Random Thoughts....

Thirteen on Thursday

I think the actual way this is done is Ten on Tuesday, but since this is for Thursday and alliteration is important (don't YOU think it's important?) I'm going to try to go for thirteen.

1. Brent's teenage-hood is starting to get on my nerves.
2. I finally mopped my floors today and this makes me very happy! Even though they will probably need to be redone tomorrow.
3. I got Brad Paisley's new cd today and it does not disappoint.
4. I had an apple with peanut butter for supper tonight...you can move forward with your day feeling better because you know this! ;)
5. Our new puppy, Nico is very much like having a baby. He even wakes me up in the middle of the night, although he's slightly easier to get back to sleep. After he walks around on my head that is.
6. I might have a Costco addiction. I have excellent intentions, but I just can't help it.
7. I have been chicken-with-its-head-cut-off busy the past couple of days.
8. I have so many pictures that I want to scrap from recently but cannot focus my thoughts enough to sit down and do them.
9. I think decorating is absolutely my passion. I'm a little bit scatterbrained with it, but it's the one thing that I feel happiest doing and thinking about.
10. I live in the best neighborhood! I'm very thankful for all my friends here and so thankful that after the crappy situations I've had with this sort of thing in the past that we are here with these people. Makes it a little better if I can't be at home.
11. I still have an absurd amount of laundry to do even though I chip away at it everyday!
12. Need to get myself on some sort of routine again.
13. Love listening to Rhett sing on Rock Band, even if I'm getting sick of a lot of the songs.

Would you like a little whine with that?

 

 

It’s been a long day and truth be told it hasn’t even been that long. I’ve been awake for a while, slept for a while and all in all it seems like we should be farther along than we are, but we’re not. It’s like a bad joke when I look at the clock. But let’s recap, shall we, at least up to this point.

 

Woke up this morning fairly painlessly, considering it was

3:30 a.m.

Everyone was dressed and ready to go at

4:30

. All went very smoothly getting the rental filled up, turned in and then the fun really began! The check in line. First time I’ve ever actually witnessed WHY they tell you to arrive so early at the airport. Get in one line, realize it’s the wrong line. Get in another one, the right one this time and get myself checked in. It only makes sense that it would happen this way when you know that I booked my kids on this trip without me back in Feb. when I set up this trip. So my ticket/itinerary is completely separate. Well, I’m standing at the kiosk realizing that I don’t have a ticket number or itinerary number for the boys, so therefore I cannot check them in at the self checkout. Oh well, what can I do? I neglected to put together the all-important folder that

Wayne

had told me I should have. This is like some sort of backwards joke being played on me right? So I haul myself and my kids and our luggage to the line to check in with a person. Stand there, let’s say oh about 5 minutes and think I should call

Wayne

and ask him to look up our itinerary number online. I do this and he does. Of course I get the question-about-the-all-important-folder and why I don’t have it. Meanwhile we go back to the self check-in line which has grown since I last saw it. Get all those numbers punched in and it’s looking good until it says I need an attendant and the self check-in kiosk cannot help me. I’m no stranger to this, it happened in

Honolulu

when we started this trip. So back out of line and this is where I get a look at good and evil. See, we have two attendants at the counters waiting to help people. One is good, one is evil. Oh, I didn’t just arbitrarily assign these labels to these people. They EARNED them. Who do you think I’m hoping to get? Who do you think I actually got? Uh-huh, yeah. Evil. It was fun. She talked to me like I was 5 until I matched her tone for tone and attitude for attitude and then Evil became “quiet evil”. But we’re on our way. To security.

 

More lines, although this one moves. I instruct the kids who have shoes that tie, to take them off. We move through the line and put our stuff on the conveyer belt. Oh, but the laptop. We didn’t take it out of the bag. So somehow Seth gets sent back to do that. Well he has no idea what to do, so I take my shoes back off and start to go back and help him. This totally alarms the security person charged with looking to see if I beep when I walk through the thing. She’s like “no, take your shoes back off, come back. He can’t come back through without his boarding pass. So I reach over to hand his boarding pass to him. More alarms go off in her mind. Finally I do whatever she wants me to do with my shoes so I can cross back to the other side. Send Seth on his way. Take the laptop out of its case, send it through, take my shoes back off, walk back through…of course I’m shaking my head this whole time. I’m sure there are reasons for all these procedures and I know they’re in there for good reasons, but sometimes the minutia gets in the way of common sense. At least we’re through, we all have our shoes and we’re on our way again.

