Magic hugs

Tonight Bethany was over for dinner since her husband has a seminary class. We ate spaghetti and then we all piled in the truck to go and look at a chair Charles wanted to buy from someone on Craig's List.  I didn't realize until we were pulling out of the driveway that our little dog was in the car too. She is not really a car dog. She used to hurl over and over again when we would take her in the car when she was a puppy, so we just got used to not taking her on car trips unless we had to. (do you blame us?)

She was enjoying  it tonight though. Bethany rolled her window down about a quarter of the way and let Maisy stick her head out. I fell into narration mode as we watched her learning how to do the head out the window thing for the first time. "Okay, I can do this, I'm a dog...I think this is how it's done, you just...uh....uuuuhhhh, this is harder than it looks! Wind....wind..must....put....head...out......can't keep eyes open....ears....wind....all the smells of the city at 45 miles an hour....this is great!" And then there were sound effects of wind going through her cheeks that I cannot possibly spell out for you to read.

She is mighty funny, that dog.

My mom and sister kept her for 8 days about a week ago while we were out of town. One night I was talking to my sister and she asked me if Maisy usually went into her crate voluntarily at bedtime. I said yeah, she goes in there every night at bedtime. She said, "Well I tell her to go to bed and she just goes to the door of it and stands there! I have to pick her up and put her into it."

"Oooooh," I said, "she is waiting for a hug." And while my sister knows I'm a little nutty with my dog, she knew I was serious, so she tried it.

Sure enough, the next night Jodi waited for the pause and gave Maisy a hug and she went right into her crate!

The dog is a tradition lover....or maybe more like a tradition demander.  ;)

When your dog has too much influence...

Maisy wanted me to show you this one.

 She thinks it's hilarious and horrifying at the same time.

Complete is relative

970 1/2 piece puzzle on the table (28 1/2 pieces in the dog)......all done. Or as done as it can be with a dog in the house.

Crabby Abbey

Just finished watching the finale of season 3. This is the only way to make sense of it.

pfft!

Big Soft Ginger Cookies....and dumplings

I signed up to make dinner last night for a church member who had her ankle reconstructed. Chicken and dumplings and soft ginger cookies.

I got there and she was so glad someone brought a dinner. She said "Oh that is so nice. I'm so glad I don't have to eat chicken and dumplings another day." I guess someone else made them for her on Saturday and she's been eating the leftovers.

Uh...well....

After I told her I brought chicken and dumplings, we laughed. She was embarrassed and I was laughing.

I thought that was such a nonstandard dish to bring someone, but she said I had brought chicken and dumplings to someone else once (I must block these things from my mind...I have no recollection) and she tasted it and really liked it. At that time she had told me that chicken and dumplings were her favorite meal and she just never made them for herself so she hadn't had them in years.

Well, how do you explain that?? We decided that it was in my subconscious somewhere and that caused me to make them for her.

So funny though, how your subconscious can boss you around like that. Things like that always happen to me!

The ginger cookies were so good, they are all gone! Here is the recipe. It makes a neat 3 dozen 2 inch cookies.

Big soft ginger cookies

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup margarine, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 2 tablespoons white sugar

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Sift together the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and salt. Set aside.

2. In a large bowl, cream together the margarine and 1 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, then stir in the water and molasses. Gradually stir the sifted ingredients into the molasses mixture. Shape dough into walnut sized balls, and roll them in the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar. Place the cookies 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet, and flatten slightly.

3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

Funny Honey

My husband is so funny...and it's usually my job to point it out.

1. We were outside today, sitting peacefully on the back porch, when a gigantic black bumble bee came buzzing by me. (I call them jumbo jets)

I screamed "BEE!!!!" (I think I was flapping my arms and legs at the same time too)

He just looked at me and asked "What???"

I said "It's a BEE!" and he said, "Oh, I thought you were calling me." Then he just shook his head like he was relieved that he didn't have to call the paddy wagon.

