Catching up.

Ben just walked in my bedroom and said to Elijah, "Son, remember when Mom used to have a blog?"

What is with the pressure from my family? You'd think they all sat at their computers just waiting for the latest blog post!

So lest I disappoint my fans (all 6 of them), here are some photos to chronicle the last few days.

Man-squared with his new ukelele. He says all the cool people play them.

Pete, lusting after the squirrel he can't get.

At one point the squirrel turned and chattered right at him, and Pete tried to run through the glass. The stupid was bred into him.

Man-squared plowing up the backyard. The picture is fuzzy because I'm standing inside shooting through the window. It was pouring rain.

Man-squared showing off his mud-covered self after he laid the bike over twice. In the pouring rain. I'm not sure how different this is from Pete trying to run through the glass door, but I'm holding out hope for Man-squared.

Thanks to those of you who expressed concern about the earthquake and hurricane. The earthquake turned out to be much more traumatic (at least to my psyche) than the storm, which was nothing more than a little wind and rain here in Northern Virginia. The college Man-squared goes to sustained some damage, so his classes have been canceled until the 6th, but that's the only lasting effect other than the fact that I'm a little jumpy.

Here's hoping this week is a little less eventful.

Be thankful ~

Weekend recap.

It's been a busy few days around here.

Last Friday I drove to New Jersey for my niece's bridal shower. What should have been a five hour drive took me seven due to the normal block party on the Capital Beltway, the five-mile-per-hour crawl through the Fort McHenry Tunnel in Baltimore, the rain delay in Delaware (everyone knows you can't drive over 15 when it's raining, right?), and the construction-induced traffic constipation on the New Jersey Turnpike. When I finally got to my sister-in-law's house, we all hugged and the bride-to-be immediately said, "Okay, can we order the pizza?"

I've said before that one of my favorite parts of going home (to New Jersey) is the food, which always begins with Vesuvio's pizza. So I had my fill of that and good company that I don't get to see very often.

Then Saturday morning before I was even out of bed, my sweet niece was standing in line at our favorite bakery getting the best crumb cake in the world.

Breakfast of champions.

Saturday afternoon was the shower, where I got to see even more family members that I really never get to see.

Here's the bride, beautiful Alexis:

And the all three of my sisters-in-law, Pam, Michelle, and Dawn:

And here was my ride for the weekend. We tooled around on a perfect day in Michelle's Mercedes convertible.

But like all good things, it came to an end and I drove back home Sunday morning. Had a great nap, went to church, and that was the end of the weekend.

Monday morning just happened to be my 50th birthday, so I celebrated by going to the gym and beating Tony in a wall sit. (fuzzy cell phone picture)

My current favorite friend, Patty, made me an incredible carrot cake and sent the WHOLE THING home with me. AND she got me an awesome T-shirt. Front:

and back:

Ben took me to dinner where we shared two pounds of mussels and a couple of steaks PLUS a piece of cheesecake with blackberry sauce (because I needed it) and came home in a food coma.

Then came Tuesday and you already know about that ad nauseam, so I'll skip the narrative on that day.

And that gets us caught up. Hope your weekend was as much fun!

Be thankful ~

Earthquake.

Isn't it just so true that you never know what a day will bring? You get up thinking you'll answer a few emails, go to the gym, do some work, cook dinner, and somewhere along the way there's an earthquake that sends all your plans down the drain.

I won't bore you with the details since, if you have facebook or twitter, you're sick to death of hearing about it, but I will tell you a very sweet earthquake-related story.

This afternoon I was standing in my bedroom folding laundry. Man-squared was in his room doing homework.

Then it hit. And when I say hit, I mean HIT. There's no build-up to an earthquake. The house just starts shaking violently and there's a loud rumbling noise. Never having been through an earthquake before, I thought Man-squared was throwing furniture around his room, except that wouldn't explain why the mugs on the shelf were rattling toward the edge and the ceiling fan was flopping like a fish out of water. As I ran to the living room shouting, "Elijah!" he came out of his bedroom with a panicked look and we both figured out what was going on. So in my calm, cool, and collected state, I yelled, "Get outside!"

Man-squared grabbed me by the arms and started shoving me toward the garage, shouting, "You first! You first!" which I was only too glad to obey, calling for Pete on the way.

Only later did I stop to think that my boy was getting me out of the house first, before himself, and I almost cried.

That's a man.

Be thankful ~

Two days in a row. This might be a record.

