The Blog Readability Test

One of my newfound favorite local bloggers posted her Blog Readability Test today so I had to find out what mine was too.

Part of me was hoping that my diverse and eloquent mastery of the English language would have pushed my blog into the Graduate School category. Or at least Some College. Guess not.

Not sure if I pasted it in correctly, so here is the link for those of you that would like to check out the level of your blog. Just let me know if I should enroll in some continuing education classes to continue reading your blog.

Christmas Photo Shoot

Yesterday afternoon was the annual trip to Sears for their Christmas pictures. We had tried another photo studio as a MOPS fundraiser, but they were awful and we only got one so so picture out of it. Thank goodness it was a $20 special, I would have thrown a fit if I had forked over their normal $200 sitting fee. Seriously, that is insane.

Anyway, I drug all three of my chitlins to Sears for our 4pm shoot. Katya decided that she just didn't have ANYTHING that would go with the two little ones outfits so she ran over to Macy's while we did some individual shots with Alexis and Logan. Or should I say - attempted - to get individual shots of the kids.

Thankfully my most wonderful sister in law, Debbie, showed up to lend a hand. She is always there for picture days and I couldn't do it without her.

Logan was a dream to photograph. He is kind of a serious little guy so he wasn't in the mood to smile, but he sat there and looked darn cute for the camera. No drama, no tears...just cuteness. This is one of his pics.

Alexis on the other hand was a little TERROR. I put her in this outfit to start with because it was a gift from a dear friend in Belgium and I wanted to send a professional picture to him to show how much I really appreciated his thoughtfullness. How my photographer got these shots through all the tantrums, falling on the floor, arching of the back (you get the picture) is beyond me. She was SOOOOOOOOOO good. The finished products are all cropped and centered and stuff.

I ordered a copy of this one (it is cropped and closer) because you can see what a little devil she was being.

Katya, of course, took fabulous pics. She just gets more beautiful every year.

Then there was the group shot of the three of them. This was the ONLY shot of them that worked. We got her to look up and laugh for a split second while she was having a tantrum.

Then Katya was taking some other shots for a birthday collage when Alexis (freshly changed back into her normal clothes) decided to be incredibly cute. She grabbed a little chair, pulled it next to Katya and really hammed it up.

I thought this was too cute so I got a pic for me too. I don't think that anyone will ever be able to say that Alexis is a pushover. She is too much like her big sister. And that is a very good thing.

Dyson

Well, our vacuum finally up and died. Even Bob's old, old vacuum that he had loaned to my Aunt Ginger had died. Well, it didn't TOTALLY die, but it sure wouldn't even vacuum up the fuzz on the carpet. Only, my vacuum up and died like a week ago. Can you imagine my house with the kids and the pets with no vacuum for a week. Yulk.

So....I convinced Bob to stop looking at reviews of vacuums on the internet and just go with me to Target because I was going to buy a vacuum. The rug was totally grossing me out!!

I had taken all I could take and I couldn't take no more!

We spent a good 30 - 45 minutes looking at vacuums. Bob looked at the engineering aspect of all the vacuums. We pulled them all down and took them apart. We debated and haggled with each other. We even got input from two passerby shoppers. And we ended up with .....

a Dyson Animal

I think it looks pretty cool. I like the purple. I think it looks kinda fun although Bob hates it.

Let me tell you... that thing can suck! It better for what it cost. Man, oh man. But it cleans a rug or even my cork floors like nothing ever has. I ran it around just the upstairs bare floors and I was disgusted with how much fine dust that thing managed to pull up. Pet hair is no match for it. And it has some cool wand thing that can do stairs too.

As one passerby customer told us when he saw us with the vacuum - "That thing can suck the chrome off of a bumper". He loves his and he even told us that once he got past the sticker shock, he actually thinks it was worth it.

So, my house is now uber, uber clean. Bob and I kept taking turns vacuuming different things just to see how much junk it picked up. I even got kind of miffed because he dumped my first vacuum load instead of letting me do it. Silly, huh?

If you happen to come over - go ahead and lay on the floor. It is clean, clean, clean.

Amazon's New Kindle

Ok, the inner bibliophile is coming out.

I was doing some Christmas shopping on Amazon.com my favorite store in all the world, when I saw their little promo for a new device called a Kindle.

