One more batch of parade photos to add to my collection

We honored our veterans today by going to the local Memorial Day parade and watching the cool military vehicles drive by. I thought of my brother (who is still alive, fortunately, and doing what he does best--irritating those closest to him) who serves in the military by performing root canals on other military personnel with dental problems. Thanks Mike for your service! And more thanks to the rest of the men and women out there who have served our country with their time, energy, might, and mind.

Following the military vehicle portion of the parade was the marching band. This is the sixth (or seventh?) time we've been out for the parade to watch a child march. Looking for a marching band child is like playing Where's Waldo. The band uniforms make everyone look way too similar. I had to go by instrument, but they go by so quickly that sometimes it's hard to find the child. The band had to slow down by us, so I was able to spot Paul, who was trying to hide in the middle of the row. Fortunately he is the only horn player in his row, so that made him easier to spot.He refused to acknowledge me shouting his name.

Perfection

I'm just popping in to say that I spent a most wonderful afternoon at the lake beach with the kids, Jim, and a friend of Jim's from high school and his family, and my mother. Our kids and the Halterman kids got along great, despite not knowing each other very well yet. My Jim and Lynn Halterman have been friends since they were kids.

The temp was near 90, but the humidity was low. No cloud dared cast a shadow over our picnic. We sat by the lake with our feet in the water, watching the boys play in the water and find giant sticks on the lake bottom. Other Jim brought his frolf (frisbee golf) hole (a.k.a. the Festivus pole) and the bigger boys had fun with that for a bit.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Even the sunburn on my neck feels right.

Running a mile in his own shoes

More conference running action! Paul ran the 1600m yesterday in the conference meet. He and the other boys from his team all had fast enough times to run in the "fast" heat. The day was much more pleasant than Tuesday so we were hopeful.

Here he is, off in the distance, running. I've labeled the important parts of the picture for you.
Paul had a pretty good race. He ran it in 4:50. Not his best but pretty close. He came in 9th place and just made it to the podium--or next to the podium. They don't have a step for 9th place. But they had a ribbon for him.
The conference placement. Our team was the only team that had all three runners place in the meet. Carl got 6th, Justin got 8th, and Paul got 9th. Woo!
The Lakers boys track team milers: Carl, Justin, and Paul. Carl and Justin both graduate in a few days. After I took this picture, Justin commented, "Well, that was stinky!" I tried not to get too close after that.

Paul and his ribbon. I will make him keep it forever and ever!
PS The boys and girls teams won first place in the conference meet. The girls from our school always win, but the boys have always placed near the bottom. This is the first meet they've won in a long time. Off to Sections next week! Paul will be running the mile in that.

Paul also officially lettered by placing in a conference meet. He now has four letters! Two in Cross Country and two in Track!

Evil among us

I sat at the table, calmly, peacefully, and very pro-nature, eating my lunch, when suddenly, I was ruthlessly and brutally attacked by this:



I nearly died.

Quickly I mustered all my nerves and flung the beast off me. I grabbed the nearest sharp implement (a mechanical pencil) and stabbed it as hard as I could. I texted Jim to tell him of my near-death experience. Had he not had some work to do, I'm sure he would have rushed home to be by my side in this time of mental anguish, a severe case of the heebie-jeebies.

I blame Other Jim. More accurately, I blame Other Jim's AP Environmental Science teacher, who decided that after the AP exams were over, that the APES class should spend every class period out in the tall grassy areas of the school grounds removing buckthorn and doing other acts of good-American-citizenry like picking up trash. OJ reports to me daily of the number of ticks he pulls off of himself in Econ which is the class he has right after APES. He must have missed one. It must have jumped the OJ ship sometime recently and sat somewhere waiting for me to stumble upon it unknowingly. I will never trust nature again.

Even the stabbing with the mechanical pencil did not stop the monster. Its hideous legs twitched and searched for ground to drag its gruesome body across to find somewhere to regenerate. I had to quickly build a pyre with a matchstick and burn it before it could maneuver its way off the pencil and resume its reign of terror.

Time to perform several hours of tick-removal cleansing rituals. Say a prayer for me, please?

