A Valentine's Day Disaster

    Sorry for the delay. Life has thrown me a few curve balls in the last few weeks which I will be sharing in the next few weeks, just not today.
    I rather share my Valentine's Day with you. Funny and a disaster and a reminder of parenthood. Ahh, Hallmark where is the Valentine's card to give your spouse that reads, "I love you no matter what. Through plugged sinks, and broken roofs. Through unexpected surprises and piles of bills. I love you even when we're too tired to kiss and an exciting evening is watching House Hunters together. But mostly I love you because you're you."

    Hero Hottie always brings his girls flowers. For me it depends on the budget, sometimes just a single rose; other years a bouquet.
    He brings Bean and Abu a single rose, usually yellow or pink.
    This year he found roses that were injected with bright, rainbow colors in the stem just before they bloomed. When the petals unfolded they have soaked up the dyes and are a brilliant array of colors. The girls loved them.
     At the end of the day we usually try to hang out or if we're lucky we sneak away for a dinner date.
    This year we were reminded that we are parents.
    And we were grateful for the end of the day.

    This tale starts last December. Bean and Abu, ever the creative type of kids (think Phineas and Ferb, but without the endless budget and better haircuts) decided they were going to make perfume for Christmas presents.
     Yes, perfume. Bean and Abu style. Here's their recipe...

     Step One: Search the kitchen and recycling for any kind of glass container that Mom will let you have. Spice bottles area great but don't ask Mom to empty them so you can have them.
      Step Two: Collect any sort of shampoo, soap samples, spices and lotions that smell good. Don't ask Mom if you can use her expensive face cream, you will be greeted with 'the Look.'
      Step Three: Lock yourself in the bathroom and make your perfume.
      Step Four: Give as presents. Remind people that perfume is not edible.

      Since they weren't mixing toxic stuff together I let them happily create until bedtime. And then I demanded they clean the bathroom until I couldn't tell they had been in there. Which, surprisingly, they did.

      Fast forward to Valentine's Day. For the past few weeks the bathroom sink has slowly been trying to plug up. I dumped vinegar and baking soda down it and that seemed to help for a while and then two days before the fourteen it just completely plugged up and would not drain. It is totally and completely gross to have your bathroom sink clogged and unusable. Growing germs in the bathroom sink-YUCK. So the first day Hero Hottie had off, which unfortunately was Valentine's Day, he emptied the sink and then cleared everything out from underneath the sink.
     Then he was faced with the unpleasant and stinky and lovely task of taking the piping apart to try to find the clog. The pipes under the sink were clear. Great. This meant the plug was deeper into our crappy, old house pipes. He bought acid to stuff into the piping, so it would eat away the blockage. It helped but it also ate part of the bottom of the cupboard too.
     He still had a plug though. He run the snake through the pipes, pulling out some nasty, black stuff. But it was still plugged.
     Five hours later and after recuiting my Dad to help...They managed to stuff enough acid stuff down the pipes to loosen the plug and bring it up with the snake.
     It took nearly all of Hero Hottie's day off.
     We took a look at the object that had caused all this grief. At first it appeared to be a piece of cloth but upon further investigation we realized what the offender was...
     A Baby Wipe.

     I took a deep, calming breath. Which kid stuffed a baby wipe down the sink? They knew better. I know they did.
     "Girls, who put a wipe down the sink?" I asked, actually calm. Of course, I hadn't spent all day trying to clear the clog.
     "I didn't." Bean quickly says. So I look at Abu, who is quietly looking away from me. Avoiding my eyes.
     Guilty!
     "Abu?" I was surprised.
     "Yeah. It was me. I didn't mean to through." She looked sheepish as she shrugged her shoulders, and I could tell she was clearly remembering when she had lost the baby wipe down the sink.
     "When did this happen?"
     "When we were making perfume. It went down the drain."
     "Last Christmas? Why didn't you say anything?"
     "I didn't want to get in trouble. And the sink was still working."

     The sink kept working until enough stuff caught around the baby wipe and completely plugged things up. I told Hero Hottie how the wipe ended up ruining his day off.
    He didn't say much. Guys aren't in great moods after spending all day having to be plumbers.
    But Bean and Abu have been banned from making perfume in the bathroom now.
    They didn't even complain. I think they knew from Dad's mood, they had been lucky not to be banned from using the bathroom at all. And they felt bad for being the cause of so much plumbing problems.