What is a Kindle you ask? It is probably the next phase in electronic books.

I am not a fan of electronic books. I like paper. I like turning pages and flipping back and forth. I enjoy the feeling of a book in my hand as I curl up under a blanket to get lost in the story. But this Kindle thing intrigues me.

It appears to have a display that looks remarkably like paper. No glare. The images look really clear and it has the ability to download books automatically for about $10 each. It has a nice keyboard and is lightweight.

If I was still working at Qualcomm, I'd totally buy this. Can you imagine how nice it would be to travel with this thing? Not having to lug heavy books around in a carry-on? Not bringing two or three books in case you finish reading one? You can just download it. It also has the ability to download documents so you can read them electronically instead of carrying huge reams of paper. Man, that would have been a lifesaver for me before.

In the meantime I will sit back and wait for the reviews on this thing to come in. I never buy the first generation of anything - that is where most of the bugs are. If it gets a good response and it seems to be robust, I may have to look into getting one for myself. Only instead of using it primarily for work - mine will be mostly for pleasure which is better anyway.

To Tell Time

I am a collector of watches. I just went last night and had new batteries put in about twelve of them. Some women have insane shoe collections (like my BFF Michelle), flip flop collections (like my Mom), purses, shoes...you get the idea. Ok, I know that watches are just supposed to tell you what time of day it is. But I love, love and LOVE watches. I don't care if it is Eyore (one of my favorites), tweety bird, Mickey Mouse, Nine West, or Anne Klein. My favorite brand? Fossil.

Fossil makes that most wonderful timepieces. I went to the Fossil outlet way out by the Barona casino a few years ago and bought myself about three watches before I left. I wanted about fifteen.

When I got my watch batteries replaced last night I found out one of my beautiful purple leather band Fossil watches is actually dead. I know that they have a great 11 year warranty on their watches, so I was looking on their website to find info about returning them and got sidetracked by the wonderful new offerings this season. Oh Baby!


Aren't these just beautiful? Man, I could easily own about 40 watches and just wear one each day of the month. Maybe I'll get one for my birthday or Christmas.

Treasure Table

I love MOPS. You all know that, but one of my favorite things about MOPS is the Treasure Table.

The Treasure Table is for all of the "stuff" that you no longer want or need and other people (like me) get to scrounge around to see if it is something that we can use.

All kinds of cool stuff gets put on that table. I've been getting all kinds of clothes for the kids from nice sleepers to Gap jeans for when one of them is in a 4T. I'll take it all!! There are also food items that people got but never used (we all have them), DVDs, discarded toys, VHS movies, books, maternity clothes, breast pads, regular clothes, diapers, cookbooks, magazines, ... you name it. Sooooooooooooo cool.

It is also nice that I have a place to take things that we no longer need at home and that I would normally just take to the Goodwill. Just today I took a bunch of VHS Disney movies that we happen to have on DVD as well. We need the shelf space so I took a bunch of them into MOPS. One woman there was SO excited to get them for her two kids. She didn't care that they were VHS. Her kids certainly wouldn't care. I was able to get a pack of disposable razors that Katya likes (and cost $7), some clothes for the kids and some kid books.

I love this! It is a great part of my living Green plan too. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle BABY! And who isn't pinching pennies in this economy anyway? Everything is costing so much more (filled up your gas tank lately?) it is great to pinch some pennies here and there.

And one woman today offered me her Thomas the Tank Engine table complete with toys. I hope she calls for me to pick it up because HOW COOL WOULD THAT BE!!! Alexis and Logan would love, love, love it!!

Hand me downs are cool.

Art is Exhausting

I love art. I love to look at art. I love spending hours upon hours looking through art museums and galleries. I love making art. I love to paint and draw.

However, enjoying these things with the kids is just plain exhausting!

When Katya was little, she hated art of any kind. In fact, she didn't voluntarily make me a picture for my fridge until she was in Kindergarten and she told the teacher "she had a picture she had to get out of her head". Now she is an amazing artist. Yes, I still have the picture.

I admit, I was half way expecting Alexis to follow in her sister's footsteps and avoid art. No siree... this girl wants paints and crayons! Bring it on!! We have already gotten a lot of use out of our little easel for coloring and chalk. And we have done some painting of pumpkins and construction paper. Alexis never wants to stop. Which is great! Which is cool! But it is such a mess!

