Happy Thanksgiving!

I think these pictures are fairly self-explanatory. They let me in the kitchen again. I'm using these as proof that I do actually make my own pies. From scratch. And yes, *I* actually make them. I'm not sure how edible they are. No one dies after eating them, so I guess that's good.




But this is also proof of why I shouldn't be allowed to go in the kitchen. Seriously, look at this mess. Believe it or not, my toaster and microwave didn't press charges. The jury is out on the countertop. :/


I do want to know why my forehead looks like I've just gotten botox. What's up with that shine? Ick. Seriously. And yes, I will clean my counters. . .sometime between New Year's Day and When I Actually Care. :)

Besides, who can think about cleaning counters when there are novels to finish and music history articles to write? In other words, there are much more important things.

This is sort of all over the place because I've been waiting for potatoes to boil for like an hour and I'm ridiculously tired. I should have been put to bed HOURS ago.

But the lesson of the day, kids, is if life gives you lemons, go at them with your mouth wide open. I'm not quite sure what that means, but Miss A assures me it's good advice.

The power of positive thinking

Today was an exceptionally frustrating day. It has been long. It started too early and it's still not even dinner time. That's sad. But, on the positive side, I will definitely be ASLEEP by 10PM tonight. For reals.

I had to work today. I spent what felt like forever. Off and on for 10 hours. Yes, TEN hours. It made me really tired. But, on the positive side, it's "decent" money, and money is money. I paid off half of what I spent on Mr. A at Gap.



The kids drove me nuts today. They barely let me work. Mr. A took 2 HOURS to finish 10 Latin sentences. He is the world's slowest writer. I've got to figure out how to speed him up. But, on the positive side, he dressed up as our "engineer" today. Check out the wrench in his pocket. It made me laugh.


I hate work. Specifically, my work. It just doesn't do it for me. But, on the positive side, that means a better life for my kids.



I wrote well over 2800 words today, researched 7 different topics, fed two kids, taught one, dealt with three and had a dog barking in my ear a good part of the day. It was terrible. But on the positive side, I caught R on film acting the fool. And that's always great.



So today has been long, and I'm a little sad and frustrated about lots of things today that I can't even get into yet. I hope the rest of the week gets better. But, at the end of the day, I'm going to watch Star Trek with Mr. A and M, we're eating tacos, and I'm going to bed early. :)

Shooting rockets off at the school

Which probably doesn't sound like a normal activity, but I'm sure it is. Yesterday, M came home with some sort of rocket launcher, which he said he got at Michael's for 40% off. Today, he went for the rockets, which are apparently pretty expensive. :/ So M and Mr. A spent all day putting together this rocket launcher, gluing it and letting it dry. Then we went over to the school to shoot it off on the track field. The rockets went up 1,000 feet, so it was important to be in wide-open spaces.


Miss A ran around the field while the boys set up. It was a little chilly outside, but not too bad. I actually took my camera off auto today, so the pictures only came out so-so. I wasn't impressed as the sun went down, because the pictures came out with this fake lighting quality. It was weird.


M says he's pretty sure the rocket(s) really did go up at lest 1,000 feet. In any case, it went so high up, my camera couldn't even find anything to focus on (without the zoom lens, anyway). Then it exploded, and a little parachute came out. It was kind of fun to watch. Mr. A chased down the parachute and caught it before it hit the ground. Miss A stomped her feet, clapped her hands, and screamed because it was such exciting business. :)


See that little white speck above the trees? Yeah, that's our parachute coming down after several seconds. It was waaaaaaaay up there. :)


We had three rockets today. It was sort of sad when we were done, because it was like a mini Fourth of July. I guess the rockets cost about $20 for a pack of 3, so it's definitely not something we're going to do all the time. Besides, it's getting too cold to be hanging out outside for long periods of time.


After the rockets were done, we played a little improvised soccer with the kids. Poor Miss A was really frustrated with her little legs, because she couldn't keep up with the boys on the field. So she just sort of followed behind them, crying after awhile when they got too far ahead of her. It was sad and funny at the same time. So M and I took turns putting her on our shoulders and running up and down the field with her, which made her laugh. Too bad I can't run with a baby on my shoulders and snap crappy pictures at the same time. :)


I've decided to call this one "Man Down on the Field." It's ridiculous. And it makes me laugh Every.Single.Time I look at it. Every time. It's just nonsense. All afternoon he kept pretending to be hurt.

