Observations

Today I saw an old man, no younger than 70, mowing his yard in shorty-shorts and a button-down shirt with the sleeves cut off at the shoulders.

Thoughts:
1. Oh. My. Gosh. This person needs "What not to Wear" like a fish needs water.
2. I hope he's not dressed that way in some misguided attempt to get a tan or impress the ladies, because frankly, 70 year olds don't need tans and if he couldn't attract the ladies before, it's not gonna happen now.
3. I would've thought only a gay man would wear shorty-shorts. But this man obviously isn't gay, because no gay man (even a drag queen) with even a shred of self-respect would wear such a repulsive outfit.
4. Now I need my eyes sanitized.

Observations

This is the first of a series on this blog that I'm going to call "Observations." These are things I notice at random that I feel like sharing my thoughts on, for whatever reason. They'll pop up every now and then.

Today's installment regards turkey vultures. If you've never seen a turkey vulture, let me preface this by saying that these are the most repulsive birds on the planet. They look exactly like the bastard child of a turkey and a vulture, hence the name, and out here in Kentucky, not a day goes by that you don't see at least two or three of them circling up in the air.

I took my younger two to the playground today while we waited for my oldest's baseball practice to end. I happened to look up at a turkey vulture circling the playground area and the first thought that immediately popped into my head was "If I had a gun with me, I'd drop that sucker." Pure reflex.


Thoughts: I have never actually wished death on any animal. There are some animals I don't like very much, but I've never had thoughts of killing them. I'm too soft-hearted for that. Or at least, I was. The realization that such a heartless and emotion-free thought was my initial gut reaction to that bird was a smidge startling. But I didn't (and still don't) feel guilty, because the very reason I had that thought was because I felt my kids were threatened. Now, I know that turkey vultures don't attack live anythings, let alone people, but these are huge birds, and when they circle low (and it was VERY low) over my babies, my reflexive reaction is immediate and absolute annihilation. I turn into a rabid militant with a vicious attitude problem if I sense any harm about to befall my children.


Lesson: Anyone or anything that even so much as has passing thoughts about threatening me or my kids in any way, shape, or form had better be prepared for certain, immediate death. I don't give a rat's butt who you are and I'll leave your smelly carcass to rot where it falls. I take no prisoners when it comes to my family.

Food I Miss

Because food and thereby, restaurants, tend to be regional, I knew when we came out here that I would be sacrificing some of my beloved culinary addictions. Since I'm hungry and in a sentimental mood today, I'm going to share a list of some of the centers of my food universe that I no longer get to frequent. I do try, however, to eat at every single one of them when I'm home to make up for it.

Ted's Cafe Escondido: The best chips and tortillas I have ever had. The rest of their food is pretty good too. They also have a great lunch menu with very reasonable prices. This is an absolute can't-miss when I'm home.

El Chico: Not the best or most authentic mexican food on the planet, but the main draw here is that they also serve Kraft mac and cheese and corndogs, so the kids will actually eat without whining that there's nothing they like. Prices are also quite reasonable, and their queso is fairly good.

Chipotle: I like that you can see it as they make it, it tastes great, it's pretty fresh, and again, affordable. I like to get the soft-shell tacos. The closest one is an hour away, which beats 10 hours, but is still too far to go frequently.

Tarahumara's: a family-run joint with the absolute fastest service anywhere. On Earth. One time I had my food within five minutes (and it was perfectly cooked, too.) I don't think I've ever not cleaned my entire plate when I've been here. It's so good I literally can't stop eating til it's empty.

Poblano Grill: this chain opened up about six months before we moved, and I immediately became a fan. Apparently lots of other people feel the same, based on the ratings.

Taco Bueno: (sensing a theme yet?) Again, not the best or most authentic, but for fast food mexican, it's fresher and better than most. Excellent for when you're broke but still want good food. I've yet to meet anyone who doesn't like Bueno.

Pei Wei: the cheaper, faster version of PF Chang's. Marvelous Asian food and a great variety at reasonable prices (unlike Chang's itself.) Another can't-miss.

