What a difference 24 hours make. Yesterday I was rubbing elbows at the Cardinals game in a luxury box with some of the top water company brass with Dave. This morning I went to work and was told along with another employee that they were down sizing and thanks but no thanks but they no longer needed us. Talk about a blow to the ego. I don't feel like being funny tonight, I am going to go lay in the fetal position for a few days!! Maybe KFC is hiring.

Today I have a special guest writer, none other than my darling chicken crazy husband. After reading today's post you will all soon feel my pain and realize what a complete weirdo that I am married to. Enjoy!!!

Colleen


Today, I wanted to write on the blog to get my point of view across for the first time. I usually am the butt of most of this blog and even though most of the time I probably deserve it, I still am one heck of a catch. Colleen sure got lucky when I agreed to marry her, I agreed after she told all her friends we were getting married. She doesn’t remember it that way but trust me, I am always right.

Today, on our trip home from Chicago, we were both hungry. We went to 10:00 mass and then left in pretty short order to make it home by 5:00 pm for Kelsey’s game, I hadn’t eaten anything all morning and I was in the mood for Taco Bell. As we started looking for a Taco Bell, I noticed all the food signs on the sides of the highways. My wife suggested, “How about some KFC”, now that is a good women, no wonder I agreed to marry her. If any one has followed this blog, you will know that I love KFC and I usually have a few misadventures whenever I try to eat some.

As I was driving, I was explaining to Colleen that people shouldn’t call it KFC because if the Colonel called it Kentucky Fried Chicken, then for the love of God, I was going to call it Kentucky Fried Chicken. KFC was just a cop out and I for one would not stand for it. She usually does not pay much attention to me so I went on explaining that she needed to watch very carefully for the Kentucky Fried Chicken signs because they do not put too many of the signs on the highways because they do not want to just make their delicious food available to anyone, but rather they prefer the traveler undergoes a quest, or a pilgrimage to find this treasure.

As she was rolling her eyes at me and telling me to be quiet, she noticed a sign for KFC, 2 miles ahead and boy was I excited. As we exited the highway, Colleen told me the sign said go left so left it was. What could be better than driving on a beautiful sunny Sunday with the girl of my dreams to go retrieve some Kentucky Fried Chicken, life just doesn’t get any better than this. Normally, these highway signs are for restaurants that are just off of the highway and I noticed that we were traveling awfully far away from the highway, practically into downtown Joliet and no sign of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Now my heart was sinking and Colleen was laughing at me. She knows it is always some type of nonsense when I attempt to eat Kentucky Fried Chicken, usually it is just a closed restaurant or I get confused in the drive through but this time it was different. Could I have gotten off at the wrong exit, or did I just miss it. By now it was not funny and Colleen was ready to give up and she was yelling at me to turn around. We had driven about 15 minutes and I just knew that if we kept going, a bit further, it would appear on the horizen. Then I just began to think that she read the sign wrong and we should have turned to the right. What started out as a nice drive on a Sunday quickly turned into me wanting to pull into oncoming traffic and have some semi-truck crash into her side of the Jeep. Kentucky Fried Chicken is like my search for the Holy Grail. I feel like Indiana Jones, except instead of giant boulders and snakes, I am dealing with inaccurate road signs and a directionally challenged wife. At this point I would take the snakes.

Disgusted and hopeless, I turned around, resigned to the fact that I would be Kentucky Fried Chickenless once again. From my side of the Jeep there were no sounds except for a faint sniffling but Colleen’s side was a different matter. Her laughing and joking was almost too much for a man to handle. My mind was spinning through all of my options, I was hoping that there was another Kentucky Fried Chicken somewhere on the way home but I knew I was just kidding myself. As I neared the highway, off to my left, hidden behind a giant Rick’s RV’s sign, I saw the Colonel looking out over the sign like the old “Kilroy Was Here” signs. Man, I was back in business. Life was good again and Colleen would live to see her children once again. As we were waiting to make a left, it occurred to me that the Kentucky Fried Chicken was on her side originally and she should have noticed it. It was about 100 yards from the highway and she had me driving for 15 minutes into downtown Joliet. She was not paying as close of attention as I had instructed her to and I thought I should remind her of the consequences of her actions. I thought about bringing it up and reminding her once again how important it was to keep a sharp eye out for Kentucky Fried Chicken because it is not like they simply put them where just anyone can find them but I did not want to ruin the moment so I chose to leave my explanation for another day.

