“red”

red legos

red red red

i like the color red

there is red everywhere

red red red

there is red on ladybugs

red red red

by: moira, age 5

i don’t have a title for this post as i don’t really have something to post about but figured that i really needed to post more often so here we are. expect randomness to abound

first and foremost, i would like to say how saddened i am about the fort hood shooting. it boggles my mind as to why people do this. it is said that he was upset about the news of being sent to iraq…fine, shoot off your foot but DON’T take your displeasure out on innocent men and women. how dare you. my prayers are with the families of the deceased and wounded. i pray for the wounded to fully recover and i pray for the shooter’s family. i also pray for the shooter. i’m not sure what, but i think he is also in need of prayers as there is obviously something wrong with him.

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on a much less serious note (although a VERY serious subject)…”your” and “you’re”.

“you’re” is a contraction meaning “you are” as in “you are driving me crazy by not using the correct words!” would be “you’re driving me crazy by not using the correct words!” NOT “your driving me crazy by not using the correct words!”.

“your” implies ownership. “your incorrect use of these two words is driving me crazy!”. you are the one incorrectly using these two words so you own the incorrect usage.

capesh?

since president obama has decided that he wants to shorten the summer break because american’s are so far behind other countries in education (most who, btw, currently spend over 1,000 hours LESS in school than americans), i believe these extra hours should be spent pounding these two words and their differences into students’ heads. anyone who currently cannot tell the difference and consistantly use these two terms incorrectly should be forced to return to school to learn the difference. so basically, if you are checking everyone’s twitter updates and notice someone incorrectly using these words, you are obligated to contact your (or their) local law enforcement and report them so they can be sent to class. failure to do so will result in fines no less than $5,000 and/or 6 years in a maximum security prison.

capesh?

p.s. on this subject, yes melanie, it was your incorrect usage of this word that brought this to mind but i know that it was a one time, late night, bleary eyed, deep in the throes of some ailment, and not ignorance that caused you to commit this heinous crime. fear not, had it not been you, someone else would have done it and we’d still be discussing it.

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“hubby” and “hubs” need to be stricken from everyone’s vocabulary. someone needs to create an internet script that morphs “hubby” and “hubs” into “husband” when typed into any program.

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my sister’s name is “amanda lynn”. say it out loud. kind of combine the two names…”amandalynn”. think of a musical instrument…do you have it yet. no? think on it. answer at the bottom.*

p.s. amanda, i love you!

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the bigs are doing fantabulous in school. aidan has come a long way since the beginning of the year and we are so proud of him. he is starting to enjoy reading but i believe math is his best subject.  moira is doing great as well. she is no longer going to marry tony when she is 8, but is now going to marry a classmate, will. yesterday i met will’s older sister who is also infatuated with moira (in the she’s-so-cute-i-want-to-put-her-in-my- pocket kind of infatuation not in the i-want-to-marry-her-too type of infatuation). as for actual education news for moira, she is doing great in everything. when at the library, she always picks up informational (educational) type book like “all about fish” and “growing up: the barn owl”. this child is a sponge.

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olivia is quite the character. she is like moira, but even more so. of aidan and moira, moira was (is) the more adventerous one. she never had any fear of just walking away from us. olivia takes that to a whole new level. even when we go to leave, she just doesn’t care. “there is cool stuff out here somewhere, and i’m going to find it with or without you. check ya’ later”. her favorite word is “mamamamamama”, but she can also say “down”, “go”, “dada”, “shoes”, “hi”, “bye”, “binky”, “blanket”, “no”, “moira”, “aidan” and more that i can’t remember. she also signs “milk”, “more”, “please”, “help” (when i remind her to sign it when she needs it) and “rock”. she loves shoes, brushing her teeth, the great outdoors, running, walking and climbing.

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i am having spaghetti noodles with butter and parm cheese for lunch today.

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so a woman a i went to high school with is married to a man taller than she is (wait for it). she is like 6′10″, i wonder how tall he is?

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if we aren’t friends on facebook, we should be, because i posted a series of uber cute pics of olivia (i’m in them too but i’m not uber cute) on my profile. i posted one of them on my twitter too.

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peanut m&m’s while delicious, do not make a very filling breakfast. how sad.

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i have the best husband in the world. no really, i do.

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ok, that’s it for this episode of completely unrelated thoughts.

thank you jerry for help with this blog posting

thank you amanda for allowing me to poke fun at your name.

*a mandolin.

