Spice's Disorder

Everyone knows the old joke that “It couldn’t have been a person with OCD who termed the disorder because the letters would have been in alphabetical order.” Had a person with OCD been in charge, those with the disorder would be labeled as those that require a world where “Everything Is Properly Sorted.” Alphabetical order, see how easy that was?

I think we all have a touch of OCD, some things are important to some that aren’t to others. Some require an immaculate house with vacuum lines on all the carpeting, all the time. Some require tool boxes with little cut outs so each tool can be put back where it belongs. I’m a freak about some things: all the glasses and cup handles face the same direction and are in straight rows, food labels face front, my faucets are shiny, but there are piles of papers everywhere. That’s the way in my world. I’m sure every one of us could find something within themselves that would be classified as teetering on the edge of OCD.

No one in our house is quite as bad as Spice. I’ve never been around anyone like her. From the time she was an infant and able to point, she would sit in her crib and point at open dresser drawers and closet doors and not go to sleep until they were closed. I don’t mean that the drawers were hanging all the way open even, they just weren’t firmly shut. Apparently that was not right in Spice’s world.

From the time she could crawl, she’d spend oodles of time sorting shoes, she’s pair them up and somehow knew that the left shoe would go on the left, the right on the right. She would spend hours organizing and reorganizing the hall closet where we kept the shoes. I could visit with friends, chat on the phone and never worried about what mischief she might be getting into. Now that I’m thinking of it, I wonder if that says she has a shoe fetish, or an organizational one? Hm.

She always kept her old bedroom fairly neat, everything was in little bins, books went on the bookshelf, frogs went on the frog shelf. The doll stuff would go in the doll corner and the stuffed animals went into the big bucket. She had her own sense of order and enjoyed putting things back together. Granted, she was little and it wasn’t always perfect, but she gave it a hell of a shot. It seemed to almost give her physical pain if someone came in and messed her stuff up. 

Now that we are in the new house and the girls have their own playroom, she delights in cleaning. She’ll spend hours sorting and organizing, ending with sweeping with a little dust broom to ensure she got every bit of dirt off the floor.  Don’t get me wrong, a mama can go into the playroom and have heart failure, wondering when the tornado came through exactly, but once she starts a clean-up project, she doesn’t stop until it’s done.

I was recently upset when I tried to put clean clothes in her dresser and opened the drawers to find them jammed with piles of unfolded clothes. I yelled and she said, “Leave the clean stuff on the top, I’ll fix it tomorrow.” Sure, I thought, but I did what she wanted. The next day, I took a peek and wanted to know who let the Gap Store clerk come in and fix her dresser. It was immaculate. Everything was sorted and folded like it was displayed in a store: long-sleeved shirts in one pile, short sleeves in another. Pants drawer had a pile of jeans, another of plain leggings, another of patterned leggings, one of skirts and shorts.

Remember, this is the same girl who asked Santa for a nightstand and her grandmother for a floral arrangement to display on it… What six-year-old wants stuff like that?

I find her behavior endearing and very cute right now, but I can imagine as she gets older, that shit’s going to suck. OCD teenager having a bad hair day? God help me.

On Sunday the girls came with me to pick up my prescriptions at the local grocery store. As we were leaving, Spice noticed that some aisles have letters and asked why. I told her that's how people find things. They could say to the person working in the store, "Where would I find deodorant?" and the person would tell them, "Aisle A." Spice thought about it and said, "Shouldn't deodorant be in Aisle D?"

Enough said. 

xoxo

Ice Princess

Ice Princess Down!

I have been sick since the beginning of January. It started off as your everyday cold that was borderline on the ass-kicking scale. The cough and cold symptoms lingered forever, but seemed to get slightly better, so I stopped downing bottles of Nyquil and Sudafed. One bottle and one box should be enough to cure a cold anyway, right? And, I did get the flu shot this year, nothing big was supposed to bite me.

Perhaps it was the upheaval of the layoff two weeks ago, or maybe I just didn’t medicate sufficiently, but by last Thursday, I began to feel like I might have gotten hit by a truck. I emailed my boss before leaving, asking if I could work at home on Friday. He never responded.

When I woke up Friday morning, I found that I had definitely been hit by a bus and maybe a MACK truck too. I emailed that I would be out sick, got Sugar ready for school and went back to bed. I could barely get up to help EN get Spice out the door. I was crowned Mother of the Year for bringing the girls to McDonalds for dinner, where it took me 20 minutes to choke back a teensy hamburger. We stopped at Rite Aid and I loaded up on more medicine.

