My Blog

Fa-Ra-Ra-Ra-Ra Ra-Ra-Ra-Ra

Tara — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 02:38:26 GMT

Oooooooh! I am so grumpy today. I REALLY wanted these deluxe Fluevog shoes on ebay: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=001&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&viewitem=&item=110067377269&rd=1&rd=1 I waited until the last minute so I could be sure to win them, but one of those weird computer things happened and when I refreshed it - it froze and wouldn't let me place a bid. It was like one of those dreams where a monster is chasing you but your legs are made out of cast iron and you can't run. I didn't win the shoes. I have no place to wear them anyway. Stupid shoes. Here are some other reasons I am cranky: 1) Tootchie has been sick so we've been up throughout the night with her and Lilah has been sleeping in our bed. That means that Patrick is on one side and Lilah is on the other and I have about 12" of space between them. This morning I felt like someone hit my back with a baseball bat. 2) Patrick is still obsessed with bass stuff. He always starts out wanting one thing (the bass guitar) and assures me that once he has it he will be "the happiest boy in the world." Well, after he gets the bass (or whatever the toy du jour is) suddenly there is hundreds of dollars worth of other crap that needs to be purchased just to have "the basics". Of course, all the stuff I obsess about is totally valid and reasonable...... 3) I have some family members that may or may not come by on Xmas and impose their insanity on me and my family. Of course, they don't call in advance or tell me when exactly they are coming or if they plan to stay in my house - they just tell someone else in the family and expect to show up. One of them is an uncle I haven't seen in many years. The last time he came for a visit, he made a big bowl of popcorn and wouldn't share it with anyone and ate the whole thing with a spoon. 4) I have this really old cat that follows me around the house all day yowling because he wants me to turn the faucet on in the bathtub so he can drink fresh water. 10 minutes after he's done, he starts following me around again. My mom used to work in the dining room at an assisted living retirement home - and it totally reminds me of this old man named Harry Fleisfeeder that used to follow my mom around asking for canned peaches. 5) I am PMS. Happy holidays.

Vomitorium

Tara — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 22:11:25 GMT

I feel like a stuffed pig, and yet I still eat. Also I am constipated. I both love/hate eating holidays. I am excited, privileged rather, to be on the computer right now. We have a 15 year old staying with us (she tried to fuss up my myspace page with backgrounds and sparkly lettering, but I would not have it - I like the PIL generic look). Also, my husband has been home for a week and he is still obsessing over bass guitar CRAP so he wants to look stuff up on the computer all day. I have decided that instead of saying that something is "lame" or "stupid" I am just going to say "That's so Tesla." Tesla is the new word for sucks (sorrry Jeff Keith). Patrick says it like "Tezzla" kind of like lezzbian. I hope everyone had a lovely holiday. Remember that love is knocking outside your door.

