Yesterday I was reading my fellow Divine Caroline friend Amy’s great blog, The Mother Load. She had posted a code for a free Red Box movie rental.

After school I thought it would be a treat to take Miss C to rent a movie seeing as the weather is less than desirable.

I was all…

MUST GET FREE MOVIE!

MUST DRIVE TO MCDONALD’S AND STAND IN FRIGID COLD IN LINE WITH NO COAT ON AND 5-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER CLINGING TO MY LEGS BEHIND THREE PEOPLE DUMBASSES WHO DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING WHO SCROLL THROUGH EVERY MOVIE SELECTION AS SLOW AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE!

Ahhh finally we reach the kiosk.

My fingers and brain are frozen and I get all the way to the end of the rental process only to realize you punch in the freaking code at the beginning prompt screen.

The code…that expires at midnight.

I realize it’s not worth backing out and starting all over because I am freezing to death and Miss C’s ears are starting to turn a strange shade of purplish red and it’s not worth potential hypothermia to save $1.

End up charging $1 rental on my debit card for a stupid Dora flick because it turns out the Hannah Montana movie Miss C wanted was not available.

Dammit.

I will be back, though, as I registered my e-mail address with the Red Box site and I’ve got another free movie rental code.

Only this time I’m saving it for a warm sunny day when no one else in our neighborhood will be renting movies.

I am holding the irresistibly cute Miss A, who is as fidgety as Carrie Bradshaw in a room full of Manolo Blahniks, while wearing a v-neck pajama top that reveals just a bit of cleavage (remember, I’ve breastfed two babies and had a lumpectomy so the cleavage factor is fair to middlin’ as my daddy would say.). She plows both her hands down my shirt front and starts fishing around, as if to find the TV remote or a chocolate chip cookie.

“Miss A, what are you lookin’ for?” I ask, tickling her so that she’ll release me from her probing hands.

“BUTTER!”

Speaking of Carrie Bradshaw, have you seen the Sex in the City movie trailer? (Hat tip: Uncommon Blonde.) I can’t wait!

How’s that for a segue from one totally unrelated topic to another? Sarah Jessica Parker does not invoke images of butter.

And now to change the subject from my boobs and Sex in the City to something on everyone’s minds– football. What a game! I’m not a huge football fan, but last night’s ending was incredible. I also loved the commercials. My favorites were the Budweiser “Rocky” Clydesdale commercial, Bridgestone’s screaming squirrel, the Will Ferrell Bud Light spot, the Coca Cola Macy’s ad, the Planter’s peanut spot, and the Diet Pepsi Max commercial with Chris Kattan.

I had an appointment to get my teeth cleaned this morning and my new dental hygienist went to school with Eli Manning at Ole Miss. She also attended a Super Bowl party with our daycare owner. This is just a testament to the fact that everyone in the South knows everyone else, or at least went to school with one of the Manning brothers.

Updated to add: They just called AGAIN. GD Earl does not live here people! Earl, you must owe some people in Twin, Cities, Minnesota money.They said they’d take you “off their list,” though. Whatever. Effin’ Earl. Sorry. Had to vent a bit. Plus the hubby has changed our home phone ring to “Old McDonald” and it’s about to drive me insane.

The phone rings and I glance at the caller ID. Seeing that it is the same unknown person in Minnesota who keeps calling the house every day and not leaving a message on our answering machine, I do the mature thing and ignore it. The hubby answers it and it’s a wrong number. Someone calling for Hank or Earl or some such. I comment to the hubby that they will hopefully quit calling our house.

Me: “I knew it wasn’t T, because he would leave a message and he’s the only person we know who lives in Minnesota.”

Hubby: “T lives in Wisconsin.”

Me: “Ohhhhh. You’re right.”

We carpool to school with another family and I usually have the afternoon shift. This week, however, my work schedule is all over the place since I am plowing through Major Work Project and the bulk of my deadlines are this week.

