Tag Archives: family

Rash Promises and Blaky Wakey!

Posted on June 1, 2011 | 2 comments

Hi Everyone!

I’m a little bit late today, I know, but my bronchitis is trying to decide whether to come back or not, so it took  me a little longer than usual to get ready for work, which means my morning blogging time was interrupted.  I am now using my (late) lunch hour to accomplish the same thing.  For those of you who are worried about how Mandy did without someone sitting by her, at least she ate!  She had the chance to get entertained by the treadmill first, so that relaxed her a little bit first.

Mandy, Fascinated by the Treadmill

  • Rash Promises

Have you ever made a rash promise to your child?  One that just popped out before you really thought about it?  Well I have, and it is one that I’m going to get to have almost a whole year to think about! 

Grace and Poise I Shan't Have Come Next May!

Up until the day of her recital, Kayla was uncertain about whether she wanted to continue dance next year, and I couldn’t tell if she wanted to stop because she didn’t like dancing, or what was going on.  On recital day, I could tell that she did like to dance, so I asked her about continuing.  At first she wasn’t sure, but then the fatal words slipped out of my mouth – every recital, those parents who want to participate in a parents’ number at the recital get to do so  – “if you will sign back up for dance, I will do the parents’ number next year.”  She told me she wanted to think about it, but as we were walking out of the house for the second recital, she turned around to me and said, “Deal!”  I’m not sure what I was thinking, since I have two left feet, unless I am being led by my husband, and my sense of rhythm is only suitable for choral singing (not to mention that I am extremely out of shape, not helped by the bronchitis)  but I said the words, “I promise,” so I will live by them.  Mark finds it all highly amusing, and even my mother who was up for the recital thought it was a little funny too.

Please note that I will not be informing anyone in advance of the recital date, besides grandparents, next year;  however, I will tell you if I turn out to be the first parent in her dance studio’s history to be fired from the parent dance team!   

  • Blaky Wakey

As I mentioned yesterday, Kayla and I are now driving to work together, and while I did not have to resign control of the radio to the Disney Channel yesterday, this morning it was on before we left the driveway.  As we were driving, the DJ for the hour came on and announced something to the effect that we were listening to the “Blaky Wakey” show.  Kayla looked at me and said, “You’ve got to be kidding!  I’m just not in a Blaky Wakey mood this morning!”  I had to agree with her, but I also notice that the channel did not get changed, either. 

Have a great rest of the day everyone!

Nancy

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The First Day of Summer Vacation and Other Matters

Posted on May 31, 2011 | 6 comments

Hi Everyone!

I hope each of you had a great Memorial Day weekend!  We did; we didn’t do anything special, but we got to go bowling, nap, shopping, nap, attend church, nap, eat out, nap – you get the idea! 

Today marks a change in the rhythm of our lives for the next two and a half months – Kayla’s summer vacation starts today.  Until I taught, many moons ago, I didn’t realize how much teachers look forward to summer vacation.  Until Kayla started Kindergarten, I also didn’t realize how much parents enjoy summer vacation, too.  I don’t have to fuss about homework; bed time, while still important, is not essential; and getting Kayla ready in the morning amounts to being sure she is dressed properly instead of the list of things we have to have ready for school. 

Specifically for us, too, summer vacation is different because I take Kayla to a day camp near to where I work, which means that she and I ride to and from work together.  I am looking forward to the extra time with her, although I have to resign myself to the fact that I will be listening to the Disney Channel radio for the next two and a half months, also. 

  •      Rememborizing

On the way to the bowling alley this weekend, Kayla was trying to tell us that she either remembered something or had memorized it, I am not sure which, but the word that came out was “rememborized.”  She tried again with another variation, and finally got frustrated and said “Whatever,” which in 9-year-old parlance translates to “you know what I mean so let’s get past the pronunciation and on to the discussion.”

