Time Differences

My parents live on the east coast of the US.  This means that they are usually 5 hours behind me, well except for when they start daylight savings time roughly two weeks before the UK and then it is only a 4 hour time difference.  Anyways, I always do my best thinking around 8am-9am.  I just get these brain waves.  I can't explain it.  So usually when I want to tell my parents something important that I have thought about, I can't just call them right that minute.  My mom just generally does not like phone calls between the hours of 3am-4am.  Actually she would probably kick my butt the next time she saw me if I called her at 3 in the morning.  So I usually have to remember my grand idea until at least noon.  Then I call my dad at work, cause my mom is still asleep.  My problem is that by noon sometimes I forget my wonderful idea.  

Argh!  Time zones suck.

Thanks, Bob Hope

Today after the girls are done cleaning their rooms, we are going to head over to the Bob Hope Center.  This is a community center on one of the bases here that has an indoor play area.  For those of you who are wondering "Why in the heck would they name a community center after an American actor/comedian?", let me enlighten you.

Ok, so most of you know Memorial Day was on Monday, and no I didn't do a post for Memorial Day, mostly because this holiday in remembrance for military members who have died while in while in service for our great nation has become just another day off.  Also because I think in some small way for Americans, everyday should be Memorial Day.  Even if it is just a thought about what has been sacrificed for American freedoms.  Now back to Bob Hope, he was a real and true American patriot.  He lived every day like it was Memorial Day.  

Bob Hope donated countless hours to the USO (an organization that boosts troop moral).  He did this out of a great love of America and because he believed in our troops.  He started his work with the USO in 1941 and continued his work with the organization for 60 years.  He headlined shows to entertain troops, often risking his life by going into war zones.  Now, to me, this is going above and beyond for our troops.  And while I can't thank him personally because he died in 2003, I would like to say thank you now.  Thank you Mr. Hope for your service to my country, to the troops who defend my nation and for your great sense of humor.  You really were a national treasure.

So today I will take my kids to the Community Center that was named for a man who was born a British citizen, emigrated to America when he was five years old, and became an American citizen when he was seventeen.  I will think about the troops he entertained and the sacrifices they made.  I will also be glad that Mr. Hope not only entertained the troops, but the community center named after him can continue his work and entertain my children and the other children of troops stationed abroad.

Wordless Wednesday- Perfect Spring Day

Random Tuesday Thoughts- My Heathen Kids

Tuesday Random Thoughts:  My way to release the crazy stored up in my head from the past week.  Enjoy, the go see Keely, grab the button and release your own crazy upon the intenetz.

My landlord's agent came by on Wed to look that the broke toilet (it still isn't fixed) and while she was here LaLa just had to show the lady her bedroom.  As we were going down the hall I swore I smelled dog poop.  Let's get this straight people, my dog has pooped in my house ONCE and it was my fault for not letting her out the night before.  I was completely befuddled.  I played it cool and pretended that the smell did not exist and when the lady left I went running around the back of my house looking for poop.  I couldn't find any poop.  Then I went in the bathroom and saw tell tale skid marks in the toilet.  "LaLa did you poop a minute ago?"  "Yeah!!!"  God, I hope that woman didn't smell my child's stankness.  

And so it begins...my daughter says the last letter of the alphabet is zed.

Ok, so usually I change KiKi's diaper right after her nap, but I fell asleep with her too yesterday and usually she wakes me up if I do this, but she didn't.  So, when I got up and went into the living room to chill out with The Man, I didn't even think about her diaper cause she usually tells me about it (I know I should be working on potty training, but I don't really know if she is ready).  So, then she comes into the living room in nothing but her diaper (it is hot in our house and we have no AC) spreads her legs slightly and starts shaking her butt back and forth with her pee heavy diaper swinging back and forth like a pendulum and declares "I got pee!"  The Man looks and me and we both start laughing and this makes her do it even more.  By the time The Man had her diaper changed we were laughing so hard that we had tears streaming down our faces.  

Everytime I hear Susan Boyle (from Britain's Got Talent) sing it makes me cry.  She has the voice of an angel.  

My kids are a completely crap sleep schedule now that it is half term break.  Past 10pm and not in bed.  Yes, mom fail.

