Too ugly not to save and other randomness...

I awoke yesterday to the sound of a crash in the kitchen. I knew that it wasn't going to be pretty as I jumped up out of bed to see (a) who did it (b) who got hurt and (c) what was destroyed.

In the half of a second that it took me to get from my bed to the kitchen I knew the answers to all three of those questions.

(a) Alex
(b) no one
(c) the candy cow

I was right.

The candy cow is a ceramic cookie jar that my mother sent to me when I was married to Ex1. It was one of *those* gifts - you know the kind that you open and then look at each other, both of you thinking "um, that's interesting" but neither one says anything.

Yeah. One of those. But, I like cows, and we needed a cookie jar, and it was cute in its own ugly way. So it made its home on top of the refrigerator, where it has always been.

When Sarah was little, she climbed up to get something out of it, and she dropped the lid on the floor. It broke into 4 or 5 large pieces that I was able to glue back together fairly easily. Of course, that was just a linoleum floor that had a little bit of cushion to it.

Unfortunately, our kitchen floor now is ceramic tile. And it's very unforgiving. So when Alex climbed up to try to swipe something out of it yesterday morning and dropped it, it ended up in more than 4 or 5 pieces.

Needless to say, I was not happy.

I contemplated throwing it away....for about 2 seconds.

And then I got out the glue - after Alex got sent to his room for an extended period of time. And I spent most of the morning piecing and gluing (and swearing and grumbling).

She's definitely showing some signs of wear after this incident. She has holes where the pieces disintegrated and couldn't be put back together again. She's missing an ear and part of a horn, but she's back on top of the refrigerator where she belongs.

After all, she's just too ugly not to save.

 Other randomness for the day....

A trip to the library that resulted in returning 19 items....and checking out another 35.....

A trip to the park that ended up with everyone being really cold and hungry after about 30 minutes...

Then a trip out to eat where we ran into a friend and got to visit with her...

Brownies and ice cream after we came home...

Movie watching with the kids...

And then some more work on a sewing project....

Not a bad day.

Now what?

It seems that I've done it again. Unintentionally.

Back in November, I got a wild hair and went off on a rant about judgmental people and food stamps and that post went INSANE. I'm still getting comments on that.

Then came the silly Tooth Fairy letter, which just caused everyone to go nuts (myself included).

Last night's post went kind of crazy. I kind of figured that it would, but I wasn't sure to what extent - and it really bypassed my expectations.

Those three things have caused the traffic on both this blog and my facebook page to grow exponentially. Fast. It took something like 20 months to get up to 3000 people on my facebook page, which averages out to about 150 people per month. In the past month or so alone, over 1200 people have 'liked' it.

What I'm getting at is that I'm not used to this. I've been a little bitty baby blog for a long time and I'm ok with that. I don't blog for numbers or money or fame and fortune. I started it on a whim and it's kind of taken off a bit more than I expected. So when things like this happen, I get a little bit overwhelmed. I like to compare it to the guitar player who loves playing little gigs at the local bar for a small group of people - and then is suddenly thrust into the spotlight center-stage at Madison Square Garden in front of a sold-out crowd. It's a little nerve-wracking.

It's fun, yes. But it's also scary. I know that people are going back and reading old posts to get to 'know' me. Some of my past posts were not taken so well, or were about very dark times in my life - and they sort of 'reappear' on my radar when people start reading them again. I've put so much of my life 'out there' and sometimes it's a little unnerving to have it examined by total strangers.

So why do I do it? I get that question a lot.

Like I've said before, it started on a whim. I never expected anyone to pay any attention. But the more time I put into it, the more people started to read it. I started connecting with people that I wouldn't have know otherwise, and people who were reading were connecting with each other. A nifty little group of people has come together because I started writing a blog.

And that's really pretty cool.

I never claimed to be an artist.

At the same time, it also leads to me wandering around the house looking a lot like this.

Ratty t-shirt, gigantic cup of coffee, and the purple bandana - check.

Deer In The Headlights look - check.

Questions flying through my mind at warp speed - check.

I'm always left thinking "Well, crap. Now what? What can I write about now that people will find interesting after I did THAT?"

So yeah. That's where I am right about now. Blogging about the fact that I have no idea what I should be blogging about today.

One thing that I can promise is this - it has been suggested numerous times that I start putting ads on my page because of the increased traffic. At this point in time, I have no desire to do that. None. I don't want sponsors. I don't want to follow someone else's rules and write about what THEY want. I'm going to continue doing things the way that I always  have, which means you'll get lots of random ramblings.

Because that's what I do.

The Power of the Purple Bandana

I've made several references to my purple bandana on my facebook page but I've never really explained the meaning behind it. I'm not even sure when it started, but it's been around for years. It went missing for a long time, and then I suddenly found it -surprise - in the girls' room a few weeks ago.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I very rarely wear my hair down. It's almost always in a ponytail, or when it gets long enough it goes into a bun. As much as I like to have long hair, I can't stand to have it in my face - so it has to be pulled up away from my face. Unless of course, it's a special occasion (like the wedding last weekend) and then I might leave it down. I will confess though - I did have a ponytail holder in my purse in case my hair got the best of me that night!

Anyway, the bandana. I honestly think that it started in college. Or maybe right after college. It seemed like whenever I was in the mood to *really* clean, I'd bust out the purple bandana and put it on to keep my hair out of my face. People quickly learned that if I had it on, they had best just leave me alone, because I was on a mission.

And now, 15-20 years later, the same still rings true. When I know that I have a lot of things to get accomplished, I bust out the purple bandana and get to work. Today was no different.

After I got the kids up and dressed and fed and to school, I came back here and started cleaning. I got the dishwasher loaded and run and did some laundry. I took Daniel to school and then went to the library to deal with some overdue books, got gas in the van, went to the hardware store to get a couple of things, to the bank to get some money and to the post office to get stamps. I came back home and did some more cleaning before I picked him up and then took him to his other preschool for the afternoon. While he was there, I got the rest of the bills into the mail, did more cleaning, unloaded the dishwasher, washed some other dishes, worked on some other laundry, did some straightening up around the house, and took care of a few other odds and ends.

Somewhere in there I made a batch of no-bake cookies for the kids and then made supper. I folded the girls' laundry and made them put it all away.

I'll admit that I'm fizzling out though. I started cleaning up the kitchen a few times, but it's still not done....it's like a whole bunch of tacos exploded in there! The kids love them, but boy they make a mess....I will finish cleaning that before I go to bed though, so that I can make breakfast in the morning without having to sift through all of the debris.

People ask me all the time where my cape is - they think I'm some sort of superhero for doing the things that I do everyday. So now you know my secret - I don't have a cape, but instead I have a purple bandana.