The Lonliest Holiday

Happy Halloween! Here's a repost from when I was young and single, because my friend ~She~ wanted to know the story about how I was mistaken for a man... 


A lot of people would say that Thanksgiving or Christmas are the hardest holidays to experience as a single, but not me. Christmas and Thanksgiving are family holidays, when bringing a date to dinner is not a requirement. Sure, you may have to deal with your mother lamenting over the fact that she may never be a grandmother, but at least you have the pleasure of eating her homemade pumpkin pie afterwards.

Other people would say that Valentine’s Day is the loneliest holiday for the single girl. Again, I disagree. Although this is a holiday for couples, I can usually round up enough single girls for a great male bashing, margarita imbibing, slumber party. We spend the night listening to powerful I-am-woman-hear-me-roar singers like Madonna and Aretha Franklin. It makes the thought of not getting flowers or candy that day much easier to bear.

No, the absolute worse holiday for a single person is Halloween. October 31st is pitifully depressing for the unfortunate dateless individual. There is no “Halloween Dinner” at Grandma’s house. Your married friends are all passing out candy to the neighborhood children, and your single friends are all at costume parties.

My friend Vanessa and her boyfriend dragged me to a Halloween party last year. They were dressed as a matching hippie couple, following the unwritten rule that all couples must wear related costumes. I went as one of those Victorian women who get bitten in Interview With a Vampire, with the white wig and the long gown with the fitted waist and large back bustle, but nobody could tell what I was. It defeats the purpose of dressing like the victim of a vampire when there’s no vampire around to do the biting. I finally gave up trying to explain it to people, and starting saying that I was dressed as Little Bo Beep.

“Oh, I think I saw your date a few minutes ago,” one girl told me. “Is he dressed as a sheep?”

The joke’s on you if you think anybody’s going to hit on you at a Halloween party. Everybody’s in costume, all pretending to someone they’re not. Nobody wants to see what’s really behind the mask. I thought I was going to get lucky when I saw a group of men at the party checking me out. They would look at me, look at each other, look at me again, and smile. I finally sauntered up to them to say hi in my most seductive manner, but this only caused them to burst out laughing.

“What’s going on?” I asked, when their laughter continued for several minutes.

Finally, one of the guys confessed. “We can’t tell if you’re a guy or a girl,” he said. “We’re judging the contest, and if you’re a guy, you’ve got it locked down for best costume.”

“And if I’m not?”

Needless to say, I did not win best costume, and my night quickly came to an end.

This year is going to be better. I am more confident, more sure of myself. I am in charge of my life. I don’t need a date to validate my existence! This year, I’m going to all my friends’ parties, single and proud, and ready to face all situations head on! I am woman! Hear me roar: RAH!

At the same time, if any guy has a sheep costume out there, I make a great Bo Peep.

BK weighs a little less now

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My Darlings. I’ve been neglecting you. There’s been so much going on, I can barely think straight.

Let’s start with the reason I had Wednesday and Thursday off. We took BK to the hospital on Wednesday for a minor surgery. No big deal, nothing serious.

We got him circumcised. Yes, he’s two. And a half. I'm the worse mom ever.

We got BK when he was two weeks old, and he wasn’t circumcised. We had until he was 30 days old to do it. After day 30, he’d have to be completely knocked out to do it, and that’s more dangerous for a young baby. So, we were going to do it. We were able to get the doctor’s appointment on day 29, just under the wire. I even wrote about on my old blog.

We had to cancel the appointment at the 11th hour because we couldn’t get the court order in time (we had to get a court order to do any kind of elective surgery before the adoption was final.). We were able to finally get the court order, but after day 30. Anesthesia would have to be used now, and we couldn’t do that for an elective surgery until after the adoption was final.

So we waited. BK’s adoption wasn’t finalized until he was almost a year old. Personally, I thought we had missed our window. He was too old, he was going to remember, he was going to play with it, it was going to scar… I was completely ok with never getting it done.

The Agent was in favor of getting it done. He said that it was important for him to look like his Daddy.

