Let’s just say you live near Houston or anywhere else where the temperature is currently 98 F (37 C ) with 93% humidity.

Let’s just say you want to build one of these:

And you want to build it by the end of July because  that is when Aunty Natty is coming to visit and you so much want to LOUNGE!

On the enormous lounger!

With ice cold drinks and the latest trashy novels!

Because that is what sisters (should) do!

Let’s just assume you want to paint it a cheerful color and after some research and many baleful glances at your current, UV-damaged garden furniture you decide on a coat of primer and three coats of outdoor enamel, followed by three coats of Spar Urethane (Count it - 7 coats!). So you cut your many, many pieces of wood. Slowly, with a handsaw, because you can’t cut straight with a circular saw and are too cheap to fork out for a sliding miter saw.

Slowly, with a handsaw in 98% heat.

Then you sand all one hundred and two million pieces of wood in the 98% heat and wipe them all down in the 98% heat.

Obviously, you cannot do this all at once. You know, because of the 98% heat. So this step takes several weeks.

Then you start to paint your boards. You can maybe see where this is going.

Waiting for paint to dry in 93% humidity is like … watching paint dry. Only six hundred times as long. Torturous.

Try and apply the protective coat over this tacky tacky paint and when you sand after the first coat, half the paint will come off with it. I know because I have tried.

I should clarify that The Daddy has specifically requested No Distressed Furniture Within House or Yard.

Now I am the one who is distressed.

So, a friendly warning to anyone living in a humid zone who feels the urge to build an enormous double lounger and lacks an air conditioned workshop:

DON’T!

(Sorry, Aunty Natty. This has now become a winter project. But we do have a hammock!!)

Once upon the time there was a Princess who fell on hard times.

Lost and far from home, she was forced to go live in a house with a big, scary thug.

She did not like living in proximity to him. He mostly left her alone, but he was rough. He had no manners and no idea how to behave. He would stare at her and freak her out. Didn’t respect her boundaries. Would come into her part of the house without warning and act like he generally owned the place (which actually he sort of did, before she came along).

She felt that he did not give her the respect she deserved and so whenever she saw him she would hiss and spit and jump at him and try and scratch him with her long sharp nails.

Baby Sister takes up the story:

Silly Whisper. She keeps trying.

But she should know you can never win a fight with The Big Cat. The Fij’ stands undefeated.

CURRENT SCORES

Fiji v Whisper: 40-something - Nil

Fiji v The Wictor: 1 - Nil

Oh yeah.

Because apparently we all want a piece of the action. This one is going for the sympathy vote.

(And yes thank you hundreds of passers by for your concern. I do see how close that is to his eye.

Next time I will remember to ask my cat to scratch elsewhere.

You’re welcome.)

I had a totally different post planned for this week. I thought I may even get time to write it on Monday. Because as of Monday morning, my schedule looked like this:

Monday: school, supermarket, post office

Tuesday: school

Wednesday: T-Bot: speech and language evaluation, school

Thursday: Baby sister: dentist, school

Friday: school

This schedule would have been a welcome relief after the whirlwind of the past few weeks. Oh, how I am laughing now.

Note that most of the following is self-inflicted, due to my inexplicable drive to collect children and animals.

It is Friday morning. Here is how our schedule has panned out so far.

.

.

MONDAY

am: Receive email from friend, a crazy cat lady who isn’t actually crazy but does work at a cat shelter. The attachment is a photo of a teeny tiny cat. Call The Daddy and then agree to go look at cat.

Continue with school

Receive a very convincing spam email with an attachment and without thinking, click on it (oh the shame!).

Download Mac Virus checker. Try to work out how to use it. Find Mac virus. Try to work out how to eliminate it. Curse.

pm: Go see cat. Which is practically an obligation to buy although it is very clear that there is no such obligation. Because unlike poor Fiji, forgotten in the shelter for a year, this cat is highly adoptable.

Agree to take cat. Because OMG she is so sweet and adoptable! Must have cat now, before someone else gets her. Must. have. pretty. cat! dribble.

Discuss with friend how some people so crassly choose cats to match their furniture, and nod. All the while thinking “Pretty! My Pretty! And she kinda matches Fiji. Matching cats! Pretty!”. dribble

Go to the supermarket and the Post Office.

Sit down to fill in cat adoption forms.

Stop at question “Are your current pets’ vaccinations up to date?”.

Call vet to make an appointment.

Help The Daddy with The Dinner.

Spend 40 minutes talking to speech/language assessor.

Eat dinner, late.

Put kids to bed late.

TUESDAY

Take Fiji to the vet for his shots.

Go straight back out again for a new litter bin, cat scratcher and other new cat essentials.

