Suburban Bliss:: Birth Control Via The Written Word

Portland Mighty Finds

First, let me set your mind at ease. Gary the cat came back. Of course the neighbors didn't try to eat him, but don't think that means they won't at some point.

Back in February, I went to Portland with Maggie and then all the ladies came at the end and it was very fun. The only problem is we bought all this stuff and then I left it in Maggie's apartment for her to deal with. Which was understandable, I only had two bags to get home with, but still not very fun for them.

We bought a lot of stuff.

We also learned that Portland likes a)pottery and b)green things

I finally got around to listing all our fabulous finds over at our Etsy shop. You should go, take a look and see if you can't find something wonderful for your house.

I bet you can.

Here's a slide show, it makes me miss the Ace Hotel room where we took all the pictures after shopping for hours.

I think the Bad Neighbor is serving my cat for dinner.

Life is awfully slow in the interesting ways around here.

Here's a quick story. There's one neighbor here that nearly everyone hates. Which is refreshing because in our old neighborhood I was the one neighbor everyone hated. When I try to explain why everyone has feelings for this person that range from "FUCK YOU, YOU HORRIBLE WOMAN!!!!"*** on to "Enh, I wish she'd move."

Every time I try to explain this, I fall into a blood pressure raising discussion that spans over 10 years of stories and interactions with this person. She is....awful is too nice a term to use when referring to her. I mean Liver and Onions is, in my opinion, awful. She's more like Head Cheese. Head Cheese is repugnant. It defies explanation. It's something you wish you didn't know existed.

***Clearly I fall into this category.

We've started letting Gary The Cat outside in the new house since we've lived here for nine months now. Not sure why that makes a difference but in my mind he's more committed. Tonight, we let him out and I haven't seen him since. Usually he hangs out by the door and runs inside the minute I open it. Also, coincidentally (or not) I noticed the husband of the neighbor I like to think of as Head Cheese out rolling around a heavy wheelbarrow.

Now if Gary comes back tonight I'll probably think this was a stupid thing to think. But I think Husband of Head Cheese had Gary, knocked unconscious,  in his wheelbarrow and they're currently burying him in their trash cans for the Friday pick up.

I'll keep you posted.

In less bad energy inducing news, I wrote about Mother's Day Giveaways at The Buzz Off. You could win stuff and telling you about it lessens my chances of winning so maybe I just earned back my karma.

Probably not.

Also Maggie closed out the Mother's Day Gift guide at Mighty Goods and Mighty Junior. We combined our efforts (meaning I contributed three gifts to the guide and Maggie did the other stuff). Considering that my siblings and I are buying my mother a privacy fence for her back yard (as a Mother's Day + 60th birthday gift) this makes a lot of sense. For Christmas we bought her a new stove.

We're very thoughtful as a family. Actually the members of our family who do not share DNA with us are thoughtful. Actually, everyone in our family who is not me is very thoughtful. I did give you that Giveaway link and that gives you access to my new favorite source for dresses. So I am thoughtful....in a way. Too bad my brother can't exactly use that link.

I've been so busy. So busy dying.

So after the three week long illness I couldn't stop talking about, you know, the one that stripped me of my will to live and left me with blood pouring from my eyes? I started to feel a little better by last week but then? My throat began to feel as if a smallish (though is there really such a thing as a "small" rock when we're talking about our throats?) rock was lodged in the back of it. I tried to ignore it and will myself to be healthy because this is starting to feel karmic. But finally Saturday morning I went to the doctor and SURPRISE! I have tonsillitis.

And the the Black Plague.

But don't worry I'm on another round of antibiotics*.

*Come back next week when you get to hear all about the raging yeast infection I've developed from a month on antibiotics. My body is a wonderland.**

**I won't really tell you about my yeast infection. I'd rather call each of you individually on the telephone to schedule a Festival Of Hugs Marathon than write about that not so fresh feeling.

Still I've managed to persevere and come up with five great Mother's Day crafts your kids could make you if your parenting partner gets wind of what you want.

I also managed to close out the Heirloom Gift Guide at Mighty Junior and the first person who tells me how expensive everything is gets a big sloppy wet kiss directly from my infection-laden mouth to yours.

Funny story. I was looking for a classic baby carriage for the guide because, though not practical, it is such a sweet item (and you can use it in your apartment as a cradle if you'd like). I found this one and thought, 'Gee, that's awfully expensive.' (Which is against the rules of shopping for cool things, btw.) Then went in search of a less expensive model and found this one. And gee, it's funny how suddenly the first option seems downright affordable by comparison.

Many other places for you to see.

Did it just get really White in here? Or is that you?

Logan sent me this this morning.

When you meet a person wearing New Balance shoes it is a good idea to ask them about the marathon for which they are inevitably training. If they say “I’m not training for a marathon,” this is a good opportunity to raise your status by saying “oh, I thought only runners wore those. My running club all wear New Balance except for a few jerks who won’t shut up about Asics. I’m still a bit sore from the 10k run this morning.”

This is an extremely effective move since white people who jog are generally viewed as being better than white people who don’t. Although perhaps it’s more accurately stated that white people who jog feel the need to constantly prove they are better than white people who don’t.

Now, to be fair it's not Logan who constantly runs around telling people he runs marathons. It's mostly me telling people, "I know he comes off as really smart and handsome and funny, but get this, HE RUNS 26.2 MILES IN A ROW. ON PURPOSE." Most of the people I know think it's as crazy as I do. And a lot of them are white, so you know, do with that what you want.

I shared some birthday inspiration today at the Buzz Off, including this cake my friend Jodi made. It's actually a pretty simple process. You should try it if you have a SpongeBob fan in your house.

Last week I mentioned we were starting an Heirloom Gift Guide at Mighty Junior but I lied. I just felt like lying about it for some reason. Actually I wanted to do it but I was dead last week and now I'm back to life and have started the guide. Items will be added every day so you should look and maybe question the decision to get that vasectomy. For a minute.

Still Sick.

I haven't written because I didn't want to admit a few things. The biggest thing I didn't want to admit is:

I get sick a lot.

This whole house is sick a lot.

Holy Shit I am sick. Last week it was mainly mild exhaustion, I thought I was just recovering from my weekend of convalescing at Alice's house. I didn't fill a prescription for antibiotic because I thought I was stronger than that. I thought I'd teach my immune system to SUCK IT UP already and get on with the process of living a life which is not in my bedroom.