It reminds me of last week when Ben announced the Mets were on a one-game winning streak.

Today I drove from Northern Virginia to the Jersey shore, a five-hour trip. It took a little over seven hours. I hit the DC beltway at 2:30 pm, never a good idea on a Friday. Then I got to Baltimore around 3:30, even worse. By the time I was approaching Delaware it had started raining, and everyone knows you slow down to 20 when it rains. That continued all the way over the Delaware Memorial Bridge and onto the New Jersey Turnpike, where things took a turn for the worse and came to a standstill. Human nature hit a new low with people cutting through the rest stops to pass traffic sitting on the road.

But it was all worth it when my nieces walked in the door with two pizzas from Vesuvio's. I'll sleep well.

Be thankful ~

Thoughts.

1. Last night I was lying in bed reading when Ben came in. He started off by saying, "I have a theory."

Not having any clue what he was talking about, I braced myself.

He continued, "Last night when I went out there to shut Pete's crate (we lock him up at night), his head was hanging out."

(He's a weird dog. He sleeps with his head hanging out of the crate, which is big enough for a small horse.)

"So instead of shutting the crate door, I thought he might be more comfortable if I just closed the laundry room door. That way, he could sleep with his head out, and it would be a little warmer in there too."

(We keep the house just above freezing for those of us who have hot flashes, and at times we find Pete curled up in a tight ball, almost shivering.)

I looked at Ben in stunned silence for a minute, then burst into a laughing fit. When I could finally talk, all I could say was, "How lame are we that we've devolved into theorizing about the dog's comfort?"

2. This morning I actually ran 2 miles without stopping. They say if you can run 2, you can run 3. I don't know who they are, but if it's not true, I'm suing.

3. Tomorrow I'm going to New Jersey for my niece's bridal shower. I'm looking forward to seeing family we don't get to see very often, and eating real pizza and getting a Mueller's crumb cake. And maybe some good hard rolls. (If you're not a Yankee, you probably don't know what those are, but let me just say there's nothing like a good buttered hard roll in the morning. It may not be the breakfast of champions, but it takes me back so I'll eat them and be happy.)

4. "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour." (Titus 3:5,6)

See you Monday with photos.

Be thankful ~

Well, hello. Apparently I have a blog.

My only excuse for the long absence is that I work for two different companies, just sent a daughter back to college, I'm committed to my gym schedule, and I like to see my husband now and then. In other words, life is busy.

In the middle of it all, I've gotten a few emails from the daughters who don't live at home anymore. Leah sent me one telling me she sat as a model for a teacher (I think) who was drawing a picture of Scylla. Here's how Wikipedia describes her:

Scylla was a horrible sea monster with four eyes, six long necks equipped with grisly heads, each of which contained three rows of sharp teeth. Her body consisted of twelve tentacle-like legs and a cat's tail and with four to six dog-heads ringing her waist.

Alrighty then. Here's Leah:

Here's the drawing:

 

 I can see the resemblance. The teacher's 16-year-old daughter said his wasn't scary enough, so she drew her own:

 

And people tell me she looks just like her mama . . . hmmmm.

I get pretty regular updates from Deb. Here's the latest of the boys watching Cars:

 

Button has put on a substantial amount of chub since we saw him in May, and Deb says he's cutting his first teeth at the ripe old age of three months. All I can think is TOMORROW you'll be paying his college tuition bill.

Ben and I were in the car today discussing the sorry state of our finances when we realized we have only two more tuition bills for Abbie—December and June. CAN I GET AN AMEN?? That will leave one child to get through college. And then we laughed at how just ten years ago we wondered where we would get the money to buy the books and supplies we needed to homeschool. That bill was usually around $500 a year. For five children.

So all this talk about money got me thinking . . . just how much have we spent on tuition for our kids? And the answer is a shocking $226,500. 

SO FAR.

By the time Abbie and Man-squared are finished, we'll be well over $350,000, and that doesn't include Ben's bachelor's degree and master's degree, nor the MBA he's currently working on.

Going to stick my head back in the sand.

Be thankful ~

Wish I were there.

Leah and her friend Elizabeth are in New York City this weekend, and it sounds like they're having a blast. Yesterday I got this photo:

Sorry about the quality, but that's what you get from a cell phone. She said they were in Grand Central Station gawking and taking pictures. They went to see The Phantom of the Opera and then found their way back to the ferry that would take them back to where they're staying.

