I survived the weekend!!

Hubs comedy show went awesomely Friday night.  After last weeks show, I made it clear to him that he should NOT introduce me as his wife before his set because then everyone looks at me whenever he makes a wife joke, it's a bit awkward, to say the least.  So, he didn't on Friday night and it made for the funniest moment of the show, for me at least.  During one of his wife jokes, I heard the woman behind me say, very sarcastically, "wow, nice wife".  My friend Connie and I pretty much bust a gut laughing.  There were over 200 people at the show and he had tons come up to him and tell him how much they enjoyed his set.  He was pretty pumped up, he's had two great, successful shows in a row now.

Last night was the Snow Ball.  Here are my adorable children and their dates:

Angel #4's boyfriend not only got her a corsage, but he also gave her a bouquet of flowers for Valentine's day. WE & his girlfriend, being the frugal sort, both wore the same outfits they wore last year at the Snow Ball...unintentionally, of course.  WE wore black pants instead of tan this year and his girlfriend put her hair up and wore a necklace, otherwise,their picture looks the same as last years, it was even taken at the same friends house as last year.

There ended up being 6 girls sleeping in my living room last night after the dance.  Shortly before I took the kids to the school, it started snowing and by the time I had to go  pick them up, the roads were completely covered.  I just followed what were left of the tracks of cars that had gone ahead of me and hoped for the best.  I really didn't want to hit the ditch with a car full of under dressed teenagers.  Angel #4's boyfriend was going to stay at our place awhile after the dance, but once I saw the roads, I brought him home right away, there was no way I was going to wait around for things to get worse before going out there again and I didn't want to run the risk of having to have a boy spend the night with my houseful of girls.  WE spent the night at the house who was holding the Seniors party, so once he let me know he made it there safely, I didn't have to worry about him being out on the roads anymore that night.  Hubs was planning on leaving early this morning (around 4am) to drive to the airport, but once he saw the forecast for snow, he headed out about 6 last night and made it to Milwaukee just as the flakes started to fly.  I'm glad we all had a safe evening, I worry about stuff like that so much.

I've also got a picture of Angel #2 and her new hairdo.  I think it'll grow on me.

She said her plan for when the extensions fall out will be to dye it pink again.  It's a miracle her hair doesn't fall right out of her head, imo.  She also got a new dog and hubs sent me a  picture of the three of them when they got together in Houston this morning.

I'm sick of winter

It seems like the standard rule of thumb for this winter is if the temperatures get above zero, we get snow.  There seems to be no such thing as just a nice, relatively warm, sunny day this year.  It's getting pretty old, if  you want to know the truth.  Today, the thermometer on the van said it was 32 degrees outside, that's about the warmest I've seen it in well over a month.  Of course, it was snowing and the roads were a sloppy mess, so it was still a no-win situation.  I'm ready for spring.

Saturday night is the high school Snow Ball.  I found out Tuesday night that our house got volunteered by Angel #4 to be the after dance sleep-over house.  So it looks like I'm going to have a passel of teenagers sleeping in my living room Saturday night.  This will add an interesting twist to the evening since Hubs is flying to Texas for work at 7am Sunday morning; he's flying out of Milwaukee, so he'll have to leave the house at around 4am.  Hopefully he'll get some sleep with the giggle-fest going on downstairs.

Angel #2 has some interesting things going on this week.  Today she got a headful of dreadlock hair extensions.  They're blond with some turquoise highlights.  They're.....interesting looking.  Tomorrow she's driving up to Dallas to adopt a Pomeranian  dog, it's about 15 years old and she's determined to make it's final year or so on earth as enjoyable as possible.  She realizes it doesn't have long to live, but this will be a good trial run to see if she wants the added responsibility of a dog in her life without a long-term commitment.

Saturday should be our last day of watching wrestling.  It's the regional finals and I'm pretty confident that WE isn't going to be going on to sectionals, he's been enjoying wrestling, but his record isn't the greatest.  Though when you think about it, he did pretty awesome this year.  When he started wrestling this winter, he'd only seen maybe 1 or 2 meets in his life and had never been on a wrestling mat.  To go up against kids, some of whom have been wrestling for 10 years or more already, it was pretty incredible that he won the matches he did.  I think his record is something like 7-15, which isn't too bad.  He's definitely looking forward to track season though, there's a sport where he knows what he's doing and he does it well.  Personally, I'm looking forward to track season as well, but mainly because I really really want to start seeing green grass and sunshine again.

