Erin is leaving for Arkansas tomorrow for a soccer tournament. Ryan has already started the happy dance. I went to the mall after work trying to find an outfit that would make my size 12 body look like a 2. Not too much luck on that little task. Erin called wondering where I was and more importantly where my checkbook was, She wanted to pick up a birthday gift for her best friend before she headed out of town. She had soccer practice at 4:30 and she didn't have time to cash her paycheck before practice. I told her to meet me at the mall, I could use her opinion and I would give her a check. It probably wasn't the best idea to invite my size zero daughter to help me pick out a fat dress. I made her promise that she wouldn't make gag noises in the dressing room when I took off my clothes like Lauren usually does. The lady in the dressing room next to us farted really loud and instead of laughing quietly to herself like most normal people would do, Erin screamed, "That was not me!!!!" She then started busting out laughing. I thought I was going to pee in my pants. What an idiot she is. I quickly gave Erin a check and told her to leave, I could take it from there. I went by the men's department to pick up a couple new dress shirts and ties for Dave. He likes conservative style clothes, I bought him a striped shirt to wear to his 20th class reunion last year and I ended up giving it to Lauren's boyfriend Mike because Dave wouldn't wear it. Tonight I bought him a light blue shirt and a plum colored shirt. Maggie had a First Communion retreat mass tonight. I figured since this is my 7th child going through Catholic school I have this sacrament down. I sent her on a date with her dad to church so I could hit the mall. When they got home, I told Dave I got him two new shirts to wear for this weekend. He said "I sure hope they are white, I only like white shirts." I said "Yeah and I only like husband's that know how to cook and don't ignore their wives when the soccer channel is on, now shut up and try on your new shirts. That blue one really brings out my eyes."

Last night school was cancelled pretty early so the kids were excited. Erin asked if I was planning on going to work. I told her I was going to try. She said "I don't want you to get hurt mom." I said "Aww, you really do love me Erin." She said "actually we just had a really good dinner tonight (chicken and dumplings) and I don't know how we would eat if something would happen to you!!

Dave woke me up this morning and asked if I was going in to work. I got up and looked at the snow covered street and decided to pull the covers up over my head and go back to bed. He said "if your not going anywhere, do you mind if I don't shovel the driveway until after work?" I said no that's fine, I'm good. Once the kids started waking up I realized that going in to work wasn't such a bad idea. I started getting ready and went out to start my van. Oh why did I let Dave off so easy this morning. I think I can count on one hand how many times I have cleaned snow off my car. My dad always did it when I was young (except for the time that I snuck the car out in the middle of a snow storm when I was 16 and got stuck in the snow) and Dave took over when we got married. I don't own snow boots so I was outside in dress pants and heels cleaning off my van with a broom. I went inside and changed into tennis shoes and finished dusting off the van. I finally got to work around noon, the roads were pretty clear by that time. I don't think the people behind me on the highway appreciated all the snow from the roof of my huge van blowing all over them. My kids only called me 12 times today (that includes Dave) I finally left my office around 5:3o pm. When I got out to the parking lot, my windshield was covered with a foot of snow. All the remaining snow on the roof of the van melted and slid onto the windshield. I started the van and looked for something that I could use for an ice scraper. I improvised and used a Vitamin Water Bottle to shovel the snow off. Thank God my van is always a mess so I could find something to use. Of course when I got home by 6:00 the house was spotless and dinner was on the table. HA Ha just kidding, breakfast was actually still on the table. I left to go to my neighbor's house down the street to get my haircut. Ryan showed up at my neighbors 45 minutes later, he missed me. When we left to go home, I asked "where is your coat?" He said , I didn't need one, it's not cold." There is 6 inches of snow on the ground, I wouldn't exactly call that a heat wave. We got to the end of the driveway and he bent down and picked up his unicycle. I said, "did you seriously ride your unicycle down here in the snow with no coat, no gloves in the snow and ice?" I lovingly (OK, not so lovingly) instructed him to carry his unicycle home and to not ride it in the house until he washes his wheel. Finally at 8:45 after some gentle prodding from their loving mother, Kelsey loaded the dishwasher and Shannon got the dripping wet towel and wet clothes off the hardwood floor. I ended my evening making a gourmet pot of Ramen noodles for dinner. I would have given them my first choice for dinner, cereal but we are out of milk. I asked Ryan and Maggie if either one of them had brushed their teeth today? I could tell by the looks on their faces what the answer was. I told them I was going to start removing their teeth one by one because they don't deserve them. Ryan said "OK but can you please start with the baby teeth." I should seriously consider writing a parenting book.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. It looks like we will have yet another snow day tomorrow. Erin is in a complete panic because she was unable to go tanning the last three days of her week package. I think she may die!!!!! I love coming home from work to find a huge pile of wet clothes on my hardwood floor from the kids playing in the snow. I called the house this afternoon to check on the kids, why do I torture myself this way. Erin wanted to know if she could drive to her friends house so they could work on a project. Umm no!!!!! I gently reminded her that she just wrecked her father's car and I didn't feel she should drive in freezing rain. I told her that Ryan's liquid Advil was on my bathroom sink and she might need to give him a dose. She said, "he's 10 he can get it himself." Wow, she should seriously consider being a nurse, she is such a nurturer. I called back a while later to check in and Maggie answered, she said, "Erin is getting us McDonalds!!!" I said, "she better not be driving", Maggie said "oops, sorry, she already left." It's a good thing I work in a hospital because my blood pressure went through the roof. I called Erin on her cell phone and said, "WHERE ARE YOU??" She said, "in the kitchen, why." I told her what Maggie told me and she laughed and said, grandma is getting us McDonalds. I apologized for all the terrible thoughts I had about her. I'll save those thoughts for another day. They will come in handy, I'm sure.

