He Said, She Said

Bread, Bread and More Bread!

And even MORE BREAD

Alternate titles: He Bread, She Bread or What Men Hear

Tuesday Morning 5:00am

Mister: You should go shopping today while I’m at work because we are out of everything but please only spend about $100.
ProlificMom: How about this - I will wait until you come home from work and we can go shopping together so you can be the “grocery cop”. (First, I don’t really like shopping with the Mister, but for the last few months I have insisted that we shop together so he cannot criticize what I did or did not get, or what I should or should not have gotten, or how much I spend on groceries. Second, his shopping technique drives me crazy because he starts at the back of the store with the milk and takes about twice as long as me to make his selections. Thats 90 minutes of unrefridgerated milk before we even make it to the register, and that is just the beginning of what drives my crazy. So, I was being sarcastic when I called him the “grocery cop”.)

1:00pm Phone call from The Mister
Mister: I have to work a little bit late and then I’m going to do some things before I get home….so I will be a little bit late.
ProlificMom: Where will you be going?
Mister: …….just places…you’ll see when you get home
ProlificMom: OoooooKaaaaaay? So, I will pick up the kids and I’ll see you when you get home - whenever that is.

3:15pm ProlificMom picks up kids from school and heads to the bread store. Its just down the street from the school so I shop there before or after school pickup. We buy bread at the Mrs Bairds retail store because we save a lot of money that way. $23 worth of bread products later we are on the way back to school to pick up 6th grader and head home. All is well with the world or so I thoght.

3:55pm Phone call from The Mister
Mister: When you get home there will be tater tots cooking in the oven for the kids to eat as a snack. I’m on the way to the grocery store to do the shopping.
ProlificMom: Well don’t bother to get any bread because I just came from the bread store where I spent $23. We are stocked up for the next two weeks.
Mister: What? NOOOOOOOO. I already went to the bread store and I spent $22. You need to go back and get your money back because we don’t need all that bread! You told me I could be the grocery cop today.
ProlificMom: OOOOOOh Nooooooooo! First, I’m not taking the bread back. We will just have to freeze it. Second, when you called me earlier and said you had places to go, I asked you where you were going and you just said places. If you had told me you were going to the bread store I wouldn’t have gone there too. Why didn’t you tell me where you were going when I asked? I did not fail to communicate on the subject. While I didn’t tell you I was planning to shop for bread, you didn’t tell me where you were planning to go when I asked “where are you going”. THIRD, when we had our discussion about groceries this morning, I SAID WE SHOULD SHOP TOGETHER so you could be the grocery cop AND I ASKED YOU WHERE YOU WERE GOING AFTER WORK. You should have told me you were going to do the shopping. I ASKED!!!!!!
Mister: But you said I could be the grocery cop. Why didn’t you tell me you were going to buy bread.
ProlificMom: I didn’t JUST SAY you could be the grocery cop. I said we should go TOGETHER so you could be the grocery cop. Helloooooo? Is anybody in there?

***************
What ProlificMom said: I will wait until you come home from work and we can go shopping together so you can be the “grocery cop”.

What the Mister heard: bla bla bla bla bla you come home from work bla bla bla bla bla bla you can be the “grocery cop”. (Translation: After you come home from work, I would like for you to do all of the shopping.)

Its Braum's, Vern

First - you probably have to be at least as old as I am to understand the title.

Second - I'm on a diet. The first step is giving up diet coke for 30 days. The reason - I have a drinking problem. I drink a lot when I'm alone - about a pack a day. Not saying how many are in that pack. It was a difficult week with NO caffeine. Actually I cheated once but it doesn't really count because I drink canned diet coke and this was a fountain drink at a restaurant and it was watered down and didn't taste good at all. So I'm not counting it.

Caffeine withdrawal is no fun. I've been sluggish and I don't want to get out of bed in the mornings. I haven't wanted to blog or do business or clean my house. My bowel movements have changed but lets not go there. What can I say? It's caffeine withdrawal. I haven't been myself at all. I even let Audrey spend the night with a friend on a school night last night. What kind of mother have I become? It was actually very pleasant at home without her, so I really did it out of self preservation. And today is only a half day of school, so I rationalized it away.

