The Queen's Rambles

I am in way, way over my head. I don’t know what to do. I am so irritated with myself for thinking I am super woman and can do everything. I am so irritated with other people who don’t answer e-mails and aren’t willing to answer questions.

Did I mention the science program that I was hoping our school would offer? I think I did. It is an afterschool program ran by a non-profit organization. They can only operate if they have a PTA coordinator. Everyone said it was oh-so-easy. The coordinator just passes out the fliers, tallies up the registration and sends out a few e-mails.

Ha.

Hahahahahahahaha.

Our school decided we could do it and I am the coordinator.

I spent over an hour at the school making copies yesterday while Elsa was strapped into her stroller. Thankfully she was pretty content as long as I kept feeding her crackers. I do not want to feed her crackers for an hour.

Now the questions are rolling in and I have no freakin’ clue how to answer them. How does the activity bus work? I don’t know. Who will make sure the kindergartners walk from the door of their home room to the door of the science room? I don’t know. A grown-up or patrol, I would assume? Who is eligible for a scholarship? I don’t know. Oh! Now I know! I can give out three scholarships at my discretion. Awesome, but also kind of uncomfortable to have that kind of power.

How do I get answers to these questions? I need to talk to the PTA president. She does not answer e-mail. It is incredibly, incredibly annoying to send these e-mails out to the void with questions that need a timely response and get nothing.

So the principal said something about the vice-principal knowing about the activity bus. I thought “a-ha! I’ll ask her! I bet she knows stuff.” I got a very rude e-mail back saying that she does not have the answers to any of my questions and I need to talk to the PTA president.

I wanted to slap the biatch. There is no need for rudeness. This is a program that will greatly benefit the students at her school. It is reasonable to assume someone at the school could tell me something.

So now I guess I will get on the phone and call the president. She is nice to talk to, but I always feel like such a bother when I call someone. What if they are in middle of something else? Ugh.

I am never volunteering for anything again.

We all believe that, right?

ETA: All that irritation and I just had a great phone conversation with the PTA president. Maybe phone calls aren’t so bad.

Last night Erik was taking his shower and I was instructing him on all the parts he needed to wash. He does it himself, but if it was up to him he wouldn’t use any soap or do any scrubbing. In fact, if it was up to him he would never take a bath/shower.

This is a little personal now that he is older, but he is not circ’d. There is a lot of misconception about uncirc’d boys and how to properly take care of the equipment. Basically, you do nothing with it for several years. It takes 4-6 years before the foreskin loosens and can be pushed back and cleaned. The best way to cause problems with an uncirc’d penis is to push the foreskin back and clean the area before the skin loosens.

Erik is finally at a point where we need to worry about this, so I was instructing him to take care of business.

Erik: Mom, quit talking to me. I can handle it myself.

Me: Ok, but you really need to keep it clean.

Erik: Mom, if you tell your boyfriend how to handle his wiener he’s going to slap you.

Me: (blank, thinking What the actual FUCK?) What do you mean?

Erik: Boys can handle their own wieners. You’re going to get slapped when you start telling your boyfriend how to handle his.

Me: If someone slaps me I will call the police and they’ll go to jail. Besides, I don’t have a boyfriend.

Erik: Well, daddy will slap you if you tell him how to handle his wiener.

Me: Do you really think daddy would ever slap me? Have you ever seen daddy slap me?

Erik: Hmmmm. . . I guess not.

So while Erik is finishing up, I go in and whisper this conversation to Mike because it is so upsetting and strange. Mike doesn’t know what to say, so he just goes “oooooookaaaaaay.”

When I come out of the room, Erik is standing at the door listening and informs me that “Daddy just said ok because he doesn’t want to hurt your feelings, but it is not ok!”

I just can’t get over the fact that he thinks boyfriends slap women when they say things they “shouldn’t” say. And, of course, I can’t stop giggling hysterically at the phrase “handle your wiener.”