When I got home Ryan had mastered riding his unicycle backwards. His sisters absolutely can't stand him riding his unicycle all through the house. Kelsey has threatened to bring her bike in from the garage and ride it as well, just to see if the rules change for her. Shannon told me when they were eating lunch today Erin got mad and smacked Ryan on the back of his head as hard as she could . Erin said "I did not, it was not as hard as I could, I can hit much harder." This was about the time I cashed in those terrible thoughts I had from earlier. Everyone that knows Erin thinks that she is this perfect angel, she must have an evil twin that only lives at my house and the nice twin goes out in public. She better watch it because Ryan is only going to get older and smarter, you never know when he might replace her shampoo with nair or her lip gloss with super glue.

Dave and I have two black tie events to go to this weekend, the one for Friday night is in Jeff City and his company is putting us up in a hotel room. I'm thinking about finding a job down there and never coming back.

This was the view out my front window this morning. The car with the missing hubcap is Erin's (she hit a curb three months ago), putting it back on is on Dave's to do list. Hey I'm just happy he finally took the Halloween decorations down. Erin's car wouldn't start and she got to be daddy's "special little helper" this morning. He needed someone to hold his hood up while he tried to jump start her car. Thanks to her little escapade yesterday the hood won't stay up since the frame is smashed. Normally she would be crabbing up a storm but today she took one for the team and stood outside holding up the hood like a trooper. She did however scream at me when she saw me on the front porch with a camera trying to document this touching father daughter moment. Dave had an early meeting so he was a tad stressed this morning. I told Erin to forget about it and stay home, I was afraid it would start snowing this afternoon and I didn't want "Crash Murphy" back on the road.

Erin called me at work around eleven and said "I got my car started, will you check online and see how much money I have in my account, I'm on my way to Wal Mart to get an adapter for my car stereo so I can play my IPod in my car." I asked her if it ever occurred to her that maybe she should have went to school instead of Wal Mart??? I didn't think so. I checked her account and asked her to pick up a cake mix for me so I could make grandma a birthday cake.

I stayed at work an hour late to tie up a few loose ends. I was afraid I wouldn't make it in tomorrow with the weather forecast. When I got home Ryan, Maggie and Kelsey were sleeping. Dave had just left to take Erin to work. I called Erin to find out where she put the cake mix. She said "Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot." Of course you did!!! Poor Dave, he had to clean up after another one of little Sybil's mishaps. When Dave got back from the store, I started dinner and baked the cake. Ryan woke up and looked horrible. The first thing I noticed was his lovely hairstyle. His hair was sticking up in several directions. I said "please tell me your hair didn't look like that at school." He said no, I was cold when I got home and tried to take a bath. I tried three different bathrooms and none of them had hot water. He didn't realize that one hot water heater took care of all five bathrooms. I wonder where his older sisters were when this poor little boy wondered from bathroom to bathroom trying to take a hot bath. Erin took a 45 minute shower and Shannon decided to shave 6 months of growth off her legs just before Ryan got home from school. The poor kid was burning up with a fever and no one noticed. He had a rough day. Maggie sat on his glasses on Saturday and broke them in half. He has been blind all day and now he is sick. I told him that I could probably super glue them together and he said "Why don't you just give me a tattoo that says "hit me now, I'm a dork." If I didn't hate tattoo's I just might!!!

