ePIC Entry

This little green dude stopped by the other night, he was all minding his business stuck to the glass, when we saw him and screeched with delight and immediately ran outside to molest him. He hopped in my hair at one point, but no pic of that. I think he was less than pleased with our outpouring of affection, go figure.


Annie was drawing on the deck the other night, some abstract something or the other, and then she kept adding and Terry told her she overdid it and sometimes less is more, and this is the next drawing she did. He didn't criticize this one as much.

The kids had just tortured the cat by making him go down the slide, and then Al crawled up it to shove herself onto the deck thing at the top, so we took a picture of her ass and announced we were going to put it on the blog.

She then suggested that we read between the lines.

But Annie got her back for us, she was writing on Al when Al thought she was making a drawing (how she couldn't tell the difference, I don't know, and why she would let Annie draw on her in the first place, also a mystery). I think this would make a nifty tattoo. We later found out Al had started it by leaving a message on Annie's open notepad on the computer, and there's been a whole poo flamewar going on we had no clue about.

I have no idea what all this green stuff is, we have planted many things in that area over the years and nothing has ever came up, but now, wham, nifty groundcover.

The hops are doing very well this year. The one in the middle is a new addition, that's why it's so teeny.

Yum, strawberry shortcake for dinner, one of the perks of summer. I mean, you could have it in the dead of winter, but it wouldn't be the same. Not that we really have summer here. We had like, two days of it last week, and now it's been cold and off and on rainy. Booo.

The Great White Hunter chased a squirrel and then ended up stuck in the tree for a good 40 minutes before he figured out how to get down. We did try to help him, but he wasn't so much up for that. I thought this was a good pic because you can see his creepy little eyes. And he's STILL pooing on the floor, despite threats, cajoling, and me spreading tacks behind the couch where he's been going (he jumped over the dang things and pooed in a new spot). This cat, he is mentally deficient, and my couch is starting to smell like the zoo. I am not happy.

I unexpectedly found this on the fridge last week, underneath some stuff on the side, and it made me giggle and then boo hoo. We have always called it the "Pop-eyed Poppy" picture. I sure wish this crap would get easier, you know?

Braceface

The before picture. I took two, but the poor kid has her eyes closed in BOTH of them, and being the good mom I am, I didn't notice. And it's not like we can go back in time and get another one before her braces, so closed eyes it is.

After, and now this one is blurry, but it's not my fault because PIC CREDITS TO TERRY. She said the actual putting on of the braces wasn't that bad, compared to the horror stories she was hearing from her classmates. Her teeth are a little sore and she's been eating more oatmeal and applesauce this week than I've seen her eat in a long time, but overall, she's not near as whiny as I thought she would be.

Unless we remind her how she has to go brush her teeth after like every little snack, and especially after something like this, the perfect s'more, as modeled by Terry's hand, and yes he took this picture too, even though it's in focus. We had a fire last week outside and did the whole s'more making bit. He tends to build hobo fires out of leftover wood from Tim's house though, and I'm forever worried about toxic fumes rolling off the undoubtedly lead paint, so I mostly just eat chocolate and graham crackers.

This is Annie being pouty because she wasn't too thrilled with the subject matter of this entry. She claims that she wouldn't have minded having crooked teeth for the rest of her life. In fact, she would have preferred it. Too bad!

Well, This Sucks

Hug 'em if you got 'em. Dads, that is, not pound cakes.

Now with more OWbell

Even though I am of the round persuasion, I still persist in exercising to stave off disease and such, and I am always wanting to try new gadgets. My latest was the Kettlebell. I like the lifting of the weights, and I actually dug the workout that came with this thing, made me feel like a Slayer and such, doing squats and changing hands and just generally swinging it about. And then I went to take my post workout shower, bent over to shave my legs, and OW OW OW, said the nerves at the bottom of my spine. And I had to work the next four days in deli hell, so basically I looked like a brokeded wind-up toy reeling around behind the counter trying to figure out how to get meat out of the coolers without like, bending. But it's getting better, to the point I've even started exercising again.

With the itty one. This one is just four pounds, and came with a dvd called Kettlenetics, that is more dancey oriented more than squat, ugh, lift weight, me strong. So far I've only done the intro workout, but back is still with the bending so that's a good sign.

