This title is harder to think of than any I have had in the past.

So as it turns out, today is my last day of work for the year. Tomorrow we trek down to LJ and then to Brazoria briefly, then back to LJ. Thursday we'll be home...and wait a minute, am I telling you when we'll be gone from our house? Uh...we'll be home all week. Don't even think of breaking into my house. I have very ferocious guard dogs, and they will eat you alive.

Anyway, my original point was that this is my last day of work for 2008. And while I do have a computer and internet access at home, I also have a toddler, and a to do list that's 4, maybe 5 miles long. So, while it's possible I might post, it's not likely.

And also, taking an almost 2 week break from this might result in something funny to write about instead of "Hey, look at my cute kid." And "Here he is again. Being cute." And "Oh, did you notice my cute kid?"

I know you're busy too, so just think of it as my gift to you. The gift of time. You've got an almost 2 week reprieve from looking at my words and pictures.

Oh, and I wanted to tell you guys that my rule about no more shopping after December 1st needs an addendum. It totally works as far as shopping is concerned...but it doesn't alleviate the stress if 2 days before Christmas you're pulling all the presents out of the closet and putting post-it notes on them. So for next year the rule will be. All presents shall be purchases by December 1 and wrapped by the first weekend in December.

May the pirates have mercy on you this Christmas, and I will return, hopefully in one piece, January 5th, 2009.

Sugar high

I spend roughly 50% of yesterday baking and/or cleaning the kitchen.

Landon spent roughly 25% of yesterday asking for tastes of batter. "Waas sat?" "Brownie batter?" "I tayse it me?"

Anyway, I set him up with 4 cookies, pre-iced, and some stuff to stick on them to decorate them. Which he did pretty well. He decorated them and decorated them, I had assumed that once he got one done, he would eat it, but he actually didn't. He had to be told he could eat it. And then he pulled each decoration off and ate them, and he had to be told he could also eat the cookie.

Anyway, in the hopes of being able to post him saying Merry Christmas, I asked him a few things about Christmas.

A Virtual Christmas Card

Merry Christmas from the Wood Family.

Pride and Joy

Oh my god, you guys, this has been the best 2 days EVAH!

Tuesday evening we had a holiday program at Landon's school. And, well - you can see for yourself:



They were still talking about him and his hamminess the next morning.

Awesome.

Then last night I had a meet-up with the ladies on my street - they had an ornament exchange. I was kind of apprehensive, but at least they all liked my ornament. That was a relief, because I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to be looking for when I got it.

And when I got home?

Clinton had just gotten Landon down and was so excited I had to peel him off the ceiling, when he told me...

are you ready?

This is big news.

Are you sure you're ready?

Ok.

Landon pooped in the big boy potty! First time ever. As far as Iknow he's never even peed in it, but he pooped. In the potty!

So exciting!

My parents live behind us.

Sure, they're a younger version. But they're a version of my parents.


So, you remember the party invite and the apprehension about going to said party, right?


It wasn't so bad. Apparently, this is a group of people who do community theater. And as for the couple who live there, the husband builds sets, and has acted in a few shows.


And they had beer, not just wine.


And oh holy moly was I transported back about 20 years.


Oh, and then I noticed all the boats on the Christmas tree. He sails.

All in all the party wasn't so bad, and we did learn a lot about our neighbors, besides all the similarities between them and my parents - they do have some differences, he has a 30 year old son, they have 2 children in college, and they're planning on adopting from the state in the next couple months (age range 4-11.)

The music was kind of in the background, and not too weird - she pretty much sang Christmas style hymn like songs. The hard part of going to a party like that is only knowing the host and hostess, and not even really knowing them. Just like, kind of knowing them. Anyway, it was hard, but good. And I'm glad we went.

And bonus - we found out that they have Uverse from AT&T and well, we want Uverse from AT&T and they keep telling us we can't have it. But our neighbor's line comes from the same box and the same little outlet thingie - which is in our backyard. So we totally got on the ball and called AT&T and FINALLY, they're going to send someone out to see if we can have it. It took a year to get them to agree to do that. I guess I finally got the right guy on the phone - not only is he going to have the check done for us, he reviewed our account to see if we could get any more discounts and we got double our internet speed and $10 knocked off our bill. That guy ranks right up there with Belinda.

