Clean carpets + a bonus!

Mr. Crackers decided it was time to clean the family room carpet today & set out to find all of the pieces and parts to our carpet steamer. After searching for 30 minutes through the tangled mess of our basement crawl space, he reported that while he was not successful in finding all the parts he needed to get that job done, he did run across a folder full of pictures he wanted me see. I opened it up & realized that the folder contained the photos that used to hang on the walls of my cubicle when I was still a workin' gal.



This picture was taken on November 16, 1996. I know this because this was the date that Mr. Crackers proposed to me. We were staying at a cabin in the Tennessee woods for a long weekend with some of our friends. The weather was beautiful and we decided to go on a hike to a local waterfall. Our good friends J, who is on the far left in the photo, and KK who is taking the picture came with us. (I won't mention the person in the yellow sweatshirt since shortly after this picture was taken he and our good friend J split up & we all discovered that Mr. Yellow Sweatshirt was not the nice guy we thought he was...) Anyhoo, Mr. Crackers surprised me & all of our friends by dropping down on 1 knee and proposing marriage in front of the above mentioned waterfall. I can say with all sincerity that we were all completely surprised by that maneuver. That Mr. Crackers can sure keep a secret! This picture was taken right before we left on that fateful walk. I had no idea what was in store for me just 2 miles down the trail.







This shot was taken in 2000 at our then annual Halloween party. At this point, Mr. Crackers & I had been married for just over 3 years. For lack of any better ideas, we decided to dress up as Earl & Arlene of Earl & Arlene's Auto Body. Two completely fictional characters plucked right out of our demented psyches. We smeared black paint all over Mr. Crackers (to simulate motor oil) and he slicked his hair back. I was teetering on very high heels & had used an entire can of hairspray on my hair to fashion it into some kind of do (clearly I have no talent with hairstyling). I was also wearing more a lot of make-up (which is hard to see on my pasty skin in this picture) and Lee Press-On Nails in bright fire engine red. In hindsight I probably should have stuffed my bra. Something tells me that Earl would've like a woman with bigger bosoms...

Here is a picture from my cubicle that was taken there. It's a picture with my good friend KK (on the right) and M one of the best assistant buyers I ever had. KK was the woman behind the camera in the first photo and was one of 3 witnesses to Mr. Crackers' marriage proposal. I had a great time working with these two ladies. There were other pictures of co-workers hanging in my cube, but I will spare you the tedium associated with those pictures. You're welcome.

The obligatory baby shot. C as an infant - just about 4 months old. Man, I hated leaving him every day to go to work. Look at those cheeks, will ya'? I want to just reach into that picture and plant a big sloppy kiss on them.





Here's another picture of C - he's just about 10 months old. This was the most recent picture I had of him in my cube, even though he was 18 months old when I resigned & I got the heck out of Dodge (Atlanta) to head back home to Ohio.





These days, the size of my work space has increased. Instead of a cube, I've got the entire house as my working domain. You'll be happy to know I've updated the pictures.

Mr. Crackers never did find that part for our steamer, but you can't keep that man down for long. He went ahead to our local home improvement store and rented one for the day. Mr. Crackers, after 12 years of marriage you're still my hero!

Welcome to Fort Crackers

I mentioned in my last post that I had been feeling a tad lethargic as of late. I was not alone in my desire to stay home and hibernate. My two hooligans have had similar feelings. Really, all three of us have been perfectly happy hanging around the house engaging in really low levels of activity (seriously, we've just been slightly more energetic than your average coma patient.)

The hooligans have taken this hibernation thing to a whole new level. They've been constructing forts & dens all over the house.

K's room has your basic entry level fort:

No frills here, just a roof over your head & a couple of toys. The pink is pretty though, is it not?

C took the fort in his room to a slightly higher level:

You'll notice that he added a door to his model (or a bean bag chair to those of you who aren't fort savvy). He's got himself a really nice cocoon here that is jam packed with toys. You can't see 'em, but trust me they're there. When I moved the bean bag chair later in the day, I couldn't help but notice that most of the toys in his room were now in that tiny 2'X2' area.

