Tag Archives: family

Sweet Purple Nothings


Good morning Everyone!

Here are the latest updates from the wild and wonderful world of “conversations with a ten year old.”

Purple, from Print Shop Professional 2.0

PURPLE

Riding to the movie Saturday:

Kayla:  Sneezes, then announces, “Mom, my snot is purple.”

Mom, ignoring the fact that she could have gone all day without that particular information:  You’re okay.

Kayla:  Actually, my hands are purple.

Dad: Why are your hands purple?

Kayla:  Actually its my fingers.

Dad:  Why are your fingers purple?

Kayla:  I don’t know…

Mom starts laughing, effectively ending the conversation.

Children's mischief, nothing, print shop professional 2.0

An example of the kind of “nothing” that goes on at our house…

NOTHING

Another conversational trick that Kayla has adopted lately is the convenient use of the word “nothing.”  She however is using it in a slightly different context than the designer of the word intended it to be used.  Most conversations go like this:

Mom, hearing strange and ominous sounds coming from Kayla’s bedroom:  Kayla, what are you doing?

Kayla:  Nothing.

Mom:  What kind of nothing?

Kayla, more angrily:  NOTHING!

Mom sighs, then gets up to investigate, certain to find that “nothing” actually means something, and usually something that she’d rather Kayla not be doing at the moment.

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

Just Sayin’


Good morning everyone!

Here are some observations:

1) You can know the location of every light switch in the house and what light or socket it goes to and you will still manage to turn on the garbage disposal instead of the kitchen light at least twice a week.

2) It takes a child about 10 minutes to get up, dressed and ready to go somewhere.  Multiply that number by at least 6 if you plan to get anywhere on time.

3) All dogs love to sleep.  The signal for them to get up is when you lie down.

4) Adults will irritably tell a child that has been asked to do a chore and who is stalling that the chore is just not that hard and to get on with it.  If that is true, then why aren’t the adults doing it themselves?

5) There’s nothing like moving to a new place.  Thank goodness!

6) The amount of stuff you collect is directly proportional by a factor of twelve to the number of years you live in a house. (Think about it – it will make sense in a minute.)

7) The crinkling of a chip bag is a miracle cure for all dog ailments.  It works well for minor illnesses in children, also.

8) Exactly why does it take five tries for the parental command to proceed past the child’s ears to his or brain and nervous system?

9) You never understand the concept of making a joyful noise until you turn a 10 year old loose on a keyboard when she doesn’t think anyone is paying attention.

10) I have five different sync cables around me, and a universal 3 in 1 cable I bought yesterday.  Not one of them fits the camera I need to download pictures from.

11) While beauty is in the eye of the beholder, God does great work!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Nancy

Attaching the Unattached


Good morning Everyone!

When I load pictures into my blog, I usually just load them straight from the “New Post” page on WordPress, but yesterday morning I decided to check the tab on My Dashboard marked as “Media” (for the uninitiated, I assume that is short for “Media Library”), when I came across a forlorn group of miscellaneous pictures grouped together under the label “unattached.”

Unwilling to allow them to languish forever in this lonely place, I have chosen a few of them to share with you today, accomplishing two purposes – something to write about today, and the creation of a “happily ever after” relationship for the pictures-formerly-known-as-unattached by providing them with an attachment here.

My first picture came from a couple of days before Halloween, when I took pictures of Kayla in the Rapunzel dress my mother made for her this year.   Here, she is working on (pretend) needlework.

Rapunzel, Halloween

My next choice was this picture from Christmas 2007, when Mandy (aka Bad Dog) was investigating what Kayla was up to Christmas morning.

This picture caught Kayla waiting for the Southern Star (one of the dolphin cruise boats in Destin, an experience I highly recommend).

Boat, Southern Star, dolphin

This sunset over the Gulf of Mexico was too spectacular to leave languishing in the realm of the unattached:

Sunset, Gulf of Mexico, Destin

Sunset over the Gulf of Mexico

So was this picture of the bridge across the Destin Pass.

Bridge over the Destin Pass

I loved this picture of Mandy (Bad Dog) looking up from her fortress spot from which to view the world at our old house.

Dog, Couch, Window, husky-basset hound mix

I also liked this picture of Darwin (aka No-No) coming into the kitchen begging for food.  He’s good with the sad face look, isn’t he?

