red things make me happy

I haven't blogged in a while, I have been busy, and I am not really all that exciting of a person. I have had a lot of cute kid stories, such as when Billy got sick and described a headache as little people having a cake fight in his head, and when I told him that eventually they would run out of cake, he informed me that their cake was infinite. Anybody who has met him knows that I am not making this up. He then went on to tell me that his brain looked like space and the Marines were there and they were going to explode Pluto.

There is also Katie who has taken up trumpet, and we make her practice it in the closet. I told someone about this and they were aghast, and I said, "It's really okay, we put a light in there."

Anything else that has gone on would qualify as everything and nothing. Billy turned 5, Victor got married, studying, cooking, cleaning, playing, etc. Pretty status quo, just happy to get to wake up every morning to do it.

So what could any of this have to do with a picture of a table? Nothing. Except that I built it. From an idea in my head, I bought wood, and used tools that I had never used before and I made it real. I have never built anything. I have refinished lots of furniture, and I love doing it, taking something that looks like it has outlived its usefulness and making it beautiful again. Even more than that, I love the actual job, the stripping, and endless sanding, the smell of wood, being in the garage doing something with the kids playing out front.

Maybe what I like, in either case, is the fact that I did it. I messed this table up in every way that I could, I probably built it 3 times before I got it right, but there it is. It is a small accomplishment, I know, but I like seeing my kids put their feet up on it, far more than if I had bought it at Ethan Allen, and it looks great in the living room with my giant ugly couch. So my extremly heavy, big red, nowhere near perfect, coffee table is now my favorite piece of furniture in my house.

another school year...

The kids went back to school a few weeks ago, and we are finally getting back in the swing of things. Hard to get used to waking up again after spending an entire summer teaching the kids to sleep until 10am.

Billy started kindergarten, which is bittersweet, because he is the last to go, but also now I have time to actually get something done. He seems to really like it, and everyday, when I pick him up he tells me what he had for lunch, and shows me his new spork. The other day I went to pick him up and the first words out of his mouth were, "Mommy, today I had a corn dog with honey. Bees make honey. How do bees make honey? They had beans today, but I didn't eat them because they were green?" That is a little dose of the everyday pickup conversation, just change the food items.

Katie and Jack are settling in nicely, same school, different teachers, all is well.

Emma started middle school, and she seems to be doing well with it, I think the whole idea is harder on me than it is on her, I can't believe that she can be old enough to go to middle school.

After the first week, she comes home with a backpack full of books so heavy she had to keep stopping to rest on her way home, and those were for only half of her classes. I can't believe they have kids hauling this stuff around and don't even give them lockers. That night I went out and got her a very high quality rolling backpack to try and ease her load.

Today, Emma comes home and she is carrying her big binder in her hand because she got four more books, and there wasn't room for them in her backpack, and even with the rolling backpack she comes home exhausted. When she walks in she is exasperated and says, "That's it, I'm not bringing my textbooks to school anymore." I ask how she can do that, doesn't she need them for class? Her response, "No, they keep a copy of them under our desks."

She has been taking 60lbs. of books to school everyday for no reason, and I have been ranting about how awful they are for 2 weeks. It cracks me up that she can be so smart, and so absentminded at the same time, apparently this was the first that it occurred to her that not everyone was hauling all of their books around. It is absolutely impossible not to love that girl.

toilet humor...

We had a birthday party for Katie last weekend at Mike's mom's house, and it was a lot of fun. They have so many cousins to play with, and they really all do play with each other, nobody ever gets left out of the mix. So although I always leave with a headache, I also always have a good time there.

At one point during the party Mike and Billy had this little conversation:

Billy is in the bathroom when it takes place.

Mike: "You okay in there?"
Billy: "Yes, Daddy I really like this bathroom"
Mike: "Why's that"
Billy: "Because when I poop the water splashes me on the butt"
Mike: (laughing hysterically)
Billy: "Isn't that cool?"

This is a perfect example of how most conversations go with this kid, even when he is in trouble one of us will usually have to leave the room so that he doesn't see us laughing.

Some people want well mannered kids, or studious kids, or kids that are orderly and helpful, I am not one of those people. Not that I would kick them to the curb for any of those things, but I appreciate when they can find the weirdness of a situation, when they look at things and see what they can be, instead of just what they are supposed to be.

