Fat Birds

The title of this post is one of my favorite lines from Mary Poppins: "Feed the birds and what d'you get? FAT BIRDS."

However, I'm sidestepping the underlying point of this line from Mary Poppins here, and thinking this afternoon of American Christianity. We have SO many churches available these days in our country, and I do praise God for what religious freedom we have been granted.

But instead of making us stronger, more faithful, more grateful and service-minded as believers, instead we have become Fat Birds. American Christians are not service-oriented. We have a consumer mentality rampant in our churches. We look for churches that will "meet our needs," rather than our finding a church WITH needs and offering our gifts and talents to build that work.

Fat Birds. Feed me. I have to feel like my needs are met, or I'm not happy.

How sadly unlike our Jesus, who did not come into this world to be MINISTERED TO, but to MINISTER, and to give His life as a ransom for many.



Just my Saturday afternoon thoughts.

God bless.

March 14 is Pi Day!!

I never knew that until today. Get it?? 3/14 is Pi day... like 3.14.... okay. I guess you have to be more geekish to appreciate it fully.

I'm going to solve my grocery shopping dilemma by not thinking about it. I realize it's an ostrich solution at best, but it's what I can manage on a Wednesday afternoon. Thank you for commenting.


So, to close with an appropriately-themed limerick for the day, by Harvey L. Carter:

'Tis a favorite project of mine
A new value of pi to assign.
I would fix it at 3,
For it's simpler you see

Than 3 point 14159.

H82SHOP

.....that should be my licence plate number.

But as I sit here this afternoon doing my budget and entering expenditures in my money program, it's becoming very clear that the grocery budget needs some reining in.

I noticed a link on my MSN Today screen: How to slash your grocery bills. So I clicked it. It took me to an article by the head honcho of the Women in Red, a group of women who are trying to become debt-free, and are doing so publicly, via the Net. I was familiar with them, so I read on.

They recommend couponmom.com as a way to find out the sales in advance and organize your shopping, etc. And at couponmom, they recommend the Sunday papers and the Tuesday circulars as great sources for coupon bargains.

I hate newspapers. I don't subscribe to them. They're inky-messy, they never fold up just right, I don't have time to read them, and then I have the trouble of recycling them. But that's where the coupons are.

And the more I browsed around Couponmom, the more confused I got. I really have a mental block about all this. I desperately want to manage our money well, but can't someone else do the shopping and coupon organizing for me? I'm just literally overwhelmed at the thought of it all, shaking my head in a dazed way.

HOW do you coupon chicks make this work for you? I know some of you out there are queen bees at this life skill. The thought of carrying around fluttering bits of paper clutter in my wallet just is not me, but I'm afraid it might HAVE to be if I am going to get this monthly grocery bill under control. And even worse, that I will have to do all the shopping. (****screaming and hyperventilating****)

My sister-in-law Penny has walked out of grocery stores richer than when she went in. The cashier literally paid her to get out of the store- all because of coupons.

My friend Audra's cousin spends about $100 a MONTH in groceries. I do NOT know how she does it. Is this even possible, or do you think she is living on Jiffy Corn bread mix and cheap knock-offs of Kraft macaroni and cheese?

I'm mentally nauseated. I'm going to the chair in the living room to study. Kindly comment away, that I may glean of your wisdom.

Another Lazy Post- Book Meme

(I like to do memes when I have nothing original to say!) This was harvested from my friend Tammy, who harvested it from the popular mom blog Rocks in my Dryer, etc. etc., and so it goes....

Hardback or trade paperback or mass market paperback?
Hardback

Amazon or brick and mortar?
Depends! Amazon is convenient, but there's just something about used book stores. A. must visit every used book store in an area, whenever we go on vacation, and I'm not usually adverse to the idea, unless we've already been to three...

Barnes & Noble or Borders?
Borders.

Bookmark or dogear?
Sometimes bookmark, other times I leave it open, face down. Terrible, I know. Nero Wolfe dogears books that he doesn't consider worthy of keeping on his shelves.

