Once, twice, sometimes even three times a year I go on a shopping trip with my mom and aunt. We head out of town, stay in a hotel and eat at yummy restaurants, and shop until our feet are so sore that we are all in tears. It’s fun!

Obviously, my daughter is destined for great shopping success, right?

Cindy-Lu never really cared one way or the other about it until recently. She got her ears pierced and now “the earring store” (Claire’s) is her favorite place in the world. She picks out earrings and hair pretties and Disney princess paraphernalia. She loves to go to Old Navy and browse their selection of tights (the girl loves to wear tights). The other day I took her in a Justice for Girls store just to look around (the sizes are all too big for her) and she walked in, looked around the room and breathed “Oh, Mommy! Isn’t this store lovely?”

She’s a shopper.

I really wasn’t too worried about it until this morning. You see, we’ve been getting a lot of toy catalogs in the mail recently and the kids both love to go through and circle the toys they want Santa to bring them. I was flipping through one of the catalogs this morning to see what the damage was and there I saw it. An ad featuring a woman standing in a pile of toys wearing gold high heels. Cindy-Lu didn’t circle a single toy on that ad. She circled the gold high heels.

As Cleatus said when I showed him the ad, “We are so screwed.”

I sat here and I read each comment that came through about my neighbor and how I should handle the situation. I laughed at some of the sillier suggestions and I nodded and shook my fist in the direction of my neighbor’s house at some of the “slit his hose with your pocketknife” type comments. I did nothing though. I just sat and stared out the window at the hose and I got angrier and angrier and finally, FINALLY, I shouted at Cleatus that I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Go out there and pick that hose up and throw it back into his yard!” I said, sounding not at all crazy.

“Um. Okay,” Cleatus agreed in the tone one would use with an upset patient in a mental facility.

“And don’t just gently lay it on the ground either! Make sure you throw it! Throw it hard!” I gave up pretending that all is well with my mind. Clearly, I have gone insane.

I stood at the window and watched while Cleatus marched out there and picked that hose up and threw it (THREW IT!) into the neighbor’s yard. I felt so much better until I started feeling like a douche.

I mean, really. How old am I? Couldn’t I have just let it go?

No. No, I couldn’t.

I stopped feeling guilty about it pretty quickly and I decided to just stick with hating the neighbor.

WE DIDN’T EVEN TRICK OR TREAT AT HIS HOUSE.

You don’t want to make me angry, y’all. I will just skip right by your house on Halloween. Screw you and your grumpy old man candy. We don’t need it or want it and you can’t make us have it. So there.

AND THEN!

This morning I was sitting in the house feeling all happy that the hose situation had been taken care of (he’s now draining the ditch into his own front yard, the fucking moron.) when I glanced out the window just to enjoy the view of a ditch water free front yard when, lo, my neighbor was blocking the view. He was blocking the view because he was using a leaf blower to blow all of his motherfucking leaves into our front yard.

A little thing I like to call PROOF.

He blew his leaves out of his yard, across our driveway, and into our yard. There is a big ass pile of leaves all down the edge of our driveway.

I fully expect to look out the window later this afternoon to see him standing there pissing all over our lawn.

Some of you may remember way back in May when I bitched about having to repair the drainage pipe that ran under our driveway from our neighbor’s ditch to ours. If you don’t remember, the short story is that our neighbor is a fucking loon and he decided that his ditch wasn’t draining as fast as he’d like, so he called some company out to auger the pipe thingy that ran under our driveway. He did this without our permission. The company put a hole in the pipe and caused it to collapse so the neighbor’s ditch pretty much stopped draining altogether. He asked us to fix it, we told him no. He was the one who had broke it, so if it bothered him he could call that same company and ask them to come and fix it. He called the city instead. (Did I say this was a short story? I lied.) The city said that we had to fix it within two weeks or they would charge us eleventy trillion dollars. We fixed it.The city inspected it and called it good.

The end!

Except it wasn’t the end. Our neighbor’s ditch STILL wasn’t draining properly and I know, who cares. It’s a ditch. It’s sole purpose is to give rain water a place to live, right? Why are we getting all worked up about the rain water in the ditch?

But our neighbor, the bastard, is very concerned about his ditch having water in it when it rains. It drains on it’s own within a day of it raining, so it’s not like he has a fucking pond or anything, he just has a bit of RAIN WATER, OH MY FUCKING GOD.

