Down on Me...

Last Sunday was fabulous. The weather was nice enough that we could run around outside. We played tennis in the yard and went for a long walk through the fields. It was the best day I have had in a while. Of course, I still had plenty of work to do, but I was able to enjoy the sunshine too. 

Sunshine can only mean one thing. Ella wearing her sunglasses.

She really thinks she is too cool for school. 

On another note, I have a question. I ordered some items over three months ago from a direct seller. A couple of the items were Christmas presents for the girls, and the seller knew that at the time. I paid her. I still have not received my merchandise. I have emailed her and facebook messaged her (more than once), and she didn't even respond. I have talked to some other people who ordered from her at the same event. Some have received their items; some have not. I am trying really hard not to go to her facebook page and post on her wall that I am upset. This is unacceptable though. What would you do? 

Rejection and Acceptance...

-I am on a serious roll...of sarcasm and not filtering the words coming out of my mouth. My poor coworkers have heard some atrocious language lately. Combine that with my almost manic appearance, and it is a miracle that no one has tried to commit me.

-Truth. I listen to vulgar and profanity laced music while I am working. I have my ear buds in my ears, and it might look like I am jamming out to something fun. Right now, at this minute, I am listening to You Can Leave Your Hat On. Let's just hope I don't start singing out loud because I would be mortified if any of my coworkers began stripping. I made the mistake of singing out loud while rocking out to some Lily Allen one day. Let's just say that it is not okay to sing the eff word repeatedly in front of your coworkers.

-I came across this old picture of Layton and couldn't help but smile. He looks so brown and smooth. He is positively delicious. I am ready for him to get his Summer skin back. :)




-There is something magical about a good day. At the end of a good day, I feel like I could do anything. Absolutely anything. Other days I feel homicidal. Just being real.

-I had a good time here....

True, it's a little skeezy up in the alley, but a trip to Nashville isn't complete without it. :)

-This past weekend brought something new to our home. A date. The H-Dizzy had her first date to a formal dance. It was cute and adorable. Her friend that lives in Auburn came up and escorted her. I would post a picture, but I think Hadley might never forgive me. They rode in a limo. I was surprisingly calm about the whole thing. You would think that I would act a fool about something like that, but I kept it together. I didn't threaten to kill anyone.

-J - And the songbirds keep singing like they know the score
  And I love you, I love you, I love you
Like never before


-Over using the word epic is a hobby of mine. I am having an epic time getting all of my work finished. That tax return was epic. Her reaction to her balance due was epic. Don't bother taking the time to point out to me that I'm being melodramatic about it. I will epic-ly give you the finger.

-Put a fork in me. I be dunzo.

Like Never Before...

-There was iffy weather last night here. Naders. At least, it sounds like naders when local rednecks say tornadoes. I wasn't home for it though. The Hospice Chili Challenge is this weekend, and my friends Kim and Shannon needed to borrow my crock pot. I took the pot to them, and then the sirens started blaring about the time I was going to leave. I decided to stick out the rain and naders at Kim's house. I did not want to be walking down the road in that wind and rain. Ha! Ella texted me...

I was laughing so hard at the way she stated that the thunder and lightning freaks her out, man. She has been a good bit more scared of storms since 2011. I understand why she is nervous about storms. I do not understand why she and Layton were drafting their wills during all of this. Yes, you read that right. Ella and Layton each wrote a will during the storm in case the weather forced an exit from this world. 

FYI: Ella wants to be buried with her pillow, and I get to keep her special blanky. Layton is leaving me his dirty laundry which isn't any different than what he gives me nowadays. Now, a rational person would have explained to the littles that making their final preparations was not necessary. Instead, J chose to put on rubber boots and run through the house screaming about how the nader was going to get us all -  metaphorically injecting the littles with adrenaline, fear, and enough energy to power North Alabama. Ella and Layton loved every second of it. Meanwhile, Hadley was asleep on the sofa. I briefly thought about chasing J around the house when 11:30 hit and the littles were watching late night TV on my bed. 

