No, I mean it. How dumb AM I?

All my life. All my 41 years of life, I have sporadically heard the term “milquetoast.” I have heard this term and somehow never seen it; never known where it originated; never looked it up.

And yet, I knew what it meant. Because so often I am the milquetoastiest of the milquetoasty. I know that it means to be “weak and ineffectual” or “plain and unadventurous.” I know it means you have given in before you got good and started.

But although I knew what it meant, I had no idea where it came from or what it LITERALLY meant. I was picturing a soggy piece of toast.

Milk toast.

Because who wants milk toast, right? Who wants the piece of toast that the glass of milk turned over on, rendering it soggy and cold and clammy and useless? No one wants that. It made perfect sense to me that it would be milk toast, because I hate milk and it sounded like a perfectly awful thing to do to toast and it worked fine with the metaphors in my head.

Except that it isn’t milk toast at all. There’s no milk within 5 miles of this term.

It’s this dude. Caspar Milquetoast. A wishy washy, mamby pamby.

Huh. I feel pretty dumb right now. Especially since I have a degree in talking and writing properly.

So, what I want to know is? Is there anyone else out there that didn’t know this? Or am I the only one hiding under some milk toast?

I am a sick woman.
I have taken to shopping Craigslist for things that are weirder than iPod nanos.
Lately, it is pets. Because–you know–I’m so good at managing the living creatures already in my care. For sure, I should get a dog. A dog, mind you. But the real fun in Craigslist pet perusal comes from pulling up the pet ads and reading them all. Straight through…like a novel. It’s awesome.

I will just paste in a few. That way, I can empirically prove my point.

Submission #1— Fancy rats- Russian blue, dumbo, Rex, and more!
Various color/coats/ears available. We have solid color rats, hoods, and caps available.

All are socialized, healthy, and ready to go to loving homes!

Regular fancy rats start at $5, Russian Blues start at $10. Discounts available for purchases of 2 or more.

Siamese litter available in about 3 weeks, now accepting reservations.

Please contact for pictures or to schedule a time to pick out your new ratty baby!

Is fancy a type of rat or is this owner just trying to convince me that his rats are more attractive and affluent than, say, the rats I am poisoning in the farmhouse we are due to move into? All are socialized. Socialized? Do they go to dances? Play team sports? I can’t wait to schedule a time to pick out my ratty baby. Can’t.wait. Also got to get me a Siamese rat birth reservation. Because the only thing better than a rat is a Siamese rat. Wait a second. They don’t mean ‘conjoined’, do they? I was picturing two rats joined at the elbow….and was hoping for a discount for buying two or more.

Submission #2 — Lost Miniature Pig!
He is an unaltered male miniature pig 40 pounds or less.

He doesn’t even come to knee height.

He was living in the barn with the baby cow because he thinks he’s a cow, but periodically got loose.

I found him the first couple of times but this time I’ve had no luck.

I live on Darby Road.

Wilbur is all red with small black spots on his body. If you’ve seen him please contact me! I miss him terribly and have only waited this long to put up the ad because I thought I would find him like last time and couldn’t accept he was gone.

The pictures I posted aren’t very recent but its what he looks like. Call me with info on his whereabouts.

I have only two things to say here. Unaltered? What? And he thinks he’s a BABY COW. Wow.

Submission #3 — Bearded Dragon Babys
i have some bearded dragon babys for re homing

i have reddish orange bearded babies

there 4 weeks old eating everything they can catch i feed them 1/4 crickets dusted in calcium
and some greens

30$ each

Oh, please. $30 for a horrifyingly ugly reptile? No, thanks. How about YOU pay ME because I survived your grammatical hackery.

Submission #4 — So I gave the hint I wanted a puppy (Pasco)

Date: 2012-02-14, 5:22PM EST

So I asked for a puppy for Valentine’s Day or soon as can be. Well my hubby gave me the look oh you really were serious. What?! So I showed him a few ads over the last few days and he said okay I will check into it. He is in the dog house now. So now here I go. Stay at home Mom looking for a dog that is no larger than 20 pounds. No preference in sex. Need a cat friendly dog or the opportunity to see if the dog is okay with the kids cat. I own my home and have a fenced in yard with a tent that my husband will be sleeping in for a few days. A rehoming fee/adoption is not a problem. So please email my husband to literally get him out of sleeping in the new tent in the back yard. Thanks and Happy Valentine’s Day!!

