A quick T^4, because I need to be sleeeeeping!
~Khai made me a beautiful bead-and-pipecleaner bracelet today, and told me at dinner that I “sometimes make his lovely favorite flavors”.
~Dinner must have been good, because Max gave me a big kiss on the cheek before putting his dishes in the sink! I’m a lucky mama.
~We don’t have recycling pickup, so we drive our recyclables up to Denton. Max not only helped me put everything in the right receptacle, but was excited to do so. Both boys get into it, and often argue over who gets to put a piece of plastic in the recyle bin. Then they do a quick fist-pump and yell, “SUPER RECYLE TEAM!”
Linky-things:
Can’t Sleep 2 with Dave Foley
With Brendan Fraser on the webcam and Jason Falkner singing in the backyard. I love Jason Falkner. MeWow!
Sweep the Leg
With Johnny, the Cobra Kai boys AND Ralph Macchio. Wait, that was 20 years ago? Ouch.
Politico.com
It’s not too early to start thinking about the 2008 elections, I promise.
Lobster’s adventures with Lingo! It’s a good read.
Robert is even more infatuated with word games than I am. While I have wasted many (oh, so many) hours playing weboggle, he has been building his own games for years now. In fact, I only found out about Word Sandwich yesterday. Goodbye, productivity! Also pulling me away from dishes and laundry: five letter words dot com.
Lobster also has an awesome wife, Emily, and an adorable son…. hopefully Josh and I will get to meet Zachary soon. He will probably beat me at Scrabble before he’s three years old.
Josh is due home any minute now… I’m so ready to see him. It has been a rough week, and he gives the very best hug therapy. He probably needs a little hug therapy himself; I know he starts feeling rather isolated being away from home so much.
I know I can’t be the only one sitting at home on a Friday night, begging the internet for entertainment… so here’s some linkylove:
Netflix offers subscribers option of watching movies on PCs
mistakes, feelings and butts: things we dare not bare in public
Hungry for a Month: a month of meals on $30
a footbell-field-length machine that spits out thin sheets of photovoltaic material… and the man who invented it
Edge asks, “What are you optimistic about?”
I love so many of these responses… and I’ve not yet read them all. Notice that Brian Greene is at the top of the page… and that reminds me that PBS has The Elegant Universe, as produced by NOVA, available for free online (viewing only, no downloads).
And now, a glimpse of life at my house:
Khai is sitting at the kitchen table, looking pensive. Concerned, I ask if he’s all right.
His response? “Yeah, I just wish I could parachute out of windows. Like if our house was way up high in the sky and I could just parachute out of it.”
He’s going to be my thrill-seeker, and will probably leap from the roof before he’s ten.
Meanwhile, Max will be in the back yard concocting some sort of chemical potion to give him “incivility” — otherwise known as invincibility.
It’s not even ten yet, but the bed is calling me…
Three terrific things for this totally tremendous Thursday:
Sometime during the night, both boys ended up in my bed. We hit snooze like three times this morning because we were so warm and cozy that we didn’t want to get up. Happy-warm-snuggly-kids! It was all smiles and hugs– no better way to start the day.
Maybe two things in one… I enjoyed a wonderful cup of coffee while talking with my mom on the phone. She’s one of my most favorite people. It sounds so simple when I type it out… but yeah, it made me happy.
My husband, the computer wizard, has this amazing ability to just… make things work. I spent the entire day without the internet (I know! I barely survived!) because it just wouldn’t connect. I did all of the normal things we do when this happens, including power-cycling several things and running certain commands on the server. Nada. So finally, when he called this evening, he told me to log in as root and try two different commands… and TA-DAAA! It’s magic, I tell ya.
So yeah. I am online! And I can start on this list of a dozen things that I wanted to look up or find online today but couldn’t. Recipes, maps, articles to email, definitons and constellations (I love that Max asks me to Google things for him)… the internet is my brain extension.
SLEEEEPY! G’nite, internet. I missed you.
