Unknown Bottle Contents

The funny thing about questions are you never know what you're going to get (like a box of chocolates). My favorite question starts out with "What was in that bottle of..." The surprising thing about this time it wasn't coming from my children, it was coming from my husband.

Stop. Rewind 10 years. When we bought our house, we were going to replace the front window with a nice bay window. Now that has turned into me just wanting any kind of window with crank outs. Since we all know the old saying "if it ain't broken, don't fix it," well that's my husband's favorite philosophy. While I've been waiting for the new window (don't mind my grey hair by the time the new window's installed), I haven't bought any new window treatments. I didn't want to spend any money until we got a new window. Logical, right?

Anyway, the house came with blinds and curtains, which have weathered a crazy dog and three rambunctious children.  The curtains were ripped out of the wall too many times to repair so we eliminated those last year.

Four days ago the pull string broke on one set of blinds.

Two days ago, the pull string broke on the other set of blinds. So I found cheap blinds at Walmart for $11 each (not bad for temporary blinds for another 10 years while I wait for a new window).

Now for instillation. How long will it be before the hubby hangs up the new ones (not too bad only two days). While I was playing taxi, the hubby was hanging the new blinds (he did a great job). We meet up at a basketball game and the infamous question is asked, "What was in the bottle of Windex under the sink?"

My first initial response would've been Windex, but I ponder the question for a moment. Before I can tell him, I break out laughing. I made a mixture of water and Oxiclean in an old bottle of Windex so I could get some stains out of the carpet (works great). The thought is what counts. He washed the outside and inside of the window with Oxiclean.

His response, "Well that makes sense. I kept spraying and scrubbing and I couldn't get the streaks off the window."

When we got home, the window was covered in a cloudy white film. The real bottle of Windex cleared it right up.

Paybacks a...

When I was working the normal 8 to 5 grind, it was extremely difficult to get all three children out the door by 7:15 am. Now you can image waking up three tired children all under the ages of six to feed, dress, pack and get into the car. You name it, I've done it. Begged, pleaded, threatened, yelled and maybe even pushed a little to get them going. Not to mention, I did this every morning by myself for six years.

On the flip side, my kids can get up leisurely now. Waking naturally and blissfully from their full night sleep. Considering the bus doesn't pick them up until 8:55am, they have all the time in the world. In a perfect world, you'd think there would be no temper tantrums, fits, whining, crying, yelling, fighting in or around our house. It should be all green meadows, daisy picking and sunshine filled mornings. Right? Well I hate to break the news to you all, there is no perfect world.

I would like to share this morning's last five minutes before the bus picked my kids up. This does not include any breakdowns within the house.

Child #1 yells (more like screams so the whole neighborhood can hear her) at Child #2.
Child #2 starts crying.
Child #2 hauls off and kicks Child #1 (my kids play soccer) in the shin. (It was a good kick).
Child #1 starts crying.
At this time, I've not said a word. I'm just minding my own business on the porch.
Child #1 hauls off and kicks Child #2 (Good force behind that one).
Now both are crying and yelling at each other.
I tell them they are both grounded tonight. Banned from technology.
Suddenly, they're both coming toward me yelling at me on how I should've handled the situation. The volume on both children hasn't changed from their outside voices. And I find myself in the middle of a war zone. Sucked in by an eight and seven year old.
Meanwhile Child #3 is innocently waiting for the bus at the end of the driveway.
The bus comes and the neighborhood is peaceful again.

Well, I hope my neighbors were entertained. I enjoyed the part when they got on the bus to go to school.

Monkeying Around

After the little ducklings get on the bus to school, I usually start a load of laundry do the dishes and then go workout. I know it's a hard life I lead, but someone has to do it. Well lately I've noticed Child #3 leaving her Monkey George (that's what we call Curious George) around the house, which she has always done. Recently, the difference has been Monkey George wearing a dress or Monkey George swaddled in her favorite blanket or Monkey George with a bib on. Oddly enough I find myself searching for Monkey George every school morning just to see what he is wearing or what position he is left in. Maybe I've gone off the deep end, but I'm still not ready to go back into the workforce so I will continue indulging in my hobby of writing.

Life as a kept woman.

I've turned into everything I expressed greatly as a child I wouldn't become. Oddly, I'm okay with it. A lot of my view points as a kid came from watching Lifetime movies (Hey, I'm not the only one out there that had this experience). I knew I was never going to have children because I never wanted one to be kidnapped, raped or killed. Then I was never going to be an at home mom (considering I wasn't going to have children) so my husband could walk out on me leaving me with no money and children to take care of. With a little of influence from Working Girl, I was always going to work and make my own money.  So the future entailed me getting a business degree (completed) and working my way through the corporate ladder (fourteen years experience in the business world completed).

As you all know, I ended up married to a man I could never replace and three beautiful children I just pray I won't screw up.

So the moral of the story is that you can never plan your life. You can make plans, but implementing the plan might not always come to fruition. I'm enjoying my little house on the lake and being the at home mom I never was going to be and happier than I ever been.

