In a word...

1 Where is your cell phone? dead
2 Relationship? holding
3 Your hair? butch
4 Work? fits
5 Your sister? none

6 Your favorite things? many
7 Your dream last night? empty
8 Your favorite drink? beer
9 Your dream car? mine
10 The room you're in? playpen

11 Your shoes? fabulous
12 Your fears? poorhouse
13 What do you want to be in 10 years? alive
14 Who did you hang out with this weekend? family
15 What are you not good at? tennis

16 Muffins? nut
17 Wish-list item? nap
18 Where you grew up? town
19 The last thing you did? sighed
20 What are you wearing? comfy

21 What are you not wearing? shoes
22 Your pet? scared
23 Your computer? lapped
24 Your life? nonstop
25 Your mood? relieved

26 Missing? time
27 What are you thinking about? sleep
28 Your car? love
29 Your kitchen? gross
30 Your summer? hot

31 Your favorite color? flattering
32 Last time you laughed? evening
33 Last time you cried? months
34 School? done
35 Love? yes

36 Tag? volunteer

Random Thoughts

Ick - London stage musical of Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Reviews aren't great. Hmmm. How do you condense three large books into three hours? With singing?

We are finally on the sleeping side of the growth spurt with Meimei. After about 5 nights of waking up at least once, and on one occasion, three times, I finally was able to sleep through last night. Of course, now the teething has started up...

Kitten handed me a magnetic refrigerator Y, upside down, two weeks ago and said, "triangle." Like, hey mom, just wanted to make sure you knew. Genius.

The missing pregnant woman was found dead Saturday. I took it quite hard actually, although you have to figure she was gone when the kid says, "Mommy's in the rug." That phrase, spoken by a 2-year-old, does not bode well for anyone. If it really is the boyfriend, not only did he kill his unborn child, he did that in front of his living kid, then left him there alone for nearly a day. I hope they fry your ass, dude, I really do. It makes me cry to think of my own 2-year-old watching me die and then sitting alone in the house, no one to comfort her or feed her or change her, until someone eventually comes, many hours later, only to be yanked from the whole world you know forever. If only the rack were still legal, and they forced your parents to watch, you might get an idea of what you did to your son, dickweed.

Let's talk seatbelts, folks. There was a road rage accident this weekend that killed one teenager and left another in a coma. They were ejected from the vehicle. And who gets ejected from vehicles? People who are not wearing seatbelts. By no means am I saying that these children deserved what they got, or that they would not have been hurt. I'm only saying that a very bad situation could have been mitigated a little bit if they had been wearing seatbelts.

In other dangerous traffic news, California is now crushing the cars of streetracers who are caught in accidents or for reckless driving or whathaveyou. They said the rate of accidents and deaths involving street racers is down 19% since they started crushing the cars in front of the offending drivers and other drivers. Take that, orange-Nissan-boy on my drive to work. No one is even racing with you.

He told me so

I have been asked to report that, contrary to my incessant dogging out years ago, it is now the cool thing to have water washing over a wall of ... whatever. They do it with everything now, slate, rock, resin made to look like rock, etc. So Pants is officially now the harbinger of cool.

Although, if you remember correctly, my issue wasn't so much that the "wall of water" wouldn't look cool, but that it might have a negative effect on our resale value. That and the fact that Pants was moving towards turning our town house into the ultimate bachelor pad.

Don't feel like writing

Too fast.

We had to drop the mattress down on Meimei's crib to the bottom slot, and I think we will have to stop using the changing table.

I laid Meimei down this afternoon for a nap and when she didn't go down, I went in and checked on her about 10 minutes later. She had turned on the infant crib vibrator to high, so the whole thing was completely shaking, and she was pulled up onto her knees at the end of the crib and was trying to pull up higher. Ack! So I got out the tools and got to work.

She also flipped over onto her knees on the changing table and nearly pulled down the blinds. So I think that will become a bookshelf. Meimei now has her own little basket of diapers out in the livingroom.

