oh honestly

my computer is in putt-putt hell. Danny was playing this little game that hijacked my computer and refused to quit - even when i removed the CD, put putt-putt back in it's case and put the putt-putt CD as far across the room from the computer as possible. what the hell, putt putt???? and stop playing that song, it's driving me nuts!!

today i rid myself of nemesis#5 on my america's most wanted list - kung fu panda. he has been thrown in the trash many a time but he somehow always claws his way back out and lies in wait deep inside a toy box... he has great stamina and can wait silently for weeks till i am home alone then suddenly he springs to life and yells out 'wa-haa!!' for no reason and scares me out of my skin. well today, i found him and turned the garden hose on him (boy that felt good!) he didn't like that at all, he was yelling for his life and his voice was getting all squiffy and robotic. then i placed him at the BOTTOM of the trash can and threw several buckets of toys on top of him - i could hear him shouting the entire time :( as i walked away he was still yelling but his tone had changed and he seemed to be begging for mercy... now i am feeling VERY GUILTY about it.... and am thinking of rescuing him :| urgh, stupid panda! and stupid me...

speaking of stupid, i really hate that Dr Oz. he isn't very nice and he isn't very cute either. all told, Oprah is completely unwatchable these days. ok, she has been for at least 4 seasons, but each year i give her a fresh start, hoping she will have done research over the summer and discovered what women really think about her show... and they will have been honest, instead of blowing smoke up her ass. this season is the worst so far and i can't even read the little description about the show anymore, even that is deathly boring sounding :( i don't like superstars! nor Dr Oz and his lame organic advice!! nor people who are heroes who make me feel lame for wanting to stay in bed all day because i have a sore throat. i want to see L-O-S-E-R-S. people who truly SUCK. women who spend $400 a week on starbucks. women who have tons of unopened bags of unnecessary stuff in their cars. women who are terrible mothers that can make me feel like less of a terrible mother. Oprah sucks these days... she just doesn't get it anymore :|

another thing i don't get... melrose place. ohhh but where to begin. i'm so confused with jane, she is sooooo mean now but she used to be soooooo nice - i think her personality was switched after a very confusing car accident where no-one had ID and doctors had to act fast to save lives....? maybe they put kimberly's brain into jane's head by mistake? but i don't remember such an episode.... and i am seriously no good at DNA but i wonder if the really terrible actress with red hair is jane's daughter.... i think sydney and jane were sisters, right? i sure wish i was smarter at biology so i could keep up with my soaps :|

off to bed... one pic from the library today. just one - no more no less :)

tuesday ings

wanting
burnt english toast with melted butter. but alas we have no english bread and we have no butter. and even if we did, our toaster refuses to burn anything :( i have searched high and low for a toaster that is renowned for burning things and they are VHTF (i am using my internet language today!)

sighing
over the extremely long line in walmart this morning to return the big bag of cedar bedding i bought for the rats before i realized cedar is BAD for rats. who knew rats have such high standards for bedding? and i love the smell of cedar, i equated cedar for rats to 400 thread count for humans :(

drinking
1.25 scoops of nescafe, 2.25 scoops of creamer, 0.75 splenda pack = OMGTDF (ok i hate internet talk)

wondering
why i never see white anti-perspirant powder on Michelle Obama's sleeveless dresses... i wonder if she botoxes her armpits...? or maybe she just doesn't sweat...? gasp, maybe she is a robot...?

giggling

over Danny telling me how important the 'no sharing' rule is at the pre-K wunch table... then how he shared his snack today but it was OK because he did it UNDER the table not OVER the table :) apparently his friend loves yellow and so he just had to share his yellow spongebob gummie with him :)

(posting the day after, due to giving up on tuesday around 5pm)

to-do

before bedtime list:

take two aleve
and some cough syrup
and catch up by taking a handful of multivitamins
(because i swear if i forget to take a multivitamin for one single day, i get a really bad cold)
use biore strip on nose to remove tobacco scented vegas filth
finish looking at tonight's pics
clean kitty litter (desperately... it's bad even with a stuffy nose)
get a large diet coke with three chunks of ice and 3 gummivites to help with the cold
watch criminal minds in bed and hope this one is PLEASE LEASE PLEASE set in orange county - every night i wish the same wish and it never comes true :(


tonight in pictures:





a dinosaur kiss

monday monday

is it just me
or do mamas and papas songs induce feelings of major nausea and vomiting since that duodenum-twisting mckenzie phillips oprah interview last week???! she and her father are my new diet plan :)

replenished
from our weekend in las vegas. we played the slots and tripled our money :) meaning we gambled all of $5 and won $15 back :)

decided in order to maximize our time in las vegas:
to drive to vegas at 3am :| which is really about 2 hours too early even for an early bird such as myself.... by 11am i had to lie down very, very, very badly :)

got sick
on friday of my hair getting in my eyes and cut it very, very short. and i mean very, very, very short. take that, hair!

