so long, farewell…

aufwiedersehn adeiu!

you knew this was coming right? i mean, i’m here all.the.time. i know it doesn’t look like it on my blog, but everywhere else online, i am. pretty much daily, i am checking everyone’s blogs that are to the right (including some that aren’t), cnn.com, google.com/trends, twitter, e-mail1, e-mail2, e-mail3, facebook, myspace (occasionally, when i’m desperate…or i want to listen to my awesome music!), failblog (yeah, that was covered in “blogs”, but it is particularly funny and deserved special mention), dictionary.com, urbandictionary.com, vimeo, flickr etc. etc. the www has taken over my life, and that’s just not good.

i’m pasty white (ok, i’m always pasty white), my eyes are square, my fingers airtype, my butt is resembling the chair it spends A LOT of time in (including the chair pattern THROUGH my clothes…that’s pretty impressive…or pathetic) and angelo would like to use his computer for more than 10 minutes at a time because that’s how long it takes for me to start suffering from withdrawal.

the internets is the first thing i check in the a.m. and the last thing i am doing before bed. it’s time to stop. so i bid you farewell all my internet friends. no more tweets, no more blog updates, no more facebook updates, no more occasional visitations to myspace. it all stops now.

if you don’t think you can live without me, i have a phone that can only be pried from my cold dead hands. so feel free to call or text anytime between 9am and 10pm CST with a break for lunch from 11:30am to 1pm (ok, i’m kidding on that lunch bit, just be forewarned that i may be chewing in your ear). i think the four out of the five of you that read here have my number (or live in the ole’ ‘hood). if you don’t, contact me via here, or e-mail or twitter, and we’ll figure it out. the internets rehab begins on wednesday, so you have until 10pm tuesday night (that’s tomorrow night fyi) to get a hold of me.

so, adieu!

 

 

chillax guys, it’s just for a week!

happy mother’s day!

happy mother’s day!

mentioned:

my mom

angelo’s mom, kathy

abigail

amanda

abigail’s mil, deb

abigail’s mother, mary (and wife to dave)

amanda’s mom, sandy

amanda’s grandmother, nedra

mae

melanie

katie stevers

heather spohr

liz logelin

you may now call me “swim mom”

so it was very evident early on that miss. moira loved the water. when she was less than a year old, we visited barton springs. the water temperature year round is a chilly 68 degrees fahrenheit (20 celsius). the water temp has to be at least 80 (26.66) before i will even THINK about going in. angelo took aidan in, and aidan wanted right back out. i took moira to the edge of the water to splash around in, and she kept trying to go into the water. remember, she is less than a year old. she thought it was great fun.

soon after, angelo’s parents had a large in ground pool put in their backyard. we went down there when it was being filled up, and once again, moira couldn’t keep away from the water. she is the first one to start swimming at around easter, and is the last one to get out around thanksgiving. of course, let’s not forget new year’s day.

the first summer the pool was in, aidan wasn’t to keen on it. mostly because at the time, he had tubes in his ears and DESPISED having the ear plugs put in so he could swim. he didn’t swim a whole lot that first summer.

both kids learned how to swim early on, and we decided we had to find a swim team when they became of age. this year was that year.

our town doesn’t have a swim team. the nearest one is 38 miles away, but we decided with their love of the water, it was worth it. so we filled out the paper work, gave them an arm and a leg and was told swim practice would be tuesday through friday starting with the first tuesday of the month. oh, and they need to be able to swim across the pool in under a minute. 25 meters in under a minute. okie-dokie, we had a month to get them there. you see, swimming wasn’t a problem, you can throw them both in the water, and they can tread water and swim to the nearest exit…not with any amount of speed though. after we started working with them, aidan caught on no problem…moira, however, kept stopping to dance in the middle of her swim. apparently, she is more suited for synchronized swimming.

the first day of practice came and the kids had a wonderful time. wednesday’s practice came with the first time trial. aidan made it! moira, not so much. 1 minute, 17 seconds. the assistant coach said she wasn’t worried about it. everyone was very impressed how comfortable they both were in the water. no apprehension whatsoever. we spent all day thursday at angelo’s parents working on moira’s swimming.

problem areas:

• stops kicking and using arms when stopping to breathe.
• doesn’t use arms very well.
• is looking straight ahead when swimming creating a small drag.
• likes to swim under the water which takes even longer.
• when breathing in, goes from a horizontal position to a vertical position.