She figured out today how to sit on her own by going from her knees to her butt. She still hasn't gotten that she can also just push a little bit when she's resting on her hip and her hand and get sitting.

In Kitten news, she pulled a capital letter Y off the fridge at grandma and grandpa's, turned it upside down, gave it to me and said, "triangle."

Meimei's growing up

Meimei is a confirmed crawler and had her first tumble down the stairs yesterday morning. No blood, no stitches, no staples. Phew!

She went straight from learning to crawl to pulling up on furniture on her knees.

Her fourth tooth finally popped through last weekend - Sunday, I think.

She plays with toys with her sister, now, they touch hands in the car. Kitten's trying to teach her to slap five, although I think Meimei just thinks she's touching hands until hers gets whacked. But Kitten is so cute, she yells out, "Five! Yay!" and claps every time Meimei puts out her hand. She's already learned the value to praise in teaching new skills!

Oh, and Meimei can copy our tone for "Uh Oh!" She does the high-low after us. Another step on the road to talking.

All Star

"Hey, where do the Pirates play? What city are they in?"
"You're not just picking players for the All Star game by the team names, are you?"
"No! I picked this guy because his name is Uggla."

We have names afterall

So, Kitten has decided that, instead of plain old mom and dad, she will call us by our given names. She even uses the shortened version of my name that Pants uses. Syl, if you will.

Pants just asked Kitten, "What's my name?" She said it, of course. So he said, "Yes, but what's my other name?" and she said, "No, NOT daddy!"

Which got me thinking, why the formality? Has she decided this is her house and we are hired help who cannot be addressed familiarly, for fear that we will think we are in the same class?

Random Thoughts

I think the colds are a joke by the universe because I removed the 6-pack of Puffs from my shopping list. Pants is sick too, P.S. So I guess the house isn't getting painted this weekend.

Anyone have canning equipment I can borrow? Not jars, just the tongs and the big pot and crap. Or is anyone interested in a canning day? I plan to make some jam, some apple butter, and some lemon curd. There were one or two decadent little items that sounded good too, but they were luxuries. Mojito jelly, anyone?

Kitten was absolutely manic today with illness. Why she doesn't get tired, I don't know. But no, my kid goes like she's on crack. She got 4 timeouts within half an hour for throwing toys. Yeesh.

Blech. Why am I not in bed? The sore throat is setting in. I think Pants is a day or two ahead of me on this virus. Seeing the future is NOT what it's cracked up to be.

Jaysan had pizza for lunch today. Thanks for sharing, dude.

Hey! The hops in beer apparently lower cholesterol. Drink up!

Recipes?

Anyone have any easy recipes for jam or pasta sauce? I decided to make my own pasta sauce today while at the grocery store and found these great little freezer containers from Ball (the mason jar people) to store them, as many of the cheaper storage products aren't recommended for freezer use.

And they had a recipe for easy strawberry jam, but I thought I would see if any of you have anything better.

I think we have colds.

Meimei's nose started running on Monday.

Then Kitten's.

Now, I am feeling the sinus congestion of a starting cold. Ack. We've actually been healthy for a couple of months, so this just sort of came out of nowhere. It's not a killer cold, but it does explain why the kids have been so testy this week.

We're burning up out here!

Apparently, it's a good thing I have not yet planted my Plant Sale items. They have been sitting out in the newly cleaned out bed for almost two week where we had intended to plant them. And guess what? It's all wrong.

The chokeberries are fine, the hibiscus is loving it, and the Dutchman's ear seems to be okay. My Astilbe has clearly shown its preference for space however, as two are happy and beautiful and two are wimpy and weak. And my bleeding heart are on the verge of bursting into flames.

So my whole garden plan needs to be rethought. At least they aren't actually planted and I can just move them around.

I actually have a living peony in the ugly plant bed in the back that has just bloomed. I'm thinking about transplanting it to somewhere with more sun as soon as it's done blooming. It should probably have more than 5 flowers on it for its size. But yay! That's one of the things I wanted!