Here is my lovely collection of wrecked cars. Lauren's front end of her car (gray car)is also wrecked but I didn't have a picture saved on this computer. The crunched front end of the white car is Erin's little handiwork. She decided to go tanning on her way to work in the middle of a snow storm and didn't quite make the turn. I started my day as a short order cook, Sam had her soccer team over for breakfast after their 8:00 AM indoor game. The girls were all very sweet. It was nice seeing so many kids around our table who actually passed the bacon verses tossing it like my family does when they eat breakfast together. Erin called to tell us about her accident about 10 minutes after Sam's friends left.Our big screen TV broke last weekend, the garbage disposal broke last night and now we are two cars down. Didn't I ask for just one boring week???There is always next week!!

I woke up this morning to the sound of Erin's lovely voice professing her love for her little brother. I think she told him he was the worst nine year old that was on the planet. He quickly pointed out that he was actually the worst ten year old on the planet. That's about the time I bolted out of my warm bed and peeled him off his comfy heat vent. He prefers to lay on the floor on the heat vent every morning instead of eating breakfast, getting dressed and God forbid brushing his teeth. I have already told him that he may be going to prom with one of his sister's if he doesn't start brushing his teeth when he is told.

We are still working things out with Lauren's car. We are waiting on the person who hit her to have his insurance company accept liability so she can get a rental car and start the repairs on the car. It is not in dispute since she was stopped when she was hit but they are waiting on all statements and the police report, yada yada yada. I just want one boring week, is that too much to ask???

Kelsey turns 13 tomorrow, I can't believe that I am going to have another teenager. I don't think I actually thought about how many teenage girls I could possibly have consecutively for decades when I was having babies. I had diapers for twelve years straight. I think being elbows deep in poop for twelve years is much easier than eye rolls and sighs!!!

Friday night I had to take Ryan to basketball practice, run by Target to pick up a gift for a party Ryan had on Sunday, drop Kelsey off at a friends house, swing back by school to pick up Ryan and then I was done for the night. It had been bitter cold all week and I couldn't wait to soak in my bath tub, put a fire in the fireplace, wrap up in a warm robe, watch a little TV and relax for the rest of the night.

Well the first glitch in the plan was when Ryan asked if one of his buddies could spend the night after basketball practice. I said fine, I could still relax provided they didn't get too rowdy. My second glitch was when my big screen TV broke. Maggie was playing Mario Cart when the power went out. I tried to turn it back on but the power light would turn on for two seconds and click back off. I decided to try and see if it would work with the TV remote instead of the power button on the TV. We normally use the remote with the cable box not the original TV remote. The batteries were dead since we never use that remote. I was standing in the kitchen looking for batteries when Dave called me and asked, "Have you talked to Lauren??" I said "no, why?" Then I heard a mother's worst nightmare. She had been in a bad car accident. She was rear ended by a big snow plow truck, luckily the snow plow was not on the truck. When he hit her it caused her to hit the car in front of her and bang her head on the metal frame that connects the door to the windshield. The policeman told her that if she wouldn't have had her seat belt on she would have went through the windshield. Erin was getting ready to go out with her friends, I asked her to wait until Ryan's friend got dropped off before she left to go out. I instructed her to pretend as if she is a nice involved sister and welcomed this kid to our home so his mother felt comfortable leaving her son at our house. She can really pull through and pretend to be loving and nice in a pinch!! Thank God it wasn't Shannon home instead of Erin. I'm not so sure she could have pulled off loving and kind.


