Wild Kingdom

Here's what was in our yard this evening after work when H. and I went outside to play.


M's not wearing any shoes because I was screaming for him to come outside. I'm sure he thought H. was hurt or something.

We've had snakes in the yard before, but they've always been at the top of the yard near the wall and the cornfield. (And I think they've always been smaller than this one.) This one was on the patio right outside the sliding doors. We practically stepped on it before I saw it. Yuck!

Killer Bloggers (Not Really)

The headline for this story on CNN cracked me up:

Pennsylvania Uses Bloggers to Lure Tourists

I was waiting for the next line to be "to their deaths," or something like that, but no, PA is paying six "roadtrippers" to visit various tourist spots around the state, then blog about their experiences. Think they would be interested in my Dutch Wonderland story? The "Visit PA" blogs can be found here. I think they should make all of them live in a house together for the summer, too and broadcast their adventures online.

Strange But True

First, the whole thing with the Dover school district, and now this. Pennsylvania is gaining on Florida as the land of strange and weird and embarrassing news stories. I think I'm ready to move back to Maryland, inflated housing prices and crime rate be damned. Give me an old-fashioned murder headline any day versus these far more troubling stories.
(Thanks to Bookslut for the NY Times link.)

Holiday Weekend

Our holiday weekend was both busy and relaxing. I took Friday off for a 4-day weekend and waited for the new refrigerator and washing machine to be delivered. They were actually early! My delivery time was between 10:30 and 12:30 and they arrived just before 10. That was more work than I thought it would be, taking everything out of the old refrigerator and putting it back in the new one. However, taking all of the magnets, photos and magazine clippings off the old fridge and putting them back on was the most time consuming!

After that was finished, I commenced with shampooing the carpets, also more work than I thought it would be. The stairs needed the most attention and I had to use the manual hand tools to get them clean, so it took a long time. Then I also cleaned the rugs in our bedroom, the upstairs hallway and the living room. I ran out of steam (no pun intended) before I could do H's room, which really doesn't need it, and I knew I wasn't going to do the family room, which is too big. Next time, I'll hire someone to do this job.

The local Farmers/Amish Market has a cruise night on the last Friday of every month, so we went over there for a little while and looked around at all the cars before getting some dinner, especially since it was a nice evening to be outside. They had a pretty good turnout and M. might take one of his cars up there next month.

On Saturday, we went to Dutch Wonderland and had a fantastic time (I was tempted to say "wonder"ful). It wasn't too crowded, even though the parking lot looked packed when we pulled in. There was only one ride we really had to wait a while for - the Old Tyme Cars on the "Turnpike." H. loved all the rides and wasn't scared of any of them, even the roller coaster and some train-like ride that whipped you around the corners. She really wanted to get on the swings, but you had to be atleast 42 inches for that ride. The only thing she didn't like was the real, life-size Duke the Dragon. She was starting to drag around 2:30, right around nap time, so we headed out just as it started to rain. Good timing! And it was nice to go somewhere that was barely an hour away and still get home with most of the afternoon and the whole evening left. We might consider getting a season pass for next year.

M. went racing on Sunday, so H. and I had a quiet day to ourselves. We were outside for hours, playing on the swing set, using the sidewalk chalk and blowing bubbles. H. took a long nap while I finished and submitted all of my homework well before midnight. The only bad thing about the day was that we both had runny noses and by Sunday night, I was feeling a full-blown cold coming on.

On Monday, we went down to M's mom's for lunch so he could also help her open up the sunporch. I was also able to go to Circuit City while we were down there and buy my new digital camera. I'm very excited, even though I haven't used it yet. My brain has been too fuzzy from my cold to comprehend all the buttons and features, but I did charge the battery. Hopefully, that means more timely pictures posted here!

Then it was back to work on Tuesday, even though I didn't sleep very well Monday night, since I can't breath through my nose. Finally this afternoon, my head no longer felt like it was going to explode, but most of the cold has moved into my chest instead. I hope this cold doesn't last very long because I have too much going on to be out of commission.

The Beginning of the End

I'm ashamed to admit I broke down and bought H. one of these. Nieces K&K play with the regular version all the time and when we were over there last Saturday, one of Little K's friends had the baby version and H. was just enthralled. She was occupied for hours. I didn't just give in after days of contemplation, I actually stopped on our way home that very night and bought one. Instant gratification!

Playing Ketchup

Well, let's see, what's been going on recently? I'm still feel like I'm busy all the time, but in a good way. I got a 95 and a 98 on my Amer Lit final exam and term paper/presentation, respectively. I was quite pleased with myself, considering it had been eleven years since I had to do anything like that, and it was completely different this time around with a full-time job and a family.

My niece Kaitlyn broke her arm last week. She fell off her bike and landed directly on her elbow. It's more of a hairline fracture, not a big break, but the doctors want to keep an eye on it because it's right at the growth plate in her arm. Luckily, it's her left arm and not her right.

I returned my camera again because the film/negatives are getting scratched inside the camera again, obviously a defect with this specific model. So I'm definitely taking the refund and using toward a digital camera instead.

Mark and I went to the Alan Jackson concert in Hershey Friday night. It felt more like October than May; I was wearing my winter coat, two pairs of socks and my hiking boots. The concert was great, but a little short. AJ only sang for about an hour and fifteen minutes. I had to wonder if it was because of the change in venue and perhaps the weather, too. On Tuesday, an announcement came out that the concert was moved from the stadium to the smaller pavilion, presumably because the show wasn't sold out, which is surprising. The best part of the show was the hat I bought. On the drive up there, I said to Mark, "I hope they have a hat with just his initials on it and if they do, I buying one." And they did! So now I have a very cool (if slightly overpriced) blue and black "AJ" hat. (An evening out nowadays is a very expensive venture - concert tickets, dinner (even an inexpensive one at Pizza Hut), hat, babysitter.)

Last weekend, we bought a new refrigerator and washing machine, which will be delivered this Friday (you gotta love 0% financing for a whole year at Sears). I'm taking off work for an extended holiday weekend to be home for the delivery, as well as to shampoo the rugs. Exciting stuff, I know. I just remembered yesterday that when they move the old refrigerator, the wall behind it will still be Pepto-Bismol pink. I never moved the fridge when I painted the kitchen white back when we moved in.

Upcoming events between now and the end of June: Dutch Wonderland one day this holiday weekend (weather dependent; if it rains all weekend, we'll probably go see Madagascar instead); the Julie Andrews lecture/talk; a wedding; Kaitlyn & Kara's dance recital; Father's Day (which we'll probably spend at the races); and a trip to Sesame Place. (If all goes according to plan, we will have visited four amusement parks by the end of the summer if we go to Dollywood and Splash Country while on vacation). So stay tuned for more!

Bad Decision

NBC announced today that "American Dreams" will not be returning at all next season. I'm so glad it will be replaced by quality programming such as "'Fathom,' about a creepy new form of sea life, and 'Inconceivable,'" a medical show set in a fertility clinic." "American Dreams" is the kind of show another network should pick-up -- Lifetime, Hallmark, WE, Oxygen, etc.

Pac Man Fever

Well, this makes me feel very old. I fondly remember Nadine in elementary school, reselling Pac Man scratch-off trading cards for 25 cents each. What an entrepreneur!

I hope to be back to the journal in full force after tonight. I took the final for my Amer. Lit. class on Saturday and my paper is due tonight by midnight (and yes, I'm still working on it). Hopefully, things will return to normal after that. I'm already thinking about what to read now that I will have some spare time again, plus I want to assemble all the scrapbook pages I pre-cropped a couple of weeks ago. I miss my hobbies!

Catching Up

Can you tell my other class started? I don't have time for much of anything right now. Work is the busiest it has been in a long time, plus I'm trying to squeeze in the classwork for two three-credit classes. I'm so glad I chose the staggered Spring semester instead of starting both classes the same week in January. What a difference in the work load! The American Lit class will be over by May 10 at the latest (depending on when I turn in my term paper), leaving me with only the Grammar class, which started the Monday after Easter. The Grammar class is a lot of work - tons of exercises every week, online interaction, a weekly quiz and some group work, which isn't always easy online. Every week since the second class started, it's taken me the whole week to complete all the assignments for both classes and get them posted by midnight on Sundays. It seems like I'm spending more hours on the Grammar class, but that's probalby because I'm actually doing assignments instead fo spending a majority of my time reading, which I don't even really notice when I'm reading books for the Lit class.

