1) Robert took my van today. Bastard.

2) He was up in the city for a court thingy. He brought me Chick-Fil-A sandwiches so I guess it's okay that he tookthe van, after all. That's sad. I whore my van out in exchange for chicken sandwiches. I pimp for chicken products.

3) It's not like I was going anywhere, anyway. JZ is banned from the one fun place in town until he poops in the potty so it's highly likely we may never go there again.

4) The dates for my best friend's stay in Tulsa are July 10th through 26th. It's likely I will have to leave for CA before she leaves Tulsa to go home -- but only a day or so before. I will probably stay up there with her the first couple nights of both weeks, then come home and go back up and pick her up on Friday afternoon to come spend the weekends with us.

5) I'm tired. Tired tired tiredy tired tired. I need to stop going to bed at 1 a.m. and waking up at 7:30. I'm old and it's not working for me. I have been napping on the couch every afternoon for a couple months.

6) Called and made an appointment to have the cats shot.....oh, wait. That's what Robert wanted me to do. What I actually did was make an appointment for them to have their shots. No biggie, as they are both easy to capture and cram into the cat carrier. Now, lifting the carrier with both their fat asses in it is not quite so easy. That's twenty-four pounds of dead weight in a plastic box. This is why I take them to the vet when R is home to watch the kids. Two kids, I can handle. Two cats, I can handle. My two kids + two brain-addled cats who become convinced the apocalypse is nigh anytime they are placed in a car? Not so much. While I'm there I'm going to make an appointment for them to both have their teeth cleaned. This will be general anesthetic, the whole nine yards. I also need to see if they do grooming because I may have them give Grace a lion cut while she's out -- just to give us something to laugh at for the rest of the summer.

7) Made myself a dermatologist appointment. I may be old but my skin is still partying like it's 1989. The nasty acne is rearing its ugly head. The treatment they had me on previously worked; I just quit because it was expensive and I was hoping maybe I'd finally gotten to a point where I didn't need it. Ha. Ha ha ha ha di ha. So I'll go back and have them re-prescribe the stuff and get the spots I currently have shot with Magic Juice (they have something in a syringe that dries up pimples and they inject it directly into your face. Good thing I'm not afraid of needles.)

8) We are also to a point where we can afford for me to go ahead with a full course of microdermabrasion. They recommend once a month for eight months. The texture of the skin on my chin, where I have the acne problem, is horrific. This should smooth it out and also maybe do a little good for the fine lines on the old mug. I will get this set up while there, as well.

9) Also added to the list of things I'm doing to attempt to make myself slightly less repulsive, I've begun using the Crest Whitestrips I've had in my cupboard for about a year now. I hate having them on but I also hate looking like a three-pack-a-day smoker because my teeth are freaking yellow. Hopefully this works. If not I'm going to look into the light treatments they have at the dentists' offices.

10) Madalyn was asleep on the couch earlier this evening. She didn't mean to fall asleep. I was worried because I didn't know how long it had been since she'd hit the potty and if she wee'd on my couch I was going to cry. Not that I have any great affection for the ugly thing but I do sleep on it sometimes. Sure enough, when I woke her up she'd defiled the sofa. The slipcovers are in the washing machine now and I've Lysol'ed the heck out of the cushions. And when she grows up I'm sure she'll be thrilled to know I posted this tidbit on the internet.

11) R claims we will be able to get our dining room table this week. Of course, he said that last week, too, so I'm not holding my breath. I would love to have it before Jennifer comes, though. I mean, how classy would that be? "Hi, welcome to our new home. Grab a seat on the floor for dinner." It's not like they stand on ceremony at Jen's house or anything, so I'm sure she wouldn't mind, but give me a break. This is not a dorm room. We are old people with children. We need furniture.

12) He also claims we will be able to book the CA tickets this week. Again, echoes of something I seem to recall hearing last week. It's not his fault that it didn't pan out, mind you, I'm just saying.....don't believe anything's going to happen around here until you have the receipt in one hand and the item in the other. I will feel a lot better once it's done, as usual. I hate having things up in the air.

13) R is driving out there in the van for a visit while we're there. The original plan was for him to come during a period of time about halfway through the trip. Well, our departure date keeps getting pushed back but the time he has blocked off for himself to be gone has to stay the same. We are now to a point where he may go ahead and leave the same day or the day after the kids and I leave. This actually wouldn't be bad for a few reasons. Usually when we go out for this long I ship a box of our clothes out because it's just too much stuff to take on the plane. If he is going to get there two days after we do I will just pack a couple outfits for each of us in a duffel bag and send the rest of our clothes in the van with him. Also I was going to rent a car until he got there, turn it in, then rent another one after he left, thereby saving some money since we'll have our very own van there for a while. If we do it this way, though, I will just not get a car until after he leaves. The kids and I can wing it for 2-3 days without one. Then we wouldn't even need to book a car until he's about to head for home. This helps us in the money department, too -- gives us more time to get together the money to pay for the rental.

14) I think that's it. Vaya con dios.

Wow, 11 days without a word. That may, quite possibly, be a new record.

Yea, verily doth I sucketh.