24 Hour Party People

Tara — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 16:32:09 GMT

Here's a synopsis of 24 hours in my life starting with Tuesday night. I went to see The Damned at Slim's with my hairdresser whose name is Elizabeth. She was meeting a boy there named David (more later). For those of you who don't know, The Damned was a big punk band in the 80's. They sang "Smash it Up" and "Alone Again Or" etc. It was an entertaining show but very loungy as they are now all older. Elizabeth kept saying that they were "dialing it in" (= phony). We both used to hang in the punk scene so we remember the way punk was in the day, but of course you can now buy punk compilations in the oldies section at music stores so that is that. People watching was fun, there was a lot of people dressed in punk regalia. Spikes, band logos safety pinned to jackets etc. People watching is always fun. There was this one super drunk guy that almost punched me and everyone else around me in the head because he was singing along with the band and waving his fist in the air (anarchy!). His friend whispered in my ear that drunk guy used to be in GBH and was all excited to be at the show but I don't know if that was a bunch of BS. There was another super drunk girl that got thrown out, but she kept trying to get back in (she would wrap her fingers around the door jam so they couldn't close it all the way and then try to push her way back in). She was fun to watch. David, who Elizabeth was meeting, was very nice and is a chemist. I got home around 12:15 and took a shower and went to bed at 1:15. I tried to wash off the skull and crossbones over 21 drinking stamp off my hand because I was going to Bible Study in the morning, but it wouldn't come off. Tootchie woke up at 7:00 a.m. as usual and I dragged myself out of bed to get her a bottle and take the doggie out (the doggie had pooped on the kitchen floor during the night). My neighbor Diane showed up at 9:00 to go to Bible Study. I was running late (typical) so she was holding Tootchie and talking to doggie over the baby gate in the kitchen. All of a sudden, I heard this really loud "crash" and the gate was flat and Diane was on the floor on top of Tootchie (word to your mom, they are called baby gates because they will not hold the weight of an adult leaning on it). Tootchie was screaming and her face was all red from being squished, but she was fine. I was glad Diane hadn’t landed on the doggie too, or she would have been a dog pancake. After the gate was reinstalled and Tootchie was settled, we were out the door. Diane and I carpool to Bible Study and our older kids (Lilah and Levi - both 3) come with us and go to a little Bible pre-school thing while we are in class. Levi always has this thing about wanting to borrow my Thomas trains and he gets all spun up about it. I tell him he can borrow whichever one he wants to borrow, and then Lilah tells him he can’t borrow it so he whines and cries the whole way there in the car and the whole way back. During the lecture part of Bible Study I sat next to an old lady who had a handmade tote bag with rainbow hot air balloons all over it. It made me really depressed. After Bible Study I had to rush home and get the kids ready because we were going to my nephew’s birthday party an hour and forty-five minutes away. I was running around trying to get us ready to go and I was all stressed out because I kept taking the doggie outside to poop/pee and she wouldn’t. I knew that we wouldn’t be home until at least 6:30 and that there would be poop and pee all over if she didn’t go. After I took her outside for the third time, I came back upstairs and Lilah (who I had asked to put her shoes on) was drawing all over the directions and Tootchie was smacking Lilah in the head with a rubber shoe. They were both screaming. I went postal. I grabbed Tootchie and screamed “NO HITTING” and I told Lilah that she had better get her shoes on NOW or we weren’t going. I was in full-blown Mommie Dearest mode. I called Patrick at work and the conversation went something like “THE DOG WON’T POOP OR PEE AND THE KIDS ARE SCREAMING AND WE ARE SO LATE AND I AM LOSING IT!!!!” He suggested that I call my sister and tell her we weren’t coming, but I couldn’t do that because we never get a chance to hang out and she is 9 months pregnant and I didn’t want to miss my nephew’s birthday. I said “That’s not an option. JUST NEVERMIND! I have to go – BYE!” I finally got on the road, and 10 minutes later Patrick called me. He had come home from work and was outside walking the dog. It was so sweet I could barely take it – that’s what love is all about in case you were wondering. The doggie still would not poop or pee. We got to Chuck E. Cheese in Citrus Heights for the birthday party an hour and ten minutes late. My sister said “I was just telling someone how pissed I was at you for flaking.” We missed singing “happy birthday”, but the kids had cake and pizza. Tootchie kept trying to feed me her cake but was missing my mouth hole so I had cake all over my face and shirt. We bought some tokens and after an hour of playing games we had a bunch of tickets. It seemed like we could turn them in for a decent, small prize but all we got were two rolls of Smarties. The kids were happy and it helped lure them back into the car. Back on the road I started getting that “fuzzy” tired feeling from being up late the night before. Of course we were stuck in traffic, and Tootchie started screaming. Having her screaming her lungs out right behind my head woke me up. I find that if I start screaming at her to stop screaming, she won’t stop screaming. Finally, I figured out if I took away her pacifier (buboo) and blanket (dee-dee), she would stop crying if I finally gave them back. We arrived back home two hours later. I felt bad, but I gave the kids frozen, microwave food for dinner (the kid’s kind with the penguin on the box). We eat a lot of frozen food when it is a couple of days before a payday. We all walk around full of sodium and preservatives dying of thirst. The highlight of the day was that I had gotten a package in the mail, and it was a Cranky the Crane for my Thomas the Train set SUCKAHS!! My mom had sent it to me (she is co-dependent to my addictions). He’s so cool though, if you come to my house you can play with him.

Pleasure and Pain

Tara — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 02:23:02 GMT

Does anyone remember orange plastic Hot Wheel tracks? They were so fun to put together and make racetracks with. You could make hills with them over chairs and the Hot Wheels would FLY down them! We also got spanked with the tracks so I have very mixed feelings about them.

