Warning: This is my birthday, so this letter is about me. Any sentence about the kids will be viciously purged before this letter is sent. I deserve one letter about myself every few years Warning 2: I am so TOTALLY ridiculously happy right now! Good Lord but I love my life!! So be forewarned. Feel The Joy: First, I got my hair cut for the first time since before Thanksgiving. I don't know why it's so hard for me to take time for myself, but things like haircuts and new shoes - and I haven't been to my 6 mos. OBGYN appointment and Stealth Baby is nearly 13 mos old - but those things seems so low on the importance meter. Anyway, I look like crap with long hair, by which I mean anything longer than my ears. Needless to say, I finally snapped and sped to Haircuttery - 20 minutes, 20 dollars - I went in and was like, shave this puppy. So it's as short as normal society will allow a 32 year old woman to get. Kinda like Sharon Stone, without her cheekbones, jawline, thin nose, boobs or figure. Tangent - there are very few times that I want to be black. But I would just LOVE to have a shaved head and have it considered professional instead of "what is wrong with the white chick? Maybe she has cancer." I see black women on the metro with those super short chic cuts and think - I would LOVE to do that. Oh well. Second, I'm maintaining my weight at about 155-158. Talk about feeling the joy! I weighed 153 when I got pregnant with Precious (over 160 when I got pregnant with Stealth Baby) so I'm so pleased with how I look. And the last 10 pounds came off over like a 4 week period - 5 pounds because I was trying and 5 pounds when I got the flu in early Feb. So basically everyone I know keeps telling me how great I look. Happy happy joy joy. [ Ok, sad tangent - when I got on weight watchers before I married DHny-love, I weight 150. At that time I was disgusted with myself. I was like, I can't believe I weight this much and I will cut off an arm to weigh less. And now I'm delighted - DELIGHTED - to weigh 158. Sad. Amazing what 8 years and 3 kids will do to ya) But - all my clothes fit!!! 2 years ago Terri gave me a fabulous trove of wonderful clothes for my birthday. They were a tiny bit tight at that time, and damn if they didn't keep getting tighter because -doh! - I was quickly pregnant yet again. I don't wear many of the skirts and short sleeve sweaters much in the winter, so you can guess my joy when I started wearing them recently and they all look great on me! Everything in my closet fits me now! (I've cleverly given away all of my 8 and 10 size stuff to DHny-love's niece, so I can truthfully say everything fits.) So I feel like I look like a million bucks! I've even been taking the extra 5 minutes every morning to put on makeup. And putting on knee-highs and decent shoes even! (My boss probably is wondering if I'm trying to get a different job.) Finally, I've gotten involved in this totally stupid website called flylady.net. Believe it or not it's a (hold onto your chair so you don't fall off it) a House Cleaning website. Yes, I'm using the wide reach of the internet to get involved with other stressed out homemakers so we can remind each other to scrub our toilets. I haven't yet let on that I have a secrete weapon - Maria our maid who I adore and would lie in a heap of dust bunnies and cat fur without. Anyway, the first big step is to shine your sink every night. I thought, I can do that - and I have. So now, for 3 solid weeks, there has not been a dirty dish in my sink. I even bought sos pads and Comet simply for sink cleaning duty. Well, if your sink is spotless, the counters being cluttered are annoying. So it's just as easy to clean the counters to. And, with the sink clean, everyone can put dirty dishes in it after dinner. As a result, the dining room table is clean. So, I've begun to put pretty tablecloths on the dining room table (and I've managed to change them every Saturday now for 3 weeks, which is funny because I have all of 3 decent tablecloths) But the coup de taa - the table even flowers on it! I can't tell you what joy this gives me. A note, I am becoming psychotic about the sink. Its funny, I've heard it takes 3 weeks for something to become a habit. It appears that a clean sink has become a habit. When I look in it and see a fork I get irritated - for heavens sakes, how hard is it to put that dumb thing in the dishwasher? I simply cannot believe I am jazzed up about a clean sink, but it's been really funny! When I met DH he was in a carpool with a woman that give ANAL retentive new meaning. When they first started car pooling there was some interest in her part on dating, so she had DH over for dinner. He was pretty amazed at her place since it was spotless in the true sense of the word - like truly clean, not 'I have put everything away for the moment and vacuumed but there is God knows