1-2-3 strikes, yer out!

No, this is not some sort of metaphor for my job. Today was opening day for the Baltimore Orioles, and they played at home. An added bonus? At the ripe old age of 4, Evan attended not only his first Orioles game, but also his first Opening Day. Side note: I did not attend my first opening day until I was TWENTY-four.

O's lost and the weather was dreary, but it was a great time all around. Evan asked about a thousand questions, but refused to sit next to my brother who would have known all the answers. He fulfilled his wish to eat a hot dog with mustard, and proceeded to eat every last crumb of a jumbo dog which was about as big as his arm. And french fries. And a couple of bites of chicken before he finally said his tummy was hurting.

Beth took some cute pictures, now included.





We took the light rail to the game, which was a riot. Made some new friends as my uncle was looking at his Blackberry (note to self, always keep your phone in your pocket!). Actually had a kid offer 50 cents if he could use a cell phone to make a call. Saw a lady running around a parking lot after the game 'holding' herself until she finally dropped her pants behind a car to take care of business. Too bad all the passengers of the train had a prime view of her bare butt as she was doing this.

Good times :-)

Boys will be boys

I had a few girlfriends over this evening, and one brought along her 4yo boy so he and Evan could play together. And play they did, at quite a loud volume, but they got along well which is the more important part. Ethan showed his face once to say hello and then again when the pizza was ready--to grab a few movies and then hide out in our room. So after the play/pizza time ended, I come upstairs to put Evan to bed and find Ethan...

watching 'The Incredibles"

But hanging out with a couple of four year old boys was too much for him.

Reason #4792 I am happy to be getting a new kitchen

Hopefully, they will be able to seal the kitchen so tight that our springtime friends, the ants, will go away and stay away. They showed up in our bathroom a few weeks ago, and I thought maybe the kitchen would be spared this year. But no, apparently there were having a sweet picnic on the mudslide residue in the glass I left on the counter last night.

I am aware that sealing the kitchen may not get rid of the ant problem, which is why this is reason #4792 and not reason #17. Reason #17 is so I can fit Costco-sized pizzas in the new, wide, french door style refrigerator that we will be getting.

My son, the bad guy

It's so rare that I'm actually sitting at the computer when some entertaining conversation is taking place between the boys in my family. Today must be my lucky day. Evan is coloring in his Batman coloring book and asking 14 billion questions, mostly directed at Ethan (at least Ethan is the one answering him). This caught my attention though...

Evan: I have never been in jail. One time, when I was a bad guy, they didn't catch me because I ran so super fast.

Ethan: Why were you a bad guy?

Evan: Whatever. One time I was a bad guy.

Hey! Yay!

Eric has taken to using the word "hey!" lately, and generally in random situations. Playing with Evan, playing by himself, sitting at the dinner table, suddenly he just goes "hey!" And at least one person asks him what's going on and he looks at you as though you're crazy. Because clearly the "hey" is not directed at anyone.

This morning I took him to Costco with me so I did not have to listen to Evan ask "is it time to go to soccer" seventeen thousand times. Eric's a good shopping companion, if you can get past the fact that he will make a mess out of whatever snack you give him. Otherwise, we wandered the aisles of Costco singing ABCs, Baa-baa Black Sheep, counting to ten, and other such nonsense. We were almost done and I said "okay Eric, we just need to get the mangoes"

"Mangoes. Yay!"

And he proceeded to repeat this as we went through the checkout, while we got gas, and then the whole way home.

Mangoes. Yay!

Soccer moms

I was picking the boys up from daycare today, and ran into another mom picking up her kids (the mom I have mentioned before). Her son is in Evan's class and daughter is in Eric's glass (and both of my boys seem to have a crush on her which is so cute). Anyway, the older boys were wound up as can be and running around like crazy and generally not listening when the other mom yelled (at her son):

"You need to listen or there will be no soccer tomorrow!"

Both our kids froze as though you just said Santa Claus wouldn't be coming for Christmas, and another mom (with a son in Evan's class) stopped in her tracks as well.