Ahhh, speaking of half term break...a week of not having to wake up at 7:30 AM.  Just kidding, KiKi will still be in my room wide awake and bushy tailed promptly at 6:30 AM demanding juice and me to turn the TV on to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  I hate that show, but Mickey sure does make a good babysitter early in the morning.  

North Korea is acting up again.  Awesome.  Nothing says "screw America" like doing a nuclear test and launching long range missiles on Memorial Day.

And with that, I'm done.

Bloggy Love Letter

On Wednesday I received an award that really knocked my socks off.  It was from The Laughing Idiot on her gardening blog.  When I went to retrieve it I was so honored and humbled.  See, a lot of awards ask you to pick your favorite bloggers, or interesting blogs, etc.  This award was different though.  The description was this:

"These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers."

And by this description I am truly humbled.  I decided to take the Most Wonderful Favorite award and pass it on to other bloggers who fit this description, bloggers who are aren't just funny and a good read, but bloggers who are in fact people who I would call my friends.

1.  The first blogger I am choosing has been my partner in crime since the beginning of this blog.  You guys know him as Captain Dumbass.  He and I share a weird sense of humor and our IM conversations (be glad I don't save them Captain) could make Random Tuesday Thoughts posts look like sane and organized well thought out posts.  I love hearing about his life with Supreme Leader and his gorgeous little boys Connor and Liam.  One of these days the boys are gonna come to my house and we are going to climb the trees in my back yard and watch the planes across the street.  

2.  One of my bloggy friends has now become an "in real life" friend.  Not From Around Here is a fellow American Expat living over here in England.  She and I met in real life a few weeks ago and have been like peas and carrots ever since.  She is in one word awesome.  We share the same love for so many things from Russian Literature, Sex and the City, Gone with the Wind, and so much more.  We are just cut from the same cloth.  I wish we could see each other everyday but because of her work schedule and my husband's travel schedule getting together for a face to face chat is sometimes difficult.  

3.  Mama Dawg is not only a great blogger, she is a good friend.  She is smart, witty and just overall a really sweet person.  Her daughter LOML is beautiful and growing into such a great little person and I credit that all to Mama Dawg.  I can always count on Mama Dawg to send me a little pick me up note on twitter when I am having a rough day and that counts for a lot.  Oh and she has awesome music taste as well.

4.  So there is this crazy ass chick in Savannah, her name is Jess.  I swear next time I am in Charleston I am taking the two hour drive down to Savannah to go and meet Jess, Larkin, and Bobby.  They are my kind of people.  Laid back and ready to sing karaoke.  I am sure that pictures will end up on the Internet of me wandering down the Savannah river front with a cone on my head one day, but that's OK Jess.  It will have been well worth it. ;)

5.  OK so Larkin is getting two mentions in one post.  She is awesome.  She also has this ginormous cat that I am sure will one day eat her.  She and Jess work at the same law firm down in Savannah and I love reading about all their antics together.  I can't wait to meet her in person, and not in a crazy stalker way.

6.  Have you guys met ChurchPunkMom?  She and I have become really good friends via the blog world.  Her 5 kids are always entertaining and her husband Aman is a really good guy.  She home schools her kids and is very honest about how sometimes it isn't all unicorns and rainbows when you have so much responsibility on your plate.  Sometimes I wished I lived in Iowa just so I could go and hang out at ChurchPunk Headquarters for a day.

7.  My friend Irish Gumbo hasn't been around much in Bloggyland lately.  He just got a new job with demanding hours and is going through some stuff in his personal life, it happens.  He is still a gem of a writer and a great dad.  You all should visit his site and put it into your reader.  His writing will amaze you.  While you are over there go through his archives and read all of his past posts, you will not be sorry you did so.

8.  Last but certainly not least is Sammanthia.  She is a riot to read and a really sweet person.  Her stories about her boys and their antics are pure comedic gold.  Her tweets on twitter make me laugh out loud and she has become one of my homegirls.  Plus we both wrote about our lady bits on the same day, that has got to make us soul sisters.

So these are my nominees.  Go read them, you won't be disappointed.  To all my nominees, I love you, Man!