Chester's Big Tail

Tara — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 21:26:22 GMT

Chester got a glimpse of the dog today (I am keeping the animals quarantined on opposite sides of the house to integrate them slowly) and his eyes nearly popped out of his head and his tail got really big. He's pissed. I swear, I don't know why I added more stress to my life by bringing a dog home. I really don't understand myself sometimes. Yesterday I was at the park with the dog and the kids, and I was internally all freaked out because the dog hadn't peed in a long time and I thought she was going to try to go in the sand where the kids were playing. Also, I had her on a leash but I had to keep picking her up and crawling all over the play structures because Toochie is too little to climb around on them by herself. I wondered if I looked really stressed out or just like a normal mom who could handle two kids and a dog at the park. Have you seen the movie "Me and You and Everyone We Know"? If not, you should.

Two Stories About Dave Saisi's Mother

Tara — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 22:08:19 GMT

I don't know why he popped into my head, but I was thinking about my old pal Dave Saisi today. We used to be friends and hang out quite a bit, but then we decided to try dating for about one minute and it was a disaster. I blame "When Harry Met Sally" for this. It gave us all the impression that maybe our best guy/girl friends were "the one" when they clearly weren't. Dave was the middle child in a family with three boys. His mom was a devout Catholic. When he was a child, they went to Catholic church every Sunday. As a reward for good behavior, his parents would take them to the donut shop after and they could each pick out a couple of donuts. I think that is a decent reward for having to sit through Catholic church - at least if you are under 7. The kicker is that his mom wouldn't let them eat the donuts right away, she would bring them home and put them in the middle of the table with saran wrap over them. They weren't to be touched until all of breakfast had been eaten. I am not sure, but I think that qualifies as child abuse. The second story is that his mom was always trying to teach the boys to be gentlemen. If they all went somewhere in the car, one of them was expected to open the car door to help her in/out. Well, there was this one time that they had all gone into the house and it was about an hour before they realized that mom was nowhere to be found. They all ran outside, and there she was still sitting in the car. You can bet she was pissed. Those are my two stories about Dave Saisi's mother. Oh, and also I got a little dog. She is sitting on my lap right now and she smells like Fritos.

Fender P-Bass

Tara — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 21:47:01 GMT

My husband FINALLY ordered his Fender precision bass (sunburst with black pickguard) from ebay and it should be here in a couple of days. I am really happy because now I don't have to hear about it anymore. I keep teasing him and telling him that he really ordered a Franklin Mint precision bass, and when it gets here it will only be 8" long. I am so mean.

OCD

Tara — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 06:15:55 GMT

I didn't realize that I have OCD until I became a stay at home mom. I do not have the kind of OCD where I have to wash my hands 1000 times a day (although I do) or where I have to do rituals or count things. I have the kind where my brain gets stuck on something (like a record needle stuck in a groove) and I can't move past it until the next obsession comes along. Until recently, it was wooden train sets. I bought a used train table, and then of course I had to get a dumptruck load of tracks and buildings and trains to go on it. I knew I had reached insanity when a 30 lb. box of train crap that I bought on ebay (I LOVES the ebay!) showed up on my front porch (I already have 4 bins of train stuff under the train table). I didn't want my husband to see it, so I had to wait until he was in the shower the next morning to drag it through the house and hide it in the guest room. I am hoping to sell it on Craigslist before he finds out it's in there. I have to tell you in my defense though, that putting together the train tracks is very zen. It's like a free form jigsaw. You can come over to my house and play with it sometime and you will see. The latest obsession is really my husband's fault. He has been going nuts about wanting to buy a new bass guitar. To be specific, a fender precision bass with a sunburst body and black pickguard. I know this because he was talking about it non-stop. It was driving me nuts, so I told him he could have a bass if I could get a dog. He wanted the bass so bad he said "yes". Well, you see, I didn't expect him to say that. As much as I know that a dog is totally impractical right now, I was on the phone tout suite with an Italian Greyhound rescue group. I had seen the dog I wanted on the internet, and I was inquiring to see if he was still available. He was. Cat and dog rescue ladies are crazy. Marilyn, whom I spoke with, was crazy but in a good way. She asked me a series of questions and said that I wasn't really a good candidate to have a dog. What is funny about that is that I could pop out as many kids as I want, but I am unqualified to own a dog. I thanked her for her honesty. She said she was going to come to my house for a home visit on Monday - - - which I thought was odd because she had already basically told me I couldn't have der dawg. When she rang the doorbell and I went to open the door, she had brought 3 Italian Greyhounds with her. The dogs were crazy!! They came racing through the door and shot into the kitchen where the cats were. Chester, who is 17, opened a can of whoop and "schooled" all three of the dogs until they were yelping and retreating down the hall (go Chester!). Marilyn (who we now call "Marge") started screaming at the dogs in a voice so loud the windows were shaking. Once we got the cats safely put away, the dogs continued to go crazy in the house. One was trying to jump on the counter to steal a box of animal crackers and another one was frantically searching for the cats. The third was being really good. He was the one I wanted to adopt, but had already been told no, so I was just kind of wondering why Marge had come over with all the dogs. It was interesting and fun so I went with it. Two hours later, Marge told me again that I couldn't have the dog because we don't have a fenced yard. I told her o.k. I was a little relieved because the dogs were so funny and cute, but exhausting. Could I really deal with another dependent creature (in addition to two cats and two kids)? The positive part of the story is that Chester has been super nice to me since the dogs left. I think he realized he better be sweet if he didn't want one of those crazy, ADD creatures in his house. I am kind of "between" obsessions right now, so I will have to post again when I figure out what the new one will be.

