Recently seen....

These were blooming outside our gate recently. They're gone now. Replaced by the azaleas. I'll post pics of them later.

Presidential Race

Here at the Nationals Ball Park, this is what the Presidents Race looks like:



I much prefer it to the other. You?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY...

to Isaac!!!!

7? Not. Possible.








sorry I didn't blog it on your day yesterday, babe. I was too busy getting your party put together! :-)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TODD!!!

This one's my fav'. I'm pretty sure it's the first one I ever received from him.


Oh, if you could only hear him sing. He used to do the Little Mermaid song in a Little Walrus voice. I bet he'd still do it if you ask him to.
8^D

Love you Todd! Happy, happy birthday!

HAPPY EASTER

Years and years and years ago, while Todd and I were dating, Easter fell on Todd's birthday. Even though it was his birthday, he took the time to compose another Love Rap for me. And now, because of his thoughtfulness, you get to have a grin on Easter.

This Easter should prove to be a nice one. We haven't bought any candy for the boys, just small toys. That in itself should add to our enjoyment of the day. After services and a small egg hunt with the wee ones from church, we'll head to our friends' house for Easter Dinner. We're looking forward to it. And , YAY for Lent being over!!! Next year, NO FOOD restrictions for Lent. Cooking around every individual's restrictions got really old, really fast. Next year we'll pick up good habits instead of giving up food.
So there! :-p

Hope your Easter is blessed!

Green Eggs.....

Just look at what I perpetrated upon my poor children for St. Patrick's Day:


Am I evil?
8^D

Ice Day?

Day off of school+Freezing Temps+Dad's Diet Coke left outside in it's cup=REALLY COOL FIND!

My V-Day Haul

Sorry this is such a lame picture but this is my Valentine's shwag. What a rockin' v-day! I love Jane Austin and that's a collection of 7 of her stories in a beautifully bound hard back. I love chocolate. duh. And Amelie is totally my favorite movie!
Really. A great haul for such a relatively unimportant holiday.
oooo. Don't forget. We also bought me a laptop with my last paycheck and called it a Valentine's Day present. Super-score!

Thanks to all my guys for making February a little more bearable with such sweet treats.

Love you!

Works for me Wednesday

Yes, yes. I know. We've already established that fact.

So, this time I'm going to talk some about baking soda. Baking soda is amazing. You can use it for so many things! You can clean with it, cook with it, use it to cure indigestion, soften your bath water with it. There is no end.
My favorite use for baking soda is as a facial cleanser. I have really oily skin. I'm sure you didn't really want to know that, but it's important here. If you have dry skin, baking soda may not be the answer for you. However, if you have oily skin check it out! It absorbs oil, balances pH (I assume), removes impurities, removes the dull layer of skin, etc., etc. It's a micro-derm treatment for pennies! Just get your face wet, put a little on your fingers and rub gently. I strongly suggest you do not use a washcloth. It makes for some harsh scrubbin'! (and don't get it in your eyes)

Ah. Young Love.

Works for Me Wednesday

Yes, I am aware that it is Saturday. For those of you who do not know me, I have "timeliness" issues. I tend to be a bit scattered and often forget things. Quite often, in fact. When you stand around a visit with me, I seem perfectly normal and well put together...maybe even quite intelligent (on a good day). However, when you make an appointment or ask me to do something somehow.....it just "gets lost" somewhere in my brain. I like to call it ADD. The Right Reverend just scoffs. I'm not sure what he calls it. I'm not asking because I prefer not to know.

All that to say that many blogs post some handy tip every Wednesday. It's called, you guessed it, "Works for me Wednesday". I am a veritable storehouse of handy little hints. Surely I could do this for years and never run out. Surely. The problem is the time frame. It is supposed to be done on Wednesdays. I don't even work on Wednesdays. sigh.

Know what? Who cares? I'm still gonna post...whenever I think of something cool to tell you about. But I like the name "Works for me Wednesday". Now that you understand the disconnect.......

Cascade Complete.

It is a fabulous dish detergent for the dishwasher. It has enzymes in it that "eat" the food off your dishes so you don't have to rinse as much before loading the dishwasher. I'm all for anything that makes my least favorite chore a little easier.

But wait, there's more! Cascade Complete is also fabulous for things that are hard/impossible to wash in your sink. If you have a big thermos that had some coffee or something left in it for, I don't know......a month or more, you can fill it with hot water and put a teaspoon (or less) of Cascade Complete in it, close and shake or stir it up somehow and let it sit. Soon, (or tomorrow, depending on how you do things) you will have a clean thermos!

It also works on crock pots, coffee percolators and other electrical/cooking devices.