watched
america's best dance crew marathon all day yesterday. pretty much anything in marathon form is agony except law and order and criminal minds (with mandy patinken ONLY not the guy who looks like a mean little squirrel)

not
the preschool special helper tomorrow. it's going to be a GREAT DAY!! :)

back later with pics....

thursday things

tied
only a handful of shoelaces at preschool today. into double-ain't-never-coming-undone-and-ps-what-were-you-thinking-buying-a-preschooler-shoes-with-laces knots :) removed and tipped sand out of a dozen more :|

did
the hokey pokey. i have never put in and out so many different body parts, it went on for h-o-u-r-s..... it was like one of those raves one sees on documentaries, everyone was all sweaty and hallucinating/collapsing with exhaustion :)

clipped
16 little rattie fingernails. TB&J's fingernails are very very very minute and rats make the most heart wrenching little yelps when they are scared :( and not to add to the stress, but if you clip their nails too short they bleed....

shredded
an entire sack of catalogs to make cozy rattie bedding, fantasizing all the while that those magazines were bad bad people that have somehow found their way onto my 'bad list' :)

snuggled
with TB&J so they knew i still love them and meant them no harm. we watched melrose place together and J bruxed his teeth which means he enjoyed it :) another reason why rats are so awesome: they don't mock my choice of entertainment, like some people i could mention :|

found
ANOTHER whole list of pizzerias to try. seriously, will my work EVER be done??!

could NOT believe
that sprinkles red velvet cupcake was rated higher than susiecakes red velvet cupcake in the OC Register taste test. sigh, i think that newspaper might be republican though, which could explain it away

off to climb the wooden hill! pictures tomorrow...

how to turn traffic lights green

have your child drop a toy that you must attempt to turn around backwards to try to find - voila, the light will change instantly to green :)

start writing a list... it can be a list about anything, it doesn't matter - the second your pen touches the paper the light will magically change and the person behind will honk because you sat at a green light for 0.08 seconds. try this at every light, it works!

attempt to read something very important. the lights for your entire journey will all turn green and stay green forever :|

attempt to program an address into your GPS, i just know the computer brain in my GPS and the computer brain in the traffic light are mocking me and conspiring against me

attempt to find a song on your iPod. the second you click through the music menu, then the song menu, then through 20,000 songs you only kind of like to find the one song you really like, the light will turn to green and you won't be able to find the exact song you wanted and you will end up listening to roxanne by the Police instead :(

put lotion on your hands - this one works like a charm :)

old people are great at turning lights to green too - the second they step into the street to cross, their white-man-walking turns to a red-hand-flashing and do they get a move on? no they do not!! they shuffle across as slow as they, spilling things and looking completely bewildered and next thing you know your light's on green but you would be heartless if you did anything but just sit there, slowly dying as your light cycles back to red....

it doesn't matter how long you sit at the red light - as your turn approaches, you hear sirens in the distance and your stomach drops.... you scan for the flashing lights.... and as soon as that light turns to green, the fire truck approaches and takes just long enough to get through the intersection that your light is back to red :| repeat scenario with a second fire truck next time it is about to turn green....

i am SO OVER being special helper at preschool - not cursing for 3 entire hours is not only impossible, but it gives you a headache for the rest of the day. cursing is just the opposite of smiling - like when you use emoticons during typing, which i do a lot :) see? part of the headache, it's true, was caused by tying 38 shoelaces over and over and o-v-e-r again in the 100 degree heat while pretending to be loving every minute :| yes, children you are just precious - now run along!!

i wonder if faking one's own kidnap is a crime? i could leave a note pinned on Danny saying i was abducted but will be back to pick him up as long as they don't call the police?! i am so serious. that playground is HOT. those kids have no mercy. they want to be pushed on the swings and i am the only sucker who will stand out there and do it. do they know i cry when i get home because of their playground bullying ways???

