WEDNESDAYS

catchin UP

   It seems I haven't posted in a few days or more.  Oops.  There were so many things going on including Mother's Day that I didn't realize how much time had passed.  Our lives have been very booked lately and while I am glad that we are involved in our lives and learning, I could use a mini break.  Seems like May and June are always full and I realize this and still push for us to keep up with all of our commitments.  Right now we have a few added in for fun and future activities such as getting fitted for cheer uniforms and prepurchasing our second year piano books and riding lessons on Saturday.

  As of this writing I have taken care of most of our summer activities which this year include junior lifeguards - ocean style for Avery, horse camp for both girls and cheer for Abby.  Alyssa now wants to play soccer again which amazes me since she ripped off her shin guards and socks and shoes multiple times during the last season.

  In other news Abby and I are travelling to Sacramento on Thursday with her fourth grade class for a huge field trip to see Coloma and the Capitol buildings and Old Town Sacramento.  Last year I heard they got to go into the governor's office and meet him.  We are both looking forward to this whirlwind tour of Sacto.  I used to live there so I might have a few flashback moments as well.

  One last thing, just a shout out or a whisper perhaps for AJ who had some parts removed yesterday.  We love you man and we can't wait to torture you again with our presence. 

Random Notes

  Having been tagged by Michelle to list seven random things about myself, I have had to sit an think.  Not as easy as it looks.  Here we go:

1. CANDY is my Achilles heel.  I especially like Smarties and the sticks from the Lick-a-Stic deals (not the sugar, just the sticks).  So bad.  And I know the dangers of eating refined sugar and such.  Can't seem to stop.

2.  RANDOMNESS in general is something I actually think about quite often.  I ponder whether or not anything in the universe is random at all.  Maybe the pattern is so big that we cannot see enough of it to see how things fit together, how the lines intersect.  Ordered chaos.

3.  EQUALITY is something I like to achieve.  I kind of always have this idea in the back of my mind...Is this or that fair?  and if possible how can I help make it more fair.   Jeez, do I have any basic thoughts?

4.  RED is good in almost any possible scenario.  I love this color, always have, always will.  I have gone through phases where another color will try to take over top spot, but I always come back to red.

5.  U2 is my favorite band and I have seen them in Oakland, New Zealand, Los Angeles and San Diego twice.  I could watch them over and over again.  One of my favorite song of theirs is Crumbs From Your Table.

6.  ONE  The one thing I really hope to achieve before I die is to have one or more of my stories published.  I want to walk into a Barnes and Noble and see my book(s) sitting on the shelf next to some little fuzzy licensed items from the stories.

7.  LISA  Lisa and I have so many RANDOM similarities in our lives...it just has to be random...like we both have serious ties to the Seattle region, we both have best friends named Jason, we both have three children, we both love scrap booking and the same sorts of music and neither of us truly believes in randomness...stupid.

SO there you are and I haven't a clue who to tag next.  Maybe the Pink Pineapple ladies but they don't have a personal blog yet and Lisa was already tagged and so was Michelle and hmmmmmmmmmmm.

Have a great Tuesday!

Dyson lives up to the hype

Here she is!  My dad just got ahold of a Dyson vacuum, pet edition, and I was rolling my eyes.  I seem to be doing a lot of that lately.  Since I am the one who cleans his house I let the thing sit in its box for about three weeks.  It sat in the corner mocking my pathetic attempts to vacuum up the dog hair which is rampant in his house.  He has a german shepherd whose main hobby is shedding and a bulldog whose main hobby is snarfing and bringing in dirt.  I can't tell you how yick it all is but I still try to clean it up.

  Today we busted the Dyson out even though I didn't believe it could be any better than any other crap vacuum.  Well, I was VERY wrong.  That sucker did its duty and didn't even break a sweat.  The carpet was visibly cleaner than it has been in years of our pushing the dirt around with many a sturdy vacuum.  And the canister was filled with hair and dirt and such.  I was impressed.  And it was quiet.  AND it was truly a dust free situation.  Wow 

  Where do I sign up for this new friend?  I needed one for myself about ten, no make that twelve, when I started having kids and cats and birds and hamsters.  I NEED it.  As does every other person in the universe who cherishes the feel of CLEAN carpet under their bare feet. 

