Let me be perfectly clear, as a preface, here, that not only do I love my husband to pieces, I think he's something of a handyman savant. He has a garage full of tools and he actually knows how to use them (and often does). It's rare that something needs fixing or tightening or modifying and he can't take a look at it for a minute, nod, and take it out to his workbench and make it better than new. Furthermore, unlike some other husbands (perhaps even one I was once married to), he is a patient and helpful instructor and an excellent work companion. Working on projects together is one of my...
(You read the title and thought this was going to be about the kids, didn't you? Nope! They are still off being a pain in their father's neck!) So, a few years back I had a car accident, and the technical medical term for what happened as a result of that is that my neck is now utterly borked. Specifically, the left side of my neck. Difficult night's sleep? Sore neck! Stress? Sore neck! Pull a muscle anywhere in my body? Sore neck! Mercury in retrograde? Sore neck! My neck is sore a lot of the time, is my point. Whiplash is apparently the gift that keeps on giving. But that's okay! Because...
So yesterday Otto and I went out to run some errands and go to our first appointment with the specialist Monkey will be seeing, because for the first appointment just the parents get to go. We spent a lot of time sitting in the waiting room, and then a lot of time telling the nice doctor our entire medical history (well, mine and Monkey's, anyway), until somewhere around the "Has your cousin's step-sister's uncle's father ever had bursitis?" question I became sorely tempted to tell him that I had JUST REMEMBERED that actually, Monkey is adopted and we have no medical history on him...
We tried to pack as much family time into the first half of Saturday as we could, before the kids left (again). We got up early and hit the farmer's market, we came back home and had pancakes (and bacon! for when you love someone enough to feed them PIG FAT!), and then after we'd finished tidying up and making sure the kids were packed, we were sort of just hanging around. The way our house is set up, the dining room is between the kitchen and the staircase/family room. That is to say, we walk through it about a billion times a day. At some point on Saturday, I grabbed a corner of the...
Tomorrow I shall tell you all about what I'm doing today (because it will be funnier after I've pulled a muscle or twelve, and BELIEVE YOU ME, that's coming), but in the meantime I thought you might enjoy knowing what's brought people 'round here lately. I often forget to check my stats and then when I do, I am invariably delighted to discover all of the reasons stranger stumble upon my little corner of the web. (And by "delighted" I of course mean "alternately amused and horrified.") Shall we take a look? Let's! my son lost his two front teeth months ago Ummmm... congratulations? what to do...
Longtime readers know that it's a minor miracle I've been able to keep my children alive, over the years. I've killed house plants, I've neglected my lawn, I had a series of ill-fated betta fish; my POINT is that I'm not so much with the nurturing life force, it turns out. The children are a happy exception to this rule, perhaps because---unlike the things I've managed to kill by accident---they can open the fridge and get their own cheese. Why, even as I write this, they are fixing their own breakfasts of bagels and cream cheese, which means that later when I go into the kitchen and see the...
Hey, just a quick follow-up to yesterday's post, before I get started, here---it turns out that there is ONE covered specialist in the next town over who we could see. Don't even ask me how I figured this out, because it will cause my head to explode. Anyway. I called to make an appointment and was informed that we were required to do intake forms before we could even make an appointment. So I drove all the way over there with gas costing more than gold, and discovered two things: 1) This doctor is in the same practice as two of the "highly recommended" practitioners who do not take my...
Today is the last day of school, and that means my children have survived an entire year of learnin' courtesy of the great state of Georgia, and the more things change, the more they stay the same. For example, I was still scrambling around this morning putting together teacher gifts, just like every year. And I was hacking up a watermelon for a class party, last night, while complaining about it. That didn't used to happen until June, back up north, but BELIEVE ME, it happened. And I promised my daughter pink hair (new, true) and completely failed to deliver (not new) just the way I am...
On Saturday we got it into our heads that it would be a great idea to go pick our own strawberries at a local farm. Because that would be a great way to spend a morning! And we all love strawberries! Right? Sure! Okay, so, the first problem was that MY CHILDREN ARE TRYING TO KILL ME. And after begging to go berry picking they then refused to get ready to go and then took out everything they own and left it on the floor upstairs. At least, that's what it looked like. So I had one of those really charming teachable moments where, instead, I had a GIANT HAIRY HISSY FIT (that'll learn 'em!) and...
