Homework: Weeping, Wailing & Nashing of the Teeth
The fifth circle (Anger) by Stradanus via Wikipedia I like helping. I enjoy helping. I derive satisfaction from helping. However, seldom does homework fall under this category for me. One would think it would. It does not. In our house it’s often a knock-down, drag-out fight involving a lot of shouting–sometimes from me. Lots of weeping and wailing and spinning of the wheels–I also gnash my teeth. The amount of resistance I encounter on some nights could power a small village and still have reserves. Afterschool in our house can be compared to a scene from The Inferno. Did I mention that I feel like weeping, wailing and gnashing my teeth? …
A trip to the gas station
I went to Costco this morning to get gas. As I was paying the man on the other side of the pump and I exchanged greetings and continued about our business. Since I was driving the boat this morning, filling up took a little bit. When I fill the Mini, even when it’s really low, it just sips the gas and then we’re out of there–although I try not to get it down really low and Chief razzes me for it because he thinks I get panicky when (according to him) there is plenty of gas in the tank. Getting gas for the Mini is like a race car pit…
More Shadows and a Brain Hat!
If I only had a brain hat, like Stella here, I would’ve found my shadow pics yesterday. That’s a picture of a brain that Little Man colored for school last year and then the class made “hats” out of them–they were studying anatomy. In case you’re wondering, Stella is a “boy.” There’ll be a post about Stella in the future. So, here’s the real deal–my dog’s shadow. Did you figure out what made robot dog’s shadow yesterday? It was a bike carrier on the back of a car. The boys actually saw that shadow and told me to take a pic, because I take a pic of practically everything. This is…
Shadows & Sun
We’re in a “heat advisory” here in Phoenix and it really stinks. The school is even keeping the children inside because it’s too hot to play. Since I’m a little fried, here is a shadow pic to entertain you. Since I can be technically challenged and can’t seem to find the others, you only get one today. But, you get a bonus “one” backstory below. Can you guess what this is a shadow of? What do you think it looks like? The boys thought it looked like a robot dog. I agree with them. But right now it also looks like a bat or a gargoyle of sorts, too. I took that earlier in…
http://www.graphicsfairy.com/ A successful trip to Michaels this weekend. I promised the monkeys we’d “look” at the Halloween decorations. Ever since that cursed Halloween costume catalogue arrived it’s been nothing but Halloween talk, especially from Little Man. Actually, that’s not true. He’s been talking about Santa, a lot. He actually drew a picture of our house with Santa on the roof–this is a picture for Santa. He even insisted I get a Christmas ribbon out so he could wrap it around the picture. Little Man thought it’d be nice to give Santa something because he’s always giving us stuff. To interrupt my own story I have to say that I was…
Embracing the aging process
One would not think I would be so excited to see a pair of readers. This morning I was. It was as if I found a long, lost cousin or something. Actually Big Monkey found the readers, they had rolled into the back seat of the SUV. Handing them to me, he asked, “What are these?” I answer, “Yeah! Those are my readers. You have totally made my day—thank you!” Then Little Man went into a big spiel how he hadn’t seen me wear them since “Monday”…had to get his 2 cents in, I suppose. It’s not that I’m excited about aging, especially with regards to the obvious signs of…
New Coke and My Big Mouth
en.wikipedia.org http://www.mindthegp.wordpress/ both via google images Quite a few years back Chief and I were at Target running a quick errand when we saw Pepsi Zero on sale and he picked some up. The cashier asked us if we liked it and we told her we had never heard of it and knew nothing about it. After a pause (and a moment of knowing better) I said you’d think they (Pepsi) would learn a lesson from the New Coke debacle. Mind you, the cashier is all of 18 maybe 19—wasn’t even born when New Coke came out. She’s never heard of it. I continue trying to give her prompts or…
The Other “Woman”
We used to have a running joke in our family that Chief’s cell was his “girlfriend.” Sometimes he’s more connected to that piece of equipment than he is to anything else. It is his lifeline to everyone, most especially work and he works a lot of hours; however, his cell phone use/addiction can get out of hand at times. There was a particularly rough patch at work for Chief a few years back–lots of long, long calls and they seemed to roll in one after another. I finally became fed up with the constant chatter, ringing and beeping that came even when he wasn’t on call and the sundry “emergencies”…
Cooking Strike
I’ve been on a cooking strike for quite some time now. I don’t know what I really feel like eating which seems to make shopping for ingredients and cooking them nearly impossible. I even tried to trick myself into thinking that if I went to the store something would “grab” me. I haven’t been grabbed or even remotely groped by an idea or food item—not even at the store where food items are lurking about. My story has now very much so bored me and I still have a fairly bare fridge and no dinner plans in sight. I feed the children lots of good foods from the fridge but…
Halloween already?
http://www.thegraphicsfairy.com/ My kids love Halloween–so do I. I’m not sure where they get their need and desire to decorate for every Tom, Dick and Harry holiday and celebration but in some ways it’s kind of cool. I grew up in a home where we didn’t really decorate for the holidays. In fact, Christmas was really the only holiday we did up and my mom (the Shinto Buddhist) was more excited than my dad (of the very German & Lutheran upbringing). I like decorations and simultaneously dislike them. We have a friend who spends weeks setting up for Christmas and that sounds like a nightmare to me. She actually has…
