Outnumbered Two to One

To all who entered my 200th post giveaway, thank you. I wish I could give you each a prize, but being that we’re a one income household, I don’t think my husband would appreciate that very much. In my book you’re all winners, granted you get none of the loot that the actual winners will receive, but that’s just a technicality.

The copy of Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are” goes to…

Kia of Good Enough Mama, who was fortunate enough to be randomly selected by an unbiased (and free) online resource…maybe she should hit the slot machines to test out her new found luck. If you have the opportunity, please go by and offer your congratulations. She’s an entertaining read and not just because she has the maturity level of a 8 year old boy (her words, not mine).

The zombie hunting permit was a little tougher to decide. It seems many of you felt the imminent threat of a zombie invasion and were eager to do your part to eliminate it. Two ladies in particular took their fervor to a whole other level, declaring an all out sisterly feud in their efforts to secure their win.

Elle and Stacy of Blue Monkey Butt were relentless in their pursuit of a zombie hunting permit, taking their debate from my blog to theirs and back again. Now, if Stacy accidentally fed her sister to the advancing undead hordes, I would never forgive myself.

So, since this is my giveaway and I’m making up the rules as I go along, I’ve decided to award two hunting permits, to the Blue Monkey Butt girls, since their cutthroat contest winning skillz will make them assets to the zombie killing team.

Congrats to all three winners…and thanks again to everyone who stopped by to play, read, and comment.

Thanks to my mother-in-law’s generous nature (and about $300 in Target money) we are now the proud owners of this…

along with this…

When my mother-in-law gave the children, as well as my husband and I, $50 gift cards to our favorite store this Christmas, he and I made an executive decision to pool our funds and buy a Nintendo Wii, rather than have the kids spend all their money on miscellaneous crap that will likely end up at the back of their closets or possibly impaling someone’s bare foot in the middle of the night. Unfortunately for the last several weeks there have been no Wii’s in stock at any of the Target stores in our general area. Nor online for that matter. They were in the sales circular this weekend and so we ventured out today to see if we’d get lucky.

The first store we went to was completely out but through the magic of telecommunication the clerk was able to direct us to another nearby store that still had about 29 in stock. Strangely enough when we got there, there were about four moms pushing strollers waiting for the stock guy to unpack a box of Wii Fits.

As we were paying for our game system, the cashier asked me confidentially, “Are you sure you don’t want one of these too, because I don’t know when I’m getting another shipment.”

She went on to tell me how her daughter lost 13 pounds on the Wii Fit, and how she herself loved it. Behind me in line three more women were waiting for their own Wii Fit accessories and looking rather impatient that I was contemplating the idea for so long.

“$90, huh?” I pondered aloud.

Essentially our Wii was free since we didn’t have to front our own money, so what’s a little splurge right? I looked to the bacon bringer for input.

Then he said those two dangerous words that have always been our downfall…”Why not?”

“You heard the man, wrap it up.”

The cashier nodded and scanned the items. “You might want to ask for some diamond earrings since he’s feeling generous.”

I have to admit we had a lot of fun playing this afternoon, before the kids took over, that is.

My five-year-old son beat the pants off his ten-year-old sister at boxing. I thought she was going to have a stroke by the time she got K.O.ed. I’m grateful these games at least get their little butts off the sofa. I was starting to think they were getting fused together.

Here’s a photo of their match.

It’s definitely better than them actually pummeling each other…

Honestly, I didn’t have very high expectations for this year’s Christmas. I mean, the kids always do well thanks to “Santa” and all their too- generous relatives who believe there can’t be a holiday without giant sacks of unnecessary overpriced battery operated crap.

The kids are always satisfied (much to the dismay of my overworked fingers that end the day in arthritic knots from untangling scads of packaging twist ties and severely bloodied from all the third degree cardboard cuts.)

This year most of the adults in our family opted not to exchange gifts for a variety of reasons, among them financial and practical arguments against spending unnecessarily. Some people however could not be persuaded to quash their giving natures and chose to bestow presents upon my husband and I against our will. We struggled against them, but alas they were too persistent.

My favorite among the pleasant boxes of PJs and chocolates I received was a collectible Barbie. No, I am most definitely not a fan of the doll, nor do I collect things of that nature. This particular Barbie, however, was special. To know why, you’d have to understand that 1) I have always had a lingering love for all things dark and morbid 2) I’ve been a fan of The Birds since I was about eight years old.

Yep, I mean Hitchcock’s birds. The ones that inspired this:

Excuse the weird reflection, she is, of course, still in the box she came in, propped up on my dresser and  looking slightly aloof. Here, look closer…

Not exactly the expression I would’ve expected from a woman under assault by flocks of homicidal birds. More like she’s trying on a feathered hat she’s not sure goes well with her outfit, never mind the crow perched on her shoulder, or the one clinging to her skirt, obviously going for her femoral artery. You’d think the folks at Mattel would have opted for at least a scowl, or a grimace, instead she looks almost serene - completely resigned to the fact the birds are about to peck her eyes out.

I. Love. It. I really do.

The icing on the fruit cake was this bumper sticker from my husband, who after 15 years knows me pretty well.

Cause nothing says Christmas like zombies and birds out for blood.

For those of you unfamiliar with the magnificent magnifying fun that is the Eye Clops Bionic Eye , let me introduce you.

This little doodad can magnify anything up to 200x right up on your television screen. Amazing, no? It’s true, take a gander at this sucker.

This was taken in March when the tween had a bout of head lice. Yep. This is what head lice looks like magnified 200 times. This is a digital photo of my TV screen displaying the Eye Clops in all it’s glorious magnification action. Needless to say, seeing one of these buggers up close made us all feel a little worse about having an epidemic sized population living right on my daughter’s head. It made me want to put her entire upper half in one of those bio-hazard bags and rush her to the nearest treatment center. But being able to zoom in on those suckers as I was plucking them out of her head with a fine toothed comb, was integral in the diagnosis. I mean, there was all that itching and the crawling things in her hair were almost a dead giveaway, but this confirmed it. Proof positive head lice exist and are not a myth created by pharmaceutical companies to get you to buy really pricey pesticide shampoo.

The Eye Clops was actually quite a hit at our house. This famous little gadget Santa bestowed upon us just last year.

As if that’s not a good enough reason to put one on your child’s Christmas list, consider this.  If you put an Eye Clops right up to your face, you can see right down to every single pore on your cheek. It’s fascinating. Really. Viewing every single crack, every single speck of dirt, every single black head, every single oily follicle, every single errant hair up on a 50 inch screen. Who wouldn’t want to see that?

Because we women need to be able to count every single strand of hair growing on our upper lips. That harmless peach fuzz we tend to ignore on a regular basis, up close looks like an Amazonian rain forest. It’s quite lovely. You almost expect to see a flock of colorful macaws taking flight from their branches.

It’s like nature, hideously growing out of your face.

Really, it will do wonders for your self esteem.