We took her to the ER to get checked out. She doesn't even remember pulling over after the impact. She hit her head pretty hard. The ER doctor said she may be a bit forgetful for a few days and prescribed some pain medication that has made her sleep most of the weekend. When they took her back for ex rays she had to take out her earrings and take off her necklace. Her mother's love was proven when she gave me her smelly earrings to hold. They smelled like a cross between belly button lint, toe jam and vomit, thank God she's pretty because her ears stink!!!! The X-Ray tech asked her if her tongue was pierced before he took her back. She said "yes," and waited for my reaction. I said "very funny, if it was I would have yanked it out while she was sleeping ages ago. She said he asked her if she was pregnant when she got to the X-Ray room, She said "Oh I wish you would have asked me that in front of my mom, that would have been fun to watch her squirm when I said yes." Oh what a comedian I have!! We were very lucky she wasn't seriously injured.

She bought that car at the end of June, right after she signed all the papers she noticed scrapes all over the door left over from a bad ice storm at the dealership and they scraped the ice off and chipped the paint in the process. They were good about it and fixed it for her. A few weeks later, we had a flash flood and her car flooded with over a foot of water. She had to take it to get detailed and they had to take all the carpet and back seat out to let it air dry. When they put it all back together, they scraped up the inside plastic pieces as well as the paint job where the door closes. Now her back end is smashed in, her tail lights are all broken, her back window is shattered, the side of the car is buckled and her right front quarter panel is smashed. I have begun to refer to the car as "Christine."

I never did get to take my long hot bath, or sit in front of the fireplace. My TV is also still broken. My kids are dying because they can't play any of their Wii games and a little birdie told me that Rick Springfield is going to be on Don't Forget the Lyrics this week and my DVR is hooked up to that TV. Whatever will I do???

World War III broke out at the Murphy home tonight. Erin was mad at Shannon because she was leaving at 4:00 and their bedroom looked as if a hurricane had hit. Dave is having his MBA class over tomorrow night for a graduation party and their rooms have to be clean. Erin feels as if Shannon always leaves her with the mess. I told Shannon that she had to clean until her ride arrived. Erin was in the shower when Shannon was cleaning. She finished and came downstairs to wait for her ride and play Mario Cart on Wii. Erin came upstairs and her head started to spin around when she saw that Shannon scooped up all the clothes, including the clean folded ones in a basket and threw them in the dirty clothes pile. Which by the way was enough for 22 loads of laundry. Maggie had a friend over so she got to see the dysfunction unfold right before her eyes. Shannon was crying and adamantly professing her hatred towards her sister and Erin was adamantly professing how she was right regardless of how upset Shannon was, Erin was going to get the last word and prove that she was right no matter what.


An hour and a half later, World War IV broke out. Lucky for me I wasn't home to witness it. I receive a full account of the battle by phone from Lauren. Earlier, Lauren left to go out with her boyfriend. Erin decided since Lauren was gone it would be a great opportunity for her to wear Lauren's new designer top. Lauren decided to return home once she realized they were going to an alumni hockey game. Her boyfriend went to a high school who's colors were purple and gold. Lauren was wearing a purple shirt and my little fashionista couldn't show up at a high school hockey game wearing their school colors. After all she is a college student and has an image to uphold. Lauren was just going to run in and grab her new black designer shirt, she knew right where it was. She checked the closet and it was gone. She went to find Erin and sure enough she had it on. She tried to pull it off of her and Erin screamed "OK, leave me alone, I'll give it to you." Lauren let go and Erin took off running. Lauren chased her all through the house and finally caught her. She got her to the ground and pulled the shirt right off her body. Imagine Lauren's blood pressure when she put the shirt on only to find the arm pits soaking wet. I can't imagine why Erin would be sweating, a crazy woman chasing her through the house ripping her clothes off, she was bound to be a little nervous. Hey, that might make a great deodorant commercial. When your caught wearing someone elses killer outfit, "degree turns up the heat." Lauren was yelling at her and said, "look at you, you are so pitiful, you never wear anything of your own, you even have on Shannon's Uggs." A few minutes later she remembered that Erin and Shannon were fighting and Shannon left with her Uggs on, she was actually wearing Lauren's Uggs. The boots were a little easier to get off of her than the shirt.

The most normal part of my evening was when I was tying Ryan's basketball shoes before the game. I noticed he had duct tape on his ankles. I asked him, "What's with the duct tape?" He said, "My new basketball shoes are giving me blisters, it was either duct tape or Hello Kitty band aids, What would you choose?"