I'm starting to get overwhelmed because looking ahead on the calendar, we have plans every weekend from now until Memorial Day. I'm supposed to have the Mother's Day cookout at my house, but I think I'll have to back out and let someone else host it this year. Or else I'll never get my term paper finished.

I need to start reading Toni Morrison's Paradise tonight, so the new Nevada Barr will have to wait. I read a little bit of it over the weekend, but I'm not really getting into it yet. I think I feel guilty whenever I spend time on "pleasure reading" instead of doing schoolwork right now.

The Poconos

M. and I ran away to The Poconos this past weekend. It was the first time we had been away just the two of us since May 2003, so it was long overdue! We were asleep by 10pm on Friday and Saturday and I got about nine hours of sleep both nights! Even though the weather didn't cooperate (inches and inches of rain all day and night on Saturday, then snow when we woke up Sunday morning), it was very relaxing. We went out for breakfast Saturday morning and didn't leave the condo again until dinnertime. I read all of George Pelecanos's Drama City, which was great, and started Kristen Gore's Sammy's Hill, which was so horrible that I stopped after thirty pages and read The Glass Menagerie for my American Lit class instead. We rented Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason and Ladder 49 to bring with us and watched both of those, so I feel like I actually accomplished a lot while we were away!

My parents came to our house to stay with H., since she never sleeps very well when she's at their house, and it worked out well. She was so happy to see us. "I missed you!" she said over and over again when we first got home.

Book #14

I was really looking forward to reading Most Wanted, the debut legal thriller by Michele Martinez, but what a big disappointment it was. I almost gave up on it a few times, but I stuck it out until the end and it was rough. The worst part of the book was the dialogue - absolutely horrible and unrealistic. And the extreme overuse of exclamation points was distracting and annoying. Characters were exclaiming on every page! Was Elaine Benes editing this book? I believe Most Wanted is intended to be the first in a series and perhaps the writing and dialogue will improve, but I probably won't bother if there's a second installment.

"Male Potty Trainer"

This is a result from a search engine service we receive at work for specific key words related to new patents filed with the US Patent Office. I don't know which is worse - the invention itself or repeated use of the phrase "member extension" in this context. Also, I did not make up the title for this post - that's the name of the invention.

A toilet seat reminder device installed on a toilet. The reminder device consists of an extension member attached to the toilet seat in a location that blocks access to the toilet flush handle when the toilet seat is in the raised position. The extension member may also be installed on the toilet lid. The extension member is readily attached to the toilet seat with a pressure sensitive adhesive or by a clip engaging the seat. The extension member may be made of foam, plastic or rubber and may be formed into an attractive shape to catch the interest of the target male audience. The extension member is also scented to provide an additional fragrance in the bathroom. A warning graphic is applied to the bottom surface of the extension member and is visible only when the toilet seat is raised.

Weekend Wrap-up

Interesting. I picked up the copy of Most Wanted from the library and I was surprised it was a trade paperback instead of a hardcover. Then I realized that the copy is an Advanced Reader's Copy. I don't think I've ever encountered that at the library before. Is that allowed? The cover only says "Not for Resale," so I guess it's okay to lend it for free via the library. Any input, library friends?

H. and I had a very productive weekend. By noon on Saturday, we had both gotten a haircut, went to the grocery store and gone through the car wash. When we got home, I swept and mopped the kitchen floor and had most of the laundry done. So I didn't feel guilty taking a short nap Saturday afternoon.

On Sunday, H. and I went to the mall and actually found everything we were searching for - a gift for the guy at work who fixed our home computer, Easter shoes for her, work jeans for M. and paint for moving forward with H's new "big girl" bedroom. The only thing I was disappointed about was that Sears does not carry most of the Land's End bathing suits in their stores. I wanted to try on a couple of different styles I had seen in the catalog, but they didn't have them. Now I might have to order several and return the ones I don't like.

H. was very interested in seeing the Easter Bunny, but not actually interested in getting near him. We waved to him as we walked by and she said Happy Easter, but that was it. Quite frankly, I thought he was a little scary, too. He was very large and, unlike Santa, doesn't talk, which is a little disconcerting.

PS - Good news, the county library system has dropped its $1 ILL/on-hold fee as of March 1. (It went into place last March 1 due to budget cuts.) Now I can catch up on some books I couldn't get at the local branch without paying the $1 fee (not that I minded giving my dollar to the library every once in a while). However, this alters my buying habits on bookcloseouts. I would often by a book for $2.99 or $3.99 if I was going to have to pay $1 to get it from another branch anyway.

Books 11 & 12

Since we spent three class weeks on The Grapes of Wrath, I managed to squeeze in two novels recently - Linda Fairstein's Entombed and Barbara Parker's Suspicion of Rage. Both of these books come from two of my favorite series and neither disappointed this time out. The Fairstein novel, the seventh in the Alex Cooper series, was full of interesting trivia about Edgar Allan Poe and made me want to visit the Botanical Gardens and Hall of Fame in The Bronx. Suspicion of Rage is the eighth book in the Gail Connor and Anthony Quintana series and this one is set in Anthony's native Cuba. Parker's dialogue within relationships is very real, whether it's a conversation between husband/wife, father/son or step-siblings, and I learned quite a bit about Cuba, a country I know very little about. Coincidentally, I was trying to finish this book Wednesday night just before the "90 Miles Away" Cuba episode of The West Wing came on. Personally, I thought the book was more interesting than this week's episode. (Trying to depict Kate Harper as some kind of Sydney Bristow was lame.)

Now this weekend I have to read In Cold Blood for the third time (I haven't read it since 1992), plus a copy of Michele Martinez's Most Wanted is waiting for me at the library.

O-S-C-A-R M-A-Y-E-R


Yeah, that's me with the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile! I know you're jealous.

Happy Day

Almost 11 years after graduating from college, I finally made my last student loan payment today! I've been looking forward to this day for a long time and always imagined throwing a party or something to celebrate. But these loans that were such a big part of my life at one time now seem pretty small. At one time, they were the biggest monthly bill I was paying and it seemed the end would never be in sight. But now that I (we) have two car payments, a mortgage and daycare as monthly bills, the loans pale in comparison. Nonetheless, having a little bit more wiggle room at the end of the month now will certainly be welcome!

Oops

Obviously, my little bit of excitement about Nashville Star didn't even last a week, since I forgot that it was on last night and went to bed at 10pm.

EEEEWWW!

Add this to my list of reasons not to like monkeys of any sort. And I don't know whether to laugh or cry about the whole idea of a chimp birthday party.

Nashville Star 3

I'm trying hard to get excited about tonight's premiere of Nashville Star, but I'm not. I like Leann Rimes as host - I think that might work, but I'm not crazy about the judging line-up. I didn't think they could find anyone worse than The Warren Brothers, but Bret Michaels? Ugh! Phil Vassar is a good choice, since he was a songwriter for a long time before breaking through as a performer, so he should have some insightful comments. But I don't think they need two artists as judges, with just one industry exec. How about someone else from the industry? It made perfect sense to have a DJ as a judge, or a programming manager - someone who actually chooses the music that is played on the air. Also, for me personally, Friday nights at 10 was a much better time slot than Tuesdays at 10. Central-time Nashville seems to forget about us poor folks on Eastern time!

Disney on Ice

3 Tickets $75. Ariel light-up wand $16. Soda and popcorn $9.75. Parking $7. The look on H's face as she watched the show - priceless.

The ice show was stressful, but fun. Traffic going into Baltimore Saturday afternoon was horrendous and we were 15 minutes late for the show. But once we got settled in, it was very enjoyable, other than H. going to the potty 3 times. I can't even get her to go 3 times in a row at home! And I definitely don't think we're ready for Disney World yet. I could barely handle a two-hour ice show at this point. I can't even imagine a week in Orlando!

We had planned to go to the Outback for dinner afterwards, since we had gift certificates to use, but when I called ahead after we left the show, the wait was two and a half hours (at 6pm), so it was subs for dinner instead. It was probably for the best, we were all so exhausted. I took a "nap" at 9pm, only to wake up at 10pm.

What a great TV weekend. I love "31 Days of Oscar" on TCM. Tootsie Friday night, To Kill a Mockingbird Saturday afternoon and Superman Saturday night (all commercial-free), plus Maryland v. Duke, with ESPN's College Game Day live from College Park. At 10:30 last night, we were switching between the basketball game, the Bud Shootout and the first NHRA drag race of the season.

