Enjoying Life with 3 Dogs, 2 Kids & an ADHD Husband.

I attended my first book club meeting last night.  Okay, so I didn’t exactly finish the book.  Out of  ”eat, pray, love”, I was really only prepared to discuss “eat”.    Given my voracious appetite lately, this seems appropriate.  However, I probably would’ve related more if the author had spent the entire first six months in an Italian bakery rather than eating pasta. You see, I am a sugar-aholic.  And while I’ve always been yummy-obsessed, these past few months I’ve been out of control.  If you were to tell me that half of my daily calories came from desserts, I would laugh.  Because I know that I’m pushing 75%.  At least.

I used to fight with myself over my sugar addiction.  I mean, who wants to label themselves as an addict these days, even if your poison of choice is something as innocuous as bottled water?  For example, we all know that humans need to breathe.  Air is a good thing, right?  But I guarantee you, if someone announced in a crowded place, “I’m addicted to oxygen”, you could hear the gasp and the “tsk-tsk”ing a mile away.   So, yes, I was in denial.

Case in point—when my husband and I were first dating, I used to send him on 9:55 pm ice-cream runs to Brahm’s, for my ultimate favorite—chunky chocolate cappuccino milk shakes, extra thick.  Why 9:55 pm?  Because even though he repeatedly asked me prior to that time if I wanted a shake, I would always answer “no”.  You see, I had will-power, but only for so long.  So, every night, at the last possible moment (closing time was 10:00), I would have a complete nervous breakdown and beg for my creamy dairy nirvana in a cup.  (And my husband, being the great guy that he is, would always humor me).

Lately, though, things have gotten out of hand.  I’ve always needed my daily yummy injection, but since my daughter was born over three months ago, my sugar intake has attained epic proportions.  I am a bottomless yummy pit.  Think I’m joking?  Well, the other night, I had upwards of 12 Riesen candies, 10 Hershey’s kisses, a large chocolate shake, and a piece of peach cobbler.  And before you ask—no, I’m not over-weight.  I’m just a sugar fiend.

But at least I’ve come to grips with my addiciton status.  I–need–sugar.  Without it?  Well, let’s just say that Jeff Conoway on Celebrity Rehab’s got nothing on me.  Why do you think my husband still performs those nightly yummy runs, albeit at a more decent hour these days? 

No wonder my little girl is so happy—I must be spiking her serotonin levels through the roof via all that chocolatey goodness.

Now that I’ve completely digressed from the intended topic of this post, I think it’s time to run out and get a cookie.  All this talk of sugar is making my insulin levels plummet like a sky-diver with a broken ‘chute.   And an elephant strapped on his back.

Hmmm….perhaps my next book club selection should be “The Atkins Diet”.

Actually, today was a pretty good day for hubby.  Although he still hasn’t mastered the trash can (or recycling bin, but that would really be pushing it):

Also, my husband apparently has yet to figure out that dirty clothes don’t walk themselves down to the laundry room.  If only we could train the clothes!  However, since I can’t even train my puppy that her food comes from a dog bowl and not the kitchen trash (hey, at least she knows where it’s located, unlike certain other family members), or train my husband to pick up his raunchy undies, or train my 4 yr old to wipe his own tushy, I think clothes-training might be a bit lofty a goal for me.

Exhibit A:  Hubby obviously has decided that the floor by the bed is a good substitute for the laundry basket.

Exhibit B:  Hubby obviously thinks it is accepted practice to simply dump the unwanted contents of your gym bag on the floor wherever it’s handy.  Nothing like a little eau de sweaty feet wafting through the family room.  Maybe it will help me cut back on snacking.

(Disclaimer:  composition of any and all photos may be modified to disguise the messes of other family members–namely, mine.)

So, when my husband and I argue about who’s messier, he always plays the “you never clean out the garage” card.  I will admit, I don’t do much cleaning in the garage.  In fact, I rarely venture into the garage at all—it’s creepy. 

See, we live next to an uninhabited hilly area.  Residing in uninhabited hilly areas are oodles of rats.  Rats, like the rest of us,  would rather trade up from their dirty little rat homes and find nicer (yet still dirty) indoor digs in which to warm their homely little disease-ridden rat bodies during the cold weather.  Oh, and apparently it’s an added bonus if that indoor location has lots of old clothes, cardboard boxes, rotting pinatas and various junk strewn throughout.  Did I mention we have a three-car garage in which to store all this crap?

Anyway, back on topic.  See, when my husband tidies up the garage, he does a pretty good job.  I’ll be the first to admit it.  But—and this is a big one, of J-Lo proportions—should you really get cleaning points when, in tackling one mess, you sort of maneuver half of that mess into a new, more conspicuous spot, and leave it there for weeks on end?  This is the essence of my husband’s cleaning tactics, and one of the reasons we argue so much about it.  I guess I just really don’t believe that relocating the disaster site does a ton of good in the long run.  He does.

