7 Kids, 2 grandkids, 1 on-the-way, 2 cats, Mom, and Dad

Feeling Lonely or SPAM, wherefore art thou?

I'll never forget that morning when I opened Outlook Express and saw I had a bazillion messages all from comments made to this blog.

Was it something witty I wrote that struck a chord in my adoring public's hearts and minds? Mayhaps it was my light yet comprehensive review of a particular bottle of wine that Wine Spectator had declined to address.

Alas, it was a bunch of entries with a link back to a website that dealt *snicker* with Texas, playing cards, and something to do with drawing.

That was one of the first but it hasn't been the last. I've been courted by companies that sell little blue pills for when the time is right, and others that offer to grow naturally what I already got. If applying the de-spam filter to the entries gives me a headache I can always follow the link for the best price on all drugs that normally you get only from a doctor.

But things have been quiet lately. Maybe the filters are working and they won't try any more with a hard-hearted man like me. Perhaps they've moved on to men more willing to grow *it* naturally AND be ready when the time is right. I bet those well-endowed, ribbed-for-her-pleasure, pumping-like-a-machine men even play some hands of on-line poker while they wait for *it* to achieve its maximum length and potency.

And I look instead at an empty mailbox...maybe I should frequent some porn sites and scatter my cookies to the four winds...

Pretty Funny or Constipation *is* a laughing matter.

I found this blog after seeing a link for it over at Good Friend at Everyday News.

This woman has turned talk about all things poop into an artform. I almost always LOL (literally) when I read her blog.

I'm free! or This white stuff is cold!

Fizban ran outside last night when I had the sliding glass door open to unplug the Christmas lights for the night. She ran out, jumped off the deck and then stood there in the snow. I got my boots on and went outside just as she suddenly run under the deck.

I knelt down to look and she was huddled under there and gave me the most pitiful cry I ever heard from her. She started to come out and when her paw touched the snow she scooted back under.

I got her to come to the edge again and then grabbed her, pulled her out, and carried her back inside. She was very clingy for the rest of the night and didn't seem to hold a grudge for the way I dragged her out from under the deck.

This morning, she went over to the sliding glass door, looked outside, and then shook one of her paws like she had something stuck to it before running away. There was nothing on the floor and nothing on her paw so she must have looked at the snow and had a flashback.

She sleeps on my desk or I wonder what she's dreaming about.

Fizban is laying on my desk in her little bed. She's curled up in a ball but every once in a while I can see her skin, feet, and ears twitch. I wonder what she's dreaming about. She loves to sit at the window and reacts to anything that happens in the yard so it could be anything.

Yes sir, yes sir three bags full or How I go about cleaning.

I can't wait to take down all the Christmas decorations. It isn't that I don't like the holiday, it is just that it takes over the whole house and makes keeping up with things difficult.

I have a bunch of bins that the decorations go into and then the bins can be put into the attic. First order of business is to totally empty the bins and throw away any old lights or unused decorations that don't have a sentimental value. I'm hoping to consolidate and not need all of those bins just to hold Christmas decorations.

One good thing this year is the artificial tree that I've mentioned before. It will be so nice to take all of the decorations off of the tree, and put the tree away without having to deal with pine needles all over the area.

So the way I go about cleaning is with a trash bag right by my side. If it is old, damaged, not used, or otherwise a piece of crap I toss it. Beautiful Wife can't even be around when I do it but has decided that she can't argue with success. Even when things look bad, to me, I can do a quick clean in about 30 minutes for the entire first floor. The girls are able to maintain their rooms now that I helped them to clear out what they don't need or use.

Some day...I'll finish the basement and garage...Maybe I should take the eight days of vacation I'm carrying over into next year and use them for household cleaning on a major scale...

Christmas Cactus or I love this plant!

Do nice guys finish or Maybe I'm being to subtle.