Apparently, all our children are signed up to start soccer tomorrow, and so I feel I have achieved the status of 'Soccer Mom.'

Go me.

Cold, cold, go away

I'm hoping my blogging skills return after this allergy cold thing disappears. I actually stayed home today, hoping a day in bed watching ER and Law & Order re-runs would nurse me back to health, but I think it will be another Robitussen night. I did make dinner though (homemade chicken nuggets), after which Evan declared he likes the dinosaur chicken nuggets better because they don't have any black spots on them. Ah well, the rest of us like them better and Evan still eats them!!

Taking Control!

I am really just not enjoying my new job...I feel as though I have no control over ANYTHING, which is a control freak's worst nightmare. So today, I decided to take control. I'm not sure I made any progress as far as work goes, but at least I feel like I have a grip on things, if only with my pinky finger :-) And because I'm sure you're dying to know how I managed to turn my mood around, here you go:

• Brought in a whiteboard and made it all shiny and clean and promptly listed all the things I'm trying to get done on it. Big, small, whether I'm the hold-up or someone else, up on the board it went.
• Cleaned all the crap out of my office.
  
• Emptied the 2 ginormous computer boxes and found out where to put them.
  
• Disposed off all the extra office supplies the previous guy left behind...the extra stapler, tape dispenser, binders, notepads. I don't like other people's crap!!
  
• Removed all the miscellaneous computer pieces the last guy left behind and actually made someone else happy because I had an extra docking station/keyboard and one of my co-workers had neither.
• Stole--err--found a chair in an empty cube so on the rare occasion that someone comes to talk to me, I have a place for them to sit.
• Started sending emails based on my 'problem list' so that at least I know I'm doing everything I can to get things moving.

So it still wasn't a great day, but at least I've got my head (back) in the game. Oh, and the HR people straightened out the vacation problem, but in a weird way. As in, they had to involve the legal department. So deep down, I'm feeling pretty good about standing my ground and getting what I deserve ;-)

Too early for puberty--right?

Evan is being a teenage category beast today. I picked him up from daycare and he announced he wasn't going to wear his jacket. Umm--yes you are, it's chilly out there! He looked me dead in the eye and insisted in a flat voice that he did NOT need his jacket, and some of his friends didn't wear jacket today, so he didn't need one either. Oh boy. Then I had to circle around the table multiple times to catch him, doing my best to stay in a daycare appropriate tone of voice. Then I had to pretty much drag him to go get Eric, and he cried the whole way. Good times.

Dinner was surprisingly uneventful, and he even asked for seconds of the salmon (????). Then the stern looks and mean voice started again as he insisted he SHOULD get a treat and did NOT need to take a shower and could color TWO more pages in the coloring book.

Is this a preview of what he'll be like as a teenager?

Brilliant!

I bought a new wallet on Saturday and immediately transferred all of the contents of my old one to the new one. Since I'm not one to get attached to wallets, I threw the old one away. And today I realized I had not taken the cash out of it. Sigh.

Luckily, the trash was still in the kitchen and I didn't have to dig through very cold trash in the dark (or fight the raccoons for it). The wallet was at the very bottom, but I saw it through the bag and did not have to dig through an entire bag of trash to find it. Well worth the $30 I got back.

Until next year, Easter Bunny!

Easter is over.

Amen.

Our children have consumed more chocolate today than they have in the past 3 months. I'd even go so far as to say Eric consumed more chocolate today than he has in his entire life. I was not expecting him to have the coordination to pop eggs open without spilling anything, so imagine the surprise when I see him at the kitchen table surrounded by open eggs and M&M colors drooling down his shirt. And as soon as he saw me, he immediately downed the rest of the contents of the egg and his little hands were shaking from the sugar rush. We did manage to survive though, thanks to a lot of noisy races with the shake and go race cars and a second egg hunt with family in the afternoon (and more chocolate consumption). My only dilemma is how do I return some of these baskets/eggs to the Easter Bunny so he can re-use them next year?