2 Down, 20 or so to go

When you ask your toddler to help you decorate the Christmas tree. Sometimes you get this:
But when you run out of non-ornaments which are clearly too gigantic to fit on the tree, and he moves on to helping with the glass balls, you will end up needing this:


And then you will have to move all your breakable ornaments to height of about 4 feet.


And then if you wait a week and buy him his own tree, with his own unbreakable ornaments, you will be rewarded by a) him actually understanding how to decorate his tree and helping, and b) finding out that just because they do not shatter, doesn't mean that they are unbreakable, just pull the string real hard, it will totally break, Mom.

Something I should have posted last week.

We had my company's children's Christmas party on the 6th. It was a big hit, and I only wish I had more pictures of it.

If you ask Landon, about the party, he will talk in length about the "pock-own." Apparently an inadvertant highlight of the day.

Nevermind the train! You can ride! While eating a cookie!

And the snow!

And because we are mean inattentive parents who just stood on the sideline and watched, while our son figured out on his own how to play with snow, he made friends with an older Asian woman who loosened the snow for him. (And her own grandchild.) In all honestly he wasn't that keen on the snow to begin with. But man on man, did he love the pock-own.

Obligatory Snow Post

It snowed here yeaterday. Actually, driving home in a light snow that's not sticking to anything is kind of awesome. The street lights illuminate all the little bitty snowflakes as they swirl down. And since it's not sticking, people are not really in danger of sliding around on black ice or anything. I was really wishing I'd had my camera last night.

When I picked Landon up from school it was coming down pretty decently, but he had no interest in it whatsoever. "PSHAW mom, I saw snow last weekend, in that heap at that party, it was brown and dirty - clearly you have no idea what snow is."

Every evening as we drive home, he points out all the inflatable stuff in other people's yards. "Tanta claw." "Aindur." "Noman." "Ingwen." Except the house on the end of our block which has a snowman and a penguin. For that one, he says "noman an chicken." And don't even try to tell him it's a penguin. "Ingwen? Ing...Ing...CHICKEN!!!"

Take your pick of many of the blogs in the area and you'll see pictures of accumulation. Except on this one. And that's for two reason really. One - I still don't have a working camera at the moment. And two - we apparently are in some kind of swirling heat vortex in our area and we didn't get any accumulation. I mean, sure a little stuck to the roof and some to the cars, but none on the grass or anything fun.

Plus, Landon was uber grouchy yesterday for no apparent reason. He was in no mood to be outside, and how dare we leave him at the table to finish his advent candy while daddy and I tried desperately to wrap 4 of our tropical plants on the patio.

I had intended to take the SD card out of my camera and put the pictures on my thumbdrive, so I'd at least have a picture of him standing on the snow at the company children's Christmas party, but since someone we know decided not to go to bed until 10, which is WAY past my bed time, that didn't happen.

And then I thought, well, I'll just do it when I get up in the morning, and then that same someone woke up at 5:15. And spent the next hour doing everything he could to delay putting on his pants. Insisting that I take off his pajamas, but "no, thanks" on the pants front. Not to mention the fact that the overnight pull-ups have Woody on them and how dare I put him in the day time pull ups which have lightning McQueen on them. This kid is getting harder and harder to dress, what with his opinions and stuff.

Maybe we shouldn't have taught him this

The weather in Houston has reached mid thirties. So everyone is wearing their parkas. And hats. And layers. And I'm almost positive that if anyone saw a snowflake, they'd be out buying snow shoes. And they're covering it on the news like it's a hurricane. It's weird. Not to mention how they're talking about how it's going to be freezing the rest of the week and never once will it dip below 32°, not to mention the fact that the numbers say it will be getting warmer each day. I'm just very confused.

Anyway, I still don't have my camera cord or charger, so here are a couple videos of Landon jumping off the edge of the playground. Like a curb.



And now when we leave anywhere that has a curb, he likes to stop and jump off of it. Because, isn't that what curbs are for?

Fine

We secured babysitting. So, we'll be going. I listened to some of the musician's stuff on youtube. It's not my style, that's for sure, but I think I can handle it - it's very churchy sounding, if she's singing the Christmas stuff. Which means that either Clint has to really connect with someone at the party, or we won't last very long. I mean, in all honesty, the last time I was at a house concert it was kind of whiny. He was totally into his own music and wouldn't take requests and yelled at his audience in some kind of language that no one understood. Then he got mad because we didn't understand. And then I had to wrestle him into compliance when he pooed in his pants. So, any way you look at it, this one has got to be better than that.

