It's a great pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

Bringing up the rear

I went to Louisville today to exchange some pants at Ann Taylor Loft (my new favorite store) and to find a fake plastic butt for Mike's Halloween costume. Can you believe I had to hit 5 Halloween specialty shops, not to mention Spencer's, before I got lucky? I've heard of trying to score some crack, but this is ridiculous!

Overheard by Mike at school today

"I really like John McCain! If I was 21 years old, I would totally vote for him."

Muffled

Remember the scarf I made last winter/spring? Well, it was cold enough to wear it today (although we should be back in the 60s by Friday). I snapped a picture so that you could see it as well as my new glasses:

Vested interest

One of my projects for this summer was to teach Annabelle how to use the sewing machine. She made a really cute lined vest with a musical theme (click on the pic to zoom in and see the details)! My mom reminded me when we were in Florida earlier this month that I never got around to blogging it, but that was because thus far she hadn't gotten around to wearing it. This is Red Ribbon Week at school though, and today is dress-up day, so she chose to debut her new vest:



Pretty snazzy, no?

Gross but oddly fascinating

The other night, Mike came to me with a tiny little plant sprout that he found poking out of the drain in my bathroom sink. Weird, but not THAT weird. Then tonight, I found ANOTHER little sprout, so I pulled out the drain-stopper-thingie (I'm not sure if that's the technical term--better ask Joe the Plumber) and found 2 more of the little fellas reaching towards the light from the darkness of a good sized clog of hair:



Tomorrow I'm going to plant them in some dirt and see if I can get them to grow. I'm dying to know what sort of sink crop I was raising! Maybe it'll be a bean stalk . . .

Getting out the vote

This morning the kids and I and a couple of Mike's friends went to New Albany, Indiana, to canvass for Obama. I was a little apprehensive, as talking politics to total strangers is NOT my idea of a good time. At this point in the campaign, however, the emphasis is on making sure that people make it to the polls to cast their ballots. So we were sent out to a low-income housing area with a 6-page list of voters, each of whom had been identified in the past as being Obama friendly. Our job was to make contact and remind the voters about early voting and see if they needed a ride to vote on Election Day.

That sounds simple enough, and we started off with a bang. Voter 1 wasn't home, but some of her family members were there, including an elderly woman who happily took a flyer and ranted a bit against Palin. Mostly what we found over the rest of the morning though was that people either weren't home or the voters we were looking for had moved. In the latter cases, a lot of the new occupants declared themselves to be supporters. In the end, we had 3 voters identify as McCain supporters, including the fellow we dubbed Naked Guy, although I'm pretty sure he was wearing underwear.

After we finished off our list, we went to IHOP for lunch. IHOP is a rare treat around here, as the nearest Kentucky location is a good 100 miles from Fort Knox.

Mike and Annabelle already had campaign shirts that I bought them when I went to Louisville earlier, but Gabe and Courtney wanted to get shirts as well, and the New Albany office wasn't selling anything. We made a quick stop in Louisville on our way home for shirts:



All in all, it was a great experience, and we're hoping to go do it again next weekend!

Trying to clean off the DVR

I'm so behind on my TV watching. I set the DVR to catch all my favorites, and it's starting to fill up. I need to watch and purge, watch and purge. Tonight Mike and Annabelle are out with friends, and it's just me and the cat and dog. I think it's time to turn off the computer and try to catch up on this season's "House."

A nice day for voting

This is one of those fall days that I suspect is the reason some people love fall. I would love fall if I didn't know the misery waiting for me on the other side of it. Winter, bah! I've been trying to get in on the fall love though, as you can see from my madd holiday decorating skillz:



I decided to take advantage of the lovely weather, so Ginger and I walked to the post office to mail my absentee ballot. I've never voted in person before--can you believe that? In 2004 I was in Germany, in 2000 I was in Hawaii, in 1996 I was in Virginia, in 1992 I was in North Carolina, and in 1988, while I was in Florida, I was away at law school in St. Petersburg. Before that I was at home but too young to vote. As a result, I have never gotten an "I voted" sticker. So I'm giving myself one here:

It's what's for breakfast

The other day I bought some pears at the commissary. They were pretty hard, so I put them in a paper bag on my counter to ripen. I was really looking forward to having one for breakfast today, but when I reached into the bag, I found that they are all still hard as rocks.

So I turned my attention to the peaches I bought at Walmart that same day. Now I know that we're well past peach season locally, but these were from California and looked just beautiful but also a little hard. This morning, however, they felt just perfect, so I cut into one . . . and found the inside was disgusting! I tossed it out in the backyard for the groundhogs (I consider the groundhog hole to be my composting system) and cut into another. It also was disgusting, so I tossed it into the yard after the first and turned my attention to the one food that never lets me down: mint chocolate-chip ice cream!

Ceramic porn

There are any number of websites where one can buy Polish pottery, but Blue Rose Pottery sends a glossy catalog via snail mail. My catalog arrived today, and I can't wait to look it over in detail. I don't often order though, because just like I go to craft fairs and think, "Oh, I could make that," I look at the Blue Rose catalog and declare, "Why, I could buy that for a fraction of that price in Poland!" Except, of course, that the drive from Kentucky to Poland is really, really long. Sigh . . .

