I didn't expect the Inquisition

Ah, Dragon Age: Inquisition. You who have completely taken over my weekends and spare time. I do adore you :) .

Mr. Fluffy bought me Inquisition for valentines day. Yep, he hasn't spent alot of time with me since. I did however point out to him his Skyrim addiction and now he has an idea how that was for me lol. He is cool with it however. He even has taken an incriminating picture of one of my 12 hour gaming days. It isn't pretty.....

Anyways, it is great. I haven't been quite this in love with a game in awhile, at least not since Black Ops. I liked the option of choosing how the story goes, right down to who your character romances. I had never actually played any of the Dragon Age games before this and now I am wishing I had. There is so much that goes over my head because it happened in the other games. Anywhoo, I am quite enjoying it and that is what I have been up to alot lately :)

Our date night turns strange

I know I haven't been on here much but that is ok........I do have a life.........somewhat. Truth is I have just been trying my hardest to enjoy the summer. My motherish parental unit stole all three of the destructobots (re: kids) for four full days. In parent language that is the equivalent to the freedom cry on Braveheart. To coincide with this fortuitous event, Mr. Fluffy received early birthday money (because we are all just lazy and cool like that in our big family) so we decided to have a movie date. Yippee!

Our city is cool enough to have a drive-in movie theater that is still operational. I absolutely adore it. It is a bit run down and the snack area has a smell that I still have been unable to completely identify, but I just think it is the coolest thing since toasted bread. Plus, for the price of a single movie at a fancy indoor theater, you get a double feature. Two movies for the price of one? Yes thank you please. The only problem is that we always seem to choose the worst weather to go watch movies in. Last time we decided to go while it was like 40 degrees outside, and forgot blankets. This time, it was about 90 out and we are having a plague of monster mosquitoes to boot so we couldn't roll down the windows.

So there we are in our van enjoying the first movie, sweating buckets and ignoring the giant mosquitoes that were staring in the window at us, when I feel our van rock a little like someone had just bumped into really hard. Now, it doesn't take much for our van to do that. In fact, Mr. Fluffy had just leaned against it earlier and made it do the same thing. This time though, Mr. Fluffy was inside so there should be no reason for it to have done it. My first reaction was that someone was playing some kind of prank on us.

Me: Did you feel that?

Mr.Fluffy: What?

Me: The van just moved, I think someone bumped it.

Mr. Fluffy: *looking around* I don't see anyone.

Me: Maybe they are crouched down.

Mr. Fluffy: Ehh, maybe they are but I doubt it is anything to worry about.

So we went back to enjoying the movie. Fast forward about twenty minutes later and there is a flashlight being shined into my window. My first reaction was that someone thought we were doing something inappropriate or that they had figured out we had smuggled snacks in the van. Much to my surprise there were two cops outside my window. I was flabbergasted and then it dawned on me that two cops wouldn't come to tell us to turn over our contraband snacks.

Me: Can I help you officer?

Officer: You two haven't happened to see a man running through here in a white shirt have you?

Me: No, is everything ok? (I was a little worried, we had parked somewhat off to ourselves way up front)

Officer: Yeah, we got a call about that guy on the news tonight (dur Mr. Officer, I am at the movies not at home watching the local news). It seems someone called in that they saw him sneaking around out here.

*Now our drive-in is located out in a big field on the edge of town, so it does make sense someone hiding from the cops in this area would run through here to get to it*

Me: No, we haven't seen anyone but someone did bump our van earlier. We thought it was a prank.

Officer: Ok well we will keep on looking around, you folks enjoy your movie.

Me: Mr. Fluffy, lock the damn doors!

It seems that a man decided to rob one of our local elementary schools of their computers and had been found out. He went on the run the very same night we had decided to sit in the open and watch movies in the dark. It took them three days to catch this houdini of a man. They finally found him hiding out in a car in a parking lot. This was after he was found hiding in an attic and he fell through and escaped.

