Saturday, December 29, 2007

My Heart Is Sick

Bailey (the dog) is sick. I gave her a rawhide on Christmas. She threw up all that afternoon and through the night. Took her to the vet. He gave her a shot and told me to call back the next day to let him know how she was doing. By the next day she wasn't walking very well and wouldn't get up on her own. I took her back in and she was admitted to the "doggy hospital". By yesterday morning she was doing better and the doctor had a diagnosis of pancreatitis. One more day on IV fluids and we brought her home this morning. Initially she seemed to be doing much better but now as the evening has progressed she seems to be in pain again.

Though there is no love lost some days with Psycho Dog, it still makes me sad to see her sick.

Related to this, Grandma D and I had a miscommunication which has upset her and in turn upsets me. Puts a churning in the pit of my stomach when this happens. If only I could be the better person that people expect me to be.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Prove it!

An equine anatomy lesson...

Did Santa bring a girl horse or a boy horse?

Bella says it's a girl. Ryan says boy. "Prove it!" he challenges Bella.
"Well, Mommy told me that boy horses have a bump at their bottom and girl horses don't and there's no bump on his bottom."

"Well, elves don't make details like that." He pauses. How can he convince his sisters that the horse is a boy? "Prove it again. Prove it a different way."

What started this whole conversation? I think they were styling the horse's mane and talking about whether or not it looks boyish.

Mommy says... It's a toy so it works just like your imagination. It can be whatever you want it to be in your own mind.

And in case you were wondering about the whole bump on the bottom thing... Grandpa bought the girls toy horse figurines at the museum this summer. One of them ended up with a stallion. I was merely pointing out the difference between the key anatomy features of a stallion versus a mare. And we were in a restaurant so I did not specifically mention the scientifically correct name of the part in question. I don't think I called it anything. Just showed them that one horse had something the other horse didnt.


Your welcome.

Monday, December 24, 2007

Merry Christmas Everyone!

"Gifts of time and love are surely the basic ingredients of a truly merry Christmas."
-Peg Bracken

Wardrobe Malfunction

So here's my dilemma of the day...

Can I get myself fat and pregnant before 4 p.m. or do I go out shopping for a new Christmas dress?

It turns out that the dress I thought I was going to wear is a bit larger than I remembered. None of the other dresses will work either. I have too big, too summery, too short for church, or too fancy.

I did tell Ron though that if we don't find one that I will wear my beautiful black velvet dress that he made me buy before the last MC Ball. People dress up for Christmas, right?

Wish me luck...

Cable Guy or Government Spy?

Seriously folks... I'm starting to wonder. It is 3 a.m. on Christmas Eve and the cable guy is outside my house working up in his cherry picker. The repair guy has been here 4 or 5 times in the past week and a half. Ron noticed the other night when they showed up at about 10 p.m. I told him that was the third or fourth time he had been there. And now they have decided to come in the middle of the night. What could possibly be so important?!

Customer service is not what it once was. I find it hard to believe that a company would actually send a repairman out immediately even if it is 3 a.m. on Christmas Eve. Which means it must be something else. A government spy perhaps putting in a wire tap...

And now, thanks to my genetic inheritance, you can read about it here, live, while it's happening! My mom would always complain that if she were awoken during the night, she wouldn't be able to fall back asleep. I never understood it. Until I had kids. Now I suffer from the same malady. Someone or something wakes me up and then I'm stuck for at least an hour, sometimes two or three hours, before I can fall back asleep. I'm not sure if it is a function of motherhood or age but either way I'd rather I could still sleep the way I used to.

Bailey the guard dog alerted me to the repairman. Woof! Woof! Woof! ($(%*@#( What is that dog barking at now? Oh, look! The cable guy is back again. In the middle of the night. And he's blocking my driveway. Hope I don't need to go anywhere... Ha, ha.

