So, for quite some time (much to my mother's chagrin) I have had a fondness for heavy eye makeup.  Bright colors, black eyeliner, general smudginess under the guise of  "a smoky eye"... and LOTS of mascara.  I was very proud of myself a while back when I procured a loose powder eye shadow in a color somewhere between charcoal and eggplant laced with a teal shimmer.  I giggled and called it "black eye in a jar".  It was my favorite to wear when I was feeling particularly sassy.  My good friend LP from work will know the exact shade I am talking about; I bounded up to her with my eyes closed to show it off the day I got it.
I am even happier today to have it than I was in the beginning.  I'm sure you know exactly WHERE this is going.  What I doubt you will guess is the HOW.
I gave myself a black eye. 
I had a dream the other night that I rolled over and smacked my eye on my nightstand, missing a broken nose and permanent blindness by millimeters at most.  I dreamed it was so incredibly painful that I passed out.  I woke up the next morning with a sore eye.  Examination in the mirror revealed  a swollen, purple eyelid.  I apparently was not dreaming.  Ouch.  But at least I had the right eye makeup in my kit!  No one will be the wiser to my excessive clumsiness... except all of you.

CL

We hadn't seen Teeny Bear in a while, so I took advantage of the holiday to invite her over on a Monday.  I offered to meet E for lunch since he would be at work and she had to be back home before quitting time.  We hit a local Chinese buffet.
*As a side note, this is the first buffet that I have ever been to that had a long, detailed sign (otherwise known as a Word Document in all caps and 36 point font printed from their computer) explaining in both English and Spanish that wasting food made their food cost very high and they would be charging people for excessively wasting food.  Maybe is was so they could afford to replace the stall doors in the ladies' room, because two of the three stalls had curtains hanging in their place.
As one usually finds at a place like this, they manage to stay in business because they have tasty food.  We really like spicy food in our house, so we were really enjoying the jalapeno chicken.  At one point, Teeny Bear inhaled at the wrong time and began to have one of those cough/choke-type spasms that happens when a jalapeno seed goes down the wrong pipe.  Of course we laughed at her.  Then I went up and got another plate... including more of that delicious jalapeno chicken.
Then I also had a seed go down the wrong way.  Unfortunately, my body had the wrong auto response.  I did not cough.  I did not choke.  I sneezed.  Oh, the pain.  Now the seed was somewhere in my sinus cavity.  I sneezed violently at least a dozen times.  I have never felt a fire inside my head of this magnitude.  Next thing I know, my nose is bleeding!  I never, ever get nosebleeds... and it's bleeding pretty profusely.  And I am still sneezing.
So I excuse myself to the restroom (where I witness a woman exit the only stall with a door and bypass the sinks completely as she leaves) to get myself together and clean myself up.  Finally the sneezing stops.  I look in the mirror and see on my neck the biggest jalapeno seed to ever grow.  Yup.  I finally got it out! 
So I wash up and head back to the table (thankfully taking note of the fact that the unsanitary lady from the bathroom is putting on her coat and leaving instead of touching the buffet utensils any more).  Hmmm.... do I dare?  Oh, yes I do.  One more tiny spoonful of that jalapeno chicken.
But after one bite, I have to stop.  I feel a sneeze coming on...

CL

Starbuck is back!  I am so happy!  My adorable dog was adopted by a lady who used to walk her at the shelter, then brought back within her trial period due to the woman being unable to handle her.  Translation: she didn't want a dog that wasn't house trained.  I had already been crying for days, so when I heard she was back I just couldn't take it... but I didn't want to put E in a bad position.  I started talking to the woman in charge at the shelter after E said he couldn't bear to see all of us so sad.  I got the answer I was afraid of:  they do not give second chances.  After several conversations about changing circumstances (and a LOT of support from Aunt Taffy, who had become well-known and trusted as a dog lover at the shelter after her tremendous efforts to find a fantastic home for this sweet dog), the woman agreed to meet with us and sent a book home with Aunt Taffy to give to me.  I read the book cover to cover and discovered that E didn't just have to tolerate the dog for his girls; there was actually a solution.  You see, it breaks down like this:

E was deemed by me to be 'not a dog person' because he became frustrated with these behaviors:

Chewing
Accidents in the house
Chewing
Barking
Dog hair all over the furniture
Did I mention chewing?

