Juggling Life

Leaving Proof

Shortly after I read this post about mothers who avoid being in pictures unless they look just so (raises hand and waves wildly) my husband was stalking me with the camera as I gardened. The aforementioned post referenced a post than inspired her—you really should follow the link.

My first instinct when I checked the camera was, of course, to push delete. Because, ACK!, baggy clothes that make me look 20 lbs. heavier than I am (which happens to be 20 lbs. heavier than I WANT to be—so 40 lbs. heavier than I’d prefer to look!) and unwashed hair.

But I didn’t push delete.

Instead I’m posting it so that someday my kids can look back and say “Remember how much Mom loved brightly-colored flowers? Every spring she’d do all her pots and put annuals in with the roses. She really loved it when the the house and yard looked pretty.”

I hope the above conversation doesn’t take place for a good 40 years, but when it does there will be proof.

I planted dianthus this year—last year it was pink and white petunias. I know it’s considered too predictable, but I am a huge fan of Disneyland style color and tidiness in my flower beds!

Was It Just 18 Days Ago . . .

that I was waxing rhapsodic about Leadership: Theory and Practice? According to my archives it was.

And now?

That loud thud you just heard?

Was me throwing the book against the wall because I am so very sick of reading and posting to the discussion board and taking assessments and journaling about leadership.

The loud sigh?

Me realizing I’d better pick the damn book up because I still have a two hour final to take.

Do NOT Listen To Your Kids

This is what happens when you believe your daughter every time she says she has no jeans. By my personal wardrobe standards, six pairs of jeans is NOT no jeans. Sigh.

A Klutz Giveaway! Woohoo!

My love for all things Klutz is well-known. From Cat’s Cradle to friendship bracelets to Window Art to Immaturity I’ve not encountered a Klutz book I don’t adore. And educational Klutz? Even better!

I am widely known as “not-a-science-person.” I am also a “doesn’t-want-to-pass-my-hangups-onto-my-kids-person.” When my kids were young we did lots of science-related activities in which I feigned great enthusiasm and they apparently bought my act—thus far two of my progeny have majored in Chemistry and Wildlife Biology respectively. Maybe if I’d had this book I’d have an astronomer, too.

Just in time for spring (it is finally spring, right? Some days I’m not sure) . . .

Klutz is letting me give away three (3) books (shipped to addresses in the U.S. or Canada), plus they gave me my own copy. They’re very nice people!

To enter to win just leave me a comment and let me know what hang up you tried not to pass onto your kids, or what Klutz book you love, or who you want to give this book to. So basically, leave a comment. I’ll pick winners randomly and announce them next Tuesday.

Good luck!

Sunday, Easter Sunday

This is my husband with his crazy baby sister—the one who joined the Army at 35 and was nicknamed “Granny” in boot camp. Granny kicked everyone’s   booty in basic training. They have a different metric for each age group; she was number one in the 18-year old group. She’s being deployed to Kuwait in about three weeks so made a trip out from Minnesota with her husband and son for a quick vacation and a lot of goodbyes.

This is the Southern California contingent of my husband’s side of the family—minus the cousins away at school and the lucky duck who’s on vacay in Hawaii with a friend.

Thanks to Skype, Nana and Papa got to join in the fun for a bit.

I believe I ate my Weight Watcher’s points for the month on Easter Sunday. There were the Cadbury Crack Eggs, the Martha Stewart scalloped potatoes I only make once a year (heavy cream! real butter!) and the cake I made for my chocolate-loving Army Officer SIL (chocolate cake with chocolate pudding and chocolate chips in the batter, topped with homemade chocolate icing). But I think I can work it off if I just run for, oh, 24 hours straight.

You know what? It was totally worth it!

How was your Easter?

More Random Bits of (Hopefully) Helpful Advice

Still thinking of things that make my life easier . . .

• Buy twice as many kitchen throw rugs as you need. This way you can keep your kitchen looking spiffy—mine are from IKEA and I put clean ones out, turn them over after a couple of days then throw them in the was and put the other set out. You wouldn’t believe what a difference clean rugs make (or maybe you would)!

• When you make cookie dough, triple the recipe and shape it into logs which your wrap in foil and keep in the fridge. Cookie rolls at a fraction of the price and no preservatives.
• Replace your lipstick before it runs out and then stash the ones with just a little left where you can do a quick touch-up without digging in your purse. My new one goes in my purse; the others go in the guest bathroom, kitchen utility drawers and glove box.
• Threaten to strangle your children with their inside out jeans until they learn to turn them right-side out before putting them in the laundry.

You had great tips last time—what else can you think of?

My Golden Knight—in T-Shirt and Jeans

When a student athlete commits to a college they have to sign an NCAA Letter of Intent. Danger Boy signed his Tuesday night for Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania. Gannon is an NCAA Division II school for water polo, has an enrollment of about 3,000 and is number 46 on U.S. News and World Reports list of top regional colleges in the North (not that it was a major factor in his decision, but interesting nonetheless).

I really liked both Mercyhurst and Gannon and was pleased he also got into San Diego State University (though if you grew up calling it “State”  and considering it a safety school (no longer the case))its current $22,00 a year price tag is sticker shock on steroids). Truth be be told Mercyhurst had the edge in my mind because I wish I could have gone to a such a pretty little school; but then again, it wasn’t my decision—it was Danger Boy’s.

