Some little girls long for romantic tales of princesses in flowing gowns and knights in shining armor. Mine wants tales of ghosts and rainbow striped zombie rats.

Caitlin has requested a “scary ghosteses” story nightly since Halloween. Let’s just say the “scary ghosteses” stories are getting old. Very old.

Our nightly ghost story ritual goes something like this…

Mommy tell me a story.

OK, Once upon a time….

No, NO! Not once upon a time mommy! Tell me a mean ghost story about two ghosteses.

OK, There was a little girl named Caitlin…

No, no not Caitlin…Mary.

OK, now let mommy tell the story. There was a little girl named Mary and she wasn’t afraid of anything, including ghosts.

No, no mommy she was afraid of ghosts!

OK, There was a little girl named Mary who was afraid of ghosts and she went for a walk in the woods…

No, no mommy she was with Caitlin, Amelia, Savannah, Taylor, and Jillian.

Dear Lord I am raising a control freak.

Any way, back to last night. I decided to shake things up a bit and I told Caitlin the epic tale about the time I got stuck in the big, big snow on the way home from work when she was a baby. I mean I can only tell so many variations of the kids walking in the woods, getting lost, and asking for help from two mean ghosts who live in a haunted house on a hill. It’s like a late in the series episode of Friends where the writers have run out of subplots and every character has slept with every other character. A split second after I declared “the end” Caitlin pleaded, “Mommy, mommy tell me a scary story. Tell me a scary story about a ZOMBIE!”

“A zombie?” I asked, trying to hide my irritation over having to tell yet another damn scary story. At least she’s switched from ghosts to zombies. That does open up quite a few new plot lines.

“Yes, yes a zombie. You know what a zombie is mommy? It’s a MEAN RAT. It’s a mean rat with rainbow stripes.”

Someone needs to harness all this creativity for the next Tim Burton movie or perhaps start a line of My Little Rat dolls, kind of like My Little Pony, but minus the pastel color scheme.

So think of me tonight as you snuggle under the covers with your little darlings and read Dr. Seuss or a nice Madeline book. I’ll be muddling through scary storytime hour with ghosts and rainbow striped rats.

Edited to add: Brittney Gilbert, the fantastic moderator at Nashville is Talking who also blogs at Sparkwood & 21, had two of her artist friends create two very special rainbow striped zombie rats for Caitlin. Check them out! Thanks again Brittney and to the two artists, Goopy of Goopymart and Pigasus as well! Rainbow zombie rats rule.

Heard only on Nashville radio this morning:

Radio personality #1: “Did you touch an udder?”

Radio personality #2: “No I did not.”

Radio personality #1: “But you wanted to, right?”

Hey speaking of Nashville, HOW ‘BOUT THEM TITANS?!? Did anyone else see their comeback yesterday? It’s being hailed as their second Music City Miracle (which the hubby and I saw at the coliseum in 1999.) With less than 13 minutes left to play we were losing 21 to nothing, but the Titans rallied to beat the New York Giants 24 to 21 on the home field in the biggest fourth quarter comeback in the history of the Oilers/Titans. There was much jumping up and down and shaking of pom poms at our house (well the hubby did not shake pom poms, only the girls and I were playing cheerleader with our giveaway pom poms from a recent game.)

I also realized this morning that I only have 15 more days to work between now and the end of the year…yet another reason to get my happy on.

Edited to add: OK, OK my hubby made note that I have the wrong date for the Music City Miracle. It was the 1999 season BUT it took place during a January 2000 playoff game. Ahem. What were you expecting here, any way, ESPN?

We had our annual Thanksgiving pig out at work last Tuesday. There were no less than a half a dozen varieties of homemade pie, a buffet of 2-liter soft drinks, two huge serving platters of turkey with side dishes and sauces galore including dressing, gravy, several cheese-laden casseroles, sweet potatoes, those green bean wrapped in bacon and stuck with a toothpick thingys, plastic bags of store bought junk food goodness (because nothing says gratitude more than Chips Ahoy cookies), croissants, and about a thousand sausage balls from our resident sausage ball king. Just typing all of that raised my cholesterol level. Last year I was still working from home after having Amelia and I missed the lunch. One thing about working from home is the feeling that you are missing out on scintillating conversation, or at least some good gossip or weekend wrap ups from all your single co-workers.

The topics discussed at our Thanksgiving work lunch last week included such riveting topics as:

annoying magazine salespeople who stalk you in your neighborhood and grocery store parking lot
my co-worker’s circa 1985 Chia sheep he recently purchased at a yard sale and brought in to work
the offensive aroma the aforementioned Chia sheep emits whenever it is watered
the myth of the sugar high, to which I retorted “but you haven’t seen my kids on Halloween”
a new caffeinated drink called “Bawls” that is marketed toward gamers
my co-worker’s misunderstanding the last topic and thinking my other co-worker said a new caffeinated drink called “Balls” that is marketed toward gay men

Oh yes, the adult conversation is plentiful at ye old workplace.