You be the judge.  Pictured below is our driveway following one of hubby’s abbreviated garage organizing stints.  Of special interest is the fact that he cleaned the garage over a week ago, and the stuff is still moldering away, undoubtedly ticking off any remaining neighbors that were still talking to us up to this point.

The best part of taking these photos, though, is what I noticed in the corner by the garage door.  See those chairs?  Our friends borrowed them for their son’s birthday party—on December 19th.  They returned them—on December 20th.  Basically, those chairs have been sitting there, completely unnoticed by hubby or myself, for over a month now. 

 We make quite a pair, don’t we?

I admit it.  I did.  I got sucked in by all the TV hype, especially that show, “Miss America:  Reality Check”.  I was really optimistic that things would change, that maybe they really were going to modernize the pageant this year.  Although I’m not even sure what that entails.  I mean, let’s get serious—how modern can you be when you’re strutting around getting graded on your bikini-wearing skills?  It’s not exactly a feat that’s going to have my sistas and me proclaiming “We’ve come a long way, baby” anytime soon (although, I grant you, it must take balls of steel—I can’t even get up from sunbathing alone in my backyard  without wrapping a towel around my waist).

So, okay, the swimsuit competition remained, but I was sure the question segment would be more profound.  Well, I’ve got news for you—unless you consider a saucer of water droplets deep, you wouldn’t have been impressed. If anything, the questions got even more “dumbed down” this year, I assume to appeal to the masses more.  Now there’s a scary thought.  Do the masses really want to watch contestants answer questions about Britney Spears’ sister and Paris Hilton?  That’s about as profound as, well, Britney Spears’ sister and Paris Hilton.  Meaning my old demented dog’s more erudite than whoever gave those questions the green light.

And then, the talent portion.  Or, as I like to say, the untalent.  Because, honestly, every single girl I heard sing on the show would have been given the boot by Randy, Simon and Paula in a nanosecond.  Why do they even bother to have a talent portion if it obviously has no bearing on the winner?  I mean, did those judges actually listen to the girl who won sing “Over the Rainbow”, or did they pass out earplugs in advance?  My ears have still not forgive me for subjecting them to that cacophony.  Seriously, if one of the ladies had burped the alphabet, it would’ve been a step in the right direction, talent-wise.

So, overall, I saw nothing more modern in the supposedly new and improved Miss America pageant other than a handful of fewer teased up-dos.  I sincerely doubt that feminists worldwide are performing cartwheels over this not-so-striking change (for those feminists that actually admit to remembering how to perform one in the first place).

And if the producers think this drivel is going to draw in a whole new batch of viewers, then they’re the ones in dire need of a reality check.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I have a great husband.  Really, he’s wonderful—super supportive, quick to send me on a mom’s night out, etc, etc.  He’s also a great father.  He loves to spend time with the munchkins, and rarely complains.

But, he does come with one minor glitch.  He’s a slob.  Which in and of itself, wouldn’t be so bad, but the thing is—he doesn’t think he’s a slob.  Oh, he knows he’s messy, but he thinks it’s the garden-variety type messiness.  Not the full-blown slobdom that it truly is.

What are the criteria for massive slovenliness, you might ask?  Well, here are a few of mine.

1)  Cuts hair, and leaves it in the sink for over 3 days.  Extra points if the sink in question is the downstairs guest bathroom (it is).

2)  Cannot find the trash can to save his life, even though, to the best of my knowledge, the trash has resided in the same spot since we moved in over two years ago.

Exhibit A:  Is this where you put your ice cream box once the contents have been devoured?  I think not.

Exhibit B:  Trash from the lunch I brought home on Sunday.  I don’t know, maybe he thinks it’s a nice decorating touch—-bag lady chic, perhaps?

3)  Throws dirty clothes in the most convenient location, which is typically the floor.  Extra points when they are dripping wet and muddy (they are).

 4)  Piling a table with assorted crap, and then leaving it there until I remove it.  Extra points if table was freshly cleaned (it was).

What he doesn’t believe (yet) is that I spend so much time tidying up his messes throughout the house, I have a scarcity of time left to actually clean anything, in the true sense of the word.

I’m hoping by keeping a photo-blog of his daily disasters, he might actually a) realize he’s far, far beyond your basic messy husband and b) learn to use the garbage can.

Honey, are you reading this?

So, my husband got the urge to clean out/tidy up the food in the kitchen cabinets today.  This sounds more impressive than it actually is, given the fact that our real-life kitchen is about the size of one of those Step 2 play kitchens.  But still, I can’t complain., and I’ve learned you never, ever question a man on a cleaning streak.

So, in the midst of disposing of buckets-full of old yuck food, my husband comes across something that really takes the cake. This looks like a perfectly normal box of  Stove Top Stuffing, right? 

