When the husband is away.....

Last week my husband went out of town to a conference in Nashville, TN. He did invite me to come along, but since my last visit to Nashville didn't turn out so well (see 2007 blog Summer Vacation -The Storm) I declined. Instead, I opted to stay home and party.

He left on a Sunday and so I threw a Steelers football party. I say that loosely because I was the only one interested in the game. It was really just an excuse for Kelly and Jyoti (sans husband) to come over and hang out.

There was tons of food and drink. The children played in the back room and left us to watch the game. Kelly and I worked on our Football For Women radio show that we're thinking of creating for satellite radio. Jyoti played along by calling in with questions and comments throughout the game. We were having a jolly ole time and then my team got beat by the Indianapolis Colts. While this was very distressing I wasn't crying in my beer. Mainly because, well, there was beer. And Peyton Manning. Who doesn't love PM?

So, Kelly, Jyoti and I were sitting around drinking and eating and making comments on the late hour yet making no moves to shut up shop when my youngest appeared, her lower lip puckered out in a pout, tears trickling down her cheeks, and a horrible, horrible expression in her eyes.

Me: (shouting because I have my mom's gene of overreacting to emergencies that involve my c children): "What?"

Darcy: (whimpering) "Mommy..."

Me: (still shouting) "What? What? What has happened?"

Darcy: "Well, we were sitting around playing with the laptop and Sarina found this water balloon and it popped and..."

Me: (incapable of using other words, apparently) "What?"

Darcy (beginning to cry) "I got water on my laptop and now it isn't working."

Needless to say, chaos erupted with that one sentence. Remember that Connie gene?

I jumped up as if I had been shot. I ranted and raved. I took the laptop and briefly dried it with a hairdryer until somewhere through all my yelling and screaming of "why? why?" a thought popped into my head that maybe blowing hot air into an electronic piece of equipment wasn't too smart.

I scurried from one room to another carrying the laptop that my husband insisted on purchasing for his 9-year-old daughter for her birthday. Which I brought up more than once during my ranting. Kelly and Jyoti sat quietly on the couch watching me until I finally ended up on another computer (remember that is my husband's job so we are full of "electronic-ness" in this house) and I Googled spilled water on a laptop. And do you know what? Up popped several sites where we found several suggestions on how to deal with this problem.

Bottom line, we were told to remove the battery, to dry off the water, and to let it sit for 24 hours, and VOILA! In 9 out of 10 cases when firing that bad boy back up after that 24 hour period one will have a functioning laptop once again. Yeah right. Like I believed that crap. Hello? I would be that 10th person.

Husband (at least how I pictured him saying this): "And what were you doing when this happened?"

Me: "Watching football!" (thinking): "Uh, drinking liquor and laughing it up with the girls in another room?"

Jyoti got on her cell and phoned her computer knowledgeable cousin who told us to remove the battery, dry off the water, and let it sit for 24 hours. He had spilled an entire glass of water on his and it worked just fine. He was very calm and very nonchalant so we did what he and the Internet told us to do. Kelly removed the battery and I dried off whatever water we shook out of the laptop. Then we placed it on a towel and stared at it. Nothing happened so there so we began recreating the scene of the crime.

The girls were making a video with the laptop and their Barbies. They were on the floor by the Barbie drawer. At some point, Sarina, found a water balloon inside a Barbie bathtub. Not sure why there was a full water balloon in the house, but at least it was in a bathtub, right?

Sarina handed the balloon to Darcy and when Darcy took the balloon it burst. Out came the water which went on to the laptop. Not all of the water, we were told, because Darcy shut her hand around the break in the balloon. She passed the broken balloon to her sister who ran with it to deposit the evidence into the bathroom sink. Then the girls turned the laptop upside down and dumped out the water. Madison shut off the laptop, dried the water off, and tried to turn it back on. No, go.

Kelly, Madison, and I tried to deduce how much water could have come out of one balloon and whether or not the entire amount landed on the laptop. We decided it didn't matter.

What we did conclude was that this was not something we needed to bother the husband with.

Madison wasn't so sure this was a good idea. Darcy thought it was a fine idea. So did I. What could the poor man do? He was miles away having a good time. No since in ruining that. I made sure we were all on board with leaving Daddy the hell out of the equation.

The party ended and when Tom made his nightly phone call home, we listened to him talk about Nashville and I discussed the football game.

Forty-eight hours later, we decided to double the time to be safe, I fired up the bad boy and.....VOILA! The laptop started right us just as if nothing had ever happened.

Is that amazing or what? I love the internet. It's my new husband.

Happy Birthday to me

This is part of an email I received, and I thought it appropriate since today is my birthday. The email was titled Girlie Wisdom:

1. A friend of mine confused her Valium with her birth control pills. She has 14 kids but doesn't really care.


2. My mind not only wanders, it sometimes leaves completely.


3. The older you get the tougher it is to lose weight because by then your body and your fat are really good friends.


4. Just when I was getting used to yesterday, along came today.


5. Sometimes I think I understand everything, and then I regain consciousness.


6. I gave up jogging when my thighs kept rubbing together and setting fire to my pants.


7. Ever notice how you hang something in your closet for a while and it shrinks two sizes?


8. Skinny people irritate me! Especially when they say, "You know sometimes I forget to eat!" Now I've forgotten my address, my keys, my mother's maiden name, but I can honestly say I've never forgotten to eat. You have to be a special kind of stupid to forget that!


