I need a dream interpretor

You know when you're dreaming and everything, no matter how strange, seems perfectly normal? The other night, I had a dream, which, while it seemed normal at the time, I realized was odd enough to tell hubby about the next day. But, even during the telling of it, I didn't realize how strange it was until it was coming out of my mouth. In a nutshell, here's what happened while I was sleeping. My family (hubs and the kids) & I checked into a motel someplace, I'm guessing it was in Plainfield, WI, since after checking into the motel, we headed off to Ed Gein's farm. For those of you who may not know who Ed Gein is, here's a little Wiki info , if you don't want to bother with more info, let's just say he was Wisconsin's 1950's version of Jeffery Dahmer (yeah, ol' Jeff was from WI too, we're just bursting with looney-toons around here). So, anyway, there we are, me and my lovely family, hanging at Ed's farm. Ed was there, along with his mother, brother and sister (he didn't have a sister in real life, but I don't let things like facts mess up my dreams). Hubs and the kids are having a great time on the farm, but I realized that it probably wasn't a real good place to be and tried to convince them that we should be leaving, pronto. I'll spare you all the other dream details I gave to hubs, but in the dream, once I convinced everyone to leave, I was explaining the part in my dream where I had to go to the kitchen before we left the farm because I had to get my crockpot, because I'd left it in the kitchen after we had a potluck. At this point, hubs stopped my dream recital to say WAIT A MINUTE, WE HAD A POTLUCK AT ED GEINS HOUSE!?!?! Yeah, it wasn't until I was telling hubby about the dream that I realized that one of the very last places you'd want to go to a potluck was Ed Gein's house. Double ugh. But, I figure that will make a wonderful saying some day, such as: Yeah, that sounds about as attractive as going to a potluck at Ed Gein's. (feel free to use this in your own daily conversations)

In other, slightly more normal doings, we had overnight company this weekend. Three of the ministers from our church spent Saturday evening until this morning (Monday) with us. last night, the three of them, along with me and Angel #'s 2&4 had a Uno tournament. Hubs dug into my chocolate stash and offered it up for snacking. Well, when you throw a bunch of chocolate in front of 6 females, only the worst can happen. The six of us all went on an out of control sugar high and we were laughing and giggling our butts off. Hubs just sat in the other room, listening to us, I suspect he purposely gave us all that sugar, just so he could listen to us go bonkers and bounce off the walls. It got to be a pretty interesting Uno game. We even got to the point that when we ate all my chocolate stash, we opened up the glass jar that held some stale candy corn left over from the fall and ate all the white tips off the ends (because everyone knows that the white tips are the best part of the candy corn). Eventually, we all crashed from our highs and came back down to earth and could once again have a coherent conversation. After they left this morning, Angel #2 said they were so much fun she wished they all lived with us. But, I don't know if my nervous and digestive systems could handle nights like last night on a regular basis.

Oh, and last night I had another cool dream (okay, the Ed Gein dream wasn't cool, but it was interesting). I dreamed I was a super hero and my super hero power was that I could freeze someone by looking them in the eye. How cool would that be? Once I woke up, I sat and thought about how a bad guy could overcome a power like that and decided that about the only thing they could do would be to blindfold me so I couldn't look them in the eye. Anyway, I think being able to flash freeze someone would be a really handy skill to have.

I'm officially sick of Christmas

I want my radio stations back. I want my grocery store back. I want my sanity back. If I have to hear Madonna singing Santa Baby one more time, it's more than her stocking that's going to get stuffed. That's all I'm going to say on that.

On the positive side, however, I'm very happy I live in a community where store clerks, school secretaries, the high school choir, etc, aren't afraid to say Merry Christmas. Seriously, if you're going to celebrate Christmas, don't be afraid to say the freakin' word, and if you don't like the Christian aspect of the holiday, why are you celebrating it in the first place? It IS supposed to be a Christian holiday, after all. Since I don't celebrate the holiday, I guess I'm supposed to be one of those people who get offended if someone says the dreaded "C" word in my presence. I won't get offended, I promise. I was a little worried a few weeks ago when I saw them taking the down the sign that's on the highway as you come into our town. It said something to the effects that our town believes and lives by the 10 commandments and is 'signed' by the town council. I thought our town had gone PC and felt the religious aspect needed to be neutralized. I was rather thankful that this wasn't the case as the 10 commandments sign was replaced by one reminding people to keep the Christ in Christmas. Once again, I don't do Christmas, but am not offended by those who do, even though I'm SICK TO DEATH OF CHRISTMAS SONGS. *deep breath* Okay, I'm better now.