Hahaha!

Love it! Drama. Intrigue. Conjoined ratty babies with interchangeable ears. I think this blog needs a separate category for Craigslist Crazies.

And that’s a wrap.

This day last year, I was feverishly preparing to launch my new blog. I was so excited about it. For awhile there, I wrote every day without fail.

Even though I have allowed too much time to pass between entries, I do still love it. And I do intend to keep it up. AND furthermore, I promise to share all the grand adventures of living out in the country, raising chickens and vegetables, once we get moved. I guarantee some horror stories that will involve rats or spiders or frogs. If isn’t going to go well for me, but I still think I will love it.

I spent an hour or so on Saturday perusing thrift stores in Brandon while waiting for my boys to be done at a birthday party. I have come to love thrift stores because it is like searching for buried treasure. I often find neat things at ridiculously low prices when I went in looking for something else entirely. In fact, Beloved is wearing some blingy sketchers to school today because we found just her size, in like new condition, for $4. I don’t spend $30something on sketchers, but I will spend $4. And she couldn’t be happier. When I arrived back in the parking lot of the jump center where my boys were, I had to rearrange my area rug and night stand purchase. I either needed to repack the car or strap the boys to the top. I chose to repack. I pulled the night stand out and set it in the parking lot behind my van. Then, I got into the trunk, with as many body parts hanging out of the van as there were inside it. And I rearranged and got the third seat operational again. As I was finishing, a friend walked up. We’ll call her Flecky Bilt.

“For a second there, I actually wondered who the crazy lady was unloading furniture in the parking lot…”

As she said this, another friend, Baron Wetty, walked up and said, “oh, I knew EXACTLY who it was…”

I begged her pardon.

In other news, the best thing I’ve read lately, besides my Bible, is this blog entry. They are all good, but this one hit me in the right spot on the right day. Go read!

Living with Enthusiasm

Marcus Aurelius was an outstanding emperor as far as the people of Rome were concerned. I’m not so sure he measured up in God’s eyes, as most of the famous Romans were pretty big scoundrels. But that’s not really related to this particular point.

His son was rock bottom evil. He was as hated as hated gets. It was a wonder that a dude like that could have sprung from a dad like Marcus. His son, Commodus, renamed the city of Rome Comodiana (anyone thinking of toilet seats here?) and renamed every month of the calendar to correspond with one of the twelve names he had acquired during office.  Wow. Now there’s a dude who’s impressed with himself.

I need to rename the calendar for different reasons.

On January 2, I started my new regime. I started my Finish List. I did well. On January 3, I did pretty good, though I got tired and fell asleep during my Bible reading. On January 4, I was a tiny bit decent fighting to get out from under the shawl of pathetic. And by January 5 I was rolling in the filth one might find on the soft ground near a septic tank.

Perhaps that is slightly exaggerated. I wasn’t out clubbing while drunk and carrying a weapon. But I had promptly forgotten it was a new year with new goals. And the Finish List was more like a “Did you even catch sight of the Middle List?”

Nope.

So at this point, I figured I’d do what I do every year: Give up until next year. Because if I can’t start fresh in January, what really is the point?

That logic is both idiotic and completely backwards.But since I can’t seem to get past that “i need a fresh start” mentality, I am changing the calendar.

February 1 is a new year for me. And we’ll see how that goes.

Today has been relaxing and nice. It is me and Snugglemonkey in Kentucky with friends. I loved driving places with only Snugglemonkey, because she doesn’t complain when I stop to take photos. On the way out to a friend’s house this morning, I stopped multiple times to take pictures of barns, birds, falling down buildings, etc. I love her for thinking it’s normal.

Here are a couple of the spots we found interesting.

I love the old piano on the porch. And the sign on the door. Only in the South…

I am 1000 miles north of my home right now with my youngest daughter. I am visiting dear friends. A long time ago, Southwest ran a deal for really cheap flights. On that day, I randomly selected this weekend and the child not in school and bought tickets. I didn’t know then that it was Martin Luther King weekend. I certainly didn’t know it’d be snowing here.