We came home and watched some Cupcake Wars and Hoarders and the girls were off to bed. I took way too much medicine, thinking everything would be good in the morning and I could head off for my hair appointment. Despite falling asleep around 9:30, I slept until 9:30 the next morning. I got up, called the hair girl to cancel and was back to bed. 

Thankfully the weather was nice and the girls spent the day outside with their friends. EN worked on removing the tile from the kitchen floor with his air compressor. I never heard a thing… EXCEPT, around 2 in the afternoon, I awoke to a weird noise, like a licking sound… I was in bed alone-what the hell is that? I pried my eyes open to find myself face-to-crotch with the cat. She decided to snuggle up good and close and show me how nicely she could reach her nether regions. I may have attempted to scream and threaten her to go away. I disagree with all the jokes about dogs and cats just doing that to make humans jealous they can’t do that themselves. Bleck, no way, I don’t care WHAT it feels like. I pushed her off the bed and told her that maybe that’s why she throws up so damn much.

From Friday night until Sunday morning, I was up for probably a whopping four hours. In my life, I have never done that. I was alert enough on Sunday to realize that I stank. I smelled sick, my hair even felt sick. It took everything I had to shower and brush my hair and drive myself to Urgent Care. EN never heard me get up and jumped out of bed to insist on driving me himself. I thought better of having him and the girls in some waiting room for what could be forever on a sunny Sunday. I drove myself. And dry heaved all the way.

I was seen almost immediately AFTER being told that I had to wear a mask. As I was led to the treatment area, I found myself face to ass end of a hoochie mama blonde bitch RN. She was bent over, cleaning a bed, wearing white pants with a thong underneath. Lovely. Call me old fashioned, but I’d rather see a panty line than an ass crack through the sheer white pants.

As luck would have it, she was the one that got to come ask me the intake questions. She was borderline surly and also wore a face mask, mine obviously wasn’t good enough. Because of those barriers and the disease that had overtaken the Ice Princess, I could barely hear her. She asked me all sorts of questions including, “Do you wear hearing aids?” When I answered, “Yes, I have two that I don’t wear,” she seemed to have an issue hearing me back. She didn’t speak up then added insult to injury by asking me my weight. Any chance we had for a long-lasting friendship was lost.

Dr. Handsome came in and was very nice. He diagnosed me with an upper respiratory infection, sinus infection and belly virus. I hit the fucking trifecta. I left with two prescriptions and an inhaler with a spacer. They could have saved themselves time with the inhaler lesson if they just said, “It’s like smoking from a bong.” Then again, I wouldn’t even know what that means. Scratch that.

And so, I gave myself another sick day today and used up all my energy cooking dinner, showering and posting a funny picture on Facebook. Oh, and another episode of Cupcake Wars with the chicks. The girls refrained from fighting. We worked diligently on Sugar’s homework, and Spice drew picture after picture of “Mama in bed sik.” I would scan and add her delightful artwork to this blog, but she's writing a book. Copyright laws, you know. 

A good friend of mine indulges in “No Shower Tuesdays.” If I plan on going to work tomorrow, I may just have to do that, I only have energy to do one thing.

The bong inhaler comes with me to work tomorrow. 

xoxo

Ice Princess

The Nags in My World

The wife almost always gets the reputation for being a nag. I will tell you that in the early days of my marriage my nagging was met with, “You need to lower your expectations.” In essence, EN was saying he would do my bidding when he got around to it. I was expected to put up and shut up. Every once in a while something would piss me off and I’d end up taking care of it myself. Best example: me pregnant with Sugar, pulling the air conditioners out of the windows in January. I had mentioned wanting this done, REPEATEDLY, EN just hadn’t gotten to it yet. It’s amazing how fast that man will move when I start doing something myself. In fact, that’s how everything most things in our house get done.

I find it interesting that Sugar reacts the same way when anyone asks her to do something. I am used to the “In a minute” reaction, but I am her mother and can usually scare (read: threaten) her into toeing the line, because that’s what mamas do. EN is frustrated by her laissez-faire approach to tasks. He’s doesn’t just get frustrated, he ends up infuriated. He’ll scream and yell and tell her to do what he has asked of her. I giggle at the show, because I am married to that same monster. I’m sure there’s a rule somewhere that it’s ok for husbands to take their sweet-ass time, but not ok for kids. In the end though, I am frustrated because Sugar may move fast for her father or me, but there’s still no budging EN until he’s good and fucking ready.

