bloggy mcblog

Get Me Some Rogaine... Stat

2008-11-21T11:20:00.000-08:00

For the last month or so my hair has been falling out, practically in clumps. I was freaking myself out last night, because I swear it looks thinner. However, the mass shedding seems to be slowing down. I guess this is the post-partum hair loss issue that I’ve read about but don’t remember experiencing with my other two kids. Oh well. I hope it stops or I will be bald soon.

Toby is becoming the sweet baby I’d hoped he would be. I wasn’t so sure, because his first few months on earth he was a troubled little guy. I was seriously worried that he would be so sensitive about every little thing. He seems to be over that and only fusses when he gets tired or bored. Now we just need him to get to bed earlier. He doesn’t go down until sometime around midnight. At least he sleeps straight through until 8:30 when I almost always have to wake him up to take his big sister to school. If he would go down by 9 pm, we would be in heaven. Yes, I know, way to look a gift horse in the mouth.

I was going through the kids baby books last night trying to add a few bits and pieces since I haven’t been the most diligent about filling them out. I went through Roan’s and realized that she’s almost “done” with the book. The book is designed to record stuff up through age 7. I remember when I first got the book and thought that it would be AGES before we could fill out any of that stuff and now it’s almost done. Man, I’m old. And going bald.

A couple nights ago the girls were playing freeze dance. That one is always a sanity saver. All it requires of me is to press the pause/play button on the Apple TV remote. I can participate more, if I wish, but it’s nice to be able to do something so easy that the kids love and it doesn’t make any mess. It’s also really easy to do with a baby on your lap.

Hmmm... I had a bunch more, but of course when I actually get time to sit down and type it all flew out of my head.

Forgot to Post- OCT 28

2008-11-21T11:19:00.000-08:00

Nothing more sad than an abandoned blog. I’ve been a little busy lately. Baby Toby is three months old now. Yay. He’s sleeping through the night (most of the time), so I’m not as crazy as I was even a few weeks ago. Don’t get me wrong. It’s still crazy around here. It’s just now there are moments of sanity sprinkled in.

Halloween is Friday. Roan is going to be Ash Ketchum (the Pokemon trainer kid). I just about have her costume finished. Sage is going to be Princess Peach (Nintendo). I have fabric cut for her, but it still has to be sewn. We’ll see how that goes. The baby might wear a spider hat, if I can find it. Otherwise he doesn’t have a costume. Maybe I can just put him in girl’s clothes and he can go as a baby girl. That’s just terrible.

We went to a wedding on Saturday with ALL of the kids. I thought it was going to be a total nightmare, but it wasn’t too bad. Luckily a friend’s mom was there. She loves babies and didn’t know too many people at the wedding. She held Toby for hours. The girls had a blast. I really wasn’t expecting them to, but there was a stage and when the music started, the kids (there were others) danced and played up on the stage. Much excitement was had when a giant cart of cupcakes was wheeled out onto the dance floor.

Of course we had to get up on the early side the next morning to go to a birthday party at Funderland. It was Roan’s “boyfriend’s” birthday. I never refer to him as her boyfriend around her, but I caught them holding hands one morning before school. They share a love of Pokemon. At the party another male classmate of Roan’s decided he should lead her around and often had his arm around her. Wtf? They’re six! He would start crying if it looked like he would have to ride by himself (he never did). It was a pretty mellow party. I took the girls and Luciglom stayed home with the boy.

More exciting news is that we finally got Sage potty trained. Hurrah! Now we have only one kid in diapers. We’ve been changing diapers continually for six years now. Think about it. That’s just crazy. In about 3 more years, we should be done. Ugh.

Why do you have a Monster Claw?

2008-11-07T10:53:00.000-08:00

I’m back (baaa-aaack). Well, maybe. 30 Rock last night was hilarious. That is all.

Well, not all. Halloween was fun. Roan was Ash, Pokemon trainer and Sage was Princess Peach (of Nintendo fame). I made both of their costumes. I don’t “really” know how to sew.

Roan’s was harder. She needed a short-sleeve jacket type thing. I didn’t have a pattern so I ripped the seams of an old t-shirt to make pattern pieces. It came out okay except how I finished the front. It didn’t button or close in anyway so the front edges turned out a bit when it was on and it was a thread nightmare. I should have turned the edge over twice or something so the raw edge would be tucked in, I guess. It was denim, though and I wouldn’t really want to sew through that many layers. The best part didn't involve sewing. We hand painted a hat for her costume and then she left it at school on Halloween. The hat was pretty much half of her costume. We were supposed to meet friends for trick-or-treating and of course realized she didn't have her hat at the last minute. I had to cut out red and white construction paper and tape it to a blue Cinderella hat. Oh well.

Sage’s was easier because I had a cheap dress pattern and no zippers or anything, just elastic. It wasn’t quite as fancy as the dress Peach really wears, but close enough for jazz.

Toby wore a Christmas hat. Poor Toby. Next year he’ll be big enough for the giraffe costume. Roan got to wear that one twice. Sage wore it once. They hated it. Now it’s a rite of passage.

Random Stuff

2008-06-24T14:54:00.000-07:00

I’m so fraking tired. We had a busy weekend culminating in Roan’s dance recital on Sunday. I have not recovered.

I’m starting to freak out because my 36 week appointment is this week (I’ll be a few days shy of 36 weeks). Which means (basing this on my history) I could have the kid pretty much anytime now. At my 32 week appointment I somehow avoided being sent to NST’s 2x a week like I was with Sage. My blood pressure hasn’t really been any better this time, so I was sort of confused. It was a good thing not having to go, since those appointments are twice a week and can sometimes last over an hour. If I can get through my 36 week appointment with out getting sent to L&D or made to start NST’s, there’s a pretty good chance I’ll make it to 38 weeks, which would be really strange.

Physically I’m totally ready to be done. Every ache, pain and heartburn attack has been way worse this time around. I’m sure part of it is due to the fact that I’m older and have two kids to cart around. Not to mention Roan being in Kindergarten this last year, so we had to be very scheduled.

****************************************************************************************************

Recently, we did the old “switch-a-roo” with one of our goldfish. Poor Googly passed away. This was Sage’s fish. She named him. The kids didn’t notice and grandparents happened to be in town that weekend so we went out to get a replacement. For some reason, it was hard to find any googly-eyed fish. Capitol had a few (they had a whole bunch when we bought Googly). So we ended up getting one that didn’t really “match.”

A few weeks have gone by and the kids haven’t said anything until today. Roan came to tell me that Googly “changed.” “Now he’s whiter with spots.” She was pretty excited about it. I felt like a big fat liar, but went along with it.

We mainly did the switch because of Sage. Roan gets the whole pet dying thing and we’ve had dead fish before and it hasn’t bothered her too much. When we had to put Sluggo (the cat) to sleep earlier this year, it was pretty traumatic. The end result being Gary and Fry our two new(ish) kittens.

Puking Fun

2008-05-14T09:13:00.001-07:00

So, we’re dealing with another bout of stomach flu. The virus reared it’s ugly head at just about the perfect (meaning imperfect) time. Saturday started just like any other Saturday, albeit a bit busier. We had ballet class at 9:30 and that went just like it always does. The kids got their ($40!!!!) recital costumes so they could have them in time for picture day (more $$$$). Then we went home and got ready to leave for Henry’s 4th birthday party in Pleasanton.

The drive was going fine until about an hour away from home. Roan started getting whiney about being hungry (we ate before we left). I ended up giving her a juice box because she was complaining about being thirsty. Sage was asleep. Then she wanted her window rolled down. This should’ve been my tip off, but I thought she was just being difficult. The whole time she never mentions feeling sick. Then it came. A little barf. And then the crying. And then the parents yelling back in forth about where to get off the freeway as we were quickly approaching a bridge.

We made it to a gas station. I took Roan inside to clean her up and Luciglom worked on the van. Roan seemed a little better so we got her some crackers and water and decided we go on a little farther, stop at a Target (I didn’t pack any extra clothes and now hers were pretty wet) and see how it goes. At this point we were thinking “car sick” since she’s complained about being car sick before and I remember getting car sick a lot as a kid.

We made it to Target. I came out with a package of wet wipes and a sundress. I see that Roan is out of the van with her dad. That’s when I knew it wasn’t car sick and we’d be turning around and driving home.

Missing the party sucked. It was for a 4 year old, but also lots of adults and they were BBQing! So we got back on the freeway going towards home now. We get out side of Fairfield and the floodgates opened. This time Roan had a bag. She got about half of it in the bag and the rest everywhere else. Later she said we needed to give her a bigger bag.

So, Saturday we spent about 3 hours in the car and basically went nowhere and had lots of puke to clean up. So fun.

Roan is on her third day home from school today because of it. I knew she wouldn’t be able to go on Monday. She still had a little fever, but had stopped puking. We had a diarrhea disaster late Monday night. I feel like I should leave out those details. So Tuesday was another “no go” day for school. She seemed like she was getting better Tuesday afternoon, but she was still dealing a little with the ‘rhea, but I was pretty sure we’d make it to school today. I even got her dressed and all ready, but she said her stomach still hurt and she wanted to “rest.” So I called her in. I don’t want to risk a poop disaster at school. That would be devastating.

Now I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. Last time Roan got the stomach flu, the rest of us got it A WEEK LATER. I can’t even sneeze with out it hurting right now (big preggo belly) I can’t imagine barfing.

I was just thinking how we have the school’s spaghetti dinner to go to on Friday night. Sounds like the perfect recipe for puking disaster.

And I forgot...

2008-05-07T14:41:00.000-07:00

I wish PETA would shut the hell up, blaming the jockey. They're claiming he whipped her into two broken front legs. Soooo stupid.

R.I.P. Eight Belles

2008-05-07T14:29:00.001-07:00

Most people who know me, know I’m really into horses. Well, maybe a lot of people don’t, since I’ve been on horse hiatus for some time. Anyhow, I’ve always had a sort of love/hate feeling towards horse racing. I love the horses, but there’s a lot about the “sport” (business) that I hate.

I grew up going to Bay Meadows. The newspaper always had the racing program for each day and I’d make my picks and then follow up by watching “A Day at the Races” to see how well I did.

So it follows that I still watch the Triple Crown races every year, at least when I remember they’re on. I pretty much had nothing to do last Saturday and the Kentucky Derby was on, so I set the DVR to record it, pre-show and all, went grocery shopping and came home to watch. I even got Davey in on the watching. He looked in the paper to make his “pick.” Horse racing is pretty much the only horse event I seem to be able to get him a little interested in. He has sat through his share of “dancing horses” on my account. He’s also come to a few horse shows I rode in, and those have to be the most boring of all. It must be the wagering aspect that makes it more appealing.

NBC had this horrible “red carpet” show before the race. I really don’t care which B (now that I think about it, more like C) list celebrity went to Churchill Downs to wear a stupid looking hat and drink nasty mint juleps. It was really horrible.

After the “red carpet” show, the actual coverage started and usually they have some taped pieces on some of the favorite or notable horses. Not so much this year. They mostly focused on one of the jockeys (who ended up winning) and an obnoxious sounding trainer (he won too). There wasn’t as much focus on the horses. Lame.

So, I can tell Davey kind of wants me to pick one. I liked the name of the one he picked. Colonel...John? I can’t remember and I’m too lazy to look it up. Then I saw a filly was running. And she was big, 17 hands. She also had a pretty good (undefeated?) record as a 3 year old. So, Eight Belles it was.

My point in all of this description is that I was having a fun afternoon, watching horses. Davey actually seemed like he wanted to watch it with me. I even had a swig of his beer (shame on me). I found a good horse to root for and it was just a nice day, all around.

When they were putting the horses in the gate, I had the thought “please don’t let any horses break down.” Seriously. I think a lot of people think it doesn’t happen a lot, but it does. Anyhow, the thought came and then drifted off as the race started.

Then the race was over, the favorite one. The filly, Eight Belles came in second, which was pretty cool and everyone appeared to have a safe trip. By this time I had my girls out watching too, trying to get them into it.

I didn’t actually see her go down on the broadcast (I saw it later) but I saw the winner spook and dump his jockey as they went by her. I did see two vans/horse ambulances. I told Davey, “uh-oh, that’s not good.” The commentator mentioned she was laying on the track. I kept hoping they were somehow making her stay down, but when a horse is down on a track it’s never good.

The NBC coverage switches back to focusing on the winner until they can talk to one of the vets who reveals that they put her down with both of her front legs broken. I know pregnancy hormones played a part in this, but I completely lost it. I had to leave the room because I didn’t want to upset my kids, who remained oblivious. It was kind of strange, how much it upset me.

Basically, a 3 year old horse isn’t even completely done growing. They start racing them at 2. I should mention that Thoroughbreds are all given the same “birthday.” I can’t remember the rules off the top of my head, but it works out kind of like grades in school. You need to be born in a certain bracket of time to be eligible for Kindergarten, it’s not based on your exact age.

There’s a really good documentary about horse racing. It might be called “Jockey” or something like that. It focuses on jockies, but there’s a lot about horses “breaking down” (basically snapping a leg in the middle of a race). It’s hard to watch.

I told myself I was going to keep the horse racing bit to a paragraph, but now you see what happens if I start going into “horse talk.”

I had some other stuff. I went to Target yesterday to get some birthday cards. Is everyone born in May? Why are there so many cards with fart humor? I was astonished. It seemed like every other birthday card had some sort of fart joke on it. If you go to buy a Mother’s Day card this week, check out the birthday cards and see what you think.

As soon as Davey puts the video up, I should have a link to Roan’s first performance in a play called “What’s Missing.” She had the role of Cat 3. I’ll write about that next time. I have to get the girls ready to go to the library/park.

Has It Really Been Almost A Year??!!!

2008-04-04T10:30:00.000-07:00

Hey. Is this thing on?

Big news is I’m preggo again. I’m almost 24 weeks and this one turned out to be a boy. I was shocked and amazed when we found out. After two girls it just seemed like we’d just have another girl. I will have no idea what to do with a little boy. At least there will finally be one that Luciglom can take to the bathroom when we go out.

So the little bugger is due 7/27. I actually think the date is really 7/25 based on my calculation and the first ultrasound. But the doctors office likes to stick to their little “wheel thingie” that they pull out when they ask you the date of your LMP, so they have it as the 27th.

Like any of that matters. I know there’s no way I will get to my due date. My blood pressure already started acting up at my last two appointments. It’s been pretty good at home, though. But that won’t matter much.

I’m thinking of trying hypnobabies with this one. It’s a technique of self hypnosis for childbirth. I will most likely get an epidural again, but my experiences with epidurals are not exactly positive. Both times they worked “eventually” but there was a lot of yelling and writhing in pain WITH the fracking epidurals. Maybe my spine is crooked. I don’t know.

I don’t know if I can take the hypnobabies thing seriously enough to really give it a fair chance, though. They do things like call contractions “pressure waves” and new agey stuff like that. I remember taking the hospital “prepared childbirth” with Luciglom when I was pregnant with Roan. They had us do this kind of dance that is supposed to be helpful during labor (think slow dance). I kept laughing so hard, I was in tears. That was also the class that they had us put clothespins on our fingers to help us “practice” getting through contractions. I should’ve known that if the clothespin hurt that much, I was just doomed.

The one thing they don’t talk about too much about in labor is the NAUSEA. With Roan i was on the verge of barfing a few times. Once while I was getting my first epidural (yes, they had to eventually take that one out and give me a new one). They gave Luciglom this tiny little kidney shaped pan and he kept shoving it inches away from my face. Seriously. Why don’t they give you a bucket to puke in? If I had thrown up, it wouldn’t have been contained in that tiny shallow pan.

With Sage I threw up twice. One time it came on so fast I barely had time to lean over and remove the oxygen mask on my face. I felt terrible because I had a really nice (male) nurse and he had to clean it up. Luckily they hadn’t let me eat and I was on water restriction (due to the meds I was one... gotta love preeclampsia) so it wasn’t as gross as it could have been.

The other time, Luciglom was sleeping on the chair that pulls out into a sort of bed. I was feeling sick and trying to wake him up so he could find something for me to barf in. He would NOT wake up. I was so pathetic. I was trying to find something to throw at him. Remember I can’t get out of bed at all at this point. I remember throwing a straw at him. I ended up barfing in my water pitcher while he continued to sleep.

I didn’t really intend to write a post about throwing up, but sometimes these things just take on a life of their own. I promise I will write more about World of Warcraft in the future.

See the Magic

2007-05-01T15:08:00.000-07:00

Here's a You Tube video of the Disneyland fireworks show. I came across it while perusing the Disney nerd forums. Don't laugh. I got some helpful tips from the Disney nerds. Davey gave me grief when I told him about the fastpass strategies. Then on the second and third day, he was using them for full effect. Anyhow, the video clocks in at 17 minutes. No wonder my feet and back were killing me, standing there holding up a 35+ pound kid. I've watched a few minutes of the video and it's not too bad. Of course, they're way better in person. And don't watch if you're going to go soon. It's more fun if you don't know what to expect.

Long Trip Report and Other Stuff

2007-04-26T13:19:00.000-07:00

The last few weeks have been insanely busy. First we had Easter (was that more than a few weeks ago? I can’t remember). Sage sucked down all of her candy as soon as she got her little fingers on it. Roan saved (we still have some) most of hers. We had an egg hunt in our backyard. Then the kids played with bubble guns most of the morning. Sage was a nightmare most of the day. It was probably because all she ate was candy.

After Easter, I decided we had to get our hallway patched and painted by Sage’s birthday. We actually finished it pretty quick and the hallway looks a lot better. Then I decided why not repaint the living room and the kitchen. Why not? Exhaustion and aching backs? Phooey. We got it all done one or two walls at a time. I could only paint parts of the kitchen while Sage was awake, since I could stand on the counters and the paint would be out of her reach. The rest of the painting we did during nap time or after bedtime. Did I mention it took two coats?

We had Sage’s second birthday party the day after the Peep Off. Roan did pretty good at the Peep Off. I think she ate 6 or 7. I know she ate more than her dad. Sage’s party was fun. I spent about 3 hours the night before making her Sponge Bob cake. It wasn’t very hard but it was very tedious. It came out pretty good in the end. More people showed up than I expected, which was nice. Having the swing set and bubble machines out back was great and kept the kids busy. My brother took some great pictures of all the kids. By the end of the day, I could barely keep my eyes open. All I could think about was our upcoming trip to Disneyland!

I wouldn’t really consider myself a “Disney” person. Actually I’m not really sure what that means. However, I am definitely a “Disneyland” person. This was only my third trip there ever (and first to California Adventure). We got up at 5:30 on Wednesday morning and got in the van around 6:45 (with NO coffee!). About an hour into the trip Roan tells me she feels like she’s going to throw up. I was pretty sure that it was a false alarm (she didn’t really look queasy or anything) but who wants to chance a barfing episode? Davey pulled off at the next exit (still no coffee!) and let her get out of the car to walk around. We would remain vomit free for the rest of the trip.

