Thursday, August 13, 2009

Being Crafty

Alright, I can cook. And I can sort of sew, I mean I get by. Last Christmas while my grandma was in town I bought a book on how to teach kids to crochet and a skein of yard. I figure with the help of the Grandma and this book I should be able to get the whole crochet thing down. Well I did. Maybe not the "whole" crochet thing, but I did make each of my children a hat and a scarf. Then I found a cute pattern on-line for monster baby booties, so I've been working on some of those too. I'm still pretty limited in the crochet department, but I still have the desire to branch out and give knitting a try. Problem is, my grandma is no where at hand, and the books I find are incredibly intimidating, until today.

A little backtracking here, yesterday I finally broke down and bought some pregnancy clothes. At 26 weeks, it was about time. Problem is I only ended up with two tops and two bottoms. Maternity clothes are expensive. Besides being expensive, I find most of them ugly. I refuse to pay good money for ugly clothes. So later that day I went online and checked out Old Navy, The Gap, and a few other online sites for maternity clothes. The only things I would be willing to pay for are the things on clearance, which isn't bad, but I hate buying clothes online, I'm lucky if anything fits properly, and a lot of maternity clothes look cute on the hanger but look like a circus tent once put on.

Back to today, so today the kids and I headed out to the fabric store, because I had this genius idea that if I couldn't find cute affordable maternity clothes I would just make some. Again I hit a snag, because maternity patterns are near impossible to find, and even if they're in the pattern book, that doesn't mean the store actually has them on hand. So I looked at some regular patterns that maybe could pass for maternity clothes, but I don't think I have enough seamstress knowledge to comfortably adapt regular patterns to fit an ever growing belly. So once again, frustrated and aggravated, I headed out of the fabric store empty handed when I came across some clearance items. And just like it was waiting to lift my spirits, I saw this Mickey Mouse & Friends I Taught Myself to Knit kit. Marked down to under $5, it included two sets of knitting needles, two yard needles, stitch markers, and a how-to book. I figure if this book can help kids teach themselves, I should be able to muddle through. As far as pregnancy clothes, I maybe have hit another road block, but at least I can give this knitting thing a go. Next up . . . canning!

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Fort Booth

This is what my kids do when the power goes out. No internet, video games, movies, or Wii to brain suck them into a stupor. I'm thinking the power should go out more often ;)

Monday, July 27, 2009

My First Cake

My neighbor called me last week and asked if I would make a cake for her daughter's 9th birthday. After taking a couple of classes my confidence is a bit better, I'm still no great cake decorator, but figured I need the practice so I told her yes. Now to me, if a cake isn't chocolate somewhere in there it just isn't worth the calories, but her daughter doesn't like chocolate (I know, strange child), so she wanted a strawberry cake with pink frosting. Talk about pink overload. And having never made a strawberry cake before, I wasn't sure where to begin. I've seen strawberry cake mixes, but I refuse to go that route. So I found a strawberry cake recipe from scratch, and made some cupcakes from it to test on some other friends. They liked it, so the cake part was figured out. I still needed a filling. I don't really like filling cake with just more frosting, too sugary, too much frosting, besides I wanted a strawberry filling. I was hesitant to use just fresh strawberries because they can mold once in the cake and they are very wet and and all that extra moisture leaches into the cake. I thought a curd filling might be nice, I love lemon curd, and wondered if I could do a strawberry curd. I couldn't find any recipes for strawberry curd, so I adapted a lemon curd recipe, but the results were not what I wanted. Unfortunately a waste of ingredients. But a learning lesson at least. I ended up finding a strawberry cream cake filling recipe and gave that a try. It uses fresh strawberries, sugar, water, gelatin and some cream, that's it. But the consistency is very jello like. I tried thinning it with some extra cream, and went ahead and used it in the final cake, I'll have to wait for some feedback. I asked my neighbor to pick out some flowers that she wanted used, she chose yellow mums, white daisies, and pink primroses. Mums are not my favorite to make, but at least I got some extra practice making them for the cake, and I think I greatly increased my mum making ability. So the final product is a strawberry cake with strawberry cream filling with pink butter cream frosting. Pink overload it is, but for a little girl, hopefully it will please.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Blogger is Driving Me Crazy!!!!!

