you know you're hungry when....

even plain ruffles taste good :| plain chips are such a waste of money and more importantly, calories. chips should taste like your wildest dreams! smoky bacon! worcester sauce! chicken tikka masala!! roasted chicken!!! steak and onions! sigh the united states are a barren wasteland of awesome crisps, i need to invent a british crisp company here :(

today was NUTS. i am officially never having seven little boy septuplets. i had to take all of them to the restroom at preschool. all at once :| i feel like i need to be hosed off before i do so and my hands steam cleaned and bleached and chemically peeled. i begged Danny not to pee too, to please spare me from being soaked by one more misguided peepee followed by stories of farts and poop and butt sniffing during the hell that is washing 14 unwilling filthy little hands.

one mom at preschool kind of ticked me off though (like that's hard, i know:) she was talking about the party and how out-of-control a couple of the little boys were and how they shouldn't have been allowed to have any sugar. sooo...... am i honestly supposed to
a) exclude little friends of Danny's because they don't always behave like little angels
b) not serve sugar at a kid birthday party
c) give a hoot
because i'm going with c :| there's only one thing worse than being around horrendous OC mommies and that's being around lame judgmental horrendous OC mommies who honestly think their invisible little vanilla children are perfect and that 'spirited children' are the devil's spawn :|

going to go and put a couple more sweaters. it's 50 degrees here and the low tonight is 37 freaking degrees! i am so not kidding :|

oh the suspense

is killing me! (i jest) i am wondering who on earth was taken from tiger woods' home at 2am this morning :| a female... could it be his wife? mother? mother in law? nanny? umm... cleaner? would a cleaner stay overnight? i don't know!!

this morning i ate mickey mouse's ears for breakfast :) they really are the best part of mickey mouse cookies and i am thinking of making a batch of just ears as they are kind of slimming too, right?

i hear Danny try to fly his airplane again. sigh.

i'm the special helper at preschool today. go, you chicken fat, go!! (note to self: drink a large diet coke prior to arrival)

on sunday i spilled patchouli oil all over my beautiful white iphone :( it stills works but the smell is overpowering - even for a self proclaimed hippie such as myself. what to do? replace the case with the adorable paul frank one that Amy has? ohhh hmm... that's a good idea :)

oh MR BUMPS!! step away from the christmas tree, you little orange weasel! he has all but destroyed my central park tree skirt with his furballs, barf and playfully pulling at my handsewn skyscrapers but now he is tinkering with the baubles and i just KNOW he is going to try to climb the tree. damn you rain - it makes everyone crazy, orange weasels included.

yes it rained yesterday and i admit it... the rain totally sucks (disclaimer: when you have to go OUT in it) as does the weather dipping below 50 degrees - holy crap i had on three sweaters and could barely move my arms. and i couldn't get my shoes on for the 3 pairs of fluffy socks i was wearing and my money got all sodden walking to the ATM then it wouldn't take it. seriously how did i live in England for 25 years???!

but rain right now is good. because it equals snow in the mountains next week!! we rented a little treetop house in the mountains with floor to ceiling windows and a red painted deck. so it has to snow - or my vision of yuletide loveliness won't be realized. and that would suck!

must go!! things to do! boden orders to place!! christmas cards to mail!! seriously i ordered a thousand and i still ran out.... what the??

ps it's completely random and the least of what's messed up about the Cruise family, but i hate when Suri Cruise wears high heeled shoes. put that child in sensible shoes, Katie (not Kate) - and both of you RUN!!!!!!!!!!

pps also completely random but Seal/Heidi Klum go on and on about what a great family they are and how 'in love' they are and how much they love their kids and all that sound byte crap. soooo how come they aren't around when they have a newborn with huge brown eyes to fawn over and snuggle with? both of them are working nonstop and away from home left and right for days/weeks on end. and it's not like they need the money to pay for diapers ;) i don't get it. and i don't like it. i am officially placing them on my 'watch list' :|

things...

are busy and i have approximately 150 seconds to blog before the next buzzer goes off...

cooking
chicken tikka masala from trader joe's, i am starving, i haven't eaten for like a week :|

not really loving
the rain. it rained all day long and it sucked because i had things to do and i couldn't just sit and watch it rain :( i had to wear real shoes and jeans and it was awful and cold and gross :( ( but on the plus side, the kids puddle-jumped this afternoon :)

listening
to Danny lament that he's not smart enough to fly an airplane :(

editing
a gorgeous little girl who is the most amazing blank stare giver ever. for the first time ever, i am not actually crawling out of my skin with boredom, editing a session

wanting
to go to bed and watch pointless shit tv and stay there till morning. very badly. ok... i still hate editing :)

wondering
if people would rather have a regular christmas card or the cubular card... hmm. what to send to who...

ting. time's up!

getting ready for the party


he ate his weight in cotton candy

dear tustin ranch costco

you suck.