You will be enlightened by this next sentence. I am not the biggest nag in the house. Isn’t that crazy? No, instead, the people that live with me are all nags, and they nag constantly… until I’m ready to rip my ears off and just give them what they want so they will shut the fuck up and leave me alone.

EN has been the King of Nags since we met. He learned quickly that if there was something he really wanted, he would get it if he bugged me long enough. He perfected his act and will talk incessantly about his latest and greatest want/desire/NEED and he will not stop until I’ve caved. This is why he has a truck and a car… he refused to trade in his truck to purchase a new vehicle when we had Spice because, “We’ll always need a truck, babe.” This is why he has two motorcycles. This is why he has piles and piles of tools. This is why he has a camper that he swore he would rebuild two years ago. We just moved said “camper” to the new house. In actuality, the “camper” is nothing more than a metal frame with piles of rotting wood stacked beside it. Yes, we moved the wood too… so he could use the pieces as templates to rebuild the camper.

The problem was alleviated slightly when we set up a spending account for EN that part of his paycheck is funneled into. I do not look at or access his account. He has his own money and can make his own decisions without consulting the wife. That’s really how we ended up with a camper. He had enough money in his account to buy it and it just showed up at the house one day. I should have been clearer about his things taking up my side of the garage.

And there’s Sugar. I don’t know if she’s learned that same behavior from watching EN in action, or if those traits were something she was born with. Girl is a Class A Nag. If she wants something, she will not stop until she wears me down. She does this when she wants stuff: electronic devices, toys, clothes, shoes. She does this when she wants me to do things: plan elaborate play dates and sleepovers. She does this when she wants to go places. No dream is too big for Miss Sugar and she will stop at nothing to get it.

She has no shame in begging for things in front of her friends, either. She’ll beg and cry and tantrum for the world to see. Her friends usually have the good grace and common sense to look embarrassed for her. Sometimes she’ll even do this in front of her friends AND their mothers. It’s almost impossible to handle these situations without looking like a total shrew.

What does this say about me? I’ll tell you what it says. It says that I am obviously a marshmallow and a pushover. This is surprising given my reputation as a bitch with superpowers. Honest to God, friends have even told me that they didn’t approach me for years because they heard what a bitch I am. Seriously? How can anyone even think I’m that mean when the people that know me best poke at me and torment me until I give in?

The wrong people think I’m mean. Then again, do I really want to be the mother whose kids beg her not to attend events because she’s mean to their friends? No, instead, I’m invited everywhere and stalked by crazy little people who think Sugar and Spice’s mom is hilarious.   They even think I’m funny when I tell them “NO.”

Wrong on so many levels.People know what buttons to push and I don't like it.

xoxo

Ice Princess 

Just Get Out

The rumors were true. Yesterday, there was a layoff at my company. Rumors were floating that there would be a 10-20% reduction in force, but it was only 5%. It’s easy to think, “Only 5%, that’s really not a big deal.” Try telling that to the 5% that no longer have jobs.

There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to who got let go. Every department and every location were impacted. My office lost two engineers and some in our sales organization were impacted too.

What bothered me was watching it come about. We’ve been hearing rumors for weeks, and it makes me question the level of confidentiality kept by those making the decisions. Given that our office is thousands of miles from the corporate headquarters, I think it’s interesting that even we heard rumblings for quite some time.

We knew it was coming but that didn’t make it easier to take. One of my coworkers heard about it on Tuesday and came to me to see if I had heard the same rumors. I told him that I did and we discussed it at length. We agreed that no one is really safe when stuff like this happens. I thought that he was safer than me, because he had been laid off before… what company would hit the same person twice? I started to think he might be in danger when he emailed to say that his boss just sent an invitation for a meeting at 11 am on The Big Day. 11 am is usually what time things happen in this office.

The atmosphere was tough on Wednesday morning. It was apparent that everyone knew. I really didn’t know what to think when the work day had really started and still there was no one sitting with me on the Sales side of the office. What the fuck? Where are you people? At 10:45 I wished my buddy luck. At 11:20 he came to my office to let me know that he had been let go.

From my office I could see that a manager was stationed outside his office. He was closely monitored while he packed up his office. He was not allowed to touch his computer or telephone… no further access to company assets. He and his belongings were marched to the door. And that was that.

