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"

catching up..

It has been a while since I have written, and so everything that I want to write about is a bit jumbled up now. The holidays have been so busy this year that it seems like I didn't get the chance to enjoy them until they were over. ( I originally wrote that they had been 'busty' and hesitated a little bit before correcting it.)

The week before Christmas was one of the craziest ever, I think I like to see how much I can handle by by packing as many things as I can into a short period of time, and seeing if I crack. Now that I have survived, I have proof that I am strong, and getting an 'A' in physics, I also have proof that I am smart. If anyone for the rest of my life calls me stupid (not that it happens much), I can say, "No I'm not, I got an 'A' in physics."

Christmas eve we spent at my mother-in-laws' house, as we do every year, and it was great. I love getting to see the kids play with all of their cousins, maybe because I know what a luxury my cousins have been to me, I even have one or two that are more like brothers and sisters than cousins.

My mother in law is the best gift getter that I have ever met, she buys gifts for my kids that it would never occur to me to pick, and they are without fail a hit every time. She asked me the other night if I would go shopping with her next year to help her pick gifts for the kids, because she doesn't think she knows well enough what they might want, but watching Jack play with his magic set, I would beg to differ.

My favorite part of the year was on the way home that night. There is a neighborhood near where Mike grew up (by the Mormon church, for those in San Diego) that puts on a huge lights display, a few blocks worth of houses participate. We drove through on our way home Christmas eve, and the kids were 'oohing and ahhing' in the backseat, and towards the end, Billy, my precious 4 year old says, "Wow, our house is boring."

Well, this has gotten kind of long, or I would tell you all about the cousin that I'm feeling not very loving to this year, but I guess it's time to let bygones be bygones.

So a late Merry Christmas to all, I hope you had something in the day that you'll remember.

slumber party

Tonight my daughter had a slumber party for her 10th birthday, and it wasn't bad, aside from one obnoxious kid. The above picture was from a previous slumber party, this one was much louder, but I don't know that I have ever seen Emma have so much fun, so it was worth the noise. It is almost 1am and I can still hear them in the other room talking and watching High School Musical. This stuff is new territory for me, I wasn't a sleepover type of kid.

I really don't have anything to say about it, but I feel like at least one of them should be asleep before me, and I need to kill a little time. The nicest part of the night for me was sitting on the couch with Katie (she actually snuggled) and watching The Princess Diaries. Jack got so tired that he put himself to bed. Billy wanted to sleep out with the girls, and was upset when his dad wouldn't let him, so I took him upstairs and laid a sleeping bag on the floor of his bedroom, and read him Curious George books until he fell asleep.

I liked being a parent tonight, sometimes I forget to like it. I always love my kids, but sometimes I get so wrapped up in the daily grind that I forget to enjoy it. At the beginning of the night it was looking pretty grim, Mike actually managed to have three out of four kids crying a half an hour before the party started (that's got to be some kind of a record), but we pulled it out.

All in all it was a good night, I even managed to write and submit a really half-assed paper, while a houseful of kids ran around burning off their sugar buzz. Tonight I feel blessed.

low standards

The other day I went to a meeting at my daughter's school to discuss science fair projects, and left perturbed (I'm starting to notice a pattern with this). The woman at this meeting was a first grade teacher and regular judge at the science fair, and the entire time I was there I had to fight back the urge to correct her English.
English was not a second language to this woman, she has clearly spoken it her entire life, only with very little care. She interjected the word "like" into just about every sentence, along with frequent "you know's" and "stuff's." At one point she ansered a question with the response, "That don't work."

How does someone get a job as a teacher wihtout ever bothering to get an education?

There is a one in four chance that this woman will become my son's first grade teacher next year (or at least a one in four chance that I will have to go to the school and tell them I don't want her to be my son's teacher). I am sure this woman is very nice, but I don't think that it's a good idea for the person that is supposed to teach our kids the ins and outs of the English language not to have a very good grasp of it.

The system just don't work! (Yes, I know it's doesn't, but it was for effect.)

old friends

Tonight I had dinner with an old friend that I hadn't seen (or spoken to until recently) in about 15 years, and it got my mind racing on the way home. I am amazed that the conversation after so many years would come so easily, and that although there was a great deal of catching up it was as comfortable as if I was filling her in on the week that had just passed.
This friend was a very central person in my life once upon a time, and until our recent conversations I never realized that I was for her too.
It seems the right people just so happen to get put in our lives at exactly the right time, she was the person that taught me how to be a friend (a skill that I lacked at the time), simply by being one to me, and for that I will always be grateful.

