Intent

I really think I just heard the sound of someone throwing up in his/her back yard. And while I've got plenty more than my a share of morbid curiosity, I am not ready for eye contact with someone who knows I just caught him/her throwing up in the back yard. Care for a snack, anyone?

This week caused me a bit of strain. The weather on Thursday was ridiculous. Sleet, then accumulating snow, then more sleet, then rain. The rain started while I was waiting for Grant at the bus stop. I am medium sure that my lips turned blue. The bus was late, of course, due to the weather, and the walk home was like wading through spilt snow cone. The rain started to freeze as I got ready for taiko. I silently cursed the clouds for doing this to me, not just on a Thursday, but on a Performance Practice Thursday. I crossed my fingers and drove carefully to my in-laws' house with the kids.

I wasn't "on my game" at practice. That's disturbing. But I always say that as long as you aren't unprepared for it or have a real problem with nerves, a performance will probably be at about your recent average. Sometimes, I get a little extra from "opening night" sensation, but I don't ever count on it. So, considering that, I should do much better tomorrow. I do wish, though, that we could re-introduce stretching to our routine. I didn't get left out so much when we had it at the beginning.

Going home was exciting, and not in a good way. The interstates were beginning to be cleared, which was good, but on and off ramps were not great, and my in-laws' neighborhood was down right frightening. The dog barked when I went in, too, so I knew I was in for it. I collected everyone and made my way SLOWLY down W (which had FOG on top of everything else) to 70. 70 was much better, but when I got off at Warrenton, 47 was not at all cleared. In fact, there was someone off the road and I had to wait while he was pulled out of the ditch. Josh called to ask why I hadn't called, and I told him that it was because I wasn't home yet. I also told him that 47 wasn't cleared.

After we were safely home, I decided that sleep was the thing. Until Josh called to say he was in a ditch. On 47. Told ya' so. He and the car made it home eventually.

Friday - yesterday - I talked to my dad. He had offered to take the kids to see me play on Sunday, so I figured I'd better get real plans laid. I knew it was a bad sign when he said, "Yeah, what time do we need to get there? 2:30?"

"Uh...no, our performance starts at 1:45."

"Oh. That might be a problem." Come to find out, he is driving a friend and his wife, and they have to stay late after church to lock up. I dismissed it and said it wasn't a big deal, and that I was doing something on nearly every song, even if he missed the beginning. But he's a man, and didn't realize that he was leaving me with 48 hour notice to find a babysitter - or what that means. I don't plan to mention it to him, so neither should you. I asked a few people if they could help out, but no takers. When Josh got up, he called his family, who said they weren't going to come home early for my sake. (See? I knew I would catch it for the dog barking!) But he got a yes from a sister, even though I'm not sure she likes kids, and am VERY sure she doesn't know what to do with them. But Josh made the arrangements, and it's a done deal.

I just can't catch a break with this, you know? When something nice happens, someone makes me feel guilty about it, but mostly nice things just don't happen. I can't wait to have my own job and my own money and I can pick someone and pay her to watch my kids. All business. No guilt. Well, that's assuming I can get a job.

Do you think people gain a new understanding of your personality when they see your house/room/personal space? I do. In this frame of mind, I looked around today. It made me crestfallen. I think I probably rate a "Something's very wrong here" at worst and a "How pathetic" at best. But if you could see how I wish my house looked.... or does that defeat the purpose? Anyway, I don't have a particular style. Or, rather, I've never found a word for it. Eclectic usually implies something more visually interesting. Not that I don't have interesting things....personally, I love them! Like my Italian mermaid bookends. Pardon - my one surviving Italian mermaid bookend. She is pretending to be made out of marble, but it's just a cast. Seated sans clothing on the curved back of an extremely vacant-looking dolphin like a Lay-Z-Boy, my "tart mermaid" brazenly mouths a permanent kiss at us. How can you not be amused by that?? And she is a mere two feet from my relief of St. Cecilia. Never promised to be consistent.