maybe if i took my camera to class i might be happier...? it's like a snuggie to me. taking pictures is technically like a morphine drip. which reminds me - i must take the BIG aleve today. how do teachers do it? they must be drugged to the max every day to survive :|

i got no sleep. Danny coughed every 28 seconds all night. i gave him medicine. which i NEVER do because it's like giving medicine to a wild thrashing wildebeast. i said he couldn't go to school in the morning and i couldn't be special helper (whoohoo!!) if he didn't - he loves me being special helper - "vis, kids, is Mrs Momma!" he introduces me as :) he immediately gulped it down. i praised myself for being so very clever and stupid all at the same time. until... the vomit burp... and the huge bulging monster eyes that are unforgetful and terrifying and mean only one thing.... hurry!! get towels!! bring buckets!! stand back!!! and....... baaaarrrrf!!!! gallons of it! everywhere!! all over the bedding, toys, blankets, dinosaurs :( all the color of delsym cough suppressant :|

what to do... i know this is all a result of the stridor/flu shot..... i want to go and get my special helper duty OVER and DONE WITH. i am NOT a shirker!! i will be there!! but so many things point to staying in bed watching Andy Pandy with a bucket of icecream (for the sore throat ONLY) urgh, being a mom SUCKS!

in other news i had cinnamon toast crunch for breakfast. i now will only eat my cereal without milk as part of my calorie controlled diet. it tastes so much crunchier! who knew!!!

wednesday things

during a moment of retail exhaustion in line, was talked into:
buying 20 stretchy skeletons, one 3 musketeers (large) and two bingo markers (red)

dined on:
el pollo loco. everytime i watch Flipping Out i crave it all over again :|

lamented the invention of:
lame words such as BOGO and retweet. sigh.

finally tried a:
mint 3 musketeers. it is white not grey inside and tasted like ben gay :|

realized after saying it wrong for 13 years:
that the company 'ore ida' is pronounced or-eye-dah not oray-idea. where on earth did i get oray idea from???! i think it's going to take forever for me to pronouce it or-eye-dah

was not allowed to buy:
cough medicine in Target for Danny because i didn't have proof of my age. seriously? yes seriously :|

list of likes

reaching into my purse for my lipbalm and finding it instantly

having lots and lots of quarters at the ready for beach parking

the magical peace potion that i keep in my car... and on my desk... and by my bed... and in my purse.... etc etc etc

golden hour at my favorite park

Danny's new pre-K and his absolutely lovely pre-K teacher, aptly named Mrs Kay (Danny thinks her name should be Mrs Pre-K:)

riding my bike down the middle of the road so fast it sounds like it's going to fall apart (and not giving a hoot if it does:)

getting 10lb of anything for $1 :)

drug stores

Danny calling Bart Simpson Bert Simpson

pretty libraries (i am so shallow and don't visit ugly ones:)

list of dislikes

waking up with a suddenly polka dotty sheet... and wondering why all the polka dots are wet... and realizing they are all hairballs! argghhh!!!! (leaps out of bed and bleaches skin clean)

running out of moisturizer AGAIN

seeing the $ after the number... it goes BEFORE!!

tardiness.... party or NOT, don't be tardy! ever!

the fact that costco saw fit to replace chicken dinosaurs with chicken mickeys... yes my kid DOES know the difference :|

that insidious san diego commercial, the one where the whiny little goatee christian rock guy sings 'i'm happy in this place' in an awful whiny goatee christian rock guy voice. san diego, it does you NO favors :|

flu shots and poorly-er children afterwards

the fact that Zoila did not get fired on 'flipping out' for poisoning Jeff but the girl who put on makeup in the restroom did. SO unfair. plus i want Zoila's job :)

foggy mornings when i was planning on a clear morning :|

so much more... making chicken noodle soup at 8am for example

back later............

tuesday

feeling
excited to watch Danny in school today. he is so fun and lovely and i am not biased one bit!

wondering
if Danny's cough is still caused by the larynx damage or the flu shot he got yesterday. argh. regardless he can't miss school, for i am the special helper!!

still wondering
how on earth in the facebook quiz said i was star belly sneetch??? star belly sneetches don't carry $10 bags and shop at winco. and i have never once ever switched from canon to nikon to canon. my car is 8 years old :| i demand a recount :|

looking forward to
weekend... vegas, with no children asking which is bigger - an allosaurus or a nanotyrranus? oh and did i mention the magical all-you-can-eat-all-day-long buffet wristbands :)

also looking forward to
golden hour at the pumpkin patch tonight, i even remembered carrots for the ponies and duck bread (shh, don't tell the bossy old ladies or they'll arrest me after lecturing me to death :)

grateful for
completely empty days once in a while with nowhere to be at any specific time

also grateful for
my new glass coffee cup

loving
51 degree mornings

also loving
my boys :) Sam rode his bike around the block ALONE 3 times yesterday and Danny ate real unprocessed chicken breast. and Aaron folded all the laundry. ahhhhhhhh!

