What had happened was …

So I’m at the doctor’s office today.  It’s a check up for the baby (let’s call him Frog, okay?).  I’m in the waiting room, with some other people.  And let me introduce the lovely couple waiting with all of us.  Let’s call them Mr. & Mrs. O (for OBNXIOUS, and because the other good name is taken).  Mrs. O is quite far along in her pregnancy.  But that is not important to our story.  She has a cell phone.  One of those with the touch screen and slide out keyboard.  And apparently it also has no volume control and is only set to “annoying beep”.  Which beeps and beeps and beeps.  In the completely quiet waiting room.  Where the rest of us have silenced our phones (per the request of the cute little sign that they put up oh, EVERYWHERE).  So I text Clark Kent:

Me: No no no annoying person with an iPhone playing a game … Please don’t cut it to silent …. That beeping noise is so pleasant. (*I later figured out it wasn’t an evil fruit product*)

Clark Kent: Passive-aggressive much?

Me: Beeep beeeeeeep BBBBBEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPP … now she’s texting. Bip bip bip bip bip … The entire waiting room is silent except her phone.  I may seriously stab her.

CK: Just start some loud and annoying show on Netflix and set it in the chair next to you.

Me: No doubt! Oh wait … I’m not a rude a-hole.

Then to make things EVEN better she got out a piece of gum, which she starts smacking, grunting – GRUM GRUM GRUM (like that hippo in Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?), and blowing bubbles.  I relay this info to Clark Kent. 

Me: And now she’s added smacking gun AND grunting while she chews and blows (and pops) bubbles … This is the first circle of hell, isn’t it?

CK: LOL

“LOL”?  I am pretty sure he’s not really laughing out loud.  He’s quietly amused at my situation with the crazy lady who can’t possibly see her rudeness.  And of course I can’t say anything.  I mean she’s not my race, she’s way pregnant, and this is Memphis.  You don’t do that.  She’d likely shove that phone up my bum.  Really.  I’d have done it to her except I KNOW HOW TO SILENCE MY PHONE.

So … we move from that waiting room.  Mr. & Mrs. O go first, so I have a few minutes of quiet before they call me back.  This is the office of things-take-forever-and-you-wait-more, so after the initial stats check you get to go into another waiting room, this one says “lobby”.  And of course WHO should still be in this one but Mr. and Mrs. O.  They are there and a couple other people and then a nice lady and her mother.  The nice lady is an older mom.  I’d say 45+ish.  Honestly, I thought she and her mother (who was 65+ish) were waiting on someone else.  I didn’t realize she was the patient.  Of course, who am I to judge?  I mean, when I’m 45 Peanut will be 23, Bean will be 20, Monkey Man will be 17, Bug will be 15 and Frog will be 14.  I can’t imagine having a newborn then.  Heck, I could be a grandma then.  G-ma.  What what?  But anyway, the nice lady, who has left and come back in the room at least twice gets called to consultation (the last in the 100 step series in the doctors office that means you are almost done).  Mrs. O has the same problem I’ve noticed in Memphis since I moved here.  People of opposite races must think that the other race cannot hear what they say, or don’t care.  I’ve had people talk about me quite obviously and rudely even if I was right there.  “I’d just never have 4 kids.  Who would do that? That’s just too many kids.” “Some people can’t make up their mind up in this store.  What’s so hard, it’s all chips?” … you get the idea.  Mrs. O was no exception.  She starts in LOUDLY to Mr. O “That woman is too old to have a baby.  It might not be nice to say, but it is what it is.  She going to ruin her life and her kid’s life.” Mr. O comes back “Yeah, it is hard to say, but it’s true.  I don’t know what she was thinking getting pregnant so old.” Mrs. O says “Yeah, it is sad.  People like that.  I don’t know what she was thinking".”  Well … who knows what she was thinking.  No idea.  I mean, it could be all kinds of things.  Maybe she was trying to get pregnant and it took 10 years.  Maybe she wasn’t trying and it was a surprise.  But to speak loudly and rudely about someone like that when someone else you don’t know is in the room.  And what if that lady came back in while they were being all rude?  Good thing they didn’t know I was there with #5.  I mean, it would have probably made Mrs. O’s head spin. For a minute.  Then that amazing piece of technology would have probably stepped in to BEEEEEPPPPP BEEEEEPPPP BEEEEPPPP. 