I think it's an apologetic invite

Remember how our fence was not so much up as it was down a couple months ago?

Remember how we went around to all the neighbors and struck deals with them about fixing it, where they'd pay half for their section?

Well, one neighbor, the one we thought for sure would pay immediately. Didn't. And didn't. And didn't. And two weeks ago I went over to their house to bother them an managed to interupt what was either a baby shower or a bridal shower. And they said they'd get with me in the following week and pay. And then they didn't.

SO I had all but given up on that money, and was about to decide that they could just deal with my barking dog, when yesterday, the husband showed up on our doorstep. Check in hand.

They rounded up. Which was nice, considering we spent some extra money - more than we intended.

And they invited us to a party they're having next Sunday afternoon, early evening (4pm-8pm). It seems like a ... hoity toity kind of party. The kind where they have wine and everyone is a doctor (did I mention he's a hospital administrator and she's a nurse?). They have a musician coming to have a concert in their house.

It's not really our scene, but I don't want to be those crazy neighbors who won't show up when invited to stuff or that hold grudges for not giving us our money in a timely manner. Part of the issue is that Sunday afternoons are what we generally spend getting ready for the week. And while it would be inconvienent to take 4 hours out of our time for that, it wouldn't kill us and we could concievably work around it.

What would you do? Assuming you can find a babysitter, because it is clearly not a party intended for children.

(Oh and if you think this post is a little light on the picture front, that would be because on Saturday I left the charger and cord and carrying case to my camera at the Girl Scout event where they raised a TON of money to buy dog food for the SPCA, luckily I had stuffed the camera in my back pocket, so I at least had my camera for my work's Children's Christmas party, although it did die mid party. I do know who has it and I will get it back some time this week and be able to post some great pictures.)

Interactive

Landon believes the TV to be interactive. I'm not sure if he believes it can hear him, but I think he believes that it can see him. I would think it would be the other way around, I am always talking to the TV, or rather to the stupid people on the TV. You would think he'd know that they can hear you, but not see you.

This morning we were running late, and because I'm lazy, the best way to keep him occupied long enough to dress him and me and load the car is to turn on the TV. I generally have the news on, but if I really want him to be still, I turn on Sprout - the pre-school channel. On Sprout they run the most annoying show. No, not Calliou. Pingu. (If it says Barney is on, I generally look to PBS, Nickelodeon or Disney to see if there's anything less offensive on - I should really add Pingu and Calliou to that list, but this child LOVES Calliou.)

Pingu is a penguin. A penguin who...chirps. The entire show contains no words. Just chirps. It makes me long for Calliou and his overly indulgent parents and whiney objections about how nothing is fair. I mean just the other day his friends showed up at his house and one had a ribbon she had won in some contest and he got all upset about not having a ribbon...but he didn't even compete in said contest. No one bothered to tell him that to win, you have to participate and also, you know, win.

So in order to make the little girl feel like her accomplishment meant nothing, Grandma sets up all these games for him to win a ribbon and Calliou just sucks at all of them. They had to play 5 games before Calliou actually won. When the little girl won, she got a ribbon, when the other little boy won, he got a ribbon, but when he won a second game, he didn't get a second ribbon, which he deserved, because he already had a ribbon. Heck even Rosie, Calliou's baby sister, beat him at a race or something because he got distracted. But no bother, just keep playing games until Calliou wins...something...anything. Why aren't kids allowed to feel what it's like to lose anymore?

Wait, I got side tracked.

Landon saw Pingu come on, and said "ing-gwen," he promptly jumped off the bed ran to the bar to get his penguin from his McDonald's happy meal toy collection of doom. What? You don't keep your toddler's toys in the wet bar? Why not? It's the perfect little cubby.

He came back and held the penguin up to the TV. To show Pingu that he had a penguin too, I guess. He seemed a little bit put off by the fact that the TV penguins didn't even acknowledge the penguin in his hand. He stood on his tippy toes and reached as high as he could towards the TV, as if he thought maybe they just couldn't see him. It was no use, the penguins were already in their little clique and his outsider penguin was just going to have to settle for the company of the hippo and the zebra. Not that he felt sorry enough for him to take him to school with him or anything. Just let him freeze in Mom's car while she's at work.

