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Kitchen Sink

So I have a story that includes everything even the kitchen sink. I give your fair warning that this story is going to be gross and make you question life. Unless you have teenage boys, in which case you’ll strangely find this story believable and dare I say normal. It all began in a gate community west of the turnpike…

Our story starts off with a peaceful evening in our house. The parents and puppies have gone to bed and all is quiet. Anakin is trained to use a pad. Consequently, we leave him out at night and he usually sleeps in our bed. Sometimes, however, he misses the mark. Tuesday night he missed the mark Consequently, he left a land mine in the middle of the floor.

The Mayor, who has a weird aversion to lights, got home from hockey practice after we were already in bed. He doesn’t like the lights on, so he left them on. Unfortunately, this meant he didn’t see the land mind Anakin had left for him. Fortunately, he was still wearing his shoes, so it didn’t get all over his feet. It didn’t crunch or anything like that. It did, however, make a mess of the bottom of his shoe.

So you may be asking yourself, where does the kitchen sink play into this story? Well, I’ll tell you. Apparently, the Mayor decided the right place to clean the dog shit off of his sneakers was our kitchen sink. But wait, it gets worse. He also decided to use the brush we use to scrape dishes clean to clean his shoe. To be fair, he cleaned up the crime scene, so you wouldn’t guess what happened to the kitchen sink the night before. However, he also left the scrub brush there like he hadn’t just used it to clean up dog shit.

This all came out yesterday on my lunch break. At first, I was sure he was kidding. There’s no way he would wash shit off his shoe in the kitchen sink. But then I remember, he’s a teenage boy with the common sense of a toddler. In the end, we ended up throwing both scrub brushes away since he didn’t remember which one he used. He is also now acutely aware that messes like that need to be cleaned outside with the hose and a tree branch. As for the kitchen sink, it’s been bleached and cleaned. Yet, I still can’t look at it the same way.

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Super Bowl Memes

So the Super Bowl memes have been killer since Sunday. Especially the super bowl memes involving the halftime show. Like most folks my age, I absolutely loved the halftime show. It brought me straight back to the late 90s-l and early 2000s. Consequently, I decided to compile some of my favorite memes from the Super Bowl. Your welcome.

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People of Walmart

I had a people of Walmart experience this weekend in Charleston, As for Charleston itself, we didn’t see much of it.  The weather was pretty terrible Sunday.  It was way too windy, cold and rainy to do anything outside.   We did, however, have a most interesting adventure at Wal-Mart. Elizabeth and I decided to stop there on the way back from our coffee run, so we could grab some essentials.  As we parked I was telling her why I always avoid Wal-Mart.


This trip did not disappoint.  As we were checking other, we heard a commotion behind us.  Two women were screaming at each other at the top of their lungs. I got the feeling that it was over a guy, but they were so hard to understand.  Finally, the lady in line called out her foe for getting a fight while working.  Yes, one of the combatants was a Wal-Mart employee.

Once the facts of her employment are brought up, the employee ran behind Elizabeth and to the front of the store.  The employee tore of her vest and threw it before coming back for the customer.  Meanwhile, she’s screaming that “she’s not employed no more.”  Concurrently, the floor manager was running full board, while screaming call 911, to grab the employee before she made it back to the customer.  Honestly, it was scary.  The two women were completely off their rocker.

Needless to say, I’ll not be going back to Walmart anytime soon.  Although to be fair, there were people begging at the entrance to Target.  I’ve never seen that before.  I also had a man come up to me at the hotel multiple times asking me where the mall was located.  Spoiler alert, the mall was visible from the hotel parking lot.  It was so weird.  You would think he would have found the mall in his own after the first day.  After my most recent people of Walmart experience this weekend, I won’t be stepping in that store anytime soon.