This morning I REALLY didn't want to get out of bed, so I decided to sleep in until 6:30. My usual 4:00am alarm was just too early. THEN the phone rang and the Mister called to tell me that he forgot his cell phone like he does at least once a week. But THIS time he needed me to bring it to him. (23 mile drive in morning commuter traffic before a 9:00am meeting) So, I rushed the kids to get ready and out the door. They were reluctant and cranky and we left 10 minutes later than I had hoped for but we arrive at school with time to spare. Then I was off to Irving in the morning commute, which I do not miss at all. Traffic was bad and I had to take several alternate routes, thus taking extra time, but I finally made it. After delivering the phone with a kiss and a good luck I decided to drive home a different way - the long way. Then I decided ice cream from Braum's was in order. It has been a long time since I've been inside the doors of a Braum's ice cream store and I was amazed. As I perused the aisles of the dairy section I was both amazed and stumped by the number of flavors to choose from. Then I saw it - Cappuccino Chunky Chocolate. Yum!! I couldn't wait to get home and dig in. Just as I was approaching the checkout my cell phone rang. BUSTED! It was the Mister. I could have just not answered it but I knew he would keep calling. He's persistent that way. So I answered and spoke quietly. He said he couldn't hear me so I said I would have to call him back. A few minutes later, in the van, I called him back. All I could think about was getting home to eat the ice cream. He didn't ask what I was doing so I didn't tell. And I can write about it now because he doesn't read my blog.

Entering my neighborhood I was flagged down by a AAA driver with a very confused look on his face. I rolled down the window and he immediately pushed his cell phone into my van and said "please talk to her. I need directions." Using my most excellent secretarial skills I spoke to the woman on the phone, got directions to her house and her phone number just in case I need to call her back - which I did - and led the driver to her house a mile away. He was very grateful and relieved. She didn't give very good directions, so its no wonder he couldn't find her. Then again, shouldn't a AAA tow truck driver have a GPS navigator? I was just glad I could help and wanted to get home and treat myself with some ice cream.

I finally made my way home but couldn't find my house key. What next? I just wanted the ice cream!!! Frantic search, found the key, ran to the kitchen, yanked the lid off - how does Braum's get their ice cream frozen so hard? Its never like that at the grocery store.

Now - Full of ice cream, feeling better and blogging again. What a wonderful morning. If I had taken the most direct route home I wouldn't have stopped for ice cream or had the opportunity to help the AAA man.

Moral of the story? Take your time when you can. Otherwise you might miss the opportunity to help someone else in need. Sometimes delays in our agenda are providential. Then - Take time to enjoy the ice cream. :-)

What Boys Do

It's quiet here at home during the day when the kids are in school. At the beginning of the school year I took a lot of naps. But now that I have had time to adjust to being home ALONE during the day I figured out a cleaning schedule that works for me. The first load of laundry goes into the wash as soon as the I return home from the morning school delivery. And I do at least three loads every morning instead of waiting for baskets to fill up at the end of the week. As if it would take that long for baskets to fill up in a house with five kids. Anywho...at least twice a week I strip the beds and wash sheets and blankets.

Occasionally I find - lets call them interesting - artifacts under my boys' pillows. Things like multi tools and cameras. We're not just talking Princess and the Pea here. This is a treasure trove full of stuff. The Egyptians buried their Pharaohs with treasure for the afterlife. I can only imagine what my boys are thinking when they sleep with this stuff under their pillows. Here is what I found under one pillow today:

One progress report - not seen by mom until now

A car - for a fast get away?

One knife - to fight off the boogie man

One comb - to look good for the girls in their dream

One wallet - because you never know when you are going to need money - maybe to impress the ladies

One thumbtack - who knows, MacGyver would know what to do with it

One pom-pom - I'm lost on that one - MacGyver could use that too.

The Smell Test

I find myself enslaved to laundry. Its everywhere. Clean laundry, dirty laundry - well lets face it, there are only two kinds. And I don't mind washing clothes. In fact, I love washing clothes. I really do. Its one of the easiest chores in the house. You put the clothes into the machine with some detergent and fabric softener and the machine does all the work. Then you transfer it to the dryer with two dryer sheets - yes I am addicted to fabric softener - and turn it on. Its that easy. Unfortunately for me, that is where the fun ends . I can happily go through the washer dryer cycle (we call it the hokey-poky - a story for another day) all day long. Its the next step that I don't like. You know - the part where you sort, hang and fold the clothes and then put them away so people can easily find them. Yuck! I have never enjoyed that part. It takes too long when I want to do other things like scrub a toilet or sit down and eat ice cream while watching a movie.

So, I find myself trying to find ways to be more efficient with the laundry process. Every morning, as soon as I get home from the morning school delivery, I go through the house and gather all dirty clothes and towels and throw them into the wash together. Never mind that towels are getting washed together with whites and brights. Its getting washed and I'm not wasting water on a small load. The challenge I have lies in my boys room at the end of the hall. Whether I fold and hang all of their clothes or even if they do it themselves - every day I find clothes on the floor in the closet or under the bed or next to the dresser. They are every where and I am so tired of washing them over and over again whether they are clean or not.

