radnor guest house

we stayed in a lovely and economical guest house just over the bridge from central bath. the hosts, peter and jane, were so helpful and friendly, and really accomodated us and our needs. it was small but clean, modern and comfortable. i couldn't have chosen a better place, and it was pure luck since i found it on the web.

this is me in the sitting area near the breakfast room looking really baffled over whatever i'm reading. the breakfasts were hot, fresh, and soooo tasty! eggs, bacon, sausage, tomatoes, and sauteed mushrooms, and also an assortment of fresh fruit, yogurt, granola and cereal. the best was the pot of french press coffee each morning.

the courtyard was shared with jane and peter's residence. they are excellent gardeners and had many awards from "bath in bloom" displayed, as well as years' worth of garden photos from the guest house.
looking up pulteney street, the house is on the left. i'll write more of our bath adventures tomorrow!

i'm back!

flying over ireland early morning may 9th

hi all! i'm back. i was here in spirit, but not in blogreality. good to be HOME again and i can't wait to share our trip with family and friends. give me a while to unpack, and i'll try to do quick posts with photos until i have time to write a bit more.

after returning from the uk, the "r" sound sure sounds harrrd stateside! and of course, coming home through newark was a harsh reality after bristol.

cheers!

blogging hiatus

oh, i know, it's the words everyone hates to use. sad but true, i'm signing off for a while. i don't think i'll have a sane enough thought to coherently pull together into a post before t and i leave for england on monday. after that point, i won't have internet access for a week (we're not taking the laptop) so no stories 'til after i get back.

in a way, having no internet and no cell phones will be a relief-- a true vacation.

we will be doing a bit of sightseeing before the business part of the trip kicks in, and hopefully i'll be chock full o' jolly good british tales when i return.

cheerio! and may the force be with you all.

alert: bad mommy

so y'all know about the lost tooth from yesterday.

here's the rest of the story (i feel like paul harvey now).

h came straight in the door and put the tooth beneath his pillow. we proceeded with our usual afterschool routines: snack, play, homework, dinner, bath. it was a little late when h went to bed, and even later when i finally got s to bed, and since i had already drunk my alloted 1 glass of cheap cabernet and t was out, i decided to just hit the hay myself.

but i forgot about the tooth.

this morning after getting dressed, h excitedy flipped his pillow, and what did he find??? his rotten old tooth. i felt like i had "bad mommy" tattooed on my forehead. what a failure i am! i could see that he was upset, and i was just kicking myself, so i suggested emailing the tooth fairy to make sure she knew about the tooth.

she wrote back... this very sensitive note:

Dear H,

I am sorry that I didn't leave your money under your pillow last night. It was a very busy night and by the time I got to your house, I had run out of money! I will go to the ATM, and I promise you'll be first on my list tonight.

You are a very good boy, and I'm excited to get that tooth from you!

Love,

The Tooth Fairy


that's nice and all, but i will be kicking myself for the rest of my life.

mommy goes to first grade

today i had some end-of-year business to hash out at school with the pta president and the principal of h's school, so of course i had to have lunch with him and his first grade class before the meeting. i got him burger king and brought it to school, which helped not only his cool quotient, but also mine. i can be cool that way, really!

so i sat and listened to all the little first grade stories, stories about being 6 and 7 years old. i heard loads of little brother/ little sister stories, and a bunch about playstations, xboxes, and other assorted video game consoles. the kid that took the cake... and REALLY wanted to SHARE with me was the hunter's son. he peppered me with questions... "what kind of gun does h's dad have?" (um, a paintball gun? and some replicas?), "does h hunt with his dad?" (um, no?), "how many guns does h's dad have?" (um, i already answered that question?), and "how many deer has h's dad killed?" (um, none?). he graciously offered for h to go hunting with him and his dad, after all, it's mostly just looking around at nature and all. unless he and his brother try to hit targets with their matching guns, that is. my little h screwed up his face and said, "shoot deer? to KILL them? ummm... i don't think i want to go."

i had visions in my head of j wearing her fur coat and toting her shotgun through the woods, looking not unlike annie oakley in her heyday.

but i digress. i look over at h, and he is furiously pushing his loose tooth around with his tongue, displaying a grisly section of bloody nerve and gum tissue. it's a good thing i hadn't eaten the school lunch, 'cause i may have hurled. seth, across the table, says just this: "if you pull out your tooth at the lunch table, i'm gonna PUKE!" this makes h work all the more diligently on the tooth, but alas, by the time lunch ended, he still was not successful at extraction.

