M: "I'm going to get a riding lawn mower."

Kate: "This piece-of-crap dresser makes me cry every day, because I can't open the drawers."

Later that same day, my man brings me home a new dresser, that I didn't pick out (and anyone who knows me knows I'm a tiny bit picky). The dresser is lovely. Beautiful hardwood, dovetail something-or-other, blahblahworkmanshipblahblah. NOW he can get his damn riding lawnmower.

Another striking difference between Coupeville and Shoreline:

The girls go to co-op preschool, which means I spend a few days per month working in the classroom. At the co-op in Shoreline, we weren't allowed to bring coffee to school, for fear of burning the children and lawsuits, and each working mom was designated to a specific work area. My job on Monday was the "float" mom.

"What are my duties as the float mom, Miss Tami?"

"Oh, the float mom takes the coffee orders and goes to the coffee shop for the other moms."

M: "I read your blog today."

Kate: "So how'd you like it?"

M: "It wasn't very funny. I was planning on taking down all those pictures and recentering them. You totally ruined the composition between the light fixture, the stairs, and the wall. Now there's probably too many holes in the wall already."

Update: Hunter's expander was found, in his own garbage. At home. Not my garbage, which I went through, searching for it. All 32 gallons of it. Mussel shells, food, barfed-on paper towels, and general garbagey garbage. You owe me, Hunter.

Well, our little party is over, and crazily enough, nothing too unusual happened. Hunter lost his astronomically-priced orthodontic gear, someone puked, someone enjoyed dressing in princess drag, 3 gnomes and a leprechaun were found, there are tiny legos in all the upstairs window-wells, a dish got broke (by me, of course), 15 pounds of mussels were consumed, H is very excited to see how much money he collected in his "Make a Wish" pond, all the shoes in my three youngest childrens' closets mysteriously are missing shoe laces, and we have about 2 1/2 cases of beer leftover (yay!). The house still looks hungover, and so does the yard, as we had a group of little elves hauling logs all over the place when it was time to build a fire in the firepit. Why don't children work like that when it's time to clean up their toy messes? Things are slowly getting put back into place as we hunt for the missing orthodontic mouth piece. Anyone seen a blue plastic mouth-shaped case?

This is how we reward Man's Best Friend. Last night, we were watching "Weeds" and there was a rat on screen, very unexpected and very close-up. I screamed (unnatural rodent phobia) and Seamus came tearing upstairs, ran over to me, saw that I was okay, inspected every inch of the room, and spent the rest of the night guarding me. I never even liked dogs before we got Seamus, but ya gotta love that. Whenever the kids go outside to play, I just send Seamus with them if I'm doing dishes and can only watch from the window. He always stays right near them.

Now, the scabby cat is the worst pet ever. She's allergic to everything and has gross scabs all over her skin. She does all sorts of gross stuff. She won't eat any of the expensive cat food from the vet, she only eats dog food. Even O has stopped petting her, because she's just cranky and icky. M wants to tie bacon around her neck and build a little platform, tying her paws to it as a little sacrifice for the coyotes. She's spent a few nights outside but always makes it through the night. We figure she's like the moldy cheese at the buffet: even the coyotes turn up their noses...

O: "Mommy, I really, really, want a cowgirl shirt."

O has always loved horses and plays with her little Breyer horses and corral a lot. G examined the riders one day, but she didn't like their outfits, and that was about it for her. So, O and I go online and she found a pink shirt with horses all over it with pearly snaps that she fell in love with.

G: "I want one too!"

Me: "G, I don't think you'll wear this. Look carefully at it and think about what you would wear with it."

G: "I WANT ONE TOO!!!"

Me: "How about we look at the other shirts and you can pick one out that you love?"

G: "I want one just like O!"

The package arrived today. O put hers on and has been spending a lot of time in front of the mirror, admiring her new cowgirl self. Definitely money well spent. For her.

G took one look at hers, picked it up gingerly between her thumb and finger as if it had shit smeared all over it, said "Ugh" , and tossed it onto a pile of dirty shoes.

We went out to dinner last night to celebrate J's good sportsmanship in the spelling bee. No, this is not like a "Wall of Mediocrity" like in Meet the Fockers. Anyway, despite the service being terrible, the children were well-behaved and ate every bite of food in front of them (even G).

That's all. I just like to report on the unusual.

