carnage of that war, by women who had lost their sons. Here is the original Mother’s Day Proclamation from 1870, followed by a bit of “herstory”:

“Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be that of water or of fears!

Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.

We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says “Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”

Blood does not wipe our dishonor nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.

Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.”

Julia Ward Howe
Boston
1870

So many things I would like to blog about — such as…

* the PTA mom who said, “Good, do!” in our meeting today when I said, “one-more-thing-and-I’ll-shut-up-I-promise.” Nice! Way to open up the lines of communication. No wonder no one wants to work with you, honey. Damn. Speaking of work — THE PAID KIND…

* Work: Why It Just Might Be the Answer I’ve Been Looking For (lunches out with other adults! No one criticizing my food! People complimenting my shoes! The list goes on and on…) (more…)

Hola, what’s happening, 13ers? Do my kids like to watch movies? They can watch the hell out of a movie! Or thirteen.

Happy Thursday!

Our 13 Favorite Flicks Ever, Kid-Wise

13. Prehistoric Planet

12. Cheaper by the Dozen (One, not Two)

11. Muppets from Space

10. The Little Vampire

9. Homeward Bound

8. Nanny McPhee

7. Matilda

6. Home movies from when they were babies (these are my favorite movies, too)

5. The Aristocats (Aristocats! Not the Aristocrats!)

4. Land Before Time series

3. Molly: American Girl

2. Wallace and Gromit

1. The Apple Dumpling Gang

Remember this, ladies, as we head into margarita/mojito season:

“It’s OK to drink, just don’t drink and drink.”

— WM and Zip

There is funny, and then there is Tina, who needs her own special category cuz she is crazy-ass funny.

I tag her for a meme and she comes up with:

4. I have long stated that bell peppers don’t agree with me. And while that may have been true at one point, I think now it’s just more that I’m a pussy about them. And now it is a very small project of mine to re-introduce the bell pepper into my diet. Take it one day at a time. No promises.

and follows that with:

5. There’s a freckle on my left foot that I believe renders it unbearably hot. That foot is smokin’. Like a French actress. Like a sex kitten. I have a crush on it.

See? Funny girl. Go over there and say hi.

I forgot about work. Working-outside-of-the-home work. I work — I write; I get paid little or nothing for it. (Note to self: Put up PayPal button in hopes that people will donate to the cause. The cause being: Me and My Entertaining Self.) I watch the kids; I get paid in lovebucks. I am married; because of this I am well-shod, like a prize horse. He has also been known, my husband, to take me for dinner and a night on the town.

But a real job? Where you fill out paperwork and a W-4, and have to call your husband about how many deductions to claim (because when I work, we lose money. What with daycare, and taxes, and the cost of gas, etc. etc. ad nauseum) and it’s all a little baffling? That kind of work I haven’t done in three years. Yes, that’s right — he also had to do a Google map search for me so I could figure out where I was going. (Thanks, hon.)

Even though this is an employer I have worked for before, and I know where the building is. I actually had to go to two buildings, located ten minutes apart. I knew where both buildings were. I just spaced. Oh, please, like that never happens to you? I needed my husband to hold my (virtual) hand and walk me through this. Pathetic!

I cannot give you many details about my job or workplace, because in the words of the almighty Dooce: “Be ye not so stupid.” And don’t get dooced, fer Chrissake. I will tell you the following, and I will tell you in bullets:

* Someone nice is watching after the kids.

* There is a Baja Fresh by my work and I got a salad from there on the way home.

* I am now at home, after a hard day spent watching HIPAA videos, signing my name and writing my birthdate on numerous documents, and saying “Hello” to everyone. “Are you here to help?” someone asked me. “No, hinder,” I said, and winked at her. (The smart-alecky part of me needs to stay home while the rest of me goes to work.)

* It is a full-time, temporary job. It may lead to something. It may not.

* There is a sign in the bathroom at work that says, “Please flush the toilet after each use. Thank you.”

I may xerox this sign, on company time, and bring home two copies to post in my own bathrooms. Thank you.

Wacky Boy: “I made something for you, Mom. For Mother’s Day. At school.”

me: “Don’t tell me what it is!”

Wacky Boy, who had no plans of telling me what it was: “I’m not tellin’ ya!”

me, dying to know, was it the macaroni frames I saw spread out on the tables today??: “But I’ll give you a hug to say thank you for thinking of me.”

Wacky Boy, thinking it over: “I didn’t think of you. But my teachers did!”

Did I mention that we sent the kids back to school? 1) Our demands were met 2) hostages were released 3) I start my new job tomorrow. Work? What??? Turns out, if you apply for a job, you might get it. Then you have to go there.

(It’s full-time, but temporary. Two weeks, two months, or who knows?)

Jenny McB tagged me! Me me me me me — my favorite subject. (Just kidding. My favorite subject is Houses. As in, how do we sell This One and buy a New One Before the Summer is Over?) With no further ado, I present:

Ten Scintillating Facts About Moi

1. I am boring. You may have already guessed this. I hardly ever go out at night because I’d rather stay home with my husband and watch Jeopardy! The Simpsons! Or Star Trek! Then I get grouchy, because the player I liked on Jeopardy didn’t win, or it wasn’t the Planet of the Apes episode of the Simpsons, or it wasn’t the Way to Eden episode of Star Trek. Then I fall asleep. When I do go out, I’m all, Damn! This is so fun. Why don’t I go out more?

2. I have a little bit of a problem with being dissatisfied, and I think I’m a little ADD. Or maybe a lot. Or maybe I’m not at all. Or maybe I’m ADHD. Or maybe I just need to watch Grey’s Anatomy and grouse because they killed off Denny.

3. I do not like Dungeons & Dragons type fantasy stuff at all, or sci-fi anything, especially not Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which my husband tried to force me to watch last week. But I adore Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom and Ian McKellen, thus my obsession with the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I tried to force my husband to watch it with me, but he was seeking revenge over the whole Hitchhiker’s Guide thing and refused.

4. Like Jenny McB, I, too, am 5’10”.

5. Also like her (this is getting kinda weird) I have wicked motion sickness. (I’m totally copying Jenny now, because the hockey game starts in 10 minutes. Go, Sabres!!!)

6. I love to garden. If I’m feeling low, I mow the lawn, weed for awhile, plant some flowers, drink some iced tea. Next thing you know I’m a new woman. Way cheaper than therapy, and my yard looks good.

7. I like my coffee half milk, half coffee.

8. If I had a million dollars I’d be rich.

9. I love to write down stuff my kids say. I just found this in a notebook from two summers ago: “Do you feel like we’re in a movie?” — Wacky Girl. (Yes.)

10. I get crushes on 17-year-old hockey players, but I wait until they’re 18 to talk about it.

Now, to tag ten people. Argh! OK, how about the Gallivanting Monkey, Leslie Gould, Planet Nomad, Iowadrift (who is no longer in Iowa — will she undergo a name change? If so, I say dibs on Iowadrift), Chez Musser, A Flyover Blog, One Woman Army, Vader’s Mom and Dad Gone Mad and HOCKEY GOD! (who does not even know ten people, so this will be tricky for him).

ONLY (just wait) I’M PUTTING A TWIST ON IT. Make it: Ten Interesting Things My Family and/or Friends and/or Dog Don’t Know About Me. Ha! Take that, Internet!