Woo what a week!

You all know about the idiot raccoon that is terrorizing me. Yeah he has built some sort of condo or villa underneath my front porch. And every morning he meanders out once I open the front door. Only after some sort of ritual he does under the porch that is very noisy. I feel this is most likely his way of letting me know he is not happy that I woke him at such an hour. See I have to go out and get him out and on his way to his daytime residence before I can let my two jack russells out to do their morning ritual. Even though I have to admit I am not overly fond of my dogs I really couldn't stand the thoughts of the giant raccoon gnawing and clawing their little eyes out. Plus I do not handle blood well...even little doggie blood. Even though many members of my family affectionately refer to me as "the world's worst dog owner." (These family members mind you have no children) Busters ritual is run frantically in the front yard and attempt peeing on every surface you can find. Boswell runs around for ten minutes trying to pick a location to make his deposit.After ten minutes finally decides prime locale only to stop after making a small deposit then goes in search of a second location. My husband Tony refers to him as a "two squatter". So my morning ritual is now to rouse the raccoon from his porch condo so that I can safely allow my dogs to do their thing. So this morning I get "Rocky" out and on his way. (yes I figured is he was going to take up residence here I might as well give him a name to avoid confusion) I then get the children out and onto the bus. Yes I am aware it is Saturday but thanks to the long harsh winter and about a million snow days. My children are now subjected to Saturday school for the next month. Rocky out check, Drake and Peyton out check. Buster and Boswell out....holy crap Why is Rocky back? Grabbing my handy dandy BB gun to prepare myself for defending my little dogs from this absurdly obese raccoon. As I am pumping the gun to prepare to shoot all the while praying my eyesight is better during the day than the evening. See I shot my flower pot last week attempting to shoot Rocky. the temp is somewhere in the thirties and I am sweating bullets....or should I say sweating BB's? Praying that I don't take out my dog instead of the raccoon. I can't even begin to imagine that conversation with Tony and the boys. Well see honey Mommy was just trying to save Boswells life...and well..you know how bad mommy's eyes are..and well..honey I accidentally shot the dog instead of the raccoon. While I was contemplating my sniper skills it appears that Boswell has made friends with Rocky. I notice Buster is no longer searching and peeing on every surface he can find. He seems to be content with standing in one spot and peeing right down his leg. He isn't even attempting to hike his leg or anything. I turn back to Boswell to find that he and Rocky may even be more than friends the way they are sniffing at each other. Perhaps Rocky isn't a Rocky after all...maybe Rocky is a Rachel? OMG if they start getting to intimate I am going to start shooting anyway and whoever lives to walk way so be it. Could you even imagine what weird new breed this would be...I am thinking of calling this new love child...Jackcoon...or would it be Rackrussell? I think I like Jackcoon. Thoughts? Finally they Boswell and Rocky/Rachel decide they don't want an audience for whatever dirty thoughts that were running through their heads and Rocky/Rachel wonders off back into the woods. When I yell for Boswell to come back inside he steps up to the porch, stops, sits down and begins staring at me? He was acting like that dog on Frazier. I keep yelling for him to get inside and he won't budge. I am talking to him like he understands..come one Boswell...it is cold out here. I am standing outside in broad daylight in a giant purple robe. If the neighbors see this they are going to grab their kids and grand kids and head over thinking that Barney the talking dinosaur is making a special appearance in Stoutsville. He finally makes his move towards the front door only to stop again for one more stare down. As if he was saying "great I finally get a chance at a little action and you...yeah you would have to ruin it for me." Meanwhile I am trying to figure out this dog. I mean is he gay or is he a chubby chaser who likes to go outside of his race? Either way only in my world!! All this and it is not even eight a.m.