The drive down was fairly unexciting. The kids watched the Spongebob ( I have no idea if that is supposed to be one or two words) Movie over and over. I think Roan might have a crush on David Hasselhoff. Davey and I listened to the Burning Crusade soundtrack and my mom was way in the back of the van with her iPod.

We stayed at the Embassy Suites. Check in was really fast and easy. We dumped all of our stuff in the room, got our ART passes and got on the shuttle to Disneyland. I think we got in the park around 3. It was pretty packed and the weather was sunny but windy. We rode King Arthur’s Carousel first. Sage screamed when it was time to get off. Then we got in the big line to ride Dumbo. Roan loved it. So did Sage, she screamed when it was time to get off. We then saw that Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride was open (it was supposed to be closed for refurb) and the line was short and in the shade. So we went on that. Big mistake. Roan is very sensitive to noise and the dark rides are really really loud. I had also forgotten how “scary” Mr. Toad’s is. I forget the details but it’s something like he blows something up then a judge sentences him to HELL and then the ride is over. Well, that was the first and last (except for It’s a Small World, which Roan didn’t like either) dark ride we would get Roan on for the trip. The only other rides she went on were the teacups (liked those okay) the Disneyland train (hated the tunnel with the T. Rex), Autotopia and the bumper cars at DCA. Couldn’t get her on Jungle Cruise. We talked her in to getting in line for Peter Pan (we got her some earplugs) but she was too freaked out when it was time to get on so Davey took her out of the line. Sage went on Peter Pan, Pirates, Winnie the Pooh and liked them. Basically anything she was big enough to ride, she was fine with.
Wednesday evening we saw the parade. Roan liked waving at the princesses and Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. Then the Ursula (sea witch/octopus lady) float stopped right in front of us for what seemed like forever. Roan got frowny and covered her ears the whole time.

Thursday we got up super early to use our Early Entry admission. Which basically meant more Dumbo and Carousel rides. That was the day we tried Peter Pan and Roan would have none of it. We did go to a princess show and Roan liked that. At the end of the show they bring out these poles with ribbons attached and each kid can grab a ribbon and walk around the pole. The mass of kids (and their annoying parents) was much scarier than any ride at Disney, but Roan liked doing that. After the show we went to a store and the kids each got a princess toy that came with about 500 million tiny parts. Half of which are probably forever stuck in the hotel’s hide-a-bed.

Around noon, the kids were pretty cranky so we took the shuttle back to the hotel and left them with my mom and Davey and I raced back to the park. First we rode “Rockin’ Space Mountain.” It was “Rockin’” because for a limited time (promotion is over now, I think) they played the Chili Peppers “Higher Ground” and projected stupid images of people dancing or something. I like the original soundtrack better. Then we went on Indiana Jones, Buzz Lightyear, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Star Tours, and the Haunted Mansion. We also grabbed lunch sometime in there. Then we went over to DCA for the first time to get the lay of the land. I think we only went on Monsters Inc. (boring dark ride) and watched “It’s Tough to be a Bug.” Davey’s reaction to one part of that movie had me in tears I was laughing so hard. Oh yeah and we went on Soarin’ over California. We both chickened out of California Screaming and Tower of Terror. After about 6 hours total between the two parks we headed back to the hotel in time for the “manager’s reception.” Yay. Free beer and popcorn!

Friday morning it was raining. We went to the park anyway. Then we spent about $30 on Mickey Mouse rain ponchos (basically shower curtains) for our group. We walked around with the kids and got fast passes for California Screamin. The kids went on the Carousel. It was raining pretty good by the time we went to bugs land where there’s a water play area. Water shoots out from the ground and is actually pretty neat. There was a strange little boy playing there and Roan joined in the fun. She ended up extra soaked and then complained about her wet socks the rest of the morning. Eventually the skies just opened up (I swear I heard thunder) and rained really hard. I took Roan on the bumper cars and Davey took Sage on Heimlich’s Chew Chew train. After that, around noon we decided to go back to the hotel and wait out the rain.

Sage took a nap, we ate lunch and went to Target and bought pink Tinkerbell backpack for Davey to carry stuff in. Sage wouldn’t ride in the stroller the first day, so we stopped bringing it to the park and didn’t have an extra backpack for the stuff we planned to throw in the stroller. The big pink Tinkerbell made him easy to find in the crowds.

The weather got much better and we went back to DCA. Davey ran to get fast passes for Tower of Terror and met us over at California Screamin. I almost chickened out. Luckily the fast pass line was really short, so before I could talk myself out of it, I was on the roller coaster. Best roller coaster ever! It shoots you out and you go up the first hill fast. The only part I didn’t like was going up the big hill. You go fast halfway up (since you just came down another hill) then in feels like you stop and you go up the rest slow. I closed my eyes. They were playing a Chili Peppers song on this one too. I don’t know what they normally play. Chili Peppers worked better on this one than on Space Mountain. It was the smoothest coaster I’ve been on though. A lot of fun.

We chickened out on Tower of Terror. Well, part chickened out and part didn’t want to walk all the way to the other end of the park. I guess we’ll have to do it next time. I really don’t like the idea of a drop ride. This one is supposed to have really good theming, which is the only reason I would consider going on it.

Later we went back to Disneyland and rode Dumbo again. Roan was really into trying to make her dad scream. We also went to Toon Town for awhile. It started raining again and we waited it out in Goofy’s house. We also bought lot’s of crap and then waited on Main street for the fireworks.

I had heard great things about the fireworks show. I had never seen it. If you go, don’t miss it. Roan liked it, but had issues with the noise. Not from the fireworks, but the soundtrack. When the Star Wars theme came on and hit the big note she jumped about an inch (I was carrying her the whole time). Anyhow, they don’t skimp on it.

I’m ready to go back. Davey just laughs at me. I wish Roan liked more of the rides. Bringing my mom worked out great. We wouldn’t have been able to ride much (at least not together) if we didn’t have someone to help watch the kids. I definitely want to go back before Sage turns 3 (and we have to buy her a ticket!)

Spring Cleaning

2007-03-15T15:06:00.001-07:00

So, I’ve been semi-furiously trying to clean up the house today. While putting my umpteenth load of laundry in the wash, Roan comes up and asks me, “Is someone coming over today?” Har har. She busted me as only cleaning when someone is coming to visit. She also had her first dentist appointment this week. She totally lied to the dentist and said that she does not brush her teeth everyday. Really.

We also had an exchange this morning that started with her giving me the teenage sigh and eye roll while saying, “I know that.” So I said, “Oh yeah, I forgot you know everything.” She replies, “I know all the same stuff you do.” So I say, “Oh, I guess you know how to make your own breakfast in the morning.” She answers, “Nooo, I’m just a kid.” Love it.

Next month we’re GOING TO DISNEYLAND. I’m super-excited. Three nights in a hotel room with my kids should be interesting. Needless to say, we booked a suite.

WoW Priest Motivational Poster

2007-02-28T13:16:00.000-08:00

This really belongs on the Warcraft blog, but I like it so much I'm posting it here. Gratz to Blogger for actually uploading my image on the first try.

Rolling with the Homies Movie Round-up

2007-02-28T10:26:00.000-08:00

I ass-planted last night in step class. So many times I’ve narrowly avoided the dreaded “falling on my ass, “ yet last night, I did not escape. I also rolled my ankle on the way down and hit the floor hard (on my ass). I just sat there for a few seconds thinking “Ow.” Then I heard the also dreaded “are you ok?” spoken by the instructor over the PA. Now, even if they didn’t see it, everybody in the class knows, at least, that someone fell on her ass. Anyway, I got up and started back into the routine and thought nothing but “ow” for the next five minutes or so. After a while my ankle stopped screaming and it would just twinge with a little pain now and then. After I got home, I actually almost forgot which ankle I hurt. Until this morning. Now it’s being irritable again.

I finally caught up on seeing a bunch of movies last week. Pan’s Labyrinth = excellent. I knew it was “dark” before seeing it, I was not prepared. Probably one of my favorite movies that I don’t really want to watch again. The Queen = good acting and all, but relatively boring. The Departed = (watched it for the second time) Entertaining. I like this movie. Little Children = Pretty good. Had to get used to the narrator/voice over deal. Babel = better than Crash (but what isn’t). Relatively entertaining but didn’t blow my mind or anything. Half Nelson = decent indie. Good acting. Brick = interesting idea. Failed miserably. Sherry Baby = Pretty good. Maggie Gyllenhaal should start thinking about wearing a bra. Sherry Baby and Half Nelson are like the his/hers drug addict movies.

This week I’m looking forward to finally seeing the Prestige (I *heart* Christian Bale) and watching last week’s Battlestar Galactica.

Dead Cats and Herbal Remedies

2007-02-27T11:48:00.000-08:00

I had a discussion first thing this morning with Roan about our dead cat Burgie. The cat has been dead for about a year and a half now. To be fair, we didn’t really tell Roan what happened to it until a few months ago. (Check the archives of October ‘05 for my dead cat post). Even though we told her Burgie died, she kept thinking she was lost. I had to tell her again this morning that Burgie was dead. Roan got a little sad look on her face and started asking about Sluggo (our other, living, cat) and if Sluggo was going to die. So I had to explain that someday Sluggo would die. Roan took it all really well. Maybe, too well. Then she asked, “when Sluggo dies can we get a new cat like Sluggo?”

Last week we were at her friend from preschool’s house and they had a new kitten that Santa had brought for Christmas. It was pretty funny to see the little orange cat run down the stairs only to be follow a few seconds later by a herd of preschoolers yelling with outstretched hands, “Kitty, Kitty, KITTY.” Anyway, that’s what started the idea of getting a “new” cat. On the way home, Roan kept asking if we could get another cat since we lost Burgie.

******************************************************************************
Anyone ever take Airborne? You know, that herbal crap you drink when you feel like you might be getting a cold. I’ve always been skeptical, but Sunday I woke up achy with a sinus headache and was sure I was getting sick. I’ve been taking the stuff and the impending cold hasn’t materialized. Perhaps it’s a coincidence and the stuff is merely damaging my liver. Who knows. But I didn’t get sick! This is after weeks of snotty nosed children running around the house. Sage had something kind of nasty, snot-wise, anyway.

Oscars Smoscars

2007-02-26T12:06:00.001-08:00

We had our annual Oscar “party” last night. Which means we also had our annual Oscar pool as well. Basically, we all cast our ballots for every category. The person who gets the most correct at the end of the night wins the money.

I won the previous two years. Last night resulted in a three way tie. I had to share the pot with two others. Yes, I’m bummed. This was the first year Roan participated, though. I went through the entire ballot with her and made her pick a movie for every category. She seemed to follow a trend by picking the movies that had “queen,” “girls,” “children,” “diamond,” or “happy feet,” in the title. She was the only one who actually picked “Happy Feet” to win best animated feature. Everyone else thought that Cars was a lock. I guess the members of the Academy let their 4 year olds cast the vote for that category.

Roan’s been really into playing World of Warcraft lately. We have to keep her characters in the city, because she’s afraid of “red names.” (Monsters that will attack her character). I noticed yesterday that she figured out how to adjust the game camera by using the keyboard. I didn’t even know how to do that. She likes to change their “clothes” (armor). We also got her a bunch of pets, so she runs around with them. She also figured out that if she hits the return button she can type out a “message.” If your every running around the Exodar and see a low level character (probably a night elf) saying “ahjfasljfjfjei” over and over, then you probably found my kid.

Mac vs. PC

2007-01-30T10:27:00.000-08:00

I'm a Mac person but this made me laugh.

Tyra Takes on WoW

2007-01-29T13:06:00.000-08:00

I got this from the Warcraft forums.
part one
part two
He'll be playing again in a month.

Here's the thread from the WoW forums. There are some funny comments.

Nerdcore

2007-01-10T10:01:00.000-08:00

Me thinks these guys look like a bunch of phoneys They have nothing on the Four Eyes.

Happy New Year!

2007-01-02T11:34:00.000-08:00

Everyone have a good holiday? I got sick Christmas eve. It was just a cold, not like the yuck we had going around here early last Spring. I’ve decided since I’m sick as much as I’m well, that there’s not much use in discussing being sick anymore.

Luciglom (Davey’s new name) built the kids a swing set with a fort and a slide for Christmas. We still haven’t finished putting the stain on all of it thanks to some rain and being out of town a lot. I thought the slide was supposed to be really strong, but now that it’s up I’m afraid to go down it.

Luciglom pulled one of the swings off of the beam while swinging. I was in the house when it happened, but he says he caught himself and didn’t fall on his ass. The swings have since been reinforced. We have a little car/baby swing for Sage and a regular belt swing for Roan. There’s room to put up one more, but it requires some hardware we don’t have yet. The kids love it though.

The girls also got a dollhouse for Christmas. Roan was up Christmas morning, sees the house in our living room and says unenthusiastically, “How’d that get there?” I was disappointed since we got this giant thing in our house, that wasn’t cheap and she doesn’t like it. Then she looked inside of the house and saw some furniture and people and got really excited. She’s played with it everyday since.

Sage got some Schleich zoo animals (lions, tigers, elephants, giraffes) which Roan plays with in the doll house. She had a “little people” cat sitting on a chair and all of the zoo animals standing in a circle facing the cat. It looked really strange. Now I wish I had taken a picture.

For New Year’s Eve we missed what sounds like a fun party within walking distance from our house. With no baby sitter and overtired kids, there was no way we were going anywhere. So we put the kids to bed and watched Jackass 2 and drank champagne. The movie made me laugh so hard I was crying and out of breath. I did have to look away during “the fish hook” and anything involving pooh or vomit. I was amazed how many of them can vomit on cue.

On an annoying note, our clothes dryer decided it didn’t want to blow hot air around anymore. This is just a month after our washing machine decided to eat a baby sock and break. Now I have piles of laundry and they only take about 3 or 4 hours to “air dry” in the dryer. Good times.

I got my World of Warcraft trading card game starter deck last Saturday. We got it at a game store in Santa Cruz. The guy working there was a beardo wearing tie dye. He was also the exact dude you’d expect to be working in a game (not comic!) store. Somehow the uber geekiness of this guy made me feel less embarrassed about buying WoW trading cards.

Boring Little Update

2006-12-11T12:26:00.000-08:00

I haven’t purposely abandoned Bloggy. I think I even wrote a Halloween post, that didn’t get posted. But I did miss the whole month of November. The kids don’t like to let me blog. It’s just as well, since nothing that interesting has happened lately. Roan and I went to a Build a Bear birthday party over the weekend at the mall. I cannot get over how crowded that mall is in December. I can’t believe that people actually willingly go there.

I went to Toys R Us yesterday (Sunday). It’s pretty close to the above mall. I was pretty stupid. It could have been worse. I came home with a really bad headache and the icing is that I got something I have to return. Maybe we’ll do that after Christmas.

Sage decided she wanted to stay up half the night screaming last night. Of course, last night was a raid night, so I didn’t go to bed until 12:30 or so anyway. Screaming began shortly thereafter. Sage was nice and would take 15-20 minute breaks so we just about fall back asleep before being woken up again. I finally put her in the bed with us. She kept elbowing and kicking me and breathing loudly. (I can’t sleep at all with any sort of rhythmic noise, like water dripping, snoring and even breathing noises). After about an hour (she’s still awake) we put her back in her crib. She finally fell asleep for good around 3:30. Needless to say, we’re both tired and cranky today.

Boo!

2006-10-31T10:11:00.000-08:00

Stupid Blogger won't let me upload images right now. I'll have to try again later. Sheesh....

Ah. Halloween. I love this ‘holiday.’ I have a whole box of Halloween crap that I didn’t even take out this year. Things like flashing skulls, seizure inducing, flickering bat lights and a Snoopy wearing a skeleton costume that plays the Peanuts theme when you squeeze his hand. I didn’t put anything up this year for several reasons. First, our house is always in disarray due to random toy bits, shoes and graham crackers scattered about. I thought Halloween decorations would just add to the clutter. Anything I put up would be seen as a “toy” and I would have to listen to countless hours of whining when the kids figured out they were not allowed to play with any of it. Then everything would get broken and/or lost because the kids would find some way to get a hold of the stuff anyway. Perhaps the biggest reason I didn’t bother with putting up the Halloween stuff was I didn’t want to hear, “Is it Halloween, yet?” twenty times a day, everyday. Good going kids. Way to suck all the fun out of Halloween.

Luci and the girls carved a couple of pumpkins while I was at the gym last night. We got a nifty pumpkin carving kit at Target a few weeks ago. They come with little saws that are great for carving and you won’t sever an artery like you will using a kitchen knife. Of course, the kit was (and still is) nowhere to be found. So they used the really old rusty pumpkin carving tool from a kit I got a million years ago. Roan saved some pumpkin seeds and wants to glue them on the pumpkins ‘chins’ so it looks like ‘drool.’ Last night she said drool, this morning she said ‘slobber.’

I think we’re taking them to “Boo at the Zoo” when Luci gets home from work. It costs money to get in and we went last year and it was a total *ahem* zoo so I’m not sure why we’re going again. I guess it’s kind of fun. They have trick or treat stations (which is mostly advertising aimed at the parents), craft areas, hay bales, a costume parade which is kind of cute to watch. They also have snakes, hedgehogs and other creepy animals for the kids to see. Okay, hedgehogs are kind of cute, but they had them out last year. We may trick or treat some, I’m not sure yet. Luci doesn’t like it and says it’s like ‘begging.’ I only think it’s begging if people trick or treat and they’re not in costume. We get these people all the time. They’re often way to old to be trick or treating as well. But the age thing doesn’t really bother me, just wear a fracking costume.

Roan just informed me that “giraff-is are a lot taller than kids” when I told her we might go to the zoo tonight. Preschool money well spent! Speaking of preschool, they had their “pumpkin party” yesterday. All of the girls minus a Wonder Woman and a Cowgirl were either a princess, fairy princess or a fairy of some sort. The boys were a little more varied, but super heroes were very common (Batman, Spiderman). There was a Darth Vader and an “Army Guy” (his words), a pirate and a red M&M. They ate giant pretzel sticks dipped in chocolate frosting and then rolled in Halloween themed sprinkles. For some reason that seems really gross to me.

Roan is dressing up as a princess in the dress I made her. Of course, since I made it, it doesn’t fit great across her shoulders so she gets to wear a white turtleneck underneath it so she doesn’t flash too much skin. The turtleneck solves another problem, Roan complaining that the dress is “itchy.” When she wears the turtle neck underneath, the itchiness doesn’t bother her. It doesn’t look as bad as you might think. Though it would be cuter with out the shirt.

I really need to learn how to make my own dress patterns. The patterns you buy always require a lot of fabric. Roan’s dress is semi-fancy and looks pretty nice minus the bad sewing, but making it didn’t save any money and that’s not even counting the time it took to make. Anyway, I learned how to gather and put in a zipper by making the dress.