Back to normal?

Today is the first day since we got back from vacation that I have felt really great. I don't know how one gets jetlag without switching time zones, but somehow I manage. I've been trapped in a terrible cycle of staying up way too late and then going back to sleep once the kids leave for the bus. Last night though I fell asleep so early that when the 11 p.m. bugle went off, I thought it was the 6 a.m. bugle and jumped out of bed so as to beat Mike to the bathroom. When I woke up enough to realize what time it was, I was positively overjoyed. You know how good it feels to wake up and discover you have an hour before you have to get up? Discovering you have SEVEN hours left to sleep feels at least 7 times as good.

Meanwhile, as I type this, I'm enjoying the bassoon music coming from Annabelle's room. She is now playing bassoon with the middle school band and the E'town youth orchestra, plus she just got invited to join the high school band for their winter concert, and she's continuing on with her private lessons as well. So she has plenty of music to practice! Sometimes I'll hear something especially lovely and I'll call out to her and ask what it was, and 9 times out of 10 the answer is "It's the Weissenborn!" The Weissenborn is her German-English bassoon "bible." When we say it, we pronounce the W as a V and put a lot of Germanic gusto behind it. That amuses us to no end.

It's the Political Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

These just amaze me. You know that traditional jack-o-lantern with the triangle eyes, the one that little kids like to draw? I have a tough time making one of those.

When life gives you lemons . . .

. . . buy a new gadget! This is my new favorite kitchen toy:



I am all about fresh lemonade these days, and with my handy-dandy lemon squisher I can get a cup of juice out of 5 lemons in under 10 minutes. While I'm busy with the juice, I have a cup of sugar melting in a cup of boiling water to make simple syrup. Pour the juice and the syrup into a 2-quart pitcher and fill the rest of the way with cold water and voila!

In other food-related news, we were supposed to have fish tonight. I had a couple pounds of arctic char (think of it as a kinder, gentler salmon) soaking in Soy Vay Island Terriyaki and brussels sprouts roasting in the oven when I realized that I was completely out of jasmine rice. This, I figured, is why we let Mike get his driver's license, so I sent him up to the commissary to get some. Unfortunately, the commissary had already closed for the night, and I'm not quite ready to send him to Walmart. So I stuck the fish back in the fridge for tomorrow night, ordered a couple pizzas, and nibbled on roasted brussels sprouts while we waited (TWO HOURS) for them to arrive.

While I was waiting and "watching" them cook our pizzas, I took the Dominos poll. I am pleased to report that Obama is kicking butt in that poll. The Philly cheese steak sandwich is also doing well:

Fun Saturday

My hair smells like smoke, but we had the most fun this evening! Dear friends of ours from Fred's old office were hosting a promotion party at their house, so we went there to hang out for a couple of hours. It was so nice to see our friends again, and the food was terrific! The weather has turned chilly, so they had a fire going (hence the smokey hair). I'm glad I grabbed my winter jacket at the last minute, and I was especially pleased to find a glove (just one) in the pocket.

Upside down funny for Friday

This is hysterical! People are taking pictures of dogs lounging upside down and then flipping the photos for some truly classic shots like this one:



Go here to see more! (Hat tip to Tess for finding this one.)

Edited to add: Oh, my goodness! As I was sitting here typing this post, our doorbell range 3 times. I ran downstairs and found that we had been boo'd. I'll let the kids open up the bag when they get home. This weekend we will prepare 2 boo bags of our own to deliver under cover of darkness therefore spreading the spooky fun even further. We have a really great neighborhood!

Ready for the weekend

Today was remarkably unblogworthy. I went to a school board meeting this afternoon, and then took Annabelle to her youth orchestra rehearsal this evening. I stopped by Kohl's and bought Mike 2 pairs of jeans that don't fit him and then picked up supper at Panera. Now I'm watching my Thursday night shows ("The Office" is absolute genius) and hoping to get to bed at a decent hour.

Nothing to nag about

For the past couple of years, every time Annabelle mused, "What should I read next?" I helpfully replied, "The World of Henry Orient." Every time she picked up another book, I said, "You really ought to read The World of Henry Orient." It got to the point where if I so much as opened my mouth in the company of books, she would irritably cut me off with "Yes, yes, I know--The World of Henry Orient!" And now she's gone and done it. She read it. And liked it. AND I KNEW SHE WOULD IF SHE WOULD EVER GIVE IT HALF A CHANCE!

So now I have nothing left to nag Annabelle about. But . . . you! Have YOU ever read The World of Henry Orient? Wanna borrow my copy?

If you want to know what it's about, go check out Annabelle's blog. She has very kindly posted her book report.

October resolution

I used to really like fall. When we were in college, my cousin Julie and I would literally squeal with excitement over sweater weather. It was easy to be happy about it then--we were in central Florida, and we had a couple brisk days and then everything was warm and normal again. Now, however, my hatred of winter has eclipsed my enjoyment of fall, and I think that is too bad. I noticed when we drove back up here yesterday that there's a little color to the trees, and it got me to thinking that autumn here really is pretty. So I have decided that this year I will embrace fall! I bought a bag of funny-shaped gourds at the commissary today to put on my table in a basket, and I might even get a pot or 2 of mums for the porch.

