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Disappointed…Again
Today was not the best of days. (I wonder how many posts I actually start like that……) F Where was I? Oh, me. For someone that has less innate parental talent than even I anticipated, today went pretty badly. Oh, sure, I didn’t initiate the trouble, precisely – the kidlings handled that all on their own. They faught. They squabbled. There was a lot of screaming and scratching involved. At times, it was not unlike the snarling, scrabbling fight scenes in “Fantastic Mr. Fox”…. Yup, it was that bad. But in the end, it was the screaming at each other that got to me. I’d done time outs. I’d separated…
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Inspiration comes from somewhere…but…
If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, you know that Pea can be…fastidious. Tidy? OCD. Organized. So it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise if I tell you she wears days-of-the-week underpants. In the proper order. Without missing any days. She finally outgrew her last set, so we broke out a new set (put aside for when she needed them) last week. This set, from Gymboree, was themed “sweet treats”. So. Last night, while in the bath, Pea casually mentioned “Mama, I really like those pants. The ones with the strawberries? I bet they would be really yummy like that, with chocolate on them.” (the…
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A dog of a day
I’m going to write about something pointless and only mildly annoying, because i have more annoying things…um…annoying me, and i am trying not to think of them, lest my head explodes. Or something. This is my back garden. (There isn’t much “garden” to our garden, true.)On the other side of those hedges, there are sheep fields. Macy is quite interested in sheep. The Hubs thought that maybe she’d get, erm, de-sensitized by seeing (hearing, smelling) all those sheep every day. *snort* in reality, she has become obsessed. This is what she sees through the fence. (ok. Shitty choice of pictures, but there ARE sheep in it. Squint. Work with me…
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If it Makes Me Hip, Does My Hybrid Makes My Butt Look Big?
As someone who never learned to drive a manual transmission*, driving an automatic car in the UK could be a costly undertaking, what with petrol (that’s gasoline to my American peeps) running about £3.60 a litre. That’s right, a litre. (You do the math, my whiny American friends – that works out to roughly (mumbling)…3.69 litres to the gallon times 1.34 a liter…so £4.95…(mumbles)….but that’s pounds…so…about… $8.05 a gallon.) A GALLON, people. However, it really wasn’t enough to motivate me to learn to drive a stick-shift. It’s the whole shifting-with-the-other-hand thing while clutching with the same (left) foot. A Right brain/left brain issue. Whatever, I can’t do it. So I drive…
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Silent Sunday
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Dear So and So: The Late (Saturday) Travel Edition
As I started to write this post, I realized that I was really racking up a list of grievances I had against my fellow travelers (and miscellaneous people I met) on my last two holidays, and that, really, I didn’t want to rant to you about this crap. I want to rant to them. But I can’t, not really, since most of them were strangers. Then I realized that they would make perfect “Dear So and So” posts. Only, see, Kat does her “Dear So and So” on Fridays. And it’s now Saturday. But then I realized that it is still Friday in parts of the US. So sue me.…
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Sweet Corn and Summer
What is summer without a parade? Well, it’s not the same. Since I’ve yet to find a proper parade here in the UK, when my brother reminded me on our first night back in Illinois that the Mendota Sweet Corn Festival was going on , I dragged the kids there. Never mind that it was hotter than blazes and we were all seriously jet lagged… …especially when there is cotton candy to provide a much-needed sugar boost!!! To me, a summer festival in rural Illinois means: John Deere caps and …fair food (definitely not Weight Watchers friendly, my friends – and no, I still haven’t tried a deep-fried Twinkie. Or…
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There’s No Place Like Home….
Having just returned from a trip back to the States (driving the Hubs crazy when I say “go home”, I’m sure, because my hometown isn’t really home – Hay is home….or is it Barrington?) I logged on to WordPress and was floored by how long it has been since I have posted. I think it must be a sign of a good trip when I can actually disconnect from all things social media. I haven’t much been on Twitter or Facebook (of course, not being able to use my iPhone internationally does play a major roll, as well) and obviously, I’ve been lax about posting here. It has become a…
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Silent Sunday
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What I’m Reading Wednesday…or Thursday*
While there are a million things I should be doing (cleaning, laundry, exercising, to name a few), what I HAVE been doing is reading. And the only thing more addictive than my Kindle right now is my Kindle app for my iPad – I’ve been adding books right and left. Following up on a few book-related tweets by Kate Wilson (@Nosy Crow), I started reading some books that fall into the Young Adult category; in my opinion, they are young adult due to the age of the main characters, but will appeal to adults too. The books she recommended lead to more Young Adult novels, although, don’t be fooled –…