Sage is going to wear a little witch costume I bought. She was supposed to wear the giraffe suit that Roan wore for two years in a row, but when we put it Sage she wouldn’t stop crying. I doubt she’ll keep her witch hat on for long. Last night I made a shirt and a skirt to use as a witch costume for me as well. I’ll see if feel like wearing it or not tonight. Luci will probably just pull out the wizard hat.

Not tri-Lamda Material

2006-10-20T12:46:00.000-07:00

Little Cheetah Girlz

2006-10-04T10:08:00.000-07:00

Last week, Luci and Roan went to Target. They walked over there, but Roan likes to ride in the shopping cart and the one they grabbed had a CD in it. Luci hid the CD in the bushes (he didn’t want to carry it in the store without a receipt) and picked it up on their way home. The CD was the Cheetah Girls, which is some Disney produced tween pop group. Roan came home and was all excited about it. Of course, she had never heard of them before. The kids have a boom box in their room, but the cd player has been broken for awhile. I finally replaced it a couple of nights ago with a lovely pink Hello Kitty boom box. The only cd played on it so far has been the Cheetah Girls.

Roan is really into it. She makes up these weird dances and pretends she’s on stage. She said she used to sing, but now she just dances. Sage gets really into it too. She dances a little bit, but mostly just spins around and around until she gets dizzy, starts stumbling and then laughs. Roan calls her “the little Cheetah Girl.” We need to video tape it. I’m pretty sure there will be another performance tonight. The music is pretty horrible, by the way.

Sage is big enough to play Ring Around the Rosie with us. I’m not sure if that’s a blessing or a curse. After about two times through the Rosie, I get way too dizzy. Fortunately, kids never like to do the same thing over and over (sarcasm).

Lately, Sage has been trying to take down her big sister. She usually does this when Roan has a banana or something else to eat in her hand. Sage wraps her arms around Roan’s waist and tries to pull her down. It’s insane. Roan is usually a good sport about it. A few nights ago, though, they were playing with their dad. I think the game was that the kids would stand on a baby blanket on the floor and dad would throw a pillow at them and see if it would knock them over. (That sounds kind of horrible as I type it, but they loved it). Roan was standing on the blanket, facing her dad and I was sitting on the couch behind her. Sage got on the blanket and Roan slapped her on the back. It seemed like Roan just couldn’t control herself because she wanted the attention even though she knows it’s wrong to hit her sister.

Bad Mommy...

2006-10-02T15:06:00.000-07:00

I suck. Poor Roan had to miss preschool this morning because her dumb mom, who was up late playing Warcraft, thought she had set the alarm but managed to screw it up. I thought the little round light was the “alarm on” light, but really it was the “am” light. In my defense, it’s a dual alarm clock, so there are lots of little lights. Well, ok, three lights, but that’s one to many. I had to keep her home last Wednesday because she wasn’t getting enough sleep (up coughing at night) and was acting kind of weird and spaced out during the day.

I’m going to chalk up my alarm clock error to being sick, AGAIN. I just had a cold two weeks ago. I managed to get over that one pretty quickly, which I now realize was only so I could catch another one right away. I think poor baby Sage has had a runny nose the whole time. She loves to come up and wipe it on me. She usually aims for my pants leg or a sleeve and then burrows her head in and turns her face to one side. She has technique.

I took the kids to the park last week and got to (over)hear a disturbing conversation between three moms. Firstly they were all pretty thin, probably like size 2 thin. They were talking about their kids and their kids weight and how their kids eat. One of them has a daughter and the mom obviously was concerned about her weight. I guess the kid likes to wear stuff that’s a little on the small side (being a young kid, she’s rightfully not concerned about her weight) to the dismay of her parents. They were also talking about how their kids would eat a whole plate of chicken nuggets and one of the mom’s told about how she would tell her kid not to eat so much. Did I say they were all really concerned about raising kids (one of them has three daughters) with eating disorders? At least two of them talked about how all of their roommates in college were bulimic (but they didn’t say bulimic, just said that they “threw up”). They were standing right behind me (I was sitting by the sandbox). One of them also talked about her husband’s fat sister and other fat people. They were talking about this for at least 20 minutes. I wanted to turn around and yell at them. I also felt sorry for their kids. Kids shouldn’t diet. They should eat healthy stuff and get lots of exercise. This is a challenge. It can be hard to get Roan to eat anything and when we go to the park, they both want to ride the swing for an hour. Also, kids tend to put on weight (especially around their tummies) when they’re about to grow. We’ve all seen it. Kid is a little chubby, next time you see him he’s taller an thinner. I doubt any of these women have kids that are even close to obese, yet they were all so concerned about it.

Domo, you're going down...I want my staff

2006-09-20T10:41:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned, Luci/Davey/Glom -whatever- and my seventh anniversary was on Monday. We didn’t really have any plans, what with having kids and due to the fact that we both almost forgot it was our anniversary anyway. We basically just sat around gorging on Crepeville and watching the second season of the Office on dvd. It was great. (No sarcasm, seriously).

For my anniversary present, Luci got me something pretty good. He got me “the Eye of Shadow” which is one of two items I need to start my epic Priest quest which, when completed, rewards me with the Benediction Staff. Pretty cool, huh? He had to scrounge up gold from all of his characters to buy it for me. He got it for a good price of 100 gold. Another guy in our guild had to pay 250 gold for it. If you’re not familiar with the WoW economy, 100 gold is a lot for most characters.

The Fall TV season is upon us. We got new satellite dvr boxes on Monday. No more Tivo interface. We still record stuff, but it uses different software and I’m really happy. Tivo was always slow and annoying. I am not a fan of the sound effects. Anyhow, I put on that “celebrity” dance contest show for a few minutes last night before WoW raid time. EVEN I COULD NOT SIT THROUGH IT. Not even for five minutes. Keep in mind, I watched the whole season of “Skating with the Stars” or whatever it was called. Blech. The “new” Fall season doesn’t look too promising.

Sage has taken to saying “uh-oh” a lot. She also likes to scream for fun. Then Roan screams with her. Then they chase each other around the house. Then their dad comes home and goes “Raaawwrrr” and they scream and run around the house some more. Then I leave for the gym. Sage has a serious binky addiction as well. She keeps finding them during the day. We had her on an “only at nap and bedtime” binky regimen. She just came over to me, binky in mouth. I took it out and she said “be-bee.” If I take it from her at the wrong time it results in a good half an hour of screaming and fussing. It’s horrible. I need to find a better place to put them during the day. If we’re out and another kid has one, she will try to get it from them. Now I’m wondering if those few extra hours of sleep the binky afforded me over a year ago were really worth it. Yeah, probably.

Fat Exam

2006-09-18T09:53:00.000-07:00

So I took my fat test last week. It’s a lot like sitting on a produce scale underwater. They have a big, circular clear tank. You climb in and sit on a suspended chair. The water comes up to about your shoulders. They tell you to start blowing out your air and then you lean forward until you’re completely underwater. Then they tell you to blow out your air again. Then you sit up, gasping for air. Then you have to do it again.

Since I was doing this for a gym discount, not only did I have to get my body fat tested, I had to do a “fitness profile.” So after the dunk tank we (there were four of us this night) had to change and do a bunch of high school P.E. type tests. There was three minutes of going up and down a step to “Sledgehammer” by Peter Gabriel. The older lady in our group said “screw this” and sat it out after about a minute. Then there was heart rate checking. There was a flexibility test, bench press test, leg press test and grip test. There was also “count as many push-ups/sit-ups you can do in a minute” test. Then they take all of your results, print them out and tell you how fat and out of shape you are complete with pie charts and bar graphs.

Preschool started up again at the beginning of the month. Needless to say, the kids and I all have colds. Sage didn’t have much of an appetite yesterday and that culminated into her throwing up while she was sitting in her high chair last night. Lots of barf. I had noticed she had a fever a little while before this happened. We gave her a bath and she went to bed. A few hours later, Roan (who should have been asleep, but now stays up until about 11, even though we start bedtime about 8:30) came out of their room and said “Baby Sage threw up again.” So, Sage got a shower, clean sheets and went back to bed. We’ve been vomit free since then. (Knock on wood).

Today is our seven year wedding anniversary. Woot! I almost completely forgot about it. We went to see “The Last Kiss” on Saturday and something in the movie made me think how long I’d been married. I freaked in the theater because I wasn’t sure what the date was that day, and I thought maybe I missed our anniversary. The movie stinks, by the way. Horribly written. I should have known, since it’s by the same guy who did Crash. That movie stunk too.

Zzzzzz....

2006-09-13T10:16:00.000-07:00

I’m so fraking tired. Roan had a bad dream about dinosaurs at 4 am. Then the dog decided to act annoying so he got tossed outside. Then he started barking around 4:30. As much as I enjoy giving them pay back for their annoying barking dogs (they’re both dead now, though) I brought Link back in and put him in his crate which he got out of immediately even though I though I had locked it shut. Luckily he settled down after that. By then it was about 5 am. I’m not even going to write about the annoying cat.

Sage’s favorite word is “baby.” She says it a lot. She still doesn’t really say “Mommy.” When she’s bothered she kind of yells “Ma Ma Ma,” but it’s not really the same thing. She tries to say “fishie” but it doesn’t sound like anything. She says “kitty” and “daddy” and is getting “binky” down. She’s also started to throw some really good tantrums. She doesn’t throw herself on the floor or anything. Just screams and screams and then gets to a point where even when you give her what she wanted in the first place, she just keeps screaming. Like she forgets the reason she’s screaming. It’s lots of fun. This age is sort of like labor pain, you sort of forget about it until it comes back.

Over the weekend we went to our guilds (warcraft) BBQ. I got to meet some of the people I talk to every week. It’s kind of fun, knowing them by voice and then getting to meet them in person. [Here’s the reason I rarely blog anymore, I’m interrupted about every other minute while I’m trying to type.]

Later today I get have my body fat tested. Oh joy! I also have to do some “fitness profile” thing. The whole ordeal is supposed to take up to three hours. Can you sense my enthusiasm? I can’t wait for the part at the end when I get to hear how fat and out of shape I am. At least that will mean the ordeal is almost over.

I don't even play D&D

2006-08-30T16:29:00.000-07:00

I Am A: Neutral Good Half-Elf Ranger Druid

Alignment:
Neutral Good characters believe in the power of good above all else. They will work to make the world a better place, and will do whatever is necessary to bring that about, whether it goes for or against whatever is considered 'normal'.

Race:
Half-Elves are a cross between a human and an elf. They are smaller, like their elven ancestors, but have a much shorter lifespan. They are sometimes looked down upon as half-breeds, but this is rare. They have both the curious drive of humans and the patience of elves.

Primary Class:
Rangers are the defenders of nature and the elements. They are in tune with the Earth, and work to keep it safe and healthy.

Secondary Class:
Druids are a special variety of Cleric who serves the Earth, and can call upon the power in the earth to accomplish their goals. They tend to be somewhat fanatical about defending natural settings.

Deity:
Mielikki is the Neutral Good goddess of the forest and autumn. She is also known as the Lady of the Forest, and is the Patron of Rangers. Her followers are devoted to nature, and believe in the positive and outreaching elements of it. They use light armor, and a variety of weapons suitable for hunting, which they are quite skilled at. Mielikki's symbol is a unicorn head.

Find out What D&D Character Are You?, courtesy ofNeppyMan (e-mail)

Pictures, finally...

2006-08-23T11:06:00.000-07:00

Ha! Blogger wasn't my problem. It was Safari. Stupid browser. Here are the pictures that I wanted to post the other day. Kids with goats, a pony and Roan's birthday cake.

The Week in Review

2006-08-21T13:12:00.000-07:00

Poor neglected Bloggy. Here we go.
I'll have to try and post the pictures later, since Blogger is being a bitch.

Roan’s birthday party-
was a week ago Saturday. It was fun. Unfortunately three of the kids who RSVP’d didn’t show up (this is on top of two of the kids who I already knew couldn’t come) so there was just one kid Roan’s age (her best friend from preschool) and the Beans, who is Sage’s age. Good thing I got a piñata this year. Of course we didn’t take nearly enough pictures. The only crazy thing that happened involved Beans and a piece of dog poop she found in the yard. The incident was equal parts hilarious, horrifying and nauseating. Watching a baby bite a chunk out of a dog poop is a magical thing to see. I hope to remind her of this when she is a teenager.

Movie roundup-
After Roan’s party was dwindling down about 10 or so of us walked over to the neighborhood indie theater to see Little Miss Sunshine. Knowing the manager gets your group and a giant cooler of beer in for free. The movie is great. We were all in tears from laughing so hard. Last week we watched V for Vendetta. This was good, too. I don’t think I’d ever put it on a top favorites list but it is entertaining and on dvd. I watched the Ring Two the other night after “tivoing” it. It’s pretty dumb, not even very scary or suspenseful. After that I watched the Family Stone (is that what it’s called?). Sarah Jessica Parker goes to her boyfriends family for Christmas. It also has Luke Wilson and Clare Danes. This movie is pretty so-so. A good one to fold your laundry while watching. It’s an okay rental.

The Gym-
If you are going to wear the shorts you got at Target that accentuate your ass crack (they do this on EVERYBODY and yes I’ve tried them on and didn’t buy them but several people at my gym did) maybe you should refrain from wearing a THONG with them and sitting in the front of the cycling class. I still don’t get thongs. People say they wear them so they won’t have underwear lines (I still hate the word p*nty) but then you have thong ass. Eww.
I also think I’ve spotted the crazy anorexic who goes to our gym. Actually she doesn’t seem really crazy and actually seems nice enough. She is always on a stationary bike or cardio machine, usually studying some book or manual and she maybe has 2% body fat. This chick is sinewy. She also rides the bike with the seat really high which makes it look like she’s gonna blow out her knees on the thing.

The Fair-
We went to the State Fair yesterday. Pretty much spent 3.5 hours walking around really slow so Roan could keep up. She got a pony ride and a pretty big inflatable Scooby Doo. After we got home, Sage would take the Scooby Doo and Roan would come over and say, “Velma?, Velma?”
My reply, “What Daphne?”
“The monster has Scooby Doo”
“What are we going to do about that?”
“Oh, she’ll let him go in a minute. Velma says jinkies. You’re supposed to say jinkies when you solve the mystery.”
Why the $&$%! do I always have to be Velma?
Back to the fair.... Luci and I had tri-tip sandwiches at $8.50 a pop. Wheee! Luci and Roan shared a chocolate soft serve. Roan had most of a corn dog. Luci and baby Sage helped eat it some of it. Roan went on the pony ride and almost started screaming at first, but then she liked it. She rides like her daddy, which is not a good thing. I could see her, leaning with her weight to one side. This bugs horses. I don’t think poor Commanche (the pony) cared though. He’s stuck walking around in circles all day. Poor bored little ponies. Actually, I don’t have much love for ponies. They are usually little shits and the one I grew up riding was no exception. I can’t even count how many times Lady Jane (she was cute, though) bucked me off or tried to scrape me off on a fence. Once I started riding Horses most of them time and got too big for the pony, I hardly ever ended up landing in the dirt, on the rocks or cement. Uh oh, I’m going off on horse tangent.

Preschool-
Roan is switching over to the morning preschool class. It’s supposed to be a pre-Kindergarten class and a little more structured than the class she was in before. You’d think the teacher would have told me about this, but no, I heard about it from a parent and then overheard the teacher talking to someone else about it when I went to register Roan for the afternoon class. We were on the waiting list for it for a day. I think the class is popular, not just because it’s pre-K, but because of the time slot. Anyway, it’s sad because Roan’s best friends are in the afternoon class. Her Best friend, was born about a week after the Kindergarten cut off date in December, so she may not go to Kindergarten next year (her mom would have to petition or something). So they won’t be in the same preschool class this fall. The other thing is getting Roan there at 9 am is going to be a bitch. That’s usually about the time we’re all getting up. Also, my Warcraft guild raids Tuesday/Thursday nights and her preschool is Mon/Wed/Fri. Life’s a bitch, huh?

More Dots!!!!!

2006-08-11T11:02:00.000-07:00

Since my blog gets the most hits from people searching for "onyxia minus 50 dkp" I decided to link the ultimate site. It has a link to the audio and the lovely animated version. The Ultimate Onyxia Strategy

The Hoff

2006-08-08T10:42:00.000-07:00

Here's a little something to make your eyes and ears bleed.

"Take it to a nine!"

2006-07-25T11:38:00.000-07:00

Here's a pretty good review
for Lady in the Water. If I could write, that's pretty much what I would have written about it. I still found the movie overall entertaining. Probably mostly for the flaws the reviewer points out. It's funny that someone would put that much effort into something just to 'stick it' to the critics. I was hoping that M. Night would have had a much stronger comeback after the Village though, because this new one isn't great.

Roan bashed her face in last night. She fell out of bed around 3 am. When it happened she said she hit her stomach. I didn't even notice her face until this morning about an hour after we were all up. She'll get to go to the gym daycare tonight looking like a tough kid.

Tonight is another aqua aerobics class. I took a "spin" though I think this place calls it "indoor cycling" or something like that, class yesterday afternoon. It kicked my ass. I'll probably go back next week though. I'll just pace myself better so I won't end up mouthing the words "you die now" at the instructor 15 minutes into the class. What's interesting about the cycling class is that it was about 50/50 men and women. Almost all the other group exercise classes are 99% female. One time during water aerobics the instructor got a guy who was waiting for the pool to join the class.

Why are the bikes so much more manly? Is it because they're a "machine?" The class is pretty much the same as any other one. They play music and there's a person yelling and telling you what to do along with 'keep it up,' 'abs held in,' etc. Perhaps it's just guys fear of "dancing" that keeps them out of the other classes. I'm going to try to get Luci to take a cycling class this week. Then I'll have a guys opinion on it. Alas, he is too chicken to try water aerobics or a step class. And I'm pretty sure he wouldn't try a yoga or yoga/pilates class either. I haven't braved the step class either, but I will eventually. It kind of looks like fun in a painful sort of way.

Stupid Freaking Internet

2006-07-24T13:26:00.000-07:00

My mail is still not working. I know everyone is desperately trying to contact me via email at the moment. Oh well, you'll just have to wait for a response. The original internet problem we were able to fix on our end, but I don't know about this mail problem. I'm going to blame Sluggo the cat for this problem for killing my computer in the first place.

Internet Woes

2006-07-24T10:46:00.000-07:00

Since my internet connection has been broken since midday yesterday, I suppose I have plenty of time to blog. I just don't know when I'll be able to post. I feel so lost and cut off without my internet connection. What do I do on the internet anyway? Read other people's blogs, email, check my guild's forums, check the WoW forums oh and uh play Warcraft. Well, none of that has been happening since about 1pm yesterday. I'm writing this on a Monday morning. Let's see how long it takes to get posted.

