Yesterday was my 34th birthday.

Last night, after we ate our yummy steak dinner, I was sitting at the dining room table…. all the boys were clearing the table and doing the dishes in the kitchen (I was told to stay in my chair).

I was reminiscing about the last few hours….. surprised by a bouquet of daisies, spontaneous little kisses and hugs, the new Wii Super Mario Bros. game, phone calls from family members and little nieces and nephews singing to me over the phone, grilling our dinner together on the back porch…what a great year it’s been…. I decided that I must be the luckiest girl alive. I love my life. I love my little family. This is the good stuff.

————

And then there was a blast of laughter from the kitchen… Jake appears in the doorway…he’s face is red, his eyes are watering..and he’s doing the “I’m NOT gonna laugh at my child’s question” face….. he says, “Wildcat….go ask your mom that question..”

Oh Lord…

Here it comes…

Wildcat cautiously walks into the dining room…looks at me like he might be in trouble… turns his eyes toward to floor while he twiddles his fingers into a knot…

Wildcat: Ummm…. Why do you have Tampax? I thought you LOVED Dad.

Me: ** blink, blink ** uh….

Me: ** awkward pause **

Me: ** holding in laughter **

Wow.

Me: What does that mean?

Wildcat: Weelllll… I heard that Tampax means you’re angry at the person you love.

Me: ** speechless**

At this point, I’m not really sure where I’m supposed to go with this conversation.

I told Wildcat to hang on a sec… I walked into the kitchen.

Jake and Dragon are LITERALLY doubled over on the floor laughing so hard they are almost crying.

WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO SAY NOW? IS ANYONE REALLY READY FOR THIS PART OF PARENTING? I THOUGHT YOU PLANNED THIS TYPE OF CONVERSATION… WAS THIS PART OF THE DEAL??….

I decided to go for it.

I walk back into the dining room with a piece of paper and roughly sketch the female reproductive system… yep…. I went there.

————-

Wildcat knows a little about these things. When Jake had his surgery last year, we explained a little bit of it to him.

Consisting mostly of “To have a baby… the daddy has a piece and the mommy has a piece….and when those two pieces get together….you get a baby….and Dad’s surgery was so that he could help make a baby” — no major details.

————

SOOO– While my brain was saying “WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!!” — I tried to use what I knew that he knew…and educate him a little more.

On my birthday.

-

After dinner.

-

While my “support team” was hiding in the kitchen trying to unfold from the laughing cramps in their sides.

-

I drew a body shape…and a uterus.. and some ovaries.

I asked him if he remembered about the little bitty mom-part and the little bitty dad-part that make a baby. He did.

I showed him where the EGG was made… how it traveled down when it was ready to look for the boy-part…. where it stays for awhile waiting for the boy-part… why the uterus is full of tissue and such (to start taking care of a growing baby)… AND THEN… when the little bitty boy-part doesn’t show up, the egg leaves… with all the other stuff too.

And that’s why I have Tampax.

He was satisfied with that explanation. He was a little concerned that there was blood involved… but Dad chimed in and explained that it was normal…and not like an injury. That made it a little better.

After we put the kids to bed, we were trying to figure out WHERE THE HELL he would pickup the idea that  “Tampax means you don’t love someone anymore” –

The only thing we could come up with was that SOMEWHERE, SOMEONE has answered a question or described something to do with….

P. M. S.

And Wildcat turned that into what he could understand… he stored it away. When he saw the Tampax box that came home with the groceries, it caused him great alarm.

Sweet boy.

Game on, people.

Oooooooo yes, Rock Band fever is fixin to hit the Bennu household.  And those in the know, know that it’s gonna hit big.

Because damn, who doesn’t like the Beatles?  Jackasses, that’s who.  And if there’s anything more fun that listening to the Beatles, its faking playing Beatles music with plastic instruments!!! Hell yes!

But seriously, even if being a plastic musician doesn’t appeal to you, just look at the craft and beauty put into the game coming out:

OPENING CINEMATIC

TRAILER #3

Now tell me that you’re not crying just a little bit.

Yep.

Now, here’s how its going to break down:

That’s right.  Pre-ordered this junk yesterday.

What?  Who said we’re broke?

It’s that time of year…

Ugg. (well, part of me is like WOOO HOOOO!!!)

