nerd heaven

OMG rediscovering The Westing Game with my fifth-graders. I love the crap out of that book. I'm totally trying to convince myself that I could pass it off as part of this month's reading homework, too...I'll let you know how that goes.
p.s. Not to rat anybody out, but my mentor admitted to not liking Passage to India either. And he's like a real writer and stuff.

Why I don't do this

See? Now I'm all stressed out about all the things I didn't include on my list at 11:47 last night. So stressed out that I'm stopping in the middle of cooking to come update. Like my Mom. Obviously I'm super-grateful for my mom. Possibly even more than my dog, though Daisy never forwards me articles on what kind of plastic I should not be using and where to keep my toothbrush so it doesn't get contaminated with E. Coli by people flushing with the lid up (news flash, Mom, I live with four boys. We've singlehandedly contaminated our entire block with E. Coli, and that's before lunch on a slow day.) And the rest of my family, who are awesome, and my in-laws, who are awesome, and I never really want to kill my kids and if I did I certainly shouldn't be posting about it on the interweb. And having a warm, safe home and a car that runs better when crusted with mud and goldfish crumbs than when not, and my dear, wonderful friends, and SEE? I've launched off into one of those Hallmark posts that I said I wasn't going to do. You'd probably be better off going to the last post and checking out the porcupine. This blog stuff is way too damn difficult.

Happy Thanksgiving. I'm going to go saute something.

Thanksgiving Eve

     Okay, it's Thanksgiving Eve. So far, I have resisted the endless Facebook posts about what I'm grateful for (one thing a day, presumably starting with hubs and kids), and while I was initially proud of myself for not falling down that rabbit hole, I'm now starting to feel like a Thanksgiving Scrooge. You know what that means...all four of you readers get to be my Gratitudinous Sounding Board. I hear you moaning and groaning about how you just survived a damn month of Facebook posts about all the Precious Moments crap that everybody else is grateful for - and now her, too? Yes, me too. You don't have to read it, Scrooge.
Meanwhile, for the three of you who didn't just open a new tab to search for YouTube videos like this one, here we go.

1. My dog. Everybody thinks they have the best dog, but in my case it's empirically true.
2. Having finished The Grapes of Wrath AND Passage to India, and never having to read them again.
3.The possibility of seeing both my sisters and their offspring this winter.
4. My kids. Except for when I want to kill them. No, even when I want to kill them. They are pretty awesome. And sometimes provide me with opportunities to practice patience and understanding.
5. My husband. See above.
6. Chocolate
7. That I have a coworker who is as grammatically anal-retentive as I am, so we can be pariahs together. A rare thing anywhere, but particularly so in elementary education.
8. Being able to call it a night.

Okay, that was kind of weak - but in my defense, it's later than I thought. If you are feeling rather let down or unfulfilled, you should totally check out the YouTube link above. It's a porcupine eating pumpkins, better than which it does not get.

pro tip

When you are going through a personal crisis, The Grapes of Wrath might not be the most productive reading material.

Reason #21

The native hummingbird population needs to be kept under control.

Reason #20

That nest of clean laundry is not going to build itself.

Reason #19

Why Everyone Should Have a Cat

Because every time she turns her back, you keep getting lotion all over you, and somebody's gotta lick it off. I mean, seriously. If it weren't for her, you'd just be walking around covered in lotion all the time. What would people think?

T-minus five days to residency...not that I'm counting.

update

 Isaac is still using his powers for evil instead of good, but he's getting craftier, and therefore more socially acceptable, or at least less noticeable, in his evil plots. Example: when he was two, his idea of a good time was to walk into the middle of a crowd and shout "BUTTCRACK!!" at the top of his well-developed lungs. And, in fairness, I must say he always got a reaction. These days he prefers to hone his negotiation skills - how many peas does he have to eat to get the cookie, how many minutes can he play with Alec's prized whatever-it-is before Alec's head explodes, exactly who is going to wipe his butt after he poops. And he is not content to test each boundary only once, oh no. Yesterday's rules cannot be construed to have any bearing on today's situations, and just because he wiped his own butt yesterday is no reason to go and get all complacent.

the wonders of childhood

Isaac: "Mom! Mom! Come look!! My nectarine is just like a buttcrack!"

school's out

101: number of hours since I walked out of my classrooms for the summer

33: number of hours since houseguests departed

4: pounds of bacon cooked during their stay

182: number of days I desperately looked forward to summer vacation

1,007: number of times I refereed arguments between my children on our first day home alone together

vocabulary

Isaac (4): "Mom! Hey, Mom! I know a rhyming word!"

