WTF Eddy Haskel

Well, Eddy did it again. He put something in his ear. Yeah he is nine years old and knows better, but he did it any way. He previously put a pearl button in his ear, when he was like 2 years old. Well, the bean in his ear must have been bothering him for a while, at first I thought it was a bug. I called my MIL who is a nurse, and asked her for the otoscope. She had let Aunt Ducky (they have a pet duck) borrow it, and she had not returned it. So I googled "things in ears" and I came up with some pretty disgusting pictures, try it sometime. None the less, the internet suggested that I use a bulb syringe and some warm water to flush it out, and I be damned if a bean/seed did not come out of his ear.
So the next time you see my boy and he has earmuffs on in the middle of the summer you'll know why.

Baby Sitter , copied from Earth Muffin

As posted over at The Land of Earth Muffin, here are some reasons why the babysitter rocked:

1. As a mother of a newborn baby, the babysitter did everything I asked. From holding her a certain way when she fed Baby Gnat her bottles of breast milk, to having her ready to go the minute I walked in the door. With our busy schedule, the babysitter knew that some days I was in a hurry.
2. As mentioned by Earth Muffin she was willing to use cloth diapers. This was a big selling point for me. She sacked the diapers up each night for me to take home and wash. This saved me loads of cash.
3. The babysitter was not that expensive considering all my requests. She was $25 a day, or $100 a week, so if the baby went the whole week I got Fridays for free. Looked into sending her to TTLC, which is a pre-school day care center just a few more blocks away, and they would not do cloth diapers, breast milk, and since she was not potty trained and was in diapers it was like $175 a week, with a three day minimum. Well Mr. Anti Hippie's work schedule is so crazy there would be some weeks where the baby would attend the whole week and some weeks where she would only need care one or two days.
4. My final reasons can be summed up into one last number. The babysitter knew what it was like to be a working mother. I also came at lunches to feed the baby. I too had a nice quite place to sit and nurse. Finally, the babysitter is just a genuinely nice person, one of the nicest that I know. I will miss her, as I am looking for a new sitter because of our recent move. I know that the new sitter probably will not let me use cloth diapers, and I know because of work obligations that I will not be coming on my lunch to nurse. Babysitter, thank you. Thank you for caring for Baby Gnat as if she were your own. I miss you and I recommend you to anyone who will listen.

I know

I know why I get so frustrated with my mother. It is because I always think of ways to tell her off way after she has left. I know why Mr. Anti Hippie seems so stand offish when she is around, it is because he has to pick up the pieces when she leaves, when she leaves me in a tizzy. I so wish I could just tell her that I am hostile because she is the main reason I left for Alaska 11 years ago, she is the main reason why Baby Gnat does not like her, she is the main reason why I started my period yesterday, after 19 months of not having one, Sunday morning I woke up feeling shitty. In fact, I still feel really crampy right now.

Dear Mother,

I am your daughter, you raised me to respect my elders which is why I cannot tell you to your face that you frustrate me so much, and that I moved up here because I wanted to. I love you, but I am not your BFF, I am your daughter. You should relish in the fact that I love my husband dearly, and we still sleep in the same bed, I love my Eddy Haskel not because he looks like Uncle Nascar, but because I worked my ass off to make a better life for he and I. I also love Baby Gnat, no matter how spoiled she is, I love her because Mr. Anti-Hippie and I created this beautiful life together. Oh yeah and one more thing, I want more babies. No, I do not want to be bare foot and pregnant, but I still feel like I want more children.
I really wonder what you when home and told dad the other night when you left my house, with the beer. You should be proud of me for going to school, being responsible, managing a house, and our money. Mr. Anti-Hippie and I really worked on our relationship last year when you were not talking to me, I found that if I went directly to him with the problems that we were having, the problems seemed to get fixed, we are grown, responsible adults. I still am a strong woman, and no I do not need a man to complete me, but he is my best friend and lover, he and the kids are what makes me strong, not to mention all the other hurdles that I have had to cross to get here, where I am.
I am comfortable with my life, I am not you, I will never be you. I do not ever want to be you, yes you did a great job, but cut the freaking apron strings. Have I not shown you that I can be an adult, have I not shown you that I am a fully capable person.

Love, Your Daughter Earthy Birthy Mama

P.S. thanks for not calling me today

My Yard Sale (Beer)

