hm.

Every single time I buy nice things for people and think I'm very thoughtful for remembering their special days or whatever, I always negate the niceness of it by never sending the thing in any kind of timely fashion. It's kind of a joke how I can send a birthday gift in october to someone who had a birthday in July...

same with blogging.

what's the point when everything you say is belated or serrated or retarded or bloated a month after it happened....

nonetheless...

I persist.

I blog retrospectively to spite myself.

There are a few things that happen in your life that make you feel like you're really alive. Like your skin fits you and your mind can't think of anything more to be happy.

I saw the Killers.

live.

that's all I'm going to say about that because nobody really cares but, MAN!

THE BEST concert I've ever seen IN MY LIFE!

there might have been a small puddle on the cement below me....I'm just saying.

thank you my friend Jenny for letting us come with you guys!

mmmm.......glee. I'm all the way in love with Glee.

Also Rachel Zoe and Root Beer.

and also Zots and Pop Rocks and those Rock Candy lolly pops and Big Red gum.

september, september....

Seriously, I have no idea how this keeps happening....how do these months keep flying away like this? it's insane.

My little Dellah went to kindergarden and I was a disaster. It's 2 hours and 45 minutes a day and I was like I was putting her on a plane bound for Mongolia......She reads. She's so cute. I love that girl.

Ruby started preschool and keeps asking the poor teacher for homework so she can be like Dellah...I keep trying to tell her that she needs to chill out in demanding things from new teachers and that I will be happy to give her some enrichment activities in the house when she returns....

she remains unmoved.

I got this eye shadow that's royal blue and another that's shimmery chartreuse....they kind of changed my life...I find I look far more awesome when wearing blue and green eye shadow.

Help me because my children have seen the Hannah Montana movie against all of my better judgement and now are obsessed with the theme song and have to hear it 47 times in a row every day. They've never seen the tv show and never seen high school musical and never seen anything with real people in it who don't later turn to cartoons (ie Enchanted) so I thought I was safe......but I'm not.....it's that SONG! ........It's getting to me, people....I find it harder and harder to distract them with Metro Station and miscellaneous Latin artists.....

eek.

it's black, it's white

I went to the NPS store yesterday in need of everything and nothing in particular...they had tons and tons.

I have this little entry room as you come in from the garage and before you go up some stairs to the main front door entrance of my house. This little space has been a thorn in my heel since moving to my house and not knowing what to do with it or how to make it look good and be useful and whatnot. It's had so many incarnations until yesterday when, unbeknownst to my little vestibule, it was about to be forever altered by coolness.

turns out the NPS store has wall paper.

I've been looking for a wall paper solution for one of the walls down there for a long time and was working my way up to paying $75 a roll for some good paper....turns out the wallpaper in NPS is a buck......you heard me...ONE DOLLAR! except when you get this huge roll of adhesive wall paper in black and white awesomeness for $1.99 to cure all your blahness and need of something newness.

It's temporary wallpaper that just sticks like a sticker to your wall until you're done and leaves no glue behind.

It was the only one like it and the only adhesive wallpaper in the whole place.

I would like to express in words how huge the difference was but I cannot. I would like to express in words how grateful I am for the shopping spirit leading me to greatness once again. I will have to take a picture and show you my little wall with the big giant white and black patterned radness.

note: when wallpapering any kind of thing please have a partner that is over the age of 5 and knows not to take the adhesive backing off of entire large sections at a time while you're up on a ladder so the result is a sticky stuck together mess leaving you completely without extra in case you mess up which you will so you send your assistant to a shoe closet for a dum dum lolipop where she bumps a table moved out of the way for the wallpapering and breaks one of your prized turquoise sun moon and stars glasswares.......please

...and please bless that we can play with our guns...

this was what Ruby prayed for last night in family prayer....please bless dat we can play with owah guns tomowwow...

water guns.

they're new.

it's really hot.

buy some money

today i was awakened by an all dressed and ready for the day Ruby who said, "oh, man....why does papi hava goda wowk evwy day tho he can buy thom money?...." she was disappointed that it was only me in my bed and not Gabriel....

a little later we were in the throws of a giant tantrum 30 minutes after a time out for throwing a sharp edged book in a small room. I was shop vac-ing the garage and she was easily screaming louder than the echoing vacuum noise.....(so that explains that to anyone living in a 2 mile radius). We went back upstairs and Ruby informed me that she needed me to take her to gwamma's house because she needed a 'bwake.....you know, like YOU always take a bwake?'
a. i don't ALWAYS take a bwake or i would be way thinner and well adjusted.
b. who takes a break at 10am....it's 10:20 in the morning!!!
c.. what on earth do people who eat cheetos and drink juice out of princess cups while they wear tulle and satin and watch animated things need with a bwake? a bwake from what? from the lap of luxury?
she informed me that i should take her to my parents' and then dellah and i should go somewhere and then come back and pick her up....
'ruby, is this because grandma and grandpa give you whatever you want while you're at their house?' i asked her.
'yes'.