Dog, Labrador Retriever

So there you have them – seven pictures who have happily been relegated from the forlorn category of “Unattached”  to the “Attached”!

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

Through the Donut Hole


Good morning Everyone!

Sinclairs, Lake Martin, Kowaliga

Sinclairs at Lake Martin, from the Sinclair’s website

My mother was visiting us last weekend and while Mom was here we decided to drive over to a restaurant that is on the banks of Lake Martin, Sinclairs on the Lake.  We sat down to a beautiful waterfront view, and an excellent meal, but before the meal arrived, Mark and Kayla completed their ritual walk along the boat pier that lets boats dock right by the restaurant.  While they were doing so, a little black and white cocker spaniel streaked by them, bound and determined to get into the restaurant, having just seen her master go through the door.

Cocker Spaniel

A black and white cocker spaniel similar to the one we saw.

Mark helped to catch her, and inside the restaurant, Mom and I watched the cocker spaniel being brought back to the boat to await her owner, struggling against the leash all the way.

Shadow, Dog

Shadow

It reminded me of an experience we had with our first dog, Shadow.  Even though she was half cocker, half lab, Shadow detested the water.  However, paradoxically, she loved to ride in the boat.  Her favorite speed was wake speed; she would sit in the front of the boat then and enjoy watching the world go by.  Whenever we went faster, my appearance was required in the front of the boat to hold her as we sped through the water.  When she decided that Mark was going too fast, or the ride was too bumpy, she would jump out of my arms and walk back to where Mark was driving, and stare at him.

Bayliner bowrider boat

A new model Bayliner similar to what we owned back in the day from www.bayliner.com

She was the smartest dog we ever owned, hands down, although Tyra comes close.  Once, she was too smart for her own good.

We had taken Mark’s sister, brother-in-law and our nephews, out in the boat, found a likely spot on the lake and anchored the boat where we could play and swim in the water.  One of the toys we were using was a huge inner tube.

Inner Tube

Inner Tube Similar to the One We Owned

We left Shadow in the boat because we knew how much she hated the water.  She sat on the front of the boat, watching us, and we went ahead with our water sport.  Before we  could turn back around, a black streak came flying off of the boat, ringing the inner tube in the center and slipping right through it.

It was at that moment that I learned that dogs could cuss.

Apparently, Shadow had eyed the inner tube carefully, and not realizing the hole in the center was floorless, had decided that she could jump onto the inner tube to be nearer to us as we were playing without getting wet.

She came up from under the inner tube swimming (it’s not that she couldn’t swim; she just hated the water) and mad as a hornet, blaming us for her misadventure.  She did deign, however, to let Mark help her back into the boat as she scrabbled up its fiberglass sides, desperate to get out of the hated water.

All was forgiven, of course, once we all got back in the boat and headed back to the dock.

Dog in Boat

Shadow riding at wake speed.

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

A Funny Short Short – The Ultimate Consumer Complaint of the Future!


Good morning Everyone!

Today, I am sharing with you a short, short story that I wrote last year.  Enjoy!
 
 
 
Robot from Print Shop Professional 2.0
 
Customer Service
Interspace Robotic Corporation
800 New England Way
Venusian Colony #5 
 
Dear Sirs: 
 
Thank you for accepting the return of your Model 3300 Robotic Clone. I am writing to provide you, as you requested, a more specific description of the problems we encountered with the robot.
 
 As promised, the Model 3300, whom we named Gertrude, was a hard worker with detailed knowledge of nutrition, household chores, home repair, and yard work, looked human, and contained an additional logic booster chip which allowed her to make decisions in the best interest of our family without constantly being given specific orders. The problem was that Gertrude was incapable of understanding that, on occasion, the less logical choice was better.
 
 
For example, while Gertrude was correct that vacuuming at non-peak hours was good for the environment, placing less strain on the electrical grid, no-one in our family got any sleep on Tuesday and Friday nights during her 2:00 a.m. house-cleaning sessions. And while shaving the dogs certainly cut down on the amount of dog hair floating around various rooms, I am not sure the dogs have yet gotten over the trauma of being shaved bald in 2.0 seconds flat.
 