We had a very successful first day of school in these parts, even if it did begin with utter panic. I was surprised when we got the bus schedule and it said the new time was 8:24. I couldn’t even begin to guess how the bus was going to get to school on time, much less let the free/reduced lunch kids have time for breakfast. I thought it must have some magical Knight Bus properties that I wasn’t aware of and thanked my lucky stars for the extra 15 minutes.

That all came crashing down at 8:11, when the bus rumbled by. The whole neighborhood went flying out the doors with clothes half-buttoned, no name tags for the lower elementary kids, and shoes in hand. The bus driver had no idea that we were told the bus came at 8:24 and he was just as confused as me about how he would be able to get to school in time. There is no magic button.

I hosted a Mommies and Muffins breakfast as a special back-to-school thing. I had seven moms and ten toddlers in my teeny-tiny townhouse. Somehow it all worked and we all sat around my super small living room while the kids rolled around. This was a MOMS Club event so it could have drawn in a crowd that I didn’t totally love, but somehow it ended up being all moms that I really, truly enjoy spending time with. Fun morning!

Elsa, my little shy darling, was not impressed. She will play with kids when we are out and about but she hates company. She went to the basement and refused to come upstairs. Our Wii-mote is missing so she couldn’t get a show for herself. When I checked on her she was happily watching Food Network. Goofball.

Yesterday Erik watched Cupcake Wars and then decided he could create his own cupcake creation. I decided to let go of control and let him do it. I hate letting go of control.

Surprisingly, his recipe turned out pretty good. The cupcakes had a slightly strange texture and didn’t really rise properly but were not terrible. I was disappointed because it meant that Erik was justified in his own brain with his thoughts of cupcake cooking grandeur. Of course, the kid can whip up a batch of brownies almost entirely on his own so it is not like he is a completely inexperienced baker.

The frosting was another story–it completely flopped. Mwahahahaaha. Should have listened to your mother, kid!

Still tasty, but very soupy. We tried to inject them into the cupcakes and that was a big fail.

My mom never ever ever would have let me do something like that, so I always feel like I’m doing something weird when I let him experiment like that. Like I shouldn’t let him fail and I shouldn’t let him waste food. But then I breathe and tell myself that even though it is food, it is cheaper than crappy plastic toys that he plays with for three minutes and ignores. At least he is learning some practical real world skills when I let him cook his crazy recipes.

But back to the first day of school! I think it went well. Erik was happy and bubbly when he came home and was even eager to do his homework (filling out a poster about himself and decorating it). I know it was just the first day high, but I am hoping things continue on a good path.

In other good news, a friend brought me a printer she no longer wanted because it didn’t have wi-fi. All because I threw a fit on FB. I guess FB is good for something! I went and bought ink for it today and Mike is getting it set up. I may be able to get some work done without pulling my hair out. How does a person without a job have so much crap to print? I need to start making to-do lists again. Not simple ones either, but a whole big chart with my tasks divided up. I am doing three things for the PTA, getting Campfire rolling again, and still heavily involved in MOMS Club. It’s getting to be a lot. I am excited about Campfire. We went to a training this weekend and learned a lot of really great stuff. They are re-branding and rolling out national ads in the next few weeks. If you were ever considering Campfire, now is the time to join! I highly recommend contacting your state council even if you don’t think they have clubs in your area. They generally don’t advertise the small family clubs.

And now I am going to go watch Grimm and enjoy the rest of my evening!

We met Erik’s teacher today, and I think everything may be ok. Of course, I thought that last year too and we know how that turned out.

Maybe the principal really did take my notes into consideration. I asked that Erik be placed with someone who understands wiggly boys. His new teacher has two sons, ages 6 & 9. No guarantees, of course, but I’m guessing she will have a broader picture of boys than last year’s teacher, who only had a toddler daughter.

I posted the teacher’s name on FB and got two encouraging replies from moms who have had boys in this teacher’s class. I know one of the boys pretty well (he’s our closest neighbor), so am feeling much more confident about this year.

So the teacher can handle boys, but can she handle bright children? That is the other piece of the puzzle. Erik taught himself division yesterday. He’s no expert yet, but most first graders are still using their fingers to add single digit numbers. How is she going to handle it when she’s trying to teach them the basics of subtraction (their big push at the beginning of the year, I think) and he is begging for something more advanced? Time will tell, I suppose.