Colleen wanted to get it to go, she wanted to get home in time for Kelsey’s game. Get it to go!? She knew better than to suggest the drive though but she now wanted me to walk in and then get my food and eat it in a Jeep, I just stared at her in disbelief. After all I had been through and she wanted to get it to go, that was just not going to happen. Once again I had to explain to her that it is not easy to eat fried chicken while driving, greasy fingers, crumbs, just can not be done. How could a man drive and eat mashed potatoes, think about it, it is just not possible. Sometimes she just does not think everything through. As usual, she gave in to me rather than listening to any more of my explanations and we sat down to a delicious lunch.

I originally thought about writing this as an open letter to Kentucky Fried Chicken, but I decided that I should not tempt fate. Kentucky Fried Chicken is pretty powerful and even I do not fully understand all of its powers. I was able to sneak one out today but all the bad karma an open letter would cause would probably catch up to me next time so I just thought I would present just the facts and there you have it.

By the way, most of the stories you have heard on this blog have been jazzed up a little bit for artistic purposes. I am no where near as much of a bumbling fool that my little "punkin" would have you all believe. I have practically raised these 7 kids single handily and if it wasn’t for me and my organizational skills, this house would fall in upon itself. After all, I did battle with Kentucky Fried Chicken today and I lived to tell the tale.

P.S. I kid a lot but I really do love my wife. She is the best and with her permission, I may write again some day,

Dave

Fridays are my early days at work, I go in at 7:00 and get off at noon. Today was the first day that the kids were in school so I had a few hours to myself. I met Dave for lunch and came home to return a few emails and get things organized for my mom for the weekend. I didn't want her to go through the same stress of looking for uniforms and cleats like I do every weekend. I noticed Ryan's pencil case sitting on the couch that he must have forgot this morning. I opened my mail and I got two letters from the school cafeteria manager letting me know that I owed $3, not only did my son forget his lunch and receive a cheese sandwich on Thursday but my darling daughter Kelsey did the same thing. Maybe I should run by a local food pantry every morning and scoop up the forgotten lunches out of the back of my van after I drop the kids off. When the kids got home I asked Kelsey about the forgotten lunch and she said "oh yeah, I forgot to tell you." Maggie chimed in with "I forgot milk money today too, I figured you would be mad if I charged milk again so I just didn't have a drink." I said "Ryan you forgot your pencil case." He said, "I know, that's the second time this week." I'm glad we are starting the year off right!!!

Wednesday morning I woke up a little perturbed at my darling husband, he had a test on Tuesday evening and decided to go have a few drinks with his classmates instead of coming home early to his overworked, under appreciated wife. I was in the Bermuda triangle straightening my hair when my darling angel Ryan (who by the way reminds me of his "in the dog house" father), walked in and said, "I don't know where my shorts are, they keep disappearing." I think he learned quite quickly that he was going to have to find the disappearing shorts on his own. He has two pair of school shorts (the wrong size mind you, but still two) he was on his third day of school, for some reason when you throw them on the floor in whatever room you feel like, they don't re appear the next morning on your body. Wednesday was their first full day of school so while dad was out having fun Tuesday night I was driving Maggie, Kelsey and Ryan to and from soccer practice. In between that I ran to the grocery store to pick up a few things for lunches. I had spent Monday night at the mall shopping because Dave told me we were invited to a dinner through work at a country club. I am not a country club kind of girl, I have spent half my life barefoot and pregnant, there were no silver spoons in my mouth just plastic. Some time on Tuesday Dave told me he heard wrong and the dinner was not at a country club but it was dinner at the cardinal game in one of the corporate boxes. Maybe if I had that information when I spent two hours looking for a country club outfit that hid my fat rolls I could have looked for something in cardinal red instead. Ahhh details!!!! By Wednesday morning I was considering letting him go to the game alone. For some reason I always take it out on the kids when I am mad at Dave. I spent the whole morning snapping at the kids, Shannon had orientation until eleven and forgot to ask grandma for a ride home. I was not going to wake grandma up at 6:30 to see if she could get her. I believe my motherly words of wisdom to her was that she would have to walk home. Never mind the fact that her school is 25 highway miles away. I packed lunches and headed out the door barking at my kids the whole way. I picked up the two kids in my carpool and my demeanor changed to June Cleaver, "good morning, how are you this morning." I think my kids must have been thinking "no wonder Erin is crazy, look at our Matriarch, she definitely has a split personality." Maggie forgot milk money and had to charge milk on the first day.