The full run of pictures is on our Snapfish site (email me for the link if you need it), and here's a few favorites from the day.

The Easter Bunny Quarterback

A walk with Dad

Still not really in a blogging mood...

So we'll go back to a photo. Poor Eric is dealing with the woes of his 2 yr molars coming in and spends a lot of time looking pitiful and drooling gallons of saliva (not exaggerating--he snuggled with me for 20 minutes the other night and soaked both shoulders of my shirt--eww).

But he's still pretty cute...

Hello, TV

It's March Madness, which means there's plenty of TV to watch. And even better? Real TV is back!! Two and a Half Men was a new episode this past week!! Smell the Grey's Anatomy...

Oh crap, what have I done

This is the stage I have reached in my new job...I'm sure my prior co-workers will chant and cheer and think to themselves "Woo hoo! She's going to come back!" I have a number of reasons that says I won't do that for another 2 months, but if things don't improve in 2 months? You never know.

• I am the project manager of THE problem project. The red-headed bastard stepchild of a project.
• I have a guy who works for me who has actually rolled his eyes at me. It wasn't my best joke, but it wasn't THAT bad.
• This same guy? Doesn't actually do any work, which means I spend all day circling him like a vulture trying to get him to do things.
• Because the eye-roller doesn't do anything, I have another guy who can't get his regular job done and therefore looks at me as though I'm the devil and every time he comes to see me I pray that he isn't going to hand me a resignation letter.
  
• Did I mention I manage the problem project? So people way higher up the food chain from me want updates on issues every time I turn around? Hello...if you left me alone I might actually be able to solve something...
• Somewhere between my staffing agency guy and the company recruiter, they screwed up how much vacation I'm supposed to get. And not in a good way. And the recruiters wonder why the company uses a staffing agency.

What have I done?

How we make decisions

Ethan and I have a very scientific method of making decisions...basically one of us keeps making similar suggestions and then throws out something so horribly bad that the other person has to agree with one of the previous suggestions.

Examples (breaking point in all caps):

Evan's name - Eamon, Ethan Jr, Erisson, Eric, Evan, ERLICH

Eric's name - Ethan Jr, Elijah, Edward Tyson (to be called Tyson), Eric, EVANDER TYSON

Kitchen paint color - Arabian Red, Ripe Currant, Pottery Red, WARM TERRA COTTA (the color our living was for about 5 minutes until Ethan announced he didn't like the color--as I was finishing up the final coat of paint on the last wall)

Eric's birthday present - this, this, this, and THIS

Springtime Rhyming

Evan came home today insisting that, on Saturday, we don't need to wear jackets because it will be spring. I'm not sure Mother Nature agrees with that, so we may have to stay inside all day Saturday just to make sure Evan doesn't have to wear a jacket. And because he doesn't need to wear a jacket? He wants to wear his backpack instead.

When he picked out his books at bedtime, he chose a prayer book and 'The Polar Express.' I guess the thought of spring has already left his head. He also asked that I put lotion on his chapped little hands. Such a confusing child.

While putting on his pajamas, Evan passed gas and did his usual "excuse me,--Mommy, I passed gas." In case you didn't actually hear the passing, he still wants you to know it has happened. I give up trying to explain to him that he doesn't have to tell people that he has burped/passed gas and I figure he has a few more years until it stops being quite as cute and funny. Then he proceeded to tell me how 'pass' and 'gas' rhyme, just like 'duck' and 'truck' and some other examples I can't remember.

So he's a little gas machine, but at least he knows how to rhyme. That has to count for something, right?

Nobody?

Not one comment on the chicken with a potato for a head...have I finally lost all my readers?

An adventure-less day except for the fact that a couple of us went to a Turkish restaurant for lunch and while I didn't really eat all that much, I ate so much that even the though of dinner made me feel slightly ill. The boys were quite heartbroken that they were forced to eat leftover pizza (all off it!) and then treats from 'the leprechauns.' And I would have taken a picture of them in their green attire, but apparently Eric could not keep his shirt clean because he was wearing a blue one by the time I picked him up. Bummer.