first thing he says when he gets off the bus?? you guessed it... "I LOST MY TOOTH!" but all i wanna know is... did seth barf?

best friends

for some reason lately, i've been remembering my best friend from childhood. it's a rite of passage to have that one FIRST best friend, the one that you brag to everyone you meet, "THIS is MY best friend."

her name was angelique michelle litten, but everyone called her angel. i met her the summer that i turned six when my family returned to suburban indianapolis from our summer place on lake michigan. the evening that we got back was always a time when my older brother and i would wander the neighborhood... seeing what had changed, who had lost teeth, what new toys our friends had gotten. a summer away from home is an eternity to a kid, and we had to get back in the loop before school started. as i walked in front of richard jackson's house, i saw a girl being tied to a tree with jumpropes. i didn't recognize her, but was so desperate for friends that i told her captors to untie her since they weren't being nice to the new girl. "oh, no, i LIKE it!" she proclaimed with a big grin.

now, i had met lots of different kids, but this one was an enigma. first of all, she had been born in a foreign land... ALASKA! how romantic was that? and she was a TWIN! the stuff of novels to a six year old. but most of all, she lived 2 doors down and she wanted to be friends with ME... incomprehensible to someone a year and a half younger than she.

although she only lived in that house for a year, then moved aaaaaallllll the way to the other side of the elementary (a huge distance to me at 7, but going back there now, it was no more than 1/4 of a mile), we were inseparable for several years to come. my best memories of her are on vacation... she frequently joined our family on trips to my grandma's house, and to the summer cottage. one time at my grandma's, we thought we were so sassy and dressed exactly alike for church. we giggled and whispered about the little girl that said about us, "them two girls are TWINS!"

we were probably a great nuisance to our parents since we were constantly asking them to judge one of our myriad of contests. a drawing contest, a coloring contest, a dance contest, a swinging contest. my dad had hung swings in our basement when we were kids, so we would come up with elaborate "swing routines" and gather the troops to watch us perform.

one time we nearly drove a babysitter to tears with our taunts... her name was wendy, and we kept singing jingles from wendy's restaurant commercials. for hours. all night long. such evil little girls.

she moved away in middle school to a town not too far away, but we had drifted as friends by that point... always staying in touch, but never really close again. she came to see me when i returned after a year in l.a. when i was 20, and even met t at that time. she came to our wedding in 1995, but that was the last i heard from her. i've googled her name and come up empty.

all the photos of us together are on slide (yes SLIDE) archives at my folks' house. maybe someday i'll find a funny picture of us and have it printed so i can remember the good old years of my best friend from childhood.

did you have a best friend, too?

cloudy

i did the word cloud as suggested by lotus, by way of guinnessgirl. here is how it turned out:

i wish i could make out all of the words on it, even the hi-res version they emailed me was not entirely readable. i'm not sure i want a tshirt made out of it (the site's ultimate goal) but i did enjoy the fact that it captured the essence of my life.

some of the words that got strung together formed little phrases... some drunk on alliteration. like, "married mean melissa," "home husband illustrator,"complete content cool darling daughter," "muddy multi night objectionable old one," and "busy carolina children." pretty funny stuff! and random!

stepping stone

hello to all the faithful readers who couldn't sleep at night for the image of that potty burned into their brains! and thank you to mr. l for making me laugh until i cried YET AGAIN! hahahah! christmas card! *sniff*

for more poopie humor, please refer to the unrated version of 'team america: world police' which had me howling and pounding the floor, my tears blinding me until i had to rewind twice to get the whole story. it really is a brilliant satire of the world we call home, if you can tolerate the 'south park'-like insults. i'm not a particularly pc person (if you couldn't already tell), so i found it hilarious.

s made a stepping stone yesterday with the kit that was given to her by our good friends in milwaukee, jill & john. sorry for the nudie pic... it's hard to keep clothing on my daughter. the stone turned out really pretty, and i placed it by the patch of iris near the swingset where she can enjoy it. h has a matching kit, so maybe we'll have two pretty stepping stones out there soon.

i knew y'all were clamoring for more kid crafts! :)

feline sprawl

more phestival photos

thought i'd share a few more photos from the grassroots festival of music and dance at shakori hills! we spent most of the day sunday wandering through the grounds. we saw woodwork roadshow and marched in the paperhand puppet intervention parade. we ate delicious ice cream in still-warm waffle cones. we wandered past the vendors' booths where my 2 boys bought me a gorgeous pair of earrings. i included a photo of the art by a chainsaw artist... every time they set up their wares at the festival, and every time we wish we had a couple hundred dollars to drop on a sculpture. maybe someday we will feel justified in doing so!

