Let the fun begin!

I am heading out of town today.

My friend has a seminar to go to in Austin, and I'm tagging along. I will be spending the days eating peanut butter M & M's drinking Coke Zero (they totally cancel each other out!) and working on my book, and some other writing I need to get done. I will be doing this alone in a hotel room.

Alone.

In a quiet place.

That someone else has to clean.

And no one will talk to me or question me, or interrupt my train of thought.

Oh, Happy Day! I am positively giddy with anticipation.

Then in the evenings, my friend and I will eat peanut butter M&M's drink Coke Zero and talk.

So, pretty much it's a variation of the peanut butter M&M's and the Coke Zero all weekend.

If I can get the hotel Internet and my computer to talk to each other nicely, I'll upload some photo's. Though none of me, because I plan to be without makeup and in my PJ's ALL WEEKEND!

Do they make a mouth guard for this?

I went to pick up Ann after her dyslexia class yesterday. All the teachers bring the students out into a small lobby area and all the parents wait in there to pick them up.

When Ann’s teacher, a sweet black lady about my age (exceptionally young, ahem) came out, I noticed she had a new hair cut. It looked very nice on her and what woman does not want her new hair style to be noticed and appreciated?

Um, the kind wearing a wig.

Yes, yes I did.

I walked right up to her and said “Hay, new hair! I like it.” Not “What a lovely hair cut you have.” Or “very nice new hair style.” No, I said ‘New hair.’ Because I have a possibly fatal case of Foot in Mouth Disease.

I have to say that I didn’t know she was wearing a wig. Really, I promise. Ann pointed it out to me on the way home.

When she told me I replayed the conversation in my head and realized why Ann’s teacher seemed less than pleased for me to comment on her new hair in a room full of people.

I should not be let out in public without supervision.

Oh, hang it all!

When I came home today, this is what I saw.

Bob's most current project, the merging of several bicycles into one super-bike, hanging from a tree in front of my house.

He got tired of leaning over the thing to sand it, so he decided to suspend it from the tree for easier access.

Interestingly enough, I was not surprised to see a bicycle hanging from a tree in my front yard.










Nothing surprises me anymore.

It's My Day

It's my day to drive the carpool downtown to take the kids to their Dyslexia class.

I woke up with a killer headache and a bit of an off stomach. Humm. I think I am getting sick, yet I get to drive downtown.

As if downtown traffic is not enough of a headache, and won't make you sick to your stomach all by itself. I got myself a head start.

I think it's gonna be on of those days.

One down...

After yesterday's panic (not the little ol' money thing. The chocolate thing!) My friend from Switzerland pointed out that Swiss chocolate is still safe to consume.

Whew!

National crisis averted. Now If that pesky money thing were as simple to fix. Perhaps Washington should put my Swiss friend on it.

And I Feel Fine!

These were the three news headlines on my homepage this morning.

Cadbury Recalls Chinese-Made Chocolates, Safety in 'Doubt'

Bush Calls Financial Bailout 'Extraordinary Deal'

Venezuela Set to Develop Nuclear Power With Russia

Some of the baddest bad guys are banding together to create nuclear weapons, Bush calls the biggest bailout since the Great Depression (THE GREAT DEPRESSION!) 'extraordinary', and the safety of chocolate is in question.

Does anyone else hear that old REM song 'It's the end of the world as we know it'?

Under Construction

Yes, you're in the right place. I'm just putting out the Fall decorations. It may take a few days to get it all done, so if something looks funny, just be patient.

Although, if you see a change that you don't like, like it's hard to read the font color or something, let me know.

Now if the temperature outside were just Fall like...

Stink!

Not even the Yankee Candle Company can help me now.

We had approximately 5 different dinners last night at 5 different times. We do that sometimes, the whole, find-whatever-you-can kind of dinner. I don’t want my children to lose their ability to forage for food.

So I learned a lesson.

When you cook slightly off broccoli and cauliflower in one of those steamer bags, it will smell bad. Very bad. And it will permeate your whole house.

There is one thing that will get rid of that smell, however; burning pizza in the microwave on a Styrofoam plate. The smell of burning styrene is a smell like no other and will easily overpower the bad broccoli/cauliflower smell.

If you then try to get rid of the bad smells by lighting a gingerbread candle, you will just make it worse.

Trust me, there is nothing you can do at this point except open the windows and then go outside.

So this morning my house has the slight smell of stinky soccer shoes (why does that kid insist of leaving his sweaty/stinky soccer shoes in the living room after a game?) rotten broccoli, burnt styrene, and gingerbread.

Turns out, this is a great diet technique. I have no desire to eat breakfast.

Che Guevara: Misunderstood Revolutionary, or Bad, Bad Man?

The Teenager had his first run up against the extreme liberals taking over our higher education system.

He sat in on a talk for extra credit in his Spanish class. The topic? Che Guevara. Our friend Che wasn’t really a bad man. He wasn’t really a Rebel, just a revolutionary. And bad, bad America took him out.

Funny, because when I read about Che Guevara, I see words like Extreme Leftist and Marxist Rebel Leader, Friend of Castro, Socialist, Communist and Guerrilla Warfare Leader.

I am glad The Teenager and I got a chance to talk about what he heard. I am quite sick of people vilifying America and rewriting history. Che Guevara was a murderer, anarchist, and an overall bad man.

I am glad The Teenager gets the opportunity to see some truly biased things at college while he is at home to assimilate what he is hearing with what he believes.

When he came home, he said that he didn’t know much about Che Guevara, but he was fairly sure the speaker was biased. Good boy.

I think we’re going to be doing a little bio sketch of Che this week and let the Teenager make up his own mind.

THE Books

Um, so, remember the books about the people, who may or may not be undead? Yeah, I finished them...in 12 days. These 4 books ranging in size from 500 to 750 pages.

Because, Oh. My. Goodness. Gracious.

I almost have no words. Almost, because well, I am a blogger and I always have a few words.

I am not a big fan of fantasy. Actually I am not at all a fan of fantasy. Usually I can’t stand it. I am also not at all a fan of horror. I will not watch any kind of scary movie. I can't take it.

I am also not a fan of undead things like vampires and werewolves and whatnot. Yes, I now they don’t actually exist, so you know the whole fantasy thing applies here as well.

And yet, somehow, the books (written for teens no less) swallowed me whole and simply would not let me go until I had read them in their entirety.

And Oh. My. Stars. What a ride.

I don’t even think I could do a review of them right now except to say they were riveting but I can’t figure out why. If someone told me a synopsis of these books I would politely say no thank you and then maybe think you were a bit weird for suggesting books about the eternally undead. Because Eww!

And yet I read them all in less than 2 weeks.

I will say that I don’t think they are for teens. I would not like my teens to read them. They are clean, but unrealistic in the area of the physical. Perhaps only a vegetarian vampire can muster up the self control required to be alone with his true love so very often and not give into temptation. (and the fact that I just typed that sentence in all seriousness has me giggling) It is more pressure than any real teen should have to face. NO ONE has that kind of self control and it should not be tested like that. So for that reason I am a little bit nervous for all the teen girls out there reading this book.

Also, I think I will probably be the only 30ish mom in the theater when the movie comes out. Because you know I am going to have to go see it.