Ugh! I write a post, then download photos, and my formatting gets all jacked up. And I mean All Jacked Up.
I cannot move the photos around like I used to, scrolling down until I get to where I want to put them, because when I hit the bottom of the page it just stops. Won't let me scroll down to move a photo. It didn't used to do this, what is going on?

Therefore I can only upload one photo at a time, because if there is already a photo on the page, I can't move past it with another. Ugh! Can you tell I'm annoyed? Plus I keep telling the kids to leave me alone, and I'll get this done sooner. But there is no such thing as leaving me alone. Even the most mundane things are so important to them, that they must interrupt, so what should take me five minutes, takes me thirty. Then they complain about what is taking me so long.

So here is one photo to help counteract all my bitchiness. New PJ's from Grandma DeeDee.
***And it did it again, I added my photo, and had to go back and correct my formatting and could only move the photo one page at a time.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

20 Weeks

Yesterday was the first day of my 20th week of gestation of Booth baby #5. Today I had my sonogram and check-up. The good news to me is that I haven't gained a pound. Amazing. I figure I have the weight to spare, so why not pass it on to the kid. The nurse seemed a little less enthused. She asked if I had been sick, so I reminded her that at my last appointment I was recovering from the Moroccan Monkey Flu, and she acted like she knew what I was talking about about, "oh yea, that's a bad one". See my neighbor, who is from Morocco, went overseas to visit her sister in London, and then her parents in Morocco with her girls. Once they arrived back home, they drove straight from the airport to children's hospital since her three year old had diarrhea and was vomiting for about 24 hours. They told her it was a simple stomach virus, not to worry. But then her one year old got it. Then her in-laws got it. Then my friend, then her kids, who then graciously shared it with my kids, and of course me. So I penned this nasty bug the "Moroccan Monkey Flu". And I don't care if it all started in London, Morocco just sounds more exotic. So anyway, at my last appointment I hadn't gained any weight either. Since then I've had a bout with my gall bladder, the worst middle ear infection in my history of middle ear infections, and a couple of incidents of passing out. While on the potty. Nothing like picking yourself up off the floor, bare butted, with a black eye to show for it all. "No Vince did not clock me, I passed out on the potty. Really. No, I'm not joking." Besides all that, the baby looked good. He/she is breach (but that can change several times between now and the 36th week), has a good heart rate, and is measuring in at the 50th percentile. Not a whole lot to report at this stage. The only catch was that the baby's femur is measuring short. Which is an indicator of Down's. But, I went through this with Annamaria too, and it turns out she just had a short femur because she is a tiny. So I can have a level 3 sonogram to look for more markers. But even so the only thing that could tell us indefinitely would be an amniocentesis, and since that can cause a miscarriage we're not willing to take that risk. And even if something was wrong, we wouldn't do anything about it anyway. So now I'm debating with myself to go for the level 3 sonogram or not. Any further information they might give me would not be conclusive anyway, but might give more of an indication of what's going on. Then again, I may be worrying myself for nothing, I may just be carrying another little pixie person. It's the not knowing bothers me.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Socialized Health Care, oh! . . . Auto Repair

I came across this man's blog, and his recent post was a little fictionalized funny about socialized auto repair. The thing is, it's not so funny, and not so fictional. This man is an ER doctor in Tennessee, his perspective is interesting. Check is out . . .

http://grouchatrighttruth.blogspot.com/2009/06/socialized-auto-repair-and-car-care.html

Monday, June 01, 2009

Stomach Ache Inducing

I have a stomach ache. This stomach ache has nothing to due with too much coffee, bad eating habits, or even pregnancy. This stomach ache has everything to do with a headline I read online this morning regarding GM filing for bankruptcy protection. The same GM that received $50 billion in bailout money. It they were bailed out why are they filing for bankruptcy, in my naive mind, I thought that was what the bailout money was to avoid. Where did the money go? Is there any accountability? I read a blog post that stated my opinion perfectly, "GM should have had to do from the start what every struggling company is forced to do– file for bankruptcy on their own, its called the free market– but we were told that disaster lurked if this were to happen and that the government needed to give them a bailout. The government gave them billions of our money and they still have to file for bankruptcy, this could have been done months ago at no expense to the taxpayer and with no government interference." I'm disgusted.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

My Four Year-Old's Logic

Annamaria approaches me with her ballerina Barbie we purchased for her last summer at the FAO Schwartz in Vegas. I notice the doll is naked and one of it's legs is missing.

