I haven’t done a meme in, oh, about 2 years, but this one actually looked kind of fun. So here you have it. (I yanked this from Swistle, by the way.)

Eggnog or hot chocolate? I have never, not once, tried Eggnog and one of my life goals is to never, not once, try Eggnog. Cleatus and the kids have been trying to think of ways to get some Eggnog in my mouth without me knowing it’s coming (like dripping it in there while I’m asleep or some shit), but they will not succeed. So, I guess the short answer to the question is: Hot Chocolate, please, with marshmallows.

Does Santa wrap the presents or leave them open under the tree? Santa wraps them in special Santa only paper. Some years we have the kids pick out the special Santa paper and they leave it under the tree for him to use, but other years I decide that wrapping everything after they are in bed is too much work and I buy paper myself and slowly wrap the gifts throughout the month of December.

Colored lights on a tree or white? White on my tree, colored on the kids’ tree. Next year, though, I am hoping to get a white tree with colored lights, but the chance of me convincing Cleatus of that is about zero.

Do you hang mistletoe? Nope. I’ve never even been kissed under mistletoe. How sad!

When do you put your decorations up? Much to Cleatus’s dismay, we usually put everything up the week before Thanksgiving. I like Christmas, okay?

What is your favorite holiday dish? The side dishes. All of them. Keep your ham, give me all the carbs and veggies and cheese filled side dishes.

Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? We open gifts from our extended family on Christmas Eve, but everything from us and Santa gets opened Christmas morning. Except for the one present I talk Cleatus into letting the kids open the week before Christmas. I’m such a cool mom.

How do you decorate your Christmas tree? My tree is pretty boring, covered in brown, gold, and maroon balls, some bows, and a couple of “fancy” decorations. By fancy, I mean something that was purchased as a single ornament, instead of in a value pack of 12. I usually buy the fancy ornaments during the big Target clearance sale after Christmas. The kids’ tree is a mish-mash of homemade crap treasures and ugly but colorful ornaments they love.

Snow: love it or hate it? I love it, but only when it’s clean. I don’t like the brown, muddy slush crap.

Can you ice skate? Are you kidding me?

What is your favorite holiday dessert? That’s tough. I don’t think I have a favorite. I love these butter cookies (mm, butter) and these little buttons are always fun to pop in my mouth every effing time I walk through the kitchen.

What is your favorite holiday tradition? I’d like to say it’s reading a nice, wholesome Christmas story by the fireplace every evening while sipping hot cocoa before bed, but we don’t actually do that, so I guess opening my presents. Sorry, but I’m still a kid at heart when it comes to Christmas. Opening presents? Best part.

Candy canes: yum or yuck? Eh. Whatever. I don’t eat them, but they aren’t gross.

Favorite Christmas show? Probably Rudolph. I like Rudolph.

Well, that was fun. And now I’m officially in the Christmas spirit (by which I mean, ready to open gifts)! Hope y’all have a great holiday filled with cookies and lots of boxes full of fun things to unwrap!

Oh, and don’t step in any reindeer poo.

My cat is currently outside hanging off the window screen and meowing to be let in. Rather than remove myself from underneath my laptop and let the poor frozen kitty inside, I decided to blog. It’s been awhile, yo.

I think the reason for the blogging is partially Cleatus’s fault. Remember when I used to bitch and complain about him all the effing time? Man, those were the days. He truly has been like some kind of Super Husband lately. HE EVEN BOUGHT ME A NIKON D90 FOR CHRISTMAS. And let me have it two weeks ago because the sound of my whining was about to puncture his ear drum because he loves me so much. Seriously. Super Husband.

However! This morning I woke up on the grumpy side and DO YOU KNOW WHAT, INTERNET? I feel like bitching about Cleatus. Do you know what he did? He came home from work after a 12 hour shift and opened the little cubby/drawer thing where he keeps his keys and wallet and other crap and he put his wallet inside BUT LEFT HIS KEYS SITTING ON TOP OF THE SHELF and! HE LEFT THE CUBBY/DRAWER OPEN. Clearly he doesn’t deserve to live. If he weren’t in bed sleeping right this minute, I’d go in there and fart on his pillow. I guess I’ll just have to settle for farting on his toothbrush.

(Notice how the things I am bitching about now are really only minor inconveniences and I even go ahead and give him credit for the 12 hour work shift? What the hell happened to me? Where did my anger go? I want it back.)

