jiggl-o jell-o

Yes, I know jello is evil and it can't really be considered food and there are all sorts of reasons why we shouldn't eat it. But I had to make some yesterday because Bob is having a test done today so he could only "eat" clear liquids and jello the past 24 hours.

RoRo has gone ga-ga over the stuff. And I've had to spoon it out enough to my boys to start to think jello is actually kind of fun. I've watched it wiggle. I've seen it jiggle. It seems to have this uncanny ability to evoke giddiness. Even Lili was lured by it's glistening goodness.

She is smarter than the average kid, though, because she took a few bites and declared that she really didn't like it. Good girl!

Still, it's fun to play with and now I want to try to cut it out in fun shapes. Have I been at home too long? Am I becoming too domesticated? Luckily, I will go to work tomorrow and hopefully reverse any damage that's been done.

Weekend recap

Aaaahhhh! I breathe a sigh of relief. What a fabulous weekend, but I'm glad it's over. I've got left over fuzzy feelings inside, and no I didn't drink enough to be hungover. It was just really nice to have so many good friends in my house all at one time.

On Sunday, I took the girls to the Austin Zoo for a birthday party. The weather was great, even if it was a bit on the chilly side. I got some pictures of big cats so the trip was a success from my perspective. I also had a lovely time hanging out with K-girl so that made the trip even better.

Yesterday was Lili's 4th birthday. I can't believe my baby is 4. Last night we grabbed the Lili's two girlfriends and took them all to Chuck E Cheese for dinner and playtime. There were five children in my van -- a full load. I can't even imagine what it would be like to always have a full load. So on the way, I talked to Bob about the joys of vasectomies.


Funny quote of the day:

When asked what Santa says, Lili responds, "Ho-ho-holy craps!"

Clearly, we have another Strong Bad fan in the family.

Granny needs a new black bra!

It’s been nearly a year since my grandfather passed away so you could say my grandmother has done the obligatory year of grief. I don’t think she really needed a year, though, because she always said she hated the man. She hated him, but she needed him. He always took care of her and even after they moved into the nursing home, and had separate rooms in separate wings of the facility, he still took care of her in a way.

So now she’s alone. She’s also, it seems, on the prowl. The other night my parents took her out to dinner and later that night, back at the nursing home, her heart rate and blood pressure were up. The next morning she told the cardiologist it was because she saw a handsome man at the restaurant.

She wants to get out more and has asked to go to church with my parents. My mom’s convinced there’s some single octogenarian she has her eye on.

She wants to go shopping and recently bought herself some jewelry. This is the same woman who typically tries to give her things away because she “won’t be needing them much longer.” This is the same woman who has tried to commit suicide four times.

Now, I don’t care if it’s because she feels she needs a man to take care of her. She is acting alive and that’s a really big deal. And I don’t’ care if she will be 89 next month. Get that woman a black bra!

The countdown begins

Oh yeah! Things are coming together. A super-huge thank you goes out to Jenna for coming over last night and subjecting herself to some white trash cooking and lots of dust.

You see, with all of Bob's stuff in my living room, there has been no way to get in there and dust on a regular basis. Ok, who am I kidding? I only dust when I have a party coming up. But that's beside the point. I couldn't have dusted even if I wanted to.

My car is also loaded up for a trip to Goodwill and I hope to make the drop-off during my lunch hour today.

There are still lots of computer monitors, old cpu's, and several boxes of books to contend with but the garage must be worked on first. It will happen and I'm surprisingly not stressed out. At least, not yet.

Kudos to Ryan

Ryan came over last night and helped me hang lights on the outside of the house. It wasn't a huge undertaking but it made a big difference to me -- and to my kids. Rowan had been asking me for days to put up the lights. Last night he ran to the other side of the street and yelled with a big smile, "It looks great!" Liana came outside, saw the lights, and exclaimed, "It's so pretty!" Then she did a little dance. It made me feel good to do something to make them so happy.

Things are coming together but tonight will probably be the most difficult of the preparation and cleaning for the party. Of course, it's stuff I would only subject a best friend to -- decluttering and dusting. So thank you, Jenna, in advance, for everything. I'll make sure Bob does all the heavy lifting so we can concentrate on making things look nice and pretty.

