signs

spotted up the road from our house...

is this taking fire safety week to the next level or what?

mcd's

last night we had plans to meet our friend rebecca and her kids at the spanking new mcdonalds with the indoor playplace for dinner and some play time. the kids had been bugging to go there since the grand re-opening, so it was a great opportunity to go and also to play with friends. not to mention the haute cuisine available!

we met rebecca and her husband almost exactly 8 years ago on the first night of childbirth class. she was pregnant with her first, kayla (of 'o beautiful kayla' song fame for those of you who may remember that post), and i was pregnant with h. both kevin and rebecca were police officers, and had a horse farm waaaay out in the middle of nowhere. our babies played together, and we became fast friends.

shortly after had her second baby, austin, s was born, creating the next generation of friendship. s and austin "fell in love" in preschool, and are still planning their wedding. since they both want to be fighter pilots, it's a military life for them at this point. rebecca and i are thinking that arranged marriage doesn't sound so bad at this point!

that horse farm waaay in the middle of nowhere somehow didn't seem quite so far when we considered moving when s was a year old. we moved to within 5 minutes of them, and now all the kids would end up in school together. we discovered the joys of living in the country that rebecca had been espousing all along!

which brings us to last night, our kids all playing while t, rebecca and i all played with her third child, 9 month old logan. not a whole lot of actual EATING was happening, although logan was thoroughly enjoying her baby treats, and t was thoroughly enjoying entertaining the baby. it is SO CUTE to watch a big, full-grown, burly man turn to mush at a cute little baby. especially when that man is your husband. he snuggled and she giggled and he got his "baby fix." he's gotta get it SOMEWHERE 'cause he sure isn't gonna get it HERE! :)

then austin proceeded to give s her very first shiner-- due to a face-to-skull collision on the slide. ahhh, the memories.

my week

monday was a trip to the pumpkin patch with the kindergarteners and a trip to the doctor for h's hand wart removal.

tuesday found h sick in bed (now that s is all better, of course), so no volunteering at school. got my grocery shopping done instead and saved $17 in coupons!

today both t and h are sinusy messes, so we turned the bathroom into a steam room using a space heater and a humidifier. i'm attempting to sew a pirate coat by next tuesday for h's halloween costume. of course, none of the store-bought were quite right, so he chose a lovely dark red curly velvet. it's coming together nicely, but leaves little floaty fuzzums all over the kitchen table and floor. i'll have fuzzy red boogers for a week.

tonight christie will come over and watch trashy reality tv with me ('america's next top model' and 'the biggest loser') while we sip cheap wine. but alas, no more project runway until next season. *sniff!*

tomorrow i'm sending the boy back to school and I'M GOING TO THE GYM before one of the muscles in my neck snaps. a walk in the freezing cold each morning this week does nothing for my cardio strength or my muscles, but it sure does make the dog happy.

ride of the valkyries

s's dance on saturday... it's just too bad there's no music.

a funny bonus story... the other day, s was in the other room talking, and i thought i heard her say, "mommy, i'm teaching faith men are retards." i said, "you're teaching faith WHAT??!" she yelled, "MEN-ARE-RE-TARDS!" i couldn't possibly have heard her correctly, so i went into the room with her and asked, "are you teaching faith that men are retards??" "NO mommy! i'm teaching her MEMORY CARDS!"

godzilla destroys the trick-or-treaters

y'all should be proud of me, i posted an mpeg of h doing his godzilla dance to youtube. no sound, sorry, it was from my regular camera, and it's only the first half of the dance. if it works out, i'll post the 2nd half and maybe s doing her "ride of the valkyries" dance. let me know what you think.

meme

thank you, beenzzz for the tag! my brain wasn't working well when i did this, but here goes...