A: "Mommy, do you like her, isn't she pretty?"

Me: "Yes, she's beautiful. Where is her leg, maybe I can pop it back on."

A: "It's gone. I lost it."

Me: "You can't find it? It's gone for good?"

A: "Nope, for bad."

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Annamaria's 4th Birthday Bash

So it happened about three weeks ago, but here is a recap of Annamaria's birthday party.

Grandma DeeDee sent Annamaria the cutest party dress and new beaded sweater for her birthday. So she had the perfect outfit for her party.

After much debate whether we should order a bounce house for her party, we decided to go ahead and go for it. The weather was really our only concern, but figured that we never got the storms that were for casted anyway, so why not. Obviously we went with the pretty pink princess theme, and even Harrison enjoyed it.

Since this is the first official birthday party, (that actually included other children) we've ever thrown for one of our kids, ( I know, we're terrible parents), I was pretty concerned about "goodie" bags. I really didn't want to hand out bags of Made in China crap, even though Sophia tried hard to convince me that is really what kids want from a birthday party goodie bag. I decided to make Cupcake Pops instead, and glad I did. They were cute, yummy, and even the adults could enjoy them. I will be making them again soon, who needs a special occasion?
Annamaria got what she really wanted for her birthday, "a pretty pink castle with a door that opens and closes, with a princess and a prince". Compliments of three of Vince's bosses/co-workers who went in on it together. I still need to get those Thank You cards out. I am a Thank You card bum.
Since I'm still in the middle of my cake decorating classes, I decided to go with cupcakes. But the frosting I made was an Italian Meringue Buttercream. It was Italian Meringue Buttercream from hell, but it all turned out alright in the end. I wish I had my new camera then, they turned out really cute. And of course pink.
Then that storm that we thought wouldn't hit us did, and the roof of the bounce house actually started caving in for all the water trapped up there. The kids didn't mind, and even went on jumping until soaked. Then the thunder started. You can see poor little Francesca clinging to the side netting calling for someone to rescue her.
You can also see how soaked Annamaria was when it was time for her to blow out her candles. She was quickly changed into another, dryer dress for the rest of her party.
But the lure of the bounce house was too great and she braved the nasty weather again, and ended up soaked again. But it was her party, she was having such a good time, I wasn't going to rain on her parade. Get it, "rain"? So again, another soaked birthday girl photo.
Despite the nasty weather, we ended up with ninteen adults and I think twenty kids. I swear, I lost count. But a good time was had by all, and I would definetly do it again. Which is a good thing, since there are now three other children in this family who now know what they've been missing birthday party wise.










Monday, May 11, 2009

At the Dinner Table with Seven Kids Saturday Night

"Bailey, please don't put your milk on your head."

Fortunately this was the oddest thing said that night.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Today's Car Conversation

On the way home from running errands, the kids were happily snacking on chocolate covered raisins, "1985" was playing on the radio when Harrison suddenly pipes up . . .

Harrison: Mom, if I ever go to real school . . .

Me: Harrison, your school is real.

Harrison: I mean a school where I have classmates . . .

Me: O-Kay.

Harrison: Well, I think I'm going to be cool.

Sophia: hysterical laughing

Me: Harrison, you are cool. Sophia, what are you laughing at? Geekwad.

Sophia: Hey!

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Easter Goodies 2009

Finally, my Easter baking post. The pictures are crap, the ones that survived that is, so bear with me please.
Apricot-Almond Bars
Exactly what their names says they are. I think I made these last year too. Vince really liked them.
Macadamia Meltaways
These were new to me. The macadamia nuts were ground into a paste for the dough, then halved with melted chocolate between the layers. Not very sweet, therefore not popular with the kids, but the adults loved them.
Iced Lemon Shortbread
Another one that is exactly what the name says it is. And another redo. Really, really good.