On Thursday I had offered my friend Michelle to come over and help her with a little spring cleaning. I also offered her a chair from my Mom's basement for her sun porch. Yes I did ask my mother prior to making the offer! Now for the task of getting the chair upstairs and loaded in my SUV. Okay so I am forty one years old with a bad back four blown, herniated, slipped..whatever tern you want to use disc in my back. And Michelle is forty with MS. This task oughta be very entertaining. Well I take Drake to school yeah I have to take him to school everyday this week as there is some sort of two hour delay because of the Ohio Graduation Test. I can't explain the logic so I won't even try. Then I head to Mom's to get the chair Michelle and I have decided to meet at Mom's to get the chair and head over to her house for spring cleaning. I decide not to call Michelle until after I am at Mom's so that I can get the chair upstairs before she comes. I don't want her to hurt herself trying to help me out. Plus with the recent weight loss I am feeling quite athletic. (No I am by no stretch of the imagination athletic looking...I just feel athletic) I get to Mom's basement and begin my struggle with the trying to maneuver this glider rocker chair up a flight of stairs without any help. Have I mentioned that I am left handed? I tend to see the world bass ackwards. I feel I have a better chance of achieving this task by going up the stairs backwards and pulling the chair up than to go chair first and pushing. This is probably because all night last night I kept envisioning me losing my footing and falling backwards down the stairs and the giant glider rocker landing on top of me thereby taking me out of the land of the living. Given the way the stairs are located this meant I had to hold onto the handrail with my left hand (yes my strong hand) and pull the rocker up the stairs with my right hand (yes my weaker hand) After about twenty minutes and traveling 12 stairs and holding my breathe for nearly the entire time I finally make it. I get the chair out and onto the back porch just in time to see Michelle pulling into Mom's driveway. Michelle and I together make the journey from the back porch and after much maneuvering and seat folding we manage to load the chair into the giant tank I drive. We decide to visit Mom for a bit since we are both already exhausted and we haven't even started cleaning yet! As I am swigging coffee in an attempt to consume as much caffeine as possible and talking with Mom she ask if the other chair is still in the basement. I tell her that it is and she says that I should give that one to Michelle as well. "Oh really should I?" I think my mother has somehow lost time somewhere along the way..I am thinking she has lost at least twenty years because she obviously thinks I am twenty. I tell Michelle that I can get this without her help. I really am not the sharpest tool in the tool shed. This chair doesn't have any handles or anything I can grab and pull with so I am forced to go chair first up the stairs. Great so this is where my vision will become reality. Not so bad this chair is much lighter than the other one. except for the stupid handrail. I get the chair only about three steps from the top and the dag gone legs aren't going to fit. Michelle peaks her head around the top of the stairs to see if I need help. She says that I have the chair at the wrong angle I need to have it turned the other way. Really? I am standing there precariously nine steps above a solid concrete floor with a chair resting on my legs and now I need to go all the way back down and do it all again only the other way?...Yep so that is what I do. Michelle and I together manage to accomplish this task we make it to the front porch (due to the angle that we had to bring the chair up we couldn't go out the back door) when Michelle says "this is never going to fit in your vehicle with the other chair." Oh but it will my dear." I did not just wrestle two pieces of furniture upstairs only to leave it here. Back to the tank..after another twenty minutes of more seat folding and climbing around inside my SUV like some sort of caged monkey we have both chairs loaded. Another break..more coffee and chatting with mom. Even more exhausted and still no cleaning is done yet! Since it is now after eleven we bid farewell to mom and head out. But not before my mom says "hey are still going to be able to come up tomorrow and clean for me?" I smile and say" of course I will be here." Good because this house it setting me nuts" mom says.

