Like I Have Time For This?

Well, it’s my birthday today.

It’s shaping up to be a fabulous one, too. It’s not even 9:00 am here, and I’ve already received various illustrated homemade and store-bought greeting cards, a new copy of When Harry Met Sally on DVD which is one of our All Time Favorite Movies, and a $150 gift card to our local Borders/Seattle Coffee, where I like to go at least once a week to get some alone time. I like to browse through the shelves, find some new books, and then read in the coffee shop with a decaf vanilla latte. I’ve been slowly blowing through our retirement funds doing this over the past year, but now I’ll be able to spend a few guilt-free hours buying books with my fabulous gift card. RegularDad truly rocks.

I’ve also received a Very Special Ballet Performance from my 4-year-old. She had planned to dance to one of the Nutcracker pieces, but we couldn’t find the CD anywhere, so we used our new soundtrack to Shrek the Third, and she danced to Smash Mouth’s All Star instead. Truly inspiring, let me tell you.

Then I talked to RegularDad on my cell phone while I ate my breakfast. RegularDad had to get over to the new house early this morning for an appliance delivery. He called over here to ask me to bring the vacuum cleaner and then started pretending that the call kept dropping out, like those funny commercials. Such as:

RegularDad: Okay, look, the real reason I’m calling is that we need to talk about something and it just can’t wait until you get here. It’s too important. The thing is—

…..

— and that’s how I really feel about it.

He did a few variations on this, which got me laughing pretty hard. So I’ve already had one really great belly laugh on my birthday. And all this before snack time.

Finally, the upcoming piece-de-resistance later this morning is the delivery of a BRAND SPANKIN’ NEW STAINLESS STEEL DISHWASHER over at the new house. I’ll post some pictures later, and you can well imagine that I’ll be wiping away tears of joy and relief as I snap those shots. Then I’ll come back here and post them and then I’ll put on the old rubber gloves and wash some dishes by hand, knowing it’s the last week I’ll be doing that for (hopefully) years to come.

So far, 39 rocks!

I ran my blog through the rating system again after I posted yesterday’s rant, and it STILL came out PG! See?

I also used the words shit and fucking in yesterday’s post, but apparently that’s okay. Just don’t talk about crap or pain or hell. Because those are MAJOR taboo subjects, right?

This rating system doesn’t seem all that accurate. Of course, it is all about online dating in Phoenix, right? It’s probably some lonely idiot sitting all by himself in a cheap apartment in Phoenix writing useless Javascript because he’s got nothing better to do. He certainly doesn’t have a date, that’s for sure.

And now we know why. His javascript sucks.

A mere two days after the BOOMING sounds went away, I’ve come down with a bit of a cold. Not a really bad one. Just enough to make me feel like not doing anything. And then to feel guilty for not doing anything because I’m not THAT sick, ya know?

Oh well.

It could be worse.

And when I say housekeeping! I’d like you to think of that scene in Tommy Boy when David Spade kept saying housekeeping! in that screechy way until Chris Farley finally opened the hotel room door wearing that very strange pair of underwear. Yeah. Like that. So…

HOUSEKEEPING!

I’ve made a change over on the sidebar over there. I’ve added a new feature called RegularDad’s Click of the Day. Today’s click is: www.endofworld.net and you should definitely click on that, because it’s pretty damn funny. (And Shawna, I should confess that I did think about your mom pretty much right away on this one. Sorry about that, hon.)

If this click of the day thing works right, I’ll update it daily (well, in the evenings, really) and you’ll all get to see the stuff that RegularDad regularly finds on the Internet. He does find some incredibly funny stuff, and I figure it’s only fair that I share. That way, you’ll be laughing at the same things that we’re laughing at, and it will almost be like we’re hanging out having (decaf) lattes or something.

The other interesting bit of news is that I have purchased a new domain name: www.regular-mom.com. You can now type that into your browser and end up here. Or you can type in the same old wordpress address. Both will work just fine. In a few more days, I’ll make a slight change in my dashboard that makes my new domain name the primary way to get here. But you’ll always be able to use the old wordpress address to get here too. So, you shouldn’t have too many difficulties. You shouldn’t, in fact, notice a change at all. I think. But then again, the whole thing could blow up right in my face. What do I know?

Many thanks to everyone for the well wishes during the horribly LOUD days. I’ve had one small bout of BOOMING sounds this evening, but then I turned on some country music and washed the dishes and the BOOMING went away. With luck, I’m on the other side of it now, and posts will resume a more regular schedule.

Have a great weekend. And come back for more RegularDad Clicks.

Last night RegularDad went to the Dream Theater concert with his brother. We’re, like, HUGE Dream Theater fans. Seriously. HUGE. RegularDad even had a few guitar lessons from their guitarist, John Petrucci, way back when we were still in college and living in a tiny room in a beer-soaked frat house.