I still reserve the right, however, to whine like a big dog about winter.

Oh, Auntie Em!

We had a great fall break, but it sure feels nice to be home again. It was odd though to walk in tonight and find my pre-trip to-do list sitting on the kitchen counter. All that preparation, and now it's over.

We spent last night in Alabama visiting with Fred's folks. Today on our way north, we took a detour and drove through Murfreesboro, Tennessee, to take a quick look at Middle Tennessee State. They supposedly have a really excellent music production program, which is one of Mike's interests. It looked like a nice campus, and we will have to go back sometime for a more in-depth visit (one in which we actually get out of the car).

We rolled into the driveway at about 7 p.m. tonight, and by 7:30 we had everything unloaded and unpacked (keep in mind that "unpacked" and "put away" are very different concepts). Mike did his first solo drive--up to the store for milk.

I've got my laptop set back up on my bed, and I thought I would spend the evening catching up on some of my Internet surfing, but right now even that feels too much like work. So instead I think I shall put the computer away and turn on the TV and see what the TiFaux recorded while I was away.

Preparing for takeoff

The car is just about packed, and we should be on the road within an hour. I figured I would go ahead and blog now so that I don't have to worry about signing on from Alabama tonight. We've had a great time in Florida, but it has gone by way too fast!

Florida--Saturday (again)

We capped off our Florida visit with a trip this evening to Bellini's with my parents, Jenny, Jeff, Grandma, and Dave:



Now we're finishing off a DVD we started earlier, and then we need to finish packing. It's almost time to start counting down to our spring break trip to Florida (I hope)!

Florida--Friday

Wow, have we really been here a week already?

Today was supposed to be our daytrip to St. Augustine, but after back-to-back trips to Gainesville and Orlando (and not getting home from the latter until around midnight), we were just too exhausted. So instead we took it easy and hung out around the house all morning. In the afternoon, we took Annabelle to watch the DHS homecoming parade since her friend Karen was in it. The girls wound up getting to walk most of the parade route together!

This evening Fred and I went to the pre-game party for my twenty-fifth high-school reunion. I was a little nervous, but it was a lot of fun! Tomorrow we're all going to the family cookout at DeLeon Springs for lunch, and then tomorrow night we're meeting my grandparents for a final visit to Bellini's.

And then . . . GASP! . . . it'll be time to pack up and start the long drive home the next day.

Florida--Thursday

Busy day today! UF was great, and today is UCF. First though, there's a cuban sandwich in my future. And then there'll be Thai food tonight followed by a movie as we kill time waiting for Fred's flight to arrive. We won't be home until well after midnight, so I'm taking care of my blogging early.

Florida--Wednesday

I'm going ahead and blogging now, because the rest of the day will be crazy-busy. We're in the thick of college-looking right now--Mike visited a class at Stetson yesterday--and we'll be spending the afternoon touring UF in Gainesville. When we get home, it'll be time to grab a bite to eat, and then I have class (online) from 8 to 9:30. I can't believe how fast our time in Florida is flying by!

Florida--Tuesday

One of our favorite parlor games is sitting around pondering who plays us in the movie. I long ago claimed dibs on Tina Fey to play me. So now that Tina is getting rave reviews portraying Sarah Palin, I thought I would try my hand at Tina/Sarah. Annabelle taped it with her MacBook and uploaded it to her YouTube account:



Say it ain't so, Joe!

Worth 13 minutes of your time

Keating Economics: John McCain and the Making of a Financial Crisis:

Florida--Monday

Remember a little over a year ago when I posted this pic of Mike with his brand new learners permit?



If I weren't so lazy, I would be posting a similar photo today of him with his unrestricted license. Maybe tomorrow. But yay for Mike for passing on the first try! That's better than I did. I flunked on my sixteenth birthday and when I tried again a week later, I got the same humorless examiner, who totaled up my points and then totaled them up again and said, "Well, Miss Boyd. According to the numbers you passed. But I still don't think you're that hot."

I just got back from a delicious supper with my friend Cathy, and now we're getting ready to pop in a DVD.

Edited to add: OK, I've been shamed into getting up and getting a picture. Specifically, my father advised me to make sure to get a good shot of Mike's high school graduation so that I could use it 4 years later when I blog his college graduation. So here's the happy boy and his ticket to freedom:

Florida--Sunday

We went to Orlando today and met our friends Hal and Desiree for a dog party at their house. While the grownup humans sat around drinking margaritas and visiting, the kids jumped in the pool. Ginger couldn't resist jumping in for the occasional dip herself:





After her swim, Ginger dried off by rolling in the bushes:



Then she and Dez's dog Panda had a spirited game of tag around the pool:



Ginger was one tired puppy by the end of the afternoon:



The dogs stayed behind for a nap while the humans went out for Indian food.

Florida--Saturday

Today was a welcome break after all the driving of the past couple days and the week of trip prep that came before. We were all about banana pudding and movies, mostly of the 1980s variety. We watched the DVD of Annabelle's "Beauty and the Beast" show this morning, "War Games" this afternoon, and "Breakfast Club" this evening.