This is what I thought. I also may have gloated to Logan that my cough was going away all on it's own and I didn't even need antibiotics like he did. "Poor Little Bunny".

My immune system appears to be a gigantic baby however and is currently cowering and whimpering in the corner while whatever this monstrous thing in my body is beats it about the head and neck.

So yes, that's all that's happening in my world. Mucous and a careful minute by minute cataloging of my current symptoms. I know you're interested, as interested as Logan is.

Swollen glands.
Pain in neck (likely caused by the enormous weight of my head).
Plugged up left ear.
Mild rattily cough.
Low grade fever.
Blood pouring from my eyes
Slow liquifying of my vital organs.

When I wasn't cataloging my symptoms I was writing about Earth Day over at The Buzz Off. I've also been putting up some items at Mighty Junior and tomorrow marks the beginning of the Heirloom Baby Gift Guide.  Also Max learned to ride his bike (without training wheels) and Maddie completed her first school science fair project titled, "Attention: Messy Windows"

Look out Messy Windows, Madison has got your number!

Less funny, less edgy, less witty*...but still, she types!

It's been awfully quiet here this week hasn't it? I apologize, I've been asleep.

While in New Jersey over the weekend it took every ounce of my will power to stay awake or once asleep to actually get out of bed. I knew it wasn't the company I was keeping making me so tired, I did start to wonder if the state of New Jersey was just exhausting me. The last time I was in New Jersey....things didn't go very well.

Maybe I was having a Post Traumatic reaction to the state. When I landed in Detroit around 6 Sunday night it seemed maybe it was true. Spring has finally arrived in Michigan, I missed my kids and husband and when we walked into our house (love the house), I wanted to stay awake for hours! Maybe even until 10 or 11 o'clock!

But then, at 7:30 I started watching the clock to see when I could go to bed. I made it to 8:30 and I haven't been awake for 10 consecutive hours since then.

Well, except for yesterday, when I chaperoned five 1st graders through the zoo. I think I may have enjoyed chaperoning five smallish crocodiles through the zoo more than I enjoyed taking 5 boys through the zoo.

Here's the thing about boys. They're insane. Actually I think they're only insane in groups of two or more. There may be exceptions to this, like say, boys who are insane when they're all by themselves. But for the most part "Group Of Boys" = "One long loud fart joke which never ends."

So besides sleeping and dragging a band of hooligans through the zoo, I haven't been doing much of anything this week. I'm hoping next week is better, or at least more awake.

I did manage to write a little about the tooth fairy at The Buzz Off, the tooth fairy who appears to not exist in this house anymore simply because I forgot one too many times. When will kids start taking check cards from the tooth fairy? I mean who the hell carries cash anymore?

I also closed out a little baby shower gift guide at Mighty Junior. Classic gifts meant for the classic baby...the kind that sleeps, eats and cries.

*Title refers to my website's place in a box within an article about Heather Armstrong in the Wall Street Journal. The heading might read, "Not as funny, but still...."

Iz Not Watching Him Masturbate.

Here's something fun. I made it as a surprise for Logan. I think it makes him feel a little safer while I'm away.

You can make your own here.

Unique Baby Shower Gifts

I closed out my next gift guide at Mighty Junior. It's the unique baby shower gift guide. And by unique I don't mean "Unique", I mean....you know.

"Spring is baby shower season. You could run by Baby’s R Us to grab a set of footie pajamas on your way to the party, but you want something memorable. College tuition? Maybe not that memorable. Check out our collection of gifts that will have the new mom asking, “Where’d you get that?”"

Over two hundred viruses cause the common cold. Stop fighting it.

The kids and I created a couple terrariums last week during spring break, I shared them at The Buzz Off this week and you might enjoy that. (It's less of a 'How-To' and more of a 'Go over here and here to find out how to and we just sort of flew by the seat of our pants and did this' Too long for the title field and definitely not SEO'd.)

Spring break is the break where I start to realize if I don't up my income substantially we're going to be staring at each other every single day for three months this summer. And I'm going to be saying, "I don't know why you have to be so mean to him all the time." And, "Just use your words. We don't hit in this family." Until the cats punch me in the face and tell me to call The Supernanny already.

Maybe it will be different this year since we live in Heaven now. But a few weeks of summer camp never hurt anyone. Or so I assume since I never went away to camp. If I was away from home for more than 12 hours I would become increasingly anxious about what was happening there. This is amusing to me now because mainly what was happening at home was my parents ignoring each other or conversely throwing Little Debbie Snack Cakes at each other's heads. So you can clearly see why I wouldn't want to be AWAY from all that. WHAT THE EVER LOVING HELL NINE-YEAR-OLD ME??? (Also? 20 bucks says Maddie never goes to camp either because of her own anxiety. Though not about Logan and I throwing snack cakes at each other. We throw hugs and kisses at each other!)

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I've had two things on my mind this week and it's a topic which hasn't come up since the days of MOMS Club. You know when I strangled myself with a jump rope and stabbed myself with a horse tranquilizer during a discussion of breast feeding at a playgroup?

I've found as my kids get older there are less hot buttons to trample on than there are when you're a mother of young kids surrounded by other mothers of young kids. Most of this is due to my highly developed sense of weeding people out.

We had drinks with another couple the other night and she is a librarian. We were talking about books and how there's no reason to finish a bad one, not when there are literally a million more to read. You'll never be able to read them all so cut your losses and move on.

I feel like that about people, if someone irritates you...which really has more to do with you than it has to do with them...move on. Because there are thousands of people out there who will be a better fit, you don't need to waste time on people who annoy you simply by being who they are.

Still there are two things that continue to drive me crazy in some parents I see around school and activities.

The first thing is people who try to pinpoint who gave their kid the flu/cold/strep whatever. This comes in the form of statements like, "Oh....so that's who gave it to us...." Or, "Didn't she realize he was sick? Why did she send him to school? Now my kid's got it!"

This is very similar to another issue I had as the mother of younger children desperately trying to fit in with my local MOMS Club. I wrote about it here.

There are a few things that bother me about this, the first one being the idea that it's so unusual for kids TO GET SICK. They get sick, you're stuck at home with them for a few days and maybe you eat mustard sandwiches because you can't get to the market. But really, this is called "life" and everyone gets sick. If you don't want illness to be a part of your life do yourself a huge favor and do not have kids.

The other thing that bothers me about this is the implication that some kid (or more specifically the kid's mother) purposely gave your kid a virus. That these irresponsible parents were so selfish they sent a sick child to school and now your kid is sick.