In addition, although I have often fantasized about placing my children under house arrest when they fail to clean their rooms and do their homework, and the electronic monitoring bracelets Gertrude designed were quite clever, we found that the Department of Human Resources, Child Welfare Division, had problems both with house arrest and the electric shock the bracelets delivered when one of the children would violate the terms of her confinement. 
 
As another example, the research on nutrition Gertrude performed, and her presentation to the family, was flawless, but after seven days of tofu, fruit and berries for meals, the entire family began to sneak out to stuff ourselves with cheese fries and chocolate sundaes, at least until the location bracelets were placed on the children.
 
My husband has been threatening for years to place Astroturf instead of grass on our yard, but the Covenant Enforcement Committee objected strongly both to it, and the plastic flowers and bushes in front of the house. The members also were singularly unimpressed with Gertrude’s dissertation on individual liberties under the United States Constitution when they came to discuss the issue. 
 
The final straw came the day we returned home from a week’s vacation to find that the wooden floors and carpet throughout the house had been replaced with industrial strength concrete and drains strategically located throughout the house so that the floors could simply be hosed down instead of vacuumed or mopped. The floor and carpet installers both admit that Gertrude did an excellent job, as did the locksmith we called in to bypass the lockout system she placed on our air conditioning system to prevent the thermostat from being set below 82 degrees, but we are not looking forward to the payments on the second mortgage we now need to fix everything back the way it should be. 
 
 
Accordingly, we returned Gertrude to you. 
 
 
Sincerely,
 
Jane Smith
 
P.S. The Covenant Enforcement Committee has asked me to remind you that the restraining order will stay in effect for 10 years.
 
 
 
 
 
Have a great day, everyone!
 
Nancy

You Might Be A Working Parent If…


Good morning Everyone!

You might be a working parent if:

You ever took the day off from work just to clean your house.

You end up working third shift to complete a work project because you promised your child you would go on the zoo field trip with her.

The people at the drive-thru at McDonald’s have your order ready for you when you get there.

You consider Kraft Macaroni and Cheese to be one of the essential food groups.

Your blood pressure automatically skyrockets when you hear the words, “Mom, I forgot to tell you…..”

Menu planning for the week includes deciding which day you will be serving spaghetti, which day you will be serving fish sticks, which night is TV Dinner night and the other two week nights are reserved for take out.

You have ever wondered irritably why on earth schools can’t have their award ceremonies at 6 in the evening instead of 9 in the morning.

You look longingly at parents who do not work outside the home and think how nice their life must be.  (Trust me, it’s just as hard for them as it is for us.)

You have ever chosen a doctor, dentist, vet or carpet cleaner based solely on the fact that he or she has evening hours.

The HazMat team is on speed dial for those rare days when you finally are able to clean out the refrigerator.

They also are on stand by when you clean out your car.

They have your pantry on their watch list, also.

And, finally,

You might be a working parent if you know with certainty that insanity is hereditary – you can get it from your kids!

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

Reunion!


Good morning Everyone!

Question Mark

I really can’t help it;  last night while we were getting ready for bed and now, at an ungodly hour of the morning when even the birds are only just stretching themselves awake, I know they’re here.  I’m sure they don’t mean to intrude upon my consciousness,innocently sitting over there at the dining room table, but I keep thinking about them.  The whole family welcomed them; even the dogs know that they’re here.  After all, it’s been a while.

I’ve known them and loved them ever since I was a child, but now that I am older, I don’t get to visit with them nearly as often as I’d like, making our reunion  even more special.

There’s really nothing like them.  Content in their insular world, they have remained essentially unchanged and constant my entire life.  Sweet, consistent, a little square around the edges, sugar-coated but still cool, sanity in an insane world, I just can’t help thinking about them.  We were able to visit a little bit last night, but the rest of our visit will have to wait until later.

After all, I think I’d get sick if I ate 32 strawberry frosted Pop-Tarts at one sitting…

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

Our New Home


Hi Everyone!

As I told you in an earlier post, Catching Up, we have been in the process of moving from our old house to a house in the town where I work.  I’m not ready to take pictures of the inside yet as it stands now, since we’re still working on it, but I thought I’d share the following pictures I took of the house when we were looking at it, deciding whether we would rent it or not.

