I don’t normally do Thanksgiving ‘thankful’ posts.  They are just all too common and I’ve always felt I should write a thankful post because everybody else does.  But since I’m a rebel, feeling like I should write one because everybody else does makes me not want to write one even more.  However, this year I thought I’d go ahead.  I’m riding in the car and I’m excessively bored.  I’ve been pushed to the edge.

It should be obvious that I’m thankful for my family.  My husband is awesome and my daughter is neato.  My 6 dirt-stained boys give me reason to laugh everyday, and this new baby God is blessing our family with is giving me something pretty great to look forward to.  I’m thankful for a roof over our heads, good food to eat, and clean clothes to wear. 
But that is the obvious stuff.  The stuff everybody mentions.

I refuse to be like everybody else – don’t take it personal, I have issues and I own them.  And while I am quite thankful for the obvious stuff, I’m also thankful for small, seemingly insignificant things. 

So here is my additional list of Thanksgiving thankfuls.  They’re in no particular order. 

1. I’m thankful that my sagging kitchen table hasn’t broken in the middle yet.  It isn’t meant to have all 3 leaves in it all the time.  But we have a family of 9, so 3 leaves it is. 
2. I’m thankful for hot water on Wednesday and Saturday.
3. I’m thankful that our house hasn’t caved in around us.  Yet.
4. I’m thankful for earplugs in the car when my family wants to turn the music up loouuuddd.  Like right now.
5. I’m thankful for friends who let us invite ourselves over to their house for Thanksgiving.  It was a complete accident.  I promise.  But we’re on our way there right now just the same.
6. I’m thankful for friends who let me throw food at them. 
7. I’m thankful for sock monkeys.
8. I’m thankful that all the bad drivers are being pulled over so we can cruise on by.  Seriously, there was a one mile stretch with 6 pull overs and one cop waiting to bust the next bad driver.
9. I’m thankful for clean public restrooms.  Or I would be if I could find one.
10. This one goes with #9.  For the first time ever, I’m thankful for hand sanitizer.

I may or may not add to them as the Thanksgiving weekend progresses.

Have a wonderful turkey day!

Or tofurkey day if you’re a no meater.

Yeah.  That’s just not doin’ it for me.

[i are carnivore]

So, like I said earlier, this morning was the morning of Jesse.  It has, in fact, become the day of Jesse. 

Jesse?  Jesse?  Jesse where are you?

[Crickets]

We found out today that Jesse can, in fact, unlatch and open our backyard fence and escape.  He went out back with Joe and ended up in the neighbor’s backyard playing with their toys within a minute.  So, apparently he can unlatch their fence as well.

I also found out he can blog.

It’s been an interesting day.

My boys came inside to get Kait.  There was panic in their voices – my 5 year old was not understandable.

Apparently there was something such and such all over the place and it was really bad and she really needed to come out and look.
Never mind that mama, that’s me, was standing right there.  It wasn’t me they wanted.  It was her.

They know me way too well.

She went out, then came back, grabbed her camera, and went back out again.

When she came back in we found ourselves needing to do a little spontaneous homeschooling.  We did a little research on the difference between carpenter ants and termites.

These carpenter ants are covering the back corner of the house.  Covering it.  Thousands of them. They are inside and outside the attic and the wall.  They are falling off onto the kids’ heads.

Dear Mrs. Landlord lady,
It’s us again.  Your favorite tenants.  We have a bug problem…

I’ve been having trouble with words lately.

Pronouncing them.
Recalling definitions.
Spelling them.
Speaking them in a manner that makes sense.

It’s kind of annoying.

Yesterday a friend pointed me towards a blog that I have found to be hilarious.  It’s called Hyperbole and a half. 
It’s seriously funny.

So I told my husband about it.  He visited it and laughed his butt off, and then we kept repeating things randomly like, “I made food!  I’m Magical!” and “Eeeeee”.

Yes.  It was that funny.

So, later on a quick run to the grocery store I mentioned the blog again, for what reason I can’t recall, but I called it Hyper Bowl and a Half, just like I had all day.  He’s heard me, but chose this particular moment to say,

You know the word is pronounced hahy-pur-buh-lee, right?

Duu. Duh, I meant.

I knew that.  I swear I totally knew that.  But my brain has this short circuit thing going on and it’s making me mad.  Not angry mad, crazy mad.

And through my day of mispronounciation I’ve actually taught my daughter to call it hyper bowl too. 

And they let me homeschool.

That’s how it is around here. 
My kids know how to approach me about minor disasters. It works for us.

This morning has proven no different.

Jesse flooded the master bath toilet.  You know, for fun.  Then he decided to plunge it himself. 
How sweet of him.