Yesterday morning I was driving Miss C and her friend to school. We live near a four-way stop and as we approached it and slowed down I saw another driver approaching from the left in a mini-van. She glanced at us and kept driving. Granted she slowed down a bit, but she definitely did not stop and she definitely did not do the rolling stop.

It was all I could do to not shout out something really inappropriate. I quelched my desire to fling out some significant obscenities as I remembered that Miss C’s friend’s dad is a minister of music at one of the big Baptist churches in town. Instead I honked my horn and yelled out the dirtiest non-curse word I could think of…

“TURD!”

Happiness Is a Warm Snoopy, originally uploaded by blondemom.

Hubby and I went to a fabulous restaurant last night (thank you hubby’s staff for the generous gift certificate) and were in for the evening by 9 o’clock. We stopped on the way home to rent a movie and buy a pot roast at the grocery. I picked up some Christmas lights on clearance for 75 cents a box and threw a load of laundry on when we got home.

We are so married.

The meal started out with a sinfully delicious bowl of lobster bisque and dessert was a trio of hand-painted truffles, the last of which was filled with deliciously rich caramel. Oh My Lord!

I don’t really associate New Year’s Eve with a lot of tradition, but we always buy Freixenet champagne in the familiar black bottle. This goes back ten plus years when we were dating and he was wooing me with bed and breakfast getaways to St. Augustine. (He was living in Jacksonville Beach at the time.) We have crystal champagne flutes that were a wedding gift that we always break out for the bubbly. We watched the ball drop on Times Square with Dick Clark, who I am thrilled to see is still running the show.

I wanted to post this picture of me from 1972 because the look on my face is sheer happiness. I want to be that kind of happy. 2007 was filled with some pretty stressful moments and I wasn’t always proud of the way I handled them. It’s time to leave all that behind.

I hope all of you experience this kind of childlike joy in 2008.

Happy New Year!

p.s. Brand spankin’ new baby boy congrats to two of my long-time bloggy friends, Nicole and Colleen!

I can’t stop eating this stuff.

Miss C tasted it and then promptly asked if she could “keep it” in her room.

I nearly wrestled her to the ground.

I’ve got PMS and I don’t want anyone touching the sweets but me.

I had to be downtown for a 9 a.m. doctor’s appointment last Tuesday. For some of you that might be an accomplishment of insignificant proportions, but lo, I am spoiled, and have not had to drive downtown in God-forsaken morning traffic in seven years. I should mention that the hubby also had to be downtown at 9 a.m. Would the girls arrive at school fully clothed? Would I arrive at work and realize I had on one navy and one black shoe? (Which has, unfortunately, happened.)

I knew they would take a blood sample at the appointment, and knowing that I would pass out unless I got something in my system besides coffee and a bite of toast, I cruised through good ole McDonalds. I got turned around on the way to the hospital parking garage, because sometimes my rural upbringing rears its ugly head and I get confused if I have to maneuver through one-way streets. I finally made it to the appointment and an hour and a half later was on the way to work.

I finished up at my office pretty quickly and when I went out to my car I could not open the driver’s side door. I unlocked it and locked it several times to no avail. I had to walk around to the passenger’s side, unlock that door, and crawl over to the driver’s seat. I then realized why my driver’s side door was not opening. I had somehow freakishly jammed my seatbelt in my driver’s side door. I buzzed the hubby, told him what was going on with my jammed car door and said, I quote, “only me!”

I drove home illegally, without wearing a seatbelt, because it was jammed in the door, and with my interior light flashing on and off because the blankity blank frikkity freakin’ frakkin’ door was jammed. I got home, and worried that my car battery would die until the hubby could get the door unjammed, I did what any able bodied woman would do to shut the door tight. I turned around and butted it as hard as I could with my rear end.

Is it too early for a glass of wine? I had to make an 8 a.m. run to Walgreens because I mistakenly bought condensed sweetened milk, as opposed to evaporated milk, and the girls are having fits over what to wear today and have been trying to “out-Princess” one another all morning.

We have two meals with family today, so we’ll be stuffed like turkeys for the next 24 hours.

Happy Thanksgiving!