 

 

a “skanky bitch” stole my phone

so, halloween was not all that nice to me. i burned the crap out of my neck with the curling iron, the dog ate half of the cupcakes for the kids’ school fall fest and my phone was stolen.

well to be fair, i left it at h.e.b and someone found it, but failed to turn it in to customer service. yeah, they totally stole it.

i kept calling it from angelo’s phone hoping that it was still sitting somewhere in h.e.b and someone would hear it, answer it, we’d chat, we’d meet up so they could return it to me, we’d become BFF’s, have each other’s names tattooed on our ankles, change our children’s names to be the same as our new BFF and then we’d ride off into the sunset. but alas, the closest i came to that beautiful scenario was a “skanky bitch” finding my phone and using it as her own.

changing any of my kids’ names to “skanky bitch” was out of the question.

i had other’s calling my phone as well. texts were sent to “me” but “I” never answered the phone or returned any texts (because that’s how “skanky bitches” roll). amanda even sent an “emergency text” (it’s in quotes because it wasn’t a real emergency but a genius plan to have “skanky bitch” make some contact with someone) relaying how ethan was not breathing and was being rushed to the e/r. “skanky bitch” doesn’t have a heart.

later on the next day (after many more failed attempts at contact) we checked the records to see what kind of activity my phone was being used for. “skanky bitch” made numerous texts to two different numbers and received numerous texts from those same two numbers. she checked the internet a couple of times and sent multimedia texts (pictures. i fear what of.). angelo called one of the numbers and questioned the guy but he said he had no clue. i called the other number and was able to get that guy to contact the “skanky bitch” (he was the one that called her that btw) to find out what she was doing with my phone and if she could please call me. apparently it was her phone and she wasn’t calling anyone.

i really feel bad now knowing that the phone i bought back february and the service we bought almost two years ago were actually hers and i was using it selfishly all this time. how devastated she must have been for almost two years to have a phone number but no phone to use it with. when she finally happened upon it randomly in an h.e.b in a town not her own, the joy she must have felt! how rude of me to constantly call and text the phone after i inadvertently returned it to its owner. even more rude of me to involve others in my attempt to retrieve the phone i mistakenly believed to be mine.

how even more rude we were when we disconnected the number.

 

not me!

welcome to “not me monday” a blog carnival started by mckmama and continued on by hundreds of blog readers all over the www. check out what i DIDN’T DO this week then run on over to mckmama’s blog to see what hundreds of others also didn’t do!

this week,

1. i DID NOT pull olivia’s chair to the desk so she could play beside me while i played games on facebook.
2. i DID NOT let her play with the scotch tape while she was up there.
3. i DID NOT lay in bed listening to olivia say “mamamamamama” over the monitor while wondering how long it would be before angelo came home.
4. i DID NOT quit picking up to see if anyone else would pick up the slack.
5. i DID NOT play a one minute game for 30+ minutes.
6. i DID NOT wait until the last minute to cut out hundreds of little shapes for aidan’s class project.
7. i DID NOT stay up until all hours of the night cutting out said shapes.
8. i DID NOT wake up the next morning and cut out even more shapes.
9. i DID NOT leave clothes in the washer for two days.
10. i DID NOT wash and dry a bunch of clothes promising to fold and put them all away the next day and then i definitely DID NOT not actually get around to folding and putting them away. i DO NOT have six loads of laundry waiting to be folded and put away.
11. i AM NOT finishing up this post when i am supposed to be leaving to take the kids to school. i AM NOT still in my robe.
12. edited to add: i DID NOT drop the kids off at school late.

cleaning the smelly basket

so, i have an elfa three drawer basket thing in my bathroom. in the top basket i keep hair products: hair spray, heat protectors, mousse, gel, smoothing milk, sculpting putty, etc. in the bottom drawer, more hair stuff: blow dryer, straightening iron, curling iron, curlers, brushes, combs (there is ANOTHER small drawer in the linen closet that holds the clippies, elastic bands, headbands, etc). this post is not about the multitude of hair products i own though (mostly because i use most of those products most of the time. mostly.) no, this is about the basket between the hair baskets. this is about the smelly basket.

the smelly basket contains deoderants, body sprays, perfumes, lotions, creams, bath salts, exfoliators, feet refreshers, hand refreshers, face refreshers, belly button refreshers and so on. this collection just grows. it doesn’t ever shrink. that’s because, with the exception of the deoderant, i don’t use any of this stuff on a regular basis. i use some of it for a short while, then i stop using it, then i’ll remember there is more in there than deoderant, so i’ll start using something else from it for a bit, then quit again. rinse and repeat.

one of the pieces in the smelly basket is a tube of burt’s bees coconut foot creme (with vitamin E). i believe it came in a package of sample’s for burt’s bees, i’m not really sure. anyway. so the burt’s bees coconut foot creme (with vitamin E) became my latest victim in the mission to purge the smelly drawer. i slathered some on my tootsies, cover them up with some sockies, go about my day, then read the directions.