I was meant to clean the whole house today, but I could tell when I got up that it wasn't to be. Besides, my inner teenager sulked, if Dad's not going to come by the house, then there's no reason, right? Well, except that I like it clean.

I do much better when the weather is nice.

I finished Night Watch ages ago, and 2/3 through The Big Over Easy. It (Over Easy) isn't as hilarious as I was hoping. The whole story is meant to be "told with a straight face". Perhaps I'm not in the mood for it, but it barely got a wry smile from me.

Did I ever mention that loyalty is a very important quality to me? Perhaps I didn't. I spent half the book disliking a character because she wasn't especially loyal. I have no time to waste on those who are disloyal. Disloyalty repulses me. And, yes, I still argue with my books.

Josh has had LOTS of overtime. Yesterday he worked 12 hours. Today is normal, and then he has to work from 11-7 on his day off. Even that one we're bowing and scraping and saying, "Thank you, thank you!" for because they arranged it between two regular shifts so he'll be home before bed-time. More to come, as well. Trying to look on the bright side, which is the money aspect, but it isn't really cheering me up any. Plus, Josh's Uncle Jim wants Josh to come and grandma-sit on his next available "weekend", so that means I will have to miss a practice. I specially requested NOT this coming Tuesday, since we are both moving and having a meeting.

I was wrong about Gran's birthday present. She got it at breakfast. When I called her, she made me drool with stories of freshly picked strawberries bought at stands and such. Beautiful scenery, delicious food. Who's jealous?

Josh actually said I could make corned beef and cabbage for St. Pat's day! I may also attempt an Irish dried fruit cake called Barmbrack, but it depends on how much the beef costs. Will you be doing anything festive?

Me: Grant, do we throw things in the living room?
Grant: No.
Me: Then, why did you just throw that?
Grant: Well, I didn't see you there.

*sigh*

I hope you are having a great weekend! Tomorrow is the show. Can't wait! I'm exhausted with telling everyone about it. Come on down if you are nearby.

I would like to make the following announcements:

* It's cold in here.

* Frozen edamame is less easy to peel than fresh, but still tastes good.

* Wal-mart has honeysuckle scented candles! They smell wonderful. Also fantastic, in a Sweettarts kind of way is the Cranberry Mandarin. But they smell more when they are not lit than when they are.

* We had sleet this morning, and before that, a thin sheet of ice on everything. Both were washed away in the afternoon rain.

* For dessert tonight, we are having strawberry cupcakes (no icing). I think that pilsbury may have overdone the artificial flavoring, though. It's overpowering, and might taste like strawberry soda or candy, but not much like a strawberry.

* My house was actually decently clean (translation: I felt only minor shame looking at it, or having others see it) for over a week, but that week ended yesterday. Naturally, today the water guy had to come through the house - including the basement - to switch out our outdated meter.

* Today is my grandmother's birthday. She's going to be presented with her present tonight at dinner, I think. (She's still visiting California.)

* My dad might come and see me play taiko for the first time on Sunday!

* Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is not so much a zombie story inserted into an Austen novel, but a little Austen inserted into an original work of zombiefiction. I found it odd that most of the minor characters were kept the same, while the principle ones were altered, sometimes beyond recognition. Michelle listened to it with me on the way to and from practice, and found the story amusing, but not as much as me yelling at the CD player.

* The spell check on this document is not working properly/at all. Oh, dear.

* Many of my friends have seemed very....internalized these last two weeks. I had a list of people who I was going to check on to make sure they were okay, but then I noticed that it was something of an epidemic. Maybe it's the weather. Maybe we all just need a night out. (Or is that just me?)

* I need a night out.

* The mail truck passed our house without stopping today.

* So far, the sales at Borders are still a relatively small %, but the mobs are huge, so by the time the sales are really good, no books worth having will be left.

* Definitely cold in here.

I hope you are all well and happy.

BRR!

I'm freezing! Is it cold at your house, too?

