Tuesday, January 23, 2007

When I get old like you

"Mom when I get old like you I am never gonna eat peas"

"Thomas, what do you mean OLD like me? I am only 35."

"Yeah but mom that's so OLD, grandma says you din't even have DVDs when you were a kid."

"No Tommy we didn't. I remember my best friend got one of the first VCR's at her house the year we were 12."

"WOW"

"Yes we spent the entire summer rewinding and watching Simon Le Bon and Duran Duran and their Cinemax special over and over."

"Duran Duran is that OLD?"

"Yes Tommy - Grandma used to bribe me - if I finished all my chores I could watch music videos on MTV."

"MTV played MUSIC? mom you really ARE old"

"Grandma and Grandpa are older than me. Grandpa was 38 when I was born"

"Moooooooooooooooooooom they aren't old they are grandparents.'

The Force Is Strong With This One Obi Wan

and the youngest begins to show signs as early as three.

I am not talking about THE FORCE but the force that pushes all sweet young children to become teenagers and therefore demon spawn. The force I talk about is the ability to not throttle that once sweet toddler and preschooler when he becomes a surly smart mouthed alien called a teenager.

Said surly alien thinks his (or her) parents are stupid, backwards and could never ever have been cool- ever.

Today, while straightening up, I caught glimpse that my now cute sweet son will be a surly obnoxious alien - with possibly two heads.

A CD game fell behind the couch. While I was vacuuming the baseboards, I found the CD. Joey picked it up and saw, from the disc, that it was Star Wars.

Because he is his father's son, Star Wars is only slightly below God and football in importance.

I told him it was a game and we couldn't watch it.

Again, because he's his father's son, he went to the computer and wanted me to put the game in so he could play.said pod race game.

A glance at the label on the CD case said "For Windows" .

I explained to him that we could not play the game because we didn't have windows.

My little pod racer to be looked at me as if I had said the stupidest thing known to man. He furrowed his brow and said " we do have Windows mommy RIGHT there!" as he pointed to the four windows behind me.

His voice already held a a bit of sarcasm and unbelief, the kind his oldest brother has now mastered and uses from occasion.

I explained to him that we did not have Windows on our computer.

He looked at me like I had three heads and tentacles. But put the game away and sighed.

Yes, the force is strong with this one.

Monday, January 22, 2007

MacGyver Would be Proud

Eric left for virginia today. He'll be back on Friday. Of course, that leaves me with Science fair to deal with. Charles has to do the Science Fair as a major part of his science grade. He wanted to do something that could explode.

Me, being a mother, and a girl (read I don't understand the joy men take in blowing things up) we had to reach a compromise (read - charles had to find a NEW , less explosive project) He found a project involving yeast and sugar substitutes.

On my kitchen table, we have set up a CO2 colllection devise using bottles of from water and soda.

There is plastic tubing and silicon. We also spent about $50 on yeast and "borroowed " sugar substitute packets from every resturaunt we ate at in the past month. I think our pictures are on kitchens across the area with the word WANTED; Sugar Substitute BANDITS.

So today, we see which sweetner rises to the occasion.

Saturday, January 20, 2007

It Goes On and On My Friends

It has been cold and rainy for eight long days now.

On one hand, we really could use the rain. A 20 month drought put us in Stage Three water rationing. All the rain has made the lake level rise - a lot.

On the other hand, we Texans are not used to cold and wet.

The kids are going a little squirrely. Their mommy, a lot squirrely.

We NEED rsome sun.

The weather manis teasing us, taunting even. Showing us pictures of a big glowing orb of yellow in the sky for tomorrow. For his sake, I hope it does.

My children NEED to be able to play outside. This morning we found them building a cat trap. They have had it with board games, the cajillion cars, Legos and K'Nex we have. They are tired of movies. I can see how the alluer of capturing the cat was alluring. They took some fire wood, a basket, a bowl with catfood and string and set out to capture the cat. She fell for it. They set her free and captured again. I heard here meowing as I came out of the laundry room.

