Thursday, April 27, 2006

TT: Interview with a Dog...and two rabbits

Here are my pets' memes...I hope it adds up to 13 things.

First off is Lilly our dog.


1. Hi Lilly. What is your favorite food? Oh that's easy! Steak! It hurts my tummy so bad when mommy makes steak for dinner that I just can't wait for it to be my turn to eat it! I have to run and see if the smell is any better from the living room door. I'm not allowed in the dining room...bummer!

2. What is your favorite toy? Hummm...tough choice. It's between the ball and the bone. I love to play ball with my daddy. Mom likes to get me angry by kicking the ball out of the way while I'm waiting for daddy to come in and play ball with me when he gets home from that garage. I just don't understand how the garage sucks my people away because when I go in there I never get sucked away.

3. What's your best trick? Well I think my best trick is to catch the ball when daddy kicks it into the air. But all the humans that visit think my best trick is staying out of the rooms that I'm not allowed in. That's not a trick! I'm just being a good girl and I'm always a good girl.

4. What is your favorite human trick? How I taught daddy to play ball with me. He's the best at it, although mommy & sissy are okay at it. but I love daddy the best. Which mommy finds odd because the shelter said that I didn't like men much. But when I first met daddy (he was out of town when I was adopted) I went right up to him like I had known him all my life.

5. What human rule do you break often?
They tend to get awefully mad at me for jumping up on them. They just don't understand that I NEED to get close to their faces to lick them...but they don't like the licking either. I also have to be first when we go for a walk and that drives my mommy nuts.

6. What do you wish your human knew about you?
What kind of dog I really am. Everyone says I'm really cute and wants to know what breed I am, but they don't know. Mom used to call me a "terry bull" but she was just being silly. She now calls me a Lhasa-poo, but that's probably not right either. Cute Mutt works for me. Who cares about a pedigree anyway?

7. What are you glad your human does NOT know about you?
What I do when they get sucked into the garage.

And now for Trina & Trudy. They are working together today and always as they are almost twins.

8. Hi Girls. What is your favorite food? Bananas! Yummy!

9. What is your favorite toy? Cardboard boxes. They are fun to chew and move around and hide in. Nothing's better than a cardboard box!

10. What's your best trick? How cute we look, although that's not trick...just genetics. But it seems to get us anything we want.

11. What is your favorite human trick? How we've got them trained to take care of our every need. They bring us food and water and clean up the litter pan and treats. They are just really such well trained bunny slaves. And when they go out of town they find us bunny slaves that spoil us even more. We always gain so much weight on vacations.

12. What human rule do you break often?
They really hate it when we chew on the walls or try to eat the vines they call electrical cords. Mom screaches at us for that.

13. What do you wish your human knew about you?
not much, we like our secrecy. We don't talk and don't want to. Although Trina is really good at scaring the little one with her grunts! That's always good for a laugh.

14. What are you glad your human does NOT know about you?
Everything. We keep many secrets that must not ever be divulged.

Well Lilly, Trina & Trudy thank you so much for your time today. I'm sure our readers will appreciate it very much.

Lilly:
No problem! Wanna play?

Trina & Trudy:*Thump!*

My lovely commenters & other TT's:
Norma, Katherine, Jen, twiga92, libragirl
lisa, chic mommy, barbra, surrender dorothy
better safe than sorry, purple kangaroo, mom's secret life, maura
laura, lazy daisy, Ames, Uisce
Reverberate58,
mar, bone, lifecruiser, louise, moogie, ardice


Barbra asked about how cooperative the girls were for this interview. I find it really easy to get information from animals when you're holding their dinner hostage. ;o)

Katherine remarked about Trina's eyeliner. That's pretty common for her breed, dwarf hotot mix. They try for the white liner around the eyes. I don't know why, she's cute but I really prefer Trudy's markings.

Ames asked about Lilly's room. Yes, she does have her own room but she has to share it with my washer & dryer. For the most part she doesn't mind as laundry day is only once a week. But she does get upset when it is laundry day because the dryer squeeks. Dh has tried to fix it, but the machine is almost 14 years old...I think it's about time for a new one. He of course doesn't. Lilly's room has a nice cozy sleeping place under the utility sink and a spot for her meals & water. Lilly hates her water dish because it burps at her which scares her and she will take every opportunity to drink elsewhere. We've been lucky that she hasn't noticed that the tolites have water in them. One of my previous dogs loved tolite water because it was nice & cold and would try to nudge you off the tolite to get at it!

