Owner: cool beans URL:http://coolbeansmama.wordpress.com Join Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2007 15:24:13 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: This is the personal but public diary of a 30-something woman who is a wife, mother, survivor and volunteer. She tends to be easily irritated by people, but is working on being as friendly on the inside as she is on the outside. Or not. Site statistics:Click here
Outta Here 2007-05-12 18:03:01 We’re going to the lake. You are jealous.
Have a great weekend!
Emotionally Manipulative 2007-05-11 16:56:42 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
She’s Come Undone (Mr. Lamb and I are not friends.)
Pillsbury dinner roll commercials with the hearts.
Read more:Emotionally
This and That 2007-05-16 16:10:24 When you have a terrible headache and get it to “break”, do you sweat like you’ve broken a fever? I do. And then I feel fantastic.
School ends next week. I’m looking forward to it. The house is a mess. I need help! Really, though. It’ll be fun to go to the library and hang out in the backyard and lock them out of the house.
We’re not supposed to feed the ducks our sandwich. What can we feed them? We really want to feed the ducks at the park. Can we buy duck food?
Last night at the PTA meeting, rum slush was omitted from the menu for the teacher appreciation lunch. Taco Salad is ON, though.
My little guy tells me every time he needs to use the bathroom. If he forgets to tell me on his way there, he hollers from the bathroom, “MOM! I’m going poop!”
Since I quit my job, we’ve stopped paying for TV. We’ve only had ABC, CBS and occasionally PBS (though most of the time there was a weird NPR voice-over). We figured out last n
Things You Should Read 2007-05-15 16:49:15 These two blog entries from the last few days need more attention than they’re getting in my Google Reader Clips.
When Lena was 12 her mother read her diary and it was a good thing. But now Lena’s asking,
I want to know, do you think it’s okay for a mother to read her child’s innermost thoughts?
Please, pay Lena a visit and share your thoughts.
GraceD (super hero with the power to rock my socks) encourages survivors of childhood abuse to put “Forgiveness where it belongs.”
This is the story of five family members who packed to go to the lake and let the mom blog about it to see what happens when people stop hanging out in the city and start getting back to nature. 2007-05-14 06:18:42 We went to the lake yesterday and had a very nice time swimming and going for boat rides and snagging $10 lures in the trees. Twice. I don’t know how to fish. I do know how to type, though. I know you were jealous when I said we were going. This story
might help ease your pain. A little.
After a late lunch, my husband took us out on the boat. My oldest child didn’t want to go on the boat because that’s just for babies or something. So we left him behind with strict orders not to swim by himself. When we came back from exploring and scaring some geese who had babies (the babies go under water! Isn’t that the something? And the HONKING! It’s hilarious. Ahahaha. They thought we’d run them over. HAHAHA. I’m going straight to Hell.), I fully expected to find him splashing about in the middle of the lake. Instead, my kid was standing on the picnic table. He doesn’t usually do this so I said, “What the heck are you doing?” and he sa Read more:people
, nature
Help Me Be Creative 2007-05-19 07:02:25 Alrighty. This blog needs a fanciful new header. I have someone just chompin’ at the bit, ready to go but I haven’t been able to provide any direction. “Um, I want….well, not …huh. A header? I want a header! Yes!” That’s as far as I’ve gotten.
SO, if you are willing to help me out, I was thinking of doing something not entirely unlike Here In Idaho because I am the Jennifer Jason Leigh to her Bridget Fonda. Though not entirely because her bangs are way fierce. My bangs can only yearn.
Okay. So what does all that mean? 1) Be a little afraid of me, maybe and 2) I want you to tell me the funniest things I’ve ever said. Originally I thought this would include just snippets, short one-liners, good phrases. But! If it can’t be condensed that far, don’t exclude it. Perhaps that could be illustrated.
This is the brainstorming session right here. It’s totally exciting!
Oh, yes. Nearly forgot. Pretty, pretty please with s
I can’t compete with muppets and I did something heinous to a librarian in a past life. 2007-05-18 19:47:52 I’m currently working on the alphabet with my son. He can sing the song though he leaves out “J” and “N” (who needs those anyway?) and thinks the end is “Y-U-Z”.
We read books and sing the song and I point out letters and he half participates, half sticks his hands in his pants and looks away disinterested. But the muppets! The muppets are interesting and they know this ABC stuff inside and out and they ARE the authority so he’s gonna go with them on this one, thanks anyway, Mom.
Changing subjects now the lazy way.
Yesterday we went to the library and enjoyed story hour. Then we took three videos to the counter to check out.
The OTHER librarian who is usually quite nice: “There’s a fine. Sigh. Two dollars for ‘Go Diego Go’.”
