what we've been doing...

A gingerbread house! See photos

Getting ready for Christmas! more photos

And wandering around with my camera in the front yard while still in my pjs and bathrobe.....see more photos!

"I need an ice pack for my lips!"

So here's the phone call I got at work last week: "Mommy, izzat you? I burned my tongue on a hot pepper!" followed by much hysterical screaming. Corey came on the phone and 'splained that Milo had been fooling around in the garden, which has some leftover hot chili peppers hanging around in it. Corey noticed that Milo was playing with a pepper and told Milo to go inside and wash his hands and not to touch his face or put his hands in his mouth, as the pepper juice would sting like crazy. Defiant person that he is, Milo looked right at Corey and stuck both hands in his mouth. Much screaming ensued. Corey gave Milo some milk, and an ice cube and ice cream, but Milo still felt that he would feel better by calling me. Little did he know that I would crack up laughing (because I am a horrible person that finds other people's self inflicted agony infinitely amusing, especially when they've been warned) and then proceed to gut busting hysterics when I heard Milo say in the background, while Corey was talking: "I need an ice pack for my lips!"

As soon as I got home from work that day, I said to Milo "So, what'd you think of that hot pepper?" The answer: "Not good. And I don't know why you think it's funny!"

this is Halloween

Halloween 2010: Lots of fun!! Milo designed his own costume: Skelevader, in which he was a skeleton Darth Vader, complete with a battle axe. The day before Halloween we had a little Halloween party for some of Milo's friends. It was a total blast. We did tons of different activities, but the favorite by far was "bobbing for brains." I didn't want to do the boring old bobbin' for apples thing, plus the kids probably wouldn't eat the apples once they were gotten....so I set up four big bowls half full of water and threw two ginormous marshmallows in each one. We stirred the water so the marshmallows would spin and be harder to catch. Those kids played that game for a looong time. All of them had crusty sugar water faces by the time they were done, and even grosser, they were drinking the slimy sugar water AND eating the soggy mallows. Apparently we've started a new trend in Halloween party games because a couple of the kids went home and showed their siblings how to bob for brains also!

Some other stuff we did at the Halloween party: Paint pumpkins, make masks, color in fancy Halloween cups, make ghosties, make candy spiders and eyeballs, guessed the goo (covered bowls of stuff like peeled grapes, cold spaghetti, etc) and have a cookie race. We also made our own goody bags so the kids would have something to haul their creations home in.

See the pictures!

And of course, we wrapped Halloween up with trick or treating in the big development down the street from our house. It was downright cold that night; Milo and I went out for about an hour, filled his cauldron and came back home. He's already planning on what to be for next year....

The latest happenings!

I got some new tattoos earlier this month. The sharks were destined to happen, of course, it just took me awhile to figure out exactly what I wanted. The water witch one is because that's what Corey calls me because I'm always yelling about the watery messes that occur around here (he thinks I'll melt if I get hit with errant water, like the wicked witch of the west, and now he has Milo convinced of that too, which is doubly hilarious when you consider how much I love the beach and swimming), plus everything that breaks around here that is expensive ALWAYS has to do with water: The hot water heater busted, the washing machine busted, we had a 10-inch flood in the basement, the well went dry, the kitchen sink didn't work, etc. I love my ink, and love the whole artistic/creative/painful process of getting one done, but we have more important things to spend our spare cash on.

Now it looks like we're going to have to build a catapult or trebuchet because Milo and I saw punkin' chunking in action today and he loved every minute of it! Immediately after the first gourd took to the air, Milo turned to me and said "Mom. Can we build one of those?"




The punkin' chunkers were at Prickett's farm in Lumberton, NJ. Today was their practice day for the big gig in Delaware in a couple of weeks, and they invited the general public to come in and help them work out the kinks of their trebuchet. The neatest thing about the event today is that the machine is built by kids in the Lumberton school's gifted & talented class! That particularly inspired Milo when he found out that lil' factoid. The wheels are spinning in his head already about how to build one. The next time we look out in the backyard, and Milo's fooling around on his own out there, I bet we'll see a full-sized catapult, with Milo attempting to lure one of the dogs into the pitchin' cup.

By the way, Milo's launch went 509 feet! Pretty impressive! Especially after the first launch that we watched went backwards.

on a positive note

While I was at the dermatologist yesterday, the plumbers came and fixed our kitchen sink. It drains with gusto now!! I can actually wash my hands, rinse out the coffeepot or even dump un-drunk water down the sink now and watch it actually GO DOWN. WOOOOOOO HOOOOO. I know, most people don't get excited about a working sink, but I have been living with a non-functional sink for 7 years. After doing dishes, the water would literally take at least 2 hours to drain completely. Corey had done his best to fix it but we finally gave in to the fact that no matter how much snaking, plunging or venting we did, there was something seriously wrong with the pipes underground. It was time to call in the professionals, and the results are well worth whatever the cost is. The bill will arrive next week...I'm sure that Corey and I will both have to pick up our jaws off the floor when we open it, but we'll cross that bridge then.