Today we went to a craft time with my SAH mother's group. We were making little placemats with the kids which are going to get laminated. So, there were paints & brushes, stamps, markers, crayons and stickers. Total mayhem. I wasn't quite expecting all that. I had printed out some pictures from my computer and managed to get them cut out before we left. I left Logan on the floor to roll around and get oogled at by the other little girls while I attempted to help Alexis make a handprint turkey. She LOVED it. In fact, she wanted to paint all over everything. The pictures, her hands, her arms, the table... quite the mess. And just when I got her cleaned up and I was trying to finish her placemat, she went right back to the paints.

Then I had to do one for Logan. I did footprints for him and he giggled and giggled when I painted his feet. He is very ticklish. And while I was trying to get Logan's placemat done, Alexis was all over the art table again.

I managed to throw together something I hope the kids will like to eat off of when they get a bit older. But, man I was so happy to leave. I was exhausted and we were only there for an hour!

Trying to wrangle two kids while one is wielding a paint brush with paint on it is quite the challenge. I think that I could create an entire program for corporate teambuilding. If you want to figure out how to manage a group of people working on different projects - try and manage the same number of toddlers (all with paint brushes and sharpies) in a room of nice furniture. If you can survive that, you could survive the workplace.

Tagged for Honesty

I've been tagged by Jen to post 7 honest things about myself. I've never been tagged before, it is kinda cool! Huh, not sure how interesting or deep my relevations will be but here goes...

1. I can wiggle my ears. It is a little trick that I figured out that I could do when I was about five years old. I believe I was trying to wiggle my nose like Samantha from Bewitched - but my ears wiggled instead.

2. I fell asleep at the wheel once when I was 21. I had worked a very long day and went to meet some friends after work at a deli since it was Halloween (Don't worry, I wasn't drinking. I am a self-imposed non-drinker.). I headed home about 11pm down a long and dark stretch of road. I had rolled down my windows and turned up the radio to stay awake. I remember blinking and when my eyes opened all I saw was weeds flying by my car. Evidently I had crossed several lanes of traffic (nobody was there luckily), narrowly avoided a power box, jumped my car over a small canyon and landed in a patch of land behind someone's backyard. I had to stand on the roof of my car to find the road (no lights) and I turned my car that direction and prayed I would make it. I did. All my car suffered was two blown out tires and a dent in the hood. I drove my car two miles like that to a grocery store and called a friend for help. My guardian angel was watching over me that night for sure!!

3. I am a freak about laundry. Living with my brother (whom I do love and adore) taught me that men can not be trusted with a washer and dryer. I don't know how many items he changed the color of or shrunk. So many shirts and pants from Katya's and my closet have to be dripped dry I don't let anyone help me. So, Bob is forbidden from doing laundry. He doesn't mind.

4. I worked as a Microbiologist Tech for about two years when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I worked in a clean room, made agar, grew all kind of nasty things, counted spores...etc. It made me a total clean freak for years and years. I used to clean my keyboard, phone and desk with IPA (rubbing alcohol) every Friday for about ten years before I mellowed out a bit.

5. When we travel, I check out the bathroom of any hotel we are staying at before I sign anything. I am a freak about a clean bathroom. Probably because of #4. I KNOW what can grow where.

6. I am an appliance junkie. I just love to get all those infomercial gadgets that are supposed to make cooking sooooooooo easy. Even though I don't really like to cook, I like the gadgets. Whenever I have insomnia, it costs a lot of money because then my willpower is non-existant.

7. I love cold sugar cereals. I mean LOVE them. I try and be good and only eat healthy, whole grain, and organic cereals but sometimes I indulge. I love Golden Grahams, Fruit Loops, Super Sugar Crisp, Pops, Fruity Pebbles, Frosted Flakes, Cookie Crisp, Lucky Charms, Captain Crunch with Crunchberries.... I could go on and on. Yum!

I'm tagging Laura at The McClellans of Eastlake, Mandee at For the Love..., Aimee at Here in My Life..., Azucar at The Jet Set, Kelly at My Happy Little Life, Ginger at The Kids The Dogs And Other Things, and C Jane.

