Tales of a Shoebox Princess

When I was a kid, my dad had a book 101 Uses for a Dead Cat  that I found amusing. I'd probably still find it funny, except for last Saturday, when we found that Servo had gone to make his kitty Maker. Under the couch. He'd been sick for a while, skinnier than was good for him, in fact, on Friday, I petted him and thought him frighteningly skinny. He vomited later that evening and Jim and I discussed taking him to the vet on Monday to have him put to sleep. He vomited nearly every day for the last several weeks. He didn't seem in pain, but what do I know? Servo would just hide after he vomited, which I attributed to not liking our reaction to his vomiting. He didn't refuse food, but judging by his weight loss, he was not getting any of the nutrients into his system, but probably vomiting the food back up. Sigh.  My tribute to Servo: You have been a good kitty. You were good around new people in the house, in fact, I'd say you were curious about them and liked t...

The baby of the family is a senior now. When I started this blog, he was a chubby-faced 9 year old in whatever grade 9 year olds are in--third? So now he's a senior, last one at home. The day after Labor day was our last day of the first day of public school. Last Friday was the last first football game any of our kids would march in. Pretty much anything related to school will be a last time. It's ok with me, but I can't help thinking all those years of raising naughty, loud, disobedient, and yet hilarious children went by pretty quickly. Matt's last first marching band performance in pictures: You have no idea which one he is, do you? He's not on the ladder, directing. Think short, with a bunching of extra pant around his feet.  It's obvious in this picture which one is  Matt. Always making sure he's heard by the audience. Jim and I were at the game and I was taking pictures right and left, hoping that one of them would have Matt in ...

I have loved Weird Al's music since I was in high school (a long time ago). For a long time I had only one cassette tape of his music, and wasn't exposed to his other albums, so when the UHF album was released, even though I'd actually seen the movie, I was unaware that the song "Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota" existed, until Jim and I went to a Weird All concert in late 1996. Of course Weird played a Minnesota song in Minnesota. Ever since then, I have wanted to see the twine ball. And have been too lazy to do so, even though it is LESS THAN TWO HOURS from my house. Thanks to Katie, (child numero uno), who suggested a fangirl trip to the twine ball, I have now seen it. Katie's mother-in-law, who lives close by, also wanted to see this product of one man's obsession with baling twine. So we packed up Katie's kids and drove on Friday. We sang the Weird Al song on our way. We missed the last turn, had to turn around, and then, THERE IT WAS, rig...

Joke told 'round the table recently: Parent: What did you learn about in school today? Child: Gone to Korea. Parent: ??? What class was this in? Child: Health class. Think about it... Anyway, we have a real live Gone to Korea child in our family, although right now, she's Gone to Canada and won't Gone to Korea for a few more hours. Hayley started talking about studying abroad a year ago, pretty much since she got dropped off at BYU and started taking Korean. She's done all the work to make it happen. Applying to the program, applying for grants/scholarships, getting passport, getting visa, filling out all the paperworks that aren't applications, calling the bank, getting shots, amassing $$ to fund herself (working 2 jobs over the summer), buying plane tickets, getting a shuttle from airport to housing, and who knows what else (since she did it herself). Pretty much the only thing Jim helped her with (I'm no help) was assisting with printing her boar...

OJ was here this past week. He and a roommate drove out from Idaho and they spent the week here knocking about Minnesota, seeing sites, enjoying being on vacation from school and work. But between everyone else's work schedules, it was tough to get everyone together in one place (including Katie). Hayley and Paul quit their jobs (because they both go back to school in a couple of days) but we never did get EVERYONE together in one place. The closest we got was all five of the children and two grandchildren and me at my mother's house. Jim and Christian were not there. Alas. I did manage to get some pictures though, which will have to suffice. my mother, my children, my grandchilden, and the bonus kid a four generation picture with my mom. FINALLY. Cutest boy in the room. Sorry OJ, P, M, and bonus kid. Cutest girl in the room. Sorry Mom, K, H and me. Gigi and great granddaughter. She loves the babies!  We'll try again for full family participation, ...

Had I seen this plant underneath my techny arborvitae by the corner of my garage earlier this spring, I would have tried yanking it out with my bare hands.  That would have been a bad thing. The only reason I didn't is because I saw a new sign at our local park warning park users of poison ivy plants (the sign is planted right in the middle of many square feet of poison ivy plants right there 8 " from a heavily used path). Since I never really knew what poison ivy looked like (I'm not a boy so I was never in boy scouts to learn this kind of useful information. If I were a leader of young ladies, I would plan boy scout type activities. I like the merit badge system of learning and the real world topics), I stopped to take a look and find out. Huh, I said to myself, that is what poison ivy looks like. Unremarkable and kind of bland. I kinda wanted to touch it but so far I have managed to leave it alone. And not many weeks later, I spotted poison ivy plants in my yard. ...

He knew what his birthday present was because of the cake. He asked for Chuck DVDs and I couldn't help myself decorating the cake with reference to the show, which we all LOVED. Love fondant for decorating (for eating, not so much). The H22BD stands for Happy 22nd birthday, in case you were to lazy to think about it. The freehanded letters and circles look better from a distance, but even close up, they taste good. What Chuck does when he sees something that has a file in the Intersect. The code word for "clear out, a disaster is imminent" at the Buy More The organizations responsible for the Intersect The Intersect It was a tasty cake. But then cake is always tasty, unless it's carrot cake, which is a MUFFIN, and we don't eat MUFFINS on special occasions, do we? We eat CAKE. Anyway, Paul is 22, which is a long way from how old he was when I started this blog. A picture of Paul at the beginning of the blog can be found  here back in ...