I have finally recovered from the yard sale, it was a lot of work, but we managed to get rid of a ton of stuff. It all began when we moved into this house. As I have spoken of before, it is really large but I do not feel that it needs to be filled with clutter and things. I have been gathering items to have in the yard sale since before we moved here, yes I know I actually moved those items, but I knew that I might be able to make some money from them. So last week Auntie Katie and I started pricing and arranging stuff in the garage, as we actually were not having the sale inside the garage, but in the big drive way just off of the garage. Well we moved some of the Anti-Hippie's stuff, and we never heard the end of it.
We got all of our items priced and were prepared for the sale which we were going to have for two days. Thursday my mother came up because she was selling some of her Longaberger Baskets at my sale. She came up a day early because she had sent out invitations inviting all of her friends to come up to my house to look at her baskets, she used to sell the damn things in the late eighties and nineties, then she quit because she did not like the direction the company was going, don't ask. She came up with beer and snacks, in hopes of selling some of her baskets. See she is now into making her own baskets and the profit from this sale was going to help her pay for the basket making work-shops. Needless to say I was having a yard sale and people were looking for bargains, not baskets that were actually priced at Bentley Book value. Anyway I digress.
Katie and I set up for the yard sale on Friday morning, and we were quite surprised with the amount of people that came considering that it was a week day. We had some really interesting items in the sale, 3 big wooden boxes that really looked like pirate's treasure chests, 3 reel to reel recorders from the United States Navy that belonged to my SIL's father, a head stone that I found in my landscaping, silk clip on ties from the seventies, the list goes on and on. Well Auntie Katie kept moving stuff up to this one spot and we kept on timing how long it would take to sell once an item was placed in this one spot. There was a carpet cleaner that sold within 15 minutes of being placed in this spot, the treasure chest sold with in a half and hour of being placed in this spot, and the head stone with Jesus and the lambs sold with in 5 minutes of placing it in that spot. I have no idea where the head stone came from nor the purpose of the head stone, I found it under some vines in the landscaping, it was granite and Jesus and some lambs were on it, there was no writing, and it was not marking a pet cemetery. Like I have posted on here before, the previous owner of this house had quite an extensive rock collection, I wonder if this "stone" was part of his collection. The people that bought the stone had just lost a horse that they had as a pet for the past 19 years, so they were going to use the stone for a marker for their beloved pet. I personally thought the stone was creepy and I am glad it sold in the sale.
One of the funniest items that sold was a mock, mock turtle neck. Auntie Katie and I were sorting clothes and she made a comment about the mock turtle neck inside of a mock turtle neck and I could not stop laughing. So Friday morning while some customers were shopping I was telling my mom about the mock turtle neck that was a double mock turtle neck, and I started to laugh again, then this lady picked it up and said "well I like this, I think I want it" that prompted me to say "well I guess I cannot make fun of it anymore.
So all in all it was a good sale I made some money, my mom made me crazy, and Auntie Katie kept me sane. My mom left yesterday after the sale and she actually sold some of her baskets, but she took her beer home with her. What kind of stingy person actually does that, if I put beer in someone's fridge and there is some left after we have partied, I usually leave it there, unless they do not drink my flavor of beer. I went in to cool off after cleaning up and the beer was gone out of my fridge, she used my house for her sale, she used my sale to sell her shit, but she took her beer. WTF???

Photo Shoot

Sometimes I feel like I am a really lucky person. We had been planning a 'photo shoot' for a long time, with my SIL Shelly Belly, she suggested that we do it on an overcast day as I wanted the pictures taken outside on my lawn. Friday the 13th, Shelly Belly came over to take said pictures. The kids cleaned up sort of well, and had on complimenting shirts from the Gap, BO(RED) and INSPI(RED). I was thinking this was going to be a big pain, but surprisingly it turned out great. Thanks Shelly Belly you really captured my kids, and now I have art for my wall.

Happy Father's Day

Dear Mr. Anti-Hippie,

Happy Father's Day. I am very happy that you adopted Eddy and that we had Baby Gnat together. You are the best dad that our two kids could have. You are patient, kind, caring, firm yet fun, not hot headed (like Earthy Birthy Mama), and most of all loving.

Thank you and I love you,

Earthy Birthy Mama

Uncle NASCAR, A Real Momma's Boy

My brother Uncle Nascar and I have this love hate relationship. I hate him because he always gets away with it, he loves me because I am an easy target and I always take his bait. My brother was in a serious car accident over 8 years ago. He was probably drunk, and he fell asleep at the wheel and rolled his mini-van, and suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). So the brother that I grew up with no longer exists.
Uncle Nascar believes he is the only one, the only one who has to work, who has to pay taxes, who has a mortgage, and who has to put up with the daily BS called life. He is the only one who works overtime, drives in traffic, shops at Wal-Mart, and listens to FOX News. He calls all the time to tell me how hard he is working, and how tough life is. But get this he is 28 years old, he lives in North Carolina and my Mother calls him every morning to wake him up. She gets up, even on the weekends and calls him and makes sure he is up so that he can go to work. I can't stand this, he is an adult, capable of purchasing alarm clocks, yet his mommy calls him every morning to wake him up.
Uncle Nascar moved to North Carolina because a friend of his lived down there, or so he says. I really cannot figure out why he moved down there, other than he likes NASCAR and he is far away from our parents. When I left home I moved to Alaska, 3000 miles away.
Uncle Nascar used to live in Illinois, and used to go to shows with me. I liked going and seeing some Hippy Bands every now and then and since I was single, I used to ask him to go with, just because I am nice. Well going to shows with me was an excuse to drink, because I would stay sober so that a.) we did not get mugged in down town St. Louis, b.) because I dance better sober, and c.) I would be the one to get him out of the truck when we got home.
This one time, Earth Muffin can vouch for me, we were at a Big Wu show and he went to the bathroom and was gone for a really long time, well Mr. Earth Muffin went in to check on him, and found him puking. Uncle Nascar gets my keys and goes out to my truck to sleep it off, when the show ends, it is starting to snow and I am banging on my own truck window for Uncle Nascar to wake up and let me in. When we finally got home, 3 hours later, I had to fire fighter carry Uncle Nascar to the porch.
Uncle Nascar, never remembers birthdays, adoption days, holidays, or anything. Every year Eddy Haskel painstakingly picks out gifts for Uncle Nascar, yet every year Uncle Nascar does not get the boy who totally idolizes him anything. Once when he came home from North Carolina, he was going to hang out at a friend's house and had brought gifts for their children, he felt guilty so he gave Eddy his pocket knife. It was the sharpest freaking knife I have ever seen, and yes I carry a knife in my pocket. But I could not let Eddy have the knife, even supervised he could do serious damage.

So upon closing this post, daily I mourn the brother that I lost that fateful night in June, 8 years ago. I am sorry that I will be the one taking care of my crazy parents, (see previous posts). And I am embarrassed for Uncle Nascar that he still needs his mommy, even though she weaned him from her breast 26 years ago.