My Dead Dad plant that I took turned out to be a Peace Lily, and it's all with the blooming now, all pretty like. Now If I could just keep the cats from eating it I would be happy.

Auuugggghhhh! The last Cheerwine that I brought back from VA. It's just an empty bottle of vaguely cherry flavored memory now. I has a sad, because I can't get the stuff in MI.

Annie's latest painting, she likes to take her stoopid poopy cat outside and sit on the deck and paint. I asked her what this painting represented, and she looked at me like I had lost my mind and said "Duh, colors."

Hair's the story...

Terry did a great grand weeding of the corner of the yard where we have tulips and lilies and other low maintenance things, and he transplanted some of the lilies to a different planter. I don't know if the sun was in her eyes, or if Annie is just skeptical at their odds of survival. And Terry just came in from watering them and confirmed that statistic, they are looking pretty droopy. Evidently when you transplant something you're supposed to water it every day, go figure.


Alyson doing what appears to be work, but don't be fooled. That's the corner thing there, I bought some wildflower seed thing to spread out in that area, hoping that the weeds I actually bought for there will help choke out the weeds I don't want there. Wildflowers are at least pretty weeds, and not just boring overgrown grass.

We had a Memorial Day cookout like we usually do, and our friend Tim opted to be the entertainment this year. He's one of those long haired types, but the hair on top has been steadily disappearing, thus he's kind of been working a "skullet" type hairdo more and more lately. Plus he's in a weight loss competition, and it's getting to the end, so of course getting rid of hair (and going on an all ice cream diet when you're lactose intolerant--thankfully we haven't seen him since he entered that part of his plan) will make the difference. Tim is veeeeery competitive.

Back view of long-haired hippie type freak. Well maybe not so much hippie, because they are all stoned and peace loving. Tim, not so much with the peace loving. :)

Tim's lovely girlfriend Amy doing the honors. She had never done such a thing before, but I think she did an admirable job. I probably would have cut his ears off or something like that.

We get this look from Tim a lot, usually followed by the sentence "God, you're such an idiot," or some other loving phrase.

The results of the near scalping. We kind of think it looks like a dead rat, or maybe something you would pull out of sewer grate, which yeah, could be a dead rat.

After. See, this guy doesn't so much look like a serial killer, and small children may no longer cry at his approach. Now we just have to do something about the scraggly little Satan beard.

Al has been dissecting a cat for her Biology class, a task she has taken great relish in, she likes to come home and tell us the ooky details, preferably while we are eating something. One of the cats in the class (not hers) was pregnant, and the people who were working on it were too squicked out to extract the fetuses, so she did it and of course had to pop one in a jar and take it home. She said it's little face is kinda cute but now it's all curled up so you can't see so much. I thought it was wild that it has those itty claws. And of course we sat around trying to think of a name, and we settled on BANDIT. You know, cuz that's such a cool name, for like, an animal. Not a human being. And not if it's a girl. ( That's sort of an in joke to my fellow MCR fans, well not so much fans in some instances, but just people that know about stuff like Gerard Way naming his kid something strange) But the best part is that this little cat fetus can't poop on my bed like SOME feline in my house did, but that's a story for another time.

F-F-F-Fuh-Field Day

This is Alyson being butt-hurt that her Dad had the utter audacity to strum a couple plinka plinkas on her birthday ukulele before she did. Evidently he sucked the soul out of it and then she could no longer bond with it or something equally dramatic and stupid. In the end it didn't matter, because we ended up sending this one back, because it was supposed to come with an instructional dvd and it didn't, so of course they had to send a whole new package, which of course had no dvd either, so we called and told them that obviously the description was full of wrong, and they gave us fifteen bucks off, so smiles all around. And I don't think I've even seen the replacement ukulele, because we were afraid to even, you know, touch the box, lest our negative energies seep through the packing material and sully the musical soul of the instrument.

Annie's field day was last Friday. Late May, right? Should be nice, right? Oh hell no, not if you live in the frozen pit of the North. Terry wore shorts, and wasn't even going to take a jacket, at which point I gave him the Mom look and he schlumped back into the house to get it, and he was damn glad for it when we got there. An arctic wind howled across the field, rendering us frozen. He couldn't feel his knees by the time it was over. This is Annie practicing for her standing jump. She inherited her athletic prowess from us, so not so much with the ribbons.