Oh! One more rant (not about Cleatus though, something is wrong with meeeeee!). I listed my old camera on Craigslist, because you know, Cleatus is awesome and super and he bought me a new one. So, some guy was interested in one of the lenses that I had listed and he asked me to come to his tattoo shop(!) to show it to him. Now, I have nothing against tattoos. You go ahead and cover your entire face with a big tweety bird tattoo, see if I care. It’s just…tattoo shops (parlors? Are they called tattoo parlors?) are not my place. I don’t belong, is what I’m saying. I’m a 27-going-on-80 year old frumpy mom who writes a blog, for fuck’s sake. I was feeling out of place before I even got out of the safety of my car.

Anyway, long story short, I stood in there while he bashed my lens around and generally acted like he had never seen a camera lens before in his life (newsflash: you should be GENTLE with them. They are fragile and made of glass and oh my fuck, dude, quit trying to jam it on your camera the wrong way.) and soaked up the smell of incense and biker dude into my clothing. I really hope that smell comes out, because like I said before: frumpy mom with a blog. I do not need to smell like I ride a Harley and smoke dope, thank you.

(I apologize for all the stereotyping in the above paragraph. He just FIT THE STEREOTYPE, OKAY?)

And, all that to say, he didn’t even buy the lens, WHICH I KNEW HE WOULDN’T, because he needed a lens for taking pictures of tattoos, which would be difficult with the 70-300 lens I had for sale. DUH.

Oh, and did I mention that I got the Nikon D90 yet? Squeeeee!

And also:

Y’all sick of pictures of my kids yet?

I generally don’t send Christmas cards. I know, I hear you all wagging your fingers at me. Its not that I have no Christmas spirit (my Christmas tree is already up I have so much Christmas spirit!), it’s just that I’m too lazy. There is all the searching for the perfect card, writing heartfelt bullshit inside the cards, digging up addresses for everyone, addressing the cards, going to the post office to purchase stamps, and finally walking all the way down my loooooong driveway to put the envelopes in the mail.

Baby Jesus wouldn’t want me to strain myself, you know? So I just don’t send cards.

This year, however, I decided that I would send out cards, but not just any generic store bought card, I was going to send out PICTURE CARDS. Because I am insane.

Here are just a few of the pictures from our little holiday card picture taking session we had in the backyard this afternoon:

No.

Nope.

Huh uh.

Uh, no.

Gettin’ closer.

Almost there!

…

Sadly, this story has no happy ending. I didn’t get the perfect holiday card picture. I do love all the above pictures though, just because it shows how much those two love each other and what fun they have together.

How about you? Are you all mature and responsible? Do you send out holiday cards?

• Last night I was sleeping, when I suddenly woke myself up by answering the question “Have you ever played checkers?” I don’t know who it was that asked the question, just some random voice in my mind, but I answered aloud, “Only in the backseat of a Pinto.” And, I’m sorry, but double-you tee eff? I’ve never seen the inside of a Pinto. Besides, the only thing I’ve ever done in the backseat of a car involved taking off my pants.
• Speaking of backseats, have you ever, you know, done it back there? Better yet, WHERE did you do it? I mean, yes, in the backseat, but where was the car parked? Cleatus and I once parked at a pre-school parking lot (after hours) down the road from my parent’s house. We also parked in an elementary school parking lot. And, of course, the front yard of my parent’s house when it was still under construction. All of these were when we were dating, FYI. Now that we’re married we do it in a bed like God intended. Although we once did it in the closet of our daughter’s newly remodeled bedroom, just because we could.
• Things with my neighbor have gotten even weirder. He is all FRIENDLY now. He waves and smiles and talks to me and stuff. He even came knocking on my door with Cindy-Lu’s shoes in hand one day after she apparently took them off outside and left them laying in our driveway. I think it’s fairly safe to say that he reads my blog and is frightened of what I may write about him if he does not behave. Or he has dementia. Either one is possible.
• When was your first kiss? Not your first little peck on the lips because someone dared you, but your first REAL kiss. Mine was when I was 14 years old. Incidentally, that was also the first time someone felt me up. A friend and I had gone to the skating rink (we rocked the skating rink during 7th and 8th grade, yo). I was sitting in a booth across from my friend and drinking a soda. This boy that I had been flirting with for awhile sat down next to me, asked me out, I said yes, and he put his arm around my waist and UP MY SHIRT. Gawd. I’d never even kissed anyone before and here he was trying to grope my boobs. Then he totally slobbered all over my face a little while later and I broke up with him the next day.
• Glee. Are you watching it? Why did I not believe everyone when they said how great it was? I’m on episode 5 now, and y’all, I love it. Best show ever.

I’m a big fan of shopping. It’s fun, you get to bring home shiny things, you get exercise from all the walking around and toting heavy bags (heh), and it makes me happy. I’m a shopper.

