Birthday fantasies change as you get older!

Good morning!

My birthday is approaching in a couple weeks and lately I've been thinking about how my birthday wish list has changed from when I was a kid.

From the time I could speak until the time I was old enough to drive I wanted two things:  A pony and Randy Mantooth to fall in love with me.  Every year that was my wish list.  Now my parents were hardly the type to get me a pony, and in the days before the Internet, all this Wisconsin girl knew was the Randy "Johnny Gage" Mantooth lived somewhere in

My birthday and Christmas wish, every year.

California.  So every few months I would "borrow" a stamp and send a letter to "Randy Mantooth, California" and use varying zip codes.  Funny, I never got them back.  Knowing my skill at handwriting, and paying attention to things like return addresses, I probably did something creepy like put "Your Biggest Fan" in the return address. 

In my teens, I gave up the idea of a pony. 

I still wanted Randy Mantooth, or Bruce Willis, or Barry Manilow, or Rick Springfield to show up on my doorstep and take me away from my hopelessly mundane life.  Who wouldn't?  I rarely opened a door without picturing my celebrity crush of the day standing on the other side, pining for me and ready to make me the princess I knew I was.

But birthday dreams definitely change as you get older.  Yeah, in my teen years, I wanted a stereo, (with a turntable and two tape decks so I could tape stuff from the radio, from my record player AND from cassette tapes.)  I wanted a car.  I wanted a word processing typewriter.  (I actually bought that one myself.)

In my early married years I wanted a car that was paid off, maybe a new bedspread, books, CD's, portable electronics (you know, so I could take my tunes with me when I went on a hike, or a run. HAH!)

As the kids got older I started asking for things that would just make my life easier.  Coupons from them for hugs, room cleaning, laundry.  I still put books on my list, CD's, movies,  and maybe a dinner at a favorite restaurant. I still enjoyed thinking about that dream guy standing just on the other side of the door, and I can assure you, hubby did NOT feel at all threatened by that.  Nope, not at all.

Well, my kids are all but grown and I'm in my middle years and I realize I have pretty much all the STUFF I want to deal with.  I'm far more selective about the books and movies and music I request and, I'm finding, I'm getting far more practical.

At this point in my life, I'm pretty sure if Rick Springfield or Randy

Mantooth or any of my dream dates showed up, I'd still be thrilled.  I'd be thrilled because maybe THEY could clean my kitchen and my bathroom and do my laundry and do SOMETHING about my living room while I spent some quality time on my computer writing my next novel.

I mean at this point my big fantasy is that I get a new couch, one that doesn't hurt my hips when I sleep all night on it.  I'd like a new dehumidifier for the basement, one that doesn't freeze up after four minutes of operation.  I have an idea for the living room, I'd like to get one of those storage ottomans, so I have a place to hide all the ratty blankets we use because, thanks to the rising cost of EVERYTHING we can't afford to heat our house much above "brrrrrr."

But my mom sent me an email the other day telling me that in two weeks she's coming to give me my birthday present.  She's going to clean and organize my kitchen.

Ten years ago I would have been insulted. But now, wow, that's an AWESOME gift.  Maybe if I'm pitiful enough the day she shows up, she can start work in my basement, where all four of us seem to be hiding our hoarder tendancies.

But hey, that's a Christmas fantasy. 

My daughter is dating...and my house has never been cleaner!

Good evening!

So Peaches has her first boyfriend.  He's a very, very nice young man and we will call him Topeka because he's named after a city, but I am not going to tell you which one for real.

When Skippy started dating and hanging out with his girlfriend May, I wasn't all that worried about a lot of things.  I had no issues strolling into his room when they were watching a movie or something and announcing that there would be NONE OF THAT! I get along with May very well and have no issue saying and being exactly what I mean to say and be.

They are really this sort of couple...

But Topeka is a different person.  First off, he's a boy.  And Peaches has, in her teen years, become that mysterious thing all teen girls become when they stop talking to their parents and when everything is "FINE!"  (Throw in an eye roll and you can see her expression.  Throw in Barry Manilow music turned up WAY SUPER LOUD and you have me at fifteen.)  I mean, there are times she says she's staying at her friend's house and I ask her if she's actually going to her friend's house because her wishes her life, she has told us many times, was a John Hughes movie. 