The truth is most illnesses are contagious before there are any detectable symptoms in your kid and if I were to keep my kids home from school every time they may have possibly come into contact with a virus or strep or whatever else is going around, my kids would never be in school. In fact they would have been home from November until now and probably wouldn't be able to make it back to school before summer break.

Instead of trying to pinpoint where your kid's illness came from let's use that energy to teach our kids to wash their hands.

The second thing is .... going to have to wait because I just really riled myself up. I think I pulled a muscle.

Mighty Finds: Portland

More of our Portland Finds are up at the Mighty Finds shop.

Last time we did a thrifting trip, I was surrounded by our wonderful finds all the time and even though it felt really good to show you all what we'd found, I spent a lot of the time thinking, "If this doesn't sell, I'd love to put it in the family room...."

This time all the stuff is at Maggie's place so when it shows up in the shop, I find myself nodding and smiling at the stuff I'd forgotten we found.

Also I remember how when we were in Portland it seemed like I was getting a sneak peek at spring. I thought Portland and San Francisco were just a month ahead of Detroit. I thought soon we'd be feeling the same way.

It's been over a month now and winter just keeps coming. I've lowered my standards from hoping there's no more snow. Now I'm just hoping there are no more snow days off of school.

I'm sure Kim Worthy is a racist.

Thank God.

April Fools Gift Guide

I'm closing out an April Fool's Gift Guide at Mighty Junior today. You should look. What was funniest about putting this list together is how dumb the pranks are, but when you look at them through the eyes of a kid. Holy Shit this stuff is HILARIOUS.

Here it is.

When you pull out the fake vomit, you’re kind of a jackass. When a five-year-old does it, it’s suddenly clever. Life is unfair. Here’s a collection of classic pranks that are suddenly new again in the hands of a kid.

The favorite in our house? Snakes in a Can. (And the grown man I mention who fell out of his chair? Dutch in a hilariously played out reaction. The best one yet.)

I simply can't express how happy I am it is finally Friday.

You can see the latest gift guide at Mighty Junior today. This week we've found a lot of great things for your baby's first Easter basket. Make sure to throw in a bunch of really good chocolate so you can "help" them eat it.

My personal favorite write up is here.

My grandmother used to make yo-yo dolls from her extra quilting fabric. This colorful bunny reminds me of those dolls. The best part is, you don’t have to learn to quilt, but you’ll still sound like a douche if you tell people it’s hand made by Bolivian artisans.

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The kids got McDonald's for lunch the other day. Can you explain this "toy"?

This is a toy from the television show Camp Lazlo.

The bottom part opens up to reveal a pencil. The toy reads, "Made In China"

(Aside, Max said the other day, "Chinese people are super good at making stuff." Me, "Why do you say that?" "Because they make almost EVERYTHING." Well Max, let me tell you a little something about cheap labor.)

The confusing part is the pencil itself. It reads, "Vietnam". You'll have to trust me because my lens had a bit of trouble focusing on the tiny letters.

I don't know what it means, but I'll tell you, I plan on putting the Vietnam pencil in my wallet so I can befuddle the entire state of Michigan.

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In other news, the sleep doctor called to let me know I am....lazy. Which we knew for the most part already.

The next step is being tested for Celiac's Disease next, though I truly don't think that's my issue. If it is and that's what's making me so tired all the time, then maybe it wouldn't be so bad. I mean, imagine the weight I'd lose when all my favorite foods are taken out of my life (well, except bacon).

I'll also get my thyroid checked and when that happens I'm sure the internet will tell me the exact name of the test I need to ask for because you are all good for that type of thing.

Then, if none of that turns up anything, I'll just start snorting cocaine. Whatever it takes.

Until then I'm just sleeping a lot.

Yesterday I had to take a table down to my friend's house. I've been trapped in the house with the kids for 5 days now and when I got to my friend's house to give her table back, I never wanted to leave. I wanted to wrap my body around her head and just talk about things. Things not involving body temperature, clogged noses or how incredibly hot the Jonas Brothers are.

But I didn't want to be a nuisance and besides if I'm not with the kids 24 hours a day, something might happen to their body temperature, or one of the Jonas Brothers might start dating someone and then what? I'd miss it! That's what.

Easter Basket Guide

I put together a lovely collection of things to put in your kid's Easter basket at Mighty Junior.

I think you'll like it. You should go look.

Up next, a baby basket guide. I won't mention candy, but you should put it in there so you can eat it all before they're able to protest.

New Goods @ Mighty Goods Shop

Remember 38 years ago when I traveled to California? And then Maggie and I debated eating each other on our long drive to Portland, Oregon where we were seduced by people who didn't look a lot like me but were among the nicest people I've ever seen?

While in Portland we found some fabulous things and I've been meaning to tell you they're up for sale, but I keep forgetting until another one sells.

You've already missed this and these, don't miss anything else.

Lucky 13

Plus a five and a one.

I want our living room to have orange accents. It's surprisingly difficult to find them.

I found these on Etsy at Aunt Mae's Apartment and got them in about 24 hours. I was stunned.

Things are better now.

I just signed up for the Photojojo Time Capsule email. Once a week they send a selection of your Flickr photos from one year ago.

Here's my first set.

February 2008 was remarkably traumatic I just remembered Max's Super Silver Toenail and the beginning of the wallpaper debacle....the wall paper and kitchen revamp that tried to kill me. I wish I'd known then what I know now.

That house is a fading memory.

I think you should sign up for your own. Hopefully your life is better now than it was last year.

Link via SwissMiss.

Fair Warning.

Guitar Hero Expert.

If Logan commits the time necessary to do this, it means there's a practically new Guitar Hero game on Craigslist going for free.

(Thanks for the link, Jill.)

We leave tomorrow, and I'm not sure I'm ready.

Chicago, you're like an old friend. You're like New York only I can understand how you work and your accent is a lot like mine.

I wish you charged less for parking, but you can't have everything.

We're having a wonderful time but I've taken a short break from the fun (kids swimming with Logan in the hotel pool) (putting a bathing suit on my body after this month of indulgence is about -10 on the enthusiasm scale) to start formulating plans for our next big party on Monday. You can read some of my ideas over at The Buzz Off.

I hope your Christmas was wonderful and your New Year is happy.

Too late!

Many months ago the kind people at Donors Choose contacted me and offered me a $100 gift certificate to contribute to any classroom project proposed by a teacher which tickled my fancy. I looked through all the choices and felt incredibly overwhelmed so I....did nothing. Which is what I generally do whenever something overwhelms me.