Then this morning I got this one:

And a little while later she let me know she had found our ancestor's name in the log book from 1892. Carl came here as a 19-year-old from Vienna, Austria. The girls were also going to Wall Street (I guess to give condolences) and Chinatown, and then going to see some other friends.

My Saturday has been every bit as exciting. I spent the first part of it at the commissary, then brought it all home and Abbie helped me put it away. We vacuumed the house and made a trip to Staples for Abbie and Man-squared's school supplies. Came home, worked a little, read for an hour, made dinner. Unfortunately, I'm not as good with the camera as Leah is, so I don't have any exciting photos to share. Lucky you.

Be thankful ~

Four things you probably didn't know about me.

1. I learned how to gut a fish when I was 11 years old. The rule was, "You catch it, you gut it." What I did NOT have to do, however, was catch my own grasshoppers and put them on the hook. My daddy made my brothers do that for me. I just couldn't bring myself to stick a hook through a living insect with its little legs kicking. So why was it so easy to slit the fish and pull its guts out? I have no idea, but in my twisted young mind it was a completely different issue.

2. When I was in high school I refused to wear skirts or dresses. I wore jeans and that's all. I think I remember wearing a skirt one time, and then only because I had to when I was being inducted into the National Honor Society. Proms don't count because it goes without saying you're going to wear a dress, but if I could have gotten away with pants, I would have. Now I love dresses. Again with the twisted young mind.

3. My first real job was bussing tables in a seafood restaurant in the resort town I grew up in on the Jersey shore. I got the job because my mother went to church with the restaurant's owner. My first day of work I was carrying a tray of glasses to the front of the restaurant where we kept the stuff needed to set tables after they were cleared. I balanced the tray between my hip and the edge of the sideboard and was putting the glasses on the sideboard. I don't have to tell you what happened. Physics took over and half the glasses went crashing to the floor. Miraculously, I still had a job the next day and went on to work there another five summers. By the end of the first year, I could stack a tray with 9 dinners and carry it on one arm over my head.

4. I have never been a football fan. I liked the Steelers when I was in high school (back when Terry Bradshaw had hair) and went to all the high school games, but it was a social thing, not because I was any kind of sports fanatic. So when it was announced in my senior year that we would be playing co-ed touch football in gym, I was apathetic. The coach got us out in the parking lot (our football field was at the elementary school across town), picked teams, and assigned positions. He clapped his hands and said, "Okay. First and ten!" and I asked, "First and ten what?" He looked at me funny and said slowly, "First down, ten yards to go." And I asked, "What's a down?" He dropped his whistle and buried his face in his hands. I was the physics teacher's daughter. What did he expect?

Be thankful ~

A post, such as it is.

You know you're overdue for a blog post when your husband complains about the lack of new content. It's not my fault. Really. I've been working like a crazy woman in addition to trying to get my butt in shape for a 5K at the end of October.

October, you ask? That's three months away. What's the rush? But here's the deal: It's taken me since February to be able to run 2.5 miles, and that's with a short walk break in the middle. When I say I want to run a 5K, I mean I want to RUN it. No walking. And if I could do it in under 35 minutes, that would be stellar. I just don't want to be last. The good news is that by then I'll be in the 50+ age group.

I got this picture today from Deb. In case you don't know what's going on here, Bean is sharing his beloved bunny with Button. I replied, "Awww, isn't he sweet?" and she texted back, "No, he's trying to smother him with it." Brothers are awesome like that.

Man-squared had his head stuck in the refrigerator today and when he backed out, he said, "Mom, next time you go shopping, can you just get a ton of chicken we can marinate and grill?" I answered that I thought that's what I had been doing, and that I felt like I was cooking huge batches of chicken almost daily. Apparently he really means a TON. Ben and I figure that when he goes off to college for $25,000 a year, we'll still be better off financially because we won't have to feed him.

And that's all my brain can process today.

Be thankful ~

Camping.

Three of my kids went camping last weekend and brought home a lot of dirty laundry and some great pictures. Since I'm pressed for time, I'll keep the commentary brief.

The tent, with tarp. They're Sargents—they know it's going to rain. (It did.)

Man-squared and Leah.

Leah and Abbie.

Man-squared and Abbie.

Man-squared doing a back flip off the diving board.

Man-squared doing a flip in 12 inches of water.

I think it was at this point that he wondered why he was doing a flip in 12 inches of water.

Too late now.

That had to hurt. Why do 18-year-old males do this stuff?

Oh, yeah. That's why.

Be thankful ~