Category: Misc

Girl just won the spelling bee at her school! The last two contestants were Girl and her good friend, C. They went head-to-head for about 8 rounds, and smiling and cheering each other on. Here’s the kicker: the word that got best friend eliminated? Crescendo. The word that Girl had to spell, after that, to win? Staccato.

Girl is over the moon and will go on to compete at a district-wide bee in a couple of weeks.

FYI – Good friend C. is super-smart, very sweet and an amazing speller. She stayed in the bee last year much longer (3rd place!) than Girl did, so this was truly anybody’s game and either girl would have been thrilled to have the other one win. I am taking both girls (and Girl’s cousin, A) to the Hannah Montana concert tonight to celebrate. YAY!

Celebratory Lunch:

Grilled Herb-Roasted Turkey and Pepper-Jack Cheese with a baby salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette

As part of an early present, Hubby signed us up for a “Knife Skills” class at Whole Foods. We went last week and it was a great class.

I also got this:

and this (from my BF, Eileen, and her family):

99% of the time, Boy and Girl get along beautifully….

Boy and Girl had a piano class last night that they had to attend together. I dropped them off and told them I’d run an errand or two and would pick them up when the class was over an hour later. I gave them a mini deck of playing cards (that I ALWAYS have in my purse – you never know when you’re going to meet a Midwesterner who’s dying to play some Euchre!) and told them they could play “War” or something, if I was running a minute or two late or if the class let out early. They were in a great mood and were being perfectly friendly to one another when I dropped them off. An hour later, however, they were sullen and grumpy and climbed into the car while shooting each other dirty looks. Apparently, Girl had been “annoying” (unspecified definition) and so when Girl tried to deal Boy some cards, he didn’t want to play and threw the cards back at her. Of course, I wasn’t there and didn’t hear what happened or what was said, so there was no way that I could settle it (and I really didn’t want to, anyway!), so I just frustratedly suggested that maybe they could remember that they were both human beings and they should treat each other accordingly. I told them that it sounded like they both were not as kind to one another as they could have been and that if either of them felt like they had something to apologize for, this would be a GREAT time to do that, so that we could get on with our pleasant evening. I followed up my “suggestion” with a promising description of building a fire, having a hot meal and cuddling on the sofa together while watching an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise. Of course, none of these things would be able to happen if they weren’t getting along and couldn’t settle their argument….

So, this is what they come up with to say to each other:

Boy:
“I’m sorry that I got mad at you when you were being ANNOYING.”

Girl:
“I’m sorry that I got mad at you when you wouldn’t pick up the cards that you threw at me.”

Me:
banging head on steering wheel

The Boy that lives at our house has an infectious laugh and a riotous (but very silly) sense of humor. He has said (many times) that he would like to be a comedian when he grows up. I would not be at all surprised if he actually did it. He has amazing dimples, big blue eyes and his smile lights up a room. I know I’m his mom, but he’s so cute, he makes my heart hurt.

He is also a complete ham. He loves attention; he loves being listened to; he loves making people laugh. I know EXACTLY where his sophomoric sense of humor comes from, too. Hubby has always said that it comes from my side of the family and I must admit that it’s true. My family has never met a scatological joke we didn’t like. We think that this is hilarious:

Nothing gets us giggling like a fart joke. Yes, I realize that admitting all of this makes it pretty apparent that we are not sophisticates, but, oh, well…laughter is good for you, right?

Well, yesterday, Boy’s class put on something called “Magical Musical Moments” and the kids were each allowed a couple of minutes to “perform” a vignette of their choice. Boy and a friend danced and aped and mimicked and lip-synched to “You Ain’t Nothin’ But a Hound Dog”. Boy grabbed the mike and told a few jokes (“Why did the chicken cross the road?”) as he was “introducing” their act. I suppose that I should have been embarrassed: he ended up hogging the microphone and causing the rest of the class to pretty much lose control, to the slight irritation of the music teacher. Instead, though, I was just glad that he ended the joke with “to get to the other side” rather than the version that we usually tell at home: “because the chicken next to him farted”.

This is a bit belated, but we’ve finally finished putting away all of the decorations, so it’s all fairly recent, in my mind…..

We really enjoy the festivities, foods and fellowship of the holidays around here. We really get into it and decorate everything that doesn’t move. We put up lots of themed trees: a “snowman” tree, a “patriotic” tree, a “Texas” tree, plus our regular “family” tree and a tree for each of the kids in their bedrooms. My favorite, however, is our “tinsel” tree in Hubby’s office. He’s a programmer/techie geek by profession, so I love the modern/tech look of it (albeit a 1964 version of “modern”). I even have the revolving light to shine on it to make it change colors (regular tree lights on these kind of tree would be an electrocution hazard).

