Even though my sweet little brown bear has been sick since Wednesday, apparently she felt better today because man, was she ON tonight.  Some excerpts from her non-stop chatter:

- She renamed my entire family.  Grammy is now “Lightbulb Sour”, Poppa is “Mary Ketchup”, Arden is “Tree Stonk Stinky”, Mike is “Police Car Stop Sign” and me?  Well, I’m “Princess Pizza”.  Good lord.

- On the drive back to our house, I hit one of the rumble strips on the side of the highway for a moment as I was merging.  Lily burst out laughing and screamed, “Mommy, the CAR TOOTED!!!!”  I have to admit, it kind of sounded like that.

- Thanks, Gramma.  She bought the girls a new bathtub toy - water flutes.  You fill them up with different amounts of water, and then you can play annoying sounds with them.  The girls figured out that you could turn them upside down and water would spray out - at ME.  By the end of bathtime, Lily was screaming, “SOAK MOMMY, ARDEN!”  Fun times were had by all.  I think my shirt has finally dried.  It’s now 9 PM.

Hopefully she won’t have another fever tonight and she will be all better in time for Santa to get here.  The girls are nutso with excitement and can’t wait to sprinkle Reindeer Food outside and leave cookies for Santa.  It’s going to be a fun year with them. 

I need one.  I am tired of not being able to blog about the fun and happy things in my life because they are so grossly overshadowed by the not-fun, the not-happy.  I want to be able to blog about the crazy things Lily and Arden say, the way the dog hangs out by my feet and farts, or the silly dances Lily and Arden have come up with to entertain himself while being driven around in the car.  Because I haven’t wanted to be so negative all the time, I’ve just stopped writing.

I did have one thing that got me really excited today - Anja and Mike and Baby Mia are coming up on Christmas Eve and staying with us, so we’ll have a big group on Christmas morning.  It will be nice to relax with family and at least take a break from the constant thinking and doing that has been part of my life for the last few months. 

There won’t be much blogging happening this week as Jennifer and I will setting up at Bizarre Bazaar in Richmond on Tuesday. The show officially opens Wednesday evening and runs through Sunday.  So I am sending my love and good thoughts out into the world, in the hopes that the world will return good sales and many nice customers who do not tell me how many onesies snapsuits they can get at Wal-mart for $2.50.  Okay?  Okay. 

Thanksgiving is over. We managed to get the entire house decorated for Christmas.  I knew if we didn’t do it this weekend, we wouldn’t be doing any decorating until mid-December, and that pushes my fanatical desire to squeeze every nickel’s worth of the Christmas tree over the edge.  This year we scored - we found a “corner tree” (tree-salesman-speak for “this tree has an ugly bare spot”) and it was 7 feet tall but priced like a 5-footer.  Cha-ching!  It was still ridiculously expensive.  And I always feel guilty for cutting down a tree.  Mike refuses to buy artificial and he also refused to spend $300 for a living tree, so there you go. Corner trees, here we come.

My mother and I pulled off dinner quite nicely on Thanksgiving proper.  The girls were excited about eating turkey, but we were not, so we roasted a chicken and told them it was turkey.  Gobble gobble - thankfully they are still young enough to be fooled.  And I only nearly killed my mother once when she told me I was salting my water incorrectly.  What can I say - she’s a mom - it’s in her nature to constantly correct. 

If you live in Richmond or the surrounding area, please come see Jennifer and I at the Richmond Raceway Complex.  If you don’t, well, it sucks to be you. 

Folks, it’s going to be a lean, nearly non-existant Christmas this year.  As if I weren’t down in the dumps enough about money right now, I just got this email from Mike:

I dropped the car off at Volvo today to get things checked out on the check engine light and get a state inspection done (mine expires next month).  The check engine light is likely the catalytic converter, which, if needing replacement, is covered by warranty.  That’s the good news.  The bad news is that for the state inspection, there is something broken with the left front headlight and the whole thing needs replacement at a cost of almost $400 and my front brake rotors are shot with replacement being another $300 - the car will fail inspection without those things being repaired.  Also I have a big oil leak (that has been going on for awhile) that needs fixing at a cost of $200.  Merry f—-ing christmas.

I did the math.  Nearly $1000 in car expenditures.  Ho, ho, ho. 

If you get muffins from me this year, you will know why.  It’s the thought that counts, right?

Amy at Crunchy Domestic Goddess was recently interviewed by another blogger and had so much fun with it, she decided to carry it on herself. She asked for volunteers, so I threw my name in the hat . . . and here goes!  Even more fun, if you’d like me to interview you, give me a shout out in the comment section and I’ll dream up some hard questions for you to answer

1) You have two beautiful girls. Do you feel your family is complete now or do you see more children in your future?  

Two spirited, independent girls is more than enough for us.  In fact the joke in our family was that I asked the midwife who delivered Arden if she could do the “2 for 1” special and give Mike the ole’ snip-snip while I was in labor.  She declined - can’t imagine why!  Mike got fixed about 8 months after Arden was born. And for all you men out there who shiver about the thought of a vasectomy, Mike wants you to know - IT WAS NO BIG DEAL!!!!  After watching his wife push out two babies without an epidural, he felt he had no room to complain.  He was right.  Love you, Mikey. 