“But Agent,” I pleaded. “It’s too late. He’s too big.”

“I’m telling you, the guys in the locker room will talk about him if he doesn’t get it done,” The Agent answered.

“Really? How could they? It doesn’t even look that different.”

The Agent stared at me. “Really, Lovely? Have you ever even looked at me?”

I know. I was grasping at straws.

After 18 months, I told The Agent we could do it if he set everything up: he’d have to make the appointments, go to the pre-op, everything. The Agent agreed.

I really didn’t expect anything to come of it. The Agent’s such a procrastinator, he would never make the calls, do the paperwork, go to the appointments.

But he did it all. And I found myself in the waiting room of the hospital, waiting for BK to come out of surgery.

He did really well. “No problems,” the surgeon told us after wards. “He made it easy: the little guy has a lot of penis to work with.”

The Agent grinned proudly. “That’s my boy!” he said happily. “Just like his Daddy!”

Ugh. Apparently he had conveniently forgotten that they don’t carry the same genetic code.

Happy Thoughts

* Christmas cards from Shutterfly make me happy! Go here to win 25 of your own!

* Having two extra days off this week makes me happy. Now, the reason why I have two days off does not make me happy, but it's still better than work, so it's all good! I will tell you why in a day or two or twenty... depending on if people remind me.

* Candy Corn cocktails make me happy. I've had one a night since I made the concoction (well, so twice). It's so good! Super delicious!

* This guy makes me happy:

I understand that I might have a problem. Please know that I don't normally find redneck guys attractive... especially not when they have dead rodents hanging from their personage. But there's something about him. Seriously. Drool. Can I get an amen? Anyone? Only me?

* Green makes me happy. Bug went back to school last week after being on Fall break, and she's been on green every day since she came back! I don't know what that teacher's been doing, but it sure is working!

What's making you happy this week?

The Post Where Lovely Gets Drunk

(I wrote this while drinking one of the tasty beverages described below. Therefore, I cannot be held responsible for whatever nonsensical outpourings are spewed forth.)


(I originally wrote FORCE instead of FORTH. And then spent 5 minutes laughing about it. Am I even spelling FORTH right? I'm drunk.)


 I’m not a drinker. But I made something, and it’s yummy. I wish I invented it, but I didn’t. I found it here 
 (the rest of her blog is a little too scary for me though)

It’s starts out with vodka and candy corn:

I know, great beginnings, right? Add ½ cup of candy corn to  1½ cups of vodka in an airtight container.

Let it sit a couple hours, or overnight. Then strain out all the candy and throw it out (or eat it-- maybe it’s delicious. I had the kids with me during this step, and I didn’t want BK suddenly drunk off of vodka-saturated candy corn, so mine went down the garbage disposal). It will look like this:

Now for part two:

1 part candy corn vodka
1 part butterscotch schnapps
1 part baileys

Sweet nectar. 

I think a more talented bartender could have made the drink so there were three distinct layers, so it looked like a candy corn. That didn’t happen. It  did not have an effect on the deliciousness.  Even The Agent, a solid Bud Light drinker, approved. 

I’m a light weight, and it only took one to get me tore up from the floor up. I bet you could get all fancy and serve it in a martini glass, rimmed with orange or black colored sugar.

Make it at your Halloween party this weekend, and let me know what your guests think of it!

This was so awesome, I'm linking up here:

Things that make me happy

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A clean house. Not again. Still. It’s been like two weeks in a row. Yeah, I’m not really sure how that happened, either. It’s wonderful. And I’m getting to the point where if I see something out of place, it annoys me. Like I see a piece of paper on the end table right now. It doesn’t belong there. Why are you there, piece of paper? I must destroy you now.

Ballet costumes. Bug has a ballet recital in two weeks, and she got her costume on Thursday. So sweet! She’s going to be the cutest little witch in the show. And, bonus! It also doubles as her Halloween costume. Awesome.