Luckily when Wildcat started his new school year, it was in the middle of July. There wasn’t all the crazy running around looking for specific types of scissors and glue sticks. We drove to the “local” Target (18 miles away), walked to the school supplies section, I called things off the list and Wildcat found them and put them in the cart. There was not one other soul in that section. It was awesome.

Yesterday, Dragon came home from his first day back to school with a big ol’ list of things (which we knew was coming) — aside from the $7, have-to-buy, “planner” that is specific to the school (which he already purchased), complete with a fancy holographic cover–

overdone planner

Seriously, holograms? on the front of this thing. How much did THAT cost? REally, people. Necessary cost? Hmmph.

Anyway–

My plan was to go shopping for these other items sometime on Tuesday morning, since I don’t work until later. And Monday night, we were just too plain exhausted from the day to go fight all the back-to-school shopping craziness.

Dragon comes out on the porch while we’re grilling some yummy hamburgers (oooo… <tangeant> and we had our first batch of tomatoes out of our garden- alas, they are a little bigger than golf balls, but they tasted oh-so-awesome), and tells us the he was told he needs the other stuff TOMORROW. I know that he needs it. He knows that I know he needs it. It just wasn’t gonna happen late Monday night. Sorry.

This morning, I decided to look in our “art supply” containers (put together in an attempt to “organize”…heh) — located in Wildcat’s closet (which means there is A LOT of “NOT art supply” things crammed in them, too).

• 3 – 70 pg spiral notebooks – CHECK (found 2)
• 1 – 3 ring binder with pockets, with dividers and paper – CHECK (woot!)
• pack of colored pencils – CHECK
• black or blue pens – CHECK
• pencils – CHECK (yes, some have Halloween pictures or paw prints on them- but they are still pencils)

Success.

Dragon went to school this morning with most of his required supplies (minus one spiral notebook) — the only complaint he had was about the covers on the 2 spiral notebooks — where his younger brother has, at some point, very artistically illustrated some scenes — one seems to be a mentally disturbed rabbit (reminded me of the Donnie Darko bunny) and the other looks like a Stegosaurus battling with some other kind of dinosaur (I’m sure Wildcat could fill me in on the correct name).

But you know what?

<start happily singing> We don’t have to go SCHOOL SUPPLY SHOPPING!!!! <stop happily singing>

Until next year.

We’ve been feeling pretty rested this week. Had a great weekend. Had fun and still got some rest AND some needful done around the house.

And you’re looking at our most current project.

Whatcha think?

The SIDEBAR tab on the left pops the menu in or out.

The little random pics are for fun.

The PHOTO page — well, it’s awesome. It’s linking to our Facebook photo albums (yep..so I don’t have to upload all this more than once). Woot!

It has descriptions and everything~

Jake’s still working on some other bells and whistles, so be patient.

Woot!

There seems to be a leak in whatever container the bank keeps our money.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. We’ve had a summer chock-full of memory making activities and trips (and a unplanned, misquoted car repair). Unfortunately, our bank account is going to remember our summer activities long into winter. We’re lucky to have jobs right now. And I’m thankful that we have the ability to do the things we can do.

The cool part about it (if you wanna look at the bright side), is that Jacob and I are both VERY good at penny-pinching when we have to. We’ll just have to ride it out. And we can.

We have been forced to be creative with meals – using leftovers and whatever we actually DO have in the cabinets until it’s gone…and hopefully we’ll learn some new things that we can continue to do to ease up on the future grocery store bills.

This week, we’ve had:

• Hot mango salsa – leftover from family reunion with leftover family reunion Tostidos, Fritos and Doritoes.
• Stir-fry – with leftover family reunion steak and fresh veggies from our garden.
• Fried Chicken – leftover from family reunion.
• Sliced ham – on hamburger buns (b/c we have no bread) with shredded “leftover family reunion” cheddar cheese, heated in the toaster oven and chips (leftover from family reunion)
• Kool Aid – leftover from family reunion (no juice or milk at home this week)
• Homemade Sweet Tea – which used 99% of our sugar supply.
• Scrambled eggs – with cheese and chunks of leftover family reunion ham and toasted hamburger buns.
• Spaghetti – had all the stuff b/c it’s a staple around here.
• PB&J – on hamburger buns
• Apple slices and cheese cubes – from…well, you can probably guess.