I saw Lady in the Water on Friday night. Poor M. Night will probably take a beating for this one. He cast himself in his largest (I think) role to date. I always like his cameo, but especially in this case it seemed a little "over-acted." Like how a drama student might play the part. The movie seemed flawed, but as a whole I found it entertaining. Mostly the point of it seemed to be to give his critics a big F-U. Oh, and hey all you stupid people, guess what, there is NO TWIST ENDING. Anyway, he's a favorite director of mine, because I always find his stuff interesting, even if it doesn't always work.

I did pretty much nothing all weekend, which is just fine with me because if you walk outside you'll catch on fire. Saturday I took Roan to ballet, ate a meatball sub from the Italian Deli and slept all afternoon while the kids drove Luci nuts. I can't remember what we ate for dinner, but it probably wasn't healthy. After the kids went to bed, Luci went to the Four Eyes show and I played a little Warcraft. I actually went to pick some flowers in the Swamp of Sorrows so I could make some extra gold. Usually the area is abundant with "in-demand" herbs, like blindweed and fadeleaf. There wasn't anything and I didn't see any farmers hanging around. It was strange. Sunday I didn't do to much. I went grocery shopping. Then I went to the gym to work out with weights. The Ergs + 2 were here when I got back from the gym, waiting to go to their show. They were all really quiet and were watching a Futurama dvd. Season 2, I believe. They all left to go to the show in Davis. I put the kids to bed and made a pasta concoction and watched the end of Paradise Now or Paradise Lost (crap, I can't remember the name and I can't look it up). It's the one about a couple of suicide bombers.

Yes! I have internet access again. Except my mail still isn't working. Worst blog post ever.

More Ketchup

2006-07-21T10:20:00.000-07:00

My computer died Tuesday night. I was fighting the bat boss in Zul Gurub with 19 other people. Sluggo, the worst cat in the world, kept brushing back and forth on my legs until she ended up unplugging my computer. Then my computer wouldn't turn back on. It was completely dead. Now it's at the Apple store for 5-10 days getting fixed. The good news is that it's some "known" problem with the machine and they're fixing it for free.

I also got sick this week and it turned into a really good case of laryngitis. I spent yesterday whispering. Last time I had laryngitis was a whole 3 months ago. I think I have the worst immune system ever. And no, it's not AIDS, I've been tested.

Last weekend we took the kids to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. They did pretty good. We couldn't stay at any one exhibit too long. I think Roan's favorites where the Outer Bay (the gazillion gallon aquarium) and the jelly fish. She made me take a picture of the jelly fish. She could care less about the sea otters. I was holding her right in front of the giant "outer bay" tank and she squealed when a giant tuna swam past us. Then a lady laughed at her. Roan also liked the sunfish and the giant turtle.

Sage has been working on getting her vampire teeth and is cranky pretty much every afternoon. I guess when she's at childcare in the gym she cries when anyone comes or goes. I'm not sure she's a huge fan of the child care place. Roan loves it and often throws tantrums when it's time to leave (yay!)
.
On Wednesday I sat through 4 hours of gym classes. Two classes, two hours each. One was called "Fitness the Right Weigh" (clever, eh?) and the other one was "Surviving Fitness." At this gym, oops pardon me, athletic club, if you take certain classes within 90 days of each other, you can save $$$ off your monthly fees forever. I've now completed everything except the one I dread the most. The fitness profile and body fat analysis. Yes, they make you get in the dunk tank. Then they tell you what a fat body you are. I'm not even sure what they do for the "fitness profile" part. I'm hoping it doesn't involve a treadmill. If Luci and I both do it, we save $20 a month on our membership. That's pretty good. I guess it's worth a day of total humiliation.

Here's a couple pics of the kids taken last night.

It's Been Awhile...

2006-07-12T12:50:00.000-07:00

I just looked at my blog today and realized it’s been about 3 weeks since I posted. Roan’s “bubble blowers” swim class was the first interruption to my blogging. For five straight mornings I got to stand around in an 18 inch deep splash pool with Roan who refused to sit in any part of the pool more than two inches deep. The kid takes baths in deeper water. So I could pretty much forget about her trying to do the “crocodile” much less actually blow a bubble in the water. At least by the end of the week she seemed to be having “fun” walking around in the water and stopped whining and crying. The water was pretty cold at 10 in the morning, though.

The same week we got a mini van. A Honda. Now I can be part of the annoying soccer mom clique that I always wanted to join. Not really. I used to drive a mini van before I had kids. My dad still has it. A golden-beige ‘87 Ford Aerostar. It was sweet. Not really. I traded it for my dad’s ‘87 (i think) Nissan pickup, which is now for sale. Who wants to buy it? Anyhow, the Honda is pretty nice. The kids no longer get their heads bonked in the doorway when I put them in the car.

Roan had her first ballet recital a few weeks ago. It was pretty hilarious. They didn’t really do a “dance.” They just mimed some stuff and pretended to sing along to “I won’t grow up” from Peter Pan. Their costumes were oversized suit jackets which none of them really wanted to wear. The whole thing fell apart by the end and there was very audible laughter from the audience. I didn’t get to see much of the other acts because I was stuck in an 85 degree room with a bunch of hyper children for most of the time. I hope that counts for some of my time in purgatory, because it was hell. One of the acts I did see was a group that must have been from a tumbling class. They all had to do cartwheels across the stage. There was a kid, just like me, who couldn’t do them but still had to do these weird half-cartwheels anyway. I took a class like that when I was a kid and had to do cartwheels by myself down the “runway” when we had our recital. At least no one laughed at this kid. I had the audience in hysterics. I was just glad I could entertain.

Last night I took a water aerobics class. A friend of mine wanted to try it out, so I said, “sure.” It was okay, I guess, once I was able to contain my inappropriate giggling. Actually, a lot of the time I had no idea what I was doing. Matters were not helped by the fact that I’m nearsighted and didn’t have glasses or contacts on in the pool. I had to keep asking my friend, “what’s she doing?” The best part was trying to stand on a noodle and “surf” on it. I was insanely bad at this and my noodle went flying out of the pool. It was pretty amusing. I’ll probably do it again next week. Can I wear contacts in the water if I’m not submerging my head? I did end up getting splashed in the face a lot. It would be nice to see, though.

Tortooga

2006-06-19T13:18:00.000-07:00

Here's the cake I made Davey for Father's Day. It was my first attempt at a buttercream transfer. Tooga's nose bit the dust in the freezer when the board he was on slipped and hit a rack. I was out of brown frosting and didn't want to make more, so he looks like someone took a bite out of his nose. The outline around his feet got a little messed up. I'm not sure why. Either not a thick enough bead of frosting or I didn't leave him in the freezer long enough. I didn't start him until about 9pm on Friday night. I don't reccomend decorating and baking a cake while dying your hair, but somehow I managed to do both. Btw, Tooga is a turtle from World of Warcraft. He gives a quest where you have to help him find his wife. For some reason, Davey kept calling him Tortooga and it made me laugh. Making the cake was really an excuse to try a buttercream transfer. They're really not too hard. Also, I really need a sifter for the powdered sugar, too many little clumps in the frosting.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!!!

2006-06-18T12:47:00.000-07:00

Voyeurism and the Dog Walk

2006-06-16T12:31:00.000-07:00

I have a new hobby. It’s something I find myself doing on my daily dog walk, which is like a fog walk, but a little faster, with a dog and there’s no fog. I’m usually out with Link around dusk, listening to a podcast. As it starts to get dark, people turn their inside lights on and I can see inside their houses. Yup, I’m a creepy dog walking nosey nelly. In my defense, these people could close their blinds or draw their curtains. They obviously want me to peek inside.

We live in a pretty nice neighborhood. Though our house is not one of the nice ones and we really live right on the edge of the neighborhood. My dog walk route takes me into the heart of the $700K house area. Some houses are surprising. Like a really nice looking house and when I see the kitchen, it’s in serious need of an upgrade. Mostly, when I see kitchens there is a fair amount of granite and stainless steel. I did see one kitchen that looked very similar to our kitchen when we bought our house. Think wood paneling, crappy brown veneer cabinets and lots of orange an yellow. Poor bastards.

On my dog walk, I spend time contemplating the decorating choices I see along the way. Sure, not everybody can have a giant map of Middle Earth, a replica of Sting (the sword not the singer) along with some tin Futurama propaganda signs and a wall of assorted children's toys that would make a preschool look as bare as a marine barracks in comparison. I see that the fancy house set seems to enjoy fake flowers. My favorite decorating choice (I’ve seen this everywhere) is the fancy waste paper basket, or for the table top a vase, full of really long sticks. A lot of houses have pictures in frames hanging on the walls. I think they call it “art.” One house has a nice horse picture on the wall, it’s effect is negated by the fake flowers in the room. I did see one room that was devoid of any decoration complete with white walls. There was a couch and a t.v. in the room and that was about it. I think they were going for the Willy Wonka look of the room where the kid gets shrunk into the t.v. set.

Pretty much every dog walk I see an old lady walking around outside in a house coat. I don’t think it’s the same lady each time. One time, on our street even, I saw a lady in a moo moo type dress. She wasn’t really old enough or fat enough that she has an excuse for wearing that thing. But I still thought it was awesome.

What's New Scooby Doo?

2006-06-15T12:17:00.000-07:00

Okay, so we have two cute little kids in the house. One is currently hitting that giant baby milestone of walking... so what happens? Our video camera decides to crap out. Luckily, pretty much every one with this model or similar has had theirs crap out already, so Canon will be fixing it for free. I guess they put a bunch of crappy CCD’s in their cameras so that after a year or so the camera is unable to record video. You can watch your old footage on the little lcd screen and you can still record audio (whoopee!) but no more video recording.

Roan had a bad dream last night. She woke up screaming at 2:45. I think I had just fallen asleep around 2. This morning she told me it was about Scooby Doo. Roan loves Scooby Doo. She mainly watches the “new” adventures of Scooby Doo. The theme song is different, it’s a pop-punk theme song. Roan makes us come and listen to her sing (whisper) along to it.

Do you know who her favorite character is? Daphne. Yup. Daphne and Fred. The beautiful people. You’d think my kid would be more of a Velma or at least Shaggy or Scooby kid. I asked her why Daphne is her favorite and she told me because she has a purple dress. I guess her bad dream last night was about Daphne being tied up and scary monsters that aren’t really monsters but people pretending to be monsters. Last week we got her a set of Scooby-gang action figures at the toy outlet. Guess who I had to be... Velma. Dave got to be Scooby. Baby Sage was the Sage Monster because she kept kidnapping members of the Scooby gang. Roan’s Little People school bus was the Mystery Machine.

Houston, We Have Lift Off...

2006-06-08T13:55:00.000-07:00

Sage is walking! She mostly stumbles around like a drunk sailor, but now when she falls down, she can stand back up on her own. Woo-hoo! She’s pretty proud of herself when she stumbles around, it’s pretty cute. Now I just have to remember to write the date down in her baby book. Poor Sage, the “second child.” It’s true, her baby book is not as full.

Horse Expo is this weekend. I probably won’t go, since I haven’t been riding and I’m not sure when I will start again. If I’m up early enough on Sunday and the kids are driving me nuts, maybe I’ll go (kids stay home with dad).

Today is Jay “Biz”’s birthday. Happy Birthday Jay!

Zzzzzzz.....

2006-06-02T09:04:00.000-07:00

I am so sleepy. Roan woke me up a half an hour before my already set too early alarm was due to go off. Why did she wake me up, you ask? She stepped on and broke a crayon. A crayon that shouldn’t have been in her room to begin with as Sage goes around and finds every stray crayon (like a dwarf and treasure) and then proceeds to take a big bite out of each and every one. Crayons make a peculiar crunching sound when she bites in to them. They do sound quite delicious.

We have a play date in about an hour. I wish my coffee would cool down faster. Then we have to hurry home so we can watch a sweet little baby. This should be interesting. I can see what it’s like to spend the day with three kids. Should curb that inexplicable yearning I have for a third. I’m hoping Sage decides to take a really long nap and Roan will just want to veg out watching some cartoons. Then me and the little baby can just sit back and watch a dvd. I can dream, right? Anyway, today won’t be boring.

Lest you think I’ve actually gone and got a real life, I have lots of Warcraft stuff to talk about, but I think I will post warcraft stuff on a different blog. I’ll get around to it someday. It’s good to have goals.

I put a permanent link to beer and tv at the right. I think I’ve read the entire blog. It’s funny.

I Hate Mondays

2006-06-01T14:54:00.000-07:00

Oh holy crap

Awesome Blog

2006-06-01T12:31:00.000-07:00

I just became aware of this blog.
Luci and I joined a new guild in WoW and this blog is written by one of our new guildmates. I haven't read all of it yet, but I really enjoyed the posts under "Raising Children - Cautionary Tales." You have to look at the right side of the page and scroll down to find all the posts. Funny stuff.

Stuff

2006-06-01T10:01:00.000-07:00

I feel like I’ve unintentionally abandoned this blog. I haven’t, I’ve just been doing a lot of “stuff” lately. Nothing terribly interesting. Sage is a little more demanded during my usual “blogging time” and I don’t always feel like using her nap time (hallelujah!) for blogging. Spending nap time playing Warcraft (crate runs) is a much better use, I’d say. (hehe I just did).

Yesterday I took the kids up to the Thunder Valley Casino. Roan’s been once before. I always feel weird walking in there with my little kid(s). We went up there because my mom’s seniors group was taking a bus trip there. So we met up with her and some old family friends who now live in Lincoln. We went to see the friends house and then back to the casino to wait for 25 minutes for lunch. I think the insane wait times at the casino restaurants are just a ploy to make you gamble more. When we finally got a table in the cafe you could see that there were many empty tables. Perhaps they didn’t have the staff to take care of them, but if they regularly have half hour waits at lunch time, you think they’d at least fill all the tables. Oh well. Roan had pancakes.

You Got Owned

2006-05-25T11:13:00.000-07:00

In regards to battleground twinks...
There's a rumour that Battlegrounds will give you experience in the next patch. Don't let the WoW talk scare you off, you can still watch this little video.

SOUL PATROL!!!!

2006-05-25T11:01:00.000-07:00

Apparently we have reached the era of the two hour season finale. I find myself pathetic that I am now relieved that the t.v. season is over so I have more time for other things. Last night we went to Tubbo’s birthday dinner at Caballo Blanco. I’d driven by that place a bunch in the past and was always interested because of the name. The service was good, but amazingly slow. The best thing was the guacamole. I don’t even eat guacamole. I generally don’t even taste it if it’s on my plate. Last night I was putting on my little fajita burritos and even dipping steak in it and eating it that way. What a great appetizer idea. Steak strips with guacamole dip.

After dinner we got home around 9 and the kids went to bed. I blew through the American Idol from Tuesday night on the dvr. Okay, yes I watch American Idol. For the most part, I can’t stand the music, but I find the show entertaining. Just watching to see how incoherent Paula is going to be is entertainment enough. Anyway, I quickly get through that episode. Figure the finale can’t be more than an hour. It was two. I start fast-fowarding through that one, watching bits and pieces. Luci is playing WoW and talking to my brother (in Warcraft). Turns out he’s worked with female finalist’s dad over the years. So I logged on and chatted with my brother for a little bit. (Who needs a phone when you play World of Warcraft). By then it’s about 11:30 and we still have to watch Lost.

I love Lost. I love that you feel like you should be able to put the pieces that they’ve given you in the show together and solve some mystery. Yet, it’s totally impossible because every episode some new “key” information pops up and it changes everything. Also, I suspect that the writers are making the stuff up as they go along and perhaps do not have the entire story mapped out to a conclusion.

I made extra coffee today to help combat “season finale week.” It’s a little like “finals week” for the couch potato set.

Sage Went to the Doctor, Roan Went to a Movie

2006-05-22T10:33:00.000-07:00

Sage had her 14-15 month well check last week. For some reason they made the appointment for her when she just turned 13 months. Whatever. She’s getting close to 24 pounds. She was in the 75th percentile for height and weight and 90th for her head circumference. Roan went to the appointment and got the doctor to give her a band-aid for her “boo boo.” Said boo boo was a tiny little scratch that was already scabbed over and ready to fall off. Our doctors wonderful attention to the kids is probably why we have to wait for him about 40 minutes every time we have an appointment. Our appointment was for 9:10, how could he be 45 minutes late that early? We always get stuck waiting in the exam room that has very little in it to entertain little kids. After the exam, we went to the “shot room.” That’s Roan’s favorite part if she’s not the one getting shots. They actually call it the playroom. The waiting room is all enclosed and has stuff for the kids to climb on. The whole check up and shots ordeal took almost 2 hours.

Sage is still close to being able to walk on her own. I have no idea when she will actually figure it out. I keep thinking it will be any day now, but she doesn’t do it. Roan saw some commercial for the Barbie Diaries movie and now says she wants the “Barbie Diarrhea” movie for her birthday.

I took her to see “Over the Hedge” yesterday. We had some free movie passes from Christmas. For some reason, Roan got in free, so I still have a pass left. Do I even need to say if the movie was good or not? I don’t think you’d want to see it unless you were watching it with kids. That being said, it wasn’t horrible (the barbie/my little pony dvds). It was fun watching Roan battle the theater chair. Her legs are so short that the chair kept folding up on her. She ate at least half a size small bag of popcorn. We got there a little early and then had to sit through almost 20 minutes of previews. She made it through the whole movie (I almost didn’t). On the way out she kept whining that she wanted to play “a game.” She stopped in front of the arcade. There weren’t really any suitable games in there for her. I don’t think she’d enjoy playing House of the Dead. So, in spite of much complaining, we didn’t stop at the arcade.

HAPPY MOTHER"S DAY!!! (a couple days early)

2006-05-12T18:32:00.000-07:00

Here's Roan and me in our matching mom's day hats that she made at preschool.

Cow-Cow Returns

2006-05-11T12:38:00.000-07:00

We got Cow-Cow back today. I went back to Roan’s preschool at the end of the Tuesday/Thursday class. I completely forgot about the “Mommy and Me Tea” (ours is tomorrow). It was going on when I got there, so I saw a sneak preview of what I’ll have to do tomorrow. It looks like the kids made goofy looking floral colored hats for the moms. The hats look like they were made out of coffee filters but bigger. One lady showed up to pick up her kid completely oblivious that she was supposed to get there a half hour earlier. I felt bad for her kid.

I put Sage’s Easter shoes (they have more solid soles than her fake-Robeez slippers) on her and didn’t carry her in the sling so she could practice walking a little in the park. She’s getting better, but I don’t think she’ll take her first steps alone today. She had fun playing with her sunglasses just before her nap (what she’s doing right now). She tries to put them on, but doesn’t even get close so she hands them to me and I put them on her and she gets a giant smile and then takes them off and repeats. I have to get a picture of her with them on.

I almost forgot. This morning Roan was calling her sister “diarrhea.” She said, “Baby Sage looks like diarrhea.” I asked her if she knew what diarrhea was. She yelled “Poop!” Nice, huh?