9. The trouble with some women is that they get all excited about nothing and then they marry him.


10. I read an article that said the typical symptoms of stress are eating too much, impulse buying, and driving too fast. Are you kidding me? That's my idea of a perfect day!

Having my lunch....and pie too!

Soccer season has started here in Florida and we have 3 practices a week and one game (sometimes two for Darcy) on Saturday. Since this schedule started dinner has usually been from a drive-thru window because my children do not get home from school until 4:00 PM and we leave for soccer at 5:30 PM. They are not hungry for dinner after school and they don't like to eat before practice.

Practice ends as late as 7:30 PM and by the time we are home and I've cooked something to eat it is 9:00 PM. It is a miserable schedule and seriously my body is craving some vegetables. But the point I'm trying to make by all this is that I haven't really purchased much from the grocery store beyond the necessities. Thus I have not had much food to chose from for myself at lunchtime and I've tended to skip that meal. Which in turn causes a headache and some nasty grouchiness.

This week I decided enough. I would make sure to eat properly for breakfast and lunch and also try to have something for dinner in the crockpot for after soccer. That lasted one day. I got sick. Today, feeling better, I ventured out to get some things accomplished. Unfortunately, I forgot to eat lunch, and by 2:00 I was ready to knock someone down and start gnawing on his arm. I was at the bank (which could not cash my check because the computers were down) when I looked across the street and spied our new grocery store.

A chain of stores was recently bought out by Publix, our number one grocer here in Florida, and they have feverishly been refurbishing the old stores. This grocery is right down the street from my house (and down the street from two other Publix stores, I might add) and I had gone there on Sunday only to find it hadn't opened yet, but a big sign in the window announced "5 days til the Grand Opening".

Now from my position at the bank, I realize that today was the Grand Opening. I decided that I would go there, check it out, and get myself a deli sandwich.

I debated on getting a cart, decided I needed one to rest my weak body, and I headed to the deli. As I rounded the corner, I stopped. There, spread out in front of me, was a smorgasbord of deliciousness.  Publix workers stood at display set-ups handing out food. I began at the beginning where I received a glass of 7 up. From there, I scored a cup of blazing buffalo chicken salad, and a fruit salad that included grapes, pineapple, and marshmallows with a pretzel sticks stuck through their middle.

As I stood debating on whether or not to join the line at the deli, a man approached me with a tray of various cheeses. I sampled a few. Then I decided to walk the rest of the store to get the layout of the land. I'd let the deli line recede and I'd return later for my sandwich.

I walked through the produce and into the meat section. There, more employees offered me samples pork sausage and shrimp. Farther down, I was given a plate of 3 different kinds of Publix potato chips which went well with the black Angus cheeseburger bites I sampled next, followed by a few glasses of white and red wines at another display further on.

I enjoyed the chips so much that I pushed my cart down the chip aisle where I assisted a Publix manager on the aesthetics of his salsa display. He asked for my help and we strolled up and down the chip aisle while he questioned and I passed along my wisdom.

Finishing with him, I encountered another display where I helped myself to some Breyers peppermint ice cream in a tiny little ice cream cone. The next aisle I got a tiny wiener in some BBQ sauce and a cup of Publix's key lime pie. By this time, I had come full circle and was back at the front of the store where I decided that I was way too full for a deli sandwich. I parked my empty cart and headed back to my car where I mapped out my plan for the next coming week.

I'll be visiting all the new Publix Grand Openings that are cropping up one by one. Then I'll hit the annual Holiday feast at my own Publix which always comes with food, wine, and entertainment to boot. I looked it up. It starts at 4:00 PM on a night we don't have soccer.

Guess what's for dinner, kids?

Out of the Mouths of My Babes

Me: "I can't believe it!  Gabrielle dropped out of the talent show. She just sent me an email! The night before the show starts!"

Maddy: "Why?"

Me: "She doesn't think she is good enough. I don't know why. She was fine. I think I'll just tell her to lip-synch it."

Maddy: "That's good. She should just lip-synch the song."

Darcy: "Why are you saying synching?"

Me: "Because that is what I'm talking about....lip-synching."

Darcy: "It isn't synching. It's  lip-singing."

A wonderful ending to the week

Yesterday, we hopped into the car and made the two-hour drive to meet little Henry. He was asleep in the beginning, but after nursing and two diaper changes he awoke and was very alert. He had a fascination with Darcy, spending time studying her as she held him. We brought tons of cheer into the hospital and to both mother and baby. The girls cannot wait until we head over in a few weeks to spend some time with the family. I think these two are born mothers or perhaps I should say,
babysitters?

Sharon was her usual perky, entertaining self. No exhaustion in sight. I took multiple how-to videos staring Sharon. She volunteered all sorts of helpful advice such as breastfeeding and swaddling. I should post those some day. Maybe when Henry graduates high school or college. 

It is always so refreshing to be a part of a new life. Holding little Henry and watching him sleep makes everything on the outside seem so small. I have been waiting for some test results to come back and it has been a tad stressful this week. On Friday afternoon the results came back normal and healthy. Saturday Henry was born. Sunday I was holding this new little bundle of life and I just cried. New life for all of us.

Welcome Henry James

We've been waiting for this thing to pop. Tonight it did! My friend Sharon went to the hospital and spit this kid out in record time due to her observance of me during my second labor. We couldn't be more excited for the whole family!

Henry James

Congratulations to Mommy Sharon, Daddy John and Big brother Ben!