3 things that scare me:

dying before my kids are grown
my kids dying before they're grown
the irs

3 people who make me laugh:

my husband
my children
my dog (yes, i know she's not of the people variety)

3 things I love:

my family
humility
humor

3 things I hate:

hypocrisy
raw onions
adultery

3 things I don't understand:

fighting over religion
financial stuff like the stock market and portfolios
taxes

3 things on my desk:

blank cd's
a microphone
a tennis ball

3 things I'm doing right now:

putting 3 kids to bed
reading a book
typing

3 things I want to do before I die:

get a masters degree
travel travel travel
watch my kids grow to adulthood

3 things I can do:

sneer on both sides of my mouth (try it!)
sew
sing

3 ways to describe my personality:

a little bit manic
realistic to a fault
moral

3 things I can't do:

high math
anything that requires great flexibility
drive the motorcycle

3 things I think you should listen to:

your mother
your conscience
your children

3 things I think you should never listen to:

words against your family
anyone pulling a guilt trip
that little voice inside that tells you that you CAN'T do it

3 favorite foods: there are just so many...

figs
brie
biscuits

3 things I'd like to learn:

to knit well
more languages & cultures
more fine art history

3 beverages I drink regularly:

wine
coffee
diet coke

3 shows I watched as a kid:
little house on the prairie
dukes of hazzard
knight rider

3 people I tag : tough call... will y'all consider it?

LOTUS!

ANGELA IN EUROPE!

J!

im·pe·tig·i·nous

that's what the doctor said yesterday when she peered at the bubbling, erupting sore on s's lower lip and chin. that it could be a cold sore, but it looked a little impetiginous. as in impetigo. as in like flesh-eating bacteria. ew.

she took a culture of the juicy mess to have it tested, then prescribed zovirax in case it really was just a simple case of herpes simplex. took the prescription to CVS and nearly dropped dead on the floor at the $86 price tag for just FIVE GRAMS of the stuff. is prescription pricing getting a wee bit out of hand or is it just me??

today my baby's back at school and i'm feeling a little bit like somebody ripped off my arm, or snatched my kidney. i miss her. and i think i'm coming down with something unpleasant (probably picked up at school on tuesday or at the doctor's office yesterday).

although i did enjoy me some project runway last night! hooo-wee! did anybody else watch the finale? it was a doozy. maybe i'll post on it when i feel less like crawling back under the covers with my dog.

tuesday miscellany

here's the promised, although grainy, photo of the cluttered but clean kitchen with the shiny, shiny floor.

i'll throw in a bonus d'oh story, dedicated to beenzzz, who wrote about cosmopolitan martinis just the other day. last night after replacing the furniture and blogging on the whole experience, i was tiredly mixing up some cosmos for t and i, so we could snuggle on the sofa and watch movies while elegantly sipping cocktails from way cool martini glasses. somehow, without even noticing, i grabbed the KOOL-AID instead of the cranberry juice and shook it in with the alcohol. when i poured out, i knew that something must be wrong for the drink looked like this:

the pink day-glo might light up your insides! no matter, and no need to waste perfectly good vodka and triple sec, we drank it anyway. the secret is that there's a goodly amount of cranberry juice mixed in with the kool-aid for the benefit of my fruit-hating son. but don't tell! he's never guessed.

orange glo your sunday!

there's this great product out there for any of you with hardwood floors. it's called orange glo hardwood floor refinisher, and i can unequivocally recommend the product as well as the results it brings. what i cannot recommend, however, is the intense amount of LABOR required to make the product work. at the end of the day, it brings a great satisfaction to see the wood floors that had been marred by 4 years of neglect, spills, pee, poop, dirt, dust, dog hair, grime, barf, scratches, dents, YOU NAME IT.... just SHINE.

yes, this is how i spent my day on sunday. t took the kids... well... i won't spill the beans on WHERE they went because i'm trying desperately to get him to guest blog about it (any amount of clamoring in the comments section may help to convince him). anyhow, they were gone all day, and i decided to undertake the monumental task of refinishing the floor in the kitchen eating area ONLY.

first i cleared the kitchen of EVERYTHING. it was eerily empty and echoey. it reminded me of moving days. however, in the living room, furniture was packed in so that no amount of actual living could possibly be done there. but no matter. i had to first sweep and vaccuum the whole floor TWICE. i was a good girl and scrubbed the woodwork after this. the next step is to mop the floor TWICE and let it dry completely. after this, the refinisher is ready to be applied. you evenly spread the stuff over the whole floor, then no one (or no thing) can walk on it for at least an hour. this meant that jane and i took a nice long walk around the 'hood. i wanted to apply a second coat, but for this i needed to wait yet another hour. after the second coat was done (and much laundry in the interim) the furniture can't be replaced for 24 MORE hours. sigh. this means that the project wasn't entirely done until this afternoon, when i heaved all the furniture back into place (carefully scrubbing each bit of it first).