I forgot to mention the look on Michelle's face when she first seen me on Thursday morning. I can't believe I forgot this part. Okay so on Wednesday I cleaned my house and was a little bored. I really need to get a haircut but can't afford to right now. In the last two weeks we (Tony) has paid out over $400.00 in dental care for the boys. Over $800.00 towards an art club trip to New York for Drake and I. And we got a letter from the school stating that Peyton failed his eye test and needs glasses. I still need new glasses, Drake needs to get braces and Peyton is requiring oral surgery to remove a tooth. So I felt it was in my best interest not to ask Tony for more money to get my wig busted. Being very bored on Wednesday I remember I have not yet used the hair color from my shopping spree at Target. Cool I can get a new look and not even spend even more money that I don't have right now. Off to the bathroom I go to apply my Natural Instinct "Cinnaberry" temporary hair dye. (Thank God it was temporary) I only leave the color on for about half the amount of time the directions instructed. (Again thank you God) They really need to change the name of this stuff. It should be called "hooker red" Holy crap Tony is going to flip out when he sees his lovely bride. I really don't think I have enough time left to wash and dry my hair twenty eight times prior to Tony getting home do I? Who cares it is only temporary right? He will just have to get over it. I will try to get a photo of this new do and put it on facebook so you all can see it in all of it's flaming glory. I need to do that later though I don't have on any make up right now. And with the deep deep shade of my hair and my unadorned face I look rather "Goth" or rather scary. So the first word out of Michelle's mouth on Thursday morning was "wow." She then proceeds to say she really likes it it is just really different from my normal. This is why we have been friends for over thirty years. I don't want friends who are too honest. I want my friends to lie to me and tell me no those pants don't make your butt look big. No that hair color is perfect for you. Crows feet... what crows feet? Of course you she looks much older than either of us. I totally agree she is way too skinny and it just doesn't look good on someone her age. Now that's a good friendship.

On Friday morning I had to once again take Drake to school two hours after I got Peyton off to school. I also had to go into the school to pay my last installment of $418.00 on the New York trip for Drake and I. I go in to pay the teacher and get a little more information on the trip from him. He explains to me that even though I will be sharing a room with three other women, whom I don't know. He will have me doing the touring with the five boys who are going on the trip. He thought I would want to be with Drake to experience this trip together. Oh how very thoughtful. I finally get away from my testosteroned filled home only to travel nearly five hundred miles by bus to be surrounded by even more testosterone. Yeah for me!! Oh goodie, then I get to share a room with three other women whom I don't know. Better yet I get to sleep in the same bed with one I don't know. Fabulous I (Tony) have just paid twelve hundred dollars to be tortured for five days. See I can get over the boy thing. I am so used to it by now. It is the sleeping arrangements that are causing me to lose sleep. See I am a spooner in bed. By this I mean that I will spoon anyone that is in bed with me. It doesn't matter who it is. Even though I really try not to I will start off the night with my back to you completely on my side of the bed but I can assure you that by morning I will be attached to your back like some sort of baby monkey at the zoo. I have done this to several people, people who haven't appreciated it at all. Once Tony and I invited my niece and her husband over for dinner and hanging out. This was when Tony still consumed vast amounts of beer. So he passes out on the couch and my niece falls asleep on the other couch. I go in to go to bed and fall fast asleep. Before I know it, it is morning and I open my eyes to see my niece and my husband standing at the foot of the bed staring at me and I realize that I am laying there spooning my nieces husband in my bed while my niece and husband are watching. Thank God there are no trust issues here or we very well could have ended up on Jerry Springer's Show. I have also spooned my gay brother. When my dad passed away we had to go to Florida for the funeral and had to stay at my other nieces house where Trent and I had to share an air mattress in the spare bedroom. The first night I curled up on my side with my back to my brother. Once again fast asleep only to be awoken by my brother pleading with me to get my big ugly boobs off of his back. And to please remove my leg from around his waist so that he could get up and get some coffee and perhaps vomit. So it goes without saying this New York trip is starting to concern me a bit. I mean do I admit to my spooning addiction up front to total strangers or do I wait and explain after the fact? See I tried to see if just Drake and I could share a room on the trip but I was told this would make the trip more expensive for the others as the cost is based on the occupancy of the rooms. I nearly offered to pay the difference for the others and then I remembered that I don't have a job. I suppose Tony would not appreciate me being so generous with his money. Plus if I did I may not be able to get a haircut until the end of summer. And considering the current shade of my hair postponing my haircut until the end of summer I would look like some sort of mad woman who is clinging to her youth with some sort of death grip. I wonder if they will allow me to sleep on the bus or if there is even a comfy couch in the lobby of the hotel. Oh God why did I sign up for this anyway? So I suppose it is best that the teacher put me with all of the boys on the trip at least I can avoid the awkward stares and silences from my bed mate while taking in the view from the top of the Statue of Liberty!