Who ARE You People?!

Who ARE you people...who wake up just before the sun rises on a SATURDAY morning in anticipation of a frenzied forage through other people's dusty junk? I know you take 'THE HUNT' as serious as a heart-attack. I've seen you...cruising neighborhood streets just as the sun rises...newspaper clutched, white-knuckled, 'tag sale' ads circled in red, peeking between your fingers like rheumy-eyed messages from the underworld. Some of you are true professionals, printing out detailed maps with circled locations, precise routes and prospective 'gold mines' listed with strict attention to detail.

You slow for the traditional 'drive by', the experienced yard saler's quick, sharp assessment of a driveway littered with discards and detritus. There are shaky legged tables piled with suspicious clothing, dated appliances and grubby toys. Old speakers bookend the cracked and pitted driveway like silent monoliths of a bygone era. Spread out on the weedy lawn is a pilled and faded blanket displaying a ragged collection of straw handbags, canvas totes, and 'vintage' shoes of dubious origin. Cardboard boxes look ready to collapse with their loads of scratched CD's, empty CD cases, old VHS movies and battered books. There's a dented pink hula hoop, a dog kennel with a broken door, a jumbo-sized tennis ball, bobble-heads and kewpie dolls of every description, and a "Dazey Donut Factory"...still in the yellowed box. Now that your interest is suitably piqued...you do a 12-point U-turn in the middle of the residential street and bring your boat of a car to rest with two wheels on the neighboring lawn, making sure your escape route is free for a mad dash to the next sale.

You cross the street casually, your barely-concealed eagerness cracking the veneer of the indifference you wear like an ill-fitting suit. The moment you cross the foot of the driveway you are multi-tasking madly, eyes flicking and flying, hovering and barely alighting on the melee like flies on a cow. You acknowledge the sellers' cheerful 'Hi'! with a brief nod, or ignore the hungry eyes that follow you like circling vultures. You scan the red-dots and hastily-written price stickers with an outer calm that belies your inner thirst to find some item of value that the owner has under priced and overlooked. Juggling change absentmindedly, you peruse end tables, veneer lifting in the corner, covered in chipped and mismatched dishes and old Tupperware...hoping to spot a teacup marked ''Limoges" on the bottom. Or perhaps you are truly fascinated by collections of old costume jewellery. Earrings with missing stones blink one-eyed at you in the sun, glittering for your attention. If you are savvy, the signed Eisenberg brooch you purchased for a dime and Ebay valued at $350, propels you through the aggregate of chunky plastic pearls.

Once you've found an item worthy of the crumpled bills clutched in your sweaty fist, you warily approach the seller with a look of slight distaste on your face, turning the item over and pointing out obvious flaws, you begin the 'art of yard-sale bartering'. You offer a dime for an item marked a quarter. You offer $5 for an item marked $10 and act as if you are doing them a favor by taking the item off their hands. If they hold out firm, or better yet, adamantly defend their price by quoting the history, original cost, or value of the item, you place it down immediately and hover, expectantly, hoping they will bend in the face of your resolve. Sometimes, if you have nerves of steel, you may actually walk away from the desired item...but come back to the sale later in the day hoping to find the owner's heart appropriately softened after facing the prospects of packing said item up and storing it in their garage again.

Or perhaps you are the breed of yard sale enthusiasts that 'do this for a living'. You scan and reject almost instantaneously, looking only for items priced sufficiently low with enough resale value to allow you to list them on Ebay (with an inflated 'shipping and handling' charge,) or at a flea-market.

It all just confused me. Until last week, that is.

My mother-in-law dragged me out to help her at her table in the local community center tag sale. I sat there, my face burning in mortification as I tried to justify the prices on old lamps and kitchen utensils. I wondered how I could crawl under the table when my mother-in-law huffed in offense as someone offered her a mere $2 for her $5 cat figurine. At the first opportunity I bolted to 'scour' the others tables, being alternately embarrassed by what they were trying to sell, and the fact I appeared to be a buyer!

All that changed when I got to a table covered in vases. Tall, short, colored, clear, small, cute, elegant...and cheap. For about $12 I picked up eight vases that would have cost me over $100 retail!! Do you know how much I could save when making flower arrangements, if I only spend $2 on the container?