I am thoroughly convinced he was the one who bumped our van that night. I will be locking my doors every single time now....just sayin'

The mystery of the urine scent

Do you ever have those times where you know you can smell something but no one else does? I do, all the time. I have a really weird heightened sense of smell. Of course, this only came about after I became a mom. I can smell puke rooms away and if a diaper needs to be changed from across the house. I am sure many of you developed this unfortunate superpower also. Sometimes this ultra shnoz comes in useful, but most of the time I wish I didn't have it (like every time I pass my son's bathroom). 

A few days ago I am sitting in my living room with a friend and we are playing Black Ops 2, just relaxing the day away by shooting digital men in the groin. All of a sudden, I get a faint whiff of  parfum de pee-pee. I immediately chalk it up to the boys not flushing their toilet again and tell them they need to do that pronto. On we go about our business and everything is fine for about thirty minutes when I catch the scent again. I go and check the boys bathroom, because you know, they do everything I ask the first time *insert eye roll here*. Surprisingly, the toilet is clear and there is nothing in there that smells. Ok strange, but I just decided it must have been left over toilet smelly. 

Ten minutes later, I smell it again. This time I go on a manhunt. I check the laundry. Smelly but nothing that smells like urine. I check my son's bed (we are fighting a bed wetting problem, it has gotten much better) to see if it was wet. I checked to see if the kids had dropped dirty clothes on the way to the laundry room. I checked everything.........or so I thought. 

Two days later and I am still smelling it. I have asked everyone else and no one seems to smell it. I belatedly realize late that day, that the only time I smell it is when I am in my computer desk chair. I am searching around my desk when it suddenly becomes overpowering. The one and only thing near me is my tiny little waste basket. Now just a little back tracking here. I used to have a waste basket in my son's bathroom but do to two little boys playing "let's see who can fill it with pee faster" I have taken it away from them. So with this in mind, I think "Oh no, no trash can is safe. I am going to maim them." I call (read: yell) them down from their rooms and start demanding to know who peed in my trash can in the living room where we entertain our family and friends. Both boys are adamantly denying their involvement, saying they learned their lesson from the bathroom stunt when I see this tiny hand being held up behind them. 

Yes, it was my dainty, girly little daughter. 

My mouth just dropped open and everyone fell silent. Mr. Fluffy trying to hide his giggling brought me out of my shock and I proceeded to ask the question all mothers fear...........why. She tells me that about a week ago (yes.....a week.......pee was in my living room for a week) she was downstairs watching her cartoons and felt the need to pee come on her. For some reason none of us will ever know, she spied my trash can and thought to herself  "I can just squat over that and then I won't have to walk upstairs to the bathroom, no one will ever know." She was surprised to learn that two inches of pee in there would start to stink after a little while. Her punishment was having to clean it out. She has sworn never to do it again. 

Let's hope she sticks to that

Apparently I'm from out of this world

Yesterday was a weird kinda day. One of those that isn't really bad but just isn't really great at all. I wound up sticking this status on my personal FB;

 "Ever have one of those conversations with someone where you feel like you must be speaking an alien language because they are totally misunderstanding what you are saying? Yeah just had one.........I would get farther arguing with a wall."

See the conversation had started out kinda normal. Mr. Fluffy and I had been talking Amtgard and about some things that had happened and I mentioned "I don't think someone should get something just because they are being pandered around, they should have to work for it really hard like the rest of us." It was right after this that the conversation just sort of broke down. He apparently thought I was pissed and jealous and that I wanted to be shown off or something (yeah, shove the introvert in front of a bunch of strange people. What could possibly go wrong there?) and I was trying to explain that people who constantly kiss ass to get what they want makes me throw up in my mouth a little. It ended with me pretty much getting so frustrated I cried (I don't know why I do that but 90% of the time I cry this is why) which then pissed me off because I hate to cry. 