Johnny Carino's: My favorite Italian place ev-ah. Their bread is awesome, their food is awesome, their service is awesome, their atmosphere is awesome. Soldier Boy and I ate our first meal together here. Again, there is one about an hour away, but that's a lot of fuel just to go out to eat.

Braum's: this is THE place for ice cream at home. My favorite is cherry limeade sherbet. They're probably also just as well known for their burgers, which are big and delicious.

To be fair, there are a couple of new places out here that I have become attached to; I will probably miss them when we leave, but not enough to want to stay out here. They are:

Hungry Howie's Pizza: the pizza itself is fairly good for an inexpensive carry-out/delivery-only place, but the flavored crust is the big deal here. There's something like six different flavors to choose from and all the ones I've tried have been great. The kids love it too.

Longhorn Steakhouse: on the pricey side, but no more than Carino's or Ted's. It has a real "Texas" vibe to it, but then again, if it didn't, I couldn't consider it a real steakhouse. Good steaks, good bread, good sides. They have coupons, too, which is unusual for a steakhouse, but endears me to them even more.

And we all know how important coupons have become to me recently.

Couponing the paycheck away

I've always been a casual coupon user. If I notice a good one, for something I've been wanting to try, I'll try to remember to bring it with me to the store. Fuel prices of late, however, have catapulted the need for $ cutbacks anywhere I can make them. To that end, I have turned the furnace down 3 degrees and tried to consolidate all my errands to one or two days a week. Which means I have to stay home the other five. Which is driving me insane.


So yesterday I decided it was time to jump back into the coupon pool and see what I came up with. I regularly subscribe to Groupon and Living Social, but the problem with those is that you have to pay up front before you can use the coupon or discount. And they're usually for things like restaurants, carpet cleaning, entertainment, or spas/salons. When you're scraping nickels out of the car seats to put fuel in your truck, like me, you tend not to have extraneous cash to fritter away on such luxuries like a flippin' haircut, although I've needed one for over 9 months now, and we haven't seen a movie in a theater in over a year, and we can't afford to eat at most of those art-house restaurants anyway and even if we could, they're not usually ones that welcome kids and since we can't afford a babysitter we stick to places like McAlisters that offer two free kids meals with an adult entree purchase Monday-Thursday.


Although I will admit that both of those services offer some damn good deals if you can afford to shell out up front.


One of my husband's friends routinely posts on facebook (hereafter known as FB on this blog) about her coupon savings. She's bought every grocery item you can imagine for nearly free, at least once. She uses a website back at home that consolidates coupons from every possible source and lists them out neatly so that you can pick and choose what you want and then print them out. However, since I'm half a continent away from home, I can't use most of them, so I have to hunt for my own. I dream of the day I can go to Target or Wal-Mart and walk out with six bags of groceries, having paid something like $20 for all of it.


I'm not there yet. Mostly because the majority of the coupons I encounter are not for things I use. I realize that this is because the whole purpose of coupons, from the manufacturer's perspective, is to entice the customer to try their product, and they don't need to entice people to buy things they are already buying anyway, but frankly, I don't care about the manufacturers. I care about me and my family and feeding all of us on a thrice-daily basis.


So far, all the coupons I've cut out and printed off amount to about a $7 savings on my grocery bill this paycheck. Not enough, sonny boy. Where are the coupons for milk, eggs, rice, taco shells, sliced bread, shredded cheese, butter, or trash bags? Come on, give me something I can really use. I don't give a rat's butt about .75 off a box of Claritin, which I don't use anyway because it doesn't work. I want to save a dollar or two off milk, which is almost $4 a gallon. It's almost cheaper to have your own cow.


While I'm on the subject, why is it that healthier foods are always so much more expensive anyway? If Michelle Obama wants us to eat healthier, why doesn't she introduce some REAL eating-habit-changing legislation, like requiring healthy foods to be priced half as much as the crap that's bad for you? I'll be honest, a lot of people buy soda (or "pop", as we call it where I'm from) because a two-liter costs $1.09 versus a gallon of juice that costs $4.50. That family-size box of Froot Loops costs less that the paperback-novel size box of Kashi granola. If it means the difference between eating and not eating, I'm gonna go for the Froot Loops. Is the point of Whole Foods and other stores like it simply to drive home the insinuation that only the wealthy should be allowed to eat healthy? Is this just really (literally) Survival of The Fittest based on economic scale?


