what if one day "they" discover that sugar was GOOD for us...

so today . . . i despair.  again.

i try to eat in a healthy way, i really do!  well, ok, that isn't totally true.  i know how to eat in a healthy way, and sometimes i make good food choices, but lately it has been awfully difficult.  i am finding that when it comes to eating, i am an 'all or nothing' type of person.  that hasn't always been true.  several years ago when we went on the south beach diet, i found that i could eat half a peanut butter cookie from subway after my lunch and feel satisfied.  HALF.  who eats half of a cookie?!?!?! but i was trying to make good food choices and had decided that half a peanut butter cookie a day was ok, but just half...

now before you all jump all over me about dieting when i was already pretty scrawny, let me just say that it wasn't so much about losing weight as it was about giving my body healthier foods to eat.  because the truth is, i could pretty much live on junk food and be happy.  but as we age... well, you know...  i don't want to die any earlier than i have to!  and i found that after following the south beach diet, my cravings for sweet things really did go away... until i ate something sweet.  which of course i did, because i like sweet things!

yesterday on facebook one of diandra's friends posted something about a dietary supplement that she was taking that was really helping her lose her post baby fat  she said it really helped to curb her appetite, and thus, her eating.

this would not work for me...

this would not work for me, because my eating is rarely about being hungry.  it is about what tastes good!  i am hardly ever hungry-i don't give myself a chance to be hungry!

i love to eat.

i blame my constant eating on some medication i am on.  my doctor keeps saying it is going to get better, but i am starting to despair just a little bit!  my brain knows i need to make better food choices, but my car keeps taking me to burger king for cinnabons!  yes, they now have authentic cinnabon rolls at burger king!  i am doomed...

...and then yesterday i got an email that said "eight superfoods to add to your diet now!"  i've heard of these superfoods, i just can't remember what they are!  so i thought i would check it out, and here is what i found...

1--salmon.  ok, i am good with this.  i LOVE salmon!!  it is almost always my food of choice when we eat out... well, when we eat out at a real restaurant where the menu isn't posted high on the wall behind the bank of cash registers, and you have to leave a tip.  but for some reason, i rarely fix salmon at home--and not just because i rarely cook!  i think it has something to do with having to actually buy the salmon from a store.  i grew up in oregon, and in oregon our salmon came from the ocean!  my dad went out and got on a boat and caught the salmon, and then he brought it home and cooked it in any of several delicious ways--my favorite being with cheese sauce (which i know maybe sort of defeats the purpose of eating a healthy fish, but it tastes soooo yummy!)  and so, during my formative years, i am pretty sure my mom never bought salmon at the store.  she just went to the freezer and ta-da! there it was.

salmon does not magically appear in my freezer, fresh from the ocean...

but still, i do love salmon, and so even though i don't eat it as often as the 8 superfoods article said i should (2-3 times a week,) i'm putting it in my "plus" column.

2--walnuts.  chalk up another one for me!  i have always loved walnuts.  in fact, i like almost every kind of nut (just ask rollie-teeheehee,)  walnuts are a little bitter, though, so my favorite way of eating them is by the handful, mixed with chocolate chips.

i'm pretty sure chocolate chips are not one of the 8 superfoods...

i have just the opposite problem with walnuts that i have with salmon--i eat way more that the recommended amount (15 nuts a day.)  fifteen nuts a day???  who can eat just 15 nuts a day?!?!?  and since i can't have chocolate chips with my walnuts, i have to mix them with pecans, so then i am eating at least 30 nuts a day...  and i've heard that almonds and pistachios are also good for you, and don't even get me started on cashews!  i haven't heard that cashews have any specific health benefits, but they sure are tasty!  and addicting...

3--broccoli.  a few years ago, this would have been a definite "i will die before i eat this" food.  but while we were on the south beach diet, i taught myself to tolerate it.  and now, i really like it!  i can eat it steamed or raw, and i don't even have to embellish it with fattening sauces (although a little ranch dressing is always a good thing, isn't it?)  broccoli is a superfood that i love, which is a good thing, because the list of other cruciferous vegetables (cabbage, brussels sprouts, kale, bok choy, and horseradish) are definitely "i will die before i eat this" foods.  i guess i'll just have to eat a lot of broccoli.

so as i was reading this article, i was starting to think, "i am doing pretty good!  i have no problem eating the first three superfoods.  maybe i won't die young after all!"  and then, i looked at the next superfood...

4--sweet potatoes.  eew.  in my family we only ate sweet potatoes once a year-at thanksgiving.  that was not often enough to develop a taste for them--even when they had marshmallow filling. i have noticed several places are starting to serve sweet potato fries, but i am thinking that those might not really count as a superfood, although i could probably learn to like them.  i think my main problem with sweet potatoes are their texture.  maybe if i could hide them in a smoothie... a few days ago, ms. jessica gave me a little taste of her smoothie.  it was very healthy.  it had spinach in it.  "but you can't even taste it!" she said.  does she think i am five years old??  i am not that easily fooled.  it was GREEN for goodness sake.  it may have had all sorts of wonderful fruits and vegetables in it, but it was green.  there was spinach in it!  i tried it, but i can tell you that there was no way i would be able to drink a whole huge cup of it like she had.  no.  way.

now, if sweet potatoes tasted like pumpkin, there might be hope.  then again, i don't really like pumpkin either, unless it is in a pie or cookies or ice cream... and it is fall...

5--mushrooms.  ok, listen to this.  "mushrooms have long been an unsung hero in the realm of superfoods, but they are now starting to get recognized as a major player because they're the only fruit or vegetable source of vitamin D."  are you serious???? vitamin D comes from the sun.  the sun!  ten to fifteen minutes a day is all it supposedly takes to get your vitamin D fix, and i am out on the playground a whole lot longer than that every day!  even if you are not fortunate enough to live in the land of perpetual sunshine, there are always delicious, chewy dietary supplements that can be taken-i know because i take them.  i am NOT eating a mushroom.  it is a fungus, for goodness sake!!!

6--tomatoes.  "studies show that eating tomato products may reduce prostate cancer risk."

not my problem.

however, i know there are other benefits to eating tomatoes.  so i tried to learn to like them.  after all, i learned to like broccoli (and cauliflower, btw, which apparently is not a superfood.  i wish i had known that before i made myself eat it...) i thought i would start slowly, so whenever i ordered a sourdough jack at jack in the box, i would just say "no ketchup," but i would let them leave the sliced tomatoes on it.

baby steps, people, baby steps.

here was the problem--the hamburger was hot.  the tomato slices were cold.  and apparently the cold was stronger than the hot, because i know, i KNOW those tomato slices cooled my hamburger off to the point where it was barely edible.  so maybe tomato slices on my hamburgers was not a good idea...  and as we already know, the tiny grape tomatoes had too much of a squish factor to become a regular food.  although, i did plant a grape tomato plant, hoping that fresh ones would taste better than the ones in the store.  everyone said they would.  but what i discovered was that they just tasted more like a tomato!!!

7--blueberries.  this should be an easy one.  blueberries are a fruit, and fruit is sweet, and i like sweet things, so this one should be easy... and maybe it would be. except for the dreaded squish factor.

i can't help it.  i have texture issues.  little did i know that the blueberry muffins that you make with a jiffy mix, which i love, don't have real blueberries in them.  the first time i had a real blueberry muffin, i was horrified!  after the first blueberry exploded in my mouth, i laboriously picked out all the other blueberries so i could finish my breakfast!

my mom eats blueberries every morning on her cereal.  frozen blueberries.  she thinks they are wonderful.  but then, she also eats flax seed...

the last time i was at costco, i bought a bag of dried blueberries.  for rollie.  because i certainly don't want him to die, and if blueberries are the key to longevity, then by golly, he has got to eat them.  and he loves dried fruit, so i thought it was worth a try... yesterday i went into the man room just in time to see him throwing away the bag of dried blueberries.  "what are you doing?" i said. "those are good for you!  and you like dried fruit!!"  he made a face.  "i don't think i like dried blueberries.  they taste funny."  listen, those dried blueberries don't grow on trees!  those dried blueberries were expensive!!  i was not going to just let him throw them away.  "give them to me," i said.  "i'll try them.  maybe i will like them!"  i put one in my mouth.  "i think maybe it is ok to throw these away," i said...