Me, disgruntled library patron: “That was due today. I brought it back. Is it checked back in?”
TOLWIUQN: “Wait. Let me see. Ohhhhhh. It’s not a fine. It’s d Read more:something
Protected: Itinerary 2007-05-21 13:05:01
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Sad News 2007-05-21 13:04:06 My grandma passed away early this morning. She was ill and hurting inside and out. I am glad for her that it’s over.
More about this coming up in password protected posts.
Right Now 2007-05-21 10:51:32 I am:
asking my little guy to stop scraping half a plastic egg on the face of his chalkboard. (He says, “I’m figuring out something.” which means, “I’m ensuring your psychiatrist can continue to look like a million bucks!”)
wishing I had a laptop.
wondering if my apricot trees are sick.
concerned our evergreens are unhealthy and too tall.
not sure what kind of trees they really are.
looking up the prices of blog hosting and domain name buying.
clueless regarding what domain name I’d buy.
caught up in my feed reader up to the letter “S”. If you are pre-S, please refrain from posting today. Thank you.
needing a shower.
sorry I keep pressing “8″ instead of “3″ and bothering the nice girl who almost has my sister’s cell number.
Read more:Right
Smarting 2007-05-30 18:01:10 Attending my grandmother’s funeral shook my foundation. From seeing my father for the first time since my mother threw him out last summer to drinking with cousins I remember holding as babies, everything was strange, new, awkward. For everything I felt, I felt the opposite at the very same time. I was happy to see family; pissed they didn’t help me. Scared to trip over triggers in my grandparents’ house; comforted by sitting in my grandmother’s chair. Relieved to be somewhere without my kids; desperate to hide inside my role as Mom. Feeling fully intertwined and completely disconnected. I cried over the wonderful things people said about my grandmother. I cried over the festering family secrets we may never address and properly lay to rest.
Because of this I was granted an opportunity to exercise my control and power under extraordinarily painful circumstances. I have a better feel for where I am in the process of healing from childhood sexual abuse. It was a t
Grief 2007-05-29 00:52:14 I’ve been hanging out the last week with this bitch named Weepy. She’s mostly around during the day and at night Sleeping Pill Bill holds down the fort. I like Sleeping Pill Bill. He is all melllllllow and is allllll about snacks. I like it! But that Weepy is a drag. I mean, she’s alright… no, not really. Weepy makes me feel empty of anything good and stuffed right full of bad and Screaming tends to check in on me and Weepy from time to time to see if we need her services which we do, thank you very much. SCREAMING BANSHEE HERE YOU GO GET IT ALL OUT. But it doesn’t all come out.
I don’t know how to not feel so unbelievably shitty about my grandma being dead in a coffin in the ground where nobody’s going to put fresh lipstick on her before the next round of guests arrives, which is okay, I suppose, because did you see the glossy one? It just…didn’t look like her lips with the glossy one. (I was happy when Grandpa kissed it off bef Read more:Grief
Is it child abuse to have children you can’t afford? I say no. 2007-06-06 12:13:47 Karen has started a discussion about raising healthy kids. In her post, she says:
Yesterday, the author of Violent Acres wrote this amazing post as a follow up to another one, both based on the fact that it is childabuse
to have children you can’t afford
. Her example was indicative of part of what is wrong with our society. Hello Queen of Obvious, once again, you hit the nail on the head.
I would like to address this idea:
…it is child abuse to have children you can’t afford.
There are several things wrong with this argument. First, it’s abstract. How much income is enough to afford having a child? When posed it this way, and including a very generous weekly grocery budget ($150 for Karen’s family of four), one immediately excludes a large portion of the population.
Second, abuse is abuse. I refuse to accept the labeling of WIC recipients as child abusers. I also won’t accept that the majority of people on government assistance are “deadbeats&rdq
Meme: In The Spotlight 2007-06-05 10:54:17 I was tagged for this meme by Carter-Ann at The Baby Gravy Train. This meme is a bit different because you get to pick which questions you’d like to answer. Head over to Christy’s Coffee Break for the list of questions and Official Rules and Such. I’m going to answer the questions Carter-Ann answered, plus one more. You’re gonna love it.
What do you hope to accomplish with your blog?
I want it to serve as a record of my life right now. Being me: a mom, a survivor, a lady and one bad motherfucker. This is a lazy way of staying in touch with far-away friends. I felt like copying and pasting the same text into several emails was cheating somehow. Now I can write about my day and my friends and I can chat about other things when we’re online at the same time or when we call each other. I also think I know how to make a good sentence and am funny. Most of you agree. I think you are brilliant.