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Day Four

Day four of virtual school was one for the history books. Particularly, if your history books focus on dumpster fires or shit shows. If so, this day was legendary. We all knew it was coming, didn’t we? I mean, I think we’ve been waiting for the shoe to drop. And today that mo-fo of a shoe dropped. This means the low expectations I wrote about yesterday came to fruition today.

First of all, my thyroid is raging. I’ve been so hot at night I can only manage with one light blanket and the thermostat at 72 degrees. My doctor will be adjusting my dosage down a bit come next Tuesday morning. It also means that falling asleep and staying asleep has been a real challenge. For some reason, I don’t fall into a good deep sleep until early in the morning. Anyway, I remembered to get up to take my thyroid meds, but I slept through my alarm to wake up the boys. Fortunately, this wasn’t an issue for my Mayor, who was ready to go to school by 7:00 am.

On the other hand, this was a problem for Goalielocks. As soon as I woke up, which was still before school started, I ran upstairs to make sure he was awake and ready to attend class. He sat up in his bed, grumbled, and laid back down. I proceeded to repeat my message; i.e. get out of bed and get ready for class. This time he sat up. He told me he knew he had to be up and asked me to close the door so he could get dressed. I shut the door, albeit it not tightly. He then yelled at me for not being able to close the door right. Teenagers are so pleasant in the morning. Aren’t they?

Thinking he was up, I headed out to grab my coffee. As you may know, Dunkin’ coffee is essential to my ability to function as a human being. Afterward, I took the dogs out and went to work. It was a long commute to work from my couch to my room, but I made it safely and without incident. I got some work done before going to yoga via Zoom. It was at that point I realized I hadn’t heard my middle child moving around upstairs. Before relaxing into child’s pose, I texted him and added a find my iPhone alert. He responded pretty quickly asking why nobody had woken him up for school. Seriously?

Obviously, he made me mad. Since he was now up and attending class, I continued with my yoga class. I was hoping that the beautiful yin class taught by Jennifer would help calm me. Fortunately, I finished the class feeling like a new person and completely calm. At least for a few minutes. Naturally, the calm left me after interacting with my two star pupils, who were in stellar moods today. How lucky am I that both were in a piss poor mood? At dinner, Goalielocks was still insisting nobody walked him up. This despite the fact I had a full conversation with him this morning at 7:15. Anyway, today was the type of day I have dreaded. Thankfully, we only have one day left in the week.

Here’s a list of our day’s activities:

*I read Mary Barton, by Elisabeth Gaskell. It’s really getting good now! We have a murder mystery on our hands.

*Yin with Jennifer at Open Heart Yoga Studio

*It’s only day four, but I was feeling inspired. Consequently, I wrote a poem about the first week of virtual school. While it’s no The Raven, it gets my creative point across.

*I ran two miles and walked a mile today. Naturally, I listened to Metallica and watched Curb throughout my run. I am basking in the joy of accomplishment.

*I survived day 3 of virtual school. I am keeping my eye on the prize aka the weekend.

*We had no hockey practice tonight. It was family dinner night. I cooked pork carnitas tacos, which were awesome.

*BBG 2.0. week 12 day 4: cardio and yoga

*I took my puppies including sweet Anakin for a walk.

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Monday Memes: NFL Playoffs

Monday memes might just be the best way to start the week. Fortunately, the NFL playoffs this weekend gave the internet plenty of fodder. As you may know, I’m a life long Vikings fan. Thus I am used to disappointment this time of year. They’ve conditioned me well over the last 39 years. Nevertheless, their pathetic performance Saturday did boggle my mind.

Thankfully, there’s still hockey and plenty of time for the Wild to break my heart as well. As daylight broke today, I thought a fun topic for today’s blog would be NFL playoff memes. Sadly, the Vikings provided a lot of material for today’s post. So without further ado here are my favorite playoff memes. Enjoy!

