Turkey hangover

Happy belated Thanksgiving! I hope your holiday was warm, talk-filled, food-filled, and overall much to be thankful for. That's what mine was.

We traveled to see my family this year. The girls enjoyed seeing their aunties, uncle, grandparents, and quasi-uncle. I made apple and pumpkin pies as my contribution to the meal and I only regret that I left the leftover pie at my sister's house. I'm thinking I might need to make another pumpkin pie this week for us.

The best part is that now we're home in our own beds and the girls are still off of school and Greg is still off of work for two more days. Yay for long weekends!

What was this--guesses welcome

On the weekends, we let Julia sleep in Allie's full-size bed with her and we let both girls stay up later than usual. The result is that they normally talk and giggle for awhile in bed and as a result, they sleep in the next morning until 8:00 or so, which is a wonderful side benefit for Greg and me.

Last night, I couldn't tell if Julia was covered with blankets or not when I went up to bed. I stepped into Allie's room and the floor creaked. Julia flopped her arm over in her sleep and it landed on Allie's shoulder. Allie pushed up on her elbow and leaned over the edge of her bed to look intently at the floor for about 30 seconds.

What she was doing and what she was looking at, I have no idea. I don't even know if her eyes were open since I was on the opposite side of the bed. She says she doesn't remember doing it. I'll remember for awhile because I stood there laughing silently at her for more than a minute.

My child left where?

This week Allie discovered that she likes bagels with cream cheese. I like bagels too, but we don't buy them very frequently; in fact I can't remember when I last bought some. The bagels were part of the special snacks provided by parents at school this week, and Allie didn't want to eat breakfast at home all week because of a provided breakfast also. What was the occasion?

Third grade was taking their "Wicky" tests--the tests that determine if our school system is meeting it's obligations under the No Child Left Behind law or act or whatever it's called. To make sure that Allie's grade does as well as they possibly can, the school system does some extraordinary things.

First, they have the entire second grade practice taking a week of the tests to smell out any problem areas (or problem children, I assume). During that week last year, every child was provided with a nutritious breakfast--just in case they didn't or don't get one at home, I guess. The mid-morning milk break was also special "nutritious" snacks; not just the normal crackers but also string cheese, yogurt, and fruit. They did the same thing this week, plus the school hallways were under special "quiet test time" rules.

I appreciate what they're trying to demonstrate here, I really do. I just think it's sad that they only go through these efforts to provide an extremely positive learning and testing environment for one week during the year.

We sent string cheese. Does that mean we did our part for education this week? This year?

Warning to future buyers of any car I have owned in the last 11 years

Once upon a time, I diligently followed the service recommendations that came with my automobiles. I'd get oil changes done every 3,000 miles or so. I'd get the recommended 30,000 mile check done, and I'd keep on top of getting new windshield wipers and such. Then I'd trade my car in and buy another one. At about 50,000 miles or so.

Actually, I did used to do these things but those were the years when I did sales and put about 25,000 miles on my car each year and I got a monthly car allowance of several hundred dollars.

Then I quit sales and got married and started having kids and car maintenance slipped way, way to the bottom of my list of priorities. I read some things about frequency of oil changes and realized I was an idiot to spend so much money on them and I started going a lot longer between changes. A lot longer.

Umm. Well. Today I got my oil changed. I think I went about 13,000 miles on this batch of oil. Oops.

So if you ever buy a car that I've owned, this has been your public warning that the maintenance hasn't been the best. Oh, and I never wax my car anymore either.

Gotta go--the oil change place discovered that I have a screw embedded in one of my tires and I'm off to have it fixed. See, I take care of my tires. Kinda. Not really, but I'm taking care of this one.

Sigh.

Busted!

Allie lost another molar last night. I think that's about tooth number 10 that's she in the process of replacing. She'll be 9 in January and she lost her first tooth before age 5, so her dentist says she's on track, if running a little early.

She found her little pewter tooth fairy tooth holder (a long-ago gift from Lisa--thanks again, Lisa!) and put her tooth in place on her nightstand. I should find out where Lisa got this gift because if I could stop any parent from having to reach under a sleeping kid's pillow--but I digress.

Allie looked at me, then asked Julia to go away for a minute. I had a sinking feeling. Yep, she wanted to tell me confidentially that she saw me exchange her last tooth for cash. Dang! That night, she wasn't stirring when I went in her room, but she stirred right after I made the exchange. It was probably a month ago and she hadn't asked any questions until now, so I thought I was in the clear.

She's agreed to keep the tooth fairy secret for the sake of her sister. Her only condition was that she wanted to see the teeth I've been keeping. Why I've been keeping them, I don't know. Why she wanted to see them, I don't know.

But now we're conspirators together. I'm wondering when she's going to bring up Santa. And again, she's growing up too fast.

November blues

There's supposed to be a high of 37 degrees today and snow this afternoon. It's also going to snow tomorrow, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, according to the meteorological powers-that-be.

Why do people like autumn?

Can it be 500?

According to Blogger, this is my 500th post. I've actually written over 500, but I deleted a few a few months back because I changed my mind about how much I wanted to talk about work. So 500 official posts available for review. That's a lot of talking about my kids and the cats.

Ah, who am I kidding. I know that I have about 10 regular readers and I know who all of you are, so most of you only really care to hear about my kids. I'm OK with that.

So, because we didn't report before, we did have 277 kids for Halloween this year. It was unseasonably warm, so that was actually a lower total than I expected. Our two kids had a good time trick-or-treating with their dad and the Clausen family. All of the chocolate is gone now from their candy stashes. I wonder how that happened? Oh, come on, please. I'm home all day with big candy stashes and those little fun size Milky Ways are just staring at me. What would you do?

By the way, I'm somewhat surprised that I haven't actually gained any weight since I've not been working. I've lost about 10 lbs. instead, which is exactly the opposite of what I thought would occur when I have immediate access to food all day. Not that the candy vending machine at work was all that distant, but whatever.

OK, so that's about it for my 500th post. More of the same old, same old. 500 posts in almost 5 1/2 years. I'm not exactly publishing enough to set the world on fire, but I'm capturing some family moments for my kids someday. That's enough for me. Have a great weekend!

Isn't puke fun.

Julia threw up at 4 a.m. this morning. And 7 a.m. and about 11:45 a.m.

I guess the benefit of having a five-year-old who's got a tummy bug is that she's not managed to make much of a mess throwing up. And since I'm not working, if she isn't well enough to go to school tomorrow, I'm obviously available to take care of her.

That's looking on the bright side of things, isn't it? Instead of me and Greg debating (fighting) over whose work for that day is more important?

Now we just have to hope that she's the only one in the family affected.

November already

We have a new president-elect, and I'm happy about who won.

I have a third interview tomorrow with a local company, so I'm pumped and a little nervous.

And the girls brought home their school pictures today. They both look adorable and older than their years. I told Greg on the phone that he wouldn't believe them when he saw them, especially Allie's. I said she looks about 20 years old.

Julia heard me and piped up, "And I look - - um, 14!"