Amer Lit

I'm sure my English professor has never had a student like me. In just three weeks, I've compared Willa Cather's My Antonia to John Grisham's A Painted House and The Great Gatsby to "Pimp My Ride." I'm not really sure how my mind works sometimes. Pop culture is taking up way too much room in my brain.

Randomness

Wow, no entry in February yet and it’s already the 8th! I’ve been keeping busy with various activities and work has been very busy, cutting down on journal time. I’ve got lots of random thoughts bouncing around in my head, so here goes.

My online class is progressing smoothly, but it's definitely taking up some free time. I finished The Great Gatsby yesterday in anticipation of this week’s class discussion and I’m kind of rereading it again to catch all of the symbolism. I also squeezed in the second Eve Diamond novel, Sugar Skull, by Denise Hamilton, but I feel like I'm off to a slow start reading-wise this year.

Other reading time has been taken up by cross stitch. I started a small new project a couple of weeks ago to get me back in the swing of things. For most of 2004, I spent more time scrapbooking than cross stitching, so I’m trying to find a balance for all of my hobbies. N. and W.endy and I went scrapbooking at a workshop Saturday night for a few hours, so I didn’t feel torn about cross stitching on Saturday afternoon and little bit on Sunday.

Only one cute toddler story – H. and I were in the grocery story Saturday morning and they pipe in music throughout the store. The song Accidentally in Love from Shrek 2 came on and H. starts saying, “Shrek, Shrek!” I said to her, “You are really smart – or else you’ve seen this movie too many times!”

I’ve been trying to watch some of the new mid-season replacement shows, but all the ones I like seem to be 10pm shows and I just can’t force myself to stay awake and commit to another 10pm show. I’ve tried watching Medium a few times (when I actually remember it’s on) and I like NUMB3RS, but I have yet to make it to the end of an episode, even on Friday nights.

Over the weekend, I caught an episode of MTV’s My Super Sweet 16. Based on this one episode and commercials for an upcoming episodes, I have to say this is one of the most hideous “reality shows” on television. I can’t even put into words how over the top these wedding-scale banquets with formal dress, bands and limos are. A thousands of dollars party topped off with a tens of thousands of dollars present (a new car). For my Sweet 16, I had five or six girlfriends over for dinner and a movie and my big present was an Orioles baseball jacket! I wouldn’t expect a party of this scale unless it was a bat mitzvah or a wedding. (Any my apologies to S., but the girl in this episode, Jacque, reminded me of her – in looks only, not behavior!)

And finally, I must recommend this new website, from one of the guys over at A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago. I wish I had thought of this!

Book #5

I finished My Antonia on Monday during lunch, the first of eight novels I will be reading this semester for my "American Lit since 1914" class. The class officially started on Monday and so far, the online interface has been great. For some reason, I was really nervous about posting my first response to a discussion question and probably spent way too much time crafting it, but I think I just needed to do it and get it over with, which I finally did around 10:30 Monday night. I'm still trying to figure out my time management for this class and I'm unsure of myself with it being online. I feel this urge to check the site all the time to make sure I'm not missing anything, but I don't want to over think it. I should be spending three hours a week for a three credit class for the online part, plus another few hours outside "the classroom" doing reading and research. I'm thinking I should pretend this is either a MWF or TuTh class from my old college days and just commit to those days for being online instead of spending ten minutes here or a half hour there just checking for updates.

I now have all of the books for this class and was able to find most of them on bookcloseouts, plus I already had two of them. Most of the books I haven't read yet (only In Cold Blood and The Joy Luck Club), so I'm looking forward to being "forced" to read something new. I scored my best deal yesterday afternoon when I found a used copy of The Grapes of Wrath at the library for only 25 cents.

But now that I've finished My Antonia, I'm stuck. I haven't started another book yet, because I feel like I should start reading the next book for class. I have to remember this is only one three-credit class and I should still have time for pleasure reading before starting The Great Gatsby.

True Crime

I have always been fascinated by the Jeffrey MacDonald case. Fatal Vision was one of the first true crime novels I ever read and I clearly remember watching the miniseries with my parents when it first aired (and I still watch it every time I stumble across it on A&E or another channel - it sucks me in). One of the figures from the book, of a floorplan of the house marking the spots where blood was identified (and each family member had a different blood type, making it easy to identify) is still burned in my memory. I've had Fatal Justice, MacDonald's rebuke to Joe McGinniss's book, on my to be read list for ages, but haven't been reading a lot of true crime lately. This article in today's Washington Post, along with the hour I spent afterwards perusing MacDonald's website, renewed my interest in the case and makes we want to reread Fatal Vision and follow it up with Fatal Justice. MacDonald is in a federal prison in Maryland now, recently married to a woman who lives in Howard County. One of the more interesting statements in the article is that until the mid-1990's, most people would not have even considered claims of prosecutorial misconduct or government/military interference, but "people are more willing to concede that the government or the courts could make such a terrible mistake," thanks in part to "CSI" and DNA technology. The case has turned up in the news recently, with MacDonald applying for parole for the first time and continuing DNA testing on evidence from the case. He has also added Tim Junkin, lawyer and author of Bloodsworth (a Maryland true crime case) to his defense team.

Snow

Snow in the Smokies today. Well, there was a little bit of snow here today, too, but it's much prettier in the mountains!

Book #4

High Country Fall is the 11th installment in Margaret Maron’s Deborah Knott series – more of a cozy series than crime fiction, but one of my favorite series nonetheless. I’ve been reading this series since 1996 and, for me, is has yet to get stale or predictable. In High Country Fall, Deborah jumps at the chance to fill in for another judge in the mountains of western North Carolina during the peak of fall – and to escape the wedding plans of her overzealous relatives now that she is engaged. Although she is barely in town for a week, Deborah attends a party where a fellow guest goes missing and gets involved with solving the mystery. Maron’s stories and clues are straightforward, but subtle, so I’m always left doubting my choice for who the killer might be. In this book, the discovery of the killer is somewhat anticlimactic after Deborah is involved in an unrelated, life-threatening accident, but the story also moves Deborah’s personal life forward another notch, leaving me waiting for the next book in the series (Rituals of the Season to be released in August 2005) and hopefully, the wedding of Deborah and Dwight.

Book #3

China Lake
By Meg Gardiner
(purchased on bookcloseouts)

I discovered this author and series via Sarah's website as well, with a brief review on the side bar and a mention of how Meg Gardiner’s situation is a bit unusual. She is a U.S. writer who lives in the UK whose books are set in California, but are only published in the UK and Canada. Thanks to bookcloseouts, I was able to purchase the first two books in the series, China Lake and Mission Canyon. The main character, Evan Delaney, is a freelancer legal researcher and part-time author with a lawyer boyfriend who has temporary custody of her nephew. Just as she is about to give her nephew back to her brother, the boy’s mother reappears, bringing along the quasi-cult she belongs to, The Remnant, a group that is preparing for The End. The action in this thriller begins right away and never stops. Evan and her family are swept up in what The Remnant has planned and meet resistant at every step when they try to stop the group. A slight suspension of belief is necessary to believe all of the interlocking elements and characters that must come together throughout the story, but that’s what makes reading books like this an escape. My only complaint, and that’s because it’s a pet peeve of mine, is the “overexplaining” of terms that I feel most people, or atleast most mystery/thriller/crime fiction readers, should be familiar with, such as acronyms like CDC and ATF. Maybe it was more for the benefit of readers in the UK, who many not know these terms. Also, a long explanation about Botox as a hot, new cosmetic procedure (and biological weapon) that Evan had never heard of didn’t hold up. Has it only been since 2002 that Botox has become a part of our everyday language? Regardless, Mission Canyon is sitting on my shelf waiting to be read.

Finding the Perfect Words

I love this paragraph from a Christmas story by Margaret Maron:

Amber nodded, and I looked at our hodgepodge tree. A crystal snowflake from Ben's sister hung beside a paper butterfly Ruth had painted when she was nine. Dangling from the branch below were a glass angel Ben and I had bought on our honeymoon and a Star of David that Ruth's best friend had made from gilded toothpicks. Everything on the tree was like that-a messy, three-dimensional scrapbook of times and places and people we had loved.

This is exactly how I think of our Christmas tree.