Once, twice, sometimes even three times a year I go on a shopping trip with my mom and aunt. We head out of town, stay in a hotel and eat at yummy restaurants, and shop until our feet are so sore that we are all in tears. It’s fun!

Obviously, my daughter is destined for great shopping success, right?

Cindy-Lu never really cared one way or the other about it until recently. She got her ears pierced and now “the earring store” (Claire’s) is her favorite place in the world. She picks out earrings and hair pretties and Disney princess paraphernalia. She loves to go to Old Navy and browse their selection of tights (the girl loves to wear tights). The other day I took her in a Justice for Girls store just to look around (the sizes are all too big for her) and she walked in, looked around the room and breathed “Oh, Mommy! Isn’t this store lovely?”

She’s a shopper.

I really wasn’t too worried about it until this morning. You see, we’ve been getting a lot of toy catalogs in the mail recently and the kids both love to go through and circle the toys they want Santa to bring them. I was flipping through one of the catalogs this morning to see what the damage was and there I saw it. An ad featuring a woman standing in a pile of toys wearing gold high heels. Cindy-Lu didn’t circle a single toy on that ad. She circled the gold high heels.

As Cleatus said when I showed him the ad, “We are so screwed.”

I know you’re all dying to hear what happened with The Neighbor and His Hose (which could totally be the title of a porn movie, right?) and so I will tell you.

I sat here and I read each comment that came through about my neighbor and how I should handle the situation. I laughed at some of the sillier suggestions and I nodded and shook my fist in the direction of my neighbor’s house at some of the “slit his hose with your pocketknife” type comments. I did nothing though. I just sat and stared out the window at the hose and I got angrier and angrier and finally, FINALLY, I shouted at Cleatus that I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Go out there and pick that hose up and throw it back into his yard!” I said, sounding not at all crazy.

“Um. Okay,” Cleatus agreed in the tone one would use with an upset patient in a mental facility.

“And don’t just gently lay it on the ground either! Make sure you throw it! Throw it hard!” I gave up pretending that all is well with my mind. Clearly, I have gone insane.

I stood at the window and watched while Cleatus marched out there and picked that hose up and threw it (THREW IT!) into the neighbor’s yard. I felt so much better until I started feeling like a douche.

I mean, really. How old am I? Couldn’t I have just let it go?

No. No, I couldn’t.

I stopped feeling guilty about it pretty quickly and I decided to just stick with hating the neighbor.

WE DIDN’T EVEN TRICK OR TREAT AT HIS HOUSE.

You don’t want to make me angry, y’all. I will just skip right by your house on Halloween. Screw you and your grumpy old man candy. We don’t need it or want it and you can’t make us have it. So there.

AND THEN!

This morning I was sitting in the house feeling all happy that the hose situation had been taken care of (he’s now draining the ditch into his own front yard, the fucking moron.) when I glanced out the window just to enjoy the view of a ditch water free front yard when, lo, my neighbor was blocking the view. He was blocking the view because he was using a leaf blower to blow all of his motherfucking leaves into our front yard.

A little thing I like to call PROOF.

He blew his leaves out of his yard, across our driveway, and into our yard. There is a big ass pile of leaves all down the edge of our driveway.

I fully expect to look out the window later this afternoon to see him standing there pissing all over our lawn.

Seriously, y’all. My life has just gone DOWN HILL. I never expected to be THIS person. This crazy, psychotic, obsessive person. But I am. And it’s all my neighbor’s fault.

Some of you may remember way back in May when I bitched about having to repair the drainage pipe that ran under our driveway from our neighbor’s ditch to ours. If you don’t remember, the short story is that our neighbor is a fucking loon and he decided that his ditch wasn’t draining as fast as he’d like, so he called some company out to auger the pipe thingy that ran under our driveway. He did this without our permission. The company put a hole in the pipe and caused it to collapse so the neighbor’s ditch pretty much stopped draining altogether. He asked us to fix it, we told him no. He was the one who had broke it, so if it bothered him he could call that same company and ask them to come and fix it. He called the city instead. (Did I say this was a short story? I lied.) The city said that we had to fix it within two weeks or they would charge us eleventy trillion dollars. We fixed it.The city inspected it and called it good.

The end!

Except it wasn’t the end. Our neighbor’s ditch STILL wasn’t draining properly and I know, who cares. It’s a ditch. It’s sole purpose is to give rain water a place to live, right? Why are we getting all worked up about the rain water in the ditch?