And about an hour before that he had gotten underneath my freshly cleaned out bathroom cupboard.  There is no real danger under there now that I’ve gotten rid of the 62 half used bottles of lotion, soaps, and smelly stuffs that I’ve been collecting since the dark ages.

However, he did have fun with my lip stick, which you can see all over his face.

And I have some tinted facial powder that he opted to dump down his pajama pants.  The stuff may go on a gal’s face, but Jesse knows where powder should go on a baby.
He’s been there a few times, I guess.

Mornings like this are usually a sign of how the day will go.  Nothing more has happened since, however, and it’s been a couple of hours.

But, ya know, he’s got a good 8 or 9 empty hours ahead of him.  I’m sure he’ll think of something.

And this is the way I found the baby’s room this afternoon.

I’d ask what happened but I already know that questions are futile.

…I do.

No, really.  I do.

In fact, tonight at about 5 pm my favorite man gave me a two hour warning, informing me that he was having a little study group over after dinner.

Cool.  I’ll get the living room and kitchen picked up and make sure the kids actually cleaned the bathroom instead of their normal poke-a-head-in-to-check-cleanliness-without-even-turning-the-lights-on.

It took a little while. Not only had I taken most of every chore off since that stupid garage sale, but we were gone all morning and when we got home the kids still had to eat lunch and finish up school.
Plus, the love of my life didn’t tell me till 5 that his buddies were coming over.  We still had to run to Publix to refill our water jugs and eat dinner.

I got it all done, however.  I’m good like that.

However, what I didn’t expect was for my dear, lovable, sweet husband to offer his little think-tank group the dime tour of our entire house.  Including the master bedroom.  The master bathroom.  The master closet.

Hello!?!

A little warning here!

Right before the garage sale on Saturday morning I had decided to get rid of a few more things that had other things stored in them.  Those things that were stored in them were meant to go into storage in our attic but I hadn’t gotten any further than piling them in a disorganized mess in my room.

My room never, never looks as bad as it did when my husband waded through it with his friends tonight.

You bet your bippy* I got it all cleaned up though.  It’s lookin’ pretty spiffy now that they’ve already seen it.  They’re sitting at the kitchen table studying and I want to interrupt and say, “Hey, you should come see the master bedroom again – the way it normally looks”.

But then I wouldn’t just be an embarrassed wife.  I would be a stupid embarrassed wife.

The kids are being really quiet, though.  I guess that counts for something.

Wait, where are the kids?

*Bippy is my friend Marty’s word.  I like it.  So I stole it.

Oh, by the way, my husband reads my blog everyday.  This is not slander.  This is banter.  We’re both cool with it.  Don’t worry.

Cute right?

But they’re made of elephant poo.
I’m not kidding.

Is there a market for this stuff? Really?
Maybe the tree huggers are crossing the line here.?.
I’m not sayin’.
Just sayin’.

…

Ooohhh, it’s sanitized. Cause, you know, that makes all the difference.
[shakes head in disbelief]

You know, as the mother of a gazillion little boys, I’ve happened to come in contact with more than a small amount poo in my days.

If I’d only known…

In the very wee hours of the morning, before the fermented apple juice event, I dropped my very expensive, super great phone that I heart in a big way in my glass of water.

No, I don’t want to talk about it.

So, I checked the thing over and it worked fine. I felt it safe to quit holding my breath and go back to sleep.

Then, later at the Dollar Tree I remembered that I hadn’t yet turned my ringer on. So I did.

Something didn’t sound quite right. There was this awful tinny twang. In fact, I quickly realized that every noise my phone made sounded like a really old, really bad country song.

yay
[lowecase. no exclamation point.]

As if to cheer me up, my 12 year old found himself a noise enhancer in the Dollar Tree’s annoying toy section.
That’s what it’s called. A noise enhancer. Because, you know, we really need one of those around here.
I can’t tell you how long I’ve been searching for a way to cure our unenhanced noise issues.

So, thanks Joe.

And, by the way, my daughter is awesome. She fixed the bad country music issue by simply holding my phone up to the air conditioner in the van for about 5 miles.
I was going to write that she was superfluous but apparently that word does not mean what I thought it meant.
So I’ll just say she’s neato and leave it at that.

I was taking a picture of that baby toy on the floor.  I know it sounds weird.  I’ll post why later and then you’ll know it actually is weird.

Or I’m weird.

Or something.

Anyway, this crazy phenomenon occured and I think we might have found out why our house seems to be falling down around us.

Wait.  It’s legs look a little like Captain Jack Sparrow’s.  That’s Kait’s Jack Russell terrier.

I’m real tired.
And I have to go now and have my finger pricked.
And I think I may have drunk fermented apple juice this morning.
And now I may or may not have a ghost dog living in my house.

This is my life.