Apply liberally to

rough and calloused skin of

the feet before retiring and

cover with cotton socks.

about this time angelo walks in the door.

me: baby, i’m afraid i have to retire.

angelo: what?

me: i have to retire.

angelo: why do you have to retire?

me: because i put on the burt’s bees coconut foot creme (with vitamin E) and you have to retire after applying it.

angelo: you don’t have a job to retire from!

me: oh, well, i retire from housework.

angelo: you definitely don’t do any housework. tell you what, how about you retire from not doing anything.

me: i don’t like that plan.

so, i retired from not doing anything for the day and then applied the burt’s bees coconut foot creme (with vitamin E) the next day so i could retire from doing stuff. then i tossed the burt’s bees coconut foot creme (with vitamin E) because i didn’t like being retired from not doing anything.

acl fest day 3

the mud day. that’s pretty much it. nothing big to report. at any point last week if you went onto google and typed in “austin”, “acl”, “fest”, “park”, “mud”, “rain”, “dirt”, “zilker” or “festival”, pictures and articles about the mud pit that was acl fest day three probably took over the first page of your search. i, like many other festival goers, took off my shoes in order to squish my toes in the mud. in all h0nesty, it was much easier to clean off my feet than it would have been to clean off my shoes and socks later on. i saw many a-white shoe wearer attempting to keep their shoes white and had to giggle to myself. i saw many pairs of shoes and flip-flops left to fend for themselves in the mud. it was definitely something you had to get over. there was mud everywhere, and there was NOTHING you could do about it. if you were there, some part of you was going to be muddy. good luck. it was a blast.

as for the music. i saw two shows, then left. david garza was first. i was able to be right up front for him. i can’t tell you if i like his music, because i couldn’t hear him. well, i heard the music, but as for singing, nada. at the end, i found i was not the only one. someone failed in the sound department. next was the toadies. i knew all of two of the songs. had a nice spot against the fence again. again after they were done i tried to move up. again i ended up with people all around me and the prospect of standing for the next four hours. again, i said goodbye. erin needs to plan better next year.

this was going to be a serial tweet/FB update, but then i realized i had enough things to discuss to write a blog post

agenda for the day:

• blog about acl day 3…it’s only a week late.
• write drafts for several other blog posts.
• this is not on the agenda, just something i learned…drinking most of an energy drink is too much for me…i have the shakes.
• inspire hope because that’s all you need to do to recieve the nobel peace prize, and that is on my to-do list for life. it actually kind of pisses me off, because i’ve been working on a world peace plan for most of my 28 years in order to recieve the nobel peace prize, and now i learn that all i had to do was inspire hope. so, this is me inspiring hope…THERE WILL BE PEACE IN OUR LIFETIME! are you feeling hopeful? where’s my prize?
• these shakes are REALLY annoying.
• lesson plan for religious education class on wednesday night (in order to spell wednesday, i have to pronounce it wed-nes-day. everytime.)
• fold laundry.
• wash aidan’s sheets.
• clean up kitchen.
•  because of these stupid shakes, i’m able to type three or four letters then have to backspace to make a correction. it’s making typing this take much longer than it should.
• play with da’ baby.
• make bed.

how much do you think i’ll actually do? correct answer wins a prize. i don’t know what that is yet though. so i can’t promise that it will be great.

so, i completed 8 out of 9 agenda items for yesterday. technically i did 8.5 because i started planning for the R.E. class but then we had dinner, then i went to bed.  ok, fine, i looked at the chapter, looked at the suggested activities and stared out the back door. but, nobody guessed 8, so nobody wins a prize. maybe next time.

acl fest day 2

dry, dry summer…wet, wet acl fest. day 2 was dubbed the rainy day, as it…well…rained all day.

texas land and cattle has cheaper parking and is closer to the park. last year my dad and i found that the baptist church across mopac from the park had $20 parking. we had been taking the shuttle from down town but would walk back at the end of the night as the line for the shuttles back was ridiculously long. so on the first day, that’s where ian and i parked. on day 2, there was a guy holding a sign for parking at texas land and cattle which is on the same side of mopac as the park and was $5 cheaper. so that’s where we parked.