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I Lost A Tooth

“I lost a tooth, but I lost it,” Goalielocks wrote in a short note to the tooth fair.  He was six years old at the time and had just lost his second tooth.   We brought him up to bed and my hubby dug in his pocket to pull out the tooth, but it was missing.  Unfortunately my husband, who was holding on to the tooth until bedtime, misplaced the tooth.  Goalielocks was beyond distraught as was my hubby, who felt terrible.

Since there was no hope of finding the tooth in time for bed time, we suggested that Goalielocks write the Tooth Fairy a note explaining what had happened. My idea of a note includes a greeting and a signature, but his was much simpler.  He drafted his note, showed it to us and placed it under his pillow.

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That night the Tooth Fairy arrived and left him a $20 bill.  Clearly, there was a level of dad guilt built into the payout here.  When Goalielocks awoke and found the $20 bill he was ecstatic!  Even though he had gotten up early to get to school, he was dancing around happily.  Since he’s not a morning person, much like his mom, this was quite the sight to be seen.  He simply couldn’t believe that he got $20 for the tooth we lost.

As we laid Goalielocks down to bed the next night, it dawned on him that perhaps he should write the Tooth Fairy another note.  He did and again she was quite generous with her payout.  He continued his new nightly tradition of writing a note,  “I lost a tooth, but I lost it,” and kept getting paid.  Yep folks the dad guilt here for losing the tooth was serious.  Finally, after I shared the story with my colleagues,  one of my co-workers volunteered to write a note from the Tooth Fairy to Colin.  Thankfully, that well written note from the Tooth Fairy put an end to the nightly notes to the Tooth Fairy.  Lesson learned that our kids are quite industrious and parent guild definitely exists.

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Day One Chicago

Day one in Chicago has been fun. We beat the storm in, which was fabulous. In fact, it really didn’t start to snow until nighttime. After leaving the airport in my sexy Buick rental car, we hit Target to pick up some snacks and drinks for the room.

For Goalielocks, Target was just one more delay in eating a nice, hot slice of Giordano’s pizza. We checked out and quickly headed to Giordano’s thinking the storm would stay at anytime. Fortunately, we could leave our groceries in the car as we ate. I definitely miss that ability in Florida where we have to race home so our freezer items don’t melt!

Giordano’s was the perfect anecdote to a long day of travel. Our short layover in Detroit afforded us no time to eat. Consequently, we were quite hungry. The beauty of deep dish pizza, at least for me, is that one piece will leave you satiated for the rest of the day. In fact, neither Colin nor myself ate the rest of the day. Our late lunch at Giordano’s was enough to tide us over for the rest of the day.

The snow was absolutely beautiful this morning. We got about five inches at the hotel. The major roads appear to be relatively clean with some of the side roads still quite slippery and snow covered. I’m truly not looking forward to driving forty minutes southwest for tonight’s game. As for the temperature, it’s still pretty comfortable. The wind, however has picked up quite a bit, which is blowing snow everywhere. Meanwhile in Minnesota, my Mayor and hubby were enjoying sub zero weather.

Our hotel is nice enough and centrally located to the mall and Dunkin’. I dropped Goalielocks and his friends at the mall this morning, so they could do something other than look for ponds near the hotel. While they canvassed the mall, I headed to Ikea. I love that the store reminds me of my Scandinavian travels and the AirBnB’s we stayed in that were filled with IKEA items.

After the mall, Goalielocks and his boys headed back outside to cause trouble. They found some nice snowballs. The majority of which seemed to end up on Goalielocks’ pants and hoodie. He’s now down to one pair of pants that isn’t soaked or muddy. His nice Adidas joggers got a bit muddy after he broke the ice at the edge of the pond. You can only imagine how happy I was upon hearing that story.

While Goalielocks wrecked yet another pair of pants, I decided to do some yoga. I took a risk and did a vinyasa video from Fightmaster Yoga. It felt incredible, but it definitely got my heart rate pumping. I did modify some of the exercises to bring my heart rate back down. I’m not sure if it was the fact I’d only drank coffee today or Graves’ disease, but it was annoying either way.