8--dark chocolate!!  ok, now we are talking!  i can totally get on board with this one!  in fact, since i have started eating dark chocolate, milk chocolate just tastes too sweet for me--a novel concept, i know.  but anytime "they" say dark chocolate is good for me, i am just going to accept that at face value and do my very best to stay healthy by eating as much dark chocolate as i can get my hands on.  yep.  i will live to be 100 by eating dark chocolate...

one day i am going to come up with my own list of superfoods.  it will have absolutely nothing to do with nutrition and everything to do with satisfaction.  because the truth is, no matter how bad it is for you, sometimes you just have to have a cinnabon.

or two.

my 39th first day of school...

so today . . . it has been 146 days since i last blogged.  i'm sorry...

blogging is sort of like exercising--if you miss a few days, it is awfully hard to get back into the habit.  and if you miss 146 days... well, let's just say my blogging muscles have become flabby and perfectly happy sitting on the couch.

but here i am.  i apparently took the summer off... and most of the spring as well.  a lot has happened during that time.  i found out i was going to be a grandma (i know, it is hard to believe since i still look like i'm about 30... ok, you can stop laughing now...) school ended.  diandra and i went to portland for a week, and then rollie and i drove up to brookings to check on our house and then went on a cruise to mexico.  i found an awesome new house sitter (thank goodness, because it seems like we were gone a lot!) and switched classrooms... again!  we went to lots and lots of angels games, and made new friends (it's amazing how yelling at... i mean for... a team can unite you.)  i got a new car (pretty much like the old one, only better.) we went to denver for some meetings, (which meant i had to miss the first week of school,) and then school started.  for me.  today...

i was not late for school.  well, ok, i was one minute late, but i don't think one minute counts.  actually, i don't think five minutes counts--that is part of my problem!  but this year i am committed to being on time.  every day.  i just give myself a five minute grace period :) hopefully the person calculating the time cards will also give me a five minute grace period...

so i was on time.  i walked into my teeny tiny classroom (i forgot to mention that the new classroom i moved into is about the size of my kitchen.  my kitchen is a decent size for a kitchen, but pretty small for a classroom,) and groaned!  i had had to move all my stuff and organize the room three weeks ago, because i was going to be gone at the end of august and the beginning of september, so i had spent a couple of days trying to whip things into shape.  the truth is, it wasn't really up to my exacting standards, but i ran out of time, and so, there it was... 

however, changes had taken place since i left it.  some of them i expected--all the papers and stuff from last week--but there were other things that had been left in there that just had to go!  there is no space in my teeny tiny classroom for clutter (and by clutter, i mean anything that doesn't belong to ME!)  and since i was on time, but not early, i had to do some serious moving while still watching ten kindergarteners...

... and then i got the word that i was getting another student!  under normal circumstances, this would be a good thing, but these were not normal circumstances.  our space was already pretty well maxed out!  and all the workbook pages had already been organized for the whole year.  and the seating was ok for ten, but was going to be awfully tight for eleven...

...and then i lost two workbooks.  two.  i know i had them.  i know they were there.  but when i got ready to add them to the other workbook pages, they were gone.  i looked everywhere, but those two books were nowhere to be found!  and i need them, because as i just said, i am getting a new student and she is going to need those workbook pages...

...and then last week someone had let the kids bring blankets and pillows for rest time.  big pillows.  and blankets.  now i can't complain too much since i was gone, but there is no room in our teeny tiny classroom to store big pillows and blankets for eleven students--not to mention what pillows and blankets to do rest time!  does anyone rest?!? of course not!  all they do is play with their blankets and pillows... especially if the pillows are pillow pets...

...and then i had one little dumpling who brought all of his own food today.  no allergies, he just wanted to bring his own food.  this created issues with the other kids who would rather have his food than the school's food.  ok, i'll admit there are days when i would rather have his food too, but today his food was almost exactly the same as the school's food!! and yet, there it sat in his brand new, totally unnecessary lunch box, calling his name, while his mean teacher (that would be me,) made him eat what everyone else was eating...

my desk is a mess.  there are stacks of papers everywhere.  the children are having to adjust to quiet voices and walking feet and holding a pencil correctly. i am having to adjust to not having an aide, or a bathroom in the class, or a sink, or space to move around.  i had kids trying to cut their plastic pencil box with their brand new scissors, i had kids asking "but when do we get to play?" over and over and over again, i had kids falling out of their chairs and coloring their hands with their markers.  it was not the best of first days...

...but in the middle of all of that chaos, i laughed.  i was explaining about echos and how i wanted the children to "echo" what i was saying as we were learning a new sound.  so i finished explaining and found the song that i use to teach the vowels, and reminded them to "echo" me... and then before i could start the song, i coughed.  which resulted in... you guessed it... a whole chorus of coughs!

oh well... they may not have mastered the short vowel sound of "i", but at least they were listening and trying to follow my directions...

tomorrow is another day :)

now if i can just keep the chinese teacher's materials from taking over my space...

rain = no need for sunglasses :(

so today . . .  it rained.

it rained.  here i am, with brand new prescription sunglasses...  and it rained.

the cosmos hates me...

new glasses = a big smile :)

so today . . .  i got new glasses :)  actually, i got three pair of new glasses :) :) :)

i've had issues with my eyes since i fell and broke my glasses a couple of year ago.  before that, i would get my eyes checked, get a pair of glasses, wear them until i noticed i couldn't see anymore, and then lather, rinse, repeat...

but that cycle was broken when i fell and broke my glasses last year.  my new glasses just didn't seem to work as well as the old ones.  but the problem was, i had my glasses made at a different place than i had the exam.  so, who to blame?  were the glasses made incorrectly?  was the exam faulty? or was the prescription written incorrectly?

 i sort of have my suspicions...

i sort of think that perhaps there was a mistake with the prescription.  but by the time i realized that there was maybe a problem with the glasses and i wasn't just adjusting to a new prescription, it was too late to get anything done.  and i really loved the glasses, so i learned to live with it.  but i was determined that when i was ready for another eye exam, i would get both my exam and glasses at kaiser (where i have insurance.)  then, if there was a problem, i could get help.

so, i made an appointment for an eye exam at the beginning of march.  my plan was to keep my frames (which i love) and just get new lenses.  i had the exam.  i was the first appointment in the morning, because i am convinced that my eyes are worse in the morning.  the doctor said there wasn't much change.  this should have been my first clue that things were not going to go smoothly...  i know i have trouble seeing, especially close up, so when he said there wasn't much change, i should have realized that something was wrong.  but it was early, my brain wasn't really percolating yet, and i needed to get back to work.

i went out to see what it was going to cost to get new lenses, only to discover that my insurance benefit wouldn't kick in until november.  november.  that's seven months away!  and that wasn't the only problem.  the bigger problem was that i only have this one pair of glasses, and since kaiser sends their glasses out for lenses, i would be without any corrective eyewear for two weeks.  which is just impossible.

clearly, i needed a new pair of glasses.  right now.  i took a few minutes to look at kaiser.  i pulled the frames off that i had seen the day before (apparently the woman i helped decided to go another way...)  i asked about the price, and decided nearly $600 was too much for a back up pair of glasses.  because, again, i really like the glasses i have!  i needed another solution...

i scoured the internet.  i checked out target (did you know they have an optical department?  i'm telling you, target has EVERYTHING!)  i found glasses i liked, but the prices were still too high.  and then i saw an ad for glasses at sears. (SEARS has an optical department?!?!?)  it was a screamin' deal for two pair of glasses.  so i went in.  just to check it out...

and i met danielle.  danielle is about 12 years old, and contrary to my previous experiences, didn't wear any glasses at all!  i asked danielle about the special and she explained it to me, finishing with, "look around!  see what you like, and let me know when you are ready for me to figure out the price for you."  ok, i could do that.  because while sears does have an optical department, it is about the size of my bathroom, so it wasn't going to take long...

i was by myself.  shopping for new glasses.  this is usually not a good idea.  except, i have very definite ideas about what i like, so even when someone else is with me, i am pretty much just looking for them to say, "oh yeah, i like those."  danielle was able to fill that need for me, and by the time i was done, she had written up an order for two pair of glasses and a pair of prescription sunglasses (which i have never, ever had before!  good bye fit-overs!) and all for less than it was going to cost me for one pair of glasses at kaiser...