The Business Section of my little brain understands the concept of doing things that way. I understand that people get pissed off and could start sending rants via email. They could download the super-secret code they were working on and send it off to competitors. They could make quick changes to whatever they were working on and ruin thousands of lines of code. I get it. I really do.

The human side of me doesn’t understand why terminated employees need to be treated that way. They weren’t let go because they did a bad job, they weren’t “fired.” The officers of the company wanted to “eliminate positions to optimize our company for growth.”

My friend called me when he got home. He told me it went down like this: just before he dialed in to the call with his boss, the only manager on site in our office yesterday came to get him. They went into another office and the phone was already conferenced in to his boss in France. He was released from duty and basically told to put his shit in a box and get out. No time to say goodbye to anyone, no time to go through anything personal that might have been on his computer, no time for a breather.

I should mention that this (former) coworker and I have a funny relationship. We’ve essentially worked together for nine years, minus the few years the last time he got laid off. He’s nosey and OCD to the point that he drove me batshit crazy. However, he’s a funny guy and every morning when he hears me arrive, he comes over to say good morning. Today I missed that. Software engineers aren’t typically a social bunch, so it was fun to have someone to dish with before anyone else came in. He and I were mirrors politically and we had the same views on personal finance as well. I will miss his stories and the way he’d get all embarrassed if he said something slightly risqué. He’d then go to his office and send me a written apology.

Today we were treated to an all-employee call led by our CEO. It lasted ten minutes and he either seemed to be reading from a script or the call was pre-recorded. In any case, he restated the business purpose of the reduction in force… to make us stronger in the end. And oh yeah, GREAT NEWS, they have funded 100% of our bonuses and they’ll be paid in the next month.

You know what? I would have happily given up my bonus to save a job… And I believe every one of the 5% that were let go would have foregone them too. Even though they’ve been let go, part of their severance package included their annual bonus.

I do not agree with one iota of the “Occupy” scene that’s been so played out in the media. Anyone that is unhappy with their paycheck can work a little harder or enter another field. We are our choices. I also think that we all have a right to do with our earnings what we please. As a human being who is compassionate towards others, it would have been my choice to do without the bonus and even take a pay cut if it meant that jobs would be saved. Perhaps the CEOs and other decision makers should poll their workforce before eliminating positions.

xoxo

Ice Princess 

Driving 'Round Town

This is going to be one of those times that I use my blog for selfish purposes. This is a memory that in the grand scheme of life, is nothing. But in a few years (or months?), Sugar will be in the throes of hating her mother and I want to be able to look back and remember that once, there was a time when I could make her laugh her ass off every time we did something as simple as driving together. 

Our old house was right off a main road that was pretty busy. There weren’t a lot of houses in the section nearest our turn off. Now we drive down a residential street and pass loads of houses before we get to our turn, and we’re at the end of our street.

This gives us much to look at and talk about. We look at landscaping, paint colors, house styles, etc. Our favorite houses are the ones that look like they have hoarders living inside. It’s easy to recognize these people. They have yards filled with junk and you can usually see stuff piled inside through the windows. Sugar and I have a favorite house that we drive by and look through the window at the stuff piled on top of an avocado green refrigerator. We always yell in unison, “Clean the top of your fridge.” Totally dumb, but it amuses us endlessly.

One of our new neighbors has piles of stuff in their yard with signs up to sell everything. We’ve seen signs for bunnies, guinea pigs, eggs, moss covered stone (swear!). They even had an upside-down shed in their yard. They left it that way for weeks.

Since Sugar is still young enough to share every blessed thing with her mother, she pointed out the houses that Curtis and Cameron live in. This was a prime example of arming an idiot (me) with information she doesn’t need. Of course I’m using that knowledge for purposes of evil. Insert evil laugh here.

Teasing Sugar started off as a joke. She pointed out Curtis’s house one day, so I started saying, “Hi Curtis” every time I drove by. It’s winter and my windows are rolled up, so he doesn’t hear me anyway. Then Sugar says, “You may as well say hi to Cameron too. He lives over there.” Oh you silly naïve little girl! Now I say hi to Cameron too.