 

First plane was pretty painless. Flight was something like 35 minutes. That’s my kind of flight. Barely up long enough to think about how long the trip is before you are back on the ground.

 

Sometime after we disembark is where Rhett undergoes a personality morph. He becomes the most wound up, uncontrollable little child. Did somebody slip him a sugar pill? He tries to climb on the table while I’m eating my chicken pita sandwich. He can’t seem to see the trash can right next to us, so he goes to throw something away so far away that I’m having a hard time keeping my eye on him with all the people passing back and forth and stopping in my line of sight.

Wayne

talks to him for a minute and I guess this is where I should realize that the time that

Wayne

talks to him is directly proportionate to how long he will behave. (Oh, good, Rhett has just flagged down the flight attendant for water. Do I even need to be here?) So one or maybe two minutes later Rhett is back to his out of control self. He thinks everything is hilarious and must be said in the loudest possible voice.

 

Well, we get on the plain and I stare at our row of seats in disbelief. I’ve flown a reasonable number of times and I know what an average row of seats looks like. I’m thinking somebody measured wrong when they put these seats in. The two chairs in front of us are in the bulkhead, so these two people scored. Plenty of legroom for them, for us, we were not expected to actually HAVE legs I suppose. These two in front of us are blissfully comfortable and laughing, meanwhile I am in shock at how we’re supposed to maneuver this situation. Plus I think they have their seats laid back to ensure their maximum comfort. I’m wondering if I should just offer a scalp massage to the lady in front of me. It might help her enjoy her flight a little bit more. Maybe take my mind off of the fact that I can’t even open my laptop screen up to a 90 degree position.

 

So this flight is supposed to be 8 and a half hours or something like that. It would be at about this point right here that we’d could be landing in

L.A.

and walking to another gate to get on another plane. Allowing us a little bit of a diversion. (OMG, Rhett is flagging down the flight attendant again, like he’s hailing a taxi, to pick up his water cup. Seriously, who drugged my kid?) Well, at first we sleep for a little bit. Then miraculously it’s lunchtime. I figure we must have slept 3 hours or so, why else would lunch be so soon? Nope, it’s been about an hour. I’m sort of wishing we hadn’t been woken up for this. 5 minutes later, I’m really wishing it. Because as soon as the food is passed out, tray tables are in position, Rhett looks at me all pitifully and says he had an accident. A joke? Nope! All I can do is dig out his pajama shorts from last night and let him change into those. But first! First I must get us to the bathroom. So I’m standing up at an approximately 45 degree angle (thank the people in front of us), holding two stacked lunches because I have no place to put them. Waiting for the flight attendant to finish pouring cokes and water for the people in front of the bathroom. Of course we need to have the one person who needs to determine the merits and value of white wine versus beer to go with his chicken and rice lunch. Do I sound happy right now? Probably not, because a person is not supposed to stand with her knees pressed into a seat/floatation device at a 45 degree angle for nearly 10 minutes waiting for a cart to clear out of the way so she can take her wet child to the 2x2 foot square “bathroom” so he can change into his Thomas the Tank Engine pajama shorts! The fun has stopped. The only thing I can say that’s been stellar about this day is that I managed to NOT leave my ATM card in the ATM machine in

Atlanta

. Because if I’d done that it would have just been the cherry on top, don’t you think?

