a message from my carpet

dear people who love to send glittery christmas cards, 


you cause me undue stress. 
seriously.
i get twitchy the minute i hear the crunch through the slightly-thicker-than-normal envelope. 


please. 
refrain.
or consider foiled cards next year.
they are equally shiny and just as aesthetically appealing. 
i'm begging you. 


thank you in advance for your consideration. 


love, 


krystyne's floor.
and vacuum.
and sanity.

shelf minus elf

you have heard about our new friend Ernie.
the elf.
the boys have quickly adapted to having him in our house, running around each morning to find him, and reminding each other that Ernie is watching when one gets a little squirrely.
basically, life with Ernie has been good.


until this weekend.
one of the main, and only, rules regarding Ernie (as detailed in the book that appeared along with him) is that you cannot touch him.
if you do, no more magic.
the boys have abided by this rule completely.


on Saturday, we came home a bit after their usual bedtime from a holiday party.
we were in a flurry to get into the house, and in our rush to get in the door, ernie may or may not have been jostled from his resting spot on the edge of our kitchen counter.
and by jostled, i mean pushed off of the edge to land flat on his face on the floor.
no one is sure exactly who did it, but the boys immediately blamed daddy.
for, essentially, ruining christmas.
all at once, many things started to happen.
anth started to rationalize the fact that, "well, at least i have already told him the big stuff i want from Santa."
(anth decided the boys should share one wish per night, as to not be perceived as greedy.)
ben realized he had only told him small things, like stuffed Angry Birds, and started to panic.
and daddy, trying to calm the situation, ended up scooping up Ernie with a spatula and mixing spoon, so as to not really touch him.
bern put him back on the counter and we left him there with the hopes that all would be well in the morning. . .

if my children had better rested parents, all probably would have been better in the morning.

unfortunately, they don't.

and poor Ernie was in the same place on the counter on Sunday morning.

this is when the boys knew they were really in trouble when it came to gifts.

anth was able to stay impressively rational during this, and he decided we should consult with the recent Elf on a Shelf made-for-TV movie.

in it, the older brother touches the elf and causes him to lose his magic.

the boy writes an apology letter to Santa, Chippy the Elf returns, and all is well again in the world.

the boys conferred and decided bern would need to write an apology to Santa. 

it was also decided that, it being modern times, Santa would take email.

bern sent the email, and then we scooped up the boys and took them to Target.

(note: this email is a limited edition replica, as the original contained our home address.) 

fortunately, when we came home, Ernie was alive and well and sitting up in a new fun spot.

crisis averted.

. . . until this morning.

the boys found ernie happily perched on a shelf in the downstairs bathroom.

looking just as creepy (as i find him) as usual.

we were all rushing around doing the last minute pouring of coffee, application of large puffy jacket to small wiggly child, etc.

bern went into the restroom to touch up his hair.

and then i heard a small little thud.

followed by, "not again daddy!"

i turned around to see part of ernie.

on the ground.

in the doorway of the restroom.

i then watched my sweet husband quietly walk into the kitchen, grab our over sized oven mitt, and pick up Ernie and put him back on his proper shelf before telling the boys that he would email Santa as soon as he got into the office.

Dear Santa,

we apologize for clogging your inbox.

Love,

The Savvy Family

the dropsies

ok.
so i just wrote, once again, about my Craft Starting Disorder last week.
and now, i have a new one to claim.
i have The Dropsies.
more specifically, the Distraction Induced Dropsies.
whenever i am trying to manage 14 things at once, and thinking about a 15th, and happen to be carrying anything, i drop it.

this week, i had an epic moment of dropsiness.
i was driving from the north side of campus to park in the Ohio Union Garage on south campus.
i had my iphone in my coat pocket.
when i went to get out of the car, i did the awkward maneuver that only people-who-carry-unnecessarily-large-bags will completely understand.
i did the weird heft-the-bag-over-the-steering-wheel-while-tipping-sideways maneuver.
except, apparently, i tipped a little too far.
and my cell phone fell out of my coat pocket.
a whopping 1.5 feet.
but, as is generally my luck, it hit at the perfect angle to shatter the screen of the phone like a damaged windshield.
randomly, i was headed to a meeting in bernie's building, so i stopped over there first.
to walk into his office with a pout-lip and my phone held out in front of me.
i have to say, i have a patient husband.
if i was me i would have been frustrated with me.
he just called the Apple store to see what our insurance would cover.
meanwhile, i put a post-it on the phone with the information.
and when i went to move it, it came off with several shards of glass stuck to the sticky part.
brilliant.

anyway.
bern swapped out my phone for a new one and helped me restore the information.
i realized that i had lost some data today at work.
when i had another attack of the Dropsies.
this episode came on after i walked down the hallway to get a cup of water, headed back to my office, set the cup on my desk, and promptly knocked it over.
all over.
i thought i would take this photo to demonstrate exactly how much of the water i managed to spill:

note the small sip i managed to preserve.

anyway, when i went to take this photo, i realized that i lost all of my photos from November 22nd on.
so, no fun photos to share from my trip to Madison.
and, no photo of anth's recent holiday-related craft i was going to post about tonight.
because i will have to retake it.
and tell the story another day.
i tell myself that i remember being (at least slightly) more competent at life before i was distracted by kids.
but to be honest, my memory is shot these days, too.

punch line

at the top of each month, we do a little family dinner date. 
we usually end up at Las Margaritas. 
but, tonight, we opted for Rooster's. 
their tag line is "a fun, casual joint."
and, really, it is. 
it also has wings for mom and dad, nachos for anth, and grilled cheese for benny. 
an all-around savvy crowd pleaser. 


because Rooster's is both fun and casual, part of their decor includes a random smattering of white pieces of paper with random quotations/jokes printed on them in black ink. 
anth, being the little reader that he is, was taking in his environment and reading the ones near our table. 
suddenly, he laughed. 
"oh dad. listen to this one, it's hilarious..."


(insert terrible picture from phone camera)

can't read it? 
allow me to assist. 
it says this:
3 words you never want to hear when making love. "honey, i'm home!"


anth read this for all of us to enjoy. 
"man. that's funny."
now, i KNOW he has no idea what makes this funny to the adults in the room. 
but, i am quite curious what makes it funny to him.
(while also frightened to ask.)

sometimes, there's not enough caffiene

this is often the case for me.
it was expecially so on monday.
when my mom, dad and i raided my kitchen/pantry area.
multiple times.
looking for my baking soda.

which i swore that i, of course, had.
because who doesn't have baking soda?

oh, that's right.
me.

remember this?

thankfully, my mom eventually remembered this old blog post.
becuase i didn't.
even though i wrote it.
and filmed it.
and it was technically a three part post.

and, yes, i am calling myself out.
i clearly have not had baking soda in my house for three months.
i am no martha stewart, but i actually do love to bake.
clearly, i have had a few things on the plate this quarter.

those of you who know my mother will not be surprised to find out that she has since gone to Kroger, bought baking soda, and made peanut butter cookies while i was at work today.
all is right in the world again.
thanks, mom.