my wii fit mii is NORMAL. why can't I be???

I'm not pro-bulemia or anything. I just think that having a twelve-hour stomach virus is a great way to kick-off a new weight-loss plan. Especially if you're committed to losing twenty pounds in the next sixteen weeks. If you go here and see how stupid I am, you'll understand how important it is for me to get on the ball this time. I mean, I love my sister in law to pieces, but she is NOT going to get a dollar from me. Thanks to the barfing, pooping, "ugghhhhh"-ing nightmare that was my life on Friday.


Of course, these sorts of bugs leave more than a couple of pounds in their wake. Three in my case...I KNOW...can you believe it??? JG went through it last night and I tried to be as kind and attentive to him during the spewing and heaving as he was to me. Of course, I have that you-puke-i-puke thing going on and I really couldn't offer much more than a pat on the back and a cold washcloth. And that was with my tee-shirt over my nose and mouth and my eyes closed. Oh. And there was gagging. Because anyone else's barf but my own is just icky.


As of this morning JG's gone "on business" until Thursday, so if you don't want to see a bunch of photos of my kids doing incredibly cute things- just stay away until he returns. I promised I'd post photos and good stuff for him to check up on while he's in DC/VA trying to decide if it's good enough for us to move to this summer.


Oh yeah. I think we're moving, but I can't tell you more because then I'd have to kill you.


Time to Jazzercise.

this was just supposed to be a video

Today I am seriously busy. I'm simultaneously waiting for my husband to call with news about our possible move to another state this summer, I'm NOT text messaging since I went over my limit for this month because my sister in law has a blackberry and communicates non-stop with her fingertips to me about our upcoming NYC trip umpteen times a day (and maybe I text back), and I am also taking photos of Sam unrolling entire rolls of toilet paper and having parties in my food pantry.


So you see, I don't have time for a real blog post today. In fact, the only reason there are even words making sentences on this post today is because I'm waiting "in line" at Vimeo for a video to hurry the eff up and become available. Just another thing I'm doing that make me too busy to actually write a really real blog post about relevant topics or politics or pubic hairs and things.


Speaking of relevance, has anyone been watching the Olympics? I seriously thought curling was for uber-geeks and ugly dudes, but last night these guys kinda sorta gave me a lady boner.

Okay, the one in the middle is kinda homely, but I would so get bizzy go out with the one on the left and maybe the one on the right if I was drunk enough.

JG and I were watching this super weird game in bed and he was all "strategeries involved la la la" and "kinda like billiards" and I was like, "shh the cute one's doing that lunge thing again..."

And oooh, my video is done!

do yourself a favor and mute the video. i sound like a cat being fed to a kimodo dragon. i can't help it.



Mother of the Year from stephanie gresham on Vimeo.


Don't report me. I didn't open any beers for him. I'm saving that right of passage for his tenth birthday. It's imperative that you click on that link there. Especially if you're my mother in law or anyone who has the power to arrest me.


Watching that video gave me a craving for rice crispy treats. Must open marshmallows. Really? It's "mallow?" Do I have to say mallow? It's mellow. I won't say mallow.


Is it 3:30 yet?

pubes and pictures. but not pictures of pubes. because i'm not that desperate.