Decorated Sugar Cookies
Eggs, rabbits, carrots and sheep. I think the carrots are my favorite. Dean & DeLuca can kiss my butt! SIXTY DOLLARS for 9 to 10 ounces of decorated sugar cookies, ridiculous!

Chickie Cake Bites
Found these on Bakerella's and decided to try them, they were too cute not to. They turned out to be the lumpiest chickens I ever saw, but apparently that didn't affect their yumminess, because everyone loved them. I thought they were a bit sweet, but they were a hit with both the kids and the adults.
Marble Icebox Cookies
Another re-do. Sophia requested these, so how could I say no?

Sesame Seed Wafers
These are good, but a pain in the backside. The dough is so thin, that it is nearly impossible to "shape into balls" like the directions read. Forget about adding more flour to stiffen the dough, because then they don't have the right consistency. And they have to be baked to just the right doneness, or they'll either burn, or don't crisp up properly. Another re-do though. And I'll probably make them again. Go figure.

White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
These were another first for me. And Vince who doesn't like macadamia nuts said they were one of the best cookies he's ever had. They don't keep well though, and are best the day they are baked. Like any chocolate chip cookie really.

So there you have it. I failed to take a picture of my final cookie tray. I was busy trying to get everything else done that morning and flaked it.

I just realized I'm only missing one photo. The problem is that I can't remember which cookie I'm missing.

Easter . . . finally

Easter has come and gone, and you'd think things might have settled down around here for a while, but it seems I just can't catch a break. So before I get the babies up, a quick post about Easter.

Easter was nice, it's never the same without family, but we had some friends over and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. It was the typical Easter menu; smoked salmon torte with mini bagels, ham, blueberry french toast casserole, spinach and feta strata, honey bunny rolls, pound cake with fresh strawberries and whipped cream, and a butt load of Easter cookies.

I know I keep saying I need a new camera, and my photos are perfect evidence of this, but I'll go ahead and post some on the next post anyway. Sorry about the lack of Easter cookies posts, I messed up while downloading them (or is it uploading them?), and ended up deleting some. Gah.

That Easter bunny left tracks all over my house.
Anyway, the girls dresses turned out really cute. All the kids loved their baskets. Harrison got a new cowboy hat.Grandma DeeDee sent Dance Revolution Disney Edition for the Wii, and it's a crack watching the kids play it. Even if the music can get a bit annoying.
It stormed the day before Easter, so it was too soggy for an egg hunt. The eggs are still in our bedroom, we keep saying we'll do it later, but I have a feeling I'm going to end up eating all the candy out of the eggs before we ever get around to that.
Oh, and Booth baby number five is in the making.
Hope everyone had a happy and blessed Easter.

Wednesday, April 08, 2009

A Crazy Holy Week

This week has been go, go, go. Between cooking, sewing, missed orthodontist appointments, and just trying to keep up on the housework and homeschooling, it's all I can do to not go crazy. I'm still working on the girls Easter dresses. Making progress is like pulling teeth. But I'm almost done. Almost. I was going to make hats to go with them, but I think I've accepted the fact that that is just not going to happen.

The Easter cookie baking is in progress, I'll post photos of the actual cookies later. For now here are some photos of the kids in their cute new Easter aprons Grandma Dee Dee made for them, and some sugar cookie decorating.
Harrison has the goofiest look on his face. And Francesca has her apron on backwards, she insisted on putting it on herself. I think Sophia was busy doing schoolwork when I took this, that's why she's not in it. And yes, my kids are still in their pajamas.


Sophia's decorating skills are really coming along. She put patience into getting them just right.

And Harrison wasn't doing too shabby either.

Even Annamaria took her time. Not bad for a three year old.

But Francesca thinks eating them is the best part.

