jury box or jump house?

so today . . . i was surrounded by super heroes and princesses. tiny ones... yes, it's halloween again.

halloween is not my favorite holiday for many, many reasons, but one of the main ones is tiny children coming to school in costume. i know, i know, i sound like the halloween scrooge, but tiny children in costumes result in cranky teacher miss julie. partly because tiny children in costumes tend to be very rambunctious (not necessarily a good thing when there are a gazillion of them in a classroom--at least it sure seems like a gazillion,) and partly because it means it is harvest festival day...

harvest festival day is second only to sports day on my list of most miserable school days, with picture day running a close third... but those are blogs for another day. today was harvest festival day...

here's how it works. first, most of the children come to school in costumes--costumes with numerous parts to them. there are tiaras and swords and helmets and magic wands and pompoms and cowboy hats. none of these things are easy or comfortable for the children to wear, but they are part of the costume. and so, while they want to wear them, all that stuff just gets in their way. but they want to wear it! so they wear it for a while. and then about the time we get outside and get involved in the activities, they decide they don't want to wear it anymore. and guess what happens then???

and then there are the activities. usually there are five or six different stations, and we have a schedule. each class spends about 20 minutes at each station. which would be fine, except the picture taking station only takes about five minutes, and the kids would stay at the jumper station all morning! and while the face painting station only takes a few minutes for each child, it can easily take 20 minutes to paint the faces of a whole class. which means getting your face painted for 3 minutes and sitting and waiting for everyone else for the next 17 minutes. if we are lucky. because it is halloween! and they are in costume!! no one is going to sit for 17 minutes, waiting patiently for their friends to get their faces painted. and so it is a constant juggling act between hurrying to get done at some stations before our time is up, and keeping a class full of four and five year olds occupied at other stations with nothing to do... let's just say, we sang every song i could think of... some of them twice...

and this year we had the added bonus of fishing--for real, live goldfish. the kids loved it! i am not so sure their parents are going to love it. because assuming that the fish lives until the end of the school day, those parents are going to have to make a stop on the way home to get a fish bowl, fish food, and colored rocks (because you cannot have a fish bowl without colored rocks! and who knows how long it will take them to choose the perfect color!!) on a day when they need to get right home and get ready for trick or treating. and then, before they get home, that fish will have a name. and then, tomorrow morning, the fish will be dead...

call me a pessimist, but it's the truth.

sleeping beauty's plastic jewels kept coming apart. the sequins on the cheerleader's dress were blinding everyone in the sunshine. spiderman didn't want to go to the bathroom, because he would have to take his costume off for a few minutes. spider girl (who even knew there was such a thing! but there she was in all her pink, tulle glory,) informed me she was not spider girl! she was afraid of spiders, so she was the black widow--even though there wasn't a spot of black on her costume, and she had no idea what a widow was. and when i tried to tell her that a black widow was a kind of spider (because i'd left my brain in bed this morning,) she started to cry. normally i am immune to crying, but she was working her way up to a full blown melt down, and it was harvest festival day, so i did the only thing i could do--i agreed with her erroneous 4 1/2 year old thinking. fine. you want to be the black widow, which is not a spider? fine. just stop crying...

i'm so ashamed...

and then there was the child who didn't wear a costume, telling the cheerleader in the sparkly dress "your costume is ugly!" as the cheerleader's dad came into the classroom to tell his darling daughter "have a nice day..." and the cute little girl who i thought was dressed as a cowgirl, only to find out (after i had complimented her on her costume,) that she wasn't wearing a costume. and the boy in my class who is consumed by angry birds mania, but wouldn't wear the bird costume for the picture, because it was blue. because, as everyone knows, the cool bird is the red one!

and then, again, there was spiderman... spiderman is my wild child this year. we try to keep one of our eyes on him all the time, because he is fast, he is impulsive, and we never know what he is going to do next. but today, in his spiderman suit, he was much calmer. i don't know if it is because the suit was somewhat restrictive when he tried to move (meaning almost too small,) or if it came with special spidey powers, but i am thinking of asking his mom if he can wear the suit every day...

i thought i might miss the harvest festival this year. i am scheduled for jury duty this week, so you know, there was a possibility... i don't think i have ever wished that my number would get called for jury duty before, but this year, a nice quiet day in the waiting room at the courthouse, reading my book sounded like a lovely alternative to the somewhat chaotic (and this year, HOT) harvest festival. i even did my jury orientation online over the weekend so that if i was called, i could sleep in just a bit on the first day. but today was not my first day. and tomorrow won't be either. so now i am back to hoping that they don't call my number for jury duty...

...unless they could do it on picture day ;-)

a new collection?

so today . . . i cleaned out my closet. again.

i'm sure you are getting tired of hearing about my closet. i've blogged about it before. more than once. i really thought that when we moved, i had finally cleaned it out for the last time. i got rid of bags and bags of stuff. and then i unpacked into my new closet and realized that i still didn't have enough room for everything...

well, i had enough room for everything, but only if i squished the hangers together so tightly that i couldn't get anything out. and i use skinny velvet covered hangers, so it isn't like those hefty plastic hangers were hogging all the room. i had things stacked so high that i couldn't remove anything without fear of an avalanche. this is not the way i wanted to live! so i cleaned my closet out again. and then a couple of weeks later i did it again.

we have only lived in this house for two and a half months, and i've cleaned out my closet three times...

it seems like i spent my whole summer packing and moving and unpacking. which, mostly i did. but it still wasn't enough time to get completely settled. even though the majority of our stuff had found a place, there were still random boxes and piles of stuff here and there. and where did it bug me the most? in our bedroom! (ok, that's a lie. actually the garage bugs me the most, but there isn't a lot i can do about it right now. it's day is coming, but it isn't today...) so today i decided it was time to get it under control!