I do call him B, but I never shriek it at the top of my lungs while I'm sitting right beside him. I've been laughing over it all day.

2. I checked Facebook this morning and on his profile page, it said he had 666 friends. So I posted a comment that he should notice that and add another person to his list. He wrote back that he actually needed 111 more friends.

3. I have been carefully saving up money to buy a new couch, socking away money little by little in a certain hiding place. Lately he has taken to looking at guitars on ebay, so he suggested that instead of a couch, he could get a new guitar. He was teasing me but he has a certain look in his eye....

...and I changed my hiding place. :\

Pets on Parade ;)

I am really glad that I do a double take sometimes. A quick glance misses some fun details.

This morning I pulled out of my driveway to head down the street to take Maggie to school, and at fist glance I saw my neighbor riding up the street on his bicycle. This was not unusual, he is usually out there finishing his morning bike ride when I leave to take Maggie to school.  Today, something about the look on his face made me do a double take and then I saw, there on his shoulder, was a parrot. I started going on about it to Maggie, "There's a BIRD on his shoulder! hahaha, isn't that funny? That is hilarious." Maggie, who is about to turn 13 just looked at me condescendingly and says, "Mom, that is not funny, it's weird."  I thought it was about the funniest thing I've seen in a long time, and then I remembered my own dad.

My dad always got some kind of regular exercise too. He jogged for a while, then his knees hurt, so he took up riding his bicycle, but the ten speed bike hurt his back bending over so far while riding. He then got the idea to put long upright handlebars of an old kids' bike onto the tall, skinny, sleek ten speed bike. It looked funny....not haha funny, but ODD funny.....embarrassing to preteen daughters type of funny. I was about Maggie's age at the time. These days, this would not be an odd sight, but in the '70's it was pretty weird. When I tried to inform him of this, he just laughed.  He liked his invention, he was always improving things by fiddling around with them. There was no stopping him. My dad was a nerd. I just made peace with it, even as a preteen daughter. (and I tried to stay off of the street at bike riding time)



One day he decided to take our dog for a bike ride...our poodle. He wired a metal milk crate to the back of the ten speed bicycle and put a little cushion in it and put the poodle, Muffin, into the crate. Off they went, a spectacle on wheels! He liked it... Muffin that is, (yes, Muffin was a boy dog with an embarrassingly sissy name)  so Dad would oblige him almost every day from then on with a bike ride, to the enjoyment of the whole neighborhood. He wasn't a spectacle to them, he just made them smile.

I only wish I had taken a picture, but I didn't want proof back then. Some things you are only fond of by way of memory. (especially when you're a preteen girl hiding in the basement while her dad takes the poodle on a ride through the neighborhood on an incredibly strange looking bicycle)

Wow, look at that ring, ummmm

This morning the preschool classroom was running smoothly, children were all enjoying quiet activities at the tables while everyone arrived and got settled. The next child entered with her mother and M, seated at the play dough table, looked up at her friend's mom and shouted, "Hey Mrs. A, look at my new RING!"  All eyes turned to her, at which time she enthusiastically held up the finger the ring was on....her middle finger....only.



Oh bother.

Tortoises and trepidations

My new job is pretty fun. Preschoolers are awesome fun in general, but when you get to work with them every day, you get to really bond with them. The teacher I am an assistant to is a hoot. She is from England, so everything is said with that English accent and sounds more interesting somehow. She has me doing the craft project in the mornings usually, which I don't mind, except for the burnt hot glue fingertips, paint stains on my hands and arms and more brain power than I usually have in figuring out how to do the craft efficiently!

One day last week, she gave me styrofoam rings, all kinds of plastic leaves and red flowers with plastic coated wire stems, little drums, pine cones, ribbons and garlands. She told me to have the children make Christmas wreaths. I said, "Okay, and how are they supposed to attach all of this to the styrofoam?" With a twinkle in her eye, she said, "I don't know! That's your problem!"

