Happy Pancake Tuesday!!!!

Last night my sister in law sent me a message to remind me that today is Pancake Tuesday.  What is Pancake Tuesday you ask?  We here in America we call it Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras.  Personally I prefer our version as it includes a big ole party.  You would think that the Irish would be all over the whole Mardi Gras thing rather than just eating pancakes especially since I have eaten pancakes in Ireland and trust me when I say they are not even close to the delicious concoctions we make here.

My mom called me last night and asked what I was giving up for Lent.  I honestly didn't have the heart to tell her that a few years ago I gave up giving up things for Lent.  I know I know, I am a bad Catholic.  I am going straight to hell.  But in all honesty, if the reason I go to hell is because I don't give up anything for Lent then I have led a very boring life.  She informed my she was giving up cookies and candy.  Well, I have been doing Weight Watchers for a month now, I haven't eaten anything good in all that time so any food item is out.

When I turned 21 I had a brilliant idea to give up beer for Lent.  I was 21 for goodness sake and went to Umass Amherst (or Zoomass as we called it, major party school).  I stuck to it though.  For 40 days I didn't drink any beer.  I drank whiskey instead.  And not good whiskey like Jameson or Bushmills, I drank the cheapest stuff I could get my hands on.  I was in college after all, on a budget.  It was the worst 40 days of my life.  Cheap whiskey hangovers are the worst!  To make matters worse, St Paddy's Day falls right smack dab in the middle of Lent.  My first year being able to get into a bar on Paddy's Day, think I could pass that up?

I have also through the years given up soda (that was worse then beer, it is my only way of getting caffeine), potatoes, sugar and swearing.  They all pretty much sucked, but isn't that the point, to give up something you will miss.  Something that will make you suffer?  Well, I have suffered.  I have given birth to two children, I am a waitress and a lunch lady, my husband's chauffeur, and I have 200 pigeons living in my back yard.  I think that counts as suffering, especially the whole waitress and lunch lady gig.

Now I am feeling a bit guilty.  I will have to come up with something.  I have to lead by example right?  I have two little Catholics to raise.  I am good and follow the whole no meat on Friday thing,  Always have, always will and I subject the husband and kids to it too (my husband was born and raised in Ireland, you would think he would be all into that but he isn't).  My nephew who is a Catholic Brother and spends a lot of time at the Vatican gave up Facebook.  I have to laugh at the thought of priest and brothers going on Facebook, but they do and I appreciate it because that is how the nephew and I stay in touch (guess we will be out of touch for the next 40 days).  I personally can't give up Facebook, I might just die, plus how will I be able to spread my blog to the world?

I think I will just end up going with my first thought.  I will give up sex for Lent.  I may not suffer too much but my husband will, and he is still in the doghouse from my last blog about the fish.  Yes, that is it.  No sex for 40 days.  Killing two birds with one stone, my husband gets to give something up for Lent too.  Good plan.

Welcome to the Doghouse!!!!!

My husband is so in the doghouse right now.  And he better find a way to dig himself out soon before I make his life a living hell.  I am really good at that.  I have had fourteen years of practice.

It all started this morning when he asked me to drive him to his Pigeon Club to get seed.  Yes, my husband doesn't drive and yes, he belongs to a Pigeon Club.  He races homing pigeons but that is a story for another day.  No problem, I get out of bed, get dressed, load the family into the car and off we go.  He gets his seed and then we head home.  Only the trip home took a bit longer than expected.

This is a baby pigeon, lucky me, we have about 100 of them right now.

So the husband asks me if we could stop at Petco to see if they had Sunflower Hearts.  Yes, the $100 worth of seed wasn't enough, now we had to get other crap that is about 10 bucks and ounce.  Seeing that I didn't have 50 loads of laundry to do, or a house to clean, lunch to make, groceries to get and the fact that it is my only day off every week, I said sure.  I turn the car around and off we go.

My youngest son loves animals and has been begging me for the last year for a pet.  He in the past has had hermit crabs, fish, hamsters, and a couple of dogs.  Currently we have about 200 pigeons and 10 chickens.  Do you think these count as pets?  Oh no, he wants a "real" pet.  I have been saying no but for some reason my husband thought today was a good day to get a fish.

