Annie Valentine

So last night I’m sitting on the couch watching a DVR’d episode of Chopped, when the phone rings.

“Did you see it?” It was my mother. “He’s dead! Turn on the news!”

“Who’s dead?” I asked.

“Osama Bin Laden! They got him!”

I of course quickly changed the channel and was greeted with a big fat sigh of long overdue justice.

Jason is in Florida for ten days doing this (check it out if you want to have a heart attack, it’s five minutes long, you might have to adjust your screen, and holy crap, who am I married to?) in preparation for a possible terrorist attack on his personal person. I knew he’d gone to bed early, but I had to call him.

My husband has spent a good part of his professional career (past and present) working in counter terrorism, specifically targeting Al Quaida. There was no way I was letting him sleep through this kind of news (plus I like to think that I know everything before he does because I am an intuitive woman who watches television).

I dialed. It rang and rang and rang and then…

“I know…” he said half asleep, then abruptly hung up on me.

What the…what does he know? Cause there’s no way he could know this, the world just found out. So I called him again.

“I know,” he said again.

“What do you know? And hey, turn on your television! Osama Bin Laden is dead! They got him!”

“Yeah, I know,” he said. “Can I please go back to sleep now?”

Talk about lame. He could have at least hinted that I should watch television this evening (I let him have it about that today–letting your wife miss history is negligence). Then again, it’s probably good that he didn’t tell me because I would have told you, and then OBL’s wife would have told him (since she probably reads blogs).

There have been many many comments about Osama’s death, some of them asking, “What’s the point?”

The point is, a terrible terrible man has been brought to justice, and justice was due.

My husband has given years of time and effort helping in the fight to ferret out that monstrous rat, that evil evil spawn of the devil. If we had any idea how many hours and missions and averted disasters our counter terrorism forces have accumulated we would be awe struck. Our People have been ruffling through this hay stack for ten years, and by golly we finally found our needle.

God bless America; land of the people who just don’t quit.

The wedding. We waited, we watched, and we all set our DVR’s for 2:00 am (or in the case of my father, fell asleep on the couch and claims to have “watched the whole thing”).

I have to say that although the world is yelling about the majesty of Kate’s simple dress, I was kind of…underwhelmed. In fairness, no one could have topped Diana’s debut, that princess brought the wedding world to a halt with those magical sleeves. But even so, if Kate’s veil had just been uber long to match her train, I might have been a little more satisfied.

(Then again, it’s her wedding so I should probably shut up now. She looked beautiful, the boy loves her, and I’m now renewing my Stop Judging Other People’s Wedding Choices resolution.)

On a more unsettling note, having just watched (fast forwarded through) six hours of some serious red carpet British hat drama (did you see that pink thing sitting behind The Queen?), is it just me, or were the Americans left off the guest list? I didn’t see a Kennedy, a Clinton, a Bush, or an Obama. Where were we? Are they still mad about the tea? Cause I think we’ve made up for that little misunderstanding by now.

Heck, we had three really tacky knock-off weddings going on almost simultaneously in Time Square, just to celebrate their royalness. You’d think they would have found a way to include someone from our side of the lake, just to be friendly. Didn’t William go to summer camp with Chelsea or something? What about Mike Meyers? Isn’t he kind of British sometimes?

And you know it’s bad when the King of Tonga is invited, but all the Americans are huddled down in Florida with their Snuggies watching the wedding on the big screen.

I remember when I was in fourth grade, I didn’t get invited to a friend’s birthday party. Let me tell you, that totally sucked and I think I responded by ignoring her at recess for four days. Suffice it to say, the royal newlyweds probably won’t be getting any more DVD’s from our White House Representatives any time soon. Yeah, say goodbye to Vampire Diaries, Season One baby. We’ll be keeping our high class entertainment all for ourselves.

(BTW, do they have Netflix in Germany?)

Here’s this week’s column. I am a shopping nightmare.

“I am spending money faster than a trailer park millionaire.

America is awesome. Living in the USA we completely take for granted beautiful inventions like dollar stores, Walmart, Target–many of which come super-sized to better serve the busy soccer moms among us. America is the home of big cars and big roads, we’re all about overstuffed comfort.

