Businesswoman!

Bring on the giant shoulder pads and the heels I am starting my home business!!! Since I have a "spending problem" that is out of proportion to my "current income" I have decided to start selling Gold Canyon! I love these candles so I thought it would be a good match. Now I just have to keep myself from spending all of my earnings on new candles!
www.mygccandles.com/pickett

Can I say eww?

Lauren has got a cold, a nasty one. This leaves me wondering if it is ok that I am sort of grossed out by my own child. I love her dearly but... Her nose is on constant run mode right now and she thinks that I am trying to murder her slowly and painfully each time I try to wipe it. Yesterday morning I went to get Lauren out of bed and I immediately noticed a dime sized booger resting gently above her right eyebrow. She doesn't mind wiping her own nose all over her own face so I spend a considerable amount of my day scrubbing boogers off her face and picking them out of her hair. Her feelings get really hurt if I even let the "booger sucker" come into her line of sight. Occasionally I pin her down and do the dirty work of sucking boogers and I think to myself "it's a good thing they don't list the job description for being a mom." Can you imagine all that we do written out? People would never have children, "must be profficient at sucking boogers from small angry thing's nose etc..." Maybe they should write it all down and issue it to highschool girls with a small disclaimer at the bottom that reads "keeping your legs crossed is the best way to avoid this job" Might slow the little rabbits down. Anyway, Lauren and I are both staying "in" this week other than the occasional trip to Wal-mart because no one there cares about the snot running down her little face, they don't even give it a second glance. Apparently I look like an enormous tissue to my daughter because she never passes up a chance to swipe snot across my shoulder or whatever happens to be closest to her face (Wal-mart folks don't care about a snotty shoulder either). I guess sometimes I look like a tissue and sometimes I must look like a giant slab of beef jerkey because she has recently become interested in trying out her new teeth on my skin. No one elses, just mine. Lucky me!

Michael's Pink Undies

I recently committed the ultimate laundry mistake. I’m not sure what I was thinking adding maroon place mats to a white load. I was even surprised when I looked in my washer and saw all the pink clothes; I really had to think for a minute why our white clothes were now a lovely baby pink. I called my grandmother for some much needed advice. She told me to rewash the clothes and add a little bleach. So Lauren and I ran down to Wal-Mart to pick up some bleach; I am happy to report that I have been staying away from the dollar store lately. Who knew there were so many bleach choices? I grabbed a bottle of one I’d been seeing on television lately and a bottle of the good ol’ stuff just in case the first one didn’t work as well as they claimed. I read the bottle and added a capful of the new bleach to my pink clothes. As I stood there watching the pink clothes swirl around I logically concluded that if a capful will make my clothes white then adding more must make your clothes even whiter. Then, I thought to myself, not only will Michael never know that I accidentally died his undergarments a very unmasculine shade of pink, but he will be impressed with how white I’ve made them. So I popped the lid off the regular bleach and started pouring. I’m not sure how much I ended up putting in the washing machine but the smell was quite pungent and my clothes were no longer pink, they were an even less appealing shade of yellow. I thought to myself, this bleach thing is a load of crap and called my mother to tell her not to be fooled into thinking that bleach can fix things like this. She told me I added too much bleach (who knew there could be too much?) and I could try rewashing the yellow clothes in Iron Out. So Lauren and I made another trip to Wal-Mart, this one was a little more hurried since it was getting down to crunch time and I wanted to have this fixed before Michael got home. I threw the clothes back into the washing machine and added only what the bottle of Iron Out directed. I thought the bleach smelled bad but the Iron Out was far worse. At the end of the cycle I excitedly opened the lid only to see that the clothes were now off-white. I give up! Off-white it is! I may not have gotten the problem entirely fixed but at least off-white is slightly more masculine than pink.

I'm in love!

No more Robeez! I love pedipeds! www.pedipedbabyshoes.com They even have a "Lauren" shoe!
PS. amazon.com has some of the pedipeds, free shipping, $20 off if your order is $80 I think...

Dillards' new program for lowering self-worth

I drug my little shopping buddy to Dillards because it is bonus time at Clinique. For whatever reason I always feel that I have to have the bonus, which usually just consists of a cute makeup bag and some tiny makeup. Fully aware that I have at least 5 or 6 of these cute makeup bags already gathering dust under my sink, I made my way up to the counter to get one more cute makeup bag filled with tiny makeup pieces that are never my color. As she is handing me my bonus she says, “make sure you tell your family and friends to come down here and get theirs.” My heart sunk as I replied “ umm, I just moved here so I don’t have any family or friends here.” How embarrassing to have to admit that sad little fact. She asked me if I worked and I told her that I was a stay at home mom. Then she said “well Dillards is always looking for new people.” I just smiled at her. I thought to myself oh sure because I’m just going to wake up one day and think to myself “self this is about enough of this stay at home and provide a loving environment to raise your child crap, you are missing your life’s calling!” Because I’m sure that like most of you my dream is to put my degree to work (that degree that was 6 years of pain, anguish and partying), working retail at Dillards. Then I can throw my daughter into daycare with a bunch of snotty nosed kids and people who probably won’t pay attention to her unless she is screaming. Right. So maybe it is sad that I have no friends or family but not sad enough to come work at Dillards, dream on lady!

P.S. for Sin City

I forgot to include the lovely view from our window...

HELP

My daughter loves dog food. It seems that no matter what she is doing the thought of throwing the dog food out of Bo's bowl is never far from her mind. She is drawn to it like a moth to a flame. She can busy herself until she sees an opportunity to get her little hands on some Science Diet and then she is lightening quick! Yesterday I left her happily playing with a box in the living room to go #2. I thought to myself ok there's nothing sharp or otherwise dangerous in here, she seems very content with the box, I think I can steal 2 minutes to drop the kids at the pool. I run back to the guest bathroom, leaving the door open so I can still hear her. I had just sat down when I heard the sounds of the ceramic dog food bowl scrape along the tile and then the sounds of little pellets being thrown across my kitchen. I'm in the bathroom helplessly screaming "Lauren NO! NO NO! That's BAD Lauren NO NO!" I tried to hurry but these things can only go so fast... I ran out of the bathroom with my pants still undone and found her sitting there with two little handfuls of Science Diet, dog food in the living room, dog food in the kitchen, and dog food on her pretty new dress. I would really like to be able to leave Bo's food out for him and just teach her not to get into it, can this be done? Should I give up and just put his food away and hope that I remember to take it down for him? I thought maybe if I just sat her down with the bowl outside and let her play with it to her hearts content she would grow tired of it and ignore it like the rest of her toys but my mother said that was nuts. Help!