My Music

I have to laugh, because if I didn't, I would be much too discouraged to continue. I know that they are young and that helps too. They much more prefer a box of Mac and Cheese to anything that I would labor for an hour to make.

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The temperature outside, and thus, inside our house was much warmer today. The butter index = soft. Strange for winter.

We have a butter bell for our butter, enabling us to keep our butter on the counter, at room temperature preventing it from going rancid. (Just think diving bell, it sits in water so the butter isn't exposed to air.) But in the winter it is so cold in our house that the butter at room temperature is still fridge cold.

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And another thing, a few times I have woke up with songs stuck in my head. This morning when I woke up with yet another 80's song I haven't heard in 15 years stuck in my head, I wondered whether my dreams have a soundtrack. Wouldn't that be interesting if we had our own soundtrack every night?

My Diet

Again I reiterate the problem that I have.....I can't remember if I blogged something or not. It comes up so often, I wonder if I made it on to the computer in time before something evaporated from my brain.

Ever since the great prescription has freed me up from the mercy of my triggers (I still haven't had to take another pill since my last blog mention) I have been enjoying, in perfect moderation, some of the yummy food items that I was not able to handle before. I went 4 years without Hot Chocolate. When I took that first sip, wow, yummy!

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Veronica Mars, she works at Java the Hut. Isn't that funny?

My Problem

Apparently I have (and you are bound to wriggle with displeasure because it effects you too) two choices concerning blogging. I either log on and type in a few paragraphs whenever any stray thought enters my head (believe me, I practice restraint. The poop and piping bag [for icing on cakes] thought that I had a week ago certainly didn't make it on here) accompanied by the phrase "I should really blog this", or I make a small list on a scrap of paper that I end up carrying around for 2 weeks before I manage to sit and type the collection up.

Oh, and who the heck came up with making a movie of Miami Vice?

And I am thinking of making all of the titles of my blog start with "My", as a homage to Scrubs, which does the same thing for their titles. (This is the show that I traditionally refer to as the best comedy on TV, but it has some competition this year in the form of My Name Is Earl. Awesome writing, and fantastic character interplay is making this a special show, sorry Kyle! I am still perplexed and angry that NBC didn't put Scrubs on with the other powerhouses on Thursday to dominate that night. Will and Grace (I hate this show) then Four Kings (stupid freshman series) then My Name is Earl (great) then The Office (also great, but woefully misunderstood))

Michelle and I have been in the mood for watching episodes of Monarch of the Glen. It is only on Saturday nights at 8pm: Right when I get off work. Thank goodness for the VCR.

Former and Latter

I was just reading an article and the above words were tossed around. I know that they taught it in school, I must have been absent that day, how to tell which is which but it wasn't until last year that I sat down and made myself remember how to tell which was which for myself.

Of course it is made somewhat less impressive when it worked out that former is the first example (both have "F's") and then latter is the second or last (both haven't "L's"). Again when I say it out loud it doesn't seem quite as much like a (to steal an Oprah phrase) "Ah ha! Moment" like it was but then again maybe this is one of those things that I shouldn't actually have admitted too.

Kids

I wonder what it feels like to a parent to ask their child or children to do something, and that child to respond: "Sure!" I really don't think that it is an unreasonable expectation for my kids to do as they are told.

Currently if I ask someone to do something it is like I feed them lead paint chips, or am asking them to go out and play in traffic. And I don't think that my expectations are that far off. Holly should really have started her thesis last month!

It is just that we seem to have the most willful, and detrimentally curious (I never thought I would say that, but seriously I'm not ready to teach them the orbital mechanics that account for why the moon tends to only come out at night) kids in the world. And it was a cute novelty when they were younger, and it was new, or when visiting relatives, and I just had to chuckle and say "Oh, those silly kids."

Did I mention willful yet? Ryan has been refusing to potty-train. He much more prefers the poop squishing in his diaper. He thinks that whenever something enters his mind, he can do or act on it immediately. I am aware that he is still just three, but it is totally uncalled for to cry for bread and butter 3 minutes (literally) before lunch is put on the table. He thinks that the second his eyes open (in the morning or after his "nap") he can just run right out of his room and have me and Michelle at his complete and utter disposal. If you think that I am exaggerating, think again. I'm more serious then Dr. Cox bringing his beer to the Baptism.

It is just that when confronted with a scenario like this, it seems to my fatherly eyes, there seems to be two options. Allow the behavior to continue, in effect sanctioning it. Or break the behavior. The problem is that breaking the behavior usually involves some tears, not all of whose are Ryan's.

Migraine Update.

I realized that it had been a while since I gave a report on how that Atenolol was working for me. I guess you can say that in this case no news has been good news. Well, great news in fact. If you consider that before starting my preventatives (the Atenolol, haven't you been paying attention?) I was burning through my entire allotment (8-12 pills depending on the insurance carrier) of "as needed" pills (Zomig: like Imitrex, but more effective for me) every month, since I got all set with my meds (I think I started the drug on or around the weekend before Thanksgiving: November 20th or so) I have had to take exactly 3 Zomigs to counter what I felt were soon-to-be migraines. Now, I am now scientist, but I play one on TV, and that seems to me to be one heck of an improvement in lifestyle. Three in 2 months. Awesome.

