Retail Therapy

I can't speak for the kids (this morning when Olivia woke up, she came out, tried her parents' bedroom door, and upon finding it locked, she started crying and said, "Mommy and Daddy don't like me!") but any stress or strain and hardship Danielle being out of town has been putting me through was diffused, at least for a short time, was diffused by a shopping spree! I was beside myself, I went to town in Barnes and Noble, and the best part, (beside the obvious -the truckload I left with-), was that its guilt free! I got gift cards for Christmas, all it cost me, in cash, was 36 cents! I was stupid excited, I got a lifetime supply of books. I had been eyeing this biography/expose on Paul Newman, and how his public image was squeaky clean and ever faithful to Joanne Woodward, but that in reality he slept with all his costars, even the boys. I think its in poor taste to drag someone's name through the mud like that after they die, and I debated whether or not I should buy it, but morbid curiosity got the better of me. I couldn't help it. I was thinking maybe I should read a respectable biography beforehand, but I probably won't... So I had seen that before and was thinking of possibly getting that, but before I went to the Biography Section, I was browsing the Half Off rack. I found a book by Victoria Gotti about her family and their "family" so I snatched that up. It was half off, and I was a fan of her show "Growing Up Gotti." On our way to Uncle Danny and Aunt Betty's house for Thanksgiving, Darren and I had been listening to Sean Hannity's radio show, but he had off and this guy was filling in that founded the Guardian Angels who are like a neighborhood crime watch group, but there are chapters all over the country. Anyway he was talking about the Gotti's and that he was almost whacked by them, and so I needed to read all about it. She supposedly is "setting the record straight" because of all the tabloids and rumors and everything, none of which I have ever seen, but it will be interesting to me I'm sure. When I got to the Biography Section, before I found the Paul Newman book, a title caught my eye: Mississippi Sissy. I texted Danielle because it was so funny and she suggested I needed it. I thought so before she got back to me. It is a memoir of this gay guy who now is an editor for Vanity Fair and Allure magazines, growing up in Mississippi. Gay guy in Mississippi, sounds familiar, must have. So I picked up a copy of the Paul Newman one and went to fiction. I'm not sure what grade in high school, either freshman or sophomore year, I started reading Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. I read the first 5 in the series so far, and more recently I had started reading her Lives of the Mayfair Witches series. I read the first two of the 3 Mayfair Witches books, and I am currently reading the third. I am in the middle of a book right now, yet I was compelled to buy up 38 more brand new books. Haha. I thought that it was just a trilogy, but today I found out that further down the line in the Vampire Chronicles, the two series cross paths and intertwine. I got very excited. I bought the next book in the Vampire Chronicles, and another of her books, The Feast of All Saints, which isn't a part of a series, just a stand alone novel, about the people in pre-Civil War New Orleans, descended from the Spanish and French people and their slaves, "free people of color." The book that came next in the Vampire Chronicles, after the one I had just picked out and obviously not even read yet, Barnes and Noble didn't have in stock. I considered having it ordered, it's not like I needed it immediately, I didn't read the preceding book yet, and even if I had, I had a ton of other reading material in the mean time. But I also happened to have a Borders giftcard. So I bought the books I had picked out and set off in search of Borders. I knew around where it is, I have been there before, but I had trouble finding it. I kept texting Danielle in the middle of her training class to help me find it, and eventually I got there. They had what I was looking for so I got that. I think I'm set, I'll be reading into 2020. Haha. Or at the very least, 2011. Not only am I reading the Anne Rice book I already had, but a few weeks ago I started reading Pride and Prejudice after I watched the movie with Danielle. I sometimes read in a chair in the living room, especially on Sundays while Darren is watching football, but I have trouble following P&P while there are other things going on around me, so that will probably take a backseat, I haven't been reading it in awhile so it pretty much already has...

I was pumped to read after the kids had lunch and were off to nap, but before I went on my book binge spending spree extravaga, before we even left the house this morning to go to school, I had decided that I needed to do a major overhaul of the chores. There were toys everywhere, and I left the dishes pile up, so I needed to reclaim the house. I am notorious for taking forever to clean, I always manage to find some distraction along the way. Like when I was younger I'd rediscover some toy I had lost in the debris and start playing instead of picking up. Well wouldn't ya know... I was picking up the trains and I decided to make a train track for the kids. Old habits die hard. Jacob always asks me to build a train track, but he either helps, which is not always helpful necessarily, tho he means well, and he is the one playing after all, or he doesn't try to help at all and is just in the way. So I built a track and then picked up the leftovers. While I was at work, speak of the devil, Jacob came charging out of his room. Interesting how he asks if he can come out, when he's already in the kitchen, which is at the opposite side of the house from his bedroom. He wanted water, so I gave him a cup of water and then he wanted to watch TV or play. I told him he either had to help me pick up, or go back to bed. He was only in there for an hour, not even, and he always sleeps longer than that, so I knew he didn't have a long enough nap. He was really whiny so I just carried him back to bed, and when I laid him down he cried a minute but he fell back to sleep and had a good nap. Then I did the dishes. I have the worst dry, cracked, chapped hands in the winter, and the dishes didn't help, tho most of them I was able to put in the dishwasher but still. I had to rinse some of them, and I came across a cereal bowl that had some hideous substance that, once upon a time, had been milk in it. I feel like I probably got it in my cuts and will get some awful infection. I washed my hands good after, so I think I'll be fine.

When the kids woke up, I turned on Spongebob and then I texted Amanda to see if she wanted to bring Barrett over to play. She did. Jacob brought out his lightsaber, which prompted Olivia to get hers. They were swinging them around and I was worried that somebody was going to take Barrett out. I took away their lightsabers and Olivia was asking for them back. I said that they could play with them after Ms. Amanda and Barrett went home, so Olivia said to Barrett that he had to go home now. Haha.

It's weird because Olivia and Jacob weren't really playing with Barrett, but they were playing with toys and stuff off on their own not bothering with me. They usually don't entertain themselves if its just me, I have to be playing with them every minute.

Asche attacked Barrett and got put outside. I nicknamed her Fatty McBride today, I call her fatty sometimes but I don't know where the surname came from, it just sounds good with Fatty. She's not heavy, but all she wants to do is eat. She was sitting on the counter by her bowl, meowing at me, what she does when she wants to be fed. I walked over and there was food in there already. So that's when I called her that, I said, "you have food, Fatty McBride."

After Amanda and Barrett left we had dinner and then the kids had their bath. After bath time I made them pick up their own toys this time, I had cleaned up enough for today but I ended up doing most of it anyway. Then they played with the trains for awhile, and I said they could either keep playing until bedtime, or they could have a story. They opted for a story. Jacob picked a Thomas book. Then I told Olivia she could pick a book, and she brought a Spongebob one that had six stories. I read two, and then it was 8:30, time for bed.

I half want to read, but I half need to go to sleep. I woke up every hour last night between 2 a.m. and Olivia waking up at 6:30ish. I think I was worried I would oversleep and be late for school or something. I kept looking at the clock on the DVR, and since I was bleary eyed from just waking up I kept reading sevens instead of whatever number it actually was. I don't know why I should have been worried, Olivia wakes me before my alarm ever goes off so I should have known it would be fine. Oh well.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CATHERINE!!!

xoxo, Travvy

P.S. I don't know why this post is all weird looking compared to the other ones, the size is off, what the heck. Happy Birthday again to Catherine!

xoxo, Travvy