I learned something interesting this week....

Taking care of a sutured wound is easier said than done. I had to have rather large mole removed from the middle of my back a couple of weeks ago, due to the fact that the mole was in "pre-cancer" phase, so the dermatologist told me to take care of it now before it turned into a melanoma. Ok, said I, thinking safe is better than sorry. The process used to take the mole off was excision, meaning that they literally cut it out of my back with a scalpel, going through all the layers of skin, in a wide oval shape around it. They sutured it shut with internal dissovable stitches and external stitches that had to come out. I signed off on a piece of paper that acknowledged I would have a scar. Little did I know what sort of scar I would have!

I walked around with my frankenstein stitches for a couple of weeks, then went back to have them taken out. I followed instructions on the suture care for the most part, except I let my OCD about germs take over for a few days and applied bacitracin to them when I shouldn't have. Don't know if that caused later problems or not, but it probably didn't help.

The nurse had a heck of a time getting my stitches out, and had to call in another nurse to help her dig the nasty scab out of the stitches. Apparently I am thick skinned literally and figuratively, as both of them kept saying "I've never seen scabbing like this." Whatever, I was so happy to have someone yanking those stitches out and relieving the godawful itch that nothing else mattered at that moment. Once they got that all done, they slapped a couple of butterfly-style steri-strips on the booboo and told me to apply neosporin twice a day right over the steri strips. The steri strips were supposed to fall off in a few days; instead they fell off that night. I didn't pay any attention, thinking that all was well.

Wrong!! Over the course of the next day or so, the excision wound opened up and the internal sutures started to rupture, as the steri strips were no longer holding it together. I had no clue; I was just cleaning the area and applying neosporin as directed, without really looking at it. My mom made a snarly comment that she didn't like the way it looked and I blew it off. Then Milo asked to look at my frankenstein scar and when I showed it to him, he said "Ewwww." Normally Milo says "Cool!" about stuff like that, so I finally contorted myself in front of the mirror and saw that instead of a neat little slightly open linear booboo, I now had a gaping deep hole that was filled with yucky stuff. Ewww indeed.

Mild panic attack ensued. I'm all for battle scars and whatnot, but I'm not into having infected bullet holes in my body. I could literally stick my pinky into the hole. Blech. I was back at the dermatologist office first thing the next morning, saying "What is wrong with this nasty thing??" The dermatologist told me that the sutures ruptured, it was too late to stitch it back up and to stop moving around so much so the hole would have a chance to fill itself in. (Um, hello, I'm alive, therefore I move all the time) The gunky stuff was actually skin that was trying to grow and attach itself to the edges of the booboo. Now I have to apply special prescription ointment that is both an antibacterial and will help the scar fill itself in, for two weeks. Ugh. But that is better than developing MRSA!!

So here's what I learned from this experience, that I will pass unto you for future reference: if you have to have stuff cut off you, don't expect the healing to be all neat and pretty, especially if its on your back (or any area that has a lot of constantly changing tension in the skin). Resign yourself to having a ginormous battle scar that will be bigger and more ugly than the original problem!

Yet more photos

I had some fun this morning in the field across the street.

Artsy fartsy sunflower pictures

Corey's sunflower garden is growing and blooming like gangbusters. I spent some time out there last week, just admiring the sunflowers. I'm impressed with how tall they are, considering rabbits ate most of them when they were still wee.

Check out my interpretation of sunflowers and the joy they bring to our yard....

First day of school

Milo's first day of kindergarten was 9/2/10. So far he likes it a lot. Who wouldn't, it's only 2 hours long!!

The first day was full of the typical first day fun for Milo: the excitement of getting on the bus, and trying on his new backpack, meeting all his new friends, etc.

See some pix!

just call me...exhausted

It was a perfect weekend for camping. Milo and I spent Saturday night out in the tent, in which he slept fine and I slept fitfully, seeing as how the ground is a lot harder than my bed. Last night we camped out again, this time with the last minute addition of Milo's good buddy Jack. Big mistake.