Running with less hair

In my blog post from yesterday I mentioned that Paul got a hair cut. He got it shaved pretty short, compared to how he's had it for several years. Most of the guys on his track team buzzed their hair. Not at a salon or barbershop, but at the track. I saw them huddled in a group when I went to pick up Paul one day and I asked him what the boys were doing. "Buzzing their hair." Paulie said. I should have shoved him back out the door and had the kids do it rather than spending $13 to have it done at a store. Just kidding.

For some reason, the hair cut made him look older. See?
He looks older than his almost-16 years.
He ran the 3200m in the conference track meet. He wasn't initially slated to run it, but the guy who was the team's 3rd 3200 runner had shin splints. So Paul got to run in his place. It was a hot day--nearly 90 degrees--so I wasn't expecting a great time out of Paul. He did passably well, though, 11:06. Middle-ish of the pack. His two teammates finished 3rd and 7th, so it was a good run from the team. Thursday, Paul runs in the conference 1600m race. That's Paul's specialty in track. He's excited because he and Justin will be running in the "fast" heat. They both had season best times under 4:50 so they get to run in the fast group.

Good luck to Paul on Thursday!

Vanity and silver nails

When I was a little girl, I loved metallics--anything gold or silver in color. I especially liked silver. I wanted silver shoes in the worst way. I finally got them when I was nineteen and wore them out.

Yesterday, my love for silver was rekindled. Witness:Wow, my fingers look like uncooked sausages. Here's a picture where they look a little slimmer: Sister Jen, I'll have you notice that I did not get finger nail polish all over the skin around my fingers.

I would like to mention that most of the time I don't wear nail polish. I don't get manicures (or pedicures). I have a nasty habit of chewing on my fingers and I've noticed that nail polish isn't all that tasty. But. I do like to wear it to keep myself from chewing on my nails every 6 months or so when my nails start to get long, which they are right now. And I saw this polish at Target and just HAD to have it.

While I don't get manis or pedis, I do go to a salon to get my hair colored. I did so yesterday. And then Paul texted me after track asking if he could get his hair cut (not by me) before the big conference track meet tomorrow (at which he will be running in the 3200m race. 1600m is Thursday). So I took him to get his hair cut at a different place than where I get mine done. The stylist was very chatty with him, and I sat in the waiting area doing my crossword puzzles. When Paul was finished and I was paying, the stylist said, "I was just telling your son that you don't look old enough to have a son his age." Paul nodded in agreement. She said, "maybe you look so young because you actually style your hair." HAHAHAHA! Slam on us old moms! And my nanosecond of happy vanity popped. Oh well. Really, I don't dye my hair to look younger, or I'd be in the salon every few weeks to get the roots touched up. The real reason I get my hair dyed is because I think my genes got it wrong. I should have been a redhead, not a gunmetal-gray-brown-head. But when I get enough silver hair, I'm totally going with that instead.

Summer sets in, sits for a spell, and pummels me like a boxing bag

It's hot today. I don't like hot. But I do like feeling much better after being ill over the weekend. I think I can actually leave the house today. Too bad it's hot out. Did I mention I don't like hot weather? I want to move north in the summer.

In less sweltering news, I'm three assignments away from being done with my Personal History class. I had made a goal to finish it before Other Jim officially graduates from high school. With his party coming up very soon, I'm not sure if I'll make that goal, but it will be close. I might have to submit the last assignment (which is a big one--over 40 pages long--but comprised of edited versions of five or six of the assignments I will have turned in by then) after the party. Next up after that, Poetry.

Limericks. It's gonna be all limericks.

Speaking of which, I wrote one for my mom. She asked for a poem on Mother's Day and I didn't come through for her (sorry Mom. Frowny face).

Mom, here's the limerick I wrote for you for Mother's Day which I never gave to you:

For Mom's Day you wanted a sonnet:
A card with rhyming words on it.
After hemming and hawing,
and much pencil gnawing,
This lim'rick's all I could write, doggonit.

In which I am home sick

It's stake conference today (explanatory link provided for those of you who don't know what stake conference is) and I'm missing it. I don't remember going often as a child--it was sort of a Get Out of Church Free card--so I never really thought of it as important as going to regular church services where we take the Sacrament. Now that I'm a regular old adult, though, I enjoy going because usually I sing in the choir and get to sit up on the stand and I can hear everything.