I'm reading Terry Pratchett books. Michelle lent me Guards! Guards! and now I'm reading Night Watch. Very out of order. Especially when you consider that I read Thud first! Also waiting in the wings is a Jasper Fforde book called The Big Over Easy: A Nursery Crime. It's about Humpty Dumpty. Hee! Can't wait.

My mother and grandmother left today for California. They are visiting with my uncle. In his most recent email to me, he said that the almond orchard is starting to bloom. I am so jealous it hurts. I'm also hoping that they all have a great, easy and safe time. ...and that they take pictures of the orchard.

Talked to my brother. No news there, but we did talk a long time about depressing Chinese movies....

I invited my dad to the taiko show on Sunday and he might come! He wasn't with my mom the one time she saw me play. It will be the first show he's seen since I joined. I'm excited. Also claiming interest are some cousins of mine, but I'll be more surprised if the show up than if they don't. They usually don't have free weekends.

And now we must get ready for dance. Stay warm!

Up and Down

Oh, the emotional roller coaster that is this week!

Good: Didn't screw up during the taiko performance, like I had been doing in practice.
Bad: Didn't seem to impress anyone, either.

Good: Had fun at the show.
Bad: LOT of down time, and a late night, and I felt bad for picking up the kids near midnight from two people who had to go to work in the morning - early.

Good: Sold Explorer.
Bad: Then had no vehicle to take Abbie to the Valentines' party at dance, after she'd hand made the cards.

Good: Holidays involving chocolate.
Bad: All the MANY negative posts/emails - one of which referred to me personally, and in a very misleading context. Okay, so I'm the only one who knows it was about me, but I still got angry. I didn't say anything, though. Why encourage a discussion on that subject?

Good: Got new CR-V!
Bad: Took ALL BLOODY DAY.

Bad: Grant threw up at school, had to be picked up, and therefore was stuck sitting out in the car with me while Josh signed his share of the paperwork.
Good: There was a really neat window washer to watch while we waited. (Wanna play "Count the W's?") ...and he also didn't get sick again.

Good: It's a wonderful, beautiful day!
Bad: Josh had to go to work. (Yes, on his day off.)

Good: Overtime pay.
Bad: All goes to the car, anyway.

Good: Netflix came!
Bad: They sent Blurays instead of DVDs for two of them, so I won't be able to watch them quietly in my room after the kids are sleeping. Have to be out here with the noisy surround sound.

I finished my Omiyage bachi on the deck this afternoon. Abbie and I took a walk, too. It was beautiful. We pet Shadow, the neighbor's cat. I even had the windows open. Nice day. Michelle lent me Guards! Guards! I just started reading it.

Callie is chasing her tail, enthusiastically. She's enormous. It's quite a sight.

I feel a Spring Cleaning coming on! Sadly, Josh will have to give up a day off next week, too. But I'm sure it will happen sometime in the near future. Maybe I'll just clean without him.

The new car (or what should I really call it?) is beautiful. Smells nice, too.

Anything happening out there in the world? I haven't heard about anything except the contagious "riot bug".

We should sing. I feel like singing.

But first, I have some kids to get ready for bedtime. Have a great evening!

Yum.

So, I bought myself - on purpose - a chocolate covered marshmallow Valentine heart. There may have been gobbling involved. Shall I explain?

At Christmas, my mom gave the kids some chocolate nutcrackers, and I was just sure that they were marshmallow, but they were actually Snickers. I've never been thrilled about marshmallow before, but I felt absolutely CHEATED! I went to Wal-mart and looked and looked for something with marshmallow, but there was nothing. Nothing for two whole months. So, you can imagine my feelings when I saw Hershey chocolate covered marshmallow hearts for Valentines' Day. Nom.

It's amazing the adventures you can get into when you go to buy some milk.

Right now, we are watching my absolute favorite episode of Dexter's Laboratory: Beard to be Feared. You should really look it up and watch it. Really. Gets me every time.