Click. Beep.

There's that unmistakable 'click' that you hear when the electricity goes out. I heard it early this morning, and then saw the portable light go on that only turns on when you take it off the charger (or the power goes out). Nooooooo...

It actually worked out okay. When Evan woke up, I was able to convince him that it was still 'night' (since he couldn't see the clock) and he went back to sleep until just after 8 AM. Ethan decided to take the boys out for pancakes and, on the way down the stairs, there was the familiar beep of the oven as the power came back on. So Sunday morning pancakes commenced, but I skipped out to save room for brunch with 2 girls I used to work with. Yum...I think we had 3 plates a piece and tasted ever dessert they offered.

Wrapped up the afternoon with a playdate for both kids (brother in Evan's class, sister in Eric's class) with the mom I wasn't too sure how I would survive a couple of hours with. Ended up going very well, kids had a great time and were amazingly well-behaved (a few threats, but no actual time-outs/tantrums), and I even enjoyed myself too. So yes, all that yipping and worrying for nothing.

And this week I'm flying solo at work because my boss is on vacation--yikes!!

Happy Saturday!

Evan has adapted to DST very well...he's back to waking up pre-7 AM. And today, made enough racket to wake Eric up, at which point he stood outside Eric's door and 'stage whispered' that Eric was talking and awake. Well, duh, of course he is after you just made all that noise!!

Needless to say, it was an early morning, but it ended up not being too bad. Eric was in the best mood when he got up, we made some Cinnabons, and then headed to the kitchen store to make sure we liked the cabinets the kitchen lady picked out for us. We did. And this afternoon, I had a little girl time out with a couple of friends for lunch and wine tasting at a local wine shop. Fun time all around and I was able to re-stock the wine fridge a little.

Ethan decided to try beer can chicken, which left Evan totally confused as to why the chicken had a potato for a head, but the results were good. And I don't know why my kid thought he needed to wear a sweater when it had to be close to 70 degrees today, but there he is.


And did I mention Eric was in a great mood and was being absolutely adorable? Until dinnertime at least, but we won't talk about that ;-)

Here comes Peter Cottontail...

I think the Toys R Us commercial where all the bunnies are singing is my favorite part of Easter. I mean, how can you not laugh at the sound of a bunch of bunnies sounding like they've been sucking on helium balloons?

Lydia mentioned Easter in her blog the other day, which reminded to blog about Easter. In case I don't have enough other things to blog about. Our children get as many Easter treats as they do Christmas presents, I kid you not. I thought I had a picture from last year, but I can't seem to find it now...the baskets/goodies covered our entire dining room table and that was before they started dismantling them. We have a lot of Easter Bunnies visit us. And a bag of M&Ms would be more than enough candy to get our kids through an entire year, so thankfully the Easter Bunnies bring limited amounts of candy and the candy they do bring is usually good stuff that Ethan and I will enjoy as well.

This years Easter baskets (from our local bunny) will include: books that have been hiding in my closet for a couple of months, a new Jungle Book DVD for Evan since the DVD player ate our original one, a shake and go race car for Eric that shook and went in the box when delivered from Amazon causing all sorts of curiosity by the little boys in my house, some bubble blowers that are actually extra party favors from one of their past birthday parties that I just found in a closet, as well as a few token pieces of candy because you have to have SOME candy in your Easter basket even if end up eating it ;-)

Who knew the Easter Bunny could fill 2 baskets just from rummaging around our house?

Works every time

Evan insists on sleeping with a 'warm cozy blanket,' better know to the rest of us as a fleece blanket. It's getting to the time of year when I have to find an excuse to take it away, otherwise he will roast to death at night, but in the meantime, if you try to say one is dirty, he happily reminds me that he has more. Yet whenever I'm cold, I can't find a blanket to save my life.