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!



Monday, April 24, 2006

Monday Memories: Darly's Slumber Party

Did I Tell You About The Time I threw a Slumber Party for Darly's Birthday?

I remember it like it was yesterday...

It was just last Friday! hee hee

I'm going to back up though. We have a Scholastic Book Fair Warehouse near us and as homeschoolers we get to sign up to be on the mailing list for their sales. So Darly & I went to a 50% off warehouse sale. These are really cool. Every book (well every book that they let you have access to, they rope off where you're not allowed to go) is at least 50% off...some even more. I see that another one is coming May 17th! YIPPEE!
Anyway... So Darly & I went to the sale and she gets into the shopping as much as I do because most of the books are for her anyway. And they had this one section where everything you could cram into a box was only $20. And they had all these beading kits, so we are stuffing as many of these $14 kits into the box. There was a little more room and we saw this book on how to throw an Awesome Slumber Party there and crammed it in too.

So Darly has been reading this book on how to throw a Slumber Party for a while now and has been longing to throw her own Slumber Party. Darly hadn't spent the night anywhere but at home, so I told her that in order for her to have a Slumber Party, she would have to be able to spend the night somewhere else first. I didn't want her to have the party and not be able to go stay with her friends in return. Soon after this conversation, Darly got her first invitation to a slumber party and she was excited...now was her chance.

Darly made it with flying colors. She had the best time and was really bummed to leave. PLUS now she could have her own Slumber Party!

As a test run for me, we invited her bestest friend, Elly to stay over. (also we knew that Elly would be moving away before Darly's birthday and this was their chance to have a slumber party.) That went really well...except that when you are used to having one quiet child in your house, adding one more increases the noise level about 1000%!

Darly has been consulting her book and making lists of everything that she wanted to do for her party. I played by the K.I.S.S. plan (Keep it Simple Stupid)! I asked my most trusted advisors on what time I should invite the party over (thank you!) and sent out the invitations using Evite

I tried to talk Darly into a small party as she tends to get overwhelmed by a large noisy crowd, but she felt she HAD to invite all of these friends. So we had 5 girls come over.

The girls begain arriving and Darly showed them where to play until everyone was here. I bought "take & bake" pizzas for dinner, we had made cupcakes to decorate and ice cream for make your own sundaes. And except for some of the girls dropping pizza sauce on my table cloth, all of that went fairly well.

After all the food and playing the plan was for everyone to get ready for bed and hunker down to watch a movie. Well no one seemed interested in the first movie (well no one but me!) so we switched to Madagaskar. Not exactally the movie for dozing off to sleep with, but anyway.

One parent called to check up on her girl.

The girls all were ready to konk out by 11pm and we had intended to allow the dog to join the party too...but she kept whining. She might have been cold as she had just got a haircut that morning. So I put her in her bedroom/my laundry room. She whined some more because the girls kept talking, but soon everyone was asleep...including me. I woke up at about 12:30 to find everyone sleeping and krept upstairs to bed.

I woke up at 6:30 and took my shower. Came down and started making my coffee, which caused the dog to wake up whining. So I got her and brought her into the kitchen but she refused to keep quiet and the girls began to wake up. One couldn't remember to whisper since others were still sleeping (in fact I don't think this kid's volume control works at all as I was constantly asking her to use an inside voice!) So DH was up soon as well as all the other girls...except one. She won the award for "Sleeping Through ANYTHING!"

I began to make pancakes for breakfast. The girls could choose between plain, chocolate chip or strawberry pancakes. Only one girl didn't want pancakes so she had poptarts instead.

Soon after parents began to arrive to claim their girls. And too soon for Darly they were all gone. She was all bummed and wanted the party to keep on going.

Darly give DH & I a pretty rough time for the rest of Saturday. She was not at all happy that we wanted to do yardwork and not play with her. And her sour mood caused DH to get cranky too. I think I deserve an appology from both of them! But since I did get my flower garden sprinklers repaired, I'll let it go for DH.