-This week has been hard. I am not going to lie and tell you that I am weathering it well. I am tired. I am stressed. I am on the verge of screaming the Eff word at total strangers. Enjoy my public breakdown. 

-I recently changed my twitter avatar to this picture. 

I thought it was funny. Other people seem to think it is in poor taste. Come on, now. That is funny! Whatever, I'll top it off later. 

-Tonight is our tax season night out at the firm. I am looking forward to it. Well, I think I am actually just looking forward to a night when I don't have to work. Bwhahahahaha. You know how crazy we accountants are....we are wild, crazy people. Are you hyperventilating from laughter yet? I once went to a continuing ed class where they had a booth set up for CPAs to do stand up comedy. I pointed out to the organizer that accountants are void of humor. For crying out loud, we choose to do tax returns for a living and get excited about capital gains. Whatever, top it off. 

Cruel and Unusual...

This is the post in which you will lose any respect you ever had for me. 

Ella got prescription sunglasses at her most recent eye exam. She was so excited about them that she slept in them that night. 

And, I am so heartless that I turned on the light and took a picture of her asleep in her sunglasses.

And then I posted it on the Internets. Dang, it's cute though. I think it was money well spent. 

On the Go...

Life is busy. Correction: My life is busy. Sometimes I see women who appear to have loads of disposable time. I kind of envy their two hour lunch dates and trips to the mall on a random Thursday evening. I, on the other hand, eat lunch on the go a lot and don't take random trips to the mall. I order. If new underwear cannot magically appear on my front porch in a UPS box, then I ain't gettin' no new drawers. 

Yes, all of this has a point. A point that I am mentally obsessing about lately.

J and I took a mini-weekend trip to Nashville a few weeks back. It was the last weekend I had before things get so busy at work that I get cranky. Me, cranky? Never. (This is where you roll your eyes because I turn into an ϋber witch fairly early during sweeps.) While we were there, we happened upon a whole street of mobile vendors. - NOT JUST FOOD TRUCKS. Clothing stores, yarn stores, the whole kit and kaboodle. - Can some of these stores come hang out in front of my office? I could zip our front during lunch; try on some snazzy pants; and be finished with all my shopping needs. Bam. 

This is genius.

O, Fashion where art thou? 

Personally, I can foresee a time when many businesses give up traditional brick and mortar store fronts. How about you?

There's Snow Business...

I have to share a few more pictures from our rare snow last week. 

Ella (as usual) wanted 675 pictures taken of her running around in the snow. 

I have no idea what this hat/mitten combo is supposed to be, but I think it might be something similar to a moose. ???

Hadley didn't want her picture made. There is always around that. Bwhahahaha.

What snow is complete without tilting your head back to taste it? 

Oh, dimples, slays me every time.

Snow More...

This week was an exciting one for the Enabler and the Codependents. It snowed!

Luckily, I had stopped at the Elkmont Piggly Wiggly and picked up enough groceries for us to survive being snowed in for a day or two. If you live in the North, please stop laughing. Seriously, I can only recall a hand full of times in my whole life when there has been enough snow for a snowman here. It's a rare occurrence, and our transportation departments do not have the resources or equipment to keep the roads dry and safe. A few inches of snow equals three snow days in Bama. 

It was a very beautiful. Cold. But beautiful.

I love the way the snow looks on the branches of our tree out front. 

When the snow first started coming down, we all went outside and played in it for a bit. I tilted my head back and took this picture. Looking straight up at the snow coming down was odd. It photographed even more odd. Maybe it is because this was in the evening when the sun was starting to set. 

Snowballs were flung at the house. 

The tree out front was clumped up with white fun.

I got a chance to wear my kick a$$ snow boots that I haven't had out of the closet since January 2011. These puppies rock.