(to be fair, these are not designer frames, and one of them was on clearance.  but i like them.  and did i mention that i also got sunglasses?!?!?  they aren't sparkly.  but, i can take them to the oc swap meet and have the lady who does the very expensive phone covers encrusted with swarovsky crystals add some bling for me.  which is my evil plan for saturday morning... and it is only an evil plan, because i am not telling rollie that i am going.  he has to work on saturday, so he can't go.  and i'm taking diandra, which means it will be fun.  but i don't want rollie to be sitting in meetings, thinking he would rather be with us at the swap meet and feeling all bummed.  so i'm just not going to tell him we are going until we get back.  and that is why i have to label my plan as evil...)

but i had to go home and think it over.  it seemed like a good deal.  and i would finally have an actual pair of prescription sunglasses with non-glare coating on both sides of the lenses--a major benefit when you have to deal with the califoria sunshine nearly every day!  but you know me,  i needed time to percolate, process, and ponder...

which i did, for over a week, until danielle called to remind me that the sale would be ending in two days!  so i quit percolating, processing, and pondering, and talked it over with rollie.  we made a decision (which included the sunglasses-yay!) and the order was placed.  which meant i had to wait.  again.  i am terrible at waiting...

i woke up this morning feeling the anticipation that new glasses always brings.  i went to work, and then i dashed to sears as soon as i clocked out.  danielle wasn't there (which is probably just as well.  she keeps telling me how i HAVE to go see 'the hunger games,' because it is 'the best movie EVER!!')  but i was still able to pick up my new glasses.  all three pair.  and i do think the prescription is better, even if it is only a little bit different...

i certainly hope that these glasses work for me, because once again, i had my eye exam at one place and puchased my glasses at another place.  and i did this mostly because i needed glasses now and kaiser has shut me out until november and sears had such a sweet deal.

but next time... next time i am going to get my act together.  next time i am going to keep track of when my insurance benefits actually benefit me.  next time i'm going to get my exam and my glasses at the same place. next time i will take someone with me to offer a second opinion...

... because now that i have my new glasses at home, i am kind of wondering if a purple sparkly frame was really the best choice...

the tv saga continues... but with renewed hope!

so today . . .  i got an email back from samsung.

"Dear Samsung Customer,

We apologize for the inconvenience you have experienced with your Samsung product.

Your request for service has been forwarded to an Authorized Samsung Service Center who will be in touch with you shortly.

Please visit our web site to track the status of any service tickets you have registered with Samsung.

You can also chat with one of our agents to follow up with your service request.

Thank you for being a Samsung Customer

Sincerely,
Rajiv Mehta
V.P. Samsung Service Operations"

i think this is good news.  if they weren't going to cover the damage to the tv, surely they would have told us by now.  surely they wouldn't be kicking this on up the food chain just to finally tell us 'no.'  they've seen the pictures.  they read my letter.  i think this whole warranty thing is going to be the answer!

so i am encouraged.  i am starting to see visions of a 59 inch plasma tv on my family room wall.  without a big crack in it!  i am thinking that i might be able to read the information from shopping tv when i am cooking in the kitchen.  (ok, cooking is maybe a little bit of an exaggeration.  maybe it would be more accurate to say 'when i am preparing food...'  or eating food...)   i am hopeful that we will finally have a tv that is big enough to cover up the damage that the previous owners left on the wall over the fireplace, (which really doesn't matter, because i know that it is there, and one day i am going to have to spackle and paint it anyway... even if no one can see it behind the giant tv...)  i am grateful that i won't have to go back to walmart and try to convince a suspicious customer service person that i didn't impale that giant screen with an ice pick (because that is what it looks like, although it is probably damage from a forklift.)

so thank you samsung!  i look forward to hearing from you...

... i think.

drugs for the patients? or for the parents...

so today . . .  our doggies were at the vet.  all day.  they had their teeth cleaned...

i know, this sounds crazy.  we've never had any of our dogs' teeth cleaned.  ever.  but milo has really, really bad breath.  and we can't trim mia's nails, which are getting dangerously long.  and both pups need their shots because it is time to renew their licenses.  so when we got a sale flyer from the vet just down the street from us advertising a doggie dental special, we decided to take advantage of it.

our dogs don't have a regular vet.  they are healthy beasts, and usually i just take them to petco for their shots.  but they are getting older, and when we moved to within a mile of a pet hospital, it seemed like a good idea to find a doctor for our pups.  because as they get older, if they have health problems, it would be nice to be able to take them to someone who knows them.  so taking them in to get their teeth cleaned was really only an excuse.  we needed a doggie doctor.

when i called last week to get an appointment, i was informed that before the dental procedure could be performed, our pups needed a pre-op appointment.  ok, i could understand that.  they were going to go under a general anesthesia, so it made sense that the vet wanted to be sure that they were in good general health first.  since the facility is only 3/4 of a mile from our house, we decided to walk the pups to their appointment.  our hope was that they would be relaxed and a little bit tired when we got them there.

it didn't work.

milo took two steps into the waiting room and hit the brakes.  i mean, he HIT THE BRAKES!  i have never seen him do that before.  one second he was walking happily along, and the next second his claws were spread out, his rear end was in the air and his head and shoulders were planted on the floor.  he was not budging!  i called.  i coaxed.  i pulled on his leash.  he didn't move.  i finally had to pick him up and carry him in...

mia, on the other hand, walked in and immediately went into panic mode.  she shook.  her tail was so far forward between her legs that it almost reached her neck!  she was panting.  she jumped up in rollie's lap and down on the floor and up in my lap and down on the floor.  she paced.  she panted some more.  she wanted to be held, but she didn't want to be held.

and this went on for half an hour, because it didn't take us nearly as long to walk 3/4 of a mile as we thought it would, so we were early.  of course.

once i got milo into the waiting room, he was fine.  there was another small dog waiting for their appointment, wearing the 'cone of shame.'  as soon as milo saw her, he started wagging his tail and whining.  suddenly he was mr. personality.  and then a big dog walked in, and milo went into 'who do you think you are? get out of my waiting room!' mode.  he went on point.  his tail stood straight up.  his hackles raised.  he barked!  repeatedly!!  and this obnoxious behavior continued with every big dog that walked in.  i finally took him outside.  which made mia even more nervous!

we couldn't win...

at last they called our name.  we walked into the exam room and met our new vet, dr. marchand.  he was very nice, and milo warmed up fairly quickly.  but mia was having none of it!  her tail was still between her legs.  she was still panting.  she had one eye on the door and one eye on the vet.  after a few minutes, he decided to complete milo's exam and then took him down the hall for his shots.  but mia was... let's just say, very resistant to any contact.  at all.  he finally managed to do a quick exam to make sure that she could undergo the dental procedure, and then said that maybe it would be best to just give her her shots while she was out for the surgery.  and then he gave us some tranquilizers for her.

a smart move on his part :)

rollie had to get up at 5:45 this morning to give mia her tranquilizer, because today was dental procedure day.  the tranquilizer was supposed to relax her so that she wouldn't be so anxious.  and on a normal dog, it probably would have worked, but mia is not normal.  mia likes to be in control and on alert.  rollie gave her 1 1/2 tablets, but she fought off that tranquilizer like her life depended on it.  and so, at 8:00 this morning we sat in the vet's office with a repeat performance of our first visit.

and then they came and took our pups.  i cried.  i cried!  i never cry.  and i knew they were going to be fine, and i knew this was something that needed to be done, but when i watched them walk through that door back to the surgery area all alone, i cried.  there was no way they could understand what was about to happen to them.  i was especially worried about mia, because we got her from the pound, so she had spent at least a few days in a cage, and i was worried that she would think we had sent her away, back to a cage.  and then there is milo... who just needs a face to lick and a lap to sit it.  he is always so happy and loveable.  he was not going to understand being all alone in a cage. 

our dogs don't go anywhere.  they are always at home.  together.  free!  when we go on vacation, we find someone to come and stay at home with them.  so i knew they weren't going to understand why they were all alone in a strange place.  i hoped that the vet gave them something to make them sleep all day... although seeing how mia fought the tranquilizers, i wasn't sure they had enough drugs in the whole place to make her sleep...

it was a long day.  i kept watching the clock and my phone.  i knew they wouldn't do the procedure until about 11:00, and dr. marchand said he would call when they started to wake up around 3:30, and so i waited and watched.

at 3:30 my phone rang.  the puppies were fine.  well, mia was fine.  milo had to have 6 teeth removed and was going to have to have an antibiotic for a week, but he had survived.  their teeth were clean, their shots had been given, and their nails were trimmed.  we went to pick them up and mia was sooo ready to go home!  milo just kept looking at me like, "don't ever try that again!"

my only hope is that their little doggie brains will forget today's ordeal.  because i know this is not their last trip to see the vet.  i know they are going to have to go back.  they will need shots again.  they will need their nails trimmed again.  and it is possible that they will need their teeth cleaned again...

maybe next time rollie and i should take the tranquilizers...

if you throw yourself on their mercy, how can they resist?

so today . . .  i am like a dog with a bone.  i just can't let it go...

it's the tv.  the new tv.  the broken tv.  it was such a good deal.  there has to be a solution...

