Tales of a Shoebox Princess

I WAS going to walk for an hour this morning. I had done all my morning cleaning chores and was checking my email and uploading the oatmeal poem when I suffered a MAJOR sidetracking moment, on which I have just SPENT THE LAST TWO HOURS. THANKS A LOT, KATIE. She came home early today and wanted to make graduation announcements RIGHT NOW. So I had to help. Anyway, this is the result of it: We tried several different programs and services only to end up roadblocked. So I took it upon myself to design it with whatever freeware photoshopping program came with the computer, and now Katie has uploaded it to the flash drive and is driving over to Target to order a batch. The green lines are covering up our address. We all know it's not safe to give out too much information on the web and heaven knows I don't need some pre-vert showing up at my doorstep. And Jen could do a better job, but I've already put her through enough to ask her to do this.

The only downside to writing a piece of bad poetry is that you spend the next day rhyming about trivial things and wind up running off in the middle of making your bed to go write some piece of brain-ial waste on an old calendar page (because the children have made off with all the scratch paper in their quest to doodle over every drawing surface in the house) so you will remember it, and in doing so, you forget about making the bed and all other household chores, especially dinner, and your children have to eat waffles that Dad made all because you had Seussian rhyme-scheming earworms about pens, baking soda, laundry and Barbie dolls eating through all the neurons in your gray matter. Jim swore he didn't mind making waffles last night. And the kids didn't complain about it either. I went off to knit, once I got a decent bad poem written. And here it is, providing you haven't gotten bored already and moved onto another website by now: (and after reading the following, ...

Paul's conference track meet was this afternoon. I went and was dang miserable! It was COLD and drizzly! People were wearing parkas and mittens. I had only a sweater and long pants, but when Jim showed up, he brought a blanket to sit on so my hinder wouldn't be so cold and wet, sitting on the bleachers. Paul's only event at conference was the 1600 meter run. For conference, each school sends only three entrants for each event and Paul was in the top three for his school in the mile. Fresh off my camera's memory card, here are some pictures from his run! (I LOVE DIGITAL CAMERA TECHNOLOGY that allows me to take pictures and post them immediately after kicking Jimmy off the computer). Paul is in the yellow T-shirt. At the starting line, trying to warm up; and his mother is trying to resist the urge to run out onto the track and urge him to put on a jacket. Almost done with the first of four laps, he checks off to the side and sees his mother with the camera. Unable t...

Guess what??!! It's my 100th post! This calls for something special! And, boy howdy, are you all in for some special blogging treats today! First, some milestone awards! (What occasion is special without awards?) Congratulations to blog visitor #1000 : Jen from Orange Park, FL! (Applause) And congratulations to blog visitor #1111 (I like numbers composed of all the same digits): Jake from Excelsior, MN! (at least I think it was you--I don't know anyone else from Excelsior with your internet server who would visit my blog) (More applause) No, there are no prizes. The recognition is the award. Next we have ultra random pictures, taken just today! Paul goes to school! Yay! Matt is tired while he eats Rice Krispies! Yay! A pineapple! Yay! Most of my shoes! Yay! I love shoes! Have I mentioned that? Yay! And now for the Piece de Resistance (literally, "piece of resistance"), a very favorite thing of mine, BAD POETRY! My Bloggie Here I sit on the computer chai...

It's Random Picture day here at the shoebox castle. Here is a picture at the Lincoln Memorial of my kids and a strange lady who smiled and posed like she wanted to be in our picture. I bet Lincoln was sitting up there, wishing that he could go outside because it was such nice weather. This was taken during our trip to D.C. last summer--thanks again to Jen and Mike for hosting our vacation! Today will hopefully be a relatively quiet one, as far as scheduled events. Mental events, though are keeping me occupied. Katie's friend's father (kind of a neighbor--3 blocks away) died late last week and the funeral is tomorrow. Another neighbor is in the hospital. This has got me thinking about what I am grateful for and how life can change drastically without warning. I won't wax rhapsodic about this here, since I consider this more of a fun place. And I get way too philosophical when I am contemplative. Philosophy and fun don't mix. They are such completely differe...

Happy Mother's Day to anyone and everyone who wants me to wish them this! Here, you will not see any goopy gushy writing about how much I love my children and how much joy they bring to me. Anyone can write that, but in order to mean it, you have to show it in action and it's hard to show action here on my bloggie. Let it suffice then to say this: I like my kids and I think that most of the time, they like me. As for my own mother, I've already written out my card, but I would like to add that even through all the difficulty of raising the five of us (and even the BEST of the five got into trouble occasionally--shooting at a brother with a homemade bow and arrow and getting him in the eye was not one of my better moments, nor was giving the three boys buzz cuts when you weren't at home), you still made mothering seem like something I wanted to try five times over, even though you told me once, "Never have five kids." Obviously, I was still somewhat rebellio...

I forgot to mention this with Paul's news about sectionals. Jimmy got a job at the sandwich place! He came home and I had to ASK him how it went. He was hesitant so I thought he didn't get a job offer. But not so. His hesitation comes from breaking out of his comfort zone and doing something different. He is a little nervous about it. He'll start training and then when he works, he'll be on a 30-day trial period. He asked me if he'll get paid during the probation and I assured him that he would. And another thing I forgot to mention. Today I went to Matt's wax museum and saw his presentation on Wilbur Wright. He did a fine job! Matt, as a non-moving Wilbur Wright. Then afterwards, I wandered into the gym where the 5th graders were going to start their music program. I had told Hayley that I didn't think I would be able to see her program and she told me that she didn't mind. In fact, she assured me several times, "It's fine if you don...