It's like

not insult to injury, it is definately more along the lines of adding Injury to Injury.

We had to bring the van in to have it's Inspection done. So 3 hours and $400 later I was able to leave. It is funny how these things always seem to happen all at the same time. First the oven, then this. It might not have been quite so pummeling if it wasn't for the much hyped rise in propane prices. Argh. Thank goodness for our Discover card. Sure we won't be able to pay it off until the kids are out of college, but at least the van is running.

Stove broke.

This weekend our stove decided to be bipolar. The 4 surface burners still worked, but the oven and broiler wouldn't heat up. So today Michelle took Holly and Ryan to storytime herself, leaving me here with the repair guy. (Mr Appliance, serving Monroe County, and us. The second time that I have used them, and I must say, I am pleased and would recommend them to a friend. The same guy as last time, and he cut me a deal because the part was expensive, and he knew he had been down before, and probably would be back in the future.)

Once the guy left I was here, alone, all by my self. It was so quiet.

Time Flies.

I was in total disbelief this morning when I looked at my blog and realized that it was as far back as the first of the year since my last post. I can't believe it!

Holly and Ryan have both had their birthdays: January 3rd and January 17th, respectively. We had a small group birthday party (Michelle's mom "Grandma Sally" has a January birthday too!) and it was a nice quiet celebration. The each got a few presents, but they were far from being overloaded. It was nice. The other big month for birthday's/celebrations is March. My birthday (the 4th), Emma's (the 5th), and Michelle's (the 28th) will be cause for another little gathering, and now there is talk of a St. Patrick's Day gathering. We had a couple of these gatherings, but missed last year, and maybe the year before that, but it is nice to spend a night eating green food that isn't actually rotten.

Since the holidays I had a couple bottles of wine sitting in our wine rack. This is significant because I really haven't had any wine in there in a coupe years. But Holly saw it and thought a few minutes and asked me "Why is there wine in the yarn holder?" I guess when you have never seen it as anything but that........

For Christmas Michelle and I received a pair of Sonicare toothbrushes each with their own heads. We decided that since there was only one charger, we would just use one handle, and rotate the heads (which I dutifully marked with a "M" and a "T") for whoever was using it. Very nice system, except I have caught myself a couple times not checking the initial and almost committing a hygiene faux pas (Dictionary link provided for Kyle!).

Michelle brought home a video from the library, for the kids. An earlier version of the Thomas the Tank Engine series. This is one from before I have ever seen it, and I was shocked about the narration. The series used to be narrated by Ringo Starr. Now apparently I missed the memo on this because Michelle was all casual about it, and said that they actually used to do some live action spots for in between the different segments. These were basically little clips of Ringo and some other people on some train station doing some activities or just talking or something. All I can say is that it blow me away, in a bad way. What the heck was Ringo doing? There just seems like something fundamentally wrong with that whole scenario, but since Ringo and Paul are the only ones left from the trio, maybe still working after the Beatles was the right strategy.

Ryan had a little boo-boo on his hand the other day, I still am not sure where he got it from, but when we were eating lunch yesterday he said to me "I think I need another band-aid, you hustle." After I stopped laughing he eventually got his band-aid.

Jack Abramoff has made such news recently with the corruption scandal and I have a couple thoughts on this issue. A couple of weeks ago when the story first broke there was this big rush of politicians returning donated money to him or the people he lobbied on behalf of. Even the White House had to return some money from their campaign. And I know that not everyone that received money from him actually did naughty stuff for him, but it seems to me that returning the money is kind of a non-issue at this point. Yes, yes, the first rule of staying alive in Washington is distancing yourself from any scandal any way that you can, but seriously, it isn't like people didn't notice that money. (Oh, that senator gave back all that money, he must not have done anything wrong. Hello?!?! He TOOK the money first!) Maybe my problem is a more basic one. The fact that the political system that we have in place requires candidates to accept money from people. And it isn't illegal for the candidate once in office to think twice about issues of concern of the people who forked over some cash. Seems like that is similar to putting a broke liquor store owner and an rich alcoholic in the same room and telling them to be responsible. Not going to happen. The liquor store owner will sell everything he can to the alcoholic, and not worry at all about his health, or the health of the nation. I can't think of a solution, except to say what I have said before, the people who should be our leaders are too smart to want the job. And the one who did get the job of President was a C students in school.

Happy New Year

We stayed up to watch the ball drop last night. I must question, why the is it so late? Couldn't we just drop the ball around 8pm? It may have seemed a wee bit later due to the fact that I drove back from Poughkeepsie solo, with two little munchkins, then brought everything in from the car and got almost all the unpacking done.

Long day.