yesterday while i was sitting on the couch, eating the universal "i've been sick and i don't want to throw up ever again" food, watching the small tv (ok, it isn't really small, it just looks that way now that i've seen a monster tv up there...) on the big wall, i had a thought.  i'm not sure it was a good thought, since my brain hasn't had anything to eat for nearly 48 hours, but still, it was a thought.  "why didn't we buy the extended warranty on that tv?!"

and then i sat up!  (figuratively.  my brain sat up.  my body was still reclining.)  "wait a minute," i thought.  "we didn't buy the extended warranty, but it came with a one year warranty.  maybe the warranty will cover the cracked screen!"  so when rollie started talking about filling up the back of the prius with the tv and taking it back to walmart, i said, "let's wait until i can contact samsung.  maybe this will be covered under the warranty!"  he looked at me doubtfully, but since his least favorite thing on the planet to do is to return something (especially a giant plasma tv with a cracked screen,) he gave in quickly and left me to it...

i had a plan.  so i came home from school today and called samsung.  i talked to a customer service guy who kept telling me how sorry he was that we were having this problem!  he kept putting me on hold to go check on things.  he finally told me to take some pictures and email them, and he would transfer them on to the service center.  and again, he was so sorry we were having this problem with a samsung product!

 ok!  now i was getting somewhere!  the only problem was, we had already boxed the tv up so we could return it.  but unboxing it was a small price to pay to get it fixed, right?  well, yes, but it still wasn't easy.  that tv is heavy and bulky, and lifting it up out of the box, and worse yet, putting it back in, was no small feat.  but we did it. and i had my pictures...

i took pictures of everything!  and then i wrote an email, included the pictures, and ended with this--"we have always had good luck with our samsung products and are hopeful that this situation can also be resolved in a positive way."  surely, i thought, they would not be able to resist my hopefulness.  surely they would take one look at those photos and think, "what a terrible thing!  how quickly can we send these nice people a brand new tv??"

yeah, i know, i live in a dream world...

but you just never know.  stranger things have happened!  right?

i guess we will see...

so now we sit and wait.  they said i would hear from someone within 24-48 hours.  i am hopeful that when i hear from someone, it will be to ask me when i will be home so that they can bring me a new tv.  one without a broken screen...

... because i'm not going to lie.  i am not really excited about the idea of having to load that thing back into the prius and hauling it back to walmart and convincing the customer service person that i did NOT break the screen after i got it home...

it sucks to be sick... especially on the weekend...

so today . . .  i am sick.  as a dog.  and it's easter!!

i got sick friday night.  in the night.  you know what that means...  i spent all day yesterday trying to keep the stuff inside my body that belonged there, but my body was not very cooperative.  so i spent the day laying on the couch, unsuccessfully ingesting saltines and 7-up, and trying to stay awake.  because even when i am sick, i have a plan...

i had a plan for yesterday.  my plan was to get up early, go to the nursery and buy beautiful flowers to plant, come home and plant them, take a shower, and then spend the afternoon at angels stadium (collecting my free blanket giveaway and watching them win!)  none of these things happened, because i was sick.  as a dog.

so i naturally went to plan b.  which was to lay on the couch with my computer and work on the wedding album i am designing, catch up on my emails, maybe learn how to use a few of the gazillions of apps i have downloaded onto my ipad.  because just because i was sick, was no reason to waste a perfectly good saturday, even if i didn't get to buy plants or go to the ballgame or get my free blanket...

i thought i would accomplish all of this while watching tv on the new tv we bought yesterday for the family room.  we decided if our tax return would cover it, we would get a bigger tv for the family room, so i could see it better while i am in the kitchen.  (yes, sometimes i am in the kitchen!  especially now when i can watch tv while i am in there!!)  and also because when it comes to tvs, rollie thinks bigger is always better.  in fact, i had to measure the space to be sure he didn't come home with one that was TOO BIG FOR THE WALL SPACE, because that was a real possibility...  but this morning when rollie unpacked the tv and prepared to install it on the wall, he found a big crack across the screen!  which means the tv probably has to go back, and now rollie is seriously bummed, because we got a really, really good deal on this particular tv (with the crack... could there possibly be a connection?) and there is no way we can afford an unbroken tv of the same size.  which means, we are going to have to go smaller.  but now that he has seen how a really, really big tv looks on that wall, anything smaller is not going to make him happy...

stupid crack.

i tried to do the computer stuff, but i had no energy and no brain.  it was taking everything i had to keep from being "sick."  ok, so on to plan c--catch up on all the stuff my tivo had been recording.  i settled in with the remote (only now it took two remotes to operate the tv, because the better tv that was in the family room was now in the bedroom, and the inferior tv was in the family room, instead of the guest bedroom where it was headed.  and if you are planning to someday sleep in that guest bedroom, you should know that it isn't a bad tv--it just doesn't play well with tivo.  and since there is no tivo in the guest bedroom, it will be perfect there.  but it isn't perfect in the family room...  especially when there is a 59 inch plasma tv just sitting there in a box... with a crack in it... stupid crack!)  i watched one show, but had to keep rewinding it because i kept falling asleep.  i finally gave up and just went to sleep.  but my phone kept beeping with text messages and facebook updates.  and yes, i could have just shut the phone off, but rollie was at the angels game, without me.  what if he needed me???  what if he got hit in the head with a foul ball and was unconscious??  what if he had an accident on the way home???  so i left the phone on and just dozed...

when rollie got home (safely) from the game, i was still on the couch.  he gave me the terrible news that the angels had not won, but the good news that our friend dan, (who graciously used my ticket,) had also graciously given me the free blanket from the giveaway (and by graciously, i mean with many sighs and talk of what a sacrifice it was...)  i decided i had been up long enough.  i trudged up to bed and finally slept.  and didn't throw up!  i thought that was a good sign. 

but not good enough for me to accomplish my plans for today.  since i hadn't been able to keep anything down yesterday, i figured my plan b for today was going to mostly consist of trying to eat and drink and not get sick.  no church (on easter!!)  no ballgame (which they lost... i think i might be the angels good luck charm.  they are 1-2 this season, and they won the game i was at.  so, yeah, i think they should be paying me to come to their games...)  and no orange chicken (which was my plan for easter dinner, which was going to be eaten at the ball park, in the more than warm enough sunshine.)

my weekend was pretty much a total bust.  why i couldn't have been sick on a tuesday and wednesday, or wednesday and thursday is beyond me.  in fact, i am seriously considering being sick just one more day...  after all, i accomplished NOTHING this weekend...

...well, except for collecting my free angels blanket.

 thanks dan ;)

friday, part 2

so today . . .  we went to our first angels game of the season.  (i know, i know, that is how the last blog started, but then i got sidetracked about the tv...)  we were so excited!

this was going to be a new experience for us.  we have never had season tickets to anything.  we have been to angels games before.  we know some people who have season tickets, and when they can't go, sometimes they give us their tickets.  and they have really, really good seats!!  our seats are not "quite" that good...  or even close.  but we think they are going to be fine.  they are on the top level just past third base, which is the side of the stadium we like.  and after 2:00 p.m. they should be in the shade.  at least, that is what they told rollie when he bought the tickets.  i hope that is true, or i will probably not be going to many day games...

but this was not a day game.  this was a friday night game (which meant fireworks at the end,) and the first game of the season (which meant a giant flag on the field, david cook singing the national anthem, and a military flyover.  i took video of all of this, but it is too big to use... now i wish i had just taken photos.)

 we were so excited.

we left an hour and a half early, and i didn't even complain.  not once!  traffic on the freeway wasn't bad, so it didn't take us long to get there.  we have this cool parking pass that lets us into a special parking lot, but we weren't sure where it was.  as it turned out, navigating the freeway traffic and finding the parking lot turned out to be the easy part...

the reserved parking lot was on the first base side of the stadium.  which was a bit of an issue since our tickets were on the third base side.  no problem, we thought, we will just drive around...  that turned out to be impossible!  there were sheriffs on horseback, little old guys in red vests and hats trying to direct traffic that didn't want to go where they wanted it to go (including us!) 

and then...  we ended up... in the tailgating section!!!  i didn't even know there was a tailgating section, but let me tell you, those people just sort of took over their part of the parking lot!  it was crowded with not just cars, but people as well... and those sheriffs on horseback.  who, btw, were going the wrong direction!

it was a nightmare.

one of the parking attendants finally stopped us and asked if we were lost.  "yes!" we said.  he stopped traffic and let us go in through an exit.  maybe he thought we were a traffic hazard, or maybe he just didn't want to see us go around one more time.  either way, it got us out of the line of fire and into a safe place...

