Apr. 18: Fashion forward

Victor and Katie went for a bike ride this afternoon, wherein Katie was reminded of the importance of helmets when she saw Daddy take a corner too fast and go over his handlebars. He came home looking pretty beat up; though his injuries weren’t awful, he had some gnarly splinters and a bad scrape on his knee. The dirt on his clothes made him look a lot worse than he was. The infuriating thing was that he farked up his brand new glasses.

I got out the tweezers, hydrogen peroxide, and a sharp needle and played naughty nurse. And by naughty nurse, I mean someone who says, “geez, stop breathing in my face” and “you kinda stink” and “are you crying???” I have to say, it was kind of nice to operate on someone who wasn’t screaming his or her head off, that’s for sure. It makes for much less stressful splinter removal for me, the Very Experienced Splinter Remover. Isn’t that what’s important?

The jeans Victor was wearing already had a hole in the knee, and it got a lot bigger when he wrecked. This afternoon he rummaged around my desk looking for scissors. This is when we reached the scariest part of the whole day:

Jen: “Scissors? What for? Are you gonna cut off the frayed stuff?”
Vic: “No. It’s time for sexy pants.”

Apr. 18: Much new-ness

Yippee! I got an iPhone yesterday. Spending a weekend with my seester and her Blackberry was just too much for me. I admit, it’s been difficult all this time, suffering the taunts of Ed (who has been known to throw cruel accusations at me in the past, such as, “you’re so technically savvy, AOL is your Internet service provider?”), Lori (“what’s wrong with you?”) and, well, almost everyone else I know. Now I can join in with them all as a text messager and email checker and web surfer and twitterer while on the go.

I don’t deal with peer pressure in an inexpensive way, no sir.

The iPhone certainly has some nice features. I’ve downloaded applications for twitter and Facebook. I’ve found some fun games. I synced my contacts and calendar with Outlook. I’m using—and liking—iTunes for the first time. So far, so good.

What I don’t like:

• The touch keyboard is a challenge, to say the least. I had no idea I had such stubby fingertips.
• iPhone ringtones suck, and you can’t use custom-made ones. Steve Jobs needs to kiss my big fat butt for that one because I ♥ my custom ringtones. What good is a phone that won’t play “Hollaback Girl” when Ed calls, anyway?
• I haven’t found a way to easily sync my Outlook notes with iPhone notes, although I’m sure I will eventually. I didn’t realize I rely on those notes so much.
• There’s no graphics organizer included and that makes no sense to me at all.
• The fingerprints! My god, the fingerprints!

Kathy has assured me that I’m now as cool as three out of four Vosses. Whew. Isn’t that what we all want? However, I’m sure I remember being told that random people would be wanting to have sex with me now that I’m an iPhone user, and there haven’t been any yet—no random ones, anyway. Just the usuals.

Two Facebook things cracked me up today. First, Shawn’s response to my status update/complaint:

I also thought Vic’s status was pretty good:

Which brings me to another new thing from this week… Yes, Victor got new glasses. Bifocals. He thinks this makes him old and I admit to helping that a teeny bit. Of course, I had bifocals in grade school, so I don’t think it has much to do with age at all. Besides, Vic will always be a superhero, or at least Indiana Indonesia Jones, to me.

In other Facebook news, I friend-ed Marilee this past week! She was a classmate in high school and one of my college roommates. We lost touch over the years and are now getting reacquainted. See why I love Facebook? Just when I think I’ve stopped being so addicted to it, another dear friend shows up on my “people you may know” list and I LOVE it!

Perhaps the most exciting new thing from this week is that our fancy new bed was finally, FINALLY delivered this morning! We already have one family member who hates it—Scout, who can’t jump on it without a good running start and then bites at Casey and Millie because they can. I’m attaching a lot of high hopes to this mattress to relieve my now-constant lower back pain; I’m hoping it won’t disappoint. I’ll be testing it out when naptime comes in another couple hours. Or maybe I won’t wait; I’ve got a new book waiting on my nightstand and a TiVo full of shows I missed while in Medford. I had all kinds of plans to get through my to-do list today, but that was before the bed arrived. Heh heh… extra-long to-do lists are what Sundays are for, right?

Apr. 17: “Bloody fantastic”

Alright, everyone’s seen this video of Susan Boyle on Britain’s Got Talent by now:

Susan Boyle on Britains Got Talent 2009!! Incredible Voice!! @ Yahoo! Video

 

But have you heard this song she recorded ten years ago? Gorgeous.

Apr. 17: Plinky ~ Here on Jennifer’s Isle

Today’s Plinky prompt:

You're stuck on an island with plenty of food, a companion, and a relatively stress-free lifestyle. What do you do when the rescue ship comes?