today the kids went back to school, so t and i went to the gym, the grocery store and the gas station together, then came home and took care of some of the things we had neglected in the past week while playing with the kids. isn't that the best excuse for neglected housework??!

anyhow, if you want to see the picture of the most disgusting port-a-potty EVER that had me laughing until i was in tears, click this link. however, i will warn you... IT'S GRAPHICALLY DISGUSTING. so i don't recommend it for the easily offended or the faint of heart. consider this as your disclaimer.

blooms

dianthus, iris and azalea in my yard.

two posts in one day! can you handle it??

i want to do another post about shakori hills tomorrow, i got a bunch more photos. one of them is (honestly) a picture of the most disgusting port-a-potty i've ever seen. so gross i was laughing until i cried. really, i'm laughing right now just thinking about the grossness of it, and putting it on this blog. i'd probably get flagged it's so disgusting! so here's the question... nothing is funnier to me than poopie humor, but should i post the disgusting potty pic? or no??? i really should link to it, but i don't know how (total confession of blog ineptitiude there).

shakin' at shakori

since thursday we've been spending a good bit of time at the festival and again, i don't have many photos. perhaps i'll have enough foresight to take some today, and we are heading out soon. at left is the hairdo that my darling daughter gave me while the "asshat" (thank you for the apt adjective, j!) film students were interviewing me about being the wife of a cool guy. honestly, they are nice guys, but i was steaming the other day over their lack of sticking to schedule. all important when young children are involved, don't you think? well, i wore my hair in evil jimmy neutron style for the rest of the day and i think s might have a future as a stylist.

the festival has face painters, but who wants to wait in line when mom can do it at home? the girl wanted to be a dalmatian yesterday and a border collie today. h wanted to have 'tenchi' stripes (a japanese animated character) then nothing today. i did get a shot of my 2 border collies together, but the canine one wasn't being all that cooperative. i had to use all the stern commands i know from dog obedience class just to make her sit, terrified, in front of the camera. vaccuums and cameras are her problem areas. most dogs are afraid of thunderstorms... and this weekend has been riddled with them!... but not jane. oh, no. just cameras and vaccuums.


here's a morning-after-camping shot from friday. h is on the far right, and our friends that braved the campsite with us are on the left. it wasn't good sleeping, that's for sure. i swear, once the zydeco stopped playing, the rooster (no joke) started crowing. the kids did better than the adults, but everyone needed a nap, whether they thought so or not. our tent is really quite large and homey, and has been nice for hanging out in the evenings... reading ghost stories... having a drink or two... all good for the essential family bonding.

we ended up getting to see the never, shannon o'connor, a little of donna the buffalo, and lots more in passing. today we may get there in time to see woodwork roadshow.

the other highlight of the fest is the food. i've had amazing greek and fabulous curry. s and t had homemeade ice cream. i could eat all day. well, i guess we'd better get going. already excited for the return of the grassroots festival next fall.

at the lake, at the lake, where i made a great mistake

i remembered the snacks, the drinks, and even remembered the squirt guns. i remembered the sand toys, the water wings, and even remembered a book. i got the towels, the blankets, the warm, dry clothes for apres-swim. but what i forgot was the camera, my great mistake, so our first trip to the lake this season has gone woefully unrecorded. we will have to keep it in our memories instead.

the day was supposed to be 77F and partly cloudy, with a 0% chance of rain. unfortunately, it turned out to be 66F and totally overcast, with a few sprinkles here and there. me, personally, i think those make for the best beach days, but that's probably from my upbringing on the shores of lake michigan (summers) where most days are cloudy and cool!

we'll remember the damp, earthy smell floating in off jordan lake. we'll remember the odor of pine and barbeque wafting in from the woods and picnic shelter where a large family was celebrating spring break. we'll feel the cold tile of the changing room on our bare feet, and the rough clay-sand of the beach. h will remember the clumps of native clay he found while digging a hole. s will remember the uncrustable sandwich she ate.

our friends nicole, vincent and hollyn joined us, and together we played on the playground, dug a lake with dams; teeth chattering the whole time from wet bodies made blue by cool wind. all in all a successful day and far more relaxing than the day previous.