i'd post the photo of it all finished, but blogger won't let me. i'll try tomorrow morning. promise.

inflation

has anyone ever been to a party at pump it up?

we were invited to a birthday party in raleigh at this place yesterday, and though we had been to a party there once before, i hadn't thought to blog about it. the idea of this business is a huge room filled with brightly colored inflated jumping apparatus including a slide, obstacle course and regular full-on bouncing castle.

the room is huge, and there must have been almost 40 kids with parents at the party yesterday. there was plenty of room for all of them, but the best part is PARENTS ARE ALLOWED TO JUMP TOO! well, as long as you have socks on and follow all the rules. i am so there. my favorite part (and the kids', too) was the giant slide. you climb up the chute-- bouncing all the way-- then slide FAST all the way down, trying hard not to hit anyone that hasn't cleared at the bottom. what a rush! either that or maybe i haven't gotten all the "kid" out of me yet.

i spent about 2 minutes in the bouncing castle, and although i go to the gym roughly three times a week, i realized how weak my cardio stamina is. winded and heart pounding, i climbed out and marvelled at the children who bounced, climbed and slid for an hour and a half. what would i give for that kind of energy again!

the old brain got working overtime and i thought, wouldn't it be fun to have an adults only party there? i don't think we could manage to get alcohol in, and i don't think alcohol and excessive bouncing mix anyway. unfortunately, this probably wouldn't go over real well, and i couldn't convince either of the kids to have a party there, so until the next time we're invited, i'll just have to bide my time. man, was it fun!

awkward moment

while balancing our checkbook online yesterday, i found a suspicious charge on one of our debit cards. i called the bank and discovered that the card used was t's. the bank representative on the phone asked if i would like to be transferred to the fraud departmnt to file a claim, and i hesitated for a split second. i had to ask my husband to be FOR SURE that he hadn't subscribed to a dating website called americansingles.com!

ummmm, honey? i have to ask you this question so that i'm not perpetrating a fraud on the fraudulent charges department of the bank. ARE YOU USING A SINGLES WEBSITE???! the answer, "no." ARE YOU 100% SURE?? "yes, 100%." how awful to have to ask my honorable man that question!

called the bank again, straightened out the mess, cancelled the card, then t decided he wanted to call americansingles.com just to clear the air for good. appears that a 5 foot 4 hispanic woman under the pseudonym 'daisy senorita j-low' got his card number somehow and used it for this purpose and this purpose only.

dodged that bullet! whew!

ode to pwoject wunway

o pwoject wunway! i get so excited when i'm talking about you that i can't say your name pwoperwy even once, let alone three times fast. the fabric! the designs. the drama! the personalities. it all adds up to the best show on television right now.

eleven pm is very late for me, but each week i'm willing to make the sacrifice, and force my husband and children to deal with that sacrifice in the form of a crabby wife and mother the following day. it's worth it!!! it's all worth it for just one short season of pwoject wunway.

can it be just a few short months ago that the season started? can it be just one more week until the season ends? did michael REALLY put gold sequins on the breast pockets of a white shirt??! could jeffrey have REALLY done it all by himself?! has laura REALLY done it all while raising five children?! will uli HAVE anything other than a halter dress??!

i'm just beside myself, uncharacteristically, with excitement over this show. not since the *real* iron chef have i gotten so worked up over reality tv. do any of you have the same problem? i know that loads of cable networks don't even carry bravo, and for those poor mislead souls, i have only one word. netflix. or is the darn show even out on dvd?

more kindergarten design

each year at halloween we decorate the big orange door to the garage with a pumkin face. since s seems to be hitting a creative stride (and she was up early this morning) i asked her if she'd like to help. i told her to design a pumpkin face on paper, then we'd cut big black shapes of it to stick on the wall. here's what she came up with! i love it!

