Goodbye June

I'm still here.

I just haven't been feeling very vocal lately.

I've been consumed with Mondays through Fridays of hardcore office work, and then Friday/Saturday nights of non-stop house parties. At MY house. Which, don't get me wrong, I enjoy 100%, but it's all just started to take it's toll and instead of sitting down to write when I have a free moment, all I really want to do is collapse onto my bed and cover my head with a pillow and JUST SLOW DOWN ALREADY.

So this weekend, I did.

My Aunt Cheryl and Uncle Chip have moved back to Texas, soon to be followed by cousins Elizabeth and Matthew in a few weeks and really, when I tell you that I couldn't be happier about this I really really want you to believe me and understand the joy this brings me because YAY! THEY ARE BACK!

I spent the whole 3-day weekend with them at my parent's house, hanging out by the pool, drinking margaritas via the spiffy machine above that they bought SK and I as a housewarming gift, and playing CatchPhrase and Wii golf late into the night. It was a weekend of relaxation, shopping, and catching up.

It provided the rejuvenating lift that has eluded me the past month and this morning I woke up, hopped out of bed and declared, BRING IT THE FUCK ON, JULY.

Fun with words

Go HERE. Create one for yourself. Kill an hour or 2.

Not that this should surprise anyone...

Apparently, by 1930's standards, I would be a terrible wife. I would be a FAILURE at wifeing. I am not currently a wife, but SK and I share a home and financial responsibilities and a dog so really, it's pretty close.

20 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Poor (Failure) Take the test!

Yes, I cook in pajamas. No, I do not "dress" for breakfast. Yes, I talk on the phone a lot (seriously? that constitutes a BAD wife?). And no, I am not always pleasant and happy in the morning.

The 1930's can SUCK IT.

Punch Out

A few months ago I posted a blog asking YOU what you wanted to read about from me. Now, I'm not kidding myself--I know I have 5 readers on a good day, but I thought it would be fun to write something telling you what you wanted to know about me. This came as a request from Melody.

Hey lady, you asked...


I’ve always been a little bit of a tomboy. Ok, so a little more than a little bit.

I grew up on a street with 13 boys my age. 13! All my girlfriends thought I was sooooo lucky and didn’t I think any of them were cute? And if I didn’t think so then please would I say something to one of the boys for them?

Ewww.

I was always more interested in playing football with them than making out with any of them. They were very much my brothers, looking out for me, teaching me how to make the most of non-girly situations (i.e.: a deep cut on your leg from the sprinkler, while it may hurt now, makes for a very cool scar later), and making my life hell when I was finally old enough to date.

Imagine if you will, 13 boys standing outside the house while a prospective suitor knocks on my door. Ok, really, who am I kidding? They never even let anyone make it to the door.

I hated them as much as I loved them, and just as real siblings, we fought. And while I was always faster than them with the verbal comebacks, I was no match for any of them physically.

But I tried.

The first fist fight I ever got into was with one of them, Blonde Boy #2, when we were 9.

Well, really, I was 9, he was 8.

Oh, quit whining…he was a boy, and he was a big 8.

Ok, so not really. He was a pretty puny 8.

But he was a boy. AND he started it.

Oh all right, that’s a lie too. I totally started it.

I was being mouthy and he had just HAD IT. They were all raised with enough couth to know that hitting girls = BAD, but I don’t know that at 9 any of them considered me a real girl yet. So I said something smart back to something he said and he slugged me in the shoulder.

Hard.

I remember that moment so insanely clearly. I remember what he looked like, standing there with his hands balled into fists at his side, curly blonde hair a mess on his head like it always was from running around outside all day, cheeks red with rage, eyes squinting at me and hearing him say,

“You shut UP Cheryl! I’m gonna hit you!”

“Do it then! Do it! I don’t care! I’ll hit you right back!”

And then he did.

And then I did.

It was this wild instinctual thing, the hitting back. He socked me in the left shoulder with his right fist, and while I swayed back and recovered from the blow, I balled my fist up and stepped into the punch.

I gave him a bloody nose.

I GAVE HIM A BLOODY NOSE!

I remember seeing my fist hit his face and thinking I hope he doesn’t go tell his mom because I am about to be in SO much trouble.

The fear faded quickly when I saw his eyes fill up and spill over, all down his cheeks. Then his nose started bleeding. Bad. I felt like a freaking rock star.

Oh get over it…it was the first time I had ever punched anyone. The first time I had ever gotten into a fight. The first time I had the chance to assert myself physically over any of the neighborhood boys and I KICKED HIS ASS.

The rest of the guys teased him mercilessly. They teased me too--"Ooohhh...watch out for Cheryl...she'll just get mad and punch you out!"--but it felt good. After that afternoon, they treated me a little differently. They started asking my opinions on things other than whether or not their date for Friday would think this shirt looked ok. They stopped treating me like the only girl on the street and started treating me like one of the guys. I loved it.

