Tuesdays With Noirrie

My kingdom for a king!

I'll make a confession. Steve and I really do not make good bedfellows. We really should not sleep together. And, by "sleep", I mean sleep. Our sleep styles are just waaaaay too different. For starters, he goes to bed around 9 p.m. and I go to bed around 1 a.m. Normally, this is no problem. 1) If he needs sleep, he normally doesn't wake up when I come to bed. 2) If he needs something else, he normally does. (Side note: How does he do that? It's a secret man-gift, I tell you!) Then there's the fact that he's a flopper. I am not. It takes me a good while to get to sleep some nights with him tossing about on his side of the bed. Not to mention that these sleep gyrations mess the covers up. Bedtime is one of those times when my OCD comes into play. I must have the covers centered on me and the sheets firmly tucked in at the foot of the bed or it bugs the everloving crap out of me. By the time I get to bed, he often has the covers all messy. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to re-make a bed with someone sleeping in it without waking them? Quite. And then there's the snoring. He doesn't always snore. But when he does it's a touchy proposition getting him to stop. If I wake him, he gets very grumpy. It's an extremely delicate operation poking someone juuuust enough to make them roll over, but not so much as to wake them.

I have suggested twin beds. Hey, Lucy and Desi had them! The very idea of this offends him greatly. Another solution would be a king-sized bed which would at least make for a larger playing field and maybe I could keep 'my' side of the bed tidier. The perfect solution? Separate bedrooms. Hey, no one says we can't visit each other once in a while. But this would alleviate all of our nocturnal troubles. Now .... which kid can I make sleep on the couch?

Tuesdays With Noirrie

Well, that was exhausting!

This past weekend was String Fling at Kansas State U. This is the middle school orchestra workshop weekend. It's loads of fun and such a good experience for the kids. But it is also thoroughly exhausting.

Our day began on Saturday with waking at 3:45 a.m. Now, if you know me, you know I'm not a morning girl. And I'm certainly not a butt-crack-of-dawn-early morning girl. The caravan left the school at 4:50 (late, because, as always, we had to wait for the late-comers). The day was pretty much: drive, potty break, drive, breakfast, drop kids for rehearsals, pick kids up for lunch, drop kids for more rehearsals, pick kids up and check into hotel, take kids to mall for dinner and shopping, take kids back to hotel for play time, lock them in their rooms at 10 p.m. Honestly, the day wasn't hard for the sponsors, just ... long. Then again, any day spent with 11 middle schoolers is ... long.

Sunday began at a not-quite-as-butt-crack-but-still-too-early 6 a.m. More rehearsals, concerts by the kids showing off their newly learned songs, lunch, drive, potty break, drive, home at 4 p.m. I got home, unloaded my stuff, and headed straight for a nap. I am WAY too old for this kind of thing.

But, as much as I seem to be whining, the end of this trip was a bit bittersweet for me. This is quite likely my last-ever school trip. There just aren't these kinds of things in high school where both boys will be next year. I have been going on field and various other trips with the boys for 13 years now beginning those little excursions to the pumpkin patch and the nature center when Lane was in preschool. And now it is most likely over.

I'll admit, I'm a little sad about that.

Tuesdays with Noirrie

I believe ...

... that Andrew Lloyd Webber is a musical genius.

... so is the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

... Gerard Butler is the sexiest man alive.

... that God gave me kids to carry things for me.

... that He made Lane extra tall to get things off high shelves and decorate the top of the Christmas tree for me.

... cats are weird.

... that I'm going to knock my dog in the head soon as she's been barking a very low, quiet bark for about 30 minutes solid now.

... that, despite my efforts to resist, Family Guy and Futurama are actually pretty funny.

... that almond M&Ms are the absolute best candy on the planet.

... there's something completely adorable about elderly couples holding hands.

... that my dog should not lay under my computer desk and fart.

... that Cafepress.com needs to update their WoW t-shirts.

... that, if a website has a "remember me" option, it should damned well remember me!

... that people who don't give you the little wave when you let them into heavy traffic should have to go to the back of the line.

... that people who let their dogs poop in your yard should have their noses rubbed in it. The owners, not the dogs.

... that blogger shouldn't screw up the formatting of your post every stinking time you add a picture. And often not let you fix it.

... that I think way too much about stupid stuff.

I've created a monster!

Remember my plans to become an old hippie one day? And remember that Lane actually thinks that's a good idea? He emailed the following photo to me from school yesterday saying, "Wouldn't it be awesome if this was our family?" Should I worry?

On the other hand, yeah, it would be kind of cool if this was our family.