Guess I better go to bed and stop posting. Mike is giving me the sigh. I have to get up early tomorrow and go to a Campfire training all day. I really hope Erik enjoys Campfire more this year and I am not wasting my time. At least we have a much better idea of what we are doing so we should be able to do a better job of mapping out the year and getting the kids out in nature. I kind of wish I didn’t have strong moral convictions and could just send him to Boy Scouts, but I have never been one to compromise on things that are important to me so I just can’t do it.

This week has been zooming by. On Tuesday I managed to fit in five separate activities. FIVE! That’s way too much, even for me. They were all enjoyable, and most of them were things I really wanted to do (except the stuffing of envelopes), but still. Hectic is my middle name sometimes

I walked in to our envelope stuffing session and was handed a pen. I was very, very confused.

Me: Where’s the labels?
Her: I thought it would be just as easy to hand address 100 envelopes!
Me: Ummmmmmm. . . I’ll be the paper folder.

I’ve been extremely busy with volunteer work. Our MOMS Club took over the local preschool fair and we are trying to make it a success. In the past they had it in middle of the week for an hour between senior tai chi and lunch at the community center. They had very little publicity and only asked preschools to donate $5 to cover costs. Most of the schools didn’t pay a dime.

We are totally changing it up based on feedback from parents and schools. It’s going to be in the evening for three hours at a completely different location. We want to buy some ads and see if we can stir up some interest with the local paper and radio (tie it in to a service project, most likely) The kicker is, we are charging $25/table to cover our costs. Will the preschools actually pay for this or will we fail dismally?

I said I’d do the publications side of things, including the website. Originally they had this huge list of things they wanted on the website and I knew it was completely out of my skill set. I told them I would look into hiring a professional web developer if they really wanted to have online registration and all that. Thanks Kisha, for being my go-to web Jedi!

When I came back with the price they turned green and decided my tiny skill set was good enough. Sorry Kisha, for not bringing you the money. I kind of suspected that would happen, though.

I think I have most of my work done now, so at least that little project should calm down. I want to thank those of you who gave me input on FB last night. I desperately needed a good editor to look things over, but the rest of the committee does not specialize in nit-picky grammar problems. They are great at encouragement “Great job! Looks AWESOME! Don’t change a thing!” which is nice for my ego, but not so nice for a website that needs to look professional. Website is here for the curious.

One big publication down, several to go! I have two newsletters to put together and a PTA directory to plan. I know how to bog myself down, don’t I?

We get to meet Erik’s teacher tomorrow afternoon and then on Monday Erik starts first grade! Summer has flown by, but this past week has lasted forever. Strange how that works. I would love summer if it wasn’t for all the kid-fighting in my basement.

We only made it to the splash park once this year, though we did do a few pool dates with friends. Glad I didn’t invest in the season pass package. We went to a new-to-us water park yesterday, so that was fun if a bit chilly (only 85, so the kids were all shivering!). A friend bought a Groupon to this park, but was unable to use it so passed it along to me, otherwise I never would have tried out this place. It ended up being great for Elsa, not so great for Erik.

Elsa is my little water baby and spent two hours going down a water slide. I was so impressed with the other kids–even though she kept cutting in front of them they never seemed to mind and were very patient with her. The only problem came along when a couple of 10 year old girls showed up and decided to dictate the line. They weren’t letting anyone go down and were just generally imposing chaos on little kid order. I was glad when they gave up the fight and left. Suddenly things improved significantly.

Erik, on the other hand, was not happy. They don’t allow floaties in the deep end of the pool or on the big kid slide. He refused to even attempt to doggie paddle. Screaming in my ear was much more fun, you know? I think he will have to take swimming lessons again next summer, even if he hates every second of it.