monday

today my ruby red mary janes arrived! except... there was only ONE PAIR in the box - it was one of those ridiculous buy-one-get-one-free promotions that i hate more than life itself - i really only wanted ONE PAIR of shoes for half price :|

i shook the box again and turned it upside down again but alas it was empty. i called the company, thinking surely they would be horrified at this oversight. instead the rude creature on the phone told me that the second pair was out of stock so they just charged me full price for the ones i had received. annnnnd further more, if i was unhappy with the fact that the second pair was invisible, i would need to return the visible pair for a refund. ????

well i was NOT impressed at all, especially since i had torn the tags off the ONE visible pair of ruby red mary janes (retired i might add... so no i am most certainly not giving them back) and was cheerfully wearing them in already. i asked to speak to a manager as i always do when i don't get my way. she said i could buy any shoes in the store and winked and pointed me towards one of the more expensive pairs of shoes. so i guess ultimately it was a better deal since i didn't technically need two pairs of ruby red mary janes, just the one. but i just hate crap like this. i just like things to go right, is that too much to ask???!

tomorrow i am the pre-K helper :) note to self: take Aleve (lots) and peace potion. Danny warned me that he is 'not so sure' about Mrs K's helper because she has "tiger hair".... so that will surely be interesting...

he still has his stridor :| it's been 3 days and he still sounds like a poorly little seal pup. second doctor visit today. i'm still not convinced that these doctors are right in saying he is fine... i have been researching this stridor thing online so i DO know what i am talking about :|

off to shower, tonight's family bike ride turned into a terrifying street race and i had to peddle for my life to stay in the lead (i lost at the last second - darn those kids and their energy:)

its nice to be important (random monday thoughts)

but it's important - much more important in my humble opinion - to be nice. it's my favorite (and pretty much only) quotable quote.

i think it's tragic when yelp lists the best local burger as in-n-out. it's good, but so are lots of local places :(

we need milk. again. we need milk like every single day. argh - you can't walk to the store and buy milk in Southern California - it is too hot. one more pro for moving to MA :)

vegas in 6 days. it's the only thing that's keeping this ball of stress from unraveling.

Danny still has the weird stridor. sigh. damn you, wicked child attacking pumpkin stump!!

Sam hates Mondays even more than me :( i didn't think that was possible. every Monday morning he is moping around counting the days till his next day off - which is next Monday - phew :)

i have a prescription waiting at walgreens. have i ever mentioned how much i loooooove drug stores? i can't pass one without stopping in to cruise the aisles for pointless stuff that i didn't even know i needed...

which reminds me, i really really want the egg genie. but i notice the lady puts a hole in each egg - which i know i would forget to do, and they would all explode and the FBI would be called :( so i'm not getting it. besides i never eat boiled eggs, it just looks cool.

urgh must walk the dogs. three dogs is a lot to walk, especially big huge dogs :|

weekend things

couldn't decide
which of the 32 wonderful looking flavors of icecream to try at Hans' Ice cream Parlor in Santa Ana. another helpful yelp suggestion... they were no help picking a flavor though, i wanted to try every single one :)

finally decided on
raspberry cheesecake flavor (it was soooooooooooooo good!!)

tried
cortina's and pizza boy this weekend - i love yelp!! and yummy highly recommended pizza :)

researched
stridors and rales online at 1am this morning :| Danny was not feeling very well at all... he even took medicine without gagging and complaining, that's how you know he's not kidding ;)

found out
from the ER doc that falling face first onto a pumpkin at the pumpkin patch can damage the larynx and cause a stridor :| the cough should be gone by wednesday... if not, they have to investigate further (fingers crossed that awful debarked dog cough goes away)

going
to bed.... no sleep and a sick, crabby, barking child make for a very long day :|

pot pourri

pics from Danny's soccer class


this store is Yorba Linda made my hair stand on end - for a second i thought we were 'back east' and we were actually driving by a black dog store. alas it was not THAT black dog but just some random black dog pretending to be THE black dog :(


speaking of black dogs, Danny baked our boys a fresh batch of bones :)


is it me or is this costume not only kind of ugly, but a little suggestive? i think it could be offensive in polite company


i found these pics for my MJ/rat mad children :)

with baby sister Janet (how insanely cute are these pictures...?)


preparing for Halloween

a scene from our italian restaurant

at the spooky boardwalk park thingie :)

why today is NOT going to suck!