Cow-Cow, We Miss You

2006-05-10T15:18:00.000-07:00

Sheesh. Can today get any better? After stabbing myself in the finger with a knife trying to liberate my microwave pizza from a plate, I went to pick Roan up from school. No, she did not have shoes on again. We left and about the time we were almost home I realized that she didn’t have Cow-Cow, whom she brought to school with her. The traffic going the other way was horrible, not to mention the parking by her preschool, so I was pretty sure we wouldn’t get back in time (she’s in the last class of the day). I called them when we got home and got the answering machine. I don’t think they ever actually answer the phone anyway. They have a Tuesday/Thursday class from 9-11:30, so I guess we can go either before or after that class and try to retrieve Cow-Cow. I told Roan he’s going to have a slumber party at school tonight with all the other toys. She told me Cow-Cow is crying because he misses her. Hopefully she will go to bed tonight without freaking out about it, but I doubt it.

.....

2006-05-10T12:55:00.000-07:00

Davey’s Elephant Bar birthday dinner was fun. I was sandwiched between the 2 kids, so the adult conversation was limited a little bit. I ordered the overpriced fish. It was okay, but priced about $3 too much, as Tubbo and I were discussing on Ventrilo after the dinner.

The other thing (other than going out to dinner) Davey wanted to do for his birthday was run Razorfen Downs (RFD) with Tubbo and Prayella. We finished it sometime before 1 a.m. Tuesday morning. It was pretty fun. Usually you do it with a group of 5 we did it with 3. Glom is a little over-level for it (but not much) and tubbo is a little under-level. It started getting a little hairy near the end. The end boss was pretty challenging for the 3 of us. I ran out of mana and Glom almost died. When we downed the boss Glom had about 3 health. It was pretty great. Tubbo got some really good leather shoulders and a new dagger. I got a new cloak and finished the quest which got me a couple gold.

I probably should start a separate Warcraft blog.....

Ugh. I just moved the truck into our drive way. (Stupid bitchy neighbors have a problem with a decrepit old truck sitting in front of our house for a month at time). Now I have little specks of steering wheel stuck to my hands.

Baby Sage still isn’t walking on her own yet. I can tell she wants to, so maybe she’ll figure it out soon. Roan’s new favorite phrase is “I can’t” or “I ca-hant.” Today when I told her to go get dressed, she told me I had to say “please” first.

I got schooled by her preschool teacher today too. Roan was standing in the way of someone’s stroller and I told her to “watch out.” I guess I wasn’t specific enough. The teacher said something like “She (Roan) is like watch out what, where...” Then the teacher says something like, “Yeah, sometimes I say things like that that aren’t specific.” Ugh. I just smiled and left (I was on my way out). It’s been a totally irritating morning already. This was from the teacher who sent my kid home with the wrong shoes on. And at least they had their shoes on that day when we picked them up. I love getting down on the floor with a giant baby strapped to me to help Roan put her shoes so we can go home. I do like this preschool, but the shoe thing gets a little irritating. They are supposed to bring their lunches on Fridays now. That’s fine, they sit down and eat their lunch when they get there. The weird thing is they still have snack at the end of class. The class is only 2 and a half hours, how much can these kids eat?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVEY!!!!!

2006-05-08T12:49:00.000-07:00

Happy Happy Happy Happy Birthday Birthday!

Today is Davey’s birthday. I think we’re going to the Elephant Bar tonight. That place always makes me laugh a little. It seems like a restaurant you’d find at an amusement park. Like the Marvel restaurant at Universal Studios. Davey and I ate there so we could watch Spiderman walk around. I think Davey had the Hulk burger. I think I had the Falcon burger. Elephant bar is a great place to take kids though. It’s noisy and they usually bring the food fast. Plus, they have a kids menu that includes a little sundae. No wonder Roan loves going there. Another plus is there’s a full bar for mom and dad.

Saturday, we had a few people over to grill and play croquet, except we never got to the croquet part. Kind of sad, since I’ve been wanting to play. We need to fix or add one more light in the backyard and I think we can start playing night croquet. That will be sweet.

Later that night, we finally watched King Kong. I wasn’t expecting it to be that great, so as I was watching the first act of the movie, before they get to the island, I was pleasantly surprised. That was soon ruined by chase after chase involving dinosaurs. Some of it looked really crappy too. CG stuff always looks worse at home on dvd, but some of this was really bad. The third act of the movie was a little better, but the whole thing just left me feeling sad. Maybe if they had cut about 40 minutes of it, it might have been better. I thought the beginning up to about the part where we see the first dinosaur was pretty good, though. All downhill from there.

Sunday afternoon we took a quick trip to the zoo so Roan could see the snakes. We have a membership, so we can go anytime without worrying about the $$$. The zoo membership is great if you go about 4 or more times a year. If you stay at home with kids, it’s great to have that option. Only problem now is Roan is really tempted by the ice cream stands at the zoo. So, we got to listen to a good bit of whining. Instead of ice cream, she got a rice cake and some bottled water we brought from home. I know, we’re mean. After we got home, around 5, we were all wiped out. I guess we’re not used to walking around in the sun, yet. I would say it was hot, but it probably was only in the 80’s. It felt hot, though.

This one's for members of the Four Eyes

2006-05-05T12:48:00.000-07:00

Super Mario Bros. Re-enactment

I Love You, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz

2006-05-01T12:34:00.000-07:00

We went to the Cruz over the weekend. We got there on Saturday afternoon and left Sage with the grandparents and took Roan to the boardwalk. Is it just me or is it weird calling a place “the Boardwalk” when it has no boardwalk anymore? We walked around the arcade and then got some tickets so Roan could go on the merry-go-round. Roan loves merry-go-rounds. Roan hated this one.

She wanted me to go on it with her. Luci was going to do it, but I guess Roan figures I have more experience with horses, so I should be the one to take her. I put her on a horse, then I saw two vacant ones next to each other so I put her on one and I got on the one next to her. I figured she’d be fine, since she’s ridden carousels before and wouldn’t need me to stand next to her. The ride starts and she starts screaming. I jumped off the horse and tried to talk to her but she wouldn’t turn her head towards me. I did hear her crying that she wanted ice cream, though. When the ride finally stopped she had a red mark on her face from squishing it into the pole.

After the carousel, Luci got a chocolate dipped, soft-serve cone to share with Roan. She wasn’t too keen on sharing, but faced with the choice of sharing or getting none, she choose to share. Next we went to check out the little kid rides. Roan decided she wanted to ride Bulgy. Luci stood in line with her, walked her to a Bulgy, started to put her in and then she started screaming. So, Roan didn’t ride the Bulgy. Luckily, they were able to get the tickets back. Here is a photo essay. I call it, “The Bulgy not to be ridden, In Three Photos.”

After the Bulgy incident, Luci and I wanted to ride the Cave Train. Roan was kind of scared of it, but she said she wanted to ride it. Then, when we were in line buying tickets, she said she didn’t want to ride it. Being the great parents we are, we bribed her to go on it. We agreed she could have cotton candy after the ride.

We got the very first seat on the cave train and Roan sat between us. She was holding on to me the entire time. When the train goes in the cave, there's a part where you go through a sort of tunnel and it is lighted and spins around you. That part made her scream. As we were riding the train I kept thinking how nightmare inducing it was. The cavemen were not cute and neither were the dinosaurs. It was really loud. I kept trying to see if Roan had her eyes open. The few times I could see (it’s really dark in the “cave”) she did. After the ride, I asked her what she thought of the Cave Train. She exclaimed, “It was AMAZING.” Then we went to get cotton candy while her dad rode the Giant Dipper by himself.

Random Kid Update

2006-04-21T12:39:00.000-07:00

Roan’s obsessed with snakes now. It started yesterday when she wanted to watch a movie and couldn’t decide which one. I mentioned the horse movie (the Black Stallion) but then I stupidly said that it might be too scary because there’s a snake in it. She didn’t want to watch it, but she’s been freaking out about snakes since. Last night she kept making up stories about horses and snakes and telling them to me. I don’t remember the details because the stuff she makes up is crazy. Most of the stories ended up with the snakes in cages, though.

Last night I told her that maybe today we could go feed the ducks in the park before school started. (We ended up not doing this because I was running late and it was starting to rain). Roan says, “Uh mama, I think the geese will be hungry too.” She does the “Uh mama” thing a lot. She has a distinct tone when she says it, correcting me. It always makes me laugh. A few days ago at school, I guess some kid stepped on Roan’s arm and they gave her an ice pack to put on it. I only know about this from what Roan tells me. I’m guessing they hand out ice packs for every little boo boo, because there wasn’t even a hint of a mark on her arm.

Baby Sage is starting to stand on her own (not holding on to anything) a little bit more. She has also figured out the sippy cup, for juice at least. I haven’t switched her milk out of the bottle yet. The last few times I tried I was rewarded with screaming and tantrum throwing until I presented her milk to her in a bottle. She wasn’t so good with the sippy cup then so maybe I’ll try the switcheroo again in a couple of weeks.

559 Crates of Lost Supplies in the Swamp...

2006-04-21T12:25:00.000-07:00

...559 crates of supplies. Pick one up, take it to town...558 crates of lost supplies in the swamp.

I went to the kitten kat’s game last night to be informed that I got half of the population of greater Sacramento sick with my virus. Okay, a little exaggerated. It was only like one or two people I didn’t know about already. But, hey, remember somebody got me sick too. It wasn’t my kid, either, because she got sick after me. Also, someone at the game heard the sick talk and said “oh that cold with the fever?” He’s been out of the country and said he got it on the plane. I don’t want to be Typhoid Mary anymore.

I’ve about kicked the virus. It’s amazing how much your health improves when your kids sleep through the night. Our little one goes back and forth on this issue, but has slept soundly the last 5 nights.

Spring seems like it’s finally arriving, except the clouds came back today. I don’t know if it’s supposed to rain or not. The nice weather always makes me excited for the T.V. season to end. (Isn’t this sad?) Actually, there’s only a couple of shows we try to watch the night they’re on due to fear of spoilers. The rest get tivoed.

I haven’t been doing much lately except being sick. Now that I’m better I’ve been spending my free time playing WoW. Except I’ve been doing the same quest over and over with my level 38 dwarf priest. At level 40 she can buy a mount to ride around. Dwarfs automatically get Rams to ride, Night Elves get tigers, Gnomes get big mechanical chickens and humans get horses (Horde gets a whole ‘nother set of beasts). Well, I want a horse. In order for my dwarf to get a horse, she has to have an “exhaulted” reputation with the human city of Stormwind. “Exhaulted” is really hard to get. You gain reputation by doing quest related to that faction (Stormwind). There is only one repeatable quest. It gives you 25 reputation each time you do it. I need about 14,000 more reputation points. The quest entails running into the Swamp of Sorrows and finding a crate of “lost supplies” and returning them to this dude in Netherguard Keep in the Blasted Lands. The swamp is infested with spiders, crocolisks and some kind of large predatory cats. I have a map with the spawn points of the boxes marked. As of last night, I only have to do the quest 559 more times. /sigh. Actually, it will be a few times less, because I still have some other (non-repeatable) quests I can do for rep. Lucite emailed me today saying Orphan week is coming up, so I can probably take a Stormwind orphan around Azeroth, show the kid the sights and get some reputation that way. So I will probably only have to do the crate about 500 more times. Now, don’t you wish you were playing?

Another good time in Warcraft occurred the other night when we got a 5 man group to do the Scarlet side of Stratholme. The plan was to just do it up to Timmy to see if he would drop Clobberella’s Lightforge gauntlets. He didn’t drop them. So we decided to go kill one of the end guys. We had a really good warrior in our group. He is in a well known raiding guild and was decked out in “leet” gear. We also had our not so favorite hunter, “C” in the group. Actually, he’s not so bad, but the first time we grouped with the guy, he was horrible. He seems to have gotten a lot better...except....

We get to the end boss and the warrior goes in for the attack. Then I see C’s bird fly away. Then Lucite says something about C’s bird going the wrong way. Then another boss gets pulled. Then the priest dies, so I start healing the warrior, then everybody starts dying so I run, everyone gets their hopes up. I forgot (I haven’t played my paladin in awhile) to use my invulnerability bubble. Then I die. Then we all run back from the graveyard. Turns out C had his pet (the bird) targeted on the wrong boss, which caused us to wipe. What’s even better is after you die, you come back to life at the beginning of the dungeon and all the dudes we had already killed had respawned. We would have had to do the whole instance (dungeon) over again to get back where we were. Stupid respawns. We ended up quitting.

Day 13

2006-04-17T10:49:00.000-07:00

This is day 13 of being sick. The upside of day 13 is that I think I’m finally going to kick the virus. Last Thursday afternoon I wasn’t feeling great and had a little bit of a fever. So, of course it was a great idea to go out and buy Roan some sandals (which cost more than any pair of shoes I own). By the time we got home I had a 103 degree fever. I battled the fever until Friday night. I don’t think I’ve ever had a sore throat that was as bad as this one has been. I even called Kaiser on Friday. The advice nurse suggested I wait it out another day or two. She asked me if I had a compromised immune system. I said I didn’t until my 3 year old started preschool in December (rim-shot).

We ended up driving to my parents Saturday evening so we could go to my mom’s Elk’s Lodge Easter brunch in the morning. They were supposed to have an egg hunt. I even asked my mom about the rain and she said they were still going to do it, just inside or something. Well, doing it inside consisted of some guy going around and handing each kid a couple of plastic eggs with $.0.50 in each. Lots of fun. The brunch wasn’t really that great. Most of the stuff they had, I didn’t like due to it all being covered in creamy/cheesy sauce. Also, eating anything caused a sensation of fire in the back of my throat. They did give the kids See’s Candy Easter baskets each containing a box of chocolate, two big hollow chocolate eggs (with a white chocolate bunny inside) a big Chocolate bunny and a big bag of jelly beans. They didn’t have anyone dressed as an Easter bunny, however. Sad.

If Baby Sage hadn’t decided to get up around 4 am and scream until about 6 am, I might have taken the kids to the Brisbane Easter Egg Hunt that I used to go to as a kid. They were having it inside the gym of the school I went to for 4th-8th grade. It probably wasn’t too much fun inside.

Now Roan’s obsessed with Easter candy. Last night she wanted to eat the chocolate bunny. I told her to talk to her dad about it (he was dealing with them while I stayed in bed, sick). I also told her she would probably want to eat him in stages, start with the ears, then eat his head later, etc. Davey told her she had to eat dinner before anymore candy, so she ate a bowl of ‘Easy Mac’ (yes, very nutritious) and he let her have the bunny, of which she ate the entirety.

Later, I asked her what she had eaten. She said “Mac n Cheese.” I asked, “Really? What else did you have?” She answered, “Just one piece of candy.” I guess one big chocolate bunny is still just one piece of candy.

Kid Party Wrap Up

2006-04-10T12:36:00.000-07:00

Well, the baby’s first birthday party didn’t manage to kill me after all. I went to the Four Eyes show Friday night and blew out my voice yelling “Play L.A. Woman” and “More Ben Casey.” Okay, not really. But just trying to talk over the music in between bands was enough to destroy my voice. It’s still not back, either. I sound as if I started smoking about 80 cigarettes a day.

The Four Eyes were great at their show, though. I can do without the Ben Casey saga, of which they played the entirety. It did make me want to watch “Riding With Death” (or whatever the hell it’s called) again. It reminded me of my life before kids, when I could actually sit through an entire movie with out having to pause it 500 times. If you weren’t at the show, you missed the Doors medley. Which, ironically, did not end with “the End.” Those crazy nerds. Did you know the Doors did a version of “I Heard it through the Grapevine?”

Saturday went by in a blur. It was a lot of fun, but because my voice was so bad most of what I ended up talking about was being sick. It was also hard to have conversations, because it really took a lot of energy to try to talk loud and clear enough for people to understand me. We had the best little kids at this party. It really was an adult party, but we had more kids this time and they were all really awesome.

The sad part of the day was around cake time, when we realized that Roan wasn’t just tired and cranky, but had a major fever and she had to go lay down in my bed. She missed the rest of the party. After everyone but both sets of grandparents and Walter and Lora (Walter is like my uncle, I’ve known him forever) left, Roan barfed in our bed (I had no idea she had eaten and fruit salad, but I washed a bunch of strawberry chunks out of her hair, so she must have). After her shower, it was like she had never been sick. She came out in the living room and played with all of Sage’s birthday toys like she had never been sick.

Now I find out that I got at least one party guest and a little baby sick. Sigh. Roan’s preschool is off this week for Spring Break. Maybe that will give us a week with out any sickness.

Here's some pics.

Upchucking Revisited

2006-04-06T10:37:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my sick blog. I got sick again Tuesday night. This one starts with a sore throat. What better than to soothe a sore throat than a Jamba Juice? So I had one of the regular sized ones against my better judgment and I drank it all, even though I was really full. Then I played Warcraft for awhile with Glom and Tubbo while my fever took hold. Pretty soon I’m in bed shivering while the ambient temperature of the house was a really chilly (sarcasm) 70 degrees. I tried to fall asleep for an hour or so. All of a sudden I’m waking Luci up saying I need “a bucket.” Luckily he’s so sensitive to the fear of a giant puke mess and the “bucket” happened to be right next to his side of the bed. I think he was still asleep when he whipped the bucket over to me. Just in time, because I wouldn’t have been able to wait any longer. I would have never made it to the bathroom. The one amazing thing was that the amount of Jamba Juice ingested seemed to quadruple in my stomach. I seriously upchucked about a half gallon of strawberry flavored vomit.

I’m pretty sure the throwing up was just a side-effect of the fever/shivering on a full stomach. Around 4 am my fever let up enough for me to sleep. It got bad again in the evening but by around 8 pm it got a lot better. Now it’s just a sore throat and low grade fever for me. It’s starting to become ridiculous how much I’ve been sick since Roan started preschool. It really is amazing. I’m getting really tired of it.

That's a 50 DKP Minus!!!!!!

2006-04-04T20:45:00.000-07:00

Last night I logged into WoW as Clobberella (my “main”) to get my Lightforge Bracers out of the mail. The were up kind of cheap at the AH (auction house) and my alt with all the gold bought them and mailed them to Clob.

Right when I logged in, I received a whisper from my favorite Priest. I’ll just call him V.
The beginning of our chat went something like this:
V: What are you doing?
Clob: Hey, what’s up?
V: nm : )
Clob: k :-)
Then we chatted about gear, being a priest and stuff. Maybe you got it already... when he said nm, I thought it was just V, being weird. He’s my favorite priest to group with, it’s always been fun and he admits to drinking while playing. He also says wacky stuff. He’s moved on to doing lots of raids in big raiding guilds so we don’t group with him much anymore. Anyway, I can’t believe I didn’t “get it” right away.

So, I’m lying in bed later last night. Luci was already asleep. All of a sudden it hit me and I said “ewww” out loud. I woke Luci up to explain, but I actually don’t know if he remembers because he was half asleep. The dude was making a joke about his wiener. I can’t believe I was so slow.

