Hello. My Name Is MomQueenBee.

My first professional job was as a reporter on a small-town newspaper. It was then that I developed my aversion to unusual names. At the risk of offending their parents, I would say that children with unique names were the bane of my existence. Or rather, the names of children with unique names made me chew my fingernails and mutter grimly to myself.

"Okay, I know that Jason was spelled some way besides the regular way--was it Jaysin?  Jaeson? Jaysan?"

Brittany could be spelled eight or ten or ninety-two ways, and I came to hope that Britnee was an underachiever who never won anything or expected to see her name in the paper. Otherwise I would have to ask (again) if that was with double T's, or double E's, or maybe had she decided to start spelling it Brritny? Aaaargh!

That's why I laid down some ground rules when we began discussing names for the Boys. They had to be solid names that were pronounced and spelled one way and one way only. (I'm ignoring that my own name has two acceptable spellings and that mine is the less common of the variations.)

As a result, we ended up with a couple of Old Testament prophets, an apostle, and one named after his suitably-monikered grandfathers. Common spelling and pronunciation all around.

And that's why, when I run into the parents of Boy#1's friends from high school, they invariably ask, "And how's Forbes doing?"

That's right. One may have been named after a prophet but his high school nickname, imposed by his nerdy friends when he was the 14-year-old spittin' image of a former presidential candidate, is the name that has stuck.

We should have called him Shaka Smart or Moussa Koussa. Those men obviously started life pre-nicknamed.

Street Value

I normally walk around with about four cents in my wallet. Years of having children who always needed $5 for art fees or $2 for a school lunch left me with no ready cash for the past couple of decades and it occurred to me along the way that not having so much as a spare dollar saved me from many an impulse Sonic buy.

Over the weekend my sister- and brother-in-law (who rock, by the way) cleaned out Mother-in-Law's medicine cabinet. As she nears her 10th decade it's easier for her to have the pharmacy bubble-package her medicines, so she no longer needed the bottle after bottle of outdated prescriptions. I'll be taking these old pills to the drugstore for disposal later this morning.

Today, finally, I'm worth mugging.

Role Model

My friend S stopped me after church Sunday to pay me one of the nicest compliments I've ever received.

"L really enjoys reading your blog," my friend said. "She's decided she wants to write a blog, too, so I'm getting her set up and she hopes people will comment like they do on yours."

I could not have been more touched.

L only recently began living with S's family. At 21, she's sweet-natured and loving but developmentally not ready to live on her own. S added L to the homeschool of her own younger children and now is watching her new "daughter" improve her reading and writing skills.

It struck me that as bloggers or as parents or as human beings, we never know what our real influence will be. We may set out with one goal in mind ("I think I'll write a totally self-indulgent blog that will let other empty nesters know we're not crazy!") and something entirely different is the result ("I really think this will help L with her writing.").

I know without a doubt that S and her family did not welcome a new, fully-grown member so that I would look at them and think how lucky L was to have found them, and what perfect role models they are on how to love and give sacrificially, and that I would be a better person if I followed their example.

But that's what happened.

No Joy in Mudville

If you live in Kansas, you are either a Jayhawk or a Wildcat. There is no other option.

Even those of us who work at or graduate from somewhere other than the two Big Universities have to choose a side, and during March those allegiances are tested. Will the Good Guys live up to their talent or will they end up in tears too early, along with the rest of the Wildcat nation? Will the Other Guys prove to be a dominating force as they have all season or will they fold like a cheap suit and take their classy coach down with them? Again?

The answers to these questions are tears, and suit. The former was expected at some point, the latter most assuredly was not. Today even the most ardent Wildcat has to feel a tiny bit of sympathy for the Jayhawks, in spite of the intrastate rivalry and the Jayhawks normally having the most irritatingly superior attitude since the invention of the French waiter.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville - mighty Casey has struck out.

Why, yes. I'm a Wildcat. How could you tell?