'cloudy with a chance of meatballs' is out today!! this means everyone will dash out of the house around 3pm to watch it and i will get a date with Jeff Lewis :)

Mr UPS is bringing two magical packages today. one containing blowpops from white house... and one dinosaur costume from chasing fireflies!!! please arrive before 8pm Mr UPS...

i found a little silver starfish necklace on ebay for $3. shipped. gulp. i wait on baited breath by the door, to see if it's huge and gawdy. but for $3 who cares??!

i fooled those fools at pat and oscars and signed up for their breadstick club a-g-a-i-n. the reward for such tomfoolery is a free bag of breadsticks!!! they are such fools!! will they EVER catch onto my scam??! will they ever notice that i never pay for my breadsticks??!

it's a minimum day at school! that means Sam is out at noon and we get to eat lunch together :) he wants to go to Maggie's Pub where they have the best fish and chips in the United States of America (so far...) second only maybe to the Lucia Lodge in Big Sur. but i admit... i haven't been to A Salt and Battery yet...

thursday things

took
Danny to his new preschool where apparently every single kid except him is called "E-fan" :)

puzzled
over the cashier's name in the store... he was named 'Ditto'. i wondered if he was a twin.... i was dying to ask but i wondered if it was rude to do so...

dashed
8 miles in 7 minutes after school to get to soccer class - i don't so much care for this overscheduled child business (but Danny sure does - he loved soccer!)

photographed
every single pet we own in the boiling hot sun on a seamless white background that got VERY dirty. it was a lot of work and a lot of cleaning :|

made
all the pics into a "brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?"esque book for Danny who loved it. instantly forgot how much work photographing 3 dogs, 2 cats and 2 rats was :)

dined
at Hometown Buffet!! Sam looooooooooved it and can't wait to go back. we even got a tour of the restaurant from the manager (when all we really wanted to do was get a plate and grab some very mediocrely awesome food:)

going
to bed early... i ache. for nothing in particular, i just ache :)

dreams

last night i dreamt i went to a Michael Jackson concert. not just any MJ concert but a concert of him performing dead :| he looked really really good for being dead 10 weeks and still danced quite well too. he had such a young baby face and his skin was perfect like a child's - i wonder what it all means :| oh and there was a big stair stepper machine so you could learn to moonwalk before the show :)

of course all this MJness made me want to listen to him again this morning . it's been at least a week since i last watched this video and tried for the millionth time to count how many times MJ spins around at 0.43 seconds :) his music has sooooooo many wonderful memories of this Summer... spending all day at the beach with great friends, my boys getting browner and browner each passing week and their hair smelling like the ocean or swimming pool every single day. MJ will forever be my personal soundtrack of how a summer should be spent:)

this morning i ordered some pictures at costco. i cannot possibly wait if i have ordered pictures, i have to go and get them that very second :| so off i set to hell on earth: tustin costco. after dragging 40 pounds of cat litter into the cart, toting around a really really HUMUNGOUS new vacuum cleaner in a box taller than me, frantically tearing apart that coupon book to save $7 on cd-roms, and waiting on those damned pictures even AFTER the pickup time, i ventured to the car - over those very annoying bumps that they have outside for absolutely no reason. what is with those bumps? they are like an earthquake and i fear everything in my cart will break and anything under the cart will fall out and forget it if your kid is sitting in the cart - those bumps cause shaken baby syndrome, i am quite sure of it :| as i got to my car, there was a line of pathetic losers all with their turn signal on, waiting for my space :| i had the 40 pounds of cat litter, the 6 foot tall vacuum cleaner and $297 of other crap to load into my car.... but i had to toss everything in fast as i could and vacate my space, so as not to displease the people anxiously waiting for it :|

on the way home from hell, i wanted to look at my pictures. desperately! so at each light i feverishly picked up my envelope and slid them out a little. and as i did, the lights immediately changed to green. every single time i reached for that envelope. for 5.6 miles of never-ending traffic lights :| and if i'd wanted the lights to all be green, they would have been red... life is so completely unfair, especially when it involves shopping at tustin costco.