My friend, Mary, introduced me to these trees. Their time came and went before I was born, but, apparently, they were big in the early to mid 60s. They are hard to come by these days; I got mine on ebay about 5 years ago, but there may be some companies making reproductions. Mary got hers when her neighbors were clearing out their house: they didn’t want it and had left it on the curb, where Mary very cleverly snapped it up. What I love the best about ours is that the box still has the original shipping label from Billings Hardware in Billings, Montana, to the Elray Motel in Sidney, Montana (mailed on November 30, 1964). A couple of years ago, there was a sci-fi miniseries called “The Lost Room“, starring Peter Krause (from Six Feet Under – a brilliant show). The miniseries centered around the lost contents (“objects”) of an 60s-era abandoned motel room where a man had disappeared. Each of the “objects” (glass eye, bus ticket, comb, etc.) that were originally in the room has a special power (to teleport or cure diseases, for example). It’s a roundabout way for me to get to my point, but every time that we put our tinsel tree up or take it down and I see that “Elray Motel” shipping label, I think that this tree could so be an “object” and wonder what special power it should have.

We are off tomorrow for our annual ski trip. We’ve been going every year since before the kids were born and this place has become a part of us. Both Boy and Girl have mentioned the desire to go to college in Colorado. Not to denigrate the fine learning institutions in Colorado, but I’m still pinning my hopes here. Or here.

I have a back/hip injury that may preclude my participating in the skiing this year (although I’m going to try!), but it will still be fun. We’ve never been over Christmas before (we usually go in January), so we’re looking forward to the torchlight parade and fireworks and lots of other special holiday events. Logistically, planning Christmas AWAY has been difficult, but it will be relaxing once we get there. I may have time to blog a little about our adventures (and the wonderful food that we’ll be having), but we won’t be cooking while we’re there.

We’ll be back in January and I promise lots more yummy entries. In the meantime, I hope that your holidays are safe, calm, happy and filled with family time and delicious food.

OK, so I cheated and bought the pre-made and assembled houses, but we do this every year and the kids always have a blast decorating them. I buy every conceivable Christmas candy, make a batch of Royal Icing (I add a bit of peppermint extract to make the inevitable finger-licking more fun) and just let the kids have at it!

Boy had a friend over, so we let Friend make one, too, and he turned out to be SUPER creative, making icicles to hang from the eaves and using the paper from a Hershey Kiss to form smoke curling out of the chimney – WOW!

I am blessed with a Hubby that is very handy and can fix almost anything. He’s saved us thousands of dollars in various repairs and service calls over the years. He’s installed lights, beadboard, tile and a toilet in our current home. He can fix anything that could ever conceivably go wrong with a computer. He always has extra bits and leftover pieces of things from previous projects and can usually fix things without even having to make a hardware store run, because he usually has “just the right” screw, glue, widgit or wire to complete a repair in his little workshop corner of the garage.

A couple of weeks ago, our fancy-dancy, and relatively new, washing machine decided to get snooty on us. It has all kinds of safety and energy-saving features and will do things like stop agitating if the lid is opened or annoyingly drain all of the water if the cycle is stopped unexpectedly. The problem recently, however, was that the sensor/switch that tells the machine whether or not the lid was open was malfunctioning, so it wouldn’t start a wash load because it thought the lid was open, when it was, in fact, NOT. Luckily, my aforementioned Handy Hubby was able to rig up a solution. I don’t ask questions about Hubby’s solutions; I’m just grateful. It’s a little like seeing sausage being made; you’ll be a lot happier about the end result if you don’t know a lot about the process (although I would be very surprised if Hubby’s “fix” had NOT involved duct tape and maybe possibly Gorilla Glue).

As you may have read, we had a laundry CATastrophe recently. Predictably, the washing machine chose the precise moment when it was most needed to do a repeat of its previous snootiness and the lid sensor decided to stop working again. Again, I cajoled Hubby into service. He diligently worked on it for quite some time before announcing that his previous “fix” wasn’t working this time. He said that he would need to order a replacement sensor switch and that it wouldn’t arrive for about 5 days. “5 days?!”, I said. “What will I do with all of urgently-in-need-of-attention laundry???,” I panicked. “Not to worry”, Hubby said, “I’ve got a temporary solution rigged up so that you can wash stuff until the replacement switch arrives from the parts department.”

This is what he came up with:

Standard-issue light switch.

It works perfectly.