Bloggy treats. Oh my goodness. I participated in my first swap and my partner got me the cutest stuff! I can't wait to show you everything later this week. Thank you, Forgetful One!



Text messages. I don’t text enough, but I am very much in love with the idea of texting. I got one today from my girlfriend that made me laugh out loud, which must have been very strange for my boss to see as he walked by. If you want to make my day, go ahead and send me a text message.

Sleep. I apparently have not been getting enough sleep, and I was really feeling the effects of it today at work. I am going to crash out tonight and sleep hard. I’m a pretty hard sleeper, anyway. The Agent makes fun of me, because he suffers from insomnia, so he is often up all night. I sleep through his tossing and turn. He says that the house could be on fire and I would sleep through it. And yet, through some miracle of motherhood, I am instantly awake the moment I hear one of the children whimper. Weird.

Potty training. OK, potty training does not actually make me happy. It sucks. I wish that someone would do it for me. But we started BK on big boy underwear today and he only had two accidents all day. I think that’s a great first day. And, I might add, both accidents were at daycare. No accidents at home. I feel this must mean I’m an awesome mother.


 

Crimes and Punishments

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If someone does something wrong, they should be punished, right? I mean, that’s what I tell Bug all the time: “If you make the wrong choices, you don’t get to do fun things.”

The Agent was naughty last week.

Here’s what happened. Bug has ballet at 6 pm on Thursdays. The Agent gets off work at 4:30, I get off work at 5. So, at 4:30, The Agent called me and asked what the plan was.

“Well,” I said, “I’ll pick up the kids from daycare. I’ll drop Bug off at ballet and then BK and I will pick up dinner. I’ll pick up Bug after ballet, we’ll meet you at home, we’ll all have dinner.”

“That means we won’t have dinner until like 7:30,” The Agent answered. “So how about this. I’m leaving work right now. I’ll pick up the kids and meet you at the Subway by the ballet studio. We’ll all have dinner, then I’ll take BK home and you can take Bug to ballet.”

That sounded wonderful. It was going to save me like 30 minutes of drive time.

So, I got off work at 5 and got to Subway at 5:15. The Agent and the kids weren’t there yet. Weird.

At 5:20 I texted him to find out where he was. No response.

At 5:25, I called and it went straight to voicemail. There wasn’t going to be time to eat, change, and make it to the ballet studio at this rate. I was beginning to worry. What happened to them?

At 5:30, I called the daycare. “Did The Agent come to pick up the kids yet?” I asked.

“No, they’re still here,” she answered.

Oh, God. He was supposed to have been there an hour ago. Something happened to The Agent.

I ran to my car and raced across town to get the kids, crying. I called the house phone. No answer. “Agent, you pick up the phone right now!” I sobbed to the answering machine. “You have to pick up. YOU HAVE TO PICK UP!”

I then redialed The Agent’s cell phone over and over again, as I sped through traffic.

I had almost reached the daycare’s house when my phone rang. It was The Agent.

It was 5:45.

My first reaction was relief. He was ok.

Then intense anger.

“I’m going to kill you!” I cried. It’s doubtful that The Agent could even understand what I was saying, since I was crying so hard.

“Baby, I’m so sorry,” The Agent said. “I started talking to someone in the parking lot at work and I completely lost track of time. I thought it was only 5 minutes and I looked down at my watch at it was 5:35. I couldn’t call you right away because I found out my phone was dead, so I plugged it in and had to wait until it was charged enough to call you.”

More incoherent crying on my end.

The Agent met me at the daycare, he got BK, and I got Bug. She changed in the car while I raced back across town to the ballet studio. We were a few minutes late, but luckily the class before hers ran late, so they hadn’t even started yet.

Bug and I came home after ballet and ate the dinner that The Agent had brought home. He apologized some more. I didn’t have anything to say to him.  I had been scared. I was hurt.  And now I was fired up.

But, after a few days, I kind of blew it off. He messed up, he’s sorry, let’s move on. There’s really nothing else to say, right?

