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Potluck – All New – Travel Sized
That’s right, my friends: It’s time for another edition of
Potluck:*HeidiStyle™ – Now Travel Sized for My Convenience
*Potluck and all potluck related randomness totally stolen from Holly.
Legal disclaimer: Today's potluck is not shorter than average. Instead, the words "travel sized" could loosely be interpreted as "travel themed".
Now with more buttons!
…but probably won’t get one because, hello! it’s May and I’m busy.
- In one week we had three big field trips, including a six-hour train trip to Seattle, a fish dissection class on the Oregon coast, and an evening in Portland for the opera: The Barber of Seville (Figaro-Figaro-Figaro!). Two of these events happened on the same day.
- I thought Shasta was dying. She wasn’t eating and spent much of her time lying around the house. Turns out she didn’t like her new brand of dog food. I switched her and wha-la: she’s back to her old self, chasing squirrels along the fence line.
- Newt ran a local one-mile race for kids. We are now training for a 5k – her idea. She confided to me that she likes racing, but doesn’t really like running. When I told her we didn’t have to do the race, she got all indignant and rolled her eyes at me like I was some kind of raving lunatic.
- Despite the running, I am getting fat-ish. Stop Dieting, Start Potlucking
If you feel you must have a full post on any of these subjects, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.
Newt left this morning for a three day camp-out with her girl scout troop. I had planned to accompany her, until she *ever so politely asked if I would please stay home. Turns out she is ready for some adventure on her own.
Don’t tell her, but I was ready for some adventure on my own too. Apparently, adventure for me means Potluck.
Besides, who could eat s’mores after viewing this?
*I feel the need to explain that I was not being sarcastic there. Newt really did ask respectfully and politely for me to please stay away from her camp-out.
Attention perverts: I’m afraid I do not have what you are looking for when you google:
- mom without her clothes
- brady bunch girls wearing pantyhose
- I could not watch my moms colleague pant
In all fairness, that last one might be from a pet lover and Mom’s colleague could be a thirsty dog. If so, I apologize for calling you a pervert.
However, to those of you who googled:
- bad home perm
- getting a home perm
- permed mullet
- permutation frantically perms
Sadly, you’ve come to the right place. But I was 12! Can’t we all just get over it? (By the way, not to get all grammar policey, but you should have put a hyphen in perm-mutation.)
It’s out of control. Clean laundry in a pile on the floor (shoved off the bed last night). A load in the washer, another in the dryer, yet somehow the baskets are still overflowing onto the floor. We have three people in this family – how is this situation even possible?
I really should be doing my laundry.
May all your s’mores be murder-free.
Long Live Bob
It rained today. Great drops poured from a gray sky.
Without warning, it stopped. The sun broke through the clouds and shone as brightly as if the rain had never come.
However, it wasn’t long until the rain returned. This pattern continued throughout the entire day. At one point the rain poured down in bright daylight from a cloud that just couldn’t cover the sun.
Rain.
Sun.
Rain
Sun.
Rain-sun.
It was a confusing jumble of weather that refused to make up its mind.
Today was a sad day at our house. Bob, the biggest and best of Newt’s pet stick bugs, died. She had been my girl’s favorite: the one she carried around on her arm, read to and watched movies with.
I know that Bob was only an insect, but she was Newt’s insect and she was loved.
We buried her under the lilac tree between cloud bursts. Newt cried for Bob. I cried for Newt.
I tried to speak comforting words to my little girl as we worked together to find a suitable rock to mark the tiny grave.
“You loved her so much, sweetie. And you took really good care of her.”
Great tears rolled down both of our cheeks.
“Mom, stick bugs are easy. You hardly have to do anything.”
At that point the ridiculousness of our bug funeral set in and the laughter came. We wrapped our arms around one another and giggled through our tears.
Laughter.
Tears.
Laughter.
Tears.
Laughter-tears.
We returned to the house just as the rain began to fall again.
On the way to the kitchen for a snack, we passed the cage that holds Bob’s sisters, also all named Bob.
“Bob is dead”, I said. “Long live Bob.”
Public Service Annoucement
The American Red Cross recommends a 72-hour supply of nonperishable food for each family member. By having a supply of food, you can reduce the stress of locating food during a disaster.
Got mine:
And it’s portable:
Warning
A few years ago, while driving through the Maryland countryside, I committed vehicular manslaughter rodentslaughter. Yes, I accidentally ran over a baby groundhog. As I felt the thump of its tiny body being crushed beneath the wheels of my SUV, I felt sorrow – grief even, at this senseless loss of life. A shadow was cast upon my heart.