i'm sure it is not a coincidence that this happened today, because we are going to be out of town for a couple of days, and you know what that means... yep, clean all night! only this time i can't do that. because this time rollie and i are speaking at this retreat, which means i can't just skip the sessions and sleep. which is what i usually do :-) AND i'm going to need my brain, especially when it is my turn to speak. so i can't stay up all night. i just can't. so everything isn't going to get done to my satisfaction. but the closet is!

i started in on the closet earlier today, but you know my attention span... so i would work for a bit, eat a snack, watch some hgtv (which, btw, is giving me waaay too many ideas, now that i have a house!) rotate the laundry, check facebook (yeah, it's saturday. i can check it all day long. sadly, all my friends apparently have lives, so not much was happening online today...) move some furniture around, move it back, work in the closet some more, play with the dogs... you get the idea.

really, working in our bedroom was a bigger job than just the closet, because our bedroom is really big. so when we moved, i put all the easy stuff away and sort of stacked the rest in the empty half of the room. but then i needed stuff in those boxes full of stuff that i didn't know where to put, and so i would open a box, take something out, see something else and think, "oh, that's where that is," and take something else out, and then leave the box open, because i might need something else in there... i'm sure a picture is forming in your mind... it isn't pretty, is it...

so clearly i had to tackle that stuff too. which i did. but this complicated my closet project, because i kept finding more clothes. that i liked. that i didn't want to get rid of. that i didn't really have room for in my closet.

part of my problem is that i am trying to get by without buying a dresser. we have this big closet (at least it looked big when it was empty!) and so i am convinced that we should be able to get all our clothes in there. really! if we can't get all our clothes in there, then we have too many clothes!

apparently we have too many clothes. actually, apparently i have too many clothes, because i am hogging over half of the closet and still don't have enough room. rollie, on the other hand, seems to be fine. of course, all he has are shirts and pants. he doesn't have shirts and pants and dresses and skirts and vests and sweaters and jackets...

but i am determined. so i moved things around. i refolded stuff so that no space would be wasted. i put two pairs of boots in one box (i know, shocking isn't it!) and i finally got everything in, organized in such a way that i could also get stuff out too. i was feeling pretty happy!

and then, as i continued to put stuff away from the messy side of the room, i found a stack of jeans. five pairs of jeans, to be exact, neatly folded, hiding under some pillows. this was not good, not good at all... i went back into my closet to see what could be done. sadly, nothing could be done. i was out of space. i sorted through my jeans again to see if there were any that didn't fit or were too ratty to wear or that i just didn't like any more. but that didn't work either--they were all perfectly wearable. i should be glad! i had 34 pairs of jeans that i liked, that fit, that were already paid for. but the problem is, I HAVE 34 PAIRS OF JEANS!!!

sigh. when did i turn into my daughter?

because diandra is the queen of jeans. i do not even want to guess how many pairs of jeans that girl has. and when she goes shopping, what does she buy? more jeans.

maybe it is a reaction to her earlier jeans issues. because when she was a teenager, living at home, and i was buying her jeans, we had issues. she wanted jeans that sat below her waist, and i did not want her to have them. tops were shorter then, and my daughter was not going to run around with even the tiniest gap between her top and her jeans! we spent hours in dressing rooms! hours!! she would choose some jeans and try them on. i would say they were too low. she would say moo-oom! i would say you are not wearing those out of the house. she would say but i like them. i would say no. and eventually we would find a pair that we could both tolerate. and then we would go to another store, and it would start all over again. neither one of us would be happy, but at least she would be clothed.

and then she became an adult and started buying her own jeans. amazingly, she still took me along! "want to go to the mall?" she would say. "i need to get some jeans." inwardly i would groan, but since it would mean an afternoon with diandra, i would go. she didn't say moo-ooom anymore, but she still didn't always like my opinion. which didn't stop me from giving it, even though i no longer had the power to just say "no." which turned out ok, because instead of rolling her eyes at me, she started listening to me. and sometimes she even agreed with me. occasionally :-)

jeans shopping was always such an ordeal. and yet still we did it. diandra was always on the search for that perfect pair of jeans... which seemed to be just out of our grasp. we found lots of nearly perfect jeans, seemingly perfect jeans, or but the price is right jeans. but perfect jeans? highly elusive. and so, even though she always had a drawer full, or two, or three, she always seemed to need just one more pair...

i, on the other hand, only had five or six pair total--light blue, dark blue, black, short (to wear with flat shoes,) and longer (to wear with boots.) really. i thought six pair should be perfectly adequate. and it was.

until today. because today i couldn't fit all of my jeans into my closet. i had several stacks of jeans, sorted by style--skinny jeans, "jeggings" (which is the dumbest word ever. i hate to even write it, but it's what they are called,) boot cut, cargo, and capri. (don't worry, i only had one pair of capris.) i tried rearranging them. i tried folding them differently. i tried to get rid of just a few more pair. it didn't help. i still couldn't get them all in the closet. i finally had to put a few pair on top of some shoes...

when did this happen?!? where did all these jeans come from?!?! i hate to buy jeans. hate. it! and yet apparently i have bought them, because they didn't just materialize on their own, and i'm pretty sure denim hasn't figured out how to procreate. and i never purposely go shopping for jeans. if i happen across a pair, while shopping with diandra, i will get them, but i never say to myself, "i need a new pair of jeans. i think i will go to the mall." never. but i also apparently never get rid of a pair either, and so their numbers increase...

i don't know what i'm going to do. it seems ridiculous to get rid of perfectly good jeans that are already paid for that fit me. and i'm certainly not going to give up going to the mall with my daughter (which, let's face it, is really the issue here. because when i go with her, jeans just seem to follow me home...) so i guess there is only one thing to do...

... start planning my takeover strategy for rollie's side of the closet.