We witnessed a dramatic water rescue, which was kind of exciting (since no one was actually hurt). All of a sudden there was a loud spur of whistling and a lifeguard was running down the steps and diving into the pool. Suddenly there was a swarm of lifeguards from all over the place, all diving in and helping out. I could see a young teen who was clearly struggling and an older girl trying to help him. As you probably know, helping a drowning person without proper equipment or knowledge only ends up with two drowned people. He was panicked and pushing her down, so they were both in trouble. The lifeguard saved them and everyone was happy again.

Subject change:

I have most of the pieces purchased for Erik’s Halloween costume. I bought Elsa a monkey costume last week since she is obsessed with Curious George. Erik wants to be the Man in the Yellow Hat, which surprised me a lot–no complaints, though. I was able to find most of the pieces pretty cheaply online. The tie and shirt came from a school uniform company. I ordered a yellow bucket sunhat from a discount hat place. It doesn’t have that silly tall aspect of TMwtYH’s hat, but I think it will work just fine. I am just waiting on an eBay auction for the yellow pants. If I don’t win that, I think he will just have to wear yellow sweat pants.

I like it when a plan comes together! He is completely stoked about this idea, and I’m pretty excited myself. It’s fun to have a theme.

And you know what else is awesome? Elsa is finally fitting into her 3T clothes! She was so barrel chested that she needed 4T shirts for awhile, which are not at all proportional for a two year old. She is really thinning out and we were able to go backwards into the 3T stuff. Now she gets to wear clothes that have the armholes and hems in the proper place! Makes my mommy heart happy because I like my kids to be well dressed. That ship has sailed with Erik, but I might have a few more months of dressing Elsa like a little fashionista before she goes the way of T-shirts or god-awful sequins and rainbows.

Next time I volunteer to do something, will someone please drag me from the room, tie my hands up, duct tape my mouth and take me shopping?

I am so good at thinking “Hey! I can do that!” And you know what? Generally I can do that, whatever that may be. But why do I have to do everything. Isn’t there some other person on this earth who could do a little something?

I’m getting just a weeeeeeeeee bit burnt out on all my volunteer work.

Why do I keep adding things to the mix? GRRRRRRR.

There’s a non-profit company that offers after school science classes to area schools. I know tons of kids in this program and everyone keeps asking me why Erik doesn’t take these classes. Simple: our school does not offer them.

My friend just became the coordinator of the program at her school, so of course we started talking about it. The company provides the teacher and everything, they just need a coordinator to set up the times and keep track of the kids.

My friend sent me a link so I sent in a request for information. I was really hoping they would say that I could pick Erik up from school and take him over to this other school for the program.

Instead, the person I e-mailed told me I was the new coordinator and she’d be sending me a packet of information via the PTA mailbox.

When I let her know that it was just a request for information and I had no authority to establish this program in our school, though I was willing to be coordinator she told me to “just inform the principal and PTA president that you are the new coordinator and you need to know what days work best for our program.”

I don’t know about you, but I am certainly not informing the principal of any such thing.

I asked the PTA president about it and never heard back, so then I sent an e-mail to both her and the principal asking about it. That got her attention. She e-mailed me back with a list of reasons why this was a bad idea, so I guess it won’t happen. After school programs have to pay rent to the school district for use of the classrooms and the PTA isn’t going to pay for this program. Maybe next year.

You know what I really hate about our school district? It is not an independent entity. It is run by the county government, which really sucks on a lot of different levels. I’ve never heard of a principal being unable to assign classroom space for programs that help enhance student learning. Of course all schools do offer space for rent to outside agencies, but they don’t usually charge for this type of program (as far as I know). Apparently the PTA even has to pay to rent space for PTA meetings and special events for students. I find that completely ridiculous. It is more than just a nominal fee to pay for the custodian and electricity, from what I can tell.

The principal never got back to me.

I am trying to stay cool, calm and collected in regards to this school year. I am not going to try to talk to the teacher until about three weeks in. This was suggested by a teacher and I think it sounds good. Teachers are really busy the first few weeks of school, so we’ll wait and see what happens and if I need to have a come to Jesus talk with the teacher or not.

I can’t homeschool. I proved that today.