Explain your choice.

Vacationing is one thing; being stranded is something entirely different. If it’s been a week, I might ask the rescue ship to hang out for a little while so I can do some more chillaxin’. If it’s been a few months or years, though, I’d hop right aboard and ask them to get me the latest People magazine and the nearest brow waxer. And yeah, I’d prob’ly want to see my kids too, assuming Victor had been my island companion all that time.

What would you do?

Apr. 16: Thursday Thunks #3

1. Recently Berleen and I discovered the allure of the Twilight series. Have you ever been sucked in to the latest “thing”? (Like Harry Potter, the movie Titanic, social networking, etc. etc. etc.)
   Not really. The “thing” usually loses some appeal for me once it reaches the mainstream.
2. What software do you use for your email?
   Outlook and Yahoo
3. Are you comfortable being nude?
   Nope
4. What is something you plan on doing this summer?
   I’ll be taking the kids to swimming lessons every day for a month (jealous???). We also have a trip to Sunriver planned. Nothing else is a sure thing yet.
5. Do you have a favorite movie/book quote? If so, what is it?
   So many! But I think one of my favorites is in Rent when Maureen yells, “There will always be women in rubber flirting with me!”
6. How many email addresses do you have?
   Six, but I only use three on a regular basis
7. Is the sky falling?
   Not to my knowledge…
8. Have you been to the Grand Canyon?
   No. I flew over it once but the clouds were too thick to see it. Bummer.
9. When was the last time you mailed a hand written letter?
   I mailed our handwritten thank-you notes right after Christmas.

As always, now it’s your turn. Answer in a comment or on your own blog and post a link at the Thursday Thunks site. Thanks for playing.

What is THURSDAY THUNKS? Thursday Thunks (TT) is a blog meme for those who need a little kick in the butt to find something to post about. Your blog posts/answers to TT’s can be type or pictures, doesn’t matter! YOU pick, not us, we just give you the assignment (yep, just like English class... only we won’t grade your spelling and grammar).

Apr. 16: Plinky ~ 27 hours

Today’s Plinky prompt:

There’s never enough time, is there? What would you do with an extra three hours today?

Three whole hours? There’s no way I can pick just one thing. But since I didn’t get much sleep last night, today I’d definitely:

• nap
• sleep
• doze
• slumber
• snooze

Whichever I chose, it would definitely involve a little bit of snoring and a whole lot of drool.

Apr. 15: My Medford trip

Friday

The kids and I took off after school and headed south on I-5. We stopped in Salem to see The Lovely Lori for a few minutes, which put a smile on my face for at least the next 100 miles of the drive. Another stop near Roseburg to let the dogs do their thing extended the drive even more. We finally got to Medford just before 9 p.m. Kathy flew into Medford about ten minutes after we got there. Vic pulled up to Mom’s house just as we got home from the airport. Perfect-ish timing!

Saturday

The day was mostly shopping, eating, running errands, and arguing with idiot clerks at Wal-Mart (that was mostly Kath).

At Mom’s house, we ran interference with all four dogs. Scout made us ever so proud by beating the others in the naughtiest and loudest competitions.

Sunday

Grandma, Uncle Paul and Claire came over for Easter brunch. It was almost entirely painless.

Our cousin Deanna stopped by for a short visit and we got caught up on some of the family gossip. Later Vic packed up the car, dogs and kids to drive back home. I stayed behind for a couple days with Mom and Kathy. It was relatively peaceful with only three people and two dogs in Mom’s house. I say relatively peaceful because Mom and Kathy can be LOUD!

Monday

On Monday morning Mom, Kathy, our aunt Hazel, and I drove around Central Point looking for our uncle Mel. Rumor is that he spends a lot of time in a tavern in town, so we looked for his red truck parked outside all of them.

Yes, that is quite possibly the most Saltmarsh-y thing I’ve ever done.

We didn’t find Uncle Mel in a bar or at home and were just about to give up when Kathy spotted a red truck and yelled, “That was him! I saw his big belly and baseball cap!” She was right. We tailed him to his house and ambushed him as he stepped out of the vehicle.

And that is the story of how we got to see Uncle Mel the other day. Every time Kathy and I see him, we wonder if it’ll be the last time. He’s not well. He gave us big hugs and said he was glad to see us, and even acted as though he knew who we were. It made me teary to see him and be reminded of how much he resembles Dad.

After lunch at a so-so brew pub, we went up to Grants Pass for a tour of Fire Mountain Gems, an online bead store we shop at too frequently. We were disappointed to find that they didn’t have a store in their facility, but thought it was interesting that our tour guide was a graduate of Upper Columbia Academy and Pacific Union College. We just can’t get away from those crazy Adventists.

