Homeschool Prom

Yesterday I mentioned not really pulling any April Fool's Day pranks for the past few years. Apparently, I forgot about last year. This was classic - to John and me, not really the boys so much.

It was a Sunday morning and the boys were sleeping in. We got them up and had them come upstairs fairly soon so they wouldn't have time to realize what day it was. I proceeded to tell them that since we were nearing the end of our homeschool journey and we didn't want them to feel like they'd missed out on anything, we were going to plan a Homeschool Prom. A little back story here - the boys haven't had any interest in girls or dancing or anything remotely prom related. So already this sounds pretty horrible.

I went on to let them know that planning and decorating would be part of their school since we had a month or more to put it together. We'd hold it in the garage. John has a stereo out there, so no problem for the music. There's a refrigerator, so we could set up a table with refreshments. There's plenty of room to dance. They know more homeschooled boys than girls, so in order to even that out, I said we could invite some girls from the bowling league.

I went on and on about the entire event and at one point, I heard Zach quietly saying, "No thank you," repeatedly.

Caleb eventually figured out what day it was and what was going on. Shortly after that, I let Zach know, too. Oh, I also let him know that I'd been recording it - first on audio, then video. I think he said something about how mean I was. Really, Zach? I offered to let him wear shorts with his tie and jacket.

So apparently I'm not quite as nice as I thought yesterday. John and I thought it was rather funny, though. Caleb remained fairly calm, though I doubt he wanted to see it actually happen. Zach, on the other hand...he had much more of a reaction. But I think he was pretty relieved to find out it wasn't real.

And no, I'm not sharing the audio or the video. The boys will thank me for that.

Giggling

I love to laugh.

And giggle.

Sometimes I do it a lot. Sometimes giggling makes me giggle more. Sometimes things that aren't funny to anyone else are hilarious to me. The more I think about them, the funnier they become. My youngest son thinks I'm crazy. I don't know why neither of our kids acquired my sense of humor. Silly boys.

I think, however, that when my boys are being serious and I think they're being ridiculous, I should probably try to restrain myself. But sometimes I giggle anyway. Remember my sense of humor they don't have? That usually means they leave the room a little peeved with me. It's hard to be authoritative when you're laughing.

That happened tonight with one of the boys who shall remain nameless. But I will have the last laugh.

Have a great weekend! Have a laugh or two on me.

The Pansy Ride

That's pretty much what I felt like when I got home. No, actually that's what I felt like during the ride.

A big old pansy.

Probably because that's pretty much what I am. My level of physical activity in recent weeks, er, months...years (?) won't even register on a scale of any sort. Unless you count the numerous trips up and down the half flights of stairs in our tri-level home. Right. I didn't think so.

But the weather here in beautiful Colorado has been gorgeous lately. And last year - sadly - I never even got the bike OUT, let alone ride it. The dream of riding everywhere, saving money, getting exercise, not contributing to carbon monoxide pollution . . . well, that pretty much stayed packed away along with the bike.

So this year I decided it will be different. I asked John if my bike was easy to access. Yes, it was. So he was sweet enough to get it out for me (remember - I'm seriously out of shape!). After taking some more apple blossom photos, popping in the house for a little bit, and checking my email and facebook, I told the boys I was going to the store. Yes, I had keys and purse in hand. And then I remembered my bike. And I looked at the beautiful day. And I changed my mind.

So I grabbed a rag and went outside and wiped two years' worth of dust off, got a water bottle, and told them I was taking a bike ride instead.

Oh yeah, the tires were a little low on air. Never fear, I have a handy-dandy pump attached to my bike. So I promptly pumped some air in and started off across the back yard. But when I arrived out on the sidewalk, I looked down, and to my dismay, the tires were a little on the low side.

Side note: I'm pretty sure my arms and shoulders will be crying tomorrow because of using the handy-dandy pump. So I rode around front and promptly let my dear husband use his air compressor to fill my tires. Turns out that was a good thing. They should be filled to 100 psi. I only managed 50 in the back and 20 in the front with the manual pump. I wouldn't have been able to hold onto the handlebars had I actually filled the tires completely. Then if I wasn't well-balanced, I'd have fallen in the street with no strength in my arms to catch myself. That wouldn't have been good at all. So you can see how letting John air my tires was a much safer option.

Tires filled to 100 psi? Check.

Helmet securely on my noggin? Check.

Water bottle in my basket? Check.

Phone, ID, and a couple bucks in my pocket? Check.