Just as we were getting ready to go to sleep, Milo said to Jack, "Watch out for the zombies." Milo fell asleep right after that while Jack stared at me for awhile. Then Jack had to get up to go pee at 3 in the morning. He woke me up and I helped him find his way inside. We came back to the tent and got settled in again, and then Milo woke up. They decided they were too cold to stay outside so we came inside. They were wide awake and being VERY NOISY despite my repeated attempts to separate/hush/tie them to chairs. As a result of being up so goshdarn early both boys were sorta cranky the rest of the morning and argued about EVERYTHING. I think the only thing they agreed on was to argue. They were driving me insane. Corey, lucky man that he is, was at work!

Jack went back home at 11am and Milo proceeded to whine and fuss and insist that he was not tired the rest of the day. There just was no pleasing that kid today, the brat factor was turned up to 150, which is about 10 times more than normal. To top it off, the neighbors have had their screaming grandkids over all weekend with two grand-dogs in tow. Our dogs have been going insane with the barking because of the different dogs. In fact most of the dogs in the neighborhood were up in arms about the new dogs and spent lots of time barking at each other. Very 101 Dalmations. Anyway, between the screamers, the barkers and the whiners, its a wonder I have any brown hairs left on my head at all. I was never so happy to see Corey come home this afternoon....and he was early, a double delight!!

To work off the joys of the day, I went for a bike ride after supper. My knees did not appreciate it but my brain and my emotions did. By the time I got back (only 45 minutes but it was like a week long spa vacation) I was back up to speed and feeling more like my usual "i can handle anything" self. Thank you, Corey for giving me that pinch of "me" time!! I needed it in a most desperate way.

Keeping us young....

Milo and I camped out last night. It seems that the older I get the harder the ground gets, despite many layers of padding underneath my sleeping bag. We had a grand old time sleepin' under the stars in the tent, and even took our breakfast out there this morning. The weather is perfect for camping...just cool enough to make the sleeping bags extra cozy. When we were kids Corey and I both spent lots of summer nights sleeping outside. I hope that Milo gets that bug as well; nothing beats camping when the weather is right.

Milo also wanted to practice skateboarding yesterday so Corey and I got our old boards out and were showing him some stuff. Corey is still a good skateboarder, my skills are a bit rusty. Milo gave it a fair try until he fell off and broke his butt. The kid needs a butt helmet in addition to his regular helmet and his knee and elbow pads.

Click here for photos....

haircut!

yes it's true. I actually got my hair cut, by a real hair stylist. Who woulda thunk it? Sometimes, once in a while, I do act like a real girl. Don't worry, it's just a phase!

See the before & afters here.

newish photos

stuff that caught my eye or amused me, or both....click here to see

Play fair!

Just an amusing Milo moment:

Last night I took him to the park near our house, to practice riding his new giant-size bike and to play on the playground. Milo was running around with some other kids playing tag, and one kid in particular kept whacking Milo really hard, instead of just tapping him, when Milo got tagged. Milo got fed up after a few times and whacked the kid back. (at which point said kid got yelled at by his mother, I watched the whole thing and just let it play out...ya gotta learn to defend yourself sometime).

Anyway, after whacking the other kid back, Milo came running over to me and said "Moooommm....that kid doesn't know the rules & regs of playing tag. He's doing it all wrong!" When "rules & regs" came out of Milo's mouth, I about fell off the bench laughing. After I composed myself I suggested that perhaps Milo could teach the kid the appropriate rules and regs, so Milo ran off and talked at the kid for awhile, with much waving around of the arms. The other kid got bored of being lectured by a fellow five year old and ran off to play on the swings. Milo found some other kids to harass, I mean play with, and the games continued....this time following all the right rules (& regs).

Kindergarten Countdown

Milo starts school Sept. 2. That's less than a week away!! It seems like last week he was still tooling around in his exersaucer/walker thing and jumping like a crazy bean in his jumperoo. Our little guy is rapidly becoming a big guy.

I took Milo to kindergarten orientation earlier this week. That was quite an experience. For his teacher, not for us :) Milo decided he was going to be ultra-cool harley dude and dressed the part (in his mind) so he could impress his teacher, as he was meeting her for the first time. Tony Hawk skater t-shirt, hawaaiian shirt over that, cargo pants, lots of tattoos and his motorcycle cop sunglasses.

When Milo met Mrs. Cullen he turned around and said to me "Mom. She's beee-yoooo-ti-fulll." He's right, she totally is...Mrs. Cullen looks a lot like Sandra Bullock, and she's really friendly and outgoing. I had to leave him in the class and go talk to the principal of the school (who looks like he's about 12) and learn all about the classroom policies and the pta and all that happy stuff that goes along with having a kid in school.

