Clean carpets

After several months of intending to get our carpets cleaned, I finally made it happen earlier this week. When we moved into the house last February the off-white carpets looked fairly decent but two of the bathrooms are carpeted (what is up with that? Almost every house we looked at when we were in the market to purchase had carpeted bathrooms.) and I found that incredibly repulsive. Bathroom floors should be constructed out of something that can be doused in powerful chemicals to remove any traces of human DNA in any form like a nice tile or perhaps even a laminate, but carpet? I don't even want to know what lurks in the fibrous material that blankets the floor of our upstairs bathrooms. I get the willies just thinking about it. Bleh.

While the carpeted bathrooms had me keeping my gag reflex in check since we bought the place, I didn't think about the rest of the house until the Infant became mobile. The knees and sleeves of his clothes would end up covered with an ugly brown film after a day of taking laps around the house. As if this weren't enough to motivate me to get a carpet cleaner on the horn, the final straw came when I examined the Infant's feet while he was jumping in his Johnny Jump-up. The kid had "fair feet". Let me explain:

When I was but a young lass, my siblings and I would show our animals at the Rockingham County Fair every year in late August. (If you are unfamiliar with what "showing" animals means, it means you and a bunch of other people with the same breed of animal stand in a ring while an expert in that particular breed judges your animal and decides who's animal has the best characteristics of the breed. It's like a beauty pageant for cows, pigs and sheep and it is awesome.) We usually showed sheep and Jersey cows which meant we had a spot or two in the dairy barns for our cows to eat, sleep and chew their cud for the week of the fair. There were many other families that also housed their dairy cows in the dairy barn including the May sisters. The girls were older than us and had about a dozen dairy cows they brought with them to the fair. Unlike me, they were true farm girls. They slept with their cows, didn't mind being dirty and walked around barefooted. Even as a youngster, I was completely repulsed that these girls would traipse about the manure covered floors and washing stations without so much as a flip-flop on their feet. As you can imagine, their feet seemed to be permanently stained black and I can only imagine that one swab from those tootsies transferred to a petri dish would yield all kinds of colorful bacteria. From that point on, we referred to dirty feet as "fair feet". And this is what my child's feet looked like. I could no longer stand idly by while the Infant's feet became a hot, dirty mess in my own home.

So, I did some research, asked around and settled on a local carpet cleaner that promised to restore my carpets to an almost-new finish. On Monday, the carpet cleaning gentleman showed up with a bevy of tools and chemicals to blast the stains out of carpet. As you may know, I'm a big fan of chemicals. I even have a shirt that reads: I ♥ Chemicals. It's a bold statement but one I believe in. I was hoping that my home would be filled with a nice clean chemical smell but I was disappointed when it ended up smelling like the soap one may use at a do-it-yourself car wash. You know what I'm talking about, the pink stuff that looks good enough to eat but smells kind of like a public restroom. Luckily, the smell dissipated within a day.

When the carpet guy was finished, I took a look around and was thoroughly impressed with the results. Nary a stain was visible and I wanted to hug the guy but thought that might be awkward since we'd just met a few hours before. I sat down on the floor with the Infant telling him how great crawling around would be from this point forward because he wouldn't have fair feet anymore and his clothes wouldn't be covered in filth. Apparently unimpressed by the cleanliness of our home or maybe because he felt more comfortable in the filth, the Infant proceeded to spit up on my newly cleaned carpets. Sigh.

And we're walking...

The Infant is now a walking (with assistance) machine. He cannot be stopped. We can only hope to contain him.