Back in Colorado, I used to go to all the Dream Theater concerts with RegularDad. Grandma would come babysit, and we’d drive to wherever Dream Theater was playing and see the show. A couple of years ago we even went to see Yes just because Dream Theater was the opening act. We stayed for a few Yes tunes, but it got a bit surreal watching senior citizens dancing and screaming whooo-hoooo and forking the evil eye meaningfully at the stage. Not to mention the lead singer totally reminded me of Bilbo Baggins when he was really, really old and living with the elves and he got that evil look on his face when he tried to steal the ring from Frodo. And I wasn’t even stoned. Seriously. He looked Just Like Bilbo. So we left after a few songs. We’d really only gone to see Dream Theater anyway.

But, I digress.

The point I’m trying to get to is, I am a totally cool wife. A RegularWife, you might say. Because there really aren’t any babysitters nearby these days, and RegularDad really wanted to go to the concert with his brother, so I magnaminously said, of course darling, you go to the concert. And have a wonderful time. I’ll stay home with the kids. Of course I don’t mind.

And when they found out Mike Portnoy was doing a drum clinic that morning not far from where we were, RegularDad and his brother (who’s a great drummer) and my little 3-year-old nephew (also a damn good drummer, and he’s only three) all decided to go on down to the clinic as well.

Of course, darling. You go to the drum clinic. See Mike Portnoy. I’ll watch the kids here all day. In the heat. And the mess. I’ll continue to brave the relentless whining and fighting and….

Just…could you get Mike to sign my shirt? You know…my Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence shirt I got a while back? And then could you get me a new shirt at the concert? Because if Portnoy signs my Inner Turbulence shirt, there’s no way I’m gonna wash and wear it again.

RegularDad promised to get me Mike Portnoy’s autograph on my old, worn out Dream Theater shirt. And here it is:

And did you notice? Did you? RegularDad asked Mike to make it out to RegularMom. And he did. Look:

To RegularMom — and then that blob is Mike Portnoy’s signature. Apparently when he was signing it Portnoy looked sideways at RegularDad and said: “As opposed to IrregularMom?” And RegularDad just laughed and shook his head.

You tell me…is RegularDad cool? Or is he cool?

I’ll be a little sad to no longer be wearing my Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence t-shirt anymore, because it has so accurately described my life with toddlers these past few years. I suspect that at least one band member had a couple of toddlers in his house at the time that that album got written and named.

But my new t-shirt will suffice, I think. The new one says systematic chaos, which is also an incredibly apt descriptive of my life as a Bad-Ass Homeschoolin’ Mama. Who lives with a 4-year-old.

It’s like they KNOW me.

Here’s to you RegularDad. You ROCK!

Don’t ask me why, but this little video had me and RegularDad cracking up tonight. It’s not nearly as funny as that Mom My Ride thing Fourmother shared with us last month, but it’s still worth watching.

I’ve been puttering around on message boards and blogs and such for a couple of years now, and I was always somewhat confused by the nearly ubiquitous presence of avatars. I found it hard to understand how people could find one small icon that fully represented their whole personality. I used to post on message boards that I just could never imagine finding an icon for myself that would fit right.

Well, you know what they say: never say never.

I’m happy to say that I’ve finally found an avatar that really says:  Hi there! I’m RegularMom! It is, of course, this:

This business is avatar selection is painful, yet essential. It’s kept me awake many a long night over the year, so I’m truly glad to have this business done with. At last I’ll no longer have to see this image anymore next to all of my comments:

Let’s face it. That just doesn’t look anything like me. It is, however, still an improvement over the previous generic avatar that WordPress used which was a gray box filled with question marks, so that next to every comment I wrote, there’d be this box that seemed to shout, “Huh? What? I think so. Maybe.” As if I couldn’t really complete a decisive thought. The generic hollow human was a slight improvement over the question marks, but not by much.

So, you see, avatar selection has really been eating away at me slowly these past few months, and luckily, the GIANT FROG HEAD has saved me from certain disaster yet once again. And just in time, too. If I don’t get some good sleep soon, I don’t know what I’ll do. I might accidentally eat all the kids’ icepops, or melt all the crayons into one giant multicolored crayon-ball, or even ask my mother to move in with us so she can help with the math lessons. And I’d offer to pay her for the help too.

So, thanks again GIANT FROG HEAD, for all that you do, all that you are…and all you can be.

Hmmm….comments aren’t working very well today. I’m seeing your comments in my dashboard, but they’re not appearing when I click on the post to read them. WordPress might be doing server maintenance or having a problem. If it doesn’t self-correct by tomorrow, I’ll look into it. Sorry about that.