I have to be honest.  My pregnancies were so horrifically bad that the women around me at the time sans children felt their ovaries shrivelling just from being around me. When I wasn’t puking, I was green and listless, dealing with kidney stones, or fighting bladder infections.  I was not a pretty picture.  Even now the thought of being pregnant makes me instantaneously nauseous.  It was THAT bad.  I was intent on making sure that Lily was not an only child, so before I could change my mind, I told Mike we should just get the pregnancy over with.  Romantic, no?  I love seeing the girls play together and knowing that they will have each other as friends and sisters.  I just had to get over myself and not be selfish, even though the last thing I ever wanted to do after pregnancy #1 was deal with pregnancy #2. 

2) What little known fact about you might surprise some of your readers?

I’m not sure there’s anything that my readers don’t know about me.  I kind of let it all hang out here on the Slice.  But I’ll take a stab at it. 
1.  I studied harpsichord my freshman year in college, and got to play on a $50,000 restored instrument.  It was pretty awesome and totally nerdy. 
2.  I was the youngest DJ at our local community college - I DJ’d my senior year in high school even though I didn’t attend the community college.  Go figure.  I’m sure they wouldn’t allow that now.  I had a great time!  This was “back in the day” when we actually spun vinyl - nothing was digital.  I still have a record collection. 
3.  A number of men I’ve dated came out of the closet after dating me.  I started to feel like Ross from “Friends”.  Thankfully Mike has continued to love me despite my ability to “turn men gay”.  That would be my superpower, I guess!

3) You have two successful online businesses. Can you tell us how they came about?

Our regular business, Right Angle Consulting, had been going strong for a number of years.  We wanted to do something that wasn’t driven by the billable hour.  And frankly, we wanted to do something having NOTHING to do with attorneys or accountants.  We did a bunch of product research and decided to start with a nap mats site. Our main goal was to create a place for working parents to find lots of stuff to make their lives easier. We haven’t done that, but we do have two sites that are incredibly fun for us.  The children’s clothing site we have gives us an opportunity to share our love of humor in parenting our children. 

The icing on the cake is that we now have had the opportunity to meet and work with some of the most amazing working mommies out there.  90% of our manufacturers are women who have started their businesses from scratch and a lot of blood, sweat and tears.  While we keep our relationships with them professional, we all at one time or another have shared advice or experiences.  Our stores both inside and out have a feeling of community. 

It’s also given us the chance to give the kind of customer service that seems non-existent these days. We respond personally to every order, we hand-write notes in our packages, and although automation is necessary for efficiency, we try to make our online stores feel like you are are actually shopping in a physical location. We try really, really hard to give personalized and exceptional service.  It’s been very rewarding. 

4) Time management has always been tricky for me. Do you have any gems of advice for moms who are looking to start their own business and still have time for family life?

Marry the right guy. Seriously, I couldn’t do what I’m doing without my husband.  He feels like parenting is OUR responsibility - not mine, because I am the woman.  He makes dinners, packs lunches, helps clean the house, and of course, does the stuff that I tell him is “man’s work” (tongue-firmly-in-cheek).  This means all the stuff I don’t like to do, like cleaning the toilets, taking out the trash, and most of all, mowing the lawn.  Today Arden is sick - even though he is the primary breadwinner in our family, he worked from home this morning so I could come into work.  He’s pretty darn amazing. 

I’m also incredibly organized - for the most part.  I use my Blackberry obsessively, and keep my schedule on it.  I make sure everything is in writing because after two children, I have very little left in the brain cell department or short term memory. 

The best piece of advice I can give is to strive for being your best, but don’t abuse yourself if you’re not.  I have had to readjust my expectations of myself and others once children and self-employment enter the picture.  My house isn’t as clean as it used to be.  I haven’t scrapbooked in over 8 months.  I haven’t found time for a haircut in 3 months (and man, do I need one).  I try to prioritize, and as long as my family is on top with work a close second, I think I’m doing pretty well. 

5) Let’s say you are going to be stranded with your family on a deserted island for 90 days. What 3 things would you take with you and why?

This is so hard!!!! 

I’d take music - all of us LOVE music.  That would give us something to do while we picked coconuts and spelled “SOS” on the sand with rocks.  Also, Arden and Lily really like to dance, so that would keep us all entertained.  Then, I’d bring the big blue Dr. Seuss book collection.  We all love reading his books.  Third, I’d bring a big king sized mattress with some nice soft blankets and pillows so we could all curl up together and stargaze. 

Sigh.  Can someone PLEASE strand me on a desert island???

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Now it’s your turn. If you want to be interviewed, leave me a comment including the words “Interview me.” I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions. If you don’t have a valid email address on your blog, please provide one. You will update your blog with a post containing your answers to the questions. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.