What I Love

On account of today is Valentine's Day, I've been thinking about the things I love and I thought it would be appropriate to document those things on this sappy day of the year.

1. Heart Shaped Pizza - Who doesn't love pizza already, but then you go and put it into a heart and you truly do have a heart attack on a plate. This has become a Valentine's Day tradition in our house.

2. Free Printables on the Internet - This is the first year that I haven't created my own Valentine's for the girls to share with their friends, and it's okay. I found these awesome printables at The Celebration Shoppe and they were super easy to personalize. I just bought some generic Pop Rocks at the Dollar Store and Bam! Valentines in 30 minutes.

3. Retro Toys - I found these Wooly Willy Iron-Shavings-For-Hair-On-the-Bald-Dude thingies at the Dollar Store. Who remembers these things? You drag the shavings around with the magnet wand to arrange attractive hairstyles on the Willy who can't afford Rogaine.

The girls loved these things and they sat on the couch mesmerized by the creepy, clumpy hair.

4. Eyelash Serum - Speaking of Rogaine, did you know that people have been using it to grow long beautiful eyelashes for years? Of course nobody calls it Rogaine. It's marketed under fancy eyelashy names like Li Lash. I was noticing a lot of Bambi lashed girls at school and wondering what the heck is in the water around here for them to be growing eyelashes like that? No lie. These eyelashes are so long that I don't even know how these girls keep their eyes open, they might as well be hoods of cars, they are that long. Well, I asked The Magician about it at my last hair appointment and she gave me the 4-1-1. Underneath my rock it's so dark and cozy, I had no idea. Anyway, I had to get some of this stuff just to try it out. You know, in a back room, at home, science experiment kind of way.

So I did, and let me tell you, it works. I'm really lazy when it comes to the hair and make up, so I'm not real consistent with the application of the serum, but still I can see a visible difference in my lashes. And let me tell you, that's really saying something because I'm getting up there in my 40s and I wear the granny glasses now for my close up vision. What I'm saying is, I can't normally even see my eyelashes, but now, they're all OBJECTS IN THE MIRROR ARE LARGER THAN THEY APPEAR kind of long. No lie.

5. Chocolate - I don't think this needs an explanation.

6. Books - This is my current read, inspired by Peanut Head. Meaning he told me to read it so I'm giving it a try. I'm almost 100 pages into it and I can say this. It's weird. It's weird, but it's also kinda neat. Parts of it require a lot of concentration to read, not unlike the Bible, because the language is not your every day easy reading, conversational prose. In fact, oxymoron seems to be a recurring theme in word pairings in Mr. Adams' writing. That, and I get the distinct impression that he's making fun of mathematicians and scientists.

Anyway, my original point was supposed to be that books are my escape and my reward to myself. I look forward to crawling into bed at night and ending my day with some relaxing reading while raking my cold feet over Peanut Head's warm legs.

7. Tax People - As in someone else to do my taxes. For years I did our taxes myself and many of our family members' taxes, and I've had it with taxes. When I went back to work, paying someone to do our taxes became one of my many indulgences. In fact, I'm supposed to be getting my tax papers together right now, because I have a tax appointment tomorrow, but as you can see, procrastination is still my BFF.

8. iPad Insurance - As in I wish I had it when I truly needed it. Sad, ironic story. You can laugh while I cry. I've had my iPad for going on two years now. It's the iPad 2 and it's a miracle I have never dropped it. No, really. A miracle. I'm the biggest klutz on the planet. I'm so klutzy that I trip over flat surfaces, my own feet, and up stairs. I walk into walls. I walk into doors. I run into people and bounce off of them. I'm a train wreck, but I've managed to keep my iPad safe for going on two years.

Ahem. Remember when the girls and I bought Peanut Head his iPad 3 for Father's Day? Well, he and I were walking into Barnes & Noble to enjoy an evening in the B&N Cafe, sipping hot drinks and eating decadent desserts whilst surfing the Internet without our offspring nearby, when tragedy struck.

Let me drag it out for you.

"Honey, let's go to the restroom before we settle into the cafe," I say to Peanut Head.

"Okay," is his reply. I know, he's so chatty.

"What are you going to do with your iPad while you're in the bathroom?" I inquire.

"I'm going to set it on the counter," he replies while holding back the eye roll that I know is quivering behind his girly lashed lids (and he doesn't even use the Rogaine stuff. It's not right).

Immediately visions of a battalion of bathroom germs jumping atop Peanut Head's iPad cloud my vision. I know I don't have any Clorox wipes with me and I panic.