 

So now, I have about 3 ½ hours left of this plane ride back home. And most people really would be happy to be flying to

Honolulu

. I’m sure this plane is just filled with some of those people. I’ve picked one out for sure. She’s all smiles and looks pretty in her magenta maxidress. Clearly this must be a vacation trip for her. I’m not sure what it is for me. The return trip home, yeah. But I can’t feel too excited. As many nice things as I could list about

Hawaii

, it’s just not home. Sure, it is for now. And I know we surely have good times there ahead of us. Mostly I just think that I’m glad I don’t have to deal with Winter when everybody else does. I’m thankful that flip flops are the state shoe and can and should be worn year round there. But I miss my familiar turf even if it’s not quite as familiar as it once was. I know in my mind that we’ll be back, but it’s just not soon enough I guess. So I’m just gonna wrap this up from somewhere over the middle of the Pacific and look for the good things about all this. I can promise you though, that the person in front of me, is not on my list of good things! I’ll never understand how some people can be so oblivious to what’s around them! I think I need a mai tai! ;)                                         

One of Those Things I Really Like

I was woken up this morning a little after 8 by Brent because he needed to be at practice in half an hour. O.K., I knew that but I'd kinda hoped it might go away. But as soon as I got up and opened the blinds and saw what a gorgeous day it was all was forgiven!

I've kind of lost track of time this weekend. Forgotten what day it is, that sort of thing. I'm all straightened out now. For a minute I'd forgotten about things like putting the trash out (I suppose they won't be coming today), I forgot to watch Keeping Up With the Kardashians last night (I know this is nearly a national tragedy!), just silly stuff, nothing important. But today, is just amazingly perfect so far!! As soon as I pulled out of our neighborhood and saw the empty streets I was in near Heaven!! Is there anything better than being out on the road and NOT having to compete with idiots?! I think not! Well o.k., yes there are better things, but it's an awfully good thing! It just made me happy! Now, if you know me, you know that happy is an extreme emotion in my book. Content is what I go for. Not that I'll begrudge happy, happy is WONDAHFUL, but it just is a hard thing to maintain. So...here is me happy driving down the road listening to a Blake Shelton song that as a matter of fact ALSO made me happy!! Such a great way to start the day!

I wish I could say that I have plans today because it seems like everybody has plans on Memorial Day, but I really don't have anything planned out. I thought about going to the beach but frankly I'm sure it'll be crazy at the beaches and there's no reason why I HAVE to go today, so I think I'll skip that. I'm thinking about taking the kids to see a movie, but it just seems a shame to sit in a movie theater on such a beautiful day. So I don't know. It's to be determined. Maybe I'll take them for ice cream or shaved ice and they can just play outside. Maybe I'll buy a skirt. Because I'm sure that's absolutely necessary! ;) Point is, I don't know and I'm in a perfectly mellow mood today (at least at the time of this wrting, haha) so let's just go with it, shall we?

My Little Heartbreaker

JACK

I wish I could remember all of the things he's said over the past several days that have made me laugh or made him look at him like he was out of his mind. He's always had such a knack for thinking way above or outside of his age. Cheese tasting, anyone? ;)

A few of those comments have become status updates on my Facebook, but I just wish I wasn't so scatterbrained half the time and could remember all these little gems. For example, he wants a Facebook. Or a MySpace. I've told him MySpace is completely out of the question but he can have a Facebook when he gets older if he wants. He's desperate to know when that will be, I have to stall him on that because I'm not sure if there's an actual right age to give him for an answer.

There was an incident yesterday afternoon though that reminded me just how sensitive Jack is though. He's pretty much a big talker, very expressive, kind of has a larger than life personality but at the same time he can be surprisingly fragile. Hmmm, who does he sound like now that I think about it? ;) Anyway, after school yesterday Jack and the little girl from a couple doors down found a baby bird in a tree all alone. I'm not sure of all the details on why they did what they did, but you just have to think of how their hearts were in the right place. Somehow they had concluded that this bird's mother had left it. One of them had a little washcloth and picked up the bird, and apparently one of them had a branch too that the bird spent some time on over the course of the afternoon. Granted, I did not see this entire episode, only part of it and what Jack told me about. It's probably best that I didn't see. So they spent a good part of their afternoon walking around looking for a bird that looked like the one they had found because that would surely be its mother. In fact, as we were driving to pick up Seth later in the afternoon and he was telling me this story, he saw a bird out the window and said, "Look that's it, that's its mother!" Well, I guess, but we were about a mile away from our neighborhood.