I don't know where I was going with this, except I really needed to get that whole Calliou thing off my chest.

Monthly Newsletter #26

Dear Landon,

Today you turn 26 months old. 26. GAH! I can’t believe it’s been that long. It seems like only yesterday I was…complaining about how you never slept and cried 23 hours a day.

We have absolutely entered a new phase this month. The “whaaas sat?” phase. It is awesome. Not just because I can tell that you’re checking out your surroundings, but because when you ask what something is and we tell you, you totally try to repeat it. Also, when we tell you what something is, nine times out of ten you actually commit it to memory. Hence the new fascinations with water towers – which I pointed out to you in an effort to keep your attention away from the fact that you were sleepy since we were only 3 minutes from our destination – and lord knows if you fall asleep in the car even if only for a minute, we’re not going to get another nap out of you. Your other obsessions include “skoo butheth” (school buses), “beeg rucks” (big trucks), and “geetahs” (guitars.)

We’re reading a lot of books with one word on each page and a picture, and while it may appear that you can read I know that’s not the case, but you totally know what the thing on the page is. Like “okkopooth” (octopus.) And “nake” (snake.) It’s a step in the direction of reading though and that is totally awesome.

Another bonus to your remembering of things is that you totally remember who people are when you see them now. Even the ones you only see once every few months. And you say their names. You caused several people to cry tears of joy because of that over Thanksgiving. I was hoping “Nuckle Hestor” (Uncle Hector) would stick, but apparently you’ve moved on to “Uncle Heccor.” The rest of them you’re close enough to the right pronunciation that we don’t get to have a fun new nickname.

You are recognizing a few letters and a few numbers when you see them. Especially if you can sit on my lap and point at my shirt and ask me what each letter is while poking me with your pointy pointy fingers. I have to credit your school with this feat. You are a little sponge, soaking up everything you can.

You did also hit a few day care style milestones this month. There was biting. When the day care called I was 99% certain that you had done the biting, but in fact you had been bit. They can’t tell me who it is, and the only reason I know it was a girl was because two weeks later I got another call. Somebody scratched your face. I asked if we were dealing with some kind of bully situation, if it was the same kid, and they said no, the biter was a girl and the scratcher was a boy. Things like this are going to happen from time to time, I fully expect to get calls from day care when you get hurt, by accident or as a victim and occasionally as a perpetrator from time to time – it’s part of growing up and as much as I would love to be able to protect you from those things, if nothing ever happens to you, then you’ll never learn how to deal with hurt. Rest assured, if I start getting calls too often, I will step in and do what I need to do. On the upside, yay for getting close enough to another kid to be bitten and scratched! That’s actually progress.

Your love for music continues to rule your life. You hear music and must dance. You have rock star pajamas and a rock star towel, and you love both of them. You see guitars on signs, in books, in real life and you play your air guitar and dance to the air guitar music. Occasionally we look over to see you dancing to music that no one else hears – perhaps remembering a good song you heard earlier in the day. You want to share your love of music so much, that you tried over Thanksgiving to teach Grandma and Grandpa Wood’s stuffed bear how to play the piano. The harmonica you got last year for Christmas is still a favorite toy.



I don’t want to jinx it or anything, but this month has been pretty good. Your new found communication skills have helped us when we couldn’t figure out what the meltdown was about. We have finally figured out a good schedule, and you’ve attended school for full weeks at a time instead of partial weeks with illnesses thrown in. It’s been awesome. I have often told your daddy that I want to adopt our next child because I’d like to start with a 2 year old – he doesn’t agree – but this is why, because I love 2 year olds. I love this stage, tantrums and all.

Love,
Mama

Girl Pants

I may have mentioned that on Sunday we went to buy pants for me. I've had this gift card for like a year and I've been patiently waiting for my weight to magically poof to lower numbers and it's not happening, so I broke down and decided to buy new pants.

This is big. That I decided it. That I announced it. That I actually followed through on it. And I may have given Clinton a heart attack in the process.

We arrived at Katy Mills Mall with about an hour to buy both Landon shoes and me pants. Landon's shoes didn't take that long and we were off to S&Bs for the pants.

