Genius, I tell you.

Pay day was today - payday for chores, that is. A month ago, the girls were getting $10 a week and I was a raving lunatic because I was begging... pleading...cajoling them to do chores... this week, the house has been peaceful AND tidy! I actually got the stiff-arm one day as I tried to empty the dishwasher, "No, mom - you sit down! I'll do it!"

I paid them for their week's GOOD work (and it WAS good - they did a great job!) McKenna made $8.50 and Josey made $9.40.

Genius.

I am a genius.

I don't mind giving the girls an allowance. They are busy with school, there ARE, thankfully, child-labor laws, and they need spending money for the things they do with their friends. Kids don't need a lot of money, but having it naturally forces them to make decisions about spending it, and we all need practice doing that.

Karma.

Jesse wrote about Karma the other day and it got me thinking about my girls. On Christmas morning, they looked in their stockings and each found a necklace (identical to each other’s). The necklace was something Santa picked up at Target – it is a sliver, circular shape with the words: “what goes around comes around” swirling into the center. The card on which each was hung at the store had the word KARMA, artfully scripted across the top.

Bad dog.

Gunnar smiles. Not just with his cute face, but with the full body wag. He not only smiles, but he talks to you when you talk to him. If you look at him and talk - about anything... the Olympics, current tax law, Josey's flute lesson... anything at all... he vocalizes back... it's very entertaining.

The Dog in the Hat.

These are two videos McKenna and Josey made one day last summer... I love watching them... It makes me glad I have such smart, funny kids... and it sure makes me miss summer! (Raise your hand if you are sick of this weather!)

Way to go, HSCS!

McKenna's team really struggled today. We started the season so strong, but I think the two weeks of practice Gebo had the girls doing before the public schools started really paid off! There were a handful of girls in the public schools who didn't play volleyball last year, but decided to play this year. These girls are very athletic kids, but didn't have volleyball "down" yet.

January whizzes by in a blur.

January is gone. January seemed to fly by in such a hurry, it's hard to believe half of the school year is over. I listened to an article on NPR about the reason time seems to fly by faster as you get older... fascinating stuff... It sure makes me want to go out and find new and novel things to do to put the skids on this perpetual state of fast-forward I feel like I'm in!

When I take a look at what I set out to do - to write in the blog every day, I can say I did okay! I think I see 31 posts in January, and while that is cheating a little (a couple of posts on a couple of days; no posts on a couple of others,) I'll take it.

Something's got to give.

It's that time of year again. The end of the semester brings with it students who are in tears because as it turns out, a last ditch effort most often isn’t enough. Students find out they need to repeat a class and parents decide it's time to actively... parent... and no one is happy.

Criticism is an indirect form of self-boasting.

Why do we let some things bother us so much? I think I have a decent grasp of my priorities. My work involves a lot of time outside of the traditional work day, but I really try to include my family in the after-hours stuff - like watching game after game after game of the sport du jour (but let's face it, there is nothing painful about watching our varsity boys play ball!) I try to attend each and every activity, skipping one here or there when there isn't a way to resolve a conflict with my personal/family schedule. So why do I let the little comments get to me?

Finish each day and be done with it.

I did it! I went to sleep at 9:00 and fell asleep quickly (I think!) Oh shit, now that means I have fewer excuses not to exercise! What a crock!

This week, I have the boys' cross-town game on Tuesday at GFH and the girls' cross-town game on Thursday at CMR... it will be a busy week, but I've got to be more consistent with exercise than LAST week (since I couldn't get any worse!) All I have to do is walk more than twice and I've done better than before! I think my mom said improvement is what it's about... If that's the case, I better not walk more than three times, or it will be harder to improve the next week (I'm really liking this logic...)

It's a fine line.

It’s a fine line…I am having a hard time exercising in the morning because my back is so tender, but I have gotten on the treadmill for an hour in the evening and I’m wide awake until TOO LATE! I used to say, “John talks about having to ‘wind down’ before going to bed, but me? heck no! I can go right to sleep!” Well, that may not be true after all… maybe I didn’t know that before because it never occurred to me to… exercise… Last week, I got on the treadmill for a little under an hour sometime in the evening (I don’t remember how late it was) and I had a REALLY hard time going to sleep that night.

Next week's a new week.