This paragraph was in a recent update that I sent regarding Beautiful Wife's chemo treatments:

I ask a favor of all of you...please try to avoid calling or dropping by for a visit after 9:00pm unless it is an emergency or you feel that talking to Mary just can't wait. Also, especially on the weekends or holidays, please don't call before 10:00am. Mary's internal clock is still off because of the narcotics that she takes and the pain that she deals with on a daily basis. If you drove by at 3am you are just as likely to see darkness from our room as the glow from a TV set that is turned on because she can't sleep. However, I am still part of the world that has to get up for work, take care of Mary, the children, and our home, and sometimes sit down to relax. Having to jump up to get the phone so it doesn't wake up the girls or Mary at 10:30 at night bums me out. Thanks for understanding. The biggest part of the favor? Pass the word and keep an eye on each other. *smile*

So what happens not even 24 hours after I send it? Her mother calls at 9:05pm to see if it is ok to visit and then shows up at 9:50pm for a little visit and stays until nearly 10:30pm. BW's father says, "Mother doesn't get email so she doesn't have to do what it says." *laugh, smile, laugh*

He gets the email updates so he read what I wrote above. They were basically saying that they don't give a shit what I say no matter how nicely I ask. I lost a lot of respect for them tonight...

I am working or But not too hard.

Here's the view from my chair...

Pretty please...

Modified pat down procedures or Stating your vulnerabilities.

So now pat down procedures have been modified to avoid the area between the breasts, stomach, and backside. If they do pat down the area they use the back of their hands.

Are we serious about security or not? It isn't like we're doing a Man Show pat down that would consist of them stripping naked and jumping on a trampoline. I dare say they'd have a hard time concealing anything then...

"Miss, I'd like you to jump higher...good...now do a split in the air and cough...good...make those puppies bounce!"

*screener being led away for offending age-challenged dogs*

Tongue in cheek Christmas or They really aren't this bad.

It is foggy and raining before Christmas by two days
Children are lamenting and sighing as they dust off their sleighs
There will be no sliding, a speeding and breathless thrill
If the snow all melts away leaving mud on the hill

There will be no skating either since there is no pond ice
It doesn't matter boys and girls if you were naughty or were nice
All you can do is sit at home with those presents on your lap
And wonder out loud and to yourself if Santa is a sap

There'd be no problem as they see it if Santa was hip
If he'd given them an Ipod instead with a belt attachable clip
A Game Cube, some DVDs, or an MP3 playing device
Then what would it matter if there was no snow or no ice?

Can we go to the mall? Is the oft heard lament
I'm bored, there's nothing to do, all my money's been spent
We can't skate, we can't sled, we've nothing cool that we can do
All that stops when Daddy says, "Oh, I can take care of that for you!"

The kitty litter needs to be scooped and this bag of trash taken out
The dishwasher must be emptied, the kids start to pout
Get out the vacuum cleaner and the Swiffer liberate too
Get some windex and scrubbing bubble cleaner and tackle the loo

Then suddenly blessed silence descends on our happy home
No more whining, complaining, nor nary even a moan
They all are suddenly silent, let me tell you no mean feat
Not a child is in sight only the cats laying on my seat

I pour wife some milk, for me a bottle of wine or cold beer
Check out the supply of Christmas cookies and other signs of good cheer
I settle down in a chair, glass and TiVo controller ready at hand
As silence and relaxation overwhelms me I sigh...This is a Christmas I can stand!

Do you know the garbage man or How I go about cleaning.

I clean with a trash bag in hand because I am trying to remove clutter from our lives. Of course, Christmas time equates to clutter around her with packages to be wrapped, packages that have been wrapped, decorations, and everything else that goes along with the holiday.

I know we have decorations that never even got put up this year and it is a good chance that they'll be in the trash after the holidays unless it is some keepsake that escaped our notice when we were decorating.

Have a Corona or That cat has taste!

