It’s Been a Week

A week since I last posted.  Today is my “free day” of the week so here’s my chance, but I don’t really have a plan on what to say!  But still I want to check in. 

Today for my free day, I will be going to multiple grocery stores to get the best buys and carry in and put away $100+ of groceries.  But first I will wipe out the fridge and pantry shelves that are freed up by having so little stuff in there.  I don’t know why I am telling this.  I guess I think some of this might be interesting in years to come when I want to relive my SAHM days and will peek back at the blog since I really don’t do a handwritten journal anymore.  Big fun I don’t want to ever forget! haha

Caroline will be wearing her Ronald Reagan sandwich board in her school’s parade today at 2:30, so I’ll go to that.  She got the thing done so quickly, as soon as the assignment was given.  When I told Gary that today was when she’d wear it for the Presidents’ Day parade, he was surprised since it was like a month ago that she made it, with help from Grandma Barbara who cut out some paper word clouds to accent the board.

We are just patiently waiting for bids for our house addition.  We’ve had three builders and their subcontractors to take the plans and come out to look everything over.  I really want to know how much we’re talking here to get our big wish list fulfilled (master suite, laundry room/mudroom with bath, reworked kitchen, new great room, two new upstairs bedrooms, two dormers added to upstairs, new basement areas, new garage bay, new front porch, new back door).

Or will we have to scale back?  It would be great if it happens just like we have the architect plans drawn up.  I already love that house!  The one builder we are most hopeful for a reasonable bid on is the one that hasn’t gotten back to us to say if he even wants to bid it.  We saw his work on a three-level addition of a friend’s house and his work is very good and he was half the cost of their other bidders so he’s looking like a top contender for us.  So why won’t he call back?  I didn’t leave my number last message, assuming that he already had it since we’d talked before in the past, so maybe that’s the real reason.

I need to make some phone calls right now.  To that builder and also to schedule Caroline’s orthodontist appointment.  (Mentioned just so I don’t forget all the fun I have on my free days.) 

A Very Valentine MusicTuesday

Hey, hi!  Today is Valentine’s Day.  I just answered a trivia question on a website with the hopes of winning a $10 gift certif to our local candy store.  Wouldn’t that would just rock?  I would take the kids and say, “Ok, kids, go nuts!  You each have $2.50!  Go find your candy!”

Well, that would be over fast.

Or I could choose $10 of chocolates for me.  And I’d share them with Gary.  If he’d eat them. 

Mostly I entered, though, because it was a fun question:

What song did Lloyd Dobler, played by John Cusack, play for DIANE from his boom box in the movie Say Anything?

I have loved this song for a long time. 

Speaking of trivia:  I have also read that while they filmed the movie Say Anything (1989), In Your Eyes was not the song actually playing from the boom box.  John, a fan--see his t shirt?, played a Fishbone song.  Director Cameron Crowe dubbed the Peter Gabriel song in later, and that was the perfect song choice.

Which btw, I saw Fishbone open for the Beastie Boys in 1987 at the Checkerdome in St Louis.  And they were in town last year at the City Museum and I wanted to go see them again, for old times sake.   Whoa, that was 24 years ago.  I’m thinkin that does constitute old times!

Love to all on this lovey day!

Math and Potty Problems

Gary made it back home Friday after a week on the road with work.  His trip took him to Maryland, Washington DC, and Virginia.  It was a very demanding week of work for him with constant meetings and long drives and issues back at the office and other complications.

While he was gone, we made out fine.  I kept the fire burning and the house warm.  No bad guys appeared.  I never really worry about us being here without him with the exception of two things….

1) the boys will need help with math homework, eeek!

2) the toilet will get clogged, yuck! 

Just as I feared, one of those happened. 

#2, of course (pun possibly intended). 

Super Foot Bowl

Us girls didn’t care too much about watching the Super Bowl last Sunday.  Caroline thought a much better idea would be for us to have a spa session. She sat it all up and invited me in.  We soaked our feet in lovely warm water to which she had added some foot cream.  It looked a little weird but felt great! 

Then one of the other team defected to our side.

Our treatment was capped off by a manicure and just look at the color choices.

Sam chose a rainbow effect so he had a different (read: bright) color on every finger.

The next morning he came to me as we were walking out the door for school.  “Mom, this didn’t come off!  I put it in the water!”

No, Sam, nail polish does not come off in water.  There was no time to get the remover out.  He had to go to school that way.

He seemed ok with that.  He did say later that everyone noticed his painted nails and asked him why they were like that.

All he had to say was “My sister did it.” 

MovieMonday—Dinner for Schmucks

I don’t know why, since it came out last year, but we just watched this yesterday.  Gary said the trailers looked really bad at the time so I guess that’s why we didn’t.  So it was on our dvr’d list and I was up in the night and thought it might be fun to watch.  I ended up not watching the whole thing since I got sleepy, but told Gary next morning that I thought it was pretty funny after all and we should watch it.

If you at all miss the cringe factor of Michael Scott on The Office, I found Barry (Steve Carell) of this movie made up for it for me.  A few times I was feeling my stomach knotting up just knowing he was going to do another appalling thing.  Not that he was a copy of MScott.  Similar but different. 

I laughed out loud some (especially involving Paul Rudd with a back injury trying to navigate a step in his apartment and when Barry thinks it would be a good thing to apply heat to his new friend’s sore back).  Zach Galifianakis appears, wearing a dickie all wrong,  

and there’s Jemaine Clement that doesn’t wear much at all.

Ron Livingston works in Paul Rudd’s office space, too.

And I loved Paul Rudd’s girlfriend’s hair cut!

There were lame moments, lame scenes, but overall it was watchable and humorous and, bonus, you might learn a thing or two about taxidermy of mice.  A little mousterpiece theatre!

Happy Lose A Tooth Day!

I was gone to the grocery store when it happened.  I asked Sam how he got it to come out, finally!  He told me he went like (moves tongue across front of teeth) and there it was. 

He was making such great progress in speech.  Now it's like we're back to the beginning trying to get the /th/'s in 'thick thighs.'  : )

Blue Sky Moon

Love it when my moon roof is open, in the winter no less!, and I look up and see the moon. Cool.

The Helmet, The End

If you remember back to this, you will concede with me that this helmet lasted well beyond what my doubters predicted!  Gary gave it a day until it’s tiger stripes lost their stick and Ross gave it a week. 

Mind you, it turned out to be more than a year and three months later, it was still looking tiger-good!

Until it was hanging out on the driveway and met up with somewhere between 2 and 3 tons of Honda minivan backing out.

Ok, looks like maybe it got a little scuffed, maybe we see a crack there;  it could just use a little more electrical tape, orange paint, a cosmetic touch up….

but no, actually it was mutilated.      

RIP Tiger Helmet

(formerly known as Purple Flower Helmet before the gender reassignment procedure)

2006- 2012