"I’ve pretty much accepted I’m talking to myself in my blog posts." Posted by vander1 on ruminations.com

It's probably too early in 2010 to have this kind of attitude, right? It was just that kind of week... I'm sure the treadmill will make me feel better though. (as if.) Getting up early to walk on the the treadmill hasn't worked well because my back hurts so terribly, I can't even work up a sweat as I "tread" as lightly as possible to try to avoid feeling my back tweaking! And last week was nightmarish at work as I had activities to supervise (or kids to taxi around) three of the four nights. How do people do it? I told the girls I had better strike a few yoga poses first in the morning to see if I can do it!

Next week's a new week...

Just desserts.

...continued from yesterday's "Karma."

Folks who fart as frequently and freely as we do really do deserve a gaggle of flatulent animals.

A few years ago, we got Jessie, a Boston Terrier who is the sweetest dog. She is smart and tenacious, and she farts. She doesn't fart a little, she doesn't let go of SBDs*, she farts, audibly, ALL THE TIME. She has the walking farts as she walks out of a room pffffttt, pffffttt, pffffttt, pffffttt. She will fart while she waits for you to throw a ball for her, pbtbtbtbtzzzbtbt (followed by the joyful wagging of her little, callused, stump of a tail). She will fart while she is curled up in the living room sleeping while everyone surrounding her is enjoying a peaceful, quiet evening, thrrrrrrrptptptptptptflpflpflpflpflprrrrrrtttroot. It’s not something we looked for in a pet, but it just happened…and it couldn’t have happened to a more fitting family.

Karma.

Farting is funny. Not funny "ha-ha," but roll on the floor, nearly wet myself FUNNY (and ever since I had kids, wetting myself in laughter has become a lot easier... I've GOT to get back to Kegels... anyway, I digress).

Christmas in the Castro.

I was engaged in an email conversation with Larry the other day... talking with him makes my day... I love having someone to chat with who will most certainly crack me up... I wish he were closer than San Francisco, but such is life... that's where email comes in, right? ...here is a snip of our conversation:

Every corn-ner...corner.

I love it when the girls and I hang out and just giggle ourselves silly. So often, with their ages what they are now, someone is moody so two of us are yucking it up and someone is sulking off in the corner (and sometimes that "someone" is me!) There is just a LOT of estrogen in the picture these days, so the rare moments when all cylinders are firing simultaneously are PRECIOUS! This weekend was one of those times.

The human condition.

Gunnar is usually in the kitchen to avoid the inevitable game of "grab ass" in the living room which always leads to things getting knocked over. This evening, he was being mellow, so I left the gate open so he could come and go. The gate got closed with him on the living room side. I looked down and saw SAD eyes, as he seemed to try, telepathically, to get me to open the gate. Of course, the minute I let him back into the kitchen, he stuck his head under and longed for the other side.

Deep down, don't we ALL want to be on the other side of the doggy gate?

Global Warming is a Myth -or- NEWS FLASH! Summer School starts in the Snow

I remember so clearly the early morning hours after McKenna was born on May 7, 1996. I was in the hospital when a nurse brought her to me to nurse around 2 AM. As she got her fill, I looked out the window into the dark and watched snow, back-lit by streetlights, falling gently to the ground. All the while I thought, "Snow in May... how crazy is that?"

"What the hell." That is what I was thinking a little over 12 years later when I woke up this morning around 5:00 and came out into the living room. I had to rub my eyes a few times when I looked outside and saw snow. Not snow "falling gently to the ground," but snow, blizzarding through the air, eventually creating enough weight to cause a huge maple tree branch to crack under its weight and fall to the ground. There are at least two inches on the ground and it doesn't look like it is ready to stop!

The big, mature, deciduous tree across the street must have broken sometime last night... What a mess this weather is leaving things! When it got down to 8 below in mid-April, after many plants, shrubs, and trees had started coming out of dormancy, huge numbers of pine trees died (everywhere you go in town, people are having companies remove huge, old pine trees from their yards), buds froze beyond repair (almost no lilacs this year!), and flowers that had begun to bloom died (not many tulips or daffodils!)

I think it might be time we just admit it... we need to be concerned about the warming of the surface of the earth's crust... we should be very concerned about, deeply... deeply in a deep kind of concerned way... it's not just liberal scientists and godless tax-raisers who are using "facts" and "scientific data" to make the current administration look bad... we just need to get nature to cooperate with us and we can beat this thing...



This is what we were greeted with this morning!