Nature or Nurture?

My husband, for those who don't know him, is a very literal man. I call him Mr. Literal. It's really annoying. He says exactly what he means and he will do exactly what you ask him to do. We try not to say, "Throw that [fill in the blank] over here," unless you really want him to throw it at you.

A little while ago, I was in the basement folding laundry, and had the kids come down to bring their piles up to put away. I handed Ty his pile, which was rather large and had a pair of underpants on top. In order to balance his pile, he ended up using his face. I said, "Ty are you ok? 'Cuz you've got undies in your face..."

As he was walking away and up the stairs he said, "Well technically they're not IN my face. They're NEXT TO my face but not in my face. If they were in my face, that would be weird."

Mr. Literal, Jr.

Hi. Didja Miss Me?

Don't even ask where I've been. Lazy I guess. I just haven't blogged. I was surprised to see it's been since December 5th though. I thought I'd blogged at least once in January. I'll try to give you a quick update.

- Steve is still hard at work. They found some way to do a remote start-up with one of their factories so thank you God, he's been home these last two months and not in Korea.

- S3 is finishing up a looooong, boring basketball season. Basketball is not my favorite sport nor is he exceptionally good at it. He is athletic so he does well but it's not like watching him play soccer or baseball where he's usually one of the best players.

- Ty is a reading machine. I'd have never guessed he'd be my reader but let me just say I'm so glad we re-found the library. Does anyone know of any good youth stories about spies? Spy stories are his favorite.

- G is still playing soccer. She's finally on a team of girls her own age (rather than one and two years older!) and she's regaining her confidence. It's good to see. She's growing her hair back out so it's kinda scraggly right now but it grows fast.

- E cut her hair for LoL also (I don't think I ever told you guys that) and at first I was upset we'd cut off all her beautiful curls but it's so cute, it's ok. She's doing great in kindergarten and all my worries about her motion sickness and the school bus seem to be for naught, thank goodness.

- I am hunting for a new job. I've been working at the facility for 2.5 years now and I'm getting worn out. I wanted to be able to help and to give care and I feel like I'm so rushed and stretched now that I barely have time to do the minimum for my residents. I'm now looking for home health. I think I'll like the one-on-one much better and I'm hoping to time it right that I'll still be able to study and watch the kids' sports games.

I think that's about it. It's good to be back :)

Summer is Kicking My Butt

Where have I been? I honestly don't know. Maybe it'll get better for a little bit now that baseball is done. S3's team ended their season 1 and 21. Yes, you read that right. One win, twenty-one losses. It was a looooooooong season. I have to say that it was the first year Exeter had a Prep Legion team and it was the first year our coaches have ever coached and it was a fact that we were not provided with a field to practice on but really this was a little ridiculous.

At first I didn't really have a problem with the way things were going. I fully expected our boys to pull together and improve; after all they are some of the best players in the area. But there was a distinct lack of morale which I think can be directly blamed on the coaches.

Baseballs sometimes come in large buckets. Our team had two such baseball buckets upon which our coaches perched through the entire game. Toward the end of the season the parental grumbling got louder and louder and I heard the phrases, "Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dumb" and "Frogs on Lilly Pads" and my personal favorite, "The Bucket Boys." We were informed about a fall league and I heard parents say their sons would not be playing if the same guys were going to be coaching. It was bad.

Anyway, Steve was home for a week and now he's gone again. I think he'll be home every other week now through August. I miss him but I'll be glad to hog all the pillows to myself. He had the most amazing compliment from one of the head-honchos at the place where he's been working. I would share more but I don't know how much is sensitive (large corporations can get touchy sometimes) but you gotta trust me on this one. I don't know that he's ever received such a compliment and he's gotten a lot of accolades over the years.

S3 went to camp two weeks ago and last week Ty and G went for a week. It was the first time any of them spent more than a night or two apart from me. Funny enough, I didn't really miss them too much and I don't think they missed me at all. They had a blast and they're looking forward to going again next year. I think that's a good sign.

Steve's grandmother's family had a reunion this past weekend. Although I've been married to this man for nearly 14 years and although I mail out Christmas cards to these folks semi-regularly, I've never actually met most of them. It was interesting. They were all very nice (it's obvious if you know Steve's grandmother at all that her family would be wonderful) but still I hid in the side yard with the kids and my BIL most of the day. I'm not as good in a crowd as I used to be.

What else have we done this summer? Hmmm. Well my BIL has nearly finished fixing up my back yard for me and I must say it looks gorgeous. He put in a teared veggie garden, did some major flower bed reconstruction, tore down my old fencing and put new up, made a bunny pen, mulched and even mowed a couple of times. He's wonderful. I've had Steve's sister and her family over for a few barbeque's to enjoy all their hard work but I don't think I'll ever be able to convey my gratitude properly. It's such a relief to have a beautiful haven in my back yard.

Speaking of bunnies, soon it'll be bunny shaving time. My sister's friend has angora clippers and she's said she'd come over and help me de-hair the hare. Being crazy spinner/weaver types they're both excited for the fiber. Mel had me laughing one of the last times she was over. Beck had shed a big clump of hair on my shirt and she was all excited about how well it {insert spinning/weaving term that I can't remember here} and then she started to twist and show me how strong the fibers are. We've decided she'll spin me some yarn and I'll crochet a scarf. Then I can really be the crazy bunny lady.