  • Santa Claus

When we went shopping this weekend, one of the things we needed were new white church shoes for Kayla.  We noticed Sunday that her feet were hanging off both the front and the back of her old church sandals.  (She is in the middle of a growth spurt.)  As we were walking into the store, out of the blue, Kayla started talking about maybe buying some underwear also, then, remembering that she had gotten some from Santa for Christmas (yes, folks, she got a lot of other things too, and they were all toys), stopped in the middle of the road  and asked Mark and I, “How did Santa Claus know my underwear size?”  I asked her if Santa knew whether she had been good or bad, why couldn’t he know her underwear size?  She answered, “That’s just embarrassing!  

  • The Treadmill 

For Father’s Day, I got Mark a treadmill.  It came last week, a little early, so he took some time yesterday to put it together, with Kayla’s help.  She did a very good job helping him, both in reading the directions, handing him the necessary parts and sometimes getting to handle some of the tools, like the wrench and screwdriver, and even the drill (used as a screwdriver) once or twice. 

Once Mark and she got it put together, it was time to try it out, briefly.  Each of us spent about two minutes on it, just to see if it worked.  What we didn’t expect was the dogs’ reaction to it.  Tyra ignored it, but Mandy was mesmerized, and Darwin, unwilling to let his twin enjoy something without him, decided he would be mesmerized, too.  I thought maybe it was just a one day thing, but this morning, when Mark got up early to use the treadmill, the two dogs camped out by the treadmill yet again.

Mandy, Fascinated by the Treadmill

Mandy and Darwin Mesmerized by the Treadmill

You never know exactly what is going through the minds of your dogs at any particular time, except maybe feeding time, but I sure would like to know what they are thinking while they watch the treadmill! 

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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Dance Recital

Posted on May 23, 2011 | 8 comments

First Pre-Recital Picture

 Good morning Everyone!

I hope you had a great weekend!  I will give you fair warning about today’s post:  this is a Proud Parent Post, heavily laden with pictures of Kayla, because Saturday was the day of Kayla’s dance recitals.  The recitals are an EVENT!  Her dance studio has two recitals, one at 2 and one at 6:30 that last about two hours each.  There are classes in baton, jazz, tap dancing, ballet, and gymnastics for girls from age 4 to age 18 or 19 (seniors in high school.)  The teacher does an amazing job of scheduling things so that each class has a chance to perform their routines. 

There are at least three dance studios in our small town, and I think that each one picks a Saturday in May to rent the high school’s auditorium, but our recital is usually the last one.  It is an annual rite of passage from spring into summer.  (Yes, I know the calendar says it is still spring, but down here, we consider Memorial Day the unofficial start of summer, and as of this week have already had temperatures soaring into the low to mid-90’s.  Most of the schools in this area finish for the year in the next week.) 

Darwin Barges In

 My Mom came to visit for the recital, and took a picture of the three of us, with Kayla in her baton costume.  She took the first picture, then was lucky enough to get this one of Darwin barging in to the photo also.  Every once in a while something happens to remind me how very tall he really is, and this was one of those times.  I would guess from this picture that he is at least 5 feet tall when he stands on his hind legs! 

Anyway, with Darwin’s help we were able to get out the door and to the auditorium by 1:00 p.m., when the doors opened for audience seating.  Past experience has taught us that if you don’t show up an hour early, then you will not be able to get very good seats, and we needed end seats so that I could scoot in and out to help Kayla with her costume changes.  Since I chose to sit on the first floor of the auditorium, so I could sit with Mark and Mom, each time Kayla’s costume needed changing, I rushed up a flight of stairs to the second floor of the high school to reach the changing room, then rushed back down to get back to my seat in time to see her routine.  The multiple trips reminded me why I really hate elliptical training machines, Stairmasters and all other exercise equipment of similar ilk. 

I put Mark in charge of the camera because getting pictures during the recital is tricky between the lighting (dark in the audience, light on stage) and the movement.  He got this photo of Kayla during her baton routine.  If you look on your left, you can see the baton twirling around in a blur. 

Baton Routine

 The next routine was her tap dance routine.  She was concentrating!  (The tap dance and the closing routines were the only repeats between both recitals.)

