Alt Ctrl Del

This is the triple key sequence I have to strike in order to start my computer each day. Nothing unique to my particular model, just the way the instructions tell me to log on after a period of inactivity.

I wish there was some such key sequence to wake me up in the morning. Three buttons to push in order to jump start me at the beginning of each new day.

Alarm clocks are such a brutal way to wake up each morning. Especially the variety with two bells perched atop of a round clock, and a little hammer that rapidly beats back and forth between the two bells. In my experience this type of alarm clock causes a heart wrenching rush of adrenalin to surge throughout my very core, traveling up and down my spine, and stopping the breathing function.

I want to wake up in the morning…not have a heart attack.

At one point in my life, I was so traumatized by the sound of that old bell clock, that my body became perfectly trained to awaken on its own a few moments before the scheduled appointment. I would lay warm in my bed, one eye fixated to the glowing green numbers, perched to shut the clock off thirty seconds before it ever had the opportunity to ring.

Heart attack averted.

Then there’s the more modern digital model I bought for my son.
Designed to wake you up to a number of meditative sounds such as the “rainforest” or the “beach”, this clock, while reminiscent of a lovely Caribbean vacation, does nothing to wake my son up in the morning. He can sleep through a marching band once he’s out!

I’ve opted to awaken to music these days. It isn’t quite as obnoxious as say a bullhorn, or a pulsating trumpet, but it does do the trick. Quite frankly, I could wake up to the sound of static. All it would really takes is for someone to walk in the room and look at me, but the idea of being late is not an option, so I keep the alarm clock on standby…

just in case.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

So I’m driving down the road with my son in tow.

It’s a good hair day.
I’m dressed in a stylish outfit, matching accessories and feeling just about as cool as anyone can feel I suppose, driving down the road in a peacock blue soccer-mom van.

My right hand is poised comfortably high up on the steering wheel, twelve o’clock. Little man is sitting beside me, turning my music up too loud and talking intensively about his day at school all the while, taking his hand and playing with the part of my upper arm that is, unbeknownst to me, flapping around like a loose piece of turkey neck.

After a few moments of this oblivious gesture on his part, I decide to ask him what he’s doing, playing with my arm like that and why?

Me: Son, What is it that you’re doing there?

Little Man: Well that part of your arm Mom...it’s soooo, soooo, soft and squishy. It’s fun to squish it.

Me: What exactly are you trying to say? (I say with a wry grin). Are you saying I’m fat and saggy?

LM: No Mom, it’s just that it’s soft...and hanging down like it needs to be lifted back up.

Me: Oh thanks for pointing that out baby, I hadn’t noticed that particular body flaw yet.

LM: Laughing hysterically…but you know I love you right? You’re the best mom in the world!

Thanks Son.

While he thinks I’m old, I would like to point out that I’m not THAT old for Pete’s sake!

Everyone keeps telling me that age is irrelevant, and by far nothing more than a state of mind rather than the state of your skin elasticity.

I’m sure they do this to pacify me as the subject of age can get a little tricky.

But I never said I’d admit my real age now did I?

Let’s just say I’m somewhere between 30…
and a WalMart Greeter.

Now if you wouldn't mind...could you hand me that dumbbell over there?
I need to work on my triceps!

If you give Suzanne a cookie...

She’s probably going to want a glass of milk.

She’ll walk to the kitchen to get the glass of milk,
But will see the basket of folded laundry on the floor in the living room.
She’ll pick up the basket and take it upstairs to distribute the laundered clothes to the appropriate drawers.

While in her son’s room, she’ll notice the hamster needs water, and take the water bottle from the cage. She’ll walk to the bathroom and fill it with water.

While in the bathroom, she’ll notice that the wet towels are still on the floor, and hang them up to dry. She’ll probably want to tidy up the sink too while she’s in there and after a few minutes, she’ll go back to her son’s room. She’ll give the hamster her water.

Then she’ll take a few minutes to talk to her, because that’s what Suzanne does. (She talks to rodents?)

When the hamster is happy, she will start back downstairs.
She’ll grab the empty laundry basket, and while she’s at it…will refill it with the dirty clothes from the bedrooms.
Then she’ll actually walk downstairs.
She’ll take the dirty clothes to the laundry room, and throw in a load while she’s there. There’s already clothes in the machine that need to be moved to the dryer…
So she’ll have to empty the dryer first.

She’ll have to fold the freshly dried clothes to make room for the wet ones.
Then put the wet ones in the dryer. Of course she likes downy soft, static free laundry so she’ll remember to add a dryer sheet.