We got our pictures taken yesterday at work for the school yearbook.  I was a little disappointed that they didn't take my posing suggestions.  I thought either a sword fight using the big stirring paddles or a reenactment of American Gothic using the giant potato masher would be awesome, but we ended up going with the traditional lunch lady pose of standing in a row in front of the lunch line, though I did manage to pose myself so it looks like I'm going to squirt one of my co-workers with a bottle of ketchup.

This means war, cat

I like to do jigsaw puzzles in the winter time.  I have a table set up in the corner of our dining room so I can spread out and not be in anyone's way or have to move things mid-puzzling.   Yesterday morning, I noticed there were puzzle pieces on the floor and saw that the corner of my current puzzle was all pulled apart.  When I mentioned it to a house guest, she said she'd seen the cat sit on the chair by the table and bat the pieces off the edge one by one.  I picked them up, moved the puzzle further up the table and kind of forgot about it, until this morning.  The stupid cat had dismantled one entire side of the puzzle and it was all over the floor.  Today I finished the puzzle and will soon put it back into its box, and made a note to myself that the next puzzle I do will have to be covered at night for cat protection.

Last night we also played a rollicking game of Spoons with our house guests.  Things got a little wild and crazy and all I can say is that I'm pretty sure that Angel #4 has chunks of my skin embedded under her fingernails and there may possibly be blood on the living room rug.

But, just to prove that my life isn't all games and puzzles, I'd like to announce that I acquired a very important skill at work today.  After numerous tries, I can now catch french fries in my mouth as my co-worker, Kay, tosses them across the lunch line.  We discovered that the trick is to toss them underhand, as an overhand throw has too much momentum and tends to bounce off my face.  If you ever wondered what lunch ladies do while waiting for the kids to show up in the lunch line, now you know.

Does it never end?

We've hit another cold spell.  This is getting old real fast, people.  School was called off today, so at least I could sleep in, but I'm really looking forward to June.

The weather got cold on Sunday night/Monday morning.  Sunday night, at about 11pm, I was in bed and hubs was downstairs finishing a few things up before going to be himself.  I heard him talking to someone and I thought he hadn't realized I was already upstairs and was talking to me...I was wrong.  A few minutes later, he came into our room and said, you're never going to guess who's here.  Our random homeless guy from a few weeks ago showed up knocking on the door looking for a place to sleep.  Apparently he'd left a message on hubs cell voice mail saying he was on his way, but his messages are so long and rambling, that hubs just deletes them without listening.  The guy rode his bike, about 35 miles, through the snow and cold and dark to get here, so it wasn't like we could turn him away or anything,  not that we would.  It would be beyond wrong to send someone back out in that kind of cold.  Besides, once he thawed out, he spent 2 hours outside shoveling our driveway then went back out again yesterday afternoon and shoveled some more.

He does bring some rather interesting moments around here.  Apparently, the self-proclaimed smartest man in the world decided to cut his hair last night.  First off, when you're homeless, I would think you'd want as much insulation as possible, which would include hair on your head.  He didn't think this was an issue, so he asked to use our buzz cutter.  The smartest man in the world also didn't know how to use the buzzcutter and didn't think to ask us, so by the time he was done, it looked like he just finished a really wicked round of chemo.  He had long chunks of hair in the back of his head and some places he'd shaved right down to the scalp.  He was rather proud of the job he had done and claimed that it was just as good a haircut as some he'd paid for in the past.  If that's the case, I don't recommend his previous barbers.  WE came in after the haircut and was standing behind him looking at his head in disbelief.  He looked at me and mouthed the words "what happened?"  I just mouthed back, "he gave himself a haircut".  I though poor WE was going to keel over in silent laughter.  Eventually, I sat him down and shaved the rest of his head so at least it was mostly all the same length, though now that he's bald, I've got the feeling he's going to start suffering from the cold even  more.  Yet, he's still convinced he's the smartest man in the world.