The guidelines are:
1 Link the person who has tagged you
2 Tell seven true things about yourself
3 Tag seven new people
4 Leave a message with the person you have tagged so they know about it

Good Eats

I love this show!

I try and record it periodically so I can learn about everything from the origins and usage of paprika to the history of squash.

Last night I recorded an episode on vanilla and was watching it this morning as Katya and Bob bustled around me leaving for school and work. I had already set out the vitamins, made the lunches, ensured they ate their breakfast and was curled up on the couch writing down Alton Brown's secret to a good fruit salad when I realized Katya and Bob were standing behind me as enraptured as I was.

You have to love Alton Brown. The man is a master for making otherwise boring information that you usally skip over in a cookbook (ok, I am the one that skips over it) into something quite intriguing and attention getting. Bob was appreciating his power tool arsenal. No wimpy tools for Alton. To core a pear he uses his trusty drill with a different bit on it. When making creme brulee he doesn't use a small butane torch. No sir. He uses a full propane tank with a torch end on it. A real man's kind of cook.

If only I could type the ooh ooh ooh sound from Tim Allen to get the same effect.

I admit, I have strayed from Alton periodically to peak over to what Emeril is cooking (I'm trying his blueberry peach cobbler tonight) or License to Grill on Discovery Home (I want his red outdoor fridge!). But for pure entertainment factor and actually getting the nerve to try something new - Alton's got me. He makes everything look so darn easy!

Maybe some of this will seep into my brain by osmosis and I will become a steller, amazing cook in the league of my Aunt Ginger. One can only hope. Until then, I am still happy with a bowl of cereal for dinner for myself.

Thankfullness

As Thanksgiving looms in the not so distant future - it is time for me to begin thinking about what I am thankful for this year.

- Nobody died.
- Nobody got cancer.
- Nobody cut any body parts off.
- Nobody is in any court battle.
(2004 was a tough year. Those were some of the worst highlights of that year.)
- Nobody lost so much as a tree during the fires in San Diego.
- I have a huge extended family that I love (and miss)
- I have some wonderful friends that I love (and miss)
- Everyone is healthy! Yeah!!
- We welcomed Logan into the family
- Alexis is amazing, opinionated, stubborn, funny, creative....I could go on and on
- Katya is doing so well in school & sports this year
- Bob's business is doing better every year
- Bob was able to move his business out of the house and into their own space. Thus, making our new "lounge" area.
- We have a space now to do crafts and Katya can escape to when the kids are too noisy.
- I am slowly shrinking to my pre-baby size. Maybe not as fast as I would like, but I am making progress.
- I have amazing neighbors. Our circle of neighbors does everything from housesitting, to dogwatching, to mail collecting, to random plates of cookies showing up on our doorstep... I live in an amazing place surrounded by amazing people.
- Our house projects are making slow progress. Any progress is good progress!
- I love the views from our windows. Looking out at the mountains and the trees is so calming.
- I love having the Risch family living just a few miles away. And if I get lucky, I run into Diana when shopping at Safeway.
- I love having Debbie K., Jane and Patti close by.
- I am thankful that my arm & shoulder pain has remained manageable for the past two years despite hauling babies around all day, toting groceries, doing bookkeeping and cleaning the house.
- I have a husband who loves me.
- We have a good family with lots of laughter and hugs.

My life is grand. My life is blessed. My life is fabulous.

Post Halloween Photo Album

Everyone looked cute in their costumes this year! This should come as no surprise since I have such amazingly cute kids.

We painted our pumpkins and we decorated the porch. We handed out candy and visited Bob's father in his nursing home (the old ladies there LOVED the kids all dressed up). We still have a huge bag of candy left which I am sure Bob and Katya will help to eliminate.

All in all, it was a fun Halloween. I hope that you all had a good one too.

Logan with his pumpkin that Katya painted for him.

Alexis painted her own pumpkin.

Katya with her pumpkin.

Our front porch. Mine is the witch pumpkin. It was kind of rotting, so I had to paint it in place. Bob went another year without carving his pumpkin.

Katya decorating our front porch.

Logan the dinosaur

Alexis the ladybug. (I had to corner her to get a picture)
Katya as a glam punk

Bob with a bad fro wig