I was getting something out of the pantry closet this morning when Youngest Daughter started to laugh. I received a 12-pack of Corona from a friend last night and Fizban was sitting on it. She kept putting her paw through the carrying hole looking like she was trying to get a bottle out for herself.

Yummy muffins or She didn't skip to the door.

Good Friend over at Everyday News stopped by with some homemade muffins this afternoon.

This is the second time we've had muffins that she's made and they are awesome. They're incredibly light and tasty. I sampled a couple of them while making dinner and could have made a meal of them.

Made a breakfast or Even the girls ate it.

We watched a Very Queer Eye Christmas a couple of weeks ago and they had a cool recipe called Baked Eggs and Mushrooms in Ham Crisps.

I made that today for brunch (we tend to sleep in on the weekends) and everyone liked them. I made the mushrooms more palatable by using portobellos and by putting them and shallots in the food processor to mince them rather than chopping them by knife.

I used a non-stick muffin pan a light coating of EVOO in each spot and they came out easily. The recipe calls for salt in the mushroom/shallots mix but I'll probably skip that next time since the ham is plenty salty on its own.

Your name is Gertrude or Hey, are you really going to law school?

San Antonio strippers will have to start wearing their permits when they are working according to a new city ordinance.

Strippers say it will affect their safety since their real name and address is on the permit. I'm thinking that if they stay far enough away it won't be an issue. Of course, this means the end of the lap dance...

Band of Brothers or When Great Pop-pop went to war.

Middle Daughter and I have been watching the Band of Brother DVDs together. We just finished the third disc which takes us up through the Battle of the Bulge.

Young men, boys really, doing their duty for God and Country. If it realistically captures the chaos, blood, and fear of war I can understand why my grandfather still had nightmares decades after the end of the war.

One time, he talked about it with me. He was part of the Normandy invasion, he attained the rank of sergeant, and he was always being told to tell the men what to do rather than leading them in their assaults. That's all he had to say about the war. After a couple of minutes he went up to the attic in the row home he owned in Philadelphia and brought down a Nazi dagger that he acquired during the war.

I found out later that was the first and only time he brought out that dagger and talked about the war. It was probably around 10 years ago which means that it was about 50 years after he had been to war.

An after war story he told was he came back from the war to his wife and two sons with a bunch of unused condoms. One night, they blew them all up like balloons for the kids and were playing with them when my grandmother's mother showed up for a visit. The way they laughed when describing how they were trying to get all the condom balloons down the basement steps before Nana got in the door was priceless.

It hurts! or Now I'll never talk her into getting one.

Beautiful Wife got three tattoos today but only because they are aiming points for her upcoming radiation therapy. She did get them in three tender places: the center of the chest and in each armpit.

She complained about how much they hurt and wondered how much mine would have hurt since they are substantially larger than the three dots she received.

There's no way I'll talk her into an anal cleft tattoo now...

Men who do housework or You heard it here first.

I have it on good authority that *I* look sexy when I'm cleaning the kitchen floor using a Swiffer.

It isn't a chip or How does your skin feel?

I visited Oldest Daughter at work today and for some reason she got all embarrassed. We were talking about it tonight and laughing about how red she got from her neck to the tip of her ears.

Oldest Daughter said, "I know! And, oh my God, my skin gets all pringly too!"

Just for fun or My face is killing me!

Youngest Daughter complained of an earache last night and had a fever of almost 100 which isn't all that bad but still isn't good. I gave her some sudafed and advil and she went to bed. I gave her the same this morning and sent her off to school.

I got a call at 10:30am from the school nurse saying that YD wasn't feeling well and wanted to come home. I decided to pick her up and head over to the doctor's office since you can go in without an appointment. She has an ear infection.

My ears and sinuses have been bothering me so I got checked out at the same time and have a sinus infection.
We stopped and got our antibiotics and a nose spray for me, got some drive-through fast food from Wendy's, and headed home.