felice brothers. awesome find. it was suggested to me on day 1 that i check out the felice brothers. so i did, and i’m glad i did! i enjoyed them so much that i ended up purchasing their new album later on in the day. this is also where the OCD got out of hand as the guy standing in front of me was wearing a camelback and one of the straps was twisted. it was driving.me.crazy. after 45 minutes of staring at it, i tapped his shoulder and informed him of it. he fixed it and we all (he was there with a group) had a good laugh about it. although now i’m sure they talk about me as the “crazy strap girl”.

lunch was better today with a hot and crunchy chicken and avacado cone from some place with “cone” in the name. it was actually hudson’s on the bend presenting the mighty cone. basically, it is a piece of chicken and an avacodo slice coated in a spicyness and thrown on a tortilla with cole slaw and some sort of dressing wrapped up and put into a cone (like the drinking water cones). it was delicious.

does this lip balm also do dishes? i forgot my lip balm so i bought some at the general store in the soco art market, it was $3. it’s great stuff, but not that great.

mute math. must be the new math. i didn’t stay to see the whole show. but they were pretty decent.

flogging molly in the rain. not as barbaric as you would think. i REALLY enjoyed them. what made it even better was that it was raining the entire time they were on. i had an umbrella, but it’s hard to rock on while holding an umbrella. i also had a jacket, but it was sticking to my arms, so i took it off. my glasses were useless as the only thing i could see with them were the raindrops that were on them, so they came off as well. i also picked up their latest cd later on in the day. they are playing st. patty’s day in tempe, az…road trip anyone?

mos def. sweet spot. man i gotta pee. after flogging molly was mos def and then the ghostland observatory. when flogging molly finished their set, i was able to move up closer to the stage. however, my bladder let me know that it was full. mos def was not on for another hour, he was going to play for an hour, then another hour before the ghostland observatory who would play for an hour. my bladder was not going to wait four hours. i gave up my spot.

long line. umpteen million porta johns, and everyone is at this particular row. uncool man, way uncool.

more shopping and shut out. hit up the waterloo records tent and picked up the aforementioned cd’s. at that time, flogging molly was doing a signing, unfortunately, when i got there, they were no longer letting people in line. bummer.

early leave. at this point, there weren’t any other bands on that i REALLY wanted to see. dave matthews was going to be on that night, and while i like his music, the only song i really wanted to hear was “satellite”, and here is why…12 years ago, my mom was driving me to driver’s ed. the radio was playing and the long intro for dave matthews’ “satellite” come on.

“oh, it’s the satellite song” my mom says.

i just nod my head and continue looking out the window. a few seconds later…

“doesn’t it sound like he is saying “satellite”? she asks.

that’s when i turn my head, look at her with all of my 16 year old “i can’t believe you don’t know this” attitude and tell her:

“mom, he is.”

so, for the past 12 years, anytime i hear “satellite” come on the radio, i’ll call her and say:

“mom mom! it’s the satellite song!”

how awesome would that have been to call her and say “mom mom! it’s the satellite song!” while he was playing it live?

anyway, as i mentioned before, iwas sticking around for ghostland observatory because i heard they put on a really great show, but i didn’t know any of there music. the decemberists were playing somewhere at this point and had heard that i should check them out, but i didn’t, and i’m a little sad about that now. anyway, i headed out.

skating rink. “a” permit parking started out in the grass. it was now in the mud. very slick mud. it was not much different than being on a skating rink. little did i know, it was just a pre-cursor to what day 3 was going to bring.

home! decent day. the two acts i saw in their entirety were great. the rain just made it more exciting.

acl fest day 1

how do we get there? i had an idea where zilker park was, but wasn’t completely sure. not to mention the church where we were supposed to park. we did end up finding it pretty quickly.

cop chewed out honker behind us. we were at an intersection waiting to turn left (at a stop sign). a bus was coming so we waited. the guy behind wasn’t thrilled with that so he honked at us. then we heard yelling from the cop manning the intersection. he was chewing out the guy for being a jerk. we know this because i stopped and asked him on our walk to the festival.

goodbye ian. we made it! grabbed our wristbands and headed in. we each grabbed a program then went our seperate ways. i didn’t see ian again until after the festival was over.

less stuff is more. two years ago my dad and i brought coolers and other various items. last year we had the double stroller for olivia and all of her accoutrements. this year, all i had was my bag containing a sheet for sitting on, an empty water bottle, dried pineapple chunks, my wallet and itinerary. i found my first act, threw down my sheet and copped a squat. so awesome.