Sadly, saying hi just wasn’t enough for very long. I soon started blowing kisses at their houses on the drive by. Sugar rolled her eyes and told me I was crazy. Then that got old, so I said that I couldn’t wait for summer so the boys could actually hear me when I said hello to them. Again the eye roll from Sugar and mumbling under her breath. Finally, I pull a last trick out of my hat: now I honk when we drive by. She reacts to this by screaming, “OH MY GOD YOU ARE SO WEIRD.” And I laugh. And she laughs.

I guess that’s my relationship with my tweenie right now. She thinks I’m hilarious and weird and she still finds it amusing. I know the day is coming when she won’t want to be caught dead with me and my behavior will make her want to die a thousand deaths. When that happens, I will change my behavior and start acting like a proper mother. I will not be funny. I will not tease. I will speak only when spoken too. God knows, anything I say will be wrong anyway.  For now though, I’m cool for being a goofball. We laugh and sing and “WOO HOO” past the houses of the boys on her bus.  

And that’s what I do when I’m driving around town with the girl I love… 

xoxo

Ice Princess

Still Absent

And still, I remain absent...

I'm really not sure what's wrong with me right now. Maybe I don't feel much like writing. Maybe I'm too busy being forced to make decisions regarding counters and tile and cabinets. Maybe I'm too worried about the rumored layoff that is supposed to occur this Wednesday. Maybe it's just that there have been bits of things going on, nothing major. No, that can't be... I'm the queen of making a mountain out of a molehill.

We've been living in an altered world for the last six weeks because EN has been home with us. It's called "vacation policy" where he works, and it sucks. Who wants to live in this region and have the entire month of December and half of January off? In any case, it's mostly with great relief that we send EN back to work. Even after six weeks of him being home, he really hasn't gotten the hang of our routine and is in our way. Kind of.

So we'll blame him. I have not blogged because he is home sucking the life out of all of us. HA!

While you wait for me to come up with something interesting and enlightening (because I am so fucking smart!) tune into some trash TV, which I have just really discovered and become very fond of. Mob Wives, love those bitches. Cupcake Wars, a show that Sugar and Spice will be silent for. Hoarders and Toddlers and Tiaras, oh yeah... thrills me to see bitches crazier than me.

Except Spice now wants to enter the pageant world. I think not.

xoxo
Ice Princess

Tales from the School Bus

Since EN has been on his extended vacation (which makes my sabbatical time look like nothing!) the girls have had the opportunity to spend more time together since they come home on the bus rather than going to after school care. Both buses they have ridden have assigned seating, so they are unable to sit together. The little kids (Spice) sit in the front, and the big kids (Sugar) sit towards the back. I think they do this because there is such an age range, they don’t want to mix the innocent kindergarteners with the mean middle schoolers.

As they sit so far apart, I was pretty sure there wasn’t a whole lot of interaction between the two of them. I know Spice and her friends all bow to the Sugar Goddess when she gets on. They scream her name and make a big deal over her. They grab her and hug her and won’t let her past them to sit down. These shenanigans take so much time that the bus driver actually has to tell them to leave Sugar alone. OF COURSE Sugar claims to HATE this, “They are all so loud and embarrassing! No one can even get on the bus because they crowd around me.” We all know she secretly loves the attention.

I have this vision in my head of how the bus rides go: Spice sits with her little friends in the front and is well behaved. Sugar is closer to the back with her slightly bigger friends. Buses are big and I felt certain there wasn’t much interaction. In fact, I’ve even asked Spice for the scoop on Curtis and she seems to have no idea who he is or what goes on in the back of the bus.

I thought that Spice spoke only to her friends and no one else. She’s mouthy at home but seems to be quiet elsewhere. While we were eating dinner yesterday, Sugar told us that Spice had told everyone on the bus how Sugar pronounced her name as a baby, so they all started calling her that. I don’t know why, but I found this to be fucking hilarious. Every time I picture Spice announcing that to the world, I just crack up. I also wonder what ever possessed her to divulge that bit of information. It’s not particularly embarrassing, or something we even talk about a lot. Are younger siblings born with the innate knowledge of how to annoy their older siblings as easily as one flicks a switch? I’m secretly impressed by how well she can do this. Fret not, I’m not playing favorites, Sugar is quite adept at annoying her sister, she just never seems to think of embarrassing her sister around others.