That is icing on the cake.
Literally.
Well, not literally.
Metaphorically.
If the Kentucky town is the cake and the snow is the icing.

When we first walked outside into the Nashville terminal, the cold was nipping at us through the breeze and the drizzle. Two hours later it was biting us with fangs through the wind and snow.

I’m pretty sure Michigan would kill me, but I love this.

I was exhausted when I finally laid down last night next to my sleeping angel. A thin blanket of snow was draped across the blades of grass. The grass was reluctant to give up and never did. When I awakened this morning, that blanket was thicker, but still hadn’t erased the signs of grass and shrubs in the neighborhood. Even so, it was enough for me and I played out in it for maybe an hour.

When I came in, I amputated my own hands.

I didn’t really, but they weren’t working right anymore. It was 24 degrees.  And still, I love it. Maybe I wouldn’t love it if it were an extended 5 month shroud of gray and cold, but for a weekend, it rocks.

I am a Craiglist aficionado.

Some even go so far as to say I am a Craigslist connoisseur.

No one actually says that. I just wanted to learn to spell it and say it about myself.  I feel really good right now.

Actually, most people that I wish would call me a connoisseur (I think I shaved just a few tenths of a second off my time in spelling that without looking it up) really think I’m obsessive compulsive and need to choose another hobby.

My favorite thing to shop for (and buy) is iPod Nanos. What could be more fun than learning how to snag a cute, sleek piece of technology for $50 or less? I got my 4^th grader a nano for $25 once. It was in brand new condition. He listens to books on tape. Also Kidz Bop.

The Kidz Bop thing sort of ruins the empire I’ve attempted to build. I’d feel so much better about it if it weren’t for the ‘z’ and the terrible singing.

Oh well.

Anyway.

Now that we are just weeks from moving into a farmhouse that will not accept some of the furniture I currently own, I am buying and selling used furniture. (The house doesn’t actually turn away furniture, but it’s a little smaller than our current place and a little tiny bit OLDER.)

The latest thing became the couch.

Let me tell you about The Couch of Shame.

Besides stalking the Salvation Army store on Nebraska Avenue, I started stalking furniture ads on Craigslist. I was shopping different things. First I was shopping sleeper sofas, since we’ve never needed one. For some reason, though no human has ever wanted to pull out and sleep on a couch in our house, I made this a requirement. We HAVE to have a sleeper sofa.  A few of my friends asked why. I don’t know. I couldn’t answer that. So I crossed that off the list.

After the sleeping requirement was axed, the next priority became leather. We had to create the Pottery Barn/Southern Living look for $99 or less. That’s no problem if you are a Craigslist Aficionado Connoisseur (CAC).

So the search was on.

After much consulting with the Informinator, we decided a casual distressed-type leather couch would look good in the farmhouse family room. I sent her a few links. Then this one came up:

Beautiful Dark Brown Leather Couch. No scuffs or tears. Pricing it low because I need it gone by this weekend. $145.

Hmm. $145. That sounds great! So I called the guy. Are there really no scuffs and tears? Why are you selling it? Where are you located? When can I see it? Is it really in good shape? No, really. Is it?

It is. He said. It was left in a condo he owns. The woman vacated and couldn’t get the couch down the stairs. He had to take the banister off to get the couch down the stairs. Hmm. OK. I guess.

It sounds GREAT. Let’s do it. I want first right of refusal. I am making a date night out of it. Me and Todd, we’ll frolic all the way to Oldsmar (that’s a 45 minute drive), see our beautiful, no-scuffs, no-tears  leather couch, buy it, frolic into a restaurant, eat food, frolic all the way to Plant City to the farmhouse, unload the couch there, admire its perfection, and frolic home.

That was the plan.

Friday morning, a drizzle set in. It was sometimes a low lying cloud, sometimes a heavy drizzle, and sometimes a full-out rain. Then more drizzle. And more clouds. There was very little good weather that day.

My date called about 4 o’clock.

“Are we still going?” he asked, obviously expecting a very reasonable ‘no.’

“Are we still going? Does the pope wear a funny hat? Of course we’re still going?”

“In this weather?” he asked.