To me a fish is a Betta, or Siamese Fighting Fish, whichever you prefer.  They are cheap, can live in a five dollar bowl with no filter or heater and are easy to take care of.  It seems my husband has other ideas of what pet fish are.  He starts looking at all these ridiculously expensive aquariums (we have gone past the tank straight to the aquarium).  I ask him just what he is planning on putting in this aquarium and he responses "Guppies".  Seriously, a fifty dollar aquarium for a couple of guppies?  Then he explains that guppies breed often and in great numbers so we need the big tank.  I am thinking that the last thing we need is a zillion guppies. 

My husband is an animal breeding maniac.  I think it is a disease.  When we first bought our house he bought a pair of zebra finches.  That pair turned into about fifty little mouths to feed.  Then he bought canaries, same thing.  At one point we had about 150 birds in the basement.  He has a big plan to sell them all.  Well, pet stores rarely buy from breeders they don't know and the few we sold didn't even come close to covering our costs.  Then he bought a pair of English Springer Spaniels.  He was going to make so much money selling the puppies.  One dog turned out to be a biter and the other had cancer.  Bye Bye puppies.  Now it is the pigeons, and soon we will be running a guppy mill.

To get back to today, I managed to get him out of Petco but only if I agreed to see if we could find a cheaper tank at Walmart.  We zip over to Walmart and the only tank that was good enough for him had a crack.  I was hoping this was the end of it but no such luck.  Next thing I know we are on our way to Building 19, which is about four towns away from where we were.  I was quite content with the seven dollar plastic tank that would hold the ten dollar filter and eight dollar heater.  He on the other hand, not so much.  He suggested we go to the Walmart that was near where we were now and maybe they have an uncracked tank.

We trudge over to Walmart (oh and the kids at this point are just about as fed up as I am) and sure enough, no tank.  Then it was to a different Petco, which I walked out of because I wasn't paying their prices.  I managed to convince him to get the damn plastic tank.  So back to Building 19 it is.  I still ended up paying almost fifty bucks for everything needed, I was not happy about that one.  At this point I was even willing to pay more money for the ferret that the kids really want, as least a ferret is fun.  Fish are a waste of fifty bucks.

I am now thinking that we are done.  We can go home, he can set the damn thing up and we can worry about the fish tomorrow.  Again, he had other ideas.  He said we had to get the fish today because otherwise the kids would be upset.  Really, the kids or you?  I was sick of fighting so we stop and buy the damn guppies and some food.  Another fifteen bucks down the drain.  Finally we get to go home.

I sit down to write my blog about how pissed I was at him when he says he needs help setting everything up.  Seriously, it's a fish tank, read the directions.  So now another hour of my day off is sucked up because he put water that was too cold in, the filter wasn't hooked up right and I am now freaking that my fifteen dollars worth of fish are going to die in a plastic bag. 

ok that is a lie, I made him take us out), do laundry, pack his lunch for tomorrow, clean up the house, shower and get the kids ready for bed,  My day off is over, I am tired.  I was hoping to knock out a good half of the second book in the Hunger Games series today but with how I feel I will probably go fall asleep watching Once Upon a Time.  I hope I can at least plot my revenge in my dreams.

Another Pointless Holiday

Valentines Day is one of those Holidays that I just don't get.  I mean honestly, if you have somebody in your life that you love, shouldn't you show them everyday, rather than just one day of the year.  Didn't we just spend a boatload of money at Christmas?  Now we have to dish it out again a month later?  Could the stores just not wait until Easter to rape us again? 

Don't get me wrong, I love my kids, and I got them the Valentine's Cards to send to school.  If I didn't my kids would be shunned.  But needless to say, they will come home with at least one of the Cards made by the overachieving mom (because God forbid these moms let their kids mess up their perfect craft project by doing it own their own) whose days are spent trying to figure out how they can make the other mom's look bad with their store bought cards.

And what about the kids out there who don't have parents to show them love, or have parents that are away and can't be with them on Valentine's Day.  It makes the kids feel bad that they can't enjoy the day the way rest of the kids do.  There is a little girl in my son's class whose father is in Afghanistan fighting for our country.  This girl has enough to deal with in life without being made to feel worse because she won't have her dad there to spend the day with her.  Because society pressures us into believing that this one day of the year is for love, and gifts and dinner out.

