I think I might be bi-polar. Well, actually, I think I’m mono-polar if that’s possible.

I was watching tv last night and in between the political ads there was this commercial for some bi-polar drug. It showed this woman who fluctuates between severe depression and wild activity. At one point, the ad says something like…”that crazy up all night working you….” and it shows this woman frantically painting during what appears to be the middle of the night. I’m thinking this image was suppose to invoke a reaction of “wow, that’s a crazy thing to do.” But instead, I found myself thinking, “so what’s so wrong with that?!?!”

This is why I think I’m mono-polar. I don’t have any severe depression, but I do have the crazy-maniacal- go till you drop dead- approach to tasks. I’m quite sure that Kevin believes I need some sort of medication. He asked me the other night as I lay awake in bed plotting my tasks for the next day, “why do you have to do all of that tomorrow?” And you know, I was speechless. Some crazy part of me loves making long lists of tasks, running from A to B to C, and sweating until it hurts. Kevin thinks I’m absolutely certifiable. But I just can’t help myself.

Really, it all comes down to Disneyland. (Yeah, I’m sure your could figure that leap out, right?) Many moons ago, way back in the early 90’s, my dad and I took Kevin to Disneyland. He hadn’t been since he was a kid and he was so excited to see the Magic Kingdom. Only problem was, I wouldn’t let him. He wanted to wander around going on the lame rides like the underwater submarine and the tea cups. I just rolled my eyes and told him no way – those rides sucked. Instead, we ran (I’m not kidding – we actually ran) from big ride to big ride with no pausing for anything like bathroom breaks or electrical parades. No sirree, we had a plan and we were sticking to it. This is how I was raised to do Disneyland – at a dead run.

So you see, I don’t feel too bad about my crazy behavior. Kevin knew, well before that fateful walk down the aisle, all about by mono-polar behavior so I don’t pay much attention to him when he starts complaining that he needs to rest.

Right now, I’m in between projects so Kevin is happy but I figure it’s only a matter of time before my mono-polar disorder kicks into gear. I can hardly wait!

I think I might be bi-polar. Well, actually, I think I’m mono-polar if that’s possible.

I was watching tv last night and in between the political ads there was this commercial for some bi-polar drug. It showed this woman who fluctuates between severe depression and wild activity. At one point, the ad says something like…”that crazy up all night working you….” and it shows this woman frantically painting during what appears to be the middle of the night. I’m thinking this image was suppose to invoke a reaction of “wow, that’s a crazy thing to do.” But instead, I found myself thinking, “so what’s so wrong with that?!?!”

This is why I think I’m mono-polar. I don’t have any severe depression, but I do have the crazy-maniacal- go till you drop dead- approach to tasks. I’m quite sure that Kevin believes I need some sort of medication. He asked me the other night as I lay awake in bed plotting my tasks for the next day, “why do you have to do all of that tomorrow?” And you know, I was speechless. Some crazy part of me loves making long lists of tasks, running from A to B to C, and sweating until it hurts. Kevin thinks I’m absolutely certifiable. But I just can’t help myself.

Really, it all comes down to Disneyland. (Yeah, I’m sure your could figure that leap out, right?) Many moons ago, way back in the early 90’s, my dad and I took Kevin to Disneyland. He hadn’t been since he was a kid and he was so excited to see the Magic Kingdom. Only problem was, I wouldn’t let him. He wanted to wander around going on the lame rides like the underwater submarine and the tea cups. I just rolled my eyes and told him no way – those rides sucked. Instead, we ran (I’m not kidding – we actually ran) from big ride to big ride with no pausing for anything like bathroom breaks or electrical parades. No sirree, we had a plan and we were sticking to it. This is how I was raised to do Disneyland – at a dead run.

So you see, I don’t feel too bad about my crazy behavior. Kevin knew, well before that fateful walk down the aisle, all about by mono-polar behavior so I don’t pay much attention to him when he starts complaining that he needs to rest.

Right now, I’m in between projects so Kevin is happy but I figure it’s only a matter of time before my mono-polar disorder kicks into gear. I can hardly wait!

Candy, candy can-dy. Candy candy can-dy.

Halloween is here and Kevin is starting to look a little sick. For the last week or so he’s been gorging himself on fun sized goodies. They’re everywhere – on desks, at meetings, in lunch boxes. It’s so bad that last night, I offered him a Snickers bar and he actually said no. That’s how I know today is Halloween. ‘Cause on any other day of the year, that Snickers would be out of my hand, unwrapped, and gobbled up before I could finish saying, “do you want one?”

A few weeks ago, before Kevin had OD’d on candy, Kat and I took a little girl’s road trip up to Tacoma for a stamp convention. While we were wandering about we ran across a delicious find. Right next to our hotel was to home of Almond Roca. And even more important, next to the manufacturing plant was the outlet store. Inside we discovered the Almond Roca that didn’t make the cut. Either it was wrapped wrong, too short, too long, or not enough chocolate – flaws that we knew would be overlooked by our husbands. Being good wives, we each picked up a tub of boo-boo chocolates.

When I got home, I gave Kevin his tub-o-treats and he ran away crackling with glee. I watched as he pawed at the tub top for a few minutes. Try as he might, he just couldn’t get the lid off of the chocolates.