I am not sure how far the reach of HGTV is, but for those of you who are familiar with Househunters and Househunters International and the various other types of Househunter shows, there really aren’t too many original ways to show someone a house.  I used to wonder why people on the show couldn’t say something more original than “Oh, look, here’s the kitchen” when they walked in the kitchen.  I know now it’s because our brains are hard-wired somehow to do it  – when you walk in a kitchen on a house tour, the words just pop out of your mouth.  That being said, let’s start our tour…

House Front and Front Yard

Our New House, a view of the front yard and front of the house.

I was extremely fortunate to get to look at the house when some of the spring flowers were still blooming.  Here is a view just of the front yard from the side of house.

Front Yard

Front Yard

The dogwoods were still in bloom. One of the best things about the front yard is the number of trees that are in it. The trees in the front yard include several very tall pines, as well as the dogwoods and then a mix of hardwoods off to the left side.

Here is the first room in the house, at least for company. The door standing open is the front door of the house. We are using it as a living room/den.

The wooden floored portion of the house gives way in the dining room to linoleum. This is a view of the dining room from the kitchen. In this picture, the living room would be just to the left of the dining room.

Kitchen

Kitchen View 1

Here is one view of the kitchen. While it is small, it has a lot of cupboard space for its size, as well as a full complement of kitchen appliances.

Kitchen

A second view of the kitchen, closer in

In this second view of the kitchen, you can see the door leading out to the garage over on the right.

One really nice feature of the house is the sun room. To reach it, you go straight through the living room and dining room from the front door, then walk down one step. The door to the right leads out to the back yard, while the door on the left leads into the laundry room.

Laundry Room

Huge Laundry room!

One unusual feature of the house is this huge laundry room. I have never seen one so big before! I have wondered why the people who added the laundry room to this house made it so big, but have no answers to that question.

Hallway

Hallway

Let’s go back to the living room, and turn down the hallway that leads to the bedrooms and bathrooms. There are three bedrooms, and two bathrooms, plus a coat and linen closet.

bathroom

Master Bathroom

I never got a good picture of the whole hallway bathroom, but here is a picture of the incredibly tiny miniscule no room to turn around in adorably cute postage stamp sized master bathroom, so-called because it is off of the largest bedroom.

Master Bedroom

Master Bedroom

Here is a picture of the second biggest bedroom, which is Kayla’s.

Second Bedroom

The third bedroom is much the same, only smaller, so I will save the picture space and journey onward to the back and side yards. Here is a picture of the back yard, which is very large.

Back yard

Back yard

This picture above was taking from the sunroom door looking toward our back neighbors. The back yard is huge! Even better, since this picture was taken, it also has had a wooden privacy fence installed in it, so the dogs are where they can go outside and play, even Tyra.

The Side of the House

The Side of the House

The picture above finishes the tour. It shows the side of the house without the garage.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes our tour. Thank you for traveling with WMA (“Working Mom Adventures) tours, and please, as you exit the vehicle, secure all your stray belongings and grasp small children firmly by the hand!

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

Miss me?


Hi Everyone!

It’s been a while since I posted, the longest amount of time ever since I started writing this blog, and I just wanted you to know that I haven’t forgotten you, and miss you quite a bit; we are just in an exceptionally fluid time right now that is taking a lot of time and energy.  To give you a sense of what is going on, let me give you the approximate timeline:

(Warning:  Any hint of anything that sounds like whining is purely intentional – I have to let it out somewhere!; please ignore it)

1) Tyra goes suddenly blind.  Family (including Tyra) adjusts.

2)  Grandpa has heart attack on March 13; Dad, who was about 8 hours away and in the process of returning home from just spending a week in Illinois, turns back.

3) Thursday, March 15.  Mark goes to a job interview.

4) We get the good news that Grandpa is better, and is at home.  (March 17).  I talk to him and Dad that day.

5)  Monday, March 19 at 5:00 p.m.  We learn that Grandpa has died.

6) Tuesday, March 20 – I have doctor’s appointment, Mark has second interview for job.  Mom heads to our house so we can head up to Illinois for Grandpa’s funeral.

7) March 21 – 25.  Either traveling to, staying at, or coming back from, funeral in Illinois.

8)  Kayla has spring break.  March 26-30.  Mark gets job offer at new job in Georgia and accepts it.  March 26.  Mom stays for part of spring break to spend time with Kayla, which we enjoy very much.