Snaps to Mike's friend Mark for retrieving Mike's retainers from his room and to my neighbor Sandy for overnighting them to us!

Floridation

We're here! The drive wasn't too bad all things considered. We pulled in around 5:30, and by 6:30 we were off to Bellini's for supper. I am planning on eating my way through the upcoming week with Bellini's on either end--hot roast beef and cheese tonight, manicotti next Saturday.

Tonight we watched the Ft. Knox/Ft. Campbell football game online. Unfortunately it did NOT go well for Knox, but it was cool to be able to watch the game from 800 miles away.

Next post from Florida!

I've got 4 and a half hours until I pick up the kids so that they can change clothes and we can hit the road. I've still got a long to-do list, but a lot of it is just little stuff (like setting the DVR to stop recording "Daily Show" and "Colbert Report."

One complication is that our heat is broken, which I discovered last night at 10 o'clock and 70 degrees. I'm going to call Knox Hills at 8 when they open and see if they can get somebody here this morning. I just worry about coming home in mid-October to an unheated house. Brrrrrr!

OK, time to start crossing stuff off the final list!

Putting the college in War College

Fred is managing to have a pretty good time in Pennsylvania. Last weekend was the annual Air/Shipwreck Ball. I'm kind of fuzzy on the details, but it doesn't seem like any ball I've ever been to. Here's a picture from part of the festivities (see Fred on the boat?):



Actually, come to think of it, that looks like way more fun than any ball I've ever been to!

If there's anything more tedious than packing . . .

. . . it must be reading about packing. Sorry about that, but I have got our Florida trip on the brain and can think of little else. I got a remarkable amount of stuff accomplished today, up to and including getting a pedicure, so now my toenails will be cute in Florida.

Ginger will have sparkly clean teeth for her trip to Florida. She spent today at the vet getting that taken care of.

Look out, Florida, here we come (almost)!

Getting ready to get ready

I've been feeling rather antsy the past couple of days, wanting to get ready for our trip but having it be too early for most tasks. I can't clean the house too early, for example, or it will just be dirty again by the time we leave. I can't pack too soon, or I'll have nothing to wear for our last days at home. Last night I did work for several hours on the paper that is due at midnight on Friday for my class this week. I'll turn it in Wednesday night, and then all I'll have to do school-wise for the week that we're in Florida is keep up with the class discussion board.

Between the anticipation over the trip and the iced tea I had at Panera yesterday afternoon, I could NOT sleep last night. I finally turned off the computer at 1 a.m. and watched Mad Men. When that went off at 2, I STILL had trouble falling asleep.

I'm getting to bed early tonight though because tomorrow I can finally start DOING STUFF that will move me towards getting this show on the road!

Out on the town

Greetings from Panera! Annabelle is at an ice cream social with her youth theater peeps, and I'm here doing my homework . . . just as soon as I finish checking my email and catching up on my boards.

It was so sweet watching her reunite with her fellow castmembers. A couple of girls came running out and hugged her and swept her off with them. It's nice to see that she has found her tribe.

This and that

I started preparations for our trip today, although most of what I did could probably have stayed undone for another couple of weeks (like cleaning out my email). Still, it makes me feel better to know that things will be in order when I come home. It's too early to start really packing, but I'm trying to get stuff together a bit. I'm also trying to work ahead in my class so that I don't have to be too studious while on vacation.

I spent a while this afternoon downloading podcasts to amuse me on the drive down. Annabelle and I are going to Target tomorrow, and I'm going to get one of those adapters so that I can play my ipod through my car sound system. I hate listening to books on tape while I drive, but I do love me some NPR, so I have close to 20 hours of "Car Talk," "This American Life," and "Splendid Table," as well as a few other things that caught my eye (ear?).

Countdown

This time a week from now the kids and I will be in DeLand, FL, and we can't wait! This weekend the kids and I are going to be hard at work to get organized so that we can pull out of here in a timely fashion on Thursday (2-day drive). I spent today cleaning up some loose ends--turned in a freelance project and started working ahead in my class so that I won't have to spend much time studying over vacation. I also took Annabelle up to Louisville for a bassoon lesson and supper at our favorite Vietnamese restaurant. There's plenty still to be done, but right now I'm going to curl up in bed and watch the presidential debate!

Must see TV

Annabelle and I just got back from her youth orchestra rehearsal, and the season premiere of "The Office" is coming on in 5 minutes. Why don't you go here and find a nice LOLcat?

Telephone skit

[A telephone rings.]

ME: Hello?

CALLER: Hi, I'm George Soandso calling from Worldperks VISA. May I please speak to Annabelle Taylor?

ME: This is Annabelle's mother. Can I help you?

CALLER: Well, I'm calling to speak to Annabelle Taylor. Is she available?

ME: Well, yes, she is . . . because she's home sick today from EIGHTH GRADE!

CALLER: [sighing] That's kind of what I thought. OK, I'll make a note of that. Sorry to bother you. Have a good day. Goodbye.

ME: Goodbye.

[Annabelle, I think I just submarined your first credit card offer. You'll thank me for that one day.]