You see how it goes. But I follow orders and try to put in my 3 hours a day enthusiastically. I found out on Friday though, that I do have a breaking point.

Our school principal brought her desert tortoise to school on Friday. When she got it, it fit in the palm of her hand. Five years later, it is somewhere close to 35 pounds. It was carried to our classroom by an assisting teacher whose class was at PE. So our teacher had all the children sit on the floor in a circle and the tortoise was put in the middle of the circle and walked around inspecting the children and munching pieces of apple she had for it. The principal told us all about the tortoise and it's personality and habits and care. Meanwhile, the teacher who had carried the tortoise had to leave to get her class to another place. And after a while the principal said she had to get back to the office, but she didn't know when that teacher would be back to carry it for her. (she had a bad arm and was not supposed to carry heavy things) So MY teacher, without so much as glancing at me, says, "OH, Mrs. L will carry it for you!"

My eyes bugged out and I felt like I was choking and a huge "NO" came out of my mouth. Eh heh heh, embarrassing! She looked at me kind of amused and said, "Why NOT, Mrs. L?" I just mouthed the words I'M SCARED OF IT and of course the children read my lips and were then amused too.

I was saved in the end because the other teacher came in (in the NICK of time!) to carry the dreadful thing back.

I'm sure I'll hear about this again some day, but for now I'm just laughing at myself and a little trepidacious about other 'visitors' this teacher may have during the coming semester. (there is a chinchilla in the room in a cage, but she only lets the kids play with it in the afternoons when I'm not there....this is good because it looks like a very large mouse.

Speaking of Swine Flu

.....if loco parents follow you around

For lack of funny, encouraging or interesting material from my own life, I want to post this note from Jeff Foxworthy today. Honestly if I was given 15 minutes I could have come up with this list too....with one hand tied behind my back. For example, today I was yelled at and followed into the cafeteria, still being yelled at, by a parent today.

My crime? She saw me ask her son to sit by the wall until the other children had gone into the lunch room. He had kicked a pencil and it almost hit our librarian right in the face. Her argument was that she did not see him do it. But she also did not see the pencil flying and the librarian ducking away from it. All the children in the back of the line saw it and confirmed it.

Loco!

I came home and got this email forwarded to my address. It seemed meant to be posted today. (thanks Jackie K)

Jeff Foxworthy on School Employees

YOU might be a school employee if you believe the playground should be equipped with a Ritalin salt lick.

YOU might be a school employee if you want to slap the next person who says, 'Must be nice to work 8 to 3:30 and have summers off.

YOU might be a school employee if it is difficult to name your own child because there's no name you can come up with that doesn't bring high blood pressure as it is uttered.

YOU might be a school employee if you can tell it's a full moon or if it going to rain, snow, hail....anything!!! Without ever looking outside.

YOU might be a school employee if you believe, 'shallow gene pool' should have its own box on a report card.

YOU might be a school employee if you believe that unspeakable evils will befall you if anyone says, 'Boy, the kids sure are mellow today.'

YOU might be a school employee if when out in public, you feel the urge to snap your fingers at children you do not know and correct their behavior.

YOU might be a school employee if you have no social life between August and June.

YOU might be a school employee if you think people should have a government permit before being allowed to reproduce.

YOU might be a school employee if you wonder how some parents MANAGED to reproduce.

YOU might be a school employee if you laugh uncontrollably when people refer to the staff room as the 'lounge.'

YOU might be a school employee if you encourage an obnoxious parent to check into charter schools or home schooling and are willing to donate the U-HAUL boxes should they decided to move out of district.

YOU might be a school employee if you think caffeine should be available in intravenous form.

YOU might be a school employee if you can't imagine how the ACLU could think that covering your students chair with Velcro and then requiring uniforms made out of the corresponding Velcro could ever be misunderstood by the public.