We have a fan in our house that has a fairly small opening so that you can blow all the air in one direction, Jackson figured out that if he put a beach ball in front of it, the ball will spin in the air for hours at a time. We brought the same fan to my mother in law's, and our niece Lizzy, used it to blow the tissue paper from the gifts across the room, laughing her butt off the entire time. I love that, it's such a great approach to life.

I am married to a pessimist (reading this will come as no surprise to him), for everything that I want to do, he will have at least 5 reasons why it is a bad idea, or how it won't work. I love my husband, but it is very annoying. I prefer trying to see how I CAN make it work, I think more gets done that way. Everything we have from cell phones to microwaves, to the computer games that he loves so much (not to mention the computers he plays them on), came from someone looking at the old version, and thinking they could make it a little bit better.

Whether you believe we evolved from apes, or we were created on the sixth day, you can't deny that we have come a long way, baby. After another argument with Adam, because he was going on about how she should do the dishes because, after all she was created from his rib, Eve couldn't hop on an airplane to see her mother (partly because she didn't have a mother) because there were no planes. If you would have even suggested such a thing, right after they asked, "Where did you come from, I thought it was just me and Adam in this garden?", they would have thought you were insane. There were no big metal birds to take you visit your mother in Florida, or for a girls weekend in Vegas.

People can fight forever about creationism or evolution, it's sort of like politics, I'd rather just keep it to myself, either way it's all in the past. Talk to me about innovation, because I can go on forever about where we might be going.

I think I will end this post here, now that it has taken such an odd turn.


**20 best update**

I didn't mention in my previous post that the guy had some criteria for picking the "best of all time" using staying power, critics reviews, Grammy noms, etc.. because where is the fun in that? I wanted to know what your favorites would be if you could make the list.

Love all the feedback, considering that even my dad emailed me to find out why Bing Crosby's 'White Christmas', and Lawrence Welk's Polkas, didn't make the list.

I would have to agree with you, Mike, on Soap Opera, it is still one of my favorites to date. I would also throw in Dixie Chicks - Fly, Meatloaf - Bat out of Hell, and Red Hot Chili Peppers (any of their first 4 albums).

20 best albums of all time

I read an article, or a music blog discussing the 20 best albums of all time. Some I agree with, some I just flat out don't, and some it seems to be a grave injustice that they are mising.

So, here is the list:

20. Faith - George Michael
19. Appetite for Destruction - Guns'n'Roses
18. Purple Rain - Prince
17. Houses Of The Holy - Led Zeppelin
16. Born In The U.S.A. - Bruce Springsteen
15. Nevermind - Nirvana
14. Van Halen - Van Halen
13. Rumours - Fleetwood Mac
12. The Wall - Pink Floyd
11. The Joshua Tree - U2
10. Metallica - Metallica
9. Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin
8. Hotel California - Eagles
7. The White Album - The Beatles
6. Led Zeppelin IV - Led Zeppelin
5. Abbey Road - The Beatles
4. Physical Graffiti - Led Zeppelin
3. Thriller - Michael Jackson
2. Dark Side Of The Moon - Pink Floyd
1. Songs In The Key Of Life - Stevie Wonder

Now I am sure that all of you Zepplin lovers out there will be thrilled to see that they dominate 25% of the list (pretty impressive), but I see some holes. I get that this is a list of one man's opinion, but I want to know what you think, you have to exclude all "best of" or "greatest hits".

Here is a condensed list of albums that I believe are missing:

Carol King - Tapestry
Boston - Boston
AC/DC - Back in Black
Janis Joplin - Pearl
Bon Jovi - Slippery When Wet
Van Morrison - Moondance
Styx - Grand Illusion

That's all I can think of right now, and I do agree with alot of the 20, although I might shift their positions a bit #'s 1,2,3,4,7,13,18, and 19 all would have made my list.

Feedback, I want feedback, leave comments, what is missing? What should or shouldn't be there? Tell me how upset you are that Journey, or Air Supply didn't make the list and how under appreciated they are.

chapter summary...

Let's see, I don't know what to write. I have so much to write because I haven't done this in so long, that I don't know where to start.