• first, parking sucks
• the photo dept sucks - they print random blobs of ink all over pictures and then try to pass it off as something on the original file (as if!)
  
• and orders are never ready on time, heaven forbid! one costco hour equals 3 human hours
• the cake dept sucks - they lost Danny's cake and you should have seen his little face... oh he was heartbroken :( but make no mistake (my favorite bush phrase:), juanita is baking her ass off as i type :|
• the rotisserie chicken dept doesn't even exist
• nor the place that makes ready prepared meals
  
• they don't sell large packets of sliced apples
• you have to abandon your cart, containing children, to get something from the food court
• there is hardly any seating for the food court either :|
• they have a 150 year old half tortoise/half human checking the receipts at the exit
• when you get to your car, as per thing number one, there is a line of people waiting for your space
• and it's tustin ranch where everyone is just dumb - so they park an inch behind you and sit with their turn signal on glaring because it's taking you a long time to vacate the space

yes... it's been quite a day so far ;|

the wife swap i watched yesterday was agony. the woman was from England but had lost the sharp consonant sound and her 13 year old son (with three facial hair mustace) tapdanced and liked grown up book clubs. the sum of these things is grounds to break into their house and kill them in their sleep in my book. it was AWFUL just AWFUL!! the whole show was like dog bites and bee stings to my senses and i had to focus on cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudels so as not to heave everytime she spoke.

i dearly love my iphone (it sleeps next to me:) but i hate the autocorrect on it. it takes a mildly mis-typed word and chancges it to an entirely different word :( ie. girl=hurl... how is that even close??! and i hate the noise it makes when it is too close to a speaker... that awful screeching sound. is there an app for that??

last night we watched Dead Like Me. it was mildly entertaining in that juno kind of way, definitely not worth being addicted to, or nuthin'. and Mandy Patinken was in it, who i love despite him wearing the most hideous starsky and hutch cardigans :| i hate his name... ohhh i hate it with a passion. i hate girl (not hurl) names on boys. they are the worst thing EVER. we had a neighbor once called kayleigh or something like that, i blocked it from my mind and could never say his name, make eye contact and even talk to him. boy names on girls (not hurls) i don't mind at all - funny, huh?!

i occasionally hate yelp and how everyone on there thinks they are cool - they're writing online reviews, how cool does that make them??! last night i read 191 reviews about the museum of jurassic technology in LA. oh my god, firstly i hate when people say something is 'pretty chill' and the reviews all SUCK!!!

• "The less you know about this place, the better!" (so..... why are you writing a review???!)
• "Some things are real, some aren't - does it really matter?" (why yes it DOES if i'm driving to LA and paying for parking...)
• "Ummmmmmmmmmm. That's the best way I can put how I feel about this place." (???)

i give up, i'm not going.

pics of the birthday boy who is going to be keeping me very busy the next couple of days. we are having all you can eat cotton candy at his party!! and a bounce house!!! and a humungous dinosaur cake!!! and DINO ROARS!!!

two days old

one

two

three

four

five


ps Sam with his bear at birth :)

bears, patches and tim tams

seriously brain... it's 3am : my brain is very busy at the moment. full of thoughts and wonders and things that must be done. no matter how long i fake being asleep - if it's up time, it's up time :(

this morning i lay in bed wondering what on earth i did with that bag of Danny's old jeans. i usually stuff them in the goodwill pile or hand them down if they are fancy gap jeans that still have knees in them, but i hadn't the foggiest idea which pile they had made it into - and where that pile had ended up : and it was an emergency because i needed to make number patches for Danny's/FAO bear's teeshirts for the annual FAO birthday picture. every year i have to find a suitable item of clothing which bears the child's age with no other logo to distract from the number. and it must be cute and not skateboard/football/cartoon-ish (ohh, the woes of being a boymom who can't buy 95% of the awful awful awful clothes in the united states of generica... but ohh, the money it has saved me over the years !)