There are going out of business signs posted everywhere and we only had 30 minutes, so Clinton and I decided to split up. He took Landon to the kiddo department to look for pants for him and I went to the Sarah Jessica Parker section because I like her Bitten pants.

And granted this is the end of the day on the crazy shopping weekend from hell. But holy hell there were pants everywhere in the Sarah Jessica Parker section and by everywhere I mean all over the floor in a heaping pile of mess. Like a size 6-16 tornado came through took all those pants and left the 0s, 20s, and 22s to die slow painful deaths strewn about the room. I did manage to find 2 pair in my size, although not exactly what I wanted, they'll do for now. I went to try them on.

As I exited the changing room I noticed stacks of neatly folded pants that had been rejected by other people, so I perused them for my size with no luck. I met up with Clinton, he had found a few pair of pants for Landon, so I stripped him down and wrestled them on him. By this time they're making announcements about the impending closure of the store and everyone should go stand in line to check out now. We finally settled on 2 pair for me (the only two in the store in my size) and 1 pair for him (the only pair in the store in his size). I managed to get his original pants back on him and one shoe when he took off toward the back of the store.

Now I'm not sure what the store employee I'll call Jughead thought I was doing, I mean, clearly you can't tell what a woman is up to when she's chasing a 2 year old with a shoe telling him to stop, obviously she's still shopping. He freaking yelled at me. "Ma'am!" (And don't even get me started on how I do not like to be called ma'am.) "Ma'am!" I gave him a dirty look. "We're closing!" He said it just like that, bold stupidity, italics of assholery, exclamation point and all. "I know." And I shot him my best death ray eyes of leave me the hell alone, can't you tell when a woman is not in the mood to be patronized.

Anyway, I spent the next 30 minutes in line at the cash register where only one employee - the least trained one they have - was checking people out. Which was annoying at first, but proved to be to my advantage later.

The woman in front of me had some kind of ringing up issue, it took 4 visits from various other employees and one visit twice from one guy until it was solved (why he didn't solve it the first time was beyond me.) That transaction alone took 20 minutes.

So I paid for my pants, telling the girl specifically that there were toddler pants wrapped up in the middle of my wad, and she still didn't ring them up. And I might have considered going back to pay for them, if Jughead had been nicer to me, or if I didn't have to go to another Steve & Barry's to try to spend the remainder of my gift card.

Yesterday during lunch I went to the other Steve and Barry's in town and got a couple pair of incentive pants. (One size smaller than my current pants.) and I searched the entire store for pants for Landon. And found 2. Except one pair is girl pants. And maybe I shouldn't have mentioned it to Clinton and I could have gotten away with it, it's not like they have pink thread or butterflies painted on them or anything, in fact the only thing I could tell that makes them girl pants specifically was the purple tag that S&B had put on them – and that comes off before you even wash them, so I don’t know what the deal is. He did agree to wash them and see if they look girly on Landon and if they don't he'll let it slide. So if you see my son in girl pants, just don't say anything. Ok?

Fifteen posts

1. Thanksgiving was great.

2. Landon just went cousin to cousin wearing them out. First Taylor.

3. Then Ashley.

4. Landon learned about water towers and now there is screaming yelling excitement when he sees one until we confirm. "Yes, that's a water tower."

5. Clinton got hit on twice in one trip to Wal-Mart without me.

6. We ate Thanksgiving on Thursday with Michelle from the Biggest Loser and since I had no clue who she was until she and Clint's cousin (who (whom?) she's dating) left, I had no idea that I should have gotten some kind of photographic evidence.

7. Operation finish Christmas shopping by Dec 1 is almost complete. I have 2 more to buy and I feel like I can get them done today.

8. Scarlett hurt her foot on Saturday morning, it seems better now, but it freaked me out beyond anything and did you know that vets in small towns are all "you can call our on call doctor, but only if you're established and only if it's life threatening." Jerks. And also, how do you know if it's life threatening or not? Our vet gave me dosage info for aspirin and benedryl in case it was some kind of bite - although we can't find a penetration or bite mark of any kind. This morning she seemed pretty much back to normal.

9. There was Heron watching.

10. Joshua and Brianna built a lean to kind of looking tent with string and a tarp and sticks. Well. Joshua started it, and abandoned it when it wasn't doing exactly what he wanted and Brianna changed the design and finished it, so no real teamwork on purpose, but kind of accidental teamwork.