I checked my archives and it was October 10, 2009 that I blogged about being surprised that DB’s coach thought he could and should play in college. But he was right. Division I was even a possibility, but in the end DII made more sense for a variety of reasons—not the least of which is that there is no “National Water Polo League” handing out multi-million dollar contracts once you leave school!

I will do a separate post on the college process, but let me give a great big shout-out to Gannon and Mercyhurst both for be willing to increase their offers based on our change in circumstances—you do NOT get that at a public school. It wouldn’t be prudent to give exact numbers, but we are extremely pleased that between the athletic and academic money they offered him he will be at a great school where he should graduate in four years and we’ll have enough money left to send his little sister to school. Two kids in college at the same time five years running—I don’t have to do the math for you on that!

I would say that having Danger Boy get to play in college and getting money to do it is truly a wonderful step in what has already been a shining career as a student-athlete.

Yep, I’m happy and proud.

Starting Small

My newly minted garden. I’m starting small with two planters this year and we’ll see how green my thumb is—by nature I am very much a flowers-in-pots gardener. Our yard is very in transition as we have let some of our very large grass area die (so much grass and so little water in San Diego) in anticipation of an as-yet-unfunded landscaping project. We’ve got a big yard so as long as you just gaze in one direction it looks like we actually have a lovely yard.

My husband built these spiffy planter beds for me—don’t the tomatoes look hopeful? Like they believe they will someday need the cage that is 10 times their current size. I also have an eggplant, a crookneck squash, some hot peppers, rosemary and basil—lots of basil. The basil I’ve done before and I make lots of pesto and freeze it—such a great thing to have in the freezer for a quick chicken and pasta dinner.

A Thousand Dollar Curveball

Last week I blogged about the tires on my husband’s Explorer being punctured. Would you believe it happened again? I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen the deflated tires and surveillance video with my own eyes.

After the first incident my husband installed a camera system. So we now have actual (and extremely creepy) footage of the “perp”—hooded and gloved and efficiently puncturing the tires. We also have footage of the vehicle that slowed in front of our house Sunday morning, just hours before we discovered the hundred nails scattered at the end of our driveway. This discovery led us to believe that the nails we found a month ago did not fall off a work truck as we thought, but were the first incident in this chain of vandalism.

As the saying goes, “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.” With that in mind we no longer have any cars in our driveway. You would be amazed at how spending $1,000 on tires in 7 days gives you great impetus to clear out 15 years of accumulation from your storage space to make room for your vehicle.

We do have a theory on who might be doing this; obviously, I don’t think it’s somebody that reads my blog or I wouldn’t be talking about it here. We are doing some detective work (though this is a big deal to us, San Diego PD isn’t going to make it their number one priority) and when we’re finished will hand everything over to the police investigator with whom we’ve been communicating.

Interesting tidbits:

This vandalism is apparently directed not at us as people the perp really knows (because he doesn’t target other vehicles of ours parked on the street), but rather against us as the residents of this particular house.

We don’t believe it has anything to do with our kids.

Both puncturing incidents happened on Friday mornings—4:07 a.m. the second time—so we did consider the option of leaving the car out and trying to catch the person in the act. After much thoughtful consideration though, there are too many possible not-good endings in that scenario. After all, the suspect is armed with an extremely sharp weapon. And if my husband were to arm himself there’s the possibility of an altercation that ends with someone hurt or dead. No amount of money is worth that scenario.

I hope to be able to tell you how this turns out and I also hope someone will be paying us restitution.

Life is throwing curveballs . . .

but I’m not in the mood to talk about that today—maybe tomorrow.

Today I feel like writing about my sweet baby girl. Every once in a while she likes to have a homebody weekend; this was such a weekend. Friday night she had Peanut spend the night; that happens often enough that it counts as “just family” at home.

I have a snapshot in my mind of the lovely smile on Peanut’s face; the girls were watching TV and Mr. Fix-it leaned over the back of the couch, gave Social Butterfly a big hug and said, “I love you so much!” Then he did the same to Peanut. Cue lovely smile.

Saturday afternoon—as we watched the gorgeous day from inside the house since the midday heat was a stifling 90 plus degrees (about a 30 degree increase from the day before)--SB lured me away from my leadership textbook with the magic words “Lets go snuggle and watch Criminal Minds.” She never has to ask me twice. I have a gazillion episodes on the upstairs DVR and though we both feel a bit warped and guilty for being addicted to a show who tagline is “This season . . . even more atrocities!”, we are. We may also have a snuggling problem.

Once the day started to cool down we headed out to Home Depot for plants, Costco for pizza (one for us and one for the room full of guys playing NHL hockey on the Playstation) and picked Peanut up so the girls could hang out and go swimming. When they got back from the pool they washed SB’s car while I planted flowers and Mr. Fix-it worked on cleaning the garage. I love it when everyone is working away—it’s my ingrained Protestant work ethic.

Sunday was still gorgeous weather, but not quite so unbearably hot. Danger Boy got a flower bed weeded and amended the soil for me, SB filled up some pots and helped me staple-gun vines to a fence and Mr. Fix-it continued to clean the garage.

All in all, a uneventful, but still quite enjoyable, spring weekend.

How was your weekend?