“Hey, is this candy child-proofed?” he wailed in despair. “Who would child-proof candy? That’s just mean!”, he declared. He looked so forlorn that I took pity on him and opened the tub. I’m thinking he might be onto something though. Putting candy in one of those awful medicine bottles where you have to have just the right hand coordination to open it might be a very good idea. If nothing else, it would slow Kevin down.

I am, however, dreading what will come once the sun goes down tonight. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not a scrooge about Halloween. We are fully decorated and stocked to the brim with goodies. The problem is Artie.

You see, every time that doorbell rings, all Artie sees is a delightful bite-sized treat standing at the door. So I need one hand to open the door and one hand to give out candy and another hand or tow to keep Artie from taking a bite out of the wee little people on the doorstep. Last year, one sweet little girl saw Artie, yelled “puppy” and ran inside before either her mother or I could move. (Those little tikes sure can move fast.) Luckily, Artie was too shocked at being rushed by a kid (they are usually running the other way) to move and her mom was able to pull her back before she lost her arm. I think this year I’m going to lock the pooch in a room until the candy’s run out and the lights are turned off.

Now, I have to go find my costume for tonight. I’m thinking vampire or maybe a pirate. Arrrrg!

Today I’m going to impart to you my wisdom on how to have a happy marriage. I can do this with two simple words.

Separate bathrooms.

“Huh?” you say. Just bare with me on this one.

Our little house has two full baths. One on the main floor and one deep below in the basement. The main floor bathroom is my domain and is used by most guests. The basement bath is the exclusive territory of Kevin and this innocent division of toilets has become one of the bed rocks of our happy lives. My bathroom has perfumes, lotions, nail polish and cute pictures. Kevin’s has dirt, deodorant, dirt, rusty shaving implements, and more dirt. My bathroom receives a weekly scrubbing and vacuuming. Kevin’s bathroom gets cleaned only when a VIP comes to our house – aka a mother.

Yes, the only time Kevin will clean his bathroom is when a mother enters our little home. Then, and only then, Kevin breaks out the cleaning supplies. Now, Kevin is a very rare being. He actually believes infomercials. For this reason, he has purchased every known wonder cleaning supply known to man. Out You Scum, Zap, Oxiclean, you name it. Basically, any infomercial that touts the phrase “cleans without scrubbing”, Kevin’ll buy it. And then, poor boy, he learns the horrible truth. If you don’t clean the shower for over three months, no amount of magical solution will whisk away the dirt.

This weekend, Kev’s mom came down which meant it was time for the bi-yearly cleaning of Kevin’s bathroom. After about two hours, I decided to go downstairs and investigate how things were proceeding. This is what I found. Notice the nice line of bottles on the top of the toilet. Those would be the wonder products he’s colleted over the years. Poor little Kevin had tried every combination of magic cleaning solutions and nothing was working. I took pity on him and helped him with the scrubbing during which time he vowed to clean every week. I’ll be honest, it was pretty gross. I’m hoping that he’s true to his word and begins to clean a little more frequently. Even a monthly scrub down would be a major improvement.

So if you ever come visit us and are feeling brave, go sneak downstairs and peek into Kevin’s bathroom. If it’s nice and shiney and clean, you’re a very special guest and should feel touched. If, however, it’s a dark and scary place, back away very very slowly and don’t turn you back to the shower until you have reached the stairs. At that point, it’s safe to start running.

Separate bathrooms. It’s a good thing.

So here, at last, is the long awaited picture of the finished floor. Now tell me, isn’t that totally awesome?!?! And it only took a month. We have just finished moving everything back into place and are still adjusting to the slipping and sliding now that we have lost carpet traction. The animals, in particular, are still confused and spend a lot of time sliding into walls and furniture. Very amusing.

Last night I forced Kevin to carve pumpkins. For those of you who don’t know, Kevin is a class “A” grouch. He is the ultimate Bah Humbug person. You have to practically drag him, kicking and screaming, into most projects but once you get him started, it’s like a kid in a candy store.

When I announced we were carving pumpkins, the mumbling began. “I don’t wanna carve any stupid pumpkins. I worked all day, why do I have to do it? This is stupid. Grrrrr.” So I sent him on a walk with Artie and proceed to gut the pumpkins and get all those yummy seeds out. When Kevin returned, I sat him down at the table with a knife and a big pumpkin. Guess what? After five minutes he was laughing like a kid. I think he had forgotten how much fun carving a pumpkin can be. It got even better when I suggested he use his Dremmle to cut out his design. Power tools! Now that set his eyes glowing.

So here are the results. Mine are the three baby pumpkins and Kevin’s is the big scary one. Not too bad, eh?

Still working on the floor. Actually, the floor is done and now we’re redoing the molding. If all the stars align, we may actually finish this weekend and I can get on with my life. Kevin is so tired of seeing me in the same clothes. Since I thought this little project would only take a few days, I pulled four outfits out of my closet before we piled a ton of furniture in front of it. So basically, I’ve been wearing the same shorts for about, oh, two weeks. Luckily, Mother Nature has decided to extend summer here in Portland so it’s been in the mid-70’s and beautiful so I don’t look like a total dork wearing shorts in 50 degree weather.

But soon, very soon, I expect to return to my regular daily postings and (more importantly) a rejuvenated wardrobe!