When I was in High School there was a Valentine's Day flower sale every year.  You ordered the flower for the one you loved a couple of days in advance and on Valentine's morning it was delivered to you in homeroom.  Everybody was so excited to get their flower.  And those who didn't just felt like shit.  My boyfriend lived in another town so I never got that flower.  Hated that!  And I guarantee that there are kids at my old high school feeling pretty down right about now.

I might sound like I am anti Valentine's Day because I am single, but I am not.  I haven't been single for almost fourteen years.  And I also haven't bought my husband a gift for the holiday in all that time, because I don't see the point.  I refuse to go to a restaurant and spend triple the price for a meal because that is what we are "supposed" to do.  Restaurants love Valentine's Day, big time profit, trust me I know, I have worked in restaurants my entire life, we love to screw you naive people.

So call me a scrooge if you will.  I am not wearing red.  I am not buying candy or cards or expensive gifts for my children.  Because my kids get a gift from me everyday.  My unconditional love.

Welcome to Walmart

I have a love hate relationship with Walmart.  I love their prices and I hate just about everything else.  I had to venture in today because it is February 11th and well, that means that Breaking Dawn comes out on DVD and yes, I did have to buy it right away.  Sure, I could have gone to Target, but let's face it, Walmart is still cheaper and I am a frugal (ok cheap) person. 

Can't wait til the kiddies go to bed so I can get me some Edward

Since I don't have a Walmart in my town I have to go to the next town over, or "The Hood" as I like to call it.  Seriously, the motto of Brockton is The City of Champions.  Yes, maybe the champions of drug dealers and welfare abusers, but that is about it.  Nine times out of ten when you read about a crime in my town the person arrested lives next store in "The Hood." 

But at any rate, I go into Walmart today and what is the first thing I see when I enter the door?  Condoms!  Yes, right at the entrance.  Ready for all the little kiddies to ask mommy what they are.  I know it is Valentine's in a few days but seriously?  Thankfully, right behind the condoms was a display full of the DVD I was looking for.  Hmm, maybe the condoms were there because some male employee thought maybe his girlfriend would be hot after finally getting to see Bella and Edward have sex. 

So now the DVD is in my cart and I have to run and get some milk.  Yes, I buy milk at Walmart, but don't judge, it is 2 bucks cheaper than the grocery store, you would buy it there too.  There were two people standing in front of the milk cooler arguing.  I think they must have been married because only years of pent up sexual frustration can cause the screaming I saw.  I was going to go back to the front to get them the condoms and tell them to go home and "work" things out, but honestly, they were damn scary.  I just decided it was going to be worth it to spend the extra 2 bucks on the milk.

Next I hit up the card section.  Monday is my dad's birthday and we have a running joke going that for every card giving occasion we get the other a Barack Obama card.  We are both conservatives,  we just do it to piss the other off.  I can't wait until I go up to visit him in Vermont so I can switch his regular toilet paper with the Obama stuff I found.  Yes, I am a bitch.  But back to topic, I am in the card section and there is a kid that couldn't have been more than 4 years old standing there opening up all the cards that have music.  After the first 10 songs or so I was starting to get annoyed.  I am looking around for the adult that was with this kid and there is one NOWHERE.  I go to the next aisle, still no adult.  I am there for about 10 minutes before I finally asked this kid where his parents were.  The kid just stares at me.  So I ask if I can help him.  He starts yelling at me, but I have no idea what the hell he was yelling because he wasn't speaking English.  An employee comes over then and asks what is going on.  I gave a quick run down and the employee told me I should just mind my own business.  WTF!!!!  There is a four year old child alone for and extended period of time at Walmart!!  I am a parent, there are some things that parents just can't do when they see a child in a bad situation.  But I walked off, without my card, or my milk, and at the point I was done with Walmart so I am sad to say that Breaking Dawn was left behind as well.

