I'm back, I think

At the inspiration of others, I think I may be ready to breathe a little life back into this old blog. So we'll see.

What's happened since the last blog in April?

• Hmmm...everyone turned a year older (except Eric)
• We bought an artificial Christmas tree (this is a bigger deal than you would think)
• We all live in the same place that we did, work in the same places that we did, and go to school in the same places that we did
• I started selling jewelry!
• I need to get off my arse and start selling some more jewelry
• I joined a moms' group and TWO book clubs
• We got a lot of new furniture

Isn't that exciting? Aren't you glad I'm back??

Didn't see that one coming

Evan has re-started soccer, and playing with a slightly older group of kids than he did in the fall. Since his birthday is right on the cutoff, we put him with the younger crowd (5-6) in the fall, but he seemed like he would be able to handle himself with the older kids (6-7) for the spring. It seems like a good move so far. Coach is great, parents are nice, and there's always a few kids that are...interesting.

I was watching practice today and see one of the boys spitting on the ground. It looked like spitting from where I was standing, at least. Then one of the coaches yells to him "Cover one side of your nose and blow out the other!" Yeah, he was teaching the kid how to blow his nose without getting a tissue/napkin/etc. Now I don't have a problem with that, but still...wasn't prepared to see it on the soccer field from a kid that age. Can't wait to see what we learn at next week's practice :-)

Going green, staying green

I never thought asking people to STOP sending me things would be so difficult. And since it's almost Earth Day, it seemed like a good time to blog about it.

We canceled our Sunday paper subscription. I don't need the temptation to buy stuff in the stores, and you can read all the articles online, so why bother? I called the paper over a month ago, and was told April 4 would be my last delivery. Two weeks later, I am STILL getting the paper.

I had a sonogram done FIFTEEN MONTHS ago, and am still getting notices from the hospital about it. The kicker? They owe me money. $25. I have called them the past 3 times I received the "bill" to tell them to please stop sending me the notice and to just go ahead and keep the $25 because at this point they have spent more than that sending me these paper notices.

Does everyone else get catalogs all at the same time? I swear we don't get any for a couple of months, and then I get 8 in the same week. This past round, I called all the companies and asked to be removed from their mailing list. The only one who kept me on the phone longer than necessary was LL Bean, but I assured them I would still come spend a small fortune when my next child needs a backpack, since they have such a great return policy when my kids destruct their indestructible products. Now it just remains to be seen if I keep getting catalogs from places that I buy something from MAYBE once a year (usually Christmas).

Jesus eats mac & cheese

Bet you didn't know that one!

Friday night dinner was fish fillets and macaroni & cheese, as we try and follow the no-meat-on-Fridays protocol during Lent. As I put the food on the table, Eric started his series of questions:

Eric: What are we having?
Mom: Fish, and macaroni and cheese
Eric: Fish? Why we having fish?
Mom: Because it's Friday.
Eric: Friday? Why we having fish on Friday?
Mom: Because it's Friday during Lent and that's what we do
Eric: Why?
Mom: Because that's what Jesus ate.
Eric: And macaroni and cheese?

And I answered yes, thinking that if Jesus had the option, he too would be eating macaroni and cheese on Fridays during Lent.

Please stop talking to me.

We have an extremely chatty hygienist at our dentist's office...how does that happen? I mean, you're at the dentist with all sorts of torture devices being stuck in your mouth, and you have this (very nice) woman who is talking and talking and talking, and she keeps stopping what she's doing to either make a point, or because she expects me to respond. I've actually told her that I am in a hurry, but that seems to go over her head and she continues to tell me about how she swears she saw me at her gym the other day but she didn't want to come up to the person in the gym because what if it wasn't me and do I work out and where?

Really? When I'm at the dentist, my goal is to pretend that I am somewhere else and to get out of the vinyl chair as quickly as humanly possible. It can be 6 degrees outside, and I will come out of the chair looking like I have just spent an hour in a sauna, that's how stressed out I get about going to the dentist. I've never had a 'bad' dentist experience, and our dentist is really awesome, but I don't like him enough to want to hang out in his office for hours at a time and get my teeth and gums poked at with a pointy thing.

Name Change

I'm tired of the 'Zoom Zoom', especially since the zoom-zoom Mazda has been replaced by the 'Swagger Wagon' Toyota. But seeing as how this is not a car blog, I don't think Swagger Wagon would be a good fit of a title. So hang in there, and I'll be back with something much more original in no time.

All about Evan

Note: After 26 inches of snow and 4 days off of school, with the knowledge that 10-20 more inches and 2 more days (at least) are coming, we've started to get a little punchy. My humor may not actually be funny to anyone but me anymore.

Anyway, some Evanisms that have made me smile and laugh in the past few days:

1. He stands during the National Anthem. I would give Carrie Underwood some of the credit for getting him to drop his pizza and stand in awe, but he started standing with his hand over his heart when Queen Latifah sang 'America the Beautiful.' And while Queen Latifah did a better job singing than Carrie Underwood, I think Carrie wins in the looks department. Especially because of the shoes she wore while singing last night, according to my husband.

2. While at the grocery store today, where we re-stocked for Snowmageddon Part 2 (or could we consider this a trilogy, starting in December?), Evan got hit on by a girl. I'm sure 'got hit on' is a grammatical train wreck, but I have no better way to say it. We were walking along, and these 2 girls walked past us...the one turns to her friend/sister and says "hey I know that boy from my school" and then says to Evan "hey dude!" My jaw about hit the floor, and he just giggled as we headed to the bread aisle (which looked like it had just been re-stocked)

3. Evan decided he wanted to read to me tonight...his book of choice? "Defenders" which is about animals and how they defend themselves. Not exactly soothing bedtime stories, but you take what you can get. One of the pages was titled "Beat It" and before the thought could fully process in my head, he turns to me and says, "you know, like the Michael Jackson song." Ok, while I am a fan, and I realize his music was overplayed for a few weeks after he died, I would not have thought he would know who MJ is. Mystery solved, his friend Gavin has told him about Michael Jackson's music. Interesting to find out what first graders talk about on an average day....