And so...how are you? See any good movies lately?

It's sunshiny today! I am solar powered. Therefore, even though I had a very sleepless night due to Grant's several nightmares, I have lots of happy energy. Let's hope I have some tomorrow, too. Performance time, you know.

Grant - my good, sweet, perfectly behaved boy - got in trouble this week. Thursday, he got into two fights, and he even fought with a girl in his class on Friday. Hopefully some rest will help. I'm sure Thursday was a result of waking up an hour early in the morning. His Valentines party was fun, though. He loves going through the cards and reading who they are from.

Why does everyone buy those conversation hearts that taste so awful, when Sweettarts makes some perfectly normal ones?

Last night I watched the sappiest, mushiest movie I could find, in honor of the upcoming holiday. I came up with Only You with Marissa Tomei and Robert Downy Jr. It's awful, but I love it, anyway. In high school it was one of my favorite movies. What an embarrassing confession....

Well, I had better go and shower and stuff. The kids got all the hot water this morning, but now I get a turn. Hope your weekend is a good one! You should tell me what movie you would watch for Valentines' Day.

Happy, happy!

Gee, I wonder what's going on at the Ski household?

Word at the bus stop says the family with the pit bull and the rottweiler are moving tomorrow. Right now the afore mentioned dogs are playing on their front porch, and it is making Callie go crazy.

I'm glad the sun is out. I hear that it is supposed to start warming up. That's good, because it got so cold the last few days that it's going to take quite a bit of this warmth to actually approach a livable temperature. This sunshine must be our "head start".

I did not win the lottery.

It's so early! I've been up forever today. Josh's alarm went off at 5 because today he has unpaid training all day, and then his shift starts at 3, and he'll get back home at midnight. Sucks to be Josh today. But his alarm woke up everyone, so the whole day started that early. I hope Grant does okay in school. As for me, I'm tired! I might lie down for a while. On top of the early thing, I didn't sleep well, due to a headache. Yep. Probably getting sick. Don't care, though. We have NyQuil and Kleenex. What will be will be.

Speaking of things that will be, you may or may not have heard that we will be getting a new car. We stopped on the way to Costco on Tuesday to see if we really liked the Honda CRV as much as we thought, and there happened to be two 2010's left - new. They were extra cheap, because they were bought from a place in the northeast that went under. So, a great but very temporary deal was before us. We will be getting the more basic of the two. It's dark blue. We are probably going to pick it up next week, and we even have a potential buyer for the Explorer.

I have a taiko show this weekend. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. We're playing Drive, a song that the group has been performing for years, but we're playing it with twice as many people. In a way, it's a lot like learning a whole new song. And we're adding all the detail stuff at the same time. Eddie wonders why we didn't start getting ready for this a long time ago, and he has a point. You can tweak all kinds of stuff, like how to sit before the song, after the song itself is memorized. There are a couple of people assigned to parts they really don't know yet, though. I'm on a new part, but it's really a pretty easy one. Most of the mistakes I made were my brain trying to make the part harder. So - a lot of trouble for only one song. And I hear that we will be there a long time. I guess I should bring a book.

Speaking of books, I might lend Jane Eyre to Michelle, if she's interested.

I don't know if I've really gone into it before, but every Christmas I make a DVD photo album. I don't know much about the technology, so it's very simple: A stills slide show and then video clips. No sound for the stills. (That bugs Josh, but I maintain that there really is no one song that will suit all the pictures and all the viewers at the same time. If they can't bear to watch pictures go by without extra sensory amusement, they can always pop in a CD. I won't complain.) Anyway, a lot of work does actually go into it. First of all, throughout the year, I select and crop the still photos and copy them into folders for each season. I also make copies of the videos I like best, too. The videos and the season folders were all kept in a master folder that would be called, for instance, Christmas DVD 2011.