Now will this be my last trip to Walmart?  I always say it will because some stupid crap happens almost every time I go there.  But I am guessing it won't be, unless I win the lottery.  At least if nothing else, the place gives me new material for my blog.

Oh, and on a side note, I went to Shaws to get my milk and guess what????  They where selling Breaking Dawn, for 2 bucks cheaper than Walmart!!!!  I guess it was meant to be.

See, I wasn't kidding, they really make the stuff.

Birthday Blues

In a few short hours my youngest offspring turns seven.  Holy stressful event for me.  You would think a child's birthday would be something to look forward to but I have been dreading it for the past month, for a couple of reasons.

1)Birthday Presents     I had a hard enough time figuring out what to get him for Christmas a month ago, now I have to figure out more gifts.  I asked the boy what he wanted and he gave me a list of crazy over priced things.  I am out of ideas myself, I mean when he turned six we got him a compound bow and for Christmas he got a BB Gun so I am out of dangerous things that all the over achieving, over protective moms can shun me for.  I ended up going for a Whiplash Scooter.  This thing is sweet!  I feel like with the amount of money I spend for health insurance I should get my money's worth out of it with ER visits.

Yes, I am that mom.

2) Birthday Parties     A few years ago I stopped doing birthday parties for my kids.  I was sick of paying insane prices for something that was over in two hours.  Also, in my kid's school we are told that if you are having a party and want to invite kids in the class you have to invite them all.  God forbid a kid gets their feeling hurt.  I am sorry but I am not dishing out for 20 kids, especially when half of them my kid can't stand to see in school, let alone at his party.  But still I hear "Oh when is Johnny's party going to be?"  or when I say I am not having one I get "Oh, poor Johnny, I bet he is going to be disappointed."  Seriously, who says there has to be a party.  I take my oldest to Canobie Lake for his birthday with my BFF and her family (her son's bday is right around the same time) for a day and it is much more memorable.  For my youngest we go to Coco Keys and stay over night at the hotel there.  So much better than any party I could do, plus I am not hitting up parents of kids I don't even know for presents.

3) I Want Cake    I just started Weight Watchers two weeks ago and have been doing really well.  Down 13 pounds already!!  We are taking the boy out for dinner tomorrow night.  I can handle that as I can figure out something to eat but then we are going to do cake at home.  I love cake (thus my need for going on WW's in the first place), especially chocolate, with ice cream.  I know I am going to rationalize myself into eating it.  I will tell myself it is my reward for my incredibly painful labor, that was 7 years ago and long forgotten.  Or I will go with "It's just this one time."  Sure just one time until my birthday a few weeks later.  I really want diet to work, why do birthday have to involve cake?  Who made up that rule because they suck.

I know that I will end up loving every minute of tomorrow and all the stress will have been for nothing.  It is hard to stay stressed when your child is so happy (and I know he will be).  And yes, I will eat the cake, I know I will gain ten pounds because of it, but hey, you have to enjoy these moments when they come.

Super Bowls, Superstars and Supermodels

So, it wasn't such a Super Bowl if you are a Patriots fan.  We came up on the short end of the score board, to New York of course, again.  But it is over now, we look on to next season, or to the Bruins as so many of my facebook friends did last night at about 10:30.  But first a little recap of the other things that occured around the game.

What??  This isn't really LMFAO and MIA?

For starters, I was majorly impressed with myself when during the half time show I actually knew who LMFAO was.  Not only them but Cee Lo too.  Madonna was a given because I did spend many of my formative years listening to her back when she wasn't pretending to be British.  I must say that I still have no idea who MIA is nor do I really care.  And, to be truly honest I must admit that the only reason I know who LMFAO is is because a couple of bartenders dressed up as them at Halloween.  But the important thing is that I actually looked like I knew what I was talking about at the party. 

Then on the radio I heard them talking about how MIA flipped the bird during the show.  I must need glasses because I didn't see a thing (I think maybe I was preoccupied with trying to figure out why Madonna was trying to look like a teenage cheerleader with her pom poms).  But they are all talking about it.  Seriously MIA, whoever you are, grow up, get some class and go back to England, we don't want you here if you are going to pull that crap at a sacred event.


