yes, I am a pirate, 200 years too late....

And you know how I know? Because I have the mouth of a very salty sailor. This is not something I'm proud of, it's just an innate gift. Much like the dad in the Christmas Story, I can weave a web of profanity that hangs in the air for hours, and lots of times I make up my own unique combinations of four letter words. Since Milo's been around, I have learned to squelch a lot of what wants to come out of my mouth, but sometimes it's just uncontrollable, especially when I'm frustrated (this usually occurs when I'm driving). Perhaps I have cussing Tourette's?

Anyway, Milo generally knows when something slips forth from my lips that he shouldn't repeat and will tell me "Mom. That's a bad word." The guilt trip alone is enough to shut me up for like, five whole minutes. We've been having some issues with Tuckerton, our elderly gentleman cat, barfing for the past few days. I wouldn't care if the cat threw up on the hardwood floor or down in the basement where I could easily clean it up, but he always, and I mean always, throws up his nasty puke in Milo's bedroom, on the beige deep pile wall to wall carpet. It's literally the only carpet in the house that I can't clean easily, and that cat is determined to turn it into one giant vomit stain. Yesterday was a really bad day; Tuckerton threw up a couple times in the night and I had to clean it up in the morning before work This was irritating enough, but then when we came home yesterday afternoon, four new piles of nasty orangey cat-food-esque barf were waiting for us in Milo's room. Before I even registered what I said, I said this: "Tuckerton: you assbag," right in front of Milo.

Milo looked at me, looked at the puke, and said in a tone of total derision, "Mom. That's barf. Tuckerton's not an assbag, he's a barfbag. Duh." and walked away with his hands up in the air. You could totally hear him thinking "Jeez, if she's gonna say mean things, they should at least be right."

PS: Not to worry about Tuckerton, I gave him his hairball medicine for a few days and he has finally stopped throwing up. He also got a nice haircut, courtesy of the kitchen grooming salon, so he is sporting the lion-mane look for a month or two.

Christmas 2010

Photos will be forthcoming, when I get around to it. My current project is printing all the unprinted photos we have backlogged from 2008 through 2010. So give me a few months to get caught up!

Christmas was good. The usual hullabaloo during the day, but we enjoyed a nice evening at home, and had an excellent turkey-in-the-crockpot dinner. Milo had the attention span of a gnat, flitting from one exciting new toy to the next and Corey and I were able to just...relax. Unheard of, I know! It was amazing. Until we heard on the radio that a blizzard warning was posted for the next day and I had to run out to the gas station at 7:30pm to gas up the truck, so Corey could use its awesome four wheel drive-ness in the snow. Thank goodness the gas station was open, or I don't know what we would have done.

My favorite things about this Christmas were...
Getting the Christmas tree early! We go to the spruce goose christmas tree farm every year, usually mid December, but this year we had the tree by the 8th, as it was really the only week we had time. We all look forward to the annual tree hunt event.

Decorating the tree with Milo. He has his own pizzazzy decorating style, which employs burdening certain branches with up to five ornaments while leaving other branches naked. It makes for a nice cluster effect. Milo was so proud of himself for helping with the tree that I didn't have the heart to move any of the ornaments around. He even went and got a stepstool so he could reach higher branches.

And of course, Milo's face once he figured out that Santa had come. This Christmas morning was quite different than last year's. I was awake before he was, and had the coffee on and the Christmas music going and had fed the dogs, when Milo came grouching out of his bedroom and said "Could you quiet down, Mom? I'm trying to sleep!" I actually had to say to him, "Milo. Do you know what day it is?" His answer: "No. But I know that I'm tired."

Skin update

No, this isn't some weird porno post. I thought I might mention that I had to go back to the dermatologist to get the icky scar on my back checked again because it felt like one lonely, very itchy, stitch was still left in it. It had pretty much healed over but itched like crazy and that stitch kept catching on my shirts and making me nuts.

So I  show the dermatologist and she says "Yep, we can pull that out for you." The nurse person gave it a good hard tug with the tweezers and this loooong pile of white twirly stuff came flying out. EWWW. I thought it was goop from inside the scar. Nope. It was all the internal stitches. My body had completely rejected them and was trying to force them out. Hence the stitch that was sticking out and kept getting longer. Leave it to me to be the weird one that doesn't accept dissolvable sutures. The nurse said she had never seen that happen before. No wonder the boo-boo didn't heal right, if my skin wasn't holding itself together properly. I just wonder what will happen if I ever have to have a major surgery?Will I have to be stapled back together? or perhaps crazy glued?

On the bright side, my back doesn't itch anymore! and there are no more snags in my shirts!

so long, 2010! Hello...2011.

Thank goodness that year is over and done with. It was a long, somewhat irritating one around these parts. Of course there were many bright spots, but the bad days were rather memorable too.

The year of Itch 2010 in quick review:
Flood!!
Broken washer!
Broken dryer!
Kitchen sink quit draining for-ever!
Water softener broke!
Milo started school!
We refinanced into an awesome low rate mortgage!
We got a great camera!Tuckerton came to live with us!

May 2011 bring us all lots more smiles and many less piles of crap to clean up :)