Too Late to 'Pologize

There's an emotionally heavy post sitting in my drafts folder, but it's the holiday season and I'm not sure I want to share this part of my life yet.   Oooooh, teaser...  
not so much-it's in regards to the "ugly" death I referred to in a past post.

Instead,




let's play "Guess-what- these-stories-have- in-common", shall we?

Story 1

When I go out to buy groceries, I usually bring home special treats for the hubby and I to share...



in front of the football game (Hey, it can't all be romance, can it?).
The latest treat was white chocolate and raspberry cookies. I get pudgy excited with these fun little finds.

Only, when I got home, the husband was stuck in front of his computer doing his online classes so I sat alone in the living room eating my cookie. Becoming pudgy all by myself.

The next day when I reminded him about his cookie sitting in the package, this is what he found.

This wasn't me! Those are kid teeth prints!! How do they eat half of a cookie, put it back in the package and actually think they won't be found out?
At least Hubby won't gain any weight.

Story 2

We took the kids to Wembley Stadium to see England V Spain.

First of all, Wembley is NOT where they play tennis, that's Wimbledon and it's here as well, but we went to see football, not tennis. We got to see a lot of the Barcelona players (only the BEST team in the world!) and it was SO cool.

It's sad to say that when entering the stadium I had that, "I can't believe I'm actually here!" feeling I got the first time I went to Conference in Salt Lake City. Probably best not to compare since so many people already think footy has become my golden calf.

Because our journey to the stadium was fraught with transport disasters, we made our kids eat dinner after the game and the poor little guys had to wait an hour just for a table. They were good sports. Have I mentioned I have great kids?  
After 10 pm we hoped that the crowds would be thinned out on the tube. It might have been if the route hadn't been plagued by construction and diversions.

At one point we had to hop on a double-decker bus to get us to the tube station where our car was parked, but that bus broke down, was eventually revived but then we were left driving with no lights (the children were watching out the front window giggling, "We're gonna die!"). Finally the bus had to stop after sideswiping a car only a mile from where our car was parked.
Our parking place expired at midnight and we pulled out with five minutes to spare. The kids trudged zombie-like to their beds at 2.30am.

Crazy thing is, we're doing this all again when the Olympics come to London.
(warning to anyone wanting to travel on any kind of public transport during that time-- we will be out there with our little black cloud!)

The answer to what these stories have in common:

Nothing.

I'm just busy adjusting to having the Hubby back, surviving the holidays and dealing with some traumatic stuff--that I will share eventually--so please forgive me for not acknowledging comments from the last 6-8 weeks. I have loved hearing from you and my inbox has been what's kept me putting one foot in front of the other.

Thank you!

Invitiation to My Favourite Troll

What a lucky blogger am I!

I'm sure several of you have received the attention of a certain troll who seems to be overly biased against one certain gender from one particular nation (I will not give him the satisfaction of directing you to his links or blog).
As I have had several opportunities to laugh at this poor, opinionated and ignorant oxygen waster, I thought I'd share a few highlights for those of you so unlucky to have been skipped by his tirade.

This person claims that a certain gender from one particular nation are "most likely to cheat on you, to divorce you, to get fat, to steal half of your money in the divorce courts, don't know how to cook or clean, don't want to have children, etc. "


Extremely silly to target this blogger who blogs about her own mini-nation she has given birth to; has never cheated, never stolen from or divorced her spouse, is cleaning and cooking obsessed...did you say fat? Let's face it, how many really passionate skinny cooks do you know?

He also claims these same beings are "immature, selfish, extremely arrogant and self-centered, mentally unstable, irresponsible, and highly unchaste." 

Well. Okay then. I'll accept a few of those qualities and raise you: nurturing, considerate, caring, self-less, dedicated, creative, light-hearted in a sarcastic way...

Highly unchaste? Yikes. Me thinks me smells someone scorned...

To be fair, anyone who has a blog could be accused of being a little bit of self-centered, but a blog is usually a journal of sorts to document our lives- a little hard to leave ourselves out of it.
Credit to you Mr. Anon, you do manage to beat your chest about all of a (certain gender from a particular nation)'s flaws without once mentioning yourself. Well done you!

As for the rest, that is funny stuff.


This Anonymous ranter then goes on to list several statistics (severely lacking citations) like:

Tens of millions of (certain gender belonging to a particular nation) have had their lives completely destroyed by (certain gender belonging to a particular nation) through the following crimes:

1. False rape accusations (it has been proven that up to 80 percent of rape accusations are FALSE)

2. False DV charges (same as above)

3. Financial RAPE of (particular gender) in divorce courts

4. Emotional destruction of (particular gender) by ex-(spouses) who have stolen their children from them and forbidden contact

5. Divorced (pathetic creatures) who commit suicide as a result

Unfortunately his rants continue in a babbling manner, so he loses all credibilty in his otherwise already weak argument.

As one of the "Over 50 percent of (certain gender from a particular nation) (who is) single, without a (partner of the opposite gender or spouse) (doomed to) grow old living alone with their 10 cats."