Currently overwhelming me: the returnable soda cans in my basement and the other ones in my garage. I'm ignoring them. What cans?

Max's teacher asked our class to donate to a charity instead of giving her a billion "#1 Teacher!" pieces of "art". I immediately thought of the Donors Choose site. I love that these are small specific needs we can help fill with our small (or not small) donations.

We chose a project in a neighboring city (Hazel Park, for the locals) which is a school district with a 72% poverty rate. This teacher was looking for a document camera that allows many eyes to see one piece of printed material. I'd planned to share our project with you, in case you wanted to chip in for Mrs. Mac's class gift (not her full name, shockingly!).

But guess what? The entire project is now fully funded so you can't donate, even if you were dying to. No, no, no! It's over, closed, done. They're getting their document camera which allows all eyes in the classroom to see the same piece of media (a textbook, a newspaper....).

You could donate to another project though. I love the idea of this site, it's like a gift registry for teachers and their classrooms.

In other news: My sofa is in my dining room and there are three folding tables in my living room waiting for the big party Saturday.

Having a sofa in your dining room feels a little like you're living in a lounge. A very hip lounge where there's a sofa instead of tall tables and bar stools. Every time I pass by the sofa in my dining room I feel like I'm not cool enough to be there. I can almost feel the hand of the bouncer ushering me right on through to the family room where the people wearing black t shirts and black pajama pants should be.

I made a second edition of the Anti Gift Guide at the Buzz Off yesterday. I hope you enjoy and have hard earned words of wisdom to share.

A favorite artist.

When I was pregnant with Maddie my sister gave us the full collection of Mr Lunch books. Little did we know we were contributing to our daughter's obsession with dogs. (Christmas List this year: Dog or iPod)

Still, we've been in love with J Otto's illustrations since.

This week I came across J. Otto's work for sale at Thumbtack Press.

We also pulled out our Olive snowglobe this week which got me thinking about where this artist has been and he's on Flickr and he's not just drawing dogs. Of course he is. 

Still, not on Twitter.

Also Maggie and I have a great collection of travel plates up at our Etsy store. You should look at them because they will tug at your heart and you'll want to put them on your bookshelves right next to a very simple ceramic vase.

Hopefully the 'Other Places' category will be smaller now.

After thinking a lot about what I want to be doing in the next five years, I decided I needed to pull in a little closer to Suburban Bliss. So with that said, please read here for a smallish announcement.

At the Buzz Off I made you something you can download and use at your next party.

And here I didn't really make you anything and I'm sorry for that.

The other day Logan asked me to write something which is not about how much I love living here.

And I'm trying, I really am.

Except we have a garage and our cars sleep in there and then? In the morning? You can just get inside the cars and you don't have to brush off the snow or scrape off the ice.

What can be more riveting than that?

Here's a secret: I am afraid if I don't spend every day reminding myself how much I love it here, it will be taken away from me because I'm not grateful enough. Just like, as a kid, I believed they canceled Joanie loves Chachi because I didn't watch it enough.

New Direction

Originally we thought, "Let's keep the excitement about the shop going! Let's roll out a product or two a day!"

Then we realized how unfair that was since I can't even get to my site to tell you a new item or two is up before they're gone. Since I last posted, we've sold this, this, this and this and I didn't even have a chance to tell you they were available.

So very soon we'll be shooting our load.....er...giving you all the stuff at once.

For the last few years, when we hated where we were living with the power of a thousand suns, we couldn't really pull it together to decorate the outside of our house for the holidays. When we move, we told the kids, when we move we'll decorate the outside of our house.

I pictured something subtle and enjoyable to look at with your eyes open. I pictured something like this.

The kids pictured something more like this, only more garish.

It will be interesting to see what we come up with.

More fabulous finds.

So, I was ready to write a post about my weekend and about how Logan worked from home today and got to see with his own eyeballs that 'Working From Home" is not code for "Laying On My Arse And Doing Next To Nothing".

I will admit that at the 4 o'clock hour when I typically make a carpool run, I sent Logan to pick up our kids plus an extra three and I settled in for a 20 minute nap. A delicious, delicious nap.

At that point, during the delicious nap Maggie listed the next items for the shop. So instead of that post I'm writing this one.

You will likely go to the shop and see that those items are now gone, but if you view the 'sold' tab in the shop you'll see what you missed and it will get you even more excited to see what's coming next.

Things are literally flying off the shelves a lot like that letter L which didn't fly off the shelf but flew out of my arms as I carried it in the house for packaging. It's so depressing I haven't even picked up the pieces yet.

I'm so excited people seem to like the shop. The Internet really does have great taste.

I like surrounding myself with really brilliant people.

When Maggie and I went shopping a week ago, we decided there were too many things which simply had to be bought. These were things we loved but I have an allergy to owning too much stuff (plus I bought a lot of my own stuff remember? So did Maggie.).

Still, we knew these were things you would love if you were there with us. So we bought some of it anyway and we're selling it to you at Mighty Goods Finds.

Since Maggie posted yesterday, we've sold about half our launch items. But today while wrapping up some of our sales in my basement I took a look at the other things we still have coming up sale and I assure you, you are in for a treat.

We'll be posting something new every day until we run out of goods.

"This is our way of taking you shopping with us, which would be impractical and unwieldy in real life. Now go find some good stuff for your place."

Exactly.

Stocking Stuffer Guide

We had a lovely Thanksgiving, I hope you did too.

This week I created a Stocking Stuffer Guide over at Mighty Junior. Everything is under $10 and perfect for your kid's stocking.

Today Max went for a hearing test and we found out that he isn't just ignoring us. Stick your fingers over your ears and try to have a conversation. That's how Max is hearing and has been hearing for quite a while. No wonder he's been so irritable lately.

Unrelated, this is a long weekend my little family was in dire need of and we're enjoying it.

This passes for tenderness.

On the train to New York on our last day on "vacation" (bitter), I wasn't in the mood for any bull shit from New York or New Jersey for that matter. Our hotel was in New Jersey in a mysterious place where not a single train goes. We had to spend $25 on a faux limousine "cab" to get to the Secaucus train station.

By the time we got to the Secaucus station on Monday morning you can imagine I wasn't in a very jovial mood. I was busy thinking about the rug we could have bought with the money we'd spent or the week long family vacation in Chicago we could have taken. I was ready for New Jersey to bring it.