But today I am home sick. Not from the frozen dinner I ate on Friday, though, just from some wicked cold virus that has my head spinning. I did nothing yesterday, except be sick and watch Gaslight on PBS with Matt. I think MST3K has permanently altered my ability to appreciate movies, especially black and white ones, because I thought this Academy Award winning movie was over-acted and dull. Plus there was one MST episode called "The Screaming Skull" that was very much like Gaslight in that both husbands were trying to drive the wives insane for their own greedy purposes. I would have normally spent the movie making snarky comments, like Mike/Joel and the 'bots, but the cold had so addled my brain that it took all my energy just to keep my eyelids open and focused on the screen.

I'm a little better today, but still a little swimmy in the head so I'm staying home. And I plan on doing just as much as I did yesterday: nothing.

Ice Princess

I'm cleaning out my freezer. It's something I haven't done in, oh...since...um...ever. The ice is thick on the walls, even though it's supposed to be a frostless freezer.

Cleaning it out is a long process because we are trying to eat our way to the bottom. At first it was great--I had a whole week of meals for which I had to buy not a single thing! I had meat in the freezer, veggies in the freezer, and fruit in the freezer! We ate well.

For the first few feet down.

For the last week or so now, we've been eating off the layer of older food. We've been eating freezer-burned chicken and fish. There is one more nice vacuum-packed roast left (thanks Jake!) that hasn't suffered and we'll get to that Sunday.

But today I reached a new low, both in spirit and freezer layer. I refuse to eat applesauce that was dated 8/99. Matt said, "That's almost as old as I am!"

I am, however, having for dinner a frozen dinner (we used to call them TV dinners) from time immemorial. I have no idea when I bought it and the box looks abused, the food covered with icebergs.

If I don't post tomorrow, you'll know I've eaten something I should have thrown out.

Before school

Can I get a Hallelujah?

I went for an hourlong walk this morning and was back BEFORE Matt went to school! I finally did it! I exercised before sitting down to the computer!

(Cue a second Hallelujah)

I like having kids that get themselves ready for school. The only thing is that sometimes they forget things. Like Matt did this morning.

Today is Fun in the Sun at Matt's school--essentially a day-long gym class. It's a lovely day outside and Matt will have fun. I got back from my walk as he was making his lunch. He had his baseball cap sitting by his lunch. He asked me where the sunscreen was, which I got out for him because it was on the top shelf in the bathroom closet (presumably put there as a safety precaution against my children accidentally getting it out and eating it). I also reminded him that he had to bring a water bottle. So he had all of it out on the counter ready to go.

He seemed in control of things, so I went downstairs to the computer (and was delighted to discover that a friend had linked to a post of mine in a list of blog posts she found inspirational. Thanks Stephanie! I'm honored!) And then he left.

And then the door banged open and a Matt-sized whirlwind blasted his way up the stairs. I asked him what he was doing, and he said he forgot his lunch. He ran back out to the bus stop, banging the screen door again.

So I was about to comment on other blogs, and then the deck door opened and I heard Matt's pounding footsteps again. I asked him what it was this time. He said, "Water bottle." And he was gone.

I'm so glad he didn't miss the bus. And I'm glad I was able to sit back and watch without worrying or participating in his forgetfulness. He eventually got it all together.

Kids do that. They aren't perfect, but they are more capable than we sometimes think.

Pumpkins and carrots and beans, oh my!

I will plant my garden today.
I will plant my garden today.
I will plant my garden today.

No slacking off. It's nice out, the garden has been tilled, and I have no plans except to babysit. Fake Child would like to help too. So there is no excuse today for not putting in some seeds.

I'm posting this here so that I have to answer to you. I'm forcing myself to suffer accountability. I've told you all that I am going to get the garden going today, so that I am less likely to make excuses not to do it.

Ask me tomorrow if I did it.

Complaining continued

I try not to be a downer on my blog. I don't much like reading blogs of people who whine and moan and think that life has not treated them fairly. So I try to be upbeat. Any complaining I do is more of the facetious "woe is me!" *hand to the forehead* (trying to be funny) type of complaining. Life has blessed me in many ways. And I try to be more pleasant than whiny-funny.

BUT.

I found more stuff to complain about. Bear with me. And keep in mind that I am in no way in need of comforting; there is nothing wrong; I'm still happy about other things.