“The weather is fine,” I replied. I have a little of my dad in me.

“OK,” he said with hesitation. “But don’t act like this isn’t crazy.”

I did act like it wasn’t crazy. It wasn’t crazy.

Late Friday afternoon, with a too-small tarp and a sail from a sailboat to protect the couch from rain (don’t even ask the questions about that one), we took off to view our new little gem of Lounging Awesomeness.

There was very little light in the condo when we arrived and walked in.  Dude, are you holding a séance? What’s going on? Where’s the altar?  And there it was. The couch, not an altar.  It was nice. I don’t know if I’d go “beautiful” if I were writing the ad. It was nice. I immediately began pawing my impending purchase. And I found a couple of scuffs. They were against the back. I could forgive that.

“It had 4 feet,” the man said, as he was showing it. “But now I can only find three.” Oh good. Perfect. A three-legged couch. Sounds like an old dog named Corky I once knew about.  No problem, Todd said. We could work around the lame leg.

“Would you take less?” Todd said to the false advertiser.

“Wellllll,” he said. “I have at least 2 people wanting to see it tonight or tomorrow, so I’m inclined to say no.” You are inclined to, sir. But will you? Will you say no?  We offered him $125. He did not say no. Then we carried the couch out into the parking lot to load it onto the truck. I say ‘we’ rather loosely, as I didn’t touch the couch during this process. It sat in the parking lot about to be loaded onto the truck and I took one final opportunity to paw it again.

That’s when I found it.

THE TEAR.

There was a half inch rip in the far left cushion of the dark brown, beautiful leather, no-rips-or-scuffs couch. GASP.

Oh no. Now what? We had agreed on terms. We had driven 45 minutes to adopt it. We were hungry. Dark was encroaching. The weather was a shrouded threat just hanging there and waiting to smack us down. We liked the three-legged beauty. It was our special needs couch. But now—now—it had more needs than we realized. It wasn’t just a three-legged couch. It was now a three-legged couch with a small tear and a very thin feeling piece of leather near the tear.

Oh dear.

My date looked at me. I looked at my date. He wanted to just do this and be done with it. I wanted the tear to not exist. This is the Mama’s Boy in me. Always seeking perfection even when it is way beyond impossible.

Oh, ok.

We bought it. And all the way to Plant City, I wore the grimace of buyer’s remorse on my face. Yes, it’s a nice couch. Yes, it was only $125. But we are raising 4 thrashing gorillas. In one wild afternoon, a half-inch rip could become a rip with a half-inch couch.

It concerns me.

We beat it to Plant City without stopping for food. With the clouds hanging low in the sky and mocking us as darkness rolled in, we didn’t feel like we could risk the rain. The only thing worse than a half-inch torn, three-legged couch is a drenched half-inch torn, three-legged couch. If you knew how difficult it was to type all these hyphenated oddities, you’d like this blog more. I’m sorry you can’t appreciate it.

When we arrived at our very dark farmhouse, we backed as close to the front porch as we could.  Now it was MY turn to help unloading the special needs couch. I like to think I’m pretty handy at loading and unloading, carrying, scooting, lifting, and arranging.

I guess I don’t do couches.

We dropped that thing twice.

Hard.

Both were my fault.

Now it was a special-needs, three-legged, half-inch torn couch that was broken in half.

Just kidding.

I got you, didn’t I?

Nothing really happened except that I gasped like a frightened toddler and made up lots of excuses for how slippery leather can be.

After finding just the right piece of scrap wood to be the fourth leg for the special needs couch, we scooted it into place and walked out. But not before we had let 25 mosquitoes into the house and had to swat at the air enough times to need a new application of deodorant. This sounds exaggerated. I assure you—this time—it is not. We were so swarmed by mosquitoes that I sprayed myself with Off inside the house and yelled RUN as we headed to the car.

The mosquito incident prompted a new invention in my head. I am patenting this and if I see it on the market before I myself market it, I will hunt down and sue each and every subscriber to this blog until I have found the thief. There will be 36 people very worried when that happens. My invention is a Mosquito Paddle. It is the size and shape of a Pro Kadima paddle (think oversized ping pong) and is laced with zappers. The entire paddle is battery powered and electrically charged to kill mosquitoes on impact. Instead of swiping at them with your ineffective fist, you can pick up the Mos-Murder Paddle and take them down three or ten at a time. It’s pure genius.

