Again, from The Dumbest Things Ever Said or Done calendar:

Isabella, the sixteenth century queen of Spain, vowed not to change her underwear until her husband and his army captured the Dutch city of Ostend.  The Dutch defenders held out for three years.

Uh huh.  I have some concerns about the European monarchy of yesteryear.  The last we checked in with them, an eccentric member of the Italian peerage was mummifying her lover to store in the kitchen cupboard.

But back to Isabella.

Three years.  In the same underwear.  One would think by then, said underwear might have grown self awareness and it’s conscious would have compelled it to demanded to be changed.  I’m guessing there was no such thing as a germaphobe back then.

I would like it to be noted here, officially, that our dear Isabella of these pages does indeed change her underwear.  At a minimum of everyday. 

I am positive.

Sassy and The Bandit are in their rooms blubbering.  I am in the office steaming, and My Honey and the dog are hiding in the back yard.  I don’t know how stay-at-home moms do it.  I’m losing my mind.  I just don’t have the temperament.  The constant fighting, the whining, the mess – Dear God!  It’s like the trifecta of misery over here.

I’m trying to get some writing done, but everytime I open the current chapter I’m working on, my brain glazes over. 

I’m drinking a cup of tea.  I asked for a tea pot from my mother and she put together a beautiful basket with a pretty cup, a gorgeous pot and a sample of several types of tea she thought I might like.  I’m trying to get off the soda.  I’m a junky and I know how bad it is for me.  Water is out of the question.  BLECK!  So now I’m trying tea: iced tea, hot tea, flavored tea, sun tea, chai tea, whatever.  I’m not a brewed beverage kind of girl.  I don’t like coffee at all and I’m trying to make myself like tea.  It’s been slow going.

Based on how well today is proceeding, perhaps the secret is tea with whiskey in it.

Another delightful and honest cartoon from Shoebox

We made it. We lived through another Christmas. Well technically there is still an hour and 15 minutes left, but I feel fairly confident that we’ll be alright. Due to my phone mishap yesterday, I am completely incommunicado with everyone. I miss you – each and everyone. I feel like I’m on Jupiter or something. 

Our day was pretty nice. At 6 am this morning, Sassy crawled in bed with us to snuggle. I didn’t say anything because I was hoping to eek out a little more sleep time. At 6:30 she asked if she could go in and watch cartoons. 

“Aren’t you even remotely interested to see if Santa and the Tooth Fairy came?” I asked her.

“Oh Yeah!” was her reply.

Oh, yeah? This can’t be my spawn.  My mom used to booby trap the living room when I was a kid to keep me from going in there in the middle of the night.

Since this morning, we have been opening toys. If you really wanted to make a killing in the stock market, you should have invested in that company that makes all the wire they strap around all the toys these days.  I don’t remember our toys being held down by 75 feet of wire when we were kids.  My fingers are killing me.

My Honey has been applying stickers to the GI Joe Command Unit that Santa brought The Bandit since 7 this morning.  There were approximately 37 sheets of stickers to put on this thing.

And as for me, I spent over an hour trying to put a Transformer back into the shape of a jet fighter.  These things are like Rubix cubes on crack.  I’m going to have to send them all to Ava’s house to see if her boy can “transform” them back.

I am writing this post on my new wireless keyboard.  I have my feet up on the desk and my chair tilted back to the furthest position.  Thank you, Santa.  I also got a bunch of book store gift certificates.  WAHOOOOO!!!!

Anyway, it has been a very nice day and I am so very thankful that I still have 2 days off before I have to go back to work.  We should petition the government or the Vatican or somebody to always have Christmas on a Friday.  It’s brilliant.

Much love and Christmas cheer to you all.  Eggnog and Jack Daniels for everyone!

The world as I know it has come to a screeching halt.  As you constant readers know, I have recently upgraded my phone and it has been a less than smooth transition.  My cell phone carrier has made this a nightmare.

Well, something horribly, terribly distressing happened tonight.

On Tuesday, Roscoe knocked out one of Sassy’s front teeth.  It’s alright.  Both of those teeth were loose, so it just came out a little before it was ready.  There was a great deal of blood and hysteria, though.

According to The Bandit, my husband offered to put a bullet in the dog’s head.  My Honey takes his job as Papa Bear very seriously.  Of course, the dog was totally freaked out for the rest of the night – not over My Honey’s over the top threat, but because of how upset Sassy was.  He’s very sensitive. 

Tonight, Christmas Eve, I got off of work at 2 (yea!!!) and went home and promptly feel asleep.  I dozed off and on for a couple of hours and at some point my husband woke me to say he was running to get beer.  No Christmas is the same without it apparently.  I told the kids to get in the bathtub so they’d smell decent for dinner at my Mom’s.   I continued to blissfully doze, while in the back of my head I heard the kids splashing around.