I don't know where else to go with that so I will move on, and poke a little fun at my husband. Mike has been sick this weekend, and I don't mean he's had the flu, or bronchitis, or anything of any kind of serious nature, he simply has a cold. I realize that colds suck and nobody wants one, but he has laid in bed for pretty much the entire weekend moaning, "Oh god, Oh Jesus". Apparently head colds give him religion. I think he should actually be moaning "thank you god, thank you Jesus" because when he is sick he gets to stay home in bed, and moan. I cannot remember the last time that I got sick and got to spend the day in bed resting (it might have been when Billy was born), maybe I'm a little bit jealous. (You think?) Well, I will still make him chicken soup to speed up his recovery, and hope that he doesn't get a hangnail blowing his nose because then he might become completely unbearable.

shark

This is like the picture that Katie has put up as a background on my computer. It is very cool and very big, and scares me every time I close a page and it pops up. It is not the actual picture (it is REALLY scary) because the actual picture was too big to display here on this blog, and I am not computer savvy enough to figure out how to shrink it.
I don't like scary things, I seldom watch a scary movie and if someone were to jump out at me from behind a corner, I would probably hit them out of pure reflex, and then go change my pants. Now this picture in and of itself is not that scary, I know that it is just a picture, it just makes me jump a little becasue it takes me by surprise. It's not scary like birds are scary (birds freak me out).
It has just got me wondering about when I became such a chicken (eeek! that's a bird). I used to be tougher than this. My grandmother was afraid of heights, she would freak out crossing a bridge, even a little bridge, she spent most of her life not going anywhere because she was too scared. Speaking of being scared, she used scare me when I was a kid by taking her teeth out, she thought it was hilarious. I don't know if she was always scared, my knowledge of her life is limited to seventeen years, but I am starting to think that fears grow if we give into them, and that's when they become phobias. I am the only person I know that is afraid of birds, and I also know that it is an irrational fear, but still they make me very uneasy. I am also the only one I know that was attacked by geese and rescued by little girls with backpacks.
Fear is not always a bad thing, it keeps me out of bad neighborhoods, and prevents me from jumping out of perfectly good airplanes (that part might just be common sense), but I would like to be able to control it enough to not embarrass my daughter as I run across her school parking lot, screaming with my arms flailing about, trying (and failing) to escape a bird attack.

seriously

My son told my aunt and me, out of the blue, the other day, that his dead robot pees in a hat, but he is teaching him to pee in the toilet.
How cool is that, I mean the things we can teach robots these days.

I have been thinking about this alot, maybe it's code. Maybe he is CIA, just in case I won't tell Scooter Libby.

My husband thinks that RadioShack is a front for the CIA (got this idea long before the show Chuck). He originally got the idea from my mother, their evidence is that there is never anyone in the stores, and when there is, they buy a $2 adapter, yet, they can afford to have stores in just about every neighborhood. That is the less detailed argument, but gives you the general idea. It is very well thought out. I wonder where my son gets his robot ideas.

not all of their fingerpaintings are picasso's

Today I spent the entire day at my kids school going to various honor roll assemblies. I expect my kids to be on the honor roll. There is no reason for them not to be, they are smart and they don't put nearly enough time into their school work for me to settle for less. If they have that much free time then they better have it down. I get annoyed by these school gatherings, I don't want my kids to think that they deserve a standing ovation every time they do their job. I believe we are supposed to do certain things because they are ours to do, school being one of those things. I don't remember getting much more than a, "good job honey" when I got a good grade, although there was a point when my parents were so desperate to get a good grade out of me that they offered me $50 every 'A'.
My problem, I guess isn't so much with the accolades, but with the fact they call 3/4 of every class up to the stage between the 'A' honor roll, and 'B' honor roll, and there are always a few left in their seats because they didn't quite make it, I hate that. The thing is that C's are supposed to be the average grade, so if 75-85% of the class is getting A's and B's, then the work has gotten too easy. I love my kids and that they do well in school, but they don't earn their grades. Emma gets great grades when she isn't too lazy to do the work, and Katie can get straight A's through osmosis alone.

My nephew is a really smart kid with some big learning disabilities, he just has a hard time with everything that school has to offer. Joe works harder at school than any kid that I have ever seen, his schedule is rigid. During the summer he travelled an hour each way, five days a week to get to school to try and help overcome the problems that he has had, and maintaining a great demeanor throughout the whole time. So, with all of the time he puts into school, with the working and trying and getting frustrated, Joe would still be left in his seat. As much as I am happy for my girls good grades, it's hard to well up with pride for something they have put very little of themselves into, I am far more proud of those grades that Joe struggled for.

There is a big push for building kids self-esteem these days, but if we are the ones building it for them, whether by blowing the little things up to gigantic proportions or dumbing things down so they can't fail, is it really self-esteem. Self-esteem is built by overcoming challenges and working hard for something, failing and getting back up to try again, it can't be served up on a platter. They have to know that everything they touch is not gold, every finger painting is not a Picasso.

dinosaurs

You know, for my entire life I have heard that dinosaurs were extinct, and I am here to say it's all a lie. Dinosaurs are alive and well, and reside in my shower. They are smaller than believed to be, and very quiet (stealth like), but manage to get under my foot every time I step in.The only thing that hurts worse than stepping on a dinosaur (triceratops are the worst) is stepping on a Lego, either way both make me question whether parenthood was the right choice.