So it's getting cold

And I'm reminded why I don't like the cold. But I much prefer it over the heat. If I had my choice, I think I'd rather live in a cold place than a warm place.

The sad thing is, it's not really that cold here. It's in the 50s and 60s right now, and I think it's supposed to drop down to the 40s. But nothing too cold. My Canadians would laugh at me right about now. Still, it feels ridiculously cold to me, especially after 105+ degree summers.


The reason I've been obsessing over coldness lately is because I know that we're going to head up to the mountains (read: the snow) soon. I don't think I like snow. Don't get me wrong--I like to look at it. I especially like to look at it through large picture windows in a mountain cabin while sitting by a fire and drinking hot chocolate. But I don't think I like being in it. As part of my attempted (literal) renaissance, though, the rules state I have to jump into life feet first and not just pansy around on the fringes. So into the snow I will go.


And no, these pictures have nothing to do with the snow. They're from park/shopping trips we've done over the last week. But I had nothing interesting to go along with them, so I thought I would talk about the snow.

On a funny note, Thanksgiving is in a week and a half, and I have to cook for it. Seriously. Well, this should be interesting. Let's hope whatever I do turns out edible, eh? Otherwise, that would be rather unfortunate.


Oh! One last thing. We're going to Disneyland with the grandparents (GeeGee and Papa of the cemetery fame--haha, wow, that sounds wrong) in December. It should be fun. I got a suite at a Marriott in Anaheim for $30/night. What could be better than that? We're staying down there after that to hang with M's family through Christmas. I don't know how I feel about being away from home during our last US Christmas. Sometimes it makes me sad and sometimes I don't care.

Visiting family. . .

I've had these pictures up in Photobucket for over a week, but I haven't made a post about them. I'm trying really hard to get caught up on blogging, so there will probably be multiple posts today.

Last weekend, my dad came to town. Well, sort of. He came two hours south of us, anyway. His kids stayed with my aunt last week while my dad and his wife went to Hawaii. Nice vacation for them! :)

Anyway, we decided to head down there to see them, because it has been well over a year since I've seen my dad. Some people ask if that's weird. The frame of mind I'm in now after my mom died, well, nothing is weird anymore. So no, it's not really weird.

The family is fun. They're willing to risk looking uncool to have fun playing things like Rock Band, which makes them decidedly cool. The adults got into it, the kids were definitely into it, and I think (or hope) everyone had a good time.


I'm glad they chose to go to my aunt's house, because her house rocks. It really does. She's got all these sheep, pigs, horses, dogs and chickens. Oh, and the cats. Miss A is in heaven when we go because of all the cats, and if there's anything other than Poodle and Care Bears that Miss A obsesses over, it's the cats. Mr. A, on the other hand, likes playing City Boy Farmer. He likes collecting eggs and just generally looking at (not really doing much else to) the horses and sheep.


We did get some pictures of the kids with my dad before we left. It was a rather silly photoshoot. Mr. A really gets a kick out of J, who yes, is technically his uncle. But honestly, I don't really think about labels, not even with other members of my family. It's a byproduct of being weird, I guess. J is three years younger than Mr. A, but they get along pretty well.


The baby on my dad's lap isn't Miss A, who is obviously on his right. That's S, HIS baby. If you're thinking, "Wow, Miss A and S look very close in age!", you're right. Miss A is one month older than S. For some odd reason, though, Amazon Miss A is a bit taller than the petite S, who is really a very sweet baby. S also seems a bit more into socializing with people, unlike Miss A who acted like she was borderline autistic throughout our visit. Go figure.



So all the kids had a blast together, except Miss A, who had a blast by herself.

I hate laundry day

And because I hate laundry day, I often choose to ignore it. Which makes laundry day turn into laundry week. It really sucks. I need to get it through my thick skull that laundry DAY is better than laundry WEEK.

Miss A and Mr. A have the worst laundry. I do theirs last, which is a mistake, because then it gets avoided for weeks at a time. And when I finally get around to doing it, this is what happens.



This is my favorite, because the tights are so little and cute.



So imagine this three times, sometimes per child, plus the stuff that is dried. Yes, it's ridiculous. I agree. But it could really be controlled if I would just do the darn laundry once a week.

This should explain why I wasn't updating last week. I was truly buried in dirty clothes.