Today

Earlier this morning...

Today I am hosting a 31 party at my house. I'm feeling good about it. I'm not going all out on the food. Just simple things that are yummy and hopefully filling. There is only one load of laundry to do and it's just the clothes we wore yesterday. I'm just going to sweep, mop, vacuum and clean the bathrooms. It's all easy peasy and should be able to be accomplished before 6:30pm. There's plenty of time for school to be finished, too. Sounds stress free, right?

Two hours later...


Elaina hopped in the shower this morning after breakfast. Claire had to go use the potty so she went in my bathroom. I started cleaning the kitchen. Screams started coming from the back of the house. Jason started yelling to pull Elaina out of the shower. Water started pouring out of the bottom of the toilet in my bathroom. Pouring.

I now have two bathrooms out of commission. I have a basket of soaked, and I mean soaked, towels that need to be washed but can't be because of the backed up water line. I have almost no clean towels left in the linen closet. I have three little people that will need to go use the potty at a moment's notice, but can't. I have women coming, women who expect (and rightly so) clean, working commodes. I have a crockpot full of homemade chicken stock that needs to be strained and put in freezer containers which will then leave me with a greasy mess that I can't wash because of the backed up water line. I have nasty, greasy hair that can't be washed because of the backed up water line.

You think I would now be stressed, right? I admit that I was. But now I'm just laughing. It is what it is. And it will all work out in the end. If my house smells like a chicken carcass during the party, oh well. At least it's an organic chicken carcass. If I have laundry everywhere, oh well. These people have laundry at their house, too. If I look gross, what's new? I'll spray some perfume on me or wear some sparkles or something.

Life seems better if you just learn to laugh and move on.

A little baby, a little craziness and little bit of exhaustion.

Guess what I learned? You can't take a baby into the theater after 5pm. Want to know how I found out? Sit back, grab a cup of coffee and I'll begin...
I have been wanting to see the movie The Help ever since Big Mama wrote about it on her blog. That was a while back. Maybe even a month ago. I tried to get a group together to go see it about three weeks ago but the plan fell through. Then I went on a double date with some friends and I thought for sure we would watch it but the guys weren't really into the idea and we ended up doing the movie run-around and finally just sat in on the last 20 minutes of a very dumb movie. (That story is another post for another day.) 

So, when my cousin posted on Facebook that she was going to go see the movie last night and anyone that wanted to join her should show up, my brain started rolling out ideas of how I could find a babysitter. Jason was gone for a paint-out so he wasn't an option. Finally, I called Misty for babysitter references and she said to just bring the girls over to her house. She and Thomas had seen the movie last week (NOW he decides he wants to see it) and her kids would love to play with the girls. I met Mom in town and she hopped in our van and we ran to Target to get some essentials before dropping the girls off. One thing I had to buy was a new laundry hamper for my room. The old wicker basket I had from 8 years ago finally gave up the ghost on Monday. I was about to push the cart out the doors when I noticed the new hamper had a big hole in the side. So Mom took the girls out to the van and I ran to the service desk to make a quick exchange. Finally, we were all loaded up and we dashed over to Misty's house.  I ran the girls inside, heated up a bottle for Nora and we took off.

Incidentally, I have come to the realization that I was overfeeding Nora. If she gets more than 6oz she is in spit-up city.

Anyway, I heated up 9 oz. because I wanted to feed her and then have a little left over in case I needed it in the theater. Mom feed her the bottle on the way and before I realized what was happening, she had guzzled the whole bottle.  We ran inside, hoping that we had made it before the movie had started. Now, insert the first paragraph here. I was turned away. Forsaken. Cast aside. And all because of cute, fatty-licious, smiling, drooling Nora James. I sent Mom on in and I headed back out to the van very bummed and a little aggravated.

I had locked my keys and my purse in the van.  I hadn't realized I had left them in there before this because we had bought our tickets earlier when I had met up with Mom so this time when we got there we just walked right on in. I didn't panic because it is for reasons like this that we pay the AAA people. But then I realized my AAA card was also locked in the car and on it the number to call for help.  I went back in the theater and asked the man to please let me and chubs run into Theater 5 so I
could see if any of the other ladies had a triple A card.  He did and they didn't. So, back out to the lobby we go and I start calling anyone and everyone trying to find someone at home who could get online and look up the number for me. I finally succeeded and the man said it would be 30-45 minutes before help arrived.

I called Misty and let her know what was up and she suggested I go next door to the yogurt shop and eat a treat while I waited. Wonderful idea, I thought. I could use a little pick-me-up. I saddled up Nora and we made the trek up to YoLo. Once there, I started to look around and concoct my dessert in my head. And then I remembered that my wallet was in the van and of course my money was in my wallet. So I walked around and looked at the paintings on the wall and visited with the girl behind the counter.  Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention that the whole time all this was going on, Nora had been dousing me over and over again with spit-up. It was so much that it had soaked all the way through my jeans and my spanx to my underwear.

Finally. the helper man showed up and I was able to get in my van and get the girls and go home.

And now you know why I didn't finish painting my room last night.

And, to top it off, when I got home, I emptied my pockets and found the cash the movie place had given me when they refunded my ticket. You know, right before I went to the yogurt shop and didn't get yogurt because I didn't have any cash.

It's my days like this that have prompted my sister to make her phone play this song whenever I call.