Reavers ate my government!
Reaver action figure:
Partially-eaten government:
My hubby is home! Yay!
I have chocolate martinis! Yay!
Too many exclamation points! Yay!!!
T^4 time again! Three terrific things from today, in no particular order:
I live in some sort of Twilight Zone town. My dry cleaner is so nice, and always makes me smile. The people at Starbucks go beyond the normal friendly smile, they actually strike up conversation. Every single person at my dentist’s office is awesome, from the receptionists to the hygienists to my dentist himself. Our town is small enough to give my kids the experience of being part of a community, but close enough to Dallas to let culture be a part of their lives as well. It makes me happy and I was reminded of this several times today.
The boys and I drove up to Sherman today to have dinner with my parents. To be able to do that– no special reason, just because! — is *wonderful*.
This one is actually a leftover from yesterday, but I’m still buzzed: I got a $180 prelit 7.5ft Christmas tree for $45. SCORE! Considering that I had to use pipe cleaners to affix a few branches to my old tree, it is definitely time for a new one. I still have to haul it up into the attic, but I figure it would be smart of me to wait until Josh is home before I go climbing up a ladder with a boxful of tree. (A brimful of asher on the forty-five? In my head, that’s the tune for “climbing up a ladder with a boxful of tree”. I’m not crazy, I’m special. Just smile and sing along. It’s a HAPPY SONG.)
While I’m on happy things, here are some things that I love:
Crabtree & Evelyn’s Gardeners Hand Therapy Cream
My previously dry-and-crackled hands are now soft! And not bleeding! They smell really, really good, too. My husband, out of love and out of fear that I might shrivel up into a tumbleweed, ordered several tubes of this for me to rehydrate myself. Or maybe he just wanted to make me smell pretty?
Red Russian Kale
I hadn’t tasted this kind of kale before, but found some (of the organic variety, no less!) yesterday at The Cupboard in Denton. Sooooo good! I hope they’ll have more– I think it’s a new favorite. I may have to grow my own.
Yoga!
Yoga class tomorrow morning…. YAAAY! I need it.
Sleep.
Mmm, sleep. I need some of that, too.
Today was a good day. The boys went back to school! I love them so dearly, and enjoy spending time with them… but when Josh is out of town it’s hard to keep their minds occupied while also keeping the house from falling to pieces. They don’t understand why I have to vacuum again, to wash more laundry, to take the trash out again. Why can’t I just play with them all day? I’m a much happier mama when Josh is here to help out with the parenting and the houseslave duties.
Anyway. School started again today; even just the two hours I had to myself were like a breath of fresh air. I got all of my errands run, shopping done, and even had a sugar-free cinnamon dulce latte… all before 10am. It was so easy!
I’ve been on a cleaning rampage. We just have too much stuff. I’m throwing some of it away, donating quite a lot, and giving away everything I can. Speaking of, I have like 27 of the Take Along Thomas die-cast trains and a sack full of the plastic tracks. Any takers? Max & Khai decided they could make due with their wooden trains and tracks up in the playroom. YAY! They’re going to Goodwill if nobody wants ‘em.
One of the things I aspire to be is the kind of person who makes things happen, rather than the type who just waits for life to happen to them. Some of my friends excel at this (yeah, you! you know who you are!) and it is something I not only admire, but also value the chance to see it up close. So, I’m working on figuring out what it is that I want to make happen– short-term and long-term. It seems like it shouldn’t be so tough to figure out what I want, but I guess I just keep changing. My goals before were all career-based, so I’m having to start from scratch. Do you have goals? What do you want to make happen in your life? What would make you happy?
I have millions of photos from the holidays to comb through and post… I need to get over this sick compulsion to color-correct, sharpen, crop, etc. each photo. It just takes so long that I end up moving it to the end of my list. And do you know how long that list is? Miles long. Thousands of miles long. When something gets moved to the end of the list, it might as well not exist at all. SO! I need to let it go.