But to see their true talent in den construction, you need to head downstairs to the playroom. For there you will witness a fort so large, C has actually created separate rooms. He gave me a tour of it yesterday and I thought I would share his handiwork with you.

The fort itself started out as a blanket (or I should say the blanket that was formerly known as the only thing keeping me warm at night while I watch TV ) fastened to the open doorway of what we have cleverly named "the tiny room under the stairs" with a C clamp borrowed from Mr. Crackers.

At some point, C decided that the fort was just too small, so he grabbed some chairs, their play hut tents & a sheet from the guest bedroom to add on a dance room (which is interestingly the smallest room in the fort), a play room and an exercise room.

Once he completed the tour, he told me his grand plans to expand the fort even further. But I have had to nix those ideas since they involved using all of our kitchen chairs and even more bedding. He was quite disappointed that I put an end to further expansion. He had visions of having the fort stretch across the entire length of the play room. When I asked him, "Buddy, if you used all the chairs for your fort, then where would we eat?" He looked at me like I had lost all my marbles and responded, "In the fort Mom, Duh!"

Hmmm... I think perhaps we are in desperate need of some outside time. A few more weeks of winter and I may never get them out of the house again!

The February Blahs...

So, I know I haven't done a particularly good job of blogging lately. Something always happens to me in late February- I don't know why, but I seem to have the overwhelming desire to slow things down & go into hibernation. It doesn't seem to matter what's on the agenda, February has just always been weird month for me. This year has been no exception. First, I was busy getting us ready for the cruise, and then there was the cruise itself and after that there was the recovery period after the cruise. And finally, just when it was time for me to get back in the swing of things again, I came down with a horrible case of the February Blahs.... I know what you're thinking, excuses, excuses!

But I have to say, it was a particularly nasty case of the Blahs. While I was able to keep up with the daily grind of life - the laundry, the meal preparation and the general maintenance of my 2 hooligans - I let everything else go. And as I puttered about and took a long time to get very little accomplished, the house began it's frighteningly rapid decent into filth and disarray.

I began noticing yesterday that things had really started to get out of hand. The pile of ironing was approaching the 4' high mark (I began having nightmares about poor K being buried alive under a gigantic avalanche of horribly wrinkled clothes), the hard wood floors were getting downright icky (your socks shouldn't stick to the floors, right?), there was a thick coat of dust on every piece of furniture we own, and I can't even talk to you about the toilets... shudder, shudder. Let's just say I'm glad no one has dropped in on us unexpectedly as of late.

Even the yard was in a sad state of decay that wasn't only due to the cold and dreariness of winter. Nope. You see, while I am really diligent about dog "waste" removal during the warm months, I really let it slide once the weather gets cold. If a dog poops in the yard and no one is there to see it, is the poop really there? I mean if the kids & I aren't out in the yard than does it really matter how much poo is out there? OK, maybe it does but I figure what I don't see won't hurt me, right? We only have 1 dog these days, so it didn't seem so bad in December or even January. But once late February comes & the snow melts all of that poo starts making me a little twitchy. Seriously, there's a lot of poo out there people! I knew I had to get things jump started relatively soon or the Easter Egg hunt could be really scary this year.

Happily, I think I am on the road to recovery. I'm not sure if this week's warmer temperatures have been the cure or if the filth we are living in finally got through all my layers of apathy, but I can say I am starting to return from the land of the hibernating zombies. I actually took a good swing at the ironing yesterday & I'm proud to report that it's height has been reduced to about 14" or so. I am hoping that I can knock the rest out tonight (the good news is that even if all of the ironing fell on top of K - I think I would be able to find her quickly before she suffocated!)

