Life in Podunk

As many of you know, I have been really ill for the past 3 weeks. Those of you who where lucky enough to be here the weekend before Halloween got to see me coughing and gagging in person. I went on my annual trip to ER right after that and a week later was still not better so I broke down and went to my doctor. He thinks I probably have Whooping Cough - WHAT?!?

Yes true to the Shearer/McGorvin names I bear - I have once again got something unusual. My doctor did one of those very sophisticated tests where he stuffed a two ft swabby stick up my nose and touched my throat. Supposedly that's the Whooping Cough test and we now wait for the cultures. ( stupid me I figured with modern science he could maybe just do blood work ) The funny thing is that the doctor informed me if the tests come back positive- the government will be contacting me. I'm not sure why but Donald now swears he will wake up to long plastic tube like hallways in his home. Here's the kicker though - I still need the treatment (which thankfully is just a week of antibiotics) because 50% of the cases that are positive test negative. Gotta love modern medicine. If anyone knows of a good witch doctor -please let me know - something tells me with native american medicine I wouldn't have to use this stupid nebulizer I get to have now- although kind of think of it , it does resemble a peace pipe.

In other wonderful news, my company is having some economical difficulties so I am now a part time employee- at least for now. While the reduction in pay sucks, at least I can focus on the holidays a bit more and make all those homemade gifts that once screamed CHEAP but are now acceptable due to the economy.

That's the general update - now the Podunk daily - as you might have been able to tell we live in a slightly rural type community. I have found this to be evident lately on a few occasions. 1. I went to order Pizza for delivery and was told "We don't deliver on Friday nights" - did I miss something? Perhaps all the local teens that normally work go down to the holler on Friday nights or maybe there's some kind of redneck Pizza rule I don't know about - all I know is if you get hungry for pizza on Friday nights - prepare to drive.
2. We attended a bonfire last weekend in my neighbor's yard ( yes next door - bonfire) where we roasted hot dogs on sticks and she handed down her sage advice to me once again about country living "if a snake gets stuck in a mouse trap -use peanut butter".... okaaaaay...........I didn't ask - I really couldn't bring myself to . I didn't want to appear stupid but all night I kept thinking - Do you lube the snake with peanut butter to get it out? Do I use it as a lure and if so should I offer it jelly too ? These are questions I hope I never have answered
3.
My latest clue to the fact that I live among rednecks happened today . We are having some washer issues that involve septic and things I'd rather not know about ( I just want the thang thing done fixed) Because of those issues , my husband came home and we had to haul our laundry - all 500lbs of it - to the laundromat. I obviously was not ahppy about having to do this but then I saw the sign that made it all worth it -There displayed prominently was a pretty printed sign on the wall that read: PLEASE DO NOT WASH HORSE BLANKETS ( complete with a picture of a horse with the circle slash mark across it) Talk about overloading a washer. Yes folks we live in the country.

Finally we need to discuss the election. We who live in the sticks are not ignorant to what is happening in the world and even our children have been involved in all the election talks. Hailey in her infinite wisdom of 5 explained it all to Donald the other night - "Daddy - did you know that Rock Obama won the election? It's not fair I wanted the Pajama King ( say it fast people ) to win! Hailey, apparently you are not alone

Not in Edison Anymore

Okay I know I just posted a few days ago but once again I have been reminded that no TOTO we don't live in Edison anymore. My first reminder came over the weekend as I was visiting my neighbor's garage sale. My neighbor was talking about how around this time of year she keeps a carpet knife handy because .. now get this.. lots of deer get hit on our road and you never know when one of them might be pregnant. Apparently I missed how to birth a baby deer out of a dead pregnant mother in the Tabernacle handbook. The previous owners certainly left me recycle cans but not a carpet knife -- who knew.


My second reminder came today as my mother and I watched my dogs play together chasing - what thought was a ball. Odd I thought, they normally ignore each other. Finally I heard the ball squeak and my mother shriek and I knew the "ball" was furry. Above my mother's OOOOOHHHHs , I got to go see what I assumed would be a dead mouse that Diesel killed in our not finished laundry room. This mouse was certainly mouse size but was 1. not dead and 2. had a furry tail. Now I dont claim to be a wildlife expert but I was pretty sure mice don't have furry tails. Finally amid my mother's carrying on, I found gloves , got a plastic bag and transported our little mystery furry friend to the rear of the property where I let him go he looked startled at me for a moment and then scampered up a tree.
I assumed that since he scampered so quickly up a tree he was a baby squirrel but upon calling my wildlife expert friend Robin, was told promptly what I was describing was a flying squirrel. I went on line and looked it up and YUP apparently I had gotten to hold a flying squirrel. Gotta love the Pine barrens

If anyone has any books on barnyard, wildlife, animal identification please let me know. Also any animal vet books would be helpful. Something tells me they will come in mighty handy down here.

