The password is DH’s first initial, my first initial and our last name – same as my gmail username.
Protected: Photos from Lake Lure, NC vacation September 30, 2007
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Note to self September 29, 2007
When planning any future paint projects, do yourself a favor and really try to remember just exactly how gigantic a PITA it is to stencil wide, intricate designs around and into corners.
One might think that by the age of 42, a person would routinely give an appropriate amount of thought to the finer points of the implementation of a plan or an idea before charging on ahead with it. Sadly, I am here to prove that is not necessarily the case. I’ve always been a “just wing it” sort. Apparently, I always will be.
It *is* a cool design, though. I don’t care what DH says. 
The Riding Bike on Two Wheels Fairy September 25, 2007
Yup, you read that correctly. Apparently, the tooth fairy has a much less-well-known cousin. This fairy, like the tooth fairy, leave money under pillows also when this important milestone is reached. Interestingly, if two boys reach this milestone the same day but one does significantly better that the other, this fairy seems much more of the capitalist sort than it’s more socialist cousin. This fairy will leave 3 quarters for one boy and 1 quarter for his brother who gave up easily and went to watch tv rather than sticking with it till he could start by himself, ride the length of the drive, turn around by himself and ride back (“and I didn’t even have to put my feet down”). The one quarter brother may then collapse in dramatic fashion while announcing the unfairness of being rewarded on the basis of what you actually do. At least until he remembers he’s got a shiny new quarter and he should to seeing how far it will roll, how long he can make it spin, etc.
If anyone is wondering why they’ve never heard of this elusive fairy cousin, I have insider information that this fairy only makes it’s appearance in houses where there is a big brother who is entirely convinced of his role as third parent. This, of course, leads me to believe that this said big brother knows exactly what the deal is with the tooth fairy. Of course, being the capitalist that he is (just like the fairy that shows up where he is) he’d likely play along and great convincing fashion till he was 18 if there’s free money involved.
“I have the most incredible news!” September 22, 2007
That is how DS3 intro’d his big announcement that he and his brother had succeeded in going all the way across the monkey bars without help/dropping etc. Upon my congratulating them, DS2 says “well, you know, Mommy, that’s what I’m learning at school”.
Excellent. At least I know I’m getting my money’s worth.
I think I feel some (new) gray hairs coming on September 22, 2007
All week DS2&3 have been trying to convince DH that they can “balance on 2 wheels”. So, I just saw DH in the garage with the little boys bikes gathered ’round and him with a wrench set.
Of course, this is a milestone that I need to go video. What I really want to do is sit in my office and hide – pretending I don’t know what they’re doing. I’m not so good with watching them get banged up. I’m pretty sure DS1 was more than a year older when he got his training wheels off. Oh yes, I remember, we just gave him a new bike for Christmas before he turned 6 and disappeared (v.) his old one.
Bandaids? check. OK, ready.
The apple and the tree September 10, 2007
More stuff from the Sent folder. This one requires a little background. My 4 brothers still love to keep a “torment Rose” sort of joke going to this day some 30+ years after it started. It went something like this (although there could be numerous variations on the theme)… it’s dessert time and my job is to serve, say, cake and ice cream. So I’d ask who wants ice cream on their cake and my brothers would proceed to make me nuts by saying “I don’t” which wasn’t what I asked. I was only looking to hear from who did. So, I soon adopted it to “who wants ice cream on their cake, if you answer me it means you do”. They’d still do it, I’d still get mad. Rinse lather repeat, ad nauseum till we all (ostensibly – although the fact that they still enjoy doing this to me would seem to provide evidence otherwise) grew up. So… here’s a note I sent to them.
OK, the inlaws may have to ask their spouse why this might be perceived as humorous. (I just found my voice recorder a.k.a. surrogate memory so now I can share this) So, the boys are playing I spy in the van and [DS1] is doing the spying. [DS2&3] are not guessing it so [DS1] says “do you give up, do you give up?” [DS2] and [DS3] say “nope”. [DS1] says “So, don’t say anything. Only answer if you give up. So… do you give up” [DS2] and [DS3] “no”.
[DS1] “ONLY SAY SOMETHING IF YOU GIVE UP. IF YOU SAY ANYTHING, IT MEANS YOU GIVE UP. … So, do you give up?”
[DS2&3] “No”. It was very, very hard for me not to LOL. A lot.