• And this morning? I cut some Sweet Hawaiian Rolls in halves, spread on some butter and mixed the tablespoon or so of sugar that was left with some cinnamon, sprinkled the cinnamon sugar on the butter and broiled them in the toaster oven for about 3 minutes. Turned out VERY yummy. Homemade cinnamon rolls! Kind of..

hee!

Hope Mom doesn’t count our “reunion week meals per person $$ amount” all the way through this week, too. Hmm… that would make this turn out a bit counter-productive ; )

We are planning a trip to the grocery store this weekend. We don’t have any detergent for the dirty clothes. And I’m putting my foot down on this one.

I am NOT making my own soap. : )

boiling lye soap

It’s been a wild week over here. And Friday brings more fun and excitement… can’t wait to share.

But for now, you’ll have put up with some reminiscing.

I worked all weekend. Sat and Sun were crazy busy.
Sunday evening we got to hang out with James for a bit…and that’s always fun.

Monday was Monday.

Tuesday, Jake had his wisdom teeth pulled. He’s a dentist’s dream, evidently…cuz he was in and out of the chair in 30 minutes. His teeth were well-behaved, I guess. Mine weren’t…so I’m still a little jealous about that. He’s having absolutely NO trouble out of the holes in his mouth.
They called me back to the recovery room 30 minutes after I left him (when they were getting ready to start his IV)

He’s cute when he’s wounded. And he was stoned out of his mind. He smiled at me with a big ol’ gauze-y smile. And I kissed his head.
The nurse left me with a few instructions…and we sat for 30 minutes before we headed home.

And then came the ramblings…

Something about a conversation that occurred while he was going under. (Add MAJOR slurring and drowsy eye rolling and a little hand gesturing…and you get the speed of our conversation)
“And somebody said this. And somebody said that. And I needed to set them straight. And they laughed…and then I said “listen to me, g$# d#$^3^_!)… and then I was out.”
“It was something about the Rolling Stones. And I don’t know if it was the doctor or the nurse, but I need to find out and set the record straight”

I pulled Jake’s phone out of my purse to send a text message to his parents to let them know all was good.
Jake was intrigued by the phone and asked if he could have it.
“Why? You can’t see straight…what makes you think you can text?”
“Because I need to set some things straight and I need to remember”
I gave him his phone.

I wasn’t going to post it. And then I was going to wait until he was feeling better…enough to see how funny it is.
And now, we’ve told so many people about it… it’s being demanded. (And he told me it was ok to put up)

So – here it is (turn your volume up..it’s soft spoken):

Heh.

Wednesday, I had to “last warning” one of my managers at work. It’s never fun. Stressful. Wears me down.
Then I made cupcakes and cake with the boys.
Then went birthday present shopping (we are last minute around here, yes?).
Then wrapped presents.
Then passed out at 10.

Today was a great day.
Wildcat turned 7.
We woke him up singing ‘happy birthday’.

Then we opened presents.
He dressed “fancy” in some of his new birthday clothes (in plaid shorts and a collared shirt that would have made any preppy, country club golf pro jealous).
And he had a great day. They ate his yellow cupcakes w/sky blue frosting at school. His girlfriend(s) gave him a little stuffed teddy bear. He talked to his 3yr old cousin T on the phone tonight. (He’s so cute…he called him 3 times today and kept missing him “Happy Birfday!” He loves Wildcat so much. It’s neat.)
During bedtime prayers, he said “Thanks for letting him have such a great birthday”

Tomorrow… we have IEP meeting at school. And then to Dragon’s talent show after work.
He’s in a group of kids that are doing a full-on choreographed Thriller dance.
There will be video…

oh, yes… there will be video.

Saturday afternoon, Jake’s gums around his remaining bottom wisdom tooth started getting swollen. Last night, he couldn’t sleep.
This morning, he couldn’t bite his jaws together due to pain and inflamed gums.

And after a quick phone call to the oral surgeon’s office this morning….tomorrow, he’s having his 3 remaining wisdom teeth removed.

“If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.” I’m sorry that it’s broke, baby.

—————–

It’s been a pretty busy year for us in the medical and dental offices.

My teeth.

Jake’s infected leg.

Jake’s “elective” surgery

Jake’s teeth.

——————

Good news? I think we get to do this on our next tax return —-
IRS Publication 502, Medical and Dental Expenses

What Are Medical Expenses?

Medical expenses are the costs of diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease, and the costs for treatments affecting any part or function of the body. They include the costs of equipment, supplies, and diagnostic devices needed for these purposes. They also include dental expenses…..

