HaHA!

I have been sitting at my computer, mostly un-interrupted for an hour and a half. I checked my Facebook notifications, read my e-mail, checked on my favorite blogs, read the news, and drank my excessively large cup of coffee. I feel vindicated.

How, you ask, did I accomplish this? Well, last night while my sweet family lie sleeping I slipped them all a good dose of liquid morphine and they are all sleeping soundly (for several more hours - yippee!)

Haha, just kidding. But the thought occurs to me occasionally... Really though the way this happened is that my husband's band Rootstock had a gig in Fort Bragg and stayed the night there so he's not home. Dylan has a friend over and they are busy playing Wii, which has the added benefit of sucking the other kids in and leaving me to peacefully pursue the things that help me warm up to the day that is before me.

I have several cakes to make in the next 2 weeks and will be very busy. I have made a few that I haven't posted pictures of yet too, so when I get all caught up there will be several new things to see. Also, I started a blog specifically for my cake ventures and when I have something actually on it I will post a link. It will require a few more miraculous mornings like this one to get that done but I'm optimistic (and ready with the morphine).

Finally, a change!

I really do not like to leave sad or negative posts up for long periods of time, but that is the way it works out sometimes. How is it that we can have 5, yes FIVE computers in the house but I still have to ask someone to get off of MY computer so I can post to my blog, or pay the bills, or just check my e-mail and maybe surf the net a bit? Here's how. I have butt-planters. They are indoor creatures that plant butts and grow, similar to annuals, similar to perennials, but they are most similar to weeds. You know what a weed is right? Something that grows where you don't want it to grow. My butt-planters plant and set root and grow.

My husband has 2 computers set up in our bedroom but he won't allow either of them to be online. They are strictly for his music and his games. So the hours that he spends on myspace checking all the musician's profiles and respnding to "fan mail" are hours spent on my computer, limiting my access to my computer. Dylan's computer is tucked nicely away in his bedroom and only gets used sometimes. Why, you ask? Well, because Dylan's computer won't run World of Warcraft (WOW) and mine will so the hours that he spends online playing WOW are hours spent on my computer, limiting my access. Hilaire's computer does everything she wants it to do but we only allow her limited access until she can learn to prioritize and organize appropriately. So her use doesn't tie up my computer (anymore) and I can't complain about that (anymore).

However, between my husband and my son, I can't get on the computer long enough to accomplish much of anything. If I turn the computer on - say on a Saturday or Sunday morning - with the intention of reading the news or writing on my blog or some such thing, it is very short lived. Typically it lasts about 10 minutes before someone needs something from me and I invariably vacate my chair, leaving it vulnerable to attack from butt-planters. It seems the instant I get up to serve my family, another set of cheeks plants itself in my chair in front of my computer. As of that point I have lost control of my computer for the remainder of the day. If the butt-planter is my husband I've lost the seat for hours, and on top of that I "get" to listen to all the music he listens to from myspace music members asking for approval. Why he feels obligated to listen to every start-up band's offerings before he adds them as friends, I do not know. Maybe if I gave a rat's ass about myspace I would understand but I don't. If the butt-planter is Dylan, I simply ask him to find a good place to quit playing and he usually does pretty quickly and lets me back at my computer for a limited period.

But then, once I've booted someone, I feel obligated to hurry and do what I need to do so the butt-planting intruders can get back to what they were doing before I interrupted them! See, they hover, the butt-planters. I think they are attracted to the warmth of the the chair. They stand over me and read over my shoulder and fidget - and they wait. And, because they hover I certainly don't feel like I can sit down and enjoy myself the way they do. I also feel pulled by all the household chores and family needs that don't require a computer to accomplish, and when one of those things does pull me away for whatever brief period of time, the butt-planters slip in and take root. So things like blog postings, return e-mails, business cards, letters, bills, and any other thing that I might do on my computer get left for last - and then only squeezed in as I find time to steal my computer back in the darkest hours of the evening when I really should be sleeping.

My blog posts are best not written late at night (see below). That's when the sad, angry, hurt or otherwise disgruntled feelings come out and they get posted and then left for weeks to suck the joy out of anyone who might have been in a good mood but then they go to my blog not only to see the same old post, but the same old sad post up and then they are not so happy anymore. The emotional vampire blog. That's what I have here.

Until I find a way to reclaim MY computer from the chair stealing butt-planters, that's the way it is. For all of us.