Meanwhile in Minny, my Mayor is having a blast with his team and has already hit White Castle twice. Like I’ve shared before, he’s got an iron gut. At present, he and his team are playing at outdoor game not far from my Aunt and Uncle’s house. Tonight they’ll head down to the Excel Energy Center to see the Wild attempt to play. Last night, the Mayor got to see one of our favorite coaches and his mite coach, Coach Ryan. It’s awesome how hockey introduces you to great paths and how your paths keep crossing through the game we all love.

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New Years Day and Back to Work

No sooner had I left the office Monday night, then it was New Years day and back to work.  Like right back to work.  It felt more like an abbreviated weekend than a holiday, but we made the best of it.  New Years Eve we headed to my brothers for snacks, games and of course champagne.  We even snuck in some shots of Salmiakki.  My mom made some pickle rolls ups, aka Minnesota Sushi, which brought back some great memories of the holidays of my youth.  I haven’t had them since we moved south of the Mason Dixon thirteen years ago! We rushed home after midnight, so as to try to beat the traffic.

The next morning we were going to head down to Fort Lauderdale for brunch, but that ended up being moved to Boca.  This made is a lot easier for us although I love Fort Lauderdale.   My sister-in-law Brandi and her cooking partner Phil made yet again an amazing meal.  They always partner up on Thanksgiving to make a fantastic dinner, so getting to enjoy twice this year was quite nice.  Fortunately, I didn’t include anything about food in my New Year’s resolutions or I would have broken all of them at brunch!

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After brunch, we headed out to South County Park in Boca to go jet skiing.  There is a nice lake behind the amphitheater that is deceivingly large.   There’s not a ton of room by the docks, which keeps it from getting too crowded.  Fortunately, the weather was absolutely sublime lows 80s and some cloud cover to keep it cool.

Our younger two, Goalielocks and the Mayor, were hooked after their first rides.  Once they got on, they didn’t want to get off the jet skis.  Eventually, they had to get off so other people could ride, but they were keen to get back on the water.   Fortunately, both Grandma and Grandpa got a chance to ride the jet skis.   Both of the boys got to drive the jet skis, which they absolutely loved.  Goalielocks is a little more sensible, while the Mayor’s driving style can only be described as “balls to the wall.” I can already sense how much fun we’re going to have teaching him to drive.

After several hours of jet skis and Cornhole, we headed home to get ready for our inevitable return to work on Wednesday.   Shortly thereafter, the Mayor convinced my husband to make Caribbean jerk chicken with black beans and rice.   The kid ate two full plates.  Unquestionably, he has a hollow leg – or so we thought.

He left dinner to take a shower having been on the lake all day.  After about fifteen minutes, he came back out to the family room and announced “I threw up all over the bathroom and I missed both the sink and the toilet.”  Now that my friends takes talent.   Immediately, the hubby and I got up to check him out.  He insisted he was fine having thrown up only because he ate too much too fast with too much milk.

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After making sure he was fine, we headed to the bathroom.  His assessment was spot on. He had in fact thrown up all over our bathroom effectively missing both the toilet and the sink.   I’m not quite sure what happened, but I was relieved he missed the rugs and the dirty clothes he left strewn about the floor.   Thankfully, he was okay and not harboring some insidious stomach bug.   Since I wasn’t feeling well, he cleaned up the projectile mess.  He’s the real hero!

And just like that in the blink of an eye,  we went to bed and got up for work like nothing had changed……. Our Tuesday holiday was quickly over and it was back to reality.

 

 

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You Know You’re A Hockey Mom When….