What Expenses Can You Include This Year?
You can include only the medical and dental expenses you paid this year….

Only?

Heh…. I can do that.  And ya know what?  We actually have all the receipts.

—————

Poor guy.  He needs a break.

Maybe a European vacation?

Maybe someday…. like when we sell our house.

…or something.

A year ago, we had a kickass awesome wedding with a band, and catering (for the guests, not for us, unfortunately), and a theme, and sweet threads, and beer, and good stuff.  It was awesome.

And a year ago on that day we put rings on each others fingers and promised to love each other as much as we possibly can no matter what ever happens for the rest of our lives.

I just wanted to say thanks, thanks so much, for doing that.  You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me, you are my sun and my stars, and I will love you forever.

I love you so much, sweet girl.

me

To elaborate a bit more on what Bell was talking about the other day, we indulged in some over the top geekery.

See, we had a week off.  We needed it, for real, because the past few months have been rough.  We needed a week off, with the kids in school, where we didn’t have crap to do.

Not a damn thing.

See, thats a great idea.  The problem with that idea is that Bell and I are not really sit around people. Especially when we have unexpected surpluses in our financial situation.

Now, to be fair, that Monday we essentially slept all day.  We cleaned up the house that Tuesday, and then slept.

But by the time Friday rolled around we were getting big ol’ ideas.  We had already talked to a dude about paving our driveway, which will be king hell awesome, but we needed to do something a bit more immediate, as the driveway thing is going to take a month or two due to scheduling, and hell, a driveway doesn’t have flashy lights.

Now, anybody that knows how I roll knows I roll toward flashy lights.  I like em.  If you’ve got little chromed out buttons and (ooo) knobs, thats even better.

So, Bell and I, after watching the supreme awesomeness that was The Watchmen (and yes, I’m a longtime fan of the book, and yes, the movie ruled), got us some tasty lunch and a tasty beverage and strolled out to the electronics store.

Now, I’m married to a wonderful woman who manages to somehow geek out over this kinda crap as much as I do.  I know.  You can’t believe it, but Jack, believe it, so after about 5 hours of hemming and hawing Bell and I managed to leave a variety of stores with a new turntable, a new receiver, a new set of speakers, and a much lighter wallet.

So, the next morning we set to the task of removing my 7 or 8 year old Kenwood speakers from the corners of the living room and replacing them with the new badass Polk ones, while trying to figure out where we were going to put these things, and our mind drifted simultaneously to the RCA VLT29-L.

Remember VLT29-L?

Yeah, I had high hopes for that guy.   I had dreams of getting it fixed up, and spent some hours on it (despite the internet’s indifference to it), but ended up troubleshooting everything down to a jack

ed up balance potentiometer and then giving up on it.  I was playing with the idea of running speaker wires out to it from the main receiver in the den, and just using the speakers for the living room sound, but was never really crazy about that idea.

We had a new idea now.  An idea that was near blasphemy to the Jack Palancy badassness of VLT29-L, but yet, an idea that would revitalize it.  An idea that would personalize it.  An idea that would invigorate it, and quite possibly change the world.

We were going to put all of our new crap in it.

And so, Saturday,  on the eve’s eve of our mighty vacation ending, my wife and I had found… a project.

Hell yes we had.

So, we started by pulling all of the guts out of the inside.  All of that sweet, solid state, radioey goodness, gone, gone, gone.

But damn, thats how you do progress.  And it didn’t work anyway, so…

Next step was figuring how how to fit the new stuff in the cabinet.  We wanted to maybe craft a door to keep the front paneling intact, but that meant we couldn’t use remote controls without going through some trouble, and lets face it, we’re 30 something Americans, we’ve been using remote controls all of our lives.  Hell, I don’t know that the kids are aware that these things function without remote controls.

We decided to remove the front and proceed with the rest of the project, but then we discovered that the front of the thing is really just a big ass piece of plastic anyway.

Hmm.

So,  we went ahead and cut the whole front of it off so all the new coolness is visible from the front.

That done, we had to figure out the shelves, and what to do with them.

After a trip to the hardware store to buy a jigsaw and purchase some molding that would cover the rough edges of the front (and ended up failing miserably at that), we cut out the sections we needed.  By now, good ol’ James had stopped by to join the fun and sleep on our couch, and provide general moral support while trying not to drink our beer.

