I like to consider my home a bug free zone. We pay an extermination company loads of money to help make this a reality. When I say my home is bug free, I would also like for that to be a blanket statement that covers the outside of my home and the grass where my kids and I play as well. Just because I'd like it to be so doesn't always mean it is so. The trees and other areas of the yard are fair game as far as I'm concerned.
Apparently, the stink bugs and cicadas did not receive the memo. They are going out of their way to get into my home (as I write this) or onto my front porch or window screens. The things are ugly from the top side...the underbelly is far worse! Chills creepy-crawl from my ears to my toenails when I encounter such eery looking creatures. Thanks to their presence, I haven't set foot on my front porch after dusk in weeks. (Spiders account for all the other warm nights I've imprisoned myself in my home.)
My husband is trying to turn me into an outdoorsy girl...sitting on the deck at night to enjoy a glass of wine and the latest Daily Show or Colbert Report on Hulu; enjoying the back and forth motion of our hammock swing while staring at the back of our shrinking house. I spend most of the time looking for bugs out of the corner of my eye - always ready to spring out of my seat and into the safety of my home should a 6 or 8 legged creature decide that tonight's the night to climb Mount Lee. Sometimes hubby sits on the front porch, smoking a cigar and watching something he's downloaded on the computer, just to taunt me. He knows that I refuse to go to bed without kissing him goodnight, so he lures me out there on purpose. Nice try, but the few seconds I spend out there, surrounded by the sights and sounds of nature, are a few seconds too many!
Heaven help me when my girls grow up and, like most children I know, decide they want to spend the night in a tent in the backyard...with Mommy.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Sunday, August 7, 2011
The Great Dishwasher Debate
In the land of Passive-Aggressiva, AKA my house, there's yet another silent war being waged. This particular skirmish involves the dishwasher and whether to pre-rinse the dishes or not prior to inserting them into their proper spot in the machine. I'm a rinser, hubby is not...hence the debate.
Until this past week, I've let him go about his non-rinsing ways and not said too many words about it. However, during a particularly whiney morning in our household, I was unloading the dishwasher and reached the end of my tether. When the girls are screaming or whining, two of the cats are fighting and creating a tornado of cat hair, the third cat is puking somewhere in the house, and the phone is ringing, the LAST thing I need to do is re-wash a dish; or lose a fingernail trying to scratch off the food that is now hermetically sealed to the dish. I agree with hubby on this one important point..."A dishwasher is supposed to wash the dishes, therefore I shouldn't have to rinse them off first." YES, that is so true! Items should not have to be rinsed before putting them into a dishwasher. Commercials for detergent and washers all hail that very remark!- Life would be easy if I could simply turn on the dishwasher full of dirty, sticky, messy dishes and it actually got rid of all the food on the plates, like a good little dishwasher is supposed to do. Ours, which we inherited when we bought our house, does not perform its washing duties appropriately, and when hubby leaves food on his dishes/cooking items when putting them in the dishwasher, I inevitably have to re-wash said items before putting them back in the cabinet. Who has time for that!?!?
So, after a day of being a mommy and an entertainer and a short order cook and a housekeeper/maid and a soother and a translator and a dish re-washer, I decided to approach hubby in that walking-on-egg-shells manner that's required of such an endeavor. Kindly, I mentioned that once again, the dishwasher did not fully clean the dishes and it added a bit of stress to my hectic day. I continued with a plea for his help in making my day peachy keen by simply running his plates/utensils under running water for a fleeting moment prior to putting them into the dishwasher. *Notice I did not place blame. I said nothing about his rinsing negligence that created the problem in the first place.* His response: "I'll see what I can do." And the war wages on...and on and on.
