Life Busy, More Later

My poor blog has gone by the wayside. Between houseguests, business guests and one pesky volunteer project that just won't end, life has been busy. For now, you'll just have to settle for picures.


Digging a hole with Dad (I suppose that's obvious!)


Ready to be a flagger!


Fresh from a haircut from Big Sister, V. Think he's ready for the Disney channel?


One of our granddaughters, with V's dog "Stewie"


Posing in a tree



Another free haircut!

Virtual Fridge

Boo is always coming home with artwork. Not that Bear doesn't paint, but every day, Boo comes home with 2 - 3 paintings she has done at her school. She seems to have an eye for composition and color. Am I a little biased? Nah. I thought I would kick off our first "Virtual Fridge" with one of her recent projects (one of my faves).

Safeway...aaaargh!

C'mon, I spent eight bucks. Do I really need all this paper?

P's & Eeews

Contrary to my last post, we are enjoying a bit of Indian Summer. I'm savoring these last few sunny, long shadowed afternoons--riding bikes, climbing, swinging, peeing...yes, peeing. It happens everywhere these days. Bear just finished his first week being diaper free and he's doing great! He always tells me when he has to go: right after I strap him into his car seat, or in the shopping cart, or as we enter the playground. Never before an activity, always during.

There’s a multitude of things I had no clue about before children, poop and pee are two of them. Especially how much more of it there is now that they're out of diapers. When I excitedly bought the sweet little potty chair at Target, all I heard was the siren song of "potty trained". However, between diapers and potty trained there's a lot of pee: on carpet, in the pants, not to mention the dumping, splashing and cleaning of that sweet little potty chair; and when your kids decide to help by carrying it to the toilet (more splashing, more rinsing, more carpet cleaning). Then there's the poop: in the pants, on the hands, on the floor (when it falls out of the underpants they've removed cause they're ‘poopy’). I can only be grateful they've never painted the walls with it.

My "aha" moment was when Boo yelled, "Mama! Poop on the table!" and I realized that I wasn't even phased to see little brown nuggets on the coffee table. (Future houseguests: I do sanitize things, usually before you arrive.)

In spite of my griping, I’m so happy that we’re moving out diapers and into our next phase. These kids move forward so quickly, I know all of this poop & pee will soon become a distant memory. But I may never want any yellow or brown in our home décor again.

A Reluctant Welcome

The first day of Fall. We're enjoying an Indian Summer, an entire one day of it. No worries, I'm not feeling as bad as this song suggests, but I thought some of the lyrics here were fitting for an Autumn that is here too soon.

(Artist: Hawksley Workman. I heard this on "The Vinyl Cafe" last weekend and was struck by his real-ness.)

I'm sorry that I haven't posted much lately, I'm currently bogged down with a volunteer project that is consuming every evening. I actually added a new label called "Volunteering" since I'm sure I'll be writing more on the topic, but I'm thinking that maybe I should have called it "Overcommitting" or "Sucka".

WORD

This morning I received a text from a friend asking what "word" means. No, I don't mean the actual word "word". I mean the slang term "word".

I told her I thought it meant..."ya, I know what you mean" a term of agreement. The truth is, I"m only guessing based on my obsessive viewing of "The Wire", where "word" and "true dat" and "mothaf***er" are mumbled every 10 seconds or so.

"Oh, god am I totally old that I don't know what this means?" she texted. "What's worse, is he's my age!" I mentioned this to M and he said "Word, bullshit, that's not a slang". For the record, so all of us over 40 can keep up, here is the official "googled" definition of WORD


Word: It is short for saying "you have my word". Instead of saying "you have my word" you simply say "word."
For example: "I did not check out that girl. You have my word." instead you would say, "I did not check out that girl. Word."

It is the absolute truth, the authoritative word. "What you are saying is absolutely true."

My First Best Friend

This week I received a Facebook 'friend' request from a girl who was my absolute bestest friend in grade school. Her initial message was really an inquiry....asking my maiden name, did I go to St. B's, etc... I was so excited to hear from her that I immediately responded with a lengthy, two paragraph email, giving her the highlights of my life. (As if you can do that in two paragraphs and email emoticons.)

We enjoyed years of young girl best friendness: sleep overs, passing notes, prank calls, imitating Ann & Nancy Wilson (you know, the band Heart), Disco roller skating, swooning over the Bay City Rollers and writing screenplays with 70s celebs like John Travolta and Leif Garrett. As we grew older, our friendship was occasionally challenged: she made out with a guy I had a crush on for over a year, but it turned out OK since I got together with a guy I had a crush on during the years before that. (Ahem, small school, you couldn't be too choosy)

We broke off our friendship in ninth grade, she stayed on the straight and narrow and I became a party girl (not necessarily a good thing). When I think back now to our last fight, I can't even remember the details of what happened. I only remember her pain, yelling how much she had trusted me, and my adolescent way of shrugging it off while dying inside. I almost want to ask her what she remembers...but I'm chicken, since I was probably a total jerk.

We'll see what happens, she's already responded back to me,and I know I'll send her at least another paragraph or two. It's refreshing to actually get a meaningful email from someone on Facebook. And who knows? Maybe I'll even get the courage to ask her why we broke up, and maybe I'll share it, maybe not. ;-)