For those of you that didn't know I spent the first few weeks of this summer in the hospital (the stay was long, the drugs were good). I had a gallbladder that was giving me a little too much trouble, so I had it removed, because that is how I handle trouble(My kids should beware).

I think it was all harder on my husband than it was for me, because he was left trying to find people to watch all of our kids (sometimes driving to San Diego to pick up babysitters), going to work, and of course visiting me. I should mention that I went in on Father's Day. The man is brilliant though, he thought to bring me in a universal remote to operate the hospital TV so that I didn't have to go through every channel one at a time.

As horrible as being in the hospital was (and the first hospital that I was in was truly horrible) I had a roommate there named Pat that was great and hilarious, and talked about food constantly, which kind of sucked because I wasn't even allowed to have water, but I loved listening to her complain because she did it so entertainingly.

At the second hospital everyone was very on top of things and the care was good. I also had a night nurse who would bring me Popsicles and hang out in my room to watch TV while she did her charts, and her assistant who would prop his feet up with my sports page and argue with me about the Raiders and Chargers ( I still don't get how decent people can like the Raiders, but that is another post).

The best part of the whole experience was probably my dad. My mom left town the day I went in and he made sure that I was taken care of every step of the way, whether it was bringing me the paper in the morning, dealing with the doctors, or sitting around reading a book while I slept, he was just generally terrific.

Didn't really mean this to be a blog about the hospital, but oh well, it is what it is. I was hoping it would have been a little bit more like an episode of Scrubs, but it's the only story I've got. So, thank you to all that visited, called, helped with my kids, and everything else, you never really know how many people are in your corner until you're backed into it a bit.


PS- Jess that story I will was telling you about will be blogged on soon.

sea world

Yesterday I went on a field trip to Sea World with Jackson's kindergarten class, I was pretty excited to get to go, as I have not been on a field trip with the any of my kids in a few years. I also have not been to Sea World since I was 7 and the only thing that I remember about that was holding a starfish, although it's sure not a bad memory to have.

I had to get up at 5:30am for this one, which in my mind is an ugodly hour, and got very little sleep due to waking up every hour thinking I was going to oversleep, which is really funny because it isn't all that much earlier than I usually wake up. When we met up at the classroom, all the moms looked pretty spent, except for the one mom, that I will refer to as my new best friend, who thought to go to Starbucks and pick up a coffee traveler to share with all.

We got on the bus and the driver, who was kind of a nut, started to explain to us parents and a bus load of kindergartners about all of the emergeny exits and radios and first aid kits, but everything she said started with, "If I was rendered unconscious..." I was left wondering if she had some medical condition that nobody was telling us about, but I'll just say she didn't leave me with a great deal of confidence in her abilities. Then I got in trouble on the bus for leaning against the emergency door, and all I could think is, wow, I haven't been on a school bus in years, and yet I am once again pegged as the troublemaker, and I know she was staring at me in that giant rearview mirror of hers throughout the entire trip.

The rest of the day was typical field trip stuff, wrangling kids, taking pictures, a little sunburn, a little walking, many trips to the bathroom, and coming home really tired. They all seemed to have a good time, and nobody got lost, which for me is pretty good, I have a tendency to lose kids in crowded places. The video above (if I got it to work, otherwise ignore this sentence) is of the ride home on the bus, he later said he wasn't really asleep, just pretending (I don't buy it).

the black knight

I woke up from a dream about Monty Python this morning, specifically of the Black Knight in the Holy Grail, when he had his arms cut off and he was still taunting King Arthur, saying that it's only a flesh wound, and calling him a pansy. King Arthur would say, "You haven't got any arms", and the knight would say "Yes I have." I wonder what a dream interpretter would think of that.

I think about Monty Python often actually, and even though I haven't seen any of the movies in a few years lines from them float around in my head constantly especially when I'm driving, mostly becasue nobody could throw out a better insult than the French guy in the castle.

Someone cuts me off or isn't driving fast enough and I think, "You empty headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries." or "Go and boil your bottoms, you sons of a silly person."

When there is something I am afraid to do, I think of the song:

When danger reared its ugly head
he bravely turned his tail and fled.
Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about,
and valiantly, he chickened out.
Bravely taking to his feet,
he beat a very brave retreat.

All this stuck in my head from just one movie, imagine what would happen if I actually tried to fill it with any useful information. I probably have within me the answers to all of lifes biggest questions, they just can't escape the wall of Mel Brooks and Monty Python movie lines.

