I’m so in love with this haircut, but not sure I could pull it off:

If my hair weren’t naturally curly it would be easier. Although I’m not entirely sure that really short hair would look right on me, anyway. It’s been years since it has been that short.

My yoga teacher couldn’t come to class this morning and the sub doesn’t do yoga. So instead? Toning and sculpting class. OUCH. Lots of hand weights, lunges, plies and the like. There were times that I wasn’t sure that I’d make it to the end of the class. But I did! And I will be hurting for the rest of the weekend. This probably means that I should be doing more of this kind of thing… so I’ll be adding the toning and sculpting class on Wednesday mornings to my schedule.

Off to bed! Tomorrow I am having dinner with a friend from college that I have not seen in nearly 11 years. We’re not quite sure how we lost track of each other, but it will be fun to catch up again.

Not really; I didn’t have any tea today. I did have two cups of coffee, though.

Look, I can stop time! With my trusty laptop keyboard! I can even reverse time with the secret edit timestamp checkbox… so now it’s 11:45 instead of 12:45. It’s a good thing I’m in a benevolent mood today… if all of this power were to go to my head, I’d be ruling the world in no time at all. But there would be cookies for everyone, and a global health care plan.

Three terrific things for this Thursday:

Just now, Josh brought email back to life! Tuesday’s thunderstorms were unkind to our server, and since Josh was stuck in Baton Rouge, I was without the internet. It was very lonely and scary. He fixed that once he arrived home late yesterday, though… and now my email works again, too. I can breathe easier already. Just kidding. Sort of. So, YAY for email and the internet and my husband!

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I wanted to do a collection at Max & Khai’s school so we could send some toys to Iraqi children. Well, today Josh and I mailed off about 70lbs worth of donations! The kids gave 100 stuffed animals, 30+ toys, and over 100 articles of clothing. It makes me so happy to see how excited the kids were to help other children.

One of my most favorite drawing books as a child was Mark Kistler’s Draw Squad. I recently found it on Amazon and Max has jumped headfirst into learning to draw. It has been fun going through it again… it’s been a few years.

Bonus item (counts for six million points): Tonight’s dinner was lasagna, made safe for consumption with almond cheese, Béchamel sauce instead of ricotta, and spelt noodles. It was pretty terrific.

Bonus item number two (worth only 235 points, but comes in six flavors): Mushaboom by Leslie Feist has been remixed like 30 times, and most of them are good. Josh is going to go crazy if he ever actually notices that I’ve been listening to it over and over. And over. And over. I tend to get obsessed with songs and play them incessantly. But it’s either that or sing it, and I’m not that good.

Last but not least: It was a beautiful day today– so nice, in fact, that I actually enjoyed mowing the lawn. That might be a first.

Now it’s time to regenerate. Unimatrix Zero. Be there or be square.

Today is a must-have-coffee type of day. Maybe it’s just the clouds, but I want to crawl back into bed. At least the dishes and laundry are done, though… next up is vacuuming and cleaning the bathroom. I’m so excited.

Now I am actually excited about the bubble-gum fix I just put in place to prevent the spammers from signing up by the dozens on a phpBB board that I run for my high school graduating class. Despite having new registration set to require admin approval, there were hundreds of attempted signups that I had to go delete by hand every couple of weeks… and it was getting old. So! A nifty wildcard now disallows all new usernames from registering. There is probably a better, faster, slicker and nerdier way to do it, but hey, it’s done and I’m happy.

Last night, for the first time ever, I made fish for dinner. I know, I know. Fish is just something I don’t care for– it’s the texture. I eat it occasionally because it’s good for me, but I don’t like it. Hey, I grew up in the desert! There’s no fresh fish there! So it’s not like I had it much growing up… and thus, I never learned to cook it. Well, I’m intimidated no longer. Josh bought some, and I baked it for dinner last night with some garlic, dill, basil and lime juice. The boys LOVED it and wanted seconds. Me? Eh. I ate it. At least I jumped over the hurdle; I’ll cook it again since Max & Khai like it. Oh, yeah, and it’s good for me. (I served the fish over herbed quinoa with a side of asparagus. Midway through the meal, Max yelled at the top of his lungs, “I LOVE ASPARAGUS!!!!” Khai responded in kind with, “I LOVE QUINOA!!!!” And that was that, back to eating. Such is life in this family.)