Well, take a gander at the top of the box:

Best when used by September, 2003.  Yikes.  What’s scarier is that we didn’t even live in this house in September 2003.  Or September 2004. Apparently, when we moved here (it was July 2005, if you must know), we felt the need to cart along an already egregiously out-dated box of Stove Top Stuffing. 

I mean, it’s not like the stuff tastes good even when it’s fresh (if that’s ever an appropriate way to describe a box of dessicated old toast crumbs).   I shudder to think how enticing it would be over four years past the expiration date.

Bon appetit!

Sometimes, I just can’t believe that so much poop can come out of one little baby. 

Today, she had the mother of all blow-outs, in Target, no less  She must have known that I was out of good diapers and had her strapped into an inferior brand that was fairly busting at the seams anyway, since she’s gone up a size.  Apparently, she also knew that poop on a white background makes a nice contrast.

I mean, seriously, I think there was more poop out of the diaper than inside it—how is that possible?

No  wonder everyone in Target kept giving me a wide berth.

 I’ve been thinking of switching to cloth diapers, but then this happens, and I am petrified of permanently defiling every single outfit she owns.  Ugh.

The funniest thing?  I call my husband to tell him what happened, and he says, “You know, those diapers aren’t very good.  They must be some kind of pee-only diapers.” 

Pee-only diapers?  Because that’s a fad that would really sweep the nation.  Seriously, if anyone really decides to get cute and market such a beast, I will cheerfully mail them every single blow-out item I can find.  By the time they cook a little in the mail, the scent alone ought to be registrable as a national weapon.

As you may or may not know, we have three dogs in our household.  On any given day, that’s three too many.

First of all, we have Peanut, the neurotic growl-machine mini-Rottweiler.  I’ve already discussed his growling issue (to growl or not to growl), but he has a few hundred other foibles that make him, well, “special”.  For example, today, as soon as I put my infant daughter and son down for their nap, guess who starts howling?  I mean, it’s bad enough when it happens once, but this, my friends, is a daily occurrence.  I realize the sirens in his head call out to him—but what I really want to know is, why the heck can’t the sirens speak to him when everyone is awake?

As an added bonus, Peanut likes to puke in the baby’s room.  Only the yellow bile stuff though—you know, the one liquid that nothing known to man can actually remove from the carpet?  I guess it’s just his way of adding a little something extra to Finley’s residence.  Maybe if I gave him pink or pastel green food coloring, I could at least get the barf to match the decor.

Next up, the Ferganator.   Fergalicious.  The Ferger Berger.  No matter what we call her, we know this one’s trouble.  This liver-nosed girl is a chewing machine with the stomach of a goat.  She can and will chew anything.  Seriously.  We once went into the backyard and found a beer can she’d chewed in two.  It looked like somebody had taken a hacksaw to it.  She also loves snot rags, diapers, sanitary pads, and all manner of  other disgusting items that simply should not see the light of day again once tossed out.  Baby toys, toddler toys, rocks, undies, collars, bulletproof vests (okay, so we don’t have one, but I know she’d chew it if we did)—you name it, she chews it.

And then, we have Skye.  Skye, who, apart from the need to digest (literally) a good book every now and then, is really the only semi-behaved dog in the house.  She’s the only good one.  Except for when it’s cold outside (which is was today).  Then, apparently, she only pretends to pee when she’s supposed to, and instead, saves it all up until I leave so she can break out of her kennel and pee in the house.  Or at least that’s what she did today. Where does she go?  Yep, you guessed it—the baby’s room.  Because apparently the Peanut barf already there was simply not disgusting enough.  You know some days when your dog has an accident but at least, thank God, the urine is super clear and barely smells?  Yeah, well, this wasn’t one of those days.  Skye usually has a bladder of steel, too, so I’m thinking she must have been saving up this special little prize for several nights.  I seriously hope Finley enjoys eau de dog funk.  Because her room now reeks of it.

And somebody, please tell me, why do the dogs always head for the carpet to empty their orifices?  I mean, half of our house has  hardwood floors.  Could not one dog out of three ever have an accident there, where it conceivably might not remain in our house until the end of time?  Apparently, this is a stupid question, because it never happens.  I mean, the horror—the pee might actually run and touch a toenail!

So, I’ll say it again—on any given day, three dogs per house is three dogs too many.  And today it’s a given. 

…even I can tell the difference between these brake pads. 

This time, we got us a nice shiny new set of calipers to go along with the rotors and brake pads.  The price difference two weeks makes?   About $100.   Now, don’t get me wrong—I like a nice pair of calipers just as much as the next person, but for that price, I can think of a few other things that might excite me a little more. (Like 1.5 tanks of gas—okay, that’s not much more exciting.  I give up).

In other words?  Procrastination doesn’t pay.

Apparently, this is how we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day around here.

 They had a dream, all right.