Oh well, I guess someone else will have to save the world.


*Side Note*
Iron Man was fantastic, can't wait for the new Indiana Jones.

coo-hoo-lin

I mentioned in my previous post that I was at my aunt and uncle's house for Easter Sunday, and they have a dog named Coohoolin (spelling in ?). I go to their house several times a year and I see this dog and wonder about his name, but have never asked, probably because I always think about it right before I get on the freeway on my way home.

I don't know how many times I thought I would email my Uncle Fred when I got home and ask, but it is a long drive and my mind wanders. It isn't anything important, don't even know why I'm writing about it really, except that it always makes me think of the book Angela's Ashes. In the book, Frank McCourt's dad would tell him a story about Cuchulain (pronounced coo-hoo-lin), the Hound of Cuchlain, the boy who accidentally killed a dog of that name, and took over the name and job as guard dog, and became a hero of Ireland. It is a great and wacky story, from a book that inspires oddly warm feelings in me, and for some reason makes me like their dog more, even if that isn't where they got the name from.

I like the book so much because like the book Rain of Gold (which I highly recommend), it reminds me of my family. The mother in both books was nuts, different kind of nuts, but both a bit, not really crazy, but colorful. Colorful is something there is a lot of in my family, and for a long time it embarrassed the hell out of me, but I've come to appreciate it more over the years. In the generation of my grandparents everyone was colorful, my Nana taught me how to drink like a lady one night, and would throw on her Reebok's and go chasing the cows, she married three men that were all related to each other, and had a boyfriend when she died that I think she didn't marry because he wasn't family (she always mentioned that none of them were related to her, only to each other).

My grandfather was quite the character himself, and our family is still very close to his mistress' granddaughter. Not to be undone, one of her sisters is a witch, although there could be no cooler witch than my Tia Nena, and she wouldn't curse family, after my Nana died they were driving back from her ranch in Mexico, and she started to worry crossing the border because they brought back goat cheese that she swore smelled like poo-ssy. That is just a brief overview of how colorful our family is, and that is just my mom's side, I have posted previously on some of my other grandmother's eccentricities.

This is turning into a really long post to say that I miss that kind of stuff in the rest of the world. It seems like the only colorful people there are these days are a dying breed, or characters in books. Everyone is trying so hard to be exactly the same, same hair, same body, same clothes, same PC jokes, we have gotten so afraid of offending someone or standing out that we have become flat out boring.

I saw a documentary recently that a friend recommended, called Home Movie (also think the doc. Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea has something to do with my current frame of mind), and it had the most eccentric people in it. I kind of wish more people would build their houses in trees or abandoned missile silos, but I guess who am I to talk, as I write this from my cookie cutter house in the Pardee development.

I sure got awfully wordy, just wondering about where a dog's name came from.

trees, and bunnies and eggs, oh my!

It was brought to my attention today that I haven't blogged in a while, so I felt like I should at least try to get something down, see if it flows. The main reason that I haven't been writing is that life has gotten fairly boring in the last few weeks. Who really wants to read about math homework, and housework I should be doing, but haven't, and the fact that I am Mexican and failing Spanish?

Today was Easter, and it was a good day, although I had been dreading it, it wound up just being nice. I was actually the only one to throw a tantrum, and even that was early in the day, and I got over it.

I made the kids dress in nice clothes today, I really only make them do that twice a year, at Thanksgiving and Easter, and they get new clothes so they don't mind so much. This morning as I was getting Billy dressed for the day, he had taken a shower and I took off his towel to dress him, and as he stood there naked, he had his eyes closed really tight. I asked him why his eyes were closed, and he told me it was because he didn't want me to see him naked. How could I stay in a bad mood after that?

That is all I really have for now, and I know it isn't the best post, but it is a great excuse to put up a picture of my kids, and now Uncle Fred can't accuse me of being like all the other bloggers that write for a while and then just quit.

Side Note: I just read that a guy in Italy hypnotized a store clerk, and then robbed the store. (Now that's just funny) I won't post the link, I'm sure it will be easy to Google, and since there is video it should be worthwhile.

r.i.p. mr. buckley

I recently came upon this old Zen saying:

Sit quietly,
doing nothing,
spring comes,
and the grass grows by itself.