Health Update

  As it turns out, it took me several trips to the school to be heard about the dreaded lice situation.  My intention was to make sure that when I sent my girls back to class I knew they were not going to pick up fresh bugs.  I can't even think about it without cringing a little.  When the nurse finally checked Abby's class, she found 11 out of 28 children fully infested.  Then they checked the other fourth grade classes and found many more cases.  I can't even imagine how much longer it would take to clean up my own family if the school had just blown me off.  I thought there was more protocol involved in dealing with lice.  I know in the past the school has been right on the situation. 

  I am still not done with the laundry and I have found new and better things to boil and otherwise disinfect.  My hands are a little dried out.  I told my dad today that I wanted to install one of those little rooms/areas that are always shown in sci-fi movies where this disinfectant sprays you when you walk through the door.  I need this room.  Plus a hazmat suit and some fresh rubber gloves.

  Our hammys are still alive and they have figured out how to go up and down the little tunnels in their cage.  They are friendly and don't bite so that is a bonus.  The cats are still trying to grow thumbs so they can open the cage door and scoop the hammys out.  A little hot mustard, some salt and pepper...tasty.

  Oh and Toni and Lisa????  Thanks for itching on our behalf....

Screaming on the Inside

  Let's see, on Tuesday night around 9 pm I get a phone call from a mom of a friend of Abby's.  Her daughter had lice...and mine probably did too.  Insert sagging of my entire upper body right here.  So at a time when all of my children would normally be in bed and asleep, I was examining them with hot lights and special combing Equipment.  Of course one child had said lice.  Then I checked number two and that child had lice.  I checked everyone else who had suspicious dandruff and then I started screaming on the inside.  We were up until almost midnight doing the first level of clean out.

  The lice drill is a labor intensive one.  First you have to wash everyone's hair with lice-be-gone shampoo.  Then you have to sit like monkeys and comb out all the dead bugs/eggs/yuck.  Then you have to clean every piece of bedding, every piece of clothing, every towel, etc.  Then you have to remove and bag all stuffed critters, pillows and the like.  For the next ten days you have to do the combing out nits thing every day plus wash every piece of clothing anyone wears or touches.  You have tell the universe you have this because unbeknownst apparently to the parents of the child who brought this to us, LICE IS CONTAGIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  After ten days of public humiliation you have to re-do the lice-be-gone shampoo and redo all of the bedding so as to catch and kill any bugs that may have hatched.  Labor intensive.

  Now here is my irritation with this scenario...Why weren't we told by the other parent or the school that our children had been exposed to LICE???????????????????????  WHY?  These people have an obligation to inform/disclose information on contagious situations.  By the time we found out, several people in our family had been infected, as were several other children in the school and probably their families.  Good grief.  What goes through people's minds sometimes?  Not one of us lives in a bubble anymore.  The days of living in any sort of anonymity are gone.  This is what amazes me when I hear of people robbing little stores or doing other crazy things when everything is videotaped or put on the internet.  What can one really get away with these days?  Why bother?  Why not try to do the right thing when a situation occurs?  And if your kid gets lice....tell everyone!

HAMMY WHAMMY WOOL

My daughter is OBSESSED with the notion of bringing a hamster into our fold.  I myself am not so obsessed.  However after many sessions of crying and discussing and saying "not in my house" we have all realized that the force that is Abigail WILL not be stopped.  I am fairly sure that we will have a hammy or two in our life.  UGGGGGGGGGGGGGH.  More hairy, messy, smelly critters to care for.  She claims that hamsters are none of these things.  Cute, cuddly, best friend, but certainly clean.

Did I mention that when I was a young child, of say nine or ten (this is so embarrassing), I was convinced that the words to the song Baa Baa Black Sheep were in fact:  Baa Baa Black Sheep, Hammy Whammy Wool, Yes Sir Yes Sir, Three Bags Full... 

