Friday, February 15, 2008

Psycho Lamb

Here's the thing: I have a stalker. It's a stuffed lamb.

Yes, it sounds crazy. But I swear this thing watches me while I type. It blinks. I wouldn't make this stuff up. I actually wrote about it to my mom in an email a week or two ago. At the time I goofed about it, thinking I just needed to step away from the computer to rest my eyes.

However, without thinking about that instance again, I brought the lamb into my office this morning to hang with Oscar while he played a kids' computer program. The lamb also happens to have a timer built into her belly, so we use it for Time Outs and also for limiting computer time for the kids. Anyway, his time expired and he's off at school now, but here I am typing and every 20-30 seconds this thing blinks or her eyes move. I'm telling you! I've examined the options, like maybe it's snow falling past the window from the gutter outside and that movement is being reflected in her eyes... but that's not it. I'm serious. Well, at least she seems benign for now... That is, until the mini-dagger pops out from within her furry, clenched hoof and she stabs me to death!!!
Sure. She looks innocent...
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Okay, before you call the authorities to have me escorted to the local psych ward, I will admit that I did see "Chucky" back in the day. But this lamb really blinks. I'm not kidding. I just want it on record somewhere so that when they find my body, covered in tiny teeth marks and lying underneath a heap of papers on my office floor, someone will know which way to steer the investigation. Write it down. :)

Ahhhh, on saner topics... (But barely...) We've had two more snow days since I last wrote. And that was only a little over a week ago. Someone has it out for me. (I think I'm having a paranoia day. haha) I can't take many more snow days. They went well in the beginning because they were a novelty so everyone still got along. Now, however.... it's cutthroat time. And it usually starts before 9am. Someone dons a Jedi robe and starts light-sabering (that's a word in our house...) somebody else and we deteriorate from there. Thankfully, we only have 5 more weeks until "spring." Of course, spring is a theoretical event here in Maine. We actually have another 4 weeks of winter weather after that magical, "spring" date. And then we have mud season, which is worse than winter, in my opinion. Best not to go outside again until May.

Rocco & Oz on a snow day
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Oh, speaking of Star Wars... (several sentences back-- keep up, would ya) This was Star Wars week at our house. I had never seen the two most recent Star Wars movie until this week. (Blasphemy here in a house of boys. I'm surprised they still let me sleep under the same roof.) We watched Episodes II & III over the course of several evenings. We let the kids eat their dinners at the bar counter in the movie theater which is a big treat for them. And we made some yummy things to eat to celebrate the event... Here's a menu example from "Revenge of the Sith" night:
Crazy Cantina Chili
served with Commander Cody Cornbread
& refreshing Yoda Soda

Of course, never mind that while I was preparing the chili, I accidentally grabbed the cayenne when I thought I was grabbing the chili powder. 2 Tbsp of cayenne later... that chili was nuclear. Owen still gobbled it up, saying he loved it. Oscar- who actually witnessed some of Mommy's choice language in the kitchen as she realized the mistake- decided it was a little too spicy for him, though he ate half of it. It was pretty darned hot, though. Even after I tried to scoop out some of the cayenne. (MOI-ha-ha-ha!.... my evil plan is in motion! After a few more of these "accidents," Skip will take over chef duty in our house full time.... heh heh heh...)

Now, in odd happenings: I was very spontaneous yesterday! I'm not usually a spontaneous person. I like to have things all planned out. But Skip sent me an email to say that some great friends of ours had asked if we would be interested in going to The Bahamas with them this spring. Without even hesitating (or wondering who will be watching our darling children) I said, "Yep. Sign us up!" They didn't waste any time- probably since it has been about 9 years since we last agreed to go on a vacation with them. In our defense, we usually say "no" because I am either pregnant or nursing somebody. It has nothing to do with not wanting to go away with them- they are fun! After hearing our reply they immediately booked us so it's all set. I can now look forward to a little fun in the sun here in April. Yay.

Last stop before ditching the blog to clean house: Valentine's Day. I hope yours was full of love. Mine was awesome. I wrote little love notes to the people who make my love's life easier/better. Skip's best friend and a few of his staffers got notes from me. And of course, Skip himself got a love note. Then we made a lovely Valentine's Dinner together... I made some baked lobster tails that came out okay. It was a new recipe and next time I would cook them a little differently than the recipe called for. But the asian flavor was pretty good. We accompanied those with some mashed red bliss potatoes and then Skip made the AWESOMEST SHRIMP EVER. (That's what I wrote down last night on a post-it note that we rediscovered stuck to the kitchen counter this morning... What's that? Why yes, I had several glasses of wine with dinner... Why do you ask?)