oh well, off to school again, the fun never ends....

it's a great day at the Rice Corporation!

why? because my favorite wilderness boardwalk trail thingie is back in business! hurrah!! it closes for the entire summer while some fancy (and rather inconsiderate) bird nests there, but come 15 september, it's all mine again!! see ya later, birdie!! don't let the screen door hit ya on the way out... or something

we stopped there on our morning drive to take some fancy pictures. i have clearly been watching far too much Criminal Minds because i was entirely spooked the whole time - the car next to me had backed into it's space, you see - clearly this means the owner of the car is a serial killer and has positioned his car so he can easily drag his victims into the trunk before setting off at high speed... so i didn't really spend a lot of time at the wilderness boardwalk trail thingie but i shall return!! with my two large dogs, a box of thumbtacks to throw at the unsub/perp/doer (my least favorite term) plus a banana skin... oh and every lens i own :)

then we went to Walmart as i had a few tell tale grey hairs from the above mentioned near abduction. this is SO COOL - i got 4 boxes of hair color for $1.75 each :| to think i paid $80 to get my hair colored last time i went to the salon. i say 'stop the insanity!' - everytime i color my own hair i am writing myself a check for $78.25 :) soon i shall have the 135mm f2 of my dreams

next i got a huge bee in my bonnet to find mary janes in ruby red. this is the coolest thing ever - i typed in ruby red mary janes and found them online for $12!!! ANNNNNNND a 10% off 'loyalty coupon' (for a store i never go to:) AND free shipping!! how awesome, sometimes i can't even believe we didn't have the internet till like 13 years ago (in my world, we didn't...) how did we listen to music??! how did we talk to people and set up playdates? how did we buy SHOES??! how did we hide boring people/spy on fascinating people without facebook? how did we.. gasp... blog????! whoever invented the internet (i believe it was Al Gore or an African American gentleman...) i salute you!!!

i really want my eyelashes to criss cross like this...

with his pocket pal. i used to think people who had rats crawling in their clothes were very weird. now, i don't think that anymore :)

last night before bedtime

taken at the spooky park with trembling hands

list of likes

~nightswimming' by r.e.m.

~Obama (again and again and again)

~the dirty dancing finale (though i admit... i haven't ever actually watched this movie all the way through... )

~this comment under the video on youtube:
freagle7
Patrick try the cure for cancer with asparagus the are is many people saying they cancer disappear with this vegetable you have to make a puree and have this 4 times a day for 3 or 4 months.I hope this information some how arrive to you

~the coconut macaroons i finally made today. they will be super with my morning coffee (if there are any left ;)

~Danny describing his new friend as "the kid with potato chips"

~Sam teaching Danny his letters with alphabet cookies, Danny could only eat the cookies he guessed right :)

~the smell of neutrogena shampoo

~the fact that amazon.com sell shampoo :)

~caramel apples (plain - no nuts or m&ms required)

~little britain

~going to bed at 8:44pm

before school.... showing off what he learnt so far in karate :)



playing hide and seek :)


yet another thing i love - that rats have little hands and fingernails... not to be confused with paws and claws :| they actually have hands and fingernails. AND there is even a rat beauty parlor in Apple Valley that does spa baths and manicures (and an entire makeover is only $7! plus the time/gas it takes to drive to Apple Valley and back....)


after school on a very long hot stroller ride

do you hear that.....?

it's silence :| because both my children are AT SCHOOL :| i have two voluptuous full hours to sip coffee and straighten horizons and remove blotchiness, without having to make a single shrinky dink dinosaur, play a single game of dinosaur bingo, watch a single episode of megabeasts or heat up a single chicken dinosaur.... because Danny has today returned to preschool... under the clever disguise of "PRE-K", since he never wanted to go to "preschool" and cried every tuesday/thursday morning. and i think..... he might have fallen for it :)

however... i actually get about 105 dinosaur-free minutes because Danny buried his 'good' velociraptor in the sandpit outside school before he went inside and couldn't find it... so i get to rake an entire volleyball sized sandpit before i pick him up. that sounds like so much fun.

yesterday i got a coupon for a free home town buffet! how i looooove home town buffet, and that coupon is burning a serious hole in my kate spade coupon wallet (such sweet irony - a $100 wallet to save pennies:) i am thinking i will hold off going till friday so as to give me something to live for, but who knows... we might go tonight!!!!!!!