A Tale of Caution

Ok, actually this just might be another chance for all of you guys to have a laugh at my expense.  I may surprise all of you to know I was not an angel in high school.  I did not come home on time, I did really stupid things like drinking beer underage, dating really questionable boys and lying to my mother.  I never did homework at home (cause duh that is what the other class periods were for).  I know all of this is shattering your dreams of me.  I did however maintain really good grades, which saved my butt more than once in a pinch (because she's a good kid, never in trouble at school).  Anyhoo out of all the stupid things I did, this is by FAR the stupidest thing I EVER did.  No amount of good grades or teen aged smooth talking was gonna get me out of this one.  

I guess I should start at the beginning for this doozy of a stunt.  See I was a senior in high school, it was 1999 and I thought I was in-freakin-vincible.  Now, I had never been one to skip school, if I didn't want to be there I just generally called my mom and made up a fake ailment so I could go home.  Usually it worked.  This day however, I just did not want to go to school.  It was a nice day and I just could not see myself cooped up in a classroom.  I was gonna skip.  Now, my only problem was I had to drop off my brother and the exchange student who lived with us.  I swore them to secrecy upon punishment to death on the way to school and then weaved my way past the barriers into the Senior Parking Lot and dropped them off.  Then I turned up the music as loud as it would go in my dad's big red van and high tailed it out of the parking lot as fast as I could.  I didn't even notice the van jostle to the side a bit.

When I got to my friends house (yeah she had skipped school as well but she didn't even make the effort to leave the house because he mom left for work at the butt crack of dawn and was already gone by the time she woke up), I got out of the car and for some reason walked to the passenger side.  THEN I saw it.  A HUGE dent that pretty much crushed in the entire sliding door of the big red van.  Ho-ly shiiiiiiiiit!  I am in so much trouble.  How in the hell am I going to explain this one to my parents?  They are going to kill me.  See those barriers I had weaved through on the way into the Senior Parking Lot...well, apparently I didn't do such a good job weaving back out of them.  

I went into panic mode.  I went into my friends house and just sat there, almost catatonic.  All I could think about is how my life was going to end for the foreseeable future.  I had to make something up.  They could NOT find out I skipped school.  I needed a lie.  A really really good lie.  

I went home early that afternoon, before school had officially been let out because I was expected to be there (I didn't have afternoon classes), and waited for my mom to get home.  She came down the road in her 1980 Triumph Spitfire and I prepared for the lie of my life.  I showed my mom the dent on the side of the van and explained how I had come out of school that afternoon to find it like that.

"Well we need to call the police to make a report," she informed me.

Now, in my head I am saying every single cuss word known to man (and some I made up) and then I told her I didn't think we should.  She insisted.  Then she left to go make the call and then left to retrieve my brother and exchange student from school.  This lie was about to take on a life of it's own.  

On the way to the school she pondered where I had parked and how I had got this huge dent.  Then she asked my brother where I had parked.  He hesitated...cause technically I didn't park.  Then he told her that he didn't remember.  Then it clicked in her head.  I hadn't parked at all.  I hadn't been at school.  Meanwhile I was sitting at home clueless and still reciting all the cuss words I knew at the time over and over and over again in my head.

The police man got there and I explained that I really didn't want to file a report and he became really insistent.  Then I heard the unmistakable sound of my mom's car coming down the street.  I got one good look at her.  She was PISSED.  I mean seriously, if blood could have shot out of her eyes from being pissed off, it would have been.  She got out of the car and proceeded to chew my ass out about making false police reports.  The police man then got in on the act and chewed my ass out about making false police reports.  Remember *I* did not want to make the report.  THEY wanted me to make the report.  I was crying and carrying on.  I then told my mom that I had skipped school but I was not going to tell her how the dent got onto the car.  She assumed that one of my friends had backed into the van.  The police man left and my mom proceeded to keep chewing me out.  When my dad got home, he chewed me out.  Oh Granny got in on the action as well.  Everyone wanting me to tell how that dent got onto the side of the car.  I wasn't budging.

That night I got ALL privileges taken from me.  No car, phone, tv, radio, pager (we didn't have cell phones as teens back then), or computer.  I was to come home and do my homework (which I never had because I had done it all at school) and then read in my room.  The length of time?  One month.  I was in some serious crap.  My life as a teen was pretty much over.  

