It's that time of year again...

It's the time of year where we spread our filing cabinet across the kitchen table, and I regret my poor bookkeeping skills. 

Tax time.

Todd was amused as he watched me go through my entire year of bank statements and my checkbook register to figure out my business expenses, write them on an envelope that was kicking around, and add everything up on my 9"x11" calculator (finally, a calculator I can't lose).  To figure my mileage, I just count up how many times I spent money at a quilt shop (using my bank statement), and multiply it by the miles it takes to get there and back.

I love to quilt...I HATE the record keeping/filing/business end of it.  If the IRS ever shows up at my door to do an audit, they're going to have to go through my scratch papers (and envelopes) in order to find what they need.  

I do have quickbooks....but I'm not very good at using it.  It just keeps telling me every time I sell a piece of batting that I don't have any on hand. But, I do, so I don't care and I sell it anyway.  For six years now it's been telling me I don't have enough batting, and for six years, I have dutifully replaced my batting without ever entering it into quickbooks. I just...don't...care.

Would anyone out there like to be my business accountant in exchange for machine quilting?  All you would have to do is drive to the middle of nowhere in January, and go through my stuff (that I meant to file).  It takes me about an hour a year, so it would probably take someone who has skills about 15 minutes to get the job done.  If you can fix my quickbooks and teach me to use it I'll quilt you a queen size quilt. I'm not kidding.

So while I spent my day wandering around and stressing about my one hour of yearly work, Todd helped a neighbor move, plumbed the downstairs bathroom sink, and filed our federal and state taxes (I helped with this one...by reporting my business findings to him)

And now I can relax for another year.

Laundry woes

* You may want to read my last two addendums on this post to fully understand my laundry woes.

Somewhere amid all the poopy and puky laundry I've been doing for the last week and a half, a large white load went through that included...a purple crayon.

I immediately got online and found this recipe for just such an occasion, cleverly entitled "This is the one":

"This is the one"

2 maximum load scoops of liquid Tide (I used Tide w/bleach powder)
1 cup Borax
1 cup liquid Shout stain remover
1 cup white vinegar
2 scoops Oxi-Clean

Fill washing machine with HOT water and let the "recipe" dissolve. Add your crayon infested clothes and let soak for 2 hours. Finish washing the load. Wash again with Tide and vinegar (I just used vinegar because my laundry reeked of detergent...and vinegar will neutralize the soap). Finish with an EXTRA rinse cycle (or two).

I was skeptical, but after spending all day on this one load, almost all of the crayon came out...even after sitting for several days. (This load had to "take a number" behind all the puked-on bedding)

So, you can imagine my horror, when I went to get my white load out of the dryer yesterday, and there was a 1/4" piece of purple crayon sitting on top of the lint trap, and all our socks and underwear were once again COVERED in purple spots. It never occurred to me that a piece of crayon could still be lurking within the load.

A murm'ring word escaped my tongue.

I put the white load back in the washer, and proceeded to go through the same LONG process to remove the crayon. While this load was soaking, I took my last puke-load that I had just washed (a pillow, Todd's coat, and a mattress pad) and put them in the dryer.

Later, when I went to get the mattress pad to make Dillon's bed, I was again horrified, as the pillow, and Todd's coat, were now purple. (cue the murm'ring word...)

Too bad you weren't here to see the next part of the show...me, inside the dryer...looking for the offending crayon. And then I found it...a melted mess in a 1/4" space under the lint trap.

Todd had a great idea, to take a blow dryer and melt the crayon, and then use an old toothbrush, some paper towels, and De-Solve it to clean the melted mess. Too bad he was on his way to work...

My dryer is now clean, my original white load has been through it's fourth wash and the second rinse cycle, and I'm about to do the whole thing again with the pillow and Todd's coat. I'm down to one more load of poopy stuff (a blanket, a pillowcase, and a slumber bag...poor Dillon tried to clean this mess himself before finally waking me up at 1:30 AM on Wed. night) and then I can start on the mound of clothes that has been piling up while I've been busy with bedding and crayon spots.

If this happens again, I'm moving to Australia...wearing purple spotted underwear.