Adding the dryer sheet will remind her that she needs to work on the sheets of paperwork necessary for her sons travel this summer.
So she’ll head to the office to fetch the paperwork.
Filling out paperwork makes Suzanne hungry.
And she’ll remember she was going to eat a cookie.

So she’ll head to the kitchen to get a cookie.

Damn the multi tasking!

Except For the Walls

Lord knows I’m a pretty emphatic house cleaner. I don’t like dust, and I don’t like yuk, so at any given moment, it’s pretty safe to say my house is at least, presentable to company.

Except for the walls.

The walls were scuffed and marked and dinged to the point I could no longer stand the sight of them. Five years of living in a home, with kids running amuck can do that to a wall I suppose and in fact, I’d be inclined to say that if my walls could talk… they’d probably be pressing charges for assault and battery.

So I made the call and arranged for a pack of professional painters to come in and rehabilitate the worn and banged up walls.

Today is day three of the ordeal, and with any luck,… the last.

I’m sitting in the center of the living room, amongst the guts of the beast. Frames, books, shelving, curtain rods, and curtains are strewn about on the floor along with ladders, buckets, drop clothes, and other painter paraphernalia. Every other room in the house looks about the same, and if I think about it too much, my heart starts to palpitate in anticipation of all the work it will take to put humpty dumpty back together again.

I am amazed that while I clean on an almost militant like schedule…there is still an enormous amount of dust, webs and dead spider carcasses lurking in the cracks and cervices of the "what normally is hidden but now uncovered" parts of floor, like behind the television cabinet and behind the laundry machines. This, of course needs my immediate attention if I plan to have any satisfaction at all from this little exercise.

I haven’t even begun to tell you what havoc all of this furniture moving and dusting has played on my allergies, but you can probably guess. Long story short…I’m drugged on allergy pills, and desperately wishing I could take a nap.

The unfortunate part of this story is that my cat will now be needing some sort of kitty therapy.
He isn’t fond of strangers, especially of the loud, smelly male variety and we’ve had four of them tromping about the last few days making noise and banging ladders. Poor cat has been traumatized to the point of clinical intervention. You can find him where he’s been ever since they arrived, … hiding like a big fat chicken under my bed, throwing up and chewing on my Prozac prescription. I doubt he will be coming out of seclusion for at least another three days.

The good news is that I found the missing socks, the lost hotwheels cars, a buck fifty in change, and… my house will be spotlessly clean and organized by the end of the weekend!

Except for the carpet.

Which now has big dirty worker boot footprints and cat barf all over it.

Next on my hit list? New wood floors,….. or a visit from Stanley Steamer? It’s a toss up at this point.

Hmmm Decisions….. Decisions.

Please don't use the good scissors.

I think it probably happens to all of us at some point.

We wake up one day and realize we have become our mothers.
In my case, this is a good thing as my mother is cute and talented and I am flattered when someone sais “you’re just like your mother”. I suppose I AM an awful lot like her, just in different categories and variations.

Small example.

I scrapbook. I can spend an hour in a craft store looking at all of the different papers and embellishments available to create scrapbook pages. By picking matching hues of paper, string, stickers fabric and other paraphernalia I can capture a Kodak moment and add to it’s visual appeal by framing, cropping, and dressing the photograph up with different objects.

Likewise, my mother quilts, and I’m not just talking about your basic patchwork quilts of grandmothers gone by. She can take ordinary fabric, and turn it into a work of art resembling a Michael Angelo masterpiece. While some people can paint a landscape….my mother can recreate it in fabric.

When I am tooling around in the scrapbook stores, I am reminded of being a kid, and going to the fabric store with my mother. She would do her thing purchasing the bits and pieces of material needed for her current project….and I would get lost in the beautiful bolts of colored fabrics and textures. I loved the material, and desperately wished I could make something out of it too.

I admire women who can sew, partly because they remind me of my mother, but more so because I can’t.
Sewing takes patience and patience was never one of my strongest attributes.

I tried to sew once. I bought some green fabric and set out to make a long skirt to wear with my new coordinating green sweater. Equipped with my mothers professional Singer sewing machine, (that if it were a car, would most defiantly be a Ferrari), was prepared to give it a whirl.

I sewed and sewed, all the while marveling at the speed I could gain with the accelerator style foot pedal of her fancy sewing machine. Why, at this speed, I should have this skirt made in no time.

Maybe this whole sewing thing wasn’t so bad after all?
Maybe I could sew?
Maybe I could design my own line of clothing and fashion them in what ever color I was in the mood for that day?
This was great!