Feed the boys lunch. No school today, officially classified “New Cat Field Trip Day”.

Spend 2 hours at the shelter filling out forms and visiting cats and dogs.

Get home in time to get Baby Sister off the bus.

Go to friend’s house to pick up the new cat.

Bring her home and introduce her to her new (temporary) home in the master bathroom.

She doesn’t want to stay in her new (temporary) home in the master bathroom. She is very comfortable exploring the whole house, thankyouverymuch. And she will start by escaping the minute anybody tries to open the bedroom door.

Awkward. There is a puffed-up black hissing, wailing furball parked outside the bedroom door.

The delicate gray newcomer, hand picked so as not to challenge Fiji’s dominant position in the household, disappoints. Instead of cowering so he can salvage his manly pride, she takes a swat at him. Oh nose!

The Mommy loses her senses and picks up the enormous furball to try and get him out of the way of the delicate little gray newcomer.

Next, the Mommy loses much more than her senses.

The Daddy puts the little grey Madam back in her bathroom and goes in search of a bandaid.

The Daddy is not very good at finding things. By the time he gets back The Mommy is half passed out, sweaty and shivering, her life force dripping dramatically from her hand into a bathroom sink.

Doorbell chimes. Pizza has arrived. Pizzaman looks alarmed at sight of The Mommy’s arm, but it is The Mommy’s right arm and she needs it to sign.

Cat escapes again. Another dramatic scene. This time The Mommy does not intervene but makes The Daddy go in, armed with pillows.

Gray cat suitably chastened, decides not to escape anymore.

Put children to bed, late.

WEDNESDAY

Awoken at 6am by cats fighting.

Just as well am awake as due to an apparent “typo” we have to be in Houston by 8.30, not 9.30

Get Baby Sister to bus and The Wictor to preschool, drive into Houston for language assessment. Arrive pumped with adrenalin, only 10 minutes late.

Return from Houston via McDonalds drive-thru. Call doctor. Doctor assigned by HMO is not taking new patients. Make several dozen phone calls to establish that another doctor can be seen in network. Make appointment.

Yell to the T-Bot “Twenty Minutes Free Time!!” Hear audible sigh.

Arrive at doctors. Receive tetanus booster. Receive antibiotics. Thank poor unfortunate Guy who ended up in hospital after a cat mauling for getting me to the doctors in this case, as doctor regales me with stories of people who have left cat bites to become infected and lost use of tendons, undergone microsurgery and worse.

Go to the supermarket, pick up younger kids. Go home. Binge on Tiramasu cookies. Spend the evening shuttling back and forth between bathroomed cat and resident cat. Cross fingers very hard that one day they will consent to share a litter box.

Forget children in the bath. Remember. Put them to bed, late.

THURSDAY

Trip to dentist mercifully uneventful. Drop Baby Sister off at school. Enroll the T-Bot at school. Rush to drop The Wictor off at his school before soccer at 9.30. Learn that soccer was at 8.30. Another Epic Parenting Fail. But one salvaged by the teacher who offers to get him in to the next class with the big kids.

This is why it pays to live somewhere where people are nice.

So by Thursday the schedule is slowing down. The T-Bot and I do school, supermarket, post office, pick up my license plates from Toyota (Hate them. Hate them.) Pick up The Wictor. Get home to find the fence missing from the next door neighbor’s house and a Fire Truck (FireTruck!) parked outside. There is a noise like a high pressure hose and the street is heavy with gas.

The fencer  ruptured the gas line.

Wear my sweatshirt over my face to pick up Baby Sister from the bus. Spend an hour listening to weeping, wailing, whining children and struggling to keep them in the house. Later I let them loose in the yard and struggle to keep The Wictor from playing with shards of fence and from leaping into the neighbor’s pool.

After dinner the FireTruck! returns. Stupidly promise the children (noses pressed to the window) that they can watch the FireTruck! until it leaves, and then have a bath. The FireTruck! does not leave for a long, long time.

Children weep and wail for a bath. Give up and go drink wine.

Remember children in the bath. Put them to bed, late.

FRIDAY:

So far mercifully uneventful. It is a running joke in this house that all I do all day is lounge on the couch watching Oprah and eating bonbons.

Sadly, I have not had time to watch Oprah this week (or indeed, since 1997).

Is she on a public channel? Next week is Spring Break. Maybe I should treat myself

Many many bloggers are taking part in Project 365 right now, taking lovely daily photos of their surroundings to impress the world.

I love getting a viewpoint of their daily life, whether it be their walk to work, or their kids.

Unfortunately you won’t see any daily photos from me anytime soon, but last night, after a stressful day which began by spilling a whole packet of couscous grains onto the kitchen floor, I felt relaxed enough to document a typical evening.