There were two cigars left in a ziploc on my back patio this weekend. Are they yours? Shall I keep them for you? Also, up for grabs are about a dozen prepackaged Twistee shots. Please, someone, come get them. We’ll never drink them but it seems such a shame to throw away good alcohol. Yes. This is what we do when our kids stay the night elsewhere. We also watch Ren & Stimpy late at night because we are responsible adults.

It feels like it’s 4am. Which means this will be quick and fast before I collapse into bed. What a crazy day!

Last night the directress of Max & Khai’s school called and asked if I could help out today. They were running short on teachers & assistants and had only three teachers to handle 42 kids. So of course I agreed to help out wherever I could. It was pretty intense. I love kids and fall into the ‘teacher’ role pretty easily… but I’m not sure I could do that full time! It’s a great reality check, though, and makes me all the more appreciative for how well-behaved my kids are. Have I mentioned how awesome they are? Completely, mind-numbingly awesome! I’m so very in love with these two boys.

A little boy at the school asked, “Miss Erica, can I kiss you?” Too cute– makes me smile even now. Several other kids kept calling me ‘Miss Max’s Mom’ or ‘Miss Khai’s Mom’. Heh!

We went to Josh’s sister’s house this afternoon to meet up with his aunt, cousin, and second cousin. It was good to see them, and little Nathan (almost 2 years old) absolutely lit up every time he saw Josh. It was adorable! Such a sweet kid.

Ok, just call this THE POST ALL ABOUT LITTLE KIDS.

There’s much to be done tomorrow… it will be a busy, busy day. I’m glad yoga class is early, as that’s a great way to start out. Now I must drag the sleeping-and-snoring Josh off the sofa and into bed. It sounds so easy, hmm?

Khai has been busy growing out of his clothes, and just like Max, he ends up with highwaters but his pants are still falling down because he’s so skinny. One of the tough things about growing is that the kids have to relearn their bodies; in doing that, they run into things and fall down a lot. A LOT. Evidence:

He has been resting his head on an ice pack while watching cartoons (Superfriends on Boomerang!), and has already scored some of the special wheat-free animal cookies because I’m such a sap.

Well, the update on the upstairs bathroom leak is that the plumber could not figure out where the water came from. So, we’re left to rip out drywall and flooring (woohoo!) ourselves; hopefully the leak’s origin will be apparent. Once that’s fixed, we will go about putting things back together, only the bathroom will be much prettier when we’re done.

It seems like I am once again trying to juggle sixtysevenmillioneleven things all at once. I get overzealous in my multitasking. I’m happier when I’m busy, though.

I did finally get the photos from St. Louis tossed into Gallery; it bothers me that they are not color corrected or anything, but hey! I got them uploaded! Easter photos are there, too.

Happy Birthday, MIKE!!!
Hugs & CAKE & hugs. May it be a fabulous year for you.

Yes, early today!

Thing One: While I’m very, very sad to hear of Kurt Vonnegut’s death, I am also grateful beyond words for his existence. I can’t wait til my kids are old enough to read his books, and if you haven’t read any of them, I wholeheartedly think you should.

Still and all, why bother? Here’s my answer. Many people need desperately to receive this message: I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.

He had such a simple eloquence. Also, the kind of cynical humor that I so dearly love.
(The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest.)

Thing Two: Upon returning home from several days in St. Louis, I discovered a water leak in our upstairs bathroom. Yay. This is when I really, really hate that Josh travels. The garage ceiling now boasts a *lovely* (and quite large) water stain. There is a plumber scheduled to come take a look at things between 1pm and 5pm today… finally! It has taken a lot of phone calls and buckets upon buckets of patience to get to this point. Let’s just hope the plumber actually shows up. The terrific part, though, the part I’m grateful for? That the giant water stain is on the garage ceiling rather than, say, the kitchen. Also? That this is a good excuse to remodel that bathroom since we’ll likely have to rip out and replace the subfloor. Ok, I’m really digging for that silver lining now.

Thing Three: Khai read a book to me for the first time yesterday! He got to bring home a Bob Book (a book comprised of three-letter words) and was so excited to read it for me. I’m so proud of him, and it’s wonderful to see him beam like that. Hopefully I’ll get a video of it later this afternoon — Josh is still in St. Louis and I want him to be able to see, too. Ooh, just found a link to the exact book: Mat.

I need to post a thousand or so photos and write about the boys’ first airplane trip. They did so well!

Happy Thursday, all.