SO.

Ten other things to complain about besides yesterday's "moan" about stuff in my house that is broken:

1. I found a tick on a laundry basket this morning. *shudder* Now I am worried that my house is infested with ticks. I'm afraid of going in long grass. Plus I have the heebies and every little itch or tickle has me flailing around like I'm covered with disease-infested ticks. GET THEM OFF ME!
2. I think one of the cats has a urinary tract infection. What do I do? The beast will NOT like going to the vet and will probably piddle all over the van while in transit. *shakes fist at Servo* Plus I'll have to convince a certain member of the family that the cat is worth the $$ to take to the vet and to spend on the medication, whatever it is.
3. There are ALWAYS socks on the family room floor. KIDS, PICK UP YOUR SWEAR-WORDING SOCKS!
4. I was going to complain about the inability of my pillow to provide the necessary comfort and support while I am in bed, but I just remembered that I bought a new pillow yesterday and so I have no reason to complain about it anymore.
5. Either the junk drawer in the dining room eats pencils or the kids do, because suddenly, we have not a single usable utensil of the graphite lead variety with accompanying usable eraser. NOT A SINGLE ONE. We used to have a regular influx of pencils from parties the kids attended (by law, treat bags from children's parties must include at least one new pencil, preferably patterned with Spongebob, Star Wars characters, or Hello Kitty) or from prizes at school for turning in homework or whatever. But middle school and high school don't hand out pencils for prizes I guess, and the kids don't attend very many parties anymore so the supply of pencils has dried up. I actually had to go to Target and BUY pencils--at the end of the school year!
6. Pens too.
7. Jim and I watched a DVD recently that we got from Netflix. It sounded interesting. But we realized a few minutes into it that we'd seen it before. Unfortunately, we had forgotten it so completely, that we had to watch it again just to remind ourselves what happened. It's really annoying to sit through a movie that during every scene we said, "this is familiar" but we couldn't picture what came afterward. (The movie was "The Invisibles." Meh. After watching it, I understood why we had so completely forgotten its plot, characters, and very existence)
8. I was reminded yesterday that my tendency towards shyness with people I don't know comes off as aloofness and makes me seem judgmental. I really have to start saying hello to people more often and not hide from them or worry that they don't want me to talk to them.
9. This isn't necessarily a complaint, just a learning experience. What I learned: chew tortillas more thoroughly. How I learned what I learned: I nearly choked on one last night while eating taco soup with tortilla chips. At one point I felt like my breath was being drawn through a coffee straw. I panicked only for a little bit (Matt panicked a bit more and seemed quite alarmed when he asked me if I was okay) until I realized that I could cough and that breathing was slowly getting easier.
10. This post is way too long. I wish I weren't able to find so many things to complain about!

A wee bit of complaining

Can you stand some venting? I'll limit it to...

Ten things that are broken in my house.

1. is partly my fault. I sat on the couch last night and the repairs that Jim made previously to it decided to give out with a loud thunk. Matt and Hayley had a good laugh at my expense.
2. The breaking of the couch caused me to think of other things in the house that I am currently mad at, like all the window frames. All of them have broken pieces.
3. The deck door too.
4. The hot water tap in the laundry tub leaks.
5. Some cupboard doors' hinges (bathroom and kitchen) are falling off.
6. The closet door in the sewing room is non-existent (well, it exists, but it exists in the garage, useless for blocking the mess of the closet in the sewing room from judgmental eyes--mine).
7. All the outside faucets leak.
8. The ceiling in the bathroom around the skylight leaks and it is terribly stained.
9. The B-flat below middle C on the piano is tinny.
10. And the clock Gary made won't work. Ten years it ticked, tocked, and chimed and now it's stuck at 9:25 (a.m. or p.m., I can't tell). I'm especially sad that this clock is not working because Gary isn't here to fix it.

I think I need to learn some repair/carpentry/plumbing/piano tuning/clockwork skills.

An announcement

It's coming sooner than I thought it would. And mostly I'm okay with that.

Thanks to Jen for taking the picture, thanks to whoever owned the garage door for not coming out and wondering what we were doing, thanks to Jen for finding the font that I swore I had on my font list but didn't, and thanks to OJ for standing there and silently mocking the rest of the world in his pose.