Just because the technology is there doesn't mean you should use it

At 1:20 AM (that's in the morning, in case you get am & pm mixed up) the phone rings.  I stagger out of bed and answer it, hoping and praying it wasn't awful news.  It wasn't - it was a moron.
 The caller said, "hey, this is Andy, someone at your number called me a couple of hours ago."
 Me: Okay?????
 Andy: yeah, my number is ######
 Me: ???  I don't know have a clue.  Goodbye.  *click*
Me, once I was back in bed:  Andy, you're an asshole.
People, people, people, if someone called you and didn't leave a message, it doesn't mean you need to call them back.  You can probably assume that if they had someone important to say, they would have left a message.  You don't need to call them to see what they wanted, they obviously didn't want anything.  ESPECIALLY AT 1:20 IN THE FREAKING MORNING!!!!!  I was so ticked off it took me an hour to get back to sleep.  Turns out that last night, WE called his girlfriend and misdialed her number, getting moron Andy's phone instead.  Andy should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law of stupidity and inconsideration.

Friday night we had freezing rain.  Rain can turn to ice on the roads in a matter of minutes, which WE found out as he went sliding into the ditch.  Sadly, he was driving my van at the time, which means that my vehicle is now the one missing the front bumper and not his. Fortunately, WE wasn't hurt,but it sure knocked the cocky out of him.  Because of the amount of cars going in the ditch and the horrible driving conditions, there was a tow ban in effect, so we couldn't even get the stupid thing out until Saturday afternoon, once the roads were clear and a friend came over with her big pick-up we got it out and now it's sitting in the barn, front bumperless.  Hubs is out of town until a week from Thursday, so he won't be around to fix it until then.  It looks real classy.  We're planning on moving to a warmer climate (at least for the winter) once Angel #4 graduates from high school.  It's sounding like a better and better idea all the time.

It's kind of cold outside

18 Below zero, people.  Who thinks this is a good idea?  That is all on that subject.

As a change of topic, here's part of a conversation I had with hubs Saturday.
Hubs: Let's just quit talking about this.  It's a stupid argument and you're not going to win it.
Me: So, you just said that I can't beat you at being stupid.  Okay.
As you can see, the poor guy just doesn't stand a chance against me.

Also, because of the aforementioned weather that I don't want to talk  about, Thursday night hubs brought home a random homeless guy he met the night before.  The guy has been living in his car and there's no way he would survive there in this weather, so now he's staying in our unfinished attic room until probably Wednesday when the cold weather breaks.  Oh, and I should clarify, he's not just some average random homeless guy, he's also a crazy random homeless guy.  He's very intelligent, but, as he told me,  his intelligence is so superior that he's not sure if he's human.  I don't think he was kidding-this guy doesn't kid.  I told him that his methods might work fine on Mars, but while he's still stuck on Earth with us humans, he should probably try to conform just a little bit.  Needless to say, it was enlightening to meet him, but I'm ready for Wednesday so we can ship him back off to his car.  Nuttier than a Snickers bar, people.

Happy New Year!

Okay, it's a little late, but whatever. This year for the first time in I don't know how long, hubs and I not only stayed up to bring in the year, but we were actually out someplace bringing in the new year.  We were at a party at a friend's house and figured we'd do good to stay up until 11 or so before going home and putting our old bodies to bed.  Instead, we were having such a good time, we ended up creeping in at 2:30.  The only time I'm ever up that late usually is if I'm sick.  Needless to say, I spent the first day of the new year sleeping in, then taking a nap.

It was back to school/work again today.  As nice as a vacation is, it's equally nice getting back to a scheduled life again.  Too much free time and I end up spending my time either taking a nap or feeding my face.  Free time works in the summer because I've always got so much to do, but in winter, unless we've got dumped on by so much snow we need a family effort to clear out the driveway, there's not a whole lot to do besides the usual daily stuff.  I tend to get lazy(ier).

We were glad to hear from Angel #1 the other day.  We hadn't heard from him since his battallion left Kuwait about a month ago.  He's heading to some some country in Africa I've never heard of before and says it should be easier for him to call us once he's there.  He's also on a different ship than before, so who knows how long it'll be before the care package I sent him 3 weeks ago finally finds him.