9) Kayla goes back to school.  March 26.  Mark gives notice at his current job.  March 26.  We decide where we are going to live (which is in the town where I work) and I begin search for rental house.  (March 26 – 30.)  Put our house up for sale by owner.  (March 27.)

10) Saturday, March 31 .  Mark and Kayla come up to look at potential rental houses with me.

11) Monday, April 2.  We make a decision on a rental house; I start working on lease application and other details.  We plan the first move (some stuff to the rental house, some stuff to stay in our house).

12) Easter Weekend, from Thursday night through Monday – we go to beach.

13) Tuesday, April 10 – Mark starts new job in Franklin, Georgia.  Kayla and I are playing bachelorette for this week, with the three dogs to help us out.  We also are doing a little bit to get us ready to move some stuff to the rental house on Saturday.

14) April 10 – 11 – I get cable, phone and internet at new house set up; am still working on the utilities.

15)  In the meantime, I have been going to Physical Therapy to work on my Achilles tendons three times a week for the past two weeks.  Physical Therapy takes about 3 hours.

So, as you can see, it’s not that I have exactly been wasting my time frivolously; it’s just that I don’t seem to quite have enough hours in the day to accomplish what I need to get done!  Relief is on the horizon though; once we get moved at least partially to the rental house, one major task will be off our to do list, which always makes everything else more manageable.

Have a great day everyone!  I’ll find something more interesting to share with you tomorrow.

Nancy

Grateful


My grandfather died yesterday.  I tell you this not to solicit condolences but so I can tell you a little about him.  Sometime later I will do a more comprehensive post, but here are some things you  may be interested to know.

He was 92 years old, and lived independently with just a little bit of assistance up until the very end.

He was born in 1919/1920 in Pasco, Washington.  No one who knew him from the time he was 18 forward would ever have guessed that he was born there, since he spent the rest of his life in the small town in Illinois where he met my grandmother, courted her, married her and raised their son, my father.  In the same town, he and Grandma created a paradise during the summer time for their three grandchildren when we came to visit, and spoiled us rotten.

Grandpa took three small girls under the age of 11 (1p, 8 and 6) fishing, and not only lived to tell the tale, but seemed to enjoy it.

At the age of six, Grandpa’s father decided the family had to return to Illinois from Washington to take care of his parents , so around 1925/1926, Great-Granpda, Great-Grandma, Grandpa’s two older sisters and Grandpa traveled by car from Pasco, Washington to Illinois.  Traveling by car those days was very different from today, and I can’t wait to write about it more in detail sometime.

There are a large group of cousins in Illinois who also think of Grandpa (and Grandma) as extra grandparents, too.  For years after Grandma and Grandpa retired, they took care of these cousins when school was out and the cousins’ parents had to work, or when the cousins weren’t feeling well and the parents had to work, and many times just because Grandma and Grandpa wanted the chance to have them over and watch them play.

Grandma and Grandpa were very excited when we adopted Kayla.  They both loved her dearly and did everything they could to let her know that.  Kayla loved them , too.

The computer age began in force when Grandpa was in his 70’s.  He got a computer and dived right in, becoming proficient with Facebook, e-mail, and scanning photographs and sending e-mails about them to all of his family scattered across the country.

With his computer, he did some work on genealogy, too, continuing a work his mother had started, and sharing the results with us, another story I will share with you one day.

He and Grandma had two dogs that I can remember.  They had Clyde, who was originally our dog, but who we had to give away when I was in 1st or 2nd grade to them because of a transfer to a place with base housing that didn’t take dogs.  Clyde was an all black dachsund beagle mix.  Clyde and Granpda were buddies.  Grandpa loved to see Clyde chase rabbits and possums, and anything else Clyde decided to go after.

Grandma and Grandpa got Pepper much later in life, after they retired.  Pepper was a miniature poodle, and although I don’t believe in reincarnation, if I had to come back as a dog, Pepper certainly would qualify as a great dog to have come back as.  Pepper got long walks with Grandpa every day, got to ride in the car whenever they went out of town to go shopping in the nearest city, usually about 45 minutes away at least, and had a special place on the couch, a bed and the armchair where she could sleep during the day as she chose.

I love him, and I will miss him.  Most importantly, I will see him and Grandma again.

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy