The Good Wife

I just had to tell you -- I had a "I'm a good wife" moment yesterday. You know how the men are supposed to bring home the ends, and we're supposed to make them meet? Y'know, by checking the rates on car insurance, getting good deals on groceries, fixing stuff ourselves? I arranged for The Husband and me to meet with the house refinancing guy at the credit union yesterday, and we spent a half-hour figuring out how to refinance. Basically, you need about $600 in cold, hard cash, and the rest can be folded into the new mortgage. We had the idea last week when the rate was 5%, but now it's 5.5% -- not a whole lot lower than what we have. Still, I felt like The Good Housewife for all of an hour. I'll take it where I can.

Freaky coincidences - or - Twins Separated at Birth?

Okay, I know -- two posts in one day after months of no posts, but I just had to put this out out there. As pointed out to me by SuburbanCorrespondent, there was a freaky coincidence in the world yesterday, and I think we've discovered two more men Separated At Birth.

For your perusal, I present Mr. Potter and Mr. Cheney:

Truly scary...

A new day...

I knocked off school around 11:00 yesterday for the inauguration of Barak Obama, and now it feels like a New Day of personal responsibility, civic responsibility, global responsibility. I've decided to take this to heart and declare a new household age of responsibility -- for my kids.

It is now The Boy's responsibility to get his butt to school in the diningroom, do his work, and get it done. He made his own lunch (mostly) and then *gasp* cleaned up after himself! Same with The Girl. Honestly, I couldn't take much more of the laziness and the "I'm ordering lunch at Hardee's" attitude anymore anyway. So, in effect, it's Independence Day as well. Whee!!

Now, if someone could explain how an intelligent and bold woman like Michelle Obama chose both the gorgeous, glowing inauguration dress and the cheesecloth-and-tissue-wad ballgown on the same day, please let me know. I guess I was hoping for something more glossy for the inauguration balls.

Still, I'm pumped and ready for a new day!

Tween girls...

The Girl is showing all the signs of becoming a tween, just as she is turning 9. She needs deodorant. She's starting to get little zits. And she's become a screaming banshee. No kidding, she hasn't stopped screaming for two days. My nerves are shot. I can't decide if it's autisism-related or hormone-related. Either way, at this rate, all my hair is going to fall out by the end of the week.

Any ideas out there? I tried snuggling up in her loft with her this afternoon, to see if I could find out why she's so angry, but she threw me out. It wasn't pretty, nor was it easy on my ego. Hopefully, she's coming down with the flu or something. Otherwise, I'm going to have to call in sick for the next 10 years.

So, who's ready for The Big Day? Not me.

Well, we have most of the presents bought, and I did (mostly) make the scented heating pads. I went with orange oil, cloves, white rice, unbleached muslin, and flannel. Now that I don't consider white rice to be Real Food, it wasn't a real sacrifice. I have a present for my mom and dad. I really should get that package off to the in-laws and my neice. Maybe tomorrow... ;)

I'm also ahead on spending every last dime we have or are ever going to get. I changed credit cards in November, so the bill is due two weeks early. Eech. What a disaster. To top it all off, I put some of the presents on PayPal, which emptied out the checking account.

Fortunately, it's The Husband's fault. I can blame the overspending on him. He played the "they won't be young for much longer" card, and since he's the Frugal One, I let him. We'll sort this all out soon. I hope.

The Husband and I are going to take inventory tonight, and see where we are. Mostly, we just have Christmas and birthday presents for the kids. Yay. I'd feel even more self-absorbed if I haven't been buying for strangers as well. Now, I'm starting to think that even though we live comfortably, we really can't afford to help out the poor. It bums me out. I just feel that if we don't, no one else will. Oh well. If I keep this up, I'm going to have to do after-school babysitting to make a few extra bucks. Fortunately, I would rather live on beans and rice than take on any more kids.

The rest of our (totally unnecessary) Christmas preparations don't really require any money. I have cookies in the freezer. I already have pecans for the pie and spiced nuts. The chocolate is bought and unopened. Presents are all tucked away in The Husband's car trunk. (Shhhh!) I have to make a gift basket for my mom's soaps and teas. I also have to powerwash her and my dad's patios for the rest of their presents.

So, I have to get the out-of-town stuff to the post office TOMORROW. Yikes! Better get my butt off the internet, and get BUSY!!!

Scrounging for content...

Seems I can't get my own blogging done, so in the interest of posterity, I'm stealing this one from my comments on other people's blogs... I'm pretty sure that isn't plagarism...


As I see it, you have two routes to Christmas sanity:

1. Organize incredibly early. This includes making up the mailing list/labels October 15, getting out the menorah December 1 -- that sort of thing. Put 'em on the calendar and do 'em. This is surgical, antiseptic, and deadly effective.

2. Put as much off until after Christmas as possible. We go the beach on Christmas Eve and use the pictures for our "New Year's Cards". We have a sort of brunch on Christmas day -- fruit salad, ham, biscuits, pie, whatever's still in the house. Dammit, Christmas STARTS on the 25th and goes for TWELVE days!



Hints for those overloaded by Magical Christmas Expectations, trying to get it all done:

Isn't this the reason we had kids? One can make latkes, another can make cookies, the middle ones would LOVE to decorate the tree for you. ;) Add a couple of poinsettias, and you're done.

I have sort of the opposite of your problem right now. Every two days or so, The Boy remembers something he wants done. "Mom, where is the mistletoe?" "Mom, when can we put up the outside lights?" "Yayyyy!! Only three days until we put up the tree!!" (I always hold firm: NO tree until after The Husband's birthday!)

On the other hand, The Boy and I have no idea what Aunt Julie wants for Christmas... I think I've decided on: http://www.make-stuff.com/formulas/heating_pad.html

Oh, and if you put a few Christmas sprinkles in Rice Crispie treats, everyone just goes wild. Or throw a some mini M&M's on top of a pan of (box mix) brownies. Voila!

Throw out the Women's Day magazine, and get a grip. :)

The Minoans in 8 minutes or less...

Is it just me, or is there an inverse relationship between the time used to set up a lesson and the time that it holds a child's attention? (It's sort of like cooking chinese food -- 2 hours of chopping, 30 minutes of cooking, 5 minutes of eating.)

We covered the Minoans' invention of fresco mural painting in ancient Crete in our giant book of ancient history. I set up some plaster, and we painted it half-dry with water color paints to look like the Minoans -- lots of fish and dolphins, etc. The paint soaked into the damp plaster, and it was pretty cool.

It also took all of 8 minutes start to finish. "You're done already?!" "Yes. Can I go now?" Aaaagh!