Scrap Happy

I spent my birthday weekend in Gettysburg, scrapping away. Way back in early fall, N. & W. & I signed up to attend a weekend-long scrapbooking workshop through my Creative Memories consultant, which turned out to be the perfect birthday gift for me, since it was scheduled for this weekend.

We arrived at the hotel on Friday afternoon, checked in, and got started right away. The whole weekend was wonderful, with lots of activities, door prizes, meeting new people and, of course, plenty of scrapbooking. I completed 33 12x12 pages over the weekend, including finishing H's first year (plus three months) album. I was also able to start on my other travel album and get all of my calendar pages for 2005 set up. We took a short break on Saturday afternoon to visit Boyds Bear Country, but other than meals, we pretty much participated non-stop. And I do mean non-stop! N. stayed up all night Friday night, not going to sleep until Saturday morning at 9am. W. and I called it quits around 1am and woke up to find that N. never came back to the room. But she finished the album of the cruise she had taken back in October and was working on something new. W. pulled the almost all-nighter Saturday night, staying up until 5:30am after N. and I left around 2am. W's goal was to complete the year 2003 in her daughter's album. We were up at 8am both days to be present for the 8am door prize and to earn tickets for the grand prize drawing. As usual, we didn't win anything the entire weekend, although I did receive a nice little birthday gift and balloons Sunday morning. At the 8am drawing Sunday morning, our entire table of 8 was present, the only complete table out of 225 people, and we still didn't win anything.

But the weekend was a great success and we're definitely going to sign up again for next year and maybe find one or two other weekends we can go to this year, since we were so productive!

While I was away, H. stayed with Daddy Friday night, then with my parents on Saturday. I went there to pick her up Sunday afternoon and we had a nice spaghetti birthday dinner for both my dad and me with everyone there. Although H. didn't sleep very well while she was at their house, I think we have definitely turned a corner for potty training. She consistently went all day both Saturday and Sunday, at somebody else's house no less, so this was a real breakthrough. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for continued progress this week.

MORE

It's bad enough that I'm turning 33 over the weekend, but I shouldn't have to come home to find a direct mail piece inviting me to subscribe to "MORE," the magazine for women 40 and over. Uh-uh, no way.

Book #1 and Book #2

As one of my unofficial New Year’s resolutions, I’m going to try to write more short reviews or commentary about the books I’m reading (and to keep from boring you with only toddler stories). January 5th and two books down already, so here goes.

The Jasmine Trade by Denise Hamilton
(from the public library)

Book #1 of 2005 is the first in the Eve Diamond series written by Denise Hamilton, originally published in 2001. I believe I found out about this series from a post or link on Sarah’s website and since I love series, I decided to check it out. Eve is a beat reporter for the LA Times, which is a legitimate profession for getting involved in a crime, so that appealed to me right away. Even though she’s young, she has a somewhat tragic past, which is slowly revealed throughout the book and is part of the motivation for some of her actions. I liked the basis for the story – Chinese immigrants adapting to life in America and “parachute kids,” a topic I know very little or nothing about, so learning something new made the story more enjoyable for me as well. Eve is a likable character (who wouldn’t like someone with a dog named Bon Jovi?) with room to grow, so I’m sure I’ll check out the second book in the series, Sugar Skull. Other than a few trite phrases from some characters (Eve’s boyfriend jumping from the shadows to yell, “Drop the gun, Michael!” during a climatic scene), it is a well written, fast-paced mystery that made me want to read more about Eve Diamond.

Twelve by Nick McDonell
(from the public library)

Twelve is not a crime fiction book, just a regular old fiction book from 2002, which I probably added to my “To Be Read” list from a review in the NYTBR. I say that because otherwise I probably never would have read this book. I only finished it because the chapters were very short, so the pace was fast and I finished it in a few of hours. I actually started this book at the end of 2004, then set it aside for several days while reading the Denise Hamilton book, so it definitely didn’t hold my attention.

Apparently, Nick McDonell is a whiz kid who wrote this book at age 17 and it received all kinds of praise. I found it terribly dull and boring. None of the characters were particularly likable, just a bunch of self-involved, selfish rich kids living in Manhattan and doing whatever they pleased, mostly drugs. I found it hard to keep all of the characters straight, since they all knew each other through “a friend of a friend,” none of them had any qualities to make them stand out from the others and chapters would go by before some of them were mentioned again. A superfluous murder and arrest added little to a story that already jumped around randomly. The surprise ending wasn’t a surprise at all – you could see it coming from a mile away – nor was it very original. The epilogue only addressed what happened to one of the characters, leaving you to wonder about the fate of several others. I think I’ll stick with crime fiction for awhile.

Scrapbooks Create $2.5 Billion Industry

How interesting to see the above headline and article on Yahoo! this morning!

Merry Christmas!

Happy Holidays everyone! I can't believe it's all over and done with after all the planning and doing. We had a wonderful weekend full of lots of family and presents. As usual, we spent Christmas Eve at M's mom's house. All of the children and grandchildren were in attendance, an unusual occurance with so many, so it was great for everyone to be together. H. received some cute little outfits from her Mimi and Aunt B, along with some baby doll equipment from Aunt Doody. The Walmart gift certificate from M's brother didn't last long - we spent it today on a the Shrek 2 DVD.

We got home from M's mom's around 10pm and M. and I honored one of the sacred rituals of parenthood - staying up until all hours assembling H's Christmas gifts. Her "big gift" this year was a kitchen set, which we've had for months, but never even opened the box. I thought it would be along the lines of a Little Tykes product - 4 or 5 big pieces to snap together with some stickers to slap on. Wrong! This kitchen set was in a million pieces. Every piece needed to be assembled - doors, handles, knobs, plus stickers. It took just over an hour to put it together, but it was well worth it. It's really cute and H. just loved it. My parents' came to watch H. open her presents and she performed for her audience. She was so excited when she first came downstairs, I don't think she knew where to start, so she just rolled around on the floor for a couple of minutes in sheer happiness, not unlike a puppy dog.

We didn't have to be at my aunt's house until 4pm on Christmas Day, so we just relaxed and played most of the afternoon. Dinner at my aunt's house pretty much met my (low) expectations - too crowded, too hectic and too smoky. We barely stayed two hours and I didn't even open any of my presents there.

Since my aunt had Christmas Day this year instead of my mom, we went to my parents' house on Sunday for an extended celebration. It was much more relaxed and you could watch everyone open their presents. My parents gave M. and me a portable DVD player for the car, which we had been wanting. (Another purchase at Walmart today was a carrying case for it.) H. loved all of her presents, but I think her two favorites were the Wiggles guitar from Aunt J. and Uncle T. and the Dora ViewMaster with reels from M. and me.

I still had off of work yesterday and today, so it's been very relaxing, in addition to trying to get the house back into some sort of order. I work Wednesday and Thursday, then have off again on Friday, so it will be a nice, short week. On Saturday, we'll be going to our annual get-together with W. and N. at W's house this year, which I'm really looking forward to.

2004 Reading List

I may finish one or two more books before the end of the year (wishful thinking), but for now, I present for your perusal my 2004 Reading List. It was a banner year for me - I tried to make the most of my lunch hours! I think the list reflects quite a bit of variety, although I didn't do that well with my self-imposed reading list for catching up on missed classics or literature this year. However, I did read more non-fiction than I usually do. The upcoming year should bring some more new and different titles to the list, with the English classes I'm taking next semester. I'll link to some, but not all, of the books below and add some additional thoughts if needed. Enjoy!

Some observations, for those of you who might not know or wonder. Most of these books are from the library. I don't think I bought a single new book this year. As I've said previously, I heart bookcloseouts.com and that's where I buy most of my books, anywhere from six months to a year after they are originally released. Of the 69 books below, 50 or so came from the library. If not from bookcloseouts, the others came from used book sales or were borrowed from friends.