Yeah. Well…and maybe pigs CAN fly?

I sewed my little heart out until the very last stitch had been completed.

Then, I tried to stand up to go find my mother. I wanted to show her what I had created on my very own, only to be snatched back down to the chair…much like when you forget to unbuckle the seatbelt before trying to get out of the car.

Seemed I had sewn myself to the sewing machine.
The shirt I was wearing was stitched to the skirt I had just made, and had me pinned to the machine.

I called for my mother and she came into the room.
Me: “look Moma, I made this beautiful skirt…isn’t it great”?
Her: “ Wow, it looks good, let me take a look”
Me: “well there is this one small problem though. I have to wear the skirt here while I sit in this chair, because I have apparently sewn myself to the machine!”

We laughed until tears fell, and she had cut me loose.

It should come as no surprise that I’ve changed focus since that day and work with paper and glue as opposed to needle and thread. I still admire women who can sew, but will stick to scrapbooking for everyone’s sake.

I am morphing into my Mom though.
Today I told my son “not to use my good scissors” to cut his homework assignment.
“They’ll get all dull and won’t work for me when I need them”.

What! Shut up!
They will!

Brief...but nevertheless.

I’m going to try and post today. Considering my brain is currently being fueled by yesterday's Doritos and German chocolate cake…I wouldn’t expect to much in the way of content if I were you, ok?

I went by a few model homes yesterday to check on the work done by our guys to see if it looked nice and was up to standards. The model homes were absolutely stunning, and decorated to the nines with the latest in trendy home fashions! (They start at a half million dollars). One was done in deep purples, tans and dark wood,…while the other was in shades of turquoise, brown and black. Both equally capable of making my own home look “ick-ish” in comparison.

I so enjoy this part of my job, because it inevitably inspires my creative side…whether it be for home décor, or something as simple as my scrapbook pages. I love the blending and mixing of patterns and colors to create something visually pleasing.

Apparently I can only handle one creative outlet at a time however, so blogging has been minimal at best, while the scrapbooks are filling up with stories of memories past. You can see them HERE if you're interested.

The yellow pollen is still everywhere, and yes I’m still drugged on antihistamines. I did warn you of the effect they have on me, so don’t look so surprised at my blank stare and sleepy disposition. All in all, it’s absolutely beautiful outside and the flowers are amazing! Savannah is such a lovely town.

But enough of that ....can I take a nap now?

The Hormones are Coming, the Hormones are Coming!

Quick…run! Take cover! Now!

*The part of Suzanne will be played today by a big ugly hormonal monster that nobody loves and could possibly chew your head off if you’ve forgotten to bring the sacrificial gel coated Midol caplets with you. You brought them right?

Now that you’re here, I do hope you’ve come with a big bag of Guacamole flavored Doritos and um…chocolate. Yes chocolate will do nicely.

Here’s my post today.

My nerves are frazzled. My garage is a mess, my house is a mess, my yard is a mess I didn’t sleep worth a toot last night, and my whole body is cramping as if I were in labor! A dense misty fog accumulated over the bedroom last night as the steam rose from my sleeping, sfitzing, steaming body, creating (help me lord), more laundry.

But you didn’t come here to hear about all of that now did you?

Friendly advice?

Tread lightly. Gently lay the Doritos on the table and step slowly away…very slowly, with your hands where I can see them.

Be nice. (Hugs work in a pinch.)

Appropriate comments that could be left for me if so desired. *I realize some are a stretch of the imagination, but work with me here. (It’s for your own good, really).

1. Sure Suzanne, I’ll do it right now!
2. Yes Suzanne, I’ll help you clean that… right this minute!
3. No Suzanne, you don’t look fat in those pants at all!
4. Yes Suzanne, I think your hair looks better now that you’ve cut off 4 inches…makes you look younger and not at all boy-like!.
5. Great outfit Suzanne, makes you look so thin/young/trendy (insert any flattering adjective here)!
6. Your blog is my favorite blog. I read it every day, and you’re the funniest woman blogger I’ve ever read!
7. I’d be happy to give you a back rub/ foot rub/ head rub…just come here and relax. There, there now, isn’t that better?

Oh…and about that whole April fools thing you might have been planning to get me with today?

Don’t even think about it! Not a good idea, unless of course your day just isn’t complete without a good beating. The consequences could be devastating and could land you in the hospital if you’re not careful!

Did I mention the cramps? I did?

What about the cravings and the overwhelming need to take a nap? (A nap would be awesome right now). Unfortunately…not going to happen.

Alrighty then.

I guess I’m done.

Wasn’t that fun?