Alphabetize by author or alphabetize by title or random?
Living room bookcases: Alpha by author. My personal bedroom bookcase: by subject.

Keep, throw away, or sell?
Keep! It's why I have so many bookcases around here.

Keep dustjacket or toss it?
Keep it. Do you know how valuable that will be later on? Money in the bank, my dears... ...when the book achieves "classic" status and YOU happen to have an edition with a DJ, ooh, shiny!

Read with dustjacket or remove it?
Remove it, or use the flyleaf as the bookmark. :)

Short story or novel?
Novel.

Collection (short stories by same author) or anthology (short stories by different authors)?
Hm. I'm not fond of short stories. Not enough time for character development, and I'm left wanting more.

Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket?
Harry Potter has a very clear delineation of right and wrong, good and evil. Lemony Snicket is more relativistic, muddying the waters unnecessarily for the age group it's written.

Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks?
Chapter breaks, if I've never read the book before; when I'm tired, if I have read it before.

“It was a dark and stormy night” or “Once upon a time”?
Once upon a time.

Buy or Borrow?
Buy.

New or used?
Used!!! D'you know how much money you save?

Buying choice: book reviews, recommendation or browse?
All of the above. I usually find an author I like and read everything by him/her.

Tidy ending or cliffhanger?
Tidy ending.

Morning reading, afternoon reading or nighttime reading?
Bathtub and bed.

Stand-alone or series?
If it IS a series, I like each novel to be able to stand alone.

Favorite series?
Anne of Green Gables, and the Nero Wolfe detective series.

Favorite children's book?
This is a hard one. Chrysanthemum, by Kevin Henkes

Favorite book of which nobody else has heard?
Argh, who am I to know what you've heard or not heard of?

Favorite books read last year?
Holes, by Louis Sachar, or Red Scarf Girl, by Ji-Li Jiang

Favorite books of all time?
Pride and Prejudice and Emma, both by Jane Austen.

Least favorite book you finished last year?
Princess in Pink (Vol. V of The Princess Diaries), Meg Cabot

What are you reading right now?
This morning I just finished The Lady's Confession *(formerly called Paul Faber, Surgeon), by George MacDonald.

What are you reading next?
I don't know yet!

Polly wolly doodle

...is the current song everyone in the O. home is singing or whistling. Reason? We watched "You Can't Take It With You," with Jimmy Stewart, as our Sunday Night Feature. I can't believe I'd not seen it before! It was a hoot, and good family fun. We only watched part of it Sunday night (it got too late to continue), so we finished up tonight. This is a movie I want to own! One of the few times that I'd seen Lionel Barrymore as a lighthearted good guy (I can't escape the vision of his "Mr Potter" character, the scurvy little spider of "It's a Wonderful Life.") Oh, this film is a Frank Capra film too, so it's chock full of feel-good moments.


I found a very useful/useless web site yesterday, with useful/useless Latin phrases like, "Quid agis, Medice?" (What's up, Doc?). Or, how about: "fac me cocleario vomere" - "Gag me with a spoon!" Another good one: "cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscripti catapultas habebunt," which, being translated, is, "when catapults are outlawed, only outlaws will own catapults." I was surprised to see that there are quite a few goofy Latin web sites like this around. Latin is on my list of languages to learn, actually (yeah, go ahead and roll your eyes) - because it's just so darn useful for understanding English. Yep, dead languages are cool.

Math is breezing along charmingly right now. It's all about inches, feet, miles; cups, pints, gallons... and metric stuff too - cm, dm, m, km; g, kg; L, mL. SOOOOO nice to polish off three math lessons in 30 minutes. Enjoying while I can, because NEXT on the math menu is multiplying/dividing with factors/divisors above 5. Sigh. I am going to make them complete the multiplication table EVERY DAY so the patterns sink in.