After seeing the results,

I think you will agree,

that Project 365 is not for me.

So, here goes:

Dinner Prep. The Fates are trying to tell me something. Probably that I am not meant to have a clean floor.

Moving on. Pre-dinner drinks to take away the stress of the endless sweeping:

First thought? I wish the beer companies would stop trying to be witty. That is not the slightest bit funny.

Oh…

I don’t think it says “p*ss off”. They actually want me to pry off the top.

I may need glasses.

The Daddy idly browses a magazine. Wonders if this homely looking specimen would agree to be our "au pair".

If you don’t get this, check out the photos on Great Au Pair, and count the number of applicants you would trust with your husband.

I promise, you have that many fingers.

It would be lovely to have an au pair though, because of this:

In the meantime there has been a lot of noise going on. No panic, it was just the kids trashing the upstairs lounge. So that's OK then.

Next, I try to distract myself from the mess by focusing on the cat. Or mostly, not focusing on the cat. To be fair, he is not a willing participant.

Smile, Fiji! I said smile, not sniff...

OK. Keep still animal, we’ll try one more time, OK?

Gee, thanks. Very attractive.

Whew. Dinner’s over, the kids are in bed, time for some peace and quiet.

Except, there’s a strange noise coming from the lounge.

It looks like we have an escapee…

...and he found himself a new toy.

Perfect end to a perfect evening.

Don’t you think?

It started sometime around Christmas, I’m not sure exactly.

The Wictor started waking up in the night again. Probably a stage.

At first, I would take him back to bed. And then, one night as he crawled in with me, I was too tired to do anything about it. Doing nothing became easy. I would wake up briefly to him getting under the covers and cuddling up, and that was that.

As it became a habit, I started not even noticing any more. I started sleeping through.

Most mornings now I wake up to find him stretched out, snoring, beside me.

And I have no recollection of how he got there.

But that is not the problem. The problem is this:

This morning I woke up to find there were four of us in the bed.

When Baby Sister woke up, I asked her:

“Baby Sister, how did you end up in my bed last night? ”

Her eyes gleamed. She was still in awe at her lucky break. And she replied:

“Mommy, I woke up in the middle of the night and came down to give you a kiss. Then you leaned over and pulled me in!”.

My new years resolution: I will no longer let the king size duvet cover beat me.

But if the king size duvet cover should win, I will not let it make me cry.

If by chance I do cry, I will not let my children see.

Because I know, that if they grow up believing that they can insert a king size duvet into a king size duvet cover then they will totally be able to do it.

And then I can get them onto bed changing duty.

******************************

And now for something completely different:

Here are a few of the things my children have made recently. The kind of triumphs which give me hope and confidence and prevent the whole duvet cover thing from keeping me awake at night:

A Pile of Leaves.

And then a Mess of Leaves.

Yet Another Gingerbread House.

(apologies for the poor quality photo. It was dark that day)

A Ugaglaon Wood (Congratulations Award) - try it with a Texan drawl and it starts to make a little more sense.

But only a little bit.

An Alphabet Crown. Yet another Very Useful Product from T-Bot Industries.

Inspired by Hero of the Rails, this is Niro of the Rails. Constructed of cardboard and what looks like a whole roll of clear parcel tape. Sigh. This is how my children keep me poor.

Oh, and here are some of the projects I didn’t show you. Be thankful. Be very thankful:

Happily, Baby Sister and The Wictor started back at school yesterday, so I will no longer have to virtually live at the office supply store. Although being at school does not prevent Baby Sister from using paper, and I still have to find places to proudly display all she brings home. I presume her liberal and enthusiastic use of A3 sized sheets is the reason behind the local elementary’s renewed fundraising efforts. So, indirectly - I am still paying.

The Wictor is also no longer tracking bucket loads of dead leaves into the house, but only because the trees are bare. Not that we would want to be out there anyhow, given that we have arctic winds and the promise of 4 consecutive nights of frosts. My team of furnaces is having trouble keeping up, although they make a valiant effort. And suck all the moisture out of the air in the process. I wonder if a cicada feels like this just before he sheds his hard dry shell. I am jealous. I want a new skin.

But otherwise fine. You may get more sense out of me when my friend the Sun makes his return.

Happy New Year!

Last night I once more forgot I was wearing my slippery socks, which led to me falling down the stairs. Don’t worry, I wasn’t hurt - at least, no more than usual.

But I did think it would be nice to take a warm bath afterwards, in the hopes of getting some of the feeling back in my left shoulder. Also, to warm up. The temperatures around here haven’t improved much. The T-Bot is predicting another Ice Age and I quite understand why.