Unfortunately, that single punch would come back to me 10-fold over the next 6 years in the form of water balloons to the head after discovering the blow dryer and spending 30 minutes trying to dry my own hair, terrorizing me and my girlfriends while we hung out in the front yard while in junior high, and stains to cute clothes from countless rotten fruit fights courtesy of the fallen produce from the orchard down the street.

Due to one punch, he pretty much tried to make my adolescent years miserable. Despite all that though, I wouldn’t take that punch back for anything.

Sorry, man …but dude, it was totally worth it.

Cloony the Clown

After seeing the picture of the Shel Silverstein book, I realized it has been a while since I have actually read any of them. I searched online for his poems and found a site with 19 of them to read. I read through, laughing at poems I thought were funny 18 years ago and surprising myself with how many I still remembered and could recite by heart.

Then I came across this one. I'm only going to link to it because it is SO sad, it broke my heart a little to read. I don't remember reading it when I was little. Maybe my parents just skipped over it, in hopes of shielding me from harsh world realities as a child. Maybe.

I understand the message now, and maybe I just didn't then. Probably I read it when I was very small and though, "What a sad clown. He should go make friends with that crazy boy named Sue and go beat up all the people who made him sad, or go find that wacko polar bear in the fridge and party with him, drinking vodka all night."

Because my parents might lie to me and avoid telling me that people can just be shits sometimes and make fun of you for being honest and vulnerable, but they would never lie to me about what constitutes a good wild party pick-me-up: the sauce.

Where the F%$& is the Orkin Man???

SK makes fun of me because the only time I go super girly on him is when bugs are involved. I freak out when I see bugs in the house. Not to the point of leaving my house, bug still inside, until SK can come home and take care of it, but I just don't like "critters" in my living space.

Neither does Chandra.

Two years ago, when she and I were both living just a quarter of a mile away from each other, in apartments downtown, I get a phone call from her. I answer, and realize she is whispering.

"Cheryl...there is a ROACH...in my kitchen!"

She was actually whisper-screaming, which, if you are not extremely talented, is impossible to do. I could hear the extreme panic in her voice.

"Ok...well, two things. One, why the fuck are you whispering? And two, just kill it."

"I CAN'T KILL IT!" Her voice becoming more shrill, still carrying off the whisper-scream perfectly. "And I am whispering because what if it can hear me?"

"Um, pretty sure roaches don't have ears, but whatever. Do you need me to come over or something?"

-Big shuddery sigh from Chandra-

"Are you CRYING?!"

"NO! They just gross me out so much! What if one of the dogs eats it? It's in the kitchen. I turned the lights off."

"Do you have any Raid?"

"Um, I have some Windex..."

"Ok, here's what you do. Go into the kitchen with the Windex and a shoe..."

"Ok...I'm standing by the light switch."

-She's still whispering, PS.-

"Flip on the light and scan the floor. It'll run out when the light comes on. Spray it with the Windex, although I don't know what exactly that will do, other than leave it streak-free and shiny, and then hit it with the shoe when it's all messed up from the blast of glass cleaner."

"Oh God, oh God, oh God..."

"You can do this...NOW!"

-Terrifying screaming ensues-

"I GOT IT!!! Oh gross...now what the fuck do I do with this shoe?!"

Apparently, she would like a bedtime story

SK's dad calls Bella "Destructo Dog," which fits her in a number of ways like how her tail is conveniently at coffee table level and can knock everything off with one swift wag, and how she likes to eat entire plants that have never done anything to her. But she earned the nickname from Larry after she crashed head-first through the screen door on his sun porch. Keep in mind that this is just months after Larry almost lost some of the fingers on one of his hands to a fight with a table saw while repairing said screen door.

G-pa Larry was not happy.

She is in her kennel while we're at work so she was never allowed to roam the apartment without supervision. She's into chewing on her toys, but hasn't really ever tried to gnaw on furniture or anything of major value because we've always been there to stop her should she try. I have always been a little afraid of what she would do to the inside of our home, left to her own devices.

I found out during the week we moved.

During that insane week, we were back and forth between the apartment, the new house and my parent's house. It was such a pain to cart Bella's big ass kennel to and from each destination. Finally, on the last day of shuttling, SK and I decided to ditch the kennel and just close Bella into her room while we were at work. It was our last day in the apartment and we had everything in boxes, most of which were stacked almost to the ceiling in her room. I knew she'd enjoy having more room to move around during the time we were away, and tossed all her toys into the room before shutting the door and leaving the apartment.

Fast forward 9 hours.

I walk into the apartment to grab Bella and run to the new house. SK was already in Spring, waiting for me. I open the doors to Bella's room and about lose my shit as a result of what I am faced with.

Do you see her? Sitting there, licking her chops, excited about the fun she had, playing with books and boxes all day?!