On the subject of blocked driveways, and since I'm already awake and sharing my complaints with the world, I'd just like to say that I am done with construction traffic and noise. The two houses across the street were torn down last spring and it has been one loud noisy traffic-y year since then. I'm tired of jackhammers. I'm tired of people blocking my driveway. And right now, really, I think I'm just tired!

In other news, the mice are getting tricky or my mousetrap is getting rusty. Mouse #4 was able to eat the peanut butter and walk away without setting off the trap. I set it again and caught him the next night. Now Mouse #5 has pulled the same trick. I set the trap around lunchtime yesterday while I was cleaning the kitchen and when I checked it last night before bed, the peanut butter was gone again and no mouse in sight. Hmmm... If he gets away again, I'll have to set the other trap that we haven't used yet. Do mousetraps wear out after only less than a month?!

And now lets finish this up on a positive note (since Ron says my blog is always so negative)...
I finished (with Felisa's help) all of the Christmas cards. I've even given my list/labels a much-needed overhaul so I expect the 2008 cards to go more smoothly. My bad address return rate will hopefully decline and more friends and family will see our smiling faces in their mailboxes. the last batch of cards for this year will go out tomorrow which means for the first time in a long time, all of my cards will be postmarked BEFORE Christmas! They won't arrive before Christmas but let's be reasonable folks - this is me we're talking about after all!

Grandpa R arrived today. Well, technically yesterday. The sun's not up yet and it's before 6 a.m. so it still seems like today. It will be nice to have a visitor for Christmas. After travelling back to NM for Christmas after Bella was born I decided it was just too crazy to try to fly, in winter, with kids and gifts, for Christmas. So now we just spend the summer travelling instead! Plus, having more kids around at Christmas makes it seem actually like Christmas. The first few years that we were married, Christmas always seemed strange the years we stayed home when it was just the two of us. Oh and Bailey of course...

Alrighty then... guess I'll go check my email and surf the net for awhile and hope that it makes me sleepy...

Monday, December 17, 2007

Family Reviews

I'm behind in recording our activity reviews... When we are on vacation, after each stop/activity we do a "favorites" review. Apparently they like doing it more than I realized because they have been reminding me to do favorites after a few recent activities. I dutifully recorded everyone's favorite but then neglected to post it here.

Bella's School Concert-
Bella: singing Kaluba
Felisa: the singing
Mommy: Dreidel song
Lana: Happy Holiday song because it was the most animated and happy
Ryan: trying to sing along with every song

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Extra Cookies for Felisa

I think Felisa should get extra cookies tomorrow when Aunt Lana arrives (bearing yummy cookies of course!). I mentioned a few times this week that we need to try to keep the house clean (we cleaned up for Ryan's party!) this week since Lana is coming to visit. This afternoon, Felisa brought Othello to me to play. I won but we called it a tie. Then she asked if she should clean up in Bella's room. Gee, tough question. How about, Yes! Please! Go clean up! And she did. Did a pretty good job. A little messy in the corner by the closet but the middle of the floor is clear, the comforter is spread out on the bed, and the animals are all back in the bin.

And as if that weren't enough, she then decided that it was pretty messy downstairs too and that's where she is now, cleaning. Yea!

See what I mean - voluntary, good cleaning deserves extra cookies!

In other news...
Ryan's party went well. I finished the last of the preparations just minutes before I left to pick them up from school. The kids seemed to have a good time. Games, pizza, superhero capes, and chocolate cake... what more could you want?!

I worked so hard last week that I have been pretty much useless this week. Could be hormones or maybe just excess cloud cover. Or both.

Can't think of anything else...

Sunday, December 09, 2007

Every Living Thing

Every living thing eats something. (says Ryan) Even monsters. (says Bella) Even sea sponges. (says Ryan) Even the Grinch. The Grinch eats glass. Sounds painful to me but Bella says that monsters eat different stuff than humans.

And that my friends is your second grade science lesson for the day with free supplemental Kindergarten material. :)

I missed Church last night (says Felisa). This moment of guilty conscience brought to you by the Preschool curriculum!