:-)

dog walkers

so today . . . we walked the dogs. and i cooked. i'm pretty sure they are passing out coats and mittens in hell...

things have kind of gotten out of control around here. (is gotten even a word? i mean, i know i don't use capital letters when i blog. and i've totally butchered all the grammatical rules of sentence structure and paragraph formation. by choice. for effect. but i think i draw the line at using words like 'wanna' and 'gonna.' i'm just not sure if gotten fits into that category...) we have been busy. we have no consistency or predictability to our schedules. when we come home from work, there is always something that needs to be done. and on those rare times when nothing is demanding our immediate attention, we sort of just want to sit. we don't want to go change into our sneakers and walk the dogs. or cook. i know these are two separate issues, but for some strange reason, in my mind they are connected...

i know we need to walk the dogs--mia needs to expend some of her excess energy, which she usually reserves so that she can bark at whatever happens to walk past our house, and milo... well, milo is chubby. exceptionally chubby. i worry about milo's weight. and mine, just a little bit, because i have noticed that i can no longer eat a dozen chocolate chip cookies from del taco all by myself in one day and still comfortably get into my jeans. and i'm not buying bigger jeans! at least, not yet...

i've been planning to walk the dogs for quite some time now. in fact, it has been one of my new year's resolutions for the past few years. but since i keep making the same resolution over and over and over again, you can probably figure out that my follow through is not all that good. i've read that to be consistent with exercise, you need to "buddy up" with someone. of course the logical someone for me to buddy up with is rollie. i've brought it up a few times, but he always scoffs and sneers and looks at me like, "what?!? do i LOOK like a little old lady?? walking isn't REAL exercise. REAL exercise requires a ball and rules and a referee. besides, you would never be able to keep up with me. i would have to walk so slowly to stay with you, that it wouldn't do any good at all."

(i feel i should just point out here that rollie never actually said any of those words. that is just the conversation that happened in my head when i said, "maybe you should walk with me," and he looked at me with an expression of confusion and disbelief. i don't recall he ever actually said any words. but i could read it all in his face...)

and truthfully, i didn't really push it. because if he walked with me then i couldn't listen to my ipod--i would be forced to have a conversation. not that i don't like to talk to my husband, it's just that i never get to listen to my ipod, and walking is the perfect opportunity. plus, if rollie decided he wanted to walk with me, then i couldn't wimp out. i would have to go. every day. and while one part of my brain really wants that, another part just wants to watch tv and drink soda pop. and so, it has been several months since i walked the dogs...

and then, a couple of weeks ago, rollie came home from a meeting and said, "i think we should start walking the dogs together."

whaaaat?!?!?! seriously?!?!??!? because as i said, every time i brought it up, his expression pretty much said, "walking is sissy exercise!" but instead of reminding him of that, i just said, "thank you Jesus!" and listened to his plan. he had apparently heard a speaker talk about stress and health and how walking was probably the best daily exercise to do--it can be done anywhere, any time, it doesn't require any special equipment or a gym membership, and half an hour a day is adequate. rollie, of course, thought we should walk an hour. because, you know, if half an hour is adequate, then an hour would be better! so last monday, we walked the dogs...

the first obstacle was getting them leashed up. they are used to wearing collars, but when we walk them, they need harnesses. because mia thinks she is a contender for the kentucky derby, and milo thinks he is a big dog, capable of taking down any cat or rotweiller we happen to encounter. yes, they can be a little hard to control... rollie, bless his little pink heart, was going to walk mia. he thought she should sit and stay while he put her harness on, and then walk calmly beside him. silly boy! clearly he has never walked mia. she gets so excited to go for a walk that she can't stop wiggling and jumping around. and the more he said, "mia! sit!" the more excited she got! and then, there's milo. he is perpetual motion. and trying to get his harness snapped around his chubby little body is always a challenge. but we finally managed to get the harnesses on and the leashes clipped and headed out the door into our new neighborhood. with our dogs. for the first time. together...

since our dogs are different sizes--as are rollie and i--finding a pace we can all live with isn't that easy. we all start out really fast, but milo fades first. when milo fades, we all slow down. the first day we walked, he didn't even make it half way around the block. and when i say he didn't make it, what i mean is he just stopped walking. he stopped. he wouldn't budge. he plopped his 18 pound body down and refused to move. he was done. so, i picked him up and carried him the rest of the way. mia was glad to pull rollie along, and since we had only been walking for about five minutes, i just kept going... carrying our 18 pound chihuahua.

that was day one. on day two, milo made it quite a bit further. on day three, he did pretty good again, but still needed to be carried about half of the way home. rollie had seen me carry milo the previous two days, me with my scrawny little arms, and so he thought he would be nice and give me a break. he took milo in his arms and gave me mia's leash. we hadn't gone far when he said, "this dog is heavy! i don't know how you carried him so long!!" i know he was thinking, "i don't know how you carried him so long with those scrawny little arms," but he didn't say it. he didn't say it, because my scrawny little arms had carried that fat, little dog longer than his big muscular arms had. "it's the mom in me," i said. "moms have to be able to carry at least 20 pounds around. think about how much toddlers weigh!" i don't really mind carrying milo while we finish walking. i've seen people walk with hand held weights for increased exercise benefits--my extra 20 pounds is just furry and cute! but we do get some funny looks...

our neighborhood is pretty quiet. it is a walled community. walled, not gated. which means that anyone can get in, but why would they? there is no place to go! the only traffic at 5:00 at night are people coming home from work who live here. this is great for us, because we have to walk our unruly pets in the street...

we have to walk our unruly pets in the street for a couple of reasons. first of all, the sidewalk isn't wide enough for all four of us, which makes talking impossible. and secondly, milo feels the need to mark every vertical surface he passes. and some horizontal ones too! if we walk on the sidewalk, it takes us FOREVER to get around the block. so we walk in the street, which doesn't completely deter milo from marking the whole neighborhood as his territory--he just looks for car tires, garbage cans, the occasional random pine cone, the CURB... milo doesn't so much walk for the exercise as he walks for the opportunity to do his business someplace other than his own yard.

the first day we walked, i forgot to take a plastic bag in case he pooped. i say 'in case,' but it is not so much a possibility as an inevitability. milo always poops when we walk. always. but since it has been a while since we walked, i forgot to take a bag. and sure enough, halfway around the block, he stopped. i knew what was about to happen. he was going to make a doggie bomb right there in front of God and everybody... including the two neighbors that just happened to be in their front yards. and i didn't have a bag! this was not good, not good at all. i tried to keep him moving. i thought if i could just keep him walking, maybe he could wait...