My lovely commenters & other MM's:
Norma
Katherine
Jen
twiga92
libragirl
lisa
chic mommy
barbra
surrender dorothy
better safe than sorry
purple kangaroo
mom's secret life
maura
laura

I did all that without my coffee zzzzzz

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Here's what's been going on since my last post...

April 10th: Went to do newsletters at Church at 9am but one guy likes to get there at 7:30 and the other two ladies showed up around 8am...so I did about 20 minutes of work. Then Darly had gymnastics.

April 11th: Picture day for our homeschool group's yearbook. I kept notes of the kids names and how to spell them. I also got to holler at the kids for running around the library.

April 12th: Park Day...all social. Who says homeschoolers don't socialize?

April 13th: Coop class and I stayed to help paint a door afterward. Darly socialized some more. She learned about birds, ears & hearing and Spanish. It was Maundy Thursday...so off to Church. And it was also Teacher's night out...more socialization for me!

April 14th: Girl Scouts. The girls decorated eggs And we started a naked egg experiment. You place a raw egg in a closed jar of vinegar. The vinegar disolves the calcium from the egg's shell. All that's left is the egg inside the membrane. The reaction causes air bubbles to form on the egg and floats the egg, but if you shake the container gently the bubbles pop and the eggs sink again...ensuring total submersion in the vinegar and complete removal of the shell.

April 15th: DH took Darly to Kidz Kulture. They learned about the 30's & 40's. She came home with a ration booklet that they had made. It was also Darly's birthday. I got a call from Darly's Girl Scout Secret Sister's mom who wanted to bring by a card & gift for Darly...but still be secret. So I took Darly with me to pick up her cake & pizzas for dinner and her secret sister came while we were gone. Then MIL, my brother & nephew came over for pizza dinner. Darly got her Our Generation doll. Darly's doll has blond hair & brown eyes, but I can't find a picture of her on-line. She named her Emmy. It's now her best buddy and went with us everywhere. We're talking about cleaning Darly's old umbrella stroller for the doll to ride in...are we crazy?

April 16th: Easter! Darly made quick work of finding all the bunny loot while DH played the Easter Daddy and re-hid stuff while Darly wasn't looking. Then we all got ready and went to Church... Emmy came with us of course, but she didn't get blessed at communion...so Darly blessed her. After Church we went to MIL's house. DH spent the entire time working on MIL's house...her sprinkler system's pipes burst because she had turned it on and left town unexpectantly...it froze outside and the valves all burst. DH also decided to climb up the tree in the front yard to cut down some branches...what a mess!

April 17th: LLL meeting. A poor new mom had been there waiting for me from 9am because she saw on some website that's when the meeting began...I've got to find out where and fix that. Then we did a historic tour of our town. We went to the old School and the stage coach stop...quick break for ice cream and then the town cemetary. I found the stone for a family I know from Church. The husband died before we moved here, but I know the wife and she's fighting cancer right now. We're all praying that she doesn't join him too soon.

April 18th: Answered phones at Church and updated some records for them. My eyes were hurting after looking at the computer for so long. Also grocery run.

April 19th: Park Day again and homeschool yearbook picture day part two. This time I took the pix and got some really good ones from kids who didn't want to be there. This one guy was so grumpy but we let him climb on the rock wall and he smiled so big. And a teenager who didn't want to be there had barely sat down when I caught her grinning at her mom...it's a gorgeous picture of her.

And finally today: We have a tour of Petco at 10:30 and then I have a meeting tonight.

All the while I've been collecting dues, financial reports and complaints from LLL Leaders. :D It looks like its time to send out the late notices. bummer there were almost 60 who haven't turned theirs in yet.

Monday, April 10, 2006

I was there...

I know I said that I wouldn't be posting for a while and I probably shouldn't be because I've got other stuff to do...but ya know...

anyway

There's a song we sing at Church when someone gets baptized. It goes... "I was there to hear you borning cry, I'll be there when you are old, I rejoiced the day you were baptized, to see your life unfold..."