This weekend, we picked up an elliptical exercise machine. I'm happy to say that I've had two exercise sessions on it so far and have lived to tell about it. I'm not sure what music is best to ellipticize to, but right now it's a toss-up between Billy Idol and the Brian Setzer Orchestra - so far Brian Setzer's ahead by a pulled muscle, but I'm sure Billy will catch up eventually. Talk about Billy Idol, Angel #2 and I were listening to the radio and Billy's Mony, Mony came on (#2's an Idol fan, too). I was telling her that it was one of those songs we used to sing at the top of our lungs to when we were in high school, inserting a few swear words into the chorus that weren't there in the actual version. I told her there were a few songs we did that to (though I was a good mom and didn't actually tell her what we said, I don't need to reveal all my sins, you know). Don't teenagers do that now? I asked. She shrugged, laughed and said that now days, the songs come with the bad words already in them, so they don't have to be manually added. Sigh, another rebellious joy of teendom that kids today are denied.

#2 also did a hair upgrade a couple days ago. Along with her bright red hair, she dyed the bottom couple inches of her hair purple, so she's got this weird tie-dyed effect going on. So now she looks like a two-toned muppet-head.

Dressed for Success

I think I need to do a slight wardrobe upgrade. Clothes, shoes, hair-doos, etc, are real low on my priority list. If it fits me, keeps me warm, dry and comfortable, it works for me. But I had second thoughts about my dressing habits yesterday. Angel #2 asked my why I was all dressed up. I'm dressed up? I asked her. Well, you're wearing shoes. Apparently, all I have to do to look dressed-up is put some shoes on. Yep, definitely need some new clothes.

I ventured out beyond my little 5 mile sphere yesterday for the first time since last weekends blizzard. There were a lot of tree branches down and all the pine trees were absolutely drooping from the weight of all the snow and ice caked on their branches. The roads are finally looking pretty decent, so driving isn't quite as stressful. Also, I did something I don't think I've done since we last lived in Wisconsin. I had to stop for a train. Since there are no trains in Hawaii, it's been a looong while. Fortunately, it was just a little baby train, so it wasn't long enough to dim my excitement. I also saw a few snowmobilers out on the trail that runs along the highway. I had to pick up Angel #4's fruit order at the band room (is it a band teacher law that there MUST be a fruit sale every year?). As long as I was there, I offered to pick the kids up at school. It was kind of funny seeing a line of snowmobiles parked in the school parking lot. But, when you think about it, I'd much rather my kids take a snowmobile to school than a car. You don't have to worry about them going into the ditch or anything. The marked snowmobile trail comes right into town, so it would be perfect. I love living in a small town. In front of the store in town (it sells bird seed, fertilizer, garden tools and bulk Christmas candy...guess what I was after?) they've got a big barrel by the front door, you can stick your deer hides inside as a donation to the local Lions club. Now, you folks in New York, LA and Chicago claim you've got everything right there at your fingertips. I'm willing to bet you'd have to look long and hard for a deer hide barrel.

Gang Fail

The other day, Angel #2 said they were talking in one of her classes about gangs. Then she said that one of the girls in her class said that her mother told her that if they were still living in town, she'd probably belong to a gang by now. The town her mother was talking about, is our town, a town of about 1200 people, where the biggest business is the Co-op. The kids were all laughing, wondering how come none of them had seen the town gang yet. Then, yesterday, I was playing around on YouTube and did a search on our town. Besides the usual clips from high school football games and an advertisement for the feed mill, I saw a music video apparently made by some local teens. It was your typical rapper video, complete with guys slouching around in hoodies, wandering the dark streets. They were doing their own singing, which was atrocious, but I wasn't really listening to the words. I sent the link to the kids, jokingly telling them that I found evidence of the town gang. The kids watched it and were laughing their butts off. They knew all the boys in the video and it was for a class project. If I had listened closely to the words, I would have heard them rapping about a potato famine. The main singer and leader of the 'gang' won the good citizenship award last year. I guess that's the kind of gangs you find in a small farming community. Ironically, the same day I found the gang video, I was reading the local paper from where we lived in Hawaii. The high school campus our kids would have been on if we hadn't moved, went into emergency lock down twice on Tuesday, once when a man armed with a knife came onto the campus to sell drugs, had to be apprehended by the security guards and held until the cops came. The second time a few hours later when there was a fight on campus and a whole bunch of kids went off school grounds to get in on the action. I'll take our potato famine gang over that garbage any day. I think we made a good move.