YOU might be a school employee if meeting a child's parent instantly answers this question, 'Why is this kid like this?'

YOU might be a school employee if you would choose a mammogram over a parent conference

YOU might be a school employee if you think someone should invent antibacterial pencils and crayons...and desks and chairs for that matter!

YOU might be a school employee if the words 'I have college debt for this?' has ever come out of your mouth.

YOU might be a school employee if you know how many days, minutes, and seconds are left in the school year!

Best Wishes!

Soul mates

I'm sorry. Kind of....

I'll be posting these all week just so you're forewarned.

heehee



I don't really think I'm taking Valentine's Day seriously this year....okay ....or last year. It's much more freeing actually though. You should try it.

Valentines with a kick

Last year I put some snarky valentine's on my blog. They were sarcastic, they were full of snark, and they were hilarious.

This year I will put some here for you before Valentine's Day so we can all get it out of our system before the day on which we are supposed to be nice. ;) Here are some candy hearts you can design. Be nice....or not. Just make some.



At i heart despair. It's fun!

And remember:

Blogging

This has me cracking up today. =)

Slippy cakes make me grumpy

For Maggie's birthday I made a strawberry boxed cake, but replaced pureed strawberries for the liquid. That turned out great. Then I made my 'never has failed me yet' buttercream vanilla frosting. It was not thickening up so I kept adding powdered sugar. I finally just put it in the fridge to see if that would stiffen it up. And put the cake in the freezer to be cool when it was frosted.

After dinner, with my whole family standing around watching me (impatient because the 2 teens had band practice and church meetings so they were waiting for cake) I frosted the cake. It's a 2 layer cake and so I frosted the middle then put the 2nd layer on. It kept sliding over, the frosting was SO liquidy!!! I have no idea why! Finally by the time the cake was all frosted, I was almost having to hold it on constantly so it wouldn't immediately slide off the base. Everyone was cracking up and my hands were all frosted by the time it was all sliced and handed out. It was so very sugary from all the extra sugar I put in, that it made us shudder.

It looked like that song, Someone left the Cake out in the Rain.....except that is not the name of the song, just a line in it. MacArthur Park. Anyway, cake.... slip sliding away ....weird!

I love youtube.com.

Good medicine

A cheerful heart is good medicine,
but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.
Proverbs 17:22 22

I was reading another blog today and the writer was telling about the biggest laugh they've had this week. And I have had several, so I decided to share.

I love to laugh. I laugh a lot, even when I'm not supposed to. An overactive imagination helps when having to wait in a line or do a dull task and often I have to stifle a laugh because I'm all alone and someone might call the funny farm. ;) And just so I know I'm not the only person so easily amused, just look here. nyuck nyuck nyuck

Saturday night my friend Kelly and I went to the movies. We saw Mama Mia. We were laughing so hard, tears were squirting out our eyes and I heard a couple of snorts....I'm not saying who, there was a whole theater of ladies in there. Some of the things we laughed at were not even meant to be funny. heh

Then we had to pick up Kelly's poodle from the groomer on the way home. She had asked the groomer to leave a little Foo Man Choo type of beard on the dog. So we laughed all the way there 'discussin' it and all the possibilities. I'm glad Kelly can actually see when she's in hysterics (she was driving) because my eyes slam shut and squirt out tears. Oh, it was silly.....and cathartic! There is nothing like a good hysterical laughing session to not only clear the mind and anxiety of the day, but it clears your sinuses too. ;) We picked up poor Joey....poor Joe man Choo! Poor silly looking thing! His little beard was 2 inches long, at least. I hope she took a picture.

Sunday I had lunch with my mom, 3 sisters and grown niece. There was another hysterics session. We were there talking from about 2pm until after 6pm.