I survived the month.  I actually finally told my mom exactly what happened when I was twenty one years old.  She laughed at me.  It is funny now, but at the time, I thought my life was going to be over.  

(OH, and B, (my 16 year old cousin who reads this blog) see what happens when you skip school.  Nothing good comes of it.  Go to school, listen to your parents and for goodness sake be nice to your sister.)

*Also my Granny thanks all of you for the birthday wishes, but she wants you all to know even though she is now 70 years old that she could still run circles around us all.  

Alright Blogger

Apparently my Wordless Wed post isn't showing up in some peoples dashboards.  So it is up, just so you know.  Blogger, get your act together!

Wordless Wednesday- Her Dad So Proud

Random Tuesday Thoughts-Even I Don't Know Where I am Going with This One

Strap yourselves in, we're in for a bumpy ride.  It is Tuesday *cue dramatic music* and you guys know what that means *Big Echoey Voice* time for Tuesday Random Thoughts!  You guys can thank Keely the UnMom for this, my lovely bit of neurosis for the week.

Now, lets get started.  On Monday my husband and I decided that they need to enact a DVLA (British DMV) close to the bases for stupid Americans (us) who are trying to renew their road tax.  Yes, I know we can go renew at the post office, but not if the guy you bought the car from didn't do the paperwork correctly.  Now we can't get our road tax disk for the next 2-4 weeks. Awesome.

As I was going to bed last night LaLa woke up and I thought she was having an asthma attack.  She was doing this really croupy cough.  It sounded like she was having a hard time to breath so I stuck her in the car and was going to take her to the ER on base.  By the time we got there she had calmed down and quit with the cough.  I decided to skip the ER and keep her home today.  Today she is perfectly fine.  She should have gone to school.

My mom sent me a bunch of pictures from my Granny's surprise birthday party.  Four of my Gran's five sisters came down from North Carolina and hid at my Aunts house.  My Mom tricked my Gran into thinking they were going to pick up my Aunt and go antique hunting.  When they got there my Gran's sisters surprised her.  Needless to say they did not go antiquing, they became the ladies who lunch and then go site seeing in Charleston, SC.  Mom said Gran was stunned speechless, and that NEVER happens.  Gran said it was one of her best birthdays ever.

Yesterday I witnessed the best melt down by a 5 year old E.V.E.R.  I would tell you more, but it is going to be my guest post for Mama Dawg, while she is down at Disney.  

I got Twitter back.  It is like crack.  I just don't sit on it as much as before. 

My kids are walking around in costumes from Halloweens past.  KiKi is in a bee costume.  LaLa is in a unicorn costume.  These costumes were originally LaLas costumes from when she was a year old and 2 years old.  I have no idea how they can still get them to semi somewhat fit.  A picture might be in order for this one. 

Ok, I think I am done now.  Carry on.

Things Overhead and Observed

KiKi whilst in the back seat of the car on the way to the indoor swimming pool- "You guys drive me crazy!"

A man and a lady shopping at the commissary- 

Her- I nead one head of lettuce to shred for tacos and one bag of lettuce for salads."

Him obviously confused walked over to the heads of lettuce and picked up one "So one of these?"

Her- "Yes, do you understand what I am talking about?"  Walks off without an answer

Him turning around towards the head of lettuce and half under his breath "Nope"

Poor chunky kid at the swimming pool...in a speedo.  He couldn't get onto the inflatable obstacle course and none of the other children would help him up.

I was changing KiKi's diaper on Thursday night and she was lying down and I was leaning over her with my butt kinda up in the air.  Well LaLa decided to kick my butt.  Only she didn't kick me in the butt. "Hey, Mom, I'm kicking your butt!!"  "Ummm, that isn't exactly my butt!"  She kicked me in the va-jay-jay three times.

Because you guys asked...

Yesterday, due to all the questions I received about what mums in England wear to drop their kids off to school, I wrote this post for the other blog I write for, Expat Mums Blog.  So if you want to know the differences in appearance between American moms and British mums, head over there and read!

Go.  Now.  Please.  That is all.