Anyway. Sometimes Evan is not the most cooperative kid at bedtime (shocker) and will kick his feet in the air or sit up or something while I try to put the blankets on him at night and I warn him "lay still or I'll take the blanket away." This also comes in handy when he is jumping in and out of bed like a jumping bean to say "stay in bed or I"ll take the blanket away."

Last night? As I make my usual threat (which I haven't had to carry out in a looooong time), he says to me "Mom, why do you always say that?" Hmmm...hopefully he's not on to me!!

Frozen to table in six minutes!! Awesome!!

After reading Kelly's great experience with the Ziploc Zip'nSteam bags, I had to try for myself. I figured this might be a way NOT to live out of fast food containers when we are kitchen-less. The bags? Are AWESOME. AWESOME!!

I had some frozen tilapia (and hubby complains we don't eat enough fish), so I figured I would put these things to the full test--you don't even have to defrost the meat!! Awesome!! I have a tilapia recipe that we've already used and enjoyed (on the stove), so I modified it slightly and just threw all the stuff in the bag with the fish (sliced olives, grape tomatoes, salt and pepper). Six minutes later (after being convinced the bag was going to blow up in the microwave), we had perfectly cooked tilapia. I slid it onto a plate, squeezed a little lemon juice and sprinkled some grated parmesan on top, and you never would have guessed that meal was cooked in a plastic bag in the microwave in 6 minutes. Evan cleaned his plate and even earned a little whipped cream on top of his cantaloupe, he was so good about it.

I did make some pasta on the side, which took longer than 6 minutes, but still...did I mention how AWESOME the fish was?? And the only dishes to wash were the ones we ate off of?

Picture pages

Evan with his 'prizes' from the fire department pancake breakfast

Eric relaxing in his chair

Things that go beep in the night

I woke up at some very dark hour to find the house freezing, my husband missing, the lights on downstairs, and a random 'beep.' After realizing it was 5 AM, I just thought Ethan decided to get up and go swimming and ignored the noise. Then there was a crash, and another beep, so I called down to see if Ethan was okay.

"The alarm is wigging out."

Still convinced I don't need to get out of bed into the bitter cold, I figure as long as he's not running around with a flashlight and a baseball bat, then there's no reason for me to worry.

Until Evan comes in, looking for one of his stuffed animals. I get out of bed, Evan heads to the bathroom, I find the stuffed animal, and the random single beep turns into a long series of beeps. By some miracle, I convince Evan it's okay and that he can go back to sleep (with a little help from his CD player). I go downstairs to find our pantry taken apart and Ethan ripping at wires. The beeping stops.

In a nutshell, our old house alarm, which has been disconnected since we went with a different company however many years ago, has suddenly come back to life. And because it's hard wired into the electricity and has some sort of battery backup, and another nine lives, it did not want to die. But Ethan finally killed it, and I dozed until it was really time to get up.

And now? As I type this? I just heard a random beep.

**Update: the random beep last night was the battery in Ethan's pager dying. Whew!! And yes, he's sure that's not what was causing all the beeping the night before.**

Quite the story...

All I can muster after read this is "awwww" in a mixture of feeling sad for the poor girl going through ordeal and thankfulness to the TEN wonderful firemen that helped her through it. Doesn't hurt that it's a somewhat local event and I could totally see one of my kids doing this :-)

Kitchen progress---oooh

The kitchen lady sent the design for our kitchen today--yay! And the prices of the cabinets, which really weren't too horrible--double yay!! We need to go to the showroom do check out the color suggestions, but at least it's a little progress! The thought of having a dishwasher that actually washed the dishes, an oven that cooks food in the amount of time suggested by the recipe, and a working ice/water dispenser make me so happy...