11. There was hammocking.

12. There was outdoor movie watching. Or depending on who you are, outdoor movie barking or outdoor movie climbing around on a chair until you get too loud and your dad makes you go inside.

13. Between Scarlett's hurt foot, and the cold driving everyone inside at what would be Landon's bedtime to be where Landon, and let's be serious - because I go to sleep when he does, and I would be trying to sleep, we decided to make a break for it and wake up at home Sunday morning.

14. We went to get Landon new shoes and future shoes. And me some pants, when we found out that Steve and Barry's is filing for bankruptcy so I need to hurry up and spend my gift card.

15. And we stopped in to WalMart and nearly bought some candy for our advent calendar when the fire alarm went off. We headed out because we didn't want to be those people who were all "Well, were going to leave, but decided it was probably nothing and then we ended up with these 3rd degree burns."

7 degrees of Elvis

You all know the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon game, right?

Well, my mom ran into Mark McKinney's mom a few days ago, and this is what came from that conversation.

When I was in 5th grade I was in a local theater production of The Wizard of Oz. During that particular production I sat in the munchkin house with Mark McKinney and we even endured a tornado in that house (along with a few other people.) Well as it turns out, Mark is now going by Gil McKinney and he's playing a doctor on ER. Which totally connects me with Elvis.

So here it goes.

1. I was in the Wizard of Oz with Mark Gil McKinney.

2. Mark Gil McKinney is on ER - George Clooney was also on ER.

3. George Clooney was in Ocean's Eleven with Brad Pitt.

4. Brad Pitt is married to Angelina Jolie.

5. Angelina Jolie was in Gone in 60 Seconds with Nicolas Cage.

6. Nicolas Cage was married to Lisa Marie Presley.

7. Lisa Marie Presley is Elvis's daughter.

Special Bonus - in 2004 Mark Gil McKinney played Young Elvis in a production of Elvis has Left the Building.

Mountain Climbing

A couple weeks ago we rode our bikes to the back of our subdivision to the park. There's a playground there that is perfect for Landon's abilities. This video is of him climbing the rock part of the playground. Unfortunately I missed the jumping celebration he had when he got to the top.



This is a short week. I'm only work 2 days this week, then we go on our Texas road trip circuit. I'm already tired, just thinking about it. I only mention it because, well, in all likelihood I won't be posting anything while we're gone.

I know it's exciting, but try not to faint.

It's Friday. I'm at work.

I worked from home yesterday because of contractors. And get this. They actually showed up. I know. Crazy. I haven't been able to get a contractor to show up when they said they would the first time since Ike. And these people called like Saturday and said they'd be here Thursday, and they totally showed up. Imagine that.

Anyway. Remember a while back when I was buying special saran wrap to put on my cheese grater style windows to try and save $0.02 on my electricity bill?

Well, we bit the bullet and bought new windows. We are replacing all of the diamond leaded glass windows on the front of the house. I cannot wait to see what this saves us on electricity - although we might not feel the bulk of the savings until next summer. The windows had so many cracks in them you could actually feel the air-conditioning coming through them on the outside, and in the dining room if the rain was ever so slightly slanted we'd get some small water puddles.

This is the kitchen window before:







And after:



I think the bright whiteness of the trim is going to take some getting used to, but it will be nice to be able to open these windows on a nice day and have a cross breeze. Or, you know, get rid of the smoke from my cooking faster.


This is the master bedroom before:





And after:


Our bedroom was a fire hazard previous to this, because we only had one means of egress. Now our windows open, so we'll be able to escape in case of a fire. And these windows are double hung, so we can open the top or the bottom and the screen slides too!


These are the upstairs windows before:




And after:


I think these are the ones that look the best. And the panels will come out completely, so if I ever decide to wash the windows (STOP LAUGHING!) I can pop them out and clean the outside too!

When I went to pick up Landon after school, I had left all the lights on upstairs and we had taken the blinds down to accomodate the installation of the winodws. He could see straight into his room and see the "NDO" of his name on the wall. I had no idea it would be so exciting. "Dat's me! Mine! Name! Mine a me! YAN NAN!"

And this is the dining room window before:

And after:

Oh, did you catch that? Yeah - so the salesman was all "I'm afraid to measure those bow windows, they're going to be pretty tight, I'm going to send an installer out to measure them."

So he sent one, but not the one that came to install them.