what under the couch." Anyway, he still remembers his horror when she said to him, "Oh, I just can't go to bed with a dirty dish in the sink." So DH is looking at me and saying, "Don't you become like that." SMILE. Actually, the flowers on the table just put me over the top. Even after throwing away 2 wagon loads (full) of daffodil bulbs, we still have a large number sprouting up around our yard. Well, Precious thinks these are great and every time I run around she has grasped large numbers of these flowers to present to me. So, I put these somewhat mangled beauties in tiny oil and vinegar curettes - and I have two vases of flowers on my table. And I am SUCH a flower person! So now I'm thinking - I've got to find a way to get cut flowers from my garden over the summer. This is just waaaaay too cool! I am going to have to get some cool Asian daylilies! The totally funny thing is, this fly lady site is from women who's obsessed in general with cleaning her house, and she started with this program called "SHE" (sidetracked home executives) which uses index cards to remind you what needs to be done every day. Well, of all things my mom used to use the SHE system, and when I was talking to her about my system (not the cards, but more of light cleaning routines that you do every day to keep the mess manageable- Since Maria does the hideous things like toilets, mirrors and windows I'm just trying to get it that you can walk through the house barefoot without ever going "Oh gross, what was that!") is based on SHE, mom was saying how much SHE made her happy and that it changed her life too. So we are now on our second generation of SHEs! But I am starting to keep a calendar of some things to keep my organized - like a reminder of what I originally planned for dinner each night, and what I have to do the night before to get ready (IE go thaw the ground beef dumb butt!) Remember my statement that I can't believe how interested I am in poop? I also cannot believe how happy I am by a shiny sink and that it has made a difference in my life. Maybe I'm just happy it's spring? For my birthday mom got me a Franklin Day Planner! I am SOOO phyched!! I've only had 15 minutes to play with it so far; just enough time to put it together and write in my First of the month chores. That would be Change the Vacuum Cleaner bag! I keep forgetting to do that and then the damn thing pops! So I'm so excited already! New Kitchen Did you know that DH and I are re-doing our kitchen? Like ripping the whole ugly thing out in little pieces and starting over! It's been both fun and stressful. I have NO vision for this sort of thing - will this look right, is this too much stuff on one wall, do these colors work - so it is hard to look at paper with drawn cabinets and say, "Oh yes, this is my dream fulfilled." Also, it is going to be A LOT of money - and getting Dear Husband to write a large check is like knawing off his leg. So we've had a pretty solid idea of the design and where we are going to buy the cabinets - but can seem to get to the actual part where you write the down payment and get the ball rolling. DH's very talented sister and brother-in-law are coming up sometime in June (we have to set the date, which as I just said we are having a hard time doing) to put in the tile floor and help paint. Then one of DH's coworkers said he'd help us put in the cabinets. The countertop will be professionally installed - but we are moving the sink, so I guess DH will do that himself or beg Bruce to come back and help us again. DH can do all the electrical himself, since he is wonderful with that sort of thing. I probably won't be allowed to help at all since I stink at anything requiring measuring to any degree of accuracy. Probably my job will be to keep all 3 kids out of the paint and tile grout. Terri has been an enormous help - believe it or not she found our tile. . . in Pittsburgh! The funny thing is, it turns out that Bruce bought the tile for his house at the same store! So I've been faxing my plans to mom and terri and getting comments. Terri just sent this fab package with tile, paint, and countertop samples. I told her that I need her to move to DC for a few weeks and be my contractor and just arrange everything. We're going to buy the stove - which is the only thing we truly need - over Mother's day. The Sears guy said they have their biggest appliance sale of the year over Mother's day (Isn't that sick?) That's what started everything, the microwave which is attached to the stove, died. Geez, this was like what, last May? So what we really need is a new stove. However, my desire for pretty cabinets and a desk in the kitchen took over. So, we shall see when we actually get this off the ground. I'll be in Cincinnati all next week (Thru - Mon) so next week is gone. Family Reunion: Yes, DH will be there (not totally willingly.) I