I didn't pay for my low lights.

The other night a friend noticed the "low lights" in my hair and said how good they looked. I thanked her and said it was probably just the way the hair gel had settled, making a few strands of my hair look darker than the rest. Unfortunately, I later came to the realization that it wasn't the hair gel. What's really happening is the few darker strands are closer to my original hair color while the majority of my hair that's lighter is really just gray hair dyed red. What's really sad is that it used to be I would dye my hair and the gray would create highlights. Now, because I have so much gray, it's just the opposite. Sigh. Well, at least it still looks good!

Fat jokes and parties. The joke's on me.

Well, it's happened. I know I've gained weight over the past year or so. I worked out for a while and sometime in crazy October I stopped. But now I have new motivation to get back into the gym. Yesterday my well-intentioned neighbor asked me when I was due. I told him I was just fat. I hope he wasn't too embarassed. I mean, I was wearing big baggy sweat pants and a sweat shirt that has a big uni-pocket in the front. Of course I looked pregnant. It was, however, a gentle reminder that I need to pay attention to myself.

In other news, I spent the whole weekend cleaning up my house, and by cleaning I mean putting things away. Unfortunately, there's still a long way to go before the party on Saturday night. I also spent some time getting a tree, and the kids and I decorated it. Bob is not a christmas person so he hasn't been much help. And even though most of the Stuff in my house that needs to be put away somewhere is his, he hasn't done a whole lot to take care of it (mind you, he did do a little to help me over the weekend so he wasn't a total waste). On Saturday morning, I told him 20 people had already rsvp'd for the party and his eyes glazed over. He became overwhelmed and paralyzed. He lied down on the couch and took a 2 hour nap. As of this morning, his Stuff is still all over the place. This next Saturday afternoon I am planning to do something I haven't done in a very long time. I am going to dump it all into an empty box (maybe boxES). Except the computers and monitors. Those will be crammed somewhere in the garage. And if you come to the holiday party and see a coffee table in the backyard, that's because we don't have anywhere to put an extra coffee table that we don't need.

The other night I dreamt that Ani DiFranco had opened a water park/spa. It was a huge complex of water fun and relaxation. One area of the spa had a huge hot tub. I think I need to go there.

Braggin' on the kids

We've always known we have a genius in Karlen. She's got the smarts and the kooky eccentricities to boot. Compared to her, the other two often feel they are in her shadow. Well, Rowan does anyway, most likely because his big sister always tells him he's stupid. But I could tell from early on that Rowan has his abilities, as well, and they are both different and the same as his sister's. Unlike his sister, he is a mechanical whiz. You can tell just by watching him take something apart to figure out how it's all put together. You can tell by the elaborate, detailed drawings he does. Like his sister, he's also a math whiz. Lately we've been talking about negative numbers. Last night, when I drew out a number line, I could see the light bulb go off in his head. We tried to trick him by asking things like, which is the bigger number: -5 or 3? We couldn't trick him. He can also do simple multiplication in his head. Oh yeah, and he's still 6 years old. Gosh, I'm so proud of him. Well, really, I'm so proud of myself for having him.

Then there's Liana. She will be 4 in less than two weeks but she can already write her name (ok, so it's backwards and upside down -- big deal). She can read the names of her classmates. She is very verbal, much like her sister. She can also work many of the electronics in the house. She is especially proud of her ability to start her own computer game, work the vcr, and find her favorite shows on the tivo. She's also stunningly beautiful. The trick with her will be to keep her proud of her abilities and intelligence.

And then there's Karlen. She is a mini version of Bob -- but she's a lot better looking! ;-) At times, it really seems like there is an adult in that little body. She's so mature in many ways. I have to remind myself that she's still a child. "Things" are not very important to her and this is difficult when grandparents want to know what she wants for christmas. I'm not even sure what to get her. But yesterday she said she wants a pair of leg warmers, even though she knows they aren't very cool. Every time I worry about her having low self-esteem, she says something like that! The thing that amazed me recently, though, was her disappointment to find out she has to be 12 before she can volunteer at the animal shelter.

I have some amazing kids.