Works for me!!! Even on Saturday.

Look Out!

This is Justin and his dad, Steve. Justin is Isaac's BFF. Every week they spend at least one day at one another's homes....and by that I mean one day at ours and one day at theirs. Steve rides his bike to and from DC and occasionally runs a little late. He'll call and ask me to stay with the boys on the playground a little while until he can get there. No problem. The kids love getting extra time together. That's why I was taken aback by the call I got today.
Steve called just as I was headed to the school and said, "Can you get Justin today, I'm gonna be late."
That's when I heard the sirens in the background.
"You hear the sirens?"
yes, I did,
"They're coming for me. I just got hit by a car."
!!!!!!!!!!!!
"You alright?"
"Yeah. Just bruised up. I'll be a little late."
No kidding!
"No problem. We'll take him home with us. Call us if you need anything."

There ya go. Steve really is fine. Just one scrape on his knee, a great story about tucking and rolling over a lady's hood and probably some serious trouble moving tomorrow...though he'll never admit it.

Apparently this happens frequently in Bethesda. I hear stories about friends of friends getting hit more than I am comfortable with. I'm thinking I may not let Hunter ride his bike to High School. What do you think? Should I get him stunt lessons and set him loose? I'm not even gonna think about Todd out there on his scooter. 8^o

Update on the Play

I had an IEP meeting for Josiah yesterday. Well, not IEP exactly (we weren't making an education plan) but a meeting with the speech therapist, the occupational therapist and the teachers. I got some good advice, helped start a plan for Middle School (OMG!) and learned a little tidbit that has my head spinning a bit....in a good way.

Josiah's name was drawn out of a hat for that part. His name was not even in the hat, but just before the teacher drew names he announced that his name needed to be in the hat. She threw his name in and it came out for the dog.

Part of me finds that hard to believe, the other part has come to expect things like that. You can call it "luck" if it makes you feel better, but this was a little too specific to be pure chance. God does some pretty amazing things sometimes. Most of life is pretty amazing if you stop and think about it, but sometimes God's hand is way too obvious to ignore.

We have a good God and he is good to my children. For that I am profoundly grateful.

Just say, "No".

As I'm sure I've mentioned before, they are building a "McMansion" next door. A "mansion in a box". A huge house on every square inch of available property. This has had many frustrations, not the least of which is the racket of power tools early on Saturdays and the rumbling of our house caused by backhoes and bulldozers and they dig, fill and re-dig the drainage.
Sometimes what they do is downright scary...like putting in the steel i-beams by hand....trust me, it was scary.

Today:











They're covering the eves. Two poles, a ladder in between, attached to the house with bolts. Not two poles at each end. Two poles. Period. At the back of the house, that extra pole is from scaffolding at the back of the house. Which was rocking violently this morning as a guy walked across it. 8^0











See the guy hammering on the support down on the ground? While the other guy is up on the scaffolding?










Some things I do not want to know. The sound a man makes when falling that distance is one of those things. I really hope to live my whole life never knowing that sound. And I hope that guy gets paid well.....or at least has good benefits.

And, yes, that's snow. It's been there for about 11 days now. It's cold.

Announcement:

If you would like to see a clip of Josiah in his play, please send me an email (or a comment with your email addy if I don't have it) and I will send you a link. I have decided not to post it straight to the blog because it features other people's children. I'm not sure why that bothers me this time, but it does. Odd, eh?

The Star.....

I just found this post in my Drafts. What? No wonder no one knew how it had gone!!! Here it is in retrospect:

Alright. To assuage your curiosity and tide you over until the video is ready, I'll give you the low-down on the play. It was, of course, really great. We went to and videoed both showings, one at 9:15am and one at 7pm. Isaac was home sick that day but we drug him out to both. Poor kid. That's probably why he still feels puny. For the 7pm showing, the Kisers came! Or should that be, "The Kisers came for the 7pm showing!"? Probably. Either way, they were here. They even spent the night! (they had a conference out this way) They worked nicely in lieu of grandparents. (No, they are not old enough; they just made a nice substitution.) :^P

O.K. The nitty-gritty. Josiah was fabulous!!! He was the only kid in the entire 5th grade who was not self-conscious at all. He couldn't have cared less how many people were watching, he was having a grand old time! His fidgeting, twitching, pulling on his costume and playing with the coon-tail on his fellow actor's costume were perfect for a dog character. He said his lines right on cue, with great inflection, and loudly. He was the loudest singer in the group and he was the only one who improvised choreography while doing his song. I laughed so hard I couldn't take pictures. (Don't worry, Todd got plenty of footage.) He really was the star of the show. I'm not sure what everyone who doesn't know he's autistic thought, maybe just that he's a ham, but all who know him were almost as proud as me! Warning: when we post the video, have a kleenex handy. Just sayin'. If the pride doesn't get ya', you'll be crying with laughter.