Random trivia from today's training...do you know why a punch card is the size that it is? Answer to come later so my dad has a chance to show his age--err, brains ;-)

Training

I've been in an eye-gouging training class all day, and will be there for 2 more days, yet still need to get all my work stuff done. So not a lot of time for blogging. But I have learned that, if your boss asks you to take a newly approved class, say no and run far away. When you get the notification saying you need to be there from 8-6 for 3 straight days--delete the message and pretend you never saw it. When you show up to the class and people know your name even though you've only worked there for 2 weeks--run far away (and realize you will be the only female in the class).

You get the idea.

Anchorman

I think Eric is going to do well in college. Maybe not academically (ok, that sounds mean, but keep reading), but he is going to thrive in the fraternity/drinking games area.

He chugs liquids like there will be no more. I think he peed through 2 diapers today, and every time we put a cup in front of him without a lid, he emptied it (into his mouth) before putting it on the table.

The kid has a taste for beer. It's not like we're sitting around having keg parties with our kids, but Ethan and I both enjoy the icy cold bottle of beer from time to time. When Evan was a baby, he loved to gum on the bottles when he was teething. I opened a Sam Adams open night and Eric looked at it longingly with drool dripping off his chin, so I held the bottle up to his mouth, expecting him to wrap his gums around the cold glass.

Instead, he grabbed it with both hands, pulled it out of my hands, tipped it back and had 2 gulps before I realized the beer was out of my grasp. And now? When he sees me getting a beer, he follows me around saying "Mommy beer?" and I have to put the thing way back on the counter so he can't grab it and indulge.

And I thought it was bad when Evan would just backwash a lot of drool into my beer.

Sunday breakfast in a houseful of boys.

It has become somewhat of a tradition in our house for Ethan to get up on Sunday mornings and make a pancake breakfast for everyone. It very quickly evolved into chocolate chip pancakes with Cool Whip for Ethan, whipped cream for me, and all of the above plus chocolate syrup for Evan. Eric bypasses the pancake completely and just easts the whipped cream and chocolate syrup.

We suffered through about a year of Ethan making them on a griddle that sat on top of the grill when pancake-making took the better part of an hour. There were many batches scraped into the trash because the griddle was too hot, the wind was complicating things, not enough grease, etc. Sunday breakfast became a painful ordeal of Evan and I standing at the sliding glass door with our noses pressed to the glass, wondering when the food would be ready. Thankfully, pre-Christmas 2 years ago, Ethan sent me a link and I swear to you it's the only time I bought something purely on the title. I didn't read the reviews, look for a better price, or anything, I was so excited at the idea of cooking pancakes inside the house. It proved it's value in the first weekend when pancakes were prepared, cooked, and served in the time it took me to set the table.

So, breakfast this morning. Evan wakes up at his normal time despite going to bed 2 hours late, except it's really an hour later because of the whole spring forward thing. After an hour or so of TV and playing "quietly" in his room (aka crashing his race car into the wall before I confiscated it), Ethan got up to make pancakes and I went to get Eric.

Side note #1: Contrary to other people's opinions, I am not a morning person. I do get up early and like to get to work on the early side, but I do that so I don't actually have to be social for the first hour of the day.

Side note #2: I am supposed to get to sleep in on Sundays. However, Ethan doesn't usually get out of bed until a child has been making a racket for at least 45 minutes and he insists on making pancakes as soon as he rolls out of bed. Neither of these scenarios is good for sleeping in.

Back to the story. Eric and I come down and Evan and Ethan are making pancakes. Ethan asks me to find a recipe to make some sort of banana topping to put on top of the pancakes. Yeah. I did an obligatory google search and told him to figure it out for next week. We sit at the table and get everyone's pancakes the way they want them (and then give Eric cereal, after which he promptly points to the chocolate syrup--uh, no). Then someone who really should know better lets off a little gas. This is my morning.

Bring on the spring!!

Ok, Mother Nature is in her indecisive mood, which is clearly why she is a she. I think the only thing I haven't seen today is snow...rain, sunshine, 60 degrees, and now fierce wind and 20. Please, can we just make the transition to spring?