Staying at a hotel is the shit. Especially if it's one of those fancy shmancy kinds that my husband has grown accustomed to now that his work spoils him silly on business trips. I guess that's the treatment you get when you're the inventor of computers.
Yesterday we drove the kids to Tampa to visit my mom and incredibly old and sweet grandma. The only spare room in the house has a bedroom plucked right from the sixties. Three words: Seafoam satin sheets. Just pulling the bedspread down is enough to make you feel nastay and high all at the same time. Especially with the confetti flower blanket and plastic plants.
So we stayed at a hotel. A nice one. And I had plans to see a show with this awesome chick leaving my husband and heathens kiddos to fend for themselves on Harbor Island.
Before the show, I showered. Because it's not too often I get to hang out with friends and wear a dress and be a lady. And ladies don't smell like chicken noodle soup and diapers.
Hotel showers are hit or miss. Even in the fanciest places you can be surprised by the shower. I've stayed in all sorts of places in New York City (a place my heart pulls me to once a year at least). The Algonquin was a splurge. On my husband's company's dime, of course. And the shower was pristine and surprisingly modern for a 100 year old building.
In more contemporary places I've been grossed out by yellowy shower curtains that are constantly billowing in while I shower and getting stuck to my arms and butt. And there's a pretty good chance I'm going to be standing ankle deep in my chicken soup and diaper water by the time I get to sudsing up my hair with sub-par shampoo or washing my face with a sandpaper washcloth.
But the worst thing about hotel showers is the one stray pubic hair that is inevitably missed by the cleaning crew. If you're lucky enough to see it before you get in the shower, you can do one of three things:
blow it as hard as you can so it goes away
run gallons of water and try swishing it down the drain
pluck it from the tub and flick it into the trashcan
with your FINGERS


All options run their own risks. I've blown a stranger's pube straight into my own face before trying technique number one. And since you can't blow with your mouth closed...you run another risk if you try this method. Use caution.


Swishing it down the drain is somewhat safer. As long as your drain isn't super slow and you keep your hand far enough away from the hair as you swish, you should be okay. I've also swished willy-nilly and minutes later found the hair on my hand. This is disgusting and leads to at least three day wonky-hand.


Picking it up with your fingers and putting it in the trashcan is gross. Nobody would do that. Right?


So on the tile in the bathroom of our fancy shmancy room there WAS a stray pubic hair. It was the first thing I looked for when we got there because I seriously think about these things for days before a trip involving a hotel stay and I have to know what I'm dealing with as soon as possible. The pube on the tile was NOT in the tub, so I just let it stay there. In the corner of the bathroom. And kept tabs on it every time I went in to pee or brush my teeth or check on the pube because I was obsessed but not enough to try blowing it or touching it.


Something GOOD I've noticed about hotel rooms lately is that the nicer ones have gotten wise to the bedspread rumors about {DNA} on the comforters. We all have heard this urban legend icky truth. "Don't sleep with the bedspread on!" "Don't even SIT on it!" Yeah, yeah. They never wash it. I know what people do in hotel rooms. Spare me. I have raised my standards. I now only patronize places with plain white duvet covers and plain white sheets and pillow cases.

i do it for the children, really

and fancy chairs with ottomans

and firm mattresses

You understand.

oh.

and this is for ryan and cole,

So-far, so-good.

Today I am thirty-one. My hair still parts on the right and my favorite color is still green. Bridges over water make me nervous {troubled or no}, as does driving in the rain and making left-hand turns {in the car- not as a pedestrian}. Coffee is my drug of choice. Poop jokes get funnier over the years and my crush on River Phoenix has morphed into a somewhat healthier fascination with movies starring Johnny Depp. I've seen the leaning tower of Pisa, the Eiffel tower, Big Ben, Neuschwanstein Castle, a Costa Rican tree-frog, The Spanish Steps, The Avenue of the Dead, and snowy Mt. Pilatus. I fed a cow in Liechtenstein once and made a wish at Trevi Fountain. It hasn't come true yet. I've lived nowhere else but Florida all thirty-one years. I could give or take the beach and I could be moving to a city near you. My first tape was Huey Louis and the News. Or maybe it was Starship. The Bodyguard soundtrack was my first CD. Adam took me to homecoming and Phil took me to prom. Phil's mom's convertible top didn't go up. My hair fell down. I've been in two serious car accidents, but have never broken a bone. Is your nose a bone? Okay. I broke my nose bone. Flip-flops, sneakers, jeans, tee shirts. $275 is how much money I won playing poker this one night. I sew a little, eat a lot, and take photos "like-all-the-time-MOM".
I have a daughter.
A son.
A husband.
And a blog.

Thank you for reading it.

poor me wah wah wah.