Where the wild things are

I took Ginger outside this morning at around 9 and was astounded to see a fox hanging out in the front yard of the house that is catty corner to us. I raced to grab my camera and zipped back outside just in time to see him take off:




I walked down the street and found him lurking in the backyard. Thanks to the shakiness of my hands from all the excitement and the excessive amount of zoom, this looks like a photograph of Bigfoot's dog, but I promise you that it is a fox:



On my way back in, I snapped a shot of our groundhog George:



We like to say that George is outstanding in his field.

Flamingo fest

Saturday night was a special occasion here at Fortress Knox. The whole neighborhood came together--flamingo and gnome lovers alike--to celebrate that magnificent pink bird. At first I was worried that I had nothing to wear that was worthy of such a momentous occasion, but I was fortunate to be able to borrow THE perfect dress from one of my new neighbors:



Annabelle and I were on a fairly short leash, as I had to get back to the school for the homecoming dance, but we set off down the road and found Canada House decked out in full splendor:



Pink was the official color of the evening, and everybody took part:



Here are our gracious host and hostess, our lovely neighbors from the north:



And here is a photographic feat that is rarer than a blue famingo--a triple-bunny-ears shot:



It made me feel warm and fuzzy inside to see these neighbors set aside their lawn-art weapons and come together for a night of fellowship. (Of course, you know we're all just DYING to see what happens next at that end of the street!)

Homecoming: extended version

Since I'm not going to make my meeting tonight, I figured I would take a little time and post the pictures from homecoming, which I know some of you have been anxiously awaiting.

When Brittany arrived, there was the exchanging of flowers:





Then, figuring that the inside of my front door just wasn't festive enough for such a special occasion, we went into the yard to get some pictures.

Mike and Brittany:



Brittany and her sister:



Mike, looking like he's giving new meaning to the phrase "double dating":



After the kids left, Annabelle and I made a brief appearance at a party of our own, which I shall tell you about tomorrow. I had to get back home by 7:30 to leave for the dance. The dance seemed to go over really well. We had about 250 kids there and a ton of free refreshments.

Remember my ill-fated effort to collect the bottles after the back-to-school dance? This time I was determined that come hell or high water we were not going to shove a lot of plastic into a landfill. I wound up stationing myself by the trash cans and grabbing the used cups as kids came up to throw them away (and occasionally digging around in the trash in the dark for those that made it past me). The teachers were a big help towards the end of the evening in collecting abandoned cups from the tables and adding them to the pile.

When all was said and done, this is what we had saved for recycling (that's about 600 plastic cups behind the water bottles):



It is now in my back yard, tucked away behind our grill to hide from the bulk pickup people and waiting for Thursday's recycling truck.

Political Monday

My parents got to see Barack Obama in Daytona Beach last Saturday. They said he was quite inspiring! Here's a photo that Dad took at the event:



Change? Yeah, I'll take some of that, please.

I left my name and number at the local Obama headquarters and got a call this afternoon informing me of a meeting tonight. So as soon as I heat up some soup for Annabelle (she's not feeling well), I'm out the door!

Edited to add: Well, it looks like I WON'T be going to the meeting after all. I just took Annabelle's temperature, and my crappy thermometer that refuses to register anything higher than 99 says her temp is 100.8. This after 2 Motrin over an hour ago! I'm thinking you might be getting an LOLcat on Annabelle's blog tonight.

Twins?

Back to the goofy, fun stuff . . .

Yesterday morning before the cross-country meet, I just had to laugh and snap a picture when Mike and Annabelle's friend Katie showed up looking like they had been dressed by the same blind designer:

Sad news

I got some rather upsetting news about halfway through the dance last night. One of Mike and Annabelle's teammates from last year's swim team was killed in an accident yesterday afternoon. We're waiting to find out details for the funeral, as I'm sure the coach will try to get some of the team together for that.

I have a lot of funny, silly, goofy stuff to post, and I'm going to try to get a jump on that this afternoon (once I take care of all the stuff I let slide in the lead up to homecoming--heck, I still have a lasagna pan full of now cold soapy water from Friday night's pasta dinner sitting on my kitchen counter). But I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge what has happened.

Homecoming 2008

I started my day by dropping Mike off at the high school to catch the bus for the cross-country meet and then going over to the middle school to decorate for tonight's homecoming dance. (Due to construction at the high school, the dance is being held at the middle school.) Then I ran out to E'town to watch him run (good run, too, especially given that this was his first one back after being injured), brought him home, and went back to finish the decorating.

Mike just left with his date and her sister to pick up more friends and go out to dinner before the dance. Now I'm going to stop by a neighborhood party for an hour or so before racing back to the middle school to work the refreshment table from 8 to midnight. I wanted to get a picture posted first though, with a promise of more to follow tomorrow:

Ah, sweet silence!

I just got into my jammies and crawled into bed with my computer. I have been living for this moment since about 3 this afternoon!