i tried to quiet my mind. but it was no good... for i had remembered the bunch of stuffed animals i put on the GENTLE CYCLE yesterday and were still trapped in the washer overnight! the thought of them in there stinking and feeling all abandoned and claustrophobic was too much to bear and i had to get up :( i dashed to the washing machine and it was empty - gasp! i checked the dryer... and there they all were looking whiter than i have EVER seen them and looking slightly bewildered by what had just happened to them :) i love my husband - he turns over the laundry and even folds it and even puts it away and even does it neatly <3 next i braved the garage... where lizards with forked tongues lie in wait. and crickets pounce on you. and occasionally the neighborhood asshole skunk creeps in and odorizes the place : he is so cute but ohhh, he is mean and he STINKS!!! anyway i located the goodwill pile - and the jeans almost instantly!! it was like a miracle! so i am officially awake for the day! with my patches cut out ready to sew, coffee in my mickey mouse cup, no-one else up, with the washed and fluffed stuffed animals looking cleaner than they've ever looked ready to return to a delighted owner:) and i think i even managed to figure out how to put on the heating and not the air conditioning (though it is feeling awfully chilly in here...) and i even know how to eat a tim tam!!! Tarnya that whole melting/drinking like a straw/slamming thing sounds soooo good!! thank you for your tutorial!! it's official - i am going to target today for the goods then straight to the starbucks cafe for more hot chocolate with which to melt them :)

disinfected
every last dinosaur in the house (actually i have one bucket left... dang) that's like 1 million dinosaurs cleaned today :| only another 250,000 to go

received
the long awaited ginger and nutmeg fabreze thingie... and as i suspected it might, it sucks. it smells - to quote Aaron - like a smoker's car. ewww, once he said that it was all over for that air freshener - gross!

ordered
the cake. it's a dinosaur cake naturally (the candles are dinosaurs too:)

drove
to hundreds of lame stores that i thought might have a cotton candy machine. seriously, why is this so hard??! i found an avocado keeper, a tomato keeper, a lemon keeper, a lime keeper, a strawberry keeper, a banana keeper, a pair of no tears onion chopping glasses, hundreds of popcorn makers - but no cotton candy machine :(

went
on a date with Sam to ruby's then to starbucks for hot chocolate and gingerbread :)

survived
tustin ranch - barely. gawd i hate tustin ranch, it is a void of humanity and reality. and icecream parlors too. i just hate it so much.

wondered
what on earth happened to heather locklear.... has it REALLY been that long since melrose place? she talks like an old lady now... i can't figure out what happened to her... maybe her face is sewn too tightly and she can't open her mouth? it's so jarring and uncomfortable to listen to her talk :(

we have a cleaner - her name is spinasaurus :)


i can't believe
a) someone invented these no tears onion chopping glasses :|
b) someone is stocking these no tears onion chopping glasses :|

wednesday

i am up at the crack of dawn thanks to a terrible nightmare that i was stabbed with a (large) knitting needle in the gap. and it hurt! are dreams supposed to actually feel like you're being stabbed?? i lost a needle in the bed (doin' some craftin' watchin' wife swap trying to decide if i'm the OCD wife or the dirty bitch wife) but i did find it. and why the gap and not michaels or joanns where they actually sell knitty needles? it does not compute. and also, ouch!!! getting stabbed really hurts, more than splinters and paper cuts even :|

anyway once awake i began to toss and turn about the things on my mind: what IS the correct way to eat a timtam? and do Australians and New Zealanders have the same passport? how is Australian target so different to American target? i heard it's worse... if you can possibly imagine a targhetto that sells sucky stuff :| and does anyone actually like Bindi the crocodile hunter's daughter? i like her crimped pigtails and she's sure chipper, but in that really annoying 'please-turn-the-channel NOW-...-what-do-you-mean-there's-something-blocking-the-magic-eye-thingie-do-something!!-help!- i-can't stand the squeaky-cleanness!-my-brain-is-filling-with-toxic-bubble-mixture!!-kill-the-TV!!!' kind of way :( (

ps i think the name Bindi is adorable though:)

also on my mind: whether to serve apple slices at the party - what if they go brown? what pictures to replace the present wall pictures with (which i should be doing now... stupid blog) can i walk to trader joe's, walgreens and michaels with both Danny and my pretend baby and get home within one hour today? do i move my precious holiday village for a party of 3 to 6 year olds? where to take Sam on our mommy date tonight? and do you still buy sibling gifts for a 9 year old big brother? if so, the boy wants a soft air gun with 80 bullets - must have 80 :| is that a bad thing to give to a 9 year old?? at a birthday party??! should i wait till sunday?! last thing that's stressing me out: Friday the mean cat is not represented on the holiday card. i have to figure out a way to incorporate her today :|

i need more coffee. and to reaaaallly look for those derned pics. seriously i have 17 terabytes of pictures but can i find 5 that look like a series, of which i love each one dearly and can process them all identically.... no i can not :(

things people love that i just can't love no matter how hard i try

extreme home makeover (or whatever it's called)
a) i cannot stand ty pennington with a passion
b) i hate seeing people get free stuff even if they truly deserve it (i know... i know... going to hell and all that... please drive thru)
c) it sucks