And I was off. Sailing down the street with nary a care. The operative word here being down. We live at the top of the neighborhood, as it were. Not that it's an enormous incline or anything. In fact, if you were driving, you'd hardly notice. But it's noticeable when you're on a bike. Primarily because you don't have to pedal. Ever. In fact, you better be getting on those brakes before you get to the stop sign. Which came up pretty quickly, given all that downhill momentum on 100-psi-filled tires.

Made it through the stop sign, onto a slightly busier street and headed west...or something. So far, so good. And then I turned to come back up into our neighborhood. The operative word here? UP. And by up, I mean minimal-barely-detectable-in-a-car incline. But for an out-of-shape, scary-how-old-I'm-getting me, it about killed me.

{okay . . . for those of you who KNOW where I live and KNOW where I'm talking about riding, you can get up off the floor and stop the howling laughter, RIGHT NOW! Let's see you be in my bad shape and do better.}

So I'm huffing, puffing, and pedaling up this great incline past all the little neighborhood children out playing, thinking how much I really need to stop and breathe a little, but also thinking how pansy that would be, given how little I've actually ridden. And then it occurred to me. These children don't know how long I've been on my bike. Nor how far I've ridden. Perhaps I'm on the last leg of a 30-mile ride back across town, for all they know. In fact, these children don't know anything about me, except I'm the overweight lady with weird hair cruising by. Although I doubt they even noticed that much. Because really, when you're a kid playing outside with your friends, do you even pay any attention to some woman riding up your very steep street? Probably not. And even if they did, why did I care what they thought of me? Clearly, the lack of oxygen to my brain was causing me to think irrational thoughts.

So I once I was clear of the children, I pulled over and downed some fresh cold water. See, forcing myself into exhaustion is good, because then I'm very thirsty and then I will drink the water that I otherwise don't intake much of. And I practiced deep breathing again. After my nice little water and oxygen break, I was off again. I made it all the way up the rest of the mountainous climb, around the corner and toward my house.

I'd probably been gone for all of five minutes. Okay, maybe six. Seven at the absolute most. Go home already? Sheesh. What a sissy thing to do. So I passed my cul-de-sac and went around another little portion of our neighborhood. At least I had the foresight to take the long way for the downhill part, to ensure that the uphill part was shorter.

I made it all the way back home, up the second less-than-enormous climb.

I may have ridden a mile total. Or not.

No matter.

At least I rode.

And now that the bike is out, clean, and has 100 psi in its tires, I may even do it again.

p.s. - My mom keeps asking me to go to Zumba with her. Yeah, right. I would obviously drop on the floor in the first three minutes and remain there for the rest of the session, possibly tripping up the other Zumba junkies. Which could cause great damage to me if they fall on me.

Maybe after a few hundred bike rides...

p.p.s. - The photos were all taken before the de-dusting. It's much prettier now. Because that really matters to the content of the story, right?

I Found It!!

I saw it a few weeks ago. There was no room to turn around and get a picture. Plus we didn't really have time.

I was so disappointed.



Then a week ago, my sister called me to tell me she saw it on her way home from dropping her daughter off at school. The timing wasn't good for me to dash out, try and find it, and shoot it then, either.

I was even more disappointed.



And then this morning, it zoomed around our cul-de-sac. Almost at light speed. Amazing we even saw it. But my camera was upstairs. So was my phone. I dashed upstairs, at something less than light speed, making crazy little sounds of, "Oh! Oh! Oh!" only to come back to the living room and discover that it was long gone.

I was seriously disappointed now.



But I know this neighborhood like the back of my hand, er, the front of a map, or something. So I grabbed my camera and my phone (and my purse), asked the Comedian if he wanted to join me, to which he replied, "Not really. It doesn't sound like fun," and I took off.



I was well-rewarded this time, for I found my prey a mere block and a half away. I quickly pulled to the curb, shut off the motor, and got my camera into position.



CLICK

Dianne - 1

Disappointment - a BIG FAT ZERO!

Butter

Many years ago, when ClayGuy was probably about 3 or 4, he asked if he could have some butter (okay, technically, it was I Can't Believe It's Not Butter). Being the ever-brilliant mom that I am, I said,

"No. You have to have it on something."

To which he replied,

"Can I have it on a spoon?"

Unspoken Contest

Nothing's been mentioned, but I believe that John & I have an Unspoken Contest taking place in our bathroom. Actually, two of them.