When we got on the train into the city I knew it was just one stop to Penn Station so I didn't sit down, I decided to do as I'd seen many times that weekend and stand in between the trains in that little vestibule.

This was fine until the conductor came by and gave me an odd sideways glance. I said, in my earnest Midwest way, the way that annoys the hell out of New York, "Am I not allowed to be standing here?"

The conductor gave me another look, took my ticket and said sternly, "No. No you're not."

He didn't tell me to move and so I didn't move.

He came back by a minute later paused, gave me another stern look saying nothing and left.

Right before we pulled into the station he stood in the vestibule with me, looking out the window opposite me.

He said, still looking out the window, "I hate it when we go through this tunnel slowly. I hate seeing how badly they're crumbling. It's like eating shellfish, if you think too hard about it, you really don't want to eat it."

I chuckled, politely.

Surprisingly, this was the most tender interaction I had with anyone working in or around the city the entire weekend.

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Today I spent $115 taking Gary the cat to the vet because he was growling at us and walking funny. A few x rays, special food and one hundred fifteen dollars later and we know my cat....is constipated. I would have paid $215 to skip over what happened next.

Gary the cat peed in his carrier on the drive home. Which then spilled onto the seat of Logan's car. Which also covered my cat's fur in urine. Which then covered me in urine. Which then made me wish I was dead.

It's been a while since I had a week where I just wanted to stay in bed. I was due.

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I wrote elsewhere this week, about fall crafts here and about some meatballs here. I'm also finding great things for you every day at Mighty Junior like these Argentine Friendship Rings. 

There will likely be a lot of pictures.

I am once again doing the whole NaBloPoMo thing, however, don't expect a lot.

We leave tomorrow and we're flying on a plane together alone for the first time since Logan's grandmother died seven years ago. We're going to New York City for Logan's marathon, the one I am secretly hoping cures him of this illness of running so far. My belief in this dream is very low right now.

On the bright side: New York City! Seeing friends! With other friends! We haven't been away alone in 3 years and then, in the span of 4 weeks we go away twice. Life is odd.

I wrote this week at other places, like here, here and here.

I also ran around like a chicken with my head cut off and guess what I'm doing? Besides going to bed right now.

I am going to leave my laptop at home while we go on this trip. I haven't left home without my laptop since I got it five years ago.

I think it's time my laptop learns other people can care for it and love it. That it will be fine until I come back. Maybe my laptop and Madison can hug each other tight every night we're gone.

Prepare for many nonsense posts from the Blackberry while I'm away.

Time for a new banking institution

Dear Bank,

The other day, I was thinking of you Bank. Remember a few months ago when you cashed a check on my account only it wasn't our check and the numbers didn't match up or the names? Your teller had transposed a couple numbers and made an honest mistake? Remember how you made us wait 3 days to 'clear it all up' and in the mean time we were short $500?

I understand, mistakes happen. God knows I've goofed up our checking account a few times since we started our relationship. The thing I was thinking about though was how when I mess up, you make me pay you hundreds of dollars in fees and such. Isn't that funny?

My husband has a freelance client who really likes making his checks out to the name of his freelance business and not to him personally. It's true, we really should have a business account but I should also floss my teeth every day and not just the day before I visit the dentist.

Half the time, Bank, you don't even notice who the check is made out to. The other half of the time you refuse to deposit the money into our account. At least until I pull out of your branch and drive a quarter mile to another. Then they'll take the check without any questions.

The thing that bothers me about this issue is not just the lack of consistency in your actions but also the fact that I am only depositing the money. I am not taking cash back and you are holding the funds until the check clears. Which it will, just like it always does.

Yesterday I came by to deposit a check for a whopping $40. I was not getting any cash, I just wanted to put that whole $40 into my bank account, so I could buy a newspaper or something.

My signature is sort of messy. I used to write my whole name out but then I started signing my name like all the adults in my life. A big M with a scribble and a big S with a scribble, sometimes I just write M S-scribble because....Bank? Does it strike you as a little odd I have to explain all this to you?

Yesterday I tried to deposit forty whole dollars into my account and while waiting for my deposit slip you called over the intercom that I would need to sign my whole name on the back of my check because that is the legal name I gave you for my account. Also? Could I add that W initial I have on the account?

Bank? It's A FORTY DOLLAR CHECK. Just put it in my account for christ sakes.

I was stunned when you really did send my check back for a new signature. But guess what Bank? I signed it almost exactly the same but I squiggled my pen after the M just for you. I did not put the W though because Bank, I think you're just being a bitch now.

All this inconsistency and weird added road blocks aren't the thing that's making me want to grab my money and run from you Bank.

What I'm trying to say Bank is that if anyone wants to put money into my bank account? I'm cool with you letting them. Just place a hold on the check and if for some reason it doesn't clear, hey! we'll just pretend it never happened. Okay?

Sincerely, your 19 year customer,
M S-scribble

========================================================

New posts: I'm starting a book club for kids and reintroducing Did They Eat It? at a new venue. Did they? There's only one way to find out.....

Also I've been working on a secret new project and it's going to launch very soon and I can hardly wait for you to see it. More next week....

Hot Gnome On Gnome Action.

The computer is back, it was the thingie where the thingie gets plugged into the whole thing. They had to replace it and then they gave me $130! Well, they gave me $130 when they realized my battery was not actually faulty and didn't require a replacement.

I've been keeping busy working on Logan's computer this week. I posted more at Ordering Disorder on my Deceptively Delicious experiment and I seriously thought I'd love this book and I hated the early chatter about Jessica Seinfeld getting a book just because her husband is Jerry Seinfeld. But I don't know her recipes seem to suck huge amounts of ass, I'm going to end up using my leftover recipe purees in my regular recipes when appropriate and see how that goes. You should read about it there.

I also wrote a little about taking better Halloween photos at the Buzz Off. It's too bad I couldn't find any tips about photographing your kid's crappy $25 polyester costumes so they look reasonably creative or interesting. I did the best I could anyway.

My sister in law sent along some pictures from the big event last weekend, I put them in an album because I didn't take any photos from the night because I was too busy trying to hold onto my gallon jug sized solo cup of beer.

Sometimes, when I look at pictures of my siblings and I, I think I was adopted.

My sister in law came up with a great ice breaker for the party. On your name tag you were to write who you are to the guest of honor. Some were funnier.....than mine which sucked. Again, I couldn't think because I was trying to dock my jet ski in my beer. Here is George's tag, please note my brother is the union president.