Bassoonery

Hayley is now a full-fledged bassoon player in her band. Her band put on a concert last night and I got to see her on her new instrument (I heard her too!).

Here she is with some friends. The girl in front said to me after I took the picture, "And no posting this on Facebook!" I didn't promise not to post it on my blog.
Hayley plays her bassoon!
Her hand on the keys. She played some low notes.
I added this one because I think it's a fun picture of her smiling at someone in the jazz band. He was wearing a hat like Other Jim's and some sunglasses. Hayley found it amusing. I find this picture amusing. (I don't know what is up with her hair. She "styles" it herself)

I'm not supposed to be here

I'm supposed to be doing housework.

But I have a ten things list.

Ten things I can do today that will make me feel good at the end of the day:
1. I can put away the laundry Jim folded yesterday. He folded many many baskets and I can put away what he folded. And I did already.
2. Use the food I have in my freezer instead of buying more stuff at the store. I need the freezer space because a graduation is coming up and I'll need the freezer space to store the cake after I bake it. And it will be a large cake.
3. I will get the job I was supposed to do on Saturday done today. I do have an excuse for not vacuuming and dusting the living room, though. Piano lessons went WAY long because several hours of time were not actually used for piano lessons (Jim took the piano teacher, aka my mother, to Best Buy to get a new computer) and because we were given free Twins tickets for Saturday night (a last minute thing) and we spent only one hour at home all the waking hours of the day.
4. Win more Killer Bunny games. Awesome game, but difficult to learn if no one teaches you how. Gotta play with Paul. He didn't participate in the games yesterday.
5. Mail off the addressed graduation announcements. OJ is addressing them--I've given him the task and a list of people to send them to. If you read this, you're probably invited. I'll post an official invitation later.
6. Eat the chocolate that I got at church yesterday and managed to save til today
7. Make the bed
8. Eat a salad for lunch.
9. Talk to the kids when they get home from school
10. Smile for no reason, with reason, against reason, despite reason not to, etc.

Cat in the Hat

Other Jim is preparing to leave for Rochester this morning to go to Prom with Edna. He says he's going to stay the night at her house and then leave early in the morning so that he will be home early enough for Mother's Day. I don't know why it surprises me that he would actually make that concession. He's never remembered Mother's Day on his own before. Maybe Edna reminded him.

OJ didn't have time to rent another tux since he only got asked to Edna's prom earlier this week so he went to Men's Wearhouse and bought himself a SUIT. On his own. With his own money. He loves his suit. He brought the vest home immediately and spent one evening trying on all his dress shirts and ties with the vest and strutting around in front of the mirror.

I picked up the rest of the suit last night and I heard him late last night, after he got home from hanging out with some friends, trying on his suit.

He also bought a hat.And he's been wearing around the house too.
When did he become such a fan of dressing up? I distinctly remember many years of pleading with him to put on his church clothes and getting nothing but argument back. Now he owns 18 ties in all colors and he BOUGHT HIS OWN SUIT.

Target Field

The actual game was a downer, since the Twins were shut out 2-0 by the Orioles, but I enjoyed wandering around the new stadium taking pictures of this strange new baseball environment.

The view as I first walked in the gates to Target Field:
Jim and I walked around on several decks. This is the upper deck.
I ate Chinese while walking around. I didn't have dinner before we left.
Under the upper deck you can see SKY. You can also get rained on.
A very flat Bert Blyleven.
The "fowl" pole.
This bird (a hawk perhaps?) sat up on the first base foul pole most of the night. Since the game was a yawner (the Twins got shut out 2-0), the crowd, especially in the outfield, watched the bird swoop off the pole and eat insects. They'd cheer every time the bird swooped. The camera crew caught on and showed occasional live footage on the big screen of the bird sitting on its perch.

(I must confess, I miss the Dome. I was familiar with it and I enjoyed getting sucked out as we left the building. Outdoor baseball seems weird in Minnesota)

Vacancy in my brain

Ten thinks for today (intentional misspelling because I love puns)

1. I'm having a difficult time getting the groove on today.
2. For example, I didn't exercise this morning.
3. And I'm still wearing my bathrobe.
4. I'm rationalizing it all by telling myself that at least I've started the dishwasher and the washing machine.
5. But then the bed isn't made.
6. Then I start thinking about getting a different job.
7. But I'm afraid of change.
8. OH, I haven't eaten breakfast.
9. Maybe that's my problem with today.
10. Baseball game tonight in the new stadium! First time for me, second time for Jim, who WENT WITHOUT ME when I was flying to Utah to visit Katie. I'm still bitter. He loves the new stadium (more than he loves me, I think sometimes, because he talks about it all the time. I doubt he talks as much about me to other people).