The Whidbey spelling bee was tonight. Poor J, who knew every single word, got eliminated when the announcer pronounced the word "praline" like "prah leen" and J thought she said "prowling", but the rules are clear. It is up to the speller to make sure he has the correct pronunciation and meaning of the word before they begin spelling. He was awesome about it, just shrugged it off and laughed it off. We were making praline jokes all the way home. I'm such a proud mama. It was pretty fun to watch the Spelling Bee. There was this one obnoxious kid and J and I were on pins and needles waiting for him to miss his word. When he did, he did not disappoint. He had a full-blown tantrum, started crying and stomping around, and slammed his nametag down on the table in front of the judges. J and I were delighted. The rest of the kids were very good sports, clapped and cheered for each other, and were generally very nice. And what is it with babysitters these days? I left a simple list, which included reading bedtime stories. Did anyone get read to? No. They watched How to Eat Fried Worms. I hear it's a neighborhood favorite. Frickin' praline.

It doesn't get much more small-town than this. We ordered How to Eat Fried Worms for the boys from Netflix, and it was supposed to arrive last Thursday. By today, it still hadn't come in the mail. Around noon, the doorbell rang. It was my neighbor with the movie. He said he'd had it over the weekend, checked it out and it wasn't too bad. I am not even kidding.

To be fair, he did climb 20 feet in the air to painstakingly paint the walls that I recklessly put nail holes in. With his bad knee and shoulder. Ten miles in the snow. I offered to do it, but he indelicately said I was too clumsy AND I didn't know how to cut in. Men are so funny. Don't they know if you fall a lot and mess up the job when there's manual labor to be done, they'll ban you from helping? Which just gave me an idea. Tonight I'm going to ask Mitch if I can use his Dewalt (no, you don't just call it a "drill" for crying out loud) so I can install the girls' coat hooks. That should put a fire under his ass to do it himself. God, I'm amazing. No wonder he married me.

So we're having a housewarming party this weekend, and we've been trying to get ready, but not too ready. Meaning, cleaning this house is like trying to shovel the sidewalk during a snowstorm. Fortunately, I have two boys who like to keep things neat, so their rooms are generally clean. If I could just figure out a way to neutralize that shaggy dog and two-ten-year-old boys sleepover smell in the corner bedroom...

I have a bunch of photos (even from before we moved to Shoreline, where they never even got unpacked) that I've been wanting to arrange and hang. My two choices: ask M, the handyman, to do it, or do it myself. M would be happy to do it, and he would go out to the garage, pore through six boxes looking for his laser level, find some old comic books, read them, stop for a snack from the food storage area, remember he wanted to set up his surround sound, and "Oh look, here's some extra speaker wire!" Then, he'd carefully put the photos into the new frames, making sure each one was centered on the mat with some damn tape that doesn't age or some crap like that. He'd get out his laser level, his measuring tape, and a pencil, measuring each individual frame so that it had the EXACT same space between the next frame. He'd hang a drywall screw, and a picture hanger, so no acts of God or child could make the frame fall. One frame I wanted to keep was broken, and for the last year he's been meaning to fix it, but it "required a trip to Home Depot and some vise grips". He would also make sure the frames were a solid hardwood, not some "piece-of-shit" pine.

Here is what I did. Went to Oak Harbor, bought 8 picture frames, all the same, in painted wood (most definitely pine, unless there is a cheaper soft wood). Squeezed some Elmers and nailed a small tack into the broken frame. Slapped the photos into the new frames, nailed some holes, some were a little off, re-nailed, and Voila! My pictures we up and hanging in the time my adoring husband would still be unravelling that extra speaker wire in the garage. I did it while he was at work, because he NEVER would have been able to endure watching me MOVE A NAIL over half an inch, even though the hole would be covered by the picture. The moment he reads this I bet he'll rush home and inspect the walls behind the pictures.

I have some coat hooks I bought two weeks ago that are still waiting for M's special hardware before they get hung. God knows a 3-year-old's coat is SO heavy it would probably pull the hardware THAT CAME WITH THE HOOKS right out of the wall.

VIVA LA HANDYWOMAN!

Mange Syphilis

Salmonella

e.coli

I've discovered this website: giantmicrobes.com. They sell these darling stuffed versions of horrible diseases. My favorites, from top to bottom: Mange, Syphilis, Salmonella, e.coli. Only $6.95!

G: "Mommy, my nail polish is ugly. Will you help me fix it?"

Me: "No."

M: "Then will you help me clean the garage?"

Me: "I can't, I have to help G fix her nails."

New Toy

She looks so innocent. The reality of this picture went down like this:

I heard a noise from upstairs when the girls were supposed to be napping. I went to investigate, and there was G in my bathroom, calmly painting her fingernails, as well as the tile on my tub.

"G!"

"I can't sleep mommy!" continues calmly painting nails (with my Christian Dior nailpolish, I might add).

"G! There is nail polish all over the place and you're supposed to be in bed!"

(sigh) "I told you. I can't sleep, and there's only a little spot on the bathtub and I'm sure it will come off with cleaner." finishes up her last little fingernail and holds them out to admire them, oblivious to the steam coming out of my ears.