I made two pumpkin pies yesterday morning with Caitlin. It wasn’t so much the bit of guilt over bringing in a store bought pie for her Thanksgiving luncheon at daycare, when the teacher requested homemade, but more that I really wanted to make a holiday recipe with her because she loves to cook. She did not inherit that trait from mama. Usually the hubby can whip up something from scratch for dinner whereas I’m happy to sit on the front row of the cooking short bus.

(Yeah, yeah I’m getting to the hurling part.)

I had all the ingredients anal retentively lined up on the counter but as we started to make the pies I realized the recipe called for a small amount of salt and that the only salt we had in the house was a smidge in the bottom of our salt shaker. I opened the top and saw there were a few grains of white rice mixed in it to deter moisture. I grabbed an unused in years flour sifter to separate the salt and rice and thinking I was a flippin’ culinary genius I promptly dumped the salt into the sifter while I held it over the sink only to realize I forgot to put a bowl under it and the salt sifted straight down into the wet, filled with dirty dishes from breakfast, sink. Pumpkin pie tastes fine with no salt, just FYI, but in my baking insecurity I just knew I had ruined the pies.

On to the hurling…I woke up feeling under the weather yesterday with a slight sore throat but once I got ready and going for the day felt OK. My brother ended up driving me home from my mother’s house after lunch and I threw up several times in the car after feeling like my temperature shot up about 4 degrees while whizzing down the interstate (thankfully I did not throw up in his SUV but in a plastic top to a cake holder.) I went straight to bed while the hubby and girls enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner at his parents. I felt like I had the flu. Today the sore throat is worse but I’m off for the day, it’s gorgeous out, and I’m popping Tylenol because I refuse to be sick for my three-day weekend.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, from one thankful mama.

I thought about including a picture of our resurrected dishwasher, but changed my mind. But heck yeah I’m happy to have it back. I may buy it a Christmas present, maybe some name brand dishwashing powder for a change.

I’m also very thankful that I’m just making two pumpkin pies to contribute today at our parents’ festivities. Now that alone is reason to celebrate!

Most of our management team was at an out of town conference week before last. On one drizzly cold morning I decided to sneak into my office wearing a glorified jogging suit and tennis shoes. I work for a small company with a business casual dress code. You can wear jeans, you can wear shorts in the summer (provided they aren’t Daisy Dukes), you can wear tennis shoes. Pretty much anything flies as long as it’s within tasteful boundaries (i.e. not something you’d wear makeup-less and pony-tailed to Pilates class or trying out for a job at Coyote Ugly.)

I don’t meet with clients or executives face to face. All my work is done via e-mail or phone. And when I worked from home last year, let’s just say there were days I kept my pjs on and never showered. This is a far cry from when I landed my first job after college. I worked in a university news and public affairs office where wore suits and pantyhose were expected. I budgeted for dry cleaning. Since joining my current company five years ago the only times I’ve wrestled pantyhose has been to tie up tomato plants in the garden or to wear to a wedding or funeral.

Last week I realized just how far my fashionista apple had fallen from the tree. One of my single friends at work is the Imelda Marcos of our office. (I point out that she is single because, well, she has time to shop regularly for herself…no children toting along, children who need shoes and diapers and soccer uniforms and lots of string cheese and apple juice.) My shoe diva friend comes in wearing these incredible shoes on a weekly basis. Last week’s shoe du jour was a pair of extreme spike heel pointy toe pumps covered in a faux brown and white fur. It was all I could do to not drool on them although I realized I would break my leg if I tried them on. I was complimenting her when I realized I had on a pair of geriatric black loafers that looked like dress code standard for working a fast food drive thru or maybe the housekeeping staff at a Motel 6. I had a flashback to college. I dated a guy my senior year of college who made fun of my favorite chunky heeled pair of brown loafers. He thought it was hilarious to call them my lesbian shoes. Needless to say we never made it past the three-month mark. I hear he’s bald now, too.

Cruisin’ With Santa

Originally uploaded by blondemom.

My dad, aka my trusty manny, was Santa and Mrs. Claus’s official escort in our local mall parade yesterday. I truly think that riding in a Christmas parade with my girls and their papa and the fat man in the red suit and his wife added about 10 years to my life expectancy. (Edited to add: That last sentence sounds unintentionally weird to me. There’s nothing wrong with me. Physically any way. Ha.)

It took a while for Caitlin to warm up to Santa, although she never would really talk to him. And she was much more comfortable than the first time she met Santa three years ago and cried her eyes out over the prospect of being handed over to a strange man in a long red velvet robe. Amelia loved the bands and enjoyed the entire thing. The weather was perfect and we really couldn’t have asked for a better day. The girls are never going to forget their joy ride with Santa.