I feel like a whirlwind raced through my home today.  It took the form of a husband and two daughters, but they were pulling stuff out, dumping it here and there, stuffing it, throwing it, folding it, washing it, filling it, yelling at it, freezing it, cooking it, and finally in a last minute, we-are-going-to be-soooo-late, next-time-we-pack-the-night-before flurry of motion, jammed it into the van.  They've gone backpacking for two days and it just might take me that long to straighten out the mess they've left behind!

Oh, well, I do look forward to a quiet, gardening-filled weekend and since I don't have the van, it's the perfect excuse to go NOWHERE!  YAY!

    This has been going around a number of blogs and I couldn't resist giving it a try!

R=Rebecca (14yog) E=Elizabeth (16yog) J=Joshua (18yob)

      1.   What is something that your mom always says to you?

R: Okay?  I don’t know.

E: Okay! (while rubbing hands together)

J: Okay...

Me:Okay, maybe I do say that a lot

2. What makes your mom happy?

R: Yellow, Tonks (our dog), snow, spring, and our garden (said rapidly)

E: School work

J: Sweets

Me: All correct!

1. What makes your mom sad?

R: When a recipe doesn’t work

E: Not doing school work

J: Bills

Me: All correct!

4. How does your mom make you laugh?

R: When she sings—but also that makes me scream with terror

E: I guess it’s the way we can always tell what’s on your mind

J: By saying stupid stuff

5. What did your mom like to do when she was a child?

R: Sit in the closet eating cookie dough while reading

E: I don’t know

J: (Horrifed look) Homework?

Me:  I obviously have not regaled my children with enough "when I was your age" stories

6. How old is your mom?

R: Forty-one, I think

E: Forty

J: 863

Me: I'll be 41 this month

7. How tall is your mom?

R: A bit taller than me

E: 5’6’’, 5’7”

J: 5'11"

Me:  Okay, maybe my children are BLIND.  I'm 5'9"

8. What is her favorite thing to do?

R: Work in the garden—no, BLOG!

E: Blog

J: Watch the mini DVD player

Me:  Yes, yes, you're just saying that because I won't share!

9. What does your mom do when you’re not around?

R: I have no idea

E: Read

J: I have no idea.  What do you do when I'm not around?

Me:  I wander the house aimlessly.  No, really, I do!

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?

R: Writing a book

E: I honestly don’t know

J: Blogging so much, telling everyone her life story

Me:  I actually don't want to be famous. 

11. What is your mom really good at?

R: School

E: Organizing

J: Blogging

12. What is your mom not very good at?

R: That’s a tough question—singing!

E: Singing (answers quickly)

J: (Thinks for a while...) sing?  Yeah, you are a terrible singer.

Me:  Er, that would be correct?

13. What does your mom do for her job?

R: She teaches us and transcribes

E: Transcribes

J: Transcribe

14. What is your mom’s favorite food?

R: Does dessert count?  Chili, I guess

E: Macaroni and cheese (laughing) I’m joking—chocolate!

J: Chocolate

Me:  Of course dessert counts and chocolate is correct, though I would never say no to a good bowl of chili!

15. What makes you proud of your mom?

R: That she doesn’t send us to school

E: How many questions are there?  What was the question?  I don’t know.

J: She manages all three of us

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?

R: (Chokes) Let’s see…Velma from Scooby Doo.  I can’t think of any cartoon characters

E: Bugs Bunny

J: The villian

17. What do you and your mom do together?

R: School, cook, go to the library

E: We usually watch Gilmore Girls or read books

J: Homework

18. How are you and your mom the same?

R: We love reading and we pretty much have the same attitude and we agree…and learning

E: We both really love chocolate

J: We're part of the same family

19. How are you and your mom different?

R: We have different hair styles

E: She is older

J: Which one (should I pick)?  I'm a lot taller--no, I'm male, put that one down.

20. How do you know your mom loves you?

R: She sings to us (laughs)

E: Because she is always looking out for me

J: Because she won't leave me alone

21. What does your mom like most about your dad?

R: I don’t know

E: He’s funny

J: He can do many, many things...he can fix anything...he's a firm believer in build it right so it doesn't fall apart

Me:  All correct!

22. Where is your mom’s favorite place to go?

R: Library and the nursery and sometimes to museums and aquariums and stuff

E: To her office

J: Her room

Me:  No one said THRIFT STORES!

Well, that was educational!

At Christmas Shell gave Dan and I a very special gift--twelve envelopes each containing a "date" to be opened once a month throughout the whole year.  Well, this month's was kind of a no-brainer as to WHEN we would go.  We also decided that we would wait until today to open the envelope and see where the where would be...

All right!  I LOVE the Olive Garden!  Thanks, Shell!!!!!

This time I remembered the camera, but since my little point and shoot died I've been using the still photo function built into our video camera.  Unfortunately, I've not exactly mastered it yet and so I try to make up for my lack of skill by taking MANY (42 tonight) pictures, but alas, NONE of the pictures of us dressed to go out are bloggable.  In fact, they're already DELETED!

So you'll just have to have to trust me when I say we did not wear sweats and t-shirts out to dinner this evening.

This is a COOL idea that Cathy is doing At Home On Basketflat on her blog!