It sounds really nice, like you can just spend the day in a hammock watching life unfold around you because it's going to happen anyway. Sounds nice, yes, but having been sick this past week, I am reminded of just what the results of my doing nothing can be. You see, even though the grass continued to grow without me, so did the mess in my house, and when I sit quietly and do nothing, usually nothing is exactly what gets done. This is not a complaint, I expect that my life should require effort on my part, and it makes me feel like what I do matters somehow.

I think that this saying has it's time and place, but the people that I admire most, those that have made a difference, none of them sat quietly and did nothing. Yesterday William F. Buckley Jr. died, and whether or not you agree with the things that he had to say, he accomplished a great deal. He was incredibly prolific, having written about 4 dozen books, hosted "Firing Line" for many years, and had a regular newspaper column, and that is just a fraction of the things he did. I was looking on Wikipedia yesterday at just the size of the list of his accomplishments, and it occured to me that I have something in common with this man, and it's not just politics, it is that he had the same number of hours in his days.

I don't want to be like Buckley, even though I like to write, I don't really want to be a writer, although Buckley was one of the reasons that I used to think that I did. I just believe that good things come through doing, not waiting, and he was a doer. I don't want to be the kind of person that says, "I couldn't because...(insert excuse here)." I would rather have a go at it.

I don't need to make an impact on the whole world, just my corner of it, little by little. Sitting and doing nothing gets you just that.

"Act like you expect to get into the end zone."
-Joe Paterno

(Hey Mike-check it out, I quoted Paterno)

tim

Meet Tim. Tim is Billy's best friend. He was a gift from my cousin Monique for his first birthday, and they have been buddies ever since. In this picture he is dressed as Darth Vader, and he and Billy just had a fight with light sabers, though I am informed by my son that being Darth Vader, his light saber should have been red.

The other day, Billy put his shoes on Tim, as well as a shirt and ball cap, and played baseball with him. He would throw the ball to the dog, and then say things like, "Good job buddy, you almost had that one!" He was very encouraging, and I nearly fell out of my chair laughing. Needless to say I love Tim, although I would love him more if I was allowed to throw him in the washing machine once in a while, but I am told that Tim never takes a bath.

Tim is just another, in a line of stuffed animals that have brought much joy to our family. We have night time bear, which is Emma's bear that my friend Pam brought for her when she was visiting from Egypt, it is the ugliest thing that I have ever seen, but to this day Emma can't sleep without it. We also have Barky the dog, which Katie found on the floor of TJ Max when she was 18 months old, and I'm not even sure it was for sale, but they gave him to me for 4 bucks, and he is still around today, although sewn back together several times.

Jack doesn't have one, he has lots of stuffed objects that he sleeps with from time to time, but not any particular one that he considers special. I like to think it is because he is so secure that he doesn't need one, but that doesn't bode well for the other three kids.

So this is my little tribute to furrry friends that don't require feeding, or cleaning up after.

"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather is one of those things that give value to survival."
- C. S. Lewis

birthday boy

Happy Birthday Jackson! love, Mommy

So, we had Jack's birthday party on Sunday, I still can't believe he's six already,I better be careful not to blink or I'll miss it all.

The party was fun, worth all of the work that goes into it, and I even managed to have the house cleaned up before I went to bed at the end of it. Still shining my sink.

That night was brutal though, Jack and Katie both got sick, and I had a steady rotation of kids in my bed throughout the night, which is not conducive to a good nights sleep. Jack does get the kid of the year award though, because he managed to not throw up on me in bed, and although had he, I would not have been upset with him, I am no less appreciative that he managed to hold his own(so to speak) until he got to the bathroom.

Mike, Katie and Jack all stayed home sick, and managed to destroy my clean house in a way that 40 people the previous day couldn't accomplish. I am actually writing this to prolong the misery of having to clean up the wreckage of their past, but I guess I better get to it.

i hate science

I usually am the one who does all of the school projects with the kids, from building missions, posterboard state maps, family tree cereal boxes, etc. Whatever the school throws at us, I hate it, but I do it anyway. I don't like that my kids get so many projects that I am expected to participate in, I already went to elementary school, and frankly I have other things that I need to get done.