So these guys were all, "I don't think these are going to fit."

They had 10 panels to choose from, they chose the 5 smallest ones and completed the bedroom bow window (barely, they said it was an ultra tight fit), but that left them with the 5 biggest ones for the dining room, so they couldn't do it, they just wouldn't fit. They're going to be re-ordered and they'll be back in 3 or 4 weeks. The biggest irony? The dining room window was the one we really needed replaced most.

Duet with Zoey

Slide Show Audience

I'm alive! Yesterday my ear finally drained and left my ear drum saggy or something. I had no pressure, but I still couldn't hear anything. Well I'd say 25% hearing. And since I only have 25% hearing in my other ear - let's just say having a conversation with me was a real treat. I had the TV up 8 notches above what I normally listen to, I was probably yelling at everyone without meaning to. But it's gone. Gone gone gone! Yay for feeling better.

I actually created a schedule for myself to follow which included antihistamines, decongestants, antibiotics, Airborne, zinc, OJ, Zicam, washing my hands, sanitizing my office, and Nyquil. It was pretty extensive, but my little matrix got me through. I'm also eating chicken noodle soup for lunch everyday.

And of course, now Clint is sick.

Jimmy Johns

Tasty Tasty Drugs!

I am the proud new owner of some kind of generic Sudafed and a Z-pack. The Z-pack fought with me initially about whether or not it would give me the second pill that you take on the first day, but I was firm and consistent and it finally relented. Now I just have to wait for it to work. And, yeah - my ear is so full of crap that my ear drum is bulging out. On the side that's my good ear to begin with. So no, I can't hear you. At all.

Whip It

My head is about to explode from the congestion. I think I may have caused my own ear infection. AGAIN. So here's the deal, as a person who cannot think about anything serious right now, and a person who isn't sure she'll make it through the night tonight. (I did call and get an appointment at the work clinic, maybe they'll give me some tasty tasty drugs.) In the meantime, I set up auto posting of light pictures for this week. If I recover I might actually add to them, but otherwise - enjoy the show.

62

I have never paid so much money to be insulted in my life.

We bought a Wii for each other for Christmas. We haven't had a game system in the house. Um. Ever. And I wasn't completely sold on having one. I mean, if we got one it had to be the Wii, because at least you have to get off your butt and move a little. We are clearly 8 and cannot wait until Christmas. I was excited to play, we played each of the games that came with it. Yay for bowling, I suck in real life, but am unstoppable in Wii world. Uh, boxing is hard, and tiring, and possibly the best workout I've had in ages.

And then I did the fitness challenge.

And then it told me my Wii age. 62.

And then I threw it in the garbage, because no one is allowed to speak to me like that. Not only that, you can only do the challenge once a day, so it would be another 24 or so hours before I could prove to myself that I am not 62.

Clinton, of course, is a cheapskate and pulled it back out of the garbage and because he's mean and evil, he tied the controller to my hand and MADE me do it again the next day. 58.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat. 33. This has nothing to do with my competitive streak. Nope. Nothing at all.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat. 29.

The Wii can stay.

But now I'm not sure I want to do it again, because what if my age goes up?

Also, Clinton bought me a WiiFit, so I shall be trying that puppy out this weekend.

Photographic Evidence

Landon has two shirts to match his two grandpas. I've already posted the pictures of him and his Grandpa Wood in their matching shirts. It finally got cool enough to put him in the sweatshirt his Aunt Kathy made him to match his Grandpa Logan's sweatshirts. Grandpa Logan has an entire set of sweatshirts made by Kathy that depict every vehicle he's owned since his little green truck, including his sailboat and tractor. Landon's has his police pedal car on it.


We went to the park over the weekend and Landon actually came within 5 feet of a stranger. A little boy 2 years and 8 months old came with his father and was sliding down one slide and Landon went - of his own free will - and slid down the other slide. He is totally making progress in the shyness department. He still wouldn't speak to him, but at least he came within playing distance. Also, that little boy got to the end of the slide and jumped off every time. When they left, Landon felt the need to try.


We have our own personal Sid. She may be canine and answer to "Feenie," but she's pretty destructive when she wants to be.

On Beyond Bovine Trials #5, #6, #7, #8, & #9

What a weekend for the experiment that I bet you thought I forgot about.

I'm marking some regulars off the list this week and one newbie.