But since I'm a mom, I'm convinced this is
what I'm coming home to...

So while Topeka is very polite and very nice, it is a struggle for me to not run into Peaches' room and yell, "HAND CHECK!"

Other than introducing Peaches to the wide world of Quentin Tarrantino movies  (something I wasn't quite ready for but something that was going to happen sooner rather than later anyway)  Topeka has been quite the nice boyfriend.  He's a little older, but he's very thoughtful, and he even sat through one of Peaches' really awful horror movies  (She is a delicate flower who enjoys films where monsters attack people at random.)  Still, I worry when they are standing in front of the house, or sitting in his car in front of the house, or whatever, because I know, I just know they are going to do something that is going to just be uncomfortable for me to know about.

So, to put my mind at ease and to combat what I know is teen hormones run amok in my own home...I make very sure I'm home when they are in the house and I'm doing something that is either noisy or embarrassing or both.  No way is there going to be any nookie in this building!

It started easily enough.  They were home, listening to some music.  Her door was open.  And I had, had, had to do the dishes.  WE don't have a dishwasher, so doing the dishes is a long, drawn out process that involves a lot of banging around, a lot of talking to the cats loudly, and a lot of singing because who doesn't sing when they're doing the dishes?

Vacuuming came next.  We have four cats.  We have to vacuum a lot.  Not my fault her bedroom is the only one with carpet and therefore gets done when we vacuum the rest of the house.

I find changing out the candles in all the candle holders to be an excellent thing to do.  It involves me walking past her door about a dozen times to get to my office where I keep all my Partylite candles and gifts. (Click here to shop on my site!)

Then I dusted.  I dusted the crap out of my house.  And what goes better with dusting than singing?  Oh, NOTHING!

But once the house is clean and the candles are changed out...NOW WHAT?

And that's when it hit me:  What's the worst, most libido crushing image anyone can have?

Fat woman sweating!

And so my friends, I now hit the Wii Fit every time Topeka is over.  See, our Wii shares a wall with Peaches' room.  Which means, while they are sitting there watching a movie, I'm adding to ten with my hips or hitting the ski jump and I'm doing it...you guessed it...noisily!

I find yoga to be the best hormone inhibitor...what's more disturbing than thinking about a large woman doing yoga poses?  While groaning.....and laughing?  And cheering herself on?  NOTHING!

So it's a win/win.  Peaches and Topeka are behaving themselves, and I'm getting my house cleaned and my fat jiggled.

Wonder what I'll do when the weather warms up and they can be outside for more than ten minutes without freezing to death?

Like Scarlett O'Hara, I will worry about THAT another day!  who knows...maybe winter will last forever this time!

She's gone, but not forgotten...

Good evening!

So it's been a week since Elsie W. departed in a whirlwind of fire.  (My Bible scholar friends are howling at the humor in that statement.)  I have to say, it's been a week of discovery...the discovery of just how wrecked Elsie managed to get everything.

There are some changes we knew would happen immediately:

We're going through far less paper towel/toilet paper/coffee/ stolen food.  Turns out...Elsie was sort of stockpiling paper goods in her desk.  I'm not sure what she was afraid of, but Noelle C. extracted four rolls of paper towel and three rolls of TP from a drawer.  The best part was, only one roll of each was soaked in coffee.

The kitchen area has managed to stay bug free since Tuesday.  In fact, the sink is as shiny as it was the day we moved in.  NBM startled himself when he passed by the sink one day, he thought he was about to bump into someone in the hall...that's how shiny the sink is.

I'm pretty sure Noelle C. has destroyed all the moldy sandwich bags she uncovered in her desk.  (I could be wrong on that one.  There are a couple drawers she's still afraid to open.)

There are other changes, some discovered today, that are going to take some time to come about.

Elsie took that a bit too
literally.

The "honor box" snack guy left us a nasty note today...see, Elsie wasn't there to write him a check for $5.00 like she does every other month to cover her snack habits that weren't satisfied with her two fully cooked meals and three "snack breaks."  (Which reminds me...there's no fish in the fridge anymore!)

The phone bill reflects $27 worth of calls to "information."  And there are some very interesting calls to a couple of numbers in California and other Dunder Mifflin branches that have nothing to do with the day to day operations of our office, but which Elsie would call to "see how other sales appointment setters do it."  (She did this to prove me, PM, and NBM wrong every time we tried to show her how to do something.)  NBM saw the phone bill today and wondered aloud what those calls were about.  I suggested that the phone bill, much like the snack guy, would be righted in a month's time.

