The Time I Misplaced a Spider

Last week at a family gathering, the discussion turned to spiders, and everyone was talking about how they hate spiders and are super, pied-ninny-style afraid of them.

I was sitting there thinking, "I'm so tough. Spiders don't scare me! Look at my big muscles!"

But I didn't say anything aloud. Because I'm humble like that.

Well, fast-forward to today (approximately 138 hours later). I was in my basement starting a load of laundry when I saw a big, old, nasty spider in the laundry pile.

Normally I just shrug and go on with my life (because I'm oh-so-brave and I have big muscles) (except, no I don't), but that thing was BULBOUS. Like, all caps BULBOUS. And it was moving in slow motion.

Do you know how scary a spider is when it's moving in slow motion? I mean, you would think a jittering race car spider would be scarier, but no. The slow motion ones are far worse because you can see all the details, and you just don't know what they're up to.

So I needed it to die, but it was on a soft surface (i.e. laundry), so I knew the odds of smashing it the first time were slim. I decided to flick it to the ground and then go at it like a tornado with teeth. BUT... I lost it (of course!!! Darn, slow-moving spider!)

I started throwing laundry around but couldn't find the BULBOUS beast, so I had a moment of panic and started dancing around like Father Abraham with a right and a left (and all the rest...)

But no spider.

I calmed myself down (obviously I'm not as brave as I thought), started the load of laundry, and went upstairs to recover.

Later that day I went back downstairs to change the laundry, and guess who I found!

The BULBOUS beast was curled up nice and dead...

...in the bottom of my washer!

Yep.

I washed the crap out of that spider.

So I did what any good wife would do. I scraped up his now-little body with a dryer sheet (why, oh why must they get so small when they die? I want credit for facing the whole dang spider!) and took him upstairs so I could take a picture and text it to Scotty.

Notice how I didn't include it in this post? YOU'RE WELCOME.

Fifteen on the Fourteenth

Today marks a momentous occasion in my life.

Yes, it is Valentine's Day - and a happy one to you. May you find joy in the people and things that you love, be it a spouse, your children, your best friends, or simply donuts.

(I happen to love all of those things very much).

(Mmmm.... donuts...)

But the momentous occasion is only slightly Valentine-esque.

Today, Scotty and I have been together for half my life. It just happens that our relationship began on Valentine's Day, but it could have just as easily been an ordinary Friday (or Sunday - because 15 years ago February 14 was on a Sunday).

{August 2000}

From this point forward, we have been an item for most of my life.

How cool is that?

(Scotty won't reach that point for another two years - ah, the perks of being younger).

We have had a very happy life together, Scotty and me. I say type that with complete honesty - not with any embellishment to make us look good online. Marriage has been relatively easy for us (it's the parenting thing that has knocked us off our feet time and again). I give full credit to Scotty. He is an amazing husband, and he puts up with a lot from me.

{March 2003} 

We balance each other well and have just enough similarities to make things work. To celebrate our fifteenth anniversary,* here are 15 ways Scotty and I are different, and 15 ways we are the same:**

The Differences

1. Scotty is street smart, I am book smart.

2. Scotty loves playing in water, I get in a pool and I'm like, "What now?"

3. I love to read, Scotty prefers to be read to.

4. Scotty can fall asleep anytime, anywhere; I have to decide to fall asleep.

5. Scotty wants the car window rolled down, I want it up.

6. Scotty can do (a lot) more push-ups, but I can plank (a lot) longer.

7. I wanted four kids, Scotty wanted two.

8. Scotty loves Swedish Fish and Circus Peanuts, I am tempted by neither.

9. I like ketchup on my hashbrowns, Scotty finds this repulsive.

10. Scotty loves to study maps and topography and commits it all to memory, I look at a map and think about butterflies.

11. I am the uptight and anxious one while Scotty is laid back.

12. Scotty is the peacemaker, I'm the one who wants to fight.

13. I like Maroon 5 and Lady Antebellum, he likes Gwen Stefani and Karmin.

14. My thirst is quenched by water, Scotty drinks water then complains that he's still thirsty.

15. If you give me a candy bar, I'll eat it right away. If you give Scotty a candy bar, he'll save it for later (so I eat that one, too).

The Similarities

1. We both love chocolate and peanut butter.

2. We are both prone to people watching - sometimes we spend our date nights staring at other people.

3. We love taking our kids to Disneyland (and we have a dream that someday we will be able to sponsor a Disneyland trip for another family).