...but when you park on the third base side of the stadium and your tickets are in the top section on the first base side of the stadium, you have a loooong walk ahead of you.  trust me.  and so, walk we did... along with 44,106 other people...

we have decided that next time we will forgo any special treatment and park in the regular lot on the first base side of the stadium.

still, we got to our seats with plenty of time to spare.  but that worked out great, because since this was the first game of the season, there were lots of preliminary festivities.  (which i can't show you, because as i said, i took video instead of photos!!  next time i will know better...)  but i did get a few pictures.  this is our new superstar player. 

i think his last name is puhjoles.  don't ask me how to pronounce it--it's embarassing--but he is apparently a home run megahitter.  and he is from cuba (which, now that we have a cuban son-in-law, seems noteworthy enough to mention.)

puhjoles chose not to hit a home run tonight.  in fact, nobody was hitting much of anything. it was a slow game.  at the seventh inning stretch, the score was still 0-0.  i was beginning to doubt all the hype i had been hearing about our angels this year.  so far, i wasn't seeing any of it...

and then, there was the seventh inning stretch.  apparently david cook had left the building, because his was not the voice we heard.  instead, a young teenaged girl (who was pretty good,) led the whole stadium in "God bless America," and then, "take me out to the ballgame," followed by the traditional "build me up, buttercup!"  yes, it was quite an eclectic musical interlude...

and then... the rally monkey made his first appearance of the season.

the rally monkey comes out after the seventh inning stretch if the angels are behind.  and that thing is magic!  angels fans tend to be pretty laid back.  as a whole, they don't really get on board with the whole "let's make some noise!" stuff.  they will make a little noise.  they will cheer and boo according to what is going on.  but they are not the wild and crazy fans that some teams have...

...until the rally monkey comes out.  then the crowd gets loud!  (maybe it is because they have been drinking for two hours by then.  i don't know, but i choose to think it is more about cheering their team on to victory!)  people dance.  people swing their rally monkeys around.  people yell.  it gets crazy...

and the team scores.  not every single time, but often enough.  they score.  not only does the rally monkey inspire the angels to score, but he also strikes fear into the hearts of the opposing teams.  he is a double threat.  and tonight, he worked his magic, and we won.

not without incident though.  i got beaned with a cell phone...

i was sitting in my seat, minding my own business, eating nachos (because really, i go to the games for the food, freebies, and fireworks,) when something whacked me on the head.  at first, i thought it must be a stray ball, and i was wondering why it had struck my head instead of resting in rollie's hands!  because surely if a stray ball had come near us, he would have caught it... or at least knocked me out of the way... or thrown himself over me to protect me!  but there i was, with a knot on my noggin, and enough pain that i was seriously considering crying.  and the ball was still on the field.  don't ask me why someone's cell phone was flying through the air, or why it landed on MY head instead of the thousand other places it could have landed...  i kept rubbing my head.  i'm sure the people behind me thought i was a big whiny crybaby, but that thing felt like it had been dropped from outer space!  i'm telling you, if i ever get hit with an actual stray ball, i will probably just die...

then again, maybe not.  i was pretty darned brave when i broke my wrist!  let's just hope we never have to find out...

but i survived.  and the angels won.  and since it was friday night, there were fireworks! i told rollie when he bought these tickets that i probably wouldn't go to all the games.  i know there will be other people that he would like to take once in a while, and i am good with that--especially during those weeks when they play every single night of the week.  "but," i said, "i want to go to the friday night games.  all of them."  why?  because there are fireworks at the end on friday nights, and i looooove fireworks!!

especially on a night when we win.  although on a night when we win, more people stay for the fireworks, which meant that getting back to our car and out of the parking lot was a bit of an ordeal.  clearly we had parked on the wrong side of the stadium!  it felt like we were salmon swimming upstream to spawn (wow, two hunting and fishing metaphors in one day!  my oregon roots must be showing.)  but we finally made it back to our car and onto the freeway...

...which seemed oddly safe after navigating the stadium concourse and parking lots!

one game down, eighty one to go...

:)

friday, part 1

so today . . .  we went to our first angels game of the season.  it was so much fun!  we were so excited!!

and then our tax return popped into our bank account...

"let's go get a tv!" rollie said.

the first time rollie walked into our new house, before we knew it was going to be our new house, he said it knew it was the right one.  he said he just knew it when he walked in the door.  i sort of think he knew it when he saw the gigantic tv on the wall in the family room!  of course that tv did not come with the house, but i know rollie has had visions of a huge tv in that spot ever since that day.

but big tvs are expensive, and not in our operating budget.  income tax returns however, can sometimes cover non-budgeted and non-essential items like big tvs.  so the minute that return hit our bank account, rollie was ready to go.

i, of course, was a little slower to get with the program.  i kept thinking about all the other things we could do with that money.  rollie kept saying, no we couldn't, the money was for a tv--we had agreed.  and he couldn't understand why i wasn't more excited about it, since it was going in the family room which is where i watch most of my tv.  really, this tv was for me!

uh huh...

so off we went.  but our time was limited, because we had a baseball game to go to!!

he wanted to go to costco.  i wanted to go to walmart.  we decided to check out walmart first, then go to costco, then make a decision.  this is the way i shop.  it is not the way rollie shops, but for some reason, today he agreed to my methodology.  which turned out to be a blessing and a curse...

when we got to walmart, it looked like they were clearing out all their tvs!  the tv wall was half empty!  we had decided to get the biggest led tv we could afford.  it probably wouldn't be as big as we wanted, but we didn't have thousands of dollars to spend, so we would have to be content with what we could get!  we found a couple of possibilities to keep in mind as we went to costco.  and then, as we were walking out of the electronics department, we found a 59 inch plasma tv on sale for a ridiculously low price!  i whipped out my phone and started researching online.  rollie whipped out his phone and scanned the upc code.  his way was faster, and in a couple of minutes he discovered that this tv was selling for less than half of its suggested retail price!  bargain!  bargain!!  bargain!!!  but we showed great restraint, walked away, and went to costco to compare.

costco had a lot of tvs, but the one we would have wanted was about $400 more than the one at walmart.  we debated between plasma and led.  we debated the difference in price.  i did some more online comparisons, and we finally decided to get the one at walmart... if it was still there.

and it was.  now we were excited!  we paid for the tv, declined the three year extended warranty, and waited for a store employee to bring the big rolling cart so we could get that thing home!  rollie kept saying, "we are going to have to call diandra and have her come pick us up in the rodeo.  this will never fit in the prius!"  but i knew it would.  i had measured it!  they rolled it out to the car, and the walmart employee took one look at the prius and just shook his head.  "trust me," i said, "it will fit!  i measured it!!"  they both looked at me like i was a crazy person, but when dealing with a crazy person, i guess it is best if you give them what they want... so they picked it up and tried to put it in the car... and it wouldn't fit.

"no, wait!" i said, "you have to put it in straight, not at an angle!"  they still weren't convinced.  i could see it in the way they rolled their eyes.  but i knew it would fit.  did i mention that i had measured it???  so i went over to one side and helped them lay it down flat, and guess what?  it fit.  perfectly.

well, nearly perfectly.  we thought the back might stick out a little bit, but rollie moved a few things around inside the car and found us a couple of extra inches which is all we needed to get the back of the car closed.

while he was doing that, i was dancing around on the sidewalk, giving myself a thumbs up, and saying to anyone who would listen (and even some who didn't quite know what to think of me, including the walmart employee) "oh yeah! listen to the girl!! oh yeah!  listen to the girl!!"

we had bagged and tagged our tv!  and successfully put it in the freezer!  (not really!  it's a hunting expression!  it was actually sitting in the entryway...)  but since we had used my method of shopping (check out every possibility before making a decision,) rather than rollie's method of shopping (buy the first one you see and go home,) now there was no time to install the beautiful new tv...