SHE ATE THE WHOLE SIDE/CORNER OF A CARDBOARD BOX.
And yes, that is "Light in the Attic" by Shel Silverstein, and "The New Kid on the Block" by James Prelutsky. SK and I love reading them and realizing how twisted they really are. The illustrations really get me.

Lucky Bear's luck has run out.
Bella does this to any stuffed toy she gets--she eats the face off immediately. Doesn't even bother with the rest of the body once the face is gone. It's 100% creepy. When I fall asleep while she is laying with me on the bed or couch I always wake up in a panic, feeling my face to make sure she hasn't taken a bite out of it.

The demolished room, in all it's papered, slobbery glory.

*And yes, the ONLY boxes she tore into were boxes of books. Which, great, because she didn't tear up anything super expensive, but seriously? This mess was SUCH a bitch to clean up.

Don't cross a woman armed with prune juice

Since both SK's parents and my parents live in town, we see them frequently. It is an odd weekend when we don't spend time with at least one set at their house, which is awesome because personally, I really enjoy hanging with my mom and dad, and SK's parents are equally wonderful people and NO I am not writing this because I know that certain members of the family read this blog and could possibly discuss this later THANKS.

If you created a connect-the-dots drawing of our family's homes, it would look a little like a capital L that fell on it's back, to the left. Deb and Wil are furthest west, in Cypress. Then SK's parents, also in Cypress, then my parents and brother, heading east to Spring. SK and I are further east in Spring, and finally Joel and Rayna are just north of us, in the Woodlands. See? Fallen over L.

This also puts our house kind of in the middle.

Which is why we had Mother's Day dinner at our house. And yes, I will blog about burning the easiest meal EVER. Eventually. When the shame starts to wear away and I feel like I am strong enough to field another wave of it from the laughing internets that will likely be making fun of me.

The whole clan, sans Larry (hangin' out in Beaumont is so much more fun than hanging out with us!), came over on Sunday to eat and play Wii and drink wine and it was fun. Baby Ryan came with and started having some, um, issues in the stomach area and proceeded to WAIL for about an hour after dinner. After discussion about her blocked up backside involving vaseline, q-tips and Caro syrup Wil ran out to CVS to find something to chill her out. He returned, victorious, with prune juice.

I traded this string of texts with Deb on Monday evening:

Deb: So the prune juice worked...a little too well. Let's just say I had to do a lot of laundry today
Me: Oh no! Explosive baby?
Deb: A little bit. About three times
Me: Oh god.
Deb: Yeah. I'd rather clean poop than listen to her scream though
Me: Was she ok today?
Deb: Yeah. Quite happy
Deb: Damn, Wil is bragging now
Me: Mix a little in his next glass of Coke. Bet that'd make him stop ;)

Ryan is going to SO love me when she is in junior high and I casually mention to her friends that this one time? When she was a baby? Her aunt had this blog and she wrote about that one year, on Mother's Day...

Color me exhausted

We've been painting for the last 2 days to get rid of the awful bright GOLD that covered the inside of the house. We primed and taped and rolled out drop cloths and are finally done.

Thanks are due to my brother and his friend Kevin (yeah, 2 Kevin's...things got confusing) for being our paint bitches for the last couple of days ;) Also to Chandra and Kevin (a third Kevin...I feel like I am going insane) for helping us paint the bedrooms and for edging up all the doors. And, because we were so involved in the painting, thanks to Sarah and Dustin for providing us with food so that we didn't get ridiculously famished and pass out face-first in a roller tray full of paint.

Our house now looks like this:

Revival Mahogany
It's much darker than this...I think the colors on my computer are screwed up

Fudge Bar

***Pretty green color here***
Martini Olive
(I can't find the paint sample online)

Mahogany Revival, Fudge Bar and Martini Olive...I am having issues resisting the urge to lick all my walls.

Closing Time

Today I get the best birthday present EVER (shut up, it's still my birthday).

Well, aside from the Aero Garden with the Herb and Tomato seed packs that my parents gave me this year ("We want your first born tomatoes," says Dad) that I have wanted for forever so that my kitchen counter can be a garden--thanks guys!

Today, I get a house.

This house:


The yard is much greener than that now. Other than the sad, dead grass though, doesn't it look happy and inviting and like it is just begging you to come over and hang out for the weekend?

Yes, I said weekend. We're not stingy about entertaining house guests. Come over for a week if you'd like! All I ask is that you occasionally let Bella out to pee.

We close this afternoon.

We have officially made it through the hell of buying our first house. With the exception of a few minor tiffs, it was pretty smooth sailing for us. Our realtor was amazing and handled everything. We had a blip in the process when a loan fell through, dealt with a PSYCHO seller's realtor who really must be making her client's lives a living hell, and finally found THE HOUSE.

Painting for the next few days. Help wanted.