Luci just came home and thinks it’s “far-fetched” that he meant that. I don’t. I think it’s funny. I just wish I would’ve gotten it sooner.

Here’s a kind of funny Warcraft link. It’s audio of a raid leader leading his group against Onyxia. It’s funny when people take games so seriously. I guess this group is on a Euro server, hence the guys accent and what sounds like techno music in the background. It’s nsfw unless screaming profanities is cool at your job.

TItle Goes Here

2006-04-03T13:11:00.000-07:00

The haze of stomach flu has finally cleared the house. We’re all doing much better now. Actually, everyone was better by the middle of last week, but I’ve been “too busy to blog.” I’ve been sewing a lot lately. I made Roan a pair of Hello Kitty (she’s wearing a grass skirt so “hula kitty?”...okay that’s painful) capri pants. Little kids can really rock the elastic waistband style. I made baby Sage a little dress. It’s a little big for her, so it looks kind of sexy around her chest area. I got a couple of collared onesies, that hopefully will work under the dress, so she can wear it now with out looking slutty. I made Roan a cute dress too. It’s pretty much done. I’d like to get a hook and eye to finish it off, but I don’t know of a place close by that carries them. She can wear it without one, but it would look more “finished” if I put one on. I also sewed a curtain panel last night. I also got the worst pin stick I’ve ever had in my life. I swear the pin hit down to the bone in my finger. I’m a real joy to be around when I’m sewing, especially when I stick myself in the finger with a pin.

Baby Sage’s new favorite food is bagels. She likes plain and whole wheat. She probably like to chew on the pieces because she’s teething like a maniac. Her first year molars are really pushing on her gums. She gets really cranky about it too. We’ve been trying to get stuff ready for her birthday party. I made a practice cake Saturday night. I was up at around 1 am frosting the sucker. It’s not that it took very long to frost, but it wasn’t done baking until around midnight and it takes about an hour to cool. I made a monkey head. It came out okay. I ended up getting some cake pans that were half-spheres so when you put the cake together it makes a ball. There was enough cake from slicing the tops up to carve the ears. I’ll post a picture at some point.

Baby Sage is getting a toy kitchen for her birthday. I have no idea why we got this. First of all, it’s big and toys have long since taken over our living room. Second, it wasn’t cheap. It probably would’ve been better to get it for both girls as a Christmas present. Oh well. I know Roan will like it. Of course she’s way more excited about the party than the baby. Sage has no idea. Kid’s first birthdays aren’t really for the kid anyway. I guess I should go find something productive (hmmm...go watch something on tivo?) to do before I have to go get Roan from preschool.

Vomit Launch

2006-03-28T09:27:00.000-08:00

The stomach flu officially took down our entire household. If you remember Roan had it about a week ago. I thought we were all in the clear. Friday afternoon I got really hungry and really tired. I took about an hour long nap and woke up feeling kind of lousy, but I figured it was from chugging a diet Pepsi right before laying down. We ended up going to Ikea and I had to carry Roan screaming from the check-out area to the car. This is probably why my shoulder hurt so bad on Sunday.
I got home and couldn’t figure out if I was hungry or sick to my stomach. I decided to drink some water and have some dry Cheerios. Turns out I was sick. The baby was sick too as her 20 million nasty dirty diapers can attest. I thought Luci was going to get away unscathed, but Sunday night he was dry heaving in the bathroom and walking around the house carrying the “barf bucket.” He never actually did throw-up, but he seemed to feel just as sick as I did when I was throwing up every two hours.
Roan remained chipper through out the whole experience. Luckily she can’t really remember when she’s supposed to go to ballet or preschool. She had to miss both because I was too sick to take her. Of course, now she has a cough and a runny nose again. I don’t think there is more than 2 or 3 days a month when there isn’t someone sick in this house. Thank you little kids and your little communicable viral infections.

Super-Duper Long Post, Vomit Story Included

2006-03-20T11:27:00.000-08:00

This weekend was insane. Friday night we met up with Beanie and her mom and dad at the Hof Brau. I figured it would be crowded. I didn’t figure on the line to get your food snaking from the front of the place to outside the back door. I guess that’s what happens when you have a corned beef special for $5.79. They had some great entertainment, as well. This lady who at one point was playing country western songs through a pa and then singing along, through a microphone of course. She was also ‘”playing along” with a bass that wasn’t plugged in and she even “played” the guitar solos on the bass! Later, as we were leaving, she busted out her keyboard and actually played it. Did I mention she sang us a few Irish songs in the set? Although she was amusing at first, the consensus of our group seemed to be that we had all suffered first degree ear rape.

The rest of the night went routinely, until I went to bed and was pretty much up until 4:30 coughing. Baby Sage woke up at one point and joined me in my room for awhile. Then at 8:30 it was time to get up to get Roan ready for ballet. Saturday, Luci’s parents came up and Luci and I went to Ikea. No meatballs this trip. We did buy a lamp for the kids’ room. It’s shaped like a torch and the light looks like a flame. It’s really cute and now it’s their new night light. I also got Roan 6 plastic plates and 6 plastic cups for $3. Luci bought some strainer type thing. It’s like a circle of wire mesh with a handle. I know he’s never going to use it, but he insists it will be great for straining vegetables.

Since the grandparents were here, Saturday night, Luci and I went to Mongolian BBQ for dinner. Yay Mongo! I haven’t been in years. It’s exactly the same. Well, now they have tofu. They didn’t have tofu the last time I was there. Then we went to JC Penny. I have a gift certificate for there after returning some clothes I got for Christmas. I thought I’d buy some kids clothes, but I didn’t like any of them enough and I couldn’t remember which kid needed what. Luci wanted to get Roan a t-shirt with the Disney princesses on it. It was vomit inducing, but he knew she’d love it and she would. We ended up not getting anything.

Saturday night, after Luci’s parents left and the kids were in bed we played a little WoW. Glom and Prayella completed the Library side of Scarlet Monastery. We killed Arcanist Doan and he dropped my Illusionary Rod. Sweet. When Luci was level 30 something, we had to do the library over and over with a 5 man group to get that stupid rod. I got it on the first try. Anyway, we finished Scarlet Monastery by 10:30 and it looked like it would be a good night and we would get to sleep early. (Remember, I was exhausted from coughing all night Friday).

Here comes the fun part.... Sage was complaining about something, so Luci went in to change her diaper. Then I hear “Roan threw up.” I didn’t think too much of it. The last time she threw up in bed, it was just a little bit and no big deal. I go in and she’s laying in a big puddle. Then, a second later she just starts letting loose what appeared to be gallons of a diluted peanut butter liquid. Luci asked me if I wanted to deal with the diaper or the vomit. I picked diaper. While changing the baby, I had to find the baby Vicks Vapo-rub to put under my nose, because the smell in their room became overwhelming. Poor Roan, who was still half asleep, had to go sit in the bathroom. Luci got her vomit soaked shirt off and she had a towel around her. After I changed the baby, I went to give Roan a shower. Her hair was completely soaked in barf. We ended up with Roan on a little air mattress (not our big one that you’d sleep on if you stayed over here) on the floor in the living room. I was trying to teach her about the “barf bucket” and how you need to throw up in it. She threw up 5 or 6 more times that night. We had the washing machine going nonstop. Cow-cow got barfed on. What hasn’t that poor cow been through? Luci slept on the couch and they had Boomerang! cartoons on all night.

Roan threw up at 6 am Sunday and hasn’t since. She didn’t really eat anything all day Sunday and she just laid in our bed watching dvd’s, which is what she likes to do when she is tired. She refuses to nap. Sunday afternoon, I dragged Luci to the fabric store with me. He sat in the car and talked to Joel on his cell phone. I got some stuff to attempt some kids’ clothes. Roan is really excited that I’m going to make her a dress. She probably won’t be so excited when I’m done and the thing doesn’t fit.

After the fabric store, we stopped at a Honda dealer to check out the mini vans. I used to drive a Ford Aerostar. Okay, it is 19 years old now (my dad still drives it) but mini vans have come a long long way since then. They are amazing. The best part was when the dealer showing us the van used the term “soccer mom.” Anyway, we’re eventually going to get one. We just don’t know when or how at this point, but eventually. The mini van even had a “dog pit” for Link. Really it’s just space behind the back seats where the floor is lower so you can fold the back seats into it. We just kept calling it the dog pit.

I think Roan’s pretty tired today (monday). I’m going to keep her home from preschool. I hate doing that because she really wants to go. She’s over the “sick” part of her illness, just seems kind of tired. The added incentive to stay home is that it’s raining and it’s not too much fun to lug two kids in and out of the car in the rain.

Ahhhh...My Eye!

2006-03-15T12:40:00.000-08:00

I’ve been sick since late last week. Damn preschool germs that Roan brings home. We have this toy that we got baby Sage for Christmas. It’s like a little dashboard with a steering wheel and gear shift etc. Both kids love it. It’s a pretty nice toy except one of the things it blurts out is “Slow down little fella.” Wtf? Only little boys “drive.” I know the baby doesn’t care at all, but sheesh.

Roan has a little clique at preschool now. It’s mainly Roan, Jordan and Addison. They hold hands when it’s time to go into the classroom and then they play dress up together. Roan told me that she and Addison got separated or time outs (it’s hard to decipher 3 year old speak sometimes) because they were disrupting story time.

On my way back to the car today, after dropping Roan off, two little boys playing in the park said, “that girl (me) took our treasure...let’s get her... shoot her...shoot her in the eye.” Ah, what sweet little boys.

Quick Kid Update

2006-03-07T12:42:00.000-08:00

Baby Sage is so cute. She’s become an expert in pressing buttons on the tuner, thus driving her big sister crazy when the sound turns off during “Jay Jay the Jet Plane” or some other show. (Jay Jay is this horrible PBS show with these horribly computer animated horrible little planes with horrible human faces). Sometimes Sage gets so into the button pushing, I can’t figure out what she’s done. We put up a barricade of toys in front of the tuner, but she’s able to move them out of way and get to the buttons. A couple nights ago, Joel said she looks like a potato. So now I like to call her Tater.

Roan has been eating almost constantly since she got up this morning. First she had a waffle and juice. Next she had a bowl of oatmeal with peaches in it (so did Tater). She was still hungry and wanted “pencils” (pretzels). Then she drank a cup of milk. Now she’s working on a piece of “rectangle cheese.” Actually, it’s a square slice of cheddar. This is all since 9:30 this morning. Other days, she won’t eat anything.

Now I completely lost my train of thought. Ever since I was pregnant with Roan, I can’t think straight anymore. I’m not kidding. I think the hormones permanently alter one’s brain. It sucks. I also get way over-emotional when I see a movie or t.v. show where something really wicked is happening to kids. It’s really strange and annoying.

Missing a Cell Phone?

2006-03-06T12:20:00.000-08:00

Someone left his/her cell phone at our house last night.

I Rule the Oscar Pool!!!!!!!

2006-03-06T10:34:00.000-08:00

Another year, another Oscars. I won the pool!!! (Again). That’s two years in a row for me. I even had to pick Crash to win for screenplay. That movie sucked big time. So, of course, it should win best picture and screenplay. I had picked Brokeback Mountain to win for best picture. Oh well. I can’t comment too much on the ceremony itself because I was much more entertained by drinking beer and chatting with our guests or too occupied with trying to get Roan under control. She was a beast last night.

Saturday had to be one of the most annoying days ever. I went to the grocery store. Upon bringing the groceries home and putting them away.... Actually the realization occurred when Luci asked, “You only bought one orange?” Uh...no. I had about five things missing. My oranges, apples, a big bag of tomatoes, a whole lot of spinach and three lemons. Okay, that’s four things. Anyway, it kind of screwed me up, because I couldn’t run back to the store right away and I didn’t realize the spinach was missing until later. Well, this is a long story...but a little later I managed to make my food processor smoke and not a cigarette, more like smoke coming out of the ventilation holes. Luckily it worked fine later that night. I realize this story is getting more convoluted so maybe a list will simplify it.
1. Store cheats me on my produce.
2. Food processor threatens to blow.
3. Four Eyes are playing on KDVS and sound a little “off” (more about this later)
4. I’m really hungry and chop a bunch of garlic to use for dinner and then notice that I don’t have any spinach (for the dinner) and I just give up (spinach is an integral part of the recipe).
5. Roan’s in a whiney mood.
6. The Four Eyes on the radio show is over and Luci didn’t give Clob or anyone a “shout out” as promised (more on this later)
7. I have Taco Bell for dinner.
8. I went back to the store and can’t go out the exit closest to my car, because they locked the doors. (ok, normally not a big deal, but it’s all these little things adding up).
9. Things start to seem under control, I work on chopping tomatoes and basil, Luci makes a big pan of lemon bars and puts them in the oven.
10. An hour or so later, I ask Luci, “did you take the lemon bars out of the oven?” You can guess the answer

So, the Four Eyes had to play their radio set without a monitor and Luci’s mic was turned off or broken or otherwise not doing its job. When I was listening to it live, I thought there were a lot of weird “dead air” moments. Apparently that was when Luci was talking. Like the entire time Joel was changing a string. (Of course they broke a string while playing live on the radio, it was that kind of day). Also, Joel’s batteries in his “tubbo song machine” died, so he couldn’t play the Tubbo songs for the listening audience. Anyway, I wish I could go kick the sound guy in the shins.

As much as Saturday was annoying, Sunday was fun. I can’t wait for all of the celebrity fashion critiquing. Charlize Theron is going to take a beating. The guys who were over last night were disturbed by Salma Hayek’s dress because it made her ample bosom look lopsided. Those were the only two I noticed. I might go back and run through it on Tivo and see if I missed anything good (probably not).

Bueller? Bueller?

2006-03-03T16:41:00.000-08:00

Would someone do me a favor and check the "daily take" link in a previous post and tell me if it works? I can't check it from my home computer and well, I don't get out much.

Preschool Politics

2006-03-03T15:24:00.000-08:00

Roan seemed a little downtrodden and tired when I picked her up from school today. When we got home I asked her if she was mad about something. She said that she was. I asked her what she was mad about and she said “Ella didn’t remember that I was her best friend.” Dang that rotten little Ella and her mom who wears her jeans tucked into her powder-blue Uggs. (Just kidding, they’re actually pretty nice, even with the Uggs). Roan’s battling a cold and she’s extra whiney and bratty now. Should make for a really fun afternoon.

A Cold Wind-a-Blowing

2006-03-03T12:41:00.000-08:00

That wind is cold today. Totally Arctic, man. I convinced Luci to start up his Daily Takes again. He actually wrote one. We’ll see how long this lasts. Luci is the original blogger. Go read the archives and see.

With the rebirth of the Daily Take, yet another blog has bit the dust. Amelie has decided to quit her blog. Tsk. Tsk.

I made some horrible coffee this morning. I can’t figure out why it was bad, because I made it the same way I always do. I drank it anyway. The kids let me sleep in a little longer today, so when it was time get ready for preschool, I was in a major hurry. I had the Unlovables playing in the car. Roan likes the song with the chorus “I want a boy....I want a boy of my own.” It’s hilarious and partly horrifying when she sings along to it.

I got home after dropping Roan off at preschool (and getting stuck behind another effing SUV turning around in front of my house on it’s way to the effing Riverside Clubhouse) only to realize upon coming inside the house that are house is completely stinky. I’m not even sure what the smell is. There was some coffee scent mixed in with something else. So now I get to scout around to find the culprit and pull out the Lysol. Good times. I'd rather be leveling my Druid.

How Do I Look as a Doll? Yeah, I Thought So Too.

2006-03-02T15:45:00.000-08:00

Not Much to Read About Here, Move Along

2006-03-02T11:23:00.000-08:00

Oscar party on Sunday. You’re invited. Wagering is involved. I haven’t done any of my “research” yet. Four Eyes are playing on KDVS on Saturday afternoon sometime. They’re also supposed to talk with the host about gaming. I hope Joel plays his songs based on his dwarf rogue, Tubbo. You can’t get too much of that.

Is it true the Oscars are starting an hour earlier this year? Freaking east coasters. Everything has to be timed for the stupid East Coast. Actually I don’t really care. I just wanted to diss on the east coast.

I haven’t had any coffee yet, that may be the problem.

I’ve been chatting with an old friend from high school. Talking to her inspired (yeah ok, I’m just bored) me to look up almuni from my high school on myspace. I found some dude who, according to his profile, was in our class. I didn’t recognize his name or his picture so I sent my friend the link. She sent him a message calling him a high school poseur. My high school was small about 70-80 per class, so everyone pretty much knew each other by name or face at least.

Fairy Princess Ballerina Ice Skater

2006-03-01T13:25:00.000-08:00

I think it was last night. Roan was in bed and said she was afraid to go to sleep. I asked why and she replied that "her dreams won't come true." I asked what her dreams were about and she said she wanted to be a "fairy princess ballerina ice skater and be the best fairy princess ballerina ice skater ever."

Is this my kid? I don't know where she gets this stuff. Must be from her dad.

Why Are These Titles Such a Pain to Come Up With Sometimes?

2006-03-01T13:21:00.000-08:00

I’ve got so much stuff to do, I don’t know where to start. Better to procrastinate a little longer and write a blog post.

I figure I’ll take this blog back to its roots and talk about Roan’s potty training. She uses the potty all the time and was wearing pull-ups at night (just in case). She was staying dry pretty much every night, so I decided she didn’t need the pull-ups anymore. She seemed pretty excited by this.

The first night with no pull-up went fine. The second night she woke up (sort of) screaming and Luci (Davey) went to get her. He couldn’t get her to completely wake up so he brought her to our room and set her on our bed. As soon as I said “she has to go potty” I felt that my pants were wet. Too late. So Roan and I took a shower, while Luci changed the sheets.

Last night, I heard Roan kind of yell and I was going to ignore it, because she got quiet again, but I figured she probably had to pee and would just wake me up again 20 minutes later. I went in her room and she had kicked all the covers off. I was trying to get her up to go to the bathroom when I discovered she was completely wet. So I woke up Luci and repeated the events of the night before (except this time I didn’t have to take a shower).

So, we will be going back to pull-ups at night for awhile. My theory is she just can’t wake up enough to get herself to the bathroom. When she wakes up screaming and has to go, she’s not really awake. It’s sort of weird and creepy, actually. Poor Roanie.

In other news, I’m saddened to read that Beckler is contemplating quitting Heckasac. I think I can understand why, but I will miss it if it goes. What I hope happens is that Beckler takes a break and then just starts posting again and takes the blog back to its roots (that phrase is making me laugh). Remember the interviews? Those were fun to read. I liked the party reports (since I never get to go to any these days) show reviews etc. I’ve always thought of Heckasac as sort of the “Sacramento Treat” of blogs. It used to remind me of the good ol’ Loft days (sorry if that sounds cliquish) which reminds me of cheep beer on ice. Hopefully she can take a break, come back and all the people who like to troll the comments will go away.