by the time we needed to leave, she had  it down. i was sure she would get it. she didn’t. in fact, she added three seconds to her time. she kicked the entire time, and held her head down, but didn’t use her arms and became distracted so every time she came up to breathe, she was looking in a different direction. not cool. i didn’t want to have to break the news to her if she didn’t make it on friday. i didn’t want to have to leave her at home when taking aidan to practice, or have to bring her along and she would have to watch everyone else swimming.

friday was again spent working on her form. when we arrived at practice, i reminded her about everything we had discussed. keep kicking, use your arms, head down and when breathing, look straight ahead.

i was practically in a panic when she swam her time trial. she did beautifully and did everything we had discussed. she swam her little heart out…and made it in 56 seconds. i cried. i was so happy. in the evening before bed when discussing the favorite parts of the day, making the swim team was the first thing she mentioned.

after moira’s time trial, the head coach and i were talking and i told her that moira had made it (she wasn’t at moira’s time trial). she was very excited and told me that she had decided thursday that she was going to have moira on the team because she had no problem with the water and could obviously swim. she told the assistant coach to let us know, but the assistant coach wanted to see how moira did on friday first. oy vey!

so, the kids are on their way in their first extra-curricular activity and are having a great time!

katherine’s first communion

this post has been a long time coming and i’m sorry it took so long to type up. i have no excuse but my own procrastination and i hope katherine can forgive me.

april 26th was a very special day. not only was it my dad’s 51st birthday, but it was the day that katherine rosemary would be receiving her first communion. at the tender age of six, she was one of the youngest of those receiving their first communion, but you wouldn’t be able to tell by her performance. she held herself with poise and grace and was as mature as any seven to eight year old i know and looked beautiful.

thank you katherine for letting me be a part of this special day and congratulations!

for more on katherine’s first communion and pictures, go here

today

everything is trying to get in. so i’m registering only partial information because it’s all trying to get in at once. like a radio trying to pick up two stations at once. you hear distorted clips from both stations and a lot of static. now imagine the radio trying to broadcast 20 different stations at once.

that’s what is feels like today.

dude, you have some hairy gams!

so we’re going to play games with some friends this afternoon. it coincides with my bi-monthly leg shaving. i detest shaving my legs. it’s one of the reasons i like winter, pants. but, it needs to be done. even during the winter, when my pant legs are puffy because of the long leg hairs, it’s time to break out the lawn mower and tame the jungle.

so angelo found me brushing out the knots (leg hairs are easier to shave sans knots) and incredulously exclaimed

“you’re shaving your legs to go play games?!“

and i’m like, “dude, i haven’t shaved them since olivia was born. i’ve started naming the individual hairs which means they are developing personalities and you’ll be lucky if i don’t start saving the named ones because they are now my friends. i mean the baby has a bandage wrapped around her hands becuase she tried to use my nekkid legs as a support to stand up and the leg hairs SLICED HER HAND OPEN! if i tried to board an airplane now they’d be like

“ma’am, we cannot allow you to board this plane due to the fact that your legs are lethal weapons (and not in the sexy or cool butt kicking way) and since razors are not allowed within 1,000 feet of the airport, there is no way you will be able to shave the “harry and the henderson’s” look you’ve got going on below your knees and make it back in time to board your plane. in other words, you are s.o.l. BWAHAHAHAHAHAH!”

and then my family would be going on to paris without me. i’m not sure why we are going to paris since i’ve never had any real desire to go but i could be even more angry at the airport security people-who hate their jobs so much that the only real enjoyment they can squeeze out of it is to be evil and condescending to us the flying public-for not letting go to paris unless i have shaved legs which would scream TOURIST! because for godssakes this is PARIS! where everyone’s legs are HAIRY!”

so then angelo just rolled his eyes and then kindly started the weed wacker for me.

i confess…that my family is keeping secrets from me

from a note i found in the truck today:

“angelo, i need new pot!”

from the aidan (age 5) tonight:

“i’m pulling weed!”

apparently my family has been running a lucrative pot growing business behind my back. there’s a few things i’d like to know.

a)why wasn’t i informed of this?

2)where is the money from it?

c)why wasn’t i given any samples? i mean, shouldn’t we know the quality of the ganga we are selling before we sell it to the unsuspecting public? i’m just trying to help out here! WHY IS NOBODY INCLUDING ME?!