The assembly process began, and after a few jigsawian adjustments, we had the stuff in there.

Bell did an awesome job of upholstering the thing with some nice velvet bought at Joannes, and I also picked up the mixer seen at bottom right because, ahem, I forgot that a record player is going to need some sort of a pre-amp, and since we weren’t buying something a little more quality minded that the Audio Technica I had before, it ain’t gonna be built in.

We also had a delicious meal and fine, fine beer at Smokey Mountain Brewery (where, it has been decided, the inaugural keg of the mighty Bennu kegerator will be purchased, at a time to be determined).

Came back home, and went to town setting everything up.  I’m not going to go into the sordid details of how I plugged things in wrong and spent hours trying to troubleshoot it, or how I had to run back out to get different wires or jury rig some crap solution to a problem I should have forseen, because that kind of stuff isn’t important.

No.

This is whats important.

That this monster looks freakin awesome, and sounds even better.

Our stereo can totally beat up your stereo.

Hello again, gentle internet friends,

I’m here today with my varied and well thought out lists of gifts for my friends and associates that is contained in my magical Christmas bag.  The beauty of my magical Christmas bag is that it

a) doesn’t cost me any money
b) is easy to transport, and
c) doesn’t exist

So, here we go:

1. For Damama and Bisc, I wish a dog.  So then our excuse of “we can’t spend the night cuz the Dobie will chew through our cabinet” will have a little more weight.
2. For Jen and family, I wish further stability.  Its neat watching you guys get a house and real jobs and do everything “right”, and then to appreciate the beauty that comes with all of that.
3. For the Ploofs, I wish more children.  The princess needs subjects.
4. For Nodbob, I wish a nice lotion to wash those bass calluses off.  Seriously, I bet those things chafe.
5. For lilsis, I wish a teenagehood every bit as exciting, wild, and unpredicatible as her sibling’s were.
   Heh.

   Heh.

   Heh.

6. For the brudda in Italy, I wish for decent leg healing and stuff.  And, maybe, taking it easy on the volleyball games.  And an Italian love interest.  Because those are spicy.
7. For the Cookeville Clanne, I wish for a vision of 8 years in the future, so you can see that it really never gets easier… they can just dress themselves better.
8. For the brudda with the baby, I wish for peace and clarity.  I regret that things were so hectic when I had my first that most of those memories are awash with all the craziness going on with being a young dad.
   And I wish for peaceful 8 hour nights of sleep for his lady.
9. To the Do(aw)ns, I wish for more grandchildren. 
10. To the Legacy-In-Laws and family, I wish for health and peace.
11. To Xander, I wish for a shock collar.Not really.

    Maybe.

12. To Mikey, I wish for the exorcism of whatever ghost it is that’s got him scared shitless of going down the hall.  Dammit, dog, theres nothing there!
13. To Netmom, I wish for at least a little while of folks understanding exactly who she is, and why she doesn’t deserve to be mistreated.  Or a badass attorney.  Maybe a ‘freak accident’.
14. To Girlfriend and hubby, I wish for healthy teeth.
15. To Realtorchick and family, I wish for enough leverage to weather all the weird changes in life.  And booze.  Booze is good.
16. Booze is really good.
17. To daco, I… hell, he’s already got it.
18. To James, I wish for that thing that Daco’s got.  Well, not the same thing.  And I wish for peace.  And continued friendship.
19. Seriously, I like booze. Just wanted to revisit that for a while.
20. To Dragon, I wish for concentration.  You’re getting so mature, little buddy, and I’m so proud, but DAMMIT son, remember to bring your crap to school!
21. Wait, no, actually, to Dragon, I wish for a few reverse birthdays.  I am not ready to be the parent of a teenager next year.
22. Or was that gift for me?  Its not my turn yet…
23. To Wildcat, I wish a world as amazing, colorful, and spontaneous as the crazy visions you come up with and tell in art, and stories, and everything else.
24. And the occasional ability to stop talking.
25. To the love of my life, my sweet Bell, I wish for a cure. Poor lil sick girl.
26. And for me, well, I’ve got everything I could ever want in the 25 things above me.  Yeah, its cheesy, and corny, and I’m hearing “Damn, Jake, you don’t write in like forever and then write a bunch of sappy crap?”, well, bite me.
27. And booze.

So, anyway, Merry Christmas all.  May your cups be overflowing!