..because we had a game to go to!

counting the days...

so today . . .  i've smacked myself in the head more than once.  it's just been that kind of day...

my class is falling apart.  i don't know what is going on.  maybe it is spring fever, although, when you live in the land of perpetual sunshine, spring never really disappears.  i mean, we haven't made the kids wear their coats outside more than four or five times all winter.  and even when we do, after five minutes, the fence is covered with tiny little coats that have been shed amid cries of, "but i'm HOT!!!!"

unless, of course, it is "raining."  just let a southern california kid feel a drop of moisture fall from the sky onto their skin, and they will carry on like they are going to die!! 

but i digress...

my class is falling apart.  it has been a wild and wooly year.  which is part of the reason why i haven't blogged too much about school this year.  my year has mostly consisted of trying to gain and maintain some kind of control with a group of kids that seem to be oblivious to the fact that i am actually in the classroom and in charge...  i don't like to yell, but i confess that i have had to raise my voice more than once or twice, JUST TO BE HEARD!!  i have a bell that has worked well with previous classes, but this class has not responded in the desired way to the bell, so the bell has been relegated to the closet...

at any given moment, there are probably two girls arguing, a little boy doing ninja moves, one child hitting or pinching someone (or preparing to hit or pinch someone,)  a girl crying, "he hurt my feelings!" two children throwing toys that are not meant to be thrown, one child grabbing the ONE white trapezoid shaped lego from another child, who is yelling, "I HAD IT FIRST!!!" and then grabbing it back, while the other child yells, "HE TOOK MY LEGO FROM ME!!!!"   there will be at least two children fighting over the same book, maybe three, and one child taking forever in the bathroom... and you know what that means...  two children will be pulling the bin of wooden beads back and forth, both trying to get it closer to them, until the whole thing falls on the floor and beads go everywhere...

to be fair, there will be a couple of little girls and maybe a little boy who will be doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing... until they get hit with a flying toy or become the victim of the hitter/pincher or ninja boy.  and then, all bets are off...

outside play time is more of the same, only to the tenth power!  it is a constant battle to keep kids happy and safe amid out of control bike riders, boys who insist on playing power rangers and star wars, and girls who form exclusive groups or guard the slide so no one but their friends can use it.  if it weren't for the warm sunshine, recess would be a nightmare...

today i was standing on the edge of the playground, soaking up the sunshine, when chloe came running up to me.  "they won't let me play with them!" she said.  "who?" i asked.  "lucy and nigel.  they won't let me play with them!" she repeated.  "why not?" i asked.  "they just said i can't!!" she wailed.

there are times when i send kids back into the battle with instructions instead of solving the problem for them.  i want to teach them to deal with their issues on their own.  but sometimes, with some children, they just need a little help.  this was one of those situations.  "alright," i said, "come on.  let's go see if we can work it out."  we walked over to where the kids were playing.  "chloe said you guys wouldn't let her play with you." 

i do this a lot.  i just state what is happening and wait to see what they will say.  it makes them think.  which is what they did.  i was suddenly met with blank stares.  that's the look i get when they don't want to tell me what is going on. 

i picked the child who was most afraid of getting into trouble.  "nigel," i said, "what happened?  why won't you let chloe play with you?"  he looked at me with his big eyes and said, "because, there is already a sister, and chloe wants to be a sister."  "can't there be two sisters?" i asked.  "no," he said, "we already have a sister!"  the wide-eyed "am i going to get in trouble" look was now gone, replaced with a look of "duh!  how can you even ask such a dumb question?!?!" look.  "but you guys are just pretending.  lucy isn't really your sister either.  since you are pretending, can't you just pretend that there are two sisters?" i asked.


this is a tricky situation for a four year old.  he knows what he wants.  he knows what i want.  he knows that he doesn't want what i want.  but i'm the teacher.  i have the power to banish him to time out for the rest of his life (or at least the rest of recess, which feels like the rest of his life to him,) and so the wheels are turning... he is trying to decide what the right thing is to say that will keep him out of time out, but also let him play the way he wants to.  finally he gave in.  "ok," he reluctantly said, "she can be a sister."

yes!  victory!!  and i didn't even have to mention time out!  i turned to tell chloe that she can now play the game she was dying to play with the kids she was desperate to play with... and she was gone.

SHE WAS GONE!!  there i was, using my teacher powers to get her into the game, above the protests of the children who didn't want to expand the game. and she was gone.

i looked around and spotted her across the playground riding a scooter, amid the insanely crazy bike riders.  "CHLOE!" i yelled, "I THOUGHT YOU WANTED TO PLAY WITH NIGEL AND LUCY!"  another blank stare.  "WHAT???" she said.  "I THOUGHT YOU WANTED TO PLAY WITH NIGEL AND LUCY!  THEY SAID YOU CAN PLAY.  YOU CAN BE A SISTER!"  i'm thinking she will be thrilled!  i am thinking she will drop that scooter and hustle across that playground so she can "be a sister."  but she doesn't.  "BUT I'M RIDING THE SCOOTER!" she yells.  and then she takes off on the scooter in the opposite direction...
  
this is what i am talking about.  the drama.  the attention span of an ant. and did i mention the drama??

my kids are slowly killing me this year.  but the truth is, it is april.  we only have nine weeks of school left.  if i haven't gotten them whipped into shape by now, the sad truth is, it isn't going to happen.  i've tried my best, but some years are just like that.  individually, i like them all.  but together??

together, they may drive me to drink...

;)

the power of suggestion strikes again...

so today . . .  i cannot blog.

i cannot blog today, but not for the usual reasons.  usually when i say i cannot blog, it is because i am too tired, or nothing blog-worthy happened, or my brain has left the building.  but none of those reasons are the reason i cannot blog today... (well, except that really nothing blog-worthy happened, but i could probably come up with something if i gave it some thought.)  the problem today is that i need to do report cards and homework letters for school tomorrow, and it is already almost 10:00!

why, you may ask, didn't i get started earlier?  well, i have my reasons!

first of all, i didn't sleep very well last night.  and it is all my doctor's fault! 

i had to go to the doctor yesterday for a follow up visit to my "annual procedure."  she is not happy with the mediocre results we are getting with my current medications, so she wants to make some changes in a few weeks.  in order to make the best decision, she started asking me some questions about how my current medications are affecting me.  "are you irritable?" she asked.  "i don't think so," i replied.  "i mean, my husband hasn't looked at me like i was a crazy person and asked what the heck was wrong with me!  so no, i don't think i am irritable."  "ok," she said, "what about sleeping?  are you sleeping ok?"  "yes," i said, "i sleep really good!  sometimes i wake up in the night, but i usually go right back to sleep.  but sometimes i go to bed really late." (i didn't tell her it was because i blog!) "so maybe i don't get enough sleep, but not because i CAN'T sleep."  "ok," she said, "i'm asking because one of your medications tends to ramp most people up."

what?!?!  one of my medications tends to ramp most people up?  where is my ramping up???  this is a side effect i could use!  it seems like i am always tired (probably because i hardly have any iron in my blood, but that is another story...) i think that if i have to take this medication, it is only fair that i get the good side effects...

now i am irritable.

but my doctor said adequate sleep is important to managing my medical issues.  so last night i went to bed early.  before 9:00!   and laid there, not sleeping.  i didn't get to sleep until after 11:00, and then i woke up every couple of hours!  all. night. long.  this has never happened to me before.  i am usually a good sleeper.  i stay up until i am tired, and then i fall asleep quickly and am dead to the world until i start smacking the snooze button on my alarm at 7:00 in the morning.

in fact once, our security system went off in the middle of the night.  rollie immediately leaped out of bed, grabbed a weapon and went to investigate.  diandra jumped out of bed and peeked out into the hall to see what was happening.  the dogs barked, and mia jumped off the bed and on the bed and off the bed and on the bed.  i was aware that the alarm had gone off, but i just rolled over and continued to sleep.  i only know what happened, because rollie told me the next morning... along with little comments like, "if i wasn't home, and that was a real burglar breaking in to the house, you would be dead!  you have to pay attention to the alarm!"  i sort of think that if i was alone and a real burglar was breaking into the house, my best defense would be to stay asleep and hope he would just take the valuables and run...

but i digress.

my point is that i slept perfectly fine until my doctor put the notion in my head that maybe i shouldn't be sleeping perfectly fine.  and so last night i didn't sleep perfectly fine, which meant that i was tired today.  so when i came home from school, i took a little nap... just to get me through the evening.  because it is thursday, and rollie teaches a class on thursdays, and usually we go out to eat before his class. and i had some errands to run after that, so i didn't get home until almost 8:00. and then it was time to farm with my dad on facebook.  and then, milo started bugging me to hold him...

which would have been fine if he would have let me hold him.  but he didn't want to lay in my lap, he wanted me to hold him in my arms.  but he kept shifting around.  he just couldn't get comfortable.  he will lay in rollie's lap and let rollie hold him for hours, but when i hold him, he wants to actually be held.  in my arms.  and he is a bit chubby, so my arms get tired pretty quickly.  

finally rollie came home from his class.  "oh good!  you are home!!"  i exclaimed.  "why?  what's the matter?" he asked.  "milo is demanding to be held, and i have stuff to do!  maybe he doesn't feel good..."  "he is probably just ready to go to bed.  usually we are in bed by now, and he seems to know when it is time."

ah yes... milo doesn't have any trouble sleeping at all!  of course, maybe that is because he lays his chubby little body on the most comfortable spot on the bed... my pillow!  

for some reason he has recently decided that he has every bit as much right to lay his little furry head (or whole body,) on my pillow as i have.  and usually he gets away with it.  because usually i am asleep!  of course, if last night is any indication, that may soon all change...

and so, here i am at 10:45, "not blogging" because it is late, and i have school work to do.  i don't think i am going to be asleep by 11:00 tonight either...  and getting all the school work done before morning is starting to look less and less likely to happen...