I felt so bad because I knew I probably should tell him what probably would happen or had happened. I didn't want to tell him that because they'd touched the bird the mother probably wouldn't come back because of the human smell. My neighbor also noticed that one of its wings seemed like it might be broken and in that case the mother might not come back either. I'm sure these things would sound so cruel to a little 8 year old boy and I didn't want to crush his hopes that he'd been doing a good thing. But how could I not? I mean, what if he comes home this afternoon and it's still there, or if it's dead? I'm really hoping it's gone so he can at least hope the mother came back. But last night as I was slicing up strawberries he came in with this cloth in his hand and said,"Look what I caught!" and he showed me this tiny little baby bird. O.K., first it startled the heck out of me. But I told him how cute it was and he went back outside. I knew though that I had to say something to him.

So I explained to him how if a mother bird smells human on her baby or nest that it could scare her even if the human was only trying to help and then she might not come back. I didn't go into the broken wing/abandonment thing with him. He seemed to understand what I was saying and I told him the best thing to do would be to put the bird back in a tree and just pray for it. His bottom lip started to tremble and I hugged him. It was about that time that I needed to leave to pick up Brent from practice and Jack asked to go with me. The whole way he talked about the bird and how sweet it was and how cute it was and how they really only wanted to help it. Then he was quiet for a little while. I looked over and he had a few tears running down his cheeks. I asked him what was wrong and he pointed to the sky and said, "the bird". There really wasn't anything else I could say so I just held his little hand and told him to pray for the baby bird.

I'm sure he's probably learned something from this which is good and sad at the same time. You don't want somebody to lose the pure intention to help someone or something else. But at the same time I don't want his head to be buried in the sand. And I did talk to him about wild animals and how they could bite because they were scared even if all you were trying to do was help.

It was just a reminder that even my big bulldog of a boy has a soft little heart!

Social Calendars

Just tonight I have been inundated with plans for the kids. Rhett has 3, count 'em 3 field trips this month and a performance in which he will need to be a bird. I'm sure that will require video! Then he pulls out a card from his backpack from his friend Antonio. A birthday party on Sunday. Good thing it's on Sunday too because he already has one scheduled for Saturday! This one is for one of his little "girlfriends". He thinks he has two, Elizabeth and Raegan. Raegan had hers this past Saturday. When he got Elizabeth's invitation which has the Disney princesses on the front, he said breathlessly, "Mom, look what Elizabath gave me, it's bootiful!!" So clearly he's very busy!

Jack is always busy because Jack is the definition of social! He can be deceiving though because a lot of people when they just meet him think he's quiet and serious, which he can be. But please don't be fooled, that boy is about the craziest little kid I've ever met. And anything but quiet! I've mentioned before about how this kid or that kid is always at the door asking for Jack. Much to my dismay, well sort of, I found out he "created" a new sort of hula dance last week. I was mortified when I saw it, in a sort of funny way. I mean, yeah I was really mortified, but I also had to laugh that he even came up with such a thing not to mention that he was so willing to perform it for anyone and everyone. It's really only 3 little moves so it'll only make a tiny blip of a video clip but I really do need to videotape it. If for no other reason than to embarrass him later! I don't know if even that will work though, he seems to be pretty shameless!

Seth is our loner. And he seems to like it that way. He's really not always alone, but he doesn't seem to follow along with the other kids. At any given time he can be found out riding the Ripstick. It's sort of a cross between surfing and skateboarding and he's gotten really good at it. I imagine it would be an awesome workout if I learned it myself. But that would require a good deal of public humiliation until I caught on. And even then, yeah, I might still look a little silly. Seth is happy in the water, on the road, in the grass throwing the football. And as much as he's not a team sport kind of a kid, he has a good arm and throws some beautiful passes! I can remember a few years ago, he would only go around the perimeter of a pool holding onto the edge. He was soooo skittish of the water. And somewhere between then and I guess last summer he just figured it out all on his own. He's skittish no more!

And Brent. Have you seen his facebook page lately? ((sigh)) He changed his relationship status to "in a relationship" the other day. Totally freaks me out and I'm not sure why. It's a long story about the "relationship" with Veronica. They were just good friends for a long time, hanging out talking and then all of a sudden it was like everybody felt like they should be going out. Please exclude me from that everybody. Not that I don't like Veronica, I do, I think she's cute and sweet. But the reality of it unnerves me for some reason. I think it might be the officialness of it partly. Anyway, being that she lives just across the street from us, if it's after school or after practice time, he can be found sitting either in her driveway or ours.