today is spent in preparation for shakori hills grassroots music festival! we have 4 day passes, and will attempt camping there tonight. in case of rain, snow, sleet, hail or scared children in the dead of night, it's always good to be a mile from home. ;)

death to pez

this is the unfortunate state in which i found the fuzzy teddy bear pez dispenser this morning. there is no question in my mind which child perpetrated this heinous crime against candy. it was our daughter, who normally is an animal loving child, but obviously saw fit to heartlessly stab the bear RIGHT where the candy comes out with a santa claus pencil. ah, the horror of it all.

i honestly don't blame her, as yesterday turned into a pretty frustrating day for all of us. it's spring break, and since we are not vacationing, i promised the children a plethora of enticing activities for their enjoyment. upon awakening yesterday, we kept discussing our myriad possibilities for the gorgeous day... but t informed us that the unc students who are filming a documentary about him would be here 'sometime after noon' to film some footage of the family. well, that ruled out an all-day excursion, which is almost ANY excursion from home, as we live so far in the country. we bided our time through the morning, growing increasingly restless as we picked up yard toys and swept the drive. at noon time we drew pictures, ate lunch and played board games while champing at the bit. around 2 the poop hit the fan when h 'accidentally' pushed s off my bed, and each child was sent to a separate room to read books for 1/2 hour to chill out. at 3, when the students weren't here, i started making other plans, and took kids and dog for a long walk around the 'hood.

at 5:15, when they STILL weren't here, i took the kids off to the theater to see the new disney flick 'the wild.' the whole way there i was imagining those students apologizing to me for never showing up, and me saying, 'oh, that's okay! you can come by tomorrow and entertain the natives all day long and wonder if and when i'm ever going to show back up to take them back!' bad, bad melissa for thinking such evil thoughts. the movie... well... let me just say that i can't even BEGIN to tell you how badly it sucked. i am a big fan of disney, animation, fantasy, you name it, but i felt like we've already SEEN this movie 100 times! haven't we SEEN the lion king? madagascar? why make it again?

anyhow, the kids loved it and were put straight to bed upon re-entry. today promises to be better as we're going to the lake, and we're going EARLY and we're spending the WHOLE DAY there. wahoo! we love the lake.

tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick...

"Tick is the common name for the small wingless arachnids that, along with mites, constitute the order Acarina. Ticks are external parasites, living by hematophagy on the blood of mammals, birds, and occasionally reptiles and amphibians. Ticks are an important vector of a number of human and animal diseases. "

yes, thank you 'free dictionary' for that lovely description of the current bane of our existence. don't get me wrong, ticks are a regular part of our lives for about 9 months of each year, but for some reason this year they seem particularly ferocious. maybe it's an old wives' tale, but i've heard it said that the little buggers are rampant in years in which there was no hard winter freeze. that, folks, would be THIS YEAR.

we first notice the bloodthirsty vermin in late february or early march, usually on one of the animals. this means it's time to put frontline between their shoulderblades once a month to keep them from becoming warm-blooded tick vessels carrying ticks from the OUTSIDE to the INSIDE of our house. also, we start spraying the kids' limbs with 'off' when they go out to play. usually these precautions pretty much stifle the tick problem, but NOT this year.

i've never gone to such drastic measures as granular insecticide on the lawn, but this is all out war. frontline on the cats & dogs is supposed to last a month. NOT this year. after 2 weeks i started seeing ticks again on the animals. the 'off' isn't even beginning to keep the ticks 'off' the kids. we've all pulled at least one off of our bodies... poor boy had one stuck to his scrotum. each day my daughter wakes up and says, "is today bug day again?" sadly, yes, every day is bug day.

i generally don't like a ton of pesticide and herbicide floating around where the kids play, but tell me: which is worse? poison or rocky mountain spotted fever? poison or lyme disease? i don't know the answer, but i'll give the sevin crystals a try. on the bag it says it MIGHT even last for 30 WHOLE DAYS before the tick life cycle begins again.

at night, i'm waking up, feeling imaginary (or sometimes real) ticks crawling up my legs, in my ears, on my scalp. i run to the bathroom at 3 AM, blind myself with the lights, and scour myself from head to toe, paranoid that one is just beyond my vision. if a psychiatrist saw me, they'd probably take me away right then claiming paranoia. i don't know why i'm so wound up about this!

so, we're getting the blood sucked out of us by vampirical ticks. what about YOU??