Things I figured out from reading the book and doing some critical thinking:

I grew up with outdoor dogs and was way too tolerant of 'puppy' behaviors I didn't realize she could be trained out of.
Housebreaking a dog and potty training a child are completely different.  You don't go at the dog's pace like you do with a child.  It can, and should, be done fairly quickly.
I felt bad she was kenneled when I was gone, so I let her roam the house when I got home.  No wonder she chewed things up when left to her own devices!  I need to keep her on her leash with me until she is trained.
When she barks, yelling at her to "Hush!" just sounds like barking back to her, so she continues the conversation.  There are better solutions to barking.
If you keep your giant white dog off the couches, chairs, etc.  she won't completely blanket them in her hair!  Time to invest in a doggy bed to put right next to the couch-- like she even fits on our laps anymore, anyway!
Dogs chew when they're bored.  It's how they fidget.  A large (likely Pointer/Lab mix) like her has tons more energy than I helped her expend during the cold winter months.  Time to buckle down and bundle up!

I missed this dog far more than I ever could have imagined, so I am willing to basically drop everything else in my life right now and play catchup with her training.  I was just ignorant to the fact that we didn't have to just wait until she outgrew some of these behaviors.  She's already had a bit of a mini "boot camp" being back at the shelter, so she's improving already.  I'm going to work with her at home for a while, then sign us up for a training class.  E is already pleased with my determination to rectify the issues I caused by being the one in charge of her and just letting her run the house.  He loved and missed Starbuck... just not the chaos she was causing.  I'm so glad she's home.

CL

The holiday season kept me crazy busy, but not with anything I wanted to write about.  Christmas came and went, some lady cried at work over ham, Skittles (aka the Munchkin) came to visit but I didn't want to waste any time we had with her on here, my husband's grandpa spent Christmas in the hospital, I had to give up my dog because we confirmed too late that E is not a dog person and I could not keep up on everything alone, my washing machine broke, I spent all day yesterday spilling everything that could possibly be spilled, Ladybug now complains of leg pain anytime she is asked to do something she isn't interested in doing...
So, yeah.  Nothing I wanted to write about.  Not much entertaining or funny in all that.  Except maybe the ham lady, but I signed a contract at work to not put things like that on the internet, so that one is a no-go.  Hopefully my life will get funnier soon.

CL

It's been nearly a week since I could come up with a single, cohesive story to post.  To avoid another terrible case of writer's block, I'm going to make a post of random snippets of my life from this week.  Maybe once I have purged that, I will be able to think of something more entertaining to write about.

I'll start with the freshest thing on my mind:  about ten minutes ago, Ladybug chased me into the bathroom.  "Mom! Mom! Mom!"
"What?"
"Did you have a lot of coffee?"
"Yes, I did..."
"And now you have to go potty?"
"Yes."
"Ha, ha.  Okay."
She was so proud of herself for understanding cause and effect.

Two nights ago, I was reading a library book to Baby Duck.  It was a story about losing a tooth.  When it started talking about the Tooth Fairy, she interrupted me with a smug look on her face:
"You know, Mom, I was thinking... The Tooth Fairy isn't real."
"Oh, really?"
"Yeah.  She's not, is she?  Because Santa's not real, and fairies aren't real, so she can't be real."
"You're so smart!  Now you know another fun secret!"
"Yup.  You and Dad are the Tooth Fairy!"
This has gone infinitely better than the conversation between my Mom and me twenty-some years ago. Whew.

E walked in from work last night to see me getting a head start on Teeny Bear's easier geometry questions so they wouldn't run out of time on the hard stuff.  If you saw the look on his face, you would swear he caught me cheating on him.  Apparently you don't mess with a man and his math.

The Munchkin-- who does not like the name Munchkin, so I am considering replacing it with her preferred nickname of Skittles-- will be in town so soon I can almost taste it.  She is growing into an amazing young lady.  She is using social media to stand up against bullying and was so proud to tell me about her good grades on her report card:  all part of her quest to make this "the best year ever".  I am so proud and can't wait to hug her and tell her in person.

The dog hates the cold.  She revolts every time it is time to go outside, forcing me to physically move her outside.  She's getting really heavy.  I'm going to throw my back out by the end of this winter if she keeps this up.