And how many countries are there in the world that offer thousands of mini marts selling 54 ounces of Diet Coke, straight from the tap, for mere pennies? No wonder Easter candy is everywhere, the bunny wants to live here too.

But in just about three months, fingertip shopping is going to be a completely different thing for me. My family and I are moving to Germany, and most of me can’t wait.

It will be the adventure of a lifetime; me and my not-so-subtle children traipsing across Europe, butchering the language and ruining ruins. This is going to be awesome.

However, having lived overseas for a few short periods of time in past years, my shopping bone is freaking out. I know from experience that things across the pond are simply more expensive.

My shopping motto is simple:  if it doesn’t come cheap, it doesn’t come home. I have mental caps for everything I buy, especially clothing.

My boys wear through jeans faster than a shoplifter in a fire drill, but I’m not about to spend more than $9 a pair to replace them. The bigger the size, the harder they are to come by, and I’m happy to hunt if it means saving a greenback or two.

But living in a foreign country, my money eye gets all wonky. Foreign money doesn’t seem real. I can spend euros like monopoly money, breaking bills right and left. Without Benjamin and Hamilton and Jackson around to shake their frugal fingers at me and stick up their noses at my non-essential purchases, I’m like Paris Hilton on vacation.

My game plan for this move is simple: in order to get the best deals, I need to do some serious pre-purchasing before we change countries.

I’ve got bedding to buy, area rugs, dressers, possibly a couch–do not ask me where the extra dollars are going to come from because there’s no way our garage sale is going to bring in that kind of cash. It’s a game of priorities.

Then there’s the kids’ clothing (way cheaper here), makeup, my really special hair spray; the list is endless.

I realized our bank balance was officially at shopping threat level red this week after stopping by the dollar store. I went in to buy one thing. Just one. One little gift bag for one little birthday party.

Now, we all know the dollar store is the spider’s most ingenious shopping web. Things you pay $3 for can cost a mere 99 cents at the lovely dollar tree, but things that cost 14 cents can as well.

And the moment I stepped inside that plastic infused haven, I knew: you can’t get this kind of cheap goodness where I’m going. Even if they have euro stores, that’s nearly twice the price. Looking around, I desperately wondered how many things I could fit in my SUV (aisle 5?), and how to hide it all from my husband.

73 items later, I walked out to my car, satisfied with the knowledge that I now have enough gift bags, tissue paper, and birthday trappings to get my family safely through the apocalypse.

Village living, here I come.

I gotta tell you, 48 hours since the eggs have hatched and I’m so sick of broken plastic egg debris littering up my life I can hardly stand it. I cleaned out two grocery sacks full of leftover paraphernalia from my car alone today, and I haven’t even hit the house. I. Hate. Holiday. Crap.

Also, thanks to this past weekend, I’ve once again had to face the fact that I’m prone to Extreme Holiday Treat Consumption (EHTC, which sounds like retching if you try to say it out loud).

There are two schools of thought in the world of weight watching. First, there are those who eat relatively healthy on a day by day basis, then go on periodic holiday/brownie binges, and there are those who enjoy a more indulgent daily calorie count, but go on equally frequent diet binges.

I’m not sure which is actually healthier. Personally, I am a holiday binger.

And I knew I should have bought gross candy this year. If only I’d stuck to jelly beans and Pezz instead of chocolate peanut butter everything, perhaps I wouldn’t have spent my day guzzling water and shoveling down lettuce like a good repentant little bunny. But I couldn’t bear to let someone else enjoy all that lovely candy without getting in on the fat.

Then there were the seven pounds of yams I consumed yesterday (made with sweetened condensed milk, butter, sugar and a brown sugar crumble on top), the non-diet drinks, and the What the Heck, I’ve Already Ruined It bag of easter M&M’s.

The result? I went to bed with a full blown bellyache, suffered with heartburn all night long, and stepped on the scale this morning to see that all this “water retention” has added four (count ’em) pounds to my self-esteem.