he couldn't.

and there is was. right in the middle of the street in front of the entrance to our neighborhood. and we had no bag. we were in deep and serious you know what... we couldn't just walk on like nothing had happened! people had seen us!! and there was physical evidence! so rollie and i had this loud conversation about how, oh no, we had forgotten to bring a bag but it was ok, we would just go home and get one and walk around the block again and pick up milo's little gift the next time we came by...

i'm pretty sure those neighbors went into their houses and watched for us to return. they probably had their phones in hand, ready to dial the city poop police if we didn't come back and clean up after our pup. which, of course, we did. talking loudly again, just so that everyone within earshot would know that we are NOT the kind of people who walk our dogs and let them poop wherever they want to and then just walk off and leave it! no sir! we are the kind of people who will go out of our way to make sure our streets are safe for people to walk on after dark without fear of, well, you know...

it's stressful being the new kids on the block...

handyman? or addition to the family... ??

so today . . . the home improvements continue...

it seems like everything that needs to be done turns into a big, hairy deal!

it's been about a month since our handyman, manuel, was here. he came in sort of an emergency situation at the end of august to put in a doggie door. our pups need back yard access, especially when we are not home, and since we were getting ready to be out of town for several days, we needed a doggie door. right away.

it shouldn't have been an emergency situation. i have known from the time we bought our house that we were going to need unrestricted puppy access from the house to the back yard. and if our family room had sliding glass doors, that wouldn't have been a problem. but it doesn't. it has french doors. you cannot easily install a doggie door in french doors...

each french door has a "sidelight" next to it. i had never heard the term sidelight, until i started scouring the internet looking for doggie door alternatives. but once i realized it was a real thing, with a name and everything, i thought that surely i could get one with a doggie door in it.

i was wrong.

but i was sure i was right! so i spent weeks and weeks following every little rabbit trail that google decided to send me on, trying to find a doggie door that would fit in that space. and what i discovered what that no one makes such a thing. oh they probably will, in a few years, now that french doors seem to be the popular choice for back yard entrance. but as usual, i am ahead of my time. i need one now!

i considered putting a doggie door flap in the door that leads from the garage to the back yard. but then the pups would have to be in the garage when we weren't home--not an acceptable solution for us. i contemplated replacing the french doors with sliding glass ones--but i really like the french doors. i even thought about cutting a hole in the wall for a doggie door flap! yes, i was getting desperate.

and the clock was ticking...

because the first time we went out of town, for our vacation, not having a doggie door created problems. and we were getting ready to leave again. twice. this problem had to be solved...

so we went to petco and bought a doggie door--the kind you use for sliding glass doors. our plan was to have manuel just cut the hole a little bigger in the sidelight and pop the doggie door in. it sounded so much easier than it turned out to be! manuel measured. he went to home depot. he came back and looked at the sidelight again. and his conclusion was that it couldn't be done.

which was ok with me, because i didn't really want him to cut into the sidelight anyway! i mean, we want a doggie door now, but what if a time comes when we don't want a doggie door? what if (heaven forbid) we have to sell our house? we would need the sidelights to match, wouldn't we? so manuel and i discussed it, and decided that he would take the sidelight out, and put the doggie door into the space, and frame around it. which was what i had wanted all along...on that same day, manuel also installed my dining room light and the new light for the entry way. which is a good thing, because that entry way light was slowly killing my soul! it was heavy, and elaborate, and HUGE, and every time i walked through the front door and saw it, it made me feel cranky!! so we can all thank manuel for my improved mood :-)

then we went out of town. twice. and my mom and dad came to visit. once. and i went back to work. every day. and things got busy... but i kept seeing things that still needed to be done.

so i called manuel to see if he could come back today to tackle the list again. he came, and he brought a friend. i think his plan was to finish everything on the list. today! as it turned out, he was just a bit optimistic. it seemed like everything they tried to do resulted in problems...

they tried to get the remote to work for our ceiling fan. but guess what? when the fan was installed, they apparently threw out the signal thing for the remote! who does that?!?!? who installs anything without using all the pieces??? did they just look at that little signal box and think, "oh we probably don't need this..." and throw it away???

they tried to install a light in the ceiling of one of the extra bedrooms. but first they had to find the center of the room. which they did. only to discover that they couldn't hang a light there. so after cutting the first hole, they had to cut a second one. and then then had to cut several holes in the wall to disconnect the electrical outlet from the switch. because apparently in 1967 it was popular to switch an outlet rather than install a ceiling light...

thankfully they also know how to repair the holes.
they tried to move the downstairs bathroom light so that it would be centered over the vanity. because the vanity in that bathroom was the first thing to go when we moved in. i hated the one that was in there. hated. it. so rollie replaced it. and the sink. and the faucets. and now it is beautiful! but since the new vanity is smaller than the original one, the light fixture is now off center... so they cut a new hole, but then they looked at the clock and realized they needed to leave. right away!! and so they just put the old fixture back up. for now.
i wanted another outlet installed in our bathroom. for some reason, our large master bathroom only has one outlet. and it is on rollie's side of the counter. but i am the one who needs it! someone said, "why don't you just trade sides?" i'll tell you why... my side has all the counter space. and drawers. and i need that space! but it isn't good if i am trying to dry my hair while rollie is trying to brush his teeth. someone could get electrocuted!! or stepped on... so here is my side of the bathroom with my new outlet. it is the only project that was actually completed today.but it's ok, because manuel has assured me that he can come back soon. i'm glad, because that light fixture in the downstairs bathroom? it is now the source of my crankiness...

i guess this is what home ownership is all about--projects. sadly, we have no skills. well, i think i have skills, but mostly i have good intentions. rollie has skills, but no time to use them. and so, we have manuel. it looks as though manuel will be spending several weekends with us.

i'm starting to think it might be cheaper to adopt him...

a christmas blog... sort of...

so today . . . i discovered the elusive christmas peacock...

what? you didn't know there was such a thing as a christmas peacock? where have you been, mars?????

i love christmas. it is my favorite holiday! and one of the things i love about it is the decorations. does the world ever look prettier than in the month of december? lights, sparkles, snow, poinsettias, holly, and of course baby Jesus--i love it!

but not in october. october is supposed to be about pumpkins and pretty colored leaves and cornstalks. october is supposed to be when you break out your sweaters and scarves and maybe buy a new pair of fuzzy boots from costco--which you have to do in october or the ones in your size will be gone! and then you will have to wait a whole year to get a gray pair! (oops. digressing again...) october is all about crisp, cool days, and nights scented with pumpkin spice candles...