Then when I put the news on tonight hoping for a cute shot of Gronk or perhaps some highlight of what we did good in the game, or what the Giants did bad (the news could at least give us that, we are grieving after all), what is the news story about????  GISELE!!!!!  Or better yet, how Gisele basically said that it was the receivers who lost the game for her poor Tom.  I have played a lot of sports in my life and one thing I know above all else is this; You win as a team or you lose as a team.  Tom fucked up too.  Did Welker miss a pass, yes, did Brady cause a safety, yes.  All done together as a team you bitch.  Where the hell does she get off passing the blame when she wasn't even on the field?  She was probably too busy setting up Tom's next UGGS photo shoot  to see what was going on.

But it is over now, I have shut off the television.  I am blocking it out until August when pre season starts again.  It shouldn't be too hard, right.  It's not like I work at Gillette Stadium or anything. 

It is going to be a long 6 months.

Adventures in Dieting

It is that time of the year again.  The time I decide to make my life a living hell by going back on Weight Watchers.  Why Weight Watchers you ask?  Because of all the diets I have found Weight Watchers is the only one that lets my have good desserts.  South Beach is sometimes my other choice but they only let you have sugar free ice cream or jello and they both suck.

Well this year I decided to team up with two of my fellow lunch ladies.  It is much easier to stay on track with friends.  We are equally miserable all day as we watch the kids eat their pizza and chicken patties as we eat our lettuce and mustard sandwiches.  Ok, really it is not that bad at the school as most of the food we serve isn't that tempting anyways.

My other job is a different story.  Do you know how hard it is to waitress at a restaurant that serves pretty delicious food that you can't eat?  I can honestly say that there isn't a single thing on the menu that isn't more points then the entire amount I am allotted for the day.  Not to mention that all the girls I work with are super skinny and eat whatever they want, bitches!!!  The other night the kitchen guys fucked up an order of nachos (or the server rang it in wrong which is what the chef would say cause he's super fucking cranky these days).  It was a nacho free for all for the staff, as I watched eating an apple.  Fantastic!!

Then the other day my dear friend Margaret asked my how much weight I wanted to lose.  I am going with a different goal this time around.  Rather than saying 75 pounds which is just damn scary, I am going for ten pounds.  Then when I hit ten pounds I will go for another ten pounds.   After the first week I lost eight pounds.  Pretty damn spectacular if you ask me.  Now I only need two more pounds to get to goal, then I will go for another ten.

One of the things that really sucks about dieting though is that I still have to feed my family.  I am not subjecting my family to points and it is too damn expensive to cook a Weight Watchers dinner for one person, let alone four.  So now I am finding myself cooking two meal every night, one for them and one for me (ok, who am I kidding, I make them dinner and then throw a premade frozen meal in the microwave for me).  It's not like I am busy or anything, why not make a little more work for myself. 

The other thing that sucks is the money I am spending.  I dropped two hundred bucks at the Market Basket the other day.  And that is the cheap grocery store.  Healthy food is damn expensive.  Plus, I am a points hoarder, I eat very little during the day so I can have dessert at the end of the night.  I am a sucker for the Frozen Novelties that Weight Watchers makes, you know the ones I mean, the ones that are six bucks a box and have about four ice cream bars in them.  They are so delicious though, they are the only thing that keeps me sane.

Then husband almost lost a hand the other day.  We were laying in bed and I had a bowl of popcorn that I had measured out so I had exactly one point worth.  So what does he do, reaches his hand in and grabs a giant handful.  After yelling at him for five minutes he finally asked what the big deal was.  I told him if he wanted popcorn I would make him some, but this was mine and was portioned out.  What do I get for a reply "But I only want a little".  Too bad, a little to you is a lot to me so hands off!

Next step is exercising.  I hate exercising.  I have no time to go to the gym so I am hoping to buy an elliptical machine with my tax refund (I better get one, but seeing that the hubby doesn't have his W2 yet I have no idea).  I swear I will use it for more than a clothes rack, really I will.  And if it means I get more desserts I will be on that sucker every day.

So wish me luck.  It is a hard road but at the moment I am totally motivated.  I am going to be like Jennifer Hudson and keep it off, not like Oprah and put it back on.  Really, I mean it.......this time.