i wonder when people say they have a family tradition... do they keep with that family tradition even if it would be not fun to do it...? is a family tradition to just do it, regardless of how much fun it will be? i am thinking for example someone who always does a picnic the sunday before school starts - if it would be too much work to do it or too hot/too cold, would they still force themselves to do it, even if it would suck just because it's tradition? we have things we do, but i wouldn't say they are family traditions because once it starts to be too much work, we just stop. are we quitters? will we never have family traditions? sigh.

watching the ultimate mad hatter's tea party :) i am feeling so very very very clever right now, being on Team Obama, even as i load my rake into the back of my car to go and look for a plastic dinosaur :)

things that suck

looking outside and seeing the ground all shiny... and getting soooo hopelessly excited that it might possibly have rained... only to see it was just the dumb sprinklers :(

finding a perfect house, with a big porch the entire length of the house, that is half the price of this house, in a perfect little off-the-cape town... and not being able to find it again :(

finding Danny a perfect dinosaur costume and ordering it (using a gift card!) only to be told the next day that he would much rather be a puppy and use the hand-me-down dalmatian costume hanging in his closet :|

the expression 'rock star' when used for everyday people :|

any expression that starts with 'holy....'

jimmy kimmel. i have no clue why or what he did wrong, but i hate him.

(i need an entire celeb list actually....)

the butterflies in my stomach before Danny's new school today...

things i am eating even though i shouldn't be because i am having dinner in an hour:
chips and homemade guacamole (it's very good...)

where i should really be right now instead of sneakily writing in my blog:
at karate with the boys

place i'll be in exactly two weeks but who's counting the days:
vegas

thing i knew was coming but i am still soooo sad about:
patrick swayze's death :(

number of copies of 'with a little help from my friends' by joe cocker i bought before i found the UNLIVE version:
3 :|

states i have been to (so far) this year:
california
nevada
arizona
colorado (new imaginary passport stamp:)
utah (ditto:)
new york
new jersey
connecticut
rhode island
massachusetts
delaware
maryland
pennsylvania
district of columbia
virginia
(phew:)

thing i can't figure out no matter how hard i stare at the dashboard on blogspot but i really really want to figure it out - and soon:
how to make a cool list of blogs i like

pics from today...

random monday

on my second cup of coffee... i wonder if it tastes so wonderful because i use an entire container of creamer in each cup :| hmmm....

but now i do feel awfully sick... oh man, death by coffee creamer

last night i dreamt about Jeff Lewis - he had a stack of pants with the underwear attached inside (?) and was slicing the pants apart with an electric bread knife (???????) badly i might add. we visited his mother in the 'inland empire' and she was like his age... very odd

how rude is Kanyae West? sure i have no clue who he is except his mom died during plastic surgery, but what a douche. oh and i have no clue who Taylor Swift is either, except for i felt really really really sorry for her. or Russell Brand for that matter... except that he really is a grade A douchebag ;)

deleting - my mantra for today. and yes i AM sure... very sure

my favorite new park with an ocean view


it's apple season at the Rice Corporation :)

watched
the most excellent 'real housewives of atlanta' in bed this morning, sipping my favorite coffee with my favorite hubbie. he thinks Nene is mean, but i just love her! i think my least favorite one this week is the one who doesn't do it if it doesn't make her money :| but it changes every week... she by Sheree is at least in the bottom two. and Kim. bloody hell, that woman and her 'off the chain' expression.... i can't decide which i despise more - Kim or that lame expression :|

shared
a warm wonderful cinnamon roll for breakfast... the albertsons cinnamon rolls with the very white icing are so so good!

found
this today - gasp! i had the tiffany version but it's too small for my thickset pitbull terrier neck so i had to return it (in floods of tears i might add) but then today i stumbled upon this one with a longer chain for people with pitbull terrier necks like me:)


dined
at our favorite italian restaurant for dinner with our boys: cheese pizza and spaghetti with meat sauce = heaven on earth

let
our boys pick out 10 halloween items at the 99 cent store... $10 for crazy amounts of love and excitement :) how i loooooooove the 99 cent store (about 1% less than the dollar tree:)

made
hundreds of little spiders to decorate the boys' rooms - watch this space for spooky pictures :)

personal preferences

maggianos over macaroni grill (and forget olive garden altogether...)