But our neighbor, the bastard, is very concerned about his ditch having water in it when it rains. It drains on it’s own within a day of it raining, so it’s not like he has a fucking pond or anything, he just has a bit of RAIN WATER, OH MY FUCKING GOD.

Where was I? Oh, yes. Rain water. In the ditch.

So, my neighbor goes out and buys some sort of pump thing and hooks it up to his water hose. And then, oh God, every time it rains he proceeds to get in his wheelchair and wheel himself across his yard in the pouring rain to hook this pump up and he lays the hose so that water from his ditch drains riiiiight at the edge of our driveway.

It’s our property 18 inches over from our driveway, so he is clearly on our property. Now, honestly, I have better things to stress over than fucking rain water, but oh my god. He is doing this JUST TO MAKE ME INSANE, I JUST KNOW IT. Anytime it rains I spend the day staring out my window at the fucking hose and muttering insults about old people needing to GET A GOD DAMNED LIFE.

Clearly his evil plan is working.

Now, my question to you, all two one of you who stuck with me and read this fucking novel about RAIN WATER, FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST, please answer me this. Would you be the bigger person and just ignore it? Or would you haul your ass over there and stomp all over his fucking rain hose and then shove the fucking thing down his ugly wrinkled old man throat so that he chokes on the dreaded rain water? Or, option C, would you just be all tra la la, just out for a stroll in the rain and I noticed your hose accidentally drifted onto my property, let me gently toss that back into your yard in a friendly manner?

I’m leaning towards option C, but I have a feeling that he’ll come out of the house and start bitching about how that rain water is supposed to drain into my yard anyway, so WHAT IS MY FUCKING PROBLEM and at that point I will lose my ever loving mind and end up killing him anyway, so I should just go ahead with option B, right?

I’m sure this will come as a huge shock to all of you out there, but this little blog of mine is sort of, well, not the most important thing in my life at the moment. I have tried, OH MY GOD I HAVE TRIED, to keep up with it, to post daily, to post every couple of days, to post just ONCE A FUCKING WEEK FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST, but I just can’t. For some reason, no, for a lot of reasons, it’s just not there anymore.

I’m not quitting blogging. I’ll just say that now and get it out of the way.

BUT!

I stress out about this space and how I should be filling it with all my words. I write little posts in my head and then I think of all the reasons that I shouldn’t post them here. Things have changed between then and now and I don’t know why they changed or even what it was that changed, but lately I’ve been feeling like my life is, well, private. Strange, coming from the girl who blogged somewhat regularly about her vagina, I know.

For some strange reason my kids are getting older. Weird, right? Anyway, I feel guilt that I rarely ever post about Eeyore. Is he going to one day look back at this and wonder where he was? Why didn’t I ever talk about him? Did I even love him? (And, yes, I will let my kids read this one day when they are much older and no I don’t think it will scar them or ruin their lives or make them think I hated them, but thanks for worrying about them for me, you  judgmental concerned asshole citizen of the internet.) Yet, I don’t want to write about him on the internet anymore because he’s nine years old now. There’s too much that I could say at this age that will embarrass him or bother him or just make him uncomfortable. He’s not young enough to make fun of anymore, dammit.

Cindy-Lu is fair game still, considering she’s only four, and fully deserving of being made fun of now and again. (Just today she proudly showed me a gold coin with the “Statue of Livery” on it. See? She’s an easy target.) Still, it seems wrong to write of her so often and Eeyore so little.

Here’s the part you won’t even believe, though. It’s Cleatus. He’s not even pissing me off anymore. I KNOW. We’ve been married for nearly ten years now and it’s like I’ve actually started to like him or something. It’s ridiculous, and yet, I can’t ask him to start pissing me off for blog fodder, because I’m enjoying him too much lately.

I’ve told him that the only solution is for us to have another baby, because can you imagine all the material I’d have to blog about? The sleepless nights, the poopy diapers, the being vomited on all the effing time! It’d be great. Cleatus is still an asshole in that respect though, and he said that under no circumstances will he have his vasectomy reversed so that I can blog more often.

Are any of you still reading this? If so, you are some seriously dedicated Wiping Up Snot fans and I love you.

I just needed to let you all know that I may not be here very often, but I DO still think of you all quite a bit. I am most definitely still reading blogs, but I need to be a better commenter. I am writing a couple times a week at Buns In My Oven. I’m not quitting. I’ll continue to pay the hosting fees for this site. I can’t imagine actually quitting, but I just may not write here that often.

So, there it is. I had to get that out there, so that I could stop feeling so guilty about not posting. Maybe losing the pressure I’ve put on myself to blog more often will help clear things up for me and I’ll feel more comfortable in the space again.

