Julia's dream

This morning Julia told me:

"Mommy, I had the greatest dream last night. I dreamed that I was sleeping with Allie in her bed and Ava's kitty was outside the window but her feet weren't touching anything. And then I saw that a big dragon was holding her. Then (Barbie) Mariposa came and she hit the dragon and it went away and Ava's kitty was OK. That was the coolest dream ever."

Request

"Mommy, can you please leave so we can play with the princess set?"

A request from Julia this morning upon arriving at daycare. The girls wave goodbye to me and they wanted to get it over with.

So not worth it

Greg and I went to the movies with the girls this weekend. Julia very much enjoys being contrary, so when Allie said she wanted to see the Star Wars clone movie, Julia immediately insisted she was not going to that and that she wanted to see Fly Me to the Moon. Julia's been taking this contrary tendency to the extreme lately, especially in regards to food choices. She never, ever wants the same thing for lunch that Allie does.

This is healthy assertion of her independence, right? Damn irritating healthy independence, but there you go.

So we went to the theater and Greg took Allie to the Star Wars movie while Julia and me went to the Fly movie, which was shown on an Imax screen in 3-D. Did I mention that it was $35.00 for the four of us? Yep, $22.50 just for me and Julia. And both movies sucked. Well, at least ours looked good. And Greg said Allie seemed entranced.

But overall? I think we should have gone to the (free) zoo again.

Greg's vacation

Greg's company has this wonderful program associated with work anniversaries. After you reach your 10th anniversary and at five-year intervals after that, if you take one entire Monday through Friday week off, you get an extra week off for free. Greg is now in the middle of his two-week "holiday."

We haven't killed each other yet.

Busy weekend

Allie had a friend for a sleepover this weekend, so we went to Ella's Deli for dinner on Friday night. The poor deprived child had never been there. It was carousel rides all around afterwards, then home. After a big breakfast on Saturday morning, we all went bowling, which was wonderful, especially since I got four strikes and Greg got none. It makes the Wii bowling defeat much less meaningful, trust me.

We had lunch out and delivered the friend to her home, then on Saturday afternoon, we bought school supplies for the girls. Needless to say, Allie's third grade requires a whole heck of a lot more supplies than Julia's kindergarten. Julia is showing just as much pride and excitement about her new backpack, crayons, and other items as she did about her birthday party supplies, which I can tell you is a considerable amount.

Yesterday, Allie went to a different friend's house for the afternoon and Greg talked online to Dan for quite awhile. Later I took the girls to the park and then Greg took them on a long bike ride. It's an awesome thing, now that Allie finally can ride without training wheels. Then Greg tried to teach them how to shoot baskets, which sounds like it was an interesting endeavor. After baths and watching some Olympics women's gymnastics in high def, it was bedtime.

I found out this morning that they were both trying to tumble and somersault on Allie's bed. Julia fell off. We heard the thud but she didn't cry--tough kid.

Summer

It's a beautiful day today. The sun is shining, the only clouds are big puffy white ones, it's not too hot so all of the windows are open, the birds are chirping, there's a light breeze . . . basically your stereotypical nice-as-possible summer day.

It's Friday. I hope you savor today for a few minutes and enjoy the coming summer weekend.

Healthier

This morning, I heard a ruckus in the master bathroom that suggested a party was going on. I seriously didn't know what the heck was occurring, so I grabbed the cordless phone and headed upstairs, even though I suspected it was just the cats.

Oh, indeed. This morning, Greg was ready to take his four vitamin tablets and capsules when he realized that we were out of Dixie cups. He walked away and left the pills on the bathroom counter. It took the cats less than an hour to jump up and discover some small and yellow things that looked like fun to bat around. And so they did.

When I found them, Rabies was crouched over a fish oil capsule, licking it and batting it around the carpet. Simon had another capsule under his paw, I think vitamin E.

They've both gotten quite the boost to their metabolisms today!

Over

Just a really quick update because Blogger is going to be doing an update in four minutes. My interview went fine. It sounds like I'm one of four candidates under consideration. I should know something about a second (and possibly third) interview by the end of next week, maybe. I'll keep you posted.

Thanks again for your good wishes!

Butterflies

A few days ago, I had my first mammogram. It was not fun. It was not godawful. It was one of those necessary evils of getting older, and I had put mine off a few years after I was supposed to have my first one.

Interviews are not fun. They aren't godawful. They're a necessary thing (I won't call them an evil). They're important. And despite my years of human resources experience, I have butterflies about today. Not great-big-leaping-in-the-stomach-fish, just butterflies.

Deep breath.

Feeling uninspired

I don't know what it is. Now that I'm not working, I'm not very motivated for other things either. I did gear up last week and cleaned all three floors of our house. That actually takes much longer than you would think because before you can actually wipe something, you need to redistribute the three tons of crap that's on top of it. There was more stuff going up and down the stairs (to places that seemed more logical than the original locations) than a freight elevator should be asked to handle. There was an occasion to clean for (there usually has to be for this household to tidy up). Julia turned 5 on Wednesday and my family came for her birthday party on the weekend.

It was wonderful to have them visit and Julia got a ton of presents. She truly is spoiled rotten. My in-laws bought her (and Allie) all kinds of things the week before, then she got gifts from our daycare provider and her family, then she got a gift from us on her birthday, then she got more presents at her party. Quite the haul, it was. Where it's going to go, I have no idea. Actually, that's not true. Later this week or next week, this family is going to try to simplify. I want to open a closet door and have room to put something inside. After 10 years in this house, that's not the case right now. There'll be more on this project later.

In the meantime, I have to go shopping for interview clothes today. Yes, that does mean something. Wish me luck!