When I got back to the classroom, Milo asked me if he could stay at kindergarten all day, since it's so much fun. That's a positive beginning! It helped a lot also that Milo also has a friend from daycare in his kindergarten class. Now Milo is eagerly counting down the days till school starts, unlike before, when he was absolutely dreading the enormous chore of going to school 5 days a week.

family time!

We've been busy going out and about, to the fireworks, to car shows and most recently, to the Crystal Cave in Kutztown PA.

Thomas!

We recently took a day trip to Strasburg PA to visit with Thomas the Tank Engine, who came all the way to the US from the island of Sodor. We invited Grandpa Bob & Grandma Carolynn along for the ride, as Grandpa Bob is a huge fan of trains & railroad history.

We had a really great day, and couldn't have asked for better weather: warm, not hot, not humid, sunny & clear. Hopefully Milo will remember the trip for a long time to come!

In fact, he's the one that suggested we go. Milo kept seeing commercials for Thomas in Strasburg on PBS Kids and asked me if we could go. I was surprised that he was even interested in the idea, since he doesn't watch Thomas anymore, although we still do read the occasional Thomas book. Milo was very enthusiastic about it, so Corey and I checked into it to make sure Thomas was full scale and not some dopey little ride on toy...and away we went! Totally fun and worth the trip.

After we did the Thomas ride, we visited the Strasburg Railroad Museum. I hafta say that it just blew me away. I didn't retain much historical information but I loved wandering around and looking at all the trains and the various artifacts from when railroads and horses were the main forms of transportation.

For a photo journey of our Thomas adventure, check this out. And look here for Strasburg Railroad pictures.

Milo's 3rd graduation

By now it's getting to be old hat, but we're still proud of the kid. Milo graduated from pre-K on June 11, 2010 and will be off to kindergarten in the fall!

For a few quick pictures, click here.

Look what the cat dragged in!

Literally! I was standing in the kitchen around 10pm on Thursday, and getting a snack, when I heard one of the cats come clanking in through the doggie door and start meowing like crazy. It was Monet, and when I turned around all I could see was that she had something pretty big and hairy hanging out of her mouth. Monet was so proud of herself for her catch that she brought it right to me and dropped it on my foot. The catch turned out to be a baby rabbit. How Monet ever caught the bunny is beyond me, because the cat is fat and lazy, plus she's inside a six foot chain link fence that she has absolutely no inclination to climb. The poor bunny must have squeezed through the fence to sniff out some good weeds, and Monet just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

Once she dropped the rabbit, it just sat there looking at me like "Help!" He was too big for my mouse catchin' box (more on that later) so I picked him up by his fuzzy little scruff and found a shoebox for him so I could transport him into the field across the street. By the time we were halfway across the field, bunny was hopping around in the box like normal, so he was fine. I let him go and he probably promptly came back to eat some more stuff out of our garden. When I came back inside sans rabbit, Monet meeped at me like "Moooommmm, you took my toy away!" Monet never outright kills anything she catches, she just plays with it and loves on it for hours until the poor things either find their way to us or drop dead of sheer exhaustion. This is where the mouse catchin' box comes in. I have empty tissue boxes stashed in strategic places around the house for when Monet is torturing a mouse (and occasionally, a chipmunk). All we have to do is put the box down near the poor critter in question, and they are so happy to have a place to hide that they dash right inside. We just have to put our hand over the hole, and take the thing out to the field for a new lease on life. I do wonder how many times I've caught the same mouse, on occasion, but there's just no way to tell.

Little guy was smaller than one of Milo's shoes!

Lookit those teeny ears!

oh, the places we go

and the things we do!

For an update on what's going on around the house, click here.

To see today's dose of drama, feel free to look here.

And last but not least, Milo has a brand new ride!

Milo's first report card!

We are so proud of Milo! He brought home this report card from pre-school the other day with all "G"s for GREAT!

We're sure it's just the first of many honor roll-worthy report cards....seeing as how he's so brilliant and all :)

Tonight was my first official "school event" at Milo's kindergarten-to-be. It was a curriculum night where we could meet the teachers and ask questions about the things the kids will learn. It was quite informative. I just can't believe that September is right around the corner and that Milo will be getting on the bus every day. Um, wasn't it just last week that he was learning how to walk and talk? It sure seems like it. As the saying goes, time flies!

it's been awhile!

And we've been super busy!

Click here to see Milo and his friend Jack on their grand adventures.

Check out my shutterbug addiction here.

And last but not least, I submitted my final project for photography class. See what you think!

We went on an adventure today!