And then the screaming began.  The bad screaming – you moms out there know the one.  I sat straight up in bed and, instead of visions of sugar plums, I was witness to a naked, wet, screaming, bloody Sassy.  Her brother had knocked out the other front tooth.  It looked like a scene from a Christmas with Stephen King – standing there with the blood running down her front, her hair all stringy and knotted, she looked like Carrie.

We found the tooth.  She hadn’t even known it was out.  She does look adorable with that huge space in her mouth.  Her Aunt tried to teach her the words to All I Want For Christmas is My Two Front Teeth.  If now isn’t the appropriate time for this song, then good grief, I don’t know when is.

ANYWAY, I put the screaming, bloody mess in the bathtub and leaned over the water and PLOP! there went my brand new cell phone.  So now Sassy and I are both crying, The Bandit is crying because everyone else is crying, and My Honey is like, “Jesus, I just left the house for a minute.”

Things move fast here at the Bright Compound.

I’m now on a suicide watch.  I don’t want to live without my phone.  It’s drying out and I’m paying a constant vigil.  But really, I don’t want to go on.  I’ll try to get a grip on myself.

So anyway, it’s going to be a very busy night for mystical people here tonight.  I hope we don’t have a traffic jam with both Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy showing up tonight.

This Christmas season has taken a huge toll on my writing schedule.   My brain has been busy, I just haven’t been able to spend much time on the computer.  I’m sure that the police department would be thrilled to know that I’ve written dialogue while driving down the street.  But in my defense, when you finally figure something out, you need to get it written down right away or it’s out of your mind, never to be found again.  And believe me, that is incredibly distressing.

The rewrites are going well, though.  Of course, they are turning out to be much more complicated than Isabella and I originally thought.  We stupidly thought that we could tear the original book apart and reorder things.  What we didn’t think about, of course, was that each of the characters are approaching each scene from a different perspective and they all have different agendas. 

Ava will be gratified to know that I am actually having a bit of fun with these rewrites.  She browbeat me into this for the longest time and, begrudgingly, I took this mountain of work on.  It’s much better for it.

I don’t know if I’ve said it to you lately, but I’d never get this done without the help of my sisters.

Thank you.

The other day, My Honey and I were driving across town.  We chose a route that would hopefully have the least amount of Christmas traffic.  This route took us up into the foothills and to some of the ritzier houses in our town.  We saw several open house signs and we debated whether we wanted to stop off and look at the houses.  We figured we’d at least get a cookie or something.

“I think our disco ball will fit nicely in the formal dining room, don’t you?” I’d ask My Honey in earshot of the agent.

“But I think we’re going to have a problem retro fitting that trapeze and the stripper pole with these 20 foot ceilings,” My Honey would say, picking his teeth with the corner of a credit card.

“You know, dear, I just don’t think that 5400 square feet is going to be enough room.” I would say in my haughtiest Thurston Howell III voice.

“Yeah,” My Honey would say, scratching his belly, “Where will we keep Cousin Cletus and the goats?”

When I grow up, I’m gonna be a ninja.  I’m working on my skills right now.  As I’m typing this, I’m listening for the tell tale crinkling of paper.  A minute ago I heard it and I jumped from the desk chair and crept softly into the living room to catch the culprit in the act. 

I got out of the chair very quietly and tiptoed across the wood floor, peeked around the corner of the laundry room and then skittered across the tile of the kitchen.  I pressed my back up against the wall by the pantry and, using a mirror, I could see into the living room and a perfect view of the tree.  His butt was up in the air because he was trying to get further under the tree.  It was perfect for an attack and that’s when I swooped in.

He’s got big ears so you have to be stealthy.  He’s good with his nose, too, but fortunately he’s preoccupied and I can get right up on him before he knows I’m there. 

It’s Roscoe and he’s singlehandedly trying to undermine Christmas.  

Sassy and The Bandit got caught up in the fervor of the season and wrapped a dog bone for him and put it under the tree.  I don’t think they fully understand the concept of a Bloodhound.  I know that wrapped bone made him insane the minute the package touched the carpet.  I couldn’t blame him for demolishing it the minute our backs were turned.

The problem now is that he appears to be checking the other presents for edible items as well.  As of right now, I will have to re-wrap 3 presents because he’s torn into them and tossed them aside when he realizes he’s not interested in Cd’s and flashlights and books and such.

“Bones, woman. Where are the bones?”

So for the last several hours we’ve been playing cat and mouse.  I hide and creep up on him and scare the shit out of him while he’s half way under the tree.  I find this to be extremely satisfying – although I will admit my hand hurts from smacking his bony butt.

Only two more days to go. 

I’ll bet if I can jump down on him from the top of the couch, that’ll scare him straight.