Haileys Birthday

Hailey's birthday is today. I realized this last night ... at about 6pm. I know I know - bad mommy. She's having a party Saturday, I have bronchitis and we have a bazillion things going on so somehow I didnt realize the date - that was until last night.

After dinner last night Donald started the kids carving the pumpkins we have had sitting for two weeks ( did I mention we've been a tad busy?). Me , realizing it was my daughter's birthday and knowing if I didn't send in cupcakes she'd be in a therpay session bitching about me 20 years from now, decided to whip them up. ( yes mom I STILL have not gotten over the cupcake trauma)

So here I am coughing and gagging and trying very hard not to infect the star shaped cupcakes ( hopefully the antibiotics and baking will keep them safe) and trying to balance yells of "Mom! Come scoop out your pumkpin!" from the back porch. Somehow in all the chaos , I got eggs on my hands and wiped my eye. well as you know I am allergic to eggs. So now my eye swells up and I look like I'm practicing for Halloween early. Now I have to take Benydryl . I also have to take a double dose of antibiotics because I missed a dose, Mucinex for my cough and a very small dose of Ambien to make me sleep. I realize I have now taken enough medication to subdue a horse.

Finally after all the kiddies are gone to bed and my eye starts unswelling I come down to go on the computer. I have to look for a gift for my 5 year old that wants a quad and a kitten ( I'm allergic to cats and not ready for quads yet ). I never did find anything. I got a report from my friend, hero and Executive of party planning, Marybeth, who thank god loves me and is helping with the party this weekend as to what she went out and purchased ( we love her !) and what I needed to get and then I collapsed into bed.

This morning after the kids went to school I realized a dead mom isn't really such a great mom so I finally decided to rest. I slept 4 hours straight. I guess I needed some rest.

Anyway I feel better about Hailey's birthday because I got her cupcakes done and took munchkins in to daycare for snack. ( my kids have to go to 2 schools ) Donald and I put a card in her lunchbag to wish her a happy birthday and surprise her. Lord knows we try...

I like to try and make my kids favorite meals on their birthdays and I have to say I'm happy about tonight's dinner. Hailey is very simple , which when you're a Mommy not feeling well you appreciate. We're having hot dogs and mac and cheese - Thank you Kraft.

emailed blog

Please excuse my blog as it moves from one blog site to another. I'm experiencing technical blogging difficulties so for this update I'll have to do this the old fashioned way through email.

Life down here is moving swiftly as usual. Donald is back to work and we've discovered that his working is causing us to go bankrupt due to the high cost of fuel. George Bush says not to panic though, so I'm trying to stay calm about it.

We took the kids pumpkin and apple picking yesterday. Once we explained that we picked the apples on the trees and not on the ground , things went well. Tyler tried to find the biggest pumpkin he could get and Justin , who loves our new house, just kept saying OK we- go home now?. After buying enough apples and pumpkins to start our own farm, we continued on to Seasonal World in Jackson to check out the cool Halloween decorations. Jacob is getting much better about costumes and such and only occasionally now does he glue himself to his father when he sees moving decorations in the Halloween store. ( he's good now until the smoke machine starts - after that all bets are off) . We purchased our decorations and since we were in Jackson , Donald thought it might be a good idea to go through the Safari at Great Adventure.

It was during the safari that I realized my children's future lie in proctology. They spent the better part of the next two hours, pointing out that the elephants, zebra's,emu's , kangaroos. etc had butts. This was pointed out to us in detail in the baboon area, as the have RED butts. They also proceeded to show us all the animal POOP. We saw elephant poop, and emu poop and rhinoceros poop plus countless other kinds of wildlife poop. The children were so enthralled by the poop that Donald has decided our next field trip should be to the sewage plant. It takes so little to amuse kids. We were also visited by a friendly giraffe who clicked his teeth on my window and licked our sunroof on the truck. You can imagine the volume in the truck when that went down. I don't think I'll hear out my left ear for a while now.

After we left the safari, we decided it was too late to come home and cook so we decided to find somewhere to eat. Thanks to the wonders of GPS systems we were led to a place that doesn't exist. Finally we ended up in Whiting at a local little diner. If anyone is familiar with Whiting , they know the town's youngest resident went to school with Teddy Roosevelt. I wish I would have had a camera when we walked in with 4 small children. It brought me right back to "Easter Bunny is Coming to Town"and Somberville- where kids are outlawed. You would have thought we walked in with a four headed polka dotted dog. After the shock wore off though they were very nice and gave the kids crayons and books and dinner went on uneventful.