Not having this device quite yet, we ran for the truck and drowned our sorrows in a Sonny’s platter in Exit 11 in  Plant City.

I haven’t been back to see the couch.

I’m going back tomorrow to assess the special needs.

The question is: Do I resell with an honest ad and recover my money and begin a new search? Or do I spend a little and buy a repair kit and risk adding “Bad Leather Patch” to the rap sheet of issues?

If anyone has leather repair experience, I am listening.

I hope it doesn’t feel neglected.

Little does it know, it’ll get more love than it needs soon enough.

I used to consider myself a CAC (Craigslist Aficionado Connoisseur).

Now I just think I’m an idiot.

On June 9, 2011, I signed a contract to write an ebook for some very cool guys with a cool idea. I grossly underestimated this project, as did everyone. It was to be 18 chapters, with each chapter being somewhat shortish.

I don’t do shortish.
Have you read my blog?

It’s unfortunate that I can’t do shortish. This time, however, I feel like the length and the development were necessary. This is what I tell myself to get to sleep at night. It works mostly.

I wrote. And I wrote. And I wrote. And I wrote. And I obsessed. And I begged Keri for advice, which she SO kindly and generously gave. I seriously might have died–no, I mean ACTUALLY died–if I hadn’t had her help. OK, maybe not actual death. But something very nearly like it. I don’t know what that would be. Perhaps the funny farm. I looked a couple of them up. They weren’t taking writers with my symptoms.

Do you see why I can’t do shortish? I struggle with tangents. And stream-of-consciousness.

And from mid-June until late September, I did nothing but write. I barely cleaned the house at all. The kids were constantly searching the house for matching socks. Todd did so much cooking. (The kids really, REALLY like his cooking. But that is another post…) I dieted. On this diet, I gained 5.5 pounds. Pretty sure no one’s going to call me to write an ebook on dieting.  At the end of it all, I had 302 pages, 120,195 words, and 5.5 pounds to show for it. And all summer long, I got about 20 hours of sleep.

I do exaggerate the sleep thing, but not so much. It was bad. 3 a.m. was my average bedtime. During summer days when we didn’t have to be anywhere, the kids tried to let me sleep until about 8. On a really lucky day, I slept till 9. But then school started back and the project was still in full swing. I was getting about 3 hours of sleep each night. I’m a 40 year old lady. This begins to wear on 40-year-old ladies.

I told the funny farm people about the no-sleep thing. They still wouldn’t take me. They asked me if I’d ever tried to sleep in a mental health facility. I said no. But I’d like to try, even so. Again, they said no. There aren’t a lot of nice people in the mental health facility. They don’t read ebooks.

None of this is true.
Except the lack of sleep thing. And all the other stuff.

Anyway.

One night in late September–I think it was September 28–I declared that I was not going to bed until I finished my final chapter. It was my FINAL chapter, but it had been dogging me for almost 2 weeks. It was shortening my life. I HAD to finish it. So I plugged away into the night. 3 a.m. rolled around. I drank a Diet Mtn. Dew. 4 a.m. rolled around. 5 a.m. came and I went to take a shower. I was getting groggy. The shower woke me back up. At 6:26 a.m., I finished that chapter. And then I stood up from my desk and made breakfast. It was time to start our day. I had a great day that day. I lived in a fog to some extent, but functioned nicely.

It was the next day that it hit me. I didn’t even bother to call those mean mental health people. I just went to bed at 9. That seemed to do the trick without packing any suitcases.

Looking back, I am so glad it’s over. It was the hardest project I’ve ever done. I know God gave it to me. I also know Satan likes to try to use the blessings in our lives to our disadvantage. I certainly messed a thing or two up while trying to complete this book. Besides gaining 5 pounds (on top of the 12 I was already trying to lose!), and the fact that it looks like the girls’ rooms vomited up mismatched outfits from their closets, I sort of lost sight of a few important things.

I just got tired.