 

OH MY WORD.  Really?  Really, people?  Because you are breeding.  Obviously.  And that means you’ll raise more like you.  Really?  Well, hurray for it all! BBBEEEEPPPP!

Yeah, about that …

I’m pretty thick skinned.  It’s the Southern Girl way.  Let it go, say “bless your heart” and move on.  That’s how we roll.  Cut me off in the line at the store?  Okay.  I’m fine.  Pull out in front of me in traffic?  Yup.  I’ll fuss and holler and say things, but it’s okay.  Obviously you have way more important things than I do. 

It’s a little like that Trace Adkins song. You know, you can mock me, you can make fun of how I talk, and you can tell me to go shove it.  But start in with the talk about my mama and my country and well, we have problems.  Start doing things that aren’t fair, on the up and up and sketchy, and you’ll see my redneck side. 

And when you don’t like me, I don’t care.  So what.   Who are you anyway?  Just someone.  No one.  But darned if being constantly rude is appropriate.  That’s drama, it’s high school and it irks me to no end.  We’re taught in “Southern  little girl school” to always say hey to everyone, don’t matter if they are a friend or foe.  And it’s bugging me.  And all I can think to scream is ….

(source)

Okay… enough ranting.  You may return to your other blogs, which aren’t crazy people. 

Mary, Mary, quite contrary …

How does my garden grow?  Planted our garden today.  So excited to get dirty and watch the kids get excited.  Clark Kent had this whole method thing.  Maps, instructions.  He can lay out a garden like those crazy women plan out Black Friday shopping at Wal Mart. 

Hoping the garden grows.  Last year we had success and the kids loved watching and harvesting and watering.  Mostly each other, but the garden too.  And this year we have the added bonus of purple carrots.  Wait, what?  What the HECK are purple carrots you ask?  Yeah … I don’t know.  These things are rainbow (source for my picture there) I guess.  We’ll see when they grow.  Why are we growing purple carrots?  To quote Clark Kent, “because we can.”  Do purple carrots taste like orange ones?  I don’t know.  These are things I ponder. 

 

And I’ll leave you with this pondering from Bill Engvall …

When there’s a dead vulture on the side of the road, what eats it?

Humbly taking it all in …

It’s been a while.  Things have been hectic, emotional and just plain ol’ crazy around here.  I can’t even excuse the time between the entries.  But I won’t try to catch up either.  Because that’s the Christmas Card Letter Guilt.  You all have it.  Either you write a letter every year, except that one year that grandma passed away and the baby was born, and dang it you were tired.  Or you never wrote one, and this year when the kids are old enough you’re not pulling your hair out and Christmas isn’t spent in the car 8 hours one way to celebrate Christmas (which by the time you get there the last thing you want to do is smile and awe at any baby, even Baby Jesus).  Or you’re like me.  I don’t want to write one, but I have this amazing friend who sends me one every year and I relish every bit of it.  She’s great.  I’m not.  I don’t want to start one.  Hence “Christmas Card Letter Guilt” … you all have it.  You might not know it, but you do.

For 4 weeks I’ve had CCLG for this blog.  I could sit down and write a tiny thing, which I think is great and you’d all like to know about.  Just a small note, like that awesome guy at Message With a Bottle.  He’s great at it.  And perhaps from here on out, when I’ve got just that one awesome tidbit I’ll jump in and post.   Like how there are too many little boys in the house as it is, and little boys are weird and stinky and crazy but loveable.  How my Peanut and her friends trip me out all the time.  How I have the absolute best friends on the planet, and couldn’t do life without them because I’d go insane.  How Clark Kent keeps reassuring me that life is great, and we are great and, well, who’s a rock star?  I am.  Because let’s face it.  Kid #5 isn’t too far off.  But more so I went and did something that was a dream, and succeeded.