Concentrating on her tap dance routine

 The first recital ended at 4, so the four of us (me, Mark, Kayla and Mom) hopped over to the local Pizza Hut for a very early dinner, had time to run back to the house for about 20 minutes to change costumes and freshen up her hair and make-up, and then get back to the auditorium at 5:30 for the 6:30 show.  By 5:30, a good part of the auditorium was already full, but we still managed to find end seats.  I estimate that there were between 150 to 200 people present at each of the two recitals.  For this second recital, her first routine was the jazz routine. 

Jazz

 

Jazz 2

It wasn’t until the very end of the routine that she saw Mark, who had slipped up the aisle, taking pictures, but after that suddenly she relaxed and starting smiling.  You can see this in the picture Mark took at the end of her gymnastics class’s  routine…..

Final Gymnastics Pose

And in her ballet routine…..

Ballet Dance

And in the closing!

Closing Routine!

 

So kudos to Mark for the pictures he took and kudos to Kayla for her time and effort in dancing!

Have a great day everyone!
 Nancy

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Blast from the Past: 2008: Stories, Spell Check and Scorpions!

Posted on May 20, 2011 | Leave a comment

Good morning everyone!

This morning I thought I would share some stories I wrote down in some letters back in 2008, when Kayla was 6 and in kindergarten.

From April 2008:

One morning, Kayla burst out into tears in the bathroom. Mark caught that call. When he went in to check, she told him that she was crying because she had brushed her hair but it didn’t look like she had brushed it at all! (Item: the hair looked fine.)

Two Sundays ago, she and I were awake and watching TV in my bedroom because Mark was asleep on the couch and I was trying hard to keep everyone (child and dogs) quiet in my room so that he could get a full nap in. I had to go into the other room to get something, and when I came back, Kayla was just walking away from my bathroom sink. I asked her what she was doing, and she said brightly, “I was going to get into your makeup, but then I decided that I didn’t want to get into trouble!”

From April 2008:

I did the funniest thing on spell check on one of my briefs the other week. I had to use the name “Schnitzler” a lot in the brief.  Schnitzler was one of those words that, to save my soul, I could not type correctly the first time, so rather than re-type it over and over, I used “SS” as an abbreviation, with the thought that when it was finished, I would use “find and replace” to replace the “SS” with Schnitzler.  FN.  It worked like a charm, except that I got slap-happy pushing buttons and ended up telling the computer to change every “ss” to Schnitzler, which left me with lots of words like “Congreschnitzler” (Congress), “ischnitzlerue” (issue) and “paschnitzler” (pass.) Spell check almost had a nervous breakdown before it was over with!

From June 2008:

The past week has been a week of weird wildlife encounters. Last Thursday, I looked out of the window after Mark and Kayla left, and saw a huge turtle on the side of the road – its shell had a diameter of at least 16 inches. I couldn’t help it; I took a picture of it.

Turtle, 2008

Yesterday, which was Wednesday, I started my day being stung by, of all things, a scorpion! Mandy, who has decided that one of her missions in life is to be my little alarm clock, waking me up by 5:20 whether I need it or not, harassed and harangued me until I got up, fed her and the other two dogs then went out into the garage like I normally do to get my Diet Coke. When I walked back in, something bit/stung my toe, and it really hurt! I couldn’t see what it was but jumped around and started screaming , which woke Mark up in a flash (Kayla slept through it) and brought him into the den to check on me. We sat down and looked at my foot, but unlike a bee sting, we couldn’t see anything. Mark announced that it must have been an ant that bit me, and went back to bed. I walked back over to the area where I had been stung, turned on the light and saw a brown form on the brown wooden floor that looked like a scorpion. I looked again, because I thought maybe it was just a leaf that the dogs had drug in from outside, and realized that it really was a scorpion.

 So next I did what any reasonable woman with a husband at home would do – I went back into the bedroom and got Mark! He looked at it, and not only agreed that it was a scorpion but also realized that it wasn’t dead yet, so he killed it for me. Never having been stung by a scorpion before, I was not at all certain what I should do, so I went and looked it up on the Internet. The information I found said that most species of scorpions in the United States are not poisonous, except for one species in Arizona. However, even so, you can have a reaction to the bite of one if you are allergic, and some of the symptoms of that type of reaction are an elevated heart rate and anxiety.