 

*we do not grow weed. we do not roll weed. we do not smoke weed. we do not sample weed. we do not package weed. we do not sell weed. we could not point out a pot plant to you if our lives depended on it.

for lack of a better title: i’m eating twizzlers, RIGHT NOW!

and they are so good.

so the angelo and his dad were slated to go to a food show in fort worth hosted by cd harnett on thursday and then golf with them on friday morning. which means that they were going to be gone for two days. i’m still recovering from his two months of being mostly gone and then of course the nervous breakdown from a couple of weeks ago…i was practically having panic attacks thinking about him being gone for two measly days.

thursday morning rolled around and i went to bed.

seven hours later i’m woken up by the angelo asking if i want to go to the food show with him because the steve was sick and the cook was sick so the angelo and the steve were up at 1am cooking tacos (i hope you didn’t eat tacos thursday morning) and the steve is now feeling worse and is not going to the food show. it’s a three hour drive to fort worth and the angelo has been up since 1am. putting him behind the wheel of a vehicle is like giving him a sleeping pill. there was no way he was going to be driving to fort worth by himself.

my mom (being wonderful) agrees to take the kids. the abigail (also wonderful) offers to take the bigs until 5pm because our kids had not been together for, like, a day and were going through withdrawal. fabulous. the kids were dropped off at their respective temporary homes and the angelo and i were on our way. he drove for the first 20 minutes. after seeing my life flash before my eyes one too many times, i took over.

we lunched at sonic, at some point i drove in a “truck exit only” drive, yadda, yadda, whatever. BAM! we’re there. 20 minutes later we find our parking spot. not only was the will rogers memorial center hosting the food show, but a job fair and a trauma convention all at once. the place was packed to the gills.

so anyway, the food show was really not that interesting. unless, of course you are looking for new product to put into your store. i would like to mention though, seriously, if we said that we are purchasing your product to put into the store, you don’t need to keep trying to sell us on it. seriously.

seriously.

the drawing at the end of the show, did absolutely nothing for us. lame.

our hotel was next to the “liq-o-rama”. awesome.

our hotel didn’t have small children in it demanding our attention and care. double awesome.

CDH fed us and then we went to bed early because we are old like that, we know how to party, we had been up really early and were tired. well, the angelo slept, i watched mind numbing TV. also really awesome.

it wasn’t my first choice for an impromptu minimini vacation, but i’m not complaining.

thank you mom for housing our children.

thank you abigail for hosting our children.

and for feeding the fish.

and for feeding sam.

and for letting sam out.

did i ever tell you about new year’s day?

nope, i sure didn’t.

*NOT KATIE SAFE!*

so, new year’s day.

angelo and i brought in the new year by sleeping. riveting i know, but angelo was up at 4am new year’s eve and had to be up at 4am again on new year’s day, so staying up until 12am is usually a big fat FAIL! bringing in the new year by myself is not as exciting as it’s cracked up to be, so we sleep, and the new year arrives anyway.

don’t worry, that wasn’t what i’ve been meaning to tell you for the past 3.5 months. it gets better.

this year (well, the end of last year), the angelo’s dad decided that he needed a new year’s tradition. spilling cream on the kitchen floor (switzerland), making noise (poland), devouring 12 grapes (spain) and ringing a bell 108 times (japan) were not good enough for him. oh no, those in fact were pretty tame. no, the man decided that he needed to jump into the pool at noon on new year’s day, thus ensuring that there would be no more siblings for angelo. the angelo and his two brothers were jumping in too…no more grandchildren. also joining in the festivities would be the jerry…and the moira.

the place: in-law’s pool.

the players: steve (father-in-law), angelo, christopher, andrew (brothers-in-law), jerry and moira.

the pool temperature: fifty-five degrees farenheit. yeah. 55 degrees farenheit. that’s 13 degrees celsius.

the object is to jump in and swim to the other end.

the countdown began. the boys and girl awaited with a mixture of fear and excitement. noon came, and everyone jumped in…well…everyone except moira. we watched and cheered as the boys swam to the end of the pool. as soon as they made it, we hear a splash at the other end. we turn in time to see moira’s head disappear under the water only to return a split second later. the look on her face was pretty easy to read… “IT’S FUCKING COLD!”

she was scooped out of the water by her daddy and was quickly wrapped in a warm towel. it wasn’t a minute later when she uttered:

“i want to jump in again!”

but then, you really have to know moira to understand that that really wasn’t too shocking to hear from her. moira was a mermaid in her other life.

so grandpa volunteered to jump in with her again, and this time there was no hesitation on her part.

pictures can be found here.

happy new year.

are you looking at me?