"Here, let me put it in my purse," I pushy command-cajole him.

So I reach for his iPad and as I'm slow-motion putting it into my purse, it slips out of my hands and 6-Million-Dollar-Man-Slow-Motion plunges to the pavement, and lands right on its corner.

Gasp. I couldn't even look at it. We just rushed into the store with the quickly retrieved, one whole paycheck electronic device. We get into the store and . . . 

Yep. I suck.

If I'm going to break an iPad, why can't it be mine? My iPad that is two years old and due to be upgraded to an iPad 4, except that now I can't afford it because I'm so stooooooopid and have to go and break a perfectly brand new iPad that doesn't even need replacing.

Karma is a bad word.

9. Peanut Head - Even though I broke his iPad he didn't yell at me and he still loves me.  He has a new iPad now, and this time we bought insurance. I've never before bought insurance on any type of electronic device, but I've learned my lesson and I know now that it is worth every penny. 

10. My Babies - They're noisy and they're messy, and sometimes they make me feel like my head is going to explode, but I love them more than chocolate and I thank my lucky stars for them each and every day.

My life isn't perfect, my house isn't clean, I have an inch thick layer of chicken poop on my back porch, and I have a lot of things I need to work on, but I have amazing people in my life that I am so thankful for. My family loves me even when I am grouchy and tired. The kids I teach make me laugh every day. I am surrounded by awesome people everywhere I turn, and I wonder, do they really know how much I love and appreciate them? I tell them, but do they really know?

Do you ever sit back and watch the people in your life, amazed by all that they are and all that they do, and just feel warm with love, and wonder, and appreciation, and awe?

Snow Day

Last week we had our second snow day in two weeks, and most years we're lucky to even get one. For this last snow day I was secretly praying for a blizzard to concentrate over the top of our Superintendent's house in order to motivate him to call off school. I don't know what his deal is, but he doesn't give out the snow days for just any ol' storm.

Lucky for us, it worked.

Peanut Head decided that since we had a snow day, then by dang it, he was going to have a snow day too. So we all laid around in bed until the crack of 9:30. It was awesome.

When we got up, we learned we had a low battery in our fire alarm. We have one of those annoying talking alarms that repeats every 30 seconds, "BEE-EEE-P! Danger! Fire. Evacuate outside."

I believe the purpose is not to gently remind you to change the batteries, but instead to drive you to Do It Right Now lest you fling yourself off a bridge from the monotony of the alarmist drilling her cacophony into your brain.

Our sweet little Gunny Bunny did not like the fire alarm one little bit. He cowered in the corner with his tail between his legs, and he wouldn't even walk down the hall because then he would have to walk by the jabbering alarm.

Peanut Head said that if we ever have a real fire, one of us is going to have to carry the dog out, because he won't move when he hears the fire alarm.

It's ironic that we named him Gunnery Sergeant. One gun shot and he'd be reduced to a quivering ball of mush, drowning in his own drool. He's quite the Delicate Flower.

Mr. Bun Bun has many fears. For example, heater vents. He will not get anywhere near a heater vent, blowing or not.  To illustrate, Peanut Head, the love of the Bunnery Sergeant's life, has a heater vent on the floor of his side of the bed. Gunny will army crawl under the bed to get to his man, and back, to avoid walking by the vent. And he's not as little as he once was.

At least we have some sort of regular rounding up of the dust bunnies with him crawling hither and tither under our bed.

Once we made it outside we had a lot of digging out to do. We got 8+ inches last weekend. We spent some time on the chicken coop too, digging out. The girls have to be able to get to it to feed and water the chickens.

The girls came out to see what all the commotion was about. They've pretty much stayed inside the coop for the last several weeks because it's been so cold. They're looking skinny and taxed, just trying to keep themselves warm.

They went on strike for about three weeks, not that I can complain, and didn't lay one egg for us. They just started laying again, but we're still only getting one every couple of days instead of three to five eggs every day.

Peanut Head put a light bulb in their coop to try to take some of the chill off during the weeks of negative temps.

It's difficult to focus on the task at hand when some people are easily distracted.

Poor Gunny. He's not the brightest bulb in the box.

I'm not sure what he thought was under there.

But I don't think he found it.

These two spent a lot of time rolling around in the snow, not being very productive. Thankfully our nice neighbor sent some of his work crew over to help us dig out of our driveway.

Now we're ready for more snow.

Bring it.