All in all we had a great day yesterday. The kids were good and we had no tears ( it's a record I think ).

Today we decorated the house for Halloween while Justin chased the guinea hen and Henrietta around because he realized they were allowed to roam free. Don't ask me what he would do if he caught one of them, but you know Justin - he likes to cause a commotion. I walked out to see hens going by rather quickly , followed by a little blonde boy , followed by a man yelling "JUSTIN!". Shortly thereafter Justin took a nap.

This evening we went to look at the Halloween decorations in the dark as we do every year. The only difference is we had to take the golf cart out front to ride up and down to look at them. I had to laugh because in Mount Holly we would have been halfway across the yard to get to the golf cart. It's a little different out here but that's why we love it. Things are definitely different here. It's not all sugar and roses ( just mention electricity to Donald this evening and you'll see what I mean ) but we are definitely happy. This morning I heard Tyler giggle as he played with his brother in the driveway and I realized that his giggling without a care in the world was the greatest sound in the world.
Yes the schools are a little funky ( no candy allowed even for Halloween plus we have SPA - supervised physical activity time instead of recess),and nothing is convenient but I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

The Party's Over

Have you ever seen a grown woman break down into tears into seconds? You should have been here Friday when my husband announced he was going back to work. Tears of joy I suppose your thinking as most people would be thrilled to see their mate making a living - just remember, I am definitely not most people. I'm falling apart.

For one thing I HATE MORNINGS. Donald , bless his soul, has been taking the morning duty off of my shoulders. I haven't had to deal with the blinding sunlight, the kids fighting or the friendly banter to the bus drivers,as my kids get off to school (I don't do friendly banter until after 10 some days not until after 12). Plus I actually have to leave the house to get Justin to daycare which means more friendly banter with his teachers ( Yuck )

Another reason I'm distressed is my laundry room. You remember the one I posted about many months ago that was under construction? Guess what . Still is and now with him off to work during the week, still will be for oh  about a century or  so...

Finally though  I think my distress comes simply because  I'll just miss him. I was getting used to him disappearing for 3 hours a day to go to Lowe's. ( if you have Lowe's stock - sell it now because it's about to  plummet without Donald there everyday ). We had a daily game going.  He'd take Justin to school- not come home and I got to guess where he was. The choices were Lowes or Home Depot - 90 % of the time Lowes so it wasn't really a complicated game but it was fun. I was sort of like playing a combination of 20 questions and Where's Waldo but with Nextel's.

 " Are you in a store? "

" Yes" "

"Is it in NJ "

" Yes"

" Is it costing me tons of money?"

" yes"........ etc etc

I guess I'll have to adjust to this somehow. On the plus side ,we'll be getting more money (plus saving a  ton from the daily Lowes trips.) Also on the plus side is that he is leaving me home alone. Home  alone with a house full of wallpaper that is ready to fall off and multiple projects that I have been prohibited from doing. ( the man moves like a cat - I peel one strip of wallpaper and he's behind me "what do you think you are doing") Now the house will be left unprotected.

Anyway I'm still a little upset about him going back. Not quite as upset as my kids though. Ask any one of them and they  will recite - Mommy does not like mornings. At least they know. Oh well this coming week should be fun. If you hear loud sobbing , don't worry - it's only me.

Potpourri

Kids are back to school so life has been busy. We are getting into the swing of things but it's still hectic. Our calendar is so full , we need extensions. By the way if anyone knows how to extend the day by another 2- 4 hours, please let me know- we can use the time.

On Mondays we have school and then Jacob has speech afterwards. On Tuesdays after dinner the three youngest have gymnastics and Tyler does Karate at the same time ( obviously Donald and I get to split up that evening ) Wednesday is show and tell day for Jacob and Hailey - each have different themes of course and this week we had the added bonus of having Red  White and Blue day  because of course I have all kinds of red white and blue clothes lying around for the fall.  ( I so love schools ) Wednesday is also Tyler's library day and Jacob has speech after school. Thursday normally so far is open besides the normal homework,make lunches for 4 kids that all want different items  night  and pick out clothes for prissy kids things that we do every night. This week however I get the added bonus of having to send  Jacob with a shirt that has a pattern to it. I picked out a shirt with alternating skulls on it. I figured after the recent hand grenade scare last week , they'd appreciate it..or not.