Is there? Should he be punished? I believe he SHOULD be punished, but I believe HE should be intelligent enough to realize he’s wrong and punish himself. We don't tell each other what we can or can't do, but we believe in respecting each other, and treating the other the way we would want to be treated.

It’s possible that I am overreacting because I had such a scare. My life is nothing without The Agent. But he had to go through the pain too, knowing that he hurt me. Perhaps that's punishment enough.

Thoughts?

I'm Happy

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I’m happy that I’m so exhausted. It means my house is clean. Still. I’m happy that I’ve been on a cleaning and organizing kick lately, and my house is showing the effects.

I am happy that my spare room looks like an episode of Hoarders. It means I’ve purged a ton of stuff. I still have more I can get rid of, but I'm off to an awesome start. I'm selling everything at a garage sale, and we’re going to donate whatever we don’t sale. I refuse to move any of it. If you live in California, please come and take all of it. It would make me very Happy!

I’m happy that my house is all decked out for Halloween, and that it’s filled with yummy fall smells, thanks to Yankee Candle. Actually, I use the termed “decked out” loosely. My mantle is decorated. It’s cute, but not over the top. But I am NOT happy that the Agent has demanded that I give up the cute little witch that completed the look. She’s about the size of BK, and she talks. Super cute, but The Agent has an irrational far of large dolls. He spent too many childhood hours watching Chucky movies. I would post a picture of the situation, but I’m too lazy to get up off the couch. I didn’t get to sit down for the first time until 8 pm. But that’s ok, because…

I’m happy that I have a good job. I have been super busy and I’ve been more than a little stressed out, but I am happy that I such a good job when so many people don’t have any job at all. I am very lucky.

I’m happy that my kids are so stinkin’ cute. I know, it’s sinful to be so shallow. But they’re both so gorgeous. And besides their Gap Kids good looks, they’re both so smart, and BK is a fantastic athlete already (I can’t say the same thing about Bug. She gets her grace from her mama).

I’m happy that The Walking Dead starts in 5 more days! Do you guys watch? It’s so good! Scary, but not too scary. And if course, zombies aren’t enough, so there’s so drama and romance in there as well.

I’m happy that I’m going to snuggle with my cat now. Peace out!

How I spent my vacation

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My house has been completely clean for like five days in a row.

Beds made.
Kitchen clean.
Laundry done.
Toys picked up.

It’s  been wonderful. I’ve been relaxed, I’ve had time to play with the kids, and I don’t live in mortal fear of someone dropping by and walking in to the war zone that is my living room.

The bad news is, I have to go back to work today, and I don’t know if I can keep up with my clean house routine when I work fulltime, have two young kids, and have a husband who does… not a lot. But I think The Agent is going to be working on the new house every day after work, so that will help keep the chaos under control.

Here’s a before and after tease for you, so you can see what The Agent’s been doing:

And here's what it looks like now:

I love it! The kids were sad to have their little secret play room filled in, but it was driving me nuts to have that little door in the middle of my living room (before you cry about all the storage space I gave up, don't worry. There wasn't that much space there to begin with, and we're going in through the garage).

The Agent is working on my shower now, which is taking WAY longer than I thought it would. Seriously, it seems like he's been working on the shower for three weeks now, and I still don't see any tile up. Apparently, there are 392 things that you have to do BEFORE you lay down the tile, and The Agent is working on all those things.

News to me. I thought you could just lay some tile down and call it a day. That's probably one of the many reasons why The Agent's doing it right now and I'm at home blogging about it.

Hazppy Bizrthdazy... ozr Nozt

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We had my mother and sister over for dinner tonight. I made a couple of jabs about how Kari's 3-and-a-half months pregnant belly looked more like she was 5 months along. We talked about how she thinks it’s a boy since she feels completely different from her last pregnancy, and we talked about names (I really like the name Elias… or Aliyus if you’re going for a non traditional spelling). The Agent and I made several thinly disguised jokes about how my sister is a red hot mess and about how my mother is doing a wonderful job at raising her teenage daughter.

I kept my temper, but I really think that’s part of the problem. If you ask me, people haven’t gotten mad enough at her.

