My Loony Toons

Do you remember Loony Toons? You know who I'm talking about: Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, Sylvester, and Tweety Bird (my personal fav). There was another character in the bunch; one that moved around in a literal whirlwind destroying everything in his path. Tasmanian Devil. I never liked him much when I was a little girl. He was just so... destructive!!! It literally made me crazy to watch him. Why couldn't he just sit in his cage like Tweety Bird, swinging and singing all day? That was much more my style.

As fate would have it, I just happen to have a Tweety Bird in my herd of children. Emma, bless her heart, is so content to sit on a barstool for hours, drawing and coloring pretty pictures of mermaids, and fairies, and rainbows- singing happy, sweet songs the entire time. She giggles that little chipmunk giggle of hers. It is contagious to listen to.

I also have a Tasmanian Devil. And you know who it is. Let me set the record straight up front and say that I love this little tornado with all my heart. This is not, in any way, meant to sound as though I do not. To be 100% honest, I am somewhat amazed at the rate at which he is able to destroy things...anything. Everything from laptop computers (he likes to pop the keys off) to my glasses (4 times). It demands respect, in a somewhat demented sort of way.

Just for fun (and so that I may blackmail him when he is older) I decided to keep my camera at the ready for when his "Taz" side decided to break loose. Truth be told, I rarely put my camera down. It did not take long to collect my evidence.

Grab a snack. You may be here a while.

Yes, that is the rack in the dishwasher, which he loves to take out and push

around the kitchen floor while making motor noises.

(FYI: it really hurts if you trip and fall on your face on this rack while pushing it around.)

A benign mess, but a mess, none the less.

Ahhhh! A personal favorite of Cam. He loves to play in/eat

the powdered chocolate milk mix.

Here we have him helping out by hanging a banana

on the banana hanger. Yes, it is skewered.

Nail polish. (sigh...)

Crayons. New loaf of bread.

The powered drink mix again.

This time it was the strawberry mix and a car.

This was a very cute Santa decoration that I made quite a few years ago.
It has survived four other children with no problem.
Child five, however, decided to pull its arms off (they were wired on),
and tackle it down to the floor (repeatedly).

Then just for good measure, he spit his chocolate milk all over it.

(long drawn out sigh...)

Salt. Mounds of it.

Notice the pile at the bottom of the stairs.
Cam loves to throw as many things as he can find down the stairs
and watch as they tumble down and crash into his sisters' doors.
He takes particular joy in the screams that come from his sisters as his thrown
objects crash into their doors. Great fun, I tell ya.
Great fun...

Did I mention Cam likes to play in the chocolate milk mix?

His preferred method of eating chocolate cake.

Every child does it. I know.

But then he likes to roll up the rugs,
or throw them in various corners of the bathroom.

Go figure.

Ah.. the dishwasher again. This time it's the soap.

He's so proud of himself for "helping" me.

And the bar stools. He can't stand it when they are all in a line

where they are supposed to be.
He prefers to either knock them all down,

or build a fort with them.

Please make sure and notice the beautiful aloe vera plant in the corner.
(A much adored gift from Dan)

Cam walked by one day, grabbed it, and uprooted the whole plant

so that he could play in the dirt.

Sadly, it did not survive.

(If you are reading, Dan, please forgive me. I did my best to

love it and keep it safe from harm...sort of).

But after all is said and done, I adore this little boy of mine, of ours. He is my last. My caboose. (And with good reason, as you can now understand!). I will be forever grateful to BJ who taught me the profound truth that applies so well in the middle of all this:

"If you're going to laugh about it later, you might as well laugh about it now."

"Mothers of little boys work from son up to son down."

My New Love

I have a new love. A new store. A new fishing hole, if you will. The DI has never quite been the same for me since it moved to its new store. I still enjoy going there, but every time I do, I have to pray to Merlin, the Parking God to even find some sort of available parking. It stresses me out. Plus, I'm not really sure if Merlin even exists. (My brother Brady taught me about Merlin in our high school days. It always worked for him.) My new love: Albertsons. Now, I know that Albies, as I have affectionately come to call it, is not really that fascinating from a distance. It is, after all, just a grocery store. And there are many who would say that prices there are more expensive than anywhere else. I would agree that their regular prices are ridiculously high, but when they put something on sale, it is great fun!

This week at Alberstons they were having a Quaker sale, so I assembled all of my Quaker coupons, made a list, and set out. Here is what I got:

10 boxes of Life cereal

5 boxes of Cap'n Crunch

4 boxes oatmeal breakfast cookies

10 boxes of chewy granola bars

16 boxes of instant oatmeal

2 tubs baby wipes
(smiling 2 year old not included)

It was around $190 worth of groceries. Anyone want to guess what I ended up paying after using all my coupons and in-store deals?