1. Who can be the last person to use the toothpaste and the other one has to get the new one out of the box?

2. Who will finally cave and take all the empty toilet paper rolls to the recycle bin?



What say you?

Sandals in Snow

The Comedian has never been big on overdressing.



He's a shorts guy, regardless of the season. He owns one pair of jeans, which remain mostly unworn. They only serve a purpose if there's snow to play in and I make him wear them. Or if I'm behind on laundry and there are no shorts to be worn.

As for the feet, it's sandals all the way. Once again, he does own one pair of tennis shoes, and since I'm in the running for Meanest Mom this year, I tell him that if it's below freezing he must wear socks and tennies. Or if there's a lot of snow or rain.

Come to think of it, he might still own a pair of boots. They only see the blinding light of day if there's sledding involved. That's if they still fit him. His feet have grown significantly this past year.

The bridge he's standing on goes over a pond. But being Colorado and winter and all, it's frozen. With snow on top. But it was also a toasty 43 degrees at the park today, so sandals were well within the temperature limits.

I suppose the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I can remember playing in the snow, wearing shorts and a red down coat. I also recall wearing shoes as little as possible. Even once I began to drive, I kept a pair of flip-flops (they were th*ngs back then) under my seat, in case I may need to pop into a store or something. So even though I suffer from colander brain, I still remember being out in the cold, dressed in such attire, so I let my son do the same.

Irrational Fear and a Hole

Since I didn't grow up in a Christian household, I wasn't aware of this particular verse as a child:

For God has not given us a spirit of fear; but of power and of love and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7

Therefore, when we went to the home of some friends of my parents, I didn't ever want to go into their kitchen. For under the table, against the wall was a hole in the floor. A little, round hole with a diameter of no more than an inch. Glen always told me that was a woolly-booger hole. And I was young enough to believe him. I didn't know what a woolly-booger was, but I was certainly afraid of it.

Fortunately, we usually visited in the living room of their home. On those rare occasions we were in the kitchen, I sat with my feet and legs curled up underneath me in the chair. There was no way my feet were going to dangle down there near that woolly-booger hole!

In an ironic twist, we ended up buying that house from those friends. Now the woolly-booger hole was in MY OWN KITCHEN! I did my best to stay away from the hole and suppose I finally got over my irrational fear. At least mostly. Then one glorious day, my dad installed new linoleum in our kitchen. Whew! My fear of that hole was covered up by new green vinyl.

Turns out that the hole existed because a gas line went through it many, many years earlier for a stove that was situated against that wall. Really nothing all that scary about it after all. But isn't that what often happens with fear? It turns out to be nothing. Yet we curl up and hunker down, afraid of what might come out and bite our toes.

Now when I find myself afraid of something, I retrieve that hidden-in-my-heart verse and allow God's word to wash me in truth and peace.

Besides, I know there's no such thing as woolly-boogers.


p.s. - I was over at Photobucket to find a picture for this when I noticed the Fearless book by Max Lucado. If you have any type of fears at all, I highly recommend this book.

Doctor's Advice

Since it's that time of year when many people resolve to lose weight and be healthier, I thought I'd add my contribution.


A Doctor's Advice

Q: Doctor, I've heard that cardiovascular exercise can prolong life; is this true?

A: Your heart is only good for so many beats, and that's it...don't waste them on exercise. Everything wears out eventually. Speeding up your heart will not make you live longer; that's like saying you can extend the life of your car by driving it faster. Want to live longer? Take a nap.

Q: Should I cut down on meat and eat more fruits and vegetables?

A: You must grasp logistical efficiencies. What does a cow eat? Hay and corn. And what are these? Vegetables. So a steak is nothing more than an efficient mechanism of delivering vegetables to your system. Need grain? Eat chicken. Beef is also a good source of field grass (green leafy vegetable). And a pork chop can give you 100% of your recommended daily allowance of vegetable products.


Q: How can I calculate my body/fat ratio?

A: Well, if you have a body and you have fat, your ratio is one to one. If you have two bodies, your ratio is two to one , etc.

Q: What are some of the advantages of participating in a regular exercise program?

A: Can't think of a single one, sorry. My philosophy is: No Pain...Good!

Q: Aren't fried foods bad for you?

A: YOU'RE NOT LISTENING!!! .... Foods are fried these days in vegetable oil. In fact, they're permeated in it. How could getting more vegetables be bad for you?

Q: Will sit-ups help prevent me from getting a little soft around the middle?

A: Definitely not! When you exercise a muscle, it gets bigger. You should only be doing sit-ups if you want a bigger stomach.