Ok I've babbled enough. Maybe I'll manage to post again but sooner than a month from now.

10 Things I Learned Today

1. When the moon is full, it will rain the minute you step out of the car to change a flat and stop raining the minute you are at the repair shop. Also it will be the one day of the month that instead of wearing your typical black, you will be wearing white and powder blue.

2. Monroe doesn't put the lug nuts on so tight that a girl can't get them off.

3. Dummy tires don't have a label on them that says, "This side toward car," but there really is only one way they'll go on.

4. Camera phones and email come in real handy when you can't figure out how to lower a jack and your dad is and hour away but sitting in front of his computer.

5. When you lower the car, do it slowly or you might startle yourself and the kid strapped in her carseat inside the car.

6. My husband (it's his car) is a slob. Or a pack rat. Or maybe both. Either way, there was a lot of junk in that trunk. On top of the spare.

7. I realized if I ever planned to murder someone, I couldn't risk putting their dead body in the trunk of the car.

8. Tires are heavy.

9. If you are wearing eye make up and changing a tire in the rain, you have to look carefully at all your fingers to decide which is the cleanest one before you can lick it and clean the mascara from your cheeks so that the repair shop guys don't think you were crying.

10. After 15 years (half my lifetime) I can still change a flat tire.

Happy Fifth Birthday Evelyn!

And Happy Thirty-third Birthday Steve!

The actual day of birth for Steve and E was yesterday but we were having too much fun at Chuck E. Cheese to bother to come post on the blog. It was just Mel's kids and I kept my kids home from school. We ate pizza and cake, danced and played arcade games all afternoon. G's soccer practice was cancelled and Steve made it home by 7 PM so we took him out to Austin's Restaurant & Bar for dinner. Unfortunately we were all too stuffed to have a piece of his chocolate peanut butter birthday cake so we decided to save it for tonight.

Gifts: E got the movie Barbie Fairytopia: Magic of the Rainbow and a Magic of the Rainbow doll that also is the dvd controller for an interactive dvd game. Steve got tickets to see Bill Cosby live in June and I sent a balloon bouquet and a box of choclates to him at work. He was in meetings with a customer all morning and when he came out he said he couldn't figure out how everyone knew it was his birthday - at least not until he got to his desk and saw the balloons.

Because I know your day won't be complete with out it, here are some pics from CEC:

Music Soothes the Savage Beast

(BTW if you're thinking to yourself, Sara's pretty nice. I wouldn't exactly call her a savage beast then I can only say you obviously haven't been around when I have PMS)

I don't know exactly why my brain works this way but I can remember the year an artist put out a particular album and yet I struggle to remember which day is my anniversary or what I had for breakfast this morning. However this means there is a theme song in my head for every occassion. Sometimes there is more than one.

For example I have quite a few songs that chronicle my relationship and feelings with Steve. REO Speedwagon did a song called Can't Fight this Feeling in which they sing: what started out as friendship has grown stronger. We knew each other in high school - since I was fourteen years old.

Alanis Morissette sings Head Over Feet which describes how I feel exactly but particularly this line: You held your breath and the door for me. Thanks for your patience. He has always been such a gentleman. He persisted and won me over.

Anyway you get the idea.

Today I had to run to WalMart for laundry detergent and I caught a piece of Rod Stewart singing Have I Told You Lately which, again, has a line or two in there that makes me think of Steve (You fill my life with laughter) and it started me thinking...

Is there a song out there that sings about love and yet tells the whole story? Don't get me wrong, I like mushy love songs just as much as the next person but really, "take away all my sadness?" As in I'll never be sad again? Or how about, "Ease my troubles, that's what you do." Frankly sometimes he's the source of my troubles.

So here's how I think this song should go:

Have I Told You Lately that I love you?
Have I told you there's no one else except God above you?
Fill my heart with gladness, take away most of my sadness,
Sometimes cause me troubles, that's what you do.

For the morning sun in all it's glory,
Meets the day with hope and comfort too,
You fill my life with laughter, somehow you make it better most of the time,
Sometimes cause me troubles, that's what you do.

There's a love less defined,
And it's yours and it's mine,
Like the sun.
And at the end of the day,
We should give thanks and pray,
To The One, to The One.

Repeat Chorus.

Love you Darling!

You're A Keeper

I don't know if I've mentioned this before but I'm not big on holidays in general and I've never been terribly romantic. That's not to say I don't like romance; I'm just not good at coming up with romantic ideas and sometimes I have trouble appreciating my husband's romantic gestures. Steve is an incurable romantic which is not something I think most people would suspect about him. Years ago he used to buy me a dozen red roses for Valentine's Day and another half dozen for each of our mothers. Finally I forbade him to do it anymore. I told him I could think of a lot better ways to spend $50 than on flowers. See, not very romantic am I?

Anyway, two days after Valentine's Day one of our kids ended up getting sick and being the good man that he is, he ran to WalMart for medicine in the middle of the night. He came home and told me he had a present for me. This is what I found in the bag:


One of the things I love best about this man is his sense of humor.