Tomorrow is the third birthday of my darling son. We plan to open presents in the morning and do lunch at Applebee's (his choice) in the afternoon. Around 4:00 I'm taking off, bound for Tulsa, to see 1964 (yes, again). To those who have no children, or only one, this probably sounds horrible. To that I say: just wait until you have two (or more). [/evil laugh]

Seriously, though, we weren't going to have a party for him, anyway. He's a bit young to do the preschool-friend-party thing and we only have Robert's dad and brother here for family. In my book four people doesn't constitute a party. So the things that we are doing tomorrow are the exact things we'd have been doing if I had no plans to go anywhere. I will just be leaving at 4:00 instead of putting him to bed at 8:00.

I'm going to be staying the night up there while I'm at it. The show probably won't be over until 10:00 and then it's a two-hour drive home. Granted, I am never in bed before midnight, anyway -- but there's a vast difference between sitting on your couch till midnight and having to drive over pitch-dark country highways during that same time period. I came home after last year's 8:00 concert up there and it was a tough drive because I really was tired. Therefore I decided to make a mommy trip of it. Saturday I will probably go to the movies and will definitely go shopping at Super Target. Mmm.....Super Target.....*drool*

Eh...what was I saying?

Oh yes, the birthday. I don't think we'll be doing a cake. I'm pretty sure they give a free dessert to birthday kids at Applebee's, and it has a candle in it, so that will suffice. We have enough junk in the house right now, as it is, and Robert and I are supposed to start back to the weight loss thing on Monday, anyhow. I'm really looking forward to giving him his gifts. I was clueless about what to get him; we have both seen all the toys at Walmart a million times and nothing there seemed to catch his interest (or mine, either). So I went up to Toys R' Us and found a bunch of great things that I think he will genuinely enjoy. Also I think Madalyn will like the items, which is a big plus as she's kind of his only option for someone to play with.

By the way, our schedule for the rest of the summer is looking pretty booked. (Local people: this is not to be taken to mean I am unavailable for drinks, movies, cow tipping or carousing of other sorts. Call me. I mean it. I'm bored.)

This Sunday we are going down to Lake Texoma to spend the night and visit with family friends.

Madalyn has day camp July 10-14.

This one is super-cool: my best friend will be here from California from July 10th through the 26th! Well, not here. She will be in Tulsa for job training. I plan to spend time with her up there during the week then bring her down here for the weekends.

Then we will be heading to California somewhere around the 25th of July and be there until approximately August 18th -- a mere few days before school starts again. This summer is just flying by. I can't believe it.

There we are -- not the most interesting of updates but it needed to be done. It is now 12:12 a.m. and I have three bags of gifts to wrap (read: stuff haphazardly into gift bags) so I must call this good and get my butt in gear.

I'm here, y'all. We're in the throes of Vacation Bible School, for which I am playing shepherd to the Kindergarten/1st grade class. This requires our getting up at 7:30 a.m. (read: WAY early for all of us) to be there on time. Add to that the fact that we have had t-ball games last night and tonight, and they were the latest they've ever played (one at 8:00; one at 9:00) and it's kind of a crazy week. I'm having fun with VBS but there is just no way that going to bed at 1 a.m. (or later) and then getting up at 7:30 would cut it, not for a week straight while spending 3 hours a day herding 20+ little kids. So I've been making a concerted effort to get to bed early. I just knocked back an Ambien a little while ago and I'm off to Slumberland again just as soon as I post this.

Tomorrow, no t-ball, but we are taking the kids to see Cars in the afternoon. I can't wait; I think I've been looking forward to it just as much as (if not more than) they have.

I've got a few subjects that have been rattling around inside my head about which I'd like to ramble but it will have to wait till this weekend. I'm spending the better part of the afternoon in varying stages of unconsciousness on the couch and then with going to bed early it really cuts down on my computer time. Stick with me!

Washing and detailing my car. For an hour-and-a-half. You name it; I cleaned it. It was hard work but the van looks fab.

On the way home (at 11 p.m.) I stopped at the donut shop and got a couple pigs in a blanket (with cheesy sausages, no less).

The excitement never stops when you're an old, married woman with children!

I absolutely refuse to wear thongs. I think worrying about having a visible panty line is the most ridiculous thing "they" have ever come up with ("they" meaning whomever it is that sits around making arbitrary decisions about what women should and should not do in order to be attractive). Like women don't have enough we're supposed to feel self-conscious or ashamed about -- body hair in places on which we evolved (or were created) to have body hair, teeth anything other than blindingly snow white, gray hairs, skin that, horror of horrors, looks to be anything over 25 years old -- need I go on? On top of it all I am now apparently supposed to feel absolutely mortified if I have visible panty line. Now I'm expected to wear a strip of fabric wedged up my bum-oley just so I don't offend anyone with the evidence that I wear underwear? I don't think so. Don't like it? Don't look at my ass. That way everyone wins.

Not to mention the fact that having the buttcrack uncovered and unchecked provides the opportunity for any other fabrics in the vicinity, i.e. pants or skirts, to take up residence. I have seen, more than once, a woman with a flowy skirt and a thong on stand up and have her skirt caught in her crack, or, when wearing pants, display that unattractive "my bum is eating my slacks" look. I guess it's a matter of deciding what would embarrass one more.

No offense meant to my thong-wearing pals, either. It's a personal choice. I don't particularly care what someone choses to wear for underclothing -- and that includes whether or not I can see evidence of its existence or not. I just think it's an extremely silly thing worry about and I wonder where it will stop. It seems like, at some point, we will eventually get to where we're expected to be embarrassed to leave the house if we have even one hair out of place or one spot on our faces or with a broken nail. It seems like the standard of beauty is getting more and more nitpicky every year.

.....is this thing on?

Awfully quiet around here.