...not christmas peacocks.

i get the whole "christmas in july" thing. if you are someone who plans ahead, then july is probably about the right time for you to start your shopping. (who am i kidding. if you are someone who plans ahead, you started your christmas shopping the day after christmas!) and i understand how, when the thermometer says 95 degrees and you have been wearing your shorts and flipflops for two months, the promise of snow-covered evergreens and twinkly lights could be inviting. but the truth is, i have never, ever seen anyone buy a christmas tree in october. ever. and yet, that's when the majority of the stores have decided it is time to break out the christmas gear...

i am all for long christmas celebrations. our tradition has always been to put the christmas tree up the day after thanksgiving and leave it up until martin luther king, jr day in january. why, you may ask, is that our tradition? well, i have a lot of christmas decorations. it takes me a couple of days to get everything out, put the decorations up, and put all the boxes back where they belong. so the long weekend after thanksgiving works for me. especially since it seems like it is impossible to find a free weekend in december. in fact, i have discovered that if i don't get the tree up before i go back to school after thanksgiving, it probably isn't going to happen.

yes, we have had more than one christmas without a tree.

and i like to leave it up for a while after christmas, because it seems like we are always so busy in december that we don't really get to just sit and enjoy the beauty of the decorations--that's what january is for! and taking it all down and cleaning and dusting everything takes waaaay longer than getting it out. in fact, a three day weekend really isn't enough. and since, in my current job, i have to work on martin luther king, jr day, sometimes i have to wait until president's day to clean the christmas from my house!

and yes, i know president's day is in february...

i'm sure the stores think that if they put the christmas stuff out early, we will all start thinking christmasy thoughts and start spending money. and they probably think that if we start spending it early enough, we will spend more.

and they are probably right.

because apparently anything can be a christmas decoration if you put a santa hat on it. this seems to be especially true when it comes to yard decorations. unless you have a nativity set in your yard, odds are most of your yard decorations are wearing santa hats. put a santa hat on a teddy bear and it becomes a christmas decoration. put a santa hat on a tall, green, skinny, furry guy and suddenly he is a christmas decoration. put a santa hat on a penguin or a dog or a singing fish, and it becomes a christmas decoration. i can sort of understand the thinking behind a flamingo wearing a santa hat--if you live in florida. but today i saw a christmas peacock. yes, i said peacock. a PEACOCK!!!!

i found myself at home depot this afternoon. we are having more work done on the house this weekend, so i needed to get supplies. and as i was wandering about, looking for a microfiber dust mop (no, that isn't for the work this weekend. that is to help me corral all the dog hair that i can now see on my wood floors!) i saw this...(no, your eyes are not playing tricks on you. there is the elusive christmas peacock, nestled between the elusive christmas flamingo and the more traditional lighted deer.) home depot had devoted a large area to christmas decorations. which i guess is ok. maybe people do like getting into the christmas spirit two months early--while shopping for paint and light fixtures and crown molding... maybe people really will think, "i need some christmas decorations--let's go to home depot!" but i have to admit, it isn't the first place i would think of to bulk up my christmas decoration inventory...

home depot has given quite a bit of retail space to stuff that is probably going to just sit there for another month and a half before anyone starts buying it. because really, where are you going to put an 8 foot lighted artificial tree for the next two months? or those large lighted snowmen? or the lighted grazing deer? and even if you have a place to put them, who is going to buy a GIANT ILLUMINATED CHRISTMAS PEACOCK?!?!? and what does a peacock have to do with christmas anyway?? and why am i even thinking about christmas in october?!?!?

curses, home depot, i feel you trying to suck me into your early christmas vortex. i wonder if i can find my santa hat...

they're coming... :-)

so today . . . i thought i could do it all...

my dad is a painter--a house painter. actually my dad has done a lot of things. his main job was as a junior high science teacher, but he has also sold real estate, been a pastor, fished on his own boat commercially, and made gemstone jewelry, in addition to painting houses and probably a whole lot of other stuff that i can't think of right now. i don't recall ever helping him paint, but i was around him enough when he was painting, that i seemed to think that i could paint too. and i have painted. a lot!

but my dad does more than just paint. he can pretty much fix anything on a house. i can remember many times when someone would hire him to come in and repair a bad job they had already paid someone else to do. he seemed to always figure out a way to fix the mess. and so, for some reason, i think i can fix things too.

once, i almost electrocuted myself trying to fix something inside the washing machine with a screwdriver...

so today, when home depot called to tell me that our plantation shutters were ready to be installed, and could they DO IT ON FRIDAY, my plans for the next couple of days changed. because i hadn't really expected the shutters to be ready so soon. and there was some repair work that needed to be done around the windowsills...

so i texted rollie. "good news and bad news. our shutters are here :) but the walls aren't ready :( i guess i'll be going to home depot after school today to figure out how to mud the walls." yes, that was my plan. i was going to go online while my little dumplings napped and look for an instructional video on how to mud and texture walls. then after school i would go to home depot for supplies. and then tomorrow after school i would fix those walls, and by friday everything would be perfectly prepared for my new shutters! it seemed like a perfectly reasonable plan to me.

rollie did not respond to my text.