The kids are all back at school and we are starting to get back into our old routine. I woke up late on Tuesday and flew threw the house like a crazy woman getting everyone ready and packing lunches. Lauren woke up early and told me, "Erin and Shannon are on snow schedule." I assumed that meant she watched the news and saw the school closings. I went outside to warm up the car and get all the ice off my windshield. I loaded up the car and headed to go pick up my carpool. I pulled into the little girls driveway in my car pool and slid into her front lawn. I backed up and pulled in slower and honked. I waited a few minutes and honked again. Finally I sent Maggie out to knock on the door. Imagine how stupid I felt when her mom came to the door and told Maggie school was closed today. Apparently Lauren didn't watch the school closings after all, someone sent Erin a text message to tell her and she was just relaying the message. Now my car pool knows how incompetent I am.

Ryan got a unicycle from my sister for Christmas. It took him all of 24 hours to master it. He rides it all through the house. Every time he falls he counts to five, winces and holds his ears. That is normally the response time for grandma to scream at him for making so much noise above her. He gets to bring in one Christmas gift that he can fit in his backpack to school on Friday. He spent 45 minutes Monday night trying to find a way to get his unicycle in his backpack. School books aren't that important anyway. He got special permission from his teacher today to bring it, even though it won't fit in his backpack.

I am starting Weight Watchers at work. It was supposed to start today but they needed 15 people to sign up. We only had 13, we ended up with 15 by late afternoon so we will start next week. I told my co workers that I was joining and that I had nine months to be fit at forty. I turn 40 in September. I made a goal and I am sticking to it. I am so confident in fact, I told them that I was coming to work on my birthday wearing a bikini. I sure hope my birthday falls on a weekend or they all forget. Otherwise I will just send Lauren in my place, or paint myself gold, pierce my belly button and pretend I am trying out my new Buddha costume for Halloween.

OK better late than never. December has been extremely busy. Most importantly I am gainfully employed again and I'm really enjoying my new job. We had a wonderful Christmas and are sad to see Christmas vacation end. The picture above is of my kids and Mike, (Lauren's boyfriend) on Christmas Eve, as you can see, three of my daughters, I won't mention any names....Sam, Shannon and Erin, wore sweaters to mass and thought that they were dresses instead of tops. No wonder Dave has high blood pressure.

My sisters stayed with us over the holidays and it was great to be able to spend so much time with my nieces and nephew. They live in Atlanta and my other sister lives in Chicago so I don't get to see them often enough. It was great having little ones in the house again. Shannon gave everyone a gift that keeps on giving. She started throwing up on Dec 22nd. I had a 40th birthday party to go to on the 26th, I started feeling sick on the way to the party. I made it about 45 minutes before I walked out of the bar and threw up all over the sidewalk outside the bar. I looked like a real class act heaving outside a bar the day after Christmas. We had our Murphy Christmas party the next day. I told Dave that we needed to move the party to his sister's house, I was too sick. He insisted that I would be fine and he would take care of everything. He would clean the whole house and have everything ready. He suggested that I "take one for the team." I threw up that whole night. The next morning we had three more pukers. Ryan, Kelsey and my nephew Conor. My mom went grocery shopping for me and Dave and Sam were busy cleaning. I was making Fettuccine and dollar sandwiches. My mom was going to make the dollar sandwiches and I figured I could pull myself together enough to make the fettuccine. I guess grandma thought she would save 50 cents and get thick sliced lunch meat. Her side of the story was that there isn't any flavor in the thin lunch meat. The ham was so gross I pictured a big pig with an apple sticking out of it's mouth at a pig roast on each and every sandwich. (I threw away the last of the sandwiches today.) During the party my sister's youngest, Keira started throwing up. I'm sure all of Dave's brother's and sister's are thrilled that they were invited to the house of death for Christmas.

Lauren started throwing up on New Years Eve, she sent me a text message that said "who would have thought that I would be the one home in sweat pants on New Years Eve." My uncle got married on New Years Eve, the wedding was nice and the reception was over by 7:30, we had a party to go to but Dave didn't feel well so we stayed close to home and took Maggie to go see Marly and Me. It was the best movie I have seen in a long time. Dave started feeling terrible at the movies and ended up spending the rest of his evening throwing up. When he woke up this morning I suggested that we call 50 of our closest friends over for a party so he can "take one for the team."

2008 has been a great year, I got a new job, my kids are healthy, I got back in touch with so many of my dear old friends from grade school and most importantly I achieved my 27 year old goal of meeting my teen idol. It will be hard to top that in 2009.