I think the biggest change is how the office smells.  I will give Noelle C credit...she is unflichingly cheerful, but she knows how to clean an office, and she's not afraid to bring in a potted plant.  Oh, and she's sort of a painter, so in a week's time we went from blah bare walls  (NBM is sort of a "stark means clean" guy) to walls filled with her colorful paintings of flowers.

Elise W gave us this.

Bonus, she brought in a pot of tulips.  The whole place smells really nice. And when I told her I liked lilacs, she brought me a cutting from her lilac bush.

Noelle C. gives us this.

I guess I can overlook a couple moments of undress if she keeps bringing in flowers.

I am almost ready to bring back my stuff and brighten my desk.  I better hurry...Noelle C might bring a bucket full of cheerful animal paperweights to brighten my corner of the world.

That woman scares me just a tiny bit.

Chlorine poisoning is NOT the worst option in this scenario!

Good evening!

I have a couple of days off of 3rd shift.  Yes, it took me all of yesterday for my feet to stop throbbing and yes, I'd almost need three days off to feel like I'm not just wandering around like the dead.  As my mother always said, "This too, shall pass."

I'm hoping it passes tonight.  I had Hubby buy some lottery tickets.  I never do that.  He asked if I was feeling lucky.  Not so much lucky as really, really not excited about working 8 nights in a row.

But I digress.

So lately I've taken to going to Gold's right after I get home in the morning.  This is nice because, even though my feet ache like crazy, there are generally no people in the pool and I can swim and float to my heart's content.

On Friday morn, however, the pool room was FREEZING.  You know how it is, walking into the room where there's pool. The air is typically tropical and heavy.  Such is almost always the case at Gold's pool.  Yes, the water is chilly, but once you're in, the room is so humid it's actually nice to be in the pool.

Friday...not so much.  Ladies, you know that feeling when you get into a swimming pool and you spend quite a lot of time trying to avoid getting your chest into the water because you're not ready for your "lady buttons"  (as we used to call them when Peaches was very young) to get so cold they actually rupture?  Well, most of the time that feeling goes away after that initial dunking.  Not in this case.  Ruptured nipples was a very real possibility. After about ten minutes of flesh freezing swimming, I abandoned all hope and escaped to the hot tub.  

I love the hot tub at Gold's.  I don't know if I've mentioned that recently.  I love hot tubs generally, but I really love the hot tub at Gold's. There's something so nice about sinking into steamy swirling water after a good workout or just because you're FREAKING FREEZING!

So there I am, regaining the feeling in my skin, when a gent joins me.  As we all know, I can't hear without my glasses on, and it's very echoey in the pool room, so I typically do not strike up conversations with strangers in the hot tub.

A few moments later, a Gold's employee walked in, under the guise of tidying up.  He seemed to know the gent in the hot tub.  They chatted over me...something that typically annoys me, but in this case, since I was really only catching every other word, it was okay.

"Cold in here this morning."  Gent says.

"Is it?"  Worker says.

"Yeah.  Cold in here. Normally it's steamy."

"Well,"  says the worker, " I cleaned out the vent yesterday.  It was all gunked up and I had to clean it out so that some fresh air could get in."

(I have to stop and point out that this week here in Waukesha, we've had a delightful stretch of 50 degree and rainy weather.  I love it, but Peaches is furious because the city pools finally opened and it's too cold to swim outdoors.  FRESH AIR?  I'm wearing a wet swim suit and you want fresh 50 degree air flowing around?)

"Still.  it's cold in here."  Says the gent.

"Well, if I don't clear out those vents, then the bad chlorine won't rise up and out, it'll get pushed back down."

Yeah, I did take a swim in Gold's Pool.  Why do you ask?

I'm not sure how the rest of that conversation went because I was busy pondering which would be worse:  Chlorine poisoning, or my nipples actually rupturing from the frigid temps in the pool.

Had they asked my opinion, I guess I would have sided with poisoning.

Not the sleakest swim suit, but at least this swimmer doesn't worry about cold water or chlorine poisoning!

This might be why people don't typically ask my opinion.