Science fair was supposed to be Mike's turn. I took a stand and said I wasn't going to have anything to do with it(yeah right), but at the time I meant it. It took a while to come up with an experiment that the teacher would approve of, long gone are the days of building volcanos, they have decided to do with any chance that you might learn to enjoy science.

Mike's experiment was complicated, I say Mike's because I don't think Emma even knows exactly what it is yet, although it was turned in today, he was still explaining it to her late last night.

The thing is that I should have stayed out of it, as I had been so determined to do, but I didn't, I caved big. It started when they needed 6 little greenhouses for the project, so okay, I built the greenhouses. They were falling behind time wise, and something had to be done, right?

I kept telling Mike that I would not be spending an entire day working on this because they waited until the last minute to get it done, but that is exactly what happened. I spent about 10 hours yesterday working on it because it was due today, and now I am mad at myself. The worst part is that he knew that if he waited I would do it, it's why he waited, so today I am feeling a little taken advantage of, but I am madder at myself for letting it happen. I should have just left, let her not do well, and make him take some responsibility, because I know as well as anybody that nothing that happens in the 5th grade goes on your 'permanent record'.

I guess I'll have to try and make my stand next year, and there is a bonus, because right now he owes me big and he knows it.

black dog

This post is dedicated to all of you Zeppelinians, Zeppelinistas, Zeppelinites.

I seem to have caught a great deal of grief over my comments about Led Zeppelin being soft rock. You see, XM radio has implemented a channel dedicated to Led Zeppelin, 24 hours a day, all Zeppelin, all the time. Any time throughout the day you can think, wow I could use me some D'yer Mak'er, or Stairway to Heaven right now, all you have to do is turn it on, there it is.

Now, when Mike told me about this station, I thought he was joking because everytime we turned the radio on there was a Zeppelin song playing, but, no it is an actual station. Everytime I pull the headphones out of his radio so that I can listen to something, that is what is on, because he likes to listen to it to drift off to sleep. This is when I made the comment, "I can undertsand your wanting to listen to a little soft rock to get to sleep." He proceeded to act like I had just hit him below the belt, and apparently he isn't the only man that's 'sensitive' about his Zeppelin.

I am not trying to put your little band down, I actually love Led Zeppelin, but it is something that I put on to relax, not get things going, because it's soft, dare I say, easy listening.

I will give you that they might have been considered hard in their day, but it's been a long time since they rock and rolled, I believed they released their last album(that's right album, vinyl) in 1979. So, to all of you that seem to have a problem with my classification, you should know that the only thing you are revealing with you objections is your age.

Side note - I miss my black dog.

aughh!!!!

Mike got me an ipod as a gift last Valentine's Day, which was very nice of him, and last night I finally decided it was time to upload all of my Cd's. This will probably take a few days to do, which is why I Had been putting it off for so long, I already had about 1500 songs on my computer from when song sharing via the Internet was free and easy anyway, so i figured why bother, but a friend recently got one and did it right away, and I didn't want to be one-upped.

So, I went around the house trying to gather all of my Cd's that were still usable, because my kids seem to think that they are frisbees, and I got a good collection going, and then I went to the van to get those out. I managed to get about 30 done last night, with an American Idol break in between, not so bad.

This morning when I woke at my usual, too freaking early, time, I got the kids up, and fed, and ready for school. When it was time to take Jack, I couldn't find my keys (also not unusual), so I grabbed a spare, and we were on our way. I found my keys in the ignition of my van, I had to turn it on to get my Cd's out of the player last night, and I left it on, and now it would not start. SHIT!!!

So, now my battery is charging, and the sting is wearing off from the, my wife is an idiot, look on my husband's face this morning (frankly, I think he's just mad because I called Led Zepplin soft rock), and I can't help but wonder, is Cat Stevens Greatest Hits really worth all of this.

burnt toast

My house smells like burnt toast.

On Saturday(note that I am writing this on Friday), while I was out, Mike tried to make toast for one of the kids, and got distracted by something in the process, as happens, but it was how we discovered that our toaster no longer pops the toast up.
I do not know how long it stayed in there burning, only that it was long enough to make the smell last for almost a week now.