This morning, I recommitted myself to feel good eating. I actually threw an entire Walmart bag filled with perfectly lovely leftover chocolate straight in the trash, have consumed more than 64 ounces of water, and fed my sugar craving with BBQ almonds this afternoon.

I’m back on the wagon. Who’s with me?

I consider myself a pretty hard-core Christian. We attend our Sunday meetings, read from the scriptures (almost) every day, have regular WWJD discussions, pray about all sorts of seemingly unimportant lost items–quite simply, we incorporate religion the way Elizabeth Taylor incorporated diamonds (the one thing that was apparently constant in her life; I just finished reading the Elizabeth Taylor People special edition, wowsa).

This week is Easter Sunday, and in our house, we celebrate the bunny on Saturday and the Savior on Sunday.

I have a hard time with people who like to villianize little furry creatures who deliver chocolate. There are so many ways we can handle paganistic commercialism, and in our household, we modify it to fit our needs.

For example, think of winter. It’s month after month of ugly brown deadness. And when you think you can’t take another day of it, it snows.

But then, every year just about this time, those carcasses we call trees come back from the grave and sprout all kinds of colorful popcorn on the planet. How brilliant! How beautiful! What a testament to Christ and the resurrection!

Per my mother’s teachings, I tell my children that the Easter Bunny is here to welcome springtime, and that springtime comes to remind us that Jesus Christ lives again. We talk about the winter and the dead grass, and the miracle we call spring. And then we talk about the atonement, the crucifixion, and the miracle of the empty tomb.

Tonight we dyed eggs and the kids left pictures for the bunny. Harrison wanted to write him a letter, this is what it said:

Dear Easter Bunny:

I hoop you have good wether to night. Thank you for helping spring get here. And thank you for coming when Jesise  Christ was resureected. 🙂

I’m thankful for a bunny who comes each year and reminds me to teach my children the true meaning of Easter.

The other day Jason was visiting with some co-workers about…actually I have no idea what he was visiting with them about, but the topic of marriage came up.

I don’t know about you, but I’d love to bug my husband’s belt buckle so I could hear what he says about me behind my back. Am I a great wife? A good cook? An awesome friend? Exactly what is it that keeps him coming around, other than the obvious (my superior laundry skills)?

Apparently, they were talking about marriage (our marriage) and what makes it so good. See, they don’t read my blog, and unlike me, Jason doesn’t run into the office and tell everyone about my most recent tissy fit, or why he’s decided it’s safer to sleep in his car for the week (kidding, he just uses the couch).

That’s when he told them. Our biggest and most impressive Staying Turned On secret is…date night.

One of his cronies was shocked.

“We go out every Friday,” Jason said.

“What? You mean, you guys go on a date every single week?”

“Yep.”

“Well…” here’s where he wasn’t sure how to respond, “Well we’re on a budget!”

Good old Dave Ramsey didn’t let me down here, no way. “Yeah,” Jason said, “We’re on a budget too. It’s called pay a twelve-year-old and split a meal at Cafe Rio. It doesn’t take a lot of money to have a date night with your wife.”

And there it is. As couples, we come up with a million reasons to avoid date night, the most important night of the week. The kids are too small, sitters are too expensive, the budget won’t let us.

I say, if you can’t afford a sitter, find a girlfriend who will trade sitting with you. When we lived in Maryland, no way could we afford dinners and child care, so we’d trade babysitting, eat at McDonald’s, and go walk around furniture stores, picking out impractical sectionals for our 17 square foot town home.

I can think of at least 22 other ways to keep your marriage strong, but I thought it was interesting that this is the one my husband put down first on his list. Sometimes, we neglect to stare them in the face and offer our undivided attention. They need date night.

Go, leave your children and hold hands in public. And if you’re kids are old enough to be self-sat, count yourself lucky and go out twice this week. You’ll be amazed at how quiet the globe is without all that less-than-white noise.

Isn’t it interesting how easy it is to accidentally offend people? Sure, there are offensive sins that are outright contrived, but so many of the things people do to us, or we in turn do to others, are done without malice or intent.

In short, we usually offend people simply because we’re thoughtless idiots.