This is proof my sister in law really loves my brother even though he wears garish pants to parties and attempts to lick her in public and then drinks his face off at his birthday. She bought him authentic German fornicating gnomes.

It plays You Are My Sunshine.

I only hope we all find that kind of love someday.

Freedom

Logan's computer is stunningly fast. This could have something to do with the fact that my computer is a few years old and currently has about 300 megabytes of space left on it, down from some reasonable amount of gigabytes when I first got it. My computer probably has a little indigestion and can't really get Photoshop started in a reasonable amount of time because he's bloated, all right? Leave him alone and maybe pull some of these pictures off your hard drive once in a while.

My computer has begun doing this really fun thing where, while I'm typing it just *BOOM* shuts off! On the bright side I've become quite adept at saving often, on the dark side I continue to lose data at least once a day.

Most of the time, if I ask nicely, the machine will turn back on immediately after this fun game of "Shut Down!" But with increasing frequency the stupid thing will turn off for hours on end and then, for no apparent reason, it will power back on.

This has been happening for a while now and you may be asking yourself, "Gee, why wouldn't you just take it in to get it fixed? And for God's sake lady, back up your photos!"

The only possible answer is I like this churning feeling in my gut as I ponder all the data I've lost.

My computer was kind enough to allow me to complete both my pieces at The Buzz Off and Ordering Disorder. At The Buzz Off I'm sharing a new (to me) Halloween tradition one can do in a neighborhood where you don't mostly wish a pox upon your neighbors with the boat as big as their house.

At Ordering Disorder I'm cooking from the new Jessica Seinfeld cookbook, Deceptively Delicious with mixed results.

Logan and I have not gone away, without kids, in three years. The last time we left them for the weekend was when Logan ran the Chicago marathon. This was big fun since he had to eat a lot of pasta, couldn't drink at all, had to attend a running expo, went to bed at 9pm both nights and then ran for an ungodly amount of time. Don't worry the night after the run we went out to dinner, or rather we hobbled out for dinner. When Logan saw our table was on the second floor of the restaurant, he threw his body down in the lobby and cried for his mommy. Big big fun!

Tonight after work Logan is running 20 miles as part of his current marathon training. He's doing this because he doesn't want to squeeze it in over the weekend. Because this weekend we will have exactly zero children with us because we're going to celebrate my brother's 40th birthday in Indianapolis.

There are a few things you don't do when you have a rare weekend away without the kids. You don't bite your tongue as you deal with your daughter's rampant anxiety. You don't cut up anyone else's food. You don't wake up at 7 am and you sure as hell don't run 20 miles.

I don't think I've ever been this excited to go to Indy.

Today is a half day of school.

Half days are against my religion. Whole days off are against all the laws of nature.

And yet, the school doesn't care about this, they still expect me to participate in this horrible activity which is against all my beliefs.

Thankfully it's a beautiful day, my work is done, the zoo is open and there's a trampoline in my backyard.

I'm complaining about getting the house clean with as little personal effort as possible at Ordering Disorder.

I'm being a Buzz Kill at The Buzz Off. My friend's mammogram came back clear but there's still another hurdle to rule out. This is an important post to read. Actually my post isn't all that important but it leads you to important things. The bottom line is: Your boobs should not perform wacky circus tricks, if they look weird GET TO THE DOCTOR.

Busily buzzing else where.

It's Breast Cancer Awareness month so I decided to write about it over at The Buzz Off.

I'm also coming to terms with the fact that my whole family will never be happy with something I make for them to eat at the same time at Ordering Disorder.

Can't Help It....Must Chime In....

Maddie would like to speak to someone about The Secret, maybe Oprah Winfrey.

"Dear Mrs Winfrey,

Every day since fourth grade started I have prayed to be sick. I have thought about what kind of illness I would like to have (a low fever with a stuffy nose perhaps) and have envisioned my day wrapped in blankets on the sofa, but most importantly, not at school.

Yet I continue to be a perfectly healthy child. The neighbors are sick and get fevers and still, I do not. Now my brother, who never wished to be sick at all, has a fever and gets to stay home from school.

He is only in first grade! First grade is EASY.

Please advise.

Maddie."

Max is home sick today with a fever and a throat which is sore "when I swallow my spit." This sounds like strep and God help me Oprah, I better not get it. I'm not even giving that thought any attention.

There's a little shit storm going on over at Sweet Juniper and I have to tell you when Dutch emailed me about this, I thought 'Wow that was stupid.' I was annoyed and surprised and it sealed my decision to officially cut ties with Strollerderby because I'd been thinking I needed to give more time to other projects but also because it felt weird having my name tied with something I found so....unpleasant.

However, I still wasn't particularly outraged.

But since then more people have come forward saying Babble did the same thing to them. More (copyrighted) pictures from Flickr users have been identified on the site and the Nerve CEO has lashed out in a defensive and unbecoming manner.

At Strollerderby there's a post about how they said they were sorry so why can't we just move on? They are not just a faceless corporation there are people behind the scenes here and they are sorry! (For the 3,4....5th time....because they've been sorry all along....I mean every time they've stolen other people's photos they've been really sorry!)

There are two messages coming out of this story currently. One is, "We're not just a big faceless corporation! We're bloggers too! We're part of this community!" The other is, "You're taking this out on us because we're a big corporation!"

Let's say tomorrow I create a new masthead with an image of someone else's child from another blogger's (copyrighted) Flickr stream. I think people would be a little annoyed with me and might wonder why I'd do that.

So I'd apologize, take it down and move forward. Until a few months later I do the same thing, someone catches it, I apologize again and take it down. Then a few months later I do it again.

I have a feeling the outrage would be pretty similar in this community and rightfully so.

I don't think any blogger would be surprised at this reaction. I suspect the reason Nerve Media is so defensive and surprised by the reaction here is the exact reason people are a little turned off by corporate blogs especially in the parenting realm.

Speaking of writing for commercial sites where we do not steal images from others and apologize for it 35 times before being taken to the mat for it, new posts!

What not to wear this Halloween @ The Buzz Off

and

My very boring but very exciting new workspace is taking shape @ Ordering Disorder.

It's practically a jacuzzi.

So far the best thing about having 2.5 bathrooms isn't the fact that we don't have to pee in front of each other. It's also not the fact that we'll never have to spit into the same sink at the same time, maybe (once.....or twice) getting spit on the other person.

No, the best thing about these bathrooms are the four sinks Gary sleeps in each night. He's pretty pleased with the current living situation.