Now this doesn't mean I actually like doing housework (I despise it, but I would have to do it whether I worked or not) or homework with my kids (I feel the homework is not for the kids as much as it's for the parents) or volunteering at school (other children aren't my cup of tea) or grocery shopping (well there's more to the list, but I don't want to bore you), but I enjoy the freedom it gives me to enjoy life with my kids that I probably would've missed if I continued on the corporate ladder. Not to mention indulging in several hobbies I would've never dreamed of.

Here's to everything happens for a reason!

Death defying Vacation...

So we are back from our annual winter adult only vacation. No matter where we go, we always have a great time. Sometimes it comes out in forms of immaturity, as in, before having children or just complete stupidity, but it always leads to a funny story afterwards. We went to Cancun, Mexico this year. It is one of the cheaper destinations so we thought we would try it out. We've been to the Rivera Maya, which is nice (they have great golf carts that you can borrow to get around some of the resorts...well...maybe that's not for everyone), but we were trying to be a little budget conscience this year. So we take the plunge to try it out.

The beach has at least ten miles of sand to walk on. The ocean is beautiful and fun to swim in if you're a strong swimmer. Cancun is extremely commercialized so if you like shopping this is the place for you shopaholics. Since we had arrive, we heard nothing but good things about taking the local bus to different places down the hotel strip. One of the buses was labeled for going to one of the markets (like a flea market). I thought, that's where I want to go. It was only 85 pesos or about 75 cents per person. Of course, the picture I have in my head is something like when I was a little girl and my parents would take us down to Tijuana for the day to do some shopping (This wasn't probably all that safe 25 years ago. I am almost positive it's not safe now to go to Tijuana, but on my parents behave, they both speak Spanish. Even though at eight years old, I knew a little blond white girl, even with being tan, wasn't safe. I stuck close to my parents and I always kept a close eye on the other eyes watching me. I learned a lot from these experiences--always knowing the proximity of people near me, understanding I have a dead on gut feeling, and possibly my wild imagination was developed during this time.)

For me, the objective was to find something that was locally hand crafted. No problem finding a bus stop (they're everywhere). We hop on and get into looking at all the other hotels down the strip, comparing the sizes and the newness of each. After twenty minutes, the hotels start turning into more of a city. There's gas stations, fast food restaurants and some local color. We must be getting close, right? I feel a tap on my shoulder, the local says you should get off here at Walmart, you shouldn't go any further. The hubby and I look at each other and jump up exiting the bus. Now we have no clue where we are. I want to know where the market is. There's a few other tourist, but mostly locals. We follow the other tourist across the street to Walmart. I definitely don't want to go into Walmart so we ask some others where the market is and they say we passed the market. Now what do we do? Get back on the bus going back up or try to walk it? Nah we ask the local guy trying to sell excursions and time shares (now if you've ever been to Mexico, you know what kind of guy this is). He pulls us into his booth and tries to get us to go to one of the hotels to sell a time share. He tells us the market is only six blocks up, but he can take us to this new hotel, we go through the tour, then he will drop us off at the market. We politely decline (like a hundred times) and walk away. It can't be that far right, six blocks is nothing we can walk it. So we start walking.

After several blocks we start our adventure to the market. As each block passes, we notice the pedestrians becoming less tourist-like and more local-like. The buildings are becoming more shabby and tall stucco walls surround some of the places of business. Suddenly, across three lanes of traffic a bus opens its doors and the driver asks if we want to get in and is repetitively waving his arm for us to get on. We both shrug our shoulders and cross traffic to get on the bus.

When we get on the bus, there is another couple that are tourist too. We ask them if they know where the market is. They tell us they've been on the bus for an hour trying to find this market (Thank God, we're not the only stupid tourists around). The local was right to tell us to get off.  They rode the bus the whole way downtown. Apparently, it wasn't a place for any tourists.

Through this whole ordeal not once did I feel panic or feel we were in danger, but I could feel my hubby becoming very uncomfortable. When you're six feet tall, it's kind of hard to blend in.

Heading back down the hotel strip, we get off at one of the bus stops near one of the older malls. The other couple have a map showing the flea market somewhere close to this place. So we all trek through the mall and out the other side. We pass some more plaza shops and finally we make it to the market. Except this isn't exactly quite like I picture it. All it is is a bunch of t-shirt shops in a building. Not what I was looking for.

Of course, the first vendor tells us only $1 for each t-shirt. We get pulled in and start picking out shirts. Then the tune turns to $1 dollar off. I put back all the shirts and my hubby wants to know how much for the shirts. He likes playing the haggling price game. I just walk out and go down a few shops thinking he will follow me. I take a look at a few purses and bags. Then I realize he didn't follow me. I can't see him at the other shop. Where is he? I look back, then look ahead of me. He's nowhere. Now the panic starts to settle in. One of the vendors says your husband up ahead pointing to another shop ahead and says inside (all the crazy alarms are going off in my head). I step forward to look into the shop, but I don't see him and I don't go in. I see the other couple we were with up ahead and I don't see him. So I head back to the first shop and my hubby steps out. Phew, the relief comes back. We skip the rest of the place and catch up with the other couple. Neither one of us wanted to stick around. We walked passed another older mall and found a bus stop and hopped on.

Now I have a pretty wild imagination, but I'm sure you all have your own version of what could've happened there at the market. Please make note there is not market in Cancun. Stick to the lady selling things at your hotel.

I think Mexico is going to have to do without us for awhile.