What is that insanity?  PTA President.  Oh yeah.  All year I’ve had these great ideas about how our PTA could be more efficient, more creative, and cater more to *gasp* the parents and teachers.  Thought I could do that.  And so did just enough people.  And I’m humbled.  So very, very humbled.  People, even just a few, think I could to.  That all the creative juices I’ve got can be pumped into my kids’ school.  I couldn’t be more excited, and shocked, and well … just humbled.

So today I sit at my kitchen table, the windows are open, the sun is setting, and the kids are out in the yard playing.  Life is rolling along, and for just this moment, however teeny tiny, it’s rolling well.  The hammock is up for the season, the garden is ready to plant and our family is ready to focus on being us.  And I’m preparing for next year at the school.  It’s time to start the music … it’s time to light the lights.  Fasten in boys and girls, it’s going to be a fast, hard ride, and I can’t wait to share it!

Copy and Paste

Today a friend told me that she was reading over resumes and essentially they all said the same thing.  What, you ask?  Well, they said “Copy and paste” from Google, apparently.  I mean, they all said the same thing.  In the most generalized way possible.  At no point did any of them make relevant sense to the job to which they were apply.  Nor did they even try.   Here, I will give an example, just by Googling job objective:

“Obtain a position at ABC institute where I can maximize my training experience, program development skills and my teaching abilities.“

And here again:

“Obtain a position at XYZ Company where I can maximize my management skills, quality assurance, program development, and training experience.”

And here once more (from an actual resume):

"Looking to obtain a position with a reputed company which will require me to utilize my skils, abilities, and experience." (SIC)

So, kids, what have we learned here?  That the upcoming generation knows jack about resume writing?  That Google has made us lazy?  That “well, someone already did it so I don’t have to try” is acceptable?  That mediocrity is the standard? 

It gave me a great laugh.  But it saddened me too.  Because it reminded me that the general population is not so very bright.  Not that I’m Einstein.  Far from it.  I’m just me.  My job didn’t require a resume.  I utilize my skills every dang day.  And have tons of experience.  But seriously folks … when is it going to dawn on people that everyone else googled the same thing, ergo your answer looks as lame as theirs and at no point in your answer did you actually answer anything.  Kudos to you, oh Billy Madisons of the world.  Copy and Paste on!

Bumper Sticker #15263

I’m going to make a bumper sticker for my car.  It’s going to say:

“The deceleration of this vehicle is directly proportional to your proximity to the bumper.”

People don’t get it.  I will NOT go faster, but I can go a whole LOT slower.  Really.  Really.  You’re annoying me, I’m going slower, it annoys you, which makes you get closer to me, which annoys me. It’s a vicious cycle. 

And speaking of annoying me, don’t ask me if ALL the kids are mine.  Yes.  Yes they are all mine.  And I’m having more.  Another one.  Good thing too.  I’m making sure there are enough nice people in the world to replace the jerks like you around.

 

Grr … mama bear say what??

Painted Concrete Floors are beautiful!

What do you do when you are sick of crappy builder-grade beige carpet?  What about when said carpet is gross, stained, and uh … really gross?  And you have a few days to do a project?  Well, we rip it up around here!  Shut yo mouth!  We do!  Rip it straight out of the floor.  And boy is it gross!  The sheer amount of dirt and dust under the carpet was GRODY!  DIS-GUST-ING!  BLEH! So then what do you do?  Well Clark Kent and I find a solution that is inexpensive (i.e. not laying bamboo hardwood imported from India or something) and easy (i.e. not $20/sqft fancy tile from Italy that takes gluing, lining up, measuring, more lining up, cursing because it’s not lined up, and more gluing and tons of time).  So we browsed ideas and found a great one!

The cast of characters:

Krud Kutter floor cleaner – this cleans up the dirt, grime and spilt paint (see below).

Concrete Putty – to fill in the holes left by the tack strips.  Now, the blog we followed they skipped these two things because they didn’t intend on keeping the painted concrete as a final floor.  I’d not recommend that.  Especially if your builder laid the tack strips before the concrete dried and thus caused great chips to come up in the floor.

Valspar Porch/Patio Floor Paint made for painting concrete – base grey. If you want a lighter color, get lighter color floor paint.  The shade of paint you choose determines the darkness of the stain. (We got this at Lowe’s)

Behr Semi-Transparent Concrete Stain – Chicory was the color we chose.  It’s a reddish brown that goes well with our walls and décor. (This came from Home Depot.  If you don’t want to make two trips then pick some floor paint from Home Depot.)

