Blisters, Cookies and Blogging From A New Location

Usually I blog from our desktop in the basement/cave. It's a dark room, with green walls and one window looking out to a shaded patio. Hardly light and airy. Honestly, the room suits me just fine because I don't like to have a lot of natural light. I'm part vampire, you know. Also, copious amounts of natural light does nothing to hide dust. I'm a proficient duster; I love the smell of furniture polish (especially the new Swiffer kind) and therefore dust often. However, this house's dust collection to my dust removal ratio is overwhelming. Therefore, the darker the room, the less evident the dust is. I don't understand how dust collects so quickly. Especially since it's summer time and with the air conditioning working it's tail off to cool this place off, the windows haven't been opened in quite a while. Where does the dust come from? When we lived in Hawaii, we lived on the second floor of a three story apartment complex. We did not have air conditioning, but due to the trade winds blowing, we stayed pretty cool. Well, I did. Craig, who often worked nights, found sleeping in a stuffy, un airconditioned apartment during the day to be less than ideal. With the windows open almost exclusively, we had a LOT of dust. Dark reddish dust. Much like the red clay that stained EVERYTHING. Cars, shoes, PT clothing. Yuck. I hated that dirt. LOVED Hawaii, but despised that dirt.

Have I typed enough about dust yet? Somehow I've lost my train of thought.

Oh yes, a new location.... We've had a laptop for over a year now. In fact we bought it with the last round of stimulus money President Bush sent out last year. We felt it was our patriotic duty to stimulate the economy. And stimulate we did. Somehow I don't think our measly purchase was all that helpful. Go figure.

So anyway, we bought the laptop before we moved here to Virginia and anticipated installing wireless internet in our new place ASAP. I'm not sure what ASAP means in your house, but in ours, ASAP means 13 months.
So 13 months later, we have wireless internet and here I sit in the kitchen, typing away.
Too bad a wild herd of children, obviously not minding their manners, keep pummeling their way through the kitchen. Maybe I should go downstairs. Nah, if I do, they'll decided it's time to play the wii and then proceed to make lots of noise. I've pretty much resolved myself to the fact that I won't get any decent peace and quiet until September 8th. 26 days!!!

The wild herd of children, six of them today, are especially rambunctious this afternoon. They convinced me to bake cookies. Baking I like; baking with six pairs of hands trying to "help" I don't like so much. I had a pre-packaged, preservative laden cookie mix in the pantry that I bought on super sale with triple coupons sometime last year. Sometimes sanity preservation trumps nutritive quality. They wanted to do the roll out kind so they could sprinkle the cookies (and the floor and cabinets) with colored sugar and sprinkles, but thankfully, all I had was chocolate chip. So while the punks practiced their wrestling skills in the living room, I made the dough. I *should* have had them help, but really, a cookie mix where you add some butter and an egg really is a one person job. Well, a anal retentive, orderly minded person's job. If I didn't care about having little people standing behind me, peering over my shoulder, I would have asked for helpers. But you all know me better than that.

So, I baked the cookies; summoned the rugrats when the cookies were cool enough to eat; and watched them devour the cookies like they'd never eaten before. But, they had just eaten lunch. There are Doritos crumbs all over the floor to prove my point. Two of the girls brought their lunches from home (with the aforementioned Doritos) and I made Caroline her lunch. At the time there were only four girls over. The fourth girl asked if she could eat lunch here too. "Sure, I said, just go get your lunch." "No, I meant, can you fix me lunch?" She said. "I want the same as Caroline." I wouldn't have minded so much if I hadn't already fixed Caroline's lunch, put away all the ingredients and did the dishes. I find that I'm more likely to say yes to things if I'm asked at an appropriate time. I still said yes, and made lunch for the girl. She ended up wasting half of it, but then ate three cookies.

Oh man, they just ran through the house screaming. I hate screaming. Girly screams are the worst.

Maybe I should go hide in the cave.

I have so much to say today.

Let's see, what's next.

Oh yes, blisters. I think it may be time for new running shoes. I'm getting blisters on the balls of my feet, which is a good indicator. Craig got a coupon in the mail, which I'll be putting to good use shortly. He single handedly keeps Road Runner Sports in business so they're generous with the VIP coupons. I hate buying new running shoes. They're expensive, make my feet look huge and it's hard to find the perfect pair. I'd rather buy flip flops.

Or ice cream.

I miss ice cream. I've been good about not buying any after I crafted my self imposed ban on ice cream. However, a popsicle, while tasty, is not a satisfying dessert alternative.

When I was a kid and had better self control, I remember eating my dessert, usually a popsicle or push up, at exactly 7:37 pm every night. I have a very vague memory of watching "Too Close For Comfort" at 7:30 and rushing to the freezer at exactly 7:37 for a frozen treat. I was am a genuine head case.
Every now and then, I think about reinstating that odd ritual. Perhaps it could keep me from shoveling a handful of chocolate chips in my mouth or eating way too many graham crackers; grazing throughout the night.
I had impeccable self control as a child. What happened?

I could really use some of it right now.

Ok, time to shepherd the wild punks to the pool. I think they need to swim off the cookies they just ate. Especially since they've been laying around in cool house like cows under the shade tree.

Off we go....