1. Bigfoot Dreams by Francine Prose (from my required reading list)
2. Prejudicial Error by Bill Blum (legal thriller)
3. The Gypsy Man by Robert Bausch (For reasons unbeknowst to me, I love reading books set in Appalachia. This book is a few years old, but I just discovered and thought it was very well done.)
4. Blow Fly by Patricia Cornwell (Catching up on this series in early 2004, however, I don't think I'll read the 2004 installment, Trace. I think I've given up on this series.)
5. The Sculptress by Minette Walters (This is the third book of hers that I've read. Everyone I know who reads her books never has anything bad or negative to say about them and I agree.)
6. The Kills by Linda Fairstein (series)
7. The Quality of Life Report by Meghan Daum
8. Nowhere Else on Earth by Josephine Humphreys (excellent historical fiction – read my previous entry about this book)
9. Jemima J by Jane Green (chick lit)
10. Savage Run by C.J. Box (series)
11. The Country of Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett (required reading list - I actually read this one online - thanks Project Gutenberg!)
12. Swimming by Joanna Hershon
13. Smoke Screen by Kyle Mills (standalone from the author of the Mark Beamon series)
14. The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger
15. The Perfect Elizabeth by Libby Schmais
16. The Big Bad Wolf by James Patterson (Yeah, I know, these are so easy to read they're practically freebies for the year. I know some people can't stand his books, but I haven't grown tired of the yet.)
17. Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani
18. Big Cherry Holler by Adriana Trigiani (I fell in love with this trilogy this year, as written about in a previous entry. I was able to purchase all three paperbacks from bookcloseouts and would take them to a deserted island with me.)
19. Elegance by Kathleen Tessaro (Probably falls into the chick lit category, but very well written and a very original premise.)
20. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Kidd Monk (Even though this has been on the bestseller list forever, I read it based on a recommendation from Eliza. It was moving and touching and I can see why Eliza's loved it at this time in her life, much like the Big Stone Gap trilogy appealed to me.)
21. Islands by Anne Rivers Siddons – (She is one of my favorite authors, because I'm a sucker for good Southern fiction. I had to wait four years for this book and I liked it, but the ending too much like “Outer Banks,” the original books that started me on ARS.)
22. High Country by Nevada Barr (series)
23. Milk Glass Moon by Adriana Trigiani
24. Bleachers by John Grisham
25. 3rd Degree by James Patterson and Andrew Gross
26. Mystic River by Dennis Lehane (I wanted to read this before I saw the movie and I did. I'm not sure why some people didn't care for it. I thought it was excellent overall. I'm so glad Lehane isn't one of those authors who feels the need to explain every term or abbreviation like some authors do. For example, there was a reference to the local K. of C. and I'm sure some editor out there wanted him to tell the audience it stood for Knights of Columbus, but he stuck to his guns. It was refreshing not to be talked down to as a reader.)
27. Forty Words for Sorrow by Giles Blunt (First in series. I didn't get to the second one yet, but I will. Lots of plot twists and the writing was so detailed, I could easily visualize this book as a movie.)
28. Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen (Required reading list. This is the first one of her books I have ever read and I've been missing out. Hopefully I get to some of the others in 2005.)
29. In the Forest of Harm by Sallie Bissell (This was the first in series and I went on to read the other two, even though they weren't that good. The story lines were predictable, but I liked the main character and wanted to find out what happened to her.)
30. Flashover by Suzanne Chazin (This was the second book in the series. It had been awhile since I read the first one (2002), but there was a major overuse of similes and metaphors that I found annoying: "The pain was excruciating, tearing into her flesh like a pack of wild dogs. It [the fire] banked lower and lower, like a murderer working his way down a flight of stairs. Then, one by one, the bottles of perfume on her dresser began to shatter as if they were being picked off in a shooting gallery. The heat was on top of her now, sizzling like hot butter across the surface of the mattress. And then she heard it – a popping like gunfire, then cracks like footsteps on a frozen lake." All of these are from just one page in the beginning of the book!)
31. Shiny Water by Anna Salter
32. A Darker Justice by Sallie Bissell
33. Call the Devil by His Oldest Name by Sallie Bissell
34. No Second Chance by Harlan Coben
35. Property by Valerie Martin (historical fiction)
36. Third Person Singular by K.J. Erickson
37. Live Bait by P.J. Tracy
38. Between Sisters by Kristin Hannah
39. Diary of a Mad Bride by Laura Wolf (I breezed through this one in a couple of hours in the car on the drive home from vacation)
40. The Saving Graces by Patricia Gaffney (I waited a long time to read this one and thought it would be great, but I found it kind of dull. The language was rather dated for a book taking place in the late 1990’s, such as the use of the word “straight” as an adjective to describe a variety of things.)
41. The Last Juror by John Grisham
42. Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella (first in series)
43. Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane (The twist at the end really threw me. I think I need to read this one again.)
44. The Little Women by Katharine Weber (A very unique book, but I thought the ending was rushed.)
45. Murder on Ice by Alina Adams (Reinforced that cozies are not for me.)
46. Isle of Palms by Dorothea Benton Frank (There's that good ole Southern women's fiction again.)
47. Just One Look by Harlan Coben
48. Bloodstream by Tess Gerritsen
49. Carrie Pilby by Caren Lissner (If you're not reading Caren's blog, you should be. She has a wonderful sense of humor.)
50. Journal of the Dead by Jason Kersten (non-fiction/true crime)
51. Winter Range by Claire Davis
52. Liars and Saints by Maile Meloy
53. The Shape of Snakes by Minette Walters
54. Unlucky in Law by Perri O’Shaughnessy (series)
55. The Vanished Man by Jeffrey Deaver (series)
56. America (The Book) by Jon Stewart, et al.
57. An Open Book by Michael Dirda (non-fiction)
58. Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner
59. Killing the Shadows by Val McDermid (I'm more amazed every time I read one of her books. They are fabulous!)
60. Monday Mourning by Kathy Reichs (series)
61. Shopaholic Takes Manhattan by Sophie Kinsella
62. Open and Shut by David Rosenfelt
63. Killer Smile by Lisa Scottoline (series)
64. Bookends by Jane Green
65. Fireplay by Suzanne Chazin (For the record, she must have gotten a new editor for the third installment in the series. I didn't notice the crazy overuse of descriptive language per #30)
66. Dead North by Sue Henry (series)
67. Bad Girl by Michele Jaffe
68. Thirty Nothing by Lisa Jewell
69. Darkness Falls by Margaret Murphy

Stressed Out

Holiday craziness has set in and things have been super-busy. I'm not just saying that, I really have been busy. I've been so busy I haven't even finished a book in over a week!

The work trip to NYC was good, other than the lousy, rainy weather. I went to the Ground Zero site, only three or four blocks from the hotel, and the South Street Seaport, which was too much like Harborplace for me to be excited about it. After the seminar was over, I actually took the subway back to Penn Station instead of a taxi, which I figured was a better choice at 4pm on a rainy Friday afternoon.

Saturday (Dec. 11) was the children's Christmas Party that my work hosts every year. I took H. and my two nieces, as I did last year. They had a great time and really like the presents they received. Big K. got Pictionary Jr. and wanted to play it right away. When we got back to my parents' house, we played two rounds and had a blast. We were laughing so hard, our sides hurt. It was most fun when K&K were drawing.


Saturday night I got the lights on the tree while half watching that awful, cheesy Dale Earnhardt movie on ESPN. (M. kept saying, "Are you sure that's not Jeff Foxworthy playing Dale Earnhardt?" It was really his hair that bothered me the most.) We had originally planned to go out to dinner for our anniversary, just to the new Ruby Tuesday's, but H. fell asleep in the car on the way back from my parents' house and slept the whole night through. So I made crab cakes instead, one of Mark's favorite dinners. H. and I spent most of Sunday decorating the tree and it looked wonderful. However, around 12:30am that night, M. and I heard a terrible crash from downstairs. That's right, the tree fell over in the middle of the night, landing right on the coffee table. My worst nightmare! We got it upright, but I didn't really have time to survey the damage. I was completely stressed out on Monday because I was fighting off a cold, we had to go to that concert that night for work and the babysitter was coming as soon as I got home, with a living room full of broken glass. So I went home at lunch to try and clean up as much as possible. Somehow, there were only about four or five broken ornaments, none of which were especially meaningful to me, so I think I dealt with the whole situation pretty well. I finally got the tree back together Tuesday night, even though it doesn't look as good as it did.

The tree, before it fell over


The busy week continued, with deadlines at work since my boss is now out until after the first of the year, along with our department holiday lunch. Friday night we went to a dessert party hosted by N. and her friend, which was very fun and much more than just dessert. Mimi watched H., which she was so excited about. H. likes visiting her Mimi and playing with the Pekingnese dogs, plus they all got to watch Rudolph together.

