Good Job, Ned!

Ned got me the pajamas. Red plaid, to top it off. They rock. And yesterday he came home with the new Patricia Cornwell book. (Very possibly my favorite author. Yes, Dan the D-bag, my mind is stagnant.) He did a terrific job this Christmas. Maybe I was wrong all along. Maybe Negative Ned is really Considerate Cal. Virtuous Victor. Warm-hearted Wes. I think in the weeks to come we'll see. In the words of one of my mom's friends "something big is right around the corner. I can feel it."

The girls' upgrade.

We got the girls a brand new (awesome) wooden kitchen made for 6-8 year olds. And Melissa and Doug (they really should pay me for advertising) wooden food. Melissa and Doug are geniuses. I called them 'Melissa and Douglas' on accident to Ned yesterday. I think they may be one of the first people I hold a tremendous amount of  respect for. Besides Ned/Cal/Victor/Wes.

Jackie has a habit of calmly stating astute facts. She stated (on Christmas Eve, as Ned was assembling the kitchen) that the girls were 'updating their kitchen like their parents." So true. Jackie, Jackie, Jackie. Wise as a sage yet slow as molasses.

Anyway, Christmas was nice. Quiet (as Ned kept saying in a semo-shocked tone) but nice. Busy, too. Which explains my serious gap between posts.

Kiwi Herman is sleeping over New Years Eve. I'll keep you posted. Maybe we will? Kiwi may have a pint and guest blog.

Barometer of Wealth

Today I struck upon a treasure that was both a blessing and a curse. I have a serious weakness for Yankee Candles, although I am well aware that they are completely unnecessary. Not to mention expensive as hell. Ned has a learned (manipulated?) fondness for Yankee Candle as well, and on a good day treats me to them.
Anyway, today I discovered a shelf FULL of Christmas and Autumn Yankee Candles at Marshall's. For $9.99. For the big ones.  I was suddenly IRATE.  At Yankee Candle for charging $29.99.  At myself for spending $29.99 (even the Buy-one-get-one coupons are no match for this). So mad, in fact, that I bought a variety of scents and sizes. I spent a guilt-free $90.00 on 11 Yankee Candles today.
All was well until I called Jackie. Maybe she was having a bad day? Maybe I was irritatingly superfluous? She described them as my personal "barometer of wealth" and said that "she don't see why I don't just buy Glade. They smell just the same, Jo."
The terrible thing is that I had no argument (news to me). Jackie knew how many hours her Glade candle burned, how good it smelled, and how much it cost. Come to think of it, it was odd how much Jackie endorsed her Glade candles. It almost made me want to buy Glade. punch her in the face.

Tell me you don't see the difference.

Dan the D-bag

On perpetual diets
With three pounds to lose.
But everyone knows that
her problem is ________.

Yes, this was a poem written about me. Can you fill in the blank? (Hint: say it out loud.)
It was written by Dan the D-bag. Dan the D-bag is long overdue for a post. He is (over)  INVOLVED in my life. He is my younger brother by three years, but suggests (from time to time) that I behave more like him. He is nervy as hell, as Jackie would say. Classic Dan? Breezing through my house, leaving his boat-sized shoes where I'll trip over them, grabbing a handful of cherries from my kitchen, and saying "Whelp, I'm gonna take a nap." Then he looks around, laughs, and says "Sucks you've got all these kids."  Yes, he seriously says that.
Just a bit of Dan here....he and Ned are involved in a sickening bromance. Last night I passed through my living room, only to see two dead sets of eyes staring at the T.V (not me. They rarely focus on me, jajaja!! Laugh and laugh and fall apart?) and Dan signaled to me for 2 more beers while never taking his eyes from the Tube. Ned's response at someone ordering around his beloved wife? A high-pitched giggle. (While never taking his eyes off the Tube.) These are basically my room mates. I'm raising three girls in a frat-house.

The mess Dan leaves in my house.

     Dan tends to lie on my couch for way too long. Not to mention that he is way too long. So no one else can sit. Dan could care less. This is him in a nutshell. Once he saw a home video of himself and said "Wow. I am arrogant!" Duh, Dan.
Don't get me wrong. Dan's funny as hell. He is the source of many of my friends woes. (Can I tag Kiwi Herman?) He often does the right thing. But he is the youngest of seven, so who can blame him for having a prince-complex?

rockin

Joy is Relative.  

Personalize the christmas season with Christmas photo cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

 

Christmas-1, Ned-0

Ned's obviously not going to get these for me, so you can.

I always know Christmas is around the corner when I innocently walk through my living room and feel 2 small brown eyes getting smaller as they watch me pass. Good will? Ned quite literally shrinks with ill will when it comes to buying me gifts. His problem? That I love to shop. Not only do I love to shop, but I'm good at it. Ned's conclusion? That I already know what he'll buy and that I could get a much better deal. So Ned spirals into a hopeless depression and buys me full price...gadgets. Or slippers. (Last year, he watched me coldly as I opened a pair of slippers I had admired while we were shopping, and said "You knew I went back, didn't you." Not a question. A statement.) I try and make the holidays easier on Ned, by telling him deals. Hello, dealnews.com. Here's us over lunch: "Hey, Ned, Victoria's Secret has free slippers with any pajama purchase. (I don't care what my mother thinks.) Victoriassecret.com. I think the plaid ones are so cute. Uhhhh item 260-142....." .... "Ned?" Ned's response? "Huh? Yeah, they're cute. Don't you have a lot of pajamas?" Oh, Ned. There is nothing wrong with cute new flannel pajamas from your loving husband. Size extra small. With a bottle of champagne. And some slippers. 