My first job after having Eeyore was at a collection agency. I had stayed home from work for nearly two years when we realized that no, we can’t actually afford this, are you fucking kidding me? So, I got a job. It actually paid pretty decently, and would have paid even better had I ever collected anyone’s money and gotten the bonus they kept dangling in front of me as an incentive for being an uncaring bitch who wouldn’t take no for an answer. I vaguely remember some sort of cheer we did every Friday morning about it being payday for the scumbags who owed us money. It was a warm and loving environment to work in, that’s for sure.

Anyway, I flashed back on this job today as I pulled up to a four-way stop on the way home from pre-school. You see, that four-way stop? It was where I died.

Less than a week into my new job and I was on my way home from work. One of the guys that worked there was in the other lane right next to me as we pulled up to this four-way stop (should four-way have a hyphen?). I get nervous at four-way stops anyway, but to have this guy that I barely know sitting next to me? It was awkward. So, I look over and kind of wave at him, like “hi, I’m a total douchebag who gets freaked out at four-way stops and panics about whose turn it is, oh god, is it MY turn, no, your turn, SHIT!” and the asshole revved his engine at me. Because I am a complete and utter moron I thought “Oh, wow, he’s cool. I’ll just rev my engine back at him and then we’ll be best friends forever,” only SURPRISE! I DON’T KNOW HOW TO REV MY ENGINE.

So, I floored it. I just, you know, stepped on the gas. That’s how you rev an engine, right? Only first you put it in neutral or step on the brake with your other foot, you idiot, and I forgot that part. So, there I am, all nervous at the four-way stop, during rush hour, next to my new co-worker and I wave at him and then FLOOR IT out into the middle of the road when it WASN’T MY TURN and everyone starts honking at me and BAM! I DIED.

Not from the impact of hitting another vehicle, because by some lucky twist of fate, I didn’t hit another car, but I died all the same. From the embarassment.

So, what’d you do this morning? How lovely.

Me? Oh, you know, the usual. Questioned suspects, wore a bullet proof vest, and staked out the preschool. Completely normal day for your average stay at home mom.

Yeah. So. Today.

Let’s back up, shall we?

This morning the kids and I hopped in the minivan to take Cindy-Lu to preschool. AT A CHURCH. Where the people are good! And churchy!

I pretty much NEVER drive the van anywhere, because, well, it’s a van and Cleatus’s car is infinitely more cool and it uses less gas. Today, for some weird reason, we took the van. The big, shiny, hard not to notice minivan.

I pulled on to the road for the preschool and instead of turning into my usual parking lot spot, I parked on the road opposite of the parking lot. Then I left Eeyore in the car and walked Cindy-Lu into school.

Anyway, long story long, some asshole backed out of the parking lot and bumped into my van WITH MY CHILD IN IT, ALL ALONE, OH GOD, and then he drove off! WHAT KIND OF CHURCHY PEOPLE DO I ASSOCIATE WITH, ANYWAY? Asshole.

Now, obviously this man wasn’t thinking, because he had just dropped his child off at preschool and GEE, SOMEONE HAS TO COME BACK AND PICK HER UP IN 2 HOURS! Asshole.

So, I called the cops, an officer came and staked the place out with me. I had to wear a bullet proof vest JUST IN CASE (you know how those churchy people can get!) (I’m totally kidding, I didn’t wear a bullet proof vest. ) (But, I did have to hide in the bushes with binoculars.) (No, not really.). The police officer and I questioned every parent driving a big truck and boy, was that fun! I made so many new friends today. I’m sure they’ll be calling me for playdates any time now!

Finally, TEN MOTHEREFFING MINUTES LATE FOR PICK UP (Hoping to avoid me, were you? Asshole.), some guy in a big silver truck pulls up to pick up his kid. The first thing out of his mouth was “Oh, I guess I bumped someone this morning, huh?” YEAH. Asshole. We generally stop and exchange insurance information after an accident, but just DRIVING OFF works too. ASSHOLE.

So, we exchange information and he apologizes and tells me that he had NO IDEA he had hit anyone. He felt a bump, but when he looked? He didn’t see anything back there! Because my MINIVAN is so mini you can’t even see it. Asshole. And I’m sure he didn’t hear the big crunch that people halfway across the parking lot heard. Also, he didn’t see the van ROCKING AROUND and FLINGING MY BABY TO THE FLOOR (okay, so he wasn’t actually flung to the floor, but he ALMOST fell out of his seat)! Asshole!

So, yeah, the moral of this story is this: People are assholes.