Quikrete Wet Look High Gloss Sealer – this coats the floor and protects it from kids, dogs, toys, and everything else.  It also makes it nice and shiny, which is fancy.  I like fancy.

Woven Linen Rollers – this is for the stain.  It gives it texture.  Although Clark Kent says that next time he’d likely get a pump sprayer for the stain, to get a more even coating.  I like the texture the rollers gave it, so you decide there.

Step One … Moving out all the furniture and realizing how yuckaliscious your carpet is as denoted by the “clean” spots where the furniture that hasn’t moved in 6 years has been.  Eww.

See the "clean areas" where the furniture was? yeah.

Removing furniture easy.  Getting dogs out of pictures?  Not so easy.

Where did the furniture go?  To the foyer of course! 

Step Two … Rip up that carpet.  Cut it into 2-3ft strips and pull it up.  Cough a lot at the sheer dust that comes up as you are doing this and admire the yucky pet dander cloud hovering over your head.

It was really gross.  Why was carpet invented?

  Step Three … Look at the dirt and grossness and say “Oh my goodness, THIS is why our children always have stuffy noses and terrible allergies.  Why in the world was carpet invented anyway?  Dumbest idea ever.”

Yeah, that's the fine dust/dirt/yuck that was under the carpet padding.

Step Four ... Clean the floor.  We used the Krud Kutter first, then we mopped it.  I say "we" ... Clark Kent did that.  But you can see the difference between the before and after.  Our builders were kind enough to spill a 5 gallon bucket of primer all over the floor and then proceed to wipe it up with their fingers (what?!?) and walk all in it and around the floor and well, really, the guys were probably pretty ticked off they spilled an entire gallon of drywall primer anyway, right?  That stuff really removed the spilled paint.

Step Five … Remove tack strips. This is really hard and I admit I didn’t do a bit of it.  Clark Kent did all of it.  Hard work.  Tiring hard work.

It's hard to get those strips up!  Wear gloves! 

Step Five … Walk around and talk really loud.  Everything echoes.  And look at your concrete.  Here’s where the tip of the day comes in.  **If you can’t stand imperfections in the concrete or cracks and dips and all that where the builders didn’t wait enough time for the concrete to dry before they started other parts of the house, you probably want to not do this project, put a skim coat of fresh concrete down or at the least don’t use a high gloss sealer.**

Echo! Echo! Echo!

Step Six … Fill in the holes from the tack strips and any large chips in the concrete with the Concrete Putty.  And tape the walls.  We taped newspaper up with painters tape.  This is important because the stain is very watery and tends to splash.  Clark Kent just painted our walls a year ago, and I like them nice and un-stained-splattered.  So this step was important.

The hallway had more glue than the whole living room. 

Step Seven … Paint the floor.  The paint is thick, so one coat should do it. The idea is to get one uniform color before staining. Clark Kent went around the edges first then rolled out the main part of the floor.  This has to dry overnight before applying the stain. 

It's so ... grey. 

Step Eight … Stain the floor.  Be sure to have stuff covered and not wear nice shoes.  The stain splatters.  We did 1 ½ coats of stain.  Mostly one coat, but going back where there were obvious roller marks and giving it depth.  This also has to set overnight before applying the sealer coat.  So admire it.  It will look great and you will be so pleased!  But it is not for kids or dogs to be on.  They are destructive by nature, and thusly are banned from unsealed floors.

This is where you can adjust the color.  More coats will give you a darker color.

Step Nine … Seal the floors.  It takes two coats of the sealer to coat it well.  You have to wait at least two hours in between coats.  Then it has to set overnight to fully harden.  After a few hours you can walk on it, but don’t put the furniture back until the next morning.

Ooh, so shiny and protected!  

Step Ten … Put your furniture back.  Enjoy!  Look how fabulous this room looks now!  It’s a totally different space.  

Look how crisp and clean it looks! 

All our colors finally match and work together! 

Here's the final AFTER 

The most "BEFORE" I have.  This is one week after we moved in , October 2006