And what lovely weather today! It was difficult to stay inside to teach piano. I'm pointing a few of my students toward WSMTA's "adjudications" (this used to be "auditions," Crystal, did Mimi ever do this to you?) - where the students present two memorized pieces of contrasting style and/or period to a master teacher, who evaluates not only their playing, but my teaching. At any rate... I had planned for 6 students to be in this... but now I'm down to three. One is playing sports and isn't practicing right now; another one just isn't interested; and I learned today that a third student will be taking off the final quarter of the school year from piano. She plans to come back for summer lessons. Joy, a tuition gap to fill.

Gruff. These are all my higher level students. I have a couple of really bright kids coming up, though, so in a year or two I'll have more intermediate/late intermediate players. And the not-so-bright students...can keep going along as usual, so long as they love music and love me. :) :)

We just had a laundry folding bee in my bedroom. I know Flylady says not to put clean laundry to be folded in your bedroom, but this is my house! Anyway, A. tossed the clothes to their owners, while the rest of us folded/put away. He matched socks for me (woot!) while I folded towels. It's a good system, and lovely now that the kids are old enough to fold their own clothes.

And, on the subject of putting things away--here's a great idea I stole from FlyLady: The House Fairy. The House Fairy comes and checks the kids' rooms from time to time and leaves them a treat if their rooms are neat and clean-- or an encouraging note if they are not. D. has kept his room picked up now for a month. He's gotten 3 or 4 treats out of the deal. I'm pretty sure he knows I'm the House Fairy, but we keep it on the QT. This way I am not nagging them to clean their rooms, it's all the HF's deal. S. has gotten a couple of treats, but she simply doesn't see the piles of clothes or toys in the corners of the room. The HF has gently pointed this out in a note or two... "Great job..keep up the good work... what about the toys under the piano?" - but so far it hasn't paid off. Oh well, in time. And the HF's visits are totally random...meaning, whenever I have a treat handy and the kids aren't expecting it.

Which reminds me, The House Fairy is overdue. Probably tomorrow sometime!

D. has just come into my room to show me his latest monster drawings. It's 10:30 p.m. No wonder the kid doesn't sleep at night... his thoughts are all of monsters! But the drawings are pretty cool. What will this child grow to be, I wonder?

Wordsworth's answer, of course: the child is father of the man.

Ergo, he'll be what he is now, just bigger.

May God help me!
:)

Time management and the dark side of virtual academies

It's not even noon yet and I'm exhausted. Sure, I got my requisite 8 hours of sleep; I eat well--and even healthfully, ooh-rah... but it's my brain that's the problem!

Looking through my planner book over the last two weeks.... of 16 days I've scanned, 13 of them had a time commitment of some sort or another outside the home. Things that I can't skip--or skip very easily.

The end result is that school hours have been shortened around here. And now, today is February 28. Time to settle accounts. The standard must be met!! So we've been playing school catchup, to everyone's stress, irritation and grief.

This is my fault, though. Who manages the home schedule around here but myself? I have only myself to blame. This is the constant time-management battle.


Why am I staying at home, really? To homeschool my children. In order to FISCALLY be able to do this, I teach piano lessons. I take piano lessons to make myself a better teacher.

And it piles on from there....things that, though good, eat away at my primary reason for staying home in the first place. The Great Balancing Act...how to keep the plates spinning.

So, anyway.... we're supposed to be at 53% in all core subjects by 7:30 a.m. tomorrow morning. Core subjects=WASL test subjects; ergo, Math, Science, and Language Arts (lit, comp, grammar, etc.) And we've been busting our tails to get there.

It's nice in many ways to have these setpoints to shoot for--but right now I'm SO not enjoying homeschooling. I feel like I'm not really teaching, I'm pushing to meet an arbitrary standard.

Again, there have been distractions that I need to carefully evaluate and/or eliminate from our time. For example - weekends are for shopping, not weekdays. (Unless you send the husband!) And never never allow salespeople into your home for estimates on X, Y, or Z for this product or service. It takes up an hour and a half of precious time.

LOL - so you see I got roped into the last one. Some place called Celebrity Foods called us up out of the blue, wanting to make a presentation to us about their products, which have no hormones, preservatives, yadda yadda.. so, I, the fool, allowed them to come. It took an hour and a half, and at the end of it all, we can't afford their services anyway. Wasted time. My fault.