You see last Friday one of our lovely township kids brought in a hand grenade for show and tell. The school was less than thrilled as were the State Police who got called in. Turns out it wasn't a REAL ( Gee Mom - what's the big deal?) hand grenade - just a replica. I'm sure the Principal who had to move a whole school of kids to another area in 5 minutes was thrilled with that parent for helping picking a very interesting show and tell item. After all they do tell us to send something interesting in that the child can talk about. I have to admit a hand grenade is interesting ( although it wouldn't have been my choice).

In addition to school and extra curricular activities for kids, I have my full time job, I'm working real estate part time (www.kellyashearer.com ) and coming later  in the fall will be launching a new line of sleepwear along with my very talented graphic artist partner  Marybeth.  The sleepwear, incidentally,  was inspired by a now infamous unflattering e-mail from my boss (who has since graciously apologized). There is nothing like the power of anger to enflame an idea. Stay tuned for the website and online store in time for Christmas ordering

I've also volunteered as class Momma for Tyler and  for the PTA ( I want to ensure I keep busy ) . Speaking of which - the Tabernacle PTA is hawking STUFF.  The great thing about it is I can annoy all my loyal blog readers because you can now support the PTA online by buying the stuff! 

Simply visit http://www.cherrydale.com/shop/ and when you check out  choose Tabernacle Elementary School !

 This coming weekend, Donald and I will  have been married to each other for 6 years and to celebrate that HUGE achievement ( trust me,we annoy each other equally - thank god we love each other or we couldn't have made it ) we are going away WITHOUT the children. This is thanks to generosity of my sister in law Heather who will be taking two kids , caring for our house and pets and  to my parents who will be taking the other two.

It's not that we don't love our children - we love them immensely , but when I was cleaning our closet this past weekend and found 15 DAD shirts in Donald's wardrobe, I knew we were going through a slight identity crisis.  So as of Friday we are off to the mountains of CT sans kids  where will  celebrate 6 years of wedded bliss - oh and enough  emotional roller coaster rides to fill 3 theme parks.

Hasta La Vista - until next time!

Living with a Superhero

I have often wondered how Robin felt being second fiddle to Batman.  It couldn't have been easy for him to be standing gallantly - waiting in his crime fighter attire to snap into action - only to have everyone say the same thing to him "Where's Batman ". The pain the boy must have felt at not being recognized as a super hero - it is a pain ony he and mothers can understand.  It's like when a child bounces in carrying a broken toy car- The mother reaches for it  in an attempt to help possibly fix it only to be shot an annoyed look by  a young child " Where's Dad?"

I live with Super Dad and his fan club and while usually its okay- after his 4th or 5th heroic deed in a day  that has fans chanting " GO SUPER DAD GO " - I just want to wrap his cape around his neck. You see like Robin , I am SuperDad's little Superhero helper.  I could never live up to his reputation or do the wonderous things he does but occasionally I am needed.

This morning I decided to help assemble a complicated toy for my kids  They were happy and offered support . I was struggling along and eventually would have gotten it together. Granted they might have been too old to play with it , but I would have eventually prevailed. Then "HE" appeared in the doorway and my collective group of kids turned on me. " SUPER DAD is here!!!!! Heee can fix it. So he swooped down and in seconds had put together the toy  " YEAH SUPER DAD"

Later that day I was trying to figure out how to do a craft project Jacob needed for school. He had to cover a shoe box with paper and decorate it. I was still planning when I heard spraying and laughing. I went to find the HERO had   gone into his secret compartment of  superhero tools and pulled out spray glue that I didnt even know we had. Quicker than a speeding bullet he assembled Jacobs box. -

Usually while he does his superhero feats  I sit in my obligitory spot  to do my super hero job.You see while I dont save art projects , assemble toys , put together bunk beds, lift heavy objects or do wonderous breakfasts with egg- I hold the information the children seek. I usually know where Dad is. So  as Super Dad's second in command it's my super duty to point the young needy ones in his direction "Where's Dad" " In the garage" " Mom Where did Daddy? g....- " Upstairs"  " Have you seen D.....? - "Down in the basement "  Most times I cut them off before they finish. I don't even bother to ask who they are looking for. Usually their needy face tells me they need a hero and by the look I get - I know that hero is not me.

 I guess sometimes it's a little disappointing not to be the one with the glory and Superdad keeps telling me I'm jealous.  But really, why would I be jealous? While he may get to wear the cape and get the glory - what the kids dont realize is that SUPER MOM tells him which cape to wear!