We moved on after that. He let it go because he could tell he was upsetting me, he just didn't understand why exactly. Eventually by the end of the night, we were running through drills with our weapons and I tagged him in the nuts for getting too excited about hitting on his own wife. 

All in all it ended well and my alien speech went back to normal at the end of the night.  

Brotherly love?

I get so tickled at my boys. I can honestly say, I didn't know what to expect when I had two sons. I grew up with three sisters and two brothers but one didn't live with us (complicated story lol) so I was never really exposed to brotherly bonding. My boys have shared a room since Smarty Pants was born. I never felt anything wrong with it seeing as how I had shared a room with my sister up through high school. It just felt like the natural thing to do.

There have been bumps in the road, to hear it from them you would think sharing a room was the ultimate in un-coolness. They never can agree whose clothes belong to who. They are forever touching each others toys. They constantly pull pranks on each other and heaven forbid if one of them dares to encroach upon the other's bed. I am constantly bombarded by the demand of  "Why can't (enter name here) just sleep out in the hall? Then I could have my own room!" "Why is it fair that Little Miss has her own room but we don't!?" "Mooooom! He is staring at my side of the rooooom!"

For all of this though, I can tell that they actually enjoy each other's company. Every night at bed time, there are the secretive whispers and giggles. When one of them isn't there you would think they had died by the way the other acts. They will complain about how silent and boring their room is when the other is gone. They will seek out me or their sister because "It's just too lonely in there without (enter name)." It is at times like these I realize, through all the bluffing and posturing and knock-down-drag-out fights that they really do care for each other. With sisters it was easier, we knew we loved each other and we stuck together like glue. My boys kept me wondering though, I was down right positive they detested each other. I just hope one day  they realize just how important they are to each other. I know I can see it, but if you ask them they will flat out deny it.

Random rubbish I did over the weekend

What to write! Gah! There are so many little things going through my brain right now but the question is, what do I share?

First off, the entire weekend was just great. I needed some much deserved mommy down time and so I shipped the kids off to Grandma's house. It was also good for them, they needed time away from me just as much as I needed time from them and were actually excited to see me when I picked them up.

Friday night after we had pawned the children off with my parental, we pretty much just vegged on the couch. We played CoD, watched some TV, and munched our munchies in our pj's.

Saturday, we spent the morning zoning out and getting ready to go out to the Amtgard field. We had been expecting visitors from another field and it turned out to be a very fun day. I saw some old friends and met some new. Our brothers in arms brought our fledgling group some much needed items and when it was all over no one wanted to say goodbye.

I had made Mr. Fluffy promise to take me on his bike later after everything was done. I told him "I don't care where just ride!" Sounded romantic at the time but the temperature wound up dropping dramatically while we were on said "ride". He decided to take a pit stop at a local "gaming" store that recently opened up and I hadn't seen yet and to show me the awesome flyer that had been made for our amtgard group. Don't get me wrong, I love all kinds of gaming and gamers I just don't do well at roleplaying games like D&D. I enjoy watching people play it but I am just not very good at it myself. This place happens to cater to this type of gamer. Wooo! I love that I really do. So while I was waiting on Mr. Fluffy (he had gone to say hi to some friends) I was at the front counter looking at their wares. A man (who I am going to assume is the owner) came up to me and started a conversation about gaming. He politely asked if I gamed, I told him that yes I did. He then asked what my poison was, I kind of stammered because I mean where do you start? I was shyly trying to name off some games when he was all "Magic? D&D? hmmm?" I told him "Oh, I don't do very well at those, I mainly stick to PC and console games" You would have thought that I had spilled grape juice on white carpet with the look that came over his face. He quickly got himself together and said "Oh a video gamer" as if he was mentioning something filthy. I on the other hand quickly got over my surprise and was trying hard not to guffaw in this fellow's face, because honestly he seemed like a pretty cool guy even if he doesn't like us video gamers. Soon after that we rode over to a very pretty park to scout out an area for a gathering we are going to be hosting in a month. It's very pretty and I am hoping the weather will be nice.