We have tried all sorts of the things to remedy it, but to no avail. That day he took all of the kids with him to the grocery store to buy chocolate chip cookie fixings hoping it would mask the smell, it did not. I had him boil cinnamon sticks in a pot of water, didn't work. I made fish for dinner, twice, didn't work(it was really good though).
We have had baking soda out all week hoping to absorb it, hasn't worked.

Sometimes I start to think that it might be gone, and then I leave and come back, and it's there again, I just grow used to it.

Any ideas?

I should offer a reward for whooever figures out how to make the smell go away, not a big reward, a small reward, toast maybe.

silliness

I have spent the last while listening to my girls argue about Star Wars, it started when Katie asked the question, "If Luke and Princess Leia are brother and sister, then why isn't Luke a prince?" This led to several other questions that I didn't have the answer to, about whether Padme was, or was not a queen. I was left wondering who Padme was, because I have only seen the original trilogy, and really am not geeky enough to know the answers. I have to start remembering them and ask my friend Jess' husband, who I'm sure will know how the Star Wars lineage unfolds.

I was saved from this conversation when they went outside to do a rain dance, and becasue it is, in fact, about to rain, I am sure they will come in believing that they made it happen.

I took the boys to lunch today at Macaroni Grill, and as we were leaving the waitress waved at Jackson, he told me that it was because she thought he was so handsome, and then informed me that girls really like handsome boys. I am thinking that we might have to tone down the stroking of his ego, may the force be with him.

The girls just came back in to tell me that their rain dance worked, did I call that one, or what?


"Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you?"- Yoda

I wonder why guys like Star Wars so much.

role playing

So, I finally got my brakes fixed after six months of complaining about them. It was actually starting to become a sore spot between Mike and me, I would mention that they needed to be fixed and he would roll his eyes (this is where communications skills would have come in handy, because to me it meant annoyance at having to pay for something ELSE). What it did mean was, so stop talking about it and get them fixed.

I can see , where he is coming from with that, since marriage I sort of fell into the idea that there are certain jobs that are his and certain jobs that are mine, and I should never do his, but he can do mine from time to time. I mean why get married if it isn't for someone to fix your car, carry heavy stuff, and take care of the trash and dog poop, it certainly wasn't for enlightening conversation. Mike is actually a great guy, and does more than most husbands and fathers I know. He didn't push me into the idea, I fell there all by myself, maybe because it was the easier place to go. I used to fix my own cars, and I don't mean get them fixed, but do the actual work. I had an old car, tools, and a Chilton's manual, and I kept it running.

I think it's time to find some of that again, it is very easy to say that I am too tired, or I have too much else going on, but there are so many, that have done so much more, with so much less. I am not talking about fixing my own car (they are way too compilcated now), but there are so many things where I could take the initiative, instead of waiting for things to get done around me.

This post went in a direction that I wasn't expecting, I was thinking I was going to write about faith and confusion, but I will save that for later.

I was just informed by a friend that there was another Navy helicopter accident, so if anyone reading this could put a few minutes of their thoughts and prayers out for the families of the three men that died, I'm sure it could only help.

nice package

A bomb squad in Sweden was sent to an apartment building the other day when the janitor found a suspicious package. The building was cleared and a team of experts,"opened the package with bomb disposal equipment", only to find a vibrating sex toy. He called it in because "the package was humming and vibrating suspiciously." How embarrassing for all involved. Will the woman(I am assuming woman) that dropped, or discarded the box be questioned? I don't know, but I know that I am glad it happened, because I enjoyed the story immensley. Some people can't get enough politics, war coverage, tragedy, or even feel good stories in their news, I like the embarrassing and hilarious stories.

It is almost as funny as the man in Indiana that shot himself in the pee-pee while robbing a convenience store.

crash and burn

I just crashed my car about 15 minutes ago, very minor, no damage done to either car involved. It was 100% my fault as well. The funny thing was that just minutes before my little crash I was thinking about what the best day I had this week was so that I could get my brakes fixed. This was just a fender bender, a little bump to slap me back into reality, and now days fenders don't even ding when they bend, they just pop right back into place.

The guy I hit, well who's car that I hit (didn't hit the actual guy), was fine, and Billy and Maggie and I were fine, and our cars were undamaged, so we all just shook hands and went our separate ways. No big deal right? No need to even mention it to my husband right?