YD went up to bed after having her medicine. I took my medicine and then worked for the rest of the day, plus did two loads of laundry, emptied all the trash cans, and cleaned up the lunch mess from Beautiful Wife's visitors (her sisters).

They always want to "do something" but apparently rinsing their dishes and putting them in the empty dishwasher is outside the scope of what they will do. I guess I should be glad that the didn't pat me on the ass and say "fetch me a beer while you're at it hun."

What a feeling or I ain't flash dancin' baby.

I feel good tonight. The driveway is perfectly clear of any snow or ice and has a ice melt scattered on it to make sure the residual wet doesn't freeze. The decorations look good, not Griswold good, but adequate.

I got all the boxes down to the cellar from decorating the tree and I tackled the kitchen counter and got that one corner un-cluttered to my satisfaction. I've got a load of dishes in the dishwasher...well actually it is only about half a load, but then all the dishes will be clean in the morning.

I want to get my office cleaned out next. For some reason, it became the catch-all but it hasn't been a big deal since I like working from my recliner. I'll feel better when the first floor looks decent.

I am Joe Handyman and Suzy Homemaker rolled into one.

*yawn*

Oh what a beautiful morning or It is beautiful and not.

Everything has a coat of ice.

Tree branches sparkle and dance in the light accompanied by the tinkling sound of tubes of ice tumbling to the ground. The back yard is a carpet of diamonds that is pristine and unbroken. Only squirrels and ice fairies, light enough to not break through, have attempted to make their way across.

It also coats car, driveway, steps, and somewhere on our road a branch broke under the weight and made us lose power for around 2 hours this morning. Fortunately, the schools had a two hour delay so I had a chance to clean up some of it before they had to go.

I was shoveling the driveway but may give it some time to simply melt away. Anything still there this afternoon will get shoveled off to the side so that it doesn't freeze tonight. I'm glad I shoveled last night or I'd have a real mess on my hands today.

We have a fake tree or What were we thinking?

We have a beautiful tree that fits perfectly in our dining room in front of the windows. It was wonderfully decorated while we laughed and remembered other trees and other times decorating.

This is the first time we've ever had a fake tree. Most years we go to a Christmas tree farm and cut down our own. Some years we settled for what we could find in one of the pre-cut Christmas tree lots. We liked going out and the search for the perfect tree while the kids tried to remember who's turn it was this year to pick one out.

We had wonderful memories doing that but do I ever wish we had gotten a fake tree before! We were forced into it this year because Beautiful Wife is allergic to pine and the last thing we needed was something like that in the house while she recovers from lung surgery.

I didn't have to go outside with a saw and try to trim the tree just right so it would fit in the base. I didn't have to lay under it and adjust the base so the tree looked straight. I didn't have to remind a kid to water it, end up doing it myself, and then watch the cats drink the water I just put into the base. It has been up for 3 days and there isn't a single pine needle on the carpet.

I'm not waxing nostalgic...believe me...I LOVE this fake tree! Plus, it is the best looking tree we've ever had! You can see it from the road and all you see are lights, ornaments, garland, and tree. You can't see me sitting at the kitchen table picking my nose through the gaps in the branches. Every side is a good side and it doesn't matter what direction it faces.

Charlie Brown can keep his tree! I've gone fake!

Frosty the snowman or Icy is more like it!

We have one of those big things on our lawn that you see nearly everywhere, the big, inflated snowman (or Santa, Christmas tree, Grinch, etc.).

They are actually kind of cool. You have to leave them plugged in for them to stay filled because a fan is at the bottom constantly blowing air up inside of them. The shrink down flat as soon as you unplug them.

I enjoyed watching it fill back up the first couple of times. The big base would fill first and then the upper part would slowly work its way upward like a snowman that's had one too many frozen mudslides.

He is outside laying flat after we lost the battle with the ice and sleet. It collected on the brim of his hat and slowly bent him over backward. I hope he'll thaw enough to inflate tomorrow when this is done.