I'm hooked!

(But I'm still not getting up at the crack of dawn on a Saturday, or printing out routes...so don't try to make me!)

Weary Mother Pleads Insanity

I sit here, contemplating the universe…and the particularly quirky idea of having three children so close together.

I am fortunate that Bobby is in school full-time now, but the other two little ‘darlings’ have more than made up for whatever peace that may have afforded me.

In fact, this week has me seriously considering locking myself in the bathroom and refusing to come out again. Ever. Unfortunately, I know what would happen in my absence…more of the things that happen in my presence. For instance, in just the last two weeks Ben (3), and Laura (2), acting as “Team Terminator” or the “Terrible Twosome” (hereafter referred to as T2), have destroyed more than just my sanity.

Yes, the sweet-faced duo disguise themselves as innocent toddlers…but beneath their baby-powder-scented façade…beat hearts as cunning as Bonnie and Clyde. What mischief can they find? In what moment of mother’s distraction can they wreak the most havoc? Their eyes glitter from darkened corners…waiting to dart out and sharpen their ruinous skills as soon as the phone rings.

They often precede their mischief with sweet hugs and kisses, and with Oscar-worthy performances of peaceful play, they lull me into a false sense of security.

I have been caught off guard so many times this week I am considering placing “WANTED” posters up in the neighborhood. “WANTED: HOME FOR TWO TODDLERS. FREE TO GOOD FAMILY.”

First there was the great “Diaper Bag Caper” of last week. T2 earned a TIMEOUT in their room (which I now realize was preplanned with the forethought of a bank heist), and I sank gratefully into the chair at the computer to check my email. I heard them chattering away in their room, flipping through books at their bookshelf, and I heaved a sigh of relief for five minutes of peace.

I paid dearly for those five minutes.

After slowly becoming aware that their ‘quiet’ time had turned into peals and shrieks of laughter I felt (belatedly) that I should check on them. Imagine my horror to see their room (and each other) covered in baby powder…the television coated with a greasy finger-painted mess of baby oil, their hair slicked back like Max Headroom, and blobs of pink baby lotion dotting the rug like sweet-smelling posies. Streaks of white-clown grease-paint diaper cream were scattered about the room with gleeful abandon. An entire bottle of hand-sanitizer had graciously been emptied around the carpet as well, to aid with disinfecting, I am sure. There was T2, big-eyed, trying not to grin, while stammering out little apologies and blinking their lashes at me.

I’d like to say I handled it with grace, but I didn’t. I sat on the floor and cried.

That must have been entertaining, or at least encouraging, as this week they’ve followed that up with some truly charming events, such as the “Toothpaste Mirror Smear”, the “Spilled Milk Dance-Dance Revolution”, the “Jar of Honey-coated stuffed animals”, "Picasso Painting with yogurt and smashed bananas", and my personal favorite…”Laura’s Lovely Lid: A Study in Toddler Barbering.”

Only slightly more disturbing than her self-trained haircut…is the fact that she got to the scissors in the first place.

(Note to self: Buy more hats.)

Why do they always hack off the bangs right next to the scalp in the middle of their forehead?! How do they know, instinctively, where they can do the most damage in the shortest amount of time? On top of the horror I feel for her performance as “Edward Scissorhands”, is the guilt I feel over being embarrassed by her ‘Sigourney Weaver post-alien pate’.

Sigh.

This is the little sweet-faced two-year old who refuses, vociferously, to use the potty. She can climb into the computer chair, turn on the monitor, log onto the Internet, choose the correct game-site, click through the links to her favorite “Dora the Explorer” games, play and win them…but she can’t use a toilet?! Who’s the smart one here?

So tonight, as my aching head sinks into my pillow, I will not drift into the oblivion I so desperately long for. I will be straining at the baby-monitor trying to overhear T2’s plans for mischief and mayhem on the ‘morrow. I will fall into a restless sleep only to be tormented by dreams of greasy, chocolaty, sticky messes. I will dream of strange ominous spells of silence in which I realize that T2 is ‘up to something’. I will start awake at the smallest sounds…sure that the children are sneaking out of the house to visit our neighbor, Walter, for lollipops...again.