Yes, Layton wore pajamas and rain boots. Outside. Did I care? No.

Ella had the most fun in the snow out of all of us. She was out in it non-stop. She even demanded a ride on the sled. It was my dad's and is old and worn out. Someone has to pull the sled because it is so old that it doesn't work quite right. 

J was kind enough to drag her around the neighborhood. 

This is our backyard. 

Did I mention Ella had a blast in the snow? It gave her an excuse to wear her new sunglasses too. They have prescription lenses. She thinks she is dope.

The littles worked on a snowman and threw snowballs at J. 

The snow man turned out pretty good. I was right proud of Ella for finishing it by herself. Layton got tired of the cold and came inside. 

I have some more pictures that are fun. I will post those later as well. 

Honest Feelingz...

-There was supposed to be a snow storm today. Instead it has rained all day and been icky. It has snowed for a while, but it is too warm for anything to stick. Blah. I need some sunshine.

-I think I need to buy this hoodie from Riffraff. Bwhahahahaha! 

-Charter keeps sending me emails about how the great movies on demand for Valentine's Day. I find it highly annoying.

-I really didn't have much to say other than that. lol. I am boring today.

And I Will Strike Down upon Thee...

-Imagine the panic that set in the moment I looked at my clock and realized that I should have already been on the road. The children were going to be late to school. Again. I mulled over my choices for the excuse I was going to give each office.

  A. An alien spaceship fried my alarm clock with gamma radiation. Truthfully, this excuse has never once worked but never fails to entertain the office staff because I am trying so hard to avoid the unexcused tardy.
  B. Snow. There was so much snow. Ok, this one would only work if we lived somewhere other than Alabama. It would also help if there were actually snow outside.
  C. I was vomiting profusely. No, bad idea. Move along.
  D. Own it. Own the truth and confess at all three schools that I am pro tardy. No, I do not mean pro tardy as in I am in favor of being tardy. I mean pro tardy as in I have done this enough to be a professional at it. I am pro tardy.

I decided to go with option D - the embarrassing truth and unexcused tardies all around. I'm like Oprah with tardies. You get a tardy! You get a tardy! Everybody gets a tardy!!



-It is that time of year. The time of year when love commercials are a plenty. 99.9% of the time commercials that are about Valentine's Day disgust me. Excuse me while I go throw up. Valentine's Day = Not. My. Thing.

-I have a serious spam problem with this blog. I have posted screen shots of some of the emails I receive daily. I get 5-7 of them a day. The only thing that stops the emails is taking my blog off the Internet. As has been pointed out to me recently by a complete stranger, my family must be completely embarrassed by what I write for this blog. So, I have spam and embarrass my family. It's a good thing I have a day job and don't make my living from this blog.

-Building on the last paragraph - when a complete stranger stopped me in Publix to ask if I was ashamed of myself for humiliating myself on the Internet, I literally had no words come out of my mouth. I looked at this woman who has clearly read my blog and felt compelled to approach me in the grocery store and thought, "Seriously? You read my blog and don't know me and thought it would be a good idea to stop me in public to degrade my 40 page views a month blog? You have more issues than I do, lady." That's what I thought, but I knew that it would lead to confrontation or an ugly scene if I actually said it out loud. So I remained speechless. Right there by the pot roasts. What words could I possibly say to this woman judging me for being open and honest about the chaos in my head and in my life? I really wanted to say an obscenity. Instead, I was voiceless. And I nodded my head and walked away. I was almost proud of that moment.


-I am not proud of the tongue lashing I issued to the poor man who rang our doorbell early last Saturday morning. He was out looking for work and wanted to know if I wanted my shrubs trimmed. I should have politely told him no. Instead, I said something along the lines of, "I don't want anything trimmed by someone who thinks it is acceptable to wake me up on a Saturday morning...." That was the opening line. I cannot even bring myself to repeat what followed. Samuel L. Jackson would probably be proud of it though.