Friday, April 03, 2009

My Little Pixie Person


Foster Mom

A few weeks ago I got a call from my friend/neighbor about inducing vomiting in dogs. I know this sounds strange, but Cooper ate some rat poison from another one of our neighbor's yards, so we had recent experience in this area. Cooper is fine by the way, thank you for asking. Anyway, she had just gotten a call from a friend of hers whose sister's dog was going into a seizure, and they thought maybe it was poison induced. So we gave her the info she needed, and hung up. I called her back later to see how things were going, and find out that the dog, we now call her Momma Dog, had crawled under the porch and was just left to seize without any help or intervention because the friend's sister's boyfriend didn't want to be bothered "with that shit". What a classy guy. To make the story worse, Momma Dog had just given birth the week prior to seven puppies, who were left in the barn on their own (it was in the 30's that night), to fend for themselves because he didn't want to be bothered with picking up any formula or bottles to feed them. They'd either make it or not. I tell you she should marry that man. I was so angry. My friend/neighbor and I were ready to go to their place and take the puppies away from them at 9pm at night. Problem was that they live 3 hours away. Even Vince who is of the firm opinion that animals are just animals, and don't belong in the house, and blah, blah, blah said that if he didn't want to be bothered then the decent thing to do would be to just shoot them all and put them out of their misery, not let them starve to death. Ouch.

Next morning Momma Dog is dead, so my friend/neighbor makes the drives and gets six of the puppies. The spineless girlfriend insisted on keeping the one she liked best. Whatever. So I took two, my friend/neighbor kept two, and a woman down the road who has a small farm took two. They were so tiny, one fit in the palm of my hand. Their eyes and ears were closed, they had no teeth. So fragile. So for three days I did the feedings every two hours, wipe the butt to make them potty, try to get the fleas off them thing. I could not believe the fleas, especially in this season. Yuck. But we got them cleaned up, and fed well, and all six are thriving and happy. After three days I was exhausted, I was told I looked like the walking dead. So my friend/neighbor called the farm lady and had her come pick up my two puppies. Seems this woman has a gift, she had gotten her two to sleep through the night already so she gladly took my two. The kids were so sad to see them go, but honestly I was relieved. So I've been sharing the other two with my friend/neighbor, and they should be ready for their forever homes in just a couple of weeks.
So puppies, puppies anyone? Momma was a rottweiler, papa was a rolling stone, so who knows. Puppy Boy looks like a rottie, and Puppy Girl looks black lab like.

And the cats are annoyed and would like to see them go too.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Neighbors From Hell

I know I haven't posting anything in a while, and I really haven't had the desire to. I've been trying to figure out what my problem is, and I think it's that something has been bothering me lately that I haven't mentioned and until I get it off my chest I won't be able to move on. So here goes.

When we bought our lot to build our house, the one concern that I had was that our lot is narrow. 125 feet wide. It's great that we have an acre and a half, and our "backyard" is over 500 feet deep, but the narrowness concerned me. On our left our property joins three other lots, but it's our side yard that abuts their back lots, so no big deal. It's what on the right of us. We had planned on purchasing the lot next to us, to insure a buffer zone if you will. I thought we had plenty of time to accomplish this, Vince was not so hopeful. And I cannot say enough, he was right. He was right, he was right, he was right. I couldn't image what people would want to move out to the boonies to buy a lot and build right on top of their neighbor. Really, what kind of people would do that? Well, the kind of people who we now have living next to us. Vince insisted the world was filled with stupid, stupid people, and we needed to get that lot secure as soon as we could. And again, he was right, he was right, he was right. We are now living too close for comfort to Clem and The Troll. Clem is short for "Creepy Little Man", and The Troll is for . . . well, she's a troll. I know this sounds harsh, but I assure you, these names are well deserved.