Sunday was pretty relaxed. I worked on making the ugliest bag in history to hold our new treasures. Mr. Fluffy calls it the "Santa Bag", I told him it was more like "The ugly bag of shame." I also posted some pictures of me in "Garb" (term used to signify our medieval dress) so that our new people could see examples.

I was really frakin cold. Thus the smile of "hurry the frack up!"

Yep that is me. Freezin my butt off while Mr. Fluffy took his time using my phone to take the picture.He insisted that we couldn't take the picture in the house "Because they wouldn't be able to see the details" and also he kept having to adjust my hood because at one point I looked like a headless monk from Doctor Who. I think he was just having fun seeing me freeze. There are some other things, but like I said earlier, I am still struggling with if I should or should not share them :)

Having a mini-me isn't always flowers and sunshine

You know what no one tells you when you get pregnant with your first child? How hard it is going to be when you two fight. Let me tell you, Little Man and I fight alot. Don't get me wrong, I adore my son. I love him beyond anything in this world. When he smiles and looks at me with his giant chocolate colored eyes and eyelashes any girl would kill to have makes my heart positively soar. He is the black sheep of our children, but he is the apple of his mother's eye. Someday, some girl is going to have a problem with how much of a mamma's boy he is, but I can deal with that later. The problem now is that he is too much like myself. While I can see all the good things about myself in him, I see all my flaws as well. I want so badly for my son to be a better person than I that it leads to some awful arguments between us.

I see in him the debilitating shyness I always endured. Except, whereas I would shutdown emotionally and hide when I felt "cornered" by other people, he reacts with aggression. I cannot tell you how many times Mr. Fluffy and I have been called to the school because he hit another student. I see the temper that I inherited from my own father in him. Both my father and I are quick to anger, though we don't usually hurt anyone physically. I try very hard to be a good example for him, to show him how to effectively deal with his anger so he doesn't hurt anyone else and even put him in counseling. I see in him the same way that I react to something that seems insurmountable. When I feel overwhelmed I usually break down and rebel against it. He does the same thing.

I want my son to be a better person than me. I see in him the ability to be better and do better than me. This is where many of our arguments start.

This week has been a test of my ability to cope with someone so similar to myself. Last weekend my son decided that he wanted to fight in Amtgard. Mr. Fluffy and I set down two rules. He wanted Little Man to keep up on his chores, I wanted one week without him getting in trouble at school. The first day at school, he gets his phone (it's for emergencies only) taken up at school, because instead of listening to his teacher he decided that his phone was more interesting and took it out of his backpack and had it in his desk. We told him that he would have to earn back his phone since I have to pay them to return it to me. I was willing to let that slide as to the getting in trouble at school rule. What was his reaction when we told him all this? He immediately told us how unfair we were being and then stoutly refused to do any chores at all all week long. I let his father deal with the chore issue because I just wasn't up to arguing about it. Then yesterday, I got a call from his teacher informing me that the rebellion had continued at school. She said that all week long, my son had only completed one assignment of his homework and schoolwork. Feeling like a failure of a mother  for trusting my eleven year old to not lie to me and not hovering over him every minute until he had finished his homework, I resolutely told her to send everything he didn't get done that day home and I would make sure he got every bit of it done. Needless to say he was not very happy with me. I then proceeded to call my mother and inform her that she needed the kids there this weekend or she was going to end up without a daughter.