I've already switched to store brands for a lot of things like paper towels, kleenex, toilet paper, baggies, trash bags, and a host of other non-food items. I tend to be more of a snob about food, though; I've tried the store brand spaghettios and they suck. Milk is milk no matter what label is on it, though, so it's one of the few things I'll go generic on, food-wise.


I've "liked" a page on FB that is all about couponing, in a effort to pick up some more deals here and there. And although it costs $2, I'm gonna go buy a Sunday paper this weekend since the P&G coupon section is supposed to be in it. I hope it's not a waste of $2, because I can feed myself lunch at McD's with that much. Or buy half a gallon of gas.

Things I'm Thankful For, Part One

You know those fun-filled all-night sleepovers with your kids where they're up projectile vomiting every thirty minutes and you have to change the kid's bedding and clothes so many times that you run out of clean bedding and clothes and the unbalanced washer is bouncing all over the laundry room (which happens to be across the hall from your bedroom) all night trying to keep up with the growing mountain of crap you keep throwing at it? We had one in our bedroom last night.

This was a few days after taking Soldier Boy to the ER one evening for the same thing. Apparently all the boys in this house have been trading this virus back and forth for about a week now. I'm hoping it's one of those "y-chromosome" viruses that doesn't affect the mother, because I can't afford to be sick while they are. Frankly, I can't afford to be sick ever.

Despite the roughly hour and a half or so of sleep that Soldier Boy and I got, I have to say that I am thankful for a few things, at least.

1. Soldier Boy was actually HOME to help with the mess. I did not have to hold the baby, clean the baby, change the baby's sheets, and urge him to drink some water all by myself. After three years of doing it myself, having the help made it almost easy. Almost.

2. Said baby (who is nearly four, by the way) does not sleep in our bed anymore. This is a fairly recent development, having occurred only about six months ago when we moved. (Don't judge me, he's the baby and everyone knows that by the time you've been schooled by several kids in nighttime battles, you just give in and let them sleep wherever they want so everyone can get some rest.) Thus, now when he gets sick, it's in his own bed and does not destroy ours. Toddler bed sheets are a lot easier to rip off and throw in the washing machine than queen-size ones. Moreover, we don't have to smell his vomit-scented breath in our faces or take a shower because he's thrown up all over US.

3. I am still a stay at home mom at this moment. This will be changing soon, but nights like last night make me grateful that I don't have to fake sick calling into work. Or worse, be threatened with involuntary termination if I don't go in, and cry and scream and sob in a desperate manner to find a non-psychotic person to come stay with the contagious baby so I can go to work and sulk and pout and feel guilty all day, all in the name of staying Employed.

4. The baby, although he is in his own bed, still sleeps in our room. We have been devising ways to evict him from our bedroom and out to his own room for awhile, but I just haven't had the balls to do it yet, because he sleeps pretty much peacefully in our room and I don't want to have to get up seventeen times every night to walk to the other end of the house to cover him back up, reassure him that it's not the end of the world, or help him to the bathroom. When he's sick, it is particularly convenient that he is in our room, because he's less than five feet from me and I can get to him quickly before he drags the vomit-covered blankie and jammies across the carpet and down the hall, crying and spewing. If he were in his own room, not only would I have to clean up THAT mess, but I would also have to bring him in bed with us so I could keep a close eye on him while he's sick, and then you're right back to the whole sick-baby-destroying-your-bed-and-breathing-vomit-breath-on-you scenario again. With him in OUR room, but in his OWN bed, it's the best of both worlds when he's sick.

5. It's a gray rainy day outside, so I don't feel like I should be out running errands or getting some exercise or being outside in general. Everyone knows that it's better to be sick (or nurse a sick person) when the weather is also sickly. That way, you don't feel like you're missing out on much.

6. I have a washing machine. I can't tell you how important this is when you have a sick kid. The washing machine is my favorite appliance pretty much all the time. I'm fond of the fridge, the oven, and the microwave as well, but dragging loads of smelly, messy clothes to a laundromat and 'washing' them in some equally dirty-looking machine that Bubba's wife probably used to wash the chicken shit out of his coveralls and skid marks out of his Hanes makes me want to simultaneously throttle someone and bathe myself in bleach. Thus, I (heart) my washing machine. Which I now have to go put another load of vomit blankets into.

