Better than Christmas

I was planning on going out today to Mardi Gras and all that, dancing the night away with friends. But I have a clinger cold and still feel like my throat has been sewn mostly shut. I hate being in a noisy bar and trying to talk to people when I have no voice.
So I am home alone.
And the girls are gone.
Guess what this means! I get to throw away whatever I want!!!!!
I've been through the living room and kitchen already and I've already found:

--Twenty seven pieces of paper with a small doodle of something in one corner or a random word. As fun as these are to try to decipher, I don't REALLY NEED them. I'm sure 3 weeks from now one of the girls will come to me and say "Mom, where's that picture I drew of a chicken with skis for feet and the word Lassie written under it?" and then they will cry brokenhearted tears when I lie and say "I don't know."
--three used matches, two kleenexes and a rubber rhino
--an m & m in the couch, a dead pen, a christmas box with wax in it, and three dead batteries
--4 pieces of homework that never made it to school
--enough pieces of yarn in varying lengths to have actually made a sweater
--the Thanksgiving singing turkey Grandpa "gave" to the girls because it annoyed him
--four earrings that don't match each other and one back
--a jelly bean (Hey Haley, I'm saving it for you.)
--my morning coffee that I misplaced last week sometime
--3 pairs of socks, but they don't look dirty
--my computer desk!
--a used bath towel under the couch cushions
--2 sweatshirts behind a chair
--empty eyeliner
--a tiny black spring, another big spring that looks like it might be a part of the couch
--two dry markers
--a cup full of frosting and a spoon in the downstairs bathroom under the sink
--a half empty container of bandaid wrappers, but no bandaids
--a school picture of someone who doesn't look like one of my kids
--a butter knife in the entertainment center
--a battery cover for something unknown
--an apple core that you don't want me to tell you about.

What's really really sad about this day: I am having a great time! This is better than Christmas!!!

"Pstttttttt, you might want to come home early girls. I'm heading upstairs next."

You Can't Salt Winter Away

Every morning I get up and walk down the stairs in my comfy pajamas dreaming of a hot cup of coffee and morning tv news and INSTEAD I get to the bottom of the stairs and feel the hard crunchy salt crystals poking through my now damp socks.
The rug at the bottom of the stairs is also the rug inside the front door. Yes, when you enter my place you enter in front of the stairs, so the rug is unavoidable on my way to the coffee maker. But that isn't really what I want to complain about here today. I want to complain about the SALT.
I live in an apartment complex and we have a guy who comes and plows after snowstorms and someone who shovels and snowblows the sidewalks and apparently adores SALT. He throws buckets of salt up and down the sidewalk so thick that the sidewalk is buried under the mounds of white. He leaves piles at the edges of my two step entryway. And everytime the kids come in (or my mother) they track in clumps on the bottoms of their shoes. It's all the way up the stairs. It's under the television. I think there's even some in my bed! I found a crystal on my toothbrush last night.
It's ruining the carpets. My vacuum rattles when I move it. I clean it up every day. I beat the rugs outside, vacuum the carpet, sweep off the steps and the sidewalk ten feet in both directions. I'm a mad woman out there swinging my broom back and forth and swearing at some unseen stranger who makes my life revolve around cleaning the floor. The next morning whether it snows or not--there's all that salt again. A bucket full in front of my place scattered an inch thick in case a flake dare fall from the sky before they can come back and shovel again. It's got to be preventative. I'm surprised there's any snow left anywhere at all!
What they don't know is that I'm saving it up. I've got my own bucket full of dirty used salt. And one morning soon I'm going to catch that salt-obsessed, snow-hating, crazy man and I'm going to salt him and see if he melts!
Winter is natural. Living in a salt shaker is not!

Tale of the Underemployed and Christmas

So I work part time. I make as much as I did working fully time. Getting my big unusable degree just as the economy was slipping into a bog has left me with too much free time on my hands.

Tuesday at 11:00 I was in my new Christmas pjs. If I'm going to wear pjs all day they may as well be somewhat presentable. I decided to put together the 5' tall Santa stocking hanger thingy that my stepmom gave me. It's cute enough I suppose, I just always seem to end up with different screws, some missing, others too big, and the whole thing is as wobbly as the last thing I built (but can't remember because I probably ended up taking it apart and burning it. No, wait! I did assemble a bike this summer! What do I need a man for???? The tire fell off a month later and the steering wheel kept loosening and twisted up. But I did it!

So this is Santa:

And this is the pole his giant head is screwed into:

And this is the finished product with stockings. Except the one for my middle child. It's not here. I guess she doesn't get anything.

So this is what I do with my degree everyone! Well worth the money! And today I'm in my pjs drinking coffee, writing this, and making cinnamon rolls! This isn't so bad. If it wasn't for those student loans I could do this for a while.

YOU and I

You are square and I am round.

You are contemporary and I am tye-dye.

You are solid and I am gassy.

You are beef and I am chicken.

You are jagged and I am blunt.

You are cocoa and I am coffee.

You are structured and I am flowing.

You are a picket fence and I am free range.

You are a suit and I am a sparkly sweater.

And yet there is a part of you

That fits a part of me

Like the cookie dough and brownies

In Ben & Jerry's Half Baked frozen yogurt

Forget the sex.

Just go get me some @%#% icecream!