This morning we both got up and eyeballed each other. Who would be the first to make a move? Who was going to bring up this weekend first (I hadn't informed him at this point he was spending it at grandma's house)? Then the sword to my heart was delivered with these words "I'm really really looking forward to fighting on the field this weekend mom!" How do I deal with that? So I slowly looked at him and said "You are going to Grandma's this weekend with the other two." All hell broke loose. The tears came from both of us and the claims of how unfair it all was tore my heart apart. I knew that if I backed down for one minute I would fall apart and he would never learn the lesson I was trying to teach him. Eventually he stormed off to his room and cried to his brother about their cruel, cruel mother. I patiently waited until I couldn't hear anymore sorrowful pleas of understanding and instead heard them giggling. I called him back downstairs. He slowly walked down and gave me that look that said he was pretty sure I was going to send him to a remote island. I calmly asked him if he understood why he was being denied the privilege of getting to go out his weekend and if he understood that it wasn't anyone's fault but his own. He said he did realize that it was his fault he was in trouble, he shouldn't have played with his phone and he understood how important his schoolwork is. You see, he wants to be a game designer when he grows up (squee!) and he is smart enough to do so. I also believe that with his proclivity to be alone it would be a career that would suit him perfectly. We hugged, we cried a little more and then I sent him on his way to school. I know this won't be our last fight as it certainly wasn't our first. What I do know is that as much as it hurts for us to fight, I can't back down because I am making him a better person than I am and someday all the tears and hurt feelings will pay off. In the meantime, all I can do is stand my ground while making sure he knows I love him.

Hi there, let me entertain you :)

So I know I have been away from the blog for a week but I wanted my family to have my undivided attention for the time that they were here. After they left Mr. Fluffy and I were cleaning our hall closet to make room for some stuff we had acquired and needed to store.

Mr. Fluffy: Ok almost done, what else do we have?

Me: I want this box put in there, I packed all our PC game boxes away.

Mr. Fluffy : ok bring it over.

(I grab the box which had been sitting against a wall for 2 weeks and lugged it over to him)

Mr. Fluffy: (eyebrows raised and giggling) wow.

Me: (setting box down for him) What? Why are you laughing at me?

Mr. Fluffy: There is a huge spider on that box.

Me: WHAT!? And you let me touch it?

Mr. Fluffy: I didn't want you dropping it. (setting box up against the wall in the closet)

Me: I think you are pulling my leg, where is this monster spider?

Mr. Fluffy: On the side against the wall, see the leg sticking out?

Me: (kicks the box against the wall, sees offending leg twitch) Squish, squish. I killed it

Mr. Fluffy: You spider murderer!

He knew I would kill it. Spiders and I get along fine as long as they stay out of my territory. If they wander into my territory they are free game.

Hostess with the (NOT)Mostess

I share a bond with two very beautiful women I call my sisters. In all actuality they are my step-sisters, but our parents married when we were all very young so we have grown up together like any normal siblings do. These two gorgeous ladies couldn't possible mean more to me even if we had the same blood in our veins and not just tied together through marriage.

 A few months ago I talked to my older sister about her and her brood coming to my house for Spring Break. We had the usual banter about what days, what we could possibly do and how many times we would need to duct tape our children to the walls. She comes down often enough that I don't stress too much about the little details. I bugged her and bugged her for weeks for the exact days she would be here (I'm a planner, I NEED this information) before finally giving up and texting her that I had taken the entire week of Spring Break off.  A few minutes later I get a text saying "oh great! I will ask Dad and Mom if they wanna come too!" 

O.o

Now I love my dad and his wife, but I don't have a large house. I live in a townhouse. There is enough room in my kids rooms to bunk a few more kids and my living room and be re-situated to make a sleeping pallet on the floor. But I don't have enough room for a whole lot of people. My couch sits 2 and my table sits 5 on a good day. At my best of times I am a decent hostess, at my worst I am terrible. So now, I am trying to figure out stuff that we can all do that doesn't involve us just staring at each other. My dad told me that he will bring some stuff to grill and we can do that. I have a basketball court and a park directly behind my house, so I plan on doing alot of stuff outside. For the most part I am going to try my best not to freak out (the planner in me is just dying right now) and enjoy having my family invade my house for a few days. I'm sure everything will work out for the best and I will probably sleep for days after everyone is gone.