That's pretty much all I've got right now.

CL

Okay, first let me say that I am apparently going to have to grow my hair back out so that the crazy cat lady behind the meat counter at the grocery store doesn't call me 'sir'.

Now that I've got that off my chest, on to tonight's story:
Baby Duck wanted to help me wrap presents, so I let her while Ladybug was napping.  I noticed that something we were wrapping was going to be from Santa for someone.  I was pretty sure she would notice on Christmas morning and call me out as a malicious liar.  I thought about changing my plans for what was from Santa, but then I thought about how I was kind of hoping she would figure it out this year.  I believed so whole-heartedly when I was a child that when I was 7 and found out, well, I had a major meltdown.  I still remember the feelings of betrayal choking my voice as I hysterically yelled at my mom, "So now I guess you're going to tell me there's no tooth fairy, either!!!"  Looking back, I can also remember the shock and hurt on my mom's face as she realized that something that was supposed to be so fun had gone terribly wrong.
So I did it.  I followed the lead my husband had given last time we had to tell her something confusing:  I gave her a conspiratorial look and told her she was old enough to know a super secret.  Then we talked about how Santa was all for fun-- make-believe for grown-ups to leave fun little surprises for their kids.  I said, "So often, grown-ups don't play make-believe anymore.  Christmas is a fun time to play one big game of pretend with their kiddos for a whole month!"
She alternated between looking excited to know a secret and looking like she might cry because she had believed.  That made me very sure that I had done the right thing by not letting it go on another year.  She is so imaginative, just like I was.  I could see her taking it just as hard if she got any more attached to the idea.  She decided she was cool with it when I told her that she got to be in on the pretending for Ladybug now and could even help fill her stocking.  Once she realized that she got to play Santa, too, all was well.  She nodded her head vigorously when I asked her not to ruin it for any other little kids at school, either.  I told her that some of them weren't ready to know yet and it was their parents' job to tell them when it was time.  She did not want to let her new secret slip and was pleased to be in-the-know.  I may have a future CIA agent on my hands...

CL

My dog was acting a bit weird this morning.  The only way I can describe it is to say that she was 'slouchy'... she normally sits very erect.  Today her head was hung like she had done something wrong and her shoulders were, well, slouchy.  I thought it was also strange that she didn't want to eat her breakfast before I left to drop Baby Duck off at school, but I was on a time schedule so I went ahead and put her in her kennel.
When I got back home and let her out, I didn't think anything of it.  I brewed some coffee and started to make some toast.  I heard a very strange gurgling sound in the sunroom and went to investigate.  The smell knocked me back instantly.  The mess I saw was fully unidentifiable.  To this minute I have know idea which end of her it came from.  It had all the look of coming from the front, yet all the odor of coming from... well, I can't even finish typing that thought.
It was soaking into the rug quite rapidly, so I did the only thing my panic-stricken brain could come up with:  I opened the back door and pushed the dog outside, got a roll of paper towels to sop up everything that wasn't on the rug, rolled the rug up and hauled it out to the garbage and went to town with disinfectant.
That's right.  Not even an attempt was made to clean the rug.  I kept trying to come up with a plan to clean it thoroughly, but I was breathing through my daughter's fleece neck warmer.  All I could come up with was "Holy cow what if I get it mostly clean but the smell never goes away?  It's just a rug, for goodness' sake!  Just chuck it and be done!  You can't even nail down the exact nature of the mess!  It's not worth it!"  I have cleaned some pretty nasty messes in my day without complaining.  I even cleaned the portion of this mess that could not be thrown out.  But I just couldn't justify trying to salvage a rug that could easily continue to harbor who-knows-what.  Call me wasteful if you will.  I'm going to call it health-conscious.

CL

WARNING:  THIS POST IS GROSS.  DO NOT READ WHILE EATING.