Yesterday Sugar had school, but Spice did not. Sugar’s school lost power during the Halloween snow storm, so they have extra days to make up. This means that Sugar was the only one that got off the bus at her stop yesterday. I thought EN would have gone to pick her up, but he did not. Instead he watched for her out the window. It’s probably a good thing that he didn’t go get her because someone else was waiting for her when the bus arrived…

Picture this: the school bus pulls up to the corner, and Sugar exits. There stands Griffin, the fourth grader, with his scooter. Not only was he waiting for her, but he walked her home. EN says he watched them come down the road, Sugar walking, Griffin scootering slowly alongside her. When they arrived at our house, Sugar came in to see if she could play outside but EN made her do her homework. She went outside to let Griffin know and he went back to the bus stop and waited for her to meet him when she was done.

I asked EN if he had gotten a load of this Griffin kid and what he thought. Apparently, Griffin does not even come to our door. He waits for Sugar at the mailbox. Sugar didn’t seem to know why he was waiting for her. She says he has lots of brothers and a sister, so it seems he should have plenty of company. No matter how hard I try, I can’t get the image of the little kid waiting for the bus out of my head. Stinkin’ cute.

In other news, Sugar asked me for a bra last night. I told her that she absolutely doesn’t need one yet. She said that Madison wears a puffy one that makes her boobs look big. She wants one too. I told her there’s no need for fake big boobs in 5^th grade. That’s what college is for.

xoxo

Ice Princess 

The Fairy Lives On

Immediately after a gushy, happy post, I rant like a banshee. Prepare yourselves to hear about the day from hell yesterday. The Fuck Up Fairy had her head firmly planted in my ass and she refused to leave all day.

The day began with the alarm going off followed by a discussion between EN and myself. I had decided the night before that I would work from home because I was feeling so sick. EN was going to meet Little Joe to pick up the new bathtub and surround, so we decided that I’d go back to sleep for a bit and he’d get up, get ready and drive Sugar to school. Shortly thereafter she comes screeching into our bedroom and insists on taking the bus to school. Instead of telling her we are the parents and we’ll decide what the plan is, I gave in and got up. Some things are just not worth fighting over.

EN takes off to get the bathtub and I’m working from home with Spice as my sidekick. I email a few from the office to let them know I’m logged in from home and my nemesis responds with, “You didn’t seem to be sick yesterday, what happened?” I guess he missed me not being able to hold my head up. I guess he didn’t hear me coughing up a lung. I guess he missed out on the fact that I left the office at 11:30 on Wednesday. Quite possibly, I shouldn’t take offense at everything he says to me, but knowing that he’s dying for me to quit, I’m annoyed by his commentary.

I take Spice to school and start to get concerned that EN and Joe aren’t back with the tub and surround yet. There must be drama. Of course there’s drama, because nothing ever goes smoothly in my world. When the boys went to pick up the tub and surround, the pieces were not in boxes but already assembled. As they were driving a pick up truck, they asked the guys working there if it was really safe to take a tub like that. They were assured that everything would be fine. Of course it wasn’t fine. It took them hours to drive home, which included stopping to disassemble the two pieces and a stop at Home Depot. The drive home caused a piece of surround to crack and also blew the layer of warehouse dust off the tub, which made the stress cracks in the tub shine through. Fabulous! I immediately talk to Tiny Mike and he tells me there’s nothing he can do. We are stuck with the piece of shit tub and surround because we drove it off the lot. Really? There are no words to adequately express my anger. The workers shouldn’t have let them leave with the tub like that. The boys should have refused to drive it home and asked for delivery. There are lots of should haves and would haves, but in the end, we are stuck with broken merchandise and nothing can be done about it. I told EN to take the fucking thing to the dump. I want no part of this. I will NEVER use that tub. Ever.

Now the girls are back home from school and there’s broken tub on my front lawn. Suddenly there’s a commotion at the door. As I’m congested, my bad hearing is even worse and I can’t hear a word EN is saying to me. I look more closely and see that he’s got a woman and two kids with him. I am sick, who the fuck are these people in my house?? It appears as though Sugar has invited a friend over for a play date. Not only did she not ask permission, but she gave no warning that this little girl would be coming over.

I am sick and look like ass, the house is trashed and there is a fucking bathtub on my front lawn… REALLY?! I played nice with the mother and she beat feet out of there, leaving her daughter behind. So there I sit, sick at my kitchen table, trying get some work things accomplished with the stupidest woman who has ever walked the planet. There are kids running everywhere, dogs barking, tools grinding and banging and dust flying. Ice Princess lives in style.