Today has been fun but crazy. I started off by going to the coffee for the International Group this morning. Then I hit the commissary and spent the afternoon cleaning and cooking for the pasta dinner for Mike's cross-country team, which we had here at 5 this evening. That kept me busy until just a few minutes ago with cleaning up, but I finally got the bulk of it put away and left the rest to soak. The kids are off at the homecoming game, the dog has been walked and put away, and the cat and I are enjoying a quiet moment together:

Fashion disaster day

Today was fashion disaster day at the high school as part of spirit week. I have plenty of fashion disasters, but they don't seem to lift my spirits! Then again, mine aren't generally QUITE as disastrous as this:

Long drive home

The kids and I journeyed up to Louisville this afternoon to get haircuts for them and a tie for Mike for Saturday night's homecoming dance. I was a little concerned, because the newspaper for the past couple of days has been all about the severe damage from Sunday's windstorm. It's really strange up there--you'll go along for several blocks and traffic lights are out and chain restaurants like MacDonalds are closed due to electrical outages. But then the next thing you know, the lights are working and stores are open and everything seems normal. Because of the places where the traffic signals are out though, traffic was pretty intense. It normally takes me an hour to get home from just about any place in Louisville; tonight it took an hour and a half.

Political (and musical) funny

Have you seen this yet? It cracked me up:

What not to wear?

Homecoming is frightfully early this year, and spirit week began today. Mike was a vision in pink in my Hello Kitty pajamas and Annabelle's cat slippers for jammie day:

Windblown

Perhaps it's in poor taste to mention our windy day when people elsewhere are still mucking out after a hurricane, but for us, we had quite the blustery day. At one point when I checked the weather, we had 45 MPH winds.

Mike reported that a friend of his on the other side of the neighborhood had a tree down, so I had to go check that out:



The people up the road from them had a good chunk of tree fall as well:



I'm afraid that those shots make our own "damage" look pretty paltry:



Mike was having his first official driving lesson in the middle of this storm. He has driven a lot with me and with Fred, but we wanted to have him get some real training by somebody who knows what he's doing. When the teacher came to pick Mike up, I asked if maybe we should cancel because of the wind, but he said no, Mike needs to learn in all sorts of conditions anyway. That made sense, so they went on with it.

Mike reported back that it was definitely worthwhile. This fellow had him driving down around E'town where there were traffic lights out and tree limbs down all over the place. He said he did get a little nervous when the teacher whipped out his cell phone and started canceling the rest of his lessons for the day because "it's too dangerous to be on the road right now." But he lived through it and got some good experience, and I didn't get to share that experience, so everybody is happy. Now if we can order up torrential rains for his lesson next Sunday and maybe a blizzard and total solar eclipse for the following one, he'll have gotten to practice in just about every stressful driving condition imaginable before he goes to take his driving test in Florida in October!

Thwarted

I realized yesterday that I am in dire need of some new pants, and I found some I liked in an Eddie Bauer catalog. I don't know why I get the Eddie Bauer catalog, having never once ordered anything from there, and I don't know how their sizes tend to run. I thought about running right up to the EB store in Louisville to try some on--that's how excited I was--but decided to wait until today, since Annabelle had a bassoon lesson in Louisville this morning. I was really looking forward to going though!

So after bassoon this morning, Annabelle and I went to lunch and then drove straight to the mall. I headed straight for where EB is and . . . no EB. Gasp! Turns out they closed and will be reopening in a different location in October. I was so disappointed that I lost all of my shopping mojo and just couldn't get interested in looking anywhere else, so we just came home.

Color me red

I have been in the process of switching over verrrrrrrrry gradually from my AOL email address to my new, improved Gmail one. I think I might expedite the process from here on out though. I did a stupid thing today with a little help from AOL.

First, let me back up and explain that I am the membership chair this year for our International Group. That means that I keep our membership records in a handy dandy spreadsheet and send out mass emails (all BCC'ed so as to protect everybody's addresses) alerting members of club events. I've been doing email for almost 15 years now without doing anything too stupid, so I would appear to be perfect woman for the job, wouldn't I?

I am also a member of an unofficial group of moms from across the country (the "invisible friends" I occasionally refer to) who post together on an Internet message board. We met on AOL and jumped ship to World Crossing at some point and have recently moved to yet another Internet location, more secure than Dick Cheney's secret bunker, when World Crossing started going down the tubes. There's been a fair bit of off-board chatter via email about the permanent fate of the board, which was filling up my AOL inbox. One of the members pointed out that with Gmail, all emails are kept in one tidy thread, and I thought, "Wow, that's a good point." So I replied all to that message and included my Gmail address and sent off the sentiment that "AOL is really pissing me off right now. I could duct tape AOL and WC together and toss them both off a bridge." Can you tell where this is going?

For reasons known only to AOL, when I created the distribution list for the International Group, that became the first default autofill option when I type in my Gmail address. So naturally I sent that message not only to my invisible friends but also to 35 disinterested people who are probably wondering who this WC person is that I'm making death threats against. Gulp!!!

I've done damage control as best I can. I sent out a message to my invisible friends to please for the love of all that is holy don't reply all to any more of those emails. And I sent a quick email out to the club apologizing for the misdirection.

I HATE feeling stupid though! I go out of my way to avoid the stupid!! So this is really eating away at me. I'm sitting here watching my AOL inbox as the occasional "um, I don't think I was supposed to get this" message trickles in.

It's not the stupidest thing that anybody did today though:



And it's not like I'm running for vice president and had to have Charlie Gibson explain the Bush doctrine to me in front of millions of viewers last night, right?