I posted before about the baby boy member of our Church who died not too long ago. His mom was back at Church on April 2nd and seeing her there brought me to tears. She was sitting alone, I was too but I don't know her and certainly didn't have the courage to sit next to her.

And then last Sunday she was singing with the choir for the cantata.

And I'm just in awe of this woman and how strong she must be. Here she has just lost her baby and she is singing. I don't think I could do it.

I feel so bad because I don't know what do to or say. I know who she is, but I don't know her...so should I say or do anything.

My last memory of her son is the day they sat behind me in Church and he was playing with some paper. Waving it around and making a little noise with it. Just being cute.

Sunday, April 09, 2006

Just can't keep up!

You may have noticed that I've been neglecting you for a while. Even when I tried to do the MM, I wasn't able to keep up with the links part (and I know I should go get Mr Linky) but right now my life is just too crazy for even that.

The best I can offer you is to check in once and a while and comment on your blogs...but I won't be playing until my life calms down... oh and Darly has discovered American Girl on line so I now have to fight for computer time anyway. LOL

Monday, April 03, 2006

Monday Memories: Coming back

Well my last memory was about going to Korea. I thought this one would be about coming home.

Our tour in Korea had been very tough on our family. Soon after we arrived we learned that my FIL had cancer and DH was supposed to get a promotion, but that didn't happen.

So after DH didn't get the promotion he had two choices...stay in at his current rank until retirement (which would mean that if Congress ever decided to cut back again he'd be first on the chopping block) or get out and get a huge severance package. Hummm...really tough decision.

Once he informed them of our decision things went very quickly. Too quickly to get all worried about anything (my normal way). I think he filled out the paperwork a day or two after he found out he wasn't promoted and the following week drove our car to the port for it to get shipped back to the states. I contacted our internet service provider and they shut off my service that very day! YIKES! I had wanted them to turn it off when the packers came. The packers came about a week later to pack up all of our stuff and took it with them. (Darly was really mad that they took all her things!) We got more loaner furniture & dishes to use, but were only there for about 2 weeks more.

We then started planning our vacation to Hawaii. One of the perks of going to Korea is that on your way home you can stop in Hawaii and only have to pay the difference in the ticket costs...somehow this was free for us.

So finally it's two days until we leave. I pack up our clothes and remaining items and borrowed my neighbor's van to drive it all to the base. I mailed some of our things to MIL's house, returned the borrowed dishes and checked us into the temporary quarters. My neighbor kept Darly while I was doing all of that, which was a wonderful blessing because she would have freaked out otherwise.

Darly & I took the bus back to the base and went to our room, which she enjoyed exploring. DH's final days were in filing paperwork so he was always back to the room (or temporary home) on time. YAY!

The following morning (very early in the moring...5am i think) we packed all of our things into a taxi and drove to the bus station. The bus took us the brand new airport in Inchon. Leaving was sooooo easy, more of the signs were in english! Check in was nice & easy and we found our way to the gate with no problems...so unlike all of our previous trips. YAY! We had lots of time to wait for our flight so Darly got to play in the brand new kids area with a ball pit & play structure. And then we boarded our plane to Hawaii. I was still not believing that we were going to Hawaii.

We landed in Hawaii and were all very jet lagged. Had to go through customs, find our rental car and drive to the Hale Koa where we slept most of our first day. Unfortunately there was construction going on at Diamond Head that week so we didn't get to go there. But we had a lot of fun and since DH used to live there he helped us avoid all the fun tourist places. Luckily one of our friends was stationed at Hickam and took us to a really nice restraunt...I got to try some Hawaiian dishes. But alas, our 4 days in Hawaii went too quickly and it was time to board the plane for "the states" (I was quickly corrected by the airline employee "the mainland"). Of course that took another trip threw customs.

Our flight to LAX was short and sweet and then we got to go threw immigration. But the best thing about the whole trip was when the guy who stamped our passports said "WELCOME HOME." It still brings tears to my eyes (even as I type this) because those were the sweetest words ever at that point.

We still had another flight to get from LAX to DIA and I don't even remember how we got from DIA to MIL's house...I guess that she came to get us! But we were home.

Other MM'ers:
Lazy Daisy
Froglegs

Other cool commenters:
Maura