That symptom list was not helpful;  I already had an elevated heartbeat and anxiety because I had just been stung by a scorpion! It all turned out okay, although it will be a very long time before I walk anywhere in the house without my slippers on.

And on that unusual note, I will bid everyone good day!  Have a great weekend!

Nancy

FN.  To prevent any unpleasantness, the name “Schnitzler” is  changed from the actual name, but you get the idea.

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A Triple A Day: All of the Above and Art Work

Posted on May 10, 2011 | 6 comments

Good morning everyone! 

  • All of the Above

Kayla’s grades from the week before come home in a red folder every Monday.  Yesterday, she came home with one of the few not so good grades that she gets from time to time.  I never get upset at what she makes if she was trying, but I do get frustrated when she earned her “not so good” grade because she chose not to study the study sheet conveniently provided to her at the beginning of the week. 

When I had the temerity to suggest that she should have studied more, Kayla got quite cross with me.  The test was multiple choice, and Kayla snapped out, “Well, she (ie., the teacher) should have explained what ‘all of the above’ means.”  I asked if she had noticed that more than one answer was correct.  She told me yes, so I explained that “all of the above” meant that all of the previous answers in the question were correct.  She said, “Oh.  I kept looking above me trying to figure out what the answer was talking about.”  So, she either gets credit for creative thinking, or creative excuse making.  My vote is for creative excuse making; what’s yours?

  • Art Work

I got caught the other day.  Usually, I wait until the dark of the moon in the dead of night, put on dark camouflage and rubber soled shoes, tiptoe carefully through the den to the kitchen, past the three or four creaking spots on the wooden floor, gingerly place the articles in a plastic garbage bag, ferry them to the outside trashcan while I hold my breath and then breathe a sigh of relief as I re-enter the house unnoticed.

What am I talking about?  The multitude of paper that Kayla brings home from or creates during school, day care, and nap time at home.  It doesn’t take long for a parent of a child in school or pre-school to realize that at least some of that paper must to be disposed of, or you will have to buy a new house with a room solely dedicated to storing paper.  By now, we would need a house the size of the Biltmore estate!  Don’t misunderstand me; I save some of her stuff every year, and take pictures of other items but at some point something has to go! 

Sunday night, however, I got in a hurry and when she wasn’t looking slipped some posters she had pulled out of a coloring book  (they were just posters, folks; she hadn’t colored on them, or done anything to them, just pulled them out of the book) into a garbage bag.  I thought I had them well camouflaged, but didn’t realize they were face up pressing into the side of the plastic where she could see them.  She tried to tell me they were in there; I tried to tell her she was mistaken (yes, I know that was wrong of me, but I was desperate); ultimately she pulled them out of the trash bag to prove to me that I was wrong.  Sigh.  The upshot is I have two posters sitting on my kitchen counter that probably will be there until the year 3000, or at least the next night without a moon! 

Art Work from 2007 That I DID Save!

Have a good day everyone!

Nancy

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Zoo Day and Pictures

Posted on May 9, 2011 | 2 comments

Hi Everyone! 

I hope your weekend went well.  Both zoo day and Mother’s Day went well, so I am now awake, rested, refreshed and ready to face the new work week.  (All right, at least I am awake!)  For a change, I managed to wake up and start writing before the sun rose – the birds appear to be much more enthusiastic about this whole “pre-dawn” thing then I am.  Morning people, how do you do it?

The trip to the zoo was fun.  Basically, the school buses pull up to the zoo and let the kids off, the kids are distributed to assorted parents and then all of us are turned loose for the day with instructions to return at 11 for lunch and 1:00 for bus loading.  In addition to Kayla, I had her friend Rebekah with us.  There is a walk through aviary in the front part of the zoo that Kayla wanted us to go through (twice), so that’s where we started.  Kayla found a feather in there, so I took her picture holding the feather.  I took Rebekah’s picture holding the feather, too.  To forestall any issue about whether Rebekah or Kayla got to keep the feather, I told them they needed to leave it in the enclosure.