The surprise

I have a confession to make: I think I might be a jerk. After careful deliberation, I've concluded that, given the evidence, a jury of my peers would find me to be of the jerky variety. This revelation has been quite disturbing since I consider myself a relatively nice person and believed that others thought the same thing. Oh, and to make matters worse, despite what I thought last week, my husband is not the least bit jerkish and tolerated my snarkiness for a whole week only to reveal that he was indeed, awesome. Let me give you the back story:

A few months ago it was decided that the husband and I would indeed exchange Christmas gifts. Sometimes we take a trip and call that our gift to each other or we gift each other with something for the house but this year I thought we should do gifts. The husband and I discussed this and agreed on the gift giving venture. I busied myself with securing a sweet gift or two for him and assumed he was doing the same.

So, Christmas rolls around and Benny K opens his gifts from me and is delighted which is the best part because I really hoped he'd like what I'd selected and he did not disappoint; however, look as I may (oh, and I DID look), I couldn't find a single gift that read: "To: Alise, From: Your loving husband." When this was brought to his attention, he claimed he didn't know we were exchanging gifts which made me want to wallop him a good one and then he claimed he completely dropped the ball and didn't get me anything. To say I was saddened and mildly annoyed would be an understatement. I couldn't believe that after six years of marriage, my unbelievably awesome-at-giving-incredibly-thoughtful-gifts husband had become a complete dud of a gift giver and I was not shy about bringing this to his attention. I'm pretty sure at some point I said things like: "It's not so much that you didn't get me a gift, it's that you didn't even THINK of getting me a gift" and "I guess I'll just have to get myself something" and the doosey: "This is unacceptable and I just want you to know that we will not be continuing this pattern in the future." I was not interested in hiding my displeasure and I certainly wasn't holding much back. Secretly, because I know what an awesome gift giver he typically is, I kept thinking surely he was kidding and there was a surprise right around the corner. New Years came and went and still nothing. I realized I had to let it go. Hope may win you a presidency but not a Christmas gift doth it bring.

So, we returned to Kansas (which welcomed us home with 9 degree temps and seven inches of snow and ice) late Saturday night and everything was normal and then Sunday morning, I went down to the basement to fire up the tele to watch The Soup and when I turned around I saw it: someone had broken into our home and done a complete room makeover on my creative space. In what used to be my chaotic sewing/craft room was order, organizers, a ribbon holder, shelves, plastic tubs, a thread organizer and a new embroidery sewing machine with a big red bow on it. As it turns out, it wasn't a B&E, but it was the husband who spent the week before Christmas building two new built-in desks, a cutting table, a sign that reads "Jean Jacket Fridays" (my fledgling creative label), building shelves, painting and making many trips to JoAnn Fabrics and Home Depot. He also enlisted several co-workers and friends to help him pull off the surprise. I had been longing to organize that room since we moved and dreaded going in there because it the disorganization was mind-numbing but devoting more than 15 minutes to a project isn't so easy to do with the Infant lurking at the bottom of every staircase and sticking every electrical cord in his little mouth. And here it was, the room of my dreams which the husband kept concealed for more than a week to let me discover it on my own all the while enduring several serious tongue lashings from yours truly.

I did feel mildly guilty for chastising him all week for his lack of Christmas gift but at the time, I thought he was totally deserving. Hindsight is a kicker.

BEFORE: The husband actually cleaned out the room (thank goodness) before taking the before picture but this gives a good idea of what he was working with.

AFTER: Here she is in all her glory!

My first project: the embroidery sewing machine is nothing short of awesome. It threads itself, cuts the thread for me and does about 60 different stitches. It is everything I've always dreamed about having in a sewing machine and yes, I dream about those things.

Waterpark

Let me put this out there: I detest waterparks. And not a little bit of detesting, I'm talking big time detestment. I think waterparks are largely unsafe (I know some will disagree with me, but when I see a 14 year old "water attendant" that straightened her hair and put on heavy black eyeliner just to come to work at a WATERPARK, I get a little worried that maybe she isn't there because my safety is paramount in her mind. I'm just saying.) and the communal bathing nature of the place makes my skin crawl. Deep down I know there is enough chlorine in that water to shave a few years off of my life, but I just can't get past all of those bare feet and bodies carrying around who knows what, sloshing around in the same water. Bleh.


