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Monday, April 28, 2008

Where Do I Sign?

Tell me this isn't the coolest study you've ever heard of in your entire life!

Dude! I have to eat it! It's for science!!

Friday, April 25, 2008

Just Sayin...

Dying on one's wedding day does not make one any less of a street thug.

Dangerous people get married all the time...

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Between My Ears Today...

  1. I very rarely agree with anything in The New York Times, but this editorial hits it spot-on. Enough's enough, gang. How about some substantive answers to real questions instead of sound bytes and personal attacks? (Seriously, even Harry Truman is sick of hearing his catchphrase by now.) And superdelegates, how about stepping up and making your votes known?
  2. DS is spending a lot of time complaining that he doesn't have any friends. *sigh* I fear he's following in my socially-inept footsteps. Don't know what to do about that. I spent about an hour on the phone this afternoon, unsuccessfully trying to set up a playdate for next week. Poor kid has almost no athletic talent and is smart as a whip. He'll do great professionally, but I'd do anything to make school less than miserable for him on the social side.
  3. Going to look at another house later this week. Formally turned down an offer to "deal" on the other gorgeous house we liked, from its owner/developer, that came via email this morning. My heart hurts a little, but I know it wasn't right. We tried really hard to make it right, but the pieces were all kinds of misaligned. This other one is in a nicer neighborhood..it's an 1897 Victorian. We'll see what we see.
  4. "How much drinks do you think I've drinken?" So sayeth my daughter at the dinner table. God love four-year-old English.
  5. Finally updated my photo blog this morning. Sorry for the lack of pics lately.
  6. I tried to download my first podcast this morning. ITunes said it was 45 minutes long, but I only got six minutes of it on my iPod. What's up with that?

Monday, April 21, 2008

The First Step

Today was DD's kindergarten orientation. We went and sat in the school gym with all the other kindergarten kids and moms/dads, and then the kids went down to the kindy rooms to play with the teachers for a bit while the principal talked at us. (Not a typo, by the way.) An hour went by, the kids came back upstairs, there was a glorious reunion for those who'd been led out through curtains of tears a little while earlier, and then a whole bunch of us went to a local pizza joint for lunch.

There are going to be 50 kids in the kindergarten this year. Forty of those are siblings of older students in the school. About 20 are siblings of kids in my son's class. Lots and lots of familiar faces. And because we've all done this drill before, there was just about no sadness from the parents, even when the principal gave her annual speech about how this is the first step our kids will take towards marriage and not needing us anymore. Bring it on, sistah.

Here's the thing about sending one's kid to private school in an area that doesn't generally lack for cashflow: there's a lotta bling floating about. For a confirmed Target kind of girl like me, that translates to a whole lotta intimidation. Me and my Levis and my Life is Good T-shirts tend to hang out near the back of the crowd, while the Gucci and Chanel-clad put-together moms who really do dress like this just for carpool thankyouverymuch congregate toward the front.

They're nice people. Really and truly, they are. They just look very, very nice. Like TV news anchors. All the time.

DH was away this weekend, and DD and I did a leetle shopping. Nothing terribly fancy--Kohls took care of most of it and a lucky yard sale find sealed the deal (hello springy Coach bag for $12! NOBODY TELL!). But I filled a bag with some trendy tops--those trapeze kinda things with the fancy stitching and all--and a pair of oversized sunglasses that everybody seems to be wearing.

So today, I showed up at the kindy orientation wearing my stylish new duds. The sunglasses stayed home thanks to day 2 of a monsoon (first person to yell drought this summer gets smacked), but the top and the bag made their debut, with some brown boot-cut pants I already had and some boots.

It wasn't huge. But it was enough to give me the confidence to plop down in the middle of everyone and smile and say hello, and then to socialize through the crowd at lunch. I met some new people who were super sweet and who I can now approach at carpool in my T-shirts and faded denim without feeling so much like a troll talking to the queen. A small investment, I think, all things considered.

DS is going to kindergarten. But we both learned today.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Randomness

Weekend was good. Saturday was the district Pinewood Derby--DS took fourth place for the district for car design. Not too shabby for a first grader! Sunday I spring cleaned--two closets, three dressers, a storage trunk, part of the attic, the oven, and the refrigerator. All cleaned and purged and scrubbed and organized. Rock on!


Spent a good bit of Friday afternoon sitting on the front porch of the house that continues to haunt us. Watching traffic (there's a lot more than we're used to), thinking about maintenance (it's in a historic district, which means lots of wood to care for), debating the positives and negatives of living near condos and apartments (we don't now), and talking about schools (the public ones blow). Stupid, stupid house. If only I could pick it up and move it.


Spent a good bit of yesterday calling contractors to see what the damage would be to our bank account to add onto our current house and shift things around a bit. None of them called back. Recession my ass, at least around here.


Got into a huge fight with DH about the aforementioned homes last night. Men are big babies. Don't ever let anyone tell you differently.