We then worked our way around South and North America, including a visit to the reptile house (not my favorite place), the spider monkeys, several tamarin species, the jaguar and the ocelot.  I had to explain to both girls that the “cute” ocelot was not the kind of cat one would really wish to have in their house!  We also saw a sloth bear and several Patagonian capys (imagine something that looks like a cross between a rabbit and a kangaroo, but about three times as big as the rabbit.)   The girls had the chance to go by the otter exhibit also, which is always popular. 

The giraffes and lions are at the very center of the zoo, so you really can’t miss them as you travel across the zoo, and the female lion, the only one out on Friday, was roaring.  With just a little imagination you can see what an eerie sound that would be out in the wilderness. 

After lunch, we rode the train, and then I succumbed to the same temptation that seized most of the other parents at the zoo – I took the girls to the playground, turned them loose and found a comfortable bench.  I was certainly not the only parent found on the park benches around the playground! 

Of course, Mother’s Day was this weekend, and Mark and Kayla had a special surprise planned.   They had gone to Sears and gotten their portrait taken for me.  In addition to having several photos in various sizes printed out, they also purchased the disk of their photos, with a full release of copyright, so I can share some of the pictures with you (Hang in while I go see what Darwin is tossing up and down in his mouth…..ahhh, it’s one of my headbands, but I got it before too much damage was done.  He’s not too happy with me.) 

Anyway, here they are:

I am thrilled with them and am a lucky woman to have such a wonderful family! 

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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6000+ views, Style and Dog Update

Posted on May 6, 2011 | 4 comments

Good morning everyone! 

I am really excited to have passed 6000 views yesterday; thank you for reading this blog!  A view happens every time someone comes to this blog to read something, not the total number of readers, so some of you have done a lot of reading to help me get here.

Kayla just announced that she had her own style; Mark told her that with respect to grammar that wasn’t entirely true.  They are joking with each other as they leave the house, which is always a fun way to start the morning.

Kayla with "her own style" for herself and her pumpkin last Halloween

 

Today is the 3rd grade field trip to the Montgomery zoo.  I am one of the chaperones, and very much look forwarding to it.  I am (again) very grateful to the people at work for their flexibility with a working mom.  I also am lucky about being chosen as a chaperone; for some reason, whenever there is a field trip and I ask to be a chaperone, I get chosen.  I don’t know if that says something about me, about Kayla or both! 

Kayla's First Train Ride at the Zoo (age 4)

I haven’t written much about the dogs lately.  I cooked hamburgers for supper last night on the George Foreman grill, and Mandy came to the kitchen and parked herself between the counter where the grill was and where I was standing in the hopes that a stray speck of meat or fat might fall her way.  When she parks somewhere like that, you can’t move her – it’s like trying to move Mount Rushmore! What she really was hoping was that I would leave so she could lick the fat that drips off from the grill into a special holder, but I was aware of this plan (having observed it in action before) and so put everything out of her reach when I was done, much to her disgust.  That did not stop her from investigating the issue, anyway. 

Mandy, the immovable object

 

I left two pair of shoes out in the bedroom the other morning, and while I was blogging Darwin entertained himself by bringing them out one at a time and “plopping” them down on the floor in front of me to get my attention.  When it didn’t work, he then considerately only chewed one of them, on the place where the shoe manufacturer had sewed on a loop to help you pull the shoe on.   

Please let me go chew something else!

As the weather warms, Tyra is starting to feel a little better; she has twice been able to jump on the bed at night this week without being lifted.  She looks so proud of herself when she does so, but is even prouder when she manages to get one of us to lift her up! 

Tyra Happy

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there, and have a great weekend everyone!

Nancy

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Thoughts on the Way Home from Pri-Med

Posted on May 5, 2011 | 4 comments

Hi Everyone!

Tuesday night, Mark and I decided we both needed to go to Pri-Med as that most elegant of Southern illnesses, the crud, simply refuses to leave us alone even after two (Mark) and one (me) rounds of antibiotics, and it appeared we were headed South towards bronchitis.  Since we went, of course, Kayla had to go too. 