dancing with the stars
a) they aren't really stars... are they?
b) i hate the judges
c) it sucks

grays anatomy
a) it's set in seattle and i don't really like seattle, if i'm being honest. people say seattle is like England - it's sooooo not like England ;)
b) i don't have an almighty crush on any of the men in grays anatomy, therefore it's completely unwatchable
d) it sucks

survivor/big brother/the great race/lost/24/project runway
a) i have tried all of the above.... and i don't get any of them no matter how much i want to make it happen :|


the olive garden
seriously...? i cannot believe people eat here. it sucks!!! even the breadsticks are anemic and too salty and let me tell you... i usually love all breadsticks without prejudice. i have no clue how they are still in business with a fine establishment like Maggianos around. Maggianos plays Frank Sinatra nonstop and they don't have chairs on wheels and it's totally yummy too (UNlike olive garden!)

arby's
never have never will - the sandwich with all the meat and cheese dripping off it - gross!!!

target
yes i know people love it. but i hate that popcorn smell - it smells like rancid poopy diapers to me :| and they aren't very good about having the right price on the shelf - if it rings up wrong, they just shrug and look at you like you're holding up the queue. bastards!!

disneyland
yes i have a pass but i dread going and i am so glad it expires next month and i am officially off the hook from having to get my money's worth. the thought of going makes me feel nauseous. when i am driving there with that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, i think about the people who go on vacation there as the highlight of their year. that actually get on airplanes to get here. and i feel so sad for those people :( because it's so busy and impatient and hot and cramped and no fun at all.

cirque du soleil shows
with the notable exception of 'Beatles: Love' which is just gorgeous, thanks to the music, energy and emotion throughout. but the rest of the shows just make me wonder.... why??? and... how much??! and there are a lot of really bendy people in Vegas, huh?? and... is it over yet...? and... i have really restless legs that want to run down the stairs and out the emergency exit right now!

the bugaboo stroller
yes you can push it with one finger and i loved it dearly the first time i did so. but seriously how many times do you push a stroller with one finger? and it is $900 :| and in order to get it into the car you have to take out the baby, put the baby somewhere hoping the baby doesn't flip out about that, go back to the stroller, unclip the entire seat with TWO HANDS, then fold up the stroller frame itself with TWO HANDS and then it flops all over the place as you try to wrangle it into the car and the big wheels get tangled in the small wheels and your collection of emergency pacifiers fall out of the little organizer... and the diapers that are underneath too... by which point the baby is thinking he has been abandoned and is bawling hysterically....it's just an insane implement of torture for parents! and we have a huuuuuge trunk and fitting it in is still a squeeze :| and did i mention it's $900? and it's just a stroller, and doesn't transform into a mcdonalds franchise or nothing...

phew... ok with that off my chest i am going to bed to watch good shows like tabatha takes over and wife swap :)

white rabbits x 3

because i'm too tired/lazy to type it out - i was up many times in the night waiting to say it the second it was officially december. i wish i could blog with my iphone and just say everything out loud and have it type it. do you know you can just yell at your phone the entire question on cash cab and it gives you the freaking answer!? well sometimes...

during one of my many 'ups' in the night, i went to move the elf. if we don't move him, it is devastating for the small children in this house who dash out each morning to see who can spot him first. i wish he really was magical/battery operated and would just flip in the air at midnight and land somewhere new... hmm, that's going in my little book of inventions :)

then i went to rescue a whimpering Romeo from a locked bedroom to relocate him to the safety of our room. he looked at me completely blankly and stood in the dog bed awaiting further instructions :| at which point, i realized who he reminds me of - George W Freaking Bush. not in a rant-y mean Connecticut kind of way... he is just sweet as can be, but kind of lost and checked out. one of Aaron's good friends works at the White House (oolala!) and took us on a tour in April (Danny climbed on a chair made of silk and no-one said a word - it was totally COOL! because it's OUR house, you see ; oh and there were little stained glass butterflies in the bedroom windows :) anyway, i had to ask of course, how Michael liked working for Mr Bush Jnr to which he replied that he had a weak handshake and poor eye contact :| this is where the two differ - Romeo has a wonderfully firm handshake and great eye contact (especially if you're holding a piece of chicken skin) but otherwise they are very much alike personality wise. hmm, we should have called him George ;)

project of the day: make 24 mickey mouse cookies today with sugar glitter for Danny's preschool class AND 24 mickey mouse shrinkydink ornaments to give to each child (even the ones i don't particularly think are sweet and adorable :)

off to walk the dogs and start another day in paradise!