For Sale....

One slightly used little boy. 

Low mileage. 

Takes premium fuel. 

Maybe I'll keep him. 

Blaspheme...

For most of my life, I have had a deep love for paper and words. Long before I understood what the combination of words and paper would mean to me, I kept a stash of paper with me at all times. My parents often talked about the folds of paper that I would carry under my fat, toddler arm like a purse. An actual purse would be stuffed under the other arm. I toddled about the yard and house completely unable to lift my arms without losing my two prized possessions - my paper and my purse.

I learned to read at a relatively young age. I was hooked. There wasn't anything that I didn't want to read. I looked forward to Christmas and my birthday because I knew my grandfather would give me a sum of money. That meant I could buy more books. I figured out that I could only get to and from the library with assistance from adults, so I would buy books that I wouldn't mind reading more than once to pass the time between trips to the library.

 My father would take me to the old library in the Summer months. I thought it was haunted, but the whole building smelled like my imagination felt. My mother preferred the newer library. I remember being annoyed that they didn't want to go to the library every day. Looking back, I realize that I should have been aiming for books much longer than the ones I picked. A Sweet Valley Twins book or a cheesy R.L. Stine novella was only going to consume a few hours of my time. I fully understood what I should have been reading shortly after my older brother began high school. He had novels assigned to him to read for school! This one fact made me long to be a high school student too. And so, I began to pick up his leftover paperbacks. 

Those completed high school assignments changed the way I read. Reading became laborious in the best way imaginable. It is religious for me. I prefer to read with paper and pen nearby. As I work my way through the story, I make notes about things I want to read more about; words I don't know; sentence structure that widens my eyes; and any other thought that needs to be preserved. If I read a book and don't need a dictionary, the book wasn't worth reading. I do read some of those fluff novels every year purely for the entertainment value even though I know that it didn't add any wrinkles to my brain.

In fact, I think I will go read a book now. Just thinking about it makes me want to read. What are your all time favorite books? 

Move It, Letterman...

The Top Ten Signs It is Tax Season


1. I buy new socks instead of taking the time to wash the dirty ones. This is a reality of which I am not proud.

2. I throw away J's "dishes" instead of washing them. Dishes is a subjective term for the empty pickle jars and frozen food trays he uses to drink and eat from respectively.

3. I have food in my hair. Don't even ask. I don't know how it happens or why it happens to me often, but I normally do find food in my hair during February Sweeps.

4. I start referring to my job as February Sweeps. It sounds more glamorous than tax season. Like a hit TV show.

5. Your name is Jerry...but I have called you Jackson, Jeremiah, Jason, and Johnson all in the last 15 minutes because my mind is constantly making a list of things to be done at work. So, I cannot remember your name and am trying to get close. Cut me some slack.

6. There is an inverse relationship between my glasses of wine consumed and hours at work. Don't nobody got time for a hangover. How ghetto was that?

7. I just flicked off the drive thru attendant at Chick-Fil-A. Those people are saintly, but even saints cannot avoid the wrath of a busy, mother of three struggling her way through February Sweeps. How dare that place change up my favorite salad? Blasphemy.

8. My children look petrified at all times. They live in constant fear that this will be the season from which there is no return. They are not sleep deprived or in trouble; they are worried I am going to actually break. Or break the man who just pulled out in front of me at Publix.

9. J looks slightly confused and hurt. This is because I holler the names of other men in bed. That came out wrong. I talk in my sleep, and when I am stressed, the talking gets out of control...to the point that I will sit up in bed; yell the name of a man whose return I am trying to finish; and then rest my head back on my pillow. I have also been known to ask for cookies and sing songs about flamingos and tee pees. Not a joke. Not an exaggeration. I will sing in my sleep and keep poor J awake half the night. He enjoys recording it to embarrass me later.

10. You mention Spring Break plans with your kids. I mutter the F word and walk away.