And blogging. You see that lately I've been sporadic at best. I am truly attempting to "redeem the time" in some small fashion - so blogging has fallen to the back burner. (I'm good right now because it's lunchtime.)

Anyway.... we will not meet the 53% in math. I will not push where the concepts have not been learned. Fortunately the next unit is on measurements and on time. Fast units! So theoretically we can get ahead - but not by tomorrow morning!! After those units, we're back to multiplying/dividing numbers past 5 - so, 6, 7, 8, 9.

But with Grammar....there's no excuse for me there. These kids ought to be at 70%, I being their mother. But... time management! I've spent so much time on the time-sucker (math) that I'm mentally exhausted by the time grammar rolls around.

Okay, I am sounding whiny, which I'm really not feeling- just overdrawn.

So, closing with a funny.

Last weekend we went to Happy Teriyaki for dinner. A. and I arranged ourselves on one side of the table, D. and S. on the other. As I read their sweatshirts from left to right as they sat across from me, I noted that, put together, they said "BUM GAP."

This sent me into convulsions of laughter, as it did the rest of the family. It is now the "in joke" of the household.

Until the next time I have time... ciao!

The battery bites the dust

It finally happened: my laptop battery died. Wouldn't hold a charge, even if plugged in. I knew it was just a matter of time. Approximate cost to replace a laptop battery= $200!!!

Cost of a brand-spankin' new laptop at Best Buy: $399.

Guess which option I chose? :>

So the 2001 laptop ($1200 on the original invoice I found) is now in the capable hands of our techhie friend Mr. Funk, who can refurbish it and do as he wishes with it. And I'm here trying to learn the ins and outs of Windows Vista on the cheap new system. It has some features I like (like a "doublecheck" feature that asks "are you sure you want to do this??") and several I don't - like, I can't set Firefox to be my default browser. Hmmm, not that that truly surprises me. Also it came preloaded with the Yahoo! toolbar, which I deplore. But I got rid of it.

So I'm having fun fun fun!

Mr. Funk asked if I would rather have a new dress or a new laptop. My answer: "Duh!"

I'm not a proper sort of female at all, I guess.

"Hey nonny-nonny and a hot cha-cha"

My kids like to sing this song about Saturday: "It's Saturday, oh it's Saturday... hey nonny-nonny and a hot-cha-cha..." I think it came from a Little Rascals episode.

Last night A. and I prepared and served the Valentine's Banquet at church. Fire Department regulations now forbid the use of the church kitchen for anything but reheating pre-cooked food, so we had to do the cooking at home. That seemed like a headache to me at first, but it played out to be very convenient. The evening went very smoothly since I wasn't frantically preparing things in the kitchen, just serving what was reheated.

The menu:
Grilled chicken
or
Roast beef (done for us on the smoker at Green Valley Meats in Auburn, WA)

Garlic Mashed Potatoes (eeeeeeevil, must post the recipe so you can all faint- it's the recipe from the restaurant Buca di Beppo's)
OR
Rice Pilaf

Mediterranean veggies (which means green beans, artichoke hearts, yellow squash and a few other veggies tossed in together and steamed)

Spring mix salad with craisins, feta cheese, and slivered almonds, served with raspberry vinaigrette

And mustn't forget dessert!
Raspberry cheesecake
Chocolate Fudge cake with ice cream
Tiramisu (NOBODY chose this! GO FIGURE! more for me hehehe)

We did well... got finished cleaning up the church kitchen, dishes and all, by 9:30 pm.

Went home and crawled into bed, where I dreamed about how tired I was, all night long. D'you know how difficult it is to wake up in the morning when you've been dreaming about how tired you are!?

So, hot-cha-cha, today was Saturday! To celebrate, we had steak and eggs for breakfast (beef leftovers from last night's banquet) - then I decided to thoroughly clean the kitchen floors and countertops. EWWW. I moved the refrigerator. EEEEEEWWWWW! That was a gloriously sticky, dusty mess. At one point some 7UP had spilled and run underneath the fridge, making a glue-like substance to which was affixed a penny, a hairband, a button, a photograph, and a missionary prayer card.