So everybody has a social calendar except me. :( I sure do miss my date nights, planned or impromptu, it was nice. I miss my daily lunches out too. I mean, I'll get by, I'll be fine. It's nothing I can't handle. But I just miss things. I have a lot of friends in the neighborhood and that's nice. I could go to the gym, or the beach or the pool or to lunch with the girls if I really want to and sometimes I do. But it's not the same. I've always been a guy kind of girl. I'm girly and all, but I just always had guys for friends better than girls. And that's not knocking my girlfriends here, I think it's just I can only do that so much and then I need a date or something! Maybe I'll hire an escort or something! Juuuuust kidding!!! Totally kidding!!! Just wanted to see if you were still paying attention! Yuck, the idea of that actually skeeves me out! Anyway.....

Scenes from Rhett's Silly Little Life

This kid makes me need to carry a notepad around at all times to write down his comments. But really I need like a lipstick camera or something too, just mounted to my head so you could see the expressions too. He is NOTHING if not expressive! Brent was pointing out to me the other day that Jack and Rhett (over the 4 of them) are the most...umm, I can't remember his exact word, but sort of dynamic! Jack is hilarious almost to the point that it's too much! His sense of humor is way older than he is. Of course that comes from having two older brothers that he considers himself equal to. But also, his delivery, I mean if you could just see and hear this kid in action...He's so deadpan, and his facial expressions kill me! I do find myself having to get onto him because of his mouth though, a LOT! Back talk is his latest vice!

Just tonight after supper I told him to take a shower and get his clothes out for tomorrow. It was a little after 7 and his bedtime is 8. It was already starting to get dark, so definitely it was time to call it a night. Yet he wanted to go back outside and ride his bike some more. He just just 30 more minutes? Nope. He dropped it to 10. Nope. 5? Nope and by this time I'm starting to get annoyed at having to repeat myself, but then I almost had to laugh in his face because he was like 4? 3? 2? Seriously Jack? If I'd said yes to 2 minutes like you would have just run out there and been thrilled to death for 120 seconds! LOL

This is supposed to be about Rhett though. I'm sad to say that many, many comments have slipped my mind. But last night at supper, he said he only wanted one piece of pizza. Of course this was because he wanted to hurry up and finish and get back outside. Yet, come 7:30 he'd be telling me how hungry he was. So, I told him, "Rhett, supper time is right now. You eat now and that's it, I don't want to hear how hungry you are in an hour because it'll be too late!" (Yes, I'm terribly mean and I never cave if they tell me they're hungry later! Please!) ;) And the look of shock that this boy gave me. Like I had accused him of something totally unfathomable. He said breathlessly, like he was soooo taken aback, "Mom, I would NEVER! No, I would NEVER do that! I know this is the time to eat." Ooooo.k. psycho kid! ;) LOL

Tonight was strawberries and whipped cream night for supper. Don't laugh...or scoff, it's actually really filling and it IS fresh fruit, so it could be worse. Anyway, I turn my head and what to my wondering eyes should appear but Rhett's delivering a fingerful of whipped cream to Giacomo's happy little mouth! Wish I could have gotten a picture of that!

Then a few minutes later while I was helping him with some last minute homework, he told me, "Mom, I would be sad if you were sick and didn't feel good. It would make me want to fix you hot chocolate." Awwww! Isn't he the sweetest!