#5 - Iceberg lettuce - I made a salad where I combined iceberg lettuce and romaine lettuce. I actually prefer my iceberg lettuce on tacos, but Clinton prefers salad of iceberg lettuce. Landon prefers to lick salad dressing off his fingers, bypassing the lettuce altogether.


#6 - Romaine lettuce - see above. Except I don't like romaine lettuce on my tacos, I do prefer it in my salads.


#7 - Yellow onions - I made The Pioneer Woman's Pot Roast again, so I am able to cross off the yellow onions. I'm not sure if this counts; we didn't really eat the onions, but they do flavor the meat...you make the call in the comments.




#8 - Carrots - and of course the carrots went into the pot roast as well. I love a pot roast carrot. Mushy, beefy, yum!! Clinton eats them, but I don't know that he loves them or anything. And Landon, Landon is in the raw carrots only camp. He will not even entertain the idea that carrots might just be yummy cooked as well.
And finally, the newbie - #9 - Acorn squash.

I used another Pioneer Woman's recipe for this one.

This is an acorn squash.
This is an acorn squash cut in half - looks pumpkiny.



This is an acorn squash with it's guts removed and 1 1/2 tbsp butter, 2 tbsp brown sugar put in it's place, and then drizzled with pure maple syrup - or as I like to call it, liquid money. (In an attempt to not buy something with HFCS, I bought 100% pure maple syrup. Which cost me nearly double for about 1/4 of the syrup.) Also, Pioneer Woman didn't mention this, but my squashes would not stay up right. I made little holders out of crumpled aluminum foil to make them stand up.

Here's a picture of the maple syrup. I thought it needed its own picture. It was the major cost of this recipe.


Bake for 30 minutes at 400° covered with foil and water in the pan, remove foil from top, bake another 25 minutes. Turn oven to broiler and cook another 5 minutes.


I suggest waiting about 10 minutes for them to cool; it took a while for the molten lava in the middle to not burn the ever loving crap out of my tongue.

Reactions:

Clinton: [Head tilt, really thinking, probably about how to say he doesn't like it without insulting me] It does the cotton candy thing.

Me: [Confused] Whaaa? What's the cotton candy thing?

Clinton: You know, it like dissolves in seconds in my mouth.

Me: [Confused as to why this is a bad thing.]

Clinton: I can see where someone would like it, it's okay, but not really my thing.

Me: It has a similar flavor to sweet potatoes, I don't like the maple flavor much, it's overpowering. Considering I really only like butter and brown sugar on my sweet potatoes - in fact I don't even really like maple syrup on my pancakes, I wonder if I'd like it better without the maple syrup.

So there you have it, it was good, but overpoweringly sweet and maybe if I could tone it down I'd like it better. It was not fault of the squash, but the recipe I think.


********

Next trial - fresh coconut. Oh and I decided that in the spring I'm going to grow upside down tomato plants (like the infomercial except I'm making my own.) So if you have a good tomato recipe, bring it on. (Uh, I don't know which kind of tomato I'm going to get, so if your recipe calls for a certain kind of tomato, let me know that way I can look for that kind when I go to buy the plants.)

Because this experiment seems to be at risk of becoming an experiment in which I cook everything with the pioneer woman's recipes, I'm going to ask for some help. She just posted a recipe for turnip gratin. This seems really right up my alley - I mean, it's full of cheese, how could it not be. But I want to see if there's something better out there. Do you have a turnip recipe?

And any other recipe for a fruit or veggie that you like, I'll take those recipes too

Missing Baby

I should have probably posted this on Saturday when he went missing.

He's very cute, he's 33 inches tall, and weighs just over 30 lbs. Has some scraggly curly baby fine blonde hair.

Last seen walking into Sports Clips.

Was replaced with this little boy, who is also cute, but is most certainly not a baby:

Prepared, doesn't mean results

Last night we went out to dinner with my Great Aunt and Grandmother. I emptied the camera before leaving the house in anticipation of some good family type pictures. We ate at a restaurant at a small airport. With small planes. And helicopters. (Landon, how do you land a plane? "Down!!") And I have no pictures of any of it because my camera never left my purse. GAAAAAAAAAAH!!

Here's a few pictures from the month. They'll have to work for now.

Why yes I do allow my 2 year old to climb up the slide.

He's also got the GQ pose down.