Irrecoverable items went straight into the trash, and I spent a good 20 minutes with a scrub brush and a bucket of Murphy's Oil Soap to remove the residue. Ah, looked great! So I carried on with the rest of the kitchen floor and am now guarding it jealously against all debris.

This has reinforced my realization that I MUST get this kitchen painted, and soon. However, I still need to paint the crown moulding all around the living/dining areas, as well as change the color on the piano wall once again (remember the Nacho Cheese wall incident? - well, we're growing tired of looking at Buttered Rum now, too.)

Fortunately Monday is a holiday, so I plan to sleep in and perhaps get that piano wall taken care of. I pinched a bucket of Audra's leftover living room paint because it's close to the color I want to try - Carob brown. Looks rusty red, which will set off my shiny black piano nicely. :)

Photos if and when I paint, of course. Happy weekending, all! See you in church tomorrow.

She blinded me with science

This, dear readers, is an oxygen atom made out of common household ingredients: 16 green grapes (8 protons, 8 neutrons) form a nucleus, wrapped in saran wrap, and peas and toothpicks comprise the electron cloud of 8. My children were awed at their ability to create an element; captured forever on my RAZR phone, and now recorded here.

A. continues to rack his lungs and his sleeping ability with his seemingly annual bout with bronchitis. The poor man doesn't just plain ol' cough; he hacks, hawks, barks, croups, and expectorates. TMI? SO Sorry. This has been going on since a week ago Monday night. We are all a little short: with sleep, with tempers...with patience... and long on wakefulness and irritability. He went to the doctor yesterday and was given 4 different medications- an antibiotic, an inhaler, a steroid, and a cough syrup with codeine. So life is getting better in the sleep department for him (and by extension, me).

My daughter just came and told me that I'd made the best meal EVER in the whole world. So you can be amazed (sarcasm font!), this is what I did: emptied out/cooked some stray bags of pasta that only had a little bit of noodles left; emptied a sack of peas into a casserole dish and tossed leftover bacon in it and microwaved; prepared an envelope of Newburg sauce (Knorr's makes it, I think?) and emptied a leftover remnant of Costco frozen, cooked shrimp into the Newburg sauce. Put it all into bowls. Whatever it was called, the kids ate seconds. Pasta, peas, bacon, shrimp, and Newburg sauce.

This meal happened because I have not made a menu for this week!!!

Coming up: Valentine's Day. I'd better get cracking, Gromit.

This one hit my email inbox today

(Click the title above if you want to visit Snopes)... the one where a woman returns from shopping at Wal Mart to find a flat tire-- a gentleman in a suit offers to change it for her and she gratefully accepts... when he finishes, he asks for a ride back to his car, which is on the other side of the mall, etc.... woman is suspicious, goes back into store, feigning to the man that she forgot something; she notifies security....and lo and behold in the man's briefcase is ROPE And KNIVES and DUCT TAPE!!!


urban legend strikes again!

But forward it to all your girlfriends so they don't become victims too!! .......Of the legend, that is.

My Ya-Ya Name

....is Princess Gigglebox.


Thought you ought to know.

"Bowl" Games

...or, "Where on earth have you been for the last week?"

It started last Sunday evening. We were watching The Two Towers, and S. was not feeling well. She kicked it up several notches and continued to "not feel well" rather violently from 9:15 p.m. Sunday night until...5:00 a.m. Monday morning. Poor kid. She finally was able to sleep from 7 a.m. until about 3:30 Monday afternoon. I slept in as long as I could, but had things to do and places to go, so I was a little sleep deprived all day.

Monday night: 12:45 a.m. - D. decided to join in on the "fun" by having a bowl episode himself. My dear husband took pity on me and tended to the boy in his distress. His bout with sickness only happened once, though he was very peaked the following day. S. had a nightmare Monday night that I thought was D. getting sick again, so we ran searching for the crying child - to find S. blinking sadly in the glow of her nightlight. "A Star Destroyed me," she said tearfully. She had been watching Star Wars earlier that day so it's amazing what the mind pulls out in the middle of the night! I laughed it off and went back to bed.

