Finally found my breaking point.

"There's a red mark on your neck," Sarah told me at dinner last night.

"Really? Let me see," Anna demanded.

"It's huge," Sarah continued, for some reason really interested in my neck.

"Is it a hickey?" Heather questioned.

"No," I assured them. It wasn't. But everyone at the table had to come over and personally reassure themselves.

"Nope, NOT a hickey," my husband announced. Geesh, I hoped that the official prognosis was now complete and we could talk about something else. It wasn't. My family continued to conjecture around the table about what could've caused such a large red mark on my neck.

"Your shirt must be too tight around your neck," one of the kids declared. The other kids finally agreed that this must be the reason.

"And you've kept your shirt on this whole time?" Sarah wanted to know. "Even though it has given you a red mark on your neck?!?"

***Aside***As you can see there had been way too much talking about the mysterious red mark. It was driving me nuts. It was all anyone could talk about around the dinner table. You can hardly blame me for what I did next.

I took off my shirt. At the dinner table.

Before you judge me too harshly, Nicholas had already left the table and gone to the computer room to print out music for his band practice that evening, so it was only Brian and the girls. But still. It wasn't my proudest moment. At least I was wearing my new bra.

Heather covered her face and kept repeating, "Can she do that?" very loudly; Sarah averted her eyes and told me to put my shirt back on; Anna started laughing hysterically. And Brian. When he realized what I had done, just sat there and smiled.

So, I finally realized that if I hadn't made my point, I never would and put my shirt back on. But from this experience I have realized a few things:

1. Sometimes I need to think one step ahead of myself before acting.
2. With my luck, my husband is now going to expect me to start taking my shirt off as part of every meal...
3. Modesty IS the best policy. So remember children, do as I say. Not as I do.

Just say what you mean.

Dropping my daughter off at the middle school this morning she leaned over towards me. "Is your hair wet or is it just greasy?" she asked before opening the door and getting out of the car. Kids are great. I love how they keep things real. I can't imagine how self absorbed I would be without my kids around to keep me humble.

But I like to think that it doesn't have to be REAL all the time. For example, for me it just seems a bit much to pick up used Kleenex throughout the house. Yesterday I remarked to my child that she needed to throw away her Kleenex because I didn't appreciate having to touch her disgusting snot rags. She informed me that she doesn't use all of them to blow her nose with. Some of them she uses to clean out her ears.

Too much information. But that's my kids. Keeping it real.

Just one copy, please.

Ahhh, Staples. We've been there a lot this past week. Anna's new English teacher likes her to turn in papers that include colored pictures. We were at Staples twice today trying to print out a poem Anna had written with an accompanying picture. It was one page long. And it was taking the guy FOREVER.

While we waited, a song came on and it was one I liked. "Mom we let you sing at home because we love you---but NOT in public," she informed me. I continued singing. "Mom if you don't stop singing I'll start flinching again," she threatened. Okay, I stopped.

Flinching whenever me or Brian came near the kids was a funny trick their Aunt Molly had taught my kids when they were little. It was hilarious. Strangers would watch me approach my child who would then flinch making it look like I beat them. Very funny. I can't wait until Molly's little boy gets old enough so I can teach this trick to him.

Anyway, without my singing to distract us, we started watching the printer guy. We were the only customer and he was still not getting the page to print. Finally something came out of the printer, he looked at it, crumpled it up and threw it on the floor. "I don't think he likes your poem," I whispered loudly to my daughter.

Printer guy looked very unhappy and called for another employee to come help him. Together they spent another ten minutes looking at the computer. I had to wonder if they were perhaps proofreading her poem. Or maybe they were trying to rework it into a haiku.

Finally the poem was printed. Or more accurately a whole stack of Anna's poems were printed. Unhappy printer guy handed them to us, apologized for making us wait for so long, all the while muttering insults about the printer under his breath. Oh, and he wouldn't even let us pay for them. Which was very nice.

You can never have too many boyfriends, I mean, socks.

I sent Heather and Anna to the store and after the fourth phone call with questions about what they were supposed to be getting, I hear, "We've found ourselves in the sock department, and we don't know what to do."

Since I find myself in this situation all the time (?!?) I understood completely. Actually, knowing Heather's love for socks, I understood completely. "Go ahead and pick out a couple of pairs," I told them before hanging up. Heather brought home a pair of sparkly tights and Anna found some owl socks.

You needed to know about Heather and her sock fetish so you can appreciate the next story:

Just last week Heather and I were at Target and the guy at the check-out counter was flirting shamelessly with my unsuspecting daughter. "Wow, those are some great socks," he admired. And, "Those socks are really awesome." I should mention that she was wearing said socks.

But the guy just wouldn't stop and kept going on and on about Heather and her socks. I felt so bad for the guy, but Heather just smiled and stood there. She really was clueless. I had the urge to tell the poor guy that I'd go out with him just to put him out of his misery. Maybe we could have lunch and I could help him work on his pick-up routine...

Or maybe he just really, really, really liked Heather's socks.

en794jw2fu

Family togetherness is a beautiful thing. Painting a deck,
Is fun to do,

Fun to do,


Fun to do.

Painting a deck is fun to do.

To do, to do, to do.

Painting a deck using an oil based paint that cannot be sprayed or rolled on is especially fun. So fun, in fact, that it is necessary to make it mandatory fun. And fun it was. Although, after an hour or so, we had to make Anna the official photographer, and then a little while later Heather volunteered to be the caterer. We've never eaten better.

Deck painting tips: If you feel the paint dripping down into your armpit, you've put too much paint on the paint brush. And most importantly: whatever you do, DO NOT MENTION that this is just the FIRST coat.

She did WHAT?!?

Brian came home from lunch today and announced that someone at work came up to him and told him that we need to make sure our daughter keeps her paws off of his son.

Several things flew into my head at once after Brian told me this.

"His son should be so lucky."

"Wait, which daughter?"

"Who is his son, anyway?"

"Good for her....whichever one it is..."

"I'll kill her!"

And then I knew. As sure as I know that trail mix is the most perfect food ever invented (and it's delicious, too) I knew that the guy had to be talking about someone else's daughter.

It turns out, after I got all the dirt from my husband, I was both right and wrong. In fact, the guy had been talking about our daughter. But he had been joking.

I guess Heather was lab partners with the guy's son in Chemistry. He'd told his dad that Heather knew everything and he had just sat there. The guy said that he'd told his son that Heather was smart so he was supposed to do everything Heather told him or she would chew him up, spit him out, walk over him and never look back. I wonder where he was getting his information...That sounded a little harsh. Not that I'd stand in her way of getting a good grade. But she would at least be polite about it...

So, thinking about it, I guess I am relieved that none of my girls were pawing random boys in public. I guess I should be thankful.

I smell bacon.

School started this week. With school means the start of football games. And that can only mean one thing. Bacon. We started the tradition last year. After the kids came home from the football games we would have bacon cooked and ready for them to eat. The first time, Nicholas came through the door and yelled, "I smell bacon!" He had such a huge smile on his face, we've been doing it ever since. Then we sit around and hear about how they did in marching band at the game while they ate. Kind of a late night breakfast, if you will.

Anyway. Last night at breakfast, Sarah told us that on the way home from the game in Buckhannon she got in trouble on the bus. We were very surprised. Sarah never gets in trouble at school. One of the chaperones busted her for sitting in the back of the bus. In the same seat with a boy. This is clearly against the rules.

But it gets better. Apparently, she sat and argued with the chaperon saying that she'd done it all last year and even as recently as last week on the band trip to Kennywood. She did her best, but in the end she had to change seats.

And so did her brother.