he was working from home today, so i got to meet him for lunch. "so," i said, "did you get my text about the shutters?" "yes," he said, "but i'm not sure you should try to fix the walls. why don't you just call jose'?"

i'll tell you why i wasn't going to call jose'--first of all, i needed the work done by tomorrow! you can't just call someone up and say hey, can you come do this job for me tomorrow?!? that's ridiculous! and secondly, i was pretty sure i didn't want to pay someone to do something that i was perfectly capable of doing--even if i'd never done it before and really didn't have the time to do it.

i patiently explained this to my husband. who responded by saying, "i don't know. i don't think i've got the skills to do it..." well that was ok. i wasn't asking him to do it. i was going to do it! my dad is a painter and general all purpose fix it guy. i was pretty sure i had inherited some sort of "fix it" gene. after all, i'd sprayed texture on a wall repair from an aerosol can before. i was pretty sure it wasn't going to be that hard. and besides, really this was just a precautionary repair. probably the frame around the shutters was going to cover it up anyway. i was just going to mud and texture and paint where the window trim had been, just in case the new trim wasn't quite big enough.

"really," rollie said, "just call jose'. you know he will do a good job." what i knew was that rollie did not want me to tackle this job. he was probably picturing what might happen. i'm sure he could just see me covered in mud, crying, at midnight when it was too late to call someone else, because i couldn't make the mud stick to the wall or make it smooth or get the texture right... i don't doubt that he knew i would give it a good try, but i'm pretty sure he also knew there was a slight possibility that i might just make a big mess. and my dad lives too far away to come and fix it by friday...

and truthfully, i was sort of picturing that possibility myself, because there have been more than a few nights when i have been buried in a project at midnight, bumping up against a deadline, crying because i knew there was no way i was going to finish on time. so i gave in. i called jose'. mostly because while i might be able to do what needed to be done, i knew it was going to take me waaaay longer than it would take someone like jose' who knew what they were doing. and i knew that while my results might be ok, jose's results would be really good. BUT, if he couldn't do it tomorrow, then i would just have to do it myself.

so i called him. and jose', bless his little pink heart, said he would come over tonight to take a look at what needed to be done. and he thought he could work it out to do it thursday morning. which means i can spend my thursday evening doing something much more fun, and still get my shutters installed on friday...

i am thankful for my mom who raised me to think i could do anything. and for my dad who showed me that there is no limit to what one person can do. but there are times when it is a good idea to step back and let the professionals do what they have been trained to do. and so i am also thankful for my husband who says, "call a professional..."

...because my "i can do it" attitude is sometimes a problem. i should NOT be allowed near the inner workings of a washing machine with a metal screwdriver!! i should NEVER stand on the very top rung of a ladder! and i should probably not try to mud, texture, and paint around my windows under such a tight schedule, when there is no room for error...

thankfully i don't have to. because i know jose' and i am pretty sure he can do anything :-)

the siren song of the ipad...

so today . . . i was sitting at my desk, minding my own business, when ethan came over and said, "what's that?" he was pointing to my ipad. i said, "it's my computer." he looked at me and said, "that's not a computer! what is it?"

oh, apple people, somehow your world-wide domination of the tablet computer market has totally missed ONE four year old...

i've been having computer issues. i now have an old netbook (whose fan is going to go out any day now, which i am sure is going to result in it's self-destruction, a la mission impossible,) a newer laptop (which can burn dvds and has a nice big screen and is so pristine that i don't want to transfer all my messy files to it,) and an ipad. i know, its ridiculous. i would love to just use one device, but i can't seem to get everything organized and transferred. so my netbook is currently holding almost all my digital files hostage, while the newer laptop just sits there because it is too big to carry around. and then there is the ipad...

i sort of love the ipad, even though there are things it can't do. it doesn't have a memory card slot. it doesn't have a usb port. and you can't play anything that requires flash player on it. to me, those are three BIG issues. and yet, i have an ipad, and i sort of love it.

i looked at other tablets made by other companies. they had memory card slots. they had usb ports. and they would play flash player. and yet what did i get? an ipad.

i think apple is evil. really. where do worms live? in apples. what did the evil witch give to snow white? an apple. what did adam and eve eat that was the beginning of all our problems?!?!?!?! the apple.

do you see my point?

and really, if you think about apple devices, they are evil too. they are arrogant. they are flashy. they don't play nicely with others--it is either all apple or no apple. they don't just want your money, they want your soul...

and somehow they get it. even now, i am continually frustrated by some of the shortcomings of my ipad--i can't view everything on the internet that i want to see. i can't transfer digital files easily onto it or off of it. it won't let me manipulate my photos. i can't even sync my iphone to it!!!! realistically, i should be putting it in a garage sale and buying a xoom or a galaxy!

and yet, i sort of love it.

there is no logical reason for this. well, unless you look at the apps. the free apps. oh. my. goodness. i was a little embarrassed when i went in to the apple store to get some help, and they saw how many games i had. did you know there are four different angry birds games? that i know of?? i don't even know how to play all those games! and yet, i check the app store every few days to see what else i can download for free.

i think i might need a support group...

i didn't want to love my apple devices. it's that rebel in me--everybody else thinks they are great, so i will not! but i did. they continue to torment me with their unfamiliar (to me) operating system. they lure me away from the things i should be doing (like sleeping) with their unlimited apps. they remind me of all that they are capable of doing, if only i will purchase a data plan. they are sleek, and cool, and they make me feel tech-savvy (which is quite a trick considering that i have no clue how to make them do anything they don't want to do...)

the first day i took the ipad to school, every child in the class came to my desk at some point and said, "oh, you have an ipad!" they were impressed. would they have been equally impressed with a xoom or a galaxy? i don't think so. they kept trying to touch the screen. this is a problem. it is a problem that i never had to worry about with my laptop. my kids can't seem to keep their hands off the stuff on my desk, and my computer is no exception. but if they touched the laptop, not much would happen. with the ipad's touchscreen though, STUFF HAPPENS! which of course makes them want to touch it again! and again...