frozen yogurt over smoothies

diet coke over diet pepsi

cubed over crushed

stormy weather over calm weather

short hair over long hair

black ink over blue ink

fixed lenses over zoom lenses

nordstrom over macy's

crocs over flipflops

dunkin donuts over krispy kreme

driving over flying

george harrison over john lennon

the mirage over bellagio

real housewives of atlanta over real housewives of orange county

being on the left over being on the right (in every situation:)

dollar tree over 99 cent store

early morning over late night

facebook over flickr

grateful always...

for the little things like:

• my GPS.... i would be so hopelessly lost without her. she takes me down secret side streets and on short cuts and always never gets me lost. plus now she has a british accent and doesn't sound so exasperated all the time. her old voice used to make my hands shake with fear like a mean kidnapper was holding a gun to my head making me follow her directions
• blowpops.... is there anything better than crunchy pieces of candy mingled inside your gum? nope!
• ohhh but maybe... salt and vinegar stax! with ice cold diet coke and a particularly shocking episode of 'toddlers and tiaras'
• chatty personal emails buried beneath the ads and reminders
• finding velcro shoes in Danny's size for $13! yay!!!
• him running around the mall in them because he loves them so much
• and the very sweet lady in the shoe store who gave him a pair of socks so he could wear his shoes right away :)
• waiting for 'the hubbie' to bring home the very baddest goodest fast food :)
• butterflies that follow you around like they are a lost loved one, saying hello
• coupons that make buying frivolous items perfectly acceptable
• constant friendship
• yelp
  

thursday

i know it's absolutely terrible to admit... but i am secretly sooooo happy for Jon Gosselin to have escaped the clutches of evil kate. i can't even capitalize her name, i despise her (too) so deeply!! her hair! the screaming "helloooo!!!" in toys r us episode. her cheating with a married man (we all know she did, she is so the type, all holier than thou but when it comes down to it, not so much) the time she made one of those poor sad looking little boys sleep on the laundry room floor so he didn't vomit all over the house! the day she threatened to throw away his BLANKIE because he got gum on it!! run Jon run!! and don't look back!

tip for the day: use old lemons, that you can't remember why you bought, to clean the sink and then stuff them in the garbage disposal for a fresh smelling sink!

that clinical formula anti-perspirant drives me crazy. it says i should put it on at bedtime but that just seems wrong, like getting dressed at 11pm so you can just get up and go in the morning. so i put it on in the morning and it takes forever to get dry... and i'm not even sure it being all over my top really prevents sweat :| hmm..

off for another fun packed day of not stay-at-home-mom-ness.... when will i ever get to actually stay at home...?

tuesday snippets

i love Obama. sure he's a little bit full of himself at times but he's the closest thing to a common-sense-down-to-earth role model since Attitus Finch :) and i don't cringe when he talks - ever. so that's a very good thing.

just wondering how many homeschooled children watched his address this morning ;) oh but i bet they can't watch tv, right...? ;)

speaking of tv, must watch melrose place tonight. gasp: what if billy campbell isn't on anymore......?

latest thing that keeps me up at night: whether MJ voted for Obama... how will i ever find out? and will i ever sleep again... :|

i love when Danny calls granola bars 'gorilla bars'. it's just so very very cute ;)

and i love Sam's complexion when he is a little bit under the weather. pale and interesting with a slight flush to his cheeks and the bluest of blue eyes... so very British and familiar

on the other hand i do not care for mandarin oranges. no siree bob... nothing good can ever come out of any recipe that calls for mandarin oranges. they are very very bad. big lots is full of things containing mandarin oranges.

and it's very hard to find cute, plain velcro shoes for little boys when they are already in size 1 at 4.5 years old :| grr

we need a new vacuum cleaner - very badly. these floors aren't going to clean themselves :|

he was under the weather before school :( we sent him anyways - they sent him back home

continuing our fruitless perfect vacuum cleaner search in big lots... for the record they have NO vacuum cleaners at all :| well they have that dyson thingie which i have tried and instantly hated. i like everything british - with the notable exception of dyson vacuum cleaners. oh and mini coopers.

beware of the surgeon with his tongue hanging out to help him concentrate :)

the sinister message he got out of Obama's speech ;)

Mr Bumps catnaps ALL DAY LONG!

tuesday sweet things i love

tea parties on the lawn with dinosaurs and pet dogs invited too :)

when it's finally fall-ish enough for him to wear his knifty knitter hat again

picking our own fruit


big huge numbers (that coincidentally are his age:)


squeeezing into telephone boxes for a picture


kids with soft hands


how absolutely delightful these little rattie boys are