Is it just me, or do other people suddenly start to dislike their wardrobe at the end of a season? I have the same sweaters/pants that I've been wearing since October/November and suddenly I look in the closet and cannot come up with an outfit to wear to work. Instead I want to wear all the short sleeve brightly colored items hanging on the other rack, but know I will freeze my tail off and end up wearing my coat all day if I give in to the urge.

The winter blahs are in full swing.

Grrr...

My husband likes to send me all sorts of things on email, the weirdest one being this, but another link leads me to a new blog that I've added to my Google Reader. A random collection of parent blogs, some funny, some informative, but today? This blew me away. And now I must get on a parenting rant for a minute.

When I go to the store (Target, Giant, etc.), I always always ALWAYS put my children in the car before I put the groceries in. Whether it's Evan walking beside me or Eric sitting in a cart. I've seen too many carts roll away in the 2 seconds it takes to load a bag into the trunk and I myself have made the mistake of backing into another vehicle and know how hard it is to see a small child, especially in a big vehicle. When I am done loading my groceries, I lock the car and return the cart to the nearest return spot---usually close, because I try to park close, but sometimes luck is not on your side and you end up 20 feet away or a row over. So, if I lived in Illinois, essentially I could be arrested for doing this--am I reading that right? Seriously. I appreciate the law and the fact that it's trying to protect the too many children that have suffocated in a car in the middle of summer, but this seems to be a little much.

And the kicker is that in the process of arresting the woman, the police left the 3 children she was caring for alone at the Wal-mart...that just...well...you know what.

Useless uses for somewhat useless utilities

I still love my truck (although it needs a bath and a first oil change). The one feature I really really really wanted was the ability to use a remote to put the liftgate up and down. To get that one teeny tiny feature, you have to get like 17 other things. Like a backup camera. And leather heated seats. Woe is me.

I had already discovered a 'bonus' use for the backup camera...when I pull through a parking spot in the garage (old work) or the grocery store? I use the camera to make sure I'm actually over the line and not bing one of those inconsiderate you-know-what that hogs up 2 parking spaces.

And today, I discovered a bonus use for the passenger side seat warmer. I can't wait to tell my mother (she thought the backup camera to help park was a great idea). Are you ready? You're about to witness some real ingenuity here.: it keeps my lunch warm if I'm bringing carryout back to my office.

Shush. It works. I didn't have to eat cold pizza. And if you have heated seats, you really need to stop laughing because you know you're going to start doing this too!!

Last time...

I am once again moving files off of computer. Mine is too wobbly and Dell has oh so kindly extended their 21 day return policy (after I reminded them I requested an exchange less than 14 days after my date of purchase), so I need to clean off my 6 GB worth of photos AGAIN. Then I have to share a computer with Ethan until he decides what computer he is going to get (he has a smaller, less wobbly Dell, but it doesn't have the little eraser mouse, so we made a deal...and I'm not sure I got the good end of it). So basically I am blogging to waste time while all my photos move onto the hard drive. Lucky readers!!

My job is going better. The fire hose is still on, but at least I am catching a little bit of the water. I have no idea where to go with this metaphor. I did my first status report, statement of work, and conducted a meeting to address the very lengthy list of issues my application has. Accomplishing things feel good :-)

Did everyone else have one hell of a storm last night? I think it was worse than hurricane Isabel, although all our trees were standing when I got up this morning. Our house is in better shape than I thought, because I would not have been surprised to find water dripping in doors/windows when I got up this morning.

I read through my spam folders a couple of times a week, just to make sure I don't miss a message I should actually be getting. If I were to believe the messages I get, apparently I need help with dating, re-growing hair, getting cash, and renting my timeshare. I'm kind of tempted to ask one of these people where my timeshare is because, if I have one, I'd really like to be using it!!

Only 2 more minutes left of this torture...and I have nothing.

Random randomness

Kind of stuck on today's blog...too many incomplete thoughts, I think. The fire hose has been turned on at work, which is a little stressful and I am resisting the urge to pull my work laptop out of my bag. I get to work 2-3 hours before my boss in the morning, so plenty of time to get ahead of the game tomorrow, right?