There are also a few other local bloggers who have been neglecting their blogs, but I won’t call them out here. Well, I’ll call out the Four Eyes, ‘cause there's three of them and they can barely muster one post a week. The other two I’m thinking of are linked on the right.

Zoo Pictures

2006-02-22T10:31:00.000-08:00

Here's a few of the pics we took at the S.F. Zoo.

Just Hangin' in Silithus

2006-02-21T14:15:00.000-08:00

I’m sitting here with WoW on in the background waiting for AQ to open so I can take screen shots for Luci. There are so many people here (don’t these people have school or jobs? I really doubt they’re all stay at home parents) its super laggy and annoying. I’ve been hearing that some monster comes out and kills everybody. If that’s the case, Luci is going to pay my repair bill.
We went to the ‘bane over the weekend and went to the S.F. zoo. They changed it a lot since the last time I was there years ago. They have a nice lemur enclosure. The lemurs woke up the sleeping baby Sage. She didn’t seem to mind, though. I have some pictures, but they’re still on the camera so I’ll have to post them another time. The baby liked the prairie dogs in the children’s zoo. Roan liked riding the train and the carousel. The little steam train is a fun ride. My mom knew the guy driving it. He let us ride for free and my mom got to ride up on the engine with him. He also gave us a bunch of ride tickets for the merry-go-round.
We went to dinner later that night for my mom’s birthday. The food was good (Italian). I had a cappuccino after dinner and it was really horrible. It made me not feel so bad about the sink shots I had been making on my machine. I put a bunch of sugar in it and drank it anyway.
I didn’t have time to post this before the AQ gates opened in Warcraft. The server went down about 4 times (at least). Pretty funny. Some giant Egyptian looking dog-headed guys came out and started stomping on people. Level 62 elites. A couple of them are dead now. The lag got better after a lot of players got killed. I still have it on in the background. Not that exciting at this point, though. Not nearly as fun as running the Deadmines last night in a four man group.

Would This Freak You Out?

2006-02-15T12:07:00.000-08:00

So, last night, after the kids went to bed we watched “The Exorcism of Emily Rose.” I should mention that movies with possession tend to creep me out a lot. I thought this movie was fairly creepy. My state of mind wasn’t helped by having eaten an early, but large dinner to be topped off later on with some popcorn a vanilla latte, a slice of peach pie a la mode and a pint of water. So I was a little sick to my stomach after the movie. I let the movie freak me out a little more than I should, but soon got over it and went to sleep, no big deal.
So in the movie, a lot of the demonic bad stuff happens at exactly 3:00 am. What time do you think baby Sage decided to start crying and wake me up? I woke up, looked at the clock, 3:00 exactly and then the clocked clicked to 3:01. You know what else freaks me out? Strange coincidences. I tried to go back to sleep for awhile, but then I gave up and watched a tivoed “Skating With the Stars” (go Swanston!) Then I watched half and episode of Nova about amber and the stuff that gets stuck in it. After that I watched the E! true Hollywood story about Tonya Harding in it’s entirety (two hours). At 7 am I went back to sleep. I probably could have fallen back asleep by the bug amber show, but I think I was just being stubborn at that point.
So was it a freaky coincidence? At least when I woke up I didn’t smell anything burning or hear doors slamming. I kept expecting to hear the cat knock something over to freak me out more. Aghghghhhh....

Snow Day

2006-02-14T11:22:00.000-08:00

We’re gonna drive up to the snow in about an hour or so. Should be fun. Roan has never been in the snow. Yesterday, we rode to Land Park with the plan of feeding the ducks. Land Park ducks suck. McKinley park is much better for ducks, probably because there are a lot of geese there. Geese are always fun.

Roan keeps saying “Happy Valentines Day.” Also, my printer is fixed and ready to be picked up. It was broken the in the most ridiculous and annoying way. The last time it printed something it sucked the cord from my headset (that I use for WoW sometimes) and it got stuck in the printer. We tried to get it out, it wouldn’t budge. The best thing is the printer guy was pretty sure he could fix it under warranty, even though a cord stuck in it wouldn’t generally qualify as an under warranty fix. I felt so incredibly stupid when it happened. I was pretty mad about it and didn’t even like thinking about it. Hopefully the thing will work as good as it did. I hate it sometimes when stuff gets “fixed” but is never quite the same.

How about this weather, huh?

2006-02-13T11:32:00.000-08:00

This weekend has gone by fast. Amazingly, I didn’t end up playing much Warcraft. I did play my lowbie druid for a few hours last night with Tubbo and Hexo and it was fun. There’s this Valentines celebration/game type thing going on in Azeroth lately. It’s way too complicated to explain, but I was having fun going around (wearing perfume, of course) Ironforge giving little heart tokens to the guards and getting either a prize or a broken heart in return. A broken heart can only be cured by someone giving you a “friendship” bracelet or when the broken heart timer runs out (one hour). I think my heart was broken about five times, but some kind strangers fixed it for me. Some ass also came up and “licked” me, as well.

The three of us (Drewella, Tubbo and Hexo) also got into battlegrounds for a little PVP action. It was fun, even though I never know what’s going on. It’s technically a “capture the flag” game, but I just run around and try to kill horde. Good times.

Yesterday we rode our new Target bikes to the park with the kids in a bike trailer we got on Craig's List. It was fun, even if I am really out of shape and my ass hurts. It was fun to ride though the neighborhood and look at all the junk people were putting out for “neighborhood clean up day.” They just came by a few minutes ago to pick up our pile. It was also fun to watch the people go around scavenging through the piles. Luckily Davey didn’t find anything this year.

I also got a good deal on a kick ass espresso maker last week. Unfortunately I still haven’t figured out how to get anything consistently drinkable out of it. Friday night I got an okay shot, of course no one else was around to try it. I tried again yesterday and I gave up after about 4 lousy shots. So if you want some really bad espresso, come on over. I know it is supposed to take some time to get it right, so I’m still hopeful. I got a burr grinder and at least when I make regular coffee now, it’s A LOT better. Making espresso is pretty fun. I like the look of exploded coffee beans all over my kitchen.

Anyone know of a good hangnail cure? I have a bunch of them and they’re driving me crazy.

Link and Boring Warcraft Talk

2006-02-07T12:46:00.000-08:00

Link has started getting freaked out by the stupidest noises. He has always been afraid of thunderstorms and fireworks. Pretty common dog phobia stuff. Then awhile back, I noticed him getting freaked out by the low battery sound that the smoke detectors make. It’s just an intermittent “beep.” Then one night my cell phone was making the low battery noise and he started freaking out. Right now he’s being super clingy, panting and just generally annoying because one of the cordless phones wasn’t sitting in its cradle just right and was making a short, melodic beep noise every few minutes. I really don’t know how this developed, but it’s really annoying. He probably just needs more exercise. He’s annoying the eff out of me right now and is about to get put outside.....he’s out.

In our World of Warcraft exploits we attempted a raid in Zul Gurub (I have know idea if I spelled that right, in game it’s just referred to as “ZG”). We had baby sitters on Saturday, so we were able to try it. You need a group of 20 people to do it. We spent about three hours and weren’t able to kill even the “easiest” boss. It was really fraaken hard. When everyone gave up on the 20 man raid. We ended up doing a 15 man at Upper Blackrock Spire (UBRS). Clobberella finally got some new pants! No more thigh-high plate armor leggings for Clob. So after about 6 hours playing that game sitting in front of the computer I felt like total crap. I can’t believe some people do that almost every night. I could see playing a couple hours or so a day, if you have the time, instead of watching T.V. (I’m sure that even sounds insane). Anyway, I’m pretty sure I will never be able to go on a Molten Core run. Those take 40 people and are supposed to be fairly hard. And just forget about Black Wing Lair. I don’t even think a 20 man raid is all that fun. It almost feels like a job. I miss the 5 man instances. This is just what happens when you hit level 60. Raid, Raid, Raid.

I couldn’t even figure out what we were doing wrong in ZG. The raid was well organized and we got the super annoying snake boss down to about 1% health before the party would completely wipe. Perhaps, it’s just a matter of we needed better gear. A lot of us had/have not the best stuff, maybe that would have made the difference. It still would have been really hard though. It sucked not to be able to kill one boss, because Luci (that’s Davey’s new name btw, to many Daves) and I probably won’t be able to do ZG again anytime soon. Since the raids usually start before the kids go to bed.

Special Agent Man

2006-02-01T12:47:00.000-08:00

So, the special agent thing turned out to be a lot of nothing. The dude was a “special” agent for the U.S. Treasury Inspector General. He’s like an accounting cop. A couple months ago, a different “special agent” left a really crappy looking card in my mailbox with a note on the back saying “please call me” with two phone numbers neither of which had a 916 area code. The card looked really fake, especially since it said “special agent.” It wasn’t even on “real” business card stock and it looked like it had been made on a copy machine. So I ignored it. I figured if it was for real, they’d get in touch with me another way.

So Monday afternoon a different “special agent” shows up at my door. He was talking to me and said he needed to ask me a few questions to see if I know some people. He wanted to come in the house. I said “not a good time.” I didn’t know if this was a scam or not. He showed me his fancy I.D. and special agent badge. (How the hell would I know if it was fake or not). He gave me his card. This one looked like a “real” business card. I told him to come back on Tuesday.

We googled him and he appeared to be legit. His name turned up in a Fresno Bee article about some guy he busted for bankruptcy fraud, among other things. He also showed up on a BYU alumni page thing (saying he took a position in Sacramento as “special agent’).
Then I found two different announcements (from different sources) for some seminar he was in charge of and it had his name and the same phone number he gave me. I figured if he was some guy posing as this special agent guy, he would not give me the real guys phone number. This was while I had my dad telling me to call the FBI and my brother telling me to call the cops. My mom’s friend of a friend works as an IRS investigator and she looked into it and said the guy was legit and that sometimes if it involves your social security number, the agents just come to your house as part of the investigation.

So, he came over asked me if I knew some people (I didn’t know any of them). Or if I knew anyone who worked for the IRS in Fresno (I don’t). I’m still a little confused as to what was going on, but I think an IRS employee was pulling up my name (actually involved my maiden name) and it looked suspicious. The special agent guy thinks it was a fluke. So, not very exciting (luckily). I told him about the other guys business card (I actually showed it to him, because I still have it). He said they have to pay for the fancy cards. If they don’t buy their cards, then they print them out on the computer. Then he actually called the guy and jokingly told him to stop using the cheap cards and that’s why no one calls him back (true) because they look fake.

Here’s a link just posted on the chick list. It’s cute. Slo-mo dogs and techno music.

Special Agent Oscar

2006-01-31T12:12:00.000-08:00

I can’t spend too much time blogging. I have to clean up the house a little because I have a meeting with a “special agent” later today. No joke. I’m not even totally sure what it’s about, but somebody’s possibly been doing something they’re not supposed to be doing. As far as I know, it’s not me. I guess I’ll find out more later.

The Oscar nominations are out. I’m glad they nominated Jake, since they nominated Heath. They were both equally good in the movie. This year is going to be a tough one to predict. Every year we have our little Oscar contest. I usually do pretty well. This year the nominations seem all over the place. My early forecast is that Brokeback Mountain will be the big winner. I also get to root for Joaquin and Jake, though they may not be the ones I bet on to win. I always bet on who I think will actually win, not who I want to win or who I think deserves it the most. Some people bet that way, but they usually lose. I think back to when Tommy Lee Jones beat Ralph Fiennes for best supporting actor. Yeah, Jones role in The Fugitive vs. Fiennes in Schindler’s List. Sheesh. But they had to give Jones his lifetime achievement Oscar. I hope they broadcast the awards in high definition. It's fun to see how bad the celebrities really look.

Totally Epic

2006-01-30T12:44:00.000-08:00

I just got a sneak peek-listen of one of the new Fours Eyes songs. I think it’s called “For the Horde.” It’s awesome and the recording came out really good, too. And, yes, it’s about Warcraft. Speaking of which, we did a Raid with our new guild Saturday night. We did Upper Black Rock Spire. The new guild is really good, especially since they mentioned what a great job the paladin (me) was doing over Ventrilo (game chat program) even though they didn’t realize I was listening. What sucked was I was the only paladin and nothing good dropped, so no l33t loot for me. Then last night I spent forever with my priest and Davey’s warrior buying silk cloth at the Auction House and having Glom (Davey’s warrior) turn the silk into silk bandages so my priest could turn them in to reputation with the city of Stormwind. This is all so my priest can hopefully at lvl 40 ride a horse instead of a ram. You see, my priest is a dwarf and dwarfs get stuck with rams. Humans get horses. If I get enough reputation with the human faction, then I can buy a horse from them. Yes, I realize this is really ridiculous.

Match Point-tried not to post spoilers but warning anyway

2006-01-27T12:57:00.000-08:00

I saw “Match Point” last night. Let me first say I am not a Woody Allen fan. I will never argue that his movies are crap, because I don’t think they’re really bad, I just don’t get all the who-haw over them. I thought Match Point looked interesting, so I third-wheeled on Bill and Karen and went to see it with them.
I don’t want to give any of the movie away, but I sort of hated it and sort of liked it at the same time. A lot of the movie felt like I was watching a high school play, mainly any part that had Scarlet Johansson in it.

I’m a Scarlet Johansson fan, but she really sucked in this one. Her acting was horrible. We all agreed on that. Bill and Karen liked the movie more than I did, I think. Did she get nominated for something for this role? It was amazing how bad she was. I can’t believe such an acclaimed and experienced director (especially of drama/comedy) would let her get away with that performance. Stinky.

Also near the end of the movie I thought I had to “suspend my disbelief” a little too much. There is a seen in which there is a loud noise, yet nobody seems to hear it and it seemed really weird to me. Also, a couple of the characters kind of go off the deep end a little and I don’t think the scenes leading up to their behavior satisfactorily showed why they would act out how they did.

The movie had a nice theme. I was more or less satisfied with the ending, which kept me from outrightly hating the whole thing. The movie drags a little in parts. Other parts are good. Overall, I guess I didn’t think it was that great, but probably better than the majority of the crap that gets released.

Off the movie topic, I dropped Roan off at preschool earlier. It’s pajama day and for snack they’re making pancakes. Well, there is a class in there before them and the room smelled so good. Like pancakes. Mmmmmmm.

What you talkin' 'bout Deborah Gibson?

2006-01-26T13:00:00.000-08:00

I got to watch about 15 minutes of “Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus” last night. By “got to watch” I mean “that’s all I could stomach.” It has some segments in 3-D. We tried watching the 3-D version (the dvd comes with 4 pairs of Barbie 3-D glasses) but it was really horrible and Roan’s glasses kept sliding down her face. She didn’t care about the 3-D anyway. It was pretty blurry and you could see this weird outline of the figures. So we put on the regular version. I stopped watching around the time Annika (I don’t even know if Barbie “proper” makes an appearance in the movie) is rescued from the evil wizard guy (who just petrified a bunch of townsfolk along with Annika’s parents) by a pegasus. Did I mention Annika has a little baby polar bear friend named Shivers? Baby Sage loves Shivers. Probably because he looks a little like her.

Logged onto World of Warcraft. Looks like a bunch of us lvl 60’s are going to leave the Moonlight Sentinels (our guild). Sort of sad, since it is OUR guild, but it’s such a pain to get a group together so being in a bigger guild might help. We’re planning on keeping our alts in the guild, so it won’t just die. I actually play my priest alt a lot anyway. It’s hard to recruit people when you have a small guild. If the five or so people who read this would just start playing Alliance on Draenor and roll any class but Hunter and lvl up to 60 in a couple weeks, we could build up a pretty good guild again. Well, we’d need a few more than 5, but that would be a good start. We’d be raiding Molten Core in no time.

Tomorrow is “pajama day” at preschool. The kids get to wear pj’s and they’re going to make pancakes for snack. That sounds fun. It’s sort of silly, since Roan goes to preschool at noon, but I guess getting her dressed will be one less thing I have to do in the morning.

So, Lost was pretty good, eh? Crazy Charlie. What’s up with that? (Hehheh, that saying amuses me). 24 has sucked me in this season too. The show is so ridiculous, but so entertaining. I suppose that could be said for pretty much anything on T.V. Well, maybe not the entertaining part. I also love American Idol. I hate hate hate the music, but I love watching it. I think I finally got Tivo to cooperate and record the Tuesday night episodes (we’ll see next week) so I’ve only seen half of the auditions so far. I hope that cowboy kid who sings to his turkeys makes it into the final group. Another ridiculous show I love is “Skating with the Stars” or whatever the heck it’s called. Poor Todd Bridges got eliminated last week. (Sorry for the spoiler...;-)...I’m sure you all watched it already anyway). It’s not totally fair, because some of the “stars” (ahem) have had previous skating experience and some (Todd Bridges (who used the “whatchew talkin ‘bout” line at one of the judges, even though it wasn’t his character that ever said that) and Deborah (love that you can’t call her ‘Debbie’ anymore) Gibson) haven’t ever skated before. Yep. I know how to spend my free time.

It's a Good Thing

2006-01-25T13:33:00.000-08:00

I just finished watching an episode of Martha with Cyndi Lauper as a guest. Cyndi looks pretty good. I wonder if she had some work done. It doesn’t really look like she’s had plastic surgery, but she’s aging pretty well. She did a couple songs off of her new album. Can’t say they were great. She did a version of Time After Time (of course) and it really wasn’t good at all and I really like the original. Then she did another song that I hadn’t heard before that was better, but still not great.

I like Martha Stewart’s new show. It’s on the Learning Channel (TLC). She’s such a trip. I like when she makes prison jokes. One episode had Alan Cumming as a guest. He was amazingly restrained. He and Cyndi Lauper are doing a broadway show together this spring, so I guess they were both on to promote that.

On the episode I just watched, she had a segment about organizing your pantry. It was pretty ridiculous. She had this giant stainless steel cabinet for a pantry. If I had room for that thing, I’d have no trouble being organized, Martha. Cyndi Lauper even asked what if you don’t have room for something like that. Martha blew off the question by saying when you renovate your kitchen to make room. Thanks Martha. I’ll remember that the next time I remodel. I guess I won’t need a stove or a refrigerator because I’ll need that room for my giant pantry. Sheesh.

In and episode prior to this one, she showed how to organize your medicine cabinet in your bathroom. It was pretty useless, but I still found it entertaining. Not sure what that says about me. I’m trying to think if I’ve ever put to use anything I’ve seen on her show....
I’d probably try the trick of putting candle holders in the freezer in order to get leftover wax out of them. I haven’t tried it yet, though. And I learned about the “crumb coat” on a cake. Basically, you have to frost it twice. I think that’s about it.

I'm sick part deux

2006-01-24T12:05:00.000-08:00

You know what I think the worst thing about having kids is? Not the lack of sleep, not the inability to do what you what when you want, not the constant worry that they will crack their little heads open, not the dirty diapers and incessant whining, not the fact that 90% of your adult conversation ends up about them. Nope, none of those things are the worst. The worst is that kids are little germ factories and then when they go off to places like preschool and congregate with a bunch of other little germ factories and trade viruses like baseball cards and then bring them home and then I AM CONSTANTLY SICK.