A trip to the circus

We took the kids to the circus tonight. Todd was so excited to take them,

but commented afterward that "it's not quite the same as when I was a kid..."

The boys all loved the THREE motorcycle riders in this ball at the same time.

These poodles were a lot of fun, and got a lot of laughs out of the kids.

They danced, rode scooters, and jumped through hoops.
I liked the elephants best.

Brayden's favorite animal is a tiger, so he was thrilled to see these guys!

They jumped through fire, and pretended to be disobedient (all part of the act).

Afterwards we took the kids to Denny's, where we discovered that

kids eat free on Tuesday nights...PERFECT!

I'm taking back the award.

I got the call at about 12:30 AM (approximately 45 minutes after I had gone to sleep):

"Mom! Dillon threw-up!"

A murm'ring word escaped my tongue.

Seriously. I have done ENOUGH laundry this week. But, after making Dillon a "snuggle bed" on my bedroom floor, I proceeded to rinse his sheets, pillow, and blanket in the bathtub before washing them for the third time in a little over a week. Then I cleaned the tub. Then I cleaned his bed (which has a wagon wheel with spokes...way too many spokes). Then I cleaned the wall. Then I couldn't sleep. I was afraid that if I went to sleep, I would immediately be awoken to clean up more bodily fluids. (I haven't even told y'all about the night I spent cleaning diarrhea off the bathroom floor every hour through the night...)

Dillon had the gall to wake up this morning and say, "Mom, I didn't really throw-up in the night." As if it were all a dream...

I hesitate to say it out loud, but I *think* that this was just a one time thing. When I returned from picking up his brothers from school yesterday, I found an open bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips sitting on a barstool next to the cupboard. Apparently, he ate a good portion of the bag himself. Too bad I have to be punished for his sin...


*addenDUMB: I just told Todd about the empty bag of chocolate chips, and he admitted that HE got them out of the cupboard yesterday...so yeah, the award is MINE.



**I should mention that everyone got the "bug" except me. Caleb was sick last Monday, Brayden on Tuesday, Dillon on Wednesday and Thursday, Todd on Thursday and Friday, Brayden AGAIN on Friday night, and then Dillon AGAIN on Monday night. I kept Brayden home from school this morning (Wed.) because of a stomach ache, but when he started playing video games, I hauled him off to school. Todd still can't eat anything...it was a very short bug (12 hours) but getting over it and actually feeling normal is taking days.

***I spoke too soon. On Wednesday night, Dillon had diarrhea. It included the usual: taking a bath in the middle of the night, and soaking a bunch of poopy bedding, pj's, underwear, etc. This was the first night since he's been potty-trained that I let him sleep in underwear, rather than a pull-up.

If you think your weekend was bad...

Poor Todd. He returned last night from a 3 day 2 night trailride with his team of troubled teenage girls, and some co-workers.

They went to the middle of nowhere. In January. Where it rained. Where they didn't sleep in tents, but in bedrolls under a tarp.

Doesn't sound so bad to you?

Now add in the fact that he ended up catching the "bug" that our boys had, and spent a good chunk of the time (no pun intended) throwing up.

Now I don't know about you, but when I imagine crawling out of a sleeping bag (that you're sewn into with a tarp and cords) several times a night, into 10 degree weather, to barf on the frozen ground while surrounded by a group of teenage girls (two of whom also got sick) and your co-workers...it just doesn't get much worse.

I guess Todd deserves the award.

I think I'll go make him some soup.

Kids do the darndest things...

A friend of mine posted this on her blog, and I had to share...

(Here's the reply the teacher received the following day)

Dear Mrs. Jones,

I wish to clarify that I am not now, nor have I ever been, an exotic dancer. I work at Home Depot and I told my daughter how hectic it was last week before the blizzard hit. I told her we sold out every single shovel we had, and then I found one more in the back room, and that several people were fighting over who would get it. Her picture doesn't show me dancing around a pole. It's supposed to depict me selling the last snow shovel we had at Home Depot. From now on I will remember to check her homework more thoroughly before she turns it in.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Smith

Isn't she precious?

Alivia (my neice) is wearing a little crocheted dress that my dad picked out for me when I was born! It's nearly 31 years old!

I love that my mom kept it for all these years.