nice.
she needs a break from the lap of luxury for a first class ticket to neverland where the word 'no' doesn't exist..........
DON'T WE ALL?

so here we are at sharon and lewi's while my children sit downstairs in their underwear under soft blankets watching beauty and the beast and eating copious amounts of skittles and edible necklaces....
maybe if I could buy some money i would purchase someone to listen to their drama at my house and then I would just come here to grandma's where every body's thrilled to be alive as long as there's skittles and yeses.....

smile like you mean it

I was watching an interview with the Killers one time and they were saying, 'you know, we're just really blessed because we're really good at writing songs.' They're right. I've tried to find any song I didn't wish I myself had written and it's pretty difficult....those Killers....they're so inspirational.....and that Katy Perry girl?.....stop it....so good.

Anyhoo, my hiatus this month has been due to my extensive research and field analysis of parenting. One time a boy wanted to kiss me and I spent like an hour acting like an idiot over analyzing the whole thing and making a big deal out of it and totally made him want to run away from me and my weirdness. i cringe in retrospective horror at myself. Then I have this thing where I sit at home and take pictures of myself in outfits before I leave the house so I see how I'm going to be perceived visually when I get where I'm going and I google things and research things before I do them ad nauseum.....I play bunco....i know........but I do...I play bunco and I LOVE IT but the first time I went I was a wreck, like rolling those dice was seriously going to be so hard that I had to get that bloated, anxious feeling in my stomach that makes you have to go to the bathroom and not be able to eat or breathe properly (like during and after most dates I ever went on). now it's going to be my turn to host bunco in august at my house and I'm already losing sleep over the prizes and food and redecoration of my house..... the point is, and I wish I could figure out how to do the biggest typeface in the universe here..........

WHAT IN THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME ALREADY??? I'M SENDING MYSELF TO HELL ON EARTH WORRYING SO MUCH ABOUT EVERY SINGLE LITTLE TINY MINUTE RIDICULOUS TRITE INSIGNIFICANT DETAIL OF EVERYTHING AND I'M SICK OF MYSELF!!!!!! DID YOU HEAR ME????? S I C K O F E R I N !!! YOU'RE THIRTY T W O YEARS OLD YOU BIG FREAK! JUST BE NORMAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LIFE ISN'T PERFECT AND NEITHER ARE YOU AND NEITHER ARE YOUR CHILDREN OR YOUR HOUSE OR YOUR REACTIONS OR YOUR ACTIONS!!!!! NOBODY CARES WHAT YOU DO OR HOW YOU DO IT....!!! AAARRRRGGHGHGHGGH!

every now and again I get these little glimpses into the world of unplanned, uncontrolled within an inch of it's life life and I find it quite diverting......then I go home and over analyze so i feel more comfortable.....

the point is that my poor children are so great and they deserve someone to be with 24/7 who has this crap figured out so they can get out from under all the sheesh and not be basketcases in cute outfits....
I've been reading this book called positive discipline for preschoolers and realizing that by the time someone is five they have got their emotional life and ideas and pre-conceived notions firmly in place......hm....well, better late then never.....I've learned many things about them and me and I have also been reading things written by people long, long ago also known as scriptures where one of my favorite little lines is 'when ye are weary He waketh morning by morning'....and also I remember in women's conference one of the speakers saying that a quiet voice came to her mom while praying abouy being a mom which said, "this is a process.....and the Lord values the process." I never think of anything as a process. I'm either it's perfect already or it's not but the evolution of myself as a parent is valued by the Lord? foreign territory. I have to believe that there will be some mercy extended to them and me strictly based on the fact that the Lord looketh on the heart, you know? I mean well and sometimes I even do well but I also gotta get my overreactions and need to be in control and uberstress out of the way....

we have a rule that once we close the bedroom door at nap or bedtime there is no more exchange between us and them....Ruby always.....and I mean every single time I shut the door even if she was perfectly content before i shut it....keeps talking and saying, 'night night'.....'night night'.....'night niiiiiiiiight, mamiiiiii!!!!!' until she works herself into a hissy fit and I have to barge back in and say, 'you know the rules!!!' and other stuff.....anyway, yesterday, i left her in there for quiet time and she started her 'bye, bye, mami' 'i love you mami'.....night night mami'....maaaammiiiiii!... ....and I went to my zen place, people....i just stood by the window and looked out of it and you know what......
she stopped.
she knew it was wrong and she stopped. no freakouts necessary. BECAUSE i have been less reactive and more patient...no power struggle necessary....

today dellah was sitting at breakfast and said, 'look we have some little ant families there.....'
I look over by the back door which is in my kitchen and saw a sizeable pile of tortilla chip pieces COVERED in little black ants with little black ant search parties further out looking for more tortilla chips......
i breathed.
then i breathed again
then one more time for luck and I said, 'dellah, that was so nice of you to want to feed those little ants, what about if next time you want to feed them you put their food on the back porch since houses are for people and not ants' kiss kiss 'go eat your yogurt....' but i still got that itchy i've seen too many ants feeling...