Last month I bought a subscription to the Magic School Bus science club. We get a new set of science experiements each month. Today we tried to do our August experiments and it was a miserable fail. Elsa was very interested in ruining everything we were doing. Erik was not interested in following directions or listening to the reasoning behind everything. He was interested in beating down Elsa when she would steal his pipette. I was interested in everyone just sitting still, being quiet and listening for once in their lives.

Failure all around! Elsa was the only happy person in this equation.

Ok, guess I better go make our nightly smoothies and then try to work on this stupid website that I am supposed to be setting up. I hate website building in this day and age. It took me a lot of cursing just to set up the domain name servers because godaddy is completely counter-intuitive. Then when I got to my dreamhost web panel it became apparent that there was a fucking pirate taking control of my accounts so I still have to clean up one of my sites. No telling what horrible virus they’ve planted. I am ready for the death penalty to extend to hackers.

I realize that made zero sense to 85% of you. Sorry! I am frustrated.

Thanks, everyone, for trying to talk me down. I really need to keep in mind that a new teacher will make all the difference. Erik had a completely awful year with his regular teacher, but the second his long term sub showed up life was ok. She had his number in about 5 seconds and he completely loved her. Our home life was much better for those nine weeks.

I need to chill out.

But then I worry that I under react and don’t fight when I need to fight. Sure, I might talk smack here, but I am much to compliant when I come face to face with The Teacher.

I’m really hoping he gets the male teacher. Maybe that would be an awful choice for him, since I don’t actually know the guy, but my gut is telling me that having a male authority figure would be beneficial. Of course, this guy might be a total jackass and I would hate him. But do total jackasses usually want to teach first grade? Don’t they usually go for middle school PE? Sorry, total stereotype. I don’t really mean it. I watched the first episode of Wonder Years yesterday for funsies.

We were invited to fill out a form to help the principal match child and teacher, and we were also invited to e-mail our private concerns. You can bet your sweet bippy I made use of both. I hope the principal took me seriously.

I went to a PTA planning meeting on Tuesday night and the principal was there. He is very much in summer mode and from what I picked up from him I don’t think it would be helpful to meet with him just yet. He would say whatever I wanted to hear and completely brush me off unless I could come in with an actual concrete problem.

Thank you all so much for listening to me and helping me work out what I need to do. I thought I was over this and ready to move forward, so it was a big shock to my system when I started crying. And once the tears started, they don’t seem to be able to stop. Erik thinks I have an eye infection and is ready to administer eye drops.

Anyway, guess I better get started on my day. Elsa has her class, Erik has a camp directly after, I have to create registration forms for the preschool fair that we are hosting. I swear I am a work-a-holic without a job. I need to give myself a break from all my volunteer work.

I surprised myself yesterday and had a complete breakdown.

The trigger? An Ask Moxie post about fears for the school year.

Turns out I have a few. More than a few, actually. In some ways I feel like I completely failed Erik last year by not being more demanding. Why didn’t I become the squeaky wheel and make his teacher pay more attention to his needs? Especially when it became abundantly clear that she just didn’t like him as a person.

He has already informed me that he is not going back to school, that he hates school, that it’s a useless waste of his time.

No rising first grader should feel that way. I suppose it is not really a failure on my part. I could not control the teacher. I gave her plenty of ideas on ways to make Erik enjoy class more and she refused them all.

I dread another awful year. Every time I think about it I start crying. I want to have a conference with his new teacher right away and make a game plan for the year, but then I fear that I will be labelled as the crazy parent and he will be labelled a difficult kid and the year will be worse than ever. What is too much and what is too little? My normal meter is broken. In my family we were taught to shut up and take it because obviously we knew nothing and the people in authority knew everything. It is very hard to overcome that mentality.

I have one suggestion that I really want the teacher to hear, understand and act upon. Just one. I think it would make a world of difference in Erik’s attitude towards school. I don’t know how to make it happen and I am afraid that if I have a meeting and I’m met with resistance I will start sobbing or yelling and stomp out while screeching that I’m going to become a homeschooler and they’ll never see Erik again. That’s the kind of place I’m at with the whole school thing and you KNOW I do not want to be a homeschooler. I do not have the patience for it and in general I don’t think it would be the best course for Erik.