The other day I was visiting with an old friend and found she was getting together with a mutual acquaintance for a night out. I’d run across the gathering because I was in the process of inviting people to one of my own, the hostess included.

“Oh,um…I’m going to Vicky’s that night, you know…it’s a girls’ thing…”

Awkward. Especially when it happened to me twice in a row for the same party. The first time I figured it was probably a small private affair, no biggie. But getting a double rejection from two of our shared friends? My heart plummeted.

In no time flat I felt sick with the 7th grade Outcast Flu. Had I done something wrong? Hurt her feelings? Was it the heels? Cause I can totally wear flats to fit in. (Okay, that’s a lie, but whatever.)

Then the first twinges of “she hurt my feelings” started to set in. That’s when I called Jason. I gave him the rundown and sat on the other end of the phone, stuffing my face with Hershey Kisses and licking my chocolate covered wounds.

“Honey,” he said gently, “Don’t do this. Don’t let yourself get offended for something we’ve all accidentally done. Are you telling me you’ve never forgotten to invite someone to a play date or a girls’ night? I’m pretty sure you’ve offended plenty of people, just in the 12 years I’ve known you. Have a little charity, forgive it, and get on with your day.”

And that was that.

The strange thing is, four sentences from my husband was as good for my soul as a visit to the chiropractor is for my back. Of course he was right, how did I forget that very simple answer? I get to choose how I’m going to feel here, and I don’t have to take offense.

Whatever her reasons for leaving me off the list were, they didn’t matter, even if her intentions were down right hurtful (something I seriously doubt). Jesus didn’t say, “Forgive the people who accidentally hurt your feelings,” He said to get over all of it, even the nasty and intentional rejections, or the slanderous comments.

Loving people isn’t as easy as saying it out loud, but saying it out loud sure does help. It isn’t hard to find a friend to commiserate with, someone who encourages our feelings of anger and frustration. Instead, the next time someone pricks your feelings, look for the person in your life who will pull you back onto the straight and narrow.

It’s a one way path, make sure you’re following the right trail guide.

FYI, if you or any woman you know ever decides to nurse a baby, here are a few important suggestions.

1. Once your baby has teeth, either a. stop nursing, or b. never fall asleep nursing. Apparently, two nights ago Georgia was having a chipmunk dream and OH MY GOSH my poor, poor little flower. It looks like someone took a lawn mower to it.

2. If your child does accidentally grind her new little daggers on your delicate self, do not, under any circumstances, try using liquid Band-Aid.

And now I’m going to stop talking.

Our house is for rent.

We weren’t actually ready to put it on the market, but a few days ago Jason asked on Cougar Board (aka A Great Big Blog for Boys) about property management companies. Someone emailed him about the house, he emailed back, and suddenly BAM! Our house is officially for rent and someone wants to see it.

Those of you with houses know that you can’t just put your house up for rent. Putting a home on the market in any way means inviting people to come and look through all your crap. Closets must be opened. Toilets and showers checked. Laundry has to be done.

Basically, we need to move out.

So yesterday at noon they told us they’d like to swing by at 7:00. Sure, that gives me seven hours, no problem, right?

Oh holy Spring Cleaning, I was zero (my favorite lunchtime speed) to sixty in .3 seconds.

And so, here is the list of things I did yesterday with the pressure of property peekers breathing down my neck. This is me, looking for household validation because I rocked it.

I….

Cleaned off the dining room table, the buffet, and all those books piled under the buffet. I moved the ugly folding chairs out to the garage and rearranged things in the dining room. I washed eight windows, plus the french doors (killer), dusted the piano, and cleaned off the fridge (I know, what do you do with all that crap?).

I gathered a massive pile of homeless photos and organized (stuffed) them in our photo boxes. I opened all the windows in the upstairs, washed the bedroom and bathroom blinds, the windows, sills, and the window runners (at this point I had to actually throw my rag in the trash because there was no coming back from that).

I folded and placed two loads of laundry (left two in the washer and dryer), organized my Good Will bin, soccer/baseball bin, and all the kid’s coats. I swept out the laundry, kitchen, and entry, then got down on my hands and knees and ruined my fingernails trying to pry “stuff” off the tiles under the bar. I washed down walls, toilets, showers and mirrors.

