I am a little behind schedule tonight, I waited until the last minute to prepare for a class party tomorrow at my son's school. I thought I had it under control, well here I am still at 10:42pm downloading songs to a cd. So today has been pretty good. A few of you asked whether I finished the dishwasher last night or not. Well yes I did, but here is the interesting part, if you also recall I was waiting for my husband to arrive home from work, I think he made it home around 11pm, I was fast asleep. But that is not the point, the point is that even though I emptied the dishwasher I woke up to dirty dishes in the sink. This would not normally bother me but my husband and I have this ongoing competition, he thinks he is the world's best at organizing items in the dishwasher and funny enough he is pretty good at it. Mainly because I do not want to spend an hour stacking everything so perfectly straight that it looks like a magazine cover. I could have washed the things by hand by that point in time. Dishwashers should be designed for speed, why do they assume that you are only going to put plates in nice neat rows in there, such a silly design. So anyway, why would he leave dishes in the sink for me to put up if he is better at it than me? Oh well who cares, what am I talking about, it is late.

It is very late considering Nicholas woke me up at 5:20am this morning ready to get up and start his day. So last night I was thrilled that he went to bed at 7:20pm, maybe I should have thought about that a little longer.

Okay back to today:

The landscaping project has officially begun, all my spring annuals have been removed which was a little sad. They have cleared some dead trees to make way for my very own brand new 12 foot tall magnolia tree, I am so excited! Funny thing, this was a last minute addition but I just could not say no!

Do you remember yesterday how I was telling you that the name of my blog is very important. Well within two seconds of the email going out last night to share my blog, Richard called to tell me that the name was an issue. This was before he even had a chance to read the blog because the bank has blocked all blogs. (I also find this call ironic, because I am sure I tried to call him five times yesterday with no answer, but all of a sudden he had phone in hand???) So his issue is that he thinks I am going to offend my friends and neighbors by insinuating they are Stepford Wives. I assured him they do not care.

But since this may happen, I feel the need to tell all my neighbors and friends that you are all individualistic, beautiful and perfect in every way. Just in case you are still offended, I will actually define the term "Stepford Wife". According to www.urbandictionary.com, it has two definitions:
1) Used to describe a servile, compliant, submissive, spineless wife who happily does her husband's bidding and serves his every whim dutifully.
Richard can confirm to the fact that I have never served him anything and I can assure you not one of my friends or neighbors is spineless or submissive, so this definition does not work for us!

2.) Can also be used to describe a wife who is cookie-cutter & bland in appearance and behavior. Subscribes to a popular look and dares not deviate from that look.
This definition describes how I sometimes feel these days. It has nothing to do with the neighbors or my friends, the reality is I cannot seem to get it together to have a look anymore, not a good one anyway. I have learned the trick to a "Stepford wive" is when you do not have time to get ready, you simply put on gym clothes. This way if anyone sees you, then you simply say, "I just came back from a really intense workout." Of course all my neighbors know that I do not work out but I am sure they prefer gym clothes to the mismatched pajamas they see me push the trash can out to the street in every Tuesday morning.

Glad we are past that issue because the name is set and I am not changing it.

So good things that happened today:
1) Weather again today was awesome, so I had lunch on the deck
2) Cleaners came today

Cleaners are my one must have indulgence. I will work three jobs before I take on cleaning my house. This is not because I am "too good" to clean my house. This is because I suck at it! I can clean for hours and the results are absolutely terrible. So my thought on this is, I will work at what I am good at and I will pay others to do what they are good at. I love my cleaners, Robinson and Marta, I consider them to be my other mom and I honestly could not live without them.

Challenges today:
1) Work - but I am not in the mood to discuss how I spent all day trying to make something work and it didn't, hum...maybe I am not good at my job - something to think about :)

2) The biggest challenge of the day, the teacher asked "Did you see the sheet about the speech and hearing analysis test that will occur in a few weeks for the children?"
My response "Yes" and inside instant panic, "Oh my goodness, what is wrong with my child?".
Teacher: "Well I wanted to recommend that you have Nicholas's hearing tested. Sometimes when we are talking to him, he does not respond and acts like he does not hear us."

Okay then I had to laugh. I am not worried about Nicholas's hearing in the slightest, he can hear a noise from three miles away. I know this because everytime the air conditioner comes on, he says "did you hear that?". I also know this because every morning at 4:30am I wake up and have to use the restroom (really annoying, this is a carry over from pregnancy I guess) Well our room is downstairs and his room is upstairs. If I make one peep, one little peep, I will hear stirring and moving around in the baby monitor, a sigh and I hear him taking a sip from his water cup. Then I pray.....please, please go back to sleep.......

So what is the issue, well it is called selective listening. I always assumed my husband did this because he was trying to ignore me and was not interested in what I had to say. Now my son has proven that this is a personality trait and it is genetic. Nicholas learned at an early age, I want to say less than eight months, if he does not want to do what you are asking him to do, the trick is to act deaf. But I will have him tested none the less, can't hurt anything. Who knows maybe their is hope and it is a hearing thing versus a lifetime of the two most important men in my life tuning me out.

Well guess I better go for now, big task for tonight is to wash clothes, we are leaving for a trip to California on Thursday and of course we are not packed or prepared.

I will let you know how the party goes tomorrow but it is a surprise so I do not want to spoil it, on the very off chance someone from school reads this.

Richard if you read this, good luck tomorrow, we love you!