Idioms September 10, 2007
Collected from my email sent file that I’m busily purging as I transfer all my 4 years of unorganized crap from my computer to my new laptop. DS1 had the most awesome teacher for first grade. This is one of many emails I sent to her – just so she knows the concepts are sticking.
So, [DS1] is totally into the idioms. He talks about them all the time, points it out when one is used in conversation etc… It’s quite amusing. So. Last night the 3 of them were on my last shredded nerve. I’d promised to make cookies which I was trying to do and they kept coming through the kitchen pushing their noisy trucks (do you have a visual of me with my hair standing on end yet??). So, I said “Please stop doing that out here, that noise is going to send me straight through the roof.”
[DS1] pipes up in the background “[DS3], that’s an idiom”. LOL I was not in the mood for his smartass self at that moment but it did crack me up.
{03/07/2007}
Yup, that’s just exactly what I need September 6, 2007
A new and fun way to kill more time online when I should be working / sleeping / having a real life. Of course, I have an opinion on nearly everything and dearly love to share them so this is just perfect for me.
Polls, polls, hundreds of polls. Anyway. This amuses me because DH and I have a little inside joke about me and polls. Whenever we disagree on anything big or small he says “why don’t you take a poll” because I’m prone to doing that sort of thing whether it be polling online communities or the patrons of a bar in our immediate vicinity (which is, really, where this joke originated. There may or may not have been vodka involved). I do feel compelled to state that my polls almost always support my position in whatever the debate in question is. Of course, the exact methodology is not likely to withstand much scrutiny meant to determine the validity of the results.
The things you find… September 5, 2007
When you start going through CD’s accumulated throughout one’s (extended) misspent youth. A few thoughts, in random order:
1. Yes, I think I *can* live without ripping the greatest hits of Boz Scaggs to my iTunes. Normally, it pains me to just “throw away” any music but I’m actually certain my life will be just as full without it in this case.
2. What in thee hell is a Jeff Foxworthy – Games Rednecks Play CD doing in my cabinet? Sadly, as unfortunate as it is that I, presumably, paid good money for this item, it’s not even on my personal top 10 “Great Lapses in Judgement” list. Although, it certainly could be were there not so much competition for those few spots.
3. I notice that Prince (or whatever it is he’s calling himself these days) wears a big-ass cufflink that spells out “Insatiable” on one album cover. Thank the gods that this particular fashion statement didn’t see wide-spread copycatting among the teeming masses (a la the MJ fans and their gloves).
4. Some songs bring tears to my eyes every single time I hear them. Some because they are clearly gut-wrenching and some for reasons that are a complete mystery, even to me. In the first category, there is Long Day Comin’ by Hal Ketchum. I don’t remember experiencing it as being quite so sob-inducing before I had kids, but nowadays I can hardly bear to get through listening to it. I have to focus on not really listening to it and actively avoid personalizing the circumstance he is singing about. It’s like that damn book “I’ll Love Your Forever”. You gotta force some focused detachment just to get through it (which I’ve never actually accomplished with the book).
5. I really like Wynnona’s later career stuff. BUT… even though it is possible there is video somewhere of an ill-conceived karoake performance of mine doing Grandpa, Tell Me ‘Bout the Good Old Days it really kind of grates on my nerves now. Turns out that whole album does. As I throw the CD into the “get it out of the house” bin it occurs to me that Naomi and Wynnona together, in the picture on the cover are very likely wearing more big-hair-making product than I have used, cumulatively, since 1991. Girls with Guitars, OTOH, kicks ass. (If you click that link and are wondering, no, I don’t know what is the deal with that video.)
6. I love almost everything Melissa Etheridge ever did. Well, at least everything she did up till I stopped paying attention to current music. I should probably go get her new stuff also. Even after I’ve ripped those CD’s I’m not sure I’ll be able to actually part with them. (The goal here is to rip the entire music collection and get rid of the CD’s. It’s all part of my lifelong mission known as Project Accumulate Less Crap). But if I had to limit myself to the music of one artist (say, in the event I were confined to an underground bunker following the destruction of civilization or something ), I think she’d have to be it.
7. It occurs to me that this project will result in all my music being on hard drives only. This is going to have a very, very sad ending if I don’t drastically improve my backing up of hard drives habits. Which is to say I don’t really have any since the word “habit” sort of implies that one does something more or less regularly.
OK, well, I should do some actual work now. Like, work of the sort that might get me paid in something other than freed up space in the media cabinet.