I'm also trying to figure out how we are going to live without a kitchen for a month (roughly) while they know ours down and put it back together again. Hoping the no fridge/stove/sink time will be less than that, but there will still be a good amount of time while they rip everything out, remove some drywall, and tile before putting things back in again. And while eating out every night would be lovely, I'd prefer to spend that money on the uber-quiet dishwasher or a fridge with french doors and water and ice (I drink a lot of water, the water dispenser is a must...our tap water is awful). I think the lack of a dishwasher/big sink will be the biggest problem, since we have a microwave, 2 small fridges, a freezer, and a side burner on the grill. My newest dilemma? What to do with all the bottles/jars or salad dressing and olives and other things? I hate to throw them away, but I think fridge space would be very limited if I kept most of those things (don't worry B, I already threw away the old ranch dressing!)

And this is the randomness going through my head tonight.

Huh.

As Ethan says "oh no, another sick child post." But it's too weird not to post.

Eric came home Friday with a little goo in one eye, and it was there again on Saturday morning. Not really concerning to us, since both kids tend to get eye goo when the have/are getting a cold, but knowing daycare would freak out, we started using the pinkeye ointment. Sunday morning he wakes up with very red, puffy eyes and no goo. This morning - same deal, so he goes off to daycare and all hell breaks loose. Long story short is that, even though we followed the policy to the letter (return to daycare after 24 hours on antibiotics) AND there was no eye goo present for over 24 hours, they needed to hear it from a doctor. And I'll stop there. Ends up the doctor visit was a good idea, because the poor child has 2 ear infections (but does not have pinkeye and is not contagious and was allowed to return to daycare).

I like to think I'm pretty good at recognizing ear infections. My #1 indicator is that it looks like Spiderman did his web slinging thing right under the kids nose. Not sleeping, sleeping while sitting up, refusing to drink, sudden fever are also pretty good reason to take a trip to the doctor.

But this? This was Eric's only symptom:

He's actually amazingly happy, considering he looks like he just went 10 rounds in a boxing ring. And he actually looks better than he did this morning, so the antibiotics must be doing their thing (he also shoveled down an entire plate of spaghetti and meatballs, plus half of Evan's plate, and 2 pieces of bread). So I'd say he's on the mend.

Movies, movies, movies

I can't remember the last time I watched so many movies in a weekend, and I'm not even counting the testosterone specials on TBS/TNT/whatever. Those were all hubby.

Friday: The Kingdom. An okay movie, but a little too much of blowing stuff up right and left. And my biggest issue? The role they gave Jennifer Garner was like they had to meet some sort of female quota and nobody had any desire/money to make her look/sound 'smart.' It was annoying. Kind of like the chick in Top Gun.

Saturday: No Reservations. A straight up chick flick and a tiny bit of revenge for all the testosterone movies. Cute, but probably not anything I will ever watch again unless there is absolutely nothing else on cable when I'm folding laundry. Ethan thought it was better than 'Raising Helen,' but a movie with Kate Hudson and the dude from Sex and the City is WAY better than Catherine Zeta-Jones and some unknown guy.

Tonight: The Brave One. And I need to go so I can actually watch it and pay attention :-)

Rabid dogs?

No, no, just Ethan and Eric enjoying their smoothies:


I have other photos, but our internet is being outrageously slow and other computer issues. And yes, Eric is wearing a mitten in the above picture and I have no idea why but I hope it's the mitten I was looking for earlier this week!

Enjoyed a lovely pancake breakfast at the local fire station and came home full and tired after eating and touring all the engines/trucks. Evan's girlfriend and family came over for some playtime and dinner, which is always fun to have a girl in the house for a little while (and she is a girly girl, complete with princesses). And now Ethan is tormenting me with a bad weekend movie marathon--Wedding Crashers, Superbad, and now Old School. I may have to escape upstairs with a chick flick or some 90210...