4. We enjoy road trips and get along well for hours in the car.

5. We love strategy board games.

6. We don't care much for pasta, especially alfredo.

7. We love Brad Paisley - don't mock us!

8. We are both committed to living debt-free.

9. We're both punctual.

10. We both have problems with portion control.

11. We both come from blended families.

12. We grew up in the same neighborhood and went to the same schools.

13. We both enjoy driving stick-shifts.

14. We both have blue-eyes and used-to-be-blond hair.

15. We're both happy we found each other.

 

{November 2012}

*Just to clarify, this is an anniversary of our relationship, not our marriage. I don't need anyone thinking that I got married when I was 15, but if you're curious, we will celebrate our 11th wedding anniversary in a couple of months. So yeah, I was 19. A whopping 4 years older than 15!

**I totally ripped this post idea off of Cyndi.

I wear slippers as shoes almost every day {and seven other random facts}

Fact #1: I made a pork roast for dinner tonight, and I kid you not, that thing looked like an alien gave birth in my crock pot.

Fact #2: I have black toenails again from running.

Fact #3: This makes me laugh. So hard.

It might not be so funny if I hadn't found it on the day that facebook suggested I like Zion National Park which had just posted information about an upcoming mountain lion lecture.

Fact #4: Sign me up for that!

Fact #5: Behold, the aftermath of Daisy's preschool Valentine's Day party:

Fact #6: Behold, Nicky's Valentine's Day box:

It's a booger monster.

(Cut me some slack! There was an alien in my crock pot tonight!)

Fact #7: "Ya know, Britt, a lot of the things you are posting right now aren't really formatted as 'facts.'"

"Hush, child."

Update: After I posted this, I received an e-mail asking about the pillows on my couch in the photo of Daisy's Valentine rampage. How observant you are, reader! You can read more about those pillows on my old blog (HERE). The 'E' is currently missing, so instead of celebrating LOVE, we are celebrating LOV. 

Three Things

Today I made some no-bake cookies, and while I was eating ten two of them, I thought about Scotty and how no-bake cookies will always remind me of him. Scotty loves no-bake cookies and has been designated as our No-Bake Cookie Maker when he is home. Sometimes I have to suck it up and no-bake my own cookies, but on the unofficial list of His and Her Roles in our marriage, no-bake cookies are His.

This got me thinking about other things that remind me of Scotty. Like bikes:

 

Scotty loves mountain biking (any biking really). He has been known to do some pretty dangerous things on a bike (note to self: do follow-up post with pictures). For our first anniversary, he gave me a mountain bike.

Something else that makes me think of Scotty is... well... junk. Any random junk sitting around.

This is such a typical scene in our home. Power Bait, carabiners, golf balls, used matches, you name it. Scotty has so much random junk laying around. Frankly, it's annoying, but it's something I can't change about him because then he wouldn't be Scotty. So as irritated as I am about the box of antique tobacco pipes, the fifteen outdated college textbooks, and the two gigantic reels of industrial strength velcro that have been sitting on top of the computer desk for the past six months, I also recognize the endearing part in their presence.

(But seriously, Scotty - will you please clean off the top of the computer desk?)

These little reminders got me thinking about some of the things that make me think of my children.

For Nicky, it's Legos.

That picture was taken by Nicky, himself. He sometimes takes my camera and does photo shoots of wacky, random things. There were about 30 photos of Lego creations on my camera last week. Nicky loves Legos and has lots of them. They're in every nook and cranny of the house, and I've been known to vacuum them up intentionally just to get them out of the way.

(Don't tell Scotty).

Pete the Cat will also always remind me of Nicky - of how he fell in love with I Love my White Shoes when his grandma read it to him on Christmas Eve and how he memorized the book and had the confidence to "read" it to his preschool class. For his sixth birthday, we made a "Pin the Buttons on Pete the Cat" game, and Nicky asked me to hang the poster I painted on his wall.

Most of all, blankies will always make me think of Nicky.

For a few years, he was attached to his "Thomas," which is really just a scrap of fabric with unfinished edges. We had to replace it twice, and he always noticed the difference in the fabric. Luckily he always preferred the new one because it was notably softer. As he has gotten older, he has grown attached to different blankets. Nicky will find every blanket in the house and drag them all into his room to sleep with. If there is ever a blanket missing, you can bet it's in Nicky's room somewhere. One of Nicky's favorite places to be is wrapped up burrito-style on the couch.

With Daisy, it's her trademark cowgirl boots.

She wears them everywhere and with everything. She'll march into dance class sporting them with her leotard. She'll wear them with her swimming suit or her Christmas dress. Daisy is a girl who knows no rules - fashion or otherwise. 

Construction paper and alphabet letters will also always make me think of Daisy.

She is the most feisty writer. She fills notebook pages with random letters, mostly consisting of M, O, and I. "MOIMOIMOIMOI" over and over for pages and pages. And don't you dare try telling her that an "m" is an "M" because, to her, lower case does not exist, and she express that to you in the loudest, cruelest way imaginable.