we decided to put the face AND body of the pumpkin man on the door, and here's the final result. witchy-poo is posing next to it in full regalia-- hat, broom and black cat. and the ever-appropriate witch attire... the batman jammies.

now i'm wondering what other fascinating decorating ideas she'll have for halloween! according to me, it's the most fun holiday to decorate for, but don't ask me! ask s, the new design expert.

books part II

**please read part one first (below). sorry for the confusion, but blogger was giving me fits.

here we are aaaallllll the way at the top (sing with me, now! "well we're movin' on up...") in the penthouse, where i keep my tbr (to be read) shelf as well as a few photo albums.
that's the end of the "house" section of the book tour. if we head outside and take the left-hand fork in the driveway, we end up at t's art studio. here he is, working, and posing in front of a portion of his book and cd collection. like the dvds, they are arranged by genre.

more, and more. below are laserdiscs. remember those??usptairs in the studio, i was able to gingerly tiptoe through the "stuff" to come across another collection of books.whew! so there you have it. i can't believe what idiotic bibliophiles we are. crazy!

now the question is... where and how do you keep YOUR books????

book (lack of) organization

this post idea comes from lotus, and if you want to check out her visually stunning solution, please visit her blog! she was wondering how others organized (or didn't organize) their book collections.

it made me laugh to think of our home and studio... littered and riddled with stacks, rows, and shelves of books and dvds. i took a few photos and after doing so, the situation seemed even funnier! i had never realized the extent of our organized disorganization of books.

i'll start in the house, on the first floor. here we find a barrister cabinet with assorted dolls, reference books, and "keeper" books. most of my finished books are given away, but a few i only loan. they are not at all organized.
below is the front hall, which came in handy as a place to hold t's extraordinarily extensive dvd library (as well as a few childrens books). he organizes entirely by genre and can easily find any one of his films. don't even ASK how many there are, i have NO IDEA.moving along up the stairwell to the second floor we have our room with a few scattered piles of books to be read immediately or books that have been read that need to be sent or given away. i forgot a photo of the kids' playroom with one full bookshelf of kids books.
head up the stairs toward the penthouse, as we affectionately call the room on the third floor, and you'll find books waiting to go up or down.
to be continued in book (lack of) organization partII... stay tuned!

self deprecation

today was a hot summer day, and what better way to celebrate than pack up the kids-- right when they got off the bus-- and head, maybe for the last time this year, to jordan lake. we met our friends there, and only baked for a few hours in the waning sunlight, but it was divine, and absolutely what i needed after a busy day of multitasking.

the kids had an unseasonably fabulous time rolling in the dirty sand, and playing neck-deep in the murky water. the only thing that was a bummer is that we had to leave in time for dinner, homework, and a bath-- with bath being FOREMOST. we buried vincent in the sand, and nicole made a big sand-turtle sculpture.

the following photo is proof that i am humble enough to show a REALLY unflattering picture of myself on the internet for the whole wide world to see. how could we resist posing in front of the "hot ashes" bin with our butts in the air? by the way, my skirt has shorts under it. those are not my panties. but anyhow, it's proof that we are two really clever and classy ladies. hot ashes! snort!

us

we all went to see a production of "the lion king" on stage in raleigh last sunday. i may have posted about it YESTERDAY but thanks to EMBARQ we had no internet ALL DAY (done with rant). some of the show was stunning, some inconsistent, some just downright disappointing. a mixed bag, and a vague review, but that's not really why i wanted to post.

h was all dressed in his finery, sporting a godzilla tie, wrapped in a studded belt, and shod in skull-and-crossbones shoes. s wanted to wear animal prints in keeping with the theme of the show.

but the part i like best is the photo of all of us before the show. when i loaded the photos into the computer and saw all of us together, i thought: you know, who cares how good or bad the production was? we were together, as a family, and we were happy. i just love our family. isn't that sappy? and i thought the photo of us was really (shockingly) nice, even if i do look like i pencilled my eyebrows way up on my forehead a la joan crawford (i didn't, by the way. they just arch real high like that). and no, i'm not pregnant, but thanks for asking.