I also went outside into the yard and tackled the area around the kids play set. I can now proudly say that the hooligans can play in about 1/3 of our yard without fear of stepping on any doggie made land mines. This morning I even vacuumed & mopped all of the downstairs floors. Now I am finally getting a new blog entry out there. Wow, compared to my activity levels over the past 2 weeks I'm on fire! Geez, what's next? Maybe I'll even don my hazmat suit and tackle all the bathrooms. OK, I take that back, maybe I'll just do one of them. I'm still in recovery after all & don't want to overdo it. Baby steps, it's all about baby steps.

Watch out world, February is almost over and I'm getting ready to kick some serious March butt (or more realistically, I may be ready to get the house back under control again)!

Volcanoes and the high seas

Blog? What blog?

I guess I shouldn't entirely blame our vacation for my two week absence from writing since as it was a just 3 day cruise. But, I'll blame the trip anyway....

First let me say that we had a lot fun on the Disney Cruise. As I have mentioned in my previous posts, we went on the cruise compliments of my Father-in-law, who has begun the rather awesome tradition of completely planning and paying for a big family vacation every February. Thank you Poppa Crackers! These trips have been a wonderful way for the whole Cracker clan to get together and have some family fun.

Here we are - the Cracker clan in our best tropical attire.

Before I tell you about the trip, I should probably give you a little background information about my 3 year old daughter K. I think I have mentioned before that K is a lot of things: funny, sweet, loving, imaginative, creative. One thing she is not, however, is low maintenance. The combination of a stubborn personality and a flair for the dramatic can make travel a somewhat stressful experience when K is involved - especially when her afternoon nap is thrown off schedule. You just never know what will happen, but you know there's a pretty good chance that when something does happen, it's going to be bad. It's like living right next to a volcano on a Hawaiian island. There's a lot of beauty there, but when an unexpected eruption starts, the screams can be deafening.

So, before going on a trip I get myself as prepared as possible by reading all the available information & then plotting out a strategy that will allow us time to have fun, relax, see the sights & (most importantly) get Katie down for a nap! This usually works out pretty well. Our trip last year to Disney World is a perfect example. We had a great time - we got to see everything we wanted to & still managed to get Katie a good 2-3 hour nap everyday.



In fact she didn't have a single temper tantrum until the trip home when (no surprise here) our flights were delayed by a winter storm & she missed her afternoon nap. We knew we were in trouble, but nothing (& I mean NOTHING) could have prepared us for the complete and total meltdown that occurred for over an hour on the flight home. I have never witnessed a temper tantrum of that magnitude from her since then & was hoping to avoid the same thing from happening on this trip.


With this in mind, I packed our carry-on bags with the supplies I deemed necessary to fend off any attacks of bad temper. I'm telling you, I had so many activities, snacks and chocolate (an essential for emergency situations) with me that I probably could have entertained every child on the flight for at least 4 hours. But, if all those years of Girl Scouts taught me nothing else, I can say that I try to always be prepared. I am very happy to report that both the plane ride down to Florida and the trip home were completely uneventful. Both K and C were the models of good flight behavior. Whew!


The only issue we had started during the boat evacuation drill which is mandatory. We had prepared the kids for the drill & told them that we'd be wearing life jackets for a little while. But, here's the thing... the drill happened at 4:00 pm right during what would normally be K's nap time, and while she started out really calm, the 15 or so minutes spent in the life jacket proved to be more than a tired 3 year old could take. We were not the only ones battling a tired toddler in a bright orange vest. I heard many, many tears from the pre-school set as the drill approached the 15 minute mark. And we, like those other parents, rushed upstairs to our stateroom once the drill ended. Our goal was simple. We wanted to try & get K down for a quick nap. At this point we were tight on time. We knew we had to get her to sleep fast since our dinner seating was at 5:45. We figured a 45 minute nap is better than no nap at all, right?

A tired K is a dangerous K. This was the somewhat vacant stare that she had every evening of our trip.