From Print Shop 2.0 Professional

We had a rough start to the evening when I discovered that on the day when Kayla knew she had the most homework to get done for the week, she chose not to do a single bit of it at after school care.  Not her best move with two sick parents!  So she was working on long division in the back seat of the car, while I was trying to help her from the front seat while Mark drove.  Long division is not the best subject to work on for homework at any time; she knows how to do it but wants someone to verify that each step is correct as she does it (not exactly equivalent to actual test conditions!) and if you don’t she tends to get frustrated.  Still, we prevailed somehow.

Kayla's Spring School Picture (Age 9)

When we got to Pri-Med, we had to wait for a while, which gave her time to finish the spelling and the long division, and then once we were in the examination room, we reviewed her science notes.  The doctor came in, looked at us, and sent us home after two shots each (Kayla was quite relieved when she realized it was her parents and not she that had to take the shots) and more prescriptions. 

From Print Shop Professional 2.0

It was on the way home that Kayla became thoughtful.  It had started to rain and she had been chattering away in the back seat without my really paying attention (don’t tell me you don’t do that either sometimes as a parent!) when something she said caught my attention.  I asked her to repeat it and she told me that she knew why clouds rained.  I asked her why, and she told me that just like we get full of water and had to go the bathroom, the clouds get full of water and have to go to the bathroom too.  That’s what I thought I had heard her say originally.  It’s not the most elegant analogy but at the same time, I couldn’t really fault her logic, either.  (When I was her age, we lived in San Diego and went to Sea World frequently, where they had a fountain show about water with a song, and the first lines of that song are indelibly etched in my brain for some reason – “The seas yield vapor to the skies, and the skies return it as rain.”  Isn’t that close to the same thing she is talking about?) 

From Print Shop 2.0 Professional

Then she chattered away some more before announcing that she was starting to not like barbecue, so she was afraid she was turning into a veterinarian.  We corrected her word choice to vegetarian, which she agreed was what she meant, and Mark explained that just because she didn’t necessarily like the barbecue at school anymore, didn’t mean that she wouldn’t like all barbecue, and that there were lots of other meats besides barbecue.  (I promise, folks, we eat lots of meat at home, and most of the time it is not barbecue.)  She was relieved, because I don’t think she really was ready to “turn into” a vegetarian.  

Breakfast with Cheese Grits

I explained that at the end of the school year, (we have about three weeks left) the cafeteria probably is trying to use up everything it can so there isn’t anything left to spoil over the summer.  This observation did not placate her;  she reared up in outrage and said, “Good Grief!  Why on earth don’t they use up all the cheese grits then!”  I wanted to say it was because she probably had eaten all of the school’s stock already  (last I heard, she gets six helpings of the things when they do have them at school) but I didn’t.  After that she got sleepy, which ended her reflections and let us put a sweet, tired little girl to bed when she got home.

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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The Story Behind the Rule: A Scratch, a Rose and a Screen

Posted on May 3, 2011 | 2 comments

Hi Everyone!

From Rules I Never Thought I’d Need:  Do not cut the screen out of its frame in the window.  

When Kayla was in 1st grade, she had walking pneumonia.  Nothing serious, but it was very odd – she never coughed, she never complained of any breathing trouble, she just suddenly spiked a high temperature.  When she had a fever, she felt miserable, but once the Tylenol kicked in, she was fine.  In fact, she was the happiest, healthiest looking sick child I have ever seen.  It was embarrassing sitting in the doctor’s office trying to explain that she was sick when she was so bouncy and happy and looking into everything! 

The only way that the doctors found the pneumonia was through a lung x-ray, and that didn’t happen until the second visit.  The first time I  took her, they tested her for flu and strep (both tests came back negative), so  they decided Kayla had a virus.  When she wasn’t any better after about two days, I took her back to the doctor, and simply because there was nothing else left to look at, they took x-rays of her lungs.  It isn’t often you hear a doctor’s voice float down the hall with a loud “Ah-Hah!” 