Today we threw our cares to the wind and made it a family day. Off to the Adventure Aquarium in Camden we went! Milo was thrilled to take the train for the first time ever, and we all had a good time at the aquarium. It was perfect today, not too crowded, we weren't there for an overly long time, and we even went all out and went to McD's for lunch on the way home. Woo hoo! I think all 3 of us needed a day off from our usual hustle and bustle; we couldn't have asked for a better one. Check out the pictures! I took tons!

Lots and lots of photos!

I haven't been blogging much because I've been working with our new and exciting digital SLR camera! I finally made a commitment to a new camera and bought a Sony Alpha 330. The reviews call it "entry level" in the DSLR field, but I call it phenomenal. It's perfect for someone with my current skill level and it has room for me to grow as I learn more techniques. It's a giant step up from our 8 year old Sony cybershot sort-of manual digital camera! Hopefully this one will last at least 8 years as well....

Check out some of the zillions of photos I've taken over the last couple of weeks here.

Need a lift?

It was such a peach of a day today, with a perfect breeze. I definitely needed to do something fun after the last few weeks of nonstop stress. I rummaged around and found my kite, took Milo out in the field out back and showed him how to fly a kite. Once we got that sucker up in the air, it didn't want to come down! We both had a great time, and it was good to spend that hour doing something new together that we both enjoyed.


Up, up and away!

The sky was picture-perfect. I love my kite; it's like an instant rainbow isn't it? It always makes me happy!

Milo was afraid to let the spindle go, so I wedged it into the handle of the wagon. That way Milo could still turn the reel, but had more control over how fast the string ran out.

Sitting in a draft and doing homework

Jeez, it's windy in the basement tonight. The wind is blowing from an odd direction and so is finding ALL the cracks in the windows. As to the homework, well...I've been taking a photography course, to improve my skills and to refresh my memory as to techniques. It's a lot of fun. Of course, now I am aching for a new camera as ours is limited to its abilities. That situation will be remedied soon enough; meanwhile Milo and I are working together on my homework projects and having a blast!


Closeup of daffodils. I had to use a low aperture without touching the shutter speed, to show depth of field. This works because the daffys are in focus, but the background is not.

One of Corey's yellow chichlids. I had to show motion by panning the camera while pressing the shutter, so the background would blur but the subject did not.

Arty reflections in some dirty dishes. This was another depth of field exercise. In this one, the depth of field is huge, everything is in focus.

Milo running. Another panning shot.

The fountain on the front porch. Slow shutter speeds allow the water to blur out and show lots of motion.

Milo and Lily running. This is one of my favorites! I had to take about 50 pictures to get this one shot, but it came out great.

"Light painting" as the teacher calls it. Light objects in a dark room, at super slow shutter speeds make neat patterns as you move them around.

Grumpy Milo. He got tired of being my muse during the depth of field project.

Fountain again. Same picture, different shutter makes the water look different.

Fountain taken in stop motion (super fast shutter)

Corey's fish. They were supposed to be blurring in motion. A couple of them did, but one stands out clearly.

Daffodils with stinkbug.

Car is going faster than everything around it = blur.

Some more arty dirty dishes.

This is what I do with too much time on my hands

Ever since I got my first tattoo I've been hankering for another one. As the saying goes, you can't stop with just one!

Anyway, I've been turning lots of ideas around in my mind. One snow day Milo and I sat down and turned this picture (the rather boring cover of a great Buffett album, but I love the compass rose)

into this one, by a process of much tracing with markers and then coloring in the white areas with our favorite colors. It took us a couple of hours to come up with colors that we liked together, and then I stuck it in a folder and put it away for awhile.

Until this afternoon, when on a whim I went over to Ink Obsessions and asked them for an estimate on that tattoo and their input on a few other ideas I had. An hour and a half later, I came out with a lighter wallet and a very cool left leg!

Love it! It's a combo Buffett/Milo tattoo, as Milo had so much input into the final colors of it. It's not as small as I would have liked, because the guy said it would turn into a big blob after awhile if I did that, but I still like it lots.

Happy birthday to us!

Milo's 5th birthday party was a blast. It was a bit hectic getting ready for it on top of dealing with the flooded basement, but it all worked out fine in the end. Good times were had by all.

See the photos here.

a little slice o' suburbia

The township changed our trash collection from twice a week to once a week. So of course half the time we forget to put the trash out on trash day because we're still not used to the new routine. Last week this totally typical suburban housewife moment happened to me:

It was 6:30 last Thursday morning and I was in the middle of brushing my teeth when I heard the trash truck at the house next door. I immediately realized that we hadn't put the can at the end of the driveway, although it was full, so I went tearing out the door in my pjs . I ran pell mell down the driveway with the trash can and parked it right as the guys on the truck were getting ready to pull up to our driveway. For my stunning performance I received a resounding toot on their horn plus big thumbs up from the guys. I gave them a proper curtsy for their applause, before going back in the house. I must have looked a lovely sight, with my hair all snarly and my slippers slopping off my feet, not to mention I was wearing my scuzzy pajamas. I found the whole experience quite amusing!