My 2011 master folder was somehow deleted from the desktop recently. I don't know how, and Josh claims innocence. It's not in the recycle folder, either. I decided that this early in the year, it isn't so bad. I can just start over. But when I started looking through folders, I realized that doing it again is going to take a full day at least! What a bummer! The pictures start with Christmas, since that is where the previous year stops. The only good news is that I had not yet removed last year's photos from the hard drive yet.

Bleh.

Nothing fancy tonight. Hamburger Helper. And then I'm off to practice. I will certainly remember not to wear snow boots tonight. I forgot to change shoes Tuesday (Tuesday was a lot more exciting than I had expected), and had boots on. I took them off to play, but then the salt that was tracked in on people's shoes really cut up my toes. Ouch!

Josh went to the grocery store yesterday and came home with two packages of cookies, a cheesecake, and Slimfast shakes. See what I have to deal with? Geez. But after this round of store bought snackies, I am going back to baking cupcakes and the like. I don't know why or how, but they put less weight on the Josh than the store bought ones. And it sounds like he could use a hand with this diet thing.

I should be cleaning. I got the bathroom scrubbed yesterday, and did some dusting, but I probably need to dust again, and I never got around to the floors.

Off I go to make a stab at being productive.

I wish you warmth, health, and good news today! Take care.

Fighting with Pandora

Pandora Radio has never been very good at reading my mind and anticipating my likes. To my knowledge, it has only ever suggested one song that I liked: Merry Happy by Kate Nash. You can go look it up on Youtube. It's cute. Pandora thinks that I only like songs that would appear in a sappy life insurance commercial. I can handle music that is a little bit edgy, you know? I am giving Pandora a reluctant second chance (really it's about the 9th chance) today, after quite a long separation. Right now, Pandora is sure I love slow and beautiful piano solos. I might have to bang my head against the wall.

Grant actually went to school today! I know. Quite upsetting to our routine. Hopefully, he's behaving himself and having a fun day.

Well, I might be done with all the comfort food stuff. Today I decided I wanted star fruit. An the other hand, I still wouldn't say no to a nice baked potato.

We almost went to a Superbowl party yesterday. Well, actually, Josh was working, so I mean me and the kids. Our hostess, though, came down with a sad case of food poisoning, and it was cancelled. (Um...the party. Not the Superbowl.) That's actually okay. I had reasons for wishing to not be thrown in company with one potential guest without Josh. Ever been forced to deliberately misunderstand someone because that person isn't being quite appropriate? The risk, of course, is that you come off looking uncommonly idiotic. However - in this case that was not unwelcome. So - a near miss. And I didn't fight with the TV to try and get the game. I wasn't interested in the teams, and the commercials weren't worth the technological humbling. We watched black and white movies in my room instead.

Josh says there was one cute commercial, and one funny one, so not much lost.

I think tomorrow Josh and Abbie and I are going to go to Costco. I asked my mom if she wanted me to take her to Costco sometime, and she said yes. Should be fun. Nothing like buying in bulk to make one feel prepared for incident.

Valentines Day approaches! Yipee! That means early bulb flowers. Can't wait to get rid of this snow. We actually have more forecasted for today...and tomorrow...and Wednesday...and Friday.... Bleh.

And did I mention chocolate? How can anyone hate a holiday that involves flowers and chocolate. Well, I guess there's people who can't have chocolate. Or are allergic to flowers. But I am not among them. Bring on the crocus and iris and tulips and truffles and caramel and dipped strawberries.

I'm making myself hungry.

Tonight Abbie has her dance class. We're going to bring them all Valentines next week.

Oh, Pandora. Not that guitar solos aren't great, but....

Hope you are having a good start to your week!

Dunno.

Well, the blizzard was fun, and now I'm ready for crocuses. Very ready. Wasn't thrilled to see it snowing again this morning.

