so tell me how you really feel

I was in line at Fred Myers on Saturday. It was a small purchase and one that I could easily use the "self Check out" option for. However, there was an idiot trying to buy a bike and a bag of apples at one of the checkout stands. After needing help with the produce portion of his purchase he couldn't figure out how to hold his bike up and over the scanning plate so the real person was back by his side showing him how he could Take The Tag Off and just scan that, not the entire adult sized mountain bike. That little monopoly was holding up all the people with coupons at the other 3 self check stands thus making the "self check out" line really long.

So I moved to the express line since I really truly had 12 items or less.

The person in front of me obviously can't count so I was standing there patiently reading tabloid headlines about.... hmmm. I can't remember what they were about at all, now that I try to think about it.

Anyway, after a while, the customer service guy comes around to our line and tells the gentleman behind me that, "The Self Service Checkout lines don't have a wait if you would like to move over there." Apparently the bike and apple guy got through and so did the 12 or so other people while I was engrossed in the latest Hollywood scandals.

"No, thanks," the gentleman behind me says. "I don't use self check outs."

The helpful customer service man mistakes this comment for a teaching opportunity and continues, "There is a cashier there to help you if you need someone to show you how."

"NO!" Turns the customer like my dog on that annoying mosquito biting his backside. "I don't use those because obviously you need to hire more people if the lines are this long. Those self check out aisles are taking away good jobs from people who need them!"

Flabbergasted, the customer service employee stammers, "Um, well you have a nice day."

And all sweetness after that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde portrayal, the customer says, "Hey man, you too."

I contemplated striking up a conversation about how he felt about automatic car washes, ATM machines, and the self serve machine at the post office.

But think we all know how he feels about those too.

Recital 2010

Olivia's ballet recital was today. They were so cute! This marks the end of our school year obligations and all we have left is piano on Thursday mornings in June (July and August we miss our teacher with her vacations and ours not matching up), and Soccer and scouts on Tuesday evenings.

Lets start a rumor

I slept in deliciously late today on our first day of vacation.  And I had the most ridiculous dream but lets pretend that is is real and start a rumor about me and Ashton Kutcher.

In my dream we met at an outdoor concert.  For some reason no one noticed him and he wasn't mobbed and we struck up a conversation.  Turns out we had loads in common and spent the entire concert sitting on a blanket together enjoying some band.  He gave me his secret e-mail address and told me to keep in touch; that he really enjoyed meeting me and wanted to get together again some time.

Then my dream changed venues and people and I was left with a secret e-mail address stuck in my subconscious.

And I woke up to a dog with diarrhea in the garage.

I have a graduate, a 9 year old, and a leak

 Olivia at Pre-school graduation, but since a November birthday delays Kindergarten one more year and the price of pre-school (can you say $260 a month) I have decided to "home pre-school" next year.  We are going to cook, have horse riding lessons, go ice skating, and learn to read at home.  Olivia and I talked about it and she is thrilled!

4 days left of school!!  And then our marathon summer jumps into full swing! We have every weekend but 2 planned with something.  I know it sounds crazy and those of you that know us well know that is in fact how every summer we have ever had always is.

So what is on the agenda,
1 week in Valdez, AK;
2 weeks in Wyoming;
10 days with a visit from Dad, Carol, Matthew and my GRANDMA!;
a three day backpacking trip with me and some girlfriends;
4 days in Ninilchik,
cub scout camp;
boy scout camp (that is part of the whole Valdez experiment);
piano at 8:30 on Thursday mornings;
Soccer on Tuesday evenings;
a birthday,
an anniversary,
salmon fishing,
and a caribou hunt.

We are also trying to get our house bought.  We decided to buy our house that we are renting.  Our rent went up in March and long story short it is cheaper to just buy the darn thing.  The housing market in AK has not been hurt, nor has the economy as a whole, like it has in the lower 48 and whether we stay or go this house will work for us either way.

That being said there is a minor (but potentially major pain) that needs to be fixed. We told our landlords back in March that we noticed some water damage in the ceiling above the kitchen nook.  It was probably a roof issue on the bay window bump-out that we have there and would wait until everything melted to repair the roof.  Well when the home inspector came a couple weeks ago he found water in our crawl space under thehouse too.  That means it is not a roof issue but  a pipe issue.  Specifically the outgoing water from the master bath (ie. drains and flushables). After some experimenting on JaDee's part (he is a mechanical engineer after all and spends his entire life passing off plumbing and heating systems for the United States Air Force) we are pretty sure it is the drain from my tub that is leaking down the walls and into the crawl space.

We negotiated this to be fixed months before we put earnest money down on the house and the landlords homeowners insurance will pay for it.  Thankfully, because the contractor that came out found all sorts of things that we need to fix because of this.  Like the ceiling, the outside wall of the house, the floor of the kitchen and who knows what else once we get it all torn apart.

So we have stopped using my bathroom and are seriously hoping this is all fixed by the time Dad, Carol, Matthew and Grandma get here on June 12.

Ethan had a birthday and turned 9.  Pretty low key, but he got a waffle iron (the kind that flip over to cook like in the hotels) a new Nintendo DS since his old one broke, a trip to Build a Bear, (he still isn't too old and is forever my little boy) and is off to a knife store to spend some birthday cash from grandmas.