... unless, of course, some "ramping up" starts to occur...

thank goodness my car is not powered by diet lemonade...

so today . . .  i decided to quit complaining about the high price of gas... at least until the high price of diet lemonade from chick fil a goes down...

i've stopped drinking soda.  really.  it has been three or four weeks since a diet coke has passed my lips.  you know it has been a goal of mine to be soda free, and yet, i never last more than a few days before the siren song of that bubbly, caffeinated, sugary deliciousness called diet coke (or pepsi one or diet lemon cokesi) lures me right back in.  i couldn't help it.  i was probably slightly addicted... slightly...

and then a few weeks ago, i had lunch with diandra at chick fil a.  i ordered my usual kid's meal with a diet coke, but diandra ordered a diet lemonade (sweetened with splenda, mom, so don't worry.)  i looked at her quizically and she explained to me that she was trying to eat more healthfully and that included eliminating soda from her diet.

ok.  fine.  whatever.  (don't you hate it when your kids make better choices than you do...) we ate lunch and i enjoyed my diet coke and didn't give it another thought...

...until the next day when i was back at chick fil a for lunch.  (i eat lunch out a lot now.  this is new for me, since my lunch break was increased from half an hour to an hour this year.  now i have time to actually get out of the building, breathe some fresh air, and eat food i didn't have to prepare.  but i am somewhat limited in my choices, because an hour isn't as long as you might think it is--especially when you have to punch a time clock.  so i have to stay pretty close to work, which means chick fil a, jack in the box, subway, or mcdonald's.  chick fil a usually wins...)  so there i was, at the counter placing my order, and i found myself ordering a diet lemonade.  diandra had given me a taste of hers the day before, and it was really good.  so there i was, choosing lemonade over soda...

i'm pretty sure the earth stood still for a minute.

i ate my lunch, refilled my lemonade and headed back to work.  and then a funny thing happened.  over the next few days, i found myself choosing iced tea or diet lemonade over coke or pepsi.  and before i realized it,  i had gone for five days without any soda!  maybe i could really do it.  maybe i didn't need to have that sweet, fizzy, caffeine fix every day.  maybe i wouldn't die without it...

but if i was going to really stay away from sodas, i was going to have to find some alternatives.  and what i learned, over the last few weeks, is that not all un-carbonated beverages are created equally.  the iced tea at subway is sweetened with honey and tastes kind of yukky.  jack in the box has unsweetened iced tea (yay!) but they only make one batch a day, so if you go there for dinner, you are probably out of luck.  subway does have bottled flavored iced tea drinks, but they cost the same as a fountain drink and you can't refill them!  their fountain does have minute maid lite lemonade though, which is ok...

but the best beverage by far (if one is not going to drink diet lemon cokesi) is the diet lemonade at chick fil a!  i give it all the credit for helping me to stay soda-free.  it is what started me on the road to recovery, and it is what keeps me there.  the problem is, chick fil a is a little farther from my house than 7-11 (which, btw is probably going bankrupt now that i am not stopping there every morning for a giant diet lemon cokesi.)  and so today i had a brilliant idea!  i was going to see if it was possible to buy chick fil a's diet lemonade by the gallon!

i tossed this idea out to ms. jessica while we were on the playground.  ms. jessica loves chick fil a nearly as much as i do.  "so," i said to her, "do you think it is possible to buy the diet lemonade at chick fil a by the gallon?"  "yes," she said, "i know you can buy their sweetened tea by the gallon.  i think it is about $5."

ok.  five dollars for a gallon of lemonade.  that's not bad.  it would probably last me for four or five days, and it would keep me from drinking soda, and did  mention how delicious it is???  i was glad i could buy it by the gallon and have it at home and at school and in my car... i was pretty excited about it and already figuring out how much i was going to need every week...

and then i looked at my gas gauge.  i didn't immediately need gas (thank goodness) but it did make me think about how much i pay for gas.  a couple of weeks ago when i filled my tank, gas was about $4.29 a gallon!  four dollars and twenty nine cents a gallon!!!  it's crazy! and yet every couple of weeks i put ten gallons of the stuff in my car.  and complain about it (to myself, because it seems as though i am almost always by myself in my car, so there is never anyone there to listen to me rant and rave about the ridiculous price of gas!) 

and then suddenly it hit me.  i didn't mind paying $5 a gallon for lemonade (which i was just going to drink, and then, you know...) in fact, i was excited about it!  but i continued to complain about the price of gas, (which powers my car and takes me wherever i need to go!)  the gas is useful and necessary.  the lemonade is neither.  and yet i couldn't wait to get to chick fil a and buy myself a gallon of lemonade...

i'll admit i am not the most practical or consistant person on the planet.

but let's not lose sight of the good news!  the good news is, i've stopped drinking soda!!  and so, if it costs me $5 a gallon for lemonade, that's ok.  it is a good trade.  i'll just make a sandwich one day a week to offset the cost of it.  it will be worth it...

... or at least, it would have been worth it at $5 a gallon.  but when i got up to the counter at chick fil a to place my order, i discovered that the diet lemonade was not $5 a gallon.  it was $10.73 a gallon.

yeah, the price of gas is looking better and better...

the camera doesn't lie... or does it...

so today . . . i am on diandra's blog...

i have mixed feelings about this.  i have come to the conclusion that i am not photogenic, so being featured on a photography blog makes me a little uneasy.  however, the photography blog belongs to my daughter, who thinks i am "cute."  i think she is blinded by love.  but, whatever, there i am...

i don't think the pictures are horrible.  the dress was beautiful, the light was gorgeous, the shoes were unexpected--yet sparkly!  and the photographer was amazing!  the problem was my hair...

...my hair.  the bane of my existence.  my hair has always been an issue for me.  until a few years ago, i was never happy with how it looked.  i tried it long and straight.  i tried it short and curly.  i tried it short and straight, and long and curly.  when it was straight, my ears would stick out.  to get it curly, i had to perm it.  my life has been a constant battle with my hair.  until a few years ago...

a few years ago, my hair got long--longer than it had ever been before.  i didn't plan it that way, i just neglected to go in and have it cut.  for months!  and as it got longer, rollie and diandra really liked it.  even now, when i talk about cutting it short again, they both say, "NOOOOOO!"  of course, they have both seen me with short hair--they know it is not going to be good.  i always have great hope that this time will be different.  this time the short hair cut will look good.  but it never does.

but long hair has it's own issues.  like when do i get it cut?  i just tend to sort of ignore it until one day i decide it is driving me crazy and must be cut immediately!  (these are the days when it is good that i live in a big city and can just walk into super cuts and get my hair cut.  diandra is horrified that i trust my hair to super cuts, but then, she has the patience to wait for an appointment at a better salon.  i do not.  and if i can't get in somewhere for a haircut immediately, i have been known to do it myself...  usually that is not the best decsion.  usually.)  and so, there are days when i walk around with witchy hair... those in between days when it is really too long, but i haven't noticed it yet.

this was the sort of day when we decided to take pictures in my wedding dress.  a witchy hair day.

sadly, i did not know it was a witchy hair day.  i was too focused on diandra's upcoming wedding and the fact that it was only a few days away, and i had said i was going to make her a bolero-type jacket out of my wedding dress for her to wear with her wedding dress.  we had been planning this for several months, so it isn't like i just suddenly had this great idea at the last minute.  and yet, there we were, at the last minute.  but i wanted to take photos first, and between my schedule and diandra's schedule, and the weather (winter, you know,) we hadn't been able to make it happen...