and how do they even know what an ipad is. they are tiny children! they can't even read yet!!! one little boy said, "i'm getting an ipad for christmas." now i know that could just be wishful thinking, but sadly, i don't think it is out of the realm of possibility. a five year old with an ipad.

apple wins.

and yet, ethan could not be convinced that my ipad was a computer. finally, i pulled my netbook out. i had both computers at school today, because if i need to print something, i need a computer with a usb port! which, as i may have mentioned, THE IPAD DOESN'T HAVE!!! so i pulled the netbook out, set it on my desk as ethan was saying, "yeah, yeah, yeah..." and opened it up. "now that's a computer," he said.

so maybe apple doesn't have everyone's soul. maybe just because i have fallen prey to their siren song doesn't mean everyone will. maybe others will be stronger and able to resist the sleekness, the cool factor, the illuminated apple icon...

then again, maybe not.

just ask my mom :-)

a teaser... although it sounds more like an excuse...

so today . . . i am going to bed instead of finishing my blog.

i started a blog. actually i started two--this is blog number three! but i can hardly keep my eyes open... and i have to get up for work tomorrow. my weekends are not all that restful these days. so i work all week at school, and then all weekend at home. and then it is time to start again...

i'm not complaining. really, i'm not. i'm just tired. so i'm going to bed. i will try to finish today's blog tomorrow, but you will have to look for it to post before this blog, because i am going to give it today's date. but don't look for it until late tomorrow or even tuesday, because i still have to finish writing it.

did i confuse you? sorry about that, but i think my brain has already left the building...

just check back. i would like to say today's blog was going to be a tribute to steve jobs, but that wouldn't exactly be accurate...

our dogs + rain = you don't want to know...

so today . . . it rained again.

i promised myself i was not going to blog about the rain today. i know some of you get as tired of my weather blogs as you do of my food blogs. but here are the cold, hard facts, people: food and the weather pretty much rule my days. i go to bed thinking about what the weather will be like the next day and deciding what to wear. because if i have to make clothing decisions at 7:00 in the morning, it is not going to be pretty--or i am going to be late. and even after i get dressed, i have to decide if i should wear a coat... or a sweater... or wonder if a scarf around my neck would keep me warm enough... because it may start out cool, but by 11:30 when we are out on the playground it might be hot! but by the time i leave to come home, it might be cool again. or really hot!! you just never know...

and the awful truth is, i think about food all day. what will i eat for breakfast? do i have time to run by mcdonald's and get cinnamon melts? or should i be good and just eat my usual hard boiled egg. will the lunch at school be something delicious like macaroni and cheese? or will it be that noodle-y stuff... or will i even eat at school?!? i could go to jack in the box... or 7-11 for a salad and a brownie... or now that i have an hour for lunch, i could even go home... of course then i would have to actually make something to eat, which would reduce my actual eating time, so maybe it is better to go to jack in the box instead. or 7-11...

and what about dinner?

you see, no matter what else happens during the day, food and the weather are always on my mind. and today it rained. real rain, not that sissy socal stuff. i even had to wear a coat. with a hood. and the only coat i have with a hood is a long, down-filled puffy coat with fur around the hood. i bought it a few years ago just before we headed to oregon for christmas, because they were expecting a big snowstorm. so yes, considering we were just having rain today, it was maybe overkill... but i don't like to carry an umbrella. or get wet. so i left the house looking like nanook of the north... in southern california... in october...

and then i spent the next hour telling parents to take the tiny, colorful umbrellas that they let their children bring to school, home with them. because what am i going to do with 15 drippy hello kitty angry birds spiderman dora the explorer umbrellas in my classroom all day?!?!? i've got my hands full with tiny hello kitty angry birds spiderman dora the explorer coats and boots! WET coats and boots...

rollie worked at home today, so once again i braved the rain to meet him for lunch. he said mia had spent the morning sitting on the floor next to his chair with her front paw on his leg. this is her signal for "can i please sit in your lap? please?? please?????" mia is not really a lap dog--she is all pointy elbows and paws. but she tries. especially if it is raining, because mia does not like the rain. at all. milo, on the other hand, had come in soaking wet... i saw this as real progress, because when milo first came to live with us, he would not go out in the rain unless i carried him out and stood over him with an umbrella. thank goodness it only rains two or three times a year here...

by the time i left school to come home for the day, it had pretty much stopped raining. as soon as i walked into the house, rollie said, "did you see the garage door??" well, yes, i thought, i had to open it to get my car into the garage. but i hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary... so when he took me back out to the garage to show me what he was talking about, it was clear that i was looking at the wrong garage door.
"when i got home from lunch today, mia was soaking wet!" he said. "she was so wet i had to dry her off with a towel. and then i saw this!" yes, our precious pooch had frantically clawed her way clear through the door!

in all fairness, this door was damaged when we moved into the house. we aren't really sure what happened here before we moved in, but there were some violence issues, and the side door into the garage was one of the casualties. it had been repaired with wood putty, i think, and our painters did a great job of trying to make it look good, but it was still damaged. we knew we were going to have to replace it, we just hadn't done it yet.

i think we will be doing it soon.

because for some strange reason, when rollie left to meet me for lunch today, mia went outside. in the rain of which she is so deathly afraid. and apparently she tried to get back into the house... through the side garage door. i don't know why she would do that! she can go in and out of the house whenever she wants to--we had a doggie door specially constructed to fit next to the french doors so she and milo could go in and out even when we aren't home. but clearly something spooked her. she must have really panicked! she was only home alone for an hour...

as we were sitting in the family room talking about it, i happened to glance out the french doors, and this is what i saw...
i'm pretty sure milo is the culprit in this situation. again, i don't understand it. our patio overhang covers about three feet of grass next to the patio. and he had clearly been out in the rain earlier in the day! i guess i should appreciate that he got as close to the grass as he could without actually going on the grass...but come on!!

this was a rough day for our pups. they are california dogs. they don't do rain.

but thankfully we've now had our two days of precipitation for the fall. sunshine is back in the forecast for tomorrow... right where it belongs!

maybe tomorrow's blog won't be about the weather...

a rainy day blog...

so today . . . it rained.

i know it rained, because when i pulled out of the 7-11 parking lot this morning, my tires skidded on the wet pavement.

you know that song, "it never rains in california..." well, it is almost true. almost. but not today. today it rained.

rain was in the forecast for tomorrow, but not for today. so when i looked out the kitchen window this morning and noticed that the ground was wet, i thought, "oh wow, it must be getting cooler. the water from the sprinkler hasn't evaporated yet..."