Still I'm feeling rather sheepish right now. Bah!

(Thanks to Dawn for trying to cheer me up with that awesome dancing bear photo!)

A little night music

Annabelle had her second rehearsal with the youth orchestra tonight. I suppose I could drop her off and go do something (hang out at Barnes and Noble?) for that hour and 45 minutes, but I just love hearing what they're doing. I found a waiting room downstairs from where the wind instruments practice, and I can hear perfectly. Tonight they were sight reading some new stuff and it was really challenging. It was so cool to see her come out so pumped up and excited about the experience!

Quick hello

I had another busy day today and am actually in class right now (sh! don't tell on me). I'm checking in now to say hi, because when class ends at 9:30, I am going to hit the hay.

This is slower?

I have made a concerted effort to simplify my life this year with Fred being away and me doing the whole single-parenting thing. By and large it's working well, but then I occasionally get a day like today that just wears me out!

I was up and working by 6 this morning. It's my new thing and works out well assuming I get to bed early enough the night before. This way I can put in 2 hours before I get dressed and take the dog out at 8. Then I was back at work by 9 to get in a little more time before leaving for the first community club luncheon of the year.

After the luncheon, I met the swim boosters president at the credit union to open our bank account. I am the treasurer--I was never treasurer of anything before we moved here, but in 3 years I've put in one as treasurer of a PTO and 2 as treasurer for the band boosters. Now swim boosters . . . Never become the treasurer of anything because once you show people you can do that, you will always have a volunteer job.

Once we got the account opened (which took longer than you might think), I raced home to change and walk the dog. Then I had a little time to fritter away before leaving for the 4 o'clock PTO meeting.

After the PTO meeting, I came home and got Mike and took him down to Elizabethtown. The University of Kentucky was having a preview night and while he's not necessarily interested in UK, he's not necessarily NOT interested either. Either way, it was worth our time to go down there and see all the different areas of study that they offer. We grabbed a quick dinner at Steak-n-Shake afterwards, and now I'm home again, typing away on my laptop in bed. Once I get this posted, I'm going to turn out the light and either watch a little TV or read with my book light until about 10, so I can get a full 8 hours of sleep before I . . . get up at 6 tomorrow and start all over again.

Code pink

Remember the neighborhood feud I told you about that involved gratuitous gnoming and flamingoing? Well, I'm afraid things have escalated:

Kommunication

This might not come across as funny if you weren't there, but it cracked me up. Tonight we had blueberry muffins and fruit salad for supper. We were winding down, and there was some fruit salad and 2 muffins left. Annabelle offered the fruit to me, but I said I was getting full.

Just then Mike asked, "Hey, Annabelle, do you want to split those last 2 muffin?"

She said, "I think those are Mom's muffins," but I said they should go ahead, which they did.

Then Mike asked, "So, Annabelle, are you going to finish that fruit salad?"

She said, "No."

I said, "Wait a minute! You asked me if I wanted it. For me, do you want that is codespeak for 'cause if you don't, I'm going to eat it."

She said, "Well, for me it's codespeak for if you're going to eat that fruit salad, can I have one of your muffins?"

See? Not as funny all written out, but good for a laugh at the moment.

This and that

Annabelle and I spent the afternoon in E'town today. A friend of mine with a home-based business that features food was having an open house, so we went and sampled and bought some of our favorites. Then we headed for Kohls to look for some new stuff for Annabelle, which was one huge exercise in frustration. She tried on tons of stuff, and we came away with one lousy t-shirt. We finished off our afternoon at Walmart, which isn't exactly my most favorite place. Just another exciting day . . .

Multitasking

Well, somehow I managed to fritter away most of the morning, scratching one measly task off my to-do list (paying my tuition at the last possible moment). No working, no cleaning, no laundry . . . This afternoon, however, we managed to combine 2 trips to Louisville into one, taking care of both Mike's wisdom-teeth follow-up (looking good!) and Annabelle's bassoon lesson. Speaking of Annabelle and the bassoon, check out her blog post from yesterday regarding her new musical adventure!

Now I'm having a quiet evening at home, just me, the dog, and the computer. Mike is off at a football game, and Annabelle is at a friend's house watching What Not to Wear. I probably should go do some of the stuff I didn't do this morning, but I think I am just going to be a slug instead.

It's an honor just to be nominated

Yesterday afternoon Mike informed me that there was a chance his girlfriend would be at drill the weekend of homecoming and thus might not be able to go to the dance. "If that happens," he continued, "Scott and I have decided that we're going to take our moms and double-date." By yesterday evening, Brittany had worked it out so that she could attend drill the weekend before, so it's back to the punch and cookie table for me. Still, is that not just the sweetest thing ever?

Blissfully boring day

The highlight of my day was buying some mint-chocolate-chip ice cream at the commissary. All in all, that's not a bad highlight.

Buying back my garbage

I generally start thinking about my next knitting project well before I finish the current one, and this time around is no exception. I've been remembering a couple of sweaters in the past that I would like a re-do on--one that left with a failed relationship a la the sweater curse and one that out-paced my knitting skills at the time and only got half-finished before being unraveled and dispatched to Goodwill.