Mom: "Good for you, honey."

Isaac: "Guess what it is!"

Mom: "What?"

Isaac: "I know that ham rhymes with damn!"

Mom: "..."

Reason #18

Why Everyone Should Have a Cat

Because you know what would go great with that carpet? A shitload of freshly-ripped-out dove feathers!

Driveshaft Installed

Armageddon averted.

You're welcome.

Reason #17

Why Everyone Should Have a Cat

My cat's favorite thing to drink is water, but not just any water, and definitely not the water in any sort of a pet dish. The best water is the drippy water left in the tub after you shower. The second-best water is the water in the glass you just set down, and the best way to obtain this water is not even by just sticking her head in the glass, oh no. The best way is to stick her foot in it and then lick the water off of her foot and then repeat.
She's a cat. You and I both know where that foot has been.

party like it's 1999.

Reader, you may not have realized the delicate balance in which all of our lives currently hang.  So let me enlighten you. If the sun does not rise tomorrow and our planet implodes into a little puff of dust, it's because Ryan. Was not able. To install his driveshaft. In time.

I know it's a lot to process, so go ahead and take a minute to let it sink in.

What? You don't think the world will end if he doesn't get his rock-crawler working?

Oh. Well, that's an interesting theory, too. I guess we'll just see who's right.

April

I have officially failed as any kind of blogger whatsoever. We had our first family-wide trip to Chuck E Cheese's almost a month ago, and I have not managed to get a post out of it. Even though all my kids got sick immediately afterward. Even though my mom (my mom!) came along, more or less voluntarily.
I'll say it again, readers, my mom accompanied us to Chuck E Cheese's.

Kindergarten Lunch Duty

Mrs Murray, can you open this?
Mrs Murray, there's an orange on the floor!
Mrs Murray, Herman said booty!
Mrs Murray, Jose got ketchup on me!
Mrs Murray, can you open this?
Mrs Murray, when I was eating my apple slice it fell out of my hand and landed on the floor with the apple part down and now I think it has germs.
Mrs Murray, Maria said booty!
Mrs Murray, I spilled my applesauce and then I sat in it!
Mrs Murray, can you tie my shoe?
Mrs Murray, can you open this?
Mrs Murray, Kenyon is using language that is not appropriate for school.
Mrs Murray, Danny said hamburgers are stupid!
Mrs Murray, Isabelle is not supposed to be sitting there!
Mrs Murray, one time I had to get stitches on my wee-wee and then it hurt to pee!
Mrs Murray, Michael said wee-wee!

So I haven't conquered the world yet; I know my three readers are surprised to hear this.
I did clean out my linen closet, which is actually almost as exciting as world domination. I think that right there sums up what being thirtysomething is all about. That, and somebody I know texted my husband a picture of herself naked, and it made me giggle.

Today, a successful homemade cheese. Tomorrow...THE WORLD!!!!

still catching up

Well, the raw food cleanse is over, and the Girl Scout Cookie Whatever-the-Opposite-of-a-Cleanse is has begun. Crime and Punishment is over, and my mentor was so impressed with my analytical reading that I have Great Expectations and Jude the Obscure on my plate this month. Sigh.
My kids haven't mooned anyone lately (slow week), though Isaac got in trouble at daycare for throwing the legos in the fishtank. Birthday was awesome (and can I emphasize how much better 36 is than 26? Wow. Yay.), and I now have a cheese-making kit, which should lead to further entertaining blog posts soon. Right after I finish Great Expectations.

catching up

It has been brought to my attention by various relatives (the three of them that read this blog, and one who just discovered I have it) that I have been neglecting my blogging responsibilities. It's true, I have been falling short of even my very low twice-a-month standard. So, here's what's up with me. I am one day into a two-day raw food cleanse, which totally sucks and is making me cranky. For lunch, I had a smoothie with the texture of banana-flavored snot. I am about 300 pages into Crime and Punishment (actually similar in many ways to a raw food cleanse - plenty of fiber and unpleasantness in the name of virtuous sustenance), and I won't go so far as to say it totally sucks, but it is also making me cranky. The fact that I have two remaining days of winter break will be making me cranky as soon as I emerge from my back-to-school denial.

(so I started that two weeks ago, and am only just managing to get it posted. Maybe I should take up knitting. Or drinking.)