Acting Debut

Josiah will be in his first play tomorrow. O.K., not really his first, I mean there were many church pagents and 3rd grade choir-type things but this is his first time as a major character. He'll be Lewis and Clark's dog. His lines are few and simple, but he's in the whole play and even has a musical number. I'm not nervous. No. Really. Yet. That'll come tomorrow morning before the first performance at 9:15. Part of me really hates that his grandparents can't be there. The other part is glad they won't have to deal with the stress. They can just watch the video after they know it's all gone well.
Even if it's a disaster, I'm so proud of him! And if it is a disaster, what a great story it'll make!


Meanwhile, say a little prayer for us tomorrow.

Pay it Forward.

My friend Manda posted a blog around Christmas Eve. By dint of my holiday laziness, I was reading blogs and came upon hers before the required "3". What? You'll see. Read on!

Pay It Forward… it’s a simple idea, really. If you’ve been paying attention to the Starbucks cups, it’s sort of like when you’re in line and you decide to pay for the person’s coffee behind you, and you hope they return the favor to someone else. If you’ve ever SEEN the movie Pay It Forward, it’s even MORE simple.
The idea has been floating around blogland, and I decided to take AtomicKnits up on her offer, so I am returning the favor!
“The idea of the exchange is I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on this blog post requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet, and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.”
I could definitely knit you socks, if you want. Or not. It would probably be sooner than a year, but I make no promises. Be one of the first three people to comment on this post with a valid email address, and I’ll send you a little sumthin-sumthin.

So, Manda hinted at the possibility of socks. I'm not that brave. But I will send something hand-crafted. I guess with a whole year to comply, I could do socks. As with Manda's, all I ask is that you Pay it Forward. Promise the same thing on your blog. If you don't have a blog and really want to participate, get creative. If you're creative enough, I'll let you slide. Leave me a comment (with your email if I don't have it) and let me know what type of goodie you are interested in. I paint, sew and knit......and cook.....and occasionally make soap. I do not clean. Or organize. Ultimately, I'll choose what to send you, but I will take input as I make my decision. ;-)

And if you're related to me.....just call me! All you have to do is ask. (yeah, Mom, I'll mail those socks directly. really I will.)

And I leave you with a friendly warning:

When knitting with bamboo needles, be careful how you put them in your backpack. Even with a padded back, they can become weapons of doom! I didn't even know these were poking out until my screen door shut on me while I unlocked the wooden door. Wow! I almost skewered my kidney!

Another meme

Aunt Rita, I know this isn't what you thought you'd get when I promised to post later today. It wasn't what I thought either, but it does look fun. It's a meme from my friend Rhonda's blog.

Here is what you do:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random The first article title on the page is the name of your band.

http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3 The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/ The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

Use your graphics program of choice to throw them together, and post the result as a comment in this post. Also, pass it along on your own blog, because it’s more amusing that way. If you don't have the software and/or blog, just do it for the fun of seeing what you come up with.

I only cheated a little. "Multiphase Flow" is a great band name but I threw in an extra word for the album name. "You Accept the Fact" just didn't sound right. I could have gone one word short too. "Accept the Fact" would make a good album name, is it not so? I also cheated on the picture. The first time I uploaded the page, the 3rd picture was the lamest one of all. It was a picture of unidentifiable food on a plate....but not even cool unidentifiable food. I refreshed the page. But only once...and I stuck with the 3rd pic, even though there were cooler ones on the page. Then I put it together in Word...which was not transportable...then I sent it all to Todd and let him put it together. O.K. So I cheated quite a bit. But I stuck with the spirit of the thing! And I'm passing it on. See?

Meanwhile, the world carries on. I just haven't really felt much like talking lately. I know. Not normal at all. Maybe tomorrow......or as Bob would say, "It'll be better tomorrow."

Happy 16th Anniversary, Babe!

In honor of our 16 years, let's take a trip back to the beginning. Who can resist being wooed by love-raps? Especially in the 90s. Especially illustrated love raps!

I have a whole collection of these. Some funny, some rather frightening. I'll share more sometime later.

Todd, thanks for 16 years of partnership. I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world. Not a moment of them.

I adore you.

This Year's Card

A Christmas Mir'cle!