Because I don't have Twitter...

I don't have a place to place my mind junk.  HA!  That is why I have a blog!  So here is some of my mind junk and no this is not a random tuesday post because it is all related to what I would have twittered about this week.  I am going to write these all in twitter fashion as well...less than 140 characters (give or take).

- I dare you to find an English mum dropping her kids off in jeans, t-shirt and trainers. It

doesn't happen.

- It is finally raining in England. Who thought I would EVER say that?

- On a mission to rescue my garden. I think I might have saved the pansies. 

(as in the type flowers)(not calling my garden a pansie) (cause that would just be mean!)(it is more of a sissy anyway)(yes I know sissy isn't a PC term)

- I am rearranging furniture. See what happens when I don't have twitter!

- My sister in law is gonna have a baby!!!!!!

- Moved my desk into the living room. Behind the love seat. Not sure if I like it or not.

- Who wants to do my laundry? Any volunteers? Anyone?

See! I don't miss twitter at all.

PMS and other stuff

This was me yesterday. 

After cleaning the house from top to bottom (including mopping the kitchen and scrubbing toilets...well the toilets that haven't been shattered by my terrorist cat) I told LaLa "Do NOT make a mess!"  The first thing she did when she got home was ask for a snack, then she proceeded to throw the wrapper on the floor.  I burst into tears.  Irrational?  Probably.

Conversation from last night while I was trying to get LaLa in bed:

Me- Hey kid, time for bed.

LaLa- I don't want to go to bed.

Me- Don't you want to go to school?

Her- umm yes.  I mean no!

Me-  It was a rhetorical question, get your PJ's on.

Her- What is rhetorical?

Me-  It means it doesn't matter what your answer was, you're still going to bed.

Motherly teaching at it's finest I tell you!!

I just had a cheesey chicken burrito for breakfast.  Don't judge me people. 

Wordless Wednesday- Interesting Pubs 1

Random Tuesday Thoughts

Ahhhhhhh Tuesday.  The day I get to mind dump upon the interwebz.  My little slice of crazy set forth upon you, my loyal reader.  You can thank Keely for this.

We had a stomach virus at the Bungalow the past few days.  LaLa got it Saturday night, which shot my Mother's Day.  Then KiKi and The Man came down with it on Monday, which shot my anniversary.  Such is life.  

It is kinda funny when a kid pukes on their father.  Not because the kid puked because that is just sad, but the look on the dad- priceless.

A two year old is incapable of letting you know before they toss cookies.  The best warning I got was a little cough before the storm.

A five year old will milk a tummy ache for days if you will let them.  Even when you know they are not sick anymore they will try to pull the pity card.

A 29 year old man is worse than a two year old when he is sick.  He wants to make sure everyone in the house knows he is sick.  

I swear if I get sick now I am gonna make sure everyone knows it and babies me.  Oh wait nevermind, Moms don't get sick days.

Twitter is a time suck.  I got rid of it.  I kinda miss it, but not enough to sign up for it again.

It is almost time for LaLa to get out of school for her week long half term break.  I need to think of something fun for us girls to do while she is out of school for that week.  Any suggestions are welcome.

I have decided that gardening is for people who don't have kids.  Or if they do have kids it is for people who's kids like to help them in the garden.  If their kids don't like to help with the garden than they must have a spouse who likes to help them garden.  I have decided this because most of the plants I planted earlier in the spring have died.  It might be because I didn't water them enough.  Either that or they have some sort of zombie virus.  I am putting my money on the zombie virus, cause surely my gardening skills are unquestionable.  

Donkey with his head stuck.

(Don't worry he got it back out after about 5 min of struggle)

7 Years

Seven years ago I donned a white gown and walked down the aisle at St. Luke's Chapel (on the Medical University of South Carolina's campus) and married The Man.  

I was twenty one years old and I had no idea of where this one act would take me.  I just knew I was in love and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with The Man.  Looking back now, I wouldn't change a thing.  

So on my anniversary here is a list of things my marriage has had in store for me.  Starting from the beginning-

 - One big fat huge wedding.

-  One night at the Folly Beach Holiday Inn (where every room has a beach front view)

-  One honeymoon to the Bahamas

-  One military enlistment.