14 Things I Love About My Husband

1. He loves me and our children above all earthly possessions.
2. He works hard to support us.
3. That he wants me to be home with our children. 
4. How he is the handiest of men and very creative to boot!
5. His willingness to take the children on dead-of-winter camping overnighters.
6. His dreamy brown eyes which all of our children have inherited.
7. He is happy to eat WHATEVER I cook, no matter how simple or how strange.
8. He says "I love you" whenever he's on the phone no matter where he is.
9. That he loves to hike and be outside.
10. He gives great hugs and kisses.
11. That he supports me in whatever I want to do.
12. That he has more clothes than I do and is loathe to send any of them to Goodwill.
13. He goes above and boyond what is asked of him.
14. He is mine!

I plan to keep this at the top until Valentines Day and I reserve the right to change these fourteen items as the week progresses and I come up with/blatantly steal better ideas.

Wahoo!  This morning I got a small job, three short files, but it mean MONEY (about $100)!  I have had basically nothing since Christmas which has been a blessing because I was beginning to burn out on the whole transcription thing, but a whole month and a half of NOTHING was getting worrisome.  It was also aggravating to the children as my full attention was turned on them and on the house.  My house is cleaner and more organized than it has  been in quite a while (thanks guys!). 

January is typically a fairly slow month for me, but I've never gone this long with nothing.  Hopefully these files aren't just a trickle, but will be steady stream once more!

I was too upset to blog about this yesterday, but there has been an accident in the family.  My camera, just recently returned from the lost, has been damaged.  It's now unworkable.  My dearest pulled it apart, but alas, nothing can be done.  I"ve destroyed yet another friend!

Actually I had help.  But I won't go into that because it would be telling tales and that's not nice.  Really.

Oh, the pain!

I shall have to scour Ebay for yet another replacement.

Do you know, it's much harder to come up with something to blog about without a camera.  Usually I can just download what's on it and if I didn't take pictures specifically for the blog, there will be SOMETHING on it that is blog worthy.  Now I have to scrounge inside my head for topics that aren't too boring and ho-hum. 

Some days are harder because of their inherent sameness.  LIke Sunday.  Today I went to church, came home, made lunch, cleaned up lunch, took a nap, hung out with the family, and then got on the computer.  I've only done this same Sunday routine about (14 years x 52 weeks =.....)  Well, you get the idea. 

Tomorrow we definitely start the day with a find-mom's-camera cleanathon!

Today I thought I misprounounced a word and was quite embarrassed.  Have you ever done that?  Reading is great, but sometimes I'm too lazy to check if I'm pronouncing words correctly in my head when they're not used commonly in speech and this has gotten me in trouble before.  In fact, my dear children will never let me live down an incident that occurred TWO years ago. 

We were using an SAT vocabulary prep book to practice spelling and I came to the word cacophony.   I had pronounced it in my head for YEARS as ca (like cat) co (rhymes with no) phoney.   When I pronounced the word the first time, my children all looked at me with very puzzled expressions.  I  said the word in a sentence and pronounced it again and Joshua started howling.  He finally calmed down enough to tell me it was ca (like cat) cough any.  Well, I had to go check the online dictionary and sure enough, he was correct.  The little twerp prefers audio books AND has an awesome vocabulary, so I have to watch what I say around him. 

Back to today.  Something similar happened when I was out and about.  I used the word niche in a sentence, something about finding my niche.  I always pronounced it like it rhymes with ditch.  The person I was talking to said the word in a sentence a few seconds later, only she pronounced it neesh.  I thought I had blown it again!

I looked it up and to my relief it appears you can pronounce it any way you want!  I like words like that.

Niche

1. a: a recess in a wall especially for a statue b: something that resembles a niche

2. a: a place, employment, status, or activity for which a person or thing is best fitted niche>

    b: a habitat supplying the factors necessary for the existence of an organism or species

   c: the ecological role of an organism in a community especially in regard to food consumption

   d: a specialized market

`

If you want to hear a professional pronounce this word, go here:

`

Niche

`

And for cacophony, go here.

So, what words have you blown?

I turned 40 this year, back in March.  Apparently that wasn't exciting enough to blog about.  Today, however, something terribly exciting happened.  I had my yearly eye doctor appointment to purchase new contact lenses.  I know, that's not terribly exciting and really, I wasn't too stoked to go because small print has gotten more difficult to see and I just KNEW that I would be getting some sort of New Lenses to fix yet another defect in my Really Horrible, Crummy Vision. 

Well, our family is in the process of changing over to a new doc because old doc doesn't take our insurance anymore.  After the exam New Doc asked me if I knew what my old numbers were.  Of course I do.  I've been wearing blessed contact lenses for TWENTY-EIGHT years now!  Anyway, that lovely man then told me that people who are as nearsighted as I am sometimes experience a vision change in their late 30's or early 40's and their distance vision actually improves!  Can you believe that?!  Both of my eyes had improved by one whole number!  Yeah! 

But wait, it gets better!  I had started struggling with small print about nine months ago and that wonderful doctor explained that it was probably caused by my now over-powered old contacts.  He administered a rather nifty reading test which consisted of hanging a sheet of printed paragraphs in diminishing font sizes in front of the machine they use to fine tune your prescription and then pulling the page closer  until the bottom row gets blurry.  It never blurred!  I passed the smallest-print-reading test in my new lenses with flying colors!. 

I tell you, turning 40 does have some perks.