I have a cold and I worked last night, so when I got home late all I wanted to do was sleep without the interruptions I so frequently deal with.  I went to bed right away.  The next thing I knew, I was aware of sunlight.  I looked at the clock.  9:02!!!!  I cannot remember the last time I slept that late!  Oh, my gosh, why do I not hear the dog?  Is she dead?  Did she escape?  Just as I was starting to panic, I heard her begin to make her little noises that signify she is awake and wants out of her kennel.  Whew!
I made my way out to the sunroom to let her out.  When I rounded the corner, the smell that greeted me was enough to kill a Shetland pony.  I dejectedly started to turn for some cleaning supplies when something astounding caught my eye.  Colors.  Lots and lots of colors!  My dog poops rainbows!!  She must be part unicorn! 
Then my sleepy brain caught up to the situation.  She is not part unicorn, rescue dog or not.  It was less 'rainbow' and more 'bag of m&ms'... but we didn't have any m&ms... and anyway they would have certainly broken down in her digestive track.  That leaves only one solution:  CRAYONS.  LOTS AND LOTS OF CRAYONS.  I surveyed the room at that point.  Sure enough, on the floor was my daughters' giant box of crayons surrounded by technicolor wax crumbs and wrappers.
So I got to sleep in this morning.  The cost, however, seems to outweigh the value if you ask me.  My cleaning project thus far has involved a train-robber style bandanna tied around my face and latex gloves for cleaning the kennel, followed by getting soaked giving my dog a bath to remove all traces of the Rainbow from Hades.
I suddenly don't feel so rested.

CL

I cannot remember the last time I slept so poorly.  Baby Duck finally slept soundly; she has been dealing with a cold that has been giving her serious nighttime coughing fits.  Last night she was peaceful... but she was the only one.
Well, E was peaceful except for the documentary he left blaring from his laptop right into my ear while he slept soundly.  And except for after he must have turned it off and supplemented my eardrums with the delicate strains of buzz-saw snoring.  But, other than that, pretty peaceful from him as well.
This leaves my Ladybug, who was intermittently wailing all through the night.  At one point, she needed to get up and go potty, but she was too asleep to do anything but howl until I came and got her.  After that, the moaning seemed to be related to her audibly coming down with her sister's cold... which was almost as loud as my own sore throat screaming belligerently in my ears.
Oh, and I can't forget Starbuck.  Almost out of the 'middle of the night wake up call to go outside' phase, she suddenly decided to smack me with three separate trips outside.  Not cool.
So now I am pretty much delirious.  I am slamming back my pot of coffee in record time so I will stay awake.  I hate napping, but today I would have gone back to bed in a heartbeat if I wasn't so tired that I was afraid nothing would wake me up in time to pick Baby Duck up from school.  So I would probably be pretty entertaining to talk to right now if you want to call me... just keep the snickering to a minimum until you hang up!

CL

I checked my email today and had another ridiculous Comment Spammer.  So ridiculous, in fact, that I'm writing an entire post about it!  Here it is:

A comment regarding "If It's Not One Thing, It's Your Mother", a post at AREASONABLEVOLUME.COM, was written at 11/13/2010 9:55:45 AM.

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Author: learn to play guitar online
IP Address: **.***.***.***
Email Address: joepetie@hotmail.com
Home Page: http://www.guitarplayingresources.com/

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Comment:

Took me some time to read most of the comments, but I certainly enjoyed the article. It proved to be very helpful to me and I am sure to all the commenters here! It's constantly wonderful when you can not only be informed, but also entertained! I'm sure you had fun writing this article.

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You can perform the following actions on this comment:

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This is an automated message.

I went ahead and approved this comment so everyone could see what a tool this guy is.  If it took him some time to read most of the comments, that means my kindergartner reads faster than he does.  I have only received 60 comments on my entire blog history.  His is the one and only comment on that particular post.  Also, he refers to it as an 'article'.  I believe calling any of my writings 'articles' would be considered offensive to every journalist on the planet.  I guess I am helpful, if you consider making people laugh at my 'Mr. Bean'-like, embarrassing pratfalls and my chaotic approach to child-rearing to be a type of 'assisted mirth', if you will.  So glad to know that this stranger finds me "constantly wonderful"... can you spell r-e-s-t-r-a-i-n-i-n-g o-r-d-e-r? 

So, really, I have no choice but to assume that Joe the Guitar Guy loves Spam.  He must be from Hawaii.  They eat a lot of that down there, I hear.  So I think all my friends should help him out.  He was nice enough to give you plenty of contact info if you want to send him recipes!  You can find lots of options at  www.spam.com.

Happy Sharing!

CL