Random Things

Tara — Sun, 06 Aug 2006 00:21:02 GMT

Two Irritating Things : 1) Last night we took a family trip to the mall. We didn't really need anything (who does - right?) but we wanted to get out of the house. We decided to do dinner a la the food court. Lilah wanted pizza, so we went to Sbarro. They have a kids meal with a choice of pepperoni pizza, cheese pizza or spaghetti. Lilah wanted pineapple pizza, but also wanted the kids meal because it came with a prize. So, I told the man I wanted a cheese pizza kids meal and a slice of pineapple pizza - I figured we could take the cheese slice home for later. The man, who certainly wasn't Italian but did not have a firm grip on the English language, pointed to the sign and said "No pineapple, only cheese or pepperoni." So I said "No, I want both." He said "No, you can't have pineapple." I said "Yes, I want TWO - cheese and then pineapple separately." "No, you can't have pineapple" he repeated. Well, as you can imagine, I started to get hot at this point. There was one slice of pineapple pizza in the middle of the case and he was guarding it like it was gold bullion or something. My husband finally stepped in and said "She wants the kids meal with the cheese pizza AND a slice of pineapple." My husband is 6'3" and somewhat intimidating looking, so guess what? We FINALLY got the two slices of pizza (with the guy glaring at me the whole time). Dumb pizza mall guy!! Jeez!! 2) In the past 2 weeks I have babysat for three different friends who have kids the same age as Lilah. Potty training is a big deal right now, and supposedly all three kids were completely trained. One smug mom even said to me "Lilah is STILL wearing pull ups?" Well guess what? All three of them peed their pants at my house. One Cool Thing: 1) I think I saw Anne Lamott at Whole Foods today. I wanted to touch her hair. One Shameful Thing: 1) I can't believe I am writing this but here goes. When I was pregnant and working as a birthday party host at Gymboree on the weekends, I once took a cake out of the trash and ate a big piece of it. It was in one of those plastic domes, but it was still an extremely desperate and sad moment.

Pressing Issues

Tara — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 04:19:50 GMT

It has been a rough week. My beloved computer is sick and may not recover. I have been using our very old imac, but it crashes every so often and doesn't allow me to view most news stories and web pages. I really need to know what Stephen Hawking thinks about the fate of humans and all of the dirty details of Lance Bass coming out of the closet, but I may be waiting for a long time. More on the forefront of my mind has been my 20 year high school reunion coming up later this month. I am generally a fan of parties and organized fun, but I will not go. Part of my decision may be a nightmare I had a couple of weeks ago. I was walking into the reunion, but instead I ended up in the "10 Years Younger" (a makeover show on TLC) glass booth where people try to guess the age of the person inside and make crappy comments. Unlike on the show, the booth I was in wasn't soundproof. I could hear things like "Her eyes look tired", "She looks relatively thin, but I can see jiggling on the undersides of her arms" and "Didn't she used to have a neckbrace and work in the school library?" I also have the feeling that if I went to the reunion no one would remember me (except maybe a jock that had a vague recollection of throwing a banana peel at me in the hallway for having green hair). In spite of this, I am not opposed to hearing from people in my past. Therefore, I am extending an invitation to anyone at the reunion who has too many beers/glasses of wine/mixed cocktails. If you remember me (or it may even be funnier if you don't), feel free to call me on my cel phone for a chat. The number is 415-279-3354. Oh, and have a Midori Sour for me.