A few years ago I got tired of doing this redundant and unnecessary process so I instinctively instituted a new way to eliminate the excess - the smell test. Instead of picking up everything on the floor and throwing it in the trash or dowsing it with fuel and lighting a match, I grab the pants and underwear and give them the smell test - up close and personal. If it looks clean but I cant tell for sure, I bury my nose deep in the crotch and take a quick sniff. Yesterday, while standing in a somewhat dark room, I got a huge surprise wrapped up inside the seat of a pair of dark blue pants. It was the poop Du jur. So, no it didn't pass the smell test, and at that point neither did I!

This is the Ad They Don't Want You to See at the Superbowl

The Superbowl turned down this ad but they are allowing PETA to run their add.
Read the full story here.

http://www.catholicvote.com/

Failure to Blog

So I haven't been blogging much lately. It seems to come in spurts. You know how it is - feast or famine. Personally, I love blogging. Its therapeutic. But lately I haven't been able to blog. Nothing seems to come to mind at a convenient time. I can usually think of some hilarious story that happened five years ago but by the time I get to use my computer again its gone and there I sit empty headed with nothing to blog about. So, I thought I would do a year in review.

2008 - YUCK! Just when I thought I had escaped 2007 with nothing to loose 2008 reared its ugly head. My job, which I absolutely loved and would do anything to be successful turned into the worst night terror event of my career. So, I decided to make 2008 the year that I would "do something". Here is what I did.

First I decided to start writing. I've always enjoyed coming up with creative stories and I try to deal with my own stress by seeing the humor in the midst of the boondoggle which is my life. So, I started this little blog. Then I decided that I needed to start my own business because there is no way I'm going to work as someone else's employee forever. I needed to take charge of my own destiny. Thus, on February 12, 2008, I gave birth to prolificmom.com.

ProlificMom is now my other identity, my alter-ego - my very own brand. It encompasses all the things I am and all the things I want to be, and it has morphed on a fairly regular basis over the last year. PM is almost a year old - one verrrrry long painful year. And now I have decided to step it up a notch. Over the last three weeks I have worked on it day and night. This has been one gargantuan reconstruction project. I've been teaching myself web design - well, little pieces here and there. Really its more like reverse engineering and it has been changing minute by minute. If you looked at it an hour ago, chances are it has changed - kind of like Texas weather. In fact, I have worked on it so much that I have only been taking showers about every three days. Unfortunately, I have also been wearing the same clothes for the last three days. This has been like one slow extended labor and delivery. Only, I don't know when this baby will be finished to the point that I can leave it alone for a few days - but it will happen. And when it does I will probably be ready to take a shower at least every other day.

So, now I'm a stay at home mom. For the last thirteen years I have longed for the day I could be a stay/work at home mom. That is all I have dreamed of for thirteen year. I couldn't wait for it and I had a great plan to make it happen. Unfortunately, the lovely people I worked for had other ideas, and in June I got my wish about 16 months ahead of plan. For this new job I was completely unprepared. In fact, I am still in training for the stay at home job. Nothing on my resume points to experience as a full time mom. The majority of my time over the last 13 years have been dedicated to driving to a corporate office five or six day a week and telling millionaires what to do and when and how to do it - and I was very good at it. For this I was well rewarded. You know that movie "The Devil Wears Prada" - yes, part of that character was based on me. I don't know how the writers knew it but they nailed it. Being a executive assistant is what I am good at. I can make complex travel arrangements in my sleep. Just don't wake me up to clean up vomit in the middle of the night. I'm clueless in that department.

To fast forward and sum it up:
BAAAAD JOB
Start a blog
ProlificMom
Your Fired
Stay at home
broken arm
no insurance
medical bills
meals with no frills
interviews
no good news
write a blog
skip some showers
take a nap

Etsy - Its ADDITCIVE

How to Eat an Elephant

There is an old saying that I like. How do you eat and Elephant? One bite at a time.

This is a great saying used to encourage those who might feel overwhelmed with a prospective task. However, as I ponder this thought more questions come to mind.

What size is the elephant? What if the elephant is too big and you cant eat it all in one sitting? Do you have to stay at the table until you are finished eating the entire elephant? Can you share it with friends? Can you place leftovers in containers and freeze it? How many containers would you need for something that size? How long will it keep in the freezer? How do you cook the elephant before you eat it? Do you bake it or fry it? Can you deep fry it? How do you know if it is fully cooked or over done? Are all of the parts edible or will there be parts that you shouldn't or couldn't eat? Where do you get an elephant to eat? Do they serve these at fine restaurants? Can you get it in a fast food drive through window? Can you take leftover elephant home in a doggie bag? What kind of condiments should you eat it with? How would Emeril cook it?

Wait a minute. Who wants to eat an elephant? I think I'm going to switch to the saying "Don't bite off more than you can chew" and leave it at that.