After four days without electricity, we are back in business! Well, except for the massive piles of laundry waiting to be done, the dog-hair-covered rugs which are in dire need of vacuuming, the sink full of dishes, and tree branches everywhere. Oh, okay, TREES everywhere. I am still without wifi, so I’m spending a fortune buying French fries at a restaurant where I can use their free internet. My random realizations:

1. The power always goes out right after you get home from the grocery store.
2. It’s kind of cool when you think of how it will bring everyone closer together…for about five minutes.
3. You might have seven flashlights, but you can’t find one when you need it.
4. You will finally find a use for your mason jars!

5. People DO NOT know how to use a four-way stop.
6. Bathing by candlelight is romantic, unless it’s 95 degrees, in which case it’s just sweat-inducing no matter how cold the water is.
7. When 500,000 people are without electricity all hell breaks loose at the gas stations.
8. And at generator stores.
9. Ice, ironically, is a hot commodity.
10. You will leave the sprinkler running for hours so that everyone can cool off, but you will forget to water your flowers.
11. Friends are great to have when you feel like you have nothing except the permanent splotch of sweat on the back of your neck.
12. There is never enough beer.

Hey there, Melisa here.

I’m guest-posting for Momo because she is in the dark (literally) due to storms in her area, and the estimate for the restoration of electricity is currently July 7 or 8. (I wish I were joking.)

A little while ago, I was sitting in my living room when I heard my cell phone ringing downstairs. I didn’t run to get it, because I don’t know about you but Every Single Time I do that, it’s the blood center scheduling person wanting to know when I’m coming back in to donate (soon!), or some similarly annoying person.

I took my time going down to get the phone after it stopped ringing, and when I checked to see who it was, it was Momo. Figures. The girl NEVER CALLS ME. EVER. She’s so darn busy that I end up calling her and catching her just before she has a conference call or as she’s on her way out to a doctor’s appointment or…wait, should I be reading some signals here?

But I digress.

I called her back immediately because I knew she was without electricity, AND SHE DIDN’T ANSWER. (Don’t you hate that???)

I left her a message, and she still didn’t call back.
I called her again–and YES, I have friendly-stalker tendencies, thanks for asking–and she didn’t answer AGAIN. I admit I was a little worried.

I sent her a text:
Call me back! I’m here!

Nothing. So then, as I tend to do, I decided to become a thorn in her side. I sent a bunch of rapid-fire texts:

Hello? Did you butt-dial me?

Sigh.

Finally, after an eternity (or seven minutes), she called me back on my home phone. After she told me that I am the funniest person she has ever met (<—–slight exaggeration), she said, “Do you still have the log-in information for my blog, in case I die?”

Yikes. I should have hung on to it the last time she gave it to me. I told her that I didn’t, and did she need me to do something?

“Yes! I need a post to go up! Would you want to write one for me? I can’t post from my phone!”

This was my moment. “SQUEEEEEEE!” I screamed. Wiping tears from my eyes (not really but I want to make Momo feel really good here), I said, “I’d be happy to!!”

So there you have it, a guest post by me on why I’m guest posting. (Does this qualify as “Soooo meta”?)

Fingers crossed that the power in Momo’s neck of the woods is restored much sooner than they think. Just in case, I’m planning a great post for Tuesday about…aww, I’m not telling. You’ll have to wait and see.

I was going to write a post tonight about how my mom told my 10 year old son that she has a lot of bumps and bruises and he asked, “Why?”

She said, “Because I’m a klutz.”

Then he said, “Oh, I thought it was because you’re old … and a klutz.”

But, when I logged in to start writing, I noted the date. I started blogging here on June 26, 2007. It’s my five-year blogoversary!

A lot has changed since then. A whole lot. Mostly, that my husband thought blogging was a huge waste of time and now HE’S ALL FOR IT. Of all the things I’ve been right about, I’m glad it was blogging. Okay, it’s the only thing I’ve been right about, but I should get extra credit for it!

I have told countless stories like the one up there, because OHBOY does my son like to hurl insults. Of course, now that he’s ten instead of five, I feel like I need to tell people it’s because of his sub-threshold autism, and not just because he’s rotten. Though, he is that too. He’s still about the same size as he was five years ago, but not much else has changed.

My daughter has gone from eight to thirteen. That’s, like, a whole lifetime. *eye roll* She’ll be going to college in five years. SHUT UP! Don’t say that! Oh, I said that? Well, take note people, THAT’S how fast it goes. Blink and your kids are grown. Also, when you’re 41 years old instead of 36, you blink and you sprout a gray chin hair.

More than anything I want to say thank you to the most amazing, fabulous, delightful, kind, funny, faithful readers and commenters in the blogosphere. You are good people.

If I’m really lucky, you’ll still be around when I’m old and klutzy.

It all started when I walked into my daughter’s room after midnight, on a school night, and found her looking out of her window. Our conversation went something like this:

“What the heck are you doing?”

“Sorry, Mom! I can’t sleep, so I’m taking pictures of the lightning.”

“GO TO SLEEP! You can’t get any good pictures THROUGH YOUR WINDOW SCREEN!”

I was wrong.

The next day, when she showed me the images she captured, I saw that she had taken this a few days prior.

I have a DSLR and don’t take pictures that well. I mean, you want your kids to be good at stuff, but they’re not supposed to be better than you. She’s showing me up with a point and shoot!

This sealed the deal on me needing to take a photo class. I have long said that I would love to have two other blogs….hold on, while I use these smelling salts on my husband…one for design and one for food, but my pictures aren’t even close to where they would need to be for those kind of websites.

But, my daughter is showing me that maybe I should forget the bells and whistles and just take the picture already. Using a point and shoot isn’t stopping her from capturing some great moments.

Proof? When I went to pull these two photos off her flash drive, I found this picture of Blue that my daughter took the day before we put her down.

Oh, forget it. I can’t compete with that.