He does a good job with his surprises, though. Last year he got me a sweet espresso machine. I live on espresso. And Ned has a damn clean house because of it.  And one year he got me a car starter. And I was pregnant. I was irrationally insulted because I thought it meant he thought I was too fat to start my own car. Maybe that's why Ned and gifts result in despair.

I'm done Christmas shopping for Ned. He's so fun to shop for. Maybe I'll videotape his responses and post them to the blog. If Ned approves. Odds are slim to none.

Walking that Fine Line of Depression

I was at a party a week ago and a girl with wicked side swept bangs (think Vogue) mentioned that she only washes her hair every three days. A door of infinite possibilities opened. SWUNG open. Hit the wall behind it, it swung so fast. (Ned was probably standing there, knowing Ned.). Showers in the morning are a hurdle (and a half) to me. I can't leave the house without one (or mascara), but wet hair in the winter is sooo time consuming. I'm not even really a hair person, but Ned's very possible reaction to greasy bangs is enough to invest in curlers, round brushes and (now) baby powder. Use baby powder on dry hair.  Works like a charm.

Imagine Ned if I got baby powder
in the house. Hahaha just imagine.

The only problem is that I am constantly aware of the slippery slope that is DEPRESSION. My mom once told me one of her embeds-itself-as-fear-in-your-memory stories about when she was a young mother chatting happily on the phone with her BFF (think me and Kiwi Herman. Showers are a triumph to her. The parallels between her and my mom are nutty, as my mom would say.) My mom's friend mentioned her "daily shower", and a lightbulb went on in my mom's head. It was suddenly clear as day to her that since she didn't take a daily shower, she was depressed. (She's fine, now. Takes 4 a day.) It must have struck a weird chord with me, because since I was, like, 8, I've had to take a shower every day just to prove to myself that I wasn't slipping.
My whole life seems to consist of proving to myself that I'm not slipping. It ain't easy, the tightrope of mental illness. Especially when you've got Ned, looking at me from farther and farther away, his eyes getting meaner and meaner "You're crazy. I like you, but you're crazy."

Upon Reflection, I've Realized That I'm Mean

To Ned.  To Dan.  To my kids.  To Jackie.  To NikiD. To Mama.  FML.  Worst part is, I don't know how to be nice, so I've done a little googling:  http://www.wikihow.com/Be-Nice.

This is the new me.  She was the nicest person I could find on google.

Doesn't seem too hard, really.  Just smile, say "hola", ask how are things?, little bit of this, little bit of that, next thing you know you're Kenny F*ckin Rogers. Haha just kidding. See- was that mean?  I just gave one of the nicest people in the world an expletive as a middle name.
This "nice" thing is crazy- I like it, but it's crazy.  I have a bad feeling that being nice is going to cut out about seventy percent of my conversations, comments, even personality.

What to do? I'm in stage two of my identity crisis.

UPDATE 10:00 pm.: It's been 2 hours since my terrible realization, and I am in hell. I'm mean? There are bumper stickers about people like me! Mean People SUCK. I can't believe I suck. Nor can I believe I'm mean. Nor can I believe I'm supposed to strive for holiness. Today is a big day.

UPDATE 1:00 pm: I think I might have already known that I am mean. Hence, the name of my blog. LMAO.

UPDATE 3:15 pm: I don't care that I'm mean anymore. I'm gonna embrace the real me. This blog is serving a purpose.

Ned and George's Snow Day (& A Bit of Jackie)

We are snowed in like you wouldn't believe, and Ned is in high gear. (ie. There is a pot resting on our fireplace to put his wet gloves in in between shoveling gigs.) He is planning a "family" trip to the store. For beer. He asked me to stand in our (freezing) front hall, just to keep an eye on the kids that are playing in our yard. When Ned is in high gear, I am merely a pawn in his To-do game. Never mind that I am recovering from the flu. Or that I hate being cold. Ned actually looks slightly taken aback if I protest in the slightest to his big plans for today. Yesterday, when I was full-fledged-flu, he wanted me to run out to the store for new socks for his Christmas party. (His Christmas party is on Saturday.) This was after I had dragged myself to Target for HIM. All day, he had made it quite clear that he was not feeling overly empathetic to me. (He went clothes shopping with Dan the D-bag, leaving poor sick me with the kids.) When I finally snapped and reminded him for the umpteenth time that I am SICK, Ned looked at me somewhat askance and said "Well you don't look sick. And you're not acting sick." !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   ♥ 
But, Negative Ned sure is helping those neighbors out. George across the street has been trying for 3 1/2 hours to get his truck out. It's bordering on 'off' (as my Mom would say.) But Ned is shoveling right along with him. Dear Ned. And, dear George. Once George carried my dresser down three flights of stairs. Alone. All his tendons were popping out, and his back was arched like a question mark. Jackie was over at the time, and between Jackie's calm, nervous, slightly hysterical expression (Jackie is uncannily aware of possible catastrophe. She was weighing the possibilities of George's back breaking. Jackie does not tread through life lightly.) and George's perma-smile, it was a little too much. I told George I was laughing at Jackie, and Jackie I was laughing at George.
The snow is STILL coming down. Ned is still shoveling. Nikid is threatening to guest blog. I have to buy beer and dress socks. Dan the d-bag deserves a blog post of his own because he is being a total d-bag. Jackie's voice is high and thin because she has an art show tomorrow and she is getting slightly hysterical. Time to get on with my day.