Part of me laughed at their ingenuity the other part of me felt for the cat.

for the sake of the cat, we need SUN.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

LoveThursday

I LOVE and I mean am headover heals LOVE that today it is above freezing. My little weather bug on the tool bar on my computer says it's 34. I of course have yet to go outside to try out the warmth because I am of the anything below 65°F is freezing camp but still. it's not freezing.

Is it March yet?

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

SNOW DAY!


Look at all of our snow
Originally uploaded by blondie478.



It's the storm that never ends.

True to form, we, for the first time in a few years have the true seasons of Texas. Hot, Hotter, Is it still hot, and Jnauary.

This Texas girl is just about ready for January to end. It's STILL friggin cold. I HATE cold. I live in Texas because it is usually not so cold. IF I wanted cold, I'd live someplace up norht like Kansas.

This storm came in friday night and blanketed us with ice by Monday. The weather man said the "math looked like we'd finally break free of the freeze and get to 38° today.

The school closure and dusting of snow that came with THIS batch of ice shows that math sucks.

The weather looks like it's going to be winterish until Monday at the least.

On the good side, this is promising for the bluebonnets in April and God has a great sense of humour - he froze out Rick Perry's innaguration as governor. This shows God is saying WTH? I sent the peopl of Texas Kinky and the still kept Perry. So this ice is retribution.

God Bless Texas, please send April.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Weird Science

it's still cold.

Really really really cold - at least for this Texas gal

I was so not made to do 26°. I swear, one of my stretch marks says do not expose to tempratures lower than 75°F. I am not made for 50°, so anything below freezing slays me.

That being said. I was the lucky designated adult for the "adult supervision required" part of the Pinewood derby car painting process.

This year we did not procrastinate. We will not be painting cars Thursday night praying for the paint to dry before Friday's turn in (too bad I didn't blog last year and y'all could have read about my ill fated lesson in paint drying) We are finishing up the paint jobs today so we can seal them tomorrow so they can dry all day Thursday and Friday.

That being said, I found myself OUTSIDE this morning in 21° weather painting the third coat on said Pinewood Derby cars.

I learned that paint can freeze.

I learned that paint freezes in tuny blobs rather than leaving a fine coating over the car.

I fixed it.

But still.

If it's too cold for paint in a can. It's too cold for me.

Monday, January 15, 2007

The Big Chill Part Three - the math held true

The weather guy was right. We did freezing rain and ice. About an inch of ice covered my driveway and street this morning. My rose bush has icicles. To be sure, this is a not so common sight here. The past few years have been relatively mild compared to what we had this weekend.

I found myself laughing at the various TV news casts. How many ways do they need to say freezing cold weather? One station called it Ice Alert, I guess in an effort to downplay the severity of what we were getting. Another station called it Icy Blast Update. Still another called it Winter Chill Alert. The coverage, of course, was continuous. Do we really need to see each drop of rain as it falls?

This storm, though worse than our December ice storm, was downplayed. It's only January, words like the "biggest storm of the year" and coldest tempratures of the season" cannot be used so early in 2007. The big names like Arctic Blast and Freezing Winter Blast will be held back for us in November or December.

I have also noticed that we don't get up to minute glimpses of our summer heat. TV news crews won't be stationed by the areas hotest bank thermometers, showing the roses wilt and grass turn brown. There will be no Firey Heat Blast or Hellish Heat wave. The weather will be just "hot dry and sunny". In other words, typical summer.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

IT's COLD!

According to my computer, we hadn't gotten up above 31° all day.

I stood in line at Kroger this morning for 30 minutes. everyone was stocking up for what is promising to be a cold stretch, like we hadn't seen in a long while.

It took awhile, but I got all of the stuff to make chili. Very spicy chili - no New Mexico for me.

The weather man is predicting accumulations of ice up to 2 inches in my area. That's a lot of ice.

wew're going to hunker down and stay in. where it's warm and ice free.

Friday, January 12, 2007

A Day of Changes

As I sat down today to write in my blog - a birthday resolution to myself - to write more. I noticed the little weather ticker at the top of my navigation bar flashing.

The temprature, at 12:33 PM is 65° however the flashing icon indicates a watch or warning in my "local area" The watch is for a winter storm watch.