And while I am still super thankful to have had this opportunity, I’m now having to take baby steps back toward the things I left behind. I can’t freak out that there are 117 articles of clothing not in their rightful place. I can’t even freak out that the 117 out-of-place articles of clothing don’t HAVE a rightful place. Don’t even get me started on the 62.5 cabillion things we have to do to move out of this house and into the farmhouse (that’s also another post…). I can’t lose the 5.5 pounds tonight. Or the 17.5 pounds next week. And I can’t become a spiritual tower of strength in the next three days as I beat myself about the head and neck for hardly praying to the One who gave all of this to me. I have told Him “thank you.” And I have told Him, “I’m sorry.” And I meant it.

Getting to the place I want to be will take baby steps. One small thing at a time that moves me in the proper direction.  I am looking at each choice as either a “strengthener” or a “weakener” in this. If it weakens, I try to avoid it. Seems simple, but somehow isn’t all that easy to apply. I am praying a lot. I am spending time in the Word. I’m not really exercising consistently yet, but I’m working on that, too.

A wise person told me this week, “Just do the next thing.”

I think she read that somewhere.

Or maybe she’s just smart like that.

It’s good advice, either way.

I’m going to do the next thing. And 1800 next things from now, I’ll be able to look behind me and see that I’ve been somewhere.

If not, I’ll try the mental health people one more time. Maybe this time, they’ll say yes.

This morning was a little bit strange. Beloved, now in Kindergarten, is struggling to keep the Grumpy Bear on a leash. She gets in the car in the afternoon, usually with one energetic burst of something school-related. One day it was: “BUENOS DIAS, Mommy!” Yesterday it was: “I got on yellow!” Oh boy. I knew that yellow was coming. She’s a social child. She’s also loud and demonstrative. She isn’t real covert in her socializing operations. Right after her one burst of info, the crying sets in. And then I start trying to get the bear back on the leash.

This morning she got up at 6 saying she didn’t feel well. This is a phrase now almost as common as “Hello” with her. Actually, ‘hello’ isn’t technically a phrase. But whatever. You get the idea. So we’ll see how her day goes on that kind of sleep.

As I was finalizing her backpack with an afternoon snack, I asked her what she wanted.

“Do you want the last of the Doritos or some chips?” I asked.

“Just something available,” she answered. What? Huh?

“What? Something available?” I asked, squinting at her across the kitchen.

“Yes, Mommy. Just whatever’s available.” I didn’t want that one blowing up in my face, so I continued my inquiry.

“How about Cheerios?” I asked. “Do you want Cheerios or Ritz Crackers?” She looked at me and answered.

“You can choose what it is, as long as it’s available.” Why would I put an unavailable snack into her backpack? Apparently someone has learned a new word and is using it at all the wrong times.

I picked Cheerios. Then I spilled half of them all over the floor just trying to pour them into a baggie. I’ll be crushing them underfoot for the rest of the day.

But at least they’ll be available.

I am about to go take my nightly nap. At this point, it isn’t really a night’s sleep. I rarely get to bed before 1…sometimes 2 a.m. I don’t have enough to show for it. Certainly my house isn’t clean. The book isn’t done, but it IS almost done. I think the kids are happy and I haven’t blown my stack or gone into any formal self-help facilities. I feel like that’s a success all its own.

My dad sent me an email tonight that made me laugh. It didn’t make me want to type LOL, though. I will avoid that like Tuberculosis. If I get his permission, I will share it. But I promised myself when I started this blog that I would never post about others against their will. Life’s too short to make any enemies.

This post is dedicated to my neti pot and the girl that introduced me to the neti pot. We’ll call her Pothead, because it’s fun. She won’t like that much, I don’t think. But, Pothead, you know who you are. Thanks for the neti pot. I have undergone sheer sinus torture over the last few days. Through some agonizing rinsing, I am much better. It was gross, though. The kids could hardly tolerate watching. I’m guessing they aren’t going to let me shove one of these apparatuses up their nostrils when they next get sick…

I saw The Help tonight. I read it a year ago. I have much to say about it that will get its own blog. I just can’t revisit it all right this moment. Sometimes I am ashamed of the South. But for the most part, people are getting better.In the meantime, though, sometimes there’s still drama. And that’s all I”m going to say about that until I’ve had a little nappy.

Gnite.