But it was ok. She's with her boyfriend and they're talking about moving in together. We’ll see if the Baby Daddy will be there in April.

But this post is more about my mother than Kari. The reason they came over was because my mother’s birthday is on Monday. The Agent’s birthday happens to be on Wednesday.

We are doing financially ok. My mother is not. Here’s the text conversation that went on between me and Kari on Thursday morning:

Kari: Hey what doesz Agent want for hisz birthday?

Me: a sock in the gut. :)

Kari: Okaie beszidez that :P

Me: Honestly, he would be mad if you spent any money on him. Why don’t you just get him a card and a couple lottery tickets? Maybe he’ll win big!

Kari: Mom doesn’t have cash szo szhez not guna do that ahha

Me: She doesn’t have cash??? So why the f are you even asking? Don’t get him anything!

Kari: She wantsz to charge eht at jpc idk szhez crazy dnt tell her I told you tho.

Me: if she wants to charge stuff at jcp, tell her I want a table for my new dining room!

Kari: Ahha nothing big lmao we don’t even have a dining room table.

(20 minutes later)

Kari: What do you like better applebees red lobszter or chilis?

Me: Do not allow her to buy a gift card. Tell her I’m not getting her anything for her bday, so she doesn’t need to get Agent anything.

Kari: Szhez not falling for eht szhe never lisztenz to me!

Me: I promise, the only thing I’ve bought so far is a card. I was going out today to get something, but I won’t now!

Kari: Too late szhe already hasz her mind szet on eht szhez gettn eht -_-

Me: Whatever. I’m still not getting her anything.

Kari: Ahha that will teach her lmao

Seriously, what’s the deal with all the Z’s?

So that night, I told The Agent about our conversation. “I’m not getting her anything, even though it sounds like she’s getting you a gift card. Is that wrong?”

“No, it’s not wrong,” The Agent replied. “If we stop buying her stuff, she’ll stop wasting her money on stuff for us.”

So, that’s what I did. We gave her a card, and Bug drew her a picture. No gift. It’s not like she asked for anything that big anyway: a spoon rest, a waste basket, normal stuff you buy on your weekly trip to Wal-Mart.

She gave The Agent a $50 gift card to Applebees. That she paid for with a credit card. She could have used that money for groceries.

Of course, we tried to give it back. “Here Mom, keep it as your birthday present.”

She started crying. “It’s a gift for you too,” she said through her tears. “I want you to both enjoy yourself.”

Ugh. “Well, how about we make it a Christmas present as well? I’ll buy for the kids, but you don’t get anything for us, and we won’t get anything for you.”

Deal.

And the good news is, I was able to cut a name off my Christmas list.

What are you so happy about?

I've been reading along with this meme for awhile, but I don't usually post. I try to limit the amount of linky parties I participate in, and I do quite a bit already.  But I love reading what makes other people happy each week, so I thought I'd give it a shot.  Bonus:  there’s a giveaway for a Target gift card if you play, and I’m all about fabulous prizes. Makes me happy!

So happy that I have the entire week off work. I’m not going on vacation or anything, I’m just hanging out with Bug all week. I told her that for every day, we were going to do a little school work, a little housework, and then something fun. This has been working really well so far. I’m getting stuff accomplished, and Bug is having fun. And, even better, Bug has been really good for the most part. SO happy!

I have also told Bug that every day we are going to “rest” for an hour. This will allow me to relax and be off the mommy clock for awhile, and it puts Bug in a better mood for the rest of the afternoon. Naptime makes me happy!

The Agent has been working on my new house every night and weekend. Playing single parent does NOT make me happy, but going over there each week to see the progress makes me VERY happy! He is working on the master shower now. He will hopefully have it completely done by the end of next week. Happy!

Yesterday was the first day that it really felt like fall here. I even wished for a sweater when I was at the park with Bug. Fall weather makes me happy! And while we’re on the subject, pumpkin spice lattes, stew cooking in the crockpot all day, my Uggs, and a fire in the fireplace make me happy!