But, seriously, these were truly delicious shrimp. Yummm. I also made the best chocolate chip cookies ever last night. It happened by accident, of course... (Wow, I see that I have kitchen accidents a lot, now that I am typing this post...) I was intending to make cookie bars and not individual cookies. So I added only 1 egg instead of the 2 called for in the cookie recipe. Then I got distracted (did I say I had some wine last night?) and forgot what I was doing. I dropped them onto the cookie sheet instead of spreading them in a pan. I realized the error after I had put them in the oven. Oops- who cares... We'll see how they come out. Well, they came out delicious. And they looked perfect. I was so proud that I ate... well... I'm not telling you how many I ate. It's embarrassing. But they were good, darnit.

So it was a Valentine's night of love and feasting here. Blissful. (Though not forgiving to my figure, as was demonstrated this morning when I tried to stuff myself into some snug-from-the-dryer jeans... squishhhh)

Okay now, enjoy the rest of your day and have a lovely weekend... And if you're local, be sure to check out Prelude to a Kiss at The Good Theater! It opened yesterday and runs through March 9. For ticket info, just click the link on the right. For the rest of you, I'll be back next week. If you're one of my smack-talking relatives, I'll be looking for you on Xboxlive this weekend... You'd better get practicing.

Some random photos for you now from the past few weeks...
Rocco playing in the ball pit (aka Germ Factory)
at a local pizza & games place
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Rocco reading the childhood-essential
Kitchen Confidential in Lola's bed
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Playing with Oscar
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Oscar- desperately needing a hair cut
earlier in the month (he got one a week later)
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Capital P... Capital S.- What the heck is going on with this blog lately?? Suddenly I'm getting tons of international traffic! Most of it began on February 2. After my post that day, I got a bunch of foreign visitors here within a one hour period. Since then, I've seen a steady increase in international visitors! Some of the countries that have been represented so far (I wish you'd post comments so I can get to know you!) are India, Singapore, Brazil, Portugal, Hong Kong, Phillippines, United Kingdom, Germany, Mexico, Chile, France & Malaysia. Wow! Am I cool or what? Or do I just use the right tag labels? Hmmm. (Probably. But let's pretend it's the former.)

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

New Stuff

I'm messing around with the blog this morning... It's snowy here. (Shocker.) Big O had a 2-hr school delay and Little o ended up having no school. We have a doctor appt in two hours, so we're just passing time... I do have some cleaning that could be done, but this is more interesting.

So far I've just added some books that I've read in the last year, along with what I am reading right now. The "What I'm Reading Now" widget links to Amazon, but I don't take any referral fees for you clicking on it... yet. I don't have a formal account. Of course, at some point I probably will get a referral account. But we all know that I could care less if you actually buy something or not. I just like sharing what I'm into at the moment. So you can click on the links to read more (or, in the case of music, hear more) without buying anything at all!

I will also continue to add more books that I've read to Library Thing. I only grabbed a handful off my shelf at first to test it out.

Anyhoo... That's it from me for now. I'm off to tweak things some more...

Saturday, February 02, 2008

I Wanna Rock

The 7-yr-old girl in front of us at the concert... We were amused
that she was doing sign language for "I love you," rather than the
"devil's horns" (international rock-out symbol)
in which the thumb would've been tucked down. Cute.
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It's been a week. You know the kind. The kind where you have a 7am appointment on a Monday to get your furnace cleaned and the guy tells you that you need a new furnace. Immediately.
So, on Tuesday, you have the plumbing & heating guy give you an estimate for the new furnace. You discover that there will be a lot more work involved than just replacing the furnace. Let's just say that it's very involved. Like having to remove our old, leaking oil tank from it's location in the basement. Which means we have to tear down a wall in the recently-refinished section of the basement. Awesome. There are a whole bunch of other things this week that contributed to the ARGHH factor. But I won't get into them.

Ozzy
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Let's just say that, after a week like that, there was only one thing to do: ROCK OUT. So, Skip & I went to see Ozzy Osbourne on Thursday night. We had third row seats in the center- it was very cool. We got foamed. So much fun! Here's a picture I took of Skip with my cell phone at the show...
My guy's in there... somewhere under all that foam!
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Zakk Wylde- Ozzy's lead guitarist
He rocks, but he was hucking loogies throughout the show- ewwww