I have lots and lots of great costume inspiration for you at The Buzz Off and also at Ordering Disorder, I made muffins out of what appeared to be dog food. But they taste pretty good. I mean good enough to eat three of them in a row, if you lack self control.

I think I love my landlord.

Right after we moved in to the new house, we realized the washer was leaking water all over the basement. At first this was upsetting because I don't really want to pay for it to be fixed, or worse buy a new washer. But then I remembered the thing about how we don't own this house so we called our landlord and he called back and said, "A new washer is coming today."

And I decided right then I never want to own a house again, except for the tax issues involved. But otherwise, never again.

Then last night, I suddenly realized I was drowning in a pool of sweat. My mother is afraid of using the air conditioning in her house (and her car). In fact she often tells me all about her thermostat settings with great pride. "I set it at around, you know 88 degrees, just to cut the humidity."

When I didn't have central air in my living space I honestly had to chew on my arm to keep myself from slapping my mother. I had to change the subject before suggesting she just get it over with and go live on the surface of the sun or better yet, maybe she should trust the air conditioning and the fact that God invented it so she could be comfortable in her own home and car.

So last night when I discovered myself sitting in a pool of sweat I wondered why because I actually enjoy being comfortable in my own home and often set the thermostat at 70 degrees, or if I'm feeling especially hedonistic 68 degrees.

After setting the thermostat at 32 degrees and noting the temperature in the house was still 88 degrees, I figured out something was wrong with the air conditioning.

Instead of sobbing about money and trying to fit in all our expenses into our income and OH GOD WHY DID WE BUY A HOUSE!!!??? I called our landlord and he's sending someone over to take a look. Of course, this all hinges on a contractor making time for this job in his busy schedule and it's 88 degrees with a lot of humidity and unlike my mother I don't consider this very comfortable.

Madison is doing a little better at school, her teacher is giving her plenty of opportunities to meet people and there were far less tears at the end of the day. I don't think the girls in her class are particularly unkind, Maddie complained no one liked her last year even when each morning I'd watch a group of three girls run up to greet her excitedly at the door.

We'll get through this and I'm just going to have to hope I'm helping her as much as I can (without becoming a helicopter parent) so she can hate me for other reasons as an adult.

As God as my witness she won't hate me because I can't properly utilize air conditioning! I promise you that.

New post about Growth Charts at The Buzz Off and I'm organizing things over at Ordering Disorder as well.

Later Logan popped the balloon by grabbing it too hard.

I mentioned while in Indianapolis we were going to head over to the Sausage Fest going on at a church in my brother's neighborhood.

My brother's friend is a member of the church and also on the Sausage Fest committee. He's committed to sausage you understand. The committee set out a slew of signs advertising the upcoming festival in the neighborhood surrounding the church. A few weeks later a meeting was called where committee members were absolutely shocked that all their Sausage Fest signs were just disappearing from the neighborhood.

The neighborhood which is adjacent to Butler University.

Another committee member said to George, my brother's friend, "Do you want to tell them what a Sausage Fest is?"

He declined.

That year the committee was equally as stunned when the t shirts from the event, featuring a dancing sausage holding an icy beer, sold out within hours of the event opening. Gee, they thought, these t shirts certainly are possible with the incoming class at the university. I guess they really want to be a part of the community!

Logan went to buy his t shirt on the opening night of the event, just in case they sold out early. Then we went to the event and it was just a nice little church fair with games and a moon walk and balloon art.

Max waited patiently in line and decided he'd like a sword.

The balloon table was inside the actual church building and next to a small flowing fountain of what seemed like holy water and as I stood there my eyes got big and I prayed God would forgive me for the impure thoughts I had as I watched an 11 year old twist a balloon into a giant sword.

With testicles.

Something tells me the Sausage Fest Committee is playing dumb on purpose.

New posts at The Buzz Off and Work It Mom. One of these posts was completed while I babysat my friend's three year old daughter. Three year olds ask a lot of questions and I had flashbacks to summers past when my ears used to bleed all day long.

I asked nicely, I didn't want to be a bitch. But then I remember who I'm dealing with.

Gee, I love the free love atmosphere of the internet. Where, someone can just take your (copyrighted and trademarked) digital art and use it in their own article without a single mention of it's original context or owner.

Here is how the article ended in the original unedited piece.

I contacted the author as such:

"Hey I saw your piece at Suicide Girls (http://suicidegirls.com/news/culture/22146/) and would like to ask you to at the very least attribute my copyrighted and trademarked artwork to me, Melissa Summers @ Suburbanbliss.net.

Thanks so much.

Melissa"

I came home a couple hours later to find it attributed as follows.

Binky in a glass courtesy of Melissa Summers@Suburbanbliss.net

Here is the follow up attribution.

Because yes, I've copyrighted all binkies in a glass. You stick a binky into a coffee mug and expect to hear from my lawyers. Stick it in a high ball and that's war. The issue isn't exactly the binky in the glass it's that it's MY EXACT LOGO just stuck on top of an article totally unrelated to my website.

I love spending money on a US trademark for no good reason. Just steal my original logo and stick it on whatever you want! Why not! This is the free love internet. Here, I'll send my friend over to draw you your very own! Have at it Internet.

After sitting (fuming) on this for a few hours, something about the lack of understanding that the author had actually stolen my logo and used it on her article with no relation to my site didn't sit well with me so I emailed the editor of the piece directly.

I caught wind of my copyrighted and trademarked logo being used on an article at Suicide Girls. (http://suicidegirls.com/news/culture/22146/)

The attribution which was added at my request doesn't seem to entirely grasp the issue of actually stealing someone else's digital art and reusing it without attribution.

I'm pretty free with my trademark but after sitting on the issue for a few hours I have to ask that the artwork is entirely removed from your site.

I'm sure your staff can draw your own 'binky in a glass' or find a stock image to replace it.

Stealing isn't kind.

Melissa Summers

As of this morning at 10:55 the artwork remains. I'd like it removed.

Edit: It's been removed as of 3:30pm.

But it's my special day.

My internet is finally working. It's working because of about 50 different pieces of advice, so not unlike the house sale I can't really say which thing finally did it. Yesterday we had an advanced modem installed so that we could have a home phone line I still won't use. Somehow the change in modem and perhaps a replacement ethernet cord, allowed me to connect to our internet directly.

Logan attempted to get advice from a tech guy at work but this middle man approach was a terrible idea since when Logan asks for directions he typically hears this.

"Blah Blah Blah left somewhere and then blah blah blah. Oh look something shiny!"

