Heard at my parent's house

Momma: "Tell her about how you rescued the bunny?"

DP (age 3): "Did I rescue a bunny?"

Me: "I don't know, did you?"

DP: "Yeah. He hopped away." (A further explanation of the story detailed the fact that one of the dogs had carried a baby bunny to the yard. My mom thought it was dead. DP went to get my brother, who went to pick up said dead bunny, and it jumped up and hopped away)

J: "Tell her about talking to the policeman."

DP: "I talked to a policeman."

Me: "What did you talk about?"

DP: "Wowzers in the woods that eat you."

Me: "Did you learn about George Washington?"

B (age 6): "yeah. He's our first President"

"What is a President?"

"They make the rules and tell people what to do."

"Well, yeah, kinda. Who is our President now?"

"Abraham Lincoln."

"No...not Abraham Lincoln. Who was he?"

"He was like the 3rd president." 

"Not the third, he was like the 16th or so."

Then my dad stepped in. "Tell her about who Jesus was."

B: "He was a man who they killed on a telephone pole."

My dad: "But why did they kill him?"

B: "Because they didn't like the rules he made."

O (age 2): "Yamaw Yamaw! Your car is raining!"

My mom: "What? My car is raining?"

"Yes! Your car is raining! Come see!"

She then drags my mom to the window and points at my moms wet car. 

"See! Your car is raining. See my car? It's not raining, but your car is raining." (Note here, my sister in laws car was too far away to see whether it was wet or not.)

From the mouth of babes huh?

Currently: June

Currently
Listening	To the sounds of the yard, including the hummingbird that just flew up to the feeder
Loving	The fact that it’s warm weather time for sure!
Thinking	About the many trials and tribulations that accompany the end of the school year.
Wanting	A settled mind
Needing	To go for a run
Favorite Things	1. My flower bed, all decked out in pink windflowers once more 2. Nike+ App: even though it only works when I actually get my butt in gear 3. The Audiobook section of the local library – Beverly Lewis in my car, Please and Thank You!

Dishwasher Disaster

If you had talked to me early Friday morning, I was gearing up for a lazy weekend with my husband, with a few errands and work related tasks sprinkled through.

If you had talked to me Friday afternoon, I was gearing up for a full Saturday of husband-less errands and chores and a completely lazy Sunday enjoying having him home from his 16-hr shift on Saturday.

If you talk to me today?  Neither was the case.

On Friday evening, D & I enjoyed a mediocre dinner at a local restaurant of fame.  Not sure what had been going on in the kitchen, but D's Bostonzone had 2, count em TWO pieces of chicken in it.  My small pepperoni & cheese calzone turned out to be an ENORMOUS pepperoni, ham, & mozzarella-with-a-giant-glob-of-ricotta-in-the-middle calzone.  Throughout dinner our topic of conversation was whether or not he should go out of town to work on Saturday.  Pro:  16 hrs of overtime.  Con: 16 hrs of work on a Saturday.  We reached the verdict that he would go, because who are we to turn down that kind of cash?

(Sidenote: the money he would have earned on Saturday was more than I made all week...in the most hours in a week I'd worked all year)

When we returned home, I was unloading my dishwasher, which had done a terrible job washing the dishes.  Half the load was being placed back in the sink to be washed again.  As I unloaded the last pieces, I noticed, to my horror, that the bottom of the washer was full of dingy water.  GROSS.

So we had plans to fix the washer.  D checked the hose and found nothing.  He ran his hands down along the bottom checking for clogs.  Nothing.  He called his dad.  Advice: put some Drano in it and run the rinse cycle again.

Here's the key point here:  Drano + dishwasher = disaster.  After about 5 minutes of rinse cycle, we had bubbles pouring out of our dishwasher.  Top, sides, bottom of the door.  Bubbles.  Laughing, we cleaned the chlorine reeking mess.  D's Mr. Fix-it advice to me, "Don't open the door.  Dad & I will fix it on Sunday.  It's a good thing I'm working tomorrow; we might need a new dishwasher."

Cool.

So we go to bed, and at 11:30 (yes, 11:30 PM, after a glorious 1.5 hrs of sleep), D's out of town boss calls and decides he does not indeed need to work Saturday.  Pro: D is home all day.  Con: we still need that cash I'd already mentally spent.