The weather guy says "if the math holds true" we're in for a harsh weekend. Freezing rain and ice. The "coldest tempratures of 2007" (dude, it's only the 12th of January - there's not a lot of history to this year yet).

The storm is supposed to plummit our tempratures by noon tomorrow. so today I will go to Kroger like all the other good moms and buy cold weather supplies. when I get home, I'll watch every weather report there is, waiting for the first sign of frozen rain.

My list includes
1 wine
2. chili meat
3 rotel tomatoes
4 hot choclate mix - the good kind you make with milk with dark choclate morsels in it not he crappy swiss mix kind
5 wine
6 firewood
7. water - we still have water from two winter storms ago but I can gurantee there will not be a single bottle of water left in North Texas by 9 AM tomorrow.
8. canned tuna
9. candles
10. wine
11. propane
12. steaks - in our sick demented family we grill steaks -outside when it gets cold. scoffing at God for making it cold.
13. chocolate
14. wine

Tomorrow, there will be apot of chili simmering on my stove.

It's a rule.

In Texas cold weather means you make chili.

It's in the state constitution between, saying y'all no matter what when you leave Texas and not picking the bluebonnets.

If you fail to make chili when it gets cold, They pack you up, strip you of your Texasness and make you live in New Mexico- west of the Rio Grande or worse yet, OKlahoma where the wind comes blowing down the plain. The remainder of your family will forever bear the shame that you failed to make chili in a cold snap.

If you put beans in your chili, you get a warning. They make you stand in line in New Mexico's DMV office and you contemplate the dire nature of your sin against chili and humanity. After that you have to eat hot sauce from New York City.

Repeat offenders are almost unheard of.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

On the Eve of 35

It's hard to believe.

Tomorrow I will be 35.

Thirty-Five

Advanced Maternal age thirty five.

Shouldn't I have money now thirty-five

Almsot middle aged thirty - five.

Holy crap! How did I get to be sooo freakin' old thirty -five.

Too old to wear a mini skirt thirty-five.

I am not sure why 35 bothers me. I was great with thirty. Thirty meant I was an adult, like the two kids and one on the way didn't mean that.

As I crept closer and closer to 35, I began to have issues with it. Forty I am fine with but thirty five? No stinkin way.

Maybe it's that medical science says my womb and eggs are now over the hill. Maybe it's the odd numberedness of it. Maybe it means that I can no longer be considered a young adult.

Maybe it's the inner conflict I am having with my carrer or lack there off.

I always pictured myself as a working mom. By now, I wanted to have a career. I wanted a family, sure. I didn't want to be defined by my kids.

I wanted to be the career woman, the wife and mom. Not just the wife and MOM.

Maybe it's just 35.

Maybe this will be my best year yet.

Maybe age REALLY is a number.

I'll let you know tomorrow!

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

ABC's of Me

A- Available or single?
Already taken

B- Best Friend?
my husband

C- Cake or Pie?
pie

D- Drink of Choice?
coke

E- Essential Item?
nice shoes with pointy toes and lipstick

F- Favorite Color?
Red

G- Gummi Bears or Worms?
bears - Harbo Gold ONLY none of the American crap

H- Hometown?
San Antonio, TX

I- Indulgence?
starbucks decaf grande two pump mocha

J- January or February?
January

K- Kids and names?
Yep Chaos, Panic and Pain or Charles, Tommy and Joey as they like to be called.

L- Life is incomplete without?
coffee

M- Marriage Date?
May 14, 1994

N- Number of Siblings?
1 a sister

O- Oranges or apples?
both

P- Phobias/Fears?
snakes

Q- Favorite Quote?
Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.
-Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

R- Reason to Smile?
coffee, sunshine and 80° , chcolate and my three year old singing

S- Season?
spring and fall

T- Tag three people!
nope

U- Unkown Fact About Me?
I'm shy and VERY anal!

V- Vegetable you hate?
I don't hate any of them I just would prefer not to eat zucchini

W- Worst habit?
Being unwilling to be out of control. I like to be in charge and get uneasy when I am not.

X- X-Rays you've had?
lots

Y- Your favorite food?
choclate and coffee and wine lasagna and cheese enchiladas with onions. I LOVE enchiladas.

Z- Zodiac?
capricorn