Why do these things always happen in the middle of the night?

So Wednesday night and Thursday night we all gratefully got enough sleep - though I'm not feeling so hot today. It's been a 7UP day while I have my own version of the Superbowl.

In the midst of this, I made a baby shower cake--thankfully, before I started to feel so gross. The technique I used is called Buttercream Transfer (google it) and it's a fabulous way to reproduce a complicated pattern on a cake. I meant to do a step-by-step and post here, but got all wrapped up in the DOING of it that I forgot to take the "along-the-way" type pictures. There's lots of them out there on the 'Net that are just ducky if you care to have a go at it yourself for your kid's next birthday!




Oooo-lah-lah, that's pretty! The cake is 12x18 (takes two mixes), vanilla with raspberry filling, and the frosting is just regular American buttercream with paste food coloring. (ARGH--THE KIDS GOT INTO THE LEFTOVER FROSTING and ate a ton of it. A NO NO for them!~! no colors or preservatives allowed!! We shall see how things go over the next few days).


So now you are filled in on the more unsavory aspects of our week. I pray yours is exponetnially better!! :) :)

To steal an idea from Susan:
Things I am Thankful For:
1) The cake was done before I started to feel gross
2) I feel gross NOW, not in the middle of the night
3) A loving husband who has been watching kids all day, taught them two history lessons, and prepared dinner for everyone so I wouldn't have to smell it.

The Menu

Since Thursday is my Saturday, rhetorically speaking, I prefer doing my grocery shopping today. So I've adjusted my menu accordingly. It's been a mental wrench: I'm used to seeing things listed out so clearly from Monday to Monday, when I used to shop. But as Life changes, the routines need to change as well.

It's rather silly- I got caught in this trap of, "if I can't shop on Monday, what's the point?" instead of tweaking my routines to fit my life. I know some other people would figure this out without too much trouble but it takes me a bit longer!

And here's a cool thing Audra tipped me off about: when you use Allrecipes, you can create menus and SHOPPING LISTS and print them off!! You can even add your own custom items to the list.

This is my second week doing it, and it's been a good thing, Martha Stewart!

So (fanfare- "ya ta ta TAAAAA~!") <-(think "Elmo's World")-- THE MENU:

Thursday: Enchiladas Verdes with Spanish rice and refried beans

Friday: Hamburgers
Baked Macaroni and Cheese

Saturday: Pizza with Italian sausage and mushrooms

Sunday: Leftovers (called "Tovers" by my family)

Monday: Slow-cooked Pork with a couple of indeterminate side dishes

Tuesday: Garlic chicken and rice

Wednesday: Whatever A. decides to make, it's his night :)

Thursday: Sweet and sour pork



This is the plan, anyway! Things often get moved around for the sake of convenience. At any rate, I highly recommend the "shopping list" feature at Allrecipes. I hope it remains a free service!

Socks make the world go round

This is my "make it yourself Christmas present" from Tammy!!!
I am proud of myself, yessss, preciousssss!

I MADE THESE! And I totally didn't understand what was going on when I got to the heel bit, nor about picking up stitches along the gusset, but I muddled along and with help from knittinghelp.com I DID IT!!!

*preening feathers*

They are the most lovely stripey things ever and I will never part with them!! lol

Then Audra got inspired and she made a pair of socks too-- we went to a yarn store in Tacoma and bought some lovely 100% Peruvian wool to make some socks (not scratchy!).

I'm now working on the first sock of my second pair ever. Using a pattern from Cider Moon called "Campfire Socks" because the yarn wanted to be made into a nice chunky sock.

S. has now put in her bid: "Mommy.... would you please make ME a pair of socks??" "OF COURRRRSSSE, Dahling!!"

D chimes in, "ME TOO!!"

My Dad has told me he's a size 11D.

So it will be one lovely sock knitfest around here for some time to come.

