Barking Mad

Laboring Away the Labor Day Weekend

 

I bet you'll never guess where we're going this weekend!  Oh come on, give it a try...

What?  What's that you said?  Maine?  Geez.  I guess I'm pretty transparent!

We decided to empty out our piggy banks, scrape all the loose change from underneath the sofa cushions, car seats, and out from the dryer vent, and get then get back over there and make a concerted effort to get rid of as much stuff as possible.   Oh sure, I'm just overjoyed to be busting my super-sized butt over a holiday weekend, but it's in Maine and that makes it all worthwhile.  Plus, we're also going to be camping out.  At the house.  With no electricity.  And no hot water.  But hey, the BBQ is still there and combine that with a cooler full of fresh veggies and fruit!  I'm pretty sure we'll somehow get by.  

Gaby somehow got the impression we were "tent camping" this weekend but if she knew my history with tents, she'd quickly agree that is probably one of the worst ideas...ever!  I don't get along with tents.  Ask anyone who knows me.   It's not an issue of not liking camping in a tent; it is an issue of getting to the point where you can camp in the tent, i.e., putting the tent up!  You could give me instructions so simple that a toddler could assemble a tent and I still would not be able to put it together.  I'm much better at organizing things that will go into the tent, once it's ready for occupancy.   I can clear a camp site of pine needles like no ones business.  Just do not, I beg of you, ask me, or make the mistake of assuming I am capable of, putting a tent together.   It always ends badly.

I'll let you in on another little secret.  It's been more than 15 years since I've been on a genuine camping trip.  If there's anything I feel bad about when it comes to my first marriage, it's the fact that my poor ex-husband had to find that out, the hard way, in the middle of the night after we'd driven more than 10 straight hours to get to the middle-of-nowhere in the Idaho mountains, that as badly as I wanted to go camping and was so excited for that trip, that I had no earthly clue how to assemble a stupid tent!  Besides, I had two 3-year-olds and a 9-month-old that I was trying to look after.  

It was pitch black when we got to the camp site and after two hours of trying to get me to see the logic in putting the tent together, he gave up.  Mercifully, for him, our best friends, Mike and Bobbie, were also there.  Mike came over with a beer and a hammer, and Bobbie brought me a margarita and some tissues.  The margarita was for my nerves and the tissues were for the fact that I had started to sob when I realized that my complete inability to help put up a tent (in my defense, it was dark in them thar deep woods of Northern Idaho!) may very well mean we'd be sleeping on the ground, or in the car!

After all that work, and with the help of our friends, we spent all of two hours in the tent when I realized it was far too cold for the kids or me, and we went and slept in the car!

Despite the lack of a tent, or truly being outdoors this time around, we will, for all intents and purposes, be camping.  And ya know?  I'm OK with that.  We'll be in Maine emptying out our house and transitioning toward the moment when the bank will come swallow it up.  But I'm not going to spend this weekend focusing on that.  I'll be where my heart considers home, with my family and I'm going to enjoy it. 

And I'm going to rejoice that I don't have to put up a tent!

 

The One Where My British Husband Has His First American "At Bat"

We are not a very athletically inclined family.  No, really, we aren't.  I think it's safe to say that the cats are more athletic than Gareth and me.  And then there's Gaby.  She can run circles around anyone else.  Anyone.  And that's without the addition of any sugar at all!   But this isn't really about my 4 year old who is naturally hopped up on life (Oh my goodness, never ever ever give this kid ANYTHING with caffeine in it.  Just take my word, it's bad. REAL BAD!), what this is about, is my darling British hubby and his first time playing American softball.

That's right, he actually engaged in a sport other than that odd combination of baseball and golf that uses a spanking paddle...I think they call it "Cricket" over on the other side of the pond.  Or  that game, as he says, "Proper FOOTBALL" which we Yankees commonly refer to as soccer, or Rugby - which I can't watch because I'm pretty sure I hear bones crunch every time I do. But he hasn't participated in any of these sports this side of the pond. Namely because, did I mention, we aren't athletic? At all.

Gareth comes home from the office last week and says, "Hello luv, next Wednesday evening I'll be playing softball with the blokes from work!"  I'm pretty sure I dropped whatever I had in my hands and went over and felt his forehead to see if he was feeling well.  I asked him, "The folks at your office do know you're British, right? And maybe you ought to clue them in that as close as we get to playing any kind of sports at home are tossing wadded up socks at one another when I'm sorting the laundry!"  Gareth just laughed at me and walked away while I stood there imagining all sorts of horrible scenarios.  I pictured him with two black eyes from where the softball hit him repeatedly in the face, or being called in the middle of giving Gaby a bath to rush to urgent care where they were sewing him back together after some sort of freak softball accident, or worse yet, I pictured him coming home, baseball cap on backwards and spitting chewing tobacco into a little cup and taking the remote control out of my hands and switching it to ESPN so he could watch the Red Sox clobber the Yankees.