When we first saw them even looking at the lot, Vince went out and introduced himself, was friendly, let them know that we were trying to buy the lot (get the funding straightened out), and let them know in no uncertain terms that we didn't move out here to have neighbors so close to us. Clem told Vince on their first meeting, and on my first meeting with him, that their younger son had been shot and killed just a couple of months prior and they were anxious to move. The son was shot on his 23rd birthday. He had gotten married less than two weeks prior. (Married to a nineteen year-old, high school dropout, Hooter's girl. A great example of their white trashiness. Yes I just made up that word.) Tragic. Tragic, yet that seems to be Clems way of introducing himself, "Hi, I'm Clem and my son was shot back in July. Please feel sorry for me". Also, Clem is in a wheelchair. Paralyzed from the waist down. I later found out that he had been in an accident on the younger son's birthday ten years prior. Also tragic. Honestly, these people have been through a lot. They are sad, angry people. And while I would usually feel some sort of sympathy, they have been so rotten that I just can't seem to muster any for them. I don't think that their tragedy entitles them to spread the misery. I question if theirs is a case of bad things happening to good people, or a perfect example of what goes around comes around. Anyway, Clem told Vince he wanted to buy the lot and the one next to it, so he could put his house in the middle and have plenty of space. That didn't sound bad to me, yes we'd have neighbors, but they'd be over there. Fine. Turns out they were able to buy the lot before we were, problem was they only bought the lot next to us, not the other one too. Their older son worked for a crappy track house builder and was the contractor on their house. So when their son marked out where their house should be placed on the lot, both Vince and I, on separate occasions went out and asked if they were seriously putting their house there. It was as close to us as they could legally get away with. Clem's answer was that that was where their son was telling them they should put it, but that wasn't where they wanted to put it, and they were still working out the details. Then the concrete guys show up, and guess what. The pad was poured exactly where it was originally marked out. Right on top of us. Fifteen feet from the property line. Our lot is narrower and our house is wider than theirs, and our house is built farther back from the property line than theirs. These people are stupid. We all but begged them not to build so close. We brought to their attention that they would not only be lowering our property values, but theirs as well if they did this. They just don't care. It has all been downhill from there. We now have a white trash track house right on top of us. Every time I walk out of my garage, there it is. The house is ugly and poorly built. They threw it up in less than two months. Their heat pump runs all the time, proving just how poorly built it really it. I'm surprised it even meets the minimum square foot requirements, it's tiny. And all the sod and landscaping cannot mask the ugly cheapness of this house. What's that phrase about a pig and silk purse? Is that the right one? The Troll uses such foul language that when she is out and about I have to go around and close my children's bedroom windows for all the obscenities floating in from her mouth. The best I can do is just pretend they don't even exist. No friendly wave, no nod of the head, I don't even make eye contact. It's stressful.

We are now living next to two of the most inconsiderate, rude, foul mouthed, white trash couple you can imagine. So our dream house has now become our five-year plan house. Looks like we'll be moving on as soon as we can. Part of what really bothers me is that this one couple has ruined our new home and our new neighborhood for us. We have met the nicest, most friendly people here. We do things socially with our neighbors, backyard bar-be-cues, birthday parties, game nights, etc., and with the exception of Clem and The Troll, we could be really happy here for quite some time.

As it is I feel uncomfortable going into my own backyard. I don't like pretending I don't see them, when they are obviously there. They make noise just to let me know they're there. Clem sits out by his shop and stares into our backyard and at the back of our house constantly. When he drives by our house he slows down to a crawl, and I can see him craning his neck while he tries to look in our windows. He's really pathetic. The older son has since been laid off from the crappy track house builder, and I guess is now trying to go into custom home building for himself. I feel for any clients he may get. And the kicker is that he's used a photo of hisparent's house on the business card as an example of his work. That would be like me using a picture of canned ravioli on my catering business card.

Anyway, I think that's all I've got to say about this subject for now. There is much much more I could say, but that would only serve to work myself up, and I've been worked up about this for long enough now. But at least now, if I go off on a rampage about my neighbors from hell, you'll have a little background info and won't wonder what the heck I'm talking about.

Friday, February 20, 2009

My Old Man

Last Sunday was Vince's 42nd birthday. 42nd and hot. Really, he's just as attractive, if not more attractive, than when I met him 16? years ago. I think it was sixteen years ago. Geesh, I'm getting old too, and my memory is failing me. But really, when I think about it, he is more attractive now, then way back then. He had a thing for tank tops, and his hair . . . well, not the best. Anyway, our wonderful neighbor, Hilary, watched the kids and we went to Texas de Brazil to eat way too much meat. But tomorrow is the real celebration. We're having some friends over for food, drink and fun. My husband loves his rum, so I decided on a Jamaican theme on our gathering . . . Jerk Pork, Yellow Rice, Black Beans and of course rum punch (and lots of it). To add the final feel to the day, the frosting on the proverbial birthday cake if you will, I joined Napster yesterday so I could download some steel drum music. Seven day free trial. I figured we'll have some fun, funky music, Caribbean style on Saturday, let the rum punch flow freely, and on Monday I can cancel and save my $12.95. Well, after getting down with my bad self for two days now, I'm wondering how I ever did without my beloved music for so long. I used to really be into music. Now, if I'm not in the car, I'm not listening to it. And then I'm at the DJ's mercy. So, my question is, is $12.95 a month too much to feel young again? After all, I'm turning 40 myself this year, and any bit that fountain of youth I can grab, I'm grabbing!