    By the time we cleaned up the bathroom, fed the girls and put them to bed; we were both exhausted and ready for the end of a long day. Hero Hottie bought us carry-out and we ate our Valentine's Day dinner while watching House Hunters.
     Too tired to talk much and too disappointed that our day had been a mini disaster. But really, where is the chapter in the marriage manual that warns that one day all your romantic intentions will be thwarted by a plugged bathroom sink and a baby wipe.
     And kids making perfume, two months earlier.
   
     Parenthood should come with a warning.

   "Warning: Kids will reduce an adventurous and fun couple to eating carry-out in front of HGTV, while the only conversations they share revolve around the nasty stuff coming from plugged sinks."

The Power of WORDS

ONCE   someone told me I wasn't very smart.

ONCE   someone told me I couldn't make the world a better place.

ONCE   someone told me I couldn't write and would never be a writer.

ONCE   someone made me feel insecure.

Some DAYS I allow these words to color my day with gloom and doom. I carry them around like weights on my shoulders, heavy enough to drown me. They follow me around like shadows; no matter where I go I can't seem to shake them.

Those days are emotional draining. I feel inadequate, lonely, and depressed. I'm grouchy and cranky and left wondering if the only thing I'm good at is...well, nothing.

WORDS are powerful.- Sticks and stones may break my bones. But words will never hurt me.- Is completely untrue. It's a rhyme to try to convince yourself that you can just ignore the words thrown at you like arrows and they won't hurt when they pierce your delicate skin. But words do hurt and they hurt long after the fact. Some times years and decades later.

I was BULLIED in middle school and it took years to heal from those WORDS flung around so carelessly by people that were hurting so much on the inside that the only way they could feel better about themselves was to make other people hurt too.

But WORDS can only hurt if we hold onto them...If we believe them...If we allow them the POWER  to make us doubt ourselves. 

So TODAY I acknowledge the power of WORDS.

ONCE   someone appreciated this brainy chick

ONCE   someone believed that I could help make the world a better place, even if just a little bit

ONCE   someone told me that my writing was funny and that they enjoyed it


ONCE   someone made me feel secure and loved

It's time to take out the trash. Throw out the WORDS roaming harmfully around in your heart and realize they only have the POWER to hurt you if you let them.

Facebook Fantasies

    If you start dreaming about Facebook does that mean you need to get away from your computer more often?
    I avoided joining for the longest time, not wanting to add another computer related addiction to my list but I finally succumbed to peer pressure and added my personal life to the Internet. I don't spend a lot of time on there....no, really...only twice a day. 
    But now Facebook has invaded my dreams...

    In my dream I was at the grocery store when suddenly I turn the corner and Wham!! Right in my face is a very muscular Ryan Reynolds without his shirt on. ---Please, no Freudian analyzing here. We're focusing on the Facebook part of the dream, not the running into a hot shirtless man while performing mundane tasks.---
   
    I swoon. "I've been a fan since you were in that pizza sitcom." (I hope I don't giggle like that in real life.)
    He smiles, the fluorescent lighting reflects hotly off his toned muscles.
  
      "And I totally think the critics shouldn't have been so hard on you in the Green Lantern. You were awesome in it." 
    "Thanks." He says. And since this is my dream he is not totally creep out by my sad attempt of celebrity stalking.
   
  "And I would totally go home with you. After all Scarlett is an idiot." I bat my eyelashes at him. What? I didn't really just say that did I? I mean he's cute and all but still....Something has seriously muddled my brain.
    He grins smugly as any male would at such an offer.
    "Well," he says, "How about we become Facebook friends?"
   
     "OMG. Really?" I swoon some more, not even feeling rejected that he has politely turned me down.
      "Yeah. And not my fan page. I mean my real Facebook page."
     "You would be my Facebook buddy?" I nearly scream with excitement.
     "Sure."

     The next thing I know, he's on my tiny list of Facebook friends and everyone is insanely jealous.

     Oh, Facebook what have you done to me?

    When I tell Hero Hottie my dream he just rolls his eyes and asks, "Ryan Reynolds, really???"

     "Hey, don't dis him. In my dreams we're Facebook friends."