Despite my gruesome scenarios, pretty much nothing could dissuade Gareth from playing softball.  There was only one thing left to do...go to the game and be there to document the carnage.

I arrived 4 innings in and my husband proudly walked up to me and with a look of glee in his eyes not unlike a kid who'd just scored a home run!  He lifted the leg of his shorts and showed me his knee - like it was some gross prize he'd won in a morbid box of Cracker Jacks!

Before I could say anything, I noticed he was limping and then he told me, "Oh and one of the blokes was wearing cleats and crushed my toes!"   I thought he was exagerating when he said, "...crushed my toes!"  Turns out he wasn't!

I'm pretty sure that toenail is going to be history in the next several days.

Despite the obvious battle wounds, I was able to get some shots for the scrapbook I've lovingly titled, "Milestones of a Brit Living with the Yankees." Oh how I'll cherish showing our grandkids these pictures and we can all have a laugh at Grandpops expense athletic endeavors!

Gareth got to play 2nd base.

I have no clue what he's doing in this next shot.  I think he's fraternizing with a runner from the other team...who actually happened to be someone from his office, but for some strange reason I thought they were playing against some of the sub-contractors and contractors from his job site.  Anyhow, I didn't think you were supposed to get too chummy with the base runners because wouldn't that sort of put a kink in your desire to clobber them when they come running at you in order to score a base?  And did I mention that we are not athletic....AT ALL?  My comprehension of sports is limited at best.  Well unless it has to do with a snowboard.  But we aren't talking about snowboarding now, are we?

Here he is getting ready to take the plate...

...and he SWINGS!!!

I think it was a pop fly...or something like that.  I was distracted from my husband trying to hit what looked like an overinflated tennis ball (why are some softballs green?), by such amazing cuteness and sweetness that my teeth actually hurt!

While her daddy was having the time of his life getting battered and beaten and aiming at flying green balls, Gaby was making a friend!

Harley is a Shiba Inu mix that belongs to a really nice man that Gareth works with whose name I have completely forgotten.  Sometimes it's hard for me to remember silly little things like names when my husband is running around like a loon, excited about a scraped knee and some busted toes.

Gaby was oblivious to all things softball related.  She and Harley became fast friends!

And this next picture is just about the sweetest thing this side of a huge cotton candy factory, except maybe even sweeter.  I am totally crushing on this photo and want to run out and get a puppy for my little girl despite having three cats that are still recovering from our Goldendoodle puppy who now lives with our contractor and his three rambunctious boys, on 52 acres back in Maine.   For a few minutes I managed to forget, after staring at this photo, that I um...well, errrr...I kinda hate puppies.   Give me an adult dog any day of the week, but puppies?  Yeah, they're cute for all of 5 minutes, tops!

Harley, the sweetest two year old you will ever meet...try and not melt after looking at this photo.  Come on, I dare you!

So now I've got a 4 year old who wants to know when Harley can come over for a play date and husband, who, whilst pretty banged up, is looking forward to playing softball...again.  That's all well and good Gareth, but if I so much see you spit, you're benched for the rest of the season!  Oh and give me that damned remote back!  I hear they lynch people 'round these parts (NY...where we live!) for admitting they like the Red Sox!

 

The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree

It's been made frighteningly obvious to me that my little grasshopper has been paying keen attention to her mommasan's warped sense of humor. 

I was working at the computer earlier this afternoon while Gaby played nearby and I got up to use the loo.  When I came back to my desk and put my fingers on the keyboard, this is what was waiting for me...

click to embiggen crappy cell phone photo

 

I had completely forgotten about the package of reptiles and amphibians we'd bought Gaby a few months back.  She hadn't.   Once I got my heart rate under control and had slipped a baby aspirin under my tongue, I looked across the room and there stood Gaby, behind the protection of two enormous cats, laughing her head off.  She was literally shaking with giggles.

Turns out you can indeed be punked by a preschooler!

 

Never Let a Four Year Old Be Your Personal Trainer

Some days I don't have the sense God gave a gnat!

Other days I have even less.  Today was one of those days.