Until this past week, I've let him go about his non-rinsing ways and not said too many words about it. However, during a particularly whiney morning in our household, I was unloading the dishwasher and reached the end of my tether. When the girls are screaming or whining, two of the cats are fighting and creating a tornado of cat hair, the third cat is puking somewhere in the house, and the phone is ringing, the LAST thing I need to do is re-wash a dish; or lose a fingernail trying to scratch off the food that is now hermetically sealed to the dish. I agree with hubby on this one important point..."A dishwasher is supposed to wash the dishes, therefore I shouldn't have to rinse them off first." YES, that is so true! Items should not have to be rinsed before putting them into a dishwasher. Commercials for detergent and washers all hail that very remark!- Life would be easy if I could simply turn on the dishwasher full of dirty, sticky, messy dishes and it actually got rid of all the food on the plates, like a good little dishwasher is supposed to do. Ours, which we inherited when we bought our house, does not perform its washing duties appropriately, and when hubby leaves food on his dishes/cooking items when putting them in the dishwasher, I inevitably have to re-wash said items before putting them back in the cabinet. Who has time for that!?!?
So, after a day of being a mommy and an entertainer and a short order cook and a housekeeper/maid and a soother and a translator and a dish re-washer, I decided to approach hubby in that walking-on-egg-shells manner that's required of such an endeavor. Kindly, I mentioned that once again, the dishwasher did not fully clean the dishes and it added a bit of stress to my hectic day. I continued with a plea for his help in making my day peachy keen by simply running his plates/utensils under running water for a fleeting moment prior to putting them into the dishwasher. *Notice I did not place blame. I said nothing about his rinsing negligence that created the problem in the first place.* His response: "I'll see what I can do." And the war wages on...and on and on.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Warning:
:Exposure to Introverts or Rude People Can Cause Enhanced Exercise Experiences
First full day at the OBX and the girls were up earlier than the sun. What did I do with my early, EARLY Sunday morning? Like all people who like to appear healthy and fit, I went for a brisk walk on the beach. On my walk, which was boring b/c I didn't have earbuds with which to listen to my iPod, I decided to do an experiment. Being in the true South (if you knew my hubby you'd know why I had to put the word "true" in there), I figured most people would be friendly. However, knowing that most people there were transplants for the week, I guessed I would be hard pressed to find friendly, Southern folk. So began my quest.
As I wiggled my hips down the beach I mostly stared into the glistening ocean, thinking that I should have applied sunblock or at least worn a hat. I was coming up with blog topics, singing songs in my head, and having fake conversations with people in my mind. That is, until I'd pass a fellow exerciser. No matter where they were looking or what they were looking like, I waved and piped, "Good mornin'!" With my signature big smile and Richmond accent, I hoped people would oblige me and return my salutations. I made sure to just smile and wave to people with earbuds. Even still, they couldn't contort their faces to return the smile. Sadly, out of the 31 people I greeted, a mere 3 returned my sentiments. Maybe they were too shy to say hi back? Perhaps some cussed me out once I passed for being so chipper in the morning. I appeared to be enjoying my exercise...maybe they weren't enjoying theirs? Maybe they were so thrown by someone acknowledging their presence that they were stunned into silence? To those 3 people who pleasantly responded...I thank you. Although, you didn't do much to change my opinion of society in general and the direction in which it's heading.
Since the walk away from the beach house proved fruitless in terms of making new friends, I decided to try the running thing on the way home. I hadn't run since 2005 or 2006 when I was training for a half marathon I got peer pressured into doing. I'm slow, I look like a fool, my thighs rub together at the top, my shorts look like they're being eaten by said upper thighs, I turn bright red and appear to be close to passing out even though I'm not, and I get blisters the size of dollar bills on my flattened arches no matter how top-of-the-line my running shoes are. All of that aside, I went for it. At first I thought someone had poured Jell-O into my butt, stomach and boobs. Holy Wiggle Jiggle, Batman! I felt like I was being pulled to the core of the Earth with each step. Knowing that my jiggly-bits would settle in a while, I kept going. Ugh. Why did I start this? What was I thinking? I had to be at least 2 miles from home. OK - maybe a mile and a half. Either way, it might as well have been light-years. I couldn't even see our beach house from where I was, and anything resembling it was blurred by the morning haze. Being competitive by nature, giving up and walking was NOT an option at this point. I quickly thought of any song to sing to myself. "I'm bringing home a baby bumble bee..." Nope! Sad that the first song that came to mind was a children's song...work hazard I guess. Then I remembered all the summer songs I'd recently downloaded onto my iPod, so I sang those to myself instead. Once I got close enough to the house to see it I started running a bit faster. I didn't want my family members to see me running at the pace of a speed walker. Forgetting that, unlike the car's side view mirror, things are FARTHER than they appear on the beach. Remember...competitive nature here! So, I kept up that faster pace for the rest of the distance to the house. I got to the "finish line" I drew in the sand and vowed never to do that again...until Tuesday.