My children sleep the sleep of the innocent, secure in the knowledge that they are only babies, and entitled to experiment and push the boundaries whenever possible. I will wake with blood-shot eyes and stumble from bed to face the chaos of T2’s machinations.

The score?

Mom: 0
T-2: 10

Bump?!

Oh sure...now that I've re-visited my blog site I can't seem to contain myself!! Nothing for months...then two in the same night?! Perhaps it is time to add to the collection a little more often.

Speaking of which...here are a few of my favorites...

Bugs B' Gone
And Bingo Was It's Name-o
The Puzzling Challenge...or the Challenged Puzzler
A Tight-Knit(ting) Community
A Day in the Life of a TWO-Year Old

...and finally...last, but not by any means least...

"BIG BUG BLOG". My very first attempt at 'writing' so to speak. I always enjoy reading over that experience now!! I've come a long way since worrying about a few Pinto-sized Palmetto bugs.

The above blogs are written far more for entertainment purposes than to profess the profound. Which, come to think of it, I don't ever really achieve. : )

For my thoughts on my writing...see
"On Writing"
and
"Confessions of a Closet Fame-seeker"

Ok. Enough. Who's going to read this anyway???!!

K.

Random Musings of an 'Exercise Procrastinator'

I should be walking. I mean sweating. Or, sweating and walking, actually. Instead...I'm gleefully, guiltily tap-tap-tapping away on my keyboard, fingers-a-flurry. I KNOW I SHOULD be out there battling the bulge...and my intentions are still to make it out there yet...but for now? Call me selfish, I am reveling in the peace of a houseful of exhausted and sleeping children. I'm not ready to relinquish that yet.

Life is ticking along marginally well. I have been drawn to some fascinating reading lately and have been enjoying them immensely. Anything that can get me out of my own head would be WONDERFUL!! No more thinking in circles...the 'CYCLE' I call it...or, more appropriately, the "PSY-CHLE", lol.

I am starting to realize that I am not the sum of my negative thoughts! What a concept.

Enough of that 'deep' stuff for now though.

Today I am thankful for playgrounds. I am thankful for fenced-in tidy plots of suitably-soft-turfed structures that allow my CRAZY pre-schoolers to run wild, shrieking with abandon until they are ready to drop. Can I get an 'amen'?!

Today I am thankful for my teenager. Those days are sometimes farther apart than they should be. She's a great kid, a great help, and at times, a great challenge. She makes me work hard on working out my own issues so I can help her with hers...or maybe...just stop passing them down to her!! I'm more intent on challenging myself because of her.

Today I am thankful for sisters. I am so blessed and fortunate to have three and one sister-by-marriage! I got great news of a surprise visit next week by my youngest sister!!! YAY!!! GIRL TIME!!!! ALL THE WAY FROM NORTHERN CANADA!!! "SISTERS" will be the theme for those two weeks. Me and Laura...and Kathryn and her little sister.

Today I am thankful for the God-given ability to blurt out my thoughts in writing. Sometimes I read back the things I've written and find a bubble of out-loud-laughter breaking the silence of the room. I hope it's not self-satisfied aggrandizement that feeds that...but a genuine feeling of joy and awe that I manage to get things down in a way that I find delightful!

I should end this quickly. The road is calling...the chirrup and tweet of the night-time insects are calling me..."let's go...let's go...get going..." and I am starting to feel the pull of the sweet-scented night air. Time to turn on the MP3, blast into the past and relive the 80's. Or just bask in the symphony of night.

I'm going for a walk! Later!

K.


PS- I've now been on a walk...and instead of grabbing my MP3 player...I grabbed my neighbor! She's at home with her kids too...one crazy toddler that does insane stuff...two in and out stepsons that get into all kinds of grief...a 'tween and two teen girls that push the limits of everything all the time. Needless to say...she's got stress. So it seemed perfectly natural that at 10 o'clock at night I'm banging on her door to go for a walk-in-the-dark! It was great. Fifty minutes, 14 bug-bites, a healthy dose of commiserating and laughter...and hopefully...a pound lighter...priceless.