"Okay, G, you are no longer allowed to take a nap in my bedroom and now you must go and sleep in H's bedroom." (They aren't allowed to nap in the same room--a story for another time).

"That's fine, mommy. I need to let my nails dry anyway."

Wolf Urine: Because you can't fool Mother Nature.

For those of you who have yet to get your Valentine a little sumpin' sumpin. Here's the thing. I really need to figure out how to keep the deer and bunnies from eating my herbs. I can't just grow them on my windowsill, because that would be one more thing to water, and I am already watering five people and two animals. So I'm thinking about this wolf urine. It doesn't tell in the description if I'm supposed to drink it or spray it on the theiving deer. Maybe I'm supposed to fill a bucket with it and rig it to the top of the garden fence, so when they creep past the gate, SPLASH! But then I think about Henry and how he'd trick the girls into going into the garden, and, well, you know the rest. By the way, I found this on Amazon!

Through the miracle of commercial advertising, the girls have decided they want Bratz dolls for their birthday (yes, I know it's months away, but they kind of plan things they want between Christmas and their birthday). I downloaded this picture off the internet for those of you that don't know what a Bratz doll is. G was moaning to me about it yesterday, and I kept saying, no, I won't allow dolls in the house that look like that. "Like what, mommy?"

"Like little tramps, G." Of course she doesn't know what a tramp is, let alone what one looks like, but I'd been painting all day and she really has a knack for bringing me to the edge sometimes.

(Loud sob) "BUT I WANT A DOLL THAT LOOKS LIKE A TRAMP!"

G is lately obsessed with patterned tights. She won't wear plain ones and we only have two pairs of patterned ones. I've been trying to locate some (at least that's what I tell her while I try to wait out this little trend), but size 5t tights "with pretty things on them" just don't fall out of trees in Coupeville.

So on Thursday, we were in the pharmacy waiting for G's ear antibiotics. She was miserable and sitting on my feet at the register. A woman of advanced age came in wearing shorts (!). Gwas fascinated by the age spots on her legs, then says, "Those are nice tights with things on them! Why don't you ask the lady if she got them in Coupeville, mommy?"

And may I have some narcotics with this antibiotic, sir?

When we first moved here, Jessica and I discussed all the possibilities that abound when living in a wilderness area. She had the great idea of hiding little statues around the property for the kids to find. Last week in Seattle I was at Ross looking for a variety of Ross-type stuff and I found an entire aisle devoted to garden statuary of the wonderful tacky variety. I got these two guys (yes, that gnome is riding a turtle). The kids have yet to discover their whereabouts, though...

You may be thinking, Basho the Sumo Wrestler table? Garden Gnomes? Giant antique whales? What's happened to the formerly citified Kate? Has she gone trailer park on us? Yes, I guess I have. But it was probably always in me. I draw the line at pink flamingoes, though. They're so 1985.

On Wednesdays, when all four children are in school, I've been meeting my husband for lunch. We ususally do a little shopping, too. This week, we went into an antique store and both spied this old whale. Since it cost considerably more than Basho the Sumo Wrestler Table, we decided to walk away.

HOWEVER, last night when I came downstairs from cleaning up dog pee off of the puzzle the boys and I had been tirelessly working on (run on sentence), there it was on the dining room table. Awwwww. He loves me. And I love this whale. Since our intention is to hang it in our 24 foot entry-way, though, we have no idea how a gimp and a disaster-prone klutz are going to get it up there.

Yesterday we were back at Whidbey General, our home away from home. G had a terrible ear infection, but is back to her constantly chattering self now. When we got there, the girls recognized it.

G: "Oh, this is Daddy's hospital. MYEAROHMYEARITHURTSMYEAR!!!!!!"

O: "I don't like this place."

G: "Daddy had holes in his face here."

O: "With blood falling out of him."

G: "MYEARMYEARMYEAR!!!!!"

Happily, M no longer has blood falling out of the holes in his face and he's really getting around now.

Island County Sherriff's Report:

1/31/07 At 1:35 pm, an Oak Harbor caller reported a giant llama running around in the pasture next to the roadway on the right side of Monkey Hill Road.

2/2/07 At 7:22 pm, a NW Second Avenue resident reported that his estranged wife hit him in the eye.

1/28/07 At 3:19 pm, a woman reported that her ex-boyfriend took a swing at her while he was shopping at Wal-Mart with his wife.

Henry gets ahold of the dollhouse and helps make it look much closer to reality. I added the lady of the house in the bottom of the picture. She's, um, cleaning the oven.

One would think Olivia would be the easy daughter to get dressed every day. Not so. It's worse every morning, which is why I dread going places because she'd be happy just to wear pj's all day. Right now she is screaming on her bed, "THIS IS THE WORST DAY EVER!" because the outfit that took 20 minutes for her to pick out isn't what she envisioned.