I got preached at!

But for the life of me, I can't remember what was said.

While I was sitting in the Sunday sermon today, the Spirit of God was nudging me, saying...THIS IS YOU. THIS IS YOU.

Then right after the service we had the annual church polity meeting and my feeble brain did not move the information from short-term into long-term memory.


*BANGING HEAD* what a dolt I am! I should have had my notebook out.

Fortunately I happen to live with the man who preached the sermon, so I can go look at the notes and get prompted again. This frustrates me about myself. I am so mentally scattered sometimes too often!!!


Upon returning home from church, I saw this in my inbox...sent to me by a born-again Christian--a plea to forward our support for the troops in Iraq, and embedded within the email was this:

Something good will happen to you tonight at 11:11 PM. This is not a joke. Someone will either call you or will talk to you online and say that they love you. Do not break this chain. Send this to 13 people in the next 15 minutes. Go.

THIS, my friends, is SUPERSTITION, plain and simple. Would that they would please, please, PLEASE expunge all of this tripe from the emails they forward thoughtlessly! After all, one doesn't want to appear unsupportive of the American troops (and I do support and value their sacrifice on my behalf, personally knowing several who have served over there)--BUT PLEASE. I want no part of superstitious chain emails.

This seems to be an ongoing theme of mine... email tripe. *sigh* I know that people have put up with me for years, so I need to be more understanding until they reach my *cough* level of discernment.

(tongue firmly planted in cheek--however, my sentiments on email tripe remain unchanged!)

Okay, off to find the sermon notes. No doubt I need it.

Cat Flushes Toilet

Hey, Rebecca, can your new furbies do THIS??

Cool!

Me: "What a great day to enjoy a cuppa and look at the snow!"

Kids: "Coffee?? YUCK!! I'm going outside!"


I just sat in the rocking chair last night at 10:30 p.m., lights out, living room blinds open, and watched the snow sift down like fine powdered sugar. I was thinking we'd only end up with an inch or so, but joy! About 4 inches!!

We had snow yesterday morning too, but it was only a dusting and disappeared by the afternoon.

It's not supposed to get above freezing until the weekend, so this will be with us for a while.

Glad I don't have a commute!!

Next Survivor Series (email meme)