Someday I might design a t-shirt or coffee mug and make twenty bucks Read more:Spotlight
Monday! 2007-06-04 12:00:59 It’s here. The official start to our summer vacation. Hooray!
I promised there would be iced tea and sprinklers and the trashy radio station. So far, we have iced tea. It probably won’t be hot enough for sprinklers, and even if it were, our yard is a swamp after all the rain we’ve gotten lately. Trashy radio can only be played outside when the kids aren’t really paying much attention. One out of three ain’t bad. Oh! I promised ass-kicking awesomeness, didn’t I? Well, I made muffins. It’s a start.
I could say thank you every day for a year to everyone who expressed their condolences and said other nice things to me in the last two weeks and it wouldn’t be enough. Thank you.
Read more:Monday
We got something from the bakery instead. 2007-06-08 14:15:03 Tired, hungry and craving sugar, two sisters stand in a foreign Walmart’s cookie aisle eyeballing the options. Noticing movement to their left, the pair turns and stands open-mouthed as they gaze in horror upon another shopper. Dressed in a white shirt and white pants pushing her cart full of goodies, the woman is covered in blood and what can only be described later as “bits”. The front of her shirt, the tips of her short sleeves, and her pant legs from ankles to knees splattered with the remains of something
or someone. Behind her, another woman, sloppily dressed but otherwise clean, appears to be missing an arm.
Editing to explain. I’ve gotten a couple of “???” and “!!!” and some “?!?!?” regarding this little tidbit. I realize now that it doesn’t “fit” with my usual blog stuff and might be a little disturbing. True story: My sister and I were staying in a hotel out of town - of course, out of town because
RIP Little TV 2007-06-07 12:27:34 Yesterday my daughter went to the waterpark with her friend. When my daughter left, her little brother’s world fell apart and the wailing and sobbing was spectacular.
In a last-resort attempt to calm him down, my oldest boy started a movie on the television in my bedroom. When my little guy was finally coaxed into the room, my son decided to shut the blinds and close the curtains to encourage nappy time.
Here’s where I take you back in time to the day several years ago when my husband and I, the home design and repair challenged, hung the curtain rod in our bedroom. One that looks similar to this. Everything looked great until we tried to put the finials on the rod. We’d hung the brackets too close together which left too much rod sticking out either side. Putting the finials on them made it look completely ridiculous. It didn’t look so bad without them, so we just left them off. We told ourselves, “It shouldn’t hurt anything. We can fix it later if
SUMMER! 2007-06-12 14:25:02 Remember how we were going to run through the sprinkler and stuff in the backyard? It turns out my kids would rather blast music in the basement and scream and chase each other. It also turns out it is flippin’ WINDY here, so I can’t blame them.
After our television plunged to its near-death (more on that later), our washing machine decided to fill up with water and then stop. Then, my son vacuumed the cord on the vacuum cleaner. We had someone work on the air conditioning unit in my car and now it would blow cold air if it could blow. Instead it just makes cold-air-blowing noise and pisses on the driver’s side floor board.
AWESOME!
The Price Is Wrong, Bitch.* 2007-06-15 12:45:47 After struggling with malware and its removal until midnight, I decided to read a real live book until I got sleepy. Unfortunately, I am reading a really good book and didn’t get sleepy until 6:00. That would be 6:00 in the morning. I slept until my little guy woke me at 8:30 to tell me he had to poop. There is always an announcement with him: “I gotta go pee!” “Mom, I needa poop. Mom! I. needa. poop.” Uh, okay, kid. We’re two feet away from the bathroom. Just GO FOR IT. But he can’t. He has to make a statement first.
So I did what moms of novice toilet users do and then gave him a chocolate chip muffin and a cup of milk and went back to bed. There I dreamt that I keep losing him in time. Not “in time” as in “promptly” (Uh-oh! I’m late misplacing my child!), but “in time” as in “he time traveled”. It was terrifying. (You should read The Time Traveler’s Wife. It is good. Maybe start in Read more:Wrong
, Bitch
It’s Thursday. I’d like to bitch about it. 2007-06-14 22:09:56 In the last couple of weeks we have:
lost a television
admitted a washing machine to Home Appliance ICU
listened as our son vacuumed the vacuum cleaner’s cord
repaired the A/C in my car so it is cold but won’t blow
had a really annoying bit of malware pop up on our computer
Today I spent several hours at my in-law’s so I could do laundry which wouldn’t have needed to be done if my son didn’t need a clean uniform for a baseball game that got rained out after I spent several hours at my in-law’s doing laundry. While Rush Limbaugh was on the radio. (WordPress recognizes “Limbaugh” as a real word. This isn’t brightening my day.)