In an uncharacteristic fit of tidiness, I had years ago tossed out the magazines that contained both of these patterns. Today, however, you can find almost anything online (except Polish salt--still looking for that), and through a little persistence I was able to track down both patterns.

The first one was relatively easy. I remembered that it was from a Vogue Knitting magazine, and I was able to zero in on the date because I knew which guy got the sweater. It wasn't long before I had the fall/winter 1988 issue waiting for me in my mailbox:



The sweater is called Hearts of Aran. It's by Elizabeth Zimmerman and was a lot of fun to knit. It is knit in the round starting at the bottom, and the only finishing work to be done is grafting the underarm seams closed:



The second one presented more of a detective challenge. For one thing, I wrongly remembered it to be from Vogue Knitting as well. Then I had a flash of inspiration and realized it was a Pinguoin pattern magazine. I was also temporarily led astray because I recalled the sweater in the picture as black and red, but no, those were the colors I was using in my doomed creation. I eventually figured all this out and tracked down a copy of the magazine in Canada:



I'm still a little intimidated by this pattern, but a little excited at the same time:



I don't know which of these sweaters (if either--I have other ideas, too) will be my next project. I need to get through the current sweater, and I have hit a small snag (pardon the knitting pun). I'm halfway through the second sleeve, and I have decided that they are just too darn long. So they need to be shortened and my options are either to (1) open up where I cast on, rip out however many rows, and then bind off or (2) knit the second sleeve shorter and re-knit the first sleeve. It's not that big a deal, but it will require thinking, and I hate having to think while I knit.

Unless I'm thinking about my next project, that is . . .

End of the long weekend

Well, Fred is back "home" in Carlisle now. We had a great visit but one that was way too brief. This is the last time he'll be in Kentucky until Christmas. We will meet in Florida over fall break and in Alabama for Thanksgiving. I'll join him on his class trip to NYC the week before Thanksgiving, but this was it for him and Knox for a while.

Mike is recovering nicely. For some reason, the lower right side seems to be giving him more pain than any of the others. I still say this has been way easier than I had expected.

He spent part of the weekend working on a project for his AP English class. They had to make movie posters for books that they read over the summer--figure out who would play whom, who would direct, etc. He chose to do Angela's Ashes, which of course already IS a movie, but his dream cast featured Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet as the parents and Freddie Highmore and a young Rupert Grint as Frank and Malachy, Jr:



He found a really cool utility online for printing his poster. At Blockposters.com, you can upload an image file and then download a multi-paged PDF of that image, which you then piece together to create a really big poster. His wound up being 2 pages wide and just a little over 2 pages long.

Film fest

This afternoon, Fred and I watched To Kill a Mockingbird with Annabelle. Long-time readers might remember Mike's sincere distaste for that movie, so it will come as no surprise that he didn't join us. Now we're getting ready to watch a DVD that he picked out . . . Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay.

All's well

Mike's experience with his wisdom teeth has been about as good as one could hope. He's not eating much, but he said that had today been a school day, he would have been able to go. So far he has had only 2 doses of pain medication today, and both times he has taken 1 Percocet instead of the 2 he is allowed at one time.

It's nice having Fred home again. He and I spent this morning running errands. Then we all watched the film Angela's Ashes this afternoon. Then Fred and I went to a cookout with some friends. Just a nice, quiet Saturday . . .

Paging the Tooth Fairy

Mike had his wisdom teeth taken out today. It all went about as well as could be expected. By the time we got back to Knox from Louisville and got his prescription filled, the local anesthetic was starting to wear off, and he was hurting pretty bad. Two Percocets later though, and he was feeling much better. Ice has also helped a lot.

I don't think he looks terribly chipmunky:



Anybody wishing to see his teeth can click here. If, on the other hand, you would rather see a picture of a cute kitten wearing a sweater, click here.

Lady in waiting

Can you believe it has been well over a month since Fred took off for Pennsylvania? He's coming home tonight for his first visit, and we're all quite excited! His flight was supposed to come in a little before 9, and now it's looking like it'll be closer to 9:30.

Tomorrow we're kicking off the holiday weekend by taking Mike to have 4 impacted wisdom teeth removed. I'm afraid this won't be a very fun weekend for Mike.

Internet love affair

Have I told you lately how much I love Zappos? In case you've never shopped there before, here's how it works: You buy stuff from them, and they ship it to you for free. If you decide you don't want to keep something you bought, they pay for the return shipping and refund your money promptly. This month, for example, Zappos sent 3 pairs of Vans slip-on shoes to my house, but only 1 pair wound up joining the family.

I bought a baby present on Zappos the other day (who knew they had so much more than shoes?!). When it arrived on Monday, the UPS man dropped off 2 boxes. I wasn't too concerned, I do occasionally order stuff and forget all about it (sleep shopping?), but when I opened the second box yesterday, I found that it contained a backpack that should have gone to a woman out in Washington. So I called Zappos to explain the situation, and not only are they having the UPS man come back to my house today to pick up the box, but they also sent me a $25 coupon to say thanks. How nice is that?!

I think I will eventually apply the coupon to the purchase of some really nice boots (when I've set aside enough cash to pay the difference). I heart you, Zappos!