Q: Is chocolate bad for me?

A: Are you crazy? HELLO Cocoa beans! Another vegetable!!! It's the best feel-good food around!

Q: Is swimming good for your figure?

A: If swimming is good for your figure, explain whales to me.

Q: Is getting in shape important for my lifestyle?

A: Hey! 'Round' is a shape!


Well, I hope this has cleared up any misconceptions you may have had about food and diets.


For those of you who watch what you eat, here's the final word on nutrition and health. It's a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting nutritional studies.

1. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

3. The Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

4. The Italians drink a lot of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

5. The Germans drink a lot of beers and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

CONCLUSION

Eat and drink what you like.
Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

ROTFL

Okay, not quite on the floor, but I nearly fell off my chair. Here I sit (and I use that term loosely), wishing I had something to write on my blog. I really, really HATE posting nothing except Wordless Wednesday once a week. I mean, gee whiz, there are zillions of words and thoughts flying around my colander brain every single day, yet none of them escape onto the pages of my blog. And it's been bugging me a lot.

And then I read Heather's post today about bloggers whom she loves. When she mentioned one that she finds HIL.AR.I.OUS, I knew I needed to go there. It turns out that there is the blog of The Other Mama. I think I've been there before, but apparently only in passing. But not today. Not on a day when I need something. Some inspiration. Something uproariously funny.

Misheard song lyrics.

Need I say more?

I think not.

My personal favorites from my own life:

The Doobie Brothers' Black Water - "I like to hiss and funk in Dixieland. Burger Mama, come and take me by the hand." (courtesy of my sister)

The Doobie Brothers' (again) China Grove - "Talkin' 'bout trying to grow . . . "

Five for Fightings' Superman - "I'm more than a man, with forty red sheep."

I'm sure there are more but they slipped out the colander holes. In the meantime, go read Hillary's list. Then read the comments. ALL of them. To be fair, though, no drinking or eating whilst reading. You may want to stop for a potty break right now. Or be sorry. But don't say I didn't warn you.

May you fall out of your chair with laughter!

Monday, Monday

Remember hot air corn poppers? They had the clear (or yellowish) container atop the motor and once your kernels heated up, you could watch it all twirl and fly around as it exploded into soft, tasty popcorn. Just imagine that scene and you will totally understand how my thoughts are functioning today. If only I had some melted butter to pour onto them. I'm sure that would somehow help. Doesn't melted butter just help everything? Okay, maybe not bacon.

Instead of a holiday next Monday, we're taking one today. Except I'm working. Tasks, errands, chores, whatever - I have things to do today. I started out off-track and am praying that God gets me back on His path.

"A man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps." Proverb 16:9

I thought I was meeting a friend at Starbucks early this morning, so I drug my tired self out of bed, got ready, and zipped on over there. Fortunately, I can access Facebook through my cell phone, so when she wasn't showing up, I checked on my account. Sure enough, she sweetly reminded me that we're meeting on Thursday. Oops. Although the boys were incredibly grateful to have me come home early with double chocolate chip blended cream frappes with a squirt o'mint. Can you say SUGAR for breakfast?!? Woo hoo!

Once home, a list of things needing to be done began to run through my head. Uh oh. I knew there was no way that I could take care of all those items and have a successful day of homeschooling. What to do, what to do?

Time out to inquire of the One with the answers. GOD.

So today, I'm walking around with a pen and pad of paper so I can jot down every little thought that pops into my head - a task to do, a phone call to make, something to tell my hubby, or a phone message. The goal is to accomplish the tasks at home in the morning and then do the out-and-about errands after lunch. So far, so good.

Oh right, what's a post without pictures? This just made me laugh:




On the door? A tag telling us that our delivery driver left a package.




See where the package is?




On the step, in front of the door, just below the label.




I suppose if the package were gone, at least we'd know the driver did his or her job, and now someone else had taken our package. I'm not sure why else you'd leave a note that essentially says, "We left a package - right beneath this note."

It was good for a giggle.

The Remains of My Day

In some alternate reality, where I have straight hair, I might look like this. Well, with wet and recently colored hair. And blurry looking.





I'm so glad they're harmonizing! Could you imagine if they were off-key?!?




Oops!!




Maybe I'll go back to this. Feeling a little fickle right now.

For more hair nonsense, go here and here.