I removed personal photos, art work, my magnet board. I did everything but the floors.

There was sweat and toil and an entire bottle of windex emptied. I screamed at the kids (and the neighbor kids) and banned them from the house. My shirt was ruined by bleach spray, and I didn’t even care.

(Also, my poor little baby cried a lot because no one held her.)

And then at 6:15, Jason swept in and whisked the hungry kids off to some play place, leaving me with nothing but my lovely vacuum and good old Englebert Humperdink to keep me company.

When all was said and done, it took them seven minutes to walk through the house (I had to try really hard not to point out all the good cleaning I’d done). We’ll probably never hear from them again.

I’m posting pictures for posterity’s sake. “Remember that one time Mom got the house really clean?”

I wish they’d just rent it so I don’t ever have to do that again.

Check out this week’s column.

“Why is it that after an entire winter of being snowed in, the very suggestion of sunshine sends my kids running for the basement?

This past week we had a few glorious, allergen inducing days. The sun came out, the trees started to perk up, and all I could think about was all that sunny vitamin D just waiting to be had.

“Kids!” I sang, “Time to run outside and enjoy the sunshine. I’ve got sidewalk chalk, and bubbles–”

“NOO! We wanna watch a movie! It’s too cold out there! There are bears out there! You can’t give us food every seven minutes out there!”

And so the afternoon began. Much to their dismay and horror, I held the Red Box rental over their heads and sent them out the front door, kicking, crying, and squinting.

Let me tell you, outside is fun at my house. There are scooters and big wheels, a play set, rocks to climb, sticks to collect, bugs to squish–there isn’t a child on the planet who could complain about a day outside at this place.

Well, minus my three who think Mother Nature is in cahoots with the Boogie Man.

“That’s it,” I finally said, “You’re all banned from the house until the timer goes off!” I gently dumped them on the patio and closed the door to their horrified wailing. (I also set up a picnic outside and gave them every opportunity imaginable to make the banning enjoyable.)

Twenty-five minutes later my five-year-old was still huddled on the step by the door trying to freeze and die from neglect, my daughter was crying because there weren’t strawberries in her picnic, and I knew that if I answered their banging one more time…go ahead and insert your imagination here.

“Fine!” I said, after nearly half an hour of murmuring and moaning. “You can watch your movie already!” I walked into the kitchen where I’d placed the much anticipated DVD’s, and they were gone. I searched the family room. Gone. I looked under the pillows, bar, inside the car, in the toy box–those movies had disappeared.

Oh, the wailing.

By this point the pre-springtime weather had mostly ruined my day. The baby was crying, the kids were crying, and nothing was right in the world (especially in Japan). I was so close to snapping, the only hope I had was a self-induced time-out; something where I could regroup and invent a new and improved method for parenting.

I did the only thing that promised a true moment of freedom; I grabbed the half eaten sleeve of Saltines, trudged out to the garage, and locked myself in the car. I turned the key halfway and there was Nora Jones, all soothing and mellow like. Leaning back and closing my eyes, I took a deep breath…and then car started to rock.

It was my three-year-old daughter, banging on the window for me to Let. Her. In.

As hard as I tried, I could not shake that kid from my brain (or my SUV). I turned up the music, shoved some crackers in my mouth, and still, she persisted. This went on for approximately 42 seconds.

Finally, with a sigh and another cracker, I made eye contact with the little intruder.

“Mommy! I want to snuggle you!!”

How can a mother resist that? I caved, opened the door and in she tromped. She closed it behind her, locked it, and plopped down on the console next to me. Reaching for a cracker, she cranked the volume on the radio, put her head on my shoulder, and whispered, “I love you, Mommy.”

Sometimes we think we know what will make us happy. I was sure that all I needed was an escape from the chaos, a moment to find a little clarity and peace. But getting away, all I really had was a whole lot of emptiness. That car didn’t do a thing for my day until my child entered it.

I guess sometimes Mommy doesn’t really know what’s best. Good thing I’ve got a three-year-old to keep me in line.”