Don't mess with the Queen of the Alphabet!

Power Rangers are also a Daisy thing.

(Note the cowgirl boots)

I don't even know where Daisy came to know the Power Rangers, but last fall it became an obsession overnight. Now it's "Go, go Power Rangers!" all day long! And, "Mommy, I'm the pink one, and you're the yellow one!"

I can't say I'm sad about it - I was a closet Power Rangers fan in my younger years and spent many hours in the garage with my friend Cheyenne beating up a punching bag.

For Zoe it's beaded necklaces and just about anything that she can drape over her arm or string around her neck, much to a mother's worry.

It's too-big shoes on tiny feet - anything she can stuff her toes into and clomp around in for a while. Her brother's snow boots, her sister's dress-up shoes, her dad's slippers.

And it's the doll stroller. The one toy that I can occupy her with for longer than thirty seconds (but not that much longer).

 

(This photo shows one of the times the doll strolled failed and we had a Zoe tantrum).

There are many, many more things that will always make me think of Scotty, Nicky, Daisy, and Zoe even though Nicky will eventually outgrow his blankies, Daisy will need bigger cowgirl boots, and Zoe will start walking on her own without the aid of a doll stroller.

(Scotty will probably always like no-bake cookies, bikes, and leaving his odds and ends all over the house).

I don't know what my family will say reminds them of me. Maybe they will say books:

 

Or colored pens.

 

Or old windows.

Or, more likely, time-out, piles of dirty dishes, or crazy mom face.

Maybe I should start taking credit for the no-bake cookies that turn up every now and then. 

It Happened During the Witching Hour

**Some Confessions**

• I have a friend whose husband gets off work around 3:00 every day. I pass her house on the way to pick up my son from school, often catching a glimpse of her husband arriving home for the day causing fiery darts of jealousy to shoot from my eyes. I can't help but think about how much easier my life would be if my husband came home that early (which is not to say that I think my friend has it easier than I do - I would just really love for my husband to come home at 3:00).

• Every day at around 4:00 in the afternoon, all hell breaks loose in my home. The baby is tired but won't nap so she screams and clings to my legs. Everyone is hungry. Nicky needs to do his homework and practice the piano. The house is always a disaster - to the point of being unsanitary. And I am literally walking on egg shells. Because there are often egg shells smashed on the floor (this is a Daisy thing - don't even get me started...) It truly is... THE WITCHING HOUR.

**A Tale**

The tale I am about to tell is nothing unusual. Things like this happen at my house on a daily, nay, hourly basis. Usually I do not blog such tales because I'm too busy cleaning up the mess to sit down and type out the story. This time, though, I just need to let it all out.

Yesterday at the start of THE WITCHING HOUR {insert wailing sound effect here} I was met by an unfortunate toilet circumstance.

{Yep, this is a poop story. Look away now, ye weak of stomach}

{via}

Nicky went downstairs to use the bathroom and started yelling, "Something is wrong!!!"

I went down there and was immediately met with a horrible odor and the sight of a very large amount of unflushable poo in the toilet bowl.

Did you catch that?

Poo that WOULD.NOT.FLUSH.

Ugh!!!

There it sat, refusing to release from the bowl - like my kid had digested a heavy-duty adhesive or something.

(I should interject that this was not Nicky's doing. He was just the poor soul who found it).

I flushed the toilet a few times hoping that the problem would solve itself, but it didn't. In fact, it got worse because the toilet became clogged, leading me to believe that the culprit must have flushed massive amounts of toilet paper down the toilet.

Thus, a plunger was needed.

So I plunged.

In a toilet full of poo.

Adding to the unsanitary nature of my home at 4:00 in the afternoon.

I must be a very powerful plunger because I managed to break the handle off.

Uh... oops?

Then, after the toilet became unclogged, I still had to deal with the poo.

You don't wanna know.

You.

Don't.

Wanna know...

I had to do a lot of cleaning - the toilet, of course, but there was also the floor, the walls, and the bathtub. And then there was the whole "dealing with the dripping, poopy plunger" thing.

All of this while the baby cried and kept trying to come into the bathroom, and Daisy emptied the pantry looking for food (oh, that child and her constant out-of-control snacking!!), and I was supposed to be cooking dinner for a friend.

Which leads me to the announcement of a new house rule:

{via}

Rule #42: No one is allowed to poop after 12 p.m.

There can't be poop during the WITCHING HOUR. There just can't! There's too much other crap to deal with!

There are so many details I had to leave out, but thank you for letting me get that off my chest. I will now return to not blogging about poo until further notice.