Working Out?

*Please use your imagination and work with me on the 'picturing' part of this post as I have not yet figured out why my computer has no drawing program.*


I am on a quest. I desire toned, shapely legs and a firmer back end. I've given up on my stomach due to the gestating-induced diastasis of my last pregnancy, and my arms and upper back are already fairly well toned from picking up at least one toddler nearly every day for the last eight and a half years. So I'm left with this.



(picture a well-toned top half and flabby bottom half here)



This does not agree with the mental version of my body.



(picture Jessica Rabbit here)



In an effort to make reality conform to fantasy, I have begun a workout devised from the pages of a magazine focusing on "GLUTES!", several exercises I found online, and one that my husband suggested, which I have morphed into some sort of lower-body fitness routine, since I can afford neither gym nor personal trainer.



First, I have begun "power-walking" every other day. The reason I walk is that I cannot run. Well, I can sprint like a rabid kangaroo on meth if one of my kids is in danger but beyond that, I'm basically worthless when it comes to running. The bouncing motion wreaks havoc on that lovely aforementioned diastasis and frankly, it hurts my boobs even when they're tightly encased in a sports bra and puts me at risk for a severe butt injury, as it flaps along behind me, out of control. (More on butt injuries later.) So I walk as fast as I can without passing out, all the while clenching my butt cheeks, since that is also recommended to "engage" those muscle groups. Since I live in what has become quite possibly the hottest spot on Earth this year, the outdoor temp reaches 90+ at roughly 6 am each day; thus, I try to get this ordeal out of the way as early as possible.



On the days that I don't walk, I do this mish-mash of a routine that I've slapped together. First, a few stretches - down, up, over, under, across, and whatever other directions I can contort myself into. One of the stretches involves sitting with one ankle crossed over the other knee and leaning forward until you "feel the burn" in the backs of your legs and your lower butt. This is to help prevent butt injury. Let's stop right there.



Butt injury? Really? It is possible to injure your butt? Doing what, exactly? I admit I'm not the foremost authority on anatomical injuries (that would be my sister, the med student, or as my mother would call her, the GOOD child) but I am hard-pressed to come up with a way that the butt could sustain injury unless someone hit you there with something hard and sharp. I suppose if you clench your butt tight enough for long enough and try to long-jump in that position, you could possibly pull a muscle, so for safety's sake, just in case I should ever feel insane enough to attempt such a stunt, I keep doing this stretch and it's variations (lying on the floor and standing on one leg.)



Then I grab my girlie weights and do squats with them, which is supposed to tone my shoulders and butt and legs, all at once. This is billed as "the only butt exercise you'll ever need!" In two weeks, this exercise alone promises to provide me with broader shoulders and shapelier derriere, thus leading to something resembling an hourglass figure, or in my mind, Jessica Rabbit.



(picture me as Jessica Rabbit here)



Then I do one-legged bridges, something called seesaw moves, a sideways bicycle move, and a move obviously stolen from yoga and simply re-named for the purpose, a bird-dog. These promise to tone my butt, thighs, the backs of my legs, and strengthen my lower back muscles.



Then I do something suggested by my husband, "kick-backs," which seems to be something he must have learned at boot camp for JAGs, designed to make you want to sue someone.



I finish with that seventh-level-of-hell move called the Lunge. I call it the seventh level of hell because it is the seventh thing I do and by that point my legs are exhaused and sore and ready to collapse. If I did the squats last, they would be the seventh level of hell. It doesn't really matter, so I just do one first and the other last. I use my girlie weights for both, mostly so my arms don't flail all over the place.



I'm a week and half into this "routine." I haven't noticed any change yet, other than the constant burn in my thighs every time I move them. Nearly all these exercises require 15 reps per set, and 2-3 sets per workout; I've finally worked up to the 15 reps, but one set of each is all I've been able to manage. By the time I get to the seventh level of hell move, the muscles in my thighs and the backs of my legs are collapsing with each rep. I keep inspecting my backside for progress but so far have achieved no results. After another week, however, I should have killer sexy thighs rivaling those of fitness models; judging by the constant throbbing in them, something must be getting a workout.



