Leaving on a jet plane

Well, I'm out of here. I'm off to Florida ALL BY MYSELF! I'm meeting my cousin Julie in south Florida, and she and I will roadtrip together to Tampa for our cousin Becky's wedding tomorrow. While in Tampa, we'll be sharing a hotel room with our little sisters. It's Cousinpalooza! Who's got da booza?!

Science fair report

Annabelle's school had their annual science fair last night. I've never been a fan of science fairs, but Annabelle really had a good time with it. Her project was all about the fat in hamburgers, and she pursued her topic with the enthusiasm of a pint-sized Morgan Spurlock:



I think it will be a while before any of us are ready to eat hamburgers again!

The incredible shrinking Fred

Look, everybody! Fred is getting shorter and shorter:



This is a composite of 3 pictures: one we took the day Fred deployed almost 2 (2! can you believe it?!) years ago; one we took last July when he came home; and one I took just the other night.

For a while there Mike was keeping a list of "Adults I Am Taller Than." I think my friend Gretchyn was the first one to make the list. Sometime about a year ago though, the list got too long to keep track of. If he keeps growing at the current rate, I think Mike might want to resurrect the list in about a year, just long enough to add his dad's name to it.

Oh, unspeakable cuteness!

Maybe this will make up for the bug jewelry . . .

We have a groundhog named George who lives in a hole in our backyard. The kids who lived here before us named him, and he looks like a George, so we have no reason to change his name. Well, apparently there is also a Georgina (or perhaps Georgia), because now there are THREE adorable little Georgettes! I can't get close enough to them to take a decent picture, but they look a lot like this:

Not just no, but HELL NO!

According to an article in this morning's Louisville paper, you can buy a live Madagascar hissing cockroach that has been all decked out with Swarovski crystals. Why would you want to do such a thing? To wear as an accessory, of course! I have trouble remembering to put my earrings on; I think I would have an absolute mental block against putting my giant bug on.

Redirecting traffic

I haven't had much time for recreational writing these days, but Annabelle certainly has been busy. She has started a blog for the rodents' news reports. So, please, go check out the crazy happenings at Rodents on the Roof. While you're there, why not leave a comment? It would make the rodents so happy!

Speaking of rodents, can you believe that one year ago today, we were headed back to Germany after enjoying the tulips of Holland:

That's a very BAD bunny!

Happy Easter anyway. Hope the bunny was good to you.

New look for our bedroom

See this cute little boy? That's Fred in December of 1964. See the couch behind him? That, until this past fall, was our couch (admittedly re-covered a time or 2 in the past 40-something years):



I offer this photo as evidence that Fred and I do not replace household decor on a whim. In fact, the old couch--and the coffee table, too--are still alive and well in our basement family room.

Eight years ago, when we moved to North Carolina for the second time, I went to a linen outlet and bought a comforter set for our bed "for the time being." I liked it OK, and it was an absolute bargain for the price, but it has been getting shabbier and shabbier:



I was looking forward to replacing it with something fresh and new, so a couple of months ago I started looking at my options. Let me just tell you right now--there is an awful lot of UGLY out there in the bedding department! I was beginning to despair of ever finding something I could live with. But then, under a clearance table in a Salt Lake City Dillards, I found my new true love: "Tahitian Breeze" by Studio D--a king-size set for $60 (marked down from $230).

When we got home from Utah, I thought I might contact our local Dillards and see if I could round up the curtains to match. Unfortunately, I struck out at the 3 Dillards closest to me, but a saleslady in Utah was tremendously helpful and called me back with SKU numbers for all the different accessories as well as the phone numbers for stores that might have them in stock.

I started out just looking for curtains, but I got so involved in the thrill of the chase that I started tracking down throw pillows as well. In the end, thanks to 2 Dillards in Montana and one in Colorado, I scored 6 curtain panels for the 2 windows in our bedroom as well as the one in the dressing room ($12.50 each, marked down from $50!!!), 2 European pillow shams, and one pretty little throw pillow. Two other throw pillows got away.

Here is our new, much improved bedroom:



Of course, shopping begets more shopping. I had European pillow shams, but no European pillows, so I had to stop by Bed, Bath & Beyond over the weekend to remedy that situation. And the comforter is much too heavy to sleep under, so I ordered this blanket from Target. And naturally our old sheets, even if they weren't faded and tattered, didn't match the new look, so I had to find sheets at the PX (one set red, one set cream). And our old lamps don't match, so they'll need replacing. Maybe I should get some new pajamas too. It's hard to know when to stop.

Baubles from Norway

I took part recently in a most interesting gift exchange. I sent Karla the Texpatriate a book containing scary travel stories about places she was getting ready to visit, and she sent me beautiful, handmade, one-of-a-kind jewelry. I think we know who got the better end of THAT bargain:



You really should go over to Karla's blog right now and read about her current trip to Thailand, because I promise you that she is much more interesting than I am. My whole life these days revolves around this enormous indexing project that I lucked into and while indexing is intellectually stimulating in the extreme, it does not--alas!--make for very good blogging. ("So I decided that rather than double-post it, I would simply make a cross reference . . . " See what I mean? It simply doesn't compare to visiting exotic markets and feeding monks and getting covered in baby-elephant snot.)

Thanks, Karla--I love the earrings and bracelet!

New hair for Mike!

Mike got his hair cut right before we went to Utah. Last week he added highlights to his new look. I think it came out quite nice:

Just love me. Don't try to understand me.

This is my office, in all its messy glory:



Which is probably why Fred dissolved into fits of hysterical, howling laughter when I scolded him for stuffing the new clean sheets into a laundry basket after they came out of the dryer, thus leaving them wrinkled. WRINKLED BED SHEETS! Oh, the humanity . . .

For the record, Eddie loves the new bedding:



Notice how we are in the process of switching Eddie from his Christmas claw covers to his new purple ones for Easter.