Saturday consisted of finishing up the wrapping presents and napping, in between football games. And oh yeah, all the lights on the tree stopped working. I think we blew a fuse, since H. kept turning the lights on and off. Luckily, it was the fuse in the first strand of lights, so it was easily solved. I swear, I don't think the tree liked being in the living room this year and is rebelling. We'll have to move it back to the family room next year.

On Sunday we did some early shopping at Walmart and Target. I finally found a new teapot. You wouldn't think that would be such a hard item to find, but the selection at Walmart was terrible, so it was Target to the rescue. Now I only have a few gift cards left to buy and my shopping will be complete, hopefully with a few days left to spare. And, let's hope that the tree will hang on until atleast Saturday morning!

Concert

Last night, my boss took everyone in our department, with spouses, to a musical performance at the local theater. I wasn't sure what to expect, and no one was really looking forward to an event on a Monday night in the middle of the holiday rush, but I was pleasantly surprised.

The performance we saw was by a group called Barrage, and if you ever get a chance to see them, I would highly recommend it. It's hard to explain what kind of music they play. There are six or seven fiddle players, along with percussion and guitars, but it's not bluegrass or country music. They played songs by Simon & Garfunkel, Guns N Roses and the Beatles, all in their own style. It was a high energy show, incorporating singing, choreography and humor. Not a lot of fancy set or wardrobe changes, so you get a lot of music for your buck. Plus who's not up for a little rhythmic clapping every now and then?

Dream Come True

Those of you who know me well know that this is totally me. Where can I find out about opening a franchise? I could start decorating it with my collection of cereal memorabilia that's currently on display in my kitchen. [Thanks to Old Hag for the link.]

The cafeteria at my college was known for the above-average quality of its menu, but there were also about 20 bins lined up along one wall with every kind of cereal you could imagine. We thought nothing of topping off a full dinner with a bowl of cereal before heading back to the dorm. And even before H. came along, my kitchen cabinets were filled with Frosted Flakes, Lucky Charms and Honey Smacks. My only nod to more healthy cereals is Cracklin' Oat Bran, which is yummy without milk as a snack.

And while we're strolling down memory lane, read this great entry from Caren about taping songs off the radio with a hand-held tape recorder, before moving up to the much-cherished stereo with a dual-cassette player. Sadly, my love of music has changed much the way Caren's has and I can't remember making a mix tape after graduating from college. And like her, I really need to sit down and investigate iTunes and start downloading some music. I have no excuse now that I have the cable internet connection.

Random Thoughts Before I Take Off for a Few Days

Is anyone else envisioning an all-Pennsylvania Super Bowl?

I’m a big catalog shopper and love taking advantage of free shipping offers. But when did they get so outrageous? $50 used to be the standard, which was doable, but now the minimum seems to be $60 or $75! You’d have to buy 4 large housewarmer candles at Yankee Candle just to take advantage of that “deal.”

With 3 holidays, 2 vacation days and a two-day seminar, I’m only in the office for 16 days in December. And my boss will be out of the office for 5 of those. Plus there will be the requisite holiday lunches and parties, too.

I haven’t received any Christmas cards yet! Where are the early birds? I’m picking mine up at lunch today and hope to address them while I’m on the train to NYC, so expect to see yours soon.

This sounds like the same philosophy used many moons ago by Macy’s, a la Miracle on 34th Street.

Christmas anxiety is rearing its ugly head. Being gone for two nights (almost three) in the middle of the week two weeks before Christmas is not helping. I'll be sitting in a seminar for the next two days, thinking about all the things I need to do (finish shopping, finish wrapping decorate the tree, bake cookies). Plus, M. is watching H. the entire time I'm gone, a first. I know he'll do a great job, but it won't keep me from wondering if she's only going to eat cookies and fruities for dinner every night.

This will be the longest I've been away from her. M. and I went away for a two-night weekend in May of 2003, otherwise, we've only been apart from her for one night here and there. I guess it's time to start branching out more!

You Know It's Time to Lose Weight When:

A. At Thanksgiving, your sister tells you she thought you were pregnant and just not telling everyone yet.

B. All the size XL sweatpants you bought at Old Navy are too tight.

Feel free to add to the list in the comments.

Holiday Weekend

I'm back at work, listening to Christmas music on the radio. The local lite station has already made the switch to Christmas songs 'round the clock. We'll see how long I last before I have to change the channel.

Thanksgiving was wonderful, as usual, other than the extremely windy conditions. Always a great holiday and less stressful than Christmas. Dinner at my parents' house with the traditional trimmings - turkey, dressing (or filling, as they say here in PA), mashed potatoes, peas, marshmallow salad (or ambrosia, if you prefer, sans JELL-O), pumpkin pie and pumpkin roll, and of course, birthday cake for my sister, J., whose birthday was Friday. My parents also celebrated their 38th wedding anniversary, which already has me stressing about what we should do for their 40th. I'm thinking a big family vacation (Disney?) instead of a party, but I haven't run it by anyone else yet. Any ideas?

I had one Black Friday experience, which was a trip to Michaels for refill pages for my scrapbook, along with some other odds and ends. (I rarely go shopping on Black Friday - I prefer the day after Christmas more than the day after Thanksgiving. I'd rather sit at home and watch all the holiday decorating shows on HGTV.) This was around 4pm and I had H. with me. There was a long line to check out - only 4 registers open with two lines, each feeding into two registers. They lines were moving very slowly, but I didn't hear any rumblings from the front, so thought it was just the usual. But then, I get to the front of the line and the checkout girl tells me, "You know our registers are down, right?" No, I didn't know that. "Well, they've been down for about 45 minutes. We can bag up all your stuff, then if you can wait, we'll ring it up when the registers are back online." Ah, technology! Absolutely no back-up system in place for handling this kind of problem on the busiest shopping day of the year. While I was trying to get more information from the girl, by some miracle in the heavens, the registers came back up and I was able to check out. The machine still wouldn't take my credit card, so after waiting 5 minutes for the transaction to time out, I ended up writing a check.

Life was back to normal on Saturday - grocery shopping and laundry. H. took a three-hour nap after having very short naps on both Thursday and Friday, then the three of us went to the Festival of Trees at the Timonium Fairgrounds. It wasn't very crowded and not quite what I thought it would be. The trees were interspersed throughout the building, competing with craft vendors, food and the silent auction. The floor plan could have been better to make it easier to see the trees, but it was entertaining for a couple of hours and there was a carousel to ride, which H. enjoyed.

On Sunday, I launched into cleaning and holiday decorating. I scrubbed the kitchen floor, which it needed desperately, then started putting away all the everyday knicknacks to make way for the Christmas decorations. The living room looks so bare, but shiny, waiting for me to carry boxes up from the basement. I did finish decorating the china closet, putting out my holiday china and matching accessories, plus sticking the wreath on the front door, which is the easiest thing to do first. I'll keep doing a little bit each night this week, but I didn't want to put anything out on the tables in the living room until we bring in the tree, which we'll probably go get this Saturday. We're going to try putting the tree in the living room this year instead of the family room, since H. has completely taken over that room, plus there's more furniture than there used to be in the family room (last year's entertainment center Christmas gift) with no place to move it to to clear a spot for the tree. We'll give it a try and if we don't like it, we can always switch back next year.

The next few weeks are going to be very busy, well into January - tree and decorating this weekend, a short trip to NYC for work, the Children's Holiday Party at work, shopping and wrapping, baking, etc., but I've got a plan and I'm looking forward to it all!

Has He Ever Actually Talked to a Student?

What does the comment below say about MSU Assistant Vice President Chuck Gagliano's opinion of the intelligence of the average Michigan State student? If I were a student, I would be insulted.

Gagliano said he has not noticed Michigan State students eating more
protein and fewer carbohydrates. "I'm not even sure they know what carbohydrates are," he said.

Welcome to the 21st Century!

I'm updating from home, via my cable modem! First a Starbucks in town, now this! Everything loads so fast, it's like being at work. I should be able to update with pictures more, since I could never add photos from work. Case in point, I've updated the Halloween entry with some photos, although the actual costume pictures are still on the roll. More to come...

ZZZZZZZZZZ

I'm being punished for taking a two-hour nap yesterday, although I don't know why. With the time change last weekend, H. woke up at 5:30am most mornings last week, instead of the usual 6:30am, including a 5:30am wake-up call Sunday morning. So while she was taking her nap yesterday, I took one, too, from about 2pm-4pm. I woke up from that terrific nap with a headache, which seemed to be gone by dinner.

I usually have some trouble falling asleep on Sunday nights, so I stayed up and watched all of the Ravens game (which was worth watching to the end), then went to bed around 11:30am. Well, 1:30am rolled around and I was still wide awake, and the headache had returned. So I got up and took some Excedrin, then lay down on the couch for about an hour, reading. I went back to bed at 2:30am, but still didn't fall asleep until well after 3am!

So I'm paying for my two-hour nap with minus six hours of sleep. I'm looking forward to the dull headache, sandpaper eyes and achy neck I'll be experiencing all day, not to mention the malaise that should set in after lunch. Happy Monday!

Halloween and Such

Sunday was a terrific day all around. The weather was so beautiful, a perfect fall day. M., H. and I spent the morning outside, jumping in the leaves that M. blew into a big pile, then walking up and down our street collecting different colored leaves.



H. didn't want to come inside. I think I took almost a whole roll of pictures of her playing and she hadn't even put her costume on yet! We had carved our pumpkin the night before (while watching To Kill a Mockingbird), but H. didn't really know what to make of it. She stuck her hand in the pulp once and that was enough for her. After we finished and the pumpkin was lit, she kept trying to blow out the candle and make a wish. "It's not your birthday!" I tried to explain to her.



After H's nap and the Ravens' game, we drove over to my parents' neighborhood for trick-or-treating with K&K. Wendy and Shane came too, with Meghan, and we had a great time. H. as Raggedy Ann stood out among our three princesses - Big K was a fairy princess, Little K was Belle and Meghan was Cinderella. I thought H. would be more excited to walk around this year, since she didn't even know how to walk last year, but I guess she's still a little too young. After the first couple of houses, she wanted to be carried. But she did go up to everyone and hold out her bag, saying "Trick or Treat" and "Thank you" some of the time. We were out for about an hour and that was plenty for everyone.

Pictures will follow eventually, as usual. The digital camera I've had my eye on has come down in price some and is tempting me., especially with 12 months free financing. I need to go to Circuit City this weekend to get some software for the computer before we get our cable modem installed next week (finally!), so we'll see if I'm able to resist it or not. It would certainly make updating this site easier and more timely!

Atleast We Still Have Halloween

(I apologize in advance [and warn you] for a second throw-up related entry.)

Last night was H's last tumbling class of the eight-week session, so a Halloween party was planned. I picked H. up and the babysitter already had her in her Raggedy Ann costume. She looked so cute! So off we drove to tumbling and we were about halfway there when H. started to get really fussy and telling we she wanted to get out of her carseat. I thought she was just excited about the party, but about a minute later, without warning, BLAAA! She got sick in the car, all over her Halloween costume. We pulled off the road into a bank parking lot so I could check on her. Luckily, I had her regular clothes in her diaper bag, so I changed her out of her messy costume. Then I had to explain to her that we had to go home, we couldn't go to tumbling class and the party. She wasn't too upset - I think she wanted to go home, too. I took her temperature when we got there and no fever and she was fine for the rest of the evening. I think it was a combination of teething and a wet cough she's had for the last week or so. The combination of drool and phlegm (sorry to be so graphic, but that's kids) just upset her stomach by the end of the day yesterday. So I have no cute pictures from the Halloween party to share. You'll have to wait until after Sunday!

Growing

Not to bore you with too many baby stories, but H. is at that age where she's doing lots of cute, smart things and just getting so big! She's starting to have more of a long-term memory about certain things.

Last night, we were playing with her Dora MagnaDoodle and I noticed the triangle piece was missing. I asked her if she knew where it was and she said, "I'll get it." She went all the way upstairs and found it on the floor in the living room and brought it back down to me. "Triangle," she said as she handed it to me.

This morning, as we were getting ready, I mentioned that today was a tumbling class day. "Tumbling class," she said. "Gibberish, jump in castle, gibberish!" Last week at class, they had a small blow-up jumping castle for the kids and she remembered it from last week without any prompting.

Please feel free to comment about how smart she is!

Weekend

Things I accomplished on Saturday:

1. Finished reading America (The Book) ("Laugh out loud funny!" - Andrea)
2. Took a two-hour nap
3. Watched Walking Tall (It was Mark's turn to pick a video. After it was over, I compared it to a really bad episode of Walker, Texas Ranger.)

Notice that none of the above involved scrubbing, dusting or cleaning of any kind.

I was a little more productive on Sunday, but only in my creative efforts, not in regard to any sort of housekeeping. (There's a line from the Halloween episode of Bear in the Big Blue House [I told you it was my favorite episode] that I think I'll adopt as my own. Lois the telephone operator is hard of hearing and misinterprets everything. When everyone shouts Trick or Treat, she thinks they say Dirty Feet and says, "Oh, you don't have to worry about that. As you can see, I'm a very casual housekeeper." That describes me to a T!) Nadine and my mom and I all went to a Scrapbooking Flea Market in the morning. It featured a variety of vendors from the area, most offering significant discounts, and we were able to find quite a few good deals. I bought a bunch of stickers, including some Sesame Street stickers, and a bunch of paper that was only ten cents a sheet. That night, I completed two quick pages in Hayley's album - 4th of July and Halloween from 2003. I'm going to a workshop this Friday, so I hope to keep the momentum going.

Girls' Guide to Football - NOT!

I don't know why I even clicked on this link. How foolish I was to think it would be useful, instead of condescending and nauseating!

Hayley's Animal Sounds

Dog - woof, woof
Cat - meee-ooow!
Cow - moo, moo
Snake - sssssssss
Monkey - ooo ooo, aaa aaa
Elephant - she makes a sort-of honking sound, but waves her arm around like a trunk, so you know it's an elephant
Duck - quack, quack
Chicken - bawk, bawk (She sounds just like the Cadbury bunny)
Frog - ribbit
Skunk - P.U. (and she holds her nose)
Lion - Rrrrrrr! (which also sounds the same as Tiger, Bear and Monster)

And my favorite...

Horse - Yee Haw! (I taught her to say this while riding her rocking horse, and now all horses are identified as Yee Haw! She also clucks her tongue so it sounds like the clopping of horse hooves.)

In addition to her repertoire of animal sounds, she can also identify many others - bat, squirrel, fish, turtle, bird, rabbit and more - thanks to this very cool Noah's Ark book from Aunt Na.

Big Update

Sorry for the delay in posting. I tried updating from home last week so I could post some pictures, but either my computer was acting up or Blogger wasn't cooperating, so I just gave up. So this entry will be sans photos, unless I can add some later tonight.

I feel like we haven't been doing very much, but looking back over the past two weeks, it has been fairly busy. We did the pumpkin patch thing this weekend, going early Saturday afternoon. H. had a ball, riding in the wheelbarrow and checking out all the pumpkins. She found a little tiny gourd pumpkin still out in the field and had to have it. "My pumpkin," she told us the rest of the day. She took a nap with her pumpkin and slept with it that night, too. The whole trip reminded me of last year, when she couldn't even walk yet and had to ride in the wheelbarrow. Halloween should be so much fun this year. We've been practicing "Trick or Treat" and of course, she can walk this year, so even better! The Disney Channel has already shown my favorite episode of "Bear in the Big Blue House," the Halloween episode, twice - once last week and again this morning.

We continued the fall festivities on Sunday, going to the Apple Harvest Festival, my favorite festival of the year. It was very crowded, but bearable, even though they ran out of pit beef just after we got there. My replacement grilled chicken sandwich was a disappointment. H. was an angel all day, mostly cooperating with staying in the stroller. My dad took her to play in the petting zoo and other children's activities for a little while, so my mom and I could shop. I didn't buy that much, just a few little Halloween items.

I slept terribly last night and I was exhausted after walking around all day. I fell asleep just before 10 (I didn't see very much of the Battle of the Beltways), but M. kept waking me up to tell me I was snoring. The nerve!! Then, H. was up at 3:30am, coughing. She was up for about 40 minutes or so, until she finally went back to sleep. I think she just had a dry throat from the festival, which was very dusty. She wasn't running a fever and still woke up at her normal time this morning. So I'm feeling that after-lunch tiredness.

***

The pictures I was trying to post last week were of my sister's new house. After just over a year of waiting and living in a rental unit, their new house was set on its foundation last Thursday, Sept. 30. My mom was there for the big delivery and said it came in 4 big pieces and that it was really cool to watch them put it together. It will take about another 4 weeks to hook up the electric, plumbing, etc., but what really matters is that the house is actually there! And it's huge! Their old house was just a small rancher, but this one is two stories, with three bedrooms, a sunken jacuzzi tub in the master bath and lots of windows and French doors looking out over the water. It's really a three-story house, because the new foundation is 12-feet high, then the house sits on top of that. They still have a lot to do - painting, installing the floors, etc., before they can move in, but after months of inactivity, things are finally progressing.

***

H. has reached that age where she's hooked on the same video for days or weeks at a time. About a month or so ago, it was all Nemo, all the time. By the time I had told my mom to buy her a stuffed Nemo for her birthday because she loved him, we had moved on to Lilo & Stitch (which is a very weird little movie. I had a hard time getting into it at first). Now it's The Little Mermaid, which we also have to listen to in the car all the time. (And I can't wait for Disney to release this one from "the vault" so I can get it on DVD. There are about 20 annoying minutes worth of previews and commercials at the beginning of this movie. I may get desperate and have to hit eBay.) I wish I could describe the way H. says Ariel. Let's just say I think I'm the only one who understands what she's talking about. It looks like this week will be Beauty and the Beast, which she wanted to take to the babysitter's this morning. I still have Sleeping Beauty, A Bug's Life and The Jungle Book on the shelf, waiting to be watched.

Miscellaneous

I updated the Birthday Party and Ocean City entries with pictures, if you care to take a look.

Sesame Street Live: Elmo's Coloring Book was fun on Saturday. H. really enjoyed it - clapping along and dancing at all the right parts. I think she had just as much fun looking at all the other little kids who were there. She got a little antsy during the last 15 minutes or so, which was fine. That just means she's not ready to go to the movies yet. But now I'll have to consider whether or not to take her to see Nemo on Ice.

Sunday was very relaxing, as I promised myself it would be. We went and finished our grocery shopping early in the morning, then while H. was taking her nap, I made homemade spaghetti sauce. The house smelled wonderful all day! I watched football and the Brady Bunch, and we spent some time outside, since it was such a beautiful day weather-wise. More than I can say for today. We're experiencing the remnants of Hurricane Jeanne and it's been pouring all day and it just started to get very windy.

Brady Bunch Marathon

At 2:36pm this afternoon, I e-mailed this link to Nadine. At 2:37pm, I received the very same e-mail link from Sheila. Yeah, I know, we're really big nerds, but we don't care.

So I'll be watching this most of the weekend instead of anything else I might have had planned.

Reading Update

I read three books since I last updated my "Currently Reading" link. Maybe I should list more than one book there along the lines of current and just finished, but I'm definitely a read-one-book-at-a-time kind of person.

Anyhoo, I read Bloodstream by Tess Gerritsen, a paperback I picked up at the used book sale this summer for 25 cents, mostly as filler in between trips to the library. It's classified as a "medical thriller," but I would categorize it more as horror. All I have to say is, don't read this book if you ever want to eat pork again.

Then I read Carrie Pilby by Caren Lissner, which has been on my to-be-read list every since I started reading her blog. It was a quirky, funny book that I really enjoyed, and more than worth the $1 I had to spend to get it via inter-library loan from another library branch. I'm already looking forward to reading Starting from Square Two.

Finally, I plowed through Journal of the Dead by Jason Kersten in one day. I started it during lunch at work, then stayed up until 11:30 that night to finish it, even though I knew most of the story. I can't remember the last book that made me stay up that late! Journal of the Dead is the true crime account of Raffi Kodikian (who is from Philadelphia) and David Coughlin, friends who got lost in the desert in Carlsbad Caverns National Park in 1999 and one of the friends ended up dead. It's not a black and white case of murder and Kersten fairly presents the facts from both sides of the story. [One note: There was an annoying error in the book that's tough to overlook when you're reading non-fiction because it makes you question what other facts might be incorrect. Kersten is comparing the hometowns of Coughlin and Kodikian - Boston to Philly - and compares the Charles River to the Potomac River. I'm assuming he meant to reference the Schuylkill River, since the Potomac runs through Maryland and DC, not Philly.]

Birthday Party Hangover

I'm still recovering from the birthday party on Sunday, or the house is any way. The weather cooperated and we were able to have the party outside in the yard, complete with a bouncing house.

It was a little windy, but at least the sun was out. All of the kids seemed to have a good time and the "Pin the Cookie on Cookie Monster" game went over pretty well.

The only bad part of the day was right before we were going to sing "Happy Birthday" and cut the cake. H. got stung by a bee right in the center of her thumb. It took us awhile to figure out what was wrong. I had never, ever heard her cry like that before. Her poor little thumb was swollen and red and hard as a rock. We held up the party for a half hour trying to get her calmed down, which wasn't helped by the fact that she hadn't had a nap that day. But she recovered enough for us to sing and open presents, of which she received a wonderfully varied assortment - clothes, toys, baby dolls, computer games, DVDs, etc. We have wonderful family and friends who are very generous! (H's thumb was much better the next morning, no longer swollen and just a little sore by the way she was bending it.)


So now I'm still trying to clean up the house. There are presents or boxes in every room and dishes that need to be put away. Our trash day is Fridays, so we've been stuck with party trash all week, including a big box that one of the presents came in that is still sitting in the middle of the living room. And I need to get started on thank you notes, too. We're picking up H's photos from Sears tomorrow night, so I'll be able to include those with the thank you notes, which is good timing. But I don't know when I'll have the time to start those since the rest of the week is booked solid. Tumbling class tonight, Sears tomorrow night, Fall Fest in Westminster Friday night and Sesame Street Live Saturday afternoon. My plan for Sunday is to lay in front of the television and watch football for nine or ten hours (and maybe write a few thank you notes).

Happy Birthday!

Happy 2nd Birthday to H! When she woke up this morning, she was already two, since she was born at 4:30am.

I forgot to mention that we went for her two-year check-up last Friday morning. She weighed 27 lbs., 13 oz., and measured 34 1/2 inches. I asked the doctor about how she seems so much taller than most of the other two-year olds we know, but she said her height, weight and head circumference were all plotting correctly on the growth chart and everything was normal. I guess we can blame me for her big bones.

The weather outlook for Sunday has improved as of this morning. Rain ending by mid-day on Saturday, with Sunday cool and sunny. Let's hope the forecast is correct!

The O.C.

I figured I better post about last weekend, since the coming weekend is descending quickly. That's the only problem with going away for the weekend - you spend the rest of the week catching up on all the stuff you didn't get done around the house.

The girls weekend in Ocean City was terrific. We had a great time and the weather was fairly cooperative. We arrived late Friday, so we didn't get to do anything but get the kids into bed, but we squeezed in a lot of activities on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday, we went shopping at the outlets, where I got H. the cutest outfit to wear for her birthday party. Then we went swimming in the afternoon, even though it was somewhat overcast and the water was freezing! The evening included dinner (shrimp for me, since I never get to cook it anymore now that M. is allergic), then the boardwalk. Meghan and H. got on some rides and we walked around a little bit.


On Sunday, we went to the beach in the morning, which I always think is more work than it's worth. I know, I'm not a beach person. I wish I could be, because in theory, it sounds fun, but when your almost two-year old poops while she's wet and covered with sand and you only brought a diaper (no wipes), it's just not that fun. (I stripped H. down and rinsed her off in the ocean as my solution.)

But the girls enjoyed playing in the sand and got to use the new sand toys I bought them. We left around 1:30 in the afternoon, so it was a wonderful but short trip. W.'s condo is awesome and it's in a great location; we're already planning another girls only trip (without the kids this time). I only hope W. and I didn't scare Na off from ever having kids. Spending the whole weekend with a three-and-a-half-year old and an almost two-year old can be a lot to take.

So I've spent the rest of the week catching up - laundry, going to the grocery store, plus party preparations for Sunday. I'm not holding out much hope for the weather. I'm sure the remnants of Ivan will be here by Sunday and I'll be stuck with 15 kids inside the house with only one measly game of "Pin the Cookie on Cookie Monster" to keep them occupied. Atleast I shouldn't have any trouble sticking to my "three-hours max" rule for kiddie parties.

Photo Session

Okay, I couldn't link to the online photos from Sears (you could only send out a mass e-mail for access), so here are two from the photo session. I know, too cute for words. I'll let you come up with your own.