I've moved

If anyone still stops by here to check on me, I have moved. You can now read me at dishesaredirty.com. Thanks.

Ten

Happy Birthday Leo

Hello, My Friend. Hello.

Oh, hai! I am alive, and finally crawling out from under my rock to tell you all that I'm taking a hiatus from blobbing. As if you didn't know. Sheesh.

I am fine. The kids are fine. Chris is fine. The zoo of animals we have in the house are all fine(except for Luke the goldfish. Dead. And Luigi the hermit crab. Dead.) and stinking up the place very nicely.

Last fall I found out that all my in-laws, immediate and extended, were also writing blogs on blogger. Shocking, I know. They finally found the Internet, and the joy of personal publishing. Welcome to the new millennium. Their blogs were mostly about crafting, and their kids, and their new home business, and how much they love the Mormon church. And when I found this out, my brain, my voice, my desire to write, all went dead. I don't have a good reason why. Maybe I felt like I had said all I had to say, that I had already put out there everything I needed to, and I could take a break. Mostly I think I felt like George in that one Seinfeld episode where he's talking to his mom about dating. She had split from George's dad, and was talking about how she was 'out there' looking for someone else. And George says something like, You are not out there because I am out there and if I see you out there, there isn't enough voltage in the universe to electroshock me back into coherence. Yep, that's how I felt.

So anyway, I'm finally getting around to saying goodbye, if there are any of you that still stop by to check on me. I may some day find my voice again. But for now I'm enjoying the silence.

Understanding different relationship models

Sunny and her friend are playing with an old doll house. Being the little girls that they are, their world revolves around little furry creatures, so the tenants of this doll house are not a happy Mother, Father, and four small children with smiles permanently affixed to their plastic faces. No. Those figures have been tossed aside, and the house is owned by to small plastic dogs.

Sunny's dog is a boy, and the friends dog is a girl. The friend is very anxious for the two dogs to be married and not living in plastic sin.

Sunny very wisely states: "Gosh NO! They are NOT married. They love each other and they just connect really well. But they aren't married."

Reasons I Love Ikea

Tongs

Lantern

Glass Jars

Posable Wooden Person

Pedant in the making

Badger has just spent about an hour creating a small world out of cardboard and clay. He jumps up and down, like a jack rabbit on speed, and shouts for Leo to hurry over and bare witness to the awesomeness of his creation.

"See, this is the hot dog stand, and this is the tree, and these are the two moons in the sky! This is totally our island!"

Badger has pronounced the word 'our' like the letter R. This has obviously confused Leo, and he asks Badger to explain what an "R island" is exactly.

"You know, it's yours and mine."

"Oh, you mean OUR...you need to say it like ou-er. Ou-er."

"Yeah, whatever."

Winning Her Over

one day at a time.

Fall in the Rockies

can be so unpredictable.

11.8.07

It is once again off track time here in our little corner of suburbia. As I've mentioned before my kids go to a school that is on a year round schedule. A school that once, all the way back in '05, held the proud distinction of being the most populated elementary school in the state of Utah. Go Mormons, and their love for multiplying and creating urban sprawl. Not that I have any room to talk, because I'm contributing to the sprawl just as much as the faithful church goers. I'm trying to do my part to limit the multiplying though. Even though I have three kids, which in some places constitutes a large family, here in Utah you aren't being a good Mormon if you don't have at least four. Because naturally every child you have over three multiplies your blessings by like a million. And naturally Jesus can shove my extra blessings up his ass.

We are thankfully nearing the end of our three week break, with all it's ups and downs. Sunny and Leo have been living life to the fullest, planted firmly on the couch in front of the video game du jour. Every suggestion I've made for an outing is met with disdain, because there is no XBox 360 at the Utah Children's Museum! And I don't have the energy to force them to be well rounded and interesting people. Let them be lumps because they will fit right in with all their suburban contemporaries. And one day they will resent the fact that I never took them anywhere.

My one hope is Badger, who has spent his off track time doing art projects. He has gone through an entire pack of nice white printer paper, drawing, cutting and endlessly taping. He tore through 3 packs of post-it notes, drawing a picture of a future occupation on each one. He has made at least 10 full sized paper people. He won't stop and he won't allow any of his creations to be discarded. It's as annoying as it is endearing. But a least it isn't video games.

Black Thumb

Remember this shrub? The one of which I was so proud? The one that was alive in spite of my total gardening ignorance? That shrub?

This is what it looks like today:



It's dead as dead can be.