With all of that said, I have a confession: I recently frequented a waterpark. I contend that I was made to go to this place against my will in the name of forced family fun. My six and three year old nieces are all about the waterpark and love to frolic in the very waters that make me cringe. Oh, and my husband loves waterparks. I'm not quite sure how we skipped over this in pre-marital counseling, but I'm quite certain that if I had known this about the future father of my children, I may have insisted on a prenup.


Earlier in the day I went to the new grocery store in my hometown (which is just lovely by the way and I would shop there every week if I lived there) and I purchased some Little Swimmers for the Infant (I know, the very fact that I even considered taking the Infant to the waterpark shows that I clearly was not of sound mind). I purchased the Little Swimmers the same way I purchase regular diapers: I look for the for the size I need, I grab them from the shelf and throw them in the cart. I do not look to see if there are any Disney or Sesame Street characters on said diapers that would blatantly tell strangers that the Infant is definitely a male or female if they happened to see him stripped down to the diaper. Diapers are largely gender neutral which is why I wasn't worried when I pulled the package off the shelf. When I got home and removed said swim pants (that word totally cracks me up) from the package, I realized the ones I selected were indeed heavily genderized. And by heavily, I mean they were hot pink with Ariel from the Little Mermaid on the front and back of the swim pants. Nice. Please see the image on the bottom of the picture below. That's what I'm talking about.

So, we go to the waterpark with the Infant dressed in girly swim pants and my heart rate picks up the moment we step in the front door. My eyes burn from the overuse of chlorine and I'm doing my best to avoid making any contact with the floor or anything at all. This was made quite difficult given that bare feet are required at the water park and the nieces were already pulling me toward the slides. So, I did it: I went in the water. The water was too cold for the Infant so I had to venture into the hot tub, which really was more of a lukewarm tub of grossness rather than a true hot tub. This seriously goes against everything I believe in. I feel like everything I stood for was just swept away with the murky waters of the Avalanche slide.

Two days later and I'm still reeling. Ugh.

The haircut

I love getting my hair cut. I love the way it smells afterward and no matter how much of the product I purchase, it never smells the same. I also love that my stylist takes way more time styling my hair than I usually do which makes it sleek and shiny and exactly the way I wish I could make it look everyday with minimal effort. But, by far, my favorite part about going to my stylist is the sheer entertainment she (she is super hip and fun) and her clients provide.

For example, at an appointment several months ago, I witnessed the following conversation between a client and two of the stylists:

Client: I'm excited that my boyfriend and I are going to San Antonio next year for the world AA Convention [Alcoholics Anonymous].
Stylist #2: Are you pregnant? [total non-sequitur]
Stylist #1: No, AA! Her boyfriend speaks to AA groups.
Stylist #2: Oh, does he have a story?
Client: He speaks to groups around here.
Stylist #2: Yeah, but he is speaking from experience?
Client: He's a speaker.
Stylist #2: Did he kill someone?
Client: No! What?
Stylist #2: That's usually what makes AA people tell their story to large groups, if they kill someone while drinking and driving.
Client: No, I think the longest that he's spent in jail was like 18 hours.
Stylist #1: What!? For what?
Client: Once for drunk driving and a couple of times for possession.
Stylist #1: A couple of times!?!?!? Oh my gosh.
Client: He's two years sober.

I really can't describe to you how difficult it was for me to control my facial expressions to keep the "someone call for help" look off of my face.

I had an appointment yesterday and it did not disappoint. I learned something new about the world of waxing: nose waxing. Under the impression we were talking about the exterior of the nose I asked if there were really that many people out there with excess hair on their noses. My stylist quickly informed me that she was talking about the interior of the nose. My heart almost stopped. Apparently, hard wax on a stick is used. It sounded incredibly painful and when I asked if her clients asked for that service she said that several of her male clients did. She said that, Fred, a particularly furry client of hers, had it done and, bless him, needs to have it done again but she's afraid to bring it up to him because the last time he was silent for five minutes afterward and she thought he was trying not to cry. I told her she might want leave that one alone.