 

Every day, Gaby and I exercise together, or at least that's what I call it.  Sometimes it's just dancing along to Yo Gabba Gabba, (hush!), others it's working out to a DVD, and occasionally we run around the house, up and down the stairs, like total lunatics.   Yeah, OK maybe that happens more than "occasionally."

Today was different.  I don't know why.  Maybe it was the gloomy weather outside, the fact that I overdosed on flax seed...again, or perhaps the planets were in some bizarre planetary alignment.  I don't know.  All I do know is that all vestiges of common sense left the building and I let Gaby, a FOUR YEAR OLD, dictate my exercise today.  As a result. I am walking with a slight limp, have a bruised ass, and think I might very well have broke one side of our sofa...one of the sides that reclines.  Sorry honey.

So, do you see how Gaby is situated on the sofa in the above picture?  She wanted me to do the exact same thing and then slam my legs into the back of the sofa, bring them over my head and then rinse, repeat.  And do you know what?  I did it.  Hell, it was fun...at first. 

I had quite the momentum going and we were giggling away at one another and then all of a sudden, I launched my legs into the back of the sofa with such force that the backward bounce off the sofa caused me to go completely ass-over-teakettle!  Meaning, I completely did a back-flip off of the sofa and landed all of my largess onto the floor with such intensity that something cracked...at this point I'm not certain if it was my ass or the hardwood floor underneath the small area rug I landed on. 

I think, from now on, I'm going to stick to exercising with Elmo!

 

Quote of the Day - Beauty is Only Skin Deep

"Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart"
~ Kahlil Gibran~

"Beauty and folly are old companions."

~Ben Franklin ~ 

"Let the beauty we love be what we do."
 ~Rumi ~

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Why did I pick these quotes?  Well, if you follow me on Facebook then you recently discovered that I am seriously considering having dreadlocks put in my hair.  Yes, I said SERIOUSLY.   Do you need a moment to get over the shock?

I have been mulling this over for a long time and finally brought up the subject with Gareth tonight, to discover that he is completely supportive of it.  I was almost knocked over by that revelation because he likes my hair longer and is really lovely about complementing me on it and doesn't much like shorter hair on me, and to be honest, I look hideous with short hair as we discovered in September of 2008 when I got all of my hair cut off.  If was just barely below my ears.  It was awful!  Just awful!   I cried for months!  Thankfully my hair grows insanely quickly and it's now pretty long again, and that's even after getting a couple of inches trimmed off over the summer.  Anyhow, he knows I'm getting pretty frustrated with my hair.

Dreadlocks are attractive to me for numerous reasons but the biggest one being the low-maintenance factor.  I know people don't automatically think they aren't a lot of work.  Initially when you first get them put in, depending on your hair type, it might take a little work...the dreading itself, possible waxing and depending on how you have your hair dreaded, there's a little more work at the start.  In the long run though, they are very low maintenance and even fun to play around with, and if you take care of yourself and your dreads, they look great!   Hell, I could even decorate my dreads for Halloween, Christmas, Easter...you name it - I can find a matching hair bead for it!  And hey...ever hear of Jingle Dreads?!?!

Seriously though, my hair screams 80's!!! Bon Jovi!  I HATE Bon Jovi...My big. bossy hair begs to have blue eyeshadow smoothed over my eyelids, big gold hoop earrings dangling from my ears, and Lip Smackers lip gloss rolled on my lips.  It's got tight curls on all of the bottom layers and big, floppy lazy curls on the top.  It costs more money than I care to keep spending on products...smoothing gels and creams, straighteners, glosses, and conditioners just to name a few!  As far as the blonde?  Yeah, I'll keep that up because I'm far too vain to go gray, gracefully and I've discovered that with dreads, it's a lot less expensive to keep them blonde than it is to keep my highlights going.

Don't believe me about the 80's hair?  Behold, a chunky monkey version of Blair from The Facts of Life!  I took this earlier today...

  

No matter how I get it cut or end up styling it, it's always big and annoying and a complete pain in my ass.  Most of the time I just put it up in a headband and scrunchie and call it good.

There's just something simple and beautiful about dreadlocks.  Not everyone can rock a headful of dreads...I'm not saying I can.  I am saying that whilst I know that hardly anyone else thinks they're beautiful -  well I find the beauty in their simplicity and fun!  Besides, at this point I'm still thinking about it.  Don't worry...not until you start seeing me quote Bob Marley lyrics and posting about how many different bead shoppes I've hit up!