We have lived through one of my worst homeowner nightmares

The basement flooded yesterday due to the massive amounts of rain. Combine that with no electricity for 16 hours and it spells big trouble. We were fortunate to only lose "stuff," no major appliances (so far). We have to sort through all the wet crud and throw out whatever is totally destroyed and save the rest if possible.

One important lesson we learned is that totes float! We keep a lot of stuff in the basement in plastic totes, just for convenience's sake. When I saw that the water was going to be worse than usual, I piled stuff on top of the totes, thinking that since the totes are all so darn heavy, they were never going to float. Wrong!! Totes especially like to go buoyant and tip over around 3 in the morning, dumping everything on and near them into the water.

It was like living in a Stephen King novel in this house last night and this morning, what with the relentless rain, the rising water downstairs, listening to the neighbor's generator run (and making us most jealous: if we had a generator, this never woulda happened!) and being generally isolated from the rest of the world because everyone else's power was out also. Add the periodic splashy crashes to the silence and it got really creepy. Especially when we were sloshing around downstairs at 3am trying to salvage some stuff, and all I had to work with was a small handheld flashlight; anything bigger I would have dropped right in the drink because I'm so clumsy.

Thankfully the power came back on sooner than expected though. When I called PSE&G, they told me that the power would be out until at least Tuesday. Visions of much ruined appliances and furniture danced through my head as the panic attacks swelled....but we were able to avoid complete catastrophe this time. For lots of lovely flood pictures, click here.

My poor parents and Corey's poor parents have been without power since 9am Saturday and it is now after 10 on Sunday night...they have generators and such so they're not too badly off, but still, it sucks big time! My parents power is out because trees fell directly on the power lines by their house, and dragged the poles partially down along with the lines. I'm not sure of why Corey's parents don't have electric.

more iditarod fun..this time in the huge field behind our house

Go dogs go! They can run for ages with the right motivation!

I tried to upload more than this one video but it was taking forever and I have other things to do. Perhaps next time!

Ready for the Iditarod?

Our dogs will do anything for a cookie. Including learning how to be the world's goofiest sled dogs!

growing up so fast...

Today we registered Milo for kindergarten. We can't believe Milo's going to be going to school in the fall! It seems like just last week we were still changing his diapies and giving him bottles. Milo is a little nervous about going to school, but he's excited about it too. We have several more visits to the school before September, so he can get used to being there and get an idea of how the days will be. It's very exciting, for Corey and I anyway. If you asked Milo if anything interesting happened today, he would say "I took a big poop that stood up like a lever!" instead of "Mommy and Daddy took me to big kid school to register for kindergarten."

And the snow fun continues

Yesterday was pretty crummy. My streak of bad luck continued when I stepped outside this morning, to check on the snow-clearing job ahead of us so I could go to work, and saw this.

Yep. That's a tree. On, around and in front of my truck.

Amazingly enough, for the size of the branch, there was no damage to the truck at all. The antenna isn't even bent!
Since its the neighbor's tree, Corey just cut enough of the branches away to get the truck out from under it. The tree is pretty much frozen to the ground, so we can't move it until it thaws. Once it thaws, we're hauling it further over into the neighbors yard so its not blocking the driveway anymore. Since there was no damage to the truck we're not making a big stink about it to them. Once the branch is on their property completely, they can clean it up at their leisure.

And a pretty moment, the sun shining through the ice on the maple out front.

The view from the end of our driveway. Corey took this while he took a break from cleaning up the snow.

I ended up staying home from work today, to be on the safe side. The tree on the truck was a sure sign from whoever runs the universe, and for once I listened to the instructions. Losing two days worth of pay is worth still being alive!

Us girls gotta stick together

The usual morning scene before the hustle and bustle of getting ready for work and school. Milo's not awake yet, and I'm able to sit still, drink my coffee and watch the morning news...the animals take full advantage of my lap!

Some snow day

More like a slush day. Argh. Its a very frustrating day, that's for sure. Things have been happening around here in perfect storm fashion all morning. As in, Milo is in the process of getting poop all over his hands while he's wiping his butt, the phone is ringing and he actually got up off the pot to answer it, I was trying to put away laundry and had to race to intercept him and then tripped over the dogs and almost got my foot bitten off because I scared the crap out of Quinn.