--wait, I'm not single and I don't have a cat-- 

As someone who fails miserably to fit your description, I invite you to read through my blog to see who I really am and then determine whether I would be interested in your diatribe.

Better yet,
 

I'm inviting you Mr. Anonymous Troll, to guest blog here, In the Gutter.
But to do so, you will be required to identify yourself and not claim the cowardly anonymous identity.
If you feel so strongly about your subject, then stand up and proclaim it like (the certain gender) you claim to be.
You must also be willing to receive comments from people even if they don't agree with you.



I think that's pretty fair considering it's MY blog and I belong to the particular selfish, self-centered, immature and arrogant gender of which you want to recruit haters towards.

By The Time You Read This...

To get us through this most recent deployment, I vowed to blog.

My intentions were to give an honest, candid account of the struggles, challenges and triumphs we spouses that are left behind experience when our loved-one goes into the desert, but instead...

I moved house. I went from BIG to not-quite-as-big and left behind furniture. You know, sofas, bookshelves, built-in cupboards to, well, empty. It's incredibly hard to put things away when there's not a place to put them.

The children started school...
and needed an incredible amount of clothing, shoes, hair appointments and supplies.

Those same children all began their new football season which requires and hour and a half each on a football pitch for training and then the weekend is filled with tournaments and league matches.

Our professional team began a new football season in the Premiere League which means more TV coverage. YAY.

I became severely addicted to TV. All of my best friends either live in my computer or in the TV now.

The oldest son graduated AF Tech School and he and his new wife moved to their first duty station.

We had a death in the family. A really bad, really ugly death that will probably plague us for months to come.

I haven't lost weight, firmed up, grown my hair (unless you count leg hair which has done quite well actually) or surgically corrected anything.

So, there have been very few posts about this deployment...
but if you think this is bad, you should see the journal they gave us at our pre-deployment briefing.

COMPLETELY BLANK.

Anyway, if you are doubting the news stations reporting that the U.S. is pulling out of Iraq, don't.

We have living proof.

HE'S HOME!!!! TWO months early!!

Christmas came early to The Gutter this year...

and Halloween was complete.

So by the time you read this,
he'll be neck deep in his "honey do" lists and I'll be looking through a garage full of unmarked boxes for the Christmas decorations. Don't pity him, he's got the easier job...

She Says I Says

She says, "I can fix my own hair"

 I says, "Not today you don't".

She says, "I fixed my hair for the party".

I says (yes, I know this is not grammatically correct), "Fine, but I pick the clothes." The face paint was a bonus.

She says, "I'm ready to go!"

Luckily we're not actually going anywhere.


My style choices...

 

Her style choices

I'm accutely aware that one day she will be stronger than me. I says,  "Heaven help her when she hits the teenage years!"

Just Roll With It

School children fight over my packed lunches. They queue for a possible glimpse of what I may have created on the day. It's distracting for my poor children who just want to eat their healthy, delicious lunch.

Not so much.

In truth, it's taken us years to come up with a lunch that doesn't come home and hide itself for a rather unpleasant discovery weeks later. Peanut butter and jam is NOT a delicacy in this country and Gogurts are enough to elicit lunch-time harrassment.
My kids just want to fit in and I want them to eat, so I have done my best to make lunches that don't scream "AMERICAN AT THE TABLE!".

The walking skeleton we call A1 has recently insisted that all sandwiches be made on rolls, not sliced bread, because "That's what everyone else brings". It's cheap, less waste, so I caved.

On Sunday, I realized that we had no bread, no rolls for Monday's lunch.

I'm adamant we don't shop on Sunday, which is ironic considering what all we do on the day (but that's my choice that affects me, not some poor employee that's required to work on the day because business is hopping).
This creates a problem in a country that strictly oversees what preservatives goes into foods-- no bread that lasts three weeks over here. You may get three days, if you move it often and keep your house below 62 degrees.
That means I shop on Saturday for Monday's lunch.  But, other people schedule birthday parties, football matches and then there's lie-ins (haha) on Saturday, so sometimes I can't drag myself forget to shop.

Everyone got a hot dinner on Monday. 
That little oversight cost me £8.40 ($13.20)!!

Later in the evening, the little ones and I sat on the side of a football pitch, in the cold and in the wind for an hour and a half of training.  An hour and a half in the cold is just long enough to make me forget I needed to stop off to buy bread on the way home.


Because of that mistake, today I got up with the roosters and BAKED crusty rolls from scratch (or really close to it- prepackaged rolls from the freezer are scratch, right?).
I pulled the hot, delicious little treasures from the oven and let them cool to just the right temperature. Stacked with thin-sliced roast beef and wrapped loosely to preserve the crustiness of the roll, I knew I had redeemed my error. 

What a Mom! What a yummy treat!


It was after school, as I was distributing chores, Skeleton Boy announces:

"I didn't really eat my roll. I sold it".






I'm going to sell him, that's what I'm going to do...