Alarm Cat

Our cat (her name is Savannah, if you must know. But she doesn't use her real name, so we don't either) is very, very social in the morning. She needs someone to stand nearby when she eats, she wants to talk - a lot, and just kind of hang out with you. So when nobody is up and about in the house when she's feeling her human bonding needs, she takes matters into her own hands, er, paws.

Because I stayed up to an insanely late hour last night this morning working on homeschool plans, I wasn't exactly ready to hop out of bed at my normal time. Plus with this cold, damp weather we're having, my warm bed was extra cozy. So Miss Kitty decided to remedy that problem, entering my bedroom, meowing quite loudly and often. Being that I'm a very skilled ignorer of Alarm Cats when I wish to sleep, she got no response.

So she hopped up onto the bed, meowing even louder, while stepping on me. It's amazing how a cat might not seem that heavy until all her weigh is compressed into the space of a paw pressing into your thigh. Round 2 went again to the Ignorer of Alarm Cats.

Round 3 and Miss Kitty has moved to standing on her back legs at the mirrored closet doors, scratching the mirrors, while exercising her lungs. Ignorer of Alarm Cats rolls over and curls up for more sleep.

Round 4 finds Miss Kitty in the bathroom, pulling open the cupboard door and letting it bang shut. Over and over and over and over and over again. She knows this one really gets to me.

All right, already!! You may have won this round, Miss Kitty, but I am still the champion Ignorer of Alarm Cats. I got up because I needed to. So there.

A Gremliny Update

Just to let you know, that adorable little dude in my WW post is none other than the one and only Cuteness - the very well-posted son of my awesome friend, Carrie, The Gremlin Wrangler. While she is a photographer extraordinaire, I am ever so pleased to inform you that I'm the one who shot this one as well as the Wordless Wednesday post. Of course, after taking some 5,000 few hundred photos of so much cuteness, I had to get something worthy of sharing, no?

(Carrie - it's unedited. Help yourself, my friend. I'll play with it later. I really need to go to bed.)

BTW, he really is that cute. I know this for a fact. He lived at my house for nearly four days. Along with the rest of the Gremlins and their parents. Unlike the movie, however, when it got dark and late, there were no rowdy little gremlins running amuck. Instead, there were four parents engaged in the following (choose any five or ten words and you'll get the idea):

guffaw, belly laugh, deep laugh, howl, howling, laughter, loud laugh, roar, shout, shriek, snort, chortle, chuckle, cluck, crow, gibber, giggle, gobble, guffaw, quack, snicker, snigger, titter

And what brought on this uncontrollable hysteria?

• For starters, there was Brian Regan on YouTube



• The DVD of Taylor Mason's hysterical ventriloquism



• Kristen Wiig as Junice and the Turget cashier

Need a little laughter in your day . . . or evening . . . or whatever? Check out those links. It's good stuff. It's best if enjoyed while not eating, drinking, or having a full bladder. Don't say I didn't warn you.




PS - hope all the links work well. If not, lmk - I wouldn't want you to miss out on the fun.

A Little Humor Revisited

Because it's too hot and I have nothing coherent going on in my colander brain, I dug up some silly goodness from last summer. This was originally posted 6/6/08. Enjoy!


So, what do you think these signs really mean?

Is this a substance that's going down into him? Or is it coming up and out? And if so, why is he laying in it? Or is it floating around his head? There's no point of reference - is he standing or laying down? Just what is the textured gray substance anyway?



Touch the shag carpet - you know you want to



Sever fingers here

And then there's this:

Do you really want snacks that come from the same machine as the soap? Does anyone ever get confused? Could you wash your clothes with a bag of Cheetos? I guess only if you wanted an orange wardrobe.



Washer-Extractors? What exactly are they extracting? And why is it an Express Lane? Is that for people who wash 15 items or less?



Oh, here's what was extracted - the water! So much so, that the towels are now glued to the drum. Good thing I brought my big, strong man with me. I may never have gotten those towels out of there.


There goes the "wash the kids while we're here" plan. Guess they'll have to get clean the old-fashioned way.



I wasn't sure if there'd be refreshments at the coin op since I haven't been to one in years (other than the time we had to wash a sleeping bag that someone lost his lunch dinner in at Boy Scout camp). I figured we'd take the BYORB (bring your own root beer) route.



Aw, he looks so sad. Like he's in trouble or something. Really, he's not. He's just playing games on his phone, while his photo-crazed wife goes wonky with her camera.

So, the next time you're bored, have dirty clothes, a bunch of quarters, and time to kill, take a trip to the local coin-op laundry and see what fun you can dig up!