I decided to spend my evening making my husband kiss up all night with me in my new aqua shirt at the cardinal game. Ryan called and said he needed book covers by the next morning or else he would get a demerit. We went to the 24 hour Wal Mart looking for book covers. They were all out, next we tried the 24 hour Walgreen's and found some. He was happy when he woke up and saw that we remembered the book covers. I gave Maggie milk money today and enough for the day before. Ryan forgot his lunch today and had to charge a cheese sandwich (which he doesn't like) on his second full day. I am sure the cafeteria workers think the Murphy kids must be as sharp as tacks, one kid forgets milk money on the first day and another forgets his lunch.

Shannon has her first mixer tomorrow at an all boy's high school. Her plans have changed thirty times so far. Where they are getting ready, who is driving, where they are spending the night etc, etc. She hasn't even mentioned what she is wearing yet, Yikes!!! Dave and I are headed to Chicago tomorrow to help my sister move. She is moving to a cheaper apartment next door. She needed a big strong man to help her move furniture and she didn't know any, so she settled for Dave. And no, Shannon didn't walk home, Erin picked her up after I filled her gas tank because she spent her pay check on a new bikini.

This morning my straightener was on my bathroom vanity right where I left it. Life was good for a while until I looked for my eyeliner that mysteriously disappeared. I am beginning to think my bathroom is like the Bermuda triangle. Tampons, eyeliner, hair clips, conditioner, body wash, perfume, mascara, deodorant and of course my favorite hair straightener all seem to disappear without explanation. I think if it wasn't for my lovely daughters I might actually be quite glamorous!!

I got an email from the team mom from Erin's soccer team that she needed a copy of her birth certificate. The last time I saw it, it was folded up like an accordion from being in her purse for so long when she flunked her driver's permit written test 5 times. I have three copies of everyone else's but none of Erin's. Ryan said, "that proves it, Erin is adopted." Trust me if that was the case I would have tried to find that loophole to return little Sybil ages ago. (just kidding Erin) She called me and said "I think I know where it is, check in the lime green photo album that I got from Eric Fischer with an E on it in my white bookshelves, I had an epiphany." I checked the photo album but no crumpled up birth certificate to be found. She was all out of ephinay's. I guess we are headed to Clayton tomorrow to try and get a new one. Fabulous!!!

I told the kids that they are going to have to be a little more responsible with letting the dog out. I am getting tired of cleaning up dog pee. I told them that I was going to take a vacation day to shampoo all of the rugs and from then on I didn't want to see any more accidents or their precious puppy would spend some quality time in his crate. Ryan went out to the garage to get his putter and golf ball (because every little boy should putt in the living room) He came back in and said "Ooh yuck, Seamus peed in the garage and I stepped in it , as he was drying the pee off of his foot on my living room carpet." Let me get this straight, the dog pees outside for a change and my son brings it in the house and wipes it on the carpet????

Dave started a new job this morning, he is with the same company but his office will be closer to home. Today was supposed to be the start of us getting up early. My plan was to get up early and start my day by running a mile and he was going to go to 6:30 mass and get to the office early. He woke me up at 6:00 and I remembered that I had left my good tennis shoes in the van, that seemed like entirely too much effort to go out and get them. I decided to use that half hour for my beauty rest instead. My fat rolls and cellulite are well rested today.

Where in the world did summer go? We still haven't joined the pool. Last night we had our back to school bar b Que and open house. Maggie had a soccer game and we had a parent meeting for Shannon for high school.We had a thirty minute window to run up to school for the open house before we had to leave for Maggie's game. I had told Maggie the night before to get her soccer uniform ready . Of course in true Murphy fashion, she forgot. She lost her white jersey and black shorts. Lucky for her she needed red for her game, we were able to buy a little more time until the next game. I asked Shannon to look for it while we were at open house. I knew that she would tell me that she looked everywhere but would put little to no effort in to looking for the missing jersey. She had school pictures before the parent meeting, so her hair and make up were taking precedence to the missing jersey. We had to take Maggie with us to the parent meeting, she was a little bored but at least she was quiet.

