Weird phobias and Emo poetry

What weird things freak you out?

Taylor is afraid of frogs. Has been since he was very little. Ironic because he has volunteered to dress up as Hopkins the giant frog that is Signing Time's mascot.

Taylor frog.


Taylor in the hopkins suit taking 10.

Cam is afraid of babies crying. He hates the sound of it and it tends to make him cry too. This made for some very interesting car trips when Kay was a baby. I will have to find a picture.

Cam is also scared of the book Marvin K. Mooney. He hates the picture on page 25. It gives him nightmares of giant fingers being mean and trying to squish him. He is also freaked out by the "plonky guy" as he calls him. I will have to find a picture of that one too.

Giant finger of doom.

I am afraid of spiders and the creepy Burger King Dude. What is up with that guy? I also hate the sound of 3 ring binders snapping shut. I always think of some thing getting snapped in there like a mouse trap. And the sound/action of cassette tapes or video tapes getting pulled into the player. What if it malfunctions and pulls your fingers inside? I know it is irrational and has probably never happened in the history of mankind. I still don't like it.

Oh so creepy.

Yeah, this is what I want to wake up to.

Let's file this one under "Things that make you go Huh?"

I was making dinner a few weeks back and this is what Cam came in and said to me:

"Don't talk to me. You're messing up my world. Your talking makes my life filthy."

He said this with a big grin on his face. Not sure what it means exactly. It sounds like Emo poetry.

Kids are weird.

Slugs and Spiders and Opossums. Oh My!

Some days just going into your back yard is an adventure.



Really spooky shot. This looks like Halloween decorations but it is real.


Have I mentioned that I hate spiders? Yes, they really creep me out. It is getting worse around here. The yard has been taken over by giant spiders. They are building webs every where. There is just about nothing worse then walking into a big spider web and getting it stuck all over you. Then as you frantically try to get it off you wonder if the spider that goes with it is also stuck to you some where.

Giant spider in the window.


If I had to pick something worse I might go with.... Flying mutant spider slugs. Yes, slugs are really gross. I still have very vivid memories of walking bear foot when I was a kid and stepping on a slug. They really do squish. But at least they stay on the ground for the most part so you don't have to worry about getting one in your face.

Well, that's what I thought until I saw these mutant spider slugs hanging down from our roof from a web? waiting for us to come out and unknowingly walk into them. Luckily my Hubby saw them and warned me. I would never have been the same after kissing one of those guys.

Hanging mutant slug.

Kinda hard to see but there are a bunch of them. 7 slithering and 2 hanging.


Once you make it out into the yard and the spider webs and flying slugs are cleared away you should be safe. So you would think. My Hubby decided to grill dinner last night and a giant opossum walked across his foot. We live in the middle of a busy city. What the heck is a opossum doing living in our back yard? It crawled under the house. I guess it sleeps in the crawl space. Now I am paranoid wondering how long it will be before he figures out how to get into the house. Freaky!!

My Hubby has a fascination with capturing the weird critters he happens upon. He caught a huge moth the other day and my oldest son tapped on the container and made it pee. They thought that was quite hilarious. I would just like for them all to go away (the critters not my boys) and have no interest in studying them. They did take some cool pictures though so you all can see what I am taking about. We did not get a picture of the opossum, that one even freaked my hubby out a little so he didn't grab the camera like he usually does.

This is what the opossum might look like.


The good news is all the spiders have discouraged the ants. The ants are no longer marching in my kitchen, bathroom, and sun room. I love a parade as much as the next guy but I am not sad to see them go. I have been doing a really good job of keeping the house clean. I think the ants just see kids and figure it's a good place to pick up some free food. Hopefully all the other weird critters will move on soon too.

Giant spider's web in the window.

Giant spider's web on the other side of the house

Yet another giant spider and web by the door

Twally Syndrome

TWally Syndrome, Or maybe it's Warget syndrome. The inability to enter a super center such as Wal-Mart or Target without forking over at least 100 bucks.

How do they do it? I go in with a short list and end up spending hundreds on other stuff we really need. How can we possibly go through that much food? Then most of the time when you get home you realize you have forgotten something really important like baby wipes or juice. When you have to go back to get another item after you just spent that much is really adding insult to injury.

We don't eat out. It's too expensive. You would think our food bill would be so much less with making all our meals. We can go shopping and spend 200 on food and within a week the food is gone. There are tumbleweeds blowing around in the cabinets. Where'd it all go? I know we have kids but they are so skinny. How do they get away with eating that much?

I am not skinny. My metabolism is slower than a slug in a salt pile. I don't have a very good diet but I don't eat that much. More often I forget or don't have time to eat. Then when I am about to pass out I eat what is leftover from the kids. Stuff that adults should never, under any circumstances, eat. Things like PB&J, Mac & Cheese, Chicken Nuggets, fine for kids but in adults they cause some kind of chemical reaction which results in too much Badunkadunk. I know Sir Mixalot likes big butts but lets not get crazy.

So it is a mystery. I know the food comes into the house because I put it in the cabinets. What happens after that I can only guess. Whether it's our locust children, goblins, or those pesky spiders again, something is eating us into a huge grocery bill. I should own stock in Target.

My thoughts on laundry

I think I hate doing laundry, or at least I hate doing laundry in my current situation. Let's face it it's never fun. It would be more tolerable if it were really like all those laundry soap commercials. A big, well stocked, and organized laundry room with baskets of clothes neatly separated by color into perfectly sized loads. Machines that operate correctly and time to wash, dry, fold, and put away everything as soon as the cycle is done. In that situation I might not hate doing laundry.

My dryer is broken. It still turns on and rotates. It will even dry the laundry after a cycle that takes approximately 13 hours. Unfortunately, I am not exaggerating. We hung a clothes line in the back yard to help with drying but it has been raining a lot. So we are currently drowning in a larger than usual pile of slightly damp, smelly fabric.

I have no idea how people did house work before the invention of modern appliances. I guess they didn't have as many clothes and didn't wash them as often. Between dragging the rugs out for a good beating, cleaning floors on hands and knees with a scrub brush, hand washing all the dishes, and hauling ice for the icebox, who could blame them. I am tired just thinking about it. Add to that no microwaves for quick meals, central heat and air units, or TV and video games to help entertain the kids and I must say I have it pretty good even with the dryer in the state it is in.

Here is something to ponder, why is it that the coolest hang out spot for spiders is in a huge pile of dirty laundry? Perhaps they think I will never really get to the bottom of the pile and it can be a home to their descendants for generations to come. I really will get to the bottom someday. I hate spiders. They are so sneaky and smug and sarcastic.

On the plus side, I think I have finely broken the kids of playing in the dirty pile. I have redirected them towards the clean laundry pile which is just as big and fun to jump in but smells a little better.

I want to get one of those new washer/dryers that will fit 25 towels at once. The one we have now will fit 9 and I am not talking about the big, expensive, Egyptian cotton, bath sheets but the ratty, cheap, Wal -Mart, barely cover my big butt, towels. We go through an astonishing number of towels in this house. Not only for bathing but for wiping up spills, potty accidents, mud pies, and of course rat-tailing your siblings. POP!

If I could wash bigger loads and dry them in under 3 hours I might be able to get caught up. I will probably be able to afford those fancy machines when my kids grow up and move out on their own, of course I won't need them then.