Hell Yeah

Tara — Sat, 22 Jul 2006 03:20:25 GMT

I bought a 4-pack of peaches from Trader Joe's. They come in a molded, plastic type thing with a rounded compartment for each peach. Well, one of them started to mold -- you know, like a quarter size circle of black/green fuzzy stuff. The peaches were sitting on the corner of the counter so I could see them every time I walked in and out of the kitchen. It really started to stress me out, but I didn't have time to deal with it. I would see it and think "well, I could cut that part out and eat the rest of it and not waste it" but I would get busy (because I have two kids). Do you want to know what I did? I took that moldy peach and I used all the strength I had in my linguini noodle girl arm and I hurled that mofo off of our back deck. It hit the very end of the parking pad (cement), broke into 4 or 5 pieces and spun into this ratty patch of grass behind our carport. Can I get a "Hell Yeah!"???

Horoscope

Tara — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 18:25:43 GMT

Lately, all of my horoscopes (which I don't believe in) have been telling me to keep my mouth shut until next month. I regret that I will have to save all of my juicy blogging for later. Here are a few topics that you can look forward to reading about once Mercury departs from my blabbermouth house: 1) My almost 40 year old brother is going through a white/black man phase. 2) The vet two doors down from us rubs my arm when he talks to me. I ran into him on the street yesterday and he ran his hand all the way up and down my back. 3) I am proud of myself because I threw away a complimentary shower cap from the Outrigger Hotel (I am known to be a bit of a "hoarder"). I am off to eat some chocolate covered raisins that I hid from the children in the freezer. A bientot!

The Year I Spent on Highway 5 (Monday)

Tara — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 05:31:06 GMT

Long car trips with children under 5 are a drag. We went to San Diego this weekend - I won't tell you what for because that is a whole other story that is going to take me a couple of days to mentally piece together. For those of you who aren't familiar with the details of California, there is a LONG stretch of Highway connecting Northern and Southern California called Highway 5. It's an armpit really, lots of nothing interesting to look at, occasional farms and lots of rest stops. As you are leaving Los Angeles, you head over this mountain range on a stretch of road called "The Grapevine". Yesterday we got stuck on it for an hour and a half because there was an accident. It was a nightmare. First of all, it was 100 degrees and the air conditioning only works when the car is moving. I was having anxiety because whenever I am stuck in a car with "nothingness" around me I panic that I will have to barf or get diarrhea and there is no place to go besides the side of the road. The kids were whining and screaming and I had already gone through all the snack and drink options. When I gave them crayons and paper to draw with they started throwing the crayons at me. I decided to draw "tattoos" on the bottom of their feet. That kept them entertained for about 3 minutes. Once traffic started moving and we got down the mountain, my eyes started darting around looking for orphanages with drop slots. Some of the highlights of the trip were: 1) I looked in the lighted mirror on the visor and I had a ring of Cheetos orange cheese around my mouth (we had already stopped at a couple of public places since I had eaten them). 2) My husband ate a pastrami reuben for lunch and was belching it. 3) Toochie had the poops and a rash so we kept having to stop and change her. She is going through a phase where she hates being changed and tries to "flip over" as soon as her diaper is off. She got poop everywhere and once she was cleaned up, peed on my seat. 4) You know you have reached the halfway point on Hwy 5 when you get to Coalinga - home of the Harris Ranch (= miles and miles of stinky cows). "Cowschwitz" smells so bad it will burn the top layer of your eyeballs off. The grossest thing is that there is a Harris Ranch steak restaurant right in the middle of this horror. 5) We went to a McDonalds/Gas Station combo. They had Pirates of the Caribbean toys in the happy meals, and the kids were fighting over a skull toy that was like a magic 8 ball (you ask it a question and lift it's eye patch to get the answer). I asked it if my husband and I would stay married forever, and it said "No Way! Arghhhhhhhh!" I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. XOXO