Well, who can say for sure? All I know is that when we woke her up from the nap she was even more unhappy and cranky than she was when she fell asleep. And let me tell you, trying to wrangle an unhappy toddler to a sit down meal in a restaurant is not for the weak of heart. To say the least, it was not a relaxing dinner. There were many, many tears and many trips made by Mr. Crackers (thank you!) out of restaurant with a screaming child in tow so that we didn't disturb the other passengers who were trying to have a nice and peaceful dinner.

Thankfully, that was our only real meltdown of the trip. But, to be honest, the shadow of that tantrum colored the rest of our time on the ship. Even though we tried to take it easy, we felt like we were constantly bouncing from once activity to another and we were all tired. Mr. Crackers and I were also keenly aware that the key element in any eruption of Mount K was exhaustion, and so we were constantly on edge trying to prevent the next one from happening.


Despite the this little bit of added stress, I must say that the trip was a blast.

We got to go swimming at the Atlantis resort in Nassau.

We danced the night away at the ship's Pirate Party.

Then we headed to Castaway Cay for more swimming and playing in the sand.

These two hooligans just love the water!

And Mickey Mouse...

And of course, Momma & Poppa Crackers!

Despite the stress you would expect when traveling with small children, we had a terrific time! We are very lucky to be on the receiving end of such generosity. We can't say enough to thank Momma & Poppa Crackers for such a wonderful trip! We loved it!

I just hope that next year's trip will be in a volcano-free zone!

The last time I went on a cruise W's Dad was our President.

As you've read in previous posts, the Cracker family is about to head southward for a Disney cruise with the rest of the extended Cracker clan. As the week goes by, I've gotten more excited about the trip. But, thinking about cruising brings up a fond memory of my first cruise. The year was 1990 and my best girlfriends from high school and I went on a 3 day cruise to Nassau.

We were just 20 years old at the time - just kids really. Check out those sunglasses will ya'? We were all attending different colleges, but had remained close and decided we should go away for a girl's weekend. It was a complete blast. I don't remember all the details (I probably have early onset Alzheimer's), but I do remember laughing a lot.

Oddly one of the only details I do remember isn't even something involving one of my friends. It was the fact that our waiter and our room steward were both named Juan. One was much taller than the other, so we referred to them as Big Juan and Little Juan. They were close to our age, and we had fun joking around with them while we were on the ship. By the end of our journey we just referred to them as a unit, the "Magic Juans."

Speaking of big and little, here are my 2 friends P & T. P is 6'3" tall, and hilarious! She kept us laughing all through high school. She was (and probably still is) an phenomenal basketball player. She played both in high school and college. T is just 4'11" and I've known her since we were in 1st grade together. These days she's a pediatrician & has 3 little kids of her own.

Here are our other 3 cruising partners - R, M and Kelly. R is a big wig muckity muck at a ginormous consumer products company. She's traveled the world, gotten an MBA at Wharton, participated in triathlons and marathons and was recently married. Despite all this, we still really like her. M went to college with me here in Ohio, then went to work for a major insurance company. She still works for them, but now she lives way out in Denver with her husband and 2 girls. Kelly, you may remember from previous posts. Kelly is one of my favorite people on the planet. She's funny and generous and has a beautiful 11 year old daughter who will hopefully babysit my own hooligans someday. She also shares my somewhat warped view of the world which makes me happy.

Looking back at these pictures I remember how fun it was to be 20 and single. I remember how wonderful it was to have such good friends to share fun times with. Lord knows I was not worried about any of them throwing a temper tantrum every evening at dinner. Seriously, there were no tears over the fact that Honey-Nut Cheerios wasn't on the menu. I also didn't have to pack a million books and diversions to avoid meltdowns. I might be digressing a bit here, but my point is I traveled much lighter in those days.

I am lucky to have such good friends and I'm happy to say that I still keep in touch with all of these girls to some degree.

I'm hoping that this week's cruise will be just as much fun as my last one! I'm also hoping I am better able to remember the details once I get home.