Yep, there was snow

We had a bit of snow over the weekend, or, in Wisconsin, they just refer to it as 'weather'. This is the pile we had after hiring the guy to clear our driveway of knee high 'weather'. As you can see, weather also turns teenage girls hair weird colors...or maybe it was because when you're snowbound for a couple days you have nothing better to do than dye your hair bright red.

Last night, Angel #2 had her band concert. It was easy to identify her to people asking which child was mine. Rather than doing what those other poor people had to do and say my kid is the fourth one in the third row or something, I simply had to say the kid with the bright red hair. She definitely stood out in the crowd. It's a pretty conservative school here, next to my little Angel, the most radical looking kid was a boy with two diamond studs in his ears. There wasn't a goth or an emo in the entire group, a bit different than there school in Hawaii.

I also got to meet Morgan and her parents. They live near us and WE sits with Morgan on the bus. I've heard a lot about this girl, but never met her. Apparently, the same is true at Morgan's house, since her dad expressed disappointment that he didn't get to meet WE (while getting the evil eye and a few 'shut-up' looking nudges from his daughter the entire time he was talking).

A Revelation

I've got this friend, a very sweet woman and I love her to pieces. She's pretty much perfect. She never seems frazzled, always soft spoken, even with her kids (she has 4), I can't even imagine her yelling. Heck, I can't even imagine her doing something like stepping in dog poop. She's be annoying if she wasn't so darn nice. Her kids were all a bit older than mine and I admired her as a person and a parent. But, watching her with her kids, who were all well-behaved and have grown to be wonderful responsible adults, I always felt inadequate, lacking a bit in the mom department. I never felt I could measure up to a woman who actually dreaded the first day of school because she'd miss her kids during the day (is that even human?). Anyway, with her as my yardstick, I always came up short. But today a friend from high school (totally unrelated to my perfect friend) made a comment on her Facebook page about making cut out sugar cookies and how she hated doing it. Then her sister chimed in and said she sounded like their mother, who hated making them as well and was known to swear while making them. That brought back one of my favorite memories of my mother. My mom wasn't a baker, but every year, like my friends mom, she insisted on making cut out sugar cookies at Christmas time - and she HATED it. I commented that I also had warm fuzzy memories of my mom losing her temper making cookies as well. Then, my friend's mom chimed in jokingly saying how kids never seem to remember the happy times. I responded that though we remember the good times, it's much more fun to remember the times when our mothers cussed out cookie dough. Then, I realized that my greatest memories of my mom weren't when she was doing a June Cleaver imitation, it was those times when she was being goofy and irreverent, like the time we were messing around instead of setting the table and she tossed a whole stack of plates across the kitchen. Yeah, if you could ask my mom, I'm sure she'd say that wasn't an incident she'd want her kids to remember her by, but it was a time when she was a human, just doing what she could to keep her family going, keep her kids in line and create memories we can still chuckle over 26 years after her death. Even now, when I don't have some kitchen utensil or practical little gadget, I'll say: I don't have all those modern conveniences that are in other people's garages! (her response one time during a cut out cookie episode when my dad asked where her flour sifter was - we got her one for Christmas). Know what, I laugh every time I say it. I hope I can give my kids memories that they can take with them to adulthood as well. Being a mom is an important job, but I'm glad that I've finally realized that I haven't failed if I'm not perfect. My kids love me the way I am and I love them, too. Know what else I realized? My friend probably isn't perfect either.

the weather outside is frightful

Hubs picked a good time to hightail it to Hawaii. Late yesterday afternoon we were hit with a monster blizzard that just started settling down about an hour ago. We've got snow, we've got wind, we've got drifts across our driveway. What we don't have is Angel #4. She went home witha a friend yesterday after (winning) her basketball game and was supposed to be home late afternoon. Instead, she's been snowbound there and it looks like she'll be spending another night there as well since their road is still drifted shut. Ours probably is too, I'm just not willing to go outside to get a better look. Some days are best spent inside. The power went off about midnight last night, fortunately, it only was out for about 20 minutes. I was getting a little nervous. I can handle dark and eating cold food, I just didn't want the house freezing. We've got a gas fireplace, but I'm not sure if it ignites without having to use electricity. I started it this afternoon and am going to keep it lit until the danger of the power going out is past. I don't know how they are now, but when I talked to some friends about 20 miles from here at 9 this morning, they'd been out of power for over twelve hours already. It's kind of weird, you'd think we country folks would be the ones losing power, not the ones in town.