Back at home, we worked on some beading projects until we were so tired we could no longer focus on silver spacers and Swarovski crystals.

Stephen (my youngest nephew, who’s celebrating his 21st birthday today!) called to ask if he and the band can crash at our house this summer while they’re on tour. I hope we don’t disappoint them (you know those bands can have some hard-to-meet demands), although if we do, maybe they’ll write a song about the shittiest place they ever stayed and then I’ll be famous for a really sucky reason. Proud auntie time: you can hear their music at The Rouge until their CD comes out in June. That awesome drumming? It’s my nephew. I say we call him Ringo and then maybe he’ll marry a Bond girl. As for the rest of the band members, I’ve not yet met them but will be memorizing everything about them for the eventual lawsuit, trial and sentencing.

Tuesday

In the morning Mom, Kathy and I continued beading like mad women until I needed to hit the road. “Hit” being the key word; I ran over a raccoon on the highway. I wasn’t the one to kill the little critter, but he was definitely more dead after I traveled through.

I stopped again in Salem to see the house The Lovely Lori is buying. It’s got nine bathrooms and that oughta give you an idea of how fabulous it is. You’ll get to see lots of pictures of it from all the parties they’ll be hosting over the next few years. Right, Lori?

With the traffic between Salem and Portland, I finally got home last night around 8 p.m. and went to bed soon after. Why is sitting in a car so exhausting? The long weekend with my seester was lots of fun and I’m glad I was able to take a few days off to be with her while she was in our fair state. Thank you, Mom, for hosting all of us!

Apr. 15: MMM on WA

This is stolen from Jen E and I’m totally doing it wrong because it’s supposed to be a Monday Morning Meme but I was so hung over Monday morning, I couldn’t blog. 

1. How long have you been blogging? Who is your target audience? How often, if at all, do you think about quitting or taking an extended break? What do you do when you start feeling burned out with blogging?
   * I started a web site in 1999, so that puts me at ten years of writing this nonsense. There were years when I was more bloggy than others, but in 2006 I started writing more frequently. My number of posts each year since then has increased greatly, but as I always say, it’s quality, not quantity and I know I write some of the least interesting stuff on the web. Meh.
   * My target audience is friends and family.
   * The only time I’ve taken an extended break is when I’ve been overwhelmed with something else. I don’t expect I’ll ever quit. I’ve been a journal-er since high school and my blog has replaced that.
   * When I’m burned out I just don’t blog.
2. What’s on your mind now?
   I just got home from a PTO board meeting, so I’m thinking about my responsibilities for next school year and hoping I haven’t over-committed.
3. If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the body or the mind of a 30-year old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want? Explain your answer, please.
   My 30-year-old body wasn’t all that fit (I was pregnant) so I’d rather have my 30-year-old mind.
4. What would constitute a “perfect” evening for you?
   There are two kinds of evenings I like best—the quiet, kid-free nights home with Victor, and the happy family nights when we’re all together and getting along. Either one equals “perfect” to me.

Alright, I wasn’t actually hung over on Monday morning, but I was at my mom’s and had slept NOT AT ALL well and was too grouchy to blog. Trust me, you wouldn’t have wanted to read what would have come out my fingers that morning.

Apr. 15: Away We Go

I haven’t been to a grown-ups’ movie for a long time, so I haven’t seen many previews for upcoming movies that are supposed to appeal to me. Because I watch most TV on TiVo and forward through commercial breaks, I miss a lot of commercials for movies too. So the first time I hear about new movies is often when they have opened in theaters—am I the definition of “uninformed”? Yes.

I just heard about a new movie, Away We Go, today—it opens June 5—and it looks like lots of quirkiness and fun.

Plot Summary: Directed by Academy Award winner Sam Mendes ("American Beauty") from an original screenplay by Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, this funny and heartfelt film follows the journey of an expectant couple (John Krasinski ["The Office"] and Maya Rudolph ["Saturday Night Live"]), as they travel the U.S. in search of the perfect place to put down roots and raise their family. Along the way, they have misadventures and find fresh connections with an assortment of relatives and old friends who just might help them discover "home" on their own terms for the first time. The movie features the music of Alexi Murdoch. (from comingsoon.net)

John Krasinski’s full beard and glasses scare me a teence. He looks like he should be building computers in his parents’ basement. But hopefully the amazing cast will make me forget about the beard, because there are some fabulous names involved with this movie. And yes, that’s Jim Gaffigan you see above. Hooray!

Apr. 14: Dear Grants Pass—

Um, I owe you a new raccoon. Or a less flat one, anyway.

Sincerely,

Jennifer L. Manullang