What I want? Something so simple I don’t understand why it can’t be implemented. Yet his kindergarten teacher refused to even consider the idea, so maybe I am way off base.

Generally when students finish their work they are asked to sit quietly and read a book. He HATES reading a book. He’ll do it, but he feels like it is a punishment. Mike and I are huge readers so this is very hurtful, but it is what it is.

I would like them to let him sit and do word problems. It’s still reading, but it has a math component and he is in seventh heaven when he gets to do story problems. He’s completed a few word problem books this summer and would love to do more.

I am happy to provide them. Obviously I would prefer if the school provided them since they have more resources, but I will buy as many damn story problem books as they want if they will just let this happen.

Up until last year I would always try to give the teacher the benefit of the doubt any time I heard a story like this. I would always point out the good things about public education. I’ve been a public school teacher. It’s no secret they are seriously overworked, underpaid and have a lot of rules to follow and roles to fill that take away from actual teaching.

I’m starting to hate public education. How is my child ever going to reach his potential, when he spends the vast majority of his school time waiting for his teacher to catch a few slower kids up to an acceptable standard? Great teachers can handle the various levels in the class and make learning meaningful for everyone, but how many great teachers are there?

Children who are ahead of the game were completely ignored in Erik’s class last year. I know people have been saying this for years, but I guess it didn’t hit me until I saw it happening to my own child. I kept thinking that everyone was exaggerating and trying to seek out more than their own special snowflake deserved, but no. Erik was lucky if he got to go to reading group once a week. Other kids were in reading group every day. So what was he doing while his teacher worked with small groups? Probably staring in the mirror (that’s all he did the day I was in for observation).

Anyway, I have to quit typing now. I have to quit thinking so negatively. I don’t know how to stop, though. A good teacher will make all the difference, but I won’t have any idea if he has a good teacher until much to late to do anything about it. I know nothing about any of the teachers, and even if I did we don’t find out class assignments until the Friday night before school starts.

I really wanted to like the new show, Bunheads. For those not in the know, it’s the newest creation from the creator of Gilmore Girls. I loved Gilmore Girls (most of the time), so I was excited that there might be another magical girly show with fast wit and quirky charcters! And really? This is almost a Gilmore Girls Redux. One main character comes straight from the cast of Gilmore Girls. The other main character could be a Lorelei clone in both looks and personality.

So I’ve been watching and trying to convince myself that it’s fun.

But it’s not.

It’s full of fat hate.

I could understand a lot of body issues with the girls. They are ballerinas after all. Ballerinas are supposed to look a certain way, so body image angst would be natural there. And believe me, there is angst. They are always picking on one girl for being fat. They dress her in high waisted pleated jeans! WTF??? There is some good–the dance teacher tries to encourage her. But the whole thing is very uncomfortable for me, even if it is understandable.

But the rest of the body hate? It’s just gross. There’s a fat mom who is always trying to give her daughter really unhealthy food. The mom is portrayed as supportive and fun, if scatter brained. As a fat woman myself, I’ve got to say that I would NEVER push unhealthy food on my children if they didn’t want it. I don’t want them to be fat! I will love them if they are fat, but it is a terrible way to live (until you finally reach acceptance, if you ever do) and I do everything in my power to get them to eat healthy food in correct portions.

The latest episode has a fat lady who is totally rude for no apparent reason. Then they spend quite a bit of time talking about how fat and rude she is. I think that did it for me. There was no point to the whole sequence other than pure fat hate.

The acting is bad, the plot is thin. I am not going to subject myself to fat hate just to hope to recapture some of the fun of a show I used to like. This is no Gilmore Girls.

1) Erik wants a bowling birthday party! Whoo-hoo! I am going to book that sucker on Monday and call it good. For the longest time he wanted an Angry Birds party with real angry birds. I am not a party planner extraordinaire. I had no idea how to pull that off. I can’t have a party at my house due to space limitations and because I just plain ol’ don’t want to deal with that many people at my house or deal with hosting duties. It is well worth the money to pay someone else to set-up, clean up and entertain a bunch of children for a couple hours.