Where was I? Oh, yes. Rain water. In the ditch.

So, my neighbor goes out and buys some sort of pump thing and hooks it up to his water hose. And then, oh God, every time it rains he proceeds to get in his wheelchair and wheel himself across his yard in the pouring rain to hook this pump up and he lays the hose so that water from his ditch drains riiiiight at the edge of our driveway.

It’s our property 18 inches over from our driveway, so he is clearly on our property. Now, honestly, I have better things to stress over than fucking rain water, but oh my god. He is doing this JUST TO MAKE ME INSANE, I JUST KNOW IT. Anytime it rains I spend the day staring out my window at the fucking hose and muttering insults about old people needing to GET A GOD DAMNED LIFE.

Clearly his evil plan is working.

Now, my question to you, all two one of you who stuck with me and read this fucking novel about RAIN WATER, FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST, please answer me this. Would you be the bigger person and just ignore it? Or would you haul your ass over there and stomp all over his fucking rain hose and then shove the fucking thing down his ugly wrinkled old man throat so that he chokes on the dreaded rain water? Or, option C, would you just be all tra la la, just out for a stroll in the rain and I noticed your hose accidentally drifted onto my property, let me gently toss that back into your yard in a friendly manner?

I’m leaning towards option C, but I have a feeling that he’ll come out of the house and start bitching about how that rain water is supposed to drain into my yard anyway, so WHAT IS MY FUCKING PROBLEM and at that point I will lose my ever loving mind and end up killing him anyway, so I should just go ahead with option B, right?

I’m not quitting blogging. I’ll just say that now and get it out of the way.

BUT!

I stress out about this space and how I should be filling it with all my words. I write little posts in my head and then I think of all the reasons that I shouldn’t post them here. Things have changed between then and now and I don’t know why they changed or even what it was that changed, but lately I’ve been feeling like my life is, well, private. Strange, coming from the girl who blogged somewhat regularly about her vagina, I know.

For some strange reason my kids are getting older. Weird, right? Anyway, I feel guilt that I rarely ever post about Eeyore. Is he going to one day look back at this and wonder where he was? Why didn’t I ever talk about him? Did I even love him? (And, yes, I will let my kids read this one day when they are much older and no I don’t think it will scar them or ruin their lives or make them think I hated them, but thanks for worrying about them for me, you  judgmental concerned asshole citizen of the internet.) Yet, I don’t want to write about him on the internet anymore because he’s nine years old now. There’s too much that I could say at this age that will embarrass him or bother him or just make him uncomfortable. He’s not young enough to make fun of anymore, dammit.

Cindy-Lu is fair game still, considering she’s only four, and fully deserving of being made fun of now and again. (Just today she proudly showed me a gold coin with the “Statue of Livery” on it. See? She’s an easy target.) Still, it seems wrong to write of her so often and Eeyore so little.

Here’s the part you won’t even believe, though. It’s Cleatus. He’s not even pissing me off anymore. I KNOW. We’ve been married for nearly ten years now and it’s like I’ve actually started to like him or something. It’s ridiculous, and yet, I can’t ask him to start pissing me off for blog fodder, because I’m enjoying him too much lately.

I’ve told him that the only solution is for us to have another baby, because can you imagine all the material I’d have to blog about? The sleepless nights, the poopy diapers, the being vomited on all the effing time! It’d be great. Cleatus is still an asshole in that respect though, and he said that under no circumstances will he have his vasectomy reversed so that I can blog more often.

Are any of you still reading this? If so, you are some seriously dedicated Wiping Up Snot fans and I love you.

I just needed to let you all know that I may not be here very often, but I DO still think of you all quite a bit. I am most definitely still reading blogs, but I need to be a better commenter. I am writing a couple times a week at Buns In My Oven. I’m not quitting. I’ll continue to pay the hosting fees for this site. I can’t imagine actually quitting, but I just may not write here that often.

So, there it is. I had to get that out there, so that I could stop feeling so guilty about not posting. Maybe losing the pressure I’ve put on myself to blog more often will help clear things up for me and I’ll feel more comfortable in the space again.

Anyway, I flashed back on this job today as I pulled up to a four-way stop on the way home from pre-school. You see, that four-way stop? It was where I died.