Then, I was trying to give the dogs their daily medicines, which involves me sticking my hands halfway down their throats. Normally this is a non issue and the dogs just choke down their pills. Not today. As Lily kept spitting her meds out, I hear "OH NO!!" from Milo's room. Milo spilled an entire cup of pomegranate juice on his light beige rug. He wanted to clean it up himself and I had to frantically finish dealing with the dogs and then go round up the portable steam cleaner to get the vibrant red stains out of the rug. Of course, the phone started ringing again.

THEN I was cleaning up the juice spill (the portable cleaner is AWESOME, at least that went right!!) and Milo decided he was going to use the phone. I had said he could make one phone call, but who the heck knows who he was talking to. I asked him who he called and he said "I dunno. I was trying to call you at work and some lady answered." After I took a VERY deep breath, I asked him "Why would you call me at work when I AM STANDING RIGHT HERE?" and he said "Because you couldnt' hear me over the noise of the rug scrubber." Um, do I have a phone attached to my butt? I don't think so. Especially not a work phone!

AND THEN. We went outside to play and start clearing the extremely heavy wet snow from the driveway and patio. Milo was outside for five whole minutes before he started screaming because snow got inside his boots. I sent him inside (and went in with him to set up the tv for video-watching, and managed to track a ton of snow all over the place because it wasn't worth taking off all my gear after just struggling into it five minutes before that). I attempted to snow blow the driveway. I got a good start over by Corey's car and then the blower quit on me and I couldn't get it started again. I came inside to check on Milo, all seemed well. Then I realized that I had forgotten that the dogs were still out back. Poor things had been out there for ages in the wet, and they were soaked! Those two pups were never so happy to come inside. The stoopid snowblower still won't start and Corey is at work. There is NO WAY I'm shoveling that heavy snow on my lonesome, so its just going to have to wait till he gets home. If he gets home. Who knows when that will be. Yes, I'm having a crappy day. I was hoping to have a real, fun snow day but so far it's turned out to be a major PMS instigator!!

By the way, if anyone reading this works for Onstar: Quit calling here. WE ARE NOT INTERESTED. Plus you Onstar people always call at the worst possible moments. Save your breath and my patience, please.

And the word of the day is...

Ludicrous.

It means "silly or ridiculous" as according to Milo, who used it in perfect context today. When I asked him what ludicrous meant, that's what he told me, and he is absolutely right.

We were leaving the house this morning and going through our usual goodbye routine with the dogs, which consists of locking them in the kitchen and saying "Have a good day, behave, don't eat anything you're not supposed to," as we give them a hug. Milo added "And don't do anything LUDICROUS, Lily!!" as we were walking out the door. I about fell over laughing, because that is the perfect word to describe that hound!

Milo's first model airplane

This past Sunday was rainy and gloomy, so Milo and I built a model airplane together. He really enjoyed it painting it, after I did all the necessary gluing. It turned out really great!

The kid definitely has my taste in colors!

Naked Cat

Monet is getting older, and the older she gets, the less she takes care of herself. The lil' furry slob gets matted pretty easily, and doesn't really let us brush her as often as she needs to be brushed, so I solved the problem by cutting her hair off. I had done it once before, with my scissors and much patience, but this time around I borrowed Corey's dad's animal clippers. They weren't powerful enough to really get through her woolly undercoat as nicely as I would have liked. We ended up buying heavy duty animal clippers that go through Monet and Quinn's forests of hair like buttah. I practiced a bit on Quinn, just trimming up his shaggy bits on his tummy and legs, and giving him a much needed butt-cut to keep his hiney clean, and then I turned the clippers back on Monet. She was not happy to be put through torture two days in a row, but she feels so much better because of it! And now that we have clippers of our own, I can trim her hair regularly to keep her from turning into the fuzzball that she was before. And Quinn can get a full on summer hair cut when it gets warmer out! (Can you tell that I miss playing with my Barbie head?!)



This pile o' hair is from round one of clipping Monet. It took me an hour or so to do this to her. The next night, with the tougher clippers, it took another hour and I got just as much fur off her again!

Haircut #1. It was definitely rough around the edges and you could really see where I had messed up and cut her hair too short. For all her caterwauling though, Monet held pretty still as long as I plied her with tuna fish.

Haircut #2. Much better!

Oh Mom. You're embarrassing me! But I do look 10 pounds skinnier!