Poor Angel #2 got her first crash course in driving in snow last night. Fortunately, there were no other crashes involved. They closed her workplace down early, but it still took her over half an hour to drive the 5 miles home and she was shaking and in tears when she finally got into the garage. She had to dodge fallen trees and gun it over drifts. They closed work again today, which is good, because there was no way I was going to let her drive this afternoon anyway. As it is, I'm not sure when we're going to be able to get the car out of the driveway. We can't get the snow blower started, probably more because we don't have a clue how to start it than because it doesn't work. You'd think all those hours I spent working at a small engine repair shop I'd know how to start a small engine. My only excuse is that we didn't deal a whole lot with snowblowers in Hawaii.

In other exciting news, Angel #2 decided to change her look once again. This time, she's got bright red hair - think Elmo from Sesame Street. It's....odd looking. But she's happy with it, which I guess is all that matters. WE has also been busy playing some online role playing game. He's made a world that all kinds of people go to - I have no idea how it works. Last week, he made an online McDonalds, but so many RP people started suing them that he had to develop a courthouse, hire a judge and have court cases. Because of that, today he had to make an insane asylum, which he said is a lot of fun. But, since people taking their RPing seriously, running the asylum is a full time job. I guess he's going to have to make a security team and a police force now. I guess that's how these things end up happening in real life as well, it just happens faster on the computer. I was asking him how the whole RP world building thing works and I got a vague answer from him. When I asked him if he was doing something nefarious, he turned around and said: "Why do you ask? Did you Google something?" Now I'm REALLY wondering!

just itching for a good time

Yesterday afternoon, I noticed that my hands were itchy. It was driving me nuts. As the day went on, the palms got itchier and red. Everyone kept asking me what my problem was, but I couldn't help it. must. itch. palms. Later in the evening, I started itching my legs as well, and when I got ready for bed, I noticed my thighs were covered in hives. I was wracking my brain trying to figure out why I was getting hives. I hadn't eaten anything unusual, I used the same shampoo/soap/lotion as I always do. The only thing I had that was different was the new socks and gloves I bought at the haunted Walmart on Sunday, I wore them both for the first time yesterday. I supposed I'll let myself get all cleared up and try wearing the gloves again and see if they're the problem, otherwise, I'm stumped. Maybe I'm allergic to being married for 20 years.

I know what you mean about Sheboygan, Tanya, it seems like if something weird is going to happen, it's going to happen in Sheboygan. I heard on the radio the other day some guy shot his neighbor by accident when he was playing with his gun while sitting on the toilet. The gun went off, went through the bathroom floor into the apartment below. Happened in Sheboygan, of course.

Thanks for the anniversary wishes, Jeanie & Afton. Hope you have a great anniversary as well, Jeanie, and with any luck, you won't get hives.

Maywidge, Maywidge is what bwings us togedder today

Yes, it's time for my yearly reminder to Jeanie C that her anniversary is coming up soon. Hubs and I have been together for twenty wonderful years today. It's pretty unbelievable, actually, since twenty years of marriage is something that old people have under their belts and I don't feel like an old person at all. I think hubby keeps me young. It's been twenty years of ups and downs, but I wouldn't trade them, or my husband, for anything. I don't think a day has gone buy in those twenty years that he hasn't told me he loves me and I KNOW that a week hasn't gone by when he hasn't told me how beautiful/wonderful/sexy I am. I think I found me a winner. Not only did I get him, but I got four wonderful kids out of the deal as well (we won't talk about the stretch marks and grey hair I've also acquired).

Hubs and I went out for a celebration dinner last night since we won't have time to do it tonight, our schedule is booked. While I'm taking the younger kids to Bible study, hubs and Angel #2 are going to a meeting at the school for financial aid and graduation stuff. We're going to have to buy a black graduation gown for her, once she's done with it, we'll put it in the closet next to Angel #1's blue graduation gown. Hopefully we'll stick around in this school for the other two to graduate or by the time we're done, we're going to have a whole closet full of different colored graduation gowns.

