Yesterday Freebird came home from daycare wearing a change of clothing (note to self : time to send daycare a pair of shorts for summer change of clothes!) because one of the teachers was cleaning the lunchroom and hadn’t rinsed the chair yet, and another teacher put young Mr. Bird in the chair. His blue shortalls? Stained with bleach on the tush so now it is a funky shade of orange.

I’m not upset - accidents happen, which is why we send him to school in clothes that aren’t extremely expensive or hand-wash only. Most of his clothes come from outlet malls - though they are nice items of clothing - and we fully expect them to get dirty and grubby. I’m thinking I might take diluted bleach and a paint brush and try to turn the bum stain into a cloud and then “draw” with bleach on the hem to make a “design” of sorts. The shortalls are cute and if I can change them into something somewhat funky instead of obviously stained, I will.

But then, when I get invited to a party selling children’s clothing for $40-60 an outfit, I feel badly because there’s no way I would spend that on an outfit for Freebird unless I knew he could wear it multiple times - and frankly the events to which he’d wear a nice outfit are few and far between. Even if the outfits are really really precious and so soft and comfortable, and really, so creative and obviously made by talented people, I always figure that’s the day when there will be a mishap with a bit of cleaning solution, and oops, bye bye outfit. And even if it’s not cleaning solution, it’ll be ketchup, dirt, marker, mud, something - maybe washable, maybe not. 

So I stay put as a cheap mommy who buys nice things at outlets, knowing that someday, I’ll have to buy a suit for a bar mitzvah or something, and that’ll be plenty to spend!

Every weekend I have big aspirations for my self and my ability to get things done, but those aspirations only exist during the week. When the weekend actually rolls in? I’m worse than a slug. Even if I make a list, I just want to curl up and read, snooze, relax, and do as little as possible. But then, I get ideas, crazy ideas, on Thursdays and Fridays. On Saturday, I wonder what I was smoking.

So I hereby present the What Was I Smoking list of things I’d love to accomplish but probably won’t:

1. Grocery shop for (a) weeknight dinners, (b) lasagna to make ahead and freeze for later this year, and (c) lunches for the weekend.
2. List on eBay the approximately 4500 things I’d like to get around to selling.
3. Mail the return package to Lands End that’s been sitting on my console table for about 3 weeks (*shame!*)
4. COOK lasagna for make-ahead-eat-later freezing frenzy that hasn’t started yet but probably should.
5. Clean out office, or at least PART of office to turn said office into Other Room.
6. Sleep.
7. Maybe go Do Something with Freebird and Hubby, like take a hike in the woods or play in the water. Daytrip to beach, optional.
8. Sleep.
9. Read.
10. Write review (or two) and work on other projects.
11. Sleep.

Most likely I will accomplish #8, 9, 6, and 12.

Hubby and I never, if ever, travel on weekends when everyone else is traveling. Memorial Day, Labor Day, July 4th - we stay the hell home. We hate traffic and crowds - he hates the traffic while crowds make me twitchy - and we kind of like being home when everything is a just a little less crowded. It’s like August in Manhattan, the single greatest time to be in NYC ever. It’s hot and muggy and it smells like something died but NOTHING is crowded. It’s fantastic.

However, even staying around home, I’m rather excited for Memorial Day weekend. Tonight we go for my checkup at the midwife’s office, which involves Freebird playing with any number of awesome toys, such as a model of a uterus or a giant sample of the NuvaRing, and listening to the heartbeat, which is my favorite part. Tomorrow, Freebird’s daycare is holding a Parents Night Out, which means they stay open until about 10pm so parents can go out. Hubby and I are taking advantage and going out to dinner while the Bird plays with his friends and hangs out at school.

Then, we don’t have a whole mess of plans aside from cleaning out the office (which is really a giant repository of books we are loath to throw away but don’t actually READ) during Freebird’s naptime, and relaxing as much as possible. But since the weekend is starting out with a heartbeat visit and then dinner out, I’m pretty darn happy.

Now, if only I could figure out a way to get rid of onion grass. 

Hubby reads the paper first thing in the morning, and then stacks it deliberately with the sports section on top so I don’t inadvertently see headlines or news stories, as I continue on my blissfully ignorant news fast. But today, Hubby had to show me something.

Hubby: I know you’re on a news fast and I don’t want you to read the news anyway, but you have to see this.
*moves aside sports section*
Hubby: The American Idol winner is a top story, above the fold.

Sarah: That’s it. We’re leaving the country. 

Our front garden has a yellow brick path going from the driveway to the front door. While I do need to pay attention to the front entrance, like installing a railing and such, no one uses that entrance because we don’t have a sidewalk. Not having a sidewalk means we don’t get trick or treaters, and we don’t have to shovel any snow.

But since we have the yellow brick path, and since our garden is going green like gangbusters and will soon be all flowering wonderfulness that I will totally love, I’ve decided to do what I originally thought when we had the landscaping done last year- I’m going to hide Wizard of Oz-themed lawn ornaments in the front yard. Get it? Yellow brick road?

Yeah, I know. I’m super dork. Where’s my cape?

Thanks to eBay, I’ve found a tin man vintage sign I can hang on a wall somewhere, a cast iron scottie dog to hide in the foliage, and a scarecrow birdbath/feeder that might be too ugly for words and require hiding underneath a bush.

I’m still looking for a cowardly lion, and Dorothy is proving to be the most difficult. No one makes a Dorothy lawn ornament, or shoes, or a basket, or anything else. However, I bet I could find a cement Dorothy the Dinosaur ornament no problem.

I might have to throw myself on the mercy of the nearest summer camp that will let me in their pottery shed so I can make my own pair of shoes out of clay and fire it to cone 4 or something.

Also, who came up with the term “lawn decor?” Because that is just doofy, especially when used to describe a gnome mooning your neighbors.

Furthermore, buy these only if you let your kids run barefoot in the yard. OUCH!

It is so nice to know that no matter what your problem is you are never alone in that problem, so long as you have the internet.

I think there’s a limited number of words I have to offer from my brain in a day. Today has been a big make-notes-for-other-site day, when I’ve been scribbling this and that for SBTB because the world is conspiring to give me things to talk and ask about. Plus there’s this site, and while I don’t feel an obligation to write something every day, the truth is, this site started as a writing exercise for me. A seven year writing exercise. Jeez.

It makes me wonder, if I stopped writing online, what would I end up writing?

Something really long and boring, no doubt. For the next seven years.