-  One transcontinental flight

-  Two beautiful children

-  Three states to be lived in (SC, TX, MO)

-  Two countries to be lived in (USA, UK)

-  10,000 disagreements

-  10,000 make ups

-  500,000 inside jokes

-  1,000,0000 laughs

and more love than I could even try to quantify.  

Happy Anniversary to The Man.  May the next seven years have just as many laughs, inside jokes and love.  I love you (even if sometimes I am a pain in the ass and don't show it).

Attention Advertisers

I know PR people have a hard time with their job.  They have to search out places to place their ads and don't have a lot of time to do it.  That being said, listen up PR people, if you have not READ my site, don't pretend you have and send me requests to place ads here.  One of the first rules of marketing is to know your intended audience.  If you have not read my site, how would you know if your product is right for here?  Actually if you have looked at my site for more than two seconds you would see that I have a marked absence of ads on my site.  I don't even have AdSense for goodness sake.  I feel no need to junk up my side bar for seventeen cents and a stick of gum.

Second of all my audience isn't just the people who comment here.  My grandmother reads this site, as do two of my aunts, my 16 year old male cousin and my mother's entire office (Hi, Dr. P!)  Now, really, some of the ads that have been requested of me to put up on my site are just not family friendly.  Others are for sites that are just pure crap (seriously one was for a web design site and seriously I could have designed their website better than they did).  Some emails I have received didn't even say what the product was (yeah, cause I am just going to blindly agree).

I also will not do solicited reviews.  I know that there is money to be made here (or at least a product to be had), but I don't feel that if I have been given money or the actual product that I could be unbiased.  If I didn't like the product I would be feel compelled to lie or stretch the truth in favor of the product.  I think my readers deserve more than that.  I have in the past done reviews of products, but they were completely unsolicited.  I didn't receive anything in return (hell, I don't even know if the companies know I exist).  

I did one for Sol-U-Mel.  I have a link at the bottom of my page for Badass Designs (owned by Badass Geek), who designed my site.  I love Mama Dawg's etsy shop (for all your jewelry and lanyard needs).  I also won a beautiful photograph from my buddy Michelle, who has her own photography shop as well.  

That being said.  I WILL NOT endorse a product that I haven't myself used or don't think is absolutely fabulous.  I will not take money or a product in exchange for a review.  Don't junk up my email trying to get me to hawk your goods.  It won't happen.  It is a waste of my time and your time.

Perception

It is spring in England, or well I am told that it is spring.  The flowers are blooming.  I guess that means it is spring.  We get some nice days where the sun in shining and it is a nice 70 degrees F outside.  For the past couple days it has been dreary.  OK the sun did come out for a bit yesterday but the wind outside made it so chilly that I didn't want to spend much time outside.  I let the girls play for about an hour then I had to go inside.  It was just too cold.

I have noticed however that temperature is relative.  What is freezing to me is balmy to the English.  An example of this:  Last week when we were having lovely weather, not hot, not cold, just pleasant, I had an English friend of mine complain about how hot it was.  It was maybe 70 degrees.  Now to me, hot it 95 degrees in the shade and it being so hot that your eyelids are sweating.  Oh you didn't know that your eyelids can sweat?  Well they can.  Live in the deep south of the US and you will experience it more than once.  Actually you might experience it every single day in August.  

The English friend then commented about how his nephew and him had gone swimming in their backyard pool over the weekend.  Swimming?  It isn't hot enough for swimming!  You go swimming when it is so hot that your skin is about to boil off.  If you go swimming now you will catch a chill!  My perception, yet again.  I however have been informed that it does not get "hot" here and there is little chance that my skin will boil off and my eyelids will certainly not sweat.

*If you have facebook you can join Elizabeths fan club.  I have a link in my sidebar.

** He Blogs She Blogs is about to start again.  Captain Dumbass and Petra will answer all questions about relationships in their signature style at their new site.  