I KNEW IT TO BE TRUE.  Good times.HAMMY WHAMMY

Maria Rose Sczwyk

  Tomorrow, April 16th is the second anniversary of the passing of my mother.  For all of the time we spent together on this planet she remains somewhat of a mystery to me.  I was born to her when she was forty which means that she had lived a lifetime before I came around.  So many moments that I will never have a direct link to because I was a wish floating around in the universe.  Just as I imagine she is now.  Sometimes I think about what she was like when she was young.  Was she ever relaxed and carefree?  Did she sing out loud to her favorite songs?  There are many questions I don't have the answers to.  But it is fun to imagine how she might have been when she was young.  Lately I have been listening to Damien Rice, see sidebar music notes.  He has one song that for some reason makes me think of Maria every time I hear it, Cannonball.  I am doing my best to link you to a video of said song.

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Qu'est ce que c'est, DORK?

  What is it about Mondays that people dislike?  I kind of like to start over.  Plus Mondays can be a quiet day if I play my cards right and do a bunch of chores on Sunday. 

  We had a bit of an overcast Easter this year.  After a round of egg hunting and chocolate eating for breakfast we all climbed back in bed to watch movies.  Next on the agenda was eating more food - ham and crescent rolls and vegies.  Then the kids played guitar hero and hid and hunted the eggs again.  Then I think, pretty sure, that I changed back into a different pair of pajamas and watched more movies.  We saw 13 Going on 30, Castaway, part of Mean Girls and part of the Lake House.  They are all worthy of a second or 14th watch.  Here is a snapshot of our day... My three silly bunnies.  If it weren't for all of their smiles and "dorkiness" I wouldn't be able to embrace my inner dork.  Thanks guys for this one photo where you all look "normal".  Every other Easter 2007 photo has at least one blue tongue sticking out or a half clothed Alyssa in the center of it.  Gotta love a raspberry blue ringpop.  If the dork who invented those isn't laughing all the way to the bank.....

Life on the downside of a leafblower

  I will write this as though anyone cares where I have been the last week.  First off, I am glad to be back to blogging.  I actually missed it.  Who knew I would feel this way.  I did avoid the experience for a very long time.  I have checked out many other blogs over the last couple of years to try and get a motivation for myself in starting one.  And I was a bit reluctant when I signed up.  But this is good.

  On Sunday I went to Disney's California Adventure with Avery, Alyssa, Lisa, her Abby, and Julia.  Somehow we all scored free tickets from different people.  Big shout out to the universe for providing.  Sweet.  I have never been to this park and I was suprised at how big it is.  I had this idea in my brain that it was smaller.  Alyssa rode the ferris wheel with me.  And I do have a photo from the bucket but I am not sure how to get it here.  I am learning and while lines are intersecting for me at certain points, I haven't perfected this.

  The next morning I was planning to lay around in my pjs for several hours.  I was rudely interrupted by Dan who essentially threw us all in the van and took us to Vegas.  The best sort of abductions.  We stayed at the Rio, ate a ton of expensive buffet food, walked until our toes curled and tried to ignore Alyssa and her inner beast.  The only thing is....I didn't take one photo.  I don't have a defense really.  When I had the camera I was too busy playing arcade games to take photos and when we were done with that I was part of a caravan of llamas carrying huge bags of stuffed animals back to the room.  My next move was to leave as much stuff behind and this somehow included the camera.  WHATEVER.  But let me see if I can find a photo of Vegas somewhere in my office.

  As soon as we returned from the whirlwind to Las Vegas we hurtled over to music lessons.  The next day was filled with laundry, shopping for Xbox 360 guitar hero games and such.  Friday I tried to find the floor in my house (I do still have one), decorated for Easter, visited the orthodontist for yet more equipment for Abs' tiny mouth and went scrapbooking with Lisa.  It was such a quiet night at the Pineapple and we delved into the complications of the soul and funky old medinas.  Not sure if we settled anything but delvage and investigations did occur.   Today we prepped for the arrival of the BUNNY hisself, dyed eggs, shopped some more and cleaned out the closet in Grandpa's office.  Yeah, good times.  Seems that my Dad and my brother were unable to locate one file which was literally the first thing I picked up.  Not to say that the closet didn't hold treasures from near and far and was somehow covered in shattered glass and flourescent dusts.  It was and I cleaned it out.  We filled yet another can of garbage and brought home several more bags of photos and memorobilia from my father's family.  And the closet, while tidier, is still full. 

  So that is my life on the wrong side of the leafblower last week. 

Happy Easter and may the Big Bunny bring you a ton of chocolate.