Then I came home and wrestled some more with the pain-in-the-ass malware also known as “Contra Virus”. The first searches for how to remove this thing turned up unhelpful ads. Frustrated, I used the “Blog Search” function on Google and found this post that was kind of helpful. The dire Read more:Thursday
Biblical Curse Generator 2007-06-19 08:51:30 Via Loralee: The Biblical
Curse Generator
.
Harken, O thou who art a byword for idiocy, for you will beget difficult teenagers!
best of craigslist 2007-06-22 10:01:03 From craigslist
via Vodkarella:
Also, please refrain from referring to your gay friend as “my Will” or yourself as “Grace.” That’s totally queer. It was an okay show that’s been off the air for over a year. Move on.
Every time someone links to the best of craigslist, I wonder why I don’t read it. I subscribed this time. Then I found this:
Be nice to the equipment. You slamming the top of the copy machine will not make it work any better contrary to popular belief around here. Also, yes I CAN get the jam out of the fax machine, so don’t ask me to with a big ol attitude like I caused it or something.
I sort of want to make out with her. Picking one quote from this rant was very, very difficult.
Blog Business: Omphaloskepsis 2007-06-21 09:30:42 Some of this is hard to talk about in paragraphs. It’s easier in list form. Most of this is me letting you hear the voices in my head. The voices that spend too much time talking to me about me and stuff that probably won’t matter much when I’m 80.
I’ve run out of free space in my Flickr account. Do I want to pay to store my photos online? Should I look for a less expensive option? Split my photos between free accounts? Print everything and press DELETE?
I’m thinking about turning off comments. I like feedback, discussion, and attention. I wonder if it be easier to write whatever I want, say what I have to say, enjoy my own writing more if I wasn’t anticipating comments. Sometimes comments make me feel good, validated, supported. But I do feel disappointment when I don’t get comments I sort of thought I’d get. Or when I don’t get comments from people I thought for sure would say something. Oh, how that stings. It’s worse than Read more:Business
Where am I? 2007-06-20 10:41:50 I was sitting here thinking, “I will write about my weekend!” but then I couldn’t remember the weekend. Huh. Weird.
Oh! I know what we did. Duh! I was there!
Friday night the kids had friends sleep over. One of the children is diabetic and we’d never had her overnight before. I was nervous and slept for two hours, was up for a few hours and then slept for two hours. We did just fine, though. She only had to call her parents once and we returned her unharmed. Next time she’s over, I’ll be more relaxed. So will she since we won’t be asking her dozens of questions about all her gizmos and gadgets. I’m grateful for our good health and for modern medicine that helps her have a quality life.
Saturday night I spent time with my sister-in-law who made margaritas and helped me rescue the exhausted children from their father’s night-fishing excursion. CATFISH ARE STINKY.
Sunday we went to the lake with my in-laws. We had a picnic and boat rid
This is a post for Tuesday, June 26. 2007-06-26 18:35:39 I spent four hours yesterday and another four hours today sitting in a fireworks stand near the highway. It was hot, it was loud, it was smelly. My head hurts now. I want to fill the tub with water and ice cubes and bubbles. That sounds so good it’s probably illegal.
I tried reading Love Medicine while running the fireworks stand yesterday, but with all the highway noise and a complaining son, I couldn’t keep track of who was who. Today I brought along The Devil in the White City and a daughter who promised not to whine. That was better. I’d have read a lot farther if my chatty daughter wouldn’t have had to describe how she was rearranging colorful explosives every five minutes. She was very particular about displays and eager to tell me all about it. But she didn’t whine!
I want to go to the chiropractor but going to the chiropractor is dangerous. I go once and it feels so good, I want to go back every week and then I have to tell my husband it is REQUIRE Read more:Tuesday
Please, don’t “come on down!” 2007-06-25 09:56:34 Other than what they’re doing to my mood, these two things are unrelated. Randomness!
This is making me happy: goodreads
Making me HYSTERICAL WITH THE JOY? THIS. Amen.
Read more:Please
, ldquo
, rdquo
Here are some problems I don’t mind having… 2007-06-25 00:52:12 What to read next: Love Medicine or Lamb? Icy Sparks or The Devil in the White City? Or something else?
Also, if you have Water for Elephants checked out of the public library, please return it. It’s overdue. MY TURN.
I’m having a blog identity crisis. This website may look different every single day while I’m playing dress-up over here. I’m looking for a way to put “What I’m Reading” in the sidebar without having to hand code it and junk. I don’t think I can do that with this version of WordPress. That’s a drag. Holler if you know something I don’t. About that specifically, I mean. Don’t be a smartass.
Read more:problems
, hellip
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