This morning started typically with me searching for my hair straightener. Erin had school pictures today and she was in the middle of a little melt down. She is on acne medicine(for the two pimples that she gets) that makes her skin really dry. She was out of town this weekend and forgot her face lotion. She woke up this morning to a puffy dry face. She was less then thrilled. She said, "look at my face, my picture is going to be horrible." I said, "maybe you should give me my check back for the pictures." She didn't appreciate my humor. Ryan decided this morning that I bought him the wrong size school shorts. He said that he will be the only boy in fourth grade who's shorts are that short. Maybe he should have clued me in a little earlier, like the day I bought them three weeks ago!! On a good note Sam called and said that the company that she wants to work for next summer called her and offered her an internship. I was just telling Dave what a good feeling it was as a parent to see our kid's hard work finally pay off. She has been the type of kid that has always worked her tail off. I can't think of a kid that is more deserving of a few doors opening up than Sam, even if I am a little biased.

I am about two weeks into soccer season and I am considering finding a concrete wall to ram my head against. It seems that every time I turn around the coaches have scheduled another scrimmage or the team managers need another check. My kids lost my palm pilot so I bought a new one last week. I finally had some time this evening to enter some data. It looks like I am booked solid through November. I still haven't put Shannon's cheerleading schedule in. I sure wish they would lower the driving age to twelve. That would make my life a breeze. Ryan had a baseball game last night. After the game we had to rush out to pick Kelsey up from practice. It was the first time that Ryan rode in the van since we got it back from our friends. They detailed it for me before they returned it. It has never looked better. Ryan got in and said "Oh my God, is this our van??? It is spotless, they even scraped all of the gum out of the cup holders." OK, french fries on the floor I can deal with, but why would anyone put gum in a cup holder???

I gave Maggie three chores to do every day this summer. Brush your teeth, brush your hair and get dressed. Normally when I get home from work she has mastered one or two of these tasks. Maggie had practice at 6:00 in Maryland Heights (30 minutes away) Ryan had practice in Chesterfield at 6:30 (40 minutes away) and I had to be at the kid's school for uniform hand out. Tonight was the last night to pick up uniforms or my kids would have had to play naked, which isn't necessarily a bad idea. If they played naked I wouldn't be rooting through dirty clothes looking for soccer jersey's, now would I? I showed up for uniform pick up last night because I thought yesterday was August 11th. At least this time I was a day early instead of a day late. I arranged a ride for Maggie so I could pick up the uniforms. I called home from work around 2:30 to tell Maggie and Ryan to get ready. Ryan needs approximately 30 minute per item that he has to put on. Lets see; two socks, two shin guards, a shirt, shorts, two shoes. Darn, I should have called by 10:30. When I got home Maggie was already gone. When she got home from practice, I was horrified when she walked in. I braided her hair yesterday morning in two french braids. Yesterday she looked adorable, today she looks homeless. Obviously she forgot one of her three chores, probably two, I seriously doubt that she bothered to brush her teeth either. I'm not sure if she even walked passed a mirror today. Her older sisters chose to ignore the unkept seven year old heading out the door for soccer practice. After all they aren't getting paid to babysit, why should they bother to do more than the bare minimum??I am thinking of introducing myself to the parents on the team as the mother of the child that lives in a van down by the river!!

I have had a crazy week. Shannon had her regional competition for high school cheerleading. It is amazing that she lived long enough to compete because her big sister Erin almost killed her the day before at work study. They do work study at their school to help defray the cost of tuition. It is better to do a week in the summer so their schedule during the school year isn't as full. Apparently little Miss Shannon didn't have the best attitude when they were taking apart soccer goals and cleaning out school storage sheds in 98 degree weather. Erin had just about enough of Shannon's eye rolls and sighs. They made it home in one piece without a punch, scratch or hair pull. Miracles never cease. I took off work on Wednesday to help with hair and make up for the cheerleaders. We started at 9:00 AM, they were not competing until 6:00 PM but needed to be ready by 1:00 so they could watch the JV squad perform. The girls were all really sweet except one. This girl in particular almost got every little red hair ripped out of her head. Shannon is really tender headed, that combined with the eye rolling, sighing, whining and general bad attitude was enough to push me over the edge. I saw Erin in the hallway and shared with her that I was ready to kill her little sister. She said "Oh my God, I know, every time Shannon asks me to straighten her hair it ends in a fist fight." The girls did really well at the competition and won a bid to compete at the State Championship in November. It makes me a nervous wreck to watch my baby thrown up so high in the air. Granted, hours earlier I was ready to throw her out a classroom window. Here is the link to the video of the competition .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tidsT8U6rs