First full day at the OBX and the girls were up earlier than the sun. What did I do with my early, EARLY Sunday morning? Like all people who like to appear healthy and fit, I went for a brisk walk on the beach. On my walk, which was boring b/c I didn't have earbuds with which to listen to my iPod, I decided to do an experiment. Being in the true South (if you knew my hubby you'd know why I had to put the word "true" in there), I figured most people would be friendly. However, knowing that most people there were transplants for the week, I guessed I would be hard pressed to find friendly, Southern folk. So began my quest.
As I wiggled my hips down the beach I mostly stared into the glistening ocean, thinking that I should have applied sunblock or at least worn a hat. I was coming up with blog topics, singing songs in my head, and having fake conversations with people in my mind. That is, until I'd pass a fellow exerciser. No matter where they were looking or what they were looking like, I waved and piped, "Good mornin'!" With my signature big smile and Richmond accent, I hoped people would oblige me and return my salutations. I made sure to just smile and wave to people with earbuds. Even still, they couldn't contort their faces to return the smile. Sadly, out of the 31 people I greeted, a mere 3 returned my sentiments. Maybe they were too shy to say hi back? Perhaps some cussed me out once I passed for being so chipper in the morning. I appeared to be enjoying my exercise...maybe they weren't enjoying theirs? Maybe they were so thrown by someone acknowledging their presence that they were stunned into silence? To those 3 people who pleasantly responded...I thank you. Although, you didn't do much to change my opinion of society in general and the direction in which it's heading.
Since the walk away from the beach house proved fruitless in terms of making new friends, I decided to try the running thing on the way home. I hadn't run since 2005 or 2006 when I was training for a half marathon I got peer pressured into doing. I'm slow, I look like a fool, my thighs rub together at the top, my shorts look like they're being eaten by said upper thighs, I turn bright red and appear to be close to passing out even though I'm not, and I get blisters the size of dollar bills on my flattened arches no matter how top-of-the-line my running shoes are. All of that aside, I went for it. At first I thought someone had poured Jell-O into my butt, stomach and boobs. Holy Wiggle Jiggle, Batman! I felt like I was being pulled to the core of the Earth with each step. Knowing that my jiggly-bits would settle in a while, I kept going. Ugh. Why did I start this? What was I thinking? I had to be at least 2 miles from home. OK - maybe a mile and a half. Either way, it might as well have been light-years. I couldn't even see our beach house from where I was, and anything resembling it was blurred by the morning haze. Being competitive by nature, giving up and walking was NOT an option at this point. I quickly thought of any song to sing to myself. "I'm bringing home a baby bumble bee..." Nope! Sad that the first song that came to mind was a children's song...work hazard I guess. Then I remembered all the summer songs I'd recently downloaded onto my iPod, so I sang those to myself instead. Once I got close enough to the house to see it I started running a bit faster. I didn't want my family members to see me running at the pace of a speed walker. Forgetting that, unlike the car's side view mirror, things are FARTHER than they appear on the beach. Remember...competitive nature here! So, I kept up that faster pace for the rest of the distance to the house. I got to the "finish line" I drew in the sand and vowed never to do that again...until Tuesday.
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