And then today! Today I was eating lunch by myself. All my lunch buddies have different schedules for lunch than I do this year. So I was reading an Avon catalog when I heard this huge "bbbbbbbbbbppppfffft". It turns out that a substitute teacher who was an our school today had fallen asleep in a chair, his chin on his chest, his chest puffing in and out, snoring his uvula out!!! Everyone who came into the lounge stopped, looked at me, then looked at the man and we all cracked up! I would just lift my eyebrows and send the person into hushed chortles. It was quite unexpected, quite at an unsuspecting person's expense and quite entertaining! Oh, I love rare times like that when things fall together in a great cosmic flubba dubba, goof up or oopsie. ;)

Oh and it turns out laughter is good medicine!! Check out that link!

Quirktitude appreciation day

Here is a fun thing bloggers do to ....er, FOR...each other. heehee They find one of these little questionaires of embarrassing stuff about yourself. Someone tags you and then you must do the 'meme' and follow the rules! All in fun, and I got tagged yesterday by Shasher, a fellow pastor's wife and friend. Her quirks are very interesting! Mine are unspectacular (kinda like the tweens' television show 'Unfabulous'), but here we go....

The Rules!
1. Link the person(s) who tagged me
2. Mention the rules on my blog
3. Tell about six unspectacular quirks of mine
4. Tag six fellow blogger's by linking them
5. Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged.

As for six fellow bloggers, I will let you decide if you want to join in. Let me know if you do this! (Taylor)


1. I animate things. Anything. When I was in grade school I remember raising my desk lid and pretending my pencils were a family and they had an elaborate life there in my desk. Stuffed animals are my favorite thing to animate, as I've talked about before. Each stuffed animal has it's own personality and voice. And I can't help it....it just happens. I can also tell you what is going on in an animal's mind, narrating them (usually out loud and much to the irritation of my kids) as I watch them.

2. I like to rhyme. My sister once told me that people with certain kinds of psychosis do this. It had me worried for about 15 minutes. Then I started blabbering on about how psychosis is a diagnosis which is quite precocious for someone who doesn't know this. eh heh

3. I like things to match. It used to drive me crazy if my underwear that matched a certain outfit wasn't ready to wear with the outfit. While that may be too much information for some of you, it is true.....and it is quirky....so there you go. That was in my teens though, and now it usually translates to my home. It is very unsettling to me to have my red hutch in beside the cobalt blues and apple greens in my kitchen/eating area. I must paint it.....soon!

4. When Hannah and I are together, we sometimes start to talk in short and fast quips like on Gilmore Girls. It's so exciting when we get into a long run of quick quips and say funny things. I get so excited that I usually jump up and say, "We did it!" which usually breaks the quiptitude of the moment.

5. I mimic sounds and people. It is not making fun, although it IS fun. I just do it to describe someone, especially my kids at school. When Bethany started working with kids I had the previous year at an after school care, I could describe the kids and their voices or the way they talked or moved when they talked so that she instantly knew who I was talking about.

6. I like words and learning new ones. I like to use new words or invent them. Free Rice is a fun game with interesting words. AND it helps donate free rice to hungry people. I always play to 1,000 grains. If I go over 1,000 by mistake, I play to 2,000. I'm not a perfectionist by any means, I just really like symmetry.

DespairWear

Click the picture to actually read the shirts.

I can't get enough of despair.com. It is hilarious. They now have T-shirts, although I could never wear one....I'm way too happy. The only person who doesn't think I look happy is the woman who works the afternoon shift at my local Curves. Almost every time I walk in the door, she tells me to cheer up and smile. It makes me want to pinch her, but I just smile and think to myself, "Perhaps I look like this because I am about to pummel myself for the next 30 minutes to old 80's music with a disco beat running through it. Hmmm?"

Thinking of who I could buy a T-shirt for though.....that is pretty entertaining. (in a nice way....usually)

Nope, nope, nope

If you would promise me a cat would be this entertaining and talk sassy to me like this, I would have one.

But you can't promise me that, can you? (watch this, it's cute!)

I found it over at cuteoverload.com.