I probably hadn’t taken a real honest to goodness bath for over a year but thanks to my family-in-law (thank you!) I was very lucky in the bath salts, soaps and body lotions department this birthday. A long, scented soak seemed very appealing.

And the long, scented soak proved to be all it promised. I didn’t even get bored as I usually do. Next Christmas can someone please send me one of those bath pillows so I can just sleep in the tub…

Feeling very pleased with myself I got out, dried myself, and took a deep sniff of my new scented hand lotion. Unfortunately, as I inhaled, somehow I managed to squeeze the bottle.

No idea how that happened, but the experience was second only to the time I had got the giggles while drinking a beer, and it all came pouring out my nose. And wouldn’t stop. It was very embarrassing. People were present.

Fortunately no people were present for this event, unless you count the cat. But the inside of my right nostril must now be very soft, supple and appealing. If anybody would care to look.

Random Photo:

The T-Bot as “Pierce”. Thought his sister wouldn’t recognize him that way. Strangely, she saw right through this brilliant disguise.

***

Random Clothing Fact:

Baby Sister begged me for Christmas socks. So when I came across a pair at the supermarket, I threw them in the cart. Except when I got them home I discovered they were an adult size 9-11.

I am now the proud owner of a pair of classy Ho! Ho! Ho! socks. And my feet, by the way are a size 7.

***

Random Excuse:

In the Wictor’s world, everything hops.

The ornament hops all by itself from the Christmas tree and shatters.

The T-Bot’s favorite toy hops into The Wictors room.

The plate full of food hops into his lap.

The leaf of the plant mysteriously detaches itself and hops down to a new adventure on the lounge floor.

Oh, and Number 2 hops from the toilet all over the bathroom floor. Hoppity Hoppity Hop.

***

Random Roleplay:

“Curious George, I have cancelled Christmas. Do not celebrate. Do not share it with anybody. Do not get ready. Somebody will be keeping an eye on you so if you do something about Christmas she will tell me about it and I will put you in jail. “

(Baby Sister - and we haven’t even seen A Christmas Carol this year…)

***

Random Conversation:

The Mommy: ... well she cut my hair OK the last few times, who knows what happened here, I am going to have to wear it in a ponytail for months or wear a cap or something, I mean just look at it…”

The Daddy: You need to go to a latino hairdresser. All the latina girls in town have good hair.

The Mommy: I have never seen any. You have been watching too much Cuidado Con El Angel. I have never noticed anybody in real life with amazing hair.

The Daddy: There are. Tons of them.You should see them. Woof.

The Mommy: Well for gods sake, you need to stop one of them and ask her who’s her hairdresser!

The Daddy: Yes of course, I should just stop one of them.

The Mommy: Why not? You should!

The Daddy: OK. I’ll stop one of them.

I’ll say who’s your hairdresser? My wife needs her hair cut and she doesn’t understand me.

Alert! Alert!

Zaburbs have moved to Condition Orange! Severe Weather Conditions are forecast for Friday, and school may be shortened, or even canceled.

Tell me what is better than a White Christmas? A White Christmas, early, with no school.

Yes folks, up to 1 inch of snow should be falling on us by this time tomorrow. How I wish now that I had given in to the temptation to stock up on hats and gloves from the Target $1 section.

Which brings me to something very much related. Does the whole of America give a simple hoodie the very warm and fluffy sounding monniker “Jacket” ? Or is it just Texas? My children have this type of jacket but that is all they got. Also, no hats or gloves.

One girl-scoutish thing I did do though. I got the furnace checked this fall, for the first time ever. I thought the price was a bit steep but better safe than sorry, after all these things do spew out noxious gases at will if left unchecked. Then, when the technician ascended to the attic to check the thing he announced that the furnace had multiplied. Or invited its friend to the party or something. Our furnace was now two.

And the maintenance bill also. Ouch.

I am smiling about it now though. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

Serious Explanation About Crossing The Road, as Imparted Seriously to My Children, in a Very Serious Fashion :

(abridged version):

“Once, when I was a little girl, Grandpa was crossing the road and he didn’t look properly for traffic. A car ran him over and he fell on the road and had blood coming out of his head! He was very hurt and had to go to hospital. This is why you must always look carefully for cars when you cross the road. I don’t want you to get hurt and end up in hospital.Or worse.”

“Why was he crossing the road, Mommy?”

“Um… well actually we were on a road trip and he was crossing the road to go peepee behind some bushes”.

What My Children Have Retained:

Three Year Old: (Deep, gruff voice) “Hello, I am Granpa! I like to go peepee in the bushes!”

Seven Year Old: “Why Did Granpa Cross the Road? To go peepee in the bushes!”

(Cue mass hysteria)