Random.

Some thoughts...

• I love when Ella brings me home things she's drawn at school & they say "I Love Mom." It chokes me up. Because at some point, during free time, my five year old thought about me for a minute. Seriously- I get teary.
  
• I got a papercut between my first & second fingers. You want to try & avoid doing this yourself. It's not fun.
• I love my new Blackberry. I have no idea how to work 90% of it. But I can send annoying texts to assorted family members. I have also taught Grace how to do it, too. Now we are BOTH obnoxious! (My plan includes unlimited texting- so I can annoy you, too!)
  
• Warm patches of sun on the carpet are the best. I'm always finding the kids sprawled out in random sunny places in the house, pretending to be cats. I will usually join in, because it just feels so dang good.
• I still love the snow. I don't care that it's "inconvenient." It's pretty. And now I have something to blame when my garden totally fails this year.
• My niece is hilarious. I am going to kidnap her & keep her here with me all the time. Or maybe Kim would trade me her kid for some goats or something. Her 3rd birthday is at the end of the month- I think Kim should buy her this. Anything less would be child abuse.
  
• I haven't worked hardly at all this month, and MAN is my house clean. If this keeps up, I may have to reorganize my kitchen cabinets. Or go in the garage
  
• I have moved my sewing machine & table into the girls play room. We'll see how this works out- I would like to actually SEW every once in a while, and I figured I could maybe hang out in there with the girls and do some stuff. (Stay tuned for blog post about how my children have sewn themselves to each other.)
• Eric bought me a new car. I found one on the internet, printed it out, and he went & bought it for me. It was just that easy. I am going to attempt the same technique with other big-ticket items. (Hey, Eric- I found this 2 carat diamond ring on the internet. Take care of that for me, would you?) We switched from the minivan to an SUV (soccer-mom wannabe points added or subtracted?) It's pretty, and has a sunroof. And the payments are WAY lower than the van, so that's good.
• Ella likes the singer Duffy. She likes the song "Mercy." The lyrics go something like "I'm begging you for mercy, yeah, yeah." Ella unfortunately thinks the song is called "Pussy" like in cats. It's a song about wanting kittens, or something. Replace "Mercy" with "Pussy" and the song gets really obscene. And my five year old belts it out at the top of her lungs. And I can not make her stop.
• Every day I get e-mails from Martha Stewart. She likes to tell me how to be more organized or crafty. I hate her. All these e-mails do is make me incredibly inadequate. For example, today I am supposed to take pictures of my clothes, print them on tags, and attach the tags to the hangers of the clothing I have already put in matching storage bags. Yesterday she wanted me to make delightful apple pies out of felt. I need to put a stop to these e-mails immediately. They are damaging my self-esteem (although I do now know the correct way to fold sheets.)
  
• We recently told Grace about animal shelters (she saw something about it on the news.) Not the gruesome details, just happy things about that's where dogs & cats go to find new homes. Now she is REALLY MAD at us because we won't go "get some of those animals and give them a home NOW." We have a dog. We have two cats and a hamster. We do not need to go get more animals, so instead we have an annoyed first grader.
• When you accidentally tell two little girls in a fit of insanity that they can choose how to redecorate their bathroom, expect it to be pink. Very, Very Pink. And also expect it to involve a cartoon character of some kind. In other news, we now have a Hello Kitty themed hall bathroom. (Hello Kitty is wearing a beret and there are poodles and eiffel towers. I'm. not. kidding.)
  
• Ella wants to know why boys have "peanuts" in their pants, and why they don't just get rid of them. So I had to have a little discussion with her about how boys parts are different, and it's kindof a private thing, etc. She listened to my whole thing, and seemed to understand, and when I was all done asked me "so what do they DO with all those peanuts?" Crap.
• My cat keeps chewing on my hair. Do you think I should change shampoo?
• Last week I got a screaming deal on meat. I also found out that the butcher at Safeway will take any cut of beef and grind/chop/dice the meat any which way you like. And there was a coupon. So I bought a WHOLE lot of beef, which I then had to bring home & vacuum seal and freeze. 40 pounds of assorted fresh meat spread all over your kitchen makes it look like a major crime has been committed. Also, I may now be a vegetarian, because OMG THE BLOOD. (Did I tell you I had a COUPON!)
• I love the beach, even though we still have to wear our winter coats and boots when we go this time of year. My kids love to collect shells- they think every single one is beautiful and must come home with us. I started to tell them to be a little more discriminating and just put the "perfect" ones in their buckets, but then decided that it must be really nice to think that absolutely everything is equally perfect and worth keeping. (I do draw the line at rocks, though. We have those at home.)
• In my spring cleaning/organizing frenzy, I have been getting rid of bags & bags of stuff. I figure it's good karma to pass along the things that you don't need. Except I always hang on to the girls old Christmas & Easter dresses. Should I pass these on, or do you think Karma will understand I am a little sentimental? Do you think the girls will like having these for their possible children in the future, or will they just think I'm wierd?
• The pools are on sale at Costco. Every year Eric & I struggle with whether or not we should buy a little pool for the girls. While we are deciding, Costco runs out of the pools. Then we spend the next 3 months whining because DUH. We should've just spent the $62 and bought the freaking pool. We are SOO stupid, and next year we will immediately purchase the pool as soon as we see it. I have now been to Costco 3 times and still have no pool. I obviously do not learn from my mistakes.
• The girls are upstairs planning and decorating for a party for me. The last party they had was for Harry the hamster. Harry died the same afternoon. Coincidence?
• I have a FlipFold. I bought it for Eric to be funny. But you must not EVER mock the FlipFold. In fact, GO BUY ONE NOW. They are awesome. Your closet could look like The Gap (you know, minus the clothes you bought at Target.)
  
• Eric & I recently discovered Greek food. Where the heck have we been? Greek food is awesome. We wander around saying "mmmm, gyros. we need gyros." It's fun discovering new foods that you thought you hated. I also now like blue cheese dressing and steamer clams (not together, that would be gross.) Things I will never love- mushrooms and tomatoes. It's just not going to happen.

I would post pictures, but the camera is ALL THE WAY upstairs and I am downstairs. Also, I am currently stuck watching some Judge Something-or-other show because the remote is ALL THE WAY over there somewhere and I am here. (Yahawantas and Lashonda are sueing J'lay for hitting their car with a baseball bat. I guess that's the motivation I needed to go find the remote.)