Rick Springfield

Tara — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 01:29:51 GMT

We went to the county fair on Friday night, which is always a top notch, white trash adventure. I knew Rick went on at 7:30, and due to a parking debacle, we didn't even get to the entrance gates until 7:40. I could hear Rick playing from there, and my heart started to pound. It seemed like it took forever for my husband to buy the tickets and I was getting twitchy/impatient. My husband only has one speed (= plodding) which normally drives me crazy, but that night made me INSANE. I could barely contain myself from abandoning my family and running towards the music. We got to the pavilion (which was actually a tent) and it was nice to see that Old Rick can still draw a decent crowd. I told my husband I was going to take a couple of pictures and would be right back. I made my way up to the front for two songs: Human Touch and I've Done Everything for You. The craziest thing happened when I got up near Rick. Our eyes locked, and a thousand words were exchanged with just one glance. His eyes said "Would you like to run away together? Maybe we can go to Chili's at the mall for some nachos and coastal chardonnay." My eyes answered back "Oh Rick, I would in a heartbeat, but I promised my children we would go see the barnyard animals. Besides, you can't run off in the middle of your show. I won't let you disappoint your fans that way." And that was it. I turned and walked away. Fortunately, I could still hear Rick singing all over the fairgrounds. When we got to the cow and donkey area, I heard "Don't Talk to Strangers" start. I started jumping up and down and singing it (I especially like to sing the "I ASKED YOU NOT TO TALK TO HIM!" line). My husband rolled his eyes and said "You are a fool." I am sure in a week I will be over my Rick thing, but for now I am Jesse's Girl. Believe that.

Things I am proud of

Tara — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 03:24:38 GMT

All this thinking about my husband's ex has got me taking stock in things about myself I am really proud of. Here are the best ones I can come up with: 1) I never ate paste or put a tack on anyone's chair. 2) I was never pregnant, unwed teen, alcoholic teen, dropout teen or any other cliche that was the subject of a bad after school special. I was brooding, wearing black, thought my parents were lame and listening to droning music depressed teen - but that was about it. 3) I was never drunk, slutty girl at the bar. You know the one that screamed "Woooooooooooo!" after every song the cover band sang? The one that eventually fell on her ass on the dancefloor and had to be picked up off the floor by two random guys (one who was probably disgusted and the other who probably thought he had a chance) and ended up puking in a gutter outside? Nope, that was never me. 4) I have never stolen a Brach's candy from the grocery store. 5) I have never been arrested or in jail 6) I have never peed/pooped my pants as an adult. To be continued as life progresses.......

Life

Tara — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 16:25:29 GMT

I cannot take credit for this, my mom wrote it. After reading it, it should be crystal clear where my writing talent comes from. Life Life is a Hacky Sack heel toe heal tow Life is a Hacky Sack where dit go where dit go? Life is a Hacky Sack A healthy skin like bag.... Life is a Hacky Sack It too one day will sag......

Ex-Girlfriend

Tara — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 01:07:34 GMT

The other night I had this really stressful dream about my ex-fiancee. The gist of the whole dream was that he was being an ass (typical) and I was trying to get him to sit down for a few moments so I could tell him that it was "over". I thought about it when I woke up and figured that there must be something going on in my life that I feel I don't have control over. I told my husband about the dream which was a big mistake. His two comments were "You don't have much going on in your life, I don't know what you would be worried about controlling" and "I never have dreams about MY ex-girlfriend." Ouch. I am a habitual digress-er and since, apparently, I don't have much going on in my life, I started thinking about his ex-girlfriend. I call her "Princess Flower Mart" because she would make my husband go to the San Francisco Flower Mart every weekend so she would have fresh flowers for the house. Basically, she had a ring with chain attached to it - strategically connected to my husband - and she would lead him around with it. Even though I call her "Princess Flower Mart", I know her real name. I decided to Google her. The first link it pulled up was about someone who had their wages attached for stealing from a post office. I was happy because I thought that would be really cool if it were her, but it wasn't. The second link was for an up and coming women in business article - in the industry I knew she was in. I clicked on it. There was a picture of her, and a little bio about her career. I won't tell you what she does, but it was pretty much a dream job. If you ran the job past any girl from the age of 15 to 45, they would all agree it was a dream job. This sent me into a little "panic". I looked around at my messy house and heard my kids fighting over a toy and I started to tailspin. I had no choice but to call my mom. She had me email her the article. Her first words were "She looks like a cadaver." This pleased me very much. She told me "Don't tell Peech (what she calls my husband) about this or he will think you are pathetic." After we got off the phone, I decided that I wasn't a super successful career woman, but I was going to be the best stay-at-home mom I could be. I would learn how to cook, I would keep the house cleaner, I would stay on top of the laundry. After about 5 minutes of mental list making, I decided it would be easier just to sit down and have some ice cream. Thin Mint. Worked like a charm.