troubles with twitter. i wanted to twitter from my phone throughout the day, but my phone was being an ass about it. i think i got out two tweets.

asleep at the wheel.

blitzen trapper. they were awesome. i really enjoyed them and have plans to purchase their music. i can’t wait to see them again.

browsing. the shops at ACL carry some awesome stuff.

not so great fish tacos. it probably didn’t help that they were pre-made. this was my first foray into the world of fish tacos. next time i’ll try them freshly made.

purchasing. i couldn’t stop thinking about a dress i saw in one of the shops, so i went back to purchase it. it’s cute.

coheed and cambria-nebraska/dallas girls. wanting to be near the stage for the kings of leon, i sat through two other shows in order to try to claim a spot. the first one was coheed and cambria. i got there before they started and met a couple of women who had the same plan. they shared their sunscreen (i forgot to bring some so this was the first time i had applied any all day. as it was the only thing to burn was the backs of my knees. go figure.), and we chit-chatted. good times. one of them lives in lincoln, nebraska, the other in dallas.

movin on up. after coheed and cambria, we were able to move closer to the stage. in doing so, we met…

connie, amy, james & paul(?). amy and james were married and they were with paul(?). the three of them were from L.A. and were in austin to do a photo shoot with lance armstrong for oakley. james is a photographer, amy is a producer and paul(?) worked for oakley (not really sure what he did). lance gave them photo and media wristbands to the festival (which came in handy later). connie was there by herself.

thievery corporation. they were pretty awesome. i didn’t expect to enjoy them, but i did. during their show we met another group of people and formed…

our nation. our “group” was now 12 people strong and we were pretty protective of our area. we gave people trying to squeeze through the miniscule spaces between us a hard time. if you have a thing about your personal space, this was not the place to be.

bathroom run down the aisle. james and i needed to make a potty run. being fairly close to the stage with 10,000+ people behind us, it was not going to be an easy trip. remember when i mentioned amy, james and paul’s(?) wristbands? well, amy slipped hers off, i slipped it on, james and i jumped over the fence to the security/media/special guests aisle and were able to skip most of the crowd. we were stopped by a security gaurd, but james talked us through. nobody stopped us on the way back. it was pretty awesome.

no more sitting. before the coheed and cambria and then the thievery corporation shows, we were able to sit. after thievery corporation, it wasn’t possible. we were being run into while standing, had we sat, they would have been tripped over.

weed, weed everywhere. this is austin, this is a music festival, did you really expect any different?

kings of leon. another great show. what our nation was waiting for. definitely worth the wait. i’d love to see them again as well.

eddie vedder. yeah, he showed up to play the last song of the night with kings of leon. completely unexpected. completely awesome.

how do i get back? zilker looks very different in the dark trying to find my way back to the car. ian was already there trying to talk me through. i soon found my way. ian started to come back to find me. instead he found israel.

israel is falling…down drunk. israel had stumbled across mopac’s access road and fell over the blockade into the grass. at this time ian was passing by. i came upon them while ian was trying to convince israel that no, he was not alright and that he needed help. he was so inebriated, he was convinced he wasn’t. at one point, after israel had fallen down again, lindsey stopped to help. her boyfriend was none to pleased about the situation and was trying to convince her to leave. thankfully they stuck around as at this point ian had gone off to find some help. he was told that there was a cab service at the church (where we were parked and to take him there).

nobody will help. we arrive at the church to find it cab-less. i explained our situation to the traffic cop, but he was more concerned with directing traffic than helping out. they did finally get a cabbie to come who ended up being useless because he was close to shift change and couldn’t take this guy home. he then tried to drive off while other people were getting into his cab. i don’t have a lot of pleasant things to say about him.

somebody finally helps! finally i called 911 because i didn’t know what else to do. in tears, i explained to the dispatcher the situation and he started collecting information to get someone out there. by this time there were two officers with israel and ian and they took over. ian and i were able to leave.

home!

i had a good time, ian says he did. the weather was great. i can’t wait to go back today, even if it is raining.

cowwhat?

moira just came up to me wearing a cowboy hat and said “i’m a cowgirl”.

she then pushed it all the way down halfway covering her eyes and said “now I’m a cowboy”

cocked to the side? cowfunky

being held up high over her head? cowflying

over her face? cowmask

hanging off her head? cowhangingoffmyhead

hanging in front of her? cownecklace

cowfunky was my favorite.