Grace's criteria for an outfit: fancy.

Olivia's criteria: 100% cotton, but also fancy (as every woman knows, this combination doesn't exist), the top has to match the bottom in every way, she won't wear a sweater of any kind, so short sleeves are out, tights can't be too big or too small, no layers. A dress is acceptable with leggings, but not tights, because her "chest feels weird" with tights and a dress. Some days, if I'm very crafty, I can put her in front of an engaging tv show and slip on cotton leggings and cotton shirt without her even noticing. Today is not one of those days.

Granpa and Grandma D gave the girls these GINORMOUS Mickey and Minnie dolls last week. As luck would have it, some furniture arrived at the same time in these coffin shaped boxes. So luckily, our TV room is now a little hospital/morgue/dorm room depending on the girls' moods. As they get pushed around in these boxes all day, I am continually tripping over them in my, uh, rush to unpack the garage. I'm thinking about a proper sailor's burial at sea. We could actually push them accross the road and they'd probably slide right down the hill into Saratoga Passage. But then, they'd have to cross a private beach and Jack would never allow that.

I've been pretty tired and feeling guilty about not cleaning much, but I found a way to gain a real sense of accomplishment. I cleaned and organized an entire house in just 45 minutes, while spending quality time with the kids instead of Access Hollywood. Here are some sample rooms. I can assure you there are no hard-water stains in that toilet, baby. Please take a moment to note a healthful but hearty stew, gently simmering on the stove, and just out of sight is the lady of the house, hair perfectly coiffed, wearing a neat skirt, heels, perfume, and no finger paint on her freshly ironed blouse. A pleasing aroma of spiced apples fills the air.

While I worked on the "house" Henry led the girls in some kind of toothpick and scotch tape craft. I think they were making ladders for the doll houses. I can't begin to describe what my kitchen looked like when they were done, and my camera battery is depleted. As is my tape. As are my toothpicks.

So today I went to Seattle by myself for the whole day. I had a ton of errands to do, but I didn't realize it was the Saturday before the Superbowl, and it was crazy everywhere. There was even a mad rush on Veggie Booty at Trader Joes, leaving none for me to buy (Sad faces of twins here).

Everywhere I went, I would chat randomly with people, until I was clued in to the fact that I still had my "island" face on. Here, everyone just chats with you in the shops like you're actually out shopping together, but I learned today that people in Seattle will assume you're off your meds and back away slowly if you start chatting them up. I would say "my bad" here, but Jack has forbidden me from using any kind of pop slang, because it's "just so wrong, mom."

Mitch called me and burst my retail bubble by saying that our insurance would not cover his most recent surgery and we owe them about the price of a new car. Luckily, I'm now making money off of this blog from the ads at the top. So far I've made 94 cents. Now I can say I'm a working mother!

Windexing one's glass slippers is infinitely more tiring than many realize.

Jessica convinced me to try and unpack at least two boxes from the garage today. I opened a box and found Henry's Floam, but it was really too cold out there for my thin flannel pajamas to do anything else.

Basho the Sumo Wrestler Table

Skymall.com $225.00

I've been hoping my husband will buy me this beautiful conversation piece in high quality resin for Valentine's Day. If he loves me enough, you all will see it in my entryway or warming his butt by the fire when you come to visit....

There's a rumor going around that I've been beaten at Scrabble. Let me explain how it all went down. Grandpa and Grandma D came for a little visit. We had a great time and Grandpa enjoyed making fun of me for bringing my own pot to Toby's Tavern to pick up my fresh mussels. That's just how we do things here. Toby's has the best Penn Cove mussels and they're under 3 bucks a pound, ya just gotta bring yer own pot to pick 'em up. But I digress. We had a ton of mussels, dinner, wine, and salad with blue cheese. I felt a migraine coming on from the bad combo of red wine and blue cheese, but I felt this would not handicap me in a little game of Scrabble. The game was going on and on, and YES, Grandpa was ahead by 23 points, and I conceded by way of falling on the board and messing up the game. As is my good sportsman-like way when I'm losing a game. 4 hours later, I am in total misery, 8 hours later and I'm in the ER for pain and nausea relief that I couldn't get from my own impressive medicine cabinet. They couldn't get a vein (veins shrink up when you get a migraine), so both arms are black and blue with useless needle pricks, but I finally got a lovely narcotic and anti-nausea drug and was back home in no time. The timing wasn't bad, because G and G were able to stay with the kids while my poor husbad shuttled me while I muttered, "just let me die" over and over, to Whidbey General, where we've both seen enough of to last a lifetime.

The point of this LONG story is to give my side, as the story that's being told on the east side of the Mountain is that Granpa beat me so bad at Scrabble it did me in and sent me to the Emergency room because I couldn't handle the loss. REMATCH, Dad.