I had fun on my girls weekend. It was nice that the group that I went with were pretty tame. We shopped, talked about our kids and watched a couple of movies in the evening. When did I become so boring???? I missed an anniversary party on Friday night. Dave went without me and called me on his way home to tell me about it. He seemed to have a good time, I was sorry that I missed it. The next morning Erin called me to snitch on her dad, she said "Oh my God mom, you should have seen what dad wore to the party, khaki shorts, socks and tennis shoes."I asked her why she let him out of the house dressed for a bar b que. She said that she wasn't home when he left. Lauren called me a few hours later with a matching story. I learned an important lesson this weekend, I won't leave again without laying out his clothes.

Dave, Ryan and Mike were out fishing when I got home. Lauren was throwing a fit because they had been gone so long. When they returned, Mike told her it was really hard to argue with her on the phone when she called to yell at him when he was sitting two feet away from her dad on a tiny boat. Poor Mike, he is learning to just say yes dear, early on. I bought him a shirt for his birthday on my shopping trip. It was a Columbia blue color to match my beautiful daughter's eyes. Dave has a closet full of shirts the same color to match my eyes. Never mind the fact that they both have green eyes, sometimes it is a little more important to make us look better.

Shannon has her Regional competition on Wednesday for cheerleading. I am going early to help with hair and make-up. I am new to this whole cheerleading thing, I am used to sweaty soccer players and stinky shin guards. Giddy cheerleaders will be a whole new experience for me.

My husband called me on his way home from work. He was a little stressed because he got another call while we were talking. He has had the same phone for two years and still can't figure out how to work the call waiting feature. He said every time he tries to click over, he ends up hitting the mute button and talking to the same person. Call me crazy, but if you are still hitting the mute button after two years, it may be a good idea to try a different button. I used to think all of his quirks were cute!!!

I got my van back on Wednesday, I am officially $1,800 poorer. Oh well, it's just money, I have always thought money was over rated anyway. Maybe the kids could start a new trend and go to school barefoot this year. I lent the van to my friends for their vacation in Destin Fl, they are leaving at 2 in the morning. I will breathe much easier once I know that they arrive with the transmission intact. I would hate to spoil their vacation by them spending it at an auto garage vs the beach. It seems to be driving perfect, so hopefully it will be fine.

Ryan had another birthday party to go to, this time I did the shopping and got him a masculine red, gift bag. I asked Dave to drop him off, I was waiting for my friend to come by so I could show him how to work the TV and video game hook up in the van before we traded cars. Dave acted aggravated that he had to take OUR son somewhere because he was supposed to meet Lauren's boyfriend Mike to go fishing. I'm sure the fish can wait, he could tell that this was one little battle that he had no chance of winning. I asked him where Ryan was and he said "in the car." I went out to the car and asked, "do you have a pillow, change of clothes, toothbrush??" He said, "umm, I brought a pair of shorts." I looked in the bag and he had a pair of shorts with stains all over them packed. We went inside to re-pack and grab the gift off the kitchen table that he forgot. I told Dave to find out what time pick up was in the morning. I asked him last night what time he needed to be picked up. He said it was in between 3 and 5. That was a pretty big window. He told me they were going to go swimming. I said, "he didn't pack his swim trunks." Dave said "don't worry, our kids are able to adjust well." I wanted to say, "no, they are used to adjusting because their father is completely incompetent." Instead I said, Yeah they sure are. I am leaving this afternoon for a girls weekend at the lake. When Ryan found out he threw a fit. I asked why he was so upset. He said, "that's not fair that everyone gets to go except me." I laughed and said, it's not a Murphy girl weekend, just some of my high school friends. He thought that I was bringing all of his sisters. Is he crazy, I am getting away from all of my offspring this weekend. I think there may be lots of "adjusting" with daddy this weekend.