Avert your eyes

It's almost that time of year again - time for the second annual Cracker Family vacation. Last year, the entire extended family headed down to Disney World, where we could be seen wearing our neon green matching t-shirts:

The picture really doesn't do justice to how really bright the shirts were. Please trust me when I tell you they were eye catching and best when viewed through sunglasses.

In addition to the vivid color of the shirt, my Father-in-law had our first name printed on the front of the shirt along with some Disney characters. On the back of each shirt Cracker Family Vacation 2008 was written in bold letters. To say the least, I was more than a little apprehensive about wearing it. Not only was it bright and emblazoned with my name, but it was also an exact match to the shirts worn by 10 other members of my family. While I won't go so far to say I have a personal style, I will say that this attire was not in keeping with my usual look. But since Papa Crackers paid for the whole vacation, including the shirts, it seemed like a good idea to go with the flow and honor his wishes, so we all wore our shirts faithfully (and yes, we did wash them every night).

In hindsight, I really have to give some kudos to my Father-in-law. Their vibrancy made them a really easy way to spot other members of the family once the park got crowded. Man, the shirts practically glowed while screaming "Yes, I belong to the Cracker Family!" I swear I could make out a family member from a quarter of a mile away. Not only that, the shirts seemed to make us something akin to minor celebrities. Everywhere we went within the confines of the park we'd hear, "There goes the Cracker family again." or "Hello Cracker family." or my favorite, "Every where I turn I see more of those darn Crackers".

Another picture of those darn Crackers

Really, once I got over the initial trepidation about wearing the shirt, I embraced my inner dork (which is really, really close to the surface anyway) and had fun with it.

The trip last year was a complete blast & is one of my most favorite vacations ever. I can't wait until we get a chance to go back and visit the park again.

This year's family vacation is a Disney cruise. Needless to say we are all very excited about it. We've got our passports, and I've already started packing. I will say I am a little nervous about the plane ride to and from Florida. I am still having nightmares about last year's plane trip. Since I am still not quite ready to deal with that whole saga yet, I'll save those thoughts for another post.

Papa Crackers & all his grandkids in vivid Technicolor!

I know we will will have a great time (despite any travel horrors that befall us on the plane) and I am very thankful that Papa Crackers has been so generous these past couple of years. I'm sure that we'll remember these family vacations for a lot of years to come.

My only question is what we will be wearing this year? I am harboring a secret fear that he has bought us all matching swimsuits. Seriously people, I cannot be seen in the same swimsuit as my 2 beautiful nieces who are now 15 & 13. Not only will all my pale skin burn your retinas, but my body didn't look that good even when I was 15 years old. Perhaps he's bought us all matching floor length mu-mus. I think I'm more comfortable with that.

I rest my case(s)

Right before I left my job as a buyer (with an employee discount) at a major national retailer over four years ago, I went ahead and bought Mr. Crackers & myself brand new sheets. They were expensive sheets with a really high thread count. Oh, how we love our sheets. It was quite a splurge for us, but we knew it was probably the only chance we'd have to get them so cheaply.

Uncharacteristically, I thought ahead and bought 2 sets of sheets. They were on sale & I knew I would be losing my employee discount, so it seemed the smart thing to do. As with most things I do, I made a small error in judgement. For some reason (that still baffles me) even though I bought 2 sets of sheets, I only bought 1 set of pillow cases.

Both Mr. Crackers & I love the feel of clean sheets, so I wash our sheets & pillow cases every week. We've had them for about 4 1/2 years, so according to my calculations I've washed this set of pillow cases about 235 times. Do you want to know what happens when you wash your pillow cases that much? They start to look like this:

They are disintegrating right before our eyes. Every time we try to take them off or put them back on the pillows, our ears are accosted by the sound of tearing cotton. Notice the way the trim is completely detached in many areas from the rest of the pillow case. Last week, we lost half the trim off of one of the cases. The kids were using it as a headband. And I can't tell you how many times I've recently gotten my arm twisted in the gaping holes that have formed in our beloved cases.