Contradiction in Terms

So I've gone off and neglected my blog again. LOL Some days I feel bloggy, some days I don't. But tonight I feel sort of bloggy, so here I am. Lucky I remembered my password, huh? ;)

Lately I've been thinking how lonely I am. And when I say lonely I don't mean in a poor me kind of way. Actually I'm not even sure lonely is the word I want to describe how I feel. Because lonely has sort of a sad, pitiful connotation to me and I wouldn't say that's really how I feel. But anyway, for lack of another word I'll stick with lonely. I suppose it's probably normal for anyone to feel this way if their husband or wife is gone for an extended period of time. I more or less see myself as above all those feelings though. Whoa, that sounded a little snobby or arrogant, I'm not sure which, but again, not what I meant. It's just that I've been in this situation soooo many times before. Cute little piece of trivia here for you. Wayne's and my song (mine and Wayne's? Wayne's and mine? whatever) is "Right Here Waiting" by Richard Marx. He chose it long before he was in the Army, so other than it being a sweet song with that nice piano bit at the beginning it really wasn't "saying" anything at the time. But I swear he couldn't have picked a more appropriate song! I mean seriously, how many times have I been in a "waiting" position for one thing or another?! I could write a small book on it probably!

Anyway though, it's not really ever bothered me that much. Definitely it can become boring and it can be stressful at times but it's never really struck me as being a lonely thing. And now, of all times! We live in a great neighborhood, tons of kids, lots of friends (both the kids and mine), I am or can be around people pretty much anytime I want. In a lot of ways it reminds me of the good parts in Alabama. I loved our neighborhood there for a long time and what I loved about it was how social it was and how I could sit out front with my girlfriends all day long tanning my legs and drinking Dr. Pepper. Such good times! I'll just block out the bad times, who needs them anyway! ;) And here, we have sort of a similar situation. I think I should feel extremely lucky and happy to be in a set up like this. And near the beach, HELLO Laura, could you ask for anything else on your wish list really?! Seriously put me on the sand in the sun and I'm pretty much a happy girl!! But I still can't shake this sort of lonely feeling. I guess because I've been a little bit spoiled, (I know you're all shocked and amazed at this revelation!!) for a while now. Maybe so much of my long-suffering ;) and waiting finally paid off and it's sort of annoying to have the reward taken away even if it is temporary! I can't believe I'm saying it because I'm certainly not one to wish time away, but I actually enjoy that some of the boys are older and are able to babysit each other. Wayne and I were never ones to get a babysitter, I don't know about for him, but for me I felt irresponsible getting someone else to take care of my kids while I went out for dinner or a movie or whatever. So if we went somewhere we always went as a family. And that was fine, I enjoyed it and never thought twice about it. I guess it's sort of like you can't miss what you never had. Know what I mean? We never really had the "date night" thing so we couldn't really know what we were missing out on. Now I know though!! And I'm missing out on it!! LOL Yeah, go ahead, call me spoiled. I don't mind. I don't mind be called spoiled, or for people to know that I like to get my way or even that Wayne likes to give me my way. As far as I'm concerned that's just the way it should be. !!!!!!!! What a shock I'm sure THAT sounds like to some people. Whatever, walk a mile in my shoes...

But anyway, I don't really mean to go off on that tangent again. I just think that maybe that's why I'm feeling this way when I never really felt that way during any other deployments or TDYs. Certainly it's not that big of a deal. Especially in the scheme of things. And there are definitely things I like about being on my own. I freaking LOVE that it's the Laura show ALL THE TIME!! Of course I would since I like to have my way so much, right?! ;) I like that I can take my morning drives in the sunshine to get my diet Coke or tan or whatever. And I like that the kids can have an easy supper of blueberry muffins and scrambled eggs sometimes (not to mention our strawberry nights!) that just would not fly if Wayne was here. But I guess all that can be sort of blah sometimes when you just want somebody to go do something with. Wayne and I have had a daily lunch date since before Jack was born. I even remember commenting when Jack was a newborn that I was glad we could still have those lunch dates because I kind of worried that was he was born we wouldn't anymore. And here we are 8 years later still doing the daily lunch thing. I know that's one thing we both miss during these deployments.

Ugh, I'm starting to sound down and that's not what I was going for, so let me sign off from here and go see why my son (Jack) is dancing in the street! This should be good! :)

Mamba Jamba

This week has been flying by pretty quickly! Just when I get sort of a routine down with the Spring Break deal it's almost over and it'll be time to restart the school routine which I know will throw me for a few days. But it's good. School will probably help the time to fly by faster. Oh just wish your life away Laura! LOL Not really!