I told Ethan that he is the reward I got for being Carter's mom and the encouragement I needed to go through it again with Olivia.  Ethan is my only saving grace as a parent.  Those other two are so demanding I can hardly remember why I signed up for this whole parenting thing sometimes.  He is so fun to be with and funny too.  We drive to and from school together every day and that gives me the chance I need to chat with this often quiet boy in the midst of his overly extroverted siblings.  We love to share music on our iPods and he knows all the words to "Living on a Prayer" with me!  Ethan, you rock!

PS here is the newly painted not-yellow dining room.  The color is Hazel Woods by Ralph Lauren.

We are currently reading this together at night.  I love these books! Carter finished the series in like 2 days on the way home from our New York trip but I have also read the entire series out loud to the boys at night. At least when they are good, not fighting, and it is not after 9PM.  We actually read more than you think we would with those stipulations in place.

For mother's day

Saturday night JaDee and I went for a drive up to the Nature center in hopes of putting Olivia to sleep in the back seat.  On our way JaDee asked if he could run into Wal-mart really quick, oh and would I mind waiting in the car.

3 guesses what he ran in to buy.

When I opened it this morning I was presented with these 3 gift options:

A) a house [which we are closing on the 24th]
B] cross country skis [I got those in January, seriously, when he said that they were for Mother's Day in the store I did not think he meant it]
C) $379 worth of stitches for our cat.  I guess since that came this week after Little Kitty got munched by something and had 3 open wounds on her belly, one the size of a quarter and I could see her insides [oh and we think it was the WT neighbors' pitbull but we have no proof], I can claim this one as my mother's day gift.

But Olivia had her pre-school dance recital on Saturday in front of about 100 people since we joined up with another dance studio.  One of the teachers had her-not-quite-2-year-old daughter on stage "performing" with the group.  She is a cute girl and looked darling in the tutu costumes all the other kids were wearing.  However every time the toddler did something cute, like go to her mom who was leading the dance and getting out of line and wandering on the stage, the audience laughed.

We spent the rest of the afternoon trying to explain to Olivia that they were not laughing at her but they were laughing at the little girl since she was cute. Try explaining that to a 4 year old who vigorously clapped after each previous performance and also told me that no one else got laughed at.

I know sweetheart, but no one else had a baby on stage with them.  You were beautiful and I know it was scary to go on that big stage with all those people, and I know it scared you when everyone laughed and you thought you were messing up, but I am proud of you and no one was laughing at you.

Ugh.

Oh well. We bought her a flower and all was well.  She did look cute and she enjoyed the other dancers and especially liked the big girls in their point shoes. She has been in a regular ballet class out side of pre school for 2 years now and can't wait to get her point shoes. They talked about point shoes in ballet once and now whenever she sees someone on their toes she tells me that when she gets her point shoes she will be big enough to do that some day.

Her real ballet class recital is in 2 weeks.  Hopefully I can figure out how to get video off my new camera then.  But I wouldn't bet on it.

this was not in the job description...

Last night I woke up around 3 AM.  I had to use the facilities and in the process woke up enough to know that I was not going back to sleep anytime soon.  So I did what I always do when this happens; I went to the TV room and set down to curl up to PBS.

I reached over to grab my electric throw, like I always do, when something huge sloshed (yes, sloshed) out of the basket and plopped onto the floor.  What the heck was that!

It was a giant Pyrex bowl of yogurt. Like I mean, the biggest one in that pack of 3 we all got for wedding presents and it was in fact, FULL of warm yogurt.

Of course it was.

See JaDee has had this ongoing quest to make homemade yogurt.  He has tried this several times in our married life.  All have failed.  This latest attempt involved wrapping the bowl in my electric blanket on the Medium setting for a few hours.  Not anticipating that his snoring and my peeing would interrupt his yogurt making process.

Fortunately for him, the bowl was tightly wrapped in Saran Wrap (maybe I should pitch this idea to them as a commercial: you know the common household scene where you wake up in the night and overturn a bowl of yogurt cooking in your electric blanket, but certain mess was saved by the SARAN WRAP!).

I laughed and then thought of a few of the other ridiculous things I have done lately.

First: I vacuumed my back lawn.  Olivia took bucket after bucket of sand the other day out of her sandbox and dumped it at the bottom of our back steps (yes our snow has melted and we can see it again.  Can't see the bush in the front yard yet, there is one stubborn pile hanging on, but the turtle sandbox has emerged). Even after we shoveled most of it back to the sandbox we kept tracking sand in the house.  So I took out the shop vac and vacuumed the grass.

Second, I scooped up 3 huge piles of moose poop from our yard.  I know most of you have never done that, therefore it is ridiculous to think that I, at anytime in my life, ever envisioned myself doing it either.

Third, I started shoveling the snow off my lawn and into the street.  Isn't it usually the other way around? I really want to see that stuff all melted, and when I saw my neighbor do it I thought I too, would help mother nature along.

What have you done lately?

because I am a mother too...

I am sure many of you know NieNie and her story of her plane crash. If not check out her blog.  But I ran across this video today put out by our church. 

Her words express the sacred role we believe all women have as mothers.  It is something 

I believe with my whole heart.
That God loves me and that my purpose is this family that JaDee and I have created together. And through the mundane, routine, and repetitive tasks that surround my day, there is beauty in it all.

Happy Mother's Day.