Mr. Crackers & I have been trying to cut back on our spending, so we've tried to put off getting new sheets. We've come to the point now though that we may be just one washing away from their total destruction. So, I started pricing out really nice sheets & I came to this conclusion: we can't afford really nice sheets.

Holy Egyptian cotton! I think that perhaps they are now starting to weave pure gold into high thread count sheets. I can't figure out why else my former employer would charge $200.00 for a King size flat sheet ON SALE! Good grief, if I want to replace my sheets and pillowcases I would have to spend over a million dollars! OK, so it wouldn't be quite a million, but it might as well be!

In a stroke of pure genius, I have decided that since our sheets are in relatively good shape, all we really need to do is get new pillow cases. While we still can't afford the $96.00 my former employer wants to charge for pillow cases, I figured I should be able to find really nice quality pillow cases from a different department store without having to re-finance my home a third time.

I went out today & found what seem to be really nice ones for $24.99 a pair. Compared to the $96.00 I saw at the other place, I felt like I was getting a pretty good deal. I may be slow witted, but I do learn from my mistakes, so I did buy two sets this time. I have a set in the washer now so we can test drive them tonight. If I get a thumbs up from Mr. Crackers I'll go ahead and wash the second set too.

I am hoping our sheets hold out for a few more years. I don't want to even think about spending the money to replace them anytime soon. I guess I should probably start playing the lottery, or learn how to weave. Knowing my domestic skills the lottery is probably a better bet.

I promise I haven't killed anyone lately

Yesterday afternoon my hooligans and I were goofing around in the playroom. C had been performing a musical medley of his own creation when he decided to stop the racket the concert and instead pass his microphone to me so that I could "interview" him. I loved this idea and started asking C questions designed to tickle the funny bone of a 6 year old (this, as you know if you have a 6 year old, is a pretty easy task). Much of the usual shenanigans ensued, none of which I remember now, but it had us both chuckling.

Then it was K's turn to be interviewed so I turned to her and asked, "So Missy Pants, can you tell me a little bit about your family?"

"Yes," she replied, "they all like to say bad words - a lot!"

"What do you mean?" I asked "What words are you talking about?" (At this point I am holding my breath a bit not sure if I really want to hear what will come out of her mouth next.)

"They all say stupid all the time." she replied


"No they don't." I said. "I know your family well & I'm sure they don't say that all the time. That's one of our bad words, you know that. We don't say that word, it isn't nice"

"I know. But they say it all the time. Also, my Mom and Dad like killing people. It's fun!"

Umm....what??!! I have no idea where this came from. She then started to dance around while I tried to explain that her father & I truly haven't killed anyone lately ever. But by then, she had moved onto something else and was predictably not hearing a word I said.

C shot me a look that said "Sisters, aren't they just a kick in the head?" I just shrugged & decided to start cooking dinner . As I climbed the stairs to the kitchen I began to wonder if she was telling anyone else about our family's "darker" side.


This morning after I dropped her off at school, I discovered that my concerns were well founded. As I was exiting the building one of the teachers said to me, "K and I were talking all about C last week. How does he like kindergarten?"


"Oh, he just loves it." I replied.


"I'm so glad." she responded. "K and I were discussing him & she was cracking me up. She told me how he likes to hit her all the time. I told her that I was sure he didn't hit her all the time and she looked me right in the eye and said, "Yes he does! He hits me and says bad words every day!""



Oh geez! I guess I should be thankful that she didn't inform the teacher about Mr Crackers' and my penchant for murder.


Luckily, this teacher has raised 3 kids of her own and has been a pre-school teacher for about 15 years, so she knows the score. Thank goodness.



Now I just have to keep K away from other people until I have a chance to deprogram her. Seriously, I can already picture her in the line at Target confessing all of crimes and atrocities committed by her family. I am expecting Children and Family Services at my door any day now.