... until just a few days before her wedding.  i suddenly realized that if i didn't get started on making the jacket immediately, i would not have time to finish it before the wedding.  so when i got home from school, i threw the dress on, we walked down to the park, and took some pictures.

it was a beautiful day.  the light was warm and golden.  i loved wearing my dress, realizing that this would be the last time i would wear it...  and then, there i was, looking into the camera without a clue as to what to do next.  diandra tried to help me.  she put me different places and gave me ideas of what to do with myself, but i just felt awkward.  i sooo wanted the pictures to be beautiful and perfect, but people were looking at me (ok, there were only a couple of dog walkers, but they LOOKED at me, like "what the heck is she doing?!?!)  and the wind was blowing.  hard.  my hair kept blowing in my face.  but diandra just kept snapping pictures...

and then we went home, and i cut up my dress.  diandra showed me the pictures she had taken, and to be honest, i was disappointed.  all i could see was my unruly hair.  why hadn't i taken a few minutes to curl it or straighten it or something?  why hadn't i planned ahead and at least had my bangs cut so you could see my face??  why hadn't i done something besides twirl around???

oh well...  it was too late to do anything about it.  my dress was in pieces, just waiting to be sewn into a jacket for diandra...  there were no "do overs."

i didn't give the photos much thought after that.  diandra got married.  we moved.  i went back to school in the fall...  and then last week i got a text from diandra.  "guess who is going to be on my blog this week?"  yep, it was me.  in my wedding dress.  with my witchy hair. 

i protested.  "mom, stop!" she said, "you look cute!"  as i said, she was blinded by love... and so, i waited for the blog with both dread and hope.  and waited.  and waited.  because although she had planned to post the blog last week, i got bumped.  to monday!  what a way to start the week...

this morning diandra sent me this text, "you are on my blog."  "AAACCCKKKKK!"  i replied.  "i guess i'd better go look."  and so i did.  and again, all i could see was my witchy hair.  i texted diandra, "i was right.  my hair was awful!  i wish we had taken a few more minutes to fix it better.  and my nose always looks so big in pictures.  does it look that big in person?  i did love the pictures that didn't have my face in them."

and then diandra texted me these words, "um... no.  you look happy and beautiful.  stop it."

well, you know, she is my daughter.  that is how i look through her filters.  i just hoped i wouldn't scare people away from visiting her blog again...

later in the day i went back and looked at the pictures a second time.  and i liked them a little better.  and then i looked at them again before i started blogging, and you know what?  i don't know about beautiful, but i do look happy.

in diandra's blog, she said i hated being in front of the camera.  that isn't completely true.  i like having my picture taken, because i am always hopeful that the results will be good.  but they rarely are, which is why i also hate having my picture taken.  i'm always worried about my bangs or my posture or that weird smile i get when i'm forced to hold a smile.  and i never think i look like myself.  i mean, i look at myself every day when i get ready for work, so i think i know what i look like.  but then i look at pictures of myself and they don't really look like me, or at least what i think i look like.  and so then i wonder, what do i really look like?

i take pictures all the time.  of diandra.  of rollie.  of the dogs.  they all look great in my pictures--probably because they are used to having their pictures taken.  i am not.  i am always the one taking the pictures, not the one getting my picture taken.  and so i think i am just not comfortable in front of the camera, and that's why i don't think i look like myself.  i look like a flat, two dimensional caricature of myself.  at least, that's what i think.

but i've also been thinking about diandra's words today.  it doesn't matter if i looked cute or beautiful.  cute and beautiful are just a matter of someone's opinion.  clearly!  what does matter is that i looked happy.  whether i like it or not, i looked like myself, on that day, witchy hair and all.  it was a beautiful day, i was out in the park with my darling daughter, and we were laughing.  i was happy.  even though my hair was trying to swallow my face...

so i think i'm going to stop avoiding the camera.  i think i'm going to step in front of it once in a while, even if i have to put my camera in someone else's hands and say, "take a picture of me."  i'm not going to worry about my bangs being perfect.  (well, that's a lie.  i will worry about my bangs until the day i die.  but if they aren't perfect, i'm going to try not to let it ruin my picture.)  diandra has said that she doesn't always take her good camera with her, because she finds that if she is focused on taking pictures, then she isn't really experiencing the moment.  i think that is probably true.  i think i haven't really been a part of a lot of moments, because i have been busy taking pictures.  but i need to have pictures to remind me of the fun times we have had...

i guess it comes down to this.  pictures document our moments.  and all of our moments aren't perfect, so neither are our pictures.  but perfection shouldn't be the goal!  the goal should be documenting a memory, imperfections and messy hair and all.  it doesn't matter if i look beautiful.  what matters is if i look happy.  or contemplative.  or tired.  or whatever the moment brings.

so thank you, diandra, for documenting my wedding dress's last day.  thank you for taking the time to take those pictures.  and blogging them.  thank you for making me laugh.  and thank you for reminding me today that although beauty may be in the eye of the beholder,  happiness can be seen by everyone.

(although, it could be seen more easily if i could remember to get my hair cut...)

plan? plan? what plan...

so today . . .  i have blogger's block.

my goal last week was to blog about diandra's wedding all week long.  there were so many gorgeous photos i wanted to share, but getting the photos onto the blog has proven to be an issue.  so my plan was to blog like a maniac this weekend and get caught up.  which was a great plan, except rollie was gone friday and saturday, which meant "project time" for me.

i thought i could do both.  i thought i could do projects during the day and then blog at night.  but that isn't exactly what happened...

... because what happened was that everything took waaaay longer than i thought it would.  of course.  it always does!

but i did attempt to blog.  in fact, i have SIX unfinished blogs in my draft folder.  (actually, i have 88 unfinished blogs in my draft folder, but only six from last week.  i should probably clean out my draft folder...)  i just can't seem to finish one!  my brain is just going in too many different directions to focus!

so.  here is my plan.  this is my blog for today (sad and pathetic as it is.)  and then i will try to do regular blogging next week.  but i will also work on finishing up last weeks blogs...

...because i can't just abandon them!  there are beautiful pictures to see, and computer glitches to complain about, and an inspiring event to share, and power tools and vacation plans and a trip to home depot...

yes, it was a busy week.  no wonder i couldn't focus long enough to finish even. one. blog.

the day before the big event...

so today . . . i am thinking about tomorrow.

i am thinking about tomorrow, because last year at this time we were in las vegas for diandra's wedding, which was going to be the next day. and so a year ago on this day, we were into full blown preparations...

by mid-afternoon nearly everyone had arrived in las vegas. and when i say nearly everyone, i mean the four members of our family that were able to make the trip, and the 40 members of javier's family who were there... yes, we were a little bit outnumbered :)

our car was full of stuff. diandra and javi's car was full of stuff. because when you plan a destination wedding, it is surprising how much stuff there is to transport! diandra had found a wonderful venue, but it had a gazebo. diandra is not a fan of gazebos. in fact, when she started looking at venues, "no gazebo" was one of her first criteria. and yet, there we were. with a gazebo...clearly something had to be done. diandra's solution was to hang purple and silver christmas balls and tiny chandeliers from the gazebo. i was not seeing how that was going to help, but she kept saying, "trust me, mom, it will be pretty and sparkly!" so my mom and dad and i spent the very windy afternoon stringing purple and silver christmas balls on the gazebo. keeping those things untangled while the wind did it's best to tie them in knots was truly a group effort. i fully expected it to be a big, giant mess when we arrived for the wedding the next day, but miraculously everything stayed in place.while we were working outside, rollie was running back and forth to the airport picking up two of diandra's cousins and her best friend. after they arrived, the girls went to work setting up the tables for the reception...and the candy buffet...the candy buffet almost didn't make it to the actual wedding. the purple gummy bears were especially at risk! but finally everything was set up and ready to go...

and so the kids left. they all went back to caesar's palace to lounge by the pool, go out to dinner, and have a good time...

we went back to our room. or should i say, our suite...

...because some friends of ours gifted us with a week at their time share in las vegas. it was beautiful! it was just off the end of the strip, so it was still quick to get to the places we needed to get to, but it was out of the hustle and bustle of las vegas on the eve of st. patrick's day! it had a beautiful view of the outskirts of the city from the balcony. and it had hgtv, which turned out to be a good thing, because i spent a lot of time in front of the tv, working on a special project for diandra...

...which i will blog about later. because i have decided that this is going to be "anniversary week" on my blog. i thought i could write one blog about the preparations and one about the wedding and be done. then i started deciding what photos i wanted to use, and it quickly became apparent that i was either going to have to cut down the number of pictures i was going to post or increase the number of blogs.

i chose to increase the number of blogs. because, the pictures are just too, too beautiful to not include them all. well, not all of them, because i am pretty sure more than 1000 pictures were actually taken, but all of my favorites. well, not even all of my favorites. i have lots of favorites!

last year at this time i was overwhelmed--diandra was getting married, rollie had changed jobs, we needed to find a new house and move... my brain was on overload. and so i didn't blog this important event as it happened. which is too bad, because i am sure i have forgotten so many funny or interesting details. but at least i have the pictures. and really, the pictures tell the story...yes, there is definitely more to come :)