I’ve had maybe a week or two since Christmas that I haven’t felt sick. Roan started preschool halfway through December. It’s just insane. The kids have been pretty much sick the whole month too. Being sick doesn’t seem to slow them down much, though.

We went to another birthday party on Saturday (when I was just starting to get sick). It was fun. It was in San Jose, so a long drive. I was pretty worn out, but a lot of that was from being sick, I think. I have a cute picture of Roan swinging a stick at a Nemo piñata, but I don’t know how to get it “detached” from my email. If I figure it out, I’ll post it.

I always think of stuff to blog about when I don’t have time to actually sit down and type. Then I can never remember what I was thinking about later.

A couple of friends got us a Ronco (as in Mr. Popeil) rotisserie. It’s awesome. We made some kabobs on it and the chicken was excellent. It’s not so great for burgers. I think it’s hard to beat a regular grill for cooking burgers. Those are the only two things we made on it so far. I’m looking forward to roasting a chicken on it soon (got one in the freezer, waiting). I love watching the food spin around and around. It’s mesmerizing.

"Shake Your Dragon Tail"

2006-01-20T13:42:00.000-08:00

Last night Roan and I went to see Dragon Tales Live! It was at the Community Center Theater. I like the Dragon Tales music, but I could barely stand the plot. Roan seemed to like it. She even stood up and danced a little at the beginning. Then she didn’t want to stand up, but I’d look over and she’d be swaying to the music in her seat.

It wasn’t so horrible, as it was presented more like a real musical (I like musical theater) than some crappy kiddie show. They had pretty decent sets and lighting effects. Zack and Emmy were actually played by children, which was pretty amazing. I’m not sure if the dialogue and singing were live or not. It sort of sounded like it (kind of bad) but I really couldn’t tell for sure. The music was recorded, of course. Last night was opening night and all seats were $12, which was a really good deal. We sat orchestra level row T and they were pretty good seats. This is the same theater I saw Cabaret at a few years ago. I thought it was pretty cool they were doing a kids show. Most of the kids shows seem to be at Arco and “on ice.” I guess the Dragon Tales crowd is more cultured.

The one thing that irked me was the audience taking 20 million flash photos. C’mon people, turn off your fricken flashes if you must take crap-ass picture. Your little point and shoot flash is not going to come close to illuminating the stage. The flash does nothing but irritate people trying to watch the show. They actually had a dark theater with real stage lighting and then there’d be this strobe light effect of all the idiots in the audience taking pictures. Oh well. They pretty much stopped during the second act, at least.

I was hoping they’d have some kids/dragons on wires flying around (these are flying dragons, btw). They didn’t, but they did have the two kid actors ride stuffed dragons that were each on a mechanical arm (pretty well, hidden I only saw the machine once and it wasn’t well lit or anything) that went up and around while they projected cloud-like lights on them. So it looked like they were flying. Wires would have been cool, though.

Sage Broke My Back Mountain

2006-01-17T12:44:00.000-08:00

Sage weighs 21 lbs. now. No wonder my back was killing me. She’s a chunk. I just finished (well, took a break since it’s nap time) going through tons of baby clothes and trying to sort out what fits and what needs to go. I always get a little sad now, when I weed out the clothes that are too small. I wish some of my friends would get busy and have little girls so I can pass some of the stuff off. I ended up selling a bunch of the tiny baby stuff at a garage sale a few months ago. Some of the clothes are really cute. I have a “save” pile of stuff I can’t bear to get rid of, but I keep trying to whittle it down.

I finally saw Brokeback Mountain with a friend over the weekend. Surprise, Surprise (not really, I expected it would be good) we both thought it was really good. The theater was pretty full and seemed to be mostly women. There were a surprising amount of senior ladies there. Occasionally there would be some uncomfortable laughter. The movie has this beautiful, majestic quality and then ever so often, is really blunt and to the point. I really love the score, as well.

We went to a 2 year olds birthday party on Sunday. Roan camped out at the cupcake table. The birthday girls mom had a great idea, “frost your own cupcakes.” She put out a bunch of unfrosted cupcakes and then a few tubs of frosting and sprinkles and such. The party was in Berkeley and I was amazed at how little traffic there was both ways. It seems like every time we go to the Bay Area we get stuck in traffic somewhere (usually around Fairfield where 80 meets 680).

Random Stuff

2006-01-10T12:00:00.000-08:00

Some jerk-face stole our out going mail on Friday. It was about five pieces of mail, all bill payments. Luckily a bank teller at my bank busted his ass and called me when he tried to cash one of the checks. He had somehow blanked out the name of my credit card company and wrote his name in. I guess he spelled his name wrong too. The teller called me to check it out. The bank held on to his I.D. and called the cops. He got away, but they seem to know who he is. I assumed the I.D. would be a fake, but the guy is apparently the grandson of the owner of a local venue.

So we had to change our checking account (just after I ordered two boxes of checks that are now useless) and I had to cancel my credit card, just in case. Not to mention, repay all of the bills etc. Pretty annoying. I’m glad the teller spotted it, though or it would’ve been even more annoying.

Preschool and dance class have started up again. No more late Friday nights playing Warcraft because I have to get Roan to her dance class on Saturday mornings. Oh the sacrifice. I guess they’re already planning for a dance recital in July. It’s a long ways off, but I guess with 3 years olds, you need all of that time to get them ready. The dance instructor hasn’t decided what they will perform yet. She’s narrowed it down to two choices. One is some jazz dance (the class is ballet/tap, so not sure where that fits in, but doesn’t really matter either) to some song I didn’t recognize the name of. The other choice is a tap dance to “Singin’ in the Rain.” I’m already excited about it. Tap would be great because it’s a pretty big accomplishment for them just to be able to walk around in those shoes without falling.

Sigh. I wrote the first two paragraphs yesterday afternoon. I didn’t get around to finishing and posting. Now that Sage is crawling, the next couple of years should be pretty hard. Now she’s starting to have opinions and experience frustration. My formerly happy, smiley baby has become demanding and whiney. And by 'demanding' I mean 'let me keep eating this newspaper, I'm going to scream when you take it away' or 'let me suck on this shoe, now.' I was so worried about getting through the first three or four months, that I forgot about this stage. Once Roan started walking (at 1 year old) until she was about 2.5, it was a challenge to take her anywhere she couldn’t move around. I’ve been so tired since Sage has started crawling. Being sick all month hasn’t helped, but the little baby is wearing me down.

But isn't she sooo cute?

The Bravest Little Hobbit of Them All

2006-01-02T20:03:00.000-08:00

Lord of the Rings fest was great this year. I have to say it was a little more “festive” which made it a lot harder to actually watch the movies, but still lots of fun. Also, EVERYBODY was late this year. I guess that happens when it’s on New Year’s day, but it’s still kind of weak, people. I was up until 4:30 Friday night and ‘til at least 3 am New Year’s Eve and I had to get up before the Hobbit (real great idea Davey) started at 9:45. Of course, now it’s Monday and I’ve spent most of the day either sleeping or playing Animal Crossing and I’m still in my PJ’s (what’s the point of getting dressed now?). I have this horrible pain in my neck, as well and I have no idea why. (Insert pain in the neck joke here).

Let see some of the highlights of New Years Day were, 2 dozen doughnuts from Marie’s. Yum. Davey driving over to Jilary’s to get wake them up. French toast. A snow globe exploding in Roan’s room. Crappy frozen pizzas. Chocolate chip cookies. Bill’s pumpernickel sandwiches. Joel and then Olsen with some mad magna-doodle action. A creepy looking rabbit body cooking in the crock pot. Hurrah for vegan chili. Po-tay-toes. Brownie bites. Beer braised chicken. Jilary’s honey maple cake that never made it from ingredients into actual cake.

Thanks to Chris for drawing about 500 different types of cake on the Magna Doodle so Roan’s laser pointer could eat it. Thanks to Dongsdale for the rabbit and for venturing out on foot during the storm for a mid-movie beer run, even though Karen had just told him she’d drive him to the store. He snuck out while she wasn’t looking. Also thanks to everyone who came, because it was a lot of fun.

I’m gonna post some pictures. As usual, we didn’t take enough. I’m not posting all of them, because I want Davey to write something and he can post them all on the Four Eyes blog. He can explain them all too. I’ll just leave them up for interpretation.

SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY!!!!!!!

2005-12-30T12:02:00.000-08:00

Lord of the Rings fest, this Sunday at our house. If you don’t know where that is, ask someone. According to the Four Eyes blog, Davey got the Hobbit dvd, and is planning to start that before Fellowship. I guess the plan is to start the Hobbit at 9:45 am (yes, in the morning). That should mean Fellowship will start about 11 am.

Davey says he will make Lembas bread french toast. He also keeps saying there will be Mickey’s. Bill may or may not get coneys. I’m sure we will conjure up some other foodstuffs for second breakfasts and all.

The parking enforcement is turned off for the day, so ignore the “No Parking Anytime” signs if you drive over. I don’t really know who is coming. Rest assured, the movies will be playing whether the audience is 1 or 20. Anyone going to make it through all three movies? That’s the challenge. Here’s a link to the blog about last years.

Here’s a funny WoW link. It’s a take off on an Apple commercial and it’s sort of about Paladins (which is what my main toon is). I realise that no one who reads this, except Davey, plays WoW, so maybe some of you should think about starting. If you do, make sure you get on Draenor and play Alliance, then you can join our guild. The damn game is like a drug and now I feel like a pusher. It is a lot of fun and you don’t have to be very good at video/computer games to play. I’’m a perfect example.

Hurray for Santy Claus

2005-12-28T13:28:00.000-08:00

Christmas almost did me in this year. I feel like a Christmas cookie (the ones that look really pretty (‘cept I don’t look so pretty) but taste like cardboard with sugar on top-and for you wise acres, yes I do taste cardboardy sweet) chewed up and spit out. I ended up getting sick Thursday night and didn’t get any sleep. Friday morning, we opened presents with the kids here and then had to begin our pilgrimage to various relatives houses, none of which live in our hometown. They kids were sick too, as they have been for most of December. That’s the added bonus of preschool. Free viruses.

The gift that Roan made us at preschool was a Christmas/winter theme pot holder with her hand print on the back in white paint. One of the teachers wrote “Roan 2005” in gold ink. It’s sweet. I have the momitis thing, where any weird looking object or scribble that your kid makes you is the best thing ever. It really is. Just comes with the territory, I guess.

I also got a really nice digital camera. It’s tiny, with a really big screen. The funniest gift was one that both Davey and I got from his sister. (Hi Erin!) She has a friend who works for Neighborhoodies, who also plays World of Warcraft. He had her get our character’s and guild name. We thought this was just so if we were on the same realm, we could add them to our friends list, or whatever. It was really for our Christmas presents which were black hoodies with our character’s name on the front and guild name on the back. It’s the best. Pretty geeky, but almost anybody who saw it, wouldn’t know what the hell it means anyway.

We told our WoW friend Shurgrim about the the hoodies last night. He said we had crossed the line to “uber geekdom” or something like that. Then, about 10 minutes later, he was explaining to me the lore of the Winter Veil celebration (what you have in WoW instead of Christmas) and why the Horde celebrate it as well as the Alliance. Ahem.

Last night we did part of Gnomeregan with my lvl 26 (dinged 27 last night) priest, Davey’s lvl 33 (I think, low 30’s anyway) priest and Shurgrim’s low 20’s paladin. We made it all the way to the clean zone with out wiping and I got two quests completed. We did pretty good. And it was fun. We’ve been doing some high lvl instances with our mains (lvl 60) and they just haven’t been much fun. Even though I hate Gnomeregan, it was fun to do last night. I guess it’s just like real life. It’s not so much the job sometimes, but the people you “work” with.

Here's a picture of the Christmas explosion that happened at our house when we got home Monday.

Link Is My Dog

2005-12-22T13:11:00.000-08:00

Some Four Eyes pic’s are up on Olsen’s site. There is some problem with them though, because there’s only a few and then it says “oops my image for this link is no longer here, photobucket.com.” I tried to leave a comment, but I had problems doing that too. Maybe I just suck.

Here’s a treat for you don’t know about it already. I love it. I’m listening right now.

Santa is making a special trip to our house tonight, since we are going out of town. I’m trying to get Roan as excited about it as I am, but all I get is “sounds good.”

Ride the Lightning

2005-12-21T11:14:00.000-08:00

I guess we’re all anxiously awaiting the posting of the blog paparazzi’s photos from the Fours Eyes show. Haven’t seen any yet, but I know there are some good ones. Have I mentioned how much fun that show was?

Anyone wake up to the sound of War of the Worlds this morning around 2:45 am? There was a thunderstorm pretty much directly over our house. There would be a flash of light and then this horrible sound that I can’t even begin to describe. It didn’t sound like thunder, though. It didn’t even sound like thunder. It didn’t have the rumbling echo like sounds. I guess because the sound waves didn’t have very far to travel. This lead to Davey and I discussing the Doppler effect at 3 am, and then just settling on, “yeah, it’s some physics thing.”

Then I started thinking about Physics as I was falling asleep. I really liked Newtonian Physics in college. The class I took was basically a glorified high school Physics class, since it stuck with the algebraic stuff and stayed away from the Calculus. Sometimes in the lab, the instructor would play those PBS shorts called “Eureka!” My sixth grade teacher used to play them too. I never got them in sixth grade. After taking some college Physics, I could finally follow them.

I forgot to mention how scared Davey was by the lightning storm last night. We were such dorks we got up to check the weather report. Actually, the sound of the thunder when it was right over our house was so freaky, I wouldn’t get out of bed until the storm passed a little and the thunder sounded “normal” again. The kids seemed to sleep through the whole thing. This morning Roan said she heard it and put her fingers in her ears. I’m not sure if she meant the thunder woke her up, or just her noisy sister.

We went to Trader Joe's last night. I got some blueberry gut bomb muffins. I think they are called “fiber cakes” or something like that. Last night, Roan said she was hungry and I asked if she wanted a muffin and she excitedly said, “Yes.” She wasn’t too excited after she had a bite of the muffin. I got her to eat most of it.

This morning I asked what she wanted for breakfast. She didn’t know, so I asked if she wanted a muffin. She did. I warned her about five times that it was the same kind of muffin she had last night. She still wanted it. Then after I gave it too her, she said something like, “I don’t like the junky muffins that Daddy gave me” (haha she blames Davey). She keeps calling them junky muffins. I only gave her half of one and she’s been trying to finish it for about half an hour.

Four Eyes Full Circle

2005-12-20T13:10:00.000-08:00

This has been a really busy weekend. The Four Eyes show last night rocked. Thank my mom for the $20 “beer money” she gave me before the show. That’s what it was spent on. Speaking of the beer, I have to say I was impressed that throughout the night, people put twelvers up on stage to share. What a great audience. There was even some beer left over at the end. I also forgot how bad Keystone Ice is.

There were a bunch of crazy drunks (I mean that in the most affectionate way possible) in the audience snapping pictures on their digital cameras like mad. I’m guessing they will be circulating the internerd at some point. Which reminds me, my favorite chant of the night was “Nerds! Nerds! Nerds!” You can’t go wrong with a classic. Of course “Charles brought a beer to you/Charles brings a beer to everyone” was right up there. Don’t know if that really counts as a chant, but it’s close enough for jazz.

Perhaps the highlight of the night was the giant group hug during, “We are the Champions.” That was also around the point I got half a beer poured down my back. Hey, I’m not complaining. I was getting kind of hot anyway.

I had about 1000 more things I wanted to write about the show (especially last night when I was still buzzed, so everything sounded extra witty and brilliant) but I think I’m suffering from beer fog. (The fog of beer?)

Kid Stuff:

The little boop is crawling now. It’s pretty cute. But, like most things kids do, it’s kind of cute and kind of annoying. Now she can get into trouble at will.

The big kid had her preschool Christmas party last Friday. It was really cute. The kids were wearing reindeer antlers they made. They had a strip from a paper bag for the head band, and then, for the antlers, they had their hand prints cut out of dark brown paper. The teacher also stuck colored dots on their noses. Roan got to be a “Rudolph” because her dot was red. Did I mention I’m and extremely bad parent, because I didn’t get a picture of this? It’s her dad’s fault too, he was there.

The kids had jingle bells and the teacher made us all sit around and sing with the kids. The kids got to shout out requests for songs they wanted to sing. So we sang a few Christmas carols and the “itsy bitsy spider” and the “abc song” and a couple I didn’t know. The kids all had goody bags. The teacher gave them all a couple of books, I think. Roan’s are still wrapped and under the tree. There was also a present that said “to mom and dad, love Roan.” I’m dying to see what it is, but Roan won’t let us open it until Christmas. I keep asking her what it is, but she won’t tell me. I have a more than sneaking suspicion that she forgot.

We had dance class Saturday morning. Last time we went Roan was a total grump. She turned it around this time though, no whining and she seemed to have a lot of fun. So we’ll go back when the open up again in January.

Saturday night was a kid friendly Christmas party. It was fun. There was a white elephant gift exchange. It was pretty funny. The gift I got was a perfect fit. I was probably the only person there (besides Davey) who would’ve wanted it. I was also, probably, the only person there (besides Davey) who already had it. What? You might be wondering. Why, the dvd of UHF, starring “weird” Al Yankovic. There was stuff like a box of wine, a twelve pack of Pabst, a poop calendar, and I can’t remember what else. Davey got a little electronic “20 questions” game. You think of something and the little computer asks you yes/no questions to guess what it is. It’s cute, but sort of weird. I was thinking of “horse” and it guessed “Clydesdale” then it guessed “pony.” I thought of “cat” and it guessed “black cat,” then “tabby.” I guess you have to be very specific.

Sunday morning we braved the storm to meet up with some friends at “Hometown Buffet” for breakfast. Well, enough said about that.

Monday, my parents came up. I borrowed my dad’s Ford Aerostar (used to be mine) to go Christmas shopping while Davey was at band practice. I can’t believe I used to drive that thing around everywhere. I swear it rocks like a boat. I do miss all the room it has, though. I got a major backbreaking, bicep-tearing workout, as I had to carry this completely heavy thing I bought through the store and the parking lot. It was when I was almost to the car, I realized I could have put it in a shopping cart. Oh well, I kind of like the feeling of sore muscles. It makes me feel tough.

And that brings me back to the Four Eyes show.

4-Eyes Show Tonight

2005-12-19T10:58:00.000-08:00

Go to the Four Eyes Annual Christmas Show tonight at the Loft, 7pm sharp. It should be a good one this year. I've got a good idea of the songs they're covering, thanks to the mix cds that have been in my car the last couple of weeks. I think I even get to go to the show this year, too. Awesome.

Nothing to Post but some Pictures

2005-12-15T12:26:00.000-08:00

"ballet suit"

Roan pointing at the little tree she wanted us to cut down and take home