Thursday, December 06, 2007

No Time to Breathe

But that's okay because I can't really breathe anyway what with this darn cold and all! Remind me next time I go to the dentist with a cold, I should take Sudafed beforehand so maybe I can breathe a little tiny bit through my nose and not suffocate when they start spraying water in my mouth and oh help I can't breathe!!!

Preps for the big Justice League Super Hero party continue. Right now I'm feeling sort of in control and ready. By noon tomorrow I will be panicking because I'M NOT READY!!!! Ack! And when will I get ready for my crop Saturday? Probably Saturday morning at about 6 a.m. Is it Sunday afternoon yet? I'm ready for my nap!

And on that note, I'm off to bed. Just thought I'd share with the world that I can't breathe.

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Snow!

It's here folks... the first snow of the season! Much to the delight of the children, it has been snowing oh so lightly all day long and we've accumulated maybe as much as two inches in the grassy areas (it's mostly melted slush on the roads) so they are outside playing for all it's worth. Which is good because it will all be melted by tomorrow most likely and since the weather forecast for Monday is a high of 60-something degrees, it may be awhile before we see any more snow.

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

It's beginning to look a lot like Winter

As I looked out the back door this morning, the cold gray clouds, the bare trees, and the leaves blowing about the porch made me shiver. Wow, I thought. It really looks (and feels!) like winter now.

A little later, I went to Ron's computer to upload more photos. He had the weather page up and it had snowflakes on it. Snow! Completely caught me off guard. Had I somehow missed all the usual area hype and panic over snow?

Current forecast for tomorrow... about an inch of snow, sticking mostly in grassy areas only. So we shall see. The weather guys are all actually downplaying it. Guess they don't want to get our hopes up since it is the first snow of the season and as most snow around here - won't amount to much.

Monday, December 03, 2007

It's all fun and games...

... until you need a bobbin!

Working on sewing a dozen superhero capes for Ryan's party coming up on Friday. I'm not exactly what you would call a seamstress but if the machine is already threaded, I can sew a straight line.

Unfortunately, my bobbin ran out. So I had to make a new one (that took about 3o minutes to figure out how) then get the bobbin back in place and re-thread the machine. That one was a little trickier. After watching me struggle for about half an hour, Ron took pity on me and gave it a shot. That bobbin refused to cooperate. After about an hour of muttering and puttering and trying again and again, it finally worked. Ryan had come to see what all the fuss was after Ron gave up and must have given the machine a magical touch because finally, finally everything was back in working order and the sewing can resume.

In other news...

I'm coming down with a cold. Of course. Because it's not like I'm busy or anything this week (or even this month!).

I have a cub scout leaders meeting tonight which puts a cramp in my sewing schedule.

I killed another mouse. 3 dead, 1 released.

Saturday, December 01, 2007

Mice Like Peanut Butter

About an hour ago, that was a bad thing. Not anymore.

The past two nights I have been avoiding my kitchen duties and leaving clean-up for the morning. Which means I haven't been setting the mousetrap. This morning I decided to just go ahead and set the trap, figuring the mice would find it tonight when they wakeup and start foraging through my garbage.

I was wrong. The peanut butter smell was so great that it woke one up early. I was sitting here at the computer when I heard a snap. Eeewww! I don't want to hear it! It's bad enough that I have to deal with the dead, stiff mouse. I don't want to be present for the actual dirty deed. So, needless to say I felt really bad. I even had to leave the room for awhile because I just couldn't deal.

Fast forward to now. Ryan wants lunch. No bread left in the kitchen so I head out to the pantry room to get another loaf. I pull out a partially chewed loaf of bread from the basket. Argh! That, Ryan, is what I'm talking about when I say the mice will start eating our food. Time to kill another one.

So now I don't feel so bad anymore about the one that died an hour ago. I'm not happy about him choosing to do it while I'm in the room but at least there's one less mouse eating my food now.