Thursday, February 05, 2009

The Bug

We got it. And I mean, we all got it. There was a nasty something going around around Christmas time, and we managed to avoid it. Not surprising since I really don't ever leave the house. But somehow it caught up with us, and now we're all snotty, stuffy headed, congested and miserable. But it's surprising to me how active kids are even when they're not well. I shouldn't have to keep telling them to settle down when they sound like they're going to cough up a lung everytime they cough. What I would give for some good old Nyquil right now. And I mean the old formula, the good stuff, before they ruined it with the new formula. That stuff is worthless now. Geez, listen to me, cranky much?

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Wii Me

My Christmas gift from my mother this past year was a Wii. That was what was on my list, and lo that was what I got. Besides a beautiful quilt that she made for me, that made me cry like a baby, but that's just me. I had grand illusions of using the Wii to get some activity in my day. The Wii Fit is coming soon I'm sure, one thing at a time. And I've heard Dance Party Revolution is like a good aerobics class, so sign me up.

So after tracking down a Wii order at Costco, and finally getting it, today is the first day I was able to give it a spin. The problem is that we don't have a television. We watch DVDs and Netflix on our computer. Our screen is a decent size for a computer screen, so I'm not complaining, but the Wii and our computer didn't recognize each other, so that put a damper on our Wii fun. But then the brilliant man of the house figured something out, and I can now use my Wii, but it is run through some adaptor thingy, which slows down the response time between the remote and when it is actually recognized by the system. Frustrating, but usable.

What I really wanted to use for now was the bowling game. I played it once at a friend's house last year, and the next day my butt was so sore I figured it would be a good starting workout until we can get a television and the Fit or Dance Party. So today I started up the Wii and found that the delay didn't really impede the bowling game. Great. The only problem was that after one game I got a strong craving for a basket of fried cheese sticks and a pitcher of beer.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

ANTICIPATION!

I have eagerly been waiting for this day for a couple of months now. Since some time in November I've had this date marked on my calendar, and I've been telling myself this day could not come sooner. It seems my life has been on hold, and now it's here, and I can now get on with my life and enjoy the many benefits from today. Why is today so special to me? Not the reasons you think, I'm sure. Today, on this wonderful wonderful day, the kitties are getting fixed! I'm so excited.

Just after Thanksgiving, Luna the female kitty, began making that horrible yowling noise. Anyone who has ever had kitties, knows what that horrible yowling noise means, and how annoying it is to put up with. I thought, "surely no, she's barely four months old," but when I saw her brother, HER BROTHER (disgusting little animals), try to mount her my suspicions were confirmed. She was promptly scooped up, and cloistered to the office. And that is where she has remained for the better part of two months now. I felt bad, but a litter of inborn kittens would have made me feel worse. And she did have visitors, it's not like she's been without contact the entire time.

This day might have come sooner, but no one would spay/neuter the kitties before they were six months old. Seems strange to me, if we're all trying to help fix the pet overpopulation problem, then why not take care of the situation when it occurs? I've adopted pets much younger than six months, and the animal shelter would not adopt them out until they were fixed, despite the age. So I'm not convinced this whole six months age requirement thing is necessary. But whatever. We've survived it, the kitties are coming home this afternoon, my office can return to an office, and hopefully life can return to normal. Or as normal as it ever is.

Now I know that my husband is bugged that we even have to do this, and the cost of it all, but I found a low cost spay neuter clinic, Texas Coalition for Animal Protection,
that travels from animal shelter to animal shelter. So for what the local vet charges ($119 per animal), I got all three kitties done for $1 more. It's like a buy one, get two free. And after seeing our local animal shelter I've decided that if we ever hit the lotto, I'll be making a major donation. Sadly it's barely a trailer with some kennels on the side. Oh the many many things I'd like to do with lotto winnings.