All of which is a long way of explaining that she had missed 9 days of school for the year already when one Sunday afternoon, with Mark taking a nap and me working in the kitchen, she came out of her bedroom whispering and gesturing for me to come in there.  When I went, she showed me her arm, where there was a particularly wicked looking scratch – not deep, but jagged and red around the edges.  Because she absolutely could not miss any more school, I needed to know what caused the scratch so I could keep it from getting infected.  I noticed a rose sitting on her bedside table, but I didn’t think much of it – Kayla liked to pick the roses in the front back then and bring one or two in from time to time.

 

After some minutes of whispered questioning so we wouldn’t wake Mark up, she finally mutely pointed to her bedroom window to show where she got the scratch.  When I walked over to it, at first I didn’t notice anything, but then I realized that there was no screen in her window, which explained where both the rose and the scratch came from – our roses are beautiful, but very thorny.  I then thought how smart it was of her to figure out how to open the scree…. At which point I realized the screen was not opened but gone.  Kayla had very neatly cut out the screen from its frame so that she could simply open the window and pick roses without having to travel outside. 

I think it had been out for at least a week, because the week before I had come across some screen mesh in my craft closet, and tried to figure out what on earth I would have needed that for.  If it hadn’t been for the scratch, I probably wouldn’t have noticed the missing screen for months.  

Have a great day!

Nancy

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The Weekend

Posted on May 2, 2011 | 4 comments

Good morning everyone!  I hope all of you had a great weekend.  We had a quiet one but it was enjoyable.  Before we get to that though, I wanted to thank all of you who read this blog – as of this morning, I have 5900 views! 

From Print Shop Professional 2.0

Saturday, Mark and Kayla went on a mysterious shopping expedition, possibly having something to do with the approach of Mother’s Day, but which gave me the uninterrupted run of the house until about 2.  I used this unexpected bonus time to finish the laundry. 

From Print Shop Professional 2.0

Having the laundry finished by Saturday morning is particularly enjoyable because it means there are only minimum chores to do the rest of the weekend, and gave us, on Sunday, that most blessed but most rare of days – a true day of rest.  Having had one, I have to say I could get used to more of them on a regular basis!

After the mysterious shopping expedition, and the subsequent nap, we decided to go bowling.  Bowling, for me, has improved greatly with the greatest of all bowling innovations since pins and balls – the gutter guard!  Without the gutter guards, I am pretty much a scratch bowler in reverse – I will hit the gutter each and every time I touch the ball.  With the gutter guards, I even get spares once in a while, and on a rare day, a strike or two!  Let’s just say that I am the master of the unintended ricochet shot. 

From Print Shop 2.0 Professional

On Sunday, after church, we took our afternoon nap (I have told you before that the Sunday afternoon nap is a solemn ritual at our house.)  Mark had told me to wake him up at 2, so I managed to shake myself awake about 2:30 to go get him up, but he decided he needed another hour.  So, instead, Kayla and I and the three dogs ended up in my bedroom watching TV for an hour.  To keep the dogs quiet I let them out, but after about five minutes, the dogs started pitching a fit, all three barking at full volume. 

Since loud barking is generally not conducive to continuing naps, I sent Kayla out to check on the dogs.  The barking didn’t stop, and she came running back in to tell me I needed to come out there.  When I got out there, I saw what the dogs were barking at – a grey-reddish animal at the bottom of the court our back yard hill overlooks.  Between Kayla and I, we got the dogs back in, which stopped the barking, and then gave us a chance to get a good look at the animal which still hadn’t left the court to melt back into the woods.  It was too long to be a cat or a dog, but we weren’t quite sure what it was until it turned its face where we could see it in a profile – it was a fox!  I have seen a fox in Alabama maybe once before, and then it was running across the road in front of me, so I was more worried about avoiding hitting it then I was in observing, but this fox was determined to put on a show for both of us.  It probably stayed in our sight for a good 15 minutes, strolling along the edge of the woods, stopping to scratch, and looking over at birds who were foolish enough to land on the “For Sale” signs in front of the lot.  It must not have been hungry, though, because it left the birds alone.  For the two of us, it was quite a small town wildlife adventure!

From LookandSee, a WordPress photo blog about living in rural New South Wales in Australia

The picture above may have been taken in Australia, but the grey fox we saw looked just like it!

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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