Less than a week into my new job and I was on my way home from work. One of the guys that worked there was in the other lane right next to me as we pulled up to this four-way stop (should four-way have a hyphen?). I get nervous at four-way stops anyway, but to have this guy that I barely know sitting next to me? It was awkward. So, I look over and kind of wave at him, like “hi, I’m a total douchebag who gets freaked out at four-way stops and panics about whose turn it is, oh god, is it MY turn, no, your turn, SHIT!” and the asshole revved his engine at me. Because I am a complete and utter moron I thought “Oh, wow, he’s cool. I’ll just rev my engine back at him and then we’ll be best friends forever,” only SURPRISE! I DON’T KNOW HOW TO REV MY ENGINE.

So, I floored it. I just, you know, stepped on the gas. That’s how you rev an engine, right? Only first you put it in neutral or step on the brake with your other foot, you idiot, and I forgot that part. So, there I am, all nervous at the four-way stop, during rush hour, next to my new co-worker and I wave at him and then FLOOR IT out into the middle of the road when it WASN’T MY TURN and everyone starts honking at me and BAM! I DIED.

Not from the impact of hitting another vehicle, because by some lucky twist of fate, I didn’t hit another car, but I died all the same. From the embarassment.

Me? Oh, you know, the usual. Questioned suspects, wore a bullet proof vest, and staked out the preschool. Completely normal day for your average stay at home mom.

Yeah. So. Today.

Let’s back up, shall we?

This morning the kids and I hopped in the minivan to take Cindy-Lu to preschool. AT A CHURCH. Where the people are good! And churchy!

I pretty much NEVER drive the van anywhere, because, well, it’s a van and Cleatus’s car is infinitely more cool and it uses less gas. Today, for some weird reason, we took the van. The big, shiny, hard not to notice minivan.

I pulled on to the road for the preschool and instead of turning into my usual parking lot spot, I parked on the road opposite of the parking lot. Then I left Eeyore in the car and walked Cindy-Lu into school.

Anyway, long story long, some asshole backed out of the parking lot and bumped into my van WITH MY CHILD IN IT, ALL ALONE, OH GOD, and then he drove off! WHAT KIND OF CHURCHY PEOPLE DO I ASSOCIATE WITH, ANYWAY? Asshole.

Now, obviously this man wasn’t thinking, because he had just dropped his child off at preschool and GEE, SOMEONE HAS TO COME BACK AND PICK HER UP IN 2 HOURS! Asshole.

So, I called the cops, an officer came and staked the place out with me. I had to wear a bullet proof vest JUST IN CASE (you know how those churchy people can get!) (I’m totally kidding, I didn’t wear a bullet proof vest. ) (But, I did have to hide in the bushes with binoculars.) (No, not really.). The police officer and I questioned every parent driving a big truck and boy, was that fun! I made so many new friends today. I’m sure they’ll be calling me for playdates any time now!

Finally, TEN MOTHEREFFING MINUTES LATE FOR PICK UP (Hoping to avoid me, were you? Asshole.), some guy in a big silver truck pulls up to pick up his kid. The first thing out of his mouth was “Oh, I guess I bumped someone this morning, huh?” YEAH. Asshole. We generally stop and exchange insurance information after an accident, but just DRIVING OFF works too. ASSHOLE.

So, we exchange information and he apologizes and tells me that he had NO IDEA he had hit anyone. He felt a bump, but when he looked? He didn’t see anything back there! Because my MINIVAN is so mini you can’t even see it. Asshole. And I’m sure he didn’t hear the big crunch that people halfway across the parking lot heard. Also, he didn’t see the van ROCKING AROUND and FLINGING MY BABY TO THE FLOOR (okay, so he wasn’t actually flung to the floor, but he ALMOST fell out of his seat)! Asshole!

So, yeah, the moral of this story is this: People are assholes.