told him he only needed to be there for photos and to prove that he exists, since he would rather undergo vasectomy via weedwacker than hang out with large groups of people he doesn't know - especially if those people are my relatives. He's a cute guy! I just love him to death, even if he thinks my family is bizarre simply because we actually like each other. Over a weekend in March, DH and I took the kids to a thing called "The Kid Expo" where every person in PW county gives away free things and tries to convince you to sign your kids up with their program/ summer camp/ party people etc. Anyway, I bought this totally corny game called "Generations" Which has corny cards (What was dad's favorite song, who in the family got married the youngest, the oldest and such.) It actually is a game with rules and a point, but I figured, knowing us, we would just pull the cards and BS. SO I called Jack to tell him that I had this and make sure that (not that it would be likely) no one else bought it. And then we started talking about the family tree. I've gotten various feelers out in the genealogy world and have some wishful thinking about relatives. So Jack wants to plan a day outing to the cemetery where Rosa Moster is buried. I want to take some grave rubbings to see if I can get some more clues. I won't go into more detail about this, in less you are interested. Then we talked about how I thought it would be neat - again, unlikely - if everyone invited would write a single paragraph or two about themselves. Anything they like - from waxing poetically about their love of biking (Tim) to how important their job makes them feel outside of being a homemaker (Me) or whatever. Then I would put all these paragraphs into a book and give them to every person who came. Jack was not keen on this idea. I don't think he thought anyone else besides the people I would personally badger into doing this would respond. Work Nursing Room I'm just going to write a quick paragraph on this because it does bring joy to my life. In our building we have a nurse's station, and they have a room for us pumpers. When I started there was a cork board on the wall for us moms, and a few people had put photos up. Well, you know me - I'm on my third "nurser" here! So in my cube I have several close-to-risqué breastfeeding cartoons, and some jokes and such. So I brought a couple down and put them on the board, then I left some articles on the table. Well - we are now on our second corkboard!! People bring articles like once a week, and pass out addresses to websites and everything. It's really fun to go down there and see what is new. The Nurse (her name is Maria too) was laughing because I was the one who started it. Now that Stealth Baby is over a year old and can have whole milk, I no longer need to go down there to pump every day - only on days that he doesn't nurse in the morning. I find that when I don't go down I miss it. My Birthday As usual my dad sent me utterly gorgeous flowers at work. So I call DH and say, "Wow, you should see the flowers my dad got me." DH: "Why did he get you flowers? Easter?" Sharp reminder of wife's impeding birthday DH: "Well huh. I guess I should go to the store." Me: "Only if you're planning on giving me something." Anyway, we’ve had a WONDERFUL day. Kids let me sleep in late - to 7:15! Then we religiously watched all the school buses. We went to mass, went to McDonalds with C Turner and Nicolas. (An aside, Pumpkin is mad at me because he can't call Mr. T "C" - so now he sits in the car and says "People can eat catsup anywhere they want and I'll call Mr. T C" - he is SO CUTE! He wants to be so big, and yet refuses to put his own shoes on - even Precious can put her own shoes and socks on!) Came home - Stealth Baby already asleep. Watch Dragon Tales - Precious and Pumpkin to sleep at 1. Mommy plays on computer. Stealth Baby up at 2, Precious and Pumpkin up by 2:20. We go outside!! For three hours! Daddie comes home with ice cream cake! We cook out, we sing 'Blue's Clue's happy birthday', 'Chi-Chi's happy birthday', and 'How Old R U now'? Eat cake! Go BACK outside and mangle daffodils for mommy's vase. At 7:30 I took my birthday gift - Free Time! I went to Kohls and bought an Easter dress and when I came home I got computer time! It was so much fun how excited the kids were. You should see Precious - "Cake!! CAKE!" They were so happy when they heard we were having cake! They know they can't have cake until after dinner (not that that stops them from asking if they can have cake every 10 minutes or so) Mommy, can we have dinner RIGHT NOW? Birthdays with children are so joyful! It really was a wonderful day. I'm glad it was so nice outside. DH is making fun of me. "What is wrong with your entire family that they all feel it is necessary to sing Happy Birthday into the answering machine?" I love my life!!