In fact, today doesn't much appeal to me. It's not been my best. I'm a little on the mopey side today. The first thing that happened was that Grant discovered that Callie spent the night chewing up one of my oldest baby toys that I had tenderly preserved for my own children and that Abbie had left on the floor. It was a lion. He is now a lion with one eye and a hole with exposed insides for a nose. I was quite attached to him, of course. I still haven't been able to face putting him in the trash. He's in my room.

We did get our taxes filed. Josh is already car shopping and we don't even have the refund yet. If we are replacing the old truck, I like the CR-V, but he's leaning toward some Subarus. Really, though, I would prefer that we wait. We can use the truck for a while longer. It's paid off. Then, maybe in summer we could get something else. Josh is not famous for his ability to set money aside for months, though.

We had our dinner with friends on Wednesday, and it was great fun. I also might see them again tomorrow after practice for the Superbowl, but I'm not sure. I have zero interest in the game this year, and Josh will be at work. We shall see how it goes.

I think I am going to buy a lottery ticket. I feel like having my hopes dashed.

Grant didn't have school all week. My sanity has suffered severely. He has reverted back to pitching fits. Any time he is told he has to go to his room, he cries (deliberate tears, but genuine) and throws something! I have not had any luck convincing him that he is much too old for "baby fits". Even Abbie doesn't throw them! Has it ever once got him what he wanted? No. It's very frustrating, and very unpleasant. And I can't get Abbie to stop the whiny indignation, either. GAH!

Yesterday I was very busy, but not very productive. I got up and did dishes and bundled myself up in 3 pairs of pants and two pairs of gloves and boots and went out with the shovel to free the mailbox so delivery would resume. I worked really hard, and did a beautiful job, if I do say so myself. But I wasn't back inside for an hour before the snow plows came along and did the same thing. And it isn't as if I saved them any work, they re-did my morning's work, just like they did for everyone on the street. Such a waste of exertion. I could have been doing laundry. I also paid lots of bills and cleaned expired foods out of the refrigerator. And I brushed Callie on the porch and did some dusting...but neither of those tasks stay done for any length of time.

Our house smells like smoke. Lunch was delicious, but Josh accidentally set fire to some oil before getting the steaks seared correctly. We had steaks - good ones, left over from our last trip to the butcher, and julienne potatoes in cheese sauce. It went very well together, and we all enjoyed it. Tonight, we are having Little Caesar's left over from Josh bringing it to work last night, and the kids are so excited. Isn't that funny? Gourmet steaks for lunch, but tell them that there's leftover Little Caesar's, and it's, "Yay," and "Oh, thank you, thank you , Mommy!!!!"

I just got asked if it was dinner time yet.

I watched Bringing Up Baby last night. It's pretty near the top of my Eccentric Women movie list. I think Amelie is number one. Any suggestions for candidates?

I might go snuggle in my electric blanket and watch a movie. Maybe the kids will come, too. Too bad there is no cheesecake in the house. Thank goodness I can go beat things tomorrow. I could use a little time away from the house, and a little exercise wouldn't hurt, either.

Hope your weekend is behaving. Take care, stay warm and have a happy Saturday.

So far, so good!

It is almost 9 on Wednesday morning, and we have not, as yet, lost electricity! We have a memorable amount of snow out there, and ice underneath. Sadly, it is not the easiest thing to document, photographically.

I think we need to see if our buddy, Molly, just might cancel her visit here today, seeing as how I-70 was closed from Kansas to Illinois, and is just now opening up in places....Warrenton not being one of those. Since they have all morning to work on it, Josh hasn't cancelled his trip to Red Lobster this evening just yet. We're going to check again later.

All afternoon yesterday, I had to take the snow shovel down with me every time I let the dogs out of the basement door. I also shoveled a 2 x 3 ft spot for Jake, since the snow is probably over his head, otherwise! Callie loves leaping around in the snow.

So far, we haven't taken the kids out in it. I don't know if we will today, because of the wind chill advisory, but hopefully we will before it melts. One can't live through a historic blizzard like this without at least jumping into it once.

Think I'll make some snow ice cream today.

Stay warm and safe, everyone!