Bonus thought: Am I jealous of the new baseball stadium's hold on Jim? I believe I am!

Another bonus thought: I grew up with the Metrodome. Outdoor baseball in Minnesota will feel so WRONG.

Another another bonus thought: The second half of thought #10 was an example of me being facetious. Any attempt by you readers to interpret it as a serious thought will be ignored or possibly fined two hot dogs (both with mustard, one with sauerkraut. Jim likes sauerkraut on his dog) and a cotton candy (candy floss for you Brits) (as if any Brits read this blog) (I just wanted to show off my knowledge of British usage).

How the cat convinced me to post some old pictures

He vomited on the couch. We don't know when. But we just found it yesterday and it was all dry and crusty. He got some on a box of photos that had been sitting on the couch so we had to take all the photos out and put them in another box. Fortunately, the photos were still in envelopes so none of them were wrecked. But I thought while we were cleaning, I should scan the photos into the computer for safe-keeping.

So here are a few photos, which I'm posting because the cat threw up. And no, I didn't take pictures of the cat vomit. They are in no particular order and all of them are from the year 2003, except for one which is from the last day of 2002.

A nine-year-old Paulie who I think in this picture looks a little like his Uncle Mike (yes, I said Mike, not Dave) here. And it's not because he's making a face at the camera. It's the eyes.
This is the New Year's Eve 2002 that we spent at Sea World. 4-year-old Matt was trying to pet a dolphin and it squirted water at him. He was not happy.
13-year-old Katie is holding her cousin Annie
11-year-old Other Jim (Jimmy at the time) is building Legos.
6-year-old Hayley is being cute and dimply
Jim is holding a python (no I am not going to mention his age. You are welcome to do the math if you know what year he was born)
I am holding the same pythong (no age for me either). This was for OJ and Paul's combined birthday party. We had a reptile guy come over and show us some snakes and lizards. I have had previous experience holding a python in my 7th grade science class when my teacher convinced the students that we had to hold the pet python to pass the class.
Christmas day, 2003. Hoarfrost on the trees.

Prom-enading

Spring is here, and that means it's time for all good senior boys to rent tuxes and buy flowers in unnatural colors for girls who want very badly to dress up like princesses and to go to a ball. And Other Jim, being a good senior boy, did just that. He took a girl from down south (all the way from Rochester, MN). He tends to go with out-of-school-district girls because he's a rebel (not. I don't know why he likes to take girls from not around here to dances).

You want some pictures?

Turn back now if you don't want to look at girls in pretty dresses and boys looking clean and dandy.

Other Jim places the corsage on Edna's wrist.
Going outside for pictures. The group is pretty large--13 couples--so it takes some time to wrangle them into place.
OJ gets his boutonneire pinned on after his father arrives with a pin.
Look at the rainbow of prom dresses!
Boys. What a handsome lot they are. I have known four of them, besides OJ, since they were little boys (oh, one of them isn't in this picture. So 3 of these boys) and they have all grown up to be nice guys (and good-lookin'!)
Except their legs aren't so good-lookin'. They're kinda creepy.
OJ and Riley goof around
OJ and Edna again
Fo' Mos. These four, (OJ, Jordan, Ethan, and Riley) are the four Mormon boys (there are no Mo senior girls) in the senior class at their school. I am friends with the parents of the three other boys and we thought it would be fun to have the four of them pose together. They've kind of grown up together.
And OJ and Edna yet again
OJ is doing his best impression of his Uncle Mike's Smarmy face
The high school has a Grand March before Prom. It's televised on a local cable station. They announce each girl and her escort. So here is Edna T escorted by James E.
After the Grand March, the kids boarded their party bus (no plain ol' limo for them!) for the ride to Sofitel in Richfield for the dinner and dance. Have fun!
My favorite picture:
SHOES!