I'm getting there. I want happy children who love life and themselves and me (and Gabriel but me more) so recognition is 9/10ths of the law. I'm working on it.

in other news, we're having a yard sale on saturday morning at 8 along with the rest of our neighborhood so I gotta lotta work 2 do because once you start down the yard sale path and you have as much stuff as me, you start to not like any of your stuff and want to sell it all....even the stuff you thought you liked before the whole yard sale thing......because you remember that stuff is just stuff and it doesn't matter so you want to sell it all so you can have money to go and buy............better stuff...

stop the clock wouldja?

Good grief, I can't believe I'm so behind AGAIN with this chronicle.....let's see.....where to begin....ugly orange shirt lady in target trying to parent my child whilst I become irate?.....no...too bitter......ummm construction workers directly behind my house for the last nine months shaking my house and making noise at all hours?.....again....too bitter.....ummm..Dellah turned 5?.....BINGO....I'll elaborate...this girl was the first fruit of my womb and has been an actual joy to have around. While she doesn't have a real 'childlike' air about her, there is a certain appeal to 3 1/2 feet tall adults, right, or TLC would be bankrupt...

I went to this good toy store here in Sandy and got nice toys for her that I knew she would like and while we were there she became attached to this pink stuffed cat.....I told her we needed to leave it there and we could see it again another day......she said that was fine but she was going to get it for her birthday and this is how she was going to hold it while she petted it like this and this is what she was going to call it and this is how much she would love it.......when she got it for her birthday......My budget had been reached but I caved and went with her on her birthday to rescue the pink kitty from the red balloon toy store. She was called muffet and then muffin and then olivia and then custard and then ginger....i think it's still ginger. so we went to noodles and company for the usual mac and cheese and then came home so they could go swimming. Sadly I don't have a swim suit at present so I had to forgo the blissful event and watch from a chair.it was 50 degrees outside and the heater in the pool was broken. It was cloudy and windy and I don't know why they had so much fun but they did.......we then came back in the house for wardrobe change number 3 for the day and opened presents.....this little fountain has real water and a swan that swims around and a unicorn and flowers and a king and queen....I got her a couple of fairies with wings and wands that i thought could live there too and a storybook set that playmobil has of snow white.....with glass coffin and poison apples and magic mirror....great, mom but what did grandma give me because it's always better than what you give me......grandma gave her a wedding dress with a veiland a mermaid costume with fluffy tulle tail at the bottom.......beats european plastic toys any day...ruby got to be the bride while dellah frolicked like a fish....she got the special summer plasma car from target that ruby got for her birthday to make sure that absolutely no sharing would be necessary on any level since we know how impossible it is to share with your sister....six or seven months ago dellah told me of the elaborate scene she wanted on top of her birthday cake when it was time for her birthday.....being in love with all Miyazaki movies with their androgynous boys that look more like girls than the girls do, she 'needed' to have herself and Haku from spirited away on the cake, both smiling (which if you've seen it you know is impossible because haku doesn't smile.....ever....) and holding hands......sure, dellah, ok, we'll work that out (knowing full well that when the time came she would change to some flowers and butterflies and princesses or whatever).....2 days before the day I asked her what she wanted and, sure enough, she had not deviated in the least from her original conception.....great.

so i went to the world wide web and googled pictures of chihiro and haku (if you think people are obsessed with lord of the rings and elves and whatever you should look at these folks....completely obsessed with animae and all things androgynous boy children....)

I found a pretty good one after a while and then had to start looking for pictures of dellah which i printed out and went to work.....i found one where dellah's head was the same size as chihiro's and started to cut and trace and paste because photoshop is for people smarter than me.....the finished product after hard plastic lamination looked like this...
never underestimate the power of seeing your own face on a fictional character.....dellah was mesmerized and ruby was jealous that dellah was with haku and she wasn't.....good grief.

Anyway, my baby turned 5 and she knows all kinds of things and says all kinds of things and is tall and big and i can't wrap my brain around the concept that she's on that fast slope toward bigness when she won't want me to really be around.....i always ask her those desperate pathetic parent questions 'dellah will you always love me?' 'even when you're big, dellah, will you always love me so so so so so much?' 'yes, mami,' she says, 'i'll even love you when I'm 10.' i'll take it.