He likes the overall message of things and not the specifics. Mr Armstrong was of great help and once I reset the Airport for the second time, suddenly it worked and this is why I hate computers. I did all this before, thanks to several helpful emails, and it didn't work. A week later I do the same thing and it works.

It's like algebra. Sometimes I do everything I'm supposed to and it works and other times I work the problem and it just doesn't. It's a crap shoot because I mostly have no clue what I'm doing.

Our weekend in Indianapolis was lovely as always. We went to the state fair where Logan and I were nearly killed on a fair ride. We saw the World's Largest Pig and they are not kidding and Logan and his partner took their kids to see the World's Biggest Boot.

On Saturday our next door neighbor noticed our garage door was open (we have openers! I programmed them!) and called another neighbor, who called another neighbor, who then called me. It all turned out to be some sort of signal glitch, but thankfully the neighborhood Garage Door Phone Tree is locked and loaded.

I couldn't help but laugh though. One day, in the old neighborhood, we were gone for around 10 hours and came home to find our back door (which inexplicably swung out, not in) wide open. Our cats were running in and out of the house likely thinking, "What the hell? Who left the door open?" No one knows for sure how long the door was open of course but when we pulled up our neighbors were sitting on their front porch in sight of our open back door and dark house.

No phone tree. I mean maybe we wanted our door wide open as if to let everyone know we wanted to be robbed blind.

I also got another phone call on Saturday from my sister who has a very painful ovarian cyst. This cyst is not part of the bridal party so if you'd like to wish it gone, feel free. The thing about my sister is that when this wedding planning started she said things like, "I'm not registering. I mean, what do I need plates for?"

And, "Whatever, I don't even think I want a wedding."

Somehow the Bridal Mafia has gotten to my poor sister because on the phone Saturday she started to cry when I asked her about the planning. "Well the flowers are screwed up. They were too expensive and now I'm going to have a stem of something and.....rocks.....and a stick.....or something." (She said, with disdain and disappointment barreling down the phone line.)

I reminded her she wanted a minimalist look and that stick is a twig and those rocks are very zen and guess what? I had three terra cotta pots planted with impatiens on my tables and it was still the happiest day of my life because I married the best guy for me.

I teased her a little more about the whole thing and she laughed and then squealed, "BUT IT'S MY SPECIAL DAAAAAAAAA-UUUUUUUHHHHH"

Back off Bridal Mafia. Well Bridal Mafia or searing pain from a large ovarian cyst. Intense pain can often take things out of perspective.

In other news Maddie is wondering why I have to ruin all her food with 'stuff' over at Ordering Disorder and we're getting ready to tackle the barrage of art coming into your homes with school starting at The Buzz Off.

Until you die!

We threw a wedding shower for my sister this weekend. That's right, seven days after moving in, we hosted a party. My sister's celiac's disease and the insanely busy nature of the last few weeks was a wonderful excuse to keep our celebration simple and involved about a billion dollars worth of sushi from our local Japanese market.

My sister lives in Detroit and so do most of her friends. Our new neighborhood is seriously lacking in any urban grit, in the old neighborhood we had no back yard only a side yard and we also had a few random homeless people or old school shirtless skateboarders with tube socks carrying home a case of light beer.

We're quite fond of the new neighborhood and the lack of grit of course but still when surrounded by urban hipsters I feel a little silly for all the times I've cuddled with the under mount sink in my kitchen.

Oh well, hanging out with the hipsters gave me my first real hangover in around 6 months. That's impressive.

Maddie and Max bought a little gift for Teri and Mike and gave them a very thoughtful card as well.

"You get to be together until you die! Hooray! Love Maddie and Max."

Hooray!

Today the kids and I created simple origami figures in an attempt to burn daylight. Super project! ++++++ Will do again! Also, remember when I told you about the new features at AlphaMom, the name database and the product review/rating features? You can enter to win $1000 just for contributing your hard earned opinion on various products. You should also check out LeahPeah's Keyboard Confidential series. Lots of great conversations from last year's Blogher.

Additionally I started documenting my kitchen organization progress at Ordering Disorder.

There are just over two weeks before schools starts. It's amazing what a shit ton of stress + trampolines + 4-6 kids on your block will do to make your summer fly by.

This also means there are less than two weeks until my sister's wedding. Eee! Her wedding is in the very northern Michigan city of Marquette, which means we'll be leaving in a day or two so we make it in time.

Rainbows, Unicorns and a Vague Feeling I Don't Deserve This Much.

It seems I may have been a bit misunderstood on my last post. I'm happy. I've got those crazy unicorns and koala bears wearing 'I [heart] You' t shirts shooting out of my ass I'm so happy. Every time I walk into this house, angels sing and rainbows punch me in the face. This morning I served the kids breakfast at the bar in the kitchen and it was just about the best thing about my year so far.

Maybe I needed to spell it out more specifically.

Still there's a part of me who laid awake the first night we slept here and had an anxiety attack because this is far more space than we need. This is far more good than we needed. We pretty much just needed out of our old neighborhood and still we got all this space and all these neighbors and all these kids for our kids to play with and Color Me Communist but my God I feel mildly anxious about having all this. About half this much would be more than enough actually.

Don't worry though, it's nothing a little pizza night with friends won't cure.

I am in the throes of unpacking and trying to get some semblance of order in this house. So far the kids rooms are the best, which is typical. Everything else is a mess. We lost our built in bookshelves in the move and our other bookcase doesn't fit in the family room, so at The Buzz Off I'm looking at storage solutions for books.

At Ordering Disorder I'm switching gears from food and menu planning tips to organizing your kitchen cabinets because I need help and when you gaze upon the mess I've made of our cabinets in just 3 days you'll understand why and hopefully have some advice or resources or something.

A growing directory of things to worry about.

Maddie, watching a commercial for an anxiety medication.

TV: "Are you sitting on your couch afraid to leave because you might die on the way to your mailbox." (Paraphrased.)

Maddie: "That's so dumb. It's not like you just all the sudden drop dead or something. Especially not on the way to get your mail. That is so so dumb. What a dumb lady. Why would you worry about something so dumb. I mean that can't happen."

Me, in the next room working, taking this as rhetorical commentary.

Pause.

Maddie: "Mom, you can't just die while walking to the mailbox right?"

*****
We've burned daylight by using our thumbs at The Buzz Off and I've been getting the kids to help in the kitchen a little more over at Ordering Disorder.

****
There are now just 7 days until Move In. I just realized unless Logan takes a