New books make me happy. I just finished reading A Dog’s Purpose. So good! I recommend it to everyone. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll think, you’ll feel good after reading it. It’s basically about a dog who gets reincarnated over and over again until he finds out what his purpose is, but it‘s also a love story, and a story about how people act in our world. You don’t have to be a dog lover to enjoy it, but I’ll warn you: of course it’s a little sad each time the dog dies.

Flowers make me happy. Bug and I pulled a bunch of weeds at the new house and planted some fall flowers. There’s still a bunch of weeds, it still looks a little sad, but at least it’s getting better. Happy!

What are you happy about this week?

Brilliantly Naughty

Earlier in the week, I wrote about some behavioral issues Bug was having at school. On Wendesday, she got in trouble “for yelling at another child.” I asked Bug what happened, and she said she was at a listening center with headphones on. Another girl walked by a did… something to the headphones. I don’t know what, and Bug’s 5-year-old vocabulary couldn’t explain it to me. So Bug yelled at the girl, “Why did you do that???” Bug said she didn’t mean to yell as loud as she did, but since the headphones were on, she didn’t realize she was being so loud.

Now, maybe this is the truth, and maybe it’s not, but it makes perfect sense to me. Anyone would talk louder if they had headphones on. Why should she be punished for that?

We had plans to go see my family on Thursday, and I had told Bug that she couldn’t go if she got in trouble at school, so I made her call my parents to say why she couldn’t see Grandma and Grandpa.

My stepmother answered the phone and Bug said, real quiet, “I can’t come over tomorrow.”

“Why not, Baby?” my stepmother asked.

Bug couldn’t answer. She started crying. Poor Baby. It broke my heart.

(This is was a total ploy, by the way. We were going to my Dad’s, regardless. But we were hoping to scare her straight. And my prents said all the right things. “It’s too bad you won’t be able to come. We’ll miss you so much. Maybe if you’re really really good tomorrow, maybe you’ll get to come with Mommy and Daddy and BK.”)

After Bug went to bed that night, I sat on the couch and stewed. I was convinced that Bug was being treated unfairly. How dare that teacher punish my child! She doesn't always, she talks a lot, but she's ultimately a good girl.  I wrote a nasty letter to the teacher, saying exactly what I thought.

I didn’t send it. I was just doing some writing therapy.

But Friday was going to be Bug’s last day before the two-week Fall break, and I really didn’t think I could go two weeks without some kind of resolution. So on Thursday before school, I popped in unannounced to have a heart to heart with the teacher, Ms. Frank.

I’m so glad I did.

There are things I didn’t bring up. I didn’t mention the headphone thing. I just said I was concerned about Bug’s behavioral issues. I suggested that maybe she should change desks.

Ms. Frank was way ahead of me, and had already moved the boy next to Bug. She said that Bug was so smart, sociable, friendly…. She just won’t stop talking, and she doesn’t listen unless she wants to.

Hey, I get it. You’re preaching to the converted. I had to tell Bug three times to get dressed that morning.

But Ms. Frank really didn’t seem all that concerned. She said that Bug is getting better, and she said that after the break, she has a new strategy for helping Bug behave.

I liked everything I heard. Maybe it was all for show, I don’t know, but I liked that she seemed to be making an honest effort to help Bug. She hadn’t given up on her yet.

And, oh what a coincidence! Bug didn’t get in trouble at all on Thursday or Friday. And now we can enjoy the Fall break without worrying.

Oh! And the best part! Ms Frank said the kids were going to be broken up into reading groups after the Fall Break. “Bug’s most likely going to be in a group by herself. I don’t usually like to do that, but no one else is as advanced as she is.”

Heck yeah my kid is brilliant. No wonder she talks so much. She probably wants to teach the class herself.

(At the same time, I’m thinking, what the heck? Did Bug get put in the dumb class? She’s smart, but I didn’t think she was THAT smart. She knows a couple of three-letter words, she's not reading War and Peace!)