*I* can't even do this!!
(thanks to Amy S. for the email!)
~~~~~~~~

Six married men will be dropped on an island with one car and 3 kids each for six weeks.

Each kid will play two sports and either take music or dance classes.

There is no fast food.

Each man must take care of his 3 kids; keep his assigned house clean, correct all homework, complete science projects, cook, do laundry and pay a list of "pretend" bills with not enough money.

In addition, each man will have to budget in money for groceries each week.

Each man must remember the birthdays of all their friends and relatives and send cards out on time.

Each man must also take each child to a doctor's appointment, a dentist appointment and a haircut appointment. He must make one unscheduled and inconvenient visit per child to the Urgent Care (weekend, evening, on a holiday or right when they're about to leave for vacation). He must also make cookies or cupcakes for a social function.

Each man will be responsible for decorating his own assigned house, planting flowers outside and keeping it presentable at all times.

The men will only have access to television when the kids are asleep and all chores are done.

There is only one TV between them, and a remote with dead batteries.

Each father will be required to know all of the words to every stupid song that comes on TV and the name of each and every character on cartoons.

The men must shave their legs, wear makeup daily, which they will apply to themselves either while driving or making three lunches.

Each man will have to make an Indian hut model with six toothpicks, a tortilla and one marker; and get a 4 year old to eat a serving of peas.

Each man must adorn himself with jewelry, wear uncomfortable yet stylish shoes, keep his nails polished and eyebrows groomed. The men must try to get through each day without snot, spit-up or barf on their clothing.

During one of the six weeks, the men will have to endure severe abdominal cramps, back aches, and have extreme, unexplained mood swings but never once complain or slow down from other duties. They must try to explain what a tampon is for when the 6-yr old boy finds it in the purse.

They must attend weekly school meetings, church, and find time at least once to spend the afternoon at the park or a similar setting.

Each will need to read a book and then pray with the children each night without falling asleep, and then feed them, dress them, brush their teeth and comb their hair each morning by 7:00. They must leave the home with no food on their face or clothes.

They must clean up after their sick children at 2:00 a.m. and then spend the remainder of the day tending to that child and waiting on them hand and foot until they are better.

They must have a loving, age appropriate reply to, "You're not the boss of me".

A test will be given at the end of the six weeks, and each father will be required to know all of the following information: each child's birthday, height, weight, shoe size, clothes size and doctor's name.

Also the child's weight at birth, length, time of birth, and length of labor, each child's favorite color, middle name, favorite snack, favorite song, favorite drink, favorite toy, biggest fear and what they want to be when they grow up.

The kids vote them off the island based on performance.

The last man wins only if . . . he still has enough energy to be intimate with his spouse at a moment's notice.

If the last man does win, he can play the game over and over and over again for the next 18-25 years...eventually earning the right to be called Mother.

eeghads

I'm so glad I don't follow football regularly. It's just too darn stressful. 4th Quarter, 4:24 to play, and Seattle's up over Dallas, 21-20.


Heartburn, anyone?



We started watching the game late, because Perry Mason takes precedence in this household.

edit: Wow, what a finish!! Super heartburn! We were toast until the Dallas guy fumbled that field goal. I guess it ain't over till it's over!

2006 booklist

Just for my benefit, since I tweaked the template and removed this list from the sidebar, I'm posting it here. Just ignore it.

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Rebecca Wells

Jurassic Park, Michael Crighton

Hank the Cowdog, John Erickson

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, Robert C. O'Brien

Franz Liszt: The Virtuoso Years, 1811-1847, Alan Walker

Love My Rifle More Than You, Kayla Williams

By Lemony Snicket:

The Bad Beginning

The Reptile Room

The Wide Window

The Miserable Mill

The Austere Academy

The Ersatz Elevator

The Vile Village

The Hostile Hospital

The Carnivorous Carnival

The Slippery Slope

The Grim Grotto

The Penultimate Peril

The End

...and now Miguel, Joseph Krumgold

Dobry, Monica Shannon

Ginger Pye, Eleanor Estes

The Failsafe Cookbook, Sue Dengate

Little Lord Fauntleroy, Frances Hodgson Burnett

Because of Winn-Dixie, Kate DiCamillo

A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl's Journal, 1830-1832, Joan W. Blos

Moby Dick, Herman Melville

Ruby Holler, Sharon Creech

Matilda, Roald Dahl

Princess in Pink (Vol. V of The Princess Diaries), Meg Cabot

Elfquest: Wild Hunt, Wendy Pini

Elfquest: Shadowstalker, ibid.

By Lucy Maud Montgomery:

Anne of Green Gables

Anne of Avonlea

Anne of the Island

Anne of Windy Poplars

Anne of Ingleside

Rainbow Valley

Rilla of Ingleside

A Long Way from Chicago, Richard Peck

A Year Down Yonder, Richard Peck

Eragon, Christopher Paolini

Eldest, Christopher Paolini

Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code, Eoin Colfer

A Day No Pigs Would Die, Robert Newton Peck

Red Scarf Girl: A Diary of the Cultural Revolution, Ji-Li Jiang

How To Train Your Dragon, Cressida Cowell

The Laura Ingalls Wilder books:

Little House on the Prairie

On the Banks of Plum Creek

By the Shores of Silver Lake

The Long Winter

Little Town on the Prairie

These Happy Golden Years

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone,, J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,, ditto :)

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

All Shook Up: How Rock 'N' Roll Changed America, Glenn C. Altschuler

Trickster's Queen, Tamora Pierce

The New Dare to Discipline, James Dobson

Various Trixie Belden mysteries:

The Red Trailer Mystery

The Mysterious Visitor

The Gatehouse Mystery

The Mystery on Cobbett's Island

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, JK Rowling

The Mother Hunt, Rex Stout

Stepping Heavenward, Elizabeth Prentiss