Dear Cindy;

Billy Ray Cyrus called. He wants his mullet back.

Yeah, yeah, I know it’s not a full on achey breaky mullet but you are a mere scissor slip away from a full on disaster girlfriend. Also, I know it’s tough getting older. This aging thing is not for the faint of heart. And you had an especially difficult challenge ahead of you.

But girl, a mullet is just never the answer. EVER.

I will say you fared better than your brother, Bobby.

Since you are on the road shilling your new book, “Love to Love You Brady”, I assume we will be seeing more of you. I can only hope that at some point the Ambush Makeover Team on The Today Show gets a hold of you and tames that beast on your head. It would be so much easier to listen to you reliving the glory days of sex, drugs and *cough cough* rock and roll on the set of “The Brady Bunch Variety Hour” without the distraction.

Just a thought.

Yours,
TSM

PS: For any of you that never got the chance to experience “The Brady Bunch Variety Hour”, I sourced out this little gem for you. (The real dancing starts at the 1:35 mark, or you can zip ahead to the 3:46 when disco fever truly takes over the entire Brady Bunch.) Enjoy it, and don’t blame me when these songs gets stuck in your head for all of eternity.

Help.

I’m stuck. The start of school, the return of the routine and the fact that my job is eating my brain has left me devoid of topics. Oh sure, lots of stuff happened this summer that I could write about, it just won’t get out of my head.

If any of you have a plunger for my brain, I’ll pay you for it.

In lieu of that, I’m opening The Shoebox back up again. I got a ton of good ideas last time. Throw out a topic, tell me what you want to hear, and above all, feel free to steal from the ideas if you get stuck like I am.

What’s in it for you, you ask? Well, not much to be honest. Just my undying love and a link back to you if I choose your topic. You will benefit from the massive, ginormous healthy reasonable amount of traffic you will get from it and you will also have the added benefit of not having to listen to me whine about….well, not having anything to whine about.

God, I’m pathetic.

Please send help.

xoxo,
TSM

Today? Magical. Beyond exciting. Possibly more exciting than Christmas. Thrilling even. Why you ask? Because for the first time in three months, this house is quiet which can only mean one thing…we have once again successfully pawned our children off on the public school system.

We (and by we I mean me because someone’s husband had a little too much fun this weekend….) got through all the preparations on Sunday. Mr. C was subjected to a brutal two hour journey to Target to find the perfect back pack and supplies.

He liked that part.

What he didn’t like was that I got into one of those annoying moods where I wanted to read all the labels on the food when we went to go buy everything for dinner. Hey, I’ve listened to him yell at his sister all summer…I think it’s my God given right at this point to know exactly how many milligrams of sodium are in that enchilada sauce I’m pondering, right? If I had a dollar for every time I heard, “Mooooommmmmmm” yesterday? Well, I’d have about 10 bucks and we could go to Starbucks, my treat. Throw in eye rolls and we could definitely go out for steaks on the money I would have made.

Next up was the mountain of paperwork that had to be completed. Below is a picture of Miss G putting her “signature” on the Acknowledgement Form that she is aware of and plans to be in full compliance with all the rules this year.

I was particularly impressed that she agreed to the subsection “Possession of Prohibited Items” which clearly states that under no circumstances during her tenure as a second grader will she possess or use “a razor, box cutter, chain or any other object used in a way that threatens or inflicts bodily injury to another person.” I guess this means we can’t send her to school in her gang colors. Bummer.

So finally this morning after a full summer of this…

We finally got them to at least pretend they love each other…

Before we sent them on their way for another year of adventure.

Godspeed my babies, go forth and spread your mayhem elsewhere for eight hours daily.

Oh, and try to learn something while you are there, okay?

File this one under “odd coincidence”.

Recently a few people pointed out an uncanny resemblance between The Man and a certain teen heartthrob.

The timing is certainly interesting and The Man has taken to defending himself publicly about it.

Hmmm….you decide.

I have suspected this for some time but right now am fully aware and must admit to the fact that The Man and I are nerds. SPECTACULAR nerds. Last weekend we borrowed a friends Dyson vacuum cleaner. We have a vacuum cleaner of our own of course, but we feel the pressure to upgrade given all the tony models we see in our friend’s houses. Somehow our purple vacuum cleaner no longer fits in with this family.

It was a beautiful weekend and we should have had better things to do (think frozen drinks with little umbrellas by the pool on a day that wasn’t even 110 degrees!) but there we were with the Dyson. We didn’t believe our friends last Friday when they spoke with utter awe and amazement at the nastiness that their new Dyson had discovered and neatly delivered into a canister for quick and easy disposal. Borrow it they said. Then you’ll see.

We chuckled when they told us that they spent $600 for a vacuum cleaner. Laughed really, who spends that kind of money on a vacuum cleaner???

Um, looks like we do, that’s who.

The Man drove to their house Saturday morning and collected their latest prize possession. The rest of the day was a haze of us taking turns demonstrating our vacuum prowess while the other one would stare at the canister as it sucked ickiness from our carpets, furniture and drapes. We sat amazed as the canister filled rapidly, ultimately hoisting it over our heads in victory and shouting, “Disgusting!!!” We were amazed at the depth of the filth and squalor we were living in…although our house is one of the cleanest you will ever enter. Hair, dirt, general dander? We got some to spare! Who knew? Though we should be shocked we are utterly happy in our new found filth and our rock star ability to remove it.

The very best thing about it is it’s effect on the smaller people in our house. The kids thought it was pretty cool and actually didn’t mind vacuuming. The actually fight to take turns. It’s the end of summer and to be honest, I’m thankful they have something new to argue about after hearing three months of “He touched me!” and “She just called me a loser!” It’s all about introducing variety into the arsenal around here.

Also, did you know it’s entirely possible to vacuum a 38 lb pug?

This weekend will be spent playing with our new Dyson mainly because we can no longer afford to eat after buying it. As an added bonus, the house will be spotless when the housekeeper arrives early next week.

See? Everyone wins.

PS: If you want to know the men most likely to cause a divorce in The House of Stiletto, go on over to Mamapop by clicking here to see my five future husbands. (Though not all at the same time because that would be, well…wrong.) (Sort of.) (I think.)