My husband is coming home in two weeks for a few days and says he'll be the judge of my progress. I laugh in the face of progress. If he dares tell me I've made none, my killer sexy thighs will take. him. out.



KA-POW!

Have you ever tried to rent out your house? I mean the actual house you are actually living in at the time, because you can't move out to ANOTHER house until you find a renter for your current one?

No?

It's a thrill and a half.

First, you go out and purchase FOR RENT signs to stick in your yard among all the dead grass from the incestuous, unrelenting Mojave Desert heat wave that has attacked this part of the state for OVER A MONTH. Then you staple-gun another one to your back fence since you live next to a "major" road. Then you thank God that your husband bought said staple gun last year to put up Christmas lights because were it not for that, you would be forced to resort to trying (and failing) to nail the damn thing up.

Then you go inside and take approximately 4,563 pictures from every concievable angle of the inside your house, and two from the outside. Then you narrow them down to 5 and post them, along with an alarmingly exciting and upbeat description of your house, to include every possible positive detail that anyone could ever hope to know about any kind of house-like structure, on a rental property website. Then you sit back and wait for the offers to come pouring in like oil into the gulf.

The first few days go well. No less than two people have heard about/seen your house and want to see it. So you move on to the next step, which is to immediately panic upon the realization that you have no application for them to fill out if indeed they are interested, because you have never been a landlord before and have no idea where to find such a form. You Google "rental forms" and hit upon 546 sites related to the subject, 544 of which require that you pay a registration fee to access their precious forms, which must have been drawn up by Donald Trump himself for the amount of the registration fee required to utilize them. You finally hit upon a site which boasts "FREE!" membership for 30 days, figure you won't need it for longer than 30 days, register, and print off a rental application.

Then you look around your house and realize that it is completely trashed and smells like the inside of a cat litterbox mixed with putrified used gym towels and sour milk, and your potential renters are coming in two hours.

At this point, if you're like me, you run around in circles screaming your fool head off at everyone and everything possible to hurry and help get this place cleaned up or we're all gonna die! Chaos ensues.

Then you realize that you do not want your children present for such an inquisition (which is what it feels like) but that you have failed to make necessary arrangements for childcare, so you run over to your neighbor's house and beg and plead her to keep them for you for a few minutes, looking all the while like a rabid squirrel on crack because in the midst of all this mayhem, you have forgotten to take a shower. She mercifully agrees, so you then dash home and use half a container of deodorant and brush your teeth and twist your hair back into a sloppy bun (because there's no time to brush it) and fumigate the house with the air freshener you bought over a year ago.

Then you sit and wait.

And wait.

After fifteen minutes go by, you finally call the people, who halfheartedly apologize and say they got lost. They'll be here in ten minutes. Ok, fine.

They show up, they walk around, they love it, they want it, they'll take it. Problem is, they want it, like, TODAY. No can do, my good people, I need a week to move and another to get the new carpet in, since I'm not foolish enough to install it while my children and cats and dogs are actually still LIVING on it.

They take the app and leave and you never hear from them again.

Repeat entire process three times.

Never hear back from anyone.

Get discouraged. Get tired of frantically deep-cleaning house every time someone wants to see it, which is apporximately every other day. Wear out neighbors' good will for watching your wild children free of charge for 30+ minutes at a time.

Finally someone calls back and wants to know how quickly they can move in. They sound serious, so you drive around to Home Depot and Lowe's with all your monkeys howling and careening off in various directions, to find out exactly how quickly they can get new carpet installed. Call husband, who now must put together a lease. Call potential renters back, who decide they need to think about it.

Wait. Wait. Wait.

Make appointments to show the house to more people, who never show up and don't bother to call to tell you this. So you call them back and leave barely-civil messages for them telling them how much you appreciate them and their cowardly actions, after you've busted your butt cleaning and cleaning and cleaning and farming your children out time after time, all for nothing.

Get bitter.

Decide you are never buying another house again for as long as you live because this is utter bullshit.