The Christmas card saga continues

Remember how I said on Sunday that I had gotten the cards ordered and how happy I was? Well, ha! Fred picked them up last night, and I was Not Happy when I saw them.

How many trips had I made to Walmart to make certain that what I was seeing on my monitor was what would come shooting out of the big printer at the store? At least 5 or 6. Maybe 7. When I picked up the Saturday sample, I knew that this was (FINALLY) The Picture, and so I ordered the cards.

The kids on the cards, however, were not the kids in The Picture. As pale and pasty as Boo Radley, they were so light as to appear almost transparent.

So this morning I marched into Walmart and got my money refunded with a minimum of fuss and bother. Tomorrow I get to go back, upload my picture from the kiosk in the photo department, order a single test card, evaluate, lather rinse repeat until I have a card worthy of ordering by the gross. Or maybe I'll just go to Walgreens instead. I don't know--I feel like Walmart and I have been through so much together at this point that I kind of hate to walk away. Maybe I'm just in an abusive retail relationship though.

And in other news, the particularly observant among you might notice that I have spruced up a little bit around here. I finally added some links in my BlogRoll that I've been meaning to add for some time. I'm not done yet though!
I also went back and did a little catch-up blogging from our summer vacation. If you are so inclined, you can read about:

• our dinner at the Lake Beresford Yacht Club


• our lunch at 3 Bananas Cafe


• our trips to DeLeon Springs


• our meet-up with Wendy and Rory


• Mike's birthday and the Harry Potter book premiere


• the Pearson family reunion in Alabama

My next order of business is to get caught up (and stay caught up) responding to my comments. Baby steps, baby steps . . .

Nothing to write about today

This has been an exhausting few days of blogging, what with all the video editing and such. Not to mention the time it takes to actually going to and doing all the things that I take the video of.

Anyway, I've got a project deadline staring me in the face, and Annabelle has called dibs on blogging about cool bassoonists, so really, what is there for me to say? Go see Annabelle and get your bassoon groove on.

Check back here tomorrow though. I have a recipe I've been meaning to share, and tomorrow might just be the day.

Must. Post. More. Often.

I really need to get back in the blogging habit. I'm just pulled in so many different directions these days that it's hard to find the time and equally hard to find anything interesting to talk about.

Right after I posted my "school is going great" post, it temporarily returned to hell in the proverbial handbasket, at least as far as Annabelle was concerned. Earlier this week, she was begging not to go again. I stuck her butt on the bus and went inside to place a call to the guidance counselor, who was able to nab Annabelle in the hallway when she got there and perform a little cheerleader routine for her benefit. Each day since then has been steadily better, and today was downright good.

Annabelle got to choose a pencil out of the prize box for her stellar performance in class today and was very excited about that. Get me drunk sometime and ask me to elaborate on my feelings regarding the use of rewards to motivate kids. To heck with principles right now though--I would have happily paid cold hard cash to see her come off the bus with such spring in her step.

Meanwhile, Mike continues his easy adjustment to middle school. Gym class was showing the potential to be a problem--not because of "Coach Cheney" (Mike actually decided that he was OK) but because of some misbehaved cretins in the locker room. I went to the guidance counselor with that problem and with a possible solution, never really expecting the school to go for it, but they did. As of yesterday, Mike is doing his distance-learning German I class in the library each day instead of taking PE. Gotta love that flexibility!

Both kids are also making friends in the neighborhood as well. There are lots of girls Annabelle's age, and she has been twice now to their weekly sewing circle (I call it "Stitch and Bitch" but only in my head).

There are also a lot of girls Mike's age in the neighborhood, which I suspect might have something to do with his enthusiasm for school. The scene below was on my neighbor's front porch the other day. It's not a very good picture, but there are limits to how artistic one can be when one is shooting from between window blinds, without flash, and while laughing one's ass off. Just call me Spy Mom:



Please fasten your seatbelts. We are approaching the teen years and expect some mild turbulence. (Please, God, let it be mild.)

Something new!

Oh, there's so much to tell. All about our move to Kentucky, our trip to St. Louis, our 2 weeks in Florida, our current trip to Charlottesville, that one night in that biker bar . . . OK, so I made up the part about the biker bar. I will get to all the other stuff though, I promise. Just not quite sure when! In the meantime, go check out the old blog, and you can read the highlights of our visit to Normandy last month.

Behold the mighty hyphen!

I've been pondering a new name for my blog ever since last Christmas when it became obvious that our days as "The Taylors in Europe" were numbered. "The Taylors in Kentucky"--just not as exciting and besides, Kentucky has just as short a shelf-life for us as Germany did.

I also really wanted to tie in the idea that my life is more or less a circus, complete with jugglers, clowns, and lots of popcorn. Inspiration arrived in the form of a unicycling DVD that Mike was looking at, One Tired Guy. Eureka! Almost . . .

My inner editor was bothered by the absence of a hyphen in the DVD title, which made it look to me as if it were about this one guy who happened to need some sleep. While I am indeed one tired mom (what mom isn't?), I wanted to be a "one-tired mom." You know, a mom who juggles the balls life throws her while balanced gracefully atop one skinny wheel. Hence, the hyphen.

When I started my other blog shortly before we left the States for Europe, I just chose a blog template at random, planning to eventually beautify it a bit, but I never quite got around to it. Eventually all that orange started to look normal to me. I wanted to start off here though with a little more attention to aesthetics, so I got Secret Agent Josephine to whip up the clever picture you see at the top of the page. Didn't she make me look THIN?! I love it!

I said I wouldn't use the name "One-Tired Mom" until I learned to ride the uni I got for my birthday last year, but I'm starting to face up to the fact that that could take a while. I'm eager to get this new blog off the ground and to start describing our adventures as we move our circus back to the US of A and set off in search of new fun. So grab some peanuts or popcorn and enjoy the show! (Just try not to step in the elephant poop on your way out.)