$21.56

I can hardly believe it myself. When I saw the total, I nearly started to cry tears of joy right there in the middle of the check out line. (...seriously...) I had to refrain from hugging Karen, the checkout lady. I got all choked up. I think I may have even squealed a few times when in the privacy of my car. I despise grocery shopping. Detest it, really. But when I am able to get a deal like this, it makes it all worth it.

p.s. The baby wipes were completely free. =)

p.p.s. pinchingyourpennies.com is a superb resource for shopping on a tight budget.

"I don't know much about being a millionaire, but I'll bet I'd be a darling at it."
~Dorothy Parker

Melinda vs. Laundry

Remember a few posts ago (Thanksgiving-ish) when I said that I was really grateful for my camera because it captured those special moments and froze them in time? Proof that they did happen? Well, I have one of those pictures for you. This sight was so rare that I absolutely HAD to capture it "on film." This is definitely one of those once in a lifetime shots, or at least once every leap year. Are you ready? Please scroll down and imagine an angelic choir singing in stereo behind you.

Ta Dah!!! Yes. It's my laundry room! Isn't it beautiful? Look how nice and CLEAN it is! And it's even vacuumed! So why is this shot so beautiful, you ask? Because it means that my laundry is officially CAUGHT UP!!!! Holy cow! I can barely say it without feeling giddy. I think I'm going to say it again just for dramatic effect: CAUGHT UP!! I have to say it quickly because I know that sentence is an oxymoron in and of itself. There really isn't such thing as laundry being caught up, because by the time I go to bed, it won't be true anymore. But for now, right now, it is.

There are a couple of reasons that I am posting this picture. One of them is to clear up and rectify one of the most embarrassing moments in my recent life. It has to do with one of my dear friends named Susan. Those of you who know Susan know that she is...hmmm...what's the word? Obsessive compulsively clean? And since Susan is obsessive compulsively clean, so is her house. HER idea of clean and MY idea of clean are totally different. Her idea of clean is scrubbed, dusted, vacuumed, and totally in order. (I think the indoor plants that Dan takes such good care of are even dusted on a regular basis.) My idea of clean is shoving the toys where I can't see them and spreading around any small pieces of trash on the carpet with my foot, the way I used to do with vegetables on my plate when I was a kid to make it look like there wasn't as much, thus making my plate appear cleaner. And don't even get me started on dusting... (Oh, and the plant that Dan gave me a while ago...it died last week.)

One day, a few years ago, Susan called me to see if I had any extra boxes since she was moving and was in need of them. I knew I had some, so I told her to come over and grab whatever she needed. Being the prompt person Susan is, she was there in a few minutes and I took her down to the cold storage where all of our extra boxes were. I must not have been thinking at that moment, or simply forgot who I was with, because as I opened the door to my laundry room, there is was. My weakness. My nemesis. My laundry room. Uncensored and exposed. Only it didn't look at all like it does in this lovely (and current) picture I post today. There was laundry everywhere! There were piles and piles all over the floor. And I mean, ALL over the floor. It had multiplied like rabbits and was out of control. You couldn't even seen the carpet. Yes, it was that bad.

It was too late. She had seen it, and I was mortified. I felt completely naked and exposed. And here was the kicker... there really was no way to get to the cold storage door except to go through the mountains of clothing. If you tried to kick it out of the way (believe me, I tired) there was only more underneath. So I waded through it, and guess what...dear, sweet Susan followed me in in her sexy, high heeled, lawyer boots and all. Embarrassed. Sickened. Mortified. Lucky for me, Susan is also as non-judgemental as she is obsessively clean.

There was also that time that Mike and Jenny came to visit a few months ago, and my laundry room was looking very much like it did when Susan waded through it. I knew it looked that way. I also knew that they would inevitably wander upon it on their own while staying in our home, so I decided to just get the agony over with. I took Jenny by the arm, marched her right in there with me and said something like, "Here it is. I'm sorry. Thank you for still being my friend. Good luck. The end." Jen, being the person that she is, simply shrugged it off and started talking about something else. (Did I mention that I was grateful for non-judgemental friends?) I didn't even bother taking Mike #2 in there. I knew that he, being the person he is, would tease me incessantly about it for the next eternity and them some. I simply did not want to supply him with the fodder, even though I'm sure he might have peeked anyway.

So for all of you who have seen my laundry room in its regular state (Susan, Jen, BJ [yet another embarrassing story there...], Mom, Liseanne, my Mike, my kids, and Mike #2, you darn peeker!), or for any of you whose laundry room looks like mine usually does and thinks there is no hope, this picture is for you. Enjoy it. Memorize it. Because by the time you read this blog, the mountains of clothing will have inevitably begun to grow again.

"Flops are part of life's menu, and I'm never a girl to miss out on a course."
~Rosalind Russell