In the Saddle Again...

Now that my snot is no longer vibrant enough to own a spot on the color wheel and I'm no longer in danger of expelling vital organs through my mouth in a fit of frame-wracking coughs, and now that the 20 loads of laundry I neglected are folded and I've graduated from a steady diet of marshmallows and chicken noodle soup (thanks, Tanya!), I feel that I'm ready to resume my practice of taking up your valuable time and my less-than-valuable time with blogging.

Ooooh. Lucky you.

So, besides making legions of white blood cells and hordes of antibodies and moaning about my surely impending death, what have I been up to?

Well, I took the babies on a germ-spreading operation grocery shopping trip:

 

  

...that was an utter disaster because we got stuck in line for about 20 minutes, leaving me no option but to take pictures of them and leaving them no option but to bitch at me about it.  However, the trip quickly turned around (for me, anyway) when I was driving home and realized I was behind this truck:

 

... *crickets*... Come on, don't tell me that's not funny.  I cannot be the only person in the world who nearly wet their pants laughing at this.  Fine, even if I am the only person who thinks this is hysterical, I don't care.  It made the screaming babies in the back seats tolerable.

Rod Erections.

Do it.  Laugh.  You think it's funny.

Ahem.  Moving along.  We played in the snow... 

 

Which was obviously more fun for some than others...

  

I call him Mutumbo and it was a fight to the (near) death with my toddler and husband to build him without being knocked unconscious by flying snowballs.

(Note: when one is suffering a deadly strain of bacterial sinusitis, it is not a good idea to go play in snow.  However, it never snows here and when it does it is never this quantity.  So I made a choice and suffered for it later.)

My hubby and I learned how to plumb a kitchen sink when the pipes under ours mysteriously blew apart and my landlord determined that it was our fault and wouldn't help us.  Turns out, it was the result of worn out slip washers (oooh, look at me being all plumbery) and I was able to flirt with a midget at Lowe's to get the new parts free of charge (let no one question my dedication to family finances).

Also during this whole black-out period, I realized that someone had broken into our house and left behind a small pile of crushed-up dog biscuit.  Which is creepy, but helps to explain the missing financial folders that I had suspected someone stole but couldn't quite back up with evidence.  So, if you see my social security number out there someplace, let me know; I'd like it back.

Shortly after that ghastly discovery, I broke this window:

 

in the bathroom next to the bathtub... WHILE Jack was in it... by fumbling a bottle of shampoo.  Luckily he wasn't hurt except for a small sliver of glass that got stuck in his toe and required a 45 minute screaming, crying, traumatizing wrestling match to extract.  However, while the guys were here fixing the glass, they noticed that my natural gas meter smelled like... well, gas.  Yikes.  So I called the company and they came out and confirmed that we had a serious leak and needed to have the meter replaced.  

Thank goodness for broken windows, eh?

Not only is that enough, but during one of the really, really cold nights we had recently, our furnace broke, forcing me to sequester the children and myself on the 2nd floor (which has a separate heater) for a night of cookies and movies in Mommy and Daddy's room.  Though that sounds pleasant enough, my quads and glutes will tell you a different story about evil stairs and too many trips between said 2nd floor and the kitchen. 

I've been baking healthy cookies and researching investments and working on getting out household ready for all the traveling and transitioning we're about to undertake and I've been pioneering a new (though, surely not) method of preparing and freezing finger-foods for the girls to cut down on chaos that occurs as I'm finishing dinner and trying to serve 5 people at the same time every night.  More on all the culinary stuff in later posts - I promise! - including more toddler food ideas.

And finally, I switched from disposables to cloth diapers.

 

 

And I have plenty to talk about regarding that, too.  In due time, my friends.  

SO.  

My zoo has been hoppin' lately and I've had to make some sacrifices to stay on top of things and maintain some semblance of order.  Now that you're all caught up on my world and the chaos I've been trying to control, I can finally promise you that I'm back in the saddle again and ready to go.  And what have you, dear Readers, been up to?  Do tell...!