EN, at this point, is scared shitless of the Ice Princess, so he takes off for parts unknown. I drive the little friend home and feed the girls dinner. They argue and fight throughout, then go their separate ways. Around 6:30 Sugar finds some homework that she “forgot” about. At 7:00, here comes even more homework that we didn’t know we had at 3:30. I gather up my little cherubs and using extreme nice voice (ok my head was spinning and I was screaming) and tell them to get into the shower. They need to shower again because the broken bathtub is not yet installed, so I have another fun filled night of brushing through Spice’s hair. Stop the insanity.

I put the girls in bed early and tune in for my shows and peruse Facebook. What’s this I see?

Why yes, that is a tattoo. That tattoo is on the ring finger of my niece who is not in school and is unemployed. We can’t even sing “Beauty School Dropout” to her because she didn’t drop out of beauty school. No, she was asked to leave and get her life in order, then come back. I’m not exactly sure what it is that she needs to get in order. It’s not like she has a job, kids, husband, house… ANY responsibility whatsoever. I guess the stress of figuring out where one is going to get their next piercing or tattoo is simply too much to handle on top of learning how to put add highlights to someone’s hair. I hope that the idiot that gave her money for Christmas will be pleased to see where their hard-earned dollars went. At least we’ll all have a permanent reminder.

Obviously, a tattoo on the finger of my stupid niece does not impact my life one way or another. A broken bathtub is fixable, but will never again be perfect. My child that refuses to listen to her mother might someday. Meanwhile I’ll keep sucking down these super-cool Cepacol mouth-numbing lozenges in hopes that my mean tongue will be too numb to spew forth evil words to those who piss me off. 

xoxo

Ice Princess

Back to the Grind

I suck and I know it. I’ve been noticeably absent for over two weeks now, and really haven’t even done much to use my powers for good. During that time I even considered quitting the blog, but then I go back and reread things that happened over the last year and I’m amazed by the little snippets of my life that I would have forgotten about, had I not started the blog. Also, there hasn’t really been anything BIG that’s happened that would be worthy of a lengthy blog post, but there have been little bits of happy and crazy all over the place.

Christmas in the new house was fabulous. Despite the fact that we have an undone kitchen, we had our annual Christmas Eve get together with our families. Sissy, of course was unable to make it for some reason or another, yet felt the need to bitch and moan via Facebook about the party she missed. Too bad, so sad. My sister was also absent for a variety of reasons (none really legit). Tiny Mike and the kids were here though. Rich Auntie was in attendance, which put my mother in a Mood From Hell. Even with all the wacky dynamics going on, it seemed as though a good time was had by all.

The excitement of Christmas morning was over too soon and EN and I were both ready for naps by 9 am. Lola was in a bad mood and took several naps that morning. She was back to her normal self by the afternoon. Never before in my life have I seen a dog cranky from lack of sleep. Even her fur was out of sorts that morning. The girls were happy with their loot and actually had enough trinkets, toys, activities and crafts to keep them busy for most of the school vacation week. Sugar spent oodles of time on her Kindle Fire and even read a few books without being forced. Spice was up to her eyeballs in Build-A-Bear accessories, Barbies and Littlest Pet Shops.

Despite being busy playing with inside toys, the girls spent hours outside every day. Sugar is trying to master her Rip Stick and Spice has put a thousand miles on her roller blades. I even found the energy to strap on my own pair of roller blades and go for a quickie. Of course this would only be the second time in my life that I’ve gone and  the teensy weensy little slope from the cul de sac to my driveway scared the shit out of me so the girls had to go home and get EN to hold my hand and help me home. A proud, proud moment for me. Given all the time spent outside last week, I’m happy to report that we didn’t have to take a trip to the emergency room like I thought we might. Rip Sticks and roller blades and scooters are a little much for this old girl.

Between all the activities, getting together with family and friends, we even managed to get a few more things organized and done around the house. The light fixtures that we brought from the old house are all in place here. All of my crafty junk has been unpacked and put away and there is another large pile ready for the dump. I look at some shit and wonder what the hell possessed me to move it from one house to another? I must have been drunk the whole time I packed!

This week I am back at work and the girls are back at school. It’s great to be back in a regular routine, but I do miss the time I spent with the little chicks and EN. The time off was a perfect balance between everyone spending time doing their own thing and spending time together as a family. Now if I could only shake this nasty illness that’s got me down, all would be right in my world.

I hope your holiday season was as joyous as mine. 

xoxo

Ice Princess