Tuesday I did my first grocery shopping excursion without Wayne. A little weird for me. He and I are two TOTALLY different types of shoppers. Truth be told he's probably the more logical one. Logic is probably not my strong suit in life. I'm a feeler, I go by instinct and gut feelings and fluffy stuff like that. But I won't change it, it's served me well. Aaaaanyway, I'm an "oh, that has a pretty box", or "ooooh that smells good" type of shopper. Total sucker for the marketing geniuses out there I'm sure. I was thinking that while I was in Target the other day buying wrapping paper. I mean, doesn't Target have just THE BEST wrapping section? Everything is SO pretty and coordinated and just different from other places. So inspirational! I get on like a creative high when I go in there or Home Goods or that kind of place! But we were talking about grocery shopping. And yeah, the commissary isn't all decked out like Target, but I can still go a little nuts. For example I needed some shampoo for me. Now, for the boys I typically buy Suave green apple, it's inexpensive and it smells good. And they're not GIRLS, so it's fine. But for me, I am always sure that the next type of shampoo or conditioner I buy is going to be THE one that will turn me into a hair goddess! LOL, just kidding, but it's sort of that idea. I'm always very excited by new hair products or makeup. So I pick up this new kind of Pantene (or new to me over here, don't spoil it for me!) and I open it and smell it and the lady that happens to be there stocking shampoos and conditioners tells me in her Carribean accent, "oooh that one smells good!" So I start talking to her about how I buy my shampoos based on their scent, who cares what the bottle says! Funny thing about that, I used to be the shyest person you'd ever meet. Nowadays, I'll talk to practically anybody, anytime about almost anything. Hmmm, just an observation. So then she says, "well then you should smell these two new ones!" So we smelling all the new shampoos and just having a grand old time until I realize I don't need 3 new shampoos and I hear my little "Wayne on my shoulder" saying, "LAURA, would you COME ON!!!" So I thank her and tell her to have a good day and mosy down to the toothpaste, which I don't need any of at the moment so I kept going.

I was getting a little worried about halfway through this shopping trip that I might need two carts. It's totally not unheard of for me to need two, but the problem would have been that I didn't bring any of the boys with me, so I would have to steer them by myself. Fortunately, I avoided that problem. AND I came in $50 under what I estimated. I did have to get so much stuff though because with the boys being on spring break the last two weeks they've been eating us out of house and home!!

Today (Wednesday) was another disappointment in the weather department, so I thought the boys might like to get out for a little while. I mean really, when you live in Hawaii, where do you GO for Spring Break? So it's not like we've had grand plans or anything. I'd heard good things about Monsters vs. Aliens so I thought maybe they'd like to go see that. I knew it was a "good, motherly" thing to do to take them, but at the same time I cringed a little bit knowing that I was purposely subjecting myself to 1 1/2 to 2 hours trapped in a movie theater. I start feeling trapped and like I'm being forced to sit still and do something I might or might not want to do. Even if it's a movie I've really wanted to see I still get antsy and restless. Guess I'm just not much of a movie person. At home either, if I were to put in a DVD I'd turn it on, but no way would I sit there through the whole thing and I wouldn't pause it when I got up either. I figure I'd get the gist of it and if I really needed to I could go back. So as movie time approached I was already thinking of where I'd rather be. Way to live in the moment Laura! ;) It turned out to be a pretty good movie though. Not that I'd go see it again, once is plenty, but it was cute and the 3D was pretty good too. Here's the real downside though. We've already established that movies make me restless, so I pretty much HAVE to have a snack at them, something to keep me otherwise occupied. So what's my snack? Peanut m&m's. Yeah, I ate a ton. So I pretty much set myself up for a night on the treadmill. ((sigh)) A little self control Laura, PLEASE!! :) So that's coming up for me in a little bit. I'm just taking a break right now because after we got home I did something I'd been wanting/needing to do for a while now. I vacuumed out the van. And I did a GOOD job!!! Those secret compartments in the floor, for the stow 'n go seating thing, yeah, those are just places for more crumbs and candy wrappers and crap to go. And there was a good bit of sand from our recent trips to the beach too. All in all that little job took me about an hour and a half. Plus I mixed up some oxy clean and scrubbed the 2 center row seats. They could probably still use more scrubbing actually! I think it'll be very nice to drive in a nice, clean, fresh smelling van tomorrow!