(this is how i know i am turning into a california person. an oregon person wouldn't even notice that the ground was wet! oregon's ground is wet most of the time in the fall! but rain doesn't even enter the mind of a california person--we immediately think "sprinklers!")

i finished gathering up my stuff and went out to the car. i opened the garage door and noticed the driveway was wet too. and getting wetter by the second. and then i saw it. rain.

to be clear, it was california rain--there was water in the air, but it was still safe to wear suede boots. i didn't know how long it was going to stay that way though, so we took the preventative measure of putting electrical tape on those two small cracks that have developed in the roof of my car. thankfully rollie was working from home today and could help me, because since we moved, i'm not sure i could find the electrical tape. i know it is in the garage (which is rollie's territory,) and so i know it has a specific place (like all of rollie's stuff.) i just don't know where that specific place is...

it took a little time to complete the rainproofing of my roof. thankfully i had the time. i have learned that if i set my alarm a little bit earlier and only hit the snooze button once, i have time to make a quick stop at 7-11 and still make it to work on time...

yes, i said on time!! i haven't been late to work once this year! of course, i've only worked seven days, but i think i have turned over a new leaf. apparently being docked 15 minutes of pay isn't enough to get me out of bed earlier, but the promise of a gigantic diet lemon cokesi is! of course, i wish i could survive the day without that infusion of a fizzy, caffeinated drink, but i've been so tired since i went back to work that i've NEEDED it. of course, maybe if i slept a few more minutes in the morning instead of going to 7-11, i wouldn't need it...

but i digress.

i walked in and out of 7-11 without the aid of an umbrella (you see, i am still an oregon person at heart,) but again, to be fair, i did get the parking space right in front of the door. my brain was still not really registering the fact that it was RAINING! how could it be raining?!?! just yesterday i was wearing tank tops and flip flops. i had acquiesced to the cooler temperatures today by donning boots and a sweater, but still... and then my tires squealed out of the 7-11 parking lot...

i was not going terribly fast. however, there were cars approaching me, and they were going terribly fast. so when i hit the gas and felt my tires spin but did not feel my car move, i knew it must be raining. i should have registered "rain" when i had to turn on my lights or use my windshield wipers, but it was early and i was sort of on autopilot (remember, i only hit the snooze button once!) my tires finally gained traction and propelled me toward the first of four stop lights that have become my arch nemeses...

i hate those four stop lights. really. if i could rat them out for their inconsistent and inconsiderate behavior and send them off to traffic light jail, i would. they are never green. never. i always have to wait. and sometimes i have to wait through two or even three rotations at the left turn light. this morning i had time to tweet and post to facebook about my squealing tires before i finally got through that light! (i'm pretty sure it isn't breaking the law to tweet while you are just sitting still at a stupid red left turn light. i think tweeting while sitting at a red light might be the only thing between certain motorists--who shall remain nameless--and road rage...)

i got to school with my diet lemon cokesi (which is no small task, considering that the cup is so big it won't fit in any of my cup holders, so i have to put it in the passenger seat and prop it up with my handbag. which i hate to do, because my handbag is cloth and i'm always afraid that when i turn a corner, my soda will spill on it. or worse yet, completely tip over and spill everywhere! that happened once. it was awful. so to try to prevent that, i put my right hand on the cup to steady it when i go around corners. which wouldn't be a big deal, except my car has a manual transmission which requires me to use that same right hand to shift. it's a good thing i am coordinated...) i knew it was going to be a long day. tonight was open house and i wasn't quite ready. it was also art day. art day on the same day as open house!! what was i thinking?!?!? AND since it was raining, we were going to be stuck in the classroom for recess, which meant energetic kids with nowhere to expend that energy...

i slurped my diet lemon cokesi and hoped for the best...

we got through the morning without any major catastrophes. and then this afternoon i went into the classroom next door to help a teacher who had a screaming, crying three year old who would. not. stop. so i was talking quietly to the child and patting him on the back and just generally trying to get him to calm down and be quiet. because sometimes crying is contagious--especially if you are three and were just awakened from a nap that was not quite long enough! he got a little quieter, but he wouldn't stop crying! and i needed to go back to my own class to finish getting ready for open house! but since i had come in to help, i didn't feel like i could just leave without accomplishing my goal of turning a wailing three year old into a smiling one... so i started talking to the other three year olds sitting at his table having their snack. we were talking about what they were eating, when one precious dumpling looked right at me and said, "i eat boogers!"

okaaayyy... not really information that i wanted to know, but it got the attention of the screaming child, who momentarily stopped screaming to see what was going to happen next...

here's what happened next. "did you see the rain this morning?" i asked.

yep, i deflected and redirected. and it worked. this time. because to a southern california three year old, rain is a BIG deal! he might remember the afternoon it rained last spring, but odds are he doesn't really remember it raining before today. oh, he's heard people talk about it, like they talk about snow and colored leaves falling in october and wide open spaces, but he has had very little, if any, experience with it.

and so, we talked about rain. and the crying child stopped. and the booger-eating child ate his crackers instead. and i managed to escape back to the relative calm of my own classroom...

...just in time for a birthday party. a birthday party in a classroom full of kids who have been inside all day because of the rain. i looked at the clock, breathed a sigh of relief, left my class in the capable hands of others, and headed out into the rain...

...only to be pleasantly surprised by dry ground and sunshine.

yep, it never rains in california... at least not for long :-)