• Today I went to the shoe store and made Eeyore try on fifty pairs of shoes and then we both finally agreed on a pair that weren’t A.) too expensive, B.) horrendously ugly and C.) too difficult for him to get on and off of his precious little feet. I went up to the register and I waited. Then I waited some more. About five minutes later I was about to start screaming when someone walked up and thanked me for waiting. I was too angry to tell her it was no problem. I just did that fake grimace-smile thing that I do when I hate your guts and wish you were dead. Then she rang the shoes up and they cost $70 and I had a stroke because every other pair of shoes I looked at were under $40 and most pairs were $29, but apparently the Nike’s that we finally agreed upon were made out of golden unicorn shit or something because SEVENTY AMERICAN DOLLARS. So, all that waiting just so I could shout JESUS CHRIST, ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH THIS? and she said no, they were $70 and I said NO THANK YOU, HAVE A NICE DAY and I shot her that grimace-smile I do and wished she was dead.
• I went to Sears to buy some shoes today because the shoe store shoes were too expensive (see bullet 1) and they didn’t have ONE EFFING PAIR in Eeyore’s size so I gave up on finding shoes and went to buy socks for him and Cleatus and then I died when I realized that I paid $21 for 16 pairs of socks that were not even name brand or fancy and didn’t have any swoops or anything on the ankles. When did socks get so expensive?
• When did I get so cheap?
• I didn’t blog yesterday and have officially failed at writing every day for thirty days and I was so stressed out about this last night that I almost couldn’t sleep and once I even got completely out of bed and stood there in the dark contemplating getting my laptop and just POSTING. But then I decided fuck that noise, quality is better than quantity and if I don’t have anything to say maybe I should just go to sleep. So, I lied back down and I had a brilliant post idea. But then I fell asleep and now I don’t remember what it was.
• I was all thinking ahead and stuff today so I stopped and got $20 out of the ATM so that I could order our dinner from this little place that delivers but doesn’t take the debit card and I was so proud of myself for remembering to get money. Then I got home and our lawn mower boy was here and guess what? He expected me to give him $20 so now my entire family is going to starve because I’m a douche bag who fails at life.
• I signed Eeyore up for a speech class and ohmigod he is totally going to knife me in my sleep. He is the most quiet little boy ever and lately I have been making him SPEAK UP, MAMA IS OLD AND SHE CAN’T HEAR YOU, but he doesn’t really listen and so he just mumbles all the time and it’s seriously driving me insane. So as punishment practice, I signed him up for a local homeschool speech class and he’s going to have to give speeches. To people. Out loud. It makes me cringe and get all nervous feeling for him because I know how hard it will be for him, but it also makes me giggle a little, because dude, he needs to learn how to speak the eff up. And I know speech class isn’t really about talking loudly, but I’m hoping the teacher will help him just be more comfortable speaking AT ALL, because seriously. He doesn’t talk much.
• I have plans to clean the hell out of my house this weekend. Like, really scrub it and stuff, so all week long I’ve let stuff pile up and my bathroom smells like pee and the garbage is overflowing and I haven’t folded laundry in a month and I just keep pretending it’s okay because lalalalala, going to clean this weekend! This weekend is going to suck.

And, yet. Here I am. Blogging. Because I said I would. Because I am a total douche.

Speaking of God (hey, the title mentioned him), have any of you read The Shackby William Young? As I’m sure you all know, I’m not much of a Jesus freak. I don’t go to church and I don’t read the Bible. I don’t agree with what most churches teach and I dunno, I just have my own little religion.  I do believe there is a God and I do believe that he is quite like the God in the book The Shack. If you’ve not read it, you really should. Even if you aren’t churchy. Even if you ARE churchy. It’s a really interesting book. (No, I was not paid or asked to pimp this book. Do you really think anyone would choose my blog to do a review of a book about God?)

Ha. I opened up my laptop with no idea what the eff I was going to say and out comes GOD. Obviously, NaBloPoMo is detrimental to my mental health.

Lately Cindy-Lu and Nephew haven’t been getting along that great. She’s about six months older than him and has always enjoyed being older and able to boss him around. As Nephew gets older, he doesn’t take as much shit from her as he used to and he doesn’t seem to like playing hairdresser or dress up anymore either. Cindy-Lu is struggling with this a bit and lately she hasn’t been exactly loving towards him.

The other night at a family dinner with the in-laws (and not just the “regular” in-laws, but extended in-law family as well) my dear, sweet, darling daughter said a prayer before we began eating.

“Dear Jesus, Thank you for Cinderella. And thank you for my family except for Nephew. Amen.”

Aw. What a sweetheart.

Nephew, who is the most affectionate and tender-hearted little boy ever, piped up with a “Hey! That’s not very nice!”

Kids. As much as they annoy me, they sure do crack me up.

(Also, yes, I know I need to slowly step away from the photoshop, because I take it a bit far, but I loooove the look of these overly processed pictures and there is nothing you can say to make me change my mind. So there. I vow to go a little easier on the processing in the future. Maybe.)