A voluntary haircut that included (mostly) short hair! We love it! He loves it! We're hoping the long bangs will help him keep any "coolness" factor he may have lost with the cut. You never know with 7th graders.
He and his father are contemplating colors for the bangs. sigh. We're hoping that by encouraging him to do weird things to his hair we'll build up enough "reverse psychology" points to get us through the first year or so of High School.
Wishful thinking, I know.

Snow!

Sorry it took so long. Here is Josiah walking to school the day after we got all our snow. Isn't it lovely? I have tons of pictures and some video. Someday when I'm not feeling so guilty about all the other stuff I should be doing, I'll post 'em for you. We really, really enjoyed it and the boys are already asking when the next snow will come.

Doing my Duty

Because it is the sworn duty of all parents to completely humiliate their children whenever humanly possible:
http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=9596216292


And kudos to Pepco...our local electric company. A squirrel committed suicide on the transformer in front of the church this morning, blowing our power and the church's and who knows who else's. They came within the hour and had it back on, despite our never actually speaking to a human when we called. Guess they listen to their messages, eh? Wondering when it would come back on made me appreciate a warm house on a cold morning.

And because I don't want 2 posts in a row without a picture, here's the amazing herb garden Todd bought me last month. I've wanted one for forever and he surprised me with this one. It was so beautiful...and handy. I say "was" because I killed it. I'm not sure how. I did what I was supposed to but it turned brown and died. Sigh. The rosemary lived. I guess that counts for something.

Thanksgiving 2007

We had a great day yesterday! Everything turned out beautifully. And even though there are no shots of the full table, Todd was so inspired that he made a short video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diSmZo0gLuA

You'll see me dressed up, pearls and all. I was channeling my inner June Cleaver...it worked! Everything was yummy, everyone was happy and the guests left with food in hand...and none of them had to help with dishes.

(Only the Chihuahua is ours. The other two dogs are visiting for the week. They keep us on our toes, let me tell you.)

Today we did a little shopping. Mostly because we promised the boys we'd trim the tree today and we didn't have one. Slight oversight on our part. We went after lunch so the crowds were much thinned and we all survived. We came home and busted out the new tree. Again, Todd was inspired to make a video. Hopefully that one will be posted soon.

Enjoy! And "You're Welcome" for getting the song stuck in your head. :-)

Autumn Leaves

Walk with me, will you? Across the street and down the block to pick the boys up from school.


These were taken about a week ago. The colors are even more intense right now.


This yellow/green is my favorite! This week it is just screaming yellow. I'll try to get another pic for you as soon as I get batteries for my camera.


This is a side street I detoured down to get a picture of the leaf-strewn road. "Streets of gold."


So amazing! I was expecting muted golds and browns and maybe some rust-type colors. I was not expecting the crimsons and brilliant yellows mixed with the still-bright greens.

Of all of God's wonders, I think steady rain ruffling through color-drenched trees is one of the most peaceful. Good stuff!

Our Cat

Our neighbor dropped in for a visit yesterday. She had come by to deliver a belated "welcome to the neighborhood" gift and stayed (with her standard-sized poodle) for a chat. She's a very nice lady who has a cat almost identical to ours (only male). She informed me that Su Chen is not a Burmese (they are short-haired) but is a Maine Coon. I looked it up on Wikipedia, and sure enough she is! Pretty cool. They are an American breed, very smart, very sweet and very large (Ours is bigger than our dog and the largest ever recorded was 4 feet long!). They are considered the easiest to train of the cat breeds and ours is supposedly more likely to play fetch than our Chihuahua....not hard, since he's pretty unlikely to play fetch. It's something I'll have to try soon.
Yay for having official documentation that our cat rocks!

Post-Halloween Carnage

So, a day late and a dollar short, here is the aftermath of Halloween.....

Actually all of these pics are from the day itself. Those punkins didn't last long. They were pretty scary, eh?

This is our utterly mortified dog in his costume. K-9 unit indeed.

Ike as a blue ninja. He originally wanted to be Boba Fett until he learned that there were going to be at least 3 others in his class.

They all lined up in a row for the parade, it was awesome.

So the real carnage was all the candy laid out on the floor. I'll spare you the horror of that particular scene. The boys really enjoyed their first real trick-or-treating experience and the sleep-over was a hit. Fun, fun, fun.

And now on toward Thanksgiving! We'll be hosting a small group from church. Whaddya think? Should we have the Thomas family traditional Thanksgiving feast? (and by "Thomas family" I mean Todd's grandparents) Frito Pie! hmmmmm....I'm thinking probably not. Though we might go with my side of the family and have gumbo. YUM!

Viva la Holidays!

We made the paper!

In a good way.

http://www.gazette.net/stories/103107/bethnew60310_32371.shtml