things that go bump in the night

Last night, the kids and I were goofing around, playing a weird, homemade version of Jeopardy, where we came up with a topic and I made up random answers/questions for them. One of the topics picked was: houses we've lived in. Since we've lived in about 10 different places, there was a lot to choose from. One of my 'answers' was: It was haunted... meaning the last house we lived in in Hawaii, where WE saw a mysterious ghost girl in his bedroom one night. Turns out, that, according to my kids, we've lived in a couple of haunted houses, or they've seen weird things anyway. The one in Hawaii was the worst. Besides WE's girl in his room, Angel #2 saw a girl out in the yard one day, which she told me about, but the creepy thing was just last night she told me that twice she'd seen a figure in her locked bedroom in the middle of the night and creepiest of all, once it felt like the ceiling had collapsed on her and she was having trouble breathing. I guess I'm not very sensitive to things (or maybe because I don't actually believe in ghosts) I never noticed a thing. We call the house we're living in now haunted because things seem to mysteriously disappear, then reappear with annoying regularity. We once spent 15 minutes searching the house for the truck keys, only to find them sitting exactly where they belong, a place we'd all checked more than once. Another time, we were looking for part of a curtain rod in Angel #4's bedroom and couldn't find it, about a week later, she was laying in her bed and it just randomly fell on her. I suspect that instead of it being ghosts, we're probably just not very good at putting things back where they belong. I'm hoping though, that if our ghost wandered off with the 5 pool balls that have been missing for the last month, that they return them soon so we can play pool again.

All that talk about ghosts freaked WE out and he scattered cloves of garlic on his windowsills and doorway before going to be last night. He's also got his closet door barricaded after discovering that the access to the attic is in his closet. His bedroom smells like an Italian restaurant.

Oh, and talk about haunted. Sunday after church, I decided to pick up some hats and gloves for the kids since the weather here is getting downright nippy. The easiest place to shop was the haunted Walmart, we drive right past it on our way home. I guess the Walmart was built on an old cemetery and sometimes weird stuff happens there. The only weird thing that happened while we were there though was that I somehow managed to get out of the store spending less than $50.

Oh, and more Wisconsin weirdness for you. This article was in our local paper today. I'm still scratching my head over that one.

Shhh, don't tell anyone....

but I really hate basketball. I've never liked the sport and didn't even go to the games in high school when the Friday night basketball games were the place to be. I don't understand the rules, the point system or the fouls - it's only redeeming feature is that you can sit in a quasi-warm gym while your watching it as opposed to freezing metal benches you have to sit on during outside sporting events. I'd forgotten how much I disliked basketball until this weekend when I had basketball overload. Angel #4 had a scrimmage game Friday evening. It was her first ever game against an opposing team and she looked completely overwhelmed out on the court. After watching an hour of her scrimmaging as well as most of the 5th grade girls scrimmage game, we decided to head over to the other school and watch the varsity boys game. All I know about basketball is that you need to get the ball through the hoop more than the other team and that height is an advantage. Therefore, I thought our team was in deep doo-doo when I saw that our team of11 guys only had 3 six footers and no one taller while the other team of 14 boys had half their team 6 feet tall or taller, 3 of them were 6'4" and another was 6'5"! Our little team of shorties prevailed though. Then Saturday morning, Angel #4 had her first real basketball game - once again, they were up against a team of really tall girls. I don't know what other towns are putting in their water to get such tall kids, but they sure aren't using it in our town. Height didn't do the trick again though, and the Angel's team had an awesome 22-6 victory. She looked much more confident out on the court than she did the night before. I'm sure that as the season progresses, she'll get even better, it'll just take a little while to catch up with the other girls who've been playing for a year already.

Hubs headed off to West Virginia yesterday for work. He's pretty happy the trip happened along as those miles will allow him to hit the 100,000 mile mark on his frequent flier card for the year. I'm not sure what happens now besides lots of free upgrades to first class, but he's pretty happy about it. All I know is that I think he's spent more time in the air than he has on the ground this year.

shopping

Hubs and I had a nice day together yesterday. I was supposed to go grocery shopping on Wednesday, but just couldn't seem to build up enough enthusiasm to go, so I didn't. Instead, since hubs didn't have to work yesterday, I enticed him to come along with me. Things are more fun if we do them together. Problem is, we don't have the same shopping style. He likes to rush down the aisles throwing things willy-nilly into the cart. He stopped at Costco by himself Wednesday and came home with a case of mangoes, a tub of black berries, a whole smoked fish (including head) and random other odd things. I like to be a little more practical with my shopping, and this takes a little time. He thought I was going too slow and pointed out that the old lady pushing the other old lady in the wheelchair passed me up by the second aisle. Yeah, but I bet neither one of them had a house full of kids to feed. Three hundred dollars later, my cupboards are full and all is right with my world.