So here comes Saturday.  I had already planned a mega trip to Sam's Club.  I asked if D wanted to come along.  He said sure, and why didn't we just go look at dishwashers, too.  Several hours later, we made it to Lowe's, Sears, Home Depot, another Lowe's, and Sam's Club.  We also had made the decision to just buy a dishwasher rather than fix the one we had.  Besides, I had broken the soap dispenser months ago and it wasn't apparently, even really cleaning our dishes.  It rinsing them with the soap and then washing them with just water.  Gross.  Again.

So, by the end of Saturday, we had bought a dishwasher (this one, on sale), loaded it, ran it, went out to dinner with D's parents, and returned home to a washer full of clean, shiny dishes.

What kind of adventures did you have over the weekend?

Oh, and a public service announcement: Per the Lowe's guy - never put Drano in your dishwasher, it eats your seals.  So even if we had fixed it, we may have had water running out of it the next time we ran it anyway.  So don't do that, unless you want your husband to buy a new dishwasher.

Another public service announcement: When your husband is using his shop vac to get the Drano out of the dishwasher, it'll spew the bubbles out all over your refrigerator.  He'll laugh at you as you clean that up.

Getting Back in the Groove

Happy May 1st!

I simply want to refuse to think about how fast this spring is flying by.

In light of that, I need to recommit to getting back in shape.  Last summer, I was diligent in running three times per week.  Then, over the winter, I just stopped.  Since then, I have gone running maybe 3 times.

So now, here I am, committing on the internet, available to all, that I will get my lazy butt back in shape.  And not just by running!  A facebook friend shared the 30-day ab challenge I have posted below.  I think I'll try it, and let y'all know how that goes!

It doesn't look too daunting, does it?

What are you doing to keep your body in shape?  Wanna stay on track with me?

Heard at my parent's house

Okay...I just found this...It's from months ago...But it's funny!

Over the weekend, I spent some time at my parents' house with my brother's 3 little ones. Here are some tidbits you may enjoy:

Me: "what do you learn about in science?"
B: "we learn about our bodies."
"what do you learn about in math?"
"the animals in the ocean."
"you don't learn about numbers?"
"No..."
"Well, what do you do in music? Do you sing?"
"No, we dance and listen to stories."

Wow...kindergarten is very different than I imagined it.

Currently: April

Currently
Listening	To the sounds of nature, including the birds and the wind blowing through the trees.  And also, the sound of a few unwelcome wasps and bees looking for a place to make their home…
Loving	This 90 degree Spring weather, only 7 days removed from 4” of snow on the ground
Thinking	About how much fun it has been to witness this final new season in our home.  We didn’t move in until the last weekend of April last year, so we didn’t get to see the spring plants cropping up and the buds on our forsythia, pear, and dogwood trees.  I’m still waiting for our enormous cherry tree to blossom.
Wanting	My hubby to return home.  He left at 4:30 AM, and he wasn’t supposed to return today, but he’ll be home in about 1.5 hours!
Needing	To figure out what we’re doing for dinner and finish up my graduate classes.  Only a few more weeks!
Favorite Things	1.    SPRING!!!!  Warm weather is my thing y’all!  Though I also love the snow, so I was very grateful for Mother Nature’s surprise last week. 2.    Lounging around outside with the dog. 3.    Darius Rucker’s version of Wagon Wheel.  I love the Old Crow version, and being a Roanoke College graduate it’s super ingrained in me. Being able to blast it out with the windows down is a great way to spend a few minutes!  Haven’t heard it yet?  Find it here.  The video also features my fave family, the Robertson's from Duck Dynasty.  Check it out!

What's on your Currently??

Age Appropriate Books

Happy Friday Everyone!

This morning I have been having an in depth conversation with a friend, and I want to bring you all into the conversation.

Her nephew has turned 10, and is entering the literary world of JK Rowling. As excited as we both are for him, having grown up with the wonderful series, we are trying to decide how far he should read into the series at his age. Their family is very similar to mine, with rules like, you don't watch PG13 movies until you have turned 13.

So I pose to you a series of questions:

1. How far into Harry Potter should he read this year? Just book 1? Book 2? Or let him go through the whole series?

2. What other books are age-appropriate for a 10 year old boy? I think I was reading Baby Sitter Club then, which he is obviously not going to read. We discussed Narnia, which I haven't read, Animorphs, which she hasn't read, and then, on a tangent, the incredulity we both felt knowing that Hunger Games is being introduced to some students his age.

So help us out, English majors, Elementary School teachers, and anyone who wants to weigh in!!!

How far is to far? What else can he read? What did you love as a pre-teen?