This morning, when Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, my shadow was lifted. No more will I mourn the loss of that overgrown rat. And to all groundhogs everywhere, but most especially to Phil, I say: watch out when crossing the road.
Phil’s official forecast as read February 2nd, 2009 at sunrise at Gobbler’s Knob:
Hear Ye Hear Ye Hear Ye
On Gobbler’s Knob on this glorious Groundhog Day, February 2nd, 2010, Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Prognosticator of all Prognosticators awoke to the call of President Bill Deeley and greeted his handlers, John Griffiths and Ben Hughes.
After casting a joyful eye towards thousands of his faithful followers, Phil proclaimed, “If you want to know next, you must read my text. As the sky shines bright above me, my shadow I see beside me. So six more weeks of winter it will be.”
P.S. from Newt: Boo! I wish Phil was blind!
What I Did on My Summer Vacation: Potter-Style
Back in July, after ten months of reading aloud, GW, Harry Potter, and I reached the end of our journey. It was bittersweet, and there were some casualties.
I’m not talking about those unfortunate characters that fell victim to the Death Eaters. Oh no. Hermione fell from grace once she and Ron finally kissed. After months of pretending to be Hermione nearly everyday, GW declared that she would be her no more. In fact, she didn’t even want to be a Gryffindor. She declared herself a Ravenclaw and created a Luna Lovegood costume to wear to the Harry Potter 6 movie.
Last week, GW reconciled with her alter ego and Hermione returned to our lives.
I have to admit, I have missed her.
Savasana-AAA!
Sorry about the long silence.
I have felt the need for it – a need to draw inward, a need to focus on my family.
We are fine. Losing W’s dad has been painful but we have been grateful for those that have offered their support and prayers. Thank you.
In other news, all of the tension and emotion of the last couple of months has really done a number on my body. My back is tight and my front is flabby. Lovely…
I started doing yoga again, here at home. There is a great series of half-hour videos on you-tube by yoga today. I’d love to start going to a studio again, but for now this is working out great. This morning I lay in savasana or corpse pose (beautiful imagery, isn’t it?) to relax at the end of my – what do I call it? Workout doesn’t sound right, but neither does practice – at the end of my other… yoga… stuff.
I focused on my breathing, trying to clear my mind. It was wonderful and so needed.
Breath.
Relax.
Breathe.
RelaAAAAA!
Note to self: next time check for spiders in the room. It is not very meditative to have one scurry up your bare arm.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll wear something like this:
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Namaste.
Winner
Finished.
The day was long.
And hot.
But overall it was a pretty cool experience.
I am so amazed at my girl! Her best event is the butterfly. The butterfly - that’s hard!
At least, it looks hard. And I’ve heard other people say that it is. But I can’t say for sure, since I never learned how to do it myself.
It is an amazing and humbling thing to watch my child surpass my abilities for the first time. I can’t wait to see where she passes me up next.
For My Dear Sister
It was actually yesterday. Sorry I missed it. Hope it was happy.
Speaking of anniversaries, today is my parent’s. They have been married for 38 years. This is for you, Mom:
Love you!
At Least He Put The Seat Back Down
Courtesy of GW, age 8
After racking my brains for a full 20 minutes and exhausting all of the technological know-how at my disposal, my comments are now…
wait for it…
Still broken!
And since my leisure funds have gone the way of leisure suits, paying someone to fix it is sort of out of the question.
So, that brings me to…you. If you have any knowledge of wordpress, could you help a sister out?
Email me because, well, my comments are broken.
**Update: Lisa at Simply His is simply amazing. Thanks, Lisa! Comments are open and working! **
Wordless Wednesday at 5 Minutes for Mom
Wilderness Princess
Isn’t it fun to watch little girls play with their toys?
The care they take in posing everyone, just right, before the real play commences…
Or do I have it backwards? Is it the set up that is the fun part of playing? It certainly seems that way for GW sometimes.
She takes her time getting everything just so, and then
Wait a minute – are these the right pictures?
What ever happened to my little princess?
The one who was so girly she refused to wear anything but dresses?
She’s a complicated child…
PS: I wasn’t really intending to post this morning. I was am planning on going for a run, but I stopped to check my email and it hit me: the urge to update.
After all, Shasta’s digging is no longer hot news. But the problem, you see, is that something is wrong with my blog. The comment function is broken. I think I screwed up the CSS but I can’t fix it. And it’s not really in the budget to pay someone else to fix it right now, so it’s going to stay broken for awhile. If you’d like to make my day comment on this or any post, just email me. My address is under the contact tab, up there ↑.
Apologies to you non-blog types that didn’t understand a word of that last paragraph.
Now I’m off for my run.
Once upon a time there was a Heidi…
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