So imagine, if you will, the following scene.

Cristina, running bathwater, while telling the girls to undress for the bath.  Cristina, going to get a clean washcloth.  Cristina, returning to the hallway, and seeing the following:

Arden, completely naked, in downward dog position (hands and feet down, rump in the air).  Lily, completely naked, with her face nearly UP Arden’s rear end, sniffing away and cacking gleefully, while Arden screams, “My BOTTOM STINKS!!!” 

The two of them. They are seriously insane.

The phone has not stopped ringing today, I am behind in my emails, my house is a mess, and I never realized the importance of nap time until I became a stay at home mom.  Good lord, I’m about to lose my mind!  Lily and Arden are running back and forth between their rooms, giggling, alternately crying, finding “bugs” that need to be taken care of by mommy (the last bug was a lintball), going pee every 5 seconds (after Arden has already had two temper tantrums when I ASKED her to go to the bathroom), screaming for me to “wipe” them, needing water, falling out of bed, and wanting their covers rearranged. Who needs the gym when I am going up those infernal stairs every 30 seconds?  The last time I was up there, my head swivelled around on my neck like a rabid owl and I felt steam coming out of my ears. I was so supremely annoyed and tired that I went to threaten them with *something* and nothing came out of my mouth!  Finally the words came, and I screamed, “Neither of you will get to help me wash my car this afternoon!!!!”  Oooh, good one, Mom-o!!! They were just DYING to help you wash the car - you really know how to push their buttons!

Apparently the scary neck-swivelling was enough to shut them up, because I haven’t heard a peep in the last two minutes. I don’t think I am going to survive this gig unless they stay in their rooms a minimum of an hour a day.

Jennifer affectionately (I think) refers to me as the Energizer Bunny.  She thinks I have an endless supply of spazoid energy and determination. I think I finally hit bottom!  I found my limit.

Bizarre Bazaar was good.  Period.  I’m not going to add any “althoughs” or “buts” to that sentence. We moved a lot of inventory, we met a lot of cool people, we worked our asses off.  We made a bit of money, we worked hard. 

However, in the past when I’ve pushed myself to the limit I’ve either been mentally energized OR physically energized.  This past month I have had my will to survive sapped in bits and pieces - by survive, I don’t mean my will to live, but my will to continue on with my current path.  I am still unable to write about it here but will eventually.  The preparations, the actual show, and the tear down finished me off physically.  I feel like I have the flu now. Whenever I exert myself, I feel all achey and hot and all I want to do is crawl into bed.  I am so tired I don’t even care if things aren’t being done or followed up on, and that in and of itself is bizarre for me.  I feel almost like I am standing outself of myself and wondering how is hanging out in my body.  Hello, Cristina?  Are you in there?  *taps forehead in vain*

I’m sure I will be cured with a few good nights of sleepytime and some mental downtime.  I may not get the mental break, but I should be able to sleep.  And then perhaps my will to write, blog, or perservere will return.  In the meantime, I’ll be around. 

I was needing a good laugh this week after the weekend, and funeral, in West Virginia.  I got one in the form of my neighborhood and the uber-competitiveness of it, as I just described it to an old friend of mine. 

Halloween decorations are aplenty right now in my suburban area.  One person on my street got those huge, thick spiderweb thingys and hung them all over her bushes in the front of the house.  A few days later, another 5 or 6 houses had also been decorated with the same spiderwebs.  A week later, I think we are the only house left standing without thick cottony spiderwebs in our front bushes, save that one house that has NO Halloween decorations (must be Mormons or Menonites or something living there).  I’m a rebel, and didn’t even realize it! 

It just so reminds me of high school, when my friend Erica had the first pair of Gasoline jeans.  Gasoline jeans were the bomb back then, especially the ones with the faded front stitched to an equally fabulous acid-washed back.  Two tone jeans!  Of course they were skin tight - and probably caused a lot of female problems later on in life, not to mention a ton of camel-toe sightings.  But I digress. 

Erica had the first pair of Gasoline jeans I can remember, and being in the popular crowd, her friends all followed suit. Within a matter of weeks, you were totally uncool, totally dorkish, and a complete loser if you were wearing Lees or Levi’s or god forbid, something from JC Penney or Sears.  (Fashion note:  I also remember that the best thing to wear with the jeans was a white oversized t-shirt, decorated with puffy neon paints - and I’ve polled other friends from different areas of the country and none remember that, so apparently that epidemic of bad taste was mercifully confined to northern Michigan.)

Within 12 months or so, I convinced my mother to fork out the ridiculous amount of money it took to buy Gasoline jeans.  By then, of course, everyone was on to something new.  As I continue to be in my life, I am hopelessly behind the fashion trends, and apparently the home decorating trends too. 

I sucked up my inherent fear of my neighborhood (all the moms I’ve seen look like Botox models and wear very tight clothing and very high heels - to the bus stop - at 7 AM!) and attended a Halloween party for the kids.  Everyone was nice (okay, most of them were nice), and I think some of them actually might work outside of the house.  I didn’t feel too much like a social pariah, but since both of my children were terrified by the decorations, Mike and I spent most of our time calming, consoling, and feeding Lily and Arden.  There wasn’t a whole lot of time left for socialization before we had to go home for bedtime. 

I swear to you though, as I left, I heard someone say, “Pssst - they’re the ones with the crappy Halloween decorations!” 

Chantal over at Breadcrumbs in the Butter is celebrating her Blog anniversary with a post.  I wanted to congratulate her on the dedication and sheer insanity it takes to post intimate details of your life on the internet.  In fact she has a shirt that says, “I post intimate details of my life on the internet and I don’t know why.” Me either, sister. 

I’ve got some anniversaries as well but I always forget when, so in honor of Chantal’s mile marker, I thought I’d take on one of her humorous entries about the silent wars she and her husband have about stupid stuff.  She writes about it here.  My current war with Mike entails the placement of the toilet paper holder. 

We have a toilet paper holder that stands on its own - not attached to the wall.  We thought it was old-fashioned and cute, but we never thought we’d end up warring about it.  Apparently because Mike stands up to pee (I think he does, at least), seeing it near the front of the toilet bothers him.  When I sit down to pee, I always hit it with my butt or thighs, and it irritates me, so I move it forward, sort of in the center of the bathroom.  The next time I go in there, inevitably it’s been moved again.  Last night I went around 12.30 AM and was blindly trying to find the toilet seat with my ass, and ended up almost impaling myself on the toilet paper holder.  I cursed him quietly under my breath, moved it back to the middle of the room, and hoped that would be the end of it.

This has gone on since we’ve lived in this house - so since July - and we’ve never spoken of it.  So yesterday I said, “You do realize we’re having a war over where the toilet paper holder should be, don’t you?”  Mike feigned surprise, then laughed.  “Yep, I guess so.” 

I will win this war.  I will.  He’s working tonight and I’m thinking some Super Glue or some wood screws will fix that problem PERMANENTLY.