Ahhh Italy

Sweetie, do you want to ditch this one horse town and move to Italy?????
We could skip all of this stuff t0o and just pack this time around.

How do You Catch Swine Flu?

My friend Kathy sent this to me today and it made me laugh so hard. It reminded me of the time Bella licked a dog brush in front of her Grand Mom and she just about bleached her tongue.

"Green Day"

When I was in High School and College I was very passionate about a lot of issues. My husband was surprised to hear that I had participated in several marches on Washington in my "youth" during our viewing of "Milk" the other night (lots of rally scenes in that one). The topics have varied over the years and some I no longer believe in or feel as strongly about, but one has stayed permanent and that is Earth Day.

I participated in the Earth Day Rally in DC in 1990 and it was actually the 20th anniversary of Earth Day, so it was huge and crazy! I looked up that particular year on Wikipedia and this is the entry "Mobilizing 200 million people in 141 countries and lifting the status of environmental issues onto the world stage, Earth Day on April 22 in 1990 gave a huge boost to recycling efforts worldwide and helped pave the way for the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro." It was a warm and sunny day and all of the groups were out - some of the protesters were average, but some were definitely using a great deal of shock value. It was pretty cool to see as a senior in high school.

Fast forward 19 years later and here I stand celebrating the end of "Earth Week" for my son's school. I asked him what we do for the earth and he says "We Recycle for the World". He's a smart cookie and today he celebrates with Green Hair!

Do something kind for our amazing planet today - put out a recycling bin, buy some cool bags and keep them in your car for all your shopping trips, turn out a light and enjoy this sunny beautiful Spring day!

AhhhChooo

Please excuse my lack of Blogging this week...... the resident Blogger has a terrible cold.

Happy Birthday!!!

Happy Birthday to my favorite Protector of the Universe - Love you Sweetie!

Sibling Love

Hippity Hoppity

We took the kids to an Easter Egg Hunt where they just throw out thousands of eggs onto a football field - This is the calm before the storm.They took a minute to put a strategy in place.

Man can that girl run - look at her hair flying! She is very motivated by candy!It was like a feeding frenzy on the Discovery Channel.
Luckily we managed to find both of them after the dust settled.

Movie Night EEEK

We just subscribed to Netflix and I added all of the movies that won the Golden Globes to the list. We watched Milk last Friday and it was a very interesting movie. Sean Penn was fantastic. Well, in the middle of the movie Hubby stood up and declared there's a mouse! EEEEK I yelled and did what any rational person would do..... I ran out of the room and jumped up on the counter. Those are my pajama clad legs and feet in the picture. Mice don't bother me as much as frogs, but I don't like their unpredictable behavior either.The next day I was in the kitchen and the good old cat (yes he is alive) came strutting into the dining room with - you guessed it - the mouse in his mouth. I ran out and grabbed the animal catcher i.e. the husband and he caught the little thing.Step 1: Distract cat and trap unsuspecting mouse under a broom.

Step 2: Call in back-up that does not scream when broom is lifted a.k.a Grand mom.

Step 3: Take mouse outside so the boy can take a peek.Step 4: Send mouse packing.

Dinner and Dancing

We had a date night last Saturday outside of our kitchen! In fact we let someone else do the cooking and it was yummy! We went to Saffron - the Hubby had shrimp with a dill cream sauce over linguine.

I had shrimp and grits which was new to me and quite tasty!We then went to the American Legion - yes I said the American Legion for dancing. It was quite amusing and intimidating since we have only had one lesson to date.Quite an elegant sign, but hey we got a lesson from my Aunt and Uncle and the drinks were only $1.50 each - Whoo!
My Aunt and Uncle go dancing and golfing every weekend. They have more of an active social life than we do - it gives us hope.

Daddy Plays the Blues

Scariest Meal Ever

What were we thinking... arming our 2 little nutballs with sharp instruments at the dinner table?We decided that a fun family dinner would be made up of an open flame, sharp pointy instruments and hot molten cheese - It was Fondue Night!They had a blast!

Daddy was very concerned.The boy loved it because it had his 2 favorite food groups - Cheese and Bread. It also had an element of danger so it was "really cool".

The Army and One Big Frog

Only one thing on this earth strikes more fear in me than a phone call after midnight and that's frogs. They freak me out so much because I feel like they are staring at me with those buggy eyes just waiting for the best opportunity to hurl their nasty slimy bodies at me. They are just plain gross and not matter what you say you will not change my mind.

Back to the story - Around 12:36 this morning the phone rang and it was my dear husband's boss. After the blood rushed back into my body I found out that the software was not doing what it needed to do and that he had to drive into the office aka the Pentagon and fix it. Well, the poor guy had woken up at 4:30 that day so he could accompany me to dance lessons. What a nice hubby, but that is whole other post. I decided that he was in no condition to drive, so I called my mother and asked her to waltz across the yard to sit with the kids while they slept, so I could drive him. Just to let you know - she was not a happy lady. I went outside to warm up the van when I came face to face with that vile creature. I never encountered these animals in the city - Although I did encounter all other types of animals, but they were 2-legged and just cruised the pubs. I came back into the house after that awful encounter to find out that the emergency was solved and we could go back to bed. It's been a long....long....day!

Grandmom and Cream Puffs

It was a year ago today that my "Uptown" Grandmom made her trip to Heaven. We sure miss her witty sense of humor and her cream puffs!

News about Bruce

UPDATE: THIS WAS AN APRIL FOOLS JOKE. Seriously, you think the cat pried the back door open with his paw? And to those of you who believed me, read the first paragraph again!

On this first day of April, I regret to inform our reading audience that our beloved friend, Bruce the Cat is no longer with us.

Some time during the night, I believe he was able to force open the back door with his little paw and wander off.

I knew there was something wrong this morning when he didn't greet me like he normally does, by meowing and trying to convince me to feed him. Concerned about his absence, I found the open door, stepped outside, and called his name. Instead, I heard the sudden, rapid beating of goat hooves. I followed the sound into the dark, and there, by the light of the moon, discovered Bruce's collar lying in a circle of goat prints.

Yes, gentle reader, I believe Bruce was eaten by the neighbor's goats.

The hardest part, of course, will be breaking the news to my children, and teaching them that sometimes, God makes goats eat kitties.

Bruce T. Cat, RIP.