Giving it her all in the 100 meter dash. She's probably wincing from the icy cold blast she's getting in the face. Seriously, it was not warm.

The shelf Terry put up for me, and yes it's ever so slightly crooked. Or maybe our whole house is crooked, because he assures me he used a level. And look at that travesty, my Umbrella Academy figures out of the package. Hey, if I pay 40 bucks for itty things I don't need, I'm gonna play with them! Annie did the cool drawing of the moon with a shooting star for me.

My good friend Danielle came to visit me on Saturday, which required her driving a couple hours just to have lunch, so I know she kinda likes me. I think we figured out that it's been a couple years since we've gotten together. Let's put it this way, I think last time I saw her she had short hair! We had a fun time hanging out, eating lunch and going to the liquor store, two of my favorite things. :)

Real absinthe, the genuine article, imported from France. None of that Southern wormwood, this stuff is the real deal. Terry almost dropped a load at the price, but I was all "My prrreeecious," and I pointed out I do have a job so I should be able to waste my money on what I want, so he gave in. I haven't tried it yet though, I'm kinda askairt. Plus I'm going to be like, rationing it out over the next five years. Hope the United States stopper-bys are having a nice Memorial Day weekend.

Happy Birthday Al-ligator!

This pic was supposed to be at the end of the entry, but then I accidentally deleted and I can barely figure out how to post much less move things around, so now my flow is all messed up but frankly it feels like I've been working on this entry almost as long as I was in labor with this child, so it's staying. Okay, the beginning of Al's emo phase. :) Gotta love the Ghoul costume. And considering she wants to be a medical examiner, it's good she has no problem with skeletal things.

The obligatory Oh my God Mom, oh no you dint', oh yes I did well that means you're going in the bad old folks home later on and this blog will be why. Happy 17th birthday to my first born daughturd!

We loved this little outfit so much, not only did we make Annie wear it too, we saved the thing, along with a few other select items. I am really bad at guesstimating ages from pics, so lets just say she had to be older than 9 months, cuz that's when she started walking. She was all precocious like that, although to be honest, she didn't walk WELL.

Getting the infamous ding-dong from her Grandpa. Basically you just pretend like the kid is the clapper in a bell, and you do this sing-songy "Ding-Dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong." And no, we're cruel and all, but there was no version where you throw the kid down and yell "ding-dong ditch" although in retrospect, that totally sounds like something we would do. The kids are always sad when they outgrow this game. Also, I think Grandpa looks like Jean Luc Picard with big glasses (google him if you don't get that reference, and shame on you!)

Getting a pony ride from Dad the same day, evidently we were grasping for photo ops. This was back when we were good about taking pics and videos. Terry and his Dad have matching glasses! And aw, look at that shiny shiny hair on Terry. I think the little jumpsuit thing Al is wearing was made of corduroy, and was a hand me down. We had a lot of those, thanks to my sister in law, because Al's cousin is only a year older than her.

On our old deck at Easter, forced into a dress that Nanny sent. Aw, isn't she cute? She's totally hating on us for shoving her in a dress, not even counting the indignity of the huge bow in her head, which was some old hair clip I had left over from the 80's.

The last day of school one year, young Al was having fun just a-swangin' at the playground. And then not only did she fall off (or maybe the swing broke?) but she nose planted onto the hot playground surface and did a combo burn/scrape thing that took most of the summer to heal.

She still gives us this look, rather regularly I might add. I think in this particular instance, she had the chicken pox and we were taking umpty leven pictures and she was sick of it. I think she was on her way to bed after brusing her teeth, because that looks like a big water spot on her shirt.

Typecasting at the preschool play, she was a little raincloud! We thought it would be closer to reality if the cloud had been black. But, she's looking pretty happy here. I think she liked that preschool. I remember one time they were having their little circle time after the Christmas party and the kids were each saying what they wanted. Everyone else was all reasonable with dolls and footballs and such, and then Al says "I want a cape like a superhero so I can FLY!" and then she got up and started zooming about the room. She's always thought out of the box. :)

I hope you have a wonderful birthday Al. I know I bitch and moan at you a lot, but I also love you, think you are smart and beautiful, and that you can do anything you set your mind to. I'm so proud of you. Oh, and this is from your Dad too, because he scanned all the pics in for me because you know there's no way I can figure that stuff out.

WE LOVE YOU!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!