And so that brings me to treadmill time. Such a love/hate thing I have going on with that. It's just getting started that kills me. Halfway into it I'm all good and I love it at the end when I'm all sweaty and feeling good. Can I just fast forward to that part please? Again with the time wishing away. What's with that theme? And I always sort of pride myself on being in the moment, so this is an strange observation for me to be making. Well, I guess it's now or never, let me go burn off some m&m's!!

Pajama Day

Today I'm having a very rare, veeeerrrrry rare, pajama day. I like the idea of pajama days. I always think it sounds so nice and relaxing when I hear about other people having them but I just can't really get into it myself. But today, I'm just going to try and give in and do it. Took a shower and put on clean sweats and a tank top and settled in.

The idea is to do lots of laundry, lots of cleaning, some design work and some Wii. So far, a couple of hours in, I've done a little design work, 1 load of laundry and made my bed. Sort of not as productive as I'd hoped. I think Bravo TV is distracting me, I'm catching up on the trash t.v. that I don't always catch during the week. Right now though, Ramona on Real Housewives is making my head hurt!! Shut up girl!!

Woke up this morning to a phone call from Wayne. The time difference makes it tricky to get to talk to each other. That and Jack taking over my laptop most day!!! Grrrr!!! He's doing well, and I think mostly is just getting ready to move on to where he's going to be for the rest of the time and get started with his actual job. He's signed up for a couple more online classes. So that's really good, hopefully he'll be able to get some stuff knocked out while he's gone. I forgot to ask, but I think this college is on quarters. LOVE quarter systems!!! Things move along so much more quickly that way. It's easy (for me anyway) to get bored on semesters.

O.K., boring stuff here, but there's an update. Have a great day!

Seems Like Old Times

On a side note, the Chevy Chase/Goldie Hawn movie "Seems Like Old Times" is one of the few things that Wayne and I actually have in common. I don't mean that in a disparaging way, we just don't have a whole lot of similarities. A few of them are that movie, we both like the old b&w Twilight Zones, we both love thunderstorms and the South. Awww, don't you feel let in on a little secret?! ;) J/K

Actually what seems like old times right now is tonight. We're sort of just falling back into our old "deployment routine", the kids and I. It's a little bumpy at times, for me more than them I think, but all in all it's not been like being dunked in acid. LOL

Tonight was cleaning night at the Bratcher hacienda. You know, I sure use a lot of Spanish words for someone who prefers French....hacienda, siesta, chico...but I digress. Saturday was always our Cici's day while Wayne was gone before. I'm still figuring out what the equivalent of that will be here. The one thing I'm sure of is that I won't get out as easy as $21 here! And Sunday was always our day to pretty much hang around the house and get ready for the next day. It didn't go exactly like that today, but after I finally dragged my unmotivated self out of bed we did o.k. Brent and I ran a few errands, where I let him drive. And he did EXCELLENT! Once we got home the van needed washed BAD! Not just because we'd been out, it had needed washed for a while and Brent kept asking me if we couldn't just find one to drive through, but it was such a nice, sunny day today I insisted that they get out there and do it by hand! So while I worked out and turned my legs into jelly, they did that. I made them eggs and cheese on toast for supper and then we all started on sort of a cleaning jag. Each of the kids had jobs or even multiple jobs and they all pitched in very well. And now the rest of the night is just for relaxing, watching a few of our shows, etc... The next two weeks are Spring Break for the kids so it should be pretty easy. Brent still has workouts each afternoon during the first week and none the second. And Jack and Rhett has swimming lessons 4 days this week and then they're done. Unfortunately they had to miss a couple lessons last week with things going on so I may have them repeat level 1, rather than move them up, but we'll see. They, well when I say they, the boys minus Brent, want to go back to the lagoons so I'm sure we'll make several trips out there.

All in all not a bad weekend. The key is going to be just finding a good routine. And that's my big job I suppose. As long as we all have something like that I think it'll be smooth sailing!

I haven't posted pics in a while, so here are some pics from our weekend: