Yesterday my daughter was talking about her birthday. She is already making a list for what she wants for her birthday this coming February. I don’t know if she realizes that she is skipping right over Christmas of if she simply realizes that she won’t possibly get everything on her Christmas list. Of course she still believes in Santa so she probably was just mentally counting all her bootie.

Usually the conversation starts out like this:

“Guess what’s after Christmas, Mom”

“New Years” I say.

“Do we get presents on New Years?” Daughter will ask.

“No, but it’s really important to be quiet on the first day of the new year, in fact it’s a great day to spend with your father.” I tell her

“Guess what’s after Christmas?”

“What’s after Christmas?”

“My Birthday!” Daughter says excitedly.

“No, my birthday, then your brother’s birthday and then your birthday” I remind her.

She doesn’t really care about all these other birthdays but since daughter and son both have a birthday within four days of each other, and her birthday is after his, we are caked out. I still make two cakes but there is always half of his left over. Last year I got balloons for son’s birthday, I would have gotten them for her too but his were still up and they said “Happy Birthday”. Yeah, I know, but he didn’t care to play with them, she just wanted more.

Anyway, I got to thinking about my birthday. Mine is in January and usually by December I have already aged myself. I suppose it’s just easier to start getting used to that higher number a month or two in advance.  I never used to do this but my ex#2 always did and the habit stuck.

So I am in the shower yesterday thinking about my birthday and I realized I wasn’t sure how old I was.  I thought I was 44 and was fine with that number except I knew I was not going to be 45 next month. That just wasn’t happening. It seems like yesterday I turned 40 so there was no way 45 had already snuck up on me.  Also my brother had just turned 45 or 46 last month (I’m not really sure about his age either) and he is two years older than me so it didn’t seem possible. So I had to do the math.

I was born 1/17/1966

That makes me 43 for the moment and not 44 like I have been telling everyone, for nearly the last year, who asks.

They don’t usually ask, that would be rude, but I do because I like to compare myself to them if they are the same age as me (only if I look younger).

I have been nearly high on this information for the last day. I don’t usually care about my age but I am still surprised to find that things like Live Aid or the fall of the Berlin wall was 20 years ago. It seems like they just happened. Even 9/11 was almost ten years ago. Time flies and it seems to speed up as we get older.

Realizing I am a year younger is like finding a $100 that had been tucked away and forgotten about. It was always there but I had forgotten about it and now it is like free money.

I got a free year.

This day started out so promising. I woke up early, and refreshed (which never happens), so I grabbed a cup of coffee and decided to jump on the computer before anyone else was awake. I woke at 5am so I had another hour and a half before anyone else was likely to stir.

I stopped at a few websites and in my visits I stopped over at Daisy’s blog and she had a riddle. I guessed the correct answer and thought to myself this is a good sign for the rest of the day.

I’ll take where ever I can get ‘em.

Eventually the kids woke up, ate breakfast and started to head off to school. The boy wanted to use my car since he had a robotics meeting after school. He likes my car better than the truck that he is supposed to be driving. The truck has had some problems lately and it was low, very low, on gas. So I said he could take my car and I would use the truck.

It was very cold this morning so instead of walking the girls to school I was going to drive them. I needed to stop at the post office to get some boxes so I could send out my holiday treat samples to everyone.

Because we were driving to school we didn’t need to leave until a few minutes before the bell rang. Daughter had been up and wanted to play outside with Stanley which seemed fine to me since that way she would already be dressed in snow pants, hat, mittens and coat. I could just grab her on the way out.

As I am walking out to the car I realize I can’t find my key to the truck. I couldn’t find the key because I had left it in my car. The car my son had at school.

The bell was going to ring in three minutes.

I quickly called my neighbor to ask if I could borrow her car to take the kids to school and to also go and grab my keys out of the car that my son had. No problem she said. I have the most wonderful neighbors in the world.

I drop off the kids and head up to the boy’s high school. Only seniors can park in the lot, everyone else has to park on the street. My son goes to a rather large public school which sits on the edge of a golf course.

Where the hell was my car?

I thought I could text him to ask where he had parked but I wasn’t driving my car and didn’t want to risk getting in an accident. I drove around the school and the golf course looking for it.

Eventually I found it and grabbed the key. I hurried back to the house to drop off the neighbors car and stopped in my own house to grab my purse which I had forgotten earlier.

I was greeted by a very guilty looking Stanley.

The daughter had left her Advent Calender, which happened  have a chocolate candy in each window, on the coffee table.

Stanley ripped the calender to shreds to get at the candy.

I often wonder what kind of anxiety dogs have when they are left with the remains of whatever it is they have chewed and their master hasn’t arrived home yet.

Do they just sit there looking at the mess, the evidence, and think to themselves:

“Well, I’ve done it this time. She is going to be mad at me. Too bad I don’t have thumbs or I’d clean it up and she’d never have to know about it. Why didn’t I think about that before I ate the candy? Now I’m busted and there isn’t a thing I can do about it but sit here and look pathetic.”

(I know dogs aren’t supposed to have chocolate)

So I cleaned up the mess. Told Stanley he was bad but he had already forgotten what he had done.

I then grabbed my coat and headed out the door to go to the post office.

The truck wouldn’t start.

I just had it fixed last week. Some battery problem that they said was taken care of with a new connection doo-hicky-thingie.

I got the charger out of the garage and hooked it up to the car. Something I had been doing for the last several months due the doo-hicky-thingie problem.

I wasn’t paying attention and hooked the battery up wrong.

Black on red and red on black.

Way Wrong.

Luckily the truck did not start on fire or explode. I switched the connections and let it sit there for a half hour. It fired right up but now the light doesn’t work under the hood. It’s probably the bulb.

I go to the post office to pick up the boxes. The first post office doesn’t have any. The second post office only has two. The third one has four which was just what I needed.

It’s 11am now and so far I haven’t gotten a damn thing accomplished.

I go home to start packing up the sample boxes. I hadn’t noticed before I went to the post office that on the six boxes I did have my daughter had drawn all over.

At this point I don’t care. They are getting used.

I have no packaging material I realize so I use zip loc bags and paper napkins. Nothing Christmasy or holiday themed. I did manage to find some Christmas cards though none had envelopes anymore because daughter liked the color of them and used them to write letters to the reindeer.

I need a Sharpie to write the addresses of everyone. Regular pens never work on boxes and markers always smear. I usually have a dozen or more Sharpies around but not today.

I found one, under my daughter’s bed. Luckily a black one but the tip had been smushed to where it was no longer sharp. The packages weren’t large enough to use such a large tipped pen but I used it anyway. The only other alternative was to use a yellow Sharpie and the post man would not like that.

So, I have sent out all the sample holiday treat packs. The packaging stinks and the cookies will probably break during their journey.

I don’t care anymore.

What was I thinking? I have thumbs, this should not be happening.

I’m having my cookie sale in about a week, something I have been doing for years but never online before. I’m going to give it a try online this year too. I need 5 to 10 people who want to try my cookies, bourbon balls, and fudge, and if you like them write a quick post about them.

I’ll mail a sample pack to whomever wants to sample them on Monday.

These are awesome cookies which I have sent to Australia, England and all over the US in past years. I made five dozen last night and they are all gone already. The boy invited friends over when he smelled them baking and ex#2 grabbed a few handfuls when he tried to fix my phone. I only had two cookies. Really.

These are my grandmother’s recipes which I have finagled a little here and there over the years. There is nothing low calorie, gluten free, or remotely healthy about these cookies unless you consider bliss healthful. Which I do.

I use nuts (walnuts, pecans and almonds), no peanuts but often these nuts are packaged where peanuts have been used and are not considered allergy free so please keep that in mind.

I also use real Bourbon in the Bourbon Balls so those are not for kids. Grandma liked to cook with booze, what can I say? She was an awesome cook. I guess being half in the bag allowed her to be a little adventurous when cooking.

If you want to try a free sample of these fantastic cookies please leave a comment and I will contact you about where to send them.  For the samples I am only sending them within the US, sorry.

Thanks and I promise these are worth the time on the Stairmaster.

I am in a foul mood today. I don’t know why I just got up on the wrong side of the bed. I’m not mad at any one person but I want all of my children to stay the hell away from me today. I don’t want to talk to anyone, I don’t want to drive anyone anywhere, I don’t want to cook and I so badly do not want to empty the dishwasher.

Laundry I can skip. The laundry room is in the basement so I don’t have to look at the mounds of stinky clothing down there. The dishwasher indicator light is just mocking me. The dishwasher is clean and the dishes need to be removed and placed in the cabinets but I just don’t want to do it. I don’t want to ask anyone to do it either because I know that conversation will set me over the edge.

“Son, would you please empty the dishwasher?”

“Yes Mom, I’ll do it in a few minutes”

Which means I will have to repeat this conversation at least four more times if I want to the dishwasher emptied. That’s if I don’t want to go all ballistic on my son. I’m not sure I can stop that from happening today since I am already in such a bad mood. I’m ready for a fight at this point but I don’t want to talk to anyone. I can empty it myself but that will make me more crabby. My son doesn’t realize it but he has already lost. There is nothing he can do at this point. Had he noticed the little green light and emptied the dishwasher on his own we could have avoided this inevitable argument that we are destined to have. But since I am going to have to ask him to do it, and probably many times, he has lost the battle without even knowing it was on.

My kids should understand me by now. I don’t understand why they don’t. I don’t expect them to anticipate my moods but when they hear me snap at the dog first thing in the morning they ought to know that they better be on their best behavior. The dog and cat both know to keep clear, I don’t know why the kids can’t figure this out.

I don’t get in a bad mood all that often. Usually I’m pretty easy going and can stand to ask several times for a chore to get completed but not today. I want everyone to be able to read my mind today. I want someone to ask what they can do for me. They won’t but I want them to. In the absence of that I want them to get out of my way. And then stay out of my way.

This will pass, I will feel fine tomorrow I am sure but right now I want to be alone. And I want someone to empty the damn dishwasher.

I have been asked to contribute to a great new ezine at A World of Progress. I will be contributing to the TeamZine by posting articles from the right, coincidentally called The Right. Please go and check out the zine.

It should be fun to read, even though it is a political blog, because I have no clue about politics. Yes, I know, I was the campaign manager for a challenger to the seat held by the incumbent in our town for City Council. He lost but only after he fired me. I am not the typical contributor to this site. Everyone else there knows exactly what they are talking about. They not only use words that I have to look up but they use them correctly. Hopefully my contribution to this site will not have the same results as my campaigning for Bill Hosko.

I can’t believe it has been a year already and yet at times I feel as if I have been doing this forever.

When I first started this blog I knew very little about blogging. Actually I knew nothing about blogging and it is quiet evident if you read through the comments.

It has taken me a while to find my voice on this blog and the others but I think I have evolved in the last year and for the better.

I was given encouragement by some of my first commenters. They stuck with me and I am eternally grateful to them for that. I feel as if I know both of these guys pretty well, enough that I consider them close friends. Please check out their blogs. You can find Gdad here at Cranial Hyperossification and Bill at Life on Planet Bill. They are both wonderful guys and wonderful blogs.

I don’t think I have yet written a post straight through. In the three paragraphs I have just written I have attended to three different emergencies for my children. Of course I would have little to write about if it weren’t for my kids or my lack of organization.

I want to thank everyone who has read Redhead Ranting, Ergodic Cogitation and Kids of Queers. I want to especially thank the ones who left comments. Comments are gold in the blogosphere, they are what we write for and how we determine our worth out here so thank you so very much if you took the time to comment on my blogs or any other blogs.