You know you’re a hockey mom when Monday brings a respite from the hectic weekend.  Yeah, that’s right.  Today’s case of the MondayA brought a restful peace absent from my insane weekend.  It’s a diametric shift in the way you think for sure.  Who knew perusing emails and reviewing data could be so peaceful. 43951525_995802547265872_7100467683530899456_o

Our weekend was insane from the start.  I began my weekend with Goalielocks and the Mayor finding the perfect outfit for a quince and bar mitzvah respectively.    Shopping with boys is not for the faint at heart or the impatient.  We had the dressing rooms on lock for over an hour much to the chagrin of our fellow shoppers.  Nonetheless, we were successful.  Of course, Colin asked to check out to shoe store in the mall for some new Adidas before my wallet was even back in my purse – about that…

Saturday morning started early with the Mayor having to be at the rink by 9:00 am.  Goalielocks and I drove separately as we had to leave midway through the game for the Purple Stride meeting.  The Mayor’s first game, at least what we were able to see, was fantastic.  He scored an awesome goal, which thanks to poor vision and marked up glass I didn’t get a clear view on it.  Fortunately, the rink has video and I was able to pull down the video later.  Admittedly, I had to film it in slo-mo on my iPhone, so I could see it.

We left half way through the second to head to the Purple Stride meeting at Lucky’s Italian Market in Coral Springs. Once the Purple Stride meeting ended, we headed to Kohl’s to get him dress shoes to accompany his quince outfit.   We definitely had differing opinions over shoes, but he quickly realized comfort over form would win the day.  Goalielocks was a bit disappointed we didn’t have time to get to the mall, but the promise of a Pub sub won him over.

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The Mayor’s second game was a hard-fought contest, but in the end they came up a goal short.  We headed home so Goalielocks could shower.  While we drove the Mayor came into some Panthers’ tickets.  While I dropped Goalielocks off at the quince, the hubby and my Mayor headed to the Panthers’ game.  When all was said and done, we picked up Goalielocks just after 1:00 am and got to bed around 2:00 am.  This weekend left us exhausted.

Here’s some key hockey mom identifiers:

You know you’re a hockey mom when….

Monday is a restful day

Your dog’s crate smells better than your car or garage

$700 is a lot for a pair of shoes, but too little for a goalie helmet

Someone asks you your age and you give them your birth year

You yell at the zebra, but you’re not at the zoo

You’re on a first name basis with local urgent cares and ERs

You online shop at Pure Hockey, Hockey Monkey and Hockey Giant

You bring a megaphone to the rink.. oh wait, that’s just that one psycho hockey mom…..

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In Like a Lion, Out Like A Lamb

Growing up in Minnesota, every year I’d hear the refrain, “in like a lion, out like a lamb.”  Funny in Florida, March is just another month of sunny, gradually increasing temperatures.  It’s still relatively comfortable, but it’s always sunny.  March in Minnesota, on the other hand, can be a mix bag of horrendous weather from snow storms to rain storms.

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Of course in Florida, the “out like a lamb” could refer to the snowbirds that may leave at the end of the month as Easter approaches.  Since Easter can take place anywhere from late March to early April, I always pray for an early Easter.   Usually once Easter passes, the majority of the snowbirds head back north as we can reclaim our city.  I can’t tell you the happiness that is seeing that first car carrier outside the 55 plus neighborhood.  Undoubtedly, the snowbirds dim my joie de vivre.

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As I count down the days and weeks to Easter, we’ve managed to get back into our normal routine.  Fortunately, Goalielocks’ headaches are gone!  I’m almost scared to type that less they return tomorrow.  He’s really hoping to be able to play this weekend.  He’s been back to school this week ,which has been fabulous.  However, it’s a bit tough to get back on the algebra train after missing two weeks of lessons.  Thank God for Khan Academy.

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March is a pretty exciting month.  There are so many people in our lives with March birthdays.  My SIL and I are one day apart next week.  We’ll get a break from the craziness of hockey with no travel this spring!  Can I get a hallelujah?  Also, this year will mark the first time we’re going somewhere for spring break.  We’re travelling to Atlantis  with friends that became family, which should be an amazing trip.