Tuesday's With Noirrie

Happy New Year

And so begins another year. A new one. A fresh one. Time to make changes? Naw, not for me. I'm not a big believer in new year's resolutions. Why? Not because I don't need to make any changes, believe me. Mostly because I never keep them. And because I think if you decide to make a change in your life, you should just do it. Now. Don't wait for a particular date.

I do, on the first annually, wonder what this new year will bring. I confess I'm a bit worried because my dryer quite working the day before Christmas. You know how those things tend to run in threes? I've been angling for a new computer. After getting a new dryer, I'm guessing the next new item will be something equally less fun.

What else will this year bring? I hesitate to even guess, but yet I always do. But, this year as every year, I guess I have no choice but to wait and be surprised.

May YOUR year be a wonderful one.

Tuesdays With Noirrie Eve

I'll Be Home For Christmas

Hum that in your mind's background while you read this ....

Ah, Christmas Eve. I sit here, coffee at hand, relishing the fact that my two family holiday gatherings are behind me. And guess what? I'm not going to spew about either one. Can you believe it? Actually, they both went quite well. Even the one that PSIL attended. Of course, that was, no doubt, owing greatly to the fact that we spent a sum total of 3.5 hours with her this year. Ah, well. Works for me. My family gathering was even well-behaved. I would say that it was because it was Christmas and everyone was on their best behavior. But you know my two families better than that. Must have been some cosmic behavior-modifying misalignment. Whatever it was, they were both nice. And they're both over.

And, for the first time in I cannot remember when, we get to stay home on Christmas day. All day. I relishing the very idea of it. We'll sleep in, open gifts, play with our toys and go see a movie together in the evening. Doesn't that just sound like a little slice of Heaven?

May you all have a wonderful Christmas and many blessings in the coming year.

Tuesdays With Noirrie

Time is money, Friend!

Yesterday, I spent a sum total of three hours sitting around doctor's offices. Of that, one hour and fifteen minutes was pure wait time. As in the wait to even see the docs. It was my doctor that was the worst offender. I waited a full hour before I even got to see him. To me, this indicates some serious scheduling screw ups. Oh, I realize things happen. Emergencies. Urgent phone calls. Donuts in the break room. But this kind of wait is not unusual with my doctor. And I find it flat ridiculous. Especially since this appointment was at 9:30 a.m. How can you already be running an hour behind schedule a mere one-and-a-half hours after you start?

So, I have a solution. I think anyone with which you have an appointment should have a fifteen-minute grace period to allow for calls, patients who won't leave and random pastry emergencies. After that, they should take $1 off their bill for every minute they keep you waiting. I wonder how quickly they would get in to see you if they did that? I wonder if this would help cure their obsessive over-scheduling? I wonder if I can get my doctor to do it?

Tuesdays With Noirrie

Snow Day

Day two of kids out of school due to icy conditions. *Heaves heavy sigh.* The roads were actually clear enough that they could have gone today. The ole school board jumped the gun a bit on canceling today, in my own humble opinion. Ah well. I suppose I really can't complain about a couple of extra days of sleeping late and not having a real schedule.

But I am sitting here hoping that all this rain coming down today will NOT freeze and that school WILL be in session tomorrow. Hey, Mommy needs her quiet time.

Tuesdays With Noirrie

No, no. Let US do it. Really.

Whew! My sister bought a new house. As is the tradition in our family, on moving day, we all show up with our varied and sundry vehicles, start grabbing crap left and right, shoving it in, and hauling it to the new place. We did this for Deb on Saturday. We had quite a crew and quite a fleet of vehicles. The view from above would have greatly resembled an ant hill when there's a nice pile of crumbs nearby with the industrious back-and-forth trekking. We were a well-oiled machine.

Well ... most of us.

Deb's husband is not a born worker-bee. In fact, work puts him into a seriously bad mood. Work sends him into a tail-spin. Work blows his circuits to the degree that, for the most part, he stood around and watched the rest of us do it. We all made a mighty effort to ignore this. But it was hard. Damned hard. Especially when:

a) He would bitch us out that we weren't doing it properly.

b) He loaded the washing machine onto the dolly then instructed my 110-lb. niece to wheel it outside. He did generously offer to hold the door for her, though.

c) He stood in the doorway of the new house watching all the rest of us tromp back and forth with our boxes.

d) Those various and sundry times he was spotted sitting in his recliner while the rest of us continued to work.

e) After watching Steve and Jacob unload a cabinet cursed them out for laying it on its side.

f) After being asked where he wanted the TV, he shouted, "Take it in the F**KING HOUSE!"

I could go on but I would run out of letters and you probably get the idea anyway. I'm glad Deb got this incredibly awesome new house. I'm glad we were able to help her. I'm glad it's done. And, God forbid she ever moves again, she'd better be prepared to send that SOB away, or she'll have a mutiny on her hands.