I don't know how it happened, but I seriously hit the jackpot in 2004 when I met my husband.  Before you sigh and move on to another less-fulfilling blog about Valentines Day, hear me out.

I am not writing this to make anyone jealous.  I'm no "nyeah nyeah my husband makes me pancakes on saturdays and wakes up in the middle of the night to feed the baby" kind of gal.  I mean- all of that is true, but I certainly won't be rubbing it in your face again after just now.

Instead I thought I might make a list of all the reasons you are happy my husband is not your husband.  

Starting with: 

He knows everything about computers.   Like. He invented them or something.  Which you're thinking is a good thing.  But if you've heard the sigh I draw out of him when I ask him to help me convert a file to jpg format or expand some zipped crap, you may think I was asking him to show me how to blink.  Or breathe.  And the eye-roll that accompanies the sigh makes the bitches from The Hills jealous. {that's still a show, right?} 

Another thing that really makes him special annoying is the pancake making thing.  What's with it?  The pancakes are always delicious.  It's totally maddening. He even has the gall to put chocolate chips in them sometimes.  WTF? Like I couldn't make pancakes?  Like I wouldn't WANT to make pancakes? Well I do. Maybe. Not really, but if I did they would suck compared to his and this is another reason you really would hate having him as your husband. Sometimes people really just want toaster waffles or Target brand oat cluster cereal. 

If it was YOU that married him instead of ME, you'd never be able to cook dinner without having your ass grabbed/smacked/pinched/rubbed and you'd be pummeled with text messages about poop sent during his "important meetings" in the middle of the day.  

If he was your husband, you'd have a pink glow-in-the-dark basket ball hoop on the back of your bedroom door, a collection of star wars lego figurines that keep falling over every time you snoop through the stuff on his dresser for spare quarters,  and pancakes every Saturday morning. {i know i said the pancakes thing already, but it really pisses me off} 

And finally... 

New Toy

JG is the best at what he does.  That's why he won a new DSLR camera by Nikon for me to play with and take photos of

T-man and Ladybug.

Oh. And him, too.

I smell inspiration.

this isn't what you think

Okay, so I just counted. And between my last post two weeks ago and today... I have started and abandoned nine attempts. NINE. That's like... almost ten. So, you see. I have been trying. It's just that I've been surprisingly successful at other things lately. Like sewing and doing laundry. {Yes, you can be successful at doing laundry. Just smell ask my husband's underpants.} It was hard for me to find that feeling I get from blogging after finding it in other places recently. Where I usually sit down and hide from domestic responsibilities behind my laptop, those little places have provided an odd and comfortable mood. I disappeared for a while. Sam had Roseola this weekend, Ladybug had wayyy too much homework for a kindergartener, Jed was busy wearing bow-ties to work presentations and I was sitting back, watching and enjoying my family. Well. I didn't enjoy the speckled baby part, but the rest was nice. What I do want to say is thanks. For those of you who sent me emails and notes asking for another post. That was nice. I mean. I'm sure this isn't what you had in mind, but hopefully I can reassure you that I'll be back. Meaning. I'm not really back. I'm just letting you know I'm still alive. And stuff. This week I have to make valentines, cuddle babies, and make warm comfort food for my husband. When the sewing machine stops beckoning me and the dutch oven is empty, I may touch a little on these nearly substantial entries that almost made it up... 

T-man, A Biography 

Jumping Through Hoops for God 

News Flash: I'm Not Perfect 

My Jen is Better than YOUR Jen

Fest Briends

and 

The Puked Poop Puke (because it's just not like me to omit this story)

I know. I'm all over the place.  Just another reason for me to go back into hiding for a bit until I get myself together.  But... I have asked JG if he'd like to be a "guest" and write a little something to toss-up here in the interim. I've promised not to correct his grammar and only kept a few topics off limits.  Trust me- you don't want to know.  {he has like NO limits} 

So. This is the end for now.  Maybe you'll come back in a few days to find I have become bored with domesticities (so-so-dictionary word) and slathered my blog with some more shtick once again.  Until then...