Its all butts from here on out

My life at home pretty much revolves around poop and/or puke. If I'm not scraping crap or barf off of something, I'm wiping somebody's butt. It would be nice to just be responsible for my own butt for a while, but unfortunately, it looks like that is never going to happen. By the time Milo is finally able to wipe his own butt without assistance and the dogs drop dead, my parents will totally enfeebled and will be needing me to wipe their butts. And then Corey will be too old and fat to wipe his butt so I'll have to take care of him too. Who, I ask, WHO is going to wipe my butt when I can't reach it anymore???

The reason for this tirade is the current goings on at our house. Quinn had to go back to the vet again for digestion problems. He was not near death this time (whew!) but he had been throwing up a lot recently and having horrible awful stinky gas for days at a time, and occasionally icky poops. The dumb dog is a stress mess and is causing his own tummy to be in turmoil, so the diagnosis is that he has to stay on low dose antibiotics for the rest of his life, eat easy to digest food (expensive!! The bag of food the vet sold me is 8lbs and costs $24!) and try to stay out of stressful situations. Since living is a stressful situation for Quinn, we have to look into ways to keep him calm. I would opt for doggie prozac but the vet said no. So I've been doing lots of research on homeopathic calming methods. We have one thing called Rescue Remedy that is a liquid potion of flower essences, that seems to help Quinn keep his cool. We'll see what happens in the long run. In the meantime I'm also researching different dog foods to see what else is out there that is comparable to what the vet sold me, but won't cost a small fortune. I can see into my future now, that I'll be buying whole chickens and boiling them up for the damn dog, along with his daily ration of rice that he already eats. I'll be one of those dog owners, which I vowed I would never be!

In other digestive tract news, Lily managed to get hold of our outdoor thermometer today and ate it. Glass and all. We're pretty sure it was an alcohol thermometer, as the stuff inside it was red, so hopefully Lily won't croak of mercury poisoning. The glass shards are going to feel really good moving through her insides. I don't know what gets into that dumb dog sometimes. The other day I found some sort of horrid spiky seed pod thing in her poop; it looked like a smaller version of those gumball things that fall off trees. Why in heck would that even look inviting to eat? Can you imagine what that felt like coming out the other end?? Jeez. No wonder the dog howls instead of barks! I would howl a lot too if my butt was always on fire from something I ate.

At least Milo isn't having any weird problems. Yet.

This and that

We took Tuckerton to the vet today for a full checkup. He is hale and hearty and has no health problems at all. The vet said Tuckerton is in excellent condition for being 10 years old. Woo hoo! I finally picked a healthy animal! Hopefully he will stay that way.

Monet has accepted Tuckerton's presence in the basement and deigns to look at him once in a while. There was some hissing and spatting going on yesterday but today they were both probably thinking "We're too old for this crap, I'm just going to put up with that other one." Tuckerton took to the dogs right away and they did the same to him. Tuckerton spends most of his time hanging out in the basement, and comes upstairs once in a while to check on us and make sure we're still around to feed and brush him. He is purely a pleasure to have here. So far. Give me a month or so, when Tuckerton starts acting like Monet and barfing in my shoes and treating me as if I only exist for feeding purposes.

And now on to today's random pictures:
We had a brief snowstorm the other day. I thought the light was pretty neat, coming through the snow clouds, and reflecting off the little bit of snow on the ground.

Milo pulled a practical joke on me. He said he was brushing his teeth, and I heard him banging around in the bathroom and using his electric toothbrush, so I assumed he was doing what he said. Then I went in there to check the progress, and Milo turned around and grinned at me. He was brushing his gold bling-bling teeth! I cracked up laughing, because it totally reminded me of the scene in the Christmas Story when all the kids in the classroom have their fake teeth in and say "Good morning Miss Shields."

Note to self

Next time we make home-made dumplings, use the stand mixer and dough hook. The hand mixer just don't cut it. Plus it makes a big giant mess. And dough gets so far up inside the mixer that a person has to take it apart to clean it out. I was not happy when I thought I had the crud all cleaned up, and turned the mixer on sans attachments to see what would happen....and oodles of gummy dough oozed out! Much cursing and a few minutes later, I had the mixer apart to find this lovely mess. Corey's a great cook, but he can be a bit hard on my kitchen electronics!!


I did finally get most of the goop out, using toothpicks and the last tiny shreds of my patience.

Christmas came....and went

It was the same ol' stuff as always, except we were awakened VERY early by a very excited little boy. After opening gifts here we were off to our usual round of traipsing to other people's houses. The part I like best about Christmas is keeping the magic in it for Milo, the part I like least is having to go visiting all day long when I would be much happier curled up on the couch. The things we do for our families!! Milo had an awesome Christmas, and we had fun because of him, and that is what is most important.

A few pictures to chronicle the events....