Today's supposedly our last day of chilly weather before spring officially arrives. Crossing my fingers...

Friday, April 11, 2008

Spring Arrives

Today is my favorite day of the whole year. It's the first day I wake up in the morning, look at the temperature, and fling open the windows to let the fresh, warm, yummy-smelling spring air in. And yeah, that makes my allergies go bonkers and reminds me that I really need to get in and clean out closets and dressers--spring cleaning and all that--but it makes my house so much nicer to have some fresh air circulating that I don't care about that.

I opened the first window at 6:07 this morning. Inhaled deeply. Smelled things coming to life and blooming, heard the birds warbling, smiled at the deep red blooms that are about to burst from my azaleas.

We looked at two houses last night. The first was one that's been haunting us for months. The house is fantastic; the neighborhood is a question mark.

The second house was also amazing and in a nice neighborhood that we like very much. But it's the original estate home for the area, and as they've sold off the rest of the land, they've built other homes literally in a circle around this one. It reminded me of a single cowboy surrounded by indians, you know? (And I mean that in an innocent kids-playing-in-1975 kind of way, not an un-PC go-home kind of way, so don't go getting your knickers in a knot.)

So last night, I pouted. A lot. Went to bed good and grouchy. But today, spring is here. My windows are open. It smells good. I'm happy again. :)

It's the little things.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Randomness

Swamped with work. It's a good position to be in, don't get me wrong, but with a field trip to chaperone tomorrow, a house to look at sometime in another neighborhood, and about a trillion other things going on, it's waking me up at ungodly hours and making me lay there worrying. It'll all work out. It always does.





Got some fun stuff at the bead store today. Hope to have a picture for my photo blog later tonight. :)





We're going to see the Pope next week. A client of DH's got us tickets to see him at the National Shrine--not the Mass he's saying, but sort of parading into the church for a meeting and for a blessing. Should be complete chaos, but a once in a lifetime kind of thing. :)





I posted about this article before, but it just won a Pulitzer. Very deservedly so. I read it a year ago and it's stuck with me--really a wonderful piece. If you haven't yet, settle in for a really good adventure with it.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

For Allison...

Really for Steve...


Just Sayin...

Dear Real Estate Gods:

Enough with the sending me listings that look absolutely perfect and make my heart flutter, only to then chuck massive issues into the mix that make them impossible.

I swallowed the gorgeous house in the neighborhood that turned out to be not so fantabulous after all. Fine. The stupid thing still pops up in every flippin' search I do and makes me gasp a bit, but you win that one. Done.

This last one, though, was just mean. Foundation problems? You serious, Clark? Great old house, neighborhood we adore, decent enough price, and we'd really need to rip half the damn house off?

That's two. I'll give you two.

Next time, though, I hunt you down and kick the shit out of you. I saw every episode of The Sopranos, my friend. It'll happen.

XOXO

Kim, in my teeny tiny house with no counter space or storage on the sorority block...

Friday, April 4, 2008

Prayer for a Mom on Friday Night

God, grant me the serenity
To not yell back
To not smack little heads or heinies
And to not run screaming into the street before a bus.

Grant me the patience
To cut off the crusts just so
To apply and re-apply band-aids so the owies don't hurt
And to not call anybody shorter than me a "stupidhead."

Let my head not explode
At listening to the same song for the eighth time in a row
At Wa Wa Wubzy's voice
Or at the next person who says that he or she is so cuuuuuuute!

Let me talk to an adult for five uninterrupted minutes today,
Take a shower in peace, at least until the conditioner's out,
Not eat Pop Tarts for a 4 p.m. snack,
And make it through Target in less than three figures.

Keep my voice down,
My hands low,
And my halo shining, even when I'd like to fling it at my family.

Help me remember that they're blessings
My little blessings
And that they love me, no matter what.

And then, Lord, give me a peaceful bedtime and a glass of wine.
I deserve it.

Amen.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Questions and a Recommendation

To answer a few recent questions from my comments...


DD is fine. Her finger bled a bit, but it was nothing a Cinderella Band-Aid didn't clear right up. The fingernail will grow back, and I doubt she'll try to sharpen herself again anytime soon.


No, DH does not read my blog. He's not the most internet-savvy guy. :)


I taught myself to make jewelry just by kind of doing it. I looked at a few websites, browsed at the bead store, looked at some beaded pieces I already had to see how they were made, and just had at it. It's not difficult. Give it a whirl!


And now the recommendation


We watched this last night and it was super fun. Not the kind of movie I'd ordinarily choose, but wicked-clever and definitely one of my favorites as late. Go see it!
Another is Man About Town, with Ben Affleck. Very well done. Rent away, my fellow Blockbuster addicts...

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

A Lesson From My Daughter

Those little manual plastic pencil sharpeners will not sharpen one's finger. They will, however, rip one's fingernail clean off and leave a bloody mess behind.


*sigh*