2) Mike hung up my new jewelry display thing and I LOVE it.

Unfortunately the colors are completely wrong in this picture. The flash is evil, I guess. If you’ve known me long, you know I am obsessed with the turquoise colored things. When I custom ordered it from Etsy I wasn’t thinking and said “ohhhhh! Turquoise! Gimme!” While I was waiting for it to arrive I suddenly realized that hanging a turquoise colored jewelry display on a turquoise wall (dark turquoise, even! Unlike the picture!) might be an awful idea. Happily, it looks just fine. It might have really popped in black or white, but I am quite pleased with how it turned out.

3) I can wear titanium earrings! I ordered some from Etsy and they don’t kill my ears. Only problem: my darling daughter wants to rip them straight from my lobes. Incredibly painful. You know what they should do to torture prisoners? Tie up the bad guys, then let a bunch of toddlers in the room. Give them books, drums, dolls. . . soon enough the bad guys will be so bruised and battered they’ll tell you anything. Toddlers know no limits.

Anyway! I can wear titanium earrings and my best friend just happens to be a jewelry maker who specializes in metal work. She says she will convert all my earrings to titanium for me! I went through everything and I only have a couple of pair that I really want converted. I am going to do a little earring shopping to bulk up my collection. I love earrings and have really missed wearing them these past 20 years.

4) I finally know what a budgie is! Not that this was a problem I knew I had, and obviously it could have been solved by a google search at any time in my long, illustrious internet career. I bet a dictionary would have helped pre-1997.

I’ve heard about these creatures for years in British and Australian literature. I thought maybe they were hedgehogs or a type of small dog. I had no idea they were parakeets. I posted a picture of my kids in a bird display with a caption that said they were feeding canaries. One of my Australian friends pointed out that they were budgies. My grandma had a couple of them when I was a kid and I enjoyed them, but I hated cleaning their cage. They hated my mother and raised a huge fuss whenever she would enter the room.

5) I put Mike in charge of buying Erik a robot building kit. Now the boy will not try to get me to help him build a robot out of an old fan, an old computer, my mismatched earrings and a couple of batteries. I think he needs to learn the basics before he goes McGyver on us. I even told Erik that we would contribute half if he had enough allowance to buy one. He had $20 so I think that should be plenty to get a starter kit, at least from looking at online stores. They are going to Radio Shack, so I hope they can find something in person and we don’t have to wait for shipping.

6) This past week I’ve stopped doing balls-to-the-walls cardio and started maintaining a heart rate of 120. Very difficult to do! Buuuuuut. . . this actually does make a difference as far as weight loss goes. The times I’ve lost weight have been the times that I’ve been walking a lot. I need to walk again, but it’s too damn hot and humid, so I’m going to try this method. One of my long time blog friends, Buzz a Roni was told to keep her heart rate at 120 for weight loss. Ding ding ding! I am going to do the same and hopefully that will help.

I just found some pics from the end of my college career. I’d been living in an apartment with a friend and we went out walking for an hour or two every night (sometimes in middle of the city at midnight, which was soooooooo stupid). We were also really poor and couldn’t afford many snacks or eating out, so I’m sure that helped. We basically ate a lot of chicken and ramen. The funny thing is, I thought I was the fattest person in the universe and hated myself. If I would have had hair the proper color (not brassy bottle blonde, ugh) and worn proper undergarments I wouldn’t have been half bad!

7) This isn’t a solved problem. This is a problem I need to solve. I desperately need new pajama pants and I can’t find any that suit me, not even online. Bah! I have very few requirements: a) not too ugly b) not fleece or flannel c) plus sized

You’d think I was asking for the moon. Maybe I’ll check Old Navy. The last pair of jammies that I really loved came from there, even though I generally hate ON. Too bad the whole butt ripped out of them in less than a year.

Found them at Old Navy! I’m on a roll today.