Having this week off has really helped me figure out where the sun is all day. I think I found the sunny parts of my yard. Now I just have to figure out what I'm going to put in the front, since I'm taking some of those plants elsewhere. Boo.

Monthly bills; or, Woe is Me

So, we're trying to figure out how to decrease our monthly bills so we can survive month-to-month this year. We have money, we just don't have cash. Like, we have tons of retirement money. And equity - got that. Just don't always have the funds month-to-month to get through, what with the daycare mortgage we're paying.

But here's my problem: I can't get DSL here. Apparently, no one delivers DSL to my little cul-de-sac. So, we could dump cable and go back to satellite (cheaper and, frankly, better), but the internet cost will go up and offset any savings. And I can't get DSL, and even dial-up requires me to have a phone line, and adding a phone and dial-up ends up being just as expensive as paying for my broadband internet. I can't change the cell phones either because we're in a contract (6 months into a 2-year contract) and we'd have to pay termination fees. I can't justify moving to another cell company, even moving to MY EMPLOYER, as the savings aren't enough to cover the termination fee.

So this leaves very few options. Saving water, electricity, and gas. And we're already trying to do what we can there, and at most we shave a few dollars off with any given effort.

We've decided this battle will be won or lost over food. Eating out, eating in, eating steak, eating pasta. The way I shop will be changing. It will be far more based in the weekly ad and Sam's Club (as appropriate) than it was before. And coupons, but only for things we already buy. And meals will be cheaper and will have to go farther, meaning a meal will have to feed us all plus provide a lunch or two. No leaving the leftovers out on the counter to spoil.

There will be very little eating out. Eating in will be key.

And trading convenience groceries for "real" groceries will have to be considered. I made instant pudding today, put it into a pack of toddler snack containers (6 containers in a pack that we got from MIL, and I think she got at Big Lots! or somewhere like that). I will never buy pudding snack packs again. I will buy the $.69 pack of instant pudding and will stir it into cold milk (as if there's another kind) and pour it into the cups to dole out later for snacks and such.

Any other ideas for convenience food switches? I already buy the huge tubs of yogurt instead of the little individual cups. Some things, like jelly, are currently sacred (won't buy the mongo jars of the cheap kind, I always buy State Fair or Thompson's, whichever is cheaper that week). But these may become sacred cows - I may give them up and buy the cheaper alternatives if it gets that bad.

Suffice it to say, we'll be eating a lot of rice for the next few months. I have a rice steamer, so it's less gas too, but it takes a long time. Might start feeding the kids and eating a bit later, but that doesn't work very well either.

I'm a Loser, baby

I am finally done with it all. I have joined The Biggest Loser at work, where those who want to join pay an entry fee and the women compete against the women and the men against the men. Each month, June through August, the person of each sex who has lost the most weight wins a portion of the ante. Each month is its own competition, so if you don't win in June, you can still win July or August. There is also a total percentage competition for the whole three months.

I weighed in on Friday for my initial weight. Egad. I'm just going to come clean with it right here: 202.4. So my goal is 70 pounds total. Not this summer, but total loss. I want to weigh 132 pounds. It popped into my head one day and seems like a reasonable number. Not too thin, not overweight.

I don't know when that will happen, but I will work toward it. I am doing alright over the weekend. But I am on vacation this week (daycare is closed) and we will see. I don't know what's harder - eating well when you're off all day, or eating well when you are running in from work and have to feed the kids and decide what to eat and cook for everyone and get baths and jammies and brush teeth and it's a race from 5-7:30 every night.

But I want to be thin. I am tired of being fat. I don't know what will happen if I lose all the weight, particularly with my skin, which is NOT cooperating in any way, shape, or form. But so be it. I just want to be thin again.

You got served

So, Meimei is learning to crawl. She's almost there. But it's not quite crawling yet.

Right now, it's more like breakdancing. Honest to God, the girl is doing the snake to get around. She lifts up her chest, kicks off with her shins, does this weird little roll, and moves 4 inches. Then she does it again. I gave birth to the next white breaker.