Kinda Sorta Wordless Wednesday

The Weekend That Was Great, Then Stunk, Then Was Great Again

We had a long weekend here in England and it started out with a bang.  On Saturday, my friend NFAH came to visit me here at the Bungalow.  Well I went and picked her up from her home base about 30 min away and then we came back to my neck of the woods for a great day.  We went shopping, ate pizza, played with the girls and the animals, then sat up until the wee hours of the morning drinking a couple of beers and talking like 14 year old school girls.  It was an amazing day and I had a ton of fun hanging out with a fellow expat from America.  I also now have a new IRL friend instead of someone who lives inside my computer.  So hard to explain bloggy friends to others who "don't get it" sometimes.

On Sunday morning I took NFAH back to her house and then came home to prepare for the arrival of The Man.  He has been gone for the past two weeks.  There was some sort of military type thing going on in Romania and he was gone to take part in it.  NOW you guys know why I have been so discombobulated.  A two week TDY (temp duty) is a lot harder for me than a long deployment because I don't get a chance to settle into a rhythm. Sometimes I do a lot better when he is gone for months because I have time to establish a routine and get the girls on the same page as me.  When he is only gone for a short period of time, my house falls into controlled semi organized chaos.  

The Man arrived back at the base around 11pm and I gathered the girls out of their slumber to go pick him up.  When we got back to the house things immediately started going wrong.  First, I got a mini disc stuck in my Mac, then the cat finally escaped out of the house around 1am.  We looked for him for about an hour fruitlessly.  Finally we headed to bed, me sick to my stomach with worry and The Man pissed off at himself for accidentally letting the cat out of the Bungalow.  

The next morning I went and searched for Sam again, no cat.  We then ran around and did the errands that needed to be done.  Caroline had the day off of school because yesterday was a Bank Holiday here in the UK.  A Bank Holiday, from what I can gather is just a day off from work for the Brits.  No particular reason for it.  It just means all supermarkets and shops will be closed and everyone will sit around the house and watch telly or go to a park with the kids.  Or at least that is my impression.  That evening my Internet also started acting wonky.  I was not a happy camper; no cat, Macbook with a CD stuck inside, and spotty Internet.

I finally got an Internet connection for a minute and looked up the Macbook problem.  A lot of people are also boneheads just like me because there was a wealth of info about how to get the CD out.  I ended up using a business card and double sided tape (thank you 3M) to fish the CD out of the Mac. 

Later Monday night I was sitting in the kitchen and told my husband, "Every time I go outside I expect Sam to just come wandering home."  We went outside and literally 30 seconds later, Sam came walking out of the back garden.  Dumb luck!  That was the weirdest thing that has EVER happened to me.  This cat, who's last outing into the big wide world lasted 2 weeks came home after just under 24 hours.  My stomach finally out of knots we came inside and I got online and my Internet connection was back.  I finally ended up the long weekend on an uptick.  I am sure more things will go wrong this week however, sod's law*.

* Sod's Law is the English equivalent of Murphy's Law.

Dear So and So... Volume Dos

Dear KiKi,

I know we are phasing out your nap and it is a pain for you.  We need to have a talk however about how you like to fall asleep on the couch exactly 3 minutes before we have to go get your sister from school.  Please stop.  You are a bear to deal with when you have had exactly 3 minutes of sleep before I wake you up.

Love, Mommy

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Dear Lady at School,

There is a time and place for 4 inch lucite heels and spandex capri pants (with scalloped lace trimming the bottom of the leg) and it isn't at 8:45 in the morning when we are dropping the kids off at school.  

Regards, Kat

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Dear Repair Man,

I would really like to know how much my toilet is going to cost to replace.  Call Me.

Kat

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Dear LaLa,

Showing people your underpants isn't funny.  Seriously. 

Love, Mom

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Dear HP,

40 minutes on the phone to get a return address to send you a corrupted part?  If you had done your JOB and put a return address on the outside of the replacement parts box like you were supposed to I wouldn't have had to spend 40 minutes on the phone with a lady in Mumbi. Your lucky I am a patient person.  Oh wait nevermind I'm not.  I'll just write about how much you suck at customer service on my blog.

Regards, Kat

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Dear Blog Readers,

Thank you so much for reading.  Your comments make my day.  Sorry I haven't been around your blogs much this week but it has been really busy.  I will try to get to more next week.  To my new followers, welcome to the Bungalow.

Big Bloggy Hugs, Kat