When I got back into my car, I realized that I broke car accident etiquette (at least, according to the guidelines set by my insurance company). The first thing I said when I got out of my car was, "Are you alright?...I am so sorry, that was totally my fault." Sometimes I wish that I could still lie like I used to, but it just isn't in me any more.

I don't even know for sure that it was my bad brakes that were at fault, because at the time of the incident, I was looking around for my ipod.

As for the burn part, I was on my way back from my vet's office when this happened. My vet is in Bonsall, where my parents live, and I drove through Fallbrook to get there. Fallbrook is probably one of my favorite places I have ever been or lived, I love it there. For those that aren't from the San Diego area, Fallbrook is also one of the areas hit hardest by the recent fires. The road that I took into town divided the fire line. One side of the road was green and beautiful, and thick with trees, looking like a picture postcard of small town living. The other side of the road was a sea of charred oak, sad and beautiful in its own way, it reminded me of an Ansel Adams photograph.

The thing that made me really take notice was that there were sprouts of green popping up in all of that, already life is coming back into that area, all of that ash and char is great for the soil.

Now I am far from the greenest person in the world, but I do think everyone should do their part. That crying Indian guy in those commercials had its effect on me. I don't believe that we can destroy our planet, I think that it will kill us off before we get the chance, and start fresh again (probably using us as fertilizer). Earth will be fine, soon after we are gone there will be little sprouts of green.

victor

My cousin Victor comes to my house every Sunday to watch football, and hang out with the family. He has been doing this ever since he joined the Marines about nine years ago, with the exception of a nine month hiatus where he was deployed. Before he joined up I hardly knew him, as he grew up in Alaska, and is about eight years younger.

Victor is a great guy, and when Mike, or the kids, and I need anything, he is always offering to help us out. That being said, he isn't always the easiest person to take, and if introducing him to someone, or taking him to restaurant, you need to be prepared, because there is no filter for what comes out of his mouth. We have gotten to be really close, sometimes I don't know if I consider him more like a brother, or another kid. For example, the picture above is of him and Mike at my daughters 8th birthday party, his shirt says, "Boobies make me smile." I have actually had him turn a few of the shirts that he has worn inside-out before he came into the house, this one was tame.

My three youngest kids love him, as do Mike and I, Emma pretends not to like him, but sometimes she lets it slip. He is the typical uncle, he messes with them and tries to get them to pull his finger, etc... His favorite thing is to try to get the kids to touch his nasty big toe, that he has affectionately named, "Lucky". So far they have all managed to escape it.

His behavior had not seemed to rub off on any of the kids until recently. A few weeks ago Billy asked us to pull his finger, and today when I was tickling his feet, he said that I should be careful not to touch Lucky or my fingers would get stinky.
And so it is passed on to another generation, my children's children will now have to avoid pulling their Uncle Billy's finger.

I just realized that I can say whatever I want about Victor here, because like my husband, he doesn't read my blog. I will refrain from any really good stories for now, because I know the Bucs have tortured him enough this week.

Happy New year

How many of you looked like this today?

We rang in the new year last night in a most excellent way, we stayed home with the kids watching The Sound of Music. Very much my idea of a good time. I especially enjoyed that the girls, mostly Katie, were really interested in the history of what was going on in the movie, and we paused several times to explain Nazis, the Anschluss, patriotism, and love.

As usual the new year makes me think about the year we just left behind, and what I would like to do differently in the year ahead. I am not a resolution maker, I am in tune with myself enough to know that I won't follow through, and I see no reason to set myself up for failure. My friend Michele called today and asked me to give up diet coke with her, and I said sure, but as I type this I am drinking a diet coke (see what I mean?). So I have decided that instead of taking something away I would resolve to do something differently, so I have decided to keep my kitchen sink clean. That's it, pretty simple......heck I might even be able to handle it. I once did this home organization/decluttering thing called flylady(remember Jess?), and she would end all of the little reminder emails with, "Go shine your sink!" So I have no intention of promising a neat and orderly house, or that I'm going to walk the dog a half an hour every night, or stay on a diet for the next umpteen years, I'm just going to keep my kitchen sink clean.

There are a lot of things on a more personal level that I hope to give some attention to, but that is all I'll share..

How about you? Anyone got something they want to try and do better?

"Cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudels
Door bells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
These are a few of my favorite things"