Digging in the Dirt

I told my co-workers that I was going to take a day off during spring break and dig in the dirt, and I'm sure they imagined that meant I would be doing some gardening. Ha! In our ongoing (and never-ending) quest to make the back yard just a bit more presentable, I wanted to add a brick landing outside the garage door to coordinate with the one at the bottom of the New Deck steps.

And because I have the impression that you love to know every detail of my life, here is how I did it.

Step 1: Document "before."

Isn't that sad? And isn't that picture dark? It was cold, too. Good thing I'm going to be doing some physical exercise! She said, cheerily!

Step 2: Gather proper equipment:



Gloves. Two telephones (landline and cell). Camera for documentation purposes. Oh, and bricks.


Step 3: Begin to dig.

Dig, dig, dig. I'm a diggin' machine, a regular John Henry in denim capri pants. Whoops, not deep enough, dig some more.

Hey! This is like an archaeological find. I don't know what the previous owners of our house did out here next to the garage, but here's a shard of a plate, found alongside multiple shards of window glass and some rusted bottle tops, and the find of the day:

A toothbrush! Top that, people who discovered the first human settlement in North or Central America.

By now I've been digging for two hours, and carting the dirt around the yard to fill in holes where Our Dog Pepper (see top photo) has spent the winter excavating for gold. I'm beginning to be afraid that if I take out one more shovelful I'll see an Asian face looking up at me from the other side of the earth.

But not to worry, because it's time for the next step--

The spooky-looking frame (does it really look like a coffin or do I just have a really morbid imagination?) sits in the hole to keep the bricks from migrating to opposite sides of the yard. I, the Little Red Hen of construction projects, measured for it, and went to the lumberyard to buy the treated 12-foot board, and unloaded it from the pick-up, and measured it again.Also, I unloaded all those sacks of sand from the pick-up. After I bought them, all by myself, at the lumberyard. Then Husband cut the boards and screwed them together. (What? Even the Little Red Hen wasn't stupid enough to use a power saw.)

Step I've Lost Track of the Number: Almost done.

Fill frame with sand, arrange bricks in a beautiful pattern, then...

 Stand back and admire the "after" shot! Woo! I am woman, watch me do construction!

Oh, and one final step: 

I am old.

 

My Left Foot

I believe I've mentioned before that I'm married to an accountant. This is the time of the year that spouses of CPAs learn to be flexible and independent, and Husband's schedule means that I'm often a couple hours into REM sleep by the time he gets home from the office.

A few days ago he noticed that when the blankets are suddenly too warm for me (as happens more and more frequently) I stick my left foot out from under the covers to cool down.

"If I come to bed and your foot is sticking out I'm always tempted to tickle it," he noted.

That's when we had a discussion about the physics involved in the consequences of waking a woman from a deep sleep by tickling her feet, and the fact that the equal and opposite reaction to this action could lead to emergency  dental work.

Who says education stops after you leave school?

Performance Review

In some years, this would be my least favorite day at the office--I'm doing annual performance reviews. Fortunately, I currently have the Best Co-Workers in the World, so it's been low-key and collaborative. It's not always this sanguine, though, and every time I write my John Hancock on the "supervisor signature" line, I'm grateful that I'm not being evaluated like this in my real job.

Employee Name: MomQueenBee

Position Description: Mom, Queen Bee

Years in Position: I've run out of fingers and toes for counting

Goals met during review year: Fourth child off to college, avoiding implementation of poorly articulated consequences that would result if he didn't "get out of bed RIGHT NOW"; head did not actually explode while searching for 842nd item mentioned in the sentence that began "Mom, could you see if you could find..."

Goals un-met during review year: Curtains in Three's bedroom, although the Mexican blanket hanging over the window does have a certain je ne sais quois that indicates these here folks who live here are klassy; Thinner Thighs in 30 Days, despite those tempting e-mail offers; universal delight with meal preparation (see: Husband's admitting, after 27 years, that he doesn't really like ham and beans); failure to embarrass Boys on the internet (see: descriptions of bodily fluids).

Goals set for upcoming year: Clean house on regular basis, Zumba class, increase blog traffic, knit swea   

Aww, never mind. This job I just make up as I go along anyway.

I think I'll give myself a raise.