Eight Days A Week

It’s been over a week since I’ve blogged. I have an excuse, though. I have been super busy. Too busy to blog? What have you been doing Rock Chick?

I'm glad you asked! I'll tell you!

Last Saturday night it seemed every kid in the neighborhood was hanging out an my house. That’s fine, but since it isn’t summer, it did get me wondering. When another one of the neighbor kids called me for a ride home from the mall, I asked what was going on.

“My parents are having that party.” he said.

Hold on a minute there. What party?

Tom and Lynette were having a party and not only didn’t they invite Mr. and Mrs. Rock Chick, apparently they think we're supposed to watch everyone in the neighborhood under 5 feet tall, too? They aren't always very nice to us, in case you haven't noticed.

My feelings were very hurt, but I decided not to pursue it at that time. A well placed phone call from the hubby to Tom got the message across later that evening.

On Sunday, Little Daughter performed “Reindeer On The Roof” with her show choir at the mall. They sang, they danced and it was all very cute until my daughter’s face registered a sudden look of horror. Shocking everyone in the audience (especially me,who wanted to crawl under a chair) it seems my darling daughter had left her cell phone in her pocket and there it was, ringing away at high volume during the performance.


She’s very lucky that she’s cute and makes me laugh or else those reindeer might not have been the only things up on the roof. That’s all I have to say about that.

Sunday night we went to one of my least favorite restaurants in the history of dining establishments, The Olive Garden, to celebrate my mom’s birthday. They have great breadsticks, but that’s about it. The food was terrible and the waiter spilled a drink all over my dad’s lap. We did have a good time, though, and I definitely won the “sibling rivalry” birthday present contest. That never ends no matter how old we get.

My mom is a devout Catholic and always wants some sort of religious themed gift which stirs up a bit of friendly competition between my sister and me. She always thinks because she went to Catholic school and I to public school that she can beat me in this area. My sister is wrong. She thought for sure she had won this year with a book that actually had the word “bible” in the title, even though it wasn’t a bible.

I gave Mom a statue of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Not just any statue, it was hand carved by Christians in Bethlehem from Jerusalem olive trees. That’s right.

I am accepting concession speeches anytime anyone is ready.

Then we started a Goonan free workweek which included a lot of hours (the only downside to his departure as I can see) and cleaning the house and shopping for groceries since we hosted Thanksgiving.

I had my house spotless and shining and then the landscapers showed up. I don’t know if it’s like this anywhere else, but trying to hire someone to do anything here in Chicago is quite difficult. Either they don’t want the job because it’s too small or they say they will be there and don’t show up. I don’t know why this is but I have been trying to get landscapers out to my house for about three months to pull out all of my bushes in front of the house.

The bushes had become a condo association for every wild critter on Hysteria Lane. The raccoon family usually stayed to the left of the front door but once in a while Papa Raccoon (in all of his hugeness) would be on my stoop blocking entry to the house. His glow in the dark eyes scared me and I wanted him gone. The other bushes housed several stray cats (not the Brian Setzer kind or I might have let them stay), squirrels, skunks and Lord only knows what else.

One landscaper finally showed up the day before Thanksgiving, yanked out all the bushes and left me with a huge muddy mess. With four kids and a dog, it didn’t take long for that to seep into my house, either. The front of my house looks very naked now, but that will have to wait til spring.

Thanksgiving turned out great. Except for my nephew in Georgia, all of my kids, nieces and nephews were under one roof at the same time!


That never happens and I got to meet my not-so-new niece, Piper, for the first time, too! She is a doll!

I think one of the best parts of the night was watching Little Daughter try to teach my nephew, Logan, her pompon routine. I adore three year olds. Logan is like a SIM from the video game. He does whatever you tell him to do. He couldn’t quite do the whole dance but he was determined to learn The Crump.



On Friday, Tom and Lynette called wanting to get together for pizza. I was so busy that I forgot I was mad at them for a second, but agreed. They were trying their best to make up for not inviting me to their party that I just decided to forgive them and move on. They make me crazy, but that’s the nature of our relationship. Dysfunctional, but it works. Why mess with it?

Yesterday I put up my Christmas trees!


This tree is too small for the area it’s in, but I lost my 7 1/2 footer when my basement flooded the year before and of course, I forgot to buy a new one after Christmas last year when they were all on clearance. I have my eye on a tree at Ace Hardware where Oldest Daughter works. 7 1/2 feet tall and copper colored with gold lights. It’s fabulous, but it’s also $500! I’m waiting until the after Christmas sale and then I’ll use her employee discount, too. $500 for a tree is nuts!

Today I did the usual things...went grocery shopping, three loads of laundry, cleaned the house, drove kids everywhere, read my book and helped build a mini roller coaster for Little Daughter’s project. You should see my volcanoes!

Hope you all had a great week! Back to blogging as usual :)