Getting my hair cut has never been so much fun and I LOVE it!

The smell of Christmas

Despite listening to Christmas music for the past month, I needed more to really get me into the holiday spirit. I had visions of how I could decorate our home with sprigs of holly, boughs of greens and a boxwood wreath to adorn the front door. It was the perfect Martha Stewart home in my mind and I had already decorated the trees on our front stoop with some minimal, yet tasteful, white lights, dusted off the Christmas dish towels and hung the Santa with bells on the back of the door, but I needed to make a trip to the local nursery to bring it all together.

On Saturday, I went to my favorite nursery where the people are friendly and are incredibly patient when I'm looking for something yay high but not this, this or that. While they didn't have the boxwood wreath I'd been dreaming about, they did have a wide assortment of fresh cut greens and the whole greenery section smelled just wonderful. So, I selected my greens and wreath and made my way inside to pay for them. I was standing in line behind a woman with a basket of ornaments and a gold plastic mini-Christmas tree. She eyed my greenery selection and asked me if I would be using the greens to spruce up my wreath. I told her that I would be using the cut greens to adorn my mantle. She pointed to the Juniper branches in my hands and said, "Oh, watch out for the smell of those." Puzzled, I asked her what she meant and she said, "They smell terrible." The look of confusion on my face caused her to add a "to me they smell terrible" at the end. I told her I thought they smelled like Christmas and I wanted my house to smell of Christmas. As if me standing in line with the branches in my hand was not a clear indication that I was indeed happy with their fragrance, she continued with her campaign of dissuasion and said: "Well, I think they smell like cat urine." And there it was. I was momentarily struck speechless but soon recovered with a lame "oh, well..." response. Then I started questioning myself: was I really about to make our home smell of cat urine? That certainly isn't a very Christmasy scent. I surmised that I was not going to take advice from a plastic-gold-Christmas-tree-buying-too-much-information-supplying woman and I proceeded to checkout.

I told the tale to Benny K and he has not failed in questioning whether the greens smell wonderful or the other alternative several times a day. My mantle looks lovely with the greenery and some faux berry vine I picked up earlier in the week and I have not once regretted my purchase. If I could only find our Christmas stockings, my vision would be complete.

Finally, greetings to Bethesda, Maryland's newest resident, James Paul. I can't wait to meet your small acquaintance!

Cutbacks

Given the state of the economy and the national fervor to cut back, I, too, decided it time was for cutbacks. Not across the board, but I decided to target our diaper expenditures. I'm a Pampers loyalist but a friend of a friend espoused the quality of the Target brand diaper and I thought that going the cheaper route would allow me to increase my purchasing power in other areas like shoes. I figured that with all of the savings, I'd be able to purchase the Vivienne Westwood Anglomania Ultragirl flats that I've been eyeing for months. I confidently laid out my plan to Benny K and he explained to me that my math was slightly off. Dang you Algebra II! Apparently, my big savings might only net me a couple of meals at Taco Bell, not the darling shoes I've been yearning for. Sigh.

Even with my shoe plan derailed, I purchased a trial pack of Target brand diapers just to see if the switch was even worth it. It isn't. They are not soft and they smell all chemical-ly. I know, I know, all diapers contain serious chemical compounds, I mean, how else would they be able to do their job? And I do love chemicals (I even have the t-shirt to prove it). But at least Pampers does a nice job of disguising the chemical smell under an artificial smell of baby powder. Ahhh, the marvels of modern science. Oh, and the very day I introduced the new diapers, the Little Nugget started waking up in the middle of the night and refused to go back to sleep in a timely fashion. I blame Target.

Do not worry Ultragirl flats of my dreams: I will find you and make you my very own. And that is a promise.