So, this is my blog, if anyone actually reads it I will be floored, but this is it. I am moving my myspace posts over here too, and I guess either something or nothing will come of it.

stuff i found under the couch

2 cars from the movie cars (lightning and the king), 2 dimes, 3 pennies, and a quarter, 2 pencils and a hot pink gel pen, 1 copy of Jack and the Beanstalk, with pop-ups, 4 dirty socks belonging to various children, only 2 matched ,1 pirate dagger that I got at the 99 cent store with patty one night after dinner and we sat in my van for an hour stabbing ourselves with it, 1 transformer (optimus prime), 1 game cube controller, 1 jedi action figure, a purple rubber centipede, a plastic dinosaur (triceratop), the cover to my calculator, 2 dog bones, 1 otter pop, and 1 snickers wrapper, 2 things unrecognizable from being chewed by maggie the dog, 1 thomas the tank engine, 1 dirty undershirt belonging to Billy, a nerf dart gun,a marble and a remote control.
Stay tuned for the sequel..."stuff i found in the couch" coming when I finally work up the courage to look under the cushions.

i wonder...

I just read that "I'll be back" is the most quoted movie line. Now I wonder if it only counts if you are saying it like the governator, or if they are counting every time someone uses the words 'I'll be back." I say it all the time, if I walk out of a room and plan to return right away, if I'm going to pick up something from the store, if I want someone to save my seat (you get the picture). So I think it can only count if you say it with an Austrian accent, I might even let it slide with an Australian accent, it is just an extra syllable.
The bottom line is that there are so many great movie lines out there, that we need to popularize some of the cooler ones, I can think of about 20 from Casablanca alone.
Here are some thoughts, let's see if we can work them into our vernacular:
"I remember every detail. The Germans wore gray, you wore blue."
"Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes?"
"Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker."
" I am a nice shark, not a mindless eating machine. If I am to change this image, I must first change myself. Fish are friends, not food."
"Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries."
"Seven years of college down the drain. Might as well join the fucking Peace Corps."
"This whole world's wild at heart and weird on top."
"It rubs the lotion on its skin. It does this whenever it is told." (maybe not this one)
"This is my corn. You people are guests in my corn."
"Leave the gun. Take the cannoli."
Well, there is a start, but you get the idea, "I'll be back" is a lame most popular movie quote, let's do better.

scary

So, ever since Halloween my boys have been obsessed with all things scary. Billy draws picture of skeletons and zombies and monsters, all of which are really good, by the way. They wear masks and hide behind things so they can jump out at me. They are not very good because they can't stop giggling the entire time they are hiding. My job is to scream, "AGHHHHH!!!!!" at just the right moment. I am really good at it and the boys believe that I was actually scared every time. They walk away laughing hysterically and boasting about how they "got' me. It's cool, and fun is had by all.
The other night I was up late studying, and went upstairs to collapse in my bed, and laying there I came face to face with biggest, ugliest spider that I have ever seen, and I FREAKED!!! I jumped out of bed, heart racing, driven by pure panic, and about to pick up Mike's laptop to kill it, when I realized it was plastic. One of my kids was screwing with me, and it totally worked. My only salvation was that nobody saw my hysteria.
The next day Billy asked me if I said, "AUGHHHHH!!" when I saw the spider, and I laughed and told him that I did. He told me that next time I should do it to him. He wants me to put the spider in his bed and scare him. I don't understand boys. Jack and Billy are going to grow up to be like those guys in the movie 'Summer School' that were so into horror movies, and put on the chainsaw massacre display in the classroom to freak out the substitute.
Oh well, hope we can afford the therapy.

the most wonderful time of the year

Today I went shopping and started to get excited, as my favorite time of year is approaching. I love the year from the week before Thanksgiving when we go to Disneyland straight through to Christmas morning. I like people better, I like the weather being colder (even if it is SoCal cold), I like turkey and buying and decorating the tree, I love listening to friends talk about their plans. I love watching Mike put the lights on the house, and having the kids home from school. I like that we spend an entire month sneaking around, that concludes with an all nighter of wrapping, putting things together and watching the Christmas Story marathon, just so that our kids can have the 4 1/2 minutes of magic that it takes to tear through all of the paper we spent all night putting on..
I'm not so much a Christmas person, after the morning the day itself (other than the tamales) is never great, probably due to exhaustion, but I love the build up. People are nicer, I'm nicer. I put forth an extra effort, that maybe I wish I did more of throughout the year. I think it's the lights, colorful lights make me high.
Katie and the boys just came in from skateboarding, and their hands and faces are cold, and they are dirty and loud, and I love that too.
If anyone actually reads this, and wants to throw up from all this sugar, go right ahead.